Here are the latest additions, acknowledged to be precious commodities of American film.
Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day (Unknown, 1913) Never completed, this collection of rushes and outtakes from what would have been the first full-length film to feature black actors was found, donated by Biograph Studios and untouched for a century, in the film archives of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. No script remains and there are no remarks as to story-line or notes to where the film fragments might appear in continuity. Shot before the next significant film featuring black performers (The Birth of a Nation), it is more telling in the outtakes, showing the harmony between crew and performers and the lack of caricature, save for one detail. The film starred Bert Williams, described in the Registry's citation as "the first African-American to headline on Broadway and the most popular recording artist prior to 1920." Given that, however, he is the only performer to appear in "black-face," which was evidently "required" of a production to allow the other actors to appear without it.
W.C. Fields (who performed with Williams for Flo Ziegfield's Follies) called him "the funniest man I ever saw...and the saddest man I ever knew."
Truly, the Dude abides.
A couple of Miranda's routines is below. ("Ssssh. Car-men Mi-randa..")
The Dragon Painter (William Worthington, 1919) Sessue Hayakawa was Hollywood's first Asian-American star, and was so popular he had the clout to form his own production company, Haworth films, which produced The Dragon Painter.
It tells the story of a "young, brilliant artist of untamed talent" who loses his artistic abilities after marrying a "dragon princess." The film also stars Hayakawa's wife, Tsuru Aoki.
The tinted film shows great promise in technique and in subject matter, and won acclaim for its location work, which might recall Japan, but was actually filmed (unmistakably) in Yosemite Valley, California.
Felicia (Bob Dickson, Alan Gorg, Trevor Greenwood, 1965) A documentary film that made its way into the category of "educational film," Felicia is a study of life in Watts before the 1965 riots broke out. The Registry writes: "Felicia’s first-person narrative reflects her hopes and frustrations as she annotates footage of her family, school and neighborhood, creating a time capsule that’s both historically and culturally significant."
Ferris Bueller is a demonstration of just how much fun anarchy can be...when you're the only anarchist.
The Gang’s All Here (Busby Berkley, 1943) I guess it was Carmen Miranda's year! Another Fox musical—this one starring the original star of Down Argentine Way, Alice Faye, there's not much here, story-wise (soldier meets girl/soldier turns out to be rich playboy) except that Berkley directed and choreographed this one after a stint with M-G-M and Warner's.It features one of Miranda's iconic musical numbers (wildly staged by Berkley) "The Girl in the Tutti-Fruitti Hat" that veers into Dali-esque surrealism, and some suggestiveness that ran afoul of censors at the time.
The Gang's All Here is something of a camp classic, and did very well at the box-office. This would be Faye's second to last film before retiring, a risky move as she was Fox's hottest star.
Hmmm. Probably because of de Toth's vision issues, the 3-D effects are a lot subtler than most 3-D films (then and now), and the film resonates. I saw it on television at ten years of age and still remember it vividly.
Gut and heart-wrenching documentary.
Luxo Jr. (John Lasseter, 1986) The very first primitive computer generated cartoon created by Pixar (which had been recently sold by George Lucas to Steve Jobs) and its chief talent at the time, John Lasseter.
Luxo, Jr. involved smooth-planed more easily rendered surfaces on two articulated lamps and a rubber ball, the surface details are understandably and integrally minimal, but the real key to the success of the animation is the personality invested in these ('til now) inanimate objects, a trait that has been the hallmark of all the Pixar productions.
That attention to personality and how to communicate it on-screen has always been right there from the start. Those bouncing, clanking lamps have been steadfastly incorporated into Pixar's introductory logo ever since, as much a symbol of its intentions as Leo the Lion is for M-G-M..
And here's the film's first "pencil test."
Moon Breath Beat (Lisze Bechtold, 1980) Surrealist flowing animation from Bechtold, a CalArts student. From the Registry notice: "What happens when an animator follows a line, a patch of color, or a shape into the unconscious? What wild images would emerge?" Moon Breath Beat reveals Bechtold responding with fluidity and whimsy. Her two-dimensional film was animated to a pre-composed rhythm, the soundtrack cut together afterward, sometimes four frames at a time, to match picture with track, she says. The dream-like story evolved as it was animated, depicting a woman and her two cats and how such forces as birds and the moon impact their lives. Following graduation, Bechtold was the effects animator for the Disney short The Prince and the Pauper (1990) and principal effects animator for FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992).
Please Don’t Bury Me Alive! (Efrain Gutierrez, 1976) From The National Film Registry: "The San Antonio barrio in the early 1970s is the setting for writer, director and star EfraÃn Gutiérrez’s independent piece, considered by historians to be the first Chicano feature film. A self-taught filmmaker, Gutiérrez not only created the film from top to bottom on a shoestring, he also acted as its initial distributor and chief promoter, negotiating bookings throughout the Southwest where it filled theaters in Chicano neighborhoods. He tells his story in the turbulent days near the end of the Vietnam War, as a young Chicano man questioning his and his people’s place in society as thousands of his Latino brethren return from the war in coffins. Chon Noriega, director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, wrote, 'The film is important as an instance of regional filmmaking, as a bicultural and bilingual narrative, and as a precedent that expanded the way that films got made. ...' Cultural historians often compare Gutiérrez to Oscar Micheaux, the pioneering African-American filmmaker who came to prominence in the 1920s."
The Power and the Glory (William K. Howard, 1933) Howard made 54 films in his career (from 1921 to 1946) and The Power and the Glory is his most famous film, but mostly because of who wrote it. It was the first screenplay of Preston Sturges, which was bought by Fox, unbidden, for $17,500 and a percentage of the film's profits (which just wasn't done back in the day). It launched Sturges' career as a screenwriter, which propelled him into the director's chair, starting a storied, if brief, career. The film was notable for two reasons: it was a solo effort by Sturges, and its flashback structure was called out by Pauline Kael in her "Raising Kane" article in The New Yorker as one more example of why Citizen Kane might not be as revolutionary as it was given credit for.
The film begins at the funeral of Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy—The Registry's notes cites "The Nation magazine called Spencer Tracy’s performance in the lead role 'one of the fullest characterizations ever achieved on screen.'") a powerful railroad tycoon who has committed suicide. The movie then backtracks telling of Garner's rags-to-riches story of his rise in business and fall from grace (aspects of which in this pre-Code film caused controversy and some censorship). The film hasn't weathered well, but it's a sophisticated film that calls into question the price one personally pays for success...and hubris.
Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959) Rio Bravo was a welcome return of director-producer Howard Hawks to the Western—he hadn't made one since Red River in 1948, and hadn't worked with John Wayne since. By the time he got to it, he had some things to say. In contrast to John Ford's by that time melancholy re-thinking of the Conquering of the west, Hawks' film has no great vistas but is a reply to the western responsibilities conundrum posed by Kramer and Zimmerman's Oscar-winning High Noon. It was Hawks' contention that if the chief lawman of the community has to ask for help, then he shouldn't be in that position. So, Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) spends a lot of time refusing help (amateurs only get in the way and make his job harder), even though his deputies consist of a drunk (Dean Martin, in a wonderful dramatic turn after his split with Jerry Lewis) and an ancient with bad hips (Walter Brennan). Then, things get a little crowded with a newly arrived wagon train (led by Ward Bond) with a cocky kid (Ricky Nelson) riding shotgun. The stakes are serious on a personal and professional level. But the Hawks game-plan is all about community and how it comes together in good times and bad...especially bad. Wayne is at his "cranky papa" best whether practicing tough love on his deputies or awkward love with the good/bad girl (Angie Dickinson, one of the best of Hawks aggressive females) who doesn't seem to want to leave town. It is one of Hawks' best, most successful films and he would do variations of it (with Wayne, who never got to play the drunk) with El Dorado (1967) and Rio Lobo (1970).
The only question I have: why did it take so long for this one to make the list?
Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) Horror producer-director William Castle vaulted from his B-movie career into the A-category with this adaptation of Ira Levin's novel, produced by Paramount Pictures, overseen by Robert Evans, written and directed by Roman Polanski, and starring "it" girl Mrs. Frank Sinatra—Mia Farrow. The film is rooted in the 1960's (with dream sequences featuring Jack and Jackie Kennedy), but the story—about an upwardly mobile young couple (John Cassavettes plays the duplicitous husband) finding success and horror by dealing with the devil is a lovely little metaphor, cacklingly directed by Polanski. As perverse a director as Polanski is, what sets this version of Rosemary's Baby apart from its unofficial sequels and remakes is the almost gleeful humor, indicating that Polanski, who also wrote the script, really wasn't taking any of this too seriously. A lot of the imagery comes directly from Levin, but Polanski lends them such a creepily loony atmosphere that it's hard to be too offended by the proceedings (the film was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency and all sorts of nervous nellies). Ruth Gordon won an Academy Award (and a major career resuscitation) for her portrayal of one of the loopy neighbors in the stately Bramford Building (actually the tony Dakota Building), which the couple are amazed they could buy into. No surprise, really. Rosemary has been selected to bear the son of Satan, and, as much suspicion as Polanski generates, the truth is only revealed at the end, which goes from hysteria to a nicely perverse ending. Even almost 50 years old, it's still a major player in the horror genre.
And I still have an aversion to chocolate mousse.
Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935) One director who regularly makes it into the National Film Registry (along with Ford, Hawks, and Huston) is Leo McCarey. Not as widely known as the others, McCarey was a director of considerable taste and humanity (if not of a particularly identifiable style) and could bring out the best in all manner of genres, whether he was directing the Marx Brothers (Duck Soup), Bing Crosby (Going My Way) or Cary Grant (An Affair to Remember). This year, it's McCarey's lone western-of-a-sort, Ruggles of Red Gap, a fish-out-of-water story about a British man servant (Charles Laughton) who is won in a poker game and must make a new life for himself in the backwater town of Red Gap, Washington. It's also a bit of a fish-out-of water story for it's lead actor, Laughton, who was more known for his dramatic roles (that same year he starred in Mutiny on the Bounty and Les Miserables) than for comedy—although he could always be counted on for a certain drollery and, in short doses, whimsy. Ruggles goes from a life of servitude to independence in his new country (when he is mistaken for an English colonel) and learns of his worth in the new surroundings. It's charming and very funny.
Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998) My memory of first seeing Saving Private Ryan is vivid—sitting opening day at the Guild 45th Theater in the University district among a sparse crowd, I had an unexpected reaction about 10 minutes in; I was in pain. Saving Private Ryan begins (after a brief but poignant preamble) with the landing at Normandy (re-staged before in other movies) but never presented quite in this way—savage, visceral, disorienting, surround-sound bullets whizzing by your head. I was in pain...because I was slumped in my seat, as if to avoid the bullets. That was different. I've never cowered during a movie before. The combat in SPR is flesh-chewing and gooey, the disparate platoon dynamics is slightly compressed—not everyone acts to stereotype—and the group has been through enough their numbers have been cut to the point where their worth as a fighting brigade might be compromised—so they're tasked with finding the last surviving son of the Ryan family to send him home.
Going home is the end-all/be-all of the dogfaces of Saving Private Ryan. The alternative is unthinkable, although the evidence of it is all around them. For the rest, they must deal with survivor's guilt—an aspect of SPR that is difficult for some viewers to fathom (and is spelled out succinctly in the film's coda). The cast of veterans (Tom Hanks, Dennis Farina, Ted Danson) is complemented with a lot of talented new faces—Vin Diesel, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Ed Burns, Matt Damon, Adam Goldberg, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, Bryan Cranston, Paul Giamatti and Nathan Fillion—leave deep impressions and made quite a few stars.
It also ended the reticence that surviving WWII veterans had in discussing the horrors of "The Good War" and led to the re-appraisal of and greater understanding and respect for what would be called "The Greatest Generation."
Shoes (Lois Weber, 1916) The name of Lois Weber has fairly disappeared from historic records of the birth of cinema, but at the time she was making films, she was as well-known as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, and exercised as much directorial clout as those men. A creative force in cinema, and a strong voice for progressive women's issues, Weber produced parables that illustrated societal injustices, and by dramatizing them in film-form, sought to educate audiences to the reformist cause. An auteur who insisted on control of her films and fought any studio interference on any level of production, she was also a frugal filmmaker whose films attracted controversy and drew in the crowds, which pleased her backers. Shoes tells the story of a shop-worker (Mary Maclaren) who is trying to support a family of five on five dollars a week. When her only pair of shoes falls apart, to acquire a necessary new pair, she resorts to prostitution to afford them. The subject matter was controversial, but Weber made her protagonist so sympathetic it defied judgement.
Below is a sample reel by the company that did the restoration work.
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State Fair (Henry King, 1933) Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, this first version of State Fair (based on a novel by Phil Strong) starred Janet Gaynor and Lew Ayers and featured Will Rogers as the head of the Frake family of Iowa who spend a week at the state fair, and is the only one of the three versions that is not a musical.
While the elder Frakes are concerned with winning ribbons and medals, the Frake kids find romance in the arms of a reporter and a trapeze artist. This version is also pre-Code, which created some outrage among the blue-noses, who especially objected to a scene where dialogue from the Frake son and the high-wire artist were heard off-screen over a shot of a rumpled bed with some scattered clothing. That scene was cut by the Fox Studio when the Hays Office was created in 1934 for subsequent re-releases and it has never been restored to the film.
Unmasked (Grace Cunard, Francis Ford 1917) Francis Ford was the older brother of eventual director John Ford and Cunard was a multi-talented hyphenate: actress-writer-director, who co-directed 17 films, most with collaborator Ford (when she was on-screen, he directed and when he was on-screen, she directed). Unmasked is a cat-and-mouse game between two thieves who are after the same precious necklace. From The National Film Registry: "Produced at Universal Studios, the epicenter of female directors during the silent era, Unmasked reflected a style associated with European filmmakers of the time: artful and sophisticated cinematography comprised of complex camera movements and contrasting depths of field. With a plot rich in female initiative and problem-solving, Cunard fashioned a strong character who does not fit the image of traditional womanhood: she relishes her heists, performs unladylike physical exploits, manipulates court evidence, carries on with a man who is not her husband and yet survives the film without punishment. In essence, the character Cunard created echoed the woman behind the camera. Today, Unmasked serves as a succinct but illustrative example of the role of women in film history, as depicted in fact and fiction."
V-E + 1 (Samuel Fuller, 1945) Silent documentary footage taken the day after V-E day by infantryman Samuel Fuller (who would go on to become a much-heralded writer-director of tough B-movies) that presents the burial of the concentration camp victims at Folkenau, Czechoslovakia by the citizens of the town. The city elders denied knowing anything about the camps, which, given the nature of conditions there, would have been impossible. At the orders of commanding officer liberating the camps, city officials were forced to prepare the bodies, transfer them through town, and bury them in the town's cemetery, an act serving to punish the complicit and honor the dead. (Fuller would go on to dramatize the events in his film The Big Red One).
In 1988, documentarian Emil Weiss made a film about those events with Fuller's participation in Falkenau: The Impossible.
The Way of Peace (Frank Tashlin, 1947) Produced by the American Lutheran Church, this 18 minute stop-motion animation film was directed by Frank Tashlin, former cartoon director for Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes, and who would go on to direct films for Bob Hope, Martin and Lewis, and Lewis solo. Tashlin wrote and directed in a highly stylized, but wonderfully dramatic manner that shows his strength as a visual story-teller. The extraordinary puppets and effects were designed by Wah Ming Chen and the film is narrated by Lew Ayres.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971) "Come with me/and you'll be/in a world of pure imagination" Pure imagination on a very limited budget, but what folks remember are the script (officially by the book's author Roald Dahl, but aided and abetted by David Seltzer) and the performances—especially Gene Wilder's risky take on the titular candy-maker who may be a couple rice-krispies off plum. Despite the meager budget (financed to promote a line of candy that never materialized) the ideas behind it are more than enough to keep audiences young and old entertained (and featuring mostly great songs from Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley including the evergreen "The Candy Man").
In it, the mysterious head of a chocolate factory (Gene Wilder) holds a world-wide lottery—five golden tickets are hidden in the large Wonka chocolate bars. The possessor is given escorted tour of the wondrous (if secret) factory by Mr. Wonka himself. The winners turn out to be four very entitled brats and one impoverished lad. The factory is a wonderland of confectionery delights (even if it does hold some dangers) and is worked by a third-world staff of the diminutive Ooompa-Loompa tribe...and the motives of the CEO are very suspect. A combination of comedy and kid-horror, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is wonderful...and semi-sweet, but never bitter.
Or be stifled.
The film begins at the funeral of Tom Garner (Spencer Tracy—The Registry's notes cites "The Nation magazine called Spencer Tracy’s performance in the lead role 'one of the fullest characterizations ever achieved on screen.'") a powerful railroad tycoon who has committed suicide. The movie then backtracks telling of Garner's rags-to-riches story of his rise in business and fall from grace (aspects of which in this pre-Code film caused controversy and some censorship). The film hasn't weathered well, but it's a sophisticated film that calls into question the price one personally pays for success...and hubris.
The only question I have: why did it take so long for this one to make the list?
>
Hawks uses song and sing-along's to show collaboration between former rivals.
None is better than this unlikely one from Rio Bravo.
And I still have an aversion to chocolate mousse.
 |
| Producer William Castle's cameo in the film. |
Going home is the end-all/be-all of the dogfaces of Saving Private Ryan. The alternative is unthinkable, although the evidence of it is all around them. For the rest, they must deal with survivor's guilt—an aspect of SPR that is difficult for some viewers to fathom (and is spelled out succinctly in the film's coda). The cast of veterans (Tom Hanks, Dennis Farina, Ted Danson) is complemented with a lot of talented new faces—Vin Diesel, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Ed Burns, Matt Damon, Adam Goldberg, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, Bryan Cranston, Paul Giamatti and Nathan Fillion—leave deep impressions and made quite a few stars.
It also ended the reticence that surviving WWII veterans had in discussing the horrors of "The Good War" and led to the re-appraisal of and greater understanding and respect for what would be called "The Greatest Generation."
Below is a sample reel by the company that did the restoration work.
While the elder Frakes are concerned with winning ribbons and medals, the Frake kids find romance in the arms of a reporter and a trapeze artist. This version is also pre-Code, which created some outrage among the blue-noses, who especially objected to a scene where dialogue from the Frake son and the high-wire artist were heard off-screen over a shot of a rumpled bed with some scattered clothing. That scene was cut by the Fox Studio when the Hays Office was created in 1934 for subsequent re-releases and it has never been restored to the film.
Unmasked (Grace Cunard, Francis Ford 1917) Francis Ford was the older brother of eventual director John Ford and Cunard was a multi-talented hyphenate: actress-writer-director, who co-directed 17 films, most with collaborator Ford (when she was on-screen, he directed and when he was on-screen, she directed). Unmasked is a cat-and-mouse game between two thieves who are after the same precious necklace. From The National Film Registry: "Produced at Universal Studios, the epicenter of female directors during the silent era, Unmasked reflected a style associated with European filmmakers of the time: artful and sophisticated cinematography comprised of complex camera movements and contrasting depths of field. With a plot rich in female initiative and problem-solving, Cunard fashioned a strong character who does not fit the image of traditional womanhood: she relishes her heists, performs unladylike physical exploits, manipulates court evidence, carries on with a man who is not her husband and yet survives the film without punishment. In essence, the character Cunard created echoed the woman behind the camera. Today, Unmasked serves as a succinct but illustrative example of the role of women in film history, as depicted in fact and fiction."
V-E + 1 (Samuel Fuller, 1945) Silent documentary footage taken the day after V-E day by infantryman Samuel Fuller (who would go on to become a much-heralded writer-director of tough B-movies) that presents the burial of the concentration camp victims at Folkenau, Czechoslovakia by the citizens of the town. The city elders denied knowing anything about the camps, which, given the nature of conditions there, would have been impossible. At the orders of commanding officer liberating the camps, city officials were forced to prepare the bodies, transfer them through town, and bury them in the town's cemetery, an act serving to punish the complicit and honor the dead. (Fuller would go on to dramatize the events in his film The Big Red One).
In 1988, documentarian Emil Weiss made a film about those events with Fuller's participation in Falkenau: The Impossible.
The Way of Peace (Frank Tashlin, 1947) Produced by the American Lutheran Church, this 18 minute stop-motion animation film was directed by Frank Tashlin, former cartoon director for Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes, and who would go on to direct films for Bob Hope, Martin and Lewis, and Lewis solo. Tashlin wrote and directed in a highly stylized, but wonderfully dramatic manner that shows his strength as a visual story-teller. The extraordinary puppets and effects were designed by Wah Ming Chen and the film is narrated by Lew Ayres.
In it, the mysterious head of a chocolate factory (Gene Wilder) holds a world-wide lottery—five golden tickets are hidden in the large Wonka chocolate bars. The possessor is given escorted tour of the wondrous (if secret) factory by Mr. Wonka himself. The winners turn out to be four very entitled brats and one impoverished lad. The factory is a wonderland of confectionery delights (even if it does hold some dangers) and is worked by a third-world staff of the diminutive Ooompa-Loompa tribe...and the motives of the CEO are very suspect. A combination of comedy and kid-horror, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is wonderful...and semi-sweet, but never bitter.
Gene Wilder insisted on this entrance to give Wonka an edge...
"From that time on, no one will know if I'm telling the truth..."
Ya know, the best way to end this...is with that song. Film is a medium of pure imagination every step of the way...even if you're trying to find a way to tell a documentary's story. May film...and imagination...never fade away.Or be stifled.
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