In the character of Boudu, Simons voice and physical presence work together as an eruption of carnality, a dissonant yet mesmerizing cello disturbing the happy quartet of the nice home filled with nice people wishing for the world to keep spinning round. Boudus ultimate return to the archaic spring is not only the smiling twist of an epicurean tale but also a troubling assessment of the hypothesis of a continuity between the oldest past and a future toward which the river flows. J-MF
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1930s
I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932)
U.S. (Vitaphone, Warner Bros.) 93m BW
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Producer: Hal B. Wallis
Screenplay: Howard J. Green, from memoir by Robert E. Burns
Photography: Sol Polito
Music: Leo F. Forbstein, Bernhard Kaun
Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston Foster, Allen Jenkins, Berton Churchill, Edward Ellis, David Landau, Hale Hamilton, Sally Blane, Louise Carter, Willard Robertson, Robert McWade, Robert Warwick
Oscar nominations: Hal B. Wallis (best picture), Paul Muni (actor), Nathan Levinson (sound)
The grandpappy of prison movies, Mervyn LeRoys searing indictment of penal practices common in its day was, with its titanic performance from Paul Muni (in a neat reversal from his thuggish role as Scarface the same year), arguably the finest of the hard-hitting social-protest dramas Warner Brothers specialized in during the 1930s.
Based on an autobiographical story by Robert E. Burns, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang vividly
depicts an innocent man brutalized and criminalized as a down-on-his-luck World War I veteran is railroaded into shackles and hard labor in the Deep South. Having broken out once to make a decent new life, he is betrayed, escapes again, and is condemned to life as a broken fugitive. Rock splitting, sadistic guards, escapes (including the seminal pursuit by baying bloodhounds through a swamp), solitary confinementthe vocabulary of the behind-bars genre was laid down here. Worth seeing just to appreciate how often it has been referenced (most recently in the Coen brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou? [2000]), the film is dated but still powerfully disturbing down to the famously haunting last line. As Munis fugitive Jim slips away into the night, his lover plaintively calls out How do you live? From the darkness comes the tragically ironic whisper, I steal. AE
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1930s
TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932)
U.S. (Paramount) 83m BW
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Producer: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Grover Jones, from the play The Honest Finder by Aladar Laszlo
Photography: Victor Milner
Music: W. Franke Harling
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charles Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Greig
After his emigration from Europe and arrival in Hollywood at the tail end of the silent era, Ernst Lubitsch quickly established himself as a master of the technical with an ear for comedic pacing. Admirers called his particular talents the Lubitsch Touch, but Lubitsch didnt work with any set formula or system. Rather, he brought from Europe a sophisticated sensibility that sent gentle shock waves through Hollywood, changing the tone of American comedies and leading to the rise of the screwball antics of Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder, both of whom revered him.
But that same sophistication kept Lubitsch from veering precipitously toward slapstick or more overt physical humor. That famed Lubitsch Touch indicated his deft method of delivering sexual politics with a barely discernible wink, and that meant a clever way with words and stories to subvert, surmount, or gently prod the relatively prudish (though still pre-Hays Code) American standards.
The most carnal and clever aspects of the Lubitsch Touch are firmly on display from the first frame of Trouble in Paradise, one of the directors first sound features. The title appears initially only in parts, so that for a moment the words Trouble in . . . linger over a shot of a bed. By the time the word . . . Paradise finally pops up, Lubitsch has already made clear what he meant by Trouble in Paradise: The film may as well be titled Trouble in Bed. Of course, Trouble in Paradise is only indirectly about sex, but that is typically the case with romantic comedies, of which Lubitsch was a significant pioneer.
Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins are a match made in heaven. Playing expert thieves and con artists Lily (Hopkins) and Gaston Monescu (Marshall), their courtship consists of robbing each other blind one fateful night in Venice. Over dinner they trade tentative praise, revealing stolen personal items in lieu of more traditional flirtation. Theirs is a romance built on deception, an ironic aphrodisiac, and they dont think anything of the others chosen profession. Baron, you are a crook, asserts Lily, May I have the salt? Life is good until the pair set their eyes on heiress Madame Mariette Colet (Kay Francis). Lily sees a big bank account, but Gaston sees more. He tries to seduce his way into her safe, but finds his feelings for the heiress keep getting in the way.