The Gay Sisters (1942)

“Let that be a lesson to you not to go driving around the county deceiving strange men.”

After the death of his wife on the Lusitania, wealthy New-Yorker Penn Sutherland Gaylord (Donald Woods) decides to ‘do’ something and goes off to fight and subsequently die on the fields of France. This leaves his three small children, Fiona, Evelyn, and Susanna orphaned. Before Gaylord leaves to fight in WWI, he imagines that he’s taking care of his children’s future by leaving an iron-cast will which includes a vast fortune and the splendid Gaylord mansion to his three daughters. Early scenes show Gaylord with his eldest daughter, Fiona–a proud, imperious child who hides her emotions in front of the servants.

The film then flashes forward. The Gay sisters (as they are now known) are all adult. Fiona (Barbara Stanwyck) and Susie (Nancy Coleman) still live in the Gaylord mansion while Evelyn (Geraldine Fitizgerald) is married and living in England. The Gaylord estate has been tied up in litigation for years, and has gradually been bled dry with multiple versions of the will, various lawsuits and a series of  lawyers. Think Jarndyce vs Jarndyce in Bleak House and you get the picture. Fiona–the oldest girl and the backbone of the family is the tough one of the bunch–the most vocal and the one who’ll fight to the death to keep the mansion.

The Gaylord mansion is, apparently, in the crosshairs of Charles Barclay (George Brent), one of the will’s contestants. He wants to demolish the Gaylord house and build some monstrosity (according to Fiona) to be known as Barclay Square. It looks as though the litigation will continue when sister Susie who’s in love with artist Gig Young (played by Byron Barr before he changed his name to Gig Young) secretly goes to Barclay on a mission to persuade him to drop the suit. Her action causes a chain of events to take place….

The Gay Sisters, directed by Irving Rapper, certainly has the feel of a novel, so it should come as no surprise that it’s based on a book written by Stephen Longstreet. While the film isn’t bad (I actually rather enjoyed it), it never quite reaches the heights it strains to touch. It’s not quite soap opera, not quite drama and not quite romance, and yet at the same time, I suspect that the novel was a grand mixture of these elements. As it is, the film develops some intriguing asides but then wraps them up all too implausibly as the plot dashes to the final scenes.

The sisters are a mixed bunch with Evelyn (back on a visit) the bitchy pretentious one who sports a monocle, and Susie is the most human of the litter. That leaves Fiona played with Stanwyck’s usual backbone. It’s difficult to feel much sympathy for the sisters who collectively moan about how poor they are, and yet none of them work and there’s more than one fur coat flapping in the breeze. At one point, Fiona mentions she inherited a cool $100,000 dollars from an aunt–quite a fortune in those days. It might as well be $100 from the way it’s mentioned almost as an aside–while today, sixty years later, $100,000 is still a large amount of money to the average working stiff. But that’s just the money issue; when it comes to character, Evelyn is nasty, and the way Fiona used Charles isn’t exactly charming either. That leaves Susie, but there’s dirt in her past too. Perhaps the novel managed to be a grand tear-jerker, but somehow that’s lost in the film version. That said, the sympathy that does come to the sisters comes courtesy of understanding the burden of responsibility of having a great house, and a great name and two dead parents. The weight of this burden taints all three sisters in different ways, but the film makes the point that they certainly haven’t had a normal life (whatever that is).

If you’re a Stanwyck fan, you won’t be able to resist watching the film just to see her in this role.

Quotes:

“We’re all little people trying to find and grab what happiness we can . We fight back and love each other, work a while and die still little people. But once in a while one of us has a chance to do something . Life hands it to us on a platter.” (Gig Young to Evelyn)

“Love is something you cut out of yourself or it moves in and cuts you apart.” (Fiona to Susie)

 

Russkoe (2004)

“For Art to be profitable, it has to be on the same side as crime.”

Russkoe, a 2004 film directed by Aleksandr Veledinsky is based on the novels and stories of Eduard Limonov, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that the film is partly autobiographical. The film is set in 1959 and when the film begins it’s the October  holidays, and everyone is celebrating. Everyone except Ed…. 

Ed (Andrey Chadov) is 16. He’s the only child of a policeman (Mikhail Efremov) and his wife (Yevdokiya Germanova) in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Kharkov is the sort of town in which the breaking of a shop window morphs into an intense search for the perpetrator. Although there’s a vivid street life among various outcasts and misfits, daily Soviet life is depicted as rather drab and unpleasant with everyone leading a hardscrabble existence. Aspects of Western culture peek through as desirable and unattainable (Elvis Presley, for example) to Ed’s crowd.  Ed, who’s a would-be poet, runs with a marginal crowd and isn’t above using his poetry to distract victims for pickpocketing. In one scene, a woman covered with war medals screams that she’s been robbed by Ed’s friends, and she’s man-handled by the local police who are more interested in shutting her up than investigating her accusations. 

When the film begins, Ed is infatutated by the perfect, unattainable beauty, Svetka (Olga Arntgolts). Sveta tells Ed “You are too poor for me,”  and then Sveta hints that she may have sex with Ed if he takes her to a restaurant. Ed spends quite a bit of time and energy trying to get 200-300 roubles in order to give Sveta a night out. Unfortunately while Ed goes around hitting up everyone for a loan, they in turn hit him up for a drink instead. But after his futile quest for money ends badly (and he abandons a book of Blok poetry), he finds himself locked up in the Saburka insane asylum for a “puberty crisis.” And this is where the film settles in and becomes very interesting, dark, and humourous. 

Although just 16, Ed is placed in the adult ward, in the so-called quiet room with four other prisoners. There’s Sasha (a WWII deserter) a man who continues to be there through influence, a psychopath, an intellectual, and Avaz (Aleksandr Robak), a chronic masturbator. While Ed imagines that his turn-around in the insane asylum will be fast, another inmate explains that Ed has a fat chance of being released since the fascist medical director specializes  in suicide. 

In pre-revolutionary Russia, prisons became the ‘universities’ for dissidents, and in Russkoe, the message seems to be that the insane asylum becomes Ed’s ‘university’. Locked up with the so-called insane, he learns to value his poetry and use it as a tool. He’s told that “all the greats wrote in jail,” and he discovers that Khelnikov and Vrubel were locked up in the same institution. 

The characters in the insane asylum are locked up for various transgressions against Soviet society. A suicide case is supposed to be locked up for his own protection until the crisis is over. But in Ed’s case, he’s viewed as some sort of deviant. The film is rife with imagery of Soviet culture which largely focuses on telling people how to behave–one poster depicts a man saying ‘No’  to alcohol, another poster promotes breast  health, and a poster inside the insane asylum lists various “Socialist Obligations.” There’s a dark humour to the appearance of this poster as the staff at the insane asylum–with very few exceptions play out their own fantasies and theories of life using the patients. The favoured punishment  is to strap the patient to his bed and inject him with sulfur: “If you misbehave, you get sulfur. Takes you three days to get back.” 

Perversions of power, the crushing of individualism and the control of behaviour appear throughout the film, and  at one point a character discusses religion with Ed, asking:  “Is god a kind of super KGB agent listening to all of us all the time?” Along with this view are crimes against the state and the subsequent punishment–with those in charge making all the decisions about what’s acceptable in society and what isn’t. Ed, after all, tried to destroy himself, and rather ineffectually at that. For this ‘crime,’ he’s viciously punished and almost destroyed by the very institution that is supposedly saving him from himself.

Clips from the film October by Sergei Eisenstein depict the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917 and these scenes are recreated in parallel scenes of the residents of Kharkov storming the asylum. The message is that perhaps another revolution needs to take place. 

Eduard Liminov is the leader and founder of the Nationalist Bolshevik Party (The Nazbols), and one scene depicts Ed as a middle-aged man, still in prison garb and the physical similarity to Limoniv is inescapable. Limonov was locked up in 2002 for weapons trafficking. In an early scene in the film, one of Ed’s friends rues that their Slav ancestors  “didn’t fight to conquer hot countries.” Since one of The National Bolsheviks’ goals is to create one huge country which encompasses Russia and Europe, I wasn’t sure if this is a sly dig or just a way to show the germination of Limonov’s beliefs. I read some articles about Limonov (whose real name is Savenko, by the way). Some of the articles were patronizing, but that said, I don’t agree with Limonov’s disturbing politics at all. I did enjoy the film, though. I can find very little information about Russkoe, so if someone out there has more information, please leave a comment.

Are You Being Served? The Movie (1977)

“You were beckoning and waving your y-fronts.”

Jonathan at Ruthless Culture recently popped over here for a few minutes and took the trouble to recommend a film based on the popular comedy series Are You Being Served? I haven’t seen all the episodes in the series, but when I heard that there was a film version of the series set in the Costa Plonka, well I knew I had to see it. Films that show the British abroad often make good comedies (Carry on Abroad), and then there’s that idea that the British go a little mad when set loose on a beach under a baking sun (Shirley Valentine).

Are You Being Served? The Movie  begins in the familiar environment of the Grace Brothers department store. With renovations about to take place that will necessitate the closing of the business, Young Mr. Grace decides that all employees will be given the incentive to take their holidays during the shop’s closing, and the incentive underwriting this whole deal is an all-expenses paid package tour to various exotic destinations. While the departments are selected for different destinations, the Ladies Wear and the Men’s Wear departments are collectively slated for the Costa Plonka and the Don Bernardo Palace Hotel.

The film starts off a bit slowly as the back ground for the Costa Plonka adventure develops. Mrs Slocombe (Mollie Sugden) doesn’t want the necessary vaccinations, Captain Peacock (Frank Thornton) stalks Miss Brahms (Wendy Richard), and Dick Lucas (Trevor Bannister) hopes the holiday will yield sexual opportunities. The fact that Mrs. Peacock won’t be accompanying her stuffy husband, opens up perceived opportunities to both Captain Peacock and Mrs. Slocombe, but unfortunately not towards each other.

The only person who seems to really enter into the spirit of things is Mr Humphries (John Inman) and his liberation from the Men’s Wear Dept. allows him to reveal a colourful, imaginative wardrobe. His eye-catching pink leisure suit and matching hat are worn for the plane trip.

The arrival at the Don Bernando Palace hotel begins the holiday-from-hell scenario. The film was made during a period when many British holidaymakers were adventuring abroad for the first time, and returning home with nightmare stories of unfinished hotels that lacked plumbing. A similar sort of situation awaits the Grace Bros. staff when they arrive and are greeted by Don Carlos Bernardo (Andrew Sachs, who played the role of Manuel in Fawlty Towers). Difficulties with the language and a handy mispronunciation leave the Grace Bros. staff in their individual ‘Pent-a-houses.’ And they’re not what you’d expect.

During dinner, the shenanigans take place with a love note addressed to “Dear Sexy Knickers,” and this is where the misunderstandings begin. As the night arrives and the moon rises, assignations and unexpected interruptions begin to take place between the Pent-a-houses. Part bedroom farce and part Shakespearean Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, bed-hopping takes place at a furious rate. Whipped into a frenzy by an outhouse toilet, a randy revolutionary and the promise of Mrs. Slocombe’s knickers, the Grace Bros staff spend a restless night in the torrid Costa Plonka

Are You Being Served? The Movie is not subtle humour. It’s lowbrow and crude at times, and the humour doesn’t really take off until the Costa Plonka. The script is full of double entendres–some really funny and some a bit tired and worn, but overall there were certainly enough laughs for me. Part of the film’s success can be found in showing how the holiday in the Costa Plonka liberates some of the characters from their usual Grace-Bros-bound behaviour, while others still try to assert the hierarchy so firmly established within the workplace. The opportunistic union man Mr Harman (Arthur English) ever harking on about the rights of working man, masquerades as a lord to get the best room. And this brings up the general inadvisability of going on holiday with people you also work with….

And then of course, there’s even a drag scene and a fake drag queen.

Some quotes from the film:

Oh don’t they get bold in the tropics?

I hardly think that 2 mussels and a shrivelled up prawn will effect my libido.

She needed a father figure.

You’ll give the British a bad name.

Here have you been showing  ‘em your knickers again?

Just tell them we’re British and they’re spoiling our holiday.

Look at that crumpet around the pool!

Those are false booby-doos.

I object to being ravaged.

What are you going on about? Bet that’s not the first time you’ve lost your knickers in the tube?

You’ve got no authority over me, so get stuffed.

I’d be halfway to Paris by now if the electric blanket hadn’t caught fire.

Ride off into the sunset and try to forget you ever met me.

So thanks for the recommendation, Jonathan!

Mosley (1998)

“Pardon me for asking, but what do you know about the working class?”

I never thought I’d find myself watching a film about Oswald Mosley–let alone that I’d really, really enjoy it. I recently came across Mosley, a  four-part made-for-British television biopic based on the life of the man who was a member of parliament, formed the British Union of Fascists (BUF), and later was interned during WWII. The film is based on two books written by Mosley’s son, Rules of the Game and Beyond the Pale. Part One: Young Man in a Hurry covers the years 1918-1920, Part Two: Rules of the Game covers the years 1924-1927. Part Three Breaking the Mold covers the years 1929-1933, and Part Four: Beyond the Pale covers the years 1933-1940.

Mosley very effectively shows the rot within the British upper classes through its depiction of Mosley’s life and political ambitions.  The film begins on Armistice Day when young Lt Mosley is in London watching the celebrations. Mosley (Jonathan Cake in a terrific performance), fresh out of WWI is determined to make a difference and believes that another war should never be fought. As an aristocrat (Mosley was the eldest son of the 5th Baronet of Ancoats), he very quickly finds a spot in British politics. Invited to the best houses and the best parties, he’s introduced to Lloyd George (Windsor Davies) and makes the older, married American Maxine Elliott his mistress. Mosley becomes the youngest member of parliament–not a bad start to a career that ended in infamy.

Mosley makes a beeline for “Cimmie” Lady Cynthia Curzon (Jemma Redgrave), the daughter of the wealthy and influential Curzon family, and he’s assisted in his courtship by Cynthia’s stepmother–yet another mistress. In real life both Cimmie’s older and younger sisters became Mosley’s mistresses too, and the film depicts Cimmie as rather naïve and severely out-of-touch with her husband’s true character. But these are all aspects of Mosley’s personal life, and he is established rather quickly as an unpleasant and rather cruel egoist with little or no thought of other people beyond his ability to use them to his advantage.

As for his political life, Mosley had many ideas for England which involved a great deal of change. He’s portrayed as a young “man in a hurry,” in direct opposition to the establishment. At first Mosley is a member of the Conservative Party and is the MP for Harrow. The film depicts his impassioned speeches, “crossing the floor,” and his outrage at the Conservative government’s so-called Irish policy. The film tracks Mosley’s switch to Labour and his supposed interest in socialism and the ‘working classes.’ The use of the word ‘supposed‘ is intentional as the film includes many scenes of Lady Cynthia and Sir Oswald delivering speeches to the working classes. She’s wearing her fur coat and they’re ferried around by chauffeurs. In one scene the couple actually squabble about who is going to get the nicer car when they toddle off to lecture the masses. But while Lady Cynthia seems genuine (if a naïve Champagne Socialist), Mosley is depicted as much more calculating, ready to use women silly enough to fall in love with him and to exploit the working classes silly enough to vote for this wanker. ALL politicians do this sort of thing, of course, but Mosley was much more naked about it.

Mosley is highly entertaining and if it fails, it fails to show what is going on in Mosley’s head at crucial moments. At one point, for example, Mosley has formed the BUF and while his underlings labour to create a financial policy, they seem to go into one direction (heavy leanings towards Communism) with no idea that Mosley is headed towards fascism. We see Mosley’s eyes glinting with delight when he glimpses Mussolini for the first time, and there’s a giant hint that Mosley has gone off the deep end when he shows up in Italy wearing a black shirt. The film depicts Mosley’s political switch occurring largely in his head with those in his inner circle oblivious and rather shocked.

While the film spends a good amount of time on Mosley’s affairs, and his first marriage, a relatively small amount of the film is spent on his affair with Diane Guinness (nee MITFORD) one of those oh-so-famous Mitford sisters who mucked about in the politics of the time.  The film shows Mitford’s (Emma Davies) influence quite well, and before we know it this notorious pair are off to Berlin to be married at the home of Goebbels with Hitler as one of the guests. 

The film also depicts the Battle of Cable Street and one of Mosley’s explosive BUF rallies. Amazing really that he wasn’t locked up until 1940, but that’s one of the bennies of being an aristocrat–you can get away with more shit.  Unfortunately, the film does not explore Mosley’s life after internment, and that’s a shame. Still this was a highly entertaining look at Mosley, and he doesn’t come off well at all. While the film emphasises his personal relationships, the point is made that Mosley was a chameleon–ready to wear whichever political skin got him the votes, and more importantly, THE POWER. There seems to be a traceable line, in Mosley’s case, from aristocrat, adulterer, autocrat and fascist–his way or as the old saying goes–or the highway. Fascism seems to be the natural state for Mosley to devolve to as it bypassed any notion of humanity & equality and simply made it easier for him to pass off his ideas without modification from anyone else.

From director Robert Knights.

Conversaciones Con Mama (2004)

“Capitalism is making us all sick.”

Conversaciones Con Mama (Conversations with Mother), an Argentinean film from writer/director Santiago Carlos Oves is the story of a relationship between a middle-aged son and his elderly mother set against Argentina’s financial crisis of 2001.

Jamie (Eduardo Blanco) is an executive who suddenly finds himself without a job during the crisis. He has a middle-class lifestyle–a nice home, a wife and two children, and an elderly mother he supports. When the money crunch hits, Jamie’s wife, Dorita (Silvana Bosco) decides that the best course to take is to sell the apartment currently occupied by Jamie’s elderly mother (China Zorrilla), and then to help expenses, Jamie’s mother is supposed to move in to the now-disused maid’s room. Dorita and her mother pressure Jamie to approach his mother with the news.

When Jaime visits his mother, he finds her surprisingly stubborn on the issue of moving out. It’s not difficult to feel sympathy for Jaime. Played by actor Eduardo Blanco, he has one of those extremely flexible faces–a bit like Roberto Benigni, and it’s this very look that helps create empathy for Jamie–a man trapped on all sides by demanding women. Jamie’s mother is at first very elusive about any sort of move, and it’s difficult to tell just how much is dottiness and how much is avoidance. While she refuses to discuss the apartment, she focuses on the infrequency of Jamie’s visits, and the food she cooks for his visits that is wasted. It becomes clear that there’s no love between Jaime’s mother, Dorita and his mother-in-law. But the idea also appears that while Jaime’s life has gone on without his mother, her life has also developed. During their frequent conversations, she begins using words and phrases that catch Jamie’s attention, and then he discovers that she has a boyfriend.

When Jaime finally pins down his mother long enough to explain his financial dilemma, she refuses to move out of her apartment, citing the fact that her boyfriend, ‘retired anarchist’ Gregorio (Ulises Dumont), an elderly man who spends all day training and educating fellow seniors and protesting, is moving in with her. At first stunned by the news that his mother has a boyfriend, Jaime agrees to meet the new man in his mother’s life.

Argentina has produced a number of films illustrating the lives of individuals affected by the financial crisis, and most of these films concentrate on the minutiae of daily lives and the impact on relationships (Live-in Maid, Common Ground) . Conversaciones Con Mama is one of these films. It has its overly sentimental moments, but then it also has its largely understated scenes. At one point Jaime discovers that neither of his children are following the career paths planned by their parents. His son, for example, doesn’t want to a career in economics but instead he wants to be a tango dancer. At first, the response from the audience and from Jaime is skepticism, but then we see his son dance, and he’s really, really good. The idea seeps through the film that commodities aren’t what’s important–it’s people and their relationships that should be paramount consideration. This is an idea that becomes glaringly obvious to Jamie as he’s continually pressured by the status conscious Dorita to prise his mother out of her apartment. And this underscores the idea that due to the inauthenticity of capitalist values, independence is subsumed to materialism which then affects relationships and quality of life.

Forbidden (1932)

“You’re poison to me. Poison. I wish I’d never met you!”

The Frank Capra pre-code film Forbidden examines a love affair between a single career girl and a politician. Yes, the story of the backstreet love affair has been done a million times, but there are nice little complications to Forbidden that elevate this drama from the mediocre. And of course, it does star Barbara Stanwyck….

The film begins with librarian, Lulu Smith (Barbara Stanwyck) deciding on a whim (and infected with spring fever) to cash in her savings and take a cruise to Havana. In the library, she’s a spectacled frump complete with a bun, but once aboard ship, she’s dressed in a full-length evening gown, fur stole and glittery jewelry, but she’s still noticeably alone–a fact that confounds the ship’s crew. 

Lulu meets and promptly falls in love with another solitary passenger, Bob (Adolphe Menjou). Nicknaming each other 66 and 99 (after the numbers of their cabins), Bob and Lulu spend the entire time together–both on the cruise ship and later in Cuba’s nightclubs. Their love affair is light and devil-may-care. Any serious discussion is deliberately avoided–although at one point Lulu does drop a broad suggestion about skipping the homeward bound ship and staying in Havana.

But Lulu and Bob return to their old lives. She begins working at a newspaper office where she attracts the interest of Holland (Ralph Bellamy), but Lulu makes it clear she’s not interested. Meanwhile Bob’s continuing relationship with Lulu is marginalized into the odd stolen hour, and in spite of the fact he’s a lawyer, Lulu never sees his name in the paper. Eventually of course, Bob reveals he’s married and cannot divorce his wife. Lulu is content to take crumbs but circumstances drive the couple apart.

Forbidden traces the relationship between Bob and Lulu over several decades. Bob’s political career soars while Lulu remains in the background, and she sacrifices again and again–career, relationships, motherhood–these issues are sacrificed on the altar of Bob’s home and career.  Forbidden explores the oppositional forces of selfishness and selflessness through their relationship.  At first, Bob and Lulu think of themselves and their desires, but then Bob shifts and suddenly he has to protect his wife, Helen (Dorothy Peterson) due to  her ‘invalidism’. His argument against a divorce to protect his wife also rather conveniently ensures the continuance of his political career. The film doesn’t explore Bob’s motives a great deal, but the tantalizing possibility that Bob uses his wife as an excuse to protect his political ambition is evident. 

Forbidden is a film that can generate a lot of intriguing discussions, and I suspect many of us would have different opinions about the characters, their motives, and just how selfish or unselfish they really are.

The film makes it clear that Lulu and Bob both very deftly avoid any discussion of their lives when they first meet. In fact at one point, Bob seems (in retrospect) on the verge of confession, when Lulu stops him. Later, Bob’s late night visits must also rouse Lulu’s suspicions but once again she avoids confronting the truth until she’s forced to. This conspiracy of silence extends beyond the lovebirds and even includes Bob’s wife. During one scene in the film, Bob’s wife is about to take off for Europe for a ‘cure,’ and she gives Bob carte blanche to do as he pleases, telling him:

“While I’m away, I want you to have a good time and I won’t ask any questions either.”

So it seems that Bob and Lulu’s affair will be ignored by the missus just as long as he keeps it under wraps. So we have a mistress who’d rather not know about the wife, and a wife who’d rather not know about the mistress. And what of Bob? He has his proverbial cake and eats it too. At one point, Bob rather lamely tells Lulu: “why I’ve taken your life almost as though I’d been a murderer,” and in another scene, he whines (rather unconvincingly, I thought) about how difficult his life is.

Then there’s the question of Holland. He’s every bit as ambitious as Bob, but his goal as newspaper editor is to ruin Bob’s career, and so Holland digs hard and deep for a scandal. Lulu uses Holland, and yet Holland uses Lulu too. So basically we see these four adults in twisted relationships that are a bizarre combination of selfishness and selflessness, and by the time the film ends the results of these relationships are disastrous and destructive.

Forbidden is a really interesting early pre-code vehicle for Stanwyck. The drama steers clear of hysteria and too much melodrama. The weepy bits are well done and conducted with beautiful touches–my favourite scene is when Bob runs after Lulu in the rain. Catch the moment when the rain drips from Bob’s hat. It’s a magnificent touch.

Tsar (2009)

“I return good for good and evil for evil.”

If you want to understand why Ivan the Terrible earned his name, then seek out a copy of Tsar from director Pavel Lungin. Tsar is every bit as atmospheric as director Lungin’s The Island (Ostrov) and as entertaining as Tycoon (Oligarkh). As with other Russian historical films, the viewer should come to the film with a little back ground information–otherwise the film’s beginning sequences will seem confusing.

It’s 16th century Russia, 1565 to be precise and this is a pivotal time in Ivan’s reign. In a nutshell, this is the point when Ivan the Terrible goes completely bonkers. He’s convinced that the last days are nigh, and politically he faces many enemies at home and abroad. Tsar is essentially a distillation of a fairly brief portion of Ivan’s bloody reign which focuses on the relationship between Ivan (Pyotr Mamonov) and his childhood friend Philip (Oleg Yankovskiy), a Russian orthodox monk. Philip is living in the Solovetsky Monastery when he’s asked by Ivan to become the Metropolitan (Metropolitan Bishop). Philip agrees on the condition that Ivan abolish the  Oprichnina and its enforcers, the Oprichniks–a band of political police who wear black cowls and who ride with wolves heads on their saddles. These Oprichniks are on the loose in the film, running amok, organizing repressions, mass murders and torture of anyone who falls into their sphere–it doesn’t seem to matter if the victims are guilty or not of crimes against Ivan.

Anyway, this is the background for the film; Ivan agrees to disband the Oprichnina; Philip agrees to become Metropolitan and then Ivan breaks the agreement. The men find themselves on opposite sides of the monarch-god divide with Ivan busy punishing everyone he can get his hands on and Philip pleading for mercy. It’s not a rare thing for a ruler to challenge the power of the church, or for the church to question the absolutism of the monarchy; there have been other examples which ended in death: Henry II and Thomas a Becket, Thomas More and Henry VIII, but perhaps the clash between Metropolitan Philip and Ivan is more spectacularly bloody. Most of the story follows their tumultuous relationship–with Ivan demanding and Philip eventually refusing to grant forgiveness for Ivan’s crimes.

The film doesn’t have the greatest subtitles, and so a certain amount of tolerance is required from the viewer, but apart from that this is a spectacular film, a marvelous recreation of the excesses, insanity and utter cruelty of this barbaric age. As expected, there are some scenes of torture, and in one rather gruesome scene, a bear, set loose in an arena, eats the intestines of a man while Ivan and the court look on this ‘entertaining’ scene. Ivan watches with a little girl sitting on his lap. The child, a daughter of one on Ivan’s now dead enemies, asks Ivan in hushed tones if ‘it hurts,’ and Ivan joyfully replies, “of course,” stressing the idea that the pain is the entire point.

In another sequence, Ivan and his equally nasty Tsarina (he burned through eight wives by the way) Maria (Ramilya Iskander) are escorted in sleighs through the snow to see what at first seems like some sort of amusement park, but the amusement park doubles as a torture centre. Ivan is delighted and can’t wait to try it out. Ivan vacillates between acts of tremendous cruelty and periods of self-imposed isolation and prayer, and actor Pyotr Mamonov brilliantly captures the dangerous moods–sliding from craftiness to paranoia seamlessly. As Ivan sinks deeper into sadistic madness, Philip gains a calm acceptance which Ivan challenges and attempts to overturn. Ivan finally uses Philip’s nephew in a cruel attempt to smash Philip’s equanimity. The question becomes at what point should a voice of rationality and sanity divorce itself from the excesses of an insane monarch and refuse to cooperate with the madness.

This is a beautifully made film with incredible touches at just the right moment. Divided into four segments, the film charts Ivan’s actions as he’s plagued with military losses and paranoia over possible (and well-deserved) betrayal. With omens of the last days, the Poles beating his armies, and with the virgin daughters of the Boyars enslaved to prepare Ivan’s new church, the film reflects and thus propagates Ivan’s infectious Armageddon mentality. In one of the most delicately handled scenes that could so easily have folded to excess, monks are burnt alive and we see them kneeling and singing but their voices are silent as the smoke swirls and the flames lap the building. For a visual spectacle, Tsar is marvellous as it recreates some of the more infamous moments including the massacre of Novgorod. In the film’s unsettling final scene, it remains unclear whether a ghostly wind carries faint cries or if it simply echoes through the deserted dwellings of Novgorod.

Holiday Affair (1949)

“And I want a girl that’ll drop everything and run to me, no matter what the score is.”

Every Xmas, I tell myself that I will watch a few christmas-themed films, but I usually don’t. This year, however, I managed to catch Holiday Affair, a 1949 film starring lovely Janet Leigh and her somewhat unlikely co-star Robert Mitchum. This delightful film aired on Turner Classic Movies, with the host Robert Osborne explaining that the film was quite a departure for Mitchum. Howard Hughes (RKO pictures), apparently wanted Mitchum to clean up his act after a drug bust in 1948. The intro didn’t mention that Mitchum’s fellow bustee was Lila Leeds. As part of her ‘correction process,’ she made the film She Shoulda Said No (AKA Wild Weed)–a cheesy film, unsurprisingly, about the evils of Marijuana. Lila was finished in Hollywood but Mitchum emerged unscathed.

Holiday Affair is set in the Xmas season in New York and concerns a plucky young war widow named Connie Ennis (Janet Leigh) who lives alone with her son, Timmy (Gordon Gebert). Connie is a ‘comparison shopper’ and works undercover buying products that are scrutinized by a competitor and then returned. While buying a toy train, Connie is served by Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) who sells her the train before she dashes home. This initial encounter should be trivial, but it isn’t, and Steve Mason seems to drink in every detail about Connie–even if she’s distracted and in a great hurry.

Connie appears to have a simple home life, but there are complicated undercurrents. She’s courted by staid, responsible lawyer, Carl Davis (Wendell Corey), but she can’t let go of the memory of her dead husband. Carl wants Connie to marry him, but Connie isn’t sure….

When Connie returns the train to the department store the following day, she runs into Steve Mason again. He spots her as an employee of ‘comparison shopper,’ and he’s fired when he doesn’t ‘out’ her to his hovering supervisor. Connie feels responsible, and soon the two are off to lunch and a friendship begins. This friendship, of course, threatens Carl but delights Timmy.

With Robert Mitchum vs. Wendell Corey, the film’s conclusion is obvious from the outset, but it’s all so delightfully done, perfectly timed and realized. Unlike some Xmas films, Timmy isn’t too angelic (one scene pushes the boundary), but he throws a few fits and tantrums along the way which help the reality factor.

Connie isn’t the great interest here. Instead it’s the two men, In each other’s company (usually on Connie’s territory) their every action and word carries a deeper meaning. Carl, who’s understandably threatened by Steve tries to stake out prior ownership, and this leaves him in an unflattering light. Sympathies for Carl erode during these scenes as we cheer for Steve the underdog, who has materially, a lot less to offer. Mitchum, naturally, steals the film. Steve Mason is an intriguing character, and for him poverty seems a choice and a definite moral value decision. It’s interesting to see how others make judgments about Steve based on his loner, non-materialistic behaviour. But by far the best (and funniest) scene in the film includes a police lieutenant (Harry Morgan) who tries to unravel the complicated relationships revealed right before him.

Anyway, if you want a decent Christmas film that you haven’t watched a million times, keep your eyes open for this one.

From director Don Hartman.

Problem Girls (1953)

“One step before the state asylum.”

Problem Girls (1953) from director Ewald Andre Dupont is a B film. Make no mistake about that. Why bother watching it you ask? Easy: its HCF (High Camp Factor) joined with its theme of Delinquent Dames. How could I resist?

Problem Girls begins with a voiceover narration from John Page (Ross Elliot), and in this sequence, he explains that the jungles of Burma and a Japanese concentration camp are NOTHING compared to the dangers he faced at The Manning School for Girls.

Yes, it’s post WWII and Page is all set to be a certified psychiatrist. All he has to do is sit for the board exams, but in the meantime, he needs a job and so he takes a place at the exclusive Manning School for Girls. Here he can’t practice medicine, but he’s supposed to act as a therapist. Well he’s landed at the right spot because everyone at the school is either DERANGED, DISTURBED or DELINQUENT.

Although Dr. Manning (Roy Reigner) is the nominal head of the school, he’s too drunk to function. Page is employed by the shapely closet dominatrix-type Miss Dixon (Helen Walker), a woman who has the hots for the biceps belonging to instructor Max Thorpe (James Seay). Thorpe is married to a young girl who’s kept drugged and locked up in a room upstairs. What the hell is going on?

What I enjoyed so much about the film (and this added substantially to its camp factor), is that all these crazy things are going on and everyone acts as though it’s normal. The faculty is laced with psychos, murderers, and various antisocial types, but Page (who never cracks a smile or looks in the least uncomfortable ) sits through dinner as though everything is perfectly normal. He doesn’t question why these people are employed to collectively teach the delinquent debutante pupils, and neither does he stop to speculate where he fits into Dixon’s little schemes. Soon Page is up to his neck in intrigue and in cahoots with murderous professor Richards (Anthony Joachim), Page is sneaking around the school shooting up students with sodium pentothal.

As for the pupils, well they consist of spoiled rich girls who’ve “embarrassed” their families in one way or another. The girls are a motley assortment of psychos, nymphos, pyromaniacs You get the picture.

The film’s plot is fairly sedate given the raw material, and the girls are never fully unleashed. Put this film in the hands of John Waters and no doubt we’d see some results. As it is, Problem Girls could have been a lot more interesting, wilder film. There’s a couple of girl fights, a tepid riot but the best scene occurs when the girls are forced to listen to a piano concert. The film more or less plays it straight and ends very abruptly. I suspect that the film isn’t wild enough to be picked up by Something Weird video, but Problem Girls was good for a few cheap laughs and in spite of its many flaws, nonetheless I enjoyed it for its campiness.

The State I Am In (2000)

“You can’t love someone and live in hiding.”

The State I Am In (Der Innere Sicherheit), a 2000 film from German director Christian Petzold is another title to add to the coterie of tales surrounding the Red Army Faction. Unfortunately, The Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008) will probably go down in the re-written annals of history as the film to watch, and that will ultimately give the general public its ‘knowledge’ about this significant urban terrorist group. The Baader Meinhof Komplex is wildly entertaining in a Bonnie and Clyde sort of way, but it’s grating and its highly controversial presentation and preposterous ending is likely to be swallowed whole and undigested by its audience.

And this brings me back to The State I Am In. It’s a much quieter film and for the microscopic examination of its characters, it takes just a tiny slice of Red Army Faction history. It’s possible to watch the film and miss the Red Army Faction connection altogether as The State I Am In isn’t a thriller, full of shoot-’em up chase scenes. Instead The State I Am In follows fugitive members of the RAF who are discovering that as the years pass, their survival is becoming more and more difficult.

Clara (Barbara Auer) and Hans (Richy Muller) have been on the run for about 15 years. They lead a nomadic existence laced with paranoia. They have a child together named Jeanne (Julia Hummer)–a teenager who’s getting more than a bit fed up with her life. She has no friends, doesn’t attend school, and any strangers she strikes up a conversation with are immediately suspect. When the film begins, an edge of desperation has crept into their fugitive lives, and there’s the sense that they are collectively reaching the end of the line. Clara, Hans and Jeanne are in Portugal, but they’re hardly on holiday. Someone has arranged to meet them but he doesn’t show, and while Clara and Hans try to digest and interpret that information, they are robbed of the money they have left. This robbery heralds a chain of events that sets them loose on a trek back to Germany.

Red Army Faction member Bommi Baumann described living on the run in his excellent memoir How It All Began: A Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerilla, and he explains how fugitives need people living legitimate lives willing to offer support. As the state net closes around Clara, Hans, and Jeanne, this idea came to mind as I watched The State I Am In. The friends that Clara and Hans used to rely on have mostly moved on to the sort of bourgeois lives they fought against. Some of their old friends are still trustworthy–take Klaus (Gunther Maria Halmer) for example, whose fondness for Clara leads him to take chances.

Interestingly, the film’s focus is not on Clara and Hans but Jeanne. While her parents have chosen the path they’ve taken, Jeanne has no say whatsoever in her life. This was probably fine when she was 5, but now Jeanne has a mind of her own, and more than anything else she would like to be ‘normal’ and have friends. There’s one scene when Clara and Hans visit a now affluent old friend they intend to pressure for money, and once in the house, Jeanne, follows the sound of an attractive song upstairs where she discovers a young girl, Paulina (Katharina Schuttler) about her own age. Jeanne bums a cigarette and the two girls share a moment over the music. Meanwhile the visit downstairs is going badly, and Jeanne, who’s made a tentative new friend, is wrenched away and soon back fleeing for her life once again.

Things really go wrong however when Jeanne meets a young German man, Heinrich (Bilge Bingul), and her loyalties and desires are ripped apart. Heinrich was no doubt just a toddler when the Red Army Faction were active, and Heinrich, although in many ways underprivileged and disenfranchised connects with the image of Brian Wilson while he leads a simple, hard-working life. He’s attracted to Jeanne because he senses she’s so different. And he’s right, of course; he just has no idea how different.

The film’s very best scenes depict Jeanne’s interactions with her parents. Clara, who’s probably the hardest of the group, spends time educating Jeanne, but most of the education is pitched towards survival. There’s one great scene when Jeanne goes on a shoplifting spree and Clara’s rage is unleashed. Contrary to the typical parental stance, Clara’s rage is at the stupidity of Jeanne’s actions since her thefts could cause them to be caught.

Whereas The Baader Meinhof Komplex concentrates on the action while it tries to simplify, homogenize and recuperate (in the Situationist sense) the actions of its members, The State I Am In concentrates on the hellish life of the fugitive. While The Baader Meinhof Komplex shows the RAF sporting naked in the sun and communal naked bathing and fails to mention the political theory behind this MARXIST group, The State I Am In avoids specifying exactly what Clara and Hans’s past actions were and instead concentrates on showing the toll of living as a paranoid fugitive for 15 years. While Clara and Hans have accepted the yoke of their decisions, the film poses the question: do they have the right to inflict those moral choices on their daughter? And naturally this leads to the argument that revolutionaries have no business having children.

The State I Am In will not be so widely watched a  film as the glitzy well-publicized Baader Meinhof Komplex extravaganza. And that’s a shame.