As Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Boyer acts more than I’ve ever seen him do before; instead of the usual variations on his romantic-ideal theme — sometimes called upon to, largely unconvincingly, stretch as far as to play any continental European a producer had need for — he gives a bold and unrestrained attempt at character study, which I hate to say comes across quite painfully and accidentally hilarious. If anything else in Conquest played as camp, his work would be a terrific success on that level. As everything is quite serious and staid, it stands out as an admirably preposterous hunch-backed, squinty-eyed, mumbly marvel. He reminded me of something, and it took me the whole film to place it, but finally it dawned on me that Boyer’s Napoleon must have been the model, in appearance and affectation, for Danny De Vito’s turn as the Penguin in Batman Returns. What do you think?



That aside, it’s also a bit shocking and disappointing to find that two of cinema’s greatest lovers, those who separately may have induced more swooning than any other of their respective sexes, hardly burn up the screen together. Maybe Napoleon is just too wacky, diverting all attention from a typically good Garbo performance (one would not think this were possible) and not allowing for any real interplay between them. This is the sort of lavish costume drama MGM excelled at, and Clarence Brown in particular knows how to stage such extravagance: on that level, the film does not fall short. Screenplay is weak, however, and as the romance is unabsorbing the film feels overlong and ponderous: again, I feel that for a film like this to work well, it does not matter if everything in the background is spot-on; the romantic melodrama privileges the couple and if the viewer is not all in for that, nothing can save it.

 

I’ve been overdue for another pass at Bette Davis’ filmography, All This reminding me — as some film inevitably does, when I’ve stayed away from her too long — how crazy and brilliant she was. The reward is in watching her, but it’s always a gamble quality-wise with these old contract films. Let me do the dirty work for you. I will scout and steer you away from the stinkers. For a start, trust me when I say this one is incredibly worth your time, a literate screwball comedy to stand just a step below the essentials of the genre. It is begging to be rediscovered.

All About Eve aside, one does not naturally pair Bette Davis and comedy, but she’s extraordinarily well-suited to this; her wild neurotic energy turns out to be perfect for screwball, and certainly her well-known acid tongue suits Joyce Arden, one half of an eternally warring theater couple whose spats always keep them a step away from the altar. Leslie Howard completes the pair, hilarious as a ham actor who never quite stops acting. When Olivia de Havilland falls desperately in love with him, her fiancé enlists him to reprise his great role as a cad (and gad how he’ll mistreat her!) from The Loving Triangle to break the spell. It’s Howard’s show, really, and he’s as good as Rex Harrison in Unfaithfully Yours, marvelously overacting and prattling off similar orations, adding perhaps just a little more sex appeal (at least to this admirer of sensitive Brits).

Of interest, too, is Eric Blore’s manservant whose devotion to his master is absolute, and not so subtle in its implications. (”Do we know anyone named Marcia West, Digges?” / “Not unless you’ve been cheating on me, sir.”) And for my money there are few pleasures as supreme as two heavyweights trading digs and sneers, from Hepburn & Grant in Philadelphia Story to Taylor & Burton in Who’s Afraid. Put Davis & Howard in that class. They, and this film, are formidable.

 

One of Barbara Stanwyck’s first chances to go screwy and she’s clearly loving it as free-spirited society dame Melsa Manton, whose madcap lifestyle is interrupted, but hardly halted, when she runs into a corpse one evening. By the time she drags a policeman to the scene the body is missing, and no one believes this isn’t another heedless adventure of hers, leaving the job of solving the crime up to her and her proto-Scooby Doo gang of girlfriends. Henry Fonda, in a slightly less straight-man persona than he would adopt for their classic pairing in The Lady Eve, plays the newspaper editor with an interest in the case, at first full of resentment for Melsa but soon going goofy over her many charms. At eighty minutes the film is a slapdash race to the finish, with as many solid gold lines as resounding clunkers. The girl sleuths are delightful as a mob, one or two getting a character trait or running joke (most effectively is Pat, who stops to eat at every crime scene). Stanwyck & Fonda play their roles broadly and out of the screwball playbook. A gem, if a rough one, for fans of screwball comedy, particularly the proliferation of mystery hybrids that followed the successful Thin Man series.

 

This is an interesting film, but only in incidental respects; you can see easily enough I don’t much esteem it. The film appears to be well-regarded among reviewers who have not seen, or lamentably, even heard of Duvivier’s Pepe le Moko, and I suppose if you are categorically against foreign cinema you could watch this and see in it a fine film. This is not just a remake (Hollywood churned out countless such things right from its beginnings, and recognizing this it’s hard to demonize them across the board as many do today; it’s in the nature of this beast to cannibalize itself, too) — it is an obsessively constructed duplicate down to the smallest detail. Actors were cast to closely resemble the original players; decors were recreated to match exactly; shots and lighting were studied and emulated. Worse, producers attempted to destroy all copies of Pepe, while directly lifting much of its footage and score and (is it necessary to mention it at this point?) failing to give it formal credit. When I call this film interesting, I mean that it is one of the most crass examples of Hollywood arrogance and I can’t help but admire its sheer perversity.

For all this, the film doesn’t come close to duplicating Pepe’s visual and emotional impact. Besides being put off by something innately monstrous about it, it feels sluggish in translation, perhaps showing signs of over-work and calculation. John Cromwell is a solid director but no inspired artist and the whole thing just feels clumsy. It doesn’t even have the energy to come across as camp, a level on which some viewers do appreciate it, although there are a few unintentionally hilarious bits in the strained melodrama that bring some relief. And after this overlong practical joke, it has the gall to change one thing: Pepe’s ultimate fate, and if this doesn’t undermine his whole character then it certainly says less about it. If I hadn’t already been laughing so hard at Boyer’s bellowed “Gabeee!”s, I’d have cried.

But Charles. Oh, Charlie. Charlie is of course the other interesting thing about Algiers, and after giving up what little hope I began with that it might be a decent film in its own right I placed all my pleasure in his sure hands. This is always a safe bet, and why he’s gradually become one of those guys I’d watch in anything. It’s hard to edge this out over recent swoon-fest All This, & Heaven Too or anything he ever did with darling Irene, but this might just be his all-around sexiest role. Urbane-smooth Boyer is not a natural gangster type and lacks Gabin’s more obvious edge, but he gives the role his all and finds an unexpected roughness and swagger, making his gentler love scenes and (yes!) outbursts of song all the more potent in contrast. Perhaps the manifestation of a sort of Napoleon complex, Boyer’s Pepe is surprisingly violent, and I (surprisingly?) delighted in watching him thrash women around. (My feminism is selective.) Oh yes, there are many things to enjoy in this film, if one only knows where to direct one’s attention. Yes, Boyer “interests” me!

 

I am unabashedly the sort of person who falls in love with dance sequences. This predisposition stretches back to that first all-consuming obsession, beloved ice dancers Torvill & Dean, extends to stopping on PBS every time they air ballroom competition and even to following the first season of Dancing with the Stars (John & Charlotte forever!; I’ve since lost interest), and it even goes deep enough to enjoy films like the J-Lo & Gere clunker, Shall We Dance. In the first phase of my love affair with classic Hollywood cinema, I fell and hard for Gene Kelly’s choreography and magnificent bod. (To this day, the only person in the world I think of in terms of having a ‘bod’ is Gene Kelly.) But somehow, the only exposure I had to Fred Astaire was The Band Wagon, which I admired but didn’t love. (Problematically, I adore dance films and typically am put off by that variety of popular American musical.) I watched Roberta last fall and while Fred & Ginger took my breath away and indeed stole the whole show, I was then ensconced in my self-topping Irene Dunne fixation. Where I would normally have been inclined to follow them through their joint career, at the time I couldn’t give them a thought; it was very much my loss because…

The Gay Divorcee is the most exhilarating film I have seen in… I don’t know, maybe ever. This is what old Hollywood did best, and anyone who doesn’t have a place for it in their lives must know a very sad existence indeed. It’s a rollicking screwball plot with plenty of saucy zingers and hilarious running gags; every character from major to minor is given plenty to do and played to the hilt; and of course there are plenty of creatively staged dance numbers, including, to my delight, my favorite perennial sidekick Edward Everett Horton knocking knees. The pace never slows and the jokes don’t stop coming until it carelessly casts aside its central predicament at the end and Fred & Ginger dance gaily toward matrimony. And, at last properly acquainted, I’m right behind them.

 

For the second year running, Barbara O’Neil plays the half-insane wife keeping Charles Boyer from happiness with the true love of his life. In When Tomorrow Comes, one might wish he or Irene Dunne could somehow have dispatched her, but All This proves that — in perhaps too thickly laid irony — that recourse only sends doomed love deeper under cover. Of the two this is the larger and showier role for O’Neil, who handles her mad mood swings with just the right balance of wide-eyed, snarling camp and real understanding; it earned her the film’s only Oscar nomination for acting, although it was one of three fine performances.

Bette Davis is the other woman, the new governess Boyer chooses after wresting full control over their four children’s education and welfare from their indifferent mother. She cares little for the children and ferociously for her husband who is suffocating under her paranoid tirades and ardent professions of love; these tensions are well-entrenched by the time naive and lonely Henriette turns up. It’s not long before she becomes the one bright spot in de Praslin’s life, an affection that begins when he observes her affinity with his children and gradually blooms into something stronger and more personal. The film is long, and in the best possible sense, as it allows time for their love to feel grounded in real things, and then for the two to yearn for one another sufficiently. Love at first sight doesn’t work as well in melodrama as it does in comedy; it doesn’t do simply to assert they love one another (where WTC again and so many others fail) — it must be established, it must be felt. And then, to sustain it, a film must be interesting besides, and this one keeps everything moving nicely for its entire two and a half hour duration.

Of course, this sort of thing depends on one’s willingness, and I gave mine entirely, so happy am I to fall into Boyer’s unfathomably lovelorn eyes, to follow his gaze cast at a particularly spirited and responsive Davis. The two have immense chemistry, which the film trusts and relies upon. No, it wouldn’t have been half as effective if it had been love at first sight, or passionate embraces halfway through, or indeed, ever at all. The film builds and sustains an almost unbearably potent and utterly captivating yearning. They develop a sort of asexual fidelity, an unspoken understanding. The film builds and builds the erotic tension, and doesn’t release a fraction of it: for the willing, it is incredibly intense.

In being so swept away I’d hate to devalue the film’s other merits, which are many: Litvak’s patient direction and flowing camera, for one, and his ability to convey much without a word (an exceptional sequence following a ball thrown in the Duke’s home tells in a few silent moments the entire living situation and emotional landscape of the major characters); Max Steiner’s moving but never maudlin score; the trenchant and forward-moving adaptation of Rachel Field’s novel. Above all, the film succeeds because it knows where to withhold and where to let it all go.

 

There are elements in this story of idealistic and impoverished Jessie, a typical scrappy 30s Joan Crawford role, that even Borzage’s unique touch can’t make convincing — that touch which one could call headily romantic and abidingly real at all times, somehow both movingly sentimental and refreshingly unsentimental. There are moments of it, wonderful moments of course. At the beginning of the story, Jessie is working at a factory and living with a family that sponges off her meager wages. She dreads the return to Hester St at the end of the day, and cringes at the sound of infant cries and angry fights from neighboring apartments. In such moments, left to Borzage and his cast, the film is immensely effective: the wearied and laborious way Crawford climbs the stairs to her door, the imposing and claustrophobic way the stairways and halls are filmed: here the film is direct, mindful of the reality of people in such a situation, and tremendously emotionally resonant. But there is little Borzage can do to recover the absurdity of the narrative, which gives him little room to turn the maudlin to the fantastically tender as in his best films. Those moments — combined with the screen presence of Crawford and Spencer Tracy — make up for much; ultimately what one is left with is compelling nonsense. Engaging to watch, but unsatisfying immediately the closing credits roll.

 

Early Duvivier silent adapted from a Zola novel is on its surface a French cousin to American light comedy-romances about young working girls in booming department stores, like the delightful My Best Girl and Our Blushing Brides. Accordingly, although the only version available is unsubtitled, the plot is easy enough to follow: a pretty, naive orphan (luminous Dita Parlo) comes to Paris to find work in her uncle’s small shop, but is quickly seduced by the glamorous department store across the street and the characters who work within it. Drama, romance, tragedy follow as the girl is torn between the two worlds, the corporation threatening to demolish the uncle’s property to further its expansion.

Obviously, perhaps, there’s a lot more visual flair here than in its American counterparts and certainly more than would be suggested by the social/realist meat of Zola’s story. This is the Duvivier flair of Pépé le Moko, but more reckless and experimental, and all the more exciting for it. The editing, if not as accomplished as in his later films, is arresting: particularly in two sequences, first innocuously fusing construction work and shots of the army of employees on lunch break, echoed later in a montage of escalating violence now of demolishing and various reaction shots. There’s so much visual interest in this one could easily lose sight of the story altogether, except it so engagingly illustrates the bewitching lure of consumerism, the dreamlike quality of romance, and the unthinking madness of the horde. It’s like My Best Girl and Our Blushing Brides, plus terror, enchantment, and a strangely perfect fantasy-realism.