Object #83 - "Walls of Jericho" Blanket - It Happened One Night (1934)

Dir. Frank Capra

It Happened One Night is the ur-romantic comedy. Every modern romantic comedy you've ever seen has an origin in this film. Amazing then, that It Happened One Night remains timeless. When the core of the film is the budding romance of two people stuck together due to external circumstances, then those external circumstances don't really matter, it's all charisma, chemistry, and witty dialogue. What It Happened One Night masters, more than many of its successors, is heart.  

Take one of the most iconic scenes of the film, where our leads - Peter (Clark Gable), down on his luck reporter, and Ellie (Claudette Colbert), absconding bride-to-be, are required to share a room for a night. Ellie has fled her father  (Walter Connolly) and has caught the night bus to New York, so that she can reunite with her husband-to-be. Peter, who has just lost his newspaper job, sees Ellie as his route back, her story being that of the headline grabbing famous heiress, on the run from her rich, famous father. 

Prior to this scene, the two have warmed to each other, Peter more-so than Ellie. However, as Peter organises the room, a situation forced due to rain blocking the night bus' route, we feel for Ellie. She has previously had the suitcase with all her money stolen, and even Peter has taken her remaining four dollars, thinking her spoiled nature will have her waste it. She is now in the tricky situation of potential blackmail. What cost will Peter ask for his silence? A night shared with her under duress?

Thankfully however, Peter dispels this horrid idea in the most charming of ways. The two single beds on opposing walls, already some reassurance that there is nothing untoward going on, are immediately divided by Peter as he hangs a wire with a blanket on it. He plays with her expectations - "Oh, I like privacy when I retire. I'm very delicate in that respect". He proclaims: "Behold the Walls of Jericho", tosses her a spare pair of his own pyjamas, and asks her: "Do you mind joining the Israelites?", pointing to the other side of the room. She stares and judges his performance. Unabashed, Peter continues to undress, telling a funny story about the order in which a man undresses, taking his shirt off, and just before he'll take his trousers down, she dashes to the privacy afforded by the blanket.

Already, this is a fantastic use of a prop. It's a symbol of Peter's playfulness, respect, and good intentions. He could have been a swine, as we later see fellow traveller Oscar Shapely (Roscoe Karns) reveal himself to be. Instead however, Peter continues his subtle charm offensive of Ellie. The blanket is used even further however as a device for developing their relationship, as after turning off the light, Ellie undresses. 

The scene becomes intimate - rain pouring outside, Peter's face half-lit as he smokes. He sees her underclothes thrown over the blanket, wryly assesses them, then states: "I wish you'd take those things off the Walls of Jericho.", once again playfully using his name for the privacy blanket. Ellie quickly apologies and does so, having absent-mindedly hung them. After undressing, within this private intimacy, she asks him his name, reminding us that despite their clear chemistry, they barely know each other. 

At a later motel, after the two have bonded even further, the Wall of Jericho is placed again. However Ellie, who has fallen for Peter, rushes around it, into his arms, breaking the privacy and distance that he had established in that first scene. She loves him, and tells him so. He knows that she is engaged to someone else, someone that she was mad enough about to run away to and start her entire adventure. Crestfallen that he won't promise to run off with her, she returns to her bed. After she falls asleep, Peter asks her if she really meant what she said, to no reply. He peeps over the blanket, finding that she's fallen asleep. He was going to reciprocate, even peeping over the blanket, but the timing was off. 

He decides on another plan, as he surreptitiously dresses, all the while protected by the blanket, leaving her to sleep. His plan is to sell the story of their love to his editor, asking for an upfront payment of a thousand dollars, enough for them to run away together. As he races back in the car, trying to reach her before she awakes, it becomes apparent that she was kicked out by the moral motel owners, and found by her father, returning her home. When she was awoken by the motel owners, we see Ellie just as confused as them at Peter's leaving, as she initially calls out over the blanket, which the owners pull down. The blanket is therefore reinforced as a symbol of their relationship, one that is now being used, in Ellie's mind, as an aid to his leaving her high and dry. The privacy it once represented shattered by the motel owners violently tugging it down.   

This theme is finalised at the film's end. Peter has convinced Ellie's father that he truly loves her. Her father then convinces Ellie that she should leave her would-be husband at the altar, which she does, dashing to a nearby car. We don't see either of the two leads from this point. We do however see the marriage being annulled, with Ellie's father then receiving a telegram: "What's the hold up? The Walls of Jericho are tumbling". He replies: "Let 'em tumble!". We see an exterior of a motel cabin, lit from inside. The motel owner tells her husband that the guests asked her for a blanket and a string, despite it being the middle of the night. The husband replies that they sent him to the store to get a toy trumpet. We hear it toot, the blanket fall, and the lights go out. The couple can marry, and the private Walls of Jericho now fallen, they can become truly intimate with one another. 

Having a prop used multiple ways in a scene is difficult enough. Having a prop used multiple ways throughout an entire film even harder. It Happened One Night pulls it off, wringing that blanket dry of narrative use, and thematic symbolism; even using it as a fantastic denouement to the entire film, and ergo the relationship of Peter and Ellie. The initial "Walls of Jericho" scene is one of the most iconic from the film, and one of the most iconic romantic comedy scenes in film. What makes it so great is that that object, which aids in forming the heart of the film, does so in such a smart and controlled way throughout the entire film. It's timeless filmmaking, through and through. 

Object #82 - Hot Air Balloon - The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

Dir. Jim Henson

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life" - Pablo Picasso

Art can challenge, art can teach, and art can soothe. The ability of art to soothe, and to allow an escape from our everyday lives is being put to the test more than ever, due to the worldwide crisis caused by COVID-19. This virus physically isolates us from each other. Film shoots have been put on hold, in limbo until the invisible killer is contained. Films scheduled for imminent release now delay, to a time when, hopefully, the market, and the world, is back to normal.

But normality may never be the same. Everything has been impacted - science, politics, the economy, and most importantly for us film lovers - culture. As we all quarantine ourselves for the greater good, we turn and examine current culture in entirely different ways than we would have otherwise. There is a surreal quality to television and film shot pre-COVID. People hold hands without checking if they've washed them thoroughly for twenty seconds first. They gather in groups of more than two! They continue the lives that they thought we'd be living.

Some art has not only met the challenge of a COVID-19 world, but has thrived because of it. As the crisis worsened across Europe, the pastel-coloured, town simulation game Animal Crossing: New Horizons became the cultural touchstone. Its promise of a deserted island getaway was perfectly timed for a world which needed bright, optimistic escapism. I myself, for the first week or so of self-isolation did little else than form my own island town, and read trashy science fiction novels. The first film I even cautioned to put on had to be something uplifting, something to soothe and comfort. I chose The Great Muppet Caper. 

The film opens with Kermit (Jim Henson), Fozzie (Frank Oz), and Gonzo (Dave Goelz) adrift in a hot air balloon against a pastel-blue sky. Viewing it oddly felt like some extension of that Animal Crossing world, despite releasing nearly forty years ago. There is no explanation for why they're floating around, they simply are. The three meta-textually comment on the fact that they're in the opening credits of a film, as Kermit reads aloud the grandiose title. They swap some witty one-liners about surviving the fall, the length of the end credits, and the number of people who worked on the film.

A prime example of how the perception of art has been changed by current events comes towards the end of the sequence. Fozzie states, about the opening credits - "Nobody reads those things anyway, do they?", to which Kermit replies: "Sure, they all have families". Firstly, it's already a lovely Kermit moment, providing optimism instead of shallow pessimism. But secondly, in the COVID world, it stands as a potent reminder of the value of human life. In all seriousness, the loss of life has already become a rapidly climbing statistic, as daily death totals from across the world fill the news; and scummy politicians debate sacrificing elderly human life to The All Great Market. Human life has been cheapened. But here, Kermit reminds us that every name, every number, has a family. Somebody cared about that person, and their loss from the world is a tragedy to someone.

The hot air balloon lands in a populated street scene - once again, now a fantasy in comparison to our COVID lives. As the colourful balloon lands, the opening musical number Hey a Movie! begins, with Kermit and the crew singing about the movie we're about to watch - the "spectacle", the "fantasy", the "derring do". I could not have chosen a better film. The Muppets are here, from the past, reassuring us that at the other end of this crisis, we can have a silly caper film with singing felt puppets. All of those actors, and all of those magnificent puppeteering artists were able to come together and create something beautiful. As the standard street scene comes to life with colourful, varied muppets, we see life being lived. It will happen again, as hard as that is to believe right now. We will get movies that are self-assured enough to promise a happy ending from the start. We will get movies which promise something "terrific" - "starring everybody, and me!".

Some art then, is just waiting to be re-interpreted, re-discovered, and re-conceptualised in our current COVID world, and beyond. See the amazing resurgence of Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, the communal twitter viewing parties, and all the personal ways we will now view art in the light of a new world, like I'm personally doing with The Great Muppet Caper. It's a time of crisis, and if all art is as hopeful as Kermit promising "stuff like you would never see", then I think we'll be alright in the end.