Mickey Rooney

The Black Stallion (1979)

The Black Stallion (1979)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, May 2019) As someone who’s indifferent or immune to horse stories, I don’t have much to say about The Black Stallion, except perhaps that I’m glad it exists for those who do love horses and horse stories. The plot, summarized as “a boy and his horse,” spends a lot of time detailing how they meet in dramatic circumstances involving a shipwreck, then speeds up to describe the events leading to a big race. But much of the film is not as much about narrative than it is about visual presentation, atmosphere and simply enjoying the growing bond between the human protagonist and the horse. Mickey Rooney shows up in a late-career supporting role, while director Carroll Ballard keeps a tight rein over the film’s visual aspect. The Black Stallion is a specific kind of film for a not-so-specific audience—and you can see the parallels here with other stories such as Black Beauty and War Horse.

The Human Comedy (1943)

The Human Comedy (1943)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, April 2019) As much as I don’t like saying it, there is something frankly awe-inspiring in the propaganda efforts led by Hollywood during World War II. Scarcely any single branch of the US military wasn’t covered by some sort of heroic film, and Hollywood took care to address the home-front as well, boosting morale and preparing the population for the sacrifices of war. The Human Comedy is an exemplary take on inward-directed propaganda, taking a look at a small California town as it experiences the war from afar … except for the young men who have left and may never come back. “Teenaged” Mickey Rooney stars in this paean to salt-of-the-Earth America as a telegraph messenger whose job becomes to relay news of deaths to unprepared families. There’s some sports, romance, drama and comedy to make this film more than just a propaganda effort. It does eventually become a meditative slice-of-life narrative of quasi-anthropological interest—and narrated by a dead character. I found it strangely reminiscent to that other existential small-town drama Our Town. This being said, it remains a propaganda film, and the overall message that “sacrifices must be made for the good of the nation” is hard to ignore throughout. The wartime material hasn’t aged as gracefully as what surrounds it: the poignant episodes involving the ensemble cast, the last few antagonists, the generous outlook on life. Rooney is quite good on a purely dramatic acting level (as opposed to other films where he plays the matinee idol) and that helps a lot in further grounding The Human Comedy as something more than a wartime message.

Captains Courageous (1937)

Captains Courageous (1937)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, April 2019) It’s amazing to see what earlier era considered perfectly acceptable entertainment for kids. 1937’s Captain Courageous, for instance, adapted an 1897 Rudyard Kipling novel and refashioned it as a coming-of-age story for a spoiled rich boy swept overboard and rescued by fishermen, who teach him much about fishing and life. Considering that it’s a story that includes the gruesome death of a main character by sagittal bisection, well, I’m not going to begrudge the current crop of kids’ films. Still, the result can be surprisingly enjoyable. Freddie Bartholomew turns in a good performance as the boy, with an endearing turn by curly-haired Spencer Tracy, and supporting roles for both Lionel Barrymore and Mickey Rooney. Tracy has the best role here, as a loquacious Portuguese fisherman who helps the initially detestable boy protagonist become a better person. One thing that holds up surprisingly well is the depiction of fishermen working the Grand Banks of Newfoundland—the footage of real fishermen at sea (in sailboats!) is a terrific time capsule, and the integration of water-tank footage with rear-projection special effects is often better than you’d expect. Despite a drawn-out ending, Captain Courageous does wrap up in a satisfying fashion, capping off a film that still works well today, albeit to an older audience.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, February 2019) I’m done apologizing for the way I can’t process Shakespearian dialogue. Fortunately, there’s enough in the 1930s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to get us into a surprisingly detailed early example of a fantasy film. As my attention wandered from the dialogue and plot, I was left to admire nearly everything else: The great sets and costumes, as well as the vivid imagination on display. Remove Shakespeare’s name from the credits, and there’s still enough here to make this a modest masterpiece of early fantasy filmmaking. Clearly, the filmmakers saw in Shakespeare the license to go wild (comparatively speaking) in terms of fantastic creatures, wondrous realism and other tropes of the genre what would be developed decades later. If tracing the evolution of fantasy moviemaking isn’t your thing, then maybe you’d be interested in a very early role for Mickey Rooney, or seeing Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney once more. Still, I’m more appreciative of the fantasy filmmaking aspect: there weren’t that many big-budget fantasy movies at that time, and this one fills an early slot in the development of the subgenre.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, July 2013) The problem with not having seen some classic movies is that after finally watching them, you wonder what took you so long.  Breakfast at Tiffany’s is essential viewing for at least two reasons: First up would be Audrey Hepburn, as beautiful and lively in this film as she has been in 1961.  Photos of her in her “little black dress” may be iconic, but you have to see the film to understand what made her a star.  The second reason to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s would be her character, Holly Golightly: As the incarnation of a newly-created character in American culture (the single young girl, enjoying life in the city), Holly would end up being the template for decades of similar characters all the way to Sex and the City’s lead characters.  The impact of the film is considerable even today, and that’s partly why it can’t be missed even today.  (The showcase party sequence still feels surprisingly modern.) Ironically, the film also deserves to be seen for the ways in which it undermines its own cultural legacy: Golightly may have been made an object of admiration and imitation by latter generations of single women, but the film fairly clearly underlines the desperation of her life, meddling with the mob and borderline-prostitution in order to make ends meet, her bubbly facade barely concealing a child-like mind barely able to cope with her current situation.  A read of Truman Capote original bittersweet novella only serves to highlight the very thin veneer of fun that the film puts over a rather sad situation: it’s hard to watch the film’s happy ending and feel that it won’t last very long.  (It’s also hard to watch the film and not cringe at Mickey Rooney’s crudely stereotypical portrayal of a Japanese character: While that kind of thing may have been acceptable half a century ago, it’s the one single thing that most damages and dates the film.)  For all of these reasons, and probably a few more than I’m forgetting, Breakfast at Tiffany’s remains essential viewing well into the twenty-first century.