Sunday, December 18, 2011

 

Centennial Tributes: Jules Dassin Part II


By Edward Copeland
As we dive into the second half of this tribute to Jules Dassin, we're on an uphill climb artistically and a downhill slide personally as we talk about when he made his best films, including two out-and-out masterpieces, and when the witch-hunting politicians froze him out of movie work by getting Hollywood to blacklist him because of his youthful flirtation with communism. Never mind that he resigned from the Communist Party soon after joining when Stalin signed his 1939 pact with Hitler, once a commie, always a commie, right? At least that was the attitude then. We haven't reached that point yet. First, following making the great Brute Force, Dassin re-teams with producer Mark Hellinger for The Naked City, a landmark because it was the first sound film to shoot entirely in New York. Henry Hathaway had filmed some scenes of 1945's The House on 92nd Street on the streets of New York, but not the entire movie. Another film had shot partly on the streets of New York, but The Naked City became the first movie to film its entire production there. If you started here accidentally and missed Part I, click here.

Hellinger's role in The Naked City extended beyond producing — he also narrated the film which, to me at least, turns out to be a demerit at times. In his 1948 New York Times review, Bosley Crowther, mixed on the movie overall, referred to the narration as "a virtual Hellinger column on film." Not all the narration is cringeworthy (Two examples: "How many things this sky has seen that man has done to man"; "Milk! Isn't there anything else for ulcers except for milk?") Some come off fine such as when Hellinger notes, "There's a pulse to a city that never stops beating." When the narration grates the most are the times when it sounds like a talkative moviegoer asking their companion annoying questions such as, "Is Henderson the murderer? Did a taxicab take him to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station? Who is Henderson? Where does he live? Who knows him?" The movie itself starts with an overhead shot of the city skyline as Hellinger waxes on about the city as the daytime shots turn into nighttime images and he tells us, "This is the city when it's silent or asleep, as if it ever really is." After his narration introduces us to various inhabitants of the city who work nights, he also shows us people resting at home or out on the town (cleverly introducing people who will be major characters later without pointing that out) "And while some people work and most sleep, others are at the close of an evening of relaxation — " We see a night club getting ready to close and its attendees departing before the camera switches to a young woman's apartment where we see her being murdered by two men. "And still another — is at the close of her life." The killers try to fake her death as a bathtub drowning and we see the movie's destination at last. After some more wandering around the city the next morning (including one killer getting drunk and nervous about the crime and his co-conspirator offing him and dumping his body in the river), once the dead woman's maid discovers her body, they show a particularly nice sequence of the chain of calls through switchboard operators going from hospital to a police precinct to the medical examiner before finally ending up at the homicide squad.

The Naked City follows the investigation of that young lady's murder in an almost documentary style. Originally, Hellinger intended to use Homicide as the title but then decided to borrow The Naked City from the books of photographs by famous crime scene photographer Weegee, whose life was fictionalized in the 1992 film The Public Eye starring Joe Pesci, because he wanted the movie to have the feel of Weegee's photos. Playing the men leading the investigation were Barry Fitzgerald as Det. Lt. Dan Muldoon, the veteran with two decades of experience, and Don Taylor as Det. Jimmy Halloran, the greenhorn who'd only been working homicide for three months. Muldoon always has to explain to Halloran the right way to solve a case such as the one they are in, giving Fitzgerald the chance to say things like "That's the way you run a case, lad — step by step" and sound even more Irish than usual as he does it. When they determine that the murder had to be committed by two people, Muldoon pins it on "Joseph P. MacGillicuddy," his version of John Doe. Since The Naked City strives for realism, one thing sticks out that I tend not to notice in other pre-1966 police movies or TV shows: There were no such things as Miranda rights so you never hear anyone told, "You have the right to remain silent, etc." The fine cast also includes Howard Duff, reuniting with Dassin from Brute Force, as a compulsive liar who was involved with both the dead woman and her best friend (Dorothy Hart). If you look closely, the film overflows with familiar faces in brief, mostly uncredited roles including Paul Ford, John Marley, Arthur O'Connell, David Opatoshu and, making their film debuts, Kathleen Freeman, James Gregory and John Randolph. There also is a very funny scene where Halloran seeks information from a sidewalk store clerk selling soda on the whereabouts of the suspected killer and the vendor is played by the comic great Molly Picon. However, the film's true star is New York.


While The Naked City gets lumped into the noir category, personally I don't think it belongs there. While The Naked City turns out mostly fine, the film doesn't approach the greatness of Brute Force or Dassin's films that follow. What makes The Naked City stand out from other films has little to do with its story or acting, but its landmark use of New York — and I mean the real New York, not Toronto. Dassin employed several tricks to film on the streets without crowds getting in the way because word always leaked as to where they would be shooting. In one of the Criterion interviews, he tells of a fake portable newsstand they had to conceal the camera as well as a flower delivery van with a mirror on the side that they could see out of but outsiders couldn't see in. They also employed jugglers to distract onlookers so they wouldn't disrupt shooting.


On the DVD interview, Dassin said his favorite method was to place this guy a bit down the street from where they were shooting, have him climb up a pole, wave a flag and give patriotic speeches. While he mesmerized crowds, the film crew got their work done. Some of that location shooting still amazes. Taylor as Halloran does most of the running throughout the city, on and off subways and buses, past landmarks still familar today and, most especially, the climactic foot chase after the killer that leads to awesome shots on the Williamsburg Bridge. The movie ended up winning the Oscar for best black & white cinematography for William H. Daniels and best film editing for Paul Weatherwax. Now, Dassin contended that elements of the films that put more of an emphasis on class differences within the city and other social issues were cut from the film before release. In many interviews, he said that by the time filming had been completed, rumor already had begun to swirl that he might be called before HUAC to testify about his former membership in the Communist Party. He also didn't believe Hellinger would make those cuts, mainly because Universal didn't want to release The Naked City because they didn't know how to market it. However, Hellinger's contract with the studio had a clause requiring them to release it — and a good thing that it did because three months before The Naked City finally did reach theaters, Hellinger died of a heart attack at 44, another reason Dassin doubted the cuts were his. To paraphrase the film's famous closing line of Hellinger narration, "There are eight million stories from the Hollywood blacklist. This just leads to a much bigger one."

Before Dassin found a new home in Hollywood, he finally got that chance to direct some theater again, staging two Broadway productions in 1948. First, he directed the original play Joy to the World by Allan Scott, the screenwriter of six Astaire-Rogers musicals including Top Hat and Swing Time as well as other films. The comedy takes aim at Hollywood and the difficulty one has maintaining his integrity in the movie business. The play, which ran from March 18 to July 3 at the Plymouth Theatre, also has a strong plea for intellectual freedom and against censorship. Produced by John Houseman, its cast included Morris Carnovsky, who would appear in Dassin's next film and on the blacklist, being named by both Elia Kazan and Sterling Hayden; Bert Freed, TV's first Columbo; and Marsha Hunt, who starred in two of Dassin's MGM films — The Affairs of Martha and A Letter to Evie. The second production was the musical Magdalena which ran from Sept. 20 through Dec. 4. The songs were by lyricists Robert Wright and George Forrest and composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It was John Raitt's first show following Carousel and choreographed by the most influential yet least-known dance master Jack Cole, subject of an in-development musical project with its eye on Broadway today. One of his two assistant choreographers on Magdalena was Gwen Verdon.

When Dassin headed back west, Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century Fox came calling, seeking to sign him to direct A.I. Bezzerides' adaptation of his own novel Thieves' Market, renamed Thieves' Highway. Before that project got rolling, Dassin received an urgent phone call from Zanuck with a very important question: "Are you now or were you ever familiar with the fundamentals of playing baseball?" Dassin told him yes. In an interview recorded in New York in 2000 and on the Criterion Collection DVD of Rififi, shared this fun little anecdote. It seems that the MGM vs. Fox baseball game was coming up the following weekend and Fox was short a player and Zanuck wanted to see if Dassin could be the one. According to Dassin, he turned out to be the MVP of the game as Fox beat MGM, which apparently was an unusual occurrence. Dassin's agent called him in a rush, wanting to know if Dassin had signed the contract for Thieves' Highway yet. Dassin told him that he had. The agent told him that was too bad — after his performance in the ballgame, he could have negotiated him a higher salary for the film.

While The Naked City didn't really seem like noir to me, Thieves' Highway most definitely does, though it's noir in a setting I never imagined before — crooks run amok among those who sell fresh fruit and vegetables. Richard Conte stars as Nick "Nico" Garcos, a veteran who traveled the world following the war and brings home gifts from everywhere to his proud Greek family. His father Yanko (Morris Carnovsky) is even joyfully singing a Greek song when his boy shows up unannounced, surprising him. (Interesting that as important as Greece will become in Dassin's life later that it's a distinct element of this film.) While the mood overflows with happiness in the Garcos house, Nick discovers that things haven't gone well during his absence when one of his presents turns out to be a special pair of shoes for his father and he urges him to try them on. There's a problem — Yanko can't wear shoes anymore. He rolls away from the table to reveal to his son that he no longer has legs. His father tells him the story about how he had a huge load of the season's first crop of juicy tomatoes and one of the biggest produce dealers on the San Francisco market Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb) had agreed to buy them but as he asked for his money, Figlia insisted they have a drink to celebrate first. That drink turned into more drinks and the next thing Yanko knew, he was on the side of the road under his wrecked truck minus his legs. Figlia claims he paid him and someone must have taken the money from the truck. To make matters worse, since he couldn't use the truck anymore, he sold it and the man he sold it to has stiffed him on payment as well. While Nick's mom (Tamara Shayne) tries to calm things down and argues that perhaps Figlia told the truth, Nick can tell that Figlia was lying and his dad never got paid. First though, he's getting the truck back.

When he finds Ed Kinney (Millard Mitchell), the man who bought the truck, Nick demands the keys to the truck or the money. Kinney complains that he can't pay right now because the truck has been giving him fits but he needs it to pick up a load of golden delicious apples. Nick makes a deal that he'll be his partner to pick up the apples and take them to San Francisco for the sale. The one hitch — Kinney already had a deal set with two guys Slob and Pete (Jack Oakie, Joseph Penney) so Kinney has to make up a story about how he can't make the run. The men go away disappointed — but they also tail him and see that he's lying and make it a point to harass them. If Mitchell looks familiar, he's probably best known for his role three years later as movie exec R.F. Simpson in Singin' in the Rain. Mitchell's career was cut short. A heavy smoker, lung cancer claimed his life at the age of 50 in 1953. Another interesting tale that comes out of the Dassin interviews on DVD is that Oakie, the longtime comic actor who scored an Oscar nod for his Mussolini spoof in Chaplin's The Great Dictator, was completely deaf when he made Thieves' Highway, something that Dassin didn't realize for weeks because Oakie was so good at picking up cues from other actors and never missed his mark or messed up a take. After Kinney and Nick team up, the first portion of the film concentrates on the long haul to San Francisco after they pick up the apples with Nick driving the decrepit truck, Kinney following in another and Slob and Pete harassing them along the way. As Dassin said, the enemy for these men is fatigue and drivers employed many tricks to stay wake on the roads at night.

After a near disaster, Kinney decides it's best if he and Nick switch trucks, letting him, the more experienced driver, try to hold it together while Nick takes the better rig with the first half of the load on to San Francisco. As in The Naked City, Dassin breaks some ground here by doing some amazing location shooting in San Francisco's market area with crowded streets and lots of activity. When we arrive there, that's when Cobb appears playing the most diabolical produce salesman in the history of film. Cobb's centennial was Dec. 8, but I got so backed up with other projects I wasn't able to do a proper salute to this towering actor. In the 2005 interview on the DVD, Dassin said that Cobb truly "enjoyed his villainy." During the work on this piece, I uncovered more and more names of actors and directors who named names before HUAC that I had never known about before. I mentioned Sterling Hayden earlier, which was news to me. I also didn't know about Cobb. It's odd how all the ire and bile aimed at people who did name names seemed to be reserved for Elia Kazan. In Cobb's case, the pressure on the actor when he was called to testify before HUAC had nearly brought his wife to a nervous breakdown so Cobb felt compelled to name names to preserve his wife's sanity. Regardless, that doesn't take away from the fact that Cobb was a great actor and not just anyone can turn a produce dealer into a plausible bad guy. Conte matches him well as the good guy without turning Nick into a bland opponent. When things heat up between Nick and Figlia and Figlia suggests they go off to his office, one man comments that Figlia will "eat that kid alive." A buyer named Midge who's seeking golden delicious apples and is played by Hope Emerson, who will be a memorable villain herself the following year as the women's prison matron in Caged, responds, "I'll take odds on the kid." One of Figlia's deceptive tricks against Nick involves utilizing a local hooker named Rica (played by Valentina Cortese, best known for her Oscar-nominated turn in Truffaut's Day for Night, in only her second English-language film and her first shot in the U.S, though her last name is spelled Cortesa). Rica keeps Nick occupied while his truck, which is stuck in front of Figlia’s stand because of flat tires, gets raided and has its apples sold off by Figlia. In the 2005 interview, Dassin told of how Zanuck was a very hands-on producer. Since Rica would inevitably turn out to be the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold who would end up aiding Nick, Zanuck insisted that they write in a part of "a bourgeois fiancée who betrays Nick" to justify the hero falling for the hooker. Barbara Lawrence played that role, Polly Faber.


In addition to Thieves' Highway's noirish elements, which basically get segregated to San Francisco once Nick arrives and Figlia and Rica join the film, the movie's other half covers Kinney's treacherous drive in the truck that's barely holding together. Dassin builds genuine suspense in these scenes, aided by Alfred Newman's score. His journey isn't helped by the constant taunting by Slob and Pete, but as he steers the truck through curvy, mountainous highways, the sequences seem to foreshadow what would come several years later in Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear. When the drive finally goes fatally wrong, the truck crashes and rolls down an embankment, apples going everywhere. Even Slob and Pete rush down, but it's too late as the truck bursts into flames. "From that angle, apples rolling down the hill into the camera. I said to myself, 'That's a good shot.' I think that's one of the shots I've enjoyed most in films I've made," Dassin said in 2005. One thing in Thieves' Highway that didn't particularly please Dassin was that Zanuck shot an entirely new ending that he didn't know about because he already was in London prepping Night and the City. When Nick finally gets his physical revenge on Figlia, Zanuck's ending added police coming in to make the point that people "shouldn't take the law into their own hands." However, given what Zanuck did for Dassin overall when the witchhunters came calling, he couldn't complain that much. When the shit really started to hit the fan, it didn't sound as if Zanuck was someone who would be as helpful as he was during Dassin's crisis. In 1949, word came down that HUAC was going to call Dassin to testify and Zanuck and other Fox executives had a meeting about "the problem." In the 2004 L.A. County Museum of Art interview, Dassin said that Zanuck told him, "He was going to step on my neck because I was a dirty red."

"I used to say to Darryl, 'Darryl, your ambition
is to be a nice guy, but you can't make it.'" — Jules Dassin

As Dassin went on to tell in that 2004 interview, after Zanuck's "threat," he was surprised to find the producer at his front door — not something you'd expect from someone at Zanuck's level. He informed Dassin that he was flying to London the next day and handed him the novel Night and the City by Gerald Kersh. Dassin told Zanuck he couldn't rush off on a moment's notice like that — he had family problems. Zanuck disagreed with the director, saying that he also had family needs and this could end up being the last film he ever made. Zanuck advised him to get shooting on the film as fast as he could and to do the most expensive scenes first so the studio wouldn't have an excuse to shut the production down. Dassin followed Zanuck's advice and was in London readying the shoot when he learned that he'd been called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Zanuck informed the panel that he was abroad and got his scheduled hearing postponed. When Dassin was about two weeks away from the start of shooting on the film, Zanuck called. He asked Dassin if he agreed that he owed him one. Yes, he did owe him, Dassin said in the 2004 interview. Zanuck requested a favor — he wanted Dassin to cast Gene Tierney in a role. Dassin was confused, since there wasn't a role in the movie that she could really play, but Zanuck explained that a love affair had just ended very badly for the actress and she was almost suicidal. When she got in those states, Zanuck said, the only thing that snaps her out of it is work. Quickly, the role of Mary Bristol was written into the script of Night and the City and Tierney joined Richard Widmark and the rest of the talented cast in one of the two best films Dassin ever made. Kersh, the author of the novel the film was based on, did not agree. Dassin never admitted it until an interview in 2005, but Zanuck had encouraged him to everything in such a rush, he never read the book. Many years later, when he did, he could see why Kersh got mad — Night and the City the movie had no resemblance to Night and the City the novel whatsoever.

I haven't read the novel but if the godawful 1992 film with the same title starring Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange hewed closer to its narrative, I'm glad that I haven't. If, on the other hand, the 1992 Night and the City just provides more evidence that nine times out of 10, when you try to remake a classic film, you only end up with the celluloid equivalent of diarrhea, Kersh should be grateful he died in 1968. I actually saw the disaster of a remake before I ever saw the original and once I saw the original, I couldn't believe that they were supposed to have come from the same source material. When ranking Dassin's films, I'm always torn between Night and the City and Rififi as to which I think is the greatest. Preparing for this tribute, I watched the films on consecutive nights. It's such a close call, but for today anyway, I give Rififi the slight edge. However, that doesn't mean I love Night and the City any less. What a script. What a cast. Every detail done to perfection. "Night and the city. The night is tonight, tomorrow night or any night. The city is London." Those are the words that open the film then we see Widmark's Harry Fabian running like hell through a square — and running will be what he's doing for a lot of the movie when he doesn't slow down long enough to try to make his Greco-Roman wrestling scheme work or to make time for Mary or listen to offers from the likes of Francis L. Sullivan's Philip Nosseross, a nightclub owner who resembles a more genial Jabba the Hutt, or his wife Helen (the wonderful Googie Withers, who just passed away in July), who wants her own action and to escape her husband.

When Night and the City opened in 1950, it depended where you lived what music accompanied Fabian's film-opening sprint. Britain, still recovering from the damage of World War II, had laws in place to ensure that it kept a certain amount of the profits of films made there and provide workers jobs as well. As a result, there were two versions of Night and the City, and Dassin wasn't allowed to participate in the editing of either one — one because he wasn't British, the other because when he returned to the United States, he was banned from the 20th Century Fox lot. The British cut runs longer, adding some more character scenes, and contains a moodier score by Benjamin Frankel, who would go on to score John Huston's Night of the Iguana and Ken Annakin's Battle of the Bulge. The American cut, which Dassin says he prefers, has music composed by the great and prolific Franz Waxman, who composed many scores for Hitchcock including Rear Window as well as Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd., and previously wrote the music for Dassin's Reunion in France. Waxman uses a variety of styles throughout Night and the City, parts with a jazz tinge, other moments matching the kinetic nature of various chase sequences. I've not seen the entire British version to know how it works, but I know that Nick De Maggio edited the American cut superbly. He also edited Thieves' Highway and would go on to cut another classic Widmark noir, Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street. Max Greene was responsible for the great cinematography. Some of the greatest movies seem as if they come into existence by accident. When you consider what a rush job Night and the City was, how Dassin didn't even read the book (though presumably the credited screenwriter Jo Eisinger had), how a role for Gene Tierney had to be created out of thin air and shoehorned into the story at the last minute, how a lot of the roles had to be cast with British actors by law and Dassin didn't know any (one of his casting directors turned out to be Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and that Zanuck, who liked to meddle with his directors' pictures, didn't reshoot anything or change the editing when he really could have since Dassin was barred from the editing room because of the blacklist, it's a fucking miracle how brilliantly Night and the City turned out. Some things are just fucking meant to be. Even with the character of the huge old Greco-Roman wrestler Gregorious. Dassin drew a picture of a wrestler he'd seen once and said that's how he envisioned the person they got to play the part. Someone recognized the drawing as Stanislaus Zbyszko, but thought he was dead. Another person knew that Zbyszko actually was not only alive but had a farm in Missouri. They contacted him and he ended up playing the part of Gregorious. At a moment of professional and personal crisis for Jules Dassin, the stars truly aligned when it came to Night and the City.

The ensemble does the best job at selling the movie, foremost Widmark as the smooth yet smarmy Fabian. You can see how some people buy into his dreams just as you easily as others see right through him. As Mary's friend Adam (Hugh Marlowe) so accurately describes him, "Harry's an artist without an art." Tierney does fine given that she's playing a role that really has no reason for being there. Herbert Lom manages to be both frightening and unctuous as a crooked wrestling promoter who still has concerns about his father, Gregorious (Zbyszko) when Fabian manages to bring him into the machinations. Above them all though are Sullivan and Withers as Philip and Helen, the husband and wife who don't quite know how they got together but can't figure out a way to split up. When Helen makes plans to pin her exit on Fabian's scheme, Philip warns, "You don't know what you're getting into." Helen knows deep down, but she doesn't care. "I know what I'm getting out of," she tells him. Night and the City, despite the turmoil going on on the outside, is by far the best film Dassin had made until that point. Some good ones will still come, but now he'll face the toughest time of the blacklist.

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Friday, December 09, 2011

 

Centennial Tributes: Broderick Crawford


By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
In 1949, Columbia Pictures brought Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel All the King’s Men to the big screen in an adaptation that deviated a great deal from the source material (as most films are wont to do) but nevertheless made for a compelling movie about idealism and political corruption in telling the tragic story of the rise and fall of a populist demagogue named Willie Stark. In casting the film, director Robert Rossen first offered the role of Stark to John Wayne who — not surprisingly — turned down the part, thinking the script unpatriotic. Rossen then decided upon Broderick Crawford, a burly character actor whose prolific if undistinguished cinematic career was comprised of playing tough guys and Runyonesque hoods in vehicles such as Tight Shoes (1941) and Butch Minds the Baby (1942). The role of Willie Stark fit Crawford like a glove, however; he won an Oscar for his performance in King’s Men beating out the Duke, who also had been nominated that same year for his starring turn in Sands of Iwo Jima.

Crawford’s triumph for All the King’s Men has often acted as a litmus test where Academy Awards are concerned; many film historians and critics argue that the Best Actor Oscar should not have gone to someone whose movie career, with the exception of King’s Men and Born Yesterday (1950), was marked by admittedly one-note performances in B-pictures, alternately playing heroes and villains. Is the purpose of Academy Awards to single out meritorious individual performances, or are they largely recognition for an entire distinguished body of work? I suppose it matters very little in the final analysis, because there are no mulligans when it comes to Oscars: Crawford won his, and in all honesty I think it was most deserved. The actor, who would become one of Hollywood’s most cantankerous character thespians, was born 100 years ago today, and now is good as time as any to see if his stage, screen and television legacy holds up.

Broderick Crawford was born in Philadelphia in 1911 to a second generation of performers, vaudevillians Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick. The latter name is familiar to many classic film buffs that’ve seen the comedienne in such Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicles as Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936). Before her movie career, she and her husband were a successful comedy duo in vaudeville, with an act that occasionally featured their young son in small roles. Brod graduated from the Dean Academy in Franklin, Mass., (where he was a well-regarded athlete) and was accepted at Harvard but his further academic pursuits came to a halt when he dropped out after three months to find work in New York. He became a jack-of-all-trades (longshoreman, seaman, etc.) though eventually the show business bug consumed him and he landed a number of radio jobs in the 1930s; reportedly appearing from time to time on Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel — the 1932-33 half-hour comedy series starring Groucho and Chico Marx.

With performing in his blood, Broderick made his Broadway debut in 1934 as a football player in She Loves Me Not (he had made his stage debut in the same production in 1932 in London, where his talents attracted the notice of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who in turn introduced him to Noel Coward) and later appeared in such productions as Coward’s Point Verlaine, Sweet Mystery of Life and Of Mice and Men. It was for the latter play that Crawford earned exceptional critical acclaim, though when it came time for Hollywood to do its adaptation Brod was overlooked for the part in favor of Lon Chaney, Jr. By that point in his show business career, Crawford had set stage work aside in favor of the movies; his film debut was in the Samuel Goldwyn-produced Woman Chases Man (1937; with Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea) and he continued to appear in such B-flicks as Submarine D-1, Undercover Doctor and Eternally Yours. On occasion, Broderick would land roles in “A” productions such as Beau Geste, The Real Glory, Seven Sinners and Slightly Honorable but his rough-hewn manner and less-than-matinee-idol looks (in later years he remarked that his cinematic countenance resembled that of “a retired pugilist”) usually relegated him to character parts in scores of shoot-‘em-up Westerns like The Texas Rangers Ride Again and When the Daltons Rode. He did, however, prove versatile and adept at humorous turns in films like The Black Cat (Brod’s actually one of the “heroes” in this horror comedy, teamed with cinematic toothache Hugh Herbert) and Larceny, Inc.; he supported Edward G. Robinson in this last one as the lunkheaded Jug Martin, who assists Eddie and Ed Brophy in their attempts to rob a bank by purchasing and operating a luggage store next to it. (A decade later, Crawford paid homage to Robinson by re-creating a role that Eddie G. had played in the 1938 crime comedy A Slight Case of Murder but unfortunately, Stop, You’re Killing Me can’t quite measure up to the original.)

Crawford’s film career was interrupted briefly by World War II; he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and while in Europe saw action in the Battle of the Bulge. He later was assigned to the Armed Forces Radio Network in 1944, where as Sergeant Crawford he fell back on his previous radio experience to serve as an announcer for Glenn Miller’s band. Back in Hollywood by 1946, Brod returned to the B-picture grind with occasional bright spots such as Black Angel, The Time of Your Life (as a melancholy policeman) and Night unto Night. His gig in All the King’s Men transformed him into a box-office draw and made him the most unlikely leading man since Wallace Beery; signing a contract with Columbia that same year, he also nabbed the plum role of tyrannical junk tycoon Harry Brock opposite Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday — a part that actor Paul Douglas had played to great acclaim on stage.

Crawford’s brilliant comic turn in Yesterday had an unfortunate side effect in that it earned him enmity from critics who have argued that, for the most part, he played variations of Harry Brock in practically every film in its wake. The success of both King’s Men and Yesterday nevertheless earned him considerable cache to appear in “A” productions such as Night People (1954) and Not as a Stranger (1955) —the latter film once described by one critic as “the worst film with the best cast.” His turn as Capt. “Waco” Grimes in Between Heaven and Hell (1956) features some of his best work, and his approach to the character may remind you of Col. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That same year, he surprised critics again by scoring as a petty thief seeking redemption in Federico Fellini’s Il Bidone.

Truth be told, Crawford worked his magic best as a screen heavy; he appeared as a formidable villain against Clark Gable in 1952’s Lone Star, and particularly shone in film noirs such as Big House, U.S.A. and New York Confidential (both 1955). One of his best showcases in that style was in 1952’s Scandal Sheet, a film directed by Phil Karlson (based on a novel by Sam Fuller) in which he plays a tyrannical tabloid editor who assigns his star reporter (John Derek, who had played son Tom Stark in King’s Men) to investigate a sensationalistic murder knowing full well that he is the guilty party. Scandal Sheet bears a strong resemblance to the earlier The Big Clock (1948) — in which powerful magazine magnate Charles Laughton tries to frame editor Ray Milland for a murder Charlie committed — but while Crawford was certainly not in Laughton’s league watching him sweat bullets as the noose tightens around his neck during Derek and girlfriend Donna Reed’s relentless investigation is certainly worth the price of admission.

Crawford also headlined another underrated noir entitled The Mob (1951); as undercover cop Johnny Damico, Crawford sets out to find a hit man while exposing corruption in the waterfront rackets — Mob has some memorably snappy dialogue in addition to its first-rate supporting cast (Richard Kiley, Ernest Borgnine, Neville Brand) though I will admit Brod seems more like the guy who’d be running the waterfront in the first place. Other standout noirs with Crawford include Down Three Dark Streets (1954), in which he plays a stalwart FBI agent, and Human Desire (also 1954), a Fritz Lang-directed remake of Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine that cast him as the cuckolded husband in a torrid love affair between wife Gloria Grahame and co-worker Glenn Ford. (Crawford’s husband in Desire is a truly pitiful soul who earns the audience’s sympathy because Gloria, not to put too fine a point on it, is a real bitch.)

Ford and Crawford squared off again two years later in an underrated Western that’s been a longtime favorite of mine, The Fastest Gun Alive. Brod is the loathsome Vinnie Harold, a gun-toting bully compelled to challenge any individual who’s acquired a reputation as a fast gun. When he arrives in a town where shopkeeper Ford’s prowess with a firearm is being kept under wraps by the populace (they’re afraid that Glenn’s rep will draw every gunslinger in for miles around…and they were pretty much right), he and his men (John Dehner, Noah Beery, Jr.) threaten to set the burg ablaze unless they identify Ford. A great psychological oater, Fastest Gun stands out among the many Westerns Crawford appeared in at that time, which included such films as Last of the Comanches and The Last Posse (both 1953).

Toward the latter part of the 1950s, Crawford’s film appearances became sporadic (The Decks Ran Red, Goliath and the Dragon) due to his conquering another medium: television. Syndicated TV king Frederic Ziv tabbed Brod to play the lead role in a half-hour crime drama series entitled Highway Patrol, in which the actor played Dan Matthews, head of a state police patrol (the state was never specified). Ziv, who was responsible for such boob tube hits as Sea Hunt and Bat Masterson, scored a bona fide success in Patrol, which ran for four seasons (a total of 156 episodes) and made Crawford a TV icon, brandishing a trademark fedora and barking mile-a-minute orders into a microphone (“10-4, 10-4”). Crawford by this point in his career had finely honed the belligerence (and drinking habits) that made many producers reluctant to work with the volatile star, but Ziv got along well with Brod, though he later admitted: “To be honest, Broderick could be a handful.” Ziv wanted Crawford to do a fifth season of Patrol but Broderick took a pass, later explaining “We ran out of crimes.” However, he did go to work again for the company in 1961, starring as insurance investigator (whose specialty was precious gems) John King in King of Diamonds. The series lasted but a single season, as did a later show entitled The Interns (1970-71).

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Crawford found himself in demand as a frequent guest star in most of the hit dramatic TV shows from that era: The Virginian, Rawhide, Burke’s Law, The Name of the Game, etc. His movie work largely was relegated to foreign films though he turned up in the likes of Convicts 4, A House is Not a Home, The Oscar and Terror in the Wax Museum. His last notable film role was the titular protagonist of Larry Cohen’s 1977 cult curiosity The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover — a part he also had played in a sketch hosting Saturday Night Live in 1977, in which he also appeared in a send-up of Highway Patrol. Crawford also landed a tongue-in-cheek cameo on the first season of the TV series CHiPs, a watered-down version of the show that made him a household name (and he said as much, remarking to star Larry Wilcox: “You know, I was making those Highway Patrol shows long before you guys were born”).

Broderick Crawford rarely had any pretensions about being a great actor (he was famous for remarking “Don’t applaud, just send me the check”) — he took what work he wanted, and wasn’t what one would consider a leading man type in the style of a Cary Grant or James Stewart. Aside from his starring turns in All the King’s Men and Born Yesterday, his greatest legacy in show business was an unassuming little half-hour television cop show that is still around for us to enjoy today (Highway Patrol is frequently rerun on affiliates that carry ThisTV programming, and the first season of the series has been released on manufactured-on-demand DVD). But his performances were never boring, and when given the right material (King’s Men, Yesterday, The Mob, Scandal Sheet), he could be a most mesmerizing presence…and if you don’t believe me, check out Turner Classic Movies for a three-film festival beginning at 8 p.m. EST this evening in honor of his 100th birthday.

I’m serious, you need to sit down and watch.

“Do what I’m tellin’ ya!!!”

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Saturday, November 12, 2011

 

“It’s all perfectly clear to me — that adorable young thing
is an unholy terror on wheels…”



By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Beginning with Leathernecking, her feature film debut in 1930, actress Irene Dunne staked out a lengthy career in motion pictures starting out as the epitome of the noble, long-suffering heroine in “four-hanky” films such as Back Street, Magnificent Obsession and The Age of Innocence. She also brought with her extensive experience in musical theater. Her initial foray into movies resulted, as it were, from her successful turn as Magnolia Hawks in the 1929 touring production of Show Boat (a role she later reprised in a 1936 film adaptation, considered by many to be the most faithful) — she was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout during her Chicago stop with the show — and her fine voice was marvelously utilized in vehicles such as Stingaree, Sweet Adeline and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical Roberta in which Dunne croons the now-standard “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

In 1936, Dunne was ready to tackle her first feature film comedy, something that made her apprehensive at the time and, even though she proved in movies such as The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife (both directed by Leo McCarey), that she was a first-rate screen comedienne, she acquiesced later that “comedy is more difficult than drama,” adding: “An actress who can do comedy can do drama, but the vice versa isn’t necessarily true. Big emotional scenes are much easier to play than comedy. An onion can bring tears to your eyes, but what vegetable can make you laugh?” At the risk of being facetious and suggesting “zucchini” (it just sounds funny), none of this really matters in the long run…because 75 years ago on this date, Dunne and co-star Melvyn Douglas brought forth tears of laughter in a screwball comedy classic that seamlessly blends satire with romance: Theodora Goes Wild.

Lynnfield, Conn., brags that it’s “The Biggest Little Town in Connecticut” — but if you’ve ever spent time living in such a burg, you know that “everyone knows when the neighbors cough,” to quote a lyric from a song by the female country music duo Sweethearts of the Rodeo. Jed Waterbury, editor of The Lynnfield Bugle, has arranged for his paper to serialize the risqué (and best-selling) novel The Sinner, penned by mysterious authoress Caroline Adams and the local contingent of bluenoses — collectively known as the Lynnfield Literary Circle — is predictably up in arms at this development. Spinster sisters Mary (Elisabeth Risdon) and Elsie Lynn (Margaret McWade) marshal forces with town gossip Rebecca Perry (Spring Byington) to force Waterbury into ceasing publication; Perry even going so far as sending the book’s publisher, Arthur Stevenson (Thurston Hall), a scathing telegram (“Fewer and stronger words, I always say”). Rebecca also asks Mary and Elsie’s niece, Theodora Lynn (Dunne), to take some cookies to Rebecca’s daughter Adelaide (Rosalind Keith) when Theo announces her intention to pay her Uncle John (Robert Greig) a visit in New York City.

The trip to the Big Apple proves revelatory in two ways: first, Adelaide is staying with “wicked” Uncle John because her husband left her (her mother does not know she’s married) and she’s great with child. Second, the novelist known as “Caroline Adams” is none other than Theodora herself! She’s quite upset that Stevenson sold the serialized rights of her latest book to Waterbury and, worried that the town will discover the truth, she declares that her writing days are over. Stevenson tries to assuage her fears about her secret getting out, but the two are interrupted by the arrival of his wife Ethel (Nana Bryant) and Michael Grant (Douglas), the illustrator of “Caroline’s” novel. Ethel and Michael pressure Arthur into convincing Theo to spend the evening with them and after dinner, drinks (Theo orders straight whiskey when Michael challenges her strait-laced demeanor) and dancing, both Ethel and Theo end up spiffed. Stevenson must escort his wife home so he reluctantly entrusts Michael with the responsibility of putting Theo back on the train to Lynnfield. Instead, Theo is brought back to Michael’s Park Avenue apartment and when he tries to put the moves on her, she flees in terror.

Back home in the comfort food-environs of Lynnfield, Theo gets a surprise when Michael turns up unannounced and lands a position as her aunts’ unconventional gardener (threatening to blackmail her with Mary and Elsie by his presence). Michael’s involvement with and courtship of Theodora starts the town’s tongues wagging but after spending a good deal of time with him, Theo realizes she’s in love. She screws up the courage to reveal this to the Literary Circle (who are naturally scandalized by this news) but when she confesses her feelings to her would-be boyfriend he is far from enthused. As a matter of fact, he takes the first bus out of that biggest little town the next morning. Theodora chases after him, heading back to New York, where she learns that in his efforts to get her to shake off the stifling conformity that is small-town Lynnfield he has forgotten to “heal thyself.” Michael, though equally enamored of our heroine, is trapped in a loveless marriage with wife Agnes (Leona Maricle) — they are estranged but keep up the pretense in order to avoid creating a scandal that could torpedo his father’s political career (Pop, played by Henry Kolker, is New York’s lieutenant governor).

Theodora believes that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander: revealing that she is the Caroline Adams, she plays the role of the scandalized novelist and hints to an anxious press corps that she is more than just a houseguest in Michael’s apartment. Not only is Lynnfield’s populace traumatized by this turn of events, but Michael’s family is equally stunned, particularly when it is intimated that Theo will be named co-respondent in divorce proceedings involving Arthur and Ethel Stevenson. Things comes to a boil when Theodora crashes the Governor’s Ball and Michael, upset by her presence, orders her to go back home and stop making a fool of herself. (Embracing Michael one last time, the press gets a juicy photo of Theodora in the bargain, prompting wife Agnes to announce she wants a divorce.) Returning to Lynnfield, Theo is surprised to see that instead of being ostracized she is now welcomed by all as a celebrity — until she steps off the train cradling a newborn infant in her arms. The baby, of course, belongs to Adelaide Perry (who sneaks off the train with her husband in tow) but it puts a hilarious scare into the now-divorced Michael until Theo reveals the truth.

To my shame, I don’t always tout the charms of Irene Dunne as loudly as I do other film actresses and Theodora Goes Wild is a glaring example of my slackitude. Dunne is positively captivating as the small-town caterpillar who transforms into a gorgeous butterfly; every moment she’s onscreen it’s impossible to take your eyes off of her. Among the highlights of Theodora is her delightful drunk scene (rhumbaing with co-star Douglas) that’s a precursor to a similar sequence in the later Truth, and the moment she finally “goes wild,” sporting an eye-popping wardrobe (the outfit she has on when she sits at the piano in Douglas’ apartment is breathtaking) and giving the news hounds an earful about her life story while previewing her salacious “new book.” My favorite moment from Dunne is an admittedly quiet one when she’s visiting Uncle John and young mother-to-be Adelaide, apologizing for the state of the baked goods she brought from Adelaide’s mother: “Oh…by the way, your mother made some cookies for me…but I met a hungry man and he ate them all up.”

I’m on the record at my home base of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear as admitting that I’m not particularly a fan of Melvyn Douglas’ work (though it’s mostly his early films; he had a callowness that he later outgrew, becoming a first-rate character thesp in films such as Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Hud and The Candidate); in Theodora, however, he’s not too intolerable, apart from several scenes when he annoys everyone within earshot (both on and off-screen) with his incessant whistling. He gets in a funny line now and then; a real beaut is when he’s settling in to his new quarters in the Lynn family’s tool shed and, annoyed by the presence of Mary and Elsie, puns “Say, this place is crawling with aunts.” My reservations about Douglas aside, I think he acquits himself nicely in this one — his romance with Dunne is endearingly sweet and very believable, an attribute not always present in a majority of screwball comedies.

The believability of the romance against the background of spirited farce is the work of scenarist Sidney Buchman, who adapted Mary McCarthy’s original story and showcased an affinity for small-town life in such films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Talk of the Town. (The notion of individuals trying to escape being smothered by conformity also is touched upon in Buchman’s screenplay for 1938’s Holiday.) Author Hal Erickson has argued that Theodora doesn’t quite play as funny as it once did “only because most of its satirical targets (notably the shocked spinster aunts) have ceased to exist.” I take exception to that: I grew up in a town very similar to the one in the film and recognized all of its archetypes, particularly the uptight prude (a great performance from December Bride's Spring Byington) who’s got a few skeletons in a closet of her own. (It’s like how the “preacher’s daughter” always turned out to be the wildest in your group of high school friends.) Complimenting Buchman’s screenplay is the polished direction of Polish émigré Richard Boleslawski, who had a brief Hollywood career helming notable films such as Rasputin and the Empress, Les Miserables and Three Godfathers until his life was cut short at the age of 48 in 1937. Theodora Goes Wild remains one of his best pictures; he has a splendid way of punctuating the comedy with cinematic devices such as intercutting close-ups of Lynnfield’s old biddies discussing the scandal that is Theodora with shots of cats licking their chops. The laugh-out-loud scene in Theodora for me is when the town’s resident bluenoses are discussing Theodora’s return to Lynnfield, decreeing that the townsfolk won’t “step foot in that depot” and then we fade in to a SRO crowd at the station, complete with signs (“Caroline Adams — We Welcome You” and “Welcome Theodora”) and a brass band.

The performances of Dunne and Douglas are complimented by a splendid array of character actors at a time in films when supporting players were the “glue” of any successful picture. Thomas Mitchell is super as the sarcastic editor Waterbury (I love when he tells off Byington in the depot scene that he’s responsible for the brass band: “Now you get a lawyer and try to stop me from spending my own money any way I like!”), Thurston Hall is solid as Dunne’s slightly shady publisher, and Robert Greig as the “black sheep” of the respectable Lynn family, Uncle John. I've already mentioned that Byington is a delight (her fainting reaction to the news that she’s a grandma is hilarious) but I really enjoyed the performances of veterans Elizabeth Risdon and Margaret McWade as Aunts Mary and Elsie. Prim, proper and ever-so-cautious about besmirching the family name, they eventually begin to thaw (and you can literally see this happening as they ride through Lynnfield with Theodora and the baby, with Elsie snapping "You'd think they'd never seen a baby before" and Mary returning “So help me Hannah…this town gets more narrow-minded everyday…”) because while nobody invites a “scandal,” families close ranks and stick together when the chips are down.

With the success of Theodora Goes Wild, Irene Dunne embarked on a new career in motion picture comedy (though she did continue in dramatic roles as well), and her utterly beguiling performance in Theodora nabbed her an Academy Award nomination as best actress, her second following her heralded turn in 1931’s Cimarron. Dunne is considered by many to be the best actress never to win an Oscar. She’d follow her Theodora accolades with three additional nominations for The Awful Truth (1937 — the film for which she should have won), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama (1948). Theodora also picked up a best film editing nomination for Otto Meyer, who also was shut out from ever receiving an Academy trophy, receiving a second nomination for Talk of the Town. Meyer also worked on three additional pictures with Dunne — Penny Serenade, Together Again and Over 21.) Biographer Wes D. Gehring, author of Irene Dunne: First Lady of Hollywood, once remarked in a USA Today article: “I would be especially happy to join her in the screwball world of Theodora Goes Wild…and never come back…” That’s as fine a diamond anniversary tribute to a superlative example of the screwball comedy genre as could ever be, and I welcome readers to follow suit.

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Sunday, October 09, 2011

 

A Lady and a Gentleman


By Eddie Selover
It’s ironic that the most elegant and sophisticated couple in film history met in the back seat of a car. Myrna Loy and William Powell were making Manhattan Melodrama, a movie as formulaic and dull as it sounds, and the director W.S. Van Dyke was in a hurry as usual. "My instructions were to run out of a building, through a crowd, and into a strange car," Loy wrote 50 years later. "When Woody called, 'Action,' I opened the car door, jumped in, and landed smack on William Powell's lap. He looked up nonchalantly. 'Miss Loy, I presume?' I said 'Mr. Powell?' And that's how I met the man who would be my partner in 14 films."

The key word in that anecdote is "nonchalantly." That was the style Powell and Loy developed in the mid-'30s—cool, dry, and airy despite whatever melodrama, Manhattan or otherwise, happened to be unfolding around them. In fact, the more dramatic the situation (for example, a wife catching her husband with another woman, or someone waving a gun around) the more distant and amused they became. Trapped, like all the other actors of their generation, in clichéd plots and by-the-numbers scenes, they looked at each other skeptically — he with lips pursed, watching to see how she would react; she with narrowed, suspicious eyes as if he had arranged it all in a transparent, failed attempt to please her.

Their impact was so strong that their detached superiority itself became a cliché — dozens of actors from Dean Martin to Maggie Smith to Bill Murray have used it over the years to signal cynical disbelief at the movies they’ve been stuck in. What Powell and Loy had that nobody ever quite duplicated was a deep mutual understanding and respect. They were peerlessly adult and worldly (they were never called by their first names, like Fred and Ginger — that "Miss Loy" and "Mr. Powell" is very telling). But they weren't stuffy about it. They may have treated the plots and characters around them as a private joke, but they locked in on each other with tremendous focus. After their first film, Van Dyke paired them in The Thin Man, which made them a world-famous team and bonded them forever in the public’s mind. But it's their fifth film, Libeled Lady, which premiered 75 years ago today, in which their romantic chemistry is at its most potent and moving. It's probably their best movie.

One measure of how wonderful Powell and Loy are in Libeled Lady is that they turn the other actors into run-of-the-mill supporting players. When your co-stars are Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy, that's saying something. Harlow and Tracy play the contrasting couple — the floozy and the tough mug who go toe-to-toe with the two urbane sophisticates. They’re good, but in this case they're not in Powell and Loy’s class. The movie was made a couple of years after the enforcement of the Production Code, when MGM was trying to fashion a new persona for Harlow. She had become famous playing trollops, poured into skin tight satin gowns, her unworldly platinum hair and hard, angled face shining in the key light. Once the Code was in force, they began to tone her down, and here she has evolved into a fairly standard movie tart: loud and ungrammatical, but with a slightly dinged heart of gold. Harlow gets top billing in Libeled Lady, and she’s capable and likable, but she’s also a bit tiresome as she stomps her feet and launches into yet another tirade.

I don’t know what to say about Tracy. Katharine Hepburn once compared him to a potato (she meant it as a compliment), and that’s pretty apt. He’s solid and meaty. He’s there. But he’s not very exciting. There’s a case to be made for Tracy as the most overrated actor of his generation; he’s still considered some sort of giant, but it’s more residual reputation than actual achievement. He never could play comedy, or more accurately, he wasn’t personally funny aside from whatever business or line they gave him. In comedies, he tended to act like an overgrown puppy, putting his head down, looking up with his big brown eyes, shuffling and stumbling, raising his voice to bark at the other actors. In Libeled Lady, he plays a standard '30s part—the ruthless, manipulative, anything-for-a-story newspaper editor. Cary Grant made the same character charismatic and hilarious in His Girl Friday, but the best Tracy can manage is to be a good sport.

Here’s the plot: Loy is the richest girl in the world, who is suing Tracy’s paper for libel over a false story about a romantic entanglement. The suit would ruin the paper, so Tracy hires Powell to seduce Loy and put her in a compromising position; in order to make Loy look like a homewrecker, he convinces his own fiancée Harlow to marry Powell… platonically. It’s a tightly woven farce plot, none of it very original even at the time, but it serves to keep the four stars at cross-purposes so they can bicker and double cross each other. It’s like the ancestor of a sitcom. The director was Jack Conway, an anonymous MGM hack whose chief virtue was that he knew how to keep things moving briskly. Libeled Lady is almost a perfect catalog of '30s movie comedy situations and devices — people bite each other, elegant gowns are kicked away impatiently, insults are hurled and then topped. As written by Maureen Watkins, the author of Chicago, some of the wisecracks are pretty good — for example when Harlow complains that someone talked to her like a house detective. “How do you know what a house detective sounds like?” Tracy demands and she fires back: “Doncha think I read?”

What makes Libeled Lady memorable is the delicacy and heart of Powell and Loy’s playing. At first, of course, they’re adversaries. Hired to make love to her, he begins by trying to ingratiate himself with her on a trip on an ocean liner: isolating himself with her, subtly arranging for physical contact, telling her what beautiful eyes she has. As he comes up with one sleazy strategy after another, she regards him with infinite and increasingly open shades of distaste. Her father (Walter Connolly, the perennial sputtering father of screwball comedy) is an avid fisherman, so Powell works that one, pretending to be a fishing expert. When Connolly excitedly tells Loy that Powell is an angler, she replies that yes, he seems like quite an angler. This leads to an extended scene in which the three go trout fishing in a raging river, and Powell takes a series of pratfalls and spills while trying to appear like a world-class fisherman — he has a very wet instruction book in his creel basket, though he can't hang onto it for long. One of the great comic sequences of the decade, it led to Howard Hawks making an entire movie around the same premise called Man’s Favorite Sport? (unfortunately, Rock Hudson was no William Powell).

Eventually, Powell’s pursuit of Loy leads to them falling genuinely in love, and at that point something wonderful happens. With all the mechanical farce conventions ticking away around them, you expect him to be exposed, and he is. You’re ready for the inevitable confrontation, hurt feelings, and breakup that lasts up through the final explanation and forgiveness, but it never comes. She instantly understands what’s happened, and there are no recriminations…even though he’s still technically married to Harlow. Powell and Loy are too mature, too wise, too grown up for tedious spats. Audiences loved The Thin Man movies, and still do, for their portrait of a witty, companionable marriage full of teasing and wisecracks. Libeled Lady shows the courtship phase of that same relationship, and it’s as satisfying as you always hoped it would be.

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Sunday, October 02, 2011

 

Boardwalk Empire No. 14: Ourselves Alone

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.


By Edward Copeland
"Things seem to be changing faster than I realized," a character says at one point in tonight's episode of Boardwalk Empire. While this may be true in terms of the storyline, as for the series itself, it isn't and that's the main reason I find myself enjoying the show as much as I do. First and foremost — thank whatever higher power came up with the concept of screeners. My M.S. causes fatigue issues that prevent me from writing as fast as I used to, so when I pick a show to recap, it's because I have a real interest and without being able to see that week's show early, I can't do it, especially with a series such as Boardwalk Empire, where they rarely have a scene that isn't vital or might come into play later. (Bless HBO for all its support over the years, especially on Treme this year. I wanted badly to do recaps of Breaking Bad, but I'm not good enough for AMC though they still feel free to flood my email with press releases.) That's why my recaps grow so long — I don't want to risk leaving out something that might come prove pivotal down the road. For instance, tonight's episode brings back a character playing a crucial role who hasn't been mentioned since the very first episode. Recaps have become very prevalent on the Web, but it's almost a misnomer: I seem to be one of the few who actually tell what happened in the episode, sprinkling commentary throughout. The many characters and plots can prove complicated — even for me at times — so I try to help any confused fans there might be out there.

That being said, while I admit that I think Breaking Bad is the best series on television, Boardwalk Empire also is great and I love both shows for completely different reasons. It's not as if I can only pick one as in those silly debates where you can only love Chaplin or Keaton, Astaire or Kelly — as if they all can't be appreciated for their separate gifts. The same goes with great TV dramas. Breaking Bad is well acted, directed, written and plotted, as is Boardwalk Empire, but the shows appeal to me on completely different levels. Recently, Breaking Bad has been the narrative equivalent of the crystal meth Walter White manufactures (or did) and I love every minute. Boardwalk Empire also is well acted, written, directed and plotted (with some historical context tossed in), but I feel as if I'm luxuriating as I watch it. If Breaking Bad has been meth the past few weeks, Boardwalk Empire might be something like Dilaudid, easing your pain and letting you relax. Making a non-drug analogy, Breaking Bad is smart and visceral while Boardwalk Empire is cerebral and intuitive, rewarding those who pay close attention. It's similar to The Wire, not in terms of quality but in its novelistic approach where its fictional characters constantly cross paths with real people. It's as if E.L. Doctorow or Gore Vidal decided to create a TV series instead of writing another historical novel. As a writer, I love words and obviously Terence Winter, even if he's not the credited writer of the episode, sends out the memo, because scenes go on without becoming boring and with language that's just a pleasure to hear. For instance, on tonight's episode, the first 10 minutes essentially cover a mere three scenes. On a DVD commentary, David Duchovny says what a pleasure it is when actors get longer scenes that let them dig into the material and the character. You can tell by how much better actors are when they get those moments. Before I begin my recap of tonight's episode "Ourselves Alone," I want to go back to something pertaining to last week's episode "21." In the great sequence where Nucky addresses both black and white church congregations, telling each one what they want to hear, some questioned that word would get around that Nucky was speaking out of both sides of his mouth and that surely a newspaper would report it. I agreed at first but thinking more about it, it makes sense. It was 1921 after all and the races practically lived separate existences. There still was a high illiteracy rate because of the terrible schools blacks had to attend and African-American communities often had newspapers of their own for those blacks who could read. Besides, no white reporter would have dared stepped into the black church with what was going on and vice versa. I'm sure Nucky didn't pick his audiences by accident and there wasn't enough interracial mingling for word to get around unless Eli shared it with the Commodore or someone else.

"Ourselves Alone" was written by Howard Korder and directed by David Petrarca and adds some interesting layers to the plots going on right now, even if it isn't as kinetically exciting as the premiere, but it does have great moments once again for Michael Kenneth Williams as Chalky, good stuff for Kelly Macdonald as Margaret and the welcome return of the phenomenal Michael Stuhlbarg as Arnold Rothstein. Honestly, someone should do a spinoff movie on Rothstein that stars Stuhlbarg. The episode opens on Valentine's Day, so we have an exact date in 1921 where we are, as Margaret rises for the day and comes down the stairs to find her maids Katy (Heather Lind) and Pauline (Amy Warren) congregating with the children's nanny Lillian (Jacqueline Pennewill) at the first floor landing looking over a newspaper. She asks if the children are up and Katy tells her they are breakfasting. Margaret starts to walk away, but stops and asks the servants if that is this morning's paper. Pauline whispers that she's going to find out anyway and hands her the paper. It bears the headline, "TREASURER THOMPSON ARRESTED." Pauline asks if they will be having dinner and Margaret asks why they wouldn't. Margaret tells Katy to make sure that the hallway rug is taken out and beaten before Mr. McGarrigle's arrival that night. She then goes into another room to use the phone and calls Eddie. Kessler tells her the paper is a lie because they left out that Mr. Thompson is innocent, but he can't talk because it's mayhem at the Ritz suite as he watches an investigator slice open the bottom of the couch in Nucky's office. Katy sticks her head in and Margaret asks her what kind of coat she has.

Last week, Nucky had Eli arrest Chalky for his own protection. Today, the two men find themselves sharing a jail cell. "You understand you are in a precarious situation," Nucky tells Chalky as the two men light up smokes. Thompson explains he had Chalky jailed to keep him safe, but it can't be coincidental that they suddenly came after him as well. "The Klan could have come for me any time," Chalky says. "Not as long as I was there to protect you," Nucky insists. Chalky asks why they thought Nucky suddenly wouldn't be there. Nucky asks where Chalky was on election night. "In the basement of the A.M.E. Church, handing out dollar bills to every able-bodied negro who came in," he replies. Thompson inquires about the whereabouts of his ward bosses that night, but White has no idea — he wasn't in the wards. Nucky quizzes him about the bosses, but Chalky has little to say about any of them except Neary. "Neary's been a sonuvabitch ever since I ran numbers" in Georgia, Chalky tells Nucky that Neary would come around for collections and enjoyed using his nightstick while taking them. Nucky continues to go down the list of his alderman, but Chalky interrupts. "You askin' the wrong question. Not one of them pikers got it in 'em to put up a squeal unless someone put 'em to it." The jailer arrives to tell Nucky that his lawyer Isaac Ginsburg has put up his bail. As Nucky gets up to leave, he advises Chalky to be patient. "I get my own Jew lawyer," White says.

"I won't pretend you're inclined to be warm to me. I won't insult you like that because before anything else, I have great respect for you, your wisdom, your achievements," a sharply dressed Jimmy says to Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) who sits at the desk in his New York office, Lucky Luciano (Vincent Piazza) standing at his side. Rothstein takes a sip of his milk and smiles. "You're better spoken than I expected," he tells Jimmy. Darmody mentions that's because they have never really met, but Rothstein brings up that he and Luciano are acquainted. "We have someone in common," Jimmy admits, referring to Gillian. Rothstein turns to Luciano. "You hear, Charlie — discretion. Charlie volunteered to absent himself from this meeting. He felt his presence might be disruptive, but I counseled what?" he asks Luciano. "Never let the past get in the way of the future," Luciano responds. Jimmy tells Rothstein that they are all learning to which Rothstein inquires what he can learn from Darmody. "That things are changing in Atlantic City. If you are in the market for quality liquor coming in off the beaches at a reasonable price and in good supply, I can get it for you," Jimmy offers. It seems with each episode not only does the character of Jimmy Darmody mature but so does the acting of Michael Pitt as well. Then again, it never hurts to be playing opposite Stuhlbarg's Rothstein who seems as if he were born for the role. He's so damn great that the initial amazement that he played Larry Gopnik in the Coens' A Serious Man vanished long ago. I don't know Stuhlbarg's exact age, but where has he been hiding? (I know — the theater.) How he missed out an Oscar nomination for A Serious Man boggles my mind when it managed a best picture nomination. He deserved Emmy consideration here as well, but with such a large cast and a flawed award, that's more understandable, though still infuriating. Rothstein asks Jimmy if he personally can do that and Jimmy assures that he and his associates can and explains how he's expanding his business "and you are precisely the type of discerning customer I'm looking for." Rothstein asks about Nucky, who Jimmy insists is "like a father to me." After a momentary pause, Rothstein poses a question that Jimmy seems not to expect. "Who are you, Mr. Darmody?…You show up well dressed with a silk cravat and a bold proposal. A year ago, you were a brigand in the woods. Who are you?" Rothstein repeats the question. "I'm a businessman, a veteran. I just got married," he replies to which Rothstein congratulates him. "I have a son. He's almost four." Rothstein interjects smiling, "Cart before the horse." Jimmy asks Rothstein if he has any children. "No, but I'm told they often say unexpected and amusing things," he replies. He tells Jimmy that he appreciates him coming to him with this offer. "I applaud your own destiny and I give you my word your offer remains in this room," Rothstein says before telling him that Luciano will show him out. Before Jimmy has left the office, Rothstein speaks again to him. "Mr. Darmody, don't you find it curious that neither of us has mentioned that Nucky Thompson spent last night in jail?" Jimmy appears to be surprised by the news. "He did?" "Election fraud, apparently," Rothstein informs him. "Things seem to be changing faster than I realized." Mystified by Rothstein's lack of any response to his proposal, Luciano tells Jimmy once they are outside the office, "He doesn't like to say no." Jimmy says it appears he doesn't like to say yes either. "Not unless he has to," Lucky responds. Luciano asks if Jimmy plays poker, inviting him to a game downtown, but Jimmy suspects a setup. Luciano assures him it's Meyer Lansky's game. "That doesn't make me a simp," Jimmy tells Lucky who shows a bit of his hot-headed nature, declaring, "Go fry a fuckin' egg, Farmer John" and begins to walk off. Jimmy stops him and asks him to just give him the straight dope. Lucky hands Jimmy a card. "Meyer thinks we should meet."

Eddie assists Nucky with his shave as Ginsburg (Peter Van Wagner) gives his client a rundown of what he knows about his legal situation thus far. The lawyer tells Thompson that it all stems from Gov. Edwards seeking to make a splash. As for Solomon Bishop, the state attorney: "The man is going to try very hard to put you in prison," Ginsburg tells him. "Fine. Tell me he's poor but honest," Nucky says. "He's married to a lesser Whitney and set his salary at one dollar anum, so he's certainly not poor. As for honest…you want to ask about the indictment. I do not have a copy of it yet. However, I gleaned from the court clerk that your ship is leaking," Ginsburg informs his client. Thompson wants to know who. Ginsburg can't provide names, but says there are two confidential witnesses prepared to testify to direct knowledge of voter intimidation, fraud, theft of ballot boxes and bribery. Ginsburg warns Nucky that reporters are swarming outside and asks if he wants a reporter by his side. "That's what guilty men do," Nucky responds. Ginsburg tells him he'll get to work. Eddie informs Nucky that Margaret has read the newspaper. Nucky asks about the children, but Eddie says she did not say. "The state police have banished me from the suite," Eddie tells his boss. "They were touching your possessions in ways I considered offensive." Nucky wipes his face, his shave completed, and asks Eddie, "Don't I have a treasurer's office somewhere?"

Nearly a century separates Walter and Skyler White of Albuquerque, N.M., on Breaking Bad and the couple Enoch "Nucky" Thompson and Margaret Schroeder of Atlantic City, N.J., and while both women certainly began their introduction (to us as television viewers at least) as moral, law-abiding citizens, both Skyler and Margaret have become embroiled in the seedier if not downright criminal side of the life of their respective mates. While Skyler still likes to get on her high horse and thinks she's smarter than she is, think how much better off Walt would be if his partner in crime were Margaret who has taken to the role as if it's her second nature. After hearing Eddie's brief description of the state investigators tearing up Nucky's suite at the Ritz, as soon as she was off the phone, she asked her maid Katy for her coat. Now, we know why. Solomon Bishop sits comfortably in Nucky's office chair reading documents when another investigator, Talmer (Alex Cranmer), tells him there's a woman outside. He goes to the office door to find Margaret who has dressed herself down and given the look of some poor downtrodden women who might be with child. When Bishop shows up at the opening to the office, she meekly says, "Mr. Thompson?" The deputy state's attorney says that no, he is not Mr. Thompson. She asks when he will return. "Do you read the papers, ma'am?" Bishop asks. "On Sundays, when the neighbors are done with it," she replies. Talmer suggests that she borrow their paper today, adding that Nucky's been arrested. Margaret starts putting on the waterworks, telling the men that she'd been told that Mr. Thompson might be able to help with her "wee ones." She begins to double over and Bishop suggests that Talmer get her a glass of water. "I think she may be with child," Talmer says as he tries to hold her up. She tells him what she really needs is to borrow their facilities and Talmer helps her in and toward the bathroom.

The Commodore has invited more officials to join his conspiracy against Nucky — all of his ward bosses: Boyd (Edward McGinty), Damian Flemming, Jim Neary and George O'Neill (William Hill) — and all four showed, discussing things with Eli in the Commodore's grand living room as they await the Commodore's arrival, that seven-plus foot grizzly overseeing the proceedings. "This is Nucky's town, Eli," Damian says as they question who takes over if Thompson goes away. Eli borrows the Commodore's line, telling them that Nucky was weaned on the Commodore's teat. "That's what I'm saying," Flemming continues. "It's a young man's game." At that moment, the Commodore enters, having dyed his white hair black. "How old are you, Damian?" he asks. Off to the side on a couch, Boyd whispers to O'Neill, "Is that shoe polish?" referring to whatever the Commodore used to color his hair. "Thirty-eight," Flemming answers the Commodore. The Commodore tells Flemming to pick up the large animal tusk that rests on a sofa table. Damian struggles with the bulky piece of bone but when the Commodore challenges him to lift it above his head, he can't do it. The Commodore takes it and raises the tusk over his head as if it were a broom. "You're half my age, son, I'm twice your age," the Commodore gloats. "I trust I made my point. You all showed up which says to me we all feel the same about a certain individual — the arrogance, the selfishness, the neglect." Neary interjects, "Let's me take the fall on Saint Paddy's Day." Eli piles on, "Such is his method, Jim, then a wave of his hand — 'All is forgiven.' Makes me sick — and I say this as a blood relation." Flemming remains skeptical, suggesting that it's just an indictment and Nucky's smart and could beat it. The Commodore smiles and shows the legal cards that he's holding. "Nucky Thompson is going to jail thanks to Jim Neary and —" he pauses, getting stuck on the name of the other man in the room who isn't a ward boss. "Patrick Ryan," the man (Samuel Taylor) says. "Patrick Ryan as eyewitnesses which nails him dead to rights on the election," the Commodore concludes. Again, Boardwalk Empire reaches into its past to reward viewers who pay attention, in this case, going all the way back to the very first episode. Ryan was the man who at that first meeting, celebrating the imminent start of Prohibition, was named the new senior county clerk by Nucky, an appointment that peeved Jimmy because he felt that he should start being more than Nucky's driver, indirectly leading Jimmy to his botched hijacking in the woods with Capone. "Which leaves the booze," Eli says. "How are you gonna handle that?" Hill asks. The Commodore explains that his role as president of the Yacht Club along with a solid guy working for them in the Coast Guard will take care of that. "What we ship comes in. What Nucky ships doesn't," he adds, telling them that his son Jimmy will run the operation. "Now this isn't going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile is," the Commodore says, winding up with the equivalent of a coach's half-time locker room speech. "Ask the man inside of you this: When you come face to face with destiny do you want to be the bear or do you want to be the one holding the shotgun?"

Lenore comes to visit Chalky at the jail saying their daughter Maybelle has a request: Her beau wants to call at the house. She asks when would be a good time. Chalky tells her a few days — he's awaiting advice of counsel. "Is he competent?" Lenore asks. Chalky tells her that he's a Hebrew gentleman. She says Lester was quite insistent about visiting him, but Chalky and Lenore agree that the teen shouldn't see his father behind bars. He sent his father something to read anyway: Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. We learn Chalky's real first name as the jailer tells his wife it's time for her to go and she says, "Albert, you have a family that loves you and is waiting." After Lenore has left, a prisoner (Erik LaRay Harvey) in the cell across from Chalky's starts whistling and asks, "Who is that fine piece of lambtail?" Chalky inquires if the man likes her looks to which he replies he surely does. "I'll tell my wife then the next time I see her," Chalky declares. "Meant no offense," the man says. "Got a pair of eyeballs. Can't help but use them. Name is Dunn Purnsley from Baltimore." Purnsley asks what he is reading and for the first time, we learn Chalky can't read. "Tom Sawyer." Purnsley says that he and the other men in his cell could use some entertainment, why doesn't he read to them? One of Dunn's cellmates tell Purnsley to leave him alone explaining that he is Chalky White, as if that will mean something to someone from Baltimore. "I had no idea," Purnsley replies sarcastically. "You tellin' me…walking around here like some old zip coon, fine high yellow bitch at his side — he called Chalky White 'cause that be the most bunk for a nigger horseshit I ever heard. What you say to that, Brother Tambo?" Chalky continues to pretend to read. "I say you heard my name." Purnsley shoots back, "I know you heard mine." The jailer returns with a white prisoner and tells Chalky that he must move to the other cell since they can't mix races so White joins Purnsley and the four other men.

Nucky and Eddie walk into his treasurer's office, shocking the secretary (Trisha McCormick) who Nucky mistakenly greets as Enid. She corrects him that her name is Eunice. He tells her to call the aldermen, the sheriff and the mayor and tell them to come at once. He then goes into his office and closes the door. After a moment, he opens it and adds, "I also need a florist."

As Margaret helps Katy with proper placing of the silverware, Pauline brings her a bouquet of roses for Valentine's Day, though the card isn't signed. Any joy at the gift doesn't last as Emily's shrieks interrupt the activities as her brother Teddy chases her with a hammer. Margaret grabs it and sends the boy to his room. Lillian comes in panting, saying they were building a birdhouse. A persistent knocking occurs at the back door. When Margaret answers it — hammer still in hand — a man with a thick Irish brogue (Charlie Cox) raises his hands in surrender. "I'm not a burglar, though I do confess to climbing out a window or two." He mistakes Margaret for a servant and asks for Mrs. Thompson. When told that there isn't one, he asks for the lady of the house and Margaret tells him that he's speaking to her. He introduces himself as Owen Sleater and says he works for Mr. McGarrigle. "You are quite early," Margaret declares. After Sleater puts his foot in his mouth a few more ways, Margaret asks what exactly he wants. "With your kind permission, I'm to ensure your house is secure for Mr. McGarrigle this evening," Owen replies. "We're not given to threatening our guests," Margaret tells him. "You do have a hammer." Margaret explains her son thinks it's a toy. Sleater asks where he is. "In his room," Margaret answers then, realizing that Sleater is making a serious inquiry. "He's seven." Sleater rules Teddy out as a threat and begins to survey the premises.

One cellmate's wheezing bothers a fellow prisoner, but the inmate doesn't get what he's saying at first. The wheezing inmate says he can't help it — he's catching a cold and asks where he's supposed to go. "He's got you there," Purnsley declares. "We're all in this together." Dunn describes the little place in his head where he goes that no one can get to and credits it for doing "three years in ankle chains like I was takin' a nap. Chalky White knows what I'm talkin' bout, don't he?" Chalky remains silent, keeping his book open as Purnsley continues. "I bet he up there right now, all soft and pillowy. Honeybee wife fetchin' plates of greens, roast beef, reading Tom Sawyer. Ain't that so, Chalky White?" Purnsley sits on the lower bunk next to Chalky who simply says, "Well, it could be." Purnsley deepens his voice to a threatening whisper, "Maybe I climb up there with you, jazz that woman up while you're lickin' the plate." Chalky calmly closes the novel. "You do what you want," Chalky says before turning and looking Dunn straight in the eye. "Just gonna be your right hand anyway." Purnsley pauses briefly before laughing and slapping Chalky on the arm. "That's how you play it, gentleman," Dunn proclaims as he stands. "Oh yeah, we gonna get along just fine."

Looking nervous, angry and hurt, Nucky looks out the window of the treasurer's office. He turns around as Mayor Bader rushes in asking, "Am I late?" Nucky isn't in good spirits, sternly inquiring, "Where the hell have you been?" Bader says he came as soon as he got the message. "Ninety minutes?" Bader tells him there are reporters everywhere and investigators snooping around. He's not proud to admit it, but Bader confesses that he's been hiding in his garage. Seeing only he and Nucky, he asks Thompson where everyone is. "I need you to tell me if you were approached about turning against me," Nucky states. The question stuns Bader who tells Nucky that he knows he's with him because of their business interests. "We're building things," Bader says. "Nobody came to you — not Neary, any of the bosses, not the Commodore?" Nucky asks. Nucky's nervousness infects Bader. "How bad is this?" Nucky admits he doesn't know yet while Bader wonders if they'll come after him. Nucky tries to calm Bader's worry about that. "I'm gonna beat this, Ed, and when I do I'm gonna remember who showed up here today and who didn't. Depend on that," Nucky tells him. As Nucky shows Bader out, Eunice tells him that Eddie called and that it's safe to return to the Ritz office.

After the meeting at the Commodore's, the four ward bosses hook up in an out-of-the-way spot to discuss the plot against Nucky. Neary remains the gung ho ringleader and Flemming the cautious naysayer with Boyd and O'Neill seeming to have no opinion of their own other than to end up on the winning side. "I don't see why things gotta change. Everybody's getting by," Flemming says. "Is that all you want from life, Damian?" Neary asks. "What else is there?" Flemming replies. "A pair of balls," Neary counters. Boyd questions Neary if there might be something more in it for him, but Neary says he'll get the same as everybody — "Less headaches, more green." O'Neill hasn't seen any problem with Nucky keeping the jack flowing. "Where were you last year?" Neary asks. "Armed robbery, shooting on the Boardwalk — that's not a man in control — and the election." O'Neil reminds him that they won. "Too goddamn close," Neary comments. Flemming doesn't see why a change in leadership means that Nucky has to go to jail. O'Neil wonders about the roads project that all of them have a stake in. Neary claims that will go on under the Commodore. "But it's Nucky's deal," Flemming says. Neary tells Flemming to get it through his skull — they aren't in charge. "The Commodore wants Nucky next to that fuckin' grizzly. That's what's gonna happen," Neary declares. "What's to keep us from winding up with him?" Flemming asks, referring to possible jail time. Neary assures them that the Commodore will put the fix in. Neary looks to each of the men. O'Neill and Boyd reluctantly nod that they are in while Flemming lights his cigarette and stays mum. "Damian, just say, 'Please' and 'Thank you,'" Neary tells him.

Jimmy heads to the Lower East Side where Meyer Lansky (Anatol Yusef) has set up an office for his continuous poker game behind the name of the business Schenkel & Bro. Darners & Weavers. Before he, Jimmy and Luciano begin their discussion, Meyer sends their teen worker Benny (Michael Zegen) out for cheese. The youth makes some odd noises, prompting Jimmy to ask if he's OK. Lansky assures him that he's fine, he just makes noises like that sometimes. Benny's last name happens to be Siegel. In the 1930s, he'll acquire a nickname he hates: Bugsy. Lansky tells Jimmy he runs the house for the poker game round the clock under Rothstein's protection. Luciano says that they have other enterprises as well. Jimmy asks if Rothstein has part of those, but the two remain silent. "You met with A.R.," Lansky says. "He can be a difficult man to read." Luciano chimes in. "That thing of yours this morning — I'd have said yes to that." Jimmy tells Luciano that he wouldn't have asked him though. "I need Rothstein, not the fella who carries his water," Darmody says. This sets Jimmy and Luciano off again, bringing Gillian into the conversation with Luciano saying she was "begging for it" and forcing Lansky to physically separate the men. "Gentlemen — I'm running a business here," Meyer tells them as they finally return to their corners. Lansky takes the seat on the other side of his desk next to Jimmy. "Charlie and I have learned a great deal from Mr. Rothstein as I'm sure you have from Mr. Thompson," Meyer says, "but nobody wants to be in school forever. As I see it, we have a lot in common. If we put aside our differences, things could happen." "Such as?" Jimmy asks. "Trading partners. We buy liquor from you, you buy something from us," Lansky answers. "What would that be?" Jimmy inquires. "We're thinking of getting into heroin," Luciano speaks up. Meyer cocks his head as he tells Jimmy, "When you run the numbers, it starts looking very attractive."

Margaret tries to straighten the rug in the entry hall herself, unhappy with the job Katy did when Owen Sleater wanders by and lends a hand. She asks the Irishman if he's been traveling around the U.S. much. "With Mr. McGarrigle. Filling the coffers. New York, Boston, Philadelphia," he tells her of their journeys seeking support for the cause back home. "Ourselves alone," Margaret says. Sleater informs Margaret that her Gaelic translation is a bit off. "Sinn Féin — we ourselves. That's a bit closer," Sleater remarks. "Either case, that's what we're about — who else would fight for us?" Margaret inquires about what it is he does exactly for McGarrigle. "As you see — clear the path," he replies, adding that he was a livestock inspector prior to the rebellion, then he went to fight in the north. "I make you for the Lonesome West," Owen guesses about Margaret's Irish origins. She tells him she's from Kerry actually. He asks if any relatives remain in Ireland. "No — here apparently," she answers. "Then you won't have to choose sides."

Almost as soon as Nucky gets back to the Ritz, he makes a beeline for his closet but when he removes the false panel, he finds that both the ledger and the moneybag are missing. Eddie calls to him, announcing that Ward Boss Flemming has arrived to see him. Nucky returns to his office. "Nuck, I tried talking to them. I said they were making a mistake. I told them you were too smart to get sandbagged by something like this, They wouldn't listen. All they can see are dollar signs," Flemming tells Nucky. The phone on Nucky's desk begins to ring, but Flemming continues talking and Thompson seems in no rush to answer it. "It's like the Commodore has cast some voodoo spell on them," Damian says as Nucky answers the phone, "Yes." "All alone big brother?" Eli's voice can be heard. "How does it feel sitting at your fancy desk all by yourself?" Nucky speaks as calmly as he can muster. "Eli, please listen closely. If now, right now, you tell me you want to get out of this, I will help you.…I'm prepared to hear your side of it. I will help you — if you tell me right now because in a minute it's going to be too late." Silence. "Are you there?" Nucky asks. "The funny thing," Eli says, "nobody takes power. Nobody has to give it to them. Look around, big brother. What have you got?" Eli hangs up. Nucky tells Eddie and Flemming that he's late for a dinner engagement. Part of what pissed Eli off was when he was removed from the ballot for sheriff after his shooting at the casino. What would Eli think if Nucky told him that it was the Commodore who advised him to remove Eli from the party ticket even though Nucky felt it cold-blooded to do to his brother who was still recovering from a bullet wound? Eli made his phone call to Nucky from the Commodore's, with the Commodore watching. After he hangs up, the Commodore says, "Feels good to twist the knife." Eli smiles weakly. The Commodore tells him that now it's time for him to meet the men who built Atlantic City. He leads Eli into another room where about four bald and white-haired men sit. "Gentlemen, may I present Sheriff Elias Thompson," the Commodore announces. Leander Cephas Whitlock stands and raises his drink and says, "Propinate nobis similibusque," a Latin toast that translates to "Here's to us and those like us — damn few left." For regular viewers of The Sopranos, even with our first close-up of Dominic Chianese and his first spoken lines, albeit they are in Latin, you still can't spot Uncle Junior hidden anywhere within those muttonchops and behind that beard and mustache.

Jimmy has done well at Lansky's poker game, so he asks Benny Siegel to cash him out. He takes note of two men having a heated conversation with Meyer in his office. When they exit, one of the other players invites the pair to join the game as they are always looking for new victims. The taller Italian, Incrocci (Mario Macaluso), asks, "Why's every kike got to be a wise ass?" Benny fires back, "Why does every dago have to be dumb as fuck?" Incrocci threatens to bury Benny in his diaper and he starts making clucking noises again until Lansky comes out and says Benny's name and gets him to stop. Jimmy hands his chips to Benny who gives him a large wad of bills which he slides into his pocket. The other Italian man, Scarpelli (John Cenatiempo), distinguished by his hat and his silence, continues to stay mum. Lansky tries to keep the situation on a strictly business level, thanking them for their full and frank discussion. Incrocci isn't impressed. He's more interested in Lansky respecting the terms and tells Scarpelli they need to get going — "This place smells" — and report back to his uncle. Jimmy asks who they were after the men leave. Lansky explains that they represent Masseria. The name means nothing to Darmody. Benny describes him as a fat ass who thinks he owns the Lower East Side. "Just a simple misunderstanding," Lansky insists. Jimmy slips a tip to Benny and leaves.
*SPECIAL NOTE: Thanks to Mr. Barthelemy Atsin, who was kind enough to help me by telling me which actors played each of the other cellmates in the following scene with Chalky and Dunn Purnsley. In addition to acting, Atsin also is an artist so you might check out his website.


It's fairly clear that Purnsley, so well played by Erik LaRay Harvey, has keyed in on the fact that Chalky can't read so he decides to rub it in his face. Dunn asks Chalky, "What's that scamp Tom up to now?" Chalky points to an illustration in the copy of David Copperfield and says that Tom met this little one and they had a sweet time chatting and then she played the piano. Purnsley then sticks one of his digits into the text on the opposite page and asks Chalky what it says. It's the closest we've seen Chalky come to losing his cool with this man. "It say get your finger out of my face." Dunn places his hands on the top bunk and leans in to Chalky. "Know what I don't like about you? That fuckin' winged suit and that bright-skinned bitch you have with that uppity way you tell the world you better than Dunn Purnsley when all you be is a jigaboo in a jail cell," Purnsley sneers, ripping the book from Chalky and tossing it across the cell, leaving only the page with the drawing in Chalky's grasp. Chalky stays quiet for a moment, then a peaceful look crosses his face along with a smile. "Harold C. Madison, how your daddy keepin'?" Chalky asks. The inmate closest to Chalky with a sling on his arm (Omar Scroggins) stops leaning on the bunks and steps forward. "Tolerable, sir. He thanks you for the doctor bills," Harold says. "Noah Hookway, how are things going down at the Gold Room?" Chalky inquires. The prisoner wearing a wool cap and standing in the corner to Chalky's left moves to the center of the cell. "Supposed to be at work today," Noah (Bartelemy Atsin) tells him. "I'll talk to them," Chalky promises. Purnsley, standing in the cell's exact center, begins to realize what is happening. "Timothy. Cornelius," Chalky addresses the last two inmates who stand against the bars. "Mama grateful for the turkey, sir," Timothy (Truck Hudson) says. The four men have Dunn surrounded. "Alrighty then," Chalky declares. Purnsley isn't intent to wait and starts swinging, but it doesn't take long for the four inmates to overpower him, beating and strangling him unmercifully against the bars until he finally falls as a bloody heap to the floor. Cornelius (Jonathan Baston) retrieves David Copperfield and returns it to Chalky. "Which of you boys knows his letters?" Chalky asks. "I do," Noah replies. Chalky hands him the book and he begins to read as the camera remains glued on Michael Kenneth Williams' face.. "David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Chapter One. I am born. Whether I shall be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be filled by anyone else…" It could be argued that these scenes with Dunn Purnsley added little and didn't forward the overall story, but look how many layers these jail scenes added to our understanding of Chalky White. Boardwalk Empire also knows how to add new shadings and depths to its characters through scenes that otherwise might not be essential to its ongoing plots.

Margaret finds herself playing hostess to John McGarrigle (Ted Rooney) and Ernie Moran alone as Nucky has yet to arrive home. Owen Sleater sits off to the side, not dining at the table but flirting with Katy each time she passes. The sour-looking McGarrigle hasn't eaten much, prompting Margaret to ask, "Is the lamb not to your liking, Mr. McGarrigle?" Solemnly, he replies, "I've no doubt it is properly prepared, but I eschew any flesh that walks on cloven hooves." Margaret apologizes, saying she had not been made aware of his preference. "It's no preference. It's an iron-clad principle," McGarrigle declares. Moran attempts to lighten the mood, saying John is a man with a bit of the devil in him, but McGarrigle misses the humor, insisting he would not tally with the devil at all. "It is a challenge in this town," Moran says and again the joke flies over the Irishman's head. "Mr. Moran refers to Atlantic City's reputation for pleasure," Margaret interjects. "The width of this country seems beset by licentiousness and turpitude," McGarrigle states. At this point, her guest is annoying Margaret. "Another thing not to your liking," she says. "It is none of my concern. My cause is to drive the English invaders out of a land he's occupied for 800 years. I assure you, we will succeed even if we're martyred along the way," the visitor sermonizes. Margaret calls that an extreme position. "Only to those who've forgotten from which they've come," he replies accusingly. "I know where I'm from — and where I am now," Margaret responds. "You're plainspoken — for a woman," McGarrigle says. Before tensions can get much higher, Nucky arrives to break them, apologizing for his tardiness, blaming a busy day. McGarrigle wants to discuss their business immediately, but Nucky tells him he needs to eat something first. "There's certainly plenty of lamb," Margaret grins mischievously.

As Jimmy prepares to exit the Lower East Side, he moves his knife from his boot to the back of his shirt. He must be prescient. As he walks through a park, he's confronted by Incrocci and Scarpelli, who demand his take from the poker game. Jimmy keeps his arms raised as Incrocci keeps a gun trained on him. He tells them he put the cash in his boot. As Scarpelli looks, Jimmy tells him it's in the other one. As Scarpelli switches, Jimmy kicks him hard, pulls the blade out and slits Incrocci's throat before doing the same to Scarpelli, whom he leaves bleeding into a fountain.

After Nucky and his guest have moved to another room to discuss the issues at hand, McGarrigle makes his appeal. "Mr. Thompson, the Irish people are at war against a barbaric form. The English murder us in our sleep. They set fire to our homes. Last month, they put the torch to Cork City and shot the firemen come to fight the blaze. We need guns and the money to buy them. Mr. Moran tells me you are a loyal son of Erin and I call upon that loyalty now," McGarrigle says. Nucky recommends that McGarrigle go to the next meeting of the Ancient Order of the Celts. A disappointed McGarrigle tells Nucky that "cash suits us better." Nucky says, "I say that myself, but today is not the day." Moran speaks up to inform Nucky that there is another matter. McGarrigle speaks of his man and Sleater steps forward to introduce himself. McGarrigle announces that Owen has decided to stay behind in the states. Moran asks Nucky if he might be able to help Sleater find employment. Thompson tells him to stop by the Ritz office tomorrow.

After the guests have left, Margaret sees Nucky slumping in the chair by the fireplace. She starts to leave him be, but he leans around and says they need to talk. Margaret asks if they have a case and Nucky admits that they do. "Who is against you?" she asks. "The ward bosses — all except Flemming. The Commodore is pulling the strings and I think he has Jimmy." Margaret notes that Nucky hasn't mentioned his brother. "Eli — Eli is betraying me," Nucky admits sadly. "I didn't hear a word from you since last night," Margaret says with a bit of anger in her voice. Nucky tells her that he didn't want her to find out. "How could I not?" she ask him. "I just keep people satisfied. That's what I do," Nucky justifies. Margaret tells him that he knows now that that's not possible. Nucky informs her that the investigators turned the suite upside down and some things are missing, including the ledger and about $20,000 in cash. Margaret walks over to a desk and unlocks it and then returns to Nucky, standing before him with the ledger and the moneybag in her hands. Nucky's eyes widen as he sees them in her hands. "You are smarter than your enemies and you will persevere, but you aren't thinking clearly now. You must concentrate and not give over to emotion," she tells him. "Where did you get those?" he asks. "From your closet today," she replies as she hands him the moneybag. She holds the ledger. "This must be burned and future transactions committed to memory, do you agree?" An amazed Nucky nods yes as Margaret pitches the ledger into the fireplace. She tells him he looks exhausted. "I sent you flowers for Valentine's. I never signed the card," Nucky tells her. "I knew who they were from," she says, adding how exhausted Nucky looks. She kisses him on the forehead. "Go get some sleep — in our bed." I told you — how much better off Walter White would be with Margaret at his side?


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# posted by Edward Copeland @ 10:00 PM 3 comments

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