The Ten Best Movies (I Screened) in 2009: Part I

Here’s my annual list of the Ten Best Movies I Screened in 2009.

I did not see more than a handful of contemporary releases that came close to the smart pacing, narrative sophistication and honest passion of these older films.

Though I will give a strong nod to 500 Days of Summer and Funny People, two fine films. Both are beautifully written, carefully structured and oh what a relief, they vigorously espouse what can only be described as (mostly) conservative values, a welcome relief in this post-modern age where nihilism passes for, ahem, cutting edge entertainment.

But I roll with classic Hollywood, silent movies and films from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Keep in mind that most of the movies on my list were produced on modest budgets, never intended as studio blockbusters.

I’m not claiming that any of these movies are classics like The Crowd or Seven Samurai. I am saying that these ten films are grand entertainment from Hollywood’s great dream factory and well worth seeking out.

Ernest Torrence, John Gilbert and Mary Nolan fight over the last drop of water in Desert Nights, 1929.

10. Desert Nights, 1929, starring John Gilbert, Ernest Torrence and Mary Nolan. Directed by William Nigh. Titles by Marian Ainslee, Adaptation by Endre Bohem.

This was Gilbert’s last silent movie. To an adoring public he was known as The Great Lover. At one point, Gilbert was the highest paid actor at MGM earning a cool million a year. But Gilbert, enormously self-destructive, got into hot water with his boss L.B. Mayer and then booze, babes, and sound finished off a great career.

Here, Gilbert plays Hugh Roland, the woman-starved manager of an African diamond mine. Lord Stonehill, Ernest Torrence, and his daughter Diana, Mary Nolan, arrive to visit the mine. But they are impostors who grab a sack of diamonds then kidnap Roland. The trio ends up stranded in the Kalahari Desert. Not knowing how to survive in the sun-baked waste, the thieves are forced to rely on their hostage in order to stay alive.

Mary Nolan, real name Mary Imogene Robertson, born into poverty on a Kentucky farm, was at age 15, a Ziegfeld beauty nicknamed “Bubbles”–draw your own conclusions. With shimmering blond hair and a shirt open to her waist, Nolan gives off Pre-Code heat like a destroying angel.

Mary Nolan, studio portrait. Before liquor, drugs and a string of abusive relationships destroyed her career and her life.

She’s a scrumptious dame who enjoys the feel of a rifle in her arms as much as a man. Nolan, almost totally forgotten, was even more self-destructive than Gilbert. A string of abusive men–including MGM fixer Eddie Mannix–beat her to a pulp. She ended up a hopeless heroin addict, and in 1948, Nolan died in Cedars Sinai of Los Angeles weighing just 70 lbs. She was 43 years old.

Desert Nights has a running time of just sixty-five minutes. It moves like a bullet and combines action and romance in a nifty, unpretentious package.

Here’s a clip from the first few minutes of the film. Gilbert gets a look at Nolan’s exquisite face at about the three-minute mark. His reaction shot is beautifully modulated. And watch what Mary does right after she hooks Gilbert.

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9. Parole Girl, 1933, starring Mae Clarke, Marie Prevost and Ralph Bellamy, directed by Eddie Cline. Screenplay by Norman Krasna.

This film is definitely a B movie elevated by Mae Clarke’s memorable performance. Parole Girl–fabulous title–is another Pre-Code goodie that explores one of Hollywood’s most durable stories: a (sorta) good girl gone (sorta) bad, only to go (truly) good once she meets the right man.

Clarke plays a sympathetic con artist who ends up in jail–the scene where she begs for mercy is gut-wrenching–and once behind bars she swears vengeance against the department store manager, strait-laced Ralph Bellamy, who refused to give her a break.

When she exits prison Mae is wearing a shockingly post-modern geometric hairdo that frames her as a sleek, deco avenger. The film is stuffed with plot contrivances that, upon reflection, are just plain bizarro. But Mae’s sincere and naturalistic acting style gives credibility to the whiplash plot turns. Her revenge is tricking Bellamy into a sham marriage–don’t ask.

Mae Clarke, her geometric haircut makes her look like a sleek Deco avenger, Parole Girl, 1933.

This little gem zips along at a dazzling pace, clocking in at–hey, I’m sensing a pattern here–sixty-five minutes.

The photography is lush and effervescent, filled with gorgeous shots that you don’t expect from a Columbia programmer. The Director of Photography was Joe August who in the 20’s and 30’s shot films for John Ford, Howard Hawks, Lewis Milestone and Frank Borzage.

Mae and her gold-digging sidekick Marie Prevost–former Sennett cutie-pie she died an alcoholic, alone and broke in a cheap hotel room–are down at the heel dames, always dressed at the height of fashion. Even the notoriously cheap and vulgar head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, understood that no matter how poor was a depression-era girl, the public yearned to see their stars draped in furs and bias cut silk gowns.

Mae Clarke is best remembered for getting a pineapple in her face–here’s my post about that famous scene–but if not for her fragile mental state, she could have been one of Hollywood’s greatest stars. TCM programs this beaut every once in a while, so check their schedule.

8. Tell it to the Marines, 1926, starring Lon Chaney, Billy Haines, Eleanor Boardman, and Carmel Meyers. Directed by George W. Hill. Screenplay by Richard Schayer. Titles by Joseph Farnham.

Tell it to the Marines, 1926. Billy Haines looks on as Lon Chaney romances Eleanor Boardman.

U.S. Marine Sergeant O’Hara, Lon Chaney, in one of the few films in which he’s not in make-up, has his hands full training raw recruits. ‘Skeet’ Burns, Billy Haines, is a brash and uncooperative Marine. And to make things worse, Burns also sets his sights on nurse Nora Dale, the lovely Eleanor Boardman, whom Sergeant O’Hara secretly loves.

This is a lovely and unexpected romantic comedy from Lon Chaney, best known for playing unfortunates like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera.

Here’s clip where ladies man Haines makes a move on Eleanor Boardman:

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Chaney (1883-1930) was one of the great stars of the silent screen. He only made one sound movie, the very strange The Unholy Three, 1930, before cancer of the throat killed him. Watching him work without make-up is a revelation and a joy. He plays a classic American character, rigid but fair, tough yet vulnerable. His face is weathered with deep creases, signs of wisdom gained through a lifetime of war and barracks humor. It’s an iconic American performance. Tell it to the Marines was Lon Chaney’s biggest moneymaker.

Lon Chaney as Sergeant O’Hara.

George W. Hill was a fine director who got his start as an assistant to D.W. Griffith. Before becoming a director Hill was an accomplished cinematographer who was known for his skill in lighting leading ladies. In 1929 Hill scored another huge success with The Big House starring Wallace Beery. And in 1930, Hill again hit box office and creative magic with Min and Bill, making Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler MGM’s biggest stars for the next four years. Tragically, Hill was in a serious car accident at the peak of his career. His injuries caused intense physical and personal anguish. In 1933, he was discovered in his Malibu home dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 38 years old.

7. Bed of Roses, 1933, starring Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea and Pert Kelton. Directed by Gregory La Cava. Screenplay by Wanda Tuchock.

Constance Bennett was an actress who specialized in playing diamond draped society girls. Here, in a witty and carefully structured script by the great Wanda Tuchock, Bennett is a gum chewing–though very well dressed–prostitute, who, in league with her wisecracking sidekick Pert Kelton, get hapless men drunk before robbing them. The hard-boiled tone of the film is economically established in the first scene where, released from jail, the prison matron cautions Kelton: “Miss Brown, you’re much too impulsive.” Drawls Pert: “I ain’t got an impulse left.” Constance and Pert sashay around with hands resting languorously on their hips. They whistle at men and call them “big boy” before heartlessly taking them to the cleaners.

This is yet another Pre-Code stunner, with dialogue and narrative details that disappeared after The Motion Picture Code was enforced in 1934. It’s a moral fable deliciously soaked in sin and gin.

Constance Bennett meets and is mightily attracted to handsome and rugged Joel McCrea, the honest skipper of a cotton boat. But she chooses to score big by tricking a wealthy publisher into–here we go again–a sham marriage. Will Constance live a life of loveless luxury or will she choose true love as the wife of a river rat?

Constance Bennett, studio portrait. For three wonderfully informative essays about Constance and her entire dysfunctional show biz family, head on over to Self-Styled Siren.

Bennett, a clotheshorse thin as a willow, strains a bit in the role of a bawdy hooker. It’s not who she is. Bennett’s inner patrician fights the character’s wanton nature. Nevertheless, this is one of Constance Bennett’s most surprising and interesting performances.

I couldn’t find any clips from the film but I did find this great 1937 “educational” short of Bennett demonstrating her daily beauty routine. Highly informative.

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Anyhoo, back to Bed of Roses. Pert Kelton, a talented actress who excelled in playing hard luck tramps, was cast as the original Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners. But Kelton was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and replaced by Audrey Meadows. In her later years, Kelton was featured in a series of Spic and Span commercials that fixed her image as a product pitcher. Bed of Roses is longer than Desert Nights and Parole Girl–by two minutes. We who work in contemporary Hollywood have a lot to learn about structure, narrative economy, and pacing from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

6. The Godless Girl, 1929, starring Lina Basquette, Marie Prevost and Tom Keene, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Story by Jeanie MacPherson. Titles by Beulah Marie Dix.

During production of The Godless Girl, Lina Basquette, recent widow of Sam Warner, found solace in the arms of ace cameraman Pev Marley–always a smart move for an actress who wants to guarantee a glamorous celluloid image.

We tend to forget that Cecil B. DeMille was, at one time, a pioneering visual stylist. In 1928, DeMille hired Lina Basquette for the lead role in The Godless Girl. In her outrageous and addictive memoir, Basquette claims that during the private casting session with DeMille, he reached into her blouse and fondled her breast, assuring her that he only wanted to make sure she was a cooperative actress. She was.

Basquette plays Judy, a militant high school atheist. A clash between the atheists and Christians leads to a riot in which a student is killed. Basquette and the Christian Boy are sentenced to a state reformatory where DeMille and his longtime scenario writer/mistress, Jeanie MacPherson, dwell lovingly on the cruelty and corruption of the facility.

This all sounds incredibly heavy handed and it is. It’s also sort of glorious and The Godless Girl makes for compelling viewing. The riot scene, a huge set-piece, is viciously staged and so effective I was chewing my handkerchief throughout. And the shot of a girl falling down the cavernous stairwell is genuinely haunting. Here’s a clip showing the riot and the death spiral. Note the eloquent monorail–specially constructed by DP Pev Marley for this film–shot on the staircase. In this way DeMille nails the geography of the brawl and it’s kinetic effect.

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Naturally, there’s a love story between atheist Basquette and the lantern jawed Christian, played by Tom Keene. There are two striking scenes where the lovers ink over their prison numbers creating poetic new words–a clever and lyrical touch.

Lina Basquette began her career as a Ziegfeld ballerina. She performed with, among others, Louise Brooks and Desert Night’s Mary Nolan. Lina states that her virginity was such a precious and rare commodity in Hollywood that Mommy Basquette sold her as an 18-year old child-bride to Sam Warner, the Warner brother responsible for bringing sound to the movies.

Constance Bennett, a guest at the wedding, consoled the unhappy virgin bride, who was, after the ceremony, vomiting in the restroom, with these words:

“Actually, Sam’s not a bad guy–as men go.”

Constance, mercenary to the core, further counseled Basquette: “Just be sure, after you give, you get.”

Studio portrait of DeMille’s Godless Girl. After she left Hollywood in 1943, Basquette became a noted breeder of Great Danes.

Basquette’s Hollywood career was not distinguished, but her private life was, well, epic. She married seven times, compulsively fell in and out of love with drunks, rogues, and liars. She actually rates her numerous lovers in her wacky memoir, Lina: DeMille’s Godless Girl. Among others, Basquette had violent and passionate affairs with heavyweight Jack Dempsey, mobster Johnny Roselli and finally Ludwig, a Nazi.

She also claims that Hitler, in a private audience in Berchtesgaden, offered her the opportunity to be Germany’s biggest movie star. In a scene that seems lifted out of a Mel Brooks movie, Lina insists that love-struck Adolph tried to rape her. As horny Hitler groped, Basquette breathlessly cried out that her grandfather was Jewish. Der Fuhrer quickly lost interest.

The Godless Girl is a compelling and hugely entertaining film, with fluid camera work and some stunning visuals. The film culminates with a massive fire in the reformatory, a jaw-dropping conflagration that rivals the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind.

Next week, the top five movies I screened in 2009.

And here’s my list from 2008.

Robert J. Avrech