satire | Cary Grant Won't Eat You

A Classic Film for Media Critics: Ace in the Hole

12/06/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 19 Comments

This fall, the media is a top-trending topic (surprising in a season when we’ve lost Jon Stewart’s acerbic touch): Ted Cruz won applause for attacking the media, Spotlight accolades for celebrating them. For the second year in a row, news-centered movies have garnered Oscar buzz; this year, it’s the biopic about a Pulitzer-winning investigative reporting team; last year, it was the scathing Nightcrawler, which satirized junk TV news with its sadly accurate refrain: “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Maybe these movies and headlines are why Ace in the Hole (1951) sprung to my mind when film bloggers Sister Celluloid and Movies Silently asked for posts on gateway films to lure the classic-movie-hesitant. Surely, the film that coined the term “circus” to capture a media-driven extravaganza should be viewed by both news cynics and fans.

Before Network and Absence of Malice unsettled notions of the media’s integrity, and long before Jake Gyllenhaal creeped viewers out with his road to tabloid success, Billy Wilder asked: How far would a reporter go to get a story? His dark answer might have hurt box offices returns in his day, but in ours, Kirk Douglas’ turn as the ruthless, immoral newspaperman is mesmerizing.

If you avoid old movies because you consider them cheesy or overly optimistic, Ace in the Hole is quite a cure. Here’s the scenario: Down-on-his-luck reporter Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) happens into a small town in New Mexico, where a foolish hunter of Indian burial site treasures, Leo (Richard Benedict), has become trapped under a mountain, blocked by rocks that will cave in on him if he moves. Inspired by a similar scenario that earned writer William Burke Miller a Pulitzer, Tatum decides he’ll be the victim’s sole contact, and bilk the accident for all it’s worth. When his cub reporter companion questions Tatum’s wish for a prolonged rescue, Tatum snaps, “I don’t make things happen. All I do is write about it.”

Of course, Tatum immediately proves the lie of his words, sweet talking an engineer and sheriff into the long route to Leo. A rescue that should only take hours stretches for days, with hyped-up tourists and aspiring entrepreneurs and newspaper staffs quick to follow. Eventually, a carnival even arrives.

The only potential obstacle to all this hoopla–Leo’s wife–is not exactly distraught.

How’s this for spousal support: Lorraine (Jan Sterling) figures with Leo stuck, she can take off on him without interference; when Tatum attacks her betrayal, she throws his motives back at him: “Honey, you like those rocks just as much as I do.” Since Tatum needs the lovely, worried wife for his stories, he convinces her to stay—by pointing out all the money the media vultures will bring with them, and by seducing her now and then.

Tatum fully enjoys the maelstrom he’s created. He has become the hero who takes the dangerous trek to give Leo comfort daily. He even enjoys Leo’s friendship–with no real guilt. Tatum is so shameless he even agrees to the “honor” of Leo’s father loaning him his own room, even if it means dodging Leo’s silent mother, who spends the entire film praying. But when the trapped man’s health starts to decline, with hours still to reach him, the reporter’s long-dormant conscience starts to emerge. The question, of course, is whether it’s too late.

The role of Tatum is ideal for Douglas, who is never better than when he plays a character like this: oily, smart, cynical, smug, self-assured, and sexy. Despite Tatum’s cruelty, it’s hard not to root for an anti-hero so lacking in illusions, especially about himself.

When Lorraine quotes his writing to him, praising its eloquence, Tatum snaps back, “Tomorrow this will be yesterday’s paper, and they’ll wrap a fish in it.”

Lorraine’s right, of course: This film boasts some of writer/director Wilder’s (and his coworkers’) finest lines. Although not his most celebrated film, it’s clearly one of the master’s best. Any media lover/hater is a fool to miss it.

This post is part of the “Try It, You’ll Like It!” Blogathon, hosted by Sister Celluloid and Movies Silently. For more movies that might bring non-classic-film lovers into the fold, click here!

A Legacy of Self-Amusement: Drew & John Barrymore

08/13/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 19 Comments

Charlie’s Angels (2000) is the epitome of how seriously Drew Barrymore takes herself: the hair flips, the silly punk rock past of her character, action sequences so absurdly, self-consciously over-the-top that they make you smile.

Playfulness seems to be Barrymore ‘s signature, what distinguishes her from her lesser rom-com peers. So it wasn’t surprising that this was a film she chose to produce, an ode to a dumb TV show celebrating sexism/female empowerment/both (depending on your point of view).

The show (1976-81)– for those younger folks out there–featured a wealthy but reserved guy (Charlie), who hired three beautiful detectives (the angels) for his agency. All we ever got of Charlie was his voice, as he never appeared in person and let all arrangements be managed by his assistant, Bosley. The term ‘angel,’ use of possessive, Charlie’s condescending voice, the quick rotations of actresses for the roles (suggesting they were interchangeable)—any of the four could make a feminist cringe. But the women were tough and smart, using their looks to blindside unwary men, much as Columbo used his folksiness.

The film is both a parody and tribute, using the TV show’s theme music, graphics, and basic concept, but mocking the silliness of it too. Cameron Diaz plays the supposed airhead (Natalie) to perfection. Lucy Liu takes on the kind of tough role she always plays, even imitating a dominatrix/efficiency expert in one ploy as detective Alex. As Dylan, Barrymore mocks the over-the-top femininity of her predecessors by embracing a badass, punk rock aesthetic. The strange connection the women have to Charlie is brought to the forefront when their client (Sam Rockwell) suggests that Dylan has daddy issues.

Thinking they get to meet Charlie in person...

Hopeful to meet Charlie in person…

Whatever part she’s in, Barrymore always seems to be playing herself, and part of what keeps us watching her is just how likeable she is, this woman who went through a painful past of abandonment and substance abuse as a kid, and emerged as a woman with empathy for those who contributed to the conditions that put her there. She is both the most tender of the three actresses onscreen—Barrymore always captures vulnerability effectively—and the most sarcastic. Perhaps hers is an earned playfulness, but Barrymore wears it lightly. (How else could you repeatedly perform with Adam Sandler, and more bafflingly, not only star with, but marry Tom Green? Tom Green!) While her acting never wows me, she does.

In Drew’s performances, I don’t see much of her forebears, that famous acting dynasty whose members mesmerize audiences still today. Only in her youthful roles did I ever see traces of the Barrymore family’s skill with drama. I would argue that Irreconcilable Differences (1984); an underrated film about a girl who wants to separate from her narcissistic, divorced parents (in an eerie foreshadowing of Barrymore’s own decision years later); was her strongest dramatic role. Perhaps it just was a part she knew really, really well.

But usually, the actress just prefers, and does better, at comedies. Certainly, Drew lacks the intimidation or gravitas of her great-uncle Lionel…

the nuance of her great-aunt Ethel…

or the presence of her grandfather John…

Of course, her troubled past brings to mind her grandfather’s. But it’s in her self-deprecating goofiness that I see the clearest link to the Barrymore dynasty. While it’s certainly not present in all of the Barrymores’ roles, I see it in John’s charming turn in Grand Hotel, and, of course, in his hilarious supporting character in the glorious Midnight (1939). There’s such a lightheartedness to his approach to the role of Georges Flammarion, and though he was already at the cue card stage of his decline, his humor, at least, had not reached the self-parody stage.

John Barrymore in Midnight

Such lightheartedness is key to Dylan’s (Drew Barrymore’s) character, even when she’s in the direst straights. In the best action sequence in Charlie’s Angels, Dylan has been tied up by her sleazy client, Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), who has betrayed her after sleeping with her, and tried to kill her already. Knox departs to perform his nefarious schemes, leaving her to his five henchmen. After managing to get her lighter back, she spells out what she will do to escape, buying time but also revealing her confidence.

As she sits in her chair, she calmly explains, smiling at her adversaries all the while, “By the time this is over, every one of you is gonna be face down on the floor, and I’m gonna moonwalk out of here.”

As they rush toward her, she interrupts, looking at each man in turn, “You’re not listening to me. See first, you’re gonna help me out of my chair, and then I’m gonna leapfrog over you, before I break his nose…I’m gonna do all of this with my hands tied behind my back.”

She does exactly what she says:

And her moonwalk is a joy:

You can see the full clip here.

Any actress could have had fun with such a sequence, but there’s so much self-amusement in Drew Barrymore’s portrayal that I kept thinking of her grandfather in Midnight. Sure, he had much more range and talent than she does, but in self-amusement, the two are matched.

This post is part of the Barrymore Trilogy blogathon, hosted by Crystal of In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood. See the fantastic entries here!

Satirizing Consumerism: Easy Living

07/19/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 4 Comments

I’ve never liked shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I’m uninterested in what Paris Hilton spent on a dog palace, am only slightly amused by what Sony Bono paid to fly his hat. I’ve never understood the point. Am I to envy? To condemn? I’m as prone to consumerism as the next American, but it’s easy to watch The Queen of Versailles and think, I would never expect a rental car company to supply a driver. What entitlement! Now where is that amazing silver necklace on Etsy…

I know my part in America’s deploring—and dangerous—overconsumption is something I should ponder, but these stories so rarely implicate average Americans, or say anything interesting about the culture most of us rarely question.

That’s why I like Easy Living (1937), an airy comedy about a girl just scraping by who—due to a series of misadventures—is mistaken for a banker’s mistress, and flooded with offers of well, everything, in return for just a tip or two about whether steel is up or down this week. What this fictional movie supplies that other shows and documentaries lack is a perspective on capitalism run stupid I rarely see, but have experienced: befuddlement.

Our heroine, Mary Smith (Jean Arthur), enters the film on a streetcar. A sable coat suddenly lands on her head. Does she try to discover its origins? Does she ponder the nature of serendipity, or “kismet,” as her religious fellow passenger does? No. It ruined her hat, she can’t afford to replace it, and now she has to be late for work to help the idiot who threw it.

She approaches the banker (Edward Arnold) responsible for the coat’s airborne condition.

Moved by her innocence, he gives it to her, and a new hat besides. She takes the gifts as payback and benevolence, rather than as signs of sexual interest. Unfortunately, her stuffy employer doesn’t share this interpretation. He fires her for immorality.

Soon afterward, she befriends John Ball, Jr., the banker’s son (Ray Milland), after he steals a meal for her. Accompanied by her new knight-in-disguise, she starts getting offers from those who, like her employer, consider her a strumpet, but are glad she is. A hotel proprietor (Luis Alberni) offers her a room, hoping to extend his loan with her benefactor. She takes it, with no idea why it’s been offered. Her increasing confusion as questions and freebies fly her way is hilarious to witness.

The film is a pleasure for many reasons, Jean Arthur first among them. As a satire of consumerism, it’s incisive and often dark despite its frothiness, as these three scenes reveal:

1: The Coat
The banker, J.B. Ball (Arnold), begins the day disgruntled. He grumbles over his hearty breakfast, fights with his son (Ray Milland) over an expensive foreign car, then discovers this bill from his wife (Mary Nash):

He storms into her room, demanding why she needs such a luxury, especially with a closet like this:

She defends herself, claiming her other furs are out of fashion, that she doesn’t have so many, and then she runs away with the sable, impeding his race after her. The fight ends with some rooftop wrestling.

And one big toss:

The rich banker, complaining of his family’s extravagance, tosses out a fortune like a tissue. (I wish I could claim the rest of us never show such hypocrisy, even if less flamboyantly/expensively expressed…)

2: The Automat
Mary doesn’t have enough money for a decent dinner, but enough appetite to envy those who do:

She’s at an automat, a kind of vending machine restaurant with windows of entries. When the banker’s son (Milland), who is working there, suggests in a misplaced effort at flirtation that she have the meat pie, she retorts, “If you can suggest where to get the nine nickels, I might take your suggestion; otherwise, don’t go around putting ideas in people’s mouths.”

When he offers to spring a door so that she can steal one, she at first resists. But as she attempts to eat her humble meal, she reconsiders.

Of course, she breaks down, and of course, a security guard catches Junior, who promptly starts a fight that leads to a free-for-all at the automat the two barely escape.

This simple portrayal of the hunger an underfed woman feels as everyone around her overconsumes was a bit too on point to be funny. It did give me a fun flashback of when a vending machine in college went haywire, and I made out. But it also reminded me of when I returned from a visit to Ghana, and was overcome by the excessive options in my grocery store.

The Room
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous couldn’t possibly capture the luxuriousness of a hotel run by Mr. Louis Louis (Alberni). When he displays a suite for Mary, he can’t even remember its layout, though he does remember to attack the competition’s inferior claims. What other Imperial Suite could boast 5 reception areas, and this monstrosity for a bathtub?

Mary is not impressed by such affectations. She is–quite frankly–confused why anyone would want such nonsense.

Once alone, she’s even a bit frightened.

She doesn’t know what to do with any of it, until she remembers one feature in this new suite of hers, and finally feels what Mr. Louis Louis wanted her to feel. She tears across the room, running past all the silk and marble and chandeliers to one thing that she considers worthy of attention: the fridge.

Only to find it empty.

As a satire of luxury, it’s hard to imagine any scene harsher than this one. Trust writer Vera Caspary (of Laura fame), who penned the story, and screenwriting genius Preston Sturges to lacerate us with their black humor. Even though the critique is cloaked in pratfalls and silliness, it’s still there for us to see. Maybe all these years later, the lesson will actually penetrate our own product-loving minds….at least until the holidays.

Go West Young Man: Mae West’s Censorship Satire

04/30/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 10 Comments

This post is part of The Fabulous Films of the 30s blogathon hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association. Click here to see the many wonderful entries! For an eBook collection of blogathon entries, click eBook on the menu above.

It’s easy to dismiss Go West Young Man (1936) as an inferior Mae West film. It doesn’t contain her best double entendres, and features much less screen time with her than in earlier pictures. The actress didn’t even originate the story; she adapted it from Lawrence Riley’s hit play, Personal Appearance. How could the film measure up to its hilarious predecessors, which West developed to highlight her own sexuality?

It doesn’t, but that’s part of the point—and the fun. The panning of Hollywood in the play must have appealed to West. But I think she saw something else in the story too: by converting the play to film, she could mock the Production Code itself. After all, West’s raunchy scripts and uninhibited performances from the early 30s have been cited as reasons for the Code’s enforcement. She must have laughed to discover the following opportunities to satirize her nemesis:

The Opening
We begin the story at a premiere of actress Mavis Arden’s (West’s) film, Drifting Lady. The camera darts back and forth between the screen and the crowd in the theater viewing it. All of the men in Drifting Lady are pining for Mavis’s character, a nightclub singer with multiple lovers.

Mavis plays the role in a comfortable, bawdy style, and then abruptly regrets her cheating ways and loses her man. An artificial chill settles over Drifting Lady when she does. This would never happen in a pre-Code West film, we viewers remind ourselves. West is supposed to get all of the guys, and celebrate every sexual conquest with a one liner.

Mavis’s acting has been natural (or at least, natural for West) up to this point. But when her lover is about to depart, the star holds out her arm in a stagey gesture and sputters sentimental bilge about April and blue skies and fond memories.

The actress adopts the same stagey line and tone when she talks to the crowd after her film.

She claims to be an “unaffected girl,” not the siren she plays in film. She then proceeds to share peculiar details about her life. Even if we hadn’t noticed Mavis’s fake tone, her press agent, Morgan (Warren William), rolling his eyes in the background would confirm our suspicions: she’s exactly like the character in the film. The studio might try to make her seem pristine, but we know she’s far from it. Don’t blame me, West’s deliberate hamming reminds us. This censorship nonsense isn’t my call.

Blaming the Studio
After Mavis leaves the stage, Morgan selects a few token men to greet her, all of them homely. When a spectator challenges the lack of handsome men, we learn that Mavis isn’t allowed to marry for five years, with Morgan acting as her watchdog. “Why make the job tough for her?” he adds.

We suddenly understand that strange speech after the film, when Mavis not only felt the need to pronounce her purity, but kept repeating her producer’s and studio’s names, AK of Superfine Pictures, Incorporated. She wasn’t sharing her everyday life with her audience; she was spelling out the terms of her contract. Clearly, this scene ridicules the studios’ tight control over stars’ personal lives. But it does much more: It satirizes limitations on believable behavior onscreen thanks to the Production Code. West, who had attracted censors from the start of her film career, must have relished each “incorporated” she uttered.

Marriage as a Substitute for Sex
West could no longer pen scenes of women seducing men without repercussions. In Go West Yong Man, she resolves this problem by referencing marriage when she means sex. By following the letter, but not the spirit of the Code, West emphasizes the ludicrous nature of censorship.

The plot of the film is fairly simple. Morgan foils any romance Mavis attempts. (My favorite brush off: “We handle Ms. Arden’s admirers alphabetically; I’m just now getting into the Bs.”) She’s planning to join a former lover, a politician, after her film premiere. Morgan invites the press to her date, causing the lover to panic and giving Mavis the chance to express her true nature.

“Have you any particular platform?” the press asks her.

“The one I ain’t done,” she quips.

She soon departs, with the two planning to meet again in Harrisburg. En route, her car breaks down, and Mavis is stuck in a rural boardinghouse with her assistant and Morgan until it’s repaired. The delay annoys her until she spots a handsome young mechanic (Randolph Scott). Her suggestive look at his body and enthusiasm about his “sinewy muscles” say it all: We’re not talking about marriage, folks.

The Supporting Players
William is brilliant as Morgan. A New York Times reviewer described him as “the only player who has ever come close to stealing a picture from Mae West.” But he’s not alone. The boardinghouse proprietor is played by Alice Brady, and while the actress’s comedic chops aren’t fully exploited, the talents of those who play her employee Gladys (Isabel Jewell) and Aunt Kate (Elizabeth Patterson) are. The latter is an aging single woman, who makes knowing remarks about Mavis’s sexual attraction (i.e., “It”), her public relations, and her shade of hair, a color that did not appear in daylight in Aunt Kate’s youth.

Patterson, Jewell, and Brady

Gladys, an aspiring actress, attempts to impress Morgan by mimicking Marlene Dietrich. Morgan’s dismayed reactions are hilarious.

While her Dietrich attempt flops, Gladys’s imitation of Mae West’s walk is something to behold. As the innocent in the film, Gladys illustrates the futility of censoring West’s words when that body does so much of the talking.

Unfortunately, the one black character in the film is a fool, or appears to be at first. Halfway through the movie, I became convinced he had just been smoking a lot of weed. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but could it be another snide jab at the censors, who would be unlikely to examine such a minor role closely?

Scenes with Mr. Oblivious
The funniest moments in the Go West Young Man are when Mavis tries to seduce the handsome mechanic, who completely misreads her blatant moves on him.

Busy displaying his invention, he misses the meaning of such subtle lines as these:

“Modesty never gets you anything, I know.”
“I’d just love to see your model.”
“I can’t tell you the number of men I’ve helped to realize themselves.”

It’s amusing to see West’s attractions fail, given how many times we’ve seen the opposite. But what’s even funnier is to witness the man’s obtuseness. Clearly, he’s a surrogate for the censors, who must be fooling themselves (or be quite naïve) to misunderstand the meaning of West’s every look, every line.

Go West Young Man undermines the notion that sex can be discouraged by rules. The film may not have been one of West’s triumphs in terms of box office or critical acclaim, but it is a riveting look at a writer’s reactions to early Hollywood’s rule-bound universe.

Of course, the title makes little sense, referring to a famous historical line the film doesn’t address. I like to think of it as a reference to the star herself, with just one preposition (and comma) missing: “Go for West, young stud. You won’t regret it.”

The Epitome Of Teen Queen Cruelty: The Heathers Of Heathers (1989)*

04/16/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 23 Comments

This post is part of the second annual Great Villain Blogathon, sponsored by Ruth of Silver Screenings, Karen of Shadows & Satin and Kristina of Speakeasy. Click here to read about other fascinating villains!

The Three Heathers: McNamara, Chandler (queen), and Duke

Before there were Mean Girls, there were Heathers, the heroines of the late-80s teen flick. If you haven’t seen it since high school, watch it again immediately on Netflix. It’s so much funnier than you remember, one of the sharpest satires about group behavior you will ever see. Mean Girls (2004), entertaining though it may be, is just a pale copy of it.

There are multiple villains in this black comedy, but the wicked trio are my favorites, a group of snotty popular girls, all named Heather. One outsider, Veronica (Winona Ryder), is allowed to share their company. She narrates their cruelty (and her own) in angsty teen fashion until J.D., a new crush (Christian Slater), urges her into revenge.

Cliché as this group might be, the Heathers are so extreme in their behavior that they’re mesmerizing, with their lead, Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), the most interesting of the bunch.

To capture her fascination, I’m categorizing the queen Heather’s words, preferences, and actions below.

(Note: Some of the best lines are so profanity laced that I decided not to include them; the line ending in Mother Theresa is a favorite.)

Power Accessory
Heather’s red scrunchie is clearly one of the symbols of her dominance. It’s the first thing we see in the film.

Her School Armor
These shoulder pads speak for themselves:

Lunch-Time Polls & Other Bits of Wisdom

Heather creates a regular poll** for her fellow popular kids. One of Veronica’s pathetic minor rebellions is to insist they seek answers from those Heather considers “the scum of the school” as well, those who in the queen’s estimation won’t help them brush up on their “conversational skills” before a college party.

Representative Poll: “Now check this out. You win five million dollars from Publisher’s Sweepstakes, and the same day that that big Ed guy gives you the check, aliens land on the earth and say they’re going to blow up the world in two days. What do you do?”

I just love the level of importance attached to this idiocy in the movie.

Signature Aphorism: “Real life sucks losers dry.”

Idea of Fun—and Urgency
The two Heather minions (Duke and McNamara) tell Veronica she’s needed right away in the café. When she arrives, their queen huffs, “Veronica, finally…I need you to forge a hot and horny, but realistically low-key note in Kurt’s handwriting and slip it onto Martha Dumptruck’s (Carrie Lynn’s) lunch tray.”

When Veronica protests that she doesn’t have anything against the poor target, Heather responds, “You don’t have anything for her either,” then suggests (with typical color) that this will give the girl fantasy material for when she’s alone. The Heathers’ excitement in anticipating the results of this cruel plot is evident:

Sense of Furniture
“Veronica needs something to write on. Heather (Duke), bend over.”

Favorite Game
There’s really nothing like croquet for sociopaths; Heather Chandler has a loving ritual with her ball.

Just after it, she hits Veronica’s head with it in a dream sequence.

Her real-life game isn’t much more cordial. When her red ball knocks into Heather Duke’s green one, the latter asks, “So what are you going to do, Heather? Take the two shots or send me out?”

“Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?” the queen snaps. “First, you ask if you can be red, knowing that I’m always red.” She then proceeds to knock the ball out of play.

After Heather Duke miraculously manages to rebound, Heather Chandler gets a chance to ruin her chances again, and does.

“Why?” says Heather Duke.

“Why not?” her frenemy responds.

Self-Reflection
“Does it bother you,” Veronica asks Heather #1, “that everyone thinks you’re a piranha?”

The queen scoffs in response that of course she doesn’t, desired as she is. “I’m worshipped at Westerburg,” she explains, “and I’m only a junior.”

“You wanted to be a member of the most powerful clique in school,” Heather reminds Veronica when the latter protests bullying. “If I wasn’t already the head of it, I’d want the same thing. Come on, Veronica. You used to have a sense of humor.”

Insults & Threats

Her entire demeanor belittles those around her, but Heather Chandler really has some classic lines. Here are a few examples of this sweetheart’s empathy at work:

“Grow up, Heather (Duke),” she says as her friend is puking. “Bulimia is so ’87.”

“You blow it tonight, girl,” Heather warns Veronica before their party at Remington University, “and it’s keggers with kids all next year.”

“What’s your damage?” (when Veronica refuses to sleep with an annoying college guy)

“You were nothing before you met me,” Heather snaps after Veronica embarrasses her by not putting out and getting sick at the university party. “You were playing Barbies with Betty Finn. You were a Bluebird. You were a Brownie. You were a Girl Scout cookie. I got you into a Remington party. What’s my thanks? It’s on the hallway carpet. I got paid in puke…Transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. No one at Westerburg’s going to let you play their reindeer games.”

“Is this turnout weak or what?” (response to a friend’s funeral in a dream appearance)

Other Heathers’ Honorable Mentions

**Spoilers ahead***

The minions have their moments as well. Here’s Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk), fixing her hair with holy water after her friend’s funeral:

And Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty), celebrating Heather Chandler’s death:

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll remember that Veronica accidentally kills the queen, which leads to the latter becoming a martyr in the school, more popular than ever. Afterward, J.D. exploits the school’s fever for suicide, killing two football players and passing the deaths off as self-inflicted with Veronica’s unwilling assistance. And that’s just the beginning.

Much of the humor of the story comes from others’ reactions to the bloodshed, including Heather Duke’s. She dons her predecessor’s queenly mantle, even wearing her power scrunchie. Here’s her response after hearing her clique’s bullying victim attempted to kill herself: “I mean, Heather and Kurt were a shock, but Martha Dumptruck? Get crucial. She dialed suicide hotlines in her diapers.”

Why, Veronica asks, must Heather Duke be such a jerk?

The replacement queen smirks, “Because I can be.”

The film suggests with the interchangeability of the Heathers that the death of a clique queen just leads to another who may be worse. As Veronica says of her friend’s newly acquired status, “I’ve cut off Heather Chandler’s head, and Heather Duke’s head is sprouting back in its place….”

In terms of filmmaking, this movie spawned creatures such as Mean Girls’ Regina George, queen of the Plastics. We might no longer call the teens in them “Swatch dogs and Diet Coke heads,” but clique comedies are alive and well in the Heathers’ wake, which will probably be true as long as high schools continue breeding ugly class structures. As J.D. says about geography, but could just as easily apply to time, “Seven schools in seven states, and the only thing different is my locker combination.”

*1988 international release
**Mean Girls gave a nod to the film with a poll of its own. Did you catch it?

Nazis and Humor: The Shock of Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be (1942)

04/17/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 2 Comments

Wrap your head around this fact: Two decades before Quentin Tarantino was born, Ernst Lubitsch directed a comedy about Nazis. Unlike Tarantino, whose own Nazi film was typically bloodthirsty, Lubitsch was best known for light fare, especially sophisticated sex farces so insightful and lacking in prudery that they remain startlingly modern and funny still today. Not surprisingly, Wes Anderson recently cited To Be or Not to Be, Lubitsch’s anti-Nazi comedy, as influential. Lubitsch and Anderson share a joy in puncturing human vanity and hypocrisy, a gift for efficiency in their visual symbolism, and an appreciation for moments of pathos within otherwise humorous films. They also are in love with silliness, and this film is full of it.

To Be or Not to Be is almost as frantic in pace as Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, so I’ll just explain the basics: An acting troupe in Warsaw pretends to be Nazis to undermine a plot against the Resistance. The troupe is led by Joseph Tura (Jack Benny), a man arrogant about his acting but insecure about his wife Maria’s (Carole Lombard’s) fidelity—and rightly so: She invites an aviator (a very young Robert Stack of Unsolved Mysteries fame) to her dressing room every time her husband begins the famous speech in Hamlet that gives the movie its name. (Joseph’s not initially aware of her flirtation, though he becomes obsessed with the flier’s rudeness in leaving during his soliloquy.)

Who knew Robert Stack could be funny?

Like Joseph, the Nazis in the film are obsessed with the reactions of others to their words. When they joke about their leader’s vegetarianism or reputation, they fear their peers’ reprisals, and quickly state “Heil Hitler” to appear patriotic. The implication throughout the film is that the Nazis are much like the actors imitating them: full of insecurity and quick to express pronouncements they utter rather than feel.

The movie begins with an actor from the troupe who is playing Hitler in a play that’s about to fold. He’s anxious to prove his plausibility in the role due to a blistering attack by his director. “I don’t know. It’s not convincing,” the director says, looking at the clothes and makeup meant to imitate the Führer. “To me, he’s just a man with a little mustache.”

“But so is Hitler,” the actor responds defensively.

An actor (Tom Dugan) saying “Heil myself” as Hitler in a doomed production.

As in most of Lubitsch’s films, the marital sexual farce is highly entertaining. In a typical moment, Maria’s assistant quips, “What a husband doesn’t know won’t hurt his wife.” But this farce goes beyond the main couple. The Nazis are not only fooled by these actors’ poor performances as Gestapo, but are also easily convinced that the beautiful Maria will be captivated by their power. They repeat “Heil Hitler” not only as a defense or conversation filler, but as a pickup line. Clearly, Lubitsch feels these Nazis are using their lethal reputation as a substitute for manhood. “And before the evening is over,” a Nazi spy says suggestively to Maria, “I’m sure you’ll say ‘Heil, Hitler.’” (I gasped when I heard this—Did I just hear a racy use of Hitler?) Sure enough, after he kisses her, Maria replies, “Heil Hitler” in a loaded, sexy tone in imitation of the man she’s duping.

Maria (Lombard) feigning attraction to a Nazi spy.

Maria’s faux seduction mimics her earlier comforting of her needy spouse, though this time it’s for a worthier cause. But just as with Joseph, Maria’s cooing words mean little. She proves that it’s a man of action, not the Nazis or her narcissistic husband, who will likely win her bed in the end. When the RAF flier (Stack) gushes about the thrill of meeting an actress, Maria breathily replies, “Lieutenant, this is the first time I’ve ever met a man who could drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes.”

As for the Nazis, the actors do occasionally falter against them, mainly due to their inability to get over their egos. But there’s something gallant about these blundering Warsaw patriots, and one in particular, just as with M. Gustave of The Grand Budapest Hotel. This troupe of actors is goofy and flawed and outrageously vain. But as Lubitsch implies in the film, what act isn’t noble, against such enemies as these?