Marked Woman (1937)

Living in a culture that glorifies stupidity, I am always happy to watch brains win over brawn. In the case of Marked Woman (1937), Mary (Bette Davis) is a party girl at Club Intimate (I don't need to elaborate anymore do I). She's a smart dame but chose the hapless job because it makes a lot of money. Money which Mary uses to fund her young sister's college education. Club Intimate has been taken over by Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli), a mobster with a toe dipped into pretty much every seedy and profitable business in the city. Vanning sees that Mary is smart. He tells her so as do other characters. What Mary has is the ability to see things for what they are and see where they are going and to keep herself out of trouble. Vanning is the source of trouble but his major flaw is that he's blood hungry and stupid. When he buys Club Intimate, he asks what the word "Intimate" means.  Why don't they just call it what it is? Just say it in English! Vanning's got a lot of brawn. He muscles and kills his way through everything with the help of his even dumber goons. But this time he's met his match. Because Mary's got brains and so does the District Attorney (Humphrey Bogart). This is a great film, one that really showcases Bette Davis' natural spunk and draws out a softer yet still hard-nosed performance out of Bogie. 

The Petrified Forest (1936)

The Petrified Forest (1936) is an English major's delight. For those of use who use literature and poetry as a filter through which we see the world. Sometimes we feel isolated when everyone around us takes life as is and doesn't try to see some other type of meaning. So I can sympathize with Gabrielle (Bette Davis) and her plight. She stuck in the middle of the desert working at a Gas Station/Bar-B-Que Joint. She reads the poetry of Francois Villon and dreams of going to Bourges, France where her like-minded mother is from and currently resides. Gabrielle is surrounded by people who are perfectly content with what fills their lives, even if it is clouds of dust from a sandstorm. It's just her luck that a wandering novelist, Alan (Leslie Howard), stumbles upon Gabrielle's oasis, hungry for food and intellectual stimulation. They find themselves in each other and in the poetry and literature they love, while everyone else around them is pretty oblivious to what they share. After Alan goes on his way, criminal on the lam, Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) brings the couple back together in a way that only a true literature-phile could appreciate. Oh this is a film I can watch over and over again. Anyone who has big dreams but is stuck in their situation due to whatever circumstances can see themselves in Gabrielle. What a way to kick off this marathon!

Doesn't Bogie look a little Ben Affleck here?

Hail, Hail, Euphoria! by Roy Blount Jr.

Hail, Hail, Euphoria!

Presenting the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup

The Greatest War Movie Ever Made

by Roy Blount Jr. 

HarperCollins/It Books

9780061808166

October 2010

$19.99 US

I recently read a review that claimed this book was a scene-by-scene look at the classic Marx Bros. movie Duck Soup (1933). First of all, that reviewer must have jumped to that conclusion and written the review before reading the actual book because his statement couldn't be further from the truth. Hail, Hail, Euphoria! is more than just a book about a movie. It's also about the lives of the Marx Bros., Leo McCarey (the director of the movie), the cultural and historical circumstances that allowed for the movie's inception, the methods of comedic style employed by each of the brothers and lots of other fun tidbits and trivia. This is a book that any classic film fan would love to devour and it's a lot of fun to read. Roy Blount Jr., of NPR fame, has a natural sense of humor that lends itself to writing a book about a funny movie made by some funny guys.

The book is both structured and structureless. While it's not a scene-by-scene play on the movie, it does follow the flow of the movie discussing scenes in the order in which they appear. The text flows with information stopping along the way to look closely on a scene before it moves on. There are no chapters and not a lot of breaks. The book is relatively short, 145 pages, and you could easily read it in one sitting. Make sure when you start it that you are near a computer because there is a YouTube clip, an online radio recording of Harpo plus a few other links you'll need to check out before you can proceed.

The book's subtitle claims that Duck Soup was the greatest war movie ever made. While this is never really explained in the book, the author does give us various insights into why Duck Soup was an effective anti-war film and why it's a good example of the time period it represents. What I liked about the book is that reading it was like going on a treasure hunt, finding goodies along the way including: links to various clips (you have to type the URLs out on your computer because no you can't click on the page!), the reason why the book is called Hail, Hail, Euphoria! instead of Freedonia!, the meaning of the phrase "duck soup", etc.

Duck Soup is not my favorite Marx Bros. movie but I do enjoy parts of it (mirror scene anyone?). What bothers me about it is how it treats war. Basically, war is a huge joke. Two countries go to battle for ridiculous reasons and people die as a result. It hits a little too close to home. So maybe, in that way, it is the greatest war movie ever made because it can make people think about the absurdity of war in a way that no other film has done: through comedy.

Make sure you stop by On Point Radio and listen to the podcast interview with the author, Roy Blount Jr.

Special thank you to HarperCollins, who is my second favorite publisher after the company I work for currently, for sending me this book for review. They are an amazing powerhouse of book publishing and they come out with some great books!

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Other reviews of the book:

Classic Film Freak
Classic Movies