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1937 - IN COLOR! (with Alan Briones)
20 Plays1 year ago
1937 brings us the advent of (American, cell animated) feature length animation and 3-strip technicolor catches on! Stars are born! Songs are sung! Opera and cinema join forces! Monocles are worn! Join us, along with our guest, opera singer Alan Briones, as we discuss an exciting bevy of films.
You can watch along with our video version of the episode here on Youtube!
You can check out our Instagram, Twitter, and other social media crap here: http://linktr.ee/1w1y
And you can watch and form your own opinions from our 1937 Films Discussed playlist right here!
Our Feature Presentation!
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
A Star is Born
Maytime
Make Way for Tomorrow
The Grand Illusion
See you next year!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Appearance
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order, starting from 1895, the dawn of cinema, and this year is 1937.
00:00:21
Speaker
And I am one of your hosts, Chris Elly. I'm a film projectionist. Joining me as always is... I'm Glenn Covell. I'm a filmmaker. And joining us for the first time, kind of, is... Alan Briones. And I'm a film enthusiast, mostly a librarian and an opera singer.
00:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, opera singer. That's why you're here today. Yes, exactly. I say, I say kind of for the first time because Alan was actually secretly listening in for the entire first episode and didn't say a word. Covertly there, but not. Yeah, but now we now we have him on our first our first returning guest is that he didn't say anything the first time.
00:01:08
Speaker
Well, you know, silent movies, silent guests. Right. Hey, there you go. Like like a longtime lurker. First time. Yeah. Now that we've broken into talkies, he can actually speak. Yeah.
Upcoming Plans and Personal Projects
00:01:22
Speaker
And we have Alan in color too now because we've got our first Technicolor feature. Technicolor movie. Yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, all right. How's it going, Alan? Welcome to the podcast. Things are going okay. It's good to be with you guys. I feel like we don't see each other often enough. I know. Not visually, yeah. Yeah, exactly. We're all gonna see each other soon, though. Next weekend? Two weekends from now? Yes, yes. We're gonna see Sleep No More. Very excited for that. Indeed, yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
I don't know if I told you, Alan, but Glenn's able to make it now. Oh, great. He's coming. Yeah, that's like buy tickets yet because I didn't I need to I bought your ticket. Oh, you didn't. OK, good. I was going to ask you about that today. I should have done it before we started recording. But here we are.
00:02:15
Speaker
Glenn, what's up? How's it going? Nothing. Nothing's up for me. Not much. Still looking for work as is the way. It's the way. I have a couple of small projects that I'm working on. I finished a draft of a screenplay that I can't afford to make. As per usual.
00:02:44
Speaker
The thing I have to report on is that I just went to the Glenwood Springs vaudeville review in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It is one of the only places to have a functioning, outside of a museum, a functioning photo player, which was a
00:03:06
Speaker
like a Wurlitzer pipe organ that was wind-powered, air-powered, and had a bunch of like sound effects and zany noises built into it, a la that I think you should leave sketch. I'm gonna do the Antonio Madaris meme, the
00:03:28
Speaker
just plop that right into the video, yeah. But yeah, it was so cool.
Vaudeville and Broadway's Influence
00:03:34
Speaker
The whole place is run by like eight people who are like the bartenders and the waiters and the actors. And it was an amazing variety show getting to see like a vaudeville type show as more or less in the way that it might've been at the time minus the blackface, you know? Was there a table act?
00:03:57
Speaker
What do you mean, a table act? Exactly what it sounds like. Guy comes out with a table, then it's a bunch of funny shit with a table. Well, there was an act. A lot of the acts were music-based, but one of them involved a dog sitting in front of a table with a chef hat on and human arms pretending to cook.
00:04:21
Speaker
It was a great time. It was it was very fun. A lot of like the roots of today's Broadway comes from that stuff. So it's it may seem
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, especially like the sort of musical side of it, like sorts of things that we'll be talking about today. It's you know, it can seem really silly, but it really did lead to things. So that's cool. But on the photo player is meant to because it has all of these sound effects because it's meant to be used in movie theaters to play along with silent movies. And
00:04:58
Speaker
They started off the show with a cacophonous version of Sweet Caroline with a bunch of zany dumb sound effects in it while he was playing. Was that supposed to sound like the drunk people singing it at like a Red Sox game or something?
00:05:14
Speaker
like without
1937: A Year in Review
00:05:15
Speaker
actually having to do it in a way to vote that yes so uh we're starting off with your sections here alan we're going to be on for three of the movies uh and then we'll uh me and glenn will wrap it up at the end with with another three we're going to get started with the news uh so take it away glenn the nose of the year 1937
00:05:41
Speaker
Jet engines are developed for usage in aeroplanes. The Luftwaffe bombs Guernica in support of the Francoists in the Spanish Civil War. Oh, the humanity! The Zeppelin Hindenburg explodes over New Jersey. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, yes, that one, are coronated at Westminster Abbey. Famed aviator Amelia Earhart disappears during an attempted trip around the world.
00:06:08
Speaker
The Marijuana Tax Act is passed, attempting to curb the use of the drug through extreme taxation. J. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published. The Irish Free State becomes Ireland. Catchy. In The Funnies, Dick Tracy debuts, as well as Detective Comics No. 1. Clark Gable and Manor Loy are crowned King and Queen of Hollywood, outside the El Capitano Theatre.
00:06:34
Speaker
Nitrate alight, as the Fox Film Studios vault catches fire, destroying hundreds of silent films forever. That was some news, uh, and definitely wasn't added in later because we had, we're writing it after Alan, after we recorded Alan. Uh, Hindenburg, crazy, right? Crazy stuff happened. Yeah, let's get started with our feature presentation.
The Impact of 'Snow White'
00:07:01
Speaker
And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation. And we'll do Snow White. Snow White, which is the first cell-animated feature film. American film. Feature film. I mean, it is a lot of first things. Like, to its credit, it's not the first animated feature film like it usually gets credit for. But there is a lot of things that does deserve some credit for.
00:07:31
Speaker
And about this jacket, but this exhibit that we went to about the hundred Disney last year was had whole rooms describing some of the technical innovations that Disney was doing during this time. Some of which I had about that are really cool, like the multi-plane camera thing.
00:07:50
Speaker
They had a whole presentation and the script and the actual thing there. Very cool to see the actual thing and then the video of the process of how they did it and how it looked compared to how it would have looked if it was all just the previous technique being plain. It was very cool. I feel like at least I hadn't been quite as cognizant of the technical
00:08:19
Speaker
experimentation that was going on in Disney during all this. I feel like a lot of the.
00:08:24
Speaker
you know, the reputation that they have now is a little bit different, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. Chris, did we talk about the multi-plane camera on our Prince Ahmed episode? I think we did talk about it a little bit with Prince Ahmed. It was in, I believe it was invented by Lottie Reiniger. And then Disney was kind of inspired by it and kind of tweaked it for his own cell purposes. I'm curious how much of it was like, did he know about
00:08:53
Speaker
The Lottie Reniger one? I believe so. OK, because that's something that I feel like I could conceivably believe was just invented twice in different parts of the world, kind of in parallel without necessarily one influencing the other. Hmm. Yeah, it doesn't seem like a super like like it's clearly like something that wasn't done before that, but it's not like animation as a thing was around for that long. So it seems like the kind of thing that somebody might stumble across it.
00:09:23
Speaker
Like any good invention, it seems obvious once it exists. Right, of course. Yeah, for sure. And it's the kind of thing like that. Now, it's one of those things that like clearly led to people being able to conceive of things that make it sort of obsolete later. But we have no support now because of the digital animation and everything like it just kind of like multi-plane in depth, the field. We still got layers.
00:09:47
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, layers are kind of a derivation of multi-plane camera. Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, there wasn't. I mean, it was all the perspective that existed and stuff, but in order to actually be able to create actual layers in.
00:10:04
Speaker
in animation like that was a way to do it and i think i didn't even realize that that was there like i like looking back like watching the movie again like having seen like the exhibit and learn about the technology i was like oh wow that actually is way more
00:10:19
Speaker
Like there was way more depth than I even perceived before I knew that it was that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think some of they do some interesting stuff with a multi-plane camera in this movie too. They do some like very kind of sweeping camera shots. Also some some shots that I don't know if this is related to the multi-plane camera really, but they they do some shots that it's like there's no way a camera could move this way in real life. And so they're really like taking advantage of it being a cartoon where they can like
00:10:49
Speaker
take the camera on one person and sweep it up sideways up to the top of a castle and then in the window of the castle. Honestly, I watch things like that and maybe this is something testament to the way in which
00:11:07
Speaker
Disney is kind of giving credit because it seems really like a Disney movie. Anytime I see that now in an animated movie, because I feel like especially in some of these early ones, they did that sort of thing a lot, probably because they were like, oh, look, what cool thing we can do because of this technology. But like that whole thing of like starting, you know, like with the landscape and then like going in and being like, look at all the pretty sights and then going into a window and then it's like the, you know, the like Cinderella, I think, if I'm if I'm recalling correctly, has like a bunch of stuff like that, too. I've quite a bit later, but it is interesting how much of I think the sort of like
00:11:37
Speaker
Disney's like cultural image is
00:11:43
Speaker
is really kind of set in this movie, like fairy tales, castles, a little bit of spookiness. Disney princess. I mean, that whole. Right. But then like it's like the princess up with an also kind of like magic and and sort of like the the like fairy tale reality of it. All of the Disney shorts that we'd seen up till this are like talking animals. What if what if Mickey Mouse was in a band like
00:12:12
Speaker
For sure. But then keeping the sort of like Snow White is a musical because there's like so much of animation is driven by music. For sure. At least at least the Disney ones. Silly symphonies. But this one isn't silly. It's like it's a dark symphony. Yeah.
00:12:31
Speaker
I mean, Disney's fairy tale, which I know is like a lot of the early, I mean, even the much later Disney stuff was inspired by fairy tales, because the idea of this like modern day fairy tale was very present, I think, in Disney's mind. And if I recall incorrectly, like he very specifically knew that he wanted this story to be the first feature.
00:12:54
Speaker
There were a couple that he was working on. He was thinking about Pinocchio for the first one, and he also, I think the very original plan was for Alice in Wonderland to be the first movie, but then someone else made an Alice in Wonderland movie around the same time that he was trying to do it, so he pivoted to Snow White.
00:13:15
Speaker
Right. Because there was also a little bit of that whole like like avatar effect where he was like there were certain ones that he didn't think that they quite had the technology for right away. So they and then got to later. Yeah, Disney actually wanted to make Avatar in 1937. Took him. Once again, James Cameron is beat to the punch.
00:13:38
Speaker
I just can say that that story about like, oh, yeah, oh, we have to wait 10 years to develop technology before we can do the next one, like remnants of that. And she's reading the story of the journey. It's technology and also skill, you know, like this is a movie that took years to make. And it is kind of made in a different way than the other Disney stuff that we've seen it. And there's.
00:14:05
Speaker
you know, there's a certain amount of finesse that they can do with their full feature budget and scale, that artistry, as far as animation quality goes, that I think that was part of his thinking was, can we do Pinocchio yet? Maybe not, you know? Like, we need to push ourselves more and more with each one, but we can't go too far yet.
00:14:33
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Should we talk about what this movie is?
Revisiting 'Snow White'
00:14:38
Speaker
It's like people know Snow White, right? I mean, but, you know, watching this, I was.
00:14:46
Speaker
you know, it's the kind of thing where it's like, oh, I've probably seen this when I was four, you know, but I don't really have any clear memories of this movie. I had that experience too. I had definitely not seen this all the way through ever, I don't think, because this was not in like, I don't think this was ever one of our VHS Disney animated films like it wasn't in the rotation when I was a kid. The way that like Cinderella and Pinocchio and like a lot of the other
00:15:15
Speaker
For sure. I had that experience with this and with Bambi, both of which I watched recently, where I was like, I'm sure I've seen this. And then I'm watching it being like, there's huge chunks of this. I mean, parts of it that I feel like I might have encountered, but huge chunks of this, I was like, I feel like I've never seen this before. This is like not bringing up memories. Well, right off the bat, you can't say this movie is 100% animated because it opens with a live action shot of a book.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that actual book was at the exhibit, too. They actually had shit. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, how big is the book? Was it like a normal book size or was it like a giant oversized book? It's I guess I should preface that and say, now that I'm thinking about it, it wasn't specifically the Snow White one. I think it was a Sleeping Beauty one. But they had like similar books for all of them. And yeah, I know it's huge. It's like. Yeah, I'm sure. Like a thing. I mean, not like.
00:16:07
Speaker
Comic huge, but it's like one of those like big books that you see, like, you know, those big Bibles that you see like in the old it was one of those. And yeah, they had it. It's a real physical thing. So I think it's funny that this is like it's such a kind of an animation landmark movie. And the like first image is a live action shot of a book. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
I guess, I mean, the concept is kind of cool. It's like, oh, like this is the book and then we're going into the to the story and the imagination. You know, I'm not critical of it as a storytelling device. I think it's actually very cool. I just think it's sort of funny in context. Yeah, for sure. That's an irony there for sure.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like I think that maybe the live action part of it in a way is tying into this whole thing of like they are trying to be serious and legitimate with this movie, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is this is not.
00:17:08
Speaker
a silly cartoon um there it is but yeah they're at times they're trying to make it this like big prestigious yeah sort of like broad uh uh epic yeah like they they wanted to be doing real storytelling here and so they're like look it came from a book i was surprised at how long this movie is
00:17:29
Speaker
Like I think animation tends to be, especially early animation tends to be very short, even as a feature because of how labor intensive it is. And even up until like pretty recently, I think even now, like a lot of Disney animated movies are like also for like children's attention span, they tend to be like 90 minutes or lower.
00:17:50
Speaker
For sure, like I feel like ninety five. So this is eighty three minutes. I just looked at the back of the blue. Oh, yeah. Yeah, less than 90. I feel like when I see a live action movie, I'm like, it's going to be around two hours, like the average when I see an animated movie, especially like.
00:18:05
Speaker
older animated movies. 80 minutes. Yeah. Right. I'm like older animated. I'm like, this is going to be like 73. 70. Yeah. I mean, I will say, you know, for starting to talk about how we feel about this movie, it wastes a lot of time. I think that there's a lot of parts of this movie that really drag a lot of scenes that go on a long time.
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, like, I mean, again, I'm just I'm right now I'm comparing this with Bambi a lot because that was another one that I watched as far as like recently. Talk about a movie that wastes a lot of time.
00:18:43
Speaker
like I feel like there was a little bit of like they were reveling in the novelty it which like now because we're so saturated and animated stuff like yeah with those eyes like back then I'm sure there was a lot of people who are like this is amazing look how colorful it is and it's so pretty and all these like I don't think it's a coincidence as far as like how
00:19:05
Speaker
important this movie was that it like the same year that we're talking about this we're talking about the first like commercially successful technicolor movie. But Redwood Star was born actually like there was other ones but that was the first one that was like I considered a box office success. So like the idea of like seeing color when you go to the movies was a new concept. So imagine like besides just color like all these like beautiful
00:19:27
Speaker
works of art, which is like painting.
Technicolor and Plot Summary of 'Snow White'
00:19:29
Speaker
Well, it's interesting. It's like, you know, color was a thing, right? But this is actually like coming on the heels of a point where there was an earlier version of Technicolor that only had red and green, not red, green and blue.
00:19:45
Speaker
And and the color kind of slightly evoked real life color. But there was something that always looked a little off about it. And people were kind of getting sick of color movies at this time, or at least like a few years earlier. They they had kind of like people thought that the kind of color movie trend was ending. And then. Yeah, it's like 3D.
00:20:11
Speaker
but they had not yet found this naturalistic three-color Technicolor. It was a bit of a gamble about getting involved with Technicolor at this time because the company, I believe, was struggling because people didn't want color movies anymore.
00:20:32
Speaker
But like this and I mean, I think this movie is a better showcase of three strip Technicolor than A Star Is Born. Oh, yeah. I mean, we'll get to it when we talk about Star Is Born. But when I read about that first before I watched it and then I started watching, I was like.
00:20:47
Speaker
What difference does it make that this movie's in color as opposed to being a black and white? Like I always think of like Wizard of Oz. I know it's like years from now, but it's like in terms of like my, in my head when I was like Technicolor and when movie started being in color, I'm like Wizard of Oz was like this landmark thing where everybody was like, okay, now we like Technicolor. This is like three years after this.
00:21:07
Speaker
And it makes sense with Wizard of Oz, like why that movie needed to be in color. This one, I'm like, if it wasn't black and white, it wouldn't have made any difference to me. I feel like I can't think of a single shot that like. Right. You know what I mean? It seems like they're well, we should talk about it later. Snow White is definitely showing off color as a concept and as a like
00:21:31
Speaker
thing for movies to have much more so yeah and to bring it back to why we got we went on this tangent like i feel like that explains why there's a lot more lingering in some of the scenes it might have just been to like yeah in the animation and in the color sure yeah i think both of us chris have seen a lot of that in like
00:21:55
Speaker
kind of the early sound era tends to be very kind of like indulgent and slow and like, hey, we have songs now. Like here's 25 like musical numbers. Oh, yeah. Go nowhere. Yeah. And like, you know, sometimes it's great. Like Gold Diggers of 1933 has like incredible shit in it.
00:22:21
Speaker
And then sometimes it's Broadway melody and it's not very good. And I think, yeah, animation seems particularly kind of on that track of like, look at what we can do. Right. Disney animation in particular, I think. Yeah, it's going for this kind of like impressiveness angle. I think Pleasure Brothers is still kind of in the like, we just want to tell jokes.
00:22:47
Speaker
But I mean like, if we could talk about the animation for a second, like, there is something that is...
00:22:55
Speaker
strange about this movie like compared to previous Disney shorts and even compared to later Disney movies in that the animation is very naturalistic uh like at least outside of the context of the dwarfs it is like the human characters are often rotoscoped I think they're almost entirely rotoscoped
00:23:18
Speaker
Yeah, and it's weird. It doesn't look Disney, you know? Yeah, exactly. I was going to say this one looks definitely different from even the movies that came soon after. But the things like Pinocchio and Cinderella look more like Renaissance Disney movies compared to this, which looks like.
00:23:36
Speaker
Well, it's funny because the rotoscoping gives it a very naturalistic because it is just people. They're just tracing over live action frames. But it also it's so like our eyes are so unused to seeing rotoscope animation that it looks bizarre. Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it's hard to make rotoscope look good in the way that like cartoons look good. It's hard to make. I guess I'll say it's hard to make rotoscope look appealing. And how much of that ideal do you think it looks good? Yeah, I was going to say a broad sense.
00:24:13
Speaker
How much of the idea of it being not appealing is just because it's not what we're used to, especially in a Disney movie. Like, it being separate from the norm makes it seem odd, but it's only odd because it's not, like, you know what I mean? Like, if they just kept doing it that way, would we just feel like, oh, that's normal?
00:24:28
Speaker
Rotoscoping does not emphasize the unique strengths of animation. Animation is able to, you know, squash and stretch reality, to emphasize things, to be cartoony. And when you're rotoscoping, it's a technique that you can use sometimes and people use well, especially when they kind of add embellish it, which they do in this movie.
00:24:52
Speaker
But like when you when a cartoon is doing realistic human motion, it just like it doesn't look as good as stuff that is made specifically to look good in animation. Yeah, it's like the difference to make a modern example, something like Monster House, which was done with motion capture. Yes. But is a CG cartoony.
00:25:16
Speaker
cartoon movie versus like more contemporary Disney animation, which is still, it's still hand animated in a general sense. And yeah, I think like motion capture in a cartoon does look more naturalistic, but there's still that kind of weird uncanny valley-ish divide between like, oh, the movement's really natural, but like the rest of the world is so heightened that it kind of,
00:25:44
Speaker
There's a there's a disconnect there. Yeah, I don't think that there is anything I don't think there's anything bad with the way that Snow White moves. I don't love the way that the prince looks. But I think that maybe the issue is that it doesn't feel always like she and the dwarfs are living in the same reality for sure.
00:26:04
Speaker
And as Disney's style kind of evolves over their next few movies, where everybody, all the human characters end up being a little more cartoony, it all feels more cohesive visually. I can buy that. For sure.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, this movie is pretty, pretty gorgeous to look at. It is very it is also like Disney has preserved this movie very well. So it's like there is like there is very, very good quality in terms of like watching it now compared to like.
00:26:38
Speaker
stars born which is like not as well preserved just as a as a thing to like put on the background maybe we should add this to our like put on the background playlist can't put this on youtube it's also it's not silent but um from a purely visual standpoint i think this movie holds up very well like it still looks very good
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think that and I think that says something as far as like that they were able to do something that we could look at now, like 37, as far as the animation is concerned. It's been so much advancement in techniques and stuff since they're like a good painting is a good painting. You know, it's like that's it, you know. Yeah.
00:27:15
Speaker
yeah it's um i mean a lot of the beauty of this movie is literally paintings like the background paintings for sure um but i i think like the the design of all the characters is still like like you were saying about appeal and animation like there's uh you know all the dwarfs have like unique character designs you can tell them apart
00:27:37
Speaker
Partially because of color. Yeah, not just because personality traits that literally named after.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah, all of all of the forest animals and all of the spooky stuff, the vultures who love drama. Like, yeah, this is just a it's a very it's very good look at the picture. I love the forest animals. I think the way that like there's so much scampering forest animals in this movie that are done are animated so well. They look so good. Yeah. And that's all animated. So yeah. Yeah.
00:28:14
Speaker
All of the forest animals nodding is like, I need a thousand gifts of that, in terms to exist. Do we want to talk about the plot of this movie? There's not a lot of plot in this movie, so we can probably go through it pretty quick. Evil Queen doesn't like that Ask Sameer, who's the fairest, Snow White, it turns out. She's also like, why does she care what this mirror's opinion is? Because who's to say who's the fairest, I say.
00:28:43
Speaker
Like just cause that, it's that mirror's opinion. Mirror of objectivity. I do wonder like, you know, they, they mentioned her snow white skin and by fairest, do they mean whitest? Like, is that, is that what the implication is? Who is the palest woman in all the land? I mean, that doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well. Probably not what they meant at the time, but looking back, there's clue. It might be actually what they meant at the time is the thing. Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
I mean, old European fairy tales not known for their diversity, I guess. For sure. And the witch doesn't like that, so she tries to kill Snow White, or yeah, the queen, the witch, in a very scary sequence. By getting Chris Hemsworth to stab her to death.
00:29:33
Speaker
proto Chris Hemsworth, and then she escapes and comes into a house that is unoccupied and dusty and dirty because it's a bachelor pad of seven boys. Just guys being dudes. And she's like, I'll clean up. Whistle while you work, everybody.
00:29:57
Speaker
And then the queen comes back and tries to, you know, makes her fall asleep and then the prince kisses her and she wakes up. The end. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. But yeah, there's a bunch of stuff with the dwarves, which is fun in animation because they're the most cartoony people, but they are the moments where they're like, you know, taking 10 minutes to wash their hands where it's like, all right, wrap it up, move forward.
00:30:23
Speaker
I guess it's like look at look at the we animated all the reflections on the water. Look at it There are a lot of like points where it's really spotlighting the reflection stuff I don't know what they're doing with that. It looks really strange and interesting Yeah, but there are a lot of like lingering shots of reflections in the water because they look cool and because I genuinely don't know how they did that optically like I
00:30:48
Speaker
If it's like a weird mirror thing, if it's like an extra layer that they add on top, that a shiny piece of paper used to say. There was all kinds of stuff that they were showing in the in the exhibit about like because it wasn't. I mean, obviously, I think that's the most famous one, the multiplane. But there was all kinds of different things that we're experimenting with. Would have been in. Yes.
00:31:08
Speaker
So many different ways that they could have done an individual shot. I do like the characterization that the the seven dwarves are all men. And so they they're all stinky and dirty and don't even know like how to bathe. The ultimate boys like the bachelor pattiness of it was something that I found very amusing. I'm just like, well, just we all got our beds up in the attic and.
00:31:37
Speaker
We go to work down at the mine. It's a podcast of men, everybody. Yeah. Is that the collective noun? It is, yes. Do we talk about HiHo now? Because I have a gripe about that song. I mean, I have thoughts about the music in general, but we can start with HiHo. Yeah. So. Stripe away. HiHo may be the most famous song from this film, very famous song in general, about going to work.
00:32:06
Speaker
it's off to work we go, they sing it when they're leaving work. They're going home. They say home from work we go. And then when they come back later, they say off to work we go. But the most iconic part of it is when they're saying that they're going home, for sure. Right. I was like, all right, here we go. Here's the song. Am I going to work? And then they're leaving work. That was jarring to me, too.
00:32:34
Speaker
You know, honestly, when I was a kid, I realized I didn't actually like make out what those words were. So it was like, hi ho, hi ho. Yeah. Like all songs when you're a kid. I don't know. They say a bunch of stuff. I don't know what they're saying. And honestly, one of the things that I really like about movies at this time in general, not just in singing, but even in the speaking, is how clear all the diction is. Like you can really compare to like
00:32:59
Speaker
you know, a rant that I could say about movies today where like things everybody's whispering and you can't understand it where anybody's saying unless you like. Mumblecore. Yeah, mumblecore. Exactly. Do you have something to say about the music, though? Well, not even necessarily about the music as music, about the way that the voice is, because I'm sure you've noticed that like Snow White has a very. Particular sound to her and she.
00:33:27
Speaker
Well, the thing about it is that it's interesting, right? Because I could talk all day about like the progression of like singing aesthetic over the course of the 20th century and how like.
00:33:37
Speaker
recording technology progression had a huge influence on what people's ears expected and were wanting to hear in singing, and how a lot of that came from the shift from everybody needing to be able to sing acoustically and project in order to be able to be viable at all in any space, to allowing a greater range of things, but that also taking away
00:34:03
Speaker
this certain aesthetic of like tonal ideal that had to go with the projection, like that's associated with anything. Anyway, not to go too much into that tangent, but a lot of the early voices in movies, including this one, or from that sort of like older, more like classical type of tradition. The funny thing about that is that even within that, like Snow White is a very like particular like,
00:34:29
Speaker
exaggerated form of this like very high Tweety sounding thing, right? But it's supposed to be evoking the same thing and what she's supposed to be evoking is the kind of singer that Janet McDonald is in in the Maytime, which is a classical sound, but this very kind of like higher showy kind of thing that is like associated with this kind of like girlish innocence.
00:34:51
Speaker
I don't even know too much about the singer who voiced Snow White, except that it's such an exaggerated form of it that it's almost like cartoony as a voice, even to somebody like me who is used to what it's going for, you know?
00:35:07
Speaker
Which is interesting because it creates this effect of being a cartoony voice within the singing. But not in a cartoony voice like a cartoon voice the way it would be like now, but a cartoony voice within a particular frame of reference.
00:35:27
Speaker
Like an exaggerated heightened version of a classical opera singer. Right, exactly. In a particular direction. It's funny because it's in the opposite direction of what our stereotype of an opera singer is now. Because now people associate it because of the...
00:35:44
Speaker
all the sort of high bright Broadway ish belty type sounds like people's ideas of an opera singer is like, oh, but that sort of like high Tweety sort of thing is not another version of that. Now that's the Snow White voice. It kind of is. Honestly, like I can't think of any other place where I've heard that kind of exaggeration in that direction than in her voice in this movie. And so it's a very kind of like,
00:36:11
Speaker
interesting historical artifact of a certain kind of effect that they were going for with, I mean, unless that was just the way that she sounded, but even in just casting her, like that was a deliberate thing, because, you know, the idea of like something in that direction that was less exaggerated would have been way more common back then, even then now. Yeah. Adriana Casalotti is the actor who played Snow White. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one time that they actually got an actual opera singer was for Sleeping Beauty with Mary Costa. Hmm.
00:36:41
Speaker
And so like that is like just not an exaggeration, just the sound, because she just sounded like... And then there was times when like Cinderella was, she was actually more of like a, I don't know, like jazz singer is the right way of putting it, but that sort of like softer, like it's not a classical full sound, but it was kind of a more like natural sounding, to put it that term, but it definitely sounds way more like classic sounding than
00:37:07
Speaker
then the chord of more poppy influenced belty type of sounds that became more than norm as time went by. And actually, even way past when that was normal, they were still kind of like referring back to that sort of aesthetic because it sounded like classic Disney. Now that's sort of like completely opera sounding, but still a little bit tinges of that, but was still part of the aesthetic of sounding like a Disney princess sound into the 90s.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah. It is. It is crazy how how much this maybe kind of like set a precedent for. Right. Like the Disney sound that Disney look like the tone of it. Yeah. Although I was surprised at kind of how how dark it gets in certain places like it's not. Yeah.
00:37:54
Speaker
It feels less squeaky clean than some Disney movies, honestly, because- A lot of these early ones had darkness to them. I mean, like, it's not like that they just gave that up right away after this, you know? Because this movie isn't necessarily for kids, right? Like, they're trying to be serious and tell a serious story for general audiences, but like, it's not like sanitized children's entertainment.
00:38:21
Speaker
Yeah. Necessarily. Which is what the term Disneyfied now tends to to connote. The connotation of that term is to be like. Now, now Disney has Deadpool, so they can do whatever the hell they want. True.
00:38:37
Speaker
I just want to talk about the scene where the queen makes the evil potion to turn her into an old lady and a poison apple because there's a bunch of great just like dark fantasy kind of details in there. She has a bunch of books that are like one of them is just disguises and then there's like witchcraft, curses, potions, but I like it. Disguises gets its own book.
00:39:02
Speaker
And then just like yeah all of the details of like she's putting mummy dust in the potion I'm like what where do you even get mummy dust first of all and mummy dust was a bit of a popular like health tonic I think in the 19th century or Yeah, like we gotta we gotta grind up some of these mummies that we stole
00:39:24
Speaker
I was thinking that moment when I was watching Wonka recently when he just like has all this random little vials all over the world. So he like somehow went and like got like bottled up like thundercloud or whatever. And I'm like, how did you get that? Willy Wonka would for sure have Mummy Dust lying around.
00:39:43
Speaker
It wraps up a lot of the story where Snow White eats the poison apple, goes to the sleep of death and needs to get kissed to be revived, and they cover a lot of that in text because it seems like
00:40:00
Speaker
It's like, it's the end of the movie. We got to wrap this up. We don't have a lot of budget for more animation. Just put some text on there. I was definitely surprised at how long the movie went before it got to the point and not like in the sense of lingering, but in the sense of like a bunch of the plot happens, then there's like no plot. And then they have to kind of wrap up the whole thing in the last, what, like 20 minutes or whatever.
00:40:22
Speaker
Seven minutes. So much plot, like 80 percent of the plot. That's an exaggeration. But like a lot of it gets like left to the end. It's like, oh, we have to finish this. Well, it's like the the dwarves building a Lenin style glass coffin. I don't think that there was a song for that. And so they're like, we don't need to show that.
00:40:42
Speaker
Looking at it from a modern perspective, I can definitely see the kind of the clunkiness of some of the storytelling, how long some of the scenes are. And it's like there's not it's mostly just there to like something to look at. Right. Or there's a song or whatever. But I do think it holds up pretty well just in terms of like.
00:41:02
Speaker
a piece of entertainment. It's pretty light, but I think some of the dark spooky scenes kind of break that up nicely. I think this is a cool movie. I'm glad that we watched it. Shall we move on to our next Technicolor picture? Sure. This is a movie about following your dreams no matter what the cost.
Exploring 'A Star Is Born'
00:41:28
Speaker
and you're gonna suffer while you're following your dreams, but that's okay. That's proper. I don't know if that's proper, but I like the thinking of it more as it's persevere through the hard times. No, the granny says... I think that's what they're going for. You're gonna suffer and you had better appreciate that suffering. That is also, I think, a fair read of this movie. This movie being A Star Is Born. The first one.
00:41:57
Speaker
The first one. You know, I got to say, I like until I saw it on your list, I didn't even realize that there was one before the Judy Garland one. So like, here I am. I think a lot of people don't. I think this movie gets kind of forgotten. I think this is this is definitely weirdly enough, even though it's the first one, I think it is the least well known of the four film versions of this story. Sure.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah, this one's an interesting film. It's got a lot of character actors that we've gotten to know actors and other character actors that we've seen in previous films, including Frederick March, who I who plays Norman Maine, who's the male lead of the movie. I didn't really like I had never heard of Frederick March before doing this show. And I am now realizing that he is like one of the
00:42:50
Speaker
more prolific and famous actors of the 1930s. I just think it's funny that we started with one of his first movies, which is The Wild Party, which is the Claribo silent two-color, two-strip pentacolor movie, which I think is only the second movie he's even billed in.
00:43:10
Speaker
And so for like this whole time, I've been like, Oh yeah, the guy from the wild party. And it's like, no, it's like, that's like his least well-known thing. It is like this, like very famous actor. The wild party's black and white. Was it? I thought that that was a, um, for whatever reason I had it in my head, that that was a, uh, early two strip painting color, but see.
00:43:34
Speaker
the memory. It goes so quickly. I mean, in this movie, he's kind of playing halfway between his character in Merrily We Go to Hell and his fun-loving character in Design for Living. He's goofy and having a good time, but also a drunk mess. Yeah. Right.
00:43:57
Speaker
I think they don't go quite as hard on like how much of a like destructive alcoholic he is in this movie. As in Merely go to hell comes close, maybe. I mean, they're definitely leaning into like, this is bad. This is a problem. Yeah. Also, to like, I mean, I actually haven't seen the two middle stars born to do girl in the Barbra Streisand ones. But like, I feel like compared to to think it's hard to not compare it to the
00:44:26
Speaker
the Lady Gaga one. Just like because it's like all the beats are the same, right? It seems tame in as far as like showing it a lot. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I don't know how much of that is just because of like the style of that time where things were not quite as like in your face as far as that is concerned. But maybe that's just my perception. You guys have a lot more.
00:44:49
Speaker
experience. There was quite a heavy moment at the end of this movie with relating to his alcoholism. Yes. Yes, that's true. That's true. I guess they don't they don't dwell on it as much. It's kind of like they show a little bit and then like you get the picture and that's enough and then they move on. It is. I feel like the movie will will bring it up and they kind of let you forget about it a bit. So then when it comes up again, you're like, oh, shit. Right. I forgot about this. Oh, yeah, this is this is a bad thing.
00:45:16
Speaker
I thought it was well told. I felt like the pacing of that was actually good. It's just like struck me as different. It has that more like direct like just to the point kind of style that I feel like like is different from like certain ways of doing things now or things are kind of like wrung out for more effect like sometimes. Yeah. The storytelling in this movie is pretty
00:45:38
Speaker
Pretty direct, I think that sums it up. There's not a lot of... This movie lets you know exactly how you're supposed to feel in every scene. It's very upfront with sort of like, this is what's going on. I mean, with The Grandma, it's like didactic too. It's like, this is what you should think. This is how you should believe. Like speaking direct, especially like the opening section of this movie.
00:46:01
Speaker
with Esther sort of like in the small, what is it, North Dakota town. I think the movie is at its clunkiest then when it's both grandma scenes. Honestly, I felt like that the one at the end, not like, yeah, but that having it at all was clunky, but that it felt like it was like it stood out about like how much it was belaboring one point. If I feel like that wasn't as much the case in between.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah, so this is the first Starsborne movie that I have seen. I have not seen any of the other three remakes of this. Chris, have you seen any of the other versions? I've also only seen the Lady Gaga one. OK, see, I haven't seen that one. It's funny because like I haven't seen the other ones, but I can tell like what some of the scenes are. There's like the classic Starsborne scenes like getting drunk at an award show saying, I just want to get another look at you. There's like although the line is different in this one.
00:46:57
Speaker
So it's funny just like through cultural osmosis. I'm like, yep, here's all the Star Wars born stuff happening. Making sloppy steaks. I immediately clocked that and I was like, I have to make a sloppy steaks joke on the show. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. Just dumping water on a steak.
00:47:16
Speaker
Let me clean off this steak here. She says it's infected, but she's just walking around and I was like, there's nothing going on. That bacteria is going to grow. 1930s, they didn't have a great idea of germ theory back then. Germs were still new. Yeah. The plot, I guess, is the.
00:47:38
Speaker
the classic showbiz story. I like the way that Starsborn framed it where it's like we're seeing a star being born simultaneously to a star sort of losing his luster and popularity. Like the sort of up and downs meeting in the middle sort of structure works very well. Well, it's also, it's powerful the fact that they're like in relation with each other and it's not just two things.
00:48:07
Speaker
parallel. Yeah. Yeah. I was struck while watching it again because I mean, again, having seen the other one, it's not like the story was new. But knowing in my back of my mind, even having not seen it, that Barbara Streisand made one, it's like how there's parallels with Funny Girl.
00:48:25
Speaker
as far as like that structure is of like the stars, you know, you know, one going up and then the other kind of going down in the sense of like, how you saying it's like, this is the first stars, the stars more than they made three remakes. But that story also has existed in other forms, and there is kind of a kind of opishness to it. The Judy Garland one is also about Hollywood, right?
00:48:48
Speaker
and not music. I think it might be a singer for the other ones. Oh, really? So this is the only one that's about a movie star as opposed to a music star. I believe so. Because I think that the general kind of showbiz, a boom and bust sort of like career high and low thing
00:49:11
Speaker
is like a very, even in 1937 is like a very old kind of plot framework, right? Like there was that movie from I think the 1910s about like moving to New Jersey to be a movie star.
00:49:27
Speaker
like before Hollywood was even a thing. So I mean, I think that the difference, though, is that like those movies are about an individual being corrupted by Hollywood. Right. Like it's about an individual rise and fall rather than this like juxtaposed thing. Yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker
Which I think is what kind of sets it apart and why I think this one kind of stands the test of time more than a lot of those other ones is because that plot structure works so well and keeps you really... I dunno, it's a very compelling way to frame a story, I think.
00:50:02
Speaker
For sure. Yeah. I think it creates some interesting dynamics between the two characters and subtleties and their interactions with each other that you wouldn't get if this was all just happening to one person. Right. The contrast, they set each other off. You can kind of see both characters better in relation to the other.
00:50:25
Speaker
Mm hmm. I mean, why? I mean, it's not only that it was I don't think necessarily that it was remade three times just because, oh, people want to see another Starsborne movie like for the IP, you know, it was I think it was these very, very famous people. Like, I mean, it's hard to find bigger stars than Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand and Lady Gaga. And they clearly reacted to the material, you know. Hey, Janet Gaynor, too. Yeah. Well, I'm going to say I'm talking about the remakes, but yes.
00:50:55
Speaker
Poor Janet Gaynor started off this thing and Janet Gaynor, the first person ever in history to win the Best Actress Oscar, which she won for three movies because it was a collective 1927 through 29, I think. And it was like, just give her an Oscar for four movies that she did over that period of time. Yeah, it's funny how this movie is
00:51:24
Speaker
Easily the least well known of all of them. Yeah. And it's a bit of because I think that the only other Janet Gayner movie that I had seen was Sunrise, which is one of the movies that she won Best Actors for, which is a silent movie. And I think she's very good in. But I think this I.
00:51:44
Speaker
As an acting showcase, this movie is, I think, does a really good job because she gets all of the dramatic shit to do, but also like gets to do impressions of other contemporary Hollywood actors and things like there's I was like, I could watch this forever because it's like I'm not used to seeing that in. Am I used to seeing people doing impressions of other actors from like this time period, I guess?
00:52:11
Speaker
This movie has like so much of other movies in it, you know, including a poster for Maytime. Yeah, which I didn't use that. Wait, when was that? When she's when she first shows up in Hollywood and she's going to the Chinese theater, one of the posters outside the theater is for Maytime.
00:52:31
Speaker
I didn't notice that. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because I had never heard of Maytime until you brought it up. And then now it's like, oh, yeah, it's in a star is born also like this was a and it was not made for much Oscars and things to like. Yeah, exactly. It was a it was a big contemporary hit for sure. Yeah. So that was I was like, oh, another movie that we're watching. And a lot more to say about Maytime when we get there. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. I didn't notice that. I do like the the
00:53:00
Speaker
when she first shows up to Hollywood with stars in her eyes, and she gets an apartment. And the apartment listing says, no cowboys. Which I was like, was that a big problem in 1930s Hollywood? Yeah, what does that mean? Cowboys were just showing up out of the desert. Like, I need an apartment. I wonder if it was like a figurative thing. Like, don't be a cowboy, you know? But I'm not sure. No cowboy shit allowed.
00:53:29
Speaker
One of the things that I thought was kind of strange about the Maytime poster is that Maytime is made by MGM. This is like Selznick and United Artists. You'd think that in a modern day movie, if there's a movie poster in the background of a movie, you know it's going to be a movie from the same studio. Or it'll be a fake movie. Yeah.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if that was just that was the poster that was there on the day that they went to the Chinese theater. I have to imagine that's what it was. They weren't like renting out the like the outside of the theater. They weren't like putting up their own posters. They're like, no, like it's down the street. Let's go there and shoot the scene. I mean, but they did put like, you know, a fake concrete concrete footprint and signature in there. Sure.
00:54:17
Speaker
Yeah. So there was an amount of state which I think it would be funny to like go there. And there is a a Norman Maine name. And yeah, I think that'd be funny. When they first introduced Norman Maine, I was like, I was like, wait, like Norman Maine, like, have I heard of him? Like, what's he in? Because I was going to ask you guys if all the other names at the beginning of the movie were real people, because I think other than Norman Maine, they're all real.
00:54:46
Speaker
real actors. Yeah. Yeah, I figured that they were. I just had I, you know, I'm not as versed in that time, not recognize a lot of them. But I mean, Frederick March is who plays and remain was like a he was a pretty big deal. So it was like he was a recognizable movie star at this point, for sure. A bit of stunt casting there, I guess, to sort of like, you know who this is, right? Like, yeah, yeah.
00:55:12
Speaker
be able to, you know, portray that like big movie star. And so then to feel that the fall more so it's not just some random getting drunk. There's so many movies about kind of like old Hollywood or like 1930s, 40s Hollywood that like it's interesting to see it being portrayed at this at the time of like what's a movie that is being made about the industry at the time?
00:55:37
Speaker
kind of saying about it and how are they showing it. And it is like, there's a lot of romanticism, but there is a lot of like, I kind of like how much this movie is like, it's a job. Like you show up to work and you get a paycheck. I don't know. It's kind of trying to strip away some of the romanticism from it also of just like, oh, you want to audition for a movie? Get in line. We're backed up by like a year.
00:56:02
Speaker
I love that sign that they had when she first gets to the studio where it was like, do you understand figures? That's that's such an insane sign. Like there's there's a sign at Central Casting or whatever that's just like, remember, like you're nobody and no one cares. Like, like, like, yes, you're here to follow your dreams, but crush them right now. Like what a weird thing to happen to have.
00:56:28
Speaker
I mean, hey, in your hiring office, if that gets rid of like 70 percent of your people, then you have enough people that you can actually hire after that. So they're like, I'll just go back to North Dakota. Right. And I like that probably happens. There are probably people that move to Los Angeles to be like, I'm going to work in showbiz and are just like, get discouraged immediately because someone's like, you shouldn't be here. Yeah. But her granny told her, stick to it, even when your husband is shot.
00:56:56
Speaker
And move on the next day and press forward. There's an early bit where they're they're shooting her screen test. Like she gets a job through. She meets Norman, Norman Maine at a at a house party and they they bond over smashing dishes and generally being kind of irreverent. Frederick March gets to show off his his his his drunk act as he is is well known for at this point.
00:57:25
Speaker
And she gets a screen test to be in the pictures. And there's a very bad assistant camera person who does not do soft sticks when doing the slate. I had to point that out because I'm like, that guy, he's bad at his job. I mean, it's to show like how kind of like how much of an ingenue she is that it's like they slate in front of her and it like scares her. And I'm like, it is literally the assistant camera's job not to scare people when doing that.
00:57:53
Speaker
I feel like the showbiz stuff is a lot of Act 1. Act 2 is a lot of... is kind of more of a relationship drama.
00:58:00
Speaker
The showbiz stuff is kind of more of a backdrop to that. Concerns, yeah, just like their honeymoon, their relationship and that kind of thing. It's a lot of awkward interactions between the two of them as she is kind of it doesn't deal with the showbiz stuff so much, but you can see that she's getting more popular and he isn't getting less popular. And it's sort of grating on the two of them. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it's like.
00:58:24
Speaker
He is sort of very, he's a very prideful movie star in that he likes people recognizing him when he's like, oh, I can't go out there. People will recognize me too much. And then he goes out and no one knows who he is. He's forgotten immediately once he's not making movies anymore. And that is very hurtful to him. Really, a lot of his self-image is tied up in that thing of people know me, people love me.
00:58:52
Speaker
for sure. And when when that starts to go away, that is like you see how much of like his own self worth is tied up in that. I thought the role of the publicist guy was interesting because it kind of showed that whole dynamic also where like he was making a lot of people mad, but people put up with him because he was popular. And then when he wasn't popular, they realized all the people who were surrounding him actually hated his guts.
00:59:16
Speaker
That guy, the publicity guy, who is also the publicity guy in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, basically playing the same character.
00:59:28
Speaker
I I love that that actor. I forget his name. His name is Lionel Stander. Lionel Stander is the best. He's I think I said it on the Mr. Deeds episode like he's the most 1930s actor possible. Like he's this guy could only exist in the 1930s.
00:59:47
Speaker
But I love how mean he is in this movie. At first, it's like, oh, he's like the snarky. Right. He's kind of a snarky guy. And then like as the movie goes on, they just double down. Like this guy is a huge asshole. Yeah. To the point where after spoilers, Norman Maine walks into the ocean.
01:00:08
Speaker
and dies, it cuts to him getting a haircut. And he's like, hey, I wish I could give an Academy Award to the Pacific Ocean. It's like the first drink of water he had in three months. And he's just cracking jokes about this guy drowning. They give him a whole scene just for him to make a bunch of mean jokes about this guy dying.
01:00:37
Speaker
just as like a wrap-up to be like, hey, remember this asshole? Lionel Stander, great character actor. I want him to be in every movie you watch from now on. And always playing the same character because he's two for two. I mean, I think that we could talk about the color, this being the first
01:00:59
Speaker
live action technicolor film that we have watched for the show. And not the first one, sorry, the first three strip technicolor. It's not the first three strip technicolor, but it's the first one we're watching for the show. It's probably, you know, one of the early big ones, I would say. It's the first box office success in. Yeah.
01:01:19
Speaker
The color is a little weird in this movie. There are aspects of this movie that are really getting at the poppy, saturated colors of that classic era of three-strip technicolor.
01:01:36
Speaker
And so there are some really vibrant blues and greens, but there's a lot of it that is very saturated, but kind of low contrast. So it has this
01:01:51
Speaker
sort of weird look to it that I think that like later technicolor stuff like Wizard of Oz, for example, like it's very saturated and high contrast and bright. And so like the colors really sing. Whereas this one, it's like sometimes they do. Sometimes it looks a little muddy, I think.
01:02:10
Speaker
It often looks muddy. I think a lot of this has to do with the preservation because the version of this movie that is available to watch on streaming that I assume is the same if you buy it on a disc is also very grainy and has
01:02:27
Speaker
like film problems in it. Like there's parts where you can see the three colors separating. Which I don't know if that's just like, because it was like three layers printed together and like glued into a single strip of film, if it's just like, it's old and they're like coming apart and they don't line up perfectly anymore. I have to imagine this movie looked a lot better if you were watching it like opening weekend.
01:02:53
Speaker
I mean, it's possible, but it's also possible that because this is an early three strip Technicolor movie, they just kind of like donked it up a little bit, you know? Very true. Yeah. It might have just been the process. Like they they didn't. It wasn't quite as streamlined and it was a little a little jankier. Yeah. A lot of like bleeding around the edges from like colors not being aligned quite right. And and yeah, I think just the the contrast is like a real issue through the whole movie where it just looks
01:03:22
Speaker
muddy a lot of the time yeah yeah and also like allen you were saying how like this movie doesn't really showcase the color very much there's there's no scenes of like oh my god look at the color in the scene right it doesn't necessarily strike me as a movie that like
01:03:42
Speaker
needed to be in color is what it felt. It was like not that it was worse because it was in color, but it was like if it wasn't black and white, I don't think it would have changed my opinion of the movie at all. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think there was something kind of refreshing about that, too, that it isn't like leaning into it too much. It isn't. It doesn't have a bunch of scenes that are just like and now they go look at the cherry blossoms because we have to.
01:04:04
Speaker
You know, the one scene that I think, thinking back, that I think was more effective than it really could have been, at least the way that they shot it, in black and white, is the scene where he walked into the ocean. Because that scene, like, I don't know how they could have done, like, that sunset, the way it looked, that really gave this kind of ver, like, this is also, like, the sunset of his life. It was a lot of, like, little stuff you could read at that moment. Sunsets are something that...
01:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, that don't read quite the same in black and white. It's for sure. That was a really nice moment. But it wasn't like a million colors. It was just like enough color for that. But it wasn't color at all added to that. But besides that, I can't think of any specific moments that I was like, oh, the colors there were like so cool, you know, that also that is a good example of like storytelling through color of like
01:04:50
Speaker
We've all, I mean, hopefully we've all seen sunsets. Right. We know and it's like sunsets evoke an emotion. Yeah. Right. Like just inherently. And so, yeah, I think that that is definitely an example of like that probably wouldn't hit as hard in black and white.
01:05:08
Speaker
When I was trying to look this movie up to watch it, I was getting a note. I'm like, where's the black and white version? I'm like, oh no, this is a Technicolor movie. It's supposed to be in color. Because I see all these screenshots of muddy colors. I'm like, oh, this is the colorized version or whatever. Because that happens a lot too. You look something up on Amazon and you have to scroll through the menus to find
01:05:32
Speaker
Like it's a wonderful life in black and white. Really? Oh, my God. Yeah, there's like separate entries. And so it's like.
01:05:40
Speaker
The one that's just it's a wonderful life is the colorized one. And then it's like it's a wonderful life black and white version. I'm like, no, that's the movie. Oh, come on. Amazon. I mean, speaking of the color again, like the way that the color was kind of crappy in this movie was evocative of those like disgusting A.I. colorization things that they have. It's not nearly that bad.
01:06:06
Speaker
It's not nearly that bad, but it's like it shared some similar tendencies of kind of pulsing at points and things kind of bleeding from one color to the next in weird ways.
01:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, it looks colorized, even though it isn't. One quick note, Alan, you were saying that you were saving some notable lines from this movie. I had two specific ones that I wrote down. I wonder if they're the same ones that I wrote down. Did I say mine? So the two that I wrote down were nothing like rum to take away the milk flavor. I don't know why that tickled me. And then tastes change like eyebrows.
01:06:51
Speaker
There were a lot of other good ones, but those two, I was just like, I don't know why I love those so much. It's funny that they bring up the eyebrows thing because women's eyebrows in the 1930s were bizarre. There was a weird trend, I feel like, of women's eyebrows being incredibly heightened. There's a lot of weird eyebrow shit going on in the 1930s where people had very particular eyebrow taste in terms of popular celebrities and things.
01:07:18
Speaker
I don't know what was going on there. And there's a whole eyebrow scene in this movie. Yeah. And they, like, mention it. So, you know.
01:07:26
Speaker
That's good. I mean, there were the aforementioned very mean things that Lippy says at the end. Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's also fairly early on when Norman is helping Esther put away all the dishes. And it's like his girlfriend or our current wife or someone walks in, it's like, Norman, what are you doing? It's like, oh, it's my old mania for putting away dishes, says Chris, returned.
01:07:53
Speaker
It's such a like throwaway line, but it's like one of the funniest things in the whole movie to me anyway Anything it is a great example of like
01:08:02
Speaker
Frederick March humor, like the way that I think in comedies, he tends to play funny characters that don't necessarily like announce themselves as funny. He's good at like dry humor like that. He also orders a scotch and soda. It's like they put in like a massive amount of scotch, an entire like high glass full of scotch and then like a drip of soda at the end. He's like perfect.
01:08:30
Speaker
Right away you're like, oh man, this guy is, he's got a bit of an issue with this alcohol thing. Leave the bottle. I just also like think it's funny that they're like Esther Victoria Blodgett. That's not a good Hollywood name. We need something sleek and sexy. It's like Vicki Lester. Yeah. No.
01:08:53
Speaker
No offense to any Vicki Lester's out there, but I don't know. It doesn't really seem like a very appealing name. I mean, yeah, it sounds more like a movie star name than than Esther Blodgett does, but it is. Yeah, that that press agent guy isn't doing his job particularly well. No, he's got to spend more time thinking of good movie star names and less time thinking of mean insults for people he doesn't like.
01:09:21
Speaker
And then the one thing that I wanted to call attention to was how Norman has a little cigarette grabber machine. I also wrote that down. The little penguin cigarette dispenser. Yeah, it's like a little bird that comes and picks up the cigarette and then gives it to him and he takes it out of the bird's mouth.
01:09:46
Speaker
There is like I do not condone smoking cigarettes or nicotine products of any of any type I think is bad and people shouldn't do it I think the the like cigarette culture of the early 20th century is something that is like Like cigarette holders and like dispenser like novelty dispensers and things I wish that there was a way to like repurpose those or just like
01:10:12
Speaker
like there's so many those like weed is what people I was gonna say I guess so yeah but it's like why don't why don't you see like a little penguin dispenser things like that anymore cuz we used to live in a society Glenn right I don't know it's just like there's I I feel like I see a lot of things like that in in movies from this era and I'm like dang it I want a little penguin guy that
01:10:36
Speaker
It gives me cigarettes. It's like a Pez dispenser, but for unhealthy things. For death sticks. Yeah. As if Pez were healthy. I mean, healthier than cigarettes. Well, we're moving from a movie that is about, it's okay for your lover to die if it means that your career will be advanced.
01:10:59
Speaker
I don't think that that's the message they're trying to impart. To a movie that is definitely trying to impart the message of give up your dreams to be with a man. Don't give up your career, actually.
01:11:14
Speaker
I also think that is maybe, maybe not the most generous reading of the messaging of this movie.
Introduction to 'Maytime'
01:11:22
Speaker
Let's just say that they have opposite perspectives and you know like reality and the extreme necessarily is like true in all cases but there's validity to each side because they're clearly presenting some people's experience. They're definitely an interesting pairing of movies because there's a lot of crossover between them.
01:11:39
Speaker
This one you brought to us, Alan. I did. I mean, partially. Tell us a little bit about Maytime. So should I start with the plot? I mean, the plot is pretty broad strokes. Give people an idea of like what. Oh, without necessarily going into the whole like framing device or anything. Basically, the big opera star goes and going to get married to her benefactor teacher person and.
01:12:05
Speaker
Right after she agrees to do that, she meets this poor singing student and realizes that she's actually in love with him but decides to not be with him because she doesn't want to hurt her benefactor person. Years later, they meet in a production of an opera. She decides that she's going to leave her husband for him and her husband goes and shoots the guy and she spends the rest of her life regretting it.
01:12:32
Speaker
That's basically the story. A very operatic story. It's a very operatic story. The reason I brought it up was not as much for the plot as much as that. It's one particularly prominent example of a very famous pairing that they made of Janet McDonald and Nelson Eddie as the two stars. Obviously, they were both actors and I think they were both pretty dang good actors, but they were I mean,
01:12:57
Speaker
They are more prominently remembered by people like me who are for them as singers who are both opera singers. Funnily enough in their biographies, I think this is right. Janet McDonald didn't have
01:13:11
Speaker
much of an opera career before he started starring in the movies, but Nelson Eddy did. He was singing pretty actively as an opera singer throughout the 20s when he was young, he was in his 20s. Then when they started making movies together, and they both made movies with other people too, but they're most known for the movies they did together, they became huge stars.
01:13:34
Speaker
Like as you said like this one was nominated for Oscars like several of their movies had been nominated for Oscars One of their movies that they made two years before and I think 35. I think actually won the Oscar for Best Picture I Think they made like 10 plus movies And at one point in the early 40s Nelson Eddie was the highest-paid singer on the planet dang
01:13:56
Speaker
like just of all singers and everything. And he kept that title until Frank Sinatra took it from him in like the 50s. Yeah. So Nelson Eddy was a big deal. It doesn't show up in this movie, but he later became also known because he contributed a lot to like advances in recording technology, like multitrack recording. He had like his own equipment that he kept at home, that he experimented with for fun. He was invited by, I think it was Warner
01:14:20
Speaker
I think I forget if it was Disney or Warner Brothers to make this animated movie about an operatic singing whale where he did every single voice and sang in like harmony with himself, which was a thing that was like not a big thing until he did it. And they did it like this. And it's like a 15 minute little short. I think it was in the late 40s that that got made. But it's worth checking out. So they were very significant figures. Funnily enough, when I mentioned this movie, I kind of like conglomerated two of their movies into one because it was a scene. I was like, when is that scene coming? And it's actually another.
01:14:49
Speaker
I guess this thirty nine movie they made called Alega. But this one I like because I do think that the plot actually highlights a lot of the typical like Janet McDonald and Nelson Eddy sort of tropes. A lot of them have to do with singers like the or performers of some kind. A lot of the stories, because it's a lot of it is it's excuse to have them like singing and interacting with each other. And we were talking about like or you were mentioning the super extended music scenes.
01:15:20
Speaker
The one that ends, that is near the end of this one, where they make a fake opera out of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, that lasts for like 20 minutes, is such a over-the-top thing that is really typical of the kind of thing that they would do in these things, because it really just showcases for that, you know what I mean? This movie's a bit of a jukebox opera, isn't it? In a sense. I mean, a lot of the movies sort of are, though, and they weren't the only ones who were making stuff like this.
01:15:49
Speaker
Um, but they were some of the early huge successes in that job. And there was movies made like in that vein where it was like, I mean, even not necessarily opera stars, but it's not that different from like the Bing Crosby movies that got made like 10 years later. Or, I mean, I think this movie reminded me of just because of recency bias, I guess, is the like Jean Arthur, uh, Fred Astaire movies.
01:16:12
Speaker
right like i think there's a lot of crossover between this and top hat especially in kind of like the romantic pairing and sort of like how that is portrayed almost absolutely um i just think it's funny that like the austere rogers thing is like it's a romantic comedy and then there's a bunch of dancing whereas this is like a romantic
01:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, comedy, drama. And then it's like, and then there's a bunch of singing like there. There's a similar kind of I guess that was just a much more common thing in the 1930s. It's like we found two people that work really well together on screen. They're going to do 20 movies together.
01:16:46
Speaker
For sure. Also, I mean, like in the history of singing in the way that I think of it, World War II-ish time, not because of the war, but like just that time is a big turning point in like aesthetics for singing. And I think it's not a coincidence that like this style of movie became big, but it got adapted. And the thing is it just being two opera singers or even just an opera singer as being the steady of it, there's only one equivalent after
01:17:12
Speaker
World War two in that main of it being like an opera singer and not somebody like for the stair or the choreographer is that's Mario Lanza in the 50s Right. Yeah, it really does feel like like having a musical with opera singing is very Very different from what you would normally see but a lot of these were based on operettas They were based on actual stage pieces not this one. Mm-hmm
01:17:35
Speaker
But like Noni Marietta, for example, which is the one that they won the Oscar for in 35, was based on a Victor Herbert operetta. Like it was an actual stage piece that they made. I mean, they adapted a ton for the movie and I didn't pick that one because it's super dated. The story is like not we watch it with different eyes now. I think much more so than this one, for example. I thought that this was based on an operetta.
01:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, it says Maytime by Sigmund Romberg. Oh, so I know I saw that the music was was Romberg, but I didn't realize that it was also a stage one. And then a lot of according to Wikipedia, it is it greatly resembles the Noel Coward operetta bittersweet, which is funny because three years later MGM made a movie, a bittersweet with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald.
01:18:21
Speaker
Oh, interesting. But they changed it so that wouldn't be too similar to this movie. Yeah. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on, like the idea of it just being a movie version of the stage play and it being like really the same.
01:18:34
Speaker
not always the case but things kind of like being taken like the source material being taken from that and the vibe being there of it being like these opera because again that's what people were used to seeing these singers in all some of the people who are like the opera singers if they were not like singing operas their version of light stuff that they could was
01:18:56
Speaker
things like the Broadway musicals, and that style of singing was much closer to opera singing. And so from today's perspective, those things are more like operettas, because the difference between those genres of like the musical and an operetta is more to do with the style of the music than with anything about the way that the storytelling or the way that the pieces are structured.
01:19:19
Speaker
So we call them operettas, but they were really musicals. It was just that they were written for like the kind of performing forces that normally today would be thought of as opera, you know, like a full orchestra and like classically trained voices. But they have dialogues, they're not operas. So it's this operetta idea. But like if you look at the way that the whole like dialogue and song and dialogue and song and the way that the stories are structured and everything, it's not that different from the musicals that were equivalently timed.
01:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I know so little about the state of like theatrical entertainment from especially like the 1930s because it's like post vaudeville is like still around, but it's kind of dying out. Right. Right. Like opera is a thing. But like did musicals exist at this time period? Yeah, totally.
01:20:09
Speaker
But in what, I don't know, it's like the theater of the 1930s is something that I'm like, I feel like I have no frame of reference for. It's an interesting transitional period, right? Because like the 20s was that whole like Ziegling-Folley's thing where it was like not plot based really. I mean, there were plots. It was really about the spectacle. A lot of reviews. Big numbers and big like, you know, like novelty acts and like it really was a very
01:20:32
Speaker
the vaudeville side of it was very prominent. And then there was this thing in the 30s where they didn't have the budget to do the big giant things anymore because of the depression. So there was still that sort of sense. They didn't really know what to replace it with, but there was a little bit more austerity.
01:20:49
Speaker
And the idea of like really having figured out the what they call like the just the idea of it being like a coherent thing where all the elements were working together to tell like one coherent story is credited to Rogers and Hammerstein with Oklahoma in 1941.
01:21:06
Speaker
So it took them the 30s of just like figuring it out. In the meantime, there was like little experiments and I, you know, I don't believe in like the, you know, everything was nothing and then out of nowhere Oklahoma comes, right? There was nothing, then it was Oklahoma. There was a remnant of people like trying things out and trying to introduce more plot and more story and more like substance.
01:21:29
Speaker
the years leading up to that. I think it's obvious that that's the case because things aren't created in a vacuum. And I think things like this sort of show that. Clearly, there's some of it that's just come out of nowhere. But there's moments where the musical elements within this movie do kind of advance the plot in some sense. I think one mistake, if I were to have made this movie now, I probably would have
01:21:53
Speaker
tried to would have either made that opera that they did like in English rather than in French for no reason or like translate it so that people could like because there's some sense where a lot of it is just kind of cliche I mean it was the version that we watched like had like the subtitles in French of like what words they were actually singing so I could sort of make out what it was and a lot of it is like the sort of the cliche like I love you or I'm gonna die or I'm gonna go back from my country or whatever but there's a certain amount where like that would have been an opportunity to like show the parallels and there was a little bit of that
01:22:22
Speaker
between the actual story of the show, of the movie, I mean, and what that show they did. Because that was the one time that it wasn't an actual song. They had some original songs that were for the movie, like the Virginia Ham song. That wasn't from an opera?
01:22:47
Speaker
But they had this opera medley, which is that was one of the things I was like, oh, I forgot about this opera medley, like when he like it's all about ham and eggs and stuff, but it's like they go through like 20 different operas in like three minutes when he went out. I think I picked up a couple just based on like melodies alone, I could pick up occasional just like, oh, that's definitely they're they're sort of quoting from. Yeah.
01:23:10
Speaker
an actual opera piece there. The song that he's singing, like the first song when she goes into the bar, I'm pretty sure is original. Like I didn't recognize it about prima donnas prima donnas. Yeah.
01:23:23
Speaker
Which I was going to say, like I remember this is after code, right? So certain of those things, I was like, oh, wow, this is like not like too crazy. But like I wasn't I didn't remember that from the first time that I saw. I feel like the code didn't really stop innuendo whatsoever. It really it I think the things that it seemed to crack down on mostly was things like the portrayal of criminals and law enforcement was like very like you can't have criminals win
01:23:50
Speaker
And
1930s Film Tropes and Themes
01:23:51
Speaker
like there was like strict no no's on like nudity and things like that, which didn't show up a lot in movies already anyway, but I was surprised at his drawing. But he was like drawing it on the wall. Yeah, I just I didn't remember that.
01:24:05
Speaker
It was it was been a while since I had seen it. So I was like, oh, wow. I didn't remember. Which is I like that introduction to Nelson 80s character. He's what's his character's name? Paul, I think. All Allison. Paul Mwadeeb. Yeah, exactly. I think they kind of reminded me of like the Fred Astaire movies or even maybe kind of like William Powell or somebody is like the 1930s love a love a stinker as a as a like a lead character like.
01:24:31
Speaker
I mean, he's kind of more amoral in this movie than I think that most of these stinker characters that we're used to. With the stealing of the tickets and the, I don't know, probably would not fly today sort of doggedness with which he pursues her. Yeah. His way of flirtation is basically to grab someone and then refuse to let go until they promise to go out with them, which I think is
01:25:00
Speaker
Bold, bold move.
01:25:02
Speaker
I don't I don't condone that as as a method of courtship. I think probably not. So it's really like a backfire. Watching this, like also like right back to back with with stars born, like obviously it's another level of exaggeration in this one. But elements of those sorts of things in that other movie, too. Yeah. Yeah. But there's like basically think like I don't know like how much of a sample size we need to be able to see like whether like how much of that was just like the norm. Norman Maine also a bit of a stinker. Yeah.
01:25:32
Speaker
And maybe that was the idea, like you were saying, if the idea is like, oh, people like a stinker. They like a bit of a reverence, I think. I feel like that was sort of a 1930s thing of like, they want someone to kind of deflate the pomp and circumstance of these people. I feel like in 1930s, wanted to see movies that took place in high society in like rich, expensive, lavish places. But they also wanted at least one character to kind of like be there and be like, look at all these goof them up.
01:26:02
Speaker
They wanted someone to kind of take the, the, the pump out of it a bit. Right. And so I think a little bit of that stuff can be sort of chopped up to that for sure. And it's funny because like part of me is like, is the idea supposed to be also that we so want her to not be with Nikolai, like John Barrymore's character at like, we don't mind that he's doing that because like, oh, should we want her to be with him anyway? Because it's kind of like in some sense, that's like didn't work out well because John Barrymore is just such a charismatic
01:26:32
Speaker
presence. I think there are other movies that have like love triangle situations like oh there are there are other movies with love triangles but like that literally the oldest trick in the book almost well now stepping on a hose is the oldest trick in the book but
01:26:49
Speaker
It is, like, love triangles are such a ubiquitous thing. I think in other movies that have relationship dynamics like this, they do a bit more to make you want to hate the guy that she's leaving, right? Yeah. Where in this movie, like, he's not, he's not that bad. He's fine. No, exactly. Up until the end.
01:27:10
Speaker
Well, I think it's interesting that it's a thing where it really is ambiguous. You're not sure whether you want her to go with him. And then you're suddenly like he goes and shoots him and you're like, oh, wow. OK, so clearly that was there. And it kind of makes you I think it's on some level, it makes the viewing experience a little bit more interesting to like not necessarily.
01:27:29
Speaker
feel like you're clearly rooting for one another. Well, it's just situationally, I feel like Nikolai is set up to kind of be an easy villain, right? He's this like, like, benefactor guy who is sort of like leading her into stardom in opera.
01:27:46
Speaker
Marcia. Marcia, Marcia. And I feel like that is kind of a stock character already. And I think this movie almost goes out of its way to kind of soften him to be like he he he says frequently he's like I know that you don't like owe me anything.
01:28:05
Speaker
Or he's like, I know that I have no right to ask this from you, but would you like to get married? He's a lot more respectful than the other guy. Yeah, exactly. And that's an interesting contrast. And then it's but it's this thing where it's like he's almost this kind of stock villain character, but he the movie does so much kind of make him seem like, oh, he actually seems like he might just be kind of a good dude.
01:28:29
Speaker
Yeah. And then the end, it's like, nope, never mind. Right. It's not a good dude. Like I said, I think that that detail might have been a little bit why I remember this movie having more depth than some of the other movies that some of the other yet at McDonald's and any movies that I've seen, because the fact that he's not just like, oh, he's just like, you know,
01:28:47
Speaker
that the guy who she doesn't actually want to be with, even though like the one. Yeah. He's not just a shitty one. And doesn't Eddie isn't just a good one either. Like the fact that there's complexity there, I think makes it easier for us to feel why she's in such conflict. Yeah. Yeah. Just go with him. Like, you know, it's that kind of thing.
01:29:06
Speaker
You've seen that a million times. This, I think, is a little bit more where, like, clearly, like, the plot tells us that she wants to that she's going to want to go with Nelson Eddie. Also, the fact that it's Nelson Eddie. But they also got a big star to be the other guy, because I'm pretty sure we're already a big deal by then. Oh, yeah, for sure. Is this the first time we've talked about any of the Barrymore sort of acting dynasty?
01:29:27
Speaker
I mean, did we do any Lionel movies? Yeah, we did. I mean, we we I mean, we talked about it when I think we saw Lionel Barrymore as a little like like a drifter hobo type in a D.W. Griffith movie in like 1912 or something like that. I think this might be the first John Barrymore picture that we've seen possibly. Yeah, I don't know. Worth mentioning the whole Barrymore
01:29:52
Speaker
It's to me that I think he did really add a lot to this movie. Like having weight and like a fully rounded ending in that role, I think gives the whole story that could have really easy been like just as much fluff as any other one of these things, a little bit more weight to it. Because it's the thing. I think he has such a face of a villain almost. Like he has this great kind of scowl that he puts on for a lot of the movie. But whenever he talks, he's like very soft.
01:30:20
Speaker
and sort of like calm. He's not he's not yelling. He's not he's not seething, really. And and yeah, until until the end. It's like, oh, no. Here we go.
01:30:31
Speaker
And yeah, that contrast also with Nikolai, John Barrymore's character, is he's such this kind of high society, well-mannered, wealthy, sophisticated guy. And then Nelson Eddy's character, he's more of a bad boy.
01:30:50
Speaker
Right. Well, he's like he's like the I mean, I don't know if it's the right word, but he's like he's like the hick. He is that comes from like the little country thing, which supposedly they connect because that's where she comes from, too. Right. They're both from Alabama or whatever. Virginia. So, yeah, like the character dynamics, I think, are such that a sort of like predictable kind of like like trophy plot, I think, I think.
01:31:15
Speaker
is overcome a little bit because of how interesting the interplay is. Even though he lives in this crummy apartment with his music teacher in Paris above a bar, which I feel like that is a trope-y thing too. I mean, it's designed for living, right? Chris opens with the two men are roommates, trying to make it in life, living in Paris.
01:31:41
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. In Paris, too. That's right. Like I think that's sort of like a thing, too, of like roommates living in Paris trying to like break into showbiz. It being that is that like a love thing? Is that like does that come? I feel like that seems like almost I mean, it has roots in opera also.
01:32:01
Speaker
I mean, I'm not sure if Boém even is the first is the only example of that. But I think there's a sort of Bemian romanticism to Paris, being like this very artistic. You know where it also shows up funnily enough? This is this is a ref of Alan Breonna's reference for you guys in a little Tango Tango lyrics, because a lot of there was a lot of back and forth between Argentina and Paris.
01:32:28
Speaker
And so this idea, this kind of a lure of Paris as being this land of sophisticated artistic romanticism where a lot of poor artists go because they want to breathe that in and then they kind of like, it doesn't work out for them and then they have to go somewhere else or they just are poor or they are successful and then they become super famous and they have this story of being a Bohemian artist and then having success in Paris. That whole story is really associated
01:32:56
Speaker
I'm not sure as much nowadays, but like I think even into this area when this movie was made, I think that idea of Paris like evoking that I think was still in the consciousness. Like there is stuff is something undeniably romantic about like living in a shitty apartment in Paris.
01:33:12
Speaker
and you only have one plate. I don't know, there is something to that for sure. You would have more if you didn't break them off. Plate breaking, I guess, is another link. Hey, there you go. Yeah, plate breaking this year in movies. What's going on there? When Janet McDonald and Nelson Eddy first meet, there's that kind of thing where there's clearly a romantic attraction and tension there. And she's trying to find excuses not to
01:33:41
Speaker
have lunch with him. And I'm like, she could have just said like, I just got engaged 45 minutes ago. However, again, this is one of those things where it's like, they don't really explain it. But I think like, if you if you give the character the benefit of the doubt, clearly, he says, like, I know that you don't love me, but like,
01:33:58
Speaker
Like, will you marry me anyway? And she feels like this debt of gratitude because her like her career dream is coming true because of him. And she says yes, because of that. But she clearly feels uncomfortable about it. Like, I need to go for a ride. I can't be here right now. Yeah. Yeah.
01:34:13
Speaker
I know that he won't be happy. I need to take I need to take a carriage ride to the fun part of town. Well, I think I don't necessarily think that she necessarily intends to go on like meet Nelson Eddie and and run away with him. Yeah, no, no. But I think she feels like disquieted, like she feels like enough sense of obligation to say yes, even though I don't think she wanted to. And I think she felt like she needed to just like escape. And then she happens to meet him. And I think she's like not. Again, this is my my view of it, right? Like she.
01:34:41
Speaker
really wants to say yes and have lunch with this guy but knows that she shouldn't and just a little you know and eventually that like knows that she shouldn't wins over which is why she ends up just but she you know lets it go get too far by that point i mean i think that for a lot of this movie it's it's pretty ambiguous what is going on for her internally like you can kind of make some assumptions but like we can think about like the sort of pressures involved with
01:35:09
Speaker
him with John Barrymore's character asking her to marry him. But I don't really see that on her face so much in those scenes, right? I think that a lot of the things that we assume that she might be feeling are hidden behind layers of social graces and that kind of thing. And it's the kind of thing that has to be inferred in a way. I think that
01:35:38
Speaker
you know the her and nelson eddie like they have like a dynamic they have like a like a uh uh they have some kind of flirtatious dynamic going on um through the entire movie but like also there isn't like a moment where she's going oh i wish i could be with him you know there is like
01:35:59
Speaker
There is, in fact, a scene where they have this romantic day at the May Festival, and it ends with him saying, I will always love you. And she says, and I'll always remember you. It's like, damn, damn.
01:36:21
Speaker
I'm not gonna leave him hanging like that. Jesus. I think that's one of the reasons why they needed to do the framing device. Because I think it's so ambiguous how she's... On some level, again, I really like this movie, so I think I'm naturally disposed to...
01:36:37
Speaker
look at it with a generous eye. But it's true, the way that she's feeling is so ambiguous. And like we were saying before, because of the way that the other two characters are portrayed, it makes it easier for us to feel the ambiguity that clearly is what she's, I think, how she's feeling. It's not a clear cut.
01:36:55
Speaker
Yeah. Story where you know how she's feeling. She's she like she is doing this, but she feels this way. Like it's not that simple. I think in her head either. She is struggling. I think it would have been very easy to make this movie that way and make it like a very clear cut that like Nikolai is like a domineering.
01:37:12
Speaker
asshole and that Paul is just this fun-loving guy. I like how it muddies the water a little bit and it makes it, you're able to, since the movie is from her perspective, it kind of leads you in a little bit of like, I don't know how to feel about these fellas.
01:37:31
Speaker
Right. I think the thing for me, though, is that like, like I think that it's interesting that they're not making it such a like good guy, bad guy thing. But I think that like to pay off on that, like I would have liked to have been brought in a bit more on her internal turmoil instead of like having to assume it. And then at the end, like, you know,
01:37:53
Speaker
you know, in this kind of crowning climactic moment of their early, you know, interactions with each other. He says, I love you. And she's and she says, I know, you know, and like real Han Solo moment. It's like all of their all of their interactions up until that point are her just kind of glowing like, OK, you are kind of creeping me out a little bit. Like, yeah, please get away from me a little bit, even though I do like you in a certain way, you know, and like.
01:38:21
Speaker
They have that in his apartment too, when they're singing the song and they connect over to Virginia. So it's not like it's just the one time. That keeps happening, which for me, it kind of made the turn feel a little, I get it, but I felt like a little less earned because I wanted a little more insight into her internal world with all that stuff.
01:38:43
Speaker
I do think it's kind of interesting that the moments that they're the most in sync, the moments that you feel the real connection between them most is when they're singing together.
01:38:52
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the movie the movie leans into that for sure. And I think a lot of I mean, this is me maybe also like having the benefit of seeing some of the other movies, a lot of their movies, I think try to let the singing carry some of the emotional weight of the story. And again, I think with this movie, it does a better job than some of the other ones at like giving it enough. Like you were saying to like.
01:39:16
Speaker
have enough of a framework where it doesn't feel like there's too much for the singing to really be able to end up. I feel like there's a coherent story that mostly works. Maybe there is a little bit of what you're saying, these kind of emotional gaps where you're not quite feeling things without the benefit of the other stuff.
01:39:38
Speaker
But again, I mean, you know, we're sitting here and I'm sitting here being generous. But at the end of the day, like a lot of these movies were kind of just like vehicles for these two very good singers. Yeah. Like to be sort of showcased in that. There's a lot of great singing in this movie. This movie, I do think this movie does a really good job of like showcasing specifically opera singing.
01:39:59
Speaker
in a way that like the kind of the animation or the like technicolor stuff in Snow White is like, look at what like we can do as human beings. Like this movie is very much like look at what the human voice is capable of, kind of. Sure. I mean, you know me like that would be more than enough for me to love these movies. Right. Yeah. But it's like, you know, old recording technology being what it was and, you know, whatever the case may be like it. I think this movie showcases the human voice
01:40:29
Speaker
The same way that like the Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers movies showcase like the human form or like not really human form, but just like a movement. Yeah, yeah. It's in both cases, it's people who are like really highly developed in a craft in an art and in both. I mean, maybe less so with the with the first type dancing, because like that's the style of dancing became very much like in the popular
01:40:58
Speaker
But with opera singing, definitely, it's a form that sometimes is not associated with popular culture. It was popular back then in the sense that a lot of people loved and appreciated opera singing, and the kind of popular type singing was not as far away from it as it is now, but it was still like...
01:41:17
Speaker
not a popular art form. I mean,
The Cultural Significance of Opera
01:41:20
Speaker
the movie was set in current day, but it was flashing back to an era where opera was more contemporary. It's set in like 1917, I think, right? The framing story is definitely set in the past still. Is it? Yeah. It definitely isn't set in 1937.
01:41:40
Speaker
at any point. Oh, I thought it was. OK. Because then I don't think the timeline would even make sense because then I think she would be too old in the framing story. Should we talk about the framing story at all? It's it's I don't know. It's very brief. It's just like there is a kind of story that mirrors her own in that there is a vicious kind of young lady, young lovers who want to. Yeah. Yeah.
01:42:04
Speaker
to go to New York to study with a singing teacher who says that, similar to the way Nikolai does with her, promises that if she, you know, goes with him and studies with him or whatever, that he can make her a big star. But she has this... I don't remember if they specify whether they're engaged, whether it's a fiancé situation or whether... But she has a significant other who is the only one who doesn't really want her to go because... Yeah, he's like, don't leave me. I'm Kip.
01:42:33
Speaker
Yeah. His name is Kip. And then they have a big fight because Kip wants her to stay and she wants to follow her dreams. And then the old woman says, let me tell you a story about when I followed my journey. I will say there was a big unintentional laugh for me where the whole movie plays out, right? This big operatic story of love and loss and murder and drama.
01:43:00
Speaker
And it ends on her cradling the corpse of Nelson Eddy. We dissolve back into the framing story. And she's like, so that's why I live alone.
01:43:16
Speaker
But it's okay because she gives the young woman some advice, which is, uh, go stay home with your lover and don't become an opera singer. And then she promptly dies and then her ghost gets to go walk off into the sunset with her lover who's been waiting for her this whole time. Yeah. Well, ghost time, it's, you know, it's limbo. They don't really, time doesn't work the same way.
01:43:40
Speaker
Going again with the benefit of the doubt thing, again, while obviously like the gender dynamics of it, now we look at it and we're kind of like, I think that that story can still like have some weight to it because there's a lot of framing it a different way. Even now, we still tell stories about people who are like way too career focused and like flue sight of like the Hallmark. Well, I mean, yes, but also like that's a that's a that's a real human thing.
01:44:07
Speaker
Yeah. And though I will say like the framing device I found more effective from the beginning part leading into it than like that ending scene of it. It's kind of like. Right. It feels much clunkier at the end than it does at the beginning. Yes, I'll admit that. I felt that way as well. I think Jeanette McDonald does. She plays an old woman very well. Like I was surprised to look. I thought it might be a different actor.
01:44:34
Speaker
At least in the beginning. Like, and then when it when it at the end, the end of the framing device, I'm like, that is still hurt and like old age makeup. Yeah, I mean, beginning when they have the little titles with the cast, it says that she's both. And I was like, I didn't I didn't necessarily remember that either. And I saw that. I was probably distracted by how cool the opening credits this movie. Oh, the credits of this movie are so good. The credits of the movie are like phenomenal, incredible, like like falling flower petals on water that like
01:45:05
Speaker
The credits are made out of flower petals that then like drift away on the water. And like some stuff is sort of like written on trees. And then like the camera, it all seems to be like a sort of one shot-esque sort of situation where the camera is like moving through the scene where credits either are embedded or develop.
01:45:26
Speaker
Within the yeah, I think this is maybe a good opportunity to pivot a bit to like the technical aspects of this movie Which I was incredibly impressed by I think this movie looks
01:45:37
Speaker
Amazing. I'm kind of bummed that I watched it in like 240p. Like I would have loved to see. I think it only has a Blu-ray or a DVD. Right. I don't think a Blu-ray of this movie even exists, which is a shame because I think this movie is incredibly gorgeous to look at. Something in the opening credits that stood out to me was there. It says Montages by Slavko Borchapic.
01:46:00
Speaker
which, Chris, you may remember, was the co-director of Life and Death of a Hollywood Extra. And he's been doing a lot of effects work. Not his own kind of thing, but he's been doing stuff like he did in this movie on a lot of other stuff. I have to assume it was that big montage sequence with all of these interspersed images of
01:46:24
Speaker
people's scowling faces and water and opera performances. Yeah, it's like double exposure, it's like split screen, it's like all of this really cool stuff. I like that scene a lot too. Because also again, she's like singing actual operas and I mean, there's a lot of levels at which like
01:46:44
Speaker
there's a level of this movie where the parallels to the operas that they're referencing at different moments are sort of commentary a little bit on the plot. Not necessarily exact parallels, but where it's like, oh, that's interesting how that moment kind of
01:47:02
Speaker
has some similarity to what's going on in these times, you know? So like one part where she's singing this part from Turbatorio where like she's like the woman is like singing about how she's about to go and like sell herself in order to like keep the person she loves, sell herself to the rival who like thinks that he owns her, like have the right to her even though she loves the other guy to like not have the other guy executed, right? So that's like what's happening in that opera. And during that time when she's like with
01:47:28
Speaker
her husband but feels like she's remembering and feels like she needs that she might have made the wrong choice. You know, it's like things like that are a lot of that throughout it when they mentioned different specific opera pieces where you're like, Oh, okay. There's also right right when we go into the actual like story of the movie from the framing device, it opens with
01:47:48
Speaker
like transitions right into this great crane shot of the Paris Opera House and we're sort of like going the cameras like moving through the entire this entire like giant ballroom full of people this whole like scene and the movie I thought was like very well staged and has like some really amazing shot design in it of like
01:48:08
Speaker
the that that crane there's a really cool like tracking like dolly shot of them walking Nikolai and Marsha like walking through the whole room almost and it's just tracking with them through the whole thing and there's just there's there's depth there's layers there's like i think there's a lot of good use of depth in this whole movie a lot of good use of like environmental like atmosphere like there's at the beginning of the movie at the end of the movie at during the may festival there's a lot of like falling
01:48:35
Speaker
uh like flower petals which look great on camera always uh and then during when there's the bit where Nikolai is going to go murder Paul they're walking through these snowy streets at night and there's just this like someone with the falling snow and how quiet that plays out is like
01:48:55
Speaker
the silence of like snow falling just to kind of build tension for that because you're like oh it's you know she's like chasing after him but he's ahead yeah and i was i was very impressed from on like a technical level of just like how this movie looks and how it's staged yeah it's just really well crafted for sure not that i didn't expect that from it but i wasn't necessarily going to this movie thinking it was going to be like this movie is going to be like one of the best shot things we watched for this year but i think it was
01:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's not the kind of thing necessarily that I consciously pick up on. So it's cool to hear you say that because yeah, my reason for recommending it was like a different one. But it's like this is a showcase for for the the singing. Right. Mostly like that's what the movie is known for and sort of what I think the the appeal of it was when it was made.
01:49:45
Speaker
And also those two stars, because to be honest, I also think that both of them, especially Nelson Eddy actually, though, are also just really good actors who are really fun to watch on screen even when they're not singing. This movie has a lot of really nice moments of just purely visual storytelling that I do not associate as much with the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies.
01:50:09
Speaker
or at least in terms of just the kind of outside of these like big numbers have these like big set piece showcase moments right i think this movie is like quietly really well made like it it it is it's not saving all of its like big
01:50:24
Speaker
all of its big guns just for the singing scenes. It's just like it has a lot of really great moments throughout. I have two opera related questions for you, Alan, that are both a little maybe a little silly. One is so there's the scene where they they are in New York City, presumably in like the mid to late 1800s. And seeing as the Metropolitan Opera did not at least the building that did not exist in that time period. Do you know like where operas were typically held in New York City?
01:50:54
Speaker
In the eighteen hundreds opera came to New York in the eighteen twenties and there was not really like a big stable opera company that lasted very long because there was some that like had short.
01:51:08
Speaker
I don't know all of them because it was a lot over that like 60 year span. I don't know if we know exactly what year it's supposed to be. And clearly whatever group that is is a fictional one. I don't even know what space they're supposedly in. The Metropolitan, the original Old Met was on 39th Street. OK.
01:51:25
Speaker
And it's now torn down. They it was a big thing in the 60s where they were trying to save it and they didn't succeed. And it got bulldozed. And I don't even know what's there, but apartment buildings or something. Yeah, because they say after she performs like, oh, we're going we're going to like the after party at Delmonico's. And I'm like, Delmonico's is not close to like where I would think the opera would be. Right. So now it's on, you know, 65th where Lincoln Center, the old Met was on 39th Street. Even that's pretty far from Delmonico's.
01:51:55
Speaker
What's the Monica's the Monica's it's a famous old-time in New York City restaurant in lower Manhattan It's like in the financial district. It's yes. It's like right down by the water almost
01:52:08
Speaker
Well, again, back in the 1800s, there was less of New York City that was even developed. So I don't know exactly what it was. A whole history of opera thing. There was a specifically like the Garcia family was this famous opera singing family. Every single figure in that family you could make.
01:52:26
Speaker
because they were all characters and they were all super influential in opera. In the early 1800s, they toured the world basically with a little opera troupe and they brought opera to all the Americas because they went down to South America and brought opera there. It was like the first actual Italian opera.
01:52:42
Speaker
in Italian that was done there, did the same thing in New York and that, you know, started that whole phenomenon that's been going on ever since. In New York, specifically, there was also Loretta Naponte, who wrote all the Italian words for all Mozart's Italian operas, or at least the famous ones, who moved to New York like
01:53:01
Speaker
founded the Italian department of Columbia College then later to become university was super poor like you know tried to open some laundromats and that didn't work out and how these issues but he's the crusade was to like
01:53:16
Speaker
promote Italian culture in New York City. That was like in the really early 1800s. And that thing was like in Burton's spot. And he was very successful. Was not actually, but it was like that little bit of energy was growing in spurts over the course of the entire
01:53:32
Speaker
century, basically, until like the 1880s when the Metropolitan Opera finally left. And actually, when the Metropolitan Opera was founded, it wasn't the only thing in town because Oscar Hammerstein senior also had his own opera house. I think it was called the Manhattan Opera Theater or something that existed, I think, until the 1910s or 20s. I don't know that history as well, because obviously it didn't survive. But yeah, like the competitor for the Met in the early years was an opera company like owned by
01:54:01
Speaker
Oster Hammerstein, Sr., the father of Oster Hammerstein. And as if to spit on his grave, I saw the king and I at Lincoln Center. My other opera leg question is in this movie, at the end, everyone brings out these giant flower packets. And did you ever get one of those when you're singing?
01:54:26
Speaker
Like those big, I mean, they still would ever bring you like a massive oversized like thing of flowers. It's funny. I've just I've gotten like normal sized flowers, but I never got a giant one. But the one time I've seen one of those giant ones is I was doing this production of of an opera with like my local opera group. And my sister was in the other cast and her performance, her like now husband, like didn't know that's like normally not a thing that you do.
01:54:53
Speaker
But literally bought like a thing of those flowers that was like this large. Good, good move. It clearly worked out well. Yes. And I support. I support that. That's the one. I think you're going to see someone perform and you don't buy the largest thing of flowers possible. Then it was quite could be doing better. So very cute.
01:55:21
Speaker
Those were not the questions that I was expecting.
01:55:25
Speaker
Well, we're going to wrap up this episode with us talking about our favorite movies of all of the ones that we watched. But Alan, what is your favorite of the three that you watched? I mean, probably still Maytime. I'm super biased, though. I like the other ones, too. I mean, I was surprised at certain things in The Star is Born. It was not what I was expecting it to be, but I did enjoy it. But I love these Nelson Eddy movies. I mean, again, this one I think is
01:55:55
Speaker
better in certain ways than some of the other ones. It's crazy to me that they were such big deals at the time, and so few people know about Nelson Eddy and Janet McDonald. So much of what I feel like we'd watch and talk about on the show is stuff like that. Just like, this was a huge deal. Why does no one talk about this? Yeah.
01:56:17
Speaker
And there are even things that were huge deals that we just didn't even cover, too, like Rudolf Valentino. Right. We made passing mention of Rudolf Valentino, who was like the biggest movie, one of the biggest movie stars in the world when he was alive. So yeah, I'm glad you guys had to experience daytime. Thanks for taking my suggestion. I'm definitely glad that we we we added this in. Yeah. And thanks for coming on. Yeah.
01:56:43
Speaker
No problem. And sharing your opera knowledge with us. Any time. I'm always happy to. Bye, Alan. Thanks. Thanks for thanks, Alan. He's not here anymore. We're recording this hours later. Yeah, I'm wearing a different shirt now. It's like time has passed. Yeah, but we have still more movies to talk about.
01:57:03
Speaker
Yes, can you believe it? Yeah, two more movies that we watched. I'm trying to think of a good transition now. Man, I remember hours ago I had a good segue to one of these and I completely forget what it was. Well, so last movie we talked about was Maytime. Maytime begins and ends with the main character as an old woman, right, in the twilight of her life. Another film that we watched about
01:57:28
Speaker
the aging process. Another film that we watched, this was it actually, another film that we watched with a younger person with older person makeup is Make Way for Tomorrow. Yes, a film by Leo McCary who also directed Duck Soup. Right, directed Duck Soup, a very different film this time. Yeah, he mostly made comedies but this one apparently he was quite passionate about making.
01:57:55
Speaker
Which I think comes through. This feels like this movie is being made with a point and it feels like it is probably not a movie that Paramount released it. I don't think they were probably like Super Gun How about it.
01:58:13
Speaker
I think they actually wanted to change the ending significantly, but... They did, and they basically just released it just enough to make its money back and really focused on other things.
01:58:28
Speaker
which was why it's not super well remembered, even though it's incredible. It's very, very good. It is a good film. Also, I think you told me this initially, but I also read it that Lee McCarry won the Oscar for Best Director for a different film for The Awful Truth, which is a Cary Grant comedy.
01:58:51
Speaker
But in his acceptance speech, he was like, you gave me this for the wrong film. Yeah. That was released this year, which is kind of a kind of power move, I think. Thanks for the Oscar and all, but also like this movie's garbage compared to the other one that I made.
01:59:08
Speaker
That's not what he said. But yeah, this movie is not what I expected when it started. Right. I think this movie kind of sets up a certain type of movie and then doesn't it doesn't take the kind of easy route that I think it could have.
01:59:24
Speaker
right based on like the first 10 minutes i mean it's it's it's a complex film it's it's like dealing with very subtle complex human emotions and like social forces that i think are more subtle than what uh a lot of other stuff is attacking here what were you expecting the movie to be i was expecting it to be i guess more from the perspective of the adult children
01:59:50
Speaker
And for the first half it kind of is right their parents having to move in with them
01:59:56
Speaker
and the troubles that ensue from that. I was expecting maybe something a little bit more comedic and a little bit more, check out these cranky old people and like what shenanigans they're causing. And there's a little bit of that in this movie, but it mostly, I think by the end of it, certainly it goes into, I think more interesting, nuanced and kind of heartbreaking territory than that. Yeah, literally like I get,
02:00:25
Speaker
Like, I start, like, crying when I start describing the plot of this movie to people. There was a moment part of the way through the movie where I kind of realized what kind of movie it was really going to be, and I was... It didn't end up... This movie didn't make me, like, full-on, like, cry or weep. It made me kind of well up. But there was a moment, like, a third of the way in where I was like, oh shit, this movie might really get me. Like, this movie might really, like...
02:00:52
Speaker
stir up some some stuff inside my my heart and uh yeah there's there's parts of it that i find kind of maybe a little clunky but on the whole i don't know i it's not that i have a low opinion of movies from the 1930s because clearly we've watched a lot of good ones but i i think that
02:01:10
Speaker
this type of movie isn't really what i'm used to seeing i'm used to seeing kind of like zippy screwball comedies or like kind of uh you know proto-noir crime films or you know a lot of things that we have talked about on the podcast already and this is like just this kind of
02:01:32
Speaker
like a lightly heartbreaking drama about like uh just aging like reflect reflecting on life like as as an elderly person
02:01:45
Speaker
wild strawberries core. I mean, I think that like, I think that this, when I'm watching this movie, you know, you feel something which I think I feel occasionally watching these old movies, which is that this is just not the type of movie that people make anymore. Like the stakes are too low, it's too small, you know, it's too zeroed in on one idea for the whole length of the movie.
02:02:12
Speaker
Um, but I think it's like better for it because it's telling an extremely human story. Yeah. This would, this would be a black mirror episode now. God. So yeah, like you were saying, the basic setup is that there are like some grandparents with some adult children and, uh, they bring them together to, uh, say, Hey everybody, I, the grandpa, like I can't work anymore. I haven't been able to work for the last couple of years.
02:02:42
Speaker
And the money caught up with us and now our house is getting foreclosed on. They gave us six months and six months ends on Tuesday. Yeah. And which already is like very timely, very, you know, like Great Depression, a lot of people losing their homes. I mean, that's still a thing that happens now, obviously. But like, I'm kind of surprised at how often the kind of like economic
02:03:09
Speaker
Troubles come up in 1930s movies like I was kind of under the impression that a lot in 30s movies a lot of them do Just completely ignore that or just like look at some fun stuff. Don't worry about this But like even something like King Kong, which is like a fantastical dinosaur adventure film
02:03:26
Speaker
is like the first, I don't know, 10 minutes of that movie, you're like, man, it's rough living through the Great Depression, huh? So yeah, I know that's just a thing that I have been continuously kind of like struck by is like how much that like movies are really hitting that hard. Movies are like, we know, we get it. Yeah.
02:03:45
Speaker
Yeah, and maybe like more and more as it goes through the Great Depression. I feel like maybe in the beginning it was a bit more escapist and but it's hard to track it fully. The grandparents, because the adult children, one, because they kind of don't want them to come live with them, but also because they're like, we don't have any room, like we have lives of our own, like none of us can take both of you. So like,
02:04:11
Speaker
the grandmother is gonna have to live with one family, and then the grandfather's gonna have to live with a different family, and like a different state far away from each other. Like 300 miles apart, and they're like, this is the solution for like three months, and then we will get you back together in some way, or like think about like moving you into like someone, one of the other kids' houses. But like they've never spent this much time apart from each other, and- For 50 years. Yeah.
02:04:38
Speaker
And so they are having a sad time. They're having a rough time integrating with the lives of their kids. Their kids are having a hard time dealing with them and they miss each other a lot. I think this early part of the movie has some very well-observed scenes of the ways that old people are annoying.
02:05:06
Speaker
Yes. Although I also thought the movie was going to go harder on that than it was. Right. It's kind of like, you know, it's kind of cute, you know, it's like, you know, they talk too loud on the phone and at first it's bothersome. But then she says something really sweet on the phone and.
02:05:28
Speaker
And everyone at the bridge class, they're first annoyed, but then they are like, oh, I'm so gripped. Everyone who's in this bridge class who are all in gowns and tuxedos, one of the kids is like, well, I got to make sure my tuxedo shirt is pressed for the bridge class tonight. I'm like, you're in your own house. You don't have to wear a tuxedo, man. 1930s, I guess. Like, hey, it's after 6 o'clock. I got to wear a tuxedo.
02:05:59
Speaker
But yeah, I think because like that scene is one where there's like, we're having a bridge class, we can't have grandma like hanging around, you know, talking to people. Her rocking chair is squeaking. And it's like all these like, yes, old people can be frustrating to be around at times or annoying in ways and they're all those things are true. And yet I think that the movie
02:06:23
Speaker
I think for this section, at least early on, we're kind of supposed to be in the kid's perspective a bit more and sort of like looking out of like. Grandma and her her loud rocking chair and her wants to talk to everybody and like can't read the room like if I showed up to a bridge class at this person's house and their mom was there.
02:06:43
Speaker
Knitting in a rocking chair and like I would be like let her hang out like she's not bothering anyone really You're embarrassing my bridge student. She's so sweet like she's not she's not coming in there and like Insulting anybody she's not being racist. She's not doing any of the things that old people can do that are like actually disruptive I mean in fact the old people in this movie are less racist than the people then yeah, they are they are they
02:07:07
Speaker
notably the least racist characters in the film. Which is interesting, which, you know, I think it goes to show ways that the kids are inconsiderate and the old people, they're a little blind to certain things, but they care. Yeah. I mean, the movie does address this towards the end, but the kids in this movie are so awful.
02:07:35
Speaker
Like the adult children, I mean, like the middle-aged characters, whatever. Yes. I found there sort of like how quickly they were like, oh, God, like grandma, get out of here. It's like.
02:07:47
Speaker
What were you talking about? Like, she's not doing anything. She's just hanging out. They are so put off by having them around seemingly immediately. I know that time does pass like off screen. I immediately was like very put off by how how awful the the children were. I mean, I think it is. They're they're awful in a very realistic way, though. Well, it's totally believable. But I was just like, oh, like they're so they're so terrible.
02:08:16
Speaker
I think that it's got this interesting thing going on where it really understands this dynamic between annoying old person and too short of temper younger person. I think there's a lot of this movie that rang true for me because I had a notoriously annoying grandma.
02:08:41
Speaker
and like she like all this stuff that they did and more like my grandma was extremely tone deaf and saying the wrong thing all the time and a lot of the people around her and in the generation below her got really annoyed with her sure yeah although i will i will also say i met your grandmother several times was never annoyed by her
02:09:08
Speaker
Which is maybe where I'm hanging out from this, like looking at this movie. I'm like, I don't know. I think if old people are not being like actively disruptive, which maybe in some cases they are, just the lack of kind of grace extended to them in this movie was like, and it's the point of the movie is that there is this generational disconnect and it's like, right. The adult kids are embarrassed to have them around. It's like such a big part of it. It's like they're not actually doing anything that
02:09:37
Speaker
that terrible. It's just that it's like, oh, it's like, get out of here. Yeah, which yeah, I totally relate to that, you know, on on that level.
02:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, there were a lot of ways that I was annoyed at my grandma, but I tried to give her as much patience as I could. And I think by the end of her life, like I was honestly like one of the only people that was still nice to my grandma, which is why I think that this sort of like I think that I think is kind of portrayed in this movie is that there's the granddaughter character. Right. Who's college age. So she's like 19, 20.
02:10:14
Speaker
less baggage with her yeah and it's like i feel like she gets along with the grandmother a lot better
02:10:22
Speaker
She's still kind of annoyed at her, but like she's like she doesn't want to bring like friends over to the apartment anymore. It's like how granny is hanging out in the living room. There is still I feel like they have an act. They actually talk and like have rapport and like right. There's the scene where like they go to the movies and you're like, oh, I got to bring grandma out of the movies. And then the granddaughter leaves and comes back and she's like, I saw you with that boy in the car. And he's like, don't tell anyone. The grandma's like, I won't like.
02:10:47
Speaker
great secret done and then when the mom finds out she's like how dare you not telling me it's like because of trust I don't know like that's a very reasonable thing I think don't try and parent my kids for me don't try and make my decisions for me
02:11:01
Speaker
yeah it's um which again it's like it's an understandable place for a character to come from but i think i wonder if this movie would have maybe worked better if if the grandparents were slightly more annoying than they are because they're so sweet is the thing like every scene with them you're just like oh
02:11:21
Speaker
They are genuinely just worried about how everyone else is doing at all times. They're like, I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to cause trouble. I don't want to do this. Right. But they can't help but be a burden, right? Right. Which I think
02:11:37
Speaker
it works that they're not this annoying because they're not more annoying because it just speaks to like you know you've been around the same people your whole like your parents your whole life right and like you've built up all of this stuff and so you have like no tolerance with them right yeah uh and i you can see the effects of that in their children during like covid times
02:12:02
Speaker
I moved it back in with my parents for like a year and That was on one hand a lovely time that I very much enjoyed spending more time with him than I had in a while But I also it's like oh parents. You're annoying leave me alone parents. I don't understand And it's like through no fault of their own, right? It's purely just like I have just ingrained shit for my entire life where it's just like if they look at me the wrong way I'm like ah How dare you you know? Right, right, so it's like
02:12:34
Speaker
A lot of the movie is focused on the grandma, but we kind of hop back and forth between her and the grandpa, who is staying with a different kid in a different area. And that kid is worse, to be fair. The kid that the grandpa is staying with is definitely way meaner and way worse. The best thing that she does is stop her husband from saying, kick him out immediately.
02:12:54
Speaker
You know, it makes sense.
02:13:02
Speaker
A lot of the grandpa's story kind of concerns his friendship that he finds with a local shopkeeper who is also an old guy and so they bond over being old guys. He kind of has this friendship separate from his daughter that he's staying with because
02:13:26
Speaker
he can tell that his daughter doesn't want him in the house ever, so he just leaves and hangs out in the shop with this guy. And when she finally sees him for the first time, she thinks that he, well, so he's Jewish, conspicuously Jewish in the movie, and
02:13:45
Speaker
And then she kind of acts antisemitically toward him when she sees him for the first time, thinking he's, you know, trying to sell her something or like, I don't know, like she's suspicious of him. And he's like, no, my friend, your dad is sick and I brought him some soup. My wife made him some soup. What's in that soup? I didn't make that soup. And it's like, it's just soup. Calm down. Yeah, it's fine.
02:14:11
Speaker
It's just like a lot of like really small petty injustices that are brought against these people for just existing. And you just feel worse and worse over the, you know, watching the three months that they're apart and longing for each other. Right, because they're dealing with all this like, you know, stuff with their
02:14:33
Speaker
their kids being angry that they're even around. And then on top of that, they're separated from their spouse that they've been married to for 50 years.
02:14:43
Speaker
And they're writing letters back and forth and talking on the phone. Every time it's just like, ugh, cut my heart out and throw it in a river. And the whole time you're like, can't some of these kids just, can't one of them just let two of them be there? Do you have to be this cruel, you know? But it's also, I don't know, that is a thing that I have seen in real life. I've just like, ugh.
02:15:07
Speaker
How do you deal with people that you love that don't have a place to stay or can take care of themselves in certain ways? That happens when people get old and there isn't really a great answer for it. Yeah. It's difficult no matter what.
02:15:25
Speaker
And I think I like how this movie is putting a pin in that of like, yeah, there isn't really a, there's no like great solution here where everyone is happy. Like someone's going to have to kind of put up with a lot of kind of maybe petty annoyances, but it's still like they're going to have to deal with it. Yeah. But oh yeah, the way that this movie wraps up is very,
02:15:48
Speaker
yeah you know getting close to the end of their three months apart uh the grandpa gets sick uh which is why the the shopkeeper friend of his is bringing him soup and like by the time they see each other again he's over it but
02:16:03
Speaker
I was so worried in that section. But the daughter that he's staying with, she's like, oh, an excuse to get rid of him. We're going to send him away to California where he won't have to face the winters. To the other sibling that no one talks to anymore, who no one's in touch with. They're like, oh, she moved to California. No one knows what she's up to. And so she's just like, great, I can get rid of him by sending him away with a justification that he is sick. He needs warm weather. Yeah.
02:16:33
Speaker
And then the grandma is getting annoying enough to her son and his wife that they start considering putting her in a home. Well, there's this so there's kind of incident that happens with the granddaughter.
02:16:50
Speaker
where she is the person that she's kind of like secretly dating that the grandma knows about is 35 and so she's like don't tell my parents that like I'm dating an older man and then something happens we're like the police call and then it is never addressed again and they're like oh this is all grandma's fault because she didn't tell us that she was dating this guy yeah
02:17:16
Speaker
And I'm like, what happened? You can't just leave that hanging, just like, they give you no other context whatsoever. Because then also like the daughter's back and everyone's seemingly happy after that. It's a weird sort of like vague, just like black hole in the movie where it's like something, something happened. And it's like, you could explain that to us maybe, but I guess not.
02:17:39
Speaker
So yeah, they think about sending her to a home. Which they visited before, and the grandma's like, terrible, awful place. I never want to go there.
02:17:49
Speaker
Yeah. Spoilers, but this is my favorite movie of the episode by far. I would highly recommend that people watch this. So, you know, we talk about spoilers every time, but go and watch this. But anyway, it's short, too. Yeah. So the grandma finds the letter of them inquiring about the poem.
02:18:12
Speaker
And she knows what's going on, and she kind of makes this decision to take the guilt and burden off of her son for the horrible thing that he's doing to her and say, like, propose it to him like it was her idea to go to that specific home. She's like, I'm not really enjoying myself staying here. I think I'm going to go stay in that nice home that we visited. I think that would be the best thing for me.
02:18:39
Speaker
And it's you can kind of see, I think, in their faces that they both know what she's doing. Yeah, like the sun, it kind of made me think clocks like she saw the letter like she's doing this to kind of like alleviate our guilt. But it's like he's still he doesn't call her out on it, you know. Oh, but so then the grandma staying in New York City and the grandpa comes to visit before leaving for California. Yeah, they they've been apart for three months and they have five hours together.
02:19:08
Speaker
yeah and and this whole last section of the movie i was a damn mess i was a mess yeah this is where the movie goes from being like oh this is an interesting movie to being like oh this is good yeah but yeah because it's like it's it starts them just kind of like walking to the park
02:19:26
Speaker
and through like New York City and their car salesman is like, hey, you wanna buy a car? And they're like, no, but he's like, you wanna ride in this car? And they're like, sure, I guess. Like if you're offering us a free ride in your car, yeah. Which I was like, oh no, like they're gonna get like kidnapped or something. I was like, no, it's fine. So they go to the hotel that where they had their honeymoon 50 years prior. And they're like going to the hotel and like explaining to everyone like why they're like, oh, we were here and it was so different.
02:19:54
Speaker
you know, saying old people stuff. But everyone outside of their family is super nice to them because they're like, you're great. Like, we'd love to have you say to like come to our hotel and eat lunch like this. Yeah. You're a cute old couple. Like you guys. Yeah. You guys are so sweet. Like, please, by all means, like, come hang out.
02:20:14
Speaker
And so they have this wonderful day in New York City where they are visiting their old haunts and they go out into the dance floor in this fancy hotel ballroom. And as soon as they get out there, the tempo changes to an upbeat swing dancing song. They're like, oh, we don't know how to dance. Yeah, it starts off as something that they could recognize, like a waltz or something.
02:20:38
Speaker
But then the conductor sees that there's, like, the two old people in the corner, like, don't know how to dance to swing music. And he's like, hang on. And he, like, stops the music and, like, starts the, like, slow waltz again and, like, makes eye contact with them and, like, nods. And he's like, I see you. I got you. Don't worry. Oh. Oh. Yeah. And meanwhile, all of the adult children are, like, they're, like, worried initially about, like, where they are because they have they don't they were supposed to meet them.
02:21:07
Speaker
But then the grandpa calls from the hotel and is like, hey, we're having a grand old time. We're not coming to dinner. Yeah. And they're like, how dare you? Like, we made this whole meal for you. And it's like, first of all, let them do whatever they want. Also, you can eat a meal by yourself.
02:21:25
Speaker
and the thing was like they're never like okay be careful like okay like i'm glad you're okay none of that they get none of that from the kids and the whole meal was an insult to them right like it's their children are taking control of their lives like these you can see in this in this
02:21:45
Speaker
you know day out that they're having in new york city they can handle themselves like the the dad is too like what is his vision it's just too bad and he's too weak to work but like he he's not completely incapable of existing but like this dinner is the children's farewell to both of them uh and they're just like oh we can finally wash our hands of this and like they both know
02:22:14
Speaker
what this means. They're escaping their children who are dominating their lives. And this is the thing that's so heavy about this last part is they're having a great day, but there's this awareness that these might be some of their last hours they ever have together.
02:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's this is where the eyes start to well up because right after this great day and they're like fuck off kids that are being mean to us. Yeah, like let us enjoy our time basically. Right. Yeah. So they have this this like wonderful day and then it's like it's time for the train. Like husband needs to leave to go to California and there's this like protracted scene of them like saying goodbye at the train station.
02:23:03
Speaker
with and they never say this it is never explicitly stated or anything but it is this thing you you you feel it through their performances that it's like they are both approaching this conversation as if it is the last time they will ever speak.
02:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, because one of them's going to a home upstate New York. The other one is going to California. They're both old and like they, you know, it would be a whole thing for them to visit each other. And so because
02:23:33
Speaker
you know their kids found them too annoying to deal with they have to spend their last years apart from each other and and say their goodbyes like assuming they don't ever see each other again it's horrible it's it's so heartbreaking and then
02:23:53
Speaker
You think that after the scene, the train leaves and I'm like, oh man, can't wait to see what happens next. Nothing. That's the end of the movie. The movie ends with the grandmother watching the train pull away. You just kind of study her face and see what's going on. Yeah.
02:24:18
Speaker
Oh boy. Peter Bogdanovich asked Orson Welles about this movie and he said, oh, it's the saddest movie ever made. This could make a stone cry. I mean, probably. I mean, at least for when I don't know, there have been some saddens that we've that we've watched for this show, I think also. But yeah, this one, it I really appreciate it also how kind of
02:24:46
Speaker
So much of what is said about this movie is done through purely through performance. It's really through like how lines are being delivered or how the look on someone's face as they're speaking or looking at someone else that is just like says so much and it's like so.
02:25:05
Speaker
Yeah. And like I was saying before, just like very along with the subtle acting, like very well observed details, both like about the ways that old people can be annoying, but also the ways that young people mistreat old people casually. Right. Yeah. Without like active malice or even like thinking about of just like, I got to deal with this now. Yeah. This movie is incredible.
02:25:31
Speaker
Yeah. There is a line when they're walking through the city where they see a sign that says, save while you're young. And they both turn to each other and say, find time to tell us. Which I thought was very good. There is levity in this film as well. There's also some zingers here and there.
02:25:48
Speaker
And there is some kind of metatextual levity in this in that like there's a rebellious teen and the things and she's like, ooh, let's play bridge. Oh, I'm going to listen to this wild new music. It's called Big Band. Being corrupted. That stuff is kind of unintentional levity, maybe.
02:26:10
Speaker
yeah i feel like the the the granddaughter is is kind of framed as like she's just like oh she's like a rebellious teen she's like getting into trouble and it's like she seems very well behaved to me like she's not you know i mean problematic age gap but aside
02:26:26
Speaker
Yeah. You were saying, I think both the main actors are playing much older than they were at the time that they shot this. Yeah, they're in their like 40s or 50s, but they have makeup on the whole time to play like 70s, like late 70s, I think. Right. I don't know if they're even supposed to be that old, right? Aren't they supposed to be like... I think they're both supposed to be around 70.
02:26:53
Speaker
But see, that's the thing is like, even though I'm like, I have 70, they're like old, but not like that old. Hey, George Miller made Fury Road when he was 70. Right? Made Furiosa when he was like 80. Yeah. So here you go. Yeah, there were certain things in this where I thought it was kind of funny how even in 1937, there's like clear cut like old people behavior. Yeah. Because like anyone alive in 1937 is very old now.
02:27:19
Speaker
And they're they're the people doing the old people behavior now. Right. But it's like there's there's certain things where it's like old people are loud. They like there's just certain things like that where it's like in every generation. Yeah. Has like certain gripes with old people or like behaviors that people just start to exhibit when they they get old that I thought was kind of like even those movies, you know,
02:27:44
Speaker
very old itself. That stuff still carries. It felt very universal. A couple of character actor shoutouts from movies that we've ever talked about or are just well known. The kind of son that we spend the most time with, who's the one that the grandmother is staying with, is played by Thomas Mitchell.
02:28:07
Speaker
who is a very prolific 1930s actor. He's probably maybe best known for, it's a wonderful life, but he's in like a bunch of other Frank Capra movies. And then another similar guy who shows up in this movie is the mean step, not step son, son-in-law.
02:28:30
Speaker
who's like married to the mean daughter who's like kick kick them out is played by porter hall who is also is also like kind of a mainstay of like 30s 40s movies he was in the thin man he's in um miracle on 34th street
02:28:50
Speaker
he was in what's in the movie i feel like we watched another movie with him recently uh oh petrified forest he's the he's the dad in petrified forest who has his like weird vigilante crew that he like runs out with
02:29:04
Speaker
And I think it's funny that this, Porter Hall always plays guys who suck. Like, that was his niche as an actor, was like, we need just an annoying asshole that the audience is gonna be like, oh, fuck this guy. It's like, cast Porter Hall, like, he'll do great.
02:29:22
Speaker
So I'm sure he was hopefully a lovely man off camera. I just think it's funny that it's like in every movie that I've seen him in, he is just like, oh, this guy is the worst. You got that face sometimes, you know? He's the guy in Miraclan 34th Street who like gets in a fight with Santa Claus. Haven't seen it. Even Santa Claus is like, you know what, this guy deserves like a bonk on the head.
02:29:48
Speaker
Like, this is the only language this guy will understand. Like, I need to hit him. Some of this Mr. Deeds justice here. Exactly. There's a Frank Capra thing. He was like, folksy, small-town Americana, like, sweet, like, goodness of the heart. Also, like, if someone's annoying, you free rein to punch them in the head.
02:30:08
Speaker
So yeah, no character actor corner Character actor corner buddy after after we got a litany of them in star is born
02:30:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I feel like we didn't even mention half of them. We're into Starsborne. Shall we move on to our final pick of the app? Yeah, another movie that Orson Welles loved. Hey, there you go. Yep, yep. Is Le Grand Illusion, which he called Le Grand Illusion or Grand Illusion.
02:30:39
Speaker
which he called one of the two movies he would take with him on the Ark. I suppose to breed into other movies. If you breed this in King Kong, you will get a third film.
02:30:53
Speaker
Grand Illusion X-Con. The Lost Kingdom or whatever it's called. This is a Jean Renoir film. It's our first of his that we've checked out. Yeah, the first Renoir movie that I have ever seen. Me too. Renoir is one of those names that I've known since forever.
02:31:16
Speaker
going to film school, it's like, oh, Renoir, one of the greats. Like, I've always had that name associated with this, like, he's one of the kind of great masters of filmmaking from the kind of, like, early-ish era, sort of like first half of the 20th century. Even, like, looking at his filmography, I was like, yeah, I don't, I'm not even that familiar with that many of his movies, just through osmosis. Like, he, this is the first one of his movies I've seen. But also, like, having seen just this one, I'm like,
02:31:44
Speaker
pretty good movie. I think I can see the influence this had on Orson Welles, or at least why he probably liked it so much. I think there are certain, not even specific themes or visual motifs or anything like that, that it seems like he's taking from this, but it's just like, I don't know, the vibe is like, it seems like a movie Orson Welles would be into.
02:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen a lot of Orson Welles movies, but like Sis and Kane, for example, this movie, like, it goes a lot of places. It does like, it does a lot of things. I think that, like, what I knew about this movie is it's like it's a POW movie, you know? That's like selling the movie short, though. Yeah. I think also by like calling it a it is a POW movie and it's like,
02:32:31
Speaker
That's like a whole genre unto itself, I feel like almost. Or maybe it's just this and Great Escape, I don't know. But I feel like that is like, POW movies are a thing. And this is like, I can see the influence this had on like all the other POW movies that I've seen of just kind of the structure of it. I think there is, I am like 98% sure there is an episode of the Young Indiana Jones TV show that is like fully a riff on this movie.
02:32:59
Speaker
because it's set in World War I, and he starts in a POW camp, and then he gets moved to a chateau castle later on. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it's like, oh, yeah, they're just doing a Grand Illusion thing, aren't they?
02:33:11
Speaker
I mean, it would make sense for an Indiana Jones joint. I mean, Erich von Stroheim is a character in that show, so... Speaking of, Erich von Stroheim is great in this. I guess it's the first time we've seen him talk. Yes, at least for the show, anyway. I've seen later movies where he talked, but yeah. And like, his presence is amazing. He's very good in this, yeah.
02:33:34
Speaker
I think also we were, I mean, we liked Greed a lot more, but I feel like we were, especially Foolish Wives, we were, I think we were, neither of us were that into that movie. Yeah, you know, he's good as an actor, and he's highly indulgent as a director. Right. And so, like, I think he really gets to shine in this. Yeah, playing a sort of
02:33:57
Speaker
like just a kind of classical like world war one german officer not really villain i wouldn't say he's kind of the antagonist of the movie but he is also like not he's so he's very sympathetic though i mean the movie opens with the main characters they've been captured after a failed bombing run and and he just sits them down for dinner and he's like your p o w's in my camp we've captured you but like you know
02:34:26
Speaker
uh no hard feelings yeah yeah like i think that maybe this is you know partially because it's like an officer's thing but there's something going on in this movie that i think feels very pretty world war ii pretty like the barbarism and inhumanity of world war ii where like
02:34:44
Speaker
there is this kind of sense of national pride and duty and interpersonal respect between the quote unquote like enemies in this movie. Yeah, it is kind of like old world European mindset of like our countries are at war, but we're both like respectable
02:35:07
Speaker
people who are like in positions of authority and we're going to respect each other and we're going to drink some wine and like have a chat. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I don't know how realistic that kind of perspective ever was, but because there's certainly a lot of barbarism related to World War One. Yeah, just a bit.
02:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a genteel war. Yeah, that is, and I think, I don't think this movie is even necessarily positing that World War I, like, that was a thing in, like, that that was a common thing in World War I. I think it is, it is basically just these characters have a sense of kind of dignity about them, where even though they are enemies on paper,
02:35:52
Speaker
I mean so much of their character interactions with this movie is like they used to go to the same restaurants in Paris and like hit on the same women and like right they they both speak each other's languages like the the French officer speaks German fluently and that the von Stroheim guy what's his character's name or aufenstein
02:36:11
Speaker
I'm not going to say that every time, but he speaks French. And so they're like talking back and forth in each other's languages throughout the whole movie. Yeah, they have so much kind of mutual respect for each other. And it's a lot of it is to do with like they're both these like kind of high class like gentlemen. Yeah. They both have their like white gloves that they wear and they both have a monocle.
02:36:33
Speaker
There's a point where they just, like, stare each other down with each other's monocles. Yeah, monocles. Von Strahm, also, for, like, two-thirds of this movie is in, like, this weird neck brace, because his character, like, was in a battle and he got horribly injured, and, like, his spine got broken and he was, like, covered in burns. So he's, like, walking around in this, like, neck brace thing, so he can't move his neck at all. So he has to walk around like Batman.
02:36:57
Speaker
in the 89 movie. But even that is like feels like such a kind of like old timey like German villain thing. Like of course he's like in a in a like a metal neck brace. It's a little cartoony. Good evening. And he's like kind of shuffling in like a robot with his monocle and his white gloves. That's like Von Stroheim in Foolish Wives also. He's just like absurd. He's this absurd person. Eric Von Stroheim is just a living cartoon basically. Yeah.
02:37:23
Speaker
But I think cartoons are just based on him, is the thing. It's like, cartoons were like, hey, this guy's nuts. Let's parody this. But yeah, this movie, it concerns like a group of six, I believe, like French officers. And they kind of gather together in their attempts to escape the POW camps. Right. There's a really good line about... Yes. I know what you're going to say.
02:37:53
Speaker
They had this like moral imperative to try to escape even though they are being treated fairly well for like POWs like they have food and it's like they're prisoners, but it's like they're not being abused directly. Yeah, they can get food sent in from their relatives and they're eating better than the soldiers that are
02:38:12
Speaker
right yeah and uh and then they can also put on silly plays too it's like summer camp right it kind of is there's they have this line where they're like in in a tennis court you play tennis in a prison camp you escape like that's just what you do like yeah we have no we have no choice in the matter like we're in prison camp we're gonna escape
02:38:30
Speaker
I think that's so interesting it's like yeah it goes along with this kind of sense of duty right where like they're having they're okay in this prison camp and one of the characters is basically like the war's gonna end soon like why bother why bother with this when like they have to shoot you if you try and escape
02:38:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think they also say like, you know, pools are for swimming in. Prison camps are for escaping, you know. Yeah. I have no idea what my response to being put in a POW camp would be. But like I can feel some sense of like understanding for that thing. I'm just like, no, like that's that's our job. Like our job was to fight in this war. And now we're in a prison camp.
POW Films and Class Distinctions
02:39:13
Speaker
Our job has now become to escape and get back to our lines, which is like, yeah, I can't argue with that.
02:39:20
Speaker
You know so they approach it with this lightness it's the whole movie has this kind of lightness to it for almost the entire thing and Yeah, but even though there is like a lot of grim stuff going on, right? It is like the lightest movie about like very grim things
02:39:38
Speaker
Yeah, which is why it feels like this couldn't have been made after World War Two. You know, a POW camp and a concentration camp are not the same thing, but like filmically, they they overlap enough that like, yeah, you really can't like trivialize it this much. Well, unless you're Hogan's heroes. But yes, Hogan's heroes aside, like I think that like this would be a different movie if it was set in World War Two. Oh, very different. Yeah. Yeah.
02:40:08
Speaker
Yeah, if you look at Chicken Run, you know, that's a movie that treats POW camps and concentration camps very seriously. I mean, although I will say The Great Escape, what Chicken Run is based on, is set in World War II, and that also does have, other than like the end of that maybe is incredibly grim, but it is, it does have this kind of lightness of like, we're planning an escape, get all the boys together, we're gonna have a meeting, you know? Which it does share with this movie, for sure.
02:40:36
Speaker
And I think with kind of like POW movies in general. I just watched the Apple TV Masters of the Air miniseries. And there's a whole POW like plot line in that that's like three episodes long. And yeah, I watched that like concurrently with this movie. So I had a lot of POW camp media getting ingested in my eyeballs. But yeah, I think like the vibes in a World War One
02:41:01
Speaker
prison camp versus World War II one is like so different. We touched on class a bit before talking about the sort of like main officers from the French and the Germans. There's a lot of like class commentary and just like class stuff in this movie, which I picked up on a lot of it for sure, but I think a lot of it also is couched in like interwar French
02:41:27
Speaker
like sociology, which I just don't have a good frame of reference. Yeah. Yeah, I know. So it's like I can tell that they're saying things. I don't know what they're saying, not in terms of the language, but I mean, just in terms of like, like what it means, what these references, what it means to have these characters interacting in the way that they are. Like they say, like, oh, you're a, you know, you're a von something and I'm a like a
02:41:49
Speaker
French name, you know? And it's like, there's some implication that it's like, there's status that comes with these names. I think we said this in the, like, Foolish Rives episode, like, Erich von Stroheim is not his name. Like, he made that name up for himself to sound like this, like, aristocratic German man.
02:42:07
Speaker
Because I think that the von prefix is some sort of like, it's not royalty, but it's just like, it's a status thing. I don't really know what it means, but it's so his character in this movie is also von Raufenstein.
02:42:24
Speaker
And yeah, there's like they talk about how like different diseases affect different kind of social classes. Like, oh, that's like a poor person's disease or like that's a rich man's disease. They talk about like how there's one of the characters who is Jewish and he's kind of like.
02:42:43
Speaker
new rich, I guess. There's like the old rich guy who's sort of the leader of the group and has a monocle and like is the high class one. But the people who are like poor, the officers who are poor, talk to the kind of rich
02:43:02
Speaker
Jewish officer and they both agree like you know if we lost our money we'd both be on the street right but like him like he has the status like that would never happen to him but then like the non-statist rich guy like he is sharing like he's getting all this stuff sent to him from his family
02:43:23
Speaker
uh and he's sharing it with all the people around him you know it's generosity but he also admits that it's a bit of like this vanity thing of like i want to be the one yeah who is like giving people gifts i want people to see me as this like benefactor as this rich person yeah and it's like yeah i i picked up on enough of that to definitely it is a a very big thematic through line in this movie is like the different social classes
02:43:52
Speaker
And especially it's also interesting this being like a war movie where it's like everyone is being taken out of their usual kind of like place in society, right? It's like war is kind of equalizing to some degree. But it still lingers. I think this is a really interesting like war movie because it is like there's no fighting in it. There's no like battle scenes in it.
02:44:11
Speaker
There's no depictions of open warfare happening, but it is so much about the mindset of people in war, or at least during World War I. I find that very interesting to watch, especially when this movie is so kind of like
02:44:27
Speaker
philosophical also it's like a lot of people like sitting in in rooms discussing ideas why why why escape yeah very french one of the main guys uh i think he's the one who kind of has the is the most famous wears a black jacket the whole time he's the one that merachal yes i think is uh his name uh like he is the one who's saying like why try to escape if the war is going to be over soon
02:44:55
Speaker
And the kind of title drop in this movie is one of the other characters telling him that it's an illusion that the war will ever end, basically. Which I was watching this with Jack Vernick, who is on our Urmo episode.
02:45:11
Speaker
Friend of the show, Jack Verner. And we were thinking like, you know, this is made like two years before Germany invades Poland, right? And like there's like clearly some scary stuff happening. The same year that the Luftwaffe bombed Spain. Yes.
02:45:27
Speaker
Crazy. And it's like, you know, all of that, the Nazi stuff, like it was born out of World War One. And so like it's kind of saying like the war didn't ever end, even when the war ended. Like it's an illusion that the war ended. And then two years later, it picked back up again, you know. Yeah.
02:45:48
Speaker
They do, they drop the word illusion several times throughout the movie. I've been like, ah, it's an illusion. I'm like, ah, title, maybe? At least at least an indicator toward the theme. Yeah, I do think that is probably like the most direct. That is like the kind of most that's the closest the movie gets, like making a thesis statement of like what the grand illusion is, is that it's like, but it's kind of weaved throughout the whole thing of just like
02:46:17
Speaker
the illusory nature of war or of you know humanity or you know all kinds of
Art as Escape in 'The Grand Illusion'
02:46:24
Speaker
stuff. I think that I really kind of was struck by and I think that I it's just like always you put this in a story and I'm just like well that I'm sold is there's a big kind of through line in this movie of kind of
02:46:37
Speaker
art especially music being used as like a means of escape and of like of like taking Nice college essay thesis there. Yeah, there you go and kind of like taking What's right like taking agency over?
02:46:54
Speaker
like someone's predicament like they're in they're in a prison camp but it's like we're gonna put on a show and you can't stop us or like there's a lot of stuff with music and of art and of like that being this thing that is like we need to hold on to this and we need and this can actually be used as like a means of escape not just for our like our minds and our souls but like literally yeah like this can help us escape the prison camp yes
02:47:23
Speaker
Um, which rules like anytime it's like anything that's about just like the power of art. I'm just like, oh, put a fork in me. I'm done. Like, put a fork in me. I don't know if that's the correct usage of that metaphor. But, um, yeah, I mean, they're, they're like putting on this like wacky.
02:47:43
Speaker
like, zig-field Follies show, where they're all in drag, and they're all, like, going through, like, boxes of stockings and, like, getting horned up over just, like, seeing stockings. Right. They're like, oh boy, these stockings are really something, fellas. Imagine a lady attached to these. I know.
02:47:59
Speaker
It's like, that's how long it's been since I've seen a woman anywhere. Whoa. The shape of a leg. And as they start getting into drag, there's one particularly effeminate looking man who gets into a full get up and then he just stops everyone in front of him because they're all just like, oh my God, that's almost a woman right in front of us.
02:48:28
Speaker
Maybe pre-code. I would not expect to see that in an American film. Probably not. From the 1930s. Pre-code maybe, but yeah. But in a French film, for sure.
02:48:41
Speaker
And yeah, because there is that put on a show thing, because then while they're putting on the show, it gets interrupted where they get news from the front that the French have taken this town. Yeah. And crucially, they're performing the show mostly for the other POWs, but they've invited the Germans to watch too. Right. Yeah. They're like, come see the show.
02:49:02
Speaker
And then, but then it kind of turns when that happens and like, hey, we like the French took this town. And so then everyone, not just the people for me, everyone in the whole place starts singing the French national anthem. And then the Germans are like, well, no, we can't have this. This this is this is too much. And then, yeah, right later on, there's the bit where they're they're all using flutes to like distract the guards and like cause a diversion. And the kind of main officer, what's his name?
02:49:31
Speaker
De Boel Du, whose friends with Erich von Stroheim is like running through, they get transferred in between this. They start in like a camp with, you know, like wooden buildings and barbed wire and stuff, and then they get moved to a castle because they're like, you'll never escape from this castle. There's like a montage. They hop on the train to leave the first place right before their tunnel is finished.
02:49:57
Speaker
There's a montage of all of these signs for different prison camps. And I kind of had thought initially that they were just passing by other ones, going to the most high security one or whatever. But the montage was showing months and months go by. When the montage is over, they arrive at this castle and they're like, you guys have tried to escape six times. You've tried to escape four times. And they're all like,
02:50:25
Speaker
Shrug guilty, like they're all like, hey, what are you gonna do? And so, yeah, it shows just them having been transferred over and over after all of their escape attempts, which I thought was a neat way of kind of
02:50:41
Speaker
pushing forward uh but yeah like like they like you were saying they use uh like all of the POWs like in in unison with each other uh use their flutes to help two people escape by the time that they've arrived there's only three of them left they've been split up or something's happened to the other ones the kind of head officer guy is like the main one causing a distraction right he's he's the one who's like running past the guards like with a flute like come get me
02:51:10
Speaker
he has yeah he's normally pretty serious but he gets silly to uh yeah once they the all the guards take all the flutes away once they start playing them and then they they pull out a bunch of like crockery like pots and pans start banging on those two of them are able to like get away from the main group and like get over the wall meanwhile the the the sort of highest ranking officer did do
02:51:33
Speaker
uh, who's friends with eric von storheim is like running off and is about to get shot and von storheim comes up and he's like no no like you don't like stop running like just come back and like everything's fine like i don't like i don't want to shoot you but he keeps going and von storheim shoots him in the back and it's like through he's not crying but it's like through tears almost it's he's just like oh like i like this guy like yeah he's my friend
02:52:00
Speaker
Because there's been multiple scenes of them just hanging out, having a drink, talking to each other, reminiscing about the old times they used to eat at the same restaurant in Paris, Maxime's, which is still there. Look it up. I want to go now. So he doesn't die right away. He kind of gets put on IV, and he's like slowly dying from his gunshot wound.
02:52:29
Speaker
and von Raufenstein comes in and he's asking him to forgive him for shooting him. He's like, forgive me, I didn't wanna do it, but you were running away, I couldn't. There's so much tenderness in the scene where I'm like, if they kissed, I would not be surprised. They are right up in each other's face and it is so, there's so much just like,
02:52:54
Speaker
Hey, there you go. Wings did it. I'm holding up a wings poster for the listening audience. And yeah, that scene was very, very sad.
02:53:05
Speaker
Yeah, and like I kind of thought that the movie might have ended around there. Like they escaped, they walk off and they get home. But it's got a whole like last act to go. The two that escaped, one of them is the the Jewish officer and like Rosenthal. This is where that becomes more pertinent, I think. There's like a flight of anti-Semitism between the two of them. They're on the run together, kind of like fleeing through
02:53:31
Speaker
Belgium or France or wherever they are living in ditches trying to avoid patrols and things and they just start resenting each other like Immediately because Rosenthal also has an ankle injury they got during the escape So he's like can't walk as fast Yeah, and so they're they're hiding out in a like a farmhouse and they get found by a woman named Elsa who's German, but Elsa doesn't turn them in and Instead is like no come on
02:54:00
Speaker
Stay in the main house.
02:54:03
Speaker
This was very nostalgic for me because I, in 2016, had to, was in a position- Hide into someone's barn? Yes, I was in a position, I was in a position where I was- I've never heard this story. I was in Germany and I had to hide in someone's barn and then they saw me there and felt bad for me, so they invited me into the farmhouse. What? This movie happened to you?
02:54:31
Speaker
It was me and a couple of my friends were hiking a mountain in Germany. We got kind of a late start and like normally you're supposed to hike up and then take like a cable car down or something like that. There is a cable car and it had closed which we didn't know and then it very suddenly started
02:54:50
Speaker
hailing really hard and lightning really like thunder and lightning all over the place. And we were at the top of the mountain basically by ourselves like nobody else. Everybody else knew what the deal was and had left. And so we started just running down the mountain trying not to get struck by lightning. I had my sandals on and they like broke.
02:55:14
Speaker
And it was started raining like so, so hard. And eventually on the way down the mountain, we found like a farmhouse and like we realized that we could like shelter from the rain underneath the the like the eve of a pig sty. Perfect. We like the three of us were just like shivering, like standing there, like hoping like waiting for the rain to end. And there was a woman who was by herself in the farmhouse with her kids.
02:55:43
Speaker
uh just like in this movie and she like kind of looked out and like saw us and we're like come on lady like we're suffering over here and vampire rules invite us in yeah eventually like she was like okay like you know we i can't just leave him out in the rain uh so after like 10 or 15 minutes she let us in we introduced ourselves and she didn't speak like a lot of english but like we got by yeah
02:56:11
Speaker
And we explained the situation. She told us why we were dumb for having started so late after the cable car shut down. Doom, doom, I get, I get that. And, um, she was able to call us a cab to get us back into town, which like, you know, it went up this like dirt road up to her farm. So very familiar.
02:56:33
Speaker
yeah wow thankfully probably for the best that you didn't stay there for like the three months like they seem to seem to win this movie yeah yeah right so the two escapees uh mara shawl and resenthal they get brought in right elsa's there with her uh she's been widowed by the war and she's just there with her daughter uh lati so they're like all right i guess we'll just stay here for a while yeah
02:56:58
Speaker
then they uh they fall in love but they know that it cannot last because right mary shawl and elsa kind of have a thing going and there's a really weird cut in this movie that i actually wonder if it's like they're like cutting something out where there's like this moment where they're about to kiss and like there's this music swells and they're embracing and then it's just like hard cut away like music just like cuts out immediately on the cut and it's like new scene
02:57:25
Speaker
And it was like, whoa, is it like I'm missing with someone like, no, no, you're not allowed to see that part. That's what it felt like. It was like, whoa, that was a very odd transition. But right. So then it's like, we got to go back. We got to go back to, you know, to France. We can't stay here forever. But then there's this thing where Marichel and Elsa have are sort of like when the war is eventually over,
02:57:49
Speaker
they will try to find each other again, if possible. And so then they both leave and they're trying to hike to Switzerland. And like right as they're at the border, a bunch of German soldiers see them and start shooting at them. But then they're like, hang on, we can't we got to stop shooting there in Switzerland now. We're not going to shoot at them. And they can't even tell if they're in Switzerland necessarily, but they they made it just in time. Presumably, they get back to the French lines, but it's like,
02:58:18
Speaker
what their it kind of ends with them both being like what will we do with ourselves whether we get back to the french lines or not what do our futures hold kind of so it ends on that note which um it feels appropriate for this movie yeah i really like just the vibe of this movie yeah i like it's sort of like french intellectual kind of like
02:58:44
Speaker
We're gonna hang out, we're gonna discuss like philosophy and art for like long stretches.
02:58:50
Speaker
but then like tie that into the plot in interesting ways where then like then that comes back around. It's not concerned purely with telling a sort of like straight adventure story of like, we're prisoners and we're gonna escape. It's much more about like, what does it all mean? It's playing with stuff. I think that's interesting. Which I like, yeah. Glenn, what was your favorite movie of this episode? My favorite movie, I'm pretty sure was Maytime.
02:59:16
Speaker
Oh, nice. Which I did not expect going in, not because I thought it would be bad. I was talking to Alan about this off mic earlier, but just because I had so little expectation for it at all, a movie I hadn't heard of. I didn't know anyone who was in it. It was just like I was really kind of taken aback by like how lavish the movie was, like just the production of it in general, but like how it used the camera in just like smart ways to
02:59:43
Speaker
to show things. Also I found the central kind of like very operatic kind of like doomed romance thing pretty compelling. And also like it's fun. All the movies we watched I generally enjoyed. I feel like that one was kind of the standout for me.
03:00:01
Speaker
I already said so, but Make Way for Tomorrow is my favorite. For the last 20 minutes of that movie, I was biting on the corner of a pillow, just sobbing. I got to give props to anything that can do that. Also, I just think it's a really smart, interesting, well-observed human film.
03:00:22
Speaker
That's it for 1937. Sorry for being, like, nine hours long. But who do you think we are? Eric Von Strohheim? Next episode, we both wear monocles.
03:00:38
Speaker
That's it for this one. Thank you all for listening. Indeed, indeed. Hit the bell. Yeah, please, please, please subscribe, I guess, if you like the show. I wouldn't recommend, I mean, it's probably good to hit the bell because we're not like super consistent about uploading, but also- Right, you do want those notifications. But also like, who wants notifications? Like, gross. For certain things it can be helpful.
03:01:04
Speaker
if you love us that much. If you love us that much, say, I love you in the comments. Yes, please do. It'll be nice. It doesn't sound desperate at all. Anyway. Please clap. That'll be it for this one. Thanks for listening once again. And we'll see you in 1938. So Glenn, see you next year. Have a nice trip.