Capsule Reviews: Sullivan's Travels, Christmas in July, Hellzapoppin'

Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges)

After my intensely negative experience with The Lady Eve, a comedy that struck me as caring more for its subtext than its delivery, I was glad to return to Sturges' movie-about-movies, which mocks so many of the traits I found insufferable in his other 1941 picture. A film about Hollywood's inability to make true social commentary, Sullivan's Travels mocks the broader impulse of the rich to understand the poor in a condescending, simplistic manner. As with The Lady Eve, Sturges belabors his point—Joel McCrea's Sullivan constantly trying to trek it like a bum, only to wind up back in Hollywood—and for a film about two-dimensional Hollywood social message films, the conclusion Sturges reaches is almost simpering in its ostensible respect for the working class who would rather be entertained than informed. Nevertheless, Sturges' zingers crackle for me like they never did in Eve, and if I remain unconvinced that the writer-director is not secretly the biggest schmuck to con his way into a legacy, at least I chuckled. Bonus points for the subversive singing of "Let My People Go" in a black church that hosts some prisoners for a picture show, easily the deftest, subtlest piece of social critique in the film. Grade: B

Christmas in July (Preston Sturges, 1940)

A film about a dime-a-dozen hack being mistaken for a whiz? Could this be Sturges' filmic autobiography? No, but seriously, I was so glad that I tuned into this supposedly "minor" Sturges movie after TCM ran Sullivan's Travels. After struggling to connect with his films, Christmas in July finally did the trick. If in the aforementioned film I chiefly chuckled and smiled knowingly, Christmas made me honest-to-God laugh, loud and long. And contrary to the message of Sullivan's, this satire beautifully incorporates its critique of a corporate America (both timely and ahead of its time) into a well-paced and wildly funny piece of entertainment. Sturges uses Dick Powell's stiff unfamiliarity with comedy to great effect, emphasizing what an awkward, overeager git he is but also making him impossible not to love. The best part, though? Raymond Walburn as the business head who hates his own contest so much he just arbitrarily gives away the prize, then explodes when he learns a man won unfairly. His blank-faced response to Powell's earnest explanation of one of his proposed ad slogans—"It's a pun." "It certainly is."—makes this an instant favorite supporting performance. Hallelujah, it would seem I'm not immune to Sturges' charms after all. Grade: A

Hellzapoppin' (H.C. Potter, 1941)

Much as I enjoy Sullivan's Travels, it's this 1941 self-reflexive movie that I will return to most often. I cannot say with any certainty what differs from the original Broadway musical, but Olsen and Johnson's adaptation of their own work adds sight gags and metacinematic touches that could only work on the screen. Hellzapoppin' moves with such blistering speed that that the already loose narrative structure collapses entirely, an anarchic spirit prevailing even the wayward spot of straightforward moments; see the lilting song number interrupted by intertitles urging a member of the audience to go home (eventually, a shadow rises at the bottom of the frame and awkwardly slides out) and the couple painting on the "lens" as the sing. The funniest jokes of all may be when the film belatedly attempts to follow some kind of story, an exercise in futility soon corrected by a total deconstruction. The best, and most thrilling, sequence, though belongs not to Olsen and Johnson but a cast of black performers who appear to tacitly realize that they're in a film so ridiculous and unorthodox they can take center stage, at which point they launch into a dynamic dance number so incredible it belongs with the great movie dance scenes. Grade: A

Capsule Reviews: Other Men's Women, The Lovers on the Bridge, The Lady Eve, The Purchase Price

Other Men's Women (William A. Wellman, 1931)

Mary Astor herself called this picture a piece of cheese, but cheddar can be mighty sharp. Astor plays one of the men's women, the wife of a chirpy railroad engineer (Regis Toomey) who becomes entangled with his co-worker Bill (Grant Withers), a fall-down drunk who cleans up nicely. With only 69 minutes, Wellman doesn't have time to mess around, meaning Bill and Lily have to fall for each other with such passion they risk everything before most people can even ask what the other does for a living. Wellman's sturdy direction stands back to let the actors work, which isn't the best strategy given how unsalvageable some of the dialogue is but works best when the two men confront each other while working the same engine, the camera calmly letting the tension mount then somehow pulling back even more within the cramped space to capture their fierce, farcical fisticuffs. Things only get more darkly absurd from there, but then part of the charm of a good Pre-Code is the flamboyant yet gritty way things invariably go to hell. In the meantime, have extra fun with James Cagney literally dancing away with the show in a bit part and Joan Blondell as a diner waitress who is, except for Bill, strictly A.P.O.: ain't puttin' out. Grade: B+

The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax, 1991)



Carax's film is pure unadulterated fantasy. That's as true of the grimy, filth-ridden shots he paints in jaundiced, hepatitis-infected yellow at the start of the film as it is the effervescent bursts of romance that blossom between two hobos taking shelter on the closed Pont Neuf. Carax effortlessly imbues the camera with his subjects' perspectives: he uses kinetic but fluid handheld shots to track Alex's (Denis Lavant) fire-breathing ballet, an expressive dance of self-destruction as terrifying as it is thrilling. Likewise, Jean-Yves Escoffier's cinematography bleeds street lights into over-bright streaks, perhaps capturing the encroaching blindness of Juliette Binoche's Michèle. Even smaller shots wow, such as a close-up of Binoche in profile as she holds a candle up by her face, coloring her one "good" eye a sick, bloody red as the eye absorbs and reflects the firelight. This is a playful, audacious work, never more so than in the exuberant fantasy of the Bastille Day sequence, where a paranoid freakout of military buildup explodes into fireworks-saturated ecstasy. The lovers shoot a pistol from the back of Henry IV's equestrian statue, dance uninhibited to a collage of music rolling across the soundtrack and, in the biggest break from reality, water-ski on the Seine as blue sparks shower upward around them like trees lining the Champs-Èlysées. The sequence is a gleeful send up of cinematic excess, as well as one of its greatest exhibitions. Grade: A-

The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)

I greatly enjoyed Sullivan's Travels, paid loose attention (and therefore must re-see) Unfaithfully Yours, and now I greet The Lady Eve, perhaps Sturges' most celebrated work, with near-total indifference. Oh, I cottoned to its exceedingly clever gender politics, with Barbara Stanwyck playing the Platonic ideal of her Pre-Code seductress, a temptress, given the title and snake imagery, on a Biblical level. But the film's cleverness is also its greatest weakness: Sturges never bothers to actually be funny, other than in William Demarest's charmingly asinine valet constantly seeking to link Stanwyck's two identities despite the obviousness of the non-mystery. Everything else smacks of the worst kind of self-satisfied humor, the kind that doesn't even make those who get it laugh, instead merely nodding their heads and saying, "Yes, quite." The slapstick is the biggest outrage, showing Sturges clearly out of his element with pure, universal comedy as he speeds up the film to exaggerate Henry Fonda's banal tumble over a couch. He's much more interested in the subtext of the pratfall—a man, who deals with snakes no less, "falling" for "Eve—than in the actual impact and fluidity of the joke. I've seen this film praised for its "sophistication." Is there a less vital trait in good comedy? Grade: C

The Purchase Price (William A. Wellman, 1933)

But speaking of Pre-Code Stanwyck, there's no substitute for the genuine article. Stanwyck's torch singer, itching to get away from her gangster boyfriend, takes her chance when she discovers a homely friend has used her picture in a mail-order bride service. At face value, Stanwyck is nightmarishly miscast, her sultry, manipulative prowess only to put herself in a situation out of her control. But then, that becomes the draw of the film, Stanwyck operating out of her usual element as a woman so unstoppable that even cities seem to small for her. Yet out in the country, she suddenly seems small, her sensual skills wasted among the brutish forthrightness of rural folk. Slowly, though, she acclimates, learning to care for her doltish but well-meaning husband (George Brent) and the farm he might lose. There are a few deliciously strange touches—Jim revealing himself to be a college-educated wheat-breeder who has perfected a strain, the unofficial head of the local band of drunken louts openly propositioning Stanwyck in exchange for saving Jim's farm—but overall this is a solidly plotted number about a city girl actually taking to the country. But at any rate, it leads up to a good ol' fashioned brawl, and I can't hate a film where the unattractive friend gives her up prospect for marriage for cash, saying it'll free her up to try a man out before she buys. Grade: A-