CREATION OF A FUTURE WORLD IN THE TRACER
FROM MEDIA, December, 1931: Of all the movies’ dream worlds, the palaces and exotic places in which we seek an escape from our Depression-burdened lives, by far the most fascinating and full of hope, is the dream world of the future. Indeed, the opulence of a screen drama is real for the actors alone, but the future belongs to everybody. And yet only a few films have tried seriously to deal with the consequences of scientific advancement and the changes that will result in art and society. “Science fiction” in the American cinema has lacked realism and has depended as much upon the imagination of the viewer as upon that of the filmmaker. In early September, however, German-born director Francis Rehage released The Tracer, a thrillingly realistic portrayal of the future. Rehage has made seven films in this country in three years; 1929’s Automobile and his commissioned work regarding the upcoming World’s Fair both demonstrate an uncanny talent for fooling his audience with special film effects. In The Tracer, he has developed this talent to a remarkable level. Although the film is limited in scope, it affords us a most breathtaking view of a world that exists in Rehage’s mind.
Its simple story involves a robbery, the pursuit, and the eventual destruction of the criminal. Rehage’s protagonist criminal, played by burly Arnold Cooke and whose name in the film we never discover, is very much like the misanthropic heroes of Public Enemy and Big House. He is essentially fearless, possessed with the overpowering need to be on top. But despite his tough character, he is over his head in a technological super-world. Here, perhaps, is the film’s single most disturbing flaw: Cooke lives in that world but does not really belong to it; he is surprised and baffled, as we are, by elements of the future that he should take for granted. There is in him a fatal and enigmatic lack, because of which he is hopelessly at odds with the environment in which he finds himself. From the moment the film opens he faces justice in the form of mechanical devices, unlike anything that exists today and yet frighteningly convincing. No alarm sounds when he enters the offices of the futuristic Olympian Industries, but in an opening scene we follow his actions on a pair of eerie television-like screens. Here is where Rehage’s construction of a technology begins. To give the effect of impossibly sharp television pictures on the faces of impossibly small machines, Rehage used multiple exposure to combine three separate shots on one piece of film. The television pictures are actually film images printed through a grid of horizontal lines onto high contrast film. When they are added to the background of desk and office, it appears that we are witnessing the first in a series of electrical marvels.
The office scenes also show a whole range of more mundane objects that were completely redesigned for the future. Telephone switchboard, telephones and typewriters are all streamlined and highly polished, dotted with trademarks and switches to make them seem real. Light fixtures and furniture were created especially for The Tracer out of what architects have said are the materials of the future: chromed steel, hardwoods, and white opaque glass. Wall-to-wall carpeting covers all the floors. The effect produced is glamorous, the appliances expensive yet functional. Director Rehage had a large staff of designers to help him, but it is the coordination of their efforts and the unity of their styles that creates the illusion of a future world for us. Rehage’s approach was to eliminate the frills of our modernistic art while preserving the simplicity of straight lines and smooth surfaces. The same philosophy of styling was applied to every object in his sets: the frames of doors, the elevator with its pushbutton controls, the squared man-sized forms that appear to be coin-operated vending machines. Such extensive and precise work must require a great deal of money; even though many of the design problems were handled by private companies. Rehage spent over a hundred thousand dollars building the office sets alone.
His outstanding achievement in these early scenes is the awesome dusk skyline of Chicago that we see for a total of under two minutes, behind the desk of Eric Haller. It is so believable and unusual, in fact, that we may tend to ignore Haller himself, the first man that Cooke encounters during the film. We should say a few words about this set. It was constructed primarily out of plywood and extends fifty feet behind the window of Haller’s office, and was used only in this final office sequence. A small staff spent two weeks building it, to Rehage’s detailed specifications; it is in almost no way related to the city’s present appearance. When time came for filming, Rehage sealed off the portion of the studio that contained his model and filled it with smoke. The haze hanging over the city keeps us from making out any detail that might give it away. This effective illusion, sealed off by a window from the clean and brightly lit office interior, takes us once and for all into the future.
Simon Stern plays Haller, the business official who has been patiently watching Cooke on his television screens. Stem’s portrayal of the character is as otherworldly as his surroundings. He never gets up from his chair behind the long hardwood desk, and he is perfectly calm in Cooke’s presence. When the burglar pulls a gun on him, he only smiles. Clearly he is so far above the visitor in rank, in resources, and in subtlety that he is beyond fear. But in a way it seems that Haller hardly sees the other man, almost as if there is a barrier between them that makes it ultimately impossible for him to believe that Cooke exists. Meanwhile, the future which is on his side, the lofty panorama of the city behind him, arouse an overwhelming jealousy and hatred in his opponent. Before Haller can react, Cooke has shot him with his gun. Surprise and disbelief cross his face; now we see for the first time an almost featureless white box that Haller breathily refers to as “the tracer.” Haller’s blood stains his tan suit; he watches as Cooke makes off with the box.
The camera allows us plenty of time to appreciate Rehage’s car of the future. It and two others were built upon the frames of racing cars and all are driveable. Cooke’s car was made by fastening a specially formed sheet-metal body to the chassis of a 1930 Alfa Romeo GS sports car, the new body extending far over the front and rear wheels and having a high solid roof. Pictures of this car have already appeared in magazines; it is truly a dream car. Some additional futuristic touches: extra-wide tires and solid wheel covers, adding to the sleekness of the design, ornamental strips of chromium-plated trim for streamlining, and a wide one-piece windshield. The last of these presented a difficult problem for the production crew. In order to set his cars apart from those on the road today, Rehage decided to equip them with curved glass on front and back that would follow the shape of the body. His technicians, succeeded in producing a number of curved windshields by bending plate glass around carbon molds, and six of these were selected for the cars.
In addition, Rehage built a cutaway interior for Cooke’s car and equipped it with a removable front seat, removable roof and doors, and a molded rubber dashboard that stretches the width of the car. In the dashboard were mounted a variety of manually operated dials, lights and buzzers, some of which were never used during the actual filming. For road footage to be used in conjunction with this interior set, Rehage experimented with techniques that would produce an exceptionally smooth ride. That effect was finally achieved by using a camera operating at twice normal speed, mounted on a racing car traveling at seventy or eighty miles an hour. When the film is slowed down, motion is very calm and more like that of a ship than of an automobile.
Other driving footage was shot by a camera moving on rails among Rehage’s miniatures, which display the same attention to detail as those he used in his films about the 1933 World’s fair. The miniature models of houses and storefronts, traffic signals and cars, were also combined with movies of the actual cars in motion, using an interesting and effective process: the film of car and road was printed frame-by-frame onto a sequence of paper proofs, which were then pasted over with photographs of the models. Because of the size of the artwork, Rehage could exercise a great deal of control over its composition and animation. Finally, the completed frames were rephotographed onto movie film, live action and miniatures combined.
Cooke never finds out the pivotal reason for his downfall, that the “tracer” on the seat at his side is nothing more than a radio transmitter which will lead the police right to him. This fact we are told by the police captain. In a series of impressive shots, Rehage shows us the modern police station and its machinery. Like the offices of Olympian, the rooms of the station are decked out with real-looking radios, telephones, switchboards, and in this case maps of a future Chicago. We see the helicopter equipment that locates Cooke’s car on a suburban highway, and underneath the copter, a beautiful painting of lit streets that reemphasizes for us the scale of Rehage’s imagination. Returning to Cooke’s level, we pan back and see the lights of a police car.
The chase is a masterpiece. Still using miniatures to augment the action, Rehage leads the three powerful cars through an all-out test of their abilities. The police cars, with their flashing beacons and the dubbed-in purring of their engines, are a frightening spectacle. Rehage took thousands of feet of film of the pursuit, cars attaining speeds of up to ninety miles an hour. Frequent repairs had to be made during the shooting. The chase scene itself lasts only sixteen minutes on the screen, and ends on the parking lot of the supermarket which is the only outdoor set used in the film.
The supermarket was constructed out of concrete, aluminum and plate glass, under the guidance of Graham Keane. It is thirty feet high at each apex and one hundred twenty feet across. It predominant design features are a pair of huge wooden arches covered with four hundred square feet each of sheet aluminum, and a row of gigantic windows that make up most of the front wall. The parking lot is illuminated by five floodlight towers, around which the drivers race their cars, laying rubber on the new asphalt surface and filling the air with smoke. One policeman in the film fires a specially designed pistol with a wide nozzle, and the rear window of Cooke’s car is shattered. Angrily, his visibility badly impaired, Cooke spins his car around. His collision with the first police car was captured by three cameras and two additional sound recorders; even so, the sound of the crash was augmented later for the film. Repairs had to be made on Cooke’s car so that it could be driven. Before Cooke can turn the car around, one of the police in the third car fires a teargas grenade through his back window. Cooke charges at the other police car, is deflected, and crashes through the supermarket.
We might enumerate three ways that a filmmaker has of making his objects appear real. They are: 1) by using them, 2) by ignoring them, and 3) by destroying them. The televisions, radios and automobiles in The Tracer appear real because we see them work. Meticulously constructed appliances that are ignored by the actors, on the other hand, appear real because of the very lack of interest. To the film crew these objects are works of art, but inside the film they are part of the background of everyday life. Similarly, by destroying expensive machinery and sets that were made for the film, the director tells us that the supermarket is just another supermarket, the cars are just cars, and the man is just another man.
Lights in the market are turned on, clouds of tear gas rise from the wreckage toward the high ceiling, and we see Rehage’s last constructed evidence of the future. Early in production, the plan of this sequence was fixed. Rehage contracted with popular soap manufacturers, and with several independent advertising firms, and collected more than one hundred futuristic package designs. These were carefully drawn and used in the final scenes. Framed by these fairy tales and by broken glass, the wreckage is grotesque and an intrusion. Blood was applied to the metal edges, and all post-collision evidences of the car’s fake construction were concealed.
We must be honest in appraising The Tracer as a film. Its strength lies not in acting, nor even in the dramatic use of camera and music. It is most impressive, truly impressive, for its realism and technical perfection. Rehage’s special effects, whatever their foundation, are ultimately convincing. We may sympathize with the protagonist, but it is not sympathy or sadness at his end that fills our hearts. For, even as he was devoured by a superior future to which he did not belong, so we of the present are devoured by Rehage’s awesome vision. People who have seen this film have walked out of the theatre with their eyes on fire, and talk in their heads of the time when men will fly in rocket ships.