The Illusion of Depth

Don't panic. I'm not suddenly veering off on a tangent and embarking on a spontaneous Coen Brothers season, although yes, they did make a film called O Brother, Where Art Thou?  in 2000 .  It's a very good film, and one that we screened exactly two years ago .  The Coen Brothers were paying homage to the film that I am about to screen. Most of you probably know by now that our current film series ( Depression. Comedy. ) celebrates films made during the very difficult years of the Great Depression. At a time when people had no hope and no security, film-makers made the conscious decision to be a positive force in society. They didn't hit people over the head with heavy-handed parables of social ills and injustice (they didn't have to - everyone was living through it; they knew exactly how bad everything was). People went to the movies to feel better . But don't just take my word for that. Sullivan's Travels is a comic film-maker's apologia . It tells the...

In looking back over the many films I have selected for these screenings over the last nine(!) years, it occurs to me that I have yet to show anything featuring an actress/singer who, in her day, was one of the most popular and beloved performers in the world. At the peak of her fame she was the most highly-paid actress in Hollywood. Millions of adoring fans around the world fell in love with her screen persona as well as her monumental singing voice. She had made her first film appearance in the mid 1930s when she was still a young teenager, but that phenomenal singing voice belied her youth, and her legions of adoring fans worldwide got to watch her grow up and enter adulthood over the course of the films she made in the late 30s and early 1940s.  The prospect of her first ever onscreen kiss made nationwide headlines and prompted a Gone With the Wind -style search to cast the lucky young man who would get to be at the other end of that kiss. It's fair to say that she wasn't ...

1934 was a very important year in Hollywood. The Hays Office production code came into full effect, radically altering the tone and content of films produced. Prohibition had been officially repealed in December of 1933, allowing alcohol to be sold legally once again, and President Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies were starting to make themselves felt, putting the first dents in the horror of the Great Depression. It Happened One Night had been released in cinemas, capturing the hearts and minds of the movie going public, while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers teamed up for The Gay Divorcee; the first time they received top billing together. (They had previously - and memorably - appeared together as the "comic relief" in Flying Down to Rio , released in December of 1933.) All of these events were important, to be sure. But the most significant event for Hollywood that year was probably something that would have gone unnoticed by almost everyone at the time. It w...

In last week's It Happened One Night , Walter Connolly features in a supporting role as Claudette Colbert's millionaire father.  Our next film is a rare starring role for Walter Connolly, who was most commonly seen in supporting roles throughout the 1930s (he eventually died in 1940 at the age of 53). In Fifth Avenue Girl , Connolly plays Timothy Borden, a self-made millionaire living in a palatial Fifth Avenue mansion with his wife and two children, along with a full bevy of service staff. Although he is technically living the American Dream, Borden is unhappy. His factory is losing money and facing crippling tax bills. His workers are threatening to strike if their demands are not met. His wife has been stepping out with other men, his kids are a pair of layabouts and his secretary is the only one who seems to have remembered his birthday. Feeling sorry for himself, he follows his butler's advice and takes a walk in Central Park, where he meets Ginger Rogers, a recently-...

When I launched this new series a couple of weeks ago, I shared my very personal reasons for doing so and received a variety of responses - overwhelmingly positive - for which I am very grateful. It would seem that I am not the only one who feels that we could all use some more joy in our lives right now. Just this morning, the BBC has run an article about a giant pink monster that appears to have inadvertently tapped into a global sense of despair and existential horror. You know the world is in bad shape when the entire internet decides to unburden its collective psyche onto a sock puppet.   I'm afraid I don't have a sock puppet to offer anyone at the moment, but perhaps you'll accept a red panda eating a sandwich...? I know we all have our own coping mechanisms when things get really bad. Some people talk to muppets, some join support groups, and others take up knitting. Personally, I'm going to screen It Happened One Night . It Happened One Night is a landmark fil...