I Was an American Spy (1951)
It’s a case of reality being rather more exciting than fantasy in this terribly bland film about a remarkable woman. Claire Phillips was a real American spy in the Philippines during World War II, given the Medal of Freedom for her “distinct contribution to American prisoners of war.” But despite the many possibilities this film offers for film noir schlock, director Lesley Selander takes advantage of none. A film as badly directed as this makes one realise how important a good director is. Here's a woman who not only survived savage beatings, and water torture, but performed fan dances in her own nightclub where she masqueraded as a singer as a front for spying. Her code name was ‘High Pockets’ from her habit of storing information in her bra. She has some good lines. When a fat Japanese businessman slaps her, she says: “I’m no Madame Butterfly.” After her lover is shot for trying to drink contaminated water, she shoots a Japanese soldier, vowing: “They’re going to pay from now on.” There is no shortage of potential drama here, but what we would kill for is a scene shot through a Venetian blind, cigarette smoke, or moonlight piercing darkness of any kind. The person I really feel bad for is Ann Dvorak, as this was her ‘penultimate’ film. She was 40, and she started her movie career at age 4. She can definitely act. “I want to go back to the stage,” she once said: “The trouble with Hollywood is everybody is crazy for money.” I too want to go back to the stage. It’s been more than two months. Now the dusk has finally settled and I’m sitting here in the dark. The cat is on my lap, and all is right with the world -- that is -- at least we're all inside -- where we're supposed to be. What do I have to complain about? I have food, a job, and my husband doesn't beat me, and I don’t (as of yet) have the dreaded COVID-19. (In fact I don’t know a soul who has it. Oh yeah sorry, there was a man I met twice at an academic conference who just died.) I’m just a spoiled middle class brat; but nevertheless I'm going to tell you what made me cry today. Boys playing basketball. My friend drove me to Toronto because she’s looking to move to there. When I met her at her home in Hamilton, I could tell she wasn’t sure if she had the guts to leave the house. We were both pretty down. Yes I admit it, I see her regularly although she’s not a blood relation (sorry, cardinal sin). The point is, she is now part of my routine. She is my best friend and I love her more than anything, because we are both angry, fierce, demented freaks, and we’ve both vowed never to be beaten by COVID-19. (I don’t mean the disease — I mean the measures put in place to protect us.) But some days I arrive and she’s slumped in a chair, and she says ‘I just can’t take it anymore.’ Well today I began to doubt our friendship. Could I possibly be tired of my best friend? And then I realised it was because every natural closeness between two human beings needs other human beings to facilitate it. Am I wrong? Are there those of you out there who can love another person day after day and not see anyone else? Is my love for my best friend somehow wanting because of our mutual need to have social intercourse with the rest of the world? Maybe there is a perfect love out there — somewhere — between two people who don’t need anyone else (or is that just a line from Love is A Many Splendored Thing?). Finally she grabbed her stuff; ’Let’s go, we’re going to drive to ‘friggin’ Toronto’ — and we got in her Volkswagen bug, and we did. It was about seeing people. New people. Others. We got on the highway and there were cars, and actually a traffic jam, and we were like — wow! a traffic jam! That’s fabulous! When we got into Toronto we couldn’t take our eyes off the people. We started off in Parkdale which is a lot like where we live (Hamilton) only there were more destitute people than where we live — and in their desperation and anger I found hope, because they are the only ones telling it like it is. Sure they’ve got it a lot harder than the yoga practitioners living in their brick and planter mansions, but they also don’t have time or energy to pretend they adore this whole damn shitty fiasco. And then it just became a thing, a thing of watching people, everywhere, running, walking, biking, exercising. And some teenage girls in groups touching each other. No friggin' social distancing. Oh we were very bad. And the boys were playing basketball in the park — and I just lost it. I know it sounds incredibly stupid, but it was so goddamn ordinary, they were just having good old-fashioned fun. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything as corny and mundane as this. I’ve never been inspired by simple humanity. Maybe it’s because tonight I had to watch this dumb uninspiring movie about a remarkable woman — a movie that a director somehow couldn’t make into art. And I don’t see how I can make this into art either. I’m trying to make you identify with what I’m saying and trying not to sound like a spoiled brat. I am spoiled, but, but, BUT — listen to me — needing to see a new face, and to talk to a new person, and needing to have a new experience -- is not spoiled (even though I might be)! Does that make sense? Because if there’s nothing new: then that’s what prison is. Ann Dvorak ends up in prison in this lousy movie that doesn’t for one moment convince you that she really was noble, or that she really suffered. They stick a rubber hose down her throat and you’re still not moved, because it’s so badly done. The reviews for this movie said it “handles its more brutal scenes with a marked degree of tastefulness.” Maybe that’s the problem. So I have the bad taste to call social distancing a senseless, very personal violence that eats away at you slowly, rubber hose or no rubber hose. (Okay, sorry!) At one point the evil Japanese are talking about what they are going to do when they take over the United States of America — “the first thing we are going to do is kill the umpires” and they laugh their evil Japanese laughs, and to 1951 viewers this would be the nightmare: the prime atrocity committed by vile foreigners would be to take over America and destroy baseball. Well congratulations, it’s COVID-19 and we’ve done just that. And that’s why I cried when I saw those boys in the park doing what boys were meant to do in parks — and by that I mean, just playing a game.
