DRAGON SEED, 1944: Sometimes its hard to get one's head around the fact that in the last desperate years of World War II while dreadful things were happening in Europe and the Far East, Hollywood was still turning out those dream factory products like
MRS MINIVER,
RANDOM HARVEST,
MEET ME IN ST LOUIS and this piece of oriental make-believe, made in 1944. (The MINIVER film though was designed to showcase the plucky Brits and gets Americans involved, like Anna Neagle's
I LIVE IN GROSVENOR SQUARE). It must have seemed a good idea at the time to get Katharine Hepburn to play Chinese - after all, Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young did in
THE HATCHET MAN in '32; along here with that cast including Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead, Akim Tamiroff and Turhan Bey. Kate is Jade, a pre-feminist Chinese woman who struggles with her family for survival when the Japanese invade. Presumably audiences of the time did not mind that other races were played by well-known actors. The film made while atrocities against the Chinese were being carried out reflects the American thinking at the time, as depicted through the keen expert eyes novelist Pearl S. Buck, author of
THE GOOD EARTH. It also reflects what was available to Hollywood film-makers at that desperate moment. Given the time and the circumstances, the movie does quite an adequate job. Hepburn's name on theater marquees also ensured that many more people would see the film than otherwise (like Bette Davis in
WATCH ON THE RHINE). Hollywood was of course also courting the South American audience, as their films were not available in wartorn Europe, with all those Carmen Miranda films set
DOWN ARGENTINE WAY...
The plot here is:
Ling Tang and his family live on his prosperous farm in rural Southern China and have not yet felt the impact of the Japanese invasion in the North. Tang's two oldest sons, Lao Ta Tan and Lao Er Tan are married and hard working while youngest son Lao San Tan remains a free spirit. Er's wife Jade is also willfully unconventional and desires to exercises her literacy skills by reading books, a most unfeminine practice in 1930's China. Tang's only daughter is married to Wu Lien, a city merchant who profits from selling Japanese goods. When the dreaded invasion reaches their village, the family is scattered as the sons join the resistance while Wu Lien survives by collaborating with the enemy.Hepburn, thankfully, is less mannered and less on display than usual - her idea of being Chinese amuses now - and as a wartime drama it holds the attention. An interesting curiosity now then.
The later 40s shows the dream factory in full force with those favourites like
A LETTER TO 3 WIVES,
ROADHOUSE,
THE HEIRESS etc and now
A DATE WITH JUDY in 1948. Another 40s dreamworld where the middle-classes have roomy comfy homes and domestic help - yes its a coloured maid here, as Jane Powell as the perky teen Judy sings at the local high school, is friends with Carol - Elizabeth Taylor, the local rich girl, and worries about her parents' marriage as it seems father (Wallace Beery)
is having an affair with a woman at his office. She though is Carmen Miranda who is teaching him how to rhumba to Xaviar Cugat's music at his wedding anniversary! Carmen is a bit subdued here but adds some sparkle, Jane Powell trills some songs like "Its a Most Unusual Day"; young Robert Stack is the new guy in town working in the drugstore whom both girls have their eyes on. 16 year old Elizabeth Taylor is marvellous here, patenting her future roles as the nice rich girl with some steel when it comes to getting her man. A Joe Pasternak production directed by Richard Thorpe, it is a pleasing discovery now. Perfect late 40s entertainment, particularly when Wallace Beery shows off his rhumba skills and the girls get their beaus, and of course with Leon Ames as another paterfamilias who learns the importance of his family. And of course teens then were just younger versions of their parents until the '50s when teenagers were suddenly invented and got their own culture as rock'n'roll arrived!
Fascinating to catch up now with THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE, the first movie version of William Faulkner's novel SANCTUARY, it makes for a terrific 70 minute Pre-Code movie, directed by Stephen Roberts in 1933, with Miriam Hopkins in full throttle as that spoilt, selfish tease Temple, wno thinks she can flirt and control her men, until she is held captive by bootleggers and raped by Jack Le Rue, and Temple finds she likes it ... eventually back home she has to testify about what really happened and who killed Trigger (La Rue) which will show her up in her true light. Miriam of course went on to VANITY FAIR in 35, the first colour main movie, and a
ppearing a few times with her rival Bette Davis and she was very effective in later roles, mainly for Wyler, in films like THE HEIRESS, CARRIE and THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. Many indeed are the stories of her feuds with Davis and others... I particularly relish 1943's OLD ACQUAINTANCE, a delirious treat anytime.
The later 40s shows the dream factory in full force with those favourites like A LETTER TO 3 WIVES, ROADHOUSE, THE HEIRESS etc and now A DATE WITH JUDY in 1948. Another 40s dreamworld where the middle-classes have roomy comfy homes and domestic help - yes its a coloured maid here, as Jane Powell as the perky teen Judy sings at the local high school, is friends with Carol - Elizabeth Taylor, the local rich girl, and worries about her parents' marriage as it seems father (Wallace Beery) 
is having an affair with a woman at his office. She though is Carmen Miranda who is teaching him how to rhumba to Xaviar Cugat's music at his wedding anniversary! Carmen is a bit subdued here but adds some sparkle, Jane Powell trills some songs like "Its a Most Unusual Day"; young Robert Stack is the new guy in town working in the drugstore whom both girls have their eyes on. 16 year old Elizabeth Taylor is marvellous here, patenting her future roles as the nice rich girl with some steel when it comes to getting her man. A Joe Pasternak production directed by Richard Thorpe, it is a pleasing discovery now. Perfect late 40s entertainment, particularly when Wallace Beery shows off his rhumba skills and the girls get their beaus, and of course with Leon Ames as another paterfamilias who learns the importance of his family. And of course teens then were just younger versions of their parents until the '50s when teenagers were suddenly invented and got their own culture as rock'n'roll arrived! 
Katharine Hepburn, “Christopher Strong”, 1933 (via mothgirlwings)
Sharaff also did Sreisand on stage and screen in FUNNY GIRL and HELLO DOLLY, where she has some great hats; Kay Kendall in Balmain in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, 1958 working that feather boa; Cecil Beaton's terrific gown for GIGI, 1958, and Cecil's Regency outfits for Barbra in Brighton in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, '69; Keira Knightley in that green gown in ATONEMENT - hardly a gown but we have to add Debra Paget's "costume" in that sizzling number dancing with the snake in Fritz Lang's 1959 double THE TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR and THE INDIAN TOMB, I really must look at that Masters of Cinema new edition...
I remember his debut in THE WILD AND THE WILLING in 1962, and soon he was etching those memorable parts on our collective consciousness: Caligula in I CLAUDIUS, Quentin Crisp in THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT (pity the follow-up AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK was not quite in the same league), his unbelievably moving John Merrick in THE ELEPHANT MAN, among varied other assorted roles, cropping up here and there in all kinds of films, 10 RILLINGTON PLACE was an amazing performance too, plus his amazing exit in ALIEN, with Julie Christie in 1968's IN SEARCH OF GREGORY (right), in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS and a lead for John Huston in the forgotten SINFUL DAVY, and now he is in the last HARRY POTTER films. He has also been doing Samuel Beckett's KRAPP'S LAST TAPE on stage. His Peanut was a tough east end lag in 44 INCH CHEST with a vile tongue (Melvil Poupaud who impressed me a lot in Ozon's TIME TO LEAVE was the waiter tied up by Ray's gang!). He is also terrific in LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND, which I shall be turning to shortly (with other recent 'gay interest' titles). Let's hope we see a lot more of John Hurt, who just gets better and better; what a life he has had too, living all over the place, including a stint in Ireland - a travelling player indeed.
