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When the Clouds Roll By (1919)
Jan. 24th, 2009 10:09 amI missed a chance to see this at the Paramount Theater last summer, so I was glad to spot it in the Flicker Alley set of early Douglas Fairbanks films, because I had been intrigued by the descriptions. It turns out to be a a real gem, too. It's directed by Victor Fleming, who is most famous for getting credit -- as the last director standing -- on two of the most famous Hollywood movies of 1939, The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, both of which went through multiple directors. Fleming had been the cinematographer on several of Fairbanks' films before this, but this was his first ever directorial credit according to the liner notes.
The basic story of When the Clouds Roll By is fairly typical of these pre-swashbuckling Fairbanks movies. He plays Daniel Boone Brown, a regular guy who's a bit of a dork. In this case, he is extremely superstitious, and the early parts of the film are full of strange superstitions that compel him to act idiotically. I suspect half of these superstitions were made up, although some were familiar, such as black cats, ladders, and rabbits feet. However, the unusually dark aspect of the story involves an evil psychologist who is using Fairbanks in an experiment to see if he can drive a human being so crazy that he will kill himself. The intent was apparently to make fun of the Freudian psychoanalysis that was becoming all the rage in post-War America. This grappling with Freud is reminiscent of the Expressionist horror film, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, which was released in Germany in early 1920.
What is perhaps most striking about Fairbanks' film are the sophisticated special effects and film techniques. Early on we get a representation of the food -- including Welsh rarebit -- dropping into his stomach and dancing around crazily, causing indigestion. This leads to a dream sequence -- a nightmare in which Fairbanks is first menaced by a funhouse-mirror distortion of Bull Montana and then chased by the food through swimming pools and ghostly walls and over an exaggerated slow motion obstacle hurdle. Central to this sequence is a passage where Fairbanks walks up a wall, across a ceiling, and down the other wall -- a special effect that was used again thirty years later by Fred Astaire, who of course added dancing to the mix. Later in this movie, we also get a representation of a fight in Fairbanks' psyche between Reason and Humor on one side and Fear and Despair on the other. This scene is absolutely hilarious, as Despair physically lifts Reason from her throne and tosses her to the floor.
Aside from the fact that I once again found Fairbanks' All-American character to be something of a prick (much like Tom Cruise in contemporary Hollywood), I found this movie a lot of fun. His physical exuberance and effortless stunts are reminiscent of Jackie Chan (another mugging prick, come to think of it), and the pace of the story and the editing is very rapid. Several of the gags are flat out brilliant and are clear predecessors to the physical comedy of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. It may drag a little in the middle, when we get down to a competitive love triangle, but at just over an hour, it doesn't outlast its welcome and moves quickly to the knock-out finale. I've really liked a couple of the movies in this set, but it may be true, as the liner notes claim, that this one is the best of the contemporary comedies he made before the period swashbuckler stage of his career. Perhaps the one thing it lacks is the witty intertitles that Anita Loos provided in earlier films.
The basic story of When the Clouds Roll By is fairly typical of these pre-swashbuckling Fairbanks movies. He plays Daniel Boone Brown, a regular guy who's a bit of a dork. In this case, he is extremely superstitious, and the early parts of the film are full of strange superstitions that compel him to act idiotically. I suspect half of these superstitions were made up, although some were familiar, such as black cats, ladders, and rabbits feet. However, the unusually dark aspect of the story involves an evil psychologist who is using Fairbanks in an experiment to see if he can drive a human being so crazy that he will kill himself. The intent was apparently to make fun of the Freudian psychoanalysis that was becoming all the rage in post-War America. This grappling with Freud is reminiscent of the Expressionist horror film, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, which was released in Germany in early 1920.
What is perhaps most striking about Fairbanks' film are the sophisticated special effects and film techniques. Early on we get a representation of the food -- including Welsh rarebit -- dropping into his stomach and dancing around crazily, causing indigestion. This leads to a dream sequence -- a nightmare in which Fairbanks is first menaced by a funhouse-mirror distortion of Bull Montana and then chased by the food through swimming pools and ghostly walls and over an exaggerated slow motion obstacle hurdle. Central to this sequence is a passage where Fairbanks walks up a wall, across a ceiling, and down the other wall -- a special effect that was used again thirty years later by Fred Astaire, who of course added dancing to the mix. Later in this movie, we also get a representation of a fight in Fairbanks' psyche between Reason and Humor on one side and Fear and Despair on the other. This scene is absolutely hilarious, as Despair physically lifts Reason from her throne and tosses her to the floor.
Aside from the fact that I once again found Fairbanks' All-American character to be something of a prick (much like Tom Cruise in contemporary Hollywood), I found this movie a lot of fun. His physical exuberance and effortless stunts are reminiscent of Jackie Chan (another mugging prick, come to think of it), and the pace of the story and the editing is very rapid. Several of the gags are flat out brilliant and are clear predecessors to the physical comedy of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. It may drag a little in the middle, when we get down to a competitive love triangle, but at just over an hour, it doesn't outlast its welcome and moves quickly to the knock-out finale. I've really liked a couple of the movies in this set, but it may be true, as the liner notes claim, that this one is the best of the contemporary comedies he made before the period swashbuckler stage of his career. Perhaps the one thing it lacks is the witty intertitles that Anita Loos provided in earlier films.
