There are times, especially in late summer, when I feel the
need for a movie orgy. In my case, this means a trip to the Santa Monica Public Library, where I scan the
shelves holding DVDs, in search of a good assortment of films I haven’t yet
seen. Last week, I randomly chose the letter M, and found myself going home
with everything from David Cronenberg’s Maps
to the Stars to Mad Max: Fury Road. And also two “mister” movies: 2014’s Mr. Turner and an oldie, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
Mr. Blandings is a
classic black-&-white studio flick, featuring the comedic talents of Cary
Grant, Myrna Loy, and Melvyn Douglas. Filmed in 1948, based on a popular novel
of the day, it epitomizes the upbeat domesticity of the post-World War II
period. The film starts with a witty paean to life in New York City: while
narrator Douglas describes the Big Apple’s superb transportation system,
charming cafes, and bracing weather, we watch city-dwellers squeeze themselves
into overcrowded subway cars, gobble down lunch at a gritty hash-house, and try
not to slip on snowbound street corners. Cut to the cramped apartment in which
Grant, Loy, and their two daughters dodge each other in a cramped bathroom and
try to extricate their belongings from overstuffed closets.
As an up-and-coming ad executive, Grant feels entitled to
live someplace better. He and Loy, both incurable optimists, spring for a
decrepit Revolutionary War-era estate in rural Connecticut. When it proves
unsalvageable, they decide to build a dream house, one with lots of closets and
bathrooms and nooks and hideaways. Anyone who’s ever tried remodeling will know
what comes next. As a team of blunt-spoken Yankee craftsmen sets to work,
hilarity really does ensue. Let me end by mentioning the film’s single black
character, Gussie the live-in housekeeper. She’s played by Louise Beavers,
whose long filmography includes the original 1934 Imitation of Life. Her role is small, but it is she who holds the
key to the essential advertising slogan that will save Mr. Blandings’ career.
And give this film its inevitable happy ending.
Mr. Turner is a horse of a different color. This biopic of
England’s greatest landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner, is suitably beautiful to
look at. Its gorgeous seascapes and sunsets are a fitting homage to an artist
revered for his handling of light. And British filmmaker Mike Leigh, who had
earlier made the charming Topsy-Turvy about
the complex musical partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan, pays appropriate
homage to a genius who was also a very flawed man. The film Mr. Turner surveys the years leading up
to Turner’s death in 1851. The problem with many biopics (especially those of
the cradle-to-grave variety) is that they feel obliged to include every event
in a great man or woman’s life, so that we’re left with a long string of fairly
unrelated episodes. Though Mr. Turner covers
25 years in a fairly leisurely fashion, it holds together as an exploration of
Turner’s fascinatingly self-contradictory character. He can be gruff and crude (even
in a sexual sense) to those around him, but then reveals an unexpected depth of
feeling when encountering a fine vista or a beautiful piece of music. He can be
unspeakably cruel to a former lover and her children, but also charmingly
gracious to the widow whose heart he wins late in life. As played by Timothy
Spall, whose performance was honored at the Cannes Film Festival, Mr. Turner is
rotund and ungainly, with tics and harrumphs that are not easy to love. Still,
the film adores him, and I did too.
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| Publicity still for "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House." As part of the film's promotion, new homes were erected in locales all over the country. |
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