Violence, 1947: Three Specimens

Author(s): John Houseman

Source: Hollywood Quarterly , Autumn, 1947, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Autumn, 1947), pp. 63-65
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1209634

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 Violence, 1947: Three Specimens
JOHN HOUSEMAN

JOHN HOUSEMAN, co-founder with Orson Welles can detect some truth in their motiva-
of the Mercury Theater, divides his time between
producing motion pictures in Hollywood and di- tions and feel some pity for their mis-
recting plays on Broadway. Producer of The Blue adventures. In Brute Force captors and
Dalia, he recently completed Your Red Wagon for
RKO, and is now producing Letters From an Un- captured alike are violently agitated
known Woman at Universal-International. He is also
dummies wandering through a uni-
president of Pelican Productions, and a
director of the Coronet Theater. verse of painted flats. In an attempt to
give them dimension (or maybe to get
illustrious ladies' names on the mar-
THIS summer's leading grosses having
quees and into the ads), each of the
been run up by cheerful, innocent pic-
tures about Santa Claus, the loves of a leading convicts has been endowed
bobby soxer, and the old days in Holly- with a neatly packaged, flash-back
wood, I return with the set determina- vignette of the "woman outside" va-
tion of a man riding his hobbyhorse to riety-the tough lug who must raise
the consideration of three films of vio- money for the operation of his wheel-
lence. All three concern themselves chair dream girl; the confidence man
double-crossed
with American men facing men's prob- by a gold-digging
lems in the American world of blonde;
today; the G. I. betrayed by the black-
in all three the tender passions marketeering
play father of his Italian
only a minor role; all three are sweetheart.
un- These have little or noth-
mistakably Hollywood-made and ing to do with the men's present
rep-
resent, I think, three fairly significant
dilemma, nor do they appreciably il-
specimens of current Hollywood pro- their characters. They merely
luminate
duction.
succeed in making their subsequent ac-
tivities seem even more unbelievable
Brute Force is, by almost any stan-
than
dard I value, a deeply immoral pic- before.
ture-immoral chiefly by reason of its I have tried hard to analyze the un-
complete unreality. Based on the well-
relieved revulsion with which this pic-
known "Big House" formula, it lacksture filled me. Certainly the actors are
not to blame. These same men have
even those formula-realities usually
found in this type of product. Itsgiven many sincere performances. The
brutalities are contrived, its sadism is
same technicians have turned out prod-
story-conference stuff. It contains ucts
a of substantial reality. The pro-
blow-torch killing and a torture scene ducer is famous for the skill and the
complete with rubber hose and roman-
professional humanity of his product.
tic phonograph background which In fairness it must be said that large
seems clipped straight out of someaudiences the country over have re-
mediocre anti-Nazi war film. acted with nervous thrills to the film's
moments of mechanical tension. But
I have no artistic objection to mak-
ing heroes of convicts and heavies out
for my part, I found myself merely dis-
of the minions of the law, provided Itressed by this cynical attempt to

C63

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64 HOLLYWOOD QUARTERLY
breathe violent and brutal life into a which it is assigned. The dir
moribund formula. vitality and freedom. Lilli Palmer, cast
Body and Soul also follows a for- most unconventionally in the con
mula. It is the familiar story of a tional part of the girl, gives as resour
fighter's rise and fall-"Golden Boy" ful a performance as I have seen
without his fiddle. In plot and char- long time. Within its own lim
acter it conforms almost exactly to the idiom, Body and Soul is eminently
stereotype of prize-fight pictures: We cessful. When it is over, you return
meet a neighborhood kid with a buddy, evitably to a consideration of how
a girl, and a good pair of fists. Though were the picture's ingredients. Bu
his mother aspires to better things for while you watch, its craftsmanshi
him, economic necessity drives him to sufficiently high to convince and h
sell his muscles to a small-time pro- you almost continuously.
moter. With his first success he wins the (If I may inject a personal note-i
girl and supports his mother. Further greatly to the picture's credit that,
success follows and a high-powered ing accidently strayed into the
gangster manager moves in. Still more scene horror of an Audience Resea
success-and a long montage of suc- Institute session and submitted
cesses. Corruption sets in. The kid be- jocular briefing by one of Dr. Gall
comes inattentive to his mother, in- representatives, I was still able to en
sensitive with his girl, harsh with his the subsequent projection as keenl
associates. His buddy, attempting to I did.)
halt his disintegration, is dealt with by By the time this article appears,
the gangster manager and subsequently shock aspect of Crossfire-the issue
dies. Finally, even his girl can't take it race hatred raised and openly discu
and regretfully leaves him. Now, alone, on the nation's screens-will have b
he faces his final crisis-the night of the exhaustively covered and Hollywo
big rigged fight. Somewhere around the belated victory over the "censorsh
middle of the fourteenth round the fear" will have been celebrated with
scales fall from his eyes. Rallying, he appropriate tributes to the initiative
wins; he defies the gangster; he walks of author, director, and producer. The
into the night with his girl, poor but main point of discussion-whether the
purged. problem of racial intolerance is or-
I have catalogued these tired ingre- ganic to the p
dients, the better to make the point settled, I believe,
that, unlike Brute Force and using an tive. As an elem
equally familiar subject, Body and Soul contemporary
emerges as an absorbing piece of enter- ever, it turns ou
tainment. This is attributable in part ganic and highly
to its high technical quality, particu- Aesthetically, th
larly the creative photography of James sity of feeling
Wong Howe. The fight is, as far as I tors of the pictu
know, the best ever filmed. The writing racial issue hav
has tempo and some sensitivity and the work, transmu
acting usually transcends the types to "whodunit" into

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 VIOLENCE, 1947 65
ture I have seen this year. It is fasci-
in the picture-show to enormous ad-
nating to watch the process whereby vantage. There is a unity to the produc-
tion-limitation to a narrow world of
intensity of feeling on one issue auto-
matically colors and spreads to every darkness and policed streets, of closing
character and situation in the entire bars and lonely apartments,-a concen-
work. Typical of this are the scenes tration upon the essential reality of
character and conflict, an over-all di-
with the call girl in the shady bar. Only
rectness and lack of contrivance very
tangential to the main line of the story,
rarely found in Hollywood pictures.
they have truth and poignance directly
related to the creators' intensity (Boomerang,
and for all its qualities, bore
honesty about their central theme. the unmistakable scars of big-studio
Even technically, the subject matter
processing.)
I hope it now becomes clear why
has directly affected the work. It was
the controversial and "dangerous"these
na-three pictures have been selected
for review at this time. All three have
ture of the picture which determined
the production conditions under which
sprung from that common ground of
it was made-conditions which are of violence which is still a characteristic
of our times and of our tastes in enter-
vital interest to anyone seriously con-
tainment. All three were made in Hol-
cerned with the future of picture mak-
ing in Hollywood. Crossfire was made
lywood by competent picture makers.
They vary in quality in direct ratio to
by a large studio in twenty-three days
the honesty and intensity which ani-
for the price of an average "B." Undis-
mated their creation.
putedly, this haste and economy show

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