The Bars of Wealth are Locked!

One of the risks of locking yourself in a cage is you might not be able to get out when you want to. Duh. Olivia de Havilland makes this seemingly elementary mistake in the 1964 hagsploitation/delinquent exploitation film Lady in a Cage. The plot is strenuously ridiculous and everyone overacts, especially the director, but its gaudiness has a campy charm.

A wealthy. elderly poetess called Cornelia Hilyard (de Havilland) lives in an enormous, decadently decorated house with her grown son, Malcolm (William Swan). He leaves early in the film and we never see him again. This is so she can be all alone in the house when the massive cage elevator she has installed to take her up to the second floor breaks down due to a power outage.

She only has this thing temporarily because she's recovering from a broken hip. By now you may be wondering--where the hell are her servants? I think we're meant to believe she and her son take care of the place all alone. Even Walter Neff had a cleaning woman come in once a week to his apartment in Double Indemnity. None of the delinquents who wind up busting into Cornelia's house even seem to worry for a moment that a maid or a groundskeeper might show up at some point.

Leading the bunch is none other than James Caan in his first major role. He and his two young cohorts bicker cartoonishly, assuring the viewer that these kids are just as devoid of compassion or morality as anyone reading the newspapers gathers about youths these days in the early '60s.

Caan and de Havilland both give good performances, though they're both dialed up to eleven for the duration. De Havilland very quickly descends into mental breakdown and is hallucinating before the end. There's a message about how she might be partially responsible for her son's possible suicide because she coddled him too much. In a scathing letter, he accuses her of adding another room to the house every time he thinks about moving out, in the process making it seem more incredible she has no housekeeping staff.

The influence of Psycho is clear from the Saul Bass-ish opening titles with animated lines and rapid tempo score. None of Hitchcock's subtlety or psychological insight is present but by the end I couldn't help smiling at the film's heights of absurdity amid its heavy-handed political allegory. When de Havilland stabs Caan in the eyes in an update on Oedipus I was kind of delighted.

To His Lady's Bower

For Valentine's Night, I chose something a little more tried and true and watched 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood again. Now that's a romantic film, in the classical sense, and Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland certainly had chemistry.

How lovely is that scene where he visits her chambers? She's so innocent but clearly smart enough we know she knows what she's getting into. And somehow subsequent iterations have never managed anything like Flynn's blend of sauciness and gentleness.

I love de Havilland's shiny costumes and how every set was cavernous, as though it were a requirement in the '30s for every Hollywood set to be capable of supporting a massive dance number, should inspirations strike. I'd love to have a massive stone room with a fireplace big enough to be another room.

Being the king's ward certainly has its perks. Maid Marian does represent a fantasy of cultivation. Now the standard impression is that being raised in privilege inevitably corrupts a person but at one time people thought prudent, expensive upbringing could produce refinement. That's a lovely dream. No, it's not fair. But when has life ever been?

Olivia de Havilland

What can I say about Olivia de Havilland, who passed away two days ago at the age of 104, that I haven't already said? On the occasion of her 100th birthday, in 2016, I wrote about her talent and accomplishments. Many articles about her talk about her landmark legal victory against Warner Brothers that set a precedent, changing the profession for all actors who followed her. She fought to get better roles and she got them and rose to the occasion.

Her fragile, layered performance in The Snake Pit is a strong portrait of madness. Her trajectory from guileless innocent to frightened recluse in The Heiress is extraordinary and heartbreaking. But her work in the 1930s, in Gone with the Wind and Captain Blood, are also fantastic. Her exceptional beauty was paired with warmth and sensitivity of spirit that any swashbuckler should be honoured to fight for.

She remains the definitive Maid Marian in the definitive Robin Hood. It may not have been the most demanding role of her career but few could've made it so memorable. Opposite her frequent costar Errol Flynn, she was part of a cast impeccably suited to their roles, also including Eugene Palette as Friar Tuck, Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Alan Hale as Little John, and Claude Rains as Prince John. These portrayals have shaped impressions of the characters ever since.

Obviously her death was inevitable but I'm sorry to see her go. Somehow knowing she was out there was a comforting reminder that a piece of old Hollywood was still alive. But we still have the movies.

King John and Robin Hoods

It's eighty years this year since the best film version of Robin Hood was released. Starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Olivia de Havilland, and Claude Rains, it managed a combination of action, adventure, romance, and heartiness that's never been matched as a cinematic experience either by films that sought to replicate it or films that sought to subvert it. The newest version, due for release later this year, doesn't even look like it's trying. It looks like the filmmakers saw all the mistakes Guy Ritchie made with King Arthur and decided to triple down on them while removing any of the rough gangster charm Ritchie managed to evoke with his anachronisms.

I found myself in the mood to watch the Errol Flynn version again recently even before I realised it was the anniversary. I also found myself in the mood to watch an adaptation of Shakespeare's King John and I found a decent one on Amazon Prime from the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada.

Directed by Barry Avrich it has some beautiful costumes and really nice performances. Somehow I was in the mood to watch both these movies without considering I was itching for two different ahistorical takes of the real King John of England who reigned from 1199 to 1216. Yes, that's right, after everything you see in any adaptation of Robin Hood, the real John actually did succeed in taking the English throne after the death of Richard the Lionheart. Come to think of it, Tom McCamus, who plays John in the production of the Shakespeare play I watched, gives a performance not unlike Claude Rains in the Errol Flynn film. Both Johns are petulant, smug, and sort of catlike.

There's no Robin Hood in Shakespeare's play though one could say the character of Philip Faulconbridge, aka "the Bastard", bears some resemblance. A resemblance the Stratford Festival perhaps sought to emphasise by dressing him in bright green.

Played by Graham Abbey with appropriate and entertaining sardonicism, Philip is the illegitimate son of Richard the Lionheart who comes to serve John after John and Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Patricia Collins), recognises him and is charmed by his brazen attempt to steal his half brother's legitimate inheritance.

As the play progresses, he does show himself to be a man who sees past the assigned roles of class and state in crafting his own schemes. But he's a far more self-interested character than Robin Hood. After he has manipulated England and France into joining forces to raze a town he remarks on the base greed in both parties he's exploited to do so. But then continues:

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
Since kings break faith upon commodity,
Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.

Perhaps Ridley Scott had King John in mind when he made his 2010 adaptation of Robin Hood which, like the Shakespeare play, spends a lot of time focusing on conflicts between England and France. But Russell Crowe's version of the character is so weirdly surly and anaemic that the story lacks the driving force of either a Philip or Robin.

Oh, Errol Flynn, we'll never see the like again. Philip is fun but the generosity of spirit in Flynn's Robin Hood that exists alongside the treason he speaks "fluently" uniquely capture the essence of the character. There's a sweetness to his scenes with Marian--De Havilland portrays her affection for him with both intelligence and guilelessness that seems to comprehend and take in his puckishness rather than misunderstand or ignore it. No film adaptation has matched the duel between Flynn and Rathbone at the end, either, one of the most vigorous and spellbinding swordfights in film history.

Twitter Sonnet #1120

A cloak about the lime abused the peach.
The night collections stole from two to one.
Reviving candles lick yet out of reach.
A pupil peel absorbed a juice's run.
The shattered cards collect casinos now.
For good or ill a verdant felt conducts.
A present smoke remains to watch a row.
The veins a novel diamond soon inducts.
A ragged splinter sketched a rough plateau.
Descending icy moons corrupt the sand.
Adobe huts became a big chateau.
A team of birds became the feather band.
Opposing belts contain the mountain's dog.
Within the moon's a great and tranquil frog.