Henry King - 1926
MGM Region 1 DVD

Nothing in The Winning of Barbara Worth is as visually striking as the first shots. A woman is seen burying someone in the desert. There is a painterly quality to the composition of this shot, this lone woman leaning over the shovel stuck in sand. A full shot reveals her wagon, and the the mound where a body of, presumably her husband, is buried. A blonde little girl walks around with a doll. It isn't until after disaster strikes in the form of a sandstorm that we realize that the little girl is the title character.

As if to remind contemporary audiences that often the people who need most to learn from history ignore past lessons, The Winning of Barbara Worth is about the forces of nature being more powerful than human arrogance and greed. The big set piece is of a boom town flooded by the river that is supposedly under control. The businessman who finances the dam argues that calling for the need to reinforce the dam will only cause fear and panic. Additionally, an Indian prophesy is simply superstition. I'm not sure if anyone watching the film now wouldn't think of Hurricane Katrina and the images of New Orleans when watching this film.

The Winning of Barbara Worth is also of interest as being the first significant performance by Gary Cooper. Mostly accumulating bit parts over the years, Cooper was originally hired as a bit player by Henry King until another actor dropped out of the production. Much of the Cooper persona is already here. At a town dance, Cooper is shyly gazing at the couples on the floor. A previous scene has established his feelings towards Vilma Banky, the grown up Barbara Worth. City slicker Ronald Colman tries to swoop in on Banky, and has been dancing with here in this scene. Moments later, Cooper is standing in a doorway, too hesitant to make a move. Colman and Banky walk through the doorway towards a patio while Cooper remains almost in the shadows, too shy, or perhaps too much of a gentleman, to make his presence or his feeling known.

For me, the most surprising aspect of this ambitious production was the amount of humor tossed into the midst of disaster. A group of pioneers stuck in a sandstorm find a corset and panties flying into their faces, the belongings of Barbara Worth's mother. During the big flood, there is a running gag involving a man in a wheelchair, unable to move while the rest of the townspeople are running or riding out of town. During this same sequence, a man quickly grabs some clothing, and runs away from the camera, completely naked - one of the rare examples not only of nudity in silent era Hollywood, but male nudity at that. Even film critics of the time found some of the humor of the film questionable, although Henry King would be the first to say that he never made films for New York critics.

More characteristic of King is the scene near the end. The financier, Greenfield, has been nearly washed away by the flood, and has been rescued, covered in mud. He is nonetheless welcomed into Barbara Worth's home, now teeming with small, ragged tots who have escaped from their destroyed homes. The Winning of Barbara Worth is ultimately less satisfying than some other films in Henry King made in his career. There are enough moments that serve as reminders that Henry King's best strengths as a filmmaker are more intimate than epic.

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from left to right: Frank Lloyd, Henry King, John Ford and Frank Borzage

For the better part of September, I plan on writing about some of the films of Henry King. Why this director and why now? September marks thirty-five years since Henry King was honored at the Telluride Film Festival. Prior to being a Cinema Studies student, I had seen Carousel, still for me the best of the films made from Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, and quite liked A Bell for Adono on television. Then I read Andrew Sarris's assessment of King in "The American Cinema", which dictated my opinions regarding film directors for a while. I started to reassess my attitude when I got into a long conversation with Noel Black, the director of Pretty Poison. Black, who had interviewed some veteran directors for the Directors Guild of America's magazine, was a fan of Henry King. Weirdly enough, almost half a year later, I managed to see Carousel again, playing with Black's second film, Cover Me Babe, at New York City's most disreputable grind house, Variety Photoplays, only because I happened to walk by the theater that never advertised their constantly changing double features.

Sometime after that, I saw my first silent film by Henry King, The White Sister, at the Museum of Modern Art. In that film, Lillian Gish plays a young woman in love with Ronald Colman. Colman goes off to fight in World War I, and is later reported as killed in battle. A distraught Gish gives herself to the Church and becomes a nun. The report of Colman's death was an error, and Colman returns home in hopes of reuniting with Gish. For much of the audience I sat with, it was an easy choice, and there were expressions of disbelief that Gish would not want to live happily ever after with Colman. And to me, The White Sister is one of several films Henry King has made about the idea of commitment to an ideal, or an act of faith or belief. One of the themes of King's films is about dedication towards a possibly abstract idea at the cost of personal comfort, or even one's life.

As I have written about previously, I had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Henry King in Telluride. The location was away from the main festival stomping grounds, outside, near a small stream. I don't remember much of what was discussed except that we barely got into his career in the 1920s when we ran out of time. What I do remember was telling him about the experience of watching The White Sister at MoMA. King had told me he had become a Catholic at about this time. Unlike some filmmakers where the concept of faith is a given, King's film are about people in conflict not only with outside influences, but their own very valid self-doubts. A very civil dialogue between self declared atheist James Stewart with priest Jean Hersholt in King's version of Seventh Heaven is for me an example of King's generosity of spirit towards both his characters and his audience.

I will probably refer to the only book on King, Henry King: Director - From Silents to 'Scope, published by the Directors Guild of America, culled from several interviews. In the years since 1975, I have been able to see a theatrical presentation of Romona, one of the first westerns shot in the then new Technicolor process, and a few more films on television, VHS and DVD. I'm not getting any younger myself, so I can't put off this promise I made to myself, to see more of Henry King's films. If anyone else gets inspired, interested or intrigued by any of my postings or by something about King or his films, so much the better.

Simone Simon in Seventh Heaven (1937)

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Simone Simon and James Stewart in Seventh Heaven (Henry King - 1937)

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The Stranger Wore a Gun
Andre De Toth - 1953
Columbia Pictures Region 1 DVD

Jubal
Delmer Daves - 1956
Columbia Pictures Region 1 DVD

Ice Station Zebra
John Sturges - 1968
Warner Brothers Region 1 DVD

The Screen Actors Guild recently announced that they would be handing a Lifetime Achievement award to Ernest Borgnine this coming January. While I don't have any problem with Borgnine being a more than worthy recipient, I feel like someone is tempting fate here. I'm pretty sure there were several people who were counting on giving Stanley Kubrick an honorary Oscar in 2001. And while Borgnine is still going strong at 93, with several movies yet to be released, I would still keep the proverbial fingers crossed.

The news was enough for me to watch a couple more films featuring Borgnine that I hadn't seen, plus one that, if I had seen it, had viewed as a pan and scan black and white televised version of originally produced with CinemaScope and color. The guy is most famous for his wide, gap toothed grin. Depending on the movie, Borgnine makes that grin whether he's the bully who takes joy in kicking someone when they are already down, or the pal who's ready to give you a rib crushing bear hug as a sign of unlimited friendship. Borgnine's most interesting work for me is in part of male ensemble pieces such as The Wild Bunch or Flight of the Phoenix. While films like Marty and The Catered Affair have their fans, I would rather see Borgnine, if not nasty and villainous, as in Hannie Caulder, then as the sleazy studio head modeled after Harry Cohn and Darryl Zanuck in The Legend of Lylah Clare. I might have made a better choice in one of the films I saw over the course of a weekend, but even that film had some elements worth appreciating.

In The Stranger Wore a Gun, Borgnine plays one of the two lead henchmen of lead bad guy George Macready. If you've seen a couple of Randolph Scott westerns from the Fifties, this one follows the template of Scott coming into town, cleaning up the corruption, and getting the girl. Surprisingly though in this film, Scott ends up with the nearly his age Claire Trevor instead of young hottie Joan Weldon. But the real reason to watch Andre De Toth's film is to see Borgnine in his first teaming with Lee Marvin. The two made several films together, top lining as arch enemies in Robert Aldrich's Emperor of the North, about twenty years later. Marvin is a slack jawed baddie, and the putative brains for a bunch of thugs. Borgnine's villain is as loud as his shirts, negotiating with brute strength.

The Stranger Wore a Gun was originally made in 3D, and uses that device as was intended, for actors to throw stuff towards the camera and the audience. In this regard, the film is similar to De Toth's House of Wax. The film begins with a group of Confederate guerillas shooting at the audience when they're not tossing flaming torches. The big fight near the end features Borgnine aiming his gun at the camera as well as tossing a chair. Those in New York City had the fortune to see the film as intended. Even without the 3D, the film is still fun primarily because of Marvin, Borgnine as the smiling sadist, and Alfonso Bedoya as a goofy rival bad guy, and chief nemesis to town boss Macready.

Those who have read this blog for a while already know how much I like Delmer Daves. Jubal is one of three westerns Daves made with Glenn Ford. Borgnine is a more sympathetic character here, a cattle rancher who finds the physically exhausted Ford on the side of the road, takes him in, and gives him a job as a ranch hand. Borgnine has a young, attractive wife, played by Valerie French. The film isn't exactly Othello, but French is soon eyeing Ford, the only photogenic guy on the ranch, while fellow ranch hand, Rod Steiger, is seething with resentment over the stranger who soon is elevated to ranch foreman. One scene lets us know that French and Steiger were lovers. Perhaps deliberately, their is some dialogue that may remind some of Marty, where French tells Steiger that she finds him no more physically attractive than Borgnine.

I have to wonder if the feelings Steiger expressed on film towards Ford may have really been his attitude towards Borgnine. Steiger had played the role of Marty for television in 1953. Borgnine took the same role in the 1955 movie version, and won his Academy Award as well. One of the film's highlights is Steiger suggesting to Borgnine that French is sleeping with Ford. Borgnine is about to explode with anger but it is Steiger that he attacks. Neither Borgnine nor Steiger might be considered the most subtle of actors. Steiger has one gentle moment, saving a stray calf. Seeing the two on screen together has me believe that Borgnine was the better choice for the big screen Marty, with his more open, friendly expression, rather then Steiger, whose screen characters never seemed particularly warm.

As for Ice Station Zebra, there are better films by John Sturges, and better films starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan. Jim Brown is stiff here. Borgnine show up as a Russian spy who may or may not actually be on "our side" in this story of Cold War espionage. Is his character of Boris Vaslov responsible for sabotage on the submarine, endangering his own life? And can anyone trust McGoohan's character who cheerfully admits that Jones is not his real name?

None of this matters when the real stars of Ice Station Zebra are the submarine, and the polar ice cap. The best scene is of several men trying to find the remote station of the title in a blizzard. The ice cracks and several men fall into a crevice. The ice is seen as a living organism, constantly shifting and contracting, with the men about to be crushed between two walls. This is the most suspenseful part of a film that undermines itself by being filmed in Super Panavision for Cinerama exhibition, yet was almost completely filmed in studio sets. At no time does breath appear on screen as it would if the film were shot in outdoors, in the cold. Between the obvious expense, star power and some intriguing set pieces there are watchable elements to Ice Station Zebra. What convinced the suits at MGM to think that what could have been a serviceable thriller from the author of Guns of Navarone had the spectacle required of Cinerama? Bigger is not better for a film that would have been as good filmed in standard Panavision. Of note is that Borgnine and Brown also starred in the crime thriller, The Split, a film that could well be worth seeing if only for a cast that included Julie Harris, Gene Hackman and Donald Sutherland. My enthusiasm for Ice Station Zebra is at best luke warm.

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Toki o kakeru shojo/The Little Girl who Conquered Time
Nobuhiko Obayashi - 1983
IVL Region 3 DVD

Like the other films I have seen to date by Nobuhiko Obayashi, Girl of Time centers on an adolescent girl who gets lost in a world of cheap special effects. It is a charming movie, really, and the debut of then teen star Tomoyo Harada. What I've been finding interesting also about some of the Japanese films I have come across is that there have been several films about high school girls that genuinely respect the characters. There is none of the smarminess that seems almost obligatory in too many films that view young women as nothing more than exploitable raging hormones. Overlooking the fact that the story doesn't entirely make sense, Girl of Time shows the sweeter side of the filmmaker still best known for Hausu.

Obayashi takes some of his visual queues from The Wizard of Oz. The opening scene is in black and white, in academy ratio, slowly turning to color and wide screen in the following scene. When color is introduced, it is done slowly, a yellow background seen through a train window, a small object, a pink face among the monochrome kids. The effect is as if the film was hand tinted. The girl of the title, Kazuko, even has a poster from Victor Fleming's film.

Cleaning the science lab in her high school, Kazuko accidentally knock over a beaker with some kind of overpowering chemical. Discovered by her two best friends, Goro and Kazuo, Kazuko finds herself increasingly in situations where she is suddenly in events that haven't happened yet. The time shifting is the least interesting aspect of the story. What is of interest to Obayashi is the sense of wonder of the world. Kazuko also tries to navigate her way through being a young woman with loyalties to the two young men in her life, the practical, down to earth Goro, and the tall, occasionally poetic, Kazuo. This much is made clear in the opening scene when Kazuko gazes on the night sky, and Goro explained the phenomenon of stars in scientific terms. When Kazuko turns around to join her friends who are night skiing, she bumps into Kazuo, well over a head taller than the petite Kazuko.

Obayashi's film was the first feature of several versions of the novel. Setting aside the fantasy aspects, the story is more symbolically about a young woman's sense of confusion about herself. Kazuko constantly asks Goro and Kazuo if they think she is strange. The film could be said to be about an adolescent's sense of unease, physically and emotionally. Kazuko is less interested in the ability to travel through time than she is to feel "normal", of her place and time. At the same time, Kazuko is conflicted about pursuing an impossible, ideal love, one that she mentions at the beginning of the film, a longing for a prince who would emerge from the stars.

The film ends amusingly enough with a musical number, Tomoyo Harada singing the title song in scenes that virtually recap the entire story. There is one scene where Obayashi gets to play with film technique, with simultaneous fast cutting and overlapping images. The one shot that makes the most impact, is a dolly zoom when Kazuo disappears from Kazuko's life. That Obayashi used a shot first associated with Alfred Hitchcock and Vertigo is quite fitting for a story about love lost and found, false memories, and overwhelmingly real heartbreak.

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Diane Baker in Mirage (Edward Dmytryk - 1965)

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Tian xia wu zei
Feng Xiaogang - 2004
Tartan Video Region 1 DVD

I've only seen four films by Feng Xiaogang. Even when I don't find the work successful, I feel some respect for his ambition. Feng should be a better known filmmaker outside of China, if for no other reason than that he has made the two most financially successful Chinese films back to back. The romantic comic drama, If You are the One from 2008 has recently been bested by this year's disaster epic, Aftershock. The box office in dollars may seem like no big deal, about 75 million or so, but when you consider the size of the audience, this is the equivalent to Spielberg, Cameron or Nolan. Does this make Feng a great, or even good filmmaker? No. But it may be at least one reason to pay more attention to the guy and his films.

Feng almost undermines himself by tarting up his images with unnecessary digital coloring, when letting the story speak for itself would be sufficient. At several points, there is so much cutting of action that is meant to reveal rather than obscure, that one wishes Feng had allowed the camera to linger when thief tries to outwit thief. That the spiritual journey is concurrent with the train journey also makes what Feng might have to say about free will and karma groaningly obvious. What makes the film work is the engagement of the actors, lead by Andy Lau, with sly turns by Ge You and Li Bingbing.

That the film may be intended as some kind of Buddhist parable is difficult to say as the Buddhism depicted in this film is both generic and casual. A man and a woman are introduced, arguing while on a road trip. It is eventually revealed that they are professional thieves in a stolen BMW. Wang Bo (Andy Lau) and Wang Li (Rene Liu) are also lovers. Wang Li tells Wang Bo that she wants a "normal life", stop with the thievery. For Wang Bo, it is once a thief, always a thief. The two stop at a Buddhist shrine under restoration. While Wang Li joins others in prayer, Wang Bo finds plenty of pockets to pick. He also encounters a young woman with similar designs on the unsuspecting worshippers. Another argument leaves Wang Li on the road, alone and distraught, until the open-faced, naive, Sha Gen, known as Dumbo according to the subtitles, picks up Wang Li on his bicycle. An offer of money for the ride is refused, though Dumbo gives Wang Li a talisman said to ward off evil.

Dumbo has earned 60,000 yuan, about $9000 U.S. dollars, in his five years of working as a craftsman. His plan is to return to his small village to buy a house and get married. In spite of encouragement to wire the money, he feels secure enough to carry the cash in a satchel. Standing outside the train station, he shouts out for any thieves to identify themselves to him. Wang Li appoints herself as Dumbo's protector, with Wang Li trying to get the money for himself. Also on the train is a rival gang of pickpockets, lead by the aphorism spouting Uncle Li. Among Li's gang is the previously spotted young woman, Leaf. The majority of the film takes place on the train with Wang Li trying to outguess Wang Bo, and the pair kept on their toes by Uncle Li and his gang.

With the exception of Dumbo and Wang Li, the other characters are disguised, either in costume or intention. Dumbo sees only goodness in other people, calling Wang Li a Boddhisattva, and ascribing good intentions to Wang Li. For Wang Li, visiting the Buddhist shrine is an attempt to change her self-perceived karma, while Wang Bo indirectly argues that karma is immutable. Wang Bo feels that stealing Dumbo's money will provide a life lesson on the realities of life. Wang Li does what she can to protect Dumbo and his money so that he can continue his belief in "a world without thieves".

The philosophizing is set aside for more visceral set pieces, such as Wang Li standing on top of a moving train with two of the rival gang member, facing a tunnel just low enough to knock off somebody's head. There is a furious dance of sorts between Wang Li and Leaf, done to flamenco music, one of several scenes of mutual attraction and distrust between the two.

Where the film does not work is in depicting the sleight of hand involved in the thievery, especially that between thieves. Feng's editing of very quick shots of hands going in and out of pockets might have intended to indicate just how fast these professionals work. The lack of clarity regarding who is doing what to whom stands in sharp contrast to Johnny To's look at Hong Kong pickpockets, Sparrow, where the hand movement is more clearly, and thrillingly, depicted. A World without Thieves does work as a thinly disguised critique of post-revolutionary China, where money and appearances are valued more than good intentions or camaraderie. The ending is ambivalent, ending where the film began, at the Buddhist shrine. Where a sense of order cannot be restored by the police from the outside, order will be internally restored by traditional religious beliefs or karmic retribution.

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