Canadian Ken On...

TUESDAY FOREVER

2012-01-01T03:59:00.009-05:00

I was thinking about Joan Collins today. Specifically about her first Hollywood sojourn back in the 50’s. She’d have to wait 25 years or so for mega-fame (via TV’s “Dynasty”). But like so many old-hatters, I’ve always considered TV fame a poor cousin to movie stardom. I remember reading a Robert Stack interview years ago where he mentioned losing the 1956 supporting actor Oscar. His questioner chimed in with some comforting words like “well, you did get an Emmy later for “The Untouchables”.

To which Stack responded (with his patented granite delivery , I’d imagine) that winning an Emmy was like getting an award as the world’s tallest midget. Amen. He clearly believed that no TV trophy

could ever rise above the level of a consolation prize. Anyway, as usual, I digress. Top tier movie stardom eluded Collins in the 50’s. But that’s when she branded herself on the brains of a whole generation of young boys who remember her primarily (and fondly) as the sexy princess whose pyramid scheme came to a deliriously catastrophic end in ‘Land of the Pharaohs”. That same year (1955) she played another siren – American this time - the poignantly notorious Evelyn Nesbit in “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing”. Quite nicely, too. And her turn as a suburban sexpot vamping Paul Newman was one of the few things critics approved of in Leo McCarey’s mainly dead-in-the-water comedy “Rally Round the Flag, Boys!”(1958). That’s the point my Joan Collins ruminations had reached before they were suddenly stopped cold when I remembered that “Rally Round the Flag ,Boys!” was the film that introduced me to Tuesday Weld. Now there’s an actress whose gifts qualified her – even more than Collins – for a more widely celebrated career than she got. Weld is one of Hollywood’s originals – too special, I guess, to have sustained a big mainstream career in old Hollywood. But that specialness is what makes her a treasure.

In “Rally Round the Flag,Boys!’ she’s cast in a small role as somebody’s boy-crazy teenage daughter. The clueless screenwriters sprinkle her dialogue with daddy-o’s , etc. But Weld proceeds to subvert all the scripted stupidities with that instinctive emotional candour that’s one of her trademarks. Unpredictability gives off an energy of its own and - with Weld - unpredictability’s something she just naturally brings to the party. Dwayne Hickman – who shares most of her scenes – is saddled with the same kind of inane dialogue . And is hopelessly defeated by it. Yet Weld emerges unscathed from every encounter. And watch her as Elvis-y Tom Gilson sings to her at a malt shop. The fluttering hands,the playing with her hair, the squeals, the coos . They all fit together with the complex precision of a Rube Goldberg device - yet still come off as sheer spontaneous combustion.

Onscreen, Weld was as genuinely eccentric as Una O’Connor or Ernest Thesiger. Particularly surprising because she was so young (14 when she made “Rally”) and so very, very beautiful. Most screen ingénues would have given up their powder-pink convertibles to look half as good. Yet Weld’s beauty was just one aspect of her appeal. Deliberate quirkiness can be deadly – but when someone actually projects that sort of aura - naturally, authentically, the real goods - then all you can do is stand back, marvel and enjoy. That’s the kind of gift Tuesday Weld displayed time and time again. You could never quite predict the inflections or rhythms she’d bring to any given line of dialogue. She didn’t prowl amongst her syllables like Eartha Kitt or insinuate her way through them a la Mae West Instead, she seemed to explore them, suddenly emerging with something revelatory, but of what? That’s what was hard to pin down. Same goes for her body language. Tics doesn’t seem to be the right word to describe her particular assortment of physical and vocal idiosyncracies. There was something far more fluid and organic at work in a Weld performance. As if someone had captured her essence between takes and somehow transferred it to the screen.

Weld had a turbulent background. Her father died when she was three and as a child model she became the sole support of her single mother and siblings. If movie magazines and gossip columns of the period are to be believed, she embarked on a wild lifestyle in the 50’s – drinking, smoking and carousing –a far cry from the Gidget-style image publicly promoted by 50’s Hollywood for its female teen idols. At 13 she made her first film, a low-budget quickie called “Rock, Rock, Rock”, directed by Maureen O’Hara’s ex-husband Will Price (who helmed only three films, the noirish “Strange Bargain”{1949},“Tripoli”{1950}, a sword, sandal and pirate pastiche {with O’Hara} and his ’56 swan-song). Each of these movies is largely unsung and – for various reasons – highly enjoyable. ”Rock ,Rock ,Rock” was shot on the proverbial shoe-string - in and around New York, I think . And was really just an excuse to incorporate performance footage from several then current rock’n’roll acts (Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon, etc). Tuesday was the film’s actual leading lady, anchoring – if that’s the word – a hilariously rudimentary plot that skates fearlessly (and unintentionally) into absurdist territory. Tuesday’s character, Dori, tries to earn enough money to buy a strapless gown for a school dance. That’s about it. She sings a little too (with her voice preposterously dubbed by the then semi-unknown Connie Francis, whose full-throttle belting couldn’t be more at odds with Weld’s soft-spoken persona). And her fellow actors, especially the one who plays her best friend, perform at sub-Ed Wood level. But Weld’s magic is already fully evident. A real petunia in an onion patch. One of the subsidiary pleasures of “Rock ,Rock, Rock” is spotting teenage Valerie Harper as an extra ,bopping and beaming on the sidelines. Weld seems to have enjoyed the experience. She set her sights on an acting career and was soon a Hollywood name. The Lindsay Lohan-ish lifestyle the press had accused her of seems to have affected neither her looks nor her lucidity; onscreen she remained fresh in every sense of the word. Directors praised her professionalism and critics greeted her performances with (often surprised) approval. Still, mainstream Hollywood wasn’t a place to nurture Weld’s very distinctive talents. She sometimes wound up making the best she could of uninspired melodramas and limp comedies. One could say Hollywood actually worked to suppress and submerge what was most special about her, trying repeatedly to mould her into garden-variety sex-kitten or by-the-book ingénue. It never worked because Weld was just too extraordinary to play stereotypes For several years she confined herself to occasional TV appearances (“Naked City”, “Ben Casey”, “Route 66” - plus a recurring role alongside her old “Rally Round the Flag,Boys!” co-star, Dwayne Hickman in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”). She returned to the big screen in ’63 for “Soldier in the Rain” with Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen. It was little seen. But those who did catch it were treated to a Tuesday Weld more luminous than ever. She re-united with McQueen in ’65 for “The Cincinnati Kid”. And this one was a considerable hit. Seen now, Weld’s radiant work as a good-hearted country girl is the movie’s finest feature. The bedrock honesty that earmarked her best work is here refined to a level of purity that achieves incandescence . And along the way, she has no trouble generating a lot more genuine desirability than co-star Ann-Margret , who wriggles and pouts her way through the proceedings as a cartoon temptress. By the mid-60’s, Weld’s look - capped off by long straight blonde hair to die for – was a felicitous match for the Carnaby Street era. Ditto her free-spirited aura. She was an industry veteran by now – though still only in her early 20’s. And Hollywood did finally seem ready to offer her some films constructed to showcase her individuality. Some point to the comedy “Lord Love a Duck”(1966) as classic Weld. And there's no doubt the actress herself is in excellent form here. But I find the film as a whole tedious and heavy-handed . Certainly it doesn’t help that Weld’s surrounded by actors I can’t abide. Bug-eyed Max Showalter (formerly Casey Adams) made a career out of pushing too hard. And Roddy MacDowall ( so good as a tot) is someone whose acting ability and onscreen charm instantly deserted him when puberty hit. Already insufferable in 1946’s “Holiday in Mexico”, he hadn’t improved a bit twenty years later. Weld’s a Lolita-like manipulator here – and – as usual – can make even petulance seem profound. That quality served her well in ‘68’s “Pretty Poison”, a critical favourite that teamed her (perfectly) with another eccentric original from the 50’s, Anthony Perkins. This one was laced with black comedy, but worked as drama , thriller and brightly colored bauble as well. Weld played Sue Ann , all-American small-town girl wooed by opportunist Perkins. Turns out he’s in way over his head; Sue Ann , it seems, has schemes of her own that soon carry him and the film giddily over the edge. This may be the best showcase there is of vintage Tuesday Weld. Beverly Garland and John Randolph are superb in support. But it’s the combined magic of Weld and Perkins, recognized, encouraged and celebrated by director Noel Black that makes the film one of the 60’s great pleasures.

At this point, Weld’s priorities seem to have altered. Marriage and motherhood changed the direction of her life. She turned down a number of exciting properties (“Bonnie and Clyde”, “Rosemary’s Baby”). And though both Bonnie and Rosemary were superbly played by the actresses who did get the roles, one can’t help but wish for an alternate universe where additional versions starring Weld were extant. There’s no way she could have been anything but memorable in them.

Tuesday Weld continued to act from time to time, sometimes on television, occasionally in movies. In 1977 she got a long overdue Oscar nomination (for supporting actress in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”).And fans have had the great (but all too infrequent) pleasure of seeing her add her substantial presence to films like “Who’ll Stop the Rain”(’78), “Once Upon a Time in America”(84) and “Falling Down”(’93). The latterday Tuesday Weld is less the quicksilver eccentric and more the fully-rounded pro. The old essence is still there , of course, always informing her work but never overwhelming it . Makes me think of her peer, Brandon de Wilde, a natural talent, who – as a child –was so compellingly off the wall in “The Member of the Wedding” and “Shane”; then, as he grew older - with hard-work and intelligence - honed his craft and developed into a superb journeyman actor. I’d say that description applies to Weld as well.

But, you know, I wish it were possible to team Tuesday Weld in her professional prime with Christopher Walken in his. What a combination that would be! A perfect storm of inspired inflections, sly rhythms and subliminal torpedos. Can you imagine the artistic cat’s cradles these two could create together? Wow! Double wow!

THE OSCARS ARE OVER

2011-03-01T00:57:00.009-05:00

The Oscars are over for another year. Done and dusted. The month-long barrage of pre-show promos with Hathaway and Franco was more relentless than funny. But those ads still outclassed anything the duo managed to pull off on the actual show. Granted their writers did them no favours. But even apart from the material, Franco seemed – if not zoned out – then at least majorly preoccupied. Hathaway was in Liza Minnelli mode, channelling that studied giddiness and “spontaneous” giggle that Liza worked to death decades ago. The two seem like nice people. And I doubt their movie careers will suffer any negative fall-out from the jumbo-sized egg they laid . But I wouldn’t expect the Academy to be pestering them for a repeat performance. I have a mental image of the pair proving what good sports they are by appearing on SNL to do a parody of their disastrous Oscar gig. And , you know what, that won’t be funny either.

When Billy Crystal strode onstage partway through the proceedings you could almost feel the audience’s urge to leap up and shout ““Don’t Go away!.” But he did – and the lameness settled in more or less permanently. I fully expect to see the Academy courting Crystal for hosting duties in 2012. Not much about the night actually sparkled. Still, though I’m no Russell Brand fan, his shtick with Helen Mirren was well-written and nicely played. Bullock was smooth. Gwyneth Paltrow looked fine in the audience. But onstage for her song , it was all deathly pallor and sour grimacing. It’s been noted elsewhere that Randy Newman’s been nominated umpteen times for writing the same song. In his defense, I can only say occasionally he varies the tempo. And some years it wins. This turned out to be one of those years. And the usual king’s ransom in flashy gowns was duly displayed. But as the years go by, the actresses wearing them seem less and less able to walk from point A to point B with any semblance of grace. Most of them ambled up to the podium like gussied up cowhands. Oh for the days of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer poise classes! Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem’s joint appearance had them looking like grimy prisoners in a spaghetti western jail who – for some convoluted reason – had been crammed into white dinner jackets three sizes too small and pushed out for a slow trot around the prison yard. But the award for scruffiest pairing of the night had to go to a cadaverous Matthew McConaughey (who looked an awful lot like the character Bale played in THE FIGHTER) and Scarlett Johansson whose hair had just lost a fight with a mix-master. If they were going for the “two drunks who’ve just been thrown out of a seedy tavern” look, the mission was fully accomplished.

As for the distribution of awards, well ,THE KING’S SPEECH took the big ones, as predicted. And I was relieved when Portman’s name was actually called. All that press buzz about Bening making a last-minute surge had me a bit worried. Normally, I’m all for Bening, but I found THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT just too smugly entrenched in its political correctness. And I really did think Portman was the best in the field. She certainly had the best-looking dress of the night. Almost as good as that killer green number Angelina Jolie wore to the Globes (you know, when she was fixing Brad’s tie).

My prediction that Melissa Leo’s Oscar season shenanigans would cost her the trophy proved dead wrong. I’ll never understand why this performance was so universally acclaimed but it obviously was. As far as I’m concerned, her Oscar night antics brought a string of crass ungainly acceptance speeches to a fittingly shrill crescendo. Determined as ever to be the one everybody notices, she gasped and hollered and vogued and cussed. With a hapless Kirk Douglas caught reeling as collateral damage in her all-purpose spin dryer. But as I’ve said before, there’s no denying the fact that Leo’s talented. After her (richly deserved) FROZEN RIVER nomination a couple of years ago, I believe she was trying to get a particular movie project off the ground. A film about the making of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE. With her new Oscar-winning clout, perhaps she can now make it happen. I see Leo as Joan Crawford and – ideally – Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis. The set might be fraught. But I have a feeling the onscreen results could be an awful lot of fun

THE 83rd OSCARS

2011-02-27T00:23:00.012-05:00

The Oscars loom. As a matter of fact, Hollywood’s yearly uber- event is just hours away now. Wolfgang Puck is massaging his squabs and gold-dusting his truffles ; the Elton John party favors have had their final blast of excess glitter. Battalions of earnest young women with clipboards and walkie-talkies are itching to start wrangling celebs and their not so significant others across the Red Carpet’s shifting tectonic plates. There’ve been so many teasers, puff pieces, previews and pure fiddle-faddle about Anne Hathaway and James Franco that I’m already pretty tired of the both of them. Why this endless need to turn the Oscars into a comedy show? Well, of course, we do know why. It’s to entice viewers who don’t give a hoot about the Academy Awards. But we don’t care about those people here, do we?

I’ve managed to see most of the major players this year (not TRUE GRIT – I wasn’t that crazy about the Kim Darby version , so I’m in no hurry to see a reboot – even by the Coens). I’ve also missed 127 HOURS and BIUTIFUL. And the heavy-handed trailer for RABBIT HOLE put the brakes on all desire I might’ve had to see that pictureany time soon) Otherwise, I’m pretty much up to speed.

Most of the main categories seem like locks this year. I’m only echoing every would-be pundit In the world when I say THE KING’S SPEECH and Colin Firth seem to have Picture and Actor trophies in the bag. And if tomorrow’s newspapers don’t feature shots of prettily pregnant Natalie Portman hoisting her own Best Actress Oscar, expect pigs to fly and Charlie Sheen to start dating Martha Stewart. The Supporting Actor statue will likely end up at Christian Bale’s house. The well-timed crescendo of KING’S SPEECH popularity positions Geoffrey Rush as a strong contender. But with Mel Gibson trumping Bale in the celebrity tantrum sweepstakes, Hollywood seems to be loving Bale again, especially his showy turn in THE FIGHTER. And a Bale victory would carry its own level of satisfaction. Cause it is pretty damn annoying that he’s never even been nominated before. I mean, didn’t the voters see THE MACHINIST? Which leaves Supporting Actress as the most fluid of the races. I don’t care for what Melissa Leo did in THE FIGHTER. An overdone version of over-the-top and then some . Leo comes off as a hardboiled dame, current go-to lady for the parts previously assigned to Claire Trevor and - later -Sylvia Miles and Diane Ladd. She was great (and pretty subdued) in FROZEN RIVER a couple of seasons back. But i really wasn’t expecting her triumphal march through nearly all the precursor awards this season. There was a grating bull-in-a-China-shop quality to those televised acceptance speeches of hers. Especially the one where she made a big megilla out of the fact that she was far too young to play Mark Wahlberg’s mother. An opinion echoed by few others. Then came an interview where she belly-ached that she wasn’t getting the kind of pre-Oscar magazine-cover spotlighting that the younger crowd were. Finally she paid for some tacky trade ad “glamour” shots of herself. They were meant to court votes but only wound up as a nasty PR bellyflop. It remains to be seen whether all this has cost Leo her front-runner spot. She has internal competition from her FIGHTER co-star Amy Adams (in a performance I really do think is sensational) . In the end, I suspect Leo will have bled votes to both Adams and Helena Bonham Carter . Carter has the KING’S SPEECH juggernaut factor going for her. And her award event appearances this year have been media bull’s eyes. The outré fashion sense and droll attitude rubbed some people the wrong way in previous years. But this season everyone seems to be vibing with her. I predict Carter will negotiate her way coolly through the Leo/Adams vote split, the romper room and granny challenges from Hailee Steinfeld and Jacki Weaver - and take the prize.

My own picks for Best of 2010

PICTURE

1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK

2. PLEASE GIVE

3. BLACK SWAN

4. WINTER’S BONE

5. THE TOWN

6. THE FIGHTER

7. ANIMAL KINGDOM

8. REMEMBER ME

9. SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE UNIVERSE

10. SALT

Runners-up

The Wolfman,I Am Love,Agora,Tangled,The King’s Speech

ACTOR

1. COLIN FIRTH “The King’s Speech”

2. MARK WAHLBERG “The Fighter”

3. BEN AFFLECK “THE TOWN”

4. JESSE EISENBERG “THE SOCIAL NETWORK”

ACTRESS

1. NATALIE PORTMAN “Black Swan”

2. JENNIFER LAWRENCE “Winter’s Bone”

3. MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD “Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe”

4. EMILY BLUNT “The Wolfman”

5. ANGELINA JOLIE “Salt”

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. GEOFFREY RUSH “The King’s Speech”

2. JACK McGEE “The Fighter”

3. CHRISTIAN BALE “The Fighter”

4. ANDREW GARFIELD “The Social Network”

5 ARMIE HAMMER “The Social Network”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. AMY ADAMS “The Fighter”

2. HELENA BONHAM CARTER “Alice in Wonderland”

3. BLAKE LIVELY “The Town”

4. ROONEY MARA “The Social Network”

5. ANNA LISE PHILLIPS “Animal Kingdom”

(with such a strong field this year, I have to acknowledge

two more outstanding contributions)

MARISA BERENSON ( Tilda Swinton’s mother-in-law in“I Am Love”)

and LAUREN SWEETSER

(Jennifer Lawrence’s supportive married friend in WINTER’S BONE)

60's POP SONGS

2010-12-08T23:46:00.008-05:00

The crickets have been in full possession of this space for some time now. But I thought I’d parachute in and dislodge them (at least temporarily) Though the regular subject matter here is actors and actresses, this time I’m switching gears and focusing on music – 60’s music to be exact. The early part of that decade is when I first seriously plugged into the hit parade. I had a friend named Mike – we were both about 13 – who twigged to the wonders of top 40 radio at just the same time as me. We used to make weekend forays downtown to haunt the record outlets – Kresge’s and Mahon’s - where our frequent appearances and low spending levels regularly attracted icy stares from a couple of staff members. But we were persistent as gnats till we managed to get someone to let us look at the Billboard Hot 100 . No one ever analyzed stock market quotes so carefully, no one ever pored over an astrological chart more reverently than Mike and I examining those Billboard charts. What was and wasn’t bulleted ,what was bubbling under and what was tumbling off. Mike and I always had our own horses in the race– and of course were soon making up our own personal charts at home. 45's were king in those days - you know, those round things with yellow plastic centers at their hearts. Only a windfall (like birthday money) could put an LP in our reach. Radio stations in our town were pretty bush league. But late at night, we could usually pick up WLS Chicago on the radio – and that’s where we could hear everything. I liked early Motown – just beginning to burgeon then – and R&B singers like Jan Bradley and Baby Washington. Things seldom if ever heard on our local white bread radio. And Dick Biondi, the head DeeJay at WLS seemed like an Olympian figure to us in those days. I was riveted to his New Year’s Eve countdown (between songs he did phone interviews with battalions of American pop stars). I just assumed then it was all live. Now I highly doubt it. But, whatever, I wolfed it down. I can still hear Dick congratulating Eydie Gorme on the remarkable feat of replacing her own husband Steve Lawrence’s #1 hit “Go Away Little Girl with her own chart-topper “Blame It On the Bossa Nova”. And I still chuckle when I remember Dick commending Connie Francis on her latest hit “I Wanna Be Warm this Winter” . To which she testily replied, that’s “I’m GONNA Be Warm This Winter”, Dick. Of course that’s just what Mike and I were thinking and would’ve said to the great Biondi if we’d ever had the balls to correct him. Which Connie obviously did.

Now they call those years The Girl Group Era. That’s a term invented long after the fact. Seeming to encompass not just the ubiquitous all-girl aggregations that pepper-skipped across the charts in the early 60’s – but also the girl soloists with female back-up who achieved the same sound. Sometimes the line was pretty blurry. A lot of Neil Sedaka titles now sound like girl-group records that just happen to have a male singing lead. And Connie Francis’ sublime "Don’t Ever Leave Me” sounds an awful lot like an especially great Neil Sedaka record. Subjects seldom strayed beyond the confines of teen romance. But – let’s face it that was hardly a problem for a teen audience.

What the pop music of that ever-so-brief but fondly remembered time captured was the perfect melding of Tin Pan Alley’s melodic charge with the beat of 50’s rock and roll. Rock and roll in the 50’s was blunt and macho. The Girl Group Era feminized it, sweetened it up and - as the 60’s entered their mid-point - took it down sophisticated, syncopated avenues, incorporating inspiration from Broadway and classical sources. “Pet Sounds” could never have happened in the 50’s. When the Beatles came along they seemed to be just an exciting new extension of the era. Who knew psychedalia , white bands shouting blues (but with unpaid dues) and aggressively whirring guitars would bring back the brute to batter the old era out of existence?

The music of the early 60’s may seem naive now – overly optimistic, maybe. But it’s still a nice place to go. Nothing there to remind you of the violence-laden musical bullying that fills the charts today. And compared to the processed cheese of say Celine-like power ballads and Josh Groban anthems, those early 60’s 45’s are busy little hives of genuine human energy and feisty, bustling positivity.

The iridescent Girl-Group bubble was, inevitably, broken. And time marched on (as it will insist on doing) But, though I’ve made plenty of musical detours over the years, I’ve never really stopped loving and listening to 60’s pop. And luckily there’s so much of it – including a fantastic amount of music we never heard at the time. I’ve been able to discover so many rarities and non-hits over the years. The internet, CD bonus tracks – in depth writing on the era; interviews with players major and minor.

Here , then, is my personal 60’s chart. An alternate reality, as a friend of mine has described it. But mine, all the same. Fifty years or so in the making. And the best thing is tomorrow I might just come across some previously unheard (by me) 60’s treasure that will suddenly zoom to the top of my chart with a brand new shiny bullet.

MY 100 FAVORITE TRACKS

FROM THE 60’s

1. ARE YOU THERE WITH ANOTHER GIRL-DIONNE WARWICK

( Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Scepter 1966

2. MY GUY-MARY WELLS

(William “Smokey” Robinson) Motown 1964

3. DO I LOVE YOU-THE RONETTES

(Vince Poncia-Pete Andreoli-Phil Spector) Philles 1964

4. WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH YOU-SKEETER DAVIS

(Jack Keller-Gerry Goffiin ) RCA 1964

5. IS THIS WHAT I GET FOR LOVING YOU-THE RONETTES

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin-Phil Spector) Philles 1965

6. DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD-LINDA SCOTT

Claus Ogerman-S. Coburn) Kapp 1965

7. SWING ME-NINO TEMPO & APRIL STEVENS

(Tempo-Leigh) Atco 1965

8. ROUNDABOUT-PETULA CLARK

(Tony Hatch) recorded 1965 but unissued at the time

9. MOVE OVER DARLING-DORIS DAY

Terry Melcher-Hal Kantor-Joe Lubin) Columbia 1963

10. GUESS I’M DUMB-GLEN CAMPBELL

(Brian Wilson-Russ Titelman) Capitol 1965

11. BE TRUE TO YOURSELF-BOBBY VEE

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Liberty 1963

12. HELLO STRANGER-BARBARA LEWIS

(Barbara Lewis) Atlantic 1963

13. THE WORLD THROUGH A TEAR-NEIL SEDAKA

(Chris & Peter Allen) RCA 1965

14. I CAN’T SEE ME WITHOUT YOU-SKEETER DAVIS

(Sandra Rhodes) RCA 1966

15. COME AND GET THESE MEMORIES -MARTHA & THE VANDELLAS

(Holland-Dozier Holland) Gordy 1963

16. CHANGIN’ MY MIND-JACKIE DE SHANNON

(Myrna Fox March-Roger Illingsworth-Richard Grasso) Imperial 1967

17. WOULDN’T IT BE NICE-THE BEACH BOYS

(Brian Wilson-Tony Asher) Capitol 1966

18. COME AND GET ME-JACKIE DE SHANNON

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Imperial 1966

19. I DIDN’T HAVE ANY SUMMER ROMANCE-CAROLE KING

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Dimension 1962

20. ONE FINE DAY-THE CHIFFONS

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin)

21. DOES HE LOVE ME-MARY WELLS

(William Stevenson-Ivy Joe Hunter) Motown 1964

22. NEVER NEVER LEAVE ME-MARY WELLS

(Jennie Lee Lambert-Mickey Gentile) 20^th Century Fox 1964

23. LOOKING THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE-GENE PITNEY

(Barry Mann-Cynthia Weill) Musicor 1965

24. YOU BABY-THE RONETTES

(Barry Mann-Cynthia Weill-Phil Spector) Philles 1964

25. THE LOOK OF LOVE-DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Colgems 1967

“Casino Royale” soundtrack version

26. I’VE BEEN WRONG BEFORE-DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

(Randy Newman) Philips 1965

27. IT’S OVER-JIMMIE RODGERS

(Jimmie Rodgers) A&M 1965

28. WHY DON’T YOU LET YOURSELF GO-MARY WELLS

(Rudy Clark) 20^th Century Fox 1964

29. JUST A LITTLE LOVIN’-DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

(Barry Mann-Cynthia Weill) Atlantic 1969

30. LOOKING WITH MY EYES-DIONNE WARWICK

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Scepter 1965

31. EVERYTHING IN THE GARDEN-PETULA CLARK

(Roger Greenaway) Vogue/Warner Bros 1965

32.DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART-BURT BACHARACH(& CHORUS)

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Kapp 1965

33. TRUE LOVE NEVER RUNS SMOOTH-PETULA CLARK

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Vogue/Warner Bros. 1964

34. IF YOU WAIT FOR LOVE-BOBBY GOLDSBORO

(Bobby Goldsboro) United Artists 1965

35. ROLL ON BUDDY-ODETTA

(Public Domain) Vanguard 1963

36. THAT SUNDAY THAT SUMMER-NAT “KING” COLE

(J. Sherman-G. Weiss) Capitol 1963

37. THEY’RE JEALOUS OF ME-CONNIE STEVENS

Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Warner Bros. 1964

38. DON’T MENTION MY NAME-THE SHEPHERD SISTERS

(Bob Crewe-Bob Gaudio) Atlantic 1963

39. DO LIKE I DO-CHRIS CLARK

(Willam “Smokey” Robinson,William Stevenson,Ivy Joe Hunter)

recorded 1965 buy unissued at the time

40. I DIDN”T MEAN TO HURT YOU-THE SHIRELLES

(Ellie Greenwich-Tom Powers) Scepter 1963

41. MY BABY LOVES ME-MARTHA & THE VANDELLAS

(Sylvia Moy-William Stevenson-Ivy Joe Hunter) Gordy 1966

42. MADE IN PARIS-TRINI LOPEZ

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Reprise 1965

43. ANY OLD TIME OF THE DAY-DIONNE WARWICK

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Scepter 1964

44. WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD-LOUIS ARMSTRONG

(John Barry-Hal David) Liberty 1969

45. 98.6 / LAZY DAY –LESLEY GORE

(Gary Fischoff-Tom Powers) Mercury 1969

46. DO NOT DISTURB-DORIS DAY

(Mark Barkan-Ben Raleigh) Columbia 1965

47. THE BIGGEST NIGHT OF HER LIFE-HARPERS BIZARRE

(Randy Newman) Warner Bros. 1968

48. HE’S IN TOWN-THE TOKENS

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) BT Puppy 1964

49. I’LL KEEP HOLDING ON-THE MARVELETTES

(William Stevenson-Ivy Joe Hunter) Tamla 1964

50. YOU CAME YOU SAW YOU CONQUERED-THE RONETTES

(Toni Wine-Irving Levine-Phil Spector) A&M 1969

51. YOU’LL NEVER GET TO HEAVEN-DIONNE WARWICK

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Scepter 1964

52. I GUESS THE LORD MUST BE IN NEW YORK CITY-NILSSON

(Harry Nilsson) RCA 1969

53. THEY DON’T MAKE LOVE LIKE THEY USED TO-SKEETER DAVIS

(Red Lane) RCA 1969

54. SO TENDERLY -ST. GEORGE & TANA

(John Campolongo) Kapp 1967

55. GO AWAY LITTLE GIRL-STEVE LAWRENCE

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Columbia 1962

56. ONE MORE TOWN-THE KINGSTON TRIO

(John Stewart) Capitol 1962

57. ILLINOIS – THE EVERLY BROTHERS

(Randy Newman) Warner Bros. 1968

58. EVERYBODY GO HOME-EYDIE GORME

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Columbia 1963

59. ALL OF MY LIFE-CONNIE STEVENS

(H. Miller-Tom Powers) Warner Bros. 1966

60. THE CLOSEST THING TO HEAVEN-NEIL SEDAKA

(Neil Sedaka-Howard Greenfield) RCA 1964

61. HE’S A BAD BOY-CAROLE KING

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Dimension 1963

62. SCOTCH AND SODA-THE KINGSTON TRIO

(Dave Guard) Capitol 1962

63. I CAN’T HEAR YOU-BETTY EVERETT

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) VeeJay 1964

64. SEND ME NO FLOWERS-DORIS DAY

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Columbia 1964

65. SHALL I TELL HER-DIONNE WARWICK

Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Scepter 1964

66. J’AI PAS LE TEMPS-PETULA CLARK

(Brian Wilson-Roger Christian-Salvet-Carriere) Vogue 1964

67. THINK OF YOU-NINO TEMPO & APRIL STEVENS

(Weisham-D’Amica) Atco 1965

68. COME ON-A MY HOUSE-JULIE LONDON

(Russ Bagdasarian-William Saraoyan) Liberty 1962

69. LE SEPTIEME JOUR -DALIDA

(Boris Bergman-Michel Bernhold) Barclay 1968

70. STRAIGHTEN UP YOUR HEART-BARBARA LEWIS

(Sharon McMahon) Atlantic 1963

71. HERE TODAY-THE BEACH BOYS

(Brian Wilson-Tony Asher) Capitol 1966

72. HOW CAN I SAY GOODBYE-BARBARA LEWIS

(Victor Melrose-Lenore Rosenblatt) Atlantic 1964

73. LITTLE HONDA (ALTERNATE VERSION)-THE BEACH BOYS

Brian Wilson-Mike Love) Recorded 1963 but unissued at the time

74. TOO YOUNG-SKEETER DAVIS

(Sylvia Dee-Sidney Lippman) RCA 1965

75. IN THE DEEP OF NIGHT-CONNIE STEVENS

(Les Reed-Gordon Mills) Warner Bros. 1965

76. ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT-THE HONEYBEES

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Fontana 1964

77. I’LL BE BACK-THE BEATLES

(Paul McCartney-John Lennon) EMI Parlophone 1964

78. I WANNA BE WITH YOU-NANCY WILSON

(Charles Strouse-Lee Adams) Capitol 1964

79. HEY GIRL-FREDDIE SCOTT

(Carole King-Gerry Goffin) Colpix 1963

80. BLUE ON BLUE-BOBBY VINTON

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Epic 1963

81. KEEP ON TRYIN’ –BOBBY VEE

(Van McCoy) Liberty 1965

82. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE-NANCY SINATRA

(John Barry-Leslie Bricusse)

83. THE DREAMER-NEIL SEDAKA

(Neil Sedaka-Howard Grossman) RCA 1963

84. TO WAIT FOR LOVE-TONY ORLANDO

(Burt Bacharach-Hal David) Epic 1964

85. WHAT DOES IT TAKE (TO WIN YOUR LOVE) -JUNIOR WALKER & THE ALLSTARS

(John Bristol-Harvey Fuqua-Vernon Bullock) Soul 1968

86. ROUNDABOUT-CONNIE FRANCIS

(Tony Hatch) MGM 1965

87. NIGHT AND DAY-SERGIO MENDES & BRASIL 66

(Cole Porter) A&M 1967

88. ETERNALLY-PETULA CLARK

(Charles Chaplin) Vogue/Warner Bros. 1967

89. THAT’S HOW HEARTACHES ARE MADE-DUSTY SPRINGFIELD

(Jerry Ragavoy-Bert Russell) Philips 1965

90. GAMES THAT LOVERS PLAY-CONNIE FRANCIS

(James Last-Larry Kusic-Gunter Loose-Eddie Snyder) MGM 1966

91. IS IT LOVE-CILLA BLACK

(Bobby Willis) EMI Parlophone 1965

92. I MAKE A FOOL OF MYSELF-FRANKIE VALLI

(Bob Crewe-Bob Gaudio) Philips 1967

93. THE ONE WHO REALLY LOVES YOU-MARY WELLS

(William “Smokey” Robinson) Motown 1962

94. ANYTHING GOES - HARPERS BIZARRE

(Cole Porter) Warner Bros. 1968

95. MOONLIGHT SWIM –ELVIS PRESLEY

Sylvia Dee-Ben Weisman) RCA 1961

96. I’LL FOLLOW THE SUN-THE BEATLES

(Paul McCartney-John Lennon) EMI Parlophone 1964

97. FOLLE DE TOI-PETULA CLARK

(Pierre Delanoe-C. Chevalier) Vogue 1966

98. I WISH YOU COULD BE HERE-THE CYRKLE

(Paul Simon-B. Woodley) Columbia 1967

99. DAS IST DIE FRAGE ALLER FRAGEN-CLIFF RICHARD

(Lieber-Stoller-Brecher) EMI Electrola 1965

100. STAY AND LOVE ME ALL SUMMER-BRIAN HYLAND

(Joel Hirschorn-Al Kasha) Dot 1969

Oscar Post-Mortem

2010-03-09T01:14:00.003-05:00

Wrote my last post the night before the Oscars. Now it’s the night after and I’m back with a few reactions. The show was actually okay for me. As Woody Allen’s character in “Annie Hall” said, even the worst sex he had was still sex – and therefore pretty much on the money. This was the Oscars, after all. Playing out at that venue that’s not the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion anymore. But still looks pretty deluxe. There were wall-to-wall movie stars on display and Academy Awards did get handed out.
I actually found the comedy from Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin pretty terrific (“Over here is the Inglourious Basterds section, over there the people that made Inglourious Basterds” or “That Damn Helen Mirren”). And their targets generally seemed to be pretty good sports about it. The show could’ve actually used a lot more of the Baldwin-Martin patter. When they weren’t around, things seemed to be a little detached and unfocused. Certainly that fizzless female voice from the network that wearily wrangled us into and out of commercials was no help.
Among the young set, Zac Efron came off as a junior Tyrone Power. Putting him leagues ahead of his peers. Kristen Stewart managed to look lifeless and annoyed at the same time. And Taylor Lautner? I don’t get it. Does the world really need a watered down version of Robbie Benson? Miss Miley Cyrus, who co-presented with Amanda Seyfreid, screwed up her entrance. Then had the nerve to say “we’re nervous”, unfairly implicating the perfectly professional Seyfried in her doofusness. Or maybe at this point, the royal “we’ is the only pronoun she knows. Whatever the case, I’ve seen her here before and she always looks inelegantly pissed off that they still haven’t given her the Academy Award she’s got coming to her. I’d predict a great many years of testy Oscar night dissatisfaction ahead for her.
I like the way they highlighted the screenplay awards, with script pages juxtaposed against the pertinent scenes. George Clooney had star quality to burn. It was great to see Sigourney Weaver, ageless, beautiful, classy. Also Michelle Pfeiffer and Julianne Moore, with their warm tributes to Bridges and Firth respectively. Vera Farmiga looked great. And I loved her dress (even though that scary Cojo from ET pronounced it awful the next day, using it as an excuse for one of his annual post-Oscar catfits ).
The musical segments were mainly duds. Poor Neil Patrick Harris (whom I like) had to come out and flail his way through that mess of a production number that almost kicked the whole show into life support mode right off the bat. Poor guy. You could almost see the flop sweat. Which made me all the more impressed when Baldwin and Martin pulled it out of the toilet so quickly.
Show organizers managed to gum up the In Memoriam segment for the second year in a row, insisting on live singing to accompany it. Not that James Taylor did badly, but with live performances you’re conscious of every little wobble. Canned, studio-perfected music, preferably instrumental, is what’s called for here. To enhance the mood without distracting from it. Plus, like last year, they insisted on filling the first few seconds with an establishing close-up of the onstage singer. Leaving home viewers, squinting at a postage stamp version of a monitor image, unable to read the name of the artist being honoured.
Of course, the painfully extended dance routine to the nominated scores was probably the biggest dudpuddle of the night. I’m sure Adam Shankman was happy being able to get so many of his protégés onto the Oscars. But, frankly, it all seemed chaotically inappropriate. Breakdancing to “Sherlock Holmes”? Most of the time – with all the leaping and spinning - it just looked as if half a dozen competing gym teams were crammed into the same space to warm up for an athletic event.
This year’s “streaker” moment came when the director of the winning documentary short had his acceptance speech hi-jacked by someone the press has now dubbed Lady Kanye. She just suddenly landed in the middle of his business - a one-woman swat team - and proceeded to toss out non-sequiturs like hand grenades. It appears she was a co-producer of the film at an earlier stage, but left following “creative differences”. With an Oscar waving around onstage, she seems to have re-attached herself to the project pronto. Leaving director Ross Williams with an unfinished speech and a world-wide audience wondering (a) what was his film about? and (b) what the f... just happened?
As for the actual trophy dispersal... well, I was okay with it. I’d already resigned myself to the fact that my favourite Colin Firth probably wouldn’t win. And since I didn’t have to see Meryl Streep rewarded for her Julia Child shtick or wince through a Best Picture victory for “Avatar”, I was basically okay with the way things went.
I was still at work till shortly before show time. So the only Red Carpet footage I caught was the official half hour segment that precedes the broadcast. As always, it was strained and phony. Interviewer (and I’m stretching it by calling her that) Kathy Ireland appeared to be about 7 feet tall. Her grinning sugar-charged assaults had most of her victims cowering. Even Mary Hart seemed reticent in comparison. Everytime Ireland finished gushing they couldn’t yank the cameras away quick enough to avoid the obvious beginning of an awkward silence. Even seasoned Hollywood egos seemed a little non-plussed to be that up close and personal as Ireland relentlessly dialled the perkiness up to 11. Never a good decision for a giantess. Oh, well, even supermodels have to eat. Wait a minute, come to think of it, do they?.

The 82nd Annual Academy Awards

2010-03-07T00:51:00.005-05:00

Oh yes, the Oscars. I feel like saying something about them. The show itself is less than 24 hours away. And, needless to say, I’ll be there with the usual bells on. I’m feeling pretty wary about the broadcast, though. Word is show organizer Adam Shankman is hell-bent on emphasizing comedy, turning the event into some sort of late night talk show meets The Surreal Life. I guess if we must be force-fed comedy, then co-hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are as equipped as anybody to make it reasonably palatable. I actually thought host Ricky Gervais did a pretty good job avoiding the usual pot-holes at the Golden Globes. So if the Baldwin-Martin combo comes anywhere near his level, I’ll consider it a success. Shankman seems determined to get winners on and off stage as rapidly as possible with a minimum of fuss. But isn’t that fuss exactly what we die-hard Oscar watchers love most? Why not just position the winners at starting blocks, shoot a pistol in the air, then make them holler out their acceptance speeches as they run the 100 yard dash? I believe Shankman and company have also put the kibosh on the traditional performance of the five nominated songs? WTF? Granted the songs are no great shakes. Sue me, but I think that T-Bone Burnett thing from “Crazy Heart” is pretty flipping meh.The one I liked best this year was that strange song mind-blowingly performed by some chick in a 60’s nightclub in “An Education”. But it didn’t make the cut - just so Disney's "Princess and the Frog’ could double-dip. It seems Shankman will, though, be finding time to infest the proceedings with a bevy of his favourite hip hoppers and B-boys from “So You Think You Can Dance.” Get ready for some serious glassing over of the eyes from all those in the auditorium over 60. And, oh yeah, the latest lifetime achievement awards were quietly passed out in some back room a couple of months ago. So don’t expect to see this year’s winner Lauren Bacall anywhere near a spotlight tomorrow. Will they dispense with the traditional necrology too? On the theory that nothing much happened artistically before Stephenie Meyer wrote “Twilight”?

Anyway, as I said, I’ll still be watching. I hardly saw any new films this year till around October, then furiously started playing catch-up. Still haven’t seen some of the biggies. I fully expect to like “The Road” with Viggo Mortensen. And the trailer for “The White Ribbon” makes it look like – at very least – a visual dazzler. I feel some sort of completist urge to eventually watch “The Blind Side”. I mean, I like Sandra Bullock as much as the next guy. But in the normal course of things, football movies served with a side-order of rightwing religious zeal aren’t generally my thing. “Me and Orson Welles” is still on my “to see’ list – though the nominations some predicted failed to materialize. And I think I’m going to enjoy “Everybody’s Fine’. Although “everybody” seems to be pretending this movie never existed. But, for me, the combo of DeNiro, Drew and Sam Rockwell provides three very good reasons to be optimistic. Jeff Bridges probably should have won already – maybe for “The Fabulous Baker Boys” in the 80’s. I haven’t seen “Crazy Heart” yet but the trailers leave me unenthused. Warmed over beans ladled onto a Tender Mercies Taco. It’s too bad Colin Firth and George Clooney both gave the performances of their lives in a year when the Academy seems determined to turn the Best Actor award into a career-acknowledging pat on the back for (the admittedly gifted) Bridges. Certainly, in the Oscar poll at work, I predicted a Bridges win. I also ticked off the names of Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique, both of whom steamrolled victoriously through all the precursors this year, leaving their competitors gleaning the fields for stray votes here and there. I expect “The Hurt Locker” (a fine movie) to take Best Picture. An “Avatar” win would definitely stick in my craw. It struck me as a mega-budget mix of noise, lethargy and half-baked New Age platitudes. The 3D wasn’t even that great – except when they showed the 20th Century Fox logo at the beginning. That was the best part of the movie.

As far as my personal choices this year go:

Best Picture:

1. A SERIOUS MAN

2. IN THE LOOP

3. DISTRICT 9

4. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

5. PRECIOUS

6. THE HURT LOCKER

7. A SINGLE MAN

8. BRIGHT STAR

9. LYMELIFE

10. SIN NOMBRE

“Outlander” isn’t really eligible this year. Sadly, it went straight to DVD. But it’s a handsomely produced and super-engaging sci-fi fantasy with James Caviezel as a spaceman who crash lands into 9th century Viking country. It gave me the same kind of fun I got (and still get) from the Kirk Douglas-Tony Curtis chestnut “The Vikings”. Plus I’m generally up for spending quality time with Mr.Caviezel. Although I must say I’m no fan of the torture-porn opus“The Passion of the Christ”. I’m paraphrasing, but I remember one observer suggesting you might not learn much about Jesus from the film but you’d certainly come away fully versed on the nuts and bolts of mounting your own DIY crucifixion

Other 2009 titles I enjoyed included Drew Barrymore’s winning directorial debut,“Whip It.” And Roland Emmerich’s apocalypse-around-the-corner epic “2012”. Have we become so jaded about visual effects that “2012” can’t even scratch up a nomination in that category?I made it a point to see it in a theatre , hoping for wall-to-wall spectacle and - as far as I’m concerned - got very big bang for my buck.

More of My Personal Choices:

Best Actor:

1. COLIN FIRTH “A Single Man”

2. GEORGE CLOONEY “Up in the Air”

3. JEREMY RENNER “The Hurt Locker”

4. MICHAEL STUHLBARG “A Serious Man”

5. SHARLTO COPLEY “District 9”

Honorable Mention

JOAQUIN PHOENIX “Two Lovers”

Best Actress:

1. CAREY MULLIGAN “An Education”

2. ABBY CORNISH “Bright Star”

3. GABOUREY SIDIBE “Precious”

4. ELLEN PAGE “Whip It”

5. MAYA RUDOLPH “Away We Go”

(and yes, I did see “Julie and Julia” but I hate loathe and despise Meryl Streep’s comedy technique. Always have. Suppose I always will. Certainly this one didn’t change my opinion one bit. How many times have actors and acting experts said that you should never play comedy as if you’re aware you’re being funny. To me, Streep always seems to be doing just that. “Look at me. Aren’t I hilarious?” This time out she adds an extra-big elbow-in-the-ribs helping of “Aren’t I adorable?” too. No sale.

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

1. TOM HOLLANDER “In the Loop”

2. DENIS MENOCHET “Inglourious Basterds”

(he’s the French farmer at the beginning and I know it’s technically just a cameo; but if we’re

going by quality not quantity, he’s gotta be included among the year’s very very best)

3. TIMOTHY HUTTON “Lymelife”

4. PETER CAPALDI “In the Loop”

5. FRED MELAMED “A Serious Man” (he’s unlikely homewrecker Sy Ableman)

Honorable Mention

CHRISTOPH WALTZ “Inglourious Basterds”

ALEC BALDWIN “Lymelife”

JONATHAN GROFF “Taking Woodstock”

ANTHONY MACKIE “The Hurt Locker”

BRIAN GERAGHTY “The Hurt Locker”
DANIEL BRUHL "Inglourious Basterds"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

1. MO’NIQUE “Precious”

2. MIMI KENNEDY “In the Loop”

3. MELANIE LAURENT “Inglourious Basterds’

4. PAULA PATTON “Precious”

5. VERA FARMIGA “Up in the Air”

Honorable Mention

MARIAH CAREY “Precious”

JILL HENNESSY “Lymelife”

KERRY FOX “Bright Star”

ANNA CHLUMSKY “In the Loop”

ALIA SHAWKAT “Whip It”

MARCIA GAY HARDEN “Whip It”

See you at the ceremony ...

1956 AND THEREABOUTS

2009-11-23T05:55:00.012-05:00

Over at StinkyLulu’s, the latest Supporting Actress Smackdown throws a spotlight on 1956. Reviewing the nominated performances for that year, Lulu and cohorts make some interesting observations - as always -then rebestow the trophy on the lady who stirs up the warmest Smackdown reaction. As it happens, the Academy’s roster that year is one of my least favourites. Virtually all chosen from movies I simply don’t like. The bloated GIANT, lofty reputation inexplicably intact, sits firmly near the top of my “I don’t-get-it” list . THE BAD SEED I find stagey and overstated. BABY DOLL tries to shock but tends to bore. And as for WRITTEN ON THE WIND, well, my appreciation for Douglas Sirk is fairly limited. The first 30 minutes or so of LA HABANERA make a pretty compelling showcase for glamorous Nazi-era superstar Zarah Leander. I also like certain elements of HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAL and ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. And I’m glad Sirk’s work was there to provide a template for Todd Haynes’ brilliant FAR FROM HEAVEN. But that’s about it. I’ll take Haynes. You can have Sirk . Certainly you’re welcome to WRITTEN ON THE WIND, a picture that shoves buckets of soapsuds down people’s throats with the inevitable result – bad taste on a massive scale. The ’56 nominees were Mercedes McCambridge (GIANT), Patty McCormack and Eileen Heckart (THE BAD SEED), Mildred Dunnock (BABY DOLL) and Dorothy Malone (WRITTEN ON THE WIND). With the exception of Heckart (I just don’t dig her – ever), I’ve enjoyed all these ladies immensely elsewhere. But these particular performances I’d never have nominated. I was about seven when they first came out. And since I was already movie-crazy, they were certainly on my radar. But they were all pretty much marketed as “Adults Only” fare. And I didn’t get to see any of them till years later. When I eventually did, my reaction to all of them was more or less the same - “Is that all there is?”
My movie memories from 1956 are vivid – but revolve around an entirely different batch of films. I recall that

my classroom – probably my whole (Catholic) school - was dutifully marched off to the Capitol Theatre to see THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Now, if there was ever a movie that gave my generation solid bang for the buck, it was DeMille’s gaudy biblical blitzkrieg. I can still see that unique onscreen prologue, the director himself emerging from behind an imposing curtain, then parceling out words with a sonorous God-like gravity. In those days, DeMille, Hitchcock and (Uncle Walt) Disney were the Holy Trinity of showmen. Expert self- promoters all, they specialized in delivering what the public craved (having already convinced audiences exactly what it was they did crave). DeMille’s TEN COMMANDMENTS preamble set viewers up for something colossal. And darn it if the picture didn’t deliver the goods. We kids filed out of the theatre thunderstruck and sated, newly minted into walking Mount Sinai tablets. Prepared to spread the word -not God’s, but DeMille’s. An army of mini-pitchmen with a single message : “This you’ve gotta see!” I remember being scandalized when my parents went to the film one evening and professed to be royally bored by the whole thing. I believe my Dad slept through most of it. I just couldn’t process their reaction. I’ve seen THE TEN COMMANDMENTS many times over the years and it still strikes me as an astonishingly well- assembled entertainment juggernaut. Somehow a battery of screenwriters cobbled together material from the five Books of Moses, the histories of Philo and Josephus, two or three religious potboilers and – for all I know- a couple of verses of “Skip to My Lou”, teasing it all into a perfect pulp poetry script – cohesive and quotable. As when Pharaoh, pooh-poohing a possible slave rebellion, intones “I measure my enemies by their swords, not by their chains.” As a movie Moses, Heston - with or without his prince’s lock – is right on the money. Brynner, Baxter and Hardwicke – all at the top of their respective games – savour the dialogue, soothing it along or spitting it out in a kind of actorly ecstasy. No other biblical epic ever got it quite this right. Elmer Bernstein’s score, for instance, grabs you by the shoulderblades from the get-go. Erupting with a regal boil under that giddily insane initial image of the Paramount mountain doubling as a blood-red Mount Sinai. And then there’s all that pre-CGI spectacle – the massive under-construction Treasure City , the Exodus, the panoramic launching of Pharaoh’s war chariots and – of course - the whiz-bang parting of the Red Sea – all calculated to leave audiences limp with glee. Over the years I find my initial reaction hasn’t really changed that much. Loved it then. Love it now.

A similarly towering movie memory of mine from ’56 centers on another cinematic slice of antiquity. I prefer my peplum Jesus-free. And as a kid I was a Greek mythology junkie. So when a massive billboard dominating our town’s main street began trumpeting the imminent arrival of Warner Brothers’ HELEN OF TROY, I was practically doing cartwheels. I couldn’t wait. Everything I wanted from a movie seemed to be encapsulated on that billboard. Massive city walls, a kick-ass Trojan horse, clashing armies and a face that looked as if it really could launch a thousand ships. As in the case of The DeMille film, when I finally got to see the picture I was 100% satisfied. I saw it over and over. First-run, second-run and beyond. Rossana Podesta and Jack(Jacques) Sernas were suddenly my favorite screen team, temporarily sidelining Abbott & Costello. Even now when I hear the names Helen and Paris, theirs are the faces I see. I found myself reading everything I could about the movie and its stars. What I didn’t find out, I just made up. I remember telling my grandmother that they’d held a world-wide beauty contest and Rossana Podesta had been unanimously certified as the world’s most beautiful woman – the only one worthy of playing Helen of Troy. Don’t know if my grandmother believed me. But she seemed to go along with it for my sake. Fabricator I might be - but I was her little fabricator. I can remember staring into the window at Franchi’s (half confectionery, half barbershop) at their single copy of the Dell classic comic book of HELEN OF TROY, with its enticing cover-shot of Rossana Podesta in purple. Ten cents. But it was ten cents I didn’t have. I’d already spent my allowance so I begged and cajoled my mother to advance me next week’s. She said no and wouldn’t budge. And that Holy Grail of a comic book disappeared from Franchi’s window a day or two later, destined for the home of some undeserving so-and-so who I'm sure didn't want it as much as I did. That Dell movie classic bobbed around in my consciousness one way or the other for decades afterwards.

Till I finally snagged one at a comics convention when I was in my late 20’s. The lack of a dime in 1956 had kept the prize in Franchi’s window out of my grasp for all those years but - in the end -I got my mitts on it.
In the summer of 1956 my parents took me along on a trip to Duluth. And I nearly had a seizure when I spotted a movie theatre that was playing the next Podesta film - SANTIAGO, a Warnercolor opus that teamed her with another of my favourites, Alan Ladd. I’d already heard about it. But it hadn’t reached our neck of the woods yet. I remember another bout of pleading and wheedling. Please. Please. Please. Can’t we go in and watch it? For whatever reason, it was no go. And I had to wait till it finally showed up in my Canadian hometown some weeks later. But see it I did, love it I did – and this time – with ten cents in my pocket just when I needed it most - I even managed to get my hands on the Dell movie classic edition. Guess I just assumed there’d be an endless series of Rossana Podesta movies in the days and years to come. So I was pretty disappointed when she just dropped off the radar. Seems after a short sojourn in Hollywood she simply went back to Europe. Continuing her film career - but in foreign-language movies far from the Hollywood spotlight. The Sophia Loren level of stardom she’d seemed destined for never materialized. For one thing, during the 60’s she worked almost exclusively with her husband Mario Vicario, a minor director. He kept her busy – but in nondescript vehicles, few of which ever seemed to wash up on this side of the ocean. It’s a crying shame she never worked with Fellini or Antonioni or Visconti. Never fully explored the artistic potential she clearly possessed. She and Vicario divorced years later but by that time her her film career was nearing its end. And after co-starring with another legendary Italian actress, Alida Valli in a warmly reviewed drama called SEGRETI SEGRETI, she quietly retreated from the spotlight, leaving on a grace note. In 1979 I had an unexpected opportunity to meet Rossana Podesta. And to say this childhood heroine of mine lived up to my expectations is sheer understatement. Still gorgeous, she turned out to be a kind, charismatic lady – warm and generous. And still fully capable, I’d imagine, of launching at least a thousand ships. Not too long ago I learned that Rossana Podesta’s now the mate of Walter Bonatti, a famous Italian mountaineer/journalist. As romantic a figure in his own right as she is in hers. What’s more, the relationship seems to be working. They’ve been together for more than 25 years. Sometimes travelling, sometimes living quietly in a lovely rustic home in bucolic Dubino, Italy. A happy fate for the beautiful lady who –as Helen of Troy - made so many hearts beat faster in 1956.

And speaking of 1956. that brings us back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Though I don’t care for any of the five performances nominated in ‘56, I do think there were a number of award-worthy turns that went unacknowledged that year. Debbie Reynolds, for instance, gave what I’d say was the performance of

her career in Paddy Chayefsky’s well-oiled Bronx drama THE CATERED AFFAIR. She concentrated on dialing down her trademark exuberance and did it to terrific effect. Known then for her work in candy-floss musicals, she was probably excited to be in a prestigious drama. But – truth be told - the producers were lucky to have her. She interacted beautifully in a distinguished ensemble, elevating every one of her scenes with a stripped-down but compassionate approach. Playing a working-class girl who just wants to marry fiancé Rod Taylor on the quiet and get on with her life. But finds herself sucked into her mother’s plans for a lollapalooza of a wedding that threatens to leave the family bankrupt and battling. Bette Davis plays the mother and what she lacks in Bronx authenticity, she more than makes up for in sheer unadulterated watchability. And Reynolds is especially good in her scenes with Bette. Expressing frustrated affection and mounting panic with subtle conviction, staking an equal claim to audience attention even when Bette’s operating full-tilt.

My old favourite THE TEN COMMANDMENTS didn’t chalk up any acting nominations. But I think a number of the participants were certainly nomination-worthy. A totally invested Nina Foch shows what a

first-class actress can do in a peripheral part. As Bithia, the Egyptian princess who finds a baby in the bullrushes, she never showboats. But she’s always totally in character, starting as a young widow and progressing through the years from sadness to joy, from anger to panic, from agony to resignation. And her make-up’s good too. She shares a lot of her scenes with Judith Anderson, playing her head slave, Memnet. Anderson opts for a kind of commanding subordination and explores the territory with reptilian resourcefulness. I’m not always onboard with Anderson in other films. I’m no Mrs. Danvers fan, for instance. But when she’s on target, she’s something to see. Think LAURA or THE FURIES. In THE TEN COMMANDMENTS she pitches her effects at just the right

level, I think. A woman whose instinct for survival evaporates under the heat of her own obsessive caste-consciousness. She just can’t shake the memory of that Levite cloth. And her inability to let things lie leads to her downfall (literally). One of my favourite moments in the film arrives when Foch and Anderson spot Heston and Baxter canoodling on a staircase. Ever the grumbler, Anderson can’t resist a jab. ‘Now the flame you lighted burns close to the throne.” Foch’s response is golden. Not even looking at her, but with the eloquent flutter of a jet black fan in her direction, she instantly sheds her usual warmth uttering a steely, “Your tongue will dig your grave, Memnet.”All on its own that scene makes me feel quite comfortable recommending retroactive nominations for both ladies.

One of ‘56’s unsung joys – and a feast for actress lovers - is the wry western THE KING AND 4 QUEENS, with Clark Gable and a passle of feisty women all angling to get their hands on some hidden outlaw gold. Every one of the female roles in the film is sharply crafted. Eleanor Parker – in the last of her peak performances - bristles with a sexy caginess. Jo Van Fleet’s commanding as ever. Sara Shane wrings a few decorously spiky changes in the girl next door, while professional birdbrain Barbara Nichols carries on with screechy expertise. But my favourite of the ladies is Jean Willes. She’s Ruby, a no-nonsense tigress with

an accent that makes you think she just rolled in on the last wagon train from Puerto Rico. Which should be hard to swallow but isn’t because Willes’ vocal inflections are such spicy fun. It’s easy to picture Ruby in a killer cat-fight with Rita Moreno in WEST SIDE STORY. She’s a man-eater with a stripped-down philosophy. Men want sex. She’s out to see they get it. She likes it too –especially if it’s garnished with a dollop of outlaw loot. Willes bites into the role with a deadpan fury – a low-rent Maria Felix who’s just as much dangerous fun as the real thing. She knows the ways to make her man purr. But just let him look at another woman and somebody’s liable to wind up with a shiv in their ribs. Willes had been on the scene since the 40’s, a resourceful all-purpose contract player. And in the 50’s a regular and welcome fixture at Saturday matinees. Tough but beautiful. Perhaps most memorable in JUNGLE JIM AND THE FORBIDDEN LAND(1952) as a scheming pith-helmeted villainess who gives the Wicked Queen in SNOW WHITE a run for her money. She stirs up plenty of mischief till finally getting thrown over a cliff by one of the Forbidden Land’s Missing Link denizens. To thunderously cathartic Saturday Matinee applause, I might add, because Jean Willes made the character so much fun to hate. She performed regularly on television – always displaying professionalism plus that little something extra that made you remember her with pleasure. Stardom eluded her. But she plugged on. Landing in an A-picture with Gable, Willes made the most of the opportunity. Managing to find the meat in the role , then making a memorable meal of it. Memorable enough, I think, to add her name to the list of supporting actress nominees in ’56.

But my trophy that year would’ve gone to another hard-boiled B-movie icon of the era.
Adele Jergens was the ne plus ultra of brass-plated blonde glamour girls. Stunning, statuesque – she could’ve done duty as a carved figurehead on the prow of a ship. With an Olympian quality that distinguished her from the rest of the underworld blondes. Her floozies were authoritative, her strippers headliners. Even her voice was commanding. And she knew how to use it to make a man feel like a big shot or a worm. If she didn’t exactly create the tough blonde prototype she certainly refined it to perfection. Onscreen, Adele Jergens operated as arm candy of the most imposing sort, the arm generally belonging to a mobster. Flashy clothes, bracelets up to her elbows, fifty bucks for the powder room. These were her hallmarks. Status, disreputable but profitable – not romance – was generally the keynote of her onscreen relationships. When any gangster, shady promoter or con artist wanted to convey the fact that business was booming, Jergens existed as the perfect accessory. The living equivalent of a flashy car.
She’d first come to prominence as Miss World’s Fairest ( New York World’s Fair, 1939). Then paraded over to Broadway for a season or two as a showgirl. A brief gig as Gypsy Rose Lee’s understudy suggested that Jergens’ future didn’t lie in dewy ingénue roles. On the West Coast, a stock contract at Fox led only to bits, but Columbia signed her in ’44 , placing her first in an Irene Dunne-Charles Boyer comedy called TOGETHER AGAIN (a great picture by the way), as a stunningly groomed stripper who always keeps her hat on. Fan mail started arriving and Columbia began making plans for their new acquisition. She starred with Cornel Wilde in an elaborate Arabian Nights vehicle A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS – shot in eye-popping 40’s Technicolor. Seen today, the color and Jergens’ drop-dead glamour are practically the only things the picture has going for it. Otherwise, it focuses relentlessly on bad comedy with Phil Silvers mangling scene after scene with his mugging. Still, in ’45 audiences turned up in big numbers. Trouble was, when it came to glamour girls, Columbia pretty much concentrated their resources on their one true superstar, Rita Hayworth. The studio’s few big vehicles tended to go to her; the other girls usually spent their time shuttling from one B-picture to another. Which is where Adele Jergens wound up. THE WOMAN FROM TANGIER, WHEN A GIRL’S BEAUTIFUL, SLIGHTLY FRENCH – and other titles just as obscure. The fact that she was good in these quickies didn’t seem to get her any closer to stardom. When Rita couldn’t do femme fatale duty in the noirish DEAD RECKONING opposite Humphrey Bogart, it looked as if Adele’s moment might’ve come at last. But in the end the studio borrowed Lizabeth Scott to do the honors. Jergens’ questionable consolation prize? A couple of scenes in Rita Hayworth’s latest big-budget musical, DOWN TO EARTH. This is the opulent stinker where Rita plays the Greek goddess Terpsichore descended to earth to save Larry Parks’ floundering Broadway show. And it’s every bit as stupid as it sounds. Jergens is cast as the temperamental star Rita replaces. Trouble is the little we get to see of Adele onstage is a lot more diverting than the pretentious Parthenon claptrap Rita serves up. The picture’s a kind of horribly misconceived precursor of THE BANDWAGON. With Hayworth eventually abandoning the high-falutin’ stuff for the good of the show – and doing it Broadway-style. Except what’s presented here as Broadway pizzaz is also lousy – a kind of stumblebum version of Agnes DeMille set to a score that ought’ve been strangled at birth. It all constitutes an awful waste of the awesome Rita, leaving Jergens’ brief musical sequence (vocals dubbed by a young Kay Starr) and her attendant temper tantrum the film’s only claim to actual entertainment value. Rita was the reigning love goddess of the 40.s

A year after DOWN TO EARTH . Adele co-starred with future 50’s love goddess Marilyn Monroe
In a quickie called LADIES OF THE CHORUS. Considering Monroe’s enduring status, I’m always surprised this picture isn’t more talked about. It’s the first big part MM ever had – and she’s charming in it. It’s like seeing one of those garden-fresh Norma Jean Baker photos from the 40’s suddenly come to life. The script is Simple Simon stuff, probably whipped off a few hours before the cameras started cranking. But top-billed Adele and wide-eyed Marilyn are both good company for an hour. The two play mother and daughter strippers – which sounds a lot kinkier than it plays, believe me. Considering the film’s utter lack of anything that could be construed as raunchy, they might as well be mother and daughter stenographers. The fact is, though, that Adele, in her late twenties was playing the mother of an actress in her early twenties. Which may reflect Jergens’ singular lack of ego. Or maybe the fact that her status at the studio was so precarious she took whatever was offered without a murmur. Certainly Columbia couldn’t have been too concerned about her image if they were willing to rush her into “mature” parts so soon. Whatever the case, both Adele and Marilyn played their roles with ease and precision. Even the songs were better than the twaddle on offer in DOWN TO EARTH. Both ladies got to perform a little dandy called “Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy” and did it up brown. Whatever, Jergens was freelancing by the end of the 40’s. By which time she’d honed her Juke Joint Jezebel persona to perfection. Hers was the blueprint others copied, but seldom equalled. Unfortunately, it was not the kind of character Hollywood was writing leads for. She was always on the sidelines, frequently up to no good - but sometimes just spitting out withering one-liners to put punks in their places. And she inevitably looked so good doing it, it was scary. One of Jergens’ specialties (and nobody did it better) involved scenarios where she had to coax something out of some hapless buffoon. Huntz Hall, say, or – even better – Lou Costello. In ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN(1951), she’s gangster’s moll, Boots. Assigned to convince babe-in-the-woods Lou (mistaken for a prizefighter) to throw a match. She first vamps him at a nightclub, hilarious as she alternately coos over Costello and gives Abbott the deep freeze. “I live at the Ritz-Carlton ,” she purrs invitingly to Lou. “So do I” pipes up Bud. Jergens shoots a quick dirty look in his direction and says “I hope you like your room”. Ouch! Later, having lured Lou up to her suite, she sidles up to him in a black negligee and -needless to say – reducing him to silly putty doesn’t take long. But the interplay’s marvelous, with Lou babbling and blundering, while Jergens alternates her come-ons with sublimely exasperated side-glances that say “give me strength!”.
I also love her in AARON SLICK FROM PUNKIN CRICK, a breezy 1952 musical commentators seldom mention except to dump on it. I’m super-fond of the picture myself. Most of it’s filmed in the open air, a nice change from those misguided attempts Hollywood frequently made to reproduce the outdoors on a soundstage. Dinah Shore and Alan Young lead the cast as neighboring farmer/sweethearts. Doris Day and Donald O’Connor would’ve been sensational. But Shore and Young do quite nicely, thank you. None of the songs were hits. But they’re all good – and presented with plenty of zip. Veteran Minerva Urecal, usually an

old vinegar-puss, has her best-ever role as Shore’s BFF. The old gal even gets to join Dinah in a song ,and pulls it off with aplomb. Singer Robert Merrill and Adele play city slickers trying to hoodwink the innocent pair out of their land and money. The whole thing’s set in the horse-and-buggy era, with the turn-of-the-century glad-rags setting Jergens’ figure off to a tee. As the Shore and King characters –protected by their own sheer gormlessness - unwittingly evade one scheme after another, Jergens conducts what amounts to a master-class in slow burns. Further aggravated by nagging suspicions that boyfriend Merrill’s just a little too attracted to sunny Shore. Adele nets a few hefty fish-out-of-water laughs as she fights to maintain some dignity during a round of farmyard misadventures. Trudging through the muck in her finery, she’s set upon by a pack of hostile chickens. And her mood’s only further soured by Dinah’s cheery observation, “Must be the shiny buckles on your shoes.”
It’s worth mentioning that Adele bears a striking resemblance to another actress who flourished at the same time. That would be Virginia Mayo, who also arrived in movies in the early 40’s. She, however, was the lucky recipient of a big buildup from Samuel Goldwyn, who gave her leads (frequently opposite Danny Kaye) in a string of splashy color vehicles. They were all box-office hits, establishing Mayo as a sizable name. Later, at Warner Brothers, she sustained the momentum through much of the 50’s. Mayo and Jergens looked so much alike they could have been sisters. Some pretty seasoned movie fans still have trouble telling them apart. And though film-makers went to some lengths to soften the image, Mayo was generally at her best playing the kind of hard-boiled, well-enamelled blondes that were Adele Jergens’ specialty. But while Mayo worked opposite big names like Gregory Peck, Alan Ladd, Bob Hope and James Cagney, Jergens scratched around for a living, often in precarious B’s like RADAR SECRET SERVICE, FIREMAN SAVE MY CHILD and BLUES BUSTERS(with the Bowery Boys). Which isn’t to say she wasn’t her usual striking self in all of them. But as Mayo moved from one plush vehicle to the next, Jergens had to be content with scraps. The finest performance Mayo ever gave was in William Wyler’s THE BEST YEARS OUR LIVES – as Dana Andrews’ floozie of a wife, only satisfied when she’s rubbing shoulders with the low-lives at Jackie’s Hot Spot. Jergens could’ve done that role to a golden turn. Maybe not better than Mayo (who was admittedly terrific) but surely just as well. I always felt it would’ve been only natural for Adele Jergens to harbour at least a modicum of resentment towards Virginia Mayo. Surely she’d have been ecstatic to land just one of Mayo’s innumerable palmy assignments. And considering that onscreen each had such an effective line in hard-edged dames, I’d have thought if they ever met, it might well have been daggers at dawn. Turns out I was all wrong. Apparently Jergens and Mayo were bosom buddies – and remained so all their lives -long after their film careers were over and done with. Instead of seeing themselves as rivals, they apparently hit it off - genuine kindred souls. Certainly they seemed to have identical tastes in grooming - both projecting the same hard platinum gleam. What’s more, while most of Hollywood’s onscreen good girls seemed to change husbands like they changed hairstyles, Jergens and Mayo each married once – and for keeps. They may have played calculating vixens in the movies. But apparently – in real life – they were nice women who lived long and relatively happy lives with husbands who loved them. Both ladies chose macho actors as mates. For Mayo it was burly Michael O’Shea. For Jergens, Glenn Langan, a slab of prime beefcake who spent a few palmy years at Fox as onscreen consort to some of that studio’s tastiest leading ladies (Gene Tierney, Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell). Langan eventually left the movies and became a fairly successful businessmen. As I said, Jergens and Mayo remained close over the years. I have an image in my head of the two of them – glamorous peas in a pod - poised to enter some swanky nightspot together. They synchronize compacts - a little dab here, a little dab there – pause for a nod of mirror-imaged mutual approval , then sweep in to rock that room.
Maverick film-maker Roger Corman was just getting started in the mid-50’s, producing and directing shoestring quickies, then finding ways to get them into theatres. An expert at wringing the last gasp of value out of every dollar, he built a lean, efficient little no-frills movie-making operation. While the major studios sweated buckets of red ink, Corman – canny, resourceful and tireless –churned out the kind of cheap but exploitable product that kept drive-in owners and their audiences hollering for more. Gunslingers, baby face killers, dragstrips and devil worshippers – Corman tried them all and tried them often. A string of cut-rate sci-fi titles yielded especially tasty profits. In typical 50’s style, the posters promised shocks and sensations the films themselves stopped well short of delivering. Which isn’t to say Roger Corman’s stripped-down little programmers didn’t have their pleasures. For one thing, Corman had an eye for talent and was an expert at roping interesting actors into his projects. Sometimes these actors were (at least hopefully) on the way up. But more often they were veterans on the way down – performers the majors studios regarded as used up. Their commercial heydays may have passed , but years of experience had sharpened both their expertise and adaptability. The kind of performers who could hit their marks and get it right on the first take. Dorothy Malone, who’d definitely turned heads as a Warner Brothers contractee in the late 40’s seemed to be fading when Corman signed her for a pair of mini-budgeters in 1954. THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, a ramshackle race-car opus, had a particularly shot-on-the-fly feeling to it. But Malone was terrific. And just as good in the Corman western that followed (FIVE GUNS WEST). Somebody must have noticed. Because within a year or so, she was Hollywood’s newest Golden Girl , sweeping up to the podium to collect an Oscar for the plushly produced WRITTEN ON THE WIND. Corman, meanwhile, was still working at breakneck pace – turning out, among other things, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi-er called DAY THE WORLD ENDED. This was no 2012 by any stretch of the imagination. Black and white, shot on scruffy-looking sets with a few quick forays around Griffith Park, it was pure guerrilla film-making. But the script has a clunky immediacy. And the cast is excellent. Headed by Richard Denning, who’s always been a favourite of mine. Evergreen charm, Lustre-creme hair, reassuring good-guy aura and a silverlode of a speaking voice. There’s a lot of things I hate about 1958’s AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER. But one aspect that particularly sticks in my craw - how on earth could Deborah Kerr have possibly dumped him for Cary Grant? I don’t get it. Never will.
Anyway, DAY THE WORLD ENDED has scientist Paul Birch and daughter Lori Nelson holed up in their isolated rural bunglalow after some sort of massive nuclear event. Outside, most of the world’s population seems to be either dead or mutating into nasty bargain basement monsters. Seems Birch, having predicted something of this sort all along, has organized enough provisions and precautions(???) to see him and Nelson through the worst of it. Gradually, however, they’re joined by a rag-tag assortment of stragglers, who (so far) seem to seem to have escaped the worst effects of the nuclear haymaker. Cooped up together, everybody’s soon on everybody else’s nerves, with tempers flying and provisions dwindling.Among those gathered – hunky archaeologist Denning, old prospector Raymond Hatton (and his mule) And best of all, barging and griping their way onto the scene in a top-down convertible, come small-time hood Touch Connors and his flashy peroxide blonde girl friend. Connors was an up-and-comer who eventually morphed into TV star Mike Connors (“Mannix”). He’s in the groove here, mean and antsy, complete with itchy libido and itchier trigger finger. The woman with him? It’s our Adele. And here – in this hastily thrown together set-up – she gives the performance of her life. Her name’s Ruby - and she’s lost none of her caustic edge. Still able to deliver a put-down that’s the psychic equivalent of a well-placed knee to the groin.But Ruby’s older now – probably pushing forty. Nowadays any woman with sufficient amounts of disposable income, vanity and motivation can stave off middle age till she’s a pensioner. Back in the 50’s, things were different. If you were forty, nobody took you for twenty. And there weren’t any pills or potions back then potent enough to permanently dispel that sinking feeling that the party was basically over. Especially if – like Ruby – you were a stripper who’d seen better days. From here on in, the good times were something you might occasionally glimpse in the rear-view mirror. Ruby’s still feisty – but her headlining days are over. No more belle of the ball. Her much younger boyfriend sees her as a meal-ticket. And even on those terms, it’s getting harder to hang on to him. Plus – of course – there’s that little matter of a nuclear holocaust hanging over her head. Jergens puts her well-oiled prototype into play. But here it’s only a jumping-off point. The budget’s miniscule, the shooting pace hectic . But the pressure seems to inspire her – and though the context may be shaky, the role’s pretty sizable. Picking up on the energy level around her, Jergens doesn’t falter, gradually exploring facets of her screen character she’d never really exposed before. When Ruby first drops anchor in her new surroundings - a jolt of tawdry, tough-as-nails glamour- it’s clear she’s a little past her sell-by date. Squeezed into a strapless floral number. Clutching a bedraggled fur stole. And fixing her makeup – just in case. Looking for all the world like a weary dime- a- dance gal sizing up the latest batch of suckers. She’s no shrinking violet – nor is boyfriend Connors, who’s soon waving a pistol at anyone who looks at him sideways. For her part, Ruby doesn’t raise any objections. This is how most of the men she knows generally operate. What’s fun to watch are the gradual changes the situation starts to work in her familiar persona. She remains flashy, of course – an enjoyably crass visual counterpoint to her surroundings. It’s a hoot watching her lean against a fireplace in a flared, terraced hacienda-style skirt while Paul Birch reads Bible passages aloud. Inconspicuous just isn’t her style. But instead of crumbling under the pressure of the situation, Ruby starts to blossom a bit. Initially she’s no fan of daisy-fresh Lori Nelson (having caught Connors leering in the girl’s direction). But Nelson’s unencumbered niceness eventually wears down her defences and the two become unlikely buddies. Nelson in a sundress holding a watering can, Jergens inevitably gaudy (at one point she hauls out the top that should’ve gone with that Mexican mariachi skirt; it’s an explosion of cascading off-the-shoulder ruffles and she pairs it with a tartan semi-kilt). But, as I said, the girls are soon thick as thieves. Even donning bathing suits for a dip in a nearby pond (about as advisable, I’d have thought, as a picnic at Chernobyl) But it does give the two of them a chance for some splashy bonding. Hearing a few twigs crack on the shore, Nelson gets all nervous Nellie about possible mutant interlopers. To which Jergens, ever the pragmatic exhibitionist, responds good-naturedly, “Oh, it’s probably one of the men. Boys will be boys.” Ruby’s good-hearted side continues to assert itself in a budding friendship with old Pete, the prospector. They sneak out back regularly for small-talk and a few guzzles of home-made moonshine. She even smuggles

out sugar for his mule. Ruby gradually realizes that the square-shooting and resourceful Denning and Birch are much better human beings than her boyfriend. But she never quite lets go of the idea that she and Connors can make a go of it. She’s hooked on him. When Birch suggests that it’s up to Denning and Nelson to start procreating ( fresh start, new world), Jergens’ latent maternal instincts kick into action. She starts pitching the idea to a singularly unimpressed Connors, and gets some touching mileage out of the line, “we won’t tell him his old lady was a striptease artist”. I wouldn’t be surprised if Corman expanded Jergens role when he got a load of just how much she was bringing to the table. Her performance climaxes with a scene that really gives her the scope to go full out. One night, having sampled a little too much of Pete’s moonshine, her hair whipped into some sort of jerry-built side-sweep, Jergens slaps a brassy Pete Condoli record onto the phonograph and decides to give everybody a sample of her “act”. What starts out as a blowsy semi-joke quickly gains intensity as Jergens convincingly bumps and grinds her way around the room. Describing her glory days – and reliving them. Her eyes glaze over; her voice thickens as she surrenders to a kind of carnal fervor. The body’s in motion, but the mind’s faraway. “When I’d come on, they’d start shoutin’ and whistlin’ ... and after awhile all I could hear was their breathin’”. It’s a painfully intimate, painfully public moment. The music’s blasting, Adele’s transfigured. And suddenly – at its height - the spell’s shattered. She dissolves into sobs and collapses. Her show is over. It’s a terrific piece of acting, a marvelous, poignant demonstration of the depth and power of Adele Jergens’ talents. It’s likely Corman just focused the camera on her for this scene and let her rip. Two minutes of shatteringly inspired acting. Whatever she was channelling, the result was the kind of moment actors dream of. I can pretty much bet nobody on the Academy nominating committee even mentioned her name that year. They probably wouldn’t have been caught dead watching DAY THE WORLD ENDED. It’s their loss. ‘Cause in retrospect, none of the actual supporting nominees that year came anywhere near matching the quality of her work in that scene. Adele Jergens – showgirl, trouper, gilt-edged icon and – for my money – BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS OF 1956.

OH RIGHT, THAT LONG-LOST LIST OF 20

2009-07-07T07:10:00.002-04:00

Months ago, in response to some (now) dimly remembered on-line tag, I began an alphabetical list of my twenty favorite film actresses. The ones who, for whatever reasons - charm, beauty, warmth or simply the fact that I liked the cut of their jib – had meant and continued to mean the most to me. The list was fully formed – and hasn’t changed. But I only managed to post mini-tributes to the first half-dozen. Then just filed the project under P for procrastinate and let it ride. Hopefully I’ll eventually build up enough steam in my kettle to write a little about each of these ladies. ‘Cause for every one of them – year after year – I continue to feel the kind of proprietary fondness one might exhibit for daughters or sweethearts, mixed, of course, with a kind of comfortably nostalgic movie fan awe. But for now – and for the record – here are all twenty names.

1. JEAN BROOKS
2. JUDY CANOVA
3. MAHIMA CHAUDHARY
4. PEGGY CUMMINS
5. ARLENE DAHL
6. JUDY GARLAND
7. KATHRYN GRAYSON
8. MARY BETH HUGHES
9. JOI LANSING
10. IRIS MEREDITH
11. NELL O’DAY
12. HELEN PARRISH
13. ROSSANA PODESTA
14. JANE POWELL
15. CONSTANCE SMITH
16. GENE TIERNEY
17. HELEN WALKER
18. FANNIE WARD
19. ESTHER WILLIAMS
20. LORETTA YOUNG

THE CLASS OF '59

2009-04-27T11:25:00.032-04:00

It’s a good time to head over to StinkyLulu's ‘cause the Supporting Actress nominees of 1959 are currently strutting their stuff there. Though most of these performances have their moments, this is by no means one of my favorite rosters. Only one of the five would’ve made my own list of nominees that year. But Lulu’s decision to spotlight ’59 in this month’s Smackdown got me looking back at some of my favorite un-nominated turns from exactly fifty years ago.

Shelley Winters got a nod (and in fact won the trophy) for her accomplished work in THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. But I remembered reacting more strongly to Gusti Huber and Diane Baker, who played Anne’s mother and sister. When I re-watched the picture a couple of weeks ago, those positive memories were reinforced. Huber’s a pro to her fingertips, doing such solid work building her character on the sidelines that when her spotlight moments arrive they’re fully infused with the detailed humanity she’s been quietly accumulating all along. Baker, a lovely actress who never quite achieved the heights she seemed headed for, downplays her beauty here, going instead for a restrained display of selflessness, achieved at a cost her character never quite puts into words. It’s distinctive work – achingly touching – and in a role that could’ve been lost in the shuffle. Of course the film’s over-riding impact comes not so much from the performances as from the crushing sadness of the real Anne’s fate.

I first saw SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER in a movie theatre in the 1960’s. One-half of a double bill that promised considerably more hold-onto-your-hats titillation than it delivered. Even so, like most (I suppose) I was buffaloed by sheer star power (Taylor,Clift,Hepburn,Tennessee Williams) into thinking I was watching pretty serious stuff. A screening in the 80’s severely diminished most of my memories, especially the ones involving Hepburn’s poison ivy matriarch. But that time out, Mercedes McCambridge caught my attention. Her Nervous Nellie act, fawning and scraping, afraid of her own shadow and even more afraid of Hepburn’s, seemed a nice bit of playing against type. Over the years, when I’ve thought of deserving nominees from ’59, McCambridge’s name has always popped up in my mind. After watching the movie again this month, I find my estimation of SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER continues to plummet. McCambridge now seems unnecessarily cartoonish in her first couple of scenes. I think she reins it in a bit later on – and I suppose I got more acclimatized to it as the movie wore on. In the end, her contribution seems okay. But –sorry, Mercedes – no soup for you – and no nomination. As for Hepburn, her antics now look preposterous. A geriatric Ophelia bobbing along on a stream of unbridled mannerisms. If it’s true that she and director Mankiewicz battled bitterly over her interpretation of the part, I’d love to know which one of them prevailed in the end. Because what’s onscreen reflects very little credit on either. Ultimately SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER is a pint-sized tempest in a teapot. Shocked at itself, certainly, but very unlikely to startle anybody else. Like that highly touted white bathing suit they keep telling us is transparent, despite clear visual evidence to the contrary.

The elegantly horrific LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (EYES WITHOUT A FACE) probably wasn’t eligible for Oscars in ’59. I don’t believe it saw the light of day in America till around ’62. And then it was tossed into drive-ins – truncated, masticated, badly dubbed and saddled with the distinctly inelegant title THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS. But certainly Alida Valli’s supporting work in the original version was a singular pleasure. Valli (fondly remembered from THE THIRD MAN and THE PARADINE CASE) was one of those essential continental actresses who (like Simone Signoret) seemed to convey fathomless depths of experience, feeling, passion etc. Literally throbbing with the potential for delight, destruction and self-destruction. This time out she’s the obsessively loyal assistant of a dour scientist. Said man of science is determined to repair the face of his daughter (disfigured in a car accident) no matter the cost. Seems his plan requires beautiful young girls for facial transplant purposes. And Valli’s the one that rounds up these unwitting subjects. She roams the city as a respectable lady d’un certain age, offering to help gullible young lookers find suitable accomodation. She’s smooth, soothing, authoritative and extremely persuasive. Once she’s got the potential tenants to the professor’s out-of-the-way chateau, they soon find out first and last month’s rent are likely to be one and the same – with the terms a good deal stiffer than they’d bargained for. Valli’s performance is by no means the film’s only pleasure. But she plays her enigmatic card to memorably hypnotic effect.
In the end, though, none of the above would quite make the cut for me in ’59. ‘Cause there were five other ladies who - for my money -created even greater impressions that year.

SUSAN KOHNER in "Imitation of Life"
Kohner’s the only one of the five actual nominees who’d also appear on my own list. And this in a Ross Hunter soap opera – wax fruit under glass with conspicuous attention paid to cocktail gowns, jewellery and stale women’s picture cliches. Lana Turner’s the centerpiece here. And Hunter’s swat team follows the boss’s usual list of idiotic priorities, vigilantly keeping the moths away from Lana’s furs, but apparently allowing them full access to the script. Turner plays Lora Meredith, Broadway’s greatest actress. Naturally they daren’t show much of Lana’s onstage emoting, wisely (and hilariously) restricting her triumphs to curtain calls and flower-bedecked dressing rooms. She also vascillates uninterestingly between a number of stuffed-shirt suitors (one of whom is John Gavin – who gave much the same performance eight years later in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, except that time he called it comedy). But the real interest in IMITATION OF LIFE comes from the picture’s sub-plot. Sarah Jane ( the daughter of Lora’s black housekeeper) is light-skinned enough to pass for white and determines to do just that. In other words, Sarah Jane - operating in racially repressive 50's America - is setting herself up for some very real dilemmas. What’s more Susan Kohner (who’s playing her) is faced with the challenge of making the performance work in a screenplay padded with piffle i.e. Lana’s penny ante problems. At some point, Kohner must have taken a deep breath and just decided to put it all on the line. Her Sarah Jane is selfish, angry, peevish and recklessly determined to find a way out. And – for all her bad behaviour – believable and sympathetic too, because she succeeds in communicating honest-to-goodness pain . Pride and shame locked in mortal combat. It’s quite an accomplishment for a young actress. She does benefit from a strong chemistry with Juanita Moore (cast as her mother,Annie). Moore’s a fine actress but - like most of the picture’s characters – Annie’s mission’s to make Sarah Jane stifle her feelings. And though that may make everyone else in the picture more comfortable it won’t solve Sarah Jane’s problems. She wants the same kind of life and privileges she sees white girls enjoying. Girls who aren’t as pretty, as smart or as flat-out hungry as she is. Sarah’s playing with fire. She knows it. She’s also willing to risk it. The girl has the additional bad luck to be raised alongside America’s Sweetheart Sandra Dee, a shiny blonde magnet for privileges and prom invitations. What’s more, Dee doesn’t even have the decency to be a bitch about it. Basically her character’s an eternally supportive Melanie to Kohner’s thwarted Scarlett. Aside from fighting the world around her, Sarah Jane also has to wrestle with her own feelings of guilt over what she’s doing to her mother. She goes on the run. But everywhere Sarah Jane sets up shop, Mom eventually shows up to blow the whistle. Annie may urge her to be true to herself but in the end Sarah Jane’s got so many forces pulling and pushing her, she can hardly be expected to know what being true to herself even means. She just wants to live a little. Susan Kohner hits all the right notes – angry, nasty, desperate, guilty – all the while deeply, deeply frustrated at being painted into a corner by implacable societal forces . As I said, Juanita Moore’s a marvelous actress but the aura of saintliness imposed on her character puts limits on just how effective (and credible) she can be. Sarah Jane’s whole thing is about crossing limits. And Kohner goes for broke.

THELMA RITTER in "A Hole in the Head"
Ritter actually was one of the five Supporting Actress nominees in ’59. But not for this picture. Academy members singled out her contribution to the box-office juggernaut PILLOW TALK (another
plastic bauble from the Ross Hunter assembly line). Now, who doesn’t love Thelma Ritter? Certainly the Academy nominated her frequently – but seldom for the right performances. PILLOW TALK is a case in point. The picture itself is painfully smirking nonsense. It may have elevated the already world-famous Doris Day to stratospheric heights of popularity. But it hardly did justice to her talents. Neither Rock Hudson nor Tony Randall ever get within a mile of a genuine laugh. And Ritter – the great Ritter – is reduced to the level of a running gag, merely juggling binges and hangovers. The material she’s given isn’t funny – and even Ritter’s formidable gifts can’t turn dog turds into diamonds. Still, it must be pointed out, the picture wowed them in ’59. So go figure. Far less successful was the Frank Sinatra comedy A HOLE IN THE HEAD. As a film it was no great shakes. But certainly a cut above PILLOW TALK. What it did have in its favour was one of Ritter’s best performances, playing Sinatra’s wise-cracking, cynical but warm-hearted sister-in-law. During her career she was often asked to perform duty as a sort of solo scene saver, a lone Saint Bernard dispatched to rescue floundering co-stars from their own shortcomings. A HOLE IN THE HEAD gives her the opportunity to indulge in team-work of the highest order, with Edward G.Robinson, no less, cast as her irascible ragtrade husband. I’ve seen Robinson play comedy before. Very well in John Ford’s THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING. Not so much in A SLIGHT CASE OF MURDER and BROTHER ORCHID. But with Ritter beside him he raises his game substantially. The old school, put-that-in-your-pipe bickering between the two is 24 karat gold. Screenwriter Arnold Schulman seems to have responded to the Ritter-Robinson chemistry too. Because the dialogue he gives them (and there’s plenty of it) is all much better stuff than the rest of the cast has to settle for. By this time, of course, both Ritter and Robinson were veterans – what they didn’t know about performing probably wasn’t worth knowing. Here they get to toss the ball back and forth with world-class elan – two pros at the top of their respective games. Inspired by the presence of his scene partner, Robinson even scores silent movie sized bellylaughs out of repeated encounters with a recalcitrant armchair, all, of course, under Ritter’s "enough already" gaze. A HOLE IN THE HEAD may sag when these two are off-screen. But as soon as they’re back, there’s nowhere else you’d want to be.

CONSTANCE FORD in "A Summer Place"
A SUMMER PLACE was (like IMITATION OF LIFE) a soap opera mega-hit in ’59. Airy outdoor photography and Max Steiner’s time-capsule of a theme song helped elevate it above the level of similar Ross Hunter efforts. Another asset was the presence of serenely accomplished Dorothy McGuire (instead of Lana Turner) in the female lead. Two of IMITATION OF LIFE’s players also popped up in A SUMMER PLACE – Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee. Now giving Donahue more screen time didn’t add a whit to his non-existent appeal. But the Sandra Dee of the 50’s was pretty darn endearing. A recent re-viewing of her debut UNTIL THEY SAIL reconfirmed glowing memories of that performance. She more than holds her own in a star-heavy cast (Jean Simmons,Paul Newman,Joan Fontaine,Piper Laurie). Even serving up a none too authentic but undeniably charming stab at a New Zealand accent. A couple of years later she’s a real delight in an Audie Murphy quasi-western, THE WILD AND THE INNOCENT. Dee has an excellent confrontation scene in IMITATION OF LIFE, briefly shaking Lana out of her torpor. And she’s a decided asset in A SUMMER PLACE, where she (mainly) rises above the dialogue’s unintentionally amusing pussyfooting. The one-two punch of IMITATION OF LIFE and A SUMMER PLACE catapulted her into the Box Office Top Ten. But the 60’s failed to deliver on her early promise, consigning her to awful Gidget and Tammy movies (where sad to say she sank to the level of the material) plus other claptrap comedies. Who knows? Maybe youth played too big a part in her appeal. And maybe she really did grow less interesting as she got older. But it was nice to see her beautifully and touchingly portrayed by Kate Bosworth in the otherwise snooze-worthy Bobby Darin biopic BEYOND THE SEA. Bosworth captured so much of what Dee – at her best - radiated that a Kate Bosworth nomination wouldn’t have been out of order in 2004. Certainly it would’ve been a nice tip of the hat to Dee herself. But I digress. The performance I mean to spotlight is the one given by Constance Ford, a formidable presence despite the relatively few film appearances she made. In A SUMMER PLACE, Ford plays a monster mother – sexually repressed, social-climbing, back-stabbing, money-grubbing – an all-round pain-in-the-ass. Having fooled Richard Egan into marrying her, she considers her sexual duty done once they’ve had a child (Dee) and immediately cancels hubby’s bedroom privileges. When Dee becomes a teenager Momma guards her daughter’s virginity like a rottweiler, intent on saving her for a "suitable" marriage. Of course, since Momma’s bigoted against every possible group (even the Swedes), "suitable" candidates are few and far between. Included in the army of the unsuitable is Troy Donahue, the puffy-faced himbo Dee develops "feelings" for. For every obstacle Ford faces, she marshals a new set of dirty tricks to combat it. Eventually, of course, she’s committed to a scorched earth policy unlikely to leave a tree or a co-star standing. You’ve got to see the sequence where she literally hurls Dee into a fully decorated Christmas tree, toppling them both. The camera loved Ford (not in the way it loved, say, Bo Derek) but rather in the sense that it just couldn’t help but pick up on the powerful and complicated aura she emanated. Sometimes a concentrated malignant force, sometimes an emotional bull in a china shop. But always recognizably – sometimes startlingly – real. Ford’s voice – a seemingly blunt instrument she wielded like a precision tool - added considerably to the over-all impact. I’ve always thought of her as the second member of an acting triumvirate. Three women who shared a bond - physically, temperamentally and artistically. First of the trio would be Shelley Winters. Like Winters, Ford could be reasonably attractive – but in a kind of down-to-earth way that stubbornly resisted any efforts to Max Factorize her into Grace Kelly. And like Winters, Ford had a brief sylph-like stage early on, imposed no doubt at great cost. Eventually she let her waistline expand – and as she did so came into the full range of her talents. Again like Winters, Ford also seemed basically proletarian. If her character was rich in a movie, she’d probably married into it. Ford and Winters were both awfully good at playing women determined to crash (whatever they perceived as) society. Expert whiners. Yet they could also intimidate without even raising their voices. And if they did raise them – you’d better batten down the hatches. They were sometimes given caricatures to play – but with the right motivation (and both were usually pretty motivated) – always knew how to inject a jolt of the Real McCoy into their work. Certainly in A SUMMER PLACE, Ford elicits unexpected sympathy when we see her cowed by her own mother – a far less interesting virago, but obviously the one who made her what she is. For whatever reason, Ford focused mainly on television and stage roles. For years she was a fixture on daytime soaps, wreaking matriarchal havoc five days a week to the delight of loyal afternoon audiences. But for film fans, A SUMMER PLACE remains Ford’s finest hour. The third member of the triumvirate, by the way, would be Shirley Knight. Physically, she was cut from the same cloth as the other two. And much of what could be said about their abilities applied to her as well. She probably was a more comfortable fit in society roles than the other two. But she could match them in power, talent and charisma. And as far as I know she’s still doing great work. Knight was terrific in STUART SAVES HIS FAMILY in the 90’s – and I’ve watched her acquit herself beautifully in a number of television roles over the last decade. Someone even told me she’s in PAUL BLART: MALL COP, a movie I suspect could benefit considerably from even the smallest part of Knight's expertise . Shelley Winters won her first Oscar for her ’59 work. At the same time Ford was wowing audiences in A SUMMER PLACE. And Knight was already at work on THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, the film that would bring her the first of her Academy nominations. For this triumvirate 1959 was a very good year.

Delbert Mann’s MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, written by Paddy Chayevsky, is a total departure from Ross Hunter land, deliberately deglamourized, photographed largely on real New York locations in stark black and white and alive with the influences of neo-realism and Method acting. The story follows a widower in his late 50’s who devotes most of his time and energy to running a small New York garment factory. Outside of work, life’s a dreary, circumscribed routine; his spinster sister looks after his home; he pays regular visits to his grown-up daughter and her family. Then suddenly – unexpectedly - he finds himself falling in love with Betty, a twenty-something girl in his office.When she actually seems to be responding, his life turns upside down. Ultimately family, friends and his own insecurities turn the whole thing into an emotional bonfire. The film stars Fredric March and Kim Novak, two actors who’d both been spectacularly good and spectacularly bad in the past. Here – in their sole teaming – they’re sensational. March hits all the right notes as a good man watching his life wind down, facing a sudden, life-altering upheaval that brings everything – good and bad – to the surface. It’s probably his best-ever screen work, which is saying something. Novak’s Betty is an insecure young woman, with a failed marriage behind her. She’s living with her manipulative mother and has little reason to trust the world – especially the men in it. Novak’s at her best in roles like this – shy, emotionally isolated young women to whom beauty’s more burden than blessing. For her, too, MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT represents a career highlight. Possibly topped a year later by her work in STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET (a marginally lesser film) but an even greater achievement for Novak performance-wise. She’s genuinely heart-breaking in it. MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT offers her at the crest of her personal golden age, giving the third of four consecutive knock-out performances ( the first two triumphs being VERTIGO and BELL BOOK AND CANDLE). The sadness of Kim Novak’s screen sirens shines across the decades with a glow that wasn’t fully appreciated at the time but now seems unmistakable. But good as they are, March and Novak don’t monopolize the acting honors. I don’t know if I’ve seen any pictures with as many nomination-worthy performances packed into them. ( A LETTER TO THREE WIVES and CAGED come to mind). But MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT has every single acting category covered. Martin Balsam, a performer I can usually take or leave, is rousingly effective as March’s son-in-law, a man who’s got his work cut out just trying to catch his wife’s attention.
And Albert Dekker’s a revelation playing March’s loud-mouthed business associate, regaling unwilling audiences with dirty jokes about his (supposed) sexploits with a string of bimbos, ultimately confessing and confronting the emptiness of his existence. Dekker’s movie career went back to the 30’s but this work tops anything he’d ever done before. So there you are - four (deserved) nominations already – Actor, Actress plus two Supporting Actor nods . And we haven’t even gotten to Supporting Actress yet. Here MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT supplies two more worthy candidates.
BETTY WALKER was apparently a busy comedienne. Night-clubs, radio and television seem to have been her regular venues. In the 60’s she contributed to the popular comedy LP ‘You Don’t Have to be Jewish". Outside of this picture her filmography doesn’t add up to a hill of beans. But she takes her one scene in MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT and runs with it. I’d remembered the performance (though not the name) for several decades just based on one long ago viewing of the picture. Catching up with it again this year I saw why she'd made such an indelible impression. The manner and voice are unique. Doro Merande on tranquilizers doesn’t begin to tell the story. And no director could’ve said, "Betty, do it this way". She simply has some eccentric beat-of-a-different-drummer energy all her own. Put her in front of a camera and let her go. Perhaps if she’d made a lot of movies we’d have gotten used to her style. As it is, she comes on, makes jaws drop, then leaves. She’s Mrs. Neiman, a robotic widow the family presents as a suitable match for March. She’s trotted into his bedroom, no less. As he’s changing clothes. At which point she starts spouting a series of tonelessly insinuating non-sequiturs, all the time eyeing the man, looking for all the world as if she’s holding an open gamesack and trying to hypnotize him into it. March is completely thrown for a loop by this close-talking personal space invader. Imagine a decrepit Devil Girl from Mars suddenly materializing in your room while you’re trying to dress. And no amount of polite hinting will get her the hell out again. It’s a mesmerizing bit – certainly shorter than any nominated performance I’ve ever seen. Measured in seconds but – believe me – Walker makes every one of those seconds count.
March’s daughter Lillian is played - to perfection - by JOAN COPELAND. And this is the performance I think should’ve taken the trophy home in ’59. Lillian's a lifetime daddy’s girl , carelessly confident of her position as apple of her father’s eye. But the liaison with Novak threatens the exclusivity of that relationship and Lillian ‘s eventually willing to do pretty much anything to derail it. She slowly crosses the line from supportive to controlling, so caught up in the conflict she hardly notices her own marriage slipping down the drain. It’s a treat to watch Copeland explore and expand the character, revealing facets that can barely have existed in the script. And it doesn't hurt that she's got the look - and the sense of passionate urgency - that characterized Judy Garland in the 60's. Moviemakers were crazy not to use Joan Copeland more. But few seem to have done much to lure her away from her first love, the stage. I’ve only seen her twice. And both times the earth moved. Here, serving up an impressive concoction of warmth, pleading and bullying. And in 1977’s ROSELAND where she’s unforgettable as the older woman keeping desperate tabs on dance partner/gigolo Christopher Walken. It’s a picture with as many lows as highs. But these two are magnificent. Walken should’ve picked up his first Oscar for ROSELAND (a year before DEER HUNTER). And as in MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, Copeland is sublime - a wonderful Method-inspired actress, with a gift for bringing truth to her lines and inspiration to her co-stars. In real life she was the sister of playwright Arthur Miller. And( though not as famous) was - at her own craft – every bit as accomplished.

MARCH 17TH

2009-03-17T18:47:00.006-04:00

It would be appropriate to get pleasantly embroiled in something Irish today And as it happens I did my duty this morning - quite without realizing it – by sending away for a book called ACTING IRISH IN HOLLYWOOD by Ruth Barton. A compendium of bio/career assessments on Irish-born actors who found some degree of fame and fortune in American movies. Though it includes high- profilers like Richard Harris, Maureen O’Hara and Colin Farrell, the drawing card for me was the chapter devoted to one of my personal favorites, the elusive Constance Smith. A Limerick-born beauty who won a movie-star lookalike contest in the late 40’s (her resemblance was to Hedy Lamarr), and leap-frogged into films, first in Britain (initially one scene in Richard Attenborough’s BRIGHTON ROCK where the Lamarr lookalike thing was exploited to brief but stunning effect) then Hollywood. She got to me the first time I saw her. Dark Hair, alabaster skin, a lovely voice , which along with her general air of graceful melancholy, managed to convey a great deal more than her scripts generally supplied. And I’ve always been surprised that stardom eluded her. She was a 20th Century Fox contractee – installed on the same casting merry-go-round as Debra Paget, Audrey Dalton and Jean Peters. But by the mid-50’s she’d left America, drifting into a European Dolce Vita phase that found her more prominent in tawdry tabloid stories than on movie screens. I’d gleaned a few details about her sad, tumultuous life over the years. But this book promises to fill in a lot of the blanks – with, hopefully, some appreciation for the special qualities she brought to her roles. Smith played opposite an interesting assortment of leading men – Richard Widmark, Dan Dailey, Cornel Wilde, Jack Palance and Richard Conte, among others. Today she’s hardly remembered. But watch her in MAN IN THE ATTIC, standing at the foot of a staircase charmingly introducing herself to Jack Palance and see if you aren’t just as enthralled as he is.

OSCAR OVERSIGHTS

2009-02-15T10:31:00.010-05:00

The Oscars are almost upon us. So expect the usual grumbling about the broadcast. The ratings will probably go down again. Let’s face it. In this age of infinite home entertainment options, that’s what network TV ratings do. This year they’re promising a face-lift of sorts for the program. But, inevitably, what excites some will have others snoozing. My idea of "something special" at the Oscars would be watching Joan Fontaine and Olivia deHavilland smoke a peace pipe, then follow it up with a celebratory jig. Others may want the broadcast retooled as a mega-segment of the Jerry Springer Show, with tables and four letter words hurtlng through trailer-park windows. But whether they turn it into a hip-hop summit meeting, a Star Trek convention or a UFC cage match between Star Jones and Gordon Ramsay, I’ll be glued to my set. ‘Cause it’s the Oscars. And they’re still going to be handing out those lasciviously coveted trophies . Still celebrating some kind of continuity – a glamorously moss- encrusted through-line - between Hollywood’s past and cinema’s future. For this year’s shindig they’ve enlisted dapper Broadway and film charmer Hugh Jackman to host, with movie-musical veteran Bill Condon co-producing. So I’m expecting a kind of Earl Carroll Vanities of 2009. Which – while it may have some grasping for their remotes - is just fine and dandy with me.
As for who gets the acting awards – which, of course, are the big ones – well, the results never please everybody. That’s the nature of elections. And the Academy’s convoluted multi-tier nominating system, a kind of unholy mix of advanced trigonometry and pick-up sticks – inevitably leaves out some worthy contenders. After all, there are only five spots per category – and usually a surfeit of deserving performances. Which brings me to the main order of business:

CONSPICUOUS OSCAR OMISSIONS OF THE 2000’s (my choice, of course)

Here are 40 names and performances from the past decade that – IMHO – ought to have had Oscar nominations attached to them . They didn’t quite make it to the party but all of them – I think – still deserve a retroactive round of Oscar season love.

2000
Actress:

GILLIAN ANDERSON "The House of Mirth"
ASHLEY JUDD "Eye of the Beholder"
Supporting Actress:

LUPE ONTIVEROS "Chuck and Buck"

2001
Actor:

EWAN MacGREGOR "Moulin Rouge"
Actress:

AUDREY TAUTOU "Amelie"
Supporting Actor:

JUDE LAW "A.I. Artificial Intelligence"
Supporting Actress:

MARY McDONNELL "Donnie Darko"
EMILY WATSON "Gosford Park"

2002
Actor:

RICHARD GERE "Unfaithful"
Actress:

JENNIFER ANISTON "The Good Girl"
CATHERINE KEENER "Lovely and Amazing"
Supporting Actor:

VIGGO MORTENSEN "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
DENNIS QUAID "Far From Heaven"

2003
Actress:

MEG RYAN "In the Cut"
Supporting Actor:

PRASHANT NARAYAN "Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II"
GEOFFREY RUSH "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"

2004
Actor:

CHRISTIAN BALE "The Machinist"
GAEL GARCIA BERNAL "Bad Education"
COLIN FARRELL "A Home at the End of the World"
Supporting Actress:

KATE BOSWORTH "Beyond the Sea"
SISSY SPACECK "A Home at the End of the World"

2005
Actress:

GRETCHEN MOL "The Notorious Bettie Page"
Supporting Actor:

TERRENCE HOWARD "Crash"
MICKEY ROURKE "Sin City"
Supporting Actress:

GONG LI "Memoirs of a Geisha"

TARAJI P.HENSON "Hustle and Flow"

2006
Supporting Actor:

GAEL GARCIA BERNAL "Babel"
Supporting Actress:

SEEMA BISWAS "Water"

2007
Actor:

EMILE HIRSCH "Into the Wild"
JOSH BROLIN "No Country for Old Men"
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN "The Savages"
JAMES McAVOY "Atonement"
Supporting Actor:

PHILIP BOSCO "The Savages"
ED HARRIS "Gone Baby Gone"
Supporting Actress:

PATRICIA CLARKSON "Lars and the Real Girl"
JENNIFER GARNER "Juno"

2008
Actor: JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME "JCVD"
Actress: KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS "I’ve Loved You So Long"
Supporting Actor: JAVIER BARDEM "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Supporting Actress: DEBRA WINGER "Rachel Getting Married"

MY TWENTY: PART TWO

2009-01-22T23:40:00.005-05:00

My list, it seems, will be appearing in a trickle rather than a torrent. But to the five names already fondly noted I now add one more:

JUDY GARLAND
Judy Garland’s presence on any list of entertainment bests or favorites hardly needs to be defended. Her permanent spot high on the A-list of show business icons is what you might call unassailable. And given my tastes, proclivities - whatever – when I have to name the greatest entertainer of all time, it’s not gonna be Bob Dylan or Doug E. Fresh. It’s gonna be Judy. Case closed. Once she’d embarked on her historic career as a concert performer, she was often compared to Al Jolson. A comparison I always thought did her a disservice (even if it was meant as praise).Though it’s a matter of record that both electrified audiences, I’ve never ever warmed to Jolson. Even aside from the (now) cringe-inducing reliance on black-face, he’s always bugged me with his preening, overbearing schtick. Smarmy. Smug. Unctuous. Abrasive. Manic and relentless. Deeply in love with his own bombast –and frighteningly naked in his need to be the sole focus of attention. But there’s not an ounce of sincerity – or warmth - on any positive emotional level. No matter how energetic his attack, how ringing his diction or how raging his self-adoration. Judy Garland presented a decidedly different image. She both projected and transcended ego. It was possible to feel both awestruck and complicit in a Garland performance. Where Jolson demanded that you sit back flabbergasted, Garland held you in a kind of embrace. She was the show business equivalent of a perfect storm. The focal point for an amazing convergence of qualities. Vulnerability. Sensitivity. Power. Razor-sharp wit, much of it self-deprecating. Instincts that allowed her to create a stunning sense of spontanaiety. Add to it that incandescent face, with its beguiling arrangement of features - above all, those huge expressive liquid eyes. And – of course - the tender, nervous energy that made her seem just that much more alive than anyone around her. She was an amazing, intuitive actress. And as a singer, in a class by herself. That voice, with its throbbing power could switch from jubilation to intimacy on a dime. Her rhythmic instincts were prodigious. And, of course, to say she knew what to do with a lyric is like saying Shakespeare knew what to do with a pen. In the space of a line or two, she could break your heart – and restore it.
Of all her films, MEET ME IN ST.LOUIS is probably her most profoundly perfect vehicle. It’s an ensemble piece. Yet Judy never shone brighter. Because, unlike Jolson, who – in films – always conveyed the feeling that other peoples’ lines were barely endurable nuisances, she knew how to share a scene – thriving on the interplay with her co-stars and coaxing the best from her partners. It’s a generous talent. And that generous spirit is what lights up all the other facets of her art. Making her the best of the best. Of course, it’s wonderful that she was at MGM just when the Freed unit was creating movie musical history. But that history would have had considerably less luster without Judy Garland. She had some great vehicles. THE PIRATE from 1948 is probably the most intoxicating hothouse flower the studio ever produced. But even when the scripts were weak, Judy could be counted on to bring some degree of greatness to the proceedings. For instance, TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY, the cloying Jerome Kern biopic from ‘46. Stuffed with stars, songs and sanctimonious pronouncements from Robert Walker and Van Heflin. Judy pops up for 15 or 20 minutes in the middle, playing Broadway legend Marilyn Miller . A couple of songs, a smidgen of dialogue and she’s gone. But for as long as she’s there TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY is 24 karat gold. Her final film performances were among her best. She responded brilliantly to director John Cassavetes in A CHILD IS WAITING(1962) And I love her last film, I COULD GO ON SINGING(1963). A wonderful gift for her audiences. The script gives us a look into the life of a singer just like Judy Garland. Except, of course, that nobody else is just like Judy Garland. There is and always will be only one. Her big emotional scene with Dirk Bogarde near the end contains some really magnificent acting. And – perhaps most memorable of all - the moments when she’s preparing to go onstage, building her own momentum and excitement, willing herself to deliver that legendary two hours of "pow!". Her Carnegie Hall and Palladium concerts were never filmed. This footage makes us feel we’re there beside her.
Judy Garland sent her laser beams (pink and amber, no doubt) up to snowy northern Ontario to find me when I was still a child. I don’t quite know how or when I first capitulated. I recall seeing THE WIZARD OF OZ at the Royal Theatre in the mid-50’s. But from that experience what dazzled me most then was the hallucinogenic redness of those ruby slippers. I must have seen a couple of her films on television. Whatever the case, by the time I was 12, I had two of her LP’s (Garland at the Grove and Judy!That’s Entertainment!), knew every note of each of them and was happily in thrall. I remember excitedly cutting out clippings about the amazing comeback tour that would eventually culminate in her triumphant Carnegie Hall concert. And I can still recall walking miles along the railroad tracks to the next town to pick up my feverishly anticipated copy of JUDY AT CARNEGIE HALL on the Saturday morning it arrived.. No one I knew cared two pins about her. But - unerringly - Judy found me and spoke to me in a language I didn’t even realize I knew. Just as she inevitably found others in other small towns. A few years later I was off to the big city – with a sensibilty partly shaped by my Judy Garland experience. She helped so many of us realize where we wanted to be. Someplace else. And soon I was. For good.

MY TWENTY: PART ONE

2008-12-29T10:21:00.014-05:00

Vertigo’s Psycho recently gave me a gentle nudge. Seems he’d like me to add my own list to the ones several other movie-minded bloggers have been compiling lately. Basically a round-up of "20 Actresses I Love." The thing is, though, my list of faves is so idiosyncratic as to seem downright contrary. Acting dynamos like Geraldine Page and Vanessa Redgrave aren’t on it. Nor is there room for riveting old-school charismatics Stanwyck and Davis. Jean Arthur and Marilyn Monroe – miraculous creatures both - are also missing. Though they’re all wonderful. As are currently working treasures Julianne Moore, Gong Li, Laura Linney and Joan Allen. But – for me - they don’t inspire (nor do they need to) the warm, fuzzy affection I feel for my 20 ladies. Only one of my choices is even remotely contemporary (and she’s a Bollywood performer), Most of the rest I fell in love with long after their career peaks – and in some cases their entire careers – had long passed. Discovering many of them on TV reruns, rep revivals and video reissues. I took to all of them right away. And nothing’s changed. They’re still on my permament personal hit parade.

The alphabetical roll call begins with:

1. JEAN BROOKS
-Most definitive and haunted of Val Lewton’s heroines, which is saying something. Brooks’ eyes, her voice, her essence - all marked her as some sort of hushed embodiment of existential sadness. A troubled personal life – echoes of which undoubtedly resonated in her onscreen persona - seems to have been one of the factors that kept Jean Brooks from the stellar career she deserved. A loss for all of us.
Key year: 1943 – with two Lewton masterpieces - THE SEVENTH VICTIM and THE LEOPARD MAN

2. JUDY CANOVA
–Great comic performer; awesome musical-comedy artist;
Canova could mug with the best of them but
also knew how to play with touching restraint. And her funny-girl face has its own kind of beauty. She made a passel of low-budget musicals in the 40’s and 50’s. Generally playing the good-hearted yokel who – in the end – teaches the city slickers a thing or two. When –oh when - are her films going to get the DVD treatment? Especially SIS HOPKINS(1941), which boasts a wonderful Frank Loesser score, spiky Susan Hayward as a mean deb you wouldn’t want to turn your back on - and Canova herself in full and endearing bloom.

3. MAHIMA CHAUDHARY
The lush 1997 musical PARDES( in which she debuted) won Mahima all
kinds of awards in India (she beat Aishwarya Rai as Filmfare Newcomer of the Year). But while Aishwarya went on to goddess status in Bollywood and beyond, Mahima seemed to make one unfortunate professional choice after another. Inevitably, her career lost most of its momentum. Too bad – because not only is she inexpressibly pretty. She’s also a pretty terrific actress. 2009 may be a good year for her, though. She’s appearing (with hunky John Abraham) in Deepa Mehta’s next project EXCLUSION.

4. PEGGY CUMMINS
Britain’s porcelain-pretty Peggy Cummins always had something special. Darryl Zanuck saw it and brought her to Hollywood to play the title role in FOREVER AMBER in the mid-40’s. After a million dollars worth of film was shot, she was suddenly replaced (with the patently insufficient official reason that she photographed too young). We should all have that problem! Of course no one actually believed the story. It was whispered that (a) the powers that be had decided she didn’t project the required sex appeal or (b) she simply wasn’t a good enough actress. Cummins worked out her Fox contract in a few none-too-distinguished vehicles. Two or three plum projects with Fox’s top star Ty Power were recast with other actresses. Then it was back to Britain. But first, Cummins co-starred with John Dall in a quickie made on loan-out for low-rent producers the King Brothers. It was called GUN CRAZY(1949). Both stars (whose careers had stumbled) felt they had something to prove. And –with gifted director Joseph H.Lewis in charge - prove it they did. Even if it took audiences and critics a couple of decades to notice. Though unheralded at the time, over the years GUN CRAZY’s gathered a reputation as perhaps the greatest B movie ever made .It’s frankly electrifying, a mesmerizing precursor to BONNIE AND CLYDE - and certainly my favorite film of all time. Hard to believe that Dall and Cummins only crossed paths for a few short weeks in ‘49 while GUN CRAZY was being made. And probably never saw each other again. Because they’re forever etched in my mind and the minds of many others as a team - the greatest pair of doomed-lovers-on-the- run ever to hit the screen . Dall is unforgettable – tortured, vulnerable. And Cummins – ferocious, greedy, obsessive, manipulative - a real femme fatale - certainly far sexier a creature than the timid FOREVER AMBER could ever have hoped to contain. Back in Britain, she continued to work for a decade or so. But made only one film remotely as impressive as GUN CRAZY. That would be Jacques Tourneur’s occult masterpiece NIGHT OF THE DEMON(1957). But performance- wise Cummins is seen to better advantage in the sly 1953 comedy MEET MR. LUCIFER and the tough trucker drama HELL DRIVERS(1957) with Stanley Baker.

5. ARLENE DAHL
A friend of mine once asked, "Do they use more intense Technicolor when Arlene Dahl is on the screen or is it just something that happens to the film stock when she shows up?"
A chicken or the egg question destined never to be satisfactorily answered. But of all the candidates for Queen of Technicolor, Dahl’s claim seems to me the strongest. There’ve been plenty of ravishing redheads in movies. But Arlene Dahl is quite simply the fairest of them all. MGM often wasted her playing foil to Red Skelton But even then (at least in THREE LITTLE WORDS[1950}) she made a lovely impression that went way beyond just beauty. Fox used her intriguingly as a schemer in WOMAN’S WORLD(1954). But it was in Saturday matinee adventures – as the sweetheart of assorted pirates, swashbucklers and handsome rogues (John Payne, Fernando Lamas, Rock Hudson et al) that she really won the hearts of a generation of little boys. And probably their fathers. I’ll never forget her in Alan Ladd’s DESERT LEGION(1953), where she basically played a kind of one-woman Shangri-La. And rocked it. Dahl’s best acting came near the end of her Hollywood run. The great James Mason has played opposite some pretty distinguished actresses. But Dahl proved one of his all-time best screen partners. A charmingly indomitable and ladylike yin to his yang in the delightful JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH(1959). The actress’s own Scandinavian background even seemed to lend an additional ring of authority to the snatches of Icelandic dialogue the script intermittently required of her. And, of course, the trademark beauty was still alluring. But without genuine talent and charisma she never could’ve made the part so memorable. Dahl lost a couple of important roles during her prime years. Jose Ferrer wanted her as his Roxane in CYRANO DE BERGERAC but Metro refused to loan her. (A couple of years later, she did play the part – very effectively – opposite Ferrer on Broadway). In the mid-50’s a serious illness forced her to withdraw from the cast of King Vidor’s WAR AND PEACE, where she’d been cast as the beautiful but heartless Helene. Anita Ekberg took over the role (though, infuriatingly, her dialogue was dubbed by someone else). Now I’m always glad of a chance to eyeball Ekberg. But I can’t help thinking Dahl would’ve brought something pretty special to the part.

NEXT FIVE NEXT TIME

A LISTLESS LIST

2008-11-23T02:16:00.005-05:00

Seems I've been tagged by StinkyLulu (in league with Blog Cabins). The assignment - to make a list of 26 films, each of whose titles starts with a different letter of the alphabet. I thought of doing 26 I loved. But - of the few "X" films I've seen, there hasn't been one I've even liked. How about 26 I desperately want to see? Same roadblock. Can't think of a single unseen "X" title I have the slightest interest in tracking down. So here's what I wound up with. A list of 26 films I just don't care for. I've tried 'em all. Some twice. But they're just not for me.

Behold:

26 SHRUGS (from A to Z)

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE
BLAZING SADDLES
CASABLANCA
DARLING LILI
ELVIRA MADIGAN
A FISH CALLED WANDA
GIANT
HARRY AND TONTO
ICE STATION ZEBRA
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
KISMET (1944)
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA
NINOTCHKA
ON GOLDEN POND
PARDON MY SARONG
QUEEN KELLY
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
SLEUTH (1972)
TEA AND SYMPATHY
UNDER THE CHERRY MOON
VAMPYR
WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF
X Y AND ZEE
YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
ZARDOZ

26 things I definitely don't want for Christmas.

JCVD

2008-11-15T02:33:00.020-05:00

A lingering paralysis of initiative has pretty much limited me lately to the well-worn grind of eat, work, sleep, repeat. One result – I haven’t added a single word to this blog for months. Half-formed plans for pieces on Helen Parrish, Linda Darnell and Bollywood have remained just that – plans. Hopefully they’ll materialize sometime in the future. Meanwhile there is one subject I’m determined to address right now.
It’s possible – just – that JCVD isn’t the best film of the year. But it won’t be easy convincing longtime Jean-Claude Van Damme fans (like myself), that it’s not. I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and – for me - the buzz still hasn’t worn off. The picture barreled out of nowhere as a massive surprise (and vindication) for Van Damme and for the band of admirers who’ve stuck with him through thick and thin. And for the last decade or so there’s been an an awful lot of thin.
JCVD’s a modest-budgeted French language meta-film – a sort of grittier spin on CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. with Van Damme playing a washed-up action star whose career issues are complicated by the fall-out from drug problems and family crises. The character, by the way, just happens to be called Jean-Claude Van Damme. In other words, the picture’s pretty much a biographical riff on the life of its star. A picture like this is an enormous gamble. It can easily emerge as one big vanity project. But luckily the people behind the camera are talented and - for this project at least – inspired, bringing out the best in an edgy script - and certainly in their much beleaguered star.
As I indicated, I go back a ways with Van Damme. It was toward the end of his palmy period as a 90’s box-office champ and something about the trailer to THE QUEST lured me into a theatre to watch it. I’d certainly heard of Van Damme but I’d never actually seen one of his movies. THE QUEST turned out to be a gently loopy action fairy-tale set around the turn of the (20th) century. A number of the best fighters from around the world each receive a mysterious summons to compete for a fabulous prize somewhere in Asia’s exotic wilds. (It’s filmed mostly in Thailand). One of the chosen is Van Damme, a kind of mixed martial arts Pied Piper/ Robin Hood who leads/ mentors a band of New York street kids. There’s plenty of adventure along the way – pirates, gun smugglers. a beautiful lady reporter, a dirigible and even an agreeably off the wall appearance from Roger Moore. All set to a super- listenable Randy Edelman score. But most of all I liked Van Damme himself. Handsome as a god, nicely adept at tossing off a comic look or a line, charm to burn, presence galore and – of course – amazing in the action scenes. This was around the time I was still mourning the loss of Brandon Lee, an action icon in the making - one who’d had unlimited screen potential. Suddenly, with Van Damme, I sensed that kind of promise again.
I wound up seeing THE QUEST a couple of times. And, oh yes, I haven’t mentioned – Van Damme was also the director on that picture. So here was somebody with pretty phenomenal abilities all round. I started to catch up on his earlier films. No they’re not all great. But many of them are awfully good. And Van Damme is pretty damn impressive in all of them. In BLOODSPORT, one of the pictures that put him on the map, he’s an amazing amalgam of physicality laced with grace, spunk, spirit and can’t-look-away charisma. All in the midst of some pretty bare-bones production values. The budgets soon got bigger . Van Damme shone in mega-grossing sci-fi rides like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and TIMECOP. And not content just honing his martial arts skills, he developed his acting talents too. NOWHERE TO RUN, where he plays a drifter turned protector to a rural widow and her son (Rosanna Arquette and Kieran Culkin) was a particular pleasure. And with everyone bringing their A game to it, darn it if the picture didn’t emerge as the actor’s own little SHANE. Van Damme was smart enough – and had sufficient clout – to bring great Hong Kong action directors like John Woo, Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark to America to helm his films. With more and better talents than any of his action rivals, the star seemed set to eclipse all the others. But fame – and a grueling schedule – proved hard to handle. Suddenly the press was full of stories of Van Damme’s messy drug and marriage problems. And there was talk of trouble on his sets. Stories of temperament, unreliability and out-of-control behaviour circulated everywhere. Whether there was truth or not to the tales, they were fanned to forest-fire proportion in the press. And to top it all off, box-office receipts began to plummet. Van Damme’s career suddenly seemed to implode. His 1998 film LEGIONNAIRE went direct to DVD in North America.(I love it, by the way – the movie nails much of what I remember with fondness about 50’s Alan Ladd adventures like THUNDER IN THE EAST and DESERT LEGION. And it’s got a very cool ending!) Still, all but one Van Damme film since, the shaky UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequel in 1999, have traveled the same inglorious road direct to DVD shelves . With other Van Damme loyalists, I followed him into that particular Gobi desert. And I’m glad I did. Every 10 months or so a new Van Damme actioner slipped quietly into the video stores to be scooped up by the faithful - and cold-shouldered by the rest of the world. The budgets were often crummy, the financing Eastern-European , the supporting casts unrecognizable except for the odd B lister whose mere presence in a Van Damme flick signaled his or her descent to C list. A critic with nothing better to do would occasionally direct a half-hearted hiss at one of these flicks.Otherwise the films might as well have existed on Mars for all the media attention they garnered. But, here’s the thing. I never understood the way Van Damme was written off as a no-talent actor. I’ve always seen him as someone with great potential. And that potential certainly shows through in many of his pictures – even the non-theatricals. His performance in REPLICANT (2001) serving up something of a Van Damme specialty, the dual role, is terrific – tough and touching. Actors have won Oscars for less. And I defy anyone to watch his edgy, soulful work in UNTIL DEATH (2007) and say he’s not an actor. His fans have always known Van Damme was not just Leader of the Action Pack, he was miles ahead of it. On almost every score. He may not have that young Adonis face anymore, but he’s still beautiful, with the lined, weather-beaten look of someone who’s felt things. There was always a melancholy sensitivity there. The years have only deepened and amplified it. And – in his late 40’s now – there’s no denying the guy still sports an impressive physique. Van Damme delivers the goods for hard core macho action junkies. But, unlike his so-called rivals, he’s attracted a loyal following among women and gays ( a group to whom he’s always been welcoming and supportive). Unlike the Schwarzeneggers and Norrises, Van Damme seems comfortable –even playful - with the sex symbol tag. And that engaging boyish twinkle that pops up every once in a while simply underlines the vulnerability that adds volumes to his appeal. Of course, he can be tough as nails onscreen when he needs to be. But there’s always been a unique grace – a lyrical panache – to his movements. Even those stately, surreal splits of his. In recent years the actor has successfully wrestled with many of his personal demons. He’s long been drug-free and firmly reunited with wife and family. But he’s never been able to get off the direct to DVD treadmill. Till now.
Last year young French director Mabrouk El Mechri was offered a chance to direct a film in which Jean-Claude Van Damme would play himself. He asked to read the script and was dismayed when it turned out to be a weak comedy that used its star as little more than a clown and a punchline. As a teenager El Mechri had been something of a fan, and still retained enough fond memories to think Van Damme deserved better. He told the producers he’d tackle it if they let him write a new script - a kind of serious black comedy presenting the star – warts and all – in a way that – if done right – would project Van Damme with a credibility and candour barely – if ever - attempted in his previous scripts . But he didn’t want to spend a month working on something the star himself would reject out of hand. So he arranged a face to face with Van Damme to see if the two were simpatico – and to get an idea of exactly what WAS and wasn’t off limits. To his delight, he and the actor hit it off immediately – and Van Damme was not only open to El Mechri’s ideas. He was excited by them. I’ve never had any problem accepting Van Damme as a bona fide artist. So I think it must have been great for him to finally hook up with someone who wanted to present him in a genuinely artistic setting. The finished sceenplay proved to be all Van Damme hoped for. El Mechri says the film that eventually made it to the screen is about 70% script and 30% improvisation. But the actual shoot appears to have been largely chaos free. Cameraderie, creativity and excitement seemed to be the order of the day.
The right people apparently saw some of the footage. Because the film was announced as part of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Several jaws dropped at that news. A Van Damme film at Cannes? Is this a joke? There was a lot more perplexed amazement when the picture received some of the festival’s best reviews. A representative for the Toronto International Film Festival caught it there. And immediately nailed it down as a definite for Toronto’s September schedule. By that time, I’d gotten wind of the film. But it seemed too good to be true. Then, in the weeks before the Toronto showing, local papers began to buzz with tidbits about this out-of-left field contender and the tidal wave of positive reaction that was building around it. The picture was set to kick off the Midnight Madness Series at 12 a.m. on the very first day of the Festival. Now, every year TIFF tickets get harder to come by for the average Joe. But I was lucky. A friend (who also happens to be my boss) finagled a ticket for me as a birthday gift. She told me it would probably be a good idea to get there at least an hour in advance. So I set off at 10 pm right from work. That day advance reviews – raves - appeared in NOW and EYE, the city’s two local arts and issues papers. One of them even used JCVD as its cover story. But I wasn’t prepared for the scene that greeted me that night. The line-up was around the block. Almost all people who wouldn't have crossed the street to see Van Damme in person a couple of weeks before. Now they were champing at the bit to watch his latest movie.
We finally got into the auditorium – all I could grab was a seat on the side. Rumours had been buzzing that Van Damme himself might be there. And I’d like to think that here and there in that crowd there must have been some other Van Damme loyalists who’d been just as conscientious in their direct to DVD purchases as me. But mostly it was a Film Festival crowd. And somehow they suddenly all seemed like A-1 candidates to catch Van Damme fever. Fate decided she owed me one. Because shortly before the film started a few choice seats in the centre – formerly reserved – suddenly became available. I was in the right spot at the right time. And managed to slam-dunk myself straight into one of those tasty seats. The Festival host stepped on the stage and told us that if someone had said to him last year that the most exciting film at Cannes 2008 would be the new Van Damme movie, he’d have called them crazy. But it was true. And we were in for a treat. He said "You’re probably wondering where Mr. Van Damme is tonight. Well, he wanted to be here with you. But he’s directing a film in Thailand and just couldn’t get away. He has, however, managed to send a little film clip for you." At which point, we saw a gracious and genial Van Damme – a kind of outdoorsy George Clooney but with more soul – telling us pretty convincingly that he was proud and excited about this picture. And he hoped we’d like it too. When the lights came up again, the host said they did have Mabrouk El Mechri in the house – and brought the director up to say a few introductory words. El Mechri turned out to be quite a charmer himself – casually droll but warm – and probably pretty pleased that a midnight showing of his picture had attracted such a large and receptive crowd. He left the stage – and, guess what! Turns out his seat was the one directly behind mine. So as the lights dimmed I was in the hyper-exciting position of knowing that the director of the movie I was so keyed-up for was going to be watching the whole thing just a few inches away from me.
The film’s logo contains a tongue-in-cheek Van Damme reference that drew immediate delighted reaction from the audience. That sense of delight and total immersion was pretty much a constant over the next 96 minutes. The film’s color scheme tends toward sepia - that curiously seductive palate that somehow manages to register as spartan and lush at the same time. Light shades are sometimes bleached, occasionally creamy; darker ones often take on the color of a rusty nail. It seems just the right choice for the film. The one-take action scene that opens the movie had the audience applauding. What follows over the next hour and a half is exciting, suspenseful, hilarious and moving – certainly never less than riveting. Fading movie-star JCVD is having a bad day to end all bad days. Work problems, legal problems, family problems, cancelled credit cards and bone-weariness all converge into a perfect storm of disaster when he’s inadvertently caught in the middle of a post-office robbery gone wrong. Van Damme has an incredible monologue toward the end of the film – beautifully realized on a visual level and delivered by the actor himself with an intensity and power that stunned the room. It drew a tremendous ovation at the performance I saw. And as the credits rolled, the audience cheered and applauded non-stop. Just as the lights came up, I knew I had only a second or two to do something. And figured I’d burst if I didn’t. I turned and said to El Mechri, "I’m a longtime Van Damme fan and I’d just like to say thank you. You’ve done something wonderful here - for him and for us." For a few seconds the world was a bubble containing just the two of us. He smiled – and then was swept onstage on a rapturous wave of applause. For the next half hour or so, he did a terrific Q&A session. And in spite of the late hour, I think everybody stayed. I remember someone asked him who his favorite directors were – and he mentioned P.T. Anderson, Sidney Lumet and Robert Wise. A nice cross-section. And on the basis of JCVD, I’d say Mabrouk El Mechri has every chance of adding his name to the honor roll of topnotch directors. There’s no doubt he made a wonderful impression that night in Toronto – with his personality, his presence and certainly with his film. But, you know, I’m pretty sure that if Van Damme himself had been there, that audience – up to then defiantly immune to the man’s appeal– would have carried him triumphantly through the streets on their shoulders.
A small Canadian-based company called Peace Arch has picked the film up for North American distribution. I get the impression they’re feisty and committed. But it remains to be seen whether they’ll have the financial clout to give JCVD the promotion it deserves. And will they be able to mount the Oscar campaign the picture merits? At very least, Van Damme rates a Best Actor nomination. JCVD has the undeniable makings of what used to be called an art house success. But the wildly enthusiastic audience reaction I witnessed marks this as a movie with a much broader potential appeal. The film began its Toronto theatrical engagement yesterday. Print ads have been running for a couple of weeks, incorporating some rousing review quotes. The new local notices have been uniformly rhapsodic. Here’s a quote from EYE MAGAZINE.
"In any case, this particular moment belongs to the mighty Van Damme, who gives a brave, honest and
touchingly vulnerable performance in JCVD, which returns to local screens after a rapturous reception at
TIFF… (the film is) remarkably astute as a deconstruction of action-flick tropes, a satire of modern
celebrity and a long-overdue showcase for Van Damme. Devotees of the Muscles from Brussels know
that he can rise to the occasion with half-decent material…but JCVD elicits something raw, true and
extraordinary from the actor. It’s something you could even call heroic"
For the full review, click here.
What will all this mean for Van Damme’s future? Will expectations be impossibly high now?. JCVD seems like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of cinematic thunderbolt. And for all Van Damme’s magnificence, one has to remember that Mabrouk El Mechri’s contribution is paramount. Future Van Damme projects (sans El Mechri) may find the actor working without a net. Van Damme hasn’t directed a film since THE QUEST. How can his pending Thai-filmed project (titled FULL LOVE) possibly match JCVD?. What direction will his career take now? Part of me’s sorry that I may no longer have those regular direct to DVD assembly-line actioners to look forward to. Van Damme could move in other directions now. Needless to say , I have a fan’s fond feelings for the man himself. This new level of appreciation and attention will undoubtedly come with its share of pressures and problems. He almost self-destructed once before. I’d hate to see it happen again. Just the right blend of professional and personal fulfilment. That’s what I want for Jean-Claude Van Damme. I was mentioning my trepidations about the star’s future to someone at work shortly after the TIFF screening. And she said to me, "Well, just consider this. No matter how things play out in the future, I think you can be pretty sure that right now JCVD and its success can only represent a very good – and very positive development in this man’s life." And, she’s right, of course. In a long career full of highs and lows, this film - and this time right now – are going to remain – for Van Damme and for his fans – pure gold.

Revisiting PINKY

2008-07-27T03:38:00.011-04:00

Another month has rolled by – and once again – Stinkylulu’s Supporting Actress Smackdown panel is set to mull over the merits of five Oscar-nominated performances. This time the spotlight’s trained on 1949 – a year that offered a number of Oscar-worthy candidates, none of whom - to my way of thinking – made it to the actual ballot.

The chosen were:
Ethel Barrymore "Pinky"
Celeste Holm "Come to the Stable"
Elsa Lanchester "Come to the Stable"
Mercedes McCambridge "All the King’s Men"
Ethel Waters "Pinky"
And though a few of the above had their moments, I’d have gone for five different ladies altogether.

My nominees for ’49:
Florence Bates "A Letter to Three Wives"
Connie Gilchrist "A Letter to Three Wives"
Miriam Hopkins "The Heiress"
Thelma Ritter "A Letter to Three Wives"
Evelyn Varden "Pinky"

As you see, my list does include one performer from PINKY. But it’s neither of the Ethels. For me, the supporting actress standout in the picture is Evelyn Varden. She’s Melba Wooley, an especially nasty old jolt of southern discomfort. Progressing (if that’s the word) from corrosively funny to completely despicable in record time. A vicious boll weevil in full destructive mode. This performance and her equally effective display as a gossip-spewing harridan in Charles Laughton’s NIGHT OF THE HUNTER constitute a memorably spiteful one-two punch unlikely to be topped any time soon. If you haven’t seen Evelyn Varden – try to imagine a kind of evil sister to dear old Verna Felton. And if you haven’t seen Verna Felton, then, on behalf of Hilda Crocker, all I can say to you is "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo".
None of the Smackdown films were new to me. But my reaction this time to PINKY surprised me a little. I’d last seen it maybe 20 years ago. And knowing even then about the multiple acting nominations, I guess I’d expected to be blown away. That didn’t happen. This time, approaching it with somewhat lowered expectations, I found PINKY had aged rather well. For one thing, it’s a great looking film. All studio backlot – but the level of visual achievement is sky-high. Outdoor shots capture the appropriate hot and dusty feel – but there’s always a nice sense of space. The camera’s forever on the prowl. Indoor recreations accomplish a lot with the confident, masterful use of light. Night scenes achieve a nice blend of reality and artifice,vibrating with sound , shadow, ominous possibility. In the late 40’s the technicians at 20th Century Fox scaled some pretty impressive heights when it came to beautifully mounted and photographed black & white productions (THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR, DRAGONWYCK, PRINCE OF FOXES). PINKY holds its own in this heady company.
The script is wide-ranging and well-written - the dialogue thoughtful, the drama frequently effective. But the most fascinating point of interest turns out to be Jeanne Crain. I’ve seldom seen a performance so difficult to assess fairly. She plays the title role, a young, light –skinned mulatto who returns to the South after several years of successfully "passing" for white up North. Her life’s in turmoil. For one thing, she’s emotionally involved with a white man who wants to marry her but doesn’t know her background. She comes home for some breathing space, to get her head around the situation, to weigh her options, maybe recapture –briefly – what she remembers as a simpler time. Needless to say, Pinky’s return only complicates the snarls in her life.
Physically, the casting is - to some degree - absurd. There’s nothing at all in Jeanne Crain’s appearance to suggest Pinky’s racial background. She was Fox’s All-American girl next door. Sweet. Virginal. And, as one observer noted "the whitest actress on the lot". But she also seemed to be overtaking Betty Grable as the studio’s most popular female attraction (Marilyn Monroe hadn't really happened yet). Mega-hits like STATE FAIR and MARGIE had made her a huge favorite with the public. Fan-mail was arriving in truckloads. And certainly studio head Darryl Zanuck saw her as a gilt-edged company asset. He believed PINKY was a project that could elevate her to a whole new level of acclaim. If it didn’t torpedo her popularity altogether. It was a gamble – but a feasible one, Zanuck felt, with the potential rewards, artistic and financial, outweighing the risks - slightly. And he probably saw Crain’s participation in the film as a kind of box-office insurance for a potentially perilous venture. The actress herself – known among her colleagues as a kind and gentle soul – must surely have been intimidated by the challenge. And director Elia Kazan was hardly enthusiastic about the casting. After all, up to now, she’d played a steady stream of sweet ingenues – undeniably charming, very very pretty. But no one had ever accused her of being an acting powerhouse. Commentators have been very vocal, mostly in the years since the movie’s release, about Crain’s physical unsuitability. Wasn’t Linda Darnell - duskier, earthier – right there on the Fox lot? Or couldn’t they have borrowed Yvonne DeCarlo? Even better Ava Gardner. She'd have had little trouble resurrecting her natural Southern accent for the part. Less sensible were the incessant claims that Lena Horne or Dorothy Dandridge should have gotten the role. Both were, of course, beautiful and accomplished. Horne was essentially a singer , though. Never much of an actress. Dandridge , on the other hand, did have the dramatic firepower. Her under-rated performance in ISLAND IN THE SUN(1957) remains one of that decade’s best. But we’re talking about a character who convincingly "passes" for white – even in the hyper-racist South of the 40’s. Not something either Horne or Dandridge could have realistically done. Over the years there’ve been endless similar laments about Horne’s being cheated out of her rightful role as Julie in 1951’s SHOW BOAT. Complaints , it would seem, from people none too familiar with SHOW BOAT’s actual story. Yes, Lena could’ve done lovely things with the Kern songs. But Julie’s another mulatto who has spent years "passing" for white in the even more racist South of the nineteenth century. Ava Gardner carried it off with conviction. Casting Horne would have stretched credibility way past the breaking point .
But it’s PINKY we’re talking about. And it seems to be widely accepted that Jeanne Crain’s physical appearance is completely unsuitable for the role. To further complicate matters, she performs without the slightest attempt at a southern accent. Playing a bi-racial girl raised dirt-poor in a Deep South shantytown. Yes, her grandmother saved enough money to send her away to nursing school. But it’s still unlikely she’d have come back sounding like - well, Jeanne Crain in APARTMENT FOR PEGGY. The look and the lack (of a southern accent). Those are the two giant elephants in the room. Factors that should, by all rights, disqualify Crain from being taken seriously here. So, why then, is she so genuinely compelling - so very effective in the role?
Certainly, a great deal of the credit must go to Elia Kazan. He already had a reputation as a superb director of actors. And here he seems to have helped Crain build on her strengths – a basic sincerity and decency. What’s new is a no-frills underpinning of tenacity. And beyond what’s strictly in the script, Crain ‘s Pinky reverberates with believable disillusionment, with a sense of wariness that always keeps her semi-steeled for the next catastrophe. There’s a tension here that’s maintained with real skill. Crain herself later said that – from her earliest childhood - her mother had instilled in her the idea that racism was wrong. So it’s not unreasonable to think that the actress believed she could say something important with this performance. What was at stake here went way beyond whether she’d share a final clinch with Cornel Wilde. In 1949 the subject matter – race relations in the U.S. – was all but unheard of on the screen. So – even if today the film might be dismissed by some as Racial Harmony 101 – at the time, it was strong stuff. The fact that some of that punch lingers is mainly down to the artists involved. And Crain is definitely involved – to a degree way beyond her previous screen assignments. She and Kazan must have reached some agreement about whether she should try an accent. Perhaps she simply couldn’t do it. Not every actor has that particular ability at his fingertips. Just listen to Barbara Stanwyck’s unintentionally hilarious attempt at an Irish brogue in UNION PACIFIC. Yet I defy anyone to say that Stanwyck isn’t an artist of the highest calibre. Maybe Crain needed a clear channel to successfully access and express her emotions. And the pressure of maintaining an accent would’ve set up some sort of artistic log-jam. The fact that Crain’s degree of "whiteness" is not appreciably different from what she’d exhibited in STATE FAIR or any of her other cheerful hits - well, perhaps it eased some white audiences in ’49 into identifying with the character, vicariously sharing the experience of a black woman, before they quite realized they were doing it. And did black viewers summarily reject Crain because of her appearance? It’s possible that for both audiences, Crain’s supposedly unsuitable appearance acted as a kind of shorthand for the idea that - morally – race was irrelevant. Surely, key to the film’s message are the ideas that people are people and injustice is injustice. PINKY was Fox’s biggest box-office hit of the year. So presumably that message reached a pretty sizable audience. What Jeanne Crain captures – quite successfully – is the humanity of the character. There’s a tangible dignity to this performance – though there’s never anything holier-than-thou about Crain’s approach. Pinky’s almost always on the verge of losing her temper. No wonder. Every day presents her with one nasty racially-motivated affront after another. And even if some of them are only anticipated/perceived by her (on the basis of past experience), most are real. Crain’s Pinky is smart and sensitive. And knows enough about survival to bite her tongue when she has to. Crain communicates the frustration eloquently. We rankle right along with her. She lowers her voice just a shade for the part – and displays a nice instinct for just when to turn down the volume on a word or a phrase. Sometimes biting back anger, sometimes resigned, other times icily determined. Crain’s face, often a sunny blank in earlier films, takes on a surprising expressivity throughout PINKY. I love the way she simultaneously conveys both nostalgia and revulsion as she surveys Granny’s shack near the beginning of the film. And she gets the appropriate blend of "I love you … but" in her relationship with Granny ( Ethel Waters). The Waters character so often seems to want the right things for the wrong reasons, making incredibly difficult demands of Pinky, without much apparent awareness of what she’s asking. And Crain creates a memorable picture as she walks down Fox’s gloriously dressed Southern street, handkerchief ineffectually dabbing away at the heat and dust, aware that – even here in her birthplace - she’s perceived as neither fish nor fowl. No matter, she’s going to get Granny’s swindled money back – for the old woman’s sake and to assuage her own guilt over the sacrifices Granny’s made for her. I love her taut impatience with shady Jake (Frederick O’Neal) – she’s too ticked off and too tired to make a scene. Gritting her teeth through a protracted existential migraine. The fracas with the police outside Jake’s place has a shocking spontanaiety, especially in the sudden swatting contest between Crain and Nina Mae McKinney. With Pinky’s humiliation at the police station, the film strikes a stark, ugly note that few moviegoers could’ve been prepared for in ’49. There’s a scene early on where Pinky wakes from a nightmare, the camera capturing a harrowing close-up of Crain’s distraught face. Easily among the year’s most memorable images. As a matter of fact, PINKY seldom offers audiences much time to catch their breath before the next emotional wallop. The girl’s near-rape by two boozed-up white boys on a deserted road is as startling as a thunderclap. Presented with raw, unexpected intimacy , the scene incorporates – among other things – the N word and some pretty graphic (for 1949) groping. Pinky’s panicked nick-of-time escape has us practically helping her slam her clothes into that battered suit-case to get the hell out of there.

That’s when the Ethel Barrymore character comes into play. As usual she’s the old lady who lives in the mansion. This time out the name's Miss Em. And Pinky’s already mentioned her with contempt and anger. For her, Miss Em’s a symbol of racial oppression. Case closed. Crain has a brief, indelible moment when she fails to comfort the little black girl who stands in transfixed exile outside Miss Em’s gate. Pinky relives a similar scene often enough in her own memory;she's not about to interject herself into someone else’s replay of it. And later, Crain scores points in a speech she hurls at Barrymore "What am I then? You tell me. You’re the ones that set the standards, you whites. You’re the ones that judge people by the color of their skins. Well, by your own standards – the only ones that matter to you – I’m as white as you are. That’s why you all hate me!".
Another scene that’s handled for maximum effect occurs in the general store when Pinky encounters vicious Mrs. Wooley, who’s determined to humiliate her. The atmosphere doesn’t just crackle because Evelyn Varden’s so good at being nasty. Crain deserves plenty of credit for absorbing all Varden’s venom and turning it back on her in a display of quietly steely resistance.
When fiance Tom (William Lundigan) tracks her down, she tells him the truth. And he still wants to marry her. The man she loves is offering her an escape route back to a world where she can live without the endless race-based barrages. What’s more, when the legacy Miss Em leaves her is contested in court, Tom stands by her through the whole emotional mess. Pinky’s dilemma is a tough one. And – to the film’s credit – we don’t get expository voice-overs. Or preaching. We can see she loves Tom. We know the South offers a future where the only sure thing is that there’ll be trouble. But we also know Tom wants her racial background to be their "secret". They’ll relocate. Start over. And Pinky realizes in spite of the comfort she’ll find with Tom, there’ll also be the daily strain of hiding something she has no reason to be ashamed of. What about children? Will Tom want to preserve their little secret by not having any? By adopting? Will the relationship be eroded by the constant threat of exposure ? Will Pinky be able to live with herself? And - conversely - would she be able to find any fulfillment or happiness in the South – without him? None of these questions are spoken aloud. Yet they’re all there in Crain’s face and in her performance. And I don’t find the ending a cop-out. Pinky’s choice seems like one she might genuinely make. There’ll be a certain amount of fulfillment. And undoubtedly a lot of trouble and she’ll have plenty of sleepless nights. But they won’t come from being forced to live a lie. Today Pinky would have options and opportunities that just weren’t there in the 40’s. The Pinky of 60 years ago had to make decisions based on the world she lived in. And whether she cared about making a difference in that world.
I’m still not sure whether I’d have nominated Crain for the Oscar that year (those elephants are still in the room). But I find myself glad that she was nominated. Yes, Kazan had initial trepidations about her casting. But in later years he pronounced himself extremely pleased with how effective Jeanne Crain turned out to be. I love the fact that she stretched herself. She looked like she cared; she made audiences care. And she did it in a movie that mattered.

SMACKDOWN ALERT

2008-06-29T01:14:00.012-04:00

Get ready to join Stinkylulu and party as they paddle their way up the cinematic Zambezi once again for the monthly Supporting Actress Smackdown. This weekend they’ll be examining the flora and fauna of 1939. A year highly regarded in film history. Expect GONE WITH THE WIND to dominate. It has two superb candidates in the hunt –Olivia deHavilland and Hattie McDaniel. Both in tiptop form. I doubt the other three ladies will even give them much of a contest. Certainly it’s a trio that wouldn’t have been on my ballot in ’39. I suspect the Academy (and the New York Critics) were cowed by WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ literary pedigree. I can think of no other reason this dreary bog of a movie attracted such an inordinate amount of attention during awards season. Geraldine Fitzgerald – a fine actress – made a far stronger impression in the same year’s DARK VICTORY (and many times later). I wouldn’t have let Maria Ouspenskaya anywhere near a nomination – ever. But the LOVE AFFAIR nod was her second. Edna May Oliver did her delightfully outlandish thing as expertly as ever in DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK. But there were other ladies out there in ’39 whose work was even more deserving. Among the stellar contributors that year – Kay Francis (IN NAME ONLY), Butterfly McQueen (GONE WITH THE WIND), Verree Teasdale (FIFTH AVENUE GIRL), Irene Hervey (DESTRY RIDES AGAIN) and Jane Bryan (INVISIBLE STRIPES). As a matter of fact, the class of ’39 was so strong even they wouldn’t have made it to my final five. For me the ballot would’ve read as follows:

OLIVIA deHAVILLAND "Gone with the Wind"
MARGARET HAMILTON "The Wizard of Oz"
HATTIE McDANIEL "Gone with the Wind"
HELEN PARRISH "First Love"
LUCILE WATSON "Made for Each Other"

A list to reckon with! And –sometime soon – I hope to talk a little more about at least one of those splendid performances. In the meantime, head for the Smackdown and grab a first-row seat for the second coming of 1939.

TOSHIA MORI

2008-06-18T12:26:00.010-04:00

TCM’s recent spotlight on Asian Images in Cinema has got me reminiscing about some of my own favorite Asian actresses. There’ve been quite a few over the years. And those that set their sights on Hollywood careers have all – to one degree or another – faced the same hurdles, dilemmas and frustrations that confronted Anna May Wong during her assault on stardom.
One of the ladies I like – and I like her a lot – was pretty much a contemporary of Anna May’s. A silvery beguiler called Toshia Mori. If anything, her story’s even more intriguing because it remains largely – almost wholly – unrecorded. Onscreen you might describe her as a fleeting apparition. Sightings were rare and unexpected enough to make her seem like some sort of beautiful ava raris. Traces of her presence evaporated like dew drops leaving behind an impression of brief incandescence.
One version of her story has her born in Kyoto, Japan on January 1, 1912 and emigrating to America (with her family, one would imagine) at the age of ten. Her birth name (allowing for the usual phonetic roadbumps in the journey from Japanese to romanji) was apparently Toshia Ichioka. Perhaps her family settled in the Los Angeles area. Because – by the late 20’s - she was getting work as a bit player in Hollywood films. Who knows what avenues led her there? It definitely wasn’t what the average Japanese-American teenager was up to. But, certainly, in appearance at least, Toshia was anything but average. She’d developed into a striking beauty. Looking in her own mirror might’ve been enough to convince her she had a future in pictures. And in a town full of agents and operators, it’s not unlikely that somebody noticed her and gave her his card. Maybe she was blisteringly ambitious (though – when she's onscreen – gentle and languid are the words that come to mind). Maybe her father was a carpenter at one of the studios and somebody spotted her bringing him his lunch. Who’s to say? Still – somehow – she was there. Occasionally she even got billing, though they never seemed to settle on a consistent spelling. The last name, Ichioka, stays the same but in MR WU(1927) she’s Toshia, in STREETS OF SHANGHAI(also 1927) it’s Toshyie, and in THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE(1928) they juggle it around a little more to come up with Toshiye. Whatever, she persevered. And unlike so many others survived the transition to sound. Not in any kind of glorious "Garbo Talks!" way, with studio trumplets blaring and cymbals crashing. But when she was given a line to speak, she spoke it beautifully ,revealing a lovely voice – cool ,clear, low and refreshing. Toshia also embarked on her talkie career with a new moniker. Oddly enough, though her last name was the one the billing-fairies had always managed to spell right, that’s the one she elected to change. She entered the sound era as Toshia Mori.
For any young girl – and Toshia would be nineteen or twenty now – Hollywood was a minefield.
The streets were lined with smooth talkers, con-men, lechers, tricksters and just plain bad eggs , usually promising a career in pictures . Mostly these promises were empty. Ferreting out the legitimate job opportunities was a task that required determination, sharp instincts, a strong stomach and lots of luck. And those who actually made it through the brambles then had to prove they had talent or at least a marketable substitute for it. There were a finite number of roles. And an infinite number of girls angling for them. Conservatively speaking, for all practical purposes, 99% of those roles were off limits to Toshia Mori purely on racial grounds. Theoretically she could serve tea to Madge Evans or sell her a jewelled Buddha or plunge a dagger in her back. But she couldn’t be Madge Evans. In Hollywood, leading lady roles were strictly the preserve of Caucasian actresses. One can only imagine the frustration someone as genuinely talented and beautiful as Toshia Mori must have felt watching pallid namby-pambies play roles she could’ve glistened and gleamed in. Even if the character was supposed to be Asian, casting directors’ imaginations inevitably ran to Myrna Loy or Loretta Young and dollops of exotic eye make-up. For example, Young negotiated her way prettily through 1932’s THE HATCHET MAN as Sun Toya San, beloved of China’s favorite son Edward G.Robinson. But an uncredited Toshia Moria had to settle for a silent bit as somebody’s secretary. In the same year’s ROAR OF THE DRAGON she fared slightly better. True the spotlight was firmly on RKO’s latest candidate in the Dietrich/Garbo sweepstakes, the alluring but unlucky Gwili Andre. But Toshia Mori at least got to play a character with a name – even if that name was the none too imaginative Butterfly.
Still, 1932 was to offer Toshia Mori brief, unexpected prominence on another front. The Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers was a Hollywood group that (from 1922 to 1934) gave itself an annual pat on the back with an affair called "The Frolic". One pictures a bunch of noisily cavorting conventioneeers with prominent pot-bellies, cigars and fezzes. Whatever, the main feature of the event was the annual announcement and subsequent parading of the WAMPAS BABY STARS, thirteen lucky? ladies who’d been chosen as the year’s most promising starlets. It remains a matter of queasy speculation as to who chose them and how. But there was a lot of giddy press coverage. And tons of photo ops. Over the years, some of the group’s choices had been pretty impressive. During the 20’s, Clara Bow, Eleanor Boardman, Jean Arthur and Joan Crawford had all been WAMPAS babies. In 1932 one of the chosen was nifty Lillian Miles (who later got to sing ""The Continental""in " THE GAY DIVORCEE and take a memorable header from a tall building in REEFER MADNESS). But apparently an impulsive last-minute wedding made her drop out of the proceedings. WAMPAS Central immediately went into over-drive looking for a replacement. And either Toshia Mori – or her agent – must have been doing something right. Because she got the golden phone call. Whisked straight into the hub-bub, she posed endlessly alongside fellow annointees Ginger Rogers, Gloria Stuart, Patricia Ellis et al. She perched on a float, shook hands, smiled at a sea of gawkers and generally radiated glamour. And if the actual activities of a WAMPAS baby entailed as much gritting of teeth as basking in glory, it was still perceived as a red-hot opportunity for any ingenue who wanted to swim with the goldfish. instead of the minnows. And it was heartening to see a non-Caucasian face among the elect. What’s more, for Toshia Mori the whole WAMPAS jamboree may have actually led to the most promising role of her career. For shortly afterwards, she was cast in Frank Capra’s THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN. The story involved the erotically charged relationship between a lady missionary (Barbara Stanwyck) and a Chinese warlord (Nils Asther). But the script also featured a vital character called Mah-Li, a gorgeous concubine whose sophisticated scheming throws a spanner into the plots and plans of those around her. The picture was beautiful to behold – drenched in exotic Sternbergian atmosphere. And though, of course, Capra’s more famous today for his Americana, BITTER TEA still maintains a neat reputation among vintage film fans. What's more, Toshia Mori delivered the goods – taking charge of all her scenes with an insinuating and silky authority. She also looked glorious – a flash-point of beauty in an already incredible looking film. Capra and Columbia, both extremely happy with her work, awarded her third billing. And the final icing on the cake came with Time Magazine’s review: "Stanwyck is satisfactory … but the most noteworthy female member of the cast is Toshia Mori, a sloe-eyed Japanese girl…" Things had never looked brighter for her. Even if Time couldn’t resist saying that Capra had discovered Mori working in a Los Angeles curio shop. Publicity poppycock, I’m sure. But if she was moonlighting in retail, I’d say any magical little curio shop with Toshia Mori installed behind the counter would’ve had to cope with some pretty awesome line-ups.
Her triumph in BITTER TEA should’ve been the first of many. But it wasn’t. The racial rigidity of Hollywood’s casting system couldn’t bend to accommodate even someone as gifted and as special. She continued to work. But as a sort of Oriental Toby Wing, popping up momentarily - sometimes billed, often not – to add a visual kick to conventional proceedings. These were "blink and you’ll miss her" appearances. But those lucky enough not to blink saw one of the great beauties of the era – captured - if ever so briefly – on the silver screen. In THE PAINTED VEIL(1934), one of my favorite Greta Garbo films, Toshia Mori’s not part of the plot, but she suddenly materializes as the centerpiece of "The Moon Festival" sequence, an extravagant slice of Cedric Gibbons chinoiserie. She’s only there for a minute or so – but during that minute you don’t think about Garbo.
Then in 1936 something curious happened. Fox’s Charlie Chan series had been underway for some years, offering reliable entertainment to audiences and regular employment to Asian actors (albeit in supporting roles). Part of the fun in CHARLIE CHAN AT THE CIRCUS comes from eager beaver son Jimmy Chan’s romantic pursuit of Su Toy, a sexy contortionist – highly resistant but with a neat line in snappy comebacks. Every bit of onscreen evidence identifies Su Toy as Toshia Mori. But the name on the end credits is Shia Jung(???). Then a year later in CHARLIE CHAN ON BROADWAY, the ever-enthusiastic Jimmy gets himself hooked up with Ling Tse, pert employee of the Hottentot Club, obviously played by the same delightful eyeful he’d pursued at the circus. Except this time the name on the credits is Tashia Mori. That’s right, as if matters weren’t complicated enough, the "o’ in Toshia gets kicked out to make room for an "a". After this – silence. Except that two years later, Monogram tossed out a quickie called PORT OF HATE with Polly Ann Young (Loretta’s sister). I’ve never managed to see it. But fourth in the cast list is a character called Bo Chang played by one Shia Jung. Wrapping up our girl’s career, it seems, in a see-saw of confusion, complicated identity switches and possible spelling mistakes.
The internet’s done very little to clarify matters. Moviefone.com mentions that Toshia Mori sometimes appeared in films as Shia Jung, casually seeming to confirm the onscreen evidence. But they also say that after her movie career, she worked as a research assistant on Robert Ripley’s "Believe It or Not" short subject series. Yet, as far as I know, the Ripley films didn’t extend past 1932. There was a brief TV series in ‘49/’50. But I’ve found no evidence of Toshia Mori’s involvement in that. Nor in the program’s 80’s manifestation with Jack Palance.
Furthermore – and here’s where the thickets get really deep – imdb.com doesn’t include CHARLIE CHAN AT THE CIRCUS or PORT OF HATE among Toshia Moris’s credits. Not only do they list Shia Jung as a completely different actress. They give her a totally different career, mainly in China. For them, Shia Jung was born on March 10,1916 in Lantau, Hong Kong, China and died on March 26,2003 in Victoria, Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic. While Toshia Mori first opened her eyes in Kyoto, Japan on January 1,1912 and closed them for the last time somewhere in the Bronx on November 26, 1995. What’s more Shia Jung’s career graph, as presented by imdb, seems highly suspect. Born in China, she somehow manages to make her movie debut in a Hollywood silent. Then after decamping to China to continue her career, suddenly gets beamed down in Hollywood for CHARLIE CHAN AT THE CIRCUS speaking perfectly snappy English and looking exactly like Toshia Mori. The Chinese career continues until it’s interrupted for an emergency trip across the Pacific for the all-important Monogram cheapie PORT OF HATE. Then back to China for good. It just doesn’t sound right.
There are any number of possible keys to the muddle. For instance, in the mid-30’s, Toshia Mori, weary of treading water career wise, may have decided to jump-start things with a name change. Perhaps it seemed judicious to make her name sound more Chinese. Because the Charlie Chan series was in full swing, offering regular opportunities for Chinese actresses. Jimmy Chan was assuming increasing importance in the pictures and the very modern Toshia was born to banter with him. Or maybe the impetus for a name change came with the much ballyhooed casting search for MGM’s superproduction THE GOOD EARTH. Pearl Buck’s novel had been a blockbuster and the movie promised to be one too. What’s more, all the characters were Chinese. Anna May Wong certainly considered the role of O-Lan the part she was born for. And campaigned vigorously. In the end, MGM cast Austrian Luise Rainer (whose work in the film, it must be said, was pretty terrific. It won her an Oscar). Wong was doubly disappointed when MGM refused to give her the subsidiary role of seductive second wife Lotus on the grounds that she wasn’t beautiful enough. Certainly Toshia Mori could never have been disqualified on that score. Lotus would’ve been a perfect fit for her. The critical reaction to her similar role in BITTER TEA proved she was more than up to the dramatic demands of the part. And MGM had their own PAINTED VEIL as proof positive that Mori was a vision onscreen. It’s impossible to think Toshia Mori didn’t yearn for the role. As it was, in the end, MGM cast Austrian dancer Tillie Losch - an odd duck who looked like what you’d get if you asked for a side-order of Sondergaard at a place that couldn’t supply the real thing. Indicating , ultimately, that MGM was bound and determined to confine its casting of the major female roles in THE GOOD EARTH strictly within the Vienna city limits.
Maybe – and this is a long-shot – Toshia Mori was politically prescient enough to sense decaying relations between the U.S. and Japan. And thought a more Chinese sounding name would be advisable all-round. If so, she was way ahead of the rest of Hollywood – and the country . Because Fox was just launching its popular series about Japanese detective Mr.Moto, pictures which continued to pack‘em in till the end of the decade. And, by the way, wasn’t Mori a natural for the Moto series? Certainly dour Peter Lorre could’ve used the kind of pulchritudinous pick-me-up she’d have undoubtedly supplied.
As for the choice of name. Perhaps she’d somehow heard of Shia Jung. Maybe even seen one of her Chinese films. Or just read the name and liked the sound of it. And "shia" could stand as a contraction of her own name. Maybe it was just a coincidence that she picked the name of an actress already working on the other side of the world. Yet a year later in CHARLIE CHAN ON BROADWAY she’d reverted to her own. Sort of. Because at this point it’s impossible to know whether Tashia (with two a’s) was her choice or just a studio typo.
All in all, it’s a case for Charlie Chan. But he can’t assemble all the involved parties in a room and tease the truth out of them. Because the parties involved - including Toshia Mori/Shia Jung -are no longer with us. And what happened to Toshia Mori post-Hollywood? Did she leave the country? Did she spend time in a Japanese-American internment camp? One hopes not. Did she marry a plumber and have lots of little WAMPAS babies? Or a potentate – and spend the rest of her life living on velvet? Who knows? Except that somehow the story seems to have ended in 1995 in the Bronx. I’ve never found evidence of a Toshia Mori interview. Maybe there are children or grand-children who could supply the answers. But no one’s ever asked them the questions. At least in print. Leaving us with a fragrance of mystery – and a few light but ever so luminous footprints in the sands of Hollywood’s past.

ANNA MAY

2008-06-12T01:04:00.004-04:00

Recently TCM’s been showing a string of films featuring Chinese American actress Anna May Wong – as well as a documentary about her unique life and career. Whether you’re a fan or not, knowing even a little of her story, it’s impossible not to be impressed by the lady’s awesome determination and focus. With so many forces arrayed against her – chiefly, of course the pervasive and unapologetic racial exclusionism of heyday Hollywood – she somehow managed to carve out a film career that stretched from the silents to the 60’s, spanned two continents and even made her famous in China, though she never filmed there. There’s no denying her movies ranged wildly in quality. But Wong often achieved prominent (and sometimes top) billing. People knew who she was. A genuine – albeit marginalized – movie star. The roles she was offered were – more often than not - ciphers or stereotypes. Dragon ladies or doomed butterflies. But she committed to them and consistently elevated the material with her marvelous stillness and intensity. In Sternberg’s SHANGHAI EXPRESS(1932), she holds her own with Dietrich – no mean feat. Marlene’s operating on all cylinders but Wong matches the insolently seductive Dietrich cool with plenty of her own. In retrospect, Anna May Wong’s miracle picture was E.A. Dupont’s PICCADILLY made in Britain in ’29 – and certainly the best British silent I’ve ever seen. Wong has a large supporting part. But it’s the film's key performance - one that lingers in the memory. Intriguing work - nuanced, sympathetic, alluring, dangerous, touching. And the chemistry she creates with (under-rated) leading man Jameson Thomas is really superb. Far beyond anything nominal star Gilda Gray can muster. If the Oscar had introduced its supporting category this early, I’d have unhesitatingly given the trophy to Wong that year. What an amazing alternate universe awards show that would have been!. With Anna May Wong honored for her Shosho and Louise Brooks carrying off the Best Actress trophy as Lulu in "Pandora’s Box". An alluring embarassment of icons. As it was, the supporting category wasn’t around till ’36 and the ’29 Best Actress trophy went to Mary Pickford in "Coquette", surely the worst performance ever to win an Academy Award. But that was then and now is now. Milestone has a lovely print of PICCADILLY available on DVD. Do yourself a favor. Rent or buy it soon. And watch Anna May Wong shimmer.

The Overlooked - 1953

2008-04-27T04:44:00.010-04:00

For the past ten days or so I’ve been popping out posts at a furious (for me) clip. They’ve all been about 1953. Each intended as a modest sidebar to Stinkylulu’s upcoming Supporting Actress Smackdown. But since these posts were all so full of digressions and detours, I never did arrive at my intended destination. Which was to be a discussion of the overlooked performances from ’53. The ladies who didn’t get so much as a look-in. Not even a chance to say they were happy just to be nominated. ‘Cause Oscar didn’t do right by them . I have a list of deserving ladies for ’53. And one actress on that list actually did have an Oscar win in her past. As for the rest, they may have enjoyed various degrees of fame, fortune and fulfilment – but they all wound up with just as many Oscars as you and I have. Unless, of course, there are some Oscar winners reading this. Which I somehow doubt. Anyway, I dragged myself in from work late tonight only to realize that the Smackdown goes into orbit tomorrow morning. And I still haven’t written a thing about my intended subject. So, now, fuelled by diet Coke and Lipitor, I make an eleventh hour stab at it. The clock’s ticking – and I may fade out. But here goes.
First of all, in 1953, movie musicals were still going full-tilt. I mean in a year that produced something as perfect as "The Band Wagon", can you tell me anyone seriously believed that the entire genre would soon be more or less consigned to the scrap heap? A whole generation of musical film stars seemed to go out of style overnight – most of them in their prime. Suddenly a legend like Gene Kelly couldn’t get a lead. Ladies who’d been ruling the roost at Metro just seemed to vanish. Esther Williams’ pool was drained. Kathryn Grayson made her last film in ’56. She was only 33. Jane Powell left movies a year later. At 28. Nowadays, so many of the "serious" pictures that helped dethrone these stars seem dated and naïve, actually trivilalizing important issues with pat solutions and lots of pussyfooting, 50’s style. The musicals had an intentional innocence but the best ones managed to express that quality with wit and charm; the musical elements took you places words couldn’t go, of course. But a generation of pros before the camera and behind it, people who understood and loved the genre, often managed to bring all the facets together, creating bubbles that seem more iridescent as the years go by. As timeless as something out of the Arabian Nights. 1953 produced a bumper crop of blithely entertaining musicals. Besides "The Band Wagon", there was "Calamity Jane" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". Not to mention breezy, under-rated pleasures like "Dangerous When Wet" "The Farmer Takes a Wife" " I Love Melvin"and "The Beggar’s Opera". All films I never get tired of. Even the ones that disappointed me a little like "Kiss Me Kate" had incredible things going for them – great casts, sensational scores – beautifully orchestrated and performed. No surprise that Kathryn Grayson rocked that Eleanor Parker wig from "Scaramouche". But who knew Howard Keel would look so good in tights? And, oh what I’d give to see that "Kiss Me Kate" choregraphy in its original 3D!
But the Academy rarely liked to nominate musical performers. And - I mean - in what year during the 40’s wasn’t Judy Garland nomination worthy? Yet during that whole decade her name never once made it to the ballot. Yes, I know Jean Hagen pried a nomination out of the Academy for "Singin’ in the Rain". But she has little or nothing to do with the film’s musical segments. I certainly don’t think of her as a musical performer. I believe Debbie Reynolds has gone on record as saying she’ll never quite come to terms with the fact that Donald O’Connor wasn’t nominated for that picture. Me neither. And could Fred Astaire have possibly been more sublime than he was in "The Band Wagon"? What did he have to do to get a nomination? Oh, right. I forgot. Totter around near a towering inferno .
Anyway, the "overlooked" choice I’m spotlighting here is a musical lady who provided additional snap crackle and pop to one of the year’s very best films. That would be Nanette Fabray in "The Band Wagon". This was a picture that made a big impression on audiences and critics in 1953. And quite deservedly. As I said, the golden age of the movie musical was nearly over, even if nobody knew it then. And that observation’s especially poignant when you re-watch "The Band Wagon", probably the greatest of all Metro’s musicals. Certainly I’d rank it that way. Just as people often say silent films were reaching a climax of achievement when sound came in to deliver the death blow, so musicals were enjoying a rich, creative heyday in the early 50’s. Nowhere more so than at MGM. And there was no finer director of musicals anywhere than Vincente Minnelli. He and the famous Freed unit seemed to find special inspiration in The Band Wagon" ’s Comden and Green script about putting on a show. A new theme by no means. But no musical ever had a better screenplay. In this case performed and mounted with passion and affection by people who really were the best in the world at what they did. Dialogue and musical sequences achieve – and sustain - a kind of zen show-biz serenity that makes it almost impossible for a lover of movie musicals to watch it without smiling and/or tearing up. Liza Minnelli has commented on her father’s awesome ability to combine a sense of reality with theatricality. "The Band Wagon" illustrates that from beginning to end. You really care about the characters. Certainly, Astaire never had a better written role. And though it might not be right to say he rises to the occasion, considering his permanently buoyant state of grace, he does seem to play Tony Hunter, aging (and fading) musical comedy legend with an extra level of personal investment. If Norma Desmond had had a sense of humour about herself, and had reacted to changing times by covering up the insecurities with a little rueful insouciance and modesty , well I guess she wouldn’t be Norma Desmond anymore. But she’d be an awful lot like Astaire’s Tony Hunter.
Nanette Fabray is joined at the hip for most of her scenes in "The Band Wagon" with Oscar Levant, a classical musician who had about the same connection to acting as Zsa Zsa Gabor does. In the 40’s and 50’s he parlayed his celebrity into a small string of movie appearances, inevitably the cynical Sad Sack, alternately courting and deflecting approval. Fabray and Levant play Lily and Lester Allen, a kind of affably frantic version of Comden and Green. Irascible Levant wasn’t known as a high energy team player, so I’d have to guess that a great deal of the vim and vigor generated by Lily and Lester comes from Fabray and Minnelli. However they got it, they got it. Lily and Lester get progressively (and hilariously) more shell-shocked as they watch wunderkind director Jeffrey Cordova, (Jack Buchanan, another nomination that shoulda been) turn the little musical comedy they wrote into a combination Greek tragedy/ Wreck of the Hesperus. From her first appearance at the train station, brandishing a slapped-together " Tony Hunter Fan Club" sign, Fabray’s a joy. One of those people who can mug and make you want more. Then dial it down ever so nicely. And - largely thanks to Fabray’s authentic warmth - you genuinely believe, right off the bat, that Lester, Lily and Tony really are old friends. The whole picture communicates a feeling of camaraderie, a sense of community and shared purpose, in the face of chaos.
Fabray isn’t, of course, the leading lady. That spot’s reserved for willowy Cyd Charisse. No, Fabray’s definitely a second banana here. Plucky –and similar in some ways to earlier MGM examples of the type. Though not as man-crazy as Betty Garrett . And definitely not as sour as Nancy Walker, who often came off like some kind of shrunken head hanging from the belt of whatever musical she was attached to. Like them, Nanette Fabray was no glamour-puss. But she was cute enough to have been considered viable as a Warner Brothers starlet in the late 30’s. You can see her - in vintage Technicolor - as one of Bette Davis’ ladies in waiting in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex". After that initial Hollywood foray, Fabray headed for the stage, eventually becoming a much admired musical comedy star on Broadway. She was a gifted comedienne that didn’t have to sing at all to be terrific. But sing she did. Her speaking voice is easy to recognize. There’s a certain quality that makes you think she’s not getting quite enough air. Or maybe someone’s pumped just a little bit of helium into her. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s distinctive – and definitely part of her appeal. When she sings, you get the sense of a great big Broadway voice coming through a funnel. But it sounds great. Fabray is down-to-earth , one of us. Attractive but no picture perfect beauty queen. Her clothes in "The Band Wagon" suggest the housewife down the block, 1953 style. Yet, at the same time, it’s crystal clear she’s a Broadway Baby through and through.
Onscreen she’s an eager beaver – but one you’d definitely want to spend lots of time with. Considering it’s a supporting part, it’s amazing how many highlights one remembers from Fabray’s performance. That fabulous scream in the back alley behind the theatre! Her conflicted reaction as Cordova woos the backers with his one-man version of the show. This is great!/ Help! Get me out of here. And of course, she shines in the musical numbers. Can you believe how quickly she arranges that kerchief on her head in the "I Love Louisa" number? The camera's only off her for moments. Plus, of course, she carries off every bit of musical comedy business like it’s no sweat. That "Triplets" number couldn’t have been easy to do. But she makes you want to get up there with her. I’m glad she gets the spotlight firmly on her for one number. It’s "Louisiana Hayride". I’ve always loved the song – and I’ll forever associate it with her. Of course, the Technicolor’s a dream. But so’s she. In great voice, too. And I love every single piece of comic schtick she pulls out during that roll call bit. "Sweet Pea Oglethorpe" "Ah is hyuh" "Jonquil Jezebel" " Mmm hyuh" . Moving through the whole thing with the unerring instinct and assurance of a Broadway legend.
The entire performance is warm, funny, smart, resourceful, charismatic. And she hits bull’s-eyes in every one of her musical sequences. Yet never once tries to stop her co-stars from shining too. If all this isn’t worth a supporting actress nomination, what is? I love this woman. I also love "The Band Wagon". And the fact that if Nanette Fabray could only be in one MGM musical, it was the best one ever.

That’s it. I’ve run out of steam. No energy left right now to properly praise my other "overlooked" ladies of ’53.

Check out Stinkylulu’s Smackdown tomorrow ( I mean, later today)

The nominees that year were:
Grace Kelly "Mogambo"
Geraldine Page "Hondo"
Marjorie Rambeau "Torch Song"
Donna Reed "From Here to Eternity"
Thelma Ritter "Pickup on South Street"

Reed was the eventual winner. See who gets to wear the Smackdown crown.
My guess would be Ritter. But who knows?

And finally, my 1953 ballot would have read this way
Nanette Fabray "The Band Wagon"
Grace Kelly "Mogambo"
Allyn McLerie "Calamity Jane"
Jeanette Nolan "The Big Heat"
Teresa Wright "The Actress"

Now I lay me down to sleep..

Happy Just to Be Nominated

2008-04-26T01:56:00.015-04:00

My last post turned out to be not so much Last Post as 21 Gun Salute to Grace Kelly’s work in 1953’s "Mogambo". The general idea being that - of the five supporting actress performances nominated that year – hers was the only one to merit that level of recognition. Even situated as it was – in a pretty ordinary jungle potboiler –it’s impressive . Nervous energy, cleverly informed and shaped by instinct, discipline and a certain amount of daring. Definitely work of considerable promise. And the mere three years of career she had left were hardly enough to fully deliver on that promise. Still, it would be wrong to say the other four nominated performances were bad. They were actually all quite okay. But, honestly, not much more than that.
For instance, Geraldine Page in "Hondo". As in Grace Kelly’s case, the picture was an early screen credit for her. But Page’s movie career lasted decades and left us with a raft of memorably etched performances. F.Murray Abraham may have been the only one kneeling onstage on Oscar night, 1986, when Page picked up her trophy for "The Trip to Bountiful". But discerning audiences and most of her professional peers had been doing it – figuratively - for years. She was, by common consensus, the definitive actor’s actor. When you heard Page was in a film, you automatically started thinking Oscar nomination. And though the Academy limited her to a merely sensational eight nominations, several more wouldn’t have been out of order ("Toys in the Attic", "Dear Heart","I’m Dancing As Fast As I Can" are titles that spring to mind immediately). Even more impressive when you realize that Page was primarily a stage actress – one of the theatre’s most admired. And though her filmography isn’t all that extensive, really just a number of thrilling punctuation marks in a long stage career, what she did manage to commit to film stands as enduring proof of an amazing talent. How incredible it would have been to see her onstage! I wonder if she ever did "The Glass Menagerie"? Every time I think of that play, I imagine what a wonderful Amanda she’d have made.
"Hondo" wasn’t technically her movie debut. Alert viewers will notice her brief appearance in a Fox programmer called "Taxi" with Dan Dailey But her screen credit in "Hondo" read "introducing Geraldine Page". And for most movie-goers this was their first look at her. The picture was hardly an indicator of the actress’ future film career. For one thing it was a western. And she didn’t make many of those. And it’s always a little surprising to realize that an actress who was to become so celebrated made her official film debut in a 3D movie. Then again, come to think of it, so many of her later performances were a lot like 3D, providing audiences with simultaneous multiple perspectives. If you hankered for the giddy pleasure of a heightened movie experience, Page was the lady who could give it to you. The tics, the mannerisms, vocal and visual, the quicksilver transitions, the unique, eccentric energy – they were Page trademarks. But she knew when to use them and when not to. When to dole them out and when to drown you in them. For "Hondo", she kept them pretty close to her vest. Tennessee Williams it wasn’t. But it was a well put together western, handsomely shot, skilfully written and very entertaining, charged with a nice forward momentum. Page plays a frontier wife and mother – basically on her own with a young son (her husband’s a chronically absent gallivanter). Leaving her to run a homestead and raise a child in remote Apache country. Page makes a solid impression – straight, clean and stalwart – with few hints in her performance of the dramatic filigree she’d become famous for in later years. And if there are no great fireworks with John Wayne (Maureen O’Hara was pretty much the only one to ever pull that off), the teaming was smooth and believable. And though the performance didn’t convey the compelling promise that Kelly’s did in "Mogambo" – or give much indication of the heights Page would later scale, it was, nevertheless, assured and appropriate. Still, I’d say it was a little over rewarded with that Oscar nomination.
Which brings us to the 3 R’s. Not, in this case, "Readin, Ritin’ and ‘Rithmetic" but rather the three other ’53 nominees who weren’t Grace Kelly – Rambeau, Ritter and Reed. The Joan Crawford curio "Torch Song" - unlike "Mogambo" – was no box-office smash. It’s intriguing to speculate what audiences who did go made of it in 1953. The whole point of the exercise seems to have been to celebrate the – at this point - Medusa-like charms of its star. But it’s a doggedly glum celebration . And Marjorie Rambeau is little more than a splash from the mud puddle as Crawford storm-troops her way through a series of airless drawing rooms and grim musical numbers. Rambeau’s contribution – quickly checking off a few standard blowsy mother-of-the-star cliches

– was competent but hardly stood out. Years before, she’d played a similar part - and one that gave her a lot more opportunity to shine. That was in "The Primrose Path"(1940). And she was best thing in the picture (though, admittedly, the film itself was only marginally better than "Torch Song"). That netted her an Oscar nomination too. A deserved one, I’d say. But, here, the nomination’s a real puzzler. Was it backstage studio politicking at work? Was Rambeau really that well liked by her colleagues? Or was it just another example of the vagaries of the Academy’s odd multi-tiered nomination process at work? Whatever the case, speculations on how this nomination even happened remain more interesting than the performance itself.
Thelma Ritter’s work in the goodish (but not that goodish) "Pickup on South Street" provided more likely nomination fodder. The beloved character actress was already developing into a perennial Oscar bridesmaid . And voters were eager to hand her a trophy. (They never quite succeeded – 6 nominations, 6 losses). Yet, oddly enough, they often ignored her finest accomplishments ("A Letter to Three Wives", "A Hole in the Head" and – above all – her sublime contribution to "The Misfits")
Except for a touching final scene, Ritter’s Apple Annie style character in "Pickup" doesn’t really rank with her best work. She’s a kind of urban Mammy Yokum, not so much a believable character but , rather, a walking slice of contrived local color. It doesn’t help that she’s presented as a shady street peddler who basically supplements her income by regularly informing on fellow con-artists. Everyone seems to know it, yet, for the most part, they all stay pretty chummy with her. Doesn’t make sense. One wouldn’t have thought that the distance between Ritter’s patented Bronx-y wisecracks and Damon Runyon would be that great. Yet the faux Runyon dialogue she’s saddled with here boxes her up , constricting her normal speech patterns just enough to rob them of their usual naturalness. Admittedly, the studio could have found even less hospitable roles for her. Someone once asked her why she left Fox in the mid-fifties and Ritter reportedly quipped, "I don’t look that good in a toga". So, no, this wasn’t as extreme as ,say, plunking her down into the Coliseum with Demetrius and the Gladiators. But it still wasn’t an entirely comfortable fit. That pretty much comes down to the writing, I think. But the end result’s that a role meant to spotlight Ritter only succeeds in diminishing her a little. Too bad. Still, as I said, she asserts her distinctive talent beautifully in that final scene, breaking through the role’s constraints to give the picture its one thoroughly effective emotional jolt. Me, I’d still withhold the nomination though, on the basis that the performance remains essentially compromised by those earlier scenes.
I don’t like "From Here to Eternity" – a dull soap opera chock full of its own ( supposed) importance. The Oscar for Sinatra’s unexceptional performance at least re-ignited his professional confidence and popularity, inspiring him to a series of performances that really were Oscar calibre – "Man with the Golden Arm", "The Joker is Wild", "Some Came Running". Burt Lancaster does another of his overstated takes on understatement. Clift’s in early haunted mode. I really don’t think he got that right till ’61 in "The Misfits" and "Judgment at Nuremberg". Here it’s just agitated navel gazing. Donna Reed actually won the trophy that year for her Alma, dance-hall

hostess (read hooker). It’s a sensible performance, and Reed ‘s conscientious about conveying Alma’s mix of steely determination and vestigial sweetness. But though her work represents one of the film’s better features, it’s not particularly memorable. This is an earlier example of the Shirley Jones/"Elmer Gantry" syndrome. An actress identified with virginal good girl roles accepts a racy bad girl part and is rewarded – not so much for playing it well – but just for playing it at all. Audiences and voters seemed over-awed by the celebrated reputation of James Jones’ novel. That certainly played a part in the film’s popularity. And it may have been a contributing factor to Reed’s Oscar win. Oddly, the parallels between Reed and Shirley Jones didn’t end here. Both later achieved their greatest success as stars of innocuous but wildly popular TV sitcoms. And in spite of the essentially flimsy nature of their respective vehicles, both blossomed beautifully as actresses during the course of their long runs. Beyond revealing impressive reserves of charm and beauty, the two became experts at comic timing and droll line readings. And both ladies could bring off a quiet, reflective moment with the best of them. I know I’m talking about "The Partridge Family". But check it out sometime. Jones is really good in it. As is Reed in "The Donna Reed Show". Two classy and talented ladies who, for years, conveyed more about the joys of good acting – and on a weekly basis, too – than pretty much anything I’ve been able to extract from either "From Here to Eternity" or "Elmer Gantry".
At any rate, for a wider range of opinions on the Oscar nominated ladies of 1953, be sure to visit Stinkylulu’s next Supporting Actress Smackdown this coming Sunday (April 27).

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

2008-04-25T05:05:00.006-04:00

Fond as I am of 1953, I don’t think the Academy managed to spotlight many of its actual highlights when they chose their

supporting actress nominees that year. With one exception.

Though "Mogambo" ’s a pretty pedestrian effort (action-wise, this particular African safari’s about as exciting as a trip to a water-cooler), up-and-comer Grace Kelly manages to turn it into something of a personal triumph. Ava Gardner’s role - wise-cracking any port in a storm play-girl - is certainly larger and showier. And – on the surface of it – the more dominant part. But maybe not. ’Cause in the script’s original incarnation ("Red Dust"{1932}), Mary Astor played the Kelly role and carried off a similar coup, turning an ostensibly supporting part into the picture’s real acting showcase. To her credit, Gardner is less cartoonish than Jean Harlow had been. For openers, the onscreen Ava generally projects a languorous, laid-back quality that’s easier to live with than most of Harlow’s shenanigans. The platinum blonde kewpie-doll exterior – candy-floss hair and three coats of paint – presents its own obstacles. But then there’s the curious diction – at once crass and high-falutin’. And the frequent onscreen tantrums – frantic mazurkas of charmless squawking. Harlow’s odd attributes were never more unconvincing than in the (all too frequent) outings when she played (if that’s the word) a socialite. At least in "Red Dust", she’s cast in a more down-market guise. Still, after all the Harlow bashing , let me add that she managed to balance her effects quite nicely in the excellent pre-coder "Red Headed Woman". And her work in "Wife vs. Secretary"(1936) – unexpectedly warm and rich - proved once and for all that there’d been real talent there all along. Making one wish Metro had used her more judiciously in the years preceding it. Still, whatever Jean Harlow was selling in the early 30’s, it was obviously something the public couldn’t get enough of. ’Cause at the box-office she was gangbusters. And a mellower, more realistic Harlow probably wouldn’t have raked nearly as much money into Leo the Lion’s coffers. Getting back to Gardner, I’d say the popularity of "Mogambo" is what finally cinched her status as a major league movie star . But it’s still not a very interesting performance. Yes, the beauty and the voice - with its powdery sensuality - are hard to ignore (and who’d want to?). But there’s a curious lack of spontanaiety in most of her dialogue. She often seems to be reeling off bits of some mildly raunchy class assignment. Delivered with more duty than conviction. The only snippet that really works for me is her wryly delivered re-entry line part way through the picture - something to the effect of, "Yeah, it’s me. The Return of Frankenstein". But, mostly, it’s just paint-by-number stuff. Ava had already played the bruised glamour girl - with less emphasis and greater effect - in "Show Boat" (She was a genuinely touching Julie). And would get it just right again – in the 60’s – in "Seven Days in May". But here it’s pretty much skin-deep. The film’s mammoth success and Gardner’s obvious upward mobility on the Hollywood scene – might explain her Best Actress nomination that year. But she’s not half as fascinating as onscreen rival Grace Kelly who, noticing the rest of the cast is half asleep, takes the opportunity to whip up an intriguing little cocktail of her own , equal parts prim and primitive. The picture’s a kind of Hemingway-lite soap opera with Gable as a safari guide, casually hooked up with stranded ( but adaptable) good time girl Gardner. He’s hired by a naïve young Brit – a kind of amateur scientist with more money than brains. The guy’s all gung-ho about some vaguely defined research project that involves tape recorders and gorillas. He’s a kind of Dian Fossey - but without the brains. What he does have, though, is a beautiful young wife, Linda (played by Kelly, a triumphant twenty-three at the time). She arrives, cheery and gracious – fully expecting to play young Lady Bountiful. But Hubby promptly takes to his bed with some sort of jungle fever. Leaving Linda to face about a dozen consecutive emotional and cultural blind-sides, not the least of which is the steadily escalating sexual attraction between her and Gable. I love how quickly Kelly’s flawless face goes from tabula rasa to rapidly changing emotional barometer. Expertly registering confusion, anger, jealousy, distress, desire and any number of variations thereof. There’s a fluidity of expression that’s quite startling . Really resourceful – and way beyond the call of duty for what amounts to a safari soap opera . Certainly beyond what might reasonably be expected of a young socialite dabbling in the movies, which is how Kelly was generally perceived up until "Mogambo". She hits every note she has to – with real aplomb. The imperious streak. The cattiness with Gardner. The progressive irritation with hubby, increasingly inneffectual in her eyes next to Gable’s elemental he-man. And there’s no shortage of stunning images capturing Kelly’s beauty blooming like a hot pink rose in the African landscape. Kelly even makes Linda likable. You catch yourself rooting for her. I love her embarrassed silence when Gable is forced to come to the rescue after she gets herself into a pickle with a panther. And when a coy question to The Great White Hunter gets a blunt response, her reaction’s beguiling.– a bit of smart, self-deprecating humour. "Not very gallant", she chuckles, "but understandable". Later as things between them heat up, she has no trouble handling her end of some sexually charged verbal fencing (as they sail suggestively down a fast-moving river). Linda knows what she stands to lose. A wealthy, comfortable, life. A secure future. But Gable represents excitement, adventure and probably lots of hot sex. And when nice, clueless Hubby urges her to live every minute and make the most of it, he probably means she should set up a tape recorder of her own near Gorilla Town. But it’s clear Linda’s putting an entirely different construction on his words. She’s pretty much decided to take the plunge. In the end, it’s Gable who just can’t bring himself to hurt Hubby. And when he gives Linda the kiss-off, she caps off her performance with a neat little display of hysteria, complete with gunfire. In the end, she quietly retreats with Hubby ( still blithely clueless). But Linda’s future is a toss-up. Has she been sufficiently burned that she’ll opt for permanent respectability in sleepy Devonshire? Or are the newly acquired perspectives and sharpened appetites going to make her increasingly restless? There never was a "Mogambo 2". So we’ll just have to go on guessing. Clark Gable may have put up gamely with the hardships of location shooting in Africa, but doesn’t seem to have extended his efforts to the point of stretching himself acting-wise. Except in his scenes with Kelly, where he seems genuinely surprised, impressed and – I don’t know – turned on, maybe, as Kelly finds increasingly creative ways to make her performance captivating. Interestingly enough, Gene Tierney was originally cast as Linda in "Mogambo". When she dropped out for health reasons, Kelly came onboard. Tierney would’ve been good. She usually was. But we’d have had to do without the striking blonde-brunette contrast the Kelly - Gardner combo provided. And more importantly, Tierney wouldn’t have been as stunningly youthful or as fluidly expressive. Nature wasn’t stingy, as far as young Grace Kelly was concerned. A striking beauty. Born to wealth and privilege. Smart. Charming. But who’d have guessed there’d be so much talent, too?. Grace Kelly was a very good actress. Besides the Academy Award nomination, she also won a Golden Globe for her work in "Mogambo". Oddly, I don’t think she ever had a richer showcase for her emotional versatility than this glorified jungle programmer. Certainly not " The Country Girl", drab talk periodically interrupted for some godawful musical numbers – even if it did win her an Oscar. Amazingly, her legendary career, just beginning to hit its stride with "Mogambo" was over three years later. Before her 27th birthday. The famous marriage in Monaco. The immediate and permanent withdrawal from films. A lot of actresses owe Kelly big-time for that decision. Elizabeth Taylor, say. Or most of the post ’55 Hitchcock heroines . It’s clear that with her phenomenal fame – and equally impressive qualifications – physical and artistic, Grace Kelly would have been the go-to girl for most of the big projects of the late 50’s and probably on through the 60’s. What’s more, it was a talent that may well have grown and deepened as she reached middle age and beyond. Grace Kelly’s career may have been brief, but she seems to have secured permanent status as one of Hollywood’s iconic figures. Not just beautiful. But special.

1953

2008-04-17T19:43:00.010-04:00

Later this month (Sunday, April 27 to be exact), the destination of choice is definitely Stinkylulu’s Online Palace of a Thousand Delights. Occasion? The kick-off of a new season of Supporting Actress Smackdowns. Wherein Lulu and panel (of which I’m honored to be a member) mull over a specific year of supporting actress Oscar nominees, sniffing around the pros and cons of each performance – and either reaffirming the Academy’s choice or crowning a new winner. A kind of George Cukor rumble – essentially decorous but frequently barbed. With Jets and Sharks led by Mary Haines and Sylvia Fowler.
In the meantime I’ve got a lot of related rambling to do. Because 1953 is the Smackdown target this time out – and movie-wise, that’s a year I just can’t stop talking about. I was actually around in ’53. But not quite old enough to know what year it was. Though I wasn’t actually aware it was ’53 in ’53, I do remember things that happened then. And I can even recall a year or two earlier when my parents gave me a plastic wrist-watch. In response to any adult who'd humor me with a "Kenny, what time is it?", I’d stare intently at the face of that thing, then announce , "It’s a quarter to time." I’m not sure whether I thought I was hoodwinking them – or actually believed I was imparting legitimate information.
The first time I actually remember being conscious of its being such and such a year was in 1955. Mainly because of ads for ’55 cars. Plus my parents took a trip to some American Emerald City (Minneapolis, I suspect) and brought me back a souvenir. A toy Car of the Future. Streamlined, spacey and colored a vivid chartreuse. In order to make me understand the concept of a future year, I expect someone must have clued me in as to exactly what year we were in. At any rate, for all its supposed futurity, that car remains fully linked in my mind with 1955. There was also Cinemascope 55 – garden variety Cinemascope, I imagine, dressed up in the year’s movie ads to suggest startling new dimensions – presumably the nearest thing , thrill-wise, to a trip to Mars.
Cinemascope was one of the weapons in Hollywood’s battle to woo defectors back from their TV sets. By ’55 I realized it meant widescreen. But in ’53, when it first arrived, I apparently wasn’t too sure. Because one of my 1953 memories is of sitting in a theatre watching "The Robe". The publicity mills had made it clear even to a four year old that this picture was in Cinemascope. And, whatever that was, it clearly constituted a substantial addition to the wonders of the world. Stereophonic sound must have been part of the package too. Because I can remember being scared bug-eyed by a sudden theatre-rattling trumpet blast announcing the onscreen arrival of wicked Emperor Jay Robinson. Thereafter, I made my official policy on the new phenomenon clear to anyone who’d listen. "I hate Cinemascope. It’s too loud!"
I came to terms with Cinemascope soon enough. And widescreen movies did come to stay. But the process wasn’t enough to turn back the clock. The old Hollywood system – with its comfortably ritualized genres and enormous, loyal audience was in for a jolt
Among the gimmicks Hollywood hauled out to combat audience attrition, 3D remains the one most inextricably linked to 1953. The technique, which provided a pleasantly giddy optical sensation, had been around in some form since the 1800’s. Stereoscopic images, looked at through special viewers, were a diverting novelty in homes across the country. But no one had figured out an effective and commercially viable way to transfer the experience to the motion picture screen. That is, until a tireless Hollywood promoter called Arch Oboler purchased an option on a new Polaroid process called Natural Vision which not only provided 3D motion picture images, but could do it in full color. As far as I can tell, the filming process – cumbersome and time-consuming – involved two cameras shooting scenes from different angles. Theatre showings required a pair of projectors which – perfectly synchronized (and this was vital) – superimposed both images onscreen together. Special polaroid glasses (provided by the theatre}–one lens red, one green - allowed audiences to see a different image through each eye. A trick of the brain enabled viewers to combine the two pictures into one. The resultant separation of background and foreground – startling and quite fascinating – made it apparent that the 2D images audiences had been long conditioned to accept were, in fact, severely limited perspective-wise. And - properly photographed and projected –onscreen objects aimed (sometimes hurled) toward the audience seemed to leap right out of the screen. Hence the 3D slogan "A Lion in Your Lap! A Lover in Your Arms!" The picture that slogan was initially attached to was Arch Oboler’s "Bwana Devil", which he’d convinced United Artists to release late in 1952. It was a routine jungle adventure with no particularly big names in the cast. But audience response to the picture – and more specifically to 3D - was stupendous. Box-office records were shattered in city after city, as people lined up for blocks waiting for a chance to don the red and green glasses. Hollywood execs looked up from their hand-wringing, smelling a solution to the industry’s woes.
Immediately studios were falling over each other, announcing 3D projects. Titles previously planned for normal filming were re-tooled as 3D productions. Within six months, the 3D boom was in full swing and initial box-office results were colossal. Warner Brothers’ "House of Wax" with Vincent Price generated the kind of profits usually associated with De Mille blockbusters. A Guy Madison western called "The Charge at Feather River" was held over everywhere. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a genre that wasn’t suddenly awash in 3D – sci-fi (the marvelous "It Came from Outer Space"), swashbucklers ("Sangaree" with Fernando Lamas and luscious Arlene Dahl), crime thrillers ("I the Jury", a Mickey Spillane slugfest), musicals (the lavish "Kiss Me Kate" from Metro). Martin & Lewis got into the act ("Money from Home"). As did John Wayne ("Hondo") and Hitchcock ("Dial M for Murder"). Assuming the profits would continue unabated, studio heads confidently stated that in future, all films would be in 3D. But there were flies in the ointment. Not the least of which were the technical problems inherent in the proper exhibition of 3D films. Perfect projection synchronization was necessary to assure proper 3D performance. And it was impossible to monitor every showing across the country. Equipment breakdown and projectionist error turned show after show into disasters. For neighborhood theatres, the costs of outfitting for 3D capability were often out of the question. What’s more, even after successful screenings, people were complaining about the 3D glasses – common charges: inconvenient, clumsy, uncomfortable, impractical for people who already wore glasses . And beyond that, there were widespread complaints of eye-strain everywhere 3D was shown. Viewers seated toward the side sometimes grumbled about not getting the full 3D effect. Some people got to the point where they preferred to stay home if they found out a movie they’d planned to see was in 3D. Plus it was still widely perceived as a novelty. And novelties have a habit of wearing off – of suddenly becoming "so yesterday". What’s more, censorship was relaxing. Audience tastes were undergoing a change. The incoming tide of heavy, increasingly frank black and white dramas, the Method acting, the restricted films and foreign art-house items hardly seemed compatible with 3D. Many considered 3D a gaudy huckster’s trick – meant for hyping the visual entertainment value of Saturday matinee potboilers. But unseemly, undignified and thoroughly inappropriate when attached to serious Cinematic Art. No single reason was responsible for 3D’s demise. But the combination was enough to bring the 3D era to a grinding halt. By the end of ’54, the process had been all but scrapped. The final 3D features were sneaked into theatres in flatscreen format. And 3D was quietly swept away to join other cultural dust-bunnies like the charleston and the snood.
I assume our town must have had 3D movies in ’53. But I never saw them then. Not until I was in my 30’s – and living in a big city. That’s when a spate of limited 3D revivals cropped up. I thought they were fabulous. Completely undisappointing. I remember "Inferno" with Robert Ryan and Rhonda Fleming was a particular 3D bull’s-eye. But the second-run theatre I went to as a child probably wasn’t equipped to show 3D. Still, I did know about 3D then. And I did have a couple of 3D comic books which I was crazy about. With the red and green glasses (not so) firmly in place, I perused and pondered these items as if they were pieces from the Shroud of Turin. One was Little Lotta. The other was Richie Rich. I remember a particular page showed somebody coming down a slide right at me – and I was endlessly delighted and boggled by it. I had 3D view-master reels too. Queen Elizabeth’s wedding, Niagara Falls, the Greatest Show on Earth and some fairy-tales with Gumby-like protagonists who were supposed to be Snow White and Cinderella, but looked more like the Golem. Still, the 3D was pretty good.
There have been periodic attempts to revive 3D. But none have quite caught on. In spite of the undying – almost hypnotic – appeal of the process itself. As I write, a new 3D boom seems imminent. The old-fashioned 3D glasses have been replaced by a light, comfortable apparatus, largely indistinguishible from designer sunglasses. Soon, it seems, there’ll be no need for glasses at all. And with technology growing by leaps and bounds, IMAX 3D presents images that are frankly jaw-dropping. Box-office returns for the 3D editions of films like "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf" have been enormous. 3D concert films have also made tons of money. Exhibitors around the world are spending fortunes equipping theatres to show future IMAX 3D productions. New 3D titles are announced regularly. The current slate includes Disney’s projected 3D remake of its 80’s sfx classic "Tron". This new 3D age may or may not pan out. But, for my generation, 3D will always mean 1953D.
Now, as anyone who’s ever read this blog knows, I love old Hollywood – and old Hollywood movies. Even so, I’d like to think I can appreciate what’s come after. Don’t – I repeat, don’t – lump me in with the cobweb and crinoline crowd who think good movies died with Louis B.Mayer. I can still feel nostalgic, though, for the innocent adventure films, knights and bandits, pirates and pashas – cynicism-free and decked out in mouth-watering color. The endless stream of war-bonnet westerns. And the musicals – those twinkling dream-factory creations where a 3-strip Technicolor breeze was all it took to transform ordinary dialogue into buoyant song and dance. I remember nodding in agreement when I read someone’s fond recollection of the time when a new musical – with something wonderful in it – opened every other week
Looking back, it’s clear 1953 was the Indian summer of that era.
I lived in a small Canadian town. And my mother took several years off work when I was born – mainly to focus on Baby. She started taking me to the movies before I could walk or talk. And you’d better believe it - the movies played a part in teaching me to talk. Those big beautiful technicolor faces, those voices – dulcet, dramatic – speaking directly to me in the dark. Demanding a response of some sort – awe, affection, emulation. All erupting sooner or later in words. My mother was young – and probably looked younger. I can remember, when I was six or so, walking with her near the train station. And some pint-sized smart-alec called out, "Hey, kid! Is that your mother or your sister?" She was my first movie-going confederate. And little more than a kid herself.
It was – as I said – a small town. And safe. I never heard of anything really bad happening to a child. By the time I was five, the next-door kids and I would trek downtown ( it wasn’t far} nearly every Saturday to the Royal Theatre for a Saturday matinee. Fifty cents tops would cover the cost – refreshments included. There were similar second-run theatres in other parts of town – the Lake and the Fort. But these we rarely visited. A grown-up would have to drive us there. And pick us up around five when the show let out.
Occasionally my parents would take me along to a night-time movie. Usually at the Capitol or the Odeon. These would be more sober and sophisticated events. But thrilling in their own "so this is what adults do" way. Even more rare were forays to the Drive-In. An especially exotic destination. A kind of combination theme park and Katmandu. Where hot dogs and french fries achieved cordon-bleu levels of delectability. And Mom and Dad always had to be careful to remove the speaker from the car window before they drove away.
But, above all, the movie-going experience meant Saturday afternoon at the Royal. Kids were not only welcome. That one day a week, they seemed to have exclusive rights to the place. I don’t recall ever seeing a grown-up actually occupying a seat on a Saturday afternoon. It’s unlikely they’d have relished the experience. What with the intermission – frantic onstage games and contests plus occasional special appearances by dignitaries like Elmer the Safety Elephant and the Planters Peanut Man. I seem to remember a real celebrity horse onstage once, though which cowboy he belonged to I couldn’t tell you. The adult world was pretty much represented by a manager (who doubled as MC), a box-office lady, a candy-counter operator, an usher or two. How did they all cope?
Certainly the Saturday afternoon noise levels would have scared away most voting age patrons. I can still remember the tumultuous audience response to onscreen events. I have an idea we weren’t always clear as to exactly what features we’d be seeing. The tiny foyer was so crammed with exciting lobby cards and posters. Some current. Some forthcoming. Some just there for pure razzle-dazzle. But the most ecstatic moments of all would come when the onscreen credits revealed the names of a favorite comedy team (Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello, the Bowery Boys). The shriek of approval would be deafening. And then, if the next frame started in with spooky music and eerily wavering graphics, indicating that our comic heroes would be encountering a ghost or a monster or anything haunted or headless, the place just went nuts. The only thing that kept a roof on the building was the presence of the ever-patrolling matron , a Jane Darwell type – uniformed, stern, sturdy – armed with a flashlight that carried the implied authority of a cudgel. Like a grandmother who meant business. It was her job to see that the situation never morphed into full-on prison riot mode. Unfailingly – and amazingly - she accomplished her mission. Even the tough kids didn’t want to cross her. And – as far as I know – never did. And at the end of the afternoon, when sated audiences spilled out onto the streets, like cap-guns exploding, the place was still standing.
The Royal Theatre and the Saturday matinees are only memories now. But in ’53 the fun had already been going on for decades. And – without really thinking about it – most people just assumed it would go on forever. But the writing was already on the wall.

Then again, what do I know?

2008-02-24T23:52:00.005-05:00

Apparently I know even less than I thought I did. All those compelling reasons that made Julie Christie's Oscar an inevitability just disappeared in a puff of scented Gallic smoke. Despite the egg on my face, I'm delighted for Mlle Cotillard. She beat the odds - with a performance that deserves every accolade. May I now consider relations between the U.S. and France to be officially hunky-dory again?