Irving Pichel – Movie Musings

DeMille’s blockbuster is a fun, camp spectacle with plenty of his suggested sex and naughtiness

Director: Cecil B DeMille

Cast: Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra), Warren William (Julius Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Marc Anthony), Joseph Schildkraut (King Herod), Ian Keith (Octavian), Gertrude Michael (Calpurnia), C Aubrey Smith (Enobarbus), Irving Pichel (Apollodorus), Arthur Hohl (Brutus), Edwin Maxwell (Casca), Ian Maclaren (Cassius), Eleanor Phelps (Charmion), Leonard Mudie (Pothinos)

When a sand-and-sandals epic opens with a not-particularly-disguised naked woman cavorting erotically with incense, you know you are in Cecil B DeMille territory. Thirty years before the ill-fated Taylor-Burton epic, DeMille’s Cleopatra was the box-office hit of 1934. It was also a stompingly silly film, crammed with hammy performances and sexual imagery which it got-away-with in those pre-code days because it was an important historical subject taking place on humongous sets. But Cleopatra is also extremely good fun, a film so camply delighted in its naughtiness (and bowling along with such pantomimic energy) that it knocks spots off the turgid 1963 flop.

This Cleopatra follows pretty much the same structure (literally in half the time). Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) is at war with her brother for the throne of Egypt. Smuggled into the presence of Julius Caesar (Warren William) wrapped in a carpet, she reveals the evil machinations of her rival Pothinus (Leonard Muddie) and seduces Caesar (possibly more with the prospect of controlling Egypt, since this Caesar is a power-mad cold-fish). When Caesar is dispatched by conspirators during the Ides of March, Cleopatra’s focuses on man’s-man Marc Anthony (Henry Wilcoxon) who is very open to her seduction. Before they know it though, the two are at war with envious technocrat Octavian (Ian Keith) who marches all of Rome to Cairo to crush the two. Bring on the asps!

DeMille shoots all this with relentless energy and pace, though not quite enough that you don’t notice the dialogue clunking out of the actor’s mouths (“You and your Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” a bitter Octavius observes about Anthony’s funeral oration). Cleopatra, like many of the Great Showman’s finest films (of which this is unquestionably one) gives us all the sex and smut we could possibly want, disguised in its classic setting. Cleopatra absolutely drips in lust and is crammed with suggestive imagery from top to bottom.

From that cavorting incense-carrier, we cut to the rooms Cleopatra has been kidnapped from. These look like nothing less than the aftermath of a kinky orgy, including a hog-tied servant who looks like he’s passed out in an asphyxiation sex-game. Colbert models a series of deep-dive dresses that leave little to the imagination. Poor, randy Marc Anthony doesn’t stand a chance (we know he’s a hot-blooded man because he never goes anywhere without his two barking greyhounds). Cleopatra even dresses at time like some musicals starlet, trailing billowing fabric behind her as she descends stairs.

Meeting her on her pleasure barge (this ship is practically Tardis-like in its interior dimensions) he’s treated to the sort of show that wouldn’t be out of place in Amsterdam’s Red-Light district. Scantily-clad ladies cavort, dancers dressed in skin-tight leopard skin are marshalled by a whip-carrying ring-master, while they cavort and engage in (literal) cat-fights until broken up by a crack of the whip. All the time Cleopatra reclines on a silk-covered bed, Colbert’s eyes flashing unmistakable “come hither” glances. No wonder the randy sod quickly finds himself going all-in on Egypt.

Along with sex, the film mixes in plenty of action. Caesar’s assassin is rather imaginatively filmed through a POV shot (“You? You too Brutus?!” Warren William intones in despair), as daggers fly in. The forthcoming battles are teased in an early scene where Caesar, bored with an Egyptian delegation, fiddles with various models of siege engines. All of these come into play in the film’s later sequences, that sees a parade of fast-cut war scenes overlaid: siege engines fire, armies plough at each other over deserts, ships clash at sea, men drown in agony. Much like the epic scale of Cleopatra’s court and barge, the film doesn’t skip on the epic conflict.

Between these two tent poles, we basically get a soap dressed to-the-nines in sandals, short skirts and armour. Claudette Colbert in a banner year (this was one of three hits she had, and she won the Oscar for It Happened One Night) is sultry, playful and if she never feels for even-one-minute like a figure from antiquity, at least she has that in common with the rest of the cast. She gives Cleopatra a charismatic energy that makes her believable as a figure round whom all else revolves. Wilcoxon plays Anthony with a thigh-slapping, hail-fellow-well-met quality. Warren William underplays as Caesar – which can make him look dull in a film as overblown as this – but makes for an effectively cold and calculating man.

Egypt, in its voluptuous naughtiness makes all Rome look rather dull though. Our capital is introduced in a house-party where the conspirators pose and moan like hammy matinee performers, stroking their historically incorrect beards, while the ladies bitch like New York housewives gleefully spreading catty gossip. Octavian is re-imagined as whining middle-manager, a weasily Ian Keith constantly moaning about never getting enough attention and clearly far-too inhuman to ever be stirred by Cleopatra the way the lusty Anthony is. With the frame of the film being classic antiquity, we can even pretend this is somehow serious drama when really it’s just Dallas.

These actors march their way through a series of break-ups and get-togethers, punctuated by moments of silly drama. (Cleopatra, Hamlet-like, even stabs Porthinus through a curtain seconds before he can assassinate Caesar!) But it all kind of works because you suspect nothing is really taken that seriously. DeMille is making a big pageant here, a walloping epic of lusty suggestion, powered by larger-than-life performances. It’s meant to fill you with excitement and awe, to make you gasp in awe. It doesn’t really matter that we get a shit-stirring King Herod (a smirking Joseph Schildkraut) or an Enobarbus who puffs like a regimental sergeant-major (C Aubrey Smith, giant of beard). It’s all about the spectacle, the drama and showmanship. And no one really does that sort of stuff better than Cecil B DeMille.

Manhunting takes on a new meaning, in this punchy, influential horror-thriller that launched a whole genre

Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel

Cast: Joel McCrea (Bob Rainsford), Fay Wray (Eve Trowbridge), Robert Armstrong (Martin Trowbridge), Leslie Banks (Count Zahoff), Noble Johnson (Ivan), Steve Clemente (Tartar), William Davidson (Captain)

It’s man of course. Adapted from Richard Connell’s iconic short story, The Most Dangerous Game sees famous big-game hunter Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) washed up on jungle island in the middle of the ocean. He finds a Gothic castle, home to White Russian aristocrat Count Zahoff (Leslie Banks). Zahoff is an overblown egotist with a hunting obsession. He seems an urbane, generous – if sinister – host. But what’s behind that locked iron door? If he’s such a passionate hunter where are all his trophies? And why do people keep getting ship-wrecked and disappearing on his island?

The Most Dangerous Game is staged in a trim 63 minutes, with much of the first half being build-up towards the extended chase sequence that fills it’s second half. The film kickstarted a genre of “manhunt” films, which would take its ideas (and violence) much further. On its release, many of the shots of Zahoff’s human trophy room (with its mounted and pickled heads and his grim, wry commentary of the fates each met on his hunt) were cut, and the first victim, drunken buffoon Martin Trowbridge (Robert Armstrong) is killed off camera. That’s not to say the violence is avoided as the film’s final battle features snapped spines, stabbings and death by bloody-thirsty hounds.

It all makes for an exciting film, told with whipper-sharp pace. This is especially surprising considering how relatively slowly it starts, with Rainsford and his friends chatting about the ethics of hunting (oh the irony!) on their luxury yacht before it sails into Zahoff’s booby trap. Any idea we are in for a staid journey is quickly dispelled as Rainsford’s two fellow survivors are swiftly gutted by sharks, forcing him to swim for shore and the striking, immersive jungle set.

The Most Dangerous Game was shot on the same sets as King Kong – either concurrently or as a test for design work for that classic, depending on who you ask. Schoedsack would go on to direct that – and bring along Wray, Armstrong and several other members of the cast – and TMDG is a wonderful initial try-out for Kong. You can even recognise shots and settings from that film, while the film’s wonderful use of tracking shots, careful editing and superb whip-pans as hunter and hunted charge through the bushes makes for brilliant dramatic tension in its own right.

That’s after we’ve had the odd gothic, horror-tinged oddness of Zahoff’s castle. Zahoff’s trophy room is somewhere between medieval torture chamber (a sort of iron maiden device seems to be the main persuader Zahoff users to get guests to join in ‘the game’) and haunted house, with pickled heads bubbling in jars. The house itself is intimidating, huge in scale with rooms decorated with blood-thirsty hunting tableaus inspired by myths and legends.

It all matches Zahoff’s own OTT grandness. Played, in a remarkable film debut, by Leslie Banks, Zahoff is a truly iconic villain. Banks, a war veteran with striking scars and half of whose face had been paralysed, is a mesmeric, captivating presence whose eyes shine with obsessive indifference and sadistic glee. Spending his nights pontificating to his guests – who he treats with snobby disdain – he’s also a braggart and a cheat. He talks a good game of giving his guests a “fair chance” – but arms them only with a knife, while he has a bow and arrow and rifle (not to mention a team of dogs and three burly, violent, Tartar servants). Banks plays the role to the absolute hilt, dressed in stormtrooper black, a riotous operatic grandness just the right side of camp, relishing every second.

He soaks up most of the interest in the film. Joel McCrea is left with little to do but to look wary – although the revenge-soaked fury he returns with in the film’s violent denouement is effective. Fay Wray adds a lot of charm to the film in this early trial as scream queen. Robert Armstrong tries the nerves a little too much as her drunken brother, overplaying the comic stumbling. But the relative grounded normality of McCrea and Wray is needed for us to stick with them when they are reduced to fleeing through the jungle to escape the maniacal eyes of Banks.

Zahoff of course wants to get the respect of noted hunter Rainsford, but that doesn’t stop him frequently cheating in their battle of wills. He’s smart enough to dodge Rainsford’s traps, but doesn’t hesitate to unleash his hounds or leave (what he believes to be) the killing blow to someone else. It’s a nice beat to remind us that, for all his big speeches, Zahoff is an inadequate bully desperate to be the legend he claims to be.

It’s something we grow aware of throughout the film’s momentum packed second half, essentially a wild chase through the jungle with Rainsford and Eve desperately trying everything to stay one step ahead (the original story didn’t include a female character, but it’s a wonderful insertion which helps humanise Rainsford considerably compared to Zahoff). The unrelenting action, expertly shot, is undeniably exciting (even if we expect, based on its successors, a higher number of innocents being chased to meet fatal deaths) helping to make TMDG one of the most influential B-movies around.