Trading Places

All right, it's time to review one of my absolute favorites.  It has a great cast, led by two successful SNL alumni, and a still-in-his-prime John Landis directed.  It's hard to comprehend almost thirty years after its release, but Trading Places could have been pretty terrible.  Even though it was released in 1983, back when Eddie Murphy could do no wrong, he was far from a star; this film was released only six months after his film debut in 48 Hours, and Murphy was still known more for playing Buckwheat than for being a theatrical draw.  Dan Aykroyd was a bigger name than Murphy at the time, but he had only made one good movie (The Blues Brothers) since leaving Saturday Night Live; most of his efforts had actually been pretty terrible --- I'm pretty sure that the only living and mostly sane fan of Doctor Detroit is my own father, and even he admits that it's crap.  Sure, they got John Landis to direct, but his post-Twilight Zone career (that movie was released the same month as Trading Places) was a steep slide down in quality.  This was also Jamie Lee Curtis' first non-horror role.  Trading Places was blessed with having the right actors at the right time in their careers with a director that was still on his A-game; if this had been made a few years earlier or later, we might have had something like Nothing But Trouble.

Laugh while you can, boys.  Comedy is a fickle mistress

Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) Duke are the owners of Duke & Duke, a commodities brokering firm; alike in so many ways --- style, pride, greed, etc. --- the two seem to have only one major difference in opinion: nature vs. nurture.  Randolph is a proponent for nurture; he believes that anyone can succeed in society, if they are given many socioeconomic advantages.  Mortimer believes in breeding; essentially, the cream will always rise up to the top.  But what can they really do to solve this argument? 

I should mention that they had a knife fight to settle bow vs. regular tie

Well, they can test their theories out.  When the company's heir apparent, Louis Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd), had a (moderately) innocent street urchin, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), jailed over a misunderstanding, the Dukes had their two extremes --- Winthorpe was born with a silver spoon in his various orifices, while Valentine was a poor minority from a broken home ---  and the Dukes finally had some suitable test subjects.  Together, the Dukes manage to disgrace Winthorpe, put him in the poor house, and get his friends to forsake him.  They also bring in Billy Ray to manage their company, offering him wealth and self-respect in exchange.

Their explanation for pork bellies cracks me up every time

And nurture wins!  Well, kind of.  Valentine naturally enjoys the high life and Winthorpe doesn't take his fall from grace well.

Best.  Santa.  Ever.

However, just because Billy Ray is good at is new position doesn't mean that the Dukes have any intention of keeping him around; they still see him as gutter trash.  So when Billy Ray overhears the Dukes congratulating themselves on their experiment, he decides to team up with Winthorpe so they can turn the tables on the Dukes.

Above: the scene where that happens.  Not pictured: the table

I absolutely love this cast.  Dan Aykroyd was nearly perfect as a high-born weenie, and his drunken Santa bit makes me smile every time I think about it.  Eddie Murphy was also very good as the street-smart Billy Ray; he doesn't get enough credit for how sympathetic he made his character.  Jamie Lee Curtis was fine as a hooker with an accountant's mind and sliding scale for impropriety.

"Exposition while I undress because boobs"

This is also my favorite Denholm Elliot role --- anyone can play a smart-mouthed manservant (well, any man can), but Elliot walked the line between faithful butler and annoyed house servant beautifully.  Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy were also perfect as the villains; only Michael Douglas plays a money-grubbing bastard better than these two, only he's not funny.  Paul Gleason was also perfectly mean as the Dukes' hired hand; Gleason has always done a great job playing jerks, but this is the only time I can recall where he was a jerk that was not an authority figure.  Those are really the only performances worth noting, although this film is packed with recognizable actors in bit parts.  Giancarlo Esposito was an easily-impressed con, blues legend Bo Diddley didn't care about the time in Gstaad, Bill Cobbs was owed $17 and change by Billy Ray, Frank Oz was a corrupt cop, Al Franken was a stoner, James Belushi was "a gorilla, you fucking clown," James Eckhouse was lucky to get a speaking line, and Stephen Stucker made his only non-Airplane! appearance I am aware of.

I normally don't praise John Landis for the pace of his films, but Trading Places is a rare example of a two hour comedy that doesn't have a portion that drags.  At least some of that credit goes to the screenplay from writing collaborators Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod; the pair seemed to specialize in goofy-ass concept stories (Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Space Jam, etc.), but they managed to make this Prince and the Pauper update seem only highly unlikely instead of batshit crazy.  It is also worth pointing out how much of the humor in Trading Places comes from reactions and not punchlines; that means they wrote this to be an ensemble piece, not a showcase for Murphy and Aykroyd to ham it up, and it actually worked.  While the script was pretty good, it is Landis' ability to edit the film to capture all the comedic beats that makes this movie great.  Without his eye and ear for timing, this script would have been wasted.

The lawyer joke following this is so simple, but so effective

As good as Trading Places is, it isn't exactly a work of art.  I love this script, but the entire scheme to steal the crop reports was incredibly stupid.  Even if you ignore the Halloween-quality costumes the group wears to travel incognito, there is a bigger problem. 

And I'm not talking about the black-face.  This time.

Okay, so the good guys need to trick Clarence Beaks and steal his briefcase, right?  So far, he has personally hired Ophelia and has personally planted evidence on Winthorpe.  Logic would dictate that those two would not be involved in the plan, because he knows what they look like.  The script, however, dictates that Winthorpe --- the pansy-ass white boy --- pose as a Jamaican and Ophelia is dressed like a stereotypical German girl...with a Swedish accent.  Sure, having Coleman pose as a priest and Billy Ray as an African exchange student and having them all sit in the same train car was not exactly a stroke of genius, but there's stupid, and then there's functionally handicapped thinking.

Although I see how they thought she could be useful

That scene is one of the few that treads the line between stupid funny and obnoxiously dumb --- the other is arguably the whole "one gorilla, two gorilla" issue --- but I will commend it for not being dull, at least.  Hell, I actually kind of like it, even though it is SOOOO dumb!  What makes Trading Places a classic for me, though, are the little touches that I notice more and more with every viewing.  Have you ever noticed that Winthorpe's prison numbers are the same as John Belushi's in The Blues Brothers?  How about the other tribute to himself that Landis inserted, his customary "See You Next Wednesday" reference? 

Hint: it's above and left of the nipples

What is that referencing?  I have no idea, but it pops up in most Landis works, for whatever reason.  If you know the story behind it, please leave a comment.  It's not just the Easter eggs in the movie that I enjoy, though.  I have come to love the punchline-free jokes and sayings.  No matter what day of the year it is, if you say "Looking good, Brian," I will inevitably respond with "Feeling good, [whoever you are]."  It's not exactly a gag, but I adore that exchange between characters in the beginning and end of this film.  How about Billy Ray imitating the deep-voiced tough guy?  "Yeah" isn't normally enough to make an impact on me, but this is a wonderful movie for contextual jokes.  This is also one of the few movies that manages to get racist humor exactly right; the racists are so obviously the bad guys, and the things they presume are so inoffensive that I have to laugh at their racist stupidity.  I mean, seriously --- who wouldn't get into a limo with two elderly white dudes offering "whiskey --- all you want"?!?  That's not a racial tendency, that's how you pick up any man between the ages of 18-35.  It blows my mind how funny I find this movie, even though it is relatively light on jokes.  I don't know if it is thanks to the excellent characterization from the script, the spot-on acting from the cast, the excellent editing from the director, or the fantastic orchestral soundtrack (how many comedies can boast that?), but Trading Places is a rare comedy that is clever and stupid and still makes you care about the characters.  This easily makes my top three comedies of all time.

The Wolf Man (1941)

Despite my love for the horror movie genre, I have managed to go my entire life without seeing any classic monster movies.  That's right, I have never seen Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster, Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man, or even any Mummy movies or The Creature From the Black Lagoon.  Last year, I reviewed The Wolfman with Benicio del Toro, so I thought I would break my classic monster movie drought with the original, The Wolf Man.

I would like to take the time to point out the movie poster above.  Exactly what is supposed to be going on there?  A giant dog's head is levitating over a remarkably turquoise field, ignoring the floating unconscious woman near the bottom of the hill, while silhouettes of cricket players wait in the background with sinister intent?  Think about it...the movie is called The Wolf Man.  How hard could it have been to make a promotional poster that was more enticing than that?

Here you go.  It's a start.

The Wolf Man is the story of Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.).  Lawrence returns home after many years when he learns of his brother's death.  Lawrence and his father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains) have never really seen eye-to-eye, but age has mellowed the pair and they are suddenly buddies.  Why is this mentioned in the story, then?  I guess to make Lawrence's ignorance about the town that his family oversees (what's that about, anyway?) more plausible; although, didn't he live there as a child?  Whatever.  Lawrence, being kind of a weird guy, "accidentally" notices a pretty young lady in town when he points a telescope into her bedroom; what are the odds?  He tracks her down at her place of work (classy!) and decides to buy a walking stick from her by way of introduction.  The stick comes with a hefty silver handle in the shape of a wolf's head.  The clerk/romantic interest, Gwen (Evelyn Ankers), explains that the handle represents a werewolf.

She should be afraid of him for stalking, even without the werewolf-ing

Apparently, this was not part of the popular lexicon in 1941, so she explains it as a person who transforms into a wolf at certain times of year.  To back up her story, she recites this poem:

Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright

If that doesn't make much sense to you right now, don't worry.  It will be repeated at least four more times in the film, just in case you missed anything.  On the bright side, it appears that lycanthropy is like a seasonal allergy; apparently, it doesn't happen outside of the autumn, when wolfsbane blooms.  Interestingly, moonlight or the full moon do not play a part in triggering a werewolf's transformation (in this movie).  As you may have guessed already, poor peeping Lawrence winds up on the wrong end of a werewolf bite.  He manages to kill the beast by caving its skull in with his walking stick's silver handle, but he's the only one who saw the lycanthrope as a wolf; by the time everyone else arrived, the wolf had transformed back into a human.  So, what's a nice (if stalker-ish) guy to do when he's been bitten by a werewolf?  There aren't many options, especially when you consider that Lawrence was too old to join his high school basketball team.

A missed opportunity

I have seen a lot of movies over the years, but I have stuck to mostly high-profile pictures from this time period.  What does that mean?  To put it nicely, the movies I watch that are circa-1940 usually look pretty good.  The Wolf Man suffers from a number of production problems.  The first is their sets.  I don't know what passes for "woods" in that area, but I don't know if there are more than three trees on the screen at any time in this movie.  And I have no idea how there could be so much fog in those woods at all times.  Maybe the three trees were made of dry ice?  I feel bad picking on the Wolf Man costume, since the movie is seventy years old, but Chaney looked like he was wearing a loose teddy bear costume, and that's when you can catch a glimpse of him.  I was surprised by how rarely he is shown clearly on screen.

There are zero scenes that show the Wolf Man makeup this clearly.

This is what you get instead.

That disappointed me; I was looking forward to enjoying classic horror movie makeup, and you don't really get any iconic images from this movie.  I have no problem with the way they show Lawrence's transformation into a Wolf Man; they superimposed image after image of his body in varying degrees of wolfiness to convey the idea, and it worked quite well for the time period.  I just wish there was one iconic shot of Chaney in his make-up.

The acting is surprisingly high quality, given the low production values.  Claude Rains is classy, as always, as the senior Talbot.  His part is not especially large, despite having first-billed status, but he turns in a solid performance.  Ralph Bellamy was also pretty good, although his character is involved in a huge plot hole at the end of the film.  Bela Lugosi played...well...

He played a werewolf gypsy.  It was a character piece and it didn't require much work from Lugosi, but he overacted to an entertaining degree in his limited screen time.  Similarly, Maria Ouspenskaya was fun as a gypsy that kinda sorta wanted to help, but apparently thought vague warnings would suffice.  Evelyn Ankers was pretty enough as a damsel in distress, but her character didn't have much depth (or logic, or personality, or...).  While this isn't the first film I have seen Lon Chaney Jr. in (that would be High Noon), this is the first starring vehicle of his I have seen.  Frankly, I wasn't impressed.  Chaney doesn't have the chops to pull off the tortured soul of his character; instead, we are treated to a performance that mistakes nervous anxiety for pain.  It doesn't help that Chaney comes off as downright creepy early in the film, either.  Unfortunately, since we never catch a clear glimpse of him fully wolfed out, so I can't argue that he was great in his iconic role.

I was disappointed, too, Lon.

The Wolf Man was directed by George Waggner and, for the most part, he did a decent job with the story.  Aside from Chaney, the actors appeared to be handled well enough, and the gypsies were entertaining, in an over-dramatic sort of way.  It's pretty basic to assume that Waggner would have shown more of the Wolf Man character on screen if he could stand the scrutiny, so I'm not going to hold him accountable for my disappointment in that area.  He deserves credit for the horrible inconsistencies in the film, though.  For starters, why does Bela turn into a big wolf, but Lawrence Talbot transforms into a teddy bear?  More importantly, Ralph Bellamy's character, the local policeman, notices a slew of clues at the scene of Bela's death; when faced with a nearly identical crime scene later in the film, he ignores every single recurring clue that he noticed at the first scene.  I get it, the film was wrapping up (it was a concise 70 minutes), but that was unbelievable.

I didn't particularly like The Wolf Man.  I didn't have huge expectations for the film, but I still managed to be underwhelmed.  I will admit that the supporting cast was surprisingly good, and it was interesting to see the werewolf lore that was started (and, in some cases, ended) in this film.  Still, it didn't stand the test of time for me.

His Girl Friday

Doesn't Grant's leer and that tag line make this sound awfully sordid?

Humor is a funny thing.  See what I did there?  Hilarious.  But it's true; what is funny to you today might not be funny to you tomorrow, much less in a year or ten years from now.  Consider this: Jerry Lewis was extremely successful as a comedian and comedic actor.  Case closed.

I bring up the temporary nature of most comedies because, every so often, I find a film that is clever and funny enough to truly be one for the ages.  His Girl Friday, made in 1940, is one of those comedies.  When former ace reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) stops by her old newspaper building to ask a small favor of her former boss (and ex-husband), Walter Burns (Cary Grant), she happens to mention that she is going to be married.  Tomorrow.  To a deadly dull insurance salesman, Bruce (Ralph Bellamy), to boot.  In fact, the couple is supposed to catch a train out of town in two hours.  Walter can't let that happen; not only would he permanently lose his best reporter and the foil to his rapid-fire jokes, but he would lose out on the chance to become her husband again...and, given their relationship, maybe even her ex-husband again.  So, Walter hatches a plan --- well, more like a few dozen plans --- to keep Hildy in town, on the paper, and by his side.

This isn't the first time this plot made it to the big screen.  The play it is based on, The Front Page, was made into a film of the same name in 1931, and the film was a big hit, being nominated for Best Picture, Director and Actor Oscars.  For whatever reason Howard Hawks decided to remake the movie, but he made the clever choice to change the gender of Hildy's character from a man to a woman.  By making that change, the dynamic of the whole film changed from one that focused on the screwball antics of a boss trying to keep his favorite employee to a man desperately trying to win over his lost love.  You have to admit, the second one sounds more universally appealing.

What makes His Girl Friday different from so many other comedies, modern or otherwise, is its use of dialogue.  The script is witty, sure, but that's not all.  It is some of the fastest witty dialogue to hit the big screen, and the characters are often talking over one another, so you don't always catch the jokes.  That would be annoying, but there are so many jokes that you can't help but catch enough to make a viewing worthwhile.  Of course, that also means that you can catch new jokes every time you watch the movie, too.  A lot of the jokes make use of clever wordplay, some of the jokes work just because of their speedy delivery, but other jokes only make sense if you know what on Earth they are talking about.  For instance, when Walter is trying to describe Bruce to somebody, he says that "He looks like that fellow in the movies --- Ralph Bellamy."  It's true; Bellamy actually plays Bruce.  Walter also makes a reference Archie Leach, which is Cary Grant's birth name.  Clever stuff, if you can catch it all.

That really is a difficult task, with so many characters talking over each others lines.  Back in 1940, though, they didn't have multi-track recordings, so the fact that Howard Hawks was able to capture it all and make it sound good is very impressive in retrospect.  Hawks was one of the biggest directors in Hollywood's Golden Age, and he mastered just about every type of film.  This one, though, is definitely the crown jewel of his comedies.  It is often called a screwball comedy, but His Girl Friday is smarter and less physical than so many other screwball pictures.  Hawks did a great job with his casting (Cary Grant for a witty role is always a good choice), and his ear for conversational timing helps make this film stand out after all these years.

It doesn't hurt that he had Cary Grant being charming as the lead actor.  Really, who doesn't like Cary Grant?  Aside from his ex-wives, I mean.  Walter could have been an overbearing, power-hungry jerk, if played by the wrong person.  With Grant, though, even the character's snake-charming personality just seems endearing.  He also delivered some great lines perfectly; I laugh every time he tells Hildy that getting divorced sure makes a fellow feel unwanted.  I'm not terribly familiar with Rosalind Russell's body of work, but she is definitely impressive here.  It takes some serious talent to match Cary Grant's charm on screen, but she matches his charm and his delivery.  The funny thing about the character of Hildy is how strong of a female lead she is, and yet she is spending the entirety of the film trying to become more classically feminine; she's at her best and happiest, though, when she is acting as Walter's equal in all things.  The rest of the supporting cast is okay, but they are just there to give the main actors people to bounce dialogue off of.  Ralph Bellamy is fine as the nice (but boring) fiancee, John Qualen is amusing as a pitiful killer, and there are a handful of other recognizable character actors from the period, as well.

I think what I like best about His Girl Friday is just how equal Walter and Hildy are.  Hildy realizes early on that Walter is trying to get her working for the paper again, and she does her best to resist.  In many movies, though, we would just see everything from Walter's perspective and see how clever he is.  But this movie is more Hildy's story than Walter's; for every trick he plays and every lie he tells, she figures it out, eventually.  My favorite moments are when she confronts him with his lies and they just laugh together.  There's just something to be said for enjoying the absolute bullshit coming out of someone's mouth and being in on the joke, I guess.

I should point out that this film has become public domain, so many DVD prints are of pretty terrible quality.  So, if you're looking to pick up the movie and you see a $5 version and a $12 version, just suck it up and spend the extra money.  It's worth it.