25. A Night at the Opera (1935): “and one duck egg”

by Tony d’Ambra

“For the first time in the Brothers’ cinematic careers, they had pulled in a large portion of female fans. The price for this widening appeal could not be fully calculated at the time. Only much later did the cost become apparent.  In A Night at the Opera Harpo remained as silent as a stone, Chico kept his accent and his pianistic style, and Groucho still walked the walk and talked the talk. Some of their bits were among the funniest ever written and performed on screen. Yet a close examination shows that the old fire was banked. Instead of making sport of romance, they now facilitated it. Instead of whacking away at the powerful institutions of government or the military or education, they battled the toothless enemy of grand opera.  At [Irving] Thalberg’s insistence the crew of maniacs had become hilarious but harmless uncles, like the later Laurel and Hardy. They were not outrageous anymore, they were only frivolous; they were not surreal, they were only foolish; they were not daring, they were only impolite. Not that the Brothers minded. They were the first comedy team to become a box office attraction in the sound era. MGM proudly announced proudly announced plans to put them in another glossy vehicle, complete with ten-week road tryout.  Thalberg had been proven correct on all counts, the Marxes were flush, and the receipts kept pouring in.”

- Stefan Kanfer, Groucho (2000)

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44. Horse Feathers (1932): “You can’t put the wall over my ice”

by Tony d’Ambra

Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo.  Three clowns and a straight man. Anarchists all. Whatever it is, they’re against it.

Gonzo intellectual and all-round eccentric Slavoj Zizek from Slovenia has posted a short video on YouTube.  For those who know what the appellation means – I can’t make head nor tail of it – Zizek is a  Lacanian-Marxist philosopher. Quick, get me a four-year-old child. Zizek posits that Freud’s construction of the human psyche applies perfectly to the three erstwhile lunatics Groucho, Chico, and Harpo.  The video is titled ‘How the Marx Brothers Embody Freud’s Id, Ego & Super-Ego’. I am not quite sure what to make of it, but let’s explore how the elephant got into Groucho’s pyjamas.

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Monsieur Lazhar (Canada 2011): “she hugged you after you cried”

by Tony d’Ambra

“Don’t try to find a meaning to Martine’s death.
There isn’t one.
A classroom is a home for…
It’s a place
of friendship, of work, and courtesy.
Yes, courtesy.
A place full of life
Where you devote your life.
A place where you give of your life.
Not infect a whole school
with your despair.”

 - Monsieur Lazhar

A teacher hangs herself in the classroom before school. A tragedy? Was she driven to it? Do her sixth graders know why? Is one of them to blame?

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78. Big Deal on Madonna Street (Italy 1958)

by Tony d’Ambra

“Rubare è un mestiere impegnativo, ci vuole gente seria, mica come voi… Voi al massimo potete andare a lavorare.” (“Robbery is a serious craft, you need to know what you are doing, not like you guys… the best you can hope for is honest work.”)*

A wacky gang of incompetent penny-ante Roman felons hatches a heist with hilarious consequences.  This is all that really needs to be said about this classic cinematic caper from the masters of la comedia all’italiana, the writing team of Furio Scarpelli & Agenore Incrocci, and director Mario Monicelli, but of course dear reader you have come here expecting more. At least four-to-five hundred words, choice turns of phrase, a display of filmic erudition, and a certain – even if counterfeit – humility. Oh well, if I must.

As well as a neo-realist patina in the scenes filmed on the streets of Rome courtesy of DP Gianni Di Venanzo, there is a dark expressionism in the night scenes that gives a dark edge to the comedy in Big Deal on Madonna Street. More on the flip-side later. Piero Umiliani contributes a boppy jazz score, which adds a lot to the fun.

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80. Zéro de Conduite (France 1933)

by Tony d’Ambra

I would rather smell the way boys smell–
Oh those schoolboys the way their legs flap under the desks in study hall
That odour rising roses and ammonia
And way their dicks droop like lilacs
Or the way they smell that forbidden acrid smell

- Patti Smith, ‘Piss Factory’, 1974

 
Me? Looking like a scattered student
I follow exuberant girls through the green chestnuts:
They know I’m there, and turn towards me
Laughing, eyes brimming with indiscretion.
I don’t say a word: I just stare at the flesh
 
Of their white necks framed by tresses:
I follow the curve of their shoulders down
Their divine backs, hidden by bodices and flimsy finery.
 
Soon I’m ogling their boots and socks …
Burning with fever, yearning for flesh.
They think I’m silly. They whisper to each other …
-And I feel kisses blossom on my lips … 

- Arthur Rimbaud, ‘TO MUSIC: Railway square, Charleville’, 1870

 I hated high school.  Stupid regimentation and oppressive teachers.  Corporal punishment from self-righteous frauds.  Six cuts of the cane across the hand you didn’t write with.  Basher  would sneak up behind you in class and hit you hard on the head with the attendance book.  Heinrich  the crypto-fascist enforcer of discipline loved to shout and humiliate.  “Attention! At ease!”  We sotto voce: “Fuck you, Jack”. Prefects in blazers for black shirts.

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90. The Dentist (1932)

by Tony d’Ambra

The pre-coder The Dentist is about as close as Hollywood ever got to Dada. W. C. Fields wrote and starred in this late Mack Sennett talkie about a dentist who would rather be creating havoc on the golf-course than torturing his hapless patients.  Running at just over 20 minutes you get good value with a lot more than a laugh a minute.

No ifs and buts, Fields was a misanthrope and a misogynist.  Cruel, base, and egotistical, he lays brutal sway over all and sundry, family or stranger, friend or foe.

Liker most dentists of the period, his surgery is part of his home. We find him at breakfast being served by his adult daughter.  No wife in sight.  We get standard gags about his lost glasses being on his head and the morning paper hidden under his arse.  Fields’ side-winder voice delivery hooking you every time.

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100. The Miracle of Morgans Creek (1944)

by Tony d’Ambra

Small town 40s America. Picket fences, porches, and quiet tree-lined streets.  Places with names like Bedford Falls and Morgans Creek. Wise mothers, irascible strict fathers with hearts of gold, dizzy older sisters on the cusp of womanhood, spunky older-than-their-years younger sisters, and nerdy suitors.  Movie-houses and jalopies.  Record-stores and dances at the country-club. Thoroughly integrated foreigners (but no black faces).

Myth or reality?  A dream or the place where we would have wanted to grow-up? Fantasy or fact?  Either way, Preston Sturges stood ready to lampoon. Most say savagely, I say gently.  We all say brilliantly.

Frankly, I can’t figure how this movie didn’t rank higher in this countdown.  Fast-paced, witty, over-the-top, irreverent, and a barrel of laughs.  What else do you want from a comedy?  Audiences in 1944 must have been more than satisfied: The Miracle of Morgans Creek was the biggest grossing movie of the year.

The scenario for 1944 was a humdinger.  Trudy Kockenlocker – love that name! – connives to get her nerdy suitor Norval – yes! -  to fool her Dad so that she can attend a dance party for local servicemen leaving for the war  - without him and borrow his car! – while he sits out a triple-feature at the movies.  She gets drunk on spiked lemonade, hits her head on a ceiling lamp during some wild dancing, and turns up at 8am outside the theatre.  She remembers little of what went on until the early hours – except getting married to a GI whose name sounded like Ratzkiwatzki?  Later she learns she is pregnant.  Breen from the Hays Office, who by all accounts was sympathetic, let it through, though changes were needed to get a suitable rating; such as Trudy being married before consummation, and that it all happened after a bump on the head.

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A Separation (2011): “He is a good man”

by Tony d’Ambra

Ironically, A Separation, a film about family conflict and social antagonisms, reminds us of what unites us. That for all the mad accumulation of weapons and hard political rhetoric on both sides of the East and West divide, there are children, old people, wives, husbands, mothers and fathers, all struggling with life’s vicissitudes.

A young middle-class family in Tehran is torn apart by the ambitions of the wife who in seeking more freedom and better opportunities for herself and her 11-yo daughter wants to emigrate. The husband can’t leave an elderly father burdened by dementia. She unsuccesfully petitions for a divorce and then moves out to her parents as she won’t leave Iran without her daughter, who wants to stay with her father.  He hires a poor working woman from the outer suburbs to care for the grandfather while he is at work.

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Gold Diggers of 1933 (No. 3)

by Tony d’Ambra

“Gone are my blues
and gone are my tears
I’ve got good news
to shout in your ears
The long lost dollar has come
back to the fold
With silver you can turn
your dreams to gold

We’re in the money
We’re in the money
We’ve got a lot of what it takes
to get along!
We’re in the money
The sky is sunny
Old man depression you are through
You done us wrong!”

Ginger Rogers cute as a button hits the screen in medium close-up straight after the opening credits. She ain’t glamorous but she overflows with an effervescent charm that has you reeling as she bounces into ‘We’re In the Money’, one of the most ironic and catchy songs ever recorded on celluloid. The girl next door has rhythm!  After the camera moves away to a cheeky cavalcade of chorus girls greeting the audience in close-up, Ginger returns to set-off Busby Berkeley doing his thing abetted by the brilliant music of Al Dubin and Harry Warren. And what a thing! You just want to grab one of those bikini-ed babes and start dancing – big 1993 ‘coins’ simultaneously hide and focus attention on their ‘assets’.  The girls are rehearsing a number for a new Broadway show, but before they finish the Sheriff has raided the theater and confiscated all the girls’ accoutrements.  The producer has run out of dough and the girls are out of a job. Old man depression still has some life in him yet.

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Love Me Tonight (No. 8)

By Tony D’Ambra

I’ve never met you, yet never doubt, dear;
I can’t forget you, I’ve thought you out, dear.
I know your profile and I know the way you kiss,
just the things I miss on a night like this.
If dreams are made of imagination
I’m not afraid of my own creation.
With all my heart, my heart is here for you to take.
Why should I quake? I’m not awake.

 Isn’t it romantic?
Music in the night

Love Me Tonight, is an enchanting romantic musical comedy, which has you enthralled from the opening scenes of a Paris suburb greeting a bright new day where the syncopated sounds of a waking humanity build to a musical overture that encapsulates not only the charm of the story to follow, but also the antagonisms of city and country, of modest circumstances and fabulous wealth, and of social barriers conquered by love, to the insouciant finale where the girl on horse-back chases the departing lover who is on a train steaming out of her life.  Maurice Chevalier is in his element as a debonair tailor from Paris who falls in love with Jeanette McDonald a charming young princess. The jubilant musical score by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart features such memorable songs as the amorous “Isn’t It Romantic?” and the saucy serenade “Mimi.” Spontaneous musicality with a rare grace and joi-de-vivre, transport the audience to a higher place of movement and abandon.  On the way we are distracted by the risqué antics of Myrna Loy as a randy cousine, and the  endearing farce of older men up-staged by gorgeous young femmes.

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