BEFORE: I'm currently working on publicity and promotions for the film CHEATIN' (Movie #1,650) which is finally going to be released in U.S. theaters, starting on April 3 in New York. In order to get the film a week in a NYC theater, we had to "four-wall" it, which means finding someone to buy all of the tickets, with the hope of selling enough of them to cover that cost. Then when you add in the cost of hiring a booking agent, publicists in three markets, printing postcards and posters, then all the postage of sending the materials to 20 theaters - well, the distribution costs start to become substantial. And we have no idea if the film will earn enough revenue to cover these costs, we just sort of have to charge ahead and hope for the best - that's independent filmmaking for you. At best, it's probably a zero-sum game.
Still, I'm happy because it took a long time to get to this point, where Bill Plympton, an indie animator, could even have the name recognition to get an animated film with sex & violence, aimed at adults, to open in 20 theaters. Even if we're playing a zero-sum game right now, there are the intangible benefits that he'll gain from doing interviews, and from the other publicity that the film will get. I assume that this is something many Hollywood films face, just on a larger scale - no one knows if a film will make money in theaters, but even if it doesn't, there's DVD sales and iTunes money that could help balance the scales down the road.
THE PLOT: A couple's big dreams give way to a life full of unexpected sadness and unexpected joy.
AFTER: The reason I mentioned the zero-sum game of indie film release is because it relates to this film, which suggests that life may be the biggest zero-sum game of all. You work hard to succeed and try to do the right thing, but if you look far enough down the road, you might wonder why you're going to all the trouble. If you just focus on the fact that someday you'll die and everything you do will be rendered pointless, you probably won't have the motivation to get out of bed.
It's kind of like the story seen in "Gone With the Wind", coincidentally released just a few years before tonight's film. If you're Scarlett O'Hara, you bust your hump finding a man and keeping your plantation running, only to find some silly army is out to torch Atlanta to the ground (whoopsie, sorry, SPOILER ALERT), or your man leaves, not giving a damn, and you wonder, "Why did I bother?" But you did bother, you tried your best and you kept things afloat for a while, try to focus on the positives, you silly Southern belle.
And in the end, it's all about the intangibles. Perhaps death is the great equalizer, and after it all debts are considered paid, and all profits negated - but what happened along the way? Did you find someone to love, did you help people when you could, did you remember to have fun and brighten people's spirits? If at the end of your career, you can lay down your hammer, or your sword, or your pen, knowing that you somehow made a difference, then your mind will be at rest and your soul will be at peace. That's the theory, anyway.
I tend to make a distinction between real philanthropists like Sam Simon, who made millions from co-creating "The Simpsons" and gave most of it away to charitable causes like animal rights organizations (any man who loves dogs and cats that much is OK in my book) and faux philanthropists like Bill Gates and (to my chagrin) George Lucas, who seem more like they got advice from their CPAs that donating money to wipe out a disease would also negate any annual taxes on their enormous incomes. But I admit I don't have enough firsthand knowledge to make this call.
Anyway, Cary Grant's character fights in a small California town to keep his little newspaper running, even though the circulation doesn't seem to go up much with each passing year. At some point, you've got to figure that he'll reach the end of his rope, but he just ties a knot in it and keeps on keepin' on, when any normal person would have found a job of the sort that pays money.
The secondary "legal" theme carries over again, as tonight's film is partially concerned with the legalities of adoption. How long is the waiting list? How much money does the couple make, can they support a child? Who determines whether someone makes an appropriate parent, anyhow?
There's more here, of course, but adoption is part of the picture as we see a young couple get together and then endure life's ups and downs. Part of that is the tragedy of not having a baby of their own, but this gets countered by the joy of taking care of an adopted child. I can't really comment on the topic of child-rearing or how it's supposed to make me feel - I'm guessing that people who've gone through it, or hope to, are more firmly in this film's target audience.
It seems like a lot of work - feeding schedules, sleeping arrangements, bathing the kid without scalding it, folding and pinning diapers - oh, yeah, those scenes take place sometime in the 1930's, so no disposable diapers, no baby monitors, no bottle warmers, etc. There's a high learning curve, and if the guy who maintains your newspaper printing press knows more about it than you, you've got some catching up to do.
The story of the couple is told mostly in flashback - we see them after a personal tragedy as they prepare to separate from each other, then through a series of phonograph records, the wife remembers the story of their time together. I understand why the film is arranged this way, but I still don't have to like excessive flashbackery as a narrative device. Anyway, NITPICK POINT: who the heck combines their record collection with their scrapbooks? Was this a thing back in the 1930's, people stored their baby's pictures along with Victrola records so they'd remember things better with the right music? I can maybe see it if a couple had one song they danced to and called their own, but I doubt most people are organized enough to make soundtracks for every part of their life - maybe the guy from "High Fidelity", but that's a special case.
It's also easy to draw a connection to "It's a Wonderful Life" - this sort of feels like the precursor to that other very flashbacky film. But because that one amped up the Christmas angle, it became a perennial classic over time, and this one seems to have been largely forgotten. They both seem to cover some of the same territory, though. Both also fell out of copyright, too, so it's a wonder why this one didn't also become a staple of every small broadcasting channel.
Also starring Irene Dunne, Edgar Buchanan (also Cary-ing over from "The Talk of the Town"), Beulah Bondi (last seen in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"), Eva Lee Kuney.
RATING: 4 out of 10 fortune cookies
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