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Post by Aurelia on Dec 29, 2020 13:19:27 GMT -5
William Desmond Taylor was found murdered with a stash of porn (illegal) and a rather large collection of women's lingerie and ties to a drug-addict teenage protégé... I just watched a little exposé on that case which alleges the lingerie and associated items were planted after his murder by his friends, not to incriminate him, but rather to protect his reputation. He was, as it turns out, queer as a three dollar bill.  It seems the mother of the protégé is the most likely culprit for the actual murder. Hollywood of the 1920's doesn't sound much different than Hollywood now...  I sometimes wonder if WWI didn't cause such a breakdown in the fabric of society that younger people were just living wildly (more like the present, TBH) and people who were older during those years were just trying to reestablish the order that had been lost. |
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Post by andrew on Dec 29, 2020 13:29:52 GMT -5
I just watched a little exposé on that case which alleges the lingerie and associated items were planted after his murder by his friends, not to incriminate him, but rather to protect his reputation. He was, as it turns out, queer as a three dollar bill. It seems the mother of the protégé is the most likely culprit for the actual murder. Hollywood of the 1920's doesn't sound much different than Hollywood now... I sometimes wonder if WWI didn't cause such a breakdown in the fabric of society that younger people were just living wildly (more like the present, TBH) and people who were older during those years were just trying to reestablish the order that had been lost. I was a little surprised to learn over the holiday that the Central Casting Agency was formed specifically to combat the "casting couch" culture which had already emerged in Hollywood at that time. Mr. Weinstein was carrying on a very old tradition, it seems. |
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Post by Aurelia on Dec 29, 2020 18:23:38 GMT -5
I was a little surprised to learn over the holiday that the Central Casting Agency was formed specifically to combat the "casting couch" culture which had already emerged in Hollywood at that time. Mr. Weinstein was carrying on a very old tradition, it seems. That's one of those old social patterns that will play out over and over in different ways. I once read about how the earliest film directors tended to be women until the money-making aspect of movies was realized, and the job was snatched away by men. LOL! It's always interesting to see the gender specific jobs shift with time... but those without power will be finding ways to steal power from the powerful as long as people are around, I think. |
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Post by Aurelia on Dec 29, 2020 18:37:11 GMT -5
What a timely segue... Women of Film Noir.While there are examples where women played the role of Film Noir Anti-hero, like Mildred Pierce, Dead Ringer, etc, typically are the love interest of the male protagonist. women take up one of two roles. Unlike the mixed bag of characteristics that make up the Film Noir man, women in Film Noir often have their characters neatly halved into two categories: "Bad and Beautiful" or "Good and Bland". The former is what most people call the Femme Fatale - and typically these untrustworthy dames are the one thing the usually level-headed anti-hero can't resist. She becomes a casting off point in the plot, and introduces the Anti-Hero to danger, his own darkest side and to his role in the major conflict of the movie. She wields her power over the film noir man, using him to gain her ultimate goal, which tended to vary from material (i.e. Brigid O'Shaughnessy wanting the Maltese Falcon) to personal (Phyllis Deitrichson of Double Indemnity wanting her husband dead). The second fits best in the "Girl Friday" trope: faithful, at times noble and even nurturing, also undoubtedly quick-witted, she is the only character on which the Anti-Hero can truly rely and she is often there to bail him out after he is caught in the Femme Fatale's trap.  The usual explanation for the Janus-headed duality of the female roles in Noir is that the changing roles of men and women at the end of World War II caused a backlash of misogyny - though to some degree it makes sense, I'm not sure if that is 100% accurate. It seems oversimplified. Obviously men were returning to women who's roles had dramatically changed during the war. Men were also dealing with the uncomfortable return to civilian life, where the skills used for survival during war were no longer necessary or easily translatable into valuable skills during peacetime. It is far easier to divide something into a category of all bad or all good in order to cope with it. So certainly I can see the reasoning to the all-or-nothing thinking. But when you really analyze the females of Noir, there are plenty of examples of Femme Fatales who have redeeming qualities - and some Girl Friday types who were fallible... it honestly seems like more of a spectrum to me.  On the farther edge (the "bad" side) lies Leslie Crosby of the 1940 film The Letter. She is elegant, her facial expressions seem so open and pure - even her rather house-wifey hobby of crocheting lace all belies the darkness that exists inside. She is one bad broad - the first few scenes of the film establish that. Yet she is complex - a simmering concoction of loneliness, passion, self-absorbed motivations and callous calculation. She claims to have been the victim of a sexual assault and that she killed Geoff Hammond in self-defense - in reality she was rejected by Hammond, who was her lover. She manipulates her husband into helping her escape justice, but later confesses that she was involved with Hammond and still loves the man she killed. The original story allowed for Leslie to escape death (a commentary on colonialism), but the Hay's Code required punishment for adultery and murder, so in the end Leslie is brutally killed by her dead lover's Asian wife.  In Touch of Evil, the one female character who has all the usual attributes associated with the femme fatale turns out the be the last loyal friend of Anti-Hero, Police Captain Hank Quinlan. She looks the part of the evil "black widow" and she is the madam of a brothel which would also push her into the "badder" end of the spectrum - she is the single dependable female who sides with Quinlan long after all of his plans turn against him. She truly turns the concept of female Film Noir role duality on its head. Marlene Dietrich does such an amazing job in the role it's sad that she doesn't get more screen time.  Touch of Evil is considered the final piece in the era of Classic American Film Noir. The first scene is comprised of a single, fluid tracking shot... the shadows cast on the set are a perfect silhouette... the criminal element is already apparent within the first few moments... it was one last look at the iconic era of filmmaking. |
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Post by andrew on Dec 29, 2020 20:34:28 GMT -5
Interesting analysis. I don't disagree on any single point at all, and yet overall I have a different view. I think the women of noir, even - and maybe especially - the cigarette-rolling, errand-running Effie's, are Hollywood's first genuine foray into the empowerment of women. You mention the effect of the war on the role of women in society, and perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, Hollywood took notice as well. Suddenly women are more than just mothers, housekeepers or romantic targets (or victims). They are people, strong people, doing real things, occasionally dastardly. Take The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) for instance. A-Listers Van Heflin and Kirk Douglas play a poor second fiddle to the machinations of Barbara Stanwyck. Whether for her or against her, they dance to the tune she calls. In A Life At Stake (1954) Angela Lansbury is the trigger-woman. In one of my favourites, Impact (1949) the villain is a woman, but even the counterfoil good girl-friday runs her own garage and is an independent woman (at least since her husband was killed on Okinawa). In The Big Sleep (1946) every woman Marlowe comes across, good, bad, or in-between is a character in her own right. The cab driver, the coat check girls, the bookseller - he doesn't target his conquests and pick them up like some James Bond type who never misses - they seduce him, or at least try. They wield the power. In the aforementioned Detour (1945), Ann Savage wears the man-pants and there's no mistake about that ever. Even today, I have a preference for movies with a strong female lead, especially if they're armed and dangerous. I think you just made me realize what I like about film noir.  |
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Post by Aurelia on Dec 30, 2020 10:33:08 GMT -5
Interesting analysis. I don't disagree on any single point at all, and yet overall I have a different view. I think the women of noir, even - and maybe especially - the cigarette-rolling, errand-running Effie's, are Hollywood's first genuine foray into the empowerment of women. You mention the effect of the war on the role of women in society, and perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, Hollywood took notice as well. Suddenly women are more than just mothers, housekeepers or romantic targets (or victims). They are people, strong people, doing real things, occasionally dastardly. Take The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) for instance. A-Listers Van Heflin and Kirk Douglas play a poor second fiddle to the machinations of Barbara Stanwyck. Whether for her or against her, they dance to the tune she calls. In A Life At Stake (1954) Angela Lansbury is the trigger-woman. In one of my favourites, Impact (1949) the villain is a woman, but even the counterfoil good girl-friday runs her own garage and is an independent woman (at least since her husband was killed on Okinawa). In The Big Sleep (1946) every woman Marlowe comes across, good, bad, or in-between is a character in her own right. The cab driver, the coat check girls, the bookseller - he doesn't target his conquests and pick them up like some James Bond type who never misses - they seduce him, or at least try. They wield the power. In the aforementioned Detour (1945), Ann Savage wears the man-pants and there's no mistake about that ever. I think you can look at it from several angles... What I didn't really touch on is that the scale of "good" versus "evil" is really based on whether those characters chose to follow the more traditional roles for women (subservient, aiding men, remaining passive sexually, etc) or not. The majority of the time, the femme fatale or "independent woman" meets a sticky end if they don't revert to some degree back to those set gender roles. Generally she's considered untrustworthy, dangerous... a liability... some movies are more overt about it than others. Vivian Sternwood in the Big Sleep keeps running into bad situations until she lets Marlowe do the thinking. It seems like she's in all sorts of trouble until she not only is interested in Marlowe, but is willing to let him run the show. Without Marlowe stepping in and telling Vivian what to do, it seems likely she'd end up like Carmen (who does not listen to Marlowe and who needs to be "sent away" for treatment... though in the novel Marlowe kills Carmen). What is the take away message from this story for women? One of the saddest examples is also one of the more interesting portraits of the independent woman: Mildred Pierce. You kinda see the end of the story in advance and the viewer has to wonder "what awful events led up to this? What started this whole mess?" Go back in time... what is the genesis of all this trouble? It seems to all stem from Mildred's making an income. Making an income means she's no longer just the house wife and result is she's failing as a mother and wife. I mean, right? Why does her husband leave her? Why does were youngest daughter die? Why does her older daughter go bad? Because Mildred wanted to be more than a home-maker. It paints the picture that successful women will ultimately fail at life - or that independence and having a good personal life cannot co-exist. Generally the women who are trustworthy and have a better trajectory aren't the independent ones, but the Girl Friday types. They usually are working for the male protagonist as secretary, clerk, etc. Think of the outcome for Ann Savage's character in Detour... what is the moral underneath it all for women who might look to that character as an example of a strong woman? ("Try to control a man - end up inadvertently killed" seems to be the take-away.) In terms of empowering women, I'd say that movies like pre-code Babyface did more to show that women could control their destinies/wield power, ruin lives and be "bad"... and still have a happy ending. Noir tends to not allow that as a plausible outcome for women... doesn't matter, though... I still love it! |
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Post by andrew on Jan 4, 2021 15:58:05 GMT -5
What's the American fascination with oriental detectives in the 1930s and 40s anyway? They're all from short story or book adaptations, but there's maybe half a dozen "Mr. Wong" mysteries (mostly) played by that famous Asian Boris Karloff; another nine "Mr. Moto" mysteries, played by that other legendary Asian actor Peter Lorre; and I think about 46! Charlie Chan movies released between 1926 and 1949, with Warner Oland and Sidney Toler in the lead roles for most of them. That's over 60 movies on a theme over about 20 years. Seems excessive.   Fun fact: The Belairs' signature 1961 hit and iconic surf-rock instrumental was named for the Peter Lorre character....  |
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Post by Aurelia on Jan 5, 2021 13:55:30 GMT -5
What's the American fascination with oriental detectives in the 1930s and 40s anyway? They're all from short story or book adaptations, but there's maybe half a dozen "Mr. Wong" mysteries (mostly) played by that famous Asian Boris Karloff; another nine "Mr. Moto" mysteries, played by that other legendary Asian actor Peter Lorre; and I think about 46! Charlie Chan movies released between 1926 and 1949, with Warner Oland and Sidney Toler in the lead roles for most of them. That's over 60 movies on a theme over about 20 years. Seems excessive. Fun fact: The Belairs' signature 1961 hit and iconic surf-rock instrumental was named for the Peter Lorre character.... I've always found that Asians / representations of the East in old movies are really interesting... I'm not sure, but it seems like there was an interesting set of elements that the West imbued into Asian aesthetics / individuals. I think even "Orientalism" in art of the 18th and 19th C may have shaped the ideas about the East. I wonder if the Asian detective sort of trope played on some of the elements associated with orientalism... the mysteriousness of the East infused into the thriller / mystery genre seems like a popular combination. |
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Post by andrew on Jan 5, 2021 18:05:11 GMT -5
I'm not sure, but it seems like there was an interesting set of elements that the West imbued into Asian aesthetics / individuals. I think even "Orientalism" in art of the 18th and 19th C may have shaped the ideas about the East. I wonder if the Asian detective sort of trope played on some of the elements associated with orientalism... the mysteriousness of the East infused into the thriller / mystery genre seems like a popular combination. I think it's at least partially in the timing, as the US began getting involved in Far Eastern affairs about this time. Not coincidentally, the Japanese detective Mr. Moto disappeared just prior to WW2 when relations with Japan began to sour, and the last Charlie Chan (at least until modern times) came out the same year the communists took over in China. They would not make another until after Mr. Nixon went to China. Thanks to the likes of writers like Pearl Buck, I believe there was a genuine effort to "sell" China specifically, and East Asia generally, as friend and ally in the twenties and thirties. I've watched at least a dozen of these films in the past couple of weeks. With the exception of a few minor stereotype depictions (buck teeth, thick glasses, and the excitable nature of Chinese laundrymen with fireworks), actual anti-Asian racism is notable for its complete absence even among the "bad guys" in the movie. No bad guy trying to do him in ever called Charlie a "Chink" - though the word does appear even in newspaper columns of the time. By contrast, anti-negro racism is so overt in the same films that it's sometimes difficult to watch, with numerous depictions of "blackface" masquerade, and actual black people, when they are present at all, being universally depicted as ignorant, cowardly, and foolish, more like dogs that can talk than people - and they only ever talk with some exaggerated and barely comprehensible cottonfield patois. By contrast, unless they are specifically meant to be immigrants in the story, all Asians depicted talk exactly like any college-educated Joe American. Old movies are little time capsules. |
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Post by Aurelia on Jan 6, 2021 13:15:35 GMT -5
I think it's at least partially in the timing, as the US began getting involved in Far Eastern affairs about this time. Not coincidentally, the Japanese detective Mr. Moto disappeared just prior to WW2 when relations with Japan began to sour, and the last Charlie Chan (at least until modern times) came out the same year the communists took over in China. They would not make another until after Mr. Nixon went to China. Thanks to the likes of writers like Pearl Buck, I believe there was a genuine effort to "sell" China specifically, and East Asia generally, as friend and ally in the twenties and thirties. I've watched at least a dozen of these films in the past couple of weeks. With the exception of a few minor stereotype depictions (buck teeth, thick glasses, and the excitable nature of Chinese laundrymen with fireworks), actual anti-Asian racism is notable for its complete absence even among the "bad guys" in the movie. No bad guy trying to do him in ever called Charlie a "Chink" - though the word does appear even in newspaper columns of the time. By contrast, anti-negro racism is so overt in the same films that it's sometimes difficult to watch, with numerous depictions of "blackface" masquerade, and actual black people, when they are present at all, being universally depicted as ignorant, cowardly, and foolish, more like dogs that can talk than people - and they only ever talk with some exaggerated and barely comprehensible cottonfield patois. By contrast, unless they are specifically meant to be immigrants in the story, all Asians depicted talk exactly like any college-educated Joe American. Old movies are little time capsules. It does make sense in terms of timing... I've always been fascinated by this one movie from 1919 called Broken Blossoms - the moralizing quality of it is really interesting... and the hero (Cheng) is surprisingly complex by the standards of the silent movie plots. He's from China, he's come to the West hoping to spread the qualities of Buddhism but soon finds himself depressed, jaded... slips into drug use. There is a young woman in the neighborhood (Lucy) who he watches - her father is violently abusive to her. Cheng loves the girl, and nurses her back to health after her father beats her and throws her out one night... in the end the father drags the girl back and kills her. Cheng is then the avenger - and shoots the father. So all in all, a pretty 3-dimensional character that avoids all the stereotypical pitfalls movies tend to showcase. He's a sexual being (loves the young woman) but he's selfless, he's gentle but also can be brutal (he shoots the father repeatedly, Bette Davis style, when he finds Lucy battered to death), is altruistic but also a bit immoral... of course their Yet, while there are quite a few Chinese extras, Cheng is played by an American (Richard Barthelmess) made up to look Chinese, which is sad. Regardless, it's one of my all time favorite movies... It's a tough topic to have a sane discussion about because people are so quick to point out observations that are in step with the mores of the time and condemn them based on modern day standards. One response to Broken Blossoms is that it's endemically racist because Cheng and Lucy must die because that is how extreme the racial prejudice was against mixed couples. Sure - I can see that. I can also see that when a hero or heroine did anything against the mores (divorce, affair, murder, criminal or wanton lifestyle... even killing in self defense or leaving an abusive marriage) they also were typically not allowed to end up "happily ever after". Another awesome movie, the Bitter Tea of General Yen, also gets a lot of censure from people looking at all the elements that seem racially slighting: The Swede who plays the Chinese General, the stereotypes of Chinese culture, the inability for a mixed race romance to have any fruition... It's a shame they don't see the ground breaking stuff for the time! There is a dream in which a caricature of the Chinese man (the buck teeth, the long nails, etc) attacks the main character, Megan, and it is General Yen who fights him off - and then takes her in his arms and kisses her! It was pretty wild stuff back then - for a Swede pretending to be Chinese to act out a romantic scene with a white woman. The movie is pretty poignant in it's own way of reaching for a greater sense of equality. This dream literally put people's ideas/fears of Asians of the big screen and then pitted against the reality that they were just as human as... well, a Missionary played by Barbara Stanwyck. I mean, as far as humans go, Stanwyck was pretty amazing. |
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