{"id":7005,"date":"2013-09-04T20:08:39","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T00:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7005"},"modified":"2013-09-12T17:07:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T21:07:59","slug":"dvd-climbing-high-1938","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7005","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Climbing High (1938)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>C<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Good\/ DVD Extras: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: VCI <\/a>\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: August 6, 2013<\/p>\n

Genre: Screwball Comedy<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A wealthy man must figure out a way to extricate himself from simultaneous marital engagements to a model and a rich, manipulative snot.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Before directing the classic thrillers Odd Man Out<\/strong> (1947), The Fallen Idol<\/strong> (1948) and The Third Man <\/strong>(1949), Carol Reed was working his way through the British studio system, directing fluffy comedies, plus this absolute curio that\u2019s a marginally successful attempt to transpose the slapstick and wry elements of the screwball comedy across the pond from America.<\/p>\n

The story involves a wealthy man, Nicky Brooke (Michael Redgrave), who must eventually address the issue of being engaged to up & coming model Diana Castle (Jessie Matthews) as \u201cJohn Smith,\u201d and his approaching nuptials with the manipulative socialite Lady Constance Westaker (Margaret Vyner). A quandary of too-many-nuptials isn\u2019t old or unique to British nor American audiences, but there are specific affectations in Climbing High <\/strong>which remain very British \u2013 Redgrave is very luvvy, very plastic in his physical performance \u2013 which feel strange when the next moment involves a sudden cranial collision, or in the film\u2019s broadest comedic sequence – an ad agency\u2019s contents & personnel literally being wind-blown into the street.<\/p>\n

Unemployed dancer Diana and her sculptor roommate need money, and they certainly won\u2019t get a dime from their Leninist housemate Max (Alistair Sim), a free-loafing, anti-capitalist twit, if not a human leech. Sim plays Max extremely broad (again, there\u2019s that plastic physicality) which only works when the women force him to find work, and stumbles into the ad agency where they need an ugly man for their Before \/ After health tonic campaign.<\/p>\n

Much like I\u2019m All Right, Jack<\/a><\/strong> (1959), Reed and the screenwriters satirize pop and advertising culture in fashion, personal hygiene, and the makers of the ideal man & woman tonics, and the montage of Diana being made up by a make-up team into a bride after she too stumbles into the agency\u2019s employ by accident is almost brilliant (if not a direct satire of Janet Gaynor being prepped for the camera in 1937\u2019s A Star is Born<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Nicky\u2019s failed attempts to quash the protracted engagement with Constance are fairly perfunctory, and the film only gets very<\/em> weird when Nicky takes real love Diana to the country for a picnic. There they encounter an escaped lunatic from the nearby asylum (veteran character actor Francis L. Sullivan) who forces them to sing opera<\/em> \u2013 which Matthews, with her trained voice, does very well \u2013 until a roving team of attendants pick up the nutter and return him to the asylum.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s at this stage a rather messy set of story strands begin to intermingle, including one started at the film\u2019s beginning: brother Jim (Torin Thatcher, with full hair!) has returned from Canada, where he\u2019s been working as a lumberjack. As British audiences were reminded by the writers, being a country where people strike first and discuss later, the half-Canuck Jim sets out to defend his sister\u2019s honor by hunting down Nicky, with the chase taking the main cast to the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Nicky and Jim must address their differences on the snowy peak of a very stage-bound mountain cap and stop the lunatic<\/em> \u2013 who believes he\u2019s a bird \u2013 from taking his first flight with Diana tethered to his waist.<\/p>\n

The lunatic character is seemingly extrapolated from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and yet his recurrence is also not dissimilar to the escaped tiger in Bring Up Baby<\/strong> (1938), a device that film\u2019s writers used to have their characters engage in sharp, fast, and smart-assed repartee.<\/p>\n

The strangest moment, however, comes during an exchange between freeloader Max and the superintendent, who\u2019s come to collect current and back-rent. Although a fellow Communist, the superintendant regretfully tells Max it\u2019s the wife who insists on collecting the \u201cimmoral\u201d payment, and Max reiterates his promise that in exchange for waiving rent, he\u2019ll send the missus to \u201ca concentration camp\u201d \u2013 presumably a reference to a Soviet gulag for political and social unfriendlies instead of a Nazi death camp?<\/p>\n

The lead-up to that sequence is less shocking but nonetheless well-times by Reed as a cartoon gag: Max is first seen in the film writing with a towel draped over is shoulders, while the roommate is sculpting something unusually grand. Max is later revealed to be posing for part of a giant horseman, although the sculptor unsubtly infers his pate may be serving as reference for both the rider, and the horse\u2019s round rump.<\/p>\n

VCI\u2019s source is from an okay NTSC to PAL transfer, with a sometimes warbling soundtrack when music is in full swing. At 75 minutes, Reed\u2019s screwball opus is very brisk, but it actually begins to feel longer once all the story strands \u2013 the dual engagements, brother Jim\u2019s arrival and hunt for Nicky, the ad company\u2019s American chief, the hike on a Swiss mountain \u2013 are wrapped up. It\u2019s surely one of Reed\u2019s strangest films, much like Alfred Hitchcock put his suspense films on pause to direct the semi-operatic musical-drama Waltzes from Vienna<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1934), co-starring Matthews.<\/p>\n

Note: some sources report the film began as an aborted production called \u201cAsking for Trouble,\u201d directed by Climbing High<\/strong>\u2019s screenwriter, Sonnie Hale. Starting as a musical with Kent Taylor, Noel Madison and Jessie Matthews, only the latter actor was retained for the final product. Hale had acted with Matthews (whom he later wed) in several films – Friday the Thirteenth<\/strong><\/a> [M<\/a>] (1933), Evergreen<\/strong> (1934) – and directed her in three films: Head Over Heels<\/strong> and Gangway <\/strong>(both 1937), and Sailing Along<\/strong> (1938).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2013 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0C<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ C . Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Good\/ DVD Extras: \u00a0n\/a Label: VCI \/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: August 6, 2013 Genre: Screwball Comedy Synopsis: A wealthy man must figure out a way to extricate himself from simultaneous marital engagements to a model and a rich, manipulative snot. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[2216,2215,1759,2214,2210],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1OZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7005"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7023,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7005\/revisions\/7023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}