Women in War (1940)

Republic’s 1940 feature Women in War is rare enough that you won’t ever happen upon it on television, and are unlikely to see it at all short of a concentrated effort to do so. It tallies a mere 15 votes on IMDb, alongside three user reviews, two of which are by fellow completist Arne Anderson — one of which reports that the film is utterly unavailable, the second written after he managed to track it down — as I recently did. After years of wistfully staring at this title on my to-see lists, I was awfully disappointed by it when I finally got the chance.

Set in Britain in the heady early days of the conflict, Women in War tells the story of Pamela Starr (Wendy Barrie), a party girl charged with manslaughter after shoving a drunken RAF pilot over a balcony. Pamela’s long-lost mother, Matron O’Neil (familiar-face Elsie Janis), now in charge of the nurses’ corps, secretly engineers a deal with the courts in the hope that by taking her tough-cookie daughter into the war effort, she can provide the affection and discipline needed to allow her to turn the corner. But the chip on Pamela’s shoulder just grows larger after the other new nurses, who remember only the newspaper gossip from her trial, spurn her. Pamela copes by striking up a casual romance with another flier, Larry (Patric Knowles), which only makes things even worse for her in the barracks — he’s already engaged to Gail (Mae Clarke), one of her fellow nurses. Isolated and bitter, Pamela’s refuses to stop seeing Larry, and their relationship grows to the point that he decides to leave Gail, who retaliates by trying to kill Pamela during a midnight trip to the front lines. Huddled underneath an intense artillery barrage (the filming of which earned an Academy Award nomination for Special Effects), the two women retreat to the cellar of a church, while O’Neil searches frantically for them amidst the cascading shells…

Women in War is emblematic of the naïvely casual and overly romanticized outlook the movie-going public had in those months of 1939 and early 1940 that historians now refer to as the “phony war,” before Dunkirk, when the situation changed dramatically. During the very same week that this film was released to theatres, global newspaper headlines told the horrific story of the British Expeditionary Force’s chaotic evacuation from France, which forced the public to reformulate its attitude and its commitment to the total war effort. It’s unlikely that a film such as this, which employs a wartime milieu without the gravity it demanded, would have even been made had it been scheduled for production just a few months later. The spate of nursing pictures — even the overtly romantic ones — that would soon issue from the studios went out of their way to not only demonstrate the value of nurses, but also the incredible risk and toil required to be one.

The film does lip service to realities of war, as early on O’Neil tells her recruits: 

“I hope none of you have come here with the beautiful notion that war is noble and romantic. Some of you dewy-eyed creatures may be under the impression that it will be your function to soothe the fevered brows of handsome young men when on duty, and to philander with the convalescents when you’re off. Unfortunately, war isn’t like that.”

Yet that seems to be precisely the notion that all of the nurses have, and the film does nothing to dispel them. There are no wounded soldiers to tend to, no tragedies along the way, and no sour news from other fronts. The war seems terribly far away, if it’s even happening at all. All our nurses have time to do is chase fliers, and all they have to be concerned with are the most immature aspects of their schoolgirl romances. The film’s finale is its most damning sequence: When the nurses are ordered to drive desperately needed medical supplies to the front, Gail — our ‘woman scorned’ — childishly forsakes her duty in order to exact revenge on Pamela. She diverts their vehicle into an evacuated French village that is under heavy bombardment, hoping to get them both killed. When O’Neil realizes what has happened, she too drives her truck into the village — showing audiences that as far as these nurses are concerned, the needs of the wounded on the front lines finish a distant second to their own personal drama. And when the shells really start dropping, too many of the nurses lapse into hysterics.

In June 1940 the Battle of Britain was in the offing, and the terrifying nights of the Blitz would then follow. It was a time when English and Canadians — and soon Americans — of all ages and from all walks of life were asked to make extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of their nations and one another. Women in War is a shallow film that fails to measure up to the requirements of its time. Its women are shallow, silly, and incompetent rather than confident, devoted, and strong. When inspiration was needed, it stooped merely to entertain. 

Women in War (1940)

Directed by John Auer

Starring Wendy Barrie, Mae Clarke, and Elsie Janis

Released by Republic Pictures

Running time: 71 minutes

Availability: very rare

Grade: D

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Alain Resnais’s tedious, beautiful, and silly Last Year at Marienbad is almost more interesting to read about than it is to view, the reactions are so wildly varied. Since its 1961 release it has become one of the more polarizing films ever made, on zillions of best-of-all-time lists and as many worst-of-all-time lists, while almost everyone considers it indecipherable. This isn’t a movie for those interested in Hollywood-style entertainment, so the majority would just look baffled.

Surreal? Not really. As an art professor I can tell you that the word surreal gets bandied about a little too often, particularly by film people.  I’ll also add, with some oomph behind it, that when confronted with indecipherable our typical response is either “bullshit,” or “chickenshit.” (By the way, “art” is a praise word; you don’t call yourself an artist or label your “stuff” art, let others say such things about you or your work. Of course don’t mind me, you can do so if you like.)  Dreamlike maybe? Okay, whatever. If nothing else the film offers one more filmic take on the dream state, however elementary, and not meant to be deciphered, not meant to be understood, and especially not meant to be responded to. It seems to have vomited itself up, as if a Psych 101 study group made a list of all of the different things that happen in dreams, and then tied the experiences together with film and fishing line and called it a narrative: that of a man attempting to convince a woman that they shared an affair in another time and another place — perhaps last year, at Marienbad. She resists, and the bulk of the running time is ostensibly concerned with his fleshing out of this elaborate fantasy, though it’s really just an excuse to stray into pure formalism and call it art, with the hope that the pastiche of imagery will be enough to hold one’s attention for the duration. Look for something authentic or question the thing, or express any misgivings at all and you run the risk of appearing oafish or uncool. (and it’s amazing to consider this film has held such power over audiences, and repelled criticism for more than fifty years now. I won’t even begin to attempt to fathom its Oscar nomination in the screenplay category.) Yet it remains that this is movie, or rather film (movies tell stories) is too vain, too obviously collaborative, and too damn superficial — and it appeals to those qualities in its viewers. Have you heard it before? Too much style, not enough substance. This ain’t artsy folks, it’s banal. Why do you think it’s so popular? 

If you want to read the film as an examination of dreams, or even the fleeting nature of memory, go ahead — you get 93 minutes to wallow in it. Marienbad is a visually striking film that despite all of its formal decadence refuses to function as a drama. It cannot pass muster merely through the power of the still image — the difference between the still photograph and the film is one of duration, and so the presentation of a succession of striking vignettes, either wholly disconnected or connected with a wink and a smile, does not add up to a worthy cinematic experience, at least not for me. If so, it’s a lazy one. As such, film is inherently inferior to the traditional arts. If viewers are supposed to be enthralled by the cinematic experience and the means by which it unfolds then let’s find better subject matter. Call me bourgeois, but I care little for Resnais’s beautiful people and their vapid dreams. After all, if these characters are people I’d hold up for scorn in waking life, then how in the world can I love a film that explores their dreams? On the merits of the formal qualities alone? Maybe — the technical filmmaking here is masterful, but that just isn’t enough for me. By the end of the first hour I was squirming at the redundancy of the dialogue, the repetition of imagery, and even the grotesque artificiality (how often can she pose?) of Delphine Seyrig. Tedious.

In the end, Marienbad has as much power as the advertisements for Chanel No. 5 it inspired. 

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Directed by Alain Resnais

Starring Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi

Running time: 94 minutes
Grade D

Girls on the Loose (1958)

It surprises people to learn that this film and a few others were directed by none other than Paul Georg Julius Hernreid Ritter Von Wassel-Waldingau of Casablanca fame (maybe I should have just gone with Victor Laszlo?). But Paul Henreid segued quite well from his career as an actor to one behind the camera, directing a few low-budget second features and going on two decades worth of television programs, all the while maintaining a modest career as a performer.

That Henreid directed a trashy B film such as Girls on the Loose seems somewhat incongruous with his polished screen persona, but it also serves as a reminder that an actor’s screen image is exactly that: an image, an illusion. We think of the term typecasting in a negative light, but we need to remember that Hollywood then and now is built around the idea, whether the actor is George Clooney or George Dzundza. It isn’t that Henreid wasn’t a sophisticate in real life — it’s just that we shouldn’t assume he was simply because he often played one in his films. Considering that I’ve already brought up Casablanca we won't even go near the off-screen Humphrey Bogart. Bing Crosby anyone?

Girls on the Loose stars Mara Corday as Vera, the leader of an all-girl heist crew. The film actually kicks off with the girls knocking over a payroll. The bulk of the story is concerned with how the gang unravels in the wake of the crime. One after another Vera’s chums give her a reason to knock them off, until there’s a climactic showdown between the remaining heisters. This is a very low-rent B that strays close to exploitation territory — sex and violence all the way down the line. It’s in this sense that the movie is spoiled by its B roots: it relies on the sex appeal of the all-girl crew, yet the seemingly seven-foot tall Corday is the only member of the cast I found attractive. Corday’s on-screen sister, played by Barbara Bostock in a tepid impersonation of Shirley MacLaine, is the film’s triple threat: her acting, her singing and her looks all stink.

Nevertheless, at only 77 minutes the film is just entertaining enough to get through, and silly enough to generate some laughs — intentional or otherwise.

Girls on the Loose (1958)

Grade: D

Directed by Paul Henreid

Starring Mara Corday and Barbara Bostock

Released by Universal-International

Running time: 77 minutes.

Availability: Airs on TCM