Graham Greene on Film: Collected Film Criticism, 1935-1939

by Graham Greene, John Russell Taylor (Editor)

'Four and a half years of watching films several times a week ... I can hardly believe in that life of the distant thirties now, a way of life which I adopted quite voluntarily from a sense of fun.' So begins Graham Greene's Introduction to this collection of his film reviews for The Spectator and the distinguished, ill-fated magazine Night and Day between 1935 and 1940. During these years he was also writing such unforgettable novels as Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, and A Gun for Sale, and for readers of Graham Greene's novels this volume carries a real bonus, revealing as much about Greene the man and his creative processes as it does about the films he writes on.

But Greene the film critic would be well worth reading even if he were not Greene the novelist as well. Here he writes on Garbo at the peak of her career, on the best of the British documentary movement, on films by Buñuel, Capra, Hitchcock, Korda, Lubitsch, Renoir, and many others. But he also relishes the cinema for itself, at its most popular; he praises the anarchic early Marx Brothers films, Fred Astaire in Top Hat, and W. C. Fields.

There are insights and quotable phrases on every page of this irresistible collection, and Greene's asides on contemporary developments in the late 30s give an additional interest to these reviews. There are reviews of propaganda films, discussions of censorship and references to contemporary cultural events (Greene fantasises, in a 1937 review of A Day at the Races, about taking Maureen O'Sullivan to the new Surrealist Exhibition).

This collection is packed with contemporary film stills – many of them given double-page spreads – and is a delight to browse in. There is an appendix on the famous libel case following Greene's review of Shirley Temple in Wee Willie Winkie, and Greene's Introduction to the volume not only puts his career as a film reviewer in perspective, but also contains some splendid anecdotes.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Criticism, Essays

284 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black. Greene was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949).
He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivienne Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greene's stint as a film critic was relatively short-lived, but somewhat legendary and still fodder for oft-quoted gems. His high literary status has given him cred, for one thing. For another, he operated during some of the peak years of Hollywood's golden age, so the films he covered were sometimes significant ones, though his often razor-sharp critiques of slick tripe unworthy of his attention also are fun and fascinating. The most notorious of his reviews, however, is regrettably missing from this collection: that of the John Ford-directed Shirley Temple opus, "Wee Willie Winkie." It's actually not a half-bad film, and Greene says as much in his 1938 review, but not before he penned some of the most discomfiting and dark observations ever to be seen in print. He basically accused Temple's male audiences of being middle-aged pedophiles, of Temple being a prepubescent tart who knew what she was doing when she shook her well-rounded ass, and 20th-Century Fox of child exploitation and kiddie-porn peddling. It's a real eye-popping and disturbing bit of prose, partly for where Greene's mind had to go to write it. Luckily we can read this review on the internet, and I assume it's not in the book because, even as of this writing, Temple is still alive and the article was judged libelous in its time; Greene and the magazine had to pay up big when Temple sued them, so much so that the magazine that printed the review folded from bankruptcy. Greene even had to leave the country for awhile. Darker truths in the land of the good ship lollipop were not going to be tolerated, especially from a lowly movie reviewer.
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INTRO AND OPENING REVIEWS (1935):
Reading these erudite, witty, devastating and masterfully written and observed reviews makes one realize how far the art of film reviewing has fallen. There seems to be nothing that Greene does not know, and thus his reviews are exemplars of the proper use of wider context; of the place not just of movies as movies or as art or entertainment, but their place in the world. Greene appreciates the messy over the properly crafted, the small poetic moment and the happy accident. His review of a documentary about the BBC becomes a critique of society at large: "At enormous expense from its steel pylon at Daventry the BBC supplies din with the drinks at sundown."
That fucking ROCKS!
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This is best taken in little snippets. I think this will be my toilet read for the foreseeable future...

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I fully assumed that this book would bore me to tears. Who wants to read several hundred film reviews from the ‘30s and ‘40s! I HAD to because I’m reading everything written by Graham Greene in chronological order during this Pandemic year – and this book was next in line. Collected and edited by John Russell Taylor, it was published in London in 1972 by Secker & Warburg.
I began, as any good, orderly reader should, with the new four-page introduction by Greene himself and was instantly enchanted with his warm, low-key and wide-ranging comments: “How, I find myself wondering, could I possibly have written all those reviews? And yet I remember opening the envelopes, which contained the gilded cards of invitation, for the morning Press performances (mornings when I should have been struggling with Bright Rock and The Power and The Glory) with a sense of curiosity and anticipation.” Then, with typical Greeneien comment, continues: “These films were an escape…”
Reading the book was not only an interesting look at Greene’s mind, as he watched film and film and then wrote up his reviews, but, for me, it was also a history lesson of those early days of the film, well before my time. Because “movies” were forbidden in my home in Iowa (we were fundamentalist Christians and not only films were forbidden, but also alcohol, tobacco, euchre cards, dancing, and an assortment of other things that might cause us to “stumble” or be a “stumbling-block” to others), I missed all the movies of the ‘40s and ‘50s, with the exception of “Song of the South” (Tales of Uncle Remus), which, for some reason, my brother was able to take me to see when he came home from college after serving in World War II. But, that was the last film – until I went to see “Splendor in the Grass” in 1961, after I had graduated from college, a hiatus of 15 years, 15 important years for the development of the film.
Thus, reading Greene’s reviews were like looking back on the lost days of my childhood, things I only heard of or about, but never saw or experienced. From “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “My Man Godfrey,” “Young Mr. Lincoln,” The Marx Brothers at the Circus,” and “You Can’t Take it With You” to “The Garden of Allah,” “The Oklahoma Kid” and “The Wizard of Oz,” it was all new stuff.
Greene told me about (and criticized the work of) all the great names I heard about: Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, James Cagney, Lionel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Wallace Beery, Eddie Cantor, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Loretta Young, Mae West, Spencer Tracy, Ray Milland, Lily Pons, Maureen O’Hara, Dick Powell, Tyrone Power, George Raft, Edward G. Robertson.
By the time I left fundamentalism and started watching movies in earnest, these actors were either gone or only appearing in bit parts, in which they seemed like historical oddities.
Reading the reviews, it is fascinating to see Greene’s own evolution. As he himself says: “I had regretted the silent films when the talkies moved in and I had regretted black and white when Technicolor washed across the screen. So today, watching the latest socially conscious serious film of Monsieur Godard, I sometimes long for these dead thirties, for Cecil B. de Mille and his Crusaders, for the days when almost anything was likely to happen.”

[Sam Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone who ever tries to write should read, to see how well description of plot can be done - and how impossible it is to do it as well. The only rival to his plot summaries are the plots Henry James tells to himself in his Journals. Also, for both - an example of how fiction becomes truth (I write as one who always writes truth, but never could write fiction).
sample:
“pioneers build their city, racketeers build gambling halls; pioneers though outnumbering gunmen a hundred to one, are all old men with Bibles, old ladies sewing shirts for the little ones, the little ones themselves, poor widows, and a few mortality types; straight-shooting cowboy is asked to become sheriff, refuses, sees child killed, accepts, cleans up.”

Or
“- the heavy decorative gun-holsters and the ten-gallon hats, the wooden sidewalks and the saloons, the double-crossing sheriff, the corrupt judge, the fine old man with white whiskers and the girl in gingham, and the final “slug feast’ among the toppling gas-lamps.”
That's it - there's nothing more to say about Westerns.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is, to me, one of the best books of film reviews ever - on the same pinnacle that I place Pauline Kael's 5001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES (or any of her books of reviews) or AGEE ON FILM. They're all out of print or eBook, which I believe is a crime against intelligent reviewing - can't some publisher put all these people's work out electronically, at least, so we can enjoy it again?

THE PLEASURE DOME covers Twentieth Century novelist/screenwriter Graham Greene's (THE THIRD MAN, THE QUIET AMERICAN, OUR MAN IN HAVANA) career as a film critic from the early Thirties to the early Forties - during which time he also wrote the novels A GUN FOR SALE (turned into the film THIS GUN FOR HIRE), BRIGHTON ROCK and CONFIDENTIAL AGENT. His reviews are often brief but trenchant, with observations about acting styles, novel adaptations, and problems regarding the creative value of "super-productions". If you can find this book used, buy it - if you're a serious lover of classic movies, you'll love this book.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

May I quote a bit of his critique of Olivier as Heathcliff: "This Heathcliff would never have married for revenge (Mr Olivier's nervous, breaking voice belongs to balconies and Verona and romantic love)..."

[Nog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greene took on the role of film reviewer as a lark, the result of a conversation with the editor of The Spectator at a cocktail party. He wasn’t at all suited to this endeavor, as his primary interests were in writing about tortured souls or political intrigues. But as an Englishman of great self-importance and caustic virtue, he took to it like a fish to water, or perhaps a fish out of water.

The Oxford University Press felt it worthwhile to collect his reviews for publication in 1972, although the reviews themselves had appeared between 1935 and 1940. As such, the reader has to wade through a lot of offhand remarks about incredibly obscure, low-budget English films that have not survived or are so difficult to view these days that it is hardly worth the effort. Clearly, no one under the age of 60 in 1972 would have recognized many of these titles.

Still, there are his opinions on films that have continued to be seen and enjoyed via our various technological media. Some of these reviews are amusing because of his brutal putdowns or because of his lack of perception (for instance, not recognizing the humor in Bride of Frankenstein). Fittingly, some of his longer reviews concern religious subjects. It was interesting to see that he had reviewed (which means English cinemas had shown) films produced by the Nazi-controlled UFA studios. By this time, of course, most of the film talent in Germany had fled to Hollywood.

Some of the most critically acclaimed films of any given year are not reviewed at all. For 1935, The 39 Steps, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Ruggles of Red Gap aren't reviewed, and about Top Hat he has this to say: "It really doesn't matter much that the music and lyrics are bad. Mr. Astaire is the nearest approach we are likely to have to a human Mickey Mouse..." He does take Hitchcock to task in his Introduction, however: "Hitchcock's 'inadequate sense of reality' irritated me and still does - how inexcusably he spoilt The Thirty-Nine Steps." This is, of course, a singular opinion of that movie classic.

I was highly amused at his review for "The Jungle Princess". After eighteen months of reviewing, he still hadn't gotten it into his head that describing the entire plot of a film spoils the reader's desire to see it. And this was a film he enjoyed immensely. But his readers would not, as there would be no drama enfolding for them. As in many of his reviews, there is no mention of who the actors were.

Greene continued to review in Night and Day, sort of a New Yorker-like magazine for which he was the editor. Perhaps emboldened by his new position, his reviews became even more vicious.
After two years of reviewing, Greene did not let up on his vitriol for certain actors. His ire surpassed mere criticism of performance and ventured into personal attacks on the actors he despised. It is surprising that he seemed surprised when 20th Century Fox sued him for libel for his review of "Wee Willie Winkie". Essentially, Greene was suggesting that Fox was catering to pedophiles. Although it's true that there were some disturbing aspects to how Shirley Temple was directed, Greene seemed to be saying that Temple was well aware of what sexual excitement she might be selling. This is not to say that Greene was completely wrong, but his piece was defended in some quarters as being a "joke." The court in England was not amused and Greene lost. Greene had fled to Mexico rather than risk damage to his reputation by appearing in court. Night and Day folded after six months of publication and the libel trial took place three months later. Finally, The Spectator invited Greene back to continue his unique brand of movie reviewing.

Greene was so unsuitable as a reviewer (he was the epitome of a reactionary filmgoer) that one cannot but be impressed that this stuff got published. Which means that I quite enjoyed it!

[Joshuaburkett · Rating 5 out of 5]

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