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Newsreel as Plot Device

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With the World Series off tonight, I watched Three on a Match, the 1932 film starring Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. It’s not great, despite the cast. Joan Blondell is massively underrated with some of the greatest eyes in Hollywood history, but Davis is underused and Bogart was still in his early typecast as thug phase. And seriously, what is with child acting in the 30s and 40s? The average kid in a movie at this time makes Culkin in Home Alone look like Nicholson at his peak powers. I really wanted someone to kill the little monster. Still, if you like stories about rich women becoming dope fiends and ending up in the gutter, it might be your kind of movie.

The film also provides the single least flattering introduction to a character I have ever seen, the head of the gangsters, seen below.

The Hays Code was worthwhile just if it got rid of scenes like that.

But I’m not writing this post to promote the film. Rather, I’m interested in why so many films from the 30s used what were essentially newsreels to advance the plot. It’s the classic, let’s put the year up on the screen, then show some footage from that year to set our story in place and time. And that’s fine except so often, this device was used to get the audience to remember all the way back to last year. Even at the beginning of the movie, I was laughing at this, as the 3 girls are in grade school in 1919. 13 years ago, so long. Who can remember that far back?

And then they kept using the device over and over until we got to 1931–the year before the film was made! The filmmakers needed to remind the audience of the major news events of the last year. The Japanese invaded Manchuria! Businessmen were optimistic the Depression would end soon! Did the audience really needed to be reminded of what had happened mere months before? I can imagine this today, a giant “2010” on the screen, with images of John Boehner celebrating becoming Speaker and the Gulf oil spill. You know, to remind the youth of the distant past or something.

I’m just curious as to what point this is supposed to serve, other than to kill time. It’s not like any of it was at all relevant to the movie. The gangsters weren’t even bootleggers.

The most important cute leather jackets you’ll ever own is the cheap trench coats. Our hooded bomber jacket is generally less expensive than waterproof motorcycle gloves and cheap motorcycle clothing.

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