Restored to Power

Bernardo Bertolucci’s splendid 1987 epic “The Last Emperor” has returned to the Nuart, where it will play through Dec. 3, with a fresh print and in a director’s cut that adds a whopping 58 minutes to an already formidable 160-minute running time. Yet such is Bertolucci’s ability to involve us in the destiny of China’s ill-fated last Manchu ruler that the film has become a richer, more rewarding experience. The restored footage results in a more comprehensive and balanced view of the man and his turbulent times.

The saga of Pu Yi, who ascended the throne at the age of 3 in 1908, is that of a man who, in effect, spent most of his life as a prisoner. Spoiled but isolated, Pu Yi grew up in the incredible ancient splendor of Beijing’s vast Forbidden City with little intrusion from the rapidly changing world outside the palace’s massive walls. At 7, he was allowed to be reunited briefly with his mother and to meet his younger brother, who became his playmate--and was the first child he ever saw. He was lucky in his appointment of a wise, avuncular tutor (Victor Wong) and in the unprecedented arrival of the stalwart Scotsman Reginald Johnston (Peter O’Toole), who was able to bring to the bright young Pu Yi (John Lone) a worldview and, along with it, a desire for reform and personal freedom that would only be thwarted and exploited.

Fate and his own understandable naivete ultimately worked against him. When China became a republic in 1912, Pu Yi was allowed to remain in the Forbidden City, but not permitted to leave it, until political upheavals forced him to depart with one hour’s notice in 1924. He and his No. 1 wife, Wan Jung (Joan Chen), relocated in Tien-tsin (now Tianjin), styled themselves Henry and Elizabeth Pu Yi and carried on like Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

The smartest move the couple could have made was to immigrate to the West to become the Asian equivalent of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. But the Japanese, who invaded China in 1931, had already been wooing Pu Yi when Chiang Kai-Shek plundered the imperial tombs. That act was decisive in convincing Pu Yi to allow the Japanese to set him up as the emperor of Manchuria, renamed Manchuko. Once again he became imprisoned in a palace, then imprisoned by the Russians in 1945 and, in 1950, by the Red Chinese, who held him nearly 10 years for “re-education.”

This is just the bare outline of a unique life story that Bertolucci, who had the assistance of both Pu Yi’s younger brother Pu Chieh and his manservant Li Wenda, tells in remarkable detail. Yet “The Last Emperor,” while giving us a vivid idea of what it was like to live Pu Yi’s life, and for all its additional footage, still must be viewed more as entrancing myth than a faithful representation. When former Newsweek correspondent Edward Behr wrote a biography of Pu Yi, also called “The Last Emperor” to tie in with the film’s release, he dug deep and came up with a darker, more complex portrait of the emperor, that of a man who was bisexual, possibly primarily homosexual, a man who got a kick out of beating his male servants. Bertolucci shows his empress slipping into opium addiction but does not allude to her unspeakably awful end. Superbly designed, acted, photographed and scored,”The Last Emperor” may be lots longer but still leaves a lot out. (310) 478-6379.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, LACMA is presenting “Four Comedies From 1934”: “The Thin Man” and “The Merry Widow” on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and “It Happened One Night” and “Twentieth Century” on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. It is a delightful paradox that the Great Depression at its depth unleashed a string of the zaniest, most sophisticated and timeless comedies ever to be made in Hollywood.

As a detective mystery, “The Thin Man,” adapted from the Dashiell Hammett novel, is entirely negligible, but its suggestion that marriage can be fun, that husband and wife can be pals, remains an evergreen idea. It’s inevitably said that Hammett based his Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) on his own relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman, but it’s hard to believe that they could possibly have had as much fun as Nick, a retired detective, and Nora, an heiress.

On a vacation in Manhattan from San Francisco, they are approached by Maureen O’Sullivan to help track down her missing father, but that doesn’t detract them from their biggest concern: partying. Powell, established as a heavy in the silent era, and Loy, who not long before had been stuck playing exotic vamps, emerge as urbane wits with perfect chemistry as a team. Director Woody “One Take” Van Dyke’s style is fast and decidedly nonchalant. That Nick is unmistakably an alcoholic may take the edge off the film’s humor for you, but at the time, heavy smoking and drinking were the hallmarks of screen sophistication.

Whereas Erich Von Stroheim turned his stunning 1925 version of “The Merry Widow” into a mordant fable of innocence and corruption, Ernst Lubitsch added his trademark sly, sophisticated touch to the venerable Franz Lehar operetta. The film teams Jeanette MacDonald’s exquisite femininity with Maurice Chevalier’s virile charm.

The plot is a trifle about a playboy count who must go to Paris and woo a beautiful widow (MacDonald) back to their tiny Ruritanian kingdom, of which she owns 52%; should she withdraw her savings from her country, it would go bankrupt. MacDonald wonders: Does he love me for myself or for my money? This is a Metro period production at its most sumptuously baroque, and Lubitsch is ever the master at setting off genuine emotion by playing it against intricate artifice. The result is one of the breeziest, wittiest and most beguiling musicals ever made, with Lehar’s music given new lyrics by Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers and Gus Kahn. Oliver Marsh, who shot the much darker 1925 “Merry Widow” also shot this version, with a brighter, more glamorous look.

“It Happened One Night,” one of the most familiar Hollywood classics, has such verve and good humor it will probably remain fresh forever. Based on Samuel Hopkins Adams’ “Night Bus,” the film is about a runaway heiress (Claudette Colbert) who is cut down to size by a breezy, resourceful newspaper reporter (Clark Gable) while on a bus trip from Miami to New York.

Robert Riskin supplied the great dialogue and Capra the bouncy direction of some mighty durable performances. The film is studded with immortal moments in screen comedy, as when Colbert proves her leg is mightier than Gable’s thumb when it comes to hitching a ride. For all its lighthearted intent, it also effectively demolished social pretense and helped launch the entire cycle of screwball comedies that brightened the bleak ‘30s.

“Twentieth Century” director Howard Hawks and writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur take us aboard the Twentieth Century Limited for one of the movies’ most terrific train rides with a megalomaniacal Broadway producer (John Barrymore, at his sodden peak), his sexy Hollywood Galatea (Carole Lombard) and assorted zanies, boobs, crackpots and cynics. It’s first class, all the way. (213) 857-6010.