Things To Come, Those That Have Gone… February 12, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : General, DVD News & Info , 2 commentsI’ve mentioned Network’s ‘on-off-on again’ DVD of William Cameron Menzies brilliant realisation of H.G. Wells prescient Things To Come several times in past blogs. On the last occasion, Network had scheduled an R2 (again), but taken away the proposed disc’s ‘Special Edition’ status. Well, now, it has been reinstated.
Reading that Legend Films U.S. R1 - they produce ‘colorized’ abominations, but, sometimes, the process involves restoring the elements used and a nice black and white transfer is included - was none too good (some said downright terrible), in sheer frustration I bought DD Home Entertainment’s R2 disc, and, though it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it might be, it was again taken from an inferior American print, and could have been a whole lot better. Particularly the soundtrack, Arthur Bliss’ wonderful score sounding a trifle underpowered, as if it was being played down a telephone line. That ‘SE’ status of the Network disc has me puzzled (because we don’t don’t yet know what extras are included), but there is, potentially, quite brilliant news at this link (courtesy of Glenn Erikson, aka DVD Savant):
SCI-FI-LONDON, the UK’s only annual festival of science fiction and fantastic film is delighted to announce that the restored, extended edit of THINGS TO COME will be given its first theatrical screening after the Arthur C Clarke Literary Award on 2nd May 2007 at the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival, with an additional screening plus Q & A open to festival-goers on Friday 4th May 2007.
The digital restoration of the H.G. Wells SF classic THINGS TO COME will be given a nationwide theatrical and special edition DVD release in May 2007. This version of the film is the one which most closely resembles director William Cameron Menzies’ original vision created over seventy years ago. Every version of the film shown in cinemas, on television and available on video since 1936 has been drastically cut. Network has commissioned the best and longest known version to exist of this film anywhere in the world in H.D. One of the most memorable Sci-Fi stories ever made in motion picture history, THINGS TO COME set a benchmark for innovative design and incredible special effects when it was first made in 1936. One of the best and most ambitious British movies ever made, Oscar™-winning director William Cameron Menzies (INVADERS FROM MARS) creates a breathless vision of post-war desolation and utopian futurism. This memorable classic stars Oscar-nominated Raymond Massey (A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE) as John Cabal and his descendants and award-winning actor Ralph Richardson (Q PLANES, THE FOUR FEATHERS) as The Boss.
It’s Christmas 1940. The people of Everytown, unprepared and ill-equipped, find themselves at war against an enemy who has been planning a conflict for years. The land is devastated by the horrors of aerial bombardment as the war drags on until 1966 causing a period of despair, with feudal tyrants ruling a downtrodden population suffering from famine and a plague called the Wandering. Can the human race rise above their desperate situation and use science for the common good?
THINGS TO COME has never looked this good and was the first film to show human civilisation reduced to ashes.
Commented Network Managing Director Tim Beddows, “We are delighted to be releasing THINGS TO COME both theatrically and on DVD. This pro-science film is Britain’s answer to METROPOLIS and this restoration is a world first for this ground-breaking film that is just as relevant today as it was on its release seventy years ago.”
Discussing the technological process involved in restoring THINGS TO COME to its full glory Beddows added, “This version of the film is the longest known to exist anywhere in the world and has been sourced the best available 35mm elements. This restoration is the result of excellent cooperation between Network and Granada International.”
Referring to Network’s association with the sixth SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival running from 2nd – 7th May 2007, Beddows added, “We are delighted to be headlining the UK’s only film festival dedicated to the science fiction and fantasy genres as well as providing a public screening of the restored version of THINGS TO COME at the festival.“
Held annually at the APOLLO WEST END, SCI-FI-LONDON screens world and UK film premieres, documentaries and a selection of classic SF titles. SCI-FI-LONDON also has a strong international shorts programme and screens a short film with every feature screening.
The next festival is 2 - 6 May 2007. www.sci-fi-london.com.
It appears as if it might be worth the wait. I’m wondering now what other goodies are in store on this set - it has been hinted that a young fellow who did some work early in his career on the film is still with us and might feature, one Jack Cardiff. The cheapest pre-order I can see, £9.99 delivered, is at Sendit.com. My order is in…
Several caveats are expressed by the Savant himself, however. Over at DVD Talk, Glenn says:
Odd qualifiers sneak into the announcement copy: “This version of the film is the longest known to exist anywhere in the world and has been sourced the best available 35mm elements.” Available to whom? “Network has commissioned the best and longest known version to exist of this film anywhere in the world in H.D.” I’m awful glad it was commissioned. Longest known to whom? Did they really search the world over? Does H.D. mean that this is a digital video job, and not a real film restoration?
Some American companies will identify a reamed 16mm print transferred to digital tape as a ‘digital restoration.’ How come the BFI is not mentioned, or any archive or restoration entity? Granada television is the only other company cited. Perhaps some helpful Savant reader can step forward and better inform us of the facts. I’d be happy to apologize for my suspicious attitude, should this be the restoration we’ve been waiting for.
I’ve been assured that Things To Come already exists somewhere in a version slightly longer than its present 96 minutes, but continuities and stills show that when originally screened it was upwards of 113 or 117 minutes, perhaps even longer. So we shall wait and hope in cynical optimism.
Being, mostly, a ‘glass half full’ kinda guy, Granada Ventures being the UK rights holders, having a little history when it comes to doing the right thing and pulling out all the stops when the occasion calls (and I think the occasion calls), I maintain a cautious optimism. Here’s hoping…meanwhile, can I also point you at Glenn’s excellent and fascinating review of the Image R1 version of Things to Come here.
Can’t let this post pass by without mentioning another real cause for celebration (hopefully - no detail yet); it has been flagged by Warners as ‘coming’ but it looks like R2 is going to get the Rio Bravo: The Special Edition first this May.
All The Brothers Were Valiant…
I name checked my Uncle Albert in my review of One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Aged 93, and in poor health for many years, Albert died a couple of days ago.
In a period of a few short months in late 1943, early 1944, my grandfather John, an easy-going Lancastrian colliery worker and his less than easy-going wife Florence endured untold agonies as each of their three sons became victims of a war that changed their lives forever. As described in that post, Albert nearly freezing to death in the mid-upper turret of his Halifax, his brother Fred missing in action in Italy (dead as it turned out; how or precisely where we will never know, but his name is on the Memorial at Monte Cassino, the scene of a savage action). And my father, Jack, horribly wounded during the equally brutal Salerno landings and, like Albert, hospitalised.
The ironic thing is, that each of them died in February; Fred in ‘44, my father in ‘91 and now Albert. What’s this got to do with film? Absolutely nothing (or maybe everything, I don’t know). But I felt I should mark the passing, on my fathers side of the family at least, of a generation of true heroes, and - for those that survived - heroes both during the conflict and thereafter.
Heroes for - knowing that they had seen things which I can’t (don’t want to) imagine, that they had borne pain beyond endurance - having the strength to carry on. For all these these ordinary, extraordinary family men, my admiration is limitless.
Goodnight and God bless.
Letter From America… February 8, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : Film General, Westerns , 7 comments‘Swiss Toni’ might claim it is ‘…like making love to a beautiful woman…’ (’you get it all down, you think you’ve performed superbly…but there’s not much sign of any response…’), however, gentle reader, I have come to discover that blogging is much more like my golf game (with the added bonus that there is no need for fine wines or Belgian chocolates).
I play round after round, hacking away in the gorse, scaring the wildlife - myself and other golfers - scrabbling amongst more sand than Lawrence of Surburbia, trying desperately, but vainly, to stay on the mown bit and keep my score beneath three figures.
And then I hit one.
That’s all it takes. Just one shot, one perfect long iron that as you connect you know is, unlike the other 94 you hammered at that day, just the right side of perfection. The mating of club head and ball makes that sweet and unique pinging noise that you hear every single damned shot as you meekly follow the club professional around the course.
Time is slowed right down, and you are granted a zen-like out of body overview of your ‘moment’. You don’t even seem to feel the impact as the ball lifts off the fairway, taking a beautifully sliced divot. The club shaft makes a perfect arc through the air, you can see with almost superhuman crystal clarity - and with just a little fade to bring it round to the green - your ball zipping, ripping, through the crisp, evening air. You can picture yourself even as you do it; your is swing is a thing of beauty, the follow through textbook perfection. You are a golfing God!
It is 219 yards from where you stand to the green and your shot, your beautiful, gorgeous, sexy shot, pitches, bounces three times before nestling a trifling eight inches from the cup. There are a couple of guys walking down the opposite fairway who look on with envious eyes. You try to maintain just a hint of decorum, as if you played every shot in the same, casual insouciant manner, heft your bag and saunter away. Just the merest hint of a swagger.
That was a four iron I played to the 15th, oh, maybe eight years ago; I can recall each delicious millisecond. I had never played a finer shot before or since; I will never better it. Never. But it doesn’t matter because it happened. Once. Thank you God for a truly beautiful experience. I wish I could have had it stuffed and mounted.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Blogging. Well here we are; you post on this or that subject, put a little of yourself into it, a tiny bit of sweat, a modicum of effort. And then when it’s finished and you look it and think ‘well, that’s not half bad’, you hit the ‘publish’ button and…get absolutely zero response.
No-one comes along pats you on the head and proffers a sugar lump. No-one pops up and says ‘that wasn’t so bad, but…’ (which my delicate ego could just about put up with). But worst of all, you have no indication that anyone, someone who cares, has even seen it. It might as well not exist.
The posts, one after the other, become sad-eyed orphans of the internet; unloved, unwanted and unread. It is, sometimes, terribly dispiriting, but I’m a big boy and quite aware that it comes with the territory. However, it doesn’t stop me whimpering at my computer screen, begging someone to pretty please (with sugar on) reassure me that this isn’t completely worthless? For most bloggers, I do suspect, post after post, the silence in their email inbox is deafening.
And then you hit one.
I was so pleased when John Mulholland replied to my piece on Vera Cruz; and very kind comments they were too. The utterly delightful thing is, that John is one of the leading lights at MODA Entertainment. As a writer and director of some rather spiffy documentaries, he possesses far, far more knowledge than I on Vera Cruz and High Noon, and imagine my delight when he was generously willing to share what he knows with me - and ultmately you, gentle reader - thus fleshing out both those blogs in a way I couldn’t have imagined whilst writing either.
John has kindly granted permission to share the emails he sent to me with you, and that is exactly what I intend doing here.
First off MODA Entertainment - it is, as you’ll see if you click on that link above, based on Madison Avenue, New York. By way of explanation: ‘…Its Board of Producers, uniquely consisting of estate holders of celebrated classic Hollywood actors, directors, and writers. MODA Entertainment spearheads many projects that introduce the history of Classic Hollywood films and actors to new generations. The Board of Producers are the decision makers, consultants, and active producers on all of MODA’s projects.
‘The Board of Producers consist of Writer and Director John Mulholland, Stephen Bogart (son of actor Humphrey Bogart and actress Lauren Bacall), Maria Cooper (actor Gary Cooper’s daughter), Pia Lindstrom (actress Ingrid Bergman’s daughter), Jack Hathaway (director Henry Hathaway’s son), and Peter McCrea (actors Joel McCrea and Frances Dee’s son) among others. The Producers provide a unique link and history to classic Hollywood and the entertainment industry. They have been instrumental in ensuring that MODA Entertainment continues preserving the integrity of Hollywood’s Golden Age.’
Amongst the documentaries MODA has produced is Sergeant York: For God & Country on Warners recent SE disc of Hawks film, and The Children Remember, on Warners sublime Casablanca.
In his reply to my Vera Cruz blog, John said he had ‘just finished a documentary’ on Cooper and Hemingway and it was this that really set my juices flowing. Because my wheels turn exceedingly slow at times, I thought at first that John was just another enthusiastic fan, until - his name ringing loud bells in my head - I checked out IMDB.
It was then, bursting with curiosity, that I decided to email the documentary maker, and happily, as it turns out, he was just about to email me…:
“…the doc is called Cooper And Hemingway: The True Gen. It hasn’t been released yet. Just finished it - well, allegedly finished is perhaps more accurate. In some ways, we blew it. We were accepted at the Venice Film Festival this past year, after they saw a rough cut. But we were unable to finish it and we had to decline.”
John says the initial cut was some nine hours long, but has been trimmed to about two and a half hours now for theatrical purposes. A DVD will likely show up at some point, probably longer than that (but no doubt shorter than nine hours), which is quite excellent news.
“The Cooper who emerged from research was such an astonishingly different guy than his public image - rather slow-witted cowboy, not much intellectual breadth, etc. - that I found myself in genuine awe of the man.
“Numbered among his good friends were not just Hemingway, but Picasso, John O’Hara, Irwin Shaw, Robert Sherwood, Clifford Odets, the Shah of Iran(?!?), Abba Eban, James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA), Babe Ruth, etc. His epic philandering has been well established, but the art connoisseur, the man of seemingly bottomless curiosity, infinite loyalty (as with trying to get Ingrid Bergman back to America and Hollywood by personally offering the lead opposite him in Friendly Persuasion, promising he’d take the heat for the decision), etc, were revelations.
“During the making of High Noon, Cooper became embroiled in the whole HUAC disgrace. In 1947, he had testified on the first day of hearings - named no names, no scripts, nothing - he was there, as he put it, to inform the committee that Hollywood was not a nest of communists. That this was a mistake, simply appearing, Cooper later acknowledged. But the waters hadn’t yet been muddied.
“When seemingly half of Hollwood’s leading men - Kirk Douglas, Peck, Brando, Heston, Clift - turned down High Noon, and a lettuce grower offered to put up the remaining $250,000 to meet its budget of $750,000, he did it with the proviso that Cooper star. No Cooper, no money.
“So, he read the script and leaped at it. Which is when the complex and very loyal man behind the myth came out. Jonathan Foreman, Carl Foreman’s son, graciously shared all of his father’s papers and notes and correspondence with me.
“Foreman, a former member of the Communist Party, was very concerned about Cooper and his political stand. So, he went to lunch with Cooper several months before shooting began and told him about having been a member of the Party. To his surprise, Cooper said it was Foreman’s business, not his.
“They became very friendly. When Foreman was publicly named as a Communist by an HUAC witness, there was a call for Foreman to be fired. John Wayne was a vocal leader in this. Cooper issued a statement to the press that, ‘Carl Foreman was the finest kind of American. His politics were his business, and his alone.’
“Foreman’s date to testify was two weeks into ‘Noon’s’ shoot. Wayne and his cohorts - Ward Bond and Ginger Rodgers, among others - warned Stanley Kramer that the film would be blackballed if Foreman’s name weren’t removed as screenwriter. Kramer agreed. But when Cooper and Fred Zinnemann heard of this, they told Kramer they were walking off the film if Foreman’s name weren’t kept on. They got their way.
“Which incensed Wayne. He approached Foreman and urged him to name names or his career would be ruined and his passport lifted (both of which happened). Then, Cooper offered to testify on Foreman’s behalf, but character witnesses weren’t permitted. When Wayne heard about this, he warned Cooper that his career would be over if he didn’t walk off the film.
“Cooper, of course, told Wayne to go to hell. After the film was finished and Foreman had been blacklisted, and before it had become such a huge hit, Foreman formed his own company. Cooper publicly invested in the company. Big headlines in the trades, an article how they’d both produce, Foreman would write and direct and Cooper star, etc.
“But pressure over the next few days became so intense that Foreman realized they’d never get a film made and Cooper’s career would be ruined, too. He released him from any obligations and left for England.
“So impressed by - and grateful for - Cooper’s behavior, Foreman ever after sent Cooper his scripts for first refusal, including The Bridge On The River Kwai, The Key and The Guns Of Navarone. Cooper’s age and failing health forced him to reject all three.”
Gary Cooper, John Wayne…and Oscar
I asked John about the real reason Coop asked Wayne to accept his Best Actor Oscar for High Noon at the 1953 Academy Awards, always a puzzle in view of Wayne’s views on the film. His answer left me tickled pink…
Said John: “I had a long talk with Anthony Quinn for Cooper/Hemingway. He knew them both and especially admired Cooper, who had saved him from being fired on his first day ever on a set (during The Plainsman). They became close friends.
“In March, 1953, during the Academy Awards ceremonies, Quinn and Cooper were down in Mexico shooting Blowing Wild. Both were nominated. As Quinn told me, he wanted to go up to LA for the awards, but when Cooper said he wasn’t going, he decided not to.
“Quinn said: ‘Whatever Coop did, I would do. He was literally my idol’. So, a radio feed was set up. And Quinn was all excited, there was a party. But then he spotted Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck each grab a bottle of wine and start out. He asked Cooper if he wasn’t going to listen to the awards. Cooper said no and he and Stanwyck disappeared. Quinn said he really wanted to listen, maybe he’d win, but if Coop wasn’t going to listen, he wasn’t.
“Quinn grabs a bottle of wine and joins Cooper and Stanwayck, who’d settled up a hill, drinking their wine.
“After a while, the three of them are laying on their backs gazing up at the night sky, when Cooper starts chuckling to himself. Pretty soon, he’s laughing so hard that he has to sit up. Quinn and Stanwyck had no idea what he was laughing at. They asked him what was so funny.
“Cooper told them he’d run into Wayne a week before over in Cuernavaca. Quinn hoped that he’d belted him. But Cooper shook his head and said he’d asked him to pick up his Oscar should he win. Quinn said he couldn’t believe this, after Wayne had tried to get him blacklisted.
“But Cooper had this wonderfully dry sense of humor - both his parents were from England and he had spent three years in school in England - and Quinn said he almost rubbed his hands together with delight when he said: “What’s the sonuvabitch going to say if I win!”
“Well, Cooper did win and Wayne did pick up the Oscar. And with utter chutzpah, colossal hypocrisy, Wayne said that he was going to ask his agent why he wasn’t offered High Noon by such a great writer as Carl Foreman.
“Wayne’s acceptance is on tape, and it is absolutely jaw-dropping. Why be surprised, I suppose. This is the man who ducked WW II (claimed he was sole support of his two children, as if farmers and bank clerks and cops, etc. weren’t)…was such a force during HUAC, and then had the gall to tell young men in the 1960s that they were cowards for not willing to die for their country in Vietnam.
“When I was going through Cooper’s papers, researching Coop/Hemingway - they’re in three different bins on the east side of Manhattan; I’d sit there all day, sometimes with Maria, his daughter, other times alone, amazing stuff in them - I came upon a carbon of a letter from some producer, might have been Hal Wallis, can’t be sure. And it was offering Cooper a role in a film called Lewis And Clark. Cooper would be Lewis and Wayne would be Clark.
“There was a huge ‘NO!!!’ scrawled across the bottom half…”
On High Noon
MODA has also completed a new documentary Inside High Noon for Paramount for a 2-disc SE of High Noon that was slated for release last autumn in the U.S., but which has not materialised. Directed and written by John, it includes on screen interviews with Maria Cooper Janis (Gary Cooper’s Daughter), President William Clinton, Tim Zinneman (son of director Fred Zinneman) , Jonathan Foreman (son of screenwriter Carl Foreman), Prince Albert of Monaco, Brian Garfield, Lee Clark Mitchell, Stephen Prince and Meir Ribalow.
“Zinnemann sent Maria Cooper a letter in the late ’80s, in which he expresses frustration and, actually, some bitterness over the various lies about the final cut of ‘Noon’” John told me.
“Maria reads it on in the documentary. But he (Zinnemann) is especially angry over Kramer’s claim that he is the father of the final cut, claiming credit for inserting the clocks.
“But Zinnemann’s annotated script, which we use (and which he sent Bill Clinton a copy while Clinton was President), clearly shows the clocks were there from the beginning. There are lines - ‘Tight on clock, 11:07; close up clock, 11:25, etc.’
“As he explains in the letter, not only were the close ups there from the beginning, but that the script as written by Foreman precluded any realy editing magic. It was mostly precut because of the clocks in the background. To mess around with sequences would have been impossible, due to the clocks on the wall, on mantles, etc.
John added that far from what my research turned up for my original High Noon post, it was always, apparently, intended to play in ‘real time’, and Foreman’s shooting script, a couple of scenes aside (described in the afrementioned post), is pretty much what you see on the screen.
“So much of what you delve into in your article is what we cover in the doc. Stuff I thought few others had ever noticed. Like, for example, the sweaty, dirty, clothing worn by the men in the saloon. Never really focused on, merely a part of the tapestry, but there none the less. More than a decade before Leone.
“The swipes at Coooper’s performance have always annoyed me. That whole ulcer nonsense is such a canard. If it were so debilitating, then that makes the performance even greater. These people always knock Cooper for being so self-pitying, so put-upon, in High Noon.
“How do these “critics” miss that Cooper gives, in effect, two separate performances? When he is with others, when he is in public, he’s always got his masculine facade on, he is firm, in control, never showing a sign of weakness, even when asking for help, he’s strong. But when he’s alone, when no-one is watching, he’s anther man entirely. He’s angry, bitter, self-pitying, downright frightened.
“This is captured beautifully when he breaks down and cries, all alone, noon approaching. A man, crying! Then, when he realizes the boy has seen him, he sits back, stiffens his back, shifts his shoulders and his expression for an instant is startled, then the masculine mask is back on. He’s firm, in control.
“All man.
“It’s one of the most emotionally naked performances in all of film, though not emotionally naked in the style of a Brando or a Pacino.”
Again, my profound thanks to John Mulholland, not only for taking the time out to reply to my blog, taking the time to make a complete stranger happy, but for going several steps further and transforming a simple post into a wonderful treasure trove; seems we are both paid up members of The Gary Cooper Appreciation Society. Which is nice.
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Last Word…
If memory serves it was around 1963 or ‘64 that I won a wooden Doctor Who jigsaw (Daleks! Cor…) in a - I think - Century 21 magazine competition. To win the prize, I had to colour in a ‘Doctor Who’ picture, which I did to the very best of my ability, keeping the crayon (mostly) within the lines, my tongue lolling on my lips as I did it, concentrating fiercely
I was absolutely stunned and overjoyed when the box containing the prize came through the post with a signed letter from the editor telling me: ‘Congratulations! You Are A Winner.’ Blimey. Me?
Damn near wore out that jigsaw in a matter of weeks, fingering the thick, gaily coloured pieces, putting them in place, putting them back in the box, putting them in place again. Cleaning the pieces. Imagine that; cleaning! I was just so bloody grateful.
Being deemed FilmJournal’s current ‘Best Blog’, I feel much the same right now. I shall endeavour to keep on keeping within the lines. Well, mostly…
Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants February 4, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, Westerns , 4 commentsJoe Erin: Too bad you never knew Ace Hanna. He ran a gambling joint back in Laredo. He shot my old man in a stud game when I was a kid. Ace felt so bad, he gave me a home.
Benjamin Trane: What’s that got to do with my saving your life?
Joe Erin: Ace used to say, ‘Don’t take any chances you don’t have to, don’t trust anybody you don’t have to trust and don’t do no favors you don’t have to do.’ Ace lived long enough to know he was right. He lived 30 seconds after I shot him.
Stop me if I’ve banged on about this before (oh, I have? Well, here it comes again…), there are some that believe that westerns made the great leap from The Great Train Robbery to A Fistful of Dollars and The Wild Bunch in one mighty bound, that we had years of singing cowboys, cavalry charges and low-rent horse operas before the genre was abruptly taken by the scruff of the neck and given a danged good shake.
As any serious western fan will tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The path to Peckinpah and Leone was an evolution rather than a revolution, through the maturing mastery of John Ford, the so-called ‘psychological’ westerns of Anthony Mann, the films of Howard Hawks, Bud Boetticher, Nicholas Ray and many more. All these movie makers had a tremendous influence on ‘Bloody’ Sam and the western ‘nut’ from Rome, who drew on the best and then added inspiration of their own.
Standing on the shoulders of giants as it were. Indeed there were giants standing on those giants shoulders…
In 1954, Robert Aldrich, a thoughtful and dynamic young director, produced a double header of westerns, scoring impressive home runs with both; Apache and Vera Cruz. The prime common denominator in each was Burt Lancaster an actor of immense skill and charisma, then at the height of his fame as a genuine Hollywood star. Lancaster obviously detected a burgeoning talent in Aldrich, who had made only one film the previous year, when he signed up for Hecht-Lancaster Productions to the two picture deal.
Aldrich, however, was no ‘freshman’ having been in Hollywood since the early 1940s. He’d served as assistant to Wellman (The Story of G.I. Joe), Lewis Milestone (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Red Pony), Robert Rossen (Body and Soul), and Abraham Polonsky (Force of Evil). By the early 1950s, Aldrich was more than ready for ‘The Chair’.
Though rarely considered as such in his homeland, quite early in his career Aldrich was judged by European film fans to be a true auteur; indeed, his work covered many genres and he seemed the easy master of each. Kiss Me Deadly is quintessential noir, Ulzana’s Raid one of the very best of westerns, The Dirty Dozen a seminal twist on the war film. A lifelong liberal and the co-worker of many HUAC blacklist victims, Aldrich himself escaped being cast out into the wilderness, save for a brief period after an argument with Harry Cohn, and few who banged heads with Cohn escaped unscathed. Aldrich became President of the Directors Guild of America. Ironically for a director seldom regarded as a true artist by American critics, Aldrich’s union activism alienated studio heads and is reckoned to have cost him work at the end of his career.
Looking at Vera Cruz today, it’s easy to see what might have impressed Leone, then still an assistant director in Cinecittà, or Peckinpah, just beginning his working life as a lowly production assistant.
Set amid the fly-blown poverty and chaos of the post American Civil War Mexican Revolution, Lancaster’s ‘Joe Erin’ starts the movie by selling ‘Benjamin Trane’ (Gary Cooper) a bag o’ bones that looks vaguely like a horse for an extortionate $100 knowing that (a) it belongs to the Emperor of Mexico’s Lancers (b) should they catch Trane, they’ll hang him like a slaughtered pig, and (c) they’re just over the hill and heading straight for them…
From then on it’s downhill all the way as far as the dirty double crossing Erin is concerned; he lies as easily as he cheats, steals and kills; he pins a Lancer to the ground, spearing him through the throat, and he laughs while he does it. You know; that Burt laugh, flashing white gnashers and all. He has terrible table manners too. Joe Erin is not a nice man.
But Lancaster’s great trick is to make you like this rat, to actually care about him. And we do, very much; here’s a character that doesn’t give fig about anybody but himself and we like him. It’s a very neat trick from a most accomplished screen actor, achieved in that knowing manner - an amoral, land-locked, ‘Captain Vallo’. Perhaps not quite as broad as The Crimson Pirate, easily in ‘Tuco’ territory.
Cooper’s Trane, on the other hand, is an ever so slighty curved ’straight arrow’. He’s decided to head down south to see what he can pick up because he’s on a mission. A former Confederate officer, he wants to restore his little piece of Louisiana to its former glory: “I made the mistake of fighting the last battle on my own property” he says bitterly. Trane knows the difference between what is right and what is wrong, but if his South is to rise again, and it’s going to take him to become a thief, to join a band of cut throats, to make it happen, then so be it. The end justifies the means, even if he’s conflicted by it.
Cooper, who, as you may have gathered from previous posts, I have immense admiration for, is at his understated best, full of the dignity of a Southern gentleman, with enough steel to suggest a man of action and an accent redolent of, but in a different class from, his sketch of the dirt poor Alvin York.
So this ‘odd couple’ - a hero and an anti-hero (before the term became common currency) - join forces; an unashamed thief, back-shooter and double-crossing dog, his band of like-minded reprobates, and a sharp shooting military man who will do most anything for money. Lots of it.
The man in Mexico with heaps of the stuff, Emperor Maximilian (an Austrian noble placed on the throne by the French) hires them, and their fast shooting Winchester repeating rifles, to take the ‘Countess Marie Duvarre’ (Denise Darcel) to Vera Cruz. Though he plans to pay them off with a rope, he keeps their real mission a secret. When they find that what they’re actually doing is guarding $3m in French gold, the Countess hatches a plan to split the booty three ways. But the gold is also coveted by the rebel Juaristas whose spy, ‘Nina’ (Sarita Montiel), desperately tries to persude Ben to help.
There are myriad reasons why Vera Cruz should be considered a cut above, not the least of which is that it’s a fabulous romp, tautly directed, and lushly presented in ‘SuperScope’, Aldrich and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo making the most of his filming locations; quite literally the ‘Halls of Montezuma’, with the wagon train of mounted cuirassiers, their armour flashing, flags fluttering, and Yankee mercenaries riding on past the Aztec temples, the old Gods looking down on the new, would-be ‘Conquistadors’.
Typically, Aldrich also undermines the contemporary definition of the ‘hero’; it’s not just the casual violence - the aforementioned skewering of the ‘tin soldier’ to the ground is quite breathtakingly brutal, even by today’s standards - which we might expect from Erin, but Trane? When Erin commands that children be taken hostage to escape from the rebels, Trane knows that the threat to butcher them is no bluff, and still he goes along with it. Trane is our all-American hero…isn’t he?
Politically, the film could also be read as a condemnation of American interference abroad. With the recently ended Korean War costing 1000s of American lives, interventionism was a hot potato. As the film was in production, President Eisenhower and the CIA were overseeing the overthrow of the leftist government in Guatemala, to be replaced by a much more favourable (to the U.S.) administration. Meanwhile in far-off Vietnam, the death throes of the French occupation of colonial Vietnam made front page news worldwide with the dramatic fall of Dien Bien Phu.
It isn’t hard to read Aldrich’s liberal sympathies into the finished film; Joe and Ben representing the schizophrenic nature of American foreign policy, the desire to help…and to help themselves. The French are shown as duplicitous and condescending to the Americans (plus ça change…), casually savage to the indigenous freedom fighting Mexicans, those ill-equipped rabble (secretly armed by the U.S.), who would soon end French interests by a startling military victory.
At a time when HUAC - and it was at this period when the House Committee on Un-American Activities was at its height - was more than ready to enter on to their blacklist anyone they perceived to harbour leftist views, it would have been foolhardy in the extreme, one would think, for Vera Cruz to be perceived as critical, in any way, of U.S. foreign policy. Professional suicide even.
However, the film is clothed in the armour of the American right. The story was provided by Borden Chase. Besides being the author of the screenplays for Anthony Mann’s 1950s westerns, Winchester ‘73, Bend of the River and The Far Country, Chase also got an Academy Award nomination for Howard Hawks’ wonderous Red River. Chase was also an active member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an organization of politically conservative movie workers who wanted to defend the industry against supposed Communist infiltration. John Wayne was once its president, another prominent member was Gary Cooper. How could Vera Cruz be read as ‘un-American’ with those credentials?
Aldrich wouldn’t be the first, or last, director to take the story or screenplay of an avowed right wing writer and give it a good hard liberal twist of his own. John Ford is probably - you may not be surprised to read - the best other example I can think of, and that he did so (if indeed he did; though it’s impossible to believe otherwise) right under the noses of HUAC is to his, and Lancaster’s credit. Cooper, three years on from the HUAC baiting High Noon, must have least have seen that the story was essentially one of poor leftist rebels taking on their colonial masters, with capitalist Yankees not quite knowing which way to turn. Cooper too, something of an enigma in this respect, earns my admiration.
Working on Chase’s screenplay was Roland Kibee (who’d already provided The Crimson Pirate screenplay for Lancaster, and whose last job was to write Harrison Ford’s voiceover narration for Blade Runner), and James R. Webb, writer of the screenplay for Apache, and among others, Pork Chop Hill, The Big Country, How The West Was Won and the highly underestimated Cheyenne Autumn for Ford.
By the by, Eli Wallach has said that the Mexican government was so upset about the negative portrayal of Mexicans in the film that they insisted that the making of The Magnificent Seven be monitored by censors. They didn’t do a very good job; the Mexicans in Sturges film being far more naive and childlike than shown in Vera Cruz. Perhaps they were more upset that Sara Montiel, ‘introduced’ in this film and a big, big star in Mexico, had so little screen time and was perceived as having been insulted by her character being given the nickname ‘papayas’.
As a piece, Vera Cruz simply works; time has possibly diminished the impact its amorality, its violence and even its language - Lancaster mouthing the words ‘I’ll be a son of a bitch’; we don’t hear them, the Production Code preventing our ears being soiled. But to contemporary audiences who lapped this up to the tune of an $11m gross, it must have come almost as much of a slap in the kisser as Leone’s Man With No Name would a decade later. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that the Eastwood’s iconic and deadly loner is a combination of both our protagonists? That Erin and his gang are a proto-‘Wild Bunch’?
All Vera Cruz lacked, perhaps, was a slightly more cynical ending and had Aldrich been totally in charge of affairs, that might have been on the cards. It may, I might suggest, be one of the reasons why he formed his own production company in quick time after this. But darker endings, more cynical days, were to come all in their own good time.
The cast is full of familiar faces; Ernest Borgnine as the heavy ‘Donnegan’ (still a year away from his breakthrough in Marty), Cesar Romero as the scheming ‘Marquis Henri de Labordere’, the quite wonderful George Macready as ‘Maximilian’, Henry Brandon as the ‘tin solider’ ‘Capt. Danette’, Jack Elam as ‘Tex’ and Charles Bronson (still listed in the cast as Charles Buchinsky) as ‘Pittsburgh’ - a character who, note, plays the harmonica throughout.
Having the film bookended with the written prologue that ends ‘…and some came alone’ and having Coop walk away from the camera, devastated and solitary (despite a cutaway shot - possibly an afterthought - showing Nina calling to him), eyes brimming with tears, should be worth the price of admission - or the DVD - alone.
The R1 anamorpically enhanced MGM disc isn’t quite as wide as the 2:1 ‘SuperScope’ it claims it is, but it’s a little wider than 1:85.1. This obviously was not sourced from original vault elements; there are reel change marks throughout. It is reasonably free of dirt and dust but the quality does vary from reel to reel - from ‘okay’ to ‘eye-popping’ and everything in-between. On the plus side, it is very film like (rough edges and all) and when those Technicolor shades pop, boy do they pop. The mono sound is also simply ‘okay’, the dialogue and Hugo Friedhofer’s score sounding a little crushed; but if all that sounds like you should maybe just rent it, don’t.
Plunk down the cash - you’ll enjoy Vera Cruz, a work of remarkable maturity from an intelligent, throughly schooled and immensely talented director, that 53 years on still has much to say, again and again.
Vive La DVD! February 1, 2007
Posted by John Hodson in : DVD News & Info , add a commentStill playing catch-up, and there have been quite a few mouth-watering announcements and discoveries recently, which I feel, dear reader, I must share…
Since my last couple of round-ups - see the posts here and here - of what’s upcoming for classic movie fans, there has been news which will make many a classic movie fan’s bank manager tremble, and much of it, you may not be surprised to learn, emitting from the Studio Canal catalogue…and on both sides of the Atlantic.
Last summer’s deal that Lionsgate sealed with Studio Canal - which gives the R1 based outfit access to over 2,000 of the films the French company has the rights to - is bearing fruit, first in the shape of a nicely priced Alfred Hitchcock Collectors Set (due any time now), three discs with The Manxman, Rich And Strange, The Skin Game, Murder! and The Ring, plus a 15 minute ‘talking heads’ featurette, all for a very reasonable $39.98.
And in April, they are releasing a Jean Renoir Boxset - La fille de l’eau, Nana, La Marseillaise, Sur un air de Charleston, La petite marchande d’allumettes, Le testament du Docteur Cordelier, and Le caporal épingle for just $29.98. I’d buy it just for the design of the packaging.
Early previewers have already given the thumbs up - two in fact - you’ll be glad to read, to Optimum’s (you’ll recall the UK company is now owned by Studio Canal) R2 release of Hitchcock: The Early Years (The Ring, Champagne, The Farmer’s Wife, The Manxman, Blackmail, Murder!, The Skin Game, Rich and Strange and Number Seventeen), with extras ported across from the previously lauded French set, though readers with little more than ‘O’ Level French (bonjour!) will be glad of the subtitled introductions by Director / Film Historian Noel Simsolo and documentary with Claude Chabrol and Bernard Eisenschitz. At the price - it can be had for around £26-£27 - it’s a snip.
Not officially announced but listed at various etailers, it seems that Optimum are set to release three Amicus Classics in April; At The Earth’s Core, I, Monster and The Beast Must Die (previously seen non-anamorphically in an Anchor Bay UK box, or anamorpically in a very nice R1 Dark Sky release). You’ll see from that link that a boxset is also mooted.
Perhaps slightly more interesting - mentioned previously but now up for pre-order - will be their Classic Horror Collection - Night Of The Eagle, Dr. Crippen, Ghost Ship (1952), A Bucket Of Blood (1959), Circus Of Horrors, and Black Sabbath. No box set, and no details of any extras, if any, as yet.
Optimum is also releasing The George Formby Collections - Vol. 1 (No Limit (1936), Keep Fit (1937), I See Ice (1938), Turned Out Nice Again (1941), Let George Do It (1940)) and Vol. 2, (Spare A Copper (1941), Keep Your Seats Please (1936), It’s In The Air (1938), Come on George! (1939)) plus The Dirk Bogarde Collection and The James Mason Collection, though you’ll have to play your own guessing game on those as to titles, none having even been hinted at as yet.
Come June, look out too for a Boulting Brothers Collection (these appear to be separate releases again, not a box set) - The Magic Box (which is a lovely film), The Family Way (which I have issues with…), Happy Is The Bride and Suspect. Really good to see the Boultings get some of the respect they justly deserve. Plus, the Jean Renoir Collection (a box containing La Grande Illusion - probably a cut down version of Optimum’s recent SE - Le Crime De Monsieur Lange, La Bete Humaine, Boudu Saved From Drowing) and the Jean Paul Belmondo Collection (no detail, but it is a five disc set).
Last on the Optimum front for now, all rights issues which have prevented their release on home video appear to have been resolved: Abel Gance’s majestic silent Napoleon & his 1960 film Austerlitz are getting released. Absolutely no detail as yet - so which versions, have they been restored, what extras; all questions to be answered at a later date.*
Just one snippet from Network, who still, like Optimum, have the power to delight and disappoint (usually within the same disc), they intend to release Raise The Titanic, another reissue from the old Carlton catalogue. I’m keeping my fingers crossed; their recent re-release of Carve Her Name With Pride is still non-anamorphic (and where, dammit, is that The Boys From Brazil SE?). Universal UK, who hold the rights to the RKO catalogue over here, is releasing Hawks/Nyby’s The Thing From Another World - they are claiming a ‘digital restoration’ (though it wouldn’t take too much to outshine Warners bizarrely extras free R1 ’SE’), and it will be a two-disc set with the ‘colorized’ version chucked in especially for numbskulls, or those who would like a nice shiny new coaster (as they did with their release of King Kong). The big come on is a commentary by John Carpenter…which means I’m in. I’ll let you know…
Those kings of the double-dip, Paramount, meanwhile, have announced another, albeit not unwelcome in R1. Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (the best film to feature a Sunbeam Alpine with Night of The Demon a close second. Not alot of people know that…or would want to) is getting, amongst other as yet to be announced extras, a commentary, and hopefully a slightly better transfer than last time. In May, after numerous delays, MPI finally release Becket, complete with Peter O’Toole commentary; that alone should be worth the price of the disc.
Finally, in R1 Universal have sprung a few surprises. Coming May, the Clint Eastwood: Western Icon Collection, with High Plains Drifter, Joe Kidd and Two Mules for Sister Sara, all three in anamorphic widescreen. I’ve held off High Plains Drifter for so long, hoping it would get the royal treatment, but I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath. Still, a gorgeous transfer is not too much to ask and I have high hopes.
I’m also excited about Classic Western Round-Up: Volume 1 & Volume 2 - the first with The Texas Rangers, Canyon Passage, Kansas Riders and The Lawless Breed the second with The Texans, California, The Cimarron Kid and The Man From Alamo. Look out too for Pirates of the Golden Age Movie Collection (Against All Flags, Buccaneer’s Girl, Yankee Buccaneer and Double Crossbones). Not quite as excited about these, but as I love to buckle my swash, I can hardly pass them up.
Universal is also releasing Wave 2 of their ‘Cinema Classics’ range. As I type, a couple from the first wave for winging their way across the Pond to me, and already I’m pretty stoked by what I see in Wave 2 - No Man of Her Own (Gable and Lombard), Scarface (Muni), So Proudly We Hail! (Colbert, Goddard, Lake) and Unconquered (Cooper and Goddard - as I already own the Hawks film, my pick of the bunch). The latter might suggest that Universal has canned the idea of a second Cecil B. DeMille box set; I do hope not, I’ve yet to pick up the first (hmmm - so it might be my fault…)
As you already know about them, I have no need to mention Criterion’s up and coming wonders (Brute Force - yum!) or Warners R1 plum box sets - The Errol Flynn Signature Collection 2, and The James Cagney Signature Collection. You do know about them don’t you…?
*NB - A little more info on Optimum’s Napoleon; Amazon UK is listing the disc, giving the film’s release date as 1934, some seven years after the original release. That, plus Amazon’s given running time of 135 minutes would indicate it is indeed the sound-added cut down version, and not Gance’s fully restored, original epic.