Speedy

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

This post is a part of the Big League Blogathon started by Todd Liebenow at Forgotten Films.

I gave up on sports a number of years ago, but there was a time when I cared about them. As someone who has lived most of his life in the shadow of Chicago, I was at least a marginal fan of most of the Chicago teams with the exception of the Cubs. In truth, I was born in New Jersey and thus grew up a Mets fan. When you move to a new city, you don’t adopt the rival as your team, which is why I never became a Cubs fan. Well, today is opening day. The Cubs lost and the White Sox won. So I felt like writing about something that was at least marginally attached to baseball just for the hell of it. Thus, Speedy, which happens to be the final silent film in the career of Harold Lloyd.

And…Speedy is only marginally attached to baseball. Its main links are that our title character is a rabid baseball fan and that the special guest appearance here is by Babe Ruth playing himself. I’m sure for the time, Ruth was one of the big draws for this film, but Harold Lloyd was quite the draw himself. Of the great silent comedians, he’s one of the sadly forgotten ones, along with Roscoe Arbuckle. Lloyd had the chops, though, and he should be better remembered.

Darling

Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Movies are, after a fashion, a sort of illusion, so I tend to find it interesting when a filmmaker creates such an illusion with intent to destroy a particular set of illusions. Darling is an odd film. London in the 1960s is one of those legendary times and places. “Swinging London” was a time and place of hedonism and decadence and endless partying. It was the kind of place that everyone wanted to be. Darling is an evisceration of the time and place, marking it not as a utopia of pleasure and joy, but as a place of emptiness of all sorts—moral, ethical, emotional. This emptiness is explored through the life of Diana Scott (Julie Christie), who is called “Darling” by virtually everyone in the film.

The story is about Diana’s life, told in a sort of vague flashback. There are moments of flashback here, and evidence at the start that this is coming in the form of an interview of our title character. In effect, though, the bulk of the film simply plays out, and these minor jaunts into past tense voice over are easily ignored and forgotten. This is a story of emptiness and intense, unfocused, vague desire. This desire is unfocused and vague, because no matter what Diana gets, she never really wants it. It’s intense because she is entirely unhappy in almost every moment, even those moments when she is deliriously happy.

Chico and Rita (Chico y Rita)

Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

It seems that I’ve got a knack for picking the strange one out of the list of animated features for a given year. In a year where the nominees include Kung Fu Panda 2 and Rango, Chico and Rita (or more properly Chico y Rita) is definitely the odd film out. This is not just because of its old school animation and unique art style. This is a film definitely not for the kiddies. It’s a tale of love, romance, betrayal, and music set in Cuba in the 1940s. Among other reasons to keep the kids out of the room, Chico and Rita features full-frontal cartoon nudity not too far in.

Chico (Eman Xor Ona) is a jazz pianist, and a good one. He’s looking for a break in the music business along with his manager, Ramon (Mario Guerra). In fact, he’s got a song to enter in a competition, with a prize of a month contract at a resort hotel; he just can’t find the right singer. That right singer is Rita (Limara Meneses). When Chico sees her and hears her sing, he’s immediately smitten.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1951

The Contenders:
An American in Paris (winner)
Decision Before Dawn
A Place in the Sun
Quo Vadis
A Streetcar Named Desire

Road to Utopia

Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

I’m always a little surprised when I like Bing Crosby in a film. I’m not sure why, but I tend to whenever I see him. For whatever reason, he was immediately likeable on screen. Strangely, I have the exact opposite impression of Bob Hope. With Hope, I get it, though. Hope’s persona was as someone who couldn’t keep his hands of the closest woman. I remember vividly having to watch The Paleface for the 1001 Movies List. In that film, his entire schtick consists of staring at Jane Russell’s tits and barking. With Road to Utopia, we get Crosby and Hope, which is curious for me.

This is my first Bing and Bob “road” picture, so I’m not sure if the amount of fourth wall breaks and meta moments are par for the course or not. It wouldn’t surprise me, since that also seemed to frequently be a part of Hope’s schtick. In this case, though, a big part of this are narration breaks from comedian Robert Benchley. He starts the film, in fact, by telling us that the studio hired him to explain the plot, since it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Benchley pops up throughout the film to explain a couple of scenes and make a couple of jokes.

Dangerous

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Superstition is an odd thing. I don’t cotton to many of them; essentially, I’m not a believer in the idea that wearing a particular color is lucky or that certain events mean ill favor. Athletes (and many fans) are prone to superstition. So are actors. You’re not supposed to say “MacBeth” inside a theater, since the play is allegedly cursed. Telling an actor to break a leg is a long established traditional belief that wishing an actor good luck is the surest way to curse them. (Incidentally, you should never tell a dancer to break a leg, since it’s a possibility and career-threatening.) Dangerous, which features Bette Davis’s first Oscar-winning performance, explores this phenomenon and lends it a great deal of credibility.

Don Bellows (Franchot Tone) is a promising architect with the world in front of him. He’s mortgaged himself to the hilt to create a set of new estates for the wealthy and he has a pending marriage to Gail Armitage (Margaret Lindsay) to look forward to. Gail is supportive of everything Don does, making her the perfect patsy for the turn at the end of the first act.

The Triplets of Belleville

Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

Imagine if you will that animator Ralph Bakshi and director David Lynch got together. One of them opens up a bag and pulls out a small bag that contains the ashes of Jacques Tati. With a grin, the two of them pack the ashes into a hookah and smoke them, then discuss an animated film project. The results of that would, at least in my imagination, end up looking something like The Triplets of Belleville.

Any summary of this film won’t do it justice, but I’m going to try anyway. A young boy named Champion lives with his grandmother, Madame Souza. Champion appears depressed, and no matter what his grandmother tries, he doesn’t seem to pull out of his funk. Even the gift of a dog named Bruno doesn’t cheer him up. Eventually, she buys him a tricycle, and that appears to be the ticket.