Follow the Yellow, Brick Road – A Few Short Notes, No Digressions

I didn’t cover The Wizard of Oz on Sunday – because it’s not my absolutely favourite musical – it’s the ever dreaded #2. Jose and Ruben both looked deeper into the classic spotting things that had never occurred. Of course, that’s one of the main indicators that a film is excellent – when you can keep returning to it and finding new things. The thing is, I often forget that the The Wizard of Oz is a musical. It’s not that the songs are poor, headlined by the class “Over the Rainbow” and backed up with sweet tunes like “If I Were the King of the Forest” and “If I Only Had A Brain” it is just as fulfilling in its moments of adventure as it is in its moments of music. What I remember The Wizard of Oz for most is the one thing that has been borrowed by countless story tellers (on film and otherwise) – our hero’s departure to a strange, new world that turns out to be a dream. Incidentally this running gag is the weakest part of The Wizard of Oz’s strong story, but all things considered it’s only weak by comparison and it’s only lost its brilliance today because of our overexposure to it.

The Wizard of Oz is one of the films I remember earliest from my childhood. I can’t recall the exact age, but I know I saw it when it had all switched to Technicolor. Upon my “discovery” of the earlier sepia toned portion I found myself more charmed by Dorothy’s adventures (or lack thereof) in Kansas. She’s obviously out of place, and it made me realise how important this portion is to her “development”, and I couldn't help but smile every time Judy said "Oh, Aunty Em" in that earnest way of hers. The Wizard of Oz is doing so much even though it seems like a standard home, away and back home story. I always marvel at Judy’s ability to be meek while still having a sort of bravura that’s most attractive. She has a thing for line readings, even at that age, and sure she spends a significant portion of the film admonishing the things she meets it’s never too much. Of course Dorothy’s growing dissatisfaction with Oz is key to the message the story has to tell us. It’s part of the weirdness of the entire film though. Sure, the Wicked Witch of the East is evil and all, but the celebration is almost perverse as we watch those crazy Munchkins rejoicing.

It’s nice that The Wizard of Oz has endured for so long. As much as I love Shirley Temple I balk at the idea of her as Dorothy. It’s a little gem, that works as much for the adult as for the child – and that’s a bit of a rarity. It’s #19 on my list of favourite films.

Bringing Up Baby

When Kate accepted the role of Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby, she’d not done anything like it before. During rehearsals she committed the rookie mistake of overplaying the comedy, and it wasn’t until days in Hawks got her to become a little more subdued and underplay. Up to that point in her career, she was known for drama and yet today the most incidental of Hepburn enthusiasts remember her as a comedienne. Bringing Up Baby is the type of comedy of error film that becomes more ridiculous and convoluted as the minutes continue. It is precisely this state of ostensible confusion that makes it such a brilliant comedy. Grant was already on his to being established as a comic genius, but Bringing Up Baby is atypical. It’s unusual seeing Kate playing the zany one while Cary plays calm, but thus is the state of affairs. Grant’s paleontologist is hoping to attain a grant that may never come and Hepburn’s heiress just seems bored out of her wits, add that to a tame tiger who just happens to end crossing paths with an undomesticated one, add in an officious dowager aunt and a sage but not too bright doctor and Bringing Up Baby ends up being a film of comic truisms, but avoids it all because there’s nothing clichéd about it.

There’s something strange that the film is called Bringing Up Baby. The scenario of this untamed tiger that happens to have a penchant for “Can’t Give You Anything Love” is almost too ridiculous for words, and Susan’s initial coldness juxtaposed with her almost immediate silliness is much too strange for words. A scene as simplistic as a stone to a window turning into a stone on someone’s head are funny – if only because it is expected of us – but it’s Kate and Cary’s subsequent reactions that make it notably hilarious. And yes, even though Susan exists as a quick-witted (but yet strangely absentminded) young lady Kate is always careful not to lay it on too thick. This isn’t Tracy Lords who revels in her pedestal; Susan is simplistic enough to believe she’s behaving normally. Or she’s so caught up her games she’s convinced herself that’s it normal – either way, it’s the same thing. This measured against Cary’s almost painful reticence (in the first half hour at least) is just too obviously funny for us not be charmed, and yet Hawks doesn’t go about it being completely unsubtle.

But it’s getting to the country house that really gets the ball rolling. Not that the film was on poor ground before, but if before was golden we now enter platinum range. Even as the film has Cary putting on women’s clothing or Kate behaving particularly crazy. We have enough of a payoff to forgive them their slight errors. Even jokes that are not particularly clever like that old stalwart's incessant attempts at imitating the beast. It becomes so rote that the humour is not the coincidence but what becomes the joke is that no one else seems to be getting either. It’s like the finale in the jail room that sometimes make me gnash my teeth and roll my eyes even as I laugh. Hawk just likes to pull our legs and yet the perversion of seeing all our characters in jail is still funny, even when it’s just wrong. It’s not called screwball for nothing. It’s exactly where Bringing Up Baby is better than many of its contemporaries. Hawks is probably going on the notion, all or nothing – and we run the full gamut of ridiculousness that’s also deliciously savoury. This happens all the while as Kate and Cary go around adlibbing, wading in pools and mistaking tigers. It happens all the while as we get taken in again and again by an old woman and her strange dog, and it’s probably the very reason that Bringing Up Baby took so long to find its appreciation in Hollywood. But who cares? It’s easily one of the decades greatest and #24 on my list of favourite films. 

            

No, the day cannot pass without me paying proper tribute to Kate the Great...and giving you LINKS

Simon has a face-off between Kate and Chuck Norris...this could be one for the books

Nick offers up an excellent review of Kate in Summertime...I was going to write about this, but I'll let the dust settle on this before I do...intimidated much

Oooh, Katie got a stamp of her own, Ivan informs us

Anna watches Bringing Up Baby for the first time, she doesn't exactly love it...