Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1938: IF I WERE KING and THE BUCCANEER

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For Paramount 1938 we have two semi-comedic, quasi-historical tales of charming rogues, If I Were King (directed by Frank Lloyd, with a screenplay by Preston Sturges), starring Ronald Colman as medieval bohemian poet Francois Villon, and The Buccaneer (directed by frenemy of the podcast Cecil B. DeMille), starring Fredric March as Louisiana pirate and key figure in the Battle of New Orleans, Jean Lafitte – but perhaps more notable for the comedic chemistry of Akim Tamiroff and Hungarian cabaret star Franciska Gaal. We discuss If I Were King as a New Deal/French Revolution allegory all-in-one and possible source of future Sturgean explorations of wealth inequality in America; and early 20th century leftist mythologization of Andrew Jackson and weird ambivalence towards the idea of America in The Buccaneer.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:         IF I WERE KING [dir. Frank Lloyd]         

0h 32m 13s:         THE BUCCANEER [dir. Cecil B. DeMille]           

Studio Film Capsules provided The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

                                   

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

 

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Noirvember Special Subject – Anthony Mann noirs – T-MEN (1947), RAILROADED! (1947), RAW DEAL (1948) and SIDE STREET (1950)

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For our Noirvember episode, we look at four Anthony Mann noirs, Railroaded! (1947), T-Men (1947), Raw Deal (1948), and Side Street (1950). We follow Mann as he ascends from Poverty Row to a collaboration with one of film noir’s most distinctive cinematographers, John Alton, to the big-time at MGM, with his protagonists only getting more sweaty and desperate and his underworld brutes remaining just as psychotic. We discuss the scapegoating structure of Mann’s noirs, their nihilism, their murder-mirror reflection of the capitalist’s bottom line and their emphasis on pain – relieved only, in the poetic realism-reminiscent Raw Deal, by some fatalistic romanticism that’s nevertheless offset by relentless masochism. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                            RAILROADED! (1947) [dir. Anthony Mann]

0h 15m 36s:                            T-MEN (1947) [dir. Anthony Mann]

0h 31m 01s:                            RAW DEAL (1948) [dir. Anthony Mann]

0h 46m 18s:                            SIDE STREET (1950) [dir. Anthony Mann]

1h 10m 01s:                            Tout Mannsemble                                             

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Check out this episode!

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The Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1937: THE ROAD BACK & ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL

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This Universal 1937 episode stays paused on the pivotal moment in the studio’s history, with another James Whale/Deanna Durbin pairing: Whale’s last hurrah, The Road Back, and Durbin’s second outing, One Hundred Men and a Girl. Whale’s film, based on a Remarque novel about Germany between the wars (familiar territory for the pod), compromised by Nazi censorship, and mutilated by the studio, may not represent the director’s vision, but is the emphasis on the low comedy characters played by Slim Summerville and Andy Devine a fatal flaw or a Shakespearean inspiration? Then we turn to Henry Koster’s surprisingly dark depiction of the American obsession with success, a perfectly constructed comedy that makes good use of its star’s boundless energy.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:         THE ROAD BACK [dir. James Whale]       

0h 40m 14s:         ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL [dir. Henry Koster]

           

Studio Film Capsules provided The Universal Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

                                   

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Check out this episode!

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Acteurist oeuvre-view – Margaret Sullavan – Part 6: THE MORTAL STORM (1940) & BACK STREET (1941)

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In this week’s Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, Margaret Sullavan takes on the Nazis in Frank Borzage’s The Mortal Storm (1940) and Fannie Hurst in Robert Stevenson’s Back Street (1941). We discuss the subtleties and broad strokes of this early Hollywood depiction of Nazi Germany, Borzagean heroism, and performative fascism. Turning to Back Street, we consider what this Code-era remake of a classic Pre-Code has to say about which gender has it worse under patriarchy (or the Code). Also: an announcement regarding the long awaited (by us, anyway) return of Fear & Cinemagoing in Toronto.

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:                            THE MORTAL STORM (1940) [dir. Frank Borzage]

0h 42m 53s:                            BACK STREET (1941) [Robert Stevenson]                                                 

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project! 

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »