Where Are My Children?

Review #1993: Where Are My Children?

Cast: 

Tyrone Power Sr (District Attorney Richard Walton), Helen Riaume (Mrs. Richard Walton), Marie Walcamp (Mrs. William Carlo), Cora Drew (Walton's Housekeeper), Rena Rogers (Lillian - Housekeeper's Daughter), A.D. Blake (Roger - Mrs. Walton's Brother), Juan de la Cruz (Dr. Herman Malfit), and C. Norman Hammond (Dr. William Homer) Directed by Lois Weber (#644 - The Blot and #1809 - A Chapter in Her Life) and Phillips Smalley.

Review: 

In 1914, Margaret Sanger found herself indicted for violating obscenity laws because she sent a pro-contraception newsletter in the mail. She fled the country for a time and then returned. In 1916, she opened a family planning and birth control clinic in Brooklyn. She was arrested not long after the clinic opened and later tried as both running a public nuisance and distributing prohibited contraceptives. A staunch opposer of abortion, she founded the American Birth Control League in 1921, which later became known as Planned Parenthood (there were other people involved in the push for birth control as a movement, such as Emma Goldman and Mary Dennett, incidentally). Perhaps it isn't a surprise that the Universal Film Manufacturing Company made a film loosely inspired by the proceedings. The film was directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley, who were married at the time and worked on a variety of films together (in 1908 for example, he worked in the Gaumont Film Company). Of course, they were not listed as directors in the original credit (so yes, the rare no-director credit for a film), and they also served as producers and writers that was based on a story by Lucy Payton and Franklin Hall. Weber and Smalley returned to the subject of birth control with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1917), which they each directed and starred in as a film about a birth control advocate imprisoned for her work. Sanger wrote and produced her own film about birth control that same year. Each film is lost, however (the latter was found by the Supreme Court to not fall under the protection of the First Amendment in free speech). The print I watched was a reconstruction (as funded by the Women's Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television) that had been done in 2000 from several incomplete prints from America and Europe that saw a surviving post-production script used to help with ordering shots and give text to incomplete intertitles. 

You know, it is not every day that you see a movie that has a lead character that believes in eugenics (incidentally, Sanger was a believer in negative eugenics, but I can think of worse things to be a part of, such as talking about eugenics in any kind of good light in the current day). That, or a 62-minute movie that doesn't even bother to give a name to one of the lead characters besides "Ms." Of course, this is also a movie that starts by talking about unborn children residing in "Heaven's gates" until they are either born on Earth (wanted or not) or they are sent back, complete with a shot used a couple of times over involving the gates. Honestly, I wish the 1917 film was the one we could see instead. Maybe there was something more compelling about a film that actually talked about birth control rather than the distinct anti-abortion film present here. It shows mostly affluent women going with abortions while an attorney discovers just why his wife has more parties than children around the house. The only time it really talks about birth control is when the doctor (early in the film) is asked about the pamphlets he is giving out (which say stuff such as: "when only those children who are wanted are born, the race will conquer the evils that weigh it down" or positing the question about if unwanted children born to ignorant people could suffer disease and asking for people to save the lives of mothers not willing to give birth to unwanted children), since his work usually takes him to the slums. Really it just invites the question as to why the rich are getting abortions in the first place rather than birth control, or why we are not focusing on a movie about the less fortunate dealing with unwanted children, but who knows. Power was a noted actor of his time, but be doesn't really help the role seem anything more than just an off-putting focus to have (i.e., who the hell wants a lead that likes eugenics?). The rest of actors are okay, but nothing inspiring (it's weird that Riaume was actually credited as "Mrs. Tyrone Power", since she was married to him at the time). It isn't particularly interesting as a look upon child care because it is more about the dangers of abortion (either as something the rich use or when someone dies from it) that is not nearly as compelling as the filmmakers think it is. The shots with the gates for unwanted children is just a weird way to convey the proceedings, but nothing tops an ending where a couple is just shown stewing alone with the children they could've had being ghosts. As a whole, it is a social drama that seems a bit too hollow to make the impact it thinks it wants beyond mild exploitation that probably could've been done better years later rather than this.

 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next: Women's month ends with Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

The Big Trail.

Review #1333: The Big Trail.

Cast: 
John Wayne (Breck Coleman), Marguerite Churchill (Ruth Cameron), El Brendel (Gus), Tully Marshall (Zeke), Tyrone Power, Sr. (Red Flack), Frederick Burton (Pa Bascom), Ian Keith (Bill Thorpe), Charles Stevens (Lopez), Louise Carver (Gus's mother-in-law), John Big Tree (Indian Chief), DeWitt Jennings (Boat Captain Hollister), and Ward Bond (Sid Bascom) Directed by Raoul Walsh (#399 - The Thief of Bagdad (1924), and #907 - White Heat)

Review: 
The 1930s were an evolving and experimental time for film. The decade had already started with the Great Depression that affected the entire world on an economical level (which would doom Fox Film founder William Fox in 1930). As such, escapist or big spectacle fare was quite prevalent during this time, with this decade being a prominent one for the Golden Age of Hollywood, particularly with a prevalent studio system (domination of film production and distribution by a small group of major studios). Sound films were a phenomenon during this time, and certain movies even were done in color. One film with its own attempt at innovation is The Big Trail - which was shot in Grandeur, a 70mm film process. It was the last film released by Fox Film with this short-lived process nor the first done with the intent of making a widescreen movie. The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), film's first feature film, was shot on a widescreen ratio of 1.65:1. Warner Bros released films with their widescreen process Vitascope, and MGM had the Fanthom Screen for a brief time, while The Bat (1930) was filmed in the 2:1 Magnifilm 65mm aspect ratio. Converting theaters to show in widescreen would prove futile, since they already had to deal the costs with adapting to sound, with the next push by a major studio to make films in widescreen not occurring again for two decades. One has to remember that this film was shot numerous times - not only was it done with the Grandeur cameras, it was also done with the conventional 35mm film alongside making versions for world audiences, with four versions in French, German, Italian, and Spanish done (this was before dubbing became more popular). Nowadays one can view the film in widescreen as originally intended - most theaters could not show it in this process, and the original 70mm negative was only preserved through a special printer over a year long process in the 1980s. On top of all that, the 35mm version was shorter at 108 minutes than the 70mm 122 minute run-time, so both films have scenes that aren't in the other version. This was a big spectacle piece, with over 90 actors and 700 natives from five different Native American tribes, hundreds of wagons and thousands of animals from cows to horses brought in. It only seems fitting that Raoul Walsh was behind the direction, seeing how this was the beginning his third decade of directing films, having spent the past fifteen years acting and directing before going on to direct further films in the next 34 years.

Of course the film also has a young talent with John Wayne at head. Wayne, who had went to the University of Southern California for football before an injury, had been hired as a prop boy/extra to actor Tom Mix (one of cinema's first Western stars, who also happened to good friends with Wyatt Earp) and director John Ford as a favor for his coach. He recorded bit parts in films such as Bardelys the Magnificent (1926), but it was Walsh who would notice the actor and think of him to headline this film While the film was not a major success at the time of its release (owing to its big budget), it is now noted as a prime Western for the era, one with sweeping spectacle and a well-earned first turn from its star and an engaging supporting cast to go with it. It takes its time to tell its story with an episodic nature on its take of the development of the West (which sounds a bit like The Covered Wagon (1923) - which also depicted a trip to Oregon), and it proves just as engaging with depicting the drive to make a living for oneself in a place of their own regardless of the struggle it would take to do so, whether involving the elements of weather or trying to get a wagon across the lands (along with some frontier justice). The film looks wonderful to view, where even the backgrounds can prove interesting to view besides the main conversation pairings. When it comes to Wayne, he really must have been born to play an Old West hero. Beyond his persona and the way he speaks and struts (which he took inspiration from Wyatt Earp) is a man who just has that raw presence this film desires in an everyman hero. While the film wasn't a major success, Wayne did continue to find work, albeit with B-movie Westerns before Stagecoach (1939) gave him another chance at prime status, which he worked handily. Churchill lines up fine when the film requires so, having some chemistry with him. Brendel, the vaudeville comedian turned film star does fine with delivering some comic relief alongside Carver when the film needs a fair chuckle. Power Sr, in his last role before his death the following year (along with his only talkie role), proves to be a worthy and sharp adversary, one who seeps right in as someone lurking in plain sight without needing to go for overblown theatrics. Marshall rounds out the cast in terms of being a fun highlight - warm, crusty and right-at-home kind presence (much like how he was the last time I saw him on film - which happened to be The Covered Wagon). In the end, the scenery is lush enough to be captured right on the screen, with Walsh handling a fairly well-made story (done by Hal G. Evarts, with un-credited help by Marie Boyle, Jack Peabody, Florence Postal, and Fred Sersen) together with craftsmanship and a game cast that stands tall as a gem that shines now more than ever after nine decades.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.