Thursday, March 01, 2012

 

Hate, Murder and Revenge


By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Mention director Fritz Lang’s name to a movie fan and more likely than not they’ll conjure up visions of the style that eventually became identified as “film noir.” Lang was one of the godfathers of noir, with elements present in films from his German expressionist period (Der Müde Tod, M) to his later American works (The Woman in the Window, The Big Heat). Crime dramas were Lang’s forte, though he worked in any number of genres (one of his best-known vehicles, 1927’s Metropolis, is considered by many to a science-fiction masterpiece) but they all share a common thematic bond…one that was described succinctly by critic Andrew Sarris as “the same bleak view of the universe where man grapples with his personal destiny and invariably loses.”

Lang even directed Westerns, a genre that seems at first a bit alien to his cinematic M.O. The first two oaters he helmed, The Return of Frank James (1940; also his first color film) and Western Union (1941), were assignments during his stint at 20th Century Fox, but he nevertheless accepted both projects with enthusiasm, once comparing the history of the Old West to the European saga of the Nibelungen (a subject he brought to celluloid in back-to-back films released in 1924). His third and last Western — released to theaters 60 years ago on this date — was Rancho Notorious (1952), a film that succeeds despite so many things being against it and that today remains the most intriguing and “noir” of his brief flirtation with the genre.

Vern Haskell’s (Arthur Kennedy) dream of marrying fiancée Beth Forbes (Gloria Henry) vanishes in smoke when the assayer’s office in which she works is robbed by two desperadoes and she ends up dead after being shot by one of them, a man named Kinch (Lloyd Gough). Kinch and his partner Whitey (John Doucette) race out of town with a posse hot on their tails, but when the sheriff announces that they’ve ridden out of his jurisdiction and the remaining members refuse to ride any further; it’s up to the grieved Vern to continue the hunt. Vern finally catches up to Whitey, who’s been shot and left for dead by the treacherous Kinch after an argument. Whitey’s enigmatic dying words are “Chuck-a-luck,” and Vern persists in his pursuit despite not knowing its meaning.

As he rides from town to town in the search for answers, he manages to cross paths with a wanted outlaw (Fred Graham) in a barbershop who gives him another mysterious name: “Altar Keane.” The outlaw, Ace McGuire, draws on Vern when he realizes Vern is just seeking information and Haskell is forced to kill Ace in self defense. Taken into custody, Vern is cleared and offered a reward for McGuire’s killing but all Haskell is interested is information on “Altar Keane”; fortunately, a deputy (Dick Wessel) is able to identify her as a former saloon gal (Marlene Dietrich) he once knew but can’t give Vern any more than that.

Vern finally gets more background on Altar in another small town — she once worked for saloon owner Baldy Gunder (William Frawley), who after firing her helplessly watched her clean up at his chuck-a-luck game under the watchful eye of gunslinger Frenchy Fairmont (Mel Ferrer). Learning that Fairmont is cooling his heels in jail in the nearby hamlet of Gunsight, Vern manages to get himself arrested and thrown into the same jail cell as Frenchy, and the two men are able to execute a successful jailbreak. On the lam, Frenchy takes Vern to his hideout: a horse ranch near the Mexican border dubbed “Chuck-a-Luck” and run by Altar…who is now Frenchy’s girlfriend. Since Fairmont vouches for Vern, Altar agrees to allow Haskell to stay (the rules are that he is to ask no questions and do his fair share of work around the ranch) and introduces him to the rest of the men also hiding out at Chuck-a-Luck Ranch, who have gained admittance by tithing 10% of their stolen swag to their hostess. Vern’s assignment is to find out which of the guests is responsible for killing his fiancée, without tipping his hand that he’s just masquerading as an outlaw.

As Vern’s stay at Chuck-a-Luck stretches longer and longer, Altar begins to develop feelings for him and Vern reciprocates…but only to achieve his mission of locating the murderer, accelerated by the discovery of a brooch he gave to Beth as a gift that now adorns an evening dress worn by Altar. Vern is racing against the clock because the man responsible for Beth’s death, Kinch, is among the outlaw contingent and he recognizes Vern after seeing Haskell mount a horse one afternoon. When Vern must help the men rob a nearby bank to continue his outlaw charade, Kinch takes a shot at him and misses. Vern finally learns Kinch’s identity after presenting Altar with her share of the proceeds from the robbery, and confronting Kinch in a saloon, he manages to reign in his instincts to kill the outlaw, allowing the law to take over and mete out justice. Kinch is rescued by his pals before he is locked up, and the band of outlaws rides out to the ranch, convinced that Altar sold them out. Altar, in the meantime, has decided to abandon her life at Chuck-a-Luck and attempts to explain to a jealous Frenchy that she’s also given up on Vern, who had earlier could barely conceal his disgust with her lifestyle. Altar and Frenchy are then ambushed by the outlaws, and in the resulting shoot-out Kinch is killed (putting an end to Vern’s quest) and Altar dies from a bullet she took for her Frenchy.

Vern Haskell, the protagonist of Rancho Notorious, shares a similarity with those heroes played by James Stewart in the '50s Westerns directed by Anthony Mann (such as Winchester ’73 and Bend of the River): a man obsessively driven to right a past wrong who finds himself compromising his morality in his pursuit to do so. Haskell is basically a decent guy (we don’t learn much about Vern, other than he’s a lovestruck cowpuncher) who must play the part of a bad man in order to achieve his goal of vengeance, and often at his own peril since he’s in the company of other individuals he can’t trust. While Stewart’s heroes also were ready to be welcomed back into the societal fold after finishing what they set out to do; in Notorious, once Vern achieves his revenge, it’s apparent his life is over and done with — the final frames of the film find him and Frenchy riding off for points unknown, with the narrator singing the final stanzas of a ballad hinting of their eventual demise.

Rancho Notorious’ ballad, “The Legend of Chuck-a-Luck,” was written by Ken Darby (a member of the vocal group The King’s Men, who were regulars on radio’s Fibber McGee & Molly for a time) and sung by William Lee, and it adds a note of Greek tragedy to Lang’s remarkable Western. (The ballad idea was later appropriated for High Noon.) The title of Darby’s composition was originally going to be shared as the title of the film until director Fritz Lang learned from one of Howard Hughes’ lackeys at RKO that the movie would instead be known as Rancho Notorious because “Mr. Hughes doesn’t think they would know what Chuck-a-Luck was in Europe.”

“But they would know what Rancho Notorious is?” Lang fired back as he took his leave of the company man's idiocy.

The production history of Rancho Notorious was troubled from the get-go — Hughes was only a small part of it (the film’s limited budget forced Lang to shoot the Western in the studio, which resulted in some none-too-convincing exterior scenes that hamper the movie’s credibility a tad). Star Marlene Dietrich and director Lang did not get along well at all (despite the two enjoying a brief affair during the making of the film) Lang originally designed Notorious with Marlene in mind, with the original plot centering on an aging saloon girl and an equally up-there outlaw who couldn’t quite cut the mustard anymore. The notoriously (sorry about that) vain Dietrich pooh-poohed that idea, and also bickered with cinematographer Hal Mohr (with whom she had worked on Destry Rides Again) when he was unable to maintain her eternal youth before the camera to her satisfaction. Despite all that foofrah, it’s a great showcase for Marlene; there are many parallels between this role and her portrayal of Frenchy (is it coincidental that both movies feature characters with that name?) in Destry and she also gets to sing a song, “Get Away Young Man.”

Star Arthur Kennedy effortlessly shifts back-and-forth between hero and rotter, and never loses the audience’s sympathy from the start (granted, that would be difficult to do since his girl was raped and murdered by a remorseless dirtbag) despite his later descent into the dark side. He demonstrates a nice rapport with Dietrich’s Altar (so named because she’s worshipped?) even though it’s all show on his part to eventually learn what he needs to know. Mel Ferrer, as the charismatic Frenchy, isn’t quite in the same thespic league as Kennedy but manages to deliver a solid performance…and again, there’s an adoption of an oft-used Anthony Mann theme in that Frenchy serves as Vern’s doppelganger — an example of what Haskell could become in a similar set of circumstances (the two of them riding off together at Notorious’ conclusion reinforces this). Lloyd Gough, the actor who plays the target of Vern Haskell’s obsession, sadly doesn’t even rate a mention in the movie’s opening credits due to his being on the Hollywood “blacklist” (more evidence of Hughes’ meddling). Rancho Notorious also spotlights a first-rate supporting cast of actors familiar (and in some cases, unfamiliar) to Westerns — it’s great to see B-Western and serial veterans such as Lane Chandler, I. Stanford Jolley, Fuzzy Knight (shout-out to a West Virginia homeboy), Pierce Lyden, Kermit Maynard and Francis McDonald on hand. Jack Elam is a treat as one of the bad guys as is reliable Frank Ferguson, who’s a defrocked preacher hiding out at Dietrich’s. The film also showcases one of the rare cinematic turns of George Reeves, whose movie roles would start to dissipate once he became too well-known as TV’s Superman. (If that guy working the chuck-a-luck wheel in Frawley’s saloon looks like a guy who spent three years on a deserted island with six other castaways, that’s because it’s Russell Johnson, in one of his early movie appearances.)

Critics weren’t particularly kind to Rancho Notorious at the time of its release, but with the passage of time the movie has developed a cult following and a reputation as an offbeat but enjoyable Western; it’s an early example of what could be called a feminist Western (with its themes of violation and rape, not to mention the Dietrich character as a strong, fascinating character more than capable of holding her own in “a man’s world”) and much of its titillating sexual content was “liberated” by Nicholas Ray for his film Johnny Guitar, released two years afterward (equating stealing from a woman’s safe as rape, for starters). Scripted by Daniel Taradash (based on a story written by Lang associate Silvia Richards), Notorious manages to overcome its budget limitations and occasional seams-showing to become a film not too easily forgotten — as a critic for Time Out Film Guide once observed: “The fateful moral, the complete avoidance of naturalism, and the integration of an ongoing ballad into the plot, all make the movie quintessential Lang; add an overt political stance and it would be quintessentially Brechtian too.”

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Monday, February 13, 2012

 

“There is a difference between apples and men…really, there is…”


By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
In the '50s, beginning with Winchester ’73 (1950), director Anthony Mann and actor James Stewart embarked on a series of eight film collaborations — five of which were Westerns, and those were highly influential in transforming that film genre through exploration of more “adult” themes, tone and content. Mann, who had helmed a number of acclaimed film noirs early in his movie career, used much of that film style in his oaters — featuring cynical heroes and other morally ambiguous characters thrust into an amoral, hostile world, characterized by the use of landscapes to portray the feelings of his protagonists and the futility and emptiness in their lives. Winchester ’73 was a tremendous box-office success for Universal, revitalizing the Western at a time when it served primarily as fodder for B-pictures and Saturday matinee “kiddie fare.”

The second of the Mann-Stewart westerns, Bend of the River (1952), was released to theaters 60 years ago on this date and while the film was not generally well-received by critics at the time, it served as another building block in the maturation of Jimmy Stewart’s acting career. Stewart’s reputation as “the boy next door” would develop a little more tarnish with each successive film he made with Mann, as the characters he played were individuals haunted by incidents from their past and dedicated to avenging a serious wrong done to them. They were so obsessive in achieving these ends that their better natures would drift perilously toward the dark side. Bend of the River is a shining example of how a changing world challenged “men of the west” to choose the respective paths they would continue to walk.

Glyn McLyntock (Stewart) is scouting for a wagon train of settlers on its way to Oregon and in checking the trail ahead, we learn of his outlaw past as a Missouri border raider when he rescues Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy) from a lynch mob. Both McLyntock and Cole are acquainted with each other’s reputations and cement their friendship when the two of them successfully go after a party of Shoshone Indians who’ve attacked the group of settlers during the night, one of whom wounds Laura Baile (Julie Adams) with an arrow. Though Cole’s intention is to head out to California, he decides to stick around with McLyntock and the settlers (He’s developed feelings for Laura) and follow them to Portland, where they arrange to procure the needed supplies to carry their planned settlement through the winter. They strike a deal with merchant Tom Hendricks (Howard Petrie), who will arrange for their provisions to be sent on to their wilderness encampment. Laura will recuperate from her wound in Portland and McLyntock and company will make better time traveling back to their settlement with an assist from riverboat skipper Captain Mello (Chubby Johnson).

As the work toward establishing the settlement gets underway, McLyntock and Jeremy Baile (Jay C. Flippen), Laura’s father, grow concerned that their food supply may run out with winter only six weeks away because the promised provisions still have not been shipped. The two men make the trip into Portland and find the town caught up in the thrall of gold fever, with supplies now fetching 10 times what they previously were worth. As a matter of fact, the settlement’s provisions still sit on the dock — so McLyntock and Jeremy hire some ne’er-do-wells to load them up on the riverboat while they straighten things out with Hendricks. They discover that both Cole and Laura now work for Hendricks (Cole as a pit boss, Laura running the gold scales since she’s “just about the only person he can trust”) and have no intention of leaving Portland. Confronting Hendricks, McLyntock demands delivery of the supplies but Hendricks continues to put him off and he informs Glyn that if he’s not satisfied he’ll gladly offer a refund (knowing he can get much more for the valuable cargo). This results in a shootout in Hendricks’ saloon, and the boat containing the supplies sets off for the settlement with Cole, Laura and riverboat gambler Trey Wilson (Rock Hudson) joining Glyn, Jeremy and the makeshift crew.

Hendricks and his group of flunkies engage in hot pursuit of the riverboat, and plan to ambush our heroes at the point where they have to head ashore to avoid a nearby waterfall. Instead, Glyn and company dock 20 miles upstream from the falls and plot a risky escape over the mountains to get back to the settlement; and while they do their best to make good time, Hendricks and his posse eventually catch up to them. By that time, however, McLyntock and his crew have set up camp and welcome Hendricks and his men with hot lead via a reverse ambush. Hendricks and some of his goons are killed in the shooting, and the rest of them ride off.

Continuing their journey to the settlement, McLyntock, Cole and the rest get approached by a group of miners who desperately need the supplies at their camp and offer $100,000 for the food; Cole, giving into temptation, falls in with the men Glyn and Jeremy hired to help drive the wagons of provisions to the settlement and makes tracks for the mining camp, leaving a bruised and battered Glyn behind without gun or horse. McLyntock eventually catches up to Cole and his men and, with the help of Jeremy, Laura and Trey, runs Cole’s “employees” off and recaptures the supplies. Cole eventually confronts McLyntock and a climactic brawl in a raging river results in Cole’s death, his body carried by the current toward the falls. It is at this point that Jeremy, whose distaste for Cole stemmed from his outlaw past, admits that he was wrong about the possibility of redemption and the four of them arrive in the settlement to receive the well-wishes of the grateful settlers anxiously waiting for their provisions.

Borden Chase’s screenplay for Bend of the River — based on Bill Gulick’s novel Bend of the Snake — is essentially a tale of two men whose past disreputable actions confront them at the crossroads of civilization. Should a man surrender to the reality that “the times are a-changin’” or will he continue to embrace his violent, amoral ways? Stewart’s Glyn McLyntock has done things of which he’s not particularly proud and in order to obtain acceptance from the group that he wants to be part of, he attempts to keep his criminal past a secret. But his history comes to the fore when he rescues Emerson from being hung by vigilantes and in doing so meets his doppelganger; Cole is the man McLyntock would have become had he not decided to take the road of reformation. The movie points out their similarities in many different ways, chiefly the way each man seems to know what the other thinks, much of this reflected in their dialogue. (When McLyntock meets up with Cole during his second trip to Portland and Cole asks what brought him here, both men say in unison, “A very tired horse.”)

Bend of the River transcends its traditional good-bad morality lecturing by introducing characters that succumb to temptation and stray off the straight-and-narrow path during the course of the film. Chiefly among these is Laura Baile, who decides during her convalescence in Portland that her future isn’t in farming and elects to stay in Portland with the persuasive Cole, telling Glyn that life there is “exciting” and that she’s had “a wonderful time.” Trey Wilson, the gambler befriended by the settlers, also seems to change allegiances whenever it’s to his advantage — working for the corrupt Hendricks as a cardsharp in the saloon, and then joining forces with Cole when Emerson double-crosses McLyntock on the trip back to the settlement. The moral compass of the movie, however, is Jeremy Baile, who acts as a stabilizing influence on both of these characters — Laura shows reluctance to confront her father and tell him that she’s decided to stay with Cole (and she eventually comes back to his side after witnessing Cole’s treachery), and Trey sees Cole’s true colors when Emerson starts slapping Jeremy around after learning that he helped the pursuing Glyn acquire a horse. (Trey defends Jeremy by threatening to kill Cole but can't bring himself to do so; wounded by Cole’s bullet, Cole editorializes that Trey was always “too soft.”)

Jeremy’s black-and-white view of the world tells him that a man “can’t change…when an apple’s rotten, there’s nothing you can do except throw it away or it will spoil the whole barrel.” We, of course, know this not to be true — Glyn desperately wants to escape what he once was and settle down in civilization, becoming a rancher/farmer. Mann shows us in Bend of the River glimpses of the man McLyntock used to be, none more tellingly that when Glyn spies Cole being hung by the vigilante mob and he nervously tugs at his neckerchief, then subconsciously wipes his chin at the sight of the rope tied around Cole’s neck. (Toward the end of the movie, as Glyn is being rescued from the current by a “lifeline” thrown to him by Trey, we learn that Glyn’s neckerchief covers up a rope burn that he suffered when he was in a situation similar to Cole’s.) When Cole decides that he can cash in on the miners’ offer and reap a tidy sum by selling them the settlers’ provisions he has, one of his hired goons jump McLyntock but spares the man from killing Glyn, figuring he owes him restitution for saving his life. We then see the cold son-of-a-bitch that once trademarked Glyn when he warns Cole: “You’ll be seein’ me…you’ll be seein’ me…every time you bed down for the night you’ll look back into the darkness and wonder if I’m there…and some night I will be…you’ll be seein’ me…”

Beginning with Bend of the River, every one of the Mann-Stewart Westerns were filmed in Technicolor — allowing audiences to drink in the breathtaking scenery, which in this case came courtesy of cinematographer Irving Glassberg. (As much as I love Bend, I have to say that I’m more partial to the black-and-white cinematography of Winchester ’73, only because it’s more in keeping with Mann’s film noir pedigree.) Screenwriter Chase’s (who co-wrote Winchester, and later worked with Mann on The Far Country) adaptation also is first-rate, with wonderful moments of wry humor sprinkled into the suspenseful action (my favorite is when Cole responds to Glyn’s observation that he’s “still following that star” with “Sometimes it’s better than having a man with a star following you”).

Because Bend of the River was a Universal picture, the studio used many of its contract players in crucial roles and not necessarily to the best advantage: I’m not all that impressed with Rock Hudson (who also was in Winchester ’73) as Trey the gambler (the legend has it that Stewart was so pissed at Hudson’s getting more applause at the movie’s premiere that he vowed never to work with “Ernie” again…and he made good on that promise) and I find the presence of both Julie Adams and Lori Nelson (she’s younger sister Marjie, who has it bad for Hudson’s Trey) amusing only in that both actresses later acted alongside the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Adams in the original, Nelson in the sequel, Revenge of the Creature). But the film is buoyed by the superb performances of Stewart and Kennedy (whose ability to trade off between good guy and bad guy was peerless), not to mention solid character support from favorites Jay C. Flippen, Chubby Johnson, Frank Ferguson, Royal Dano and the controversial Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry — better known to one and all as “Stepin Fetchit” (he plays Johnson’s sidekick). You’ll also see future TV faces in Harry “Colonel Potter” Morgan (as one of the hired guys, billed as “Henry”) and Francis “Aunt Bee” Bavier (as one of the settlers), and old-time radio fans will giggle that Howard Petrie, who served as the announcer for shows starring Jimmy Durante and Judy Canova, plays bad guy Tom Hendricks. (Lillian Randolph, known for her role as “Birdie” on The Great Gildersleeve, also appears briefly as Hendricks’ maid, "Aunt Tildy.")

Six years after Bend of the River, Anthony Mann directed Man of the West, a Western starring Gary Cooper as an ex-outlaw who’s also reformed and become a part of the community in which he now resides and who has been entrusted with the task of hiring a schoolteacher only to meet up with his former gang. The movie, which has quite a cult following, is an interesting “bookend” to Bend of the River in that it offers a glimpse into the life of a man like Glyn McLyntock after he has become “civilized” and it wouldn’t be all that difficult to see Stewart in the Cooper role (his falling out with Mann during the filming of Night Passage sort of put the kibosh on any future collaborations, however). If you’ve seen Man, you might be interested in checking out Bend as a sort of “backstory” and if you haven’t, by all means go with Bend first. It’s long overdue for re-evaluation as one of the examples of the marvelous actor-auteur partnership that was James Stewart and Anthony Mann.

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Thursday, October 07, 2010

 

Original G


By Matt Maul
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. The 1960 epic set in ancient Rome boasts an all-star cast led by Kirk Douglas and includes: Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons and John Gavin. Kubrick was called in to direct replacing Anthony Mann when creative differences with Douglas (who also was producing) caused him to be removed from the project. This may certainly explain why Spartacus doesn’t seem like a traditional Kubrick film. Unlike Kubrick’s other efforts (especially his later films) which tend to observe characters from a dispassionate distance, in Spartacus there's a stronger feeling of being ensconced in the narrative.

It’s interesting to ponder how the film would have turned out had Mann stayed on the project. 1964’s Fall of the Roman Empire, helmed by Mann, may provide some insight to that question. While certainly worth a look, Fall of the Roman Empire drags on and musters no more emotion than a boring history lecture as opposed to Spartacus which successfully drawings viewers into the drama.

Ironically, even though its storyline more closely follows that of the Mann film, Gladiator (2000) is often compared to Spartacus. While Spartacus may be dated with action scenes (though elaborate for their day) that are tame by today’s CGI generated standards, Gladiator suffers, in part, by seeming blissfully unaware that it asks the audience to root for a questionable status quo. Both Spartacus and Russell Crowe’s Maximus are martyrs to their cause. However, Spartacus dies trying to lead his army of followers in a futile effort to flee Roman oppression whereas Maximus gives his life to restore a Roman order that functions to buttress that oppression (but who cares, there’s a lot of blood, some neat decapitations, and lions).

Spartacus starts with its title character, a slave, about to be killed for attacking one of his captors when the owner of a gladiator school, Lentulus Batiatus (played with appropriately craven sycophantism by Oscar winner Peter Ustinov) happens by. Batiatus has an eye for talent and purchases Spartacus as the latest addition to his “portfolio.” Meanwhile, Marcus Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier) is locked in a bitter political battle with Sempronius Gracchus (Charles Laughton) for control of the Roman Senate. This contest heats up when Spartacus leads a slave revolt at the gladiator school that spills out onto the surrounding countryside and presents a potential threat to Rome. The film makes it clear that the Rome is never in serious danger. But this doesn’t stop Crassus and Gracchus from using the fear of a slave revolt, like pieces on a chess board, to advance their own respective political ambitions. Olivier and Laughton bring a matter-of-fact air to their scenes which give the film a contemporary feel that other period pieces often lack. Kubrick should receive a share of the credit for that as well.

Producer Douglas made it possible for screenwriter Dalton Trumbo to receive his first on-screen credit in Spartacus since before his original blacklisting. Thus, the motives of the major antagonists in the film would seem partly informed by Trumbo’s worldview based on his own past experiences.

Along with the geo-political struggle is a love triangle involving Spartacus, Crassus and slave Varinia (Jean Simmons). Of course, “love” may not be the right word for Varina and Crassus — who purchases Varina for his collection. On the other hand, Varinia’s affection for Spartacus is given voluntarily. This is a revelation for both of them as “free will” was a term not previously listed in their personal lexicons. To Crassus, Spartacus, Varinia and Antonisus are symbolic of Rome itself — something that must be conquered and controlled.

Widely known is the omission of the scene in Spartacus where Crassus delivers his infamous “snails and oysters” speech, implying bisexuality, as an overture to another of his slaves, Antoninus (Tony Curtis). It was added to the restored version. Because no sound track was saved from the original shoot (indicating that there was probably no serious intention of including it in the finished film) the scene was redubbed with Tony Curtis and Anthony Hopkins — who spoke Crassus's lines as Laurence Olivier had died.

In that vein, it’s notable that Crassus "loses" Antoninus to Spartacus as well. While many cinematic discussions have explored the homosexual undertones of Ben-Hur and Messala in the film Ben-Hur, it’s worth asking if there is a similar dynamic to the relationship between Spartacus and Antoninus as well. During their final fight to the death (staged by Crassus) Antoninus tells Spartacus, “I love you, Spartacus, as I loved my own father.” To which Spartacus relies, “I love you...like my son that I'll never see.” These qualifiers seem extraneous given the grave circumstances under which they're uttered. One wonders if the writers, almost as an afterthought, added “my own father” and “like my son" so as to prevent any other possible interpretation (which may mean that there is).

Just as the chariot race is to Ben Hur, the fight between Spartacus and Draba (Woody Strode) is the centerpiece of Spartacus. Ralphie Cifaretto’s (of The Sopranos) complaints about inaccurate Roman hairstyles aside, the scene rightfully ranks as one of the best remembered cinematic battles. It’s hard to imagine any such scene from Gladiator that audiences might specifically look out for upon subsequent viewings.

As stated earlier, this isn’t a traditional Kubrick film. In fact, Kubrick himself never really thought of it as his own and reportedly wasn’t happy with some of its more melodramatic elements. To be sure, there are moments of heavy-handed sentimentality, such as when the captured slaves all stand up and proclaim “I am Spartacus” to Crassus, which one doesn’t find in Paths of Glory or Full Metal Jacket.

On the other hand, a freed Varinia looking up at Spartacus, sentenced to crucifixion and tied to a cross (bookending his posture from the film's first scene), showing him their son, and praying that he “please die soon,” is a bombshell of an emotional ending which one won’t find in Paths of Glory or Full Metal Jacket either.


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NOTE: Because the timing of this write-up coincides with the recent death of Tony Curtis, I thought I’d include one of my all-time favorite film exchanges. It's from Sweet Smell of Success starring Burt Lancaster (playing Hunsecker) and Tony Curtis (who played Falco). This dialogue could very well be describing the character Curtis played in Spartacus and may unintentionally hit on why he never got the all the accolades as an actor he deserved:
SENATOR: Are you an actor, Mr. Falco?
GIRL: That’s what I was thinking. Are you, Mr. Falco?
Hunsecker half-turns in Sidney’s direction, amused.
HUNSECKER: How did you guess it, Miss James?
GIRL: He’s so pretty, that’s how.


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Thursday, September 30, 2010

 

Tony Curtis (1925-2010)


In a strange way, Tony Curtis resembled his great role (I'd argue his greatest) as Sidney Falco in 1957's Sweet Smell of Success. Not that he was overly ambitious to the point of having no scruples, but that for every bit of good fortune Curtis had in his career, it didn't quite seem to stick and now that he has died at the age of 85 though he leaves a legacy of many good performances and great films, somehow he didn't end up having the career that his talent deserved.

He made his film debut in a short film directed by Jerry Lewis in 1949 called How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border but, thankfully, features and real roles would come his way. The next year the former Bernard Schwartz got to join the Cavalry in a classic Western: Anthony Mann's Winchester '73 starring Jimmy Stewart, though his credit read Anthony Curtis.

Three years later, he showed his knack for escaping tight spots by taking on the title role in Houdini. Three years later, he teamed with Burt Lancaster in Carol Reed's colorful but silly circus melodrama Trapeze. The next year he and Lancaster teamed up again in what may be his best work, the wonderfully cynical Sweet Smell of Success. As a press agent in Alexander Mackendrick's masterwork, Curtis and Lancaster were a great acting twosome and they had that great Elmer Bernstein score and James Wong Howe cinematography that really brought 1950s Manhattan alive in glorious black-and-white.

In 1958, he and Kirk Douglas teamed up as The Vikings. The same year, he received his only Oscar nomination as an escaped prisoner chained to another inmate, Sidney Poitier, in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones. As was the case with many Kramer films, the social messaging got ladeled on a bit too thickly, but Curtis and Poitier's realism helped to temper that aspect so the film went down a bit more smoothly.

1959 brought him the chance to work with Cary Grant twice in a way. He did it for real in Operation Petticoat. Then, in the film of his that will last the test of time most likely, Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, he should have earned his second Oscar nomination for essentially playing three characters: Joe, the musician on the run from the mob with Jack Lemmon; Josephine, the female character he assumes in hiding; and Shell Oil Jr., the playboy who sounds suspiciously like Cary Grant as he tries to seduce Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). He's a riot in all three personas. However, the Academy only nominated Lemmon for the film.

Two years later, he had a small role in Stanley Kubrick's largely disowned Spartacus, where his most famous scene, a bathing encounter full of sexual innuendo with Laurence Olivier, was lost on a cutting room floor for decades.

The rest of the 1960s saw Curtis still work steadily but in projects less worthy of his time. He got hidden under heavy makeup as did many others in John Huston's mystery The List of Adrian Messenger; he co-starred with Natalie Wood in the adaptation of Helen Gurley Brown's best seller Sex and the Single Girl; he showed off a killer instinct as The Boston Strangler; he got to joke around with Lemmon again in The Great Race; and without him in Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies.

Before The Simpsons made it a habit to have famous guest voices, Curtis' voice turned up on The Flintstones, which turned 50 today, as Stony Curtis.

His career really started to cool in the 1970s, thanks in no small part to a cocaine habit, and it led to bad film roles such as The Bad News Bears Go to Japan and lots of television, such as a regular role opposite Robert Urich on Vega$.

His last feature role of interest was probably Nicolas Roeg's 1985 film Insignificance, based on a play, where he played a fictionalized version of Sen. Joe McCarthy encountering Einstein, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe in a hotel room.

He also appeared on a later episode of Roseanne as a frisky dance instructor who sparks jealousy between Jackie and her mother.

During his marriage to the actress Janet Leigh, they had a daughter who became an actress in her own right, Jamie Lee Curtis.

It's a shame that a career that started so strongly, sort of petered out, but Curtis left so much good material in those early years that he'll still be remembered.

RIP Mr. Curtis.

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Monday, July 12, 2010

 

“He said if a man had one friend, he was rich…I'm rich…”


By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I love classic movies, and though it may not seem fair to the ones I’ve not yet seen I have favorites that I return to again and again and again. There’s also a small handful of these films that, if I happen to run across one while channel-surfing, I have to stay and watch to the very end. A good example of one of these timeless classics is the 1942 version of The Glass Key — a film that I’ve lost count how many times I’ve sat through. It’s a classic tale of politics, murder and corruption…one of the earliest examples of the film style that would eventually become known as “film noir.”

But the granddaddy of all the “I’m-not-budging-until-the-end-credits-roll” films I’m fond of is Winchester ’73 (1950) — a Western fave that established so many milestones it would be difficult to list them all. It was one of the first Westerns made by motion picture star James Stewart (1950’s Broken Arrow would be the very first filmed, but released after Winchester), an actor not generally known for sagebrush sagas…and in fact, Stewart got some static in the press for this new direction in his career because the noble reporters of the fourth estate didn’t think he could pull off such a role. It also would be Stewart’s first film in which he collaborated with director Anthony Mann — the two men would go on to make a total of eight features together, including the classics Bend of the River (1952) and The Naked Spur (1953) — an individual who’d also never previously helmed an oater and was recommended to the film after the original director, Fritz Lang, took a pass (Stewart had worked with Mann previously in stage productions).

Sixty years ago on this date, Winchester ’73 was released to theaters. Its surprising success breathed new life into what many thought was a tired genre (beaten to death by singing cowboys and B-picture oaters) and ensured a slew of successful Western movies to come throughout the 1950s.

Lin McAdam (Stewart) and High-Spade Frankie Wilson (Millard Mitchell — “with a hyphen…that’s what I sit on when I get tired”) ride into Dodge City one Fourth of July in 1876 — just in time to enter a marksmanship contest in which the coveted prize is a genuine, “one-in-a-thousand” Winchester ’73 rifle—“the gun that won the West.” One of the contestants, a man named Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally), exhibits a bit of animosity towards Lin — something that does not escape the attention of man who’s in charge of keeping the peace, Marshal Wyatt Earp (Will Geer). As the contest gets underway, it soon comes down to a showdown between Lin and Dutch Henry…with Lin ultimately emerging as the victor. When Dutch Henry offers to buy the rifle from McAdam (“That's too much gun for a man to have just for...shootin' rabbits,” Brown observes nastily) Lin tells him it’s not for sale. So Dutch Henry lies in wait for Lin in his hotel room, dry-gulches him and steals the rifle…hauling ass and elbows out of town in the process.

Dutch Henry and his pals (Steve Brodie, James Millican) arrive at a trading post where, even though Brown has the prized Winchester, they’re “naked” without guns and ammunition, which they left behind in Dodge. In an attempt to earn money to purchase some, Dutch Henry gets into a poker game with a crooked gambler/Indian trader named Joe Lamont (John McIntire), who ultimately ends up in control of the firearm. The weapon will continue to exchange multiple owners throughout the film; it passes through the hands of an Indian chief (Rock Hudson), a yellow coward (Charles Drake) who deserts his wife (Shelley Winters) while being ambushed by Apaches and notorious gunslinger “Waco” Johnnie Dean (Dan Duryea)…before winding up in the possession of Dutch Henry again. By that time, Lin and High-Spade have caught up to the thief — who is revealed during the course of events in the film to be Lin’s brother — and Brown and McAdam are forced to shoot it out in a tense climax set among a rocky cliff.

Before World War II, Jimmy Stewart had a reputation in films as the quintessential American boy-next-door, whose “aw, shucks” demeanor endeared him to a large audience of moviegoers (though he showed flashes of a darker nature on rare occasions before, notably in 1936’s After the Thin Man). Stewart enlisted in the service at the outbreak of the war and eventually worked his way up through the U.S. Air Force ranks to become a brigadier general…but after his hitch overseas concluded; he returned to his former profession and was anxious to start tackling roles that didn’t typecast him as Mr. Nice Guy. Audiences got a further look at Stewart’s slightly blemished psyche in the underappreciated (at the time) It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — but it was Winchester that really let Jim talk a walk on the dark side. Granted, though he still plays the hero it was a bit uncomfortable to see Stewart exhibit uncharacteristic traits like disillusionment and obsession — throughout the film’s running time, he doggedly pursues McNally’s Brown with a ruthless determination that certainly made those individuals unfamiliar with this darker side of his screen persona a tad uneasy. The obsessive hero not above random acts of violence would become a hallmark in the subsequent Westerns Stewart made with director Mann — a man whose fixation on achieving certain ends often justified the questionable means needed to get there.

Although Winchester ’73 pioneered a new “adult” western, it would be folly not to point out that the film in its entirety isn’t necessarily a downer; there are some wonderfully scripted sequences highlighting the amusing byplay between Stewart and sidekick Mitchell, and the screenplay by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards (based on Stuart N. Lake’s story) allows for a first-rate mix of lighter scenes mixed with its more somber moments. There’s endlessly quotable dialogue in Winchester, but my favorite is the observation made by High-Spade as he contemplates being attacked by Indians: “It was such pretty hair. I've had it ever since I was a kid. A little thin on top... but I sure would like to keep it.”

I don’t think there’s ever been a better-cast movie than Winchester ’73. Stewart is great, of course, and Mitchell is superb as his best saddle pal — but there also are outstanding turns from McNally, Winters, Duryea (at his narcissistic nastiest), Drake, McIntire and Jay C. Flippen as a cavalry commander who, after receiving a buss from a grateful Shelley and a “That’s for savin’ my life”, says sheepishly: “Now you disappoint me. I thought it was 'cause I'm pretty.” I’ve seen a lot of fine actors portray the legendary Wyatt Earp: Randolph Scott, Henry Fonda, Joel McCrea, Burt Lancaster, Hugh O’Brian (on TV) — but to this day, Will Geer is the man I think of when I think of Earp (and surprisingly, Geer originally thought himself miscast). Rock Hudson, in one of his early roles, makes quite an impression as the savage Young Bull…and this was also one of the early showcases for a young Tony Curtis, who plays a cavalry grunt.

This was one of three Westerns that director Mann would tackle in 1950 — the others being The Furies and Devil’s Doorway — and he brought a wonderfully dark, paranoiac sensibility to the traditional oater, directing these films in the same dark, moody style as he did his celebrated film noirs such as T-Men (1947) and Border Incident (1949). And for those who “can’t abide” black-and-white films, the cinematography of Oscar winner William H. Daniels should be enough to convince even the last monochromatic holdout — it’s every bit as beautiful as the Monument Valley scenery that accompanied many a John Ford film.

During the planning stages of Winchester ’73, Universal couldn’t afford to pony up Stewart’s asking price of $200,000 — so they cut a deal with the actor whereupon he would achieve a percentage of the profits upon making both Winchester and Harvey (1950). Both films were immensely successful at the box office, and this unusual arrangement of “profit-sharing” would eventually change the partnership between studio, actor and agent…and bring about the demise of the studio system and long-term contracts. (Stewart, it is said, netted a tidy sum of $600,000 from Winchester — which was not a bad chunk of change at the time.)

The partnership between actor Stewart and director Mann that would lead to successes such as The Man From Laramie (1955) and The Far Country (1955) was, unfortunately, not destined to last — they had a falling out during the making of Night Passage (1957) and neither man worked with one another again. Stewart’s new Western image (he practiced for hours-on-end with the Winchester rifle in an effort to look authentic, and even insisted on wearing the same sweat-stained hat and riding the same horse in every oater afterward) would stretch to other classic sagas like John Ford’s Two Rode Together (1961) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)…but for my money, he never worked for a better director on oaters than Anthony Mann. Winchester, interestingly enough, is the only film of his for which Stewart provided commentary for its initial laserdisc and subsequent DVD releases. This is a positive boon to yours truly, because ever since the decline of the once-proud American Movie Classics channel...I have to put the DVD on to once again fully enjoy this timeless film classic.


_______________________________________________________________

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. blogs at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, and hasn’t been able to see actor Charles Drake in a positive light in any subsequent film because that rat bastard left Shelley Winters behind to save his own sorry ass from an Indian massacre.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

 

Centennial Tributes: James Stewart


By Josh R
Jimmy Stewart created the impression of being the most self-effacing of movie stars. Skinny and gawky in his youth, and given to stammer with slack-jawed embarrassment when flustered, his charmingly abashed quality immediately endeared him to audiences of the 1930s — in black and white, you could still see him blushing.

Never a fantasy figure like Cary Grant or Gary Cooper, he quickly established himself as America’s boy-next-door, the kind for whom pronouncements like “I didn’t knew they grew them that way anymore” were presumably intended; even decked out in a white tie and tails, the bottom of his shoes were still caked with the soil of the heartland, roots he never tried to shake off no matter how many tremors he produced in the gilt-edged, glittering cocktail shaker of Hollywood. He retained his sense of modesty in the face of uncommon success, and never gave way to pretension; he was, in terms of both his approach to acting and his philosophy of life, a man of the people.

It would be easy to write him off as being too lovable for words, if not for the unexpected, frequently harrowing shades of anger, bitterness and genuine madness that informed his performances for Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Mann and, on one glorious occasion, the director with whose work he is most closely identified, Frank Capra. For if Stewart’s early persona never conveyed as much of a whiff of danger, his career is one with a decisive turning point. Patriotic to a fault, both onscreen and off, he was among the first Hollywood stars to enlist for active duty in WWII, and served in the air force with great distinction. What effect the war experience had on Stewart the man is not entirely clear — just as he was not given to boastfulness, nor was he particularly inclined to discuss his inner demons — but in terms of his work, it had a clearly felt impact. Beginning with It’s a Wonderful Life, audiences were treated to intriguing glimpses of the dark undercurrents of anxiety and despair that can prey on such unassuming, wholesome specimens of non-threatening All-American manhood; the sense of internal conflict barely hinted at in the pre-war years was suddenly made explicit.

Tellingly born in the town of Indiana in the state of Pennsylvania — even with his Keystone State stubbornness, there was always an air of corn-fed Midwestern sincerity about him — he grew up in the idyllic, small town America of picket fences, porch swings and potted geraniums. His father owned the local hardware store; when Jimmy won his Oscar, he sent it home to Pop to proudly display in the storefront window. He might easily have traveled the same path as his alter ego, George Bailey — the younger Stewart was likewise expected to assume responsibility for the family business when he came of age. Circumstances were kinder to Jimmy than they would proove to be for George; rather than toe the line and settle into a life of diminished expectations among the white steeples and striped awnings of Main Street, he set out for Princeton, with the aim of becoming an architect. After falling in with The University Players, a collection of Ivy Leaguers with theatrical aspirations, his set his sights on the New York stage. Some very modest success on Broadway led to interest on the part of Hollywood talent scouts; encouraged by his friend Henry Fonda to make a screen test, he was signed to a seven year contract by MGM.

Too sensitive and awkward for a traditional leading man, and too delicately handsome to fit into the mold of a character actor, his first two years in Hollywood were something of mishmash. He played a disturbed youth in Rose Marie and a baddie in After the Thin Man — neither assignment fit him comfortably — before settling into the role of the sensitive, sentimental male ingénue, the masculine equivalent of the delicate flowers suffering so nobly in three-hankie weepies. His first good lead came in Next Time We Love opposite Margaret Sullavan, with whom he shared a chemistry remarkable for its artless delicacy. The two had reportedly carried a torch for one another going back to their University Players years; The Shopworn Angel and The Mortal Storm provided further evidence of the extent to which the flame endured. Bolstered by his successful outings with Sullavan, his progress was swift, if incremental. 1938 revealed his aptitude for comedy, with a highly enjoyable pairing with Ginger Rogers in Vivacious Lady and the first of his three collaborations with Capra, You Can’t Take It With You. Through comedy, he grew in confidence, and seemed more distinctive a presence as a result (truth be told, he could seem a bit one-note playing delicate and doomed). The true breakthrough came in so spectacular a fashion that it seemed right off the pages of a Hollywood script.

1939 is often cited as the greatest year in the history of motion pictures, producing a bumper crop of classics. Certainly, no actor reaped more of the benefit of that yield than Stewart — he appeared in no less than five films, two of which would proove to be among his very best. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was Capra at his corniest, but such was the conviction the actor brought to his portrayal of a naïve scoutmaster thrown into the shark-invested waters of professional politics that the corn actually managed to pop in the midst of so much soggy high-mindedness, wrapped as it was in a tear-stained blanket of red, white and blue. For doing the seemingly impossible — namely bringing a sense of dramatic fire to a character intended as the living embodiment of wide-eyed idealism — he received the first of his five Academy Award nominations. It’s a Wonderful World and Made for Each Other were pleasant outings with Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard, but George Marshall’s Destry Rides Again revealed qualities that Capra and others hadn’t been canny enough to recognize. There was no earthly reason why he and Marlene Dietrich should have complemented each other to the extent that they did — on paper, it made about as much sense as casting Mickey Rooney opposite Garbo. The wholesomely appealing Stewart had registered with female moviegoers as the kind of man they’d like to marry, as opposed to one they fantasized about going to bed with; attractive though he was, it had been said that he lacked something in terms of virility. Being trapped in close quarters with the heavy-lidded Teutonic siren rectified the situation — Dietrich’s decadent sensuality worked on Stewart’s libido like a tonic, just as his laconic charm chipped away at her smirking self-containment and coaxed warmth and vulnerability out of its manicured shell. As the deputy spouting folksy truisms while trying to maintain the peace in a rambunctious western town, he was as nice as ever, but sexy too; in the scene where he backs Marlene’s naughty saloon floozy into a corner and wipes the make-up off her face, the heat generated by the two actors practically burned holes through the celluloid. In the era when Gable was king, Destry was one of the few films to acknowledge that while shady ladies may initially be drawn to the tough-talking manly men, it’s the sensitive types with quiet assurance who can really get them hot and bothered.

1940 was another banner year for Stewart — within a two-year period, he had participated in four classic films. The Oscar he received as a tabloid reporter covering a society wedding in The Philadelphia Story was really a compensatory gesture for his having lost the year before for Mr. Smith — nevertheless, he did outstanding work for George Cukor, and played well opposite Katharine Hepburn, even if their romantic chemistry was never entirely convincing (both seemed much more at home in their scenes with Cary Grant). More importantly, The Philadelphia Story was the first film to give him a character with a bit of an edge. The part of the cynical, smart-allecky Macauley Connor, a frustrated fiction writer with a chip on his shoulder, allowed Stewart to distance himself from the “aw shucks” bashfulness and diffident naiveté that had been his stock in trade, and showed that he was willing and able to take on roles with more complexity. Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner, while not really a step forward toward that end, was a romantic comedy with an old-world charm and a glorious reunion with Margaret Sullavan. Both actors gave much more spirited performances than they had when working within the constraints of melodrama, and as a result, their chemistry seemed more potent than ever. As if to proove he could be fallible, no amount of diligent effort could save No Time for Comedy, adapted from a stage hit about a conflicted playwright and his actress muse. Since 1940 was such a good year for Stewart and co-star Rosalind Russell otherwise, both emerged from the wreckage unscathed.

The 1940s might have proceeded along much the same lines — an innocuous string of romantic comedies, pausing for the occasional instance of inspirational flag-waving — if not for a little dust-up in the Pacific Ocean involving the bombing of an American naval base. The war put the film career on hold for half a decade, and the James Stewart to emerge in the aftermath was an older, sadder and wiser figure, comprehending of the darkness lurking just beneath the surface of the homespun American Dream perpetuated by Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post covers and Hollywood fictions. The charm was still there, to be sure, but coupled with a hard-earned awareness — not just of mortality, but a feeling that good and evil existed in closer proximity than the callow youth of the 1930s might have been given to suppose. It’s a Wonderful Life is frequently mistaken for a misty-eyed yuletide classic, with about as much bite to it as the average cup of eggnog. In truth, Capra’s definitive work is spiked with stronger stuff than cinnamon and nutmeg; there’s a bitter aftertaste that comes with the tacit admission that in every hometown hero lives a frustrated, disappointed loner trapped in a life of quiet desperation. Stewart’s George Bailey is an American everyman, immediately identifiable and admirable to a fault, but with a dark streak of resentment over the compromises he’s had to make, and a stinging contempt for the circumscribed, small-town life that a lifetime of selfless, conscientious behavior has seemingly condemned him to. This being Capra, George’s journey ends on an uplifting note, but the scenes that linger in memory the longest are the ones in which the character’s pain and anger are brought into sharp focus. Consider the moment when George takes out his frustration on his wife and children, followed by the look of remorse and self-loathing that flickers across his stricken features once he sees their frightened eyes peering back at him — it may be the bravest single piece of acting Stewart ever attempted, and ultimately, all the more heart-wrenching for its startling lack of sentimentality.

The postwar Stewart took a more intrepid approach to his career; he was a free agent now, pursuing projects that challenged his established persona and spoke directly to his affinity for characters faced with tough moral choices. There would be occasional returns to folksy, homespun sincerity — in Harvey, he was just credulous enough to make you believe there actually was an eight-foot white rabbit hovering in the margins of the frame — but for the most part, he seemed increasingly content working in a darker vein. Winchester ’73, Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country and The Man from Laramie — five fine, tough-minded westerns for Anthony Mann — contemplated the degree of self-imposed isolation that comes with the territory of rugged individualism. In each of those films, Stewart seemed to be a man searching, not only for outlaws on the run or wayward herds of cattle, but for deliverance from the suspicion that mankind was fundamentally corrupt and cruel. Darker still were his exercises for Hitchcock, which veered even further away from the norm into the realm of genuine disturbance. Stewart didn’t shy away from acting out Hitch’s perversions — in Rear Window, he indulged in voyeurism, while in Vertigo, he was obsessed with Kim Novak and more than a little bit crazy. More than any other project he’d ever worked on, Vertigo allowed Stewart to bring his darker impulses to the forefront — as if George Bailey’s paranoia had finally caught up to him. As a reflection of how unwilling audiences were to conceive of anything base or impure in their All-American boy, The Glenn Miller Story was his most commercially successful film of the period — Stewart could still do bland nobility as well as anyone, but he was much more interesting when traveling a different course.

After Vertigo, the quality of the films went downward. Anatomy of a Murder was considered rather shocking at the time, but looks fairly quaint from a modern standpoint. Nevertheless, it had some enjoyably tacky Otto Preminger flourishes, and allowed the actor the chance to hint at some undercurrents of depravity. The younger Stewart would have stared in bug-eyed, wholesome disbelief at the vulpine Lee Remick as if he’d just been struck by cupid’s arrow; the worldly veteran appreciatively took in her supple proportions as if he’d secretly imagined what it would be like to violate her in the manner of her supposed attacker. The Man who Shot Liberty Valance was an acceptable entry from John Ford, while the sprawling mediocrity of How the West Was Won could find no better use for him than a very unconvincing courtship of Carroll Baker, an actress meant for more lurid things than a little house on the prairie. The Flight of the Pheonix was fine if formulaic, while a succession of increasingly dull westerns rounded out what had, at its best, been an unusually unpredictable career. He did a bit of TV work in the '80s, but seemed mainly content to make occasional appearances on talk shows or The Oscars, charming viewers with his well-rehearsed stammering fits and misty recollections of the old days.

Few stars, male or female, have ever inspired as affectionate a response as that accorded Jimmy Stewart. In a way, he represented the best of our selves — an idealized version of the good, moral American boy trying his best to make the world a better place. At the same time, he never shied away from revealing the extent to which the pressures of living up to that image of decency and goodness can unnerve a man and breed self-doubt; perhaps Stewart himself felt that pressure more keenly than most. Whether or not that was the case, as an actor, he never lost sight of his characters’ humanity, or felt the need to portray them on anything other than a human scale — it’s part of the reason audiences identified with him so strongly. Movie stars can often feel like a separate breed, a world apart from mere mortals. Jimmy Stewart was one of us.


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Thursday, August 31, 2006

 

Glenn Ford (1916-2006)



Another screen legend has passed away before the Academy ever got around to lauding him with an honorary Oscar. Glenn Ford was 90. Ford, really one of the most underrated of actors, had a long career, often in Westerns, but appeared in several notable films. He made his film debut in 1937 in a movie called Night in Manhattan, appearing under the name Gwyllyn Ford. Most of his early career was spent in Westerns but his real breakthrough came as Johnny Farrell in 1946's classic Gilda opposite Rita Hayworth, giving steel and wit to what could have been the stand noir role of the male dupe. That same year he appeared opposite Bette Davis in A Stolen Life, where Davis played twins and he was a lighthouse inspector on Martha's Vineyard. I've never seen the film, but I remember the spoof of it from The Carol Burnett Show.

He continued to appear in all sorts of genres, including Westerns such as 1955's The Violent Men and detective dramas like Fritz Lang's The Big Heat in 1953. In 1955, he entered the classroom with Sidney Poitier as one of his students in The Blackboard Jungle. In 1956, he starred in Ransom! (later remade by Ron Howard and Mel Gibson), The Fastest Gun Alive and The Teahouse of the August Moon. He had one of his best roles in a rare turn as a bad guy in 1957's 3:10 to Yuma opposite Van Heflin.


In 1960, he starred in Anthony Mann's remake of the early Oscar-winning best picture Cimarron, which covered more of the Edna Ferber novel. Both films were based on ranging from the Oklahoma Land Run to the Spanish-American War. In 1961, he produced and played against type as The Dude in Frank Capra's A Pocketful of Miracles, an ill-advised remake of Capra's own Lady for a Day. Ford continued to work steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s, in films such as The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Rounders and Midway (in Sensurround!) Younger audiences — and given that the film is 26 years old now, that may not even be true — probably recognize him most from playing Pa Kent in 1978's Superman. Unfortunately, that's probably his last notable feature, though he appeared in many television movies, because I think we all should forget his role in the dreadful 1981 slasher flick Happy Birthday to Me.

Read The Washington Post obit here.


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