#190- She Done Him Wrong

Quick recap: Mae West plays Lady Lou, a woman with a bunch of guy troubles.

Fun (?) fact: Mae West was sewn into most of her costumes.

it’s a wonder she didn’t pass out during every scene, with something that tight on.

My thoughts: If you are like me, you are probably wondering who ‘she’ is, as well as who ‘him’ is and what exactly went down. I gather that ‘she’ is Mae West but beyond that, I have no idea what the hell happened in this movie. There were so many guys in and out of her room that I couldn’t keep track of who was whom. I’m also not really sure about Lady Lou’s role in all of this because she seemed to have a boyfriend (?) and he seemed cool with her many guy friends (or suitors), but then there was an escaped convict that she also used to be with, so there’s that. And Cary Grant played Captain Cummings, a straight laced man who worked for the Salvation Army, but was actually a detective. And there were these Russians that had a prostitution ring going on, except that their accents came off as Irish rather than Russian so I kept expecting them to also be in disguise somehow.

So, the plot is needlessly complicated, and the acting didn’t redeem the movie all that much. Don’t get me wrong, Mae West was really good and I loved her voice, but even that schtick got a little old. Cary Grant was cute but the character was pretty bland, bordering on jerk because at the end of the film he ‘arrests’ Lady Lou, only to propose to her in the carriage on the way to jail. This was the most confusing part of all because Captain Cummings JUST finished arresting a whole slew of former suitors so he knew what he was getting into, but I guess he felt it would be different this time around. So is he the ‘him’ in She Done Him Wrong?? No clue, and I feel I’ve written about this movie longer than it deserves.

Final review: 2/5.

Up next: 42nd Street

#189- The Firemen’s Ball

Quick recap: A fire department throws a party (or ball, if you will) to honor their outgoing chief. They screw everything up with both hijinks and shenanigans.

If you like your hijinks to be creepy as hell, this is the movie for you!

Fun (?) fact: The firemen portrayed in the film are not actors, but instead real firemen from the town the movie was filmed in.

Hitler mustaches were still the rage in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s!

My thoughts: I’m just going to jump right in and say that I didn’t find The Firemen’s Ball all that funny. That’s not to say that the movie was devoid of humor, but I don’t think I was the right audience. Set during the Cold War in Czechoslovakia, I can see how people in that country might be falling out of their seat in laughter, but seeing as how I am neither under a Communist regime (shut up, Ted Cruz) or Czechoslovakian, it didn’t interest me very much. For one, it’s a film with very dark humor, which I normally love, but these jokes landed closer on the side of just being mean. One of the main plot points is that the firemen want to organize a beauty pageant so that they might choose a beautiful girl to present the award to their former chief. Many girls don’t want to participate though, and the ones that do are not very attractive. One of the only girls they want shows up during the ball to reveal that she is wearing a bikini, since this is a competition. This leads to a very awkward situation where she is strutting around in basically her underwear while all these old creepy guys leer at her. I see the humor, but I’m not laughing.

After the film was over, I read the entry in my 1001 Movies to See Before you Die book to see if there was something I might have missed. There was. Turns out, the whole film was an allegory about the Communist regime. Knowing this pissed me off because I didn’t get that at all. So not only did I not find the movie all that hilarious, I apparently completely missed the entire point of the film. And then, in reading the Wikipedia entry, I read that the director didn’t mean for the movie to say anything about Communism. People couldn’t help but assign meaning. What the movie represents is a corrupt society with a corrupt leadership. That could literally be anywhere. It just so happens that the movie was filmed in a country with Communism so that’s what people saw, but corruption is at all levels,my friend.

I feel like knowing what the director thought gives me permission to assign my own meaning and in doing so, I can see the humor more than I did before. Throughout the film, items from the raffle keep getting stolen and it’s even revealed at some point that one of the firemen’s wives is in on it. One of the firemen asks the crowd to return the items and the lights would be turned off so that no one would be embarrassed. While the lights are off, the rest of the items get stolen. At the end of the film, after everyone has gone and the party essentially ruined, the men unceremoniously give the chief their present which, when he opens the box- has also been stolen. Take whatever lesson you want to in that scene, but it made me chuckle because you know, sometimes the drapes are just blue.

Final review: 3/5

Up next: She Done Him Wrong

#188- White Heat

Quick recap: A gangster with mommy issues gets outgangstered. Totally a thing. Look it up.

Nothing weird going on here!

Fun (?) fact: In between takes for White Heat, James Cagney liked to go up to co-star Edmond O’Brien and show him poetry he had written.

My thoughts: Knowing that this was a gangster film, I was expecting violence but it being the 1940s, I wasn’t expecting anything super realistic. I was right in a way because the deaths were your typical ‘clutch the chest, fall over’ fare, but White Heat is pretty dark for its time. Many descriptions peg the main character Cody (not a very gangster name, tbh) as ‘psychopathic’ and ‘homicidal’ and that is very true. He doesn’t blink twice when offing someone and in some scenes, he seems to relish the torture he inflicts on his victims. It’s not that I wanted a gangster with a heart of gold, but I wasn’t expecting one so gangster-y.

As mentioned above, everything Cody does is for his mother. He runs the gang, but only gives orders that he knows she would approve of. I really liked her character because she didn’t put up with anything. In one scene, Cody is planning on giving himself up to police and when she is questioned later on, she plays the role perfectly of mom who doesn’t know anything, but will kick your ass if you keep asking. I had very little sympathy for Cody throughout the film, but what little I could muster was because of her and how true his love was. Plus, she left hiding to go buy the gangsters strawberries, so you can’t really hate someone who does that.

White Heat surprised me by how complicated it was, from both sides. The FBI obviously had no computers back then, but still managed to stay one up on the gang at all times. Cody, too, always thought ahead, like when he paid someone to rob a store many states away so that he could confess to it later on, thus providing an alibi for the much larger crime of a train robbery. In an effort to get Cody to admit his deception, the FBI plants one of their men as his cellmate to gain his trust. When Cody decides to break out, the FBI arranges a getaway car so that his relationship with agent Hank Fallon was still intact. And it’s not really a criticism of this film, but this constant life of being on the run made me wonder what the benefits of being a gangster really are. From the very beginning with the train robbery, everyone lives in constant fear of getting caught and must perform bigger heists to keep the money flowing in. I may just be lazy, but the lifestyle just seems like a lot of work. There were a few scenes of the gangsters counting their money, but besides buying high priced suits, what did they use it for? Being a gangster fit Cody because he was crazy, but I don’t know about the other ones.

Look, Ma, I’m on top of the world!

Final review: 4/5

Up next: The Firemen’s Ball

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#187- Requiem for a Dream

Quick recap: Hey, kids: Don’t do drugs!

If your favorite cartoon stars from the ’80s didn’t convince you, maybe Jared Leto’s dreamy eyes will

Fun (?) fact: Most movies contain around 600-700 cuts, but Requiem for a Dream has over 2,000

My thoughts: I have definitely seen Requiem for a Dream before, probably while I was in college. I remember thinking it looked cool and I remember the arm scene, but that’s about it. This time around, it was nearly impossible to look away.

More than anything else, this film is a testament to great editing. Having never done drugs myself, I can’t speak for the authenticity, but watching the characters descend into their various addictions sure felt real. Sara Goldfarb, played by Ellen Burstyn’s story was especially difficult to watch. All of the actors did an exceptional job, but her character was the one that resonated with me most because it was just so sad. All of the other characters (somewhat) knew what they were getting into, but she was just desperate to reclaim some of her youth. The manic scenes, especially the ones when she hallucinated that she was on tv were so realistic, in terms of her downward spiral. The ending with the electroshock therapy was a little ridiculous, but still captivated me.

The story itself, looking back, was a little heavy handed. I mean, it’s a movie so you expect over the top things to happen, but everyone’s ultimate destination seemed more like a morality tale about how drugs are bad for you, m’kay? than anything else and it was difficult to see other points being made. I get that everyone was chasing some sort of dream and the drugs kept them from reaching success, but all I could think about was my DARE class in 5th grade and how showing this movie would’ve had a far deeper impact than those stupid worksheets we had to do. I know 10 different ways to say no when someone offers me heroin, but if an officer had just shown the class a picture of Harry’s arm, he would’ve saved us all a ton of trouble later on down the line.

Final review: 4/5. Stylistically,a near perfect film. Plot-wise, eh.

Up next: White Heat

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1001 Movie Nights

Category Archives: Movies

#190- She Done Him Wrong

#189- The Firemen’s Ball

#188- White Heat

#187- Requiem for a Dream

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