Ruggles of Red Gap October 30, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s , add a comment
When I attended a conversation with Wes Anderson during the New York Film Festival a few weeks ago, an audience member asked the director what movies from the last few years had he seen and enjoyed. Anderson struggled a bit with the question, clearly preoccupied by the significant amount of time he’d been devoting to his new film The Darjeeling Limited and perhaps unwilling to play favorites among recent fare. He finally did recommend a film: Ruggles of Red Gap. Leo McCarey’s comedy about a British manservant who’s lost in a poker game and has his services transferred from an English Earl to a wealthy American cowboy was actually released in 1935. Ehh, what’s seventy years or so.
I knew of Ruggles of Red Gap, but not much beyond that. My philosophy, for better or worse, is usually to wait for a DVD release because I have an interest in so many movies that I haven’t yet seen as to make it literally impossible to catch up with everything I want to see in the next couple of years (decades?). But then I saw Ruggles of Red Gap was getting a theatrical showing in Brooklyn, courtesy of being a selection in gifted author Jonathan Lethem’s series of picks for BAM. I love most everything I’ve seen from Leo McCarey and Charles Laughton (who stars as Ruggles) is nearly without peer in film acting throughout the ’30s, ’40s,’ and ’50s (plus Spartacus and Advise & Consent). Since Ruggles doesn’t have a DVD release anywhere in the world that I know of, I figured this was as good of an opportunity as any.
Bingo! I was right. Ruggles of Red Gap immediately took its place as one of the better comedies I’ve seen from the 1930s. Laughton is really outstanding as the title character. His transformation from completely uptight and proper valet to a liberated man of the people is extraordinary. The scene where his new employer, Egbert Floud, and Floud’s friend are drinking at a Paris cafe, suddenly drunk after a cut fast forwards the drinking time, perfectly plays with the audience. We see the two Americans obnoxiously hooting and hollering as Ruggles sits silently in the middle with mostly full glasses of alcohol. Suddenly, though, Ruggles lets out his own exclamation and it becomes obvious that he too is tanked, albeit with considerably less consumed. From then on, Ruggles is his own man, slowly freed from a life of servitude.
There are enough shenanigans and humorous moments in McCarey’s film to merit a strong recommendation on the sole basis of it making the audience laugh without feeling bad about what we find funny, but there’s also a stronger, more touching stream running beneath the comedy. When Ruggles is first told by his master, the Earl of Bumstead (Roland Young), that he’s been lost in a poker game and will have to make America his new home, he associates the continent with slavery. Such an inhumane and cruel practice is obviously looked upon unfavorably by this man, one who ironically spends his life at the beck and call of another human being, someone who treats him like a lesser citizen and requires his services for seemingly personal and simple matters like dressing and reading the newspaper.
Obviously, this is a big part of the film’s point. Despite Ruggles’ apprehension at living in a nation where slavery thrived not too long ago, his own existence is not far removed and certainly lacking in any sort of autonomous independence. By showing and gently beating the audience over the head with this idea, the film shines the spotlight on the ridiculous distinctions between classes and generations encumbered with status quo acceptances of rigid, outdated refusals to recognize individual liberty. Funny, biting humor is one thing and should be applauded accordingly, but inserting reminders like this of the worth of each person and the eventual refusal to accept society’s placement remains a refreshing prospect.
That, of course, leads me to the film’s most touching and profound scene. Ruggles has just been fired by his nemesis, the opportunistic Easterner Charles Belknap-Jackson, and coincidentally runs into Egbert and Ma Pettingill at the Silver Dollar Saloon. Egbert cites Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg, but has trouble remembering exactly what Lincoln said. No one else in the bar knows either. Suddenly Ruggles, in a near whisper, begins to recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, one of the most eloquent and moving speeches in American history. This Englishman knows what a room full of Americans doesn’t. It’s a touching, misty-eyed scene that rises above preachiness and, instead, works as a beautiful reminder of the easily-forgotten beauty the United States has to offer in its history, if not its present.
When Laughton recites the Gettysburg Address in full, it got me. This from someone who’s constantly looking for ways to leave the country for a peaceful and fresh start. I suppose I’m just as susceptible to well-done patriotism as the next person. None of the cloying, candycoated nonsense too often prevalent in the propaganda-laced films of World War II-era America, please. This is entirely different. Aside from just being highly accomplished and believable, it plays as real and sincere. Whatever my country has destroyed in the last seventy-two years, there will always be that artifact of true equality espoused by a legitimate president who apparently believed the words he spoke and wasn’t subject to inane blogs and all-day news channels questioning his every bathroom break. Again, Laughton’s scene is full of grace and beauty that remarkably holds years of history and incompetence on its shoulders without diminishing any of its power.
Along with Laughton, I’ll give credit for the film’s success to director Leo McCarey. A true titan of the 1930s, McCarey is often overlooked today due to a lack of availability of his films and the fact that his most popular picture, Duck Soup, is usually credited to the Marx Brothers more than its director. An even better film, The Awful Truth starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and the dog who’d play Asta in the Thin Man series, won McCarey an Academy Award, but doesn’t receive very much acclaim among today’s audiences. He also won the Oscar for Going My Way, a crowd-pleasing 1944 film starring Bing Crosby as a priest, but his modest reputation belies the talent shown in great films from The Milky Way, with Harold Lloyd, to Make Way for Tomorrow, a picture about the struggle of the elderly.
Ruggles of Red Gap had been tried on film twice before McCarey’s effort, but never afterwards. This version was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and is, presumably, the definitive telling of the story. Until Universal, who controls the home video rights through a deal with Paramount several years ago, decides to let the film breathe on DVD, viewers will have to be content with tracking down the VHS, praying for a television airing or the rare theatrical screening. I’d expect little more out of Universal, the studio who still controls the most accomplished and unreleased classic film library, and one who hasn’t released barely anything from it this year. Let’s hope Ruggles of Red Gap gets released sooner rather than later.
The Manchurian Candidate October 16, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , 8 comments
It’s easy to forget just how good John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate is. Despite the director’s lofty accomplishments, especially throughout the 1960s, he’s most remembered for this film and, perhaps, decades of struggles afterwards, probably reaching a low point with the Marlon Brando abomination The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1996. Sure The Manchurian Candidate ranked #67 on AFI’s initial list of the greatest American films ever, but it got bumped off completely the second time around this past summer. Before re-watching the film recently, I remembered that I had enjoyed it quite a bit the only previous time I’d seen it, but a new viewing found that my judgment has greatly matured since then. Where I looked mostly at plotting and story the first time, I now had my eyes opened to a bit more of what Frankenheimer was doing.
A good example of what I mean is when James Gregory’s Senator Iselin, the Joseph McCarthy stand-in who’s married to Angela Lansbury’s evil incarnate character and the stepfather of Laurence Harvey’s Raymond Shaw, spews anti-Communist venom by declaring an ever-changing number of Department of Defense members to be reds. I’ve never seen anything like this that I can recall. Frankenheimer puts Lansbury on the left of the frame, with Gregory behind her, and also on the technology-challenged television to the right. This is a scene to swoon over, to marvel at, and appreciate with everything I have to give. Not only is the McCarthy comparison spot-on, but it’s recreated in the same old-television look that countless news programs have recycled even in the decades since this film was made. And he’s got Lansbury on the screen too, giving as strong and complex a performance in such a hideous role as I can recall.
I don’t think that’s even the most impressive aspect of the film though. That honor would belong to the superb editing work done by the Oscar-nominated Ferris Webster. Early on, in flashback, Frank Sinatra’s Bennett Marco and Harvey’s Shaw are shown to have been brainwashed (or dry cleaned, if you will), along with the other members of their platoon, by a conspiracy of Communists. This scene alone should have secured Webster’s little gold man (alas, he lost). The soldiers think they are in a hotel lobby listening to a New Jersey ladies’ garden club party, when they’re actually surrounded by Communists of various nations. The seamless cuts between the innocuous women of a certain age dressed in their Sunday best to venal Communist military leaders is on a plane of brilliance all its own. It’s the kind of filmmaking you want to run up to a stranger in the street, give them the DVD, and beg them to watch. (Or maybe that’s just me.)
There’s at least one other moment in The Manchurian Candidate that’s good enough to be worthy of jawdropping disbelief. It’s the quite famous portion of the film when Sinatra is on a train from Washington, D.C. to New York City and he’s wracked with nerves, a victim of nightmares induced by the very real Communist brainwashing. He goes to the space in between two train cars and is followed by Janet Leigh. “Maryland’s a beautiful state,” she says. “This is Delaware,” replies Marco. “I know. I was one of the original Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch. But nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio, for that matter.” Viewers of the film know the conversation doesn’t get any less strange from there, as both inexplicably ask each other if they’re Arabic, among other things. Normally, I wouldn’t endorse absolutely senseless dialogue that’s never explained, but it completely works here. Janet Leigh’s character is an enigma to end all enigmas, but it plays perfectly in the context of the film.
I can just imagine Leigh reading her script and being completely clueless as to anything about her character. This is a woman who makes zero sense throughout the movie. She makes a connection with Marco that the audience cannot understand on any level, picks him up at the police station, and breaks up with her fiance so that she can be with Marco. There’s absolutely nothing this woman does that can be rationalized in the normal world we live in. Leigh, who persuasively adds to my long-held theory that women often look their best when in their mid-thirties, plays it completely straight, never giving away anything about the character or letting on at the absurdity of the situation. You can watch that scene between her and Sinatra on the train as many times as you want and it never gets old because there’s no definitive explanation anywhere in the film for what takes place.
The easier to understand portions of Frankenheimer’s film more than make up for what’s inexplicable. The movie was closely adapted from Richard Condon’s 1959 novel by George Axelrod and his screenplay is a gem of a screen puzzle. The larger plot, of Shaw as a brainwashed Communist zombie commanded by solitaire and, specifically, the queen of diamonds, is executed with near perfection and culminates exactly how it should. Has there ever been a creepier kiss in the movies than when Lansbury plants one directly on Harvey’s mouth? That entire speech from Lansbury leaves the viewer feeling uncomfortable and confused. It’s easy to comprehend what she’s saying, but the revelations of how she says it send the audience’s collective heads spinning. And who did Angela Lansbury lose the Best Supporting Actress to in 1962? America’s sweetheart, Patty Duke, for her portrayal of Anne Frank Helen Keller. (Note: Lansbury has been nominated for 3 Oscars and 15 Emmy awards, losing every time.)
So back to my original contention, that it’s too easy to undervalue The Manchurian Candidate, I believe that what Frankenheimer did after this film maybe has lead people to believe his work here was a fluke or possibly even overrated. Firstly, it wasn’t and it’s not. Second, Frankenheimer was a key director this decade and highly influential as a controlling auteur for the Hollywood renaissance of the 1970s. His “paranoia trilogy,” consisting of this film, Seven Days in May, and Seconds, are all brilliant, essential works of the decade. Seconds, in particular, still looks innovative and daring, as well as giving Rock Hudson his greatest role, as a man who chose to leave his middle-aged existence in favor of a more youthful life as an artist who ends up looking like Hudson. Frankenheimer would, several years later, hit a resurgence with television work like Andersonville and the excellent miniseries George Wallace. His career still looks like a bit of unrealized potential, but nearly all of his films are worth watching.
As most people know, there was a remake of The Manchurian Candidate directed by Jonathan Demme a couple of years ago. I saw it in the theater once, and haven’t watched the film since, but I did like it. Why a film the caliber of Frankenheimer’s original needs to be done again is a question I can’t answer, but I thought Demme and, especially, Denzel Washington put everything they had into the effort. If the new version works at all, it’s because Washington brings an actor’s chops to the character of Marco. Sinatra was a good actor for a singer, but otherwise his abilities were limited. Washington added the depth, that quality of being on the brink of unhinged craziness, that Sinatra and the 1962 film just missed. As good of an actress as Meryl Streep is, though, she didn’t really approach Lansbury’s characterization. The least you can ask of a remake is that it doesn’t disgrace the original and certainly Demme’s movie accomplished that. Actually, after watching Frankenheimer’s film, I was anxious to watch the remake again. Whether that’s a compliment to the original or the second version, I don’t know, but I’m sure I won’t undervalue the former again.
The current MGM special edition DVD available in both R1 and R2 is outstanding. Picture quality is very good and the extra features are everything one could ask for. Older interviews with Frankenheimer, Axelrod and Sinatra, as well as recent pieces with Lansbury and admirer William Friedkin (who seems to think Lee Harvey Oswald was definitely brainwashed like Raymond Shaw), are highly worthwhile. There’s also a commentary with Frankenheimer. It’s a great value at only $15 retail and any self-respecting film fan should probably own the disc. There’s even a little booklet, a facet of DVD collecting that too many companies overlook, in my opinion.
The TCM Ten 10/13-10/19 October 12, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films , add a comment
Between a day for biopics here and another for horror movies there, TCM isn’t making things easy for me. I’ve been on the run and hiding out, so no time to contribute on the home front. Salvation arrives next week in the form of Louis Malle and increasing birthday candles. As always, all times are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.
Saturday October 13
8:30 AM The Locket (Brahm, 1946) - BW-86 mins. - Director John Brahm is being semi-celebrated with a DVD set of three of his films from Fox this month. He also directed this noirish story of a bride and groom the night before their wedding. Layered in flashbacks, the groom (and the audience) learn of bride Laraine Day’s past with three men, including Robert Mitchum. Sounds lurid. A Warner Bros. property via RKO. Preceded by the infamous I Married a Communist (aka The Woman on Pier 13), also starring Day.
8:00 PM The African Queen (Huston, 1951) - C-105 mins. - The competition for most headscratchingly unavailable R1 title is thinning and Huston’s Bogie-Hepburn pairing remains firmly at the top. Paramount usually blames a lack of quality elements and the expense of restoration, but maybe they can put some of that Transformers money into this. Meanwhile, TCM icon Robert Osborne and worst..Essentials..host..ever Carrie Fisher will add their predictably brief thoughts in this week’s installment of The Essentials.
Sunday October 14
10:30 PM Footsteps in the Dark (Bacon, 1941) - BW-97 mins. - Errol Flynn as a high society mystery writer/crime solver who writes pseudonymous stories about his own family. I haven’t seen this, but it sounds intriguing and I tend to enjoy films that mix comedy and mystery. Why don’t they still make those, I wonder? Like most of Flynn’s films, this was made for Warner Bros. No DVD release yet, but maybe in their Flynn Vol. 3 or 4 set.
4:15 AM Vampyr (Dreyer, 1932) - BW-75 mins. - Image released this in R1 over nine years ago now, but the upcoming Masters of Cinema R2 DVD should be a significant improvement, using a new HD transfer. Also, Criterion apparently have their own edition planned. I’m not sure what print TCM plans to show, but it might worth tuning in or recording to find out.
Monday October 15
9:00 AM Boys’ Night Out (Gordon, 1962) - C-112 mins. - This is from the director of Pillow Talk and stars James Garner, Kim Novak, and Tony Randall. It’s a comedy about four guys, three married, who rent an apartment together and stock it with a beautiful young woman. Sounds lurid (ha!). They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore, for better or worse. Not available on DVD, released theatrically by MGM, making it controlled by Warner Bros.
Tuesday October 16
9:30 AM Disraeli (Green, 1929) - BW-87 mins. - George Arliss won an Academy Award for his portrayal of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but I must admit that I’m a little more curious to see a very young (and blonde) Joan Bennett, who co-stars. Director Alfred E. Green was incredibly prolific, if not particularly discriminating. He has 113 directorial credits on IMDB, ranging from a silent short in 1916 up to episodic television in 1958. Disraeli isn’t on DVD, but you have to think Warner Bros. will release it at some point. If nothing else, the people who buy every major Oscar-winning film would probably pick it up.
Wednesday October 16
9:15 AM The Affairs of Martha (Dassin, 1942) - BW-67 mins. - Jules Dassin, who’d go on to bigger and better films, has said that he didn’t much care for the early MGM work he did so I can’t say how good this particular movie might be. Dassin’s involvement is really my main source of interest. It’s apparently a comedy about a servant who writes a novel about her employers. DVD rights are controlled by Warner Bros. and since I don’t see how they’d fit this in any conceivable box set, it might be sitting on their shelf for awhile.
Thursday October 18
8:00 AM The Unfaithful (Sherman, 1947) - BW-109 mins. - I’m anxious to dive into this one. Ann Sheridan stars in a film noir/melodrama co-written by David Goodis (who, as I’ve mentioned before, wrote the source novels of Dark Passage and Shoot the Piano Player). The plot sounds oddly similar to The Letter, a very good Bette Davis film directed by William Wyler. That movie is on DVD, but The Unfaithful isn’t. Both were made by Warner Bros.
1:30 AM The Fugitive (Ford, 1947) - BW-100 mins. - The last time TCM showed this, I wrote about the film and enjoyed it quite a bit. Henry Fonda stars as a persecuted priest in Mexico. John Ford was said to have considered it a favorite. I can understand why and could see it being at least one of the director’s ten best films. A new R2 DVD will be released next month, but only available in a four film set from Universal that also includes Wagon Master and two titles already released in R1 - The Informer and Mary of Scotland. Warner Bros. should control the R1 DVD rights, as the film was made for RKO.
Friday October 19
8:00 PM Mark of the Vampire (Browning, 1935) - BW-61 mins. - Tod Browning’s film was released last year in the Warner Bros. Hollywood’s Legends of Horror set last year, but it’s not available for purchase individually. Not being a big horror buff, I really enjoyed this film more than the others in the set. Bela Lugosi appears as a vampire, sort of. I can see where some might be put off by the ending, but I think that’s why I liked the film as much as I did. There are some interesting silent Lon Chaney films showing later on in the night, including The Unknown, from 1927 and co-starring Joan Crawford.
The TCM Ten 10/6-10/12 October 5, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films , 3 comments
Not a lot to be excited about on TCM this week. I briefly considered going with the TCM Five, but I instead decided to include a few things of interest already on DVD. In lieu of time for further research, I’ve basically just written out my reasons for the picks. As always, all times are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.
Saturday October 6
8:00 AM To Be or Not to Be (Lubitsch, 1942) - BW-100 mins. - Like Ninotchka, this is a Lubitsch film I’m not entirely sold on. I appreciate it completely, for what it was doing and when it was doing it, but the magic isn’t there for me like with some of his other films. Still, any Lubitsch is good viewing and this was, tragically, Carole Lombard’s final role. Robert Stack is pretty darn good here also. Released on DVD by Warner Bros.
Sunday October 7
2:00 AM Family Diary (Zurlini, 1962) - C-114 mins. - I’ve not yet seen any of Zurlini’s work, but I’m nevertheless interested in seeing this because it stars Marcello Mastroianni and is unavailable on DVD. I know little about the film, aside from it being an Italian drama about two brothers, played by Mastroianni and Jacques Perrin. It doesn’t show up very often and, despite some releases by the fine NoShame label (now seemingly missing in action), Zurlini is fairly unknown. IMDB lists MGM as the original theatrical distributor.
Monday October 8
1:30 PM Fifth Avenue Girl (La Cava, 1939) - BW-84 mins. - I like the idea of hiring Ginger Rogers to “pretend” to be your gold digging mistress. That’s what Walter Connolly does here, just to annoy his family. How can this go wrong? Coming off My Man Godfrey and Stage Door, director Gregory La Cava was on a hot streak. Those two films are his only DVD releases in R1, though this is available on a French R2 disc. That’s a minor shame, as I’d like to see more 1930s comedies period, particularly on DVD. Warner Bros. owns the rights to this, originally made for RKO.
4:30 PM Love on the Run (Van Dyke, 1936) - BW-81 mins. - A Gable-Crawford teaming directed by Thin Man helmer W.S. Van Dyke. It’s a romantic comedy and sounds strangely similar to It Happened One Night, with Crawford as an heiress and Gable a reporter. (Wow did they love wacky heiresses back then.) Not to be outdone though, this one has spies! Probably not great, but I’m sure it’s a nice way to spend 81 minutes. Unavailable on DVD, made for MGM, and home video rights probably owned by Warner Bros.
5:30 AM The Jackie Robinson Story (Green, 1950) - BW-77 mins. - Baby Face director Alfred E. Green helmed the Hollywoodization of Robinson’s breaking of baseball’s color barrier. It’s included in TCM’s monthlong look at the biopic. Certainly not a great film, but an undeniably fascinating one with Robinson playing himself only three years after his major league debut. Ruby Dee plays his wife Rachel. I think biopics tend to work best when the person’s story isn’t common knowledge, but Jackie Robinson’s life was so incredible that he may be an exception. Spike Lee has wanted to make a movie about Robinson for years now, but I believe he’s given up on trying to secure the necessary funds. Right after Jamie Foxx’s Oscar win there were reports of him starring as Robinson in a new film, with Robert Redford playing Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, but that, thankfully, hasn’t come to pass as of now. There’s also a reasonably good television movie from 1990 about Robinson’s court-martial, starring the great Andre Braugher, but it’s not on DVD. This film, however, is on DVD, in numerous public domain editions, as well as a release by MGM.
Thursday October 11
10:30 AM The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948) - BW-126 mins. - Sort of a filler pick because WB released a really great two-disc special edition DVD a few years ago, but the film is so good that it’s worth mentioning. The best of the Huston-Bogart teamings and I’m always fighting between deciding whether Bogart’s finest performance is here or as Dix Steele in Ray’s In a Lonely Place.
8:00 PM The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman, 1943) - BW-76 mins. - This was made and released on DVD by Fox so it’s not normally shown on TCM. I’m not sure why they’re showing this and not Henry Fonda’s other Fox films like The Grapes of Wrath or, even, Daisy Kenyon. (Drums Along the Mohawk and My Darling Clementine are scheduled for December during a spectacular John Ford tribute.) Regardless, it’s a great (though upsetting) little Western/morality tale and one I’ve heard cited by Clint Eastwood several times as being a personal favorite. Fonda was so obviously interested in socially important parts that reflected his own political sensibilities. The R1 Fox Studio Classics DVD of this is very good and includes an episode of A&E’s Biography series on Fonda.
1:15 AM The Rounders (Kennedy, 1965) - C-85 mins. - Burt Kennedy is an interesting figure in the history of the Western genre. He collaborated on several films with Budd Boetticher, notably Seven Men from Now, and then made a series of comedic Westerns. This was one of the early ones, and stars Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford as a couple of aging cowboys. Peter Fonda and Warren Oates both appear uncredited. Another MGM production, probably controlled by Warner Brothers, and unreleased on DVD.
Friday October 12
6:00 PM The Satan Bug (Sturges, 1965) - C-115 mins. - I haven’t seen it, but I’m intrigued by the presence of John Sturges, using this as his follow-up to The Great Escape. The plot concerns germ warfare and a mad millionaire, things that seem cheesy until you remember that very combination poses a potential threat now. Richard Basehart and Dana Andrews lead the cast. The film was released theatrically by United Artists, and is unavailable on DVD, with MGM controlling home video rights.
9:30 PM Strait-Jacket (Castle, 1964) - BW-92 mins. - Four William Castle films in a row on TCM prime time this evening. I don’t think I’ve watched any of his films, but this one seems like a good entry point. The TCM guide says, “murder follows an axe murderer home when she’s released from a mental hospital.” In a real stretch, Joan Crawford is the axe murderer. The more famous Castle film The Tingler, with Vincent Price, airs at 12:45 AM. There’s a Sony DVD of this on the market, reviewed favorably by DVD Savant. “Bring me the axe!”