The TCM Ten 6/28-7/4 June 28, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, The TCM Ten , add a commentGoing against my usual policy, several of these films are on DVD already, but most aren’t in definitive editions and the movies themselves are still relatively underappreciated. As always, all times are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.
Saturday June 28
8:00 PM The Spiral Staircase (Siodmak, 1945) - BW-84 mins. - It’s on DVD in R1, but Siodmak is a favorite and his films during this period were excellent. Dorothy McGuire plays a mute girl who’s threatened by a serial killer targeting the handicapped. Ethel Barrymore picked up an Oscar nomination, as she also did for Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case which follows.
Sunday June 29
10:00 AM Force of Evil (Polonsky, 1948) - BW-79 mins. - Great little film noir starring John Garfield as a lawyer whose brother (Thomas Gomez) is part of the numbers racket he wants to end. A tough, dynamic movie and it was Abraham Polonsky’s first as director. Polonsky would soon be blacklisted and unable to really direct again until 1969’s Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. The R1 DVD was put out by Republic and could use an upgrade. It’s cheap, at least. The film’s rights must be in some sort of odd situation become MGM is listed as the original distributor, but Republic put out both VHS and DVD editions.
12:00 AM Phantom (Murnau, 1922) - BW-117 mins. - Already out in R1 from Flicker Alley and soon to come from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema label (apparently later this year), F.W. Murnau’s silent classic nevertheless gets a rare television showing. Probably not the ideal starting point in diving into the director’s work, but not a terrible one either.
2:00 AM The Fifth Horseman is Fear (Brynych, 1968) - BW-99 mins. - I’m shocked TCM is showing this at all because it’s more obscure than their usual “TCM Imports” selections. The Czech film replaces the originally scheduled showing of Fellini’s Satyricon. Facets released an edition in R1 and I’ve read that it’s a surprisingly competent transfer. Someone at Amazon commented that a scene was cut, though, and I’m not sure whether TCM will be airing the same print. Regardless, the film sounds enormously interesting, with a plot set during WWII and concerning a Jewish doctor in Czechoslovakia who helps an injured political fugitive. The channel’s schedule doesn’t indicate it’s letterboxed, which would be a problem especially since the aspect ratio is 2.35:1, but hopefully it will be.
Tuesday July 1
6:30 PM Crime School (Seiler, 1938) - BW-85 mins. - Remake/reworking of The Mayor of Hell, replacing Cagney with Bogart. I didn’t even like the earlier film very much, but anything with Bogart in a lead role that isn’t on DVD should probably warrant a mention. It’s a Warner Bros. title.
12:30 AM My Sister Eileen (Hall, 1942) - BW-97 mins. - Really interesting origins here. The film is based on stories by Ruth McKenney, who moved from Ohio to New York with her sister Eileen. Rosalind Russell plays Ruth while Janet Blair is Eileen. The real life Eileen married novelist Nathanel West, but their union was short as the couple died in a car accident just eight months after the wedding. Russell, TCM’s star of the month, received an Oscar nomination for her role here. The film is not on DVD and was made by Columbia, leaving the dreaded Sony with its rights.
2:15 AM No Time for Comedy (Keighley, 1940) - BW-93 mins. - Rosalind Russell also plays the lead in this film, co-starring James Stewart. The two are married, with Stewart a playwright specializing in comedy and Russell his lead. He’s persuaded to try his hand at tragedy, but the results are underwhelming and life-altering. Interestingly, Stewart’s role was apparently played by Laurence Olivier on Broadway, according to an IMDb reviewer. The Epstein brothers, who would go on to write the Casablanca screenplay, did the adaptation. It’s unavailable on DVD and was done for Warner Bros.
Wednesday July 2
9:00 AM The Feminine Touch (Van Dyke, 1941) - BW-98 mins. - More Russell, but this time with Don Ameche. The two are married and he’s a college professor who’s written a book, but publisher Van Heflin is much more interested in Roz than the book. Van Dyke’s specialty was the romantic comedy (and he cranked ‘em out with abandon), but the cast here, also including Kay Francis as Ameche’s editor, seems quite strong. It sounds like the kind of airy escapism that I love from the studio system. The studio in question here would be MGM, putting Warner Bros. in control of the DVD rights. It’s currently unreleased.
1:30 AM Dancing Co-Ed (Simon, 1939) - BW-84 mins. - A very early Lana Turner vehicle (she would have been 18 at best when it was made) that’s controlled by Warner Bros. (made for MGM) and not on DVD. The plot is something about a contest search for a dancer. Artie Shaw plays himself. I believe the film airs as part of TCM’s July focus on big bands. That also sets up several shorts playing on the schedule, frequently late at night. Perhaps the best musical live action short ever made in Hollywood happens to get an airing early in the morning, at 5:10 AM. The wonderful and mesmerizing Jammin’ the Blues is a must-see. It’s available from Warner Bros. on DVD, but you have to to buy the entire Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection Vol. 2 because the disc it’s a supplement on (Passage to Marseille) is exclusive to that set. However, it can also apparently be found on a release entitled Improvisation that features other jazz-related curios.
Thursday July 3
4:45 AM What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (Allen, 1966) - C-80 mins. - Woody Allen’s first film as director, wherein he famously re-dubbed a Japanese movie to center the plot around an egg salad recipe. I recently discovered that the R1 DVD has gone out of print and is fetching some pretty decent prices. Those who’d just like to watch the movie will get that chance here. If you have to have it on DVD, Optimum released a disc in R2 earlier this year and it’s cheaper to import than to dive into the secondary market for the R1.
Harakiri June 21, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , 5 comments
Living where I do and having an interest in some form of the popular arts (film, music, literature) has allowed for many opportunities to view people whom I admire up close. It’s a weird sensation, undoubtedly, but even stranger is when it stops seeming like a big deal. I never have anything worthwhile to say or ask so I usually just politely demur or thank the person if there’s an autograph involved. I’m always (overly) cognizant of trying to avoid embarrassing myself, first and foremost, and, additionally, not bothering anyone more than is absolutely necessary. I rarely take pictures, not because I wouldn’t like to have them, but more to avoid the trouble. So I play the role of observer and soak it all in. This establishes a bit of a routine that prevents nervousness and the like, but also keeps me from losing my marbles when so-and-so is a few feet away, especially if I’ve watched/read/listened to so-and-so’s work enough to imprint their sensibilities somewhere in the midst of my own budding tastes and opinions.
That’s a long, explanatory introduction to my experience of watching a beautiful Scope print of Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri at Film Forum and then immediately watching the film’s star, Tatsuya Nakadai, get up from his seat three rows in front of mine to read a few prepared statements and take questions from the small, 150-member or so audience. Difficult to not be affected by that kind of breaking of a 46-year-old fourth wall. The idea that Nakadai, whose films essentially are Japanese cinema of the 1960s, would be in the same place where I was still seems unimaginable. This is arguably Japan’s greatest, most versatile movie star. I’m with the Mifune mifunites as much as the next person, but Nakadai has him beat in terms of a filmography to rival most any actor in any country at any time. Nakadai’s versatility alone, moving from Kobayashi’s The Human Condition trilogy and Harakiri to The Face of Another, films with Kon Ichikawa, Mikio Naruse and Hideo Gosha, and starring in Kurosawa’s two epic achievements of the 1980s, Kagemusha and Ran, remains astounding. I’m not saying he’s Japan’s best actor or that Mifune was inferior, only that Nakadai showed a greater range and worked with a wider array of directorial talent than Mifune. I wouldn’t trade the latter for anyone, but if someone put a tantō against the skin covering of my entrails, I’d pick Nakadai over Mifune.
With that unpleasant image in mind, how about upgrading to the entirely gruesome shot of Akira Ishihama trying to commit the film’s titular act with a dagger made of bamboo. On DVD, reclining on one’s couch in privacy’s creature comforts, the scene feels affecting and uncomfortable. But projected onto a large screen, in a darkened room with a full audience, it’s nearly unbearable. The black and white cinematography hardly mitigates the palpable pain, even if the blood is inky black instead of deep red. That crude oil look that blood has in black and white films seems to be far more effective than the distractingly fake stuff of horror movies and Peckinpah westerns. Unless I’m seeing internal organs, this scene in Harakiri ranks with any in terms of audience discomfort. When the viewer is sitting helpless in a screening room, hardly able to even avert one’s eyes, the excruciating length of time Kobayashi lets it play out is squirm cinema at its best. Part of the scene’s extraordinary nature is that it comes in a film that’s largely nonviolent and only contains any action sequences in its very last part, which even then Kobayashi playfully avoids showing in their entirety.
Still, I think those final, vengeance-infused showdowns between Nakadai and everyone else, scored to perfection by Tôru Takemitsu, are what the viewer largely takes away from Harakiri. The actor admitted after the screening that he couldn’t compete with Mifune’s madman swordsmanship, but Kobayashi’s film is only concerned with the climactic scenes of Nakadai against everyone else in the aftermath of a great deal of background having already been established. Though Kobayashi aligned himself with the popular reading of the film as a plainly harsh attack against feudal Japan, as well as the more modern powers behind the country’s entry in World War II, I also think it’s important to remember how essential the title is. This is a film about, concerned with, and in critique of the practice of seppuku, and one wholly without an endorsement. It’s like the samurai equivalent of suicide bombing. Nakadai’s own words, when answering a not entirely well thought out question from an audience member, probably sum things up best. He said something to the effect of not being able to support any government that requires its citizens to kill themselves, regardless of the reason.
As an increasingly conflicted American who hopes to soon find the flame of hope in his own country, it’s too easy to forget the courage of filmmakers and actors like Kobayashi and Nakadai. Japan is hardly the first nation one associates with radical directors of the 1960s, despite the somewhat subtle subversions everywhere in the films of Teshigahara, Imamura, and Oshima, but the ones who did place their politics on screen did so with extreme skill. Certainly Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain is one of the most striking and compelling films against the practice of war that I’ve seen. Kobayashi was apparently outspoken all along, somehow navigating through Japan’s studio system for years before turning independent. Harakiri is a stark slap against the cheek of the country’s insincere history on film. Kurosawa romanticized the samurai to an extreme that wasn’t completely his fault, but nevertheless remains to this day. How many wasteful Americans proudly own an “authentic” samurai sword? The answer: too many.
I’m in the minority, but I’ll gladly take Harakiri over any of Kurosawa’s samurai films, or anyone else’s, for that matter. By facing the glaring hypocrisy head on and without apology, Kobayashi destroyed the Western myth of samurai as honorable warrior with one deft slash across cinema. There are few images more damning against a nation’s symbolic heritage than Nakadai destroying the armor edifice late in Kobayashi’s film. The director, as well as Shinobu Hashimoto’s expanded adaptation of the source material, simply refused to adhere to Kurosawa’s wandering ronin populist images found in Yojimbo just one year earlier. Harakiri’s retainers are insects with swords. They obey the orders of a corrupt master without considering any consequences, ethical or otherwise. As Kobayashi brilliantly lays out both with contained subtlety and obvious conviction, true honor is a foreign concept to these men. There’s the idea of maintaining total conviction to the samurai calling, but it’s all at the expense of freethinking. The parallels, essentially, are abundant for any military-based dictatorship, either in confirmed action or Orwellian doublespeak. Kobayashi would not be happy with my country circa the last seven plus years.
Politics aside, it’s a bit of a disservice to assign Harikiri as a film strictly concerned with an agenda. It’s a great movie period. I had it at number twenty in my 1960s list, and, while it may be difficult to really scare up a spot any higher, it’s completely deserving of that ranking. What begins somewhat deliberately envelops the viewer to an extent hardly common or easily explained. The simple storytelling of the Rentaro Mikuni character’s flashback, leading to Nakadai’s recounting of his experiences in broken parts, may be deceptive in its simplicity, but only a skilled combination of artists could keep the viewer repeatedly mesmerized. By the time Nakadai’s displaced ronin unveils one of the great minor twists in film history, affixed in an intricate topknot itself, the viewer is transfixed on the actor’s every move.
The TCM Ten 6/21-6/27 June 20, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, The TCM Ten , add a commentNothing much to report. I added a tab listing the titles I’ll be reviewing for DVD Times. It will be updated with frequency. TCM pulls out Samuel Fuller’s The Crimson Kimono on Tuesday, a film rarely seen and of great interest to fans of the director. Otherwise, maybe a down week on the channel. As always, all times are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.
Saturday June 21
7:30 AM Caesar and Cleopatra (Pascal, 1945) - C-128 mins. - A little difficult to top Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra (in Technicolor). Starring Claude Rains as Caesar, the film was adapted by George Bernard Shaw from his own play. I’m not much for epic type films, but it’s still surprising to discover there’s no R1 DVD for this. ITV did release it in the UK for R2, but MGM, likely rights holders since the film was originally made for United Artists, haven’t put it out.
12:30 PM Tulsa (Heisler, 1949) - C-88 mins. - This Susan Hayward western is out on DVD in R1, but seems to be in the public domain. The release DVD Beaver reviewed looks like smeared watercolors. (Is the R2 in the same shape?) TCM’s print may not be any better, but I doubt it’ll be worse. I also enjoy Hayward’s performances and am sometimes surprised her star status hasn’t aged very well. She was obviously a well-respected actress, accumulating five Oscar nominations in just eleven years, but I’m not sure how appreciated she is today. Regardless, Hayward here plays the daughter of a killed rancher who vows to seek revenge by building her own oil business, only to become corrupted in the process. It was a cheap Eagle-Lion film, accounting for its mishandling on DVD.
Sunday June 22
10:30 PM The Hurricane (Ford, 1937) - BW-104 mins. - John Ford goes to the South Pacific. Thomas Mitchell picks up an Oscar. The movie is about a man wrongly imprisoned who eventually escapes only to have a dangerous storm rise up. Dorothy Lamour, Mary Astor, John Carradine, and Raymond Massey all co-star. The Samuel Goldwyn Company was the original studio of production, and HBO released a DVD in R1 a decade ago, which has since gone out of print. If I understand the Goldwyn library accurately, MGM should now have the film’s DVD rights.
12:30 AM Love (Goulding, 1927) - BW-83 mins. - A Garbo silent that’s an adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. John Gilbert co-stars as Vronsky, and IMDb lists him as an uncredited director alongside Edmund Goulding. Garbo returned to the same material eight years later, with Fredric March (and sound). That version was released in WB’s Garbo Signature Collection back in 2005, but Love remains unavailable. Warner Bros. has not only neglected their silents to an unfortunate degree, but their remaining Garbo films have also been ignored.
2:00 AM Roma (Fellini, 1972) - C-119 mins. - On letterboxed DVD from MGM in R1 and R2 (with different color schemes), but worth mentioning anyway. It’s probably one of Fellini’s most Felliniesque films. There’s no real plot as various Rome-inspired episodes unfold with different actors playing the director. The next year, Fellini would slightly straighten his narrative for the superior Amarcord. Certainly not an ideal first film for those uninitiated in Fellini (look at his ’50s work instead), but still an important part of the director’s monumental career.
Monday June 23
6:45 AM Two-Gun Man from Harlem (Kahn, 1938) - BW-65 mins. - This is a very low-budget Gene Autry-type movie, but built around black actors and starring Herb Jeffries. I mostly just like the title and the plot. (”When a cowboy is framed for murder, he travels to Harlem and masquerades as a gangster.”) The film itself will probably creak, though I’ve no doubt it’ll be interesting. There appear to be seem cheap DVD releases out there. I’d guess their quality is probably suspect.
Tuesday June 24
8:00 PM The Crimson Kimono (Fuller, 1959) - BW-82 mins. - The jewel of the month, I’d say. Victoria Shaw is a witness in a stripper’s murder and cops Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta both become romantically interested in her. TCM is airing the film primarily because of Japanese American actor Shigeta and Fuller’s unflinching portrayal of a love story between him and Shaw, as part of their Race & Hollywood focus this month. This is a Sam Fuller film that’s long been difficult to see, and I believe the airing is TCM’s premiere. Sony controls the movie, but hasn’t released it on DVD. I’ve always loved the title, even before I was a Fuller fan.
9:30 PM The Mountain Road (Mann, 1960) - BW-102 mins. - That’s Daniel Mann behind the camera, not Anthony. James Stewart starring could easily throw some people off. In a rare military role, Stewart plays an American who helps Chinese villagers stave off the Japanese advance during WWII. The film is hardly known at all and not on DVD. Rights rest with Sony.
Wednesday June 25
6:15 PM The Naked Spur (Mann, 1953) - C-92 mins. - Though Warner Bros. released the film on DVD a couple of years ago, many people complained that the print shown on TCM actually had better image quality. Regardless, it’s a superb film that draws out tension like few others, westerns especially. The five principal cast members (James Stewart, Robert Ryan, Ralph Meeker, Janet Leigh, and Millard Mitchell) are all excellent and Anthony Mann’s direction is accomplished as ever. I recently revisited the Mann-Stewart westerns made for Universal and it’s a complete struggle in trying to rank the four after Winchester ‘73. They really all demand attention.
Friday June 27
11:15 AM The Last Challenge (Thorpe, 1967) - C-96 mins. - Western with Glenn Ford as town marshal and Chad Everett a young gun who rides into town, eying the marshal’s lady (Angie Dickinson). This was near the end both of Ford’s leading man days and of the many westerns he made. I’ve always found Ford to be a comforting presence in film, a star who never made it huge, never received a lot of acclaim or even a single Oscar nod. Director Richard Thorpe had a long, steady career, beginning all the way back in 1923 and ending with this picture. I’m not sure he ever made anything exceptional, though who doesn’t like Jailhouse Rock, but there are a few solid ones in the pile. He directed Carbine Williams, which I’d like to see Warner Bros. release. The Last Challenge is also controlled by WB, as it was made for MGM. It’s not on DVD.
Of Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder June 12, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, 1940s, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch , 4 commentsThough it initially seemed anticlimactic, the recent fire at Universal Studios in California proved to be more damaging than common sense would have first envisioned. Screening prints of the classic Paramount films of the ’30s and ’40s, owned by Universal and including films by the three directors in the post title as well as several others, were destroyed forever. A programmer for Film Forum in New York told the NY Times that a potential Preston Sturges festival would most likely be scrapped as a result. Bad news all around. The media focused on a comparatively inconsequential King Kong theme park ride while beautiful silver celluloid is transformed into ashes. I can’t hardly classify the loss as tragic, a word which really should be reserved for life and death calamities, but it’s upsetting nonetheless.
These three guys, Lubitsch, Sturges and Wilder, form the backbone of classic Hollywood comedy. Their colleague Leo McCarey was another vital presence who also worked at Paramount and whose key films (including Ruggles of Red Gap) remain largely unreleased, now increasingly difficult to see in repertory screenings, as well. Josef von Sternberg is right there, too. If there’s anything at all worth smiling about, it’s that several films related to this trio have recently surfaced on DVD. Quite a few of their films as writer and director are still without a DVD release, possibly deterred even further by this turn of events, but I wanted to mention the few that have reached the market, which, conveniently, I’ve also reviewed for DVD Times.
Back in February, Criterion’s Eclipse line released Lubitsch’s four Paramount musicals in a nifty, extras-less edition. It’s a must-own for fans of the director. Around the same time, Wilder’s The Apartment got a nice upgrade from MGM. (It was originally released by United Artists.) More recently, the BFI put out Lubitsch’s final completed film, Cluny Brown. Made for Fox in 1946, it’s an appropriate ending to a great career. I had vastly underestimated the film after an initial viewing when I put up a review back early last year on this site. The more pertinent Paramount/Universal titles hit stores in April. I’ve reviewed all these, including Wilder’s first film as director in Hollywood, The Major and the Minor. Also out are a pair of Mitchell Leisen-directed efforts. Easy Living, with screenplay from Sturges, and Midnight, a sparkling film written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, finally received their digital releases, I believe, for the first time anywhere in the world.
This still leaves several Paramount-made, Universal-controlled pictures from the Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder cycle unavailable on R1 DVD. Most notably - Angel, directed by Lubitsch and available in a Marlene Dietrich set in R2, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, another Lubitsch picture and written by Brackett and Wilder, Remember the Night, written by Sturges and directed by Leisen but not on DVD anywhere, Hold Back the Dawn, which was directed by Leisen and scripted by Brackett and Wilder, and two early Wilder-directed films, Five Graves to Cairo and A Foreign Affair. Both of those latter movies are available in other regions, but still absent in R1. There are a handful of others, things like Arise My Love which I’ve been anxious to see, but I’m now hesitant as to whether any of these films will make it onto R1 DVD in the near future. Despite business concerns, it would seem appropriate for Universal to reveal exactly what films were lost (surely their bookkeeping contains such records) instead of playing so coy.
Top 50 of 1970s June 1, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1970s , 27 comments
In all its glory, here are my choices for the top 50 elite films of the 1970s. This is the fourth such list I’ve made now, and it just doesn’t get any easier. As with the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the list has been submitted for the Criterion forum’s Lists Project. I made an intentional effort to abide by my own subjective whims this time, placing little or no emphasis on canon. My tastes are my tastes, but the goal was to balance between favorites and acknowledged quality while trusting that what I like deserves to be here. The strength of American films, combined with the R1 unavailability of several well-regarded foreign films of the decade, has resulted in a list heavily favoring the English language. Not a problem in my book because I love what was going on in Hollywood during this time. In all, there are only 9 foreign language films among these 50, with another 8 in the list of 25 also-rans I posted previously. I do hope a few people find the list and my justifications/appreciations interesting to look through, read, or browse for recommendations. I know I enjoy the whole process. Any writing I’ve done on a particular film is linked to below.
1.) The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1974) - I’ve resisted the idea for years that Coppola’s sequel is superior to the first film, but I don’t think I can really deny it any longer after spending a full night with the two parts. This is a richer, more focused effort that completely understands what it wants to project and does so brilliantly. The acting has an understated balance often missing from the earlier film and the tragedy cuts far deeper. Michael’s reveal to Fredo that he knows and Michael’s slap of Kay both send chills down my spine. I don’t particularly see this entry as being about family so much as it is about America. I’m prone to reading the American experience into numerous films, but this must be one of the most glaring. From young Vito’s entry at Ellis Island to Michael’s returning the favor of betrayal as he sits in ominous solitude, Coppola’s film completely embodies a certain side of the possibilities offered by the country.
2.) The Godfather (Coppola, 1972) - Long having been one of my very favorite movies, the adaptation of Mario Puzo’s best-selling (but inferior) novel probably has as lofty a reputation as any piece of 20th century art. Impossible to encapsulate in such a short space, The Godfather’s memorably quotable screenplay (perhaps second only to Casablanca) begins with the immortal words “I believe in America,” but it’s the nonverbal power of the baptism scene that makes good on the film’s opening line. It remains one of cinema’s dazzlingly brilliant sequences. There’s a point where there’s possibly still room to turn back and then there’s running full speed ahead. The ambiguity and moral conflict is so murky that half a dozen viewings and I still don’t know if I’m rooting for the Corleone family.
3.) The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973) - Here’s what Robert Altman’s films can do to a person. You see something and enjoy it well enough, then watch it again a year later and recognize it was much stronger than you first realized. Another year passes, and you’re ready to consider it one of the finest films of the decade. Nearly all of Altman’s films improve on repeated viewings, but I’ve gotten it into my head that this is his best. It’s full of sly truths, an epic central performance from Elliott Gould, and has a pleasingly bizarre supporting cast lead by a toasted Sterling Hayden. It really is amazing to sit back and see what Altman does to the detective genre.
4.) Being There (Ashby, 1979) - A film that never peaks, always steadily rising until it literally walks on water. I find it incredibly sad that both Peter Sellers and Hal Ashby were unable to make anything of substance afterwards despite both still being relatively young. Sellers, of course, died in 1980 and Ashby followed just a few years later, but couldn’t continue making the kinds of films he so brilliantly crafted in the ’70s. Sellers seems like he’s actually gone crazy while the cameras happen to be rolling. His Chance is a reactionless blank canvas where everyone projects their own thoughts and inclinations. It’s rare for me to proclaim that I really love a film, in the sense that I feel both an emotional connection and would argue that it’s justified. I love Being There. I loved it the first time I saw it and I loved it the most recent time I saw it.
5.) Avanti! (Wilder, 1972) - A final masterpiece from one of cinema’s finest directors. Billy Wilder hit a creative roadblock after One, Two, Three that lasted the rest of the decade. His films were commercially successful, for the most part, but a little out of touch with a changing Hollywood. Too mean, too quaint, nothing that really stretched his talents. Then he had a very difficult time with the release of a heavily-edited version of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and stayed in Europe to once again re-team with Jack Lemmon. The result was a still-neglected gem that effectively modernized Lemmon’s growing crustiness with the hidden heart Wilder liked to slip into his ’60s films. I think I hold the movie up a bit higher than most anyone whose opinion I’ve read, but there does seem to be a quiet contingent privy to the film’s considerable charms.
6.) The Passenger (Antonioni, 1975) - None of Antonioni’s other films have struck me like this one. I don’t know if it’s because of Nicholson or exactly what the cause is, but this movie mesmerizes me. I see the alienation in his character more than the comparatively empty protagonists of other Antonioni films. The plot here helps a great deal, which is reminiscent of Hitchcock but told in an entirely different style. And just an extraordinary ending that might cause you to shake your head, rewind the disc, or both.
7.) Nashville (Altman, 1975) - It’s a bit on the surreal side for someone who grew up in middle Tennessee to watch Altman’s 24-character tapestry. Though my understanding is that the city wasn’t fond of how the film turned out, the critical consensus usually places it as the director’s finest. No serious arguments here, even if it’s not my absolute favorite. I don’t think Altman ever made a film so deeply and powerfully emotional. Gwen Welles breaks my heart, especially with the stripping scene coming just after Keith Carradine’s performance of “I’m Easy.” What had been this sprawling, unassuming epic suddenly converges into a dark place that becomes increasingly confusing and upsetting. Watching the final series of events, you’re filled with dread - knowing what’s about to happen, wanting it not to, and being unable to stop it.
8.) Chinatown (Polanski, 1974) - I don’t feel as much emotional connection to Chinatown as I do the films above it here, but it’s certainly on the same level artistically as anything past the Godfather films, in my estimation. What I like a great deal about the movie is how Nicholson makes Jake Gittes, a character that could have easily become bland (see The Two Jakes for evidence of that), an audience surrogate who’s neither too smart nor too stupid despite the notoriously curvy plot. He’s almost entirely grey and, thus, the perfect protagonist. The obvious thing to love about Chinatown is Robert Towne’s script, tweaked and improved by Roman Polanski. It’s truly a Hollywood miracle that works with a big concept (pre-war Los Angeles) while also achieving the more intimate character details that keep the viewer interested.
9.) Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973) - There’s a rawness at work here that isn’t present in Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. This is less polished and feels more free. Despite my strong admiration for Scorsese, some of his signatures have gotten a little stale over time. Not so in Mean Streets, where the ferocious immediacy remains alive and well. The Catholic imagery is fresher here and, for all its rough edges, the film never recedes into the methodical violence of one upping the director’s legacy, which was obviously almost nonexistent at the time. I don’t think this was Scorsese’s peak for sure, but I do prefer it to Taxi Driver, and I think it remains his most personal film.
10.) Husbands (Cassavetes, 1970) - Am I allowed to declare this as Cassavetes’ best film? I hope so. It’s just a shame that it’s so difficult to track down (illegally downloading it onto your computer doesn’t count; if you’ve only seen a film in a poor quality version on a small screen in the wrong aspect ratio then you haven’t really seen it at all). Months after seeing Husbands, I still think about it constantly - wondering about the characters, about myself.
The 1970s Also-Rans - 25 That Missed the Cut May 28, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1970s , 6 comments
Justifications, recommendations, and considerations. This is an alphabetical list of 25 films not included in my forthcoming Top 50 of 1970’s. Some things you’ve seen, some you may not have. I’ll repeat this when the main list is posted, but I made an intentional effort to be entirely subjective this time, leaving several of the usual suspects off and a few more in this group of also-rans. These 25 were not submitted in any way for my entry in the Lists Project and, thus, are just detailed here for fun. The 50 that did make it should be up on Sunday June 1. Happy reading and watching.
Badlands (Malick, 1973) - Film enthusiast heresy, but after not caring much for Days of Heaven I was pleased to discover how good of a film Badlands is. The substance I craved in Malick’s later film was more pronounced in his debut. That’s not to say it’s teeming with ideas. I get that same emotional disconnect from Malick as I often do from Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Herzog and a few other well-respected directors. There’s usually at least one film tucked away in the filmography of each that I do appreciate, and this is it.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974) - Mlles. Celine and Julie do indeed go boating, but it takes three hours of whimsical nonsense before their brief nautical adventure. Rivette’s film is so incredibly unorthodox, yet original and admirable, that it’s difficult to grasp even the most tentative of handles on it after just one viewing. Shiny jewels of dinosaur eye candy transport the main characters into participants of a melodramatic, tonally opposite movie from the previous hour or more. Strange is putting it mildly and I do think, even with Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier, that the film within the film drags on too long with unnecessary repetition. Otherwise, this probably would have made my main list. (I know admirers love to rhapsodize about the Alice in Wonderland, free form nature, but I’m not there yet.)
Charley Varrick (Siegel, 1973) - Follow-up to Dirty Harry for Don Siegel and, in my estimation, vastly superior. I wish Walter Matthau had more roles like his title character here and the transit cop he played in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (both films are treated poorly on DVD). His Varrick is one of Matthau’s classic protagonists - cool, collected and smarter than he seems. The only misstep in the plot is why in the world Felicia Farr’s character would sleep with Varrick. It’s worth overlooking, though. Surely Cormac McCarthy had this film in mind while writing No Country for Old Men.
Don’t Look Now (Roeg, 1973) - Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. The color red. Venice. Nicolas Roeg’s chaotically inspired editing. A creepy gnomish woman. There’s enough imagery to fill half a dozen movies here. It defies genre, working as a film about coping with losing a child, a crumbling marriage and a meditation on the supernatural all at once. The cinematography is gorgeous, one of the very few instances where the Italian city is done justice in an English language film. Despite all that, I’ve never completely broken through to the side of those who unapologetically worship Roeg and his work.
Emperor of the North Pole (Aldrich, 1973) - Excellent Depression-era film that’s far less known than it should be, released without the “Pole” in its title. Lee Marvin is A No. 1, a hobo known far and wide as being able to stow away on any train, but put to the test by Ernest Borgnine’s sadistic rail man Shack. Easily read as allegorical, but also quite entertaining merely for Marvin, the cinematography, and the story. Keith Carradine is, typically, a hindrance and annoying. Part of a strong late-career surge from Aldrich.
Fox and His Friends (Fassbinder, 1975) - Fox and His Friends can be disheartening, mostly because Fox is a character whose disappointment is apparent from very early on and there’s little sympathy to be found, but it remains a powerful experience. Fassbinder directs and plays Fox, a former carnival worker who finally wins the lottery and soon has his fortune spent by a “posh and prissy” lover. I’m never ready to watch a Fassbinder film and I usually have a difficult time getting over the experience. Fox and His Friends is exceptional because Fassbinder never hides the impending doom for his main character, but the viewer still feels almost violated for the harsh treatment afforded the protagonist, regardless of how simpleminded and shortsighted he is. Really an outstanding film that rises far above its limitations.
Gimme Shelter (Maysles, et al., 1970) - The music is one thing, but the human drama is something else entirely. As just a concert film, this is still completely entertaining. But as a chronicle of chaos, Gimme Shelter lives up to its name. Not too many films feature an actual murder captured on camera as their centerpiece. There’s no good reason this failed to rank highly in my actual list. It’s nearly flawless. I just had to bump something and took this out because, even with the musical performances, it’s not something I can watch with any frequency.
Harry and Tonto (Mazursky, 1974) - There’s a really sweet movie about an older man and his cat waiting inside here. Paul Mazursky, one of those semi-great writer/directors whose career never reached the same heights after the ’70s, gave Art Carney an excellent role and the actor responded by somehow winning the Oscar (over chumps like Nicholson, Pacino, Hoffman, and Finney, all in prime roles). I like this one because it never overdoes the schmaltz and seems to know exactly what it is without trying to be anything more or less. Carney was able to turn his renewed interest into pretty good, but unsung pictures like The Late Show and Going in Style.
Images (Altman, 1972) - Inspired in part by Bergman’s Persona, Altman uncharacteristically explored a woman’s battle with schizophrenia while she’s in the country with her husband. Susannah York is unnervingly effective and the entire atmosphere Altman establishes is that of a psychological ghost story. I was surprised by how much I was drawn in to this film and it’s a credit to Altman that the influence of Persona is noticeable without being overwhelming, similar to what he’d do with 3 Women a few years later.
Junior Bonner (Peckinpah, 1972) - I feel like I should somehow justify both liking this film very much and excluding it from my top 50. I can’t do that. There are only 50 slots and I didn’t have room, but I’ve always loved this film and McQueen’s performance especially. One thing that’s particularly annoying is that it was shot in Scope but the DVD isn’t anamorphic, thus making it difficult to really appreciate what you’re seeing. Piling on, I first saw it pan and scan off television years ago. If I had the chance to see a theatrical print, my opinion would no doubt jump considerably.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Cassavetes, 1976) - Ben Gazzara is an actor who’s always interesting to watch. Aside from the Cassavetes’ films, he’s also superb in Bogdanovich’s They All Laughed (and possibly Saint Jack, but I haven’t seen that yet). Here he plays that kind of sad, fatalistic masculinity that I tend to gravitate towards. Criterion’s Cassavetes set contains two notably different versions of the film - one at 135 minutes and the other at 108 minutes. In some ways, having the separate edits makes it more difficult deciding whether to include the film.
The Last Detail (Ashby, 1973) - A great Nicholson performance (iconic, even) that was smack in the middle of a very exciting time to watch the actor. Randy Quaid is quite good here also. Hal Ashby at this point had directed only The Landlord and Harold and Maude, but this is a more serious film, with an even greater sense of disillusioned meandering. I prefer both of those earlier movies, but The Last Detail is special for other reasons. That constant rejection of conformity found in Ashby’s work rises to the surface and gets its true embodiment from Nicholson, an actor seemingly finding new ways of playing anti-establishment figures with every role at this point. The military nature of the lead characters gives them a sense of implied authority that’s flat-out repudiated in the film.
Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci, 1973) - More heresy, but this is the only time I’ve ever really been impressed watching Marlon Brando as an actor. I see the brilliance elsewhere, but it still always feels like emoting to the point of ridiculousness. This is different. This is real, it’s raw, and it’s painfully realized. Bertolucci’s film is also exceptional, if shaky at times, but it’s impossible to separate Brando’s performance from the whole. With Bertolucci you should always expect something scandalous so the broad sexuality didn’t affect me, but Brando here is truly iconic.
M*A*S*H (Altman, 1970) - Altman’s most popular film, and really the one he owed his career to, probably isn’t even in his top ten in terms of achievement, but I do like it all the same. Of course, the movie is also paled by the television show, though they are different animals. Regardless, I enjoy watching M*A*S*H for several reasons - it’s so obviously about Vietnam instead of Korea; the football game; Gould and Sutherland; the final loudspeaker announcement (spoken by Altman).
Maîtresse (Schroeder, 1976) - There’s a scene in this film that’s literally painful to watch for males. Some might add that the whole thing is painful to watch, but I was fascinated by Schroeder’s storytelling and the performances. Something about it (besides Bulle Ogier) is hypnotic, like a really well-made teenage sex comedy that’s removed the problems inherent in that subgenre. Gerard Depardieu is at his oafish best and Ogier is remarkable. Not everyone’s cup of tea (and I’m a little surprised at my own reaction), but just an enormously engrossing film.
Mikey & Nicky (May, 1976) - Seeing Peter Falk and John Cassavetes together is itself a treat. Watching how their relationship, let’s say, evolves over the course of this film carries a somewhat slow, yet involving, picture into an unforgettable indictment of friendship amidst the mob. Director Elaine May shot an almost inconceivable amount of film for this movie, which now seems like an omen for her doomed Ishtar. It’s speculated that Cassavetes directed much of this himself, but I don’t think it matters really. It does feels somewhat like one of his films (especially Chinese Bookie), though May was no slouch either.
Monsieur Klein (Losey, 1976) - Exceptionally compelling film about a French art dealer profiting from Jews selling their paintings during the German occupation who gets mistaken for a man of the same name who’s Jewish. One of Alain Delon’s best performances and impressive direction from Joseph Losey. I saw this in preparation for the last ’70s list, and I placed it on there, but I haven’t watched it since. I wish I’d had the chance to see it again this time around, as it’s a film which benefits from a second viewing.
Night Moves (Penn, 1975) - There’s a mood established in Night Moves by Arthur Penn, screenwriter Alan Sharp and Gene Hackman. It’s difficult to succinctly characterize, but you can feel it just by watching Hackman. It’s a great neonoir performance, in nice contrast to his Popeye Doyle and Harry Caul. The rest of the cast, populated by obnoxious and inferior actors, nearly bring down the picture for me, though. The other ingredients are there, but the couple of times I’ve watched it there seems like something’s missing. I usually end wanting to like Night Moves more than I do, which is still a considerable amount.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman, 1975) - The first time I saw this film it had a profound impact on me. The next time it was much less affecting. Whether this has more to do with the film or the viewer, I can’t say. I’m not crazy about the final scenes so maybe that’s the cause. They feel rushed, jumbled, and their impact doesn’t hold up for me on multiple viewings. That said, the majority of the film, especially Nicholson’s strong anti-authority performance, remains rewarding and I do think this is one of the great tragicomedies of the decade.
The Phantom of Liberty (Buñuel, 1974) - The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is the more popular choice, but I think I prefer his follow-up. Sure it’s largely a thematic sequel that’s even looser in its narrative, but The Phantom of Liberty bites a little harder. You can almost see Buñuel grinning behind the curtain. The “missing” little school girl bit is inspired madness. And the sniper. And the toilets. And the dominatrix. After The Milky Way and The Discreet Charm, I’d say this was the perfect culmination of the director’s “search for truth” triptych.
Small Change (Truffaut, 1976) - Largely plotless, this is a beautiful example of a small movie that’s completely dialed down and perpetually rewarding. Truffaut looks at a group of young school children and their everyday lives both at home and in class. Simple, yet not really. The director’s keen ability to draw excellent performances from children is on full display here. A delightful film that exceeds expectations.
The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, 1973) - Though they’re two very different films by two separate filmmakers, this and Cría cuervos share Ana Torrent and thus seem instantly comparable. I think most people prefer Erice’s film for its gothic difficulty and overtly political subtext, though I’m on the other side of the fence. The Spirit of the Beehive remains a unique, potentially shattering experience that I found a bit difficult to embrace fully without a good basis in Franco and the Spanish Civil War. That’s not to deny how affecting the film can be and the subtle rewards that await repeat viewers.
Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976) - Extreme conflict for this viewer between a charismatically unsettling film and a character in Travis Bickle who just doesn’t work for me. Even reading others’ thoughts and watching interviews, I can’t see him as this universal avatar of loneliness. I can’t identify or understand Bickle, and I do not find him particularly interesting on screen. Setting that significant barrier aside, Taxi Driver remains a deeply engrossing, impeccably atmospheric look at a blank enigma shrouded in the filth of urban decay. I can recognize the fascination and it’s an entirely compelling film, but I want no part of Travis Bickle. I see no sympathetic qualities, only sympathetic treatment done brilliantly.
The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff, 1979) - Another film that I found completely engrossing (my enjoyment of the German language probably helped). A little Felliniesque perhaps, which is a positive. Not having read Günter Grass’ novel, I had no preconceptions going in, just that it had won the Foreign Language Academy Award and a controversy erupted later on. I do think the material we see on screen is handled well by Schlöndorff, whose first film Young Törless I also enjoyed a great deal. The young actor who plays Oskar really seals the deal, though. At times annoying, but always fascinating, his presence is vital to the film’s success.
Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974) - How did I leave this out?!? I feel guilty about all these also-rans, like I’ve somehow slighted their worth. Silly. If I’d had the opportunity to watch Brooks’ film more recently it might have eked onto the main list, but only so many hours in the day and so forth. There’s a wealth of things worth loving about this film. The acting is uniformly perfect, with everyone from Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle to Marty Feldman and Madeline Kahn giving the kind of performance actors immediately become associated with their entire career and beyond. That’s not even mentioning Teri Garr. Or Gene Hackman’s blind man cameo. The “Puttin’ on the Ritz” number. Too much to love. Can’t say I’m a fan of the Broadwayization that Brooks has signed off on.
Hold Back the Dawn May 26, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s, Billy Wilder , add a comment
There are two reasons I’ve been anxious to see Hold Back the Dawn. One is Billy Wilder and the other is a nonexistent cockroach. I’ve brought this up before, but it’s a good enough story that you really can’t tell it too many times. When Wilder was still under contract as a writer for Paramount, he took to writing an adaptation of the not-yet-published book that became Hold Back the Dawn with his usual partner Charles Brackett. The director Mitchell Leisen, who had previously helmed Midnight, also written by Wilder and Brackett, was assigned the picture and Charles Boyer had the starring role. His character is a Romanian dancer/gigolo (no doubt an “occupation” close to Wilder’s heart) named Georges who’s stuck in a Mexican purgatory while he waits for his immigration papers to be approved, estimated to be a few years because of the U.S. quota system in place at the time.
Early on in the film, after a cutesy opening where Boyer, in character, visits the Paramount lot (hello Veronica Lake) in search of a director he’d met in Europe (played by Leisen) to tell his story to in exchange for $500, Georges finds himself unshaven and holed up inside his Mexican hotel room. In Wilder and Brackett’s original script, a cockroach was to walk towards a broken mirror and Boyer’s character, frustrated by not being able to obtain his immigration papers, would interrogate the cockroach about the insect’s visa. As Wilder told it, Boyer nixed the idea as being idiotic and Leisen backed his actor. The writers weren’t even allowed on set to protest and Wilder decided that was the last time he’d write a script he couldn’t direct himself. Thus, out of a missing cockroach scene, Billy Wilder’s career as director was hatched. He’d deliberately pick a commercial project, The Major and the Minor, for his first directing job the following year.
So, after finally seeing Hold Back the Dawn, it’s pretty obvious where the cockroach would have appeared and it’s also pretty obvious that it wouldn’t have changed the existing picture much at all. Surely Wilder was looking to branch out into directing anyway and this little episode could have been a push, real or imagined, into that area. I say it wouldn’t have affected the film because Wilder’s gallows humor is already all over that first portion of the movie and hardly present for the remainder. It’s a very atypical Wilder script, briefly witty in the early goings but mostly a conventional romantic drama told quite well. The story is good, the acting is superb, and the direction by Leisen is unimaginative and adequate. Had the cockroach scene been filmed and put in the movie, the only difference would have been an odd little interlude unessential to the plot or characterizations. Yet, Wilder was notorious for demanding his scripts be adhered to by the actors without changing a word or even an emphasis. One wonders if he’d have been so strict later on had Leisen filmed what was written. (Probably so!)
Some of the most obviously Wilderian touches are, as I alluded to above, in the first act. Not only was Wilder likely able to step into Georges’ dancing and gigolo shoes, as he’d been in the same position while living in Berlin, but the Mexican layover before entering the United States was one Wilder had likewise experienced firsthand. After leaving Germany upon Hitler’s rise to power, he first went to Paris and then tried to come into the U.S. via Mexico. He apparently came across an immigration officer who was a film enthusiast and, after learning of Wilder’s desire to write movies, allowed him in the country with the instruction to “make good ones.” Boyer’s Georges isn’t so lucky. He’s stuck in the Hotel Esperanza when his former dancing partner Anita (Paulette Goddard) happens to show up. She tells him that marrying an American will get him into the country in just four weeks.
Here’s where Wilder’s classic opportunist model comes in, as Georges thinks back to the Californian schoolteacher he encountered earlier. Emmy Brown (Olivia de Havilland) had a car full of students on a field trip for the Fourth of July when she rear-ended another vehicle. The car must be fixed and Georges just happens to pass by the mechanic shop. She’s anxious to head back home, but Georges, after a brief and failed attempt on another woman, needs just a couple of hours to win her over. It’s loneliness finds loneliness when the two meet. Emmy can’t resist his charms. Georges then conspires with Anita to wait out the four weeks so that he can get a quick divorce and the two dance partners can bring their show to New York. The monkey wrench is Emmy showing up unexpectedly and Georges quickly taking her on an impromptu honeymoon. His feelings begin to change and he realizes he can’t just coldly discard Emmy.
This second act, where the Boyer character hardly resembles the scoundrel from earlier, plays exactly like a classic Hollywood movie. That is to say that it’s entertaining, but safe and predictable. The third act shakes things up a little by letting Paulette Goddard shine first and de Havilland follow in an Oscar-worthy scene that mauls over the other actors in its force of nature-type glory. The sequence isn’t overdone or played with histrionics, a nice reigning in from Leisen, but it’s powerful all the same. It sounds patently obvious, but de Havilland really was some kind of actress. Watching the movie with the knowledge that Wilder and Brackett were apparently still writing the final portion of the film when they learned Boyer had refused to soliloquy with their cockroach, it’s easy to recognize how they turned the actor from star to third banana.
I’m not going to say the film suffers from this transition in focus because it’s still a good picture, but the first act certainly feels like a Wilder movie whereas the rest just doesn’t. Georges changes, leading to the happy ending audiences expect even now from Hold Back the Dawn, and he’s far less interesting as a result. Again, his reform is one we can actively root for in the context of classic movie happy resolutions, but it somewhat betrays the original character and strips the film of any more of those Wilder touches I love so much. You put the cockroach scene in and we might have altered second and third acts, but, by itself, I don’t think it would have tipped the scales much either way in the version that exists now. My hindsight goggles are content to keep it out of the picture so we can enjoy Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Ace in the Hole, The Apartment, etc. Seems like a fair trade-off.
(Hold Back the Dawn is not on DVD anywhere in the world to my knowledge and is controlled by Universal.)
The Getaway May 17, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1970s , 7 comments
It’s not very popular to assert the opinion that The Getaway is your favorite Sam Peckinpah film. As just a casual Peckinpah admirer, I might be able to get away with it, but I know I’m skating on thin ice among the faithful. I can only imagine the dismissive reaction I’d have if someone called Sabrina their favorite Billy Wilder movie. It could be generational. Peckinpah’s films now feel very much like the product of a bygone era. They’ve influenced countless filmmakers, but show almost zero modernity in comparison to what’s come along this decade. His patience is not particularly in style nowadays. Yet, that laconic quality is part of why I appreciate The Getaway so much. The film takes its time from start to finish. It’s an action movie with very little action.
As far as movie stars who understood subtlety in the ’60s and ’70s, the discussion begins and ends with Steve McQueen. The idea of him overacting is inconceivable. Detractors might view this as an emptiness, but I’d beg to differ. While the method style of acting gained notoriety for overdoing emotions to the point of fake realism, McQueen didn’t choose this particular path. His style was far more contemplative. A look from McQueen could eliminate half a page of dialogue. I’d love to have seen what Jean-Pierre Melville would have done with him. Instead, we know what Peckinpah was able to achieve while working with the actor both here and on Junior Bonner, two of McQueen’s four or five best films. In The Getaway, he’s Doc McCoy, who suffers the remedial prison life until his wife (Ali MacGraw) pays a porn-like visit to a man with bureaucratic pull named Benyon (Ben Johnson).
Even MacGraw’s terrible acting works here in this particular scene. She’s so stilted, so uncomfortable, that the character inherits a blank slate of determination at any cost. With Doc out of prison, the next step is to further appease Benyon by robbing a bank with two of his thugs. The title of the film obviously alludes to the aftermath and not the actual heist, instructive because Peckinpah handles the robbery with an uninterested coolness. It’s quick, messy, and little more than a slight curve in the road. A half million is siphoned out, but McCoy’s unwanted partners become thorns. One is killed and one kills. Rudy (Al Lettieri) somehow survives after ambushing Doc, whose lack of trust saves him, but still fails to eliminate his greedy cohort. And we’re off on a chase where Mr. and Mrs. McCoy transport the bag of money around Texas, losing it in the process, before realizing Rudy and his new traveling companions (Jack Dodson and Sally Struthers) are just a few steps behind.
McQueen and MacGraw fell for each other while making the movie, and even if you can’t really tell much of anything from looking at her face, McQueen hardly hides his attraction. The naive outrage he has upon learning that she had negotiated his release from prison with her body plays like natural hurt. His initial confusion after re-entering the outside world and sitting beside MacGraw in bed is similarly realistic. In McQueen’s best movies, including the two he did with Peckinpah, the viewer can just see an uncommon intelligence at work behind his eyes. Never one to relish much dialogue, the actor’s subdued performances have rarely been given their due. I miss that style of underacting. It rewards audiences willing to actually pay attention to what’s on the screen instead of bathroom and obesity break pausing. Much is made of McQueen’s enormous style and charisma (and deservedly so), but, in the right role, he really was a terrific actor.
His sequence on the train in this film is probably my favorite, where a small-time con man thinks he’s lucked into the fat case of money only to have Doc track him down and administer a beating to the point of unconsciousness. McQueen says maybe a line or two (”when you work on a lock, don’t leave any scratches”) and demonstrates what it means to be a screen icon. The black suit with thin black tie helps, but none of his peers (even Paul Newman, who was McQueen’s unofficial rival and a better actor) could have so convincingly pulled it off with so few lines. This is the beauty of The Getaway for me. Peckinpah trusts McQueen (who also had final cut) enough to allow him to hardly say anything throughout the entire picture. It’s a movie with a minimum of dialogue, and little action, but played out with surprising coherence, never leaving the viewer uninterested.
In a very logical sense, The Getaway is framed around a classic film noir plot. Several things negate it being a true noir (most obviously - when it was made, being filmed in color, and the ending), but the film’s structure of the protagonist being released from prison and subsequently taking part in an imperfect bank robbery is prototypical of the style. Indeed, McQueen would have been absolutely perfect as a film noir hero. This film is probably the closest he ever came to making what might be considered a neonoir, but the actor’s ingrown ability to play characters who seem to place an emphasis on survival over all else could have fit ever so neatly a couple of decades earlier. Doc’s relationship with the MacGraw character is both reminiscent of a femme fatale and a trustworthy moll. The actress’s vacuous inability to register on any level could only possibly be endearing in a film like this, where understated minimalism is applauded next to a vast landscape of unwritten Texas possibility. The less she says the more believable she seems.
It’s a bit absurd to try and figure out where the McCoys fit in among these criminals. Their almost total refusal to disrupt some fictional code of crime ethics prevents the viewer from harboring any ill will and McQueen’s charm tips the scales in his favor with spades. This overwhelming glamorization is a little disturbing for those who enjoy sleeping well at night. Doc is an ex-con bank robber who’s completely let off the hook by Peckinpah and screenwriter Walter Hill (working from Jim Thompson’s book). McQueen probably knew the audience would cheer him on and want his character to experience crisis without consequences. He’s right, of course. The thought of Doc receiving any kind of comeuppance would seem to be entirely foreign in lieu of how he’s portrayed throughout the film. These are glaring imperfections in a film that never makes claim of being anything but a fine entry in the McQueen legend. In that regard, it’s nearly flawless. In other facets, maybe less so. I tend to be forgiving to a fault with The Getaway because of its casual likability. Peckinpah was a director-for-hire and McQueen was out to further his legacy of cool, but I turn my head and forgive the blemishes.
This most recent watch of the film was on HD-DVD and it should be mentioned that an additional featurette about Jerry Fielding’s rejected score is here despite not being on the standard DVD release. Also absent but present on the high-definition release, I believe, are the bank robbery sequence with Fielding’s score and the entire film with his isolated score as an audio track. Quincy Jones scored the film as released and it’s mostly excellent, but Fielding was a close collaborator with Peckinpah up to this point and his contribution is an interesting addition. Certainly this hi-def version is superior to the regular DVD release because it contains additional supplemental material. However, I will add that skin tones are quite red, almost distractingly so early on, but detail and clarity are predictably excellent and better than the DVD.
99 River Street April 27, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s , add a comment
If film noir had an official sport it would be boxing. Black and white cinematography perfectly captures the sweat and grit of two men pounding their gloved fists into each other’s raw skin. Raging Bull isn’t a film noir, but it accomplishes the visual doom of a fight without the use of color, as does The Set-Up, Robert Wise’s brilliantly lean noir starring Robert Ryan. Boxing threatens to be the subject of Phil Karlson’s 99 River Street, too, but it’s soon shown to be a visual trick. The audience sees a match that turns out to be a television replay being watched by the man getting his eye punched into partial working order. Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) is now driving taxi cabs in New York City and his marriage to Pauline (Peggie Castle) seems ruptured. Things were probably better when Ernie was regularly winning fights, but his new dream of opening a filling station isn’t glamorous enough for Pauline’s taste.
Ernie’s boss and pal Stan (Frank Faylen) suggests a tried and true method of patching things up with Pauline: buy her a big box of chocolates, take her out on the town, mix in a few glasses of brandy, and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. The next thing you know a bouncing baby will pop out and everything will be good as new again. Ernie’s plan never gets off the ground, though. He has the chocolates, but it’s Pauline who surprises him by kissing her lover Victor Rawlins (Brad Dexter) at the flower shop where she works. Ernie is both devastated and livid. He then gets distracted by would-be Broadway actress Linda James (Evelyn Keyes) who confesses she’s killed someone. Ernie means well, but ends up with an arrest warrant for assault and battery. By the time the ex-boxer finds his wife’s dead body in the backseat of his cab, things seem like they could hardly be any worse
Though Payne is a generic noir protagonist, 99 River Street has enough other attributes to merit a closer look. Karlson’s direction is expectedly stellar, and Franz Planer, who would go on to shoot several Audrey Hepburn films, emits some strong noir camera work. There’s a very striking cut to Peggie Castle’s legs, with a mirror visible in the background between her two outstretched limbs and Brad Dexter appearing in the reflection. It’s an exquisite image. Another memorably framed shot comes when Linda, by now tagging along to help Ernie no matter the cost, meets up with Rawlins. Their cigarettes kiss and ash never looked so sensual. The entire scene, played out in a Jersey bar, gives Keyes the chance to fully steal the film.
Her performance is deserving of high praise as one of film noir’s essential female characterizations. Linda is first introduced as seemingly delusional, an actress who’s been in the city three years without a job and thinks she’ll land a lead role in a Broadway play. We next encounter her as a more hysterical figure, but learn this was merely her acting a part. This back story of the character as a struggling actress works perfectly within the film’s plot. Unhappy with letting down her friend Ernie, she remains loyal as a witness to his innocence and gets another opportunity to play a role, this time as a flirtatious barfly. The bedroom eyes she gives Rawlins make for an absolutely breathtaking shift that’s perfectly executed by Keyes. To see the importance of contextual performance in film noir, watch Evelyn Keyes here. She’s exceptional.
Another turn I enjoyed in the film was from Jack Lambert, a character actor who initially comes across as a poor man’s Lee Marvin, but sort of carves out his own B-movie villain niche in the process. He also pops up in Kiss Me Deadly alongside Jack Elam as Paul Stewart’s henchmen. That 99 River Street was obviously a low-budget film with modest expectations is a reality that probably should be taken into consideration, but it doesn’t really burden the picture in any way. Sure you could put Robert Mitchum in the Payne role and have a stronger film, but you’d also lose something. Mitchum would make it his own and distract from the narrative. As it is, the film curves through unpredictable paths and the audience can never be sure how Ernie, with a built-in volatility from his fighting days, will react. Payne’s a stiff, but the fact that his character has been placed in a very noir and desperate situation shouldn’t be overlooked.
One of the hallmarks of 1950’s film noir, as opposed to most of what came out of the 1940’s, can be found in the evolution of the protagonist into a wrongly accused innocent. It’s the paranoia angle that would especially rise up in the politically-themed films of the 1970’s. Hitchcock loved this motif, using it to good effect in The Wrong Man, I Confess, and the non-noir North by Northwest. It’s also found in The Big Heat, Crime Wave, Nightfall, and Karlson’s Kansas City Confidential, among others. The idea that someone not guilty of a crime would be hunted by law enforcement now seems very much like a movie plot, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that this basic insinuation betrays the ideal that the police are infallible. We know, of course, that they’re not, but we also know that criminals don’t always receive the justice they do in movies. Exploring these themes of vengeance owed and non-guilty protagonists getting framed for crimes they didn’t commit was a favorite of Karlson’s, as well.
In 99 River Street, the director was able to put both to good use. It seems like Ernie might have killed someone if given the chance, but his hands stay clean. He certainly has reason to lash out, and the overall tone feels bleakly pessimistic. By the film’s end, when we learn the title address is actually in Jersey City, desolate blacks cover the night sky of the waterfront and that unmistakable noir mood becomes all-consuming. The happy conclusion betrays the template, but it’s forgivable. Even with Payne’s shortcomings, which admittedly could be seen as strengths allowing the viewer to easily relate to the actor, this is still an important film noir, made by one of the movement’s unsung champions. A DVD release seems like an obvious prospect, but nothing so far. The theatrical print I saw was almost stunning in detail and rich black levels, nearly immaculate from start to finish. It was part of a United Artists’ 90th anniversary retrospective so here’s hoping MGM follows their noir releases of last summer with a fresh set very soon.
Weather Changes Moods April 18, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films , add a commentA bevy of exciting filmgoing experiences are in store for those in the New York area (which is, in all likelihood, no one else who will be reading this). Feel free to live vicariously and I’ll promise to reciprocate. I’ve just returned from opening night of a gorgeous print of Arthur Penn’s Mickey One, freshly struck by Sony. Penn was on hand to introduce the film, but only commented briefly about the score. That’s understandable, however, because it was being shown as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s extensive series “Jazz Score,” which lasts until September and features movies and shorts that prominently use jazz. I already have DVDs for most of what’s scheduled so far, things like Elevator to the Gallows and Sweet Smell of Success, but I’m especially excited to see a pair of Shirley Clarke films coming in May. Both The Connection (on DVD, but somewhat difficult to find) and The Cool World are showing twice in May. Second Run released Clarke’s Portrait of Jason, and I’d love to see similar attention given to that pair.
Before Mickey One, Penn mentioned that he had brought in Eddie Sauter to do the score, with the idea that Sauter would bring a similar unconventional attitude as Penn was planning for the film. What he said he didn’t know was that Sauter was good friends with Stan Getz, who tagged along to the recording sessions and ended up making an indelible impression on the film through his saxophone improvisations. Certainly the score sticks out in Mickey One, not to rival what Miles Davis did for Elevator to the Gallows, but with an undeniable strength nonetheless. Taking into consideration that this was only Penn’s third feature, after The Left-Handed Gun and The Miracle Worker, it was a blazing leap forward. With Warren Beatty as his star and Godard and Truffaut serving as obvious influences, Mickey One must have looked almost nothing like anything Penn, Beatty, or anyone else was making in America in 1965.
Beatty is the title character, a Detroit nightclub comic who may or may not have several thousand dollars’ worth of gambling debts to the mob. He moves to Chicago where he’s dubbed “Mickey One” and returns to his natural calling of strip clubs and bars before getting a shot at a bigger pond, the Xanadu, where the man calling the shots is a very weird, very gay Hurd Hatfield. Mickey sees his death in everything, with paranoia leaking through his pores, and resists the Xanadu for fear of the mob possibly having found him out. A few audacious cuts and playful edits recall Breathless and other films of the Nouvelle Vague. The black and white cinematography, absolutely a sterling effort from Ghislain Cloquet, whose credits include everything from Night and Fog and Le Feu follet to Au hasard Balthazar and Mouchette, sort of reminded me of the later film Lenny, Bob Fosse’s biopic about Lenny Bruce. There’s a definite Kafka feel to the whole thing, too. That existential question mark about Mickey’s involvement brings to mind The Trial. Overall, a very odd, but exceptionally interesting film that should be on DVD.
Meanwhile, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the mayhem of 1968, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is offering up 1968: An International Perspective. With selections from Godard (La Chinoise), Marker (Grin Without a Cat), Oshima (The Man Who Left His Will on Film, aka The Battle of Tokyo or He Died After the War), and Antonioni (Zabriskie Point), among others, this looks to be an exceptional series of rarely shown films not readily available on DVD. I’ve only seen two in that series, WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Medium Cool. I’m afraid I’ll dislike Zabriskie Point, but I’m still anxious to see it. Film Forum also gets in on some ‘68 fever by showing five weeks of Godard’s films from the 1960’s. Not being a huge Godard admirer, I can’t say how often I’ll be partaking, but my sights are set on Made in the U.S.A. and Sympathy for the Devil. My favorite Godard film Vivre sa vie, and one which I do have total admiration for, will play for a full week in a new print, courtesy of Janus Films. Criterion will surely be releasing a comprehensive DVD later in the year.
Possibly the most anticipated program at the local repertory theaters for me personally comes later on when Film Forum will dedicate seven (!) weeks to legendary Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai, from June 20 to August 7. Words can barely contain my enthusiasm for such a tribute, which includes a pair of personal appearances by the actor. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another is one of my favorite films and will be shown in the retrospective, as will everything from Harakiri (with Nakadai present for a Q&A), Yojimbo, High and Low, Kagemusha, Ran, and three weeks of The Human Condition trilogy. The real gems are the things not yet on English-friendly DVD - films like Ichikawa’s I Am a Cat and Odd Obsession, Naruse’s Untamed, Kobayashi’s Black River, and Hideo Gosha’s Onimasa and Goyokin. As much as I hold Toshiro Mifune near and dear, Nakadai may be my favorite Japanese actor so I’m absolutely ecstatic at the possibility of seeing him in person. Kudos to everyone at Film Forum for having the guts to dedicate one of their screens for such a long period of time to Nakadai.