When Ann Harding Was "A Screen Event" --- Prestige (1932)
Director Tay Garnett turned loose his camera for
RKO-Pathe and the thing fairly leaps about sets and location for this melodrama
set at a French penal, read Hellhole, colony. Ann Harding foolishly goes there
to join dissipated and near-gone-mad Melvyn Douglas, dashing/dutiful when he
left, but gone to drink and unchivalrous manner after a year's duty. Will she
stay loyal or yield toromantic blandishment of rival Adolphe Menjou? It may
not matter for as many as 71 minutes, but Garnett's flamboyant direction makes
Prestige noteworthy, being a virtuoso display of how talent could take
commonplace content and get real visual excitement out of it. Our POV never
stays still; when characters go on the move, we follow. I don't know another
'32 release so adventurous. Pete Harrison, of Harrison's
Reports, said Garnett's "shifting camera" was headache-inducing and a
menace to calm viewing, but modernists agree this director has more due coming.
Tay gave Prestige the razz in his memoir,
calling it "highly forgettable." My guess is Garnett hadn't seen the
thing since it was new, maybe not even then. TCM runs Prestige occasionally, and
it's bound to show up soon at Warner Archives.
This is an important film, though perhaps not for the reasons that the producers intended. First, the film is incredibly racist, in the "white man's burden genre." Second, not only does the camera move a lot, there is tracking in every single shot. It's as if Garnett had made a bet that he could make a completely moving picture. And there is an amazing 360 degree pan inside the stockade. For the most part, the moving camera isn't a gimmick, but integral to the story. The film was not well received by audiences, and Garnett's contract was not renewed after this picture.
1 Comments:
This is an important film, though perhaps not for the reasons that the producers intended. First, the film is incredibly racist, in the "white man's burden genre." Second, not only does the camera move a lot, there is tracking in every single shot. It's as if Garnett had made a bet that he could make a completely moving picture. And there is an amazing 360 degree pan inside the stockade. For the most part, the moving camera isn't a gimmick, but integral to the story. The film was not well received by audiences, and Garnett's contract was not renewed after this picture.
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