Colorized photo; Film in B & W

 

 

SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

Directed by Billy Wilder

Paramount Pictures, 110 minutes, not-rated

★★★★★

 

Sunset Boulevard is a masterpiece. The Hollywood Establishment hated it when it first came out, but not because Billy Wilder directed a bad film; many thought Wilder had disgraced Hollywood. That was certainly the opinion of director/producer Louis B. Mayer. In other words, it rang too close to true. (When Mayer made an insensitive remark, Wilder told Mayer to commit an act which is physically impossible.) Time’s verdict is that Sunset Boulevard is among the greatest films Hollywood ever made.

 

Early cinema was silent until 1929, when The Jazz Singer added the term “talkie” to the lexicon. What happened to all of the actresses who never transitioned to sound? Think of such famous names as Clara Bow, Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, and Norma Shearer. Even the principal character’s name, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), was a mashup of silent stars Norma Talmadge and Florence Desmond. Swanson, of course, jumped at the part when offered as she was among the old stars put out to pasture. Was the picture a film noir, a searing drama, a black comedy, a period piece, or a faux biography? The best answer is to say Sunset Boulevard was all of those things.

 

The eponymous street was where oodles of silent stars built elaborate mansions. In the film, Desmond resides in a sprawling Neo-Renaissance/art deco estate occupied by just Norma, a pet chimpanzee, and her devoted butler Max von Mayerling (Max von Stroheim). Our first look at it is of murdered writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) lying face down in the swimming pool. Gillis is also the film’s narrator, though we don’t know from where, as he tells of the six-months before he became dead in Desmond’s pool! He suffered from writer’s block, took a drive, got a flat, and wandered into what he assumed was an abandoned property. He is stopped by Max, but Norma thought Joe was the underkeeper for her deceased chimp and is ushered into her presence. It takes Joe a moment, but recognition led to one of the most famous exchanges in movie history: “You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big!” She frostily replies, “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small!”

 

Joe hasn’t written a decent script in so long that his bank account is as dry as Death Valley. Before he knows what hit him, he’s in Norma’s employ, living in her home, trying to find time to write, and feeling creepy about the attention Norma sheds on him, not to mention that she thinks that Joe’s writing the part of Salome for her new film for Cecil B. DeMille. In private Joe calls her the “waxworks,” but he has no idea what’s next.

 

His eye is focused on Betty Schaefer, an aspirant screen writer dating his friend Artie Green (Jack Webb). Betty also thinks that Joe’s recent scripts are horrible, but with Artie traveling a lot, she needs a mentor to get her started, and she’s kind of falling for Joe. That too is bad news, as Norma has come to think of Joe as her late-in-life suitor. Though it revolts him, Joe becomes a de facto gigolo who shares Norma’s bed. When he tries to let her down easy, Norma slashes her wrists and becomes more and more delusional, even to the point of driving onto the Paramount lot to visit DeMille to discuss her role as Salome. (Paramount really only wanted to rent her 1929 Isotta Fraschini automobile.) Joe is trapped and returns to her boudoir.

 

Seldom has delusion and mental decay been so raw on the screen. Swanson’s performance is now recognized as a tour de force. The film garnered 11 Oscar nominations and won just three, but it truly a case of a movie that, despite its period-feel, has weathered better than it was received. Hedda Hopper’s customs were equally effective; she dressed Swanson in what might be called shabby elegance. Her garb was deliberately outdated, but just barely so. DeMille, Buster Keaton, Harry Warner, and gossip columnist Hedda Hooper played themselves, which lent the verisimilitude that so troubled Mayer. And check out the cinematography of John Seitz, who gave the film its noir gloss.

 

By the way, the butler did it, just not what you think he did. What more can one say about a film that concludes with another unforgettable line: “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.”

 

Rob Weir

Fallen Angel (1945): A Blend of Good and Silly

 

FALLEN ANGEL (1945).

Directed by Otto Preminger

20^th Century Fox, 97 minutes, not rated.

★★ ½

 

There are at least three other movies titled Fallen Angel, but his one is from 1945, just as World War II was ending. In American mythology, the troops came home to a booming economy. That’s not so; it took several years for the economy to convert to peacetime use. Fallen Angel stars, Dana Andrews as Eric Stanton, a veteran but also a drifter. He jumps on a bus headed for San Francisco, but is booted out in the small town of Walton, California, as he can’t afford the entire fare.

 

Stanton decides to stay in Walton for a while, because he’s a grifter as well as a drifter. He enters Pop’s Eats and bums a meal from Pop (Percy Kilbride) and overhears him telling Mark Judd (Charles Bickford), an ex-New York City policeman now working in Walton, that he worries about where Stella (Linda Darnell) might be. Judd tells Pop and others in the greasy spoon diner not to fret because Stella is a free spirit who will appear when she feels like it. Sure enough, the lusty Stella comes waltzing in as if nothing is out of the ordinary. She’s quite a looker, but is not impressed by Eric’s pick-up banter. Eric nonetheless identifies Stella as flirtatious and licentious, so he is not deterred by her rejection.

 

Eric needs money. At this point of the film, we have a drifter pursuing a femme fatale, classic film noir material. Alas, Director Otto Preminger stuck too carefully to the forgettable novel from which the script devolved. A contrived set-up leads Eric to the Faye sisters. He encounters Joe (Olin Howard) the “drummer” for a mentalist/fortune teller, but he’s a poor salesman. Eric grabs some tickets and hands out some for free, gambling that word of mouth will swell the box office. He’s right, but he also has to convince “Professor” Madley (John Carradine) to jazz up his show. Madley’s performance is trite, but when channels the spirit of Abraham Mills, everyone is drawn to his instant séance, as Mills was a beloved mayor and the richest man in Walton.

 

Eric continues to see Stella, but so too do other men (single and married). The implication is that Stella is also a hooker, but Eric finds himself falling for her. Stella’s morals aside, she has a clear goal; she wants to marry a handsome man who can provide her with a home of her own. That’s not Eric! He’s making some money from the professor, but not enough to buy a house. Eric tries another scheme to make money. The séance attracted the attention of Clara Mills (Anne Revere), the eldest daughter of the late Abraham Mills. She doesn’t think much of Eric, but his goal is to marry Clara’s younger sister, the naïve June (Alice Faye), the heir to most of the Mills fortune. If he can marry June and gain access to some of her dough, he can divorce her and provide for Stella. Sure enough, June is swept off her feet by the smooth-talking Eric. Their honeymoon evening is not exactly poems and flowers. Eric waits until June is asleep and goes to Stella. Big mistake!

 

That very evening, Stella is murdered and nearly every man in Walton who dated Stella, including Eric, is a suspect. Judd tries to beat a confession out of Dave Atkins (Bruce Cabot but he’s not Judd’s real target, and Eric knows it. He convinces June to flee with him to a dingy hotel room in San Francisco until he can work out who killed Stella. You might think that June would give him the bum’s rush, but she actually loves Eric.

 

Again, Preminger waded into water so shallow that Eric’s revelation of the true killer would scarcely get your feet moist. Preminger had a hard time getting this film made. Andrews was not his choice for leading man, but Alice Faye had been a big musical star for 20^th century Fox and wanted him. She was also promised she could sing a torch song for the film, but it didn’t make the final cut. Nonetheless, Faye called the shots, which perhaps explains the film’s unevenness. Andrew is actually very good as Eric, but so many things were over the top that we think of the film that could’ve been rather than what was.

 

Rob Weir

 

The Man With the Golden Arm Highlights Sinatra's Acting Chops

 

Preminger wouldn't allow anyone to replace the above design

 

 

 

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1955)

Directed by Otto Preminger

United Artists, 119 minutes, Not-rated and Not-approved

★★★

 

Younger readers might not know that crooner Frank Sinatra was also a pretty good actor. He was the star of The Man with the Golden Arm, a 1955 movie directed by Otto Preminger. Perhaps only a director with the gravitas and moxie of Preminger could have made it. It was based upon a 1949 novel by Nelson Algren, and the first American film of the sound era to deal with heroin addiction.

 

The movie rights to Algren’s book were sold to John Garfield in 1949, who planned to star in it. The first script was rejected by the Movie Production Code Authority (MPCA) and the Catholic League of Decency (CLD). Garfield died in 1952, and when filming started as “An Otto Preminger Production,” Algren sued based his 1949 contract promising he’d get a large percentage of the royalties. (Algren ran out of money and dropped his suit.) Preminger began to shoot before the script got MCPA or CLD approval, which were not forthcoming. Preminger simply ignored them. Moreover, the script was sent to both Sinatra and Marlon Brando; Sinatra agreed almost immediately as he was still angry that Brando got the lead in On the Waterfront.

 

Sinatra played the role of Frankie Machine, an addict recently released from a federal narcotics farm in Kentucky. The old crowd welcomes him back to Chicago, including Sparrow (Arnold Stang), an oddball–perhaps mentally slow– who makes his living selling street dogs, even if he has to put shoe polish on canines for those who want a “black” dog. Sparrow, in turn, follows Frankie around like a puppy. In lockup, Frankie learned to play the drums and harbors dreams of landing a place in a big band jazz outfit. He also insists that he’s clean and wants no part of drugs, no matter how often street provider Zero Schwiefka (Robert Strauss) offers, or Frankie’s wheelchair-bound wife “Zosh” Sophia (Eleanor Parker) begs him to help her relieve her pain. She too clings to him like glue and, though he doesn’t love her, he feels beholden as she was injured in an auto accident when Frankie was driving while drunk.

 

Zero also wants Frankie to “deal” for him, by which is meant a card dealer for Schwiefka’s all-night, high-stakes poker games. Frank is also burning the midnight oil pursuing Molly Novotny, a stripper and escort. She was Frank’s flame before he married Zosh out of guilt. Band tryouts further exhaust Frankie and Schwiefka is only too happy to stick a needle in his arm to give him a boost or bail him out when he’s pinched in a suit stolen for him by Sparrow.

 

Preminger’s Chicago bears resemblance to the slums of Hoboken in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront–gritty, filled with temptation, and easy-to-fall. As Zosh guilt-trips Frankie to the point where he’s smothered by her, he retreats to Molly’s first-floor flat and rekindles their romance. There’s a lot about Zosh that’s fishy, even as Frankie spirals downward into new addiction. Why, for example, has “Nifty Louie” Fomorowski (Darren McGavin) been hanging around with Zosh? Even as he becomes more and more dependent on a fix, Frank knows the wheels are about to fly off for him, though he’s on the eve of realizing his dream. When he tries to bum fix money from Molly, she proposes a different solution; she will help him if he agrees to go cold turkey. If not, she will never see him again.

 

The Man with the Golden Arm implies that the golden arm is Frankie’s drumming riffs, but we all know that the real reference is to injecting heroin and/or morphine. By today’s standard, the film is predictable and melodramatic, but Sinatra is terrific in it. His was one of the most extended and harrowing depictions of going cold turkey in cinematic history. Call it also a film with an A-level cast: Sinatra, Novak, McGavin, and Strauss were all big stars, even if the eccentric Stang stole a few scenes. The film didn’t do as well as On the Waterfront, but it did get three Oscar nominations and was added to the National Film Registry. The jazz soundtrack from Elmer Bernstein (not related to Leonard) was big hit, as was Saul Bass’s poster design.

 

Rob Weir

Anatomy of a Murder: Antique or Pathbreaking?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

Directed by Otto Preminger

Columbia Pictures, 160 minutes, not rated.

★★★★

 

Americans like to believe that our justice system is mostly fair, especially when it comes to jury trials. Yet there are circumstances in which the verdict is open for conjecture. The 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder, though an old film, raises questions that remain relevant. I do caution, that as in most older movies, one must remember that today’s “normal” is often not that of earlier times.

 

Anatomy of a Murder takes place in the upper peninsula of Michigan and is loosely based upon a real case. A novel of the same name was written by “Robert Traver,” but that was the pen name of John Volker, a Michigan Supreme Court justice. Volker fictionalized a 1952 case in which he was a defense attorney. One of the most controversial situations for any criminal court, then or now, occurs when a defendant pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.

 

The movie involves a semi-retired folksy lawyer named Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart). Who would rather fish than lawyer. He is persuaded, though, to meet Army Lieutenant Frederick “Manny” Manion (Ben Gazzara). The facts are not in dispute. Manion walked into a bar and shoot Barney Quill. Biegler, though, thinks Manny was driven to blind fury; Manion claimed that Quill raped his wife, Laura (Lee Remick). Yet, given the statutes of the day, that’s not a defense. Biegler is reluctant to take the case until his former partner Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O’Connell), now the town drunkard, thinks Biegler should take the case. Did Parnell’s pledge of sobriety convince Paul to take Manny’s case, or was it that Laura is quite a looker?

 

The prosecution offers a plea deal to reduce the murder charge to manslaughter. At the urging of Manny and Laura, Biegler says no deal. The trial is presided over by visiting judge from Lansing named Weaver (Joseph N. Welch). His appearance is one of many surprises in this film. If Joseph N. Welch sounds familiar, he was the lawyer who took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s in one of the first televised trials. McCarthy was impugning the reputation of a young man who Welch knew was innocent. It was Welch, who brought down McCarthy with a simple question: “Have you know, decency, sir? Have you at long last no decency?” That moment spearheaded McCarthy’s downfall. In Anatomy of a Murder, Welch plays a judge with a sense of humor, but he also attempts to run a tight ship.

 

This 1959 film is sometimes said to be the first American movie in which the words “rape” and “panties” were spoken aloud. The latter might induce a guffaw, but not so funny is that until 1994, it was acceptable to cite a woman’s provocative appearance as a mitigating factor in sexual assaults. Laura’s “sexy” attire consisted of wearing slacks and going about barelegged! Biegler faced some pretty fancy prosecutors, district attorney Lodwick (Brooks West) and a polished advisor from the Attorney General’s office, Claude Dancer (George C. Scott). They are the kind of attorneys that you might conjure today, sharply dressed, erudite, and keen cross-examiners. Anatomy of a Murder at times reminded me of screwball comedies directed by Frank Capra. This is especially the case when McCarthy and Biegler discover an 1886 precedent in Michigan that allowed for an “irresistible impulse” to be cited as a defense.

 

Who will win, the down-to-earth team of attorneys or the slick guys from the city? The case will turn on a few special witnesses not the least of which is Mary Pliant (Kathryn Grant). As in today’s insanity pleas, psychiatrists testify for both the defense and the prosecution. Not surprisingly, they came to different conclusions! One of the expert witnesses is Orson Bean, who older viewers will recognize. Music fans will spot Duke Ellington in a scene with Jimmy Stewart. Another delightful part, that a Biegler’s wisecracking secretary is played by Eve Arden, another who was famous in her day. In other words, this is a heavyweight cast.

 

You can watch Anatomy of a Murder two ways. It’s either a laughable antique, or a pathbreaking film whose frankness helped alter how sexual allegations are today handled in court. It probably won’t settle opposing views on insanity defenses.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Godfather Reconsidered

I planned to post this last Friday, but how does review three of the greatest American films ever made: the Godfather trilogy (Paramount Pictures)–made by director Francis Ford Coppola. Collectively they cost about $74 million to make and raked in over $800 million worldwide. They also garnered 28 Oscar nominations.

Everyone from Cicero (first century AD) on has proclaimed, …there is honor among thieves,” but The Godfather casts doubt on that. The films hold up well, even though it’s rare these days to hear much about the Mafia, aka/ La Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”).

Godfather One (175 minutes, R, ★★★★★) came out in 1972 with the impact of a machine gun fired on a crowded street. If you’ve ever wondered why Marlon Brando was such a big deal, see this film. Brando took the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Vito Corleone, the head (Don) of the Five Families crime syndicate in New York. All three films are a family affair; check the casts and you’ll find numerous people with the surname of Coppola.

The films’ Corleone family was based upon the Luciano family headed in New York by Frank Costello. Vito is in the twilight of his life, though he worries over who should head the family in the future. Frederico (“Fredo”/John Cazle) is the second oldest son, but has been given the job of go-fer because he doesn’t have enough grey matter. The first baton passes to the volatile “Sonny” (James Caan) who doesn’t understand his father’s patience-then-vengeance strategy. Vito dotes over younger brother Michael (Al Pacino) whom he hopes will go to college and make the Corleone family respectable. He does, however, have reservations about his girlfriend Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) who isn’t Italian.

Vito knows that Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) is pushing for the Godfather’s blessing to go into selling narcotics, but Corleone disapproves of the activity. This makes him an obstacle for the Tattaglia family. Disputes such as this generally begin with a summit meeting followed by gang warfare. Intrigue begins during the wedding of Connie Corleone (Talia Shire) to a wise guy. Even as Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) croons amidst the blue hairs and Mama Corleone (Mary King) tries to keep a watchful eye upon events, Vito huddles with Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), his consiglieri and an unofficially adopted Corleone. When the dust settles, Michael’s college dreams fall apart because family honor demands it. Michael cleans up the Tattaglia mess, but because he dispatched crooked cop Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) Michael is sent to Sicily to hide until things settle down. He even acquires an Italian wife who becomes collateral damage before his return and marriage to Kay.

The Godfather has the complexity of a Greek tragedy. A lot of chances are taken, most of which were blood-soaked successes. Note that Pacino and Duvall went on to glory, but were relative unknowns at the time. The film won 7 Oscars with Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo sharing one for Best Adapted Screenplay. In most lists, Godfather I trails only Citizen Kane as the greatest American drama of all time. By the way, one of the film’s assassinations pays homage to Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967).  

 

 

Godfather Two (1974, 200 minutes, R, ★★★ ½) is often considered a continuation of the 1972 film. Many critics declared it superior to the first film. IMHO, it’s the weakest of the three. Oscars are often meted out to those who should have won for previous films. Coppola won two more Oscars, his father Carmine won for Best Dramatic Score, and Robert DeNiro got a Best Supporting Actor statue for his role as both Tom Hagen and as Vito Corleone in his twenties. Ironically, Godfather II is mostly about Michael’s rise to the Mob throne but Al Pacino did not win an Oscar for any of the three films, possibly because he was competing against himself as Best Actor. (He was also nominated for Dog Day Afternoon.)

Coppola did something daring in the second film; he made it both a prequel and a sequel. It cuts back and forth between the 1920s and 1958-63. We discover that Vito Andolini was born in the Sicilian town of Corleone. Nine-year-old Vito fled Sicily for New York in 1901, because Mafiosi Don Cicci (Joe Spinell) killed the rest of his family. He bore the name Corleone after Ellis Island officials confused his birthplace and surname. Vito survived in the streets by theft, but becomes a person of substance when he kills Don Fanuci (a wonderfully bombastic Gastone Moschin), a local neighborhood fixer. He also marries and fathers Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), and Michael (Pacino). Connie was born on a ship back to America. In 1922, Vito and his associates go back to Sicily, ostensibly to get Cicci’s blessing for an olive oil export business. Cicci is old and doesn’t recognize Vito but learns just before Vito disembowels his family’s killer.

The sequel parts follow Michael’s reluctant rise to his apex power. He has enterprises in both Cuba just before Castro’s 1959 takeover and at Lake Tahoe. You might need a scorecard to keep track of who is loyal to the Corleone family and who is feigning friendship in the hope of supplanting Michael. Several powerful enemies emerge in this cat-and-mouse game: the Pentangeli family, Jewish mobster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), and others. Michael’s plans for going legit–including promises made to his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) get lost in bloodshed, Congressional investigations into organized crime–based on real-life situations revealed in Valachi Papers and hearings in 1963–and in Fredo’s incompetence. After Mama Corleone dies, Fredo “drowns” (read shot and dumped) in Lake Tahoe.

Brando wasn’t in this film, he proved too expensive and too much of a pain in the old keister. (He infamously refused his Oscar in 1973 and designated Sacheen Littlefeather to harangue the Academy on the plight of Native Americans.) 

 

 

Godfather Three (1990, 179 minutes, R, ★★★★) is said to be unfathomable unless you’ve seen parts one and two. That’s true, but it’s much more coherent than the flashback style of part two. Michael is nearing 60, suffers remorse from ordering Fredo’s murder, and is divorced from Kay. He realizes that he has been on the same trajectory as his father and is weary of all the betrayals and murders. This time he means it when he says he wants out, but given that “family” is the Corleone keystone principle he keeps getting sucked back into the things he hates. He does make an agreement with Kay that their son Anthony (Franc D’Ambrosio) can pursue a music career instead of inheriting the family “business.” His daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) isn’t blind to her father’s doings, but she dotes on him. Her one transgression is that she has a love affair with her first cousin Vincent (Andy García), an ambitious and sanguinary hothead. Connie (Talia Shire) convinces Michael to allow Vincent to set up a meeting with rival Joey Zasa (Joe Mantega), which ends badly, though Michael is impressed by Vincent’s loyalty. He tasks him with pretending to leave the Corleone family to get inside that of Don Altobello (Eli Wallach), who plans to assassinate Michael.   

Mainly Godfather Part Three is about how Michael fails to go straight. He has given tens of millions to charity and has been awarded a prestigious medal from the Catholic Church in the hope of making even more money by taking over Internazionale Immobiliare, a worldwide real estate firm. Michael has also been approached by Archbishop Gilday (a rat-faced Donal Donnelly), who heads the Vatican Bank and is more than $750,000 in arrears. Michael recognizes a swindler when he sees one, but he needs the Vatican’s support to secure a government commission’s okay for the real estate firm that would allow him to go legit. We learn that Michael has a gory plan for the crime families who want him to share the wealth.

There are emotionally affecting sequences in which Michael makes his confession to Cardinal Lamberto (Raf Vallone) in Palermo, where he, Kay, Mary, and Vincent traveled to hear Anthony’s operatic debut. Lamberto tells Michael he deserves to suffer but offers him absolution; shortly thereafter Lamberto becomes Pope John Paul I, who many believe was poisoned by Vatican Bank conspirators to sandbag his vow to reorganize it. It’s also satisfying to see the demise of Archbishop Gilday. Michael, though, will suffer the deaths of two people so close to him that he is reduced to a writhing version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” I would given Pacino an Oscar just for his gut-wrenching depiction of pure anguish. The film’s coda shows an aged, l hollowed out Michael sitting in a chair in a small Sicilian town waiting to die. We learn that.

Part Three has a central glue lacking in Part Two but any way you slice it, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy is a masterpiece. Coppola was just 33 when he made the first film and it’s tempting to think that perhaps he peaked too early. The acting throughout is spectacular, even if Part Three won no Oscars and Sofia Coppola was awarded two Golden Raspberry trophies for bad acting. (She wasn’t that bad!) Coppola’s morality play about family, loyalty, ambition, greed, betrayal, revenge, and Catholic guilt continues to resonate, even when the period detail appears dated. The storyline is filled with fictional characters, but it is based on things that did happen.  

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Brown: Top Drawer for the Post-Hogmanay Viewing

 

 

 

MRS. BROWN  (1997)

Directed by John Madden

Miramax, 103 minutes, PG

★★★★★

 

New Year’s Day is a holiday, but most people party on New Year’s Eve. Scots certainly do; for them, December 31 is Hogmanay. It roughly means gala day but whether it’s a Scots word, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, or French is up for debate. Today it bears similarities to First Night celebrations, but some places have bonfires, special foods, gift-giving, folk customs, and pipe bands.  

 

It just seemed the right time of the year to rewatch one of my favorite films, Mrs. Brown. I’d not disagree with charges of sentimentality, though I’d counter that it demonstrates how fine acting can carry a film in which relatively little action occurs. One reason why British films are, on the whole, superior to Hollywood movies is that many U.K. actors are classically trained and are hired for their chops, not necessarily their looks. Hollywood creates drama through pyrotechnics, loud music, and over-the-top speeches; British cinema finds drama in human interactions, even if the ”star” is a queen.

 

If you know about the British monarchy, you will have noticed there is a strict protocol for being in the presence of royalty. It prevails, though the monarchy has had no political power since 1689. Royals are to be treated regally and behave as such. You probably also know that little shocks U.K. tabloids as much as a good royal scandal. (Think Lady Diana, Sarah Ferguson’s divorce, and Prince Andrew for starters.) What we learn is that royals aren’t special when it comes to human foibles.

 

Mrs. Brown deals with one of Britain’s most revered monarchs, Queen Victoria (1819-1901). She took the throne weeks after she turned 18, married Albert (her first cousin) when she was 21, had nine children, and was quite happy until Albert died in 1861. We now associate Victorianism with a certain morbidity because the Queen went into mourning for most of the rest of her 63-year reign. When Albert passed, she stayed at Balmoral Castle draped in mourning gear and out of sight for two years. That was not a good thing for two powerful political figures vying for the prime minister’s chair in Parliament, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. As we see in Mrs. Brown, Disraeli (Antony Sher) and his party are sinking in popularity and hope to lure Victoria (Judi Dench) out of mourning to boost Disraeli’s electoral chances.

 

The question is how to get Victoria out of Balmoral Castle in Scotland and back to London’s Buckingham Palace where she can regularly wave to the citizenry. Enter John Brown (Billy Connolly), a former soldier who was once Albert’s ghillie (a gamekeeper).  He is called to Balmoral is to get Victoria to go riding and recover her health so that her closest advisors, Henry Ponsonby (Geoffrey Palmer), Dr. Jenner (Richard Pasco), and her son “Bertie,” the Prince of Wales (David Westhead) can convince Victoria to leave Scotland. (As the English often felt, they hated it there.) Problem: John  Brown was loyal to the queen but not to the toffs surrounding her. Brown reveled in being a rugged Scot who liked tweaking upper-class snobs. A bigger problem: Victoria adored Scotland and Brown. The film correctly infers that the two of them may have been intimate. There was also a rumor that they secretly married, hence the film’s title. (Recent evidence has revived that possibility.)

 

Mrs. Brown is also a story of intrigue and of hubris. As Brown’s star rose at Balmoral, his plotters sought ways to discredit him. Victoria is persuaded to make a triumphant return to London and, for a time, Brown’s ego got in the way and he was out of favor. Still, Victoria refused to dismiss him. He was head of security in 1893, when he died (not of pneumonia as in the film, but of a bacterial infection).

 

What a stroke of genius to cast Connolly as Brown. Billy Connolly is a seriously funny man who is far more coarse and irreverent in real life, just as Dench could herself be. I could go on about the crackerjack acting of this film, including Sher’s wiliness and Gerard Butler’s first role as Brown’s brother. The takeaway is the same; fill the screen with superb actors and let them metaphorically play winner-take-all chess. It was a surprise hit in 1997 and won numerous prizes despite being stiffed at the Academy Awards. Wha’ a bunch o’ glakits!

 

Rob Weir

 

This Poetic Realism Film Rewards the Patient Viewer

 

 

Port of Shadows (1938)

Directed by Marcel Carné

Osso/Film Alliance of the United States, 91minutes, not-rated

French (with English subtitles)

★★★ ½

 

For a modern viewer, Port of Shadows is an odd film to watch. Though it’s only 91 minutes, it seems longer because of its casual pacing, it’s comparative lack of dialogue, and its drab tones. It helps to know that director Marcel Carné was interested in a film-making style popular in the 1930s and 1940s known as poetic realism. Despite its name, it was more associated with film than poetry. The poetic part is that directors often used symbols as metaphors for realistic details. In this one, for instance, we know that its central character of Jean (Jean Gabin) has rough edges bordering on uncouthness because he eats with his knife rather than customary tableware.

 

The look of Port of Shadows is so much like film noir that it is sometimes viewed as one. Perhaps, but you would need to replace many of the blacks with dull gray. The namesake port is Le Havre in Normandy, a major industrial and trade center. It is socked in by fog when Jean arrives, though talking about the fog is a forbidden subject. Allegedly that’s because it hurts the tourist trade, though this could be a joke within a joke as it’s hard to imagine 1930s Le Havre, whose waterfront and factories were too grimy and the city too run down to pass as an outing destination. Plus, it’s on the English Channel, whose chilly waters have seldom been associated with beach culture. Jean is there because he plans to catch a freighter and escape from France. An overnight at Panama’s throws a kink in that plan.

 

Panama (Édouard Delmont) runs a bar and flop house on the edge of the city. He asks no questions and volunteers no information. He is content to play his Spanish guitar and  offer hospitality to anyone who ventures through the door. On the night Jean arrives, it’s the town drunk, a cynical and depressed painter (Robert Le Vigan), and Nelly (Michèle Mogan). At some point during the night gunshots ring out, but apparently no one is injured, though a man named Zabel (Michel Simon) cuts his hand on a splinter. Jean and Nelly are immediately drawn to each other, though they first play a game of tough guy and vulnerable young girl. Nelly is just 17 and has run away from her godfather, Zabel. She insists she’s trying to find out about the fate of her boyfriend, Maurice, who several people have asked about.

 

When it seems clear that Maurice has been killed, Nelly turns her full attention to Jean. Those gunshots outside Panama’s were fired by hoods posing as dangerous mobsters, but Jean recognizes their leader, Lucien (Pierre Brasseur) as a common street punk with a big mouth and the courage of a kitten. (When Lucien, who also yearns for Nelly, tries to confront Jean, Lucien is slapped on two occasions and can hardly contain his tears.) After a date, Jean and Nelly spend a concupiscent night in Jean’s room at Panama’s in the arms of Cupid.

 

Poetic realism films are usually more fatalistic than romantic. Is this one of them? I shall say just these things: a change of clothing, face-shaming, a threat that borders on incest, suicide, mistaken identity, a murder, and another on the streets of Le Havre. Think of Port of Shadows as a film that slowly establishes deep atmosphere as a prelude to several bursts of action. The musical score by the masterful Maurice Jaubert greatly enhances moods without resorting to cliché. The film is in French, but if you’re a person who hates subtitles, no worries; there isn’t much in the way of substantive dialogue.

 

I liked it quite a lot, but my rating is lower because I’m not sure it’s a film for everyone. Much of the plot and relationships between characters is doled out in asides and inference. Although it’s widely available online and on DVD, some prints of Port of Shadows are not well-preserved. Poke around online to find a good one and, by all means, avoid a colorized version. In this case, color is neither poetic nor dramatic. Be patient; the slow roll out of the drama is worth it.

 

Rob Weir

 

Zielfeld Girl: Walking the Road to Fame?

 

 

 

Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

Directed by Robert Leonard

MGM/Loew’s, 132 minutes, Not rated.

★★★★

 

Like numerous classic films, Ziegfeld Girl has backstories that might not be familiar for contemporary viewers. Florenz Ziegfeld never appears in the film. He wasn’t needed; early 20^th century audiences would have known all about the Ziegfeld Follies. (Think a better-costumed version of Radio City’s Rockettes.) Ziegfeld was famous for his lavish dance and music productions. The film accurately records that a new Ziegfeld production was an anticipated event in big cities. Depression era films frequently spotlighted the disconnect between show biz opulence and the financial hardships of ordinary Americans. To be chosen for a big Broadway show was like winning the lottery.

 

Ziegfeld Girl often seems an extended infomercial for the Follies. It was! Plus, a semi- sequel to the 1936 film Ziegfeld Follies. The storyline follows rather common Depression era tropes. It is a bit like Ruby Keeler’s hoofer-to-star arc in 42nd Street of  a cast trying out for a show, each one of them hoping for instant fame. If you don't know that film, 42^nd Street think of more recent films such as A Chorus Line.  Ziegfeld Girl has three young women waiting to be discovered: Sandra Kolter (Hedy Lamarr), Sheila Regan (Lana Turner), and Susan Gallagher (Judy Garland). Garland played a 17-year-old, which wasn't too much of a stretch because she was 19 at the time. She was cast because of her enormous success in The Wizard of Oz two years earlier. Not surprisingly, she plays a naive minor considered to be an extra or go-fer because she wasn't particularly pretty or glamorous by Ziegfeld standards.  And then they heard her sing!

 

Most of the characters in this film were exceptionally well known at the time the movie was released. Jimmy Stewart played Sheila's boyfriend Gil Young, a working-class truck driver and sometimes bootlegger. Philip Dorn was Lamarr’s husband Franz, and the cast also included Dan Daly, Edward Everett Norton Jackie Cooper, and Eve Arden. The lesser-known Charles J. Winninger appeared as Susan's father, a faded vaudevillian, and upstaged some of the more famous actors. He was charming as Susan's father/chaperone who wheedles his way onto the stage. He sings “Mr. Gallagher Mr. Shean,” a 1922 vaudeville hit, with none other than Al Shean himself. If Shean’s name rings no bells, know that he was an uncle to the Marx brothers.

 

Roles seen in other films from the 30s and 40s appear in Ziegfeld Girl. Lana Turner for example, is a girl from Brooklyn who is seduced by rich older men who keep her at a level of luxury she'd like to get used to. Of course, this puts a strain on her relationship with Gil. Tony Martin plays Frank Merton a melodramatic singer. I confess that his voice drives me crazy, hence I fast forwarded his songs, as I always do in Marx Brothers’ films in which he appears. Nonetheless, the individual stories of Ziegfeld Girl were quite moving. Many Ziegfeld shows featured large casts of women who did very little other than walk down stage stairs wearing elaborate costumes. One often needed little talent other than beauty and the ability not to fall over. Hedy Lamarr is one such individual, though she was always put in the front because of her sultry attractiveness. Movie husband Franz is a very interesting character; he too tried out for the Follies–as a pianist–but was rejected because he was too good. After all, you don't want to draw audience attention away from the bevy of beauties parading in front. How does Franz reconcile with the fact that his wife is the center of the male gaze?

 

I made a comparison to A Chorus Line and this film was really quite a lot like it. One watches to find out how the central characters resolve their various obstacles, including personal dilemmas. I wouldn't call it a brilliant movie–Herbert Stothart’s score was one of the film’s few Oscar nominations-–but it was a boffo hit in 1941. One of the great pleasures of watching it today is to see how a talented cast can hold our attention despite a thin script, and even if you don't get all of the period inferences. And I admit, Hedy Lamarr looks mighty fine in her star headdress.

 

 

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

Boomtown: Hollywood Looks art the Oil Boom

 

 

Boomtown (1940)

Directed by Jack Conway

MGM, 119 minutes, Not-rated

 

Boomtown spotlights Hollywood heavyweights Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr. Tracy was miffed that he got second billing, but the unexpected 1934 hit It Happened One Night launched Clark Gable’s star higher in the sky. Colbert, Gable’s costar in 1934, took a role originally written for Myrna Loy.

 

Some history helps understand this comedy/drama better. The novel that led to the script was set in Texas, but producers and director Jack Conway wisely changed the locale to Oklahoma. Remember studying the Trail of Tears in U.S. history? It involved the expulsion of 60,000 Native Americans from five Southeastern states in the years 1830-50. Some 13-16,000 lives were lost in the forced-march to lands in “Indian Territory,” allegedly theirs forever. If you’ve seen Killers of the Flower Moon or read the book, you know that “forever” didn’t last the 19^th century. Land rushes led whites to move into Indian Territory and statehood for Oklahoma* in 1907, just as an oil boom occurred. Coincidence?  

 

Boom Town is an oil-slicked Western that bypasses this sad history, but it’s historical in presenting a frenzy analogous to the California gold rush. Entrepreneurs, outcasts, and dreamers poured into Oklahoma hellbent on making a fortune. In many ways oil strike towns were more like the Wild West than the cattle drives of American myth. In both gold and oil instant towns, corporations and those who had money to invest carried off the biggest hauls. A few oil independent “wildcatters” also struck it rich–enough to keep more settlers coming. “Big John” McMasters (Gable) and “Square John” Sand (Tracy)–called “Shorty” by McMasters–are wildcatters with a record of dry holes and not much jingle in their pockets. They meet in a boom town and decide to double their chances by teaming up. They pull a swindle on equipment seller Luther Aldrich (Frank Morgan) for their futile first big attempt and have to skedaddle just ahead of the sheriff.

 

They scrap together enough money to pay off most of what they owe, but con Aldrich one more time. Luckily, they strike a large deposit. Not so fortunately, McMasters meets Betsy Bartlett (Colbert) at the bar of a hotel and the two have instant chemistry and  marry. Sand thought of her as sweet on him, but accepts his fate. He does, however, take a protective stance toward Betsy. When he catches McMasters dancing very closely with a barroom floozy, the two quarrel to the degree that they flip a coin over the oil field. Square John wins, but Betsy would rather be broke with Big John, and they ride off in search of another strike.

 

Things happen in a boom/bust cycle in which one has a strike while the other pumps (ahem) sand. Then the cycle reverses. That’s generally followed by another partnership, another spat, and another split. This continues until McMasters commands many wells and is so wealthy that he is courted to set up his business in New York. He even invites Sand to oversee parts of what becomes a vertical empire (bottom to top control over oil, equipment, refineries, outlet, and delivery transportation). In his New York office he also acquires a snarky, snappy, and very sexy secretary, Karen Vanmeer (Lamarr). He’s all Oklahoma libido and she’s all New York schemer. This time poor Betsy feels outclassed and hopeless. A close encounter with a pill bottle leads to a conspiracy between Betsy and Sand to ruin Big John via the Sherman Antitrust Act.

 

All of this sounds more serious than it is. Boomtown plays the rivalry for laughs more than regrets. Gable and Spencer are like two battling brothers who deep down take honor, friendship, nonchalance, and risk-taking more seriously than money. Above all, Square John wants Betsy to be happy. In some ways, the cast of Boom Town does for oil what the Marx Brothers did for Florida land speculation in The Cocoanuts.

 

A word of caution: This is at core a male-bonding film in which most women are “girls.” Lamarr’s role is that of a temptress and is unique in that she’s ruthless, not carefree. Gable and Colbert never made another film together. Read between the lines and you’ll figure out why.

 

Rob Weir

 

* Oklahoma derives from Choctaw words that mean “red people.” The “sooners” of sports team names is shameless. They were whites who moved into Oklahoma illegally in advance of lands opened in 1890.

 

Algiers: Hedy Lamarr and Her First Hollywood Movie

 

 

 

Algiers (1938)

Directed by John Cromwell

United Artists, 99 minutes, not-rated.

★★★★

 

In the next few weeks I will be featuring films involving Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) because I co-lead a women’s history group reading a biography of her. Lamarr was an inventor and one of the most intriguing starlets of the early days of sound movies. She was born in Austria as Hedwig Eva Marie Kiesler, won a beauty contest when was 12, and at 18, married Friedrich Mandel who was 33. She made five films in Europe, including Ekstase (Ecstasy) in 1933, which was notorious. The 18-year Hedwig Mandel briefly appeared fully nude and a scene of her in the throes of passion is believed to be the first film depiction of a female orgasm.

 

Her marriage to Mandel was the first of six (and six divorces). Friedrich made two big mistakes, he expected her to be a dutiful traditional wife and thought she was an airhead. As Mandel drifted into fascism, Hedwig listened to sensitive political conversations she took with her when she fled to London in 1937. (She was half Jewish.) Samuel Goldwyn of MGM took her to Hollywood, changed her name to Hedy Lamarr, and began the legend that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She gets my vote, though Hedy once considered surgery to make her breasts larger.

 

Algiers was her first Hollywood film. It was directed by John Cromwell and written by John Howard Lawson, who later gained infamy as one of the 1947 Hollywood Ten indicted for Contempt of Congress for refusing to rat on anyone accused of communism during the second Red Scare. Algiers might remind you quite a bit of Casablanca, which took Hollywood by storm five years later. Ironically, the role of Ilsa was written with Lamarr in mind, but went to Ingrid Bergman because Lamarr was under contract to MGM, which refused to loan her to Warner Brothers. Casablanca, though, borrowed heavily from the script to Algiers. Ironically, the main villain/lover boy of Algiers, Pepé le Moko (Charles Boyer) was the model for the Warner Brothers cartoon skunk Pepé LePew. (How’s that for revenge!)

 

Le Moko is a French jewel thief hiding out in Algiers. France sends an inspector to find out why Algerian law enforcement hasn’t caught him. As detective/informer Slimane (Joseph Calleia) explains, everyone knows where Pepé is, but he cannot be captured as long as he’s living in the Casbah section of Algiers. The French send twelve men into the Casbah and find out what Slimane means. It is a warren of narrow streets, connecting rooms and rooftops, tunnels, and informants that’s similar to searching for a straight pieces in a giant hamster habitrail. Plus, Pepé is a popular man in the Casbah. He’s like an old-fashioned ward boss whose henchmen keep order. Pepé and his exotic-looking lover Ines (Sigrid Gurie) know everyone and they protect him, though he has rivals.

 

The Casbah, though, is confining; Pepé is only safe as long as he doesn’t leave it. Enter Gaby (Lamarr), who bedazzles Pepé with her beauty, memories of Paris, and glittering jewelry that his gang wonders why he hasn’t pilfered. Gaby is engaged to the obese Giraux (Robert Grieg), who is filthy rich. It’s never clear if Gaby is bait or if she is attracted to Pepé, but if Lamarr was faking it, she fooled me! He’s also depressed when outside-the-Casbah enemies lure his friend Pierrot (ex-Our Gang star John Morey Downs) into a trap.

 

Algiers is dated and both script and direction could be much tighter. Casablanca is a superior film and there’s a reason why its director Michael Curtiz is considered a legend and John Cromwell is largely forgotten. Still, it’s incredible to see how little Hedy Lamarr needed to do to fill screen eyes. By the way, no one in Algiers ever says, “Take me to the Casbah.” That was Pepé LePew!

 

Lamarr is a Hollywood legend who remains one of the most beautiful in movie history. She was also difficult; only one of her marriages lasted longer than four years. Yet, she was a genius inventor when off the set. The Navy never used the invention of a guided torpedo she and avantgarde composer George Antheil developed, but their spread spectrum theory made the following possible: Bluetooth, GPS, wireless communication, and Wi-fi. No wonder there’s a Lamarr-class starship in Star Trek.

 

Rob Weir

 

Only Angels Have Wings Entertaining, Though Dated

 

 

 

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

Directed by Howard Hawks

Columbia Pictures, 121 minutes, Not-rated

★★★ ½

 

The Wright Brothers took off in 1903, an above-the ground journey that lasted 56 seconds. There is a very American quirk of assuming that once something is proved possible, progress occurs at the snap of the fingers. When Howard Hawks directed Only Angels Have Wings three decades later, air flight was still in a state of infancy. Many airplanes were still built of fabric stretched across a light frame, all were propeller- driven, and crashes were so prevalent they ceased being newsworthy. This is the era of flight under analysis in Only Angels Have Wings, a good film though decidedly dated.

 

Another thing to bear in mind is that the film starred Cary Grant and Jean Arthur as its principals. Rita Hayworth was included, but this was her first major role and Arthur was then much more famous. The best way to watch Only Angels Have Wings is to keep these things in mind. The other is not to burst out laughing when you first see Geoff Carter (Grant) looking like a cowboy in drag in his oversized hat, flight jacket, and gun holster.

 

This film is set in an unnamed South American country, probably Chile as a port city and the Andes figure into the plot. A cargo boat enters a harbor to unload and refuel. Among those going ashore is Bonnie Lee (Arthur), who is totally comfortable with the wolf whistles, cat-calls, and swarming young men offering to buy her a drink. She heads off with two flyers vying to take her to dinner; one, Joe, loses out when he is called to fly cargo and mail for Barranca Airways, which only flies when their spotter in the Andes wires that the mountain pass is safe. Bonnie is in the bar with others, including airline manager Geoff and bar owner/Barranca backer “Dutchy” Van Ruyster (Sig Ruman*), when Joe returns in a gale, crashes, and dies. Geoff is practically the only person not in mourning for Joe, which outrages Bonnie Lee. She soon learns that sudden death isn’t unusual in the air freight business and that Geoff isn’t impressed by her histrionics or the shape of her legs. He and Dutchy are running a seat-of-the-pants operation and Geoff is more interested in being a flyer short.

 

What are these Americans even doing in such a remote place? In keeping with numerous films of the 1930s/40s–think cowboy movies or (later) Casablanca–most of them are running from something: the Depression, alcoholism, restlessness, broken hearts…. Quite a few simply love the thrill and danger of flying. Geoff falls into the bad romance category and has sworn off of (sorry!) “dames.” He’s a man of habits so particular you suspect OCD, though nobody then knew that term. His family are the boys in the airline and at the bar. Bonnie Lee thinks he’s a heartless creep, but she’s  definitely physically attracted  to him and wants to know his story. He finds her a noisy pain in the old runway, but Dutchy spills the beans on his past.

 

Five years earlier, the screwball comedy It Happened One Night won so many Oscars they almost had to order an emergency run of little golden castrati. It set the standard for plots involving two people who can’t stand each other as a prelude to romance, but let’s add few other things. One is the trope of the old guy, beloved by all, who has been hiding his failing eyesight, before Geoff grounds him.

 

The only serious applicant for the new flyer is “Bat” Mac Pherson (Richard Barthelmess),  a former bombastic hotshot involved in an incident in which he bailed out of a plane and left his partner to die. The circumstances didn’t matter; to Geoff and the rest of the boys, Bat is a rat and no one wants him. He arrives to shoulders colder than the Antarctica swim team. He also shows up with his new wife, Judy (Hayworth), who just happens to be the gal that done Geoff wrong. Judy begs Geoff to give Bat a chance. How? One of the cleverest uses of a Chekov’s gun places Geoff and Bat in the same plane during a howling snowstorm in the Alps. And with that, I’ll leave you hanging in midair!

 

Rob Weir