Waltzes from Vienna

WALTZES FROM VIENNA         C         
aka:  Strauss’ Great Waltz  

Great Britain  (80 mi)  1934  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

Coming on the heels of two flops, Hitchcock was ready for any work just to have something to do, calling it the “lowest ebb” in his career, where he was receiving no constructive criticism and was displeased with his own work, especially on this film, calling WALTZES FROM VIENNA and Champagne (1928)  the two worst films he ever made.  In the case of Champagne he was wrong, as it features hilarious slapstick comedy routines that don’t exist anywhere else in the Hitchcock catalogue, while he’s dead on with this film, which is a real old-fashioned costume drama that was already out of date at the time it was being made, pulled out of mothballs in this cheaply made musical without any music, though the blunders of this film apparently taught Hitchcock to appreciate the value of a good musical score, which was something he emphasized in his later work.  Anxious to finish off his contract with British International Pictures, Alfred Hitchcock agreed to make this schmaltzy light-hearted comedy set in 19th century Vienna that spends much of its time indulging in the sweets from the pastry section of a confectionery shop, making every stereotypical reference it can about the snobbishness of the highbrow, upper crust elite, who bear titles and wear elaborate costumes with wigs, calling themselves Princes and Countesses in a congratulatory aura of pompous self-importance.  Had Groucho Marx appeared, we might have looked forward to some snide and satirical references to the haughtiness of it all, but this one takes itself much too seriously, despite the overwrought attempts at lowbrow humor that dot the film.  Opening on a horse-drawn fire carriage racing at breakneck speed only to run into a slow moving street parade playing Johann Strauss’s “Radetzky March” Johann Strauss Sr. "Radetzky March" performed by Vienna ... (YouTube, 7:07, with Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), where nobody budges to allow them through, turning into a slow motion version of really old slapstick comedy, like the kind they used in the silent era of the teens.  By the time they arrive to the café/bakery where the fire is taking place, the building has been evacuated but the inside tables and place settings are being rearranged on the sidewalk, as if nothing has happened, while also immune to it all, caught up in the rapture of love, Johann Strauss Jr. (Esmond Knight) and Rasi the baker’s daughter (Jessie Matthews) are upstairs having a music lesson in a small studio above the bakery where the younger Strauss is dedicating another piece of music to her.  The baker’s assistant, Leopold (Hindle Edgar), however, arrives through the window and insists upon carrying her down a ladder to safety, even though the fire has been put out by this time, apparently a minor detail.  Nonetheless, he insists, tearing her dress along the way, an artificially contrived noble gesture gone wrong.  This bumbleheaded farce of mis-direction, however, dictates the tone of the film.   

The real dilemma here is told in parallel stories, the budding musical talent of young Johann is told right alongside his head over heels love affair for Rasi, while his father (Edmund Gwenn), the elder Johann Strauss’s utter contempt for the idea that any of his sons would follow in his footsteps and enter the music business is matched by Rasi’s refusal to accept any suitor that refuses to work in her father’s bakery.  So while Rasi is flattered that Johann’s music is dedicated to her, she has no interest in hearing it.  She could care less whether the young man has any musical talent, as all she wants is a man to follow in her own father’s footsteps and run his bakery.  Despite Johann’s obvious musical interest and aptitude, it is ignored not only by his father but by his beloved who insists that he wear a baker’s cap and work in the shop getting his hand’s dirty like a real working man.  Of course, Johann never looks more ridiculously out of place, showing no aptitude whatsoever for a baker’s life, as his mind is always wandering to music.  It is this image of a young Johann slaving away in the bakery shop that becomes a turning point in the film, as in his head while he sees and hears all the bakery machinery grinding away, it becomes music to his ears, all swaying to the rhythm of a waltz that would eventually become the epic Blue Danube Waltz 2001: A Space Odyssey-Strauss - YouTube (5:34) that is iconically featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), basically coopting the music for time immemorial.  In comparison, of course, this Hitchcock confectionery daydream is a piece of lightweight fluff that will have little impact on anybody’s life.  Nonetheless, we hear stands of the music straining to be heard, where the people that matter most in the young composer’s life have no interest whatsoever—case closed.  Enter Countess Helga von Stahl (Fay Compton), surely a rival for the heart (and pocketbook) of Groucho’s legendary foil, Margaret Dumont, where her title suggests access to power and money, taking an interest in the young Johann, believing the obvious, that the man is obsessed with music that was meant for the public to hear, knowing instantly that he’s wasting his life with that selfish little tart who has no idea what she’s depriving the world. 

On a similar note, Johann’s father has no idea what lurks in his son’s heart and imagination, but is too busy handling his own business matters, rehearsing his orchestra relentlessly while schmoozing with the aristocratic moneybrokers that might make precious donations to his cause.  The heartless manner in which the father refuses to even consider playing his son’s Blue Danube Waltz only further condemns him to that hellhole of a bakery.  The film gets bogged down in jealous asides, where Rasi can’t bear the thought of anyone else taking an interest in her man, or attempting to persuade him to come out from slaving away in that underground lair of a bakery where he’s little more than a lackey under her hypnotic mind control, while the Prince (Frank Vosper), husband of the Countess, whose dreams consist of continually winning pistol duals, is warned of his wife’s special interest in this young musician.  The Countess is then forced to conspire and outwit not only her husband, but the elder Strauss in the protection of her musical protégé, convinced that his future would be an instant success if the public could only hear his music, where it might come down to a musical battle royale pitting one Viennese waltz king against the other.  But instead it becomes the elder Strauss with control over the orchestra pitted against young Rasi who doesn’t want Junior anywhere near the orchestra pit, becoming a battle of selfish wills, each one more detestable than the other.  Like the fire engine stalled in the opening scene that eventually manages to get through, it’s only a matter of time before the waltz is heard, even if the Countess has to lead the interference through deceptive means.  The waltz is instantly adored by the public, as the elder Strauss was inadvertently detained elsewhere, but sees the success of his misjudged son, initially thinking the crowd is calling for him to take the stand, but the adulation is for the young maestro whose career was to become an overnight success.  While the arrogance of the wealthy is served on a platter by Hitchcock’s stinging rebuke, but nothing is more contemptible than the shrill note of vain mirror adoration from the completely self-absorbed Jessie Matthews as Rasi, who was not liked by Hitchcock on the set, and the wretchedness of her performance proves that, as she comes to represent the shallow blindness of the thoroughly outclassed and manipulated working class.   While this may have been the low point in Hitchcock’s career, where his 20’s silent films appear to be more accomplished than his early 30’s talkies, thankfully that’s all about to change, as his films in the latter half of the decade would only punctuate his greatness.     

Note – no Hitchcock cameos. 

The Skin Game

THE SKIN GAME      C+            
Great Britain  (77 mi)  1931  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

Who knows where things end when once they begin?...What is it that gets loose when you begin a fight, and makes you what you think you’re not?  What blinding evil!  Begin as you may, it ends in this — skin game!  Skin game! 

— Mr. Hillcrest (C.V. France)

Adapted from the John Galsworthy play, where Hitchcock used two actors from the original 1920 stage production in his 1931 film version, Edmund Gwenn and Helen Haye, while also using other actors too old to replay their original stage roles in his other sound films, adding an element of theatricality to his British period that doesn’t exist in his American films.  This film, however, hardly typifies Hitchcock’s talent, and by all accounts he was rather bored with the project, especially hampered by a clause in the playwright’s contract that not one word of his play could be changed without his permission.  This fairly straightjacketed the director, while both Hitchcock and wife Alma Reville did what they could with this British chamber drama, making the film bleaker than the play, but it’s still overly stagy, showing little stylistic innovation and could easily have been directed by someone else.  Nonetheless, it is a Hitchcock film, reflective of the early sound films where the sound is erratic, missing altogether in certain moments, despite seeing the lips moving of a minor character, or losing sound as characters move across a room while speaking, where the consistency of sound that audiences are used to today is simply missing.  However, it is considered one of the more accomplished sound films of its time due to the constant speaking throughout, using four cameras and a single sound track to capture the sound live as it was being spoken, as opposed to his next film Rich and Strange (1931), which was still shot mostly as a silent film.  This bears some similarity to an earlier Hitchcock film, Easy Virtue (1928), based upon a Noel Coward play.  In both, the director targets the real or imagined crimes of women, where the mere suggestion of immorality was considered scandalous, subject to gossip and slander, where people were literally driven out of “proper” society by the upper class’s insatiable desire to remain morally superior over the working class.  Society rewards wealth and status, and the appearance of virtue, where they’re pretty much free to live as they like, flaunting their wealth and aristocratic assumptions, but one must never allow salacious rumors to bring shame and dishonor upon a family, which, come to think of it, sounds more like mafia rules.  This film plays on the falsely accused theme, where the accusation lingers in the air for awhile, tempting the audience, before the merciless hand of truth is revealed to be more than one can bear.  The woman in question is Phyllis Konstam as Chloe, easily the most intriguing character in the film, where her shadowy past haunts her throughout the film.    

Set in a small country village of Lancashire in the postwar era of horses being replaced by automobiles, the story concerns itself with old wealth and new wealth, where the well-mannered aristocracy of the paternalistic Mr. Hillcrest (C.V. France), a landowner from generations of self-made wealth, has sold a parcel of his vast estate to Scotsman Mr. Hornblower (Edmund Gwenn), who goes back on his word and plans to evict an elderly couple that are longtime tenants on his new property.  This defiant act boldly challenges the imperious rule of the Hillcrests, living in the idyllic splendor of their unspoiled pastoral landscape, and then has the audacity to suggest removing all the tenant farmers to build factories on the grounds, bringing in heavy machinery and filthy smokestacks to take the place of trees and meadows, something that would surely be an eyesore, but Hornblower is more interested in profits and will not be dissuaded, as he’s a man that doesn’t take no for an answer.  While both men stubbornly refuse the usual social courtesies, both families are drawn into the center of the firestorm, with charges and countercharges about character issues, becoming an example of class warfare, as Hornblower vows to bring nothing but misery to the Hillcrest way of life.  The centerpiece of the film is a public auction of the land adjoining the Hillcrests, given several humorous asides, but also a build-up of uncanny suspense by continually stringing out that final bidder, where the two men go at it neck and neck, as if their way of life was in jeopardy, where Hillcrest grows so obsessed, Hitchcock portrays his agitated state of mind with a series of floating images of Hornblower’s superimposed head, anticipating some of the more experimental techniques of Vertigo (1958).  Hornblower seems even more determined at what he deems the disgraceful treatment of his daughter-in-law, Chloe, who is shunned from the usual social circles and treated as an outcast.  Chloe is a woman of mystery, often seen hidden behind a veil, who always plays her character over-the-top, seen swooning with moments of hysteria throughout the film, always claiming a headache, supposedly weak at the knees from constant fatigue, using exaggerated silent era melodrama as she literally slinks from room to room, where one suspects she is hiding something or plotting some nefarious revenge to get back at her adversaries.  In contrast, Hillcrest’s daughter Jill (Jill Esmond, Laurence Olivier’s first wife), is the preppy, free-spirited sort who seems to have an open mind about the future, which includes helping and befriending Chloe, even when no one else will. 

While Gwenn plays the more flamboyant character, filled with bluster and Scottish charm, he’s completely unsympathetic due to his black aims, where he may as well represent the British view towards the Northern Irish, that he’s some vermin relying upon lies and dirty tricks, a scourge that needs to be eradicated from the community at all costs, offering what is, according to British author and academic Charles Barr, “the most savage representation of class hostility in all of Hitchcock’s films.”  By contrast, Hillcrest is the doting father filled with a benevolent spirit, who’s interested in everyone’s welfare, irregardless of class, and as such is the moral pillar of the community.  It’s Mrs. Hillcrest (Helen Haye), however, that plays the offended party, barely holding her tongue when expressing her outrage at Hornblower’s underhanded methods.  She employs Dawker (Edward Chapman) as a kind of private detective to snoop around the Hornblower family history and see what turns up.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, they uncover the mystery surrounding Chloe, who becomes the target of character assassination and the talk of the town, with her secret spread by vicious behind-the-scenes rumors even before the viewers discover it for themselves.  The mantle of moral authority is passed to Mrs. Hillcrest in all matters concerning women, where it is her duty to inform Hornblower of his daughter-in-law’s shockingly disreputable past where due to dire economic circumstances growing up she was forced to support herself as a prostitute, earning a living by playing the professional “other woman” in prearranged divorce cases.  While Hornblower and Chloe initially cry foul, claiming it’s all lies and slander until the Hillcrest’s trot out the men she was involved with, turning the tables on her, where she’s forced to admit the truth, “When I deceived him, I’d have deceived God Himself—I was so desperate.  You’ve never been right down in the mud.  You can’t understand what I’ve been through.”  All of this plays out like a dirty, dark secret that is utterly scandalous to the upper class elite, who are themselves quite familiar with the practice of maintaining “kept women” in addition to their wives, all part of the hedonism of the wealthy, who provide the appearance of moral rectitude while violating every known rule behind the scenes.  While the main characters are deliberate postwar caricatures, this allows one to suppose that the playwright Galsworthy was not taking sides in the dispute, preferring to put a pox on both their houses.  Konstam rarely utters a word, playing one scene from behind a curtain, but can be seen in all manner of distress, even as she is dressed in revealing evening gowns and adorned from head to toe in the latest fashion, a stunning beauty that becomes one in a long line of Hitchcock fallen women, where her tragedy sets off a chain of events, becoming a sacrificial pawn in a dangerous game.  Hitchcock met with the playwright Galsworthy a few times, claiming he lived in baronial splendor, describing one visit to his estate as “the most cultured dinner table I ever attended.”  While the class analysis by Galsworthy may have been scathing in its time, his name is not held in the same esteem as Hitchcock’s, and unfortunately it was the playwright’s insistence to remain faithful to his play that prevented Hitchcock from exploring this subject more deeply.  

Note – no Hitchcock cameos. 

The Trouble With Harry

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY         B+                 

USA  (99 mi)  1955  d:  Alfred Hitchcock

He looked exactly the same when he was alive, except he was vertical.
—Jennifer (Shirley MacLaine)

A good old-fashioned murder mystery where the whodunit concerns are completely overshadowed by the embellished, personality-driven aspects of this autumnal theater piece set in the glorious fall colors of rural New England, where characterization supersedes all else, as the acerbic tone and blistering speed of the nonstop dialog feels like a tongue-in-cheek Hitchcockian take on an equally comic romp about concealed murders in Frank Capra’s equally enthralling ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944).  Hitchcock obviously loved morbid humor, where the colorful pastoral setting gives this an artificialized, storybook feel, where even the childlike stick drawings in the charming opening credit sequence by Saul Steinberg have a dark and particularly edgy “Once upon a time” appeal.  The opening shots resemble colorful pages of fall colors from a magazine, where every tree is exploding with a painterly appeal, where out of this pictorial bliss appears a dead body.  The film was a favorite of Hitchcock, but one of the few that actually lost money, becoming one of The Five Lost Hitchcocks, kept out of circulation for decades (thirty years for this film) because their rights were bought back by the director and willed to his daughter, eventually re-released in theaters in the mid 1980s.  Only his second comedy after MR. AND MRS. SMITH (1941), this is a film uncluttered by extraneous plot devices or unnecessary loose ends, but is instead a vivid character-driven account of events that take place one day in the lives of two couples, though they barely know one another at the start of the day, brought together by the presence of a corpse, where each initially has their own unique reaction to his death.  The truth of the matter is no one really cared that much for Harry, nor is anyone truly sorry to see him go.  Nonetheless, the poor guy gets ungraciously buried and dug up 4 or 5 times in a single day, each time with some new revelation about the effect his death will have on the participants. 

Introduced by the whimsical musical score of Bernard Herrmann (later used in a 2010 Volkswagen commercial), in his first of many Hitchcock collaborations, a young boy, Arnie (Jerry Mathers, soon to be Beaver Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver [1957 – 1963]), goes innocently playing in the woods with a toy gun in his hand, much like Little Red Riding Hood, only to be greeted by a corpse lying on the ground.  Simultaneously, Edmund Gwenn is retired sea Captain Albert Wiles, an elderly old coot with exaggerated autobiographical exploits who happens to be shooting for rabbits in the woods.  Seeing the dead man sprawled out on the ground, he naturally assumes he accidentally shot the man and thinks to bury him on the spot, but quickly hides when he hears others approaching, which include the likes of a wandering hobo who steals the shoes, a self-obsessed professor so engrossed with reading his book that he actually trips over the corpse but nonchalantly continues on his way, unconcerned, until the young boy returns with his mother Jennifer (Shirley MacLaine, goofy and brilliant in her first film appearance), who doesn’t seem the least bit sorry about a corpse that she recognizes as her dead husband.  The Captain narrates his thoughts out loud, as what he hoped he could secretly bury and quickly cover up from view was turning into a busy thoroughfare of pedestrians wandering through this precise patch of isolated woods, eventually joined and invited for elderberry tea by his eccentric neighbor, Mildred Natwick as Miss Ivy Gravely, an elderly spinster, and a local landscape painter Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe), who actually stops to help the Captain bury the corpse.  We quickly learn of budding romantic interests of both the elderly, with Gravely politely and flirtatiously serving tea and blueberry muffins, and the young couple, where Marlowe makes his intentions clear straightaway by forwardly confessing an interest in painting her nude, which leads to the unphased Jennifer changing the subject to her fresh batch of tart lemonade. 

The secret to the success of this witty and deliciously dark comedy is the quick pace of the highly impulsive chatterbox dialog and the warm charm of each of the characters, especially MacLaine, who has the kind of infectious, sensual spunk of a grown up Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), where the setting could just as easily be the cozy small town allure of Angela Lansbury’s Cabot Cove from Murder, She Wrote (1984 – 1996).  Among the more memorable scenes include MacLaine’s curiously detailed explanation of her past with Harry and his brother, also the four of them, like thieves in the night, carrying shovels as they continually walk back and forth into the woods to unearth the poor corpse once again, with a collective intent to keep Harry’s decidedly unpopular influence at a minimum, as who needs to notify the authorities, see their name dragged through the mud, and be forced to re-live this experience all over again?  Better to let bygones be bygones and let Harry sleep undisturbed.  But Harry simply won't stay in one place.  Watching them press and clean his oft buried clothes in order to keep the police from discovering any scent of their unscrupulous activities has an absurdly comical air of wiping their hands clean of any indecent or immoral activity, yet all along they plot like petty criminals how best to cover up their crimes.  This scatterbrained, screwball comedy was written by John Michael Hayes, adapted from a Jack Trevor Story novel.  Shot in Craftsbury, Vermont in late September 1954, nearly all the foliage was gone by the time the film crew arrived, necessitating leaves to actually be glued to the trees in order to create this colorful canvas of idealized perfection, and also, due to the incessant rain, several scenes were shot in a nearby school gymnasium, where a 500 pound camera attached to an elevated crane fell and just missed hitting the venerable director.  21 minutes into the film is Hitchcock’s signature appearance seen through the window of a general store walking past a parked Rolls Royce while an elderly man inspects roadside paintings for sale.  Using occasional racy dialog throughout that might sound more at home in a Marx Brothers movie, it’s curious the effect a corpse can have on an otherwise sleepy and safely protected community, each resorting to innocent white lies that only grow in epic proportion with their wildly active imaginations.