DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933)

The passing years have only improved this once-knocked reworking of Noël Coward’s (in)famous play. Helmer Ernst Lubitsch made unrivaled romantic-comedies, seasoning them with a tart dose of irony, and his sole collaboration with Ben Hecht (of the rat-a-tat dialogue & bracing sarcastic wit) shouldn’t work, but does. Like the broken typewriter in the story, ‘it rings, it rings!’ The story has Miriam Hopkins turning muse to Coop’s painter (very André Derain) and March’s playwright (veddy Coward), but with no sex allowed. But tumble she does . . . twice. And since she loves them equally, she runs off to marry a stolid fellow with zero sex appeal . . . enter Edward Everett Horton. Can this man be dumped? Can this illicit triangle be saved? And should a girl have to choose between such riches?* Extra points for the opening scene, a ‘meet-cute’ in untranslated French. Coop boasts respectable tourist French, Hopkins rattles away, March keeps quiet. And watch for a particularly hilarious Lubitsch ‘touch’ which plays out over a honeymoon night and reveals an unexpected sexual urge from Everett Horton.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *March was certainly a handsome fellow in ‘33, but when Coop shows up in formal gear with his hair slicked down, it’s as if an entire era of manliness & ravishment has been personified. Devastating.

READ ALL ABOUT IT: Ben Hecht wrote a charmingly funny, if suspect, sketch of working with Lubitsch that was included in Herman Weinberg's THE LUBITSCH TOUCH. The book itself is well-meaning, but its scholarship and opinions have dated badly, seriously underselling the work.

THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936)

Six years after his death, M-G-M was still keeping that Lon Chaney mojo going in this fantastical tale of revenge. Lionel Barrymore (in the putative Chaney role) makes an escape from Devil’s Island with a mad scientist who specializes in reducing animals who remain alive though no bigger than a toy. Hmm. Soon, back in Paris, he disguises himself as a kindly doll-making madame and is able to plant murderous ‘living dolls’ in the homes of the men who framed her (er . . . him) for embezzlement. Thanks to some remarkably fine trick camera work and a cleverly wound plot, the story manages to stay just this side of ridiculous.  Some of it is seriously creepy, helped by an unexpectedly A-list cast for this sort of film: Barrymore, Maureen O’Sullivan, Frank Lawton & Rafaela Ottiano were just off DAVID COPPERFIELD/’35, and Robert Grieg, Arthur Hohl & Henry B Walthall, all expert scene stealers.  Connecting the dots is Lon Chaney’s favorite helmer, Tod Browning, in his last major release, who finally makes a sound film that compares favorably with the best of his silent work. Check out THE UNKNOWN/’27 to see the Chaney-Browning team at its greatest . . . and sickest.

DOV’E LA LIBERTA . . . ? / WHERE IS FREEDOM? (1952)

For a director with the intellectual rigor of Roberto Rossellini, only a comedy with serious undertones could be worthy of interest. Thus, DOV’E, the story of a paroled prisoner who finds life on the outside more confining, more dangerous, lonelier and more untenable then the certain comforts of life in the Big House. In fact, he's trying to break back in! There’s little wrong with this set up, and the great Italian comedian Totó brings his sad-faced resignation to the role. But Rossellini seems to think that this basic idea is all the work he need do. With an idea so deep, so original, so trenchant, why complicate things with inventive comic ideas? Could he possibly have been unaware of how shopworn the bare ideas were, that Chaplin was pulling variations on this theme as far back as the ‘teens, with particularly brilliant results in THE PILGRIM/‘23? You need only go back a single year to find Totó working much the same terrain to far greater effect in Mario Monicelli’s deliciously funny COPS AND ROBBERS/GUARDIE E LADRI/’51. There’s a scene in that film, where Totó & comic actor Fabrizi chase each other on foot to the point of slo-mo, middle-aged exhaustion that has more humor & wisdom then you’ll find in this entire film. Yet, there are dozens of monographs on Rossellini, while I have yet to read a serious appraisal or appreciation of GUARDIE & LADRI.

MAD LOVE (1935)

Until the day he died, M-G-M’s legendary head-of-production Irving Thalberg never gave up his search for the next Lon Chaney. The horror racket was saving his old studio, Universal, from bankruptcy, but his stabs at the form since Chaney’s death in 1930, never clicked. This version of THE HANDS OF ORLAC (the one about the concert pianist whose wrecked hands are swapped for the malicious hands of a freshly executed murderer) is probably as close as he got to his goal. Peter Lorre, in a creepy Stateside debut, is the maniacal doctor who operates to win the favors of the pianist’s loyal wife, an actress at Le Grand Guignol he’s obsessed with. Frances Drake is exceptional as the actress/wife who’s repulsed by the mad doctor, and Colin Clive, who reprised his famous Dr. Frankenstein in THE BRIDE OF . . . this same year, is artistic & tormented as the pianist/husband. While Karl Freund’s remarkable career as D.P. took him from CALIGARI to THE LUCY SHOW, he also had a nice little run as helmer (this was his final directing credit) and another legend, Gregg Toland, does the expressionistic lensing. In fact, except for some stale comic relief via Ted Healy, the film surpasses many better known horror pics.

A MAN CALLED PETER (1955)

Close to plotless bio-pic about Peter Marshall, a maverick Presbyterian minister with a strong voice and a bum ticker. Hollywood prefers to have its Men-of-the-Cloth solve secular problems, Leo McCarey’s GOING MY WAY/’44 is the template, but rather than use Christ as seasoning for its main dramatic issues, PETER is structured to lead us thru a series of Christian specific sermons (boiled down into manageable five-minute units). It’s a tough nut to crack as dramatic fodder, but Richard Todd is so charming & inspired as Peter, you hardly feel the pew hitting you in the small of your back. If only the other film elements met him halfway this might have been something quite special. Jean Peters is no more than pleasant as his loyal wife (they ‘meet-cute’ through a sermon, which must be a Hollywood first, but her little speech is too Phyllis Schlafly for comfort, even for the 1910s) and the rest of the cast is second-drawer. Like many of the early CinemaScope pics, the stagebound interiors (by megger Henry Koster in non-interventionist mode) are bookended with postcard worthy vistas (Scotland, Georgia, Washington, D.C., Anapolis) handsomely lensed by Harold Lipstein. Without a large screen, you may feel you're watching a film that's playing in your neighbor's window.

ERA NOTTE A ROMA (1960)

This forgotten film from Roberto Rossellini combines many of the themes & story elements of his best known Neo-Realist work in OPEN CITY/’45 and PAISAN/’46. It was made after his split with Ingrid Bergman, but before starting his unclassifiable ‘teaching’ films; one of a series of conventional narratives Rossellini tried to make in a style that never spoke to him. It’s the story of three WWII P.O.W.s (a Brit, a Yank & a Ruskie) hiding in an attic in Rome while they wait for the Allies to break the German occupation. The film feels uncomfortable in its own skin, unwilling (or unable) to meet the demands of commercial cinema, yet afraid of dropping the expected tropes of personal courage, tested loyalties and suspenseful raids. We’re kept off-balance by the slow-motion reactions of the soldiers and their protectors, only to then lunge ahead with an attempt at some heightened dramatic pay-off that Rossellini picks at like an unappetizing entree. It’s fascinating, but not exactly successful.