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Better Than “No Country for Old Men”
By John W. Kennedy | February 20, 2008
For those who aren’t really excited about seeing all the R-rated depressing dramas that are bound to snare Oscar gold on Sunday, I have a suggestion: watch a classic comedy from Hollywood’s golden era.
Comedy today, whether in motion pictures, television or theaters, tends to reflect the crude and sexualized culture around us. But back in the days when productions actually had standards, comics had to do something different than be vulgar: they had to be funny.
The late 1930s and early 1940s reflected the heyday of classic screen comedies. Part of it stemmed from a desire to escape the trying times of the Great Depression and World War II. But more than that, the movies captured the frailty of the human condition.
Three of the best films from the period, available from DVD online rental companies, local video stores or on cable TV’s Turner Classic Movies, are listed below. These comedies of yesteryear explored themes that are still humorous today: the greed and hypocrisy of the film industry; trying to get past bureaucratic red tape; and dealing with annoying people we come in contact with every day.
• Sullivan’s Travels (1941). This social comedy exemplifies the genius of director Preston Sturges, who brilliantly blends snappy humorous dialogue in the first half with taut pathos in the second. Joel McCrea (Sullivan) stars as a movie mogul who is tired of making fluffy comedies. After anxious studio chiefs balk at his plan to make a great drama, Sullivan secretly sets out on his own, dressed as a bum with only a dime in his pocket, to see how the other half live. He accidentally discovers a beautiful starlet (Veronica Lake), encounters hopeless beggars, is mistakenly accused of a crime, is sentenced to hard labor and learns about the resilient spirit of man in a Pentecostal church. The lesson at the end of the satire: humor is important because it keeps us going in desperate situations.
• Ninotchka (1939). Ernst Lubitsch directed Greta Garbo’s next to last film, her first comedy, advertised with the tagline “Garbo laughs!” Garbo plays the dour Soviet commissar title character dispatched to Paris to see what is detaining bungling trade envoys (wonderful portrayals by Sig Ruman and Felix Bressart) who have fallen prey to the materialistic lures of capitalism. Melyvn Douglas portrays a sophisticated French ne’er-do-well who spends a great deal of time and energy trying to impress Ninotchka with not only the superiority of capitalism but of true love. Along the way, both discover that neither efficiency nor money is the most important thing in life.
• It’s a Gift (1934). W.C. Fields shines in this comedy of downtrodden husband, father and general store owner Harold Bissonette, who has to contend with such obstacles as a blind man breaking his merchandise, a lost insurance salesman pestering him out of bed at dawn and a shrewish wife who continually belittles him. Ultimately Bissonette risks everything to pursue his dream: owning an orange grove in California. Out of great despair comes a happy ending.
Topics: movies |
February 21st, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I liked Sullivan’s Travels but do not remember the other two. You are right that the old comedies are superior, but how much is lost in the translation based on the language of today? People my age sometimes see the old movie we thought was so funny or moving thirty years ago, and realize that we are the one’s who have changed- more jaded perhaps and surely more critical. Who could watch an old Superman episode today and not chuckle as the man of steel flies stiffly through the air? Would that we could transplant into the amazingly talented movie makers of today the humanity of those who made movies back in the day.
February 27th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I agree wholeheartedly that, for the most part, today’s movies can’t compare with the ones you mentioned. I rarely see a movie in a theater anymore. That really hit home this year when, for the first time, I had hardly even HEARD of any of the Oscar nominations with the exception of Juno.
I have gone to movies that were everything I thought they would be — but I have seen many more that were disappointments because the integrity and message of the movie were tainted by gratuitous filthy language, sex or violence — all because movie makers think that’s what we want to see.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
I hate old movies!