tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31937506734216002792024-02-02T07:35:17.037-08:00The Girl with the White ParasolAubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-82487869337767305702017-01-08T23:28:00.002-08:002017-01-08T23:28:54.097-08:00New Year’s Nitrate: My Favorite Old Movies I Saw in 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'd </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">like</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to start a New Year's</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> trad</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ition on this blog of listing off the year</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">'s</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> highlights of my old movie-watching. I've been meaning to do this for years, but my problem is that each movie I see, I want to blather on and on about, even the ones I don't </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">care about much. That’s a big obstacle towards wrestling together a manageable list, even if people did want to hear my thoughts on why <i>Trooper Hook</i> was a much bigger disappointment than <i>His Brother’</i></span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">s Wife</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. So, with that in mind, I’m keeping this to a</span><b style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Top Ten (In No Particular Order) Favorite Old Movies I Saw in 2016</b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Favorite Old Movies I Saw in 2016</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Colorado Territory</i> (1949)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ll have to watch this one on a double bill with <i>High Sierra </i>to decide if Raoul Walsh's classic story of a regretful outlaw looking for love and freedom works better as a Humphrey Bogart noir film or a Joel McCrea Western. Honestly, I enjoyed this one, but wasn't expecting to list it on my year’s best. Still, to my surprise, it stuck with me. My heart ached for the wistful chemistry between Virginia Mayo and Joel McCrea. I loved the way Walsh mixes his sets and scenery here, so that the movie flows smoothly between scenes that show McCrea dominating a group of outlaws to Western landscapes that turn him into one small man scrambling for a few more breaths of life. The tragic ending of this one also hits harder than in the earlier movie. <i>High Sierra </i>might have done this story first but <i>Colorado Territory </i>might just tell it sweeter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Dead End</i> (1937)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now that I've poked a little at the movie that helped make Bogart a legend, let me throw some praise at one from his pre-stardom years. <i>Dead End </i>to me feels like the movie <i>City for Conquest</i> wanted to be, a statement about the dreams and disappointments of slum life that finds beauty in the grime. Wyler</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">'</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s direction shows how a movie camera can overcome </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">staginess” with elegantly composed shots and lighting. In a way, the film</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s obvious use of sets helps it play better today than it might have if Goldwyn had allowed Wyler to try to more directly copy real slum life. The original play, however it might have seemed in 1937, reads like more of a dark little fairy tale now, in which innocence can be rewarded and guilt punished. Add to that two great performances by Humphrey Bogart and Claire Trevor, as well as good ones from Sylvia Sidney and the Dead End Kids and you've</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> got a thirties melodrama that knows how to do it right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Les Girls </i>(1957)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some movie musicals are events. They show up at your door with a full brass band in tow, banners waving, feet stomping, the whole nine yards, and you barely have space to breathe. And some musicals slip in quietly, like an old friend from long ago that just wants to share a few laughs and drinks. Les Girls is like that, a lesser-known Gene Kelly musical that works well as a quieter, calmer cousin to the more frantic musicals of the era. Les Girls tells the story of a dance troupe leader, Barry Nichols, and the three women in his troupe that all, for one reason or another, believe they were the real love of his life. Thankfully, all three actresses, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg, come off like smart, sassy, distinct people so sitting down to listen to each of their three versions of the Barry Nichols story is a pleasure. (Honestly, they come off as much more interesting than </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Leslie Caron or Vera-Ellen ever had the chance to in Kelly</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">s bigger hits.) Not to mention, this film is dazzlingly pretty in its color, costumes, and choreography. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Underworld U.S.A.</i> (1961)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">Samuel Fuller movies are for me, like iced espresso shots. Not the most subtle, never mellow, but oh man, they can blast you awake. At his best, Fuller finds ways to move his camera that startle me; nobody else makes movies that look like his. <i>Underworld USA</i> follows Tolly, a young delinquent who watches his father</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">s murder in a back alley and grows up to be a ruthless, deadly cold Cliff Robertson, out for vengeance at all costs. He is a cool-headed</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"> schemer that plays both cops and crooks against each other and yet, it is clear that Tolly is also a case of arrested development, a man who throws away real human relationships for something empty and dead. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">What struck me most watching this one is how well it walks a line between telling a cynical gangster story where law enforcement and lawbreakers play by the same rule book, and a story that finds the fragile humanity in those same lowlifes. Fuller</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s underworld sings.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">Hobson</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-style: italic;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>s Choice </i>(1954)</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">Cliff Robertson</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s Tolly might be a tough, smart ex-con, but I think Brenda de Banzie</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s Maggie Hobson </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">could eat him for breakfast. I</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">n the sly and wonderful <i>Hobson</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>’s Choice</i>, Maggie Hobson, the plain, sensible and unmarried daughter of a supremely self-involved Victorian bootmaker, decides to seize the life she wants and steamrollers past anyone who stands in her way. If Tolly stands for the idea that losing your humanity is the price you must pay for accomplishing big things, than Maggie Hobson stands for the notion that big things happen only with small steps, clear heads, and eyes that sees the humanity in the humble. Watching Brenda de Banzie slowly but surely pull the rug out from under her Fallstaffian father (played hugely by Charles Laughton) is fantastic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>They Drive By Night (1940)</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a special place in my heart for those everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Warner Brothers melodramas, where they toss in crime, romance, high society, street toughs, and plotlines that meander all over the place. <i>They Drive By Night </i>is one of those charmers, a movie whose erratic tone and plot shifts might owe something to the fact that it grafts a murder plot from an earlier Bette Davis flick to a tale of truck driver brothers (George Raft and Humphrey Bogart) and their rough, risky jobs. What you get is a story that starts out like <i>Thieves Highway</i> and ends up like <i>Angel Face</i>, with a wisecracking Ann Sheridan thrown in, because heck, don</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">t we all love Ann Sheridan? </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Still, director Raoul Walsh manages to hold this one together and at its best, <i>They Drive By Night </i>feels like a roll call of all the things we love about good Warner Brothers films. Even if George Raft and Humphrey Bogart really, <i>really</i> feel like they should have switched roles.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>The Man I Love</i> (1947)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Raoul Walsh had quite a year with me, since this is the third film of his I</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">m putting in my Top Ten list. In many ways, <i>The Man I Love </i>is a close cousin to <i>They Drive By Night. </i>Same kind of rambling, genre-straddling plot, the same plush, velvety art design and camerawork that Warner Brothers used for all its </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">40s melodramas. The main differences are that <i>The Man I Love </i>replaces truck drivers with torch singers and piano players and that this film has a heroine, Ida Lupino. Lupino was the villain in <i>They Drive By Night</i> but here, she</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s in my favorite kind of Lupino role: the tough, smart dame who can tangle with anyone she wants and come out ahead. Even when she</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s in skintight gold </span><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">lamé. Her character may be infatuated with a rather sad sack piano player, but Lupino still walks through this thing with her shoulders straight and her head high, fully capable of sorting out everyone</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s life but her own. Robert Alda is also a standout in this one, suggesting more depth to his sleazy nightclub owner than the script allows him. </span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">s Love I</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span></i><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><i>m After </i>(1937)</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">This was an unexpected fizzy delight, a </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’30s comedy that pokes delicious fun at theatrical egos and talents. I enjoyed this one way more than the frantic, nastier <i>Twentieth Century--</i>at least Leslie Howard</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">s vain Basil Underwood and Bette Davis</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’ flighty Joyce Arden are people I actually enjoy spending time with. Howard and Davis play a pair of theatre stars who</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’ve been romantically entangled on and off the stage for years, but can</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’t stop fighting long enough to get married. Their lives get more complicated by the arrival of Olivia de Havilland</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s breathless, lovestruck ingenue, who</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s utterly convinced that Basil is the man of her dreams. Bette Davis never got to do much screwball comedy and she</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s great here, as is de Havilland, playing against her later types as a a ditzy heiress. The real love story here though, is between Leslie Howard and Eric Blore and their symbiotic relationship of egotistical actor and supremely supportive butler. This is a truly underrated, hilarious comedy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Advise and Consent</i> (1962)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">The cynical politics of <i>Advise and Consent</i> feel like something out of another world as we</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">stand here in 2017. And I promise, I thought so well before the events of last November. A strange naivete has crept into this gripping story of backroom Congress deals, flip-flopping sympathies and cold power struggles. At least these men have a system they are willing to cheat, lie, and betray for. At least they believe it is worth their time to play the game. And yet, that doesn</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’t make this adaptation of Allen Drury</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s novel feel at all dated to me. Instead, I felt compelled right along with the characters to go down the rabbit hole and see where the scandals led. Otto Preminger, in adapting the material, toned down much of the source material into a more ambiguous work that doesn</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’t take sides, finding something to value even in Charles Laughton</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s spidery Southern senator and something to condemn in Henry Fonda</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s self-righteous candidate. The tragedy of Don Murray</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s tormented senator carries all the more force in a world where his compatriots condemn his destroyers, not out of moral outrage, but because Murray was one of their own. In today</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s Washington, such loyalty would be a rare and beautiful thing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>Scaramouche</i> (1952)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’m topping off my list with <i>Scaramouche</i> which is only fitting because this gorgeous Technicolor adventure is a pure dessert film, from the costumes, to the sword fights, to the witty lines. A classic tale of an aristocrat out from revenge comes second to the banter and battles between the characters, all of whom have much more to them than they absolutely need to. Eleanor Parker may be the sexy Bad Girl, but she</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s also a lively, loyal friend who</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s strong enough to befriend her hated rival. Janet Leigh may be the sweet Nice Girl, but she</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s not above a little manipulation of her own. Mel Ferrer is the Bad Guy, but he</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s sincerely in love with both Janet Leigh and Nina Foch</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s Marie Antoinette (kudos to Ferrer for pulling that off), as well as being a worthy opponent to Stewart Granger</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">’s hero. When I think about <i>Scaramouche</i>, I keep coming back to this: They put more effort into this one than they had to. And it definitely shows.</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-60520366232411699452016-04-15T22:40:00.001-07:002016-04-15T22:40:14.961-07:00Movie Review: Hans Christian Andersen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-large;">Hans Christian Andersen </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">(1952)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">directed by Charles Vidor, starring Danny Kaye</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(Note: This is my entry in the <a href="http://clamba.blogspot.com/2016/04/its-time-for-cmba-spring-blogathon.html">Words, Words, Words! Blogathon</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, Hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hans Christian Andersen (Danny Kaye) is the most contented man in all of his tiny village. Even though he's only a humble cobbler, his knack for spinning fairy tales out of the air dazzles the children and keeps Hans himself happily living in fantasy land. However, his tales don't sit well with the local schoolteacher, who sees his charges abandoning their books to listen to Hans. He demands that Hans be kicked out. Peter (Joey Walsh), Hans' young ward, protects his friend's innocence by convincing him to leave town for Copenhagen. Hans, overcome with the city's glamor, agrees and sets off for a grand adventure. Along the way, he wins the hearts of many people with his charming stories and songs. But one day, the naive storyteller meets a beautiful ballerina (Zizi Jeanmaire) and her angry, shouting director-husband (Farley Granger). Hans is immediately smitten with the dancer's charms. Even more so when he realizes she's the victim of an abusive marriage. His much more practical friend Peter thinks Hans is setting himself up for tragedy. But Hans is too busy pouring out his heart into a new tragic fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid," to listen. Little does he realize that he's living out his own story in a way he never imagined...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Hans Christian Andersen</i> is one of those movies that is far more fascinating to me for what it suggests about the people that make it and watch it than for anything in the movie itself. It's a movie about one of the most famous storytellers that ever lived, the man whose best fairy tales ("The Little Mermaid," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Snow Queen") feel as timeless as the oldest stories on earth. And yet, this movie, the most famous filmed version of Andersen's life tries to honor him while simultaneously working its hardest to obliterate Andersen himself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's a biopic movie, told as a fairy tale. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The film even opens with a title card that says flat out they're going for pure fantasy here, no facts: "Once upon a time there lived in Denmark a great storyteller named Hans Christian Andersen. This is not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about the great spinner of fairy tales." </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I have to admit, it's kind of refreshing to have one of those "great artist" movies that just tells you upfront that it's not even going to pretend to a smidgen of accuracy. I've sat through so many biographical movie</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">s (the Bronte sisters melodrama </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Devotion</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> being the latest and silliest) that diligently smuggle in a few facts here and there like they're crushing up some vitamin pills in the dessert. Instead</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">of trying for halfhearted realism, the makers of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hans Christian Andersen</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> choose enthusiasm and magic, all the way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Instead of making Hans Christian Andersen into the difficult, depressed, ambitious man he was, here he's a happy, singing cobbler who spins dreams for children. Instead of being a busy, proudly perfectionist writer, in this movie he stumbles into authorship in the way a man in a fairy tale might stumble into a magic castle. Instead of being a man who longed for adulation and worked hard for patronage, the Andersen that Danny Kaye plays is a simple soul whose happiest moments are when he can bring a smile to a child's face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's an approach to biopics that is, despite the awkwardness, kind of charming in its sincerity. This movie, helped along by a string of hummable Frank Loesser songs and a Danny Kaye performance that miraculously holds things together, is a sweet tribute to the way fairy tales can make us feel. How they can cheer us in times of trouble, help us find humor in strange places, and, as the character of Hans finds out, how they can sometimes mislead us into thinking people much less than they are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, the thing that makes <i>Hans Christian Andersen</i> a truly strange film for me, for all it's many enjoyable parts is that the very people who want to honor Andersen's life by telling it as a fairy tale end up with a film that seems as if it were made by people who never actually sat down and really read his fairy tales at all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And seeing as how this film was a Samuel Goldwyn pet project, that's very likely the case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My grandmother gave me a book of the complete fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen when I was a child. And one thing I learned very quickly was that Andersen fairy tales were <i>dark</i>. Not the dark of unabridged Grimm fairy tales; Andersen wasn't crude enough to scare</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">you with blood and gore alone</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. Oh no, you read Andersen, you get treated to gems like "The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf," in which a girl who makes the fatal mistake of using a bread loaf to keep her feet dry is rewarded with a stint in a peat bog as a witch's statue. She is forced to stay in this immobile state </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">while hearing people on earth tell her story and weep over her sin for generations</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">. Later on, our bread-treading girl gets to show her penitence by flying around as a bird, giving bread crumbs to other starving birds until the crumbs add up to the bread she misused. Other Andersen </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">tales include "The Red Shoes" (a girl nearly dances herself to death until her feet are cut off), "The Story of a Mother" (a woman who fights Death tooth and nail for the life of her child, to the point of </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">pressing thorn bushes against her bare chest</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and giving up her own eyes, only to be told her child is better off safe in Heaven) and </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"The Snowman" (a snowman falls hopelessly in love with a stove, melts, and is forgotten).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, what struck me, even as a kid, way more than the brutal punishments and death that exist in Andersen stories, is the tone of isolation and suffering that permeates even his more whimsical tales. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He could find anguish in two toys sitting on a mantel or in a Christmas tree. His characters are almost crushed under the weight of unrequited love, a personal pain that hardly ever seems to happen in our Perrault and Grimm fairy tales. Even when people win and find happy endings, they're bittersweet after the taste of so much sorrow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And yet, Andersen's tales often succeed in speaking so well to people (children and adults) because they never take for granted those hurt feelings that sometimes really do last our whole lives. There's a reason the phrase "ugly duckling" has become a permanent part of the lexicon. And the physical tortures he inflicted on his characters could sometimes be the perfect metaphors for a character's feeling. In the original "The Little Mermaid," the mermaid not only trades the voice that would allow her to speak her feelings to her beloved human. She also endures the pain of invisible knives cutting her feet every time she walks; the price she pays for becoming a new person is a life without true rest or relief.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the problem with <i>Hans Christian Andersen </i>the Movie. At no point is it possible to connect Danny Kaye's happy cobbler with a man who could understand deep</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> feelings of loss or a lack of belonging. The movie does hint in this direction by giving us a plot about Hans falling in love with a ballerina and, thanks to his lack of real world understanding, imagining her as a damsel in distress who loves him, too. It gives a touch of poignancy that the movie badly needs. However, the movie works so hard to emphasize the whole angle of Ha</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ns Christian Andersen, Friend to All Children, that it can't connect the man to his own actual work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So, after all that, what makes <i>Hans Christian Andersen</i> a movie worth watching? Danny Kaye. After seeing so many great comedians crash and burn on the Shoals of Sentimentality (it's pretty tricky to switch to sincerity if all you're used to is snark), I was pleasantly surprised with how well Danny Kaye managed to convince me that he really is a goodhearted, humble </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">soul who makes children smile. His idea of Hans is a man who's simple but never simpleminded. He's not dumb, he just finds too much wonder in the world to pay attention to those boring everyday matters. He gets along with kids because they're on the same wavelength. Kaye has the charisma and the acting talent to make these scenes work. Whether he's inventing "Thumbelina" for a little girl outside his jail cell or "The Ugly Duckling" for a boy with a shaved head, he's always good company. Oh and when he sings the song, "I'm Han</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">s Christian Andersen," it will never leave your head. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Kaye's counterpart is Joey Walsh, a child actor who plays Hans' young ward Peter (at least I guess he's a ward, the movie never really explains). Just as Hans is the child in the grown man's body, Peter is the adult in a child's boy. It's his job to explain to Hans why he has to focus on the business of cobbling shoes as well as making fairy tales. He is the one who stays by Hans' side and tries to protect him from the humiliations that others might heap on him. And Peter is the one who understands where Hans' ill-fated attraction to a married ballerina will lead him. Joey Walsh is fine in the role and the moment where Hans tries to send his friend away in a fit of temper is surprisingly sad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Hans Christian Andersen</i> is so much a Danny Kaye showcase that, other than Peter, the supporting characters don't fully register. Which is a shame because the whole unrequited love subplot, with Farley Granger and Zizi Jeanmaire as a dancing couple locked in a complex love-hate relationship, really begs for more explanation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Farley Granger famously summed up </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hans Christian Andersen </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">as "Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets boy." He was pissed off at Goldwyn for foisting him into the underwritten part of the dance director who simultaneously bullies and worships his wife. Granger was nearing the end of his glory days as a Goldwyn contract player and playing second banana in a Danny Kaye vehicle could hardly have sweetened the deal. Kaye also, reportedly, saved most of his charm for his onscreen moments, carping at his director, his fellow actors, and complaining whenever he felt cheated of something. He objected to Granger getting to sing in a duet with Jeanmaire, taking the part for himself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Granger answered second-class treatment and a second-class part with a second-class performance. He looks great in costume but can't muster up much than bored petulance. But then, what <i>can</i> you do in in a part that asks you to play one half of a sadomasochistic love affair in a brightly saturated, singing kid's movie? Maybe George Sanders could have pulled that one off but not the clearly bored-out-of-his mind Farley Granger.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Moira Shearer was Goldwyn's original choice for Doro, the object of Hans' infatuation. Unfortunately, Shearer became pregnant and the role went to Zizi Jeanmaire, the famous ballerina who danced into international stardom with her 1949 interpretation of </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Carmen</i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. I say, unfortunately, not because I have any real problem with Jeanmaire, but because I have a real soft spot for Shearer whose redheaded, wide-eyed beauty seems much more in tune with the damsel in distress that Hans dreams up. She was also a better actress than Michael Powell liked to admit; her tragic fates in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Red Shoes </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Peeping Tom </i><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">wouldn't carry nearly the bite if Shearer's characters didn't seem so joyously alive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jeanmaire on the other hand, plays Doro as a preening, self-absorbed cliche of a French ballerina. She's saucy and smirking, the kind of woman who seems more likely to inspire, well, <i>Carmen</i>, than <i>The Little Mermaid. </i>She's got charm but I never once believed her chemistry with either Kaye or Granger. Still, Jeanmaire does get a great moment at the end, when Doro finally, for the first time, realizes that Hans is a human being with feelings that she has completely taken for granted. The slow-dawning understanding in her eyes allows us to see, for the first time, Doro as a woman who could dance <i>The Little Mermaid</i> and mean it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, Zizi Jeanmaire does get a fine showcase for her talents with <i>The Little Mermaid</i> ballet, choreographed by her husband Roland Petit. Some reviewers don't care much for the ballet interlude in the film, but I think it's a treat, adding a welcome touch of darkness and starkly beautiful pantomime to a very bright, tuneful movie. Also, if it wasn't for me looking up facts about Petit and Jeanmaire, I might never have found out about this gorgeous real-life couple of almost sixty years, who, in addition to their balletic brilliance, had the gift of looking perpetually adorable and in love in nearly every photo taken of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At the time of its release</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">, <i>Hans Christian Andersen</i> was a smash success for Samuel Goldwyn, then</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> in the twilight of his movie-making career. And yet, this </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">movie exists uneasily in the land of semi-classics. It's too fondly remembered by too many people who saw and loved it as a kid to be totally forgotten. And yet it doesn't fully click for a lot of people, myself included. Really, if anyone nowadays w</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ants to tackle a Hans Christian Andersen movie musical that actually puts some of the real Andersen in it, I would be behind them all the way. I would pay money to see someone write a song about that time when Hans Christian Andersen stayed with Charles Dickens and made himself The Most Annoying Houseguest of All Time (so annoying in fact, that he reportedly inspired Uriah Heep). Can you imagine the Dickens-Andersen duet?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the end, even if the 1952 <i>Hans Christian Andersen</i> is not fully to my taste, I can still concede that there's room enough in this world for all kinds of fairy tales. The kind that end in Hollywood box office and the kind that end in peat bogs. The kind that tell what a man's work means to someone and the kind that tell us that storytelling, no matter how silly or serious, really matters.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"The other day I asked my Gerta what time it was and she said that the minute hand and the hour hand weren't speaking to each other. They were both in love with the second hand. And they wouldn't make up until they met at twelve o'clock. And no one could tell the time until then."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Favorite Scene:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Danny Kaye singing "I'm Hans Christian Andersen." It's just so irresistibly catchy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sugar-spun fantasy of writer's life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-23957280911953163012016-03-31T14:22:00.005-07:002016-03-31T14:22:34.156-07:00Farewell, Patty Duke<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRYtx0lQyOXLiGGsxSosp5reS7-EXlXoDvbi0LuScAVREZ1ecfmX_uZDJMnOgAISPrJYFp-fhX59q5KeqtrPxk-lLXh6EwCgjuLYrRMfBJ_zYar9DMDq7TNxqn6ZgIlcnU3hUemgTIwc/s1600/Patty+Duke+with+Helen+Keller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRYtx0lQyOXLiGGsxSosp5reS7-EXlXoDvbi0LuScAVREZ1ecfmX_uZDJMnOgAISPrJYFp-fhX59q5KeqtrPxk-lLXh6EwCgjuLYrRMfBJ_zYar9DMDq7TNxqn6ZgIlcnU3hUemgTIwc/s400/Patty+Duke+with+Helen+Keller.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It has a name!</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Patty Duke (1946-2016)</span> </span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-68736634784309745402015-08-10T22:00:00.001-07:002015-08-10T22:00:22.353-07:00Farewell, Coleen Gray<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Duke, you should have taken me with you!</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Coleen Gray (1922-2015)</span><i> </i></span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-41398945597240469802015-06-15T23:18:00.002-07:002015-06-15T23:18:50.824-07:00Farewell, Christopher Lee<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiARnBNKSau-NtQqLZ52HqJnf0VNDBfSawdRG6676vtihok9Rb5Ozj-TRNJDWA2MtTYPa0XNzx1LfvrC_1QUc4DzDA4fUEI5Vds5gVUJ2JFyzmo6Lc7wYggU9eRfbEDZIITYmK8q_phsi4/s1600/Christopher+Lee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiARnBNKSau-NtQqLZ52HqJnf0VNDBfSawdRG6676vtihok9Rb5Ozj-TRNJDWA2MtTYPa0XNzx1LfvrC_1QUc4DzDA4fUEI5Vds5gVUJ2JFyzmo6Lc7wYggU9eRfbEDZIITYmK8q_phsi4/s400/Christopher+Lee.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I hate being idle. As dear Boris used to say, when I die, I want to die with my boots on.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Christopher Lee (1922-2015)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There's a certain comfort in knowing that you don't have to try to be the coolest person in the world. Christopher Lee already <a href="http://io9.com/22-incredible-facts-about-the-life-and-career-of-sir-ch-1710917366">was</a> that person.</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-76977952208026812282015-05-03T23:55:00.003-07:002015-05-04T02:35:24.672-07:00Movie Review: The Man Who Knew Too Much<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><i>The Man Who Knew Too Much</i> (1934)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Leslie Banks, Edna Best, Peter Lorre</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(Note: This is my submission in the <a href="http://clamba.blogspot.com/2015/04/cmba-spring-blogathon-fabulous-films-of.html">Fabulous Films of the 30s Blogathon</a>, Hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Happily married Bob and Jill Lawrence (Leslie Banks and Edna Best) are on a winter holiday at a European ski resort with their young daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam). While there, they laugh and dance and intermingle with all kinds of interesting new people, from the suave Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) to the strange, funny Mr. Abbott (Peter Lorre). But their vacation suddenly turns into a living nightmare one night when Louis falls to the ground, shot by an unseen enemy. It turns out that Louis Bernard was in fact a government agent and before he dies, he passes on a vital secret to the Lawrences. The secret is an imminent assassination in London, one that threatens to start a second world war. But before the couple can act on the information, the assassins, led by the ever-smiling Abbott, kidnap young Betty. This forces the couple to keep their mouths shut, even as the danger draws closer. However, they refuse to give up and instead, choose to search for Betty on their own. Bob and his trusty brother-in-law Clive (Hugh Wakefield) take to the back alleys of England, hunting down leads that range from the weird to the truly bizarre. Still, Abbott is onto them and so are the rest of the assassins. The family will have to find the strength and courage to save Betty and somehow do it without betraying their own country. It's a battle of wits and wills and there's no telling what could happen...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For someone who likes to introduce herself as an Alfred Hitchcock super-fan, to the point that I wrote my college admissions essay on him, it's taken me an amazingly long time to catch up with this film. It's strange, but while the 1956 version of <i>The Man Who Knew Too Much</i> was ridiculously easy for me to catch on TV during the periodic Hitchcock marathons, its older (and thoroughly British) sibling from 1934 has been elusive. The experience of finally seeing the original film however, gave me a renewed understanding for why both movies are so inextricably paired together in critical discussion. Comparing them is irresistible but deciding between them is very difficult. The two films are such a perfect encapsulation of their respective decades and countries, with all the attending strengths and weaknesses, that preferring one to the other seems to be less of an aesthetic judgment and more like an epicurean deciding which tickles his palate. They're equally delicious.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Both films tell the tale of a more-or-less ordinary married couple who stumble into a dangerous world of espionage and assassins. Despite their naivete and seeming helplessness, the couple find new reserves of strength and determination when their own child is kidnapped to keep their mouths shut about an impending assassination.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1VBaxuId9oliPu0NHthvClUoA0y4CHQiLU670kr6DiHqRAG_VG7PN9NfxRFFYk_SZlMnykiG-zM7lDAVJJRMTlwyGo_OOzeyOF6UGNgL3p2hm3hNIUV6VbBjTIWRDI3V7uNR7a0YvxQ/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+nova+pilbeam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX1VBaxuId9oliPu0NHthvClUoA0y4CHQiLU670kr6DiHqRAG_VG7PN9NfxRFFYk_SZlMnykiG-zM7lDAVJJRMTlwyGo_OOzeyOF6UGNgL3p2hm3hNIUV6VbBjTIWRDI3V7uNR7a0YvxQ/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+nova+pilbeam.jpg" height="400" width="376" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the 1934 film, the Lawrences are a sophisticated English couple vacationing at a Swiss ski resort with a young daughter. The husband is well-off and contented; the wife is flirtatious and happens to be a crack shot. In the 1956 film, the McKennas are a cheerful but sometimes hapless American couple traveling through Morocco with a freckle-faced son. The husband is a blunt, guy-next-door doctor who doesn't quite fit into his foreign surroundings any more than his long legs fit under Moroccan tables. His wife is a famous singer who gave up her career for the sake of her marriage. In both films, it's the husband that takes the active role in searching and fighting while it's up to the wife to use her great talent (sharpshooting and singing, respectively) to save the day. And in both films, it's the couple's very unassuming ordinariness that causes the ruthless villains to fatally underestimate them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The great dividing line between the 1934 film and the 1956 remake is the tone. In the brightly colored and much more expansive remake, Hitchcock gives us a fresh-faced American couple, so complacent that they can crack morbid jokes over the various patients whose ailments funded their vacation ("You know what's paying for this three days in Marrakesh--Mrs. Campbell's gall stone"). He then proceeds to torment them 'til they crack. The fact that all of this is happening to James Stewart and Doris Day, two beloved Hollywood superstars, puts the frantic emotions of the couple front and center. All of this even while Hitchcock dazzles the eye with exotic settings and amazing set pieces. Everything is so immense that even Stewart and Day can unravel without anyone noticing. The 1956 movie sort of takes the rotten-apple-core mentality of <i>Shadow of a Doubt,</i> in which another innocent American goes up against ruthless villainy and pairs it to the giddy visuals of something like <i>To Catch a Thief.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The 1934 film on the other hand, is like the speedy little roadster next to the 1956 cruise ship. It's a much compacter version of the same tale, clocking in at a mere 75 minutes. It also is much sharper in the twists and turns of its moods, careening from lightweight comedy to tense thriller and back again. It doesn't linger nearly as much on the parents. To a large extent, Leslie Banks and Edna Best are just there to keep the story moving along. They keep the stereotypical stiff upper lip to the point that even when Banks reunites with his daughter, in the middle of a group of assassins, he tries to make light of the entire situation. The one government representative we meet is coolly annoyed with the couple's secretiveness, barking at them to put their country first. And in the end, the film's most memorable character is not the couple nor any of their friends. It's the villain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For all those who like to harp on Hitchcock's onscreen infatuation with his blonde leading ladies, I say that Hitchcock was just as enamored (in a cinematic way) with his villains. Peter Lorre, playing the kidnapping assassin Abbott, sets a template for the charming villain that Hitchcock would repeat again and again with actors like James Mason, Ray Milland and Robert Walker. <i> </i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf3jy2qBVbVR3Vb0tjyq1bjIgiKEJxawol9jBcDDCP7_o40g2gtsK7Dst0uVDBoRTM0uSUVNaII12ht7zHIuHhVOtcn6nkEDOJ-77sCqWjPcP2arZi_1vHLTsa_ZghxB_x54b5nAM0wQk/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+lorre+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf3jy2qBVbVR3Vb0tjyq1bjIgiKEJxawol9jBcDDCP7_o40g2gtsK7Dst0uVDBoRTM0uSUVNaII12ht7zHIuHhVOtcn6nkEDOJ-77sCqWjPcP2arZi_1vHLTsa_ZghxB_x54b5nAM0wQk/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+lorre+1.jpg" height="400" width="317" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The story goes that Peter Lorre had to learn his lines phonetically in order to play the mysterious Abbott. Not that anybody cared because, after his indelible performance in <i>M</i>, they were eager to get him. Lorre's acting here is really a marvel of assurance; it's a complete 180 degree turn from his cringing, desperate performance in <i>M</i>. Abbott is smooth and confident, with one of the most beautifully beaming smiles you could ever hope to see. When you put him up against the bluff, so-very British Leslie Banks, Lorre almost looks like the mischievous schoolboy tweaking the nose of the headmaster. He's the guy who tosses in a Shakespeare quote as a threat ("A long, long journey 'from which no traveler returns'") and then caps it off with the deadpan aside, "Great poet." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And yet, I think the key to Lorre's brilliance in the role is his unpredictability. Just when you think you've gotten used to Lorre as the impeccably polite villain, he turns the tables and gives you moments of sadistic menace or even, in a startling scene, genuine grief. When his creepy female accomplice dies in a shootout, Lorre holds her and looks, for a moment, like a brother holding the body of his sister. And then the moment's gone. We never learn what they were to each other. We never really understand Abbott, who smiles innocently in moments where he should threaten and looks angry in moments when everything's going his way. But Lorre is so good in the role that he eclipses everyone else. Because of him, the film ends up less as a tale of two ordinary people up against evil and instead, becomes a briskly unsentimental film which sets up scenes and knocks them over like dominoes. This is pure suspense, with no more character development than absolutely necessary. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif8qWtKRP6iTFC2C29FAlGOIPacJPF5wEHi1B09kAbfHaL1C6PBoCTiaVy60-ALyTWF5D_Y0yPjPhGIEr3Ye6hg_YSiGJsXK-_kGRu9fSi9idHmlrTHxcwaBodYM3dV8bxHILNkQf7lGk/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+couple+best.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif8qWtKRP6iTFC2C29FAlGOIPacJPF5wEHi1B09kAbfHaL1C6PBoCTiaVy60-ALyTWF5D_Y0yPjPhGIEr3Ye6hg_YSiGJsXK-_kGRu9fSi9idHmlrTHxcwaBodYM3dV8bxHILNkQf7lGk/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+couple+best.jpg" height="317" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In comparing the 1934 film and the 1956 remake, it's quite striking to see how the role of the wife evolved over the course of two decades. In the first film, Edna Best carries on in the tradition of the sprightly, sophisticated wives of '30s films. There's something a little Nora Charles-ish about her in the way she sails through rooms, cheerfully flirts with other men (in the full confidence that her husband is watching and smirking) and shoots down clay pigeons with cool panache. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, once her child is kidnapped, Best is pushed to the side of the story. Her own grief at the loss of her child is relegated to one scene, in which Best staggering with the news of the kidnapping, turns glassy-eyed and spins into a faint, while Hitchcock briefly cuts to a whirling POV shot. From there, her husband's off to do the work of tracking down their child, with the brother-in-law along as the trusty sidekick. Best is benched for a good chunk of the movie from then on; she reappears for the famous Albert Hall sequence and then for a final shootout with the assassins. It's in those final moments that Best seizes her own action-hero moment, grabbing a rifle and delivering the shot that will save her daughter. Even if you could see it coming (Why else establish the wife as a crack shot?), it still comes off as an exhilarating bit of physical heroism, all the more so because none of the characters treat it as anything odd.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL5dP_KNOo8AZFU7DhuOiB-1awDDS5Ke9tLfGXcS5HOjY9SL_VJD85rPHjGOQv1-GNFjE5HZwOlaLQi0oVaV7wlh_zDJ4CVV7d0gPnvaDXiplcKQw3B4fXCySennkJpRGi3RripxZyjuU/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+1956+comparison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL5dP_KNOo8AZFU7DhuOiB-1awDDS5Ke9tLfGXcS5HOjY9SL_VJD85rPHjGOQv1-GNFjE5HZwOlaLQi0oVaV7wlh_zDJ4CVV7d0gPnvaDXiplcKQw3B4fXCySennkJpRGi3RripxZyjuU/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+1956+comparison.jpg" height="301" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The 1956 film, by contrast, knows it's got Doris Day and a star gets a star part. Day's emotions are given much more depth and attention than Best's. The British film treats Best's motherly anguish as so much inconvenient baggage, with the government man basically snapping at her and husband for being so unpatriotic as to, you know, care more about the life of their child than the life of a statesman. The 1956 film by contrast has a prolonged, deeply uncomfortable scene of James Stewart drugging Day to calm her; the chin-up-old-girl spirit of the original has turned into cruelty. Day's torment during the Albert Hall concert scene is also drawn out much more than Best's. In addition to being a more openly emotional character, Day's housewife is a famous singer whose ambitions have been subtly snuffed out in favor of marriage. The irony is that, despite the fact that she seems, on the surface, like a much more retrograde archetype than the earlier Best character, Day does in fact use that same powerful voice to save both her child and the statesman. She's so much more repressed than Best's action hero and yet, because her film pays more attention to her, she comes off as much more heroic.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhulXVUfSvalOs4V9fO9Ku2dO6PMsrh7HitsCUzPkZDWdp6PNfPr6BbFMwja5jF1uOHSRvCVAw6DbUwXC6bA5xVigl0SM3EK9BXg8D9vsanZxvzOtfY5Nyq3EaboujUDK8tyqNrCeN8fy0/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+on+set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhulXVUfSvalOs4V9fO9Ku2dO6PMsrh7HitsCUzPkZDWdp6PNfPr6BbFMwja5jF1uOHSRvCVAw6DbUwXC6bA5xVigl0SM3EK9BXg8D9vsanZxvzOtfY5Nyq3EaboujUDK8tyqNrCeN8fy0/s1600/man+who+knew+too+much+on+set.jpg" height="320" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now that I've finally crossed the 1934 film off my list, I can say with confidence that it's a sparkling, smart movie in its own right. It's the work of a young filmmaker just discovering the full range of what he can do and the mesmerizing shifts of tone, the charismatic villain, and the quirky bursts of humor all come together perfectly. Really, when I think about it, the experience of watching both versions of <i>The Man Who Knew Too Much</i> is like visiting their respective locations. The 1956 film is a trip through a dazzlingly colorful, overcrowded marketplace. The 1934 original is like a trip down a snow-covered mountain. Cool, exhilarating and all over in a rush. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">"You know, to a man with a heart as soft as mine, there's nothing sweeter than a touching scene. Such as a father saying goodbye to his child. Yeah, goodbye for the last time. What could be more touching than that?" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Favorite Scene:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The scene in which Edna Best is dancing with the spy. Her husband, playfully pretending to be jealous, takes her knitting and turns it into a unraveling bit of thread that quickly entangles her and her dancing partner. It's all light and romantic. And then in one of those perfect bits of Hitchcock turning on a dime, her partner falls down, mortally wounded, and the light thread that entwined them together has suddenly become a trap. It's really the ultimate metaphor for the Hitchcock movie. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A champagne bubble balanced on knives</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-46207803832454080912015-02-28T23:46:00.003-08:002015-02-28T23:46:32.998-08:00Farewell, Leonard Nimoy<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhayZecBd3sDOPwasR7xPt_FtpSoDU0r5CpF5WY7zvCMD_o8JTnsLeYTIyhfi9LmleXUmYxFjoovVcRtcv63kp0X3i4aI59_FgfCIthmmslR4gXfBcZw7mIJ997W8pzCqkwOpr4Wk_lRTQ/s1600/leonard-nimoy-03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhayZecBd3sDOPwasR7xPt_FtpSoDU0r5CpF5WY7zvCMD_o8JTnsLeYTIyhfi9LmleXUmYxFjoovVcRtcv63kp0X3i4aI59_FgfCIthmmslR4gXfBcZw7mIJ997W8pzCqkwOpr4Wk_lRTQ/s1600/leonard-nimoy-03.jpg" height="270" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> </i> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-81634121576552911112015-02-16T23:41:00.003-08:002015-02-16T23:41:32.555-08:00Farewell, Louis Jourdan<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkcPE2jizrLHT_nl22Vyn_yrT28EoraIT76Vuge1pLRUQxhzEuCD46FcUl3F4S_O7CFccRSaV9u4qjlxSmb7UkmkR0a6-FfQnqjHULS0nIpSv0v8uRxOzF9ruHQGLJ96cfe4aIzuPCX_4/s1600/louis+jourdan+rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkcPE2jizrLHT_nl22Vyn_yrT28EoraIT76Vuge1pLRUQxhzEuCD46FcUl3F4S_O7CFccRSaV9u4qjlxSmb7UkmkR0a6-FfQnqjHULS0nIpSv0v8uRxOzF9ruHQGLJ96cfe4aIzuPCX_4/s1600/louis+jourdan+rose.jpg" height="347" width="400" /></a></span></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I would rather be called a character actor than a star.</span></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Louis Jourdan (1921-2015)</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-16583975460953398752014-12-31T23:26:00.005-08:002014-12-31T23:26:37.725-08:00Happy New Year from The Girl with the White Parasol<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcKLLnRoboix103rPxiaxbgo5x-uWXtniRBQU0pPImOcEZNkr16pDmOd4IfZciKUhdtzYQt3a4em5etX0yz0FGFDqRYcn01sk5S415U6LP453X7Wkiq6e2eNKzNGdsWXtTbO1RMi1W7w/s1600/Annex+-+Hayworth,+Rita_12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcKLLnRoboix103rPxiaxbgo5x-uWXtniRBQU0pPImOcEZNkr16pDmOd4IfZciKUhdtzYQt3a4em5etX0yz0FGFDqRYcn01sk5S415U6LP453X7Wkiq6e2eNKzNGdsWXtTbO1RMi1W7w/s1600/Annex+-+Hayworth,+Rita_12.jpg" height="640" width="513" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Happy New Year, everyone!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's been a quiet year for the blog but a busy and ultimately quite happy year for me. I hope to see all of you in 2015 and I look forward to the new adventures in store. Let us all follow Rita Hayworth's example and march proudly forward into the new year. Here's to the final reel of 2014!</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-6294509992666668082014-12-31T18:25:00.001-08:002014-12-31T18:25:49.889-08:00Farewell, Luise Rainer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTacYPq9TrTHXBxk7lO5h6Ryt-xHkzfBiSV_HgyyMg4NOuS913DctUEoXu1yVPRooUVhN6s0uoLt-ajtel6F_jGOOmXlOTX9w8dnt7FqPye6vPxeIN5cPfpRHfjW7PfSUva4Zm1jiH7sM/s1600/luise+rainer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTacYPq9TrTHXBxk7lO5h6Ryt-xHkzfBiSV_HgyyMg4NOuS913DctUEoXu1yVPRooUVhN6s0uoLt-ajtel6F_jGOOmXlOTX9w8dnt7FqPye6vPxeIN5cPfpRHfjW7PfSUva4Zm1jiH7sM/s1600/luise+rainer.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When you lose your curiosity, you’re dead. There is so much
in the world that one should know, or it would be marvelous to know. And I
know nothing. Nothing! My God, one’s life-span is so very
short.</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Luise Rainer (1910-2014) </span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-85963669424456554262014-11-21T12:45:00.001-08:002014-11-21T12:45:43.177-08:00Farewell, Mike Nichols<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVvRWwAKUxr4i-DBwFTcY4HXxLaGJ_YF-Mg_E_FwOLPpWS77oJmdcosMwJvtXNCyr75aumCDobdMMVqTylDYzpZURJ5CQDpEP832eO8Q8vMLy-KAkRECLSpmC8ZshjSiqn0EhJgLg310E/s1600/mike+nichols.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVvRWwAKUxr4i-DBwFTcY4HXxLaGJ_YF-Mg_E_FwOLPpWS77oJmdcosMwJvtXNCyr75aumCDobdMMVqTylDYzpZURJ5CQDpEP832eO8Q8vMLy-KAkRECLSpmC8ZshjSiqn0EhJgLg310E/s1600/mike+nichols.jpg" height="400" width="342" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If you want to be a legend, God help you, it's so easy. You just do one
thing. You can be the master of suspense, say. But if you want to be as
invisible as is practical, then it's fun to do a lot of different
things.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mike Nichols (1931-2014)</span></span><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></i></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-89472396429292049492014-10-31T20:15:00.000-07:002014-10-31T20:15:31.826-07:00Happy Halloween!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibo75_GGqSDoxlF6_6xVWbJ_mwzwq8LWyyRAw0Yh-kAR_JTF1kjNhssWFPEYzas2TLP8zFRRDO4nFq1i_xj4l6q8hyphenhyphenPuLFt7001bP7tX2yrJpvXHJTvFVku02cjJAWL3dCRV2coQfp4uA/s1600/vintage-halloween-pinup-jane-greer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibo75_GGqSDoxlF6_6xVWbJ_mwzwq8LWyyRAw0Yh-kAR_JTF1kjNhssWFPEYzas2TLP8zFRRDO4nFq1i_xj4l6q8hyphenhyphenPuLFt7001bP7tX2yrJpvXHJTvFVku02cjJAWL3dCRV2coQfp4uA/s1600/vintage-halloween-pinup-jane-greer.jpg" height="400" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Happy Halloween, everyone!</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It seems only fitting that on the night that dead things walk again, I come back and breathe a tiny bit of life back into this blog. You know, dear readers, the fact that I haven't updated in two months is a thought more horrifying to me than all the scary movies I've seen lately. I've missed this place so much. I never meant to spend so much time away, but sadly, grad school and work have been taking up an inordinate amount of time lately. Believe me, I would not be able to keep away from the blogosphere without good reason. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, the tide finally seems to be ebbing and I'm eager to start posting again. I've got lots of ideas on the back burner so stay tuned. I'm grateful to all of you that continue checking back with the blog. You guys are the Christopher Lee to my Peter Cushing, the eye of newt in my cauldron, and the stake that pierces my vampiric heart. You're all fantastic. Happy Halloween.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Picture is credited to <a href="http://www.grayflannelsuit.net/blog/a-host-of-halloween-hollywood-actress-pin-ups">The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit</a>.</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-50637281515688746312014-08-19T07:19:00.003-07:002014-08-25T20:32:57.349-07:00Movie Review: Test Pilot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Test Pilot</i> (1938)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">directed by Victor Fleming, starring Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(Note: This is my entry in the <a href="http://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/2014/07/the-build-your-own-blogathon-starts.html">Build-Your-Own Blogathon</a>, hosted by the <a href="http://www.classicfilmtvcafe.com/">Classic Film and TV Cafe</a>.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jim Lane (Clark Gable) was born to ride the skies. He's a test pilot, which is just another way of saying he's rough, reckless, and foolish enough to try anything. His best friend, mechanic Gunner Morse (Spencer Tracy) has had his back for as long as he cares to remember. Gunner knows that Jim is destined to die young, but he still sticks by him, always watching out for danger. But as it turns out, one day, Jim crash-lands and there, sitting in a Kansas wheat field, is the one danger Gunner never expected. Said danger goes by the name Ann Barton (Myrna Loy) and it doesn't take long for sparks to fly between her and Jim. The attraction is so intense, the pair impulsively marry. Gunner disapproves, but before long, he finds that Ann is a warm, wonderful, self-sacrificing woman who worries about Jim just as much as he does. The two form a strange but fierce friendship as they watch over Jim, hoping and praying that this crazy guy they both love will come out okay. But it'll take more than love and luck. It'll take everything they have to give.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Test Pilot </i>is
such a textbook example of old-school MGM filmmaking, from the polished
heads of its mega-watt stars to the foot-tapping thrills of its action
sequences, that I have to think of it as Louis B. Mayer's extended
apology for the reviled <i>Parnell</i>. I can just imagine Mayer's directives to the creative team. "Okay, so <i>Parnell </i>was
boring. Quick, what's the opposite of Irish politics? High-speed plane
racing? Got it, it's gold. And none of that hero of the people jazz,
from now on, Gable's back to the boozing and the women. If there's any
heavy stuff, let Spencer take care of it. But don't give him too much,
it's got to be all about Gable and Loy. Maybe just make it Gable and Loy
for the first hour, until we've hooked 'em. Make sure it all ends with
marriage and a baby though, we want good, clean fun here."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I kid, but it all adds up to something deliciously enjoyable; <i>Test Pilot </i>is a perfect example of the studio formula firing on all four cylinders. It's essentially two different movies held together by one central conflict. The first half is a pure Clark Gable and Myrna Loy romantic comedy, complete with banter and wrenches and awkward trips to the lingerie department. The second half is a drama about a loyal wife (Loy) and a best buddy (Spencer Tracy) trying their best to stick by a guy who'll probably break both their hearts. While often tagged as a melodrama, the only real plot of <i>Test Pilot </i>is the inevitable tension of being, well, a test pilot, and the toll it takes on those around you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In so many ways, despite its glossy MGM pedigree, <i>Test Pilot </i>feels like a long-lost Howard Hawks film. It's really more of a hang-out film than a melodrama, closer kin to something like <i>To Have and Have Not </i>or <i>Rio Bravo</i> than it looks on the surface. It's mainly about the chance to hang out with Loy, Gable, and Tracy for two hours and to watch them banter, bicker, and take care of each other. Scenes that a more plot-driven movie would use as a simple gag get drawn out for the sheer pleasure of it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For example, there's a sly joke after Loy and Gable are married that Loy, who eloped in a hurry, needs a nightgown. Tracy reminds his buddy of the problem and Gable brings it up distractedly to Loy, who responds with a perfectly timed eyebrow raise, as if to say, "Do I really?" The movie could have stopped there, but instead we get to dawdle over a charming scene of Loy daring Gable into the lingerie department and snickering into her sleeve as he makes a total botch of it. The gag just keeps going and building and you're just so grateful that <i>Test Pilot</i> took the time for it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, the Howard Hawks film that <i>Test Pilot </i>most closely resembles is the aviation drama <i>Only Angels Have Wings </i>and after seeing both films, I'm firmly convinced that Hawks took Victor Fleming's film as a personal challenge. There's a definite resemblance in both films' central theme of how tough you have to be for aviation and how women who love aviators are forced to be even tougher if they want to hold onto their men. However, the Hawks film takes the position that these men are doing what they love and only the people who can keep up with them are allowed to stay. The Fleming film, on the other hand, is pretty explicit that Clark Gable's choices are wreaking havoc on the nerves of his wife and friend. His recklessness is played up more as immaturity than bravery. While it's not too surprising that an MGM film would ultimately come down in favor of domesticity over macho bravado, it's fascinating to see how both films spin such different morals from the same kind of material.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Incredibly, Myrna Loy ranked the loving, loyal Ann Barton in <i>Test Pilot </i>as her favorite role, ahead of her indelible character Nora Charles and her brilliant performance in <i>The Best Years of Our Lives. </i>However, her choice doesn't seem quite so odd after you've seen the film. The role of Ann gives Loy the chance to play an entire emotional spectrum, taking her from light and flirtatious in her early courtship scenes with Gable to wry and witty during the early part of their marriage and finally to a sadder, more desperate woman in the end, one who's fully realized what kind of bargain she's made. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's really a perfect role for Loy because she gets to play so many different moods but is never forced to take center stage by herself. She's always playing off the boys and nobody could do that better than Loy. She was never happier as an actress than when she could be the perfect foil for her leading man, matching her moves to his like an expert dance partner. She made six movies with Clark Gable and her style with him is always a little slower and more openly sensual than her rapport with William Powell or Cary Grant. No doubt, Loy knew that the rat-a-tat patter of her screwball roles would tear holes through Gable's more macho delivery and she adjusts accordingly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For me, Loy proves just how great an actress she is here in the way she can make her character's every action seem like the most logical next step. Myrna Loy standing around in a Kansas wheat field looking like she's waiting for cocktails to be served? Makes sense. Falling for Gable in the span of 24 hours? Perfectly natural. Getting engaged to a local and flirting with Gable all the while? Only sane thing to do. Marrying Gable, the crazy test pilot, after knowing him one day? Of course. Constantly going back and forth between leaving him forever and staying with him? She'll do it and come off like the wisest, warmest, wittiest woman you could ever hope to meet. Clark Gable finding someone like her in a wheat field is like the equivalent of someone shoving the winning lottery ticket into your hand and begging you to take it. Just watch her in the scene where she imitates Clark Gable as a bear; it's impossible not to fall for her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For fans of Spencer Tracy, <i>Test Pilot </i>is
essential: for my money, it makes a far better case for his acting
talents than the film that actually won him the Oscar that year, <i>Boys Town</i>. Not only is it a more interesting performance, it's also an amazingly underwritten one; Spencer Tracy just takes the part of the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> loyal sidekick </span>and runs all the way to Alaska with it. Tracy's character Gunner is not given any particular backstory or subplot to call his own. He seems to be utterly wrapped up in looking after Jim, with no thought for himself. He's also a grumpy killjoy who spends most of his scenes frowning over at his buddy. It's hard to blame Tracy for being annoyed that he'd gotten stuck with playing second fiddle to Gable again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And yet, damn it all if Tracy doesn't draw your eye in every single scene he's in. Tracy was a canny enough actor to realize that he didn't have to resort to any silly stage business like waving a hat or flipping coins to steal attention from Gable. All he has to do is watch him. He's always watching Gable, always aware of him. The audience can't help but care about Gunner because he cares so much. He cares better than his friend can understand. And when Gunner forms a platonic bond with Ann, it's surprisingly sweet and touching. They become almost like parents to Jim themselves, both of them fretting and worrying and fervently trying to buck each other up. Tracy's performance here should be studied by character actors, to remind them that sometimes you're better off on the sidelines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of course, Tracy himself wasn't above hamming it up on occasion. There's an anecdote about the filming of one particular scene that demonstrates the Gable-Tracy rivalry perfectly. At the time, Gable had the box office clout but Tracy had the critical praise. Tracy had no interest in playing sidekick to Gable in another MGM film and the insecure Gable was always nervous that Tracy would blow him off the screen. So during the filming of Tracy's death scene, Tracy deliberately tweaked Gable's nose by drawing out every single gasp and dying groan and twitch and mumbled word. Gable had to cradle Tracy in his arms all while his costar died a more drawn-out death than Camille's. Finally, Gable got so frustrated, he let Tracy's head go with a loud thunk and shouted, "Die, goddamit, Spence! I wish to Christ you would!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As the rowdy, immature Jim, Clark Gable is admittedly playing a pretty standard Gable role. He's gruff but flirtatious with Loy, devil-may-care when it comes to his job, and mortally afraid that something will reveal his hidden heart of gold. There's nothing wrong with Gable's acting here, far from it. It's just that to anyone who's seen plenty of Gable movies, it leaves very few surprises. Loy and Tracy both act rings around him in this one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, Gable does get one indelible moment, one that Howard Hawks would outright steal for <i>Only Angels Have Wings. </i>After losing a fellow aviator to a brutal crash, Gable and the other pilots retreat to a bar. One well-meaning patron starts up a toast to the winner and they drunkenly join him. But when he raises his glass and says the name of the dead man, Gable snaps to his feet, dead sober in a flash. "Who's he? Never heard of him." The other pilots also forswear the name of their fallen friend, honoring him by refusing to speak of him. It's the only code they can live by. The scene is every bit as powerful as the "Who's Joe" moment in <i>Only Angels Have Wings </i>and while I would normally take Howard Hawks over Victor Fleming in a heartbeat, I think it's a damn shame that Hawks' film is the only one that's remembered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Test Pilot</i> actually took a Best Picture nomination in 1938, one of those odd cases of a film with no big social relevance, no big acting moments, and no particular importance that manages to sneak onto the awards list solely because it's a very well-made film. For me, however, I think <i>Test Pilot </i>is worth watching, not because it's deep or weighty or important. It's because it's such a sterling example of old-fashioned MGM filmmaking back in the days when they really did know what the public wanted. They knew they could spin a good yarn just by taking three great actors and giving the audience the chance to spend plenty of time with them. Watching Loy, Tracy and Gable together is exhilaration enough. Whether they're up in the sky or down on the ground, they're stars.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"She's crazy, I broke all the records, too. I entered high school a sophomore and came out a freshman!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Scene:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Isn't it obvious? Myrna Loy's impression of Clark Gable as a bear. I defy anyone to watch it and not find their hearts set a-fluttering by Loy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It bounces more than it soars</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Note: The Myrna Loy <a href="http://31.media.tumblr.com/25a9e244962504fd25dd8a5b1b9fa22e/tumblr_n6g17ajDiF1scoc0qo1_500.gif">gif</a> is credited to <a href="http://norascharles.tumblr.com/">norascharles tumblr</a>.</span></span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-17057429162212757862014-08-12T18:01:00.000-07:002014-08-12T18:14:17.091-07:00Farewell, Lauren Bacall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> She's a real Joe. You'll fall in love with her like everybody else.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Lauren Bacall (1924-2014)</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-64149228429709326792014-08-03T23:39:00.002-07:002014-08-04T07:25:37.181-07:00Movie Review: The Queen of Spades<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>The Queen of Spades </i>(1949)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">directed by Thorold Dickinson, starring Anton Walbrook, Yvonne Mitchell, Edith Evans</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(Note: This is my entry in <a href="http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-british-invaders-blogathon.html">The British Invaders Blogathon</a>, hosted by <a href="http://mercurie.blogspot.com/">A Shroud of Thoughts</a>.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Night after night, Captain Herman Suvorin (Anton Walbrook) goes with his fellow officers to a club, where the laughing sons of nobility stare at the gypsy dancers and play the card game faro until the sun rises. Suvorin, a strange, solitary man, never spends any time with the dancers and never spends any money, but there's a furtive hunger in his eyes as he watched the cards. Andrei (Ronald Howard), the only one in the company nice enough to try to be Suvorin's friend, is puzzled by his behavior, but Suvorin, a poor man who despises his wealthier comrades, is determined not to play faro until he's certain he'll win.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One night, Suvorin discovers a book that promises him the key to unbelievable wealth. The book tells the story of the Countess Ranevskaya, a beautiful, desperate woman who sold her soul to the Devil in order to win the secret of the three winning cards. With the secret of the cards, she won enough money at faro to keep herself from ruin. Suvorin is excited beyong measure at the story, especially when he discovers that Ranevskaya is still alive now an old and irascible crone (Edith Evans) who's never once breathed a word of the secret cards to anyone. Suvorin becomes obsessed with learning the three cards at any price. Even if it means seducing the countess's innocent young ward Lizaveta (Yvonne Mitchell). Even if it means loss of life or sanity. Even if he throws his own soul onto the fire...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For a film that Martin Scorsese himself referred to as a "masterpiece," <i>The Queen of Spades</i> has been strangely overlooked for decades. Even now, while it's attained a certain small cult status with those who've seen it, in the U.S., it still only pops up on a dual DVD with <i>Dead of Night </i>(not that <i>Dead of Night </i>isn't a good film in its own right) and it doesn't usually pop up when people are chatting about all the great films of Britain's postwar period. Maybe it just has too much competition; <i>The Queen of Spades </i>was nominated for a BAFTA in 1949, the same year as another little film you might recollect, oh, <i>The Third Man </i>that was it. Maybe it's because Thorold Dickinson, the film's director was born under an unlucky star since despite his own good reputation, his movies (the 1940 British <i>Gaslight</i>, <i>Secret People</i>, <i>Hill 24 Doesn't Answer</i>) haven't always been the easiest to get a hold of. Or maybe it's because <i>The Queen of Spades </i>is easy to mistake for just another cozy British ghost story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In fact, the film is tremendously arresting in its visuals, its set design is amazingly elegant for its shoestring budget, and its performances are all topnotch. It's creepy, it's thrilling, and it horrifies in all the right place. Finding <i>The Queen of Spades </i>kicking around on Youtube or in out-of-date DVD releases is like realizing that the eccentric little old lady neighbor you've been ignoring for years was really Miss Havisham all along.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Adapted from a Pushkin short story, <i>The Queen of Spades </i>tells the story of Herman Suvorin, a man who becomes convinces that the riches and esteem he craves will be his if he can learn the secret of how to win at cards. It's a simple enough tale that teases you as to whether our hero is literally selling his soul or just going completely off his head. But for me, <i>The Queen of Spades</i> takes that simple story and makes it beautiful. Despite the fact that director Thorold Dickinson was given the assignment only five days before it started, despite the fact that they had the budget of a mayfly supper, and despite the fact that it showcases little actual horror, <i>The Queen of Spades </i>is a visual feast, creating a cold, haunted vision of Imperial Russia that could rival <i>The Scarlet Empress</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Much of the credit has to go to Dickinson, who's endlessly inventive in his distorted camera angles, twisted mirror shots, and imagery. In one moment that made me literally catch my breath, he goes from a shot of Herman Suvorin scratching out a love letter while a spider spins a web in his dusty room to a shot of Lizaveta swooning away on her bed, her fingers suggestively reaching under the pillow to caress his letter as the transposed image of the spider keeps spinning over her face. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In another sequence where a younger and more beautiful version of the Countess makes her bargain with the Devil, Dickinson blurs the edges of the scene, as if we're watching something not quite of this world. To hint at the doom that will befall her, all he has to do is show a shot of some mysterious figure's gnarled hands slowly working out the details on a tiny doll, a little miniature of the Countess. And when the Countess does make her fateful visit to the place that, in the film's cryptic words, "left a mark on her soul," Dickinson leads up to it by showing us the Countess walking through a shadowy tunnel, coming to a door that enters into pitch blackness. We hear her scream and we hear the scream of her horses but nothing more. And when the light comes back, the tiny doll is being trapped under a glass bowl by those same unknown hands. When the movie cuts to the real Countess, she's pleading to a painting of the Virgin Mary for mercy but in a merciless answer to her prayers, the faces of Virgin and Infant slowly turn to black. It's as great as anything you'll find in a Val Lewton film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The legendary stage actress Edith Evans, here playing the old, crabbed Countess Ranevskaya, is the film's most impressive visual effect. Just watching her hunch across the screen, with her huge powdered wig teetering on her head and her eyes darting around suspiciously is like watching some grotesque oddity from<i> Alice in Wonderland </i>come to life. <i>The Queen of Spades</i> was actually Evans' screen debut, but she's so assured onscreen that you'd think she'd been doing films for years. In her line delivery, Evans is a perfectly banal, constantly complaining old woman, but you can't help but notice something haunted and despairing in her eyes. She strikes the perfect balance, keeping you guessing as to whether Evans is an ordinary woman who's become the unfortunate target of Suvorin's delusions or a soulless crone who knows far more than she's telling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Dark-eyed, regal Yvonne Mitchell, also making her screen debut after years on the stage, is surprisingly very good as the naive, romantic Lizaveta, the Countess's companion. She's lovely and good-hearted, but her life with the Countess has kept her sheltered from the outside world. Despite Suvorin's brusque manners, poor situation, and unattractive appearance, his ardent love letters (diligently copied out of books) are enough to set her head spinning. It would be easy to write off Lizaveta as just another ingenue, a helpless pawn in Suvorin's schemes. But Mitchell has too much dignity in her manner to let you dismiss her entirely. Instead, you get the sense of a woman who could very well grow into strength and intelligence, given the chance to experience the world. By forcing her ward into seclusion and servitude, the Countess has ironically turned her into the same reckless, unhappy woman she herself once was, seeking relief in a faithless lover.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Ronald Howard, son of Leslie Howard, gets the film's most thankless role as the pure-hearted Andrei, Suvorin's aristocratic foil. As the only character not to originate from the original Pushkin story, his main purpose is to provide Lizaveta with a happy ending. Still, Howard shows more than a few sparks of his father's talent, giving Andrei a genuine warmth and sensitive watchfulness that makes you root for him to bring Suvorin down. Judging by his work here, Howard should have had more of a career.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like his other great obsessive role, Lermontov in <i>The Red Shoes</i>, Anton Walbrook is again the cold, vaguely inhuman creature whose eyes light up and whose hands tremble, not for a fellow human being, but for something intangible. In this case, it's privilege, not art. He looks at the beautiful, adoring Yvonne Mitchell as if he can stare right through her to the life of wealth that awaits him. Considering that the only other character he spends any time with is an attractive young man, who seems rather fond of him for no apparent reason, it's tempting to try to work in a gay subtext here. However, Walbrook doesn't play it that way; he's just as bored making small talk with Andrei as he is writing love sonnets to a woman. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That chilly detachment certainly fits for the character, but it did leave me feeling a little removed from Suvorin for a good part of the film's runtime. Unlike Lermontov, who can at least boast that he's bringing beauty into the world, Suvorin's concerns are all wrapped up in himself and so his downfall doesn't feel particularly tragic or shocking. I'm not one to complain about characters being likable or not, but I couldn't help wishing for a little more insight into Suvorin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Still, that minor complaint aside, Walbrook's performance is knock-out spectacular once Suvorin goes from pinched misanthropy to complete insanity. Intensity was Walbrook's great gift as an actor and he brings it full-force to this role, commanding your attention simply because his needs are so raw. He wants the secret of the cards and he wants it so much that everything else in the world has turned to ashes for him. His one scene with Edith Evans is a stand-out, but I'm also enthralled by the moment when he finally feels he's won. Walbrook mutters to himself, hardly daring to believe it. He closes his eyes in relief. And then he stands up as if to stretch but instead, Walbrook put his hands to his chest, clawing at his own skin in some kind of bestial triumph and then makes this undefinable noise. It's like a bird of prey cawing, I quite literally can't think of another actor ever doing anything like it. And then to cap it all off, Walbrook lifts his hands up, lets out a few hysterical sobs, and ends with a glass-rattling scream that would unnerve even the most jaded horror fan. You don't know whether to be more terrified of him or for him. There's plenty of actors who can make a meal of a mad scene, but Walbrook truly makes this unique and memorable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In a lesser film, the director would have just let Walbrook's performance carry the whole thing, but Thorold Dickinson creates a movie that's just mad enough to keep pace with its feverish hero, using mirrors, shadows, sounds, and eyes to tell the old story of what happens when we want too much. More people should know it and more people should talk of it. And more people should be talking about Thorold Dickinson, a man who played his best even when fate dealt him an unlucky hand. The ghosts of the other great movies he could have made haunts <i>The Queen of Spades </i>just as much as the story's ghosts do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Take life as you find it."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I'd rather take it by the throat and force it to give me what I want."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Scene:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For me, the most thrilling scene in <i>The Queen of Spades </i>comes when Suvorin hides in the Countess's room in order to beg the secret of the cards from her. Dickinson carefully draws out the suspense. He shows us every slow step of the Countess being made ready for bed, her body suddenly shrunken without the weight of her wig and jewels. She mumbles to herself the same prayer we heard the younger Countess make, "Holy virgin, have mercy on me." In the darkness, Evans' eyes look like two black holes. Suddenly she sees a black apparition next to a painting of the Virgin. She rears up and the shadow steps forward to reveal himself as Suvorin. He comes forward, pleading, presenting himself as a supplicant. The Countess looks away from him, mute. Suvorin falls to his knees, asking her to help him in the name of God and any human feeling, but she moves away. Suvorin's pleas turn to demands and then finally to threats. And still the Countess refuses to answer. By this point, the audience is almost as maddened as Suvorin, wanting desperately for this woman to share what she knows. But what if he's a madman tormenting an innocent old woman? The film doesn't tip its hand either way and it ups the tension immensely, as you keep trying to figure out who's most in danger here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's hard to overstate just how brilliantly matched Walbrook and Evans are in this scene. Walbrook brings all his vocal gifts to Suvorin's shifting, increasingly savage speech and Evans uses the power of her face alone to show both great dread and a strange, mute contempt. I won't give away how the scene ends or the little shock coda afterwards, but it left me very grateful for directors who know how to let actors bring the horror all on their own. Sometimes you don't need CGI demons coming up through the floorboards or overacting Satans (actually scratch that--you practically <i>never</i> need that). Sometimes all you need is the terror in two people's eyes as they slowly realize they're staring into the face of their own damnation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sends shivers of delight and horror </span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-51789450748193368822014-07-20T16:24:00.000-07:002014-07-20T16:24:06.927-07:00Farewell, James Garner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I want you to remember that the last time you saw me, I was unregenerately eating a Hershey bar.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">James Garner (1928-2014)</span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-52318216060992814612014-07-17T22:59:00.001-07:002014-07-17T23:02:16.919-07:00Movie Review: Young Mr. Lincoln<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i> (1939)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(Note: This is my entry in the <a href="http://krelllabs.blogspot.com/2014/05/announcing-john-ford-blogathon.html">John Ford Blogathon</a>, hosted by Krell Laboratories.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Young Mr. Abraham Lincoln (Henry Fonda) is a man of weighty thoughts but light experience, at least when it comes to the rule of law. All he really knows, he's only learned from books. But after he loses his first love Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore), Lincoln makes up his mind to study the law in earnest. However, his first case will prove to be as great a challenge as he could ever have imagined.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Clay family have come to town for a Fourth of July celebration. At the fair, the two brothers (Richard Cromwell and Eddie Quillan) get into a fight and a man ends up dead with a knife in him. Both Clays are accused of murder. Both are determined to take the blame, trying to spare their brother from a hanging. Their mother (Alice Brady) is a witness to the crime but absolutely refuses to say a word; she'll never sacrifice one to save the other. The other key witness to the crime is J. Palmer Cass (Ward Bond), a friend of the victim; he insists that he saw the stabbing by the light of the moon and refuses to budge on that point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Lincoln agrees to take on the case, but all the fates seem against him. He's got a town braying for the blood of the two Clay boys, a town that's ready to lynch them at any second. He's got a jury that's already biased against the case. He's got no testimony to counter the accusations. His defendants won't tell the truth of what happened. And he himself is as green a lawyer as ever walked into a courtroom. But that won't stop him from putting up one hell of a fight. Little does he know that it's only the beginning for him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of all our presidents, Abraham Lincoln is arguably the most cinematic. Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson had more bombastic personalities and George Washington was the more standardized hero, but Lincoln stands out as uniquely well suited to the big screen. He's both the approachable, folksy "rail-splitter," the common man striving to better himself, and the mythical, untouchable paladin for human rights. He's a figure we can look up to in awe, but, to snag an old election phrase, someone we could also imagine wanting to share a drink with. Consider that in the very same year, we got both a big-budget, prestigious, Oscar-nominated film inspired by Lincoln's efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment and a splashy fantasy action flick about Abraham Lincoln, the vampire slayer. Lincoln presents, in many ways, the archetypal image of what Americans want to think about themselves. Sharp and tricksy but also reasoned and wise. Compassionate yet stern as steel. A humble background but the will for power.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">John Ford's 1939 biographic film, <i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i>, is a testament to those ideas of Abraham Lincoln and in that regard, it's a beautiful, modest, rather slippery piece of work. "Biographic" is a term I use very loosely here, because the movie has little interest in retelling the facts of Lincoln's life. It marks off a lot of the famous little anecdotes about his early career, like the time when he told the story of the dog and the pitchfork in court or the time he asked Mary Todd to dance ("I want to dance with you in the worst way"). But it carries precious little in the way of facts. The movie invents wholesale a story about him defending a pair of accused murderers and devotes most of the runtime to that. With the overwhelming abundance of storytelling material in Lincoln's actual life, the choice to depict him as a crusading Atticus Finch seems oddly limiting at first glance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, once you get past that mental hurdle, <i>Young Mr. Lincoln </i>offers a portrait of Lincoln that is deeply affecting and more complicated than you might expect from the synopsis. In fact, the Lincoln here has a lot in common with the 2012 Spielberg version of Lincoln. They're both presented as canny, thoughtful men, not above using a little trickery or insults to get their way. The Lincoln in this film cracks lowbrow jokes, hems and haws over his true intention and calmly manipulates people. He even cheats to win a game of tug-of-war at one point and John Ford cuts away without tipping his hand as to whether we're supposed to applaud his smarts or be disconcerted by his casual disregard for rules. Without showing Lincoln's political career, the 1939 film manages to throw in a great many hints about his political aptitude. This film also highlights Lincoln's essential isolation from other people, ending in a famous scene of him walking alone up a hill that surely must have been in Spielberg's mind when he filmed the final scene for his version. The key difference between the 1939 and 2012 biopics is that the Spielberg story is about the collaboration and compromises Lincoln and other people must make to form that more perfect Union. Ford's film, by contrast, presents Lincoln as a singular figure, one whose struggles are not truly shared or understood by anyone else. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sometimes, an actor's star persona is virtually indistinguishable from his offscreen one, as in the case of Clifton Webb. Other times, it's almost a night and day contrast; the down-to-earth homemaker turns into a sultry temptress on silver nitrate or vice versa. Personally, I hold to the theory that you can usually unearth bits and flashes of the actor's true self underneath the performance, no matter how wide the gulf seems at first. Vincent Price's joy in living, Joan Crawford's drive for self-improvement, Rita Hayworth's need to please. It's there if you know where to look for it. But Henry Fonda is one actor that strains that theory of mine to the breaking point.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On film, Henry Fonda is the purest personification of honesty. He isn't just a good guy. He's the hero struggling in the dark, his eyes fixed on some distant mountain peak of perfection that the rest of us can only imagine. He could take characters as decent and honorable as Tom Joad, Juror No. 8, Wyatt Earp, and Abraham Lincoln and convince you that they were possible. And yet in real life, Henry Fonda was a cold, unreachable man who alienated his loved ones and quite frankly, acted like a shit to them much of the time. After you've read a few of the Fonda family bios, it seems frankly unbelievable that this man could dig deep enough to find the fathomless generosity and compassion of his most famous roles.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, when you look at Henry Fonda and compare him to the other famous "good guy" actor, James Stewart, the connection snaps into place. The hallmark of a Fonda hero, as opposed to a Stewart hero, isn't heartfelt emotion, it's <i>thought</i>. Fonda heroes are always staring off somewhere into the middle distance, thinking their way towards a solution. Unlike Stewart, who so often ends up loving too well and not too wisely, Fonda is more isolated, more cerebral and less open. In <i>Mr. Smith Goes to Washington</i>, Stewart's climactic speech has him distraught and anguished, voice cracking, fiery and exhausted. In <i>Grapes of Wrath, </i>Fonda's famous speech has him looking offscreen, patient and undaunted, slowly struggling his way towards the understanding that he himself belongs to a larger whole. And there is a certain coldness to that kind of hero. He can't belong to us in the way Stewart can. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">All this is leading up to a notion of mine that when Henry Fonda plays the John Ford hero, it results in films that tend to be quieter and less easy to pin down than Ford's films with John Wayne. <i>My Darling Clementine</i>, <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i>, and <i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i> all have their fair share of Fordian humor and American nostalgia, but they keep us at more of a distance (I have a feeling that <i>Mr. Roberts </i>might be the exception that proves the rule but don't tell me, I still haven't seen it).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I realize that I have spent almost this entire review talking about Henry Fonda and not the supporting cast, which includes some famous names, including Ward Bond, Donald Meek, Alice Brady, and Richard Cromwell. And that's for the very good reason that this film is really Fonda's showcase the whole way through. When he's not onscreen, you're waiting for him to come back. The other characters don't really register, although I appreciate the sly touch of having the aptly-named Donald Meek play Lincoln's slick, confident opponent. Alice Brady's performance as the anguished mother of the defendants is also good, but the script rarely gives her more than one note to play. Truthfully, <i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i>, while a great character study for its protagonist, does suffer a little by making the supporting characters so simple. John Ford films in general rely heavily on archetypal characters, but I can't help feeling that they came across as richer and deeper in movies like <i>How Green Was My Valley</i> or <i>Stagecoach </i>than they do here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The greatest joy this film has to offer for John Ford fans, aside from Fonda, is the aching beauty of its camerawork. His shots of Lincoln rambling through the woods look like something you want to hang in a gallery, they're so well framed. Ford's ability to find both emotion and mythic resonance in his stories is also just as evident here as it is in his more famous films. There's an early scene with Lincoln talking to his first love Ann Rutledge out near the river. She encourages his dreams, he compliments her hair. The sun is shining. The mood is tentative and hopeful; their romance is just barely beginning. When she walks away, Lincoln tosses a stone in the river. The ripples slowly transition to shifting blocks of ice in the dead of winter. The camera finds Lincoln making a slow, deliberate walk to Ann's grave to replace the flowers there. The cruel, lovely simplicity of the image cuts straight to the bone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For me, the best John Ford films are built on moments like that. Moments that make us feel like we're seeing an elemental truth of human experience. While I wouldn't rank <i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i> as one of his greatest films, if only because his best is so very great, it carries enough of those moments to make me very glad that John Ford and Henry Fonda chose to make their idea of Abraham Lincoln. In 1939, they were without a doubt the best men for the job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"What I'm afraid of is that some of the jurors might <i>not </i>know you...and that'd put me at a great disadvantage."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Scene: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The scene in which Lincoln takes on an angry lynch mob. It's a simple scene on the surface, but it's so elegantly constructed that if I taught film classes, I'd make it required viewing for all my students. Abraham Lincoln has just taken on the case of the two Clay brothers and a raging mob descends on the cell, ready to storm it and kill the boys then and there. Lincoln appears just in time and throws himself between the crowd and the door, armed with nothing but his lanky body and the sound of his voice. Rather than just appealing to their better natures or diffusing the situation with humor or angrily calling them out, Lincoln applies all these strategies in one speech, revealing his incredible political aptitude for the first time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I love the way that Ford matches the shifting camera angles to Lincoln's shifting tactics. In the first part of the scene, when Lincoln appears in front of the door, Ford's camera goes for a jarring, extreme close-up of his back turning around. When he turns, the camera has traveled sharply away from him and he's a distant, almost frightening figure in black, loudly proclaiming that he'll beat up anyone who tries to pass him. As the crowd argue with him, Lincoln gradually turns the conversation into subtle mockery, poking fun at himself in order to draw a laugh from them ("I'm just a fresh lawyer trying to get ahead...and you boys act like you want to do me out of my first clients"). Ford brings the camera closer and now Lincoln is in the middle of the frame. He's more approachable now, but rather cool and dispassionate. The crowds starts to calm. Ford cuts to a beautiful closeup of Lincoln, now leaning against the doorframe, his head bowed. He begins speaking regretfully of the nature of lynch mobs, subtly drawing the conversation away from the comical waste of money to the real moral cost. The humor's gone. Then he actually calls out one of the mob by name, reminding him of his honorable name and piety. He paints a picture for the crowd of this same man going home to read his bible and turning to the passage, "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." By now, the crowd has been thoroughly subdued. Their battering ram is almost slipping from their hands. Lincoln looks up and says softly, "Why don't you put it down for a spell, boys, ain't it getting heavy." He has won a total victory. Moreover, Ford's camerawork matches Fonda's performance so perfectly in this scene, Lincoln can't help but win over the movie audience as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Wise, wistful portrait of elusive legend</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-35681912675508451992014-07-05T20:31:00.001-07:002014-07-06T10:33:26.020-07:00Unsolved Mysteries of the Casting Department: (Part One) You Can't Win 'Em All<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I've talked before on this blog about <a href="http://thegirlwiththewhiteparasol.blogspot.com/2011/09/miscastings-in-classic-film.html">miscasting</a>. It's one of my eternal fascinations. Not just the plainly ludicrous decisions like casting Susan Hayward as a Tartar princess or Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist. No, I'm more interested in those casting glitches where everything seems like it should perfectly line up and yet it still goes wrong. Why are some of the greatest acting legends of all time so stymied by roles that other, less talented people can carry off like gold medalists? So I decided to draw up a list, focusing not so much this time on just the movies but on the performers themselves. <b>Why are great actors unable to play certain parts?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Please note that I'm aware some of my readers will fiercely disagree with my selections here. I welcome a good debate so feel free to bring up any rebuttal in the comments section. Also, since I never like dwelling too much on the negative, stay tuned for Part Two, where I talk about the times when seemingly miscast actors turned in <i>great </i>performances.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Without further ado, here's my list:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Cary Grant Can't Do Costume Pictures</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of all the great film stars, perhaps nobody was as skillful and deliberate in managing their career image as Cary Grant. He turned down roles other actors would have sold their entire toupee collections for and he ended up with a resume that's enough to send the nicest, most easygoing man in Hollywood reeling with sheer envy. He worked with the best directors, the greatest leading ladies. But there was famously one thing that Grant spent most of his career avoiding and that was this: he would not do historical costume pictures. After seeing himself in <i>The Howards of Virginia</i>, a critically reviled flop about the Revolutionary War, Grant said, "I don't belong in costumes." He stuck to that notion for seventeen years, until agreeing to star in <i>The Pride and The Passion</i>, another film that got a sound drubbing from critics and audiences alike. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The standard answer to why Cary Grant just doesn't seem right for costume pictures was that he was too modern. He was to the tuxedo born and nothing else would do. But I'm inclined to take issue with that a little. After all, he does a perfectly good job in <i>Gunga Din</i> and in that one, he was a good twenty years away from the twentieth century and nearly forty years from the nearest cocktail party. The man wore costumes well and while he looks admittedly kind of silly in <i>The Howards of Virginia</i>, if you just look at stills of him in <i>The Pride and the Passion</i> (the performance itself is another matter), he wears the old British naval uniform with perfect dignity. Grant's voice and mannerisms are distinctive of course, but if the public can accept Tony Curtis as a Greek slave and Clark Gable as a Southern gentleman and Robert Ryan as John the Baptist, why then is Grant singled out?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">No, I think the reason lies somewhere in the fact that Grant is a natural clown. He needs to kid his surroundings to belong to them. If he tries to be self-serious, he turns stiff. And the problem is that most historical epic films are just that, they're epics. They're trying to preserve history like a monument and Grant is one actor that should never be set in marble. He can fit in just fine when the movie is a historical romp<i> </i>like <i>Gunga Din</i>. But if the subject is weighty, forget it. In short, I think he misfires in costume pictures for the exact opposite reason that Charlton Heston succeeds in them. Because Heston is serious enough to believe himself anywhere and Grant is smart enough to disbelieve himself everywhere.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Barbara Stanwyck Can't Play Ingenues</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">People who follow my blog know that I'm a firm believer in the "Barbara Stanwyck Can Do Pretty Much Anything" Doctrine. She could do comedy, Western, film noir, drama, crime, soap opera, horror, and do it all with no apparent effort. That alone makes her stand out from the other female acting icons like Crawford and Davis. They could reach her heights but they never rivaled her range.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The one gap I've really found in Stanwyck's career is this: she could never really play the innocent. Even in her earliest movies like<i> Ladies of Leisure </i>and <i>Shopworn</i>, she's already cynical and experienced, a young woman who's had plenty of hard knocks and starts to get suspicious if she can't see one coming. This characterization carried her through most of her career, but even for someone like Stanwyck, there were times when being a tough cookie just wouldn't cut it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While Frank Capra can be credited as the director who discovered and refined Stanwyck's talent for hard-edged, secretly vulnerable women, he also gave her some fairly awkward roles as well. Take her part as the lovelorn, self-sacrificing heroine of <i>Forbidden</i>. The movie opens with Stanwyck as the shy, bespectacled librarian (!), who only opens up to life after she falls in love with dapper Adolphe Menjou (?). Remember that ridiculous scene in <i>It's a Wonderful Life </i>where we get the dreaded reveal of Donna Reeds, sans makeup, as the town's spinster librarian? Nearly the whole first half of <i>Forbidden </i>plays like that scene. Stanwyck can't even begin to settle into character until the second half, where she gets a new job and starts trading sexy banter with Ralph Bellamy (?). Capra would push Stanwyck's credibility even further by casting her as the naive missionary in <i>The Bitter Tea of General Yen</i>. But this is where it gets interesting. Stanwyck should, by all rights, be utterly wrong for this part. She's no sucker and she's no saint. Despite that though, Stanwyck manages to plow through the role because she plays the missionary, not for gentleness, but for bull-headed, stubborn pioneering spirit. She's deluded, but not soft.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By this point, I've seen fifty Barbara Stanwyck movies and I never cease to marvel at how Stanwyck takes the same tactic whenever they force her to play innocent girls. She plays them like bulldozers. Whether they're sweet wives smiling through their tears (<i>Ten Cents a Dance</i>), power-behind-the-throne spouses (<i>The Great Man's Lady</i>) or feisty Irish tomboys (<i>Union Pacific</i>), they're always 100% determined. It doesn't always fit the role, but it sure as hell fits Stanwyck and that's enough to lift the curse of miscasting. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Claudette Colbert Isn't Motherly</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Clearly, Hollywood didn't agree with me on this one since it was happy to cast smiling, purring Claudette Colbert in quite a lot of maternal parts, particularly as she aged. Most famously there was <i>Since You Went Away</i>, with Colbert doing the American version of the Mrs. Miniver character, but there's also <i>Imitation of Life</i>, <i>Tomorrow is Forever</i>, <i>Family Honeymoon, </i>and <i>Parrish. </i>I can only speak for <i>Imitation of Life </i>and <i>Tomorrow is Forever</i>, but I can't help thinking that whenever that potent Colbert charm gets hit with a dose of syrupy sentimentality, the result is like a batch of rock candy. It glitters alright but it's too sweet to eat and too hardened to melt on your tongue. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In <i>Imitation of Life</i>, Colbert is in top form whenever she has to run her business or trade banter with her friends. She's smart, witty, sophisticated, she's the epitome of everything you want Claudette Colbert to be. But the minute her bratty moppet of a daughter is onscreen, lisping and begging for her rubber duck (bet you didn't know that the actual closing line of <i>Imitation of Life is </i>"I want my quack-quack"), Colbert coos and giggles and plasters a warm, motherly smile on her face. It's about as artificial as it gets. It makes the ending of the film, in which Colbert agrees to postpone her wedding to Warren William until her teenage daughter gets over him, even more risible than it might otherwise have been. I can't watch Colbert getting all trembly and noble without wanting Sandra Dee to teleport in from the 1959 remake and snap, "Oh, mama, quit <i>acting</i>!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The funny thing is, there is a strong note of "come-to-Mama" in Colbert's love scenes. Watch her in something like <i>Cleopatra </i>or <i>Midnight </i>and it's totally there in her mannerisms, in the way she bends over her leading men. She tends to them, she humors them, and all the time she knows she's wiser than they'll ever be. On her, it works and she's mesmerizingly sexy and confident. But when it comes to motherhood, or rather the oft-times sickly sweet, sentimental vision of motherhood that Hollywood went for in the '30s and '40s, Colbert just can't make it work. After all, it's pretty hard to look like you're burning with the sacrificial flame of unconditional love when you can't even be bothered to turn your head to the left. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Gregory Peck Can't Be Wicked</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of all our acting legends, I find Gregory Peck to be one of the most off-and-on in terms of what he can and can't do. Whenever I start to think he's overrated, I'll remember <i>To Kill a Mockingbird </i>and <i>The Gunfighter</i> and ask for forgiveness. Then, I catch a glimpse of him in something like <i>Moby Dick </i>or <i>Cape Fear </i>and gnash my teeth in frustration that these parts didn't go to actors who would make more of them. But just when I've decided that the man is hopelessly stiff and humorless, I'll catch a rerun of <i>Roman Holiday </i>and be enraptured all over again by how charming and romantic he can be. It's Audrey Hepburn's picture, but it's easy to forget how much support Peck gives her and how graciously he draws attention to her side. Really, for someone who came to embody straight-arrow decency in movies, the man is surprisingly mercurial in what he brings to the screen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br />So many actors, especially those tagged as bland or boring, shine particularly bright when they get to play evil. Gene Tierney won her only Oscar nomination for playing a child-drowning madwoman in <i>Leave Her to Heaven</i>. Robert Montgomery got some of the best notices of his career for his turn as a psychopath in <i>Night Must Fall</i>. Robert Walker, cast over and over again as a boy next door, turned out to be one of the greatest villains in cinema as the complicated killer Bruno Anthony in <i>Strangers On a Train</i>. But Gregory Peck does not belong to this class. He is never worse than when he plays bad. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Case in point is his performance as bad, bad Lewt McCanles in <i>Duel in the Sun. </i>He plays the dangerously seductive, totally amoral rancher's son who merrily proceeds to wreck Jennifer Jones' life, just because he can. At this point in his career, Peck was preternaturally gorgeous. He always had incredible screen presence. He <i>looks </i>like a man who could drive a woman to the brink. But his performance in <i>Duel in the Sun </i>is the most unconvincing thing ever, a weird combination of campy, over-the-top line readings and stilted boredom. To be fair, nobody really comes off that well, performance-wise, in <i>Duel in the Sun</i>. Still, I think there's a difference between the acting of Jones, who comes off more like a well-meaning performer undone by over-direction and bad scripting, and Peck, who just cannot fit this role. He's just not the wicked seducer. Having also seen him try to play a more redeemable version of the type in <i>How the West Was Won</i>, I think I can say that with some confidence. However, I still haven't seen <i>The Boys From Brazil</i>, so maybe Peck finally does manage to unlock his evil self by playing a Nazi. I'll have my fingers crossed for him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Gene Tierney Isn't Lower-Class</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I suppose you were a model of all the virtues when you were young."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Certainly I was. I won a prize for deportment at school."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That bit of dialogue comes from <i>The Ghost and Mrs. Muir</i> but it could just as easily come from several other Gene Tierney movies, including nearly all her best ones (<i>Laura</i>, <i>The Shanghai Gesture</i>, <i>Leave Her to Heaven</i>, <i>Dragonwyck</i>, <i>Heaven Can Wait</i>). She belongs to that class of actresses (Grace Kelly is another), who can't help but remind you of the good little girl in the classroom, the one who wins all the prizes and has a stunning debutante ball when she turns eighteen. Onscreen, she's the born aristocrat. Well-bred, well-mannered, and smooth as silk. Tierney was often a harder actress to cast than she seems at first glance. She's not really warm onscreen, but there's a sweetness and mildness to her presence that's difficult to shake. This made her too cool and remote for "America's Sweetheart" roles and too nice for tarts or rebels. Her best parts could turn that to her advantage, letting her play women whose gentle nobility shone through in difficult circumstances. She could play costume parts with ease because that kind of feminine ideal half-belonged to another era anyway. And when she did play villainesses, as in <i>Leave Her to Heaven</i> or <i>The Razor's Edge</i>, she turned them into "good girls gone bad," women who probably had won prizes for deportment in school, women so perfect that of course they had to snap. <i>The Shanghai Gesture </i>takes that idea to a whole new level, giving us cool-as-ice-cream Tierney in the first half and dragging her down into a sullen, opium-addicted slave in the second.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Still, Darryl Zanuck didn't always choose the right parts for his star and Tierney also got miscast quite frequently, having to play everything from Western outlaws<i> </i>to South Seas island girls. But for me, one of the more interesting misfires is Tierney in the screwball comedy <i>Rings on Her Fingers</i>. The movie is a poorly concealed rehash of <i>The Lady Eve</i>, with Henry Fonda once again playing the lovestruck sap and Tierney cast in the Barbara Stanwyck role as the con artist falling for her mark. And you pretty much find out everything you need to know about how wrong Tierney is for this part in the very first scene of her as a wisecracking, cynical shopgirl. She's smacking her gum, she's rolling her eyes and trying out a Brooklyn accent. She's about as convincing as Wallace Beery in drag. Tierney might have been able to play a lower-class character if said character was sweet and polite. But a chip-on-her-shoulder floozy? Forget it. The filmmakers themselves must have figured this out pretty quickly, because they shove Tierney into the role of adoring and reformed spouse only halfway into the movie, dooming any hope of real comedy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Gene Tierney herself illustrated the nature of her screen persona in an anecdote in her memoirs. She and Groucho Marx were entertaining the troops during World War II and he talked her into coming out on stage and doing a sassy little bump and grind. Tierney was doubtful but did it. The crowd responded, not with catcalls or applause, but with dead silence. When she went back to Marx, he told her, "You were right, you can't do a bump." Tierney ruefully summed it up by saying, "Marilyn Monroe would have done that bump and looked adorable. On me, it was all wrong."</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Humphrey Bogart Ain't Upper-Class</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Humphrey Bogart had the most perfect sneer in movies. It was perfect because he always aimed it above and not below. Bogart fans know the fun always starts when someone tries to plant their boot on him because that's the moment when Bogart hunkers down, grins, and proceeds to shred them. He knows it's probably a lost battle, he knows they're not worth his busted bones, but he'll do it anyway. Bogart's so good in these moments that it's easy to forget how many miscastings the man had to suffer through in his career. Some are obvious, like the Irish horse trainer in <i>Dark Victory</i>. But there's a less immediate problem that crops up with Bogart, one that kicks the old "Classic Hollywood stars only played themselves" chestnut right down the stairs. He just couldn't play rich men. He couldn't play top of the heap. When he tries to play a self-satisfied businessman in <i>Sabrina</i>, the result is a world of awkwardness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This one's a puzzler because in real life, Bogart <i>was </i>upper class. His family was pure New York high society, complete with a fashionable apartment in the Upper West Side, a cottage on the lake, and the money to send their rebellious son to the most prestigious prep schools in the state. Hell, Bogart even started out his stage career by playing the kind of namby-pamby rich dweebs who signaled a change of scene by calling, "Tennis, anyone?" And one look at a photo of young Bogart shows that he polished up pretty nicely. For all that though, Humphrey Bogart never belonged in glittering romantic comedies. He only found his true cinematic self on the rougher side of things. He needed something to fight against. If ever he'd been cast in an Ernst Lubitsch film, which one do you think would've detonated first?</span>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Burt Lancaster Can't Be Repressed</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Burt Lancaster's ambition as an actor carried him so far and in so many different directions, from lovelorn thugs to fast-talking con artists to dignified Italian noblemen, that when he actually does manage to hit a wall, it reverberates like a shock. He was nobody's idea of a man who could disappear into a part. And yet, looking back, it's rather remarkable how the man could twist his beaming, tanned presence to suit the requirements of a part; he could be elegant or rough, reckless or controlled, brilliant or brutish. He could even pretend to be intimidated by Hume Cronyn. But the one thing he couldn't do is the one thing that ends up sinking an otherwise decent performance in <i>Come Back, Little Sheba</i>. He can't be insignificant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Part of the problem with casting Burt Lancaster as the repressed, miserable alcoholic "Doc" Delaney in <i>Come Back, Little Sheba</i> is simply his youth. Even though the movie tries to age him up a bit with grey hair, there is no way to make the handsome, thirty-nine-year-old Lancaster look like any kind of probable mate for fifty-four-year-old Shirley Booth. The whole point of the character is that this man has tied himself down to a lifetime of regret with a dowdy, unappealing woman. The only option left is to find some way of growing old with her. Except that there is not one single frame of this movie in which Lancaster doesn't look perfectly capable of hopping in his car, cruising down to the nearest night club, picking up five or six of the prettiest women, and then riding off into the rising dawn. But even if you try to squint through the age difference, the problem is that Lancaster doesn't seem like an ordinary man. His miseries will never be common ones. He is incapable of convincing me that he would spend any length of time pondering the whereabouts of a dog named Sheba. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At the time, the movie, adapted from William Inge's play was an example of the '50s fascination with gray, downbeat realism. But looking at it now, J.J. Hunsecker had more realism in the flickering light of his match than anything <i>Come Back, Little Sheba </i>has to offer. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Julie Andrews Can't Play Hitchcock Blondes</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">People who've grown up watching <i>Mary Poppins</i> and <i>Sound of Music </i>might be tempted to chime in here with, "Well, of course she can't!" This is after all, the most famous nanny in movies, the woman with a song in her heart and a soul of pure sunshine. Her costar Christopher Plummer compared working with her to "being hit over the head with a big Valentine's Day card every day." But still, I can't shake the feeling that there must be a deeper explanation for why Julie Andrews just seems so painfully miscast as the troubled Hitchcock heroine in <i>Torn Curtain</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After all, nobody excelled at bringing out the buttoned-up sensuality and yearning of blonde actresses like Hitchcock did. He looked at warm, earnest Eva Marie Saint and saw a femme fatale just waiting to break out. He took lovable Doris Day and<i> </i>subtly chipped away at her image in <i>The Man Who Knew Too Much</i>, revealing a woman of buried resentments and animal desperation. But <i>Torn Curtain </i>never finds anything to excavate in Andrews; she just comes across as gracious, pleasant, and hopelessly straight-laced. You'd think it would be near impossible for a woman to be rolling around under the covers with 1966-era Paul Newman without generating some kind of electrical charge. But Andrews' tinkling laugh and repeated titters of "Oh, Michael" just flash freezes the whole thing. Did Hitchcock lose interest in the movie? Was Andrews unwilling to let loose a little? Was it those ugly costumes (surely some of the most unflattering stuff ever put on a Hitchcock leading lady)? Whatever the reason, it makes for some memorable miscasting. The Master of Suspense met his match and it was Mary Poppins.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Vivien Leigh Will Never Be Mousy</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">We never actually got to see Vivien Leigh take on the role of the shy, shrinking Mrs. DeWinter in <i>Rebecca</i>. She wanted the part very much, more because it offered the chance to play opposite her lover Laurence Olivier than for its dramatic potential. But even though Selznick and Hitchcock humored her with a screen test, they both agreed that she was all wrong. It wasn't even a close call. According to Hitchcock himself, Leigh was "uniquely strong," a bold, determined woman who was "absolutely right to play Rebecca but Rebecca never appears in the film." Instead, Joan Fontaine got the part, winning both an Oscar nomination and an A-list career.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There's a surplus of explanations for why Leigh never fit the role. She was too ravishingly beautiful and raven-haired to be believable as an awkward girl trying to melt into the wallpaper. Her sexual attraction to Olivier was too obvious when they worked together; nobody would buy them as as an estranged married couple. Or, as Hitchcock put it, she was just too strong, too much of a Rebecca. All very good reasons. Except...does it really explain everything? After all, Fontaine herself was the polar opposite of Mrs. De Winter in real life. She was witty, sharp, and more than capable of shoving off her troubles. And while it's plainly ludicrous to imagine <a href="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m28jomOOZj1r9rp3co1_500.jpg">Vivien Leigh</a> cursing her lack of beauty, is it really that much more believable when it's <a href="http://acertaincinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Joan-Fontaine-Frenchmans-Creek.jpg">Joan Fontaine</a>? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The other reason I toyed with this one is that Vivien Leigh actually can play an innocent, awkward girl. Anyone who's seen her play Myra, the crushed-by-circumstance young lover in <i>Waterloo Bridge </i>knows she's capable of more than devious minxes and psychotic beauties. I struggled for a long time, wondering why Leigh might find it easier to work her way into the head of the painfully innocent Myra and not the shy, naive Mrs. DeWinter. The conclusion I came to is that Leigh just can't play characters who don't ask for anything. Myra reaches for love with both hands and ends up rushing to her fate. Mrs. DeWinter is terrified of asking for anything from life. When you see Leigh talk to Olivier in the test, she's arch, even amused. She can't sell that timidity. In life she was a woman who never stopped grasping for more and if she was the same way on film, audiences can only be grateful we got the benefit of so many memorable, daring, desperate, impossible female characters. Characters that remain unforgettable because they want so much and get so little in the end. </span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-33313126598634677492014-06-25T20:57:00.000-07:002014-06-25T20:57:00.637-07:00Farewell, Eli Wallach<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52LDsRwqIDv5OjkDpnQyajuq1msgaSTNx-IBbiTYZoVrQ638T1J1LaJFr2JpR-2712Zm6R2-CvS25LU6R5rqSY0wcM86EavvBzv06DEQgXbrQDJ_Tnl8jwYLZcjZwS02FJrGn4GRY56Y/s1600/eli+wallach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52LDsRwqIDv5OjkDpnQyajuq1msgaSTNx-IBbiTYZoVrQ638T1J1LaJFr2JpR-2712Zm6R2-CvS25LU6R5rqSY0wcM86EavvBzv06DEQgXbrQDJ_Tnl8jwYLZcjZwS02FJrGn4GRY56Y/s1600/eli+wallach.jpg" height="320" width="306" /></a><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></i></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I never lost my appetite for acting.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Eli Wallach (1915-2014)</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-88653539513117255112014-06-12T19:56:00.000-07:002014-06-12T19:56:46.372-07:00Farewell, Ruby Dee<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></i></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibVZ_wNNtFxsmfYVGka9U8lXkhEI5iBH44WQ1qVB9L3WEOHy5wkyFlAvk05S8d9vVm5s_4BvhShDVQj0kSn11wDGPOiPGWvzAl_CpZaa2eouZK0GJN8zF-rw481SVU8BQ9n9l9f7P4h-I/s1600/ruby+dee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibVZ_wNNtFxsmfYVGka9U8lXkhEI5iBH44WQ1qVB9L3WEOHy5wkyFlAvk05S8d9vVm5s_4BvhShDVQj0kSn11wDGPOiPGWvzAl_CpZaa2eouZK0GJN8zF-rw481SVU8BQ9n9l9f7P4h-I/s1600/ruby+dee.jpg" height="400" width="302" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Ruby Dee (1922-2014)</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-3580661918415840382014-05-24T23:56:00.002-07:002014-05-25T14:41:28.545-07:00Movie Review: Odds Against Tomorrow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja2-B1XQGvImXKOqyjoaFFnWpblGZestEJSLqPiwg_FKzRSJ36anCPJbHn6I3kB1z7MWVDsP_dFg0gOd5cZ_kGh0Qimln2aE-p1cyVRxDr8Ha62LfVbGQuI15928ul36Z1s1QKLY89iIw/s1600/odds+against+tomorrow+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja2-B1XQGvImXKOqyjoaFFnWpblGZestEJSLqPiwg_FKzRSJ36anCPJbHn6I3kB1z7MWVDsP_dFg0gOd5cZ_kGh0Qimln2aE-p1cyVRxDr8Ha62LfVbGQuI15928ul36Z1s1QKLY89iIw/s1600/odds+against+tomorrow+1.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i> (1959)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">directed by Robert Wise, starring Robert Ryan, Harry Belafonte, Ed Begley</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">(Note: This is my entry in the <a href="http://clamba.blogspot.com/2014/05/cmba-blogathon-fabulous-films-of-50s.html">Fabulous Films of the 50s Blogathon</a>, hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Earle Slater (Robert Ryan) is a man with little to offer the world. An ex-con twice over, middle-aged and penniless, Slater is staring down the barrel of a merciless future and he knows it. All he really has is the unconditional love of Lorry (Shelley Winters), but that love comes attached with small gifts of money that Slater hates himself for using. He needs to get some kind of score or his chance for happiness will be gone forever. So when crooked ex-cop Dave Burke (Ed Begley) comes to him with a too-good-to-be-true plan for a heist, Slater snatches it up with both hands. There's a snag, though. Burke's plan depends on the cooperation of smooth-talking musician Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) to play a delivery boy. Thing is, Ingram's black and Slater is a racist. Even with everything at stake, Slater can scarcely bear to share the same room with Ingram, let alone cooperate on a crime with him. For his part, Ingram loathes Slater completely but his own massive gambling debts force him to go along. Dave has his hands full trying to keep this shoddy little trio together. As the clock ticks down to their one chance for fortune and freedom, these three men will have to ask themselves if they really have what it takes to beat the odds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i> is film noir's answer to <i>The Defiant Ones</i>. When asked the question, "Can a bitter white racist and a proud black man put aside their differences in the interests of survival," the answer here is simply, "No." Hate is enough to overpower all other instincts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The canny trick of <i>Odds Against Tomorrow </i>is the way it eases into that question. It doesn't immediately announce itself as a social problem movie or even as a caper flick. Instead, it spends most of its running time slowly introducing us to our three main characters: the old, blindly optimistic Burke, the desperate Slater, and the troubled young Ingram. We get insight into the fears that push them forward. Burke took a fall as a crooked cop and wants to get a little of his own back before it's too late. Slater is violent and miserable, lashing out at a world that doesn't want him. Ingram is addicted to gambling and weighed down by responsibility for his ex-wife and daughter. By the time the movie gets around to the actual heist, we're fully aware that hatred isn't just a social disease or an impediment to common sense. For men like these, hate and anger are tools for survival. One way or another, they've become life's losers and the only way they can put one foot in front of the other is by finding something else to blame for their problems.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The performances in <i>Odds Against Tomorrow </i>are uniformly excellent, from the trio of inexperienced thieves to the unhappy women that love them, but what really knocked me out in <i>Odds Against Tomorrow </i>was the visual style. There was an unwritten rule in Hollywood for decades that movies about social issues had to be in a gritty, unadorned black-and-white in order to underline the seriousness of the story. Director Robert Wise takes that rule and slices right through it, avoiding both the boring, TV-episode look of other '50s kitchen sink dramas, and the gorgeous, slick camerawork of the classic film noir. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Instead, Wise's compositions borrow the best from both styles, alternating between slanted shadows and corner and disorienting, overexposed location shots. This technique creates a bleak, chilly landscape with blindingly white flashes of light along the horizon. Far from looking seductive or glamorous, the city in <i>Odds Against Tomorrow </i>looks almost as if it's gone through some kind of nuclear winter. Wise even adds in a few infra-red shots here and there, so Ryan at times is walking under a black sky with distorted white clouds. The effect is desolate and eerily beautiful. Just as Ryan and Begley's middle-aged thugs are fighting against the realization that life holds no more chances for them, the movie itself looks like the last document of a world slowly being burned out of existence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is a hard, perilous business, trying to steer the ship of Robert Wise Appreciation through the dark waters of film criticism. No matter which direction you go, you hit sharp rocks. Turn the conversation to <i>Citizen Kane </i>and Wise's editing career and you run smack into the film fans who will forever hate Wise as the scissors-wielding mediocrity who butchered <i>The Magnificent Ambersons</i>. Turn the conversation over to Wise's directing success and you inevitably run up against someone grinding their axe against <i>The Sound of Music </i>or <i>West Side Story</i>. Try to find some calmer waters with the auteurists and you find a general sense of frustration at the slippery Wise, a man who went from beguiling fantasy-horror flicks all the way to gargantuan Hollywood crowd-pleasers without much hint of personal connection to his stories. Really, the only safe place for Robert Wise love is with the film noir fans, who are quite happy to hold up <i>Born to Kill</i>, <i>The Set-Up</i>, and <i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i> with the best that film noir has to offer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I think one of the reasons Wise never quite achieves critical darling status is that he was one of the most chameleon-like of directors, subsuming himself to the demands of his story. Given a classic haunted house tale like <i>The Haunting</i>, he delivers exactly that. Given a blockbuster musical property like <i>West Side Story, </i>with its uneasy blend of passionate feeling and vague attempts at social relevance, he delivers that, too. His background in film editing seemed to give him an edge in making films that moved fluidly and consistently in whatever style he chose. With a great story, he can be superb. With <i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i>, he had a simple idea but a sharp script by Abraham Polonsky (yes, that Abraham Polonsky, blacklisted screenwriter of <i>Body and Soul </i>and <i>Force of Evil</i>, here relegated to sneaking his work in through an alias). Wise seems particularly inspired by the material and his direction here is as beautiful as anything he accomplished under Val Lewton. It's an unusual thing, to see a '50s movie about racism that looks as good as this one does.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In addition to scripting and direction, <i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i> also has the benefit of a jagged, nervous jazz score by John Lewis. The score careens back and forth from a restless background rhythm, like an onlooker tapping his toe in the background, to blasting, dissonant crescendos. The music is practically screaming at these characters to get out while they still can, but they're living in a film noir and so they don't take the warning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While Begley, Ryan, and Belafonte all do excellent work, it's no surprise that Robert Ryan emerges as the central protagonist and the most compelling character in the movie. Ryan was already a practiced hand at playing bigots (<i>Crossfire</i>, <i>Bad Day at Black Rock</i>), bullies (<i>Caught</i>) and out-and-out villains (<i>The Naked Spur</i>). Despite being shy, compassionate, and devoted to liberal causes in real life, Ryan had the ability to tap into something dark and raw onscreen that seemed to go beyond the hammy theatrics of villainy. His characters always seemed to be running away from human connection. Ryan's 6"4" frame made him tower over costars and yet there was a painful vulnerability to his tormented loners. Nobody could do self-loathing like Ryan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As Earle Slater, he's a fascinating mess of contradictions, a man who's both tender and vile. Ryan's introductory scene has him scooping up a little black girl running on the street and telling her, "You little pickaninny, you're going to kill yourself flying like that, yes you are." Ryan's voice is so gentle that the impact of the words doesn't fully register until you see him coldly rebuffing the friendly overtures of the black elevator operator, his whole body vibrating with disdain that this man dares to approach him. Slater is no less cruel in his treatment of women, either. He's brusque to girlfriend Shelley Winters, using her and cheating on her. And yet, there's a moment early on where Winters embraces him and Ryan buries his head on her chest, his eyes aching with the need for affection and understanding. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">No less striking is a scene where Ryan responds to the goads of a group of teenagers and ends up decisively punching one out. In a John Wayne movie, this would be the classic moment of the Duke proving his mettle against a callow younger generation. Here, the moment quickly turns embarrassing and awkward for Slater as the boy's whimpers and obvious pain make him look like a sadist. A bartender chastises him and Ryan's face, briefly flushed with triumph, turns confused, even childlike. "I didn't mean to hurt him." Slater's long since given into his worst impulses as a person and these brief flashes of a better nature reveal how painful life is to such a man. He knows enough to know he'll always be in the wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As Slater's forgiving girlfriend Lorry, Shelley Winters gets one particularly good exchange with Ryan. When he tries to explain his scheme as something in her best interest, because what will she do when he gets old, Winters bites back, "You are old <i>now</i>!" Her face briefly reveals a tired certainty that this man will lie to her and fail her, no matter what he promises. It says a lot for the nature of the typical Shelley Winters role that the part of Lorry, hopelessly devoted to an ex-con, is relatively confident and astute in comparison to her standard role. At least nobody's trying to murder her this time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The other two parts of the criminal trio, Begley and Belafonte, are both excellent in their respective parts. Begley has the least showy part; Burke's just the old-timer trying to make good. But Begley brings the man to life by focusing on his blind, grinning optimism. Burke is a man who knows he just <i>has </i>to score, he just has to make good, there are no other options. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Belafonte plays Ingram, the only one in the trio who's still young enough and outwardly confident enough to make good without resorting to crime. His first introduction reads like a photo-negative of Ryan's; Belafonte turns up in a shiny car, playfully offers money to all the neighborhood kids to leave the car alone and then makes friendly conversation with the same elevator operator on the way up to Burke's flat. It's only later on that we get a glimpse of the demons that torment Ingram. When charm and persuasion fail to keep his debt collectors off his back (helped along by Burke's machinations), Ingram reveals a simmering resentment and outraged pride, pounding out his frustrations at the night club and yelling out interruptions to his friend's song. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even better is a scene with his ex-wife Ruth (Kim Hamilton in a brief but lovely part). The two reveal that they're still desperately attracted to each other and they'd gladly marry again if not for their little girl. Ruth can't trust this gambler to be a good father for her daughter. Ingram reacts to her blunt resignation with a blistering tirade about his wife's white friends. "Drink enough tea with them and stay out of the watermelon patch!" Just like his mirror image Slater, Ingram can't accept that his own faults have driven him into this corner. He'll grasp at anything to avoid taking on the responsibility and this need for blame will carry him away from the real love that he wants.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, and this is the only major fault I can lay on this movie, Belafonte's rage is never as well-defined as Ryan's. His character is not so complex and while it's implied that he harbors a resentment against the injustices of the white community, his actual history is never explained. This muddles the motivation for Ingram at the end of the film, in a climax that depends on our willingness to believe that both Ingram and Slater have passed the point of reason. We've already seen that Slater has little to live for and might even welcome death. Ingram, on the other hand, has quite a lot to live for and still has plenty of hope for the future. It doesn't make much sense that he would choose hatred and vengeance over simple self-preservation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While I may quibble at the journey we take to get there, the ending of <i>Odds Against Tomorrow </i>fulfills every bleak promise that it makes. Our heroes are rewarded, maybe not as they all deserve, but by the pitiless rules of the world they live by. They are made equal in spite of themselves. And isn't equality the shining hope of every Hollywood social problem film? <i>Odds Against Tomorrow </i>is what happens when such cockeyed optimism gets rewritten in the icy language of film noir. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Aren't things ever easy for you, Earle?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Only when I get mad. Then they get too easy."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Scene:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Gloria Grahame
has a brief but unforgettable part as Ryan's neighbor, a married mother
who starts out knocking on Ryan's door for a babysitter and turns out
to be a secret sadomasochist, thrilled by the ex-con's murderous past.
Grahame starts out a little stilted in her line delivery, almost as if she's asking for a cooking recipe rather than for detailed descriptions of a manslaughter charge, but the old black magic comes out when Ryan gives into her demand and starts talking. She wants to know what it's like to kill someone and before she can backpedal back into respectability, Ryan leans in. "I enjoyed it," he murmurs into her ear, offering it up like the seduction she wants. Grahame's lids flutter with arousal, and in response, Ryan's whole body seems to relax for the first time. He keeps talking. Even before he tugs Grahame's top off to reveal her bra and the movie cuts to black, you realize that this right here is the climax he's been waiting for. This is the moment where he can live out his sadistic impulses with no shame. And yet, you can't fully be sure how much Ryan's character is really revealing himself and how much is him playing up to the desires of this woman. The performance is that good. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">There's
something poignant and almost sweet about the casting of Grahame in
such a small but still memorable part. If any woman represented the
greed, desire, and masochistic longing of the film noir genre (<i>The Big Heat</i>, <i>In a Lonely Place</i>, <i>Human Desire</i>, <i>Sudden Fear</i>),
she did. In 1959, Grahame was still beautiful, still sensual, but the
trampy, troubled women she'd played through the decade were starting to
be replaced by different types. Back in 1947, she'd co-starred with
Robert Ryan in <i>Crossfire</i>, another film that blended social issues
with crime drama. She'd been the tart, he'd been the racist. But back
then, Grahame and Ryan had been fresh on the scene and their incendiary
talents had won them critical acclaim. They were new, they were modern,
they were exciting. Now fast forward to <i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i>,
twelve years later and they're playing the same noir archetypes. They're
older, wearier, and the regrets of time are palpable. Having them
together again in a movie like this feels almost like a true goodbye to
the golden age of film noir.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Men hanged by their own dreams</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-90231962717361734312014-04-09T15:31:00.001-07:002014-07-05T20:53:10.864-07:00Book Review: John Wayne: The Life and Legend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>John Wayne: The Life and Legend</i> (2014) by Scott Eyman</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." In the film <i>The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance</i>, this most famous of Western lines comes as the final death blow to a man's idealism. Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart), the supposed hero, realizes in an instant that his life, career, and love have been handed to him by the man he can never repay, the real man who shot Liberty Valance, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). He can't even make the gesture of telling the truth; nobody will believe him and nobody wants to. The words are sardonic, a cold summation of the entire Western genre.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">John Wayne's not even in the scene; his character is dead by the movie's end. But to anyone who knows a little about John Wayne, it's hard not to take those words as an equally accurate summation of the Duke himself. This is after all, the same man who defined onscreen masculinity for over three decades. This was Hollywood's most famous cowboy, the indomitable hero of the frontier; even as the rest of the world changed around him, Wayne remained the same. However, as Scott Eyman makes clear in his latest biography,<i> John Wayne: The Life and Legend</i>, for Wayne, the words "printing the legend" would not have been an insult. For him, they would have been a badge of honor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Scott Eyman has tackled many difficult subjects before, including Cecil B. DeMille (<i>Empire of Dreams</i>), Louis B. Mayer (<i>Lion of Hollywood</i>), and John Ford (<i>Print the Legend</i>). In the case of John Wayne however, the challenge is not about struggling to find material or sifting through contradictory interviews. It's about trying to write a nuanced portrait of an actor who, despite his obvious intelligence, talent, and ambition, so often seemed to be deliberately trying to erase any nuance or contradiction from his life. At some point, the man and the myth blended together for all time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Born Marion Morrison in 1907, Wayne grew up as a bright, well-liked boy in Glendale, California, the son of a cold, ambitious mother and a kind but shiftless father. Despite the anti-intellectual image he would gain later in life, Wayne was a top student, one who liked reading and schoolwork as well as athletics. As he loved to point out to people, he could say "isn't" just as well as "ain't." Although he liked to act as if the movies were something he just fell into on accident, beginning as an extra and a prop man on the Fox lot, Eyman paints the portrait of a serious, dedicated actor who was eager to learn everything he could right from the start. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Although he got a huge push by starring in <i>The Big Trail</i> in 1930 (a well-publicized but expensive flop), Wayne ended up in the back-breaking, frenetic world of the old Western serials and B-movies for the rest of the decade. He wouldn't really break into the big time until John Ford chose him to star in one of the most influential Westerns of all time, 1939's <i>Stagecoach</i>. His appearance as the soft-spoken, tough, and honorable Ringo Kid set the basic outline for the iconic John Wayne character. Rough around the edges but a gentleman at heart. Honest and direct. Doesn't lose a fight. Never backs down. Never gives up. In his long career, Wayne would stretch this basic characterization in many different directions, giving audiences the flinty, vengeful Tom Dunson in <i>Red River</i>, the drunken Rooster Cogburn in <i>True Grit</i>, the romantic Sean Thornton in <i>The Quiet Man</i>, and, in the biggest gamble of all, the anti-hero Ethan Edwards in <i>The Searchers</i>, an enigmatic, hate-filled man who comes close to redemption and love, but can never, ever find it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If there's one main flaw to Scott Eyman's otherwise meticulous, well-researched, and generous work on John Wayne here, it's this: he doesn't spend enough time talking about the performances. Of course, I realize that's likely my own personal bias talking here. When I read movie star biographies, it's the movies and the performances that I want to hear about. I'd much rather read about the tragic dimensions of Ethan Edwards and Wayne's approach to the role than I would his thoughts on Nixon. In fairness to Eyman, he makes it clear that he's not trying to analyze the movies themselves, but the life surrounding those movies. And in that regard, he does an excellent job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Like his previous work on Cecil B. DeMille, Eyman is a master at reclaiming respect for artists whose divisive politics and wholehearted embrace of ideas now considered corny and out-of-date can sometimes lead modern audiences to dismiss them. The John Wayne that comes across in this book is a thoughtful, multi-talented, and hard-working actor, one who liked Noel Coward and J.R.R. Tolkein more than Zane Grey and one who took on all the burdens of idealized image with good grace. Wayne knew that he owed all his success to his audience and he believed it was his responsibility to live up to that image. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This belief would cost him plenty. Although he played the soldier many times onscreen, Wayne never served in World War II and this failure ate at him, fueling the macho militarism he would express later in life. He was equally controlling of his onscreen behavior, turning down any role that would stray too far from his image. Because he was so adept at keeping his image intact, Wayne would often be accused of being a movie star instead of a serious actor. Someone who just kept "playing himself." Eyman has no patience for that kind of labeling and his account of Wayne is admiring but unapologetic. He doesn't shy away from the many uncomfortable things Wayne said and did in his later years, but he does try to keep them in context.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Just like John Wayne's films, Eyman's biography is at its most compelling when the Duke is desperate and driven rather than when he's comfortable and secure. The stretches detailing his long career in the poverty-row Westerns are a standout; Eyman's descriptions of the unrelenting pace and harsh conditions make them sound roughly on par with a stint in the Marines. Cast and crew worked grueling hours, subsisted on a milk-and-bread concoction called "graveyard stew," and tried to look tough standing in front of ramshackle sets so cheap that the crew would paint them no higher than the leading man's head. In one memorable anecdote, Wayne and Yakima Canutt, the great stuntman, end up being ordered to a 5 A.M. shoot at a rock quarry in the San Fernando Valley, just after coming off a midnight studio shooting the very same night. Wayne was forced to borrow a friend's car, tear home for a few hour's sleep, and then rush to the still-dark quarry. There, he found Canutt waiting in the dark, the first man on set, huddled silently next to a fire. Canutt remarked, "It doesn't take very long to spend all night out here." After that, the two men were friends for life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For all their faults, the cheap Westerns and serials gave Wayne a great deal to carry with him. An unfailing work ethic. An appreciation for the rough-and-tumble camaraderie that could develop on the movie set. And above all, it instilled in him a deep gratitude for his later stardom and for the man who helped him reach it, John Ford. Wayne never forgot those ten, frustrating years before <i>Stagecoach</i>. Even though he had to bear the brunt of Ford's legendary sadism on set, to an extent that made even other Ford veterans shake their heads in wonder, his loyalty and admiration for "Pappy" never wavered. The man famous for taking no guff from anyone on or off-screen, the man who never backed down from a fight, was strangely docile when it came to Ford. By comparison, the teenage Natalie Wood had no problem telling the venerated director to "go shit in his hat" when he told her off during filming of <i>The Searchers</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The relationship between John Ford and John Wayne is perhaps the deepest mystery to be found in Eyman's biography. By comparison, his three failed marriages (all to fierce, proud Hispanic women--the Duke had a type) are relatively uninteresting by Hollywood standards. Whenever he played romance onscreen, Wayne was the strong man out of his element. He was humbled but never fully domesticated by his own tender feelings. It made him the perfect costar for Maureen O'Hara; she was strong enough to stand her own against him, but tender enough to bring out his softer side. Eyman pays indifferent lip service to Hollywood rumor that Wayne was in love with O'Hara as well as the somewhat more credible one that he was in love with the beautiful and tragic Gail Russell (his costar in<i> Angel and the Badman</i> and <i>Wake of the Red Witch</i>). But thankfully, Eyman is uninterested in gossip and scandal. He's far more concerned with the many enduring friendships John Wayne made and the great movies that came out of them. In fact, Eyman's so thorough in uncovering each and every positive thing ever said by someone who knew John Wayne that I almost started to pine for something negative, if only to add a little spice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, <i>John Wayne: The Life and Legend </i>succeeds in its primary goal: to tell the life and legend of John Wayne. Few actors could so easily lay claim to the title "legendary" as John Wayne. And few biographers could tackle so weighty a subject with the even-handed eloquence and tactful appreciation that Eyman gives us here. For any fans of Wayne or even for people looking to find out more about him, this book makes a great start. It's long but leaves you feeling like there's so much more to discover.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." True, but there's still a thousand different ways to tell that legend. I'm glad I got to read this one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Intelligent, balanced account of Wayne's life</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Note: This book was given to me as a review copy by Simon & Schuster. It is currently available for purchase at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/John-Wayne-The-Life-Legend/dp/1439199582">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/john-wayne-scott-eyman/1115884853?ean=9781439199589&itm=1&usri=9781439199589&cm_mmc=AFFILIATES-_-Linkshare-_-PwUJvmDcu1U-_-10:1&r=1,%201">Barnes & Noble</a>, <a href="http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?isbn=1439199582">Books-A-Million</a>, <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781439199589">Indiebound</a>, and directly from the Simon & Schuster <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/John-Wayne-The-Life-and-Legend/Scott-Eyman/9781439199589">website</a>.</span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-55889071399490275072014-04-07T13:42:00.002-07:002014-04-07T13:42:49.433-07:00Farewell, Mickey Rooney<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I don't regret anything I've ever done. I only wish I could do more.</span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)</span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-62318343954815695182014-03-21T00:00:00.000-07:002014-03-21T00:18:29.413-07:00Movie Review: Phantom Lady<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Phantom Lady</i> (1944)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">directed by Robert Siodmak, starring Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Franchot Tone</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Note: This is my entry in the <a href="http://moviessilently.com/2014/03/16/sleuthathon-the-great-classic-detective-blogathon-is-here/">Sleuthathon</a>, hosted by <a href="http://moviessilently.com/">Movies, Silently</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) is a man with one hell of a problem on his hands. He arrives home late one night and walks right into a welcome committee of sneering cops, who lead him to the strangled corpse of his estranged wife. Scott swears his innocence, but his only alibi is a flimsy little story about going to a bar and meeting a mysterious woman. He doesn't know the woman's name and can barely remember what she looks like except for one tiny detail: she was wearing a strange hat. By coincidence, the singer at the show they attended together was was wearing the very same hat. Police Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez) is sympathetic to the hapless Scott, but it doesn't matter; everyone who supposedly saw Scott and the "phantom lady" swear it never happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Scott's fate is sealed. He's found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. But luckily for him, there's one person still fighting tooth and nail to save him: his loyal secretary Carol "Kansas" Richman. Secretly in love with her oblivious boss, Kansas is determined to track down the witnesses and force a confession out of one of them. Even if it means stalking men down alleys or seducing them or throwing herself into danger. Yet even with all her pluck and determination, Kansas is stymied time and again as the witnesses keep dying or disappearing. She enlists the help of Inspector Burgess and Scott's best friend Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone), but they likewise prove powerless. And all the while, the clock is running out for Scott. As impossible as it seems, the fate of one man's life might just depend on them tracking down that one strange hat and the phantom lady who wears it...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Ella Raines is one of Hollywood's more intriguing almost-success stories. The slinky brunette beauty with cat-like green eyes turns up in endless '40s glamor photos and she has some major movies to her name (<i>Brute Force</i>, <i>Hail the Conquering Hero</i>) but somehow she never became a box office draw on her own. Raines was discovered by Howard Hawks and the connection makes total sense when you see her on screen. Even in movies like <i>Phantom Lady </i>and <i>The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry</i>, where she plays straight-talking "good eggs," there's an icy confidence to Raines, a challenging sneer lurking under the smile. She doesn't necessarily come across as a major acting talent but that cool charisma was tailor-made for a Hawks heroine. And yet oddly enough, after building her up for a minor role in <i>Corvette K-225</i>, Hawks apparently lost interest and signed her over to Universal. <i>Phantom Lady </i>was really her first major starring role and in retrospect, one of the best parts she would ever get.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Raines is the magnetic center of <i>Phantom Lady</i>, playing an archetypal "gal Friday" who turns out to be an amazing combination of Mata Hari, Nancy Drew, and the Terminator. Her character should come off as a mere stack of cliches, a lovelorn secretary turned girl detective and all for the sake of a very dull man. But in the hands of director Robert Siodmak and Ella Raines, Kansas is a relentless force of nature. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A more traditional movie might simply have had the secretary going around and politely questioning people. Instead, <i>Phantom Lady</i> gives us a fascinating series of scenes where Kansas relentless stalks one of the witnesses, the barman who claims never to have seen the mystery woman. Night after night, she turns up at the bar and sit, her eyes fixed on him. Cold, implacable, silent. The barman slowly starts to crack up under the pressure. What does this dame want from him? One night, he goes home after locking up the bar and she starts to follow him. No matter how far he walks, he can hear the click of her heels behind him. Raines looks delicate and vulnerable in the flickering shadows, wrapped in her translucent raincoat and yet, for once, the frightened woman in the alley is also the pitiless avenger. I won't give away what happens when Raines finally catches up to her man but it's enough to send a shiver down your back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even more striking is the film's most famous sequence where Kansas tarts herself up as a swinging floozy, complete with jangling jewelery, chewing gum, and a hot-to-trot attitude, and descends into a jazz club to track down the drummer (Elisha Cook Jr.) She's determined to find one witness who'll talk, even if she has to let this sweaty, panting guy paw her all over. It's one of the film's odd little twists that the sexual energy between Cook Jr. and Raines feels palpable and not entirely fake, with Cook Jr. speeding up the tempo of his drum beats to impress this gorgeous creature giving him the eye. She professes her interest in him and in jazz ("I'm a hep kitten") and he takes her back to where his buddies hang out. Siodmak really goes to town here, creating a feverish, gleefully perverse atmosphere that almost swallows our heroine up then and there. You can practically smell the reefer in the air. The images and angles feel like a direct nod to Siodmak's roots in German Expressionism; he alternates between huge closeups and low angle shots that let the musicians loom threateningly even as they keep pouring out the notes, faster and faster. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Cook Jr. starts pounding on the drum so fast, you start to worry he'll have a heart attack. And all the while, Raines is there, laughing, throwing her head back, urging him on. She bares her teeth and looks at Cook Jr like she wants to devour him. Despite the jazz music blasting away, her gestures feel like something straight out of a silent horror film. It's bizarre and thrilling to watch. There's no girl detective here; Raines plays the scene almost like she's become possessed. And yet, once the scene is over and Elisha Cook Jr. goes on to fulfill his role in the plot (I won't give away this one either but if you're an Elisha Cook Jr. fan, you already know how most of his roles end), the movie never feels compelled to comment on what we just witnessed. Either we're supposed to assume that Kansas is a master actress, or we have to believe that buried under that common sense and courage is something kind of bestial and repellent, something she lets out this one time and then never reveals to us again. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-MiBtYucIpWRyEWTv03GIVn6zgX4Gw71t_D7aC3CU7Y4OanST1J1zsOD1EnT2228lTIJDnqCGk4ph4rreMfMiPdwwhUwb82EDeQcaNG1N3bINVIvHlHyU43GgA-xFVp1cGN4505ZthY/s1600/phantom+lady+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-MiBtYucIpWRyEWTv03GIVn6zgX4Gw71t_D7aC3CU7Y4OanST1J1zsOD1EnT2228lTIJDnqCGk4ph4rreMfMiPdwwhUwb82EDeQcaNG1N3bINVIvHlHyU43GgA-xFVp1cGN4505ZthY/s1600/phantom+lady+2.jpg" height="301" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I really like the ambiguity <i>Phantom Lady </i>gives to Kansas and I only wish it had been able to maintain the weirdness for the entire movie. Raines still gives us a fine performance throughout and Siodmak keeps giving us shot after shot to love (Did the man ever make a bad-looking movie?). But it must be admitted that one of the weaknesses of <i>Phantom Lady </i>is that outside of Raines and the excellent character actors Thomas Gomez and Elisha Cook Jr., it really doesn't have any performances or characters worth noting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Generally, I'm a sucker for the whole wisecracking-secretary-in-love-with-her-boss plot. Movies like <i>Footlight Parade, Wife vs. Secretary</i>, and even something recent like <i>Iron Man </i>just get their hooks into me and I couldn't tell you why. But man, Ella Raines could hardly have picked a less interesting object of her affections than Alan Curtis. You can pretty much sum up Curtis and his performance in an early scene where the police roughly question him over his wife's murder. His eyes fill with tears and he mumbles, "I thought guys didn't cry." The line is silly enough as it is, but Curtis' trembling delivery sends it straight into "teenager who just got cut from the football team" territory. And then one of the cops practically jams a cigarette in Curtis' mouth, like someone silencing a squalling infant with a baby bottle. I feel like somewhere out there is an outtake of this scene with the cop rolling his eyes and saying, "Christ, man, will you at least try to remember what kind of movie we're in here?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But, in the interests of fairness, Curtis isn't meant to be the main lead here. He's just the object of our heroine's devotion and frankly, the movie would have worked better if her motivation had been friendship rather than unrequited love. No, our male lead here is actually smooth-as-a-hat-band Franchot Tone, who strolls into the movie halfway through, playing Scott's best friend Jack. His arrival also coincides with a decrease in the energy and drive of Kansas' character. Not that she becomes weak exactly, but we suddenly get a lot more scenes of her talking with Jack and Inspector Burgess and demurely standing around. It's the great danger of being a female sleuth in a classic Hollywood mystery; once the male lead shows up, you're going to find yourself being elbowed out of the spotlight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The mystery in and of itself is not particularly compelling and the movie ends up shooting itself in the foot by revealing the real killer halfway through. If the murderer was a particularly compelling character, this wouldn't matter so much, but he isn't, and we have to endure an awful lot of rambling from him about hands and the power in those hands and what they can do. It's about as terrifying as that guy handing out pamphlets on a street corner and wanting to tell you his theories on life. And then the murderer just keeps hanging around while we wait for one of the others to catch on. It's quite a let-down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For all the
illogical little plot conveniences strewn through the script, I do have
to take issue with one particular bit of nonsense. The movie makes a big
deal out of the "strange" hat that the mystery woman was wearing. This
hat was<i> </i>so strange, so unique, you would know it anywhere, and so
on. And yet, when we finally get a look at the damn hat, it doesn't
look all that different from any other bizarre Hollywood concoction of
the time. You can't scare me, 1940s milliners! I've already seen <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiANuT9bhDmElkLuHq4RNQZuMdZ2PzR-vl9B1kzaKN7fZkvB8oMBC4lyWJ9b3QfcSAXwYGfQiD9pX5UghLCoEZ65HM-tUrRgedUzaf6ERXlD1uQYv6wNQVrTHoufcyGTALjsY7qS1I-hQ9E/s1600/kay+miniver.jpg">this</a>. And <a href="http://acertaincinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Dorothy-Lamour-hat-49.jpg">this</a></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">. I've even survived <a href="http://.%20i%27ve%20even%20survived%20this./">this</a>. Don't promise me a funny hat, movie, and not deliver the goods.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">However, what makes <i>Phantom Lady</i> an enjoyable film is not its plotting or its cliches or its hats. It's that wonderful, bizarre, Alice-in-Wonderland vibe that we get during Kansas' foray into the underworld. Robert Siodmak's direction is strong enough to lift a rather prosaic mystery into full-on nightmarish territory; I only wish the script had been sharp enough to keep up with him. I only wish it had been sharp enough to keep up with Ella Raines, too, who really does deliver a strong, startling performance, creating a female sleuth who'll definitely linger in your mind. But even if the movie ultimately decides to settle for convention, nothing could really dent the vibrant energy of the first half of the movie. It's proof enough that a few great scenes is enough to make a movie worthwhile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Quote:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"What a place. I can feel the rats in the walls."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Favorite Scene:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's really a toss-up between the scene of Kansas stalking the bartender and the scene of her with the jazz musicians. I like the ambiguity of the stalking more as a character thing but the imagery of her in the backroom jazz club is too powerful to ignore. So, in the end, I'll go with the jazz. She and Cook Jr. make some creepy, amazing music together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Final Six Words:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The grime glitters most of all </span>Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3193750673421600279.post-64124473139951754822014-03-05T00:57:00.001-08:002014-03-21T00:19:58.449-07:00Book Review: Five Came Back<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War </i>(2014) by Mark Harris</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I had incredibly high expectations for Mark Harris' latest book on film history. His previous work, <i>Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood</i>, was one of the most praised books of 2009. I have vivid memories of buying it for my mom for Christmas, thinking to myself, "It's about movies in 1967, Mom was a young woman in 1967, she'll like it." Well, it wasn't two hours after Mom unwrapped it that I ended up being the one sitting cross-legged under the tree and reading away, utterly engrossed. Eventually, I did let her read it, but then I promptly stole it back. It's now got a permanent place of honor on my bookshelf. I've also been reading Harris' Grantland articles for some time; he's one of the few film critics I've found who can dissect Oscar races without sounding like a jaded traveler on the world's longest and most boring tour bus. So when I found out that Harris was going to be tackling a new full-length subject in <i>Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War</i>, I marked my calendar. Expectations like that have crushed books far less modest than this one. So I'm happy to say that <i>Five Came Back</i> is every bit the book I hoped it would be.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Like <i>Pictures at a Revolution</i>, <i>Five Came Back </i>zeroes in on five very different subjects, weaving their histories together and giving full weight to the dreams and ambitions that drove them. But <i>Pictures at a Revolution </i>was the story of a competition; it was the battle between five Best Picture nominees and their radically different attempts to reach out to the audiences of 1967. Here, Harris once again goes back to the number five, giving us the tale of how five Hollywood directors walked away from successful careers and into World War II: John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler, John Huston, and George Stevens. But while there was a spirit of friendly competition between these men, it paled next to the camaraderie and artistic respect they all shared. <i>Five Came Back</i> is one of those rare books about Hollywood that can look unflinchingly at the foibles and ambitions of its insiders and lets you walk away feeling <i>more</i> fond of them, not less.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">The opening chapters of <i>Five Came Back</i> invite irresistible comparisons to those "assemble a crack team" montages that you would get in a caper film. Even the directors' personalities easily graft onto the old archetypes. You have John Ford, the crotchety mentor figure, dropping paternal and ever-contradictory bits of wisdom. Frank Capra, the energetic and ravenously ambitious promoter. William Wyler, the cerebral perfectionist and, as a European Jew, the only one with a personal connection to the war. John Huston, the hard-drinking, cocksure daredevil, looking to prove himself in battle. George Stevens, the thoughtful and quietly troubled introvert. All of these men voluntarily left Hollywood, putting their own viability and reputation as artists on hold, in order to go overseas and document the war.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">World War II was the first time in American history that filmmakers were enlisted in the art of packaging a a war for the American public. It was their images that brought home to viewers the reality of the situation abroad, even as that reality was pressed and molded into a patriotic vision. All of them knew and embraced the fact that they were enlisted in order to make propaganda. Before he started work on his series of wartime documentary films, Frank Capra watched <i>Triumph of the Will</i> and walked away shaken to the core. "I could see where the kids of Germany would go to any place, die for this guy...they knew what they were doing--they understood how to reach the mind...how do I reach the American kid down the street?" The challenge of wartime filmmaking was always to find that perfect combination, balancing the need to educate with the need to entertain. If filmmakers were too brutal with their imagery, the Army protested and refused to let the films be released. If they resorted to reenactments and corny dialogue, the increasingly-jaded audiences back home would jeer at them.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">One of the more fascinating and endearing elements of <i>Five Came Back</i> is watching these men forget the demands of the war and succumb to their own artistic instincts. William Wyler, no one's idea of a reckless he-man, ended up risking himself time and time again crouched in a bomber plane, angling for the best shots. It would eventually cost him the hearing in one ear. John Huston was criticized by the War Department because his groundbreaking war film, <i>The Battle of San Pietro</i>, with its emphasis on death and destruction, was "anti-war." Huston snapped back that if he ever made a film that was pro-war, he hoped someone would take him out and shoot him. No matter the physical danger or the army bureaucracy or the interests of the public. Ford, Wyler, Huston, Capra, and Stevens found ways to practice their art.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Despite his full-throttle devotion to the war and the acclaim given to his documentary series <i>Why We Fight</i>, Frank Capra emerges as the only director whose career never recovered from the war. He was the only one of the five who never actually got to film anything on the front lines. Instead, his Army career was spent organizing, wrangling resources, and fighting with government officials. It's hard to feel sorry for anyone as endlessly bombastic and self-aggrandizing as Capra but after reading Harris, I couldn't help but sympathize with the man. Unlike the rest of his colleagues, Capra's post-war career was a straight slope down, fulfilling all his secret insecurities. His bag of tricks no longer charmed audiences. The new interest in realism and soul-searching had no place in Capra's fables. Harris pointedly makes a comparison between the first films Wyler and Capra made after their return. Wyler made a strikingly realistic film about the toll of war on ordinary people. Capra made a fantasy about a man who's lost his youthful dreams and craves the assurance that he's still needed by the world.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">George
Stevens, despite being somewhat neglected by critics over the past several
decades (Stevens is the only director featured here with just one full-length
biography to his name) stands out as perhaps the most fascinating character in <i>Five Came Back</i>. Stevens had built up his
name as a director of sophisticated comedies, working his way up from Laurel
and Hardy shorts to Fred Astaire musicals (including the indelible <i>Swing
Time</i>) and polished romances like <i>Vivacious Lady</i>, <i>Woman of the Year</i>,
and <i>The More the Merrier</i>. Despite his gift for humor, Stevens in person
was contradictory and taciturn. He had a habit of falling into a trance-like
state on his movie sets while he pondered what had gone wrong. Carole Lombard
memorably summed it up: “I just (realized) what that pacing and thoughtful look
of Stevens’ means—not a goddamn thing!"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Unlike Huston and Ford, Stevens went into the war without really craving adventure or a test of manly hardship. He was an asthmatic and a family man (Harris quotes extensively from Stevens' affectionate letters to his son back home and it's hard not to like Stevens after reading them). Yet it was Stevens who ended up taking his cameras into the unforeseen horrors of Dachau. It was Stevens who kept his eye to the lens, compulsively recording everything he saw, allowing nobody else to relieve him. "You can send three or four guys out with some weapons to do something, but I couldn't send anybody into the goddamn boxcar," Stevens remembered later. "I had to do it." Audiences of the time would barely get even a glimpse of Stevens' footage. Instead, the reels would be played for the judges at Nuremberg. As for Stevens, after he returned, he never watched the Dachau films again. And he never made another comedy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The title of Harris' book is <i>Five Came Back</i>, not <i>Five Went to War</i>, and the distinction is an important one. When Wyler, Ford, Capra, Stevens, and Huston came back home, they were irrevocably changed from the men they'd been before. They'd played many roles throughout the war. Sometimes they'd been the decorated officers and sometimes they'd been the lonely cameramen, scrambling for just one perfect shot. They were the stoic witnesses to suffering and the impassioned artists demanding attention. None of them were saints. None of them were born soldiers. But they went to the front anyway and the images they saw would stay with them for the rest of their lives. And fortunately for us, they used what they learned, came back, and gave us some of the greatest movies ever made.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Final
Six Words:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Reasoned and just, entertaining and essential</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: small;">Note: I received an advance copy of this book from The Penguin Press (Penguin Group). It is available for purchase from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Five-Came-Back-Hollywood-Second/dp/1594204306/ref=la_B001JP8L92_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394008719&sr=1-1">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/five-came-back-mark-harris/1115811808?ean=9781594204302">Barnes & Noble</a>. </span></span></span></div>
Aubynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00446079492480611898noreply@blogger.com2