Sunday, December 18, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Jules Dassin Part I
By Edward Copeland
With a name like Jules Dassin and some of his most classic films made in France, Turkey, Italy and Greece and mostly filmed in French with some Italian, Greek, Turkish and Russian thrown in, it's easy to assume that the great director himself hailed from Europe, probably France. In actuality, when Dassin was born 100 years ago today, that event occurred in Middletown, Conn., and he grew up in Harlem, N.Y., and went to school in The Bronx. Dassin was quintessentially American — until after working in the theater and making 11 features
for or distributed by Hollywood studios, Dassin was one of those unfortunate artists who received the most un-American of treatments from the first round of Communist witch-hunting by the House Un-American Activities Committee (before Joe McCarthy really made blacklisting a phenomenon) and Dassin couldn't work in the U.S. so he headed to Europe where he made one of the greatest heist films ever. Eventually, he did come back to the U.S. from time to time, but his later films lacked the punch of either his early studio work or his movies made in exile. That exile also introduced him to the woman who became his second wife and the great love of his life — Melina Mercouri. So, though eventually he returned to the U.S. to make some films and direct a Broadway musical based on the couple's most famous film collaboration, Never on Sunday, Greece became his adopted home — until he and Mercouri were booted from there by a military coup led by dictators who felt they were agitators. Eventually, they were able to return to Greece as well, staying together until Mercouri's death in 1994 at the age of 73. However, Dassin lived a much longer and vibrant life, almost making it to his own centennial. He only died a little more than three years ago at the age of 96. In some of his early work in Hollywood, he directed some classic examples of film noir that also boasted elements of social consciousness, something he maintained in real life right up until the end as seen in one of the best discoveries I found preparing this piece: an interview conducted at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2004 when he was 93 or 94 that Criterion included on The Naked City DVD. The invaluable Criterion Collection also includes interviews from other years with Dassin, the most recent being 2005, on DVDs of his various films, leaving us a great resource on the man, his films and the blacklist. As was the case with many directors, Dassin's first foray into the creative arts began as a theater actor, in Dassin's case working with The Yiddish Theater called ARTEF (acronym for the Arbeter Teater Farband or Worker’s Theatrical Alliance) in New York in the mid-1930s after studying acting at the Civic Repertory Theatre Company begun by Eva Le Gallienne. It was during this time that he joined the Communist Party, though he quit in 1939 when Stalin signed the Soviet Union's nonaggression pact with Hitler. “You grow up in Harlem where there’s trouble getting fed and keeping families warm, and live very close to Fifth Avenue, which is elegant,” he told The Guardian newspaper in a 2002 interview. “You fret, you get ideas, seeing a lot of poverty around you, and it’s a very natural process.”
Around the same time, he quit the party. Dassin decided to take his career in another direction — both literally and geographically. He headed to Hollywood where he was hired by RKO to a six-month apprentice director contract at $250 a week where Dassin got to assist directors at work but didn't actually do much in the way of hands-on participation. At least that was the way Dassin described it in the 2004 L.A. County museum interview on The Naked City DVD. One director working on the lot at the time that Dassin who Dassin was assigned to and who particularly fascinated Dassin with his technique was Alfred Hitchcock, who was making Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the time. As Dassin tells it, his awestruck gazing at Hitch at work became very noticeable — so much so that after each take Hitchcock would turn to find Dassin and ask him if the take was OK. As the RKO contract neared its end, the studio informed Dassin that he was being let go. Fortunately, MGM hired Dassin and gave him his first film assignment making shorts. Dassin said his farewells to his friends at RKO — even working up the nerve to say goodbye to Hitchcock, who already had heard that Dassin would be making his first film. Hitchcock gave Dassin these words of advice: "Don't ever make a picture with children, animals or Charles Laughton." Of course, Dassin would end up doing films with all three.
At MGM, he made short documentaries about Arthur Rubinstein and Marian Andersen. He then made a short adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart." Frustrated with his progress, Dassin was able to get his short of the Poe story screened theatrically and that prompted MGM to sign him to a seven-year contract. In that 2004 interview, Dassin didn't express much affection for his time at MGM, equating the contract to being a slave. While he was tied to them for seven years and had to make what they told him to make, they had the option of dumping him every six months. Dassin had tried to get time off to direct a play on Broadway, but MGM wouldn't even let him do that. (He had directed one play that ran a month in 1940 called Medicine Show.) Of the seven features and the Poe short (I have no idea if the other shorts still exist) that he made at MGM, I've only managed to see the short and two of the features. While none come close to what Dassin made later of the ones I saw, they weren't complete embarrassments.
This 20-minute adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story proves to be quite a stylish film debut for Jules Dassin. The short opens with a biblical quote, specifically Romans II.15: "The law is written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." It stars Joseph
Schildkraut, the second person to ever win an Oscar for best supporting actor playing Captain Dreyfus in 1937's The Life of Emile Zola, as the young man who finally snaps at the abuse inflicted upon him by his tyrannical boss and kills the old man (Roman Bohnen). Dassin really pulls out the attention-getting stops: Focusing on Schildkraut's ear from the short's beginning before the killing even takes place. The boss slaps him on it and he threatens to quit, but the boss tells him he's too much of a coward to do that. He's worked for the old man since he was 14 and he's almost 30 now. Murder will out and the young killer slowly goes mad as he becomes convinced that he still hears the boss's beating heart below the floorboards where he hid his body. In his limited amount of time, Dassin creates a very atmospheric tale, helped immeasurably by cinematographer Paul Vogel, who later won an Oscar for his black & white photography in Battleground. The short's only negative is a somewhat obvious and overbearing musical score by Sol Kaplan. For some reason, The Tell-Tale Heart is included as a bonus feature on the Shadow of The Thin Man DVD in The Thin Man series box set. Didn't get to see this one which starred Conrad Veidt (best known as Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca) as identical twins: one a stamp collector and rare bookshop owner, the other a ruthless Nazi. On one of the many interviews included on Criterion DVDs, Dassin said of Veidt on the French TV program Ciné Parade in 1972, "At the time, he was the big European star. He was a big actor with a personality to match." When Veidt realized he would be directed by a first-timer, he objected. Dassin sought advice and one of the crew suggested setting up dolly tracks so when Veidt returned to the set, he asked what they were for and Dassin explained that they were doing a shot that started back at one point and then zoomed up to him for a close-up. Veidt thought it sounded great and was satisfied after that.
Dassin's next film was a comedy I also haven't seen, so here's the IMDb summary by Les Adams, though I've added performers' names. "The town gossips are reporting that a household servant in exclusive Rocky Point is writing an expose of the colony. Mrs. Sophia Sommerfield (Spring Byington) is convinced it can't be either one of her maids, Martha Lindstrom (Marsha Hunt) or Mrs. McKessic (Marjorie Main), although, unknown to Sophia, she is totally unaware that her son, Jeff (Richard Carlson), is married to Martha."
Of Dassin's MGM features, this Joan Crawford vehicle happens to be the earliest one I've seen. Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Reunion in France opens telling us it's May 9, 1940, in Paris and then adds these words: The Ninth Night of the Ninth Month Too Uneventful to Be Taken Seriously and Too Far Away to Worry About. Crawford plays Michele de la Becque, a Parisian society figure with a high-profile
beau Robert Cortot (Philip Dorn), trying to pretend that the Nazi threat isn't knocking on France's door. As Michele heads off on a train trip, an announcement at the station tells everyone to get into shelters. When Michele returns, she finds that the Nazis have not only occupied Paris — they've taken over her house as their headquarters as well, leaving her servants' quarters for use as her new home. More disturbing, she finds that Robert seems awfully cozy with the Nazi high command. Meanwhile, she stumbles across American pilot Pat Talbot working with the British (John Wayne) and hides him out, even though he's out to stop Cortot from supplying the Nazis with war machinery he's producing. It does lead to one nice dialogue exchange between Michele and Pat where Pat speaks negatively about Michele's love. "You hardly know Cortot," Michele tells Pat, defending her boyfriend's character. "I hardly know Hitler either," Pat replies. The story unfolds in a by-the-numbers fashion, but Dassin does add some nice touches. Old TV sitcom fans will spot Natalie Schafer aka Lovey on Gilligan's Island as the top Nazi's wife. On his appearance on Ciné Parade, Dassin told the interviewer about working with a huge star like Crawford and the star system in general in that era. "To explain the attitude of the time, I was young and I seemed even younger,"
Dassin told the interviewer in 1972. "While shooting the first scene, at a certain point I said, 'Cut.' An icy silence fell over the set. She (Joan Crawford) turned as if to say, 'Who dared to say cut?' Immediately, the assistant director shouted, 'Why all this noise?' She said to me, 'Never say cut to Joan Crawford. Never.' I said, 'But it wasn't any good.' She said, 'What?' I said, 'It wasn't any good,'" the director shared with the audience. Two minutes later, Dassin found himself in Louis B. Mayer's office. "It's over," Mayer told him. "I thought I'd been fired on my very first scene, but no, she'd invited me to dinner. Joan Crawford. At her house. That was quite something," Dassin said. He went on to elaborate on what dinner at Joan Crawford's house was like, including being greeted by her three adopted children who all wore white gloves. Eventually, she asked him about why he had called cut during that scene. "Because the scene wasn't any good," Dassin told her. Crawford asked him if he thought she was a bad actress but he assured her that wasn't the case. "On the contrary. You're good," he told her "So what was wrong?" she asked. "When you're in character, and it's part of you, I love it, but when you act the grand lady, it feels fake," Dassin explained. "Really? I do that," Crawford said with surprise and Dassin confirmed it. "Fine. Let's give it another try tomorrow," Crawford agreed. Dassin got to keep his job as director on the film under the condition that he never say, "Cut." Instead, he and Crawford worked out a hand signal where he would run his finger across his forehead and then she would know.Dassin's next film has been seen so rarely, IMDb doesn't even have a plot synopsis or summary. It's never been released on any home format, but apparently pops up on TCM now and then. I borrowed the first two grafs by Laura at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings to at least get an idea of the movie. "Young Ideas is an MGM "B" movie which starts poorly but builds to an entertaining second half, thanks largely to the talent of its fine cast. Jo (Mary Astor), a best-selling author, is swept off her feet by small-town chemistry professor Michael (Herbert Marshall), much to the dismay of Jo's college-age children Jeff and Susan (Elliott Reid, Susan Peters). Jeff and Susan don't want to leave their home in New York, and Jo's agent Adam (Allyn Joslyn) is also apoplectic. Adam conspires with Jeff and Susan to break up Jo and Michael's marriage."
When I saw The Canterville Ghost, I had no idea that it was directed by the man responsible for films such as Rififi and Night and the City. This fun little trifle teamed the charming Margaret O'Brien, the same year she stole the show in Meet Me in St. Louis as Judy
Garland's little sister, and Charles Laughton, meaning Dassin ignored two-thirds of
Hitchcock's advice on his fifth feature. Based on the Oscar Wilde story, Laughton plays the cowardly ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville, sealed in a wall by his father in the 17th century after running away from a duel and doomed to haunt the halls of his family's castle until some Canterville descendant commits an act of bravery while wearing the family ring. Alas, all subsequent Cantervilles have proved to be cowards as well. The charming young O'Brien plays Lady Jessica de Canterville, the 6-year-old who currently owns the castle, though she lives nearby with an aunt because Sir Simon's ghost scares her. A bunch of American soldiers take refuge in the empty castle and have first-hand experiences with the ghost when young Jessica discovers that one of the fighting men, Cuffy Williams (Robert Young), has the Canterville birthmark. After the little girl overcomes her fear enough to introduce Cuffy to Sir Simon, they decide that perhaps Cuffy is a Canterville and he might lift Sir Simon's curse. The Canterville Ghost isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's likable enough. Again, I must rely on the plot summary provided by an IMDb user, this time by Kathy Li. Again, I've inserted the performers' names. "Evie's co-workers at the uniform shirt factory, and her almost-fiancée's inability to kiss, inspire Evie (Marsha Hunt) to slip a letter into a size 16½ shirt for some anonymous soldier. It's received by 'Wolf' Larson (John Carroll), who immediately throws it away, but his sensitive, dreaming — and short — buddy John McPherson (Hume Cronyn) snags it, and begins a correspondence with Evie, pretending to be Wolf. But things get complicated when Evie wants to meet her tall, handsome soldier. And even more complicated when Wolf sees Evie and likes what he sees."
Dassin finally finished his MGM contract with this film that IMDb also lacks a synopsis or summary to describe. TCM's website does, but I had to insert the performers' names there as well. "Carrying $500,000 in stolen government certificates, which are stashed in the binding of his favorite cookbook, master confidence artist Ace Connors (John Hodiak) meets with businessman Dwight Chadwick (Lloyd Corrigan) at a posh Beverly Hills hotel to discuss an oil investment deal. Chadwick's sultry friend, Ricki Woodner (Lucille Ball), a confidence artist working a phony art racket, joins the men at their poolside rendezvous and tries to sell Chadwick on some paintings she claims were smuggled out of Europe. Ricki wastes little time in souring Chadwick on his deal with Ace, to which Ace responds by identifying one of her paintings as a fake. Following the meeting, Ace receives word that detectives in New York are closing in on his bond scheme, and that a deal is being made in which he is to serve a five-year sentence in Sing Sing penitentiary in exchange for his voluntary return to New York to face trial. Assigned to escort Ace back to New York is detective Bob Simms (Lloyd Nolan), Ace's inept but persistent nemesis of many years. Ace accepts the terms of the Sing Sing deal after a menacing visit from Fly Feletti (Elisha Cook Jr.), his former partner, who is seeking his share of the half million-dollar bond deal."
With MGM's shackles removed from Dassin, you almost can say that it was at this point that his film career truly began and he began to direct the classic films that earned him his reputation. Mark Hellinger, who had achieved national fame as a New York columnist after starting out as a theater critic before trying his luck in Hollywood, spending several years at Warner Bros., where he worked on films such as They Drive By Night and High Sierra. Frustrated by the lack of social realism in films and being under the thumb of Jack Warner, Hellinger leaped at the opportunity to set himself up as an independent producer at Universal-International. The first film to come out of his new deal was The Killers starring Burt Lancaster. For his second film, he hired Lancaster again to star and Dassin to direct the prison noir Brute Force, Dassin's first great film. It also reunited the director with Cronyn from A Letter to Evie, but though I've only read the description of Cronyn's Evie character, that comedy's John McPherson bears little resemblance to Brute Force's Captain Munsey, head of the prison guards at Westgate Penitentiary and one of the all-time hissable screen villains. The film also had a screenplay by Richard Brooks, who would go on to write and direct films such as The Blackboard Jungle, Elmer Gantry, The Professionals and In Cold Blood. The opening credits for Brute Force show an imaginative flair, first listing Lancaster, Cronyn and Charles Bickford "As The Men Inside." After that, it ticks off the names Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines and Anita Colby "As The Women On The Outside." That hardly accounts for the entire ensemble as the credits announce that Brute Force is "Introducing Howard Duff, 'Radio's Sam Spade' as Soldier."
Though the film was made in 1947, Brute Force maintains a lot of intensity in its scenes today. Early on, there's a scene where inmates use blowtorches to drive another prisoner into a press to his death. Watch Brute Force and try to imagine The Shawshank Redemption being made without it. Granted, there isn't any shower rape in Brute Force and the warden (Roman Bohnen, the old man in Dassin's Tell-Tale Heart short) isn't corrupt as much as ineffective but the guards, led by Cronyn's Munsey are a different story. The overcrowded penitentiary has been facing political pressures from outside over a series of incidents, the most recent being a prisoner's suicide that Munsey provoked, so harsher discipline is demanded, including revoking all privileges, including paroles, and making all the men on the cell block where the suicide took place work on the prison's drain pipe. Of the prison staff, only the alcoholic Doc Walters (Art Smith) argues against a harder line doing any good. "He doesn't know that kindness is actually a weakness and weakness is an infection that makes a man a follower instead of a leader," the evil and ambitious Munsey says in the meeting. "You're worse than the worst inmates in this prison," the doctor tells Munsey.
The suspension of parole hearings even angers the generally genial Gallagher (Bickford), who runs the prison paper, The Westgate News, and is nearing release. Before Gallagher always urged the hot-head de facto inmate leader Joe Collins (Lancaster) to calm his rage, telling
him, "Those gates only open three times. When you come in, when you've served your time, or when you're dead." Gallagher always has served as a peacemaker, even breaking up inmate fights, pissing off Munsey in the process. "I understand you're responsible for settling that little feud over in cell block J. We appreciate your assistance, of course, but…," Munsey tells Gallagher as he passes his table at breakfast. "The boys and I were only trying to help," Gallagher replies. "Gallagher, when are you gonna' remember that you're not back home, running a gang of hoodlums? Let me be the policeman. You just serve your time. And that way we'll both get paid off," Munsey warns him. "Like the good book says to us, Captain, we all get what's coming to us — all of us," Gallagher smiles at the guard. With the crackdown, Gallagher's attitude changes when Joe once again concocts an escape plan. "Look, Gallagher, I know this drum's full of crackpots. One convict's gonna' buy his way out, another knows the governor's cousin. A third guy's even gonna' float out in a homemade balloon. But I'm not buyin' any pipe dreams. It can be done. It's been done before, and it'll be done again. It can be done here — by us," Collins insists. "Collins, if I ever put in with anybody, it'll be with you," Gallagher pledges.
Brooks' dialogue overflows with memorable lines from the talented cast. Brute Force gets around the pure prison scenes when the various inmates share tales of their lives in the outside world, some touching, some funny. One of the best gets told by the inmate Spencer (John Hoyt, who decades later would play the grandfather on the Nell Carter sitcom Gimme a Break). His story becomes a first-person film noir parody within a tough prison noir drama. Spencer talks about the woman he still dreams about named Flossie (Anita Colby) back when he was a gambling fool. He delivers his voiceover monologue in the pitch-perfect style of the genre while the flashbacks play as a pantomime. Here's just the punchline excerpt: "Flossie had looks, brains and all the accessories. She was better than a deck with six aces. I regret to report that she also knew how to handle a gun — my gun…She wanted all the money I'd won and I never refused a lady — especially when she's armed." Spencer also gets one of the film's other most memorable lines when he says, "You know, I was just thinking. An insurance company could go flat broke in this prison." Brute Force really introduced Jules Dassin to the world as a director to watch. The great cast, daring producer and solid screenplay helped make Brute Force a classic, but the pulsating score by Miklos Rozsa, the crisp, stark cinematography by William H. Daniels and Edward Curtiss' film editing all contributed as well. Dassin's earlier works had shown hints of what he could do, but Brute Force was the first film where he could really show his stuff which he'd be able to do even more in his next three American-financed films.
Unfortunately, these would come just as he became a victim of the blacklist and headed to Europe so he could continue to work in film. When I started to delve into Dassin and discovered so many of the DVDS of his best films contained interviews with him, this tribute began to morph into something larger than usual. I hope to keep it two parts and I hope the second part comes today, but to do his life and work justice may end up taking three parts and two days.
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Labels: blacklist, Crawford, Cronyn, Dassin, Documentary, Foreign, Garland, Hitchcock, L. Ball, Lancaster, Laughton, Mankiewicz, Mary Astor, Musicals, Oscars, R. Brooks, Wayne
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Friday, December 02, 2011
“I’m going to show you what yum-yum is…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of the regrettable stigmas about Academy Awards is that they are more often than not handed out to serious performances — portrayals in comedy films are criminally overlooked. There are exceptions, of course: Clark Gable’s triumph in It Happened One Night and James Stewart’s trophy for The Philadelphia Story while on the distaff side you have Claudette Colbert (also for Night) and Judy Holliday’s winning turn in Born Yesterday. (I’m sure there are others — these just came off the top of my head.) You’ll also find a lot of comedic accomplishments in the supporting actor and actress categories, presumably because of the old trope about “second bananas” and “comic relief.” But, as a general rule, comedy need not apply: Oscar-winning performances are defined by big, serious showcases (often with noble or suffering characters) that a certain master thespian might describe as “ACTING!”
In February 1942, Gary Cooper was handed one of his two competitive Oscar statuettes (he also would win an honorary Academy Award in 1961) for Sergeant York — a dramatization of the real-life story of Alvin C. York, the most decorated American soldier of World War I. I’ve always felt that the reason Coop was “decorated” with such a statuette was due to the movie’s enormous popularity (it was the highest grossing film of 1941) and while he gives a solid, dependable performance, I’ve always been partial to his comedic showcase from another film released that same year. In fact, it premiered in theaters 70 years ago on this date, five days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ball of Fire, once described by one of its screenwriters, Billy Wilder, as a “silly picture,” nevertheless features a masterful comic turn by an actor whose limited thespic abilities often disappeared through the magic of a movie screen.
In Ball of Fire, Cooper plays Professor Bertram Potts, one of eight lexicographers living in a New York residence and working on an encyclopedia project funded by the daughter (Mary Field) of Daniel S. Totten, inventor of the electric toaster. Potts and his colleagues have been hard at work on their encyclopedia for nine years, and it looks as if construction will continue for another three — much to the dismay of Miss Totten, who will have to pay for the “overruns” out of her own pocket. An encounter with a garbage man (Allen Jenkins) demonstrates why there is still so much to do — the sanitation engineer’s creative use of slang demonstrates to Potts (the group’s grammarian) that his own article for the encyclopedia is hopelessly outdated, and that he will have to research the modern vernacular by visiting “the streets, the slums, the theatrical and allied professions.” He encounters several people — a newsboy, a college student, a pool hall bum — and asks for their help in preparing his treatise on slang.
Later at a nightclub, Potts makes the acquaintance of Katherine “Sugarpuss” O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), a sultry chanteuse whom he also wants to participate in his discussions, but she is markedly cool to his proposal. She later changes her mind and turns up at the doorstep of the encyclopedia men, but only because she has been advised by a pair of hoodlums, Duke Pastrami (Dan Duryea) and Asthma Anderson (Ralph Peters), to “take it on the lam”; both men are in the employ of mobster Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews), who’s being questioned by the district attorney about his complicity in a gangland murder, and who would like nothing better than to hear Sugarpuss’ side of the story. The professors’ think tank will provide a perfect hideout, even though O’Shea’s breezy insouciance has a disruptive influence on their daily routine, much to the chagrin of their stern housekeeper Miss Bragg (Kathleen Howard). Bragg’s ultimatum to Potts that Sugarpuss leave or she will results in a confrontation between “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss — and when Potts confesses a rather strong attraction to the nightclub singer she uses that revelation to her advantage, reciprocating similar feelings and demonstrating to her would-be paramour the definition of “yum-yum” by kissing him.
Potts’ infatuation goes full speed ahead to the purchase of an engagement ring and proposes to Sugarpuss — even though he’s got a rival in gangster Lilac, who entertains similar notions (mostly for convenience's sake, insuring that a wife can’t testify against her husband). When Joe learns of Potts’ intentions, he persuades Sugarpuss to play along — that way she’s guaranteed safe passage out of New York (under the watchful eye of the authorities) and can join Lilac in neighboring New Jersey, where they’ll tie the knot. A mishap with the professors’ automobile en route necessitates a stopover in a small Joisey town, where at an inn O’Shea learns (through a mix-up in bungalow door numbers) that Potts is deadly serious about his passion for her. She begins to see the bashful goof in an entirely different light, but before she can act on this, Lilac and his goons show up, spelling out the story for Potts and the other professors before collecting Sugarpuss and continuing on their way.
Back home in New York, Potts is determined to put the sordid chapter behind him until it is pointed out that in returning his engagement ring, O’Shea has slipped him the rock she received from Lilac. To add insult to injury, Miss Totten arrives with her assistant Larsen (Charles Lane) to announce that due to the unfavorable newspaper publicity generated by Potts’ misadventures she is canceling the encyclopedia project — and that's interrupted by the arrival of Pastrami and Asthma, who have been ordered by Lilac to “rub out” the group unless Sugarpuss agrees to marry Joe. Elated that Sugarpuss and Joe still aren't attached, Potts and the others are able to subdue the two hit men with brains (not brawn) and ride to O’Shea’s rescue (thanks to their garbage man pal’s truck) to save her from her nasty fate. “Pottsy” and Sugarpuss will live happy ever after, thanks to his expert application of “yum-yum” as the movie concludes.
Scripted by Wilder and Charles Brackett, Ball of Fire’s opening titles also credit Wilder and Thomas Monroe with the film’s “original story” — which is a teensy bit of a stretch, insomuch as Wilder cribbed the idea from the classic fairy tale of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” (Wilder got the idea while he was still living in Germany, and even when director Howard Hawks picked up on the reference Billy warned him that he wouldn’t get a shared credit.) Granted, there are eight “dwarfs” as the film begins (they’re even shown marching through a NYC park as if they should be singing “Heigh Ho”) but that’s because the character of Bertram Potts is technically “Prince Charming” — so the personages of Professors Gurkakoff (Oscar Homolka), Jerome (Henry Travers), Magenbruch (S.Z “Cuddles” Sakall), Robinson (Tully Marshall), Quintana (Leonid Kinskey), Oddly (Richard Haydn) and Peagram (Aubrey Mather) fill in for Doc, Sneezy, Dopey, etc. A publicity photo of the seven character actors was even taken in front of a poster for the Disney film and the film is advertised prominently on a marquee in a scene where Cooper’s Potts talks with a wiseacre newsboy (Tommy Ryan) outside a theater.
Producer Samuel Goldwyn commissioned Wilder and Brackett to write the vehicle for Coop because he was disappointed that the films he made with Cooper (such as The Real Glory and The Westerner) rarely did as well at the box office as those films in which the actor was lent out to other studios. So the film was tailor-made for Coop’s “Longfellow Deeds”-type persona, but finding a suitable leading lady took some additional time. Ginger Rogers was the first choice, but she wasn’t interested and Carole Lombard said “no way” as well; both Betty Field and Lucille Ball were tested for the part and while Ball appeared to have the inside track, Barbara Stanwyck ultimately won the role when Cooper suggested her, having worked with her in that same year’s Meet John Doe. Coop also was reunited with his York director Hawks, whom Goldwyn wasn't particularly fond of (Hawks wound up with a $100,000 payday for the film) but tolerated because of the director’s admiration for the script. It was familiar territory for Howie, in that he had helmed a similar film about a stuffy professor brought down to earth in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby (and he would later revisit the premise in both Fire’s 1948 remake, A Song is Born, and Monkey Business in 1952.)
Being a Goldwyn production, the producer naturally pulled out all the stops and obtained the services of many of Hollywood’s master craftsmen (and women): Gregg Toland was cinematographer, Perry Ferguson the art director, and Edith Head designed that drop-dead gorgeous gown that Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss wears in her nightclub act. One of the highlights of Ball of Fire is Babs’ rendition (though Martha Tilton dubbed her vocals) of “Drum Boogie,” backed by Gene Krupa and his Orchestra; Gene later obliges with an encore of the number accompanied by matchbox sticks and a matchbox. Even though Stanwyck’s voice is not her own, she’s able to reach back to her “Ruby Stevens” chorus gal days and do some impressive dance moves with those fabulous Stanwyck gams.
I’ve never considered myself a Barbara Stanwyck fanatic but Ball of Fire is my all-time favorite of her films; her finely modulated performance as the alternately hard-boiled and tender Sugarpuss was nominated for a best actress trophy and to be honest, I think she was robbed. (Stanwyck wasn’t as lucky in the Oscar sweepstakes as her male co-star — she was nominated on four separate occasions but had to make do with an honorary statuette in 1982.) Babs’ background as a one-time Ziegfeld gal makes her portrayal of O’Shea authentic, and her personal, genuine affability (She was one of the most well-liked movie actresses in the history of Hollywood) invests an unshakable admiration into the character, something that I don’t think would have resulted if the brassier Ginger Rogers has been cast in the part. (I like how David Thomson described Babs in this movie as “saucy, naughty and as quick as a shortstop.”) We’re just as captivated by Sugarpuss’ charms as the seven professors (and of course, “Pottsy”); the scene where she teaches the men to conga is utterly beguiling, and like her fairy tale counterpart Snow White, she brings a great deal of sunshine and a sense of fun to their existence in what one of the profs calls “the mausoleum.”
The chemistry between Stanwyck and Cooper’s characters is one of the best in any screwball comedy. What always has fascinated me about Cooper is that while his acting range may have seemed limited to a casual observer, he had a certain captivation that always came across in his screen performances. Coop was generally most comfortable in Westerns, but even though he was a little flummoxed by Wilder and Brackett’s rapid-fire, intellectual dialogue he’s most convincing as the scholar who’s spent his entire existence isolated from the world. His Bertram Potts is a sweetly naïve “big kid” much like Cooper’s Longfellow Deeds (but far less dangerous, I think) and watching Sugarpuss coax him out of his shell is a delight from start to finish. She’s his fast track to his ultimate sexual awakening (particularly when he tells her that being around her requires him to apply cold water to the back of his neck), which culminates with his understanding of what constitutes “yum-yum” and his tacit admission: “Make no mistake, I shall regret the absence of your keen mind…unfortunately, it is inseparable from an extremely disturbing body.” But once Potts is brought up to speed on the language of love, he’s every bit as potent to O’Shea (who finds herself falling out of love with the despicable Lilac); she must also depend on the cold water treatment herself when things get steamy. At that point in their relationship, she knows there’s no turning back: “I love him because he's the kind of guy who gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk, and I love the way he blushes right up over his ears. I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss…the jerk…” (By the time the movie calls it a wrap, however, her “Crabapple Annie” has that last part well in hand.)
Ball of Fire boasts a positively splendid supporting cast — particularly the vets who essay Potts’ encyclopedia colleagues, who transcend the usual stereotypes of movie intellectuals being dry as dirt by exhibiting a real playfulness (one of my favorite scenes in the film is when Potts and the “dwarves” listen to Oddly’s recollection of his marriage, which breaks out in a lovely rendition of “Genevieve”). Fire was Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fave Dan Duryea’s second feature film appearance and I like to think that if he had had a few more films under his belt, he could have played Joe Lilac (Duryea’s best bit in Fire is when he imitates Cooper’s thumb-licking-and-rubbing-it-on-the-sight tic from Sergeant York, cracking “I saw me a picture last week”) but Dana Andrews does very well in the part, supplementing the escapist comedy nature of the film with the proper menace (Andrews’ phone conversation with Cooper as Stanwyck’s “Daddy” is hysterical but it works because Dana plays it perfectly straight). I got a particular kick out of seeing a couple of other TDOY favorites in Elisha Cook, Jr. (as a waiter who tells Potts that Sugarpuss is “root, zoot and cute…and solid to boot”) and serial/B-Western stalwart Addison Richards as the D.A. determined to bring the hammer down on Lilac.
In addition to Stanwyck’s acting nomination, Ball of Fire also received nods for best scoring of a dramatic (!) picture and best sound recording…with the final nomination going to Monroe and Wilder’s “original story.” It was the movie on which Wilder decided he wanted to do more behind the camera than just provide the words; his directing ambition was encouraged fully by Hawks, who allowed Billy to study and pick up some pointers during the film’s production. The movie is an odd one in Wilder’s oeuvre because it’s devoid of the frank, pungent cynicism prevalent in many of the writer-director’s works, but as Wilder himself observed: “It was a silly picture. But so were audiences in those days.” Hey…if enjoying the entertaining exhilaration that Ball of Fire provides with each passing year makes me silly, then I guess nobody’s perfect.
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Labels: 40s, Cooper, Disney, Gable, Ginger Rogers, Hawks, J. Stewart, L. Ball, Lombard, Oscars, Stanwyck, Wilder
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Saturday, October 15, 2011
“And life is heaven you see…”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
A September article at The New York Times online touted a resurgence in the once-dominant form of television programming we know today as the situation comedy, or “sitcom”…and for myself and fans of my home-base weblog, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, this sort of news was an oasis after being parched from the arid desert of inane boob tube “reality shows” the industry has seen fit to embrace in recent seasons. The sitcom, according to Wikipedia, is identified as having “a storyline and ongoing characters in, essentially, a comedic drama. The situation is usually that of a family, workplace or a group of friends through comedic sequences.” The American form of the sitcom is believed to have started in radio with the debut of The Smith Family in 1925 and Sam ‘n’ Henry a year after (a program that later morphed into Amos ‘n’ Andy) but the move toward situational comedy from the traditional vaudeville style of comedy sketches mixed with musical numbers also is credited to Jack Benny, with his best friend George Burns (along with wife Gracie Allen) later following suit and radio stalwarts such as Fibber McGee & Molly (who also “spun-off” a sitcom success in The Great Gildersleeve), Easy Aces and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet not far behind.
When television began rearing its (ugly) head in 1948, many radio sitcom favorites eventually would transition to the tube as well. Among early candidates were family shows such as The Life of Riley, The Aldrich Family and, with the success of her series My Favorite Husband, former B-movie queen Lucille Ball was asked by her network, CBS, to do a TV version of the hit show in 1950. Ball certainly was amenable to such an arrangement, but she insisted that the role of her husband in the new venture (actor Richard Denning had been playing her radio spouse) be essayed by her real-life husband, bandleader Desi Arnaz. It was common knowledge in Hollywood that the Arnazes’ marriage was a rocky one and Lucy felt a joint project for the couple might save it. Though CBS balked at first (there was an element of racism involved — the network was skittish that audiences might have problems with the “mixed marriage” of American Lucy and Cuban Desi), they eventually came around and it’s a good thing they did — because I Love Lucy, which debuted at 9 p.m. Monday night 60 years ago on this date, became the innovation to which modern sitcoms owe an endless debt of gratitude.
Because of CBS’ reluctance to cast Desi Arnaz in the role of Lucy’s TV husband, the Arnazes set out to prove that the idea wasn’t as screwy as it sounded by developing a stage act featuring the duo that performed on the road with Desi’s orchestra. The teaming of Lucy and Desi proved to be very successful, and their on-stage antics eventually made it into a TV pilot that turned more than a few heads at the network. The news that the team responsible for making Lucy’s radio sitcom a smash — Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. — also were on board made CBS a little less nervous but what ultimately convinced them to sign the couple was the revelation that their competitors (NBC, ABC and DuMont) wanted to acquire the Arnazes’ services as well. The completed pilot was shopped around and after a sweat-inducing period that suggested there might not be any takers, the Milton Biow agency convinced cigarette maker Philip Morris to take a gamble.
In the early days of “The Golden Age of Television,” production in the industry was based in New York. It was sort of the same with radio in its halcyon beginnings, but this practice gradually changed as more programming drifted out to the West Coast to take advantage of the proximity to Hollywood. During its East Coast infancy, early TV programs were telecast live and would eventually be shown to West Coast viewers in the form of kinescopes, which were camera recordings of live telecasts taken directly from a video monitor. Philip Morris, the new sponsor of what was now called I Love Lucy (a compromise title in that Lucille Ball had vociferously argued that her husband Desi Arnaz receive top billing despite her bigger celebrity), was pretty much going with tradition when it decided its property would be live on the East Coast and kinescoped out West.
But the Arnazes weren’t wild about uprooting from California to New York and Philip Morris completely dismissed the idea of shipping kinescopes eastward after I Love Lucy was telecast live out West. The sponsor believed the majority of the television audience lived east of the Mississippi and as such, should not be subjected to the poor quality of kinescopes. Lucy and Desi, on the other hand, argued that their show should be filmed in Hollywood so that they could stay put (Lucy also was expecting their first child at the time) and when CBS and Philip Morris hedged, the Arnazes agreed to take a pay cut to offset the expense — the only stipulation being that they receive ownership of the show as compensation. (Something that would come back to bite CBS in the keister in a major way.)
Lucy and Desi also decided that in filming I Love Lucy, they would eschew the single-camera format used by television comedies that were being filmed (often accompanied by a laugh track) in favor of a three-camera system that would permit the show to be performed in front of a studio audience, much as Lucy had done on radio with My Favorite Husband. Put in charge of this setup was veteran cinematographer and director Karl Freund, who innovatively worked on ways to light the sets so that no diminishment of image quality would be detected on each of the three cameras. The system also would require the Arnazes to locate a studio that could accommodate an audience. (They were fortunate that Hollywood’s General Service Studios was in a financial pickle and were only too willing to make the renovations dictated by California’s fire laws.) Furthermore, the filming of the show required that they adhere to the union regulations regarding film studio production, namely using film studio employees. (The employees at CBS were television and radio-based, and fell under completely different guidelines.) So Lucy and Desi found themselves in the TV production business and, with a little reorganization of the corporation that managed his orchestra bookings, Arnaz started what would eventually become known as a major player in the television industry: Desilu.
The practice of the three-camera system was an innovation for television comedies and many of the sitcoms that premiered in the wake of I Love Lucy would adopt the same method, including homegrown Desilu productions such as Our Miss Brooks and December Bride. But the biggest benefit in filming sitcoms was that it created what we know now today as the rerun. Traditionally, television shows would have a run of 39 shows a season, with the remaining 13 weeks devoted to their summer replacement series. Filming I Love Lucy allowed Lucy and Desi to shorten that yearly production schedule and fill the remaining time with previously televised episodes — something that came in handy during the 1952-53 season of the series, when Arnaz and Oppenheimer took advantage of rerunning first season episodes in order to allow Lucy suitable time for additional R&R after the birth of her second child. Not only did the first season repeats win their timeslots, but as the seasons went by a backlog of filmed episodes made it possible for the show to be sold in the then-burgeoning market of television syndication, which filled the pockets of Lucy and Desi since they owned the show. (Silly network.)
The concept behind the series was deceptively simple: a star-struck housewife’s (Lucy as Lucy Ricardo) weekly attempts to crash show business despite her bandleader husband’s (Desi as Ricky Ricardo) insistence that she be content to stay at home. It all sounds a little
sexist when you think about it in a modern-day context but it was based on a successful formula that originated with radio’s My Favorite Husband (in which Lucy’s character didn’t necessarily want to be in show business, but always was angling to better herself and rise above her social status), and thanks to the script backlog generated by Oppenheimer, Pugh and Carroll, I Love Lucy never wanted for ideas (many of the My Favorite Husband broadcasts were recycled into Lucy episodes). I Love Lucy introduced two other regular characters in Ethel and Fred Mertz, the Ricardos’ older next-door neighbors/landlords and best friends who were inspired by a couple that served a similar function on Husband (the only difference being that the husband was the president of the bank where Lucy’s hubby worked), Rudolph and Iris Atterbury. The Atterburys were played by Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet and Lucy originally had wanted both performers to repeat as the Mertzes on her TV venture, but they had to bow out due to other commitments (Benaderet already was a regular on Burns and Allen’s TV show, and Gordon was a year away from reprising his radio role as principal Osgood Conklin in a TV adaptation of Our Miss Brooks).The hunt was then on to find actors to play the Ricardo’s neighbors…and for the part of Fred Mertz, Lucy originally suggested character great James Gleason, whom she had known from his work in a picture they made together in 1949, Miss Grant Takes Richmond. Gleason’s salary demands were a little out of the Arnazes’ price range (he wanted $3,500 an episode) so attention was directed toward another veteran of stage, screen and radio, William Frawley — who had personally called Lucy to ask if there was a part for him in her new series. Hiring Frawley would be a big gamble; he was notorious in the industry for having quite a pull on the bottle, and CBS executives tried to warn Desi off him. But Desi liked Bill, and not only cast him in the part of Fred Mertz but had the show’s writers re-tailor the character to fit Frawley’s curmudgeonly nature (lowering his economic/social status a little to boot). (Arnaz also insisted that a clause be inserted into Frawley’s contract that if he ever showed up to work spiffed on more than one occasion he’d be fired in a heartbeat…and in the nine seasons he worked on the show, Frawley’s drinking never interfered with I Love Lucy.)
If Frawley’s reputation as a lush was troubling to some industry folk, Barbara Pepper, an old crony of Lucille Ball’s from their Hollywood days as Goldwyn Girls, was even more off-putting. Despite Lucy’s wanting to work with her pal (Pepper would play Ethel Mertz) CBS put the kibosh on having two problem drinkers on the set. Marc Daniels, the primary director of I Love Lucy in its first season, was gung-ho on an actress named Vivian Vance, whose film and television resume was a little spotty but was well known to Daniels through their association working together on Broadway in the 1940s. Convinced to check out Vance’s work in a revival of The Voice of the Turtle, Desi and Jess hired her on the spot despite Vivian’s reservations about giving up her film and stage career for a spot on a weekly TV show. To add insult to injury, both Ball and Vance did not get along in the early days of I Love Lucy (Ball resented her co-star because Vance was the same age as she was and Lucy saw Viv as a more attractive threat) but over time Lucy recognized Vance’s dedication and professionalism and the two became close friends, even working together on Lucy’s post I Love Lucy project, The Lucy Show.
Lucy and Viv eventually worked through their differences…but the same cannot be said of the personal relationship between Vance and her TV hubby, Bill Frawley. Frawley once described Vance as looking like “a sack of doorknobs” and Viv was skeptical that anyone out in Television Land would believe that she actually was married to a man who looked more like her father (Vance was 23 years Frawley’s junior) than her spouse. While the two actors always behaved above board in a professional capacity, there was no love lost between them off the set and, in a way, it worked to the show’s benefit, adding to the underlying hostility always present in the marriage of Ethel and Fred Mertz. (After I Love Lucy’s original run and during the time the series’ four principals were doing hour-long specials under the title The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, there was talk of putting together a spin-off featuring the Fred and Ethel characters — something Frawley embraced but Vance wanted no part of. That sequence of events only upped the ante on the acrimonious relationship between the two.)
Dismissed by a majority of TV critics upon its premiere as an amusing but unremarkable domestic comedy, I Love Lucy soon would force those same pundits to ransack their vocabulary for superlatives to describe the show, particularly since it raised the bar on the art form. The character of Lucy Ricardo was unlike any previous television housewife, even though most of the show’s plots would focus on the simplest situations (Lucy needing to balance her household accounts or wanting to go someplace special for her wedding anniversary) her handling of these problems was to engage in full-blown wackiness. She resorted to fabrications, disguises…any subterfuge necessary and at her disposal to triumph in the end. Boiled down to the simplest of equations, the show was a weekly battle of the sexes; Ethel often was dragooned into being Lucy’s confidant and reluctant participant in her pal’s zany schemes, with Fred playing the role of both Ricky’s sounding board and sarcastic color commentator. At the center of it all was her all-too-patient and understanding husband Ricky, who would find himself flummoxed at the shenanigans his wife would get into, and every now and then would reach his limit, admonishing her in his fractured English: “Loo-see, you got some ‘splainin to do…”
I Love Lucy became the surprise hit of the 1951-52 season, ranking No. 3 among all shows in the Nielsen ratings and did even better in its sophomore year when it was the No. 1 show across the land. Part of this success stemmed from a storyline introduced in Year Two, in which Lucille Ball’s real-life pregnancy (with son Desi, Jr.) was worked into the show despite the reluctance of CBS to acknowledge that fictional TV characters could become pregnant. As a point of fact, the writers on Lucy were not even allowed to use the term (they substituted “expecting” since “bun in the oven” had not yet been invented) and even had to title the episode where Lucy discovers she’ll soon be great with child “Lucy is Enciente.” (A priest, a rabbi and a minister were consulted to make sure nothing objectionable appeared in any of the episodes — with all of them pretty much in agreement: “What’s so objectionable about having a baby?”) The night the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth coincided with Lucille Ball’s real-life Caesarean delivery and at the time set a record for television audiences tuning in — more viewers even watched Lucy than coverage of President Eisenhower’s inauguration coverage.
To offset the charge that I Love Lucy was essentially a “husband vs. wife” rehash from week to week, the creative team behind the show determinedly looked for ways to move beyond the formula, and found inspiration in the fourth season when a story arc was developed that featured the Ricky Ricardo character taking a screen test in Hollywood for the starring role in a fictional MGM film (the Arnazes coincidentally made both of their films that cashed in on Lucy’s success, The Long, Long Trailer and Forever, Darling, for the
same studio), Don Juan…with Lucy, Little Ricky and the Mertzes in tow. The Hollywood episodes were the shot in the arm the show needed; not only did it ramp up Lucy Ricardo’s ambition to make it in show business, but it spotlighted encounters (and classic episodes) with stars such as William Holden, Harpo Marx and John Wayne. The following season found Lucy loose in Europe when Ricky’s band did an extensive tour in that country (and allowed the “crazy redhead” to engage in such antics as meeting Charles Boyer and doing classic pratfalls into a grape-stomping vat) and in its last season, the Ricardos (and the Mertzes) became suburbanites when Ricky and Lucy purchased a home in nearby Connecticut (Ricky was by this time the owner of his own nightclub). The Ricardos’ emigration from the Big Apple proved to be short-lived because after six seasons as American television’s most popular sitcom (it finished its final season at No. 1, only one of three TV comedies to do so) the Arnazes pulled the plug on the show that had made them household names. The couple continued on in a series of hour-long shows that were televised periodically on an anthology offspring entitled Desilu Playhouse, but on April 1, 1960, the last visit with the Ricardos and the Mertzes was televised, and the series was retired to the Old Syndication Home.Lucille Ball, acknowledged by many to be “the first lady of television,” later would go on to further sitcom triumphs in The Lucy Show, a half-hour sitcom that re-teamed her with Vivian Vance, and Here’s Lucy, which replaced Lucy Show in the fall of 1968 and lasted until 1974. Her post I Love Lucy sitcom was a huge success in the ratings…and yet, there are many people who lament the fact that it just didn’t work without the chemistry that was Ball, Vance, Frawley and Arnaz. Frawley found work rather quickly after The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour left TV, appearing as Michael “Bub” O’Casey on the popular family sitcom My Three Sons, while Arnaz enjoyed his new role as television mogul, producing such Desilu hits as The Ann Sothern Show and The Untouchables. (Illness slowly forced Desi to cutback on his Desilu activities and sell his interest in the organization to his ex-wife, though he did produce the 1967-69 sitcom The Mothers-in-Law for NBC as the head of Desi Arnaz Productions.) As for the show itself…well, I imagine there were more than a few people at CBS kicking themselves for agreeing to let Lucy and Desi own I Love Lucy just to save on the cost of weekly filming — the program refused to die even after being visited by the specter of cancellation. It can be seen in more than 77 countries (dubbed in 22 languages), and in the U.S. not only enjoys the distinction of being seen by 40 million people on national cable channels (such as Me-TV and The Hallmark Channel) but boasts of exposure on many local television outlets as well.
Sixty years ago, very few people could have foreseen that a simple situation comedy about a dizzy housewife and her musician husband would become one of television’s biggest hits. To me, the enduring legacy of I Love Lucy is its simplicity; the show took a funhouse mirror and held it up in front of married life, allowing spectators to roar with laughter at the unmatched physical comedy talents of Lucille Ball; the underrated comedic aplomb of Desi Arnaz; the lemon-like acerbic wit of William Frawley; and the peerless straight-woman support of Vivian Vance. When these four people ply their respective trades via rerun immortality you simply cannot ignore the magic that is onscreen…and if it weren’t for I Love Lucy's insistence on breaking all the sitcom rules and inventing new ones, we’d all be settling in for 24-hour marathon viewings of Jersey Shore and The Bachelorette. (I shudder at the very notion.)
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Labels: 50s, Holden, L. Ball, Marx Brothers, TV Tribute, Wayne
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Wednesday, September 28, 2011
When Hazel says hello
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Theodore Keyser — recognized under his professional handle, Ted Key — spent most of his 95-year lifespan as a prolific illustrator and cartoonist. He also was talented enough to dabble in many media beyond cartooning — several of the children’s books he wrote and illustrated, for example, were adapted into movies produced by the Walt Disney Studio: The Million Dollar Duck (1971), Gus (1976) and The Cat from Outer Space (1978). He even was responsible for creating one of the famous animated segments of Rocky and His Friends/The Bullwinkle Show: the time-traveling adventures of canine inventor Mr. Peabody and his faithful boy Sherman that we know as “Peabody’s Improbable History.” (Jay Ward, whose studio produced the adventures of Moose and Squirrel and Company, was a good friend of Ted’s brother Leonard.)
But Key’s most lasting creation came to him in the form of a dream: one night in 1943, he woke up and jotted down an idea about a bossy maid on a pad by his bedside…and picking the name “Hazel” out of the air, drew a cartoon the following morning and submitted it to The Saturday Evening Post. The Post started publishing Key’s one-panel cartoons and continued to do so until 1969 when the famed magazine faded out of existence…and then the King Features Syndication took over distribution of the strip, offering it to newspapers until the artist retired in 1993. His invention of the take-charge domestic who called the shots in the Baxter household won him the Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award from the National Cartoonists’ Society in 1977…but he was to receive an even loftier accolade when a television sitcom based on his creation, Hazel, debuted on NBC 50 years ago today.
Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures, had scored a successful boob tube hit in 1959 with another one-panel comic strip in Dennis the Menace…and since Fred Allen once observed that “Imitation is the sincerest form of television,” the company decided to try and capture lightning in a bottle a second time two years later with a TV version of Key’s meddlesome maid. Cast in the starring role was no doubt the most unlikely actress to headline a sitcom: Shirley Booth, who was best known for her extensive stage work (Tony Award wins for Goodbye, My Fancy and The Time of the Cuckoo) and occasional appearances in dramatic feature films — notably Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)…in which she duplicated her Tony Award win as tortured wife Lola Delaney with an Oscar statuette as well. With her accomplishments onscreen and her lengthy, distinguished stage career…could she really do a weekly comedy series every week?
The answer to that question was yes…and in fact, she had already done so. Booth was at one time married to writer-comedian Ed Gardner (they tied the knot in 1929), whose half-hour comedy creation Duffy’s Tavern had become a smash on radio…and Gardner had been able to talk his wife into taking on the role of one of Tavern’s characters, the dizzy, man-chasing Miss Duffy (the daughter of the drinking establishment’s owner). Gardner and Booth divorced in 1942 (supposedly he was jealous of her stage career…which seems a little petty since he himself was receiving wealth and fame as a result of Duffy’s) and she continued on the series for a little longer, finally leaving in 1943. Booth took her “homely spinster” and renamed her “Dottie Mahoney,” then began making the rounds of other network comedy shows afterward. She had even been the first choice of producer Harry Ackerman to play the lead role in the radio sitcom Our Miss Brooks — but because Booth had difficulty finding the lighter side of the tart-tongued, love-starved schoolteacher her loss turned out to be Eve Arden’s gain. Since Ackerman later became the vice president of production at Screen Gems from 1958 to 1974, it’s a reasonably safe bet that he recognized Hazel would be the perfect vehicle for Booth’s decision to get into television (although the story also goes that Thelma Ritter had originally been approached to play the part before she took a pass). Burt Lancaster, Booth’s co-star in Sheba, warned her off Hazel, telling her that the experience would “cheapen” her. “Time will tell if it cheapens me,” she told him in response, “and if it does, I hope to be as cheapened as Lucy (Lucille Ball).”
As Hazel Burke, a maid employed by George Baxter and his family, Booth infused the character created by Key with a great deal of warmth and likability. Hazel was a flawed individual — she could be quite pushy and overbearing, and she harbored a stubborn streak…once she had decided she was right there was no detouring her from any course of action on which she’d set her mind. But the actress was able to temper all that with a genuine tenderness that kept Hazel from being too obnoxious; she had a deep and abiding affection for her employers, and really functioned as an extended member of the Baxter clan (sort of a busybody aunt). An episode that beautifully illustrates the sentiment present between Hazel and the Baxters is “Hazel’s Famous Recipes,” in which Hazel’s employer George Baxter (Don DeFore) convinces a publisher to market a cookbook containing Hazel’s mouth-watering gastronomical delights. Both Hazel and the family are crushed when they learn that publication of the book will mean that Hazel will be on the road for six months plugging her tome — but when the publisher discovers that her recipes were culled from an earlier cookbook (still under copyright) she and the Baxters are overjoyed by the news.
George, a successful partner in the law firm of Butterworth, Noll, Hatch & Baxter, had no idea that when he married his wife Dorothy (Whitney Blake) he would get Hazel as the dowry. Hazel had worked for Dorothy’s family since she was 8 (she also doubled as nanny to “Missy,” as Hazel affectionately called her) and now was running things in the Baxter household — doing the cooking, cleaning, etc. and keeping an eye on the Baxter’s son, Harold (Bobby Buntrock), whom she usually referred to as “Sport.” To Hazel, George was “Mr. B” — and though he may have been king of the corporation lawyers once he arrived at his office on weekday mornings, upon his return trip to his castle he had to reconcile himself to the fact that he was now in Hazel’s domain. George and Hazel had a love-hate relationship (she often drove him to thoughts of homicide…and I don’t think a jury would have convicted him) and many of the show’s plots centered round the contest of wills between the Yale-educated attorney and his whip-smart “domestic engineer.”
The unavoidable reality of the matter is that Hazel’s unshakable devotion to the Baxters also made her television’s most famous “buttinsky”; the first episode of the series, “Hazel and the Playground,” details our heroine’s attempts to get a playground built in the neighborhood so that the children (particularly “Sport”) will have a place to play. She suggests that it be built on the site of a botanical garden that was dedicated to the city by the grandfather of one of George’s clients who becomes so incensed at Hazel’s meddling that he threatens to take his business elsewhere (naturally, he comes around by episode’s end). Another outing, “Hazel Plays Nurse,” introduces a semi-regular character in Harvey Griffin (Howard Smith); a client of George’s that Mr. B has nicknamed “The Steamroller” in deference to his no-nonsense iron will. Griffin’s hurricane temper soon becomes merely a pesky squall once he comes into contact with Hazel, who decrees that Mr. B’s health is more important than seeing his client. It wouldn’t be the first nor last time Griffith would lock horns with the maid though he could usually be pacified with one of her wondrous home-cooked meals.
Other supporting characters seen on the series at various times included her best bud Rosie Hammaker (Maudie Prickett) — also a maid and a member in good standing in The Sunshine Girls, a sort of sorority for domestics — and postman Barney Hatfield (Robert Williams), who not only delivered the mail through rain, sleet and snow but could double as Hazel’s escort if she needed a date for a dance. The Baxters also had neighbors in well-to-do Herbert and Harriet Johnson (Donald Foster, Norma Varden), who frequently called upon Hazel to assist them with some complicated task from time to time. George’s snobbish sister Deirdre Thompson (Cathy Lewis) also turned up in a few episodes, forever being put in her place by the down-to-earth Hazel; in “George’s Niece,” Deirdre informs the Baxters that she and her husband will be moving into their neck of the woods and that she and her daughter Nancy (Davey Davison) will be arriving for a visit in order to scope out a house, check on schools, etc. Nancy and Deirdre don’t get along too well, and when Nancy discovers boys she confides not in her mum but in a middle-age housekeeper (yes, you-know-who).
Hazel Burke compensated for her meddlesome manner by being a refreshing, unpretentious soul who didn’t always use proper grammar (“Ain’t he a doozy?” and “You’re darn tootin’” were just two of her pet expressions) but whose life was dictated by old-fashioned values and plain common sense. She was the gal (who was “everybody’s pal,” as the theme song’s lyrics informed us) the kids wanted to play on their football or baseball teams; she spoke her mind and wasn’t bashful about doing so; and she basically treated everyone in the manner that she herself wanted to be treated. An episode entitled “Hazel’s Secret Wish” provides a telling glimpse into Hazel’s character: offered the opportunity to spend a two-week vacation at a ritzy health spa, Hazel meets with disapproval from a pair of bluenoses (one of which is played by veteran radio/voice actress Betty Lou Gerson) and even is asked by the resort’s owner to downplay her housekeeping occupation. When the two snobs start giving Hazel grief about befriending one of the maids at the resort, Hazel lets fly with how she really feels about them and reveals that she herself is a maid in the process. Hazel apologizes to the spa owner for this little indiscretion, but she’s interrupted by a third high-society dame (Kathryn Givney) who demands that she have meals served in her room during the rest of her stay…and that Hazel be her personal guest during those meals.
When Hazel premiered in the fall of 1961, critics weren’t too impressed with the show (calling it “contrived” and “repetitive”) but audiences loved it — it ranked No. 4 among all prime time network programming in its debut season, and Shirley Booth received back-to-back Emmy Awards as outstanding actress for her work (she was nominated a total of three times on the show). Despite being an audience favorite, NBC canceled Hazel after four seasons, but CBS believed enough in Booth’s star power to pick up the show after its Peacock rival had set it outside at the curb. They did not, however, believe in co-stars Don DeFore and Whitney Blake; in seeking a “younger demographic” they asked the producers to ship “Mr. B” and “Missy” off to Saudi Arabia (CBS stated that Blake was unable to commit to the show after NBC’s cancellation; DeFore noted that he found out about the change while reading the newspaper) leaving Harold in Hazel’s charge (something that seriously disturbed me as a rerun-watching kid) as she went to work for George’s younger brother Steve (Ray Fulmer) and his adorable wife Barbara (Lynn Borden, a former Miss Arizona tabbed by Booth personally to play the role because Shirl owned a chunk of the sitcom) and cute daughter Susie (Julia Benjamin). Steve could never figure out just why George let himself be steamrolled by the dominating Hazel, but it didn’t take him too long to learn. The show came to an end in 1966 — not due to declining ratings, but because of Booth’s ill health (she suffered from chronic bursitis).
At the height of Hazel's popularity in 1963, Booth told an AP reporter: “I liked playing Hazel the first time I read one of the scripts, and I could see all the possibilities of the character — the comedy would take care of itself. My job was to give her heart. Hazel never bores me. Besides, she's my insurance policy.” Because Booth was fortunate enough to own a piece of the series it paid off like a slot machine when the program was sold to syndication — I remember watching the show constantly as a kid growing up in West Virginia, where it seemed to run like tap water. Hazel was a staple of TBS’ morning lineup during the early 1980s; it also turned up briefly on WGN and TV Land and currently has found a home at the newest contender for the classic television audience, Antenna TV. Sony Pictures Entertainment released Hazel's inaugural season to DVD in 2006 (the 35 episodes that year included one experimental color outing entitled “What’ll We Watch Tonight?” which amusingly enough, deals with Hazel’s efforts to wangle a color TV out of George) and after a long dry spell (something that I railed about quite a bit at my home base at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear) it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the DVD distribution rights to the show, with the second season scheduled for release in 2011.
With Hazel making inroads with a new TV generation 50 years later — does the show continue to wear well or has time “cheapened” Hazel, as Burt Lancaster forewarned? I think the comic chemistry between Shirley and Don still works beautifully, though I can’t deny that DeFore’s George Baxter is a bit of a chauvinist (which wasn’t unusual for the times) and an inattentive father on occasion. The producers were smart to cast DeFore (he’d already established his TV bona fides as the Nelson’s jovial next-door neighbor, “Thorny” Thornberry, on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet) because in the hands of another actor George Baxter wouldn’t have come off too well — DeFore has a goodnaturedness about him that’s endearing to the audience (he even laughs out loud at himself after he’s continually bested by his considerably brainier maid). Psychology students also might be interested in how dysfunctional George’s family can be: a textbook example is “Everybody’s Thankful But Us Turkeys,” in which George’s other sister Phyllis (Beverly Tyler) and her husband Bob (Charles Cooper) are feudin’, fussin’ and a-fightin’ and seem headed on the road to divorce — while George’s ma (Harriet MacGibbon of The Beverly Hillbillies) is depressed because she feels unneeded by her family. Hazel’s solution? She asks Mother Baxter to help out with the Thanksgiving dinner (no Prozac for you!) and when Phyllis comes into the kitchen as well it’s decided that what she needs to hold onto her man is…cooking lessons. (Well, I never denied the show wasn’t chauvinistic.)
George Baxter may also have been the first chunky sitcom husband (in the tradition of the schlubby heads of households on The King of Queens, Still Standing and According to Jim) to have a far more attractive wife in Dorothy; sure, you could argue that we owe Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) of The Honeymooners that debt but I think that depends on whether or not you consider Alice (Audrey Meadows) a “hottie.” As for Hazel…she laid the foundation for future sassier and/or sarcastic domestics (Florida on Maude, Florence on The Jeffersons, Geoffrey on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air) who knew they ruled the roost in the households that employed them because despite whoever was the king (or queen) of the castle they’re the ones who cleaned it. Fifty years after we were first invited in for some of Hazel Burke’s homemade cookies…she’s still a “doozy.”
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Labels: 60s, Animation, Awards, Books, Disney, Eve Arden, Fiction, L. Ball, Lancaster, Oscars, Theater, Thelma Ritter, TV Tribute
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Sunday, August 07, 2011
A soul is never lost, no matter what overcoat you put on
By Edward Copeland
As people who read me regularly know, it takes a lot to get me to see a remake of a movie I deemed very good or better because I find that it is usually A). Pointless. and B). Almost certain to disappoint. The instances where a remake turned out better than a good or great original have been few. I hadn't established this rule when I saw 1978's Heaven Can Wait starring Warren Beatty, co-written by Beatty and Elaine May and co-directed by Beatty and Buck Henry. At the time, I didn't even know it was a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which marks its 70th anniversary today. Those two films mark a rare time when the original and its remake nearly equal each other in quality (The third time was not a charm when Chris Rock tried to re-do it as Down to Earth). Today, we celebrate Here Comes Mr. Jordan on its birthday and watching it again, the movie continues to hold up, though I admit that Beatty's version bests it in some areas.
Here Comes Mr. Jordan didn't begin as an original screenplay. Sidney Buchman & Seton I. Miller adapted Harry Segall's play Heaven Can Wait and rechristened it with the new title, though Beatty brought the orignal moniker back when he remade the story in 1978. Both versions were nominated for the Oscar for best picture, though both lost. (To add a little confusion to different titles for the two best picture nominees, in 1943, Ernst Lubitsch directed the film version of the play Birthday and called it Heaven Can Wait and it received a nomination for best picture. So there are two best picture nominees called Heaven Can Wait, but they have nothing to do with one another.)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan begins with some words on the screen telling us about "this fantastic yarn" they heard from Max Corkle that they just had to share with us. Then following the credits, more words set up the movie's opening locale, telling us, just a few words at a time, accompanied by images of nature:
where all is…
Peace…
and Harmony…
and Love…
After the literal punchline, we meet boxer Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery) as he finishes his sparring match and climbs out of the ring to speak with his manager Max Corkle (James Gleason). Max has news for his prized fighter — it appears that he has finally managed to get Joe a chance at the world title with a bout against the current champ, only they'll have to leave their ideal New Jersey training camp immediately and hop the train to New York. Pendleton can't wait to leave, but he'll meet them there — it will give him some time for his hobby — flying his plane. Corkle begs him not to fly, but Joe tells him not to worry, he will have his lucky saxophone with him, which he begins playing much to Corkle's annoyance. Joe takes to the air, lucky sax with him. He even tries playing it and flying at the same time — until part of the plane starts to rip apart. He puts his sax down and tries to regain control of the aircraft, but it's too late — the plane spirals to earth and crashes.
With the impact with which the plane hit, leaving nothing but crumpled wreckage, it's understandable that someone such as Messenger 7013 (the always delightful Edward Everett Horton) would presume Pendleton was toast. Unfortunately, 7013 is new to his job as an afterlife guide and this is his first assignment. He
breaks a cardinal rule: He removes Joe's soul before it's confirmed that he would have died in the crash. So, when Joe, still clutching his sax, and his guide arrive in the cloud-strewn weigh station where the newly dead board a plane to their final destination, Joe protests quite adamantly that he isn't dead. He's in great shape "in the pink," as he says. His assignment annoys 7013 quite a bit and he's making so much noise that he's attracted the attention of the man in charge of the weigh station, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains). When Jordan finds that Pendleton isn't on the list of new arrivals, he has the plane's co-pilot (a young Lloyd Bridges) radio for information on when Joe Pendleton was due to arrive. The information comes back: Joe would have survived the crash. He wasn't scheduled to die until 1991. (Robert Montgomery almost made that in real life: He died in 1981.) Jordan chastises 7013 for being premature and decides to handle Joe's case himself: They'll have to return him to his body.
Easier said than done. When Mr. Jordan and Joe arrive at the crash scene, his body already has been retrieved, so he's been discovered and likely declared dead. Joe suggests they find Corkle so they head to New York, passing a newspaper boy touting the news of his death in a plane crash. When they get to Max's apartment, a devastated Corkle greets mourners, including a group of neighborhood kids saying what a swell guy Joe was. They'd been planning to take flowers to where Max says they took Joe, but couldn't remember what he called it. "Crematorium," Max reminds them. Uh-oh. Not only has Pendleton's death been reported already, his body no longer exists for Mr. Jordan to re-insert his soul even if a resurrection could be rationally explained at this point. Joe demands satisfaction for this screwup — they owe him 50 more years of life — so Mr, Jordan proposes that they find another body for him. Inside, he'll still be Joe Pendleton, but on the outside he'll take on another person who was due to die's identity. Joe does have some demands: He was on the verge of getting a shot at the world boxing title so whatever body they find has to be in shape so he can accomplish the same task. After previewing countless bodies around the world, none of which meet Joe's standards, Jordan takes him to yet
another one, saying he thinks this one might be promising. Pendleton reminds him again that he needs to be in good physical condition because, "I was in the pink." Jordan, who seems an extremely patient sort, has grown tired of finicky Joe, particularly this phrase. "That is becoming a most obnoxious color. Don't use it again," Jordan tells him. They are outside the gates of a mansion. Jordan explains the wealthy banker inherited his fortune and his name is Bruce Farnsworth (though it was changed to Leo in Heaven Can Wait because in the '70s, no one liked the name Bruce for some reason. Just ask TV's The Incredible Hulk). Jordan sits down at the piano and calmly starts flipping through sheet music. Joe asks where this Farnsworth is and Jordan explains he's upstairs being drowned to death — murdered by his wife and personal secretary. Joe goes nuts. Shouldn't they be calling the police? Jordan has to remind him again that no one can see or hear them. Joe already has made up his mind not to take a body that's mixed up in murder and they should skedaddle, but Jordan has to wait and collect Farnsworth, regardless of whether Joe accepts his body or not. Jordan stops looking through the music and turns and faces Joe. "It's over," he says, indicating that Farnsworth is dead.
Jordan, though he works on Heaven's side, does have a bit of devilish manipulation in him (as Rains always played so well, and would five years later as the devil himself in another film from a story by Harry Segall, Angel on My Shoulder). Until Farnsworth's body is discovered, Jordan still has time to talk Joe into taking his body. They eavesdrop as the co-conspirators come downstairs and the personal secretary Tony Abbott (John Emery) tries to calm the nerves of Farnsworth's wife Julia (Rita Johnson), reassuring her that they won't be caught and that Bruce certainly is dead. Watching Here Comes Mr. Jordan this time, it's
impossible not to say that Heaven Can Wait certainly did a better job in the casting of Abbott and Julia. It isn't that Emery and Johnson are bad, but their characters are far less important in the original film while in the remake when the parts were placed in the very capable hands of Charles Grodin and Dyan Cannon, not only were the roles beefed up, they also were hilarious villains. Emery and Johnson play straight-faced villains for the most part whereas Grodin and Cannon added to the comic ensemble. You're laughing as they botch attempt after attempt on Warren Beatty's Joe Pendleton. Back in the 1941 version, while Robert Montgomery's Joe finds it interesting that he can listen in on these newly minted murderers, he also finds it frustrating that he can't punish them somehow. He asks Mr. Jordan what happens if these two killed him again. Won't he be in the same predicament he's in now? Jordan describes the human body as nothing more than an overcoat. What makes a person who he or she really is resides inside. "A soul is never lost, no matter what overcoat you put on," Jordan tells Joe. Then, the game changer enters in the form of a beautiful woman (Evelyn Keyes) asking to see Mr. Farnsworth. Now, Joe is intrigued.Her name is Bette Logan (when Julie Christie played the role in Heaven Can Wait along with many of her details being changed to explain her British accent, they also changed the spelling of her first name to Betty for some reason) and she wants to see Farnsworth because her father has been accused by the currently dead
tycoon in a stock swindle that Farnsworth himself perpetrated and framed Bette's father for, putting the man behind bars. Bette knows her father is innocent and wants to plead to Farnsworth to look personally into the story and help prove that he didn't steal anything from him. At first, Abbott and Julia act quite sympathetic to Ms. Logan, mainly because Abbott has whispered to Julia before the butler Sisk (Halliwell Hobbes) showed her in that she'd help their story if they are meeting with her when Farnsworth's body is found. Joe and Jordan serve as invisible witnesses to Bette's story and it touches Pendleton, who tells Jordan he wishes he could help her. Jordan tells Joe he can — if he becomes Bruce Farnsworth. Joe stays on the fence, but that's when Abbott sends Sisk upstairs to fetch the dead man. Jordan reminds him that there isn't much time to decide now. As Sisk heads upstairs, Abbott and Julia turn on Bette, saying her father is guilty of all of
which he is accused. Joe asks Jordan if he can just use Farnsworth's body long enough to help Bette and then find a body in better shape. Jordan agrees and before he knows it, the two are upstairs in Farnsworth's bathroom. Jordan wraps a robe around Joe as he climbs out of the tub, but Pendleton looks in the mirror and still sees himself and when he opens his mouth, he sounds the same. Sisk knocks on the door, asking if he's OK. Jordan assures Joe that he only looks and sounds the same to himself. The rest of the world will see and hear him as Bruce Farnsworth. Joe answers Sisk that he'll be out in a minute and Sisk doesn't appear suspicious. Pendleton remains worried as he leaves the bathroom wearing the robe, obviously too big for his body. He almost marches straight downstairs until Sisk reminds him what he is wearing and that perhaps he should get dressed first. Then Sisk notices something he's never seen before and asks his employer if it's his. Of course, Pendleton says, taking his lucky sax.Once Sisk has helped dress Joe/Farnsworth in what appears to be a more dapper-looking robe, he heads downstairs, much to the shock of Abbott and Julia. If the conspirators weren't confused enough that he isn't dead, they become downright dumbfounded when he starts speaking to Bette in a friendly tone and indicating that he's sure they can solve her problem. Abbott, who's aware that Farnsworth committed the crime himself, steps in and tries to scuttle the inroads Joe tries to make until a frustrated Bette leaves. Joe orders Abbott and Julia out of the study so he can practice his saxophone. When they exit, he consults Mr. Jordan, dejected because Bette hates him but Jordan tells him to give it time. Then Joe sets out to get to work on his other project — getting Farnsworth's flabby body into fighting shape and he's going to need Max Corkle for that.
Gleason most decidedly deserved his Oscar nomination as Corkle. He was another in the seemingly endless line of dependable character players of the 1930s and '40s, usually in comedies, but he never seemed to let the moviegoer down even if he was in a film that did. He's joined in Here Comes Mr. Jordan with another
example in Edward Everett Horton, but his role is a rather small one and doesn't equal the best of his work from the 1930s. Then of course, they've got the versatile Claude Rains along too, who could seemingly do it all — lead or supporting — in every possible genre: comedy, drama, action, adventure, horror, you name it. However, Here Comes Mr. Jordan is Gleason's time to shine, earning him his sole nomination the same year he was one of the best parts of Capra's Meet John Doe. His career lasted well into the late '50s, including Charles Laughton's sole directing effort The Night of the Hunter with arguably Robert Mitchum's most indelible role and his penultimate film was John Ford's great political drama The Last Hurrah starring Spencer Tracy. Gleason also has some credits as a director and a writer (which unfortunately includes being responsible for the dialogue in my choice for the worst best picture winner of all time, The Broadway Melody). The scene where Corkle shows up at the
Farnsworth estate — and nearly gets kicked out by Abbott who doesn't know why he's there, not that Max does either — is a comic highlight as Joe inside Farnsworth's body works overtime to convince his manager that he really is Joe Pendleton and not some insane rich guy. Corkle is just convinced Farnsworth is a nutjob, especially when he begins talking to the invisible (to Max anyway) Mr. Jordan asking how to convince him. Finally, Joe thinks of the obvious and pulls out the sax. Max starts to believe. Joe explains he wants to get ready to get back in the ring, but he needs him to train him. He even promises to give Corkle 40 percent of whatever he wins. This is another area where Heaven Can Wait makes a bit more sense. Farnsworth would still have to fight his way up to get near the championship. It's a little less ludicrous when Warren Beatty's Farnsworth simply buys the football team and makes himself a player on it, but then Montgomery's Farnsworth won't have to worry about any bouts. As Corkle continues to try to believe what he's heard, Sisk interrupts to announce that Ms. Logan has returned, so Joe excuses himself for a moment and it's funny as Gleason's Corkle talks to the now-departed Jordan and feels around to see if he's there.
Needless to say, not only does Joe as Farnsworth get Bette's father off the hook, the pair fall in love as well. Bette worries, since Farnsworth has a wife, but Joe tries to explain the state of their relationship. He can't go into his real identity since she wouldn't know who Joe Pendleton is and saying that Julia and Abbott tried to kill him has risks as well, so he just leaves it as they are separated and she's cheating on him. He's very unhappy one day when Messenger 7013 shows up, telling Joe that it's time to exit Farnsworth. He orders him out, telling him he's "always gumming up the works." Now that he loves Bette, he's fine with Farnsworth. Mr. Jordan returns and reminds Joe that he asked to use Farnsworth on a
temporary basis. Joe ignores him and proceeds to make a phone call until a shot is heard and he falls to the floor, but he's fighting. Jordan has to coax him into leaving Farnsworth's body before it's too late. Abbott and Julia are thrilled that it worked this time and hide his body. Bette is beside herself, Corkle can't believe it's happened again, commenting that "Forty percent of a ghost is forty percent of nothing" and a new character, Inspector Williams of the police department (Donald MacBride) starts investigating Farnsworth's disappearance since Corkle tells him that Abbott and Julia killed him once before, but since he phrased it that way, Williams suspects Corkle may just be a kook. Max remains persistent while Abbott and Julia try to point suspicions at Bette, even though her father was cleared. The inspector just gets frustrated with the nonsense.Even if you haven't seen Here Comes Mr. Jordan or any of its remakes, good or bad, you probably have a good idea how things resolve themselves and while both it and Heaven Can Wait pack plenty of laughs for most of their running times and the romances in both films are rather run-of-the-mill, they still manage to be quite touching in their final moments, not just in the resolution of Joe and Bette/Betty but even more so with the realization that when Joe gets placed in his permanent body, his Pendleton memories are lost and both James Gleason and Jack Warden perfectly captured that bittersweet moment for Max Corkle in their respective films.
Admittedly, for a film I enjoy as much as I enjoy Here Comes Mr. Jordan, I never remember who directed it. Even when I see the name Alexander Hall, it rings no bells. Only one other title on his filmography sticks out and that's Rosalind Russell in My Sister Eileen. I have seen the last film he directed and it's somewhat ironic that it's that one. It's the 1956 Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz vehicle Forever, Darling where Ball's character gets advice from a guardian angel who takes the form of her favorite actor, James Mason. I only saw the film because I was working on my centennial tribute to Mason back in 2009. Otherwise, I can't imagine any other circumstances that would have made me watch it, but it is funny that the final film Hall helmed featured Mason as a guardian angel and then 22 years later Mason would play Mr. Jordan, another character from above, in Heaven Can Wait. Mason is very good in the role, but for me, there is only one Mr. Jordan.
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Labels: 40s, Buck Henry, Capra, Grodin, Jack Warden, John Ford, Julie Christie, L. Ball, Laughton, Lubitsch, Mason, Mitchum, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Rains, Remakes, Roz Russell, Tracy, W. Beatty
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