William Powell

The Thin Man (1934)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-09-132023-03-18 Movie Review

(On DVD, September 2019) I’d heard very nice things about The Thin Man, but it took a long while before I was able to see it. For reasons I still haven’t figured out, it looks as if the Canadian distribution rights of the film are snarled in something—whenever it’s scheduled to play on Turner Classic Movies, the Canadian simulcast substitutes something else; the latest DVD is unavailable through official Canadian channels; and it never plays anywhere else on TV (trust me, I’ve been checking for the past three years). Ultimately, I gifted myself with a pricey gray-market import from amazon.com, and it was worth it: The Thin Man is indeed a charming mixture of complex whodunit, strong characters, married-couple romance and 1930s period feel. It features Nick and Norah Charles, a witty leisure-class married couple with a strong interest in alcohol, parties and recreational murder investigations. The plot is complex enough to be interesting, but the heart of the film is in the repartee between the leads, the unflappable Charles, the unusually strong Norah and the sophisticated comedy that comes from seeing such characters conduct their own investigations. It all naturally culminates around a dinner table when villains are unmasked and police rushes in to arrest the killer. Despite pushing eighty-five-years old, The Thin Man doesn’t feel old: While the script has its structural issues (serving far too long an introduction, only fully exploiting its own possibilities in its later half), much of the (barely) pre-code script adapted from a Dashiell Hammett novel contains great snippets of dialogue, delivered with debonair aplomb by William Powell and Myra Loy, with some assistance from Skippy the dog. Director W. S. Van Dyke takes a while to get things moving, but once he does it’s all straightforward to the end. The Thin Man may take a bit of work to see up here in the North, but it’s worth the trouble.

Movie Review

Ziegfeld Follies (1945)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-08-142023-03-09 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, August 2019) For fans of golden-age Hollywood musicals, it’s easy to get excited about Ziegfeld Follies from the get-go, as the names pile up the opening credits: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, Lena Horne, Lucille Ball in the same movie? Well, yes, but don’t expect a full narrative: As the opening number makes clear (featuring William Powell reprising his titular role in the Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld, looking down from paradise and wishing he could assemble another revue), this is a series of unconnected musical numbers and comic sketches featuring some of the era’s biggest stars. First number “Here’s to the Girls/Bring on the Wonderful Men” gets going with a bang, with Fred Astaire introducing Cyd Charisse leading to Lucille Ball in full grandiose Ziegfeld choreography, with a cute and very funny spoof from the deadpan Virginia O’Brien to wrap it up. The comedy numbers that follow have nearly all aged poorly—the comic style is broad, repetitive and laid on far too thick. The exception is the half-comedy, half-musical number “The Great Lady Has an Interview” in which a great-looking Judy Garland sings and charms her way through a satire of interviews—the number concludes with an extended comedy/dance/song tour de force from Garland. Still, there’s a lot more: Astaire features in three other numbers in the film, all of them quite different. “This Heart of Mine” starts on a conventional note with Astaire as a gentleman thief sneaking his way in a jewelry-heavy ball, where he dances with Lucille Bremer—but then the floor under them becomes a pair of treadmills and then a giant turntable and we see Astaire’s gift for innovative dance choreography take flight, leading to a cute conclusion. “Limehouse Blues” is something different, billed as a “dramatic pantomime” with a tragic storyline that takes Astaire (in yellowface, alas) through a vividly imagined Asian-inspired dance. But the kicker is “The Babbitt and The Bromide,” the sole golden-era joint performance by Astaire and Gene Kelly: the number plays up both the sincere admiration and the playful audience-imposed rivalry between the two screen legends. It’s everything such a joint performance between the two should be. For fans of more classical dancing/singing numbers, Esther Williams, Lena Horne and Kathryn Grayson all get standard numbers showing both their beauty and talent. A few other numbers and sketches round the film, perhaps the only other highlight being a half-funny comic sketch featuring Fanny Brice (one of Ziegfeld’s original 1910s girls) with Hume Cronyn (an actor still remembered in the 2010s for roles in 1980s films)—an astonishing duo. Disconnected, uneven but very impressive at times, Ziegfeld Follies is a real treat for golden Hollywood musical fans.

Movie Review

My Man Godfrey (1936)

ByChristian Sauvé 2019-02-032020-09-06 Movie Review

(On Cable TV, February 2019) There’s a good reason why My Man Godfrey comes up again and again on lists of classic 1930s comedies—it impeccably charming, and still oozes class and cool even eighty years later. The star of the show, of course, is William Powell, who’s unflappable as a homeless man plucked out of the scrap heap by a rich family on a dare, and who eventually becomes an all-knowing, all-capable butler to a quirky dysfunctional family. It’s a kind of suave character that he’d play many times later on, and you can see why. Carole Lombard is just as good in her own way as a flighty socialite, and they play off each other beautifully: neither would be as funny without the dynamic created by the other. While incredibly accessible to modern audiences, My Man Godfrey does remain a clear product of the mid-1930s—there’s an oblique reference to the Dionne quintuplets, for instance, and the film does start by taking for granted a social situation that would only exist in Depression-era America. Surprisingly enough for Depression-era Hollywood, there is a fair amount of class critique here (after all, the film does begin with a treasure hunt in which one of the collectibles in a homeless man), with the deck clearly stacked against the rich characters. (It can’t quite reconcile its populist intent with its escapism.) Interestingly enough, though, much of the humour in My Man Godfrey isn’t in the one-liners or crazy situation as much as it’s found in the coolness and eccentricity of the characters, with a little bit of physical comedy thrown in. The script is a bit rough around the edges—the beginning is a bit much to take, and the ending has pieces falling together so quickly that it becomes unconvincing—but the result is one great film, one that has aged gracefully as a terrific product of its era.