Strachy

I really loved this film for its total assurance in utilizing all of the film grammar of its time, a way of looking at images that's now totally lost. In ways similar to the great French films, it has the ambiance, the use of sound and editing, of light and shadow, the music, the style of acting, the meandering story told through anecdotal detail, all woven effortlessly into a seamless, enchanting whole. And like the Scandinavian films of the period, it mixes tawdry realism with mystical elements. It's not that it's derivative so much as that all these directors were breathing the same cultural air, the cinema atmosphere of the time. So it's filled with wonderful arty touches: the opening of dancing shadows on a screen; raindrops falling in a glistening puddle used as a narrative bridge; the long tracking shot of the outside back corner of a moving car, with the thoughts of the unseen girl inside whispered on the sound track; the wind blowing the abandoned wedding dress; the scream of the landlady who finds the hanging suicide overlapping the scene where the other girl reads the delivered suicide note. The story: two girls kick around the music hall circuit. One is made pregnant by a nasty producer, and is blackmailed by him when she has an abortion. The other, the lead character, an attractive blonde, has a crush on the headline singer in the show. When she readily sleeps with him he finds it disturbing. So when the show closes she goes on tour and has more ups and downs until the satisfying ending. It's not a truly great film, but it's quite wonderful anyhow.