Cock of the Air

COCK OF THE AIR is a bright, intelligent, sensual romp. It is candy for the eyes and ears, a picture so competent that it transcends its 1931 origins by decades.

We have the ever-sturdy Chester Morris as the womanizing Lt. Roger Craig escaping the gunfire of jealous lovers. This gains his notice with Lilli de Rousseau, a recently deported Paris opera diva now living (under guard) in Italy. Miss de Rousseau is forced from Paris in the opening reel (what's left of it) because her irresistible magnetism imperils the war effort. This is not difficult to believe, as Billie Dove is totally ravishing as Lilli. She epitomizes desire, and the necklines of her gowns look as though the dressmaker ran out of fabric! Lilli sets out to ensnare and deny Lt. Craig, and his mounting frustration sets up increasing hilarity. The dialogue during one of these put-offs is an exchange of current events while Craig wrestles Lilli for a kiss. It's all done with light sophistication and great wit, not a hint of threat. The mood is kept light throughout the picture.

The scenes are underscored by specific musical cues that contribute to each step of the proceedings. A carnival is in progress for backgrounds and the festive atmosphere permeates Lilli and Roger's banter. The onscreen joy extends into the camerawork, as the visuals track, dip and zoom as though the DP had an Arriflex camera.

Alas, one of the put-offs Lilli devises was the first to hit the cutting room floor. In this scene, Lilli puts on an entire suit of armor (medieval style) and is reclined on a bed when Roger enters to pursue with a can opener!

Many other cuts leave scenes incomprehensible. It is difficult to assess whether these were done by Lewis Milestone to get the film released or whether the film base surrendered to the unmerciful sprocket claw at some point in time. What IS clear, by the evidence in surviving documents of the Hays Office, is that Colonel Jason S. Joy [what a surname for a prurient sort] had an axe to grind with Howard Hughes (this film's producer). It seems that a list of suggestions was compiled by "Joy" to bring the picture into conformity with the code. The original list resulted from the nominal submission of a shooting script to the Hays Office. When Joy discovered Hughes had shipped a positive print to every state before securing the Hays' MPPDA approval he became indignant. When a preview revealed his suggestions had been ignored, he set about sending a flurry of communications to the head office to make trouble, accusing the film to be in violation in title, content and portrayal.

This film was one of several Hughes launched simultaneously after HELL'S ANGELS. On the east coast, a film in production two months longer was wrapping at the same time. Its name is SCARFACE, and it, too was causing the Hays Office inordinate dismay. According to a quote from Hughes in defense of SCARFACE, "I gave up 'Queer People' [not filmed] to cooperate, and I cut up 'Cock Of The Air' until it wasn't any good, to cooperate." 1,800 feet hit the floor to satisfy Colonel Joy. As some of the cuts occur in sequences he suggested, I should note the print looks like solvent weld cement was abandoned for masking tape.

Code enforcement was inconsistent. I looked into Joy's treatment of 'A Farewell To Arms' for perspective. Same year, suggestions ignored, Joy's protestations relented due to the Hemmingway pedigree on the source material. Censorship is in inherently slippery slope. Celebrate what remains as a testament to vitality of Tom Buckingham's direction. This film gave its essence so that another may live.

I just came from the Museum of Modern Art in which this movie was shown in its original, uncensored form -- almost. When they went to reinsert the censored sections, the restoration team found the sound track was missing -- so they rerecorded it. They did a good job of it, since the only way I noticed the reinterpolation was that a little icon appeared in the lower right corner of the screen. Image quality was great, and they made the soundtrack indistinguishable from the rest, adding a low-level white noise that mimicked the standards of the era.

The opening was also fine, with a bunch of elderly diplomats asking Billie Dove to get out of town; it seems that all the Allied officers are hanging around her instead of leading their soldiers to glorious death in the field. When we next see Miss Dove, she is in Venice during Carnival, and that sequence is beautifully shot with a gorgeous moving camera that makes you think it is traveling throughout the Serene City. There she meets Chester Morris....

...And there the movie falls to pieces. With Robert E. Sherwood and Charles Lederer as the writers, I went in expecting some great Pre-Code dialogue. Unfortunately, what we got was dialogue offered uninterestingly amidst a story line that veered between scenes lifted, for no reason, from other movies, like an aerial sequence, and plot points that were both predictable and uninterestingly presented.

While the money spent on this movie shows at all time on the screen, from the high-ceiling conference room to the magnificent garden of Miss Dove's palazzo, after the wonderful opening, this one turns into dull mediocrity.