Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Jules Dassin Part III
By Edward Copeland
Between the years 1949-54, any opportunity Jules Dassin had to make a movie anywhere failed to materialize. Following his work on Night and the City in London, he returned to the United States only to find that people he once considered friends did their best not to be seen with him. In 1951, while Dassin attended the Cannes Film Festival he learned that he had been named by a cooperating witness during the second round of hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Before he had been an unofficial blacklistee because he'd been called to testify and hadn't — being named by a friendly witness was another matter. This wasn't just any friendly witness who had named him either — it was director Edward Dmytryk, the only member of The Hollywood Ten, the 10 artists who had lost their court fight claiming that they had the constitutional right NOT to testify before HUAC. The 10 lost their appeals and received six- to 12-month jail
sentences. Dmytryk served six months in jail, but still turned friendly witness anyway so he could work again, something for which most of the other nine men never forgave him. Dmytryk, whose best known films include Crossfire, The Caine Mutiny and Raintree County, said in his defense, "I had long been convinced that the fight of the Ten was political…I believed that I was being forced to sacrifice my family and my career in defense of the Communist Party, from which I had long been separated and which I had grown to dislike and distrust.…I would have to name names, and I knew the problems this would cause…my decision was made easier by the fact that…I couldn't name anybody who hadn't already been identified as a Party member. Weighing everything — pro and con, I knew I had to testify.…I did not want to remain a martyr to something that I absolutely believed was immoral and wrong." The Criterion DVD for Rififi contains the 2000 interview with Dassin which discusses in the most detail what the blacklist did to him and how the atmosphere affected others as well, especially the pressure families could put on the artists. "Your wife would say, 'What do you want us to do? What about raising your children? We don't care about your principles — think of your family.' A lot of that happened," Dassin said. That's one thing I've always thought about when the subject comes up now. It's easy for people like us who are discussing that era in theoretical terms to say we'd act with principles and fight against the forces of evil, but we might behave differently if we actually were in the situation and had families to support. Look how few people raise their voices against governmental abuses now. The Occupy protests have been heartening, but they've still been rather small in number and struck down by the establishment rather easily while the majority getting screwed today, as always, keep quiet. If you missed either Part I or Part II of this tribute, click on the appropriate link. 
Dmytryk's main motivation was to keep working while other members of The Hollywood Ten went straight from jail to the blacklist though many, such as Dalton Trumbo, wrote screenplays using pseudonyms. Several Oscars during the 1950s went to people who either didn't exist or were fronts. In the 2000 interview, Dassin admitted that Darryl Zanuck would buy story ideas from him during this xperiod. Dassin also told, "one particular story that was really so painful." Dassin went on to discuss Robert Rossen, writer-director of All the King's Men and The Hustler and director of Body and Soul. Like so many in the creative community, Rossen found the witchhunt deplorable, the politicians behind it despicable and the studio chiefs who caved to them cowards. At first, Dassin said in the interview, Rossen declared, "You can't do this to people. I will not cooperate with these committees and questions." Dassin told of vandalism that occurred at the homes of people whose names were mentioned in passing during the hearings, a detail I'd never heard before. Rossen had kids at the time to worry about but, "He explained to them why it was wrong to name friends and betray people and made the kids understand that and they handled it well," Dassin said. Unfortunately, the pressure got to Rossen and he broke down and named names. Rossen "named all kinds of people. Now he had to explain that to his kids. Those kids — I don't know how they are now — but they were in bad shape for many years," Dassin shared with the interviewer.
For the many like him who were denied employment because in their youth, they joined a party they soon renounced and had had no part of for years, it was frustrating. Dassin said they always waited for some kind of hero who could stand against them and when the natural choices to fill that role such as Elia Kazan or Clifford Odets instead broke down and named names, "It was heartbreaking," Dassin said. The director also told of how people such as him got so use to old friends trying to avoid them that he would try to spare them the embarrassment by hiding if he saw them first. In the same 2000 interview, Dassin told of attending the Cannes Film Festival once, though he couldn't recall the year — he was 89 then; I think he'd earned the right to forget some Cannes Film Festivals — and spotting Gene Kelly, Dassin went and hid around the corner when he felt this strong grip on this arm. "What do you think you are doing?" Kelly asked and led Dassin into the party where most of the Americans were hanging out. Not everyone was as gracious as Kelly though — Dassin described one former friend who hid under a table to avoid being seen with him.
Moviemaking opportunities seemed closed to Dassin. An American producer had arranged for him to film a movie called Public Enemy No. 1 in France featuring Zsa Zsa Gabor as one of its stars. Gabor called Dassin in tears to tell him that she'd been warned that if she made a film with him, her career would be through so she was forced to back out. Soon after, the producer told him that unions had delivered
the message that if he made the film, no film of his would ever receive distribution again. The film fell apart, though the French got angry and declared him a member of the French Director’s Union. His U.S. passport was revoked, but the French gave him papers which allowed him to travel He went to Rome with plans to make a film of the novel Mastro-don Gesualdo by Giovanni Vergan but Italy asked him to leave the country, ruling that he was an "undesirable." Dassin went to the U.S. Embassy for help, but they wouldn't even receive him. The U.S. Ambassador to Italy at the time was Clare Booth Luce who refused to see him. Dassin returned to the states and Broadway. Theater didn't recognize the blacklist and he directed Two's Company: Charles Sherman's Musical Revue starring Bette Davis. During the show's pre-Broadway tour of many U.S. cities, Dassin again received notice to appear before HUAC, but he declined because of the show's tour. By the time it opened in New York, he received a telegram informing him that his hearings had been canceled. Sherman wrote the sketches with Peter DeVries while among the various contributors to the songs in the show were Vernon Duke, Ogden Nash, Sammy Cahn and Sheldon Harnick. The dances were staged by Jerome Robbins, another person caught up in HUAC who was forced to name names by Ed Sullivan who threatened to expose his homosexuality if he didn't. One of the other members of the cast was Tina Louise aka Ginger on Gilligan's Island. It opened Dec. 15, 1952 and ran through March 8, 1953 at The Alvin Theatre before going on a road tour. Hiram Sherman won the Tony for best featured actor in a musical. Despite the musical's success, enough was enough and an offer to make a movie there combined with the warm treatment her received from the country led Dassin to move his family to France in 1953 where he was about to make his other masterpiece, Rififi.The 2004 L.A. County Museum of Art interview on the Criterion Naked City DVD took place after a screening of Rififi, part of a retrospective on the films of Dassin, so the bulk of the conversation concerned that movie. The person asking the questions was Bruce Goldstein, founder of Rialto Pictures and repertory director at New York's Film Forum. This was four years after his long interview where he spoke about the blacklist in detail, but it did show that he still kept abreast of current issues involving civil liberties well into his 90s.
GOLDSTEIN: How did you come to make a film in France?
DASSIN: A man was producing a film called Du Rififi Chez Les Hommes and he told me I was the only man who could make this film. Now this was after five years of nada, no work at all, but he still couldn't say why he needed me. He said he had a problem with Rififi — "All the bad guys are North Africans and at this time, France is having such problems with Algerians, you can make the bad guys Americans. When I said to him, "Have you thought of making them French?", he hadn't. Well, anyhow, I got that job for the same reason I was blacklisted.
GOLDSTEIN: That's all you wish to say about the blacklist?
DASSIN: Enough. We've got other things to worry about these days. I was thinking about The Patriot Act.
In his book The Films in My Life, François Truffaut wrote about Rififi, "Out of the worst crime novels I have ever read, Jules Dassin has made the best crime film I've ever seen." I haven't read the Auguste Le Breton novel, but I don't doubt Truffaut's word. Many people have said one of the elements Dassin didn't transfer to the movie from the novel were acts of necrophilia, so I think Dassin made the right choices in his adaptation of what might be the greatest heist film ever made. Dassin structures the film like
a solid three-act play. Act I: Planning the heist. Act II: Carrying it out. Act III: The aftermath. As has been the case since Brute Force, the technical aspects reach the highest levels of excellence from Alexandre Trauner's production design to Auguste Capelier's set decoration, from Roger Dwyre's editing (he'd go on to edit most of Dassin's films and had cut Rene Clement's Forbidden Games) to the evocative cinematography of Philippe Agostini. Much credit for the look belongs to Dassin, who admits in the 2000 interview on the Rififi DVD that he drove the producer crazy by refusing to shoot in sunlight because he wanted the film to be gray. Truffaut also wrote in his book that "Dassin revealed Paris to Frenchmen just as he revealed London to the English (Night and the City) and New York to the Americans (The Naked City)." Bosley Crowther was The New York Times film critic for 27 years until 1968. He tended to be a stick-in-the-mud who got off on meanness and dumping as many 10-cent words into a single sentence until it could hold no more, but he even managed a nice turn of praise phrase for Rififi: It has a flavor of crooks and kept women and Montmartre "boites" that you can just about smell. As great looking as Rififi is, a limited budget hampered what Dassin could do in terms of casting so for the part of Cesar the Milanese, the safecracking expert from Italy ("There's not a safe that can resist Cesar and not a woman that Cesar can resist."), he had to employ the actor Perlo Vita, which was the screen name used by a man known as Jules Dassin. In many of his later films, Dassin would end up playing a role because he'd run out of money to hire an actor with more experience. 
Having "Perlo Vita" play Cesar play a significant role didn't really cause a problem because for the most part, none of the performers were known outside of France and the one who was best known there — Jean Servais, who played Tony, the leader of the jewel thieves — hadn't made a film in France in a couple of years. Servais gives the film's performance as the stoic Tony, newly released from prison after five years and mad as hell that his girlfriend Mado (Marie Sabouret) has taken up with Louis Grutter (Pierre Grasset), the sleazy owner of the night club L'Âge d'Or, named after the famous Buñuel film on which Trauner also served as production designer. When Tony first gets out, his old pals Jo (Carl Möhner) and Mario (Robert Manuel) try to talk Tony into cutting out the display window of the jeweler Mappin & Webb (a real jewelry store who agreed to let their name and store be used in the movie. Tony opts out until he learns about Mado's betrayal and sees all the gifts that Grutter lavishes on her, so he contacts Jo and Mario with plans to go for the safe instead. They enlist Cesar the safecracker for the heist which will net them about 240 million francs worth of jewels. Ahh, but nothing comes easy, does it? In a way, Servais delivers the only performance, but Dassin fine-tunes each of the film's element to the point that Rififi practically runs as a machine all its own, rendering the quality of the acting nearly irrelevant. The various characters behave more as chess pieces to be moved around as the story's game requires than as representatives of people.
Dassin holds on to this material tightly, yet he still allows for some flourishes. At the club, a singer named Viviane (Magali Noël) performs a dance and sings the song "La chanson 'Le Rififi'" while a silhouette of a man with a gun dances behind a screen behind her. Among the lyrics: "It's the lingo of the streetwise/the battle cry of real tough guys/Rififi" followed by the sound of a gun punctuating the beat. By the way, Rififi is French slang for tough guy posturing by criminal elements in Paris. (If you haven't seen Rififi — and shame on you if you haven't — spoilers will abound from here on out, so I'd look away for the rest of this paragraph.) Grutter realizes that Tony
and his cohorts were behind the robbery when Cesar pockets a ring from the loot and shows it off to one of the girls who works at his club. First, Grutter gets rough with Cesar to get the address of Mario out of him. When Mario refuses to tell Grutter and his men where the jewels are, they demand he call Tony. Mario refuses, but his wife gives in and does it, only she warns Tony on the phone and Grutter's men kill them both. When Tony discovers the scene, he finds Cesar tied up at L'Âge d'Or, Cesar apologizes for giving up the address. In a departure from the novel, Tony tells Cesar he knows the rules for turning in your friends and kills him. Dassin admits in one of the interviews he added that because he was thinking of all those who betrayed friends by naming them to HUAC. Later, Grutter's gang kidnaps Jo's son and demand the jewels. When two of Grutter's men grab the little boy while he's in a park with his mom and push him in a car, his balloon floating aimlessly away, a passenger on a bus who witnesses the abduction warns his child, "Hold your balloon tight — see what can happen."
One single sequence though makes Rififi a landmark both in films and particularly in heist movies: the robbery itself. The way Tony and the guys steal the gems from Mappin & Webb is by breaking in to the apartment above the store and going in from above to do the rest of the safecracking, etc. Dassin films this in a 32-minute long silent sequence. No one speaks. Keeping everything as quiet as possible becomes the thieves' No. 1 priority. It's absolutely riveting. You'll be holding your breath as if you were involved in the crime yourself. Composer Georges Auric wrote Rififi's musical score.
Auric provided music for films from around the world including, up to this point in his career, Roman Holiday, The Wages of Fear, The Lavender Hill Mob, Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast and Blood of a Poet (the last three for Jean Cocteau) and Auric's first film score, Rene Clair's À Nous la Liberté. When Auric heard that Dassin had a 32-minute robbery sequence planned, he got excited and told him he was going to compose a huge piece of music for it. Dassin told him he didn't need to do this because he wanted it to play in silence, but Auric insisted and wrote the music anyway. When both the sequence and Auric's composition were done, Dassin asked Auric to come watch it with him — once with music, once without. Auric did as Dassin asked. Afterward, Auric turned to Dassin and told him to play the heist in silence.
Before Rififi began to be screened for public or professional consumption, Dassin showed it to his friend director Lewis Milestone, who won the Oscar for comedy direction the only time it was ever given for Two Arabian Knights as well as a second prize for All Quiet on the Western Front, and happened to be in Paris. His other credits included 1931's The Front Page and 1939's Of Mice and Men. Rififi wowed Milestone who advised Dassin that he should "make this film all your life and you'll be like Hitchcock." With the exception of one film in about a decade that was more or less a comic takeoff on the heist genre, Dassin did not follow Milestone's advice, compiling a quite eclectic filmography. Once Rififi began to be seen, critics kept saying Dassin owed a debt to John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, a film that Dassin had never seen. Several years later, Dassin did see The Asphalt Jungle, but he failed to see specific comparisons except slightly in that an attractive woman becomes a character's undoing. One of the funniest revelations that Dassin made in one of the DVD interviews was that, though he is referred to as one of the masters of film
noir, he had never even heard the term until he moved to France. Rififi received such good word-of-mouth that it was accepted into the official competition at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. Dassin himself was so broke he could barely go. When one of the film's producers gambled at a casino, he begged for a little cash so he could play. He asked what date they started shooting the movie. "The eighteenth," he was told. Dassin put all he was given down on the number 18 on a roulette table and it hit, providing his family with funds to live on for awhile. As for the festival, the perceived front-runner was the film Stella directed by Mihalis Kakogiannis (who would soon change his name to Michael Cacoyannis before he got around to directing Zorba the Greek) and featuring the film debut of actress Melina Mercouri. The Palme d'Or ended up going to the American film Marty while best director was shared between Dassin and Sergei Vasilyev for Heroes of Shipka. Six actress from the Russian film Bolshaya semya (A Big Family) shared best actress, leaving Mercouri empty-handed but she and Dassin met and soon became lifelong collaborators in every sense of the word, though he didn't divorce his first wife until 1962 and wed Mercouri until 1966. Ironically, the 1955 Cannes jury also awarded a prize for best dramatic film to Elia Kazan for East of Eden. I don't know if he and Dassin ran into each other. Of course, Dassin couldn't avoid controversy. There were complaints that Rififi could be viewed as a how-to film for would-be thieves. Dassin said his response always was that, if anything, the film showed that the price was too high and usually ended badly for those who attempted such adventures. When they captured the culprits behind a robbery spree in Mexico, they cited the movie as an inspiration. Critics of the film accused Dassin of making the core group of thieves too sympathetic (never mind that when Tony learns that Mado took on a new lover while he was in prison, he removes his belt and beats her savagely, though offscreen). Dassin admitted in one of the interviews that he couldn't help himself. "It's what's left of the old rebel in me — I always want my guys to succeed," he said.
Dassin's next film went in an entirely different direction from anything he had made before. According to Truffaut's book, Dassin considered the movie, "'the film of my life,' the first film he really chose to make, and made with complete freedom, a film in which he succeeded in expressing totally." Based on Nikos Kazantzakis' 1948 novel The Greek Passion (which was published in England as Christ Recrucified) took place in Lycovrissi, a Greek village in the 1920s held under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Despite being Muslim, the Agha (Grégoire Aslan) who controls the village for the Turks allows the Greeks to stage the passion play they hold every seven years, even
though in private the Turks comment that "Allah is a cheerful artist, Jesus a melancholy god." Father Grigoris (Fernand Ledoux) picks who will play all the various roles and upsets some when he selects a stuttering shepherd named Manolios (Pierre Vaneck) to play Jesus. As you'd expect, the village's prostitute, Katerina, (Melina Mercouri, in her first film with her future husband) is cast as Mary Magdalene, An angry blacksmith Panagiotaros (Roger Hanin) who holds lots of grudges, including being passed over for the role of Christ, gets picked for the role of Judas. Outside the casting, there are other interesting characters such as the village's now figurehead of a leader, Archon Patriarcheas, who the Turks still allow to live well and for his own pleasure (played by Gert Frobe, who would go on to play Bond's best villain in the best 007 film, the title role of Goldfinger). The conflict comes when Greeks uprooted by Turks from another village arrive, starving and looking for shelter. They're led by their own priest, Father Fotis (Jean Servais from Rififi) but Father Grigoris suspects these new people aren't looking for charity but for land and spreads rumors of cholera about the newcomers, quarantining them to a mountainous area. It's all the reason the richer citizens of Lycovrissi need to ostracize them but, as you might expect, those involved in the passion play, start to take their roles seriously and Manolios dares to reach out to help the refugees. Georges Auric composed a boisterous score for the film and He Who Must Die contains many positive attributes, but I think Truffaut nailed the film's problems in his review in The Films in My Life:
"This time there is nothing but nobility, nobility, and more nobility — too much nobility for a film that displays an intellectual confusion seldom displayed in the history of cinema.…I must admit that this kind of subject, in which everyday people must transcend themselves by identifying with characters they personify, irritates me because it is so theatrical and so obvious. Knowing in advance that Judas will betray Christ, we pay attention only to how the blacksmith will betray the shepherd.…During the film, which I saw twice, I noted this sentence in the dialogue: 'The human brain is a fragile machine; one turn too many and it breaks down.' Jules Dassin gave one turn too many to his film; he has everything mixed up, tangled it all together, preaching and plasticity, reflections in mirrors, the lack of bread, rejected lovers, and children who die of cold."
He Who Must Die was in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, but lost to Friendly Persuasion. It did receive the OCIC (The International Catholic Organization for Cinema) Award — Special Mention.
Dassin went from the all-too-literal to the all-too-obscure with his next film, which didn't open in the U.S. until 1960 (and when it did, it was called Where the Hot Wind Blows!). Though Italy kicked Dassin out the last time he tried to make a movie there, the country allowed him to film there for his adaptation of French author Roger Vailland's 1957 La loi, which won France's highest literary prize, The Prix
Goncourt. Though the novel was written in French and Dassin would film the movie in French, it took place in a southern Italian fishing village on the Adriatic called Porto Manacore and starred Italian acting icons Gina Lollabrigida and Marcello Mastroianni and took its name from a game native to that part of Italy. Some non-Italians made the cast as well including French stars Yves Montand (The Wages of Fear) and Pierre Brasseur (Frédérick Lemaître in Children of Paradise) and, of course, Melina Mercouri. Brasseur plays Don Cesare, the aging, de facto leader of Porto Manacore. Lollabrigida is Marietta, one of the don's housekeepers, the object of lust for most of the village's men, and the object of scorn for others, especially Don Cesare's other
female servants who torture Marietta when they can since no one dreams of them. Montand, who gives the best performance of the film, plays Matteo Brigante, the local crime boss who loves to throw his weight around, but does it in a most charming way since he wants to assume Don Cesare's place of respect and wouldn't mind Marietta as well. He has his own personal problem in that his young son Franceso (Raf Mattioli, who died of a heart attack the next year at the young age of 24) has been having an affair with the judge's wife (Mercouri) and plans to run off with her. Mastroianni is Enrico Tosso, an agronomist from morthern Italy visiting the village who falls for Marietta (and she for him) but lacks the funds for a dowry. Marietta sets out to steal cash from a Swiss tourist so they can be together while Don Cesare advises that Enrico should go observe a session of The Law to see what it's all about, since it's such a regional phenomenon he's unfamiliar with the game. Almost nightly, men gather in a town tavern to play the game, but when Enrico shows up to be a spectator, Brigante forces him to participate even though he doesn't know the rules. Explaining The Law (the movie) proves less complicated than describing the game it's based on. Author Vailland appeared on the French talk show Lectures pour tous on Dec. 4, 1957, where host Michel Butor interviewed him about the game. The two-disc Oscilloscope DVD set of The Law includes the interview. VAILLAND: First off, it's a card game (that only exists) in southern Italy.
BUTOR: It's a card game that shows the feudal system still strong in this region…Let's say first the rules…and who plays…
VAILLAND: The rules are very simple. First, you need a winner, like in any game, but the game only starts when the winner has been designated by luck — by a card game or a dice roll — and The Law becomes an exciting and cruel game because the winner can impose The Law on the loser.
BUTOR: What does that mean?
VAILLAND: It means asking questions that they must answer which insult them in a more or less subtle way and they must endure it, even if it wounds their honor.
BUTOR: Is it the game of Truth?
VAILLAND: In the sense of honor, which is very strong in southern Italy. The same insult in real life would provoke a violent response, but in the game of Law, it's in the rules. The loser must lay his hands on the table and be subjected to The Law.
Did that clear things up? Didn't think so. It doesn't really match the movie's depictions of the game either. (He doesn't bring up the winner
being given the title of "the boss," picking a deputy boss, naming an idiot, etc.) In the end, it hardly matters. I imagine if you hail from southern Italy, it's conceivable that additional layers of meaning might be found in The Law that escapes viewers from the rest of the world. Since that includes the overwhelming majority of us, let's just forget about the game's relevance to the plot. They might as well be playing Quintet. In spite of The Law lacking a truly coherent story, Dassin does have a great, fluid sequence toward the opening of the film that begins with the release of a pigeon from the first scene landing on a building. From there, in seemingly one take, the camera moves along the windows of the building, catching the various goings-on in the apartments as if we're Jeff in Rear Window gazing through our telephoto lens as the people in the different rooms strain to see the source of a siren's song that turns out, of course, to be Marietta warbling while she washes the don's boots on a balcony of his nearby villa. Nearly the entire cast make the effort watchable, especially the great Montand who revels in Brigante's sleaze, even if you're unsure at the end what the hell you just watched.
I didn't get a chance to re-watch this one, but when I first saw this a few years back, I was underwhelmed, but it may be Dassin's most important post-blacklist film, not in terms of quality but in what it represented. First of all, it was a huge hit. Second, 1960 more or less brought an official end to the blacklist on several fronts. Kirk Douglas released Spartacus and defied the list by allowing screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's credit to appear. When the Oscar nominations came out, Dassin was nominated for both best director and best story and
screenplay for Never on Sunday, the only two Oscar nominations Dassin ever received. The movie as a whole received five nominations, including best actress for Melina Mercouri and won best original song for the title track. Mercouri had won best actress at Cannes, tying with Jeanne Moreau for her work in Peter Brook's Seven Days…Seven Nights (known as Moderato cantabile in France). Not everything was perfect: Nedrick Young who co-wrote Inherit the Wind was nominated under the pseudonym Nathan E. Douglas, though the Academy restored Young's name to the records in 1993. In one of the DVD interviews, Dassin told another funny anecdote. When he was making Never on Sunday, he ran short on financing and again had to cast himself, this time as the lead. Before the film had been released outside of Greece (where it was a huge hit anyway), Jack Lemmon happened to be Athens and Dassin showed it to him, hoping somehow that he could come up with money to re-shoot his scenes with Lemmon playing his part. After watching it, Lemmon told Dassin, "You're terrible in this film, but it's charming." He advised him to leave it the way it was. With Dassin's terrible performance intact, the movie was a hit everywhere, grossing an estimated $8 million as of January 1962 off a $151,000 budget. He returned to New York briefly in early 1962 to direct a new play on Broadway by Robert L. Joseph about a dying child called Isle of Children. It starred Patty Duke, the same year she would repeat her stage success as Helen Keller in movie of The Miracle Worker. The cast also included Bonnie Bedelia. The play got mixed reviews and ran for a mere 11 performances.
This attempt to do a modern twist on the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra falls into overheated melodrama and little else. Dassin manages some nice shots and the cinematography by Jacques Natteau and especially Max Douy's art direction are exceptional. Raf Vallone does what he can as the Greek shipping magnate and Melina Mercouri floats between good and bad as the title temptress, but Anthony Perkins at times almost goes as over-the-top as Vallone's son as he did as the weirdo priest in Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion.
Sometimes it can be hysterical when someone satirizes one of their most famous roles or movies (Think Marlon Brando in The Freshman). Dassin should have been more than capable to do a comic riff on Rififi, but Topkapi is not that movie. It throws Maximilian Schell (who, by coincidence, would be hysterical in The Freshman), Melina Mercouri (as always), Robert Morley and Peter Ustinov, sweating up a storm and winning his second Oscar for supporting actor as the chase begins to abscond with a jeweled dagger from a museum in Istanbul. It's meant to be funny, but the jokes fall flat. What's most notable is that 22 years after Dassin directed his first feature film, Topkapi marked the first time he filmed in color. What always has bugged me is that, as much as I love Ustinov generally, how could he win the Oscar in 1964 for this? His official competition that he beat was John Gielgud in Becket, Stanley Holloway in My Fair Lady, Edmond O'Brien in Seven Days in May and my choice of their nominees, Lee Tracy in The Best Man. This doesn't include people who didn't make the cut such as Sterling Hayden and George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove, Gert Frobe in Goldfinger, Richard Attenborough (Seance on a Wet Afternoon) — that's just a handful that come to mind.
I haven't seen Dassin's next film, 1966's 10:30 P.M. Summer, based on Marguerite Duras' novel Dix heures et demie du soir en été. Duras and Dassin co-wrote the screenplay. I borrowed part of a post that Roderick Heath wrote at Ferdy on Films
10:30 P.M. Summer looks to me like a transitional film. Today, spare, cryptic portraits of the psychic and sexual life are more common; how to create psychologically and emotionally penetrating works of film was a major question for earlier directors. This film, like Losey and Pinter’s Accident (1967), which possibly had an easier time of it for centering more happily on male sexual transgressions, or Tony Richardson’s Mademoiselle (1966), stand somewhere between the stylistics of the “alienation” films of the early ’60s and the playfulness of the new wave, and the approaching full-bore works of Bertolucci, Breillat, Eustache and others.
…
Whilst no masterpiece, it’s far better than its reputation reflects, and it’s a film worth finding.
Dassin and Mercouri decided for their next project to return to the material that gave them their greatest success and they turned Never on Sunday into the Broadway musical Illya Darling. Mercouri repeated her role, but Dassin was glad to stick to directing and writing the musical's book. He let Orson Bean play his part from the movie. This might have been a sign that they were making a good move: the musical was booked into The Mark Hellinger Theatre, named after the independent producer of his first two great films, Brute Force and The Naked City, but who had a career as a New York theater critic and columnist prior to that. It no longer exists as a theater as the Nederlanders has leased the theater to the Times Square Church since 1989. The musical's cast also included Hal Linden and had music by Manos Hadjidakis and lyrics by Joe Darion (who wrote the lyrics for Man of La Mancha). Illya Darling received six Tony nominations (best musical, best composer & lyricist, best director, best choreography, best actress for Mercouri and best featured actor for Nikos Kourkoulos). Though it didn't win any Tonys, the show ran for 320 performances.
While Dassin and Mercouri were in New York with the musical, a military coup took place in Greece. The couple were vocal in their opposition and accused of helping to finance the opposition so they were banned from returning to Greece for seven years. At first, they toured with the musical. Later, Dassin decided to make a documentary about the six-day war in the Middle East, another film I haven't seen. Titled Survival '67, it was filmed in Israel, written by Irwin Shaw and released in 1968. Here is an excerpt of Renata Adler's New York Times review:
By Renata Adler for The New York Times
"describes itself as 'a paean to Israel.' What gets lost is the brave, tragic war itself. (There is hardly any documentary war footage at all.) The film, which keeps crossing what little moving footage it has — wounded men, monuments to Babi Yar and Buchenwald — by an inability to shut up, is poor and ineffective propaganda.
…
It is also poor reporting — it simply does not tell us anything that we did not know already, and what it does tell — in fuzzy interviews about, for example, the Arab refugee problem — it tells unclearly. Everything about it is off."
While Jules Dassin and Melina Mercouri were exiled from their home in Greece, they lived in New York. For the first time since Thieves' Highway, Dassin contracted to make a feature for an American studio (Paramount). For the first time since He Who Must Die, he also was making a feature that didn't have Mercouri in the cast because Uptight had an all-black cast. Truly a film of the moment, Uptight takes place in Cleveland four days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. In another respect, it wasn't of the moment since Dassin was remaking The Informer, the film the won John Ford his first directing Oscar in 1935 and changing the milieu from Irish revolutionaries to black militants. It starts with a hyperactive animated credit sequence set to music by Booker T. Jones. Dassin co-wrote the screenplay with Ruby Dee and Julian Mayfield, both of whom played roles in the film. As a time capsule film, Uptight remains an interesting experience and it contains some really good performances, especially by Raymond St. Jacques as a militant leader and Roscoe Lee Browne as a smooth operator who'll sell anyone out for the right price. Dassin takes a lot of flights of fancy, particularly in one drugged-out sequence involving crazy mirrors at an amusement park.
In 1970, he directed Mercouri in Promise at Dawn. Of the film, Roger Ebert wrote:
Jules Dassin's Promise at Dawn is a warmly drawn love poem in two parts, one dealing with style and the other with the story. Of the two, the first is more interesting: Dassin's treatment of his wife, Melina Mercouri, is a marriage of script, photography and performance designed to showcase her talent and beauty. The second love story — the love Melina's character has for her son — is rather static and even a little distracting in these decades after Freud.
In 1974. as described on the Melina Mercouri Foundation website, "On the occasion of the November 1974 Athens Polytechnic student revolt, Dassin, still exiled, filmed in New York The Rehearsal, a political documentary with the free participation of Olympia Dukakis, Lillian Hellman, Melina Mercouri, Sir Laurence Olivier, Manuella Pavlidou, Maximillian Schell, Mikis Theodorakis and others. Dassin considered this to have been one of his best films. It was due to be distributed on the day of the fall of the dictatorship and became untimely. Therefore it was never released. After the collapse of the junta, Jules Dassin and Melina Mercouri returned to Greece where they settled for the rest of their lives. Melina was actively involved in the establishment and promotion of the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party."
Dassin's penultimate film, A Dream of Passion, came out in 1978 and told the story of an actress (Mercouri) preparing to play Medea who spends time with an imprisoned American woman (Ellen Burstyn) who, like Medea, killed her own children. I'm ashamed to admit that Dassin's final film happens to be the first film of his that I saw, It was 1981's A Circle of Two starring Tatum O'Neal as a college-age student obsessed with a famous artist played by Richard Burton. This was on either HBO or Showtime soon after we had it for the first time and I was in junior high. All I knew was the girl I had a crush on since The Bad News Bears and Little Darlings took off her top in it. I couldn't tell you anything about the movie and I didn't know who the hell Jules Dassin was. I certainly do now. Everyone should.
Dassin continued to direct plays once he stopped making movies and Mercouri turned to politics, becoming the longest-serving cultural minister in Greece's history. She made it a campaign to get the Parthenon or Elgin Marbles returned to Greece from the British Museum in England that had held them for more than 200 years. Unfortunately, the debate has continued past the deaths of both Dassin and Mercouri, though popular opinion in both countries side with returning the marbles to Greece.
Tweet
Labels: Bette, blacklist, Brando, Buñuel, Burstyn, Ebert, Harold Pinter, Huston, J. Robbins, John Ford, Julie Christie, K. Douglas, Kazan, Lemmon, Mastroianni, Milestone, Montand, Olivier, Oscars, Truffaut
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Monday, December 19, 2011
Eyes Pried Open
By John Cochrane
The movie begins with a shade of bright orange flooding the screen. The music kicks in — sounding stately and somewhat familiar, but it’s played through a moog synthesizer with ominous effects and echoes — causing a mechanical feeling of impending doom. After three title cards in alternating orange and blue that announce the distributor, filmmaker and title of the film, we are confronted with one of the most unnerving close-ups in movie history — Alex DeLarge gazing back at the camera. Alex DeLarge — charismatic gang leader, Beethoven aficionado, rapist and murderer. He does not talk. He does not blink. The camera pulls back to reveal him sitting with his friends — known as “droogs” — in the back of the Korova Milk Bar — a surreal bistro with alabaster tables and statues resembling naked women. The Korova specializes in serving its patrons drug-laced milk called “milk plus.” As Wendy Carlos’ arrangement of Henry Purcell’s “Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary” continues to play over the soundtrack, Alex begins to tell his story in voice-over — presiding over his territory like a modern day Richard III. Like most nights, he and his droogs are gearing up for a night of terrorizing the community — or as Alex would put it “a bit of the old “ultra-violence.” By the end of this first zoom-out, the audience knows it’s in for one hell of a ride.
The film is Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), still to this day one of the most controversial movies ever released by a major motion picture studio. Based on the 1962 novella by Anthony Burgess about freedom of choice and the inherent evil in human nature, it tells the story of an intelligent but unrepentant juvenile sociopath in a dystopian future England, who is imprisoned for murder. Scientifically conditioned by the government using the new Ludovico Technique to be become physically ill at the sight or thought of sex and violence, he is then released back into society — helpless to defend himself against potential attacks from former victims and associates looking to settle old scores — and also with an unfortunate aversion to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A Clockwork Orange celebrates its 40th anniversary of its U.S. release today. Some people might argue that it has lost its ability to shock viewers to the same degree, through its entrance into the mainstream — demonstrated by numerous cultural references. But for many others the movie retains all its visceral power due to its iconic elements, expert craftsmanship and timeless storytelling.
When A Clockwork Orange is brought up in conversation, the response usually tends to be either one of high praise or revulsion. So why is the film considered so disturbing by so many people? First, is Malcolm McDowell’s tour de force performance as Alex. McDowell is in almost
every frame of the movie, and he runs the gamut from being persuasively likable to bone chillingly frightening to pathetically sad. His frequent, spirited narration greatly helps the audience to understand Burgess’ created language of Nadsat, which is a combination of Russian, Slavic, invented words and cockney slang. The role of Alex also is a very physically grueling one. McDowell endured a scratched cornea from the lid locks that held his eyes open during Alex’s Pavlovian conditioning, as well as a broken rib from being stomped on during the Ludovico demonstration after the character has been cured. Alex is often reprehensible — an unreliable narrator and lead character who is a vicious criminal. But because he is the only real constant presence in the film, the audience is forced to identify with him — creating conflicting feelings when he appears sympathetic, particularly in the film’s third act. Kubrick first saw Malcolm McDowell as one of the rebels in Lindsay Anderson's …if (1968), a harsh and sometimes avant-garde critique of the English boarding school system, and couldn’t imagine anyone else playing Alex. After seeing the film, most people would agree Kubrick was right. It’s a career role, securing McDowell’s place in film history as one of its great villains. Second are the acts of violence, and the sequences that show forced sex as an act of power. Everyone remembers them — particularly in the movie’s very stylized first 40 minutes — but in reality Kubrick deceptively cuts away from most of the payoffs. The audience sees a naked woman getting pulled back and forth during an attack by a rival gang, but she’s forgotten and quickly runs off when Alex and his
droogs show up. The deeply unsettling home invasion sequence, where Alex sings “Singin' in the Rain,” ends before the rape of the author’s wife actually takes place. The murder of the cat lady cuts away to what looks like a painted clown face, just as Alex bludgeons her. The threesome in Alex’s bedroom is more hedonistic than an act of power, but it is sped up and complemented by a comically fast electronic rendition of the "William Tell Overture." The Ludovico films that Alex is forced to watch while nauseous drugs are pumped into his system show violence that is almost cartoon-like, when they aren’t cutting away to World War II footage. These moments remain uncomfortable to watch because the scenes are either edited or choreographed to music that creates in the audience the feeling of euphoria that Alex feels during his conquests. Or in the case of the home invasion and Ludovico scenes, they psychologically play off of the viewers’ fear of helplessness — being attacked at home, which is supposed to be a refuge — or being paralyzed and unable to move. The audience struggles to retain its objectivity, while being invited in as a participant or a witness. Compared to more recent torture porn, A Clockwork Orange probably does show a lot less — but like Hitchcock shooting the shower scene in Psycho (1960), Kubrick understands that the audience will fill in the gaps of what they see with their imagination, and that will be much more powerful than explicitly showing it on screen.
Third, A Clockwork Orange is in many ways a black comedy — with many bizarre jokes and details in it that some audiences are afraid to laugh at. The gang’s strong but slow-witted droog Dim (an excellent Warren Clarke) has a conversation with one of the Korova Milk Bar’s statues before dispensing milk from its breasts. Sexualized artwork seems to be pervasive in society — even in the homes of respectable people. The two girls Alex meets at the Chelsea Drugstore before taking them home enjoy very suggestively shaped popsicles. Alex kills the cat lady by smashing her in the head with a large porcelain phallus, after she reprimands him for playing with it. Alex’s 60-year old mom, whose personality is weak and conservative, walks around in brightly colored wigs, skirts and go-go boots. Both the performances of Alex’s truant officer (Aubrey Morris) and the head guard (Michael Bates) at the prison are ridiculously over the top. Bates in particular seems to be channeling Michael Palin from Monty Python. Also exaggerated is the character of author Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee) who is now a widower and quite insane when Alex unwittingly comes to his home (clearly marked HOME on the outside) a second time after being let out of prison. When Alex returns to his parents after his release only to find they’ve rented his room, what should be a touchingly sad scene is complimented with the Erika Eigen’s chipper ditty “I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper.” Alex comes out of his coma at the hospital, interrupting a doctor and nurse mid-coitus behind a partition. And when Alex’s parents offer their bedside apologies to him, the frame also contains a food basket containing a box with the words “EAT ME” prominently displayed. Sick, but funny.
Fourth, the film darkly addresses human nature, with an ending that leaves Alex more or less as we found him at the beginning. The movie seems to say that free will is essential to human existence — that we must be able to choose to be good or bad, otherwise we cease to be little more than slaves or robots. Some people are inherently good, or evil, or weak — and there’s not always an explanation or solution for it. The government does not fare much better, in the film’s eyes. They try to fix Alex, not because it is the right or humane thing to do, but to control him. When Alex’s torture and suicide attempt are publicized and the government criticized for their actions, they reverse the treatment and cure him to remain popular. Principle is not involved. Even Frank Alexander has plans to use Alex for his own left-wing political objectives until he realizes who he really is, and seeks retribution.
In the final scene, the Minister of the Interior offers to help Alex get a good job, if he works together with them in their façade of public relations. In the book’s last chapter, Alex grows tired of his violent way of life. Upon a chance encounter with one of his old droogs Pete, who is now married and a quiet member of society, Alex decides that he too should grow up and find a wife to start a family with. This epiphany in the book seems somewhat rushed, but Burgess preferred it — saying Alex’s change of heart at the end made the story a novel, whereas Kubrick’s omission of the chapter made the movie a fable — and considerably more pessimistic. Burgess’ ending may make sense for the novella, but it’s pretty hard to imagine the movie finishing any other way than Alex in the hospital, hearing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” while he imagines himself fornicating with a young girl in the dead of winter — with an approving crowd looking on.
A Clockwork Orange was released at a time when movie studios weren’t afraid of distributing more adult-minded, but artistic fare such as Midnight Cowboy, Straw Dogs and Last Tango in Paris. Like Cowboy and Tango, A Clockwork Orange originally received the X rating before being later downgraded to an R after brief cuts, but the X classification wasn’t automatically associated with pornography like it in today’s industry of double-standards. The movie was one of the biggest hits of Kubrick’s career, but polarized audiences and critics. Vincent Canby of The New York Times raved about it, while Roger Ebert, Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael all disliked the film. Garnering seven BAFTAs and four Academy Award nominations among other accolades, it also was by some estimates, Warner Bros.’ biggest moneymaker to date at that time, with the exception of My Fair Lady (1964).
Further controversy would envelope the film later on in the United Kingdom though, when a number of copycat crimes were pinned to the movie. The British press had a field day, pointing fingers at Stanley Kubrick and his picture — placing blame on its seeming glamorization of rape and violence, while overlooking the picture’s obvious themes, and irony of the situation. After several death threats and increasing pressure upon his family, Kubrick asked Warners in 1974 to withdraw their very profitable film from British distribution — which they did. It was a remarkable display of artistic power. A Clockwork Orange played in London’s West End for 61 weeks and in outer markets only briefly before disappearing. It would not be legitimately shown again in England for another 26 years, after Kubrick’s death. But the seeds were sown — breaking cinematic taboos and influencing such later striking social commentaries as Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1990 in the U.S.), and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s frequently banned critique of fascism, Salo (1975).
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) only made 13 features in a career that spanned 46 years, but even with that small output, it was enough to place him in the upper echelons of great directors. At least two of his movies, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) are usually considered among the greatest films ever made. A perfectionist who never repeated himself, he made movies slowly, overseeing most aspects of production like a master chess player. Kubrick is often called a cold, detached filmmaker — which is not entirely true. His films are realistic — perhaps pessimistic when compared to someone more upbeat like Steven Spielberg — who took over Kubrick’s unfinished project A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) and made one of the most beautiful and underrated films of his career. But most of Stanley Kubrick’s movies do make you feel strong emotions — either when the characters are involving — like Kirk Douglas’ impassioned Colonel Dax in the anti-war masterpiece Paths of Glory (1957), James Mason’s Humbert Humbert in Lolita (1962), and Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange — or through the iconic marriage of great visuals and music. Great directors such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino are often celebrated for their stylish use of soundtracks, but who can forget the use of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” or “The Blue Danube” in 2001, Vera Miles’ “We’ll Meet Again” at the end of Dr. Strangelove, Wendy Carlos reimagining Purcell, Beethoven and Rossini or the ad-libbed use of “Singin' in the Rain” in A Clockwork Orange, or the prostitute swaggering down the street to Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking” in Full Metal Jacket (1987)? Are these music cues sometimes dark, ironic or provocative? Yes. But the audience is too involved in the moment to write off the filmmaking as cold or detached. (2001 and Barry Lyndon (1975) actually are detached pieces of cinema, but that remoteness was a large part of the point of 2001, and the character Barry Lyndon, as seen in that film, is not an enlightened protagonist.)
Stanley Kubrick’s style isn’t for everyone, but to his admirers his films are rich tapestries of impeccable technique that improve on successive viewings. In many ways A Clockwork Orange may be his most quintessential film — sometimes beautiful and exhilarating, sometimes strangely funny, often thought-provoking, and still disturbing after all these years. Burgess grew tired of defending what he considered one of his minor works, and he eventually resented being known primarily for the film — instead of his prolific career as an author, composer, critic and linguist. Journalists granted a rare interview with Kubrick were instructed not to bring A Clockwork Orange up unless the director did first. But it remains an unforgettable combination of visuals, music, ideas and performances. For many Kubrick fans, it is almost like we are Alex strapped into the chair — sometimes fascinated, nauseated, or frightened. But we can’t look away.
Tweet
Labels: 70s, Ebert, Hitchcock, K. Douglas, Kael, Kubrick, Malcolm McDowell, Mason, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, Terry Gilliam
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Sunday, November 06, 2011
“Can’t you say ‘Yes, sir’ without making it sound like an insult?”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Group Theatre playwright Sidney Kingsley established his reputation in the 1930s with plays that focused on controversial social issues and gritty depictions of real life…and nowhere were these hallmarks more prevalent than in his first production, Men in White, a story about a doctor torn between his sense of duty and sense of social obligation to his fiancée. White also dealt peripherally with the subject of abortion, and because of the play’s success and topicality Kingsley was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his freshman effort. He followed the success of White with Dead End in 1935, a production that examined the connection between crime and life in tenement slums. Both plays were eventually adapted as Hollywood motion pictures (with MGM’s version of Men in White considerably downplaying the abortion angle); Dead End being particularly notable for introducing a group of juvenile actors that would soon be tagged as “The Dead End Kids.”
Director William Wyler helmed Dead End for Samuel Goldwyn in 1937, so it seems only fitting that Wyler would tackle (as director and producer) another Kingsley stage success 14 years later; a play that debuted on Broadway on March 23, 1949, and ran for 581 performances until closing in August the following year. Set against the backdrop of a New York police precinct, Detective Story is in fact several stories — one of which involves abortion but, again, the film version discusses the subject only on the movie’s outer edges (using the euphemism “baby farming”) in deference to that pesky Breen office. Scripted by Philip Yordan and Wyler’s older brother Robert, Detective Story debuted in theaters 60 years ago on this date. While some of its elements may not stand the test of time, it continues to be a by-the-book example of exceptional ensemble acting.
Detective James McLeod (Kirk Douglas) is a dedicated plainclothes cop with NYC’s 21st Precinct and as described by his commanding officer, Lt. Monaghan (Horace McMahon), “he ain’t on the take…got no tin boxes.” What McLeod does have is a strong moralistic streak, resulting from his white-hot hatred of his father, who possessed a “criminal mind” and drove Jim’s mother to an insane asylum. There are no grays in McLeod’s world; black is black, white is white and criminals are not to be “coddled.” He demonstrates this by collaring young embezzler Arthur Kindred (Craig Hill), with the expressed intent of bringing the hammer down on the young man despite it being Kindred’s first offense (he stole $480 from his employer in order to have money to accommodate his girlfriend’s expensive tastes).
McLeod’s enmity in his “one-man army against crime” is directed primarily toward physician Karl Schneider (George Macready), a retired doctor whose spartan country lifestyle is supplemented financially by his willingness to help out “women in trouble.” Schneider’s lawyer, Endicott Sims (Warner Anderson), has advised his client to turn him himself on a warrant issued by McLeod, and also has warned Monaghan to keep Jim's excesses in check because McLeod apparently has a personal vendetta against Karl. Trying to make his case against the doctor stick, McLeod arranges for a show-up in the precinct’s squad room and asks a confederate of Schneider’s, Miss Hatch (Gladys George), to pick Karl out of the lineup. Hatch refuses to identify Schneider and McLeod deduces that she was paid off for her silence in the form of a fancy fur stole. Taking Schneider to Bellevue Hospital in a patrol wagon, McLeod gambles on a patient’s positive identification of the doctor (a victim of Schneider’s illegal procedure) but the woman dies before the two men arrive. Schneider taunts McLeod by insisting that he has juicy information on the detective, and McLeod responds by administering a beatdown to the doctor on the way back to the station.
Before losing consciousness, Schneider mumbles the name “Tami Giacoppetti” to Monaghan, making a veiled reference to a mysterious woman of Giacoppetti’s acquaintance. Wanting to get all the facts if McLeod is brought up on charges of murder (should Schneider expire from his injuries), the lieutenant learns from Schneider’s lawyer that the woman in question is Mary McLeod (Eleanor Parker), Jim’s wife. Monaghan questions Mary about her connection to Schneider and Giacoppetti and learns that the latter (Gerald Mohr) was a racketeer with whom Mary had an affair before meeting Jim. She became pregnant, but Giacoppetti already was married and couldn’t obtain a divorce from his wife so she sought out Schneider for an abortion…whereupon Giacoppetti repaid Dr. Karl with a beating similar to that of McLeod’s. Monaghan still isn’t convinced McLeod isn’t aware of these details, and pressures Mary to spill the beans to Jim. Learning of his spouse’s colorful history, McLeod does not take the news well at all; he calls his wife a “tramp” and posits that her infertility resulted from the procedure.
McLeod’s world begins to crumble around him; his police reporter pal Joe Feinson (Luis Van Rooten) begs him to reconcile with Mary but Jim’s principled world view simply will not recognize that human beings are frail and susceptible to weakness. Jim’s longtime partner Lou Brody (William Bendix) is trying to get McLeod to drop the charges against Kindred since the sister (Cathy O’Donnell) of his girlfriend has offered to make restitution to Arthur’s employer (James Maloney). His inability to compromise reaches a point when a temporary reunion with Mary goes sour after he complains he’ll never be able to “wash away the dirty pictures” in his mind after discovering her past and she announces her intention to never see him again. It is only when McLeod is shot and killed by burglary suspect Charley Gennini (Joseph Wiseman) in the squad room that he attempts to atone for what he’s done by asking Brody to go easy on Arthur during an act of contrition. Lou lets Arthur off with a warning (“Don’t make a monkey out of me”) while Feinson contacts his paper with the story that McLeod was killed in the line of duty as the film concludes.
Detective Story was well-received at the time of its release, winning much critical praise and snaring four Academy Award nominations including best director for Wyler and best screenplay for scribes Yordan and Br’er Robert. Viewed through the prism of a 21st century moviegoer, however, it’s lost a bit of its luster; the film has difficulty escaping its stage origins and its once-daring subject matter seems fairly tame in light of the countless movies that have followed. What makes the film a worthy watch is Lee Garmes’ breathtaking deep focus cinematography (which really shines on the 2005 DVD release) and Wyler’s always-expert handling of his actors. Willie was fortunate to acquire the services of some of the thespians who had appeared in the stage version, notably Maloney, Wiseman (whose hysterical performance in this is admittedly a bit ripe) and Michael Strong (as Wiseman’s dimwitted partner)…and particularly McMahon, who is quietly effective here as the no-nonsense Monaghan — a rehearsal for his later stint as Lt. Mike Parker on the classic TV crime drama Naked City.
But the real play-to-movie prize in Detective Story is Lee Grant, who reprises her role as an unnamed shoplifter in her feature film debut. Grant’s timid and vulnerable “booster” is visibly agog throughout the squad room’s proceedings, often providing comic relief (her one-sided phone conversation with her lawyer brother-in-law is riotously funny — particularly when she wails “I took a bag…” in a delightful Noo Yawk squawk) and stealing practically every scene she’s in (my favorite Grant bit is when she asks Bert Freed’s detective if he has a two-way wrist radio like Dick Tracy). Her performance won her best actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival the following year, not to mention an Oscar nod as best supporting actress but by that time she was already on the industry’s blacklist for refusing to testify against her husband, Arnold Manoff, before the House Un-American Activities Committee. (She would receive her Oscar due more than 20 years later for her wonderful supporting turn in 1975’s Shampoo.)
Comic actor William Bendix had been making appearances in feature films since the 1940s, and his range was broad enough to encompass both lighter and dramatic fare; he was particularly effective in the 1942 film The Glass Key as the sadistic henchman who has a homoerotic fixation (“You mean I don’t get to smack Baby?”) on hero Alan Ladd. But most people were more familiar with Bendix at the time of Story's release as the star of the radio sitcom The Life of Riley, which is why his performance here as the veteran cop Brody is one of his best thespic showcases. His Brody is certainly no creampuff (he threatens the young embezzler by telling him “Don’t get funny with me, son…I’ll knock you through the floor”) but he’s able to temper that toughness with the mercy lacking in his partner McLeod, even offering to call a lawyer on Arthur’s behalf despite it being against protocol. Audiences will see a couple of other familiar sitcom faces in the film: future Dobie Gillis dad Frank Faylen plays the sarcastic Detective Gallagher, whose opening scene with loopy Catharine Doucet is a real gem, and “Gus the Fireman” himself, Burt Mustin, has an uncredited bit as the irascible squad room janitor Willie — it was one of the veteran character actor’s first film appearances, after deciding at the age of 67 (he was a former salesman) to develop a flair for the buskin.
On Broadway, the role of James McLeod in Detective Story was played by Ralph Bellamy — and though it would seem that the veteran character actor would be perfect to reprise that part for the movie version (I say this facetiously, since Bellamy at the time was also starring in a TV show entitled Man Against Crime) the decision to use Kirk Douglas was a good call (and his box office draw no doubt figured in the deal as well). At this point in his career, Kirk had perfected that oily obnoxiousness that defined many of his motion picture roles; he could be a delectable bad guy (Out of the Past, Champion) but even when his characters weren’t out-and-out villains (A Letter to Three Wives, The Glass Menagerie) they still had “the mark of a heel,” if you’ll pardon the pun. McLeod is a decent individual and his heart is certainly in the right place, but for most of the film’s running time he’s oblivious to the fact that in his quest to denounce his father’s influence he’s wound up exactly like him — incapable of any form of forgiveness (“I built my whole life on hating my father. All the time he was inside me, laughing”). Detective Jim McLeod could very well be the “good twin” opposite of Chuck Tatum, the unscrupulous reporter Douglas played in that same year’s Ace in the Hole, but he’s every bit the rat bastard that Tatum was, and oftentimes gleefully so. (I can’t swear to this, but Detective Story provides a couple of moments of Kirk's trademark manic intensity that surely must have influenced future Douglas impersonators such as Frank Gorshin and Joe Flaherty.)
In his review of Detective Story for The New York Times, the universally reviled Bosley Crowther had high praise for the entire cast save for Eleanor Parker, whom he damned with faint praise by remarking that, in light of Douglas’ performance, “the sweet and conventional distractions of Miss Parker as his wife appear quite tame.” Crowther also went on to say that Wyler should have “cast a sharper dame” in the part of “the mate of such a tiger” but I’ve always thought Parker did a magnificent job considering the size of her part. Parker’s Mary McLeod is a woman who’s faded into the background not because she’s mousy or unsure of herself but because she harbors a dark secret and doesn’t want to attract attention to it; her true feelings about her husband (whom she loves very much, despite his dickish behavior) finally emerge when she realizes than she will always bear the brunt of his holier-than-thou crusade and kicks him to the curb. (Parker’s was the fourth nomination Detective Story would receive at the Oscars the following year.)
In addition to Lee Grant’s Cannes win, Detective Story scored its original author Kingsley and adapters Wyler and Jordan an Edgar Award for best motion picture screenplay and, despite its crow’s feet, the film is a fairly effective crime drama with a marvelous blend of comedic and dramatic moments. Kirk Douglas’ letter-of-the-law cop Jim McLeod is sort of a psychotic version of Jack Webb’s Sgt. Joe Friday…and even echoes what Friday eventually morphed into by the 1960s when he chastises Arthur’s boss for having second thoughts about prosecution (“…you civilians are too lazy, or selfish or scared…or just too indifferent to appear in court”). The film’s dialogue is pungent and punchy (McLeod snarls to Miss Hatch at one point: “Take a couple of drop-dead pills”), the attention to detail vibrant (the squad room no doubt inspired that used on the TV sitcom Barney Miller) and the actors — particularly Bendix, Grant, Macready and McMahon — are at the peak of their perfection. Sixty years after its debut in theaters, Detective Story remains a tale well told.
Tweet
Labels: 50s, Bellamy, blacklist, Jack Webb, K. Douglas, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Television, Wyler
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
Friday, July 01, 2011
We gave them virtue, they want vice
there lived a very successful motion picture producer named Felix Farmer.
He owned three beautiful houses, he had two lovely children and he was married to a gorgeous movie star. The people who ran the studio where he worked loved and admired him because he had never made
a movie that had lost money. Then one day he produced the biggest most expensive motion picture
of his career…and it flopped. The people who ran the studio were very angry at Felix
because they lost millions of dollars…
and Felix lost his mind.
By Edward Copeland
We see that title crawl after brief credits run while Julie Andrews as actress Sally Miles plays Gillian West in her producer husband Felix Farmer's multimillion extravaganza Night Wind. That photo above doesn't do justice to how garish that set is as Sally as Gillian cavorts with life-size toys dancing and singing "Polly Wolly Doodle" (There are even singing balloons and a Jack in the Box). It has to be seen. Click here. You can believe from that scene alone that Night Wind truly stinks as much as they say it does, though how they could calculate on its opening weekend that it's "the lowest-grossing film of all time," seems a bit suspect. I would imagine films that never open would have lower grosses. Maybe the biggest money loser in relation to cost? Oh, who cares? We're not here to be serious or particularly realistic. We're here to pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of writer-director Blake Edwards' mad spoof of the movie business. Blessed with an unbelievably large and talented cast, S.O.B. isn't as sophisticated as Robert Altman's The Player would be a little more than a decade later and its satire isn't as sharp as Sidney Lumet's film of Paddy Chayefsky's take on the television industry was in Network a mere five years earlier, but it was and remains damn funny.
That crawl scrolls against the blue sky over Malibu beach where a man (Stiffe Tanney) jogs with his dog (Troubles). He suddenly suffers a heart attack and though he manages to crawl toward the deck of a large beachhouse and the dog barks up a storm, no one notices his emergency and he collapses. It sets the tone for an underlying theme that afflicts most of the film's characters: obliviousness, mostly stemming from self-absorption. As a result, a man drops dead on a beach with his dog barking loudly even though people keep coming and going on the deck a few feet above where a catatonic Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan) sits among the trades reporting Night Wind's failure.
(A smaller headline in Variety reads N.Y. Critics Break 'Wind' — Edwards' humor doesn't always aim for the highbrow. Though from the descriptive crawl, you'd think that Felix is the film's main character. While S.O.B., which does not stand for what you think it does, revolves around him and his movie, the film truly stands as an ensemble piece. No character really serves as lead even though Andrews and William Holden as the film's director Tim Culley get top billing, all the other significant characters are listed alphabetically. In fact, Felix remains in his non-speaking state of depressed madness for a long time. When he does snap out of it and taks 44 minutes into the film, Mulligan at first does it in a way very reminiscent of reactions his character of Burt Campbell on television's Soap sometimes did.While S.O.B. retains its power to make me laugh decades after I first saw the movie, I have to admit that re-watching it for the first time in a long time, I found more problems than before, but not as an entertainment rather in how it chooses to take its shots at the always worthy target of movie studios. I first saw S.O.B. on cable when I was a teenager but as I've grown up, not only have my tastes grown more refined, so has my knowledge of how the film industry works. S.O.B. works on many comic levels, but this time the ludicrous nature of its story took me out of the movie at times. The crawl set up the basic premise, but it's more complicated than that. Even though Night Wind has opened to terrible reviews and
worse box office, Capitol Studios President David Blackman (Robert Vaughn) desperately tries to get his top executive Dick Benson (Larry Hagman, taking the relatively minor role when he was white hot as J.R. on Dallas, having just finished the season that resolved "Who Shot J.R.?") to talk to Felix so they can jerk the film out of theaters and do a major editing job on it which they can't do because of Farmer's ironclad contract that only allows him to make changes. Sure, there was a re-edited version of Leone's Once Upon a Time in America a few years later, but that wasn't a wide release. Blackman himself has been getting pressure from the chairman of the corporation that owns Capitol Studios, Harry Sandler, played by longtime dependable Hollywood character actor Paul Stewart whose first credited film role was the butler Raymond in Citizen Kane. Now, the studio and everyone involved in Night Wind had to know it was a turkey before it opened, so why didn't they try to get him to re-edit it before it opened? You can't tell me they didn't hold test screenings. He might have had a contract that stopped anyone else from making changes, but I doubt it required Capitol Studios to give it a wide release.While that part of the movie doesn't pass the credibility test, even for a farce, other aspects do. Sally and her team worry about damage to her career and Sally would like to exit the marriage. She gets conflicting advice from her attorney Herb (Robert Loggia), her press agent Ben Coogan (Robert Webber) and her agent Eva Brown (Shelley
Winters). While Loggia wants to help extricate her from the marriage, the agents advise against it. Eva in particular reminds her client that her image couldn't withstand a divorce or even a separation, especially now. "You know this town, sweetie. You can smoke dope and end up going steady with your Afghan and you're one of the gang, but you — you're Peter Pan," Eva tells her. Winters is a riot as is just about everyone in this sparkling cast and the cast makes the film overcome its weaknesses. There also are many hints of autobiography and inside jokes sprinkled throughout. Andrews never really played Peter Pan, but she did have that Mary Poppins/Maria von Trapp image. In real life, Edwards did cope with serious depression and supposedly studio interference on Darling Lili inspired S.O.B. Ironically, Hagman's mother Mary Martin originated the roles of both Peter Pan and Maria von Trapp when the characters made their stage musical debuts.The studio finally dispatches his good friend and the film's director Culley (Holden) to the beachhouse to keep watch on him and see if he can pull Farmer back to the real world. Culley is a hard-drinking womanizer. Culley, always on the lookout for young women to decorate his surroundings, picks up
two hitchhikers on the way, Lila and Babs (Jennifer Edwards, Blake's daughter; and Rosanna Arquette in a very early role). At Farmer's house, the servants and the man who mows the yard are so oblivious to what goes on around them that they don't notice when Felix heads to the garage, starts the Cadillac and closes the garage door again. The gardener (Bert Rosario) doesn't get an inkling until he finds a dead rat. When the gardener puts the mower up, he smells the carbon monoxide and sees Felix's red eyes staring at him through the car's rear window. "Not such a good idea to sit in here with the motor running," he tells Felix as he reaches inside to try to cut the engine. Instead, he shifts it into drive and the Caddy crashes through the back of the garage, down the beach and into the ocean, just in time for Culley, Lila and Babs to stare in disbelief.
Felix's attempt at suicide introduces us to the greatest asset that S.O.B. has — Robert Preston as physician to the stars, Dr. Irving Finegarten. Blake Edwards wrote Preston the part of Toddy for his next film, Victor/Victoria, and earned Preston his only Oscar nomination, but as great as he is there, I think his Irving Finegarten is even better. Once he joins the film, he enlivens every scene he's in. When Robert Webber's character Ben, though he works for Sally, starts feeling guilty and spends most of his time hanging out with Irving and Culley, a comic troika for the ages forms. Irving mildly sedates Felix and they sit around the bar. Ben has turned into a wreck. Irving suggests giving Ben a vitamin shot. As he removes bottle after bottle from his medical bag, Dr. Finegarten has second thoughts. "Come to think of it, why should I give you a vitamin shot? I'm the one with the hangover," Irving declares.
Before I forget, when Felix's car ended up in the ocean, it did attract police interest and they did discover the poor dead man and, after subduing the dog, retrieved the corpse who was identified as veteran character actor Burgess Webster. The dog escaped and continued to hang out on the beach. Irving didn't give Felix that strong a dose apparently because he wanders downstairs and that obliviousness theme continues as Ben follows him, trying to talk, not noticing as Felix sticks his head in the oven or scrounges successfully for rope and returns upstairs. Ben soon panics with the arrival of gossip columnist Polly Reed (Loretta Swit) at the front door. Everyone tries to ignore her, but then they can hear she's sneaking in the back. Irving whispers, "This reminds me of a scene in The Thing when a terrible monster is just on the other side of a door" which only sets Ben off more. Polly comes in cooing for Felix while he's upstairs trying to hang himself. The beam doen't hold and he crashes through the floor, landing on Polly below. She ends up in the hospital in traction with multiple injuries. Irving gives him a stronger dose this time and Culley sits beside him and gives him a speech that seems especially prophetic, knowing what fate awaits Holden so soon after the film's release. It's spooky, since we know that a little more than four months later, Holden would get drunk alone at home, fall, hit his head on the corner of a nightstand and bleed to death. This was his last film.
"Felix, for the last 40 years I've lived a life of dedicated debauchery. I've consumed enough booze to destroy a dozen healthy livers. I've filled my lungs with enough nicotine to poison the entire population of Orange County. I've engaged in sexual excesses that make Caligula look like a celibate monk. I have, in fact, conscientiously, day in and day out, for more years than you've been in this best of all possible worlds, tried to kill myself and I've never felt better in my life. So, if you're really going to end it all, I can show you at least a half-dozen better ways to do it."
This being Hollywood, everyone is sleeping with everyone else and cheating as one might expect. David Blackman's girlfriend Mavis (Marisa Berenson) also is seeing an up-and-coming young actor Sam Marshall (David Young) on the side. When Culley takes Lila to the store, they run into Sam who invites Culley to a party he's having in Malibu that night. Culley regretfully declines, but hits upon the idea that perhaps a party will lift Felix's spirits so Sam agrees to move the party there. It's really the key scene in the movie with most of the film's character's there. It reminds me of Blake Edwards' 1968 film The Party with Peter Sellers, which I never was that big a fan of, but it has that sort of feel with the wacky orgiastic vibe that occurs — only he could do a lot more in a R-rated 1981 film than a pre-rating system 1968 one. Lots of sex, drugs and punchlines a-plenty. Even the cops who came earlier when Felix's car ended up in the ocean, come back for the party (and one of them is Joe Penny, whom some might remember from TV's Riptide).
Also showing up at the party are studio exec Dick Benson (Hagman), Polly Reed's henpecked husband Willard (Craig Stevens), who is supposed to do the spying for his wife, and loads of hot young men and women eager to engage in scenes that would seem more at home in the "free love" era than the
beginning of the 1980s. Felix eventually awakens from Dr. Finegarten's magic medicine and as he walks, he's too out of it to remember that there's a hole in the bedroom floor that has been covered with a rug and he steps on it and glides rather easily to the party below. He does notice that one of the partying cops took off his holster and left his gun on the bar. Felix takes the gun and returns to the refuge beneath the rug, trying to point feel the barrel so while he's covered and he can shoot himself through the rug. Before he can, a topless young woman crawls under the rug and presumably
a different gun goes off because soon Felix has fired the gun in the air a couple of times until he appears, pants down in that Burt-esque moment I alluded to earlier shouting, "Woohoo. I've got it!" The next thing we know, Felix, who hasn't said a word and who we've only seen as slow-moving, glum and silent has transformed into a ball of energy. He bursts into a bedroom where Culley is enjoying the company of a young lady and bellows, "Sex, Culley! That's the answer. We'll give 'em a $40 million pornographic epic." Having been preoccupied at the time and not accustomed to seeing Felix up and around lately, Culley expresses a bit of understandable confusion. Felix explains that the times have passed them by. People don't want the goody-goody stuff they've fed them for years, so they'll re-shoot it. Gillian West's dream will no longer be of childhood good times but of repressed fantasies. The world wants sex. David Blackman, Dick Benson (wearing a cast from an injury he sustained at the party; it's a recurring gag that almost everyone ends up in a cast — Polly's husband Willard got hurt as well and ends up in the same hospital room), and two other execs (John Pleshette, John Lawlor) wait impatiently for Farmer. They begin to
think it's a put-on until they begin to hear his voice over the speakers singing "Polly Wolly Doodle" and describing the Night Wind that they know — "But we blew it!" Felix shouts through a megaphone as he appears from behind the Jack in the Box. "Because dying fathers and lying mothers are a dime a dozen these days. Home and family have become civilization's antiques along with the flag, Sunday school, Girl Scout cookies, C.B. de Mille and virginity," Felix tells them. "We gave them virtue, they want vice. We sold them schmaltz, they prefer sadomasochism. Instead of the American dream, it should have been the American wet dream." What's funny is that, to some extent, the situation has reversed in 30 years. Movies made for adults — and I don't mean porn, but subject matter — almost have become an endangered species. Films that earn an R because they aren't for the younger set seem to be a rare breed. Live Free or Die Hard mumbled Bruce
Willis' signature line as John McClane so it could get that all-important PG-13. The King's Speech never deserved an R for its single scene where Colin Firth unleashes a string of fucks, but when it started winning awards Harvey Weinstein cut that scene just to get a PG-13 so it would earn more money. Excuse me. Back to S.O.B. Felix explains his plan to re-shoot parts of Night Wind to change it from a woman's dream of childhood to her Freudian nightmare. Turn Gillian West into a nymphomaniac businesswoman. He just needs a few million for a re-shoot. Blackman doesn't seem to be listening, but he does pull out his pages for suggestions they have for cuts that can be made to the current version. "Cutting won't help," Felix teases. Blackman yells about how much he went overbudget and Farmer rightfully goes back at him saying he didn't go to his office and hold a gun to his head and demand more money. They approved the script and the budget. Blackman is firm and is ready to walk out — until Felix offers to buy Night Wind back. The execs whisper and then they agree to sell the movie back to Farmer. Apparently, Felix has been very good with his money, though he still has to do some asset shuffling to get the funds ready to shoot. Felix must fend off someone who isn't very happy with him right now: His wife. Several million dollars of that money that Felix put together to fund the Night Wind re-shoot rightfully belongs to Sally. Felix tries to explain his plan to her, including having her do a nude scene. "Peter Pan is dead. Long live Gillian West, nymphomaniac executive," he tells her. Sally seeks the advice of her attorney Herb and her agent Eva. Herb agrees that she has plenty of grounds to sue to try to get her money back but Eva, who admits she's always there to protect Sally's image, has to ask, "What if Felix is right?" Maybe it's not a bad idea for Sally to take the chance and go against her image and possibly get a lot of money out of the deal. If it doesn't work, she always can sue him for everything later. Sally reluctantly agrees that she'll film the revised Night Wind.
Of course, getting Sally to that point is easier said than done, even if she has agreed to do it. She's too nervous. Everyone wants to be there on the set to see what happens that day. Polly Reed makes them take her by ambulance but a guard that Felix has hired named Harold Harrigan (Ken Swofford) refuses to let her in. Blackman and his toadies show up in a golf cart and Harrigan tells them to shove off as well. Blackman tells
Harrigan he won't work in Hollywood again. Felix may have control of the set, but it does reside on Capitol Studio's lot, so Blackman does succeed in having Harrigan tossed off. When Ben hears that Polly lurks, he lets her in and the two ambulance attendants are forced to hold her upright to watch. In her dressing room, nothing Felix, Culley or anyone can say can convince her to do the scene. Thankfully, Dr. Irving and his bag of tricks are on the scene (play clip above) to help and an artificially high Sally is ready to film the scene. Culley escorts her back to the set. "You know you are sexually notorious," Sally tells Culley. "A semi-fraudulent reputation which I do everything I can to encourage," Culley admits. Sally asks why he does that. "Because it's the best way for an old man to compete in a young man's world," Cully replies. Polly waves at Sally, trying to get her attention. Sally finally recognizes her, then asks, "Did you come to see my boobies?"When S.O.B. opened, reviews varied, but it was hard to hear them above the noise about Julie Andrews baring her breasts in a film for the first time. That trumped everything else about the movie. It doesn't help that the way it happens in the movie-within-the-movie makes it all about Sally Miles baring her breasts. It's not as if it comes in a Gillian West love scene, nymphomaniac or not, but it just comes at the end of a new dark dream sequence (Jack in the Box is now Jock in the Box and a stalker). As Jock chases Gillian through a maze and she enters the devil's mouth, the music builds to a crescendo, she holds out her hand for Jock to stop and simply pulls down the front of her dress and unveils her breasts. (To see something completely bizarre, here is a YouTube clip where you can see a great deal of the sequence except it has been set to the Chris de Burgh song "Lady in Red." I recommend hitting mute and just looking at the images.) Everyone present applauds, including the ambulance attendants who drop Polly as a result. Sally smiles gratefully and covers herself, before collapsing. However, this is Hollywood and scheming usually is going on. Sally's personal secretary Gary (Stuart Margolin) never has been trustworthy but he's been talking to Eva behind Sally's back in hopes of getting a career of his own. Now that Capitol Studios has no part of Night Wind, all the buzz that has been building has made the corporate boss bug Blackman about why they don't have a piece of it in case it turns into a hit. As a result, the studio has been using Eva who has been dangling a job in front of Gary in exchange for him putting the idea in Sally's head that since she technically owns half the film, she should sell distribution rights to Capitol since Felix can't very well distribute it himself. Sally agrees to do it and a judge backs up her right to do it. Felix, however, doesn't learn of it until after he screens a final cut of it with Cully and the lights come up in the screening room to reveal Blackman and his toadies. Blackman shows him the legal documents which basically means Night Wind has been stolen from him. Since his original contract was voided, they can do what they want. Blackman asks what the running time is. When he's told 164 minutes, he says they'll have to cut that.
Felix drives like a maniac, first going to his other house looking for Sally, but she's gone somewhere in the Far East to visit some kind of swami. He does see his kids briefly who want to play with daddy and squirt him with a squirt gun, which he takes. He even plows a car through the kitchen of the Malibu home. Because he's been speeding and driving recklessly, police have been pursuing him, but somehow he's able to switch cars and escape. He drives to the office where the original negative is stored in a vault. When he gets in the building, a friendly voice surprises him: It's Harrigan. He's working security there now. Felix is too preoccupied for small talk. He goes to the office of a Mr. Lipschitz (Hamilton Camp) and makes him take him to the film at "gunpoint." As Felix leads Lipschitz and the reels to the lobby, the squirt gun aimed at Lipschitz's head, Harrigan tries to calm him since by then a lot of armed police have arrived. Some distraction makes Felix aim the gun toward the cops and he gets hit by a fusillade of bullets. Harrigan leans over the dying producer. "I'm sorry, Mr. Farmer," Harrigan says. "It's alright, Harrigan. It'll mean another $10 million at the box office," Farmer tells him before he dies.
At this point, the film divides half into Hollywood hypocrisy, half into the funniest part of the film as the three characters most disgusted by Felix's treatment band together on a bender: Culley, Irving and Ben. It begins at a bar where Sinatra's "All the Way" begins playing and Culley informs them that he just put $6 of Sinatra into the jukebox. Ben, having worked for Sally, who they feel stabbed Felix in the back, feels the worst and tries to convince Culley to beat the shit out of him in the hope it will make him feel better. It's in this scene that we learn that the S.O.B. of the title stands for Standard Operational Bullshit, according to Ben. Culley agrees, lamenting that there are "so few people in this town with a conscience." Meanwhile, the rest of the industry plans a huge memorial service where Sally plans to sing and they all will pretend they treated him decently. The drunken trio, who christen themselves The Three Muscatels at one point, all agree they won't take part in the sham, which will be presided over by the guru Sally met in the Far East (Larry Storch). Sall also will sing. The triumvirate decides that they are going to give Felix the memorial he deserves and set out to steal Felix's body from the funeral home. Apparently, this is based on a Hollywood legend that director Raoul Walsh stole John Barrymore's corpse after he died and propped him up to scare Errol Flynn, but what the fictional characters do with Felix is a bit more elaborate.
When they get to the funeral home, the first coffin they check is no one they know. The next contains the late character actor Burgess Webster. The third time turns out to be the charm and they find Felix. Feeling that Webster's death hasn't received the attention it deserved, when they remove Felix, they put Webster in
his coffin and the other guy in Webster's. Upstairs, the couple (Byron Kane, Virginia Gregg) that owns the funeral parlor salivate over how much business the Farmer funeral will bring them when they hear a noise downstairs. They find the empty coffin but locate the body in Webster's place and Webster in Farmer's. The husband is beside himself: Their cash cow is gone. His wife slams the lid on Farmer's coffin, now holding Webster. "Who's to know?" On the streets, after initial difficulty bending Felix into the car, they make Ben sit in the back with him because he's been having a bad night of bodily functions and as Irving points out Felix is the only one who won't mind. They stick some sunglasses on Felix and proceed to drive him back to Culley's where they drink and play cards with Felix as guest. It was funny for a time when I'd see the movie because from the years 1989-2000, the only actor in these scenes who was still alive was Richard Mulligan, who was playing the corpse. As they wonder what they should do with Felix, Culley fetches something from another room and places it on Felix's head. It's a Viking helmet for a Viking funeral.The next morning, the men take Felix out to sea on his boat to prepare for their salute. At the same time, the rest of the industry begins gathering on a soundstage at the Capitol Studio lot for Felix's funeral. The
occasion doesn't stop anyone from continuing their deals or their affairs. Blackman congratulates Sam Harris on his new role and whispers to Mavis that he better be worth it, not noticing that Sam's hand is up Mavis' skirt. Gary and Eva finalize their deal. All the people with various injuries wheel in. Sally tells Gary that she doesn't know if she'll be able to sing. "You have to — it's the only reason everybody came," Gary says. Her guru sits up on the stage looking as if he can barely stay awake. Finally, he's roused and stands to give his eulogy. Is it full of Eastern philosophy? Not hardly. It's as show bizzy as it can be. This is where some of the unreality takes over again. Felix was shot and killed before the film was released and still in the funeral home, yet the guru gives new box office reports on the revised Night Wind. Farmer also was supposed to have had a record of nothing but hits prior to the first version of Night Wind, but when the guru reads off the list of his film titles they all sound ridiculous. Here is a clip of the eulogy so you can see what I mean.
As Culley drives the boat, Irving and Ben sit on deck with Felix in the fisherman's seat, complete with rod and reel in hand. Ben wonders what happens if he should catch something. Back at the other memorial, Sally finally rises and sings "Oh Promise Me." Irving reads the inscription on the Viking helmet which reads "From the cast and crew of The Pagan Plunder." "I don't think I saw that one," Irving says. "Terrible reviews," Ben tells him. "Grossed a fortune." Once Culley feels they've gone far enough out, they load Felix into a little wooden craft, cover him in blankets, soak it with gasoline and then Irving lights a match and drops it and Culley pulls the boat away as it starts burning. "So long pal," Culley says as they watch Felix and the little boat burn. Back on the beach, Burgess Webster's dog can see the smoke and wags his tail. Then a final crawl scrolls across the screen.
in motion picture history and Sally won another Academy Award and the people who ran the studio made
a ton of money and they all lived happily ever after…
until the next movie!
S.O.B. isn't the finest Hollywood satire ever made, but it's likely to put a smile on your face thanks to its great cast, most especially Robert Preston who I really can't say enough about here.
Tweet
Labels: 80s, Altman, Blake Edwards, Chayefsky, Colin Firth, Erroll Flynn, H. Weinstein, Holden, Julie Andrews, K. Douglas, Leone, Lumet, Movie Tributes, R. Preston, Richard Mulligan, Shelley Winters, Sinatra, Walsh, Willis
TO READ ON, CLICK HERE
