The Weekly Gravy #11

After Bambi, financial pressures and those of the war led Disney away from narrative features, opting instead for “package” films like Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, and Melody Time. The latter two in particular could be seen as “diet Fantasias,” since they contained ten and seven segments respectively. But Disney also prepared two films with two long segments apiece, both of which I’ll review as part of my gradual retrospective of the Disney canon. And the first of them was:

Fun and Fancy Free (1947) – ***

I thought I had seen Fun and Fancy Free a number of times as a child, but rewatching it, I think I might’ve only seen the “Mickey and the Beanstalk” sequence, at least multiple times, and possibly without the original narration by Edgar Bergen (with supporting cracks by Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd); in the 1960s, a version was prepared with narration by Prof. Ludwig Von Drake, and that might’ve been the version I was familiar with. But 20 years or more after the fact, I can’t really say for sure.

In any case, Fun and Fancy Free begins with Jiminy Cricket espousing his philosophy of not spending too much time worrying about what lies ahead and focusing on the present, which will help one to live “fun and fancy free.” (A scene where he goes over a newspaper full of despairing news still seems pretty damned relevant.) He finds himself in a child’s bedroom, encountering two melancholy-looking toys, a girl doll and a bear, and decides to lift their spirits by playing a record: the story of “Bongo,” as told by Dinah Shore.

“Bongo,” based on a Sinclair Lewis story (for those too young to appreciate Babbitt), tells about a little circus bear who’s acclaimed by audiences but exploited by his human handlers, and who finds himself drawn to the wilderness. One day, he’s able to make his escape, and initially loves his new-found freedom…until the reality of life in the wild sets in. But then he meets Lulubelle, a girl bear who seems to be as taken with him as he is with her, and all appears to be idyllic—until a rival appears in the form of the brutish Lumpjaw.

Lulubelle attempts to initiate a mating ritual with Bongo, but he knows nothing of the practice, and she accidentally secures Lumpjaw’s affections. Bongo, heartbroken, begins to leave. But then he sees a whole tribe of bears conducting the ritual, which centers around lovingly slapping each other, and he musters up the courage to confront Lumpjaw, send him packing (using some of his acrobatic abilities), and enjoy his happily-ever-after with Lulubelle. This loses the irony of the original story, where Bongo can’t adapt to the wilderness and finds a new circus to perform for, but that’s Disney for you.

As “Bongo” wraps up, Jiminy finds a party invitation in the room made out to Luana Patten (one of Disney’s child stars at the time), inviting her to Edgar Bergen’s house across the street. Jiminy heads over and finds Luana celebrating her birthday with Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd (and no other children, which seems rather odd). After some antics, Bergen starts narrating the story of “Mickey and the Beanstalk.”

It’s basically the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” only with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as farmers in “Happy Valley,” a once-lush idyll reduced to wretchedness after the magic harp (Anita Gordon) which preserved the valley was stolen by an obnoxious giant, Willie (Billy Gilbert). Nearly starving, Mickey decides to sell their milk cow (as much for money as to spare her from Donald’s murderous intentions), but he sells her for a few “magic beans,” which Donald angrily scatters, and they fall into a hole in the floor.

But that night, the moonlight strikes the beans and they sprout into an enormous beanstalk which elevates our sleeping heroes to Willie’s stratospheric domain, where they must outwit him—which is more difficult than his bumbling affect would suggest—and rescue the harp. In the end, despite Willie’s apparent death, he lifts the roof off Bergen’s home, looking for Mickey, and the film ends with him gingerly picking his way across the Hollywood landscape, taking the Brown Derby restaurant as a hat.

As I noted, it’s the second part of the film which really stirred my memories, from the harp’s songs “My, What a Happy Day” and “My Favorite Dream,” to Mickey slicing the bread and beans pathetically thin, to Donald manically devouring a “sandwich” of plates and silverware, to him and Goofy singing “Eat Until I Die” (a much shorter song than I remembered), to the beanstalk managing to lift our heroes hundreds, if not thousands, of feet into the air without waking them—probably the cleverest piece of animation in the whole film.

Nostalgia aside, however, “Beanstalk” might actually be the weaker of the two parts. It peters out somewhat towards the end, and makes too little use of the stars’ personalities; Donald gets the best moments, but he’s sidelined after the first half, while Goofy only really gets one good scenes, trying to retrieve his hat whilst on a huge block of gelatin. (Mickey is as much of a cipher as ever.) It’s pleasant enough, but in retrospect it’s not that strong.

“Bongo” isn’t amazing either, but it holds up better as a whole. Bongo’s travails at the circus feel a bit like a retread of Dumbo, but his return to the forest and his efforts to win Lulubelle’s hand are charming, with their romantic fantasy (set to the song “Too Good to Be True”) allowing for some sweetly surreal imagery. The whole device of the bears’ love-slapping doesn’t work quite as well, although the song “Say It With a Slap” has the authentic Disney flavor. But Bongo’s final confrontation with Lumpjaw is a solid climax, ending the piece on a reasonable note.

As for the linking material, it’s okay, but the scenes with Bergen, Patten, and the dummies feel dated (and take up too much time), while the scenes with Jiminy will only remind you of how much better Pinocchio is if you think about them for very long. But any of the first five films are far ahead of Fun and Fancy Free; the animation here is much simpler and flatter (it’s not bad, it’s just nowhere near as good), the music is slicker and poppier (there are some nice tunes, but nothing like the great Disney songs), and there’s just not the same magic as in Disney’s best works. It’s pleasant and it’s charming, and it’s certainly worth seeing, but it never becomes truly memorable.

Score: 73

Night of the Living Dead (1968) – ***½

It’s fitting that Night of the Living Dead is set on Spring Forward day, because it exists in a stylistic liminal space of its own, between the Z-grade horror films of the 50s and the graphic gore-fests which have defined the genre ever since, and between the cheesy melodramatics of so much genre cinema and a low-key verisimilitude which is all too rarely attempted, let alone attained, then or now. It’s a seminal film, more important than great, but for all its shortcomings pretty good.

You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Even I had, years ago (I was 14 or 15, I believe), and didn’t remember much but what I would’ve already gathered through cultural osmosis. In any case, you probably know the story: Barbra (Judith O’Dea) goes to visit her father’s grave with her smart-ass brother. “They’re coming to get you, Barbra.” And they are—the dead are rising and attacking the living all across the country. She ends up, almost catatonic with shock, at a farmhouse with Ben (Duane Jones), Harry (Karl Hardman), Helen (Marilyn Eastman), their ailing daughter (Kyra Schon), Tom (Keith Wayne), and Judy (Judith Ridley).

Things don’t turn out very well. But you probably knew that. They don’t turn out too hot in the sequels either.

I’m not sure how best to begin critiquing Night, not because it’s been so thoroughly analyzed over the 52 years since it opened—I’ve found plenty to say about comparably iconic films—but perhaps because so much of its influence is on a genre I’m no expert on, and so much of what I could say about its themes have been said with more clarity and authority elsewhere. So it’s the quality of the film itself that I’ll focus on.

And, for me, it’s inescapably uneven. It was made on a minuscule budget in and around Pittsburgh by a TV-commercial crew (though some of them are quite good—you can find them online), which results in some technical crudeness, but also allows for a blunt, affectless realism, greatly reinforced by the use of real local newsmen to craft radio broadcasts and telecasts covering the developing crisis. But these efforts are too often undermined by the amateurish performances, dodgy sound mixing, and the fairly bad score, made of public-domain tracks rather gracelessly slapped on top of the scenes, which is sporadically effective (especially at the very end), but more often overbearing and distracting.

George A. Romero’s direction is likewise exciting and unnerving at its best (especially the attempt to reach the gas pump), but clumsy and awkward at others. His enthusiasm is never in doubt, but his staging, especially in the action scenes, is just never quite as seamless as it should be. His script is arguably better (if not flawless), especially in how it handles the personality conflict between the coolly pragmatic Ben and the short-tempered Harry, and how the mild-mannered Tom gets caught between them.

It helps that Jones not only gives far and away the best performance in the film, but a very solid performance by any standard. Ben is as terrified of the zombies (never actually so described here—they’re more often called “ghouls” or “flesh eaters”) as anyone, but he’s level-headed, resourceful, and determined to see his plans through. Jones convinces us of Ben’s capability from the moment he appears, such that the other performances seem the weaker. Though much has been made over the casting of the black Jones in a role which calls for him to argue with and even physicality fight his white co-stars, Romero insisted Jones was simply the right actor for the job. He certainly was.

Aside from Hardman, who’s effectively obnoxious in a pathetic way (he also resembles Rob Corddry, which amuses me), none of the performances are really that noteworthy. O’Dea isn’t bad, but she’s let down by the decision to have Barbra in a virtual trance for most of the film, too shaken by the traumas of the first act to really take part in the story (and she doesn’t give an especially memorable performance within those limitations). It’s the more annoying when you learn that she was a much more active character in the original script, which the 1990 remake apparently used.

There are flashes of invention in the cinematography, some genuinely unsettling sound effects, solid makeup for the budget, and solid editing, especially in the very final scene, which is truly haunting and sobering. It advances the notion that the scariest part of the film isn’t the zombies themselves, but the chaos their appearance brings about, bringing out some of humanity’s best and most of its worst qualities. That, perhaps, is the greater part of its legacy.

Score: 79

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) – ****

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) – ***

It’s curious; in 1931 Fredric March played Jekyll and Hyde and won the Oscar. In 1941 Spencer Tracy played Jekyll and Hyde and wasn’t even nominated. But in 1960, they co-started in Inherit the Wind, and Tracy got the Oscar nomination instead of March. But it makes sense, because March’s Jekyll and Hyde is a masterful turn and Tracy’s never quite works, and because in Inherit the Wind, they were playing to their respective strengths—Tracy at playing the righteous Drummond, the voice of reason and tolerance, and March at playing the self-righteous Brady, the voice of blind faith and prejudice.

March excelled at playing characters full of fire, full of passion and intensity, which made him ideally suited to play both the idealistic, daring Jekyll and the bestial, amoral Hyde. Tracy was best at playing down-to-earth, thoughtful, upright characters, so he’s not bad as Jekyll, but he’s fatally unconvincing as Hyde. But we’ll come back to them, because there are quite a few other reasons why one version is a true classic of horror cinema and the other is just okay, another watchable but unmemorable film from MGM’s golden age.

The premise is, of course, one of the most famous in Western literature, and if Robert Louis Stevenson’s story is altered somewhat to make it more traditionally dramatic (in very similar ways in both films), I need only mention the basics. Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that the noble and base aspects of the human soul can be separated, and discovers the chemical means to do so. He transforms into Mr. Hyde, who is unburdened by any sense of decency, and who sets his sights on Ivy, a barmaid/prostitute whom Jekyll had attended to (and who had set her sights on him), as a way of relieving Jekyll’s frustration at the delay of his wedding to the virtuous Muriel (Bea in the 1941 version), whose father disapproves of Jekyll’s ideas.

Eventually, Jekyll loses the ability to control when he transforms into Hyde, resulting in the murders of Ivy (whom Jekyll had promised would be free of Hyde forever) and his prospective father-in-law, before Jekyll transforms into Hyde in front of the police and his friend, Dr. Lanyon, to whom Jekyll has already revealed his horrible secret. Hyde is shot, and he reverts to Jekyll, who has finally found peace in death.

The two films follow many of the same beats, but there are key differences from the outset. The 1931 film begins with a sequence shot in the first person, as Jekyll plays “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” on the organ before taking a carriage ride to a lecture hall, where he speaks on his theories about the different parts of the soul. The 1941 film begins with Jekyll and his fiancée in church, the service being disrupted by a man with implied brain damage who jeers the sermon, and whom Jekyll has taken to the hospital. It’s later, at a dinner party (which he’s late for, owing to his medical work), that he lays out his theory to a rather shocked audience.

These divergent openings not only betray the very different eras in which each film was made, but the very different directors who made them. The 1931 version was directed by Rouben Mamoulian, a stage director who moved into films at the start of the sound era and quickly made a name for himself as an innovator and stylist, and the whole film is filled with flair and cinematic invention, from the first-person camera at the start to the use of close-ups, editing, and production design to create a vision of Victorian London where sexual and emotional repression simmers underneath a decorous surface. Mamoulian was also working in the pre-Code era, allowing not only for a greater frankness but a freedom from overt moralizing.

The 1941 version, on the other hand, was directed by Victor Fleming, an MGM veteran whose best work (The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind) was less a reflection of his own vision than a combination of numerous creative voices, effective producers, and good luck. His work on Jekyll is competent, but it never shows the kind of life or invention that Mamoulian brought to his version—outside a couple of rather symbolic dream sequences which include Jekyll driving Ivy and Bea like horses and Ivy being inside a bottle of champagne which is (rather symbolically) opened. He was also working in the era of firm compliance with the Code, hence the film’s greater focus on religion, all the way down to Jekyll’s butler praying over his body at the very end; in the 1931 film, he simply mourns.

Each film’s depiction of Hyde likewise reflects its era. March’s Hyde is a true beast; his appearance suggests he’s a notch or two down the evolutionary scale from Jekyll, with his broad, simian face and feral physicality. March notably thanked his makeup artist, Wally Westmore, in his acceptance speech, and rightly so, as Westmore renders March totally unrecognizable. It’s the more impressive because, thanks to the use of special makeup and camera filters, we’re able to see March transform before our eyes in a manner which is still damned impressive to see nearly 90 years on. At first glance, his makeup might seem a bit goofy, but March’s performance makes it work beautifully.

What he does is make of Hyde almost a parody of Victorian propriety, from the moment he first sees his face in the mirror and cries “Free!” to the great moment when he steps out into the rain and relishes the feeling and taste of it. And when he pursues and later torments Ivy, it’s horribly unsettling because his possessiveness, his heartless manipulations, his utter contempt for her feelings ring so true. He’s not just unchecked by social graces but by human ones, and March never denies a moment of it. But he also shows us how much is simmering beneath Jekyll’s respectable surface, how much he’s chomping at the bit of society, how much he not only loves but lusts for his fiancée, a thwarted desire that fuels his willingness to transform into Hyde.

Tracy’s Hyde just can’t measure up, not least because the makeup isn’t on the same level. Jack Dawn’s work isn’t inept, but he seems mostly to give Tracy messier hair, darker eyebrows, and larger teeth. W. Somerset Maugham visited the set and famously asked which role Tracy was playing at the moment, while a particularly damning review at the time said Tracy’s Hyde was “not so much evil incarnate as ham rampant.” He’s not that bad, but aside from the scene where we see just how much he’s crushed Ivy’s spirit, he just seems like Spencer Tracy in heavy makeup. Tracy at least seems to having fun, even if he’d later claim it was his worst performance, but he never disappears into the role.

To be fair, he was reputedly frustrated by the choice to make the film a remake of the 1931 version rather than a new adaptation, thereby forcing him to mimic March instead of tailoring the role to his own abilities. But even as Jekyll, he never quite hits the mark; he doesn’t have March’s dash, so we never quite buy Ivy’s throwing herself at him, and he never suggests the kind of repression or frustration that allowed us to believe that March would not only strive to confront the very nature of the human soul, but embrace the chance to step outside the bounds of respectability.

Speaking of Ivy, the one part of the 1941 film which comes anywhere near the original is Ingrid Bergman’s performance, even if she isn’t quite as good as Miriam Hopkins in the 1931 film. Hopkins, to be fair, was able to explore Ivy’s sexuality much more openly, especially in the scene where Jekyll examines her after finding her tussling with a john, and after he recommends she not wear her garters so tightly, she laughingly slips them off and tosses them at his feet, before peeling off her hose and clothing and sliding under the covers, her nakedness barely concealed, her bare leg dangling off the edge of her bed, an image which hovers over the next minute or so of the film, searing itself into Jekyll’s memory. However, Bergman is still able to suggest quite a bit of sensuality, even through a somewhat dodgy accent (somewhere between Cockney and Scottish).

Hopkins also has the edge in the later scenes where Ivy is living under Hyde’s thumb, in the gilded cage that is the flat they share, the victim of his physical and emotional abuse, though Bergman holds her own. Hopkins is just able to suggest a level of utter despair, a tragic sexuality and desperation, especially in the scene where she appeals to Jekyll, which goes beyond what Bergman was given room to do. Hopkins is brilliant and heartbreaking, but Bergman is quite good, and does a fine job of playing against type; she had originally been cast as the high-born Bea.

Speaking of Muriel/Bea, she’s a much less compelling figure than Ivy in both versions, but Rose Hobart in the 1931 film is more effective than Lana Turner in the 1941 version. Turner had originally been cast as Ivy, more in keeping with her reputation for playing “bad girls,” but swapped roles with Bergman at the latter’s request. But where Bergman was a versatile enough actress to pull off the switch, Turner’s Bea is fairly colorless, and has a fatal lack of chemistry with Tracy (the 21-year age gap between them doesn’t help). Hobart’s Muriel, on the other hand, suggests she struggles with her own longings for Jekyll, but restrains them in the name of filial piety; a major theme in the 1931 film which doesn’t really factor into the 1941 film is their attempts to get her father to agree to an earlier wedding date, as he wants them to wait until the date of his own anniversary…and their libidos are growing impatient.

This is communicated in one of the 1931 version’s most startling moments, as Jekyll and Muriel sit in her garden, looking into each other’s eyes as they discuss their love for one another, and they look directly into the camera, first in a waist shot, then in closeups of their faces, and finally in closeups of their eyes, creating a sense of intimacy which is erotically unsettling. It’s a stunning moment for both Mamoulian and cinematographer Karl Struss, and there’s nothing like it in the later film.

Both versions were actually nominated for their cinematography, but Struss’ work on the original is far more impressive than Joseph Ruttenberg’s adequate but relatively standard work on the later film (he probably got on partly because there were ten nominees for B&W Cinematography that year), for the scenes already mentioned and for the way he captures the foggy mystery of London and how his camera embodies Jekyll’s restless spirit, as in the remarkable scene where he psychs himself up to take the transformative elixir for the first time—which makes further use of that fascinating first-person camera.

The 1941 version was also nominated for its editing (which isn’t especially memorable) and for Franz Waxman’s score (which is fairly good). Neither category existed when the earlier film was made; it has no original score, but it has some fantastic editing, including wipes which pause partway across the frame to give us a kind of early split-screen and this and dissolves like the scene with Ivy’s dangling. It’s also well-paced, packing more story and character into its running time despite actually being the shorter film (96 minutes to the later film’s 112). It could’ve been nominated for Hans Dreier’s amazing sets, however (Jekyll’s laboratory is especially impressive), and I don’t know why it wasn’t.

I also don’t know why it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture or Director, given that it was also nominated for Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein’s fine screenplay (especially since four of the Picture nominees, including the winner, Grand Hotel, had no other nominations), a script which combines Stevenson’s original novella with the romantic elements and other narrative touches originated in the highly popular stage adaptation, telling a classic, resonant story with brisk sincerity. Indeed, the script was the basis for the 1941 version’s script, adapted by John Lee Mahin—which only shows just how much of the earlier film’s greatness is in the acting and filmmaking. But all this also just shows how the Academy can get it very right and very wrong at the same time.

But all these years later, what matters are the actual films. And one is a true classic, a film which holds up as well as a film of its vintage can, still possessed of the power to induce dread by showing just how evil people can be. The other is okay on its own terms, but given the choice, why would you settle for that? One version understands both the good and evil in humanity. The other merely pays it lip service.

Score: 92 (1931)/69 (1941)