MovieChat Forums > Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) Discussion > What he says and what we hear

What he says and what we hear

posted 16 years ago by schappe1
2 replies | jump to latest

I love a good commentary on a film. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t that good. The biggest problem with most of them is that the commentator fails to stick to the subject- what’s on the screen. We get anecdotes, resumes and excerpts from books they’ve written. Dana Polan’s commentary on the DVD of “Angels With Dirty Faces” avoids these pitfalls. But it charges headlong into another, so much that, while it may not be the worst commentary I’ve ever heard, (that would be Mickey Rooney’s for the Twilight Zone’s “The Last Night of a Jockey” episode), but it is the most irritating.

The guy starts talking with the appearance of the main title and never even pauses for breath until the final credits have rolled by. Much of what he says is relevant, although describing the Dead End Kids as “intrusive” seems a bit off base. He uses some strange phrases, such as “the seduction of a gangster’s performance”. He tries to tie the film into everything going on in American and world society, including the rise of fascism and the mass media. Some of it’s very interesting but after a while, it became a droning on and on and on and on. He repeats his points in scene after scene. We get it, Dana. You have to give him credit for his breath control but you wind up rolling your eyes.

A good commentary should be like the dressing on a salad. It’s supposed to highlight it, not drown it. Polan’s filibuster is like emptying the bottle on it. It’s as if he thought he was the star of “Angels With Dirty Faces”, not Jimmy Cagney.

[–] junio 15 years ago

I fell asleep listening to this commentary yesterday. Have you heard Francis Ford Coppola's commentary on The Thief of Bagdad DVD? It's atrocious. I wish they had let Martin Scorsese record a full commentary instead of making it half Marty/half Francis.

[–] deaconcrane 14 years ago

I didn't find it that irritating until I read your post -- irritatingly amusing though. It's so dense and packed with information, you know he's lectured on this particular film at length many times before. The reason why he's not pausing for breath is because he breathes and exhales nuggets of film information, eats them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and bathes and luxuriates in it.

But to be fair to him, you can hear where parts of the commentary are edited together. It's fine at first, but then it does turn into this drone and audio wallpaper after a while. There are places where he really seems to be reaching just to fill the air with commentary, such as when he points out that the newspaper editor's last name is White (he states something to the effect of "interesting as 'white' seems to infer a kind of purity" -- seriously?).

He does use the word "seduce" rather liberally, and seems to be more seduced by the sound of his own voice rather than the film itself. I also find it interesting how he pronounces Michael Curtiz's name differently from the other USC faculty on the DVD.

In the end however, he's not really any different than other lecturer or professor on the college film/cinema studies circuit. This is really how monotonous they all sound.