One man Who's Got Something to Say About That
Comic masterpiece from Duck Soup (1933)
Edgar “Slow Burn” Kennedy (April 26, 1890 – November 9, 1948) was a beloved character actor from Hollywood’s Golden Age
Here seen with Chico and Harpo Marx from the screwball comedy, Duck Soup, an all-time favorite.
Click on the image to watch the video scene via YouTube.
In 1984, Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in New York City filled half a floor with sand dunes and set up sort of a Santa’s Wonderland display of Dune merchandise, before the film had even been released. Print ads and TV ads were everywhere. The buzz was engineered to be easy shoved down everyone’s throat, like sand through a sand worm. And then the film opened.
Despite Frank Herbert being involved and giving full approval, it was just okay as sci-fi movie. Most viewers found it confusing and without enough character development to actually care about anyone in it.
The truth is, it came out about 10 years too late. After the Star Wars films and others, seeing Kyle McLaughlin riding a giant worm in front of an obvious green screen was anything but epic or thrilling.
On the whole, I liked it. But the hype had been so over-the-top there was no way it would survive the critical orca pod that was happy to rip it to pieces in the press. TV shows now have spectacular cinematic special effects to the point they are taken very much for granted. So, the new film may suffer a similar fate if its producers expect a giant worm to sell many tickets after the first week.
But then, following that 1984 flop, it became the main business model of the film industry to over-hype movies so they have that tremendous opening weekend, allowing them to crow about the box office receipts before word gets out about what a stinker a film is. So, this version of Dune may sell more toys and video games, which seems to what matters most these days.
Given the arcane nature of the Dune novels, even just the first one required a mini-series length to explain on a screen just who all the people were and provide the immersive atmosphere with a fraction of the exotic detail of cultures and “the spice,” which earned the books legions of fans. Another two-hour movie version will likely skip along the surface like the original and then sink into oblivion in much the same way.
The new Dune may abide all that, since there will be all the future streaming revenue, and it is hoped some increased book sales as well.
Instead of taking that on, the director smartly made an artistic film that used the idea of Dunkirk to focus on a couple of fundamental themes defining the human condition, with stakes sent sky-high by a faceless menace providing sudden death from that sky at any moment, as well as from land or sea.
I won’t spoil things by discussing those themes. But I will say, I enjoyed how the director chose to enhance them through non-linear storytelling, where we see certain events replayed at different times, from new perspectives.
The basic plot is that the good guys, or blokes in this case, are surrounded and nearing possible annihilation, which a history book will show was avoided by most of them. However, those living and dying through it could not know what lay in store from one moment to the next. Hence the drama.
Not that the film doesn’t pay appropriate homage to those who made Dunkirk synonymous with personal sacrifice and stoic British heroism. It does that quite well, mainly through the guise of the various big stars, like Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Hardy, as well as the voice that seemed to be impersonating Michael Cain’s R.A.F. squadron leader from 1969’s The Battle of Britain – which turned out to be an uncredited Sir Michael Cain.
But their altruism, focused on getting as many of their besieged countrymen home as possible, is offset by the main characters, all members of the common soldiery dedicated to getting themselves home by any means necessary.
For all the dire circumstances, there is some nicely underplayed comic relief. I had to chuckle at the affectionate display of inherent Britishness sprinkled across the film.
An old saying declares, “An Englishman standing alone is an orderly queue of one.” And our first glimpse of Nolan’s Dunkirk beach is seen through the eyes of just such an Englishman, as he looks out at queue upon queue of British warriors, all lined up and neatly waiting their turn for whatever fate lies ahead. And then he politely helps a stranger finish burying a dead body before he takes his place at the back the nearest queue.
I highly recommend seeing Dunkirk on the largest screen possible – not for the epic action movie carnage, which does not make an appearance, but for the full impact of the environmental effects that isolate most every shot in the film. Isolation being the key concept here.
Oh there I’ve gone and said one of those themes. But it still isn’t the central one.
A FEW MORE MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Nolan’s movie does explain what happened at Dunkirk well enough, in an almost stage-worthy condensed form.
The film opens with a decimated British infantry unit arriving at the beach of legend – setting up how this movie was going to use as few actors, extras, boats, and period aircraft as possible to tell its story.
For example, early on, a half dozen plucky French soldiers are seen standing their ground behind a fortified position, guarding the entrance to the seaside a few yards away. That is all that represents the 40,000 French soldiers miles inland at Lille, suffering genuine annihilation as they bravely held off the full might of seven Nazi divisions, so the British and other French forces could escape to England.
From that moment on, every person we encounter below the rank of admiral is a fictional character on a greatly reduced stage, standing for the great many that did what they did at Dunkirk, ultimately saving Western Civilization for at least another 75 years.
That’s a time period that expired two years ago, by the way.
Despite using the actual beach depicted in the film, along with some dozen historic vessels in the water that were there in 1940, the movie really isn’t about Dunkirk. All in all, it isn’t a war film. It’s a disaster movie.
Like The Poseidon Adventure and This is the End, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk is about how various people behave in a catastrophe. And that may say something about the prevailing subconscious concerns of what stands for Western Civilization these days.
And that is one man’s word on…
Was “chuffed” indeed to learn that Ian McKellen was to portray an “aging Sherlock Holmes.” But in 1947???
Sherlock Holmes would have been 93 at minimum. Seems improbable that a man of his years and unhealthy lifestyle would even be alive in 1947, let alone functioning in society as the trailer suggests – not to mention dressing in Victorian garb. Ridiculous is more like it. A pity they did not set it in the ’20s or ’30s, which would have actually made sense.
Still, I will see it and probably love it. At worse it is sure to far surpass the insufferable comic book action movie rubbish that were the Downy Jr. films.