Comments on Bright Lights After Dark: Josef Von Sternberg's Super-Masochist Sublimation ...

No sir, I haven't seen either of the films you men...

2009-06-02T00:27:06.242-07:00

No sir, I haven't seen either of the films you mentioned but I shall indeed.

By the way, watched Mandingo and while I thought Mason and Susan George were ickily terrific; Perry King was quite good as well--I thought the film was rather on the obvious side. You knew from the begining that King's niceness would be shown to be almost worse than the non-stop sadisticness of the other whites (isn't that, annoyingly, what's up with his gimp leg? I.E. he's a passive and wilting coward with man issues). Funnily the movie still seemed to be pretty much the white side of the story as well, only using the black characters to score points off the slave masters. This effect was enhanced by the fact that, strangely, all but a couple of the African American actors in the smallest parts weren't very good; the buff actor playing the special breed of slave was particularly wooden in my opinion. I found all the ghastly details queerly unaffecting, except for the terrific scene where George beats her slave rival for King's affections with a whip causing her to miscarry. That George sure was a game girl, wasn't she? She just was willing to bring all kinds of strange, scabrous sexual currents to the surface that would have seemed like creepy sexism if she weren't so talented. Anyway, this film was so clear and relentless in its intent that it just didn't churn me up the way that a much more ambivalent and unbalanced film like Straw Dogs did. I'll make another exception though. Despite the fact I knew Perry King's niceness was just a trap being set on the audience he nearly, fleetingly, did make me identify with him, which was interestingly uncomfortable. Had it toyed more with this, I think the film might have really offended me and gotten under my skin. But all that mirroring incest and rape and those sadistic beatings, and the slave fights, which in my opinion were not the best way to make use of very very expensive merchandise, was like something out of a Pam Grier movie, but not as sassy. Though it was well filmed. Something about its atmosphere sort of reminded me of the wonderful Clint Eastwood film where he's trapped in that girl's school during the Civil War and has his leg amputated out of jealousy.

Joseph, I am glad you liked HYDE, which still frea...

2009-06-01T14:18:50.330-07:00

Joseph, I am glad you liked HYDE, which still freaks me out to this day with all that lurid footage restored. Have you seen The Story of Temple Drake? Very similar though cheaper looking, but Miriam is in a similar dire strait.

I recently re-watched the 1932 Murders in the Rue Morgue, also very pre-code grisly! The DVD is amazingly vivid, directed by the great Robert Florey with an almost Sternbergian eye.

E., this was an interesting take. I actually don't...

2009-05-26T23:55:17.535-07:00

E., this was an interesting take. I actually don't know much about either Sternberg or Dietrich other than movies. I had no idea they had been married, or lovers or whatever. Telling it the way you do, it reminds me of the stuff I read about the ways in which Godard would use and punish Anna Karina for the philandering he pretty much pushed her into. I can't wait to see the last two Dietrich/Sternberg collaborations I haven't gotten around to.

P.S. I took your advice and watched the 1932 Fredric March version of Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde and loved it. It's quite stylish. The film is entirely and fascinatingly split at every level, thematically, dramatically and cinematically. I loved the wonderful use of the windshield style wipe transitions that would stop mid-wipe for a few moments so that the Victorian world and the low class one would hover on the screen simultaneously. March was absolutely terrific (as Jeykll, he seemed so bland you just had no idea what witty explosive disturbing gusto he would display as Hyde), you could just about taste the hideous sexual glee he experienced in sadistically terrorizing poor Miriam Hopkins--it was surprisingly effective, because it managed to be awful, cruelly pleasurable and funny at the same time; yet you really did feel for the Hopkins character, who simply had nowhere to turn as social trash. The movie really took what only just hovered behind the Stevenson story and made it rather shockingly explicit. In fact I can't think of another version I've seen that focuses so specifically on the sexual vice side of the story.

Also I have got, but not yet watched Mandingo. More later.