DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1920), THE PENALTY (1920), THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920)

1920 Halloween Triple Feature!

John Barrymore and his great profile
as Dr. Jekyll

Today's super scary Halloween triple feature features films that were made about 100 years ago as I look at the old Gregorian calendar on the wall. Isn't that pretty scary in itself?

The first film is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring screen legend John Barrymore. The film is of course based on the 1886 Robert Lewis Stevenson book of the same name. Barrymore plays the good Dr. Jekyll who helps out the poor when he isn't doing experiments that may give him answers to questions that may be left unanswered. He is egged on by his future father-in-law to search for the dual nature of good and evil in man, and boy does he find it! He finds a potion that turns his saintly doctor Jekyll into the wicked Mr. Hyde. (Granted, Mr. Hyde might be more fun than Jekyll at the right type of party). Then the fun begins as Mr. Hyde causes havoc much to the consternation of his better half. You know this isn't going to end well.

The special effects aren't too bad, especially the shots of the difference between Dr. Jekyll's skilled doctor hand and the claws of Mr. Hyde. I also like Hyde's distorted looks, which are grotesque but clearly still human and quite the contrast to the actor known as "The Great Profile."

John Barrymore as the hideous Mr. Hyde!

Lon Chaney as Blizzard in The Penalty

The Penalty, directed by Wallace Worsley, is a melodramatic but involving tale of a boy who has the lower part of his legs removed by doctors he overhears saying afterward that the removal may not have been necessary. He grows up and takes the name Blizzard and becomes a bitter criminal mastermind who wants to get revenge on the man who took his legs.

The film ends with his blackmail of the doctor to give him legs, but the doc operates on his head instead. Blizzard's mind is now cleared of evils thoughts and he tries to do good, but is shot down by an associate, the ultimate paying of the penalty.

Blizzard is played by Lon Chaney, who was and is one of the most admired stars of the silent era. His ability to get into a role physically as well as mentally is renowned. The Man of 1,000 Faces uses his own face for The Penalty, it's his body that is the distortion here. For this role, he had his legs strapped as his knees sat in buckets to mimic being an amputee.

Chaney also starred in an adaptation of another

Gouverneur Morris story

called  Ace of Hearts  in 1921.

The unveiling of the somnambulist Cesare by

Caligari in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Warm...Rohrig...Weinmann...Weine

The alliteration of those names helped me to remember them all for my History of Film class I took in the 80's when we went over silent films, expressionism and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in particular. But what are the importance of these names? Herman Warm designed the delightfully expressionistic sets for the movie. Rohrig and Weinmann painted these sets. And Robert Weine was the director of this tale of madness...exploitation...and SONAMBULISM!!

But the film offers more than it's unusual design. It is the forerunner of films that try to throw the viewer narrative curve balls. Is the story we think we are seeing, the real story? Is the narrator reliable? Is the one we see as evil, really good? Or is the narrator the only one who sees that he isn't good? What are the hints that what we are seeing isn't what we may think it is at first?

I think of Caligari when I see films like A Beautiful Mind, The Sixth Sense and most recently Shutter Island (I'm sure Martin Scorcese is a student of Caligari). Even if you've seen variations on the themes of Caligari done many times since, any student of film should see the original. 

And don't forget those names...Warm...Rohrig...Weinmann...Weine...Warm...Rohrig...Weinmann...Weine...I am calling you...I am your master...awaken for a moment from your dark night!

I had the privilege of re-watching Caligari this month at the local Crescent Theater featuring the live band The Invisible Czars playing along with the film. Great job, guys!

Happy Halloween!

A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987), ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA (1990)

A Chinese Ghost Story

Young roving debt collector goes from town town to collect money, usually unsuccessfully. He spends the night in a temple and meets a beautiful young lady. He falls in love with her, only trouble is she turns out to be a ghost. 

A Chinese Ghost Story could be looked at as having a little something for everyone. A rather sweet romance between the two leads, though hampered slightly by the fact that she is a ghost. Lots of fighting scenes, many involving the un-dead are here as well. It's an interestingly shot film with lots of blue background, shadowy images and wind driven special affects that are appropriate to the story. The highlight of the film is probably the final fight scene involving the tree demoness and Yin, the priest.

Sequels:
A Chinese Ghost Story II (1990)
A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991)
Remake:
A Chinese Ghost Story (2011)

Once Upon a Time in China

There is a lot of impressive fight scenes in Once Upon a Time in China, led by martial-arts legend Jet Li. 

Different political factions within China have their conflicts, as well as the outside forces of England and the United States. The plot itself is interesting most of the time, but at times hard to keep up with in the context of all the wall to wall frantic action. The success of this film also led to a slew of sequels:

Once Upon a Time in China II (1992)

Once Upon a Time in China III (1993)

Once Upon a Time in China IV (1993)

Once Upon a Time in China V (1994)

Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997)

MOUCHETTE (1967, FRANCE), L'ARGENT (1983, FRANCE)

A poacher confronts the title character

in Mouchette

(On Mouchette) "Robert Bresson has made several films of such sobriety that while some people find them awesomely beautiful, other people find sitting through the like taking a whipping and watching every stroke coming."-Pauline Kael,  5001 Nights at the Movies

And I understand both points of view stated above. When I first saw a Bresson film (Pickpocket) I kept thinking that I missed something. It took me awhile to adapt to Bresson's subtle form of cinema. He just will not tell a story in a conventional way! He also seems to skip important plot points, which have made me go back and see if there was a scene I missed (I did it for Mouchette and L'Argnet) more than once. I didn't miss a scene, it's just M. Bresson's way.

Mouchette is sort of a coming of age story of a teenage girl...if you can consider a coming of age story that will certainly end in tragedy a coming of age story. It is a pretty rich character study of this young girl and we see Mouchette awaken to adult experiences in subtle ways and in other ways not so subtle. I like this film, but it really helps to watch Bresson films more than once. (Which I did).

The title character gets passed around
in L'Argent

"Bresson films, which look and sound like no other filmmaker, alive or dead, are austere, limpid morality tales, photographed with almost scientific clarity...Bresson creates a kind of cinema in which characters are not seen but represented, as dramatically and effectively as they would be by actors wearing masks." -Vincent Canby, New York Times, October 2, 1983.

I honestly thought that L'Argent was going to be a heist film. Silly me, I forgot this was a Robert Bresson movie! What we see is how a counterfeit bill effects several people's lives in negative ways. At least several people initially. The ensemble nature of the film eventually breaks down into the study of a driver named Tyvon, who passes one of the bills off innocently enough and begins to lose everything. He loses his job, his wife, his daughter and eventually any sense of morality, leading to a horrific conclusion for everyone.

Is money the root of all evil? It certainly does make people do some pretty awful things. Bresson's last film and might be a good one to start with for those uninitiated with the director.

GOODBYE, LENIN (2003, GERMANY), THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998)

Alex (Daniel Bruhl) and his real mother (Kathrin Sass)
in fake surroundings in Goodbye, Lenin

Goodbye, Lenin is a comedy with many dramatic elements about a young man (Alex), who during the time of the unification of Germany in the late 80's witnesses his mother (Christiane) have a near fatal heart attack and lapse into a coma. When she comes out of it a few months later, Alex tries to keep it a secret from his mother that Germany is now unified, afraid the shock might kill her. The lengths that Alex goes to keep this false narrative going reminded me of one of my favorite movies, The Truman Show.

The Truman Show is the story of Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman with a wife living a seemingly normal life in a seaside community called Seaview. Except the only thing real about Truman's life is Truman himself. All that goes on around him is part of a TV show called The Truman Show, with everyone in Truman's life being actors, all under the control of a producer named Christof.

There are a lot of similarities and a few differences in both films.

Here are ten off the top of my head.

1. Both films rely on a lot of coincidences. Goodbye, Lenin has Alex coincidentally having the nurse (Lara) of his sick mother be a woman he was separated with during a street demonstration earlier and later becoming his girlfriend. In the The Truman Show (TV show). Truman meets his future wife by her hurting her ankle and landing in his lap. This of course, was manipulated by the show's script writers.

2. The show within the movie of The  Truman Show is watched by millions of people. The special show put on for Christiane in Goodbye, Lenin is for her only.

3. The desire to become a Magellan-like explorer is a recurring theme in The Truman Show. Looking up to East German space explorer Sigmund Jahn is a recurring theme in Goodbye, Lenin.

3. Alex and Truman are both separated from their father when they are young. Both are reunited with him later, discovering the disappearances of both dads were caused by factors other than what they first thought.

4. Product placement in The Truman Show (TV show) is ubiquitous. Product placement (aka evil Western influence) in Goodbye, Lenin is something to be hidden from Christiane at all costs.

5. Alex's friend Denis utilizes old news footage and fake reports for Christiane to watch. It is amateurish, but it works. Christof the producer of The Truman Show (TV show) runs the most elaborate and expensive television show ever created.

6. Christiane finds out the truth late in Goodbye, Lenin and turns out to be okay with it. She acknowledges her love for her family before dying a couple of days later. Truman finds out the truth at the end of the movie, moons Christof and goes to the outside world.

7. You can look at The Truman Show (movie) as an indictment of capitalism (By what ratings and chasing profit makes them do to poor Truman) or of religion (The manipulative omnipresent producer is named Christof for goodness sake!) Goodbye, Lenin's politics seem to be more pro-Capitalism, (the East German stuff wasn't nearly as good as the new stuff) but that is debatable.

8. Both have fine comic moments drawn from the absurdities of their situations and make you wanna cry at other moments.

9. At the end of Goodbye, Lenin, Alex recounts that the country his mother thought she lived in never really existed the way she imagined. At the end of The Truman Show (movie), Truman realizes that the only part of the life he led that was real was himself.

10. At the end of Goodbye, Lenin, Alex's family shoots the mother's ashes into the sky and wonder whether or not she is looking down on them.  At the end of The Truman Show (movie), two of Truman's fans search for something else to watch on TV.

Truman (Jim Carrey) and his fake wife (Laura Linney)

 in fake surroundings in The Truman Show