THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION
US, 2001, 102 minutes, Colour.
Woody Allen, Dan Aykroyd, Helen Hunt, Brian Markinson, Wallace Shawn, David Ogden Stiers, Charlize Theron, Elizabeth Berkeley.
Directed by Woody Allen.
Curse of the Jade Scorpion is an entertaining Woody Allen comedy-drama. However, it was not popular at the box office and led to a series of films which Allen found difficult to release, including Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, Scoop.
The film is a variation on the film noir of the 1940s. Woody Allen portrays a very self-confident insurance investigator. Helen Hunt plays the efficiency expert in the office. The two do not like each other. However, when they go to a show in which Voltan (David Ogden Stiers), a hypnotist, is featured, they are both hypnotised and the Woody Allen character is made to commit crimes – which, when he wakes up and does not remember anything, he is asked to investigate.
Helen Hunt and Woody Allen work well off each other. In the supporting cast are Dan Aykroyd and Wallace Shawn as well as the glamorous Elizabeth Berkley (Showgirls) and Charlize Theron who was emerging as a star and was soon to win an Oscar for Monster.
1. An entertaining Woody Allen comedy, thriller? The place of this film in Woody Allen's canon, making it in his mid-sixties, his wit, scriptwriting, direction, casting himself in the central role - and his age and the love affairs?
2. The New York settings, Allen's love for the city, the apartments, the nightclubs? The musical score, the music of the period, the jazz pieces? The performance in the clubs?
3. The title, the echoes of the brief thrillers of the 30s and 40s, Mr Moto and Charlie Chan? The homage to these films? The Woody Allen variations on these themes and styles?
4. Woody Allen as C.W. Briggs, the 1940s, insurance investigator, his skill, seeing him in action, unmasking frauds? His capacity for understanding the criminal mind? His work style, filing, his chauvinist attitudes towards the staff? His interactions with the boss, his presumptions, Magruder appointing Betty Ann Fitzgerald as an efficiency expert, bringing the office up to date? His clashes with her, temperament, verbal clashes, chauvinism? Her giving back as good as she got?
5. The atmosphere of the office, its look, the 1940s style, the filing cabinets and Briggs trying to manage them? The takeover by Betty Ann, modernising the methods, ways of communication? Magruder and his presiding over the office, his efficiencies and inefficiencies, changing stances, his attitude towards Betty Ann, towards Briggs?
6. Betty Ann, the modern young woman of the 1940s, smart, well dressed, her own life, seemingly cold, efficient, the clashes with Briggs? Working with Magruder? With the other members of the office, especially Jill? Al?
7. The going to the nightclub, their clash, the other members of the staff? It introduction to Voltan and his assistant? The hypnotists and their popularity at the time? The performance, choosing Briggs and Betty Ann, their going onto the stage, their being hypnotised? The response of the audience and friends? The irony of their being made to fall in love under the hypnotic spell?
8. Voltan and his assistant, their control over Briggs and Betty Ann, the phone calls, the key words? Briggs and his being hypnotised, going into the buildings, breaking through his own security, stealing the jewels, depositing them? His skill as a burglar? The irony of his having to investigate his own thefts? His inability to put the idea of his being the thief together with his investigation? The authorities and their suspicions? Betty Ann and her suspicions? Investigating him?
9. The encounter with the Kensington jewels, Voltan's control, Briggs and his achievement? The encounter with Laura Kensington, glamour, the irony of her looking the opposite of Briggs and being taller? The credibility or not of the passionate affair? Her role in detection, the unmasking?
10. The police, the investigation, Briggs more and more under suspicion? His trying to set up systems to prove himself innocent? The irony of Voltan using Betty Ann and hypnotising her, the complicity in the robbery?
11. The final unmasking, the resolution of the old-time movies, the explanations of what had happened? The capture of Voltan and his assistant? Restoration of the jewels?
12. The final irony with the hypnotism revealing to Betty Ann and Briggs that they loved each other? How credible?
13. An enjoyable Woody Allen comedy, the intricacies of the plot, the imagination of the hypnotist using the insurance agent to rob, the various unmaskings? The tradition of the screwball comedies and the sparring between such partners as Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant?
