Survival in the Wild

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"Behold, the bridegroom cometh. And no oil for my lamp as usual. A foolish virgin me. Oh, foolish anyway."

Daisy (Ann Harding)

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On the rare occasions when I have seen "The Animal Kingdom," I have found it hard to believe it wasn't made in the 1960s. While it looks every bit the 1930s flick that it is, it was the classic tug–of–war between safe, conservative lifestyles/generations and rebellious ones.

In "The Animal Kingdom," which premiered on this day in 1932, Leslie Howard played a well–off book publisher who lived with his lover (Ann Harding), a Bohemian artist. (Remember, this was in the days before the implementation of the Hays Code.)

They also happened to be pretty close friends. Sex and friendship, as you may have noticed, do not always go hand in hand. In this case, though, they did.

His father wanted him to have a more conventional life, and when he acquiesced, his bride was Myrna Loy, who was socially prominent but did not have that same spark with Howard that he had with Harding.

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It showed.

At Loy's insistence, Howard's character sold books he knew would sell — whereas, when he had been with Harding, he published the books he wanted to publish. Their sales potential had far less influence on his decisions.

Loy was also steering Howard away from his old friends; in fact, she just wanted him to sell the business and live with his father in New York where they could assume their rightful places as respectable members of society.

In the meantime, although she tried to stay away from Howard, Harding and the couple's circle of friends found it impossible to believe Howard truly was happy. That was a tough one for viewers to accept, too, given the fact that Howard kept seeking out Harding to use as a sounding board on, well, everything.

I know that Howard was a matinee idol in the '30s, and I know he was a civilian hero during World War II — but I also know that the characters he played (well, the ones I have seen) were weak–kneed schlemiels. Maybe that was just the kind of character he played — or perhaps that was how he chose to play all his characters, whether they were intended that way or not. Nevertheless his character in "The Animal Kingdom" fit that description.

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Tom, his character in "The Animal Kingdom," was every bit as malleable as Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With the Wind."

I doubt that anyone ever mistook Leslie Howard for John Wayne.

I only recently became aware of this movie; while I liked it, the title baffled me and still does. At first I concluded that it was an allusion to the fact that humans, as advanced as we are, are still animals, and we act on our animal instincts, primitive though they may be.

But the second time I watched it I picked up on one of Harding's lines — "For all our big talk, we both still belong to the animal kingdom."

And I began to think that maybe it means more than animal instincts. Maybe it is a reference to the different ways humans find to survive trials and tribulations.

And isn't the instinct to survive the most powerful instinct of all?

The Odyssey of the Mummy

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Boris Karloff is best known for his performances as Frankenstein's monster in the original movie and its sequels, but he also portrayed the Mummy in "The Mummy," which premiered on this day 85 years ago.

In the movie The Mummy's remains were found — along with a magic scroll that had the power to bring the dead back to life — by a team of British archaeologists. The discovery of an Egyptian tomb was a rather timely subject, given the fact that the tomb of King Tut had been discovered a decade earlier, and tales of the curse it contained were widely disseminated. "Frankenstein," by comparison, was published more than a century before the movie was made.

Audiences were probably more inclined to see "The Mummy" as a plausible horror story in 1932 — but audiences in 2017 are more prone to see it as almost a parody of itself. After all, the classic performances of Karloff and Bela Lugosi and their ilk that truly terrified audiences in the 1930s led to the rampant cliches of today. Considering that the motion picture industry was still evolving and learning about itself 85 years ago, I suppose that was inevitable — and that it is something of a compliment.

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.

After being discovered in 1921, the Mummy was brought back to life through that scroll I mentioned before. Fast forward 10 years. Clothed as a modern Egyptian, the Mummy went looking for his lost love, whom he believed had been reincarnated as a modern (i.e., 1932) girl.

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It was established earlier that the Mummy's forbidden love led to his gruesome death in which he apparently had been buried alive. That was his punishment for committing sacrilege when he attempted to resurrect her.

Now reincarnated he went looking for his lost love.

The Mummy encountered a half–Egyptian woman (Zita Johann) he believed was the reincarnation of his lost love. Consequently The Mummy tried to kill her as part of his plan to mummify her, resurrect her and then marry her. She was saved when, after remembering her past life, she prayed to the goddess Isis for rescue — and her prayer was answered.

In a scene that modern movie viewers may find quite similar to one in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," Isis discharged a beam of light that set fire to the scroll, breaking the spell of immortality, and the Mummy crumbled to dust.

Johann's work in the movie was good, but "The Mummy," like most horror movies of the 1930s, did not rely on acting as much as it did on atmosphere.

For folks who have been brought up in an era dominated by flashy computer–generated special effects, the pace of "The Mummy" and other horror movies of its time may seem pedestrian.

But it made for a spine–tingling experience for the audiences of the day.

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When Karloff made "Frankenstein," his rival in the horror genre, Lugosi, complained that Karloff didn't act, he merely grunted. Lugosi, a native Hungarian, had to deliver his lines in "Dracula" in English, which he considered more demanding than Karloff's performance.

I haven't heard what Lugosi's opinion was of "The Mummy," but by Lugosi's previously stated standards, he must have been more impressed. The British–born Karloff had to deliver his lines with an Egyptian accent.

My opinion, having seen both the Karloff version and the 1999 remake starring Brendan Fraser (I haven't seen the new one with Tom Cruise), is that Karloff gave a masterful performance. Stripped of modern special effects and multimillion–dollar production budgets, I doubt that anyone could carry a horror story the way Karloff could.

Johann's story is an interesting one. Her film career was brief and interrupted by more than half a century in which she focused on her theatrical work and, later, teaching acting to people with learning disorders. Was the exotic beauty disillusioned in Hollywood? I don't know, but I can't help but wonder if she might have been a major star of the silver screen had she not been lured to the stage.