Tag Archives: indianapolis museum of art
IMA’s Winter Nights Film Series: Arsenic And Old Lace
[Correlating with the Indianapolis Museum of Art's 2010 Winter Nights Film Series, ZapTown will be publishing essays each week on the films that will be shown in the series. The museum will be presenting Arsenic And Old Lace on Friday, January 22. The show at 7 p.m. - $9 Public/ $5 Members/ $7 students with ID. For a full schedule, visit the IMA's website (http://www.imamuseum.org/toby) or our Lead Story on The Toby (http://www.zaptownmag.com/2009/12/lets-go-out-to-the-movies-the-toby - film schedule is located at the bottom of the article).]
Past Essays on Zaptown:
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) is perhaps one of the best known dark comedies from Hollywood’s Golden Era. It is full of endlessly quotable lines, memorable characters, and insanely (no pun intended) over-the-top performances. The American Film Institute recognized it as one of the 100 funniest films ever made; placing it at number 30 on their list in 2000.[1] Yet, this movie proved to be very difficult to get onto theater screens. Contract negotiations, censorship, and the original play’s Broadway run all interfered with the movie’s premiere.
The movie was filmed in 1941, but was not actually released to American audiences until 1944. The original play was a huge hit on Broadway and Warner Bros.’ contract with the play’s producers stipulated that the movie could not be released to the American public until after the play closed on Broadway.[2] The play ran until June 17, 1944. As a result, the movie, though scheduled for release in 1942, was held until September of 1944. Interestingly enough, while stationed in London in 1943 during World War II, Frank Capra, the movie’s director, overheard some American and British soldiers shouting “Charge!” in the same manner as Teddy when running up the steps of “San Juan Hill.” After hearing this, he learned that Warner Bros. had released the movie to the armed forces overseas almost a year before its release to the general public. [3] In other words, Warner Bros. found a loophole in the contract.
A large part of the play’s success was attributed to its star Boris Karloff. One of the running gags in the play is that the character Jonathan, played by Karloff, looked like Boris Karloff due to a botched plastic surgery procedure. People flocked to the theater to see Karloff in this sinister role. Because of this, the play’s producers were extremely apprehensive about letting any of the original cast members, but especially their star, reprise their roles on the big screen. Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, and John Alexander, who originated the roles of Aunt Abby, Aunt Martha, and Teddy “Roosevelt” Brewster respectively, were given time off from the Broadway production to reprise their roles in the movie. However, Boris Karloff volunteered to stay in the play and not reprise his role in the movie to appease the play’s producers concerns over a drop in ticket sales.[4] Raymond Massey was cast as Jonathan in the movie and wore heavy makeup in order to resemble Karloff. According to publicity items from 1944, it took two hours to apply and then another two hours to remove.[5]
Another headache-inducer for the film and Warner Bros. was the Production Code Administration. At that time, all scripts had to be submitted to the PCA for approval before the movies could be filmed and there were several elements to the movie’s script that the PCA did not like. The PCA was in the midst of Joseph Breen’s death grip in 1941 and all rules and regulations of the Code were to be strictly enforced. Arsenic and Old Lace had several elements in the script that directly violated the first two applications: murder and sex.[6] Murder was not to be depicted in a way that could inspire imitation. Therefore, PCA requested that all references to any actual poisons, with the exception of arsenic, be eliminated from the script as well as a recipe for the poisoned wine for fear that it may be replicated by “unstable viewers.”[7] This request may seem quite silly today, yet the PCA often worried about corrupting moviegoers.
Another element in the script that the PCA had problems with was the “sexual frustration” between Cary Grant’s Mortimer and Priscilla Lane’s Elaine. [8] The PCA did not approve of scenes of passion that involved several lusty kisses between any couple regardless of marital status and that passion in general should not arouse baser emotions. [9] This would explain the reason why almost all of Mortimer’s and Elaine’s supposed heavy petting was either in a taxi cab or behind a tree. It was implied but never shown. This concept differs greatly from many of the movies that are now considered “Pre-Code.” Before Joseph Breen took charge, the censorship guidelines were essentially ignored by filmmakers and many scenes made it to print that never would not be tolerated under Breen’s reign. [10] One only needs to compare the scene in The Public Enemy where Jean Harlow puts James Cagney’s face between her breasts to the awkward staging of Mortimer and Elaine kissing behind the tree in the graveyard to understand just how much of a strangle hold Breen had over the content of motion pictures at that time.
Despite Breen’s insistence that movie makers follow the Code to the letter, it should be noted that only some of the PCA’s suggestions were taken under advisement, while others, such as the poisoned wine recipe, were ignored entirely.[11] Interestingly, even though the studio refused to remove the wine recipe from the script, the script was approved, the movie was filmed, and after sitting on the shelf for several years, it finally was released to a very receptive audience.
Arsenic and Old Lace is now considered a classic and also one of Cary Grant’s more iconic roles. However, the journey from pre-production to filming to releasing it in theaters was a rocky one that probably made at least a few people wish for a glass of Aunt Martha and Aunt Abby’s special elderberry wine.
Sources:
[1] 100 Years… 100 Laughs. (2000) American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/laughs.aspx” http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/laughs.aspx (Last accessed on January 19, 2010).
[2-5, 7-8, and 11] Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), American Film Institute Catalog. http://gateway.proquest.com/
openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&xri: pqil:res_ver=0.2&res_id=xri:afi& rft_id=xri: afi:film:27697 (Accessed through Proquest database).
[6 and 9] Hayes, David P., The Motion Picture Production Code, 2009. http://productioncode.dhwritings.com/multipleframes_productioncode.php.
[10] LaSalle, Mick.“Pre-Code Hollywood.” (GreenCine.com, 2005). http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/precode.jsp.
IMA’s Winter Nights Film Series: The Blue Angel
[Correlating with the Indianapolis Museum of Art's 2010 Winter Nights Film Series, ZapTown will be publishing essays each week on the films that will be shown in the series. The museum will be presenting The Blue Angel on Friday, January 8. The show at 7 p.m. - $9 Public/ $5 Members/ $7 students with ID. For a full schedule, visit the IMA's website (http://www.imamuseum.org/toby) or our Lead Story on The Toby (http://www.zaptownmag.com/2009/12/lets-go-out-to-the-movies-the-toby - film schedule is located at the bottom of the article).]
When Marlene Dietrich walked in to audition for the part of Lola Lola, she had no idea what a profound impact that day would have on her future acting career. Unprepared and uninterested, anyone else would have been shown the door based on her poor initial image. But there was something about her that sparkled beyond a mere unimpressive glance.
Dietrich had been an established stage performer and played many roles in films throughout much of the ‘20s, but on September 5, 1929, when Josef von Sternberg caught her performance in the music and dance revue Zwei Krawatten (Two Neckties), he knew he had to have her.
Dietrich was his Lola Lola much like Immanuel Rath (played by silent film superstar Emil Jannings) became her play toy that eventually led to the lead character’s self-destruction. The difference between the two was that Sternberg’s internal philosophy as a director was brash and ineffectual. “I regard actors as marionettes,” Sternberg once said, “as pieces of color on my canvas.”1
His canvas stretched out into every facet of filmmaking from the angle of lighting and how it reflected on people and props to a frame-by-frame perfectionism as produced from films like The Salvation Hunters, Underworld, and The Docks Of New York. But it was Dietrich who he treated as clay and was determined to sculpt her into a masterpiece. He used her essence and reputation to his full benefit. In Berlin, Dietrich had a reputation for being edgy and ahead of the times. She had a dedication to free love — although married and a mother — and was publicly promiscuous with her sexuality. Her anxiety regarding her morality during the shooting of the film was apparent as was Sternberg’s intentions. He once said, “I did not endow her with a personality that was not her own. I gave her nothing that she did not already have. What I did was make them visible for all to see.” 2
The Blue Angel was taken from Heinrich Mann’s novel Professor Unrat. Mann was a political and social writer, searching and exposing the causes of equality, justice and freedom. These elements — although not as distinct as his other works — modestly leaked into what became considered his greatest contribution to the German novel. The story of a school teacher going from an overpowering and tyrannical hatred towards his pupils to an obsessive need of love towards a cabaret singer read like a news event with its distinct directness of the story that tore into the reader’s psyche.
Sternberg omitted Mann’s social-political language and focused entirely on the central theme — a man’s self-abatement. When Mann wrote the novel, Unrat was autobiographical in a sense. He saw many traits in Unrat that came from his own image: isolation, loneliness, a desperation for love and his disillusionment and hostility to the world. This self-portrait transformed into Sternberg’s work as Mann said after seeing the film, “My head and Marlene Dietrich’s legs.” Mann’s pointed beard and broad head became the inspiration for Janning’s look in the film. 3
It was not long before shooting this film that Al Jolson tantalized viewers with the first “Talkie” singing appearance in film (The Jazz Singer). Vaudeville in nature, the songs in the The Blue Angel brought distinction. Filmed both in German and English for lack of overdubbing abilities, the music was used naturally from the clock chimes to the professor’s whistling to Lola’s vocal performances.
Embedded around musical punctuation, much of the film takes place in the Blue Angel Cafe and the consistent chaos of the audience and performers scurrying around. On occasion the professor stumbles upon the company clown which later in the film he becomes. Stopping to stare at this miserable creature, little does he know that he is really staring at his future demise.
Thematically, the film not only views the inner-struggle of a man, but a German society in struggle. The beginning of the film shows a shop owner pull open the blinds of a window to illuminate a poster of Lola Lola. Beginning to wash the window, she stops and stares at the poster, then without finishing walks away. Living conditions were worsening in Berlin and Sternberg fed off that negligibility both externally and internally. Our first vision of the professor, he is in his study and notices that his canary has died. The theme of the bird bounces back and forth throughout the film where at first she is his little bird singing away to him when he soon becomes her strutting rooster only to end up having eggs smashed in his face, smearing clown make up in an almost horrific manner. The transition from horrid rooster crows to unearthly shrieking is a stark realization. This is a man who captured the fear of the German psyche of the 1930s with stark reality. The professor’s rule from his teaching desk is the same monument he clutches just before he dies. Sternberg saw a city drenched in decadence only to be disillusioned by their own selfs.
Lola Lola had nothing to gain from Professor Rath. What we see is a societal schoolteacher who upheld high moral standards as a tyrannical disciplinarian and then gradually lost everything through her. In the end, she is no different than when she met him. We see Lola Lola on stage singing “Falling In Love” as a degraded and tormented Rath who looks like The Monster in Frankenstein stammering and screeching uncontrollably out of the cabaret and into the street. With peering glances into the audience and a sultry pose, Lola Lola dares anyone to try and love her.
It is questionable who made the film more famous, Dietrich or Sternberg, but it is clear that one could not have existed without the other.
Sources:
[1] and [2] Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich by Donald Spoto (Doubleday, 1992)
[3] The Brothers Mann: The Lives of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1871-1950 and 1875-1955 by Nigel Hamilton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).
Additional Resources:
The German Cinema by Rogher Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel (New York/Washington: Praeger Publishers, 1971).
Movie Review: The Blue Angel by Mordaunt Hall (New York Times, December 6, 1930). http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE2D91F38E433A25755C0A9649D946194D6CF
Roger Ebert’s Review of <i>The Blue Angel</i>, September 28, 2001: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20010928/REVIEWS/109280301/1023
Notes On Film: The Blue Angel by Thomas Caldwell (Cinema Autopsy, October 8, 2008). http://blog.cinemaautopsy.com/2008/10/08/notes-on-film-the-blue-angel/
Let’s Go Out To The Movies: The Toby
[Images courtesy of the Indianapolis Museum of Art]
About a hundred years ago, the movie theater was a spectacle that went beyond people’s wildest imagination. With a sea of plush red seats and sometimes a balcony that beheld mystique and enchantment that loomed high above, the movie theater was the foundation for a new world that shocked some, mesmerized many and impressed all who entered the dimly lit corridors.
The nickelodeon was the new style, and a night out at the movies was a social celebration of magic and mystery in this new era of celluloid technology. Who knew that by 1915 and a silent feature called Birth Of A Nation would set the film world on fire and give way to what we now know as the feature film.
Fast forward to 2009, we not only take film for granted, but also theaters as multiplexes get bigger and bigger. As the Drive-In continues to fade away, you have to travel for miles and miles into smaller and smaller towns to find a unique theater that sits preserved in the sands of time (The Tivoli in Spencer or The Castle Theater in New Castle are two examples). For Indianapolis, the Alhambra, the Apollo, the Eastwood, and the Irving, to name a few, are all a distant memory.
Unless you search, you will have a hard time embellishing in the traditional essence of the theatrical experience. For the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Randall L. and Marianne W. Tobias Theater (The Toby for short), brings back that ambiance of the true movie-going experience that also expands beyond the capabilities of just showing film.
“It made a lot of sense to have a theater that was connected to the IMA,” said Anne Laker, Assistant Director of Public Programs. “Film and visual art deserves a better contribution in our city, and it was a void we could fill.”
With the success of the IMA’s Summer Nights series and various lectures and performances at the museum, they knew that they could make a bigger contribution to the presentation of the performing arts.
By reaching out to the Indianapolis community through the exploration of art, design, and the natural environment — the main components of the IMA’s mission — The Toby is the perfect vehicle to bring artists, architects, film enthusiasts, multimedia designers and more together under one roof.
“It’s appropriate for the art museum to have that visual experience. We wanted to do it right,” said Laker.
As easy as it sounds, the architectural design and technological construct took a degree of thought and planning to accommodate the many needs this theater would have.
Dominated by blacks, whites, grays and punctuated with greens and reds, careful consideration was made into the look of The Toby. It may not replicate the style of a traditional theater or what we consider today to be the traditional construct, but the outcome is a modernist approach that is cleanly contrasted and readily adaptable to the 600-seat venue. There is an orchestra pit that can be brought up and down depending on if it is needed for a performance. Oversized red plush seats (think of a super-sized bean bag chair) can be brought out to give the room a more relaxed feel. And no matter what, the balcony always presents its soft glow whether peering out into a film or a presentation or discussion on stage. Whichever way you look at it, the basic elements of the theater were kept in mind when bringing this dormant space back to life and into the future.
In addition to design, The Toby’s most valuable asset is the 35-mm film projector that is installed into the theater. The IMA works directly with the studios and distributors like The Criterion Collection to obtain these sometimes expensive reels. Ran by projectionist Eric Grayson, who also works with maintaining and preserving the film, this is a quality you cannot get sitting at home next to the DVD player.
“It does cost more money to obtain and run a 35-mm film, but it is the film that the artists want you to see,” she said. “These are the things that stand out for us and what brings people out to the movies.”
For Laker, she is a fan of preserving these elements.
“For some films we try to show the original cartoon and trailer to the film. When talking about classical film, there is a richness to a presentation like that.”
Before it was The Toby, it was a performing arts theater owned by a local theater company who would do various productions like “Hello Dolly,” for example. After the theater company left, the facility was left empty for years.
“Chief Designer, David Russick had a vision for the space that was to serve a multi-purpose function from a black tie event to a Rocky Horror-like atmosphere,” she said.
And when it comes down to it, that is what The Toby is all about as the people involved are continuing to experiment while being “thoughtful to the performing arts,” Laker adds.
Just in 2009, the room played host to various events. For Halloween, they presented a viewing of Nosferatu that was accompanied by live music. Last fall they also played host to a sold out concert and event which included live performances by Asthmatic Kitty artists and a film by Sufjan Stevens.
Beginning the 2010 season, this will be the second year for the Winter Nights series. Like Summer Nights, the museum will focus on a selection of films that will run every Friday night throughout January and February.
“With the success of last year we feel like Winter Nights is something that is as exciting as the Summer Nights. With Summer Nights, it mostly consists of fun films. We try to present a movie that helps you relax and for you to enjoy a summer night under the stars after the work week.”
With Winter Nights, films are more serious, presenting deeper dramas, more thoughtful plots, and expressive content that will lead to further discussion. Laker admits that she has experienced some very interesting discussions inside the museum as a result of these films. It’s a difference between The Goonies or Breaking Away in the summer to Arsenic And Old Lace and The Last Picture Show in the winter.
Speaking of The Last Picture Show, for this series the IMA has invited producer Peter Bogdanovich to The Toby for their showing of Orson Welle’s Touch Of Evil. Bogdanovich was a good friend of Welles, and he will be on stage to offer his insight into the film.
Last year, the IMA partnered with the Indy Chamber Orchestra to provide orchestration with Buster Keaton’s film The General. This season, they will return to accompany the Harold Lloyd film Safety Last.
It’s common for the IMA to partner with various organizations around the city. With museum culture, recent trends of expansion and innovation have led to bigger and bolder experiences for the user . And what a better way than the IMA to use the Toby to help accomplish this through inter-connectivity not just within the museum itself but throughout the city. Just recently, they teamed up with the Scott Chamber Players to do a concert in conjunction with their Sacred Spain exhibition. The Scott Chamber Players did research on pieces of music that represented the Spanish colonies during this time. What came out of it is a distinct enhancement to the museum-going experience and their special exhibit collection.
Beyond film and music, IMA’s Planet Indy looks at design and sustainability and how to bring it all together in the modern world. It’s a way to discuss ideas about “green” living as well as tie in IMA’s long-standing dedication to horticulture values in an artistic environment.
These are just a few things that The Toby is offering. According to Laker, they want to do so much more, but scheduling can be difficult.
We want to discover getting on the circuit for more performing artists,” said Laker. “It is hard because our theater gets booked up. But believe me, we are watching and working with our partners who are constantly sending us ideas and possibilities.”
The future is wide open for a facility like this. Many opportunities exist for constant evolvement and experimentation.
“With events like the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival or the Indianapolis International Film Festival, we are doing really interesting things at the theater and rising to the challenge,” she said. “We want to bring in more film makers and the people who work in the film industry to give people a better understanding of all the concepts that go into making a film.
“Any given weekend we have something wacky and exciting and interesting within the walls of this theater. Many of our events are very easily obtainable so come and get it and experience what we have to offer.”
Link: http://www.imamuseum.org/toby
Winter Nights 2010 Schedule
All Shows at 7 p.m. - $9 Public/ $5 Members/ $7 students with ID
January 8: The Blue Angel
January 15: Nashville
January 22: Arsenic & Old Lace
January 29: Touch of Evil with special guest Peter Bogdanovich
February 5: The Dirty Dozen
February 12: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
February 19: The Last Picture Show
February 26: Safety Last! with One Week
