Ingrid Bergman Tribute: Only One Night (En enda natt)

 

Director Gustaf Molander

Ingrid Bergman as a child with her father

1937 wedding day with Petter Lindström 

Ingrid Bergman in costume

Bergman in 1939

Ingrid Berman Tribute: ONLY ONE NIGHT (En enda natt)                       C+                 Sweden  (90 mi)  1939  d: Gustaf Molander

A rarely seen film, among the earliest appearances of Ingrid Bergman, but she was already a star in Sweden, voted by a poll of 30,000 Swedish moviegoers as the most admired movie star in 1937, even above Greta Garbo, appreciated for her beauty and grace, as well as her natural acting style.  Obtaining a scholarship for the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm at the age of 17, she was discovered by Swedish director Gustav Molander, who taught acting at the school and was the brother of the Theatre School director Olof Molander, with Greta Garbo among his students, immediately realizing Bergman possessed a unique quality, leaving school after only one year, as she was hired by Sweden’s largest movie studio, Svensk Filmindustri, and began making films full-time in the mid-1930’s.  The Swedish film industry in which Ingrid Bergman received her early training was one of the most advanced, technically and artistically, outside of Hollywood, and while he did not end up directing her debut film, it was Molander who supported Bergman and gave her self-confidence, teaching her “how to underplay, to be absolutely sincere and natural, and never try to be cute.  Always be yourself, and always learn your lines.”  Known as an actresses' director, Molander was crucial to the development of the Swedish film industry itself, starting out as a writer before directing films, one of few Swedish directors who easily made the transition from silent films to sound successfully, making over 70 films in just over half a century in a wide variety of genres, where the 1930’s were arguably his most prolific, with several considered the Swedish Golden Age’s central work.  Working with actresses Eva Dahlbeck, Harriet Andersson, and Ingrid Thulin, all more commonly associated with the films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, while also making six films with the young Ingrid Bergman in the 1930’s, which paved the way for her international career, where she went on to win three Academy Awards, two for best actress, GASLIGHT (1944) and ANASTASIA (1956), and one for best supporting actress, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974).  A master of serious comedy, all of Molander’s most successful films can rightly be described as melodramas, where the appeal was heard all the way across the ocean to America, as several of his stories were purchased by American companies and remade for American audiences, including INTERMEZZO (1936) and A WOMAN’S FACE (1938), both of which starred Ingrid Bergman, with INTERMEZZO (1939) becoming Bergman’s American Hollywood debut, while A WOMAN’S FACE (1941) was remade with Joan Crawford.  It’s fun to see Bergman in her native Sweden at such an early stage of her career, knowing what an acclaimed, international star she would eventually become, fluent in Swedish, English, German, Italian, and French, acting in all of them, while speaking Italian to her own children and English professionally.  Never before had she been so beautifully portrayed, exuding elegance and photographic radiance in some memorable costumes, where she remains among the most contemporary of the classic Hollywood stars, listed at #4 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest female stars, AFI's 100 YEARS…100 STARS.       

Bergman didn’t really become a star until the 1940’s, when her supporting role in the 1942 classic Ingrid Bergman Tribute: Casablanca effectively changed the course of her entire career.  Appearing in eleven films in her native Sweden before the age of twenty-five, Bergman’s characters were always plagued with uncertainty, fear, and anxiety.  Though she was far from enthusiastic about the script, describing it as “a piece of junk,” she agreed to make this film, which is the one the studio wanted to make, but only if they would allow her the starring role in A WOMAN’S FACE, a distinctly unglamorous role where she is bitter and horribly disfigured from a fire, a completely unsympathetic character, allowing her to stretch her range and versatility, wanting to be more than just a pretty face.  While this film was shot before A WOMAN’S FACE, it was released a year afterwards, where Bergman’s co-star is Edvin Adolphson, a notorious flirt in his early 40’s, known for his matinee idol good looks, appearing in more than 500 films going back to the silent era, and played a significant role in helping Bergman get her first screen appearance, directing her in a light comedy during her summer vacation from drama school, where they became lovers, despite their age difference and the fact that he had a wife and child at home, yet they remained friends for life.  Bearing some resemblance to Ingmar Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas afton) (1953), this is another film that takes place in a traveling carnival show, featuring rough-edged and hardened characters on the fringe of society who lead tempestuous lives, never staying in any one place for long, never really calling anyplace home, so the traveling road show is really their familiar place.  Adapted by Gösta Stevens, the screenwriter of most of Molander's best films, from a novel by Danish author Harald Tandrup, Valdemar Moreaux (Edvin Adolphson) is one of the carnival barkers at the merry-go-round, yet his distinction is that he lives with Helga Mårtensson (Aino Taube), the owner of a carnival, affectionately calling her by her last name, which, coincidentally enough, is also the name of the traveling show.  There’s an honest simplicity to their lives, as they seem to have a loving, yet carefree and easy going relationship, filled with off-handed humor and sarcastic remarks, with nothing really holding either one of them down, having moved around a lot in their lives, describing themselves as rootless free spirits, so a certain insecurity prevails even in the best of times.  While establishing an easy rhythm accentuating many of the featured carnival shows, the wealthy landowner Count Magnus von Brede (Olof Sandborg), a former army colonel, whose property the carnival occupies, is seen off in the distance with his beautiful yet independent-minded young ward Eva (Ingrid Bergman), a Renaissance woman visiting for the summer who is studying for her doctorate in philosophy, yet we also see her toting a rifle in her hand for shooting ducks, while later we see her performing a charming song at the piano.  Von Brede thinks there’s something familiar about Valdemar, reminding him of someone, but he can’t seem to place his finger on who it is. 

When Valdemar receives an invitation to the Count’s mansion, he assumes it’s the business of not asking permission to set the carnival on his land, but the Count isn’t bothered by that at all, and is more interested in Valdemar’s personal history, which strikes a chord, seeing qualities in him that he likes.  This well-choreographed scene reveals the young man’s special charm, quickly realizing he’s actually his lost son, the result of a one night stand, so he sends word offering him a job working in his stables.  After some discussion with Mårtensson, he thinks this might offer him possibilities, yet when he arrives and is shown his luxurious quarters, he quickly realizes these aren’t the accommodations for a stable boy.  Trying to make up for lost time, providing access to a kind of aristocratic breeding he was denied growing up, the Count wants him to be the son he never had, the successor on his massive estate, where his presence mirrors that of Eva, both young, enterprising young people with bright futures ahead of them.  While the Count attempts to bring them both together romantically, they are both stubborn and headstrong, with Eva not afraid to speak her mind, where the pridefulness she expresses in her character is something rare onscreen, even today, as this film shows what a unique talent Ingrid Bergman was.  There’s a playfulness about their exchanges as Valdemar attempts to integrate himself into this new lifestyle, with Eva remaining emotionally aloof, but even she is affected by his personal charm, but as soon as he gets amorous, she gets cold feet, willing to accept warmth and companionship, and even love, but refuses to engage in sexual relations, finding that off limits, where her dream relationship is two separate bedrooms, always wanting to exert her independence.  It’s a strange and confusing reaction, to be sure, which may puzzle viewers even today, and initially Valdemar is willing to go along, where the luxurious comfort has its rewards, not lacking for anything, but as soon as he presses the physicality in love, Eva is immediately hurt and disgusted, losing all trust in the man.  Realizing that there is such a vast difference between the free-wheeling life he was used to and the more constrained life he is now expected to lead, this is essentially an exposé of class differences, given a melodramatic sweep at the center, reflecting the oppressive straitjacket of the aristocracy, where the two young lovers are extremely appealing, as you can sense the emotion simmering just under the surface.  It recalls the sunny sophistication of Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) (1955), with dark undertones that keep audiences off balance, yet it’s a provocatively realistic drama where two worlds meet on a collision course with destiny, but reality kicks in with unexpected results.

Honey Don't!

 

Director Ethan Coen

Ethan Coen and spouse Tricia Cooke

HONEY DON’T!                   C                                                                                              USA  Great Britain  (89 mi)  2025  ‘Scope  d: Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke (uncredited)

What the world needs now is more lesbian-based private eye thrillers, as the opening sequence is right out of the exploitation evil pleasures of Russ Meyer and the lurid Tura Satana in FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965), where busty working-class women exact revenge with bats and knives, wreaking havoc with their ability to titillate while also providing loads of subversive fun.  Like that film, this should be so much more of a blast than it is, coming from a filmmaker with such an established reputation, where this is the second installment of Ethan Coen and his openly queer wife Tricia Cooke’s planned lesbian B-movie trilogy, with the conclusive third already entitled GO, BEAVERS!, all written together while she edits the films, following the curious yet less than scintillating Drive-Away Dolls (2024), though not as autobiographical, less personal, and not as much trashy fun.  This feels even more laid back and casual, yet much darker in tone with excessively cruel violence, more of a reimagining of the hardboiled detective genre through a lesbian lens, becoming a deliberately sunny, escapist neo-noir thriller.  If Drive-Away Dolls was the lesbian answer to the road trip, this injects the lesbian subculture to the traditionally male detective genre, skewering the hypocrisy of Christian megachurches and the nefarious activities in small town America, yet it already feels out of time, like we’ve somehow missed out on what drew this couple into making this picture, as the fun is already gone.  It shouldn’t be that contentiously controversial, as after all, the very first cinematic kiss was between two women, 1882 - The Kiss - Eadweard Muybridge YouTube (34 seconds).  In the opening credits, the names are etched into faded signs on dilapidated buildings and commercial establishments, where peeling paint hints at faded dreams, inspired apparently by John Huston’s FAT CITY (1972).  While there’s still some subversive fun to be had, most of it falls flat, leaving very little excitement about the final installment.  Premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in a midnight screening, where it was largely panned, you wonder why a film like this would even get an invite, as there’s little to actually like about this film.  Nonetheless, it has the Coen name, makers of some of the best independent films produced in America since the 1980’s, but the infamous brothers broke up as a collaborating team in 2018 and have been on their own ever since, making their own separate films, though expected to reunite at some point in the future with an anticipated horror film.  It would be hard to imagine one of the Dardennes brothers making a film on their own, as these are two of the best brothers duo in cinema history, hugely influential, even going as far back as the Lumière Brothers.  While actually shot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the film is set in the Central Valley of Bakersfield, California, of all places, a farm town with plenty of wide open spaces, not exactly known for their cultural notoriety, but the desert is never far away, and everyone here seems to be living on the edge of oblivion and total obscurity.  The opening says it all, easily the best sequence in the entire film, never living up to what it promises, establishing the tone for a darkly humorous exploitation movie as a badass beautiful woman (Lera Abova) does her best Uma Thurman Pulp Fiction imitation in shades, pulling up to the site of a car crash in her Vespa scooter wearing a leopard-print outfit with an exposed bra, as she walks down a steep slope to an upside down car with a dead woman inside, prying the distinctly recognizable ring off her finger before she wanders off to a nearby stream to bathe naked.  Cut to a distinctive copycat cover version of the hugely popular Eric Burdon and the Animals hit song from 1965, We Gotta Get Out of This Place YouTube (3:15).  Now that’s an opening statement.    

Unfortunately, that mysterious woman who defiantly commands the screen is barely seen again, as it’s not really about her.  It’s about the dead girl lying at the bottom of a gulch.  Arriving on the scene to investigate is the friendly town cop, homicide detective Marty Metakawich (Charlie Day), who greets the arrival of small-town private investigator Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley) with a smile, both wondering what the other is doing there, as it’s supposedly an accident, but they’re investigating it as a homicide.  Qualley, who starred in the Claire Denis film Stars at Noon (2022) and the earlier installment of Drive-Away Dolls, may be the recurring figure throughout the trilogy, providing a female version of a detached 1940’s film noir detective like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe updated to the modern day era.  A chic dresser in heels, always making quick witted, wise ass remarks (when asked if she drinks, she replies, “Heavily.  It’s a point of pride.”), she exudes a sexy swagger with what sounds like a Texas accent, a woman you don’t want to mess with, as she can dish it out with the best of them, easily having her way with the bad boys who get a tad aggressive, while picking up loose and available women in bars afterwards.  Driving a vintage turquoise 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 Convertible 4-Speed, just like guys in earlier 50’s movies, her car makes a statement, while still using an old-school rolodex for contact information instead of some new-age gadgetry, she remains emotionally guarded, yet possesses a mysterious allure.  Marty has a soft spot for her and attempts a friendly date, but she just laughs off the offer, reminding him “I like women.”  Befuddled by the thought that could even be possible, refusing the accept the obvious, Marty defies the odds and keeps trying, as it is a small town after all, but she keeps telling him the same thing, becoming a running gag throughout the picture.  Without sharing what drew her to the scene of the crime, the dead driver is Mia Novotny, a prospective client who called Honey earlier that same day, but she was killed before they could meet, where the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death expose a wider web of corruption.  Perhaps the unseemliest aspect of the film is its depiction of a corrupt and sleazy church that is basically a front for its behind-the-scenes drug trafficking operations.  Mia was a member of the Four-Way Temple led by the lecherous Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), who is a real sleazeball (Captain America, no less), a despicable but darkly humorous pastor preaching “active submission,” where we see raunchy sex scenes in the Reverend’s private chambers, taking full advantage of young women members of his flock, often with multiple partners, perhaps an ironic reference to the name of the church, which he runs like a cult, where it’s all about the supreme leader in charge.  The nastiness of how they conduct their business appears to be shockingly connected to Mia’s death, as the ring pulled off her finger had the insignia of the church, and we see how easily Devlin is willing to eliminate anyone who might be deemed a threat to his operations.  This is where the film really bogs down in over-predictability, as they are such an easy target, accumulating more and more corpses without a hint of suspense or tension, using dimwitted stereotypes that only drag this film down.  When Honey’s niece Corinne (Talia Ryder from Eliza Hittman’s painfully underseen 2020 Top Ten List #5 Never Rarely Sometimes Always) returns home battered and bruised, she turns to Honey, fearing her overly judgmental mother would only blame her for even going out with such an abusive local redneck, so Honey pays him a call in his trailer, which turns into an ugly and brutally violent affair, as she turns his aggression back on him, having the last word, even planting a rather humorous bumper sticker over his MAGA license plate that reads “I have a vagina and I vote,” one of the few moments that got a few snickers from the audience. 

In the course of her investigation, Honey runs into MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), a policewoman who works in the evidence room, quickly meeting her at a bar frequented by police afterwards, discovering she’s a like-minded butch queer woman, where their flirtatiousness is one for the ages, with MG brazenly fingering her in public, commenting, “I love first date stuff.”  Taking their business back to Honey’s place, the lesbian sex is relatively tame, where the mildly amusing kicker is the following morning Honey is seen casually washing an array of sex toys in her kitchen sink with the look of a domestic housewife.  That’s something we don’t typically see.  There’s so little sex in movies today, what little we do see is perhaps a reflection of the regressively backwards culture that is becoming more puritanical, so even a glimpse is a throwback to more liberal times when sex was commonplace.  MG is friendly enough, but hides a dark and mysterious side, like many of the characters in this film.  Honey questions Devlin, as murder and criminal activity seems to lead to his door, quickly establishing a clever repartee, as Devlin acknowledges, “You’re fascinating,” with Honey quipping, “And you haven’t even seen the riddle tattooed on my ass.”  He predictably defends using his position to prey on vulnerable young women, suggesting we’re all a little lost in need of some spiritual guidance, and unlike other churches that only deal with saving souls, his guidance encompasses the total package.  When Corrine goes missing, Honey returns to the church, only to find it locked, but she hears a gunshot inside, with a woman on a scooter seen fleeing from the scene.  That’s the last we see of the crooked pastor, who apparently got his comeuppance by being too big for his britches.  Sex and violence are intertwined in this movie, with a series of strange deaths tied to this mysterious church, but the police are completely baffled and fail to make the connection, as Marty remains unconvinced there is a reason to search the Temple.  Audiences have a behind-the-scenes window into their criminal and sexual depravity, but the question is where does it all lead?  The mystery woman appears to have ended any speculation on where this is heading.  Having no other leads, Honey visits MG at her home, and what appears to be innocent banter suddenly turns ugly, with MG growing increasingly paranoid and unstable, turning into a ferocious, knockdown battle between two women, arguably the catfight men seem to fantasize about, as we suddenly learn the grotesque truth behind her repressive family secrets, where MG has no intention of letting Honey just walk out of there.  But Honey is no patsy, capable of getting down and dirty, which she needs to do in order to survive.  In the end, we learn the mystery woman on a scooter is named Chėre, speaks with a French accent, where it might be better to construct an entire film around her character.  Stay tuned.  It’s all a little peculiar, as outside of Honey, who is uniquely compelling, none of the other characters have any depth or are even remotely developed, remaining cardboard caricatures, which makes it difficult to relate with this movie, as it feels so lazily written and realized.  A better version of what this film may have been attempting to accomplish is Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding (2024), which similarly flaunts its comic B-movie neo-noir mentality from a lesbian perspective, and before that was the Wachowski’s Bound (1996).  Perhaps the biggest surprise is the generic female-centric soundtrack, sounding amateurish rather than ironic, including a few songs sung by Qualley, with the titular song, a 1956 Carl Perkins rockabilly classic, which probably should have been the movie theme song, only heard over the end credits, and even then it’s an inept cover version compared to the original.  While they may not have had money for musical rights, these are some really poor choices.  Overall, it’s a lame experience, with no real standout jokes or scenes, except the opening sequence, where the normally reliable Coen humor just falls flat, making this a real slog to sit through.  Films feel more generic nowadays, and this may be a classic example, as a generally reliable creative team seems to have fumbled the ball and simply run out of ideas and inspiration.  There’s a lackadaisical emptiness here that feels like a bad parody gone wrong, making it hard to imagine there will be another.