Film review: Wife vs. Secretary (1936)

 A pretty star-studded cast for 1936: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow and a very young Jimmy Stewart.  Gable is at his most charismatic and charming, with none of the rough edges that you see in, say, It Happened One Night or San Francisco, but Jean Harlow was the revelation for me, because I just thought of her as the comedy bimbo from Dinner at Eight, but she really pulls her dramatic weight here, playing a no-nonsense, super-efficient secretary.  The basic plot is a bit tiresome: Myrna Loy (who gets the most thankless role, and has to do a bit of rather wet pining, but starts off basically doing her Thin Man role of sassy broad who has eyes for nobody but her amazing husband) and Gable are Van and Linda Stanhope - he some kind of industrialist and she his faithful wife of three years (they have their anniversary at the start of the film).  

Harlow is "Whitey" Wilson, Van's indispensable secretary for whom Linda feels no jealousy whatever until Van's mother visits the office along with her and puts the idea into her head (because Van is "his father's son" and Whitey, scary eyebrows and all, is apparently super-gorgeous).  In reality, of course, Van sees "Whitey" at most as a work pal, but basically as his right-hand woman, whom he counts on to jump at his beck and call at all hours (much to the chagrin of Stewart's Dave, who is the driver beau of Whitey's who wants her to quit her job and stay at home to start a family with him.  

(To her credit, she blows him off - this is the 30s, not the 50s)) - as seen here, when she is dressed up to go out to the theater when he calls her to get some papers from the office and bring them to his house, where he's having a party. 

Things are complicated because Van hatches a scheme to take over a 5-cent periodical from its canny old owner (J.D. Underwood) so that he can control its advertising budget, as that's his business, but this requires both secrecy and long hours at the office with Whitey, the only other person in on the secret.  This starts to look suspicious, as Linda finds out that he's been with Whitey (in reality driving to and from the house of the owner of the periodical, where Van had to get into a steam-contraption with him while trying to sweet-talk him, 

which means that his bow-tie had to be re-tied (by J.D.)) when he says he's been at the gym (to explain the tie), Linda finds out from a guest at their cards-playing party that he hasn't been there in weeks.  Then there's a scene at a company skating party, where both Dave and Linda's noses are put out of joint by Whitey's and Van's (entirely innocent) skating shenanigans.  

After this both couples get into spats: Whitey returns Dave's ring, and Linda demands that Van promote Whitey away from being his secretary.  He refuses, because he needs her (particularly because of the periodical deal) and ends up storming off to play cards at the club.  However, Linda can't keep it up and calls him to come home, which he does with great and happy alacrity.  Cue reconciliation (of one couple) and Jami asking "what are they going to do for the other half of the film?"  Well, Van promises Linda that very soon they'll both pack up and go to Havana.  Then, to her delight, he calls her a couple of days later and says to get his bags ready for a trip to Havana, and she thinks the call has come.  But in reality this is just a trip for him, to go to some advertising winding as an "observer" (his usual employee has got appendicitis) at Whitey's suggestion so that he can corner J.D. and close the deal before J.D. goes to a competitor and gets them to pay more for his magazine.  So he lets Linda down easy with promises that he'll call her at seven every night.  But Linda finds out from a freelance accountant that their rivals have been doing financial analyses of that very periodical, so she figures matters are urgent and calls Van in Havana.  He tells her to gather up all the papers on the deal and join him there.  Long story short, they close the deal over a hectic 48 hours, during which he entirely forgets to call Linda, and (horror of horrors) she is in Van's room at 2 AM (they've both got loaded to celebrate, and are on the brink of actually doing what they've been accused of doing - innuendo lies heavy in the air as she helps him off with his shoes) and answers the phone when Linda calls.  

Well, that tears it.  She refuses to see him, runs off to his mother (the cause of all this fuss, remember) and it looks like he's going to end up with Whitey, who has more-or-less convinced herself that this is what she wants.  So what's going to happen with Jimmy Stewart?  And will they be happy, or will these rich people turn Whitey's head, as Dave always said?  And how can you feel sorry for Linda when she's being so stupid?  But why didn't Van just tell Linda about the deal in the first place?  As I said, annoying.  I hate contrived misunderstandings, from Romeo and Juliet onward.  But the cast is just so amazing that you can forgive it.

Film review: Cluny Brown (1946)

If you describe this as a searing indictment of the crippling oppression of the pre-war English class system, it doesn't sound as fun as it is.  But it is that, albeit with a very light touch and more double entendres than a Carry On film. But primarily it's a romantic comedy, starring a very unworldly young woman who just loves plumbing and can't understand why people seem to want to stop her.

The film starts with a voiceover about a boring cocktail party about to begin that only the man giving it (Hilary Ames) is looking forward to.  But he is desperate because his sink is clogged, and it being Sunday, he can't get hold of any plumbers.  All of this he is explaining to some other person on the phone, and then the door of his flat buzzes and he thinks it's the plumber.  It is in fact Charles Boyer, whom nobody in their right mind would ever confuse for a plumber, but he does, and proceeds to show him his sink.  Eventually it emerges that he is Adam Belinski, a Czech writer and philosopher, in England to escape the Nazis (it's 1938) and looking for the English academic from whom Hilary sublets his flat.  So they're both disappointed, particularly Belinski, because he has nowhere to stay and is desperate for a nap.  But then the door buzzes again, and this time it is the plumber, although this time Hilary can't believe it is, because it's Jennifer Jones playing the titular Cluny.  

She's not really a plumber, but her Uncle Arn, who was the one plumber that Hilary got through to, is, but he's off on some other job, so she thought she could help out, having observed him in action many times (although she believes he's far too timid, and that he needs to give the pipes a good thump more often).  Hilary is doubtful but Belinski talks him into it ("are you the kind of man who puts on his pants to answer the phone?" - good dialogue, but it reveals its American roots, because it doesn't say "trousers") and soon Cluny has dished out a few good whacks, 

and the sink is cleared.  They celebrate by giving her a martini and she is instantly sozzled, and gets to talking, revealing that her Uncle Arn is always telling her that she doesn't know her place (she has just recently been to the Ritz for tea just to have people pamper her and pull out her chair for her and so on), which leads Belinski into a discussion of how nobody knows their place, and something about how some like nuts to the squirrels, and others like squirrels to the nuts, a phrase that becomes a leitmotif throughout the film.  Any, at this point Uncle Arn shows up and is scandalized, and in an inversion of Eliza Doolittle's father in My Fair Lady, refuses the money Hilary offers exactly because he thinks it's payment for indecent services (this film skirts any and all codes very nicely by making clear allusions to all kinds of immoral goings-on without being explicit about it).  At this point, the cocktail party begins and the focus shifts from Hilary to three of his guests (one of whom, The Honorable Betty Cream, is the only guest he specifically mentioned (twice) because she doesn't come to most parties.  The other two are her admirers - Archie, who keeps proposing to Betty (and getting rejected - he swears he's only going to do it a couple more times before giving up) and Andrew Carmel (Peter "Rat Pack" Lawford - looking very much like a taller version of Davy Jones from the Monkees), who hasn't plucked up the nerve to do it once. 

They happen upon the now-napping Belinski, and Andrew recognizes him, and, as a great admirer, insists on supporting him, which soon leads to him being invited up to Andrew's parents huge country house estate.  Coincidentally, this is the establishment that Uncle Arn sets up employment for Cluny as a maid, to prevent any more shenanigans, sending the poor girl off with just a present of a picture of himself.  

And it is at the estate that all but the coda of the film takes place at, as Belinksi falls for Cluny, but Cluny falls for (or convinces herself that she does) the stuffy mother's-boy local chemist Jonathan Wilson (who has lived his entire life in the same house and intends to live the rest of it in there).  Soon, also, Betty and Andrew show up and it looks at one point as if Belinski is going to pursue Betty, 

something which might be just the impetus Andrew needs to propose to her.  Poor Cluny, on the other hand, is having to learn the ways of the Staff (taught by the dour valet Syrette and housekeeper Mrs. Maile) 

and thus Her Place, while all the time the louche continental Belinski keeps on bucking convention, to the acute discomfort of most of the Brits (the childlike Cluny excepted).  All seems to be going well with Wilson, to the extent that he throws a party and invites several other members of the local petty (literally) bourgeoisie to hear him announce his intention to wed Cluny... but then the pipes start banging, and an infectious enthusiasm to plumb overtakes Cluny, to the horror of the hidebound Wilson.

This is an immensely enjoyable little rom-com with, as I said, a real satirical edge, albeit for a system that time has eroded anyway.  Its setting is interesting, on the cusp of WWII (a war that had just ended when the film was made), so the plucky character of the British is lauded just as their caste system is gently derided.  Interestingly, while most of the cast are really British (or Irish - Wilson's mother is played by noted Universal Monster-film screecher Una O'Connor), both young women are American, doing credible English accents (albeit slightly less so in the case of Helen Walker, the actress whose career was just about to be ruined by a car crash that killed a passenger).  The dialogue is endlessly witty and perfectly delivered, and frivolous without preventing you really caring what happens to the characters.  (You might wish that Cluny were not quite so innocent that she appears slightly simple, or that the age difference between Jones and Boyer were not so great, but these are not enough to sour the film.)  It transpires, in the end, that the only way to escape the English class system is to go to America, and support yourself writing best-selling thrillers.  Squirrels to the nuts, indeed.

Thomas predicted everything

For the past year or so, Thomas has been telling me that there is something seriously wrong with my car--it had a loud rattle coming from the back end and drives like it is about to fall to bits.  Well, after twelve months of having no problems at all, Thomas and I were heading off to my mom's to exchange house and car key duplicates, and (as can be seen below) the front wheel snapped clean off.  After a brief, terrifying moment of sliding to a stop in the middle of a road, Thomas turned to me and yelled, "I TOLD you there was something wrong with your car!  Are you happy now?!"  I said that, indeed, I was super, super happy at that moment.  Nothing like having a seatbelt cut into your surgical incisions!  

It was hellish hot that day and waiting by the side of the road for the AAA tow truck was not fun.  Though, plenty of people offered to give us rides, make phone calls and so on--even neighbors came out of their houses to make sure we were all right.  Simon and Frederick came to get Thomas and just then the tow truck arrived.  He was a nice enough person, insisting that the car could get fixed with just a few thousand dollars' worth of repairs---the TRICK, it seems, was finding a garage that would take on the job anytime soon.  Yeah, no thanks.  Simon suggested we donate the thing to Michigan Radio (an offshoot of NPR) and call it a day.  That really was easy--you just fill out the form online, get a phone call to confirm, and then wait for another two truck to take the car, the title and the keys off your hands.  (THAT tow truck driver predicted the car was unfixable.)  So, no car at exactly the time I needed one most to get ready for the school year, deal with doctor appointments/follow up, get Thomas moved out of the house and set up in his apartment...  

So the next day Thomas drove me to the Toyota dealer just as it opened.  As Simon gloomily predicted, their selection of used cars was terrible because NO ONE has used cars to sell anywhere in the country.  As I have said at least ten times in the past 18 months, one thing the pandemic has taught me is that I have no idea how supply and demand actually operates on a global scale.  Why is the foam used to make furniture non-existent?  Why are there virtually no cars on any dealer lots?  When Simon bought his Prius a few months ago, he had three to choose from.  (We realized this week we should have bought two that day and we would have avoided this whole dramatic week.  20/20 hindsight.)--one for a mere $9,000!!!  When I went to the dealer this week, there were no Priuses at all--no used, no new--and there were only 8 used cars for sale: 7 Highlanders (the world's biggest SUV) prices starting (!) at $50k and a Camry, with a price tag of $22.5k.  I really, really did not want a sedan because I am hauling stuff--lumber, trees, manure, giant instruments--back and forth all the time.  But there was no way I was going to buy a car larger than our garage for a price that is more than our house is valued at these days.  So, I went with the Camry--and for reasons I am unclear on, the salesman immediately dropped the price down to $18.5 without me even asking.   Here it is, from the back side:

The only drawback was that the car was not ready to leave the lot.  One of the things I like best about this dealer is that they won't sell a car unless it is "certified" which means they guarantee there is nothing wrong with the car (not the case with the used Nissan I bought two years ago).  So, they insisted on keeping it for a day or two while they gave it new tires, new brakes, new fluids, new belts and--and this was the really exciting part--a brand new entertainment touchscreen!

I don't really like touchscreens (that is putting it mildly--I hate them) because (a) they cost a fortune to fix and (b) they break, as happened here.  Obviously my lack of enthusiasm showed as the manager came running over to insert himself between Collin, my salesman, and myself, to tell me exactly how much value I was getting...for NOTHING!!  A $1000 touch screen was costing me NOTHING!!  I don't care about the touchscreen, I just wanted a car that worked that I could drive off the lot that morning!  But that was not to be.  I finally got the car on Friday at 3:00 and was able to drive it home!  Here is the front seat--which is HUGE!!  (Though it doesn't have as many secret pockets and storage spaces as my Yaris did, which I still miss.)  

Here is the back seat, which is also huge.  I could fit two Fredericks back there.

Note the jazzy red threads on the black "leather" seats.  According to the financial officer who walked me through the purchasing process, the car originated in New Jersey.  I imagine one of the New Jersey Housewives driving this car while her husband is out busting knee caps.

I have 48 payments to make on the car, so I hope it lasts at least 49 months.

 

Film review: King Solomon's Mines (1937)

We've just finished reading the book, so we decided we needed to check out the film version.  I say "the," but there have been several (most recently one in 2004 starring Patrick Swayze!), but this is the only one to feature the mighty Paul Robeson.  The book itself is a real 19th century rip-snorter, with blood-curdling tales of elephant slaughter, followed by an enraged bull-elephant literally pulling a poor native guide in half, and in general mass slaughter, involving various hacking implements, along with a pair of mountains referred to as "Sheba's Breasts," complete with nipples.  It is the tale of three Englishman, the narrator, Alan Quartermain, Sir Henry Curtis (a giant viking of a man) and (for comic relief) Good, an ex-sailor friend of Sir Henry's.  The latter two seek out the former, a renowned white hunter, to try to find Sir Henry's brother George.  It so happens that Quartermain was the last to see George as he set off across the desert to try to find the fabled titular diamond mines.  Quartermain is of the opinion that none could survive this journey, because he himself has a map given to him by a Spaniard, whose Spaniard ancestor drew it 300 years before, but who died on the spot, having got only about halfway across the desert.  But Sir Henry will pay handsomely, including a large portion up front, and Quartermain figures that's enough to set his son, who is studying to be a doctor, up, and having lived an eventful life (and lost his wife), he's prepared to risk almost certain death.  In the book, there's a good deal of description of planning the trip, and some elephant hunting beforehand, and meeting a mysterious Zulu who calls himself Mbopa, who is as fine and strapping a figure as Sir Henry, shows up and volunteers to make the trip with them.  In the film, however, although all these characters appear, the subplot about the brother is removed and in its place are a rather disreputable Irishman. O'Brien, and his daughter, Kathy are there when Quartermain meets the Spaniard, and the father gets the map and sets out across the desert, leaving the daughter in Quatermain's charge.  Also, Mbopa was on the cart with the Spaniard, so Quartermain distrusts him.  

Sir Henry gets involved because he and Good are booked to go hunting with Quartermain but Kathy persuades Sir Henry to tell some of Quartermain's guides to obey her and makes off with one of his wagons.  Sir Henry feels responsible, and so, off they go.  They soon catch up with Kathy, but she refuses to go back without Pa, so on they go.  They abandon their wagons (as in the book) because the oxen can't survive the desert, but apparently O'Brien didn't know that, because they find his abandoned cart in the middle of the desert, albeit with a note from O'Brien saying he's gone on on foot.  So, on they go.  They almost die of thirst, but Mbopa (in the book it's a bushman guide) "smells water" and they dig to find some, which sustains them long enough to make it to the mountains that the Spaniard has on his map as the gateway to the land that contains the mines.  In the book, the climb over the mountains is a harrowing ordeal that involves the poor water-smelling bushman dying of cold in the same mountain cave that contains the frozen corpse of the 300-year-old Spaniard, but this is glossed over in the film, and we cut to down in the valley on the other side, where we first encounter the people of Kukuanaland.  Again, in the book, we are introduced to two important characters: Infadoos, an old general, and Scragga, the evil son of the evil King Twala. And while we see both characters named in the opening credits, we are never officially introduced.  It's as if their parts are cut from the final film.  (This is still better than the 1950s Deborah Kerr remake, where none of the lead roles are Africans.)  The book is interesting, in that, although very far from politically correct, the book (and Quartermain's voice) are very appreciative of the nobility of the characters of key Kukuana figures, and the speeches that are given by various members of their culture are stirring and poetic.  This is pretty much all left up to Paul Robeson's Mbopa (who pretty quickly reveals himself to be the rightful king of Kukuanaland, Ignosi, whose father Twala, with the help of the ghastly Methuselah-like witch Gagool (who also features in the film, and is quite well-done) dispatched, leading his mother to flee with him into the desert.  He also gets to show off his legendary singing voice, although I could've done without those musical numbers.  The war scenes in the book rival Helm's Deep in Lord of the Rings, but I've never enjoyed such things, and was rather glad that they were truncated rather in the film, although, true to the book, Sir Henry gets to slay the evil Twala in a fight (although not in a post-battle duel, as in the book).  One major character cut out of the film is the beautiful dusky maiden Foulata, who falls madly in love with Good (despite him being a comic character, with half-shaved face and no trousers (thus displaying his "beautiful white legs," to go with his false teeth and monocle, all of which enable Quartermain to convince the Kukuanalanders that they are white gods from the stars)), and he with her, which causes Quartermain much internal anguish, knowing that their union will never be sanctioned.  Foulata solves the problem by being killed by Gagool in the mines, but not before she is crushed under a giant stone door.  This leads to an entombment of our three main white characters (along with vast wealth in diamonds and gold) that they escape though back passages into the mines, but the film replaces this with an active volcano, very effectively done, and the discovery that somehow O'Brien beat them to the mines, although he broke his leg while there (in the book it is Sir Henry's brother who has a broken leg, but in an oasis in the desert that they find on the way home).  They leave Mbopa/Ignosi now restored as king over Kukuanaland and head home.

Overall, very well-cast for the most part (particularly Robeson, Cedric Hardwicke as Quartermain, and Roland Young as Good, who gets to deliver several laugh-out-loud lines, and Twala and Gagool are very effective), but Sir Henry is all wrong (too small!) and the Irish characters are just annoying.  

The scenery is amazing (filmed in Southern Africa), a cast of hundreds, at least, actual Africans, too, and the special effects for the volcano are amazing for the time.  But why do screenwriters insist on making unnecessary changes to books?

Back to Hurley

Seems like just yesterday I had the appendix ordeal documented in an earlier entry here somewhere. When they did an ultrasound to examine my appendix they discovered that my gallbladder had stones in it but assured me that "once you go looking for problems you'll find all sorts of abnormalities--best not to go there." Distracted by my explodiing and later necrotic appendix, I didn't think much more about my gall stones. (I did ask my doctor what the symtoms of an exploding gall bladder would be and she said that it is pretty much exactly like an exploding appendix.) So, as everyone knows, for the past few years I have had a range of GI/digestion issues and finally my favorite physician set up her own business in March and I finally have had access to a doctor worth seeing. All my "levels" were terrible. (Why so? Stress, certainly since the high cortisol levels which lead to high insulin levels make that clear. Also the damage caused by environmental poisoning here in Flint cannot be overestimated--we're all paying the price for that in very different ways.) So since March I have radically altered how and when I eat and take "supplements" (non-controlled substances) all waking hours. I also got a CPAP machine which cured my as of yet undiagnosed apnea perfectly. Amazingly, everything Dr. Joseph had me do helped matters tremendously. (So much so that I started taking Frederick to her and his health problems improved astronomically--but he'll have to document his own health journey.) Put simplistically, Phase I was to take various pills that levels my terrible levels by removing all the "bad guys" from my gut tract. Check, did that. Then two or three weeks ago I moved to Phase II: where I would "grow good guys" in my gut tract to digest properly. Ok, we started Phase II but every once in a while I would get a pain in my gut, just under my rib, after eating. It wasn't stabbing pain like gastritus, but a "hardness" like extreme bloat. I was convinced it was a reaction to something I ate, and was feeling very sorry for myself because the whole point of all this was to be able to have a healthy gut so I could eat (and then digest) anything! No more food sensitivities! I met with her and she suggested that I get another abdominal scan--perhaps my gall stones wer troubling me? Pah! I dismissed that stupid idea. I don't have time for all that, anyway, since I have a class I was teaching, a class I was taking on Indian Law, everything else I have to do in a day--that leaky rain barrel wasn't going to fix itself....Oh, the hubris! So Tuesday night, as I was in bed getting ready to go to sleep, my abdomen started hurting again--but this time MUCH WORSE! I prepared to ride it out, but it just wouldn't let up--and then about 2 am I got waves of nausea...It really was just like when my appendix burst. (Simon actually said, "Do you think it grew back?") He insisted on taking me to the ER, which I resisted, but it did make sense since Frederick was fast asleep and would stay so until about 10 am--that gave us about 7 hours to get things sorted. We went to Hurley and sat in the ER waiting room for what seemed like forever, with me running to the bathroom to be sick every hour or so. Finally, about 7 am we were ushered into an ER room--which is about the size of our upstairs bathroom. Into this room we squeezed, me on a gurney bed and Simon on a hard chair. (Simon really looked like shit by this point--very puffy eyed.) I was given an IV and morphine and "something for nausea"--they never named that drug and I felt slightly better. The morphine didn't do the work it should have done since I was always aware of the pain. But at least I could unclench a bit and lay on the gurney bed without writhing around. Eventually we met with a nice PA (physician assistant) would was wearing a Bulbasaur bolo tie and said that, most likely my gallbladder is giving me grief and I would need an ultra sound. By this point (maybe the morphine was having a greater effect than I think) I'm not too sure what what going on--Simon got home to make sure Frederick was fine (he was) and I got an ultrasound. I do know the person who took me there was a sulky pants sort who left me in the hallway outside the ultrasound room and didn't even tell anyone I was there. Someone found me and felt sorry for me and made sure I got the scan done and was wheeled back to my room. Yes, the scan confirmed what the PA suspected: gall stones. But there was no infection and the stones were tucked neatly inside the gallbladder. Why the endless pain? Shrug. No one seemed much interested in that. So, I was given prescriptions for pain and told to see my regular doctor who should then set me up with a surgeon at Hurley to get them removed asap. But since I was at Hurley right that very minute, why not just do it then? I have no idea. Simon came back to get me, got my pills, and then I fell into a deep sleep for aboug 24 hours, waking up Thursday afternoon with just enough time to call my basic doctor's office to get an appointment to see someone first thing the next day. (Not Dr. Joseph who is helping me actually get healthy--this doctor's office is the general clinic that does small stuff and is covered by our insurance--don't try to understand, it's too complicated and stupid to bother with.) I took more pills and then slept more. The pain was worse but, since I wasn't eating anything, at least the nausea was gone. Friday morning I was feeling hot and weak. This isn't good. So I got myself to the clinic and Heather Mannor, the PA I saw there was visibly alarmed at my symptoms, temperature, and the fact that I was sent home from Hurley. She told me to pack a bag and get back to Hurley and not leave until my gallbladder was out--not what I wanted to hear, but not surprising, either. This is exactly how things went with my appendix!!! So I went hom to pack and bag and Simon and I strategized on the best way to deal with this==wait until evening? But then the gunshot victims will start flooding the place. The smartest thing seemed to be to pop a bunch of pain pills, go right then, and prepare for a LONG wait--which is what we did. Simon and Frederick dropped me off at the Emergency Room curb--the exact place we were about 48 hours earlier, and I went in to wait...and wait, and wait. My memory is completely hazy on this but according to my text history, at 7:50 pm on Friday, I got an ER room. Amazingly, the first person I saw was a dr--a real physician! He said he knew exactly what the problem was and the solution was surgery. The only (!) issue was that "ortho" (I have no idea what that stands for) has no room for me, so I am going to have to sit in that ER room until they do. Meanwhile, they would make sure I was comfortable (not morphine--fetanyl which was sweet, sweet release). Well, the fetanyl did the trick--I felt like my whole body was disconnected from me and gone. The only thing was that they wouldn't give me water or food because AT ANY SECOND I could be swept off to surgery! Fifteen hours later (!!) I was moved upstairs and put into a closet (I kid not) to be stored while I waited for surgery. (The reason for the closet, I was told) was that my covid test results hadn't come back yet and the results would determine how they set up the OR. I am not covid positive so I got "regular" level OR precautions. And I wish I could describe those, but the first thing they did was shove a plastic mask onto my mouth and I was out like a light. And yet there is still so much more to tell: the guy with chest pains who refuses case because he'll miss the game! The guy with fish hooks shoved into his face because his girlfriend paid guys to shove fish hooks into his face! The woman who faked kidney stones to get opioids! But I'm too tired to tell more now so it'll have to wait until after I've had another nap.

Film review: Moonstruck (1987)

 This is not the iconic poster, but that poster has had me thinking for decades that this film was just schmaltz, when in fact it's... well, it's very good schmaltz!  And the above much better captures the real feel of the film.  I feel like I say this about every film I've heard about but not seen, but it wasn't what I was expecting, in a good way.  It's a very word-dense film, so it's lucky all the actors are so animated and in general just excellent.  It's set in the Italian community of pre-gentrified Brooklyn, and in general ladles on the Italian-ness, even though the three Oscar-winners (scriptwriter (John Patrick Shanley), lead actress (Cher) and supporting actress (Olympia Dukakis)) were respectively, "Irish as hell", Armenian, and Greek.  The basic plot is that Cher is a 37-year-old (she was actually already in her 40s) widow, still living with her parents (in a house they owned that would probably be worth ten figures by now) and her paternal grandpa, a real Italian and inveterate dog lover (that's him on the right, above), who, as the film starts, is proposed to by Danny Aiello, who is a decent man that she is prepared to marry, but whom she doesn't love.  This is all right, she thinks, because marrying the man she loved brought her bad luck (he got run over by a bus).  But then Aiello's Johnny heads off to Sicily to sit with his dying mother, leaving Cher's Loretta to plan the wedding, as well as make sure that Johnny's estranged brother, Ronny, agrees to come, to fix the bad blood that's festered between the brothers for some years.  Ronny turns out to be a young Nic Cage with a wooden hand, which is the cause of the bad blood: Ronny, who works in a bakery, was engaged when Johnny paid him a visit and (claims Ronny), distracted him while he was working the slicing machine...  And when his fiancée saw that he was maimed, she left him.  Ronny is, as you would expect from a character played by Nic Cage, dramatic, and Loretta is inspired to try to talk some sense into him.  She accompanies him to his (also very nice) flat above the bakery and cooks him a steak ("bloody, because you need some blood in you").  They then get to drinking and swapping sob stories, she tells him he's got a wolf in him (something she got from overhearing an old couple bickering in a store she frequents) and he ends up proving it by sweeping her off her feet and into the bedroom.  That night they witness the titular moon, which reminds Loretta's uncle of the moon that he saw many years ago when Loretta's pop was smitten by his sister, and spending all night outside the house gazing up at her window.  Loretta thinks she's made a terrible mistake, and wants Ronny to forget it ever happened, and, although smitten, he agrees to keep quiet so long as she goes to the opera with him tonight.  Well she gets all tarted up (unnecessarily, to my mind - she is radiant from the start of the film with her patches of grey) and shows up, and is of course moved (it's La Boheme) but also spies her father with his mistress, whom her mother had just earlier in the day told her about.  Meanwhile, her mother goes out to eat alone at the restaurant that Johnny proposed to Loretta in earlier and sees, just as they did, a young woman throwing water on an older man and storming off.  The older man is John "Frasier's dad, Marty Crane" Mahoney, and he accepts her invitation to come over and eat with her.  Turns out he's a professor at NYU who has a habit of serially dating his students.  She is currently understandably interested in the topic of why men chase women and speculates it's because of a fear of death.  Anyway, they have a pleasant meal and he walks her home, and (to her horror) they cross paths with her father in law walking the dogs.  And then Ronny, who gives an impassioned speech about how love is in fact a terrible thing, but nonetheless suited to such imperfect creatures as humans, and gets Loretta into bed again.  And then Johnny shows up, home early from Sicily!  Will Loretta still marry him?  Will her father pay for the wedding, despite disapproving of Johnny?  Will her mother dump him?  Will he dump his mistress?  Will his father tell him about John Mahoney squiring his wife?  Well, you'll have to watch it.  And you won't be sorry.

Although Cher, Dukakis and Mahoney aren't Italian, the cast is rounded out by certifiable Italians who are without exception excellent.  Not only is this film unusual in having its leading lady almost 20 years older than its leading man, it is also unusual in caring, and making us care, about the love-lives of very much not spring chickens.  Surprisingly moving - very funny, but even more Rom than Com.

Not Quite Thomas's 23rd Birthday

We (Simon, me and Frederick) are going to be up north on his Big Day and Thomas will be at the dentist, so we decided to have a mini-Birthday today. Here Thomas can be seen holding a birthday card painted by Frederick--Thomas approved of it.

After a light lunch (plant based burger--the latest rage with dairy free cheese (!!) and various vegetables (many provided by our LETTUCE GROW--should I mention again that we have two Lettuce Grows??) we headed to grandma's house. Ostensibly Thomas was going to buy her car from her for $1 ("I'll buy THAT for a dollar!" he quipped on the way) but he was going to have to work harder than that as my mom had MANY electronics that needed hooking up/rewiring so she could watch her tv and print up her weekly Amazon return receipts.) Thomas was a good sport about it (oh yeah, we also had to move a giant window air conditioner from the livingroom to the bedroom because it is so noisy she can't hear any music or tv shows when it runs and lately the weather is hot, Hot, HOT!!!) and set to work. On our way out, Thomas noticed this piano in the rec room on the first floor and couldn't stop himself from playing the piano. It attracted old ladies from her room--something like a scene from a geriatric zombie movie--who were interested in finding out who was playing. One old lady was very excited to see a youngster and asked if Thomas would stay and give her lessons. This proposition made Thomas anxious and he bolted from the room.

While Thomas played the piano, I wandered around the room checking out the provisions. There was lots of free produce that had been donated by VGs (local wonderful grocery store)--I took handfuls of red and yellow peppers but not the pinto beans. There was also a LOT of tubs of ice cream in the fridge freeze (left that there was a size that said that was for residents having birthdays only) and also "red hots" as they are called:

Well, I thought it was a nice birthday party...(AND Thomas got a big bagful of chocolates that came from Oliver T's. Oh, to be 23 and able to eat armloads of chocolates again....

Film review: My Man Godfrey (1936)

 I thought we'd seen this before, but after the first scene I had no memory of it.  And if we did, it was a terrible print, and this one, being Criterion, was pristine.  Anyway, I like William Powell in this a lot, and a good deal more than I like him in the Thin Man films, which we watched in a batch when we had FilmStruck.  He always struck me as too glib in those (and perpetually slightly sozzled), but he has an edge in this one (when needed) and marvelously understated delivery.  Lombard is also amazing, but, as in Hands Across the Table, I really didn't like her character.  She is an electric performer, but a little too antic for my tastes.  The film itself is wonderful, although the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am at how it bottled what looked like being a righteously angry social critique.  

It starts with two rich sisters arriving at a riverside (the Hudson, one presumes) dump (which seems to consist entirely of tin cans - genuinely jarring to see pre-plastic trash) as part of a scavenger hunt which involves trying to collect "things nobody wants" - which, as the older one (Cornelia) tactlessly explains to William Powell's uncharacteristically 5-o'clock-shadowed transient, includes a "forgotten man."  (This must be a popular depression-era label, given the song of the same name from Gold Diggers of 1933)  Powell, or the titular Godfrey (his last name is a matter of dispute), is understandably outraged and pushes Cornelia on her backside in an ash pile.  She goes off in a huff, leaving her sister Irene, who is tickled pink at the idea of Cornelia not getting what she wants, behind.  

She is a chatterbox and reveals all the details of the scavenger hunt, including the fact that if Godfrey goes with Irene, they will beat Cornelia, an idea that pleases Godfrey enough for him to go along.  This gives Godfrey the chance to scold the assembled idle rich, who include Cornelia and Irene's mother, Angelica (who is possibly the funniest character in the film), 

who has just managed to bring in a goat and its kid as part of the hunt.  Angelica goes nowhere without her "protégé," a sponging foreign "musician" (who never gets around to putting a concert together) called Carlo (the Russian actor Mischa Auer, who got an Oscar nomination for his turn), which puts the idea in Irene's head of taking on Godfrey as her protégé.  As they've just fired their butler (for stealing the silver), she proposes hiring Godfrey, an idea that intrigues him.  She gives him some money for a smart outfit, and we're off.  He arrives the next morning to meet the family's only other obvious employee, Molly, who has seen butlers come and go at a rapid clip, but has survived by adopting a phlegmatic attitude.  

She advises him to keep a packed suitcase by the door, and in fact brings it up to the landing as he delivers breakfast to first, Angelica (who is delighted by his buck-u-up-o), then Cornelia, who sends him packing, Irene, who talks his ear off and is overly affectionate.  He then picks up his case to carry it back downstairs and is confronted by the paterfamilias of the family, Alexander Bullock (played with his usual gruff charm by the ubiquitous (at least in paterfamilias roles in screwball comedies of this era) gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette), 

who thinks this is a fly-by-night exiting his daughter's room after spending the night.  Things are cleared up and Godfrey settles in fairly quickly, as he shows an aptitude for buttling (shades of Herbert Marshall in the previous year's If You Could Only Cook (and like Marshall's character, it transpires Godfrey comes from wealth)), although Cordelia is determined to get revenge, and is constantly snooping.  Her antenna go up when, at a party where Irene announces she is going to get engaged (solely as an attempt to make Godfrey jealous, because she has become fixated on him) a rich friend of the family from Boston, Tommy Gray, recognizes Godfrey.  

With some prompting from Godfrey, Tommy claims that Godfrey buttled for him, previously, but Cornelia smells a rat and makes sure to be there snooping when they meet up on Godfrey's day off at a swanky bar.  What we discover (and Cornelia almost does) is that Godfrey's real last name is Parkes, not Smith, and he vanished from his very blue-blood Boston family after a girl broke his heart.  He ended up at the dump because he intended to drown himself, but became enthralled by the tough characters who insisted on living, even though they had nothing (at least one of whom had been a banker who lost everything in the crash).  Cornelia confronts Godfrey, but makes the mistake of asking him what he really thought of her, and is shocked at his use of the word "brat," and storms off.  Godfrey decides to tie one on, and returns that evening decidedly sozzled.  Cornelia decides to use his weakened state as a chance for revenge, and plants a priceless necklace under his mattress, before reporting it missing and ensuring that the cops know that Godfrey was originally found at the city dump.  Will Cornelia gloat as Godfrey gets carried off in chains?  

Will Irene wear down his resistance?  

Are Irene's fits genuine?  Will Carlo every write his music, or is Angelica standing in the way of his progress by demanding he do his gorilla impression all the time?  

And why is Alexander frowning when he reads the financial pages?  All will be revealed!

So why was I disappointed?  Well, not really, but despite its pointed commentary on the social inequities, the only characters whose lives are illuminated are blue-bloods (even if they, like Godfrey, are slumming), and they are all redeemed and saved from penury at the end.  The dump gets cleaned up, and its inhabitants housed, and while that is definitely a good thing, the system remains in place.  Also, I want Godfrey to end up with Molly!