Mr. Wong, No. 5 - Doomed to Die (1940)

Staring down the prospect of writing and blogging about Doomed to Die, I fear the same sort of apathy which shattered my meager efforts to opine on the former Fatal Hour. There are a few facts (that is to say, one single fact) to pique interest: Though not quite the last in the series (there’s one more), this is Boris Karloff’s final outing as the plot-resolving Mr. James Lee Wong – a Wong swan song. I wish that filled me with some emotion, any emotion, but it’s surprising just how neutral Karloff has been as the titular detective. I don’t know what to attribute that to, the films’ strident and unusual effort to avoid racism, Monogram’s one-take refusal to ever make a movie remotely beyond barely adequate, or simply an apathy on Karloff’s part which rivals my own. The fact is that here he is at his end, with a far awesomer career surrounding him on all sides…Hell, maybe it was just contracts keeping Karloff around for as many lackluster entries as he did.

So, in light of the challenge which Doomed to Die poses to my icy soul, I shall “live blog it,” as it were, and let my initial reactions form what ultimately makes its way online – An old fallback of mine, when inspiration fails, and something I almost always hate doing (last use: Disaster Movie).

First, let us ignore the opening titles, which reveal nothing, and revel in uncharacteristically stereotypical “Oriental” music. La la la la la…

Okay, movie’s on! Stock footage of a ship segues to stock footage of newspapers flying at us (a common aviation hazard in 1940) to warn of a ship-borne inferno. For a bit of exposition, this is clever enough, even leaning upon Monogram’s loony love of midgets.

Now offices, set-bound boredom replacing stock footage zaniness. The movie’s too quick for me, rushing through three character intros (complete with back story, role, personality, everything, so they never need bother with it again), all in the time it takes me to type up “three.” Let’s see, there’s an attorney Victor Martin (Henry Brandon), the besuitedly bland Matthews (Wilbur Mack), and Wentworth (Melvin Lang), the grand poobah of the bunch – who is the likeliest party for first act murder.


The movie continues to unspool speedily, but sans interest, as I take the time needed to take screen caps…As we learn that Wentworth, apart from being a businessman with a murder-baiting will, also has an inevitable-love-interest daughter Cynthia (Catherine Craig). There’s some exposition which hints, obliquely, at the Manhattan Project – surely Monogram’s typewriter simians didn’t know of this by ’40, but this prediction reflects the increasing wartime concern of the era.

Now a similarly suited Cyrus is here (Melvin Lang), to brag with Wentworth about the shipping business – I recall my habit of exceptional wordiness when keyboard-narrating movies, so it’s time to slow down a bit, maybe read a few online articles while doing this too. [Dur de dur…] Oh, here’s Ted! – And by “Ted” I mean “Dick,” because old movies have muddled dialogue often. Dick is either Wentworth’s son-in-law, or his actual son, and I hope it’s the former, because he’s actively seeking Cynthia’s hand in marriage – yup, there’s the standard Young Lover Couple right there – Where’s Wong?! I demand death!

Okay, this is how these mysteries go: Basically every suspect is mad at every other, specifically mad at Wentworth, who’s gone and – No, wait, Cyrus is the murder victim! That’s a surprise! (Small miracles.) “He’s dead.” Dialogue!


Cynthia’s introduction occurs alongside the return of recurring character “Bobbie” Johnson (Marjorie Reynolds), the damn best thing about these movies – channeling just the slightest hint of screwball energy into these more anemic mysteries. And – that scene didn’t last long. I fear this’ll be the way with Bobbie.

Crime scene, now it’s Bill Street’s (Grant Withers) reintroduction, he the series’ secret main character – more than ever now in this epic example of Wonglessness. Street oversees the investigation with his characteristic incompetence, habitually selecting the male half of the Young Lover Couple as el suspecto numero uno – thus Dick is arrested in a random, stylish unrelated scene.

At the station, Street plays with his shackled Dick, trying to agitate Dick so that Dick might spit forth information. Bobbie is there. Wow, there is nothing of note so far, I’d have nothing to say without this stream-of-consciousness approach to lean upon – only Wong’s continued nonexistence is worth noting, but the character is enough of a blank slate for it to not even matter. Nearly twenty minutes in… (Of 67.)

No wait, here is Wong!


I guess it’s a good thing Wong arrived when he did, because the plot was spiraling helplessly out of control – Wong insists that opening stock footage ship indeed had some pertinence. Furthermore, a few of the poor drowned souls aboard it were Chinese, which in this franchise is always a functional substitute for a genuine clue.

Chineseness being enough, Wong is off to Chinatown, a bi-entry sojourn, owing to Monogram’s limited sets – such as the same apothecary store and tong hideout (though as a sequel, set repetition is excusable, as it is the same setting). Tongs and Wong review potential leads, what with secret missions and whatnot and – Okay, I’m hungry! Time to let the movie unspool in silence while I go and procure some microwaveable taquitos…

…

While those delicious morsels cook up, nothing new to report on the movie end. Tongs prong Wong – with violence – leading to a stock footage car chase and – My food is ready!

…

There’s actual gunfire and blood and crashing cars all about, which is rather closer to the late ‘40s Monogram I’m more familiar with. I – [eat eat eat!] – appreciate this approach, this is nonsensical, but is something Monogram can do to overcome the shallow characters, the inconsequential plot, the general disposability. And with that scant uptick in energy, Karloff actually gets a subtle laugh line – something closer to the Karloff one pictures headlining a detective series.

A scene away from Wong, Street or Bobbie, back to Wentworth’s scheming (concerning Cyrus’ presumed suicide, which hasn’t really been stated clearly yet). This isn’t worth commenting upon. [Eat eat eat!]

Eventually our central trio barges upon the scene, to trade further expository info. Surprise surprise, even in this writing approach, I find I cannot commit to actually listening to this mess. I do not care about how Dick relates to Wentworth and the rest, this being the sort of narrative complexity which is hard to present cinematically – an ongoing struggle of period mysteries. Arghh! There’s some effort at using Dick’s obvious innocence to draw us along emotionally, but he is just a tool for pure technical exposition, the same as everybody else.


[Extended pause to fend off a phone call from my bored friend in Wisconsin.]

Okay, it’s a challenge now to regain grounding in the film, so I’ll just dig out on the noir-tinged cinematography – possibly just an accident of cheap resources and B&W film. It’s still moody and effective, especially since a no doubt soon-to-die cat burglar is being stalked up a fire escape by – is that Wong? Yup. Man has a habit of entering buildings via unusual entries – in this case, a tenth-storey window. It’s something, characterization-wise. Yeah, these silent bits of proto-noir, divorced of earth-bound plots, are the best parts of mysteries – that is, when they aren’t being character comedies.

Street enters, pistol a-blazin’, and scares off the burglar without a single fatality. Things calmed down, I retire to heat up some more snacks…

Thankfully, Doomed to Die switches out inky black suspense for more traded comic barbs, courtesy of Bobbie. Food’s ready!


At some point – it goes to show my continued inattention that I cannot say when – Wentworth was killed, fulfilling the needed secondary death. What with a will and all, he really was doomed. [Eat eat eat!] Wong now begins his clever scheming in anticipation of the climax (some 20 minutes away), demanding infrared film – seeing as it’s 1940, this demands a pause for the Crime Lab™ guys to explain to Bobbie (women – sheesh) just what infrared film is, and why we should use it to exterminate the Nazis. Naturally, a lengthy development scene follows, to further ground this new technology. Thankfully, the Bobbie/Street love-hate relationship fuels this scene with humor. Wong remains mostly tiresome.

Down to the docks, to another shadowy Monogram set – Docks, for that automatic injection of atmosphere (unpictured)! The plot reasoning for this – to follow up on a new name on the ship’s manifest, but if you couldn’t tell, I’m beyond trying with this story. Wong, Street and Bobbie all separately creep around dark corridors, in a manner Ed Wood, Jr. would refer to as “lurking.” Bobbie sees something off screen, screams girlishly, and I suppose I can forgive this lapse into female ‘40s stereotyping, seeing as Bobbie is usually totally adverse to such shenanigans. And it reveals the occasional (but not set-in-stone) third corpse, identity yet unknown. (Future edit: It’s Tie Ling, the Asian guy they’ve come down to check up on.)


The creeping scene continues; in fact, the characters’ comic interplay mixes with it, yielding quite possibly the most engaging single sequence yet for Wong & Co. Perhaps energized by these more overtly horrific qualities, Karloff even tosses a little light ham-acting into his Wong – trilled recitations on Chinese artifact history. Things are exciting enough, I’ve even forgotten all about my taquitos. [Eat eat eat!]

And…another fat, style-free exposition scene in the police station. Doomed to Die has been operating at such a relatively elevated level for long enough, some downtime is earned. Time to debate the implications of the latest clues found, as I tune out. I similarly ignore Bobbie’s misconstruing of hari kari as “harry harry.” Odd how everyone (sans Wong, natch) keeps insisting upon suicide for each death, even while the latest dude was stabbed in the back. (Some of this is self-aware, and thus lightly humorous.)

Exposition scene. Ignored. All in service of stiffening Dick’s and Cynthia’s lovey-doveyness.


Time remains only for a climax. For whatever reason, Doomed to Die errs as it did at the start by refocusing upon a house of tiresome suspects. Among them is a larger old man I’ve probably confused with Wentworth throughout the picture, because I only now become aware of him – Paul Fleming (Guy Usher). And…he’s dead, shot, murdered, and someone’s responsible. (Here is a fault in this “immediate response” approach, because the instant I finish that sentence, it turns out Paul isn’t dead, but oh well.)

All this gets Wong, Street, Bobbie, all the people we care about – it gets them assembled with the rest. It plays according to clockwork: Wong makes a surprise allegation so Street can arrest the proper villain, and I’m too ethical as a blogger (and also I’m not paying enough attention) to reveal that shock ending to you. And though this finale isn’t terribly functional, it is a virtue of older movies that they know to quit before things get worse – the movie ended something like a minute ago, in typing time.

In conclusion (what creative writing!), Doomed to Die surprises me more than anyone by being halfway entertaining. Maybe it’s a result of this type-as-I-go approach, but I think it’s something as simple as an increase of stylish ‘40s cinematography. Repeatedly, these forgotten old B-movies excel at visuals, and flounder with narrative – which separate nicely. One recalls Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, which was praised by some of his contemporaries solely for its surreal visuals. The plot is decent, and works, but is mostly frivolous. Doomed to Die works in a similar, but much humbler, level. That is all.

Mr. Wong, No. 6 - Phantom of Chinatown (1940)

Losing the lead actor isn’t necessarily the death knell for a franchise. But with Boris Karloff’s departure from the Mr. Wong series, there was no more need for Wongs – not that Karloff particularly brought anything to the series, except his mere presence. Oddly, Karloff proved the universe wrong and found a role he could be boring in, but that name on the marquee was enough to fuel five movies entirely on its own. With Karloff off, there is now no reason for Monogram to wring Wongs for long – to say nothing that the Wong “creative” team (director: William Nigh, writer: some guys). So, freed from the expectation that the final Wong is anything but a one-off, new director Phil Rosen (familiar from many an East Side Kids film, notably Spooks Run Wild) does something wholly unprecedented for a series about an Asian detective:

He hires an Asian actor!

Between the sixty-one shared films of Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Mr. Wong (the curiously prolific “Chinese detective” sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-subgenre of mystery movies), only one film goes beyond the white race when casting its hero, and that’d be this movie, the final Wong – Phantom of Chinatown. Amazing to think that there was a time in Hollywood when slapping some yellowface and falsely slanty eyes on a Caucasian was the preferable alternative to providing minority actors with employment…which goes to show how progressive the overall Mr. Wong series has been to simply respect its Mr. Wong character, and not characterize him as an archaic and unsubtle stereotype. And when you’re casting a legitimate Asian lead in 1940 Hollywood, there is literally only one name on that list: Keye Luke


Keye Luke kicks ass! (Ignore the white guy on the right.) Luke was America’s sole Asian leading man of his generation – arguably, things wouldn’t evolve beyond that until Bruce Lee crossed over in Enter the Dragon. (Luke anticipated Lee even by playing Cato, the Green Hornet’s inarguably more competent sidekick.) Hell, by 1961, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hollywood was still allowing its noble Caucasians run condescending rampage over a whole continent’s people!

Anyway, Keye Luke is awesome, and totally comfortable in the Asian mystery format, having long played Charlie Chan’s “Number One Son” Lee. It is an example of Luke’s never-tested acting skill that his one-film interpretation of Wong is nothing like his more naïve, enthusiastic Lee. In Phantom of Chinatown, Luke channels some degree of Karloff’s flat, almost nonexistent performance, but makes it interesting. Consider it: Karloff’s seeming intent with Wong was to be inoffensive – a damned hard thing to do when the costumer has given you prosthetic buckteeth. Karloff’s solution was to make Wong completely without personality – unless the world’s blandest stoicism counts – as an effort to avoid anything which might be construed as anti-Asian. This was his defining trait, to be not stereotypical, and yet Wong remained defined by his Asianness – a thankless paradox, in light of Karloff’s unmistakable English background.

Luke avoids the pitfalls of Karloff’s interpretation by being Asian. Thus he needn’t worry about demeaning an “other,” and must only be concerned with not appearing like the Chinese equivalent of Stepin Fetchit – a role which series regular (or as he’d say, “legural”) Lee Tung Foo has inhabited ever since Mr. Wong, Detective. Instead, Luke plays Wong as a normal person – a completely radical interpretation of race circa 1940, to be sure! To maintain continuity, Luke channels Karloff’s uncharacteristic blandness, but turns it into a straight-faced, deadpan irony. Actually, there’s a bit more to Luke’s surprisingly subtle, varied Wong, which leads to another way in which Phantom of Chinatown is a shockingly atypical movie:

It is a prequel!


Prequels weren’t yet common in the film franchise vernacular by 1940, and Phantom of Chinatown doesn’t advertise this fact, but it remains evident that Luke’s Wong is a younger, less experienced version who would eventually morph into Karloff – race-bending and all!

To prove this is a prequel, and not just typical 1940 half-assed discontinuity (a commonplace occurrence among Poverty Row franchises), Luke’s Wong has only just arrived in San Francisco. He lives out of a hotel with Foo. He first meets Police Captain Street (Grant Withers, officially becoming the sole actor to weather the entire six-film series...eh, he and Foo), and solves his first murder mystery – drawn into it because of a coincidental Oriental connection (and no accidental Occidental!). There are even subtler details, such as the presence of a cop named Grady, whose unseen murder would eventually fuel Part Four, The Fatal Hour.

Sadly, this unofficial prequel status negates the possibility of Marjorie Reynolds’ fantastic Bobbie Logan returning, but Luke more than makes up for that deficiency.

So…prequel when they weren’t made, starring a Chinese actor in a leading role…it’s as though Rosen & Co. knew there was no need to perpetuate the series, and were simply shattering some well-shattered taboos. The result is, to be contrarian with average internet opinion (which holds, predicably, that Part One is always the best), I think the very best film in the Wong throng, made that way by the freedom of being the last.


Hell, even the desultory murder mystery angle is a little fresher this time around! Luke aside, the movie as a whole is a damn lot clearer under Rosen than any of Nigh’s efforts. (Because complex mysteries were never the Wong forte.) Recall, the cases formerly have involved such scintillating non-issues as check fraud, bank statements, multiple unofficial drafts of wills, radio contracts, shipping manifests, and other such effluvia I’ve struggled to give half a shit about. Phantom of Chinatown is instead about archeology! This is awesome!

The opening seems hardly to belong in the Wong swan song. Stock footage unspools about an archeological expedition into Darkest Mongolia, but here it’s legitimately presented as footage – that is, part of a post-trek lecture, so we needn’t play the game of pretending it fits in with Monogram’s rather less grainy original film stock. And in an era where newsreels were one’s window into the world, showing genuine footage of Mongolia has worth. Then, in the midst of this, we randomly flashback to a portion of the archeologists’ journey, simply because Monogram had a temple set lying around.


Cutting to the chase, lecturer Dr. Benton (Charles F. Miller) dies in full audience view when he sips some poisoned water. The suspect roster is comprised of his expedition partners, filling the usual roles – including Lover Couple and Random Crusty Old Dude. As Street and Wong separately look into the matter, for their separate reasons, the motive underlying all this becomes welcomely clear: The killer seeks a scroll. A scroll detailing the whereabouts of the Temple of Eternal Fire (!), and its treasure – which isn’t ancient relics, but oil deposits. Ooh, timely!

You know, phrasing a murder mystery in the genre trappings of an old Republic serial – i.e. if Indiana Jones did more detection, and less Nazi-punching – makes things so much easier to follow. Simply as a common movie motif, pulpy tomb raiding carries rules and connotations, whereas check fraud does not. What follows, for the rest of the film, is remarkably clear, all because “wants a scroll” is as simple as “wants the Ark,” or “the Maltese Falcon,” or “the microfilm.”


Such simplicity is in keeping with Phantom’s prequel status, since Luke’s Wong is just getting a feel for this whole gumshoe thing. He teams up quickly enough with Street. As an example of Phantom’s unique take on the mystery genre, Street and Wong even acknowledge how formulaic the story they’ve found themselves in appears. Each admits – this is the first time an old mystery film has copped to this standard – that the most obvious suspect is never the killer, at least in fiction. This attitude never gets too smarmily “meta,” partly because that wasn’t really an option circa 1940, but it shows Rosen approached Wong more critically than Nigh ever did.

The entire Wong series has distinguished itself by being racially progressive, at least for its time, underplaying or thumbing its nose at then-common notions of “Oriental exoticism.” Phantom of Chinatown takes this idea the furthest, beyond its casting of Luke, by populating a massive amount of the supporting cast with other Asians. The tradeoff of this spontaneous affirmative action is that there were hardly any other Asian actors then available. Lotus Long, long-time (heh?) regular series victim, is promoted to leading lady status, which seems a little beyond her acting abilities, though I’m glad they gave her the chance. Most other Asian actors appear to be complete amateurs. Overall, however, this is a minor problem.


Keye Luke is really the lucky key to Phantom of Chinatown – the mystery, though clear, is mostly disposable, and many other elements on hand aren’t distinct enough from the regular Wong throng (or any Monogram effort, for that matter). Wong is clearly learning his chops (suey – sorry, that’s a joke these films would make), like an incredibly minor variation on Casino Royale’s chief pleasures. That self-aware attitude serves Wong through the end, since he’s not a master detective, not in this version, but just a guy copying what the movies show him. So to finally catch the killer, Wong uses a Charlie Chan Special™ - without actual knowledge or clues, instead he fakes the appearance of such, and instead lays an ambush. The crook(s) is/are arrested, and Wong doesn’t even deign to conclude with a know-it-all expository lecture to fill us all it. That isn’t needed, for things are clear enough already. Events are fast paced, which more than offsets the procedural structure. The characters, especially Wong, are more engaging than usual, proving that is a mystery film’s true bread and butter.

Keye Luke never enjoyed another role nearly as prominent as this one, though he worked prolifically for the rest of a fruitful career, well into the 1980s. Most of Luke’s credits remain in the B-movie miasma of Monogram and their competitors, which is no slight to what he might’ve achieved in a later generation. Phantom of Chinatown, though generic, stands as an example of what might’ve been, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

The Tramp, No. 6 - Modern Times (1936)

Oh multitudes of ironically ironic ironies! The final silent film made in the silent film era is called Modern Times. And that titular dichotomy is no accident.

Charlie Chaplin persisted in his refusal to kowtow to the overwhelmingly popular “fad” of talking pictures, with their vulgar verbiage, for if anything would destroy the Tramp (synonymous with Chaplin himself), it’s sesquipedalian loquaciousness. To release a silent picture in 1936 is a work of dog headed ludditism, but surely Chaplin knew that time was coming to an end for his Little Tramp. The Tramp’s so-called franchise was dated, not for a loss of popularity or quality or inspiration or proliferation (all these things it excelled at – quite possibly among the most triumphant film franchises ever), but by technology itself! Thus Modern Times doesn’t simply stand as a final farewell to the Tramp, but to an entire form of filmmaking he represented.

With technology (sound technology) making the Tramp obsolete, Chaplin chooses for the theme of his little guy’s final outing technology itself. Though have no doubt that with the Great Depression still in full swing, the Tramp’s position as the silent spokesman for an entire class of underprivileged makes him as potent as ever. But once again, as with City Lights, the march of time changes the nature of poverty right underneath the Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. No more bindles and apple cores, like some John Schwartzwelder script. Progress has come for our Little Tramp, and with it industrialization, atomization, and the dehumanization that implies.


Modern Times thus opens in a lovingly designed Art Deco factory floor, all oversized steel gears and degraded laborers performing repetitive tasks upon the assembly line. Oh, and the Tramp’s there too, working the assembly line like Donald Duck and Lucy Ricardo would do after him. As always with Chaplin’s films, the humor comes directly from the Tramp himself, an alien creature in a more recognizably human world, acting in ways humorously divergent from proper behavior. An abstract grotesque like the Tramp is a good way to engender yuks, but it’s pretty hard to critique an entire system of production with such a tool. (That’s what she said!)

Make no mistake, Chaplin intends a Grand Sweeping Statement with Modern Times, his most overtly political film yet – until he’d take on ze Nazis. It’s kinda hard to miss Chaplin’s point about the drudgery of the capitalist industrial complex when the movie opens by juxtaposing sheep with factory laborers. I suppose at one point that was a clever comparison, and not a fallback for internet trolls. And while some of Chaplin’s past efforts have begged us to consider his politics, it’s practically impossible not to now. Okay…Chaplin was a leftist. To ask the FBI, he was a Communist. He is undoubtedly critical of capitalism, for all the inhumane worker conditions and whatnot. Former filmic efforts have dramatized the plight of the poor, but at last, by directly addressing the system, Chaplin discovers satire, and can have an impact – not with sympathetic, humanist portrayals of the poor, but with specific criticisms of the Robbers Baron (or is that Robber Barons?).


All this places Modern Times squarely in a realm of propaganda…sort of. The image of the Tramp and his coworkers struggling against anti-human forms of machinery recalls many a Soviet effort. Metropolis, a similarly minded German Expressionist masterwork, presents similar imagery. There’s possibly a bit of Dziga Vertov in here too, but with the irony that Chaplin cannot celebrate his adopted nation’s (that’d be the U.S.) technical might, because he is somewhat ideologically opposed to it. I feel this is becoming an ugly summary.

One of Chaplin’s most potent filmic techniques for condemning technology (oh the ironies in that statement!) is quite perfect for his chosen format: the use of dialogue. Say wha?!?! In a silent film?!?! Oh yeah, Modern Times one ups City Lights as a pseudo-silent, building on that film’s synchronized soundtrack by adding in actual chatter...but with a point. The only comprehensible verbiage is spoken through machines, be it via telephone or recordings or oddly retro-futurist tell-o-visual-matic device machineries (i.e. TVs). Genuine human discussion is still rendered, when needed, through title cards. This is a clever means, very in keeping with City Lights, to disregard sound film, even if there’s no particular persuasiveness to this argument.

The Tramp’s time on the factory floor is, while politically loaded, comedic gold – a wholly realized combination of setting and gags and Chaplin’s celebrated pantomime. It climaxes as the Tramp is sucked down into the machine’s innards, made so insane by his repetitive job that he can no longer physically control himself (note the over-your-head message).


This image somewhat recalls Buster Keaton’s great moment of despair in The General, when he is carried away unawares on a train’s spinning rod. Man against machine was always Keaton’s favorite theme, with the whole world presented as a mathematical device pitted against the hero – who could only overcome through technical superiority. Keaton’s comedy is deadpan and relatively rigid, most unlike Chaplin’s fluid, often overacted cartoonish lunacy. Thus pitting Chaplin against a gewgaw yields a very different end result, one focused upon his outsized physical gyrations – Chaplin becomes a part of the machine, and retains those traits upon leaving the factory, while Keaton makes the machine a part of himself.

At this point, Modern Times would make for a fantastic short film, with the Tramp’s time in the factory almost exactly two reels long. The movie has peaked, with still an hour to go and nothing nearly so pointed to do with it.

Unemployed and out on the streets, the Tramp reverts to his usual hobo ways. Much of that sleek set design, so striking against the Tramp’s old-fashioned frame, gives way for a more blandly realistic look at industrial slums – like something from the Italian neo-realist school. There are social problems to explore, like picketing and riots – resulting in the Tramp leading a Communist parade. While this is potentially an honest mistake, one can kind of see where the FBI’s suspicions arose. The Tramp is tossed into prison, where a new set of comic set pieces can arise to no ultimate end (be it narrative or thematic), and so on.


The rest of Modern Times is a largely disparate collection of comic moments, some of them notably stronger than others – with only a rather light basting of industry and “modern” technology to connect them. (A frankly stronger version of the same notion can be found in Jacques Tati’s Play Time.) Narrative fragmentation is a common feature of Chaplin’s, er, features, owing to his sporadic and improvisatory means of working (also his peculiar perfectionism). Somehow this episodic construction feels more damning in Modern Times, which doesn’t have as strong of an emotional through-line as some of Chaplin’s more overtly melodramatic works. It’s simply assorted random settings:

- The department store
- The shack
- The dance hall
- The prison
- The docks
- The suburbs
- A brief return to the factory

There is a larger connective tissue than simply assorted misadventures. Any guesses as to what that will be? Yup, a Girl. Specifically, a Gamine, which is (I suppose) a rather more specific generic appellation – “gamine” meaning a female hobo, but somehow also meaning what Audrey Hepburn once was, which is a difficult thing to reconcile. As usual, Chaplin casts his…er, let’s say “girlfriend,” because it’s unclear whether he was ever actually married to Paulette Goddard, unless a legally questionable and possibly apocryphal ceremony in China counts. Anyway, Paulette Goddard plays the leading lady, and I must say, she is easily the best gal in a Chaplin picture!


Goddard’s Gamine is a feisty young woman, self-dependent as she steals bread for herself and her fellow hungry wharf rats. Her poverty rivals – nay, exceeds – that of the Tramp’s in any picture, possibly because it comes across as infinitely more realistic. The Gamine is a thoroughly believable person, and thankfully separate from the standard silent film tactic of wilting violet female leads. The Gamine is anything but naïve, and makes a remarkably strong impression in her introduction, an extended dramatic sequence of survival entirely removed from the Tramp’s tomfoolery. Though Chaplin the director does insert some rather cloying melodrama into this section, Goddard nicely sells it.

It helps that Goddard seems, visually, quite out of place in a silent feature – or really any film from its period. Her facial structure, hair and expressions all seem – to excuse the obvious word – modern. There is nothing of the twenties’ doe-eyed waifs in her appearance, no period signifiers of attractiveness – nor does Goddard overplay her beauty. Covered in oil and rags, with sneaky little sideways glances throughout, she rather acts against her beauty, which comes across through a rambunctious energy instead.

It is inevitable that she shall share a romance with the Tramp, though it’s surprising just how equal that romance is. Both are of the same class, put there by social conditions. They are on a surprisingly equal footing in every sense, so Modern Times completely skips any “getting to know you” period (which Chaplin’s films often don’t move beyond). Tramp and the Gamine are a couple from the outset. A lot of the set pieces that follow are then centered upon their domestic life, be it in poverty, in fantasy, or hidden in the department store.


This is Chaplin telling a domestic comedy, in a sense, though marriage is never broached (from what I can tell). That’s a surprising scenario for a silent comedy to take, simply because it feels out of place with the format’s usual regard for “boy meets girl” stories. Take it as a sign of maturity, or of changing times, but there’s a lot in Modern Times which feels out of place in silent cinema – sleek design, Goddard’s timeless appearance, suburban domesticity…cocaine (which would feel out of place in any movie prior to the 1960s, and results in the Tramp’s same basic untempered zaniness). Domesticity is the most interesting element, because there are daydream moments where the Tramp and the Gamine basically picture themselves on the set of a 1950s sitcom. How anachronistic! Obviously a spotlessly clean scene out of “Leave It to Beaver” was conceivable in the ‘30s, in order for Chaplin to parody it. Still, this mode of comedy is light-years separated from the dusty, earthy stunt work most associated with the era.


Yes, a lot of Modern Times is atypical, and while there is no doubt as to its classic status, it is difficult at times to square away with Chaplin’s main body of work (best exemplified by City Lights). Since this is meant as the Tramp’s final farewell, it pushes him to the apocalyptic limits – cocaine, the 1950s predicted, breadline riots, all material that is utterly alien to the Tramp, and perhaps an argument for his departure. How does Chaplin end such a statement?

Well, the climax comes first – in Chaplin’s work, often a bravura stunt sequence. Modern Times, true to its form, goes an idiosyncratic route instead…

THE TRAMP VOCALIZES!

Worry not, he doesn’t speak (which would violate Chaplin’s conception of the little guy), but he’s called upon to perform a song at the club he and the Gamine now work. As a fun little meta joke that wouldn’t be possible without a career of silence behind him, Chaplin milks the moments leading up to the Tramp’s singing for all they’re worth. And…the Tramp sings “The Nonsense Song,” filled with verbiage in the same sense that a James Joyce novel is filled with things that some would call words. Gibberish, in other words. Literally off the cuff, where the smeared lyrics are written. This retains the illusion of the Tramp’s verbal “otherness,” and creates a moment the character cold never improve upon.


The final shot provides closure for the entirety of the Tramp’s adventures. The classical ending sees the Tramp walking alone down the road – “The Lonely Man” from “The Incredible Hulk” optional. Only this time the Tramp is joined by the Gamine, his female counterpart – each abandoned by the ever-evolving nature of progress, but complete together. The Tramp has gotten the girl before, in The Gold Rush and assorted shorts, but this has a greater air of permanence. This is the Tramp still as the Tramp, not transformed by narrative circumstances into someone else.

As a postscript, Modern Times by no means signaled the end of Chaplin’s career, though it would be the last time he would appear as the Tramp. The distinction is somewhat academic, because in The Great Dictator Chaplin appears in two roles with arguable Tramp-like tendencies – as a Jewish barber, and as an ersatz Hitler. (Charlie Chaplin : Adolf Hitler :: Tina Fey : Sarah Palin) The Great Dictator, openly critical of Nazi Germany before it was cool, is a talkie, with a specific plot the Tramp simply does not fit into. For these reasons, it is not a part of the Tramp “continuity” – the Tramp’s essential pantomime is gone, even if Chaplin’s barber retains the Tramp’s visual appearance. Chaplin morphed his Tramp into new characters, evolved him beyond his very Trampiness. It isn’t a clean break, as The Great Dictator is still dependent upon memories of the Tramp, but it is fundamentally different.

The Tramp, No. 5 - City Lights (1931)

“A comedy romance in pantomime.”

City Lights: The world’s second greatest movie, so says the British Film Institute circa 1952 (second to Bicycle Thieves, which is more foreign and therefore better). Orson Welles’ favorite movie. Nearly so for Kubrick. More recently, AFI’s top romantic comedy, thirty-eighth best comedy, but somehow better than that overall at eleventh. IMDb’s highest-ranked silent film.

City Lights is very well Charlie Chaplin’s ultimate creation, even if he would personally point to something else (The Gold Rush) as his masterpiece – owing no doubt to the happier circumstances of its creation. City Lights is the essential Chaplin, the essential Little Tramp, because it unites all of Chaplin’s chief concerns into a single whole – his pathos, slapstick, pantomime, obsession with class as seen by a dignified vagabond. If the earlier, 1910s Tramp shorts created a formula (Tramp seeks Girl, usually fails), and longer features then explored that fundamental relationship through other entities such as a dog (A Dog’s Life) or a child (The Kid), then City Lights comes full circle, and wholly examines the Tramp and the Girl relationship at feature length, with the maturity of time. Unlike The Gold Rush (where the Girl’s presence is barely tolerable, for me) and The Circus (where she is a painless, necessary evil), in City Lights she is fundamental, essential for Chaplin to cement his combination of comedy and drama.


It is highly worth noting that City Lights is a silent movie, as have been all of Chaplin’s films so far. But it’s 1931 now, four years following The Jazz Singer, and the film industry has switched over to talkies with a dedication that should make today’s lunatic 3-D zealots blush. From 1929 onwards, one could nearly count on but two hands the silent movies released with that intent – it was no time to be a luddite, or nostalgic for an outdated format. Chaplin is a large part of this minor holdout, as he had the cachet to be free even from overarching entertainment meta-narratives – Buñuel, Murnau and Ozu are among the few other late-adopters.

The decision to retain silence is central to City Lights, which wouldn’t hold nearly its potency were it a product of but a few years earlier. Chaplin’s Tramp was, in Chaplin’s mind, purely a silent pantomime character, a wholly exaggerated, unreal figure whose very essence would be lost with speech – and keep in mind talkies of 1931 were largely word-obsessed harangues, never-ending diatribes delivered rapidly and unintelligibly before a static, disinterested camera. Truly a lot of cinema’s beauty was lost with the technological transition to chattiness, chiefly its air of spectacle, now that movies were limited to a soundstage. The very fundamental nature of filmmaking changed, to the extent where breathless exposition became a crutch, and it’s still difficult to find a movie which truly makes the utmost of its visual nature.

For Chaplin, his perfectionist approach to filming wouldn’t work with sound, which necessitates a script preplanned to the nth degree prior to shooting – totally at odds with Chaplin’s love (shared by most other silent film practitioners) for relative improvisation. A Chaplin joint would be sketched out in only the broadest terms prior to shooting, then largely made up on the spot – valuable for a clown like Chaplin, where the “voodoo of location” informs the performance greatly. In cinematic comedy, only recently is some degree of improvisation creeping back, but in a Judd Apatow form which isn’t really comparable. Hence, Chaplin-wise, sequences often follow with a sort of semi-logic, resulting in simple (but not simplistic) plots which are perfectly happy to give way to isolated comic set pieces. Hence the four-year gap between Chaplin films, and their astoundingly consistent quality.


City Lights is not, however, a pure silent film – not technically. It employs a synchronized soundtrack. Chaplin’s orchestrated music is married forever to the visuals onscreen – which is pretty similar to silent-era musical accompaniment, which Chaplin dictated for live performers, but couldn’t control as readily. (See the 1942 reissue of The Gold Rush for a similar approach.) On top of that, Chaplin incorporates “sound effects” into City Lights, and numerous gag routines simply would not work in pure silence: The Tramp, at a hoi polloi shindig of well-heeled snobs, swallows a whistle. He hiccups, it rings, and as a capper, the Tramp becomes Pied Piper to a motley crew of itinerant hound dogs. (A boxing bell serves a similar purpose later on.) Even as recently as 1927, such a scene wouldn’t even be legible. This is an example of Chaplin taking advantage of new technology as he saw fit – approximating something closer to live stage vaudeville – without being beholden to it. (This approach predicts the silent film homages of Jacques Tati.) It’s worth noting that the “sound effects” are really just pieces of music, like the noises reverse-engineered into Fantasia. Most of what appears visually makes no diagetic sound.

Nearly all of City Lights’ dialogue is conveyed the old-fashioned way: through title cards. The sole counterexample occurs at the very start, where a public speech is rendered aurally in “Peanuts”-style “wah-wah-wah-wah-wah” verbal nonsense – a succinct little parody of sound cinema, one I am wholly sympathetic to.

It’s a testament to Chaplin’s popularity and his control over the medium that City Lights was wholly embraced in the midst of a technological revolution. It stands as a treatise of what silence can do that chatter chatter chatter cannot, and thus becomes almost a textbook example of Chaplin. The setting, as per the title, is the city, notably the same basic gutter the Tramp often finds himself in when a more specific locale is unavailable. Such is possibly needed, to best comment upon the old Tramp archetype. There is one notable change, however: It’s now the Great Depression, with social and technological evolution wildly altering the Tramp’s familiar world. His own destitution now reads more clearly, as poverty was a greater daily fact than during the heady days of the ‘20s (at least, it seems more historically appropriate now in 2011).


Chaplin dwells upon class more strongly than usual, countering the Tramp (with his false airs towards sophistication) with a Millionaire (Harry Myers) whose recent financial failures push him in the opposite direction, towards the Tramp’s sphere. If I am still a little opposed to Chaplin’s unconditional hagiography of bums (seeing as he is a multi-millionaire), at least the historical context makes it more acceptable. But the Tramp is really a tool for framing more naturalistic characters, so it helps when all the characters exist in the same economic universe as he.


Romance is central to City Lights, and here it goes: Tonight’s Girl (Virginia Cherrill, only barely capable by Chaplin’s exacting, holier-than-thou standards, leading to occasional unsuccessful recasting and reshoots)…er, tonight’s Girl is a blind flower saleswoman. She is impoverished, at the same station as the Tramp, but beautiful, and therefore out of his league – or at least the Tramp leaps silently to this conclusion. He begins to court her, but with the lightly comic conceit that he must convince her all the while that he is wealthy.

Aiding the Tramp unintentionally in this rouse is the drunken, suicidal Millionaire, who, once the Tramp saves his inebriated life, enjoys a close friendship with him – but only when the Millionaire is wasted. Once sobriety rises its ugly, hangover-ridden head, the plutocrat cannot recognize the Tramp. Still, the Tramp has occasional access to items of wealth, allowing for a more maudlin variation on Tony Curtis’ yacht seduction in Some Like it Hot.


Notice immediately how neither the Girl nor the Millionaire is able to visually recognize the Tramp – which is important, because in silent cinema (unlike talkies), appearance is all there is. Especially with the Girl, Chaplin stages scenes according to the senses, with the only sense we can experience being the one sense the Girl is not afforded. Through her blindness, the Girl becomes a means to discuss (silent) cinema as a total, using a wholly cinematic (i.e. non-conversational) means to do so.


City Lights isn’t huge on plot – it mostly ping pongs the Tramp between the Girl and the Millionaire, with the Millionaire’s occasional inability to recognize the Tramp getting in his way of fooling the Girl into misidentifying him – whoo, my head hurts! Within this framework, as in most Chaplin efforts, there is plenty of room for gag sequences which would play perfectly well on their own as shorts. Mainly, the Tramp takes on an assortment of odd jobs, all done for the Girl’s benefit, and not out of need due to his own poverty – the Tramp’s personal destitution, though rather inescapable because of his archetypal nature, is little more than an ornamental detail.

The Tramp’s jobs range according to Chaplin’s random whims, owing to the broad, generic possibilities of the city setting. Notably, he becomes a pooper scooper and an amateur boxer. The former affords the single most tasteful elephant feces joke cinema has to offer. Tom Green, Chaplin ain’t. The latter creates a boxing sequence which stands as one of Chaplin’s single most celebrated routines, worthy of solo examination…

The Tramp attempts to fix a fight against another boxer, and split the winnings (instead of his skull). Circumstances conspire, as is their wont, so the Tramp instead faces a genuine threat in the ring (it’s Champ vs. Tramp), with only his (the Tramp’s) own arhythmic semi-comic gyrations to protect him. But the Tramp survives for quite a long while, simply by keeping the referee between himself and the boxer. There is some very careful choreography between the three men, and therefore the scene mostly plays out in a single wide shot, to highlight that fact. It seems most of Chaplin’s feature films showcase one show-stopping sequence such as this – The Kid’s vision of Heaven, The Gold Rush’s teetering cabin, The Circus’ trapeze act. Most of the time, this penultimate sequence promises guaranteed enjoyment, even if the overall film doesn’t perfectly work.


It is my curmudgeonly flaw that much of City Lights irks me ever so slightly, in the way all of Chaplin’s oeuvre does. The Girl needs money for that most melodramatic of reasons – she’s sick. The Kid, in its dramatic moments, similarly tugged at the heartstrings in a way which just feels cheap and unearned. Naturally, Chaplin’s narrative assumes the Girl and her family will not be able to pay the doctor’s bill (to say nothing of the late-due rent, just to add to the sorrow orgy). Therefore it’s up to the Tramp to raise the cash, for completely selfless reasons…which is totally selfish of Chaplin. We cheer on the Tramp, and by proxy Chaplin, for this fictional act of charity…or we’re meant to. Along with the occasional camera glances Chaplin insists upon, it’s a little too self-conscious, especially when the Tramp is more an incredibly complex system of tics rather than a genuine human being (which is simultaneously the Tramp’s greatest asset, but the reason I cannot side with him nearly as strongly as the everymen of Keaton or Lloyd).

Later on, the Tramp’s amateur philanthropy is motivated by a quest to purchase $1,000 eyeball surgery. This is more sensible, less melodramatic, and it works with that whole cinematic metaphor, so it’s good.

Meanwhile, the Tramp can never raise cash. Every job instead leads to comic failure. It is an old comedy standby that the hero can never catch a break, that a sitcom protagonist is always denied riches in favor of the status quo. That’s totally appropriate for the loosey-goosey serialization of the Tramp’s anti-continuous franchise. But he’s not doing this for himself, but for the Girl. The universe conspiring to deny her a surgery is only funny if it’s a greater hardship for the Tramp – and it isn’t. His philanthropy (already questionable) gets in the way of laughs, while aiming for emotion. I am a hard nut, and a movie which abandons laffs for seriousness is, to me, fundamentally flawed. It’s insincere.

The greatest issue, though, is the simple, eternal fact of the Chaplin universe: the poor cannot succeed on their own. I don’t wish to open some debate, but it’s a strange, anti-Horatio Alger sort of argument for a humanist, populist filmmaker like Chaplin to put forth. When the Tramp does amass cash, it’s simply as a random, unearned gift from the drunken Millionaire – it’s always, always, ALWAYS a deus ex machina with Chaplin! This is actually a greater fairytale than a story about “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.” Wealth may only be obtained by random dumb luck. What the hell sort of a message is that?!


Besides, the Millionaire sobers up almost instantly after paying the Tramp (following a rather left-field burglar sequence), and thus thinks the Tramp is stealing. Thus the Tramp flees from the cops – that old standby. In some fundamental sense, the Tramp always steals, and though this is different, it feels equally problematic.

All that aside, the moment comes for the Girl’s sight surgery. The ending to City Lights is famously regarded as one of the most brilliant, moving moments in film. I have never been able to watch this scene without the baggage of that claim weighing down upon me. I’ve never felt the raw emotive power others describe – intellectually I kinda get it, so let’s just leave it in those terms…

Chaplin’s films are often defined by their endings, be they happy or sad. What City Lights does well, without revealing too much detail (because you really ought to see it for yourself, in spite of my personal apathy), is that it creates an open-ended resolution. What occurs has the potential for bliss or tragedy. The conclusion also ties up all of City Lights’ silent film metaphorics, in a way that is a great big question mark about the future of cinema. Given Chaplin’s own ambivalence towards talk, that feels like the best way to leave things off.

X-Men, No. 5 - X-Men: First Class (2011)

Director Matthew Vaughn was at one point to be Bryan Singer’s replacement for X-Men: The Last Stand. Then he became absolutely fed up with the asinine producers behind it, and abandoned the project to the demented grasp of…uh, whatsisface (Brett Ratner). We know how that turned out: a mediocre movie at best by its own terms, and a complete travesty to the X-Men series. Vaughn has gone on record to say, in no uncertain terms, that he (Vaughn) could have injected ten times the emotional gravity in what ought to have been the definitive X-Men.

Now Vaughn has his second chance, with X-Men: First Class, and that’s ceased to be hot air! He’s inherited the increasingly dire prospects of the cinematic “X-Men,” and created something which doesn’t’ simply meet Singer’s initial high plateau – Vaughn’s entry arguably exceeds it, nearing Iron Man and The Dark Knight in the superhero pantheon, while splitting their tonal difference.


Conceptually, First Class isn’t necessarily such a promising prospect. It is another godforsaken X-Men prequel, after X-Men Origins: Wolverine demonstrated the complete uselessness of that notion. In fact, First Class shares many of the same likely difficulties of Wolverine: as a prequel, events and arcs are preordained. Furthermore, there’s a notoriously complex cinematic continuity to pay lip service to, for as much as First Class has every right to do like the eventual Amazing Spider-Man and reboot, it’s still of a piece with X-Men, X2, and all the rest…mostly. Amongst nerd arguments, there are certainly timeline discrepancies, though mostly with the latter, Singerless X-Men – and First Class gets the benefit of the doubt for disregarding The Last Stand, frankly.

Again, conceptually, First Class potentially shares some of The Last Stand’s problems too. Basically, it is as overstuffed as an “X-Men” movie could wish to be, not merely trumpeting a ridiculous panoply of supporting mutant characters, but featuring mostly new mutants on top of that, with an unwieldy mess of subplots and motivations to keep straight and make clear. In fact, First Class is by a significant degree the most out-of-control X-Men, featuring not just a new location, but a new continent for damn well every scene of its first half.


Against all these odds, these hindrances barely register – I only pick up on them for having recently re-endured the lesser entries. It is to Vaughn’s inestimable credit, a youthful vigor and energy, that First Class’s hyperactivity is exciting and not tiring. I cannot fully identify just what Vaughn does differently to accomplish this, though no doubt he has a greater genuine enthusiasm for the “X-Man” brand than Ratner or Gavin Hood ever did. It helps to take advantage of the preordained facts of First Class as schemed up by Fox: a period piece detailing how Magneto and Professor X begin the X-Men, in light of mankind’s upcoming struggles against mutanthood. For one thing, First Class isn’t merely set in the 1960s, it embraces this era in precisely the way Wolverine totally refused to. It helps that the ‘60s are infinitely cooler than the ‘70s, especially when filtered through the James Bond, “Mad Men” vibe.

Combine with that the freedom to play up the outdated Stan Lee, Jack Kirby feel of actual period “X-Men” comics – not that I have even a remote knowledge of them, but First Class feels as one pictures Silver Age comics. This is kind of a turning point with superhero movies, I’d wager! Singer’s X-Men is notable for seriously engaging the potentially sillier aspects of the comic medium. For all that, it still pragmatically redesigned the X-Men’s costumes from bright blue-and-yellow to black leather – as was the style at the time – alongside other such half-measures. First Class uses the ‘60s milieu to its advantage, giving us the original costumes in all their cheesy, two-tone glory – unashamedly too! What is silly in initial concept remains so, without apologies, but also without that toxic Batman & Robin above-it-all parody. In fact, Vaughn embraces the very comic-ness of his film so much, he actually gives us the first successful use of in-film panels, as seen in Ang Lee’s Hulk. We’re one step not only from a return to on-screen visual KAPOWS, ala “Batman,” but to the point where they’d actually work.


This is sort of the Iron Man half of First Class’s blood-soaked Nazi coin. As for The Dark Knight, well, First Class isn’t even remotely that dark (far from it – it’s maybe even frothier than Iron Man), but there’s the same degree of wonderful subtext. This is true to the Singer line, and the comics too (naturally). Mutants remain forever a metaphor for “otherness,” a neato sci-fi tool to examine ideas of ethics, segregation, discrimination, and (more usefully) philosophies regarding those issues. The ‘60s offer up a heady deal of loaded topics – civil rights, gender inequality (leading to the film’s one truly awkward moment), the Cold War. Elements like the Cold War are exploited openly to fuel the action plot, while others are mostly just alluded to – but it is the strength of a period piece that filmmakers gain efficient visual shorthand, for subtle hints to old cultural touchstones carry a great deal of weight. Plus, ‘60s fashion is just groovy.


X-Men: First Class is an origin story…kind of. Most origin movies are saddled with the handicap of delaying genuine superheroics – though, flipside, there’s that emotional elation when a hero discovers newfound powers. The X-Men, as a team, carry a different dynamic, letting some powers coming into play right off the bat (for all your Nazi-murdering goodness), while other characters can simultaneously occupy different points of the origin continuum – we get all the advantages at once.

Central to First Class are Magneto and Professor X – though for now we must think of them as Eric (Michael Fassbender, of Inglourious Basterds) and Charles (James McAvoy, of Wanted). Much of Eric’s magnetic emergence is even lifted from the never-to-be X-Men Origins: Magneto, pragmatically reworking Eric’s Holocaust childhood in a new light. But the focus isn’t upon him alone, but on Eric’s new alliance with Charles Xavier, a friendship destined to turn antagonistic. There are a lot of checklist points, prequel Stations of the Cross, to run through – we know Eric and Charles will have a falling out, and not to belabor that inevitability, First Class takes us all the way there. In the meantime, distinguishing icons shall arise – Magneto’s helmet, X’s wheelchair (and throwaway jokes about baldness), their mutual accumulation of mutant recruits. Because again we know a particular clunky helmet has future importance, its introduction in the villain’s possession carries a weight beyond immediate text – and Vaughn doesn’t belabor the point, letting his audience connect the dots as they wish.


It helps First Class that it is not bogged down with casting strictures, as was The Last Stand. No need to lose sight of the fundamental emotional story (which is moved along by a more surface-level tale of villainous Bond-style megalomania). No need to wedge in studio-demanded Wolverine antics, or time-hungry scenes of Storm doing nothing of any value whatsoever. None of that! Vaughn avoids the multitudinous issues with bringing back former actors in known roles – Magneto, X, Mystique, Beast, Emma Frost – especially sparing us the creepy CGI youthenizing of Patrick Stewart yet again. Subtly, this turns old characters into new discoveries, especially with Eric – Fassbender merges his own approach with Ian McKellan’s, doing what MacGregor ought to have accomplished with his Obi Wan. This, as much as anything, gives First Class its bounce, though direct sequels won’t have this advantage.

Charles Xavier is as much of a revelation as Eric Lehnsherr. Eric isn’t a “bad guy,” and his eventual embrace of mutant militantism is intellectually defensible, even if we know it leads to potential omnicide. Charles is likewise not a “good guy,” and far less ascetic then Stewart’s bald monk. With McAvoy, the young Charles is brash – not simply sexually opportunistic, but selfish in his apparent mutant cohabitation idealism. Most damningly, Charles is privileged as mutants go, invisible, wealthy, and dangerously quick to “out” fellow mutants. Neither Charles nor Eric is faultless in the mutant “issue,” which muddies the film’s moral waters considerably – to its benefit. The mutant scenario proposes at best an end result of peaceful human extinction, and asks the ethical question of how this is best handled. It allows for greater conversations post screening, the sign of a thoughtfully constructed popcorn flick – that, or you can just gush over how awesome the climactic naval battle is, which is equally valid.


Acting as lynchpin to the central duo is Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), someday to become Mystique. She grew up with Charles, but is destined to side with Eric. This, along with Raven’s shape-shifting lack of identity, ground the emotional trauma as successfully as Singer’s Rogue. With inevitability, her scenes of soul-searching carry the air of prequel tragedy, accomplishing the emotion Vaughn so desired of The Last Stand.

Emotion goes double for the quieter scenes between Charles and Eric, where First Stand truly earns its keep. There is a moment where Charles, attempting to mentor Eric’s magnetism, leads him to embrace the place between – if I can remember this correctly – rage and serenity. In other words, to temper Eric’s vengeful myopia. Huge kudos to Fassbender in particular! This is the most profound moment in the franchise, for how it underscores Magneto’s humanity, etc. – it’s also simultaneously corny as hell, a part of that wonderful comic booky line First Class treads.

Let me pause to run through some more characters – especially since an X-Men X-cells (er, excels) by its mutants, and so it is here…

Eric, Charles, Raven, we know. They’re all fine. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) carries whatever tragedy Raven cannot, as the man doomed to become Beast – in a surprisingly efficient homage to Robert Lewis Stevenson, which never gets bogged down in what could well be its own movie. As the genocidal Sebastian Shaw, Kevin Bacon is present and functional – because a villain is needed, to fuel immediate (lesser) plot, and to suggest what Eric might become. Though Shaw has little value on his own. Emma Frost (January Jones) is perhaps the weak link, though it’s hard to fault Frost for appearing an ice queen.

Others include Havok (power: fires off energy whatnots), Banshee (he screams), Angel (has bug wings – I suspect there’s some comic discrepancy here), Darwin (evolves, naturally), Azazel (teleporting demon, nicely recalls Russian propaganda with his red skin and Soviet uniform), and Riptide (Storm the Lesser). Plus a generous helping of actual, honest-to-Lee humans, giving the other side a face, best represented by mutant sympathizer Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne).


I am surprised by how much X-Men: First Class does right, given a franchise predicament where one might expect nothing at all. Surely with the latter X-Men atrocities a recent memory, it’s all the more substantial for its effectiveness. Whatever could have been a hindrance becomes a benefit – First Class fulfills the oft-ignored dramatic function of a prequel, such a rarity that many even doubt it possible. It build upon the work of its formers, understanding this universe’s mutation enough to couch the needed X-position (er, exposition) in Charles’ professing, and not directly to the audience. It respects its comic origins, compounding the goodwill of a decade’s superhero movies to combine heroes, themes, a cool setting, and further details one wouldn’t have even once thought necessary for this genre. Now more than ever I yearn to know what a Vaughn-helmed Last Stand might’ve looked like, though I’m also quite satisfied with First Class as its first class (ahem!) substitute.


The only concern is talk that First Class might lead to a potential Third Class (or whatever), lunatic Fox X-ecutives famished for a goddamn trilogy. This in addition to Aronofsky’s proposed The Wolverine, which looks to more fully embrace discontinuity – i.e. rebooting, or flat out ignoring. Eh, plus a likely X-Men Origins: Deadpool (look, just drop the “X-Men” title thing already!), and even (shudder!) X4, Berry be blessed. Yeesh, are cinematic Marvel movies becoming so like the comics that innumerable spin-offs are that acceptable?! Is a ridiculous DC/Marvel intercompany crossover an inevitability in our distant future now?!

The issue is, for First Class as another X-Men sub-franchise, the ever-diminishing dramatic gap between First Class and X-Men. I don’t mean chronologically (X-Men is in “the near future,” leaving things nicely wide open), but…well, the tale of Charles’ and Eric’s friendship is mostly a done deal now. Stretching this out in sequels, with continued reverence for Singer’s original continuity, can only diminish artistic returns on Vaughn’s unlikely success. This suggests a future of dramatic trivialities to rival Origins: Wolverine, and while I presently trust Vaughn and crew, it seems a road fraught with peril. But First Class proves it can be done.

Urusei Yatsura, No. 6 - Urusei Yatsura 6: Always My Darling (1991)

The various “Urusei Yatsura” media ended from the mid- to late-‘80s, and not all at once. And not due to unpopularity or unprofitability or any of those series-killing notions. Nope, they ended simply because the series was over.

Recall, Rumiko Takahashi created “Urusei Yatsura” as a manga, and brought it to a definite conclusion in 1987 – as definite as any endlessly-perpetuating story without a decisive arc can have. While the TV show had already ended in ‘86 – having dried up the existing manga stories to date – the animation crew reconvened to churn out the theatrical Final Chapter…thus ending the film series as well. With this film doubling as a series finale for the TV show, every facet of “Urusei” enjoyed a thematically whole conclusion, with a story coming full circle by paralleling the first entry.


But demand still existed – this is that sort of crazy, devoted fandom Kazuo Yamazaki railed against so incomprehensibly in Lum the Forever. Hence, in a strange post-franchise purgatory, animation continued, flooding the market with “Urusei Yatsura” OVAs (Original Video Animations). These sated audience interest, and better yet, could turn a pretty profit. Good on Japanese fandom for supporting direct-to-video even in the 1980s! Under the guidance of Satoshi Dezaki, director of The Final Chapter, the “Urusei” OVAs are as follows:

• “Ryoko’s September Tea Party” (1985)
• “Memorial Album” (1986)
• “Inaba the Dreammaker” (1987)
• “Raging Sherbet” (1988)
• “Nagisa’s Fiancé” (1988)
• “The Electric Household Guard” (1989)
• “I Howl at the Moon” (1989)
• “Goat and Cheese” (1989)
• “Catch the Heart” (1990)
• “Date with a Spirit” (1990)

(This ignores a completely atypical outlier, 2008’s “The Obstacle Course Swim Meet.”)

Each of these so-called OVAs received limited theatrical release prior to home purchase (to improve their word-of-mouth, no doubt), making them not genuine OVAs. By many of my franchise definitions, this’d qualify them for series consideration, however…however the Japanese fandom doesn’t consider them official entries, so I’m saved from a week’s worth of mediocre movie watching.


Rather, the one last official theatrical Urusei Yatsura, Part Six, came about in 1991 as a capstone to the OVA “series.” Always My Darling thus invalidates The Final Chapter’s finality, except...except it seems Japanese audiences again have a slightly different conception of how these things work. Though it’s No. 6, and The Final Chapter is No. 5, The Final Chapter is still somehow the final entry. By this they mean it remains, in the Urusei timeline, the last story chronologically, making Always My Darling an awkward, awkward interquel, an original story wedged into a continuity it never previously existed in.


There’s a few problems here: Urusei Yatsura hasn’t enough of a continuous arc (like in the sense of the Star Wars trilogies) for a timeline to even matter. Ataru and Lum, the series’ central couple, are always together, are always seventeen-years-old. It’s like trying to force a later season “Simpsons” episode earlier into the timeline – none of that really matters in such an episodic series. The Final Chapter’s finality has mostly to do that, in our timeline, it was the last! It was thematically conclusive, whatever your opinion of it, causing any attempted follow-up to be a greedy, unwanted addition – by definition.

Always My Darling tries to get around this accusation of pointlessness by a technicality. See, it isn’t a sequel, or whatever, it’s a “ten year anniversary special.” Buh?! (That’s ten years since the show, not the manga.) Now…I’m not sure what a proper cinematic “anniversary special” would look like – the best I can come up with is some damned variety stage show, or something that’d be nowadays relegated to a DVD extra (something the OVAs could surely have accommodated) – but Always My Darling certainly ain’t it. It’s actually just another damned Urusei Yatsura story, with nothing in it of any importance.


This is actually a very generic Urusei effort, the most obviously formulaic of the bunch. Fans often call it the worst of the theatrical series, owing largely to the problems of its very existence. Otherwise, it’s the worst just because it’s thoroughly without zest. It’s boring! We lose the satire of Only You and Remember My Love, or the auteurist lunacy of Beautiful Dreamer or Lum the Forever, and without those grace notes, it’s amazingly only by Part Six, the actual final entry, that the Urusei Yatsura formula becomes inescapable:

It all revolves around a Love Triangle of the Day. Some never-before-heard-of humanoid space alien takes romantic claim of Ataru and/or Lum, forcing a rescue mission. In every instance, resolution comes from finding this newbie alien his/her own lover closer to home, at which point Ataru and Lum can reunite and live happily ever after, until the next photocopied incident of the same.


The specifics of Always My Darling are thus merely fill-in-the-blanks. And here they are.

The meddling interloper: Princess Lupika, Royal Princess of the Universe (this designation serves no purpose).

The target: Ataru, seeing as the villainess is female.

The interloper’s actual, film-ending love interest: Leo, the tofu salesman. Yes, this profession is as arbitrary as it sounds.

And really, that’s it. What other wrinkles My Darling possesses come from Lupika’s motivations, which aren’t simply matrimony to Ataru (it’s already pretty damn hard to credit that a universe’s worth of comely teenaged space-babes would take a liking to that tactless letch). Rather, Lupika seeks a love potion (#9), with which to win over Leo. Actually, she and Leo both already know they’re in love; it’s only Lupika’s royal title which keeps them apart, making the film’s ultimate conclusion stupid and inevitable and obvious.


Now, Ataru alone can obtain this Love Potion, held in the Crystal Jar, guarded by the Universe’s God of Lust, held upon Planet Holy Temple. Yeah. This is because he, Ataru, is the most lustful creature in the universe – “This guy possesses awe-inspiring lust.” This is the lone interesting idea My Darling possesses, a new exaggeration on Ataru’s eternal horniness (which manifested itself in Part One, Only You, as a desire for a harem made of every woman in existence, leaving them with nowhere much to go). Too bad this horny superpower is good only for getting Ataru through a pastiche of Indy-tech traps stolen from Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade (that one most blatantly, with the same damn invisible bridge Mr. Jones once crossed).

Then Ataru accidently guzzles the Love Potion, and falls helplessly in love…with Lupika. This, around halfway point, transforms Ataru (the series’ most interesting character) into a mere plot device, a complete imbecile capable of nothing more than rolling around and screaming “Lupiiiiiiiiiiiiika!” in a tone which rivals Jerry Lewis.

The rest of the story, about Lum’s quest to find a love antidote, isn’t even worth recounting.


Director Katsuhisa Yamada (“Gatchaman,” “Marzinger Z,” “Devil Hunter Yohko”) has no apparent interest in the material. This is an issue which has come up before, as the Urusei helmers are often at odds with the satirical intent behind Takahashi’s manga. Mamoru Oshii was in similar straits, for instance, yet he was able to effectively make the series work for him as a personalized canvas. Such a possibility doesn’t exist for Yamada, because there is no apparent intent to move any further with Urusei Yatsura after Always My Darling (“always” indeed!). This is apparently just a one-off, a cash-grab, with no greater relevance to the series as a whole, and no relevance even to its double bill partner, Ranma ½ (another adaptation of a Takahashi manga – yeesh these things are getting incestuous!).

The “Urusei Yatsura” characters were never terribly deep or multi-faceted. This is not a problem. They were founded as arch exaggerations of lechery (Ataru) and devotion (Lum), meant to deconstruct Japanese gender politics in general. Such a premise doesn’t lend itself to eternal franchising, like say the two-dimensional characters of “The Simpsons” – that program can respond endlessly to changing culture. It’s outward looking, while “Urusei Yatsura” is inward looking, with a much more specific target, and thus with a limited lifespan. And it had satisfied that lifespan, with all (or most) creative members moving on to new projects long before Always My Darling got farted out.