One of the interesting things about watching older movies is the way they describe things that were, at the time, verboten. This was on account of the Hays Code, which defined what was unacceptable in movies from March 1930 on. The full text is at numerous places on the internet, including http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html, but banned materials included representations of, of course, sex, but also such things as narcotics and crimes against the police, and even such strange leaps as "The use of liquor in American life, when not required by the plot or for proper characterization, will not be shown." According to a bit I saw on Silver Screen Classics yesterday, the first film to challenge the code was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966. I'm no authority on older movies, but even my occasional viewing revealed more than a few instances of alcohol use that were neither required by the plot nor for proper characterization. Presumably, the Code was enforced selectively as long as you didn't try to cram everything in there at once.

This all came to mind last night while watching the excellent post-Code film Rain (1932), starring Joan Crawford and Walter Huston. Crawford's character, Sadie, is either a prostitute or at least a lady whose favours are dispensed without much discretion. The linguistic lengths to which the characters are forced to go to communicate this piece of information are significant, given the limited variations allowable by the Code. Of course, this was probably unnecessary, since our first sight of Sadie is a series of quick shots of one jewellery-covered hand, then the other, then a fishnet-stockinged leg fitted into a high heel, then a head shot of her cigarette-holding mouth. I wasn't even around in 1932, but anyone could tell you that the cigarette was code for "slut".

Anyway, Sadie and four others, including Huston's Davidson, are stuck in Pago Pago during the rainy season while they wait for the next leg in their journey to begin once the ship's crew is clear of cholera. Davidson is a missionary, and after a run-in with Sadie resolves to "save" her from her evil ways. He ultimately is successful, but he suffers a fall, either by having sex with her or attempting to. Of course, we only learn this after Davidson has killed himself and Sadie is reintroduced with the exact same shots with which she was initially shown. When she learns Davidson is dead, she says she can forgive him. The question left unanswered is whether Sadie was genuinely saved then fell again, or whether she staged being a servant of God in order to effect Davidson's fall. I am inclined towards the latter.

While the story itself is good, what raises the film is the sense of claustrophobia caused by people with vastly different approaches to life being trapped in the same living quarters on a remote island during torrential rains. Sadie is trapped physically by the delayed boat and the rain, and emotionally and spiritually by Davidson, first by his machinations to get her sent back to America, then by his control once she finds God. She is only truly free at the beginning of the film, before Davidson gets her in his sights, and at the end, after his death. Crawford overacts with all the flare of the era, but Huston's performance is more subtle, despite his bombastic character, and superior. Unfortunately, his fall comes almost completely out of the blue, since there is no sign that he is attracted to Sadie as more than an acolyte. Even when he makes his move on her, this happens so completely off screen that the only reason we know it happened is because Sadie (more or less) tells us so. The handling is smooth after the fact, but the lack of lead-in blunts the effect.

I am surprised that this story hasn't been remade in the more than 70 years that have passed since Rain was first released. There are strands that would have to be jettisoned, but this is a story that calls out for a contemporary interpretation. The Code may be gone, but there are no fewer close-minded people who would wish it back to life. Sadie should get a chance to be a real 'ho and show a little flesh before the opportunity passes.

About 10 minutes or so into The Wedding Date, my daughter Nicole asked if the lead was played by the girl from Friends. She was, of course, speaking of Jennifer Aniston, and I immediately saw what she was getting at. The character Kat, played by Debra Messing, was exactly the kind of neurotic over-reaching cityite that Aniston is building a career out of playing, and the director was shooting Messing in such a way as to accentuate their similarities. I have no idea whether this was to strike a cord with Aniston-friendly audiences or overcompensating for not getting the real thing, but it sucked away completely whatever interest I had in Messing's character.

First off, I shouldn't have let the girls watch this. I thought it was rated PG, but the content told me it was really PG-13, and a glance today at Metacritic confirmed this. Given the premise - a woman hires a male escort to be her date for his sister's wedding at which her ex-fiance is the best man - I should have known better to think it could be clean. It wasn't that bad, really, but my girls are coming up with enough cringe-inducing questions about sex on their own without giving them a front row seat to an exploration of the subject.

Anyway, to the film. The premise certainly isn't the most original ever devised, but it is nonetheless rich with comic possibilities, possibilities which the writer and director of this travesty both appear to have mostly missed. There are a few good lines and one or two useful set pieces, but most of it just smacks of a missed opportunity. The danger is always of being compared to prior films which have gone over this ground, and The Wedding Date does nothing to distinguish itself from the pack. Messing may have a career in film once Will and Grace shuts down this spring, but I still hope she has banked her money, since this performance won't open any doors. She is an attractive woman, but in this movie she is mostly shot to look ugly or demented, and her character's tics seem tacked on, an attempt to make her seem desperate so that the audience can accept her pining over the jerk ex. As the escort Nick, Dermot Mulroney fares better, but it is also a more interesting character, the outsider onto whom others can project their idea of him. To the women he is a god, to the men a chum. He says little, which lends him an air of mystery. But there is no chemistry between the leads, and when Nick and Kat fall in love it is simply not believable. If anything, he has better chemistry with Kat's spoiled sister Amy (played by Amy Adams) and they really only have one scene together, and it's a confusing, badly-written scene at that. (Or maybe that's just because of Adams' nuanced performance.) His best scenes are with Amy's future husband Edward (played by Jack Davenport of Couples, on which he was never less than hysterical) and Kat's stepfather. Joining the "fun" is Holland Taylor as Kat's mother in one of those parts she can mail in to collect a paycheque while looking for something more worthy of her talents. In this film, she seems lost, looking for an exit.

It is also a very short film, clocking in at roughly 90 minutes, and it shows signs of being rushed. The film opens without any sense of who Kat is and how she came to this place that leads to Nick's hiring. Many scenes exist as islands separated from the rest of the film, having no real place there. Characters appear unexpectedly, such as an ex-boyfriend Kat meets at her sister's bachelorette party, have a moment which suggests some insight into Kat's character, then are abandoned, the insight forgotten. With all the wasted scenes, this film could have added some significant comic set pieces and not even cracked 100 minutes, and been much more worthy of a viewer's time. As an example of missed opportunities, there is almost no attention paid to neurotic Kat's quite reasonable fear that her family and the ex will find out that Nick is a date for hire. Of course, we would expect that to happen, but knowing that doesn't mean the filmmakers still couldn't have mined the situation for comic gold. As it stands, The Wedding Date is pretty dreadful, made bearable only in brief spurts by Mulroney and Davenport. There are worse ways to expend 90 minutes of "entertainment" time, but I haven't run across any lately.

Stephen Harper seems like a pretty bright guy - probably too bright for his own good - so I'm guessing he isn't going to be spending much time redecorating his new home on Sussex Drive. Oh, sure, his 10-year-old son will put up some hockey posters and his 7-year-old daughter will move in her Cinderella doodads. But Mom and Pop Harper will likely keep a lot of things in boxes for a while yet. Because if there is one obvious message coming out of Monday's election results, it is that our new PM shouldn't get too comfortable in the big chair, because at any moment the springs will start popping through and jabbing him in the butt.

I have decided that I like Stephen Harper, although I don't trust him, and I think he could make a good Prime Minister. But it took a few deals with the devil to get here, and Satan always collects. Monday's results are more a condemnation of the Liberals than an endorsement of the Conservatives, and to interpret it as anything else would be folly. Harper is in the unfortunate position of having to get the support of the Bloc in order to govern. Oh, he may be able to do a few things here and there without them, although only if he has the seal of approval of the Liberals. The NDP, for all their gains, can neither preserve Harper nor bring him down. But this union is doomed before it even begins. The Bloc and the Conservative's Reform precursor both exist because of people who felt screwed by Brian Mulroney, but for vastly different reasons. Let's see them come to some sort of consensus for any extended time.

In the end, Harper's election will probably be the best thing to happen to the Liberals in two generations. Canadians by and large consider ourselves to be open-minded and progressive, which is divergent from the Conservative's western and rural base. But we are also fiscally pragmatic, eliminating the NDP as a real factor nationally. Which is why the only Conservative to gain any real power (let's ignore Joe Clark for the moment) was the red Tory Mulroney. And which is also why the Liberals usually hold power, given their reputed balance of being fiscally conservative and socially progressive. Their defeat this time is a message that they have gotten away from that. In the next year or two, they will elect a new leader and create fresh policy free from the pressures of ruling. When the time is right, they will unite with the Bloc to bring Harper down, and sweep back into power with a fresh majority. The only things that can stop them are to move too hastily in their desire for power, or if Harper can somehow figure out a way to not fall off the tightrope that he has been standing on for the last two months.

I hope he has a net to land on.

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Toronto, of course, elected not one Conservative, which suggests a future screwing by the new government. Given the population of the GTA and our position as the centre of the Canadian financial universe, Harper and company would have to be fools to do any such thing.

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My riding re-elected our Liberal MP, and I have no problems with that since she is a good advocate for the community. It was also nice to see my boyhood hero, Ken Dryden, get back in. I read on the weekend that he still gets asked for autographs while campaigning. He's being touted as a possible leadership candidate, along with Allan Rock, Frank McKenna, John Manley, Brian Tobin, Belinda Stronach and (?) Bob Rae. I like Dryden, but don't see him as the man for the top job, especially if McKenna jumps in. But the oddest possible contender is Michael Ignatieff. The guy hasn't even lived here for 30 years and now he wants to run the country. Unless the business community decides they want him - and why would they with such obviously superior candidates available - Ignatieff would just be throwing his money away, unless it were his intention to become a kingmaker in a close race, which might just be worth it.

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And I still like the Barenaked Ladies, but Steven Page supports Jack and Olivia, and is clearly not nearly as bright as I gave him credit for.