503 - Movie Crazy, United States, 1932. Dir. Clyde Bruckman.

Friday, May 18, 2018

503 - Movie Crazy, United States, 1932.  Dir. Clyde Bruckman.

Harold Hall dreams of being in the movies.

He rides home in his luxury car.  Well, no.  He dreams of that.  He rides home on his bicycle.  He picks up the newspaper with a hook on his foot.

He acts on camera.  Well, no.  His mother cranks the coffee grinder, and he pretends she cranks the camera.

He senses that another man is in the closet and calls to him, "Come out of the closet, you cad!"  Well, no.  He opens the ice box and points his father's pipe into it as though it is a gun.

The frozen turkey falls out of the ice box.

His father retrieves his pipe.

His mother stops cranking the coffee grinder.

Harold is single.

Back to reality.

But Harold will never stop dreaming.

So he responds to an ad by Planet Films and sends a photograph of himself to Hollywood, hoping to get a screen test.

And because his father accidentally knocks Harold's photo onto the floor and kicks it under the end table, and because Harold accidentally puts another man's photo into the envelope--a handsome man whose picture was sitting on the end table--Mr. J. L. O'Brien of Planet Films does indeed invite Harold Hall to come to Hollywood to make a screen test.

His father buys him a round-trip ticket on the train.

Thanks, Dad.  Thank you for believing in me.

When he disembarks from the train in sunny Hollywood, he sees a film being filmed right there at the train station.

And if you are watching and find yourself unwilling to suspend your disbelief--"Yeah, right, as if you step off the train and see a movie being made right there"--then note that in my time in Los Angeles I saw many a production being filmed near the airport, as well as all over town, every week of the year.  And I myself filmed next to the airport.  In the wetlands.  Terrible for sound.

Harold Hall has Harold Lloyd's gift for stumbling, bumbling, and bungling.  He more-than watches a leading man and beautiful Spanish lady put on make-up and film their scene.

He walks through their scene.  Trying to be an extra.  But being an extra nuisance.  Picking up the rose that the Spanish lady drops for the leading man.  Going again.  Running into the leading man and knocking him and himself down.  Going again.  Accidentally pulling a stack of milk jugs off a truck bed and releasing a cage of white doves onto the set.

At least he catches the Spanish lady's rose again as she gets into her chauffeured car and rides away.

So much for his career.

Until he stumbles once again onto the running board of the car of a beautiful woman.  This time a blonde.

In the rain.

And as he rides alongside her, one waits for her to announce in her singsong voice, "Here we are, Sunset and Camden!"

Meaning, one feels some parallels between this film and Singing in the Rain (1952).  In that we are watching a romantic comedy taking place on the soundstages and backlots of Hollywood.  Which begins when a man falls onto the convertible car of an actress.

And when she cannot shake him and inadvertently brings him home with her--with the top down, in the rain--she begins to find him amusing.

She begins to call him trouble.

And after she takes him in and gives him a change of clothes--her clothes--a man in a woman's clothes--and you think of Cary Grant in Katharine Hepburn's character's gown in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938)--then her suitor Vance shows up.

Drunk.

And we have a double love triangle.

The Spanish lady and the blonde, whose name he learns is Mary Sears, both love Harold Hall.

And Harold Hall and Vance both love Mary Sears.

But Harold Hall is sweet and innocent and does not hit on women.  Which is why Mary Sears loves him in the first place.  He is different.  He is awkward.  He is good.

But nothing is easy.  And life is filled with conflict.  Certainly good drama is filled with conflict.  So Harold is perpetually at risk of washing up in Hollywood and moving home to Littleton, Kansas.

"Little Town," Kansas.  In the center of the nation.  In a typical town.  Everytown.

If there can be an Everyman, then there can be an Everytown.

All-American.

Will Harold make it in Hollywood or will he go home a washed-up extra?

Will Harold win one of the girls?  Will he find love?

Or will he be exposed as a goofy guy who does not belong?

And can the women even trust him?

There is an extended scene at a formal dinner party where Harold accidentally dons a magician's jacket in the men's room, only to have multiple magic tricks fall out of his pockets while dancing with the evening's hostess.

And another extended scene on a set built to resemble a ship with multiple decks, open for the camera to see into any level.

And speaking of cameras, the real camera, the one controlled by DP Walter Lundin, filming this film, moves with a gentle and daring grace ahead of its time.  On jibs and dollies.

Which puts it on a par with 1932's other film of that caliber, Howard Hawks' Scarface, lensed by Lee Garmes and L. William O'Connell.

This film is a hidden gem.

A talkie.  With a plot.  And a heart.  With lots of laughs.  Signature sight gags.  A mature take on love.  And well-developed lead characters.

With a memorable performance by leading lady Constance Cummings.  She may be best remembered for playing Ruth opposite Rex Harrison as Charles in David Lean's adaptation of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit (1945), but before that she was doing great work in films such as this one.

The film's only drawback is some inefficient pacing.  Which does not even matter if you allow yourself to get swept up in the story.

Someone on the internet suggested that if the director had tightened it up, then the film would have been a classic.

A good observation.

This is a good film.

Released nine years after Safety Last! (1923).  With The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947) still fifteen years away.

Harold Lloyd was still on top.