pixrox1 Review of Masks and Memories

Masks and Memories (1934)

Surprisingly, this flick makes a fitting double feature . . .

[6/10 · 21 March 2019]

. . . companion with CAPTIVE STATE, particularly on St. Patrick's Day. MASKS AND MEMORIES is set in a Mississippi River state (Louisiana), just like CAPTIVE STATE (Illinois). Both of this films follow main characters forced by cataclysmic events to hanker for Yesteryear. MASK's flashback takes "Andy" back 50 years to the steamboat days of his youth, while CAPTIVE depicts "Bill" tooling around the ruins of Chicago in a vintage Chevy that appears to be decades old. Black characters seem to be getting the short end of the stick in both stories, as CAPTIVE's "Gabriel" is compelled to wear some sort of slave collar from time to time, and MASK's "Henry" apparently missed out on the Emancipation Proclamation (not to mention the crew of film "extras" feeding the boiler of Andy's steamboat!). Family relationships are pretty confused in both tales, as Bill seems to order that his wife's brains be blown out, and Andy's niece "Queenie" proposes to his nephew "Robert" after their first kiss. (Ick!) However, most of these folks seem to hail from the Emerald Isle, so with a little "Luck of the Irish" they may manage to avoid any reprised Potato Famines.