The Summer of Old Movies

Stage Door. Starring Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. 1937. Based on a play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kauffman.

Stage Door was another excellent old movie. It was odd and complex with compelling acting and some moral ambiguity. The play was set in The Footlights Club, a boarding house in New York for aspiring actresses. It centered around the moral quandries of a blonde ingenue, played by Ginger Rogers, who must decide whether or not to compromise her principles by getting involved with a big producer who has taken an interest in her, and her roommate, played by Katherine Hepburn, who is an heiress trying to make a name for herself by forsaking the family fortune and becoming an actress. Both Hepburn and Rogers were wonderful actresses with fascinating and nuanced characters who were perhaps the greatest when they were bickering wittily. Hepburn seems wise and knowing in any role, so her performance as a somewhat sheltered rich girl setting out on her own was complicated by her amazingly high status and self-confidence. Some of her actions seemed both altruistic and inexplicable at the same time. She was clever and gruff and not entirely lovable but wonderful nonetheless. Notable aspects of this movie include a large female ensemble among whom are Lucille Ball and Ann Miller. Also, compared to Ann Miller, Ginger Rogers appears to be a suprisingly bad dancer. It would have been wonderful to see the two of them dance more, but I suppose this show wasn't a musical so that's a little much to expect.

To Have and Have Not. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. 1944. Based on a novel by Ernest Hemmingway.

I must say I was a bit confused when the first 10 minutes of this movie were all about fishing. Hemmingway, fishing: did I really care? But then Lauren Bacall asked "Have you got a light" and I was hooked. She is an amazingly powerful actress and was delightful and compelling throughout the film. It turns out it's actually about the French Resistence in the Carribbean in WWII, which is much more interesting than just fishing. And the film is notable for the moment in which Lauren Bacall says "You do know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow." Also, Bacall has an amazingly deep voice, especially when she's singing. Which makes the film oddly homoerotic, although I'm sure it's not intended to be. Bogie plays the captain of a small fishing boat, an American drafted to assist the Free French smuggle a Resistance fighter into Martinque. He happens to fall in love with Bacall along the way after he catches her stealing a mutual acquaintance's wallet. They make a great team, and more or less sail off into the sunset to fight for the French together. Also on the DVD is a Warner Brothers cartoon called Bacall to Arms which spoofs the movie and is weird (and really disturbing) but kind of fun.

The Maltese Falcon Starring Humphrey Bogart. 1941. Based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett.

Honestly, I didn't like The Maltese Falcon nearly as much as I enjoyed The Big Sleep. I didn't find the lead female, Mary Astor, particularly interesting or attractive. She seemed neither dangerous nor seductive, but rather seemed manipulative and frumpy. I wasn't convinced by the attraction between her and detective Sam Spade at all. Bogart was great, and he looked significantly younger, but even his character wasn't quite as interesting as in The Big Sleep. The famous Sam Spade would have been more exciting if there were more attention to the relationship between him and his partner or even him and his secretary. But this is the classic example of film noir, and as such was a good, educational film to watch. I will now appreciate the queer spoofs of it even more, and of course the scene with Peter Lorre and his cane was fantastic. He and the Fat Man were delightfully queer and strange.