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To the girl who walked away
Deanna Durbin (1921-2013)
Link to the last interview Durbin ever gave, with David Shipman in 1983
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
The Liebster Comes to Town
So a few weeks back, the delightful Karen at shadowsandsatin (a blog that all true fans of film noir should immediately bookmark) was kind enough to honor my blog with a Liebster Award.
The Liebster Award, for those of you that have never heard of it, is a blogging award. I assume the name means something about "beloved" but other than that, the Liebster is kind of a mystery to me. It's sort of the grande dame of blogging awards. Every nine months or so, it makes a splashy appearance in the blogosphere, popping up in glamorous locales like Mythical Monkey's place. And much like the stereotypical grande dame, every season it arrives with an expanded waistline. It used to be that the rules of the Liebster were that you had to nominate 5 other worthy blogs to receive the honor. Now, the rules of the Liebster are as follows:
1. Give 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions from the blogger that nominated you.
3. Give the award to 11 other bloggers.
4. Give your nominees 11 new questions to answer.
Well, I finally have the space and time to tackle this one, so here it goes.
Come on, Oscar Liebster, let's you and me get drunk!
11 Random Facts About Me
1. My most treasured article of clothing is an embroidered Guatemalan vest that my mother bought in the States. As a kid, I was so in love with it that I insisted on posing for my second-grade school picture with it, despite the fact that it was several sizes bigger than I was. Still have it.
2. I have a framed copy of the first story I ever wrote. My mom caught me writing a few shaky sentences on yellow paper (I think I was about five) and saved it for me, in case I ever became a famous author.
3. I deeply, truly hate eating shrimp.
4. I love The Tenant of Wildfell Hall more than Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.
6. I have an utter fascination with the Mitford sisters, royal marriages (but only the arranged historical ones, couldn't care less about William and Kate), mythology, personality and aptitude tests, Robin Hood adaptations, and Victorian gaslight thrillers.
7. I don't feel fully dressed without a dash of perfume.
8. I prefer dogs to cats.
9. Most of my friends refuse to play Scrabble with me. Or the rest of my family for that matter since we're all ruthless and inexorable when it comes to that game.
10. I'm the child of a lawyer and a teacher. So I'm always torn between the love of debate and the desire for everyone to get along.
11. Last book I read was A.S. Berg's biography of Sam Goldwyn and right now I'm feeling very fond of the abrasive, greedy old tyrant.
My Answers to Karen's Questions
1. What movie do you watch every time it comes on TV?
The Heiress is the first one that comes to mind. Not that it's ever on TV except for occasional showings on TCM, but it's posted on Youtube and there have been times I told myself, "Okay, I just want to see the proposal scene" and I always ended up watching the whole thing right through to Olivia de Havilland's stalk up the staircase.
2. What’s your favorite movie musical?
My Fair Lady.
3. What classic movie star would you have most liked to meet?
Orson Welles. There are others I love better, but I doubt many of them were as memorable in real life as Welles.
4. What’s your most treasured movie or TV-related possession?
I suppose my copy of David Shipman's The Great Movie Stars-The Golden Years. Back in high school, I used to pour over the library copy of that one, staring in fascination at pictures of Norma Shearer, Ann Harding, and Joel McCrea. I didn't even know half the names, let alone the movies mentioned but that book enthralled me anyway. Like finding a door to Narnia. Then I went to college and forgot about Shipman until I discovered a copy of the book in a used bookstore. It was even better than I remembered.
5. If you could make a living doing whatever you wanted to do, what would that be?
Book editing. And if anybody wants to give me a job, they are welcome to leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.
6. What’s your favorite movie western?
The Magnificent Seven
7. Have you ever had an encounter with a movie or TV star?
Nope. Although my uncle reportedly dated one of the Indiana Jones actresses.
8. If you could program a perfect day of movies on TCM, what would be the seven films on your schedule?
Oh, that's an interesting one. Do I go for the films I love, the films I'd love other people to discover, or the films I'd love to see for the first time? I guess I'll have to go for a combined approach:
Daughter of Shanghai: Not really said to be much good, but I've been dying for the chance to see Anna May Wong and Philip Ahn together, in a rare case of two Asian actors being given lead romantic parts in a 1930s Hollywood film.
Stage Door: Seen it twice but I love it so much. "Unfortunately I learned to speak English correctly." "That won't do you much good here, we all speak pig Latin."
Woman on the Beach: Because I love Joan Bennett and Robert Ryan and I've been wanting to see this one for ages.
Senso: Lush, operatic and so beautiful to look upon. The film that made me realize the greatness of Alida Valli.
Executive Suite: One of the few Barbara Stanwyck films to keep eluding me. Plus, it sounds like one to add to my list of "Movies that show Robert Wise deserves to be remembered for more than The Sound of Music and the endless debates on who killed the The Magnificent Ambersons."
They Live By Night: Another film noir that never seems to pop up on TV or online. And I very much want to see Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell as doomed lovers.
The Band Wagon: To end the day on a high note.
9. Who are your top five favorite fictional characters?
I assume we're still talking about movies here? Well, at any rate, I'll just give the first five to pop into my head.
Stella from Rear Window. "He'd better get that trunk out of there before it starts to leak."
Dorothy from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I guess I just have a thing for brunettes that can snap out one-liners like nobody's business. "Nobody chaperones the chaperone--that's why I'm so right for this job."
Ninotchka from well, Ninotchka. Could so easily have been a caricature but Garbo imbues her with such warmth and dignity and passion that it's impossible not to fall for her.
Phil from Groundhog Day. One of the best and most perfectly calibrated depictions of a cynic finding out life's meaning that I've ever seen.
Harry Lime from The Third Man. He was my introduction to the idea that with fictional villains, less is more.
10. What movie have you seen more often than any other?
Annie (1982). I'd like to point out that movies seen during one's childhood have an unfair advantage here.
11. Bette Davis or Joan Crawford?
Bette Davis. I love Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce, A Woman's Face, The Unknown, and Grand Hotel (where she pretty much steals the entire movie), but overall, I think Davis had the better career. And she was in The Letter, one of my all-time favorites.
Now comes the hardest part, finding blogs to nominate. There are just too many fantastic ones to choose from! So I'll preface my nominations by saying that it's pretty much just a random selection of the many, many blogs that I cherish and admire. If I happen to nominate someone who's already been honored, consider yourself doubly appreciated! And if you're a nominee and you're eying that mountain of questions thinking, "Aww man, I don't have time for this," just stick your award on your blog and be done with it. These awards are meant for fun only. Now, let's get down to business.
One Gal's Musings
Sidewalk Crossings
Backlots
Miss Van Cortland Writes About Moving Pictures
MacGuffin Movies
The Lady Eve's Reel Life
Virtual Virago
A Shroud of Thoughts
Lerner International Enterprises
Laura's Miscellaneous Musings
Bette's Classic Movie Blog
My 11 Questions to my Nominees
1. Olivia de Havilland or Joan Fontaine?
2. What are your top 5 favorite movie scores?
3. What film gets your vote for "most perfect casting?"
4. Do you watch the Oscars?
5. Mother's Day is next month. Name 5 of the most memorable movie mothers (note that I did not specify good or bad).
6. What is your favorite "comfort movie" for when you're feeling blue?
7. What is a movie star/director collaboration that you wish had happened but never did?
8. If you could choose any movie star, past or present, to star in the biopic of your life, who would you choose?
9. Name an author that deserves more film adaptations of their work.
10. Do movie remakes make you cheer, shrug, or shudder?
11. What is your favorite "so bad it's good" movie-watching experience?
Well, that's all for now!
Note: The image of Romy Schneider at the top is credited to Pictures Blog.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Movie Review: City for Conquest
directed by Anatole Litvak, starring James Cagney, Ann Sheridan
(Note: This is my entry for the James Cagney Blogathon, hosted by R.D. Finch at The Movie Projector)
All Danny Kenny (James Cagney) really wants from life is to settle down with his childhood sweetheart Peggy (Ann Sheridan) and to see his brother Eddie (Arthur Kennedy) finally complete that symphony he's been writing, a symphony of New York and all its ugliness and beauty. The trio have lived their whole lives scraping by in the slums of the Lower East Side, along with their friend the chronically criminal Googi (Elia Kazan). But while Eddie dreams of music, Peggy dreams of dancing, and Googi dreams of being a big shot, Danny refuses to climb higher. Even if his talent for boxing is more than enough to give him a chance at the limelight.
But when Peggy is lured away by a sleazy dancer (Anthony Quinn) and Eddie's music scholarship is taken away, Danny decides he has no choice but to fight his own way to success with his fists. Maybe then he can live up to Peggy's ambitions and give Eddie the chance to be heard. With the wise guidance of his manager Scotty (Donald Crisp), Danny does rise high, higher than he ever imagined. But what does it matter, if all he really wants is Peggy?
City for Conquest begins with a twinkly, omnipotent bum narrating the classic saga of New Yorkers that want too much. "This is my breakfast, talking up to the big town...seven million people fighting, biting, clawing away to get one foot on a ladder that'll take 'em to a penthouse." He tells all this to policeman Ward Bond, whose incredulous reaction is the funniest moment in the whole movie. Our self-appointed ringmaster moves on to weave his prophecies over a group of children, predicting that the twirling girl in the center will be a great dancer, that the boy punching a playmate in her defense will have to fight through life with his fists and so on. All through this introduction, my mind kept flashing to an image of Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire, wrapping her Brooklyn drawl around the line, "Brother, that's corn."
I probably had Stanwyck on the brain thanks to a recent back-to-back viewing of Golden Boy and Clash by Night. But the reference has more relation to City for Conquest than you might think since since both films were adaptations of Clifford Odets plays. And City for Conquest feels so much like a movie that very badly wants to be Odets, specifically the Odets of Golden Boy. It wants to celebrate the poetry of the tenements and the scrabbling, hungry masses. It wants to explore their longings in high-flung metaphors. Danny Kenny's boxing becomes a stand-in for material ambition while his brother's desire to distill the essence of the American metropolis into melody is pure Gershwin and treated as a matter of near-celestial magnitude. It's easy to condescend to the pretentious sentimentality that floods City for Conquest (and Golden Boy for that matter) but at the time, this material had deep relevance for audiences fighting through the Depression. This was the struggle of the little guy, living in a world that seeks to bring him down.
The main problem with City for Conquest is that it wants to tell the story of people trying to conquer the world but centers on a protagonist who has no real ambition in life. How is Danny meant to encapsulate the dreams of the ordinary man when his pure selfless nobility and freedom from doubt make him about as extraordinary as they come? It's James Cagney that lifts Danny Kenny up from a metaphorical street angel into a true human being. As always, he feels too much but can't say it in words. His decision to box for the sake of his brother's musical career is told entirely through a shot of Cagney walking towards the piano, an affectionate smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. In another scene, he listens to Peggy argue with her mother. The mother takes exception to the way the couple sneak around back staircases instead of courting in the parlor and Peggy snaps back that there is no parlor, just a kitchen and a bedroom. The expression that flashes across Cagney's face tells us everything we need to know about Danny's embarrassment over the interruption, his discomfort at the reminder of their shared poverty, and his concern for Peggy.
Cagney's work here lacks the vibrant, unpredictable physicality of his best performances. I suspect that might be due to the direction of Anatole Litvak, who reportedly drove Cagney crazy with his insistence that the actor hit scores of chalk marks in every scene. There's a hint of constraint to his performance here that's suggestive of a man fighting down his own needs and wishes. Not very Cagney-like but wholly appropriate for the character. Cagney relies more on his eyes than his body here. It's an acting choice that becomes bitterly ironic by the movie's end.
City for Conquest was the third teaming of James Cagney and Ann Sheridan. Sheridan had shown scrappy charm in Angels With Dirty Faces and went on to blow everyone away in Torrid Zone, firing off one-liners with superb timing ("You push me one more time and you'll wear this suitcase as a necklace!") so another pairing with Cagney was only natural. They both had an unforced energy and warmth onscreen that always seemed rooted in the behavior of real people. When Sheridan gives Cagney a jab in the ribs or pulls his hat down around his ears, it feels more affectionate than an onscreen kiss. Sheridan's character here is a difficult one to play, a starstruck dancer whose constant flip-flopping over what she wants leads her into decisions that are naive at best and cowardly at their worst. Peggy could have been another monstrous ingenue along the lines of Priscilla Lane in The Roaring Twenties or Joan Leslie in High Sierra. Instead, she's sympathetic and ardent, a woman very clearly torn between love for Danny and the dawning realization that they want very different things from life. Sheridan also manages to subtly convey the effect that Peggy's controlling dance partner has on her, in the way she smiles too quickly and fiddles too much with her hands.
In a way, Peggy might have been the more natural protagonist for City for Conquest since she's the more conflicted and ambitious character. The script however, gives her short shrift. With all the constant references to Danny's boxing name, "Young Samson," Peggy is very obviously meant to be Delilah, another corrupting female that saps the strength of her man and almost destroys him forever. The lesson is driven home further when Lee Patrick shows up late in the film. She's a wisecracking burlesque dancer who reminisces to Peggy about her own lost love and how she wishes she'd chosen the man over the career. Looking at the damage she's caused, Peggy is left with little choice but to agree.
Arthur Kennedy makes his film debut here, as Cagney's ambitious younger brother, the would-be composer. In fact, Kennedy was Cagney's own discovery; he'd spotted him onstage and convinced Warner Brothers to cast him. Kennedy would go on to join that strange class of character actors that included Van Heflin and Richard Widmark. Charismatic enough to be leads and too serious to be comic foils but still relegated to the edges. As he would in later roles, Kennedy brings a watchful intelligence to the part of Eddie Kenny, even if he's given some of the worst lines in the film. When he starts rambling about the music of Allen Street, "with all of its mounting, shrieking jungle-cries for life and sun," there's little to do but take in his reedy good looks and wait for the silent moments. When he looks at Cagney with mingled unease and love, you can see flashes of the actor he'll become.
Anthony Quinn also makes an impression as Murray Burns, the dancer who manipulates and abuses the hapless Peggy. Quinn's slick looks and black heart call to mind all the stereotypes of the time about male dancers, a profession that was often seen as one step away from being a gigolo. But Quinn is no lothario; when he calls Peggy "baby" he snaps it out like the recoil of a gun. He plays it for menace, not seduction. The movie hints many times about just how Murray keeps Peggy in line, including one scene that stops just short of implied rape.
While Anatole Litvak relies maybe a little too much on montage, there's no denying that his direction of City for Conquest is fluid and fast-paced, his camera gliding down the streets with a grace that echoes his characters and their need for constant movement. James Wong Howe's cinematography manages to convey more of the romance for New York and its denizens than any of the script's little curlicues. And there's a notable scene involving Elia Kazan (surprisingly not so bad as an actor), some thugs, and a tense confrontation in a car that must have suggested something to Kazan for On the Waterfront.
In the end, City for Conquest is a story that, like its characters, reaches too high. The movie's ultimate strength rests not in its stargazing speeches or strained metaphors but in the performances. When the camera just gives in to the struggles that play across the faces of James Cagney and Ann Sheridan, then it becomes something real and moving. When Cagney gently asks Sheridan, "You still my girl?", it would take a pretty hardhearted moviegoer not to want to share in their dreams. If only for a little while.
Favorite Quote:
"Boy was it crowded tonight on the subway. Talk about sardines. They got it easy. At least they're floating in olive oil."
Favorite Scene:
The final boxing match between Danny Kenny and the opponent that ends up playing the dirtiest of tricks on him. Litvak and Wong Howe turn the scene into a precisely-melded sequence of montage, action shots, and closeups, letting you feel the weight of every blow, letting you see the emotions of every character that cares about Danny and watch their belief turn to horror. The outcome of the match is telegraphed from very early on but it only adds to the suspense. You keep waiting for somebody to realize what's going on but of course, help comes only too late.
Final Six Words:
More flickering candlelight than scorching neon
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Movie Review: Dodge City
directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland
Wade Hatton (Errol Flynn) is a soldier of fortune, a man who goes wherever the winds of chance and danger take him. Along with his faithful friend Rusty (Alan Hale), he accepts the job of helping the railroad come to the newly christened Dodge City. Its patron Colonel Dodge (Henry O'Neill) swears to the settlers that Dodge City will be a place of prosperity and civilization. But fast forward several years and it turns out that all those plans have gone awry. The ruthless Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot) has taken control of the town; he and his gang cheat, steal, and murder with total impunity. The law is helpless.
If only they had a sheriff that wasn't afraid of Surrett, a man like Wade Hatton. But Wade isn't interested in a badge or in putting down roots. He just wants to finish up guiding a wagon train of settlers to Dodge City and he'll be on his way. An easy job that turns tragic when he ends up killing a drunken settler in self defense, a settler that happens to be the brother of beautiful Abbie Irving (Olivia de Havilland). But Abbie and Wade will have to join forces anyway when Surrett's evil becomes too much for the town to handle. He and his gang need to get the hell out of Dodge...
When I think of classic Westerns, I think about John Wayne standing in the doorway and looking at a life that will never be his and Gary Cooper staring down an empty and endless road. I think about Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter, trying hopelessly to tell young toughs not to throw their lives away. James Stewart in The Naked Spur, dragging Robert Ryan's corpse behind him, crying out in anguish, "I'm going to sell him for money!" The little Mexican boys in The Magnificent Seven, putting flowers on the grave of the man who died for them. Regret is the shadow that dogs the steps of all great Western heroes and it's hard to think of a classic Western that doesn't end on a bittersweet note, mourning the slow death of the frontier even as it tries to reconcile the era's bloody hypocrisies.
1939 was the year that John Ford would redefine the Western for all time with Stagecoach.
It was also the year of the uneven but important Destry Rides Again, the movie that stitched the template for future Western parodies like Blazing Saddles. In both films, happiness came to the protagonists in the end but it came quietly, after heartbreak and pain. In Stagecoach, the heroes can only be happy after they're freed "from the blessings of civilization." In Destry's case, the story's darkness ended up choking off all the comedy, with the pacifist hero taking up arms and sloughing off all memory of the woman that took a bullet for him.
And then you have Dodge City, a box-office-smashing 1939 Western that, despite sharing the same genre trappings as Stagecoach and Destry, doesn't even feel like part of the same species. The plot is pure Western, with Flynn's character called in to clean up a lawless town, held hostage by ruthless gunmen. And yet there's none of that bittersweet quality you get from other Westerns. No melancholy commentary on the toll of violence. No longing to escape the bounds of civilization. Most importantly of all, no sense of loneliness. Instead we have a bright-eyed tale of good and evil, two factions facing off against each other in the name of returning things to the natural order. Oh and comic sidekicks do things and beautiful people fall in love. Dodge City is essentially another Errol Flynn swashbuckler, albeit one that just happens to be set in the American frontier.
The great charm and the great weakness of this film is that when it tries to be serious or heartfelt, it fails miserably. As in the scene where Random but Honorable Citizen has just been murdered by the villain Surrett and his heartbroken moppet of a son pulls the world's silliest crying face at the funeral:
On the flip side, when the movie gives up on drama and just embraces a spirit of fun, it can be quite enjoyable. I liked the comic interlude of Alan Hale (an underrated character actor who always seemed like pleasant company, no matter how dimwitted the role) falling into the clutches of the town's temperance league and vowing repentance. I liked the rowdy bar fight in the middle of the film that comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. I liked watching Flynn stride around in neatly pressed, colorful Western wear, blithely explaining away the accent by calling himself a wandering Irishman.
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I was reminded of Errol Flynn when I saw the unfairly-maligned John Carter last year. Watching Taylor Kitsch struggle to hit all the required character notes of dashing rogue, battle-scarred veteran, romantic lead, and compassionate hero made me think of just how effortless Flynn could make it all seem. I feel like I could stop a Flynn performance frame by frame and point out all the mechanics of it ("here comes the hearty laugh, now the noble frown") and yet somehow the magic remains. Watching him onscreen is an invitation to adventure. The greatest tribute to Flynn I can give is that over fifty years after his death, we're still looking for him. Kitsch by comparison just looks and sounds like any other earnest young actor, buffed up for his big break.
While Flynn took (and continues to take) plenty of knocks for being cinema's most courtly cowboy, Olivia de Havilland is hardly any more natural as a frontierswoman. In Dodge City, she's got the cutest little rolled-up sleeves you can imagine and the manners of a princess who's just had her luggage stolen. When Flynn tells her that out here men sometimes have to take the law into their own hands, de Havilland wrinkles her nose and responds with, "Oh yes, pioneering, I believe you call it." By all accounts, Dodge City was a rotten experience for de Havilland, who was completely fed up with being the decorative frosting in every Flynn movie. According to TCM, she would have preferred to play the sexy saloon girl, a part that went to Ann Sheridan. Looking at the film though, it's hard to see why since Sheridan gets absolutely nothing to do.
That is, except to model the latest in Black Trash Bag and Fake Flower Couture:
And to lead the chorus of the Dancing Cupcake Liners:
I suspect something was left on the cutting room floor. That or de Havilland was just grasping for anything even slightly different from what Warners usually gave her. Actually, as Goatdog points out in his excellent run-down of Olivia de Havilland's action career, Dodge City gave the actress more to do than some of her other Flynn roles. Instead of being relegated to the parlor, she gets to work in a newspaper office, scowling at Flynn when he jokingly tells her to go find a man's buttons to sew back on.
What really saps her character of interest is the lack of a true emotional arc. There was potential for it, though. Wade Hatton is the man that killed Abbie's brother, which makes for a darker and more unsettling obstacle to the Flynn-de Havilland romance than most of their films. However, the impact is dulled because a) her brother is a complete tool, a man so obviously gunning for the pre-modern equivalent of a Darwin Award that his death is more comic than tragic and b) the death is treated as something Abbie's just got to get over, silly female emotions be damned. Come to think of it, isn't that how most Flynn films treat the romance, with Flynn alternately mocking de Havilland and waiting for her to realize that he was right all along? However, Dodge City's romance lacks the kinky energy of Captain Blood ("I look at you as the woman who owns me") or the sweetness of The Adventures of Robin Hood so it falls flat.
Still, we're left with the ever-powerful chemistry between the two performers and their incredible physical beauty, made even more mesmerizing by Technicolor. Watching them banter under sunny skies is just one of those classic cinematic pleasures that can't be taken away by bad writing and the knowledge that de Havilland was counting the hours until she could get off this set.
Michael Curtiz's direction keeps the film moving along briskly even if it's essentially a game of stalling until Wade Hatton finally decides to take down Surrett for good. Curtiz was an old hand at the swashbuckling genre by now and even in scenes where it's just people talking, the camerawork is alert but unobtrusive. His characters are in constant motion, but he knows how to keep an audience focused even as he dollies back through enormous crowds of extras. I'm sort of in love with the way Curtiz films always make the dialogue sound interesting. In the case of Dodge City, I never realized how pedestrian the wisecracks were until I tried to rummage through them for a favorite quote. And of course, when the action does pick up, Curtiz ratchets up the excitement for a hair-raising and fiery climax on a moving train.
One thing I notice about the old Flynn swashbucklers is that they almost always leave a sour aftertaste in regards to their theme of restoring the rights and privileges of white men. They Died with Their Boots On is the most obvious example of historical awkwardness, with General Custer burnished as a hero and the U.S. government absolved of any responsibility in the destruction of native lives and land. But there's also Santa Fe Trail, which practically ties itself into a Viennese pretzel trying to decry the fanatical actions of John Brown while hemming and hawing over just what he was so fanatical about. In that one, Flynn's character just kept repeating that slavery could not be destroyed so quickly. As opposed to Captain Blood in which he's leading a white slave rebellion. Dodge City smoothly elides the question of native rights by just ignoring them entirely, aside from a brief mention that Surrett is shooting buffalo that rightfully belong to the Native Americans.
Ultimately, Dodge City remains a mildly enjoyable footnote in one of the greatest years for American cinema. The most interesting aspect of the film is how little relation it has to the Westerns that came after it. This is the Western reinvented for pure spectacle, a Technicolor adventure starring one of the most beloved screen teams of all time. It's an ice cream soda in a genre stocked with straight whiskey. Looking at Flynn and de Havilland, it's hard not to feel a pang that swashbucklers have died out. But it would be equally difficult not to sigh in relief that movie Westerns would follow a rockier and more complicated path in the decades to come.
Favorite Quote:
"You're not suggesting that I'm a native?"
"No. The only real native of Kansas is the buffalo. He's got a very hard head, a very uncertain temper, and a very lonely future. Apart from that there's hardly any point of comparison between you."
Favorite Scene:
In my recent review of Epstein's Lee Marvin biography, I mentioned the actor's open disdain for the smooth, harmless violence of typical movie brawls. "Tables and bottles go along with mirrors and bartenders, and you end up with that little trickle of blood down your cheek, and you're both pals and wasn't it a hell of a wonderful fight...that's phony." Marvin had a very good point, but I think the epic barroom brawl in Dodge City is so enjoyable that it deserves to be taken on its own terms. Michael Curtiz clearly decided to stage the fight in much the same way Busby Berkeley handles his musical set pieces. It's big, glorious, and defies you to make sense of it or its relation to the plot. Just about everything you could imagine in a Western saloon fight happens in this sequence. People are sent flying off of balconies. Chairs and tables are crashed over so many heads that the furniture is eventually whittled down to toothpicks. At one point, a cowboy tries to lasso his opponent into submission. What looks like hundreds of Warner Brothers extras are all there, swinging and hollering away. When the camera finally pans away, allowing the viewer to look at the full extent of the destruction, it's hard not to marvel.
Final Six Words:
Effervescent adventure, more charm than heart
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Farewell, Roger Ebert
So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies.
Roger Ebert (1942-2013)
Normally, I let my goodbyes on this blog pass without commentary but I can't let Roger Ebert's death go without sharing my favorite memory, out of countless moments spent in appreciation of the man's great mind and love of film. I was re-watching Citizen Kane, in preparation for writing an essay on it. And I remember noticing Ebert's commentary track and thinking, "Well, I'll just listen to a few minutes of this for inspiration." I rarely have the patience for commentary tracks. Of course, I ended up listening to the whole thing, utterly enthralled as Ebert brought the film back to me in all its wonder, its strange wildness and glory. That to me is Ebert's great legacy as a critic. He never lost the ability to marvel, to be generous, and simply, to watch a film. And he saw more of them in his lifetime than most of us could ever hope to match. Goodbye, Mr. Ebert. You will be missed.
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