Friday, August 03, 2012
Edward Copeland's Top 100 of 2012 (60-41)
Perhaps the crowning achievement of the Italian neorealist movement. This story of Italians fighting back against fascism and the Nazis during World War II plays as powerful and moving today as it ever did, with a great cast led by Anna Magnani, who appears in one of the film's most memorable sequences. Despite being generally hard on the film, Manny Farber declared Open City the best film released in the U.S. in 1946 and called Magnani’s performance “the most perfect job by an actress in years and years.”
A breathtaking debut that launched a mostly great film series about Truffaut's screen alter ego, Antoine Doinel, and containing perhaps the most famous freeze frame in film history. It's not bad as a coming-of-age picture either. While The 400 Blows stands alone as the best of the Antoine Doinel films, it’s fascinating to watch Jean-Pierre Leaud play the character from an adolescent to an adult. In its own way, the film resembles the first installment of a fictional version of Michael Apted’s Up documentary series only focusing on a single character.
Pollack didn't just direct and act in this comic masterpiece, he really played tailor as well, stitching together multiple versions of its screenplay to come up with the exquisite finished garment. Dustin Hoffman's brilliant performance as perfectionist pain-in-the-ass actor Michael Dorsey and Dorothy Michaels, the female persona he creates to get work, stands as the crowning achievement of his acting career. It doesn't hurt to be surrounded by an equally solid ensemble that includes Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, George Gaynes, Doris Belack, Geena Davis and a nearly all-improvised role by Bill Murray.
Preminger’s crowning achievement could be a routine noirish mystery if it weren’t for its great ensemble of Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Judith Anderson, Vincent Price and, most of all, Clifton Webb delivering its wry and witty dialogue by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein and Betty Reinhardt (with alleged uncredited contributions from Ring Lardner Jr.). A couple of examples: Price as Laura’s cad of a fiancé Shelby Carpenter declaring ,"I can afford a blemish on my character, but not on my clothes" and Webb as bitchy newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker describing his work, "I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." Laura could be called the All About Eve of film noir mysteries.
Every time I hear that a friend or acquaintance is going to have a baby, I make the same simple request: Do everything in their power to keep all knowledge of this movie away from them until they see it. I would have loved to have seen it without knowing that the shower scene was coming or the truth about Norman Bates. I hope others can have that experience.
One of the biggest jumps of any films from the last list. When revisiting The Last Picture Show for its 40th anniversary last year after having not seen the movie in years, it truly captivated me with its stark beauty. Despite its setting in 1951 in a small Texas town, it contains a universality that resonates today both in human and economic terms. Plot doesn't drive the story — character, not only of the people but of the town itself, does. While you watch the movie, you aren't concerned with what happens next or how the film ends because you realize that life will go on for most of these fictional folks you've come to know. It's telling a coming-of-age story — several in fact — and not all concern the teen characters in the tale. It's also about love and loss, not always in the present tense.
Not only does Broadcast News hold up to repeated viewings, it holds such a special place in my heart that I almost can’t view it rationally. I overidentify with Albert Brooks’ character of Aaron Altman and I’ve known a couple of women with similarities to Holly Hunter’s Jane Craig. More importantly, James L. Brooks wrote and directed a very funny and touching valentine to the decline in television news standards and set it against an unrequited love triangle (with William Hurt’s Tom Grunick filling the third point as well as representing TV news’s deterioration). The supporting cast also aids the entertaining proceedings with the likes of Robert Prosky, Joan Cusack, Lois Chiles, Peter Hackes, Christian Clemenson and Jack Nicholson as the anchor of the network’s evening news.
Even people who view Capra as a sentimental sap tend to like this great madcap romantic romp thanks to the great chemistry of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The first film to sweep the top five categories at the Oscar continues to hold up thanks in no small part to the chemistry between Gable and Colbert. Memorable scenes pile up one after another involving great character actors such as Roscoe Karns and Alan Hale Sr. Perhaps the most magical scene comes when Colbert’s Ellie asks Gable’s Peter if he's ever been in love while on opposite sides of the blanket and he momentarily gets serious, wistfully describing his ideal woman while Ellie slowly melts on the other side of the blanket. May the walls of Jericho always fall.
Here comes Hitch again with his most personal and, in many ways, disturbing film about love and obsession and the need to replace what one has lost. It also happens to be another of my great moviegoing experiences, having been able to see the 1996 restoration at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. Robert Burks’ cinematography never came across as vividly, especially the reds in the scenes set at Ernie’s. James Stewart delivered one of his best performances as a former cop, already damaged psychologically, pushed further to the edge when he falls for a woman named Madeline (Kim Novak) that he’s been hired to follow and later when he meets her doppelganger and attempts to make her over in Madeline’s image.
As the years roll by, many find themselves less enthused by Tarantino's film. I am not among their ranks, finding that I'm as enthralled, entertained and as giddy as I was the first time I saw it whenever I see any part of it again. Similarly, my faith in Quentin remains strong as well, especially in the wake of Inglourious Basterds, which I definitely could see on a list like this once it reaches its eligibility if it holds up as well as it has so far.
Billy Wilder made so many great comedies with varying levels of pathos that it's hard to pick just one. I considered Some Like It Hot and One, Two Three, but this one remains for me his best film among the ones played primarily for laughs. In the wake of Mad Men, the film proves particularly interesting to watch (even if Roger Sterling thinks female elevator operators defy reality).
Even before the recent passing of Andy Griffith, I had decided that I had to make a spot for A Face in the Crowd on this list. As far as I’m concerned, it undoubtedly stands as Kazan’s best film and as a bit of a prescient one. Without this film, I’m not sure Paddy Chayefsky would have been inspired nearly 20 years later to write Network. Budd Schulberg deserves the bulk of the credit, adapting A Face in the Crowd from a short story he wrote called “Arkansas Traveler.” The film broke ground in its depiction of the convergence and intermingling of the media, corporate and political worlds. In addition to Griffith’s stellar performance as Lonesome Rhodes, the cast includes exemplary work from Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau and Tony Franciosa. Mike Wallace, John Cameron Swayze and Walter Winchell even make cameos as themselves. The film’s reputation should only grow.
When one of the early moments of a movie shows Edward Norton squeezed against the man breasts of a sobbing Meat Loaf, it boggles my mind how many people who saw Fight Club when it came out didn’t immediately recognize the film as a satire. Every time I’ve watched this film, I’ve loved it more than I did originally. To further emphasize its strength, the first time I saw it, I already knew the twist because of an out-of-nowhere comment by David Thomson in a completely unrelated article in The New York Times. Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Jim Uhl’s screenplay and David Fincher’s direction spin a funhouse tour of the consumer culture, self-help groups and machismo. Norton turns in a great performance as always as do Brad Pitt as the devil on his shoulder and Helena Bonham-Carter as a twisted kindred spirit.
A running gag between Wagstaff and I in recent years is that I believe Die Hard is the greatest film ever made. OK, I don't really believe that, but this is one of the best, especially as far as action goes and Alan Rickman remains one of the all-time great movie villains. In addition to having a great bad guy, what sets Die Hard apart from other action films is that its hero, John McClane (Bruce Willis) isn't superhuman. By the end of the movie, he looks as if he's been through hell.
This film doesn't get mentioned as often as it should, but its portrait of the perils of vigilante justice comes through as strongly today as I imagine it did when it was originally released. Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan try to speak for calm and rationality against the horde ready to inflict mob violence.
The time is over for the debate as to whether the Oscar this classic silent won in the Academy's first year was the equivalent of "best picture." All that needs to be said is that is a great film, Academy seal of approval or not. It remains both heartbreaking and beautiful 85 years after its debut.
The Godfather Part II may have won best picture in 1974, but for my money it wasn't even the best Coppola film that year, let alone the best picture (not that it isn't good). This simple tale of an eavesdropping expert (Gene Hackman giving one of his best, most restrained performances) experiencing sudden moral qualms remains riveting and thoughtful to this day.
Supposedly, Hitchcock often named this gem as his personal favorite of his films and it certainly remains one of his best with its dry, mordant wit and a great lead in Joseph Cotten as Uncle Charlie, worshipped by Teresa Wright as his niece Charlie. Much comic relief gets provided by Henry Travers as young Charlie's father and Hume Cronyn as his murder mystery-loving friend.
I'm not talking to you Travis, but about you, and Scorsese and Paul Schrader's dark, modern spin on The Searchers only grows more stunning as the years roll on. Robert De Niro gives one of his greatest performances and, for my money, this may remain Jodie Foster's finest work.
Jean Renoir made a lot of great films and at least two unquestionable masterpieces, including this one, yet you seldom hear his name come up unless you are talking with real cinephiles. Shameful — because his films don't belong to elite tastes: They belong to everyone. This vivid portrait of WWI prisoners of war proves that since it was the very first time the Academy bothered to nominate a foreign language film for best picture. It should have won too.
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Labels: Bogdanovich, Capra, Chayefsky, Coppola, Fincher, Hitchcock, Kazan, Lists, Murnau, Preminger, Renoir, Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Tarantino, Truffaut, Wellman
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Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Harry Morgan (1915-2011)
Harry Bratsburg made his Broadway debut in the original cast of The Group Theatre production of Clifford Odets' boxing drama Golden Boy on Nov. 4, 1937. His co-stars included Lee J. Cobb, Howard da Silva, Frances Farmer, Jules Garfield (who would later act under the first name of John) and two men who would become better known later as directors: Elia Kazan and Martin Ritt. Of course, Bratsburg would change his name as well. After appearing in a total of eight original Broadway plays through 1941 (all but two Group Theatre productions) with up-and-comers such as Burl Ives, Sidney Lumet (when he started out as an actor), Karl Malden, Sylvia Sidney, Franchot Tone, Shelley Winters and Jane Wyatt, Bratsburg headed West for the start of a lengthy film and television career where he'd become much better known as Harry Morgan. Morgan died Wednesday at 96. Actually, when he made his film debut in 1942's To the Shores of Tripoli, he was credited as Henry Morgan as he was well into the 1950s when he started frequently being cited as Henry (Harry) Morgan because of the comedian Henry Morgan who was popular on radio prior to Harry's career, so his screen credit eventually became just Harry Morgan.
It didn't take long for him to land in a classic film once he left the stage for Hollywood. His sixth film was William A. Wellman's masterful 1943 warning against lynch mobs, The Ox-Bow Incident, where he played Henry Fonda's trail companion. His career kept him busy, not always in classics, but always working. Some of his other notable films:
Morgan's greatest fame came from his roles as a regular on several television series throughout his career, beginning with his role as Pete Porter on the comedy December Bride from 1954-1959, which earned him an Emmy nomination. The role was spun off into its own series Pete & Gladys, which lasted from 1960-1962. The first series that probably garnered Morgan the most recognition was when he took the role of Officer Bill
Gannon in Dragnet 1967, Jack Webb's resurrection of his early '50s police drama, that in my mind may well be the funniest show ever to appear on network television. Watching Sgt. Joe Friday square off (pun intended) with spaced-out hippies is hysterical. Morgan reprised his Gannon role in Dan Aykroyd's 1987 spoof movie and merely vocally on an episode of The Simpsons. Morgan also did many guest appearances on other series, TV movies and miniseries, most notably playing another Harry, President Truman in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House. However, the role that will hold his place in TV viewers' hearts is as Col. Sherman T. Potter, the second commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the last eight seasons of M*A*S*H. (We'll not talk about AfterMASH.) The role earned him eight consecutive Emmy nominations as outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series and he won once. He also received a nomination for directing an episode. For me though, I'll always love the performance he gave the year before on M*A*S*H in an Emmy-nominated guest appearance as Maj. Gen. Bartford Hamilton Steele in "The General Flipped at Dawn." Steele appears to be a by-the-book, high-ranking officer but everyone soon realizes, especially Alan Alda's Hawkeye who he tries to court-martial, that he's a raving loon. Morgan's hysterical performance was a thing of beauty. He could be just as funny as Potter but in a completely different way. Potter also frequently touched your heart as he drank a toast when the last of his old comrades died.We drink a toast to you, Harry Morgan. RIP.
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Labels: Alda, Awards, Aykroyd, H. Fonda, Jack Webb, Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Lumet, Malden, Obituary, Shelley Winters, Sylvia Sidney, Television, The Simpsons, Theater, Wellman
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
The river runs, the round world spins… The day ends. The end begins.
"This and The Red Shoes are the two most beautiful color films ever made." — Martin Scorsese
By Edward Copeland
Scorsese wasn't alone when he expressed that opinion in a short interview he recorded in 2004 for The Criterion Collection edition of Jean Renoir's The River, the first film the French master made in color, which was released 60 years ago today. A short essay called "The Making of The River" by the late Alexander Sesonske accompanies the Criterion DVD. Sesonske, author of Jean Renoir: The French Films 1924-1939 and, at the time of the DVD's release, professor emeritus of film studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, wrote that director Eric Rohmer called The River "the most beautiful color we have ever seen on screen." During the actual filming in India, Renoir and his d.p., nephew Claude Renoir, had to trust their eyes since they lacked Technicolor labs and could only see black-and-white rushes, sending footage to England for processing. According to Sesonske's piece, the answer arrived one day in a cable from London which read, "Technicolor chiefs consider photography of The River the best they have ever had." It's unusual for me to start a tribute to a film discussing what others thought about the cinematography, but while The River has a story to tell as well, its greatness lies first and foremost as a visual feast and the screenshots I have don't do its brilliant look justice. It also has an offscreen tale about how the film came to be that's nearly as interesting as the story on the screen.
Renoir's masterpiece The Rules of the Game opened in 1939 at the peak of his 15 years of superb filmmaking. Surprisingly, upon release in France Rules proved to be hated by both critics and audiences. (I also was surprised to hear Scorsese say on The River DVD that while he likes Rules OK, he can't relate to its characters and always would rather watch The River.) I think Francois Truffaut summed up how The Rules of the Game fits into film history in his book The Films in My Life.
"The Rules of the Game is the credo of film lovers, the film of films, the most despised on its release and the most valued afterward…Along with Citizen Kane, The Rules of the Game is certainly the film that sparked the careers of the greatest number of directors. We look at this movie with a strong sense of complicity; I mean that instead of seeing a finished product handed to us to satisfy our curiosity, we feel we are there as the film is made, we almost think that we can see Renoir organize the whole as we watch the film projected."
Given the reaction to Rules and the looming war clouds, Renoir headed to Hollywood. He did not his enjoy brief time there. Why is it that movie industries — usually Hollywood, but it can happen elsewhere such as when Japan turned Akira Kurosawa into a pariah in the late '60s — have this tendency to take film's greatest artists and squander them? It's not an across-the-board policy and sometimes the filmmaker in question gives the industry the finger and finances his movies any way he can such as Robert Altman did, but time and time again they shit on the artists and treasure the hacks. How some of the greats manage to navigate the system and do superb work without compromising themselves too much is a mystery. Anyway, Renoir was not a happy camper in Hollywood even though he managed to make six films between 1941 and 1947 one of which, The Southerner, earned him an Oscar nomination for director. According to Ian Christie, professor of film and media history at Birkbeck College, University of London, who also wrote an article in the Criterion booklet, Renoir surrendered in his fight against RKO over his final American film, 1947's The Woman on the Beach. Around this time, as Renoir himself tells in an introduction on the DVD taken from the Jean Renoir Presents series he made for television for showings of his films in the 1960s, he was reading book reviews in The New Yorker when he read one for the novel The River by Rumer Godden, which the critic described as "one of the best novels written in the English language" so far in the 20th century. Its portrait of an English family living in India fascinated Renoir and he started jotting down notes for a movie version.
Excited by the prospect of making a film again, he took the project to the various Hollywood studios who all told Renoir the same thing: No one wants to see a movie about India unless it has elephants, tigers or Bengal lancers and The River has none of those things. Meanwhile, a very successful florist in Los Angeles named Kenneth McEldowney (he provided the flowers for the first Oscar ceremony as well as the funeral for Jean Harlow, among others) went to a movie preview with his wife, an MGM publicist. She asked what he thought and he told her the movie was "junk." She dared him to do better so he sold his floral business and set out to make a movie of his own. According to Renoir's intro, McEldowney also had talked to financiers who agreed to back him if he ever chose to make a film. McEldowney also was fascinated by India, having been stationed
there in the Air Force and fallen in love with the country. In a case of synchronicity, McEldowney was seated on a plane next to the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's prime minister. McEldowney told her of his dream of making a movie in India, but she said Westerners can't seem to depict India accurately. The person who came closest, she said, was Rumer Godden in her novel The River and he should try to acquire the rights. McEldowney flew to London to try to meet Godden, only to learn that Renoir already had optioned the novel. McEldowney offered to produce the film with Renoir directing. Renoir had one demand before he would agree to work with McEldowney: He had to pay for Renoir to fly to India to see if it was feasible to film there because he wouldn't make the movie on studio sets. McEldowney agreed and Renoir fell in love with India and found it perfect for location shooting. The River would be made into a film, Renoir's first in color as well as the first color film shot in India. Getting all the equipment to India sometimes caused delays so during downtimes, Renoir shot silent, documentary-style footage of work along the Bengal River, a tributary of the Ganges. Renoir also insisted on using mostly nonprofessionals in the pivotal roles to give the film an air of authenticity, especially since the film revolves around blossoming adolescent girls (He also had no luck finding name stars to take on the adult roles who were willing to spend several months in India). "For without the stabilizing, conservative presence of a star, The River became an experimental film," Sesonske wrote.
The film begins by showing much of the labor that goes on in the Bengal River as a narrator (June Hillman), who we will later learn is the adult Harriet looking back on her and her family's life there when she was an adolescent, paints the picture of the scene with her words. Her voiceover describes the Bengal River as "one
of the holy rivers flowing out of the eternal snows of the Himalayas and into the Bay of Bengali." She says that the river has a life of its own, where people spend the entirety of their lives — being born, living, working and dying. We witness the many Indian workers bringing rolls of a yellow substance to shore and unloading and moving it, almost like an assembly line, toward a plant. The adult Harriet informs us the substance is jute and it's the reason her family lives in India as her father (Esmond Knight) manages the plant that processes the jute. At this point, we see her father moving among the workers (the family's surname is never given) as he stops by a vendor at the bazaar to purchase a kite on his way to his family's home. He ends up taking two. "Father always preferred to take the longer way," she tells us in her look back. As we watch Father pass workers and villagers, he spots a small Indian girl and stops and gives her one of the kites. "Traditions have not changed in thousands of years," the adult Harriet comments, almost with envy.The adult Harriet tells us about the large size of her family: There's her mother (Nora Swinburne), the teenage Harriet (Patricia Walters), who is a bit older than the rest of her siblings, Elizabeth (Penelope Wilkinson), the sole son Bogey (Richard Foster), Victoria (Cecilia Wood) and the young twins Muffy* (Jane Harris) and Mouse (Jennifer Harris). More growth is on the way as mother is pregnant with another child. When Father returns, he gives the other kite to Bogey, though the boy prefers lizards and turtles to toys. Helping keep Mother from being
overwhelmed are servants and especially their Indian nurse Nan (Suprova Mukerjee), who tries to keep order in the house. The adult Harriet describes Nan as their "bridge to life, dragging us from dreams to reality, from reality to dreams." Harriet also attributes to Nan the quality of "filling our heads with romance, preparing our path for love" and we see the beginnings of the writer as young Harriet sits in the grass with a notebook while her older self tells viewers that she was "an ugly duckling waiting to turn into a swan." Outside, keeping a close watch on the children, especially Bogey, is Ram Singh (Sajjan Singh), who the narrator calls "our friend and protector," though his official role is that of gateman. He is a Sikh from the Punjab, she tells us, and once was "a valiant warrior." With a home so crowded with children, our storyteller from the future recalls an estate that always was filled with chatter and laughter, music and songs. Two others who often hang around the family's house are Bogey's best friend, an Indian boy named Kanu (Nimai Barik), and Valerie (Adrienne Corri), who is slightly older than Harriet but comes nearly every day to play anyway because she's an only child and there's no one else close to her age in the area. She's also rich since her father owns the jute press that Harriet's father manages.This circle of family and friends becomes excited by the arrival of a stranger to the Bengal area. Mr. John (Arthur Shields), an Irish friend of Father's who lives down the road, is welcoming a visit from his American cousin who shares his first name, but is a war veteran (the war is never named) who lost his leg so he's referred to as Captain John (Thomas E. Breen) to avoid confusion. The excessively curious females in the family plus Nan and Valerie peer through the stone pillars of the estate's wall to try to catch a glimpse of the
newcomer. Unfortunately, no one gets a good look. Fortune smiles upon them and Harriet's mind works quickest when she sees that Mr. John's daughter Melanie (Radha) has returned from the convent school she was attending. Since she hasn't seen her friend Melanie in a long time, Harriet hops the wall and runs over to greet her — and hopefully meet Captain John while she is there. Mr. John thwarts those plans because he's missed his daughter too much and steals her away too fast for Harriet to get anywhere else. Renoir co-wrote the screenplay with Godden herself, who was quite open to changes he wanted to make to her autobiographical novel. For example, the character of Melanie was invented. As Christie writes, her character was added "to give an Indian other than a servant an authentic voice and presence in the film's central drama," since that was a criticism from many Indians they met including one adviser, a young journalist by the name of Satyajit Ray, who a few years after his work on The River made his directing debut in 1955 with Pather Panchali. It also had a daring aspect because of the suggestion of possible romance between Melanie and the American Captain John which came at a time of heightened anger against race mixing on both sides (Indian and Westerners).As The River develops, Melanie proves to be the most complex character in the film. When she first returns, she once again sees Anil (Trilak Jetley), the Indian boy she's known since she was a child and always assumed she would marry. However, Melanie suffers from a real identity crisis given her Irish father and her late Indian
mother as to where she belongs. It doesn't help that Mr. John sent her to be educated at a Western school and that like Valerie and Harriet, she carries an attraction for the American Captain John. When she first returned home from school, she stayed in her convent clothes, but eventually she reverted to saris. Her father also carries much guilt about his daughter as well, even wondering at one point if she should have been born in the first place. When, at another time, her father comes to tell Melanie that Anil has come to see her Melanie suddenly doesn't want to see him. "I'm trying to be a practical man," Mr. John tells his daughter. "But you aren't practical," she replies. Still appealing for her to go see Anil, her father says, "He can give you so much. I've put you nowhere," referring to the fact that her mixed race pushes her outside the caste system. "Suppose I like to be nowhere," Melanie responds.
All of the pieces have been put in place for the story's main thrust. The more mature Valerie takes an interest in Captain John, who is of course at least a decade older than the oldest of the girls. She tries to be purposely aloof and cruel at times, getting her best friend Harriet to admit that she's starting to "hate her." Harriet still looks like a child, no matter how much she has started to feel the stirrings of womanhood, and tries to entice the American with her poems and storytelling. These all present the opportunity for Renoir, his nephew Claude and the Indian they trained at Technicolor to be their camera operator, Ramananda
Sen Gupta, to film sequences remarkable not only for their color, but for their imagery as well. Many great examples come during the section covering Diwali, which also is known as the festival of lights. You see the lit-up faces of Nan and Harriet as they spy on Valerie and Captain John and see the girl smoke her first cigarette. There's also the subtler touch of the captain and Valerie sitting on the foot of some stairs and talk as Captain John keeps brushing away the moths that
hover around the girl's face an hair. Before that, there are lots of shots of the various celebrations of the holiday itself, including the lighting of sparklers by all the children including Harriet and Valerie, who at first choose to ignore Captain John's presence in the house. Melanie, still dressed in her convent outfit, stands on the balcony with the adults watching the festivities. The adult Harriet explains that Hindus believe God is everywhere, so God is a river or a
tree or even Captain John. Also, though they only believe in one God, they have temples devoted to different parts and in the Diwali section, we watch them honor Kali, the goddess of eternal destruction and creation because, as the adult Harriet tells us, "you can't have creation without destruction." That idea in many ways will prove not only to be the central motif of The River but essential to how Renoir formed and shaped the pieces of what he shot into this marvelous film, which is what he basically had to do. Sesonske wrote in his article on the making of the film, "Back in Hollywood in June 1950, Renoir discovered that the awkwardness of his actors made some footage unusable. Without the possibility of retakes, he began to construct his film in the editing room, first creating a version concentrating on the story of adolescent girls coming of age through their encounter with a romantic stranger." Unfortunately for Renoir, his youngest performers were his least experienced ones, most having none at all and while that story was the key, they alone couldn't carry the film. Again, retakes weren't an option. In his article, Sesonske continued, "Through subsequent versions, Renoir reduced the elements of story and added more and more of his documentary footage, compensating for the loss of dramatic material by adding a commentary to help explain the action and make Captain John acceptable." I guess those equipment delays turned out to be a lucky break after all.While the young actresses hardly can be called the best film debuts in the world, it's clear even as great as The River remains that the weak link that Renoir needed to overcome in editing was Breen as Captain John. His performance lacks so much in the way of expression and charisma that Renoir really had no choice but to make the film be about falling in love with India because at times it's hard to fathom that one of the girls would develop feelings for Captain John, let alone three. It's really a credit to Renoir's direction of the girls and
his staging of the action that it comes off as believable as it does. The only part that came off as genuinely charming or romantic to me is the scene I described earlier where he's gently swatting the moths away from Valerie. The River was the last film Breen ever made out of seven total with the only other notable title being 1949's Battleground directed by William Wellman and starring Van Johnson and earning James Whitmore an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Breen played Doc but it has been a long time since I've seen Battleground, so I don't recall him in it, but I think a seven film career may speak for itself since he lived until the year 2000 and has no other IMDb credits. For playing someone who is supposed to have lost his leg in a war, he reminds me somewhat of Kevin Costner at the opening of Dances With Wolves where we're supposed to believe he's a suicidal Cavalry officer. Perhaps real actors could make that believable. At one point, the adult Harriet says about Captain John, "I didn't realize…that he had no room in his thoughts for the romantic dreams of a silly little girl." With Breen playing Captain John, you can't be sure he has thoughts of any kind.While that would seem to be a major demerit on The River, its beauty so overcomes one bad performance no matter how central that performance might be. Shields alone almost compensates as Mr. John, not only for his scenes with Melanie but with Captain John as well whether it's when he's explaining to him that "I’m too lazy for the big philosophies so I invent little ones of my own.” Even more interesting are Mr. John's thoughts
after everyone has to deal with a surprise tragedy. (SPOILER ALERT) Little Bogey, always fascinated with scaly creatures, found himself particularly enthralled when he watched the performance of a snake charmer with a cobra. One day in the garden, he and his friend Kanu discover a cobra and Bogey tries to charm it with a makeshift flute. Harriet catches them and orders them to go report it immediately as they are supposed to do — she's preoccupied with an injury Captain John suffered and is on her way to take him flowers so she's too busy. Later, in a great montage, Renoir shows all the members of the family and the servants napping — Mother, Elizabeth, Victoria, the twins, Nan, ending with Harriet outside, who sits up with a start. She sees Kanu and he starts running. She chases him, but stops at the pipal tree where lying there, looking as if he's napping like everyone else, is Bogey, killed by the cobra. After the funeral, Mr. John tells Captain John, “We should celebrate that a child died a child. That one escaped. We lock them in our schools, we teach them our stupid taboos, we catch them in our wars, we massacre the innocents. The world is for children. The real world." (END SPOILER)
Perhaps the most memorable sequence in The River actually occurs on land. While Captain John recuperates from a spill he took, he gets the idea that the attraction he feels toward Melanie might be reciprocated. He tells her that he always had the impression that she disliked him, but she tells him the she only dislikes herself
and runs out of the home. The American chases after her through the greenery at the same time, from different directions, after having been moping on Harriet's porch Harriet and Valerie both took Nan's suggestion and came to visit Captain John with flowers. They see him making his way through the lusciously green scenery and start their own pursuits, at one point with the three girls literally forming a triangle on the screen as the adult Harriet says they were "suddenly running away from childhood and rushing toward love." The pursuit of would-be lovers reminds one of The Rules of the Game, only this isn't played as farce. Valerie finally catches up with Captain John and snags a kiss, prompting our narrator to note, "It was my first kiss, received by another." The film advances a few months later as Father hands out letters to Valerie, Harriet and Melanie from Captain John, who it seems left a few months ago. As Christie points out quite rightly, "Renoir's films tend to show that not all problems are soluble." Father and Nan get called in from the porch to learn that Mother has had the baby, yet another girl. "Ten minutes ago, she wasn't born," Harriet says. "Tomorrow, we'll be used to her."Ian Christie also writes that "we know that Rumer Godden liked Renoir's adaptation of The River as much as she disliked Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's version of her earlier novel, Black Narcissus." The greatest contribution made by The River though is how it rejuvenated Jean Renoir after the double whammy of having his native country reject his greatest work and then to get mistreated by Hollywood after that. It inspired him to return to Europe where he had another burst of creativity and produced some more wonderful films. Renoir also got to see The Rules of the Game restored to what he originally intended and recognized as the masterpiece it is. As for Kenneth McEldowney, he never made another film. He'd taken his wife's dare and succeeded, so he felt he had nothing left to prove and went into real estate.
*In English subtitles (and it is an English language film) and various references to cast lists and the characters' names, some spell the one twin as Muffy, others as Muffie.
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Labels: 50s, Altman, Archers, Costner, Fiction, Harlow, Kurosawa, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Renoir, Rohmer, Scorsese, Truffaut, Wellman
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Monday, August 08, 2011
Nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me
By Edward Copeland
Sometimes you have to wonder what made some of the pre-Code Hollywood classics such as Night Nurse, which turns 80 years old today, so shocking. Sure, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell spend an inordinate amount of time in various states of undress, but the subject matter doesn't approach the lurid level of a Baby Face (also with Stanwyck) or Red-Headed Woman with Jean Harlow. Maybe it's because even then it raised questions about the motives of some involved in the health care system or the practice of medicine. Whatever the reason, what's most important about Night Nurse is that just 20 years shy of being a century old, it remains a damn good movie.
Directed by William "Wild Bill" Wellman, Night Nurse begins in an almost comic tone before it takes a suspenseful turn in its second half. Wellman brings a lot of nice touches to the film visually. It opens from the point-of-view of an ambulance speeding through city streets on its way to a hospital's emergency's room.
Ambulance is spelled in reverse inside the driver's window. They were aiming to be reversed as many used to be so they would read correctly in other vehicles' rear-view mirrors, only they have it backward and it's written forward on the front of the ambulance. As the injured man is unloaded, the orderly guesses correctly that he's been in a car wreck. "Cement truck hit one of those Baby Austins," the ambulance driver tells him as they wheel him into the hospital. The orderly comments that you'd never catch him in one of those little cars, but the ambulance driver corrects him that the injured man was driving the cement truck. As they move through the hall, the pass a nervous father-to-be letting go of his wife's hand as she heads to the delivery room. A nurse places a screen around another man in the crowded ward and a woman asks her, "Why can't my son have a screen?" The nurse explains that it's against the rules. The woman points out that she just placed one around the other man and the nurse explains that's because that man is dying.
The camera finally moves past all the chaos as we see sharp dark shoes entering the office of Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis), the superintendent of nurses to apply for a nursing job. Her name is Lora Hart and she's played by the great Barbara Stanwyck. Miss Dillon is a bit of a harridan, barely taking her eyes off what she's doing to give Lora much attention. Her education doesn't impress her and she asks her why in the world she would want to be a nurse. Lora tries not to laugh as she notices that the woman has a habit of making a grotesque throat-clearing sound ever few seconds. "Nursing people has always seemed liked a second nature to me," Lora tells the superintendent of nurses, but she seems less than impressed and dismisses her out of hand. As Lora marches out of the woman's office, she makes certain to stop at the door and clear her throat with a smile before she leaves.
When she's exiting the hospital, a preoccupied man bumps into her, spilling the contents of Lora's purse and falling on his ass. Lora takes the stance that he was trying to be fresh with her, but he gets up and reassures her that isn't the case. He introduces himself as Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger) and asks why she was
there. She tells him she had hoped to get a job as a nurse, but that Miss Dillon didn't seem interested. Bell offers to take her back and asks her name. When she shares that her name is Lora Hart, Bell replies, "Hart — that's a good name for a nurse." Lora, escorted by Dr. Bell, returns to Miss Dillon's office. When she sees Lora with the doctor, the superintendent gets tongue-tied, but Bell doesn't give Dillon much of a chance to say anything anyway, just tells her to treat Miss Hart well and find a place for her and perhaps she can help improve things around then. He wishes Lora good luck and departs, leaving her to have a real interview with Miss Dillon. While Miss Dillon's attitude toward Lora improves slightly, mainly she wants to know why she didn't tell her before that she was acquainted with Dr. Bell. She explains that she will begin work as a probationary nurse, which means she will live in a dorm and have a curfew (in bed with lights out by 10). Because she'll just be on probation on first, she must pay strict attention to the rules or she could be let go. "Rules mean something — you'll be told about them later," Miss Dillon tells her.The superintendent sees another probationary nurse passing and calls out, "Maloney." Maloney (Joan Blondell) enters and Miss Wilson introduces her to Lora and says since Maloney (the film never gives her a first name,
just the initial B.) doesn't have a roommate, she should get Lora a uniform and show her the ropes. At first, Maloney isn't very friendly, seeing any new probationary nurse as competition, even handing her a uniform several sizes too large at first, but soon the girls hit it off and Maloney warns her about the different types of men to watch out for, such as interns. Just as she says that, an intern named Eagan (Edward Nugent) sticks his head in the dressing room and acts generally obnoxious. Maloney makes no attempt to hide her disdain. "Sometimes I don't like you, Maloney," Eagan tells her. "I wish I could find a way to make that permanent," she replies. What do you say newcomer?" he asks Lora. "Two-nothin' in favor of the lady," Lora concludes. Eagan knows when he's licked and leaves. "Take my advice and stay away from interns," Maloney reiterates. "They're like cancer. The disease you know, but there ain't no cure."It must be said that while Night Nurse would barely be classified as a B picture by most at the time it was made, the movie not only surpasses that level in terms of quality, but in Wellman's distinctive touches and Barney McGill's cinematography. For instance, in one particularly effective sequence, Maloney and Lora must assist a surgery as one of their final tasks before they can take the oath and be full-fledged nurses. Lora, as we will learn, can be a bit skittish (though the growth of her strength marks the journey of both her character and the film). Maloney warns her that if she faints or messes up, she's done so hang on. They stage the scene in a large operating theater and Wellman films most of the sequence in overhead shots. The surgery doesn't go well and there's blood as the surgeon's try to save the man. Lora almost buckles, but Maloney gives her her hand. As the man dies, they show a series of almost ritualistic shots as the body gets slowly covered. The OR clears out but Lora lingers behind, waiting until the room has emptied to collapse to the floor which Wellman again captures in an overhead shot.
What's interesting is that while William A. Wellman had a reputation prior to Night Nurse (he did direct Oscar's first best picture (Wings) after all and would go on to make many more notable films), the other members of the creative team really didn't have that much else of note on their filmographies. McGill's only other significant films as a d.p. were Svengali starring John Barrymore and Michael Curtiz's The Cabin in the Cotton that kick-started Bette Davis' career. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Dora Macy (a pen name used by writer Grace Perkins) and written by Oliver H.P. Garrett who was prolific but only made noise as a co-writer on Manhattan Melodrama (with Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Duel in the Sun (with David O. Selznick and uncredited work by Ben Hecht) and Dead Reckoning (with four other men). On Night Nurse, additional dialogue was credited to Charles Kenyon, who was just as prolific as Garrett. His most recognizable credits were helping to adapt Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 and Robert Sherwood's play The Petrified Forest in 1936. Somehow though these people pooled together to produce crackling dialogue, memorable images and efficient storytelling out of a movie that most viewed as filler. It's a minor miracle.
Perhaps what makes Night Nurse one of those daring pre-Code pictures is that, while it never shows Lora or Maloney leading a loose lifestyle, the young single gals do sneak out of the dorm and come back in after curfew drunk. Presumably Maloney has dragged Lora out on a manhunting expedition since what type of mate
to pursue tends to be all Maloney talks about. In addition to interns being a no-no, she warns against doctors as well, saying that you'd just end up running their office while they chase other women. As for patients, for some reason Maloney thinks that "appendicitis cases are best." However, for Maloney, only one male is ideal. "There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough!" she says. "Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life and you'll be getting somewhere." Those conversations are for another time. Right now, the pie-eyed pals are more concerned with getting undressed
in the dark and climbing into bed without tipping off Miss Dillon that they'd broken curfew. That plan goes bust thanks to Eagan, who left a surprise under Lora's blanket — a skeleton from the anatomy class that causes Lora to let out a shriek. Maloney tells her to hurry and get under the covers and act asleep, in case Dillon comes in. Lora doesn't want to be that close to the bones, but she does it. Sure enough, Miss Dillon comes in and flips the lights on. Maloney tries to fake that she just woke them up but the superintendent throws back the blanket and exclaims, "I thought so" as she sees that Maloney still has part of her clothing on. The girls fear that a firing is coming, but instead as punishment Dillon assigns them to the night shift working with the worst cases that come in off the streets: drunks, beatings, etc. As she leaves them to get some sleep, Eagan drops by to taunt them and they yell at him. Lora continues to lack the nerve to sleep where the skeleton was, so Maloney lets her crawl into bed with her for the night.The "punishment" that Miss Dillon gives Lara and Maloney actually only serves to forward the plot. They only work there long enough to meet a new character who will play an important role going forward (and it's neither the drunk nor the intern helping to treat those coming in for help). A sharp-dressed man comes
staggering in, having lost some blood. Lora gets to work patching him up which necessitates cutting his shirt. "Hey! That's silk!" the man (Ben Lyon) objects. "That's how I knew you were a bootlegger," Lora tells him, but then she realizes his injury is a bullet wound. "That looks like it's a bullet wound!" Lora says. "Well, it's a cinch it's not a vaccination mark," he replies. By law, nurses are required to report all bullet wounds to the police, but the man begs her not to do it. Lora finds herself torn because she likes this nameless bootlegger. Maloney comes up and spots the bullet wound and tells them they have to report it — they can't risk their jobs before they even officially start them. "Maybe 56 bucks a week isn't much but it's 56 bucks," Maloney says. Eventually, Maloney gives in and she and Lora fix the bootlegger up and keep his secret. After that is when the operating room test comes and Lora and Maloney pass. The pals join the other probies and take the Florence Nightingale Pledge and become full-fledged nurses."I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care."
It's at this point that Night Nurse makes its pivot. Aside from the great opening, when we saw anonymous characters doing their work, Lora and Maloney patching up the bootlegger and the OR scene, we've really witnessed little in the way of the practice of medicine. That pledge the newly minted nurses took (at least as far as Lora is concerned — aside from a couple of brief appearances by Maloney, Joan Blondell mostly vanishes from the film, unfortunately) means something to them, It wasn't just a line that Lora was trying to pull on Miss Dillon when she told her that "nursing has always seemed like a second nature to me." Skittishness over
skeletons and blood aside, Lora has only grown stronger and she will need that strength for what she confronts next. At the hospital, she had assisted Dr. Bell in the treatment of two sick little girls, Desney and Nanny Richey (Betty Jane Graham, Marcia Mae Jones). For some reason though, their widowed mother (Charlotte Merriam) removed Bell from the case and took them home for
treatment there under a Dr. Milton Ranger (Ralf Harolde) and an ever-rotating staff of nurses who keep quitting or getting fired. Maloney currently holds the daytime shift and when the latest night nurse exits, Lora gets the job and hits it off with the children who are ecstatic, to their detriment, one falling to the floor in weakness over the excitement. The housekeeper Mrs. Maxwell (Blanche Frederici) enters to put a stop to it. Lora had been warned to be wary of the household staff, particularly Nick the chauffeur (Clark Gable, who got the role which originally was intended for James Cagney. However, when The Public Enemy hit so big earlier in 1931, the studio and Cagney agreed he shouldn't play such a small role as a hood now). Gable gets the most unintentionally funny introductions in the movie (or just about any movie). After Lora had been specifically warned about "Nick the chauffeur," when she encounters him and asks who he is he actually says in complete monotone, "I'm Nick — the chauffeur." The way that moment plays could only have been sillier if it had been followed by ominous organ music.
Lora attempts to find Mrs. Richey somewhere within the mansion to tell her what dire straits her children are in and finds that she appears to be either drunk or passed out 24 hours a day, usually on the arm of her equally inebriated boyfriend Mack (Walter McGrail). Often, the place overflows with many partying friends in a scene of bacchanalia. When Mrs. Richey nods off one time, Mack makes moves on Lora should Lora parries his pawing fairly well, but the first time she meets Nick is when he shows up and lays Mack out with a punch. Lora and Nick don't maintain a friendly relationship for long as she tells him she's calling a doctor. He warns her not to unless Dr. Ranger has given her orders to that effect. She ignores him and proceeds to the phone. Nick shouts that he runs this place, but Lora gets someone on the line so Nick knocks her out and carries her unconscious into another room.
The next day, Lora goes to see this Dr. Ranger to report what's going on, but it soon becomes clear to her that he's not particularly interested in the welfare of the children and she puts together what must be going on: The children must have a trust fund that will pass on to their tipsy mother if they die and they'll have Nick marry her and he and the doctor will steal the fortune. She threatens to report Ranger to the authorities. He
seems unconcerned, telling her she has no proof and to make such allegations will just end her career. Lora storms out and goes to see Dr. Bell who, to her surprise, agrees with everything she says but doesn't want to lift a finger to help her either since, even though he's long had suspicions about Ranger, "he is a colleague." Not much has changed in 80 years: Doctors always protect one another no matter how bad they know the other doctor is. Bell tries to put his inability to report Ranger off on "ethics." This really sets Lora off. "Oh, ethic, ethics. That's all I've heard in this business. Isn't there any humanity left? Aren't there any ethics about letting little babies be murdered?" she yells at him. Bell advises that if she really wants to help the children, she should go back and apologize to Ranger so she can keep working. Lora agrees, but first she stops for a soda and happens to run into the bootlegger and tells him her story. When he hears what Nick did, he offers to talk to a couple of guys to take care of him. Lora learns his name is Mortie and he promises that he's out of the bootlegging business now, but he agrees to help her anyway he can. The bootlegger would be more ethical than the doctors.Now, I won't tell you how Night Nurse resolves itself, but it packs so much into its running time that it's damn remarkable it all got squeezed in. Logically, Night Nurse shouldn't be the gem that it is, but lightning struck. Not the type that wins awards but the more important type of electricity — bolts that go off in one time period and continue to reverberate decades later. I do have to share a couple of other favorite moments before I wrap it up though. Wellman put so much effort into this programmer with the different way he set up shots and another of my favorites is the perspective he uses when Mack comes on to Lora again and she lays him out with a punch of her own. It almost looks like 3-D. Then, for comedy, we get to see Mack crawl on the floor to take refuge behind the bar.
Soon after that, Lora tries to physically drag Mrs. Richey so she can see how her daughter is but the drunken women isn't cooperating. Lora even drags her by the throat at one point until Mrs. Richey finally collapses on the floor, passed out. Lora tosses a bucket of ice water on her trying to wake her up to no avail. As she walks away, Lora almost give us some pre-Code profanity as she mutters, "You mothers." The young Stanwyck amazes and this was only her third year making movies and she also scored with another brilliant turn in 1931 in Frank Capra's The Miracle Woman — and so many more and greater performances were still on the way.
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Labels: 30s, Bette, Blondell, Cagney, Capra, Curtiz, Gable, Harlow, Hecht, Movie Tributes, Oscars, Selznick, Shakespeare, Stanwyck, Wellman
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Ginger Rogers
By Josh R
The studio system of the 1930s and '40s worked to both the advantage and detriment of those who lived and worked under its iron rule. Actors were under contract; the studio brass determined what films they appeared in, which roles they played and how they were presented to the public. Many didn’t mind or notice the degree of micromanagement that came with being a contract player — others rebelled against it. By the mid-'30s, Bette Davis had become increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of the films to which she was being assigned and went to court in an effort to be released from her contract with Warner Bros. The bid failed, but earned her the respect of Jack Warner, who paid closer attention to her demands and gave her better material to work with as a result. A decade later, Olivia de Havilland — feeling like an ossified Dresden shepherdess after so many hours spent in frilly costumes being wooed by Errol Flynn — successfully managed to break her contract with Warners, in effect ushering in the era of free agency. Actors now had the ability to go their own way, choose their own projects and challenge their accepted personas in ways parochial studio heads never would have sanctioned.
It is fortunate — extremely fortunate — that the studio system was firmly in place during the heyday of Ginger Rogers, for there is the definitive example of a performer whose ambitions and tastes were almost completely at odds with her strengths and talents. Indeed, she was talented; so much so that it’s depressing to contemplate what kind of a career she might have had if left to her own devices — to say nothing of what would have been lost in the process. Certainly, she wouldn’t have stuck around for nine films with Fred Astaire, nor have appeared in as many comedies. If you’d asked Rogers what she considered her crowning achievement as an artist, she would have undoubtedly cited Kitty Foyle, a prosaic tearjerker that earned her an Academy Award and
only served to illustrate how inexplicably dull she could be when doing what she judged to be “serious acting.” After that win, she had more autonomy, turning down Ball of Fire because she felt it to be derivative; she had passed on His Girl Friday the year before. She did get to play Dolly Madison in a stately biopic of the former first lady, and always recalled Now, Voyager as “the one that got away.” The role she tried the hardest for during her tenure at RKO was Queen Elizabeth I in Mary of Scotland, going so far as to disguise herself for a screen test conducted under an assumed identity; the incredulity with which her efforts were met was enough to merit a Louella Parsons column, written in the spirit of a resounding guffaw. If the legacy she’d envisioned for herself was largely not to be — and there were probably days when she reckoned to herself that Greer Garson was the lucky one — the career RKO fashioned around her nimble footwork, trouper’s pluck and comic finesse is a cineaste’s delight and not to be sneered at by those who equate substance with seriousness. At her very best, Rogers was lighter than air; locked in Fred’s embrace, she didn’t simply move, she floated. When she struck out on her own, in a handful of roles that spoke to her spirit and sense of playfulness, the takeoff was just as smooth, and allowed her to travel at altitudes unmatched by all but a few gifted comediennes.
The driving force behind Virginia Katherine McMath — steering her firmly through the eddies and tributaries of the raucous vaudeville circuit to Broadway and beyond — was Mrs. Lela Rogers, whose plans for her tiny daughter were never less than awesome in scope. Mother was, by most accounts, a real piece of work; she remained permanently tethered to her offspring throughout her life and career, to the occasional chagrin of studio executives, directors and the five sons-in-law who came and went. She passed on to Ginger her ambition, reactionary conservatism and acute consciousness of class; if Ginger’s taste and judgment were occasionally suspect, her thinking usually was a reflection of Lela’s priorities. Fledgling success in vaudeville led to a stage career, culminating with the lead role in George & Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy. While Ethel Merman stopped the show belting out “Who Could Ask for Anything More?”, camera-ready Ginger was the one who caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. She worked hard in a variety of inconsequential parts — before teaming up with Astaire, she had already appeared in nearly 20 films. Two bouncy, lavish Busby Berkeley musicals showcased her to great effect — first, covered in shimmering gold pieces and singing “We’re in the Money” in Gold Diggers of 1933, then squinting through a monocle and trying not to let her English accent slip in 42nd Street. Those films boosted her stock while testifying to the fact that the camera served her well; but a key element still was missing in furthering her ascent to stardom.
Flying Down to Rio was the game-changer, bringing with it the missing piece of the puzzle and the ideal yin to her yang. She and Astaire played secondary roles but effectively stole the film from its advertised stars with their otherworldly synchronicity of motion and seamless give-and-take. The powers at RKO knew a good thing
when they saw one and fashioned an entire series around the couple; if the films were largely interchangeable, their teamwork never became stale, or lost a fraction of its appeal for audiences. The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Top Hat, Swing Time, Follow the Fleet, Shall We Dance?, Carefree and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle provided welcome refuge from the bleak realities of the Depression; filmgoers were mesmerized by the deft movements of two figures gliding in perfect unison through an art deco paradise where ugly truths — war, poverty, privation — were never acknowledged. Katharine Hepburn famously said of the pair that “he gave her class, she gave him sex,” a canny assessment of the extent to which they both complemented and were enhanced by one another. Astaire, the perfectionist with an overweening attention to detail, lent Rogers an elegance and sophistication she may have lacked on her own, but she did more than make him seem virile and attractive. Her wry, unpretentious humor grounded him, making his rarefied persona more relaxed and consequently more accessible than it could have been otherwise; both on and off the dance floor, they each seemed to be basking in the other’s glow. Another famous quote — attributed to so many different people that it’s impossible to trace its true origin — insisted that Rogers had the tougher task of the two, since “she did everything he did, backwards — and in high heels.” Even more taxing may have been the effort it took to keep her million dollar smile fixed firmly in place through film after grinding film. Fred was too exacting, too controlling, and after the first few outings, both the material and the routine had grown increasingly repetitive; less than midway into their partnership, Ginger had become restless, fixing her sights on better things. Even before the duo had been dissolved officially, Rogers had been testing the waters as a solo act. The results were variable, but produced at least one genuine classic; there was a charge and intelligence to Rogers’ work in Stage Door, Gregory La Cava’s 1937 comic drama set in a theatrical boarding house, that the actress would never again equal in her career. Working alongside Hepburn, the other major female star at
RKO in the 1930s, brought out the best in her. It was a notoriously unfriendly rivalry; indeed, the lore surrounding their polite feud is just as entertaining, if less imbued with camp value, than the Davis-Crawford skirmishes of the mid-1960s. Rogers was jealous of Hepburn for several reasons; the latter had class, pedigree and commanded a much higher measure of regard than her stablemate. For her part, Hepburn — even more arrogant and aloof in Ginger’s presence than was the norm — probably was given to wonder why she had all the respect while Ginger enjoyed all the adoration; Rogers was a top draw with the public at the same time than Hepburn was continually at risk of being branded box office poison. It was necessary — perhaps predestined — that the two should meet in the celluloid arena at least once in their storied careers, and that the ensuing battle should give off sparks. Kate, along with everyone else, believed herself to be the better actress of the two, and made it known in subtle ways that she didn’t really consider Ginger an equal — or a threat. Ginger was self-conscious, insulted and, ultimately, not one to back down from a fight. When the two traded barbs in their scenes together, audiences were treated to an authentic battling rhythm fueled by genuine animosity and a spirit of competition. Maybe it took a slap in the face and a challenge to bring out both the toughness and the vulnerability in Ginger Rogers — whether that’s true or not, Stage Door represented her best work as an actress, demonstrating how easily she could segue from humor to pathos and back again without missing a beat.As wisecracking chorine Jean Maitland, Rogers showed that she had a devastating way with a quip — her delivery of the film’s zingy one-liners was so quick, sharp and assured that it often sounded like inspired improvisation. Viewing it today, her performance seems even more skillful given how much emotional complexity she brings to the role without sacrificing any of its humor. Jean is a tough cookie to be sure, but not immune to experiencing disappointment or, worse still, losing hope. The aspiring actresses at The Footlights Club live a precarious, uncertain existence — Rogers, more than any of the other performers, allows us to understand that comic banter is a necessary distraction from the fact that, at any moment, the girls might have their dreams and livelihoods taken away from them and fall off the grid. It’s not that Rogers simply lets us see the fear and fragility behind the snazzy retorts of these tart-tongued dames; she shows just how inextricably linked those seemingly self-contradictory properties are. She’s a smart-aleck blonde with a chip on her shoulder — as with any stand-up comedian, it’s the chip that’s the source of her comedy, even if the reality behind it is a source of hurt.
The success with Stage Door propelled her to other comedy outings, which proved the public’s fondness for her was not predicated solely on her dancing skills. She was delightful with James Stewart in Vivacious Lady, and scored a huge hit with Bachelor Mother; but the siren call of drama (to be more accurate, melodrama) and its attendant prestige tugged at her with a greater insistence. She dyed her trademark platinum tresses a dull shade of brown and got her Oscar for Kitty Foyle — for serious hair and serious acting — though, in truth,
she was much better in Primrose Path, a shantytown drama released that same year. Her earnest, unimaginative turn as Kitty the lovelorn shop girl — a blue collar sweetheart who suffers and overcomes — didn’t betray so much as an ounce of the spark and savvy that informed her best performances, but was nonetheless a solid piece of work; The Academy’s confusion of professionalism with excellence doubtless propelled her to seek out similarly themed exercises and tear-stained nobility soon became her stock in trade. Happily, she made a brief return to high form in 1942 with two very different showcases, both of which proved how on point her comic instincts could be when fully engaged. In The Major and the Minor, Billy Wilder’s maiden outing as a director, she was a short-tempered salesgirl posing as a 12-year-old in order to buy a half-price train ticket out of New York. The setup was ridiculous, but the performance was full of deft touches, even if her baby talk routine wore thin in patches. She was even better in William Wellman’s Roxie Hart, adapted from the Maurine Dallas Watkins play that also served as the basis for the stage and film musical Chicago. The role of a fame-hungry, gun-toting jazz baby was as close as she ever got to playing a genuine bad girl, and she warmed to the cynicism of the piece in ways that probably surprised even her. Even if the film chickened out towards the end, it still allowed the actress some welcome flashes of coarseness and naughtiness — qualities she had so studiously avoided for the bulk of her career, but which actually served her wry, knowing sensibility much better than conventional melodrama. The bathtub gin buzz didn’t last very long, and the actress retreated back to respectability too quickly for anyone to start questioning her integrity. The films and performances that rounded out the remainder of the '40s were not especially interesting, regardless that they represented the types of projects the dancing lady of the '30s had fought so assiduously to be considered for. Some were ambitious failures — Weill’s Lady in the Dark was simply beyond her, while Heartbeat was an attempt at European sophistication with about as much lightness and airiness to it as a freeze-dried croissant. Tender Comrade, a war-time romance featuring only the vaguest of socialist undertones, was notable only for the extent to which the actress completely disowned it once Hollywood’s red paranoia kicked into high gear. I’ll Be Seeing You, Weekend at the Waldorf and Magnificent Doll all fell flat for various reasons, the common denominator being how smug and arch Rogers could seem when affecting the posture of a great lady. 1949 brought an unexpected reunion with Astaire, after Judy Garland pulled out of The Barkleys of Broadway. While the couple’s timing on the dance floor was as precise and polished as ever, it was clear that Ginger, the actress, had grown too grand for Fred; while still light on her feet, she’d lost her lightness of touch, and Astaire’s wariness was such that you could practically see him rolling his eyes when her back was turned.
The '50s were a mishmash of pretensions and delusions, pausing briefly for Monkey Business, hailed by many as her best late-career entry, although in truth somewhat disappointing given the caliber of the talent involved. Rogers gave it the old college try, indulging in infantile shenanigans with Howard Hawks and Cary Grant, but the film felt oddly stagnant — a second-tier entry from top-flight pros, and a warmed-over attempt to recapture screwball comedy glory at a time when the genre seemed to have lost confidence in itself. Forever Female somewhat clumsily attempted to expose the follies of an aging ingénue refusing to acknowledge the passage of time, while The First Traveling Saleslady was a grotesque illustration of the point — the high-pitched girlishness of the performance, shot through a soft-focus lens, lent the entire enterprise the feeling of a drag act. Rogers probably realized her mistake sometime after making it, and retreated to the more comfortable environs of television. She scored a personal success replacing Carol Channing in the Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! and toured extensively with a one-woman show that traded heavily in sequins and glamour, showing she’d lost none of the showgirl’s instinct and eagerness to please.
The more one learns about Ginger Rogers, the more difficult a figure she is to come to terms with. It goes beyond the fact that her political positions were as poorly thought out as many of her career choices; her blithe defense of her mother’s star turn as a cooperating witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee serves as one of the more uncomfortable passages to be read in any star autobiography (Ever an actress in search of a stage, Lela finally found one on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, moralizing and naming names.) The real problem lies in trying to reconcile the delightful presence of so many classic films — a quick-witted triple threat with an unpretentious, refreshingly candid approach to comedy — with the snobbish, rather bourgeois
attitudes of a woman who looked down on so many of the qualities for which she was cherished. How much greater her career could have been had she not turned up her nose at the things she excelled is a question with no easy answer – it’s possible the opportunities wouldn’t have been there for an actress in early middle age, even had her notion of quality been a little less narrow. Regardless of who Ginger Rogers was when the cameras stopped rolling — or what was going on in the back of her mind even as they were — in the handful of films that show her at her absolute best, she still is a wonder to behold. There are not many performers who bridged the gap between musical and non-musical careers as smoothly or as effortlessly as she did; even Garland always seemed a bit lost when she didn’t have her singing to lean on, or Gene Kelly his dancing. She had a beautiful understanding of the mechanics of her craft, as both an actress and a dancer, but wasn’t overly reliant on technical skill; there was an easy quality about her, as if she’d nailed the technical element down so completely that she didn’t even have to think about it when executing impossible feats of choreographic wizardry, or landing a wisecrack with a throwaway air than never smacked of premeditation. The greatness of her best performances lies in how comfortable she seemed with her own talent, and how naturally things came to her when she wasn’t bogged down by the notion of trying to seem impressive — when there were no Oscars to be won, and she felt free and loose, she came up with performances so good that they went right over the Academy’s head. That’s the Ginger Rogers we know and love; with or without Fred Astaire, she had all the right moves and an impeccable sense of how and when to use them.Tweet
Labels: Astaire, Bette, Cary, Crawford, de Havilland, Erroll Flynn, Garland, Garson, Ginger Rogers, Hawks, J. Stewart, K. Hepburn, Merman, Musicals, Oscars, Theater, Wellman, Wilder
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