Round Up 1938: J'Accuse! (you intelligentsia swine!)

 

According to the Internet Movie Database, of the 1,129 films made in 1938, only 12 contain elements of horror, science fiction or fantasy. They are:

A Christmas Carol 
Chinatown Nights 
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars 
Flight to Fame 
J'Accuse   
Kaibyô nazo no shamisen 
Mars Attacks the World 
Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot 
The Gladiator 
The Secret of Treasure Island   
Topper Takes a Trip   
Youth in Revolt 

There's an odd review of the 1938 A Christmas Carol over at AMG, where Bruce Eder begins with a long, long list of the many places it falls short of the 1951 Alistair Sim version that is still regarded as definitive, then suggests that its uncomplicated approach may be best suited for Christmastime viewing by everyone but those he sneeringly refers to as 'the intelligentsia'. Reginald Owen stars as Scrooge, and I wouldn't refuse to watch it if the opportunity presented (and, you know, the Sim version wasn't playing on another channel), but frankly, Eder's violent defense of MGM's version in opposition to the apparently stuck up, intellectual 1951 British one is more interesting than the film could ever be. Damned hoity-toity smart people: always ruining Christmas...

Far more compelling is genius director Abel Gance's 1938 remake of his own 1919 J'Accuse that, plotwise, appears to bear little resemblance to the original apart from its anti-war stance, if the descriptions I've just read are anything to go by. The 1938 version involves a scientist, having been traumatised by the horrors of WWI, creating a machine to benefit all mankind and bring an end to war, only to see it turned into a weapon by his government, leading to what Bruce Eder (yes, that Bruce Eder: he's usually a very interesting critic) describes as "the main section of the film, an astonishing mix of science-fiction and horror elements [that] in its reach and assembly of images and messages, seems to anticipate the future work of Stanley Kubrick, in Paths of Glory but also aspects of the symbolism of 2001: A Space Odyssey." Does it make me a bad person that I've never had any burning desire to see the original, but that the inclusion of said science fiction (reviews are commendably circumspect as to the nature of the obscenely misapplied technology our hero develops) and horror (dead soldiers rise to accuse the living) elements have piqued my interest in the remake I never knew existed? Gance was one of the truly great director/innovators, and I'm all for peace, but the phrase 'anti-war movie' has never turned me on (though in my defense, pro-war war movies are usually a hard sell for me, too): it just never sounds like it's going to be a very good time, you know. Also, I just dismissed Chinatown Nights and Flight To Fame without a second thought, having read that both films involved scientists, their 'death rays', and the war effort, but just let Abel Gance do something similar and it makes my list. Kind of pathetic, really.

I'd like to be able to report something about Kaibyô Nazo No Shamisen, but the only thing I've been able to find out is that it is part of a Japanese horror subgenre of kaibyo, or 'ghost cat', films -- a trope that modern viewers will recognise as one of the scarier aspects of the recent Ju-On (aka, The Grudge) series: specifically the feral ghost of the dead child who (chillingly) cries with the voice of his equally deceased cat.

There's no Cary Grant in Topper Takes a Trip, which makes it the least interesting of the three Topper films, and certainly not the place I'm likely to start.

And, finally, we have the French Youth In Revolt (aka, Altitude 3,200), which should have been called Attitude 3,200, because that's just what those pesky idealistic teens we have historically been so plagued with have knocked out of them in this film. The said elevation refers to a mountaintop retreat where a group of men are talked by a group of young girls into playing Utopian Equality for the remainder of their vacation, with everyone ultimately deciding (after dissent, jealousy, and an avalanche) that they like things better in the real world. Which, frankly, I find kind of sad...

J'accuse (I Accuse That They May Live) (1937-France)