Friday, December 23, 2011
“I never dreamed that any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!”
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
One of my fondest memories of collegiate life was a weekend in 1982 in which the activities department at Marshall University put together a film tribute to actor Humphrey Bogart as part of their weekly showing of classic and cult movies. I can’t recollect the exact scheduling (the MU people would showcase a feature on Friday afternoons/evenings and then have a matinee on Sundays) but I do recall that Key Largo, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca made up the lineup and this little event exposed me to three of Bogie’s major classics for the first time. The last film, which I have forcefully stated many times at my home base of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, is my favorite movie of all time. I still can remember the audience cheering wildly at Claude Rains’ discovery that Bogart, as Rick Blaine, has double-crossed him (“Not so fast, Louie…”) and will be helping Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid out on the next plane to Lisbon.
That weekend wasn’t my introduction to one of my favorite actors, however. Years earlier, through the magic of television, I saw the film that earned Bogie his best actor Oscar, The African Queen (1951), because my mother was a huge fan of the film and it soon became one of my favorites, one of those movies which gets watched to the very end if I should happen to see it playing on, say, Turner Classic Movies. Fortunately for classic movie fans, you don’t have to wait for its TCM scheduling — Queen made its Region 1 DVD debut (it had only been previously available in Region 2 releases) on March 23, 2010 (simultaneously with its Blu-ray debut) in a breathtakingly gorgeous restoration from Paramount Home Video. In fact, it was explained that its long absence from DVD was due to the difficulty in locating the film’s original negative. Queen, based on the 1935 novel by C.S. Forester, made the rounds of motion picture theaters 60 years ago today.
It is September 1914, and Anglican missionaries Samuel (Robert Morley) and Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) spread the gospel to natives in the German Eastern African village of Kungdu when they receive a visit from Charlie Allnut (Bogart), skipper of the African Queen. Allnut is responsible for bringing their mail and supplies, and during his stopover informs the Sayers that since war has broken out between England and Germany, their mail delivery will be affected; he also advises the two of them to abandon their post because of his concern that the German army will recruit Kungdu’s able-bodied young men to fight for their cause. Samuel staunchly refuses, but only seconds after Charlie departs he and Rose are visited by German soldiers, who respond to Samuel’s protests with the business end of a rifle butt as his fellow conscripts start rounding up the natives and setting the village ablaze. With Kungdu in ruins, Samuel soon comes down with fever and dies — Charlie returns to the village in time to help Rose bury her brother and then agrees to spirit her away on his boat.
Despite the vessel being well-stocked with provisions, Charlie and Rose’s escape from their circumstances will not be an easy task; the Ulanga River presents obstacles in the three sets of rapids and a German stronghold in the form of a fort in the town of Shona. Because the ship’s supplies also include blasting materials (gelignite) and oxygen/hydrogen tanks, Rose, filled with both stiff-upper-lip patriotism and bitterness over her brother's death, proposes that the two of them fashion makeshift torpedoes out of the materials and use them to take on the Queen Louisa (or as the Germans refer to it, the Königin Luise), a large gunboat guarding the lake in which the Ulanga empties. Charlie is convinced that what Rose is suggesting will be a suicide mission, but he agrees to the plan only to get cold feet shortly after navigating the first set of rapids. He declares his intentions to have nothing to do with Rose’s plan after a gin-sponsored bender. The next morning, suffering from a hangover, Charlie watches helplessly as Rose pours every last drop of his precious gin into the Ulanga and follows this up with “the silent treatment,” Charlie reconsiders the mission.
German soldiers fire upon Charlie and Rose as they pass the fort at Shona, and though the two of them avoid being hit by gunfire, the men do manage to hit the African Queen’s boiler, disconnecting one of its steam pressure hoses and bringing the vessel to a temporary halt. (Charlie manages to reconnect the hose and they pass by the fort unscathed.) The boat then hits the second set of rapids and survives the ordeal with minimal damage, prompting the duo to engage in a celebratory embrace which leads to a kiss. It is by this time in their adventure that they cannot deny the strong attraction that has developed between them, which leads to an amusing scene in which Rose asks her new boyfriend awkwardly: “Dear, what is your first name?”
The couple finally navigates the final set of rapids, but in doing so sustain damage to the Queen’s shaft and propeller. Rose convinces Charlie that he has the skills to repair the boat and, using what is available on a nearby island, he restores the Queen to working order and they’re off again down the river. However, they soon discover the deception of the Ulanga River; they “lose the channel” and become stranded on a mud bank surrounded by reeds in all directions — with Charlie sidelined with fever (after an experience in which he emerges from the murky water covered with leeches). When all appears lost, Rose offers up a prayer asking that she and Charlie be granted entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven…and in answer to that prayer, rains from a monsoon soon lift the boat out of the mud and into the mouth of the lake — as it turns out, they were less than a hundred yards from their destination.
Charlie and Rose, having spotted the Louisa patrolling the lake, prepare the makeshift torpedoes and go after the German craft come nightfall, but en route they get trapped in a squall and the African Queen capsizes due to the holes made in its sides to accompany the torpedoes. The Louisa’s crew captures Charlie who is crestfallen because he thinks Rose has drowned, so much so that he stoically accepts the captain’s decision to hang him. Surprisingly, Rose has survived the Queen’s sinking and is brought aboard to face questioning where she proudly tells the Louisa’s captain of their plot to scuttle the ship, resulting in her sentence of execution as well. Before the couple's hanging, Charlie asks the Louisa’s captain if he’ll marry him and Rose; that buys enough time for the Louisa to run into the Queen’s wreckage, detonating the torpedoes and sinking the ship. The newly married Allnuts swim to safety toward the Belgian Congo as the film concludes.
Upon its publication in 1935, The African Queen originally was optioned for a film adaptation by several studios including RKO and Warner Bros. — Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester even made a movie (with a similar story, though the source material came from W.
Somerset Maugham) in 1938 entitled Vessel of Wrath (aka The Beachcomber). Over the years, several actors were suggested for the part of Charlie Allnut; John Mills, David Niven and James Mason being the most prominent — Bette Davis was the only actress in serious contention for Rose, but after an abortive attempt to do the movie in 1947 (scuttled because of Davis’ pregnancy) she was passed over two years later in favor of Katharine Hepburn when the production got underway. (Director John Huston, who had already chosen Humphrey Bogart for his Charlie, once stated in an interview that Hepburn was tabbed because Bogart had expressed an interest in working with her.) While it’s possible to see Davis playing the part, the choice of Hepburn (in what would be her first color film) was the right one despite some initial reservations on the part of Huston with Kate’s performance. Thinking she was making the Rose character a little too severe, John suggested that Hepburn imitate the indomitable spirit of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who always remained cheerful despite any adversity. (Hepburn later observed that Huston’s suggestion was the finest bit of directing she’d ever received.)Hepburn’s performance in the film is a marvel because the actress bravely allowed herself to be filmed au natural, which no doubt stunned audiences at the time as they saw the great Kate playing her true middle-age (something that she would go on to do from that point in
her career, particularly in David Lean's wonderful 1955 film Summertime) and yet they witnessed a woman who transforms from a “crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid” into a spunky, sexy woman whose romance with the unlikely Charlie makes her giddy as a schoolgirl (I love the scene where she giggles and laughs uncontrollably at Charlie’s animal noises on the boat). The relationship between the characters is so genuine and feels so right, you literally watch the barriers between the two melt away during the course of their adventure. Pay particularly close attention when Rose helps Charlie pump water out of the boat and she stops momentarily, caught up in her romantic reverie. Charlie has got it bad as well. In assisting Rose with the task,c you can just see how dazed and delighted he is to have found true love. Director John Huston could scarcely ignore the magic between the two characters and decided to buck the tradition of most of his films (which tend to feature what one critic has called “beautiful losers”) by allowing Charlie and Rose’s torpedo scheme to succeed (in Forester’s book the plan doesn’t quite come off) and joining the two in holy matrimony (a plot device also designed to ward off criticism by bluenoses finger-wagging at Charlie and Rose’s cohabitation outside marriage).
Huston and Bogart were not only close friends in real life, they had made onscreen magic working together as far back as the director’s feature film debut, The Maltese Falcon, and as recently as one of Huston’s masterpieces, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. To accommodate the handicap of Bogart’s inability to do a Cockney accent, however, the character of Charlie Allnut became a Canadian, prompting a hefty rewrite of the script. Though the role of Charlie would seem a departure for Bogie, known for his tough-guy antiheroes, there are many shared characteristics between him and other Bogart characters (Allnut shares the same unshaven scruffiness as Sierra Madre’s Fred C. Dobbs, for example), particularly that of the individual who eventually comes around in support of the cause for the greater good. Bogart was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his performance (Hepburn also was tabbed, along with Huston for his direction and screenplay with co-writer James Agee) and despite stiff competition that year from Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Fredric March, the Academy got sentimental and awarded the actor the coveted trophy.
The realistic atmosphere and look of the film stem from the decision by Huston and producer Sam Spiegel (along with brothers John and James Woolf, who financed the movie through their Romulus Films company) to shoot on location in Uganda and the Congo in Africa.
Under normal circumstances, this production would have been daunting but because it was a Technicolor film (which necessitated large, unwieldy cameras), the shoot proved to be an ordeal for all involved. Hepburn later detailed the colorful history of the production in a book, The Making of the African Queen, or: How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, and a fascinating featurette included on the Paramount Home Video DVD, Embracing Chaos: Making the African Queen, also contains enthralling anecdotes about this remarkable motion picture. The cast and crew survived any number of adverse conditions, chiefly among them sickness due to the dysentery resulting from contaminated drinking water. Hepburn, for example, became so ill that a bucket was placed near the pipe organ she plays in the opening church scenes. According to cinematographer Jack Cardiff, the actress was “a real trouper.” The only two individuals on the film who escaped illness, according to legend, were Huston and Bogart, primarily because the men subsisted on the imported Scotch they had brought with them. (Bogie later cracked: “All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whiskey. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead.”)The size of the African Queen also presented problems where the Technicolor cameras were concerned — because there was not enough room for the cameras on the boat (which measured 16 feet long and 5 feet wide), a mock-up of the craft was put together on a larger raft and the production used several such rafts to the point where the river hosted a small flotilla, with the last pontoon housing Hepburn’s “loo” (her contract stipulated that she be provided with private restroom facilities). The waters of the river, considered poisonous due to bacteria, animal excrement, etc., were never utilized in shots or sequences requiring Bogie and Kate’s immersal — they were filmed separately in studio tanks at the Isleworth Studios in London. Despite the challenges presented in the making of the film, what resulted was a certified masterpiece — at a time when “independent” films are the Hollywood darlings of today, The African Queen was a noteworthy example of that particular type of movie (made outside the dictates of the studio system) even though industry wags remained skeptical about its performance at the box office. (The film was a tremendous success, but director Huston never collected on the payday because of his desire to sever his ties with producer Spiegel; cinematographer Cardiff also had the option of taking a percentage of the profits to subsidize a lower salary but he begged off, having had a bad experience with another film he had worked on in that same year, The Magic Box.)
Queen enraptured me as a young movie fan, and continues to do so today — I think it would be the perfect film to introduce to classic movie-adverse audiences because of its skillful blend of adventure, romance and even comedy (There are some hilarious moments in this movie, chiefly the scene where Charlie sets down to tea with the Sayers). The fact that it’s in gorgeous Technicolor also is a plus, particularly since new generations often shrink from movies filmed in monochrome. Writer-director Nicholas Meyer observes in the Embracing Chaos documentary that “Movies are like soufflés — they either rise or they don’t — and people seldom are able to predict or tell you why. The African Queen is an improbably cinematic triumph, made against seemingly insurmountable odds and comprising a bunch of disparate, desperate characters who, saving the movie business, would probably not even be in the same world let alone the same room with each other.” The results of that grand moviemaking adventure captured on film make The African Queen a must-see for audiences of any age.
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Labels: 50s, Bacall, Bette, Bogart, Brando, Clift, Fredric March, Huston, Ingrid Bergman, K. Hepburn, Laughton, Lean, Mason, Movie Tributes, Niven, Rains
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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.
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Labels: 70s, Ebert, Hitchcock, K. Douglas, Kael, Kubrick, Malcolm McDowell, Mason, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, Terry Gilliam
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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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Centennial Tributes: Nicholas Ray, Part 2
By Kevin J. Olson
Ray’s baroque Western Johnny Guitar is an obvious allegory for repression (both political, the film is filled with references to McCarthyism, as well as sexual), but there’s a lot more going on within every frame of this movie. I am inclined to agree with Jake Cole that the film is one of the best examples of how to use color. It’s a fierce, energetic picture, and it’s easy to see why the New Wavers (and later on, Scorsese) were such big proponents of the film. It's also a really damn entertaining Western. It’s become more popular now than ever thanks to cinephiles everywhere championing the film as the director’s best (or a close second behind Bigger than Life), and the film was a box-office hit when released, but what is ironic about Johnny Guitar is that Ray hated making it.
Even if he did hate making the film, Ray litters the film with his usual iconoclastic touches that were an affront to everything Hollywood was producing at the time: inverted gender roles (I love how all of the men in this film are afraid to fight, and how, as he did with The Lusty Men, Ray makes a strong, independent woman the protagonist…a role almost universally reserved for men), ambiguous sexuality, baroque colors and a hellish set design in the form of Vienna's tavern. In fact, I like Truffaut’s comment about the film being a “hallucinatory Western,” and it got me wondering (because I love Italian horror so much) if the film wasn’t a huge influence on Mario Bava and Dario Argento and other Italian horror filmmakers who painted their films in similar colors and sought to have a similar ethereal, hallucinatory tone to their films. Ray and his cinematographer Harry Stradling beautifully juxtapose black and white while using vibrant reds as the backdrop — all colors acting as more than just something pretty to look at.
Vienna’s tavern is the perfect example of the hallucinatory tone the film has (I can think of no better scene to represent this than the one where Vienna is playing the piano in a white dress with the blood-red, hell-like
cavern walls of her saloon in the background). This specific setpiece acts as a symbol for everything Ray’s films are about: it’s drenched in reds — a representation of the kind of hell his heroes usually live in; this is especially obvious at the end as the tavern goes up in flames — and it’s located on the outskirts of town, a place where outlaws, misfits, and the generally marginalized members of this society convene; Vienna’s is a safe haven for the misunderstood in the same way all of Ray's characters, in some way, have sought a safe haven to feel "normal" (the honeymoon getaway at the cabin in They Live by Night, Ida Lupino's cabin in On Dangerous Ground, the rodeo in The Lusty Men and the characters playing "house" in the mansion in Rebel Without a Cause). It's a brilliant film that has gained a lot of momentum amongst cinephiles as one of the premier examples of expressionistic American cinema from the 1950s.After working on the Jimmy Cagney Western Run for Cover, Ray would go on to make what would be his most famous film. I’ve always felt that Rebel Without a Cause was not just merely a tale of misunderstood adolescence; rather, the film is, for me, an enriched and beautifully lit and colored rendition (filmed in Cinemascope adding to Ray’s love for the theme of alienation, isolation, marginalization by keeping images on the very edges of his wide frame) of everything that Ray has been working toward. It’s a film about misunderstood youth, sure, and how when we’re that young, we always feel misunderstood; however, the film also fits in with Ray’s adult characters from previous films (especially the theme of emasculation found in Johnny Guitar and The Lusty Men). That’s because Rebel also is about a rapidly changing domestic world (as well as the public high school) that is unreliable and unstable (fully fleshed out in Bigger Than Life).
I like Ebert’s assertion that the film plays like a Todd Solondz film (the image of Jim Backus in a frilly apron does seem like something out of Happiness); that beneath the seemingly simple surface there’s something
more subversive trying to break through — much like the explanation of exploding stars in the solar system during the scene at the planetarium — something that audiences in the 1950s weren’t used to seeing. I commend Ray for having the balls to make the film as sexually charged as it is. Perhaps it wasn’t as obvious in the ‘50s, but in retrospect, Rebel is one of Ray’s most overtly sexual films. Whether it’s Judy's father (William Hopper) having problems with the maturation of his 16 year-old daughter (Natalie Wood), or, and most famously, the way Ray has John "Plato" Crawford (Sal Mineo) not just idolize Jim (James Dean) the way a misunderstood kid would idolize a fellow peer, but the way he longs for him the way traditional films would show a teenage boy eyeing a fellow teenage girl.I’ve always liked Dean’s performance in this film more than his showy performance from East of Eden, and in one of my favorite scenes he happens upon the image of his father (Backus), wearing that apron over his suit, frantically picking up the food he spilled before his wife can see it. I love the way Ray frames the scene (making it look as if his father is in a metaphorical prison), but it showcases one of Dean’s best bits of acting. The moment starts with a genuine laugh about what the two of them realize is a ridiculous situation, before Jim realizes that his dad doesn’t really get why he’s laughing, and then the scene just turns sad as Jim can’t even muster the words anymore and just leaves the scene disappointed at the way his father has become a prisoner in his own home. Yes, sometimes these familial scenes are a little too on-the-nose, but Ray makes them feel fresh with the buried subtext — even 56 years later.
I love Ray’s use of canted angles to show us how askew this world is. In what may be the best shot of the film, Ray shows the tragic death of Plato by tilting the camera at the sound of a gunshot. It’s this kind of immediacy that we saw with Ray’s use of handheld camera in The Lusty Men and On Dangerous Ground; the kind of immediacy that draws us into the moment so immediately that we cannot help but feel the punch in the gut when the tragic moment of Plato’s death occurs. My other favorite moment in the film is its most memorable (aside from perhaps the initial planetarium scene) as the three misunderstood youths escape from their prisons and retreat to a deserted mansion that acts as nothing more than a brief distraction from the harsh realities of their life; a simulation that they act out for a brief reprieve only to be shattered by reality in a few short moments as the bullies find Plato and chase him to the planetarium where he eventually meets his tragic end.
Like he did in The Lusty Men, Ray ends his film with the kind of shot that suggests a cruel reality; despite the tragedy that has just occurred at the planetarium, the final shot is of the building as the sun rises. Essentially, like the rodeo, the show must (and will) go on; future school groups will attend and be given the same lecture as Jim, Plato, and Judy without understanding how the trio’s idyllic world was interrupted by violence and shattered at that very location in mere seconds.
Sure, some of the film’s narrative hasn’t aged well, but it’s an interesting portrait of its time; a subversive snapshot of the zeitgeist created by Dean’s performance and the posthumous reaction to it. In addition, it’s great reminder of Ray the iconoclast: I can’t think of any other filmmaker working within the American Hollywood system, perhaps with the exception of Douglas Sirk, who tried to sneak so many taboo (for the time) themes into his films.
A year after Rebel Without a Cause, Ray made what many cinephiles consider his magnum opus. Bigger Than Life fits neatly in the Ray paradigm of busted-up domestic relationships; however, in the case of this film, Ray uses strict father and school teacher Ed Avery (James Mason) as the focal point for him to have a lot of
fun at the expense of Eisenhower’s domestic America. Avery isn’t emasculated like other male figures in Ray’s films, but he is totally unreliable despite the fact that he is exactly the type of “fucked-up” hero that Ray talks about in the quote that started this piece. Told he only has months left to live, Avery agrees to the then-experimental drug of cortisone which acts as a catalyst for Avery’s awakening to his dull existence, and what follows is a hellish vision of domestic America in the 1950s (Sam Mendes wishes he could make something this good). I love what Scorsese says about Ray in his documentary A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies when he claims that Ray offers the viewer two sides of American suburbia, “the sugar and the poison.” That is a great way to describe what Ray is doing with his films, especially Bigger Than Life and Rebel. One of the best exchanges in the film comes before Avery even takes the cortisone when he complains that their life is dull and all they do is talk with dull people and go to dull parties. All the cortisone does is give Avery (and Ray) an excuse to amp things up and bring into question all of the sacred cows of 1950s America. One of my favorite shots is of Mason standing over his son while he helps him figure out a tough math problem. Ray films the scene so that Mason’s shadow towers over the boy; he also places the camera just slightly lower than normal to give the room an eerie feeling. Just as in Rebel with his use of canted angles, Ray again is doing something small here that has a tremendously profound effect on how we view the scene. It’s also a nice little visual nod to the source material the film was based on: a New Yorker article by medical writer Berton Roueché entitled “Ten Feet Tall.”
Since Avery (and Ray) questions every tenet of the 1950s (most notability the role of mother, community, and church), one has to wonder, based on Ray’s quote about the type of heroes in his movies, if Ray doesn’t view Avery as a kind of hero; a complete mockery of the Father Knows Best take on the nuclear family, Ray seems to be having a lot of fun with this one. It’s no secret that Ray did a lot of cocaine and drank heavily, and Bigger than Life feels like it has the headlong energy of a mile-a-minute coke addict. Unlike Rebel, Bigger than Life doesn’t feel dated; it feels of its time with its use of Technicolor, but it also feels very modern by how aggressively expressionistic it is. This is probably why cinephiles today consider it (along with Johnny Guitar) the best example of Ray as auteur and the last truly great film he ever made.
The end of the ‘50s weren’t so kind to Ray. He made the so-so Western The True Story of Jesse James which was originally a project designed to reunite Ray and James Dean; unfortunately, because of Dean’s premature death, this version of James was portrayed by the stiff, wooden Robert Wagner. The film is perhaps one of the most unmemorable of Ray’s films; the dullness is accentuated by to the fact that it came on the heels of the auteurs most impressive run of films. Ray would bounce back a bit with the black-and-white war picture Bitter Victory, and the beautiful-looking — yet massively flawed — Wind Across the Everglades which ended up being his penultimate Hollywood-made picture. Ray ended the decade with what would be his final film made in Hollywood, the Cinemascope noir, Party Girl. As was the case for most of these late ‘50s entries, Ray tries his hardest to make them more interesting than they really are by always making them, at the very least, interesting to look at. It’s not that these are bad movies — again, as I stated at the beginning of this thing, I don’t think Ray every really made a bad movie — but considering what the man was putting out earlier in the decade, and what he was going through at the end of the decade (personal and professional problems and a deteriorating health), it seemed pretty obvious that at the end of the decade that immediacy that was all over his previous work was missing.
It’s frustrating to think about what kind of film Wind Across the Everglades could have been had Ray’s health not been subpar and had he not been fired from the film (most of his footage was discarded). Ray was difficult to work with, no doubt, but then he wouldn’t be the iconoclast that we remember him as were he such a peach on set. However, this eccentricity really hurt his later films and carried over into the next decade where Ray left the United States and made the interesting-in-theory, but flawed-in-execution, The Savage Innocents, a film that contains a pretty decent performance from Anthony Quinn but little else of note. (Some of the exterior shots and the sets of the film are pretty neat to look at, and I did enjoy the hunt of the polar bear.)
After The Savage Innocents, Ray decided to make two epics in Spain, King of Kings in 1961 and 55 Days at Peking in 1963. The latter would be his final film. King of Kings was notorious for living up to its epic name. It’s definitely a flawed film, but it was a return to theme for Ray as I can think of no other figure in history that was more of an outcast, misfit, and misunderstood than Jesus of Nazareth. Of course, most of the Hollywood films that showcase Jesus don't identify with those aspects of the man (they're too focused on the miracles), but Ray anchors his epic film by looking at these aspects of Jesus in addition to showing some of the miracles and massive exterior shots (to showcase the scope of this epic) that make for the kind of melodramatic, epic cinema audiences were used to at the time. It may seem weird to think that there’s a natural connection between Jesus and Ray, but I think Jesus definitely fits the type of outcast/misfit character type that so often attracted Ray.
In King of Kings, one can definitely see Ray’s skill for architectural spaces and filming in such a massive scope that definitely draws upon his early-in-life training in the field under Frank Lloyd Wright. The Sermon on the
Mount scene in particular is impressive. Throughout the scene you can see hundreds (hell, maybe thousands) of extras pouring into the frame trying to run to where Jesus is giving his sermon. It’s an impressive piece of epic filmmaking. The other thing I like about the scene is that it seems clear to me that Ray places this moment in Jesus’ life as the defining moment of the man; it represents everything for which he stood, and by placing such an emphasis on the scene we see that Ray also sees this as the defining aspect of Jesus’ teachings. Since the film is centered on this view of Jesus, Ray juxtaposes that with the more pro-active Barabbas, a character who is usually only shown when he is freed in return for Jesus’ crucifixion. Again, Ray is giving a lot of attention to a character who is normally marginalized in the story of Jesus. It only seems fitting that Ray would be drawn to his story as well. King of Kings — coming on the heels of Ben-Hur — was released in the heart of the epic craze, and its weaknesses are glaring. The film is too concerned with its grandeur to be about anything else (not even Ray can save the film from its nearly three hour running time). It’s a little too on-the-nose with its narration (by Orson Welles) telling us every little detail as if he were just reading from The Bible, and the performances (especially that of Jeffery Hunter who plays the typical white Jesus) are universally hammy (which I understand is the norm for these types of movies). Still, considering Ray’s previous handful of films, King of Kings is not half bad as an interesting look into what the man created before his premature retirement.
Ray's premature retirement was caused by his next attempt at an epic, 55 Days at Peking starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven. Perhaps the most notorious thing about the film is that Ray — who was at his worst at this time — claimed to have had a premonition that it would be this film that would end his career. Due to his hard living, Ray was right, and on the set of the film he had a heart attack and collapsed during filming. Even though Ray didn’t finish the film, 55 Days at Peking — like King of Kings — is another example of how adept Ray was at using massive scope and Technicolor. His last two films were a departure for him in scope, but they definitely were examples of how the man knew how to use color to its fullest effect; although, for me, I merely admire his use of scope and color; I’m not moved by it like I was Johnny Guitar, Rebel Without a Cause, or Bigger Than Life. And that’s the biggest problems with Ray’s last films: even though I can admire them, there’s nothing immediate about them. It’s a sad way to think about the end of such a brilliant career.
Despite the way his career ended prematurely and sadly left us with a whimper rather than a bang, Ray always will be remembered as one of the ‘50s most distinct voices. His headlong energy and innovative, expressionistic camera left an indelible mark on the cinema of the ‘40s and ’50s and had a global influence on cinema. From Jean-Luc Godard to Wim Wenders (who collaborated with Ray to make a documentary, Lightning Over Water, about his last days as he dealt with terminal cancer) to Martin Scorsese to Jim Jarmusch, Ray’s influence can be seen in a number of filmmakers’ visual style as well as the themes they broach in their films and the types of outsider characters they showcase (especially Jarmusch). His love for solitary, outsider figures has always resonated with me, and when I look at a movie such as Rebel Without a Cause, for example, a movie I loved when I was in high school for all of the reasons that I actually kind of find dated now, I can see what makes Ray so great: it’s the way that I can look at Rebel through a completely different lens now and find different layers to appreciate. On the surface, Ray’s films always seemed to be about very simple things; however, when one looks deeper they see a filmmaker that had the balls to put things in his films and explicate themes that other filmmakers were afraid to. He — along with the likes of Sirk, Wilder, Kazan, et al — was an iconoclast that sneaked the taboo themes that interested him into his films despite working within the Hollywood system, and because of his audacity and energy, and his need to make films about the marginalized, he made a name for himself as one of the true auteurs of the era.
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Labels: Cagney, Ebert, Godard, Heston, James Dean, Kazan, Lupino, Mason, N. Ray, Niven, Scorsese, Truffaut, Welles
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Monday, May 03, 2010
Lynn Redgrave (1943-2010)
The past two years have been tragic ones for the Redgrave acting dynasty. Last year, they lost Natasha Richardson from the family's third generation of performers. Last month, the second generation and sole male acting heir to the family's name, Corin, passed away. Now, we have lost his sister and Natasha'a aunt, the great Lynn Redgrave, who has died at 67 after a long battle with breast cancer.
Lynn and her sister, Vanessa, were contemporaries and Lynn always had the misfortune of being thought of as the lesser of the two in terms of talent, but if it engendered sibling rivalry, it never seemed to show. The two even competed against each other for the best actress Oscar in 1966, Lynn for Georgy Girl, Vanessa for Morgan, but both lost the prize to Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Lynn's film debut came in 1963's best picture winner, Tom Jones. Georgy Girl was her third feature as the slightly frumpy English girl, teaching kids and longing for a more exciting, happier life while pursued as a mistress by an unhappily married but wealthy businessman (the also nominated James Mason).
Lynn's career from the very beginning always floated between the screen, the stage and television. She worked with Woody Allen in Eveything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask as the queen with the chastity belt that Woody's jester longs to unlock.
In 1973, in an ABC Afterschool Special I really wish I had seen, she played various characters in a special titled William: The Life, Works and Times of William Shakespeare. Imagine television trying to show something that might be (gasp) educational, enriching and entertaining as I imagine that must have been to children today.
All of her film work wasn't of the highest quality (she was British after all) and in 1975 she took on the role of infamous madame Xaviera Hollander in the adaptation of Hollander's autobiography The Happy Hooker. The following year, she was on of the many trapped on the very underrated disaster spoof The Big Bus.
Her television work ranged from the classy to miniseries such as Centennial to even appearances on Kojak. She even starred briefly in a sitcom version of the film House Calls until she became embroiled in a legal dispute with the producers over whether she could breast-feed her baby on the set. Eventually, she left the show and the series final handful of episodes featured Sharon Gless.
She also wasn't immune from hitting the ABC guest star magnets, hitting the trifecta with appearances on The Love Boat, Fantasy Island AND Hotel. She tried some other TV series, most infamously as Jackie Mason's romantic interest in his short-lived try at sitcom glory Chicken Soup.
In 1991, Lynn teamed with her sister Vanessa for a television remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Lynn taking the Bette Davis role and Vanessa stuck in bed with the Joan Crawford part.
The mid-'90s started to bring Lynn better film roles again, starting with 1996's Shine as the woman who eventually wed David Helfgott. In 1998, her work as James Whale's coarse housekeeper in Gods and Monsters brought her her second Oscar nomination. Her monologue at the end of Kinsey as to how his studies changed her life was one of that film's highlights. James Ivory's The White Countess gave Lynn, Vanessa and Natasha the chance to work together in the same film.
Her most recent television appearances have come on Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
From 1967 to as recently as 2005, Lynn made frequent appearances on Broadway, earning three Tony nominations for best actress in a play: for her last appearance in 2005's revival of The Constant Wife, 1976's revival of Mrs. Warren's Profession and for 1993's Shakespeare for My Father, a one-woman show she conceived as a love letter to her legendary actor father, Michael Redgrave.
RIP Lynn Redgrave and my best wishes to the extended Redgrave family in these trying times.
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Labels: Awards, Bette, Crawford, Law and Order, Liz, Mason, Merchant Ivory, Obituary, Oscars, Television, Theater, Vanessa Redgrave, Whale, Woody
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