Wednesday, May 29, 2013
"A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" "That's what I got."
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
After the opening credits end, Howard Hawks begins Rio Bravo with a sequence somewhat unusual for a Western, or, for that matter, any film made in 1959. On the other hand, beneath the surface of Rio Bravo
you'll find many more layers than your typical Western. The scene almost plays as if it hails from the silent era as a haggard-looking Dean Martin tentatively enters a large establishment providing libations, meals and even barber services. Martin's character's face tells you that he wants to resist liquor's siren call, but he's weak and he struggles. A man at the bar (Claude Akins) spots him after purchasing his own drink. He flashes Martin a smile, gestures at his glass and asks with his eyes whether Martin desires one. Aside from the film score and the ambient noise of the establishment's environs, no dialogue emanates from any of the characters that Hawks' camera focuses upon in this scene that's practically choreographed in mime. Martin's character replies with an eager but wordless "yes" and Akins
tosses a coin — into a spittoon — laughing with his buddies (the closest thing to a human voice heard in this building) as Martin's character's desperation outweighs his pride and he
gets down on his hands and knees, prepared to retrieve the money from the spit-out tobacco. Before he can, a foot kicks the spittoon out of the way and he looks up to see John Wayne towering above him in a great low-angle shot looking up at The Duke and giving him one of his many great screen entrances. His character's arrival also sets several of the story's strands into motion. You see, the man (Akins) taunting Dude (Martin) happens to be Joe Burdette, the blackest sheep of a powerful clan that gets away with practically anything it wants to do. Joe oversteps this time though as he continues to tease Dude after a brawl that includes the man who kicked over the spittoon, Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne), Dude's boss when he's sober enough to carry out duties as deputy. Joe and his buddies keep harassing Dude when a sympathetic patron (Bing Russell) steps in, urging Joe to cut it out — still through gestures, not words. Joe Burdette doesn't take criticism well and shoots the unarmed man to death and exits the building to stagger to another saloon. Chance soon enters behind and speaks the film's first line, "Joe, you're under arrest."
Burdette and his buddies don't take the sheriff seriously and seem intent to mow the lawman down when a still-shaky Dude arrives as backup, having composed himself enough to shoot the guns out of a couple of bad guys' hands. Seems Dude might have a drinking problem, but he's also Chance's deputy, and the lawmen take Joe into custody where the movie's waiting game begins. Can Chance, Duke (always battling the battle) and Chance's other deputy, Stumpy (Walter Brennan), aging and falling apart physically, keep Joe locked up until the U.S. marshal's arrival several days later to take Joe into custody for trial before Burdette's clan tries to free him In a few short minutes of screentime, the main story that drives most of Rio Bravo's 2 hours and 20 minutes has been set. Sideplots await, but all basically will converge in the main thread. Though nearly 2½ hours long, Hawks doesn't rush his film along, yet somehow he still keeps it moving and it holds its length incredibly well.
I'm not reporting earth-shattering news when I inform readers that Howard Hawks belongs to that select group of directors who excelled in every genre he attempted. One thing that sets Rio Bravo apart from Hawks' other works is that, while it resides in the Western genre, it snatches from many others — romantic comedies, war tales, detective stories, social dramas, even musicals. As film critic Richard Schickel says on a commentary track for Rio Bravo, Hawks liked saying
that he loved to steal from himself. He'd do it again by practically remaking Rio Bravo as El Dorado eight years later, once again starring Wayne but with Robert Mitchum in the Dean Martin role. The plots diverge enough, as do the characters, (Mitchum plays a drunken sheriff as opposed to deputy while Wayne took on the role of gunfighter for hire helping a rancher's family get even with the rival rancher who killed their patriarch) to prevent it from being an exact facsimile. (Another shared aspect between the two films: screenwriter Leigh Brackett, who co-wrote Rio Bravo with Jules Furthman and wrote El Dorado by herself.) In the case of Rio Bravo, dialogue in the romantic sparring between Chance (Wayne) and possibly shady lady Feathers (Angie Dickinson) sounds lifted directly from To Have and Have Not, which Furthman co-wrote with William Faulkner. The relationship between Chance and Stumpy seems like a continuation of the one Wayne's Dunson and Brennan's Groot had in Red River, only minus Dunson's darkness. Part of Howard Hawks' greatness grew from his gift of swiping things from his previous films while changing the recipe just enough to make it fresh — a skill other self-plagiarists such as John Hughes never pulled off since they lacked Hawks' inherent talent, skill and imagination.Hawks originally intended the action and imagery that runs beneath the opening credits to be its own sequence in the film, but later decided just to use it to accompany the list of cast and crew to a quieter piece of Dimitri Tiomkin's score before the set piece in the bar officially launches Rio Bravo. He films the footage of a wagon train caravan at such a distance that you can't readily identify its contents or characters, but a careful viewer connects it later as being the approach of the wagon train of Pat Wheeler
(Ward Bond), who turns up shortly after the opening incident. At first, the audience can't be certain how to take the arrival of this man and his large crew, which includes a young gunman named Colorado (played by Ricky Nelson, teen idol and sitcom star at the time, who turns in a solid performance). For all the audience knows, these could be people sent to break Joe Burdette out of the jail where Stumpy handles most of his supervision. Dude, by then sobered up and handling more of his duties as deputy to Chance's Presidio County Texas sheriff, stops the wagon train in the middle of the town's main thoroughfare and insists that Wheeler and all of his men remove their weapons and hang them on a fence. They'll be free to collect the firearms when they depart the town again. (Wouldn't you love to watch Rio Bravo with the National Rifle Association's head flunky Wayne LaPierre and see how he reacts to law enforcement working for John Wayne in a Western that enforcing those rules?) Wheeler and those in his employ grumble at first, but soon comply. When Chance shows up, we realize he and Wheeler go way back on friendly terms, though Wheeler advises the sheriff they need to be careful where they store their cargo — it contains a large amount of dynamite. (Paging Chekhov if you don't think that's going to pay off somewhere down the road.) Labels: 50s, Angie Dickinson, Blog-a-thons, Dean Martin, Faulkner, Hawks, John Hughes, Mitchum, Movie Tributes, W. Brennan, Wayne
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"My Rifle, My Pony and Me" (Rio Bravo tribute, Part II)
While Sheriff Chance took on a major task by arresting Joe Burdette and incarcerating him in his small Presidio County jail, with Stumpy left to guard the bad guy most of the time, he still bears the responsibility for maintaining the law elsewhere in his town, something he accomplishes through street patrols and his nights staying at The Hotel Alamo (of all the names to pick) run by Carlos Robante (Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez) and his wife Consuela (Estelita Rodriguez). One night, a poker game piques his interest as two of the players (Angie Dickinson, Walter Barnes) fit the profile of two hustlers warned about on handbills. After a cursory investigation, Chance arrests the woman, who goes by the name Feathers. She declares her innocence and Chance fails to find the crooked cards on her after she's left the table following a huge winning streak. When he returns though, he does find the stacked deck on the man, who has raked it in since her departure and tells him to return his ill-gotten gains and be on the morning stagecoach. He suggests that Feathers do the same, but she decides to stick around.
That next day, the Burdettes arrive as expected, led by Joe's smooth brother Nathan (John Russell, the gaunt, veteran actor of mostly Westerns where he usually played the villain. His second-to-last film was as the cold-blooded killer in Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider). He asks Chance why the streets appear so full of people. Chance offers no explanation, but suggests that perhaps gawkers came to town, drawn to the possibility that the Burdettes planned to put on a show.
Chance makes his nightly trek to the Hotel Alamo. When he gets there, Spencer pulls him over for a drink. The wagon master has heard of the trouble Chance faces. "A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" Spencer asks in disbelief. "That's what I got," Chance responds. Spencer offers himself and his men as help against the Burdettes, but the sheriff expresses reluctance to take responsibility for others. He does ask about the confident young gunman Colorado that Spencer has hired. If he is as good as he thinks he is and lacks the family ties of the older men, Chance would be willing to take him on if Colorado agrees. Spencer calls Colorado over, but the young man politely declines, earning Chance's respect for being smart enough to know when to sit out a fight. Not long afterward, while Feathers flirts again and Chance urges her to get on the morning stage, shots ring out on the street and Spencer falls dead. Later, Nathan Burdette makes his first visit to see his brother Joe, despite Stumpy's withering verbal assaults, at the jail. First, Nathan wants the sheriff to
explain why his brother looks so beat up. "He didn't take too kindly to being arrested for murder," Chance tells Nathan while Joe denies the shooting was murder. Nathan asks how Chance can be so certain or, at the very least, why Joe isn't being tried where the alleged murder occurred. Chance nixes that idea, content to let the U.S. marshal handle Joe Burdette and try him elsewhere. Nathan silkily makes no overt threats, but certainly implies that Joe might not remain in the Presidio County jail by the time that marshal shows up, especially if the sheriff relies on a drunk and an old man as his backup. Chance isn't in a mood to hide his cards. "You're a rich man, Burdette. Big ranch, pay a lot of people to do what you want 'em to do. And you got a brother. He's no good but he's your brother. He committed 20 murders you'd try and see he didn't hang for 'em," the sheriff spits out. "I don't like that kinda talk. Now you're practically accusing me," Nathan Burdette says, but Chance continues. "Let's get this straight. You don't like? I don't like a lot of things. I don't like your men sittin' on the road bottling up this town. I don't like your men watching us, trying to catch us with our backs turned. And I don't like it when a friend of mine offers to help and 20 minutes later he's dead! And i don't like you, Burdette, because you set it up." If war wasn't brewing before, it was now.
The murder of Spencer fully incorporates the last two major characters more fully into the film and the action. With his boss dead, Colorado at first finds himself content to take his pay from the slain wagon master's possessions and remains determined to mind his own business. Once he witnesses some more of the Burdette brutality, Colorado decides to join up and Chance deputizes him. Colorado becomes part of the team and helps Chance escape an ambush, an ambush for which the sheriff seems prepared to occur, quickly pumping off rounds from his rifle. "You always leave the carbine cocked?" Colorado asks. "Only when I carry it," Chance replies. Originally, Hawks opposed casting Ricky Nelson, though the director admits he probably boosted box office. He had sought someone popular with young viewers, but felt Nelson — who turned 18 during filming — lacked age and experience for the part. Hawks had chased Elvis Presley for the role, but as often was the case, Col. Tom Parker demanded too much money for his client and the Rio Bravo production had to take a pass. The pseudo love affair between Feathers and Chance also heats up, though Wayne's discomfort with the romantic scenes with Dickinson is readily apparent. Wayne felt uneasy about the 25-year age gap between him and Dickinson. On top of that, nervous studio bosses wanted no implication made that Chance and Feathers ever sleep together. Double entendres and innuendos abound, but truthfully more sparks fly in brief scenes between Martin and Dickinson and Nelson and Dickinson than ever produce friction in the Wayne-Dickinson scenes. What becomes most interesting about the relationship between Feathers and Chance is Feathers' transformation into the sheriff's protector, keeping watch over him as he sleeps to make sure that no Burdette makes a move on him.
You don't need to know how the rest of Rio Bravo unfolds. Besides, part of what makes the film so fascinating and more than your ordinary Western comes from the multiple tones Hawks balances. A viewer seeing Rio Bravo for the first time couldn't positively predict what mood shall prevail by the final reel: light-hearted, tragic, heroic, romantic, some combination of those elements. At any given moment, you might change your mind. Most of this uncertainty reflects the nature of the character Dude. With the possible exception of Feathers, almost every other character in the film stays on a static path. Dude captures our attention the most because of the dynamics within him. Will he maintain the upper hand in his battle with booze or will he fall off the wagon again and if he does, what consequences does that
have for the others? Even sober, he's prone to depression, low self-esteem and self-pity. Still, he can croon a song or be a crack shot. A part this multifaceted requires a talented actor and back when Rio Bravo was made, Dean Martin wouldn't be one of the first names to jump to your mind. However, in the years 1958 and 1959, soon after the end of his partnership with Jerry Lewis, Martin turned in two impressive performances (perhaps three, but I haven't seen 1958's The Young Lions). In 1958, he gave a great turn as a professional gambler Bama Dillert in Vincente Minnelli's adaptation of the James Jones novel Some Came Running starring Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. He followed that with his astoundingly good work in Rio Bravo. While Martin continue to make entertaining films, for some reason those two years stand out as an aberration and he never got roles as good as Bama Dillert or Dude again.Hawks' behind-the-scenes collaborators provided as much of the magic of Rio Bravo as its cast. From Russell Harlan's crisp and lush cinematography to Tiomkin's score that complements Hawks' leisurely pacing well. Tiomkin also teamed with lyricist Paul Francis West for the film's songs — "Cindy" and "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" in the extended musical interlude by Dude, Stumpy and
Colorado as well as the title song. Reportedly, Wayne joined the singing at one point until they decided it inappropriate for the sheriff to take part (and also because the Duke allegedly could not carry a tune). In another instance of borrowing from past work, at Wayne's suggestion, Tiomkin actually reworked the theme to Red River into the song "My Rifle, My Pony and Me." Tiomkin also composed "Degüello," aka "The Cutthroat Song," which the Burdettes play to psych out the good guys guarding Joe. The film claims the music comes from Mexico where Santa Anna's soldiers played it continuously to unnerve those holed up inside the Alamo. Wayne loved the music and the story so much, even though the tale wasn't true, he used it in his film The Alamo the following year. His screenwriting team of Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett both had worked with Hawks as a team and separately before and after Rio Bravo. Previously, Furthman and Brackett co-wrote Hawks' classic 1946 take on The Big Sleep. Furthman also co-wrote Come and Get It and To Have and Have Not and did a solo turn on Only Angels Have Wings. The legendary Brackett, despite her extensive screenwriting work, made a name for herself as a novelist, largely in the male-dominated field of science fiction. In Schickel's commentary, he refers to Brackett as an example of a real life Hawksian woman. In fact, before her death, the last screenplay she co-wrote was The Empire Strikes Back. In another non-Hawks project, she returned to Philip Marlowe when she wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye. In addition to the Hawks titles already mentioned for Brackett, she also wrote the screenplay for 1962's Hatari! and co-wrote 1970's Rio Lobo. The DVD commentary also includes director John Carpenter, who names Hawks as his favorite director, and paid tribute to Leigh Brackett by naming the sheriff in the original Halloween after her.Tweet
Labels: 50s, Altman, Angie Dickinson, Blog-a-thons, Dean Martin, Eastwood, Elvis, Hawks, Jerry Lewis, John Carpenter, MacLaine, Movie Tributes, Sinatra, Star Wars, W. Brennan, Wayne
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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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Labels: 30s, Astaire, Cary, Dean Martin, Ginger Rogers, Harlow, Hawks, K. Hepburn, Loy, Maggie Smith, Movie Tributes, Murray, Rock Hudson, Tracy, William Powell
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Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Phil Silvers
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of the many (but I should amend that to “many, many”) Facebook groups of which I am a member is The British Phil Silvers Appreciation Society — an organization whose title admittedly causes me a bit of distress from time to time. Does an American Phil Silvers Appreciation Society not exist? Are they having trouble with the paperwork? I’m not disparaging the B.P.S.A.S., you understand — our cousins on the other side of the pond clearly display exemplary good taste by continuing to appreciate one of the funniest men to walk the planet. In 2003, Mark Lewisohn of Radio Times tabbed The Phil Silvers Show as the Best Sitcom of all time, a fine testament to the show’s star and a reminder that the once-proud TVLand, which prominently featured the program in prime time during its startup days, has strayed from its classic television path and instead occupies valuable air time with newly devised paeans to Betty White. (The Beeb, on the other hand, made the series a staple of its programming up until 2004…and even though it was scheduled in a late night slot the reruns would often garner audiences of 8 million, an impressive figure in UK viewership.)
If you’re fortunate to be in the area covered by the Chicago-based MeTV, you can still catch Phil Silvers’ signature series on Sunday nights…and after what seemed like an eternity for Bilko fans, CBS DVD-Paramount released the first season of the television chestnut to disc in July of last year (they previously issued a “best of” collection in 2006, commemorating the show’s 50th anniversary). At the risk of sounding like an ingrate, the digital versatile disc tribute to the man born 100 years ago on this date as Philip Silver didn’t come quickly enough…but I offer up a silent prayer that there will be future seasons to come while at the same time acknowledging the highlights of “The King of Chutzpah’s” extraordinary show business career.
In the good old days of the movie houses, malfunctioning of movie projectors was a common occurrence — and when this would happen at his local theater in Brooklyn, 11-year-old Phil Silvers would often entertain the impatient crowd waiting for the necessary repairs with a song. Silvers was the youngest of eight children born to Jewish immigrants Saul and Sarah Silver, and it’s a sure bet that the response he received during his formative years of entertaining persuaded him to adopt show business as his profession, for he left school two years later to fully concentrate on his career. When his voice changed at the age of 16, Phil drifted into comedy and acting, and his early stomping grounds were the uniquely American form of theatrical entertainment known as burlesque. He was one of a handful of entertainers talented enough to move beyond burlesque into bigger venues like vaudeville and later the Broadway stage.
Phil’s big Broadway break was as the comic relief in a revue called Yokel Boy, which was pretty much panned by critics for its mediocrity…but they were also in agreement that Silvers was the best thing in the show. Broadway would be very good for the comedian — he would headline such productions as High Button Shoes (in 1947), Do Re Mi (1960) and How the Other Half Loves (1970), and would win a Tony Award in 1952 for his standout performance in Top Banana, in which he played egotistical TV comic Jerry Biffle — a character whose resemblance to a certain boob tube funster dubbed “Mr. Television” was more than a little coincidental. (Silvers would reprise the role in a 1954 movie adaptation as well.) Phil took home a second Tony 20 years later for his starring role of conniving slave Pseudolus in a 1972 revival of the musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum…a part that he also was offered in the original 1962 production. Silvers turned down the role because he would have had to perform without his trademark glasses, without which he was blind as a bat (He feared falling into the orchestra pit). The part eventually went to Zero Mostel, whose Tony Award acquisition for his performance convinced Silvers he’d made a huge mistake…but not so much that he didn’t grab at the chance to play flesh peddler Marcus Lycus alongside Mostel in the 1966 film adaptation.
With his success established in burlesque, vaudeville and Broadway, Phil Silvers set out to see if he could make it in the motion picture business, and debuted on the silver screen in a handful of Vitaphone short subjects that were still being filmed in New York (where he was performing nightly on stage). His exposure in these soon led to featured roles in many of the movie musicals that were in vogue at the time: Lady Be Good (1941), My Gal Sal (1942), Coney Island (1943), etc. One of his most memorable movie showcases was as sidekick to Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in the 1944 Columbia hit Cover Girl, in which he admirably displayed not only his comic prowess but also his singing and dancing know-how. (He would later re-team with Kelly in the 1950 MGM musical Summer Stock, which co-starred Judy Garland.) Silvers’ fame as an actor and comedian often overshadows the fact that he was also quite musically inclined; in 1942, with composer Jimmy Van Heusen, he penned a birthday paean for the wife of Van Heusen’s partner Johnny Burke that was later transformed two years later into a tribute to Frank Sinatra’s daughter on her natal anniversary as well. “Nancy (With the Laughing Face)” so impressed the Chairman of the Board (he believed that the tune was expressly written for Nancy, and the three men chose not to inform him otherwise) that he recorded it as a single, where it became one of his biggest hits.
At the same time his movie career was in full swing, Phil Silvers began to conquer other mediums as well — he was a frequent quest on Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall (often coming out and greeting the audience with his trademark “Glad to see ya!”) and he made the rounds on radio shows headlined by Rudy Vallee, Dinah Shore, Charlie Ruggles and Johnny Mercer as well. His 1945 film Don Juan Quilligan was adapted for a broadcast of The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theatre the following year, but perhaps his most impressive achievement in the aural medium was guest starring in a seriocomic role on “radio’s outstanding theatre of thrills,” Suspense, in an April 3, 1947 installment entitled “The Swift Rise of Eddie Albright.” And when that young upstart known as television began to dominate the entertainment field, Silvers would find the vehicle that would cement his immortality in show business.
Veteran scribe Nat Hiken, who achieved great success writing for the likes of Fred Allen and Milton Berle on radio, was anxious to work with Phil on a concept for a television sitcom and after considering (and then tossing out) various ideas hit upon a surefire notion that would star the comedian as a larcenous U.S. Army master sergeant named Ernest G. Bilko (service number RA 15042699). The series, originally titled You’ll Never Get Rich, was set against the backdrop of a motor pool at the fictional Army base of Fort Baxter where Bilko was in charge…but he and his fellow soldiers rarely did any actual work; instead he spent most of his time in the service concocting scams and get-rich-quick schemes in constant pursuit of a fast buck. His nemesis on base was the autocratic but easily flustered Colonel J.T. Hall (Paul Ford), a man who was clearly out of his league going up against the wily Bilko but who managed to reign in his adversary before Ernie went too far. Bilko’s men were a sorry, ragtag group of misfits who displayed an admirable sense of loyalty toward their “Sarge” despite the fact that they usually served as the sheep for Ernie’s constantly-in-motion fleecing. (The surname of “Bilko” was not, in fact, a reference to “bilking” someone but was inspired by minor league ball player Steve Bilko — both Hiken and Silvers were big baseball fans.)
The Phil Silvers Show — or as it is also known, Sergeant Bilko — was never a huge ratings smash during its four-year-run on CBS-TV from 1955 to 1959 (its highest ranking in the Nielsens was No. 23 in its second season) but it was considered by both audiences and Silvers’ industry peers to be one of the best situation comedies on the air…so much so that it won three consecutive Emmy Awards as Outstanding Comedy Series. Its cancellation after four seasons was not due to low ratings but was simply a matter of economics: the large ensemble cast (which included TV stalwarts such as Allan Melvin, Harvey Lembeck, Herbie Faye and Joe E. Ross) made the show too expensive to produce, and to top off that monumental blunder CBS sold the show’s rights to NBC for quick cash…later watching in dismay as NBC profited from the show by scheduling repeats five-days-a-week to huge financial returns. The influence of The Phil Silvers Show would inspire later TV hits like McHale’s Navy (which was essentially Bilko in the Navy) and Top Cat — a cartoon version of You’ll Never Get Rich that featured the voice of Bilko regular Maurice Gosfield (aka “Private Doberman”) and Arnold Stang doing an atypical Silvers impersonation. (The Silvers persona of the glad-handing con man became a staple among voice artists, notably Daws Butler…who adopted Phil’s unmistakable vocal patterns for Hanna-Barbera creation Hokey Wolf while also cribbing the personality for many of the characters he voiced for Jay Ward’s Rocky and His Friends.)
In 1963, Phil tried to capture lightning in a bottle a second time with a sitcom entitled The New Phil Silvers Show — which only lasted a single season, and despite its title, was really too similar to the old Phil Silvers Show; only Phil’s character name (Harry Grafton) and occupation (plant foreman for a large corporation) had changed. For better or for worse, Silvers’ Bilko persona pretty much became his stock-in-trade as far as TV guest appearances went for the rest of his career; he’d appear on the likes of Gilligan’s Island (in that show’s all-time best episode, “The Producer” — which featured Phil as Broadway impresario Harold Hecuba), The Lucy Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Dean Martin Show, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, The Beverly Hillbillies and Julia while continuing to work in feature films such as 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), Follow That Camel (1967) and A Guide for the Married Man (1967). Silvers also appeared in what I believe to be his signature movie role in the 1963 all-star comedy opus It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World; his presence as Otto Meyer, a con man trying to outwit his fellow treasure hunters such as Berle, Ethel Merman, Jonathan Winters and Sid Caesar with Spencer Tracy as the cop on their trail, was so unforgettable that it was riffed in a humorous throwaway gag in a 1994 episode of The Simpsons (“Homer the Vigilante”).
At the time of his Tony Award-winning triumph in Forum in 1972, Phil Silvers suffered a stroke which left him with slurred speech and in dicey health for the rest of his life. His previous fast-paced timing suffered as a result, but he nevertheless continued to land guest star parts on TV dramatic series such as Kolchak: The Night Stalker, S.W.A.T., Charlie’s Angels and Fantasy Island and in films such as The Strongest Man in the World (1975) and The Cheap Detective (1978). His last show business credit was in a 1983 episode of CHiPs but perhaps the most poignant was an appearance on Happy Days two years earlier in which he played the father of one of the show’s characters, the libidinous Jenny Piccalo. Jenny was portrayed by Silvers’ real-life daughter Catherine, who also had a small role in the 1996 feature film Sgt. Bilko which had to make do with Steve Martin in the part that Phil pretty much owned. (The Happy Days appearance was the only time father and daughter worked together, an experience Cathy later described as "magic.")
By all accounts, Silvers was the complete opposite of his established Bilko television persona save for their mutual fondness for gambling; the comedian experienced frequent struggles with depression for most of his life but nevertheless continued to follow the old maxim of “the show must go on” — giving his all as entertainers are wont to do. Bilko, of course, made me a fan of his work (not to mention Forum, World and the 1945 musical comedy A Thousand and One Nights) but I also remember seeing him chat with Dick Cavett one time in the 1970s and he explained that he personally believed redemption in the after life depended a lot on the good will you racked up in the former. It’s a principle that I adopted and still subscribe to, and if there is a place that one goes to upon shuffling off this mortal coil Phil Silvers will almost have to be there. (It wouldn’t be Heaven otherwise.)
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Labels: Animation, Awards, Dean Martin, Garland, Gene Kelly, Hanna-Barbera, Merman, Music, Musicals, Phil Silvers, Remakes, Sid Caesar, Sinatra, Steve Martin, Television, The Simpsons, Theater, Tracy
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Hawks' Rio Bravo marks a half-century
By David Gaffen
The era of the revisionist Western is generally associated with the early 1990s, but the reality is that the subversion of the genre began in earnest several decades earlier. It picked up steam with Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns and films directed by Don Siegel and Sam Peckinpah, but Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo was one of the earlier entries to play with the conventions of the genre.
It is well known that Hawks disliked High Noon, which was released in 1952, seven years before Rio Bravo — in part because of the anxiety and insecurity displayed by Will Kane, the hero played by Gary Cooper. In and of itself, this was already a subversion of the archetypal protagonist of the western, although the stoic nature of Cooper’s character fit squarely into the conventions established already within the Western’s short history on film.
Rio Bravo features John Wayne in another performance as the towering authority figure, but after his iron-clenched performance a few years earlier as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers — another film directed by John Ford that presents a protagonist as separate from the family he serves — his John Chance is another stoic, laconic type, but his relationships with the other principles have a more relaxed, lived-in quality, particularly Dean Martin, the town drunk who later redeems himself. This was Wayne entering the latter stages of his career, when his performances brought with him a quiet steadiness, devoid of the coiled rage one saw in The Searchers, which remains his best performance.
The other characters in the film are archetypes in and of themselves — the drunk, the kid, the grizzled codger — but they’re invested with a light spirit. While Hawks and Wayne may have wanted to answer High Noon’s supposed take on blacklisting with one that did not show society abandoning a man who was protecting them (the very position taken in The Searchers), this take was in some ways a more liberal, community-oriented one. Wayne’s allies are of varying ability, what with a drunk, an inexperienced kid, and a coot to protect the town against the rancher seeking to bust Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) out of prison — and Wayne’s Chance is constantly turning down entreaties from other townspeople who want to help him.
It’s hard to believe that Hawks’ chief problem with High Noon was its political bent and what they interpreted as weakness in the main character, particularly as Rio Bravo works more effectively as a rejoinder to the somber High Noon. Much of the film’s relaxed nature comes from Wayne’s interaction with Angie Dickinson’s Feathers character and the elderly deputy, Stumpy, played by supporting actor du jour Walter Brennan. Dickinson more than holds her own here — the film has several gentle moments of interaction between her and Wayne, always underrated, who as usual says more with the phrasing of one line or a reaction than plenty of actors could with a five-minute soliloquy.
And the movie remains a great showcase for what can only be described as the enjoyment of filmmaking, best illustrated by two of Martin’s big moments. One, of course, is the scene where he walks into a bar to find a character’s killer, and spots drops of blood falling into a beer mug, cluing him into the outlaw’s presence in the rafters; it’s the kind of moment Quentin Tarantino lives to include in his films.
Of course, there’s the brilliant scene prior to the climax where Martin and Nelson — both possessing terrific voices, as it was well known — sing “My Rifle, My Pony and Me.” The scene serves its purpose as a break from the rising tension throughout the latter part of the film, but who could cast a movie with Martin and Nelson and not have them collaborate with a vocal performance?
Rio Bravo is one of those films that a person could see once and feel they’ve seen it five times, so lived-in is its appeal, so comfortable its presence. In a sense one could see it three times while only seeing it once, as
Hawks and Wayne teamed up for two more versions of the tale. El Dorado (1967), in a way, improves on the original (Robert Mitchum and James Caan are superior actors to Martin and Nelson), but the villains are stronger in the original, but these are minor differences. It’s hard to say to whom this film belongs. Martin was never stronger than in this movie, a surprisingly effective cowboy who generates a ton of empathy as a result of his character’s struggle with booze. He commands the screen in his scenes in part because Wayne was a consistently generous performer on-screen, allowing the other actors room to breathe while he comfortably let his presence do the work for him. Wayne’s ability to slip comfortably from the foreground to the background in favor of his co-stars was among his greatest strengths — the subtle approach is also probably what kept him from winning awards until he took on the more colorful Rooster Cogburn role in True Grit — but Rio Bravo is one of his best roles. It is justly remembered as one of the classics of the genre.
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Labels: Angie Dickinson, blacklist, Caan, Cooper, Dean Martin, Don Siegel, Hawks, John Ford, Leone, Mitchum, Movie Tributes, Peckinpah, Tarantino, W. Brennan, Wayne
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Thursday, June 07, 2007
My 10 favorite Sopranos episodes
By Edward Copeland
Since I can't see the finale early, I thought I'd toss this post up to tide you over until I can write my final thoughts on The Sopranos as a whole. It was tough pruning the many great episodes the show has produced to a mere 10, but I've done it. (Part of the way that helped is that I automatically excluded any Season 6 episodes) So here are my 10 favorites, in chronological order:
EPISODE NO. 5: COLLEGE
I almost resisted including this landmark episode, since it's always cited. It's almost become the Citizen Kane of Sopranos episodes, but that's no reason to leave it off the list. It was the perfect blend of Tony's attempted balancing act, taking Meadow to visit colleges while engaging, for the first time, in a literally hands-on murder itself.
EPISODE NO. 9: BOCA
I seem to be one of the few that stick up for this episode as one of my favorites. First, it's the first (of many episodes that show how gossipy and petty these wiseguys can be as word gets around that (gasp) Junior goes down on his girlfriend, something that the mobsters seem to think make men less manly, even though most of them admit to doing it as well. It also shows how a simple joke can escalate into deadliness. On top of that, it's balanced against the guys learning that their daughters' successful soccer coach may be leaving, something they want to prevent at all costs until they also learn that he's been carrying on with one of the teens, leading to one of the greatest episode endings ever where a drunken Tony chooses to let the police handle the coach and ends up flailing about his living room bellowing, "I didn't hurt nobody."
EPISODE NO. 25:
KNIGHT IN WHITE SATIN ARMOR
In the otherwise weak second season, this episode to me was by far the standout. You knew almost from the moment he was introduced that Richie Aprile was going to have to be taken out by year's end, but few saw it coming as it did, with a pissed-off Janice responding to a sock to the face by putting a couple of slugs into Richie as he ate dinner. Then, the episode kept building beyond that point with Tony coming to bail his sister out, the last great Livia scene as she dresses down Janice for "losing" another man and then laughs as Tony flees her house and falls flat on his face on her sidewalk. There's also humor to be found as Tony tries to reassure an about-to-go-on-the-lam Janice that Richie got a proper burial. The capper though was one of the many great uses of music on the series. As Tony returns home and tries to fill Carmela in without the details, Carmela remains pissed over other matters and tells Tony that she and Rosalie Aprile are going to take a trip whether he likes it or not. As she leaves Tony alone on the couch, the Eurythmics' "I Saved the World Today" begins playing as the perfect punchline/capper to the episode with its lyrics: Hey hey I saved the world today/Everybody's happy now/The bad things gone away/And everybody's happy now/The good thing's here to stay/Please let it stay
EPISODE NO. 30: EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
In a way, a real change-of-pace episode and the finest showcase Lorraine Bracco ever got as Dr. Melfi. The sequence of her rape was shocking, but it's really the psychological aspects of this episode that makes it one of the series' all-time bests. It could almost be called "The Last Temptation of Melfi" as she struggles to resist the impulse to get vengeance on the man who raped her through the hands of her most famous patient. It may also be the only case in the history of dramatic television where the climax of an episode consists of the use of a single word, in this case, "No."
EPISODE NO. 33: SECOND OPINION
As much as some viewers hate to admit it, part of the joy of The Sopranos always came when Tony and the gang used their strong-arm tactics not against other criminals or innocents but against people who get away with victimizing others because of their status. No greater example exists than in "Second Opinion" as Uncle Junior struggles with cancer and can't get his busy well-off doctor to treat him like a human being. Having been a victim of this attitude from so-called "health professionals" many times, I couldn't help but cheer Tony and Furio on when they used subtle threats to get Junior's doctor to do his job and be decent. That would be enough to make this a memorable episode but then we also get Carmela finally going to her own psychiatrist who tells her what she should already know: "You'll never be able to feel good about yourself, never be able to quell the feelings of guilt and shame....as you're his accomplice." The doctor even refuses to accept her "blood money." "One thing you can never say ...that you haven't been told," he tells her. It gave Edie Falco one of her very best episodes, for which she deservedly won an Emmy, even if it did cost Bracco her Emmy the same year for "Employee of the Month."
EPISODE NO. 37: PINE BARRENS
Before Steve Buscemi appears as Tony Blundetto in Season 5, he directed one of the shows' most memorable larks with "Pine Barrens." I'm sort of like David Chase: I can't believe people are still out there waiting for the Russian to come back. Sure, I wondered about it at the time, but you had to figure he wasn't coming back when he failed to show rather quickly. (Now watch Chase go and prove we were all chumps by having him reappear in the series finale.) Michael Imperioli always was good, but this was the first episode that really gave Tony Sirico the chance to shine for an extended period of time as he and Chrissy fight and freeze in the frigid Pine Barrens, awaiting some sort of rescue from Tony, who has his own troubles back at home with the increasingly unstable Gloria.
EPISODE NO. 48: WHOEVER DID THIS
From the moment Joe Pantoliano appeared as Ralph Cifaretto, you knew he had a huge target on his chest, but once again the show managed to surprise us with when and how it happened. First, it gives him some of his strongest scenes as he struggles with the critical injury of his son in a bow-and-arrow accident. However, Tony can't stay in a sympathetic mood for long as the horse Pie-O-My dies in a stable fire that Tony is certain Ralph bears responsibility for. Besides, Tony still hasn't forgiven him for killing poor doomed stripper Tracee and he would have never bumped him up to captain if Gigi hadn't blown his gasket on the can. The brutal fight to the death comes suddenly and then the cleanup time between Tony and a high-out-of-his-mind Chris made for the perfect dark-humored tone.
EPISODE NO. 49: THE STRONG, SILENT TYPE
One of the funniest television nights I ever remember was Nov. 17, 2002 when I watched back-to-back this episode, with its hysterical mob version of a drug intervention, followed by Curb Your Enthusiasm's third season finale, "The Grand Opening," where an entire restaurant let loose with profanity so a chef with Tourette's syndrome wouldn't seem out of place. Not that all of "The Strong, Silent Type" was played for laughs: Tony's crew suspected he knew more about the missing Ralph than he let on, but Tony succeeded in blaming it all on New York. Meanwhile, Carmela seeks Rosalie's help with her obsession with Furio. Still, it's Christopher's drug problem that powers the episode, beginning with him accidentally crushing Adriana's dog Cosette to death when he sits on her. Junior advises Tony that Christopher is a liability that should be "put out of his misery," but Tony opts for the intervention route and it ends up being one of the funniest scenes in Sopranos history.
EPISODE NO. 52: WHITECAPS
Much like College, Whitecaps is such a fabled episode that I was tempted to choose others instead of it, but how can you ignore the episode where Carmela finally calls Tony on his shit and orders him out of the house when his ex-Russian goomah spills the bean about Tony's sexual encounter with her one-legged cousin. The tension was palpable as Carmela finally admits her feelings about Furio to Tony after Furio has fled the U.S. and dreams of a house on the Jersey Shore for the family collapse alongside the Soprano marriage. There is movement on other fronts as well as Christopher returns from rehab, clean and sober, Tony backs out of a deal with Johnny Sack to take out Carmine and Uncle Junior's trial ends up with a hung jury thanks to some tampering. Still, it's the domestic drama that dominates this episode, which even has some time for humor as Tony uses some hilarious pressure techniques to get out of a real estate deal with a prick of a lawyer. Who knew Dean Martin could be so persuasive?
EPISODE NO. 57:
IRREGULAR AROUND THE MARGINS
People tend to pick Long Term Parking out as the fifth season's best episode, but for me it was never a contest because this one seemed more pivotal and tense and was one of the best episodes they'd produced since Season 3. Tony and Adriana's flirtation bodes ill even before the highway wreck that prompts the ever-chatty wiseguys to start rumors that really begin the split between Christopher and Tony that lasted until this year's final batch of episodes. This is the episode that I think really won Michael Imperioli and Drea de Matteo their well-deserved Emmys, even more so than Long Term Parking.
Also, to prove I'm not just a blind Sopranos fanatic, I thought I'd toss in my choices for my five least favorite episodes. In this list, I am including Season 6, though once again I'm just going to list them chronologically.
EPISODE 20: D-GIRL
The first time an episode that attempted to delve more seriously into Christopher's Hollywood dreams went off the rails. Was it an excuse just to toss in cameos from Jon Favreau, Janeane Garofalo and Sandra Bernhard? It doesn't matter, because the entire enterprise didn't work and distracted from the episode's positive elements of Pussy's guilt over wearing a wire to A.J.'s confirmation.
EPISODE 42: CHRISTOPHER
Another example where a strong, emotional story strand, namely the death of Bobby's wife Karen in a car accident, is undermined by the silliness of the crew's anger over protests against the Columbus Day parade. Sure, this was David Chase trying to answer critics who think The Sopranos malign Italian Americans, but it just wasn't funny enough or thoughtful enough to make the enterprise work.
EPISODE 50: CALLING ALL CARS
I think I speak for many viewers when I hope and pray that no dream sequence is going to mar Sunday night's finale since more times than not, they've been a bad idea, and Tony's car trip with the ghosts of his past was another bad example. Unfortunately, the show's other major story thread didn't work either, namely Janice scheming to try to get widower Bobby for herself, going so far as to force him to eat his late wife's final baked ziti.
EPISODE 63: THE TEST DREAM
I know this episode has its defenders, but for me it's the definition of a time waster. The entire episode really has only one key development: Tony B.'s revenge killing of Phil's brother and botched killing of Phil himself. Unfortunately, it's wrapped so intricately with the snoozer of what has to be the longest dream sequence outside of The Wizard of Oz or that one season of Dallas. Why was Annette Bening there again? Never mind. I don't want to know.
EPISODE 72: LUXURY LOUNGE
It's really amazing that the payoffs to the "Cleaver" movie storyline ended up working as well as they did, since this episode with Carmine Jr. and Christopher venturing to L.A. to try to woo Ben Kingsley was so bad. Hey, Lauren Bacall can take a punch though, huh? Those scenes would have been bad enough, but they were countered with the worst Artie Bucco episode ever as the restaurateur gets into a feud with Benny Fazio over credit card scams and the hostess that Benny is having an affair with and that Artie has the hots for.
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Since I can't see the finale early, I thought I'd toss this post up to tide you over until I can write my final thoughts on The Sopranos as a whole. It was tough pruning the many great episodes the show has produced to a mere 10, but I've done it. (Part of the way that helped is that I automatically excluded any Season 6 episodes) So here are my 10 favorites, in chronological order:
I almost resisted including this landmark episode, since it's always cited. It's almost become the Citizen Kane of Sopranos episodes, but that's no reason to leave it off the list. It was the perfect blend of Tony's attempted balancing act, taking Meadow to visit colleges while engaging, for the first time, in a literally hands-on murder itself.
I seem to be one of the few that stick up for this episode as one of my favorites. First, it's the first (of many episodes that show how gossipy and petty these wiseguys can be as word gets around that (gasp) Junior goes down on his girlfriend, something that the mobsters seem to think make men less manly, even though most of them admit to doing it as well. It also shows how a simple joke can escalate into deadliness. On top of that, it's balanced against the guys learning that their daughters' successful soccer coach may be leaving, something they want to prevent at all costs until they also learn that he's been carrying on with one of the teens, leading to one of the greatest episode endings ever where a drunken Tony chooses to let the police handle the coach and ends up flailing about his living room bellowing, "I didn't hurt nobody."
KNIGHT IN WHITE SATIN ARMOR
In the otherwise weak second season, this episode to me was by far the standout. You knew almost from the moment he was introduced that Richie Aprile was going to have to be taken out by year's end, but few saw it coming as it did, with a pissed-off Janice responding to a sock to the face by putting a couple of slugs into Richie as he ate dinner. Then, the episode kept building beyond that point with Tony coming to bail his sister out, the last great Livia scene as she dresses down Janice for "losing" another man and then laughs as Tony flees her house and falls flat on his face on her sidewalk. There's also humor to be found as Tony tries to reassure an about-to-go-on-the-lam Janice that Richie got a proper burial. The capper though was one of the many great uses of music on the series. As Tony returns home and tries to fill Carmela in without the details, Carmela remains pissed over other matters and tells Tony that she and Rosalie Aprile are going to take a trip whether he likes it or not. As she leaves Tony alone on the couch, the Eurythmics' "I Saved the World Today" begins playing as the perfect punchline/capper to the episode with its lyrics: Hey hey I saved the world today/Everybody's happy now/The bad things gone away/And everybody's happy now/The good thing's here to stay/Please let it stay
In a way, a real change-of-pace episode and the finest showcase Lorraine Bracco ever got as Dr. Melfi. The sequence of her rape was shocking, but it's really the psychological aspects of this episode that makes it one of the series' all-time bests. It could almost be called "The Last Temptation of Melfi" as she struggles to resist the impulse to get vengeance on the man who raped her through the hands of her most famous patient. It may also be the only case in the history of dramatic television where the climax of an episode consists of the use of a single word, in this case, "No."
As much as some viewers hate to admit it, part of the joy of The Sopranos always came when Tony and the gang used their strong-arm tactics not against other criminals or innocents but against people who get away with victimizing others because of their status. No greater example exists than in "Second Opinion" as Uncle Junior struggles with cancer and can't get his busy well-off doctor to treat him like a human being. Having been a victim of this attitude from so-called "health professionals" many times, I couldn't help but cheer Tony and Furio on when they used subtle threats to get Junior's doctor to do his job and be decent. That would be enough to make this a memorable episode but then we also get Carmela finally going to her own psychiatrist who tells her what she should already know: "You'll never be able to feel good about yourself, never be able to quell the feelings of guilt and shame....as you're his accomplice." The doctor even refuses to accept her "blood money." "One thing you can never say ...that you haven't been told," he tells her. It gave Edie Falco one of her very best episodes, for which she deservedly won an Emmy, even if it did cost Bracco her Emmy the same year for "Employee of the Month."
Before Steve Buscemi appears as Tony Blundetto in Season 5, he directed one of the shows' most memorable larks with "Pine Barrens." I'm sort of like David Chase: I can't believe people are still out there waiting for the Russian to come back. Sure, I wondered about it at the time, but you had to figure he wasn't coming back when he failed to show rather quickly. (Now watch Chase go and prove we were all chumps by having him reappear in the series finale.) Michael Imperioli always was good, but this was the first episode that really gave Tony Sirico the chance to shine for an extended period of time as he and Chrissy fight and freeze in the frigid Pine Barrens, awaiting some sort of rescue from Tony, who has his own troubles back at home with the increasingly unstable Gloria.
From the moment Joe Pantoliano appeared as Ralph Cifaretto, you knew he had a huge target on his chest, but once again the show managed to surprise us with when and how it happened. First, it gives him some of his strongest scenes as he struggles with the critical injury of his son in a bow-and-arrow accident. However, Tony can't stay in a sympathetic mood for long as the horse Pie-O-My dies in a stable fire that Tony is certain Ralph bears responsibility for. Besides, Tony still hasn't forgiven him for killing poor doomed stripper Tracee and he would have never bumped him up to captain if Gigi hadn't blown his gasket on the can. The brutal fight to the death comes suddenly and then the cleanup time between Tony and a high-out-of-his-mind Chris made for the perfect dark-humored tone.
One of the funniest television nights I ever remember was Nov. 17, 2002 when I watched back-to-back this episode, with its hysterical mob version of a drug intervention, followed by Curb Your Enthusiasm's third season finale, "The Grand Opening," where an entire restaurant let loose with profanity so a chef with Tourette's syndrome wouldn't seem out of place. Not that all of "The Strong, Silent Type" was played for laughs: Tony's crew suspected he knew more about the missing Ralph than he let on, but Tony succeeded in blaming it all on New York. Meanwhile, Carmela seeks Rosalie's help with her obsession with Furio. Still, it's Christopher's drug problem that powers the episode, beginning with him accidentally crushing Adriana's dog Cosette to death when he sits on her. Junior advises Tony that Christopher is a liability that should be "put out of his misery," but Tony opts for the intervention route and it ends up being one of the funniest scenes in Sopranos history.
Much like College, Whitecaps is such a fabled episode that I was tempted to choose others instead of it, but how can you ignore the episode where Carmela finally calls Tony on his shit and orders him out of the house when his ex-Russian goomah spills the bean about Tony's sexual encounter with her one-legged cousin. The tension was palpable as Carmela finally admits her feelings about Furio to Tony after Furio has fled the U.S. and dreams of a house on the Jersey Shore for the family collapse alongside the Soprano marriage. There is movement on other fronts as well as Christopher returns from rehab, clean and sober, Tony backs out of a deal with Johnny Sack to take out Carmine and Uncle Junior's trial ends up with a hung jury thanks to some tampering. Still, it's the domestic drama that dominates this episode, which even has some time for humor as Tony uses some hilarious pressure techniques to get out of a real estate deal with a prick of a lawyer. Who knew Dean Martin could be so persuasive?
IRREGULAR AROUND THE MARGINS
People tend to pick Long Term Parking out as the fifth season's best episode, but for me it was never a contest because this one seemed more pivotal and tense and was one of the best episodes they'd produced since Season 3. Tony and Adriana's flirtation bodes ill even before the highway wreck that prompts the ever-chatty wiseguys to start rumors that really begin the split between Christopher and Tony that lasted until this year's final batch of episodes. This is the episode that I think really won Michael Imperioli and Drea de Matteo their well-deserved Emmys, even more so than Long Term Parking.
Also, to prove I'm not just a blind Sopranos fanatic, I thought I'd toss in my choices for my five least favorite episodes. In this list, I am including Season 6, though once again I'm just going to list them chronologically.
The first time an episode that attempted to delve more seriously into Christopher's Hollywood dreams went off the rails. Was it an excuse just to toss in cameos from Jon Favreau, Janeane Garofalo and Sandra Bernhard? It doesn't matter, because the entire enterprise didn't work and distracted from the episode's positive elements of Pussy's guilt over wearing a wire to A.J.'s confirmation.
Another example where a strong, emotional story strand, namely the death of Bobby's wife Karen in a car accident, is undermined by the silliness of the crew's anger over protests against the Columbus Day parade. Sure, this was David Chase trying to answer critics who think The Sopranos malign Italian Americans, but it just wasn't funny enough or thoughtful enough to make the enterprise work.
I think I speak for many viewers when I hope and pray that no dream sequence is going to mar Sunday night's finale since more times than not, they've been a bad idea, and Tony's car trip with the ghosts of his past was another bad example. Unfortunately, the show's other major story thread didn't work either, namely Janice scheming to try to get widower Bobby for herself, going so far as to force him to eat his late wife's final baked ziti.
I know this episode has its defenders, but for me it's the definition of a time waster. The entire episode really has only one key development: Tony B.'s revenge killing of Phil's brother and botched killing of Phil himself. Unfortunately, it's wrapped so intricately with the snoozer of what has to be the longest dream sequence outside of The Wizard of Oz or that one season of Dallas. Why was Annette Bening there again? Never mind. I don't want to know.
It's really amazing that the payoffs to the "Cleaver" movie storyline ended up working as well as they did, since this episode with Carmine Jr. and Christopher venturing to L.A. to try to woo Ben Kingsley was so bad. Hey, Lauren Bacall can take a punch though, huh? Those scenes would have been bad enough, but they were countered with the worst Artie Bucco episode ever as the restaurateur gets into a feud with Benny Fazio over credit card scams and the hostess that Benny is having an affair with and that Artie has the hots for.
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Labels: Bacall, Bening, Buscemi, Curb Your Enthusiasm, David Chase, Dean Martin, HBO, Kingsley, Lists, The Sopranos, TV Tribute
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Thursday, March 01, 2007
What did Wilder do?
By Edward Copeland
I thought I'd go through all of Billy Wilder's films as either writer and/or director that I've seen, omitting the titles being explored in greater detail elsewhere on this site today. Forgive our indulgence, but we love Billy and relished the opportunity to go overboard about him.
Mauvaise graine (1934)
This film made in France was Wilder's first directing effort (actually, he co-directed with Alexander Esway) and is a fascinating artifact for any Wilder fan to check out. The only film he made in France after fleeing Germany following Hitler's election as chancellor, Mauvaise graine (translation: Bad seed) was based on a short story by Wilder. It tells the story of Henri (Pierre Mingand), a son of privilege cut off by his physician father (Paul Escoffier), who has tired of his son's playboy ways. Henri falls in with a colorful band of car thieves once he's forced to sell his own vehicle to cover debts. Though the film has a mostly light tone, it's hard not to see the path Wilder's life is to take as in the end, Henri flees Paris for parts unknown, just as Wilder did for Hollywood where he worked as a screenwriter, not directing another film for eight years.
Ninotchka (1939)
Billy Wilder famously had a framed quote hanging on his office wall which read, "What would Lubitsch do?" and he got a chance to see his inspiration and mentor at work when he co-wrote the great Greta Garbo vehicle Ninotchka. Garbo is joyous to watch as a committed Russian communist sent to Paris to investigate the delay in the sale of some crown jewels by her emissaries only to discover that they've been seduced by capitalism, something she soon falls prey to as well in the form of the delightful Melvyn Douglas. This sparkling comedy is as witty today as I imagine it was in its original release. It could have been the role that finally got Garbo an Oscar, but the movie had the misfortune of being released in the same year as Gone With the Wind and nothing was gonna keep that Oscar away from Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara.
Ball of Fire (1941)
Has there ever been a more propitious alignment of talents than those that came together for Ball of Fire? Wilder and his co-writer Charles Brackett, after getting to work with the great Lubitsch on Ninotchka, not only get to see the great Howard Hawks in action but Wilder also gets to see the great Barbara Stanwyck up close and personal before she gets to work with Wilder in one of his greatest film achievements. I don't know whose inspiration it was to take a twist on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and transform it into a comedy where Snow White is anything but (a saucy moll in fact) and the dwarfs are a collection of eccentric professors working to compile a dictionary of American slang. What a year Stanwyck had in 1941 — this film, Capra's Meet John Doe and Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve. Stanwyck got her best actress nomination for Ball of Fire (the right choice of the three, I believe) but how she could lose to Joan Fontaine in Suspicion is downright criminal. How Stanwyck never won an Oscar period is unbelievable. If it were up to me, Stanwyck would have ended up with four Oscars in her lifetime instead of a mere honorary one.
The Major and the Minor (1942)
Wilder got his chance to get back in the director's chair for the first time following his move to Hollywood with this charming but lightweight comedy starring Ginger Rogers who disguises herself as a 12-year-old to get a cut-rate train ticket home only to become embroiled with an Army major (Ray Milland), eager to get back into active service anticipating the war clouds on the horizon. Wilder and Charles Brackett's trademark wit certainly makes itself known (look for a great sight gag involving the students from an all-girls school that visit the military academy Milland works at for a dance). Rogers is fun and Rita Johnson makes a nice villain as Milland's fiancee. There also is a nice turn from the forgotten Diana Lynn as Johnson's little sister, though it's nothing compared to the great role she'd get in Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek two years later.
Double Indemnity (1944)
This wasn't Wilder's first film as a director, but this is the one that put him on the map and one of the films that practically define film noir. Teaming again with the magnificent Stanwyck, a never-better Fred MacMurray (this is the kindly dad from My Three Sons and The Absent-Minded Professor?) and the great Edward G. Robinson. Stanwyck lost again, this time to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, who was at least worthy, even if she wasn't better that Stanwyck's indelible Phyllis Dietrichson. The bigger Oscar crimes this year were that Double Indemnity and Wilder lost to Going My Way and Leo McCarey and that MacMurray and Robinson didn't even earn nominations. Someone should swing from a star (or at least be pushed from a moving train) for those Oscar travesties. Sidenote for Twin Peaks fans: Another fun reference the series threw in in the first season happened when Catherine Martell (Piper Laurie) discovered that an insurance policy had been taken out on her life without her knowledge, thanks to an insurance agent whose last name just happened to be Neff, giving Laurie the chance to utter those famous words, "Are you an ambitious man, Mr. Neff?"
The Lost Weekend (1945)
This at-the-time landmark portrayal of alcoholism won Billy Wilder his first two Oscars and while I'm happy he won Oscars, I've always felt this film was very dated and not one of his best. Ray Milland is fine and Howard da Silva as a bartender is even better, but this one has never really grabbed me. Of course, leave it to the Academy to honor a talent as deserving as Wilder for a lesser work. At least the next two years when he won Oscars were for two of his greatest films instead of something as creaky as this one.
A Foreign Affair (1948)
This small gem is really one of Wilder's lesser-known efforts, but it shouldn't be, containing great work from Jean Arthur as a member of Congress investigating a singer (Marlene Dietrich) suspected of being a former Nazi. Complicating matters is an Army captain (John Lund) who is infatuated with both women. Like his later One, Two, Three, which also found ample comedy in post-war Berlin, and Stalag 17, which proved it's better to mock the Nazis than to fear them years before Mel Brooks practically made a career out of ridiculing the Third Reich, A Foreign Affair also finds a great deal of pathos in Dietrich's character, who is determined to go on despite the fact that the city she loves is still practically in ruins.
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Raised expectations are a dangerous thing and that proved to be the case when, after years of lusting, I finally got to see Ace in the Hole aka The Big Carnival. Billy Wilder making a sharp satire about the media and in 1951 no less? Sign me up. However, once I did get to see the movie, I was disappointed. Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps it was the multitude of better movies that were made later that I'd already seen that made this feel like old hat. Certainly, it must have been groundbreaking and edgy in its time, but viewed now, many films have tackled the subject so much better. Admittedly, any film that Wilder made immediately after the incomparable Sunset Blvd. was going to be a letdown, but Ace in the Hole left me cold.
Stalag 17 (1953)
Wilder's next one was far from a disappointment and won William Holden his only Oscar. It also not only inspired TV's Hogan's Heroes but a lawsuit over them poaching from Stalag 17 to boot (Hell, one of the Germans running the camp is even named Sgt. Schulz, did they think no one would notice?). While set in a German POW camp, it certainly has its harrowing moments and death thanks to a mole within the prisoners' ranks, as one would expect from Wilder, it's also got plenty of laughs to offer, many from Robert Strauss in his Oscar-nominated performance.
Sabrina (1954)
When you have Audrey Hepburn, especially so early in her career, charm will turn out to be the operative word for the film and such is the case with Sabrina. Wilder worked with Holden yet again but also got Humphrey Bogart to appear in a rare romantic comedy, showing a different side to him late in Bogie's career. While Sabrina is certainly enjoyable, it's always seemed like a bit of an aberration in the Wilder canon. Then again, what is the Wilder canon? Like Howard Hawks, Wilder would take a shot at just about any genre. Let's just forget about the ill-advised remake that happened in the 1990s with Julia "Where is she now?" Ormond, Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear.
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
This comedy, more famous for a subway grate blowing up Marilyn Monroe's skirt than anything else, was adapted from a stage play and its theatrical origins are glaringly obvious. Sure, Tom Ewell has some good moments, as does Monroe, but for the most part, this is a botch and not worthy of being part of the Billy Wilder filmography.
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
Billy sure was a busy boy in 1957, with three features coming out in the 12-month period, though the third was by far the best one. As for this biography of Charles Lindbergh, this may be the most un-Wilder movie that Wilder ever made. James Stewart seems to be sleepwalking through his role as the famed aviator and some of the ways they try to open the film up (I mean, can you really make a feature film about one man alone in a plane flying over the ocean when you know he's going to land safely?). There are flashbacks a-plenty, lots of internal monologues and, in foreshadowing of Tom Hanks' later conversations with a soccer ball in Cast Away, an extended one-way conversation with a fly. It's not bad, but it's not Wilder.
Love in the Afternoon (1957)
The second time working with Audrey Hepburn was not the charm as far as Wilder was concerned in this tale of an over-the-hill playboy (Gary Cooper, who if the part didn't call for an over-the-hill playboy, was certainly too old for Hepburn) targeted for death by the jealous husband of one of his many conquests. Hepburn plays the daughter of the detective hired by the angry spouse and she sets out to intervene by faking her own list of romantic liaisons and, of course, falling in love with Cooper herself. One of Wilder's most forgettable efforts.
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
As I alluded to earlier, Wilder saved the best of his 1957 films for last with this adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel. Sparked by the great interplay between real-life spouses Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester and another great performance under Wilder's direction from Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution proves to be a true joy. It's not really a straight-forward whodunit as most of Christie's books were, but instead is a courtroom drama, and a riveting one at that. It was another genre that Wilder hadn't attempted before and with this film, he passed the test with flying colors.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Nobody may be perfect, but this film damn near is. This is the first film in a three-film streak that may be Wilder's best one, two, three punch ever (I explore the third film, One, Two, Three, in more detail elsewhere). He gets a good performance out of Marilyn Monroe and great ones out of Tony Curtis, dressing in drag and channeling Cary Grant. and Jack Lemmon. More than just a drag comedy, Some Like It Hot simply is one of the most entertaining films ever made.
The Apartment (1960)
I love Alfred Hitchcock and I know there are many out there who still are distressed that The Apartment beat Psycho for best picture (Actually, Psycho wasn't even nominated for picture, though Wilder did beat Hitch for director), but I think the best film won. A perfect blend of sophisticated comedy, some slapstick and ample pathos, The Apartment simply is sublime. Again, Wilder recognizes that Fred MacMurray can do wonders as a heel (though he almost didn't take the part since Disney had sunk its claws into him by now). Lemmon is note perfect and Shirley MacLaine really gets her first truly great role. For those who still harbor ill thoughts about Psycho's loss, shut up and deal with it.
Irma la Douce (1963)
It's rough sledding for the great Billy Wilder from here forward. Sure, there is one butchered classic to come, but for the most part, One, Two, Three marked the last high watermark of the great man's career. This comedy, and I use the term loosely, reunites Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and not to good effort, with Lemmon miscast as a Parisian cop who accidentally becomes pimp to MacLaine's sweet streetwalker. Of course, love is inevitable, slapstick is plentiful but unfortunately, wit and laughs are few and far between.
Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
As Maxwell Smart used to say, "Missed it by that much" and that's certainly what I felt when I saw Kiss Me, Stupid. This film had so much potential, but somehow ended up missing the mark on multiple counts. Dean Martin, basically playing himself, finds himself stranded in a small Nevada town where he encounters a budding composer (Ray Walston) with a jealous streak concerning his wife Zelda (Felicia Farr) so he and his songwriting partner (Cliff Osmond) try to substitute the town's gorgeous hooker (Kim Novak) to satiate the perpetually horny Dino and protect Zelda's honor. Needless to say, hijinks and misunderstandings ensue but somehow the movie as a whole never clicks, despite Martin and Walston's great performances.
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Of all the many accomplishments that Billy Wilder achieved in his long career, another he'll be remembered for is being the first to pair Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (for better and worse). The Fortune Cookie isn't a bad movie, but if it didn't contain Matthau's Oscar-winning performance as an ambulance-chasing lawyer, it'd be pretty forgettable. Matthau runs away with this movie (and some would argue that he shouldn't have been relegated to supporting actor when he's really a co-lead, but it's doubtful he would have topped Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons).
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
Every great filmmaker seems to have at least one case where a film he's worked long and hard on has fallen victim to others' butcher knives, making a negative reaction to the dismembered product inevitable. For Wilder, that came with The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Thanks to home video, at least one of the missing sequences have been found and restored and what remains is quite good and make Wilder fans (and movie buffs in general) salivate over what could have been. Robert Stephens is great as Holmes, as are Colin Blakely as Watson and Christopher Lee as Sherlock's brother Mycroft. The story doesn't revolve around your usual Holmes-style mysteries, but explores Sherlock's fleeting thoughts about having a child, espionage and even the Loch Ness monster. In a way, it's Wilder's Magnificent Ambersons — not what he intended, but great nonetheless.
Avanti! (1972)
Avanti! holds a unique place in Billy Wilder's filmography for me, at least of the ones I've seen. It's the only film of his that I gave up trying to finish. I got through an hour (and if Wilder's name hadn't been attached, I doubt I would have made it that far) but with nearly another hour and a half to go, I decided I'd seen enough to know that I didn't want to see anymore. Say what you will about Buddy Buddy, at least I finished that one. Jack Lemmon stars as an American businessman who flies to Italy to retrieve his father's body after he dies in a car crash while on vacation there. He soon discovers that his father had an Italian lover whom he met there frequently and who also died in the wreck. This brings him in contact with a woman (Juliet Mills) who happens to be the daughter of the late mistress. I'm guessing that some sort of romance develops between Lemmon and Mills but I didn't stick around to find out.
The Front Page (1974)
When I was a very young lad, I actually saw this movie in a theater. I didn't know who Billy Wilder was, let alone that the movie had been made before with Adolphe Menjou or as the incomparable His Girl Friday. I enjoyed it. Later, when I did see its predecessors, I realized that it ranked third of the three, but it seemed that some stories are strong enough to survive reintepretations (a theory destroyed once they tried to remake it again in the cable news era as Switching Channels with Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner). Once again, Matthau proves to be the biggest asset here, doing a more-than-respectable Walter Burns even when you put him up against Menjou and Cary Grant (though Grant will always be at the very top). Lemmon? Well, he's no Rosalind Russell (or Pat O'Brien for that matter). Most of the other casting in the 1973 version also pales alongside the other films and even at my young age I recognized that Carol Burnett was miscast and over-the-top as Mollie Malloy. It's pleasant enough, but there's nothing here that should make you see it over His Girl Friday or the original.
Buddy Buddy (1981)
Wilder's final feature was far from one of his best, but it did team him once again with Lemmon and Matthau and once again, Matthau got the best of it. Matthau plays a hit man out to do a job when he encounters Lemmon (as yet another suicidally depressed man whose wife has left him) and finds himself distracted trying to save the man from doing himself in. Matthau gives it his best shot (no pun intended) but the gags are forced and tired. It's another American movie remade from a script by Francis Veber (while his script for La Cage Aux Folles turned into the acceptable Birdcage and a Broadway musical, he also led Hollywood to make such duds such as The Toy, The Man With One Red Shoe, Three Fugitives, Pure Luck and My Father the Hero. It's sad that a giant like Wilder had to end with this one, but what can you do? He still produced far more great movies than misfires.
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TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
I thought I'd go through all of Billy Wilder's films as either writer and/or director that I've seen, omitting the titles being explored in greater detail elsewhere on this site today. Forgive our indulgence, but we love Billy and relished the opportunity to go overboard about him.
This film made in France was Wilder's first directing effort (actually, he co-directed with Alexander Esway) and is a fascinating artifact for any Wilder fan to check out. The only film he made in France after fleeing Germany following Hitler's election as chancellor, Mauvaise graine (translation: Bad seed) was based on a short story by Wilder. It tells the story of Henri (Pierre Mingand), a son of privilege cut off by his physician father (Paul Escoffier), who has tired of his son's playboy ways. Henri falls in with a colorful band of car thieves once he's forced to sell his own vehicle to cover debts. Though the film has a mostly light tone, it's hard not to see the path Wilder's life is to take as in the end, Henri flees Paris for parts unknown, just as Wilder did for Hollywood where he worked as a screenwriter, not directing another film for eight years.
Billy Wilder famously had a framed quote hanging on his office wall which read, "What would Lubitsch do?" and he got a chance to see his inspiration and mentor at work when he co-wrote the great Greta Garbo vehicle Ninotchka. Garbo is joyous to watch as a committed Russian communist sent to Paris to investigate the delay in the sale of some crown jewels by her emissaries only to discover that they've been seduced by capitalism, something she soon falls prey to as well in the form of the delightful Melvyn Douglas. This sparkling comedy is as witty today as I imagine it was in its original release. It could have been the role that finally got Garbo an Oscar, but the movie had the misfortune of being released in the same year as Gone With the Wind and nothing was gonna keep that Oscar away from Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara.
Has there ever been a more propitious alignment of talents than those that came together for Ball of Fire? Wilder and his co-writer Charles Brackett, after getting to work with the great Lubitsch on Ninotchka, not only get to see the great Howard Hawks in action but Wilder also gets to see the great Barbara Stanwyck up close and personal before she gets to work with Wilder in one of his greatest film achievements. I don't know whose inspiration it was to take a twist on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and transform it into a comedy where Snow White is anything but (a saucy moll in fact) and the dwarfs are a collection of eccentric professors working to compile a dictionary of American slang. What a year Stanwyck had in 1941 — this film, Capra's Meet John Doe and Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve. Stanwyck got her best actress nomination for Ball of Fire (the right choice of the three, I believe) but how she could lose to Joan Fontaine in Suspicion is downright criminal. How Stanwyck never won an Oscar period is unbelievable. If it were up to me, Stanwyck would have ended up with four Oscars in her lifetime instead of a mere honorary one.
Wilder got his chance to get back in the director's chair for the first time following his move to Hollywood with this charming but lightweight comedy starring Ginger Rogers who disguises herself as a 12-year-old to get a cut-rate train ticket home only to become embroiled with an Army major (Ray Milland), eager to get back into active service anticipating the war clouds on the horizon. Wilder and Charles Brackett's trademark wit certainly makes itself known (look for a great sight gag involving the students from an all-girls school that visit the military academy Milland works at for a dance). Rogers is fun and Rita Johnson makes a nice villain as Milland's fiancee. There also is a nice turn from the forgotten Diana Lynn as Johnson's little sister, though it's nothing compared to the great role she'd get in Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek two years later.
This wasn't Wilder's first film as a director, but this is the one that put him on the map and one of the films that practically define film noir. Teaming again with the magnificent Stanwyck, a never-better Fred MacMurray (this is the kindly dad from My Three Sons and The Absent-Minded Professor?) and the great Edward G. Robinson. Stanwyck lost again, this time to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, who was at least worthy, even if she wasn't better that Stanwyck's indelible Phyllis Dietrichson. The bigger Oscar crimes this year were that Double Indemnity and Wilder lost to Going My Way and Leo McCarey and that MacMurray and Robinson didn't even earn nominations. Someone should swing from a star (or at least be pushed from a moving train) for those Oscar travesties. Sidenote for Twin Peaks fans: Another fun reference the series threw in in the first season happened when Catherine Martell (Piper Laurie) discovered that an insurance policy had been taken out on her life without her knowledge, thanks to an insurance agent whose last name just happened to be Neff, giving Laurie the chance to utter those famous words, "Are you an ambitious man, Mr. Neff?"
This at-the-time landmark portrayal of alcoholism won Billy Wilder his first two Oscars and while I'm happy he won Oscars, I've always felt this film was very dated and not one of his best. Ray Milland is fine and Howard da Silva as a bartender is even better, but this one has never really grabbed me. Of course, leave it to the Academy to honor a talent as deserving as Wilder for a lesser work. At least the next two years when he won Oscars were for two of his greatest films instead of something as creaky as this one.
This small gem is really one of Wilder's lesser-known efforts, but it shouldn't be, containing great work from Jean Arthur as a member of Congress investigating a singer (Marlene Dietrich) suspected of being a former Nazi. Complicating matters is an Army captain (John Lund) who is infatuated with both women. Like his later One, Two, Three, which also found ample comedy in post-war Berlin, and Stalag 17, which proved it's better to mock the Nazis than to fear them years before Mel Brooks practically made a career out of ridiculing the Third Reich, A Foreign Affair also finds a great deal of pathos in Dietrich's character, who is determined to go on despite the fact that the city she loves is still practically in ruins.
Raised expectations are a dangerous thing and that proved to be the case when, after years of lusting, I finally got to see Ace in the Hole aka The Big Carnival. Billy Wilder making a sharp satire about the media and in 1951 no less? Sign me up. However, once I did get to see the movie, I was disappointed. Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps it was the multitude of better movies that were made later that I'd already seen that made this feel like old hat. Certainly, it must have been groundbreaking and edgy in its time, but viewed now, many films have tackled the subject so much better. Admittedly, any film that Wilder made immediately after the incomparable Sunset Blvd. was going to be a letdown, but Ace in the Hole left me cold.
Wilder's next one was far from a disappointment and won William Holden his only Oscar. It also not only inspired TV's Hogan's Heroes but a lawsuit over them poaching from Stalag 17 to boot (Hell, one of the Germans running the camp is even named Sgt. Schulz, did they think no one would notice?). While set in a German POW camp, it certainly has its harrowing moments and death thanks to a mole within the prisoners' ranks, as one would expect from Wilder, it's also got plenty of laughs to offer, many from Robert Strauss in his Oscar-nominated performance.
When you have Audrey Hepburn, especially so early in her career, charm will turn out to be the operative word for the film and such is the case with Sabrina. Wilder worked with Holden yet again but also got Humphrey Bogart to appear in a rare romantic comedy, showing a different side to him late in Bogie's career. While Sabrina is certainly enjoyable, it's always seemed like a bit of an aberration in the Wilder canon. Then again, what is the Wilder canon? Like Howard Hawks, Wilder would take a shot at just about any genre. Let's just forget about the ill-advised remake that happened in the 1990s with Julia "Where is she now?" Ormond, Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear.
This comedy, more famous for a subway grate blowing up Marilyn Monroe's skirt than anything else, was adapted from a stage play and its theatrical origins are glaringly obvious. Sure, Tom Ewell has some good moments, as does Monroe, but for the most part, this is a botch and not worthy of being part of the Billy Wilder filmography.
Billy sure was a busy boy in 1957, with three features coming out in the 12-month period, though the third was by far the best one. As for this biography of Charles Lindbergh, this may be the most un-Wilder movie that Wilder ever made. James Stewart seems to be sleepwalking through his role as the famed aviator and some of the ways they try to open the film up (I mean, can you really make a feature film about one man alone in a plane flying over the ocean when you know he's going to land safely?). There are flashbacks a-plenty, lots of internal monologues and, in foreshadowing of Tom Hanks' later conversations with a soccer ball in Cast Away, an extended one-way conversation with a fly. It's not bad, but it's not Wilder.
The second time working with Audrey Hepburn was not the charm as far as Wilder was concerned in this tale of an over-the-hill playboy (Gary Cooper, who if the part didn't call for an over-the-hill playboy, was certainly too old for Hepburn) targeted for death by the jealous husband of one of his many conquests. Hepburn plays the daughter of the detective hired by the angry spouse and she sets out to intervene by faking her own list of romantic liaisons and, of course, falling in love with Cooper herself. One of Wilder's most forgettable efforts.
As I alluded to earlier, Wilder saved the best of his 1957 films for last with this adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel. Sparked by the great interplay between real-life spouses Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester and another great performance under Wilder's direction from Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution proves to be a true joy. It's not really a straight-forward whodunit as most of Christie's books were, but instead is a courtroom drama, and a riveting one at that. It was another genre that Wilder hadn't attempted before and with this film, he passed the test with flying colors.
Nobody may be perfect, but this film damn near is. This is the first film in a three-film streak that may be Wilder's best one, two, three punch ever (I explore the third film, One, Two, Three, in more detail elsewhere). He gets a good performance out of Marilyn Monroe and great ones out of Tony Curtis, dressing in drag and channeling Cary Grant. and Jack Lemmon. More than just a drag comedy, Some Like It Hot simply is one of the most entertaining films ever made.
I love Alfred Hitchcock and I know there are many out there who still are distressed that The Apartment beat Psycho for best picture (Actually, Psycho wasn't even nominated for picture, though Wilder did beat Hitch for director), but I think the best film won. A perfect blend of sophisticated comedy, some slapstick and ample pathos, The Apartment simply is sublime. Again, Wilder recognizes that Fred MacMurray can do wonders as a heel (though he almost didn't take the part since Disney had sunk its claws into him by now). Lemmon is note perfect and Shirley MacLaine really gets her first truly great role. For those who still harbor ill thoughts about Psycho's loss, shut up and deal with it.
It's rough sledding for the great Billy Wilder from here forward. Sure, there is one butchered classic to come, but for the most part, One, Two, Three marked the last high watermark of the great man's career. This comedy, and I use the term loosely, reunites Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and not to good effort, with Lemmon miscast as a Parisian cop who accidentally becomes pimp to MacLaine's sweet streetwalker. Of course, love is inevitable, slapstick is plentiful but unfortunately, wit and laughs are few and far between.
As Maxwell Smart used to say, "Missed it by that much" and that's certainly what I felt when I saw Kiss Me, Stupid. This film had so much potential, but somehow ended up missing the mark on multiple counts. Dean Martin, basically playing himself, finds himself stranded in a small Nevada town where he encounters a budding composer (Ray Walston) with a jealous streak concerning his wife Zelda (Felicia Farr) so he and his songwriting partner (Cliff Osmond) try to substitute the town's gorgeous hooker (Kim Novak) to satiate the perpetually horny Dino and protect Zelda's honor. Needless to say, hijinks and misunderstandings ensue but somehow the movie as a whole never clicks, despite Martin and Walston's great performances.
Of all the many accomplishments that Billy Wilder achieved in his long career, another he'll be remembered for is being the first to pair Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (for better and worse). The Fortune Cookie isn't a bad movie, but if it didn't contain Matthau's Oscar-winning performance as an ambulance-chasing lawyer, it'd be pretty forgettable. Matthau runs away with this movie (and some would argue that he shouldn't have been relegated to supporting actor when he's really a co-lead, but it's doubtful he would have topped Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons).
Every great filmmaker seems to have at least one case where a film he's worked long and hard on has fallen victim to others' butcher knives, making a negative reaction to the dismembered product inevitable. For Wilder, that came with The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Thanks to home video, at least one of the missing sequences have been found and restored and what remains is quite good and make Wilder fans (and movie buffs in general) salivate over what could have been. Robert Stephens is great as Holmes, as are Colin Blakely as Watson and Christopher Lee as Sherlock's brother Mycroft. The story doesn't revolve around your usual Holmes-style mysteries, but explores Sherlock's fleeting thoughts about having a child, espionage and even the Loch Ness monster. In a way, it's Wilder's Magnificent Ambersons — not what he intended, but great nonetheless.
Avanti! holds a unique place in Billy Wilder's filmography for me, at least of the ones I've seen. It's the only film of his that I gave up trying to finish. I got through an hour (and if Wilder's name hadn't been attached, I doubt I would have made it that far) but with nearly another hour and a half to go, I decided I'd seen enough to know that I didn't want to see anymore. Say what you will about Buddy Buddy, at least I finished that one. Jack Lemmon stars as an American businessman who flies to Italy to retrieve his father's body after he dies in a car crash while on vacation there. He soon discovers that his father had an Italian lover whom he met there frequently and who also died in the wreck. This brings him in contact with a woman (Juliet Mills) who happens to be the daughter of the late mistress. I'm guessing that some sort of romance develops between Lemmon and Mills but I didn't stick around to find out.
When I was a very young lad, I actually saw this movie in a theater. I didn't know who Billy Wilder was, let alone that the movie had been made before with Adolphe Menjou or as the incomparable His Girl Friday. I enjoyed it. Later, when I did see its predecessors, I realized that it ranked third of the three, but it seemed that some stories are strong enough to survive reintepretations (a theory destroyed once they tried to remake it again in the cable news era as Switching Channels with Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner). Once again, Matthau proves to be the biggest asset here, doing a more-than-respectable Walter Burns even when you put him up against Menjou and Cary Grant (though Grant will always be at the very top). Lemmon? Well, he's no Rosalind Russell (or Pat O'Brien for that matter). Most of the other casting in the 1973 version also pales alongside the other films and even at my young age I recognized that Carol Burnett was miscast and over-the-top as Mollie Malloy. It's pleasant enough, but there's nothing here that should make you see it over His Girl Friday or the original.
Wilder's final feature was far from one of his best, but it did team him once again with Lemmon and Matthau and once again, Matthau got the best of it. Matthau plays a hit man out to do a job when he encounters Lemmon (as yet another suicidally depressed man whose wife has left him) and finds himself distracted trying to save the man from doing himself in. Matthau gives it his best shot (no pun intended) but the gags are forced and tired. It's another American movie remade from a script by Francis Veber (while his script for La Cage Aux Folles turned into the acceptable Birdcage and a Broadway musical, he also led Hollywood to make such duds such as The Toy, The Man With One Red Shoe, Three Fugitives, Pure Luck and My Father the Hero. It's sad that a giant like Wilder had to end with this one, but what can you do? He still produced far more great movies than misfires.
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Labels: A. Hepburn, Bogart, Cary, Cooper, Dean Martin, Edward G., Garbo, Ginger Rogers, Holden, J. Stewart, Laughton, Lemmon, Lubitsch, MacLaine, MacMurray, Marilyn, Marlene, Matthau, Menjou, Tony Curtis
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Thursday, July 13, 2006
Red Buttons (1919-2006)
Boy, this is not a good week for celebrities. Now, Oscar winner Red Buttons (for Sayonara) has passed away at 87. The actor-comedian had a long career from stage, screen and television, particularly memorable for his appearances on Dean Martin's TV roasts where he did his routine about people "who never got a dinner." Here are some highlights from his long career:
Sayonara (1957): Buttons won a supporting actor Oscar as a doomed soldier in love with a Japanese woman during World War II.
Hatari (1962): He was along for the ride as John Wayne and Howard Hawks teamed on this African adventure.
The Longest Day (1962): He was one of the many in the incredibly large cast of the incredibly long war film.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969): For me, Buttons was much more memorable in his turn as marathon dance contestant Sailor than he was in his Oscar-winning role.
The Poseidon Adventure (1972): I hope that the two unnecessary remakes of this disaster classic didn't lead to his demise.
Pete's Dragon (1977): He was one of Shelley Winters' less-than-reliable henchmen in this Disney outing.
He also appeared on numerous episodes of televison series including Roseanne as her mother's boyfriend, ER and the requisite stopping place for older performers: Fantasy Island and The Love Boat.
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Labels: Dean Martin, Disney, Hawks, Obituary, Oscars, Shelley Winters, Television, Wayne
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