A Night at the Opera

A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood, 1935) A career resuscitation for the zany Marx Brothers (or 3/4 of them—Zeppo does not make the studio transition with brothers Groucho, Harpo, and Chico), this was the first film made with the boys under their new contract with M-G-M, under the tutelage of Irving Thalberg. It was Thalberg's bright idea to take the Vaudeville vets back to Square One—back to the hit-days of The Cocoanuts, as they play glorified Rosencrantz's and Guildensterns to a couple of love-crazy kids for whom life is throwing a cold shower. It rather douses the film, as well, and softening the brothers' hellz-a-poppin' approach of the latter Paramount films. Unlike their previous film, Duck Soup, anarchy does not reign, but merely drizzles a little, getting the floor wet enough to allow the "bad guys" and authority figures to slip and fall.

 

I prefer the "earlier, funnier ones" sandwiched in the middle, where the focus is on the insanity of the brothers intruding on the niceties of the real world, with only rare interludes into unmolested cinema "reality." It was a nice satiric touch to make them the heads of a small bankrupt nation who aspire to greatness (and economic recovery) by going to war,* and the send-up's of blind patriotism ring true in any decade.

Sadly, at the time, that didn't translate into boffo box-office. Thalberg's view of Duck Soup's drop in attendance was "there was no one to root for" (translation: anyone normal) so, starting with this film, the percentages were reversed. There are lulls of song between the comedy bits, appropriate given the opera background of the story, giving breathing spaces to let audiences catch their collective breath—the kinds of interludes that prompted Groucho (in the film Horse Feathers**) to break the fourth wall to turn to the cinema audience and grouse: "I have to stay, but that's no reason the rest of you can't go to the lobby for a quick smoke or something!"

A Night at the Opera (written by George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, Al Boasberg, and, reportedly choreographing a devising some bits, the great Buster Keaton) sees Groucho as false-impressario Otis P. Driftwood, under contract and slightly under-thumb of society-craving Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont). Chico is the manager of Riccardo (Allan Jones), who aspires to opera stardom and is in love with Rosa (Miss Kitty Carlisle—as she was known as a panelist on "To Tell the Truth"). Harpo is the dresser of Lassparri (Walter Woolf King), a gas-bag opera star, who also has designs on Rosa. Immediately it becomes a case of clashing egos, thwarted love and abuse of power and entitlement, perfect diva-size targets for the Marxes to lampoon. It's safe and sane, which is such a pity. But, there is enough rich material to satisfy Marx Brothers fans.

And, thanks to the wonders of technology, you can skip over the other parts if you so desire.***  Where's my remote? (Probably under Mrs. Claypool!).

Still, going in, one must be careful to lower expectations, not unlike a closing curtain. The music-breaks do tend to bring the house down, and the momentum to a screeching stop. Still, half a classic film is better than no classic at all.

 

* Mussolini took Duck Soup as a personal insult and had it banned in Italy.

** Did it ever occur to you that the titles for the first Marx Brothers films (except for The Cocoanuts)  could be euphemisms for "Bull-shit?" Well, it certainly occurred to me!

*** In his review of A Night at the Opera, Roger Ebert says that is exactly what he does.

Skidoo

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...and they don't get much more trashy than this one...

Skidoo (Otto Preminger, 1968) Legendarily off-kilter comedy by that "master" of comedy, Otto Preminger, who, in his effort to make a movie that was "with it" perpetrated a film so far without "it," that one wonders why nobody told him it might be a bad idea...for any director. 

 

It might have been because there wasn't anybody at Paramount Pictures who had the power or the industry knowledge to be credible to a movie veteran like Preminger. Paramount had been "acquired" by Gulf and Western in 1966 and its chairman Charles Bluhdorn had made his mark in auto parts, zinc mines and manufacturing and was furthering his mint-making by buying up properties and tinkering or selling them off. Preminger was making films for Paramount and was a "studio property" who'd had a history of making edgy films that would challenge taboo's, but whose recent films were considered both artistic and financial failures.

This did nothing for the fortunes of Paramount, which, if you look at the films being released in that period (before bringing on Robert Evans as head of production) betrays of a long line of losers with the odd hit—usually a foreign acquisition, like Alfie and films that might be interesting (Seconds) but didn't attract an audience. The industry itself was seeing a downturn in receipts with more color TV's in homes and a calcified audience that wasn't getting any younger. Preminger thought he had a solution—make a movie that would appeal to "the kids."

Retired hitman Tony Banks (Jackie Gleason) has his evening of television interrupted by a pair of mobsters, Hechy (Caesar Romero) and son Angie (Frankie Avalon), who have orders from their boss "God" (this will be revealed as Groucho Marx, his first film appearance in eleven years) to knock off "Blue Chips" Packard (Mickey Rooney) who is due to testify before a Senate committee on organized crime. Banks begs retirement, but when a buddy (Arnold Stang) is found dead, he goes along with the plot for the safety of his wife Flo (Carol Channing) and his daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay).

The idea is to have Banks smuggled into the same prison as Packard and then whack him—or "kiss him" in the mob parlance used in the film. He is incarcerated with Leech (Michael Constantine) a psychopath and "The Professor" (Austin Pendleton) a technical wizard arrested for draft-dodging. Meanwhile, Darlene's new boyfriend Stash (John Phillip Law) and his gang of "hippies" are being hassled by the police for their anti-establishment ways and Flo, being a bit of a free spirit herself, helps them from being arrested for living in the streets and invites them into her home.

Tony already has guilt feelings about whacking "Blue Chips" but when he mistakenly takes a tab of acid provided by The Professor, he gives up on the idea and instead tries to find a way of breaking out—involving lacing all of the food in the prison with LSD and escaping by makeshift balloon when everybody is high as kites.

The movie's heart might be in the right place, but it's mind is utterly lost. Maybe they were thinking they were making an all-out all-star comedy like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World—a favorite of writer Mark Evanier, and who takes the opportunity to trash Skidoo every time it comes out of hiding. Sure, there are grudging pleasures: it features performances by the Big Three Batman TV villains with Romero, Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith, all acting, as does everyone in the film,in a manner that would charitably called "broad." Small parts with Richard Kiel and Slim Pickens. The notion that they filmed part of it on John Wayne's yacht. The score by Nilsson is harmless—he sings the End Credits—but it's not exactly good, either.

Nor is the film by any stretch of the imagination, even stretched pharmaceutically. There are sequences—a musical number with dancing garbage cans for instance—that are so badly thought out and executed that it is doppler-shifted into inscrutability in post. There is a cold-sweat chill of desperation over the whole enterprise. Sometimes even that can be cruelly funny. But not here. Even the casting of grizzled—if professional—veterans can't remove the stink of mercenary pandering and witless and dull-edged stabs at satire.

It's a mess. And not a funny one. Not even the knowledge of incompetence—as with the films of Ed Wood—can save it. One can only look at it with the hope that the bottom of the barrel has been reached. But even that hope gives no comfort. 

 

Bad trip, dude. 

Double Dynamite

Double Dynamite (aka It's Only Money, Irving Cummings, 1951) You've probably never heard of Double Dynamite—it's a slight musical comedy that isn't exactly successful in its intent, or commercially, due to the sabotage perpetrated by then-head of RKO Studios, Howard Hughes, who sold it as something else, entirely—focusing in its marketing on the things that had proved successful in the past, those being Jane Russell and her breasts.

A stupid move, that—a huckster's move, because not only is Russell under-utilized in the movie—as the romantic focus of two disparate bank employees—she's also costumed like a normal human being, not sexualized, not provocative, just normal. Hughes' marketing tried desperately to make the movie (filmed in 1948 and held back from release) something it wasn't, while also dismissing entirely what it actually is—a Frank Sinatra musical comedy. A not very good one, at that.

Chairman Blue Eyes plays Johnny Dalton, a bank teller without prospects for advancement, despite being a whiz with numbers. Perhaps it has something to do with the bank president's son (Don McGuire), working for the old man and making goo-goo eyes at Johnny's girl Mildred Goodhue (Russell). She's crazy about Johnny, but she wants security, something a teller's job paying $42.50 a week just doesn't provide.

But the movie starts on Johnny's lucky day—a visit to his favorite Italian restaurant brings an encounter with waiter Emile J. Keck (Groucho Marx...Groucho Marx!) and continues with his saving the life of a notorious bookie (Nestor Paiva), who repays Johnny by giving him a benjamin and convincing him to bet on the ponies...and keep betting...and keep betting until he has a wad of cash—$60 grand, in fact. Now, Johnny and Mildred can get married.

But, those thousands come at a very inopportune time..which just happens to be when $75,000 seems to have been embezzled by the bank Johnny works for. So, he's had all this good fortune—but can't tell anyone about it because they'll suspect he's the robber and his windfall are ill-gotten gains. What to do? What to do?

One would use the cliched "hilarity ensues," but it just doesn't. It sputters along, with only two songs for Sinatra—duets with Groucho and with Russell. Groucho's in fine form and Frankie and Jane are eager enough, but the movie's pretty small-potatoes for all the potential of the cast. All would do bigger and better things, and that's the real happy ending to this movie.