Friday, May 17, 2013
Enough beef for hungry cinephiles
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post originally appeared Sept. 30, 2008. I'm re-posting it as part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May 31 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
Has any filmmaker shown mastery in more genres than Howard Hawks? Sixty years ago today, Hawks released one of his best Westerns (not a motel) in Red River, which also gave John Wayne one of his best roles and Montgomery Clift a notable early screen appearance.
Hawks made other great Westerns (most notably Rio Bravo, which also featured Wayne and Walter Brennan), but Red River, despite its abrupt climax, remains my favorite with its tale of a long cattle drive, surrogate father-son conflict and unmistakable gay subtext. Wayne admittedly was a limited actor, but he always was at his best when he played a character steeped in darkness and obsession such as Thomas Dunson here or Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers. He's helped immeasurably by getting to act opposite the young Clift, the antithesis of acting style when compared to Wayne. Hawks' direction of the film itself truly amazes, especially in the many scenes of the huge numbers of cattle, all done in the days without the easy out of CGI (A scene of the drive even earned a shoutout in Peter Bogdanovich's great 1971 film The Last Picture Show). He also manages to include plenty of his trademark humor, mostly through the ensemble of supporting character actors led by Brennan (whose character loses his false teeth in a poker game) and including Hank Worden (the decrepit waiter in Twin Peaks for those unfamiliar with the name) who gets plenty of throwaway lines such as how he doesn't like when things go good or bad, he just wants them to go in between.
Hawks even manages to toss in what may be an example of the ultimate Hawksian woman with Joanne Dru as Tess Millay, who doesn't let a little thing such as an arrow stop her from nagging a man with questions. Hawks astounds viewers to this day with his versatility among genres: Westerns, screwball comedies, musicals, war films, noirs, sci-fi — pick a genre and Hawks probably took it on and scored. It's a mystery to me why his name isn't brought up more by people other than the most obsessive film buffs. Red River isn't my favorite Hawks, but it's one of his many great ones and continues to entertain after 60 years.
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Labels: 40s, Bogdanovich, Clift, Hawks, John Ford, Movie Tributes, Twin Peaks, W. Brennan, Wayne
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Thursday, April 05, 2012
Chosen — twice
to audition for Elvis. There were so many of us in line that day and I can't believe I got the part." — former actress Dolores Hart
— Mother Prioress Dolores Hart of The Abbey of Regina Laudis, Bethlehem, Conn.
By Edward Copeland
Dolores Hart's acting career spanned a mere six years from 1957 through 1963 on stage, television and, most famously, the silver screen, where she worked opposite such leading men as Anthony Quinn, Montgomery Clift, Robert Wagner and twice with Elvis Presley, where Hart received Presley's first onscreen kiss in 1957's Loving You. In 1963, Hart found a co-star for life with the biggest name she'd worked with so far — Jesus Christ — when Hart abandoned her stardom to devote her life to God as a Benedictine nun in a rural Connecticut abbey. The documentary short about Mother Prioress Dolores Hart's life today, God is the Bigger Elvis, which was among the nominees for the 2011 Oscar nominees for documentary short subject, debuts on HBO tonight at 8 Eastern/Pacific and 7 Central.
Hart's film career consisted of 10 films, admittedly none of which I've seen, but in director Rebecca Cammisa's film, you recognize that Hart, nearly 50 years removed from her former vocation, retains the charisma that captured the attention of those who cast the then-19-year-old Hart in her first film opposite Elvis. Mother Prioress Dolores Hart admits that she prayed that she would win the role — she converted to Catholicism at the age of 10 — but interestingly the documentary doesn't mention that her father, Bert Hicks, was a bit player in movies in the 1940s and that a visit to the set of the Otto Preminger film he appeared in, 1947's Forever Amber, put the idea of acting into young Dolores' head. (Another anecdote the film neglects: Mario Lanza was Hart's uncle by marriage.)
What the documentary does reveal about Hart's parents is that they had her as teens of 17 and 18 and her grandmother thought that the pair had created a situation so tragic, Hart's mother should abort her. That's a fairly startling anecdote, considering it occurred in 1938, that the subjects drops out as soon as it gets mentioned. On the other hand, while this documentary concerns a woman who abandoned stardom for life as a nun, the film doesn't come off as overtly religious (Director Cammisa's mother actually used to be a nun).
Even though God is the Bigger Elvis focuses on Hart and the works at The Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn., it does take time to speak to some other members of the order about what brought them such as novice nun Sister John Mary, who came from the corporate and political world and addictions to drugs and alcohol. She says she still gets stares when she attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in her habit. However, this short belongs to Mother Prioress Dolores Hart, which makes it all the more surprising the many details you can find in a cursory search of the Web that didn't make it into the movie. There seems to have been more than enough material out there for a feature. For example, though the short does talk about Hart's involvement in a performing arts program out of the abbey, the film omits any reference to the fact that the open-air theater at the abbey, The Gary-The Olivia Theater, that was built in 1982 came about largely through the aid of Patricia Neal, who was buried at the abbey when she died in 2010.
Commenting on Neal's death to Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register. I learned that while Hart left acting behind nearly 50 years ago, she didn't completely abandon Hollywood as she maintains an active voting membership in the actors' branch of the Academy. The interview also shares a story that seems awfully pivotal to her decision to become a nun. When the actress went to Rome in the early 1960s to play Clare in Michael Curtiz's Francis of Assisi. The young Hart got the opportunity to have a meeting with Pope John XXIII, where she informed the pontiff about her role as the future saint.
"It was quite startling when I met his Holiness. I wasn’t prepared for it. When I greeted him I told him my name was Dolores Hart. He took my hands in his and said, 'No, you are Clara.' I replied, 'No, no, that’s my name in the film.' He looked at me again and said, 'No, you are Clara.' I wanted to sink to the floor, because I wasn’t there to begin arguing with the Pope. It gave me great pause for a number of hours. Being young, I dismissed it as one of those things that happened, but it stayed very deeply in my mind for a long time."
The only other problem I found with the documentary isn't one of omission but what seems to be a deliberate conflation of chronology. The film makes it appear as if she first visited the abbey toward the end of her career, coming at the suggestion of a friend as the young
Hart faced exhaustion following nine months of appearing on Broadway in the hit comedy The Pleasure of His Company, which opened in 1958. The play co-starred George Peppard and was directed by and starred Cyril Ritchard and included a cast of old pros such as Walter Abel and Charlie Ruggles (who won the Tony for best featured actor in a play). The film also fails to mention that Hart's work in the show earned her a Tony nomination as featured actress in a play (which she lost to Julie Newmar for The Marriage-Go-Round) and won her a Theatre World Award, which goes to the six most promising male and female acting debuts in Broadway and off-Broadway shows in a season (included in Hart's 1958-59 class were Tammy Grimes, Larry Hagman, William Shatner and Rip Torn). While Hart visited the Abbey of Regina Laudis for the first time, she learned that as a Catholic, she shouldn't pursue a movie career because she could be "aroused sexually" and get involved with men. That leads to the saddest part of the film. Hart had become engaged to another good Catholic, an architect named Don Robinson. Even today, she describes it as a "terrifying time" as she found herself torn between her love for Don and the unmistakable call beckoning her life in the abbey. Needless to say, Robinson's heart broke and though he admits to dating some other women eventually (it never indicates that he married) he visits her once a year at the abbey. To watch this man in his 70s pine away for the woman he lost to God almost proves too much to bear.Overall, nitpicking aside, God is the Bigger Elvis provides an interesting profile of a woman who made a decision most people wouldn't make, even if the details deserved more fleshing out and it would have withstood more than its 35-minute running time. The documentary premiere on HBO at 8 tonight Eastern/Pacific and 7 Central. It airs several more times throughout April and will be available on HBO GO after its debut.
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Labels: 10s, Awards, Clift, Curtiz, Documentary, Elvis, HBO, Oscars, Patricia Neal, Preminger, Rip Torn, Shatner, Shorts, Television, Theater
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Friday, December 23, 2011
“I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of my fondest memories of collegiate life was a weekend in 1982 in which the activities department at Marshall University put together a film tribute to actor Humphrey Bogart as part of their weekly showing of classic and cult movies. I can’t recollect the exact scheduling (the MU people would showcase a feature on Friday afternoons/evenings and then have a matinee on Sundays) but I do recall that Key Largo, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca made up the lineup and this little event exposed me to three of Bogie’s major classics for the first time. The last film, which I have forcefully stated many times at my home base of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, is my favorite movie of all time. I still can remember the audience cheering wildly at Claude Rains’ discovery that Bogart, as Rick Blaine, has double-crossed him (“Not so fast, Louie…”) and will be helping Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid out on the next plane to Lisbon.
That weekend wasn’t my introduction to one of my favorite actors, however. Years earlier, through the magic of television, I saw the film that earned Bogie his best actor Oscar, The African Queen (1951), because my mother was a huge fan of the film and it soon became one of my favorites, one of those movies which gets watched to the very end if I should happen to see it playing on, say, Turner Classic Movies. Fortunately for classic movie fans, you don’t have to wait for its TCM scheduling — Queen made its Region 1 DVD debut (it had only been previously available in Region 2 releases) on March 23, 2010 (simultaneously with its Blu-ray debut) in a breathtakingly gorgeous restoration from Paramount Home Video. In fact, it was explained that its long absence from DVD was due to the difficulty in locating the film’s original negative. Queen, based on the 1935 novel by C.S. Forester, made the rounds of motion picture theaters 60 years ago today.
It is September 1914, and Anglican missionaries Samuel (Robert Morley) and Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) spread the gospel to natives in the German Eastern African village of Kungdu when they receive a visit from Charlie Allnut (Bogart), skipper of the African Queen. Allnut is responsible for bringing their mail and supplies, and during his stopover informs the Sayers that since war has broken out between England and Germany, their mail delivery will be affected; he also advises the two of them to abandon their post because of his concern that the German army will recruit Kungdu’s able-bodied young men to fight for their cause. Samuel staunchly refuses, but only seconds after Charlie departs he and Rose are visited by German soldiers, who respond to Samuel’s protests with the business end of a rifle butt as his fellow conscripts start rounding up the natives and setting the village ablaze. With Kungdu in ruins, Samuel soon comes down with fever and dies — Charlie returns to the village in time to help Rose bury her brother and then agrees to spirit her away on his boat.
Despite the vessel being well-stocked with provisions, Charlie and Rose’s escape from their circumstances will not be an easy task; the Ulanga River presents obstacles in the three sets of rapids and a German stronghold in the form of a fort in the town of Shona. Because the ship’s supplies also include blasting materials (gelignite) and oxygen/hydrogen tanks, Rose, filled with both stiff-upper-lip patriotism and bitterness over her brother's death, proposes that the two of them fashion makeshift torpedoes out of the materials and use them to take on the Queen Louisa (or as the Germans refer to it, the Königin Luise), a large gunboat guarding the lake in which the Ulanga empties. Charlie is convinced that what Rose is suggesting will be a suicide mission, but he agrees to the plan only to get cold feet shortly after navigating the first set of rapids. He declares his intentions to have nothing to do with Rose’s plan after a gin-sponsored bender. The next morning, suffering from a hangover, Charlie watches helplessly as Rose pours every last drop of his precious gin into the Ulanga and follows this up with “the silent treatment,” Charlie reconsiders the mission.
German soldiers fire upon Charlie and Rose as they pass the fort at Shona, and though the two of them avoid being hit by gunfire, the men do manage to hit the African Queen’s boiler, disconnecting one of its steam pressure hoses and bringing the vessel to a temporary halt. (Charlie manages to reconnect the hose and they pass by the fort unscathed.) The boat then hits the second set of rapids and survives the ordeal with minimal damage, prompting the duo to engage in a celebratory embrace which leads to a kiss. It is by this time in their adventure that they cannot deny the strong attraction that has developed between them, which leads to an amusing scene in which Rose asks her new boyfriend awkwardly: “Dear, what is your first name?”
The couple finally navigates the final set of rapids, but in doing so sustain damage to the Queen’s shaft and propeller. Rose convinces Charlie that he has the skills to repair the boat and, using what is available on a nearby island, he restores the Queen to working order and they’re off again down the river. However, they soon discover the deception of the Ulanga River; they “lose the channel” and become stranded on a mud bank surrounded by reeds in all directions — with Charlie sidelined with fever (after an experience in which he emerges from the murky water covered with leeches). When all appears lost, Rose offers up a prayer asking that she and Charlie be granted entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven…and in answer to that prayer, rains from a monsoon soon lift the boat out of the mud and into the mouth of the lake — as it turns out, they were less than a hundred yards from their destination.
Charlie and Rose, having spotted the Louisa patrolling the lake, prepare the makeshift torpedoes and go after the German craft come nightfall, but en route they get trapped in a squall and the African Queen capsizes due to the holes made in its sides to accompany the torpedoes. The Louisa’s crew captures Charlie who is crestfallen because he thinks Rose has drowned, so much so that he stoically accepts the captain’s decision to hang him. Surprisingly, Rose has survived the Queen’s sinking and is brought aboard to face questioning where she proudly tells the Louisa’s captain of their plot to scuttle the ship, resulting in her sentence of execution as well. Before the couple's hanging, Charlie asks the Louisa’s captain if he’ll marry him and Rose; that buys enough time for the Louisa to run into the Queen’s wreckage, detonating the torpedoes and sinking the ship. The newly married Allnuts swim to safety toward the Belgian Congo as the film concludes.
Upon its publication in 1935, The African Queen originally was optioned for a film adaptation by several studios including RKO and Warner Bros. — Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester even made a movie (with a similar story, though the source material came from W.
Somerset Maugham) in 1938 entitled Vessel of Wrath (aka The Beachcomber). Over the years, several actors were suggested for the part of Charlie Allnut; John Mills, David Niven and James Mason being the most prominent — Bette Davis was the only actress in serious contention for Rose, but after an abortive attempt to do the movie in 1947 (scuttled because of Davis’ pregnancy) she was passed over two years later in favor of Katharine Hepburn when the production got underway. (Director John Huston, who had already chosen Humphrey Bogart for his Charlie, once stated in an interview that Hepburn was tabbed because Bogart had expressed an interest in working with her.) While it’s possible to see Davis playing the part, the choice of Hepburn (in what would be her first color film) was the right one despite some initial reservations on the part of Huston with Kate’s performance. Thinking she was making the Rose character a little too severe, John suggested that Hepburn imitate the indomitable spirit of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who always remained cheerful despite any adversity. (Hepburn later observed that Huston’s suggestion was the finest bit of directing she’d ever received.)Hepburn’s performance in the film is a marvel because the actress bravely allowed herself to be filmed au natural, which no doubt stunned audiences at the time as they saw the great Kate playing her true middle-age (something that she would go on to do from that point in
her career, particularly in David Lean's wonderful 1955 film Summertime) and yet they witnessed a woman who transforms from a “crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid” into a spunky, sexy woman whose romance with the unlikely Charlie makes her giddy as a schoolgirl (I love the scene where she giggles and laughs uncontrollably at Charlie’s animal noises on the boat). The relationship between the characters is so genuine and feels so right, you literally watch the barriers between the two melt away during the course of their adventure. Pay particularly close attention when Rose helps Charlie pump water out of the boat and she stops momentarily, caught up in her romantic reverie. Charlie has got it bad as well. In assisting Rose with the task,c you can just see how dazed and delighted he is to have found true love. Director John Huston could scarcely ignore the magic between the two characters and decided to buck the tradition of most of his films (which tend to feature what one critic has called “beautiful losers”) by allowing Charlie and Rose’s torpedo scheme to succeed (in Forester’s book the plan doesn’t quite come off) and joining the two in holy matrimony (a plot device also designed to ward off criticism by bluenoses finger-wagging at Charlie and Rose’s cohabitation outside marriage).
Huston and Bogart were not only close friends in real life, they had made onscreen magic working together as far back as the director’s feature film debut, The Maltese Falcon, and as recently as one of Huston’s masterpieces, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. To accommodate the handicap of Bogart’s inability to do a Cockney accent, however, the character of Charlie Allnut became a Canadian, prompting a hefty rewrite of the script. Though the role of Charlie would seem a departure for Bogie, known for his tough-guy antiheroes, there are many shared characteristics between him and other Bogart characters (Allnut shares the same unshaven scruffiness as Sierra Madre’s Fred C. Dobbs, for example), particularly that of the individual who eventually comes around in support of the cause for the greater good. Bogart was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his performance (Hepburn also was tabbed, along with Huston for his direction and screenplay with co-writer James Agee) and despite stiff competition that year from Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Fredric March, the Academy got sentimental and awarded the actor the coveted trophy.
The realistic atmosphere and look of the film stem from the decision by Huston and producer Sam Spiegel (along with brothers John and James Woolf, who financed the movie through their Romulus Films company) to shoot on location in Uganda and the Congo in Africa.
Under normal circumstances, this production would have been daunting but because it was a Technicolor film (which necessitated large, unwieldy cameras), the shoot proved to be an ordeal for all involved. Hepburn later detailed the colorful history of the production in a book, The Making of the African Queen, or: How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, and a fascinating featurette included on the Paramount Home Video DVD, Embracing Chaos: Making the African Queen, also contains enthralling anecdotes about this remarkable motion picture. The cast and crew survived any number of adverse conditions, chiefly among them sickness due to the dysentery resulting from contaminated drinking water. Hepburn, for example, became so ill that a bucket was placed near the pipe organ she plays in the opening church scenes. According to cinematographer Jack Cardiff, the actress was “a real trouper.” The only two individuals on the film who escaped illness, according to legend, were Huston and Bogart, primarily because the men subsisted on the imported Scotch they had brought with them. (Bogie later cracked: “All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead.”)The size of the African Queen also presented problems where the Technicolor cameras were concerned — because there was not enough room for the cameras on the boat (which measured 16 feet long and 5 feet wide), a mock-up of the craft was put together on a larger raft and the production used several such rafts to the point where the river hosted a small flotilla, with the last pontoon housing Hepburn’s “loo” (her contract stipulated that she be provided with private restroom facilities). The waters of the river, considered poisonous due to bacteria, animal excrement, etc., were never utilized in shots or sequences requiring Bogie and Kate’s immersal — they were filmed separately in studio tanks at the Isleworth Studios in London. Despite the challenges presented in the making of the film, what resulted was a certified masterpiece — at a time when “independent” films are the Hollywood darlings of today, The African Queen was a noteworthy example of that particular type of movie (made outside the dictates of the studio system) even though industry wags remained skeptical about its performance at the box office. (The film was a tremendous success, but director Huston never collected on the payday because of his desire to sever his ties with producer Spiegel; cinematographer Cardiff also had the option of taking a percentage of the profits to subsidize a lower salary but he begged off, having had a bad experience with another film he had worked on in that same year, The Magic Box.)
Queen enraptured me as a young movie fan, and continues to do so today — I think it would be the perfect film to introduce to classic movie-adverse audiences because of its skillful blend of adventure, romance and even comedy (There are some hilarious moments in this movie, chiefly the scene where Charlie sets down to tea with the Sayers). The fact that it’s in gorgeous Technicolor also is a plus, particularly since new generations often shrink from movies filmed in monochrome. Writer-director Nicholas Meyer observes in the Embracing Chaos documentary that “Movies are like soufflés — they either rise or they don’t — and people seldom are able to predict or tell you why. The African Queen is an improbably cinematic triumph, made against seemingly insurmountable odds and comprising a bunch of disparate, desperate characters who, saving the movie business, would probably not even be in the same world let alone the same room with each other.” The results of that grand moviemaking adventure captured on film make The African Queen a must-see for audiences of any age.
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Labels: 50s, Bacall, Bette, Bogart, Brando, Clift, Fredric March, Huston, Ingrid Bergman, K. Hepburn, Laughton, Lean, Mason, Movie Tributes, Niven, Rains
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Sunday, September 18, 2011
Relying on the Kindness of Strangers
By Phil
The transition from stage to screen can be a bumpy one. All too often, what worked in the comparatively intimate confines of a Broadway theater feels awkward and stilted when committed to celluloid. Narratives originally devised for limited sets and locations can seem claustrophobic and weirdly constricted. Or there is the temptation of moviemakers to make the play more “cinematic” and subsequently lose what made it so compelling — and worth doing — in the first place.
A Streetcar Named Desire is that rare masterwork to soar on both stage and film. Released theatrically 60 years ago today, that 1951 motion picture preserves the poignancy and brilliance of Tennessee Williams’ acclaimed stage play while accommodating nicely the advantages of the movies. It helped, of course, to have the talents of an extraordinary director and cast.
Set in a steamy New Orleans, Streetcar stars Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois, an aging Southern belle who leaves her Mississippi home to visit her younger sister, Stella (Kim Hunter). Things have not been easy for Blanche, whose airs of antebellum propriety appear at odds with her jitteriness and melancholy. She is a widow, her young husband of years ago, Allan, having committed suicide. More recently, Blanche has lost the family plantation, Belle Reve, as well as her job as a high school English teacher, although she’s fuzzy about the details of why.
Stella, who evidently left Mississippi long ago, tries to accommodate Blanche as best she can, even when the older sister expresses dismay with Stella’s blue-collar lifestyle. More specifically, Blanche disapproves of Stella’s blue-collar husband, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), a brutish lout who doesn’t appreciate it that his snooty sister-in-law has disrupted his card games and drunken rampages.
Tensions simmer, particularly after Stella reveals she is pregnant and Blanche captures the romantic interest of Stanley’s co-worker and poker buddy, Mitch (Karl Malden). Stanley digs deeper into the circumstances surrounding Blanche’s departure from Mississippi. He learns that she essentially was run out of town amid allegations of promiscuity and, most damning, an affair with a 17-year-old male student.
The battle between Blanche and Stanley reaches grotesque and tragic proportions when Stella goes to the hospital to give birth. Stanley rapes his sister-in-law, a trauma that sends her into a world of fantasy. Earlier in the film, Blanche shouts to her tormentor, “I don’t want reality; I want magic!” In a memorable ending, this woman, so wounded and guilt-ridden over Allan’s suicide, is ensconced in both as she is taken to a mental asylum.
Promiscuity, domestic violence, rape, mental illness, a teacher-student affair with shades of pedophilia — this was not necessarily run-of-the-mill movie fare at the dawn of the Eisenhower era — but the Pulitzer Prize-winning play had been a huge hit, and Hollywood was determined to bring it to the big screen. In April 1950, screenwriter Oscar Saul had crafted the first draft of a script for Warner Bros. Concessions were made to satisfy the Production Code. Blanche’s promiscuity was softened. Elia Kazan, who had helmed the Broadway production and was tapped to direct the film, excised all references to Allan’s homosexuality, a key component of the play. The climactic rape scene, however, would stay put. That did little to assuage fears at Warner Bros., that the Catholic Legion of Decency would condemn the movie, in effect ordering Catholic audiences to stay away. The studio ordered about four minutes to be cut, although the footage would be restored years later.
Perhaps the most immediate reaction to A Streetcar Named Desire was the caliber of its acting. That’s not exactly an insightful observation. Vivien Leigh won the Academy Award for best actress, while Hunter and Malden snagged Oscars for supporting performances. Leigh, who had portrayed Blanche in London’s West End production of Streetcar, is particularly remarkable, a fluttery belle whose affectation is belied by her sad, wounded eyes. Malden demonstrates strong comic timing — his initial meeting with Leigh injects the proceedings with welcome humor — and Hunter is fine, if overshadowed, as a woman caught between divided loyalties. The acting is theatrical and over the top, certainly, but it is undeniably mesmerizing.
Streetcar put Marlon Brando on the proverbial map. The role of Stanley already had been turned down by John Garfield, who deemed the part too minor. Although it’s intriguing to ponder what Garfield would have done with it, it’s nearly unfathomable to imagine anyone but Brando, then 27, as Stanley Kowalski. Crude, flippant and smoldering with a sexuality that hasn’t dulled with the passage of time, Brando is a force of nature onscreen. And his embrace of the Stanislavsky method ushered in a decade of acting by the likes of Montgomery Clift, James Dean and others. Kazan, to his credit, resisted whatever temptation there might have been to cram in more locations. While he opens it up a bit, most notably a bowling alley where Blanche meets up with Stella and Stanley, the director chiefly exploits the possibilities of cinema by keeping the lens closer to his remarkable cast. He knew what they were capable of bringing, certainly; Brando, Hunter and Malden had been in the Broadway production. Kazan frames the actors tightly together, amplifying the intensity of performances and overall sense of claustrophobia. Somehow, the heightened melodrama works well. Early on, Blanche briefly recalls Allan’s suicide. We hear the faded strains of courtly music, then a gunshot, as Blanche covers her ears with the painful remembrance. An overblown and dated device? Sure, but unequivocally effective.
Sixty years later, the haunting and harrowing A Streetcar Named Desire still resonates as one of the finest instances of translating a play into a film.
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Labels: 50s, Brando, Clift, James Dean, Kazan, Malden, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Tennessee Williams, Theater, V. Leigh
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Monday, August 15, 2011
An American Masterpiece
“A Place in the Sun was done right before I met George. It hadn’t come out yet, when I came to Paramount, but it had been finished. I remember seeing that film and being devastated by it. It was different in many ways than any film I had seen before coming out of Hollywood — including the style of other films by George Stevens. The use of close-ups in that film, the use of that liquid dissolve on top of dissolve in the love scenes between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor is the quintessential height of romantic filmmaking. And the scenes with Elizabeth Taylor are done with these extraordinary close-ups. The love scenes — I don’t think there are better kiss scenes in the history of film. It’s hard to do a kissing scene. It’s hard to do a love scene. First of all, kisses — especially in those days in Hollywood — when you could show nothing else, were supposed to indicate every kind of orgasmic pleasure, every kind of romantic fulfillment — and if lovers start to kiss too intensely on the screen, it can become embarrassing for the audience. What George did was that the camera came in and did a lot of the work. The camera came so close, dealing with two of the most beautiful faces in the world. I think the camera treasured those faces, and made them almost become one.” — director Alan J. Pakula
By John Cochrane
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the release of George Stevens’ 1951 film A Place in the Sun, a tragic romance that is one of the best motion pictures ever to come out of the Hollywood studio system. An updated abridgement of Theodore Dreiser’s epic novel An American Tragedy (1925) and its stage adaptation by Patrick Kearney, A Place in the Sun stars Montgomery Clift as George Eastman — a drifting, but earnest war veteran who seeks employment at his rich uncle’s clothing factory. George dreams of leaving his poor, staunchly religious upbringing behind and escaping into the privileged world of his relatives. Instead, he is ensnared in an ill-fated love triangle, and eventually accused of drowning of Alice Tripp — a plain co-worker that he once secretly dated and impregnated — so that he can be with Angela Vickers, a young and beautiful socialite with whom he has fallen deeply in love.
Based on the real life trial and execution of Chester Gillette in 1906, An American Tragedy is considered a classic of American fiction — its plot seemingly straight out of the murder ballads of American folk music. But its sprawling story already had been filmed by Josef von Sternberg in 1931, and Paramount was not eager to make the picture again. Using his already sizable talent and industry experience, producer/director George Stevens changed the characters names, recast the story after World War II, and cut the first third of the book — which depicts more of the protagonist’s youth and family life and his involvement as a passenger in a fatal car accident. Stevens also shifted the tone away from a more sympathetic tone for Alice and toward the blossoming relationship between George and Angela — capitalizing on the good looks and strong on-screen rapport of Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, in her first adult role. This change in audience identification becomes pivotal in the scene on the lake between George and Alice, where it becomes clear that although George has lured his ex-girlfriend to her demise, he does not have the heart to follow through with it.
Working with cinematographer William C. Mellor, Stevens avoids flashy photography, instead employing understated master shots — creating the feeling of an impartial observer who is watching fate play itself out. Only when George and Angela’s love affair takes off toward the middle of the film, do we really start to see
intimate close-ups — including tight over-the-shoulder shots, which draw the audience into their doomed courtship. Stevens and his editor William Hornbeck also are very effective in their use of montages, dissolves and wipes to condense the story’s plot to its simple essence. Throughout the movie, we see images superimposed on top of one another, indicating what or who a character is thinking about, or what is going on simultaneously in the story. This creates a number of unforgettable images — including a repeated motif showing George as a trapped outsider, and a distant shot of Angela in her room after George has been put on trial for murder — his newspaper picture burning up in a fireplace in the foreground. Believing that preparation and editing are the key ingredients in creating an effective motion picture, Stevens shot a lot of footage to cover himself in post-production. The result paid off in one of the best looking, effortlessly paced films ever made in Hollywood. Beyond the technical aspects, much of the success of A Place in the Sun comes from its cast. Montgomery Clift plays George Eastman with the perfect amount of dread and vulnerability — damned by forces that are beyond his control, and in some cases by his own poor decisions that have come back to haunt him. In his book Who The Hell’s In It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors, director, film historian and critic Peter Bogdanovich calls Clift, “the purest, least mannered of the method actors; perhaps the most sensitive, certainly the most poetic.” In addition to impossibly good looks, Montgomery Clift’s eyes are among the most tragic and unforgettable in the history of cinema. George truly sees himself as a victim of circumstance, but you can’t help but identify or feel sorry for his character. During the closing scenes in court and jail, as he comes to terms with his guilty conscience and accepts his fate, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else but Montgomery Clift in the part.
As the glamorous and energetic Angela Vickers, two-time Academy Award-winner Elizabeth Taylor — already considered one of the most beautiful women in the world at 17 — moves beyond the family films of her childhood to match Clift’s intensity and intuitive acting. Together, they create heart-rending scenes of initial hope and happiness, and then despair. Lines that might sound corny or false coming from others such as “It always seems like we spend the best part of our time saying goodbye” and “Love me for as long as I live, then forget me” ring true. You can feel the passion radiating from the screen. In an industry where genuine romantic chemistry is sought often and extremely hard to come by, they had it.
The third part of the triangle, Shelley Winters began her career as a blonde bombshell. She fought to be cast in the film against type — even going as far to attend a meeting with Stevens in drab disguise in order to get a screen test. She plays Alice as clingy, insecure and increasingly desperate — but not unreasonable or unsympathetic. Winters was so believable in the part that she would go onto play more vulnerable, doomed women who are manipulated by the men they love in Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955) and Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962), eventually winning two supporting actress Oscars — including one for George Stevens’ The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Rounding out the cast is a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr as the aggressive prosecutor Mr. Marlowe — in a righteously determined supporting role that would foreshadow his future career.
Despite the 12-year-age difference, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor would remain great friends for life until Clift’s tragically early death in 1966. They would work together in two more pictures — once again as star-crossed lovers in Raintree County (1956) — a Gone With the Wind (1939) knock-off during which Taylor helped save a badly injured Clift’s life in a real-life car accident, and as a doctor and troubled patient in Suddenly Last Summer (1959) — a psychodrama based on the Tennessee Williams play. But neither film would approach the beauty of A Place in the Sun — which won six well-deserved Oscars at the Academy Awards for 1951, for directing, black & white cinematography, film editing, music score of a dramatic or comedy picture, black & white costume design, and writing (screenplay). Its only losses were actor (Clift) to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, actress (Winters) to Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire, and picture to Vincente Minnelli’s musical An American in Paris.
George Stevens (1904-1975) is a figure whose name is not mentioned in film circles nowadays as often as it should be — probably because like other great directors such as Sidney Lumet and Louis Malle, he made terrific films in a number of different styles and genres, rather than developing an immediately identifiable brand — such as a John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock. Cutting his teeth as a cinematographer and gag writer for many of the Laurel & Hardy shorts, Stevens would go on to film such enduring pictures as the adventure movie Gunga
Din (1939), staring Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., the classic Western Shane (1953), and Swing Time (1936) — considered by many of be the best of the Astaire and Rogers musicals. After volunteering and serving as a major in World War II, where he filmed vital, historic footage at Normandy and Dachau, his films show an increased depth and seriousness about the human condition. Nominated five times for best director, he won a second directing Oscar for Giant (1956), an epic soap opera with buried anti-racism themes which turned out to be James Dean's third and final film. It plays in many ways like a forerunner of such television shows as Dallas and Dynasty. In 1966, Stevens sued NBC Television and Paramount Pictures in an effort to prevent showing A Place in the Sun on television with commercials inserted — a battle that he would eventually lose, but that showed his commitment to the art of cinema — a gesture that was not lost on the other Hollywood filmmakers who had held him in high regard for years. Driving his family home from the Academy Awards — his best director Oscar for A Place in the Sun sitting between them — Stevens smiled at his over-excited son, George Jr., saying “We’ll have a better idea of what kind of picture this is, in about 25 years.” But the verdict on this timeless and distinctly American classic has never been in question. Tweet
Labels: 50s, Astaire, Bogart, Bogdanovich, Cary, Clift, G. Stevens, Ginger Rogers, Hitchcock, James Dean, John Ford, Kubrick, Laughton, Liz, Movie Tributes, Shelley Winters, Tennessee Williams, V. Leigh, von Sternberg
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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)
Elizabeth Taylor epitomized practically all aspects of show business: from glamour queen to tabloid magnet, from acting joke to respected thespian, from child star to senior stateswoman. Along the way she managed to win two Oscars, one that even she thought was more out of sympathy for a health scare and given for a lesser performance and one that was for the greatest work she ever did on the big screen opposite Richard Burton, the only husband from her eight marriages that she wed twice. Somehow, she accomplished all this, which also included battles with weight and forming one of the first major AIDS charities that to date has raised more than $350 million, with a remarkable amount of grace. She provided one of the last links between the classic Hollywood of the studio system to today's show business. Taylor had so many health scares over her lifetime that I had a tendency never to prepare ahead of time in case I had to write that she was gone because she always bounced back. Alas, this time was for real and Elizabeth Taylor died today at 79 of congestive heart failure.
Taylor was born Feb. 27, 1932, in Hampstead, London, England, and to American parents from St. Louis and lived there until she was 7, when the family returned to the U.S. as Hitler became a threat to the European continent. Instead of returning to St. Louis, they settled in Los Angeles. When I was in college many years ago, I had the chance to interview Samuel Marx, who served many roles in the film industry but most importantly was a producer on 1943's Lassie Comes Home and always was credited (or took the credit, which ever the case may have been) of having discovered the young Elizabeth and launched her film career. However, Taylor did appear in a 1942 film before Lassie Come Home titled There's One Born Every Minute, so who's to say where the truth ends and the myth begins. She did team with Lassie again in 1946's Courage of Lassie, though Lassie may have been the same, Elizabeth played a different character. In her youthful days on the big screen, Taylor's other most notable films were 1944's National Velvet, 1947's Life With Father opposite William Powell and as Amy in 1949's Little Women.
As the decade turned to the 1950s, Taylor took her first walk down the aisle, both in real life and on the big screen. In May 1950, she wed hotel heir Conrad Hilton Jr. The following month, Spencer Tracy played her screen father and gave her away in Father of the Bride, which spawned a sequel, Father's Little Dividend, the following year (They even had more imaginative names for sequels back then), though by the time the sequel was released her marriage to Hilton already was over. 1951 brought her first serious adult role and the chance to work with one of the many close friends she would have in real life who were troubled souls. The film was George Stevens' A Place in the Sun, his adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's best seller from
early in the 20th century, An American Tragedy, that starred Montgomery Clift. Taylor and Clift were close friends through what remained of that actor's short but troubled life. Their friendship actually began in 1949 when the studio made her act as his beard and be his date to the premiere of The Heiress. Taylor's on-screen star and off-screen notoriety really took off during the rest of the 1950s. Among other notable films she appeared in were Ivanhoe, Rhapsody, Elephant Walk, Beau Brummell and The Last Time I Saw Paris. The biggest of
them all was probably 1956's Giant, with another close friend, Rock Hudson, whose death decades later from AIDS sparked Taylor into forming that charity, The American Foundation for AIDS Research. The last three years of the decade saw Taylor earn her first three Oscar nominations for Raintree County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly, Last Summer. She would earn five total Oscar nominations in her career and since the next one came in 1960, that means she received four consecutive nominations, something few performers achieve. Off screen, brought a lot of trips down the aisle. In 1952, she married Michael Wilding, which lasted until 1957. Within days of the end of that marriage, she wed producer Michael Todd, but that marriage ended when he died in a plane crash a little more than a year later. That led to her biggest scandal when she was viewed as a homewrecker. Todd and Taylor were seen as best friends of the married couple Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. When Todd died, Fisher flew to comfort Taylor and eventually left Reynolds for her, marrying Taylor a little more than a year later. Shew.
That fourth consecutive Oscar nomination was the charm, though a conveniently timed health crisis and an emergency tracheotomy didn't hurt and Taylor won the 1960 Oscar for best actress for Butterfield 8, an embarrassing performance in an even worse movie that Taylor even admitted she didn't deserve. The movie, which trashed a John O'Hara novel, was just a disaster on so many levels. Coming out at the height of the scandal over Taylor "stealing" Fisher for Reynolds, she didn't want to make the movie in the first place but was
forced to because of a contract requirement. When a movie's most famous line is "Mama, face it: I was the slut of all time" at a time when Taylor was being routinely referred to as one in real life, didn't sit well with the actress who said of the movie, "I still say it stinks." By the time Butterfield 8 had been released and the Oscar contest was getting under way, Taylor already found herself deep in the mammoth production of Cleopatra. During filming, she suffered a life-threatening case of pneumonia and had to undergo an emergency tracheotomy, causing sympathy to turn toward her again and winning her that Oscar. Fellow nominee that year Shirley MacLaine (up for The Apartment) complained jokingly, "I lost to a tracheotomy!" Taylor herself said "Any of my three previous nominations were more deserving. I knew it was a sympathy award, but I was still proud to get it." Cleopatra, not just because of her health, tied her up so that it was the next film of hers to be released, but it didn't come out until 1963. Two other notable things came out of Cleopatra. In accepting the role, Taylor became the first actress to receive $1 million for a single film. She also met Richard Burton and her marriage to Eddie Fisher was on its way to its ending. Within days of her divorce from Fisher being finalized in March 1964, she would wed Burton for the first time.The same year that Cleopatra finally made it to theaters, Taylor also had another film she was able to make during post-production. She was part of the all-star cast stranded at a fogged-in London airport in The V.I.P.s. It was her second film co-starring Burton, who still wasn't her husband at this point. By the time they co-starred
again in 1965's The Sandpiper, they were married. Burton and Taylor weren't just partners in love and life, but art as well and they made it four films in a row in 1966 when both gave their best screen performances in Mike Nichols' directing debut, Ernest Lehman's adaptation of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virgnia Woolf? It won Taylor a second Oscar (a deserved one) as the glamour gal not only dressed down as Martha but displayed acting chops she'd never shown before. Burton also was nominated, but alas did not win. The only other two actors in the movie, George Segal and Sandy Dennis, were nominated as well and Dennis did win. It also won Oscars for art direction, black-and-white costume design and Haskell Wexler's exquisite black-and-white cinematography. In all, the film was nominated for 13 Oscars and as far as I'm concerned is not only Taylor's greatest performance but her best film as well.Unfortunately, Virginia Woolf really marked the end of notable films from Taylor. The next year, she and Burton did a screen version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, which I've never seen, but did not go over well. That year, they also co-starred in Doctor Faustus, which Burton co-directed. As if 1967 weren't busy enough for the couple, they also teamed for The Comedians. That year, she actually appeared in a film without Burton, John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye. In total, not counting documentaries and specials and a cameo here or there, Taylor and Burton co-starred in 11 feature films and television movies. Their marriage came to an end on June 26, 1974, the first one anyway. They tried it again Oct. 10, 1975, but the second try only lasted until Aug. 1, 1976. Later in 1976, she married Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
Being a Sondheim fan, I've always been warned to stay away from the 1977 film adaptation of A Little Night Music that Taylor starred in so I've trusted those who have seen it. Taylor had a very funny cameo in the underrated 1979 dark comedy Winter Kills starring Jeff Bridges and based on the Richard Condon novel. In 1980, she was part of an all-star cast in the Agatha Christie adaptation The Mirror Crack'd with Angela Lansbury playing Miss Marple, 35 years after playing Taylor's older sister in National Velvet and before Lansbury created TV's Jessica Fletcher.
As the 1980s got rolling, Taylor tried different things. She made her first Broadway appearance in a revival of The Little Foxes in May 1981 and earned a Tony nomination. She revealed herself as a soap opera fan, especially General Hospital, which had taken the genre to new heights with the adventures of their characters Luke and Laura. With the soap planning a wedding for the pair November sweeps, Taylor asked to be a part. The show created the role of Helena Cassadine, widow of a villain that Luke and Laura vanquished, and Taylor appeared as her for three episodes so Helena could place a curse on the pair on their wedding day. She did squeeze in time for a divorce from Warner in November 1982. She went back to Broadway two more times in the early 1980s. In 1983, she reunited with Richard Burton, but only on stage, in a revival of Private Lives. Later that same year, she starred in a revival of The Corn Is Green.
Her acting appearances began to become more sporadic though she did play Louella Parsons to Jane Alexander's Hedda Hopper in the 1985 TV movie Malice in Wonderland and appeared in one episode of the
miniseries North and South the same year, but Taylor seemed more content with her burgeoning perfume empire and her charity work. She married her last husband, Larry Fortensky, for a change someone with no fame of his own, in 1991. They divorced in 1996. In 1993, her charitable work earned her a third Oscar statuette, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Her voice appeared on The Simpsons, speaking Maggie's first word, "Daddy." Her final feature film was 1994's dreadful The Flintstones where (and I don't exaggerate) her performance as Fred's mother-in-law was the only good thing about it and the comic highlight of the movie. Her last credit on IMDB was another piece of voice work on God, the Devil and Bob in 2001. Her last public appearance was at the private memorial service for Michael Jackson, a longtime friend and another damaged soul she embraced.RIP Ms. Taylor.
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Labels: Albee, Clift, Debbie Reynolds, Huston, Jeff Bridges, Lansbury, Liz, MacLaine, Nichols, Obituary, Oscars, Rock Hudson, Shakespeare, Sondheim, Television, The Simpsons, Theater, Tracy, Wexler, William Powell
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Hidden in the shadows
This post is part of the Montgomery Clift blog-a-thon being coordinated by Nathaniel R at Film Experience.
By Edward Copeland
For a long time, I was sort of stumped about something to write about for the Monty Clift blog-a-thon. While I admired the actor in many films, nothing evoked much passion in me. Then, when I happened to catch up with the documentary George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey, it awakened my interest in that director again so A Place in the Sun seemed a likely place to revisit. Alas, my reaction was one of disappointment in terms of the film and Clift's performance.
Based on Theodore Dreiser's early 20th-century novel An American Tragedy, A Place in the Sun has a lot going for it, but it never seems to really get going, especially once Raymond Burr shows up as one of the hammiest district attorneys in the history of film. For those unfamiliar with the basic outlines of the story, Clift plays George Eastman, the nephew of a rich California magnate who comes his uncle's way in search of a job following his rearing by an extremely religious branch of the Eastman family. George is quiet and unassuming and once he gets a job with his uncle, he starts to date Alice, a co-worker (Shelley Winters), against the rules of the company. More importantly though, he begins to fall for high society deb Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) and much of the conflict stems from the class struggles and upper-class snobbery heaped upon George.
Of course, things get complicated when Alice finds herself with child and threatens George's preferred future with Angela. While A Place in the Sun does offer some crisp dialogue and an interesting premise, (I particularly like that the good girl/bad girl dichotomy is upended a bit, since Alice is the good girl and ends up pregnant but Angela is most decidedly the bad girl, taking chances at every turn.) the problem stems from the character of George and Clift's portrayal. Whether it was the actor's inclination, the director's instructions or the way it is supposed to be, George is a cipher. I have to believe this is intentional since so many of his scenes show him covered in shadows or with his back to the camera.
The opening shot of the film where he's hitchhiking along the highway sets this up to the point that in his dark clothing, he'd be nothing but a black blur at one point if it weren't for the credits running over his image. This could have been truly touching and sad, but once events lead to the introduction of Burr's D.A., it almost seems comical. It isn't helped that I kept thinking about two bits of comedy that stemmed from the movie and the original book. I remember in Horse Feathers, nearly 20 years older than A Place in the Sun, when Groucho takes the college widow out on the lake and mentions he's been afraid to get into a boat ever since he read Dreiser's novel. The other joke I remember comes from one of the multitude of AFI specials where A Place in the Sun popped up on the list and had commentary from noted film historians Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. I can't remember who said which, but one asked the other, "Would you kill your wife for Elizabeth Taylor?" to which the other comic responded, "I'd kill my wife for Shelley Winters."
Montgomery Clift was a fine actor who gave many memorable performances, but A Place in the Sun really didn't serve him well.
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Labels: 50s, Blog-a-thons, Clift, G. Stevens, Liz, Marx Brothers, Shelley Winters
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Saturday, May 26, 2007
Centennial Tributes: John Wayne
“Wayne was never an actor, and because he wasn’t an actor, he had to do everything real. There wasn’t anything in Duke that would allow him to pretend he was something. He couldn’t be French, he couldn’t have an accent, he couldn’t be Olivier. Whatever the actor was called to do in the script, he did it. It wasn’t a question of acting, it was a question of reality.”
Henry Hathaway
By Wagstaff
With more than 150 films to his credit, John Wayne has given us many moments that are genuine. To commemorate the 100th birthday of Marion Morrison, known to all his friends as Duke, I hereby give you a half-dozen of my favorites. The task was difficult — there were so many to choose from. What are some of your favorite John Wayne moments? Drop a comment and tell me what they are.
His reputation precedes him. Everybody on the Overland Stage to Lordsburg that day had heard of the Ringo Kid, but few thought they’d ever meet him. Then, in one of the greatest screen entrances in history, we hear a rifle shot that pulls the team of horses up short. We first see him in the middle of the road, against a Monument Valley backdrop. His tall frame stands solitary and assured. One hand holds a saddle and blanket, the other hand twirls his Winchester. The camera swoops in on the figure beneath the hat, loses focus momentarily, and then sharpens into a closeup of the handsome, friendly face of the Ringo Kid. It’s the one indelible image that made John Wayne a star. After this single shot, Duke runs away with the picture — and that’s saying something, considering that the stagecoach is packed with talent such as Andy Devine, George Bancroft, Claire Trevor, Louise Platt, John Carradine, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill and Thomas Mitchell.
“Figured you’d be in Lordsburg by now,” the marshall says.
“No. Lame horse,” the Kid says.
“Well, it looks like you’ve got another passenger.”
“You’re under arrest, Kid. I’ll take the Winchester.”
“You may need me and this Winchester, Curley.”
And indeed they do. That trusty Winchester comes in mighty handy when fending off Apache Indian attacks in the desert, or when taking on the Plummer Boys single handed once the Kid gets to Lordsburg. Ten years and more than 60 B-Westerns and serials had given Duke a lot of practice at this sort of thing. John Ford was once asked why he didn’t put John Wayne in a major role before Stagecoach, even though the two had been good friends for more than ten years. The director replied, “Duke wasn’t ready, he had to develop his skills as an actor … I wanted some pain written on his face to offset the innocence.” When Orson Welles was asked to name his influences, he said “John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.” Sometimes I think what he really meant was “Stagecoach, Stagecoach and Stagecoach.”
Thomas Dunson is a hard man. A cattle baron who drives his men past the point of endurance; he tolerates no dissent. In his mind, why should he? He created his
empire from scratch, starting with a bull, a couple of calves, and a lot of open Texas grassland. His only companions back then were a crotchety old cook (Walter Brennan) and a young pup of a lad named Matthew Garth. The “Red River D” was his brand. He worked hard for it. He vowed a day would come when he would add an “M” to that “D” and bequeath all that he’d built to Matt. That was all years ago, though. Now Dunson and his group of cowhands are driving a herd of ten thousand cattle up Missouri way, and forging the Chisholm Trail. As the hardships mount on the dusty trail, and the men grow weary, Dunson grows more and more fanatical. He becomes a ruthless tyrant. When he tries to horsewhip a couple of cowboys for desertion, Matt, now all grown up into Montgomery Clift, can no longer take it. He usurps Dunson’s authority at gunpoint and takes the herd. Dunson is to be left behind. Feeling betrayed, dejected and all alone, he’s a man with the look of true hatred in his eyes. With his wounded leg, he stands slumped up against his horse. He fumes silently, his hand clinging to the saddle horn. Matt approaches for a fare-thee-well and Dunson delivers the following lines:“Cherry was right. You’re soft, you should have let ‘em kill me, ‘cause I’m gonna kill you. I’ll catch up with ya. I don’t know when, but I’ll catch up. Every time you turn around, expect to see me, ‘cause one time you’ll turn around and I’ll be there. I’m gonna kill ya, Matt.”
The determination in John Wayne’s eyes says it all — it’s a done deal, a fait accompli. I sure wouldn’t want Mr. Dunson coming after me. In many ways, Red River tells the same story as Mutiny on the Bounty, with Thomas Dunson as Captain Bligh and Matthew Garth as Fletcher Christian. It was the first time Duke worked with Howard Hawks, and in the part of the aging Dunson, Hawks gave him his deepest role yet. John Wayne was only 39 at the time. John Ford, after seeing Red River, cracked to Hawks “I never knew that big son of a bitch could act.”
Sgt. Stryker meets Mary when his squad has ten days leave in Honolulu. She approaches him. He’s too gruff and weary to give her any play at first, but things warm up a little when he finds out her name is Mary, and that they’re both unhappy. She invites him back to her place. “The drinks are cheaper.” The bottle at her place is almost empty, so he gives her a sawbuck to get another. While she’s gone, Stryker discovers Mary’s baby in the next room. He realizes that she needed that sawbuck for more than just booze. When Mary returns he immediately spots the cartons of Pablum she’s bought and begins to open one. Mary is relieved to see him pour the cereal into a bowl for the infant’s dinner.
“So, you know about babies” she says. Stryker’s eyes smile a little, and then he sighs “Yeah, I know about babies.”
Sands of Iwo Jima is the quintessential Marine Corps movie. It sets the paradigm for all subsequent men-training-for-combat films. Sgt. John M. Stryker is your great granddaddy — Mr. Tough Love himself — he’s John fucking Wayne for God’s sake. He is a tough-as-nails papa bear to his men. He licks his dogface grunts into shape for some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific — fights over places like Tarawa and Iwo Jima, two of the most hellish holes during the island hopping campaign. These two particular battles are filmed in an effective and often startling manner. Note how well actual combat footage (some of it quite horrifying) is integrated into the scenes shot on a soundstage. It was seamless for its day. As to Stryker’s men, well, you’ve seen it a thousand times. Rebellious animosity gives way to grudging respect, and finally, to loving memory after Stryker is tragically killed in an act of heroism: offering someone a cigarette. Remember, this is a paradigm movie. That the aforementioned scene with Mary and her baby comes quietly out of nowhere gives us a glimpse into the other side of what our boys were fighting for.
There is a wonderfully touching moment in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the second film in John Ford’s cavalry trilogy, when Duke’s men line up their horses and present him with a gift. It is a silver watch and chain, and to read the engraving Capt. Nathan Cutting Brittles must put on his spectacles. He fumbles a little, somewhat embarrassed as he removes the specs from his jacket, and then reads the inscription. The words almost choke him up. “To Capt. Brittles — from C Troop … Lest we forget.” The hushed silence while his men listen will break your heart. They’ve just caught a glimmer of their captain’s frailty. John Wayne handles the moment perfectly, and without histrionics. It is said that George Washington once did something similar during the Revolutionary War. In front of his men he put on his spectacles to read something, saying “Forgive me, for my eyes have grown weary in your service.” This naked look at the man touched their hearts, and rallied them to his cause.
Duke was never so easygoing and loose as he was with Howard Hawks. They made five films together. Duke trusted Hawks. He would do things for him that he wouldn’t do for other directors. Exhibit A is from Rio
Bravo. John Wayne is Sheriff John T. Chance. Angie Dickinson is Feathers, a sexy Hawksian woman. The two have been flirting for most of the movie, after which it is strongly implied that they’ve gone to bed together. The morning after, John T. leaves the hotel and walks down the street with a spring in his step. His demeanor is so cheerful — it must’ve been quite a night! You can almost hear the song he’s whistling in his head. Oh yeah, the Duke just got some. He goes to the jailhouse to check on Stumpy (Walter Brennan.) A brief exchange ensues. Stumpy complains that he’s underappreciated. “Maybe you’re right, Stumpy” he says. “You’re a treasure. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Just as Duke is about to leave, he sneaks up and playfully kisses the old codger on the top of the head and quickly skips out, his ass getting a swat from Stumpy’s broom. “Go back to being yourself. Leastwise I’m used to that” cries an irritated Stumpy. This is John Wayne at his most whimsical...then he gets to dealing with the bad guys.
Just talking about Rio Bravo makes me want to go on and on. Like about how its dialogue is a blueprint for Quentin Tarantino’s, and provides the underlying structure. Go ahead, ask me about it. Or about how it came at a precious time in the history of the Western. Rio Bravo was made well after the genre’s unabashed pioneer spirit and Manifest Destiny had evolved into adult-themed drama. Yet it came well before a period that strived for revisionism. Rio Bravo exists in a happy stasis somewhere at the middle. It all adds up to maximum entertainment. How good is Rio Bravo and John Wayne in it? Well, to quote John T. talking about Colorado Ryan “I’d say he’s so good, that he doesn’t feel he has to prove it.”
What can you say about this final moment that hasn’t already been said? We know he’s departing because he’s hardly arrived. Ethan Edwards’ years-long obsessive search is finally over. He has brought little Debbie home. The darkened interior of the homestead is like a picture frame that surrounds the brilliant sunlight streaming through the doorway. Never mind that those beautiful Monument Valley mesas out there are nowhere near Texas. This is mythmaking. Ethan halts outside uncomfortably as everyone else is ushered inside. He stands at the threshold … and here I am indebted to Ronald L. Davis’ book, Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne:
“Then comes a moment of cinematic nostalgia. Wayne raises his left hand, reaches across his chest, and grabs his right arm at the elbow. It is a gesture that Harry Carey, Ollie’s husband, had often used in the movies Duke had seen as a boy in Glendale. Wayne stares at Olive for a couple of seconds, then turns and walks away, as the cabin door closes. ‘Ollie and I had talked about Harry in that stance on occasions,’ Duke remembered. ‘I saw her looking at me, and I just did it. Goddamn tears came to her eyes. I was playing that scene for Ollie Carey.’”
It was a scene that only John Wayne could do. Everything is wordlessly conveyed through the familiar shape of his body. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a purely cinematic moment like this one is worth many times more. It remains Duke’s legacy shot.
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Labels: Angie Dickinson, Clift, Hawks, J. Carradine, John Ford, Olivier, T. Mitchell, Tarantino, W. Brennan, Wayne, Welles
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