Wednesday, May 29, 2013
"A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" "That's what I got."
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
After the opening credits end, Howard Hawks begins Rio Bravo with a sequence somewhat unusual for a Western, or, for that matter, any film made in 1959. On the other hand, beneath the surface of Rio Bravo
Burdette and his buddies don't take the sheriff seriously and seem intent to mow the lawman down when a still-shaky Dude arrives as backup, having composed himself enough to shoot the guns out of a couple of bad guys' hands. Seems Dude might have a drinking problem, but he's also Chance's deputy, and the lawmen take Joe into custody where the movie's waiting game begins. Can Chance, Duke (always battling the battle) and Chance's other deputy, Stumpy (Walter Brennan), aging and falling apart physically, keep Joe locked up until the U.S. marshal's arrival several days later to take Joe into custody for trial before Burdette's clan tries to free him In a few short minutes of screentime, the main story that drives most of Rio Bravo's 2 hours and 20 minutes has been set. Sideplots await, but all basically will converge in the main thread. Though nearly 2½ hours long, Hawks doesn't rush his film along, yet somehow he still keeps it moving and it holds its length incredibly well.
I'm not reporting earth-shattering news when I inform readers that Howard Hawks belongs to that select group of directors who excelled in every genre he attempted. One thing that sets Rio Bravo apart from Hawks' other works is that, while it resides in the Western genre, it snatches from many others — romantic comedies, war tales, detective stories, social dramas, even musicals. As film critic Richard Schickel says on a commentary track for Rio Bravo, Hawks liked saying
Hawks originally intended the action and imagery that runs beneath the opening credits to be its own sequence in the film, but later decided just to use it to accompany the list of cast and crew to a quieter piece of Dimitri Tiomkin's score before the set piece in the bar officially launches Rio Bravo. He films the footage of a wagon train caravan at such a distance that you can't readily identify its contents or characters, but a careful viewer connects it later as being the approach of the wagon train of Pat Wheeler
Labels: 50s, Angie Dickinson, Blog-a-thons, Dean Martin, Faulkner, Hawks, John Hughes, Mitchum, Movie Tributes, W. Brennan, Wayne
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Sunday, November 13, 2011
From the Vault: Cape Fear
BLOGGER'S NOTE: On this date 20 years ago, Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear opened. To mark the occasion, I'm posting the original review I wrote on the film when it was released, which was prior to me being able to see the original film. While Scorsese's film overall is superior to the 1962 original directed by J. Lee Thompson, it's distinctly weaker in one respect: De Niro's wildly over-the-top performance as Max Cady doesn't hold a candle to Robert Mitchum's portrayal of the psycho in the original.
Reading reviews for Cape Fear, it quickly becomes obvious that the film confuses the critical jury. Some label it a comedy, others a thriller that fails to measure up to Martin Scorsese's earlier work and still others spot signs of misogyny.
All of these assessments are true but, reservations aside, Scorsese's remake of the 1962 thriller Cape Fear still turns out to be one of the year's most compelling films. As Wagstaff so accurately said after seeing it, "It's funny, it's sick — it's the best David Lynch movie Lynch never made."
The analogy is an apt one with, horror interrupted by nonsequiturs and scenes shot for grotesque and eccentric effect. Scorsese's film has fun with the audience, but at its expense, rubbing its collective nose in both the sleaze it portrays and the techniques he employs. He's not playing the audience like a piano — he's treating them the way Pete Townshend used to treat his guitars.
The story concerns a newly released convict's revenge. In the 1962 version, the family was present as wholesome and exemplary. Updated for the 1990s, the family is dysfunctional and the convict isn't just a psychopath, he's a self-righteous force of nature.
Frequent Scorsese cohort Robert De Niro stars as Max Cady, the convicted rapist who couldn't read when he was sentenced but who taught himself in prison using law books. During this process, he discovers that his public defender suppressed evidence that might have acquitted him.
Nick Nolte portrays Sam Bowden, the philandering lawyer who misrepresented Cady, Jessica Lange plays Sam's embittered wife who won't let him forget his infidelities and newcomer Juliette Lewis proves quite impressive as the Bowdens' 15-year-old daughter.
Lewis' character holds the key to the film's psychological aspects as a teen who resents her parents and finds herself attracted by Cady's sexual power. It's disturbing, but the best scene involves a verbal violation of the girl by De Niro masquerading as a drama teacher. Set on a stage with a fairy tale backdrop, the scene plays on every conceivable tension in a way that left the audience uncharacteristically silent.
De Niro doesn't just portray Max Cady, he goes for broke. He doesn't just chew the scenery, he swallows it whole, aided and abetted by Scorsese who visually gives Cady a good dose of pyrotechnics on his way through the camera and into the viewer's face.
Scorsese best exemplifies his attitude toward the audience in a very funny early scene set in a movie theater. Cady props his feet up on the seat, smokes a large, smelly cigar and laughs a mechanical laugh at Problem Child. Only a director as brilliant as Scorsese could make good use of any part of Problem Child, seemingly questioning the audience's taste not only for making that film a hit but because he knows they'll enjoy his own exercise in sadomasochism as well.
What makes analyzing Cape Fear difficult is coming to a conclusion about whether or not the end justify his means. Portions of Cape Fear are as good as anything Scorsese has done but the film as a whole leaves something to be desired. All Scorsese's best work, even though the films might not be considered heartwarming, did convey the sense of a great artist's heart pumping beneath the surface.
Cape Fear contains all his usual themes — guilt, religious allegory — but it's colder. It's as if Scorsese not only singles out Lynch for discussion but all films, including his own, and he's not there to praise them. In that way, the film feels as if as Cady is taking revenge on the Bowdens, Scorsese is settling scores with the film industry. When the first notes of Elmer Bernstein's reworking of Bernard Herrmann's wonderfully overblown score from the original play, you get the sense that Scorsese has embarked on a satirical sucker punch disguised as a conventional thriller.
In Love and Death, Diane Keaton says sex without love is an empty and meaningless experience to which Woody Allen replies, "Yes, but as empty and meaningless experiences go, it's one of the best." The same can be said of Cape Fear. Scorsese without the passion of personal vision does lack depth, but even a somewhat questionable film by Scorsese tops most other movies around.
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Labels: 90s, De Niro, Diane Keaton, J. Lange, Lynch, Mitchum, Nolte, Remakes, Scorsese, Woody
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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 1
"My heroes are no more neurotic than the audience. Unless you can feel that a hero is just as fucked up as you are, that you would make the same mistakes that he would make, you can have no satisfaction when he does commit a heroic act. Because then you can say, ‘Hell, I could have done that too.’ And that’s the obligation of the filmmaker — of the theater-worker — to give a heightened sense of experience to the people who pay to come see his work."
By Kevin J. Olson
When I think of consistency in the cinema, Nicholas Ray is a name that always comes to mind. In fact, I struggle greatly finding a film of his that I really, truly dislike. Some of his later films were flawed, sure, but I've never had an unpleasant experience watching one of his movies. What I think of more than the man’s consistency, is how Ray always was a director ahead of his time creating the type of characters described in the quote above — characters that were flawed, misunderstood outcasts. It’s because of this that I’ve always been drawn to Ray’s films and continue to revisit them.
What I remember most from his films was his propensity for making films about solitary social misfits. Whether it was Joan Crawford’s saloon owner in the brilliant Johnny Guitar (the film that acted as the catalyst for Godard’s remark that, “The cinema is Nicholas Ray.”), James Dean’s angsty teenage outsider in Rebel Without a Cause, or Bogey’s screenwriter from In a Lonely Place, Ray loved the theme of solitude and was better at it than perhaps any of his contemporaries. Like the quote above, Ray wasn’t interested in the status quo; he was a filmmaker who enjoyed existing in the margins, who wanted to push the viewer out of their comfort zone as it pertained to how they understood the role of the hero in film. He did the same for the actors with whom he worked. In almost all of his masterpieces (which pretty much encapsulates every film he made between 1949– 1958), Ray was able to exorcise whatever bad habits hammy actors had a tendency for in that era (just look at the differences between Dean’s performance in East of Eden versus Rebel) and elicited genuinely strong and poignant performances out of the most unlikely of actors; he definitely pulled what are arguably the best performances out of such screen icons as Humphrey Bogart (In a Lonely Place) and Robert Mitchum (The Lusty Men). It’s not just his themes or the fact that he could get a great performance from unexpected sources, but it was in the way that from that golden age of his career, he so rarely erred.
An antagonist by nature, I can’t think of another filmmaker who has had that kind of run in Hollywood while simultaneously feeling so un-Hollywood; Ray was an iconoclast. He often used his films to explicate the kind of themes that not only interested him but were the kind of themes that allowed him to try and make sense of the chaos and isolation he felt in his own life as he often made films filled with themes and motifs that mirrored his bisexuality, marginalization, and increasing impatience from Hollywood producers. It is why, I think, he was able to elicit such great performances from his young actors — he connected with them. But Ray’s legacy rises above all of that to leave a lasting mark on cinema. I can think of only a handful of directors (Douglas Sirk, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder to name a few) that, for me, define the 1950s American cinema more than Nicholas Ray.
John Houseman financed Ray’s first picture (after giving Ray a copy of the source material to read; the two fell in love with it) for RKO in 1947, They Live by Night, which wouldn’t be released until 1949. The story is as simple and cut-and-dried as a noir can be, and I mean that as a compliment. Ray, for a first time filmmaker, has incredible control of the film from beginning to end (he had complete creative control of the film). They Live by Night is an excellent precursor to Bonnie and Clyde — the kind of doomed-love-affair/bank heist picture that Arthur Penn popularized. From the opening tracking shot (shot from a helicopter) to the immediacy of a POV from inside a getaway car, Ray’s aesthetic for his debut film fits the noir genre perfectly. However, as is the case with most of Ray’s films, They Live by Night is not your usual noir crime story.
At its heart is a story we would see fleshed out with Ray’s subsequent projects. The mismatched, doomed lovers who just don’t seem to fit in a way that society says two people in love should fit is nothing new to the genre; however, the film is filled with great, quiet moments (music and sound are used brilliantly throughout)
What makes the scene so great is that it isn’t just the big dreams (Bowie wanting to escape the life to have a legitimate marriage) that they have or the brooding nature of the romance (before it became cliché, mind you, as Ray had a great sense of what makes brooding young people tick), it’s in the small, little things, like going to a movie and holding hands in the theater, they know they can’t do because he’s being pursued by the law. It’s in moments like this that make They Live by Night one of my favorite of Ray's early films; he would only expand on these themes in subsequent films, making them more tragic.
After seeing and being impressed with They Live by Night, Humphrey Bogart called up Ray to see if he wanted to direct him in his next project (and first for the actor’s Santana production company), the 1949 courtroom noir, Knock on Any Door. The film would be remembered as yet another example of Ray tapping into the disenfranchised youth with lines such as, “live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse,” which, of course, would be a similar credo for a generation that identified with his most popular “teenage outsider” film, Rebel Without a Cause. This isn’t one of Ray’s best efforts (it’s too heavy-handed), but it’s an interesting addition and memorable because of how it acts as a sort of precursor to Rebel as well as further establishing the themes and character types that drew Ray's empathy.
After a so-so noir starring Maureen O’Hara (A Woman’s Secret) and a failed attempt to save a sinking-ship of a film (Roseanna McCoy), Ray returned with what is arguably his best film (it’s at least an easy candidate for top three). In a Lonely Place is the story of out-of-control, cynical screenwriter Dixon Steele (Bogart, who draws from his own feelings of loneliness to create his greatest performance) and Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame, Ray’s ex-wife, although people on the set were unaware of their separation) and their doomed love affair that exists in the cruel world of showbiz that would be more popularized in two films released the same year, Sunset Blvd. and All About Eve. Even though those other two films are rightfully hailed and firmly entrenched as two of the best films ever about the entertainment industry, In a Lonely Place more than holds its own.
The film has all the trappings of noir, but like They Live by Night, In a Lonely Place is more interested in the love story which is deeply existential. Once again, the audience gets to see one of Ray’s favorite themes
In a Lonely Place is filled with beautiful images (I love that moment on the beach between Dixon and Laurel, or the scene where Dixon is describing the murder from his script to his two leads…and the way Bogart is lit as
After making a successful war picture (The Flying Leathernecks); a so-so melodrama starring Joan Fontaine (Born to be Bad); and attempting to save the botched-adventure film Macao, originally helmed by Josef von Sternberg (Howard Hughes fired von Sternberg and hired Ray to finish the movie), Ray went back to his roots with one of my favorite film noirs, On Dangerous Ground. One of Ray’s final films for RKO, this is a great cop flick that shows the energy Ray instilled in his films. David Denby, in his retrospective piece for The New Yorker, offers up a great quote from Jacques Rivette (Ray was a favorite of the New-Wavers) on Ray’s style, and then goes on to say this about Ray’s aesthetic and this film:
As early as 1953, Jacques Rivette identified in Ray a “taste for paroxysm, which imparts something of the feverish and impermanent to the most tranquil of moments.” On Dangerous Ground (1951), a high point of neurosis in film noir, stars Robert Ryan as a cop so tautened by his calling that the simplest act turns savage; in his apartment, he washes and dries his hands as if wringing the neck of an invisible suspect.
That is a great quote from Rivette and a great moment described by Denby, and it’s probably the one I would select as my favorite of the film. I think Rivette’s quote works best for Ray’s later films (specifically Johnny Guitar), but it works, too, on this great little noir, especially in the way Ray innovatively used hand-held camera to capture the immediacy of being a cop (he would again use hand-held in The Lusty Men), specifically in the way he films yet another violent protagonist. I can see why Ray had such an influence on Scorsese. Film noir was always an arena for filmmakers to be more experimental — it’s what made the genre so great — and Ray uses some great expressionistic camera movements in the film as well having his characters go to literal dark places rather than existential ones.
If Curtis Hanson used In a Lonely Place to educate his actors on the correct tone for when they filmed L.A. Confidential, then On Dangerous Ground is definitely the film he showed Russell Crowe for him to get into his character, Bud, for that film. Robert Ryan’s portrayal of Jim Wilson is scary in how quickly he can become unhinged; he has no problems roughing people up in order to get what he wants; however, there’s also
The immediacy and the down-and-dirty tone of On Dangerous Ground is definitely less subtle than In a Lonely Place, but that’s part of its charms; it’s a great noir film and a natural fit for Ray, who again furthers the themes he was drawn to by making a film where his misfit characters (violent and disturbed and outcasts) seem right at home in the world of film noir. It’s one of my favorites.
I’ve heard (I can’t remember where, but I’m definitely not taking credit for this) somewhere that Nicholas Ray may have been the first existential action filmmaker. I’m assuming wherever I read and whoever said it was referring to The Lusty Men. A Western/rodeo picture on its exterior, it’s in the quiet, contemplative moments where the film has a headlong energy that we just know — knowing what we know about Ray’s tragic heroes — is going to end tragically. That much talked about, great opening shot of Mitchum’s bull-rider solitarily limping out of the emptied rodeo arena is the quintessential Ray shot: encapsulating in one, brief moment everything that characterizes Ray’s heroes and everything that represents the characters found in The Lusty Men who exist in a fast-paced world that chews them up and spits them out (I love the final shot: despite a man’s death, the show must go on) with little regard for their well-being.
Anyone who has seen Ray’s films knows him as the iconoclast that he is; however, when one thinks of such a term to ascribe the auteur, I’m sure their mind does not go towards this small western. Ray, though, loved this film and it shows. It’s one of his most keenly observant psychological profiles, and despite the film’s horrendous title, it’s one of those movies that sneaks up on you with its power.
Like most of Ray’s films, The Lusty Men is a narrative with multiple layers. On the surface, the film looks like a movie about the rodeo, when, in reality, The Lusty Men is a film about what it means to go home — both professionally and personally — and make a home, and the complexities that surround such a journey. Ray loved the idea of love triangles, and the pursuit of happiness despite the situations his characters find themselves in — situations that seem to offer no such reprieve from their depressed and banal reality. This motif would pop up again, most famously, in Rebel Without a Cause with the great scene where the trio of characters from that film obtains a glimmer of happiness while playing “house” in an abandon mansion.
The film contains the typical Ray love triangle, but it’s also typical of the way Ray infused real life problems into melodrama (much like another of my favorites from the ‘50s — and this would be even more apparent in Bigger Than Life — Douglas Sirk), and he has his characters act as unpredictably and honestly as they would in
Ray would follow The Lusty Men with the three films that cinephiles everywhere point to as the defining run of his career; three films that would cement Ray's legacy as one of the great auteurs of American cinema.
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Labels: Arthur Penn, Bogart, Crawford, Godard, Hitchcock, Howard Hughes, James Dean, Lupino, Mitchum, N. Ray, Robert Ryan, Russell Crowe, Scorsese, von Sternberg, Wilder
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Friday, June 24, 2011
Peter Falk (1927-2011)
One more thing…before I get started talking about the great Peter Falk, who died Thursday at 83 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, as memorable as his creation of Lt. Columbo was in the pantheon of iconic television characters, he needs to be remembered for far more than just that role, even if it may have been his most famous — maybe even his best — and earned him four Emmys and 10 Emmy nominations. He also did considerable screen work and some Broadway. He was capable of the most searing drama of John Cassavetes and the broadest of comedy. He was a talent.
As with many actors of his generation, he began his career on live television in the 1950s, appearing in many of the shows that featured theatrical productions staged for viewers at home as well as the occasional guest appearance in an episode of a recurring series. According to IMDb, his first television appearance came in 1957 on Robert Montgomery Presents in a presentation of Return Visit. This came shortly after his Broadway debut in 1956 in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan where Falk played an English guard. Also in the cast as a member of the ensemble was none other than Robert Ludlum, before he abandoned acting to become a novelist. Also in 1956 on Broadway, Falk appeared as a servant in the comedy Diary of a Scoundrel whose cast included Roddy McDowall, Howard da Silva, Margaret Hamilton, Jerry Stiller and future killer on multiple episodes of Columbo, Robert Culp. Falk didn't return to Broadway for about seven years, concentrating on television and movies.
In 1960, he made his film debut in Pretty Boy Floyd. The same year, he also appeared in Murder, Inc. as a violent hit man for the notorious crime syndicate of Jewish gangsters run by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter in the 1930s. It earned Falk his first Oscar nomination as best supporting actor. He still stuck mainly to TV after that, though an appearance on a 1961 episode of The Law and Mr. Jones won him an Emmy. He hit most of the big series of the time at some point: The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, Have Gun — Will Travel.
In 1961, he made another big feature, this time with some big names. He co-starred with Bette Davis and Glenn Ford in Frank Capra's remake of his own Lady for a Day, retitled A Pocketful of Miracles. Falk played gangster Ford's none-too-swift sidekick and it earned him his second consecutive Oscar nomination for supporting actor. Movie roles started to come easier after that, though he still did a lot of television, including an appearance on a 1962 episode of The Dick Powell Theatre called "The Price of Tomatoes" that garnered Falk another Emmy nomination.
As the film roles started coming more frequently, he took advantage. In 1963, he was one of the two cab drivers caught up in the chase for the money buried under that big W in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The next year, he appeared in The Rat Pack vehicle Robin and the 7 Hoods when it was released. He did take time off to return to Broadway in 1964 to star as Stalin in The Passion of Josef D. by Paddy Chayefsky. In 1965, he joined Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis for The Great Race. That same year, he tried his hand as the lead of his first television series, The Trials of O'Brien, but it only lasted one season.
Heading back to the big screen, he made the comedy Penelope with Natalie Wood in 1966; Clive Donner's adaptation of the play Luv in 1967, again with Lemmon and with Elaine May; and Anzio in 1968 featuring a cast that included Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan. Falk also made a TV movie in 1968 called Prescription for Murder that introduced the world to a homicide detective named Lt. Columbo, even though he would not reappear again until 1971.
In 1970, Falk made his first collaboration with John Cassavetes in Husbands. Cassavetes' films remain an acquired taste for just about everyone, film lovers included, but he brought out sides and shadings in Falk that you never saw anywhere else. He directed Falk again opposite his wife Gena Rowlands in 1975's A Woman Under the Influence and his portrait of a blue collar Italian husband trying to deal with a mentally unbalanced wife really is a thing of wonder. Falk and Cassavetes worked again on screen together in 1976's Mikey and Nicky, a very unusual portrait of a friendship, only it was Elaine May in the director's chair in that case. Cassavetes even appeared as one of the killers on an installment of Columbo. He made a cameo as himself in Cassavetes' underrated Opening Night. He worked for Cassavetes on his final film, Big Trouble in 1986, which reunited Falk with Alan Arkin and Andrew Bergman, Falk's co-star and writer of The In-Laws, but I haven't seen that one since word was not good.
In March 1971, Lt. Columbo appeared again in a television movie called Ransom for a Dead Man, but that fall, Columbo became a regular series — or as regular a series can be when it's on irregularly. It was part of NBC's rotating lineup of Mystery of the Week and would share its time slot with McMillan & Wife and McCloud. Columbo stayed on the air until 1978. Then, in 1989, ABC brought the rumpled detective with the broken-down car back. They tried an alternating format, but their other series sucked so they just continued doing occasional Columbo movies until 2003, only Falk also was the executive producer now. He also wrote an episode. He directed two outings back in 1972.
In early 1971, Falk made his last appearance on Broadway in the original production of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue. He and Simon must have been good partners, because Falk later appeared in two original spoofs that Simon wrote for the big screen. The first was 1976's delightful Murder By Death with
Falk had another release in 1978, now largely forgotten, that I haven't seen in years but that I do remember enjoying when I was a lot younger and that was The Brink's Job. Directed by William Friedkin, it told the true story of a hard-luck would-be criminal who manages to rip off an armored car for a sizable amount of cash. He's surprised to find that the robbery doesn't even make the news and after some snooping, he discovers it's because Brink's has such poor security they didn't want it reported. Of course, it goes to his head so he and his gang plot an even bigger score. In 1979, Falk made what's probably one of the purest comic pleasures put on film, a movie so funny that even having Arthur Hiller as director didn't screw it up. Of course, I'm referring to The In-Laws where, frankly, I think Falk's off-the-wall portrayal of Vincent Ricardo and Alan Arkin's work as dentist Sheldon Kornpett, his flabbergasted, unwilling partner in hijinks, both deserved Oscar consideration in this crazy farce written by Andrew Bergman. If you've never seen it, you owe it to yourself to do so, but don't get the recent remake by mistake. Serpentine!
The remainder of Falk's film credits contained two certified gems and a lot of misses such as 1981's All the Marbles, where he managed female wrestlers; a cameo in the underwhelming The Great Muppet Caper the same year; 1987's Happy New Year, where the makeup was the star; Cyndi Lauper's try at screen fame in 1988's Vibes; a mobster in the dumb 1989 comedy Cookie; and 2001's Corky Romano. However, he did appear in some films that earned some good notices that I didn't see such as Joe Mantegna's directing debut of a David Mamet script called Lakeboat in 2000. He also made a very funny appearance in the first season of The Larry Sanders Show. The two film classics he made post-1979 were Wim Wenders' exquisite Wings of Desire, where he played himself but he had the ability to talk to the angels (click here to see the scene), and The Princess Bride, where he played the kindly grandfather reading the story to his sick grandson (Fred Savage) and us.
He wasn't done with the stage yet either. In 1998, he earned raves appearing off-Broadway in Arthur Miller's Mr. Peters' Connections.
What a range and I can't even add up the hours of enjoyment this man has given me through his work all my life. Thankfully, the work still remains to enjoy.
Rest in peace, Mr. Falk.
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Labels: Arthur Miller, Awards, Bette, Capote, Capra, Cassavetes, Chayefsky, Glenn Ford, Guinness, Hitchcock, Larry Sanders, Lemmon, Maggie Smith, Mitchum, Neil Simon, Niven, Obituary, Robert Ryan, Sellers, Tony Curtis
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Friday, May 27, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Vincent Price
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Over at my usual stomping grounds at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, I’ve been known to jokingly refer to the time I spent living in Morgantown, W.Va. (1992-2000) as “my years in exile” — and one of my fondest memories during that period occurred when my co-workers at the company that saw fit to employ me decided to have an impromptu lunch at an Italian restaurant located in nearby Westover, a small burg just across the Monongahela River from Mo-town, better known as home to West Virginia University (Or as I have been known to call it — using a gag I swiped from Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman — “a stadium with a college attached”). The eatery was known as Rose’s, and I’d heartily recommend that you stop by for a nosh sometime when you’re in the area were it not for the awful fact that it closed its doors about five years back.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure — when it comes to Italian cuisine, it’s not my first choice on the menu…I’m more of a cheeseburger-and-onion rings kind of guy. But when I followed my co-workers into the restaurant I had a feeling the food was going to be first-rate (and it was…so much so that I went back on repeat occasions with a friend of mine from high school) because on one of the walls near the entrance was an article from the local newspaper that talked up the place…and mentioned that Rose’s (and her cooking in particular) was a favorite of actor Vincent Price, who made it a point to stop by whenever he was in the area. Price, known for his distinguished accomplishments on stage, screen, television, radio — just about any facet of show business you can name, as a matter of fact — also enjoyed a reputation as a gourmet cook…so if Rose’s fare had his seal of approval I certainly wasn’t going to argue. I know, it’s sort of odd that I would remember something like this but seeing as how the man christened Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was born 100 years ago on this date I guess I’m resorting to this “degree of separation” to pay tribute to one of my favorite actors on his “Vincentennial.”
Vincent Price was born a century ago in St. Louis, Mo., this date and to his dying day remained one of that city’s favorite sons…with good reason, of course. Truth be told, if Price had never set foot upon the stage his future would have been pretty secure; his father, Vincent, Sr., was president of the National Candy Company and his grandfather (also named Vincent) was the inventor of “Dr. Price’s Baking Powder” — the first cream of tartar baking powder. As a son of privilege, Vincent attended both St. Louis Country Day School and Yale University, where he developed his lifelong interest in art history and the fine arts. In the 1930s, he also began to acquire an interest in the theater and began appearing in stage productions in 1935. His big stage success came a year later, playing opposite Helen Hayes in Victoria Regina — a production that the superstitious actor believed brought him such good fortune that he named his first daughter “Victoria” (aided by the fact that her mother was raised in Victoria, British Columbia). Though he would eventually devote most of his time in show business to making movies, Price never completely abandoned his stage roots — among his triumphs in later years was a successful one-man production entitled Diversions and Delights in which he played the part of legendary author/playwright Oscar Wilde.
On the silver screen, Vincent made his debut in the 1938 film Service de Luxe — a movie he wasn’t particularly fond of, but it paved the way to future appearances in more prestigious films such as Michael
Playing the part of the Duke of Clarence in 1939’s Tower of London — a horror movie that co-starred Boris Karloff, a thesp with whom Price would work with time and time again — offered Vincent an indication of the direction his career would later take as a horror icon…and a year later, appeared as the titular undetectable character of The Invisible Man Returns. (Price would also play the unseen individual in a joke cameo near the end of the 1948 comedy classic Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein.) His active participation in the horror genre reached full swing in 1953 with another unforgettable turn in the 3-D horror romp House of Wax, and Price followed that with such vehicles as The Mad Magician (1954), The Fly (1958) (and the 1959 sequel, Return of the Fly), The Bat (1959) and two movies he made for schlockmeister William Castle —
House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler (both 1959). The actor would occasionally get high profile gigs in movies such as The Ten Commandments and While the City Sleeps (both 1956), but by the 1960s, horror had a new name in Vincent Price, who would make many of his most memorable films during that decade…the ones that endlessly captivated me as a child watching “Chiller Theater” on Saturday nights while my parents were out for the evening.
Price starred in several films directed by “King of the B’s” Roger Corman that were heavily influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, beginning in 1960 with House of Usher. Classic examples of the horror movie genre followed in the same vein, including Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven
There are those who believe that Price agreed to undertake a starring role in Theater of Blood (1973) — a film in which a Shakespearean actor takes revenge on the critics who denied him recognition — as an answer to all those naysayers who time and time again dismissed him as a big slice of ham but Price enjoyed himself in this movie because it allowed him to indulge in another of his passions, performing the words of the Immortal Bard himself. (Needless to say, Blood was one of Price’s particular
I mentioned Price’s expertise in gourmet cooking in the first two paragraphs of this essay; it was such a lifelong passion of the actor’s that he authored several cookbooks (including one with second wife Mary Grant, A Treasury of Great Recipes) and hosted a TV show entitled Cooking Price-Wise. But Price also excelled as an authority on art, having graduated from Yale with a degree in such and founding the Vincent and Mary Price Gallery at East Los Angeles College in the 1960s…kick-started by a donation of some 90 pieces from his personal collection to the school in 1951. Today, the gallery contains some 2,000 works, estimated at more than $5 million, and remains a testament to Price’s legacy. Price’s celebrity status was put to maximum use in merchandising not only art (Sears and Roebuck successfully touted art works under the banner of “The Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art”) but books (a series of mystery and detective novels offered in a mail-order book club), games (he was the spokesman for several board games put out by Milton Bradley), recordings (his one-of-a-kind sinister voice can be heard on albums by Alice Cooper…and most famously, Michael Jackson), theme parks and commercial products like Polaroid and Tilex.
In the 1980s, Vincent Price continued to maintain a presence on television and in film; beginning in 1981 he appeared weekly on public television stations as the host of Mystery! (a series he relinquished in 1989 due to failing health) and continued to appear in the occasional movie such as The Great Mouse Detective (1986; he supplied the voice of “Professor Ratigan”) and The Whales of August (1987), which gave him a wonderful showcase alongside such old pros as Bette Davis, Lillian Gish and Ann Sothern. And though it wasn’t his last project in the business it can be said that his final moment of celluloid glory was an appearance (unfortunately curtailed due to his precarious health) as the inventor of Edward Scissorhands (1990). Price had worked with director Tim Burton previously, narrating the memorable short Vincent (1982)…about a little boy who, appropriately, wants to be just like Vincent Price. Years devoted to “coffin nails” finally caught up with Price, however, and he succumbed to lung cancer in October 1993.
At We Are Movie Geeks, the proprietors of that website came up with a Top Ten list of the film performances they felt represent the crème de la crème of Price’s career…and while I certainly agree with the majority of their choices (I especially enjoyed that they included his — if you’ll pardon the pun — priceless comedic turn in 1950’s Champagne for Caesar…though I would have moved Laura up the list some) they left off one of my personal favorites (they explain, however, that all of the movies on the list will be shown at the ten-day Vincentennial celebration currently underway from May 19-28): 1951’s His Kind of Woman. Robert Mitchum is the star of this spoof of he-man heroic adventures (doing his patented sleepy-eyed lug schtick) and Jane Russell plays his love interest…but Price walks off with the film as (what else?) a hammy actor who comes to Big Bad Bob’s rescue when Mitchum is kidnapped by thugs working for deposed mobster Raymond Burr, who plans to croak Bob and use his identity to get back into the country. Price’s antics are falling-down funny in this one: I love his facial reactions as he watches an assembled crowd watch one of his movies (in which he engages in some swashbuckling derring-do) and such memorable lines of dialogue (spoken to rally volunteers who will help Price’s character save Mitchum) as “Survivors will all be given parts in my next picture.”
Victoria Price once commented that her father had so much fun making both Woman and Caesar, and the proof is in the pudding — but then I can’t imagine there ever being a time in the actor’s life when he didn’t have fun and make the most of his brief stay here on Earth. Chef, art collector, gardener, opera devotee, author and an exemplary performer in nearly all worlds of show business — Vincent Price was one of the most remarkable men of the 20th century. And as far as this fan goes, he is so terribly missed to this day.
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Labels: Abbott and Costello, Bette, Books, Carson, Corman, Curtiz, de Havilland, Erroll Flynn, G. Tierney, Karloff, Mitchum, Music, Preminger, Shakespeare, Television, Theater, Tim Burton, Vincent Price
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