DVD Review: ROPE (Transatlantic Pictures/Warner Bros., 1948)

In movies, as in life, we "see" what we're predisposed to notice. The conventional wisdom regarding Rope, Alfred Hitchcock's first color film -- and, by far, his most cinematically audacious one -- is that it contains gay subtext out the wazoo. It seems like a slam dunk: screenplay writer Arthur Laurents is gay, two of the three major players are gay/bisexual, and the play on which the movie is based was a dramatization of the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb, two wealthy gay men who murdered a youngster in 1924 just to see if they could get away with it. These facts imbue such moments in the film as a reference to "chicken strangling" and a character fussing with a champagne bottle with extra layers of meaning. While the subtext might very well have been inserted intentionally, one can, if one chooses to do so, regard the movie with equal validity as a black-hearted satire of liberal elitism.

For all the cachet that the homosexual patina may lend the film today, Rope is best-known for Hitchcock's decision to shoot it in real time, using a series of long takes ranging from 5 1/2 to 10 minutes. Hitchcock himself later felt that the gimmick hadn't really worked, and the director does resort to such clumsy cutting devices as focusing on a character's back before moving on to the next long take, but the stagey approach isn't really that off-putting. The major structural problem with the movie is that we know from the beginning that the two self-satisfied roommates (John Dall and Farley Granger) have done the deed; the only question is how it's going to be revealed. It would have been a much greater challenge for Hitchcock to have gradually uncovered exactly what had happened in the boys' luxurious apartment.

Given the stress of the long takes, the cast acquits itself very well, with one unfortunate (albeit unintentional) exception. James Stewart plays the worldly-wise prep school headmaster whose gauzy theories of "justifiable homicide" have helped persuade Dall and Granger that they can pull off their shocking crime. The callous casualness of Stewart's "what-if" musings will be familiar to anyone who's listened to an academic ramble on about praiseworthy dictators, evil corporations, and other topics that s/he can discuss with the smug self-satisfaction of someone who never expects to shoulder responsibility for the consequences. But these musings coming out of the mouth of Stewart, just 18 months removed from It's a Wonderful Life? The mind reels. Given the impossibility of the task set before him, Stewart manages to make the prof's feelings of horror at the discovery that the boys have actually taken him up on his ivory-tower idiocy somewhat believable. Surely, however, a more appropriate actor could have been used. At least Hitchcock gave Stewart the chance to redeem himself in several classic thrillers in the following decade. Rope winds up a very interesting misfire, but one very much worth seeing at least once.

Book Review: THE COMPLETE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, Volume 4: A HOUSE DIVIDED by Harold Gray (IDW Publishing, 2009)

As was the case with Volume 3, IDW's fourth collection of ANNIE strips, produced during the period January 1932-July 1933, took its sweet time arriving at the local shop. It would be ironic indeed if the delay were due to the current economic climate, since this batch of strips appeared at the very nadir of the Great Depression. While Harold Gray's strip continues to reflect some of the harsh realities of the time, there does seem to be a layer of "insulation" between the characters and the worst of what is going on around them: the two main plot lines traced herein involve "Daddy" Warbucks' ill-conceived remarriage and Annie and Sandy's lengthy sojourn in the small town of Cosmic City, where the biggest concerns are strictly parochial (though no less intriguing -- and potentially dangerous -- for all that). One can sense a certain hardening of Gray's positions on several issues, however, as he takes time to swipe at irresponsible intellectuals and begins to elaborate his, shall we say, ethically controversial theory of justifiable revenge.

Warbucks' romance with and marriage to the vulgar ex-showgirl Trixie Tinkle makes sense only if you buy the notion that the tycoon's desire to give Annie a "real" mother has temporarily blinded him to the faults of character that he is quick to pick up on in other instances. The blowsy Trixie, who bears a frankly unsettling resemblance to Russi Taylor, makes a weak attempt to "connect" with Annie, but is soon trying to "off" Sandy (who survives several attempts on his life with an elan that The Road Runner would be hard-pressed to match) and alienating Warbucks' friends to the extent that they no longer want to visit him. The ultimate affronts (at least in Gray's eyes) come when Trixie hires "moderns" to redecorate "Daddy"'s cozy apartment and invites a gaggle of hirsute revolutionaries, bohemians, and assorted ne'er-do-wells to the place for a party. This can only be taken as Gray's reaction to the then-burgeoning radical strain in American life, a warm-up for his later frontal assault on FDR's New Deal. Even after Trixie has made it clear that she wants Warbucks' money and nothing else, "Daddy" is willing to give the relationship one more chance, to the extent that he takes Trixie on a round-the-world cruise in an old sailing ship (bad memories of the Gargoyles "Cruise Arc" are fluttering about my head now) and allows Trixie to pick a suitable "boarding school" for Annie to attend in the meantime. Suffice it to say that Annie and Sandy are much better off hitting the open road.

The Cosmic City story arc, which lasts about a year, isn't particularly outstanding, with Annie's benefactors the Futiles a fairly bland couple (apart from the occasional slapstick pratfall that justifies the surname) and the solution of the story's "mystery" being helped along by a couple of extremely fortunate coincidences. It does, however, deserve note for giving readers their most "hissable" pair of stock villains to date. Parsimonious mortgage-monger Phineas Pinchpenny and his alternately cruel and blase son Elmer are presented as bad eggs from the off, but we gradually learn that Pinchpenny is hiding a deep, dark secret that goes well beyond "merely" foreclosing on widows. Elmer, for his part, nearly kills Sandy with his speeding car more or less for the heck of it. With the help of Tom Take, the feeble-minded but friendly town kleptomaniac, Annie executes a fairly gruesome revenge on Elmer that goes well beyond the occasional "gotcha" gag she played on Trixie and others in Sunday strips. Pinchpenny gets his in due course, though not after attempting to murder Annie so that she won't reveal his shameful secret. Both villains deserve their fate, but those who decry ANNIE as "sentimental pap" will receive a good shaking-up when they read this sequence.

Speaking of extra-legal activity, Gray's introduction of Warbucks' Oriental friend, the businessman Wun Wey, presages his creation of the tycoon's most famous (and sinister) allies, Punjab and The Asp, whose initial appearances are just over the horizon. Gray may have hated those who preached revolution in the face of economic catastrophe, but Wun Wey and his vaguely defined band of "brethren," who seem perfectly willing to go to extreme lengths to protect one of their own, illustrate that the cartoonist harbored his own severe doubts that the legal structure could withstand the strain and regarded vigilantism with surprising equanimity. Gray's "universe" may not have been as bloody as Dick Tracy's, but it could be a much chillier place at times.

Merry Christmas!

Comics Review: E.C. SEGAR'S POPEYE, Volume 4: "PLUNDER ISLAND" (Fantagraphics Books, 2009)

How many comics readers received their first exposure to E.C. Segar's work through the medium of THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF NEWSPAPER COMICS? I was one of those lucky stiffs whose first taste of the "real" Popeye and friends was the deep, refreshing draft reprinted in full (and, for the first time, in color) in this volume. "Plunder Island," which ran in Segar's Sunday pages from December 1933 to July 1934 -- it was by far the most ambitious story the artist ever mounted in a Sunday format -- has been described by such respected comics scholars as Bill Blackbeard and Richard Marschall (who fills in for the unreadable Donald Phelps as this installment's introductory essayist) as the greatest single narrative in the history of comics. This is remarkable in view of the fact that 90% of the "epic adventure" consists of shipboard interactions between characters. Segar had used sea voyages for story settings in the past, dating all the way back to "Dice Island" (the story in which Popeye debuted), but, one way or another, the characters' activities off the ship eventually took center stage. Popeye's gang doesn't reach the titular island -- the hideaway where The Sea Hag's (stolen) treasure is stored -- until we hit the last half-dozen strips. It doesn't really matter, as we thrill (and not in a good way) to the introduction of the unsettling "original naked version" of Alice the Goon, chuckle at the paranoid George G. Geezil's increasingly desperate efforts to "kill" Wimpy "to death," and laugh out loud at the sight of Wimpy romancing The Hag and pretending to behead Popeye, just to get at the "50 pounds of frozen hamburger" she has on her ship. Here, "getting there" is definitely more than half the fun.

Segar's best daily-strip narratives contain more satirical punch, but "Plunder Island" is superb entertainment. I do wonder, however, what became of G.B. Gritmore, the secret agent (I guess) who asks to accompany Popeye, his old pal "Salty" Bill Barnacle, and the rest of the gang on their trip. Gritmore appears in one panel in the strip of 12/31/1933, is invited aboard by Popeye, and never appears again. Did Segar simply forget about him, or did he make a strange "New Year's Resolution" to cut down on the number of characters he had to draw? (Professor Cringley, the shivering savant who'd escaped The Hag's clutches, and "Miss Sniddle" gradually disappear from the narrative during the cruise, but at least they got some face time before doing so.) There is one possible "escape hatch" here: Popeye says that Gritmore can only come aboard "if ya' gots bravery an' intestimal fortnitude (sic)." Perhaps Gritmore fell at this "first turn."


This era's daily THIMBLE THEATER strips -- pushed to the rear of this volume for understandable reasons -- are a mixed bag. The late 1933-early 1934 strips are somewhat disappointing, perhaps because Segar was preoccupied with the Sunday continuity. Popeye's sojourn running a newspaper in Puddleburg is wrapped up with a dispatch that may reflect the artist's dissatisfaction with the way the story was progressing. (Another case in point: Puddleburg is described as "the laziest town on Earth," and the natives are initially depicted as sleepy-eyed and blase, but this characterization disappears almost as quickly as it's introduced.) As he cuts and runs, Segar does take a few funny shots at the trials and tribulations of cartoonists, in the person of the dish-faced gagman, B. Loony Bullony. "Romance and Riches" is a lengthy, and somewhat dawdling, story in which Popeye and Olive (who's put on airs since glomming onto her share of Plunder Island's riches) break up. Popeye goes to stay with billionaire Mr. Vanripple and Vanripple's comely (by Segar's modest standards) daughter June, who winds up falling hard for the sailor man. Vanripple, who looks like he's stepped out of a Dr. Seuss story, is the closest that Segar ever came to creating a Scrooge McDuck "type." Given the era (the early New Deal years), he's also a surprisingly benign portrayal of a big business man, though prone to eccentricity (he insists that the underwear-challenged Popeye wear June's frilly teddies, for instance). After Olive's attempt to become a movie star (even to the point of getting fitted with prosthetic legs to "improve her figure"!) destroys her fortune, leaving her a babbling wreck, Segar finally gets the dailies back on track. Not surprisingly, this return to top form "clicks in" just as "Plunder Island" is drawing to a close. "Unifruit," "Black Valley" (somewhat notorious as the "Popeye goes in drag" story), "The Pool of Youth" (the return of The Sea Hag and Alice, not to mention "detective" Castor Oyl, and the introduction of The Hag's vicious sister and the "immortal" caveman Toar), and "Popeye's Ark" (the start of the "Spinachova" story arc, Segar's most politically aware work -- and a daring one too, given the wide intellectual appeal of Fascism and Communism at this time) are all top-notch.


One shouldn't ignore the high quality -- and equally high spirits -- of Segar's secondary work at this time. SAPPO, THIMBLE THEATRE'S companion Sunday strip, is at its very best with imaginative storylines including a shrinking episode (with its arresting image of the microscopic John Sappo cutting his way to freedom through the hide of a germ), the brief but painful marriage of Professor O.G. Wotasnozzle, and a literal war between Wotasnozzle and his equally irascible rival, Professor Finklesnop. (Somehow, I can't imagine Gyro Gearloose getting quite that carried away, though he did have his moments. By the same token, I can't imagine the egotistical O.G. escaping to simpler medieval times -- he would never have "admitted defeat" in such a manner.) And that ain't all, folks: Segar treats his young and young-at-heart Sunday-page readers to "magic movies," drawing lessons, and one-panel moral messages. The last of these may have been one of Segar's efforts to appease William Randolph Hearst, who'd advised him to make Popeye a better role model for kids. With the Fleischer cartoon series starting and gathering steam during this time, the call to tone Popeye down a bit may have been especially urgent. (Don't worry, though, Popeye is still plenty raucous and has his moments of "backsliding.") Only two volumes to go, and some of Segar's best moments are yet to come! What a marvelous collection.

Comics Review: WALT DISNEY'S CHRISTMAS CLASSICS (Boom! Kids)

Every family typically has "one" Christmas-themed book that they prize above all others and haul out of mothballs to re-delight young and old once December rolls around. In my family, it was THE TALL BOOK OF CHRISTMAS. For its first release in a promised line of special hardback collections, Boom! Kids has given us a volume that, while falling short of "stone-cold lock classic" status, would be a fine investment for parents who want to get their young children interested in reading Disney comics. What better way to do that than to read this book to/with them on a yearly basis as they grow up?

Forming the core of the book are a juicy wad of DONALD DUCK and MICKEY MOUSE stories from the 1940s FIRESTONE GIVEAWAY comic-book series. These books were distributed at Firestone stores at holiday time. The three Carl Barks DONALD tales -- "Donald Duck's Best Christmas" (1945), "Santa's Stormy Visit" (1946), and "Three Good Little Ducks" (1947) have all been reprinted within the past 20 years, but the first and third haven't been seen since the 1990s. All three are good, though thickly larded with seasonal sentiment in an obvious manner that Barks usually managed to avoid in his Christmas "ten-pagers" in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES. Paradoxically, "Best Christmas" tops the charts in both mawkishness (the noble-hearted poor kids who shame HD&L into handing over the Ducks' Christmas goodies are sweet enough to induce dental caries by osmosis) and overall quality (Donald's battle with a slow-moving farmer and his very large hay wagon is pretty funny for what it is, and the artwork is excellent). It also holds some historical cachet in that it includes Barks' first use of Grandma Duck, who looks more like an elderly female version of Donald than the bun-haired matron with whom we're now familiar. "Stormy Visit" is a bit contrived in its placing of Donald and HD&L in a lighthouse for Christmas, but the albatross that helps... wait for it... save Christmas for them is very much in the spirit of the annoying pets that tormented Donald in a number of 40s and early 50s Barks stories. "Good Little Ducks" is a Donald-vs.-kids "battle tale" with a twist: HD&L are so eager to "make up for [past] crimes" and give Don a Christmas Eve buttering-up that they nearly kill him with kindness... literally. The three MICKEY FIRESTONE stories, all drawn by Don Gunn, are enjoyable, albeit rather forgettable, fluff, with "Mickey's Christmas Mix-Up" (1945) -- in which Mickey buys a new chair for Minnie and discards the old one, unaware that it supposedly contains a fortune in money -- probably being the best.

While reprinting all of the DONALD and MICKEY FIRESTONE material here would have been perfectly acceptable, Boom! doesn't go that route, including three unrelated stories (plus a scattered gag or two and a couple of FIRESTONE covers) to fill out the collection. "Santa Claus' Visit", a 1943 DONALD story drawn by Jack Hannah for a Sears giveaway, leads off the book. Hannah was coming off his tag-team art job with Barks on DONALD DUCK FINDS PIRATE GOLD, and his artwork here looks very much the same as it did there. The plot, though, is lifted straight from the contemporary cartoons, with Donald (in a most unconvincing Santa disguise -- at least Don TRIED to look a little bit like Santa in Barks' later "Letter to Santa") and HD&L going at one another hammer-and-tongs. Next to the trio of Barks FIRESTONEs, this brief tale looks pretty simplistic, but it does achieve its modest goals. Romano Scarpa's "It's a Wonderful Christmas Story" (1998), previously printed in the U.S. in Gemstone CHRISTMAS PARADE #3 (2005) with English dialogue by David Gerstein, walks The Mouse through the George Bailey drill, complete with snowy bridge scene. No, Mickey doesn't attempt what you're thinking. Walt and Gottfredson may have been able to get away with that in the early 30s (and they did!), but here, Mickey -- having been tricked by a scam-Santa Pete into loading his Christmas tree with "ornaments" that splatter his friends with goop, and owing mucho dough on his home to boot -- merely intends to leave Mouseton. In the Pete-run "alternative Mouseton," Minnie's fate is by far the funniest. It's a good, solid story with nice Scarpa art, but Scarpa fails to put a unique "Continental" twist on the familiar plot. The book concludes with "Christmas on Bear Mountain" (1947), which I reviewed here upon its last appearance in UNCLE $CROOGE #372 (December 2007/February 2008). I have little to add to what I said previously, other than to note that, if Scrooge McDuck hadn't made his debut in this story, then it would probably have slipped quietly into oblivion (or as close to it as a Barks feature story can get) in a comfy niche right next to "The Golden Christmas Tree." As an introduction to a personage who'd become one of comics' greatest characters, however, it's still worth revisiting yearly as December dwindles down -- as are all of the tales in this fine compendium.

Wondering Who's to Blame for the Big Snowstorm?

In the spirit of "The Winter of Their Dissed Kismet" (WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #690, March 2008, dialogued by yours truly), the Junior Woodchucks appear to have been eating turkey at their meetings again.

After digging "out from under," please enjoy the two comics reviews I've posted this evening.