1940: The Shop Around The Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)

1940: The Shop Around The Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)
The themes that probably affect me the most in film are loyalty, friendship, and some kind of unrequited love (even if  it might change at some point during the course of the movie).  Of all the films about unrequited love, this is at the very top of my list, along with Letter from an Unknown Woman, Holiday, Gertrud, and Splendor in the Grass. Like those other movies, this one pains me and moves me at the same time.  It's not during horror movies that I want to talk to the characters on screen, it's during this type of film.  I just want to save them from any more heartbreak.  

This is another desert island film for me.  I sold furniture for four years so the retail aspect hits especially close to home.  And the romance connects with me as much as anything that's ever been put on film.   

Other contenders for 1940: I have a few major gaps this year, too. Probably the biggest is the fact that I've never seen John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath.  Other films I still need to see from this year are Frank Borzage's The Mortal Storm, Disney's Fantasia and Pinocchio (I've seen the latter, but it's been thirty plus years so it's really like I've never seen it), Preston Sturges' Christmas in July and The Great McGinty, Ludwig Berger's The Thief of Bagdad, and John Ford's The Long Voyage Home.  At some point, I'll need to revisit Alfred Hitchcock's two entries from this year, Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca.  I enjoyed them both upon first viewing, but neither after that viewing would contend for my top pick.  The only real contender this year would be Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday.  It's a film I really love, and one where I find so much of it totally brilliant -- Grant, Russell, the dialogue, and everyone's timing, to name but a few things. I finally though gave the year to the Lubitsch as it affects me as one of the most romantic films I've ever seen.  

8/9/10 I watched Preston Struges' The Great McGinty.  It has an uncharacteristic tone for Sturges, somewhat somber, somewhat melancholic, and not as manic as some of his other work.  It also boasts another one of his incredibly abrupt and offbeat endings.  I enjoyed it although not near as much as some of his later work.  

8/13/10 I watched John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath.  Ford's incredible eye is more obvious than ever.  But I continue to struggle a little with some of the hokum and sentimentality in his work.  A well-told, certainly well-observed film, but not always fully felt for me.  

8/18/10 I watched Preston Sturges' Christmas in July.  I can't say I necessarily enjoyed it, that it's that much fun.  But it certainly is incisive and has a lot to say about success, class, and the nature of perception. Sturges' unique absurdist perspective and love for wacky sounding proper names are on great display.  And of course, so is his talent.

8/19/10 I watched Disney's Pinocchio.  It's amazing how dark the film is at times.  I'm thinking particularly of the donkey transformation.  But there's great feeling in this one, and I really felt it a significant step from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  A wonderful Disney film, full of imagination and warmth.  

8/20/10 I watched John Ford's The Long Voyage Home.  I'm still somewhat new to Ford's work.  I've probably seen less than ten of his films.  But I'm starting to see more and more clearly the reason for his huge reputation.  There is a depthfulness and heavy melancholy to some of his work that gives it the kind of heft I've experienced with some Ozu, Mizoguchi, Bresson, and Dreyer.  Toland does some extraordinary things here, there are four or five completely gut-wrenching scenes, and there's a realism to a couple of the action set pieces that is absolutely masterful.  A very strong work for me.  

9/2/10 I watched Ludwid Berger's The Thief of Bagdad.  It's not totally my type of movie.  But for what it is, flights of fantasy and Technicolor deliciousness, it's extremely well done.  Has a little The Goonies and a little Clash of the Titans.  

3/15/11 I watched William Wyler's The Letter.  Exotic melodrama with Wyler keeping you guessing much of the time.  One of Bette Davis' strongest performances, and as close to a noir as I've seen from Wyler. Not excellent but some pretty fine work.  

2/25/13 I watched Frank Borzage's The Mortal Storm.  An extremely well-made film that makes you think perhaps more than it makes you feel.  But it is frightening and communicates the horrors of fascism as well as anything I have ever seen.  Borzage's film seems like it might have been one of the main things Tarantino saw as he put Inglourious Basterds together.  Featuring some terrific set pieces, Borzage builds suspense by working through the characters rather than through music or any other cinematic manipulation.  Borzage who was known for his melodrama impresses here with an extraordinary sense of restraint.

7/27/14 I watched Michael Powell's Contraband.  Reminiscent of several Hitch films during this period, light, chaotic, "chase movies" for lack of a better term, Powell makes it entertaining enough without ever really becoming memorable.  That is, all but the opening shot which seems to introduce us to a different type of entry into a work, a silent single shot of the main character before titles before anything.  

1/13/18 I watched Edward F. Cline and Ralph Ceder's The Bank Dick.  Much of it is extremely funny, and really everything up until the final act whirls and whizzes to great effect out of the off-kilter Fields mind.  But it slows down once the final car chase begins and never quite regains the height of its initial promise.  

11/23/21 I watched Mitchell Leisen's Remember the Night.  The first of what I believe were three films that Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray made together, all of which are excellent.  Preston Sturges wrote the script for this one.  Leisen impresses with the amount of emotional depth he is able to create, producing greater feeling by repeatedly choosing complex character moments over entertaining turns of plot.  He shows such restraint, and willingness to defy typical Hollywood narratives, that by the end he is able to deliver a final moment of Bressonian gravity and weight.   

Come and Get It

It's a treat to write something about a new Howard Hawks discovery. Hawks has long been one of my favorite directors.  I could easily count Rio Bravo, His Girl Friday, and Sergeant York among my "desert island group".  And I'm also quite fond of at least another five to ten of his films that I have seen:  Rio Lobo, El Dorado, Red Line 7000, Man's Favorite Sport?, Hatari!, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I Was a War Male Bride, Red River, The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, Bringing Up Baby, Barbary Coast, and Scarface (okay maybe it's a little more than five or ten).

Some of his earlier work is actually quite hard to locate.  But I'll have to keep looking.  There's at least another ten of his films that people talk about that I've never had the opportunity to see.

This film, Come and Get It, is an interesting one.  First off, it marks a collaboration with another directorial giant from the time, William Wyler.   IMDb says that Wyler directed 70 films in his career.  (Ah, what a glorious time the golden age was when a director could have that level of output.)  There's much of Wyler I've yet to see, but I absolutely love Roman Holiday, The Heiress, and The Best Years of Our Lives.

And Come and Get It is no exception.  The film has Hawks' ability to distill and refine.  Watching a Hawks' film for me is like when someone says about a great chef that his/her dish taste clean.  His work always feels uncluttered to me without being overly simplistic.

But Hawks, also, has always felt like an optimist to me.  It seemed like he never really wanted to leave the audience with a bitter taste in their mouth.  Wyler, meanwhile, seems much more willing to go to that place.  The end of The Heiress, for instance, I find to be one of the most disturbing finales of that entire period.  And Come and Get It ends on a note that is every bit as ambiguous, unresolved, and uncomfortable.

Needless to say, since we have two of the most accomplished directors of the period working on the film, the performances are sublime: Edward Arnold, Joel McCrea, and Walter Brennan are all tremendous. And Frances Farmer is magical.

The film might have a little too much music and an extremely basic directorial approach, but I also think it gets at some themes and emotions that most work can only hope to achieve.  Chalk up another one for Hawks and Wyler, Come and Get It is a real keeper.


*I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that, about a year ago, the excellent blog, Only The Cinema, conducted an "Early Howard Hawks Blog-A-Thon" (http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2009/01/early-howard-hawks-blog-thon.html).  I encourage a look if you want to read more about this period in Hawks' career or Hawks, in general.