[Film Review] Mädchen in Uniform (1931) and These Three (1936)

Double features time! German female filmmaker Leontine Sagan’s MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM is a vanguard of queer cinema made in 1931, and William Wyler’s THESE THREE, arrived 5 years later, is based on Lilian Hellman’s sapphic play The Children’s Hour, but lesbianism is completely effaced due to the Hays Code, and Wyler would later remake a “veritable” version in 1961 starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner.

MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM is adapted from Christa Winsloe’s play and old hand Carl Froelich is credited as the artistic director to lend a helping hand to Sagan’s first feature. Corralling an all-female cast, the story is exclusively confined in an all-girl boarding school in the dog end of the Weimar Republic.

Governed by a prim and property headmistress (Unda, an exemplary schoolmarm adorned by a pair of pince-nez), the school aims to groom young daughters from military families to be child-bearers of future soldiers, the headmistress exclaims that they should be raised on hunger and discipline. But where there is oppression, there is revolt, not all the girls are toeing the line, especially the vivacious Ilse von Westhagen (Schwanneke), a mischief-maker whose misdeed (smuggling letter to her parents for more money because them girls are always hungry, even in Sundays), doesn’t deteriorate only because the caring intervention of Fraülein von Bernburg (Wieck), the judicious, tender governess who doesn’t see eye to eye with headmistress’ imperious command.

Fraülein von Bernburg is the star teacher that every girl admires and adores, and her goodnight kiss is a ritual of utter bliss. For a 14-year-old Manuela (Thiele), her attachment to Fraülein von Bernburg is more intense, unlike others, their goodnight kiss is on the lips, and she falls in love with her (she can barely speak in front of Fraülein von Bernburg, a fool-proof sign of infatuation), but as an adult, Fraülein von Bernburg knows better not to spoil this fragile bond and overstep the boundary. When Manuela is the worse for drink after a successful school play, she lets slip her secret in a fit of euphoria, and its repercussions are resoundingly pathos-stricken, yet, the film is anything but a misery porn, after flags up its anti-Fascist message, it propitiously brings down the curtains and leaves the denouement in ambiguity rather than anything more concrete. That said, its "love is love" affirmation ought not to be eclipsed by its vehement political opprobrium.

Wieck has a very peculiar presence of mind and impassive mien which suggests charisma, mystery and indissolubility, and Thiele possesses that photogenic and expressive visage of innocuousness, youthfulness and vulnerability, it is very hard to credit they have the same age, both were born in 1908. Kudos to the casting process! Then, speaking of Sagan’s directorial endeavor, it is to her credit that we do not feel constrained in a single location, her camera never feels plodding, her sense of composition is overall felicitous, like the vertiginous shot which foreshadows where a tragedy might occur, or the remarkable close-ups foregrounded in soft focus. Moreover, her female identity also helps to reassure the young female cast and elicit most spontaneous reactions and outburst from them, not to mention the jubilant solidarity. Sagan’s proficiency can contend with those from any member of the other sex, yet she only made three movies in her entire life, which makes MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM such a puissant hue and cry to redress the inequality in the director’s chair, and individually, it is an endearingly stirring film completed with true grits and pluperfect tact.

THESE THREE, on the other hand, except for being marred for its inborn cop-out, is almost identical with THE CHILDREN’S HOUR (1961), Hellman’s dialogue remains largely intact even if the central Uranian affection is debased to a heteronormative love triangle. Two best-friends-cum-school-teachers, Martha Dobie (Hopkins) and Karen Wright (Oberon), both attract to the wholesomely handsome doctor Joseph Cardin (McCrea), but he takes the shine to Karen, so Martha has to hide her feelings.

But a vicious lie from one of their care, the bratty, self-serving, manipulative Mary Tilford (Granville) will shatter the fabric of their school and relationships, as simple as that. However, poetic justice might arrive belatedly, it is never absent. But by that point, audience might be too despondent and benumbed to toss a care. Most afterthought can be aptly copied from my review of THE CHILDREN’S HOUR (1961), but there are some divergence.

For one thing, Granville’s Oscar-nominated performance of an obnoxious bad seed is so extreme and single-minded (Patty McCormack gives a more superior impression of spill-chilling apathy in Mervyn LeRoy’s THE BAD SEED, 1956), a sense of awe actually transpires when she finally gets a whack in the face, in the hands of none other than the fearsome Margaret Hamilton, how satisfactory it is! And in the realm of prodigious child actors, Marcia Mae Jones’ extraordinary embodiment of the patsy Rosalie Wells is every bit as stupendous if not more. Tellingly, those young girls' copious theatrics may betray the difference whether they are handled by a man or a woman.

While THESE THREE is unexceptionable in its narratology and stock soundstage artificiality, no one should deny Hellman’s script is a fertile land for its actresses, Catherine Doucet’s highfalutin and exceedingly self-serving Auntie Mortar (a role played by Hopkins in the 1961 remake) might be bracketed as one of the most odious characters ever on the screen (with Granville’s Mary hot on her heels), yet her unrepentant carriage and locution is fabulous to gape. As a different kind of irritant, Amelia Tilford, Mary’s doting grandmother, stage thespian Alma Kruger, in her very first screen role, presides over with utter composure and later, registers a dignified pang of guilt and pain that comes to save the day.

Among the three leads, McCrea ekes out just adequate charm to convince us he is a catcher, he has more fun throwing sideswipes at Auntie Mortar than spouting sweet-nothings; and Oberon, right in her prime and is game enough to be chipper but also has that essential demureness as a classic Hollywood diva, almost virtuous to a fault. So, we can only rely on Hopkins to ginger up a semblance of perversion that goes missing in the revamped story, and she is there does what she does best, adding layers and layers of pent-up emotions (both to Joseph and her aunt) even there is nothing happens exteriorly. Why her Martha shouldn’t have a darling of her own? There must be a man for her in Vienna too, perhaps a woman even? In THESE THREE’s gynophobic backwater, Martha is an echt heroine and the film fails her cravenly.

referential entries: Wyler’s THE CHILDREN’S HOUR (1961, 7.3/10); Josef von Sternberg’s THE BLUE ANGEL (1930, 7.4/10).

Title: Mädchen in Uniform

Year: 1931

Country: Germany

Language: German, French, English

Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Leontine Sagan

Screenwriters: Christa Winsloe, Friedrich Dammann

based on the play by Christa Winsloe

Music: Hanson Milde-Meissner

Cinematography: Reimer Kuntze, Franz Weihmayr

Editing: Oswald Hafenrichter

Cast:

Hertha Thiele

Dorothea Wieck

Emilia Unda

Hedy Krilla

Ellen Schwanneke

Gertrud de Lalsky

Erika Mann

Annemarie von Rochhausen

Else Ehser

Rating: 8.1/10

Title: These Three

Year: 1936

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: William Wyler

Screenwriter: Lillian Hellman

Music: Alfred Newman

Cinematography: Gregg Toland

Editing: Daniel Mandell

Cast:

Miriam Hopkins

Merle Oberon

Joel McCrea

Catherine Doucet

Bonita Granville

Alma Kruger

Marcia Mae Jones

Carmencita Johnson

Walter Brennan

Margaret Hamilton

Rating: 6.7/10