"Libeled Lady"

Tonight's movie was "Libeled Lady" (1936), starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy. Now how's that for a great cast? That is about as top-notch a group of 1930s Screwball Comedians as has ever been assembled, and not only that, but four of the great actors of the Golden Era, period. Now, if you remember a movie I reviewed about two weeks ago called "Easy To Wed" with Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn, that was the 1946 remake of "Libeled Lady". "Easy To Wed" was good in it's own right, and the cast was also so talented that I had to see the original, so I ordered it from the Libe.

The story and script are virtually the same in both films. The editor of a "yellow journalism" newspaper (think New York Post) is trying to portray a wealthy heiress as a homewrecker, a woman of many affairs. The truth is the opposite. She is rich and pampered, but has no men in her life except her high powered father, who decides to sue the publisher of the newspaper when it publishes yet another fraudulent story about his daughter.

In "Easy To Wed", the daughter was Esther Williams. In "Libeled Lady" (the original movie), it was Myrna Loy. Both actresses were good, but the difference overall is in the Sophistication Of The Screwballishness. Loy was the epitome of the Sophisticated 30s Actress and Comedienne, and here she is paired with her "Thin Man" partner, the great William Powell. Taking nothing away from MGM Gold Mines Esther Williams and Van Johnson, who were excellent in the remake (as was the entire cast), the standard for this type of comedy was set in the 30s by fast-talking masters of repartee, like Loy and Powell. Jean Harlow was a unique screen personality who could hold hold her own with anyone, whether one-on-one with Clark Gable or as part of an ensemble as in this movie. Add Spencer Tracy (one of the great screen actors), and even though his part is relatively smaller than the others, you have a dynamite group of performers. It's no wonder that "Libeled Lady" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. It didn't win, but it still holds up 80 years later as one of the classic screen comedies of the Screwball Era. As great as the actors can be in the modern age, you could not find a group of people nowdays with the same type of screen presence, and the combination of wit, glamour, sophistication, rapid-fire timing and the slight touch of slapstick self-deprecation necessary to pull off these kinds of films.

I am always encouraging people to watch movies from the Golden Era, and not just go to see current films at the theater or rent them on dvd. I use myself as an example when trying to explain the allure of older motion pictures, and especially those that came out of Hollywood during the era of the Studio System. It is true that the pictures are stylised (i.e shot mostly on sets, with dressed-up casts, some minor characters that are stereotypes), but it is that very style that pulls you in. Hollywood was trying to create a fantasy world as an escape, but also as an adventure, something to run towards as you sat in the theater and tried to forget the world for a couple hours. That is why they promoted the glamour and sophistication and comedic genius of the superstar actors of the era, so that the audience could feel part of that on-screen world. No matter how high-class or well dressed the characters were, there was always the sense that they were regular people just like you.

Then in the 1940s came Film Noir, where the characters had it much worse than the audience. Now, the viewers could have an adventure into the underworld of crime and treachery, while feeling sympathetic to characters who were in fatal trouble.

The point is that, in the Studio System, they had a formula - yes. They had Film Noir, or Westerns (escape to the past), or Screwball Comedies, or Biopics (stories of Great Men), and many other styles too.

But they always had great casts, and most importantly great stories and scripts.

In the 1950s, in Europe, the era of the Auteur was ushered in, the "Director as Author", where he was the sole visionary of the final onscreen result. Luckily, there were a truckload of significant filmmakers in Italy and France at the time, and some in Poland and other countries as well. Japan.

Many countries.

And the era of the Art Film began. The Art Film was all about the psyche, of both the characters and the Director. This was a tremendous era in cinema, of course, but the reason I suggest taking a trip back to the Golden Era is to see what kind of feeling the movies were trying to create in their audiences, when the art form of motion pictures was first becoming a force in American culture. In watching the movies from that era, I see something interesting. I see a reciprocal closeness between the actors onscreen and the audience. The Movie Stars in those days projected a love of the audience that is palpable. You can see it onscreen. The aim of the movies back then was to draw you in, to become part of the Movies and the Stars. It was about box-office too, naturally, but box-office wasn't the behemoth it is now, nor were the Stars regular people as they are now.

All of this is just to suggest that you give older movies a try.

I never gave them a try myself, which is why I use myself as an example. I just figured, "hey, those movies are old, and in black and white, and they don't look like movies from today".

That was when I was in my 20s and halfway through my 30s.

But then, living with my Mom, who knew all the old movies, I came to appreciate the style.

And what happened, slowly but surely - kind of like with classical music - is that I got hooked on older movies, and I discovered a Treasure Trove.

And finally I began to look for great movies from all eras, from every decade, every year, with every great actor and by all the great directors, and even just the ones who are only good.

I suppose I have rambled on way past the toleration point, and about a subject I always talk about at that. But I had nothing else to write about today, and so it was a tangent worth going off on, I think.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)