Phantom of the Chinese Opera

SONG AT MIDNIGHT, directed by Weibang Ma-Xu in 1937, is China’s first horror movie, a PHANTOM OF THE OPERA knock-off with a lot of nice studio-bound atmosphere. The sequel, which incorporates chunks of FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA too, with suitably wacky make-ups (think of the kind of crude but enthusiastic putty prosthetics showcased in Mexican horror movies) looks a lot of fun too, but I’ve only found short extracts in Edward Yang’s documentary on Hong Kong cinema.

Lots of atmospheric prowling around in dark sets — with lots of music. Since China took a few years longer to switch to sound than the west, they were perhaps able to note the developments since Max Steiner’s work on KING KONG really popularized the film score in America, or maybe they had noted the earlier work of Rathaus and Waxman in Germany…

The trucking through deserted, cobwebbed spaces suggests the influence of Paul Leni and THE CAT AND THE CANARY, and anticipates the long-winded travelling of Olivier’s HAMLET. Although Gaston Leroux has certainly supplied the story seedling, there’s no obvious attempt to copy the Lon Chaney film.

And all the singing is subtitled. Is the idea that the dialogue would be dubbed in other eastern markets (those not conquered by Japan) but that the singing would stay? Or is this just so the audience can sing along with the Phantom?

The movie lingers on and inhabits the mood of each moment so languorously and hypnotically that it often resembles a tone poem more than a narrative feature film. Incredible stuff — more on this later.

Bulldog Biggles

We know that Hitchcock’s THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH started off as a Bulldog Drummond movie. There was a problem with the rights or else they decided it worked better as a standalone, and rewrote it. I wonder if 1939’s Q PLANES (aka CLOUDS OVER EUROPE) has a similar backstory, since Ralph Richardson plays a government intelligence man (triple contradiction in terms?) called Hammond — and Richardson had been in two Drummond movies, once playing the man of mystery himself, once a strangely-costumed master criminal.

Fortunately, the role in QP is much more suited to Richardson’s flamboyant eccentricity — Hammond is a bit of a maniac. And the film again pairs RR with Laurence Olivier, who plays a flier at a plant whose planes keep going missing — so it’s like Bulldog Drummond meets Biggles, with the resulting mix at times resembling a James Bond film.

It’s very jolly — Valerie Hobson adds to the fun, and the feeling is closer to Powell & Pressburger’s CONTRABAND than to Hitchcock, though his big successes no doubt inform the airy mixture of comedy and thrills. The plot turns out to depend on an enemy ray — Vincent Korda’s white moderne designs make this seem a cross between Kenneth Strickfaden’s FRANKENSTEIN lab equipment, FLASH GORDON, and a Jessie Matthews musical. The big battle at the end, with Olivier joining forces with previously downed and captured airmen, put me strongly in mind of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME.

Given a straight hero role with few opportunities for grandstanding, Olivier proves more than capable of reining it in, though one assumes he shot envious eyes at Richardson, who has, and is, a real character. Almost a dry run for Doctor Who — the eccentric, brilliant, energetic type. When he breaks the fourth wall in the last shot, it feels wholly appropriate for such an uncontainable live wire.

This kind of fantasy — enemy rays and so on — disappears from British propaganda films as the war progresses. This one is all about the rearmament phase, pre-war, though luckily the film would still have seemed relevant at the start of hostilities. It’s an ill wind (of war)… American B-thrillers like the Nick Carter movies would mine this kind of semi-SF material into the 40s, but Britain felt compelled to take things more seriously. As John Laurie snaps at Hobson, “Less enthusiasm! This is Britain.”

Q PLANES stars Zeus; The Supreme Being; Blanche Fury; Sexton Blake; Ned Horton; Commercial Traveller; Anthony Babbage; Ruby Lane; Uncle Pumblechook; Inspector Claud Teal; Detective Frank Webber; Eldridge Harper; Orac; Sammy Rice; Nurse Freddi Linley; Private Frazer; and Canon Chasuble.

The Sunday Intertitle: London’s Burning

FIRES WERE STARTED aka I WAS A FIREMAN — is a remarkably successful docudrama by Humphrey Jennings. Apart from some rough sound recording, it’s as polished as many straight dramas, but presents aspects of Britain untouched by the (frequently magnificent) fiction films of the era. Jennings was a great documentarist, but it’s still wondrous to see him adapt his approach so readily.

Using non-actors results in us hearing real voices. Working-class characters in British films before the new wave tend to have a touch of the music hall about them. We also see real people with clothing and hair that haven’t been through the relevant departments. Imperfect versions of those complicated ’40s hairdos, as a friend in our watch party pointed out.

Jennings ought to have been tripped up by having to get performances from firemen and phone operators, but he’d probably learned to guide performances on his docs — the rules were looser in those days, and even without the docudrama tag a lot of reportage films featured reconstructions and people performing rather than living their real lives. He also worked with some of our top actors as voice-over artists, notably Olivier in WORDS FOR BATTLE. But it’s probably his dealing with regular people, in his docs and in his research for the Mass Observation Project that gave him “the common touch.”

Because this IS a propaganda film, it projects an image of universal honesty, stoicism, cooperation and “blitz spirit.” The despair and terror many people felt is excluded. (“They have made me hate the sky,” said one person of the bombers.) But it’s still very moving.

I was also impressed that Jennings could successfully achieve an effective dramatic structure, moving from shorts to features, from doc to drama-doc, having to find ways to shape actuality film of big fires into a fictional firefighting narrative. I never felt any strain or ragged edges. The filming and cutting — long stretches without music, though William Alwyn adds orchestral emotions when required — straddle the fine line between documentary observation and expressive drama.