Saturday, March 10, 2012
Bringing Up Babs
By Damian Arlyn
I remember working in the video store one day when a regular customer came in to check out a few titles. He glanced at the enormous flat screen we had behind the counter, saw Barbra Streisand belting out some catchy show tune and uttered a question I got asked a lot in those days. "What are you watching?" he said. "Hello, Dolly!" I answered. He smiled, shook his head and exclaimed, "See, now, here's where I break with the stereotype. I'm a gay guy who doesn't like Barbra Streisand." I just laughed and replied, "That's OK. I'm a straight guy who does."
And it's true. Although she is by no means my favorite actress (nor would I ever see a film simply because she's in it), I happen to enjoy watching her onscreen. Funny Girl, Meet the Fockers and the aforementioned Hello, Dolly! are all films I love, but my favorite movie of hers would have to be the hilarious What's Up, Doc? which celebrates its 40th anniversary today. Nowhere is Babs' gift for comedy and sheer charisma on display better than in this film. They even find an excuse to show off her incredible voice once or twice: namely, in the film's opening and ending credits where she sings Cole Porter's "You're The Top" as well as the scene at the piano when she croons a few lines of "As Time Goes By."
It also doesn't hurt that What's Up, Doc? happens to be a really great movie. Hot off of his success with The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich originally conceived it as a remake of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby, but wisely decided (much as Lawrence Kasdan would do later with his film noir tribute Body Heat) to use Hawks' film merely as an inspiration rather than a template and to give What's Up, Doc? its own identity. As a result, it comes off more as a love letter to screwball comedies in general as well as to iconic Warner Bros. feature films (such as Casablanca) and classic animated shorts. Hence, when Barbra's character, Judy Maxwell, is introduced first to Ryan O'Neal's nerdy Howard Bannister, she's seen munching on a carrot a la Bugs Bunny and/or Clark Gable from It Happened One Night. With her brash, fast-talking, trouble-making personality and his stiff, bespectacled, long-suffering demeanor, the two leads clearly are based on Baby's Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. (Interestingly, Streisand shared a best actress Oscar with Ms. Hepburn only four years earlier in one of the Academy's rare ties. Streisand won for her film debut in Funny Girl while Hepburn earned her third best actress trophy for The Lion in Winter. Hepburn's prize was her second consecutive win in the category having taken the 1967 Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.) Aside from Judy constantly getting Howard into trouble and a reminiscent coat-tearing gag, the similarities between Doc and Baby essentially end there.
Also, What's Up, Doc? lacks a leopard. Instead the chaos revolves around four identical carrying cases containing such varied items as clothes, rocks, jewels and classified government documents. When moviegoers first see the quartet of cases at the start of Doc, it's the filmmakers signaling audiences that much confusion and hilarity awaits. At this point I have to confess that, although I've seen the film at least a dozen times, I cannot to this day follow which case is which throughout the course of the film. Every time I sit down to watch, I swear I'm going to keep track of the cases, but I always give up about 20 minutes into it. I take some comfort, however, from the fact that even the great Buck Henry, in the process of re-writing the screenplay, reportedly phoned Bogdanovich to say, "I've lost one of the suitcases. It's in the hotel somewhere, but I don't know where I put it."
The gags come fast and furious in What's Up, Doc? More than a decade before Bruce Willis and Bogdanovich's ex-girlfriend Cybill Shepherd resurrected rapid-fire banter on TV's Moonlighting, Streisand and O'Neal fire a barrage of zingers at each other so quickly that you're almost afraid to laugh for fear you'll miss the next one. The behind-the-scenes team also populates the What's Up, Doc? universe with a whole host of kooky characters, each bringing his or her unique comic flair to those roles. There isn't a single boring person in What's Up, Doc? Everyone (right down to the painter who drops his cigar into the bucket) amuses. At the top of the heap resides the great Madeline Kahn in her feature film debut as Howard's frumpy fiancée Eunice Burns. Two years before she joined Mel Brooks' cinematic comedy troupe, she proved to the world her status as one of the funniest women ever to grace the silver screen. Another Mel Brooks' regular, Kenneth Mars, plays Hugh Simon, providing yet one more strangely accented flamboyant nutball to his immense repertoire. A very young Randy Quaid, a brief M. Emmet Walsh and a very annoyed John Hillerman also show up in hilarious bit parts.
All of this anarchy culminates in a spectacular car chase through the streets of San Francisco that actually rivals the one from Bullitt. Apparently it took four weeks to shoot, cost $1 million (¼ of the film's budget) and even managed to get the filmmakers in trouble with the city for destroying some of its property without permission. Nevertheless, Bogdanovich pulls out all the stops in creating this over-the-top action/slapstick set piece that overflows with both thrills and laughs. When watching it, one can't help but be reminded that physical comedy on this grand of a scale doesn't even get attempted anymore. One wishes another director would resurrect the kind of awesome stunt-comedy on display here and in The Pink Panther series.
The film's dénouement takes place in a courtroom where an embittered, elderly judge (the brilliant Liam Dunn) hears the arguments of everyone involved and tries to make sense of it all. Howard's attempt to explain only serves to frustrate and confuse the judge further and results in this gem of an exchange that owes more than a little bit to Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First?":
HOWARD: First, there was this trouble between me and Hugh.
JUDGE: You and me?
HOWARD: No, not you. Hugh.
HUGH: I am Hugh.
JUDGE: You are me?
HUGH: No, I am Hugh.
JUDGE: Stop saying that. [to bailiff] Make him stop saying that!
HUGH: Don't touch me, I'm a doctor.
JUDGE: Of what?
HUGH: Music.
JUDGE: Can you fix a hi-fi?
HUGH: No, sir.
JUDGE: Then shut up!
The tag line for What's Up, Doc? read: "A screwball comedy. Remember them?" Well, whether people remembered screwball comedy or simply discovered it for the first time, they certainly embraced the film as it was an enormous success upon its release. It took in $66 million in North America alone and became the third-highest grossing film of the year. Since The Last Picture Show was released in late '71 and Doc came out in early '72, Bogdanovich had two hugely successful films playing in theaters at the same time. Unfortunately, his career, which had just started to rise, also had neared its peak. Although he would follow Doc with Paper Moon his directing career would only see sporadic critical successes after that such as Saint Jack and Mask. He even filmed Texasville, the sequel to The Last Picture Show, but he'd never again see the kind of commercial or critical success he had achieved in the early 1970s. Bogdanovich would eventually end up working in television, often as an actor such as his long recurring role as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, psychiatrist to Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) on The Sopranos. The most recent feature film he directed was 2001's fairly well-received The Cat's Meow starring Kirsten Dunst as Marion Davies and Edward Herrmann as William Randolph Hearst. Based on a play of the same name, The Cat's Meow concerned a real-life mystery in 1924 Hollywood involving the shooting death of writer/producer/director Thomas Ince (Cary Elwes) on Hearst's yacht.
When Bogdanovich was good, he was great and What's Up, Doc? is, in my opinion, the jewel in his crown. It made a once-forgotten genre popular again, it jump-started a lot of comic careers and it reminded us all that love meaning never having to say we're sorry is the dumbest thing we've ever heard.
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Labels: 70s, Abbott and Costello, Bogdanovich, Buck Henry, Cary, Cole Porter, Cybill Shepherd, Dunst, Gable, Hawks, K. Hepburn, L. Kasdan, Mel Brooks, Movie Tributes, R. Quaid, Streisand, The Sopranos, Willis
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
“It’ll get a terrific laugh…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Beginning in the 1930s and continuing well into the mid-'50s on radio (and for a number of years on television afterward), The Jack Benny Program was a “Sunday night at seven” institution for millions of American households. The titular star of the broadcast, a comedian who was practically unique in his insistence on making certain his writing staff received most of the credit for his success, revolutionized humor by, not putting too fine a point on it, becoming the godfather of the modern American situation comedy. His innovations included self-referentially setting the storyline of each week’s show amongst the background of preparing his broadcast, breaking “the fourth wall” and having his “gang” (the program’s supporting characters) get the lion’s share of the laughs poking fun at the star. Above all, Benny masterfully mined humor from pettiness, vanity and miserliness while simultaneous creating a lovable “everyman” that the listening audience couldn’t help but want to hold to its collective bosom.
Benny tried to duplicate his radio and TV success on the silver screen, and though he made a number of entertaining films, the comedian never really was satisfied with the end result. A lot of this had to do with that many of his movies, such as Love Thy Neighbor (1940), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) and The Meanest Man in the World (1943), were little more than slight variations of the character he played on radio; Neighbor and Buck Benny in particular featuring many of the regulars from his show (Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Don Wilson, Phil Harris, Dennis Day). On occasion, Jack would get the opportunity to flex his acting muscles in vehicles such as Charley’s Aunt (1941) and George Washington Slept Here (1942) so it shouldn’t be too surprising that Benny considered these movies among his favorites. But Jack — and many others, including myself — always felt his finest hour on film was in a production released to theaters 70 years ago on this date: Ernst Lubitsch’s black comedy classic To Be or Not to Be (1942).
On the eve of the German invasion of Poland in 1939, a Warsaw theater troupe headed up by “that great, great actor” Josef Tura (Benny) rehearses a new anti-Nazi play entitled Gestapo. The troupe’s producer, Dobosh (Charles Halton), is dissatisfied with what he’s watching, arguing that Bronski (Tom Dugan), the actor playing Adolf Hitler, simply ian't convincing as the Fuehrer. In an effort to prove his authenticity, Bronski steps outside to walk among the Warsaw population…and though he gets a few stunned and anxious stares, his cover is blown when a girl timidly asks for his (Bronski’s) autograph.
Later that evening, as the troupe performs Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Josef’s wife Maria (Carole Lombard) entertains a young Polish pilot named Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack) in her dressing room. Sobinski is very much in love with Maria, and has been signaled to pay her a nocturnal visit at the moment when husband Josef starts Hamlet’s famed “To be or not to be” soliloquy (naturally, Josef is dismayed when he spots the young airman leaving in the middle of his performance). Maria loves her husband very much but doesn’t dismiss having an innocent flirtation with Stanislav…an “affair” that ends with the news that Germany has invaded Poland and World War II is underway.
Under the thumb of Nazi terror, Warsaw has been reduced to rubble (the theater has been closed and the troupe thrown out of work due to a curfew and other restrictions) but a vibrant Polish underground is determined to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. In England, Sobinski and his fellow pilots spend an evening of singing and revelry in the company of a Polish resistance leader, Professor Alexander Siletsky (Stanley Ridges), who generously offers to get word to the pilots’ families. Stanislav tells Siletsky that while his own family is safely out of Poland, he would like the professor to deliver a message to Maria: “To be or not to be.” But he is troubled by the fact that Siletsky — who claims to be a lifelong resident of Warsaw — is unfamiliar with Maria Tura, and after the professor starts off for Poland, Sobinski relates the incident to his superiors (Halliwell Hobbes, Miles Mander). Both men, having realized that the information on the pilots’ families would be vital to the Nazis even if Siletsky weren’t a spy, instruct Sobinski to fly to Warsaw immediately and stop the professor.
Shot down over Warsaw, Stanislav sends Maria to rendezvous with his contact, a bookseller, while he recuperates after nearly being shot by Nazi soldiers. Josef returns home and finds the young pilot in his bed (and wearing his pajamas), is naturally curious as to what Stanislav is doing there. He receives a hurried (and incomplete) explanation from Maria, who arrives in time to tell the two men that she was picked up by Nazi soldiers and taken to Siletsky’s hotel. Siletsky arrived in Warsaw before Sobinski, and after having delivered the pilot’s message, approaches Maria about joining the Nazi cause. Despite being confused by the events, Josef realizes that he needs to stop Siletsky (by killing him) before the professor delivers the information to the Nazi command: he may be angry about being cuckolded, but he still ia a patriot at heart.
Maria returns to the professor’s hotel, where she pretends to seduce Siletsky…but they are interrupted by a member of the theater troupe (George Lynn) disguised as a Nazi officer. The faux officer informs Siletsky he has an appointment with the head of the Gestapo — who also is a fake: it’s Josef in disguise. His mission is to wrest the information on the Polish underground away from Siletsky and then dispose of him…but learns during the course of their conversation that the professor has a duplicate copy of the information in a trunk back at his hotel. Stanislav and the theater group frantically try to think of a plan to obtain that extra copy but before they can formulate anything Siletsky concludes that he’s been duped by Tura. In his escape attempt from the theater, he is killed by Sobinski.
Josef must now impersonate Siletsky — and returning to the hotel, he attempts to destroy the duplicate information but is interrupted by the arrival of another Nazi officer. Captain Schulz (Henry Victor), adjutant of the Gestapo head Tura impersonated earlier, takes Tura-as-Siletsky to Colonel Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman), the genuine article. Josef is able to do some fast thinking to avoid spilling any information (identifying men who already have been shot as resistance leaders), and during this conversation he learns that Hitler himself will be visiting Warsaw the next day.
The body of the real Professor Siletsky is found in the theater the next morning…which is unfortunate for Josef, as he still is continuing his impersonation. Arriving at Ehrhardt’s office, he is ushered into a room and asked to wait until Ehrhardt has finished an appointment with two other officers. Inside the room is the corpse of Siletsky, but Tura manages to shave off the dead man’s beard and attach a false one…thus making Ehrhardt and his men think the deceased professor actually was an impostor. But when several theater members, led by hammy actor Rawitch (Lionel Atwill) in disguise, burst in and blow Tura’s cover in order to spirit Josef away from his captors, Tura and company realize it will only be a matter of time before they are rounded up by the Germans.
To escape out of Poland, Josef and his actors concoct a diversion, with Bronski in the part of Hitler and his friend Greenberg (Felix Bressart) as a defiant Jew who interrupts the Fuehrer’s appearance at the theater; the theater company and Stanislav then steal the Nazis’ transportation and head for the airport, stopping off at Maria’s just in time to rescue her from the advances of an amorous Ehrhardt. Our heroes are successful in their flight from Warsaw and land safely in Scotland, where that evening, Josef and his fellow thespians put on a production of Hamlet…and all goes well until “To be or not to be…”
The director of To Be or Not to Be, Ernst Lubitsch, was admired and respected by his peers, critics and audiences both when he was making films and long after his death in 1948. Lubitsch specialized in urbane romantic comedies that reeked of elegance and sophistication with just a touch of the risqué (daring but never smutty) that artfully avoided any complications with the Motion Picture Code, and earned his directorial style the nickname “the Lubitsch touch.” Lubitsch didn’t take a writing credit on To Be (the honor goes to Edwin Justus Mayer, based on a story by Melchior Lengel) but he devised the character of Josef Tura with Jack in mind, joking that every comedian’s dream is “to play Hamlet.” Benny would later reminisce about the experience in saying he worked well with Lubitsch because the director told him to forget everything about acting (“which wasn’t too difficult,” he cracked) and just follow his lead as Ernst acted out every gesture and vocal inflection for Benny’s benefit. “He was a lousy actor, but a great director,” was Jack’s final verdict.
What’s wonderful about watching Benny play Tura is that both the character and Jack’s radio persona share some similarities: the vanity, the hamminess (whenever Jack would do a spoof of a current movie on his show he always made sure he got the largest role) and that lovable schlemiel that resides in a world where everything terrible seems to happen to him. And yet there are differences: Tura is way out of his league playing spy, but he’s able to screw up his courage and risk certain death to help Sobinski (the man playing around with his wife) stop a dangerous man who threatens the lives of the people of Warsaw. He’s ready to fight on behalf of his country, and demonstrates tremendous courage in doing so.
The part of Maria Tura was originally conceived as a comeback role for actress Miriam Hopkins — Hopkins had worked with Lubitsch before in the vehicles Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Design for Living (1933), and in the pre-production stages of To Be or Not to Be was anxious to let the director lift her career out of its slump. But Hopkins didn’t want to work with Benny, and so her departure attracted the interest of Carole Lombard…who, despite resistance from Lombard's husband, Clark Gable, wanted very much to work with Lubitsch (and she’d also get to work alongside Robert Stack, who had been a friend of hers for many years since he was a teenager). After completing the film, Lombard would later tell friends that it was the most satisfying experience of her career…and the proof is up on the screen. Her performance as Maria is positively luminous; she simultaneously gives the character both a playful and ethereal quality — a woman deeply in love with her husband and yet naughty enough to stray a little from the fold when opportunity presents itself. Benny had nothing but the utmost affection for his co-star, whom he really got to know during their time on the movie — he later told friends: “She was one of the few gals you could love as a woman, and treasure as a friend.”
Sustaining Benny and Lombard is an outstanding “troupe” of supporting performers that include Stack, Bressart, Atwill, Ridges, Ruman and Dugan — none of these amazing actors hit a false note in their portrayals, and deliver Lubitsch and Mayer’s sparkling dialogue to perfection. Critics at the time of To Be's release lambasted Lubitsch for allowing the heroes to be nothing but a disparate group of actors…but I think it’s a brilliant concept: Josef and his friends are the only ones with ego enough to pull one over on the arrogant Nazis. And that screenplay! So many quotable passages of delicious double entendres that exemplify “the Lubitsch touch”:
MARIA: It's becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention. Whenever I start to tell a story, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have a baby, I'm not so sure I'd be the mother.
JOSEF: I'm satisfied to be the father.
MARIA: Tell me about yourself.
SOBINSKI: Well, there isn't much to tell. I just fly a bomber.
MARIA: Oh, how perfectly thrilling!
SOBINSKI: I don't know about it being thrilling. But it's quite a bomber. You might not believe it, but I can drop three tons of dynamite in two minutes.
MARIA: Really?
SOBINSKI: Does that interest you?
MARIA: It certainly does.
SOBINSKI: You see, sir, the other night Professor Siletsky was addressing us at the camp, and I mentioned the name of Maria Tura…and he never heard of her.
ARMSTONG: Neither have I.
SOBINSKI: Oh, but, he's supposed to be a Pole who lived in Warsaw and she's the most famous actress in Warsaw.
ARMSTONG: Now, look here, young man, there are lots of people who're not interested in the theater. As a matter of fact, there's only one actress I ever heard of…and I certainly hope I'll never hear from her again.
JOSEF: It's unbelievable! Unbelievable! I come home to find a man in the same boat with me and my wife says to me, "What does it matter?"
SOBINSKI: But, Mr. Tura, it's the zero hour!
MARIA: You certainly don't want me to waste a lot of time giving you a long explanation.
JOSEF: No, but I think a husband is entitled to an inkling.
JOSEF: Her husband is that great, great Polish actor, Josef Tura. You've probably heard of him.
EHRHARDT: Oh, yes. As a matter of fact I saw him on the stage when I was in Warsaw once before the war.
JOSEF: Really?
EHRHARDT: What he did to Shakespeare we are doing now to Poland.
That last line caused a little bit of concern among critics, who steadfastly argued that poking fun at a serious situation made Lubitsch guilty of cinematic high crimes and misdemeanors. My favorite line from To Be or Not to Be is one that doesn’t seem particularly funny at first hearing (in fact, it might make some viewers wince): posing as Ehrhardt, Josef responds to flattery from Professor Siletsky with the phrase “So they call me ‘Concentration Camp’ Ehrhardt…?” But as Josef desperately tries to stall for time while Sobinski and the rest of the actors dope out a way to retrieve vital documents from the spy’s hotel room, he begins to nervously repeat the phrase over and over again until it almost becomes a mantra…and it makes me laugh out loud every time I hear it.
With all these elements — solid script, first-rate cast, great director — you’d naturally assume that To Be or Not to Be cleaned up at the box office, correct? Well, it didn’t. Lubitsch’s WW2 satire had the misfortune of being released during World War II, and theatergoers didn’t particularly warm to a film that poked deadpan fun at such a serious conflict. With hindsight, we can see the brilliance of the movie — Lubitsch’s film has witty moments, to be sure, but it also contains sequences of nail-biting suspense (witness Sobinski’s arrival in Warsaw after temporarily escaping his Nazi pursuers, not to mention the tense scenes where Maria is literally being held prisoner in Siletsky’s hotel room). The director’s intention was to satirize both the Nazis and their ideology, but as George S. Kaufman famously observed, “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” The moviegoing public simply wasn’t ready for a daring film that was able to find humor in a situation that seemed devoid of same — and a prime example of this sort of patron was Jack’s father, Mayer Kubelsky. Kubelsky went to see To Be or Not to Be…and horrified that his son was not only wearing an SS uniform but giving out with a “Heil Hitler!” in the opening scenes; he stormed out of the theater and refused to speak to his Jack. (When Jack finally convinced his father that his character was merely performing in an anti-Nazi play in the movie’s opening and that he was really the film’s hero, Mayer went back to see the movie again and again…and again. Like his famous son, it would become his favorite.)
But theatergoers also found it impossible to laugh when the movie’s female star, Carole Lombard, was killed in a plane crash about two months before the film’s premiere (she was on a World War II bond rally tour with her mother, Bess Peters, and Otto Winkler, husband Clark Gable’s press agent). Co-star Benny was devastated by Lombard’s untimely death, and refused to do his regularly scheduled program that following Sunday, substituting an all-musical half-hour. Because the actress had a line in the film — “What can happen in a plane?” — in response to Stack’s invitation to take a spin in the wild blue with him, the line was cut before the movie’s premiere (it since has been restored).
To Be or Not to Be ranks only behind Twentieth Century (1934) as my favorite Carole Lombard film, but it’s certainly my favorite of Jack Benny’s cinematic output; Jack never got another opportunity to extend his thespic range and after The Horn Blows at Midnight in 1945 (a film that he and his writers lampooned in endless jokes on his radio/TV show despite the fact that it wasn’t that bad) he limited his screen appearances to brief cameos such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and A Guide for the Married Man (1967). (He had planned to return to movies with a substantial part in The Sunshine Boys, but upon his death in 1974 his role was given to his lifelong friend George Burns). To Be is also my favorite Lubitsch film; a work of such maturity and pitch-perfect hilarity that I want to warn you: do not make the same mistake I did in watching the 1983 remake before seeing the Lubitsch version. (In all honesty, I didn’t have a choice — the Lubitsch film rarely got shown in those halcyon days before TCM). The more recent version with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, heartfelt tribute though it may have been, is much too broad and slapsticky in its burlesque approach (it’s almost like watching a stage play)…and most assuredly lacks the subtlety of “the Lubitsch touch.”
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Labels: 40s, Bancroft, Gable, Jack Benny, Lombard, Lubitsch, Mel Brooks, Movie Tributes, Remakes, Shakespeare
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Friday, December 09, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Broderick Crawford
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
In 1949, Columbia Pictures brought Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel All the King’s Men to the big screen in an adaptation that deviated a great deal from the source material (as most films are wont to do) but nevertheless made for a compelling movie about idealism and political corruption in telling the tragic story of the rise and fall of a populist demagogue named Willie Stark. In casting the film, director Robert Rossen first offered the role of Stark to John Wayne who — not surprisingly — turned down the part, thinking the script unpatriotic. Rossen then decided upon Broderick Crawford, a burly character actor whose prolific if undistinguished cinematic career was comprised of playing tough guys and Runyonesque hoods in vehicles such as Tight Shoes (1941) and Butch Minds the Baby (1942). The role of Willie Stark fit Crawford like a glove, however; he won an Oscar for his performance in King’s Men beating out the Duke, who also had been nominated that same year for his starring turn in Sands of Iwo Jima.
Crawford’s triumph for All the King’s Men has often acted as a litmus test where Academy Awards are concerned; many film historians and critics argue that the Best Actor Oscar should not have gone to someone whose movie career, with the exception of King’s Men and Born Yesterday (1950), was marked by admittedly one-note performances in B-pictures, alternately playing heroes and villains. Is the purpose of Academy Awards to single out meritorious individual performances, or are they largely recognition for an entire distinguished body of work? I suppose it matters very little in the final analysis, because there are no mulligans when it comes to Oscars: Crawford won his, and in all honesty I think it was most deserved. The actor, who would become one of Hollywood’s most cantankerous character thespians, was born 100 years ago today, and now is good as time as any to see if his stage, screen and television legacy holds up.
Broderick Crawford was born in Philadelphia in 1911 to a second generation of performers, vaudevillians Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick. The latter name is familiar to many classic film buffs that’ve seen the comedienne in such Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicles as Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936). Before her movie career, she and her husband were a successful comedy duo in vaudeville, with an act that occasionally featured their young son in small roles. Brod graduated from the Dean Academy in Franklin, Mass., (where he was a well-regarded athlete) and was accepted at Harvard but his further academic pursuits came to a halt when he dropped out after three months to find work in New York. He became a jack-of-all-trades (longshoreman, seaman, etc.) though eventually the show business bug consumed him and he landed a number of radio jobs in the 1930s; reportedly appearing from time to time on Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel — the 1932-33 half-hour comedy series starring Groucho and Chico Marx.
With performing in his blood, Broderick made his Broadway debut in 1934 as a football player in She Loves Me Not (he had made his stage debut in the same production in 1932 in London, where his talents attracted the notice of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who in turn introduced him to Noel Coward) and later appeared in such productions as Coward’s Point Verlaine, Sweet Mystery of Life and Of Mice and Men. It was for the latter play that Crawford earned exceptional critical acclaim, though when it came time for Hollywood to do its adaptation Brod was overlooked for the part in favor of Lon Chaney, Jr. By that point in his show business career, Crawford had set stage work aside in favor of the movies; his film debut was in the Samuel Goldwyn-produced Woman Chases Man (1937; with Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea) and he continued to appear in such B-flicks as Submarine D-1, Undercover Doctor and Eternally Yours. On occasion, Broderick would land roles in “A” productions such as Beau Geste, The Real Glory, Seven Sinners and Slightly Honorable but his rough-hewn manner and less-than-matinee-idol looks (in later years he remarked that his cinematic countenance resembled that of “a retired pugilist”) usually relegated him to character parts in scores of shoot-‘em-up Westerns like The Texas Rangers Ride Again and When the Daltons Rode. He did, however, prove versatile and adept at humorous turns in films like The Black Cat (Brod’s actually one of the “heroes” in this horror comedy, teamed with cinematic toothache Hugh Herbert) and Larceny, Inc.; he supported Edward G. Robinson in this last one as the lunkheaded Jug Martin, who assists Eddie and Ed Brophy in their attempts to rob a bank by purchasing and operating a luggage store next to it. (A decade later, Crawford paid homage to Robinson by re-creating a role that Eddie G. had played in the 1938 crime comedy A Slight Case of Murder but unfortunately, Stop, You’re Killing Me can’t quite measure up to the original.)
Crawford’s film career was interrupted briefly by World War II; he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and while in Europe saw action in the Battle of the Bulge. He later was assigned to the Armed Forces Radio Network in 1944, where as Sergeant Crawford he fell back on his previous radio experience to serve as an announcer for Glenn Miller’s band. Back in Hollywood by 1946, Brod returned to the B-picture grind with occasional bright spots such as Black Angel, The Time of Your Life (as a melancholy policeman) and Night unto Night. His gig in All the King’s Men transformed him into a box-office draw and made him the most unlikely leading man since Wallace Beery; signing a contract with Columbia that same year, he also nabbed the plum role of tyrannical junk tycoon Harry Brock opposite Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday — a part that actor Paul Douglas had played to great acclaim on stage.
Crawford’s brilliant comic turn in Yesterday had an unfortunate side effect in that it earned him enmity from critics who have argued that, for the most part, he played variations of Harry Brock in practically every film in its wake. The success of both King’s Men and Yesterday nevertheless earned him considerable cache to appear in “A” productions such as Night People (1954) and Not as a Stranger (1955) —the latter film once described by one critic as “the worst film with the best cast.” His turn as Capt. “Waco” Grimes in Between Heaven and Hell (1956) features some of his best work, and his approach to the character may remind you of Col. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That same year, he surprised critics again by scoring as a petty thief seeking redemption in Federico Fellini’s Il Bidone.
Truth be told, Crawford worked his magic best as a screen heavy; he appeared as a formidable villain against Clark Gable in 1952’s Lone Star, and particularly shone in film noirs such as Big House, U.S.A. and New York Confidential (both 1955). One of his best showcases in that style was in 1952’s Scandal Sheet, a film directed by Phil Karlson (based on a novel by Sam Fuller) in which he plays a tyrannical tabloid editor who assigns his star reporter (John Derek, who had played son Tom Stark in King’s Men) to investigate a sensationalistic murder knowing full well that he is the guilty party. Scandal Sheet bears a strong resemblance to the earlier The Big Clock (1948) — in which powerful magazine magnate Charles Laughton tries to frame editor Ray Milland for a murder Charlie committed — but while Crawford was certainly not in Laughton’s league watching him sweat bullets as the noose tightens around his neck during Derek and girlfriend Donna Reed’s relentless investigation is certainly worth the price of admission.
Crawford also headlined another underrated noir entitled The Mob (1951); as undercover cop Johnny Damico, Crawford sets out to find a hit man while exposing corruption in the waterfront rackets — Mob has some memorably snappy dialogue in addition to its first-rate supporting cast (Richard Kiley, Ernest Borgnine, Neville Brand) though I will admit Brod seems more like the guy who’d be running the waterfront in the first place. Other standout noirs with Crawford include Down Three Dark Streets (1954), in which he plays a stalwart FBI agent, and Human Desire (also 1954), a Fritz Lang-directed remake of Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine that cast him as the cuckolded husband in a torrid love affair between wife Gloria Grahame and co-worker Glenn Ford. (Crawford’s husband in Desire is a truly pitiful soul who earns the audience’s sympathy because Gloria, not to put too fine a point on it, is a real bitch.)
Ford and Crawford squared off again two years later in an underrated Western that’s been a longtime favorite of mine, The Fastest Gun Alive. Brod is the loathsome Vinnie Harold, a gun-toting bully compelled to challenge any individual who’s acquired a reputation as a fast gun. When he arrives in a town where shopkeeper Ford’s prowess with a firearm is being kept under wraps by the populace (they’re afraid that Glenn’s rep will draw every gunslinger in for miles around…and they were pretty much right), he and his men (John Dehner, Noah Beery, Jr.) threaten to set the burg ablaze unless they identify Ford. A great psychological oater, Fastest Gun stands out among the many Westerns Crawford appeared in at that time, which included such films as Last of the Comanches and The Last Posse (both 1953).
Toward the latter part of the 1950s, Crawford’s film appearances became sporadic (The Decks Ran Red, Goliath and the Dragon) due to his conquering another medium: television. Syndicated TV king Frederic Ziv tabbed Brod to play the lead role in a half-hour crime drama series entitled Highway Patrol, in which the actor played Dan Matthews, head of a state police patrol (the state was never specified). Ziv, who was responsible for such boob tube hits as Sea Hunt and Bat Masterson, scored a bona fide success in Patrol, which ran for four seasons (a total of 156 episodes) and made Crawford a TV icon, brandishing a trademark fedora and barking mile-a-minute orders into a microphone (“10-4, 10-4”). Crawford by this point in his career had finely honed the belligerence (and drinking habits) that made many producers reluctant to work with the volatile star, but Ziv got along well with Brod, though he later admitted: “To be honest, Broderick could be a handful.” Ziv wanted Crawford to do a fifth season of Patrol but Broderick took a pass, later explaining “We ran out of crimes.” However, he did go to work again for the company in 1961, starring as insurance investigator (whose specialty was precious gems) John King in King of Diamonds. The series lasted but a single season, as did a later show entitled The Interns (1970-71).
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Crawford found himself in demand as a frequent guest star in most of the hit dramatic TV shows from that era: The Virginian, Rawhide, Burke’s Law, The Name of the Game, etc. His movie work largely was relegated to foreign films though he turned up in the likes of Convicts 4, A House is Not a Home, The Oscar and Terror in the Wax Museum. His last notable film role was the titular protagonist of Larry Cohen’s 1977 cult curiosity The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover — a part he also had played in a sketch hosting Saturday Night Live in 1977, in which he also appeared in a send-up of Highway Patrol. Crawford also landed a tongue-in-cheek cameo on the first season of the TV series CHiPs, a watered-down version of the show that made him a household name (and he said as much, remarking to star Larry Wilcox: “You know, I was making those Highway Patrol shows long before you guys were born”).
Broderick Crawford rarely had any pretensions about being a great actor (he was famous for remarking “Don’t applaud, just send me the check”) — he took what work he wanted, and wasn’t what one would consider a leading man type in the style of a Cary Grant or James Stewart. Aside from his starring turns in All the King’s Men and Born Yesterday, his greatest legacy in show business was an unassuming little half-hour television cop show that is still around for us to enjoy today (Highway Patrol is frequently rerun on affiliates that carry ThisTV programming, and the first season of the series has been released on manufactured-on-demand DVD). But his performances were never boring, and when given the right material (King’s Men, Yesterday, The Mob, Scandal Sheet), he could be a most mesmerizing presence…and if you don’t believe me, check out Turner Classic Movies for a three-film festival beginning at 8 p.m. EST this evening in honor of his 100th birthday.
I’m serious, you need to sit down and watch.
“Do what I’m tellin’ ya!!!”
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Labels: Astaire, B. Crawford, Borgnine, Cary, Edward G., Fellini, Fuller, Gable, Ginger Rogers, Glenn Ford, J. Stewart, Joel McCrea, Lang, Laughton, Lon Chaney Jr., Marx Brothers, Oscars, Renoir, Wayne
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Friday, December 02, 2011
“I’m going to show you what yum-yum is…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of the regrettable stigmas about Academy Awards is that they are more often than not handed out to serious performances — portrayals in comedy films are criminally overlooked. There are exceptions, of course: Clark Gable’s triumph in It Happened One Night and James Stewart’s trophy for The Philadelphia Story while on the distaff side you have Claudette Colbert (also for Night) and Judy Holliday’s winning turn in Born Yesterday. (I’m sure there are others — these just came off the top of my head.) You’ll also find a lot of comedic accomplishments in the supporting actor and actress categories, presumably because of the old trope about “second bananas” and “comic relief.” But, as a general rule, comedy need not apply: Oscar-winning performances are defined by big, serious showcases (often with noble or suffering characters) that a certain master thespian might describe as “ACTING!”
In February 1942, Gary Cooper was handed one of his two competitive Oscar statuettes (he also would win an honorary Academy Award in 1961) for Sergeant York — a dramatization of the real-life story of Alvin C. York, the most decorated American soldier of World War I. I’ve always felt that the reason Coop was “decorated” with such a statuette was due to the movie’s enormous popularity (it was the highest grossing film of 1941) and while he gives a solid, dependable performance, I’ve always been partial to his comedic showcase from another film released that same year. In fact, it premiered in theaters 70 years ago on this date, five days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ball of Fire, once described by one of its screenwriters, Billy Wilder, as a “silly picture,” nevertheless features a masterful comic turn by an actor whose limited thespic abilities often disappeared through the magic of a movie screen.
In Ball of Fire, Cooper plays Professor Bertram Potts, one of eight lexicographers living in a New York residence and working on an encyclopedia project funded by the daughter (Mary Field) of Daniel S. Totten, inventor of the electric toaster. Potts and his colleagues have been hard at work on their encyclopedia for nine years, and it looks as if construction will continue for another three — much to the dismay of Miss Totten, who will have to pay for the “overruns” out of her own pocket. An encounter with a garbage man (Allen Jenkins) demonstrates why there is still so much to do — the sanitation engineer’s creative use of slang demonstrates to Potts (the group’s grammarian) that his own article for the encyclopedia is hopelessly outdated, and that he will have to research the modern vernacular by visiting “the streets, the slums, the theatrical and allied professions.” He encounters several people — a newsboy, a college student, a pool hall bum — and asks for their help in preparing his treatise on slang.
Later at a nightclub, Potts makes the acquaintance of Katherine “Sugarpuss” O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), a sultry chanteuse whom he also wants to participate in his discussions, but she is markedly cool to his proposal. She later changes her mind and turns up at the doorstep of the encyclopedia men, but only because she has been advised by a pair of hoodlums, Duke Pastrami (Dan Duryea) and Asthma Anderson (Ralph Peters), to “take it on the lam”; both men are in the employ of mobster Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), who’s being questioned by the district attorney about his complicity in a gangland murder, and who would like nothing better than to hear Sugarpuss’ side of the story. The professors’ think tank will provide a perfect hideout, even though O’Shea’s breezy insouciance has a disruptive influence on their daily routine, much to the chagrin of their stern housekeeper Miss Bragg (Kathleen Howard). Bragg’s ultimatum to Potts that Sugarpuss leave or she will results in a confrontation between “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss — and when Potts confesses a rather strong attraction to the nightclub singer she uses that revelation to her advantage, reciprocating similar feelings and demonstrating to her would-be paramour the definition of “yum-yum” by kissing him.
Potts’ infatuation goes full speed ahead to the purchase of an engagement ring and proposes to Sugarpuss — even though he’s got a rival in gangster Lilac, who entertains similar notions (mostly for convenience's sake, insuring that a wife can’t testify against her husband). When Joe learns of Potts’ intentions, he persuades Sugarpuss to play along — that way she’s guaranteed safe passage out of New York (under the watchful eye of the authorities) and can join Lilac in neighboring New Jersey, where they’ll tie the knot. A mishap with the professors’ automobile en route necessitates a stopover in a small Joisey town, where at an inn O’Shea learns (through a mix-up in bungalow door numbers) that Potts is deadly serious about his passion for her. She begins to see the bashful goof in an entirely different light, but before she can act on this, Lilac and his goons show up, spelling out the story for Potts and the other professors before collecting Sugarpuss and continuing on their way.
Back home in New York, Potts is determined to put the sordid chapter behind him until it is pointed out that in returning his engagement ring, O’Shea has slipped him the rock she received from Lilac. To add insult to injury, Miss Totten arrives with her assistant Larsen (Charles Lane) to announce that due to the unfavorable newspaper publicity generated by Potts’ misadventures she is canceling the encyclopedia project — and that's interrupted by the arrival of Pastrami and Asthma, who have been ordered by Lilac to “rub out” the group unless Sugarpuss agrees to marry Joe. Elated that Sugarpuss and Joe still aren't attached, Potts and the others are able to subdue the two hit men with brains (not brawn) and ride to O’Shea’s rescue (thanks to their garbage man pal’s truck) to save her from her nasty fate. “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss will live happy ever after, thanks to his expert application of “yum-yum” as the movie concludes.
Scripted by Wilder and Charles Brackett, Ball of Fire’s opening titles also credit Wilder and Thomas Monroe with the film’s “original story” — which is a teensy bit of a stretch, insomuch as Wilder cribbed the idea from the classic fairy tale of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” (Wilder got the idea while he was still living in Germany, and even when director Howard Hawks picked up on the reference Billy warned him that he wouldn’t get a shared credit.) Granted, there are eight “dwarfs” as the film begins (they’re even shown marching through a NYC park as if they should be singing “Heigh Ho”) but that’s because the character of Bertram Potts is technically “Prince Charming” — so the personages of Professors Gurkakoff (Oscar Homolka), Jerome (Henry Travers), Magenbruch (S.Z “Cuddles” Sakall), Robinson (Tully Marshall), Quintana (Leonid Kinskey), Oddly (Richard Haydn) and Peagram (Aubrey Mather) fill in for Doc, Sneezy, Dopey, etc. A publicity photo of the seven character actors was even taken in front of a poster for the Disney film and the film is advertised prominently on a marquee in a scene where Cooper’s Potts talks with a wiseacre newsboy (Tommy Ryan) outside a theater.
Producer Samuel Goldwyn commissioned Wilder and Brackett to write the vehicle for Coop because he was disappointed that the films he made with Cooper (such as The Real Glory and The Westerner) rarely did as well at the box office as those films in which the actor was lent out to other studios. So the film was tailor-made for Coop’s “Longfellow Deeds”-type persona, but finding a suitable leading lady took some additional time. Ginger Rogers was the first choice, but she wasn’t interested and Carole Lombard said “no way” as well; both Betty Field and Lucille Ball were tested for the part and while Ball appeared to have the inside track, Barbara Stanwyck ultimately won the role when Cooper suggested her, having worked with her in that same year’s Meet John Doe. Coop also was reunited with his York director Hawks, whom Goldwyn wasn't particularly fond of (Hawks wound up with a $100,000 payday for the film) but tolerated because of the director’s admiration for the script. It was familiar territory for Howie, in that he had helmed a similar film about a stuffy professor brought down to earth in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby (and he would later revisit the premise in both Fire’s 1948 remake, A Song is Born, and Monkey Business in 1952.)
Being a Goldwyn production, the producer naturally pulled out all the stops and obtained the services of many of Hollywood’s master craftsmen (and women): Gregg Toland was cinematographer, Perry Ferguson the art director, and Edith Head designed that drop-dead gorgeous gown that Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss wears in her nightclub act. One of the highlights of Ball of Fire is Babs’ rendition (though Martha Tilton dubbed her vocals) of “Drum Boogie,” backed by Gene Krupa and his Orchestra; Gene later obliges with an encore of the number accompanied by matchbox sticks and a matchbox. Even though Stanwyck’s voice is not her own, she’s able to reach back to her “Ruby Stevens” chorus gal days and do some impressive dance moves with those fabulous Stanwyck gams.
I’ve never considered myself a Barbara Stanwyck fanatic but Ball of Fire is my all-time favorite of her films; her finely modulated performance as the alternately hard-boiled and tender Sugarpuss was nominated for a best actress trophy and to be honest, I think she was robbed. (Stanwyck wasn’t as lucky in the Oscar sweepstakes as her male co-star — she was nominated on four separate occasions but had to make do with an honorary statuette in 1982.) Babs’ background as a one-time Ziegfeld gal makes her portrayal of O’Shea authentic, and her personal, genuine affability (She was one of the most well-liked movie actresses in the history of Hollywood) invests an unshakable admiration into the character, something that I don’t think would have resulted if the brassier Ginger Rogers has been cast in the part. (I like how David Thomson described Babs in this movie as “saucy, naughty and as quick as a shortstop.”) We’re just as captivated by Sugarpuss’ charms as the seven professors (and of course, “Pottsy”); the scene where she teaches the men to conga is utterly beguiling, and like her fairy tale counterpart Snow White, she brings a great deal of sunshine and a sense of fun to their existence in what one of the profs calls “the mausoleum.”
The chemistry between Stanwyck and Cooper’s characters is one of the best in any screwball comedy. What always has fascinated me about Cooper is that while his acting range may have seemed limited to a casual observer, he had a certain captivation that always came across in his screen performances. Coop was generally most comfortable in Westerns, but even though he was a little flummoxed by Wilder and Brackett’s rapid-fire, intellectual dialogue he’s most convincing as the scholar who’s spent his entire existence isolated from the world. His Bertram Potts is a sweetly naïve “big kid” much like Cooper’s Longfellow Deeds (but far less dangerous, I think) and watching Sugarpuss coax him out of his shell is a delight from start to finish. She’s his fast track to his ultimate sexual awakening (particularly when he tells her that being around her requires him to apply cold water to the back of his neck), which culminates with his understanding of what constitutes “yum-yum” and his tacit admission: “Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind…unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.” But once Potts is brought up to speed on the language of love, he’s every bit as potent to O’Shea (who finds herself falling out of love with the despicable Lilac); she must also depend on the cold water treatment herself when things get steamy. At that point in their relationship, she knows there’s no turning back: “I love him because he's the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss…the jerk…” (By the time the movie calls it a wrap, however, her “Crabapple Annie” has that last part well in hand.)
Ball of Fire boasts a positively splendid supporting cast — particularly the vets who essay Potts’ encyclopedia colleagues, who transcend the usual stereotypes of movie intellectuals being dry as dirt by exhibiting a real playfulness (one of my favorite scenes in the film is when Potts and the “dwarves” listen to Oddly’s recollection of his marriage, which breaks out in a lovely rendition of “Genevieve”). Fire was Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fave Dan Duryea’s second feature film appearance and I like to think that if he had had a few more films under his belt, he could have played Joe Lilac (Duryea’s best bit in Fire is when he imitates Cooper’s thumb-licking-and-rubbing-it-on-the-sight tic from Sergeant York, cracking “I saw me a picture last week”) but Dana Andrews does very well in the part, supplementing the escapist comedy nature of the film with the proper menace (Andrews’ phone conversation with Cooper as Stanwyck’s “Daddy” is hysterical but it works because Dana plays it perfectly straight). I got a particular kick out of seeing a couple of other TDOY favorites in Elisha Cook, Jr. (as a waiter who tells Potts that Sugarpuss is “root, zoot and cute…and solid to boot”) and serial/B-Western stalwart Addison Richards as the D.A. determined to bring the hammer down on Lilac.
In addition to Stanwyck’s acting nomination, Ball of Fire also received nods for best scoring of a dramatic (!) picture and best sound recording…with the final nomination going to Monroe and Wilder’s “original story.” It was the movie on which Wilder decided he wanted to do more behind the camera than just provide the words; his directing ambition was encouraged fully by Hawks, who allowed Billy to study and pick up some pointers during the film’s production. The movie is an odd one in Wilder’s oeuvre because it’s devoid of the frank, pungent cynicism prevalent in many of the writer-director’s works, but as Wilder himself observed: “It was a silly picture. But so were audiences in those days.” Hey…if enjoying the entertaining exhilaration that Ball of Fire provides with each passing year makes me silly, then I guess nobody’s perfect.
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Labels: 40s, Cooper, Disney, Gable, Ginger Rogers, Hawks, J. Stewart, L. Ball, Lombard, Oscars, Stanwyck, Wilder
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Saturday, August 27, 2011
"No Cuffs!"
By M.A. Peel
Fred Astaire was born in the last year of the 19th century. Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, we pause for a moment to consider Swing Time — one of his greatest achievements — on its 75th anniversary.
The big assessments all are available to read: Arlene Croce’s The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book; John Mueller’s Astaire Dancing: The Musical Films; Hannah Hyman’s Fred and Ginger. There you can read about George Stevens and Howard Lindsay and all the formal calibrations and comparisons that are the world of film studies.
For myself, one question stuck in my head: What does Swing Time offer us in the 21st century?
Well, it is stunningly fresh in so many ways. It sweeps us into lush monochrome beauty, offering a respite from the glare of the colors of real life. The absurd storyline is not alien in the age of Wedding Crashers and The Hangover, not in plot points per se but in plot probability: man’s friends waylaid him from getting married because they don’t want him to leave the act, and twice — not once but twice — important things happen because characters aren't CERTAIN that men’s morning trousers shouldn't have cuffs.
Fred’s first entrance as Lucky Garnett in full wedding suit regalia sets up the distinctive tone for our time together. His uncanny ease in formal attire never loses its power: authority of place and time, conviction of character, and an understanding of the tools of his trade of dancing wrapped in genuine nonchalance. His waistcoat, top hat and spats are his second skin, and his understanding of this gives us all permission to simply enjoy the visual beauty of the lines of his exquisite suits rather than being put off by them.
Calling Judd Apatow, Jon Lucas, et al.: No one is watching Swing Time for the story, but it has charms to offer the 2011 viewer.
Lucky Garnett (Fred Astaire) has a best friend, Pop Cardetti (Victor Moore), which makes him a rich man in the important ways. But it’s 1936 and people are still reeling from the Depression.
The boys in the act take the cash Lucky gambled from them, but that doesn’t stop him. He wants to “go to New York” to make his fortune so that he can marry his fiancee. With no money for a ticket he hops a freight train. Pop runs along the train with a suitcase of all their clothes. It bursts open and they lose everything but a toothbrush. But since this is not a drama, they keep laughing. That’s part of the fantasy. In New York, they will have to talk their way into an apartment, and then Lucky tries to gamble a tuxedo off of a mark so that he go to the dance audition with Penny Carrol (Ginger Rogers). This ease in the face of serious issues — being broke — pulls you in. Yes, I want to have that much chutzpah and courage in the face of economic strain.
La Belle, La Perfectly Swell Romance: To try to capture the songs and the dance of Swing Time in words is a little painful: It earthbounds what lives on a celestial plain of motion and soundscape. But words (and YouTube) are the best we have to share the experience of this piece of art.
Pick Yourself Up: The most exuberant of the duo’s dances, perfectly punctuated by the flare of Rogers’s biased-cut dress. Astaire’s sheer lightness of movement creates a visual definition of “joyous” that never has been topped. The advice to “dust yourself, start all over again” is welcome to all ages at any age. The dance and the songs spark with optimism and confidence.
The Way You Look Tonight: The great nondanced song from the ultimate song-and-dance man. Its opening lines are in imprinted into the psyche of several generations. I love that Penny is not waitin' on no man, she’s going on with the details of life, such as touching up the dye job on her hair. Astaire needs only to sit and sing to exude his considerable charisma.
Waltz in Swing Time: One of the great orchestral pieces with big, pendulous declarative riffs which Astaire and Rogers dance around, between, amidst.
A Fine Romance: I love the snow. I love the fur coats. I love the inside joke of a “fine romance with no kisses,” given Astaire’s dislike of onscreen kissing. He said that his lovemaking onscreen was in dance. Oh yes.
Bojangles of Harlem: Fred and his three shadows. Another song with a bracing beat and an imaginative chorus line sequence. While a tribute to Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, as many have pointed out the flashy jacket is Sportin’ Life, not Bill who dressed very plainly. The challenge for some today is the blackface.
Never Gonna Dance: Even if you’d never read that this is considered the pinnacle of the Astaire/Rogers art, you would know it after one viewing. (Click here for proof.) More accessible and less fussy than Top Hat’s "Cheek to Cheek," it actually is more sophisticated and “deeper” in how it tells the whole story of “boy meets girl/loses girl/boy is crestfallen” in six exquisite minutes with a spectrum of moods, steps, and rhythms amid twinkling Art Deco splendor. Rogers’ gown is stunning: a simple satin slip dress with rhinestones crossing under the bust and across the bare back. When Rogers starts to walk away midpoint, Astaire pulls her back, just like the audience wants him too. Then the motion up the stairs to the big finish, with an amazing series of fast pirouettes from Ginger, until with one final pirouette she pivots away.
The plot then winds its way through more absurdity until Lucky and Penny find themselves with each other free and clear, with one boffo reprise singing “A Fine Romance” against “Just the Way You Look Tonight.”
You Do, Something to Me: The Astaire/Rogers team tantalizes because of how much more is their whole than the sum of their considerable and lovely parts. It’s the alchemy that happens when certain people are together: The Beatles, Vivien Leigh & Clark Gable, Crockett and Tubbs, Brangelina. There are pairings that just make people want more, want to know more, want to BE a part of the pair somehow. That phenomenon is in full force in Swing Time. Fred and Ginger are the most equal of partners; the synchronizing of their parallel steps is magical. For me, I can’t take my eyes off of Fred. For me his unfailing virtuosity overshines Ginger’s. I’m in the camp of “Eleanor Powell is a more accomplished dancer than Ginger Rogers.” But Powell never had the rapport with Astaire that Rogers did.
And so Rogers and Astaire are in a pantheon all their own. I hope that pop culture points the younger generation toward this artistry sometime in a big way. As I said, there’s lot that will make sense to The Hangover crowd, and much that would jazz them. What they might not know is just how hard Astaire worked at his art.
"This search for what you want is like tracking something that doesn't want to be tracked. It takes time to get a dance right, to create something memorable." — Fred Astaire
Best tribute, go watch the film!
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Labels: 30s, Apatow, Astaire, Beatles, G. Stevens, Gable, Ginger Rogers, Movie Tributes, Musicals, V. Leigh
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Monday, August 08, 2011
Nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me
By Edward Copeland
Sometimes you have to wonder what made some of the pre-Code Hollywood classics such as Night Nurse, which turns 80 years old today, so shocking. Sure, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell spend an inordinate amount of time in various states of undress, but the subject matter doesn't approach the lurid level of a Baby Face (also with Stanwyck) or Red-Headed Woman with Jean Harlow. Maybe it's because even then it raised questions about the motives of some involved in the health care system or the practice of medicine. Whatever the reason, what's most important about Night Nurse is that just 20 years shy of being a century old, it remains a damn good movie.
Directed by William "Wild Bill" Wellman, Night Nurse begins in an almost comic tone before it takes a suspenseful turn in its second half. Wellman brings a lot of nice touches to the film visually. It opens from the point-of-view of an ambulance speeding through city streets on its way to a hospital's emergency's room.
Ambulance is spelled in reverse inside the driver's window. They were aiming to be reversed as many used to be so they would read correctly in other vehicles' rear-view mirrors, only they have it backward and it's written forward on the front of the ambulance. As the injured man is unloaded, the orderly guesses correctly that he's been in a car wreck. "Cement truck hit one of those Baby Austins," the ambulance driver tells him as they wheel him into the hospital. The orderly comments that you'd never catch him in one of those little cars, but the ambulance driver corrects him that the injured man was driving the cement truck. As they move through the hall, the pass a nervous father-to-be letting go of his wife's hand as she heads to the delivery room. A nurse places a screen around another man in the crowded ward and a woman asks her, "Why can't my son have a screen?" The nurse explains that it's against the rules. The woman points out that she just placed one around the other man and the nurse explains that's because that man is dying.
The camera finally moves past all the chaos as we see sharp dark shoes entering the office of Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis), the superintendent of nurses to apply for a nursing job. Her name is Lora Hart and she's played by the great Barbara Stanwyck. Miss Dillon is a bit of a harridan, barely taking her eyes off what she's doing to give Lora much attention. Her education doesn't impress her and she asks her why in the world she would want to be a nurse. Lora tries not to laugh as she notices that the woman has a habit of making a grotesque throat-clearing sound ever few seconds. "Nursing people has always seemed liked a second nature to me," Lora tells the superintendent of nurses, but she seems less than impressed and dismisses her out of hand. As Lora marches out of the woman's office, she makes certain to stop at the door and clear her throat with a smile before she leaves.
When she's exiting the hospital, a preoccupied man bumps into her, spilling the contents of Lora's purse and falling on his ass. Lora takes the stance that he was trying to be fresh with her, but he gets up and reassures her that isn't the case. He introduces himself as Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger) and asks why she was
there. She tells him she had hoped to get a job as a nurse, but that Miss Dillon didn't seem interested. Bell offers to take her back and asks her name. When she shares that her name is Lora Hart, Bell replies, "Hart — that's a good name for a nurse." Lora, escorted by Dr. Bell, returns to Miss Dillon's office. When she sees Lora with the doctor, the superintendent gets tongue-tied, but Bell doesn't give Dillon much of a chance to say anything anyway, just tells her to treat Miss Hart well and find a place for her and perhaps she can help improve things around then. He wishes Lora good luck and departs, leaving her to have a real interview with Miss Dillon. While Miss Dillon's attitude toward Lora improves slightly, mainly she wants to know why she didn't tell her before that she was acquainted with Dr. Bell. She explains that she will begin work as a probationary nurse, which means she will live in a dorm and have a curfew (in bed with lights out by 10). Because she'll just be on probation on first, she must pay strict attention to the rules or she could be let go. "Rules mean something — you'll be told about them later," Miss Dillon tells her.The superintendent sees another probationary nurse passing and calls out, "Maloney." Maloney (Joan Blondell) enters and Miss Wilson introduces her to Lora and says since Maloney (the film never gives her a first name,
just the initial B.) doesn't have a roommate, she should get Lora a uniform and show her the ropes. At first, Maloney isn't very friendly, seeing any new probationary nurse as competition, even handing her a uniform several sizes too large at first, but soon the girls hit it off and Maloney warns her about the different types of men to watch out for, such as interns. Just as she says that, an intern named Eagan (Edward Nugent) sticks his head in the dressing room and acts generally obnoxious. Maloney makes no attempt to hide her disdain. "Sometimes I don't like you, Maloney," Eagan tells her. "I wish I could find a way to make that permanent," she replies. What do you say newcomer?" he asks Lora. "Two-nothin' in favor of the lady," Lora concludes. Eagan knows when he's licked and leaves. "Take my advice and stay away from interns," Maloney reiterates. "They're like cancer. The disease you know, but there ain't no cure."It must be said that while Night Nurse would barely be classified as a B picture by most at the time it was made, the movie not only surpasses that level in terms of quality, but in Wellman's distinctive touches and Barney McGill's cinematography. For instance, in one particularly effective sequence, Maloney and Lora must assist a surgery as one of their final tasks before they can take the oath and be full-fledged nurses. Lora, as we will learn, can be a bit skittish (though the growth of her strength marks the journey of both her character and the film). Maloney warns her that if she faints or messes up, she's done so hang on. They stage the scene in a large operating theater and Wellman films most of the sequence in overhead shots. The surgery doesn't go well and there's blood as the surgeon's try to save the man. Lora almost buckles, but Maloney gives her her hand. As the man dies, they show a series of almost ritualistic shots as the body gets slowly covered. The OR clears out but Lora lingers behind, waiting until the room has emptied to collapse to the floor which Wellman again captures in an overhead shot.
What's interesting is that while William A. Wellman had a reputation prior to Night Nurse (he did direct Oscar's first best picture (Wings) after all and would go on to make many more notable films), the other members of the creative team really didn't have that much else of note on their filmographies. McGill's only other significant films as a d.p. were Svengali starring John Barrymore and Michael Curtiz's The Cabin in the Cotton that kick-started Bette Davis' career. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Dora Macy (a pen name used by writer Grace Perkins) and written by Oliver H.P. Garrett who was prolific but only made noise as a co-writer on Manhattan Melodrama (with Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Duel in the Sun (with David O. Selznick and uncredited work by Ben Hecht) and Dead Reckoning (with four other men). On Night Nurse, additional dialogue was credited to Charles Kenyon, who was just as prolific as Garrett. His most recognizable credits were helping to adapt Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 and Robert Sherwood's play The Petrified Forest in 1936. Somehow though these people pooled together to produce crackling dialogue, memorable images and efficient storytelling out of a movie that most viewed as filler. It's a minor miracle.
Perhaps what makes Night Nurse one of those daring pre-Code pictures is that, while it never shows Lora or Maloney leading a loose lifestyle, the young single gals do sneak out of the dorm and come back in after curfew drunk. Presumably Maloney has dragged Lora out on a manhunting expedition since what type of mate
to pursue tends to be all Maloney talks about. In addition to interns being a no-no, she warns against doctors as well, saying that you'd just end up running their office while they chase other women. As for patients, for some reason Maloney thinks that "appendicitis cases are best." However, for Maloney, only one male is ideal. "There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough!" she says. "Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life and you'll be getting somewhere." Those conversations are for another time. Right now, the pie-eyed pals are more concerned with getting undressed
in the dark and climbing into bed without tipping off Miss Dillon that they'd broken curfew. That plan goes bust thanks to Eagan, who left a surprise under Lora's blanket — a skeleton from the anatomy class that causes Lora to let out a shriek. Maloney tells her to hurry and get under the covers and act asleep, in case Dillon comes in. Lora doesn't want to be that close to the bones, but she does it. Sure enough, Miss Dillon comes in and flips the lights on. Maloney tries to fake that she just woke them up but the superintendent throws back the blanket and exclaims, "I thought so" as she sees that Maloney still has part of her clothing on. The girls fear that a firing is coming, but instead as punishment Dillon assigns them to the night shift working with the worst cases that come in off the streets: drunks, beatings, etc. As she leaves them to get some sleep, Eagan drops by to taunt them and they yell at him. Lora continues to lack the nerve to sleep where the skeleton was, so Maloney lets her crawl into bed with her for the night.The "punishment" that Miss Dillon gives Lara and Maloney actually only serves to forward the plot. They only work there long enough to meet a new character who will play an important role going forward (and it's neither the drunk nor the intern helping to treat those coming in for help). A sharp-dressed man comes
staggering in, having lost some blood. Lora gets to work patching him up which necessitates cutting his shirt. "Hey! That's silk!" the man (Ben Lyon) objects. "That's how I knew you were a bootlegger," Lora tells him, but then she realizes his injury is a bullet wound. "That looks like it's a bullet wound!" Lora says. "Well, it's a cinch it's not a vaccination mark," he replies. By law, nurses are required to report all bullet wounds to the police, but the man begs her not to do it. Lora finds herself torn because she likes this nameless bootlegger. Maloney comes up and spots the bullet wound and tells them they have to report it — they can't risk their jobs before they even officially start them. "Maybe 56 bucks a week isn't much but it's 56 bucks," Maloney says. Eventually, Maloney gives in and she and Lora fix the bootlegger up and keep his secret. After that is when the operating room test comes and Lora and Maloney pass. The pals join the other probies and take the Florence Nightingale Pledge and become full-fledged nurses."I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care."
It's at this point that Night Nurse makes its pivot. Aside from the great opening, when we saw anonymous characters doing their work, Lora and Maloney patching up the bootlegger and the OR scene, we've really witnessed little in the way of the practice of medicine. That pledge the newly minted nurses took (at least as far as Lora is concerned — aside from a couple of brief appearances by Maloney, Joan Blondell mostly vanishes from the film, unfortunately) means something to them, It wasn't just a line that Lora was trying to pull on Miss Dillon when she told her that "nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me." Skittishness over
skeletons and blood aside, Lora has only grown stronger and she will need that strength for what she confronts next. At the hospital, she had assisted Dr. Bell in the treatment of two sick little girls, Desney and Nanny Richey (Betty Jane Graham, Marcia Mae Jones). For some reason though, their widowed mother (Charlotte Merriam) removed Bell from the case and took them home for
treatment there under a Dr. Milton Ranger (Ralf Harolde) and an ever-rotating staff of nurses who keep quitting or getting fired. Maloney currently holds the daytime shift and when the latest night nurse exits, Lora gets the job and hits it off with the children who are ecstatic, to their detriment, one falling to the floor in weakness over the excitement. The housekeeper Mrs. Maxwell (Blanche Frederici) enters to put a stop to it. Lora had been warned to be wary of the household staff, particularly Nick the chauffeur (Clark Gable, who got the role which originally was intended for James Cagney. However, when The Public Enemy hit so big earlier in 1931, the studio and Cagney agreed he shouldn't play such a small role as a hood now). Gable gets the most unintentionally funny introductions in the movie (or just about any movie). After Lora had been specifically warned about "Nick the chauffeur," when she encounters him and asks who he is he actually says in complete monotone, "I'm Nick — the chauffeur." The way that moment plays could only have been sillier if it had been followed by ominous organ music.
Lora attempts to find Mrs. Richey somewhere within the mansion to tell her what dire straits her children are in and finds that she appears to be either drunk or passed out 24 hours a day, usually on the arm of her equally inebriated boyfriend Mack (Walter McGrail). Often, the place overflows with many partying friends in a scene of bacchanalia. When Mrs. Richey nods off one time, Mack makes moves on Lora should Lora parries his pawing fairly well, but the first time she meets Nick is when he shows up and lays Mack out with a punch. Lora and Nick don't maintain a friendly relationship for long as she tells him she's calling a doctor. He warns her not to unless Dr. Ranger has given her orders to that effect. She ignores him and proceeds to the phone. Nick shouts that he runs this place, but Lora gets someone on the line so Nick knocks her out and carries her unconscious into another room.
The next day, Lora goes to see this Dr. Ranger to report what's going on, but it soon becomes clear to her that he's not particularly interested in the welfare of the children and she puts together what must be going on: The children must have a trust fund that will pass on to their tipsy mother if they die and they'll have Nick marry her and he and the doctor will steal the fortune. She threatens to report Ranger to the authorities. He
seems unconcerned, telling her she has no proof and to make such allegations will just end her career. Lora storms out and goes to see Dr. Bell who, to her surprise, agrees with everything she says but doesn't want to lift a finger to help her either since, even though he's long had suspicions about Ranger, "he is a colleague." Not much has changed in 80 years: Doctors always protect one another no matter how bad they know the other doctor is. Bell tries to put his inability to report Ranger off on "ethics." This really sets Lora off. "Oh, ethic, ethics. That's all I've heard in this business. Isn't there any humanity left? Aren't there any ethics about letting little babies be murdered?" she yells at him. Bell advises that if she really wants to help the children, she should go back and apologize to Ranger so she can keep working. Lora agrees, but first she stops for a soda and happens to run into the bootlegger and tells him her story. When he hears what Nick did, he offers to talk to a couple of guys to take care of him. Lora learns his name is Mortie and he promises that he's out of the bootlegging business now, but he agrees to help her anyway he can. The bootlegger would be more ethical than the doctors.Now, I won't tell you how Night Nurse resolves itself, but it packs so much into its running time that it's damn remarkable it all got squeezed in. Logically, Night Nurse shouldn't be the gem that it is, but lightning struck. Not the type that wins awards but the more important type of electricity — bolts that go off in one time period and continue to reverberate decades later. I do have to share a couple of other favorite moments before I wrap it up though. Wellman put so much effort into this programmer with the different way he set up shots and another of my favorites is the perspective he uses when Mack comes on to Lora again and she lays him out with a punch of her own. It almost looks like 3-D. Then, for comedy, we get to see Mack crawl on the floor to take refuge behind the bar.
Soon after that, Lora tries to physically drag Mrs. Richey so she can see how her daughter is but the drunken women isn't cooperating. Lora even drags her by the throat at one point until Mrs. Richey finally collapses on the floor, passed out. Lora tosses a bucket of ice water on her trying to wake her up to no avail. As she walks away, Lora almost give us some pre-Code profanity as she mutters, "You mothers." The young Stanwyck amazes and this was only her third year making movies and she also scored with another brilliant turn in 1931 in Frank Capra's The Miracle Woman — and so many more and greater performances were still on the way.
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Labels: 30s, Bette, Blondell, Cagney, Capra, Curtiz, Gable, Harlow, Hecht, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Selznick, Shakespeare, Stanwyck, Wellman
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