John Barrymore

  • Dinner at Eight (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, November 2021) Some movies make for fascinating viewing because they’re dated, and so much of Dinner at Eight’s charm comes from some witty writing showing early-1930s Manhattan socialites trying to put together a fancy dinner party. This is an excuse to go and explore the lives of the invited guests, as the ever-changing line-up of the dinner party features archetypes and preoccupations of the time. Unlike many films of the 1930s, Dinner at Eight does not ignore the Great Depression, nor (as a Pre-Code film) does it shy away from upsetting sensibilities with subplots of adultery, suicide, desperation and terminal illness. Although clearly put together as drama, the script has some exceptional dialogue that makes it feel vastly funnier than it ought to be. (It’s a logical link between the comedies-of-manner from the Edwardian Era and the Screwball Hollywood comedies.)  Conceived as a star-studded epic drama in the footsteps of the previous year’s Grand Hotel, the film can boast of an impressive cast if you’re up to your early-sound film superstars: Marie Dressler, John and Lionel Barrymore, as well as Jean Harlow are the standout names, but the more you know about the era, the more the cast will seem impressive. While technically rough in the way most early-sound-era films were, the dialogue and acting are still exceptional (with a few allowances made for how standards have evolved) and manage to impress. But it’s still Dinner at Eight’s look at circa-1933 New York that works best, with a thick web of contemporary allusions, characters of their times, and assumptions that almost feel alien today.

  • Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

    Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2021) There are films that are a lot more fun to read about than to watch, and Rasputin and the Empress comes close to earning that distinction. As an early-sound-era depiction of Rasputin’s reign of terror over Russia, it’s suitably melodramatic but, in the end, the narrative feels dull and meandering on its way to a somewhat more gripping ending. The technical credentials are about as good as they get for the time, what with the film being a prestige MGM production — excellent sets and costumes, but with the limitations of early-sound-era filmmaking limiting the camera movements. For film fans, this has the distinction of featuring three members of the Barrymore family in the same film, although it’s clear that Lionel Barrymore is the one having the most fun playing Rasputin. There wouldn’t be much more to say about Rasputin and the Empress itself — it’s a decent costume drama, but not much more. When you start reading about the film, however, the making of it and what happened after its release become far more interesting as an illustration of Hollywood’s growing pains than what was shown on-screen. For one thing, there’s the rushed production of the film, which went forward with an unfinished script and a screenwriter who only agreed to work on it when threatened by Ethel Barrymore breaking things in his bungalow. Then there’s the monstrous ego of the three Barrymores, including Ethel coming back to the big screen at 53 due to financial woes, not having experience working on a sound film, and being concerned about how the camera would portray her. Finally, there are the lawsuits that followed Rasputin and the Empress’s release: MGM got sued by two Russian families for including a historically inaccurate rape scene, leading to expensive fines, the shelving of the film for decades, and the addition of the now-standard “all characters are fictional” disclaimer in films going forward. Now that’s a making-of that almost deserves its own movie.

  • Night Flight (1933)

    Night Flight (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) The most interesting things about Night Flight are all about the movie than in the movie itself. Taken at face value, it’s a decent-enough adventure film about the heroic age of aviation in South America, featuring efforts by a company led by an American to establish trade routes through the treacherous Andes, especially when life-saving medication is involved. The technical quality of the film is rough by contemporary standards, reflecting Pre-Code era films’ limited ability to portray complex adventure stories. It’s interesting, and the cast (John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Myrna Loy and Helen Hayes) is amazing enough… but it’s hard to watch it without pining for Only Angel Have Wings, a very similar 1939 film with much better direction, script and production values. It’s when you start digging into the film’s production history that the most fascinating aspects of the film appear: Based on an Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novel, the author did not like the film and, through contractual shenanigans, had MGM take the film out of circulation in 1942… until 2011, when Warner Bros struck a deal with Saint-Exupéry’s estate to have the film shown again. That’s kind of amazing in itself—that a somewhat popular film starring well-known actors could disappear for nearly seventy years and become available once more to twenty-first century cinephiles, while their parents and grandparents would not have been able to see the film. The movie itself may not warrant that much devotion, but as an illustration of how contemporary film buffs have it much better than any previous generation of movie fans, it’s almost unparalleled.

  • Romeo and Juliet (1936)

    Romeo and Juliet (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) There are films that I watch out of obligation, and the 1936 version of Romeo and Juliet is one of them—It’s directed by notable filmmaker George Cukor, won a few Oscars, features a few name actors from the era and still ranks on extended best-of lists. The problem (and I’ve discussed this elsewhere) is that Shakespearian dialogue in English bores me beyond belief. So, I may have listened with half an ear—with some help from an adaptation that adapted, shortened and simplified some of the material. This being said, there’s enough in the film on a visual level to keep things interesting—great costumes, decent sets, and actors looking as if they’re really enjoying doing Shakespeare on-screen. (Oh, and Edna May Oliver as the nurse!) Cukor directs with a sure hand, while Leslie Howard does well as Romeo, John Barrymore distinguishes himself as Mercutio, and Norma Shearer makes a decent Juliet. Frankly, the whole thing still looks so good that you can be forgiven from not paying much attention to the dialogue. It’s interesting to compare and contrast it with later versions: Put against the (dull) 1968 Zeffirelli version and the (hyperactive) 1995 Luhrmann version, this Romeo and Juliet feels closer to what we would imagine a lavish theatrical production to look like.

  • Twentieth Century (1934)

    Twentieth Century (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) I like our modern era and wouldn’t go back to an era of information scarcity, racial segregation, and polio for anything in the world, but there are a few characteristics of the 1930s that I would like to see revived, and long-distance train journeys throughout North America are certainly one of them. Fortunately, there are movies such as Twentieth Century to illustrate what we’re missing. In this Howard Hawks comedy, the mayhem gets going as an actress boards a train going from Chicago to New York City, and encounters her ex-impresario. He, after a string of flops, is eager to get her to sign up for his next play … but there are complications: many, many complications played aboard the train as it makes its overnight trip, with zany characters to colour the proceedings. Handled through Hawks’ trademark speed and rapid-fire dialogue, Twentieth Century is a pure pre-Code screwball comedy, as blistering fast as modern movies and with dialogue so delicious that it has a strong re-watchability factor. It certainly helps to have John Barrymore onboard, going over-the-top as a grandiose, domineering, overly dramatic Broadway mogul. Playing opposite him in her breakout role is none other than Carole Lombard as the actress in the middle of the interleaved subplots. Adapted from a Broadway play, the film does remains bound to its train setting—presenting Hawks with few opportunities to break out of its confines, but that works better than you’d expect as the film becomes a multi-room theatrical play where the comic action takes centre stage. While the beginning of the film is relatively slow, it quickly speeds up along the pace of its train setting—and it never gets better than when Lombard and Barrymore get in screaming matches with each other. It’s not the best Hawks comedy, but it’s still really enjoyable even now. The Pre-Code nature of the film is muted compared to other films of the era (indeed, the film was among the first to get notes from the Hays Office), but you can still see a few racier references to religious icons and a revealing lingerie shot. Still, Twentieth Century has no need for racy material when its crowd-pleasing fundamentals are so well handled: It’s still a great movie, and deserves its perennial high rankings in the lists of the best 1930s movie comedies.

  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2018) According to my notes, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the oldest movie I’ve ever watched to date. While I wonder at the idea of a movie that has travelled in time nearly a hundred years to be watched today, I’m also tempted to put Science Fiction fan beanie on my head to point out that, of course, a genre film is more durable and memorable than then-contemporary drama. Genre is fun, genre is interesting and genre, all things considered, travels pretty well through time. The basic Jekyll/Hyde story, after all, is a pumped-up illustration of the duality within all of us, torn between our basest instincts and our better natures. Here we have John Barrymore (grandfather to Drew Barrymore, if you want another link between then and now) playing both lead roles: an upstanding citizen who, thanks to scientific experiments and hilariously ill-advised nudging by his future father-in-law, sees his inner beast unchained and free to act badly. One aspect of watching a 1920 film trying to tackle debauchery is the curiously tame nature of the excesses (ooh, an ankle) and yet the film does manage to make its point come across clearly. The hideous transformation of Jekyll into Hyde is well handled through prosthetics and makeup, and the rest of the film is decent enough. I’m not that charmed by the entire film—as with other silent movies, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde seems to last forever, exhibits only a rudimentary understanding of modern cinematographic grammar and is simply too foreign to be watched transparently when the title cards brutally remind you that there’s an entire audio dimension missing. Still, I’m still impressed that this nearly hundred-year-old artifact can still be watched and make us care about the story it has to tell.

  • Grand Hotel (1932)

    Grand Hotel (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018)  The thirties were a decade when Hollywood perfected the grammar and sales pitch of cinema, with Grand Hotel earning a minor place in history for two innovations: on an artistic level, pioneering the use of a 360-degree lobby set that allowed the camera to be pointed in any direction, and commercially for bringing together as many movie stars as the (comparatively large) budget would allow. It netted Grand Hotel a Best Picture Oscar back in 1933, but today the result has visibly aged. While the script still holds some interest by bringing together a bunch of vignettes that sometimes interact, much of the film is shot as a theatre piece, the lobby sequences being an exception that highlight the more traditional nature of the rest of the film. As far as star power is concerned, modern viewers can still enjoy the presences of Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford as well as Lionel and John Barrymore—even as reminders of why they were or became superstars. While the Berlin setting of the film may strike some as odd considering Hollywood’s insularity and the whole World War II unpleasantness a few years later, it’s worth noting that at the time, Hollywood was filled with German expats, that Berlin was a world-class city and the best-selling source novel spoke for itself. Also: this was the depression, and a bit of gentle European exoticism couldn’t hurt the movie-watching masses. Grand Hotel will forever live on as a Best Picture winner, and as a representative of the Hollywood machine as it was revving up in the early thirties, it’s a master class in itself.