Movies in 2026 51

 

Three on a Match, (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)

 
I continue to work my way through the Pre-Code Mervyn LeRoy collection on the Criterion Channel. Sometimes, when I'm tired, their shortness and oversized theatrics is a welcome. That doesn't mean that they are just flighty entertainment, and it would be grossly unfair to consider them as such. The very fact that so many of them caused "outrage" among the religious leaders of the time, and eventually led to the Code, speaks to the fact that they were talking about things that "polite" society didn't approve of and didn't think should be part of the national cultural dialogue. Rather, there are nights when you just find yourself saying, I don't think I'm up for Kieslowski or Bergman or Trier tonight, but an hour and five minutes of pre-Code bad behavior is a fitting nightcap. Last night I finished LeRoy's 1932 film Three on a Match. It was kind of a mess, mainly because I think they were trying to tell about three hours of story in an hour and five minutes. If nothing else, it's notable for the appearances of a very young Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Davis is one of the three main stars, although with the smallest and least-demanding role, and Bogart doesn't pop up until around forty-five minutes into the movie (as always, as soon as Humphrey Bogart strides onto the screen everybody else disappears into the background, such is that strange cinematic magnetism that he always possessed). It tells the story of Mary (Joan Blondell), Vivian (Ann Dvorak), and Ruth (Davis), who grow up together, but then go their separate ways, before reuniting with unforeseen (some good, some terrible) consequences. I'm sure several things grabbed the attention of the more puritanical viewers, mainly Vivian cuckolding her attorney husband Robert (played by Warren William, in a classic Warren William role) with Michael (Lyle Talbot, in a typically slimy Lyle Talbot role) - and, by the end, Vivian clearly being a coke addict (emphasized by the fact that Bogart, smiling to the other members of the gang, brushes his fingers under his nose). Like I said, it's kind of a mess, especially with a kidnapping thrown in with exactly ten minutes left in the movie - and it's frustrating for a film buff to see Davis and Bogart given so little to do (but, again, they were just getting started - and in that sense it's kind of cool to see them) - but, all things considered, I'd recommend it. If for no other reason it does give you a sense of what eventually led to the disastrous Code a few years later.

Ketchup or Catsup?

 I'm chronicling a very odd moment from yesterday's Breakfast of Excellence, my routinely scheduled Friday morning breakfast with my friends at the TASTee Grill. At a certain point, after we'd finished our traditional meals (we actually never order, we just sit down at the waitress brings the same four selections) when Erik pulled out a penny and asked me to pass the ketchup. He wanted to determine the date, which I initially thought related to a discussion of the value of that particular vintage of currency, but I think he was then going to ask us what we thought the most important thing that had happened in that year. So, why the ketchup? Apparently, ketchup, because of its acidity, was/is good for cleaning coins (or at least pennies), and Erik assured us that he used this method all the time when he was growing up in Burlington. Kevin then assured that this was well known, and I had to admit that once again the Indiana education system had failed me. I decided to capture this moment in time because I thought it said something about lovely, odd, organic nature of long-term friendships. None of us thought that it was odd at that moment that Erik decided to clean an old penny with ketchup, and it immediately launched us into this meandering discussion of somewhat related subjects, including Sandy relating his father, a very successful attorney, and his decades-long quest for found coins and elaborate theories on the best places to find them (he didn't collect coins, rather, he just saved them in a special pile and used them to occasionally take his wife out to dinner; he took her out to eat at many times, but the coin-generated meals was an acknowledged special treat). I cannot do justice to how much I will miss these guys next year.

I didn't get to ask whether or not the cleaning required ketchup or catsup because, in the end, the penny was so damaged that the date could not be recovered. It was so light that it almost had the weight of a similar circle of cardboard, weird. 

Movies in 2026 50

 

Heat Lightning, (Mervyn LeRoy, 1934)

I'm meandering my way through the Criterion Channel's Mervyn LeRoy's Pre-Code collection. They're short and gritty and entertaining and often quite good, and you can clearly get a sense of how Hollywood (and the US film industry as a institution) took a step back with the implementation of the Code. There is that Puritanical, anti-intellectual aspect to American thought and life which sadly never seems to go away, and we never benefit from it. The other night I watched LeRoy's 1934 film Heat Lightning. It starred Aline MacMahon as Olga. She and her sister Myra (Ann Dvorak) run a gas station in the middle of an ungodly hot desert in the southwest, and their tranquil life (perfectly tranquil for Olga, stifling for Myra) is threatened by the arrival of Olga's ex George (Preston Foster) and Jeff (Lyle Talbot), who crooks on the run. It's essentially a pre-film noir film noir. I'm not saying insanely highly recommended, but I also definitely enjoyed it so I'd recommended giving it a look. It was great to see Aline MacMahon, who had a very long career as a character actor, finally get a chance to star in a movie.

20

 And another week has passed, four down and only ten to go, in my last semester of my four-decade career as a college professor. It hasn't overwhelmed me yet, although I suspect it will several times along the remaining time in unexpected ways.

Thanks this week to Brady Oliviera of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for helping out with the countdown. He was actually born in Winnipeg, and, after playing collegiately at the University of North Carolina, he returned to play professionally for his hometown team. Oliviera remains one of the CFL's best running backs (and I suspect they would have won one or two more Grey Cups in their five year run if they had simply given him the ball more - sometimes teams do outsmart themselves). He is a two time Grey Cup Champion, a two time Most Outstanding Canadian, and was voted the Most Outstanding Player in 2024. It looks like the Winnipeg/Saskatchewan doubleheader is a go for this July, so hopefully I'll be able to watch him play a home game (I've seen him play in Montreal).

Movies in 2026 49

 

Love, (Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024)

The other day, when singing the praises of Dag Johan Hargerud's Dreams and his Oslo trilogy, I mentioned that I had loved Dreams so much that I had almost immediately started Love (how all three members of that trilogy all came out in the same year boggles the mind; although, if you're filming actual people talking in actual locations that depend upon CGI nonsense, I guess many things are possible). I don't know if I liked Love as much as Dreams, but that is no critique because I really liked it and also completely recommend it. The action centers around Marianne (Andrea Braein Hovig), a urologist, and her nurse Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), and her discovery that he takes additional trips on the ferry simply to meet or pickup men, and she begins to wonder if his casual/transitional view of sex might not actually be the best approach, at least for her. By the end of the movie you're not certain that he believes that to be true anymore, but her own sexuality is blossoming while also facing challenges based on her own ideas. The relationships and sex, both heterosexual and homosexual, are handled naturally and sympathetically and beautifully. Again, highly recommended. As I proposed when discussing Haugerud's Dreams, it's so reassuring to watch intelligent films dealing with real issues, when we're surrounded by such crass idiocy.

Translations

 I've started another re-read of Proust, which I think is my fifth total reading. The big difference this time is that I'm switching translations, from the traditional standard edition of C.K. Scott Moncrieff's Remembrance of Things Past to the new Penguin Classics In Search of Lost Time. Each of the seven volumes of the new Penguin Classics series is translated by a different person, which should make for an interesting experience. I don't speak French so I'm a poor judge of which is the "correct" version, and I would not pretend to be. They're both beautiful. Some of the differences in the new translations are slightly jarring, but that's mainly because I'm used to the C.K. Scott Moncrieff version. Let me give a brief comparison of one of my Proustian paragraphs from Swann's Way, first from Moncrieff and then from Lydia Davis's award winning translation.

"But it was in vain that I lingered beside the hawthorns - inhaling, trying to fix in my mind (which did not know what to do with it), losing and recapturing their invisible and unchanging odour, absorbing myself in the rhythm which disposed their flowers here and there with the lightheartedness of youth and at intervals as unexpected as certain intervals in music - they went on offering me the same charm in an inexhaustible profusion, but without letting me delve any more deeply, like those melodies which one can play a hundred times in succession without coming any nearer to their secret. I turned away from them for a moment so as to be able to return to them afresh. My eyes travelled up the bank which rose steeply to the fields beyond the hedge, alighting on a stray poppy or a few laggard cornflowers which decorated the slope here and there like the borders of a tapestry whereon may be glimpsed sporadically the rustic theme which will emerge triumphant in the panel itself; infrequent still, spaced out like the scattered houses which herald the approach of a village, they betokened to me the vast expanse of waving corn beneath the fleecy clouds, and the sight of a single poppy hoisting up its slender rigging and holding against the breeze its scarlet ensign, over the buoy of rich black earth from which is sprang, made my heart beat as does a wayfarer's when he perceives upon some low-lying ground a stranded boat which is being caulked and made sea-worthy, and cries out, although he has not yet caught sight of it, 'The Sea!'" (Swann's Way, p. 151, C.K. Scott Moncrieff translation)

"But though I remained there in front of the hawthorns, breathing in, bringing into the presence of my thoughts, which did not know what to do with it, then losing and finding again their invisible and unchanging smell, absorbing myself in the rhythm that tossed their flowers here and there with youthful high spirits and at unexpected intervals like certain intervals in music, they offered me the same charm endlessly and with an inexhaustible profusion, but without letting me study it more deeply, like the melodies you replay a hundred times in succession without descending further into their secrets. I turned away from them for a moment, to accost them against with renewed strength. I pursued, all the way onto the embankment behind the hedge that rose steeply toward the fields, some lost poppy, a few cornflowers which had lazily stayed behind, which decorated it here and there with their flower heads like the border of a tapestry on which there appears, thinly scattered, the rustic motif that will dominate the panel; infrequent still, spaced apart like the isolated houses that announce the approach of a village, they announced to me the immense expanse where the what breaks in waves, where the clouds fleece, and the sight of a single poppy hoisting its red flame to the top of its ropes and whipping it in the wind above its greasy black buoy made my heart pound like the heart of a traveler who spies on a lowland a first beached boat being repaired by a caulker and, before catching sight of it, cries out: 'The Sea!'" (Swann's Way, p. 141, Lydia Davis translation)

Again, I'm not going to presume to comment on which is the more accurate or "better" translation. I may be generally ridiculous, but not that ridiculous. The line, "But it was in vain that I lingered beside the hawthorns," is one of my all-time favorite lines from Proust, so it was strange to see it rendered so differently, although how Davis interprets it is wonderful. I know that I've appreciated the power and beauty and profundity of Moncrieff's translation with every re-read, and I'm sure the same will be true with the new Penguin Classics editions. It reminds me of my Muslim friends who assure me that you can never truly grasp the beauty of the Quran until you can read it in Arabic, and I'm sure the same is true of Proust and French. For some time I've been thinking about writing a novel about an old man who learns he's going to die, and decides he's only going to read Proust endlessly until he passes, so that he's assured of dying in beauty.

Movies in 2026 48

 

Dreams, (Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024)

It's really difficult to express how much I love and appreciate the Criterion Channel, and not simply because they provide me with more good movies than I could possibly watch in a month. I'm introduced to so many directors and actors that I would never come across is I just depended upon HBO Max or Prime, etc. One of this month's special collections focused on the Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud and his Love/Sex/Dreams trilogy, all of which came out in 2024. I started off with Dreams, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film focuses on Johanne, a high school student who falls in love with her French teacher, Johanna. Throughout the story Haugerud keeps you guessing about whether the love affair was consummated or not, but then realizing that in the end does it matter. A year after the end of the affair Johanne writes down the story, which she shares with her grandmother and her mother, who have dramatically different interpretations about what this means, including coming to the realization that this is a story that could be published, and does that trump any concerns about the young girl writing the story. It's so intelligent and beautifully filmed and acted, and I started watching his Love almost immediately. How could you not love someone like Dag Johan Haugerud, who lists himself as a librarian, novelist, screenwriter and film director - in that order. The other thing about the Criterion Channel that makes me happy is that it gives me hope for the future. There are actually people out there making intelligent, personal films, and not just adaptations of comic books and video games. Very highly recommended.