A reader who goes by the moniker “David_notascynical” posted a comment to my dismayed view of “Toy Story 3” asking for recommendations of “films that successfully capture the wonder of childhood without pandering sentimentality.” He himself started the ball rolling with Chaplin and Tati.
they were hooked on the amazing side business (the gum-chewing and wisecracking and hearty roughhousing) and captivated by the sharp slang, slyly delivered by Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. Louise, who’s eleven [now she’s thirteen], said she wished she were alive then, “when everybody was sassy.” I reminded her that it was the screenwriters who were sassy, then as now.
I also called attention to a gesture of Tracy’s that, once seen, will never be forgotten—his flick of his hat brim and call of “Jake!” There are some harsh and low late-Prohibition pratfalls involving an importunate alcoholic (the following year, Walsh would direct the gay-nineties comic drama “The Bowery,” in which Carrie A. Nation and her dry crusade were depicted) and lots of textured turbulence, criminal and romantic, around the busy, grungy waterfront. A native New Yorker, Walsh serves up a wisecracking brace of local characters and a spicy batch of local mores. His 1915 (!) gangster film “Regeneration” depicted a shockingly ugly and crude city; by 1932, he was long-resident in Hollywood, and an exuberant nostalgia had kicked in.
P.S. Next week, I’ll be out of the office and will be blogging more sparsely.