Friday, May 17, 2013
Enough beef for hungry cinephiles
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post originally appeared Sept. 30, 2008. I'm re-posting it as part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May 31 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
Has any filmmaker shown mastery in more genres than Howard Hawks? Sixty years ago today, Hawks released one of his best Westerns (not a motel) in Red River, which also gave John Wayne one of his best roles and Montgomery Clift a notable early screen appearance.
Hawks made other great Westerns (most notably Rio Bravo, which also featured Wayne and Walter Brennan), but Red River, despite its abrupt climax, remains my favorite with its tale of a long cattle drive, surrogate father-son conflict and unmistakable gay subtext. Wayne admittedly was a limited actor, but he always was at his best when he played a character steeped in darkness and obsession such as Thomas Dunson here or Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers. He's helped immeasurably by getting to act opposite the young Clift, the antithesis of acting style when compared to Wayne. Hawks' direction of the film itself truly amazes, especially in the many scenes of the huge numbers of cattle, all done in the days without the easy out of CGI (A scene of the drive even earned a shoutout in Peter Bogdanovich's great 1971 film The Last Picture Show). He also manages to include plenty of his trademark humor, mostly through the ensemble of supporting character actors led by Brennan (whose character loses his false teeth in a poker game) and including Hank Worden (the decrepit waiter in Twin Peaks for those unfamiliar with the name) who gets plenty of throwaway lines such as how he doesn't like when things go good or bad, he just wants them to go in between.
Hawks even manages to toss in what may be an example of the ultimate Hawksian woman with Joanne Dru as Tess Millay, who doesn't let a little thing such as an arrow stop her from nagging a man with questions. Hawks astounds viewers to this day with his versatility among genres: Westerns, screwball comedies, musicals, war films, noirs, sci-fi — pick a genre and Hawks probably took it on and scored. It's a mystery to me why his name isn't brought up more by people other than the most obsessive film buffs. Red River isn't my favorite Hawks, but it's one of his many great ones and continues to entertain after 60 years.
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Labels: 40s, Bogdanovich, Clift, Hawks, John Ford, Movie Tributes, Twin Peaks, W. Brennan, Wayne
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Thursday, May 16, 2013
Leave the rooster story alone. That's human interest.
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post originally appeared Jan. 18, 2010. I'm re-posting it as part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May 31 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
The list of remakes that exceed the original is a short one, especially when the original was a good one, but there never has been a better remake than Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday, which took the brilliance of The Front Page and turned it to genius by making its high-energy farce of an editor determined by hook or by crook to hang on to his star reporter by turning the roles of the two men into ex-spouses. Icing this delicious cake, which marks its 70th anniversary today, comes from casting Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as the leads.
Words open His Girl Friday declaring that it takes place in the dark ages of journalism when getting that story justified anything short of murder, but insists that it bears no resemblance to the press of its day, 1940 in this case. What saddens me today is, despite the ethical lapses and underhandedness and downright lies
committed by the reporters in this version (and really all versions based on the original play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, themselves once Chicago journalists), their energetic devotion to capturing the story seems downright heroic compared to the herd mentality and lack of intellectual curiosity we see exhibited most of the time today by pack journalists such as the White House press corps. It's really why the first two film versions of the play are the only ones that work. The 1931 Lewis Milestone adaptation starring Adolphe Menjou definitely belonged to its time and Hawks' take with its inspired twist came along close enough to remain relevant. When Billy Wilder tried to remake the original in 1974 as a period piece with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, it fell flat because in the era of Vietnam and Watergate, journalists actually existed in a moment of heroism for their profession. The 1988 disaster Switching Channels returned to the His Girl Friday model with Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner and tried to set it in the world of cable news but the only update they came up with was hiding the fugitive in a copy machine instead of a rolltop desk.Each time I write one of these anniversary tributes, no matter how many times I've seen the film in question (and I can't count that high when we're discussing Friday, I try to watch the movie again, in a quest for fresh thoughts and reminders of lines that may have slipped my mind. In nearly every, case I notice something new (and with the rapid-fire pace of Friday's dialogue, remembering them all borders on impossible). What stood out as I
started this salute wasn't just the work-a-day newshounds it depicts compared to the state of the industry today but the social subtext emerged more prominently this time. It's not that I've missed or ignored it before, but it's the light-speed comic hijinks that keeps me coming back. The story's main focus may concern Walter Burns (Grant), that sneaky editor of the Morning Post, trying to keep his ex-wife Hildy Johnson (Russell) from leaving the paper and his life to wed insurance agent Bruce Baldwin, who looks like that fellow in the movies, you know, Ralph Bellamy (who fortunately plays Bruce). However, the story Walter uses to keep his hooks into Hildy concerns that of Earl Williams (John Qualen), a man who killed a cop and received a ticket on a bullet train to the gallows by a politically hungry Republican mayor with an eye on unseating the Democratic, anti-death penalty governor, despite the fact the reporters and many others believe Earl's mental
illness should stop his hanging. Qualen, a solid character actor in many films, and Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack), a woman who befriended Earl prior to the slaying and who the tabloids misrepresent as his lover and a prostitute, stand apart as the only characters in this screwball farce who play it completely straight. (In an all-time bit of miscasting, in the Wilder remake, Carol Burnett got the Mollie Malloy role. Of course, the nearly 50-year-old Jack Lemmon also was engaged to the 28-year-old Susan Sarandon in that film.) His Girl Friday requires neither Qualen nor Mack to garner laughs like every other character. As the courthouse reporters behave particularly cruelly to Mollie at one point, only Hildy comforts her. "They ain't human," Mollie cries. "I know," Hildy sympathizes. "They're newspapermen." Hildy realizes the jobless Earl spent too much time listening to socialist speeches in the park and his fascination with the concept of "production for use" led to his fatal error.
Social message aside, it's the earth-shattering cosmic comic chemistry of Grant and Russell, aided by Bellamy's perfect innocent foil and countless supporting vets. (One of them, Billy Gilbert, plays Mr. Pettibone (Roz holds his tie in the photo above) and I wish I could have found a good closeup photo of him because I think it's hysterical how much 9/11 mastermind/terrorist asshole Khalid Sheikh Mohammed resembles Gilbert in KSM's arrest mugshot.) The lines come fast and furious. While many do come from the original Hecht-MacArthur play, Hawks gets the credit for the film's amazing speed (though screenwriter Charles Lederer deserves more kudos). Still, in the end, Cary and Roz make the dialogue sizzle and Grant's physical touches serve as a master class in comic movement on film. Watch every little bounce he makes as Hildy kicks him beneath the table when he's trying to get things past poor Bruce and you'll crack up every time. Originally, I was writing down all my favorite lines, planning to try to work them all into this tribute, but then I thought: Maybe not everyone has seen His Girl Friday, even after 70 years,
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Labels: 40s, Bellamy, Burt Reynolds, Cary, Hawks, Hecht, K. Turner, Lemmon, Matthau, Menjou, Milestone, Movie Tributes, Remakes, Roz Russell, Susan Sarandon, Wilder
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
“It’ll get a terrific laugh…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Beginning in the 1930s and continuing well into the mid-'50s on radio (and for a number of years on television afterward), The Jack Benny Program was a “Sunday night at seven” institution for millions of American households. The titular star of the broadcast, a comedian who was practically unique in his insistence on making certain his writing staff received most of the credit for his success, revolutionized humor by, not putting too fine a point on it, becoming the godfather of the modern American situation comedy. His innovations included self-referentially setting the storyline of each week’s show amongst the background of preparing his broadcast, breaking “the fourth wall” and having his “gang” (the program’s supporting characters) get the lion’s share of the laughs poking fun at the star. Above all, Benny masterfully mined humor from pettiness, vanity and miserliness while simultaneous creating a lovable “everyman” that the listening audience couldn’t help but want to hold to its collective bosom.
Benny tried to duplicate his radio and TV success on the silver screen, and though he made a number of entertaining films, the comedian never really was satisfied with the end result. A lot of this had to do with that many of his movies, such as Love Thy Neighbor (1940), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) and The Meanest Man in the World (1943), were little more than slight variations of the character he played on radio; Neighbor and Buck Benny in particular featuring many of the regulars from his show (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Don Wilson, Phil Harris, Dennis Day). On occasion, Jack would get the opportunity to flex his acting muscles in vehicles such as Charley’s Aunt (1941) and George Washington Slept Here (1942) so it shouldn’t be too surprising that Benny considered these movies among his favorites. But Jack — and many others, including myself — always felt his finest hour on film was in a production released to theaters 70 years ago on this date: Ernst Lubitsch’s black comedy classic To Be or Not to Be (1942).
On the eve of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, a Warsaw theater troupe headed up by “that great, great actor” Josef Tura (Benny) rehearses a new anti-Nazi play entitled Gestapo. The troupe’s producer, Dobosh (Charles Halton), is dissatisfied with what he’s watching, arguing that Bronski (Tom Dugan), the actor playing Adolf Hitler, simply ian't convincing as the Fuehrer. In an effort to prove his authenticity, Bronski steps outside to walk among the Warsaw population…and though he gets a few stunned and anxious stares, his cover is blown when a girl timidly asks for his (Bronski’s) autograph.
Later that evening, as the troupe performs Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Josef’s wife Maria (Carole Lombard) entertains a young Polish pilot named Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack) in her dressing room. Sobinski is very much in love with Maria, and has been signaled to pay her a nocturnal visit at the moment when husband Josef starts Hamlet’s famed “To be or not to be” soliloquy (naturally, Josef is dismayed when he spots the young airman leaving in the middle of his performance). Maria loves her husband very much but doesn’t dismiss having an innocent flirtation with Stanislav…an “affair” that ends with the news that Germany has invaded Poland and World War II is underway.
Under the thumb of Nazi terror, Warsaw has been reduced to rubble (the theater has been closed and the troupe thrown out of work due to a curfew and other restrictions) but a vibrant Polish underground is determined to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. In England, Sobinski and his fellow pilots spend an evening of singing and revelry in the company of a Polish resistance leader, Professor Alexander Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), who generously offers to get word to the pilots’ families. Stanislav tells Siletsky that while his own family is safely out of Poland, he would like the professor to deliver a message to Maria: “To be or not to be.” But he is troubled by the fact that Siletsky — who claims to be a lifelong resident of Warsaw — is unfamiliar with Maria Tura, and after the professor starts off for Poland, Sobinski relates the incident to his superiors (Halliwell Hobbes, Miles Mander). Both men, having realized that the information on the pilots’ families would be vital to the Nazis even if Siletsky weren’t a spy, instruct Sobinski to fly to Warsaw immediately and stop the professor.
Shot down over Warsaw, Stanislav sends Maria to rendezvous with his contact, a bookseller, while he recuperates after nearly being shot by Nazi soldiers. Josef returns home and finds the young pilot in his bed (and wearing his pajamas), is naturally curious as to what Stanislav is doing there. He receives a hurried (and incomplete) explanation from Maria, who arrives in time to tell the two men that she was picked up by Nazi soldiers and taken to Siletsky’s hotel. Siletsky arrived in Warsaw before Sobinski, and after having delivered the pilot’s message, approaches Maria about joining the Nazi cause. Despite being confused by the events, Josef realizes that he needs to stop Siletsky (by killing him) before the professor delivers the information to the Nazi command: he may be angry about being cuckolded, but he still ia a patriot at heart.
Maria returns to the professor’s hotel, where she pretends to seduce Siletsky…but they are interrupted by a member of the theater troupe (George Lynn) disguised as a Nazi officer. The faux officer informs Siletsky he has an appointment with the head of the Gestapo — who also is a fake: it’s Josef in disguise. His mission is to wrest the information on the Polish underground away from Siletsky and then dispose of him…but learns during the course of their conversation that the professor has a duplicate copy of the information in a trunk back at his hotel. Stanislav and the theater group frantically try to think of a plan to obtain that extra copy but before they can formulate anything Siletsky concludes that he’s been duped by Tura. In his escape attempt from the theater, he is killed by Sobinski.
Josef must now impersonate Siletsky — and returning to the hotel, he attempts to destroy the duplicate information but is interrupted by the arrival of another Nazi officer. Captain Schulz (Henry Victor), adjutant of the Gestapo head Tura impersonated earlier, takes Tura-as-Siletsky to Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman), the genuine article. Josef is able to do some fast thinking to avoid spilling any information (identifying men who already have been shot as resistance leaders), and during this conversation he learns that Hitler himself will be visiting Warsaw the next day.
The body of the real Professor Siletsky is found in the theater the next morning…which is unfortunate for Josef, as he still is continuing his impersonation. Arriving at Ehrhardt’s office, he is ushered into a room and asked to wait until Ehrhardt has finished an appointment with two other officers. Inside the room is the corpse of Siletsky, but Tura manages to shave off the dead man’s beard and attach a false one…thus making Ehrhardt and his men think the deceased professor actually was an impostor. But when several theater members, led by hammy actor Rawitch (Lionel Atwill) in disguise, burst in and blow Tura’s cover in order to spirit Josef away from his captors, Tura and company realize it will only be a matter of time before they are rounded up by the Germans.
To escape out of Poland, Josef and his actors concoct a diversion, with Bronski in the part of Hitler and his friend Greenberg (Felix Bressart) as a defiant Jew who interrupts the Fuehrer’s appearance at the theater; the theater company and Stanislav then steal the Nazis’ transportation and head for the airport, stopping off at Maria’s just in time to rescue her from the advances of an amorous Ehrhardt. Our heroes are successful in their flight from Warsaw and land safely in Scotland, where that evening, Josef and his fellow thespians put on a production of Hamlet…and all goes well until “To be or not to be…”
The director of To Be or Not to Be, Ernst Lubitsch, was admired and respected by his peers, critics and audiences both when he was making films and long after his death in 1948. Lubitsch specialized in urbane romantic comedies that reeked of elegance and sophistication with just a touch of the risqué (daring but never smutty) that artfully avoided any complications with the Motion Picture Code, and earned his directorial style the nickname “the Lubitsch touch.” Lubitsch didn’t take a writing credit on To Be (the honor goes to Edwin Justus Mayer, based on a story by Melchior Lengel) but he devised the character of Josef Tura with Jack in mind, joking that every comedian’s dream is “to play Hamlet.” Benny would later reminisce about the experience in saying he worked well with Lubitsch because the director told him to forget everything about acting (“which wasn’t too difficult,” he cracked) and just follow his lead as Ernst acted out every gesture and vocal inflection for Benny’s benefit. “He was a lousy actor, but a great director,” was Jack’s final verdict.
What’s wonderful about watching Benny play Tura is that both the character and Jack’s radio persona share some similarities: the vanity, the hamminess (whenever Jack would do a spoof of a current movie on his show he always made sure he got the largest role) and that lovable schlemiel that resides in a world where everything terrible seems to happen to him. And yet there are differences: Tura is way out of his league playing spy, but he’s able to screw up his courage and risk certain death to help Sobinski (the man playing around with his wife) stop a dangerous man who threatens the lives of the people of Warsaw. He’s ready to fight on behalf of his country, and demonstrates tremendous courage in doing so.
The part of Maria Tura was originally conceived as a comeback role for actress Miriam Hopkins — Hopkins had worked with Lubitsch before in the vehicles Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Design for Living (1933), and in the pre-production stages of To Be or Not to Be was anxious to let the director lift her career out of its slump. But Hopkins didn’t want to work with Benny, and so her departure attracted the interest of Carole Lombard…who, despite resistance from Lombard's husband, Clark Gable, wanted very much to work with Lubitsch (and she’d also get to work alongside Robert Stack, who had been a friend of hers for many years since he was a teenager). After completing the film, Lombard would later tell friends that it was the most satisfying experience of her career…and the proof is up on the screen. Her performance as Maria is positively luminous; she simultaneously gives the character both a playful and ethereal quality — a woman deeply in love with her husband and yet naughty enough to stray a little from the fold when opportunity presents itself. Benny had nothing but the utmost affection for his co-star, whom he really got to know during their time on the movie — he later told friends: “She was one of the few gals you could love as a woman, and treasure as a friend.”
Sustaining Benny and Lombard is an outstanding “troupe” of supporting performers that include Stack, Bressart, Atwill, Ridges, Ruman and Dugan — none of these amazing actors hit a false note in their portrayals, and deliver Lubitsch and Mayer’s sparkling dialogue to perfection. Critics at the time of To Be's release lambasted Lubitsch for allowing the heroes to be nothing but a disparate group of actors…but I think it’s a brilliant concept: Josef and his friends are the only ones with ego enough to pull one over on the arrogant Nazis. And that screenplay! So many quotable passages of delicious double entendres that exemplify “the Lubitsch touch”:
MARIA: It's becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention. Whenever I start to tell a story, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have a baby, I'm not so sure I'd be the mother.
JOSEF: I'm satisfied to be the father.
MARIA: Tell me about yourself.
SOBINSKI: Well, there isn't much to tell. I just fly a bomber.
MARIA: Oh, how perfectly thrilling!
SOBINSKI: I don't know about it being thrilling. But it's quite a bomber. You might not believe it, but I can drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes.
MARIA: Really?
SOBINSKI: Does that interest you?
MARIA: It certainly does.
SOBINSKI: You see, sir, the other night Professor Siletsky was addressing us at the camp, and I mentioned the name of Maria Tura…and he never heard of her.
ARMSTONG: Neither have I.
SOBINSKI: Oh, but, he's supposed to be a Pole who lived in Warsaw and she's the most famous actress in Warsaw.
ARMSTONG: Now, look here, young man, there are lots of people who're not interested in the theater. As a matter of fact, there's only one actress I ever heard of…and I certainly hope I'll never hear from her again.
JOSEF: It's unbelievable! Unbelievable! I come home to find a man in the same boat with me and my wife says to me, "What does it matter?"
SOBINSKI: But, Mr. Tura, it's the zero hour!
MARIA: You certainly don't want me to waste a lot of time giving you a long explanation.
JOSEF: No, but I think a husband is entitled to an inkling.
JOSEF: Her husband is that great, great Polish actor, Josef Tura. You've probably heard of him.
EHRHARDT: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact I saw him on the stage when I was in Warsaw once before the war.
JOSEF: Really?
EHRHARDT: What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland.
That last line caused a little bit of concern among critics, who steadfastly argued that poking fun at a serious situation made Lubitsch guilty of cinematic high crimes and misdemeanors. My favorite line from To Be or Not to Be is one that doesn’t seem particularly funny at first hearing (in fact, it might make some viewers wince): posing as Ehrhardt, Josef responds to flattery from Professor Siletsky with the phrase “So they call me ‘Concentration Camp’ Ehrhardt…?” But as Josef desperately tries to stall for time while Sobinski and the rest of the actors dope out a way to retrieve vital documents from the spy’s hotel room, he begins to nervously repeat the phrase over and over again until it almost becomes a mantra…and it makes me laugh out loud every time I hear it.
With all these elements — solid script, first-rate cast, great director — you’d naturally assume that To Be or Not to Be cleaned up at the box office, correct? Well, it didn’t. Lubitsch’s WW2 satire had the misfortune of being released during World War II, and theatergoers didn’t particularly warm to a film that poked deadpan fun at such a serious conflict. With hindsight, we can see the brilliance of the movie — Lubitsch’s film has witty moments, to be sure, but it also contains sequences of nail-biting suspense (witness Sobinski’s arrival in Warsaw after temporarily escaping his Nazi pursuers, not to mention the tense scenes where Maria is literally being held prisoner in Siletsky’s hotel room). The director’s intention was to satirize both the Nazis and their ideology, but as George S. Kaufman famously observed, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” The moviegoing public simply wasn’t ready for a daring film that was able to find humor in a situation that seemed devoid of same — and a prime example of this sort of patron was Jack’s father, Mayer Kubelsky. Kubelsky went to see To Be or Not to Be…and horrified that his son was not only wearing an SS uniform but giving out with a “Heil Hitler!” in the opening scenes; he stormed out of the theater and refused to speak to his Jack. (When Jack finally convinced his father that his character was merely performing in an anti-Nazi play in the movie’s opening and that he was really the film’s hero, Mayer went back to see the movie again and again…and again. Like his famous son, it would become his favorite.)
But theatergoers also found it impossible to laugh when the movie’s female star, Carole Lombard, was killed in a plane crash about two months before the film’s premiere (she was on a World War II bond rally tour with her mother, Bess Peters, and Otto Winkler, husband Clark Gable’s press agent). Co-star Benny was devastated by Lombard’s untimely death, and refused to do his regularly scheduled program that following Sunday, substituting an all-musical half-hour. Because the actress had a line in the film — “What can happen in a plane?” — in response to Stack’s invitation to take a spin in the wild blue with him, the line was cut before the movie’s premiere (it since has been restored).
To Be or Not to Be ranks only behind Twentieth Century (1934) as my favorite Carole Lombard film, but it’s certainly my favorite of Jack Benny’s cinematic output; Jack never got another opportunity to extend his thespic range and after The Horn Blows at Midnight in 1945 (a film that he and his writers lampooned in endless jokes on his radio/TV show despite the fact that it wasn’t that bad) he limited his screen appearances to brief cameos such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and A Guide for the Married Man (1967). (He had planned to return to movies with a substantial part in The Sunshine Boys, but upon his death in 1974 his role was given to his lifelong friend George Burns). To Be is also my favorite Lubitsch film; a work of such maturity and pitch-perfect hilarity that I want to warn you: do not make the same mistake I did in watching the 1983 remake before seeing the Lubitsch version. (In all honesty, I didn’t have a choice — the Lubitsch film rarely got shown in those halcyon days before TCM). The more recent version with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, heartfelt tribute though it may have been, is much too broad and slapsticky in its burlesque approach (it’s almost like watching a stage play)…and most assuredly lacks the subtlety of “the Lubitsch touch.”
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Labels: 40s, Bancroft, Gable, Jack Benny, Lombard, Lubitsch, Mel Brooks, Movie Tributes, Remakes, Shakespeare
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Monday, December 12, 2011
Even a man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night…
By Edward Copeland
…may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. That little poem of folklore gets repeated several times in 1941's The Wolf Man which, like all the other classic Universal horror films of the 1930s and '40s, I saw for the first time at a young age, before I'd even started school. That rhyme of warning is so short and simple, I memorized it early and never forgot it — or much of the movie that contains it either. The Wolf Man was a latecomer to Universal's monster mash, premiering 70 years ago today, a full decade after Dracula and Frankenstein began the trend, The Mummy joined their ranks and many sequels popped up in the interim. However, the 10-year wait proved beneficial for The Wolf Man as a movie, gaining it better production values, a cast with higher marquee value and what may be the most literate and philosophical screenplay of any of the Universal horror films. Written by Curt Siodmak, what separates Larry Talbot's werewolf from the other monsters within the Universal fold is the story's more psychological approach. Certainly we feel sympathy for Frankenstein's monster, but he's not evolved enough to feel sorry for himself and he can't wish, as Talbot does in later installments, for his own death. As a werewolf, he may become a predator when his transformation takes place, but Talbot takes no joy from it the way Count Dracula does.
Until I looked at Siodmak's prolific credits on IMDb, I didn't realize that the 2010 film The Wolfman starring Benicio Del Toro was an actual remake of the 1941 film. Del Toro played Lon Chaney Jr.'s role of Lawrence Talbot and Anthony Hopkins took on Claude Rains' part as his father Sir John Talbot. Having not seen the 2010 film, I have no idea how closely it follows Siodmak's screenplay, though I'm certain it improves on the makeup effects. Admittedly, the makeup by Jack Pierce, while impressive on its own, doesn't show us the facial transformation as I remembered. In my mind, I always recalled the still shots that showed Chaney's face changing into that of a werewolf, but I must have been confusing my Talbots with later outings which did show that, as you can see in this YouTube clip that compares the metamorphosis in The Wolf Man which only showed Talbot's feet changing and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943 which showed his face undergoing the transformation (though the quality isn't great). Hopefully, this will stay. Three times I've placed clips that have gone away later and this one is the same one that was there before.
In the 1941 original, we don't see his face until later when it's complete and in reverse when he "dies." In a documentary on the werewolf legend in film on the two-disc special edition DVD, Oscar-winning makeup artist Rick Baker (who won the first Oscar in that category for An American Werewolf in London) heaps praise on Pierce as a trendsetter who doesn't get the credit he deserves largely because of his reluctance to use rubber pieces in his designs, even though they had become standard practice by the time of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. As a result, Pierce eventually lost his job in the later films though his essential look for The Wolf Man remained.
Now, without meaning to, I've leaped way ahead of myself, failing to give my readers even a minimal amount of background detailing the story of The Wolf Man and how the son of a wealthy Welsh family returns home and ends up falling victim to a werewolf's curse. The Wolf Man was directed by George Waggner, who earlier in 1941 directed Lon Chaney Jr., in his first Universal horror film, Man Made Monster (also known as Atomic Monster). Waggner's other best known features probably were 1949's The Fighting Kentuckian and 1951's Operation Pacific, both starring John Wayne. Waggner's real niche turned out to be television where he directed multiple episodes of series such as Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Batman. The Wolf Man opens on a row of leather-bound encyclopedias and hands pull out the volume for the letter L and flip pages until they find the entry for lycanthropy that reads:
LYCANTHROPY (Werewolfism). A disease of the mind in which human beings imagine they are wolf-men. According to an old LEGEND which persists in certain localities, the victims actually assume the physical characteristics of the animal. There is a small village near TALBOT CASTLE which still claims to have had gruesome experiences with this supernatural creature. The sign of the Werewolf is a five-pointed star, a pentagram, enclosing…
From there, we see Lawrence "Larry" Talbot being driven by a chauffeur (Eric Chilton) to his family's Welsh castle after that 18-year exile in the United States. His return has been sparked because of his older brother John's death in a hunting accident. The chauffeur soon points and says, "Talbot Castle, Mr. Larry." The gargantuan Welsh estate does provide a stunning sight. The car pulls up in front and his father, Sir John Talbot (the always-welcome Claude Rains) comes out to welcome him home. Larry steps inside his family's ancestral home again and comments that it looks the same, though his father comments that they've added some modern conveniences. Larry also
receives a surprise visitor — old friend Paul Montford (Ralph Bellamy, taking a rare break from the usual third wheel in screwball comedies), who just wanted to say hello before getting back to his job as chief constable of the district. When he departs, Larry expresses surprise to his father than Montford became a cop, a term his father isn't familiar with, so Larry says policeman, but Sir John says Montford was a captain, but he's retired. Strangely, the opening credits identify his character as Colonel Montford. It isn't clear what either Sir John or Larry Talbot do for a living, though it's clear that the family's wealth has been handed down and Sir John is a very educated man who conducts research in a variety of areas. For not having seen each other in nearly two decades, the reunion lacks tension though a definite chill
continues between the two men, especially from Sir John's direction. When Larry crosses into the area of the main floor in front of the hearth, the large portrait of his late older brother John (who bears a striking resemblance to Larry) that hangs above it immediately draws his eyes and he offers his sympathies to his father. "Your brother's death was a blow to all of us.…You know, Larry, there's developed what amounts to a tradition about the Talbot sons. The elder, the next in line in succession and so forth, is considered in everything. The younger frequently resents the position in which he's found and leaves home, just as you did," his father opines while stoking the fire. "Yes, but Father, I'm here now," Larry reminds him. "Fortunately, but isn't it a sad commentary on our relationship that it took a hunting accident and your brother's death to bring you?" Sir John asks rhetorically. Rains raises the level of every film he ever made and to have him here lifts The Wolf Man to a higher plane immediately. Then again, Rains' choice of roles always were eclectic and with the exception of an appearance in a 1920 silent film called Build Thy House, Rains' true film debut came in James Whale's The Invisible Man in 1933 which Whale made between Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Larry assures his father that the perceived fracture between him and his family isn't as bad as it seems and tells him he followed news accounts and beamed with pride when Sir John won the prestigious Belden Prize for his research. "The whole business is probably my fault. The tradition also insists that the Talbots be the stiff-necked, undemonstrative type. Frequently, this has been carried to very unhappy extremes," Sir John tells his son. "Don't I know that," Larry says, almost under his breath. "Larry, let's decide between you and I that from now on there shall be no such reserve," his father suggests. 
Father-and-son bonding begins almost immediately with the arrival of the final parts that Sir John needs to complete a powerful new telescope he's installing in his in-house observatory. He can hardly wait to get the device working so he enlists his son's help to carry the boxes upstairs and help him set up. While Sir John Talbot might be brilliant when it comes to matters of research and theory, when something requires assembly, he often runs into trouble. Fortunately, while his son Larry might not share his high IQ, he compensates for that with an ability to fix just about anything and soon the new telescope's installation and optics satisfy his father and his son's work on it impresses Sir John as well. Sir John assumes that Larry must work in a similar field to accomplish such a task, but Larry says he just has a knack for mechanical things. He also mentions to his father that he didn't realize that he'd added astronomy to his many areas of expertise, but Sir John denies he has. "All astronomers are amateurs. When it comes to the heavens, there's only one professional," his father tells him. After Sir John tries it out for a little while, there isn't much to see during the daytime so he excuses himself and Larry takes his seat at the large magnifying device and finds one celestial object that seems heaven sent to him — a young woman (Evelyn Ankers) in her bedroom above a small shop in the downtown area of the village, Larry determines that he must meet this woman soon.
Larry takes his first step toward meeting the woman by wandering into Charles Conliffe Antiques where the young lady happens to work since she is the daughter of the owner (though Larry never learns this or her name in the entire scene). He decides to toy with her at first, acting the part of the type of wolf women more commonly encounter, saying that he seeks a pair of earrings and while she shows him some, he describes a very specific pair that he's looking for — the kind he saw her putting on when he spied her through the telescope. When he reveals that he knows she has a pair (leaving out how he knows). Gwen tells him that they aren't for sale. Larry decides that if he can't get the earrings, he'll purchase something else instead. A curious Gwen asks how he knew about her earrings and Larry tells her he's a psychic — it's a power that kicks in anytime he spots a beautiful girl. Talbot settles on buying a walking stick. He rejects the first one with a gold tip that Gwen shows him as
well as the second with a dog on the handle. He likes a third though — at first joking that it would make a good putter — then he notices that it also has a carved dog on the handle and a star. He wonders aloud what that could mean. "I thought you were psychic," Gwen says. He tells her that the cane is made only of wood and silver — and doesn't have blue eyes. She explains that it isn't a dog but a wolf and that star is a pentagram and she prices the piece at three pounds, which Larry calculates as "15
dollars for an old stick." She explains to him that it's a rare piece because the wolf and pentagram are the sign of the werewolf, a creature about which Talbot at this point shows complete ignorance, asking her what a werewolf is. "That's a human being that at certain times of the year changes into a wolf," she informs him. He laughs it off. "You mean, runs around on all fours and bites and snaps and bays at the moon?" he asks. "Even worse than that sometimes," Gwen replies, adding that the pentagram marks the werewolf as well as their next victim. "Oh, what big eyes you have Grandma," Larry jokes as he flirts across the counter. Gwen confirms that Little Red Riding Hood was a werewolf story, but says there have been many others. She then becomes the first person to recite the infamous poem to him in the film: "Even a man who is pure in heart/and says his prayers by night/may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms/and the autumn moon is bright." Gwen still wants to know how he knew about her earrings and Larry says that she should take a walk with him that night and they'll talk it over, but she says no, then they hear the hoofbeats of horses outside. As they go outside the shop, they see the arrival of gypsies, which Gwen identifies as fortune tellers who arrive around this time every year. Larry, who still persists in trying to get Gwen to go out with him suggests they get their fortunes told that evening. Her response steadfastly continues to be, "No" but Larry tells her he'll be outside the store at 8.When Larry returns to the Talbot Castle, Sir John recognizes the markings on his son's new cane as the sign of the werewolf. "That's just a legend though, isn't it?" he asks his father. "Yes, but like most legends it must have some basis in fact. It's probably some ancient explanation for the dual personality in each of us," Sir John speculates. While I couldn't appreciate this aspect of The Wolf Man when I first became a fan of the film in my pre-school days, each time I've watched in the many decades since, it becomes so much clearer how this is as much a psychological horror story as it is a monster movie. Eventually, we do see that after Larry gets bitten, he undergoes an actual physical transformation, but for a little while the movie does play with the idea that it's all in his head. Even after the audience knows the curse exists and Larry does indeed change into a werewolf, when he tries to seek help and explain this to others, Sir John thinks that all he requires is some rest, Paul Montford believes Larry should be punished for committing murders and Dr. Lloyd (Warren William), whom we've yet to meet, thinks he's had a psychological breakdown and needs help restoring his sanity, not jail time punishing him for his crimes. In the current scene, Sir John even finds a book in his library with the poem and repeats it once again to Larry.
Larry's a guy who just won't take no for an answer, so as promised he shows up in front of the antique shop that night despite the fact that Gwen said she wouldn't go with him. Despite her negative answer, Gwen turns up as well — though she brings a safety net in the form of her friend Jenny Williams (Fay Helm), who is anxious to have her fortune read. You'd think that where the gypsies set up shop would give the trio second thoughts as they have to walk deep into the fog-shrouded woods to find their encampment. While The Wolf Man already looks great, we really can see the decade in filmmaking advancements start to appear now through Joseph Valentine's sharp cinematography, Jack Otterson's art direction and R.A. Gausman's set decoration. Credited as associate art director is none other than Robert Boyle, who just received an honorary Oscar in 2008 for his lifetime achievement as an art director and production designer on Hitchcock's North by Northwest, The Birds and Marnie as well as other films such as the original Cape Fear, In Cold Blood, Fiddler on the Roof and The Shootist. As they slog through the murky view, Jenny notices some wolfsbane blooming by a tree, which — of course — prompts another recitation of that poem. When they arrive, they find the gypsy Bela (Bela Lugosi). Jenny asks him if he
can really read the future. "I will not disappoint you, my lady," he replies. Jenny begs to be the first to hear her fortune and Larry has no objection, since he wants to be alone with Gwen anyway and soon talks her into taking a stroll in those creepy woods after Jenny steps inside Bela's tent. Lurking around the gypsy encampment is Bela's older mother Maleva (the one-of-a-kind character actress Maria Ouspenskaya). Inside the tent, Bela has Jenny cut a deck of Tarot cards. On their walk into the woods, Larry comes clean to Gwen about how he knew about her earrings (and, amazingly, she doesn't flee at the thought that he's a peeping tom who stalked her), saying it was an accident that he caught sight of her with the telescope as he was just testing the refractor. Gwen has a
confession of her own to make — she kept resisting his overtures because she's engaged and will be getting. "In fact, I really shouldn't be here," she says. Back at the fortune teller's tent, Bela notices the wolfsbane that Jenny brought with her and suddenly grabs his head as if he has a migraine. "Can you tell me when I'm going to be married?" Jenny asks, apparently oblivious to the gypsy's pain. When she does notice how he's acting, she assumes he saw something bad and grills him about it. Bela puts on a happy face and asks for her hands, explaining that her left hand shows her past, her right hand shows her future. Jenny eagerly complies, but Bela sees the pentagram on her right palm and even Jenny recognizes that something has disturbed the fortune teller. "I can't tell you anything tonight. Come back tomorrow," Bela replies as he steps away from the table. Jenny persists in quizzing him about what he saw and if it was something evil. Bela won't answer — he just yells at her to go away. "Go away now! Quickly!" he shouts. Jenny follows orders and sprints out of the tent. Maleva turns and notices that one of the gypsies' horses has started acting crazy and she sees Bela standing agonized. As Jenny runs through the woods, a wolf's howl can be heard.
Larry and Gwen hear the ominous wolf sound first, followed soon after by Jenny's scream. Talbot tells Gwen to stay where she is and he takes off, carrying his cane with him. Part of the genius here is that we don't see what has already attacked and killed Jenny and then
takes on Larry — a tree obstructs our view so we can only see Larry whacking the killer hard with the cane. Eventually, Gwen finds him with his clothes torn, collapsed by the tree, saying he was attacked by a wolf. The gypsy woman Maleva comes by and she helps Gwen get the injured Larry back to Talbot Castle where Paul Montford happens to be. Gwen gives him and Sir John the lowdown about what happened in the woods and mentions how Maleva helped her, but the gypsy woman has slipped away as if she were never there. Montford decides to gather men and go back to the scene. When Montford and his men get there, they discover that Jenny indeed is dead, her jugular slit, but they find no evidence of a dead wolf. What they do find is the corpse of the gypsy Bela with a massive head wounds though his feet are bare. Lying near his body, they also discover Larry Talbot's cane. The next morning, Montford, accompanied by Dr. Lloyd, pay a visit on Larry to ask him some questions about the incident. Larry admits that the cane belongs to him — that's what he used to kill the wolf. They tell him they found no wolf, just the gypsy. Larry insists it was a wolf because it bit him on the chest and he opens his shirt to show them the wound — but it seems to have healed magically overnight. To go much further into the minutiae of the film's story would get into its spoilers, not that much should be a surprise after 70 years. 
Truly though, it's easier to appreciate The Wolf Man now than as a child. The idea that Larry might have snapped really entices me, even if the movie doesn't play with the notion long (or at all really since in the opening credits they don't say "Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot" but "Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man." None of the classic horror films frighten that much, but few get stuffed with as many ideas as The Wolf Man. Siodmak's screenplay touches on mental health, religion, intolerance and other topics I'm probably missing. Rains' Sir John Talbot character acts as the mouthpiece for most of the ideas, but not always. Consider this great exchange between Larry and his father after Larry has come to believe he has the werewolf curse and Larry tries to ease into the discussion by grilling his dad on the topic.
SIR JOHN: It's an old legend. You'll find it in the folklore of almost every nation. The scientific name is lycanthropia. It's a variety of schizophrenia.
LARRY: That's all Greek to me.
SIR JOHN: Well, it is Greek. It's a technical expression for something very simple. The good and evil in every man's soul. In this case, evil takes the shape of an animal.
LARRY: But do you believe in these yarns?
SIR JOHN: Larry, to some people life is very simple. They decide this is good, that is bad, this is wrong, that's right. There's no right and wrong, no good and bad. No shadings and grays, all blacks and whites.
LARRY: That would be Paul Montfort.
SIR JOHN: Exactly. Now others of us find that good, bad, right, wrong are many-sided, complex things. We try to see every side but the more we see, the less sure we are. Now, you ask me if I believe a man can become a wolf. Well, if you mean, 'Can he take on the physical characteristics of an animal?' — no — it's fantastic! However, I do believe that most anything can happen to a man inside his own mind."
(church bells ring)
SIR JOHN: Time for church. You know Larry, belief in the hereafter is a very healthy counterbalance to all the conflicting doubts man is plagued with these days.
The crucial words contained in that exchange come when Sir John tells Larry, "…the more we see, the less sure we are." While the elder Talbot says those words, he also declares with certainty that a physical transformation of a man would be impossible, a belief he will have challenged in the harshest way possible at the movie's end when he's placed in the same position that Larry was when he tried to save Jenny, only Sir John rushes to save Gwen and uses the same cane to kill the wolf and then watches in horror as he sees the creature revert to the human form of his son. Rains' facial expression is remarkable when you consider that the actor has to conjure what the proper look would be for something that no one has experienced in real life. Another of the many great conversations come when Dr. Lloyd tries to convince Sir John to get Larry help, but Talbot resists and Lloyd questions his motive.
DR. LLOYD: Sir John, your son is a sick man. He has received a shock that has caused severe psychic maladjustment. You must send him out of this village.
SIR JOHN: You're talking like a witch doctor. If my son is ill, the best place for him is in his own home proving his innocence.
DR. LLOYD: Does the prestige of your family's name mean more to you than your son's health?
I can't end this without discussing in more detail about the great Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva. She was nominated twice for the supporting actress Oscar — each time for single scenes in a movie: in 1936's Dodsworth and 1939's Love Affair. Her character has all the answers and appears to be the only one who can calm the werewolves and lead them to peace after their deaths. "The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over, Bela my son. Now you will find peace," Maleva prays, first over her son, later over Larry. Ouspenskaya was a unique presence in every film she appeared in starting with silents in 1915 through 1949, the year she died. Her age was a subject of dispute. Her headstone gives her birthdate as 1887 but other records dating back to her birthplace in Tula in the Russian Empire say 1876. She also was a diminutive presence, standing a mere 5 feet 1½ inches tall.
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Labels: 40s, Bellamy, Hitchcock, Hopkins, Lon Chaney Jr., Lugosi, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Rains, Remakes, Silents, Television, Wayne
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Friday, December 02, 2011
“I’m going to show you what yum-yum is…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of the regrettable stigmas about Academy Awards is that they are more often than not handed out to serious performances — portrayals in comedy films are criminally overlooked. There are exceptions, of course: Clark Gable’s triumph in It Happened One Night and James Stewart’s trophy for The Philadelphia Story while on the distaff side you have Claudette Colbert (also for Night) and Judy Holliday’s winning turn in Born Yesterday. (I’m sure there are others — these just came off the top of my head.) You’ll also find a lot of comedic accomplishments in the supporting actor and actress categories, presumably because of the old trope about “second bananas” and “comic relief.” But, as a general rule, comedy need not apply: Oscar-winning performances are defined by big, serious showcases (often with noble or suffering characters) that a certain master thespian might describe as “ACTING!”
In February 1942, Gary Cooper was handed one of his two competitive Oscar statuettes (he also would win an honorary Academy Award in 1961) for Sergeant York — a dramatization of the real-life story of Alvin C. York, the most decorated American soldier of World War I. I’ve always felt that the reason Coop was “decorated” with such a statuette was due to the movie’s enormous popularity (it was the highest grossing film of 1941) and while he gives a solid, dependable performance, I’ve always been partial to his comedic showcase from another film released that same year. In fact, it premiered in theaters 70 years ago on this date, five days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ball of Fire, once described by one of its screenwriters, Billy Wilder, as a “silly picture,” nevertheless features a masterful comic turn by an actor whose limited thespic abilities often disappeared through the magic of a movie screen.
In Ball of Fire, Cooper plays Professor Bertram Potts, one of eight lexicographers living in a New York residence and working on an encyclopedia project funded by the daughter (Mary Field) of Daniel S. Totten, inventor of the electric toaster. Potts and his colleagues have been hard at work on their encyclopedia for nine years, and it looks as if construction will continue for another three — much to the dismay of Miss Totten, who will have to pay for the “overruns” out of her own pocket. An encounter with a garbage man (Allen Jenkins) demonstrates why there is still so much to do — the sanitation engineer’s creative use of slang demonstrates to Potts (the group’s grammarian) that his own article for the encyclopedia is hopelessly outdated, and that he will have to research the modern vernacular by visiting “the streets, the slums, the theatrical and allied professions.” He encounters several people — a newsboy, a college student, a pool hall bum — and asks for their help in preparing his treatise on slang.
Later at a nightclub, Potts makes the acquaintance of Katherine “Sugarpuss” O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), a sultry chanteuse whom he also wants to participate in his discussions, but she is markedly cool to his proposal. She later changes her mind and turns up at the doorstep of the encyclopedia men, but only because she has been advised by a pair of hoodlums, Duke Pastrami (Dan Duryea) and Asthma Anderson (Ralph Peters), to “take it on the lam”; both men are in the employ of mobster Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), who’s being questioned by the district attorney about his complicity in a gangland murder, and who would like nothing better than to hear Sugarpuss’ side of the story. The professors’ think tank will provide a perfect hideout, even though O’Shea’s breezy insouciance has a disruptive influence on their daily routine, much to the chagrin of their stern housekeeper Miss Bragg (Kathleen Howard). Bragg’s ultimatum to Potts that Sugarpuss leave or she will results in a confrontation between “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss — and when Potts confesses a rather strong attraction to the nightclub singer she uses that revelation to her advantage, reciprocating similar feelings and demonstrating to her would-be paramour the definition of “yum-yum” by kissing him.
Potts’ infatuation goes full speed ahead to the purchase of an engagement ring and proposes to Sugarpuss — even though he’s got a rival in gangster Lilac, who entertains similar notions (mostly for convenience's sake, insuring that a wife can’t testify against her husband). When Joe learns of Potts’ intentions, he persuades Sugarpuss to play along — that way she’s guaranteed safe passage out of New York (under the watchful eye of the authorities) and can join Lilac in neighboring New Jersey, where they’ll tie the knot. A mishap with the professors’ automobile en route necessitates a stopover in a small Joisey town, where at an inn O’Shea learns (through a mix-up in bungalow door numbers) that Potts is deadly serious about his passion for her. She begins to see the bashful goof in an entirely different light, but before she can act on this, Lilac and his goons show up, spelling out the story for Potts and the other professors before collecting Sugarpuss and continuing on their way.
Back home in New York, Potts is determined to put the sordid chapter behind him until it is pointed out that in returning his engagement ring, O’Shea has slipped him the rock she received from Lilac. To add insult to injury, Miss Totten arrives with her assistant Larsen (Charles Lane) to announce that due to the unfavorable newspaper publicity generated by Potts’ misadventures she is canceling the encyclopedia project — and that's interrupted by the arrival of Pastrami and Asthma, who have been ordered by Lilac to “rub out” the group unless Sugarpuss agrees to marry Joe. Elated that Sugarpuss and Joe still aren't attached, Potts and the others are able to subdue the two hit men with brains (not brawn) and ride to O’Shea’s rescue (thanks to their garbage man pal’s truck) to save her from her nasty fate. “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss will live happy ever after, thanks to his expert application of “yum-yum” as the movie concludes.
Scripted by Wilder and Charles Brackett, Ball of Fire’s opening titles also credit Wilder and Thomas Monroe with the film’s “original story” — which is a teensy bit of a stretch, insomuch as Wilder cribbed the idea from the classic fairy tale of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” (Wilder got the idea while he was still living in Germany, and even when director Howard Hawks picked up on the reference Billy warned him that he wouldn’t get a shared credit.) Granted, there are eight “dwarfs” as the film begins (they’re even shown marching through a NYC park as if they should be singing “Heigh Ho”) but that’s because the character of Bertram Potts is technically “Prince Charming” — so the personages of Professors Gurkakoff (Oscar Homolka), Jerome (Henry Travers), Magenbruch (S.Z “Cuddles” Sakall), Robinson (Tully Marshall), Quintana (Leonid Kinskey), Oddly (Richard Haydn) and Peagram (Aubrey Mather) fill in for Doc, Sneezy, Dopey, etc. A publicity photo of the seven character actors was even taken in front of a poster for the Disney film and the film is advertised prominently on a marquee in a scene where Cooper’s Potts talks with a wiseacre newsboy (Tommy Ryan) outside a theater.
Producer Samuel Goldwyn commissioned Wilder and Brackett to write the vehicle for Coop because he was disappointed that the films he made with Cooper (such as The Real Glory and The Westerner) rarely did as well at the box office as those films in which the actor was lent out to other studios. So the film was tailor-made for Coop’s “Longfellow Deeds”-type persona, but finding a suitable leading lady took some additional time. Ginger Rogers was the first choice, but she wasn’t interested and Carole Lombard said “no way” as well; both Betty Field and Lucille Ball were tested for the part and while Ball appeared to have the inside track, Barbara Stanwyck ultimately won the role when Cooper suggested her, having worked with her in that same year’s Meet John Doe. Coop also was reunited with his York director Hawks, whom Goldwyn wasn't particularly fond of (Hawks wound up with a $100,000 payday for the film) but tolerated because of the director’s admiration for the script. It was familiar territory for Howie, in that he had helmed a similar film about a stuffy professor brought down to earth in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby (and he would later revisit the premise in both Fire’s 1948 remake, A Song is Born, and Monkey Business in 1952.)
Being a Goldwyn production, the producer naturally pulled out all the stops and obtained the services of many of Hollywood’s master craftsmen (and women): Gregg Toland was cinematographer, Perry Ferguson the art director, and Edith Head designed that drop-dead gorgeous gown that Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss wears in her nightclub act. One of the highlights of Ball of Fire is Babs’ rendition (though Martha Tilton dubbed her vocals) of “Drum Boogie,” backed by Gene Krupa and his Orchestra; Gene later obliges with an encore of the number accompanied by matchbox sticks and a matchbox. Even though Stanwyck’s voice is not her own, she’s able to reach back to her “Ruby Stevens” chorus gal days and do some impressive dance moves with those fabulous Stanwyck gams.
I’ve never considered myself a Barbara Stanwyck fanatic but Ball of Fire is my all-time favorite of her films; her finely modulated performance as the alternately hard-boiled and tender Sugarpuss was nominated for a best actress trophy and to be honest, I think she was robbed. (Stanwyck wasn’t as lucky in the Oscar sweepstakes as her male co-star — she was nominated on four separate occasions but had to make do with an honorary statuette in 1982.) Babs’ background as a one-time Ziegfeld gal makes her portrayal of O’Shea authentic, and her personal, genuine affability (She was one of the most well-liked movie actresses in the history of Hollywood) invests an unshakable admiration into the character, something that I don’t think would have resulted if the brassier Ginger Rogers has been cast in the part. (I like how David Thomson described Babs in this movie as “saucy, naughty and as quick as a shortstop.”) We’re just as captivated by Sugarpuss’ charms as the seven professors (and of course, “Pottsy”); the scene where she teaches the men to conga is utterly beguiling, and like her fairy tale counterpart Snow White, she brings a great deal of sunshine and a sense of fun to their existence in what one of the profs calls “the mausoleum.”
The chemistry between Stanwyck and Cooper’s characters is one of the best in any screwball comedy. What always has fascinated me about Cooper is that while his acting range may have seemed limited to a casual observer, he had a certain captivation that always came across in his screen performances. Coop was generally most comfortable in Westerns, but even though he was a little flummoxed by Wilder and Brackett’s rapid-fire, intellectual dialogue he’s most convincing as the scholar who’s spent his entire existence isolated from the world. His Bertram Potts is a sweetly naïve “big kid” much like Cooper’s Longfellow Deeds (but far less dangerous, I think) and watching Sugarpuss coax him out of his shell is a delight from start to finish. She’s his fast track to his ultimate sexual awakening (particularly when he tells her that being around her requires him to apply cold water to the back of his neck), which culminates with his understanding of what constitutes “yum-yum” and his tacit admission: “Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind…unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.” But once Potts is brought up to speed on the language of love, he’s every bit as potent to O’Shea (who finds herself falling out of love with the despicable Lilac); she must also depend on the cold water treatment herself when things get steamy. At that point in their relationship, she knows there’s no turning back: “I love him because he's the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss…the jerk…” (By the time the movie calls it a wrap, however, her “Crabapple Annie” has that last part well in hand.)
Ball of Fire boasts a positively splendid supporting cast — particularly the vets who essay Potts’ encyclopedia colleagues, who transcend the usual stereotypes of movie intellectuals being dry as dirt by exhibiting a real playfulness (one of my favorite scenes in the film is when Potts and the “dwarves” listen to Oddly’s recollection of his marriage, which breaks out in a lovely rendition of “Genevieve”). Fire was Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fave Dan Duryea’s second feature film appearance and I like to think that if he had had a few more films under his belt, he could have played Joe Lilac (Duryea’s best bit in Fire is when he imitates Cooper’s thumb-licking-and-rubbing-it-on-the-sight tic from Sergeant York, cracking “I saw me a picture last week”) but Dana Andrews does very well in the part, supplementing the escapist comedy nature of the film with the proper menace (Andrews’ phone conversation with Cooper as Stanwyck’s “Daddy” is hysterical but it works because Dana plays it perfectly straight). I got a particular kick out of seeing a couple of other TDOY favorites in Elisha Cook, Jr. (as a waiter who tells Potts that Sugarpuss is “root, zoot and cute…and solid to boot”) and serial/B-Western stalwart Addison Richards as the D.A. determined to bring the hammer down on Lilac.
In addition to Stanwyck’s acting nomination, Ball of Fire also received nods for best scoring of a dramatic (!) picture and best sound recording…with the final nomination going to Monroe and Wilder’s “original story.” It was the movie on which Wilder decided he wanted to do more behind the camera than just provide the words; his directing ambition was encouraged fully by Hawks, who allowed Billy to study and pick up some pointers during the film’s production. The movie is an odd one in Wilder’s oeuvre because it’s devoid of the frank, pungent cynicism prevalent in many of the writer-director’s works, but as Wilder himself observed: “It was a silly picture. But so were audiences in those days.” Hey…if enjoying the entertaining exhilaration that Ball of Fire provides with each passing year makes me silly, then I guess nobody’s perfect.
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Labels: 40s, Cooper, Disney, Gable, Ginger Rogers, Hawks, J. Stewart, L. Ball, Lombard, Oscars, Stanwyck, Wilder
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Monday, November 21, 2011
The Last Stand
By Eddie Selover
They Died With Their Boots On, which premiered 70 years ago today, is the eighth and final pairing of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It's not as famous as some of the others — for example, the pirate swashbuckler Captain Blood or the bejeweled Technicolor storybook Adventures of Robin Hood — but it deserves to be. Those are happy, exuberant movies; this is a tragedy of slowly unfolding power that leaves you unsettled and upset. It's the rare adventure movie that gets under your skin; it achieves its epic qualities through emotion rather than action. The movie is based on the story of George Armstrong Custer, the general whose command of 500 cavalrymen was overwhelmed by ten times as many Native Americans in 1876. Never were the words "based on" more of a euphemism. As history, Boots On bears only a passing resemblance to actual events — in fact the more you know about Custer, the more outrageous the film's portrait becomes. Virtually every event is twisted almost 180 degrees in order to turn a vainglorious and highly flawed man into a noble figure.
Yet even as the film moves toward its barroom-painting view of Custer and his men staging their heroic last stand surrounded by savages, it has to explain how he got there. It does so by setting him up as vain, callow, physically daring but reckless and prone to troublemaking. Cleverly, the filmmakers play the first half of the movie as a light comedy, in which Custer gets himself into one mess after another and strikes ludicrous poses trying to act like a bigger man than he is. We see him making mistakes and extricating himself through charm and luck; instinctively we know it's only a matter of time before that luck runs out.
The fact that the same thing was true of Flynn in real life gives the movie an unusual resonance. He was at least as vain as Custer, and easily as reckless; his road to fame and success was just as fast and fortunate, and left him just as unprepared to deal with real challenges. During the making of this movie, Flynn had a couple of underage girls on his yacht, an escapade that led to a long and embarrassing trial for statutory rape that turned him into a public joke after the premiere — particularly after it was revealed in court that Flynn made love with his socks on. His pre-movie life of adventure had left him with an assortment of
chronic maladies that resulted in his being declared 4-F and ineligible for the draft. Because Warner Bros. hushed this up, the public thought him a slacker for not serving in World War II as other stars did. Personal and professional disasters came faster and faster, and his drinking and drug use kept pace. Eventually booze, narcotics and dissipation made him a puffy, slurring, dead-eyed zombie before they finally killed him at the age of 50. Some presentiment of this terrible fate seems to hang over Flynn throughout Boots On. He gives one of his most sensitive and aware performances. His eyes often look wide with fright and he seems more attuned to other actors than usual. Often he pauses and hesitates before taking action, as if genuinely unsure of himself, and when he does act, it's always a shade too swiftly. He's as dashing as ever, but often he dashes right into a brick wall. Some of the credit for this must go to the great Raoul Walsh, here directing Flynn for the first time, after the actor had quarreled with his usual director, Michael Curtiz (the fact that the much-younger Flynn was married to Curtiz's ex-wife Lili Damita is strangely never mentioned in accounts of the poisonously bad relationship between the two men). Curtiz had directed Flynn like a toy action figure, throwing him into the middle of clanging swords and galloping horses and trusting him to sail above it all. Walsh's action scenes were rougher than Curtiz's, less choreographed and clever, and always suggestive of real threat — as you might expect of a man who had lost an eye in an accident.At this point in her career, de Havilland had developed some serious ambitions and no longer wanted to be the clinging heroine of Flynn's boys-own-adventure movies. She only made the film at Flynn's express request, after they had cleared the air of several years of misunderstanding. By all accounts, including hers, they were seriously in love, but their relationship was undermined continually by his
immaturity and instability. Boots On is the only one of their films in which their characters have a real arc, moving from youthful high spirits into a serious relationship, into marriage and ultimately the tragedy of his death. To sweeten the deal for de Havilland, the producer Hal Wallis brought in the fine screenwriter Lenore Coffee for rewrites that rounded out the character of Libby Custer and made her a flesh-and-blood woman rather than a cardboard cutout. De Havilland responds with one of her best and most consistent performances. In their final scene, she helps him prepare for the battle of Little Big Horn. Both know he's not coming back, and they can barely look at each other while mouthing cheery sentiments they clearly don't believe for a second. They're almost getting away with it when he finds her diary and begins reading it aloud. In it, she confesses her terror over unshakable premonitions of his death. I must have written that every time you left for battle, she says. "Of course," he murmurs softly. They say their goodbyes and he leaves; she's rigid against a wall for support. The camera pulls in suddenly on her and she faints from the accumulated tension. Fainting in movies usually is phony as hell, but this time we've been holding our breaths too, and it feels like a natural reaction. In real life, de Havilland knew she'd never work with Flynn again, and she felt that he knew it as well. The scene is almost unbearable in its poignancy, for both the characters and the actors. Such is its enduring power that at a screening 40 years later, de Havilland, then about 65, walked out in the middle of it. She went to the lobby, sat down and began to cry.
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Labels: 40s, Curtiz, de Havilland, Erroll Flynn, Walsh
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