1938: Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938) 8/10

For modern audiences, it is difficult to separate Cary Grant from his later suave debonair persona or Katharine Hepburn from her legendary status. Yet when Bringing Up Baby was released by RKO in 1938, Grant was better known for his comedic timing in films such as Topper and The Awful Truth than the tanned charm he would later perfect in films such as Charade or North By Northwest.

Similarly, while Hepburn is today viewed as a pioneering feminist, in the 1930's she was box-office poison. Resented for her considerable family fortune and her tendency to overact, Hepburn was seemingly destined to wither away from Hollywood by the end of the Thirties. Fortunately, 1940's Philadelphia Story to which she had the rights to resurrected her career, but not after she was forced to buy out her contract following 1938's expensive box-office disaster Bringing Up Baby.

A textbook example of a great screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby supplies the sub-genre's recognized traits of eccentric characters, absurd situations and verbal wit. Films such as His Girl Friday, My Man Godfrey and The Palm Beach Story all share the erratic sub-genre's focus on class deconstruction and the battle of the sexes within sophisticated settings.

Bringing Up Baby was the second film featuring Grant and Hepburn together- the first being in George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett in which the New England-born actress appears in drag. Like the former, Bringing Up Baby was a film that did poorly at the box-office and with critics of the period, but was revived in the 1950's by the critics at Cahiers du Cinema and in the 1960's by the New York Theatre; eventually being remade by Peter Bogdanovich in 1972 as What's Up Doc? starring Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal.

The film concentrates on socially reserved paleontology professor David Huxley (Cary Grant). After four years of work assembling a Brontosaurus, Huxley finally receives the missing piece (an intercostal clavicle) and is set to wed to his workaholic associate. But in order to finish the Brontosaurus, Huxley must garner financial backing from an elderly philanthropist Mrs. Random, through her lawyer Mr. Peabody. Yet, along the way Huxley meets free-spirited socialite Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) who along with pet leopard Baby appears to thwart Huxley's quest to finalize his jurassic creation and wed his dour finacée.

Revelling in typical Hawksian situations and problems, Bringing Up Baby utilizes the famed director's emphasis on speed to accelerate the tensions and turmoil between his two oddball lead characters. The Hawksian thematic approach to the intertwining turmoil between the sexes is prevalent throughout Bringing Up Baby. In the film, this concept is illustrated through the combative love/hate relationship Vance and Huxley share.

Desperate to engage in his own pursuits, Grant's inhibited Huxley is unable to shake off his open and flirtatious acquaintance in Hepburn's Susan Vance. No matter how hard he tries, she always "coincidentally" happens to be following him: stalking him with a curled romantic crush, often illustrated in her suggestive remarks regarding Grant's appearance sans his horn-rimmed glasses or her tactic that results in Grant leaving a shower with no available clothes.

Through her kleptomania and hyperactive, unfocused approach to life, Susan Vance is viewed as the necessary tonic to loosen Huxley's nice-mannered, but dull demeanour. Conversely, his straight-laced mannerisms offer her direction and purpose to her spasmodic lifestyle. Yet, this relationship is crucially built not necessarily on love, but on frustration and loneliness. Huxley often wants to strangle Vance, rather than hug her; yet as she remarks when Huxley tries to ward him home, she needs him as she is extremely lonely.

One can even find similarities in thier primal relationship with George, the dog of Vance's aunt. When George steals and buries David's intercostal clavicle, the maligned professor embarks on an amusing quest around a vast Connecticut property. To others, David's search on all fours is embarassingly neurotic; even though Susan is evidently following David in a similar manner.

By maneuvering David back to her home after tearing their clothes at a fancy restaurant, Susan is laying down a template for her sexual conquest of David and his assimilation into her family. Therefore, one of the great, often unmentioned delights of Hawks' film is the manner in which Susan's romantic neurosis is deemed acceptable by her family and others, while through her antics David becomes portrayed as a loon. By pursuing George and the leopard, the intellectualized David demeans himself. While the animalistic qualities of Hepburn's Vance erupt in her enhanced sexual desire, they result in the esteemed professor turning into a beastlike creature: stalking his prey with little care for anything but the prize.

Due to the film's budgeting issues and subsequent financial failure, both Hawks and Hepburn almost had their careers destroyed. While the former was fired from his next RKO production, Hepburn was pushed toward buying out her contract, or be subsequently placed in humilating roles as punishment for the film's failure. Ironically in the end, the critical and commercial fortunes of both parties vastly improved in the years after the film's release. Hepburn would become a noted actress and famed co-star alongside her lover Spencer Tracy, while Hawks would create another legendary screwball comedy with Grant ( His Girl Friday) before dipping into other genres.

While revisionist critics have argued the film's failure was down to its sophistication and focus on East Coast intellectuals, Hawks later asserted that perhaps his characters were not "normal" enough. Yet, evidenced by the success of madcap characters in film's such as Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey and Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace, one has to believe that the perhaps the normality of the film's characters was not the problem, but perhaps the lack of analysis given toward dissecting (any of) the class differences between David and Susan.

With its settings in lavish apartments, country clubs and rural estates, Bringing Up Baby was a rarity in screwball comedy for its lack of topical social commentary. By detaching and isolating itself from the events of the Depression, Hawks flooded the film with a timeless quality, yet avoided offering any sly socio-economic insights. Other than a off-the-cuff remark regarding the shabby nature of Grant's car, there is little mentioned that demonstrates a class distinction between David and Susan. Arguably, its most interesting cultural element, is the film's famous ad-libbed line in which dressed in a woman's robe, David signficantly exclaims that he "just went gay all of a sudden:" a rare early instance of the term being used in a homosexual context.

Filled with pratfalls and visual gags, Bringing Up Baby is the rare screwball comedy to hybridize sophisticated humour with the calculated inventive comedy of Lloyd, Keaton or Chaplin. To its champions, it is a film that delights audiences, because of the rapidity and propensity of its comic timing. Each new viewing of Bringing Up Baby offers new humourous points as comedic layers are peeled back to reveal further anecdotes, quips and queries.

Utilizing a fantastic tandem in Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, director Howard Hawks fashioned one of the great American comedies: a frenzied fusion of comedic styles blended into an eccentric, screwy setting. Although the film arguably lacks a counterbalance to its an array of off-kilter individuals, this is not necessarily problematic. Rather through the film, Hawks is able to exasperate the primal nature of lust in its crazy and irrational forms. By taking this to this extreme, Hawks creates a film lined with memorable quotes and great performances. Along with his later Gentleman Prefers Blondes, this is one of his most outstanding comedic achievements.

* Bringing Up Baby is available in Warner Home Video's Classic Comedies Collection

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1951: His Kind Of Woman

His Kind Of Woman (1951, Farrow) 5/10

"Whenever I have nothing to do and I can't think, I always iron my money (Dan Milner)
What d'ya do when you are broke? (Lenore Brent)
When I'm broke, I press my pants (Dan Milner)

Throughout her two decade career, controversy seemed to follow Jane Russell. Not for risqué behaviour, but rather as documented in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, the protruding extent of her cleavage. Unlike other similar popular sex symbols of the period, Russell's off-screen life was not filled with scandalous behaviour or psychological difficulties that blighted the private lives of Lana Turner or Rita Hayworth.

Signed to a seven-year contract with Howard Hughes in the early Forties, Russell's career infamously became linked to Hughes' attempts to demonstrate her physical attributes, rather than her acting talents. Yet, in films such as Howard Hawks' Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Russell proved adept at playing wisecracking, strong women unafraid to insert their views or stamp their authority upon a situation.

While her later career was fraught with a slew of forgettable films and flops such as Nicholas Ray's Hot Blood and Norman Taurog's The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown, her mid-period, particularly alongside imposing actor Robert Mitchum in a pair of oddball Noirs- 1952's Josef von Sternberg film Macao and John Farrow's 1951 His Kind Of Woman- demonstrated her ample skills.

In 1951, Howard Hughes earmarked His Kind Of Woman to be a showcase for Russell. An eccentric romantic-adventure-comedy draped in the chiroscuro clothing of Noir, His Kind Of Woman is a sprawling mess: as entertaining as it is infuriating. Set in Mexico, the picture involves Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) as a down and out professional gambler, who is offered $50,000 by a group of his underworld colleagues to await orders. Along the way, Milner meets Lenore Brent (Jane Russell), a socialite-cum- chanteuse who is flying down with Milner to Morro's Island.

Despite its beginnings in typical urban Noir settings such as cramped apartments, dining cars, cavernous mansions and Mexican bars, the film jettisons to the un-Noir-like Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Art Deco surroundings of Morro's Island: a resort for wealthy eccentrics including ham actor Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price), a chess-obssesed writer in Martin Krafft (John Mylong) and a gambling insurance salesman named Winton (Jim Backus).

While others lap up the sun and the alcohol, the teetotal Milner finds out the true nature of his mission from Lusk (Tim Holt): a federal agent tracking the mysterious involvement of several of the hotel's guests in an attempt to bring exiled gangster Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) back into the United States.

His Kind Of A Woman is a misleading title. Despite the steamy air of mystery which follows her, Russell's Brent is not a typical Noir femme fatale. Her intentions are always benevolent and never concealed. Her reason for swooning with the nouveau riche is simply to solidify the trans-national relationship between her and longtime lover Cardigan. She never feels any ill will toward Milner, but rather goes out of her way to protect him: supplying him with weapons, securing assistance and so forth. Her passion for Milner stems out of Cardigan's disregard for her emotional platitudes in favour of hunting; unlike Milner whose veiled remarks and body language suggest the possibility of a relationship.

It is this interplay of characters which signifies the film's opening hour. The plot leisurely adapts to the tropical surroundings in the first half of HIs Kind Of Woman. There is little that genuinely thrills in His Kind Of Woman as the film's first hour is more of a laid back meditation on identity and personality. We learn about the existential nature of the characters themselves and why they are here? And who are they with? Yet, little of the film's plot reveals itself in these sequences beyond a few verbal skirmishes between an investigative Mitchum and the resort's heavy Thompson (Charles McGraw).

The film thus strongly infers a typical Noir theme of identity throughout. Mitchum's character knows little of why he is at the resort, but is desperate to consolidate a reason for his colleagues' hefty investment. Despite her acclaimed riches, Lenore Brent is not exactly the woman she appears to be, as a guitar player in the resort's band attempts to inquire into her veiled past. Ferraro's approach to identity is even more diabolical, as he wishes to take Milner's physical identity through the type of bizarre plastic surgery which Georges Franju would later make famous in his poetic horror film Eyes Without A Face.

Furthermore, nobody in His Kind Of Woman seems willing to self-analyze their personal crises. Rather they need the form connections with others in order to solve their discrepancies. This can be seen in the young couple, who are gambling away their life savings. After Milner intervenes at the silent wish of the young bride, the couple regain their finances. Cardigan is equally perplexing. While Lenore believes he has been divorced for several months, the actor's wife like something out of Fellini's 8½ stumbles back into his domain, whilst he is on vacation. Cardigan's reflexive and quizzical behaviour begins to find a purpose in his attempt to save Milner from Thompson and Ferraro.

As noted earlier, gambling is also a prevalent theme. Milner retorts that he only engages in games were the outcome has already been decided; yet he is known to have been repeatedly unlucky across Southwestern California: hence his desperate acceptance of the enigmatic $50,000. The theme of games and gambling extends to Krafft's solitary chess matches, Winton's aggressive tactics against a hapless newlywed and Mitchum's surreal insertion of a leather shoe into the winner's pot at a game of poker.

Cardigan's lust for hunting and fishing further expands the theme, yet it also takes on a symbolic turn in Russell's animalistic pursual of Price's bumbling actor and his attempt to turn a duel with McGraw's Thompson into masculine sport. Yet, women are excluded from this realm in which notions of male mental skill and intelligence are demonstrated. The film's female characters are more obsessed with money. Their intellectual acumen is used to preserve their financial state such as the young bride stopping her husband and both Lenore Brent and Helen Cardigan desperate to seek out Mark Cardigan.

Yet, the sultry, slowly cooked atmosphere of the film's first half gives way to jarring slapstick humour and acts of brutal sadism. Whereas the film's first half showcased the brilliant modes of sophisticated sex comedy Russell and Mitchum were capable of together, the film's latter half is devoted to an unsettling blend of devious violence and farce. The latter is filtered through Price's Shakespeare-spouting Cardigan and was expanded at the behest of producer Howard Hughes who adored Price and the Cardigan character. This queasy potpourri of humour which plays upon racial stereotypes and sight gags is more akin to Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace than to Mitchum's great Noirs such as Out Of The Past.

Combined with the vicious nature of Raymond Burr's Ferraro, the film's last hour unbalances an already uneven film. The film's latter third was completely re-shot by director Richard Fleischer ( The Narrow Margin; Compulsion) at Hughes' behest and sits uneasily alongside the lazy, slow-building tension built by Farrow. Running at least half an hour too long, the film's final half stretches out Mitchum's torture scenes and Price's boggled rescue past their limit. These scenes extend notions of masculinity earlier explored through gaming in the film. Despite her persona as a tough brunette, Russell spends almost the last hour of the film locked in a closet. The only other available female character in Mrs. Helen Cardigan (Marjorie Reynolds) remains true to her feminine leanings and stays at home.

Cinematographer Alfred J. Wild applies his earlier tutelage under Gregg Toland in producing a low-angle shot, ceiling-filled maze of images that compliments both the film's somewhat Noirish leanings and its scope as a romantic-adventure. The scenes in which we first meet Russell in a Mexican cantina should be noted for the extreme lack of height in comparison to the voluptuous ceilings of scenes in a Hollywood mansion. Wild's cinematography along with the excellent, snappy banter between Mitchum and Russell are some of the few highlights to this aloof entry in Hollywood history. Although the film was surprisingly a hit, today it is often better known for Vincent Price's offbeat performance which defines the film's latter half. Yet, within the sex-dripped dialogue espoused by Russell and Mitchum, one can imagine how delicious the film could have been without studio interference.

* His Kind Of Woman is available through Warner Home Video in their Film Noir Collection V3 boxset

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1952: The Narrow Margin

The Narrow Margin (Fleischer, 1952) 8/10

"What kind of a dish?" (Forbes)
"A sixty cent special: cheap, flashy, strictly poison under the gravy" (Brown on Mrs. Neall)

In the annals of B-movie history, there is often a debate among critics and scholars as to what is the greatest low-budget production of Hollywood's Golden era. Generally, two films come up within this discourse. The first is Edgar G. Ullmer's 1946 film Detour; the second is Richard Fleischer's incomparable 1952 masterstroke The Narrow Margin.

Like Detour, Fleischer's film operates in the hard-boiled cynical world of Film Noir; but while Ullmer's film was financed by forgotten Poverty Row studio PMC, Fleischer had the benefit at working at RKO: a studio which, albeit was no longer the dynamic force it had been two decades earlier, was still among Hollywood's classic brand.

While film critics and cultists have often placed Detour on an unfounded critical plateau, The Narrow Margin often gets lost in the critical mix. Yet with its taut, economical pace, razor sharp dialogue and coiled narrative, the film is an exemplary showcase of how to construct a "B" picture. The high esteem for The Narrow Margin both then and now, can be seen in its 1952 Academy Award nomination for Best Story and its later unsuccessful 1990 remake with Gene Hackman in the starring role.

Set almost entirely on a train, The Narrow Margin begins at Chicago's Union Station were L.A. detective Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) and his partner Gus Forbes (Don Beddoe) arrive to collect Mrs. Neall (Marie Windsor) a saucy widowed gangster's moll. Brown's job is to protect Mrs. Neall en route to Los Angeles were she is to testify before a grand jury. Almost immediately, the vitrolic relationship between Brown and Neall is born; after the cigar-chomping Forbes is mercilessly gunned down as the pair attempt to secretly whisk Neall out of town.

However to Brown's good fortune, the fleeing assassin fails to catch a glimpse of Mrs Neall descending the staircase. After scampering onboard a train, Brown begins a game of cat and mouse with a string of mysterious men all out to silence Neall before she reaches California: including a bulging obese man named Jennings (Paul Maxey), a wiry moustached hired-hand (David Clarke) and a small-time businessman named Yost (Peter Brocco). Each uses different methods ranging from intimidation to bribery in order to ensnare Neall into their oily palms; but despite his gritty stare Brown does not bite, as he affirms his duty to protect the venemous Mrs. Neall, as well a group of innocent passengers who unknowingly become a part of this case of hidden identity.

One of the late entries into the classic Noir period, The Narrow Margin is a smart, nimble thriller which snarls through its 71 minute running time. Notable for its use of handheld cameras, Fleischer's film is a claustrophobic exploration of themes of identity, duty and corporate crime. One can find traces of its brooding malevolence in later films such as Peter Yates' Bullitt, Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest and John Boorman's Point Blank. Yet what separates Fleischer's film from the former two in particular is the intense atmosphere of seething contempt-similar to that found in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat from the same year.

Featuring "the King and Queen of the B's" in Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor respectively, Fleischer utilizes their sneering and conniving personas to great effect. McGraw's Brown predates the type of bitter cops which would be seen in films such as Dirty Harry. There is not much really likeable about Brown in his brooding, caustic approach to social interaction and life in general.

But underneath his hard exterior, there is a man who feels anguish about the death of his partner and the effect it will have on others. The smoky-voiced Brown may not be able to relate or confer with others on a human platform, but this arguably due to his nature as a bitter and underpaid law enforcement officer. Brown's approach to ethical procedure is acidic, but his response to duty and preserving the safety of others is altruistic and paramount.

The selflessness of Brown's work is magnified by the ambigious notion of Neall's identity. Locked in Forbes' cabin, Neall remains hidden to the crooks and criminals who are lusting for her blood outside. But since the hitmen are unaware of what Neall looks like, this becomes a problematic situation for Brown. The detective's repeated interactions with a likeable blonde woman named Mrs. Sinclair begins to arouse suspiscion that perhaps she is the mysterious Neall: extending Brown's need to protect multiple passengers.

The enigmatic nature of identity also amplifies the suspense of Fleischer's film. Since the assassins are unaware of Neall's whereabouts and Brown is unable to discern who is and isn't a possible threat, Fleischer's film aggressively plays with the concept of identity. Everyone in The Narrow Margin from the hefty man who continually blocks the corridors to the conductor is a possible suspect.

Snaking through corridors, George E. Diskant's expressionist and abrasive camera captures the claustrophobic intensity of The Narrow Margin's closed quarters, which intensifies Brown's need to remain alert at all times: as characters disappear and reappear into frame at the blink of an eye. Furthermore, Fleischer maximizes the nature of train travel by making every possible layover and stop a dangerous situation. The repeated taps on doors and the need to remain silent, also heighten the film's suspense and the weariness of McGraw's volatile sub-Kirk Douglas persona.

Like Boorman's Point Blank almost fifteen years later, The Narrow Margin explores the sophistication of modern crime. The organization which is keen to silence Mrs. Neall is headed by Brocco's Yost-incidentally also the name of a similarly ambigious character in Boorman's film- who offers Brown $30,000 in return for Neall's head. The mild-mannered Yost is not a typical criminal.

Balding and short, Yost is employed as a equipment salesmen in Chicago and refuses to carry a gun as he abhors them Yost talks to Brown about Neall in the language of modern business. He refers to his employer as a respected company and sees any compromise the pair can arrange as a viable business deal. In Yost, Fleischer thus demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of modern crime: as organizations working under respectable pretences and preferring to use diplomacy first and force second in order to achieve their means.

Cheaply crafted, yet aesthetically sharp Richard Fleischer's 1952 film The Narrow Margin is a dark biting thriller which fleshes out its intensions almost immediately. Using rapid-fire editing and ingenious sound design, Fleischer's film is able to turn small gems out of silent glances between characters and almost meaningless effects such as the sound of Neall's scratchy nail file turning into a pacy train wheel. Although Fleischer was to go on to creating illustrious A-pictures such as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and The Vikings, he rarely ever came close to capturing the raw fury, excitement and intensity contained in this ultimate "Killer B."

* The Narrow Margin is available on Warner Home Video in their Film Noir Collection V2 boxset

Other Richard Fleischer Films Reviewed:
Compulsion (1959) 6/10

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque