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Dante's Inferno (1935)
No one has commented that this movie was based on a true story
No one has commented that Dante's Inferno, starring Spencer Tracy, was clearly based on a true story.
In the main part of the 1935 movie, Tracy plays an unscrupulous amusement park owner who decides his next attraction will be a trip through Hell called "Dante's Inferno". In his usual corner-cutting manner, fire protection measures are short-changed with the inevitable result that there is a disastrous fire. Following this is a dream sequence in which Dante's vision of Hell is re-enacted and Tracy is appropriately punished. Finally there is an ending that I won't reveal.
The non-fantasy part of the story is strikingly similar to an actual, highly publicized, event that took place about 20 years earlier than the conception of the movie. At that time, Coney Island, which is part of Brooklyn, itself part of New York City, was the premier amusement park area of the world. There were two parks, Steeplechase, which emphasized fun and sex, and Luna Park, which emphasized art and youth. William H. Reynolds, an underhanded real estate developer and former Republican state senator, was attracted by the profits and decided to create a third giant park. He called his Dreamland.
Following his typical pattern, Reynolds, through his ties to the corrupt Tammany Democratic political machine, was able to have streets closed to make some inexpensive land suitable for a large amusement park. This deprived poor people of access to the beach, but so what? Patrons of his park, and of luxury hotels, had no problem.
Oddly, his concept, despite the usual sleazy attractions, also had morality, even religiosity, as a major theme. It started off with an attraction called Genesis, the Bible story of the creation of the world. There was another called Destruction of Pompeii, presumably as payment for wickedness. His crowning effort along this line was called Hell Gate, a fantasy ride through Hell, with a gigantic Satan smirking over the entrance.
In the early hours of May 27, 1911, as they rushed to ready the attraction for the Spring opening, workers accidentally started a fire. Firefighters responded, but because of low water pressure (for which many also blamed Reynolds' machinations), could not prevent its spread and all of Dreamland, including Hell Gate, was destroyed.
Don't you agree that the inspiration, if not the actual plot of the movie Dante's Inferno, was drawn from real life? And isn't it amusing that, considering his behavior, Reynolds was so preoccupied with morality and retribution?
Incidentally, I saw this film when I was 15 and it scared me silly.
Thunder Rock (1942)
A powerful propaganda film--on our side!
I saw this movie in 1942, when I worked for the War Department and had just enlisted in the Army Air Corps, so this might account for the strong memories I have of it.
I was a little shocked that it seemed almost pure propaganda. However, it was clearly made for a British audience at a time when the nation was in imminent danger of invasion by the Nazis. Its message was never to give up hope.
It opens with the hero being frightened by the spread of Fascism across Europe. He goes into a London movie house where the depressing newsreel is followed by a cartoon which the unthinking audience finds hilarious. Disgusted, he gives up and withdraws into himself. He becomes a sort of hermit and somehow gets a job as a lighthouse-keeper on the Great Lakes.
Browsing through the lighthouse's log, he finds an account of a shipwreck. As he reads, the viewer notices that the lighthouse's central pole is now at an angle--a very clever hint of the transition to the fantasy now taking place. He is now on board the sinking ship and all is confusion and despair. But it turns out OK--the first example of the message (to the English) not to give up hope.
There are several other such episodes including one about the doctor in Vienna who discovers that doctors not washing their hands is how the deadly childbirth fever infection is spread. A failure, he is laughed out of town. But a few years later his radical theory is proved correct. Another morale boost for the discouraged wartime English.
I can't remember how the movie ends--but I've never forgotten the movie!
Made for Each Other (1971)
The perfect comedy
I haven't seen this film since it came out in 1971; my mouth dropped open. One of your reviewers said it is a virtual gem but that's wrong--nothing virtual about it, it's a REAL gem! Maybe the funniest, most intelligent, poignant, true-to-life film I've ever seen. Just a couple of scenes...
As the film opens, Joseph Bologna is graduating from Brooklyn College (I think) and is standing, in gown and mortarboard, with his two proud, obviously much less educated Italian-American parents. Being a proud, prickly adolescent, he idiotically uses this joyous landmark family occasion to start a nasty argument in which he rants against his baffled parents, warning them of what is going to happen to people like them when people like him righteously rise up to end the wrongs they have been enduring. The topper is that the viewer notices he is wearing, under his gown, a necklace of shark's teeth, a la Black Panther terrorists (remember them?).
Then we meet his girlfriend, Renee Taylor (in real life, co-writer and long-time wife). She is this neurotic, psychoanalytically-oriented, minimally talented, would-be actress. Also a pushy Jewish Brooklyn girl who is Bologna's greatest booster--and would-be wife. She has developed a high-concept (she thinks) act we see her perform in a smoky, low-ceiling Brooklyn dump of a night club. The act is a series of impersonations. Her gimmick is that at the beginning of each, she coyly asks the audience "Who am I?" After each impersonation she asks the audience who the subject was. No one knows the right answer. But, unaware of the magnitude of the disaster, she bravely soldiers on. It is riotously funny yet as painful as Chaplin's dinner in "The Gold Rush" in which, as the evening wears on, it becomes clear that his lovely female guests won't show up.
Does anyone know how to buy a DVD of this extraordinary film by two geniuses?
To Bed or Not to Bed (1964)
Great Italian comedy
In this comedy, Alberto Sordi, the great Italian actor, plays the part of an apparently dull Italian fur merchant who has to go to Stockholm to buy furs. His faithful, but somewhat dowdy wife, plus the kids, bid him goodbye. His rail journey stretched on interminably. But on the car ferry from Denmark to Sweden, his compartment has to be shared with a long-legged blonde Scandinavian beauty. All is proper except she falls asleep and languorously stretches her boot- clad legs so they are between his. This is a foretaste of the exotic, erotic adventure he is about to experience. His fur-buying work done, he comes into social contact with the Swedes. Due to the difference between cultures (at that time) he commits various social gaffes, like apologizing to the husband of a woman with whom he has had a bit of adventure. He doesn't understand that guilt is no excuse for causing an embarrassing situation. Later is his participation in a decadent, high-living-standard game in which used cars are driven out onto a frozen lake and skidded and smashed into each other. (I am not permitted to tell the ending.)
The Night My Number Came Up (1955)
Highly Intelligent Super-Scary Movie
I saw this movie in 1955, when I was 35 and not so long after my time in the Air Force in WWII, so the RAF flight in the Dakota (same as our USAF C47 and the civilian DC3) resonated for me. But it was really the extraordinary level of suspense that made it so memorable. It starts with a dream of a Dakota lost in a storm and crashing onto a rocky beach. Crucial is the exact number on board. As the real trip progresses in stages, passengers get on and off. Just as it seems the fatal number has been circumvented, something happens to re-institute it. The way this was done was so believable and artfully handled. I particularly remember an episode with someone pointing out that telling the pilot the dream is not such a good idea; after all, he needs his skills to fly the plane safely, and if he takes the dream seriously and it makes him nervous...I have used this idea the rest of my life when directing hundreds of people. It touches on a profound bit of philosophy: when is deception justified? A great movie: if you get the chance, don't miss it.
Berliner Ballade (1948)
Extraordinary--a German language comedy with English voice-over
The place is Germany, the time is World War I. The hero does not want to be drafted so he does a number of remarkably inventive things. Like opening a tin of sardines, leaving it out in the sun all day, then eating it just before he goes for his medical exam. But he is drafted anyway. He is tormented by the usual stupid sergeant who, barking guttural commands, keeps ordering him to fling himself down and pick himself up. Except that the places picked for this exercise are knee-deep in mud.
The hero makes it through the war safely and one day in a Berlin street-car, hears an officious, strangely familiar voice bullying passive passengers. It is the conductor who is his old sergeant, in uniform again! Eye to eye, neither can believe what he sees. Suddenly the conductor starts barking orders at him and old reflexes take over; he flings himself to the floor of the street car. up, down, up, down. End.
The above doesn't give an idea of how funny it all is, but consider it was made in 1952, just seven years after the German disaster of World War II, and clearly by a German team wanting to ridicule German militarism and you see the possibilities.
The real humor, though, comes from the English voice-over of Henry Morgan, brilliant, cynical, sarcastic radio comedian of the 30s. I believe he wrote all the belly-laugh wisecracks in the commentary. They certainly sounded like him.
So This Is New York (1948)
This is a lost gem
Henry Morgan (the lead) was a radio comedian in the 30s. He had a daily show on which he did a monologue of his own whimsical and sardonic observations--better than most stand up comedians. I remember a "weather report" in which he predicted "snow, followed by little boys on sleds".
He made very few films. In this one, he is a salesman in a two-employee cigar store in Indianapolis, bullied by the owner who is always complaining that business has never been so bad. Henry's wife has just inherited some money and has decided to use it to move to New York City (at least temporarily) and "make a big splash" so that her younger sister can marry a rich man more suitable than her present beau who is a small-town butcher's helper. Henry is certain no good will come of this so he accompanies them on the train, making his trademark sarcastic wisecracks and keeping a record to the penny (without being requested) of everything they spend. Arriving at the station in New York, they ask a cab driver to take them to a hotel. He replies sullenly, semi-literately, in a heavy New York accent, something like "Where duh yuh wanna go?". A subtitle appears, "Where may I take you, sir?"
The direction is altogether superb. There is a device used that I have never seen used that way again. Today, on TV, it would be called a freeze frame, but the way it is used makes all the difference. It brings out, and emphasizes, character and prepares the audience for the action to follow. For example, in the dining car on the train, a con man (the audience knows this because he looks exactly like a movie con man of the 30s-- sort of good looking, dandyish dress, pencil mustache, slicked-back greasy hair, big- city villainous, elaborate speech, yet a blow hard) tries to pick up the younger sister. The foolish wife is immediately deceived (though not Henry). As the scene is playing, one particular frame is frozen; one that shows him at his absolute worst, artificial, phony, slimy. It propels the action forward. It is completely different from the meaningless modern TV freeze of the last frame in a scene. (Though I'll bet they all copied it from this movie.)
It is cynical, sophisticated comedy, though completely accessible. Not to be missed.
No, No, Nanette (1930)
Saw this in 1930. I was a child so I remember little.
I think the print I saw was made by the original two-color Technicolor process. The film is about putting on a Broadway show. I enjoyed the music but didn't entirely understand the plot. There was one bit of dialogue used repeatedly wherein Nanette, who is a bit of a harebrain, makes silly suggestions and is admonished by a stuffy older man who says condescendingly "No, no, Nanette". I thought the funniest part was when this sort of visionary (I thought he was an architect but realize now he must have been the scenic designer or maybe the playwright) explains his revolutionary way of staging the show. Something like this: the show will be performed in the orchestra and a swimming pool will be in the balcony. His listener asks "then where is the audience?" The reply: "On the stage!" The rest of my life I have occasionally thought of and sung to myself the song from the movie: "When skies are gray, I like to say/I want to be happy so I can make you happy too..." I have always wanted to hear it performed but I never have.