Canadian Film Review: The Changeling (1980)

* * *
Director: Peter Medak
Starring: George C. Scott, Melvyn Douglas

Word of advice: if you're living in a house where all the fawcetts start running on their own, the piano can play itself, and a creepy old lady tells you that the house "doesn't want people," just leave. Just pack a bag and go. Don't become determined to get to the bottom of it and definitely do not break open the secret locked room. No good will come of it.

The Changeling starts as high melodrama (to wit: the hero stands on one side of a highway using the telephone booth, watching his wife and daughter play in the snow on the other side; cut to a shot of a semi barrelling down the road in one direction; cut to a car coming from the other direction starting to skid; cut to the hero, realizing what's about to happen but getting stuck in the phone booth; the wife and daughter clutch each other and scream; the semi sounds its horn... you get the idea) but quickly settles into a first rate ghost story. In it, George C. Scott plays John Russell, a composer who packs up and moves to Seattle following the death of his wife and daughter, and rents a cavernous mansion through the historical preservation society. Why does one man need all this room? Because big houses are scarier than little ones.

Strange things begin happening and when he starts asking questions, he gets the feeling that something is being covered up. He finds a hidden pad-locked door and breaks it open, giving him access to the attic which it appears was once a bedroom. There's a music box in there and when he opens it he finds that it plays the exact same melody that he himself just composed the other day. He brings in experts in the field to conduct a seance and listening to the recording of the event afterwards, hears the ghostly voice answering the medium's questions. Putting all the pieces together he discovers a horrific crime that leads back to the powerful Senator Joe Carmichael (Melvyn Douglas), whose family once owned the house. Carmichael thinks he's being blackmailed, leading Russell to wonder just how much the Senator knows and just how far he's willing to go to cover it up.

The Changeling is cleverly and tightly constructed (though it must be said that the title kind of gives away a major plot twist) film that succeeds at creating a really creepy atmosphere and some genuine scares. The sight of a woman being chased through a house by an empty, old timey wheelchair should probably seem cheesy, but the film is so well made that it's actually pretty terrifying. This isn't a blood and guts kind of horror movie (though there's a little blood) or even one where something is always jumping out from behind corners. Director Peter Medak creates such an intensenly ominous mood that you're on edge even when nothing is happening.

If the film has a flaw it's in the way that Russell relates to the events happening around him. As played by Scott, he's a very commanding character and as such, whether he's being confronted by the ghostly happenings in the house or by the flesh and blood human beings who want to keep him quiet, he never acts as if he believes he's in any danger. This element of the character, while perfectly believable from the guy who played George Patton, nevertheless has the effect of undercutting the overall mood of the film. Part of the reason why scary movies are scary is because we're put in a position to relate to the protagonist and when they're scared, we're scared. If the protagonist isn't scared and acts like there's nothing to be afraid of, it works to remove us from the experience of what's happening on screen and reminds us that it's all just make believe. It's not that Scott's performance isn't good, because it is, it's just that it kind of works against everything else the film is trying to do.

Review: Hud (1963)

* * * 1/2
Director: Martin Ritt
Starring: Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon De Wilde

Hud Bannon is “the man with the barbed wire soul,” a man without principle, a man who never met a person he would think twice about being mean to. He also – inexplicably as far as his portrayer, Paul Newman, was concerned – became a figure of worship in popular culture, a man that younger men wanted to become (in Midnight Cowboy Joe Buck has the famed poster of Hud on his wall). This isn’t the absolute best movie Newman ever made (for me that would be Cool Hand Luke), but of all his performances, this one is my favourite.

Hud is a ne’er do well whose sole interests are women, drinking and fighting, and not always in that order. He lives on a cattle ranch with his father (Melvyn Douglas), his nephew Lon (Brandon De Wilde), and their housekeeper, Alma (Patricia Neal), with whom he enjoys a charged rapport. Hud and his father have a fractured relationship which seems to inform the way that he relates to all other people: fearing rejection, he keeps everyone at a distance, though he longs desperately for companionship.

Problems between Hud and his father reach a crescendo as Hud begins spending more time with Lon, passing on his bad habits, and after a cow dies under mysterious circumstances. The fear is that the cow has succumbed to foot and mouth disease and that the rest of the heard will have to be slaughtered to avoid an epidemic. Hud wants to sell off the cattle before the government can declare them unfit, but his father refuses and they eventually have a confrontation in which he reveals that his dislike of Hud doesn’t stem from the accident which killed Lon’s father, but rather from his lack of character. It’s this lack of character, the refusal to care about anything other than himself, that ensures that Hud will end up exactly where he does: all alone.

The performances make the movie, with all four of the principles delivering solid, nuanced portrayals. Newman ambles seductively through the film, alternating between easy going banter and angry sulking. Rejected by his father, he lashes out at him but remains desperate from some kind of approval from him. When his father makes his brutal proclamation, all Hud can do is throw up his hands and say with a mixture of anger and sadness, “My mama loved me but she died.” Newman hits a complex series of notes throughout the film, making for a character who is difficult to like most of the time, but also compelling in the way that someone who is his own worst enemy can be compelling.

As for the other three, De Wilde is solid playing a young man who finds himself caught between wanting to do the right things like his grandfather, but also seduced in a way by his uncle, who just seems so cool; Neal is wonderful as the no nonsense housekeeper who is drawn to Hud despite knowing better and the scenes between her and Newman crackle with electricity (“Don’t go shootin’ all the dogs 'cause one of 'em’s got fleas,” Hud drawls while lying across her bed); and Douglas is simply marvellous. He’s an actor I find myself consistently surprised by: the actor who plays the worn down old man here is the same as the one who played Garbo’s elegant romantic foil in Ninotchka and the difference can’t be attributed solely to age. Douglas won an Oscar for his work here, as did Neal, and Newman was nominated as Best Actor, but lost to Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field. If you’ve never seen this movie, I can’t recommend it more. Rarely do you get the chance to watch four great actors, all at the top of their form, playing off of each other like this.

11 Days of Garbo: Ninotchka (1939)

Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Also Starring: Melvyn Douglas

Ninotchka, Garbo’s first forray into romantic comedy (the second, and last, was the disasterous Two Faced Woman, her final film), was advertised with the tagline, “Garbo Laughs!” as if the act of laughing was unusual for her. The fact is, Garbo laughed in all of her films, even in tragedies like Camille and Anna Karenina. But this is the first time she made us laugh and it was the first time she was able to demonstrate her considerable comic timing. This is a terrific film, easily the lightest and happiest of any Garbo ever made.

There are two Ninotchkas in the film. The first is the Ninotchka who is sent by the Soviet Union to Paris. She’s cold and analytical (she’s like a Garbot, and I mean that in the most complimentary way) and has no use for frivolity, only function. The second Ninotchka, the one who returns to the Soviet Union from Paris, is warmer, more human, still able to distinguish the silly from the serious, but finally able to embrace it. The transition is officially marked by the purchase of a hat. On seeing it for the first time, Ninotchka shakes her head in dismay, declaring that any society that would allow women to wear hats like it are not long for this world. Later, after having fallen in love and had some fun, we find out that she’s bought the hat. She tries it on and looks happy. And then she looks sad because she knows that after her experiences in Paris, she’ll never be able to look at her life in the Soviet Union the same way again.

The film is a little strange in terms of how it views the Soviet Union, given that it was made well before the Cold War and the McCarthy era, and at a time when the West was still somewhat enamoured with socialist ideas. When Ninotchka arrives, she informs her comrades of the success of the latest purge, stating that “there will be fewer, but better Russians.” The film doesn’t shy away from coming right out and expressing a critical view of the brutal conditions under Stalin, although it couches these criticisms in comedy.

This is a very funny film, two sequences in particular. The first involves Count D’Algout (Douglas) trying to make Ninotchka laugh. He tries to tell her a series of jokes, which she dismantles by asking questions (for example, “Two men are going to America…” “On what boat?”). He quickly becomes frustrated and finally says, “Maybe the problem isn’t with the joke, maybe it’s with you.” Ninotchka, ever so detached, doesn’t even look at him as she replies, “I don’t think so.” Garbo and Douglas both play this scene perfectly as he attempts to charm her, each attempt seeming to make her more immune to him than the last. Finally D’Algout gives up, leans back in his chair and falls to the floor. When he looks up, he realizes that he’s made Ninotchka laugh. It’s a fantastic scene.

The second sequences comes shortly thereafter. D’Algout and Ninotchka go out and she drinks champagne for the first time. She excuses herself to go to the ladies room and a moment later the manager approaches D’Algout to inform him that they’ll have to leave because Ninotchka is making a drunken speech, urging the powder room staff to go on strike. D’Algout takes her back to her hotel, they drink more champagne. “When I kissed you,” she tells him, “I betrayed a Russian ideal. I should be stood up against the wall.” He agrees. He stands her up against the wall and blindfolds her. He crosses back to the other side of the room and pops the cork in another bottle of champagne. She falls to the floor, “executed.” The timing in this scene is perfect and it only gets better as they carry on to drunkenly search the room for a radio.

Of all Garbo’s on-screen love interests, Melvyn Douglas is hands down my favourite. He’s such a ridiculously underrated actor, so skilled and versatile (if you need proof, watch Ninotchka and, say, Hud back-to-back) and he plays off of Garbo so well, complementing her rather than attempting to upstage her. Neither is really the straight man or the funny one; they’re both funny, but they approach comedy in such different ways, Douglas swaggering towards it charmingly, and Garbo sneaking up on it, making it funny by seeming to take it so seriously.

This is one of those comedies that you can watch over and over again without it getting stale. It remains funny and absolutely charming with each viewing. The 1930s were a great period in Hollywood for comedies (the great period, in my opinion), and this film deserves to be considered one of the decade’s best.