“I suppose a lot of my comedy comes from painful moments or experiences in life, and you just flip them on their head.”                                  ~ Miranda Hart, comedian, actress, writer

Since it is so rare that a work of comedy wins Best Picture, I thought it would behoove us to talk a little this week about what comedy is and what that means for the significance of this week’s film, It Happened One Night. We’ll save the tragedy discussion for a few weeks down the road, perhaps with Hamlet (1948).

In literature, a comedy is usually defined as a story that has a happy ending, one that starts low and ends high. In film comedies, the happy ending element is present; but depending on the type of comedy, the movie will also possess awkward or unusual situations and characters cleverly or clumsily extricating themselves from these predicaments. Irony can also play a part in comedies. Nothing goes as planned, resulting in hilarious adjustments or evasions. Witticisms are not absent from comedies, nor are double entendres and puns scarce. Frequently, characters exhibit wacky mannerisms and quirky traits. Any combination of these characteristics of movie comedies provides amusement and humor.

But 1934 was one of the oddest times in American history for a comedy to steal the spotlight, rock the box office, and sweep the most prestigious Academy Awards categories. Or was it?

By 1934, America had been transformed by the Great Depression. The national average for unemployment had reached twenty-five percent the year before, with unemployment rates for those who lived in cities much, much higher. About 100,000 people lost their jobs per week during certain periods of the Great Depression—and it’s both important and shocking to remember that the people who were employed for just a few hours per week don’t even count toward these unemployment stats! Manufacturing and business declined. One in four farmers lost their farms. Thousands of banks closed. Shanty towns called “Hoovervilles” sprung up everywhere as homes for those who no longer possessed real houses. Starvation and malnutrition had become common, everyday American experiences; and some people took to observing what animals ate so they could copy their dietary habits and survive.

Ellie’s legendary strategy for stopping cars

How very ironic, then, that the first line of It Happened One Night is spoken by the wealthy Alexander Andrews, who responds “Hunger strike, eh?” when a crew member of his yacht tells him of his daughter’s refusal to eat. The fact that the Andrews family has abundant food and that Ellie rejects eating it would have been so foreign—and perhaps insulting—to Americans clinging to life in the 1930s. And yet somehow the utter ridiculousness of a spoiled heiress not cherishing her privileges and instead pretending to be an average person riding the night bus to New York with only one set of clothes and a suitcase of money becomes hilarious rather than injurious. Ellie becomes sympathetic instead of offensive—probably because the film makes it clear that Ellie doesn’t value her elevated social status because it deprives her of her freedom. She is subject to her father’s every whim, stalked by bodyguards, and unable to make her own decisions about anything, namely about whom to marry. As per the film, then, freedom is more prized than wealth.

Just as the value of personal freedom exceeds the benefits of wealth and social status, so also does fear trump hunger. Or does it? As Peter and Ellie attempt to harbor in a field of haystacks one night, they have a most interesting exchange which is worth quoting in full here:

Ellie: Peter…I’m awfully hungry.

Peter: Awh, just your imagination.

Ellie: No it isn’t. I’m hungry and…and scared.

Peter: Ya can’t be hungry and scared both at the same time.

Ellie: While I am.

Peter: If you’re scared, it scares the hunger out of ya.

Ellie: Not if you’re more hungry than scared.

Peter: Alright, you win. Let’s forget about it.

Ellie: I can’t forget it. I’m still hungry.

What a fantastic picture of the 1930s themselves! Which is worse, hunger or fear? Which is more vital, individual survival or group morale? Just a year before the release of It Happened One Night, Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address infamously proclaimed, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Brave, memorable words—and yet the people hearing them, although recognizing the need to persevere, were starving, out of work, and demoralized. How can one turn fear into boldness when one cannot turn dust into bread? How can optimism win out against the more real pain of famishment?

It Happened One Night actually provides a single answer to these questions—love. As Ellie admits, her fear for the future doesn’t exceed the physical discomfort of her hunger. Yet when she mistakes Peter’s momentary absence for abandonment, her devastation at losing the man she loves actually erases her hunger, at least for a while. Similarly, Peter’s foraging for raw carrots to assuage their hunger, which at first disgusts the pampered Ellie, leads her to adjust her own views and habits to trust that he has her best interest in mind (and to her eating the carrots as well). In short then, love trumps fear and hunger and social class and wealth.

For Me Then…

Again, I love this movie, and I sometimes find it hard to think more deeply about a film that I feel I’ve watched simply for enjoyment or entertainment. But It Happened One Night with its emphasis on the transcendence of love offers more than just entertainment. Though the film’s love is of the romantic kind, it is a type of romance unlike most of what is portrayed in films today—you know, the ones where you have to fast forward through certain scenes or throw a blanket over your head for a moment. Instead, Peter protects and cares for Ellie, providing for her needs and teaching her life skills she does not know. Likewise, Ellie cares for Peter, working with him to achieve their common goals. Neither is out to gain sexual advantage over the other. Chivalry isn’t dead. How extremely refreshing!

The Walls of Jericho (Check out the film to learn more about this chivalrous sleeping arrangement!)

Furthermore, the pure enjoyment this film offers its viewers must have been a huge draw in the 1930s. Yes, the movie discusses hunger and fear and brief homelessness. But it takes these commonplace occurrences of the Great Depression and flips them into comedic situations that doubtless encouraged moviegoers of the 1930s to forget their struggles for the moment. In my very first post, I noted how movies are not simply escapism, but for this film and its time, perhaps that was what people needed it to be, maybe that was the best thing that could be offered to viewers at that time. This fact might not make It Happened One Night vault to the top of the greatest films lists now, but it filled a void and met a need back then, and for that it remains a classic and a most worthwhile escape.

Personally, I love this movie, which is really saying something because rom-coms are not usually my particular cup of tea. Don’t get me wrong. I can tolerate some of them, and I like others, but there are only a couple romantic comedies that I truly love (While You Were Sleeping and My Big Fat Greek Wedding being pretty much the only two that come to mind right now). My problem with them most of the time—if the acting isn’t completely atrocious—is that they are unrealistic. Not that films of other genres are always realistic, but there’s just something about romantic comedies that usually bothers me. I think it’s that in my own life there’s never been any smidgen of evidence that loving someone (or being funny, for that matter) solves all of one’s problems, which is what seems to typically happen at the end of rom-coms.

Anyhow, this week’s film is It Happened One Night (1934, Columbia), the first rom-com to win Best Picture—a pretty rare occurrence in Oscar history. I mean, really, can anyone name any other straight-up romantic comedies to win BP? Furthermore, not only did It Happened One Night win BP, it also took home every other award for which it was nominated for a total of five Oscar wins. And those five wins were huge. This is the first Best Picture to sweep all five of the major categories of the Academy Awards: Outstanding Production, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (Adaptation)—a feat that has only happened two other times in Academy history (Can anyone name those two films? Hint: It was more than 40 years after It Happened One Night that another film finally won the “Big Five.”). It Happened One Night is also the first BP to win any acting awards, which is rather shocking, I think.

Now let’s put some names to those stats. Clark Gable. Claudette Colbert. Frank Capra. What is super funny about It Happened One Night—other than the film itself, which has some absolutely hilarious sequences—is that it almost didn’t happen. Clark Gable, who was under contract with MGM, refused to accept an assignment the studio had for him and was “loaned out” to Columbia, a sub-par studio at the time, in order to gain some humility and gratitude toward MGM apparently. Instead, Gable won his only Oscar—and started a trend of men not wearing undershirts due to Gable’s not having one on during his undressing scene (it’s not that scandalous, don’t worry).

Claudette Colbert was not the first actress considered for the role of Ellie Andrews, yet the remarkable on-screen chemistry between Gable and Colbert earned her an Oscar as well—an award she was convinced she would not win and was not present to receive when it was announced. About that event, Colbert stated: “I really had no idea I would get [the Oscar]. In fact, I was ready to leave for New York the night they called to tell me about it. Dressed in a mousy brown suit, I was escorted into the banquet hall full of diamonds and tail coats. It was especially embarrassing because I imagined they thought I was putting on an act, making an entrance.”

Frank Capra was an Italian immigrant who fell in love with education and the burgeoning movie industry, despite his family’s insistence that he drop out of school and get a job to help support the family. Capra did work a number of odd jobs before he realized his calling as a film director. After It Happened One Night, Capra would go on to direct a score of successful movies, including another Best Picture winner, You Can’t Take It with You (1938), as well as the iconic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night

Released in 1934, It Happened One Night joins the ranks of Depression-era films and doesn’t neglect to include frequent references to money, its desirability, its scarcity, and its power. Hunger is also a prevalent motif. But, the film does more than just embrace pecuniary allusions and the concept of deprivation. It Happened One Night portrays the differences in social classes and concludes that love is more vital than money or even food. Perhaps this message was encouraging to those millions suffering through the 1930s.

To close then on a funny note in honor of this groundbreaking rom-com, one more interesting fact about this film. According to Friz Freleng, an Oscar-winning animation expert who worked for Warner Brothers and helped to develop some of animation’s most recognizable cartoons, the characters of Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, and Pepe LePew were all partially inspired by characters from It Happened One Night. Bugs Bunny’s character borrowed the fast-talking dialogue of Oscar Shapeley, the womanizing fellow bus passenger, along with the carrot-eating technique of Peter Warne, Gable’s character. Yosemite Sam was based on Alexander Andrews, the overbearing father figure. Pepe LePew took his cue from King Westley, the wealthy, snobbish playboy. And I will take my cue from Gus, the patriarch of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and say, “There you go.”

For more detailed thoughts on It Happened One Night and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

“This is the story of a home and a family…history seen through the eyes of a wife and mother whose love tempers both fortune and disaster…”

This could be another post about World War I and other major historical events featured in a Best Picture film. Or, we could approach Cavalcade in a similar way to Cimarron and focus on how the main female character, Jane Marryot, is left behind by her husband and sons and develops her independence and fortitude. But I think today we’ll do something a little different.

After the introductory credits and text—yes, featuring that medieval cavalcade signifying the passing of time—the first feature seen in this week’s movie is Big Ben tolling out the time as it nears New Year’s 1900. But then something interesting happens (not that Big Ben is uninteresting, because it’s really quite cool). The scene transitions from Big Ben outside near the Houses of Parliament to the grandfather clock within the Marryot household. This combination of motifs—the movement from outside to inside and the concept of Time—occurs throughout the film and is especially significant in light of the film’s focus on the passage of world events and their intrusion into the lives of the Marryot family.

Two other features of the film help to further develop these outside-inside and time patterns: the Marryots’ balcony and the song “Auld Lang Syne.” The balcony outside the Marryot family home is a prominent vantage point for the family and their friends as they witness the great changes in history that time brings to them in the early 1900s. It is on this balcony that the family solemnly observes the funeral procession of Queen Victoria, herself a symbol of dramatic change from the 1800s to the 1900s. Likewise, the Marryots frequently hear news regarding the wars and Britain’s fate in them while on this same balcony. What is interesting to consider, then, is how world events that happen outside the house in a non-personal space are brought into the house to a personal space via this balcony. In this sense, the balcony is a mix of the impersonal and personal, the outside and the inside—just as the film and its characters are a fusion of outside happenings and private trials.

The Marryot family in their home

The frequency of the song “Auld Lang Syne” in Cavalcade is likewise noteworthy. The Marryots sing it. Their friends and servants sing it. Large crowds sing it. “Auld Lang Syne” is an old song, supposedly first recorded on paper by the poet Robert Burns, who sent a copy of the song as a poem to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, admitting that it was ancient and not his own original work. Though today we sing the song at the turn of the new year, “Auld Lang Syne” was not originally written for New Year’s alone. Instead, it addresses the more timeless ideas of friendship and reminiscing about the past. It has also been used for graduations and other celebratory events—and in Japan even as a notice to leave a store because it’s closing for the night (Seriously, this is true! Look it up on YouTube!). In connection with Cavalcade, though, the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” provides yet another bridge between the past and the present, from what has passed out of the personal space to what now inhabits it. The song provides a reminder to appreciate and value the past—even as the present and its unfamiliar trials threaten to mow down the Marryot family.

For Me Then…

Cavalcade seems to often find itself toward the bottom of critics’ Best Picture rankings, but I think this is a mistake. Though not the most visually stunning film and lacking the star power of the cast of Grand Hotel, Cavalcade still poignantly asks its viewers to recognize the power of history and its intrusion into and influence on our lives. The film takes events that are in and of themselves impersonal to most of us and inserts them into the personal lives of its characters—transporting what is outside our everyday worlds into our most intimate thoughts and feelings, drawing our attention to the fact that huge world issues are really also personal ones that can affect us at our most vulnerable levels.

Robert and Jane Marryot, now alone, observe one last New Year’s in Cavalcade

As “Auld Lang Syne” wafts through the scenes of the film, emphasizing the importance of the past, and as the loss of the Titanic and the horrors of World War I move from the outside common world into the Marryots’ domestic space, I cannot help thinking of our own world and the conflicts it pushes into our own lives. With all the tensions and disagreements and tragedy and unknowns, how do we react when what is outside pushes its way inside? The music of the past plays on while we debate—and oftentimes dread—what to do with the present and the future. I think the focus on this dilemma is the lasting value of Cavalcade. (Spoiler alert!) Though Robert and Jane Marryot sit alone at the end of the film and worry about the future, there is also an air of gratitude about them, a thankfulness for the privilege of having taken part in the magnanimity of their own present, even though it has been full of “fortune and disaster” as the film’s introduction states. I think we too, in light of our volatile present, should be thankful for the time we are given and for our past which we can use to teach ourselves how to live in the present and deal with the future. And in dealing with this present and that future, I myself find it encouraging to remember these words from the Apostle Paul: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

Downton Abbey. That’s what this week’s film reminds me of.

Following the story of a wealthy British family and their friends, servants, and acquaintances through several decades of history beginning at the close of 1899, Cavalcade (1933, Fox) interweaves events with worldwide ramifications such as the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic, and, of course, the War to End All Wars with personal family trials, triumphs, and tragedies. Adapted from a successful play of the same name, Cavalcade took home three Oscars:  Art Direction, Directing, and Outstanding Production, in addition to Diana Wynyard’s nomination for Best Actress.

Cavalcade’s story-line begins on New Year’s Eve in 1899, with the Marryot family and their servants expressing hopes and fears for what the new century will hold. I think most of us who are older than 20-ish can also remember similar thoughts and emotions in 1999. What with Columbine and Oklahoma City and the O. J. Simpson trial and the Persian Gulf War of the 1990s, and with the unknowns of Y2K and the unanticipated attacks of September 11, the turn of the twenty-first century mirrors that of the twentieth in that the beginning of a new century is perhaps more of a collision of past, present, and future than other new years are. From a historical point of view, I find Cavalcade’s tracing of time and its emphasis on new years/New Year’s quite fascinating—especially when thinking back on my own life so far and the world events that have occurred within the same span of time.

Celebrating New Year’s 1900 in Cavalcade

Furthermore, Cavalcade is itself situated at an interesting time in history for its emphasis on the mixing of past, present, and future. The movie expresses both optimism and anxiety about the future in light of the past; however, as we saw in Wings and All Quiet on the Western Front especially, the idea that the Great War was the culmination of past evils, the destroyer of present hopes, and the reason why the future could not possibly be so bad also permeates Cavalcade. Though the characters express doubt regarding the evils that the future might hold, they seem completely oblivious to the fact that the foundations for World War II are being laid as they speak. Nothing can possibly be as bad as what they have already endured, so they believe. But now in hind sight, we know better.

And that’s the problem with new and young centuries. A new century is both a time to reflect on the past and to feel out the future, yet that future is unknowable to us. It is unbelievably creepy to watch the film’s final scenes and to know the Holocaust is looming in the near future when the characters do not know this. And then I bring this idea home to my own often-mistaken thinking about the future. Not to be morbid, but in observing the state of the world today, one wonders what is in the future that we cannot see. For me personally, I need to leave that future in God’s hands because worrying about it just causes more stress than I can handle! And who really needs more stress in their lives?

Speaking of stress, after what the Marryots go through in the film, I would like to think they get the same type of ending as the finale of Downton Abbey, which I will not spoil for you all…except while we’re on the topic, I’ll just note that I found it satisfying but not completely realistic! Cavalcade is perhaps the opposite of this: more realistic but not as completely satisfying.

For more detailed (and hopefully less rambling!) thoughts on Cavalcade and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

Almost resembling Two-Face from the Batman franchise due to being wounded in World War I, Dr. Otternschlag, an odd older man who seems to mostly hang out in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, delivers the quote that is the main crux of the film Grand Hotel. Seeming a bit despondent and a little annoyed as everyone bustles around him, the Doctor sits smoking in a lobby chair after most of the main characters and their issues are introduced to the film’s viewers through the telephone calls they make in the opening scene. The Doctor then monotonously declares to no one in particular, “Grand Hotel. People coming, going. Nothing ever happens.” What is so very ironic about this quote is that the Doctor seems bored out of his mind while in the midst of the chaos of the Grand Hotel lobby. Apparently, the Grand Hotel—in Berlin—is the most expensive hotel in the city and the place where anyone who’s anyone stays. In fact, most of the characters seem to have taken up long-term residence in the hotel. What is also funny about this quote is that we the viewers have just learned that a lot is happening in the hotel. Senf, the head porter, is stressed because he is awaiting news that his laboring wife has delivered their baby. Otto Kringelein has been told by his doctor that he is terminally ill and has decided to spend his life savings on enjoying what time he has left. General Director Preysing must succeed in getting a business merger to go through or else his financial situation will become dire. Grusinskaya, the Russian ballet dancer, is suicidal because she feels alone and no longer relevant. Baron Felix von Geigern is penniless and is working with a shady group of individuals who require him to charm his way into proximity with wealthy people so he can steal from them. Flaemmchen eats only one meal a day on her stenographer’s salary and feels pressured by the men she works for to enter into sexual relationships with them in order to survive.

But, yes, Doctor, nothing is really happening at the Grand Hotel.

Or, nothing is happening without money being involved somehow. The film’s constant references to money—needing it, wanting it, spending it, etc.—direct its audience’s thoughts to the current economic struggles of the United States during the 1930s and the Great Depression. Certainly, many original viewers of the film could identify with Flaemmchen’s eating only one meal a day and with the Baron’s having served his country during WWI and ending up with a worthless title and bills he cannot pay. Both Flaemmchen and the Baron resort to selling themselves (albeit in different ways) and compromising their morality in the name of money—yet it is not the “high life” in the Grand Hotel that they are looking for. They are simply trying to survive.

On the other side of the money game is Kringelein. Though at first it seems he doesn’t have much money and will spend the little that he has before he soon dies, the viewer begins to feel as the film progresses that Kringelein is better off than most of the other characters. His struggle is physical, not moral. And yet, the more Kringelein spends and comes to enjoy his life, the more the viewer begins to wonder if Kringelein’s death is really as imminent as he believes. Having worked hard all his life under the cruel and selfish Preysing, Kringelein revolts, standing up to Preysing regarding the universal rights of human kind and offering to share his money with others. Having no real further need for acquiring money, that is indeed what Kringelein does, cleaning up at the poker table when the Baron can only lose.

Greta Garbo as Grusinskaya and John Barrymore as the Baron

For the Baron, on the other hand, money is all that matters to him—until he is caught in Grusinskaya’s room while trying to steal her pearls. Talking through the night, sharing their pasts and their future hopes with each other, the Baron and Grusinskaya fall in love. Hypothetically, love should solve the problems of each of them–it will allow Grusinskaya to feel that someone values her, and it will lead the Baron to forego his obsession with money and concentrate on the well-being of another. Ironically, though, in order for the Baron and Grusinskaya to be together and be fulfilled by loving each other, the Baron must scrape up enough money to join her in Vienna. From this point in the film, then, the Baron’s money problems become even more critical, driving him to attempt to steal Kringelein’s poker winnings. Pity and compassion for the sick old man deter the Baron, but what is troublesome is that all the Baron would have to do is simply ask Kringelein for a loan of the needed amount. Likewise, Grusinskaya has enough money for herself and her lover–and she tells the Baron this. Why then does he continue to try to obtain money for himself at any cost? (Spoiler alert!) It is very difficult, therefore, to understand the Baron’s death at the hands of the selfish Preysing. For one, Preysing has demonstrated pride and disregard for his fellow man throughout the film, but he just doesn’t seem like the brutal killer he is portrayed as in the murder scene. Similarly, it is difficult for the viewer to accept that the Baron does not have some wily scheme up his sleeve to escape from Preysing since he (the Baron) seems like a pretty smooth operator when it comes to wiggling out of awkward predicaments.

The only two characters who really end up happy, then, are Kringelein and Flaemmchen, who take all of Kringelein’s money and decide to see the world together. It’s a very odd combination of people, apparently united in their grief over the Baron’s death. But since they both knew the Baron for only a couple of days, I suppose there is hope that they will put that money to good use and really live life. Then again, Kringelein thinks he’s dying…

But, no, Doctor, you are correct; nothing really ever happens at the Grand Hotel.

For Me Then…

This film very much connects economics and personal finances to questions of morality. Is it ok for Flaemmchen to sleep with men for money in order to eat? Is it alright for the Baron to steal from others to prevent the men he works for from killing him? On the other hand, is it correct that Grusinskaya is depressed and self-absorbed when she has enough money to eat properly? Is it permissible for Preysing to be cruel to others when he is the owner of a successful business (at least until his greed leads to the failed merger)?

The odd character out in this thought process is Kringelein who has enough money but not an excessive amount, and who treasures what all the other characters seemingly take for granted–an appreciation for life as it is. Kringelein expects his life to end shortly, so he values it–something the money-obsessed characters don’t stop to think about. In that sense, then, perhaps the film emphasizes the need for gratitude for what one has. The Baron has no money in the beginning of the film, but by the end he has no life. Preysing has no business merger in the first half of the film, but at the end has no freedom. Grusinskaya has perhaps no adoring fans in the beginning of the film, but in the end she has no lasting love. The characters come close to obtaining these ideals, but each falls short.

To close then, two quotes from the film’s final moments stick with me. The first is when Kringelein lists his forwarding address as “Grand Hotel in Paris,” explaining to Flaemmchen, “Oh ho ho, there’s a Grand Hotel everywhere in the world!” It seems to me that this statement is meant to extend the situations portrayed within the movie to the situations of the audience watching the movie–not to say that everyone will someday stay in a Grand Hotel (although, come to think of it, I actually did once!), but to insist that the struggles the characters face in the Grand Hotel in Berlin occur all over the world as well. Everywhere there is lack of money, lack of morals, lack of consideration for one’s fellow humans. But in Kringelein and Flaemmchen’s relatively joyous exit from the hotel, there could be hope in the midst of our struggles. Then again, they are headed to another Grand Hotel…

The other interesting quote is from the very end of Grand Hotel and comes from the Doctor in the same monotone soliloquy as before: “Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens.” As the camera pans out from the Doctor in the lobby, the revolving door keeps turning, implying a continuity at the Grand Hotel, which is apparently a microcosm of our lives. The same problems will continue in the rest of the world as they do at the Grand Hotel. But let’s be a little more realistic about those struggles of humanity than the Doctor is. Let’s appreciate the lives we have while we have them.

The actress Joan Crawford

“NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!” Ok, I got that out of my system, I think. This is what kept running through my mind the whole time I was watching this week’s film, Grand Hotel (1932, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). And, here’s a wee bit of trivia: What movie is that quote from? Better yet, what book is the quote’s movie based on? (Hint: It’s not Grand Hotel. Trivia answer below.)

In the mess of all the paper writing, presentation prepping, tax filing, etc. that has exploded in my household these last couple of weeks, a brief sit-down with this film for my second viewing of it still leaves me with questions about how in the world it took home the Oscar for Outstanding Production. Honestly, I am not a fan. Apparently, the Academy wasn’t either, for Grand Hotel was only nominated for Outstanding Production. How it pulled off that win in particular without being nominated for anything else is pretty bizarre. That makes it the second film we’ve studied to win only the Academy Award for Best Picture. Anyone remember the other film?

It’s not that Grand Hotel is completely uninteresting; its motif of money—people’s obsession with and desperation for it—is an issue that is relevant for all times, but especially interesting considering the film’s release during the Great Depression. Also worth noting is the film’s commentary on social status and how people from different walks of life interact and try to understand or relate to each other.

However, I feel that for its time, the biggest draw of the film was definitely its cast, featuring names like Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford (yes, she of anti-wire hanger fame), Wallace Beery (who won the Best Actor Oscar that same year for The Champ), Lionel Barrymore (who won the Best Actor Oscar the previous year for A Free Soul and who would go on to infamously play Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life), and John Barrymore (Lionel’s brother, known as the greatest actor of his time, and, yes, Drew Barrymore’s grandfather).

In a way, this star-studded cast list is reminiscent of more recent films like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve that, rather than aim for rich content or superb acting, merely try to bulk up their revenues with the apparent supposition that all of us love movie stars and the more movie stars in a movie, the more money we will all pay to see it. Hmmmm, I’m not a fan of those movies either.

But regardless of my reticence to grant affection to any films based on big names instead of big meaning, Grand Hotel holds a place on my Best Picture shelf and so also a spot in movie history (because of the award, not the shelf, of course). And speaking of movies, to assuage any trivia anxiety I caused at the beginning of this post, the movie with the famous hanger quote is Mommie Dearest, based on the book of the same name, a memoir of sorts by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of Joan Crawford. It’s an interesting read and a cult classic in its own right; so for those who have more time this week than I do, go for it!

And, for more detailed thoughts on Grand Hotel and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend, that is, if I survive this paper I’m writing for Medieval Lit!

Two sisters journey to the Old West in search of adventure. Almost sounds like part of The Broadway Melody, but no. This is my own personal story. My sister and I embarked on a grand quest last summer to drive all of Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles. Part of that historical road splits right through Oklahoma, angling from Tulsa to Oklahoma City on its way to Texas. Repeatedly blasting the title track from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma!, we fell in love with the land, its history, its culture, and its people all over again. From the forced migrations of the Native Americans to the stampedes of covered wagons, from the desperate flight of the victims of the Dust Bowl to the motorcycle roars of the roadies of Route 66, Oklahoma is a land that never lies still.

In our idealistic planning for our trip, my sister and I envisioned cruising through rolling green fields and wide-open blue skies with fluffy, white clouds. We got some of that (Exhibit A: The picture at the end of this post). We also got to experience a blow-up Oklahoma storm, terrifying to witness as it suddenly overwhelms everything one can see—dark, violent, deafening, destructive. Frankly, as we sheltered in a roadside diner, I gave our rental car up for lost and just hoped the shattered trees and flying debris would avoid going the same way as the water pouring through the diner’s windows.

In retrospect—knowing that we survived—I’m grateful for that experience. Not only does it make for a stellar story, but it was truly a testing of faith in the midst of some pretty real fear. We gained a lot of perspective on life in those few hours in the diner, and we connected with many people who became co-survivors instead of simply the people at the next table. The native Oklahomans we met there—especially the ones employed by the diner—went out of their way to both protect their guests and to assuage the unease of the situation. They made us all feel that we wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else during that storm—except maybe a few hundred miles away from it…

Like my own story, Cimarron is also a tale about Oklahoma and the people who move into and within it. Opening with a stunning recreation of the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889, an event that some of the film’s original viewers had lived through and/or participated in and remembered well, from the beginning Cimarron captures the essence of pioneer life. Following the experiences of the Cravat family over several decades, the movie works at a number of levels not only to display the hardships and triumphs of early Oklahomans, but also to address social evils, namely racism and sexism, prevalent in the decades portrayed in the film.

Cimarron‘s version of the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889

The word cimarron, as explained by one of the characters in the movie, means “wild, unruly.” In the film, this word is applied both to the land of Oklahoma and to the patriarch of the Cravat family, Yancey. The Cravats’ young son is also named Cim, short for Cimarron. Yancey and his son, then, represent both settlers of the land and the land itself—murky history, full of adventure, young and developing. Yancey is never content to stay in one place for very long. For him, there is always a better adventure, a greater opportunity waiting to be seized by those who dare to reach for it. He is convinced there is a bright future for Oklahoma and is determined to mold that future. Shocked that his wife’s wealthy family does not see the promise of the pioneering life, Yancey blurts out his perspective on settling Oklahoma after a fancy family dinner: “Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like it since Creation!” Claiming a place in Oklahoma is an opportunity of biblical proportions to Yancey. Yet his situating himself within the story of Creation seems to allow him to set himself up as God in this new world. He consistently dominates those around him, including his wife, refusing to listen to her reason or her pleas to remain at their new home in Osage and continue working on the newspaper he has established there. When he can’t convince his wife to pick up and move west again, Yancey simply leaves his family. He is absent for years; and when he returns, he possesses no guilt for the pain of abandonment he’s put his family through. He merely deserts them again when the next great adventure arises.

While Yancey exemplifies the wildness of the land and its restless history, his wife Sabra truly embodies the pioneer spirit. Voluntarily leaving her family in Wichita, Sabra is at first shocked by the rawness of Oklahoma. Osage, her new home, is full of violence and corruption. It seems like no place to raise a family with bank robberies, shootouts, and (what she perceives as) dirty Indians and women of ill repute all around. Perhaps it is the newspaper Yancey starts or the women’s club that Sabra helps to lead, but her settling experience in Oklahoma changes her from a naïve young wife into an independent business woman and later even a politician representing the land-now-state which she has helped to shape. In this light, regardless of the dominance of the character of Yancey, Cimarron’s story might be seen to be about Sabra. Unconventionally, Sabra is the Cravat who stays in Osage and works on the “Creation” for which Yancey had such grand goals—in other words, the film emphasizes the influence and power of pioneering women, women who shatter the boundaries of the world they live in and work alongside the more typically dominant men to shape the future of the United States.

For Me Then…

I absolutely hate the character of Yancey. It infuriates me that he abandons the family he dragged out to the frontier. His poor family sacrifices to make his dream a reality, and he just finds another dream and leaves them to pursue it. On the other hand, Yancey’s flaws allow Sabra to find herself and to discover that she is capable of more than what her society usually tolerates in women. The frontier of Oklahoma—the wild land, cimarron country—molds Sabra into a powerful individual on the frontier of women’s rights. Through Yancey’s newspaper which Sabra continues for him, Sabra places herself in the role of providing information and knowledge to the inhabitants of Osage. She commands what they learn of the outside world and what they feel is important. The prestige of this position of information-possessor and distributor cannot be understated.

Unfortunately, the one person constantly holding Sabra back from completely realizing her potential is always Yancey, in my opinion. Every moment of her life is oriented in expectation of his return—at which event she will relinquish her command of information in the dissemination of the newspaper. While this admirably demonstrates faithfulness and loyalty to her husband, it is frustrating to witness Sabra’s potential and know that the degree to which she exercises her voice depends on the presence or absence of a man.

And, for me, here’s the clincher (spoiler alert!). At the close of the film, Yancey dies in Sabra’s arms, having been fatally injured saving some workers in the new oil fields. His final words to her praise her being a wife and mother, both roles dependent on his being her husband. After Yancey’s death, the city of Osage unveils a commemorative statue of a pioneer in recognition of the settlers’ influence on the great development of Oklahoma. The statue is a spitting image of Yancey, not of Sabra. His daring and optimism doubtlessly drove the progress of Oklahoma from wild land to American state, but the statue in his image unavoidably also exalts his negligence of his duties to his own family. And in that respect, I think it a travesty that the statue isn’t in Sabra’s image, the woman who both stood by her family (including her absent husband) and strove to advance her land and her sex.

However a viewer of the film approaches the characters of Yancey and Sabra, it cannot be denied that the film captures the spirit of adventure and the challenge of the unknown that pioneers experienced, which makes it a commentary in part on the American spirit. For me, having driven through Oklahoma on another emblem of the American spirit, Route 66, this movie helps to define the foundations of both the state of Oklahoma and of the United States as a whole. Not always pretty, the history of the United States can still teach us something about ourselves—and we ourselves can work, like Sabra, to make the current history of our land better.

I just can’t resist, so in closing, here’s a plug for my friends at Lucille’s Roadhouse in Weatherford, Oklahoma. You’re the best! To anyone who wants to strike out on an adventure along Steinbeck’s Mother Road, for a legit Route 66 eatery experience, opt for the diner at Lucille’s. In case of storms, choose the steak house. Either way, the cheese sticks are to die for.

Sunset on the Sidewalk Highway, a glorious (but rough!) section of Route 66 near Miami, Oklahoma. Kudos to my sister for snapping this beauty as we were bouncing along!

We’re just getting all the “firsts” for each movie genre out of the way, I guess, because Cimarron (1931, RKO Radio) holds the honor of being the first western to win Best Picture. This is also our first film to really grab a good chunk of Academy Award nominations for its particular movie season (1930-31). Along with its studio’s nomination for Best Sound Recording, Cimarron was nominated for seven Academy Awards—Outstanding Production, Best Directing, Best Actor, Best Actress, Art Direction, Cinematography, and Writing (Adaptation)—and took home three Oscars. In addition to nabbing the year’s highest honor of Outstanding Production, the film also won for its screenplay and its art direction. The remake of the film in 1960 was also nominated for two Academy Awards—Best Art Direction (Set Decoration, Color) and Best Sound—neither of which it won.

Like All Quiet on the Western Front, Cimarron is an adaptation of an extremely popular novel of the same name. Published in 1929 by Edna Ferber, who had also penned Show Boat (1926) and who, incidentally, was born in my home state of Michigan (Go Blue!), Cimarron was the best-selling novel of 1930. Focusing on the settling and development of the State of Oklahoma (as well as the development of the characters who do the settling), the timing of Cimarron’s release in both novel and film forms is remarkable.

A snapshot of conditions in Texas County, Oklahoma, during the Dust Bowl

Enter the Dust Bowl. Beginning in 1930, a combination of drought and overuse of land led to horrific desert-like conditions in the Great Plains. Oklahoma and its inhabitants suffered greatly—as did much of the rest of the United States during the Great Depression that continued on through much of the 1930s. Infamously chronicled in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939), many “Okies” fled Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl in an attempt to reach the “promised land” of California in search of a more sustainable existence. It is fascinating that Ferber’s book and its film were both released around the beginning of this exodus from the same place that Cimarron’s characters strive so hard to enter and “civilize.”

For more detailed thoughts on Cimarron and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

“This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war…”

Windows. I can’t get the windows out of my mind. Kind of an odd focus for this film, especially after All Quiet on the Western Front’s particularly somber Weekday Warm-up. But though I’ve seen this movie several times, I had never noticed before just how many images are viewed through windows and open doorways or how many scenes incorporate shots of windows. Honestly, the frequent recurrence of viewing the movie’s action through such portals could simply be a directing choice, a method of providing more visual depth to the film. On the flip side, does a film with extended scenes of battlefield combat—infantry charges through artillery barrages, lines and lines of troops mowed down by machine gun fire, hand-to-hand bayonet duels in the trenches—really need one more layer of action in the background? I’m not convinced it does. Why then all the windows?

In my most recent viewing of All Quiet on the Western Front, I was finally led to accept the fact that the windows are significant when, after numerous scenes of movement behind windows and open doors, the silhouette of a window is prominently featured on the wall of Paul’s bedroom when he briefly returns home toward the end of the movie. In this short but critical scene, Paul stands in the doorway of the room and gazes at what he feels is the remnants of his former life, a life he believes it is impossible to return to now that he is a soldier. His sister proudly presents the suit she’s kept ready for him, but Paul’s attention is arrested by his butterfly collection on the wall. Those who have seen this film know that Paul’s history of capturing butterflies is important for the film’s final scene, but what struck me more than the story’s revelation of Paul’s habits of collection is that Paul literally grew up with death hanging on his wall. He doled out death, collected it, and then proudly displayed it in his most personal space. Now, as a German soldier in World War I, Paul is again inundated with death. Indeed, the whole film presents the soldiers’ struggles to avoid death, come to terms with their own deaths, and comprehend the purpose of death in warfare. Near the end of the film Paul tells a group of young students: “Up at the front, you’re alive or you’re dead and that’s all. And you can’t fool anybody about that very long. And up there, we know we’re lost and done for, whether we’re dead or alive…And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death. And we’re done for, because you can’t live that way and keep anything inside you.” What Paul tells the young students mirrors the film’s opening statement about the war leaving no survivors. Paul and his friends go off to war with naïve expectations of glory, but all they find is death. Everywhere.

But how does this connect to the windows? Well, I had this epiphany in class this week, thanks to a comment made by a classmate of mine regarding how we are several steps removed, if you will, from older literary works due to translations and differences in historical eras. In that light, windows can also be levels of removal from fact. We can see through them (most of the time), but they create barriers to that reality we are glimpsing. I believe that the windows in All Quiet on the Western Front serve this purpose too. In the butterfly scene at Paul’s house, the window silhouette—and the glass of the frames that hold the butterfly collection—remind us that we are looking in on a reality that is not completely accessible to us. We are once removed (at least) from the actuality of what is on the other side of the glass.

In this same sense, throughout the film Paul and his fellow soldiers also display a separation between what they see/believe and what is actually reality. The propagandist teacher from the film’s opening scene lures his young pupils to enlist in the military by filling them with unrealistic dreams of battlefield glory and post-war fame. Notably, viewers of the film enter this classroom via its large windows, windows through which the students have been presented with immaculate troops parading in perfect lines through the quaint town. The poignant moments in which the young men see what they could become and envision what they believe is a glorious future are complicated by the barrier of the windows. The future seems to be in clear sight; but should the boys reach for it, they will literally be impeded by the window panes. The dream they see is not attainable. Reality on the other side of the windows is different from what the teacher persuades the boys to believe within the classroom.

Later as actual participants in the Great War, Paul and his friends move in and through the portals that populate the film—yet they always display obvious separation from the reality of the war and the very horrors they experience. One of the movie’s most thought-provoking scenes features the soldiers, all veterans now after having survived their first battle, discussing how the war started and why they are there. Interestingly, this scene takes place outside underneath some shade trees. There are no barriers to look through here; there is just the stark reality that no one understands (or wants) this war. The soldiers are clearly puzzled at the purpose of the war, at first blaming the French for starting it (demonstrating their belief in the untruthful propaganda they have been taught). They move on from the French to debate the causes of war in general and how it is even possible for one country to “offend” another–especially when the soldiers themselves admit they don’t feel offended in the least. At last, the soldiers decide war is like a “fever”: “Nobody wants it in particular. And then all at once, here it is. We didn’t want it. The English didn’t want it. And here we are fighting.”

Paul reiterates this idea of the unspoken camaraderie between soldiers who can’t explain the war and don’t want it. During a battle Paul must take cover in a shell hole with a dying French man whom he has stabbed. Paul vacillates between screaming at the man to die faster and comforting him with the idea that he will live because Paul is caring for him. When the man finally dies after hours of suffering, Paul begs the corpse for forgiveness, explaining, “When you jumped in here, you were my enemy–and I was afraid of you. But you’re just a man like me, and I killed you…Why did they do this to us? We only wanted to live, you and I. Why should they send us out to fight each other? If they threw away these rifles and these uniforms, you could be my brother.”

Both the war debate scene and the shell hole scene demonstrate again a disconnect between the soldiers and reality. They don’t have all the facts about the cause of the Great War, nor do they understand why they should slaughter unoffending men from a few hundred miles away as their mortal enemies. They look through the “windows” of their own reality, seeing not what they are told is truth but what they themselves experience as truth–and what they must make truth out to be in their minds in order to carry on with the bloodshed of which they are a part.

In the movie’s famous final scene (spoiler alert!), there is yet one more window-like feature (thanks to my sister for pointing this out to me!). Through a small square opening in an empty machine gun station, Paul, the only one of the boys still in combat at the end, glimpses a lovely butterfly that has landed on the mud and filth in front of the trench. Paul smiles. It is as if he is no longer conscious of the danger that he is constantly in. He reaches through the portal slowly, trying to catch the butterfly without scaring it. Alas, the portal prevents Paul from reaching far enough to snag the butterfly, so he, apparently without thinking, carefully begins to reach over the barrier to the butterfly. A French sniper takes aim. Just as Paul’s hand approaches the butterfly, the sniper fires. Paul’s hand jerks, then goes limp. We never see the butterfly’s fate.

While before the war, Paul killed butterflies and lined the walls of his room with their corpses, Paul wants this final butterfly alive. He literally wants to obtain and hold onto life. But what Paul sees as life in the butterfly is really death on the battlefield. The barrier Paul attempts to move through to snag the butterfly has lulled Paul into a false sense of security. It isn’t realistic for Paul to have life in All Quiet on the Western Front. What the film says is that, just as Paul’s death in attempting to catch a butterfly is ridiculous and meaningless, so also is all organized killing, i.e. warfare. It is neither glorious nor beautiful to die for one’s country. It is painful and grotesque. The movie, hopeless though it seems at times, seems to be yearning for a better solution to global conflict. Why must people die for political disagreements?

The film closes with an earlier shot of the young German soldiers, all of whom are either dead or wounded at the end of the movie, marching off to war. Each one gazes back straight into the camera, some accusingly, some pleadingly–all already lost as evidenced by the thousands of cross-marked graves over which the superimposed soldiers march. Notably, the end of the film is silent and leaves the audience in darkness for several moments before the credits appear. The Western Front has become quiet. The “good guys” have attained a hard-fought victory. But Paul and his friends were not the “good guys,” and we viewers have mourned their premature deaths.

For Me Then…

Because I am a movie nerd, I think of the scene in Moria in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf and Frodo discuss Gollum and Frodo expresses with disgust how he feels it is a “pity” that his uncle Bilbo didn’t kill Gollum when he had the chance. Gandalf replies, “Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment.” It oftentimes seems easy to consign people or people groups to certain “boxes”–and thus to consider whole communities and civilizations of people to be good or evil. For instance, some World War I stereotypes: The Serbians are ungovernable and must be oppressed; the Germans are barbarians who massacred unarmed Belgian civilians, etc. Yet, All Quiet on the Western Front and its German protagonist complicate this black-and-white thinking–just as Gandalf complicates Frodo’s simplistic thinking about who deserves life and who deserves death.

Back to those windows I can’t get out of my mind. For me, just as Paul and his friends struggled with seeing reality through the barriers that were placed before them, we too, separated as we are by time and culture from WWI and its participants, see the events of the Great War through the windows of our own time and backgrounds. It would be easy to condemn specific countries or groups of people, yet we cannot truly know them or their motives. Furthermore, as Gandalf points out to Frodo, even if we knew for sure who was good and who was evil, is it in our power to convey life or death on others? Are we morally upright enough to assume that power?

I greatly value All Quiet on the Western Front’s place in the study of the First World War—especially because its German anti-war perspective is rare and because the work transcends its characters and its times to bring its readers/viewers into a head-on collision with life and death. But more than the film’s commentary on the Great War, its lasting legacy could be in its asking us to reevaluate our positions relative to others. It is easy to condemn and retaliate. It is much harder to love, forgive, and seek to understand.