Drifting and White Tiger: Director Todd Browning in the Years before Freaks (and Other Chilling Entertainments)

DRIFTING /

WHITE TIGER

(Tod Browning, 1923, US, 60 and 86 minutes)

In the years after writer-director Tod Browning made Drifting with Priscilla Dean, then-lesser known costar Wallace Beery (The Champ, Treasure Island) would become the bigger star, but she carries this 1923 silent with the strength of her grounded, sympathetic presence. 

If Browning's cautionary tale about the opium trade isn't as outré as later efforts, like Freaks or The Unholy Trio, the film offers its share of pleasures, especially in the George Eastman House's attractive digital restoration. 

In Browning's adaptation of the play by Daisy H. Andrews and Under Capricorn's John Colton, Dean plays Cassie Cook, an American opium smuggler in Shanghai. Though she associates with prostitutes, she isn't a woman of easy leisure (to the script's credit, it doesn't suggest that sex workers are beneath contempt, only that Cassie plies a different trade). 

Though she and Beery's Jules were once rivals, they join forces at the outset, though the relationship will remain prickly. When Cassie's debts get out of hand, she bets on the horses, and when she loses at the track, she trades Shanghai for Hangzhou, reinventing herself as author Lucille Preston in a bid to evade Jules who blames her for the bad racing tip. There, she and 15-year-old Rose Li (a very good Anna May Wong whose 1920s films have largely been lost) fall for Captain Jarvis (Matt Moore), an undercover agent disguised as a mining chief, but only one woman will capture his heart. 

In Browning's Dean films, cute tykes often come along to wear down her defenses, and missionary's son Billy (Bruce Guerin), ably fills that role. The convoluted plot ends with a skirmish between Jules and Jarvis, a tragic death, and a fiery conflagration, but our anti-heroine and her small charge emerge unscathed. 

Dean plays another gold-hearted criminal in the London-set, Dickens-inspired White Tiger, which reteams her with Browning and Beery. In the prologue, siblings Sylvia and Roy become separated through their safecracker father's involvement with Beery's shady Hawkes, who raises the girl as his daughter. 

Fifteen years later, she and Hawkes, aka Donelli, have become pickpockets, while Roy (the droll Raymond Griffith), aka The Kid, serves as the human motor behind a chess-playing automaton. Though they don't recognize each other when they meet, they become friends and run off to NYC with Donelli to launch a criminal enterprise, except Sylvia becomes smitten with straight-arrow Dick Longworth (Moore) who threatens to expose their operation to separate marks from their jewels by distracting them with robotic chess. 

When the heat gets too hot, they all end up at Longworth's cabin in the woods where long-buried secrets finally come to light. Though no cute tykes appear, two kittens serve a similar purpose. 

This Kino Lorber release includes the sole surviving fragment of Browning's 1919 Exquisite Thief with Dean, while the illuminating commentary tracks from film historians Anthony Slide and Bret Wood offer background on the director and the unheralded actress, who would exit the business in the coming decade, and appears to have lived a long and happy life. 

Though Drifting is the top-billed feature, the jewel in the crown is White Tiger, though Anna May Wong, who would soon become a more prominent actress, elevates the former with her memorably self-sacrificing turn. 

Drifting/White Tiger is available on DVD and Blu-ray via Kino Lorber. Drifting images from Blu-ray.com and Film Affinity and White Tiger from Cinematary.

Alex Garland’s Men: The Culmination of His Concerns (for Better and for Worse)

MEN 

(Alex Garland, UK, 2022, rated R, 100 minutes) 

Alex Garland is hardly the first screenwriter to transition to directing. 

More unusually, though, he started out as a novelist. His 1996 literary debut, The Beach, drew inspiration from his experience backpacking in Thailand. Aside from the brisk sales, which might have been enough to satisfy any young writer, he got even more mileage out of the book when Danny Boyle brought it to the big screen in 2000. Though John Hodge wrote the script, it marked the beginning of Garland's association with the director as he would go on to write 28 Days Later... and Sunshine before striking out on his own. 

After another novel and a combination of credited and uncredited work for other directors, his directorial debut, Ex Machina, arrived in 2014. The assured effort launched Garland as a genre filmmaker with an interest in and/or facility for science fiction and horror, vivid imagery, and unnerving electronic soundscapes (provided by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury). 

Garland's second feature, 2018's Annihilation, an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's Nebula-winning novel, and 2020's Devs, an original series created for FX, confirmed his interest in the mysteries of nature and the arrogance of patriarchy.

This brings us to Men, the least of his films, and yet unmistakably his. For better and for worse: it's an Alex Garland film through and through.

Just as Garland built Devs around a smart, competent woman trying to solve the mystery of her partner's disappearance, he introduces Harper (Irish actress Jessie Buckley, most recently of The Lost Daughter), some time after her husband's death. With the encouragement of her best friend, Riley (GLOW's Sheila the She-Wolf, Gayle Rankin), she plans to take a break from London--specifically the apartment complex from which James (I May Destroy You's Paapa Essiedu) fell--so she takes off for the countryside. 

It's worth noting that Natalie Portman's journey in Annihilation revolves around a mystery concerning her husband, played by Oscar Isaac, who previously appeared--to marvelous effect--in Ex Machina. 

Harper's trip is obviously a bad idea, though Garland tries to convince us otherwise. The holiday house owner, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear, currently playing a white nationalist on PBS's Ridley Road) is solicitous and the house is gorgeous--and not especially gloomy. For all that, though, it's isolated, too big for one lonely person, and the cell phone reception is spotty. Further, there's something…off about Geoffrey. His smiles are too broad and toothy, but he promises to leave Harper alone, and for the most part, he does. 

Harper sets out to explore the grounds around the house. It's a verdant area, preternaturally so. Once she reaches a tunnel deep in the forest, she yells into it, delighting in the ensuing echo. So, she yells again, and again, creating a cascade of echoes, like a chorus. It's a lovely, spooky moment.

The fun ends when she notices a figure hovering at the end of the tunnel, so she attempts to retrace her steps, but it proves easier said than done, since there's no clear path. En route, she spots a naked man watching from across a field. She shivers, keeps moving.

As she continues to explore her environs, strange things keep happening, all involving men, like a judgmental vicar and an unsympathetic cop, played by Kinnear with different hairpieces and prosthetics. The least convincing: a foul-mouthed nine-year-old with Kinnear's face digitally superimposed in the style of Nancy Marchand in The Sopranos. The creepiest: the naked fellow, a Green Man, who becomes an increasingly insidious and invasive presence. 

All the while, Harper replays moments with James in her mind. Clearly, her attempt to escape the past isn't working as planned. These moments are increasingly troubling, since James goes from begging her not to leave to threatening to kill himself if she follows through on her plan to divorce him. 

Towards the end, Garland quickens the pace to incorporate an extended, slasher film-type sequence followed by a shift into exceptionally bizarre body horror before returning, unsteadily, to some semblance of normality. 

Though the tech credits are up to his usual high standards, especially the set design, the whole thing feels undercooked. By now, I've seen most everything Jessie Buckley has done, and she isn't bad, but the script prevents her from feeling as engaging as Garland's other female characters, including Alicia Vikander's gynoid in Ex Machina--and she isn't even human. 

Paapa Essiedu, the film's only Black character, feels particularly ill-used, because Garland only depicts James in pathetic, manipulative mode. It's hard to understand what Harper ever saw in him, since the director never gives us a glimpse of better times. It's probably not his intention, but the lack of good memories suggests that Harper was never happy with James, making her less sympathetic (and emotionally stable) than intended.   

For Rory Kinnear, on the other hand, the film offers a chance for this celebrated Shakespearean actor to play. 

The sequence in which five of his characters converge in one location, the local pub, dazzles on a technical level, while also injecting some welcome humor into the increasingly dark proceedings. And there's no doubt that he's fearless. Aside from the nudity--Kinnear is exposed, physically, in a way that sets him apart from the other actors--he appears to be having a blast playing all of these twisted villagers.

In the end, this film that means to elevate women by depicting the ways men can make our lives difficult gives a man the best and showiest part.

 

Men opens nationwide on Friday, May 20, at the usual multiplexes. All images from A24, except Natalie Portman in Annihilation from Netflix.  

Old Boyfriends: In Which Talia Shire Revisits Her Romantic Past to Forge Her Future

OLD BOYFRIENDS

(Joan Tewksebury, US, 1979, rated R, 103 minutes)

When screenwriting duo Paul and Leonard Schrader (Blue Collar) came up with the idea for Old Boyfriends, they titled it Old Girlfriends. During the process from page to screen, they decided that a story about a troubled woman revisiting three foundational relationships in her past would make more sense. The gender switch created an opportunity for Talia Shire, in an unusually opaque performance, to step into a leading role after acclaimed supporting turns in Rocky and The Godfather II (directed by her brother, Francis Ford Coppola). 

Dancer-turned-director Joan Tewksebury, who wrote Nashville and cowrote Thieves Like Us, directs in a way meant to keep viewers off balance. Is Old Boyfriends a psychological thriller, an ensemble drama, a character study, or a road movie? The mix of genres, combined with the presence of John Belushi in a non-comedic role, damned the film both critically and commercially, but today's audiences are likely to view it more charitably.

Tewkesbury opens with an unexplained car crash before introducing Shire's Dianne Cruise, a clinical psychologist, who prepares to travel by Firebird from California to Colorado to look up Jeff (a very good Richard Jordan, The Friends of Eddie Coyle), a filmmaker who proposed to her three times. After turning him down for the third time, she went on to marry a never-seen sociology professor. 

When she shows up to his film set, wearing dark glasses, it isn't clear at first whether she intends to do him harm or to rekindle their romance. After sharing a night of passion, she bonds with his teenage daughter, Dylan (Richard Jordan's daughter, Nina), and then disappears just as quickly as she arrived. Jeff will spend the rest of the film trying to track her down. 

Dianne next visits Minneapolis-based Eric (John Belushi), a perpetual adolescent who rents formalwear by day and sings in a rock & roll band at night, giving the erstwhile Blues Brother the chance to perform three numbers, arguably two too many. Diane then shifts to a more provocative look, adding to the thriller vibe, and Eric finds her just as irresistible as he did in high school, but she has different plans for him. By reading diary entries in voiceover, she reveals the nature of each relationship as it occurred. 

She ends by seeking out a childhood sweetheart in Michigan, but fate has taken him out of the picture. Instead, she attempts to recreate their relationship with his younger brother, Wayne (an off-kilter Keith Carradine, reuniting with Tewkesbury after Thieves Like Us), but his instability shakes her out of her nostalgic reverie (John Houseman, as Wayne's therapist, proceeds to give her a stern talking-to about the dangers of transference). 

With the aid of Buck Henry's drily amusing private investigator, Jeff locates Dianne after piecing together the reasons for her journey. The conclusion suggests that she's made her peace with these unresolved entanglements. 

If Old Boyfriends isn't completely successful, not least in the way Dianne's suitors tend to outshine her in the charisma department, Tewkesbury's sole theatrical feature deserves better than it got in 1979. Richard Jordan, in particular, gives such a warm, relaxed performance that it's hard not to wish the actor, who passed away in 1993, had enjoyed a longer career.

Old Boyfriends is available on DVD and Blu-ray via Kino Lorber and streaming via Kanopy. Images from the IMDb, The New Yorker / Avco Embassy/Kobal/Shutterstock, Girls on Tops Tees, and Blu-ray.com.

On the Tender Precision of Kim Bora's Directorial Debut House of Hummingbird

HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD

(Kim Bora, South Korea, 2018, not rated, 138 minutes)

Nothing about House of Hummingbird feels vague or ill-defined. For 14-year-old Seoul schoolgirl Eun-hee (Park Ji-hu, remarkably affecting), every day offers a new possibility for terror or triumph. 

It's the fate of adolescents the world over, but first-time feature filmmaker Kim Bora makes it clear that even the most seemingly ordinary teenage lives can be incredibly complicated. Eun-hee's parents (3-Iron's Lee Seung-Yun and Jeong In-gi) never went to college, so they pressure her and her older brother, Dae-hoon (All of Us Are Dead's Son Sang-yeon), to get good grades. They appear to have given up on middle child Su-hee (Park Su-yeon), who would rather sneak out to see her boyfriend than to study. 

It's 1994, a pivotal year in Korean history, and all three kids help out at the family rice cake stall. Dae-hoon deals with the pressure by beating up on Eun-hee. When she tells her parents, they refuse to acknowledge that he's the problem and not her. The benefits of patriarchal privilege are clear (it's cold comfort, but her best friend, Park Seo-yoon's Ji-suk, has an equally abusive older brother). 

Eun-hee also has a boyfriend, Ji-wan (Jung Yoon-seo), with whom she shares her first kiss and a mixtape to celebrate their 21-month anniversary, but when his mother claims she isn't good enough for him, he neglects to defend her, leading her to wonder if it might be time to move on. 

Schoolmates also make fun of her for dozing off between classes, except she's on the go from morning to night. 

Her parents have only been adding to her stress with their increasingly unruly altercations over her father's infidelity. Then Eun-hee notices a lump behind her ear. Her doctor orders a biopsy, after which he informs her that she'll need surgery. If anything goes wrong, she could end up with permanent facial paralysis. 

One day, she arrives at her Chinese cram class to find Young-ji (Kim Sae-byuk), a new tutor. Eun-hee is fascinated by her unfussy demeanor and the way she talks to her like an equal and not a child. She listens to what she has to say and thinks carefully before responding. It's a new experience for Eun-hee, who has learned to expect the worst from adults, like the grim homeroom teacher who declares, "Today is the first day until your death!" 

Time spent with Young-ji becomes intoxicating, except nothing lasts forever. 

Eun-hee has a surgical appointment on the way, an uncle who risks drinking himself to death, and an encoaching real-life disaster that will threaten to undo all of the progress she's started to make. 

Kim avoids melodrama as Eun-hee faces one challenge after another, sometimes with grace, sometimes the opposite. If she isn't a hero, she isn't a victim either, thanks to Young-ji's influence. One person who just takes the time to listen can make all the difference. "Will my life shine one day?," Eun-hee wonders. It may not happen as soon as she would like, but her life only seems likely to grow brighter with time. Highest recommendation. 

House of Hummingbird is available on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber and on streaming via the usual pay operators--it's also free on Pluto TV. Images from Letterboxd, SIFF, MUBI, and The Hollywood Reporter.