The Philadelphia Story - 1940 - VHS

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Late in the evening last Thursday I got a bit of a wild hair and decided on a whim, "I'm going to go through my old VHS collection!" So that's what I'll be doing on my lone nights off. (I watched The Front for the first time in over five years this night too. Notes on this to come.)

I began with the best in my collection, George Cukor's classic romantic comedy, The Philadelphia Story. It's been years since I've seen it, so I was long overdue for the good buzz of Katherine Hepburn giggling in a champagne stupor while Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant swoon about her (and we swoon back, of course.) It's practically written in stone that this movie is one of the greats, but being away from it for so long I kind of forgot. I've taken the hugest sigh of relief after watching it, and can report fully that it is (it really is) the perfect movie.

I shouldn't be surprised to say so, but what struck me most was how much energy the script and the characters have. For those who haven't seen it, or at least not in awhile, the basic story begins with Tracy Lord (Katherine Hepburn) and C. K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), as an unhappily married couple in a playfully violent and dialogue-less process of divorce. Tracy dumps his belongings on the front porch in the opening scene; he pushes her to the ground with a threatening fist for more, but retrains himself. As quick as Dexter is gone, we're fast-forwarded to Tracy's new life, on the eve of her second marriage to a stiff named George. And in one slim day and night the entire story transpires.

Gossip rag columnist Macaulay Connor (James Stewart) teams up with his frank female photographer, Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey), to capture the Lords in their family home. One hitch, Dexter plants the unwanted journalists as blackmail against Tracy and her father, since the old man was caught on camera having an affair. To avoid having her family's name smeared in the tabloids, Tracey lets them in, and henceforth Dexter, who's wrangling to get his wife back. Between snippy and witty remarks, Macaulay falls in love with Tracy; Liz longs for Macaulay; and George grumbles about humorless—who Tracy reflects in her drunken voice characterization, "Hello, George."

That's my favorite moment. 67 years later and this movie is brand new. And anyway, who can't fall in love with Jimmy Stewart as he gazes at Katherine Hepburn with such tenderness? I don't know a single male actor, living or deceased that emotes so much love with as much subtlety.

The Rules of the Game - 1939 - Film

Tuesday, January 2, 2007



This is my third or fourth time seeing Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, and my first time seeing it on 35mm film. A famous Chicago film historian was in attendance, and I heard a rumor that he was underwhelmed by the print, noting that it was practically unchanged since its last release in 1961. That could be true, and he would certainly know better than I, though, the print was sparkly-clean and I saw it as a lovely opportunity to see what is perhaps the best film ever made on the format which it was intended to be seen. It was gorgeous.

Each time I see Rules it is new to me, which could be attributed to the fact that it is usually years between screenings (it was in fact at least two years since I had last seen it this time around), but I still keep the basic outline intact in my memory. As I watched this time I was awestruck once more by the choreography. Not dancing per se, but the synchronized movement among the characters and camera, and how they both manipulated the layout of the house they occupied. Servants and attendants scurry up and down stairs; doors slam and one person exits while another one enters from some point off screen. Oftentimes the camera is in a continual pan that meets the character as he crosses paths with another one; almost like a relay one character will pass the camera's attention on to the next, and so it continues for roughly the entire duration of the film.

Everything happens so fast, and people move fast in Renoir's film. Christine (Nora Gregor) manages to have three different men fall in love with her in the course of a night, all of whom give up on her (or get shot and killed) in the same length of time. That's what's so fantastic about Rules for me, the amount of action (and compelling action) that is compressed into a matter of minutes. It's a life cycle that runs the gamut of emotions, from love to hate, all the while keeping us conscious of class and social divide. Of course, watching the rabbit die in the famous hunting scene is enough to make you quake or even cry, and in fact I think I heard soft sniffles from the woman sitting next to me as that bunny stretched out his last ounce of life.