A success in its day, now largely unsung and unseen, this rare M-G-M gig for John Ford, briefly on the outs at FOX over ‘bad behavior,’ earned a bit of Coen Brothers’ snark & disdain as the troubled film project in BARTON FINK/’91. Otherwise, the film hasn’t so much a bad rep as it has no rep. A pity, since while no great find, this outlier in the Ford canon is consistently interesting in style, acting & story, showing the German Expressionist influence of F.W. Murnau that ran thru the entire FOX lot like a fever after SUNRISE. The story is a lot like a typical Emil Jannings vehicle (think Beauty and the Masochistic Beast), with Wallace Berry’s German Wrestler falling for frail jailbird Karen Morley, picked up off the street. He’s unaware she’s playing him for a chump, carrying her lover’s child and waiting for a chance to raid the cash jar & head off to American to join boyfriend Ricardo Cortez. Abetted by Arthur Edeson’s chiaroscuro lensing, and some surprisingly sophisticated acting (Berry not replaying either his CHAMP lovable mug routine or his Prussian stiffness from GRAND HOTEL; not dumb, but trusting), and a smart amount of untranslated German in the first half of the film, the old story holds up well. (Berry far more believable as a flabby but powerful wrestler than he was as a heavyweight boxer.) Always interesting to watch a Hollywood pro like Ford out of his fach*, here he’s in Joseph von Sternberg territory, of all places. Fascinating, even when it doesn’t work.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Berry’s strong in the ring as long as he sticks to beer (gallons of the stuff!), but switch to the hard stuff and all bets are off. Can’t get much farther from Ford principles than that!
No comments:
Post a Comment