MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: CRACKERJACK (1938)

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Friday, May 16, 2008

CRACKERJACK (1938)

Grade B (Quota-Quickie?) Brit-pic is a low-budget RAFFLES yarn about a gentleman jewel thief who robs high society to give to deserving charities and then anonymously writes up his exploits. Young Lilli Palmer, gauchely shot, plays a Baroness who guesses all, but ends up running off with the author/thief. Tom Walls, middle-aged & monocled, is vaguely amusing as Crackerjack, but sexless & exhausted with his stage makeup and upper-crust manner. You really need a William Powell or Ronald Colman for this sort of job. Director Albert de Courville keeps things moving professionally, but even at 76 minutes the film is padded with specialty numbers and narrative montage fodder.

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Friday, May 16, 2008

CRACKERJACK (1938)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE