THE FOUR FEATHERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Colonial Epic on Criterion BD

The Four Feathers (1939) ***
dir. Zoltan Korda
Starring: John Clements, Ralph Richardson, June Duprez, C. Aubrey Smith

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I wonder if it's better, at least with some movies, to hold childhood memories dear and assume those same feelings of joy will NEVER be rekindled in adulthood. The Four Feathers, Zoltan Korda's celebrated 1939 film adaptation of A.E.W. Mason's turn-of-the-century Boys Own-styled novel of war and redemption during Britain's colonial struggles during the late 19th century in Egypt and Sudan, was a movie near and dear to my heart. Seeing it now, I can SEE why I loved it. I just don't FEEL it anymore.

Mason's book spawned numerous adaptations for the silver screen, and of those I've seen, I still believe it's the best. Don Sharp directed a low-budget version in the 70s with a great cast, but sub-par production value and Shekhar (Bandit Queen, Elizabeth) Kapur generated a dull, annoyingly revisionist version with the late Heath Ledger in 2002. What these subsequent versions lack, frankly, are the stunningly directed battle scenes of Korda's film (Sharp's were proficient, Kapur's a mess) and, surprisingly, the Kapur offers less food for thought in terms of the notions of imperialism and war.

It's a simple tale. Harry Faversham (John Clements) is descended from an upper-crust British family of war-mongers and against his better judgement, he follows in their footsteps. On the eve of Britain going to war with the Dervishes in Egypt and Sudan, he resigns his post. His three best friends, military men all, send him three feathers - signifying that they believe him to be a coward.

His fiance, Ethne (June Duprez) and her father General Burroughs (C. Aubrey Smith) are disgusted with his decision. Ethne always loved Harry's best friend, Captain John Durrance (Ralph Richardson) anyway, so she also bestows Harry with a feather symbolizing his cowardice and breaks off her betrothal (a marriage of convenience to please her father who now has nothing but contempt for his son-in-law-to-be). Harry, is not a coward, however. Once the war begins in earnest, he secretly journeys to the middle east in disguise and sacrifices everything to rescue his three friends from the hands of the Dervishes.

This is, purely and simply, a great story! Great! As a movie, it would take a total bonehead to mess it up and Zoltan Korda (along with legendary producer Alexander Korda) render it with skill, production value and impeccable taste. So why, you might ask, does the movie not send me soaring to the same heights I ascended as a young boy? It's a reasonable question and one I find difficult to answer. Allow me to try.

The movie opens with an astounding battle montage that lays the historical groundwork for what follows. So far, so good. We're then introduced to Harry as a young man and get a sense of of his intelligent, sensitive, introspective nature - at odds with his family and those around him.

Leaping ten years later, we find him on the cusp of marriage and war. When he resigns his commission, he makes it clear to both his superiors and fiance that his dream is to use his wealth to HELP people, not to engage in senseless war (especially this one which, is rooted in both vengeance and the maintenance of colonial exploitation). When the movie settles into Harry coming to the decision to assist his comrades and begin the long, dangerous journey into the Middle East, the movie begins to slow down - not so much due to pace, but because a number of interesting elements that have been introduced take a back seat to the proceedings.

Korda seems to settle into a weird auto-pilot here. We get all the basic plot details by rote, but with little passion. Oh, there's plenty of spirit infused in the surface action, but by abandoning the very interesting thematic and character-rooted ideas of a man struggling with the "values" of colonialism is precisely what drags the movie down. This theme is not one rooted in the same kind of revisionism applied to contemporary adaptations of period work, but is, in fact, anchored in both the source material and the first third of the screenplay. Even more odd, is that we don't adequately get a sense of how Harry's friendship with the three men is what pushes him forward. He pushes forward because the plot would have it so.

As a kid, this WAS good enough. Alas, as an adult, it's not - especially since the groundwork of some very interesting and ahead of its time notions of anti-colonialism are introduced, but dropped and/or just glanced upon. Plot takes over, but there are layers - already and consciously set-up - that are begging to be plumbed.

When the film shifts its focus to his old pal John and we're treated to an astounding night attack sequence upon the British by the Dervishes, the movie springs miraculously back to life. When Harry catches up to John and the arduous rescue sequence across the desert begins, the movie slows down again. This time, it's a similar problem. Korda hits all the plot points, but seldom rests long enough to explore the true resonance of the tale.

There are several more rescue and action scenes - including a battle sequence that is clearly one of the best ever committed to film, so this is not to say I was disappointed in seeing the movie again. On the contrary, it's still a fine story and there's enough by way of spectacular derring-do with a huge cast, great costumes and stunning technicolor photography. The problem, perhaps, is all mine - assuming it's possible to recreate childhood wonder with EVERY movie I loved as a kid.

It's not the movie's fault. Korda ultimately delivered what audiences at the time wanted. After all, the world was on the cusp of war with Hitler. Propaganda in all things war-related was starting to heat up.

Historically, in terms of the British film industry, this movie and subsequent British films thrived because of the Act of Parliament passed in 1927 which instituted a stringent exhibition quota that lasted for ten years and was responsible for developing a vibrant indigenous film industry in Britain. Sure, there were box office and critical bombs as it gave way to the "quota quickie" (low budget B-movies), but it helped the Korda family establish a great British studio and generate product that, while expensive and unable to recoup costs entirely in Britain, did so spectacularly in the international marketplace. It also gave rise to consistent output from the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and The Powell-Pressburger Archers' team. As a Canadian, I've always longed for a similar system here to make movies.

The Four Feathers, as it turned out, was beloved the world over - for decades and still is in many quarters. Certainly, as a child, it did what it was supposed to do and as an adult, it has plenty of great things going for it. It's a good movie. Don't mind me.

The Four Feathers is now available on a Criterion Blu-ray version. The source material seems to have needed quite a brush-up and, at the very least, the colour is spectacular. The uncompressed mono sound is a joy - proving once again that a great mono mix is as spectacular as anything. There's a bevy of decent extras in this package including an audio commentary by film historian Charles Drazin, a new video interview with David Korda, son of director Zoltán Korda, A Day at Denham, a short film from 1939 featuring footage of Zoltán Korda on the set of The Four Feathers, a trailer and an essay by Michael Sragow.

MIDNIGHT - Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett Script, Terrific Direction from the underrated Mitchell Leisen plus a Great Cast add up to entertaining Cinderella Romantic Comedy

Midnight (1939) dir. Mitchell Leisen
Starring: Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore

***

By Greg Klymkiw

Within the screenplay of Midnight, this breezy, charming romantic comedy, one must look very deep to find the trademark Billy Wilder cynicism and ultimately realize that the final product definitely comes up short in this respect. The lack of knee-slapping pessimism does not, however, detract from how enjoyable the picture is. Wilder’s screenplay, co-written with partner Charles Brackett is such a perfectly formed bauble of fairy-tale romance with healthy dollops of sexual frankness (which, frankly is a more-than-equal Wilder trait to that of cynicism) that it can steadfastly maintain a place amongst other terrific examples of its type.

Finally, what makes this urban, continental variation on the Cinderella tale soar is the exquisite visual panache of the great (and truly underrated) director Mitchell Leisen. His touch, though light as a feather, earns its heft (so to speak) thanks mainly to his fine eye for composition, his razor-sharp sense of pace and his deft ability to handle the proceedings with an elegance befitting its deliriously romantic setting of 1930s Gay Par-ee. In Leisen’s hands La Ville-lumiere bubbles and sparkles with such frothy sophistication that one is reminded of just how awe-inspiring Paris is, but more importantly, how the essence of one’s memories of Paris itself can, in some ways, actually benefit from the eye of the motion picture lens, and, more to the point, the perspective of a director as stylish as Leisen.

And there’s nothing more stylish than Paris in the rain – precisely the setting our heroine, Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert) finds herself in at the beginning of “Midnight” as she stumbles off the train in full evening attire with neither an umbrella nor a penny to her name. Luckily, she catches the eye of dashing Hungarian émigré cab driver Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche) who agrees to chauffeur her about the city as she searches for a singing job, but more importantly, for an opportunity to land her a rich husband.

Even though she and Tibor are clearly a match made in Heaven (something both the audience and the characters are equally and plainly aware of), Eve is tired of poverty, and rather than prolong the inevitable, she sneaks away from the man who would shower her with the riches of love (but not much else) and sneaks her way into a private party and classical music recital. It is here where she meets the irascible Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore) who sees in Eve the kind of spunk and good heart that attracted him to his own wife Helene (Mary Astor). Alas, Helene is dabbling in a rather open affair with the dashing Marcel Renaud (Rex O’Malley) and a heartbroken Georges sees an opportunity to win his beloved wife back with the assistance of Helene.

In the meantime, the love-struck Tibor, aided by the watchful eyes of every cab driver in Paris searches under every rock for Eve. This, of course, becomes increasingly difficult since the radiant gold digging chorus girl has appropriated his surname and is now firmly ensconced in high society with the rather noble moniker of Baroness Czerny.

The action eventually leads to a Grand Ball where all the players cavort in a manner only befitting one of the finest romantic screen comedies that borrows generously from one of the great fairy tales of all time. Needless to say, it can hardly be called a “spoiler” to suggest that Cinderella results in a happy ending and that the same can be said for “Midnight” which hurtles like a runaway train through a multitude of breakneck twists, turns, dips and ascensions until its inevitably delirious conclusion.

With movies like “Midnight”, it’s the ride that truly counts. And what a ride! One never feels like the final destination has come un-earned.

It almost goes without saying that the cast is utter perfection. Colbert proves, yet again, why she was one of those most beloved stars – not only of her generation, but also of all time. The camera not only loves her to death, but she embodies all that is WOMAN! She is graceful, sexy, bubbly and sharp as a tack. Most importantly, she makes us laugh and is not afraid to have us laugh both with her and at her.

Don Ameche is not only charming as the Hungarian cab driver, but he too is blessed with such a truly buoyant sense of humour that it’s no wonder his career lasted well into old age. Contemporary audiences will, no doubt, remember his finely wrought performances in “Trading Places”, “Cocoon” and, most notably, David Mamet’s “Things Change”.

Mary Astor and Rex O’Malley make a perfect illicit couple and deliver highly nuanced performances which respectively blend haughtiness and warmth, and smarminess and charm. Astor is especially surprising. She often strikes me as humourless, but not only does she display considerable lightness, but she’s also really sexy.

The genuine treat in “Midnight” is, predictably enough, the genius that is John Barrymore who alternates between all-knowing reprobate and a love-obsessed fool. His lines readings and comportment are nothing less than perfection itself – all the more amazing since he was, no doubt, completely and utterly plastered for much of the film’s production.

“Midnight” is a class act all the way. It’s also more fuel to the fire that is: “They don’t make ‘em they way they used to.”

Now isn’t THAT the truth?

“Midnight” is available on DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment





9/20/08

CHARLIE CHAN and the genius of Norman Foster - forgotten auteur: Reviews By Greg Klymkiw of CHARLIE CHAN IN RENO, CHARLIE CHAN AT TREASURE ISLAND & CHARLIE CHAN IN PANAMA

A CINEMATIC 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, EASTERN-RITE NATIVITY AND FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY: Join me in this special celebration of cinema as each day I will be publishing a review in honour of this season of good will and focusing on films and filmmakers who have made a contribution to both the human spirit and the art of film.

For the NINTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS, Klymkiw Film Corner gives to you…

WHO THE HELL IS NORMAN FOSTER? You dare even ask? Well, it wouldn't surprise me. Norman Foster was, without question, one of the most overlooked and underrated directors of American cinema.

Foster began his career as an actor - a dashing light leading man who was married to the ravishing Claudette Colbert until the mid-1930s when they divorced and he turned his attention to directing. Foster was a natural on the set and as a contract director at 20th Century Fox he sometimes delivered up to five feature films per year.

Foster's richest output was for Fox and the studio's wonderful "Mr. Moto" series which featured Peter Lorre (a Hungarian-Jew) as the Asian adventurer-sleuth. Lorre utilized his natural odd looks to such good effect in the title role of that series, that many have mistakenly assumed his eyes were taped back to give them and Oriental slant and that he'd been outfitted with a magnificent set of gleaming buck-tooth choppers. Foster's direction of this series of films was crisp and often thrilling. He reinvented the second feature mystery thriller by imbuing his hero with the personality and prowess of an adventurer. (One sees many Foster touches in the works of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.)

When Warner Oland, the beloved star of Fox's hit Asian sleuth series "Charlie Chan", died after a long illness, the studio needed to find some way to keep the successful franchise going. They hired Sidney Toler to replace Oland and after a successful debut, Fox looked at the stellar box office of the "Mr. Moto" series - a result of Norman Foster's thrilling direction - and they brought the dashing stylist on board for the second Chan of the Toler era and then, several others.

Foster proved to be the right man for the job. He infused life into the old chestnut and also contributed to making a huge star of Sidney Toler.

Foster's career after being Fox's go-to guy for Oriental sleuth thrillers was equally stellar and one wonders why he's been forgotten.

It’s possible Foster has been passed over for serious critical scrutiny and regard because much of his work was buried within the world of second features of the 1930s and 1940s. It might also be due to rumours that it was Orson Welles who designed and mostly directed (un-credited) the noir classic "Journey Into Fear". Welles was the star and Foster is officially credited with directing and while Welles’s influence in that picture is obvious, one can easily look at Norman Foster’s early work in the Fox second features he directed, note his exciting use of low-key stylings and crisp pacing and furthermore argue that he was possibly one of the many influences Welles himself "borrowed" from with both skill and abandon.

Welles denied he had anything to do with directing "Journey Into Fear", but still the rumours persisted. Given that Welles was working at RKO, a studio noted for its many low budget efforts, it's not a stretch to assume he had his eye on the work of someone like Foster who created veritable mountain chains out of ant hills - using a myriad of in-camera effects and opticals to extend the scope of his pictures. Foster, in turn and no doubt, had his eye on Welles. In fact, one could even argue that after his terrific work in "Journey into Fear", Foster’s direction of the great noir-ish melodrama "Woman on the Run" might well have given Alfred Hitchcock an idea or two for "Strangers On A Train."

In later years, Foster was responsible for directing a lot of extremely cool television drama in the 50s and 60s including a huge number of live television dramas, "The Loretta Young Show", Disney’s fantastic "Davy Crockett" dramatic specials with Fess Parker, the thrilling Disney "Zorro" series and he even dabbled in directing episodes of "Batman" with Adam West and "The Green Hornet" with a very young Bruce Lee as Kato.

Norman Foster, to my mind, is a great and unfairly neglected talent.

Here then, for your pleasure and interest are a few reviews of Norman Foster's entries in the magnificent series of mysteries that featured everyone's favourite epigram-spouting detective of the Oriental persuasion - CHARLIE CHAN!

Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) dir. Norman Foster
Starring: Sidney Toler, Ricardo Cortez, Phyllis Brooks

***

By Greg Klymkiw

Reno, Nevada.

What a glorious setting for a movie.

It was also the setting for many a divorce when our parents and their parents’ parents and their parents' parents' parents needed a quickie nuptial-severance in that fine, old age when family values ruled over the more modern conceits of me-first selfishness. Even in those days, though, divorce, while less common than in contemporary times, was a reality and Reno was the town to do it - in the middle of nowhere, away from prying eyes and remote enough to avoid the shame and scandal of attacking the vestiges of Holy Matrimony.

Charlie Chan in Reno was officially the second entry in Fox’s Charlie Chan series reboot starring Warner Oland’s replacement Sidney Toler. It also happened to be Norman Foster’s first kick at the directorial Chan-can and the picture's definitely a fun little mystery with Chas and Number Two Son amidst a bunch of hot babes in Reno waiting to make their divorces legal. It’s a bit like George Cukor’s The Women, but with lots of laughs and dollops of suspense.

Plot-wise, it's simple stuff. Against the seedy backdrop of furtive divorce, one of the aforementioned babes is accused of murder and it’s up to Chas to wade through the massive number of other suspects to find the true killer.

The cast is first-rate. Toler delivers his epigrams and theories with considerable Cheshire-Cat-like aplomb while [Victor] Sen Yung as Number Two Son Jimmy stumbles and bumbles his way through Reno with his usual comic flair. In support of our leads, there are a number of terrific performances – mostly of the comic variety. Slim Summerville, the wonderful character actor who is most memorable in films like All Quiet on the Western Front, The Front Page and the numerous silent and sound comedies he appeared in, stars as the irascible and often befuddled Sheriff Tombstone, a local Reno law enforcer who can’t make head nor tail out of the methods of the sly Asian dick. He's an inbred hick Inspector Lestrade to a poker-faced Asian Holmes.

Also gracing the screen is comic stalwart Eddie Collins as a dopey cab driver whose gift for gab is, for most of his clientele anyway, a curse, not a blessing. The bevy of beauties adorning the picture include the earnest, but gorgeous suspect Pauline Moore, the slobber-inducing guttersnipe murder victim Louise Henry, the ravishing Phyllis Brooks and the sultry Kay Linaker (who in the 50s would write the screenplay for the classic creature feature The Blob).

While this picture is blessed with Foster’s visual panache, it’s a bit closer to the earlier Chan pictures and doesn’t reach the dizzying heights that would follow in Charlie Chan at Treasure Island. Foster appears to be getting his sea-legs with the series. In spite of this, it's still a terrifically entertaining mystery and like much of Foster's work, never feels like the second feature it was meant to be.

Like many of the Fox second features directed by Foster, it’s A-list entertainment all the way.

Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (1939) dir. Norman Foster
Starring: Sidney Toler, Victor Sen Young, Cesar Romero

***1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Norman Foster directed this third entry in Fox’s Charlie Chan series reboot and this is one of the best of all the Chan pictures. Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, starring Sidney Toler, the man who filled Warner Oland’s shoes when Oland died, is an extremely cool mystery set against the backdrop of the San Francisco International Exposition wherein our venerable Asian detective investigates the death of one of his best friends.

Charlie’s sleuthing leads him into the mysterious world of magicians, psychics and other eccentrics of San Francisco high society. With the help of Number Two Son (the wonderful Sen Yung) and a magician (played with high camp flair by Cesar Romero), this is a really juicy mystery thriller with many moments of genuine suspense.

This is no surprise. Foster’s direction in the Toler Chan films really injects life into the series and they rival and at times, downright beat even some of the better Chan films from the Warner Oland period. This film, in particular, moves like a speeding bullet and it's probably one of the earliest serial killer movies.

The Fox Cinema Classics Collection DVD release of Charlie Chan at Treasure Island (part of Volume 4 of the Chan Collection) includes a full commentary track and a couple of terrific documentary featurettes. The most amazing of these mini-docs trace the potential influence of this film upon the notorious Zodiac killer. It's a most convincing and chiller postulation. Great directors have been known to influence a plethora of psychos and the arguments put forth in the doc are not without merit.

And it's no surprise that Norman Foster was one of the first directors in film history to place a magic bean deep into the mind of a real-life whack job - a bean that sprouted into one major twisted beanstalk within the diseased psyche of a notorious killer.

Charlie Chan in Panama (1940) dir. Norman Foster
Starring: Sidney Toler, Sen Yung, Lionel Atwill, Jack La Rue and Jean Rogers

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Charlie Chan in Panama crackles with excitement and it bears Mr. Norman Foster’s exquisite individual stamp of always-effective key lighting, his rich and crammed to the brim frame compositions and pacing (in narrative, action and dialogue) that careens with the ferocity of a rollercoaster. Foster always delivered the goods and this picture is no exception as it is truly the greatest Chan of them all.

Along with Erle Ford’s delightful Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise and Lynn Shores’s eerie Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum, this thrilling Panamanian-set mystery adventure is one of three terrific Chan pictures released by 20th Century-Fox in 1940. It is also a wonderful entry in the various series-styled pictures that brought their heroes into the world of war and espionage. During this time it was not uncommon for characters such as Tarzan and even Sherlock Holmes to be in the thick of battling Nazis and other assorted evil threats to the American – and by extension, democratic Western way of life.

Here we have Chan assisting the American “secret service” to thwart a potential terrorist action to destroy the Panama Canal. Sidney Toler, the more genial Chan thespian to the fabulous, but decidedly dour Warner Oland, is on undercover assignment in the guise of an Asian entrepreneur who runs a small shop specializing in – I kid you not – Panama hats. A murder occurs right in Chan’s store that sets the wheels in motion for an action-packed and downright suspenseful mystery-thriller set against an exotic world of back-alley stores and markets as well as a nightclub jammed with American and European expatriates (pre-dating, but not unlike Rick’s Café Americain in Casablanca). That Foster comes close to recreating this world semi-realistically on a Fox back-lot is one of many testaments to his considerable prowess as a filmmaker.

The Chan pictures are always replete with magnificent acting. Toler, as usual, delivers Chan’s Cheshire grin and epigrammatic sayings with humour and considerable aplomb. Sen Young, also as per usual, bungles about hilariously as Number Two Son Jimmy. The supporting cast offers the expected delicious mixture and we are treated to the demented Lionel Atwill (Son of Frankenstein’s oft-parodied wooden-armed Inspector Krogh) as a novelist with more than a few secrets. Jean Rogers, the luscious beauty queen and former Flash Gordon battling babe Dale Arden, appears as a slinky songstress with a mysterious past and lest we forget, Charlie Chan in Panama features the ever-delicious scumbag Jack La Rue as the sleazy club owner Manolo who is blackmailing the aforementioned dish into spying.

Manolo’s club is also a marvel of atmosphere. Then again, the whole film is overflowing with atmosphere – ceiling fans galore, bright nightclubs with marimba bands, shadows aplenty and oodles of evocative single key lighting effects. Not only is director Foster on the ball; he is aided by stunning production design and the unparalleled cinematography of Virgil Miller. Miller was the pioneering Director of Photography on the early Technicolor extravaganza Garden of Allah in addition to numerous Moto, Chan and Sherlock Holmes pictures. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until the 50s when both Foster and Miller were recognized with Oscar nominations – but for a movie far removed from the magical, stylized studio worlds they were known for, but the vérité-styled semi-documentary Navajo which was closer to the tradition of Flaherty’s Nanook of the North.

All in all, Charlie Chan in Panama is a first-rate entry in the Chan series – so much so that one does wish that Foster and his numerous collaborators had more critical and awards recognition. At the end of the day, however, they had the greatest recognition of all – audiences. With this film and many others, Foster and company generated hit after hit – proving, of course, that audience recognition should ultimately be the highest form of recognition for filmmakers.

Who else would and should they be making pictures for if not the audience?

Charlie Chan in Panama is available on DVD as part of Volume 5 of the Charlie Chan Cinema Classics Collection from 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment.