CABINET POST

If the blessed, long-delayed drop in Valley temperatures isn't enough to get you in an October kind of mood, maybe a spooky movie can. Playing SUNDAY ONLY at 3 p.m. at Phoenix's Orpheum Theatre is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, one of the seminal cinematic creepshows, with live musical accompaniment.

Robert Weine's 1920 saga is sometimes called the first horror movie. It probably isn't, but it's a very early one, and it would be hard to find a much more influential work for the genre. This German nightmare offers iconic horror tropes--the mad scientist, the plodding enslaved monster carrying the beautiful heroine in his arms, the angry mob of villagers--probably for the first time.

The not-so-good Doctor, played by Werner Krauss, is a shabby, troll-like mountebank who works a sideshow, exhibiting a pathetic somnambulist, Cesare, played by Conrad Veidt, later memorable as the Nazi major in Casablanca. Cesare normally resides in the titular coffin-like cabinet in a perpetual snooze, interrupted only when Caligari wakes him up to feed him...

...or send him on some nasty errand. For instance, near the beginning the Doc is treated rudely by a town official when he applies for an exhibitor's license; the next morning the man is found murdered in his home. Courtesy pays.

Although these and other melodramatic devices undoubtedly seemed less corny and cliched when the movie was released, more than a century ago, than they do now, they aren't really what gives this dreamlike flick its charge. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari's true power derives from the weird visual atmosphere Weine and his designers, Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann and Walter Rohrig, bring to almost every shot through boldly stylized, expressionistic sets and camera angles, externalizing a skewed, neurotic mental state and imposing it on the movie's settings. It can mess with your head.

If you've never seen the film, or never on a big screen, the Orpheum show, featuring live music by Tetra String Quartet, is a terrific opportunity. Tickets range from $11 to $20. For details go to orpheumphx.com

ATTA BABY

Out on DVD today is Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room.

This documentary, directed by Vera Iwerebor, concerns Diana Serra Cary, earlier known as Peggy-Jean Montgomery, or, when she was in the movies in the early 1920s, as Baby Peggy. Because she was a little girl—indeed, at the beginning, a toddler—she’s now, at 95, one of the last surviving stars of the silent era.

Seeing her here at opposite ends of her life is fairly amazing. In clips from the (relatively few) surviving Baby Peggy comedy shorts, we see a performer of remarkable precision as well as a champion mugger. She claims to have been well aware of being the breadwinner for her family, and of being scared by this, and this adds a distressing subtext to watching her jolly antics.

On the other hand, it’s inspirational to see her in her 90s, sharp as a tack, matter-of-factly recounting the sometimes nightmarish dysfunction of the family she was forced to support. We then learn how she re-invented herself as a writer and historian (and Catholic convert) in her adult years. Baby Peggy: The Elephant in the Room is a quietly uplifting story of hard-won identity.

The film is less than an hour long, and the DVD’s special features include several Baby Peggy flicks.

It’s not new, but I recently watched another documentary about an unconventional show-business career, that of the one-man spook-show Brother Theodore: To My Great Chagrin. You can read my review of it here, on my recent list of Brother Theodore’s Greatest Hits on Topless Robot, and you can obtain the DVD for yourself here.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN

Every now & then a movie comes along that delights audiences so much, & so transcends all the agendas that tend to cloud our enjoyment, that even the most curmudgeonly critics & buffs are disarmed, & just say “go see it.” The Artist is one of these movies. There are detractors out there somewhere, no doubt, but I haven’t heard from them yet, & I’m not one of them. Go see it.

Written & directed by the Frenchman Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist is a black-&-white & (mostly) silent romantic comedy-drama. The title character is a silent-movie star, George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a dashing, romantic hero in the vein of Douglas Fairbanks or John Gilbert. As the film begins it’s 1927 & he’s in his glory, seeming to radiate glamour & bonhomie, onscreen & off, from his blazing smile. He basks in the love of his fans & coworkers—the occasional outraged leading lady excepted. The stern face of his wife (Penelope Ann Miller) at the breakfast table, however, is like a dark cloud on George’s horizon.

The storm, of course, hits two years later, in the form of the talkies. George’s studio boss (John Goodman) plans to get current with the new technology, but George is sure sound is a fad that will blow over, & he sinks his fortune into producing a silent vehicle for himself. It’s a flop, & George, attended by his faithful chauffeur (James Cromwell) & his resourceful little dog (Uggie), is on his way to the gutter.

Parallel to George’s decline is the rise of Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, Hazanavicius' partner), a delectable young actress whose career gets a lift from George when she’s a dancing extra in one of his films, & who rides it all the way to stardom. She’d love to help revive George’s career, & his romantic life, but he’s too proud.

The Artist is not the first movie to use the birth of the talkies as a backdrop—the peerless Singin’ in the Rain is the best-known of the others. Nor is it the first latter-day film to employ the faux-silent-movie conceit; others include Silent Movie, the enjoyable Mel Brooks effort of 1976, Charles Lane’s neglected 1989 slapstick opus Sidewalk Stories, & Guy Maddin’s intoxicating 2002 ballet film Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary. But despite the lightweight story & the lovingly recreated look, The Artist somehow seems more like a reclamation of the silent cinema’s strengths than like a nostalgic gimmick. It even employs sound at a couple of points, briefly but brilliantly. It’s vital & gutsy, & we respond to it as a contemporary movie.

In no small part, this is due to the actors. For all the skill that Hazanavicius displays in his direction, for all the beauty & authenticity of Guillaume Schiffmann’s cinematography or the sly score by Ludovic Bource, the real punch in The Artist comes from the performances. Hazanavicius was shrewd, maybe, to have made George such a maddening, exasperatingly prideful person—this offsets the almost comical likability of Dujardin, with his ebullient smile.

Bejo captures silent insouciance perfectly, & she has a sweet moment, interacting with George’s jacket, that’s as sexy as anything I’ve seen in movies in a while. Cromwell is spot-on, & the supporting cast is full of name players from English-speaking movies in minor roles, but Uggie, as George’s long-suffering canine costar & pet, is the only presence in the film more irresistible than Dujardin.