Bobs, Shingles and Grifts

Från bildens baksida: “Enrique Rivero och Brita Appelgren”

Three from Pordenone —

As part of the Ruritanian season, HIS MAJESTY THE BARBER was a sprightly Swedish-German comedy. The Swedish aspect was more to the front. There’s an old barber in a small own whose grandson is secretly the heir to a Ruritanian throne. The young fellow falls for the daughter of a hair tonic lady mogul whose product offers “giant Lorelei hair”.

The original title is either HANS KUNGL. HÖGHET SHINGLAR (HIS KING. HIGHNESS SHINGLER) — a rare two-sentence title — where is the rule against that written, and why don’t we see it more often? — or MAJESTÄT SCHNEIDET BUBI KÖPFE (MAJESTY CUTS BOB-HEADS). And indeed, barber-monarch Enrique Rivero, later star of BLOOD OF A POET, is seen administering both bobs and shingle-cuts to the film’s ladies. The film is very nimbly directed by the splendidly-named Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius, and boasts a really excellent third-act twist. Didn’t see it coming.

The older barber played by Julius Falkenstein is named André Gregory, which I add to my short list of real actors’ names turning up on fictional characters (Kent Smith as Oliver Reed in CAT PEOPLE, Robert DeNiro using Robin Williams as a pseudonym in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA).

The plot twist in that one is implicitly democratic — it may not be necessary to be a crowned head of state in order to secure a romantic happy ending (your chances may actually improve). The plot twist in Anthony Asquith’s THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS is entirely predictable, and provides a clue towards the filmmaker’s (here, writer as well as director) precipitous decline in imagination: his attitudes are rather conservative/conventional.

Still, for fans of A COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR, which includes me, this movie does have a lot of mobile camera, sequences of inventive dazzle (AA has clearly imbibed Eisenstein at one film society or another, and thought, “How can I apply intellectual montage to a silly romp?”) and Nora Baring. The star, however, is Mady Christians, appropriately shingled, who is delightful. Paul Kavanaugh as her suitor fulfils all of his early potential by being OK.

Asquith’s antic montage and camera are greatly enhanced by the scenes of London, especially public transport, which follow neatly on from UNDERGROUND. Here, it’s the open-topped omnibus that takes centre stage.

Both the Asquith and MANOLESCU featured detectives hunting fugitives on trains, but that was about all they had in common. Viktor Tourjansky’s film lacks in both plot and character sympathy (until Dita Parlo appears in act III) but is awash with style, both filmic and fashion. Ivan Mozzhukhin is the titular swindler, seduced into crime by Brigitte Helm. The international crime spree motivates a travelogue of glamorous locales, and melodramatic high points include a dream sequence filmed in negative, complete with black-on-white intertitles.

Fiona finds Mozzhukhim physically repellent and nothing about his character here was likely to overcome that. Helm, a kind of humanoid rivulet — long, thin, liquid and luminous — provides allure for two. I liked it more than Fiona did, but it seemed like one of those literary adaptations where the idea holding it together has been lost in translation, so we end up with what Homer Simpson would call “a bunch of stuff that happened.”

One con trick involves a valise initialled V.T. — the director cheekily signing his own film, or just making use of a prop he had handy?

Manolescu here and “Monescu” (Herbert Marshall) in TROUBLE IN PARADISE may be distantly related, but there are no chuckles to be had in the Tourjansky.

The Sound of Beau Belle

Rewatched MY FAIR LADY and loved it up until that ending.

(Beautifully designed, of course, by Cecil Beaton, and Rex Harrison on top form, and Audrey I think is GOOD but it’s a shame her singing is dubbed. Incredibly, they get away with having her sing a bit in her own voice, then go through a door and Marni Nixon is pouring out of her throat on the other side. And it sort of works.

Still, Audrey must have been looking at Sexy Rexy and thinking, How come he gets away with speak-singing his lines, and I have to be revoiced by a complete stranger?)

Looked back at Asquith’s PYGMALION and it’s the same, only different.

Asquith made his film while George Bernard Shaw was still alive. Shaw was adamant that Eliza Dolittle shouldn’t end up with Professor Higgins. He had his reasons worked out. Higgins, he wrote, had an impossibly strong and perfect mother, and no lover or wife could hope to live up to that. But, though the Higgins mother is indeed impressive when we meet her, I don’t think we necessarily draw that conclusion. Our objection to the romantic pairing is mainly that Higgins has treated Eliza abominably and there’s little reason to think he can change. And there’s no indication that Eliza LIKES being treated like a dog. It doesn’t have the shuddersome taboo quality of MARTHA or even THE SEVENTH VEIL.

On the other hand, the audience is strongly influenced by the fact that the two spend the whole film sparring, and in the romantic comedy genre that usually means they end up together. Both titles, that of the original play and that of the musical, imply that this is to be a love story. Eliza has another, arguably more suitable romantic interest, but he gets very little time to make an impression, so we are tempted to file him under S for schnook. Even when he’s played by the highly suitable Jeremy Brett and gets a glorious song, The Street Where You Live, it’s hard for him to acquire the necessary weight. He’s also somewhat ineffectual, but in Shaw’s mind, that was why he’d be a good match for the powerhouse that is Miss Dolittle. She could run him efficiently, which is what he needs. But the audience doesn’t necessarily make the leap to that conclusion.

So neither partner seems quite suitable. It’d certainly be difficult for a rewrite to make Higgins seem like a reformed character, and while GBS was on the scene, such a thing was unthinkable. In this light, Asquith’s solution was pretty clever.

He has Eliza (Wendy Hiller) return to Higgins (Leslie Howard). Higgins, taking her return entirely for granted, tells her to fetch his slippers, like a dog. Asquith shoots this from Eliza’s point of view, so the film ends on the back of HH’s head. We never see her reaction.

SOMEHOW Asquith got GBS, who had script approval on all films of his work, to sign off on this. I think he managed it b reusing the slippers line from earlier in the play, so there are no words here GBS hasn’t written, and by not showing Eliza’s reaction he could argue that it’s entirely possible that she storms off in a huff two seconds after The End fades out. It’s highly unlikely that most audience members would reach any conclusion other than that HH and ED were to be married, but a tinge of plausible deniability has been preserved.

George Cukor, filming MY FAIR LADY, doesn’t go in for ending on close-ups, and certainly not close-ups of the backs of people’s heads. One of his great qualities is his withholding of clpse-ups for the longest possible time, so that they really have an impact, but another of his great qualities is his theatricality. He ends the scene with a wide shot Audrey Hepburn standing in the doorway, Rex sitting smugly in his armchair, waiting for the curtain to fall. Audrey steps slowly towards him, accepting her fate. The fact that we’ve seen Rex’s self-satisfaction rather than the back of his hat, and his head tilting the other way, and Audrey’s look of docile adoration, changes this from a cunning bodge to a full-fledged betrayal of GBS’ intentions and an endorsement of male supremacy. Rex must have been happy about that, and I guess Audrey just went with the flow.

So I think that ending isn’t likely to be a popular one anymore, it certainly felt like a cold slap to us. A lot of really enjoyable old movies end with unacceptable pairings. We just watched BEAUTY AND THE BOSS, and rooted for the girl to wind up with David Manners, only for her to go for Warren William, on a double bill with CROONER, in which we rooted for the girl to wind up with Ken Murray, only for her to wind up with David Manners.

There’s a good modern dress Dutch film of PYGMALION, made the year before Asquith’s. At the end of this one, when HH gives Eliza (the excellent Lily Bouwmeester) an errand, she has a ready reply:

MY FAIR LADY stars Holly Golightly; Julius Caesar; Pendlebury; Crabbin; Mrs. Henry Vale; Sherlock Holmes; Rance Muhammitz / Dave; Matron – Staff; Angelica Muir; Ayesha; Garbitsch; Mrs. Cratchit; Alfred the butler; and Og Oggilby.

Going Underground

Can any filmmaker have run out of spoons so early and so catastrophically as Anthony Asquith? His silent films are great, even when they have one foot in sound (A COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR). I’ve been unable to see THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS, and have heard great things about his 1931 war movie, THE BATTLE OF GALLIPOLI. THE LUCKY NUMBER has definite moments. But sometime after that, his whole approach seems to change, and the expressionist shadowplay is replaced by photographs of actors talking, talking, talking. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is certainly well cast, but I glanced at it recently and was pretty put off by the flat and unimaginative filming. There was Miles Malleson, talking about a book, which he had in front of him, but which was completely framed out. Asquith, I felt, was not only not thinking in pictures, delivering mere literal coverage, he wasn’t even paying attention to the WORDS.

But look!

UNDERGROUND, screened at Hippfest with Neil Brand’s exuberant and eloquent score, is entirely something else. It makes an epic (melo)drama out of pieces of everyday life — admittedly ending in a spectacular running battle between hero Brian Aherne (very appealing) and the brute, Cyril McLaglen. The days when a brute might be played by someone named Cyril. And when the Underground and Battersea Power Station could form dynamic, menacing and even glamorous settings for movie action.

The kind of thing Britain is now absolutely unable to do, it seems — though maybe Edgar Wright’s return to London will provide some visual energy.

More here.