Monday, October 23, 2017

Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)

Another old-Hollywood movie about older Hollywood, which puts it along similar themes as Sunset Boulevard but telling a very different story.  However, while Buster is featured prominently in a few scenes doing slapstick, I’m not really a fan of how it’s done.

Mike Connors, a studio prop man with big ambitions, discovers a talented understudy on a Broadway stage one night and presents himself as a Hollywood bigshot in order to sign her.  He brings the actress, Molly Adair, back to California with him, and together, the two experience the ups and downs of the movie industry.  Under Mike’s direction, Molly’s star rises, but he earns a reputation for being difficult to work with.  Is she benefitting from his vision?  Is he glomming onto her coattails?  Will either of them survive the pitfalls of fame, or later, the transition to sound?

From what I understand, this film is kind of a fictionalized biography of Mack Sennett (the man behind the Keystone Cops and the Bathing Beauties, among other things) and Mabel Normand, the leading lady who came up with him.  I don’t know much about Sennett and can’t speak to that – mainly, I know that Fatty Arbuckle got his start with him and that Buster used the Keystone Cops in his classic short Cops – but as a film, it’s fairly enjoyable.  Although it hits a lot of obvious biopic beats, like the scrappy climber rising to stardom and then experiencing a fall from grace, it hits them well for the most part, and the dynamic between Mike and Molly is interesting to me.  There’s the makings of a love connection there, but it’s also two people who’ve thrown their lots in with one another to tackle the industry, and sink or swim, they mean to do it together.

Where it gets less interesting for me is Buster’s involvement.  As I’ve said before, I don’t find Molly’s silent comedies that Mike directs (and which feature Buster) very funny.  Maybe they’re representative of Mack Sennett-type comedies – again, I haven’t seen any, so I don’t know – but they’re definitely not representative of Buster’s work.  Molly gets her start in comedy accidentally when Buster (her onscreen beau) fumbles to figure out how to confront her rival and throws a pie that misses him and hits Molly.  From there, it’s mostly just a lot of pie-throwing and some later bungling-cop bits.  Not that I’m opposed to either pie-throwing or bungling cops.  After all, Buster created numerous hilarious cop gags in his films, and here, I do enjoy how he winds up to throw a pie like a baseball.  But for the most part, the “gags” are the pie-throwing or the running-around in and of themselves.  The scenarios don’t build or pay off; they’re just “there.”  And while a bunch of cops tripping over each other might get a smile from me, it’s nothing compared to the way I laugh at the cops in The Goat, Daydreams, Cops, or Neighbors.  With my limited experience with non-Buster-related silent comedy, I don’t how typical this type of film might have been.  Is the point that Molly is in these dumb comedies but becomes famous because the public eats it up anyway?  Or is this supposed to be good-quality comedy?  Would this have been considered comedy gold in the ‘20s in general, or by 1939, had Hollywood lost sight of what good silent comedy looks like?  I can’t tell.

I also don’t like the fact that these scenes present Buster as a would-be dramatic leading man who literally stumbles into comedy with his onscreen missteps.  It’s entirely possible that I’m being overprotective, but just like with “The Silent Partner,” I’m not fond of the suggestion that comedy just happens by accident.  While I’m guessing that the film isn’t actively suggesting that Buster Keaton was nothing more than a klutz, it also doesn’t acknowledge the precision, skill, and imagination that goes into great slapstick.  It’s like, drama is an art you create, but anybody can just throw together a comedy.  And Buster’s silent career most certainly proves that that’s not true.

Warnings

Drinking/smoking, some slapstick violence, and thematic elements.

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