100 Years Later, Still Scary: Dr. Caligari

18 Comments


A friend and I both have this habit of picking up other people’s stray books, starting to read, and then forgetting where we are. One day, that friend picked up mine, Don DeLillo’s White Noise. I waited for her reaction, wondering if she’d be as overcome by it as I had been. After a pause in reading, she looked up at me and said, “This is literature.”

I always think of that moment when I’m reading or watching something and am stunned by its brilliance. That stirring of excitement is what I felt just a few minutes into The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).   

I wasn’t even sure beforehand I’d like the movie. Horror is not my usual. I’d heard of the film and was curious. But I will admit to some fear that whatever special effects it managed in 1920s terms would be too silly for the story to frighten a 2020s audience.

What I didn’t count on, of course, were the joys of German Expressionism. I didn’t even know the intriguing Nosferatu was part of the same movement. The exaggerated, fanciful staging, set design, lighting, camera angles, use of shadows and makeup of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari take the film into the world of fairy tale. Because there is no attempt to make anything look “real,” the film quickly joins the terrain of nightmare. (One hundred years don’t really make a difference when it comes to nightmares.) Most say the film is either influenced by or a direct commentary on WWII, which explains much of the plot and the traumatized state of its leads.

I’ll share just the basics so that I don’t spoil its considerable suspense. (Side note: What is that AMAZING font on the title cards throughout? I want to use it for everything!!)

The acting begins with an older man sharing his ghostly encounters with a young man, Franzis (Friedrich Feher), who says he and his fiancée (Jane Olsen). have their own terrifying tale to tell. She walks by trancelike in white, like she’s straight of casting for Ophelia.

Franzis then brings up a mysterious “him” from his past, who appears in his own little shot, looking extremely creepy (with his hair dyed black and white on top, skunk style). This “him” navigates a gorgeous setting of crooked street drawings. Him, of course, is Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss).

The frame quickly dissolves into a scene of a new character, whom we’ll soon learn is Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), overjoyed about his town’s fair. He goes to Franzis’s place to convince him to join. Franzis is clearly a pre-traumatized, lighter, and happier version of the man we met in the opening scene. Meanwhile, Dr. Caligari is trying to get a permit for the same event.

We soon discover Dr. Caligari’s act will involve a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). As Act II begins, we learn there’s been a murder in the town. I won’t share any more of the plot.

The film is beautiful. Whether the story is using a painted set or a constructed one — and this film uses both — each set is a haunting piece of artwork. The framing of every shot is striking. (I wouldn’t recommend anyone experiencing vertigo watch this film. The oddly angled everything can make you feel a bit off even on the most balanced of days.) Surely, every haunted house created in every town since owes a debt to this film.

Dr. Caligari makes you wonder what you’re seeing and not, explores the nature of sanity and authority and otherwise makes you feel ill at ease and worried for its characters. It also keeps you reflecting on its messaging and incredible artistry long afterward. I enjoyed the acting, especially Veidt’s as Cesare and, of course, Krauss, who just owns this role. But EVERYTHING is good about this film. Never with any other scary movie have I wanted to freeze every frame, just to examine how each touch builds toward this symphony of mood building.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I envy your first encounter.

Explore a host of haunting films by visiting the entries of my talented peers in the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Early Shadows & Pre-Code Horror blogathon.

Share

Escaping Out of the Past (1947)

6 Comments
Jeff (Robert Mitchum) talking to a henchman in Out of the Past.


Spoilers coming.

Oh Jeff, I get why you fell for Kathie (Jane Greer). That sexy voice, her air of mystery, those all-white get-ups, vacation drinks, and her nonchalant response to your chase. You really had no hope, did you? Especially once she started toweling you off from the rain.

Yeah, you were a goner, my friend. That was a given.

But I give you credit. You saw her shoot your former partner and realized too much siren for me. You viewed her clearly after that. When your new, sweeter lady love defended her by saying, “She can’t be all bad. No one is,” you (justifiably) answered, “She comes the closest.”

You are right that you were a chump, falling for a homicidal moll’s lies, but honey, in the world of noir suckers, you are Albert Einstein. You learned. You improved your life and your dating judgment (a lot of us don’t make it that far).

Problem is, my friend, you need to work on your shadiness. The detective career is not one in which fisticuffs save you from a bent former partner. You don’t have to kill, but you must learn some trickery and bluffing. To be honest, I’m not sure how you’ve remained above ground this long. I might not approve of Kathie’s answer, but I understand why she thought your self-defense inadequate.

You said it yourself when Ann’s wannabe boyfriend threatened, “I was going to kill you.” You quipped, “Who isn’t?” In those two words, you captured the gumshoe life, in which craftiness and sketchiness are survival requisites.

Luckily, you do have a key asset, Jeff. You are a planner. I need you to remember that neither Whit, nor Kathie, nor any of the henchmen involved have this basic quality. They live on spur-of-the-moment, unerringly bad decision making.

Let’s take your nemesis, Whit. He hired you, a ridiculously attractive man with sleepy eyes and a sultry voice, to retrieve his already traitorous girlfriend. (As my sister says, “That’s like sending Cindy Crawford to get your boyfriend.”)

You soon discovered she was a viper, didn’t you? Whit did too. She’d already nearly killed him. So what did he do when he discovered all the additional murderous shenanigans she’d been up to? He forced this woman into a corner, thinking what? She’d say, “Okay, honey. Off to jail I go”?

I know he looked like he was intelligent, Jeff. But he really wasn’t. And his surviving buddies are even dumber. They just outnumbered you with this tax killing plot. They didn’t — in any way — outsmart you.

Why then, Jeff, after some unlucky moves and bad timing, have you let the fatalism get to you? When Kathie said, “Let’s get out of here” after killing Whit, what did you mean by asking, “There’s someplace left to go?”

Of course there is, Jeff! You surely can double-cross a sociopath with no impulse control. This is no Phyllis Dietrichson, my friend. She’s not going to out-connive you. And do you honestly have a problem setting her up for the three killings she is either solely or jointly responsible for? Is calling the police so that you and she will die in a shootout a more ethical plan? Do you think any of the henchmen left care enough about Whit’s honor or have brains enough between them to hunt you down?

I know you think you can’t escape your past — that once you get into bed (in your case, literally) with evil, you don’t have a shot unless you go full-scale monstrous yourself and outsmart them all, Red Harvest (or its imitator, Miller’s Crossing)-style. And you’re too good of a person to go that route.

But do you need to? Most of your enemies are dead. Your fate is not as determined as you think. Your odds are far better than Kathie’s were in her gambling efforts in Acapulco. Her fingerprints are all over that home, and angel face or not, she is a gun-loving gangster’s moll (in a terribly sexist age), which doesn’t make for the best defense.

I know this is the noir way, Jeff: You must play the man defeated. You must see killing her (even indirectly) as the only escape from her wiles and the only protection for the woman and friend you love. I get it, Jeff. It makes for a good movie.

But you said it yourself, Jeff: “There’s a way to lose more slowly.”

And in this case, you actually had a chance to win.

Share

A Weeper for Those Who Love Jerks

18 Comments
John Boles and Irene Dunne in Back Street (1932)


Back Street (1932), directed by John Stahl, announces itself early on as belonging in the wronged illicit woman tearjerker canon. Charming Ray (Irene Dunne) enjoys befriending traveling salesmen at a beer hall in Cincinnati before the turn of the twentieth century, but all they do in return is try to bed her. Ray laughs at their efforts, expecting little else, but never giving in.

Spoilers ahead.

That is, until she meets Walter (John Boles), a flirt who steals her heart despite neon red flags, including:

  1. Dispensing cheesy pickup lines during their meet-cute.
  2. Suggesting she meet him at 10 pm on a random street for a date.
  3. Announcing he’s a mama’s boy.
  4. Admitting he’s engaged.

Ray sleeps with this worthless banker anyway, making the audience wonder just how little game those traveling salesmen had. Walter suggests she meet his mommy at the park one day. He’s hoping that said mommy will agree he should drop his fiancée if exposed to Ray’s considerable charm. (Apparently, he can’t break up without mama’s say-so.)

Unfortunately, Ray gets waylaid because her lovesick half-sister needs her help (because of course she does). Ray then wonders for the rest of her days what would have happened had she had made it to the park on time.

Walter’s response to her no-show is a red flag of its own: angry petulance. Instead of considering herself well rid of him, Ray is again smitten when she runs into him five years later in New York. She’s now a success at her firm, and he’s married to that fiancée and a father. He’s still obsessed with Ray, so they begin an affair. Without her permission, he gets her an apartment for their rendezvous.

As a kept woman, our bar-hopping extrovert resigns herself to solitaire and phone watching. We witness Ray helping her worthless lover with speeches and bank matters. Since he doesn’t want her considerable intelligence occupied with anything but him, she’s unemployed. He also doesn’t want her going out with friends; then she’d be unavailable for his stop-bys. In return, he misses their engagements and forgets to call her, mail her, or put any money in her bank for weeks on end.

We see Ray bemoaning her life to a neighbor in similar straits. Still, back she keeps going to this selfish jerk whose most discernible quality is neediness. She even turns down a chance to marry a sweet, successful former neighbor who loves her. What Ray needs, of course, is a good therapist. Too bad that isn’t really an option for her in this time.

Instead, we see her decades later, still lovely (it’s Irene Dunne, after all), still a mistress. She’s still beloved by Walter, but scorned by his adult children. When he has a stroke, she can only hear his voice on the phone. She can’t be by his side. When the stroke ends in death, his chastened son, finally realizing her true love for his father, offers to financially care for her.

Irene Dunne, who is amazing in this role, can make you weepy despite the unworthiness of her lover. We feel for her pain, even if we are mystified by its source. She looks at Walter’s photo at the end of the film, tells him she’s on her way, and dies. In her last moments, she wonders again if she would have had a better life if she’d shown up at the park.

Which leads me to wonder this: Would being the cheated-on wife (with kids) of this dolt be better? I mean, sure, it was a grim time for kept women. At least she wouldn’t be destitute or outcast if wedded to him. She’d also have the children she wanted.

Still, she’d be married to Walter, which means much more of her time with Walter. Why that doesn’t sound like a penance, I have no idea. Also, why wasn’t Ray regretting turning down her kindly neighbor in her last moments?

There are several curious things about this film. It’s pre-code, so it’s more sympathetic about her choices than the remakes (and there are several) probably are. There are moments (as at the end) the director, John Stahl, seems to give in to the soapy, romantic Romeo and Juliet of it all. But the director also gets the true tragedy: not only did Ray sacrifice a much happier fate to live in the “back streets” of a wealthy man’s life, but she did so for a singularly uninspiring man-boy played by John Boles.

If you’re gonna sacrifice everything, honey, at least let your lover be sexy. Who’d have guessed that Adolphe Menjou (in unacknowledged remake Forbidden) would come out the more attractive of the two leading men?

This is how Ray feels about her life:

Irene Dunne in Back Street (1932), looking devastated.


Oh, Ray. Imagine if you’d never slept with Walter. Maybe you’d have still turned down your neighbor. Maybe you’d have never married. Still, you’d be hanging out in the beer hall with salesmen, which means you’d at least have had some fun. If there’s a moral lesson in here, it seems to be not to avoid premarital sex, but to avoid letting your first lover be a Walter. That’s the kind of judgment-clouding decision that can topple the worthiest women.

Interestingly, the novelist who wrote the story (and Imitation of Life), Fannie Hurst, had her own illicit thing going: a secret marriage, with she and her spouse living in separate homes, and she too (seemingly) mourned him desperately after his death.

Let’s hope he was more worth it than the character she created.

See all the other entries in the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Cry Me a River: Tearjerkers Blogathon.

Share

Thank You, Academy, for Not Infuriating Me

4 Comments
Picture of cat from the animated movie Flow.

Tonight I am not mad after the Oscars. I do not feel compelled to read movie reviews that share my negative view of the winner. I do not feel the need to read anything. I feel at peace. Tonight after the first Oscars in some time, I can actually sleep.

I liked Anora. I loved Flow. While I didn’t agree with all the choices, nothing (from my knowledge of the films I did see) was an out-an-out horrible choice.

Thank you, Academy, for not pissing me off this year. I really need the sleep.

Share

Challengers (2024) Is a Bad Movie

2 Comments
Zendaya in Challengers (2024)

Sometimes you see an Oscars list, and you’re happy to see not what IS on it, but what isn’t. Some idealistic prognosticators theorized that this buzzy little tennis film called Challengers (2024) would get a bid. After all, its music had won a Golden Globe.

The only thing more annoying than the film, I can safely say, is that music.

I watched the movie out of lethargy. Anora (2024) had just completed, and Challengers started playing. I watched for a bit, idly thinking, “This has to get more interesting.”

Forty-five minutes in, I thought, “No, it really doesn’t” and turned it off.

I turned the movie on again a week later, committed to discovering what others saw in it, and can now say I liked it–the last five minutes, that is. I yawned through every minute of the rest.

So here’s what I saw:

There are some scenes of tennis, in which I had no stake.

There were some characters, so thinly developed I felt nothing for them–not even dislike. They reminded me of the fly that got into my home the other day after surviving the cold. It buzzed here. It buzzed there. No one could say why. I did watch it. I watched Zendaya too. She’s pretty. I liked her clothes. She flitted here; she flitted there. She frowned a lot, sometimes in sunglasses.

There are two other characters. There’s some implication they all want to have sex. The preview suggests that, as does the brief scene it captures. Actually, they don’t. They don’t seem to like anything, including sex. A sandwich is eaten with more relish than they gaze at each other. The sandwich was my second favorite part.

The tennis was at least more active than the characters’ faces. Right when I would wonder, “What is the point of this?” some loud, abrupt, terrible music would come in, but only after a very awkward pause, kind of like an angry teenager turning on speakers full blast to drown out parents, but a teenager unaccustomed to how speakers work. Then the music would go away for no reason, and then come back. Much like my fly. EDM is bad enough at any time, but I’ve never experienced a less artful use of music in any film, at any time. Apparently, this is what wins an original score award at the Golden Globes these days.

And besides the last five minutes, which I did enjoy?

I preferred my fly.

Share

Laura (1944): Haunted by Dopes

18 Comments

**Spoilers coming**

Clifton Webb and Gene Tierney in Laura (1944).


Laura is a curious film. I always think of it as the male gaze on steroids, as we know so little of the heroine apart from the versions we get from the men who surround her: the portrait artist, the boyfriend, the best friend and the cop. All are obsessed with her, and all want their version of the murdered heroine to supersede the others.’

Laura's (Gene Tierney's) admirers, played by Vincent Price, Clifton Webb and Dana Andrews.


That’s why I chose the film for A Haunting Blogathon: In the Afterlife, hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association. Crime writer James Ellroy once said something about Laura being the ultimate film for cops, and I think he’s right: the victim you only learn of from diaries, from photos, from others’ words. You never quite know who she was.

Surely, it would be easy for those driven to solve a homicide (especially one that remains out of reach) to become possessive about what they know and haunted by what they don’t. (Ellroy, whose mother was murdered, explores his own haunting in My Dark Places, a fascinating read, as is the book that inspired him: Joseph Wambaugh’s true-crime masterpiece, The Onion Field.)

It’s not hard to imagine becoming enamored with and fascinated by a victim who looks like Gene Tierney. In this particular story, however, the hauntings turn from reasonable to pathological.

What I love about the film is that the versions of Laura these men (and one woman) tell don’t quite add up. Her housekeeper, Bessie (Dorothy Adams), describes Laura as the sweetest lady on earth, and certainly Gene Tierney’s perfect face and that sentimental theme song seem to confirm those impressions.

But would such an angel be best friends with Waldo Lydecker, enjoying his poisonous remarks about her admirer and fellow party guests, as we see her do (in his version of her story, of course)?

Is she really a woman who, as fiancé Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) claims, will indulge any visitor, day or night? He has treated his bride-to-be like a doormat. Since he wants to continue to do so, this tenderhearted version of Laura is convenient for him. But Laura does, in fact, dump him, and despite occasional remarks seems little affected by the poor woman (cheater or not) who got killed in her doorway. Not exactly the heart-on-her-sleeve, always-forgiving softie he takes her for.

Of course, Lydecker isn’t wrong in accusing Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), Laura’s most recent admirer, of being a creep. McPherson wants to buy a portrait of her when she’s dead and becomes instantly possessive of her after she returns to life.

Who instantly hits on a stranger (worse than that, assumes she’s already his) while she’s still in shock?

Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney in Laura

Even if she is vulnerable enough to think she’s in love too, it would be wise and kind to wait–I dunno–48 hours? He also chooses for the moment of his wooing a party during which the following things are happening to his new love:

  • Her fiancé has basically just said to her, “Yeah, I know you killed my lover, and that’s cool,” after inviting said lover into Laura’s home and into her clothes during the latter’s wedding week.
  • Someone has just been murdered in Laura’s home, and this cop/admirer has invited people over to it for a gathering before she’d had time to sage it, obsessively clean it, or call a real estate agent to put it on the market.
  • Her aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), has confessed–casually, I might add–that she’s toyed with murdering Laura herself.
  • And oh yeah, our heroine is still in grave danger from the best friend who tried to off her.

Our infatuated cop follows up this uproariously fun party by pretending he’s arresting her, ruining her reputation in front of her friends, because he can’t control his feelings without taking her into the police station. Ummm, what?

McPherson is right that Laura has surrounded herself by “dopes”–if by dopes he means a heartless group of friends and lovers, with some sociopathy in the mix. He’s just wrong not to include himself in the description. Andrews is quite handsome and feigns calm (with his trusty toy), so it’s easy to think of this detective as the hero in the beginning, but that impression soon wanes.

Right after returning home and shocking Bessie, Laura says gently, “I’m not a ghost, really,” and then jokes, “Have you ever heard a ghost ask for eggs?” But her claims ring hollow. Though she’s physically in the room, I would argue Laura still is a ghost through no fault of her own. Real/imagined impressions of her haunt her admirers and herself.

Actual men are also looming in her life, refusing to let her be who she wants to be, love whom she wants to love, or take five minutes to recover from life-altering trauma. And then there’s the method her best friend chose to kill her with: buckshot (interesting that Waldo doesn’t even reconsider that method during his second attempt). It’s not bad enough he wants to kill her. He wants to obliterate her.

If I were Laura’s true friend (or her therapist), I’d say, “Hey, honey. It time to hightail it out of town. A transfer overseas would be ideal. Also, you may want to keep that phone number unlisted.”

For more on the haunters and haunted, visit my peers’ excellent posts by going here: A Haunting Blogathon: In the Afterlife.

Share

Silly Scenes: Joe vs. the Volcano

4 Comments


Today I’m starting a new series for this blog for all of us who haven’t slept in months and fear we won’t for some time: Gloriously Silly Scenes. We all need some sweetness and light right now, and luckily for all of you, I have been self-medicating on fluffy joy in movie form since two of my aunts, Betty and Ellen, introduced me to Teddy in Arsenic and Old Lace as a child. My two sisters and I would run around my aunt’s room, shouting “Charge!!” with one arm aloft as we watched the film, giggling hysterically.

My effort to seek silly films became a fully deliberate act due to two life-changing events in my teens: 1. My discovery of USA Up All Night. 2. The moment my good friend Carrie and I went to see Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) in the theater. To all of you who love cry-laughing in silent rooms, to all of you amused by what was never intended to be funny at all, and to all of you who embrace deeply weird and/or unabashedly ridiculous humor, you will understand that the impossibly grim opening credits of Joe versus the Volcano were a revelation to me. The choice of “Sixteen Tons.” The mud. The one flower. The evocation of old labor folklore (I kept thinking of John Henry). It wasn’t just silly. It was thrillingly so.

The whole film is a treasure. I could write a poem about the suitcase shopping sequence alone. But for this moment, I’d like to pause on comic gem Dan Hedaya, who would crack up an entirely different generation as the affectionate father/terrifying litigator/threatener of potential dates in Clueless. In Joe vs. the Volcano, he is the boss of three employees: one dour, but expressive silent man; the despondent Joe (Tom Hanks); and the almost deflated but somehow still chipper-while-sniffling assistant (Meg Ryan).

The office scene opens with the clatter of a typewriter and the buzz of failing overhead lights. The whole scene is bathed in sickening shades of yellow and blue. As you take in the comically awful office, with decor that brings back my impressions of “break rooms” in fast food restaurants in the 80s or those airport smoking lounges when the bans started taking effect, you hear the boss (Hedaya) in the background, talking on the phone:

“I know he can get the job, but can he do the job? Harry. Yeah, Harry, but can he do the job? I know he can get the job, but can he do the job? I’m not arguing that with you. I’m not arguing that with you. I’m not arguing that with you. I’m not arguing that with you, Harry! Harry, Harry, yeah Harry, but can he do the job? I know he can get the job, but can he do the job? I’m not arguing that with you….Who said that? I didn’t say that. If I said that, I would have been wrong….I’m not arguing that with you. Yeah, Harry. I know he can get the job….”

As his boss talks, Joe walks in and tries to hang his hat on the coat rack, but it breaks. He attempts to make coffee with that awful chalky powdered creamer, empty cups everywhere.

The boss’s infuriating refrain (awesomely comic, thanks to Hedaya’s delivery) couples perfectly with Joe’s return from his lunch break, where he received dire news about his health. We aren’t surprised that Joe finds his workplace repellant afterward (he describes it as a “sink”). What’s ridiculous is that it took him four and half years to recognize it.

After he quits and the boss belittles him in response, Joe says, “I should say something,” the catalyst for the film. The fact that Joe says this aloud, the fact that anyone who spent five minutes in that room would need a moment of insight to leave, the boss’s and assistant’s befuddlement that anyone would quit–any one of these things would be hilarious. In concert, they are genius.

There really is nothing like Tom Hanks in breakdown mode, as anyone who has seen The Money Pit knows. And after Joe decides to quit, he begins a funny rant about his job, claiming that the fluorescent “zombie” lights are “sucking the juice” out of his eyeballs and that the coffee “tastes like arsenic.” His transition from lethargy to energy is exhilarating, as is his combination of giddy physical comedy and dry, understated truth-telling.

In case you don’t have time for the whole film and need the laughs, here’s the start of the scene and the moment Joe quits. This was my pre-Office Space bad job film, and it has never been supplanted in my affections.

If you can, watch the whole film. It’s an oddly philosophical story (written by the man who penned Doubt). The Ossie Davis cameo is amazing. It’s that rare film that lets Ryan flex her full comic muscles instead of making her ride on charm. And the film reveals Hanks at his comic best.

As for the rest of the film, airtight suitcases, orange soda, and brain clouds. What’s not to love?

(If you have any gloriously silly scene requests, let me know!)

Share

Glenn Close’s Most Stunning Role

Leave a Comment


Episode 2 of the femme fatales season of Nobody Knows Anything is up!! Dangerous Liaisons, a film that pits the dueling wits of Glenn Close and John Malkovitch against each other in a fight over love and power . . . . and also, Keanu Reeves is there, being strangely perfect in eighteenth-century dress. We ask this critical question: Can the femme fatale ever win? (Just why Close didn’t get the Oscar for this is a big mystery.)

See the link in the image above!

Share

Chatting about Leave Her to Heaven

Leave a Comment

My new podcast season on femme fatales with Brian Wilkins and Michael Gutierrez releases today, and we begin with one of my favorite films, Leave Her to Heaven.

We chat about the strange canoe launch that begins the film, Tierney’s impossible beauty, the unfathomable hero–who wanted to marry this brilliant, fascinating beauty but never share her bed–and her troubling response to that marital issue. Join us here!

Share