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| Miss M. praying? |
Movie Monday
I'm amazed to read all the clinically depressed despair coming from the American electorate which did not vote for Barack Obama. It doesn't surprise me to hear this from our economic 1% since they rail out at anything, real or imaginary, which might shave the teeniest bit from their wealth (All made by the sweat of their brow and richly deserved of course.) But to hear the despair (and I'm talking just despair now, not a hidden racist agenda) from the 99% makes me wonder if they are living in a parallel universe where Republicans are the savior of the "common man."
For them, in case in their grief they blindly stumble to my blog, I found a very early picture of Miss M to cheer them. We never could figure out if she was praying to the god of dogs for her good luck at coming to us or for deliverance from these awful, godless people with whom she had to live. Truth be told, Miss M is now a seeing eye dog in Oklahoma which stayed red and voted for Romney this year so she was probably praying for the latter. We all still miss Miss M and in a few months Miss L will be leaving us for her second tier of training. There won't be a dry eye in the place!
I had a wacky week of movies this week. First, TCM showed The Exterminating Angel by Luis Bunuel. If you remember, Gil in Midnight in Paris meets Bunuel and suggests the idea for this film to him only to have Bunuel say something like: People not being able to leave a dinner party? I don't get it. That will be my pick for next week since I got to record it but not see it yet.
This week again at TCM, I got to see The Story of Temple Drake (1934) which supposedly has the distinction of being the "straw which broke the camel's back." It brought in the decades of censorship of Hollywood films by self-righteous prigs since after this movie the Motion Picture Production Code aka Hays Code -1930 was finally enforced vigorously. (Note: this censorship still exists in another form as movie ratings.)
I won't go into the background on this movie since there's a great TCM site to read, among others:
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=504375|508221&name=The-Story-of-Temple-Drake
but I do want to say that TSOTD is based on Sanctuary (1931) by William Faulkner and I think the strong "moral" reaction to this movie was based on knowledge of the plot of this book. (Which I'll get to later.)
The Story of Temple Drake tells the story of a free-living society bad girl who gets kidnapped by a gangsters. Her beau is killed and she is raped by the gang leader. Unlike movies today, the closest thing you get to see of the rape is the face of Jack La Rue, cigarette dangling from his lips, filling the camera space as he approaches her. After that, there's only one line by La Rue ("When I'm away from you I think you may not care about me." implying when he's there, she's appreciative) when you might think she is enjoying her captivity. Other than that, only the silent look she gives the judge in the end when he asks: You were held prisoner, of course? implies what started as captivity and degradation did not end that way.
Except for La Rue who doesn't get much character stretch, Miriam Hopkins as the bad girl and Florence Eldridge as the down-trodden gangster's wife are among the actors who add verve to this rather racy theme/tame scenes pre-code drama. In fact, as I read the reviews of this movie I wondered if the TCM copy had been edited since I didn't get the impression that Hopkins became a prostitute. OK, I do watch these movies in the middle of the night so I doze but I'm thinking a lot of verbiage about TSOTD has its origins in the plot of Sanctuary.
Now, Sanctuary is a horse of a different color. Supposedly, Faulkner had just married a woman with two young children so he wrote this novel to make money poring in all the naughty bits he could find. We have real kinky stuff in Sanctuary. Stuff which isn't even hinted at in the movie and would not get a pass even in the more liberal times today. I think the coming of the Hollywood Code has its origins not so much in the movie, The Story of Temple Drake, but in the fact that this movie was based on Faulkner's salacious novel. (Though I do think the fact that Temple is allowed to reenter her privileged world in the end must have grated the misogynistic do-gooders of that day.)
Last night, I found my copy of that dirty book, Sanctuary. I use the term "dirty book" because my paperback copy is so physically dirty. I picked it up as I was throwing out unsold books from a sale my organization was running. (I always hated to dump books but no charity group will take books in bad condition; in fact, they pass on most large book donations.) It was dirty to the feel then and it's stayed that way.
So last night, I start to read Sanctuary and I didn't get too far before falling asleep. I awakened, holding a torn page from the book in my hand. (Yes, it's also a ratty book but then, I can't be choosy; I don't own a lot of Faulkner.) However, Sanctuary is a great read. It's richly written in a linear clear style which I find unusual in Faulkner. He called the book a pot-boiler but it reads like great literature. He's using narrative not dialogue to move the plot along and I had forgotten how rich that can be. In only a few pages, I can "see" Popeye and already I know neither Jack LaRue or Yves Montand in the 1961 Sanctuary is Popeye. (Their names were Trigger and Candy Man since Popeye was already the sailor man before the first picture came out.)
Bottom line: While The Story of Temple Drake should fall far short of being labeled the death knell for pre-code films, after 70+ years it's still worth a viewing. It shows us memes from a long gone time before the the nudity and the graphic sex movies of today. I wonder if those puritanical time could have been tweaked to create more realistic movies so that today we would have a thriving industry for adult-themed movies? It's one of those "what if."
See you next Monday.
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?isPreview=&id=504375|508221&name=The-Story-of-Temple-Drake
but I do want to say that TSOTD is based on Sanctuary (1931) by William Faulkner and I think the strong "moral" reaction to this movie was based on knowledge of the plot of this book. (Which I'll get to later.)
The Story of Temple Drake tells the story of a free-living society bad girl who gets kidnapped by a gangsters. Her beau is killed and she is raped by the gang leader. Unlike movies today, the closest thing you get to see of the rape is the face of Jack La Rue, cigarette dangling from his lips, filling the camera space as he approaches her. After that, there's only one line by La Rue ("When I'm away from you I think you may not care about me." implying when he's there, she's appreciative) when you might think she is enjoying her captivity. Other than that, only the silent look she gives the judge in the end when he asks: You were held prisoner, of course? implies what started as captivity and degradation did not end that way.
Except for La Rue who doesn't get much character stretch, Miriam Hopkins as the bad girl and Florence Eldridge as the down-trodden gangster's wife are among the actors who add verve to this rather racy theme/tame scenes pre-code drama. In fact, as I read the reviews of this movie I wondered if the TCM copy had been edited since I didn't get the impression that Hopkins became a prostitute. OK, I do watch these movies in the middle of the night so I doze but I'm thinking a lot of verbiage about TSOTD has its origins in the plot of Sanctuary.
Now, Sanctuary is a horse of a different color. Supposedly, Faulkner had just married a woman with two young children so he wrote this novel to make money poring in all the naughty bits he could find. We have real kinky stuff in Sanctuary. Stuff which isn't even hinted at in the movie and would not get a pass even in the more liberal times today. I think the coming of the Hollywood Code has its origins not so much in the movie, The Story of Temple Drake, but in the fact that this movie was based on Faulkner's salacious novel. (Though I do think the fact that Temple is allowed to reenter her privileged world in the end must have grated the misogynistic do-gooders of that day.)
Last night, I found my copy of that dirty book, Sanctuary. I use the term "dirty book" because my paperback copy is so physically dirty. I picked it up as I was throwing out unsold books from a sale my organization was running. (I always hated to dump books but no charity group will take books in bad condition; in fact, they pass on most large book donations.) It was dirty to the feel then and it's stayed that way.
So last night, I start to read Sanctuary and I didn't get too far before falling asleep. I awakened, holding a torn page from the book in my hand. (Yes, it's also a ratty book but then, I can't be choosy; I don't own a lot of Faulkner.) However, Sanctuary is a great read. It's richly written in a linear clear style which I find unusual in Faulkner. He called the book a pot-boiler but it reads like great literature. He's using narrative not dialogue to move the plot along and I had forgotten how rich that can be. In only a few pages, I can "see" Popeye and already I know neither Jack LaRue or Yves Montand in the 1961 Sanctuary is Popeye. (Their names were Trigger and Candy Man since Popeye was already the sailor man before the first picture came out.)
Bottom line: While The Story of Temple Drake should fall far short of being labeled the death knell for pre-code films, after 70+ years it's still worth a viewing. It shows us memes from a long gone time before the the nudity and the graphic sex movies of today. I wonder if those puritanical time could have been tweaked to create more realistic movies so that today we would have a thriving industry for adult-themed movies? It's one of those "what if."
See you next Monday.
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