Saratoga Trunk (1945, Sam Wood)

I cannot, in any conscience, recommend Saratoga Trunk. The list of caveats to work through is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” of racism, ableism, and low-key misogyny (though less of the third, what with the first two). If you’re a Flora Robson completist, you presumably know about the time she was Oscar-nominated for playing Blackface, and so you’ve already made your peace with Trunk. For Gary Cooper completists, there are undoubtedly less shockingly exploitative lousy historical soap melodramas in his filmography.

So then Ingrid Bergman presents the most compelling reason to watch Trunk; she’s in quarter-Blackface (she powders a lot is the film’s excuse) as the illegitimate daughter of a New Orleans blue blood. After her mother “killed” her father–the film skirts around it, presumably for Code reasons (the Code memos must be a sight), but probably Dad killed himself, and Mom found the body. But after the father’s death (after he’d left Bergman’s mother to marry a fellow, white, blue blood), his family paid the mom off, and she took baby Bergman to Paris.

Now Mom has died, and Bergman is back in New Orleans to exact revenge on family matriarch Adrienne D'Ambricourt. In tow, Bergman has family servant Robson and valet Jerry Austin. Austin’s a little person. Trunk plays him for adorable comedy every time. With music. It’s a lot.

Bergman’s got a simple plan—she’s going to blackmail D'Ambricourt, possibly into ruin, as payback for Mama, and then she’s going to marry a rich guy, pass as white, and live a life of luxury. Unfortunately, Bergman almost immediately meets Texan Cooper, and he’s such a tall drink of water in his ten-gallon hat and legs for days, she immediately puts off the marriage pursuit to enjoy some Texas.

The movie initially can’t decide if Cooper’s a mark or an accomplice. Once he and Bergman get canoodling and fading to black together, he’s at least aware Bergman’s a scam artist, and she’s out to fleece D'Ambricourt (deservedly or not). The first act takes a lot of time establishing Cooper as Bergman’s love interest, including having him bond with Robson, which features Robson demanding Cooper respect her.

As a Black woman.

I’ll just give everyone the opportunity to google Flora Robson.

Yikes.

That scene ends with the fastest fade out in the film like the Hays Office told them they could do it because having a white woman say she deserves respect as a Black woman is at least better than a Black woman saying it? Again, the memos must be a treasure trove of racism, misogyny, and misogynoir. But, really, just yikes.

The movie’s first half, with Bergman hanging out in New Orleans with Cooper on her arm (and vice versa), giving the blue bloods heart palpitations, is bad. The second half of the movie (less than half, unfortunately) has Bergman on the prowl in Saratoga, her eyes set on marrying would-be railroad tycoon John Warburton. The Trunk in the title refers to a railroad’s main line.

Bergman and Cooper have to keep their hands off one another long enough for Bergman to marry rich. She’ll get help from busybody Florence Bates and have all sorts of awkward interactions around the grand hotel where they’re staying in Saratoga Springs. Saratoga’s about how New Orleans is crappy, and the most beautiful place on the planet is in upstate New York.

Sure, Jan.

After a brief rally in the late second act—Bates gives Trunk some unproblematic gas, arguably the first player to do so—things fall apart for the finale. The Trunk finally becomes important, only it’s dramatically inert. I’m curious if Edna Ferber’s source novel is a spoof of objectivism or if it’s sincere. The movie doesn’t really have time for it—the capitalist philosophy is Cooper’s story, and the movie does Cooper’s scenes away from Bergman in quick exposition dumps. He’s just around for beefcake. Or the early-to-mid-forties version of Gary Cooper beefcake.

Cooper’s never good, but—when he’s not being racist or ableist to the sympathetic supporting players—he’s likable. Bergman’s either great or terrible. She’s doing high melodrama. I mean, she’s not great, but she’s (problematically) compelling. And they do have lots of chemistry together.

Director Wood and photographer Ernest Haller deserve kudos for the ways they find to squeeze all of Cooper’s limbs into the frames. The movie makes lots of hash about him being so tall, and Wood does his damnedest to make Cooper seem too tall for the screen.

Technically, Trunk’s a solid studio melodrama. Wood’s direction is fine. He likes implying sexy time more than he likes doing action scenes, which is a problem. Max Steiner’s score would be excellent if it weren’t for his comedy themes for when Austin walks, talks, or exists.

Fabulous gowns for Bergman from Leah Rhodes.

Saratoga Trunk is in the “needs to be seen to be believed” camp (or is it “needs to be seen to be believed camp”), but not in a good way. Beware.

This post is part of the 6th Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon hosted by Virginie of The Wonderful World of Cinema.

7 Women (1966, John Ford)

First, it’s actually 8 Women; Jane Chang doesn’t count because she’s not white. Though I suppose it could just be counting good Christian women, then Anne Bancroft doesn’t count. Women is a Western, just one set nearer to modernity and not in the American West. Instead, it’s about a mission in China on the border with Mongolia. By 1966, apparently Hollywood had decided it was no longer okay to do yellowface of Chinese people, but you could still go whole hog on Mongolians. Including eye makeup. It’s a lot. It takes a while for the Mongolian raiders to show up, and the film definitely saves its big swings for them.

Bancroft is the new doctor at the mission. She had to take the job because she wanted to get out of the States, where being a female doctor in the thirties meant a mostly unhappy life helping out in the slums. The mission’s boss is Margaret Leighton, who’s definitely the most tragic figure of the film. Women has many hurdles with Leighton’s character; she’s a repressed, self-loathing lesbian, which the film sensationalizes for a moment then sort of drops. The film also swings hard against Leighton’s religiosity, especially after a harder working missionary from elsewhere in the province stops in. Flora Robson plays that other missionary; she’s actually British, while Leighton’s character (Leighton herself being British) is a stuck-up American from the Northeast. Nevertheless, Leighton’s definitely the most interesting character in the film, even if the last third has her descending into religious blather as Bancroft has to maneuver a way to save everyone’s life.

Well, everyone who’s left. Women’s a Western with the Mongolians standing in for the Native Americans, but the Mongolians have automatic weapons and can kill lots of people at once. It’ll eventually be a combination siege and hostage picture, with Leighton, Robson, Sue Lyon, Mildred Dunnock, Betty Field, Anna Lee, and Chang hostages; Bancroft’s a hostage with privileges.

Bancroft gives an excellent performance. She lifts up every other performance in the film, which usually has religious constraints. The film calls bunk on Christian missionary philosophy, but it can’t actually call bunk on it, so it instead shows it playing out as bunk. Specifically American Christian missionary philosophy. Robson, Lee, and Chang, representing the British, come off a lot better. They’re at least aware of themselves. Leighton’s not happy unless everyone works themselves into severe depression thanks to cognitive dissonance, including protege and object of her affection Lyon. It breaks Leighton’s heart when Lyon takes to brass, worldly Bancroft; if it weren’t for Bancroft, no one but her would be getting Lyon’s attention. Dunnock is meek, Field is exceptionally annoying. Of course, Field’s also there with her husband, Eddie Albert. Albert always wanted to be a preacher, but the closest he could get was teaching badly at a mission school in China.

So there’s no one to impress Lyon except Leighton, who hates herself for wanting to do so, but at least it’s kind of sympathetic for a while. At least until she shows how much she’s willing to jeopardize others to maintain her control.

While Bancroft is top-billed, she’s more the catalyst than the protagonist. Especially in the last third, when Bancroft’s machinations off-camera with white guy in yellowface Mike Mazurki and Black guy in yellowface Woody Strode drive the plot. The film still can’t be too explicit about what’s going on–well, unless you’re a Bible freak like Leighton, who can’t stop spouting made-up scripture to damn everyone but her–so knowing looks and fade-outs do a lot of work.

The film’s got its technical high points—while director Ford goes for Western siege picture most of the time, he and composer Elmer Bernstein treat Bancroft’s arc like it’s more of a film noir. Okay photography from Joseph LaShelle. LaShelle should’ve gotten Ford to double-check the headroom, though. The framing’s always just a little off, with Ford sometimes struggling to fill the wide Panavision frame. There’s also some crappy “Oriental” music in Bernstein’s score. Not as much as there could be, but the rest of the music is good especially Bancroft’s themes.

Otho Lovering’s editing is fantastic.

7 Women (8) does pretty well with all its constraints, including Lyons, who’s likable but not very good, and is an outstanding showcase for Bancroft. It’s also classist, racist, misogynist, and homophobic.

But it does pass Bechdel with flying colors. And it’s got no time for hateful religious malarky.

This post is part of the Anne Bancroft: A 90th Birthday Celebration Blogathon hosted by Crystal of In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood.

Black Narcissus (1947, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

If you’ve never seen a film by the Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger), you’ve never seen a film like one of theirs’. If you have seen a film by the Archers, and you sit down to watch another of their films, you’ve still never seen a film like the one you’re about to watch. I’m not much of an Archers scholar–Black Narcissus is probably their most famous film and this viewing is my first–but I have seen a couple, not counting their last film–the awful Australian tourist film, They’re a Weird Mob (to be fair, Powell directed and Pressburger wrote, usually they shared duties).

The film’s story–nuns in the Himalayas–is probably impossible to describe. So much of the film depends on feeling, on little things. Describing the film, also, would cheapen it. I’ve had Black Narcissus to watch for quite a while and kept putting it off. I don’t know why, probably because the Archers made such great films, my expectations were incredibly high. The film met those expectations and even surpassed them, since it had me off-guard throughout, even when what I assumed was going to happen did. Black Narcissus doesn’t “give” the audience a lot, it expects them to take a lot from it. I can’t imagine what my response to this film would have been ten years ago, when I was first getting into Criterion laserdiscs and might have come across it for the Martin Scorsese commentary. (I could get Goodfellas at seventeen, but Goodfellas isn’t all that quiet).

There’s so much to look at in Black Narcissus, so many things one could talk about, I’ve mostly run out of ideas. The acting is great–the supporting cast has a lot to do and they’re all wonderful. You know these characters, even though there are quite a few, right away. Jack Cardiff’s cinematography is famous on this film and it is amazing–even more, I suppose, since it was all shot with miniatures and matte paintings–but the editing is fantastic too. The editing makes a lot of the film.

I can’t recommend this film highly enough… certainly don’t wait around to see it like I did.