Walter Huston

  • The Star Witness (1931)

    The Star Witness (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) Warner Brothers has interesting roots as a company — while other studios in the early sound era were going for literary adaptations, period costumes and horror movies, it was focusing on then-contemporary gangster films and urban dramas. It’s in this light that The Star Witness becomes more interesting, as a permutation on familiar themes as it focuses on the drama surrounding an old man’s testimony as a witness to a murder. The story isn’t anything we can’t readily predict, but there’s some interest in seeing the film as an exemplar of another time — organized crime was a pressing concern in the early 1930s, and the film does have some propagandist intent in telling witnesses that there is nobility in testifying against crime. (Even though the message is tinged with anti-immigrant xenophobia.)  Walter Huston shows up as an idealistic district attorney. The Star Witness is not that good of a movie—the thinness of the film becomes apparent even at a running time of barely more than an hour—but it can be interesting in a time-capsule kind of way… or (if you’re more cynical) a suggestion that things don’t really change.

  • Abraham Lincoln (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2021) It doesn’t take a lot of knowledge about early Hollywood history to understand D.W. Griffith’s importance in the evolution of American cinema: He was one of the pioneers who moved his troupe out west from Fort Lee to Los Angeles, thus precipitating the creation of Hollywood as we knew it. His two best-known films are acknowledged silent cinema landmarks, even if the most reprehensible of them presents the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. But D.W. Griffith’s place in the sun did not survive the arrival of sound in movies: He only made two sound features, and when they’re compared to other films of the era, they definitely show Griffith being overtaken by younger directors more comfortable with the audiovisual possibilities of cinema. Griffith’s innovation in putting together feature-length films and innovating the grammar of cinema was long Hollywood convention by 1930, and the step back in cinematography due to the cumbersome nature of sound-recording equipment is quite obvious here. The camera shots are largely static, filmed like a play rather than the kind of more dynamic camera movements that even contemporaries were using at the time. As far as the portrayal of Lincoln goes, the film is more entertaining early on, as it shows Lincoln as a young man living a tumultuous life than later on when Lincoln becomes a quasi-saintly figure doomed to assassination after freeing the slaves. Not being a Lincoln scholar, I’m told that the film gets more wildly inaccurate as it goes on. But historical accuracy takes a back-seat to the rough technical aspects of the production: ironically, the fact that it’s a talking picture means that our appreciation of the film is more based on decades of sound movies rather than the short period during which silent films were the norm. The melodramatic style, stilted dialogue and stiff filmmaking technique don’t really help in making the result any more interesting. Walter Huston is interesting in the titular role, but the film itself is a chore to get through even at barely more than a 90-minute running time. There’s a sobering thought that by 1930, there were still Civil War veterans who could watch the film, but from 2021 the result is of historical interest far more than straight-up film entertainment.

  • Gabriel Over the White House (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) Considering that I’ll watch almost any movie dealing with the American presidency, having a look at a film called Gabriel Over the White House was a given (or would have been had my DVR properly recorded it the first two times I tried). But it’s fair to say that I really didn’t know what I was getting into with the film. The first half-hour is interesting enough — we’re first shown the presidency in the middle of the Great Depression (itself a drastic change from the trappings of the presidency introduced over the years), with a shockingly cynical president (played by Walter Huston) clearly enjoying his corruption of the office. But one car accident later, the president finds himself between life and death. Visual clues hint at divine intervention in his recovery, especially when, overnight, he becomes a presidential scholar and righteous moral crusader. So far so good if you’re looking for a comforting fantasy of moral redemption in the White House. It’s also a film notable for confronting the issues of the Great Depression at a time when Hollywood tried to avoid the entire issue — we’re reminded of the employment crisis, the prevalence of racketeering, starving farmers, the prohibition and foreclosures. But then—whew—, the film takes a huge right turn into benevolent dictatorship, with armed police forces conducting deadly military raids on racketeers (although that happens after racketeers machine-gun the White House). The film is absolutely supportive of this fascist takeover of the United States, showing how the divinely inspired president’s good ideas (including familiar things such as a federal police or an air force, neither of which existed at the time) lead the world toward utopia, with the villains being summarily executed and the Washington Covenant showing enlightenment to humanity. As director Gregory La Cava’s film ends with a paean to the fascist protagonist, calling him “the greatest man who ever lived,” we’re left blinking in amazement. The relevance of the film today couldn’t be clearer, with Gabriel Over the White House being an amazing demonstration of the traditionally thin line between American politics and Christian crusading. It’s a weird, weird fantasy, the likes of which would now be dead on arrival from any major American studio. It’s frighteningly revelatory about the state of American political thinking in the 1930s, as the United States was not that far away from the overall European slide into authoritarianism that eventually led to World War II — the gulf between this film’s third act and Triumph of the Will is not that large. It does make Gabriel Over the White House a borderline-reprehensible film, but a fascinating object of study even now. As the old misattributed saw goes: “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

  • Dodsworth (1936)

    Dodsworth (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2019) Much of the interest in exploring classic films is not only experiencing solid movies that have wowed past audiences, but measuring them against our own modern standards, and seeing how some of them still make an impression even through decades of changes. Dodsworth is a more interesting case than many—it clearly reflects the standards of the 1930s, but it still manages to surprise through some unusual character work that goes beyond clichés and easy stereotypes. The story starts once a small-city mogul sells his company, with the hazy goal of doing nothing for the rest of his life, spending time with his wife and visiting faraway destinations. That’s already an interesting character (even though he’s warned by others that he won’t like a loafing retirement), but the situation becomes even more complex once his wife makes it clear that she does not approve of that plan. As is often the case, retirement doesn’t suit the couple, who steadily drift apart in many ways (none as simplistic as “he wants this, she wants that”—these are multifaceted characters, and so are their conflicts) until a mutual breakup that ends up confirmed by the end of the film. Walter Huston stars as the title character with Ruth Chatterton taking on the ingrate role of his wife, and small appearances from Paul Lukas and David Niven as suitors. Some 1930s tropes are indissociable from Dodsworth—the romance of long-distance cruises as the best way to cross the Atlantic, the details about the early decades of the automobile industry, the lingering remnants of the European class system as intertwined with the aristocracy, and the cut-and-tried gender roles of an American marriage: There’s a supposedly playful line said from the wife to her husband, “Will you beat me?” that betrays a whole lot. At the same time, there’s no clear gender stereotype here between the husband wanting to step away from workaholism, and the wife gladly lusting after other men. The characters are strong enough to avoid clichés, and I have some respect for the way Dodsworth makes the wife a gradual villain without quite becoming misogynistic. (Viewers are clearly meant to identify with the fun-loving husband rather than the wife increasingly revealed to be an arriviste.)  There’s also something intriguing in the way director William Wyler ensures that the story—adapted from a theatrical play, even if that filiation is nearly obscured by the film’s globetrotting settings—makes upper-class ennui relatable by asking itself what would happen if people would be free to do that they wanted without artificial obstacles, and letting things play out. There are plenty of timeless lessons here even for modern couples, and it’s such things that ensure that Dodsworth remains relevant and interesting even after eight decades.

  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

    The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2018) I was impressed to see how, even seventy years later, there is still such a strong narrative drive to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and how well it balances character development with its plot. It helps that the film quickly sets up its core characters. Humphrey Bogart is fine as a downtrodden American willing to do whatever it takes to barely survive in Mexico, but the film’s highlight is Walter Huston (the director’s father) as an immensely likable grizzled prospector. Meanwhile, Tim Holt does serviceable work at the character who is tempted by various moral choices. With such good characters, the plot comes alive as our protagonist find a way out of a backwater Mexican town to explore a mountain for gold. That they find it so quickly only sets up more difficult choices later on, as gold fever grips the characters and paranoia sets in. Notable for having been shot on location, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is one of those (surprisingly rare) black-and-white movies that I wish had been shot in colour, given how much importance the setting takes. In other areas, however, the film hasn’t aged a bit: the dialogue is still sharp, the plot generally unpredictable and the actors do fine work with the dramatic arc they’re given. Writer/director John Huston did exceptional work and the result still speaks for itself.