Blackmail (1929)

Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail

       Considered by most to be the first true British talkie, as well as Hitchcock’s first sound film, Blackmail is a historical film in the British cannon of cinema.  My thesis will compare and contrast the silent version of Hitchcock’s original creation to the “new” sound version.   I will examine the film and discuss whether the sound version improved upon the original with the scenes featuring sound as well as its influence on the British cinema and Hitchcock’s career.

Hitchcock began his early film career with Gainsborough Pictures under Michael Balcon.  He learned aspects of the trade including spending some time with German filmmakers in Germany before getting his first attempts at directing in 1925, at the age of 26.  He utilized aspects of what he learned from the German expressionists.   In 1926, he directed The Lodger, a film loosely based on the Jack the Ripper legend.  The film was a hit and in 1927 Hitchcock left Gainsborough for the larger British International Pictures, and his new contract made him the highest paid director in Britain.  Blackmail was his first assignment there which eventually became the first British talkie.  “At the time, many cinephiles thought that 'talkies' would reduce cinema to being only 'pictures of people talking' but Hitchcock's inventive and expressionist use of sound demonstrated that the new technology actually opened a new realm of possibilities.” (14)  

In the late 20’s, the British industry was having a difficult time competing with the more refined cinema being produced in Hollywood.  Film production in Britain dropped from 136 features in 1921 to 37 features in 1926.  This caused the British film industry to analyze their situation and see what they could do to turn their studio system around.  In 1927, a quota system was established which required a certain percentage of the screens to be set aside for domestic films known as the Cinematograph Films Act.  “It introduced a requirement for British cinemas to show a quota of British films, for a duration of 10 years. Initially this was 7.5% for exhibitors, which was raised to 20% in 1935. It was later blamed for the emergence of the 'quota quickies.’ ” (12) 

While the Cinematograph Films Act helped improve attendance and increased production, the arrival of sound film in the late 1920’s further complicated matters.  A report that ran in Variety in 1929 stated that "13 out of 14 first run London houses have American talkers or synchronized pictures." A major problem that the British studios had was that their films often sat on the shelf for about a year before finally being released.  Since the introduction of sound in the late twenties and early thirties involved such a major technological change for both studios and exhibitors, the films that Britain was producing became in danger of becoming obsolete before they were even released to the public.  Even today, most films that the studios shelve appear dated once finally released.   In addition, the expense of converting to sound drove many exhibitors out of business. (9)  1929 was a big year for films.  The first animated sound cartoon was produced, Steamboat Willie and the first feature length film in color was also filmed.  However this was all going on across the Atlantic in the USA.  The British had some catching up to do.

When Blackmail went into production, the film was planned and initially filmed as another British International Pictures silent film.  The movie was produced at Elstree Studios.  It was just two years earlier in 1927 that Warner Brothers produced The Jazz Singer, considered the first sound film feature.  History tells us that sound films were initially thought to be just a passing fad, but this was not the case.  Since the industry’s conversion to sound was gathering so much momentum, management at British International Pictures decided to add some dialogue to make the film a “part-talkie”, which was becoming increasingly common for films at that time.  British International Pictures’ competition, Gaumont, was trailing behind in their conversion to producing sound pictures.  BIP produced twice as many sound films at Gaumont from 1928-1931. (12)  They were able to use this to their advantage to keep Hitchcock on board with them until Hitchcock reconnected with Michael Balcon later 1934 at his new studio Gaumont-British. 

The original source material for Blackmail was a play by Charles Bennett; Tallulah Bankhead, incredibly, played the leading role on the stage.  Bennett assisted Hitchcock in the construction of the film adaptation but did not write any of the dialogue.  The first film he actually wrote for Hitchcock was the original The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1933.  He went on to write several more films with Hitchcock.  Benn Levy actually wrote the dialogue for Blackmail.

With Blackmail, starting in pre-production Hitchcock had been careful in his crafting of the film that with some reshooting and reworking, he was able to produce a version of the film that could actually be released as a “full talkie” which had scenes of dialogue throughout the picture.  What many are not aware of is that the silent version of the film also was released into theaters.  However, this version did not go out until two months after the sound version.  It was exhibited mostly to suburban and rural areas where sound equipment had not yet been installed into theaters.

The silent version of the film is widely known to exist within the archives of the British Film Institute, but has been seen by few.  In the USA, the silent version is not available on VHS or DVD.  A DVD copy of the sound version of Blackmail that includes the silent version was tracked down on Amazon.com – Germany.  It is in PAL format and cannot be played on Region 1 DVD players.  This DVD was obtained in order to screen the silent version for this paper.  It also includes the famous sound check between Hitchcock and Ondra, showing her what her Polish accent sounded like on screen.

Hitchcock cast his film with Anny Ondra, his first blonde leading lady.  She began her film career in 1920 in Czechoslovakian films as a comedian.  John Longden was the leading man.  In 1929, he appeared in one of the first films about the Titanic, Atlantic.  He also went on to star in several more of Hitchcock’s films, including his last British film, The Jamaica Inn.  The role of Mr. Crewe, the artist turned rapist, was played by Cyril Ritchard.  He would go on to be well known for his musical theater performances, especially that of Captain Hook opposite Mary Martin’s Peter Pan.

 Another film, Kitty by Victor Saville was being made with British International Pictures.  It was started several months prior to Hitchcock’s Blackmail.  Kitty was shot and released initially as a silent film in 1929 and then withdrawn only to have its last two reels reshot with sound.  The replacement of a reel with sound was common method for creating some “part talkies” of that time.  In the case of Kitty this ruined the film by taking away from the melodramatic storyline to drawing the audience’s attention to the novelty of the talkie section of the film.  The rest of the film was unchanged except for music which was also synchronized with the silent reels.  The added scenes took away from the fluidity of the film and seemed out of place.  Hitchcock was able to avoid this mistake by making the sound scenes incorporate smoothly with what had already been shot for the silent version. (3)  While there were other films from Britain that began to use partial sound, like Kitty, Blackmail was the first to be considered a “full talkie” and therefore considered the first British talking picture.

It is often assumed that much of the dialogue-free scenes in the sound version of Blackmail were taken straight from the silent version.  Upon watching the two films many of these scenes seem identical.  But as Barr points out in his book, English Hitchcock, it was common in those days for films to shoot two good takes of each scene so that they could provide a negative for a local release of the film as well as one for overseas.  It would appear that Hitchcock may have foreseen the adaptation of his film for sound and actually shot two good takes of each scene.  The similar scenes in both films often bare slight differences between one another when closely compared.  For example, when Alice is sitting along in the restaurant after Frank steps away, she pulls out a small slip of paper telling her when Mr. Crewe plans to meet her there.  In the silent version she looks at her watch to see that its 6:49, while in the sound version the same shot of her watch shows the time being 6:52.  There are other subtle differences throughout the film but are they are virtually undetectable.

“Hitchcock integrated documentary-like presentations of the mechanics of crime, detective, and legal work in many of his films: the best early examples are Blackmail and Murder’.” (7)  The opening of Blackmail features an exercise in this documentative style.  We follow the police as they are sent on a call to track down their criminal.  He is captured and brought to jail where he is interrogated.  Then he is placed in a line up where he is identified by a witness, fingerprinted and then locked up.  While this scene has nothing directly to do with the storyline, it does let us know that we are going to be watching some sort of crime drama as well as illustrating the impersonal power of the police.

Hitchcock is famous for using pretty blondes and putting them in compromising situations.  With Alice, she is apparently unhappy in her current relationship with Frank, decides to spend time on a fling with Mr. Crewe, the artist.  She seems to use the excuse of him getting off work late as a reason to be upset with him.  She agrees to go to dinner at a restaurant that she had already planned on meeting Mr. Crewe at.  Once she sees that he has arrived, she becomes indecisive in her plans with Frank.  This eventually angers Frank enough for him to leave.  He is outside the restaurant as Alice and Mr. Crewe walk out arm in arm.  Hitchcock then begins spinning his web of danger.  Mr. Crewe invites Alice into his apartment so that he can see his art studio.  Alice agrees to be led into his trap.  Once inside he convinces her to try on a skimpy dress and pose for him.  In the sound version, he plays a funny little tune on his piano that is best summed up as creepy.  She comes out in the little dress and playfully poses for him.  She then returns behind the changing panels to take off the skimpy dress, meanwhile Mr. Crewe takes her dress and makes her come out in her underwear.  He then forces her to his bed where he attempts to rape her.  It is there that Alice manages to reach a bread knife to stab him to death with.  A bread knife is not known to be much of a lethal weapon but it is mentioned later that she got him in the jugular vein.  

              After Alice kills Mr. Crewe she goes into shock.  Exhausted, she leaves his apartment in a zombie-like state.  Her conscious immediately begins to affect her as her mind starts to play tricks on her.  She becomes startled as she sees arms that are similar to the arm of dead Mr. Crewe.  The arms are all reminders of the murder she just committed.  As she stumbles along through the city, she sees a sign advertising “Gordon’s White Purity” with a flashing animated neon sign of a martini shaker that she starts to envision as a hand with knife in a stabbing motion.  The arms and the neon sign allow the audience to experience what Alice is feeling at that moment.  

          Hitchcock also uses his first “shock cut” in this sequence when Alice screams at the arm of a beggar the scene cuts to the scream of the landlady discovering Mr. Crewe’s body.  This is yet, another example of Hitchcock’s creative use of the new medium of sound in his movies.

               Hitchcock again finds a strategic new place for sound inside Alice’s bedroom.  After stumbling through the streets she makes it home and crawls into bed.  Within a short time, her mother comes in to wake her up for the day.  One of the first things the mother does is to remove the birdcage cover which prompts the finches to begin chirping away disturbing the silence.  This is the first of many uses of bird noises that Hitchcock will employ throughout his career to coincide with a character in a distressed state.  The bird noises in Blackmail act as an annoyance to Alice.  The birds were notably missing in the original silent version of the film.  Hitchcock letter said, "There have always been occasions when we have needed to show a phantasmagoria of the mind in terms of visual imagery. So we may want to show someone's mental state by letting him listen to some sound--let us say church bells--and making them clang with distorted insistence in his head."

The scene which follows features Alice going downstairs for breakfast.  This is a famous scene in the film that has been addressed by many authors on the topic.  Alice sits with her family for breakfast.  A pest of a neighbor stands there talking about the murder and knife.  The word “knife” itself seems to lunge out at Alice.  This all builds the audience for what comes next when the blackmailer, Tracy, shows up and essentially takes over the house.  The growing tension mounts until the moment when the parlor window shatters, and Tracy flees.  This all represents the sort of 'crucible' situation that Hitchcock would sometimes make the subject of a whole film, such as Rope. (10)  Mogg believes that a misconception about the famous scene on the morning after the artist's killing, in which a gossipy neighbor repeatedly uses the word “knife”, is merely a clever use of sound by Hitchcock.  The repetitive use of the word “knife” appears to jump out at Alice.  Striking the scene may be, but it works for other, deeper reasons.  It draws attention to itself for a purpose, being a study in the psychology of Alice, who has gone all night without sleep.  She walked the streets in a virtual comatose state.  It is in these times that the mind plays tricks.  The silent version is just as effective without the verbal “knife” references.  Alice’s father asks her to cut the bread.  Alice slowly reaches for the knife.  We see the shadow of her hand crawl over it as she slowly grabs it.  The blade of the knife glimmers in the light.  Then someone walks in the door of their store, ringing the bell which startles Alice causing her to drop the knife.  This is followed by a title card of her father saying, “You should really be more careful with knives dear.” The silent version of this scene fares better since the humor of the chatty neighbor is non-existent allowing the tension to build and it provides a much more dramatic moment. 

The sound version of the film carries some of Hitchcock’s signature light moments.  The scene with the neighbor mentioning the knife also has a very comical line which further pushes Alice’s nerves over the edge: “A good, clean honest what over the ‘ead with a brick is one thing.  There’s something British about that.  But knives.  No, knives is not right.”  This is one of a few light moments in the film.  Another is when Mr. Crewe’s landlady describes to the police the blackmailer.  She describes his hair as not blonde nor brunette but “mousey.”  She also mocks the slightly deranged expression on his face.  It is timed perfect as the film builds toward Alice’s impending doom of being discovered.  This is one of the few scenes that are actually improved by having sound.

In addition to being known for being the first sound film, Blackmail also features many of the first Hitchcock trademarks.  While his brief cameo in The Lodger was his first, Blackmail features what was probably his most prominent cameo, as well as longest.  He is seen sitting on the London Underground facing the camera in a way that forces the audience to notice him.  He is pestered by a small boy while attempting to read the newspaper.  He is shown yelling at the parents of the child as if to say “control your child!”  In the sound version, the only noise heard is the loud sound of the train rolling along.  No dialogue is discernable.  Hitchcock also features creative shots of staircases as he does in later films like Vertigo and Psycho. (2)  When Alice and Mr. Crewe first arrive they climb several flights as the camera follows them straight up with a boom shot in a cut-away fashion of the staircase.  This shot, however, is not seen in the sound version of the movie.  Also, there is an overhead shot looking down several flights of stairs within Mr. Crewe’s apartment when Alice makes her escape after his murder.

Another first in this film is the use of a prominent location for the climatic finale of the film.  For Blackmail, Hitchcock chose the British Museum where the blackmailer is chased by Frank.  The blackmailer climbs to the roof and just as he is about to give himself up, he falls through the glass ceiling.  “The British Museum climax was suggested to Hitch by Michael Powell, who was familiar with the Reading Room and its glass dome.” “Hitchcock develops still further his trademark emphasis on subjectivity, an emphasis both technical and thematic.  It had featured in practically every one of his silent films, and by now was capable of yielding profound effects and commentary”. (10)

This final scene in the museum also utilized early special effects.  The rather complicated effects were done in a way known as the “Schüfftan Process.”    It was named for the cinematographer who invented the process while shooting Metropolis.  Schüfftan placed a plate of glass at a forty-five-degree angle between the camera and the miniature buildings. He used the camera's viewfinder to trace an outline of the area into which the actors would later be inserted onto the glass. This outline was transferred onto a mirror and the entire reflective surface that fell outside the outline was removed, leaving transparent glass. When the mirror was placed in the same position as the original plate of glass, the reflective part blocked a portion of the miniature building behind it and also reflected the stage behind the camera. The actors were placed several yards away from the mirror so that when they were reflected in the mirror, they would appear at the right size.  Overall, it achieved a very realistic result. (13)

In his own words, Hitchcock explained how he liked how the standard plot of Blackmail could adapt into a film.  The basic theme is love versus duty.  Both versions of the film open with Frank doing his duty by arresting the criminal.  Once his day ends, he then tends to Alice, his love.  Later, when he realizes that she is implicated in the murder, he becomes torn between love and duty.  The audience immediately can make this connection and is brought into the film. (7) According to Hitchcock, he originally wanted to end the film with Alice being pursued by the police, bringing the young detective's moral conflict ("love versus duty") to a head. This ending, he claims, was turned down by the producers for commercial reasons.  Alice could not be left to her own fate because audiences want a conclusion.   However, the ending as it was made, with its ingenious use of a clown painting to symbolize Alice's lingering feelings of guilt, is if anything darker and more subtly ironic than the ending Hitchcock originally had in mind. (9)  This clown painting is used in both the silent and sound versions of the film and is just as effective in both.  The ending leaves an eerie feeling, since it is not a happy resolution.  Alice and Frank must now spend the rest of the lives with the guilt of her crime.

The title of the film comes from a character within the film named Tracy.  He was the only witness to see Alice go up to Mr. Crewe’s apartment.  Tracy shows up at the home of Alice the morning following the murder to harass Alice and Frank, who by now knows that she was with him last.  Tracy’s character is a minor one, at best.  His plans fall apart when the Mr. Crewe’s landlady picks him out of a mug shot book.  The police believe him to be the murder.  They give chase to him and wind up at the British Museum.  Incidentally, Hitchcock had him heart set on the museum and when he found out he could not shoot there due to the lack of lighting, it was decided to use the special effects instead.  Tracy tries to explain that he is the wrong man when he meets his untimely death by falling through the glass domed ceiling.  He is essentially a red herring to the situation of Frank having to split himself between being a detective investigating a murder and his girl friend being the person who committed that murder.  Only a couple of scenes for the chase sequence were reshot for sound.  Namely the scene of Tracy attempting to explain his innocence just he falls through the ceiling.

Hitchcock’s was known for being a dirty old man which is further supported by a screen test of Anny Ondra, apparently done so that Ondra could hear why her thick Polish accent would not work for the sound version of the film.  In that screen test he interacts with Ondra and asks, “Have you been a good girl?” To which she responds laughing, “Oh no!”  Hitchcock responds, “Oh no?  Have you slept with men?”  She responds that he is making her nervous and moves away from the microphone.  Hitchcock then directs her, “Now come over here, or it won’t come out right – as the girl said to the soldier.” (1)  Hitchcock was never shy about sex or his flirtatious nature with his leading heroines.            

Due to Ondra’s unusable voice, Hitchcock devised an ingenious way to provide her a British voice.  Since post-synchronization had not been devise, Hitchcock had the actress Joan Barry stand just off camera and speak the lines into a microphone while Ondra mouthed the dialogue in sync.  In most scenes, this is virtually undetectable.  Most, without knowing this, would problem never even notice the fact.  Ondra’s performance in the silent version is arguably better than that of the sound film, due most in part to the fact that she relied on her physical acting and facial expressions to convey her character with very little dialogue via the titles.  In the sound version she comes off much more as a whiny, self-centered female.  Without actually hearing her verbalize her expressions, she is much more likable.  The audience can relate more to the silent version who just seems like a simple female who makes one big mistake.  In the sound version she comes across as being much needier for the help of Frank, the man she cheated on to begin with.  Had she stayed faithful to him, she would not have gotten herself into the problematic situation.  Critic Robin Wood points out, “Blackmail introduces the motif of the "guilty woman" that made for some of Hitchcock's most profoundly resonant films: Rebecca, Notorious, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and Marnie.  The latter two, both featuring Tippi Hedren, who it seems was born to be “the damsel who caused her own distress.” (15)

             Hitchcock enjoys depicting consequences for the actions of these guilty women.  In Alice’s case, she was forced to defend her virtue in a situation that she brought upon herself to begin with.  Of course, a virtuous woman would never have gone up to the apartment of a man she barely knew.  Hitchcock plays it as if this flirtatious woman gets what’s coming to her.  This scene involving Alice is consistent with sexual scenarios in which Hitchcock enjoyed placing his lovely leading ladies.  Virtually ever movie he made has a scene where a woman is placed into precarious circumstances due to her sexuality and often punished for it.  

          Critically, the Blackmail was well received, due mostly to the fact that the film featured sound.  On June 24, 1929, a reviewer for the Daily Mail said the film was “the best talking film yet – and British.”  A reviewer from Variety noted that the film “silent would be an unusually good film; as it is, it comes near to being a landmark.”  Mind you those all-talkie films were still relatively a new format, especially in Britain.  This would explain such raving reviews.  However, this positive reaction from both critics and moviegoers is what propelled Hitchcock into being a first rate, top notch director in Britain.  It was the first film that the British felt could compete with the quality of films coming from the foreign competition.

          When Hitchcock was later in his years, he looked back on Blackmail with negative criticism.  He felt the dialogue did not flow and that it sounds more like spoken titles than natural speech.  Actors in the early days of talking pictures referred to saying their lines as “speaking their titles.” On the same token, since the film was made in the early days of sound in film, the dialogue scenes are used only when it seems useful.  (5)  Hitchcock could have been a little kinder to himself if he remembered that the use of the apparatus of sound was a new medium that still did not know if it belonged.

          While Blackmail showed that Hitchcock and British International Pictures could produce successful films with sound, it did not being any immediate help to the British film industry.  Their studios still could not afford to pay their actors what the Hollywood studios were playing.  Plus in Britain, movies were still considered entertainment for the working class.  Subsequently, most British actors still preferred working in the theatre, where the upper-class went for their entertainment. (2)  It would be many years before Britain would become the “it” place for cinema.

          Even though the silent version of the film was stronger, once sound was added, Hitchcock was able to add a new dimension to the film and pioneer techniques that he and other film makers would use, even to this day.  While the sound additions did not necessarily improve the film, Blackmail left an indelible mark upon the face of British cinema and changed its future.  The film was a huge success not only for British International Pictures but for the British film industry as a whole.  At last a film was made that could stand up to all those films coming out of America.  The rest of the British studios could comfortable settle into the fact that sound was here to stay.  Additionally, the success of Blackmail propelled Hitchcock into celebrity status as a director that knew how to make a financially successful sound picture.  Even with the few road bumps that he faced immediately following this production, Hitchcock galvanized his career in this film.  The face of British cinema would never be the same after the 30 year old Hitchcock made this contribution.  It was now proven that sound could be utilized in a creative and productive way that brought more to a film than just the novelty of voices talking on the screen.  

Bibliography

1. Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, New York: Anchor Books, 1992.

2. Spoto, Donald. The Dark Side of Genius, New York: Plexus, 1994. p. 136.

3. Barr, Charles. English Hitchcock, Scotland: Cameron & Hollis, 1999. p. 81-82

4. Condon, Paul and Sangster, Jim.  Hitchcock, Virgin, 1999.

5. Taylor, John Russell. Hitch, New York: Berkeley Publishing Corporation, 1980. p. 87.

6. Auiler, Dan. Hitchcock’s Notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock, New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2001.

7. Gottlieb, Sidney.  Early Hitchcock: The German Influence, Hitchcock Annual [1999-2000] p. 100-130.

8. Barr, Charles. BLACKMAIL: SILENT AND SOUND. Sight and Sound 52:2 [Spring 1983] p. 122.

9. Steffan, James.  “Blackmail.”  October 2005. http://www.turnerclassicmovies.com/ThisMonth/Article/0,,103555%7C103556%7C18625,00.html.

10. Mogg, Ken. “McGuffin.”  30 November 2004. 3 December 2005. http://www.labyrinth.net.au/%7Emuffin/mcgilligan2_c.html.

11. Telotte, J. P. “The Sounds of BLACKMAIL: Hitchcock and Sound Aesthetic - Critical Essay.” Journal of Popular Film and Television,  Winter, 2001. 

12. Murphy, Robert (ed.). The British Cinema Book (2nd edition), BFI Publishing, 2001 pg 30-31

Walt Disney Productions Presents Robin Hood (1973)

Disney’s Animated Robin Hood

During Walt Disney’s lifetime, he proved that audiences would sit through a feature-length cartoon with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).  Before that time, animation comprised only short cartoons and was never viewed as a serious cinematic genre.  Disney, working as an independent producer with total creative control, set the standard for animated feature films. While cartoons existed before Disney, he managed to colonize animation by making it his own. The result was that animation became synonymous with Disney.  While it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the fact that Disney was an auteur as producer, it is widely accepted that he was one.

Animation that came after Snow White essentially was a reaction to what Disney had produced. (Wells 45) Other animation studios like Warner Brothers and the Fleisher’s noted the potential of animation and attempted to distinguish themselves from Disney in their style and content, but Disney remained king.  Throughout his life and after, Disney studios continued producing quality animation.  Walt Disney enabled this ability when he established an assembly-line process for the creation of the animated features which created a level of visual quality in its finished form that stood apart from the competition and was highly recognizable.  The creative process began with adapting an existing story or creating a new one.   In the earlier years, Walt himself would act out the characters and key sequences.

Walt was involved to some degree with each of the animated films up until his death.  The amount of time that he dedicated to each film varied and eventually lessened as he became distracted by other parts of the business (Solomon).  The company struggled with creative decisions following Disney’s death, many of his veteran animators were retiring and it seemed that Disney animation was going to die.  By the time Robin Hood (1973) was released, it was obvious that there was the critical decline in the quality of Disney feature animation.  No longer was there Walt’s final approval for the start or end of any animated feature.  Robin Hood is an example of the creative problems that the company faced as it went through this period of leadership transition as they attempted to live up to the expectations of the “Disney” brand.

As the years passed Walt Disney grew busier with all the different facets of the company and less involved with the day to day operations of the studio, specifically, the animation department. According to Ollie Johnston, one of Walt’s original “Nine Old Men,” Pinocchio (1940) was the last films that he was heavily involved with (Solomon).  Disney did, however, seem to put the wheels of creativity in motion which allowed the studio to continue producing popular animated films.  Even with the limited involvement, no story idea or adaptation went forward without his approval.

The Disney method that enabled the animation studio to produce hit after hit, seemed to continue almost flawlessly after Disney’s death.  Audiences still came to see the films and each did more business at the box office than the previous film (until The Black Cauldron in 1985, when the audiences stayed away).  Following Disney’s death, the studio went through several transitional phases attempting to maintain the Disney style of feature animation production.  The pinnacle of this struggle occurred with the 1973 production of Robin Hood.

Robin Hood was Walt Disney Productions 21st animated feature. The film was a talking animal version of the Robin Hood legend with a fox portraying the rogue of Sherwood Forest.  The Disney studios had previously released a well received live action version, twenty years earlier, but that is where the connection with Walt and this film ended.  The film featured a strange mixture of country-western music and characters thrown against a setting of medieval England.  Some characters, like Robin Hood, played by Brian Bedford, spoke with an English accent while others like the Sheriff of Nottingham and the Balladeer speak with southern accents.  This mish-mash of characterizations was only one problem that Robin Hood suffered.

The film was not popular with critics at the time of its release.  Time Magazine said:
Even at its best, Robin Hood is only mildly diverting. There is not a single moment of the hilarity or deep, eerie fear that the Disney people used to be able to conjure up, or of the sort of visual invention that made the early features so memorable. Robin Hood's basic problem is that it is rather too pretty and good natured. The animation matches the generally pasteurized quality of the film…

By reading the reviews of critics at the time, it is apparent the film failed to evoke the Disney “magic” that had come to be expected.  The magic that critics sought was a coherent storyline [the critics were appalled by Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951) for the same reason] and characters that people cared about. (Maltin 263)  Furthermore, the film also lacks Robin Hood aspiring for anything greater than stealing from the riches of Prince John and giving them to the poor who have been taxed into poverty as well as a small subplot regarding Robin Hood’s love interest in Maid Marion.  This version of the story adds nothing new to the Robin Hood legend, other than telling it with animals instead of humans.

The film also lacks any character arc that was found in previous Disney animated features such as Pinocchio or Cinderella (1950).  Pinocchio learns about the world and that he should listen to his conscience.  Cinderella learns about her hidden potential with the help of her fairy godmother.  There is no such development of characters in the simplistic storyline of Robin Hood.

The lack of a storyline was a major problem for the film. (Koenig)  Past features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) or Sleeping Beauty (1959) were based on popular fairy tales and had fleshed out storylines which were worked through.  Time and money was dedicated at Walt’s behest to create the best possible product.   Instead of an actual plot, Robin Hood connects several sequences which are mildly related.  While this type of narrative in film can work in some occasions, it is not the case with Robin Hood.  The sequences have been described as “fairly bland and uninspired.”  The film lacks a clear story with a beginning, climax and ending. (Jacobson)

Leonard Maltin, Disney animation historian writes, “The biggest problem with Robin Hood was in its story development – or lack of it.”  It was described as a “loud mouthed vaudeville show.” Maltin also stated, “There’s something wrong when Robin Hood is the dullest character in the film. (Maltin 264)  The film struggles to hang on to visual elements that made previous animated features great, such as fluid motions and bright colors.  But with minimal musical numbers, which were prominent in many of the earlier animated features, it fails to elicit any emotional response from the audience. Paul Wells has noted that  causing emotional audience responses to the films is a key element to Disney narratives in animation.

Even with these flaws, it did not keep audiences away. They came in record numbers to see the film during its holiday premiere.  That said, aside from the box office success of the film upon its initial release, the film does not rank among the most popular of the classic Disney features such as Pinocchio and Cinderella, even if was created by some of the same animators. (Jacobsen)
When Robin Hood went into production, the animation studio still operated with the involvement of four of Walt’s original “Nine Old Men” including the director Wolfgang Reitherman.  It is possible that their older influence may account for the slow pacing in the film.  At the same time, there was a new generation of animators being trained by these originators of Disney animation.  Among the new blood was Don Bluth, who was being groomed to lead the animation department. Bluth later left the studio after the production wrapped on Robin Hood with a dozen other new animators to create his own films that he felt were closer to the classic Disney style which he felt the company had fallen away from doing.  Robin Hood features many of the industrial struggles which the studio was facing during this transition period which among other things reflects the financial struggles that the studio was facing in the ‘70s.  The studio had not had any box office success in years.  Their live action films were anything but blockbusters. Due to these factors, Robin Hood was allotted a lower budget which is likely what forced the simplicity of the feature.

The simplified storyline can be attributed to the fact that Disney animation had continued to use the same process for story creation for decades.  When Disney began toying with an idea to turn a fairy tale for fable into a feature length film, the studio would let the development department begin exploring all the possibilities for a story.  In the early years, this process would take months and sometimes years.  The general events of the film would be designed and only then would dialogue be created to fill in the rest of the story.  This decades old procedure for story creation of animated features became so ingrained as part of the system that by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the studio had only one “official” screenwriter, Larry Clemmons.  He wrote all of the dialogue for The Jungle Book, The Aristocats and Robin Hood.  Since Robin Hood was produced on a small budget, it seems likely that less time was spent by Clemmons or anyone else in the story development department fleshing out the story and characters to any greater depth than what was presented.

The supporting characters in the film include Phil Harris, essentially reprising the same role for a third time as Little John.  In The Aristocats, Harris played O’Malley the cat, who was very similar to Baloo in The Jungle Book except he was a cat.  In Robin Hood, his performance is identical to that of Baloo, including the fact that he once again is playing the role of a bear that even bares striking resemblance to an earlier character.  The difference being that the character of Little John is not nearly as memorable as Baloo, nor does the character add anything to the film.  The recycled bear character comes across as yet another attempt to simplify the production process for this film.  The other supporting cast in the film is made up by Peter Ustinov as Prince John, a character that while being one-dimensional, comes across as the most entertaining character in the film.  The character Sir Hiss is also extremely reminiscent of Kaa the snake from The Jungle Book.

Robin Hood’s character design utilized animal characters instead of human characters.  Audiences were just as entertained by the animals, but critically, this was viewed as a short-cut method taken by the animators since stylized humanoid animals were inherently easier to animate than human figures (Koenig).  It was the first animated feature to not feature a single human being.  Granted, Bambi (1941) does not actually show any humans, but their voices and presence are heard.  The next “all animal” animated feature from Disney would be 1994’s The Lion King.

The film took other short-cuts by recycling animation from both Snow White and the feature released just before Robin Hood, The Aristocats (1970).  It is widely recognized that the sequence at the end of the film featuring Maid Marion dancing in the forest was traced directly from Snow White dancing with the seven dwarfs.  This was another cost-cutting method to save time in animating that particular sequence.  An explanation given for the recycled animation was that the new animators who were being trained during that period were learning from the men who created the art. (Solomon)
The animation quality of Robin Hood has at times been compared to that of television animation in that it has the following qualities: repetitive animation, such as the charging rhinoceros guards which uses the same animation cells through several frames, simple and similar backgrounds since the action all takes place in or around the king’s castles.  The film was allotted a smaller budget than the typical animated feature due to the financial slump that the company was facing during that time.  Earlier Disney innovations like the multi-plane camera were no longer used because of the time and expense to create animation via that method.  There really were no innovations in this production.  Gene Siskel’s review of the film at its release cites the film for having a “lack of background details and principal character movement.”  He also compares the animation to that of Saturday morning cartoons. (Siskel)  Current reviews of the film on DVD are no better.  Colin Jacobson of the online DVD Magazine says, “Every expense was spared for Robin Hood.” (Jacobson)

Also worth noting, is that the film features less music than in any of the previous animated features. Once considered a hallmark of the Disney’s animated features, this film has only three songs, the least amount of music until The Black Cauldron was released in 1985, which features no music.  This lack of music also reflects how  the studio was scaling back its production methods during the 1970s.

Following Walt’s death, the studio released The Aristocats, which was the first film to go into full production without the omniscient presence of Walt.  That film reflected the classic Disney “style” in its animation, though it is not one of the more memorable films produced by Disney.  When it was followed with Robin Hood, Disney seemed to be struggling to regain that “style.”  It was also considered by critics and animation fans to be a test as to whether Disney could continue animating without Walt.  By the time The Fox and the Hound was released in 1981, Disney was trying to reinvent itself while still holding on to what was successful in the past.  Robin Hood, as it turned out, fell right in the middle of this major transition period for the animation department. The director, “Woolie” Reitherman was one of Walt’s original animators.  He worked with the Disney leadership as they tried to do what Walt would have done.  Unfortunately, this project comes off as an exercise in Disney mediocrity, which is not something Walt would have approved of.

While this film can be pointed out as having major flaws compared to other animated films in the Disney canon, it does continue to have a built-in audience.  There are and will continue to be connoisseurs of anything Disney studios puts on film, including this movie.  The studio has just released a new, special-edition DVD of Robin Hood, which as of this writing is ranked in Amazon.com’s top 100 selling DVDs.  The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that regardless of the inferiority of the film within the Disney canon of animation, audiences will still buy it because it has the “Disney” name on it and they believe in the Disney brand.  That said, it will continue to reflect the turbulent era for Disney following Walt Disney’s death and ending with the start of Michael Eisner’s leadership of the company.

Works Cited and Consulted:
Robin Hood. Dir. Wolfgang Reitherman. Perf. Phil Harris and Peter Ustinov. Walt Disney Productions, 1973.  DVD. Walt Disney Video, 2000.
Cawley, John. “The Animated Films of Don Bluth.” 13 November 2006. http://www.cataroo.com/DBrhood.html
Jacobson, Colin. “Robin Hood: Most Wanted Edition” DVD Movie Guide. 28 November 2006.  10 December 2006. http://www.dvdmg.com/robinhoodmostwanted.shtml
Koenig, David. Mouse Under Glass: Secrets of Disney Animation and Theme Parks. Bonaventure Press. 2001.
Maltin, Leonard. Of Mice and Magic. Plume, New York. 1987.
Maltin, Leonard. The Disney Films. 3rd Edition. Hyperion, New York. 1995.
Siskel, Gene. Chicago Tribune. 25 December 1973. p. B7.
Solomon, Charles.  “An Afternoon with Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and Pinocchio.” Animation World Magazine. Issue 3.4 July 1998. 9 December 2006.  http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.4/3.4pages/3.4solomon.html
Wells, Paul. Animation and America. Rutgers University Press, New Jersey. 2002.
Wells, Paul. Understanding Animation. Routlege, New York 1998.
Time Magazine. “Quick Cuts.” 3 December 1973. 13 November 2006.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908239,00.html

Footlight Parade (1933)

Footlight Parade Shines On

The film Footlight Parade (1933), is the kind of movie musical that went extinct long ago.  The film was directed by Lloyd Bacon and choreographed by the legendary Busby Berkeley.  Berkeley had a distinct style to his choreography and this film typified this style.  It is worth revisiting this film to see how a simple storyline with lots of eye candy can be just as entertaining as a film like Spiderman 3.  Few musicals in the last decade have been successful and they are constructed far differently from the musical comedies of the 1930s and 40s.  This movie also follows a common storyline of musicals at that time which is a live, theatrically produced stage musical is produced and problems with the actors and director ensue.  Released just one year before the Hays Code took effect, this “pre-code” film is worth revisiting as Berkeley’s musical numbers still seem racy even by today’s standards.

Footlight Parade follows the story of Chester Kent played by James Cagney, who is hired to produce “prologues” which are live performances that precede the showing of the main feature at movie houses in the 1930s.  Movies had killed musical theater, talkies had killed silent film stars and it all wiped out vaudeville.  The prologues were away to keep the live performers on stage.  Kent is forced in a race against time, romance and competition to produce several different productions in a short period of time.  If he is successful he will win a contract with a major film exhibitor to continue producing even more productions in the future.  While the musical numbers do little to progress the storyline (they never did in movie musicals of the era), they keep the pace moving right along.  This was Cagney’s first movie musical debut and was one of only three that he ever did.  The cast is rounded out by Warner Brothers stars Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler in the lead roles.                The concept of each prologue is that it is all taking place on the stage of movie houses.  The most familiar of the dance sequences or prologues is called “By a Waterfall.”  The musical number involves a large pool with rockscaped waterslides and women in skimpy costumes.  The scene features underwater dance sequences, akin to synchronized swimming.   The camera shoots the girls dancing underwater with shots through glass from the side of the pool and under the pool.  The number culminates in a giant three-story human fountain decorated with women in bathing suits and swimming caps standing on revolving platforms that turn counter to each other.  The camera slowly moves back revealing the massive living fountain.  Through the synchronized movement of the chorus girls legs and arms, geometric patterns abound within the inspired choreography.  Kent succeeds in pulling off a production number that had the audience within the movie giving the number a standing ovation.  While in reality audiences in 1933 gave this a standing ovation during its premiere. 

  One also wonders how this number could ever take place on a stage if it were truly staged in the way it is produced in the film.  The cinema allows the traditional nature of the theater to be pushed beyond its own boundaries.  Berkeley captures the choreography from overhead.  The camera can also capture close-ups of the “beautiful faces” of the chorus girls in the prologues.  It was considered rather revolutionary that Berkeley filmed these sequences using close-ups, which were rarely seen on film in those days.  

What makes Footlight Parade truly cinematic is that the camera is constantly moving through space as these various production numbers are being filmed by the camera.  The camera is never a static observer of the action.  Quite often, the camera itself moves past the smiling chorus girls.  The audience is often placed right in the middle of the action, in some scenes, underwater with the action.  A key sequence of choreography captured on film is during the “By A Waterfall” sequence when the camera begins with close ups of the chorus girls faces, then as the camera dollies backwards, a gigantic human-fountain is revealed to the camera.  This moment is reported to have brought standing ovations from the movie audiences.  For someone today, even viewing this moment on a television in your living room, you can relive the sense of awe that first audiences must have felt.  This same human-fountain was also chosen to be featured in The Great Movie Ride at the Disney/MGM Studios.

Additionally, this sequence of “By a Waterfall,” features characters who are dancing within their reality.  The characters are all performers putting on a show within the show.  The scene is not portrayed as some abstract art; but it is the actual performance of these characters for the audience that came to see the movie which followed the prologue.  Things such as the romantic leads falling in love with each other and fact that all the characters do is live and breathe performing is presented in a stylized manner.  The fact that they are seen rehearsing and then performing this production numbers is quite realistically portrayed.   

Another key musical sequence from the film is “Shanghai Lil,” which follows an American sailor trying to find his girlfriend around town in Shanghai before he has to set sail back to the USA.  In the patriotic finale, Kent who had to fill in for the lead, joins the marching troops and groups of “big name” performers create the American flag, an image of FDR, and an American eagle.  This end sequence is shot from overhead and is achieved through choreography and the use of color boards held over their heads to form patterns and pictures.   This number is also reflective of Warner Brothers’ sensibilities and pro-FDR stance at the time, which is not something you’d likely see in the MGM musicals of the day.

Once again, this number presents us with moving imagery that would not be possible in still photography.  The movie camera allows us to be right in the middle of this production in such a way that even a live audience could not be part of.  From the camera following Kent on his search for Keeler’s character of Shanghai Lil to their big tap dance number to the patriotic finale, the movement is what keeps our attention.  Just like in the “By a Waterfall” prologue, the characters in the film are again performing for a live audience.  Their reality is what the audience is watching.  And by audience, it is meant the audience within the film as well as the movie’s.   This movie reflects much of the close connection that movies had with the stage, to the point that most of the early movie musical comedies revolved around the theater.  

The other prominent musical number in the film is called “The Honeymoon Hotel.”  This number is also very revealing as being “pre-code.”  It revolves around a hotel where there is nothing but couples staying on their wedding nights.  A young Billy Barty keeps popping up in all of their rooms.  Women sing about being nervous since it is, after all, their wedding night.  By today’s rating standards, this film would not likely even garner a G rating.  Between this musical number and all of Berkeley’s close-ups of the girl’s backsides, it was clear this movie was made for adult audiences.  The VHS release of this movie also contains a cartoon with bug characters also acting out the “Honeymoon Hotel” song.  It is equally provocative and disturbing.

As quoted from the Bright Lights Film Journal, “Warner’s pre-Code films work from the social and sexual realities of their time, and provide, even today, the kind of thrills unimaginable in a modern studio system dedicated to capitalist propaganda and status-quo apologizing.”  Footlight Parade features cleavage, prostitutes, an inter-racial bar and even an opium den.  Some today might describe it as a sex-musical-comedy, but regardless, it is all in fun.  It could be concluded that the Hays Code brought on much more of a conservative attitude towards entertainment that did not exist before it’s creation.  Vaudeville acts, which often contained adult themes and humor were still fresh in the minds of the audiences at the time of Footlight Parade’s release.  The storyline, though simplistic, is also as entertaining as the musical numbers.  The film is considered by many as being Berkeley’s best work, if nothing else, it is some of his most creative.  In 1988, the U.S. Library of Congress established the National Film Registry to preserve film deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important."  There is a good reason why this film was chosen to be added to the National Film Registry in 1992, it tells us a lot about the world of filmmaking and audience’s taste in 1933. The other reason is that it is a classic, period.

Buffalo '66 (1998)

I went with my buddy Dave to see this film when it came out. I think I had seen a trailer for it somewhere and it looked intriguing. Mostly, Christina Ricci was the appeal for me. We really had no idea what to expect. I walked out of the theater after the movie and had a new top 5 movie on my list. The film is darkly comedic, with Gallo channeling Ozu, Welles and Capra, yes Frank Capra!

Billy Brown is released from prison after taking the fall for a petty crime he didn't commit. He was forced to take the fall in exchange for defaulting on his payment for a bet he made with a bookie on a Buffalo Bill's game. As we follow him through his day after being released from jail, the audience is given some insight into his background from his ineffectual mother, his love of bowling to his obsession over a woman that was barely aware of his existence. Forced into his day of adventures is Christina Ricci, who is essentially kidnapped by Billy and falls into Stockholm Syndrome. The plot builds as Billy plans to get his revenge on Scott Wood, the QB responsible for losing the football game that cost Billy the $10,000 and landed him in jail. Roger Ebert hated The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo's follow up to his 1998 masterpiece, Buffalo '66. But what did Ebert have to say about this film? He actually gave it 3 stars! The movie is not for everyone but has so many redeeming qualities it's impossible to not find something to love. What other film has Ben Gazzara, Anjelica Huston, Rosanna Arquette, Jan-Michael Vincent AND Mickey Rourke?!


And now my original 2006 essay on the film:

Buffalo ‘66, the Art Film

Vincent Gallo’s 1998 feature length debut, Buffalo ‘66 is considered by many to be an indie classic.  An indie film is described by wikipedia.com as a film that is produced and distributed without major studio financing.  These indie or independent films are typically categorized as art films.  This essay will address the ways in which scenes of Buffalo ‘66 reflect the definition of an art film by the film theorist David Bordwell.

In Bordwell’s article, “The Cinema as a Mod of Film Practice,” he states that the art film defines itself explicitly against the classical narrative mode of cause and effect linkage of events.  Instead, art films typically feature a looser linkage and a deeper study into what motivates that loosening of cause and effect events. (Braudy 776)  This idea is prevalent throughout Buffalo ‘66 as we join Billy Brown just as he is released from prison and follow him through the next 10 hours or so of his life. 

A specific example from the film that supports Bordwell’s idea would be when Billy finally ends up at the dance studio where he tries to use their bathroom to relieve himself after trying unsuccessfully for the first 10 minutes of the film to find somewhere to go, while in the hallway, he borrows a quarter from Layla to use the phone, who is on her way to the bathroom.  We then overhear his conversation with his mother explaining that he just flew in for one day with his wife, who his parents have never met.  She insists on Billy bringing his new wife to the house to meet them.  He reluctantly agrees which results in him deciding to kidnap Layla as she comes back out of the restroom.  This is not the typical cause and effect sequence that a regular narrative driven film would have.  First, we are not sure what his true intentions are with Layla.  Is he going to rape her, rob her and steal her car or what?  After all, Billy was just released from prison and we do not know what he was in there for.  There are several minutes of uneasiness as we see and hear Billy treat Layla in a violent way.  This includes lines like Billy telling Layla if she doesn’t do what he says he’ll take a bite of her cheek and shit her out.  Up to that point we are led to believe that his intentions are of something unpleasant.  It’s not until they arrive at his parent’s house that Billy explains to Layla that he just plans on using her as his wife to impress his parents.  This form of character interaction is right at home in an art film but would not fit into the regular Hollywood narrative style.

Another example is when Billy and Layla arrive at his parent’s home.  The audience would expect the parents to be happy to finally see their new daughter-in-law and son who has been away.  This concept is immediately thrown out the window when Billy’s father, Jimmy, answers the door and immediately yells to his wife that her “son” is here.  She welcomes him and Layla in.  The next scene shows all four people sitting around a square table in silence.  With the lack of sound and body language, we can see that the situation is uncomfortable.  This goes against the traditional narrative notion where we would have expected a family excited to see Billy and his new bride.

Bordwell states that the art cinema motivates its narratives by two principles: realism and authorial expressivity.  Realism is presented in real locations, complex psychological characteristics, real problems and often sexual situations. (Braudy 776)  In Buffalo ‘66, realism is almost always constant.  The settings all appear to be the real thing.  Much like the neo-realistic films of the past, this movie is shot on location in Buffalo, New York.  There is virtually no hint of any studio artifice in the film.

Bordwell notes the difference between art film characters and mainstream cinema.  While in Hollywood films, the protagonist shoots directly for the target; in art films, the protagonist often lacks a goal and slides passively from one situation to another.  (Braudy 776)  This can be found in this film as the character of Billy begins the movie with no real direction.  His first goal seems to be reuniting with his parents which has disastrous results.  Billy then moves toward the goal of murdering Scott Wood, the football player who made him lose $10,000 on a bet.  There is no traditional Hollywood storyline following Billy, the protagonist, on the usual story arch.  Billy does exhibit his problems interacting with his parents.  When Billy and Layla arrive at his parent’s home for dinner, he has a breakdown on the porch before ringing the doorbell.  We witness the flood of negative emotion that seems to envelope him after returning home.  This also ties into Bordwell’s concept of the hero in art films typically being supersensitive individuals who are on the edge of a breakdown.  There is a reoccurring realization of the anguish of ordinary living.  This is further illustrated by several flashbacks that Billy has to his childhood.  One flashback recalls when Billy ate chocolate and learned that he was allergic which resulted in his face turning red and swelling.  The other flashback is when Billy’s father Jimmy kills his puppy Bingo in front of him after the puppy peed in the house for the last time.  These flashbacks illustrate the inner turmoil of our protagonist.

In art films, Bordwell also notes that violations of classical conceptions of space and time are justified by the complex characters found in the films.  These films often have plot manipulations of the story order.  Bazin, the man considered the first major critic of art cinema also acknowledged the loose, accidental narrative structure of art films and praised it. (Braudy 418)  In Buffalo ‘66, we see an example of the classical conception of time when in the middle of the film, at the start of the second act, we are taken back in time and shown why Billy was placed in jail.  Unlike the earlier mentioned flashbacks, which were also shot in 16mm as opposed to the 35mm of the rest of the film, the prison scene is shot in 35mm.  During this section of film we learn that he made his bad bet on Buffalo Bills winning the Super Bowl.  A bet which he loses and as a result is forced by his bookie to admit to a crime he didn’t commit.  It is due to all of this that Billy creates such contempt for Scott Wood, the player who lost the Super Bowl.  Following this scene we are abruptly placed back into the present.  Since this flashback is essential to the storyline, the audience is quick to forgive its disruptive nature as we delve deeper into Billy’s world.  Also, the childhood flashbacks are shot in a home-movie style giving the audience the idea that these are Billy’s memories which may not be completely reliable.  The prison flashback is played to appear much more factual since it was filmed like the rest of this film.

            As mentioned earlier, Bordwell also notes the authorial expressivity found in art cinema.  He states that art films are the work of expressive individuals.  These films often made by individuals who include autobiographical content to their movies.  This was true of Fellini, Truffaut and in this case, Vincent Gallo. (Braudy 777)  The movie commonly referred to as a semi-autobiographical movie.  Gallo himself denounces the idea that film was even remotely autobiographical other the parents in the film being similar to his own.  He is afraid that people will think he really did not really create the script and merely played himself in the film.  Gallo insists that he really did write the screenplay and those performances in the movie were acted.  The film was not intended to be some re-enacted documentary of his life. 

Following right in line with Bordwell’s beliefs, Buffalo ‘66 is able takes advantage of its freedom that Hollywood films do not.  For example, in a sequence taking place around a dinner table of a Hollywood film, the camera would either be fixed at the end of the table with people sitting around the table facing the camera and/or the director would present many close ups of peoples faces as they engage in conversation.  This film turns that notion on its head.  Billy, Layla and his parents each sit on a side of the square dinner table.  As the conversation ensues, the camera takes the place of each person at the table so that no more than three characters are ever seen at a time while they are sitting.  By filming the sequence in this way, the audience is an active participant at the dinner table of this dysfunctional family.  This clearly violates the classical conception of the camera objectively filming the sequence and it works brilliantly.  It has been said that this scene was Gallo’s homage to Yasujiro Ozu, the Japanese filmmaker who is known for his static visual style.

In art films, Bordwell states that authorial commentary is showcased by any breakdown of the motivation of cinematic space and time by cause-effect logic. (Braudy 778) These can be portrayed by things such as enigmas or the puzzle of deciphering just who is telling the story, why the story is being told or what is is being told in the film.  This is not something typically found in classic Hollywood cinema. 

Gallo provides his authorial commentary with a sort of flash forward.  We follow Billy as he leaves Layla in the motel and heads for the strip club that Scott Wood owns with the intent to kill him.  Billy makes one last phone call to his only friend Goon to give him the combination to his bowling locker and says goodbye.  We then follow him in the club which plays in slow motion.  He then finds Scott Wood and shoots him in the forehead and then turns the gun on himself.  This scene is played in a series of frozen shots referred to as “bullet time,” “whereby the passage of time is displayed as extremely slow or frozen moments in order to allow a viewer to observe imperceptibly fast events.” (“bullet-time”) We then cut to Billy’s parents at his graveside, with his mother listening to the latest Buffalo Bills football game on a portable radio and his father sitting next to her, complaining about the cold weather.  The two quickly get up and leave, seemingly unfazed over the death of their son.  Suddenly, we see that this was Billy’s imagined version of the scenario.  He decides against killing Scott Wood and then walks out of the club and goes back to Layla in the motel.  This sequence functions perfectly to stress Gallo’s authorial presence over the film.  He makes us believe we are seeing the fate of the character when it is changed on us to the reality of the situation.  In addition, we are allowed to share in Billy’s imagined consequences of his actions.

One thing that Bordwell does not address in his theory but seems to be ever present in art films of today is the use of lesser known music that was not created new for the film.  In Buffalo ‘66, Gallo chose to use several songs by the band Yes.  The music of Yes uses symphonic and other classical structures blended with rock.  Their music is instrumentally driven which allows for a surreal soundtrack during the imagined strip club murder/suicide scenario of Billy.  Directors like Quentin Tarantino have been quite successful in assembling music that spans the decades and genres to use for his soundtracks, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are great examples of this.  It has become a common staple of many art films.

Bordwell’s ideas of art film are best culminated in this statement, “…we are to watch less for the tale than the telling, that life lacks the neatness of art and this art knows it.” (Braudy 780)  In Buffalo ‘66, Bordwell’s vision of the art film is firmly upheld through the storytelling style of Vincent Gallo.  Bordwell makes the case for the place of the art film in the cinematic canon.  This film again proves the value of art cinema which provides possibilities for movies that do not exist in classic Hollywood cinema.

Bibliography

Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen. Film Theory and Criticism, sixth edition. Oxford UP, 2004.

Buffalo ‘66. Dir. Vincent Gallo. Perf. Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci. 1998. DVD. Lions Gate Films, 1999.

“bullet-time.” Wikipedia. 3 March 2006. 3 March 2006

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet-time>.

 “Independent Film.” Wikipedia. 6 March 2006. 11 March 2006

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_film>.

Kaufman, Anthony. “writing.” November 2001. 11 March 2006

<http://www.vincentgallo.com/writing/AnthonyKaufman.html>.

The Watcher In The Woods (1980)

The Watcher in the Woods – Disney Does Horror

 The family’s role in the horror film dates back to the creation of the first horror movies.  Many even cite the family connection in the Frankenstein films.  Robin Wood’s structuralist borrowing of the psychoanalytic-political theory of repression, outlined in An Introduction to the American Horror Film will provide us with our interpretive framework.  Of particular significance to Wood is horror’s portrayal of the family and the family’s position in maintaining dominant social and cultural norms, namely those of patriarchy and capitalism.  In the 1970s there was an explosion of horror films revolving around the family and just about every studio attempted one. As Wood points out, from 1959’s Psycho on, Hollywood has produced horror films that are “both American and familial.”  Watcher in the Wood continues that tradition. 

By the end of the 1970s and early 80s, Walt Disney Productions struggled as it attempted to maintain its image of wholesome family entertainment.  It still attempted to maintain its present with the world wide movie going audience.  During this same period films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were breaking box office records and these were movies that Disney could  have made but didn’t because it of its blind allegiance to making only G-rated fare.  When the new decade of the 1980s arrived, Ron Miller, Walt Disney’s son-in-law had taken over the leadership reins of the company.  He realized that Disney needed to venture in more mature filmmaking, but it was a fine line that the company was willing to walk as it developed PG films.  In order to produce big-budget films, the studio did two co-productions with Paramount Studios, Popeye (1980) and Dragonslayer (1980).  Neither of these films was very successful and Disney once again decided to venture into film production solo.  One way that the company saw the possibility to bring in some box office revenue was to take advantage of the developing audience for the newest brand of horror films like Friday the 13^th and Halloween.  Instead of attempting a slasher film, Disney instead followed the trend of family horror films but with The Watcher in the Woods (1981).

In focusing on the family in horror, it is appropriate to discuss the contested nature of “family”. The family is by no means a universal, static, or tangible grouping; it exists as a complex network of relationships. It is the social institution entrusted with the reproductive process – reproduction of the species, along with reproduction of cultural, social and psychic norms. Though “the family” is frequently conceptualized as a universal, fixed unit (i.e. the nuclear family), this is an essentially ideological construction, conflicting with the reality of its diverse and changing nature. It is probably more correct to talk of “families”, as “the family” in a unitary sense doesn’t really exist. However, family is a useful concept for the way in which it informs and provides meaning to discursive and cultural formations. The inherently Western nature of the family in this sense, and its function within capitalist superstructures requires us to view developments and themes in the horror genre with a degree of cultural specificity. (Woods)

This film depicts an American family moving to England into an old mansion with Bette Davis as the house caretaker.  The somewhat confusing plot revolves around the fact that Davis’s daughter disappeared in the surrounding woods one night and has never been seen again.  Depending on the source, it has been said that Disney had issues with how much horror and frights could be depicted in a film produced under their name.  This film deals with the occult and supernatural, all themes that had never been attempted by the studio before this time.  They also struggled with how to produce a family friendly film about a family dealing with terrifying events befalling them.  With a conclusion that is as unfair as it is nonsensical, The Watcher in the Woods is its own worst enemy: far better as a curiosity during a time when Disney was offering the worst mainstream movies the world has ever known than as a horror film the whole family can enjoy.

The film reflects the problem of Disney trying out horror that is still Disney-like.  Elements of terror go back as far as their version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  When the evil stepmother transforms herself into a hag, audiences were said to have wet their pants.  Two years after The Watcher in the Woods, Disney took a second stab at the genre with Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on the Ray Bradbury book.  This film also suffered a similar fate in that it was re-edited and had new material shot for it after the production had wrapped.  The film did poorly box office, not only in its abbreviated initial release but also the re-cut version that attempted to clarify the ending.  Internationally, the film did not appear to make much of a profit, if any.

The Watcher in the Woods was initially released in the United States on April 17, 1980.  After being pulled from theaters and re-edited, it was re-released on October 7, 1981 to coincide with the Halloween season.  In the USA the film grossed only $5 million.  The film was released internationally, specifically in France on April 7, 1982 and in Japan on September 11, 1982.  Other countries which distributed the film were Poland, Italy, Spain, West Germany and Finland.  Reactions internationally were equally poor, though actual box office figures were not obtainable.  

The film was directed by an English director, John Hough who had worked with Disney on two prior mystery/sci-fi/whatever films; Escape from Witch Mountain and its sequel, Return to Witch Mountain.  One can easily find similarities between this atmospheric ghost tale with Australia’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) which was released in the USA in 1979 just as this film went into production.  Director John Hough, no doubt found some inspiration in Peter Weir’s film which carries a similar “thriller” theme.  He also brought his real life experiences as an Englishman to conveying just how frightening the English countryside can be.

Some questions that stand to be asked are why Disney chose a British director for the film but ultimately took him off and replaced him with an American studio guy from the TV department to complete the final version of the film?  Did they want the film to appeal to international audiences or did they want someone that could bring the feeling of The Haunting of Hill House to the movie.  (Which, incidentally, is the same house used for this production.)  If they were trying to compete with storylines about haunted houses, then the film could be considered a rip off of The Shining or The Amityville Horror. At the start of the film, it is hinted that the house may be haunted.  As the father says what self respecting old English house would be without [a ghost]. There is no ghost, but there is Bette Davis, who is quite frightening in her appearance at this late stage in her film career.  The girls then joke about a witch living somewhere in the woods – another blatant attempt to tell the audience what to be afraid of. 

We ultimately find out that the house and the woods surrounding it are not the culprit of the horror but it is instead some other supernatural power terrorizing the family.  The original cut of the film was to feature a climatic moment where the “Watcher” returns and takes the female blonde lead back to his spaceship where she finds the missing girl and somehow brings her back home.  This ending was never completed and the ending was dramatically altered to one where the “Watcher” is never presented on screen.
            As we address the idea of Disney’s family horror film, it is worthwhile noting Ann Douglas’s definition of the concept:

The genre of “family horror” records the strange forms and transformations into which the contemporary middle-class family falls: its subject is the splitting of the atom of the nuclear family. This fictional family is twice nuclear. It consists of the now-classic small nucleus of parents and one or two children. It represents the first American families parented by young adults who were themselves born just before and after the official inauguration of the nuclear age at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and who are consciously bringing children into an atomic world. In these thrillers, parental characters, like many of the authors who create them, are baby-boomers, creatures of the sixties, dramatized and imagined as they begin families in the seventies and eighties: in other words they are protagonists of pressing, intricate and culturally telling contradictions.  (Douglas)

Watcher features the middle class American family leaving the comforts of the United States to live life in jolly ole’ England.  The father of the family leaves early on in the film for a business trip, leaving his wife and two daughters with Ms. Aylwood.  The parents are basically useless and at a loss for how to manage their situation.  It is only via the children that a breakthrough is made and the lost daughter of Ms. Aylwood is recovered.  There is the stereotypical “innocent” little girl, Ellie and the “pretty” older blonde sister, Jan.  Jan’s blonde hair is important because Ms. Aylwood’s daughter was also a blonde and she both reminds Ms. Aylwood of her daughter and also helps Jan intercede in finding Karen. The Americans are the foreigners and are the ones who discover the other foreigner who has been terrorizing the village.

Wood describes two types of horror films; reactionary and apocalyptic.  Watcher uses an unseen monster throughout the film.  This ambiguous form of monster falls right into her definition of the “return of the repressed.”  The missing girl in the film originally disappears while participating in a séance with other teenagers.  Teenagers are traditionally portrayed as repressing sexual tendencies and are punished for it.  The missing girl, Karen, is dressed in white was blind folded with a white handkerchief and stood in the middle of the séance circle when she was taken.  This concept in itself touches on themes of sadomasochism. The monster kidnapping her can be interpreted through Woods’ definition of the monster as a punishment for the possibility of sexual expression on Karen’s part, though this is never something shown or discussed in the film text.  Jan also has what appears to be a love interest, a young man she meets after moving to England.  There is not a hint of sexuality between them.  No kissing, hugging or romantic moments. 

            Tony Williams has also written extensively about the American horror film.  He describes these films as embodying "inevitable psychological tensions of an authoritarian family situation, in which people are molded into certain roles."  The adults in this film are portrayed as particularly inept thus leaving it up to the children to take control of the situation.  The children are not the cause of the horror such as in films like The Exorcist or The Omen, but they are the ones victimized most by the monster such as in a film like Poltergeist.

            In making their first horror film, Disney was able to maintain some of their reputation for a family film.  There is no sex, foul language or significant acts of violence.  Disney was and remains the studio to produce films for the family audience.  However, the conventions of the typical American horror film are not compatible with Disney dominant conventions both in 1980 and even present day.  Yes, this film does have a happy ending but the overall theme of the film is a dark one.  The occult, séances, and extraterrestrial alien creatures are not stock characters for a Disney film.  Disney finally realized that if they wanted to maintain the integrity of the Disney brand but still be able to compete at the box office, a differently named production company would need to be created.  Once Touchstone Pictures came on the scene with the release of Splash (1984), they finally could make a competitive and financially successful film.  Interestingly, there were no future attempts at horror in the ways that were attempted with both Watcher in the Woods and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

WORKS CITED

Digital Cinema. “The Mystery, Behind the Mystery.” http://www.geocities.com/ditcin4/watchermystery.html. 28 March 28, 2007.

Douglas, Ann, “The Dream of the Wise Child: Freud's 'Family Romance Revisited in Contemporary Narratives of Horror,” Prospect, 9 (1984), p. 293.

Hollis, Richard and Brian Sibley. The Disney Studio Story. Crown, New York. 1988.

Maltin, Leonard. The Disney Films.  3^rd Edition. Hyperion, New York. 1995. p. 273, 317.

Naha , Ed. "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Twilight Zone Magazine June 1983.

http://www.geocities.com/moviemagazinearchive/SomethingWicked.html 28 March 2007.

The Watcher in the Woods Review

http://www.geocities.com/ditcin4/watcherinthewoods.html

Wood, Robin (1979) “An Introduction to the American Horror Film”. The American Nightmare. Toronto: Festival of Festivals

Disney's Creativity Dilemma

Disney released it's slate of films planned for the next few years, most of which were already announced at different times. There is a pattern that is quite disturbing, which was brought to my attention by my movie buddy, Will McKinley. Disney is banking itself on franchises and remakes. Aside from some new storylines out of Pixar and Disney animation, there is not a whole lot of original ahead. I understand wanting to capitalize on the $4 billion spent on Marvel and the other $4 billion for Lucasfilm, however, how about continuing a legacy. 

Sequels are not new to the Disney machine, remember that it's the studio that gave us four Herbie films.  Even during Walt Disney's era, there was The Absent Minded Professor (1961) and Son of Flubber (1963).  However, with the exception of two Davy Crockett feature releases (which were just packaged versions of the one hour serial from the Walt Disney Presents television show), there were no other live action or animated sequels made under his reign.  I am not about to start the "What would Walt do?" argument, because that is inconsequential.  What I am concerned over is the future of the studio.

Disney's first FULL live action film was not even produced until 1950's Treasure Island. Live actions films then dominated the studio until the millenium, when this mining of the animated properties began. Direct-to-Video animated sequels saw out Eisner's era at the studios. Thankfully, that trend ran it's course and several sequels that were planned never saw the light of day, (Pinocchio II and Aristocats II, anyone?).  Now it seems we have gone the opposite direction. The studio has gone back to mining the properties, but now is producing live-action films based off the animated classics. This year we had Cinderella, which fared well at the box office, assuring a few more in the future. The Jungle Book, which Disney already has done in live action form, back in 1994 is getting another go, this one will be a musical version but with mostly new songs and CGI animals, I presume. Beauty and the Beast just starting filming this month for a 2017 release. Rumors of Pinocchio and Snow White are also rampant.

There are several original films in the current slate. Many of have modest budgets and can lean on the tent pole positioning of the Marvel and Pixar films for a buffer. If they are successful, they too perhaps, will be considered for future sequels.

Oh, and another word about Disney property mining, we have Tomorrowland, The Movie! opening for Memorial Day weekend. This should be a success, though maybe not a blockbuster. We can likely look forward to more Disney attraction-turned-films in the future, including another attempt at a Haunted Mansion movie coming sometime probably in 2018, according to Screenrant.  Let's see if we get a Matterhorn movie, which itself was inspired by a live action film, Third Man on the Mountain (1959).

Disney has always been about innovation and mass appeal entertainment. For their sake, I hope they do not end up back in the 70s rut of mere regurgitation and derivative content.

Below is the list announced fully, today:
Avengers: Age of Ultron – 5/1/15
Tomorrowland – 5/22/15
Inside Out – 6/19/15
Ant-Man – 7/17/15
Bridge of Spies – 10/16/15
The Good Dinosaur – 11/25/15
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – 12/18/15
The Finest Hours – 1/29/16
Zootopia – 3/4/16
The Jungle Book – 4/15/16
Captain America: Civil War – 5/6/16
Alice Through the Looking Glass – 5/27/16
Finding Dory – 6/17/16
The BFG – 7/1/16
Pete’s Dragon – 8/12/16
Doctor Strange – 11/4/16
Moana – 11/23/16
Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One – 12/16/16
Beauty and the Beast – 3/17/17
Ghost in the Shell – 4/14/17
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – 5/5/17
Star Wars: Episode VIII – 5/26/17
Toy Story 4 – 6/16/17
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – 7/7/17
Thor: Ragnarok – 11/3/17
Untitled Pixar Animation – 11/22/17
Untitled Disney Animation – 3/9/18
Avengers: Infinity War Part I – 5/4/18
Untitled Pixar Animation – 6/15/18
Black Panther – 7/6/18
Captain Marvel – 11/2/18
Untitled Disney Animation – 11/21/18
Avengers: Infinity War Part II – 5/3/19
Inhumans – 7/12/19

Thanks to  Box Office Mojo for the listings.