As we wait to hear the conspiracy theories involving the latest attempt on Donald Trump's life, here are four movies to take your mind off of the madhouse we call "life itself".
APPLAUSE (1929): Had I been running a movie studio in 1929, I'd have ordered my directors to watch Applause multiple times. Then I would have barked, "That's how you make a talkie!" And all thanks go to director Rouben Mamoulian. From its opening moments with the camera following a theater poster floating in the breeze to its climax tracking close to another poster featuring the story's lead character, Applause is the first sound movie to really move.Sure, its story of over-the-hill burlesque queen Kitty Darling trying to keep her virginal teenage daughter April from following in her footsteps seems hackneyed today. But it's what Mamoulian does with the camera and editing that brings it fully to life for its 80 minutes. The techniques we take for granted now -- over the head shots, lightning-quick edits, motion -- seem to have made their sound debut here. The Russian cinema-inspired montages of the creepy audience members and washed-up burlesque dancers stun even now, while Kitty's p.o.v. shot of her low-rent colleagues looking down at her and her newborn baby is more horror movie than happy.
For those unfamiliar with the star of Applause -- long before Judy Garland took her first upper, Helen Morgan was the original "tragic" female entertainer: torch singer, alcoholic, four-times married, psychologically and emotionally troubled, dead at 41 of cirrhosis. And it's all there onscreen in Applause, perhaps the first great American talkie. Recommended viewing; an excellent print is free on YouTube. BONUS POINTS: Applause features some great location footage of the old Penn Station, Brooklyn Bridge, and atop a Wall Street skyscraper.
GIRL OF THE PORT (1930): Few movies are ahead of their time while being incredibly dated as Girl of the Port. Josie (Sally O'Neil), a washed-up showgirl, is herself washed up on a South Seas island to tend bar at the local dive. There she meets McEwen (Mitchell Lewis), a horny, racist landowner, and Jim (Reginald Sharland), a drunken, shellshocked, pyrophobic World War I vet. Deciding Jim is the only decent guy on the island, Sally moves him into her hut for a few months to sober him up. McEwen eventually kidnaps Jim, gets him drunk, and takes him to another island to scare him to death at the natives' firewalking routine -- only to discover it has the opposite of the desired effect. There are plenty of interesting bits in Girl of the Port, none including the title character. The prologue is a terrifying war scene where Jim and his fellow British soldiers are beat back or burned up by Germans with flamethrowers, an event that would shellshock anyone. Later at the bar, Mitchell Lewis stuns when his character McEwen buys a round for the boys and toasts, "To white supremacy!", before calling one of the natives a "black baboon". His pride vanishes when Jim announces that McEwen is actually a "half-caste". As his white "friends" move away, McEwen realizes he's buying a round for the smirking "half-castes" who silently welcome him as one of their own. It's an unexpected, well directed moment.
BONUS POINTS: If Mitchell Lewis looks and sounds vaguely familiar, it's because he's the captain of the guards in The Wizard of Oz who says of the Wicked Witch, "She's dead. Dorothy killed her!" The alleged "black baboon" was in reality the Hawaiian surfing champ and five-time Olympic medal winner Duke Kahanamoku, who appeared as himself in the silly semi-documentary Around the World in 80 Minutes with Douglas Fairbanks.
THE ROAD IS OPEN AGAIN (1933): No other president had Hollywood around his finger like Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even the Republican studio heads felt obliged to jump on the New Deal bandwagon, featuring references and even entire shorts devoted FDR's good works. Warner Brothers did its part by releasing the half-reeler The Road is Open Again. Dick Powell is sitting at the piano trying to knock out a new patriotic song. Upon closing his eyes for a moment, he's visited by the ghosts of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson. Rather than running out of the room screaming in terror, Powell listens to the trio explain how wonderful Roosevelt is, confident that the newly-elected commander-in-chief will right the ship of state. All that is required from the country is faith in their leader, and to buck up, because the road to prosperity is open again.
Huzzah! Dick Powell has the hook for his song. And as the ghosts disappear, Powell sings -- off the top of his head! -- "The Road is Open Again" as newsreels of people going to work and pro-New Deal headlines fill the screen. And before you can say "massive national debt", the merry propaganda picture is over.No doubt The Road is Open Again is charming while, according to some economists, completely wrongheaded about the New Deal in general. Yet it reminds us of a time when a president with a good heart and sound mind was able to bring a country together when rabblerousers on both ends of the political spectrum were dividing Americans, unemployment and inflation were on the rise, and dictators were starting to run riot over Europe. So glad things have gotten better!
BONUS POINTS: The lyrics to "The Road is Open Again" appear onscreen so the audience can join in. But just try to sing louder than Dick Powell.
HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM! (1933): In an unusually witty performance, Al Jolson is Bumper, who lives the happy-go-lucky homeless life with his pals in Central Park. Bumper switches gears when rescuing June Marcher, who tried to end it all by jumping off a bridge into a park lake. June, having lost her memory, falls in love with Bumper. Going gaga himself, Bumper asks his pal John Hastings -- the goodtime Mayor of New York -- to arrange for a job so he can eventually marry June... not realizing she's the Mayor's ex-girlfriend.
One of the year's biggest financial flops, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! has so many things going for it. Offbeat direction by Lewis Milestone; a sophisticated screenplay by S.N. Behrman; an incredibly clever score and "rhythmic dialogue" by Rodgers & Hart; and a great supporting cast. Harry Langdon is a riot as Egghead, the Communist trash collector who condemns both the "plutocrats" who run the city and "parasites" like Bumper and his pals who sponge off the workers. The never-disappointing Frank Morgan plays Mayor Hastings with equal parts sophistication and human qualities. There's some racy pre-code dialogue, too, with Madge Evans (as June) involving a pun on "laying a cornerstone", while a gay-coded maid wearing a monocle makes an appearance.
So why did it bomb so badly? Its production history involving three directors, a sneak preview debacle requiring an entire re-shoot with a new script, score, and at least one actor re-casted, along with Jolson's dimming popularity and the unusually sophisticated score all likely contributed. While the pace starts to flag during its final third, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! (available for free at Internet Archive in an excellent print) is now considered by many contemporary movie critics to be not only Al Jolson's best movie but the pre-code musical most deserving of a revival. I could have told them that upon my first viewing on a UHF channel in 1970, but it's nice being proven right again. (The print I saw back then was the original British release, with the word "Tramp" replacing "Bum" in the title and songs, the offending word having a much different meaning there.)
BONUS POINTS: Richard Rodgers cameos as an assistant photographer, while Lorenz Hart can be seen as a harried bank teller. And six years before co-starring in The Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan says, "There's no place like home."
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