THE NEW SCHOOL

FILM SERIES 71: Program #2

June 10, 1992

We normally repeat films only after an approximately 15 year gap; faulty memory - or the lack of a computer - caused me to forget that we had repeated this film some five years ago. But since realisation came too late to effect a change, and it never seems to be shown outside of New School environs, we are letting it stand. Incidentally, a slightly ambiguous note in the above credits needs expanding: the original English-language translation was by Wodehouse, and that version served as the basis for the later musical revision.

Despite the fact that his most celebrated films - The Old Dark House, The Bride of Frankenstein and Show Boat - come from earlier or later years, there is a good argument for claiming 1933-34 as the peak years of James Whale's short but distinguished career. Over those two years he directed The Invisible Man, The Kiss Before the Mirror, By Candlelight and One More River - a remarkable quartet of stylish, literate, tasteful and thoroughly cinematic works. Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932) certainly marked the zenith of elegant sophistication on the screen, but By Candlelight is a film very much in the same tradition if even more frothy and artificial. Cinderella tales like this were a dime a dozen in the depression years, and it does lack the ultimate smoothness of a Herbert Marshall or a Maurice Chevalier, but for the most part it works well. Imitation Lubitsch in content (and most of all in its opening), it nevertheless employs methods that are wholly Whale's. The virtually nonstop musical score, overdone perhaps, nevertheless is a constant reminder that this is an unreal show, not to be taken seriously. Whale also includes some musical jokes, including the use of a familiar horror film agitato in a comic sequence, backed up by low-key lighting of an embarrassed (rather than horrified) protagonist. Even Paul Lukas' stiffness is put to use for the film's good in a running gag wherein he, with well-timed mis-timing, repeats ineffectually the lines uttered earlier by the more experienced Asther, and aimed as calculated seduction. The film as a whole is perhaps more an exercise in applied directorial style than a classic comedy in its own right, but it's civilised, gentlemanly and sophisticated, all in less than seventy elegant minutes, so why be greedy and ask for more than that?

Although Britain was certainly making serious war films in early to mid-1941, the greater emphasis was on comedies, musicals, translations of wartime radio programs and light thrillers, with a wartime background. Cottage to Let, based on a very popular London stage play, fitted exactly into this category (though director Asquith gave it some chilling moments) and was one half of one of the best double-bills released that year on the big Gaumont British circuit, the other half being Hal Roach's entirely escapist screwball comedy Road Show. Cottage to Let is the kind of property that would probably have been handed to Hitchcock if he were still with Gainsborough, though probably he would have removed much of the topical wartime comedy (evacuated children descending on rural homes) to concentrate on the suspense/mystery theme. Asquith, as always, maintains the values that made it a theatrical hit, but also keeps it thoroughly cinematic...the climactic disposal of the German spy is a moment of sudden, unexpected near-horror in a basically light film. The cast, mainly composed of people on the way up, is unusually strong, and it was this film that permanently lifted Alastair Sim from the ranks of stooge-comics and into a higher echelon of dramatic comedians. Here he's often typically droll, but is also surprisingly convincing when masquerading (or is he?) as a top German spy. If, for American tastes, there may be a little too much of Jeanne de Casalis as Leslie Banks' wife (she's an odd mixture of Billie Burke and Gracie Allen) it's because she had achieved (on radio) a huge new popularity as "Mrs. Feather", a scatterbrained housewife. She had of course made other films, including Nell Gwyn. She was also at one time the wife of Colin Clive - surely one of the oddest matrimonial matches in history. Cottage to Let is a bit stagey with some of its artificial sets and theatrical characters, but it comes to roaring (and convincing) melodramatic life as it approaches its climax. Despite being such a huge commercial hit in its day, it was not especially well reviewed and is now virtually forgotten. It was also George Cole's first film, and the launching of his life-time association with Sim.

--- William K. Everson

Program ends: 10.30. Discussion period follows.

PS to BY CANDLELIGHT: I should have noted that the 1938 musical version (Cole Porter songs, with Clifton Webb and tripe Velez), was titled "You Never Know," and also had a brief revival in the 60's.