Back when TV Guide had rougher pages, more pages, and was a smaller rectangle, it had a movie section in the back with listings for all the movies showing on HBO, Showtime, and other pay channels. Each synopsis was a brief sentence, or barely that. I’ve never forgotten the synopsis for The Big Kahuna, starring Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and Peter Facinelli: “Three salesmen meet and find they are all waiting for the same client.”
I still remember it not because it’s totally inaccurate, but because it would have been a movie as equally interesting as The Big Kahuna is. I wish someone would make that exact plot. In the actual The Big Kahuna, Spacey, DeVito, and Peter Facinelli all work for Lodestar Laboratories, Spacey and DeVito as salesmen, and Facinelli as the new guy in the company, there for “technical support. The brains of the company,” as Spacey points out to him. Spacey and DeVito have been to many of these conventions. This is Facinelli’s first. He worries about how he’ll perform on the convention floor, but sticks to his religious beliefs that guide him, even when Spacey perceives that he’s failed at a given task toward the end. To switch it around, and have them as those three salesmen, well, what could happen is that all three are competitive at the start and by the end become friends, or respected rivals, or part of the conversation changes the lives of one of them or all of them, perhaps spurring them on to start their own company, having had decades of experience (save for Facinelli, who would, no doubt, still be eager to learn) that have shown them that they could do better than the people they work for, to run business better.
So many possibilities. And the same kind of thoughts arise upon reading the single-sentence synopsis on the back of the DVD case for Kidnapped: “A young heir falls into the hands of kidnappers, on his travels to Scotland to take over the family fortune, and is saved by a dubious renegade.”
Mostly inaccurate, but again, it would have made an equally interesting movie if it had played out that way. But instead, following the Robert Louis Stevenson novel on which it’s based (to what extent, I don’t know, since it’s only one title in a reading list that by now could travel farther than NASA has ever dreamed), young David Balfour (Freddie Bartholomew) finds out from his school’s headmaster that his father has died, and per his late father’s written wishes, he is to go to Edinboro (that’s how it’s spelled onscreen) in Scotland to meet his uncle Ebenezer Balfour (Miles Mander) and give him the letter he has with him. Of course, this is all happening in 1747, when Scotland is chafing against the rule of the English crown which levies strict taxes that make it hard for the Scots to live, fomenting rumblings of a fight, a revolution, anything to make Scotland its own land. At the same time that David is setting out on his journey, British soldiers are after Alan Breck (Warren Baxter), the leader of a potential revolution, who all Scotsmen look up to and hope that he can trigger change. David gets caught up in it when he spots one of Breck’s men shoot a tax collector and Alan nabs him so that he won’t say anything.
Yet, that’s not the “Kidnapped” of the title. That comes later with a particularly nasty scheme of kidnapping thought up by Ebenezer, after he reads the letter, to keep his own life status quo. Alan and David become friendly acquaintances and Alan eventually sends David on his way to meet Ebenezer at the Balfour castle. The interesting thing here is that David supports the letter of the law while Alan sees it as oppressive, and rightfully so, but while David’s views don’t change, they soon get along in the brief moments they have together, their differences notwithstanding. It’s rare, because with David being as young as he is, one would think this situation would change him, would make him see that what the Crown lays down as the law is not right or reasonable for the people who have to live it. David does change, but not in that way. Maybe he will as he grows up, but beyond these 90 minutes, it doesn’t matter so much.
In 20th Century Fox movies of the 1930s, and further on into the ‘40s and ‘50s, the studio gave only what was necessary. Set design is incidental, just enough to look convincing and no more. The only time the camera ever lingers on a piece of a set is when two characters are in front of it, talking or fighting, such as aboard the ship David and Alan are on, when Alan is fighting off the crew. Speaking of that, director Alfred L. Werker and editor Allen McNeil do not know how to cut a swordfight. This is partly an adventure movie, but there’s no excitement in that sole swordfight. There should be, as a small break from the drama that gets heavier. Intercut with the swordfight is an escape attempt from the ship, which is the focus of that particular scene, but again, Fox never lingers longer than necessary. That could work for some movies, such as film noirs, where it’s necessary to keep the story going, but not here, where the adventure remains minimal. Speaking of film noir, at least in the way of photography, the director of photography on this is Gregg Toland, who became famous after Kidnapped for his work on The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, and Citizen Kane. In creating the atmosphere of a drafty, gloomy castle, Toland gives unsettling power to a storm outside the castle, lighting up the room Ebenezer and David are in, in front of a fire. That atmosphere becomes more vivid and more foreboding as a result.
Kidnapped moves nimbly between the British side of the conflict, Alan’s situation, and David’s situation, so that even in the few slow moments peppered throughout, there is still something to glean from what’s going on. Those moments aren’t the sort that’ll make you check the time on the DVD player to see how much longer you have to go, which is what had happened with all but one of previous Fox Cinema Archives releases that I reviewed. They add a bit more texture to the story, which is welcome since some plot threads move too fast. With Fox, if it’s 90 minutes, that’s how it’s going to play, no matter how much more could be presented.
The image transfer for Kidnapped is grainy throughout, but it looks better than most I’ve come across from the Cinema Archives label, possibly because it came out of the archives in better shape than those other releases. Despite neither Warner Archive nor Fox offering closed-captioning or subtitles on its DVDs (I don’t know if Sony does, but I doubt it), I still keep hoping that this could happen. I like to have subtitles on to read dialogue as I’m hearing it, to study it, and if these labels are willing to spent a little more money to make subtitles or closed-captioning available, more profit might come in from those who need closed-captioning or subtitles. It’s probably just another thing to let go of, like better picture quality, because there’s so many DVDs out per month (the Cinema Archives list for August is extensive), but it’s hard to because if you like these movies, you pay the full price and you deserve more for the full price. Unlike DVDs at Target and Walmart and online that gradually go down in price, these releases won’t because what you pay has to cover the cost of manufacturing the DVD on demand. It’s the never-ending struggle between making Hollywood history look good and realizing the cost of making it look good. But I suspect it’s not a struggle for the studios. As long as the picture looks clear enough, out it goes to us consumers. I can’t grasp that way of thinking, but I’ll still hope for better.
