Tuesday with Shirley July 23, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, Billy Wilder , add a commentHow does one approach Shirley MacLaine? With respect? Surely. With admiration? Maybe. With awe? Possibly. If The Apartment is as close as any to being your favorite film, you probably do so equipped with something related to that movie, book-wise. Arm twisted for no apparent reason, I’d probably choose The Apartment, along with It’s a Wonderful Life and Rear Window, as personal top of the heap. I love most everything about Billy Wilder’s cinematic instruction manual for life, including MacLaine’s performance as elevator operator Fran Kubelik. Miss Kubelik is a bit of a dour character who could so easily be tilted too far one direction or the other, but Ms. MacLaine delivers the sadness, the pixielike allure, the imperfect heroine with a warmth and subtlety that win me over every time. I hope there’s nothing improper about having a crush on a 48-year-old movie character. (Don’t tell me even if there is.)
For me, it’s The Apartment, but I know it’s Terms of Endearment for others, or maybe The Turning Point or any number of her roles. From starting with Hitchcock in The Trouble with Harry to serving as the Rat Pack mascot and doing Some Came Running alongside Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, she’s nothing short of a legend. After The Apartment, I’ll take Being There as a somewhat distant second favorite, even if her role is overshadowed by Peter Sellers. Wilder’s Irma La Douce isn’t close to fully utilizing either director or actress, but it’s another good turn and one I also enjoy. Plus, you know, she’s a little nutty in real life. Growing up, I associated Shirley MacLaine with her, let’s say, unorthodox views on reincarnation, alien life, and probably half a dozen other interesting topics. It took the discovery of her films from the fifties and sixties to really make me appreciate the acting and star presence.
So what would the demographic of a big city book signing be like for an Academy Award-winning actress, best-selling author, beloved icon of spirituality, and Warren Beatty’s big sister? In short, lots of older people and lots of females. The thing with New York City events like this (meaning, free) is that they always seem to attract a myriad display of eccentrics. A rogues’ gallery of poor hygiene, indescribable fashion, and a complete lack of candor. The most vocal members of this type of crowd have seen it all and left social scars all across the city. People will ask most anything, regardless of coherence or appropriateness. Add in some air conditioning when it’s ninety degrees outside and the fun simply creates itself.
Something I’ve begrudgingly grown to love about book signing lines are the inevitable wait times. If I’d not queued up, as my friends on the other side say, I wouldn’t have seen the absolute disgust repeatedly met by the book store worker’s announcements that Ms. MacLaine would only be signing and not reading, answering questions, or singing (!). The delight here was especially exacerbated when Shirley came out obviously unaware of the store’s warning. She very casually inquired about the plan for the night and asked if anyone had any questions for her. Question #1 - Why is the government covering up the existence of UFO’s? clydefro reaction #1 - Oh boy, this is going to be a hoot. Trust me, this is not the kind of thing you can uncover just everyday, for free nonetheless, even in Manhattan. I had hit upon a goldmine of sociological observation.
There has to be a level of sheer, bewildered admiration in seeing a bona fide film legend like Shirley MacLaine be so brave and honest in her opinions. I truly revere her openness. I think she’s touched, but I still have the utmost respect for her willingness to share. Of course, she has a sense of humor about it all. When someone asked about Frank Sinatra, she briefly pretended to summon him from beyond. It also shouldn’t go unnoticed that people really adore this woman, and, at least in this audience, it doesn’t even seem primarily to be for her film roles. I was thrilled when someone finally asked about making Some Came Running for Vincente Minnelli. Shirley’s reply? Minnelli was a great director of curtains, of furniture, but pretty much left his actors alone. (No wonder Minnelli made an entire film about curtains!)
She also gave her fans ample opportunity to speak. With the Q&A already unannounced and, thus, eating into the allotted signing time, a book store employee attempted to cut things off by proclaiming a particular question as the last one. Having none of it, Shirley immediately negated that and made a definitive motion to continue on, which the session did for another ten or fifteen minutes, thirty in all. This allowed for an Obama question (Shirley’s a fan) and the previously mentioned Sinatra moment. Time a wastin’ already, the signing started soon afterwards, but she again seemed intent on meeting and greeting everyone (not a common reaction by any means). I don’t know if everyone was able to have their book scrawled on, but my wait paid off and I was glad to share how much I love The Apartment with her.
There’s a really attractive Billy Wilder book from Taschen that I received as a birthday gift last year. It has lots of photos and concise text about all of his Hollywood films as writer or director. In the back of the book there’s a nice picture with Wilder and MacLaine, and an unidentified man between the two of them. There’s also some white space at the bottom of the page. Perfect. I felt bad about not purchasing her book so I’m now the semi-proud owner of a paperback copy of Sage-ing While Age-ing. Signings have different degrees of security/pushy big dudes. Thankfully, this was fairly laid back and I was able to present the page of the Wilder book to her, which she signed without hesitation but only after trying to remember if she knew who the guy between her and Billy Wilder was. You can see why people love her so much. She does come across as being out there in another place, but she’s also genuine. That’s not a quality often seen or associated with “movie stars.” I think Shirley probably is more interested in another kind of stars anyway. When someone asked about her astrological sign, she asserted herself as a Taurus, placing her index fingers on either side of her forehead.
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.
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 Private Life of Sherlock Holmes April 7, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1970s, Billy Wilder , 4 comments
When looking at Billy Wilder’s films as director, there are four that especially stick out in terms of incompatibility with the rest. The Emperor Waltz is a Bing Crosby musical and generally regarded as unsuccessful on most every level. The Spirit of St. Louis, despite being a fine film, puts Wilder in studio-constricted biopic land. Witness for the Prosecution, another excellent movie, has few, if any, of Wilder’s signatures and seems like it could have been made by at least half a dozen other competent directors. Then there’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Wilder’s 1970 needling of Arthur Conan Doyle’s mythic detective. The film exists only in a version that was drastically shortened from the original intentions of Wilder and his longtime screenwriting partner I.A.L. Diamond, but it still manages to feel like a cohesive, brilliantly executed whole.
There are certainly several of Wilder’s fingerprints in the picture, it’s just that the use of such a well-known character and the Scottish locations, among other things, feels like fresh dust. It’s a perfect marriage of classic Hollywood filmmaking with the newfound freedoms that resulted from an especially creative period in American movies. For some people, the problem may be that it’s not entirely either one of those. The pacing is deliberate and relaxed, yet the first half hour has little to do with the remainder of the film. Holmes and the trusty Dr. Watson may be familiar names ingrained in most of our memories, but the portrayals are hardly consistent with interpretations up to that point. Holmes, in particular, is much more ambiguous and complex, with noncommittal sexual preference, questionable decision making, and an unapologetic dependency on cocaine.
These are attributes parsed from the original stories, to be sure, but they still vary significantly from the consensus of Holmes as an infallible master of deduction. Robert Stephens, whose cocktail of whiskey and sleeping pills during the shoot delayed production for weeks, plays Holmes as prim, proper and arrogant, all attempts to mask the character’s sadness. Colin Blakely’s Watson is just the opposite, convivial and slightly bumbling. Both performances are perfectly used by Wilder, regardless of how they fit in with Conan Doyle’s mythology. As we see in the film, Holmes scolds Watson repeatedly about his extreme glamorization of the detective’s work. Considering these are two of the most famous fictional characters in literary history, it’s undeniable that Wilder and Diamond had a difficult task in bringing their skewed version of Holmes and Watson to the screen. The interesting thing is that the film seems destined to disappoint both those looking for a Sherlock Holmes movie and the ones interested in a typical Billy Wilder effort. And yet The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is an exceptional film. No wonder it was a commercial disappointment! Who’s supposed to embrace this thing again?
People who enjoy quality filmmaking, for starters. That initial half hour, when Holmes and Watson are mysteriously summoned to a Russian performance of Swan Lake so that the star can request the detective’s paternal seed, is so good that you wonder why other films don’t frequently employ episodic structures. Of course, that was Wilder’s intention, to present a series of four episodes, all of which were filmed and ready to go. A story about a Belgian woman dropped on the doorstep of Holmes and Watson, leading the trio to Scotland and an apparent encounter with the Loch Ness Monster, comprises the remaining hour and a half while the other two portions were cut. In terms of holy grails of lost footage, as much as I’d like to see Orson Welles’ more complete version of The Magnificent Ambersons, I think I’d be equally anxious to see the full version of Wilder’s film. It’s a huge credit to Wilder’s ability as a director that even with the severe edits he was able to produce something as brilliant as the existing cut is here.
After Gabrielle Valladon (played by the lovely Genevieve Page) is deposited at Holmes’ Baker Street address, Wilder does well to produce a subversion of the famous character’s well-documented skills, veiled in a pretty good mystery. At some point, it seems natural to try and understand why Wilder and Diamond would bother in making a fairly difficult film with Holmes as the center. The best explanation I can come up with would be the desire to portray Holmes as a man wrongly described, whose actual attributes are far more humanlike than what’s shown in the stories. It’s the burden of brilliance, but also the inconvenience of not being as intelligent as your superhuman reputation. There are several chuckles, but the film certainly isn’t a comedy so I don’t think that was ever the aim, to place Holmes in a simple and slightly comic series of situations. It would seem more that the idea was for a repositioning of the Holmes character as a man unable to deal with his basic loneliness and alienation, soothed only by pompous one-upping of his sidekick Watson and frequent drug use.
The Holmes here is ultimately a failure at the hands of technology, bested by his brother Mycroft, who, in turn, suffers a major miscalculation of his own. So is it the dissolving of myths that Wilder is interested in? Is this his Liberty Valance? Yeah, I sort of think so. Though he was only 64 at the film’s release, and would churn out four more pictures afterwards, Wilder created his definitive “old man” movie here. The call-backs to a more classic style even than in his previous few efforts and the patience of experience he displays are both important elements to bridging the old with the new. Even when Wilder was younger, he didn’t normally employ the classical and calculated sense of purpose seen here. The structure is considered and nearly perfect. This is part of why it’s so incredible to think that the film was initially envisioned as much longer. The existing version feels appropriate as it is, only marred, in my opinion, a little by the first part of the Loch Ness Monster bit.
When Sherlock Holmes fails to really do much of anything right, despite his predictably shortsighted detective work, it’s at the expense of volumes of lionizing literature. The film thus works as a warning against the perils of smug overconfidence. For Holmes, the sticky truth isn’t that he’s a failure (something he seems to be fighting against throughout), but that a promising opportunity for romance has been squandered. It’s a slow realization, but by the end it’s obvious that he’s in movie love with the not-really Belgian Gabrielle/Ilse. The sexuality aspect here is interesting because Wilder and Diamond put it at the forefront for the viewer. Holmes’ reluctance to declare his heterosexuality to Watson early on seems to be due to one of three reasons: 1.) He’s being coy; 2.) He’s unsure himself as to his current feelings; or 3.) He’s so desexualized as to make it seemingly irrelevant. I think any of these three explanations work perfectly fine. With any of them, Holmes makes it obvious that he’s not actively searching for female companionship, making the presence of Gabrielle/Ilse a difficult situation.
The forced push at the end, when Holmes seems to realize his feelings for her just when she’s no longer attainable, serves as another reminder of how empty his life is. Watson and his silly stories are just about all the character has going for him. Then when it looks like the audience will be treated to the usual ending wrapped in sentimentality, Wilder continues the film and, in so doing, removes any trace of happiness. Watson is little more than a hyper-intelligent canine with a medical bag and Holmes the junkie can only shoot up and pass out (off-screen, of course). In essence, this is Wilder’s most daring film since Ace in the Hole, and it appeals to generally no one outside the director’s most devoted followers. He was able to completely demystify a legendary character with a huge following, using a fully sincere approach, while also putting together a deceptive genre story that proves quite entertaining. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is destined to remain largely unappreciated because it has few of the attributes Wilder is most known for, but it’s nevertheless an atypical slice of brilliance from the director.
Wilder himself apparently disagreed. In Cameron Crowe’s book Conversations with Wilder, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is characterized by its creator as basically a great film ruined by later editing after the director went off to another country (shades of Ambersons). Wilder retained final cut in his contract, but a terrible test screening and a supposedly misplaced negative resulted in the trimmed version, topping out at 125 minutes, being what hit theaters. Other reports seem to indicate Wilder was agreeable with the existing edit. Regardless, upon release it promptly sank, just like Ace in the Hole. Wilder had gone four years since the release of his last film, The Fortune Cookie, and it’s not surprising that audiences mostly stayed away from this one. The financially successful films of 1970 were either epic spectacles like Aiport and Patton or then-daring expressions of a new generation like M*A*S*H and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. Ironically, despite the freedom afforded Wilder that probably would have been unimaginable a decade or two earlier, his audience was no longer interested.
The saga of the film’s different incarnations is well documented on the R1 DVD, which ported over several of the laserdisc extras. A new 15-minute interview (from 2003) with Christopher Lee, who plays Mycroft Holmes, doesn’t shed a lot of light on the various cuts, but it does give Lee the chance to single out Wilder as the best director he’s ever worked with, and it also lets the actor reminisce on his own turns playing Sherlock Holmes. The film’s editor Ernest Walter, the man referred to by Wilder in Crowe’s book, goes into great detail about what was cut and so forth in a half-hour interview from the mid-nineties that was originally on the laserdisc. Then, you can see for yourself much of what was removed. A prologue with Colin Blakely as Watson’s modern-day grandson would have further set up the idea that these four episodes derived from material deemed too private to be published in Holmes’ lifetime. This particular portion is told on the DVD from still photos and script excerpts, but the viewer definitely gets a good feeling of how it might have turned out.
The crude reconstruction continues with one of the excised sequences, a lengthy story involving an upside down room. It has audio, but only photographs instead of video. I think this would have been an exceptionally strong portion of the film had it remained because it reinforces the idea that Watson cares deeply for Holmes and that the detective is sort of miserably entwined in his own intelligence. The next scene removed was a brief flashback where Holmes and Gabrielle/Ilsa are just about to go to sleep on the train. The scene was intended as a means for explaining some of Holmes’ reluctance to become romantically involved, stemming from an incident with a schoolboy crush who turned out to be a prostitute. This too would have fit perfectly within the film and improved the existing scene without bogging it down.
The final episode not in the finished film exists on the DVD in letterboxed video, but is missing the audio. The dialogue from the script has been inserted as subtitles. The scene is very funny and concerns Watson putting on Holmes’ hat (literally) and trying to solve a murder. In relation to the rest of the film, it seems to fit the least of the cut portions. If the movie had been made today, this little bit could have worked perfectly as a DVD-only extra or even a short intended to run before the film. All total, there’s over an hour of extra material here, all of which was shot and excluded from the final cut. The inclusion of this footage on the DVD is really something to be thankful for, but the hope that somehow Wilder’s full version could be restored still nags.
Ace in the Hole on DVD July 23, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Billy Wilder , 7 comments
In the Criterion Collection’s monthly newsletter, they ask a prominent figure associated with a previously released title to compose a list of ten favorite selections among the Criterion catalog. Even though it was just released this past week, I know for certain that I would choose their Ace in the Hole
At the first chance I had, I devoured every nook and cranny of the two-disc set. I was initially disappointed by the cover art, seemingly too simple and dull. When it was in my hands though, it seemed fittingly in-your-face. No complaints (though I still haven’t warmed to the figure-8 case design Criterion has adopted for double disc sets since their new logo switch last summer). Inside the case, we have a mock newspaper instead of the usual insert booklet, perfectly keeping with the film. Two lengthy essays, by critic Molly Haskell and the director Guy Maddin, make up the contents of the mini-paper and there are even advertisements to re-elect Escadero Sheriff Kretzer and for the rattlesnake hunt that proves crucial to the film’s main character, Charles “Chuck” Tatum, fearlessly embodied by Kirk Douglas.
The DVD transfer is very good, though not immaculate, and has a beautiful contrast. There are brief instances where the picture becomes soft, but certainly nothing distracting or disappointing. For your listening pleasure, Criterion has included a commentary with British film professor Neil Sinyard, co-author of Journey Down Sunset Boulevard: The Films of Billy Wilder. Sinyard has a very relaxed, easygoing voice and he provides a highly informative accompaniment to the picture (probably best heard after seeing the film though, as he does hint at things to come). He comes across as knowledgeable (despite mistakenly referring to Ace co-screenwriter Lesser Samuels as writing No Way Back, instead of the actual title No Way Out, the previous year) without turning the commentary into a dry lecture.
Indeed, there were several items of interest I learned from his commentary, notably that Sunset Blvd. party guest, and famed composer of songs like “Silver Bells” and “Que Sera, Sera,” Jay Livingston was the co-writer of the wry anthem “We’re Comin’ Leo.” Also, Sinyard astutely comments on many of the impressively subtle aspects of Wilder’s film, such as the full circle shots of Tatum at both the beginning and end of the movie in the Albuquerque newspaper office. Plus, he convinced me of the sexual relationship between Tatum and Jan Sterling’s Lorraine Minosa. Despite being a tad disappointed at one or two things omitted from the commentary, such as the failure to point out the possible connotations of the S&M Amusement Corp., overall, I was enthralled. I also appreciated that Sinyard couldn’t resist mentioning William Holden’s quip that Wilder had a “mind full of razorblades.”
Also on the first disc is the film’s original theatrical trailer, even identifying it by the briefly-released preferred title instead of The Big Carnival, which the film came to be known as after Paramount tried a happier, more cheerful alternative name when the first one didn’t attract moviegoers. The second disc of the set contains the bulk of the extra features. First up is film critic Michel Ciment’s hour-long interview documentary from 1980, Portrait of a “60% Perfect Man,” which also features brief comments from Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Wilder’s writing partner I.A.L. Diamond. It’s fun to watch, if not particularly enlightening until maybe the final segment, but Ciment is an incredibly passive interviewer. Of interest, parts of Wilder’s art collection are shown and we see the director still in possession of an almost manic energy, unable to sit still throughout the interview.
A 1984 interview with Kirk Douglas is here as well, wherein the actor repeatedly compliments Wilder and tellingly expresses his surprise that American audiences didn’t warm to Ace in the Hole while European crowds seemed to enjoy it much more. Douglas sees Tatum as slightly less inhumane than the impression I’d guess most viewers have of the character. Over thirty years after the film’s release, Douglas seemed to have the exact same speaking voice then as he did in 1951. What a virile, fit guy Kirk Douglas has always been. I mentioned this in another entry, but I saw him not too long ago and despite surviving numerous setbacks like a debilitating stroke, a death-defying helicopter accident and reconstructive knee operations, the man remains a titan. His voice is irreparably damaged by the stroke, but his spirit and energy are incredible for someone who’s ninety years of age.
Criterion has also included another Wilder interview, recorded at the American Film Institute in 1986 with George Stevens, Jr. playing silent observer to Wilder riffing on his beginnings in Hollywood, the need for directors who can read, and his thoughts on the studios. Neither of these pieces showcasing the director are as comprehensive as Volker Schlöndorff’s Billy Wilder Speaks, but both still make for welcome inclusions. The Ciment interview does a better job of showing Wilder’s daily routines, as we see him doing everything from yelling at a televised baseball game to opening a cigar while lying in a hammock. An audio interview with co-screenwriter Walter Newman by Rui Nogueira basically continues the Wilder lovefest and confirms the idea that several of the film’s trademark elements came from the director, including the blistering opening sequence of Tatum’s first visit to the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin.
Finally, we’re rewarded with a welcome afterword from Spike Lee, whose work, believe it or not, owes a significant debt to Wilder. He shows us a framed lobby card of the film, in its The Big Carnival incarnation, autographed by Wilder and Douglas. There’s a funny passage in Cameron Crowe’s Conversations with Wilder, a must for fans of the director, where Wilder mentions that Lee had stopped by his office to have a few things signed and the elder filmmaker was surprised to learn that the man in his office was Spike Lee. Wilder didn’t know what the director looked like, though he had been a fan of his work. In the afterword on the Criterion disc, Lee makes the point that Ace in the Hole shares a prophetic vision of the media circus with Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd.
Upon hearing Lee’s proclamation, I wanted to give him a huge bear hug since I too consider these two films as kindred spirits, among the best the decade had to offer. Though Cameron Crowe (who is thanked in the liner notes, but is conspicuously absent here) owes a substantial debt to Billy Wilder and is obviously a fond admirer of his films, I would nominate Spike Lee as a more likely heir to Wilder’s throne in modern filmmaking. Like Wilder, Lee is unafraid of taking bold steps in his films, even if he doesn’t share the same audience or critical popularity. He acknowledges in the interview the borrowing of Ace in the Hole’s final shot of Tatum collapsing to the floor for Lee’s own Malcolm X, a film which remains one of the key biography films of the past twenty years. Also on the disc is a stills gallery, showing several interesting behind-the-scenes photos of Wilder, Douglas, and Sterling, including what appears to be an actual deck of cards depicting the film’s doomed subject Leo Minosa as the ace of spades. What I wouldn’t give to have such a collectible.
It’s been a long time coming, but finally Ace in the Hole has made its way onto DVD. I’m anxious to see what kind of boost the release will mean for its reputation over the next few decades. Even after 56 years and repeated instances of life imitating art, the film still plays as very, very dark and unrelentingly cynical. Yet, I find myself loving it more on each viewing. I’m over the moon about Criterion stepping up to unleash the film to the masses. Such a high profile release guarantees it much more publicity and provides a greater awareness than if Paramount had simply slapped out a no-frills disc with an ugly cover (think of the atrocity that is the cover for The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek) and a bargain retail price.
Of course, they’ve had the chance to put out their own version for over a decade and haven’t so I’m thrilled Paramount came to their senses and licensed it to Criterion. For a company so used to putting out important, comprehensive editions of great films, Criterion may have outdone themselves here. This was a film completely unavailable on the home video market across the globe, rarely seen on television over the years and even less often under its original title. The quality of the movie and Wilder’s reputation should have warranted something more, but instead year after year went by without a release of any kind from Paramount. Now, finally, we’re rewarded with the Criterion set, a definitive look (though the inclusion of the animated short The Big Story would have been nice) at Wilder’s most daring film. Ace in the Hole, finally rescued.
Stalag 17 April 23, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Billy Wilder , 9 comments
Context is everything in movies. In any particular scene, a line of dialogue can elicit hearty laughs if given the right set-up while the same exact line might cause an audience to break down into tears when used in a different situation. The idea of context is just as important for directors and, to a lesser extent, actors. It can be helpful for the viewer to look at a film within the director’s larger filmography, especially taking into consideration where the filmmaker was at that point in his career. A perfect example of the importance of context is Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17
By increasingly filling his movies with both biting satiric comedy and jokes easily understood by the masses, Wilder wisely moved on from the commercial failure of Ace in the Hole, knowing success assured the director he could essentially make his own rules while still retaining the freedom of major studio budgets. Prior to Stalag 17, Wilder had mostly been directing dramatic films, notably Double Indemnity and then winning an Oscar for The Lost Weekend. Though many of the screenplays he wrote for other directors were comedies and his directorial debut, The Major and the Minor, was lighter fare, the large majority of his earlier films were steeped in a seriousness that rarely popped up afterwards. With Stalag 17, the filmmaker, perhaps better than in any of his other films, balanced a dire, almost hopeless situation with frequent retreats into laughter. Every Wilder drama has moments of humor and every Wilder comedy has an undercurrent of seriousness, but none of his other films dared to repeatedly show the lighter side of a subject as seemingly grave as a Nazi-run American prisoner-of-war camp. A generation before Robert Altman made M*A*S*H, Wilder unapologetically mixed laughter with war.
Using the director’s favorite narrative device, the voiceover, Wilder throws his audience into an American POW camp just before Christmas 1944. Our occasional narrator is Cookie, one of the men of Stalag 17 (Stalag, the German shorthand for a prisoner-of-war camp, was an abbreviation of the word Stammlager) and the only ally of the film’s protagonist, J.J. Sefton. In an attempted escape, two American prisoners from Sefton’s barracks are soon shot and killed after emerging out of a tunnel. All of their fellow captives are optimistic that the two men will make it through alive, except Sefton. Just after the two men have initiated their escape, Sefton lays down a couple of packs of cigarettes on their execution. The ever cynical Sefton cleans up when the men are shot down, never displaying a shred of emotion. Every prisoner has found a way to cope with his imprisonment, whether it’s through impaired reality or the elimination of the outside world completely, but Sefton appears to be the only one who’s decided to use it to his advantage. Where the others are hopeful idealists, Sefton’s a realist biding his time until he can enjoy freedom once again.
As tensions continue between Sefton and the others, two new prisoners replace the failed escapees - Lieutenant Dunbar (Don Taylor), whose name Sefton recognizes as part of a wealthy Boston family, and an actor who entertains with movie star impressions (Jay Lawrence, real-life brother of F-Troop’s Larry Storch). After repeated plans of action are intercepted by the Germans and Lt. Dunbar is fingered for blowing up an ammunitions train prior to being captured, the prisoners realize one of the men is telling the Nazis their every move. Since Sefton has a well-stocked supply of alcohol, cigarettes and various other goods, which he uses to bribe his way past Nazi guards into the Russian female prisoners’ quarters, he becomes the leading suspect. His surliness towards the other men surely doesn’t help matters. Their suspicion climaxes in a physical attack on Sefton, holding him down and bruising his face when their paranoia caroms out of control. Even Sefton’s loyal helper Cookie eventually begins to suspect him. Though he’s not interested in popularity contests and doesn’t seem too concerned with being ostracized, Sefton realizes that identifying the real spy may be his ticket out of the POW camp, with the added bonus of a potential reward for returning Dunbar to his wealthy family.
William Holden won an Academy Award playing Sefton, an iconoclast who perfectly embodies the Wilder opportunist that we’ve seem so often in his films. It’s not surprising that Wilder all but identified him as the character most like himself from one of his films. He’s a remarkably different kind of hero, one who looks after number one more than his fellow soldiers and values survival above all else. You could say he even anticipates the antiheroes made famous in American films of the 1970s. Holden deserved his Oscar, despite initially turning down the role out of concern for the character’s unwavering cynicism and being uneasy with some of Sefton’s choices. The actor had worked with Wilder before in Sunset Blvd., when the filmmaker revived Holden’s foundering career, so it would seem that he should have anticipated a different kind of hero role and a director unwilling to budge from his ideas. Like many a Wilder protagonist, Sefton is in it for himself, nearly to a fault. He seems completely unconcerned with the welfare of anyone else, treating the Nazis no worse than the other men in his barracks.
Those other prisoners, specifically the characters of Animal and Shapiro, provide the film’s comic relief (along with director Otto Preminger, as the Nazi commandant, putting on his boots for a phone call). As Animal, Robert Strauss was Oscar-nominated for the Betty Grable-obsessed character, a combination of three Marx brothers with a dash of Moe Howard’s commanding assertiveness. His buddy Shapiro, played by Harvey Lembeck, seems to keep Animal grounded through distractions like sneaking over to the Russian females’ de-lousing shower and cross-dressing to temporarily recreate a Betty Grable pin-up picture. This humor, poignantly portrayed by the two actors who also played their roles in the original Broadway version, is painted with broad strokes but still can’t conceal the painful uncertainty of the two men’s fates. Their actions are merely an example of personal coping and shouldn’t be diminished as a denial of the unpleasant circumstances that often accompany war.
Wilder actually wrings more emotion out of the frequently funny Stalag 17 than he had any film before, and few afterwards. With the prisoners’ rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” as Sefton lies recovering from his wounds in bed, slowly putting the pieces together concerning who’s the spy, Wilder skillfully turns the moment into a heart-wrenching culmination of patriotic bravery and defiant heroism. It’s a dagger of emotion that reminds the viewer what’s at stake for these men. Even if Sefton’s actions always remain primarily self-serving (and it’s difficult to argue that his unmasking of the German was for love of country or fellow servicemen), he’s a hero nonetheless. He raises morale and eliminates the German spy while securing the freedom of two American soldiers.
The special edition DVD released by Paramount last year is a marked improvement over their previous disc. The image quality is drastically better, absent the dirt and debris that plagued the first release. Since there’s a strange absence of a DVD Beaver review for either disc, much less a comparison, my memory of the first release is all I have to go on, but I do remember being disappointed with that transfer when I watched it. The new version has a remarkably sharp picture, consistent with Paramount’s usual high standard. They also tossed on two featurettes, one recounting details of the making of the film and the other about the real Stalag XVII B camp, as well as a commentary teaming actors Gil Stratton (Cookie) and Richard Erdman (Hoffy) with playwright Donald Bevan. I’d like to have seen Peter Graves participate in the featurette and/or the commentary and wonder why he’s absent. The only real negative to the DVD is Paramount’s insistence on including forced trailers. If I wanted to see John Wayne movies or Titanic then I’d buy those DVDs. When I put in Stalag 17, that’s what I’d like to watch.
There’s apparently another aspect of Stalag 17 worth discussing, one that conveniently returns me to my initial mention of context. It’s the idea that Wilder lets Sefton’s characteristic cynicism shrivel at the end, with a wave and a grin. DVD Savant’s review devotes a paragraph to this proposition, mentioning several nameless critics who’ve identified the action as Wilder’s “’sell-out’ moment.” Since I admittedly didn’t dredge through every review I could find of the film, I’ll have to pick on what the Savant wrote. He also makes the point that “the gesture is sincere,” something I disagree with just as much as the idea that Sefton (or Wilder) goes soft here. I see it much more as a “see ya, suckers” kind of moment. If Billy Wilder made it today, one could imagine Sefton’s salute and smile being replaced by a middle finger.
Context is key here because Sefton had just said to these men, fellow soldiers who had beaten and accused him of being a Nazi collaborator despite his denials, “If I ever run into any of you bums on a street corner, just let’s pretend we never met before.” Not exactly a friendly goodbye. Sefton then heads down into the tunnel hole, and pops back up just to boastfully give the salute. If there’s a twinkle in his eye when Sefton grins, it would seem to be from knowing he’s about to get out of this hellhole while they all remain. The only hint of sincerity relies on the viewer’s subjectivity. If you want to believe Sefton “breaks character” then I think you’re going against the weight of the evidence laid forth throughout the entire film, but that’s your right as a viewer. If you choose to think Sefton’s mentally mounting his private revenge with that smile then that’s your option as well. I just can’t believe a director as uncompromising as Billy Wilder would purposefully betray what he’s worked two hours to establish if another logical explanation is available.
From DVD Savant’s review and what seems to be a general lack of critical interest, I don’t perceive the film as garnering the accolades currently received by many of the director’s other films from the 1950s. However, even if it’s the fourth-best Wilder film of the decade, which I’d attest it is, that’s still quite the endorsement. His most fruitful decade of moviemaking was arguably as accomplished as any other director’s ever. Hitchcock certainly had an impressive run in both the 40s and 50s, and Altman’s output from the 1970s now looks incredible, but Wilder churned out nine good to great films in the ten year period, co-writing all of them. Each has its merits and a few (The Seven Year Itch, for one) admittedly lack the charm of Wilder’s best, but there’s not a certifiable dud to be found in the lot. When looking for sheer entertainment value, Stalag 17 is probably the one that’s most enjoyable. It’s compelling, with a great lead performance from William Holden, and captivating, even though it has minimal action sequences.
Following the film’s success, others took note and POW films like The Great Escape and, most blatantly, television shows like Hogan’s Heroes tried to mimic the tone Wilder set with his movie by eliminating the stoic seriousness that had previously been found in war films in favor of a less gloomy approach. Missing was Sefton’s (and Wilder’s) cynicism, which gave Stalag 17 some bite not found in its imitators. For all those chastising Wilder for playing it safe with Stalag 17 (I’m thinking again of DVD Savant’s review, which has other aspects of contention also), how many other filmmakers were inserting broad humor into prisoner-of-war films less than a decade after the war ended? Where Wilder was so successful and nearly unmatched in film was the precise balance of knowing when to make the audience laugh and when to sober them up, all the while resisting the temptation to be overly manipulative.
At ease…at ease!
Billy Wilder Speaks February 14, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, Billy Wilder , 2 comments
Recently, I found myself in Los Angeles (part of a quixotic excursion in the name of bowler hats and oversized apples) strolling around (1) a tiny, but well-known cemetery, (2) a brand new state-of-the-art theater, and (3) a secluded portion of the Hollywood Walk of Fame just past some construction. The common denominator for all three was my favorite filmmaker, Billy Wilder. The great director’s final resting place is in a small memorial home just off the busy Wilshire Boulevard and nearly hidden if you don’t have exact directions. I’m not usually one to include graveyards in my tourist destinations, but I made an exception here. Mr. Wilder’s grave is somewhat separate from most of the others in the cemetery, and he’s just to the left of the actor Carroll O’Connor and his frequent leading man Jack Lemmon. Walter Matthau is also buried nearby and the cemetery’s most famous resident is Marilyn Monroe, whose two best-known films were both directed by Wilder
Just a short walking distance away from the gravesite is the new Billy Wilder Theater, located in the Hammer Museum. Unfortunately, I was there just a few days before the theater’s official opening (a screening of The Apartment with Shirley MacLaine in person was held last Friday, the 9th) and was quickly ushered away when I tried to sneak a look inside. What I did see in person and via brochure looked highly impressive and the $7.5 million theater has the capacity to show technologies from “the earliest silent films requiring variable speed projection to the most current digital cinema and video,” one of very few (four, reportedly) theaters in the entire country with such resources.
Outside the theater, there are large pixellated images from a few of Wilder’s films, including the shot from Double Indemnity seen here. There were also posters for Some Like It Hot and Sunset Blvd. framed and encased in glass when I was there. The color pink serves as a dominant theme and can be found in additional large pixellated images depicting scenes from the director’s well-known films inside the lobby, as well as 294 of the leather seats inside the theater. One lone brown chair represents where Wilder liked to sit during screenings. A large portrait of the director and benefactor (his widow donated $5 million) is near one theater entrance, and included here at the bottom of the page.
Aside from visiting 10086 Sunset Boulevard, the only other notable Wilder-related site near Los Angeles that I was aware of is his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s actually on Vine St., instead of Hollywood Blvd. where most of the stars are, and a construction crew had the sidewalk closed nearby when I was there. It’s still easy enough to find if you know where you’re looking and I was able to take a picture of the partially-cracked star. I’ve searched high and low to determine exactly when Wilder received the star, but haven’t found an answer.
Seeing the fingerprints Billy Wilder left behind his adopted home city made me think about why I enjoy his films so much. It’s always good to reevaluate one’s idols and preferences from time to time, lest we get stuck in a rut of the same favorite films, books, music, etc. without ever evolving our tastes. Keeping that in mind, it’s not difficult for me to understand why Wilder’s films are so dear to my heart and why I’ve been interested in him since I first understood that the director is usually the one most responsible for the films I love. Aside from his frequent mastery of story and character, Wilder was able to create stand-alone worlds that have become part of film iconography. His characters live on beyond the time we see them on screen and it’s not unreasonable to imagine Norma Desmond remaining in her crumbling mansion and playing her regular bridge games or C.C. Baxter infinitely pursuing Miss Kubelik between his constant bouts with the sniffles. I don’t know of another director who gave the world so many rich personalities, seemingly breathing life into fictional pieces of celluloid to the point that we feel like we’re witnessing moments of time in lives of unknown neighbors.
Trying to rationalize my love for Wilder’s work also brings to mind the key reason anyone ever responds strongly to anything - a personal ability to relate to something seen, heard or felt. I imagine my world view and opinions are quite close to those demonstrated by Billy Wilder. Cynicism, a need to question, and concealed sentimentality are all traits I seem to share with Wilder and his films. Certainly these subjective reasons are much of what makes humans choose their preferences, with personal definitions of taste serving to further narrow things into favorites. I know that one reason I like many of Wilder’s films is because they dare to show the darker side of humanity, a side often glossed over or exaggerated in movies and television shows from the same time period. Yet, I also enjoy the side of his filmography that’s romantic, funny, even full of hope. There’s hardly an emotion in life that isn’t well represented in one of Wilder’s movies.
All this gives me an excuse to mention Kino’s Billy Wilder Speaks
At the age of 83, the revered director still had plenty of sharp wit and insight to charm an audience. Alternating between his native German and English, Wilder seems loose and animated as he holds court. He tells some of his favorite stories about many of the classic films he directed and it’s apparent that he’s justifiably proud of many of them. He’s more than happy to pull out a copy of the script he and I.A.L. Diamond wrote for Some Like It Hot and talk with Schlöndorff about the famous scene where Jack Lemmon, with the help of a couple of maracas, tells Tony Curtis he’s about to marry Joe E. Brown.
Watching these interviews, it’s fairly easy to see how this man made so many enduring classics in seemingly different genres and tones. He seems to epitomize a Wilder movie himself, coming across as a charming, funny old-timer while maintaining some of the crusty cynicism with which his films are frequently labeled. His straightforward accounts of trying to set up a meeting with Marlene Dietrich each time he’s in Paris or the disastrous preview screening for Sunset Blvd. in Poughkeepsie (!) could have easily come from a Wilder film.
The extra interviews and trailers help the DVD rise above seeming like merely an extra feature addendum to one of Wilder’s films. Apparently, Schlöndorff’s interviews were shown in six half hour installments on German television in 1992. I’d be curious to know what was edited out and not included on the Kino DVD release. Schlöndorff mentions in this released version that Wilder asked him not to show the footage in America until after he had died because then he wouldn’t care what anyone said about him. Any worries Wilder had were misplaced since I can’t imagine too much negativity springing up from these interviews, but the unexpected timing of the release makes for a nice surprise.
Even though the existing interviews do not delve very deeply into some of Wilder’s less-celebrated films as much as Cameron Crowe’s highly enjoyable and informative book Conversations with Wilder, it’s still invaluable to see the aged director speak with such vim and vigor. The diverse topics discussed, ranging from Wilder’s little-seen concentration camp documentary Death Mills to whether he would have worked for free as a Hollywood director, make for a fantastic look at the filmmaker that also expands beyond movie set anecdotes. For those interested in hearing Wilder’s own take on things more than regurgitated gossip from a biographer for hire, this DVD stands alongside Crowe’s book as an essential reference, convenient for frequent revisiting like many of Wilder’s contributions to the film world.
Ace in the Hole January 20, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Billy Wilder , 4 comments
There are prescient movies, ahead of their time enough for modern viewers to appreciate a retained relevance or uncanny vision into how society would reflect portions of films past, and then there’s Ace in the Hole
Appropriately, Tatum is first seen behind the wheel of his car as it’s being towed down the street. He has the tow truck stop when he sees a newspaper office and talks himself into a job with the small-time Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin. The dialogue in this scene is impeccable, some of Wilder’s best (though we don’t know for sure what he wrote since there are three writers credited for the Oscar-nominated screenplay, the director’s body of work gives us a good idea), and delivered with steely precision by Douglas. The audience learns immediately what kind of sharp-witted, accomplished character we’re dealing with in Tatum and we’re assured that he’s more likely to change the paper’s principle of “Tell the Truth” than it is to change his own attitude.
After a deft cut to a year later, with Tatum desperately itching for a story to serve as his meal ticket back to the big city papers out east, the reporter is assigned to a rattlesnake hunt a few hours away and told to take along the paper’s cub photographer. On their way, they stop for gas in a tiny town and discover the fuel station’s owner was searching for Indian artifacts in a nearby cave when rocks collapsed, pinning him inside. Tatum seizes his golden opportunity, remembering the real-life incident in Kentucky where a Louisville reporter helped with the attempted rescue of the trapped Floyd Collins and won a Pulitzer Prize and nationwide attention for his troubles while Collins perished after two weeks. He soon befriends Leo, the man stuck in the cave, and, along with the sheriff he’s made a devil of a deal with, creates a literal circus around the cave site complete with ice cream, balloons and amusement park rides. People come from miles away to gawk and experience the carnival atmosphere.
It’s easy to see how audiences and critics could have avoided, even downright loathed Ace in the Hole. Wilder rarely, if ever, lets you know he’s in on the joke. Unlike many other films where the audience is immunized from the onscreen ridicule, Wilder’s movie never gives viewers the satisfaction of thinking they’re above all the madness. He directly criticizes everyone, with only Tatum’s newspaper boss and Leo’s naive father coming across as even remotely admirable, and refuses to placate the audience by giving his film a conscience. We’re all accomplices for buying Tatum’s sensationalist news and Wilder has the guts to call us on it.
If indeed we share the burden for muckrakers like Tatum then it’s not unthinkable to look at the character and still manage to recognize how much charisma the fearless Douglas manages to inject as the acerbic reporter. In an era when movie stars rarely veered away from likeable roles, or at least redeeming ones, Douglas was not afraid to play cruel when necessary, never more so than in Ace in the Hole. It seems like every word of dialogue from Tatum is both memorable and caustic. “If there’s no news, I’ll go out and bite a dog.” When asked if he drinks a lot, Tatum replies, “Not a lot. Just frequently.” I can’t say I’ve seen every performance Douglas has given on film, but I’m confident in asserting that his Chuck Tatum was never bested. The actor completely gives himself to the role, leaving any semblance of Kirk Douglas the movie star behind. He’s absolutely essential to the film’s success and he turns in a merciless, acid-tongued performance.
Amazingly, Wilder gives the audience a character who’s even more sardonic than Tatum and thankfully found an actress as talented as Jan Sterling to play the cold and ruthless Lorraine, the wife of Leo. Sterling’s dynamite as a woman unhappy in her five-year marriage and more than ready to finally escape from him and small town New Mexico. As the film progresses, it becomes obvious that she’s completely without sympathy for Leo and an undeniable femme fatale. ”I don’t pray. Kneeling bags my nylons,” she infamously says, in a line Wilder claimed was suggested by his own wife. Her frequently violent encounters with Tatum add a fascinating additional layer to the story that’s also accented by the surely intentional naming of “The Great S & M Amusement Corp.” trucks we see at the cave site.
Like the moviegoers of 1951 who made the film a financial failure, leading Paramount executives to quickly rechristen it the more cheerful sounding The Big Carnival, I was a little dismayed at the sheer bleakness of Wilder’s film the first time I saw it. I’m not sure Wilder’s other films, even cynical and nasty highlights like Sunset Blvd. and Double Indemnity, can prepare the viewer for the pessimistic nature of Ace in the Hole, darkly satirizing much of American culture and society in general. A second viewing, this time armed with a better mindset to enter the bitter world created by this atypical classic, was much more enjoyable and left me more understanding of its deserved resurgence in Wilder’s catalog. The remarkable lines that come out of Tatum’s mouth also hit harder and with more ferocious humor on subsequent viewings than the first.
A reasonable person might then ask why should we celebrate a film so unrelentingly devoid of hope and kindness. The short answer is that many people find comfort in movies reflecting their own frustration with the ills of society. It’s incredibly rare to find a studio film from this era so ruthlessly unconcerned with pleasing its audience as Ace in the Hole. If the cinema is a refuge for those reluctant to accept the harsh realities of mankind’s darkest actions, Ace in the Hole serves as a stark reminder of humans’ stunning capability to not do the proper thing. Almost no one in the film does the best thing at any given moment. Each action is a folly compounded by an increased severity and lackluster sense of selfishness.
I’ve read insinuations that the film is anti-American in its mocking of the spectacle created while a man lies dying in a cave. Obviously, that accusation has more to do with how one defines American culture and society than with the film itself. If it’s anti-American to feature oblivious participants more interested in purchasing souvenir keepsakes (fifty years before the World Trade Center site became a haven for opportunists) and ice cream cones than truly caring about the trapped man’s fate then perhaps Wilder’s film does indeed fit that description. There’s no doubt that we’re dealing with heavy satire here, though, with Wilder daring the audience to laugh at the stupidity of people who could be their own neighbors, if not themselves.
That crowd of emptyheaded onlookers is embodied by Mr. Federber (played by Frank Cady who later portrayed the character Sam Drucker on three separate sitcoms) and his family who were (proudly) the first ones to turn the site into a tourist attraction. His zeal is played for uneasy laughs, but anyone who’s ever experienced how willing people can be to gobble up tragedy will realize it rings true. Wilder also offers a sly critique of our capitalistic nature, I think, as the price of entrance to the cave site rises from free, to 25¢, then 50¢, and finally $1.00. As she apathetically passes time while her husband remains buried alive, Leo’s wife not only implements the price hike, but also rakes it in from selling burgers to the hungry crowd. The $11 she was ready to leave with, before Tatum convinced her that a grieving wife sells more papers, magically increases hundredfold.
In his later years, Wilder tended to personally rate his more popular pictures much higher than his less commercially successful ones, with the exception of Ace in the Hole. He was unflappable in his defense and held it up as a personal favorite. Yet, despite brushes with darker themes here and there, the director never made another movie anywhere near as cynical as Ace in the Hole again. He felt he’d briefly lost the audience’s trust and made a misstep as to what they’d be willing to see. Regardless of his own artistic aspirations, Wilder was keenly aware that moviegoers were the reason he was allowed to continue making films and he now realized what he couldn’t get away with from his audience. Instead, he adapted a few plays and books before finding his other great writing partner (the first being Charles Brackett, with whom he’d fallen out just before Ace in the Hole), I.A.L. Diamond, and turning his attention to some wonderful pictures beginning with Love in the Afternoon and continuing with a triumvirate of comedic masterpieces: Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and One, Two, Three.
Given the general feeling of malaise emanating from Ace in the Hole, I suppose it’s only a little surprising that it’s never been released on VHS or DVD, as opposed to the more expected shock and outrage one might feel towards Paramount for sitting on one of Billy Wilder’s true gems. The tides may be turning, however, as theatrical screenings continue to pop up in New York and elsewhere and Turner Classic Movies is finally airing the film in both January and March. Then there’s the speckle of hope that Criterion might somehow wrangle the rights away since it’s recently come to light that they’ve acquired some other Paramount titles for release. Regardless, I hope the wait for Ace in the Hole’s home video debut is nearly over and maybe this time Wilder’s message will be a little better understood. It’ll surely provide a shock to even the most jaded of film fans, who might have a hard time getting that final shot of Tatum collapsing onto the floor in low-angle close-up out of their heads.
UPDATE - Criterion will indeed be releasing Ace in the Hole on DVD this July. You can find my review of the DVD here.
The Spirit of St. Louis November 15, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Billy Wilder , add a comment
More than the noble failure it’s often called, The Spirit of St. Louis
It’s obvious and unavoidable that James Stewart is much too old to play Charles Lindbergh here. The pilot was only 25 at the time of his flight while Stewart was about 48 when the movie was filmed. Nevertheless, it’s not a fatal flaw and Stewart’s boyish persona combined with his fine acting make it far less distracting than it could have been. It also helps that Stewart’s slim frame and pilot experience lend the portrayal a certain amount of authenticity other actors probably would have lacked. His presence in nearly every scene required a strong, likeable actor to play Lindbergh and Stewart was therefore a good choice. If it’s true that James Dean was set to play the role before his death then he might have pulled it off, but almost any other actor of the time would have struggled to play the part as well as Stewart did, regardless of age.
I certainly might be biased in my opinion of The Spirit of St. Louis since it was the only pairing of my favorite actor and director, but I don’t think the film is anywhere near as plodding or long-winded as some reviews portray it. Billy Wilder’s creativity shines even in this, his most uncharacteristic work. While Wilder is often described as the quintessential cynical auteur and Stewart as the wholesome star, both men showed plenty of evidence that these labels were much too simplistic. Wilder’s work is often much sweeter than he’s given credit for (”Shut up and deal.”) and Stewart’s post-war roles were as daring as any major Hollywood star, if not more so. Their work together in The Spirit of St. Louis may not be close to either’s best, but it’s still solid entertainment.
Wilder’s insistence on the fly buzzing around Lindbergh’s plane as he travels over North America probably had its origins in the unfilmed scene between Charles Boyer and a cockroach that director Mitchell Leisen omitted from the final version of the Wilder-scripted Hold Back the Dawn. The insect passenger may look a little silly to some, but the monologues that Stewart delivers to the fly are testament to the pilot’s internal nerves leaking out into a one-sided conversation with a bug. That Lindbergh seems more at ease with a companion in the early and tense stages of his flight, an essential for the pilot to remain awake and accomplish his great feat, was surely Wilder’s goal.
For the most part, it doesn’t matter how accurate the portrayal of Lindbergh and the events leading up to his flight are. I don’t think Wilder had in mind that he was making a docudrama or historical document here. Lindbergh’s faults as a man have been much explored elsewhere and there’s certainly nothing in this movie that negatively portrays him. Even though the final cut was apparently not what Wilder had in mind initially and Lindbergh greatly restricted what was to be shown, I don’t think this hurts the film that significantly. The most interesting aspect of the movie is the extraordinary achievement Lindbergh accomplishes, not the pilot’s personal opinions. His outside determination and unblinking stoicism combined with the inner anxiety and fear is certainly an affecting human contrast and probably the only way someone in Lindbergh’s shoes could have handled the enormous pressure and uncertainties he faced.
The movie looks spectacular on the recently released DVD. I noticed only two small aberrations, one involving sharpness for a few seconds and the other being some brief damage most likely from the negative. Otherwise, it looks like a film from twenty years or more after it was made. The colors and cinematography are extraordinary. This is a film that really benefits from a large screen and I have to wonder if its critical reputation would not have been more positive had The Spirit of St. Louis been seen more often in a theatrical setting. Its widescreen composition was certainly intended to be viewed this way and not on a much smaller television screen, especially in the butchered full frame format it has often suffered from on cable television channels.
Like Howard Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings, Wilder’s film, ultimately, is about aviation and the obstacles and dangers faced by the men who had a passion for flying. Lindbergh was an unlikely candidate to pilot the first solo Transatlantic flight, but his determination and confidence in his own abilities made him one of the most famous men in the world in 1927. The Spirit of St. Louis does a nice job of showing Lindbergh’s undying commitment to flying. That the film (as well as Lindbergh’s book) is named after the plane instead of its pilot is instructive, I think, since it’s much more about the flight than the man.
Midnight October 13, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, Billy Wilder , 1 comment so far
As the DVD medium enters its second decade, consumers have been blessed with more titles than many of us can find the time to watch. Nevertheless, there are still many, many deserving films from Hollywood’s golden age that remain unreleased. Warner Bros. and Fox are mostly doing their part to rectify the situation, but Universal, who controls almost all of Paramount’s catalog prior to 1948, has seemingly devoted most of its attention to re-releasing more contemporary films (often poorly). The digital crumbs that Universal has thrown out in R1, vis-à-vis classic cinema, have often been value-priced, with two or three feature films per disc. It’s difficult to complain about five or six movies retailing for less than $30 (as with the recent Glamour Collections), but these releases seem to be few and far between. This leaves Universal with a hefty library of unreleased gems, none more deserving than the classic 1939 comedy Midnight.
Midnight is not usually placed in the same category of great early comedies with the best of Lubitsch, Sturges, Capra, Hawks, et al., but perhaps it should be. The film begins with American Eve Peabody (the always charming Claudette Colbert) getting off a train after arriving in soggy Paris. “So this, as they say, is Paris, huh?” “Yes, madame.” “Well, from here it looks an awful lot like a rainy night in Kokomo, Indiana.” We soon find out she has no money, nowhere to stay, and she had to pawn off her luggage in Monte Carlo. Enter Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), a Hungarian cab driver looking for his next fare. After the two settle on a wager to pay off the taxi fee, they spend the evening driving around Paris searching for Eve a singing job.
Somehow she ends up at a posh, invitation-only soiree and substitutes her pawn shop ticket for the invitation. There, she meets two men and a married couple, the Flammarions (played by John Barrymore and Mary Astor). The husband realizes right away that Eve is out of place, but realizes he can put her to good use - as bait for his wife’s playboy lover. From there, Eve transforms herself into Baroness Czerny while the real Mr. Czerny has cab drivers all over Paris searching frantically for her. When Czerny actually finds his fake wife, things really get out of control and you realize Midnight rivals the best comedies of its era.
The three lead performances, along with the breezy, smart script, provide much of the film’s success. It’s rare to have three actors and movie stars of this caliber in the same film without it turning into a mess or an “all-star spectacle.” Thankfully, Colbert, Ameche and Barrymore don’t try to outdo each other here and are content to bask in the spotlight at their given times. All three are wonderful, with Barrymore shining particularly bright in his brief comedic scenes. Colbert’s performance, as in many of her other roles, is so winning that you nearly believe someone like Barrymore’s benefactor would actually put her up in a fancy hotel and buy her that expensive wardrobe. Ameche is just as good, in a role that you’d think lots of other actors could pull of, yet once you’ve seen Midnight, anyone else is unimaginable.
The film has several funny, laugh-out-loud sequences that reminded me of screwball comedy, though I wouldn’t place Midnight in that category. While even a stone-face would get tickled by the screwball-esque “Francie” bit, overall, there’s more romance than farce. Midnight actually resembles the smart, sophisticated comedies of Ernst Lubitsch more than perhaps any other film not directed by Lubitsch. It’s not surprising, then, that it was written by the screenwriting team from Lubtisch’s own Ninotchka (also from 1939), Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, who always considered Lubitsch to be his mentor. More so than any other film Wilder wrote, including those he would later direct, Midnight has the elusive ingredients often found in Lubitsch’s films that came to be known as the ”Lubitsch touch.”
The man who actually did direct Midnight was Mitchell Leisen, a former art designer. Leisen is notable for inspiring two of the premiere screenwriters in 1930s and 40s Hollywood, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder, to become directors after their frustrations in working with him. Since Sturges and Wilder are my two favorite filmmakers from that era, Leisen’s work with their scripts has a bittersweet quality for me. I can’t help but be glad that Leisen angered the two men enough to inspire them to direct, yet I wonder how films such as Midnight or Hold Back the Dawn would have turned out with Wilder at the helm (likewise for Sturges with Easy Living and Remember the Night). It’s probably doubtful that Wilder would have been accomplished enough to handle Midnight as well as the final product turned out. On the other hand, a sequence from the script for Hold Back the Dawn involving Charles Boyer talking to a cockroach in a Mexican hotel and which Leisen refused to film, the incident that Wilder claimed was the final straw and lead to him directing his next script himself, would have been quite interesting to see.
Getting back to Universal dragging their feet about releasing so many classic films on DVD in R1, it would be more excusable if there was a valid reason for withholding these releases, but I can’t seem to find one. The VHS copy I recently saw of Midnight looked very good and any restoration for a DVD release need be minimal. The low prices Universal has charged for their classic product thus far almost surely have helped with sales and there’s no reason to think consumers aren’t hungry for some of these unreleased treasures. While Midnight is prime material, there are still plenty of other worthy titles languishing in their library. Billy Wilder fans, in particular, are still waiting for two films he directed (The Major and the Minor and A Foreign Affair) as well as three more he wrote, the two previously mentioned and the Lubitsch directed Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife. A “Written by Billy Wilder” Glamour Collection (complete with slipcover and cheesy color glamour shot!), anyone?
