Category: 1930s

Jean Renoir | 1hr 50min

The social conventions that govern the lives of Jean Renoir’s ensemble in The Rules of the Game may be binding laws within a certain stratosphere of French aristocracy, but they are to be taken with a grain of salt. These are arbitrary customs, designed to create the façade of honour and dignity, rather than truly encouraging the adoption of such lofty ideals. “I can’t run off with the wife of a host who calls me friend and shakes my hand without an explanation,” Andre explains to Christine, despite him spending much of the film prior to their conversation doing exactly this. “There are still rules.”

Perhaps then the most significant rule of all is one that is entirely unspoken – as long as the adultery and back-stabbing takes place away from the eyes of others, then this behaviour is perfectly acceptable. Renoir’s critique of such hypocrisy has a sharp edge to it, undercutting the egos that entangle themselves in a web of affairs over one weekend at the country estate La Colinière, owned by the Marquis de la Chesnaye, Robert. The irony that he himself is cheating with his mistress Geneviève is lost on him when he discovers hints of a romance between his wife, Christine, and his friend, Andre. Complicating matters further is the parallel drama unfolding among the servants of the estate, with Christine’s maid Lisette being sought after by both her jealous husband, Schumacher, and the newest worker to join the fray, Marceau.

Any pretensions that the upstairs folk of this estate are somehow more refined than those downstairs are thoroughly eroded in Renoir’s formal comparison. His deep focus serves an economic purpose here in shots that play out Christine’s drama in the foreground, while men squabble over Lisette’s heart in the background, drawing a hard line between the two social classes that should never romantically intermingle. Even when Robert eventually makes up with Andre, he confesses his relief that it was his friend who should almost steal his wife’s heart rather than anyone lower down, or else he may have suffered an even greater humiliation.

“I’m glad it’s with someone from our set.”

There is another more comedic purpose served by Renoir’s rich depth of field too though, underscoring the dramatic irony of his characters’ limited perspectives. As Schumacher furiously plots his victory over his wife’s new suitor, Lisette quietly beckons at a hidden Marceau to sneak out of the room. He tiptoes behind an oblivious Schumacher, nervously jumping at his indirect threats, though his stealthy efforts are for nothing when he inadvertently sends a bench of crockery crashing to the ground. Just as Renoir refuses to cut from his wide shot of the following chase weaving in and out of rooms, neither does he shift his frames of long hallways that diminish his characters into tiny figures, or the doorway which frames a frantic Robert pass by a trigger-happy Schumacher and amusingly fail to note the similarities in their circumstances.

“Corneille, put an end to this farce!”

“Which one, your lordship?”

Interactions such as these are played at a cool distance, letting us join fellow guests who observe the manic drama with bemusement, though it is also a rare occasion that the camera is so static. The most dominant stylistic feature of The Rules of the Game, Renoir’s artistic innovations, and poetic realism as an entire film movement is that fluid camerawork floating around sets in long takes, sensitively soaking in the intricacies of their environments. In Renoir’s case, it is through this device that we appreciate the absurd wealth on display, as we traverse lavish halls of chandeliers, statues, and mirrors, and push through frame obstructions of drapes and flowers.

Renoir’s floating camera does not simply immerse us in these characters’ opulent theatrics though, but there is also enormous economy in its navigation of their dynamics, connecting multiple narrative threads as it detaches from one conversation and joins another. As the servants sit down for dinner in one scene, he coordinates an incredible tracking shot that constantly shifts between Schumacher, Lisette, Marceau, and the grumbling chef, each of whom enter and exit at different points while cooks move through the background. When scenes expand to fit almost the entire cast within them, Renoir’s long takes emphasise how little distance there is between both ends of the social spectrum. Petty grievances drive men to violently lash out, and women form phoney alliances with their enemies, stifling any genuine affection among friends or lovers with narcissistic compulsions to protect their own egos. The camera’s pace may accelerate with their movements, especially during tracking Schumacher’s armed rampage throughout the manor, but Renoir’s perfect, controlled elegance never wavers.

At least, that is the case within the boundaries of these sumptuous interiors, encasing them in worlds of superficial affluence. As guests and servants venture outside one fine morning to hunt wild game, Renoir exposes a more insidious evil that quietly resides within the bourgeoisie, and formally disrupts the fluid camerawork that pervades the rest of the film. Within the dense forest of thin, white trees that sits on the edge of Robert’s estate, we find a paradise of woodland creatures, exuding a far greater peace than the forced niceties of La Colinière. The camera nervously floats close to the ground as Schumacher and his men advance through this territory, banging their sticks and blowing their horns to draw out their prey, while Robert and company disperse themselves around the edge of the forest, rifles at the ready.

Suddenly, a cacophony of gunshots erupts, and Renoir launches into a truly aggressive display of montage editing – pheasants fall from the sky, rabbits collapse mid-run, and hunters coldly shift their aim from one target to the next, taking perverse pride in their domination of the animal kingdom. Afterwards as they collect the carcasses, a pair of them even argue over the etiquette of the sport, imposing the arbitrary rules of high society on the natural world and consequently laying claim to that too. Renoir may shatter the illusion of bourgeoisie sophistication to the viewer, yet still these aristocrats continue living in denial of their own repressed, violent impulses. It is no great ordeal living with a bit of blood on one’s hands after all when such sacrifices to class pride are framed as necessary traditions.

Renoir’s foreshadowing is thus laid out for the crushing tragedy that punctuates the final minutes of his film. He orchestrates here a masterful tonal shift here, preceding it with a farcical series of misunderstandings and mistaken identities that throw us off far off the scent of the imminent murder. The first sees Schumacher spy on Christine wearing her maid’s cape, confusing her for Lisette as she walks with the newest man to catch her eye – Andre’s relatively poor friend, Octave. The second sees Schumacher pursue a man he believes is Octave, yet is actually Andre wearing his friend’s cape. Driven mad with jealousy, and fully investing in a self-fabricated lie, Schumacher takes aim at the man he believes is Octave and shoots.

In effect, Andre is punished for the wrong crime by the wrong man who picked the wrong target, yet there is a fatalistic irony in the fact that he, much like Octave, is absolutely guilty of fooling around with Christine. Not even Schumacher had considered that separate classes might have romantically intermingled, seeing an upstairs woman fall into the arms of a downstairs man, yet it is this transgression of the rules which inadvertently leads to such tragedy. No one is quite sure how to make sense of this disaster, nor do they want to, should their illusions of order and security reveal weak foundations.

“He dropped like an animal in the hunt,” Marceau later recounts, and when Andre’s death is covered up as a hunting accident, the young aviator indeed becomes just another sacrifice to the status quo. There is no great fuss cleaning up the incidental bloodshed. Everyone is simply relieved that it wasn’t them who had the misfortune of wearing Octave’s cape, but the irony here does not escape Renoir’s pointed social satire. Today it was Andre, and tomorrow the unpredictable whims of their own volatile egos could put them on the wrong end of another reckless fool’s rifle. As long as this tacit danger continues to preserve their status and wealth though, then these self-centred aristocrats are content living with a constant mistrust of their own friends and lovers, and continue giving credit to the arbitrary rules of their empty game.

The Rules of the Game is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Alfred Hitchcock | 1hr 26min

Richard Hannay’s journey into the deadly mystery of The 39 Steps begins by pure happenstance, with international spy Annabella Smith falling into his arms at a variety show the moment gunshots are fired and the crowd erupts into panic. When he learns of her true identity shortly before her assassination and picks up her mission where she left off though, he chooses to become an agent of his own will, navigating a conspiracy of national significance that unwittingly leads him right to the heart of the shady organisation she had been investigating. The stakes are enormous, threatening to compromise the United Kingdom’s military defence should its vital secrets be leaked, but Alfred Hitchcock is smart enough to recognise that this is not why we are watching. The 39 Steps is not a story of complex political intrigue, but rather of one man’s temptation into the sweet allure of danger, paralleling Hitchcock’s own growing fascinations in the 1930s as his thrillers developed new psychological depths.

After all, it doesn’t take much to nudge Hannay into this life that sends him running from authorities, many of whom are convinced he is guilty of Annabelle’s sudden murder. All he is left with to prove his innocence is her cryptic clue of “the 39 steps”, the identifying mark of nine-fingered criminal mastermind Professor Jordan, and a map leading him to a building in the Scottish moors called Alt-na-Shellach. From there, Hitchcock unravels a cat-and-mouse chase that puts him in the crosshairs of both the police and villainous secret agents, never quite knowing who he can really trust.

Though North by Northwest is often credited as a James Bond prototype, it is hard to ignore the standard set here as a precursor to both, traversing magnificent set pieces across rural and urban environments that bring Hannay treacherously close to capture and death. Hitchcock takes advantage of the Scottish Highlands to shoot the fugitive’s shrunken silhouette in marvellous wide shots wading through rivers, hiding within natural cavities, and climbing its craggy peaks, but even more spectacular is his use of national monuments as set pieces that further infuse his quest with colossal significance. Edinburgh’s Palladium Theatre is his choice of location to shoot the climax, while the Forth Rail Bridge sets the scene for Hannay’s quick escape off a train, precariously balancing him on this “monument to Scottish engineering and Scottish muscle” before dropping him into the river below.

It is also upon that bridge that Hitchcock sets in motion another key subplot, briefly crossing Hannay’s path with another train passenger, Pamela, who curtly rejects his attempted alliance and immediately turns him in. When she finally re-enters the narrative as an aid to the police, Hitchcock delights in toying with their romantic chemistry, linking them up at a political conference where he disguises himself as a guest speaker and catches her bewildered gaze while up onstage. As the police close in and Hannay continues his charismatic impromptu speech, we suspensefully cut between their locked eyes, watching him gain the rapturous support of an audience who effectively forms a protective barrier around him with their fanatic clamouring.

Pamela does not need to worry about him getting away from her a second time though, especially when she finds herself incidentally handcuffed to the man she has been set on bringing down. Hitchcock milks the visual comedy of this for all it’s worth, sending Hannay back through the Scottish moors, though this time with a reluctant companion stuck to his wrist. Stopping at a countryside inn for the night, they pose as a pair of lovers so infatuated that they just can’t stop holding hands, leading to some light slapstick and wry banter brought on by their less-than-ideal attachment. Only when the police officers she is assisting stop by and she overhears their conversation does she recognise the truth of Hannay’s purported innocence – those detectives are in fact spies, looking to ensure he does not interfere with their plans.

Even as Hitchcock’s characters are shaken by developments such as these, his camera never falters in its calm precision, here framing Pamela high in the foreground as those she is eavesdropping on unwittingly confess their fraud a floor below. So too does his editing maintain a steady tension in its pacing, timing its reveals with tantalising accuracy, though it is when he combines his stylistic virtuosity with a brilliant narrative economy that his adventure pays off in a twist as clever as it is exhilarating. The national secrets at the centre of the film’s conspiracy are not written down, but rather hidden inside the head of a man with a photographic memory, who Hannay realises he has encountered once before – in the variety show from the very first scene.

Compelled to answer whatever questions are thrown his way from the audience, Mr. Memory doesn’t falter either in accidentally exposing the duplicitous spy organisation when Hannay, determined to save himself from being arrested, shouts out a single, damning question.

“What are The 39 Steps?”

Professor Jordan’s efforts to shut up Mr. Memory with a swift gunshot come a few seconds too late. With one villain being taken in by police and another bleeding out backstage, Hitchcock does not hold back his dark sense of humour, keeping the variety show joyfully running in the background with a line of can-can dancers. Hannay and Pamela may have faced very real dangers on their journey, and yet much like Hitchcock they have also fallen for its intoxicating pull, discovering exultation where one might only expect to find trauma and regret. As the camera pulls back from Mr. Memory’s death in the final shot, their hands join again, though this time not because of any handcuffs forcibly binding them together. For the first time in The 39 Steps, their physical union emerges from genuine romantic affection, willingly embracing the partner that their fateful mission thrust upon them with mutual care and profound understanding.

The 39 Steps is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV. You can also purchase The 39 Steps on DVD from Amazon.

Howard Hawks | 1hr 42min

From the moment that the scatter-brained Susan throws David’s golf game into chaos at their very first encounter in Bringing Up Baby, unruly forces of nature seem to conspire against the perfectly ordered life he has built for himself. A leopard called Baby sent from Brazil unexpectedly falls into their care, wreaking havoc on his plans to complete a giant Brontosaurus skeleton at his museum, and marry his fiancée Miss Swallow the next day. A troublesome dog named George interferes too, running off with the final bone needed for his project, and a second, dangerously untamed leopard complicates the ordeal even further when it is freed from a local circus.

These mischievous creatures represent more than just the breakdown of structure in David’s life though, wearing away at his patience until he surrenders to the mayhem. Howard Hawks’ animalistic subtext is ridden with sexual innuendo at every turn, comically undercutting the seriousness of David’s mounting stress with reminders of his vulnerability and repressed, primal desire.

With the Production Code’s censorship at its peak in 1938, Hawks and his screenwriters could have never been so explicit with their gags even if they wanted to, yet the underhanded subtlety of their perpetual double entendres speaks even more acutely to David and Susan’s simmering romance than any brazen statement of their attraction. Besides, David’s just not that sort of man to speak so plainly of such personal matters. Only when he is forced to beg Susan to return his balls, goes searching for his “precious” bone, and becomes a surrogate parent to Baby is he able to admit to his innate animalistic impulses.

If Baby the leopard effectively becomes David’s child with Susan, driving them mad with frustration, then that giant dinosaur skeleton which he is working on with Miss Swallow is theirs, and she virtually says as much herself. “This will be our child,” she proclaims, gesturing at this dry, dead beast. “I see our marriage purely as a dedication to your work.” Not even she is saved from Hawks’ sexual innuendos, with him poking fun at the connotations of her suggestive name, and humorously implying the sterility of their relationship as David ponders where his new bone goes.

“You tried in the tail yesterday and it didn’t fit.”

With jokes this sly being thrown out at such a breakneck pace by Hawks’ talented ensemble, we are often left catching up on several punchlines at a time. This propulsive narrative power and madcap energy isn’t atypical of 1930s screwball comedies, but Bringing Up Baby reaches near-perfection in the hands of a genre master like Hawks, orchestrating an amusingly tense dynamic between his actors that lands each comic beat with razor sharp timing. Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde no doubt deserve credit for penning one of Hollywood’s finest comedies too, but at the same time this is just the springboard for two career-defining performances – Katharine Hepburn taking control of scenes with her rhythmic dialogue and clipped intonations, and a sarcastic Cary Grant nervously stammering through the confusion.

“Now it isn’t that I don’t like you Susan, because after all in moments of quiet I’m strangely drawn to you. But, well, there haven’t been any quiet moments.”

With actors, writers, and director working at the top of their game, Bringing Up Baby is about as flawless as any piece of cinema can get with such little dedication to any distinct aesthetic. Hawks’ physical gags may be hilariously inventive, at one point seeing Grant awkwardly hide the back of Hepburn’s ripped gown by trailing behind her a little too closely, but this is not the sort of visual comedy innovated by Buster Keaton which relied heavily on framing and composition. Almost the entirety of the comedy here is driven by the eccentric screwball antics, leading a pair of opposites towards a more fulfilling romantic union than either of them previously knew existed, as well as the erotic subtext that lies just beneath its surface.

Hawks formally signposts the disruptive transgression of this relationship virtually all the way through the film too, with Susan implicating David in a few minor crimes at the start, and later stopping to note the unlikely friendship that forms between Baby the leopard and George the dog. Most prominent of all though is the gender subversion that Hawks wields such a deft hand over, dressing the low-voiced Hepburn in traditionally masculine outfits and positioning her as the more dominant figure, while Grant is forced to dress in a fluffy negligee upon realising his clothes have been stolen. On one level, his improvisation when he suddenly meets Susan’s Aunt Elizabeth while wearing this outfit is simply an exasperated resignation to the ludicrousness of the situation without even trying to explain himself, though on another he is sardonically pushing the boundaries of his own apparent queerness even further.

Elizabeth: You look perfectly idiotic in those clothes.

David: These aren’t my clothes.

Elizabeth: Well, where are your clothes?

David: I’ve lost my clothes!

Elizabeth: But why are you wearing these clothes?

David: Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!

It’s too bad for him that this Aunt Elizabeth also happens to be the multimillionaire who has offered a large donation to his museum, should he prove to be a suitable enough candidate. The rest of the evening doesn’t exactly prove her first impressions wrong either, especially with Susan still drawing him into her hijinks. Mistakenly believing he is a zoologist, and later lying to her aunt that he is a big-game hunter, she is constantly landing David in awkward positions that assume he possesses some dominance over the animal kingdom, only to expose his total ineptness. No matter how hard he tries to coax Baby off rooftops with hilariously desperate renditions of ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’, he is not a man who controls nature, but is tormented by its unpredictability and lack of order.

In short, Susan embodies all of David’s most embarrassing weaknesses, continuing to radiate her aura of chaos out into the lives of strangers and drawing them to a jailhouse in Hawks’ climactic comedic set piece. The farce which binds them, Miss Swallow, Aunt Elizabeth, her lawyer, her housemaid, a big-game hunter, a circus crew, and a pair of daft policemen together within a series of misunderstandings only continues to disintegrate the bureaucratic structures which hold society together, until everyone is cut down to the same humiliating level.

As Susan unwittingly leads a dangerous leopard right into the middle of this crowd and sends them climbing the prison cell bars, it is clear that no one is safe around her, but perhaps David is the only one who can see the joy in such maddening volatility. Once the dust has settled, he barely seems fazed when Miss Swallow curtly breaks off their engagement back at his museum, and even when Susan accidentally sends his prized brontosaurus skeleton tumbling to the ground, he quickly moves past the loss of his life’s work. After all, that dinosaur was the child of a relationship he now realises was uncompromisingly rigid and exceedingly inauthentic. The dead belongs to the past, Hawks symbolically asserts, while life in all its impulsive uncertainties should be embraced, delivering an amusingly peculiar logic in the romantic union of two incongruent yet totally compatible opposites.

Bringing Up Baby is not currently available to stream in Australia.

Jean Renoir | 40min

Cinema history is brimming with conflicts between directors trying to maintain their artistic integrity and studios interfering with final cuts, so it is odd indeed to see a producer’s post-production meddling save a film from oblivion. For the French featurette A Day in the Country, it wasn’t until ten years after Jean Renoir cut production short due to unwelcome rain and left it in limbo that Pierre Braunberger reconstructed the existing material, thereby letting us watch it in its current form today.

If its unfinished state leaves any sort of unsavoury mark on the film, then perhaps it is visible in its rushed epilogue, briefly colliding two old lovers years after their daylong romance, before fizzling out. Still, not even this can detract from the dreamy sincerity of Renoir’s literary adaptation, especially given the friendship between his father, renowned painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Guy de Maupassant, the writer of the source material. Jean Renoir is a worthy artistic successor to both within his own medium, expanding Maupassant’s 19^th century naturalism to the poetic realism of 1930s cinema, and drawing heavily on some of his father’s impressionist paintings such as ‘The Skiff’ and ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’ to create scintillating moving portraits of rural France.

Most arresting of all the similarities between A Day in the Country and the elder Renoir’s work is that scene which sees the daughter of the wealthy Dufour family, Henriette, stand on a swing and gleefully rock back and forth. The resemblance to Pierre-Auguste’s oil painting ‘The Swing’ is more than passing, positioning its young female subject as the light, romantic centre of the image, but for Jean Renoir the beauty of cinema lies as much in the camera’s elegant motions as its pictorial mise-en-scene. In his rendering of this blissful scene, we sway with her on the swing and gaze up at her joyous expression, airily detached from the earth below. True to Renoir’s penchant for deep focus staging as well, a much wider shot delicately frames this moment through an open window where two aspiring suitors watch from a distance, uniting strangers from the city and country in a single charming shot.

It is a simple story which unfolds from here, following the double courtship between Henri and Henriette on one side, and Rudolphe and Madame Dufour on the other. The film’s distinct beauty rather emerges in its relaxed pacing, nature photography, and light characterisations, positioning Henriette and her mother as two sides of a single, romantic coin. The young woman is expressive with her words and feelings, fancifully wondering whether “those little creatures feel joy and sorrow like us” as she stands at the edges of a riverbank. Later, she goes on to confess an even deeper sentimentality that resides within her soul, asking her mother whether she felt something similar when she was young.

“Did you feel an immediate tenderness for it all – for the grass, the water, the trees? A vague sort of yearning. It starts here, then it rises. It almost makes me want to cry.”

Madame Dufour’s response is sweet, yet possesses a slightly jaded edge.

“Dear child, I still feel like that, but I’m more reasonable now.”

In this passage, Renoir efficiently lays the formal groundwork for the switch that will soon take place between these two women. While Monsieur Dufour and Henriette’s fiancé Anatole bumble around as comic relief, Henri and Rudolphe swoop in to woo their partners, and in an idyllic pastoral setting like this who could possibly be immune to the sweet call of love? Renoir catches the rippling reflections of people, skiffs, and reeds in the silvery surface of the river, as fragile as these fleeting affairs, and he even spends time simply drifting his camera above the water, basking in the carefree atmosphere. True to his poetic realist roots, he is also sure to fill out frames with a lush, deep focus, watching one couple’s boat glide by in the background even while the other dominates our attention.

Needless to say, Madame Dufour is utterly entranced by Rudolphe’s country boy charisma, revealing the same idealism which prospers in her daughter. Henriette too is excited by Henri’s advances, though when they finally kiss Renoir cuts in close to her now doleful expression, as if she has stepped outside her mind for the first time and seen this tryst for what it is. Grey clouds begin to gather, a harsh wind whips the reeds, and as we float above the water one last time, its reflective surface is now pierced by small, sharp raindrops. Days as wistfully delicate as these can be washed away with just the slightest shift in the atmosphere.

It may be fate or possibly just coincidence that brings Henri and Henriette together on the same riverbank years later, though by now she is married, and there is evidently no chance of rekindled love. Her dark eyes seemingly haven’t changed since last time we saw her, lacking the bright spark which once lit up the entire countryside. “My happiest memories are here,” Henri confesses. “I think of it every night,” she discloses in return. Although this ending is woefully truncated, there is still an affecting grace in these simple words, pensively reminiscing on a shared past. That nostalgia lasts far longer than the actual events it is born from is a painful paradox in A Day in the Country, and most of all for those whose best days are behind them. With a visual style and narrative pacing as elegant as Renoir’s though, it is fully possible to recognise the beauty of these moments as they pass us by, living from moment to moment.

A Day in the Country is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Victor Fleming | 3hr 58min

Before the late 1930s, there was nothing in the world of cinema that even came close to matching the dominant cultural force that was Gone with the Wind, which fended off every other film of 1939 to singlehandedly rule supreme as the highest-grossing movie of the year, the decade, and once adjusted for inflation, all-time. Studio moviemaking would never look the same again, strengthening powerhouse producers like David O. Selznick and asserting them as the most important players in a film’s success over the creatives working for them. It is hard to argue otherwise in this specific case too – Victor Fleming only claims director’s credit on Gone with the Wind since he took over from Sam Wood, who had previously replaced George Cukor, making this cinematic landmark very much the result of fruitful artistic collaboration from a huge array of great talents.

The other side of this sweeping historical epic’s cultural impact looms large in more recent years as a controversial, romanticised vision of the Old South, downplaying the horror of its white supremacy and slavery. Gone with the Wind is laden with historical inaccuracies and racial stereotypes which plant it firmly on the side of the Confederates in the American Civil War, making some scenes particularly difficult to stomach and consequently tainting its legacy in the eyes of the broad populace. Still, the truth of the matter isn’t so simple as that either – if Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara is meant to represent the qualities of that long-lost culture, then her character flaws paint a pricklier portrait than one might expect.

Scarlett’s introduction at her beloved family plantation of Tara sets her up immediately as a magnetic figure, peeling back the two identical suitors on either side of her in a forward tracking shot to dramatically reveal the beautiful woman wedged between them. Fleming’s camera will often find itself drawn towards her in scenes like these where crowds of men lavish her with attention, and while she happily indulges in these innocent flirtations, there is only one man she has eyes for. It is almost comical how obsessed she is with Ashley Wilkes given how plain he is in comparison to Clark Gable’s moustachioed, debonair Rhett Butler, and yet it is just like her to keep pining after what she can’t have.

The nationwide search for find the right person to play Scarlett O’Hara is a significant piece of history in itself, and the choice of British actress Vivien Leigh too would go down as one of Hollywood’s most inspired pieces of casting. Here, she does not just fill in the archetype of the Southern belle – she is the exact image that is conjured when those words come to mind, possessing a charming, hospitable front that only barely obscures her vain entitlement. Her wardrobe of hoop skirts, corsets, and wide-brimmed straw hats mark that privilege with incredible sartorial elegance, designed with great authenticity by Walter Plunkett according to the trends of the era, while complementing her character arc with costumes moving through white, black, green, and red palettes. Not everything here feels entirely traditional though, as while Scarlett is a woman of the Old South, she also possesses the attitude of a 1930s heroine, toying with men in such a way that at times virtually belongs in a screwball comedy.

As an actress, Leigh falls in line with the theatrical traditions of the day, and yet there is also remarkable subtlety in her expressions that frequently announce her displeasure and judgement with nothing but a slightly raised eyebrow. Opposite her, Gable offers a dangerously handsome challenge, frequently playing the devil’s advocate who is unafraid to call out others on their arrogance. The chemistry between the two is palpable, setting Scarlett and Rhett up as headstrong equals and potentially even soulmates were it not for her blind jealousy and wandering eyes.

If the character of Scarlett and the culture of the Old South make up two points of a three-pronged metaphor, then the third is represented by a physical location, Tara. Many of Gone with the Wind’s greatest motifs are attached to the O’Hara plantation, with the most notable among them being the blazing sunsets that silhouette Scarlett against matte paintings of burnt orange clouds, and frame her beneath a gnarled, twisted oak tree. Also evoking Tara’s warm homeliness is its instantly recognisable musical theme of soaring strings and dignified horns, composed by Max Steiner in what may very well be the greatest work of his distinguished career. Gone with the Wind is an artistic landmark in many ways, though certainly chief among them is its gorgeously sentimental score, rising and falling with each dramatic beat and running alongside us as we escape a burning Atlanta.

From the vividly passionate Technicolor cinematography to the ravishing production design, every element of Gone with the Wind is designed as a fantasy conjured up by pure, 19^th century nostalgia, making the eventual fall of the South towards the end of Act 1 all the more devastating in its apocalyptic destruction. Even while Confederate armies buckle under the assault of the Union, many men continue to claim that Atlanta will never be conquered, but as Scarlett navigates its crowded field hospitals, her own faith in these affirmations begins to crumble. If Victor Fleming is to take credit for any of the film’s artistic innovations, then it should be for the immaculate crane shot which starts close on Scarlett’s search for Dr Meade and then slowly lifts up into the air, where we bear witness to the city’s main road packed with wounded and dead soldiers. Extras stretch into the distance, and finally the full scope of the South’s huge losses hits home, punctuated at the end of the shot by a Confederate flag coming into view, flapping in the breeze yet irreparably damaged.

Just like the apparently unsinkable Titanic, Atlanta falls faster than anyone expected. There is no faking the sort of ambitious, cataclysmic set piece which Selznick orchestrated through the burning of old studio lots, exploding gunpowder and collapsing structures around Scarlett and Rhett who continue riding past fires blazing several storeys high. As fierce orange hues leap up into the sky, a formal comparison is drawn to those vibrant sunsets that so often illuminate the landscapes of Tara, and it is indeed exactly there where Scarlett chooses to return when Rhett finally decides to join the fight in its last days. “Maybe I have a thing for lost causes when they’re really lost, or maybe I’m ashamed of myself,” he admits, with a sly nod to his own love for Scarlett. Even after witnessing such destruction, she too finds renewed strength, though for her it is the survival of Tara through hellish conditions which inspires an invigorating resilience, as she stands out in its fields where a few crops still miraculously grow and delivers a firm resolution.

“As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again!”

And indeed, how could someone as cunning, resourceful, and privileged as Scarlett ever break an oath like this? Act 2 of Gone with the Wind trades in a great deal of its epic scale for more intimate melodrama, though this is not to say it dispenses with its astonishing visual style. Rhett’s eventual proposal to Scarlett carries the hope that she will one day return the affection, while her acceptance is almost driven entirely by the prosperity and security that he offers, once again leading her away from Tara and into a new home of opulent wealth. William Cameron Menzies’ production design continues to shine here in the clutter of ornaments, sculptures, and chandeliers around the set, often catching the golden light shed by his candelabras and oil lamps to make for some exquisitely delicate compositions. This aesthetic takes a dark turn when Scarlett and Rhett’s relationship plunges to terrifying new lows as well, emphasising the deep reds of the fine carpet and splendid costumes as he threatens her and forcefully carries her upstairs, leading to what is implied as a drunken rape.

Indeed, much of Gone with the Wind’s second act continues to wallop us with one tragedy after another, revealing a deep depression in Scarlett’s life that persists even after securing the wealth she has promised herself. Eight years pass by over this period, and each one seems to poison their toxic marriage even more than the last, seeing Scarlett continue to flirt with Ashley and get caught up in scandals. In circumstances beyond her control, she suffers the death of her daughter, her unborn baby, and eventually her rival-turned-friend, Melanie. Where the film’s first act saw the decline of a civilisation, the second formally reflects that on a smaller scale, once again driving Scarlett to the pits of despair – and then, just as it seems as if the killing blow has landed, seeing her optimistically rise from the ashes with a reminder of where her true love lies.

In the film’s final minutes, Scarlett finally finds herself living out a nightmare from an earlier scene involving searching for something important in the mist, though it is only now, years later, that she finally realises what that is – Rhett. Dressing her in all black and consuming her in a grey fog as she runs to confess her love to him, the dour colour palette virtually warns us of his famous, dismissive response, immortalised as one of cinema’s great lines.

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

The scene may not be as broadly cataclysmic as the fall of Atlanta, but it stings all the same, turning Scarlett’s own obnoxious self-regard against her and leaving no one else to blame. Her obstinance may be her greatest fault, and yet as she recalls the hope and security that the “red earth of Tara” offers her in times of crisis, it also becomes the foundation of her survival.

“After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Such is the spirit of the Old South, according to Gone with the Wind, that no amount of defeat can keep it down. Crushed once in battle, and for a second time in a cold rejection, it lives on through this Southern belle, refusing to cave in. Few films have matched the majesty and grandeur of this colossal Hollywood epic, and an era-defining character as prideful, stubborn, and thorny as Scarlett O’Hara deserves nothing less.

Gone with the Wind is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon Video.

Erle C. Kenton | 1hr 11min

Science-fiction was still a relatively young genre in the 1930s when Universal Pictures’ monster movies were flourishing, not quite distinct yet from the horror conventions it emerged from, but still carving out its own speculative concerns of man playing God. It makes sense then why the studio looked to H.G. Welles’ The Island of Dr. Moreau for inspiration in this field. The ‘father of science-fiction’ wrote novels that have now essentially become fables for an industrial, modern world, and in Erle C. Kenton’s despairingly grotesque Island of Lost Souls, his cautionary tale of interfering with nature is immortalised as one of the greatest film adaptations of his work. Dr. Moreau’s twisted biological experiments become a source of barbaric horror here, but perhaps even more terrifying than his creations is the egotistic scientist himself, played by an enormously pompous Charles Laughton whose crisp, white suit and stout figure projects an image of immense wealth, uninhibited by worldly human ethics.

A mere five years after working on F.W. Murnau’s silent masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, cinematographer Karl Struss carries visual cues from German expressionism over into his work on Island of Lost Souls, infusing Kenton’s jungle sets with an air of quiet dread. These are not like those which would feature in King Kong a year later, where the wilderness becomes a giant playground for apes and dinosaurs, but instead his dense foliage and imposing branches press in on his actors and obstruct gorgeously composed shots. Likewise, the interior of Moreau’s menacingly named “House of Pain” is designed like a Gothic nightmare, seeing Struss frequently shoot characters from behind the bars of the scientist’s steel cages.

It is from the thick, white fog surrounding Moreau’s island that a freighter ship emerges carrying our hero, Edward Parker, who has been reluctantly stranded with these men delivering animals to the secretive scientist. Silhouettes with unidentifiable features crowd the shot in the foreground, anxiously anticipating the arrival of outsiders, though it isn’t long before see them in full. What most people assume to be the strange-looking natives of this island, we recognise as Moreau’s mutated experiments, living under his cruel dominion which they call the “Law.” As they stare down the camera, Kenton reveals the fine detail of their makeup and prosthetics, covering bodies in coarse hair and squashing noses flat against faces. Bela Lugosi may not be instantly recognisable playing their leader, the Sayer of the Law, but his voice certainly is, heading their call-and-response mantra of “Are we not men?” as a sad reminder of their half-lives.

Edward’s arrival on the island is timely for Dr. Moreau, who is ready to progress his experiment to the next stage – testing the breeding capabilities of his hybrids with people. Lota’s mannerisms are primitive, but she is the most human-looking of the bunch, and as the only female, she is hand-picked to ingratiate herself with Edward. Like the rest of the scientist’s test subjects though, her existence is sad and pitiful, confused over her identity while longing to partner with this new, intriguing man.

Unfortunately for Moreau, the ability to complete the transformation of beast to human continues to elude him, and when his work is threatened by outsiders, he is eventually pushed to break his own Law – blood must be spilt for the good of his island’s future. It is ironically that malevolent act which exposes his hypocrisy to his creations, whose rebellion brings about the end of his judicious order. Once again, they crowd in on the camera, though this time in a frenzy which sees them revert to their primal, bestial selves, turning their master’s tools back on him in his House of Pain.

“You made us things! Not men! Not beasts! Part man! Part beast! Things!”

Transcending the natural order is a dangerous game in H.G. Welles’ science-fiction, and Kenton extends this contemplative speculation to full-blown expressionistic horror with his translation of this powerful fable to screen. Mortal deities like Moreau may thrive on their artificial empires for a time, and yet within Island of Lost Souls, those who know what it’s like to be God are also doomed to crumble beneath the weight of their own selfish, conceited ambition.

Island of Lost Souls is not currently streaming in Australia.

Rouben Mamoulian | 1hr 29min

In the romantic, fairy tale world of Love Me Tonight, it isn’t a stretch to believe that a poor tailor could disguise himself as a baron, infiltrate a wealthy Parisian family, and still marry the princess after his lie is exposed. This is a story based in age-old archetypes, written as broadly as any fable about aristocrats falling for commoners, and yet Rouben Mamoulian’s cinematic translation of these conventions carries a narrative dexterity and formal texture unlike so many other films of its ilk. Blowing in the wind, we find music passing through cities, country sides, and castles, and in its infectious lyrical motifs Mamoulian imbues it with a mystical power that transcends class barriers and unites distant characters under rousing expressions of love.

The first time we witness such a phenomenon in Love Me Tonight is during the musical number ‘Isn’t it Romantic’, a song so immortalised in hundreds of covers that its origins here are easily forgotten. The beauty of this soundtrack shouldn’t be a surprise though – this is one of the relatively few times that musical theatre composer Richard Rodgers wrote an original score for film rather than the stage, even though many of his later theatrical collaborations with Oscar Hammerstein II such as Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music would eventually find their own adaptations to the silver screen.

Here, Rodgers relishes the flow of his verses as they are picked up by major and minor characters alike, starting with our strapping young protagonist, Maurice, in his humble tailor shop. There, he sits in front of a trifold mirror and cheerily sings to his reflections like a one-man quartet, while Mamoulian’s camera eagerly pans back and forth between each. As he finishes, the melody leaves the building with a customer, only to be passed on to a chauffeur, his passenger, a platoon of French soldiers, and a homeless camp not far from Princess Jeanette’s balcony, where she delicately brings the song to its final verse. Such elegant fluidity is present not just in the music, but Mamoulian equally instils it in his editing, camera movement, and staging as well, and further solidifies these agile ensemble pieces as part of the film’s form in several other numbers too.

Perhaps making this musical achievement even more remarkable is that Love Me Tonight falls a mere five years after the first feature sound film, The Jazz Singer, another movie-musical that, despite being a technological landmark, possesses far less artistic ambition than Mamoulian’s work. Rather than contextualising Rodgers’ songs here as conventionally isolated performances, they are instead woven into the very form of the narrative itself, demonstrating an effortless navigation of film’s transition to sound that so many other films stumbled over. Even in the middle of scenes, rhymes will occasionally start flowing from the actors’ lips, expressing eloquent sentiments that can no longer be contained within ordinary prose.

“A needle is magnetic.”

“How true.”

“And how poetic.”

In this way, music and romance unite to become forces larger than any single character. Even before Maurice and Jeanette are introduced, Mamoulian composes his own ‘Song of Paris’ through the polyrhythmic pulse of the city waking up, like an instrumental precursor to ‘Little Town’ from Beauty and the Beast. The opening of shutters, the sweep of a broom, and the puff of a chimney join the multitude of other sounds in this percussive symphony, building in texture and pace along with the accelerating montage towards Maurice’s introduction. Played with insurmountable charm by Maurice Chevalier, who incidentally gave his own name to the character, this cheerful tailor strides down the street towards his shop with a spring in his step, and as he greets his neighbours, Mamoulian sweeps us up in long takes gliding by his side.

It is only when Maurice meets Jeanette though that the romantic longing which has pervaded Love Me Tonight settles into something truly intimate, with the song ‘Mimi’ unfolding purely through close-ups of both actors staring right into the camera. The passionate visuals only heighten from there, with long dissolves romantically bridging a loving embrace to a cloudy moonlit sky, and diagonally splitting the frame between alternate shots of their sleeping, smiling faces. Such an alluring style does not come without a good dose of comedy either, as Maurice’s request for a band of men on horses to quietly depart on “tip-toe” sees them comically ride away in slow-motion.

It is also somewhat amusing to see what may very well be the origin of the rom-com trope that sends one lover climactically chasing after the other to confess their love, though as it plays here, it does not feel worn-out or tired. Instead, it fits in just as nicely with the rest of this folk tale as every other romance narrative convention, playing to the raw yearning that seeps through every scene, and Mamoulian even lifts it to another level with a skilful display of suspenseful, parallel editing most certainly influenced by D.W. Griffith. With a tale of “Once upon a time” and “they lived happily ever after” punctuating the ending, Love Me Tonight cements itself as one of cinema’s great fairy tales, blending musical and cinematic style to revel in the stirring universality of love.

Love Me Tonight is not currently streaming in Australia.