BEFORE: I've been sifting through my list of what's available on Netflix, looking for connections to the films already in my collection, or thematic tie-ins to the films I have access to on Academy screeners. I've realized that I have another long list of documentaries that has built up, mostly on Netflix. If I get to a point this year where I can't extend my chain any longer, another break in the linking, I can always switch over to docs for a while, and waive the linking rule for the duration.
Last year, about a month after Comic-Con, I did a great week (and a half) of documentaries about geek stuff, behind-the-scenes docs on Star Trek and Star Wars, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, plus fan films and poster artist Drew Struzan and then just people who go to Comic-Con, and I thought that all came together rather well. Now I seem to have access to a bunch of documentaries on music stuff, like one about the "Sgt. Pepper" album, two docs about David Bowie, that new one about Eric Clapton, and more docs on Netflix about Chicago, the Eagles and even Pentatonix. Plus I never got around to seeing that film about Amy Winehouse - there's a week of programming right there.
There's at least another 15 documentaries that I could program - like "Going Clear", "Life, Animated", "Life Itself", "The Wolfpack", "The Queen of Versailles", "Being Elmo" and so on. I'll have to find a good time to work in one or two documentary breaks before these films start disappearing from Netflix, because then it will cost me cash money to watch them. Only it never seems to be a good time. So, I'll have to wait for the next break, which won't come until mid-May at the earliest. Maybe it's just good to have this ready as a back-up plan in case my linking system doesn't work any more.
For now, it's Day 4 of the Howard Keel Film Festival, with one more day to go.
Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 21, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and now it's time to celebrate the Best Actress nominees:
6:15 am "Coquette" (1929) - Mary Pickford, winner
7:45 am "Min and Bill" (1930) - Marie Dressler, winner
9:00 am "The Divorcee" (1930) - Norma Shearer, winner
10:30 am "Lady For a Day" (1933) - May Robson
12:15 pm "Theodora Goes Wild" (1936) - Irene Dunne
2:00 pm "Ball of Fire" (1941) - Barbara Stanwyck
4:00 pm "Kitty Foyle" (1940) - Ginger Rogers, winner
6:00 pm "Jezebel" (1938) - Bette Davis, winner
8:00 pm "The Three Faces of Eve" (1957) - Joanne Woodward, winner
9:45 pm "Born Yesterday" (1950) - Judy Holliday, winner
11:45 pm "The Lion in Winter" (1968) - Katharine Hepburn, winner
2:15 am "Sunrise" (1927) - Janet Gaynor, winner
4:00 am "Blue Sky" (1994) - Jessica Lange, winner
Yet again, I've only see ONE of these, "The Lion in Winter". These films from the 1920's and 1930's are dragging down my score. One out of 13 (!!) brings my total up to 81 seen out of 234. Down to 34.6%
THE PLOT: A roguish poet is given the run of the scheming Wazir's harem while pretending to help him usurp the young caliph.
AFTER: This is another case where the same story was made into Hollywood films, over and over. This 1955 musical is the FOURTH version of this "Kismet" story to be filmed, although it's based on the 1953 stage musical, and the other three were based on the original 1911 (non-musical) play. But either way, the story was turned into films in 1920, 1930, and 1944 before this. So exactly how necessary was it for the film to be made yet again?
Especially since it doesn't seem to portray anything like an accurate version of real life in Baghdad - not ancient Baghdad, not current Baghdad, not any Baghdad that ever was. I guarantee that no writer involved here ever set foot in Iraq, or did anything but the most basic of research - it's all based on this Americanized version of what we THINK that Muslim life is like. (Is Iraq Muslim? I thought it was Shiite or Sunni - is that the same as Muslim? See, I don't even know, and just by asking this question, I've done more research than the screenwriters here.) They basically just bought a bunch of turbans and robes, framed a basic mistaken-identity storyline and then started rehearsals.
So this has got to be offensive to millions of people, right? Reducing the entire Iraqi city of Baghdad to a bunch of stereotypes - someone's either a beggar or a royal person, there's nothing in between. OK, I guess there are merchants in the marketplace, but if someone's not a royal or a merchant, then he must be a beggar. The lead role is a poet, which means he might as well be a beggar. He couldn't possibly have a steady job like cobbler or camel herder, now could he? Circumstances of the mistaken identity type dictating that the poet gets mistaken for a beggar who put a curse on another man 15 years ago, and that man's son was kidnapped after he was cursed. The poet (as the beggar) asks for 100 gold pieces to remove the curse, so the man pays him, because everyone in this society is simple and superstitious.
But when the poet starts spending the money, someone sees that the purse contains the insignia of a wealthy family that was robbed, so now the poet is mistaken for a thief. (Oh yeah, thieves, forgot about them. OK, anyone who isn't a royal, a merchant or a beggar has to be a thief.) This brings the poet into the palace, where the Wazir tries him for robbery. Another unbelievable set of coincidences not only clears him of the crime, but also makes the Wazir believe that the poet is really a mystic - again, everyone in this society is either simple or superstitious.
Meanwhile, the Caliph is exercising his right to go traveling around the city disguised as a commoner, another storytelling convention that probably doesn't ever happen in real life, but which is necessary so that he can meet the poet's daughter and fall in love with her. And when the Caliph announces his intention to marry, the Wazir needs to ensure that he doesn't marry the woman he wants, but instead marries a princess of Ababu, which would benefit the Wazir financially, or something. So the Wazir tasks the poet (now an Emir) with breaking up the intended marriage.
But wait, there's more - one of the Wazir's wives (he's got a harem, naturally, as all Iraqi bigwigs do) takes a liking to the poet, and agrees to let him live in the palace with his daughter. They hide the daughter in the harem (naturally) and the Caliph sees her there (because the Wazir spies on his own harem for some reason) and then Caliph then assumes she's one of the Wazir's wives, so his wedding to her is off, and the poet accidentally succeeds in the task of breaking up the marriage, but also simultaneously hurting his own daughter. The Wazir didn't recognize her as one of his wives, so of course he drugs her and marries her against her will. That's a shameful little turn of events.
More contrivances and trickery is needed to get her out of this marriage (as in "Kiss Me Kate" there's a rather grim off-screen turn of events that somehow makes everything OK again) but by this point, my head was spinning. Not even a Shakespearean mistaken identity plot of epic proportion would be this confusing. I wasn't crazy about any of the songs, either - and overall this just felt like it was made by some producers who predicted that in 1955, Arab-based stories were going to be some kind of hot trend, and then they turned out to be very, very wrong.
Also starring Ann Blyth (last seen in "Mildred Pierce"), Dolores Gray, Vic Damone, Monty Woolley, Sebastian Cabot (last heard in "The Sword in the Stone"), Jay C. Flippen (last seen in "The Wild One"), Mike Mazurki (last seen in "Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood"), Jack Elam (last seen in "Artists and Models"), Ted de Corsia, Norman Leavitt (last seen in "Show Boat"), with cameos from Ross Bagdasarian (last seen in "Rear Window"), Aaron Spelling, Jamie Farr.
RATING: 3 out of 10 watermelons (really? in Iraq?)
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