Classic Film: for the discussion of great cinema

OK, I was late again.  It's a failing; I keep running afoul of Solnick's Law (Public Transit is early if you're late and late if you're early), but my coffee, though decaf these days, still must have milk, and I ran out this morning.  Yeah, yeah.  So I missed the pre-movie entertainment and the early scenes  Fortunately, 1) I've seen this before, and 2) I read more Rebecca-esque novels in my youth than was strictly good for me.  Possibly, so had the audience.  The audience laughed at every overwrought line, every appearance of Mrs. Danvers, and the Favelle blackmail attempt.  If one was not watching the screen, one would swear one had wandered into a comedy.

Have I mentioned that I hate reviews that review the audience?  All right.

The seacoast and woods were almost entirely rear projection; in some places this is more obvious than in others.  Other than that, the photography was crisp and lit well (of course; it was a movie).  The class stuff...was noticeable.  (It only starts with the insanely long dinner table; there is also the matter of everyone expecting her to know the arcane rules of the house.)  I remember there being fairly broad hints of Rebecca's *ahem* strong appetite for sex in the book (Forever Amber, which was racy for the '40s, came out in '44); this is reduced in the movie to dark declarations 4 days into the first marriage and Mrs. Danvers.  There is also the fact that the Second Mrs. de Winter does not have a first name that anyone utters.  Unlike Rebecca.  Whose death in the book was relatively straightforward and in the movie is sort of um misdirected.

Lord Sir Laurence Olivier was dishy, even though there was always a sense that he was Holding Back.  The character, Maxim de Winter, as someone in the movie suggested, could use a light sedative.  Joan Fontaine moused around until the scene where she tells Mrs. Danvers "I am Mrs. de Winter now" (and the audience applauded) and then develops a fighting spirit, the better to keep Max from the gallows cold.

In North by Northwest, Hitchcock indicated consummation by a train entering a tunnel.  In Rebecca, Max and Nameless, fully dressed, embrace and kiss hungrily before one of those human-high fireplaces--with a fire going.

Oh baby.

[ETA:  Revised for intelligibility and sense-making.  I'd sleep on it, but then I'd forget things like the last-stage-of-the-Kane-marriage-dinner-table.  This is perhaps why I did not become a theatre critic.]

 I got into '30s movies by happenstance; there was a glut of ghosted autobiographies of that era's stars, the magazines Modern Screen and Photoplay on rainy afternoons, and a paperback copy of the life of Louis B. Mayer.  (I did not know then the autobiographies were ghostwritten.)  I became fascinated by the rich descriptions of these movies, and when I could, I sought them out on TV, although some, like Grand Hotel, were only shown at 3:00 AM.

(Sorry; I keep doing that.)

Eventually I noticed that the films of the Depression had, er, problems.  There was the relegation of actors of color to servant roles.  There was a certain amount of handwaving around class.  There was the way women's roles were contorted into specific shapes.  (Other issues exist, but this is not a term paper.)

OK.  The Women.  Certain things were dictated by the 1934 Production Code; a number of movies have their characters divorce, but the divorce disappears when the original characters get back together, or find themselves in court the day the decree is supposed to go into effect.  Similarly, Joan Crawford's character's parting shot is occasioned by the inability to say 'bitch' on screen.

Where was I?  Oh, right.  The Women is fast-paced in the manner of classic screwball comedy; actually the slower portions meant to show emotion are pretty snappy.  The sound was slightly muddy, which meant that when the lines were layered over each other, they were unintelligible.  There's a fashion show in the middle (because in a movie about women, there must be fashion), in color, with some items that would still look good now, and some that  would require a funeral pyre to destroy even the memories of ugly.  

Then there's the ending.

Which we can spoil now.

A choir?  As she runs to meet offstage Steven?  And the look on her face...

By the way, even though there are no men appearing on-screen, this movie would still fail the Bechdel test.

Links laid on in the morning; also, slightly edited for clarity because I know better than to write at 1 am...