For cinephiles in a hurry, the name of James Whale essentially evokes some of the great classics of fantastic cinema produced by the company Universal in the early 1930s. Frankensteinby Mary Shelley, then the sequel, Bride of Frankensteinher Invisible Mantaken from the novel by HG Wells, were already distinguished by the elegance of their staging which made them more than skilful samples of a cinematographic genre then in fashion.
Whale actually made fourteen films for the studio, touching on all categories of fiction. He was born in England in 1889 into a poor family with many children. After the First World War, during which he was taken prisoner, he embarked on the theater as an actor, decorator and finally director.
He emigrated to the United States at the end of the 1920s and entered under contract, in 1931, with the Universal company. His first movie, Waterloo Bridge (1931), is a daring melody taken from a play by Robert Sherwood, remarkable, among other things, for the frankness with which the character of a prostitute embodied by Mae Clark was described. It was still the time when censorship was not exercised with all the rigor it would demonstrate a few years later.
Device movements
A refined director, Whale became the prestigious filmmaker of the studio, which granted him great freedom. Each of his films was sold with the advertising teaser: “It’s a Whale! » Publisher Elephant Films has just had the excellent idea of releasing three titles, on Blu-ray/DVD for the first two and on DVD for the third, at least two of which are particularly representative of his talent, his taste for the refined camera movements and his use of the particularly relevant close-up.
short circuit is a stunning comedy (1933), adapted from a play by Siegfried Geyer. Paul Lukas plays the butler of a wealthy, slightly depraved nobleman who poses as his master on a trip to Monte Carlo, where he tries to seduce a high society woman. On the joyful principle of role-playing games, the confusion between master and valet, a source of joyful and somewhat salacious misunderstandings, short circuit describes a society of astonishing sexual freedom, where adultery seems to be practiced as an art. Situations that will take time to review in a Hollywood film.
Judicial suspension
Adultery is also the motive, in the same year, of the Kiss in front of the mirror, from a play by Ladislas Fodor. Unlike the previous title, the tone adopted here is serious. The film is notable for its bizarre construction. The motif of the duplicitous woman, duplicity revealed by the way in which she kisses her husband in front of his mirror, is treated in a drama which, in the second part, is transformed into judicial suspense.
You have 28.76% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.