Black and White in Color

 (1976)
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
Written by Jean-Jacques Annaud (story), Georges Conchon (screenplay)
Starring Jean Carnet, Jacques Dufilho, Jacques Spiesser, Catherine Rouvel
IMDB Entry

There are plenty of antiwar films but none as charming as Black and White in Color.*

It's set in a small village in French Equatorial Africa near the border of the German colony of Kameron in 1915. Life is idyllic if a bit boring, with the genial Germans often crossing the border for supplies. Hubert Fresnoy (Jacques Spiesser) is a geographer observing the country and missing what's going on back in Paris. He finally gets a shipment of newspapers and one of the villagers spots one that tells that France is at war with Germany.  He decides that they should attack. Fresnoy warns against it, but patriotic fervor takes over and they quickly (far too quickly) put up a force to attack the Germans.

It's a fiasco. The Germans are trained soldiers with a Gatling gun and the French solders have to retreat. They ask Fresnoy to take care of things and he reluctantly starts to train an army.**

The movie is less about war as it is about the quirky characters of the village. Still, it satirizes both war fever and colonialism.

The movie was produced by and shot in the Ivory Coast and won the Oscar for Best Foreign film. First-time director Jean-Jacques Annaud had several successes, including Quest for Fire, The Name of the Rose, and Enemy at the Gates.  

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*The original French title was La Victoire en chantant, the first lines of a French military song. The title was changed for the US market, since no one would get the reference. Strangely, when it was reissued, the title changed to a French translation:  Noir et Blancs en couleur to match the US title. That turned it into a pun, since it sounds like Noir et Blancs en colère -- Blacks and Whites angry.

**Nothing to with the story, but I was reminded of German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, who commanded the forces in German East Africa (present day Tanzania). He knew that nothing he could do would change the course of the war and decided his role was to harass British troops in Kenya to keep them away from the trenches. He was possibly the most successful Commander of World War I.

Arrowsmith

Directed by John Ford
Written by Sidney Howard from the novel by Sinclair Lewis
Starring Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, A. E, Anson, Myrna Loy
IMDB Entry

For various reasons, I've been writing about pre-code films a lot lately. Nearly all of them were B-pictures or programmers. Arrowsmith is different:  an A picture with a big name cast (for the time), based upon a best-selling novel and directed by one of old Hollywood's greatest directors. But it doesn't seem to get the mention it deserves.

Martin Arrowsmith (Ronald Colman) is a medical student who is interested in doing research and approaches Dr. Max Gottlieb (A.E. Anson). Gottlieb is impressed, but insists that Arrowsmith finish his course of study, and then hires him to be his research assistant. In the interim, however, Arrowsmith fallls in love with Leora (Helen Hayes) and they marry. Arrowsmith can't support himself as a research assistant, so he moves to Leora's home town and set up a shingle.  When cattle are dying, though, he acts as a veterinarian and develops a vaccine for the disease. At that point, he joins Gottlieb at he McGirk Institute.  Eventually, he stumbles on an antibiotic.*  Before it is fully tested, he is sent to and island in the West Indies, where an outbreak of the bubonic plague is broken out.

Colman plays Arrowsmith with the right amount of idealism and passion and Hayes gives Leora a personality more than just the faithful wife. The main issue with the film is that Arrowsmith never really faces any major challenges. Whatever he attempts works out and, though there is some tragedy toward the end, it is quickly balanced out by his successes.  It looks like the subplot about an affair with Joyce Lanyon (Myrna Loy) was cut out of the movie version; it would have helped add some darkness to Arrowsmith's story.

Author Sinclair Lewis was a major name during the 20s and 30s, and Arrowsmith was a best-selling book. It lacks the bite of his other works, which were more satirical in tone. His literary reputation has diminished over the years, but one of his novels, It Can't Happen Here seems even more relevant today.

John Ford, of course, needs no introduction to movie buffs, and Colman and Hayes both won Oscars. The movie was nominated for four Academy Awards, but didn't win anything.**

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*The term is not used in the movie, since the word wasn't coined until several years after it was filmed, but it's the same effect.

**The Oscars at that point were controlled by the studios. MGM's Grand Hotel was selected that year.