CMBA Fall Blogathon 2025: Horrors of the Colonized Body and Soul in THE MUMMY (1932)

This post is part of the CMBA Fall Blogathon for 2025, showcasing Early Shadows & Pre-Code Horror. Find more blogathon posts by visiting the CMBA website!

When we think about body horror as a subgenre, we usually imagine the gruesomely detailed visual images of more modern movies like Eraserhead (1977), The Thing (1982), or The Fly (1986), which have their ardent fans but are sometimes too stomach-turning for those who prefer the subtler thrills of classic horror. Silent and Pre-Code horror does, however, include many examples of body horror, from the contortions of Lon Chaney in The Unknown (1927) and the tortured face of Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs (1928) to the inhabitants of Island of Lost Souls (1932) and the circus performers of Freaks (1932). These early films could get away with more provocative forms of horror than those arriving after the Hays Code cracked down in 1934, and they often use that freedom to great effect. It's striking, therefore, that Universal's The Mummy (1932) only suggests its most extreme bodily suffering in flashes, leaving viewers to imagine the extent of horrors implied but unexplored. What we actually see of Imhotep, the titular mummy, is filtered mainly through the perspectives of European characters whose sense of him as an unnatural Eastern/Other denies his humanity, but when we shift our point of view to Imhotep himself we begin to grasp the full horror of his situation and experience.

Boris Karloff stars as the undead Imhotep/Ardath Bey.

Our colonialist perspective of Egypt is formed by the way the story opens and unfolds, with British archeologists uncovering the tomb of the priest Imhotep (Boris Karloff) in 1921 and then unintentionally waking him. While they speculate about the crimes that might have warranted Imhotep's unusual burial, they don't express much sympathy for him as a human being who clearly suffered an awful fate. When Imhotep wakes, his appearance alone is enough to drive Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher) mad, even though the mummy doesn't lay a hand on him. A decade later, we catch up with the Europeans back in Egypt, this time uncovering the tomb of Princess Ankh-es-en-Amon (Zita Johann) with the help of the mysterious Ardath Bey, whom they fail to recognize as Imhotep himself. Despite warnings about the supernatural from Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan), Sir Joseph Whemple (Arthur Byron) and his son, Frank (David Manners), only understand Egypt as a subject, both academic and colonial, and they recognize its power as manifested through Imhotep too late. Ultimately, of course, Imhotep is destroyed, and the half-Egyptian Helen (also Zita Johann) is saved from his clutches, but the story ends without any denouement that might articulate the meaning of the tale we've just seen.

Much of the plot of The Mummy is recycled from Dracula (1931), a narrative with its own preoccupations with British imperialism and the Eastern Other, but transferring the story to Egypt makes those tensions much more overt. The film lets them bubble to the surface in ways that undermine the "official" perspective being shaped by the modern Europeans. Dr. Muller warns his English friends to respect the ancient culture they are pillaging, but Sir Joseph doesn't listen. Ardath Bey bitterly comments on his inability to excavate the princess himself because only foreigners are allowed to do so, while Frank complains about being forced to keep his find in Egypt instead of whisking it away to London. Helen, caught between the two worlds and wrestling with the awakened soul of Ankh-es-en-Amon inside her, laments the modernity of Cairo in the twentieth century and yearns for the "real" Egypt of the past. There's no denouement when Imhotep is destroyed because it's only through the power of his own world, and Helen's invocation of the ancient goddess Isis, that he is defeated at all. Dr. Muller and Frank have nothing to do with it, and they serve merely as spectators, not heroes, in the final scene. We get no sense that Frank has ever understood any of the events that have transpired, but Helen might really be changed by her experience, so their success as a romantic pair is left uncertain. The ending, however, implies that Helen will be absorbed into English whiteness through marriage to Frank, erasing her past identity as Ankh-es-en-Amon and the Egyptian heritage passed to her from her (dead) mother. 

Imhotep prepares to make Helen undead like himself.

 

Through these pressure points and gaps Imhotep himself is constantly breaking, demanding that Helen and the viewer see him differently, as a very human man whose love for her has caused him to suffer unspeakable horror. We first see him as a dead thing, the gleam in his dark eyes signalling his rise to embodied consciousness after thousands of years. We don't know what happens to him during the decade before the Whemples return to Egypt, but somehow he reforms himself into a semblance of a living man, learns English and, presumably, Arabic, as well, and manages to survive in a twentieth-century Egypt that is utterly alien to him. As Ardath Bey, he's a remarkable figure, thin, stiff, and seemingly fragile, with skin still desiccated and features sunken. Sometimes mummies in horror films are presented as little more than wrapped zombies, mindless and shuffling, but Imhotep is a fully aware human being trapped inside a mummified body, a living soul yoked to a dried up corpse. He reveals to Helen the transgressions that led to this fate, hoping to awaken her own memories of their forbidden love. Unable to accept the death of the princess, Imhotep defied the gods by attempting to resurrect her, but he was caught and punished by being buried alive. We are shown the torture Imhotep endured as, fully conscious and struggling, he was wrapped as a mummy and thrown into his sarcophagus. We don't see his actual death by asphyxiation as his coffin ran out of air, but his last moments must have been utterly terrifying, unable to move, see, or even scream. Imagine then his horror on returning to consciousness in his own corpse, an outcast from both the living and the dead. Obsessed with his beloved when he was alive, condemned to eternal suffering for her sake, and tortured by his own decayed flesh, Imhotep is almost certainly insane, but he is determined to be seen by Helen/Ankh-es-en-Amon as a man who has endured horrors for her love, and not as a thing without a human soul. 

When we consider Imhotep as a man and not a thing, we become aware of the scope of the bodily horror he experiences. The Mummy doesn't dwell at length on the horror of Imhotep being a living soul inside a dead body, but it's present in Boris Karloff's physical performance and the anguish his character reveals only to Helen. Dracula might be undead, but his body is not a dry husk, while zombies are usually shown as animated corpses that lack self-awareness. Imhotep has the worse of both curses; he has the consciousness of a living man but exists in a mummified corpse. A more fully developed exploration of this theme can be found in Roger Corman's adaptation of the Poe short story, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," in Tales of Terror (1962), in which Vincent Price plays a dead man forced to continue to inhabit his decaying corpse by a sadistic hypnotist (Basil Rathbone), while the horror of a man who finds himself made monstrous dominates stories like The Wolf Man (1941) and The Fly (1958). In The Mummy, the horrific nature of Imhotep's existence is suggested most strongly in the third act, when Imhotep seeks to seduce or force Helen into sharing his fate. "No man ever suffered as I did for you," he tells her, hoping to convince her to "face moments of horror for an eternity of love." Even as her awareness shifts to that of the princess, Helen still recognizes the nightmarish nature of the immortality Imhotep wants her to embrace. She recoils when she see the flaky print of Imhotep's hand on a table, realizing that instead of "moments of horror"Imhotep wants her soul to exist forever trapped inside a dead and mummified body like his own. "I loved you once," she tells him, "but now you belong with the dead." The worst part of the gods' curse isn't just that Imhotep must animate his own dried corpse, but that he finally suffers rejection from the woman for whom he endured such a monstrous fate. 

The complexity underlying The Mummy has made it particularly ripe for sequels and revisions, although most later mummy movies fail to invest the supernatural character with Imhotep's gravitas and emotional depth, thus continuing to obscure the idea of the mummy as a figure of body horror. Vampires and werewolves have gotten better treatment in films like An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Lost Boys (1987), and Blade (1998), but the mummy's unique identity as ancient and Egyptian still makes it harder for us to imagine the mummy as an actual person instead of a thing. For some of the more interesting later takes on the monster, see the 1959 Hammer remake or the 1999 reboot directed by Stephen Sommers (both also titled The Mummy), the latter of which really does highlight the body horror aspects of Imhotep's live burial, if not his subsequent supernatural existence.

 See also: 12 Mummy Movies Worth Watching 

Classic Films in Focus: THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940)

Big Stars on the Small Screen: THE MUPPET SHOW

This post is part of the CMBA Spring Blogathon - Big Stars on the Small Screen: In Support of National Classic Movie Day. Check out all of the participating blogs and posts by visiting the Classic Movie Blog Association's post about the blogathon!

Big Stars on the Small Screen: Classic Movie Guest Stars on The Muppet Show

Guest stars on the original Muppet Show television series spanned the full range of celebrity types in the public eye during the late 1970s, from singers and actors to puppeteers, dancers, and musicians. For many children watching the episodes, The Muppet Show provided a kid-friendly introduction to entertainers they had never encountered before, including many classic movie stars entering the later decades of their careers. If you were four years old in 1976, as I was that year when the first season of The Muppet Show aired, you might not know who most of the Season 1 guest stars were, but a Muppet curated introduction to Vincent Price might prove a watershed moment in your young life. For five seasons, The Muppet Show entertained adults and children alike with its quirky mix of old and new, high and low, classy and wacky, all mingled together to form the joyful chaos so quintessential to the Muppet aesthetic. Here's a look at some of the classic movie stars featured in each season of the series, with highlights on some of my personal favorites.

 

Season One

The 24 episodes of Season One offer a wide range of guest stars, including Joel Grey, Ruth Buzzi, Florence Henderson, Paul Williams, Sandy Duncan, and Phyllis Diller, and of course many stars who were fairly new in 1976 are considered "classics" today. Among the guest stars who hail from the Golden Age of Hollywood are Rita Moreno, Lena Horne, Peter Ustinov, Vincent Price, and Ethel Merman. Of the group, both the Rita Moreno and Vincent Price episodes are standouts, with both stars fully committed to interacting with their puppet hosts.

For me, the Vincent Price episode is a special favorite. The campy horror maestro is totally at home with his weird monster companions, including the delightful Uncle Deadly, who appears as Price's "beautiful assistant" in one horror movie parody sketch. Price also gets to tout his reputation as a gourmet and art lover, although of course the sketches veer into vampirism, cannibalism, and other gruesome but silly twists. It's a thoroughly essential episode for any fan of the Muppets, Price, or classic horror in general.

Season Two 

Classic movie stars in the second season include many performers who were also famous for their radio and television work, like Don Knotts, Milton Berle, George Burns, and Bob Hope, but you'll also find stars like Julie Andrews and Peter Sellers in the mix ("modern" guest stars for this season include Rich Little, Madeline Kahn, Elton John, and John Cleese). Both the Julie Andrews and Peter Sellers episodes are noteworthy in their own, separate ways, although the Sellers episode suffers some for Sellers' outdated and stereotyped performance of "A Gypsy's Violin."

I can't really choose between the Peter Sellers and Julie Andrews episodes because they're both great. While the first sketch with Sellers is culturally problematic, the Queen Victoria sketch is a brilliant bit of meta comedy that is one of my all-time favorite Muppet Show moments, and the segment with Sellers as a sadistic German masseur who mangles Link Hogthrob is another demented gem. The Sellers episode is also notable for featuring Kermit's performance of "Bein' Green," which would become a signature song for the character. The Julie Andrews episode is sweeter in tone, with Andrews performing "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music (1965) for her first number. Andrews is very natural and funny with her puppet costars throughout the episode, and for added humor you can watch Carol Burnett be jealous of Andrews' popularity on the show in Burnett's Season 5 appearance.

 

Season Three

The most memorable episode of Season 3, for me, at least, is the one featuring Alice Cooper, who might as well be a Muppet given how well he fits in with the monsters of the group. The Faust angle of the episode's plot also makes it a hit. Among the newer stars featured, the episodes guest starring Gilda Radner and Roger Miller also stand out. Classic movie stars appearing in the third season include Jean Stapleton, Raquel Welch, Harry Belafonte, Danny Kaye, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (who appear together, naturally). 

While the Danny Kaye episode is cute, the must-see classic star of the season is definitely Harry Belafonte, who collaborated closely with the show's creative team to make a truly special episode. "Day-O" is a Belafonte hit that adult viewers would have recognized, but the real highlight is Belafonte's performance of "Turn the World Around," a song that would prove so meaningful to Muppets creator Jim Henson that Belafonte performed it at Henson's New York memorial service in 1990. While this episode of The Muppet Show focuses on Harry Belafonte's skill as a singer, his acting ability serves him well in his interactions with the puppets. I couldn't help but think of this episode and the song, "Turn the World Around," when Belafonte died on April 25, 2023.

Season Four

The fourth season includes fewer guests who really qualify as "classic movie stars" in the strictest sense, and overall there are a lot of popular singers represented, such as John Denver, Arlo Guthrie, Crystal Gayle, Andy Williams, and Diana Ross. The best episode of the season is the one featuring the stars of Star Wars, with Mark Hamill absolutely game for the comedy shenanigans and accompanied by C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), R2-D2, and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). The most "classic" of the stars included in this season are Liza Minnelli and Carol Channing, and both of their episodes are worth watching.

If you're interested in episodes where The Muppet Show varied its usual format (as it did several times during its five season run), the Liza Minnelli episode is the one to watch. The usual songs and comedy skits are organized as part of a murder mystery with Kermit as the detective and Minnelli as his client. The episode earned an Emmy for Outstanding Directing, and the Mystery Writers of America honored it with a Raven Award, as well. If you want to see how a human Muppet interacts with actual Muppets, see the episode with Carol Channing, who really fits in perfectly and performs some delightfully nutty numbers.

 

Season Five

The final season of The Muppet Show ran from the fall of 1980 to the spring of 1981, and it followed the fourth season in leaning toward newer celebrity guests. Some of the best include Brooke Shields (in an Alice in Wonderland themed episode), Carol Burnett, Johnny Cash, Marty Feldman, Linda Ronstadt, and Paul Simon. The classic movie stars featured in this season are, however, truly classic, with Gene Kelly, James Coburn, and Tony Randall all making appearances. As great a star as Kelly was, he looks uncomfortable with the puppets, and it's not a great performance (his episode aired around the same time as his appearance in the 1980 film, Xanadu). Tony Randall is having more fun, but the wackiest of the lot turns out to be James Coburn.

I'll admit that, having seen the entire series multiple times and co-edited two books about Jim Henson, I can't really remember a lot about the Tony Randall episode, which is why I'm giving the nod to James Coburn as the best classic star guest for this season. The finale, which involves a chaotic tribute to Japan that turns into a square dance with invading cowboys, has some of the same cultural sensitivity issues as the Peter Sellers episode, but James Coburn going for broke with a bunch of Muppets is just too wacky to resist. The sketches poke great fun at Coburn's tough guy reputation, especially in the salute to the Roaring 20s segment. Coburn also has a fun cameo as the owner of the El Sleezo Cafe in The Muppet Movie (1979), if you want another bit of Coburn-Muppet collaboration.

If you're interested in reading more of my posts about the Muppets, check out these links:

Classic Movie Stars on THE MUPPET SHOW

The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me: Reflections on The Muppets

From Phantom to Phenom: The Evolution of Uncle Deadly

Christmas Movie Blogathon: THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (1992) 

Making News with The Muppets

 

 

 

CMBA Spring Blogathon: Classics for Comfort

The Classic Movie Blog Association is holding its Spring Blogathon this week, and the theme is Classics for Comfort, which we could all use right now! CMBA members are posting their "Top 5" comforting classics, which means we'll probably be picking a lot of comedies and musicals, but I'm excited to see what everyone else picks. As for me, I have definitely been going back to my comfort zone for movies since the pandemic sent us all into crisis mode back in March. I don't want to watch anything that makes me more anxious than I already feel, but my comfort zone encompasses both classic musicals and comedies, classic Disney films, and fair bit of science fiction (especially Star Trek - I have watched SO MUCH Star Trek lately because it always gives me hope for humanity's future). In keeping with the CMBA theme, here are my top five go-to classic movies for trying times, presented in chronological order because I really don't want to try to rank these favorites!

#1 BRINGING UP BABY (1938)

I absolutely adore everything about this wacky screwball comedy starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I've seen it many, many times, and it still makes me laugh, even though I can recite almost all of the dialogue from memory. I love life-affirming, joyful comedy, which means the screwball genre is far and away my favorite, but this one holds a special place in my heart for being my childhood introduction to Katharine Hepburn. Hilarious physical comedy and outstanding supporting players keep the laughs coming from beginning to end. I especially love to show this one to kids because the leopards and the dog are chaos agents that really young viewers can appreciate, even if they don't grasp the romantic themes.





#2 THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938)

Errol Flynn's swashbuckling classic is another great choice for kids, but it holds plenty of charm for adults, too. The gorgeous Technicolor cinematography carries me away to Sherwood Forest, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score is absolutely perfect. I love its stars and its supporting cast, especially the delightful chemistry between Flynn and Alan Hale and the hilarious character comedy of Una O'Connor and Eugene Pallette, but Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone are also brilliant as the bad guys. Although many other Robin Hood films have been made, this one is the cornucopia of delights that I love best, and if you haven't shown it to your kids you should put that one your to-do list right now.

#3 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)

I'm sure this iconic musical will turn up on a lot of the CMBA bloggers' lists, but I have to include it here for the sheer joy it always fills me with when I watch it. My kid was a huge Gene Kelly fan when she was little, and this was her favorite movie, so much so that she sometimes ran around the house impersonating Lina Lamont. Debbie Reynolds' energy and pep are irresistible, and you just have to grin watching Kelly and Donald O'Connor dance. I'm a big fan of the colorful, upbeat musicals of the 40s and 50s in general, but this one brings the perfect cast together in such a blitz of wonderful numbers and hilarious comedy that it definitely deserves its place in movie fans' hearts. Once again, this is a great classic movie to show kids; just be prepared for the Lina Lamont impressions and tap dancing likely to ensue!

#4 LADY AND THE TRAMP (1955)

I'm not much of a Disney princess fan, although I love the gorgeous animation of Snow White (1937) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). I'm much more enamored of Disney's classic animal tales, and Lady and the Tramp is the one I especially love to go back to for its sweet, soulful depiction of a dog's life. The charming setting, the lovely animation, and the wonderful voice performances all delight me with each new viewing. I find most of Disney's classic animal movies comforting because I loved them as a kid and then loved watching them with my kid, but this one remains a favorite with both of us, and we almost always watch it when one of us is sick and needs something familiar and cheerful to watch while convalescing on the couch.

#5 STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (1977)

I realize I'm skirting the definition of "classic" for some people, but the original Star Wars trilogy holds a deep and special place in my heart, and I will almost always go back and watch A New Hope again when I need a serious morale boost. Just a few bars of John Williams' powerful score can send me into a reverie of memories and feelings about a galaxy far, far away. The movie itself is full of hope and courage and self-sacrifice, but it also connects me with my younger self, the lonely, hopeful farm kid I used to be, who also dreamed of escape and a different life. I return to Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo as old friends, familiar if frozen in time on the screen, and the sorrows of the time that has passed (how we miss you, Carrie Fisher) make the experience sweeter still.


 I guess from this list you could probably deduce that I take a lot of comfort in music, color, adventure, and happy endings if not outright comedy. For comfort I gravitate toward movies that are gentle enough to watch with the family but exciting enough to keep the plot rolling, and romance is a welcome part of the equation as long as the heroines are plucky. These are all movies that make me feel happy when I watch them; they remind me that joy, friendship, laughter, and courage all exist in the world even when things look bleak. I'm sure my fellow CMBA bloggers will have lots of interesting choices on their lists if my five picks aren't your cup of tea, so make certain you check out the rest of the blogathon posts!

Five Movies on an Island Blogathon: My Five Picks

This week the Classic Film & TV Cafe is hosting the Five Movies on an Island Blogathon, in which different bloggers pick five movies they'd want to take with them to a castaway life. Of course, we're assuming that our islands are hooked up for movie viewing! For me, the five chosen films are ones that would keep my spirits up in such lonely circumstances and also reward frequent repeat visits. They have to be fun (as much as I love film noir, I don't think fatalism will help me keep going in my isolation!), so I'm leaning heavily into comedies, musicals, and family fare for my choices. I'm also picking movies that I personally love because I want the comfort of favorite characters and images; I thought about trying to "catch up" on some three hour foreign language classics I have never gotten around to watching, but I'm sticking with pictures I know and adore. Taking these five along would be like taking old friends or even family members. Here, then, are my five picks.

1) THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938) - This big, colorful adventure is one of my all-time favorite films, with a tremendous cast and glorious swashbuckling action. Errol Flynn never looked better, and every scene bursts with excitement, interest, and romance. The big cast, packed with greats, offers plenty to pay attention to even after dozens of viewings. We get heavies like Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains, character actors like Una O'Connor, Eugene Pallette, and Alan Hale, and the lovely Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian. It is, in every respect, basically a perfect movie (OK, so a few of Maid Marian's costumes are a bit odd, but that's nit-picking and you know it). It also reminds me of the rich tradition of Robin Hood legends, which will give me things to think about while I'm sitting around in the sand.

2) SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) - Who doesn't love this movie? Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and the delightful Debbie Reynolds never fail to make me smile, and Jean Hagen has me in stitches with her irritating tones. The songs are winners, the dance numbers are energetic, and the story is full of Hollywood taking a loving poke at itself. As charismatic as Kelly is, for me this movie always comes down to Donald O'Connor's lovable Cosmo, who nails the "Make 'Em Laugh" and "Moses Supposes" numbers with brilliant comic flair. The title song might feel too accurate when monsoon season hits on my island, but at least I'll be able to wish on my lucky star when the nights are clear.

3) LADY AND THE TRAMP (1955) - I'm a huge Disney nut, and this is my absolute favorite Disney classic. It has laughs, it has adventure and romance, it even has tearjerker moments of tragedy, and it has some fabulous songs from Peggy Lee. I'd want at least one Disney film to remind me of the good times I have had at Disney parks and watching Disney movies, and for some reason this canine romance gets me every time. It features great vocal performances from Barbara Luddy, Peggy Lee, Verna Felton, and Stan Freberg. It's also a perfect Christmas movie, since it starts and ends at the holidays, so I can watch it to celebrate the season during my years of being marooned.

4) FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) - At least one of my picks needs to reflect my island situation, and this one also happens to have Shakespearean roots (it draws its inspiration from The Tempest, my favorite Shakespeare play). Sure, it starts a bit slow, but once it gets going it's a fabulous sci-fi adventure, with Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis falling in love while Walter Pidgeon battles his inner - and outer - demons are Dr. Morbius. Robby the Robot is an iconic figure with a dry humor, an Ariel of metal rather than air, while the invisible killer on the planet is a Freudian Caliban, a monster of the id unleashed. I used to show this film when I taught The Tempest, so watching it on the island will bring back fond memories of my university career, and I'll have lots of time to ponder its thornier psychological themes.

5) SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) - When I'm on the island I want something to laugh about, and this movie always makes me chuckle. Billy Wilder directs a delightfully screwy romantic comedy, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis hysterical in drag, and Marilyn Monroe very sexy as Sugar Kane. Again there are lots of great performances in the supporting cast to make repeat viewings rewarding, from George Raft and Joe E. Brown to Pat O'Brien and Mike Mazurki. My daughter has proclaimed this "the funniest movie ever made," so watching it on the island will remind me of the times I have watched it with her while we laughed together.

There are lots of other movies I'd like to take along, too, but our blogathon limits me to five, and I think these five will keep me going with their energy, humor, and engaging plots. If I could have five more, I might add Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Women (1939), The Mark of Zorro (1940), and Rio Bravo (1959). For picks from other bloggers, check out the blogathon link post at the Classic Film & TV Cafe.

CMBA Blogathon: THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946)

The theme for this year's CMBA Blogathon is "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles," which makes the 1946 musical, The Harvey Girls, an obvious choice. The movie won an Oscar for its train themed song, "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe," and it depicts, in a fictionalized and colorful way, the importance of the train in bringing women to the American West. Adapted from a novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Harvey Girls stars Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse, and Virginia O'Brien as three young women who head West on the train to find new opportunities and romance. While it's not a perfect picture, this is a fun, lively musical that tells an often unknown story about women's part in settling the frontier, made even more entertaining by the presence of outstanding actors like Angela Lansbury, Marjorie Main, Ray Bolger, and John Hodiak.

The Harvey Girls were real people; these young women went West to staff the Harvey Houses that sprang up along the railroad lines in the late 19th century. Fred Harvey recruited young women with good backgrounds and civilized manners to work in his establishments, where train passengers found a short rest and a good meal during their stops. For women of that time, there were few respectable job opportunities out West, but the Harvey Houses provided good wages along with room and board. The crisp uniforms and cheerful manners of the Harvey Girls brought a wholesome, civilized femininity to rough country, and their presence helped to tame wild frontier towns. One notable Harvey House location was the Grand Canyon, where the Fred Harvey Company provided concessions and visitor services until 1968. Today, the El Tovar Hotel at the South Rim includes a display honoring the Harvey Girls and the 1946 film tribute to their legacy. Becoming a Harvey Girl changed the lives of many women who yearned for independence and adventure. Over 100,000 young women took the opportunity that the Harvey Houses offered, and you can learn more about their stories by watching the trailer for the 2013 documentary film, The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound.

In the movie, Judy Garland's character, Susan, doesn't set out to be a Harvey Girl at all. She responds to a call for a mail-order bride, but when she meets the intended groom (Chill Wills) she jumps at the chance to become a Harvey Girl like the other young women on her train. Marjorie Main plays a funny but effective chaperone and manager for the young ladies in her charge, while Cyd Charisse and Virginia O'Brien appear as two Harvey Girls who befriend Susan. The girls encounter a different type of Western womanhood in Angela Lansbury's saloon singer, Em, who doesn't appreciate the competition or the straitlaced morality of the new arrivals. Susan attracts the interest of the bar's owner, Ned Trent (John Hodiak), while Virginia O'Brien's character, Alma, engages in an awkward but entertaining romance with Chris (Ray Bolger). Sadly, O'Brien disappears from the movie in the third act, thanks to shooting delays that made her pregnancy impossible to hide, but she does get in a particularly funny performance with the song, "The Wild, Wild West."

If The Harvey Girls romanticizes the real experiences of the women who staffed the restaurants on the Santa Fe lines, it also depicts women as individuals who went West for many reasons, and not just as daughters, wives, or prostitutes. Women's Westerns have been few and far between in Hollywood history, but when they do come along they reveal fascinating hints at stories that have largely been left untold. As a musical comedy, The Harvey Girls is lighter and sweeter than Westward the Women (1951) or cattle queen dramas like The Furies (1950) and Johnny Guitar (1954), but it does a great job leaving the viewer wanting to know more about the real women who took that chance for a new life out West. Trains made Harvey Houses necessary, and Harvey Houses made a place for young women to earn a living and lead independent lives. That's a theme worth singing about!

You can find a full-length review of The Harvey Girls in my book, Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching, available on Kindle at Amazon.com. For more about The Harvey Girls, try the 1994 book by Lesley Poling-Kempes, The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West.

CMBA Blogathon - The Fabulous Films of the 30s: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)

This post is part of the CMBA Spring Blogathon celebrating The Fabulous Films of the 30s. Visit the Classic Movie Blog Association for more information and links to participating posts!

Even among the great horrors produced by Universal in the 1930s, The Invisible Man (1933) stands out. It revels in madness and genius in equal measure, presenting viewers with a shocking example of a figure we now know all too well, the insane super villain. It's the movie that made Claude Rains a star, even though we can't see him, and that's all the more reason to be impressed with his stunning performance, which gains in grandeur by being set loose from the conventional experience of being seen. Just as Rains is the picture's unseen star, James Whale is its equally invisible yet utterly palpable director, putting his ineffable stamp on every moment of chaos and comedy. Between the two of them, Rains and Whale make The Invisible Man a cinematic work like no other, a dark delight that takes us over the edge with its tragically mad protagonist.

Rains plays Jack Griffin, who has already tried his fatal experiment with invisibility by the time we first meet him. His formula has worked, but Griffin has no way to reverse the effects, and murderous insanity turns out to be a secondary result of the transformation. Griffin works feverishly to find a cure for his condition even as his madness grows, while his mentor, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers), and fiancee, Flora (Gloria Stuart), try to help him. Unfortunately for all of them, Griffin's humanity is also vanishing, and many lives must be lost before fate catches up with the doomed madman.

One of the great shared elements of the Universal horrors is their ability to present their monsters as figures of sympathy and pity in spite of the destruction they wreak. We feel bad for them because they once were human beings, and we understand that they have not chosen this fate, even though we also recognize that death is the only possible ending for their stories. Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and both Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr. invest their monsters with enough pathos to complicate our feelings about them. Claude Rains follows this tradition, but he has to evoke those simultaneous responses of revulsion and sympathy without the usual makeup or even the expressions of his own face. His voice, however, is powerful enough all on its own, gripping the audience and holding it mesmerized throughout the picture. Through that exquisite instrument Rains conveys all the panic, despair, and horrific insanity that Griffin experiences. He is monstrous, murderous, an id utterly divorced from the higher powers that once controlled it, and yet he is heartbreaking in his struggle to reclaim his humanity and hold onto his love for Flora.

Whale creates scenes around Rains' invisible protagonist that heighten the horror but also undercut it with the director's usual pitch black sense of humor. The special effects are marvelous, even by today's CGI standards, but they are also jokes that Whale is playing on the audience. It doesn't take a genius to realize that Whale basically gets away with a movie in which a naked madman parades around destroying things and riding bicycles through town. We even get scenes in which Griffin chucks his clothes, highlighting the fact that he's only invisible because he's totally nude. For Whale, the joke has its deeper side, too; Griffin's naked id, unprotected by reason or morality, is set loose, just as Griffin's naked body breaks the bounds of social convention and self-protection. His nakedness hides him, but it also leaves him exposed, especially in the final scenes, when falling snow becomes a threat to him in more ways than one. Griffin has dreamed of greatness, influence, and power, but he is reduced to a naked animal, shivering in the cold, hunted and cast out from humankind. It's a tragic ending, and when we see Rains' face at last, we remember that Griffin was a man before he became a monster.

The supporting cast also makes The Invisible Man a memorable film. Be sure to appreciate the performances of Henry Travers, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, and the inimitable Una O'Connor. Compare Whale's work on The Invisible Man with his direction for Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). See more of Claude Rains' work in the horror genre in The Wolf Man (1941) and Phantom of the Opera (1943). The Invisible Man inspired a number of sequels, including The Invisible Man Returns (1940), in which Vincent Price takes on the title role, and The Invisible Woman (1940), which stars Virginia Bruce as a calmer and more comedic unseen protagonist.

Build-Your-Own-Blogathon: Bad Apples in BEND OF THE RIVER (1952)

This post is part of the Build-Your-Own-Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film and TV Cafe. It follows Caftan Woman's discussion of T-Men (1947), which shares its director, Anthony Mann, with Bend of the River (1952). Visit the Classic Film and TV Cafe for a complete list of the blogs participating in this blogathon!



"That kind can't change. When an apple's rotten, there's nothing you can do except throw it away or it will spoil the whole barrel." - Jeremy Baile

Director Anthony Mann collaborated with Jimmy Stewart on a number of excellent Westerns, including the 1952 film, Bend of the River, which takes the rugged country of the Pacific Northwest as its frontier territory. It's a story about gold fever, moral decay, and second chances, with Stewart as a former outlaw trying to turn over a new leaf as an honest man. Stewart's Glyn McLyntock is, of course, a good apple, no matter how shady his past, but the movie also presents us with a parade of foils and variations on the same theme. Jay C. Flippen and Chubby Johnson play for the angels as the movie's older good men, with Flippen especially crucial to Stewart's character as the leader of the Oregon settlers, but the less exemplary characters prove far more numerous. Arthur Kennedy and Rock Hudson play men whose moral compasses need more recalibration than Stewart's, while Howard Petrie depicts the rapid transformation of a good man gone wrong over gold, and Harry Morgan plays one of the dirtiest little apples ever seen in a Western barrel. These slippery, complicated performances help make Bend of the River a smart study of psychology as well as an exciting frontier adventure, and the bad apples inform our understanding of the hero's own inner struggle.

"$100,000 is a lot of money." - Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy)

Glyn's primary counterpart throughout the picture is Kennedy's Emerson Cole, a man who has so much in common with Glyn that Glyn tends to think of their destinies as inextricably linked. Cole shares Glyn's past as a raider, and he has enough integrity to appreciate it when Glyn saves his life, but Cole lacks the essential strength of character that sets Glyn apart. Cole likes fast living and violence; he's quick to draw his gun, even when lesser measures would suffice. Kennedy plays Cole as an enigma at first, encouraging us to like him even when we don't trust him, but the lure of wealth proves too much for him to resist. Even the love of Laura (Julie Adams) means nothing to him once a fortune comes within reach. Glyn offers him multiple chances at true redemption, but Cole succumbs to greed.

"You're real fast with that gun, kid, but you're soft." - Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy)

Hudson's handsome young gambler, Trey Wilson, makes the relationship between Glyn and Cole into a triangle. His essential nature is ambiguous early on; as a gambler, he is clearly a man who values money, but he doesn't like to kill. Cole even scolds him for being too soft-hearted. Trey throws in with Glyn and Cole without much thought, and he doesn't have to choose between them until it becomes clear that the two older men are moving in starkly different directions. Even then, Trey keeps his cards hidden, so that we're never quite sure which side he's on until the very end of the film. Trey actually fills two Western character types at once. Despite his worldly demeanor and flashy clothes, he is also this film's version of the Kid who has to decide which model of masculinity he wants to embrace; he can chase wealth and become like Cole, or he can do the right thing and emulate Glyn.

"I could get fifty times what you paid for that food. It's gold, do you understand, gold!" - Tom Hendricks (Howard Petrie)

Howard Petrie plays Tom Hendricks, the Portland official who first welcomes the settlers with open arms but later betrays their trust by reselling their winter supplies at wildly inflated prices. If Hendricks seems a little too friendly at first, that merely sets the stage for his later corruption, when we see him at his overflowing money table with a mad gleam in his eyes. Hendricks' fall mirrors that of the entire community; when Glyn and Jeremy (Jay C. Flippen) return to Portland looking for their supplies, they find the formerly pleasant town transformed into a filthy den of violence, greed, and lust. Hendricks is so far gone that he doesn't care if his double dealing costs the settlers their lives; he is even willing to kill Glyn and Jeremy to protect his financial interest. Tellingly, Cole doesn't seem to process the warning of Hendricks' fate; he's too busy shooting Hendricks' men while they try to run away.

"We're going to the gold camp with this food." - Shorty (Harry Morgan)

While most of the other flawed men in the film have some good qualities, Harry Morgan's Shorty is about as rotten as they come. Along with Red (Jack Lambert) and Long Tom (Royal Dano), Shorty never makes any move unless he's going to get paid for it. Shorty is a far cry from the uncertain but good-hearted character Morgan played in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). He's a dirty, narrow-eyed sneak, always watching for the opportunity to take advantage of the others. He and the other workers conspire to hijack the food supply and sell it at the highest possible price in the gold mining camp; like Hendricks, they don't care if the settlers starve to death as a result. Unlike Hendricks, Shorty and his pals were never good in the first place. Their worst scene comes when they intentionally drop a wagon on Jeremy, Glyn, and Cole in an effort to murder all three at once.

"Any man can make a mistake." - Laura (Julie Adams)

These men run the gamut in terms of moral character, and each one shapes his own fate through his choices. The corruption of the weaker men reminds us how much is at stake in Glyn's struggle for redemption. Glyn knows that the kind of life he once led can only end badly, but his determination to do right and take a harder path makes him a hero in this story more than any skill with a rifle or knife. While there are plenty of bad apples in Bend of the River, they only make the good ones look that much better.

The Brave New World of FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956)

This post is part of the CMBA Blogathon: Fabulous Films of the 50s. Visit the Classic Movie Blog Association's website for links to all of the participating blogs!

The 1956 science fiction classic Forbidden Planet is like one of those desserts that secretly has spinach or wheat germ in it. On the surface, it's a wildly imaginative influential genre landmark with cool robots, a scary monster, and a hot young Anne Francis in some very short dresses. It's also, however, a thoughtful Freudian revision of Shakespeare's The Tempest in which science and magic become different terms for the same concepts and the nature of monstrosity is internalized to depict the ways in which ambitious people become corrupted by their own power. It's this dual nature of the film that makes it such an enduring classic as well as one of my all-time favorite movies.

Granted, Forbidden Planet gets off to a bit of a slow start, but once it picks up it really keeps going. We have Leslie Nielsen looking serious and heroic as Commander Adams when his team starts turning up dead, killed by the same mysterious creature that wiped out the previous colonists. We get Walter Pidgeon gloriously sombre as the brilliant scientist, Dr. Morbius, and Anne Francis embodying the very definition of pulchritude as his daughter, Altaira. Best of all, we have Robby the Robot, a walking, talking vision of the future as only the 1950s could imagine it. What's not to love?

Now, the sneaky Shakespearean content begins to appear. In The Tempest, the powerful sorcerer Prospero and his daughter Miranda are trapped on a remote island, much like Morbius and Altaira. In both tales a ship arrives, filled with puzzled newcomers, and one of them rapidly develops a passion for the sheltered girl. Prospero's helpful spirit, Ariel, is recast as the docile but remarkable Robby, while the dangerous monster Caliban is transformed into the planet's invisible lurking evil.

Forbidden Planet gives a Freudian twist to the narrative by making its monster an uncontrolled embodiment of the id, the dark, brutish part of Morbius that the scientist thinks he has banished by his experiments with advanced alien technology. As it turns out, Morbius has only accomplished a Jekyll and Hyde kind of separation of the higher and lower parts of his nature; without the yoke of his rational and ethical thoughts, the id runs amok. This, too, has its roots in Shakespeare. Near the end of the play, Prospero says of Caliban, "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine," and that acknowledgement is precisely what is required of Morbius in order to save his daughter and Commander Adams' remaining men.

While the movie had a profound influence on later science fiction with its visual effects and its iconic robot, Forbidden Planet also shows the depth and breadth of Shakespeare's legacy. That's an impressive one-two punch, to do something radically new that changes a whole genre while still reveling in the ability of something old to have relevance and meaning. It's a movie for science fiction fans and for Shakespeare fans. English majors and engineers can reach across the table and shake hands over a film like this one. I like to think that, in the long run, Forbidden Planet helped to make science fiction smarter, deeper, and more conscious of its literary nature as well as its science. O brave new world, that has such movies in it!

By the way, if you're a fan of Shakespeare and Forbidden Planet, be sure to have a look at the hilarious stage musical, Return to the Forbidden Planet. I had the good fortune to see it performed by the American Shakespeare Center several years ago, but you can find videos from various performances of it on YouTube.


PS -

Forbidden Planet and The Tempest are also the underlying influences in my short story, "This is Not a Life," which you'll find on Amazon.com. It helps if you know something about Magritte, too.

Katharine Hepburn in ROOSTER COGBURN

This post is part of the Great Katharine Hepburn Blogathon hosted by Margaret Perry at The Great Katharine Hepburn. Visit her blog for links to all of the participating posts!





Young Katharine Hepburn is a glorious creature, a perfect combination of brains and beauty, but old Katharine Hepburn is the version that really gives me hope. Even when I was young I loved this weathered, grayer version of the iconic star; I grew up around older people and found them familiar, comfortable in their own skin, and inspiring because of their experience and tenacity. I still feel that way today, which is why I spend my time volunteering for lifetime learning programs. Older people are full participants in the human experience, although our popular and movie cultures often seem to think that the world belongs only to the young. Released in 1975, when Hepburn was 68 years old, Rooster Cogburn (1975) offers a welcome antidote to our collective obsession with youth, with two aging stars giving richly nuanced performances. Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne, as opposite one another as any two actors could be, prove to us that the later years of our own lives can be as adventurous, romantic, and meaningful as we choose, even if we don't find ourselves facing down desperadoes on the American frontier.

The movie is ostensibly a sequel to True Grit (1969), with Wayne reprising his Oscar-winning role as the cantankerous lawman, Rooster Cogburn. Hepburn plays yet another determined female who horns in on Cogburn's mission to bring killers to justice; like Mattie Ross in the original film, Eula Goodnight is looking for the man who murdered her father. Unlike Mattie, Eula is a Yankee spinster of advanced years who possesses a wry sense of humor. She baffles and fascinates Rooster, and a chaste kind of love blooms between them as they struggle to complete their task and survive a series of deadly encounters.

Hepburn's Eula has a lot in common with her Rose Sayer character in The African Queen (1951), but Miss Goodnight is far better prepared for the dangerous wilderness she inhabits; she seems far more at home on the frontier than we find Rose in her African village. A good rider and an excellent shot, Eula irritates Rooster with her morality but quickly earns his respect. She proves her fortitude and courage repeatedly, especially when the villainous Hawk (Richard Jordan) and his gang attack the small posse. Hepburn is utterly believable in the role; she has the grace and carriage of a lady as well as the fierce independence of a pioneer. She invests Eula with so many of the qualities that we associate with Hepburn herself: intelligence, passion, confidence, and humor. We understand why Wayne's Rooster finds her an irresistible force.

Wayne was also 68 the year Rooster Cogburn was released, but unlike Hepburn he had only a few more years to live. He would die in 1979, while Hepburn endured until 2003, almost a quarter of a century longer. Both show their ages in the film, but despite his greater size Wayne is actually the frailer of the pair. Perhaps that mellows his persona a bit; he seems content to share an amiable, bickering chemistry with his leading lady. Of course, Wayne had plenty of experience with fiery redheads as costars; his films with Maureen O'Hara were proof that he worked well with that kind of onscreen pairing. Hepburn is also mellower; despite deep differences in their political views, she really seems to glow with warmth toward Wayne, at least on screen.

I won't argue that Rooster Cogburn is among the best pictures either star ever made, or even that it is a great film. It has its flaws, and it arrived at a point in movie history when the Western was on its way out. Rooster Cogburn is, however, a great testament to the enduring appeal of its two stars; it speaks to us of aging proudly, defiantly, and with courage. Critics at the time might have complained that Hepburn and Wayne were too old for their roles, but I think they are perfectly cast. Like Rooster Cogburn himself, they can still outcrow anything in the barnyard. I hope I'm half as grand as that in 2040, when I wake up and find that I, too, am 68. Maybe I'll watch Rooster Cogburn to celebrate.

Great Villain Blogathon: Laird Cregar in HANGOVER SQUARE (1945)

This post is part of the Great Villain Blogathon hosted by Ruth of Silver Screenings, Karen of Shadows & Satin, and Kristina of Speakeasy — see all the movie baddies at any of these three blogs.

The Fox studio heads were certain that Laird Cregar was born to play villains, never mind that Cregar himself dreamed of being a romantic lead. In Hangover Square (1945), the final film of his tragically brief career, Cregar got to do both at once, creating for viewers a sympathetic, romantic figure who also happens to be a homicidal maniac. The price for his effort would prove high, indeed; Cregar died of a massive heart attack, brought on by his radical weight loss program, before Hangover Square made its way to the screen. The movie reveals the extent of the public's loss, for Cregar gives a powerhouse performance as a brilliant young composer driven to madness and murder by a heartless chanteuse (Linda Darnell) and the jarring shock of any discordant sound.

John Brahm, who directed Hangover Square, had previously directed Cregar in The Lodger (1944), in which Cregar plays Jack the Ripper as a pathetic monster driven to kill by his grief over the death of his brother. Twentieth Century Fox reunited Brahm and Cregar for a follow-up that was meant to play all of the same notes that had made the earlier movie a success, including a Victorian setting and George Sanders in a supporting role, but Cregar had other ideas. Dropping a huge amount of weight in a very short period of time, Cregar reshaped himself into more conventional leading man material and thereby added a whole new layer to his character by making the audience believe that women might actually find him attractive.

If you know Cregar's story, it's hard to watch Hangover Square without pondering these offscreen elements. We're watching an actor who is, quite literally, giving his life for his art. Here is a man who doesn't want to be known as a monster but seems trapped in that fate, anyway, which eerily parallels the story of the fictional character Cregar is playing. When the doomed protagonist goes up in smoke at the movie's end, we're left thinking about Cregar's own sudden departure from this world. He was only 31 years old, with just five years of films behind him.

Still, it's important to look closely at that performance on its own merits in order to appreciate and lament Cregar as much as he deserves. As Cregar plays him, George Harvey Bone is a shy, gifted composer who can't help turning into an insane killer every time a harsh sound assaults his ears. He's not bad; he's just really sensitive. In many ways, Bone resembles Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941); an outside stimulus over which the protagonist has no control dictates his actions and ultimately his fate. As the gypsies say, "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright." Cregar, however, has to define the two sides of his character without any help from monster makeup; he does it all through his performance and the way he looks, like a wide-eyed sleepwalker lost in a maze of horrors.

As the doomed composer, Cregar taps into the same combination of the monstrous and pitiable that makes other movie monsters sublime: Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera, Boris Karloff as both Frankenstein's monster and Imhotep, Claude Rains as The Invisible Man, and Chaney, Jr. as The Wolf Man. They are all beings who long for love, particularly from beautiful young women, but they can neither control nor deny their own monstrosity. Death and ruin follow them as surely as night follows day. Cregar accomplishes as much in his performance as any of these iconic actors, but he does it by flipping a switch within himself, not by transforming into a literal monster with fangs and claws or other outward markers of the bestial id let loose. Perhaps that makes his monster more frightening, because we know it could happen to any of us without the occurrence of the supernatural. George Harvey Bone drinks no potions; nothing extraordinary happens to explain his murderous urges. He's walking along, minding his own business, and suddenly the world lurches forward with a crashing sound and something terrible has happened. It's no wonder he chooses the certainty of death in the movie's finale. He can only reclaim his humanity by destroying his monstrosity, and to do that he must destroy himself.

Laird Cregar is not a household name today; for the most part, only serious classic movie fans remember him. He played villains so well - in Blood and Sand (1941), This Gun for Hire (1942), and The Lodger (1944) as well as in Hangover Square - that it's a shame to think that he died trying to be something else. Still, with the few films that he made, Cregar proved his genius for being more than a monster. He was truly a great actor, too.

Read my essay, "Heavy: The Life and Films of Laird Cregar," to learn more about the actor and his work.

James Stewart Blogathon: DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939)

This post is part of the James Stewart Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film & TV Cafe. You can view the complete blogathon schedule here.

If we come to Jimmy Stewart as a Western star looking back from the present, we peer through a history that makes his appearance in the genre seem obvious, perhaps even necessary. We see him in The Shootist (1976) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) with that greatest of Western icons, John Wayne, and he holds his own there as a believable resident of Wayne’s frontier world. Stewart seems as much a part of the genre’s history as his real life friend, Henry Fonda, with whom he starred in The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) and Firecreek (1968). All three Western stars would appear in How the West was Won (1962), which is basically a who’s who of the genre. Thus, from where we stand now, Stewart looks like a natural part of the Western landscape, but that wasn't the case at all in 1939, when Stewart starred in Destry Rides Again.

It was the first Western of the young actor's career, and at that point Stewart seemed an odd choice for the role. Tall and amiable, with an air of peculiarly American innocence, Stewart had primarily been seen in romances and comedies. Frank Capra had put him to good use in You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), but Destry was entirely new territory. It took Stewart out of the polite, civilized settings he had previously inhabited and dropped him into the rugged and rowdy frontier.

Stewart plays the film's title character, the son of a legendary lawman and the last hope of the honest citizens of Bottleneck, a wild, corrupted frontier town. Summoned by the town drunk (Charles Winninger), whom the crooks have made sheriff as a cruel joke, Destry at first seems like a terrible disappointment. He doesn't even carry a gun. As Destry says, however, first impressions are darn fool things, and even the local good time girl (Marlene Dietrich) is drawn to him, despite her understanding with the conniving crime boss (Brian Donlevy). When the crooks murder Destry's friend, he is compelled to take up his guns and rid the town of its oppressors for good.

Stewart makes Destry work precisely because he seems so unlikely as a gunslinger. Lanky, soft-spoken, and polite, Stewart's hero doesn't strike anyone as a threat, much less a gunfighter. Destry, of course, knows his own ability and lets the townspeople wallow in their assumptions. Stewart invests him with an easy nature that is only mistaken for weakness. In fact, it's born of self-assurance. When he finally takes out his guns, we see the other side of Destry's character, and this is where Stewart surprises us most. He is tough. He can be a dangerous man. There's a whole future unfolding for Stewart in this moment, one that will make him an icon not only for It's a Wonderful Life (1946) but also for Winchester '73 (1950), The Man from Laramie (1955), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. There's an unexpected edge to Stewart that later directors will seize upon: Anthony Mann will reveal Stewart's darkness as an underlying vein of hysteria in The Naked Spur (1953), and Alfred Hitchcock will make it the sublime theme of his masterpiece, Vertigo (1958). Despite the fact that Destry Rides Again is technically a comedy, it actually paves the way for Stewart to venture far beyond the territory he had covered in the Capra pictures or early work like Wife vs. Secretary (1936), Born to Dance (1936), or Vivacious Lady (1938).

Thus, as a Jimmy Stewart picture, Destry Rides Again is a watershed moment in the actor's career. Only by looking back at it from the perspective of 1939 can we really appreciate how important it would become in terms of Stewart's own legacy and the evolution of the Western as a whole. Destry opens the door for an actor who would go on to make some of the finest Westerns in Hollywood history, one who would become so associated with the genre that his final screen credit would be for his performance in a Western tale. By the time he loaned his voice to An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), Stewart was as much a part of the Western as any actor who ever rode a horse into a dusty frontier town. For that, we have Destry to thank.

Christmas Movie Blogathon: THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (1992)

This post is part of the Christmas Movie Blogathon hosted by Family Friendly Reviews. Check out the links for all of the related posts!

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has been adapted for the big screen many times, and almost all versions have their merits, but as both a former English Literature professor and a Muppet scholar I have to admit that The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) is far and away my favorite take on the classic holiday tale. Despite its alterations for the sake of its furry, feathery, and felt-made cast, The Muppet Christmas Carol is surprisingly faithful to the spirit of the original text, and it goes one better than many more traditional adaptations with its inclusion of a Dickensian narrator and its representation of the three Christmas Ghosts.

Michael Caine takes the lead role as Scrooge, playing a rather demented and imposing version of the old miser, while the Muppets fill most of the supporting roles. Kermit the Frog plays long-suffering Bob Cratchit, with Miss Piggy as his loyal if temperamental spouse, and Fozzie Bear appears as Fozziewig, Scrooge's generous old employer. Statler and Waldorf split the Marley role into a duo (Jacob and Bob), and other familiar Muppet characters make appearances throughout the picture. The Great Gonzo lives up to his name as Charles Dickens, who narrates the story with the help of Rizzo the Rat. The collected cast of human and Muppet players goes through a more or less familiar version of the story, with songs and comedy added to bring the text in line with the usual Muppet style.

Several elements of this version stand out. First, Gonzo's performance as Charles Dickens is one of his best roles, combining the wry narratorial voice of the original story with the Muppet's inherent weirdness for a startlingly funny but effective commentary on the action as it unfolds. "I know this story like the back of my hand," Gonzo boasts to Rizzo. When pressed to prove it, he then covers his eyes and begins to describe his hand instead of telling the story. Rizzo is, as always, a hilarious sidekick to the blue daredevil; Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire had already perfected their comic chemistry with the two characters by the time this film was made, and their dialogue together makes for the movie's most quotable lines. More importantly, Gonzo's presence returns to the story something that is missing in most adaptations. We get back lines like, "He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge!" and "Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it." Dickens' narrator is a crucial part of the story's humor and appeal, but most versions lose him in the dramatic revision.

The Ghosts are another outstanding element of the Muppet adaptation. Specially created for the film, the Ghosts are strikingly faithful to Dickens' descriptions of them, especially the luminous Ghost of Christmas Past, who floats hauntingly thanks to a special shooting technique that involved the puppet being filmed in a tank of oil. The Ghost of Christmas Present lacks Ignorance and Want hidden beneath his robes, but his forgetful good humor and size make him a delightful presence, combining elements of both Father Christmas and Christ. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is so scary that Gonzo and Rizzo abandon the picture until the finale, but the film's creators make the right call by keeping the gravitas and foreboding of those scenes. Taken together, the Ghosts are not only marvels of puppetry innovation but also compelling realizations of Dickens' figures, more spectral and miraculous than human actors because the medium liberates them from mortal constraints.

Like many family friendly adaptations of the story, The Muppet Christmas Carol does shift the focus of Dickens' text by casting its primary figure, Kermit, as Bob Cratchit. This encourages us to see ourselves in Bob and to see him as the story's central figure (the Mickey Mouse version does the same thing). Michael Caine, however, does such a terrific job as Scrooge that we never lose him among the Muppets, and that helps us to keep our attention where it's supposed to be. Dickens never wanted us to see ourselves as Bob Cratchit; his story depends on us understanding that we are Scrooge, selfish and querulous even in the face of our own salvation. Caine revels in Scrooge's meanest lines, but he also conveys nostalgia, regret, and tenderness in the character, all emotions that have to exist within him already in order to be called forth by the Ghosts' visitations. Bob is an object to rouse Scrooge's dormant pity, but A Christmas Carol isn't his story; he has no dynamic narrative arc to pursue. For contrast, you might watch Kermit taking on the George Bailey role in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), which revises It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and prefigures the plot of The Muppets (2011) in quite a few ways.

For more literary Muppetry, you might try Muppet Treasure Island (1996), which features Tim Curry as Long John Silver. Brian Henson, who directed both adaptations, is of course the son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, who died in 1990. The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first feature made after his death, which gives it a certain bittersweet quality for lifelong Muppet fans. Head back to The Muppet Movie (1977) for the first big-screen Muppet adventure, or flash forward to The Muppets (2011) to see what Disney is doing with the characters now. Muppets Most Wanted, the newest Muppet movie, is due out in 2014.

Can't get enough Muppet-inspired criticism and commentary? I really am something of an expert on the subject. Check out Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives on Jim Henson's Muppets and The Wider Worlds of Jim Henson. Both books were published by McFarland and are available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. If movie reviews are more your thing, try Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching, which is also in both paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon.