Okay...

This is just fucking cool.

Wish I was Here

Kyiv in winter. So Awesome.

[Thanks to Flickr user Stuck in Customs]

Our Dancing Daughters Revisited

Long-time readers--if there are any--will note that I have fawned over 1928's Our Dancing Daughters (and to a lesser extent, its two pseudo-sequels) more than a few times in the past. Thus far, however, I've not really offered any detailed comment on the picture, at least not beyond the usual obtuse references. Now that I have seen the picture for a second time, I think it's time I gave it a proper review.

Our Dancing Daughters revolves around the romantic foibles of three well-to-do young ladies -- Diana (Joan Crawford), Beatrice (Dorothy Sebastian) and Ann (Anita Page). Diana and Ann have both set their sights on Ben Blaine (Johnny Mack Brown), but Ann manages to snatch him up first, much to Diana's chagrin. Melodrama ensues.

Diana is very much a character of the era -- the seemingly wild flapper who is actually quite virtuous. Ann, meanwhile, is a dipsomaniac and a gold-digger, interested in Ben for his money as much as his good looks. Of the three girls, however, it is Beatrice who is the most interesting. She is a faithful friend to Diana and very much in love with a dashing young fellow named Norman (Nils Asther), but at the same time she is haunted by certain misdeeds in her past (it isn't revealed precisely what these misdeeds are, but we may infer with some confidence). Beatrice does marry Norman, although her troubled past causes some difficulty for the married couple. While it's true that the primary focus of the picture is the Diana-Ben-Ann love triangle, the Beatrice sub-plot is intriguing in its own right (it's unfortunate that it was not fleshed out a little more, I think). In any event, Diana and Ben do eventually wind up together, after Ann is removed from the picture by means of a drunken tumble down a flight of stairs.

With all of that said, the question remains -- is it a good picture? In all honesty, it probably depends on your criteria. As you might imagine from the synopsis offered above, Our Dancing Daughters is a bit thin in terms of character development and plot. On the other hand, it's certainly a well-photographed picture, and the art direction is top-notch -- everything from the set design to the costumes is absolutely lovely, oozing with 1920s awesomeness. Indeed, the very fact that it is such a product and such a relic of its time is what makes Our Dancing Daughters so interesting to watch (notwithstanding the fact that it features three of my favorite actresses). Perhaps it isn't a classic masterpiece of American cinema, but I enjoyed watching it, and I imagine most others interested in the era would enjoy it as well. If nothing else, Our Dancing Daughters must rank highly on my list of guilty pleasures.

Rain (1932)

Released in 1932 by United Artists and directed by Lewis Milestone, Rain stars Joan Crawford as Sadie Thompson, a woman with a decidedly checkered past. Opposite her is Walter Huston in the role of Reverend Alfred Davidson, a stalwart Christian fundamentalist who is hellbent on saving Sadie's soul (whether she likes it or not).

There's rather a lot to like about this picture. Although it dates from a period in film history when talking pictures were really only just beginning to hit their stride, Rain is largely able to avoid many of the problems that seem to plague many movies of the era -- the acting is hardly stiff, the sound quality is quite good (for 1932, at any rate), and the camera work is anything but static. Indeed, Lewis Milestone's camera work is one aspect of the film that really stands out -- in addition to some shots that suggest the art house more than the studio-owned movie theater, Milestone incorporates some unusually long tracking shots (at least for the time) even one instance where the camera completely circumnavigates the action (an almost cliched cinematographic trope these days, but perhaps fairly innovate for 1932). I imagine that being free of studio constraints afforded Milestone a bit of creative latitude -- it has to be said that United Artists was the closest thing there was to an indie-film distributor in the era of the studio system. None of this might be particularly groundbreaking, but I have rarely seen such techniques in pictures from the time, which allows Rain to truly stand out from the crowd.

Beyond all that, Rain is also an exceptionally well-written picture. The screenplay is based on a 1923 stage play of the same name, which was in turn based on the 1921 short story "Miss Thompson" by W. Somerset Maugham, which was later retitled "Rain" (remember that bit of trivia for your next A/V Club meeting). Not only does the picture deal with such themes as moral ambiguity and religious hypocrisy -- two of my favorites, as you might have guessed -- but it does with a pair of genuinely interesting and well-developed characters. The only drawback is that many of the more sordid elements of the plot are only hinted at or alluded to (but such, unfortunately, is the nature of 1930s Hollywood).

More than anyone else, Joan Crawford is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the strong screenplay. Sadie Thompson is much more profound character than the majority of characters that Joan played during her career -- this role certainly has Janie Barlow and Crystal Allen beat by miles, to say nothing of that one movie with the ice-skating -- and she actually does a hell of a job, particularly during Sadie's fits of rage at Reverend Davidson. In all honesty, I think Joan's Sadie Thompson gives her Mildred Pierce a run for its money.

Of course, fanboyism should not keep me from giving Walter Huston his due. Walter is great as the sanctimonious Reverend Alfred Davidson, looking and sounding every bit the seemingly self-possessed bible-beater. Towards the end of the movie, when the Reverend gives in sinful temptation, Walter metamorphoses from pious preacher to creepy lecher extremely well, and all with a shift in facial expression. Once again, a hell of a performance.

Yet in spite of all this, Rain was a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release. Joan took this reaction to heart, sticking to safer and more accessible roles for the remainder of the decade. Truly unfortunate, since Rain does demonstrate that she could be quite an actress if given decent material. Fortunately for posterity, however, the picture has attained much greater renown today, and is generally counted among Joan's best pictures.

For classic movie junkies, it's definitely worth checking out. Movie lovers in general might also want to give it a go, if only to see how it stacks up against other movies of the era. And if you don't have TCM or don't want to fork over the cash for a DVD, you can even watch Rain in its entirety on the Internet Archive. It turns out that the internet is good for something other than porn, after all!

A Short Message.

I'm willing to bet most of you have seen this, but just in case you haven't: