A Celebration of Art Deco at Film Forum, ‘Screen Deco,’ Offers Movie Fans a Chance To See Some Rare Gems

Nestled among the run of films in a new program at Film Forum, “Screen Deco,” are two of the most rara of cinematic aves in American popular culture, or at least from the early days of all-singing, all-talking pictures. Movie fans with a yen for the off-center will want to sample William Wyler’s “Counsellor At Law” (1933) and Edgar G. Ulmer’s “The Black Cat” (1934).They would make an awkward double bill. “Counsellor At Law” is a melodrama posing as a rat-a-tat-tat comedy; “The Black Cat” is a horror film ostensibly based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe. Their themes are far afield: Wyler’s picture shines a light on the whys-and-wherefores of assimilation, while Ulmer’s movie explores the lengths to which a soul tortured by love will go to salve his psyche. The former is as American as mom, baseball, and a generous apportioning of kneidlach; the latter is baroque in its nooks, crannies, and convolutions.What they do share is an architectural and artistic style made plain by the title of the series, Art Deco. Production designers took inspiration from the sleek geometries, contoured edges, bold patterns, and unapologetic emphasis on decoration that seemed, at the time, the height of modernity. Luxury keyed into the appeal of Art Deco, a sense that its machine-tooled forms reflected a life in which form trumped function and excess superseded want. It’s no coincidence that a good bunch of the pictures at Film Forum are centered on never-never lands populated by the wealthy at play.There are exceptions. Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) is less a fairy tale than a dystopian caution. A trio of catty intellects at the core of Ernst Lubitsch’s “Trouble in Paradise” (1932), two of whom are thieves, ape the trappings of the rich even as they seek to pull the rug out from under them. Both films are miracles of art and commerce, with the Lubitsch being a contender for the sexiest movie ever made — not least because its notion of eroticism includes restraint and blessed, blessed wit.Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in ‘The Black Cat’ (1934). Via Film ForumThere’s no sparkling wit to be had in “The Black Cat,” though the proceedings are shot through with a bleak strain of humor. At 66 minutes in length, Ulmer’s movie packs in a lot, all of which is imbued with a brooding hallucinogenic fervor. Oddly enough — and there is a lot that is odd about this picture — “The Black Cat” was the biggest hit of the year for Universal Pictures. Were audiences of the time pulled in by the star power of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff? Nowadays, the movie is a staple of the cult circuit.Lugosi is Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a psychiatrist and army veteran who’s just been released from a 15-year stay at a Siberian prison camp. He’s traveling through the forested byways of Hungary to confront Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), his former commanding officer, a war criminal and the man who ran away with Werdegast’s wife and daughter. If you need additional proof of Poelzig’s diabolical nature, Ulmer and screenwriter Peter Ruric based the character on the progenitor of Satanism, Aleister Crowley. Set designer Charles D. Hall gussied up Poelzig’s mountaintop lair with all sorts of extravagant features, including a digital clock, keening hallways, and a basement that houses an array of glass cases in which beautiful women are suspended in limbo. A medical facility on the premises allows Werdegast the opportunity to exact his redress on Poelzig. Those familiar with the fate of the satyr of Greek myth, Marsyas, will be relieved to know that Ulmer filmed this particular scene in silhouette. Still, it’s pretty gruesome.“Counsellor at Law” is a less extreme and surprisingly relevant entertainment. The screenplay was adapted by Elmer Rice from his play of the same name. Rice had won a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier Broadway hit, “Street Scene,” a rambling overview of tenement life on the Lower East Side. In “Counsellor at Law,” the setting moves uptown to the towering confines of the Empire State Building. It is there that we are ushered into the offices of Simon and Tedesco, a high-powered law firm dominated by George Simon (John Barrymore).Our hero has his foibles — Simon revels in taking on scandalous cases — but he is loyal to those close to him and keenly aware of his status as an outsider: “Those guys who came over on the Mayflower don’t like to see the boys from Second Avenue sitting in the high places.” Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. initially wanted Paul Muni to be the lead — he had played Simon in the original play — but Muni fretted about being pigeonholed as Jewish. The against-type Barrymore was subsequently hired on the basis of his star power. It’s among his best performances.“Counsellor at Law” is creaky in its reliance on ethnic types, but good-hearted in how they’re represented. A bigger problem is the picture’s airlessness, though you can see Wyler working hard to bring variety to the staginess of the proceedings. Rice’s progressive politics infuse the proceedings — among the tangents detailed in this multi-pronged narrative is a communist rabble-rouser — but so, too, is a charitable take on the foibles of the rich, the poor, the shady, and the virtuous. Among the more heart-rending currents in the movie concerns the unspoken love Simon’s secretary, Rexy (an estimable Bebe Daniels), has for her boss.If that dynamic sounds cringey by the elevated standards of 21st century culture, rest assured the matter is dealt with in an understated and adult manner. Whatever else you can say about this curiosity, its humanity is abiding even as its wisecracks fall flat. “Counsellor at Law” is among the finds in a program that guarantees, at the very least, visual splendor.

A Celebration of Art Deco at Film Forum, ‘Screen Deco,’ Offers Movie Fans a Chance To See Some Rare Gems

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