This film had such a spell over me from the first few minutes, and I was at pains to figure out what it was. The first thing that struck me about it was just how crisply the period (late 19th century) was rendered, in a way that made Meet Me In St. Louis almost seem tacky and anachronistic (a film I like; and funnily enough, some young girls sing that very song early in the film). Walsh directed a lot of ‘period’ films, but none of the ones I’ve seen are as rich in detail as this one. The little things which show up; the clothing, a handlebar moustache, coy winks of innuendo, the curious exploration of a new dish from Italy (spaghetti!), or the film’s delicate use of period music...I’m not an expert in the nineties, but they feel so alive in this film; all the more enlivened by the film’s breezy tone. Come to think of it, what the film really seems to capture so well about that time or place is the sense of social mores and behavior...implicit in the reaction of Biff Grimes (played by James Cagney) when Amy (played by Olivia de Havilland) reveals her socially liberal thoughts, and the similar shock in her reaction when an upset Cagney tries to live up to them, among other things. Maybe the ‘period detail’ is all in my mind. But something else struck me, very shortly into the movie, and I can’t quite put my finger on it...but I was so utterly moved within the first five minutes. I was laughing out loud too; it’s a wonderfully funny movie, but I felt I might as well be choking up too.
I think ‘charm’ is a key word that could be used to describe this film. But its not the kind of charm that calls attention to itself, yet it’s the kind that’s alive and well in every frame of the film, to the extent that you could swear an old gentleman was telling you the story through a shanty-sounding old song; a song full of brutishness and ‘dirty humor’ but so full of tenderness and pain. Its an incredibly relaxed and gentle film, visually lush and delicate, playful and naughty; quick to suggest a fist fight (and the fact that Biff Grimes always loses), but beautifully eliding each one until the end and having some of the most whole-heartedly sweet scenes of romance put to film. This breeziness and lightness that permeates the film naturally charges many of its jokes and humorous gestures; little bits of business that would be laughable in most other films, and yet in this film they work, and feels just right. There isn’t a ‘joke’ in the film which falls flat. There’s never a dull moment in the film, and its endless stream of humor (I caught myself laughing outloud many times) comes so smoothly that you’d think it was improvised on the spot by the characters (in other words, comic perfection).
The film’s comedy is both gentle and full of bluster. Each and every one of the characters in the movie feels incredibly vibrant and alive, that its easy to forget that you’re watching a movie. Biff Grimes is portrayed in such an utterly memorable fashion. Cagney has always exuded a roguish charm, but people are used to seeing him as a gangster due to The Roaring Twenties, Public Enemy and White Heat...and then there’s Yankee Doodle Dandy, which most people see as an aberration (I don’t like it, myself, but that’s another story). In this film, its almost hard to see why...he captures the scruffiness, harshness, and eventually the tenderness of Biff Grimes with such magnetic Irish guff and vitality that you actually forget you’re watching a performance; Cagney seems so utterly at home in the role. Rita Hayworth and Olivia de Havilland (who, by the way, is still alive, o em gee), too, are are utterly graceful to watch, and their characterizations equally real, and astoundingly deep.
Walsh knew how to photograph his performers; actresses especially, and I don’t think he did a better job than here in this film, nor perhaps did cameraman James Wong Howe (who also had a very impressive career, dating from the silent era, and up to the late 60s). Every shot with de Havilland and Hayworth; both of whom play women any man would want, is bathed with such a genuinely loving light...combined with their rich characterizations, the result is a portrayal of women that is both deeply respectful and wholly admiring. And Walsh knew how to edit; almost every time Cagney and either of the two women speak or look at eachother, its a story told in complicitly quiet montage. The visual interplay between Cagney’s and de Havvilland’s faces in each of their meetings is piercing and astoundingly so, putting us right in the room; right in their gaze. Indeed, as Tag Gallagher notes in his Senses of Cinema essay on Walsh (an essay I’m beginning to understand more and more), the effect is something like Ozu.
This is especially true in their reunion scene; perhaps the most moving ‘lovers’ reunion’ I’ve yet seen. But few of the reviews I’ve come upon (none of which were terribly indepth, except in way of plot synopsis) mentioned those lovely scenes in which the characters go courting at night in the park; scenes which are lit in a way that the darkness almost forms an iris...can’t get much more 1890s than that. Of course, what makes Walsh a true master is that these techniques are invisible, and always at the service to the story...a romantic comedy that flows seamlessly from tough-guy antics, to romantic comedy, to polically tinged tragedy (the social implications of which Walsh never gives thought to, thankfully) and back again, and yet every moment of it is a sensual love story. Its easy; in this film more than almost any other I’ve seen, to get caught up in what is happening; what is on screen, and glance away from the screen, and be surprised for a split second that you aren’t in that world.
This is classic Hollywood at its absolute best; at its most sublime and loving. It’s a film about a song, or a feeling, or a memory of a girl once known in a time and place you remember vividly and yet so vaguely. In the movie itself, the song is And the Band Played On (something you’ll never forget after seeing it), the time and place is New York at the turn iof the century, and the girl is...well, you’ll be surprised. But it suggests something more universal than just that song, and just that girl, and that time and place. Its not so much a sentimental and nostalgic movie, as much a movie about sentiment and nostalgia, and for all the right things. I can’t help but think this is Walsh’s most personal film...perhaps part love letter to his parents, as he was born in the late 1880s when the film takes place, and I’m sure his childhood memories have fragments of the time and place. Its almost certainly his best film. Expect me to re-watch a few of Walsh’s films; as well as seeing new ones, in the future.
On a scale of 100, I give The Strawberry Blonde a 99. To me, a near incomparable masterpiece, that seems to do with great subtlety what Wong Kar Wai's films make explicit (and vice versa).
Available as part of Warner’s Archive series, which are DVD-R's. It looks okay; the print certainly looks good, and it’s a shame this wonderful masterpiece can’t get a real DVD. You can rent it from Classicflix; that's where I got mine.
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