Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

“Whatever happens tomorrow you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”

            So many superhero movies deal with a guy who either becomes a hero reluctantly or is a cocky bad ass or already comes fully loaded with super powers from his home planet. They all want to get rid of the bad guys so they do not destroy the world. They usually have to save the world they have no other choice. Captain America: The First Avenger tells a different story and one, I believe, to be far superior then all the other stories.

            World War II has just begun for the United States. The country’s citizens have become patriotic like never before. All the men who are willing and able to fight, sign up at recruiting stations to defend their country. One man willing to fight is Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) but unfortunately he is not able. Steve is a very small guy with asthma. He is so desperate to join the war that he has gone to several recruiting stations each time falsifying where he is from. His friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), a big healthy guy, signed up and was made a sergeant. To celebrate, Bucky brings Steve along with him to the Stark Expo in Queens. Located the Expo is a recruiting station. Steve gives this one a try. He is seen in the waiting room by a scientist named Dr. Abraham Erskin (Stanley Tucci).

            While waiting to be examined, Steve becomes anxious after seeing a sign in the room stating that if any of his documentation is found to be false he will be arrested. An MP comes into the room followed by Dr. Erskin. The doctor promises him he is not in trouble and will allow him to sign up for the Army. Steve is placed in a special regiment that works for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. The first day of training the regiment is introduced to Col. Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) and a female officer named Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell). Steve is the only man in the group that has respect for Agent Carter and she takes notice. What Steve lacks in physicality he makes up for with his intelligence, his respect, and his kindness. During a running exercise, the person in charge tells the men that if they can get a flag down from a pole they will get a ride back to camp in the car with Agent Carter and Col. Phillips. All the men try in vain to climb the pole but they never get to it. Steve goes up to the pole, takes a piece out from the bottom making the whole thing fall, and takes the flag.

            Col. Phillips does not believe Steve is the right guy for Dr. Erskin’s Super Soldier experiment because he is a scrawny kid. Dr. Erskin believes in Steve and wants him for the experiment. After Steve has been officially chosen, Dr. Erskin sits down with him. He sees the small guy just wants to stop the bad guys because they are bullies. He is a good man with a good a heart which is exactly why he was chosen.

            Agent Carter brings Steve to what looks like an antique store in Brooklyn. Behind a bookcase is a secret lab where Steve will be turned into a super soldier. Dr. Erskin created the formula and millionaire scientist Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) designed the technology for the metamorphosis. The changing process is intense. Agent Carter at one point yells for Howard to stop but Steve tells them he can take it. When the process is complete Steve emerges taller and stronger. As soon as the process is over Steve’s new strength is put to the test. A Nazi saboteur managed their way into the lab. He blows a part of it up and shoots his way out of the lab. Steve gives chase to the man throughout the streets of Brooklyn. He catches up to the man but does not manage to bring him in. The man breaks a capsule in his mouth filled with poison and as he dies he says “Hail Hydra.”

            In Germany there is a man named Schmidt (Hugo Weaving). He is part of a Nazi scientific unit called Hydra. Before Dr. Erskin came to the United States he had worked for the German government where he had been experimenting on the Super Soldier serum. The serum was not ready when Schmidt took it and it left him deformed in a certain way. It also exacerbated his greed for power.

            Instead of fighting in the War Steve is sent around the War Bonds circuit as part of a show as a character called Captain America. The tour makes its way to Europe to the camp where Bucky’s unit is stationed. The men mercilessly make fun of him. Steve tells Agent Carter he feels terrible he still wants to fight in the War like he had wanted to. He hears that Bucky and most of the unit have been captured behind enemy lines and are considered to be dead. Steve wants to go in and save his friend and the rest of the unit. Col. Phillips will not hear it so Steve takes the matter into his own hands along with some help from Agent Carter and Howard Stark.

            Steve is dropped behind enemy lines. He finds Hydra’s compound and rescues Bucky and the rest of the men from the unity. The men fight back using weapons Hydra has made. Steve and Bucky come face to face with Schmidt. Schmidt shows Steve what happened to him when he took the first Super Soldier serum. It turned his whole face and skull red. Schmidt, aka Red Skull, manages to get away before the compound is destroyed.

            Back at camp Steve is ready to be punished for his actions but is instead put in charge of gathering a group of men to take down Hydra and Red Skull.

            In the end, Steve makes the ultimate sacrifice as a soldier in order to save his country.

            I loved every single person in this cast. It was wonderfully cast every actor was perfection in their role. Not enough praise can go to Chris Evans as Captain America. I completely believed him as the character. He does not have the macho look of the other superheroes, he looked like a real down to earth guy from the 1940s. Evans did what an actor should do in movies he played the character so well that you cannot imagine anyone else in the role. Sebastian Stan I had only ever seen as The Mad Hatter from Once Upon a Time before this. I loved him as Bucky. I liked his friendship with Steve. He was kind of the macho, big best friend to the small guy but they were definitely like brothers. I liked how Bucky did not make a big deal out of Steve’s change. Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark was great. He is not conventionally handsome which I think adds to the character because Howard is a playboy yet you can still believe he is a brilliant scientist and he does care about people.  Neal McDonnough is getting a mention because I love him in whatever he is in. His character was a bit silly looking yet a total badass. Tommy Lee Jones was Tommy Lee Jones he was a curmudgeon old military colonel and of course he was great. Hugo Weaving as Red Skull was one of the better bad guys and better actors as a bad guy in a Marvel movie. He had the perfect look and demeanor for a bad guy especially a nasty German Nazi one. Natalie Dormier is getting a mention even though she had like a combined paragraph of lines. Her character was pretty much just used as a device to flirt with Steve because he has become a hero and also to show that Agent Carter really likes Steve.

            Speaking of Agent Carter… Hayley Atwell and Agent Carter are getting their own paragraph. At the time of this writing, the miniseries Agent Carter has just premiered. Before the miniseries I had never seen Captain America! Shame on me, I know, especially because I have brothers who are obsessed with Marvel and any kind of superhero movie. I had seen Agent Carter posts on Tumblr and that piqued my interest in seeing the show. She looked like a badass character I would adore. Well, I am now totally obsessed with the character of Agent Peggy Carter and am even more so after watching the movie. Holy crap the woman is incredible! Her first scene in the movie is utter perfection for a female character. Right away we are shown this woman is plenty capable of handling herself with men. (Also, look at the GIF under the third paragraph. There is A MAN, A SOLDIER, walking behind her fumbling with a box of clipboards and she is as cool as ice and all tough business). You can see she quietly proves herself capable without shoving it in men’s faces. Her scenes with Steve were beautiful. Their relationship was not love at first sight which is outrageously refreshing. From the first time she is introduced to Steve you can see she feels protective of him. She likes him because he is the only male who respects her and her work and does not treat her like she should not be where she is. If Agent Carter did fall in love with Steve it is because she respected him for respecting her and she admired his courage, determination, and kindness. As she told Col. Phillips she helped Steve cross over enemy territory because she believed in him. She believed in Steve when no one else fully did besides Dr. Erskin and that is important for both characters. Her jealousy in the one scene was not shown as a weakness or meant to be annoying. It only made her look tougher when she emptied a gun shooting at Steve’s shield (and possibly also made Steve like her bit a more). Not once did Agent Carter become a weak annoying girl even at the end when she was talking to Steve for the last time. If you have yet to watch the show Agent Carter WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!! GO WATCH IT NOW!! STOP READING THIS REVIEW AND GO!! Agent Carter is the perfect role model. She is intelligent, witty, and dangerous yet just the right amount of emotional, feminine, and strong. Marvel, the writers of the movie and show, and the directors of the movie and show did an absolutely fantastic job of portraying Agent Carter. She is how every female character should be written.
      Hayley Atwell deserves nothing but praise and adoration for playing Agent Carter. She had the perfect look for a 1940s woman and played the character beautifully. Like Chris Evans playing Steve Rogers, Atwell plays the character so well you cannot imagine anyone else but her in the role. Absolute perfection in every single way. I would also just like to throw out there that I now have a huge girl crush on Atwell and Agent Carter. I adore Atwell as an actress. I love watching her handle her character because you can see that she enjoys playing Peggy and that brings more out of the character. It has been such a long time since a great kickass female character like Peggy Carter has been seen in the movies or on TV. She reminds me a lot of Sydney Bristow from Alias that was also shown on ABC. Sydney Bristow and Jennifer Garner are my ultimate heroes and I have desperately missed a character and actress like her on TV. Agent Carter and Hayley Atwell are filling in that void ten times over. Atwell said she would be down for making an Agent Carter movie.... I'm waiting Marvel. 

            Captain American: The First Avenger is such a wonderful movie. I hate the fact that it took me so long to finally watch it but I cannot even describe how much I love it. The story of Captain America, to me, is refreshing and different from all the other superheroes. Steve Rogers was a guy who wanted to fight for his country and protect what he believed in. He is a regular guy who was given a gift and with that gift, combined with his kindness and sincerity, became the ultimate good guy. There are so many amazing scenes and fabulous characters and actors. The costumes were gorgeous for every character and the scenery, either real or CGI, was very good. I absolutely loved everything about Captain America: The First Avenger. I cannot wait to watch it again.  

Silent Sundays: So This is Paris (1926)

“It’s always fair weather when good liars get together.”

            Whenever I think of Paris in the 1920s I think of a few things: Surrealism, Ernest Hemingway, jazz, and booze. If it is anything like what literature and the movies portray sign me up for time travel! I probably sound like every other girl or person out there who has romantic dreams of what Paris was like in the 1920s. I like to study Surrealist photography from the 1920s which included Man Ray and Salvador Dali so I have learned some very interesting things about their lives during that time and somewhat of what Paris was like. It always seems like Paris was one continuous care-free party after another. I am sure it was if you had money or came from money or just wasted your money.

            I also like to imagine what it must have been like to be a wife of a wealthy man back then. Since I would most likely not have been the partying type I like to think I would have been a great patron of the arts and my collection would have consisted of Monets, Picassos, Matisses, and Dalis. Maybe even some great works by nineteenth century artists (I have a degree in Art History mid-late nineteenth century European art is my favorite). But, on the other hand, I would like to think I would be a party animal with or without my husband going out to clubs dancing and drinking until all hours of the morning. But in today’s world I am not much of a party animal so I am sure I would have been the type of girl who dreams about being a party animal much like I do now (I have friends and cousins who are very social and go out and my current idols/obsessions are Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, and Hannah Hart who all like to drink. I guess I live vicariously through all of them…. For now. It takes money to go out, people, and I do not have that or the alcohol tolerance unfortunately).

            What old films have taught me over and over is that when a woman or man is rich they get bored. And when they become bored with their lives they seek out adventure and lust. That is something I would never want to happen to me if I was in Paris in the 1920s or any other time before World War II. It does happen to the four main characters in the silent Ernst Lubitsch film So This is Paris.

            Georgette and her husband Maurice are dancers. They had been practicing an Arabian style dance when they decided to take a rest. Maurice took his rest in a chair by the window. Across the way in another building, Suzanne Giraud had just finished reading her book about a sheik. She looks out her window and sees Maurice sitting across the way without his shirt on. Suzanne is appalled. When her husband Paul comes home she demands him to go have a talk with the man to tell him to put his shirt on.

            With hat and cane Paul walks over the other building. When he is introduced to Georgette they know each other. The old friends share some wild stories with each other. Paul is standing with his back to the window where his wife can see him and he is laughing. To his wife across the way it looks as though Paul is having a fight with Maurice. When he goes home Paul pretends to look miserable because of his fight and wants to be alone. He tells Suzanne he smashed Maurice to bits with his cane. Maurice brings Paul cane over since he left it at his house. While Paul stays in his room too afraid to come out, Maurice kisses Suzanne. He wants to see her again.

            The following day, Georgette calls from a payphone to Paul’s house pretending she needs Paul, a doctor, to tend to her sick husband. Suzanne tells him about the call and where to go. Paul speeds away into town. On his way to the hotel he gets pulled over. He tells the officer that he is a doctor but he cannot prove that because he forgot his papers. The officer follows him to the hotel where he sees Paul hugging Georgette and laughing. The officer becomes upset and writes Paul a ticket. Paul yells at him and causes the officer to become even more upset and writes a ticket for Paul to show up for jail time.

            Suzanne cannot believe that Paul was given a ticket and has to report for jail time. She tries to call the house with the name of the patient Paul had said he was tending to. When Suzanne dials the number of the name in the phone books a woman answers and says her husband died. Instead of looking worried or upset Paul looks relived. He races out of the house across the street to Georgette and tells her he wants to go get a drink to celebrate the poor man’s death.

            Paul has to report for jail but instead he goes out to an Artist’s Ball with Georgette. He dresses up in his finest suit which confuses Suzanne. He reassures his wife he is wearing his suit because he is a genius and no one else will be wearing one. Across the way, Maurice pretends to be sick so he can go and see Suzanne.

            Later that night a detective comes looking for Paul because he did not report to jail. So as not to cause a scandal Suzanne nudges Maurice to go with the detective pretending to be Paul. When the detective and Maurice leave Suzanne puts a radio program on that is broadcasting from the Artist’s Ball. Paul and Georgette are announced the winners of a competition. Suzanne is furious she gets dressed up to go to the party to retrieve. When they come home Suzanne belittles her husband telling him she got him a pardon from jail and that she will be handling everything in the house from now on.

            Maurice is put in jail for Paul’s crimes. He writes to Georgette that the doctor has ordered him to go to a sanatorium for his health. In the papers the morning after the party, Paul and Suzanne read that he was arrested and as he was being arrested Suzanne cried for him. Paul just starts laughing at how no one should ever trust what they read in the papers.

            So This is Paris was alright. It was not what I was expecting. I was hoping it would be a crazy non-stop party type of film set in Paris. I was not crazy about the whole husbands and wives cheating storyline but at times it was funny. I watched the film to see Myrna Loy. She played a maid and I must have completely missed her very small part because I do not recall seeing her. Ernst Lubitsch is a genius. His direction adds so much to the characters and the stories of his films. If Lubitsch had no made So This is Paris, to me, it would have bombed.  

Three On a Match (1932)

“Everything depresses me - including this house.”

            We all want to believe that having all the money you could possibly want and all the things that come with can make us happy. For some having money would be a blessing, like me for instance. If I ever won the lottery all my crushing school loans would be paid off, I would have a new car, a new computer, and move wherever the hell I want (either New York City, California or London would be nice). But sometimes having money and whatever you does not make people happy. They can be just as depressed and lonely than those who do not have money. Having everything one could ask for gets one woman in the 1932 Pre-Code film Three on a Match in serious trouble.

            Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Vivian Revere (Ann Dvorak), and Ruth Westcott (Bette Davis) had known each other since they were young girls in public school together. Mary was the wild girl always getting into trouble and no direction in her life, Vivian was the class valedictorian with the highest grades and the good girl, and Ruth was serious and knew she wanted to go to business school.

            Over the next ten years, Mary has gotten herself thrown in a women’s prison for two years, Vivian has gone to a private school, and Ruth to a business school to become a secretary. One day Mary is getting her hair done when she mentions to the hair dresser she ran into an old friend from school and mentions the school she went to. Another hair dresser comes in and says to Mary that the person she is with overheard the conversation and that she also went to the same school. When their sessions are done Mary and Vivian meet up. They get in touch with Ruth and they go out for lunch. Mary is an actress going by the name Mary Bernard, Ruth is working in an office, and Vivian is married to a lawyer but is bored and unhappy with her life getting whatever she wants. Before they leave, Mary lights a match to light her cigarette and shares the match with her two friends. There had been a write up in the paper how a matchstick manufacturer made up the idea that three on a match and one will die to boost his sales. The superstitious implanted idea did boost his sales.

            Vivian and her husband Robert (Warren William) come home from a party one night. He can sense that his wife is not happy. She tells Robert that she is unhappy and needs a change of pace and scenery. He wants to take her to Europe for a few months but she tells him it would be the same if he came. She wants to go alone with their son Junior. Robert sees them off on the boat but has to leave in a hurry because a settlement is falling through. Mary comes on the boat to see off a friend and invites Vivian to the party. At the party Vivian meets Mike. After this party Vivian leaves the boat and runs away with Mike with Junior in tow.

            For weeks Vivian is missing. Robert does not care so much about his wife than he does about his son. He is worried Vivian is bringing Junior into her mess. Mary knows that Vivian is with Mike in New York City. She knows how hard her friend has been partying and ignoring her son. Mary suggests to Vivian that Junior can go stay with Ruth and Ruth’s sister who has a small daughter but that does not go over very well. She then goes to Robert to say she knows where his wife and son are but that he has to be careful because if Vivian hears he is coming she might run off with Junior. Robert and Mary walk in on Vivian lying in a bed after drinking and doing drugs.

            Months go by. Mary and Ruth have been helping Robert out with Junior. He brings the two women with him to his beach house over the summer. He tells Mary that his divorce will be final the following day and he wants her to marry him.

            Three years go by. Robert and Mary are married and happy. Vivian sees Mary at a store. She was waiting for Mary to come out so she can ask her friend for money. Mary wants Vivian to come back to the house with her but Vivian does not want to do that. As she walks away Mike comes out from a spot where he was waiting for her. He needs the money to pay off some gambling debt to a man named Ace (Edward Arnold). Desperate Mike goes to Robert and tries to blackmail with information about Mary having been in jail for a while. Robert does not give in he yells at Mike that if any paper were to print that he would sue the paper for libel and throws him out of the office. When Mike walks out into the waiting room, Ruth is there with Junior. Mike gets the idea to kidnap Junior for the money and does so at the park.

            Vivian is furious about what Mike did to her son. Ace’s right hand man Harve (Humphrey Bogart) comes to their apartment. He lets Mike know that Ace has heard about the kidnapping and that he and Ace want in on the reward money. But things do not go smoothly. For ten days Mike, Harve, and a few other guys are holed up in the apartment. Vivian is going through massive drug withdrawal. Junior is left alone on the couch in underclothes in another room. Soon the police are coming around more often and no one can leave the apartment. Harve wants Mike to kill the kid so they could leave. Vivian overhears their plan. She tells Junior to go hide under the bed. She makes a fuss and one of the guys checks on her. He reports that Vivian is going crazy putting lipstick on her clothes. All the sudden they hear the window break as Vivian jumps out of the window to the sidewalk below. Before she jumped Vivian wrote on her clothes with the lipstick that her son was in the apartment.

            The cast was really good. It was the top tier of Warner Bros. actors. Well, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis were still minor actors for the studio they still had yet to become big time actors. Joan Blondell was fabulous as usual. Her dry quick wit is always so much fun to watch and hear. Ann Dvorak’s acting I did not think was great but at the same time I think she was good at playing Vivian. Bette Davis really was not in the film too long. She did not have too many lines compared to Blondell and Dvorak. Humphrey Bogart had more lines than Davis did. It was nice to see Warren William as a gentleman I am so used to see him as a bad guy of sorts in Pre-Code films. Edward Arnold was only in one scene.

            Three on a Match is considered one of the quintessential Pre-Code films because of the content of a wife running away from her responsibilities as a wife and mother and falling into a drug habit. And also for some of the racy bits of clothing Ann Dvorak wears. The story was interesting with the good girl being the one to fall so far down the rabbit hole of drugs and alcohol. I love Pre-Code films, I have seen a handful and I can definitely see why Three on a Match is considered one of the Pre-Codes. If you can find Three on a Match it is definitely worth watching especially if you like any of the actors or are a fan of Pre-Codes.