The Not So Magnificent Ambersons (1942) **1/2

 

(For a detailed examination of the now infamous saga of the making of this film please visit Jim Lane's Cinedrome—it is a long read but highly educational and entertaining.)

If you enjoyed the Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington you will be disappointed with the 1942 film version.  There, I got that out of the way right off the bat.  Dense and at times verbose, the novel is a nostalgic look at the end of the Nineteenth Century.  We read about a world on the cusp of urban sprawl and the advent of something called the horseless carriage (today we refer to it as the automobile).  One family, the Ambersons/Minafers, represents the antiquated Nineteenth Century viewpoint; while another family, the Morgans, symbolize the forward-looking progressiveness of the Twentieth Century. I can’t really fault Orson Welles’ adapted screenplay for falling short—the book is over 700 pages, so it was a monumental task—but I can’t deny that there is a big disconnect between the film and the novel.  Who knows, perhaps it was the absolute ludicrous happy ending that was tacked on at the film’s conclusion that makes me uncomfortable.  I suspect this is one of the many reasons so many people revere Gone with the Wind (1939)—it stays true to the book’s ending.  Nevertheless, while I’m not a huge fan of The Magnificent Ambersons narrative, I do believe the overall production has many things to admire.

The set designs, particularly the ones at the Amberson mansion, are spectacular. Rightly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, the mansion set was constructed like a real house, where walls could be manipulated in such a way so that a camera could appear to seamlessly pass through them in one continuous take. The now famous ballroom sequence showcases the artistic brilliance of both the set designers’ and Welles’ virtuosity.  Employing his love of deep focus and high angles, Welles (along with his Oscar nominated cinematographer Stanley Cortez) did something unheard of in 1942—he attempted to capture one continuous scene for several minutes without a cut/edit.  Later filmmakers, such as Luchino Visconti and Alexander Sokurov would pay homage to Welles with their respective films The Leopard (1963) and Russian Ark (2002). In addition to the ballroom scene, there are countless ingenious shots captured on the mansion’s multi-tiered staircases and long hallways.  While Welles could never make up completely for the the film’s narrative deficiencies, his visual artistry is still a marvel to watch.

One of the many reasons The Magnificent Ambersons fails to completely deliver a rewarding cinematic experience is that there aren’t any likable characters (sans, perhaps, Lucy).  In the book, you root for Isabel (Dolores Costello) and Eugene (Joseph Cotton) and feel somewhat sorry for Lucy (Anne Baxter) and Fanny (Agnes Moorehead).  In the movie you find yourself searching for chemistry between Isabel and Eugene and you absolutely detest Fanny and George—of course, this is the one thing that Welles got right: George Minafer (Tim Holt) was an unlikable character in both the novel and in the film.  At least in the book he gets his true comeuppance, whereas in the film he is given a most undeserved happy ending.  Still, the strange maliciousness that Welles’ instills in Moorehead’s Fanny is hard to reconcile with how the character is portrayed in the novel, which is more pathetic than anything.  Somehow Moorehead received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but I can’t say why, except that she makes the viewer thoroughly loathe her character. Overall, most of the actors look like they are sleepwalking through the film.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh when it comes to the acting. What actor could be viewed as at the top of their game when more than an hour of the original film was edited out and additional scenes were inserted and tacked on to pull everything together?  It also doesn’t help that the actors found themselves shot in what can only be described as uneven lighting.  It is obvious what shots Welles and Cortez are responsible for and what scenes were reshoots helmed by stand-in director Robert Wise.  There is a subtle way to use light and shadow and then there is an overbearing (but still flat) way of using these devices.  There are several scenes where you just ask yourself why is the picture shot in such dark tones—are they trying to cover something up? 

Overall, The Magnificent Ambersons is a study in conflicting styles.  Its would-be greatness is dramatically diminished by haphazard editing—you just can’t cut 131 minutes down to 88 minutes and expect it to work.  Still, there are glimmers of cinematic brilliance in the production design, and these alone save the film from complete infamy.

080. George Washington Slept Here

080. (05 Mar) George Washington Slept Here (1942, William Keighley) 34



Jack Benny's comic delivery is absurdly forceful. He unsubtly hits every punchline to the point where each joke is downright irritating. It also doesn't help that the comedy is rather mean-spirited, mostly aimed at Ann Sheridan's rash decision to buy a delapidated house in the country. The script might pass for a bad sitcom pilot. As a film, it overextends its welcome in almost record time. Hattie McDaniel and Charles Coburn are criminally underused in supporting roles.

The Art Direction nomination is funny. Apparently the broken down house here was the same used in Arsenic and Old Lace. That shabby set and the renovations look good enough.

To Be or Not To Be (1942) ****

Director Ernst Lubitsch made many great films in his distinguished career, but if I had to pick just one to call my favorite it would be To Be or Not to Be (followed very closely by Ninotchka [1939]) from 1942.  Released on March 6, 1942, almost 3 months to the day that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the movie was not well-received by critics or moviegoers. People didn’t think it was funny to make light of the Nazis when they were on the brink of world domination.  To that, I say, “Ah, nuts!”  What better time was there to make the vilest group of ideologues look completely ridiculous?  If you can laugh at them, then you most certainly can beat them!

Born to Jewish parents in Berlin, Germany, Lubitsch was well aware of the dangers of Nazism. While he came to Hollywood long before the Nazis took power in 1933, Lubitsch had friends and family back home who weren’t so lucky.  Still, some American film critics were either oblivious to the Nazis’ complete hatred of Jews or just plain idiotic when they cried foul about a Berlin-born director making a film about the Nazi invasion of Poland. Did they really think he thought people should laugh at that tragic event?  Lubitsch found the critiques to be asinine and tried to explain that he had satirized the “Nazis and their ridiculous ideology” not what happened to the Polish people. 

The one thing that critics did like about the film was leading lady Carole Lombard.  Tragically, Lombard was killed in a plane crash two months prior to the film’s release.  Today, her portrayal of Maria Tura in To Be or Not to Be is considered the finest of her career.  Yet, she almost didn’t play the part, as Miriam Hopkins was Lubitsch’s first choice. Having worked with Lubitsch on three of her best films, Hopkins was experiencing a downturn in her career when her old friend decided she was ready for a comeback. Unfortunately, at least for Hopkins but most certainly not for me or Lombard, Hopkins and lead actor Jack Benny didn’t get along from the start of production. 

The story, penned by writers Melchior Lengyel and Edwin Justus Mayer, is about a Warsaw acting troupe who find themselves accidentally embroiled in the Polish resistance against the Nazis following the 1939 invasion.  Josef Tura (Benny) and his wife Maria are renowned Warsaw actors.  He is a self-absorbed ham who happens to love playing Hamlet; while she is an incorrigible flirt who upstages her husband without even being on stage by having her male admirers come to her dressing room when Josef begins Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be…” One of those admirers, Lt. Slobinski (a very young Robert Stack), is a Polish pilot who brings the entire acting troupe into his mission to intercept a double agent before vital information can be given to the Nazis.  What transpires is an outrageously funny shell game between trained killers and trained actors.

I love black comedies, and this is one of the best.  There are so many layers of ironic humor that it might take multiple viewing before you catch everything Lubitsch and his screenwriters were trying to get across. For example, while the audience finds it funny when Josef has his soliloquy—his big moment to shine—constantly interrupted by Maria’s suitors, there is another element to this as well.  While we never get to hear the whole thing, the beginning goes something like this:

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them

These words truly resonate when you apply them to the Nazi peril.  In a way, it’s almost a war cry, if you think about it.  The world was most definitely facing a sea of troubles with the Nazis!

The other shining ironic moment is when Josef, Greenberg (Felix Bressart), Bronski (Tom Dugan) and the rest of the male actors pretend to be Nazis in order to infiltrate a theater event attended by Hitler. Once safely inside, they create a disturbance which allows Bronski to impersonate Hitler himself without the Nazis knowing.  For someone so revered by his underlings, and so unmistakable to the German psyche, this seems brazenly irreverent to me.  What better statement could you make about demagoguery than this?  Is there really a difference between the Führer and a Betrüger (imposter)?  According to Lubitsch and this film, not really.

Packed with sophisticated dialogue and impeccably placed double entendres, To Be or Not to Be is a comedy for the ages.  I can also appreciate the risk that Lubitsch and Alexander Korda took in releasing this film when they did.  Perhaps the American public and film critics weren’t ready for it, but it was just the type of film that the world needed to see in the Spring of 1942.  No one is invincible, and anyone who thinks that they are deserves to be heartily laughed at.