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 Context When modern critics and scholars analyze Bringing Up Baby, it is impossible for them to consider it outside of its relation to other Hepburn-Grant films. Since the film, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant went on to make the successful comedies Holiday (George Cukor 1938) and The Philadelphia Story (Cukor 1940) together. Separately, both actors went on to many successful roles in comedies as well as in other genres, and are now remembered as being two of the greatest motion picture performers of the Twentieth Century. Howard Hawks (1896-1977) was one of the most successful filmmakers of the 1930s. Some film scholars have dubbed him an auteur. Hawks cited Chaplin as a source of inspiration when it came to his comedies. At the time of Bringing Up Baby’s development, Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) had gained some notice in dramatic pictures, but RKO wanted her to branch out into comedy. When the film failed financially, the studio blamed her. Hepburn was quite athletic, and Hawks’ film allowed her to express her abilities. Her physicality set her apart from the other female leads of the time, who could impress only on a verbal level, to which she could add a physical level. Like Clark Gable at the time of making It Happened One Night, Cary Grant (1904-1986) was not yet the megastar that he would become later in his career. He had already appeared in the successful The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey 1937) with Irene Dunne, but after Bringing Up Baby he appeared in a string of successful comedies, to only later branch out into other genres in the 1950s and 60s. Eventually, he became the ideal American man.  Reception The film eventually did make a small profit, but not enough to satisfy the studio. While the reviews were mixed, the critical reaction was not as negative as many scholars would lead one to believe. Norbert Lusk of the Los Angeles Times hated the film, stating that it was the wrong type of film for Hepburn. Film Weekly found the film to be passable, but criticized it, “The opening is a little off-key and several comic sequences have only the elementary appeal of slapstick”. Those were the only negative contemporary reviews that I was able to find. Note how both use comic terms, particularly “outrageous”, “slapstick”, and “parody”. Also notice how the reviewer for film weekly finds physical comedy, “slapstick” in particular, to be only “elementary”. Unlike these two reviewers, reviewers from four major publications gave the film positive reviews. Another reviewer for The Los Angeles Times incorrectly predicted, “in the end Bringing Up Baby will probably be a decisive hit”. Mae Tinee of the Chicago Daily Tribune said, “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a real feature length slapstick comedy. As a quite amusing specimen of this class, I welcome Bringing Up Baby”. Variety praised the performances of Hepburn and Grant and called it “definite box office”. We see critics praising the inclusion of slapstick as they did with Duck Soup (1933), and the performers as they did with It Happened One Night (1934). After the success of later Hepburn-Grant projects like Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940), Bringing Up Baby found a renewed interest among film reviewers and audiences. Most recent reviews praise the rapid pace of the film. In 1997, Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid said, “It’s a brilliant movie, and one of the greatest and most intense ever made”—using the term “intense” to describe the film’s use of the Principle of Comic Logic. Diane Wild of DVD Verdict described the Screwball Comedy’s collaborative nature, calling it “Magic…a sublime convergence of greatness”. Jon Danzinger of Digitally Obsessed added, “It really is one of the all-time great screen comedies, and in almost seventy years it’s lost none of its fun, charm, wit or spirit”, speaking of its longevity. Joshua Rothkopf of Timeout New York Magazine agreed with Danzinger, saying, “A comedy that never should have worked is now all but immortal”.  Legacy In subsequent decades, Bringing Up Baby inspired dozens of television series and motion pictures, most notably Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? (1972). Bogdanovich had several interviews with Hawks before and after making his film, and credited Bringing Up Baby for giving him the idea for What’s Up, Doc?. Hawks himself called his own Man’s Favorite Sport (1964) a remake of Bringing Up Baby.
The rapid, zany style of Bringing Up Baby influenced later Screwball comedies, including Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra 1944) and The Odd Couple (Gene Saks 1968). In 2006, Premiere Magazine named it one of The 50 Greatest Comedies of All Time and Entertainment Weekly named it the 24th Greatest Film Of All Time. The genre of comedy and the subgenre of the Screwball Comedy would not be the same without Bringing Up Baby. Like It Happened One Night, it is a treat to witness two of the last century’s most acclaimed performers lose all inhibition and act goofy. Notice, from It Happened One Night to this film, how reviewers look for chemistry between the romantic leads—revealing a critical convention in the analyses of romantic comedies that first appears in the critical language of the mid-1930s.
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 Context The mid-1930s was the age of the Screwball Comedy. This subgenre places its characters in bizarre situations that compound as the film progresses, typically in a romance-driven narrative. While some credit Howard Hawk’s Twentieth Century (1934) as the first Screwball comedy, I feel that the style of Twentieth Century is much closer to the Lubitsch/ Cukor comedies of the early years of the decade, and not the later Screwballs. Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night provided not just the basis for every subsequent Screwball comedy, but for romantic comedy in general. The film’s comedy is forever linked to its unforgettable romance, as nearly every romantic comedy since reminds us. At the time, Columbia was not a major film studio. In fact, most people working in the film industry referred to it as a Poverty Row operation. Frank Capra (1897-1991) had a knack for creating believable, memorable characters. It Happened One Night is not only one of Capra’s funniest and most enjoyable films, but also one of his greatest commercial and critical successes. Today, we remember Clark Gable (1901-1960) as the iconic, suave, rebel Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind (Victor Fleming 1939), but before making It Happened One Night, Gable was not the megastar that we think of today. Getting Gable was actually a stroke of luck for Capra and his relationship with Gable started off rough. Little did Gable know that the film would shoot him to superstardom. Unlike Gable, Claudette Colbert (1903-1996) was already a big box office draw going into It Happened One Night. She began her career in theater, and her verbal delivery allowed her to transition well into sound films Colbert turned out to be quite selective when it came to what she would and would not do in her performance. Many of the classic moments of the film, came as a result of Colbert refusing to do what was in the screenplay. Her reservations inspired Capra to create the whole Walls of Jericho concept. This little picture had surprised not only the critics, but also the people involved in its production. Production went very quickly and smoothly. From the start, the filmmakers had anticipated difficulty with the Production Code due to the innuendo and implied sexuality in the film. Film content standards were under heated debate at the time. In 1933, when the National Legion of Decency began, the Hays Office became the Production Code Administration, headed by Joseph Breen. Capra’s film not only had to pass inspection from these organizations, but from the internal studio censors as well. Though many see the Production Code as a hindrance, it forced Capra and his contemporaries to become more innovative and resourceful in their telling of a narrative.  Reception The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. With these reviews, we begin to see the development of the critical language used to analyze romantic comedies. Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times called it a “merry romance” and praised the performances of Colbert and Gable, as well as the fast pace of the writing. Boxoffice Magazine called it “hilarious”, praising Gable’s performance and noting the “Capra technique”, that is, his ability to get at the basic human nature inherent in every situation. The New Republic said, “Considering its subject, it is better than it has any right to be - better acted, better directed, better written…. The cast was particularly sound from top to bottom”. Variety said that it “proves two things. A clean story can be funnier than a dirty one and the best way to do a bus story is to make them get out and walk”. William Troy of The Nation stated, “Among the more gratifying phenomena of the current season has been the growing recognition of It Happened One Night… as one of the few potential classics of the recent cinema”. From these reviews we see distinct foci: the romance, the performers, the director, and the writing—indicating how the Screwball comedies became more of a collaborative effort than earlier comedies.By the time awards season came around, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing (Adaptation), Best Actor, and Best Actress—winning all five. Over 75 years later, the reviews are still mostly positive. Interestingly, most reviewers still focus on the same aspects of the film as the contemporary reviewers, while some approach the film in the context of an early Capra success. Martha P. Nochimson of Senses of Cinema called it “Capra’s best film”. Bret McCabe of the Baltimore City Paper praised the performances, saying it “catches icons Gable and Colbert early enough in their careers where they let themselves be silly”. Still more reviewers praise the writing. Sukhdev Sandhu of The Telegraph stated, “it’s still witty and sophisticated today”. David Jenkins of TimeOut London Magazine said, “Every line of dialogue is calculated bliss”. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described it as “buoyant and elegant as bubbles in a glass of champagne”. A couple reviewers addressed the social taboo that the film violated at the time. Dennis Schwartz of Ozus’ World Movie Reviews admitted that “In many ways it’s dated, but the comedy still works even if it’s probably not as madcap humorous as when it was first released” and Neil Smith of Total Film Magazine agreed “Tame by today’s standards,” but adding, “it’s worth remembering just how shocking a glimpse of Colbert’s car-halting stocking would have been in Depression-era America”. Tim Dirks of American Movie Classics Filmsite seems to be the only one to explore the deeper meaning in the film, “The escapist theme of the film, appropriate during the Depression Era”. He also describes it as “a reversal of the Cinderella story”. Derek M. Germano of the Cinema Laser summarized the film’s critical success.  Legacy Capra made It Happened One Night, but It Happened One Night made Capra the standout director that we remember today. He went on to make many successful films, comedies and dramas alike. Outside of the motion picture industry, the film inspired many cultural trends as well. In the hotel scene when Gable undresses, he found it too difficult to remove an undershirt while delivering all his snappy lines. His solution was to therefore not wear an undershirt. Consequently, undershirt sales in the United States dropped considerably. The importance of the bus trip in the film sparked a big interest in more bus travel.
The Screwball Comedy style of the film went on to inspire such comic gems as Howard Hawk’s His Girl Friday (1940), Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve (1941), The Thin Man series, and George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940). It Happened One Night is significant in the study of film comedy not only as a film that has been recognized as one of the greatest screen comedies for nearly 80 years, but also as the only comedy film to win the top five Academy Awards as well as the National Board of Review award for Best Picture—awards for which most comedies were not even nominated. 5/17/2021 0 Comments Profile- The Ladykillers (1955) Context American movies dominated the motion picture market of the English-speaking world for most of the Twentieth Century. In order to fully understand the ability of British comedies to succeed globally in the 1950s, one must first understand the situation in the United States at the time. First, with the American film industry during much of the 1950s living in fear of the Communism investigations by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, comedy, as the most subversive of all film genres and the most critical of the status quo, stood the most to lose. Second, when television became extremely popular in the 1950s, it welcomed tamer comedians such as Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, Jack Benny, and Sid Caesar. Third, as a reaction to the popularity of television, film studios attempted to win back audiences with big-budget, widescreen epics, featuring grand, dramatic subjects. Of course, most comedy was not well suited to this sort of exhibition. The fourth reason that we do not see much pure comedy film in the 1950s is because so much of the comedy of the time appeared in the form of musical comedy. Unlike comedies with musical interludes, like many of the Marx Brothers’ pictures, the musical numbers in a musical comedy are part of the action—in fact, they drive the narrative. While the Marx Brothers could perform a song as a mere aside, the characters in a musical share their thoughts, feelings, motivations, plans, and reveal plot points through song within the scope of the narrative. Comic stars such as Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby featured most of their work in the form of musicals. Even most of the films of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are arguably musical comedies. With American film focused elsewhere, other English language comedies could arise. England’s Ealing Studios, under the direction of Michael Balcon, first excelled in the field of documentaries before Balcon realized that British comedies could carve their own niche in the international film market. The most significant performer at Ealing studios was Alec Guinness, who starred in what are today considered Ealing’s greatest comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer 1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton 1951), The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick 1951), and The Ladykillers (Mackendrick 1955). Today, when film historians write about British film comedies of the 1950s, most likely they are speaking of the Ealing comedies, which set the tone for later British comedies. Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000) was one of the Twentieth Century’s most versatile actors. He began his career on stage and appeared in dozens of plays throughout England, transitioning to mainstream film in the 1940s, although he never left the theatre. In 1946, Guinness first worked with director David Lean on Great Expectations, resulting in a nearly 40 year collaboration with director Lean in such notable films as Oliver Twist (1948), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage To India (1984). Later in his career, his portrayal of Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi in George Lucas’ Star Wars saga brought him millions of more fans from younger generations. Guinness brought experience to the cast of Star Wars as the most respected actor involved in the production at the time. Throughout his career, Guinness demonstrated that an actor did not need to specialize in comedy or drama in order to achieve success—indeed, his comic knack for timing complemented his dramatic sense of character study.  Reception The Ladykillers was a commercial hit across the world. Most critics’ reviews at the time were favorable, though many agree that the film has several flaws, of which the reader will soon learn. Variety liked the picture, especially the cast, “Cecil Parker strikes just the right note as a conman posing as an army officer. Herbert Lom broods gloomily as the most ruthless of the plotters, with Peter Sellers contrasting well…. Danny Green completes the quintet”, although the reviewer felt that “Guinness tends to overact the sinister leader”, apparently unaware of the Principle of Comic Logic, particularly the quality of exaggeration. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called the film a success, also praising the cast, especially Johnson, “a performer who does one of the nicest bits of character acting you could ask for at any time”. He adds however that he felt it was “slightly labored. Perhaps it does have the air of an initially brilliant inspiration that has not worked out as easily as it seemed it should” and that “Michael Balcon’s production in color gives the whole thing a slightly garish look that is not wholly consistent with the humor”—once again supporting the argument that the praised technology of the time, particularly full-color presentations, did not always serve comedy film well. Andrew C. Mayer of The Quarterly of Film, Radio, and Television, an American trade publication, was more critical of the film than his contemporaries, stating it “takes itself a little too seriously…. The film is therefore necessarily miscast because it is badly conceived; but it does have its humorous moments”. He was especially critical of Guinness, “in his new role he is far less attractive; in all his previous performances he was, basically, a sympathetic character who occasionally got away with murder, or some lesser offense…. The lighthearted quality of Guinness' early pictures is gone”, overlooking Guinness’ preference for playing a broad array of characters in his career. I believe that Mayer misses the distinctly British qualities of its humor—the understated manner and utterly serious delivery. Recent reviews have been more favorable than the contemporary reviews. In 2002, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian (London) called it “Subversive, hilarious and more English than Elgar, though written by the American expatriate William Rose, this is one of director Alexander Mackendrick’s masterpieces and a major jewel in the Ealing Studios canon”. Adrian Hennigan of the BBC described it as a “wonderfully macabre black comedy that really does improve with age”. Hennigan praised the cast saying, “Guinness delivers a typically mesmerising performance…. While Guinness’ teeth could have won a best supporting actor award in their own right, every performance shines through in smog-filled London”. It is important to note that these two domestic reviewers give the film more praise than the following American reviewers, who come from a different cultural background and experience of comedy. While James Kendrick of QNetwork called it “very much a stagy production”, he adds, “it is still one of the funniest and most wicked British comedies ever made”. As with any film, there are of course reviewers that find it flawed. Many such critics note how Mrs. Wilberforce seems almost too oblivious throughout the picture—not acknowledging how she follows the absentminded quality of the Principle of Comic Sense. Although he liked the film, Clark Douglas of DVD Verdict did say, “The film’s premise is honestly a little bit thin”. Dennis Schwartz of Ozus’ World Movie Reviews agreed, adding that the film is “Always witty but never fully believable (it takes a lot of crafty writing and smart acting to make the flawed plot line so workable)”. The worst review comes from Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com, who gave it 3 out of 5 stars in a 2004 review. In the review, he said, “As black comedies go, The Ladykillers is neither terribly black nor terribly comedic”. It is important to note that, unlike many other British comedies, reviewers from both the United Kingdom and the United States seemed to agree on many aspects of the film.  Legacy Around the time of Ealing Studios’ 100th Anniversary in 2002, James Christopher of The London Times called it “THE finest Ealing comedy…. The humour is so dark, steely, and polished that it slides through the drama like a knife”.
In the liner notes to the 2002 DVD of the film, filmmaker Rand Vossler describes the appeal of the comedy, “Mackendrick deftly handles Rose’s masterful script that derives most of its humor by contrasting the callousness of the thugs with the polite Victorian sensibilities of their landlady and her circle of friends”. The addition of The Ladykillers to the canon of British motion pictures added not only to the prestige of British comedy worldwide, but of British film in general.  At the time of Sullivan’s Travels, many filmmakers had dabbled in making socially conscious films. Known collectively as The Popular Front, most of these filmmakers focused on the serious nature of social issues. Sullivan’s Travels is ironic. In it, Sturges criticizes the methods and motivations of the Popular Front, yet at the same time, he somehow seems to make a social critique in the style of the Popular Front. At the time of its release at the end of the Great Depression and the start of World War II, the film was almost dated. Audiences had forgotten about many of the problems that the film highlights. One of Sturges’ most significant statements in the film involves race, as the only real sympathetic characters are members of the all Black congregation. The inclusion of these sympathetic Black characters marked one of the few and earliest occasions that Black characters existed in a comedy film for a purpose other than being the butt of a joke. Like Chaplin before him, scholars have called Sturges (1898-1959) an auteur. He began his film career as a writer, later transitioning to the role of director. Within recent years, more critical attention has returned to Sturges’ works, which had been mostly overlooked for decades. Notice that Sturges chose to hire an actress that was not recognized by audiences as a comic performer—adding to the ambiguity that audiences felt when the film premiered and they could not understand if it was a comedy or a tragedy.  Reception Film reviewers all over the United States praised Sturges and his film. Here we see how the manner in which comedy borrows the conventions of other genres is not only confusing to reviewers, but to the studio producing the comedy film as well. Variety liked the film, stating, “Sullivan’s Travels is one of the screen’s more ‘significant’ films. It is the best social comment made upon Hollywood since A Star Is Born. And that, we quietly suspect, is exactly what Mr. Sturges meant it to be”. About Sturges, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, said “Preston Sturges need make no excuses for the dominance of comedy on the screen, since he has done more than any one over the last two years to give brightness and bounce and authority to this general type of fare”. Notice how these critics address its explorations of the nature of Hollywood and of comedy, yet ignore his explorations of class struggle. The National Board of Review named it one of the Top Ten Films of 1942. However, it was not nominated for any Academy Awards. I cannot find any explanation for why the Academy did not recognize the picture, but perhaps its left-leaning themes and criticism of America were too controversial for a nation at war. Today, many film historians consider the film to be Sturges’ greatest achievement. Although it is a comedy, many say that it is one of the most accurate depictions of the plight of the homeless during the Great Depression—a fact that contemporary critics avoided mentioning. Once again, a Screwball Comedy represents a collaborative effort and the reviewers acknowledge that. As director and writer, Sturges’ talents receive the most praise. In 2001, Glenn Erickson of DVD Savant said “Preston Sturges at his best is nothing short of amazing”, noting its great dialogue as well as Sturges great direction. Jeff Ulmer of Digitally Obsessed echoed Erickson, when he called Sturges “a genius both as a director and as a writer”. Todd McCarthy of Criterion remarked on Sturges’ ability to combine comedy and tragedy, calling the film “both terribly funny and deeply moving”—a statement reminiscent of reviews of City Lights (1931). Derek M. Germano of The Cinema Laser compared Sturges to the title character when he said, “Sturges achieves the goal that he sets up for his fictional director in the film”. Terry Coll of DVD Verdict added “you can’t dislike Sullivan because he’s so well intentioned, if a little naïve. He truly wants to make his work meaningful”, much as we can infer Sturges had wanted. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian added that the film succeeds as “a distillation of pure happiness”. Like the contemporary reviewers, John J. Puccio of Movie Metropolis dubbed it “the finest film about filmmaking ever made,” commenting on its accurate depiction of the Hollywood mindset. Speaking to its longevity and to its exploration of the value and purpose of comedy, Angie Errigo of Empire Magazine said, “Sullivan’s Travels is still as brilliant and funny today as it was back in the early ‘40s,” adding “Few comedies are as smart as this. Anyone with a taste for laughter, even those with the lowest of brows, should forever find the consolation, vindication and affirmation of comedy’s merit”. In 2009, Ed Howard of Seul Le Cinema added that the film is “an ode to comedy, a love letter to Charlie Chaplin and all the other great comic performers who have graced the screen”. Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid wrote about the film’s history, “Forgotten for years along with its maker, writer/director Preston Sturges, Sullivan’s Travels has only recently enjoyed a comeback and induction into classic status”, adding “It actually describes the same conundrum that’s still going on in real life; that comedy doesn’t get the same respect drama does”. No doubt the attentive reader has encountered this argument before.   The first successful comedies of the sound era were the dialogue-driven situational comedies of Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor, most notably Trouble In Paradise (Lubitsch 1932), Design For Living (Lubitsch 1933), and Dinner At Eight (Cukor 1933). The films depicted taboo social situations and most always featured wealthy protagonists of the upper class. While the films were popular at the time and are still critically recognized, the films have become quite dated and seem dull when compared to the later Screwball comedies, which drew their foundations from the situations and banter of these films. In a sense, these almost purely verbal pre-Screwball Comedies were eclipsed by the Screwball comedies not much later in the decade. At the same time, other comic performers were developing a completely different style of comedy from Lubitsch and Cukor. The Marx Brothers—one of the most influential comedy teams of all time—practically defined the subgenre known today as Anarchic Comedy.  The Marx Brothers Starting as performers on Vaudeville stages and on Broadway, the Marx Brothers (active as a group, 1912-1949) recognized quickly how film would broaden their audience. In fact, they would often try out their material in front of a live audience before shooting began, this preview giving them live feedback. Unlike Chaplin before them, the Marx Brothers were solely performers, not filmmakers. Many film historians credit the Marx Brothers for being the first comic performers to realize that true sound comedy was a hybrid between verbal banter and physical gags. Whereas, Harpo’s comic manner could have worked quite well in silent comedy, Groucho’s comic manner could not have existed in motion pictures until the advent of sound technology. The Marx Brothers were the first film comedians to realize the synergistic possibilities of combining the physical and visual humor previously mastered by the silent film stars with the new verbal possibilities of the sound film. Groucho’s verbal style acts as a foil to Harpo’s physical style and vice versa. One could call Harpo’s persona the successor to Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Like Chaplin, the Marx Brothers spent weeks rehearsing gags to get them just right. In order to get the most complete picture of the Marx Brothers’ genius, one needs to consider the contrast between their earlier Paramount films, which ended with Duck Soup, and their later MGM films. The MGM films were their greatest successes commercially, but not necessarily critically. Today, the Brothers’ gags are just as effective as they were when their films premiered. The films continue to entertain audiences and engage film reviewers. So much of the Marx Brothers antics follow the Id drives theorized by Freud—the same drives that society dictates are to be restrained by the individual. The Brothers’ total disregard of social constraints makes them so appealing, because each one of us has, at one point or another, wished for the courage to break outside social boundaries.  Reception Not only was Duck Soup released in the midst of the Great Depression, but also audiences still remembered World War I while the threat of a Second World War was on the horizon. The critics’ reactions were not much better than the public’s.
As a political satire, the political leanings of the publications that review it can partly explain the starkly contrasted views of the film and some reviewers chose not to address the political humor at all. Most critics at the time considered it a fair to poor effort, but many reviewers also indicate that they would not expect much better from the Marx Brothers—although it is unclear if the critics’ low expectations were for the Marx Brothers specifically or for film comedy as a whole, since we have already learned that film critics have difficulty approaching comedy. Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times described it as “extremely noisy without being nearly as mirthful as their other films”. Joe Bigelow of Variety gave the film a rather positive review, praising the way that the Brothers were able to combine physical and verbal gags, “Radio has killed all the good gags”. He adds that “Practically everybody wants a good laugh right now and Duck Soup should make practically everybody laugh”. Harold W. Cohen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also presented a favorable review, saying “It’s good to see the madcap Marxes back”. Some might argue that Duck Soup’s message was a success internationally, since Mussolini saw it as a threat. Tim Dirks of The American Movie Classics Filmsite adds that it was “devoid of any Academy Award nominations”, which is not a surprise considering the relatively poor reviews that it received. Mussolini seems to be the only one who addressed the politics of the film, for the remaining reviews all address the comic structure of the film, using terms like “noisy”, “not mirthful”, and “laugh”. Just as the reviewers of City Lights' approached it as part of a larger Chaplin canon, these reviewers approach Duck Soup in the context of all the Marx Brothers pictures. Also, in the same way critics praised City Light’s balance of comedy and pathos, these critics praise the film’s balance of physical and verbal humor. In a few years, Duck Soup became virtually forgotten, and the Marx Brothers’ career declined in the 1940s. Renewed interest came to Duck Soup and the Marx Brothers beginning in the 1950s, mostly due to their presence on television, with further reviews appearing over the years. In these later reviews, many critics addressed the political humor of the film, not only aided by the perspective of a different political landscape, but also influenced by later anti-war sentiments, particularly during the Vietnam era. In 1976, Roger Rosenblatt of The New Republic praised the film and the Smithsonian Institution for presenting it once again. In 1978, John J. Puccio of Movie Metropolis also praised the film, “It’s all quite zany and delightful, a mixture of clever wit, low humor, and outright anarchy” regretting that “the world appears to have outgrown [it] or maybe just lost sight of somewhere along the road to high-tech sophistication”—echoing the contemporary reviewers’ praise of the mixture of many different types of comedy, and describing the genre of Anarchic Comedy. He uses the terms “zany”, “delightful”, “clever”, “wit”, “low humor”, and “anarchy” to describe the comedy of the film. Notice how close these terms are to the ones used by reviewers in 1933. Just like with City Lights, Duck Soup’s reputation has only grown and it is now more accessible than ever in the Twenty First Century because of home video technology. Many critics focus on the film’s longevity and continued relevancy, especially in its exploration of politics and war. In 2000, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times commented on the innovative nature of its comedy, “Dated as Duck Soup inevitably is in some respects, it has moments that seem startlingly modern…. The Brothers broke the classical structure of movie comedy and glued it back again haphazardly, and nothing was ever the same”. Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid, echoed Ebert’s sentiments, “The ridiculous reasons for going to war and the awkward, hysterical war itself are especially relevant today”, as does M.P. Bartley of eFilmCritic.com, “Duck Soup still has an edge today, because it’s the best film to remind us just how dangerous the Marx Brothers were”. Like earlier critics, many critics still speak of the film within the context of the Marx Brothers’ overall style. Michael Koller of Senses of Cinema called Duck Soup, “indisputably the Marx Brothers’ greatest film…. their most creative and anarchic”. John Sinnott of DVD Talk called it “Not only… the best Marx Brothers film, but… also one of the best comedies ever made”. In 2005, Dennis Schwartz of Ozus’ World Movie Reviews gave the film an A+, dubbing it “The Marx Brothers high water mark in film; their one true claim to a masterpiece”. Ian Nathan of Empire magazine called it, “The Marx brothers on top form”. These reviewers focus on the innovative combination of visual and auditory comedy in the film as well. In 2004, Jamie Russell of the BBC praised it for its “delirious verbal banter… and a total lack of respect for the rules”. Most Twenty First Century critics that review the film inevitably compare it to the later MGM pictures, and prefer Duck Soup because it does not include musical interludes or a romantic subplot. As for its detractors, Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com, complained that the plot was too simple, “Take the comedy, leave the story”. Total Film Magazine echoed this when it said, “the plot is just a flimsy backdrop” and that the “political nose-thumbing now seems a little dated”. Obviously, both reviewers do not know how to approach the narrative/gag balance of comedy. David Nusair of Reelfilm provided one of the harshest criticisms in 2006, when he said: “the majority of this just isn’t funny (something that’s particularly true of an excruciatingly prolonged sequence involving Harpo and Chico’s harassment of a blustering street vendor). The conclusion, which is action-packed and mind-numbing, does the movie absolutely no favors, and it’s extraordinarily difficult to understand why this is generally regarded as some kind of a comedy classic”. In Nusairs’ review, we can see that he does not know how to approach the Principle of Comic Logic nor the way in which the film borrows conventions from the war subgenre. The fact that more reviews have been written about Duck Soup in the past ten years than in its first ten years of existence is a testament to the power of the film and to its longevity. Critics at Turner Classic Movies call Duck Soup, the Brothers’ “last opportunity… to be at their most outrageous. But more than them running amok in front of the camera (and they had plenty of experience being let loose in front of an audience in vaudeville and Broadway), the Marx Brothers made a comedy that was cinematic…. The Duck Soup plot was absurd, but it was not so ridiculous that you didn’t care what was going to happen to the characters. This was one aspect that Irving Thalberg did not abandon when he produced their next picture, A Night at the Opera (1935), at MGM. The Brothers’ films at MGM became their most commercially successful. Thalberg had determined that the reason why the Brothers’ earlier films had not fared well commercially was because there were never any characters to which the viewer could relate. The Brothers themselves were too wacky to be relatable and Margaret Dumont was almost too proper, so Thalberg incorporated romantic leads and more mainstream narratives into the Brother’s MGM films. Even so, Zeppo, who sometimes played a romantic foil to the other three Brothers in their earlier pictures, decided after Duck Soup to move on to a career on the business side of the motion picture industry. Perhaps Thalberg had thought that the addition of romance to the Marx Brothers pictures would have made them more approachable to audiences that were now accustomed to Screwball comedies. Most film historians today agree, however, that the romantic stories often detracted from the overall pictures, considering them to be inferior to Duck Soup, the poster child of the Anarchic Comedy. Later examples of this subgenre, including Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick 1964) and M*A*S*H (Robert Altman 1970), were greatly influenced by it, sharing many of the same themes, devices, and character types. In the decades since the Brothers’ last film, most critics and scholars acknowledge that Duck Soup was in many ways superior to the later MGM pictures. In 1990, the National Registry of Historic Films decided to preserve the film. In 2006, Premiere Magazine named Duck Soup one of The 50 Greatest Comedies of All Time. The film is thoroughly enjoyable and I highly recommend it.  In honor of the upcoming April Fools Day and my new restoration of the classic 1936 3 Stooges short Disorder in the Court, I wanted to share my thoughts on the film. Disorder in the Court was my first introduction to the 3 Stooges when I was about 6 years old. My Dad and I had visited the local video rental store (yes I am that old...) and found a VHS with 4 Three Stooges shorts on it (really old…). I was instantly hooked. I was delighted by how the Stooges made even simple tasks like swearing in as a witness so complicated and therefore hilarious. They take all of the audience’s expectations of how a courtroom works and go against it. Part of the appeal of the Three Stooges is that they are outsiders. Often their adventures involve them representing the working class with little control over their situations and contrasts with upper class characters.  I would assume that most viewers have been involved in a trial as often as the Three Stooges. I am only familiar with courtroom procedures because of other movies and TV shows that I have seen. The “take the stand” confusion is great because if Curly had never been in a courtroom before, how would he know what it means to “take the stand”?
The Stooges’ confusion with courtroom procedures is what makes this short so terrific. I hope that you enjoy watching it.  By the time he made Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks was already one of the leading creators of parody in the world. Brooks understood how audiences came to parodies with numerous expectations, which some of his most successful gags would purposely go against to achieve their success. Mel Brooks is perhaps the most prolific filmmaker-parodist of the Twentieth Century, exploring various subjects like the Old West (Blazing Saddles, 1974), silent film (Silent Movie, 1976), Alfred Hitchcock thrillers (High Anxiety, 1977), world history (History of the World: Part I, 1981), science fiction (Spaceballs, 1987), the Middle Ages (Robin Hood: Men in Tights, 1993), and vampires (Dracula: Dead and Loving It, 1995). Brooks was at his peak in 1974, releasing two of the most popular and critically acclaimed parodies, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Brooks feels that Young Frankenstein is his best film, but he gives all the credit to the power of Mary Shelley’s novel. With Young Frankenstein, Brooks achieved a new level of sophistication for parody. Few films are as fine a parody as this one. It lampoons the conventions of previous, dramatic film adaptations of Shelley’s novel—and yet at the same time, it approaches her novel in a reverent way. His film reveals the necessity of the borrowing of the conventions of tragedy in order for comedy to succeed. Many scholars argue that Brook’s comedy is far closer to the spirit and themes of Shelley’s original work than the earlier, “serious” pictures. In an unintentionally backwards way, I viewed this film years before James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), which resulted in me feeling horribly underwhelmed when I finally saw the latter film. I can say in all honesty that Young Frankenstein is truly a superior film, for it simply has a tighter narrative, more carefully crafted tension and release, and is a more genuine portrayal of Shelley’s characters, particularly The Creature. The plot points and character motivations of Young Frankenstein are clear and succinct, no matter how absurd they may be. On the contrary, Frankenstein (1931), just ends with Henry Frankenstein’s father celebrating with young women after the monster is apparently gone forever. It presents the denouement necessary to a non-comic film, yet it feels tacked on—almost an attempt to distract the viewer from the real tragedy of The Creature. Though not necessary to a comedy, Young Frankenstein does present a resolution for The Creature, as he becomes the intellectual of Shelley’s novel—however, the primal instincts that The Creature had displayed now seem to have been brought out in Victor—perhaps arguing that those instincts were always within him, but repressed. I find the creation scene of Young Frankenstein as much of an aesthetic experience as when Sir Laurence Olivier recites a Shakespearean soliloquy. It is here in the film that the line between the conventions of comedy and the borrowed ones of drama blurs the most. The platform slowly raises as Frederick’s enormous shadow covers the wall. As I stated above, Young Frankenstein comes closest to the intellectual Creature of Shelley that reads frequently and is quite eloquent. Brooks presents a bourgeois Creature that reads the Wall Street Journal, while Karloff’s portrayal presents a stiff-limbed mute who merely stumbles around.  Brooks’ film is as much another, equally valid, interpretation of Shelley’s novel, as it is a parody of past interpretations. It not only explores the themes of Shelley, but the role of comedy as a direct foil to drama. Comedy reveals the painful truth of The Creature’s longings beneath the surface of his actions more readily than tragedy can. Young Frankenstein works exactly because it gives us better access to Shelley—a direct approach that only the genre of comedy allows. The seminal idea for Young Frankenstein came from the mind of Gene Wilder while he was working with Brooks on Blazing Saddles (1974). Wilder agreed to play the role of the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles if their next collaboration could be his idea about Frankenstein’s grandson. Much of the techniques used in the making of this film actually came from the Universal horror series that it parodies, including the use of green makeup for the creature, and the original sets and laboratory equipment. Brooks took care to remain true to the original films, making his parody work so much better by copying the original conventions so precisely—causing the viewer to realize how one takes the conventions for granted in the original source. The preview audiences hated it, and it appeared to Brooks and company that it was a failure. Wilder and Brooks got together and cut the film down considerably. Both felt that the final cut was far superior to the original cut. The experience of the test audience reminds the reader of the communal nature of comedy. The live feedback of the test audience is the same phenomenon of spectator participation in the Medieval Carnival, the audience reactions to live Vaudeville acts, and the Marx Brothers’ road shows. Brooks’ discussion of the running time of the picture alludes to the episodic nature of comedy—shown so well through Vaudeville. The shorter (than drama) runtime of a feature comedy seems to be an audience expectation, related to the aforementioned audience feedback.  Reception Young Frankenstein was highly profitable. With a budget of $2.8 million (about $13 million today), it ended up grossing $86 million (nearly $400 million today). It reassured the public and film executives of Brooks’ box office appeal that he had established with The Producers (1968) and Blazing Saddles (1974). The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Sound and Best Writing (Adaption), but did not win either. Tim Dirks of American Movie Classics Filmsite remarks that it was odd that Madeline Kahn and Gene Wilder were not nominated for their performances and that Gerald Hirschfield was not nominated for his cinematography. If we consider the cinematography of the opening sequence, for example, we see that it serves as a running visual gag that continually mocks the cinematic conventions of dramatic presentation. It is for this reason, I surmise, that no reviewers thought to recognize Hirschfield’s contribution, as critics only saw his work as a parody of cinematographer Gregg Toland’s style .
At the time of its release, the reviews were overwhelmingly favorable. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said that “it works on a couple of levels: first as comedy, and then as a weirdly touching story in its own right”, alluding to its unique interpretation of Shelley’s work. Box Office Magazine gave the film a positive review and noted that Brooks “takes on horror movies, a field that has sometimes been funny when the films were done too seriously”, raising the point of how daring Brooks had to be in order to parody a series of pictures that elicit laughter in their own right. Both reviewers talk about the necessity of an original, non-comic source for parody to work. Jay Cocks of Time Magazine liked the film, especially the dance hall sequence, which he called “some sort of deranged high point in contemporary film comedy”. The sequence curiously stands out because of its furthest departure from the novel. The one negative review that I found comes from Stanley Kauffman of The New Republic. In it, he mostly complained about the running time, which he thought was too long, “Brooks is a funny joke-and-gag man, but not 104- minutes funny”. Vincent Canby of the New York Times, focused on the gags as well, “Mel Brooks’s funniest, most cohesive comedy to date…. Some of the gags don’t work, but fewer than in any previous Brooks film that I’ve seen, and when the jokes are meant to be bad, they are riotously poor. What more can one ask of Mel Brooks?” Notice how Canby addresses the narrative structure through the term “cohesive” and describes the gags as “riotous” and also implies that one should not expect more from a comic filmmaker than a few funny gags. I find it interesting that only two of these five reviewers acknowledge the necessity of the conventions of the established Frankenstein lore for the parody to succeed. Quite a few of the more recent reviews of the film have been negative, much more so than when it premiered. I attribute this partly to the fact that so many later comedies, like The Naked Gun series, The Scary Movie series, and even some television comedies, have copied Brook’s manner of parody so closely, that the humor of Young Frankenstein does not seem to be as fresh and original as it genuinely is. As for the less than favorable reviews, in 1999, Donald Liebenson of the Chicago Tribune said, “Viewed from a Marxist (as in Brothers) perspective, Young Frankenstein is Brooks’ Night at the Opera. It is not his purest, funniest film, but it is his most sustained, satisfying, and accessible”. His terms “pure” and “funny” describe the gags, while “sustained”, “satisfying”, and “accessible” describe the narrative—ignoring the necessary balance between them. In 2007, Dennis Schwartz of Ozus’ World Movie Reviews complained that “Most of the gags were juvenile and bombed”, adding that “The best parody of Frankenstein is Whale’s own followup of The Bride of Frankenstein”, echoing early statements of the source series’ (unintended) laughable quality. The majority of reviews are still positive. Unlike the earlier reviewers, almost every Twenty First Century reviewer focuses on the necessity of Shelley’s novel and Whale’s interpretation to the success of Brook’s comedy. In 2006, Ryan Keefer of DVD Verdict said, “If James Whale’s films are the gold standard, then Brooks’ interpretation of the Mary Shelley characters is a more unspoken, yet outstanding sequel to the original”. In 2009, independent critic Cole Smithey, stated that “Mel Brooks caught comic lightning in a bottle” and added that it contains “an atmosphere of reverent delight beneath its bawdy puns and outrageous physical humor”. Bill Gibron of Filmcritic.com, loved the film stating, “No one could have expected the abject brilliance that was his take on the terror genre” adding that there is “something so satisfying about this movie, so likeable and loving that it’s hard to look at the rest of Brooks’s canon in a similar light”. Adam Smith of Empire Magazine called it “a marvelously crafted, beautifully shot comedic homage to James Whale’s 1931 classic”, adding that it is “a perfect example of early Brooks firing on all comic cylinders, and what it demonstrates is that for spoof to work, the spoofers must have deep affection for the material” that they parody. The statements of these reviewers reinforce my argument that Young Frankenstein is one of the finest examples of parody, for they not only acknowledge his faithfulness to Shelley’s novel, but his superior filmmaking sense over that of Whale. Parody’s closeness to its source allows reviewers to clearly evaluate it against the source material. With these few reviews, we see a faint comic blip on the radar of film criticism, in that these critics directly praise a comic filmmaker as having created a work more significant than that of a “serious” filmmaker. The film was an indisputable triumph for Brooks and he took great pride in his work on Young Frankenstein. 2/22/2021 0 Comments Profile- John Williams If any one composer’s name is synonymous with film music of the last quarter of the 20th century and arguably, the last 50 years, it would be John Williams. I had the fortune of meeting him at a rehearsal at Tanglewood when I was 16. For someone that captures such a large sound, he was very calm and soft spoken. Williams got his start as a jazz pianist and played on several of Henry Mancini’s recordings while studying composition. What many do not know is that Williams earned his first Academy Award 4 years before Jaws by adapting music for the film version of the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Williams had critical and commercial success following that with several disaster movies--The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974), and the Towering Inferno (1974). Many film music fans seem to forget about any of Williams’ work before Jaws, but these scores are worth seeking out. Initially director Irwin Allen did not want any music during the opening titles of Towering Inferno, but Williams convinced him with an exciting piece as the helicopter approaches the tower. Williams’ second Academy award was for his score for Jaws, which I discussed in an earlier post.  The film that made Williams a household name and earned him his third Academy award may also be one of the most influential films in film history and film music history--Star Wars (1977). At the time, the style of music used for the film seemed like an enigma. The Academy award winner the previous year was Bill Conti’s disco-inspired score for Rocky (1976). The top selling soundtrack of 1977 was Saturday Night Fever, so you can see the context from which Star Wars emerges. From the beginning George Lucas wanted a symphonic score not only reminiscent of large Classical works but of the music that accompanied the science fiction action serials of the 1930s and 1940s that inspired Star Wars and later Indiana Jones. Williams showed not only his talent for creating memorable themes but also an incredible knowledge of harmonies and styles that had worked for classical composers in the past and when to use certain techniques. One could spend years studying just his composition and orchestration technique. The same year as Star Wars, Williams collaborated again with Steven Spielberg to score Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The memorable note sequence used to communicate with the aliens was so iconic that many assumed it was a legitimate alien signal that the filmmakers had borrowed. I have read that Williams tried multiple arrangements of notes before hitting the perfect combination. That shows part of the craft and mathematical aspect of music.  The year right after Star Wars, Williams composed my personal favorite of his scores, Superman (1978). It is difficult to say (and hopefully not controversial), but Superman’s main title may be slightly more exciting than the opening of Star Wars. The insistent rhythms and glorious themes never let up for the full 5 and half minutes of the titles. In the film, Williams music brings realism and humanity to the larger than life superhero. He captures the grandeur of flight, the tenderness of Lois and Clark, and the simplicity of Clark’s life in Smallville. This score definitely should have received the Academy Award that year instead of Giorgio Moroder’s experimental synthesizer score to Midnight Express. Williams returned to the Star Wars universe in 1980 with Empire Strikes Back, not only expanding on themes from the original film but adding many more memorable character ideas like the Imperial March, Yoda’s Theme and the love theme for Han and Leia. The end title suite for Empire Strikes Back is absolutely thrilling as it blends the three new themes for the film. 1981 and 1982 presented two back-to-back hits with director Spielberg. The action packed theme for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was initially difficult for Williams. He had already written the first part of the theme, but was struggling to figure out a second theme. Once again returning to the mathematical side of his talent, he inverted the first theme, and the second theme is actually the result of that. Beyond the main theme, Williams’ mysterious theme for the power of the ark is haunting.  In 1982, Williams earned another Academy Award for ET: The Extra Terrestrial. Looking back, we can forget just how much of a gamble that Spielberg took on a film that presented a friendship between a lost alien and a human boy. With just too much sappiness or too much cold science fiction, the film could have failed miserably. One great reason for its success was the music of Williams. In the recording of almost every film score, the movie is completely edited and the composer has to synchronize the timing of the music to hit certain important points in the film. After trying over and over, the ending sequence of ET just was not what Williams wanted. Spielberg trusted Williams so much that he let Williams conduct the music without the picture and then re-edited the ending sequence of the film to match the music. There is so little dialogue in the sequence that it almost becomes a science fiction ballet. The ending music of the film is one of the most epic in film history, in which the awe of extraterrestrial space travel and the boundlessness of friendship is expressed in music. It is similar in meaning to the ending of Close Encounters of the Third Kind from five years earlier, but I believe more effective in ET.
Two often overlooked main themes from the 1980s both have to do with flight. The first from Empire of the Sun (1987), called “Cadillac of the Skies” literally holds the film together. The second, from Always (1989) is probably the most memorable part of the film besides Audrey Hepburn’s final film appearance as an angel. Gather these with the themes from ET and Superman and Williams is a master of flight. Another of Williams’ most celebrated scores comes from 1993’s Jurassic Park. Who thought that a film about humans exploiting nature for profit and people getting eaten by dinosaurs could have such a beautiful main theme? The theme itself speaks to the imagined feeling of a lifelong paleontologist seeing a living dinosaur for the first time. Thirty years after winning his first Academy Award, Williams took on the challenge of creating the sound of the Harry Potter universe. Consider that this sound would have been developing in readers’ minds for quite a few years before the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) film. Williams music does not disappoint. He returns to familiar ideas of flight, wonder, and friendship. His score is similar enough to his previous work to be comfortable but new enough to stand on its own. By the time of writing this post, Williams has been nominated for 52 Academy Awards, winning 5, nominated for 25 Golden Globe awards, winning 4, and nominated for 71 Grammy Awards, winning 25. Beyond those accomplishments, Williams’ influence on film music will live forever. |