Romance: The Purple Rose of Cairo
Woody Allen Film a Bittersweet Comedy on Par with Chaplin's Best
Oct 5, 2008
Woody shows his hand early in The Purple Rose of Cairo, when Fred Astaire croons “Cheek to Cheek” under the opening credits. It’s the perfect choice because the film is a loving homage to the RKO romantic comedies of the 30s – especially the Fred-and-Ginger series.
Mia Farrow Stars
But it’s much more than that. The 1985 film is a meditation on fantasy versus reality – in this case, the light comedy and urban sophistication in the RKO movies contrasted with the bitter reality of the Depression and of desperate, doomed relationships.
Mia Farrow stars as Cecilia, a sweetly naïve and inept New Jersey waitress married to Monk, a lazy, loutish, manipulative lug played with his signature charm by Danny Aiello.
Waiting tables beside the harrowed Cecilia is her sister, played by Farrow’s real-life sister Stephanie.
Jeff Daniels as Fictional Hero Made Real
Cecilia’s home life with Monk is miserable, and her only escape is the local movie house.
She becomes obsessed with the movie-within-a-movie, The Purple Rose of Cairo. The story really begins when the cinematic hero, a pith-helmeted explorer played by the excellent Jeff Daniels, literally comes off the screen to woo Cecilia, whom he noticed repeatedly watching the film. That he refuses to return to the picture because of Cecilia – and the lure of the real world – sets the rest of Allen’s story in motion.
Before you know it, the theater manager is telephoning the movie’s producer at RKO. The producer is called Raoul Hirsh, whose Spanish first name/Jewish surname combination is a playful reference to Pandro Berman, the real-life RKO producer of the Fred and Ginger series.
Naturally, nervous studio lawyers get involved (“I see lawsuits…”), and dispatch Jeff Daniels – as the actor playing the explorer “Tom Baxter” – to New Jersey to convince his naïve fictional counterpart to rejoin the black-and-white picture.
Meantime, back on screen, Baxter’s fellow characters struggle to make sense of what’s happened. They even argue over who’s the main character in their story. The change from their routine – they’ve played the same scenes a million times – causes these tuxedoed and feather-dress swells to fall apart, with hilarious results.
Van Johnson, Milo O’Shea in Supporting Roles
Allen has wisely cast some familiar veteran farceurs to play off “Tom Baxter” in the fictional Cairo, including Van Johnson, Edward Herrmann and Milo O’Shea.
Breaking the fourth wall – in this case, the movie screen itself -- was nothing new; Keaton did it as far back as Sherlock Jr. in 1924 (albeit in that film, Keaton walks onto the screen, not off it). But Allen’s conceit is brilliantly expanded upon, as movie patrons begin heckling characters remaining trapped onscreen. The two worlds – one carefree but fictional, the other brutal but real – collide with hilarious and surprising results.
Depression Era Perfectly Captured
Cinematographer Gordon Willis used muted colors and dimly-lit interiors to underscore the despair of New Jersey in the Depression – and as counterpoint to the brightly-lit, black-and-white world of Tom Baxter’s unreal life.
That Allen chooses a downbeat ending suggests even he understands the RKO films didn’t reflect much more than wishful thinking to Depression audiences.
One woman’s complaint to the theater manager nicely summarizes Allen’s take on the as-you-like-it American films of the period: “I want what happened in the movie last week to happen this week. Otherwise, what’s life all about anyway?”
What indeed?
 |
