[Note: I said that I would be covering all three of Huston’s war documentaries in one article, but upon watching Report from the Aleutians (and other personal/professional affairs), I’ve decided to draw them out. I may condense The Battle of San Piedro and Let There Be Light, but we’ll see. And I also have Across the Pacific to get into before Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but as much as I’m looking forward to covering that film, I’m enjoying myself all the same watching these.]

Before I even started considering a retrospective on Huston’s articles, I still wanted to watch all his films—at first the big ones, then go on to the ones that looked interesting, after that, eh, maybe the obscure-but-still-kinda-uh-well-liked ones? Then everything—if I could stand it—beyond. Either way, be it as casual viewer or retrospective writer on assignment, Huston’s WWII propaganda films weren’t something I was particularly looking forward to.

It would be a neat curiosity, since the bulk of Huston’s work was based on novels, and this would be one of the few (perhaps only? I haven’t gotten that far ahead in my research) Huston works not based on existing material. Nevertheless, my first glimpse of Report from the Aleutians (1943)’ first five or so minutes all but confirmed my fears—I figured it’d be dated, being all 70+ years old, WWII-ish, and well, topical really. It dealt with something that happened a long time ago and whose importance would be all but lost on my generation and probably my parents’ as well. And even if you like documentaries, at first glance it looks like not much more than simple propaganda—which really was my greatest fear with all three.

I find propaganda fascinating (if you don’t, check out Disney’s war cartoons—ever wanted to see Donald Duck as a Nazi?), but when I’m watching the film for the sole purpose of better understanding Huston, I just got this image of the US Propaganda Department breathing down his neck and telling him everything he can and can’t talk about—which is to say not the ideal collection of films to give insight to the man.

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Huston’s second film, 1942’s In This Our Life seems to be somewhat lost to history, and, coming after The Maltese Falcon, that’s understandable. I’m not sure what the prevailing mood was in the ‘40s, but if a director were to offer a similar follow-up today, I imagine that more than a few critics would likely be salivating to label him a one-hit wonder.

That’s not to say that In This Our Life is a bad movie, it’s just okay. The story, adapted from the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about two sisters, one good, Roy (Olivia de Havilland), one bad, Stanley (Bette Davis). The significance of their masculine names is unclear.

Roy is married to Peter, a doctor, while Stanley’s engaged to Craig, a lawyer. However Peter’s carrying on an affair with Stanley. The night before her wedding, Stanley elopes with Peter, who subsequently divorces Roy, leaving her and Craig to find comfort with each other, and the two eventually get married.

So, Stanley and Peter = bad; Roy and Craig = good. Rounding out the dichotomies are William, the girls’ racist, hard-drinking uncle, who harbors a rather disturbing crush on and shares an incestually suggestive relationship with his bad niece (the scene where she greets him with a flurry of tickles and he mentions the “present” in his pocket is only one among many that tiptoe the censor’s pen), and Asa, the girls’ kindly father.

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This marks the first in a series of articles looking at the films of John Huston, one of the most celebrated filmmakers of the 20^th Century and a fascinating man himself.

It seems sensible to start at the beginning, and an impressive beginning at that, with his first film, 1941’s The Maltese Falcon. So much has been written before on this film, so I’ll confine myself to some observations I had on this most recent rewatching and a few points I haven’t yet seen anyone else touch on.

Perhaps most surprising is that this was Huston’s directorial debut. Prior to Falcon he’d written screenplays, among them High Sierra, the film widely regarded as Bogart’s first big picture.

Knowing that, it’s surprising how established the film is, in that it doesn’t look like a director’s first film. Bogie’s Sam Spade is well crafted and believable, but it’s when the camera pans down to the silhouette of “Spade and Archer” that you know this is no amateur.

There are more than a few transitions like this—the spinning tire of the police car also comes to mind—but it never feels overdone. Many first-time directors would be too eager to show off, often to the detriment of the film, but while Falcon certainly has its share of complicated shots, they’re all made to serve the scene rather than the filmmaker.

So many mysteries inhabit the film, and they all come from the characters. Each one harbors a sordid past that’s only suggested. For all the questions surrounding it, we know much more about the flacon itself than we do the people surrounding it.

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Forget 1980s action films, forget 300.  Westerns are the genre that set the highest and hardest expectations for manhood. I hesitate to say they’re unrealistic ones, though, since these are all things people actually did to survive.

Which is a very roundabout way of saying that I’m going to amend my “Dream Man” to be a Clint Eastwood kind of guy who can also survive the uncharted forests of the West with just a piece of twine. And one leg. A Zachary Bass, Man in the Wilderness kind of guy.

Man in the Wilderness takes place in 1820, and no further West than some dim point past Missouri and the Mississippi.   It’s not a period you see visited very often in the genre, and I suspect it’s because just contemplating it — vague regions still known only as “Spain”,  “Oregon Territory” and “Missouri Territory” — is rather terrifying.

Reading accounts of the first settlers is pretty harrowing, Heart of Darkness stuff.  There were forests back then, forests so thick you couldn’t get your wagon through without hacking for hours on end. And then you died of diphtheria.

If a bear didn’t get you first. That’s what happened to Zachary Bass (Richard Harris), and he knew what he was doing.

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