the passionate moviegoer

façade: James Farentino

2012-01-25T09:34:00.042-05:00

For some elusive reason, the recent passing of James Farentino (1938-2012) has me haunted.

I guess from where I sat, he had everything - good looks, talent, you name it - and yet throughout his bumpy career, he remained...

an almost leading man.

He was married four times - most famously to Elizabeth Ashely (before she hooked up with George Peppard) and also, for quite a while, to Michele Lee. In their own way, Farentino and Lee were the Lunt and Fontanne of the '70s, only groovier, natch. He was also one of the many actors who challenge Marlon Brando and dare to attempt "A Streetcar Named Desire" - in 1973 - for which he received a Theatre World Award.

But, movies, which should have been his prime venue, somehow evaded his appeal.

News of his death immediately brought to mind two films, both lost of course, that he made in the late 1960s when screen stardom seemed within reach - Brian G. Hutton's "The Pad - and How to Use It" (1966) and Fred Coe's "Me, Natalie" (1969). And both are quite wonderful.

Let's start with "Me, Natalie," a vehicle for Patty Duke which should have rehabilitated her professional reputation after the disaster of Mark Robson's "Valley of the Dolls" (1967) but didn't. Too bad. The film is a minor gem and Duke tears into her role of an ugly duckling with the kind of passion that wins Oscars - or used to.

But she did receive a well-deserved Golden Globe for her efforts.

Duke is Natalie Miller, a girl with what she perceives to be a nose problem. Her nose isn't big, but it has a hump - and this is the source of all her problems, her self-deprecating humor and her general discontent. When she moves out of her parents' home and into her own apartment, Natalie finally comes into her own. For one thing, she meets Farentino's handsome David, whose attention gives her the confidence she needs but whose presence creates a different set of problems.

Farentino, pictured in a scene from the movie above, is effortlessly dashing as a guy who seems too good to be true - and is.

Surrounding Duke, in addition to Farentino, is a stellar New York cast - Nancy Marchand and Phil Sterling as her doting parents; Martin Balsam as her understanding uncle; Solome Jens as Natalie's co-worker at a club questionably called the Topless Bottom Club; Elsa Lanchester as her eccentric landlady; then-newcomers Bob Balaban, Catherine Burns and Deborah Winters as assorted denizens in Natalie's universe, and most curious of all, Al Pacino in his first film role as a jerk who uses Natalie.

"Me, Natalie" was produced by Stanley Shapiro, who came up with the story (fleshed out by scenarist A. Martin Zweiback) and who also wrote a couple of Doris Day's popular '60s comedies. The director, Fred Coe, meanwhile. began life as a Broadway producer - he oversaw Anne Bancroft on stage in "The Miracle Worker" and "Two for the Seesaw" and produced the 1962 film version of the former - but was active in TV direction in the late 1940s and throughout the '50s. (He also produced the classic "Mr. Peepers" series.) Coe made an auspicious movie directing debut in 1965 with "A Thousand Clowns," followed by "Me, Natalie." He also directed the 1971 TV movie version of "All the Way Home," based on a play (by way of the James Agee novel) that he produced on Broadway.

Then there's "The Pad - and How to Use it" - and how it got to the screen.

Here goes... In 1964, two delightful one-act plays by Peter Shaffer opened on Broadway, titled "The Public Eye"/"The Private Ear."

Or perhaps, it was the other way around.

Shaffer also wrote "Equus," "Amadeus," "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" and "Five Finger Exercise," all plays eventually made into movies. Universal, which was busy in those days scouting Broadway productions, immediately snapped up the film rights to "The Public Eye"/"The Private Ear" and then didn't know what to do with two one-act comedies. Both were eventually made into very pleasing, if little-seen movies.

"The Private Ear" was produced for film by Ross Hunter in 1966 - an atypical excursion for him into small-scale moviemaking. Hutton was hired to direct and the film was eventually retitled "The Pad and How to Use it" - a title obviously inspired by Richard Lester's successful "The Knack and How to Get It."

The thin but appealing plot - about a shy man who finally has the nerve to approach a woman while at a concert, only to lose her to his more attreactive friend - provided material in which the film's young stars truly excelled: Britain's Brian Bedford as the nerd, Farentino as the hunky friend and especially Julie Sommars as the woman.

Essentially a glorified TV movie that was released, albeit briefly, to theaters, "The Pad and How to Use It" deserves to be rescued and seen.

Farentino had nothing to do with the companion piece, "The Public Eye" which was finally filmed in 1972. It had better luck than "The Pad."

Well, sort of. "The Public Eye," its title retained for the screen, was adapted for the screen by Shaffer himself and directed by the estimable Sir Carol Reed. (The film was titled "Follow Me" in all other countries.)

In it, a dull British banker named Charles (Michael Jayston) hires Julian Cristo (Topol), an odd, eccentric private detective, to follow his American wife, Belinda (Mia Farrow), whom he suspects is cheating on him. When Belinda becomes aware that she is being followed, she's flattered by the attention and starts to play games with her potential paramour.

The private eye figures everything out: The wife isn't unfaithful at all, but merely looking for something that her husband isn't providing - something that she now seems to be getting from the detective, of all people.

"The Public Eye" made it into theaters - but just barely. Universal opened in unannounced and without any advance critics' screenings. For a while, it popped up occasionally on the Sundance Film Channel.

"Me, Natalie," "The Pad" and "The Public Eye" all remain teasingly inaccessible. It took the sad news of James Farentino to restore their fleeting pleasures to my memory. And to remind me of the actor himself.

outliers

2012-01-24T10:05:00.009-05:00

I was primed to pontificate after the performance of the year - Michael Fassbender's as a damaged sex addict in Steve McQueen's "Shame" - was neglected by people who should know better. But did I really expect a performance in an NC-17 film, regardless of how major it is, to receive the credit it deserves? And "Margaret"! Don't get me started.

Well, my planned rant, however, was upended by someone who got there first.

"I would have appreciated seeing Kenneth Lonergan's 'Margaret' get some respect," Sean Axmaker wrote in an astute piece on Oscar Snubs for msn.com. "His beautifully messy and admirably unkempt script captures the messiness of human lives and unresolved emotions in the wake of 9/11, which looms in the background through lingering anxieties and anger.

"This year swings so far in the other direction of Big Films with Important Messages Hammered Home with Insistent Direction that the indie films that spurred the expansion were all but ignored. I suppose the art house take on a grindhouse story left 'Drive' in the dust and Fox effectively sabotaged grass-roots support for Lonergan's 'Margaret' by burying the film after a nominal release, but if the Academy really wants audience-friendly films, you can't do better than 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes,' Rupert Wyatt's reboot of the kitchy science fiction franchise as a gripping prison break thriller with a wicked high-concept twist."

Well put.

That said, given that this site is devoted to the neglected, let's pay hommage to this year's Oscar outsiders:

Michael Fassbinder & Carey Mulligan ("Shame")

Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer & Clint Eastwood ("J. Edgar")

Charlize Theron ("Young Adult")

Albert Brooks ("Drive")

Ryan Gosling ("Drive," "The Ides of March" & "Crazy, Stupid, Love" - take your pick)

Michael Shannon ("Take Shelter")

Brendan Gleeson ("The Guard")

Anna Paquin & Jeannie Berlin ("Margaret")

Andy Serkis ("Rise of the Planet of the Apes")

Christoph Waltz ("Carnage")

David Fincher ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo")

And "the kids"...

Asa Butterfield & Chloë Grace Moretz ("Hugo")

Shailene Woodley ("The Descendants")

Elle Fanning ("Super 8")

They didn't stand a chance in a solipsistic, middle-brow organization ingrained with ageism. Say no more.

"Thank you to God for making me an athiest!"

2012-01-16T16:53:00.016-05:00

As much as I liked provocatuer extraordinaire Ricky Gervais beforehand, his infamous fadeout declaration to God on the night of the 2011 Golden Globes ceremony sealed the deal. In the two prior hours, he had the good sense (and good taste) to rib the aging ingénues of "Sex and the City 2," the insufferably self-important Robert Downey, Jr., those Scientologist actors plagued by pesky rumors and, of course, Mel Gibson. This was Gervais' second outing at the GGs and I clearly looked forward to his third.

The lesson learned: Never have high expectations.

Gervais was noticably neutured in Sunday night's shameless giveaway. He was, at best, borderline snarky. And his harshest one-liners were leveled at an easy target - Kim Kardashian. "The Golden Globes are to the Oscars what Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton," Gervais quipped. "A bit trashier, a bit drunker and more easily bought."

Huh? For one thing, Kim Kardashian is not known as a drunk, Ricky. For another, she has nothing to do with movies. And who's not to say that Kate Middleton isn't trashy in private or cannot be "bought"? Better to poke fun at one of Hollywood's more deserving frauds, you know the kind that the media fawns over and lionizes without completely vetting.

To her credit, Kardashian took the gratuitous insult in stride. According to Bang Showbiz, Kim found the routine "hilarious." Well, Ricky, I know of at least one person within the axis of the film industry who has, um, class.

forever, woody

2012-01-11T15:23:00.004-05:00

As 2011 crept away, I elected to go through my movie paraphrenalia and do a little purging. Among what I call my "celebrity letters," I found five from Woody Allen, four of them handwritten (and one on legal-size yellow paper). They all brought back memories of the Allen movies I reviewed and how wonderful it felt to be validated by the filmmaker.

Here's one which was his response to a column about how we all tend to connect - and identify - with those elusive, yet somehow familiar shadows on the screen, one of whom for me back then was ... Woody. Enjoy.

vertiginous intellectuality

2012-01-05T19:13:00.003-05:00

I came to David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" with an eager anticipation that he would somehow conjur up the juiciness of "Dead Ringers," his wicked 1988 examination of twin libidinous gynocologists (both played by Jeremy Irons!), and somehow top himself.

But, no, "A Dangerous Mind" in which the ever-adventurous Cronenberg traces the birth of psychoanalysis (and, by extension, the curious pleasures of sexual sadomasochism) isn't the playful exercise that I expected. It is a bit more literal-minded - and, surprisingly, middle-brow - dealing as it does with the protégé/mentor relationship of Carl Jung (a watchful Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (an astonishing Vigo Mortensen), before they became professinal frenemies, and the interesting case study, the hugely neurotic Sabina Spielrein (an aptly feral and theatrical Keira Knightley), who came between them.

Sabina preferred punishing sex and found a willing partner in her psychoanalyst, Jung, but their taboo sex acts (always staged fully clothed) come across as curiously discreet and a tad dainty. (Rarely has sex seemed so obligatory.) Still, it was enough for Sabina to pursue a career in psychoanalysis herself, verifying the suspicion that, egad, most shrinks themselves are possibly damanged in the head.

Christopher Hampton adapted his play, "The Talking Cure," (a title that says all, in the case of this movie), working in elements from John Kerr's book, "A Most Dangerous Method." The talk - and there's a lot of it - is both super intelligent and kinda filthy, with the tony characters managing to work the words "penis" and "vagina" into most conversations.

Reading this stuff on paper might be slightly arousing but, on screen, it all seems, well, impotent. But I've a hunch that's exactly the point the provocateur Cronenberg wanted to make. Still, I liked his film.

A lot.

the contrarian: "match me, sidney"

2012-01-03T09:19:00.011-05:00

Alexander Mackendrick's atmospheric
"Sweet Smell of Success" (1957) is one of those films that I like but not as much as I'm supposed to.

I mean, what's not to like? The '50s New York ambience (shot in black-&-white, natch, by James Wong Howe) is seductive, and the acting duet of Burt Lancaster as ruthless newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker and Tony Curtis as the weak, fawning publicist Sidney Falco should be enough to get me through the film.

So, again, what's not to like? Well, the plot. Which, for me, is - well - kinda silly. Everything hinges on the fact that J.J. doesn't want his spoiled kid sister, Susan (played by a mink-wrapped Susan Harrison, who looks young enough to be Lancaster's daughter and yet who looks nothing like him at all), to marry a musician with the great name Steve Dallas (a character played with white-bread harmlessness by Martin Milner).

And this is what accounts for this so-called tough film's palpable angst.

prescient grief

2012-01-01T22:09:00.031-05:00

Stephen Daldry's “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” a shrewdly-made polemic linked to 9/11, functions largely as a road movie about an uncommonly bright boy (Thomas Horn) who goes in search of - what?

Relief?

Answers?

Or could it be simply a desperate need to understand "the impenetrable"?

In this case, "the impenetrable" is the loss of his beloved father (Tom Hanks) on that fateful day in one of the Twin Towers.

Oskar Schell (Horn) goes on a journey of grief for which, in some curious way, he was prepared by his doting dad - but which his mother (Sandra Bullock) is simply too distraught to understand. A mystery key that Oskar finds in an envelope left behind by his father, an envelope with one word scrawled rather cryptically on it, ignites his search for, again, what?

The answer - or explanation or solution or clue - is hidden somewhere in New York and among its denizens. And so, Oskar starts his journey.

Daldry, who previously helmed "Billy Elliott," "The Hour" and "The Reader," balances the destructive energy of 9/11 with the lovely redemptive poetry of Oskar's restless, utterly important search.

This delicate balance is handily achieved by the young actor Horn who is completely complicit with his director and who, almost preternaturally, resembles both Hanks and Bullock, particularly Bullock.

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" goes beyond the trauma of 9/11 to get to the heart of palpable, achingly personal grief.

Turner This Month - Bravo!

2012-01-01T09:06:00.114-05:00

The ageless Angela Lansbury - she of the kewpie doll face and the butterfly ability to flit from the ironic to the comic to the darkly tragic - is Turner's Star of the Month, and TCM will showcase her in 28 performances during January and surround her with its usual eclectic mix of films, old and new.

TCM twirls into the New Year, appropriately enough, with Fred and Ginger in George Stevens’ “Swing Time” (1936; airing January 1 @ 6:15 a.m., est.), following it with an irresistible menu of moviewatching - two alert Doris Day comedies that skewer the world of advertising; a lost film directed by Ossie Davis; two late '70s-early '80s titles, one featuring the much-missed Kristy McNichol; a tribute to cinematographer Jack Cardiff (highlighted by his essential work for director Michael Powell); Marilyn, the beginning, middle and end; a mini tribute to Nancy Kwan (sigh!) and, best of all, a few esoteric discoveries.

The week of January 1st

“Lover Come Back” (1961; Jan. 1 @ 8p.m.) Delbert Mann's Tashlin-like comedy about two advertizing pros going head-to-head to land an account was Doris Day and Rock Hudson's follow-up to their Michael Gordon hit, “Pillow Talk” (1959), which is arguably considered the granddaddy of the modern RomCom. The chemistry that the stars demonstrated in the first film proved to be no fluke as they indulge here in quick ping pong-style repartee and Doris refines her very fine Slow Burn. (Doris' second excursion into advertising, Norman Jewison's "The Thrill of It All," pops up on Turner on Jan. 29.) The film was a reunion not only for Doris and Rock but also for co-stars Jack Kruschen and Edie Adams, who were fresh off Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” (1960). Amusingly, Kruschen and Adams had no scenes together in the Wilder film, and neither do they in Mann’s witty take on advertising ethics. BTW, Kruschen won his role in "The Apartment" because the originally cast Lou Jacobi was too busy appearing on Broadway in "The Tenth Man."

“Lover Come Back” is followed by Richard Thorpe’s faux Hudson-Day flick, “That Funny Feeling” (1965) with Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin having fun with the same comic deceits that ensnarled Doris and Rock. "Roughly Speaking" (1945; January 2 @ 10 a.m.) Michael Curtiz’s still-largely-undiscovered little gem, based on Louise Randall Pierson's decades-spanning, best-selling autobiography, provides Rosalind Russell with one of her earliest and more nuanced feminist roles. Here, she plays a strong woman who happens to be an ordinary woman - a wife and mother devoted to her family. And to her second husband.

What's singular about "Roughly Speaking" is that it is as funny and progressive as it is affecting and heartwarming - and also that it features the inestimable Jack Carson in one of his best - and best-acted - roles of his long, varied and sadly underappreciated career. Here, he plays Russell's second husband, a dreamer who marries a divorced woman with four children. Worth checking out. Worth taping. “Niagara” (1952; January 2 @ 1 a.m.), Once she became a star, Marilyn Monroe played sympathetic roles exclusively, in a quivering manner (check out "The Misfits" on Jan. 28), but early on, she could be bad news for her leading men, as evidenced by Roy Ward Baker’s “Don’t Bother to Knock” (1952) and especially Henry Hathaway’s “Niagara,” in which she plays a particularly nasty little number ready to cash in her damanged husband (a very convincing Joseph Cotton) for someone hotter and younger, while casually intruding upon the lives of a nice married couple, disrupting their honeymoon. The inconvenience she causes is something for which marilyn Monroe would become known in real life. Anyway, MM should have played bad more often.

"Blondie of the Follies" (1932; January 3 @ 12:15 p.m.) I've a soft spot for Marion Davies whose reputation was gratuitously tarnished and sadly diminished in "Citizen Kane," by a spiteful, self-important Orson Welles, but in reality, she was a first-rate actress and a beguiling screen presence. Case in point: Edmund Goulding's fabulous "Blondie of the Follies." Her affection for her character here is central to Davies' fully-realized performance and she shares some memorable scenes with Robert Montgomery, James Gleason, Zasu Pitts and, in one marvelous sequence, Jimmy Durante.

"The Red Danube” (1949; January 5 @ 9 a.m.) This was the first of five films that Janet Leigh made for director George Sidney; her last was the awful "Bye Bye Birdie," in which Sidney was so enamored of twitchy ingénue Ann-Margret that he blew up her supporting role, ruining surefire material and throwing Leigh under the bus along the way. But in "Danube," Leigh was the ingénue, convincingly playing a young Russian ballerina who, in 1945 Vienna, is beset by KGB agents and people she may not be able to trust. Sidney took care of his young star by surrounding her with Walter Pidgeon, Ethel Barrymore, Peter Lawford and ...

Angela Lansbury!

The Jack Cardiff tribute kicks off with the documentary "Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff" (Jan 5 @ 8 p.m.), followed by screenings of his earliest work.

"Little Darlings"
(1980; Jan. 7 @ 2 p.m.) Director Ron Maxwell elicited two terrific performances from the preternaturally gifted Kristy McNichol - one in "Little Darlings" and a year later in "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" (1981), in which McNichol and Dennis Quaid are well-matched as sister and brother.

In its time, "Little Darlings" seemed like a minor film featuring a major performance. But time has been good to this film. What seemed prurient in 1980 now seems brave and edgy. The material, set in a summer camp for girls, revolves around two - McNichol and Tatum O'Neal - who engage in a competition to see who can lose her virginity first.

Adding to the shock value is the fact that O'Neal is particularly interested in losing it to Armand Assante. This film could never be made today. Never. Look for a preteen Cynthia Nixon as one of the girls cheering on the battling duo (she plays a flower child named Sunshine), but pay more attention to McNichol. The sequence in which she discusses what "the first time" feels like, confessed to the kid who helped her out (an equally young Matt Dillon), is revelatory because of McNichol's acting. (Oddly enough, this scene was always deleted by network television.) Hard to believe, but McNichol will be 50 in September.

The week of January 8th

"Deep in My Heart" (1954, Jan. 8 @ 5:45 p.m.) This is a true curiosity - one of MGM's most ambitious and yet least-known musicals from the 1950s. Directed by Stanley Donen and starring José Ferrer, it tells the story of composer Sigmund Romberg, the operetta king, and does so in a sprawling, leisurely way, running a whopping 132 minutes.

Like "Little Darlings," this is another film that would never get made today - but for clearly different reasons. It is being shown as part of a mini-José Ferrer retrospect, preceded by "I Accuse" (1958), directed the the star, and followed by his Oscar-winning turn in Michael Gordon's "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1950).

"80,000 Suspects" (1963, Jan. 10 @ 3:30 a.m.) Claire Bloom and Bruce Lewis star in this unknown entity about a smallpox epidemic and a disintegrating marriage that plagues one doctor. Val Guest directed it. Ever hear of it? I haven't. It's part of an evening devoted to titles about contagions, including John Struges' "The Satan Bug" (1965, @ midnight), which features a cast of terrific "almost stars" - George Maharis, the divine Anne Francis and Richard Basehart.

"Just You and Me, Kid" (1979, Jan. 10 @ 12:45 p.m.). A delirious example of stunt casting, this Leonard Stern flick went the "Odd Couple" route by pairing George Burns (as an old entertainer, natch) and Brooke Shields (as a runaway). It's negligible. I can barely remember it, except that I interviewed Burns prior to the film's release and he gave me one of his cigars as a souvenir. I still have the cigar. This time in film history was noteworthy for the prevalence of talented young actresses - Shields, the aforementioned McNichol and O'Neal, and Jodie Foster, all of whom had the kind of varied starring-role careers about which older actresses could only fantasize. Shields was particularly effective in Peter Fonda's lost gem, "Wanda Nevada" co-starring Fonda. Nancy Kwan! - A Trilogy (Jan. 11 @ 7 a.m.) The playful Asian actress who broke through in Richard Quine's "The World of Suzie Wong" (1960) and became a genuine Movie Star in Henry Koster's "Flower Drum Song" (1961) is highlighted in three films just as, for some bizarre reason, her career started to recede - Daniel Petrie's "The Main Attraction" (1962), in which co-star Pat Boone finally goes sexy; Philip Leacock's "Tamahine" (1964), a novel play on the "Tammy" films, and Henry Levin's "Honeymoon Hotel" (1964), with The Two Roberts - Goulet and Morse - doing the Hope-Crosby bit.

"Honeymoon Hotel" is followed by the Jack Cardiff-directed Rod Taylor vehicle "The Liquidator" (1966, Jan 11 @ 11:45 a.m.), which is always fun and which actually gets two showings this month (also on Jan. 26). And if you hang around you can get to see two atypical Peter O'Toole films, John Guillermin's "The Day They Robed the Bank of England" (1960, Jan. 11 @ 4:45 p.m.), also starring Aldo Ray, and Gordon Flemyng's "Great Catherine" (1968, Jan. 11@ 6:15 p.m., whose cast of strange bedfellows includes Zero Mostel and Jeanne Moreau. Moving on, it's always nice to encounter Robert Webber in a film and in Freddie Francis' "Hysteria" (1965, Jan 12 @ 8:45 a.m.) he shares the screen with "The Outer Limits'" Anthony Newlands. A quartet of young blondes receive back-to-back showcasing in Alex Segal's "Joy in the Morning" (Yvette Mimieux), Otto Preminger's "Bunny Lake Is Missing" (Carol Lynley), Ralph Nelson's "Once a Thief" (Ann-Margret) and Norman Jewison's "The Cincinnati Kid" (Tuesday Weld and A-M), all from 1965 and all showing on Jan. 12, starting at 12:30 p.m.

Through Cardiff's Eyes. Must-see viewing here. Two films photographed by Jack Cardiff for director Michael Powell - "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1942, Jan. 12 @ 8 p.m.) and "A Matter of Life and Death" (1947). And hanky-panky in New York-set apartments seems to be the theme on Jan. 13, kicking off at 7 a.m., with, aptly enough, Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" (1960) followed by Robert Ellis Miller's "Any Wednesday" (1966), Peter Tewksbury's "Sunday in New York," Michael Gordon's "Boys' Night Out" (1962) and Charles Walter's "The Tender Trap" (1955). The combined cast here includes Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Kim Novak, James Garner, Jane Fonda (twice!), Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Rod Taylor and Jason Robards Jr.

The Week of January 15th

Harry Belafonte was a sometime actor in the 1950s, but he was involved in some intruging projects, such as the two that Turner will air on Jan. 16 - Ranald MacDougall's "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" (airing at 6 a.m.), in which only Inger Stevens, Rod Steiger and Harry are left alive following a nuclear disaster, and Robert Wise's "Odds Against Tomorrow" (@ 11a.m.), a gritty robbery caper also starring Robert Ryan and Shelley Winters. Both were made in 1959. Positioned in-between is one by Belafonte's colleague, Sidney Poiter - Hubert Cornfield's "Pressure Point" (1962, @ 9:30 a.m.), with a very good Bobby Darin as a racist thug pitted against Poitier's tough-love shrink.

"Black Girl" (1972, Jan. 16 @ 11:30 p.m.) In 1966, the great Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene made his first feature-length film, "La Noire de..." - better known in America as "Black Girl" - a powerful social drama about a young African girl demoralized and driven to thoughts of suicide when her job as a maid for a French family relegates her to slave status.

You can't say enough about this film. It's become more precious since Sembene died in June of 2009.

But there was another "Black Girl," one almost as good. Based on the searing play by J.E. Franklin and directed by actor Ossie Davis (his third), this "Black Girl" is a terrificly acted family drama achored by the bravura turns of the wonderful Louise Stubbs, the legendary Claudia MacNeil and Ruby Dee, and the always-underrated Leslie Uggams.

The virutally all-female cast gets a potent shot of testosterone in the form of the imposing, towering Brock Peters.

Franklin's material is touchy stuff, dealing with a racial self-hatred that materializes during the ugly tug-of-war over a young woman's affections and her future. The debuting Peggy Pettit, plays Billie Jean, a teenager whose desire to be a dancer are misunderstood and unappreciated by her family - a clueless mother (Stubbs) and two angry older sisters (Gloria Edwards and Loretta Green, both excellent).

There's a fourth sister, Netta (Uggams), who is adopted, light-skinned and educated - three qualities that make her a pariah and an outsider in this family. Netta's encouragement of Billie Jean's ambitions strips everyone naked as the major characters claw into each other and generally numb Billie Jean. McNeil plays the family matriach, the grandmother; Dee is Uggams' mother, and Peters plays the father of Billie Jean and her two spiteful sisters.

Considering its cast of major African-American players, it's a mystery that "Black Girl" has been lost for more than 30 years now. It has never been telecast - until now! - and it certainly isn't available on home entertainment and never has been.

Thank you, TCM. BTW, "Black Girl" is one of several African-American themed films being screened by Turner on the 16th, in honor of Martin Luther King: Davis' film will be preceded by photographer Gordon Parks' lovely autobiographical film "The Learning Tree" (1969, Jan 16 @ 9:30 p.m.) and following it later in the night is Melvin Van Peebles' very clever "Watermelon Man" (1970, Jan. 17 @ 3;30 a.m.) starring Godfrey Cambridge as a white man who turns black over night and Estelle Parsons as his understandably confused wife.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1960, Jan. 17 @ 4:15 p.m.). Michael Curtiz's rather painterly take on the familiar saga stars Eddie Hodges (who had just come off playing Winthrop Paroo on Broadway in Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" and opposite Frank Sinatra in Frank Capra's "A Hole in the Head") in the title role and Tony Randall as the so-called King of France.

"Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice?" (1969, Jan. 17 @ 8p.m.) One of host Robert Osborne's picks - and a good one. Ruth Gordon plays her usual quirky self as she tries to invesigate what happened to a friend who died while working for Geraldine Page. La Gordon poses as another willing employee to the entitled La Page. Director Lee H. Katzin, who makes good use of co-star Rosemary Forsythe as the only sane person in the film, takes his cue from Robert Aldrich - "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962) and "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964). Coming later would be Curtis Harrington's "What's the Matter with Helen?" (1971).

For the Love of Betsy (Jan. 18 @ 3:15 p.m.) Betsy Drake never had much of a film career, but the two films that she made with then-husband Cary Grant are more than enough for me. Catch Don Hartman's "Every Girl Should Be Married" (1949) back-to-back with Norman Taurog's charming "Room for One More" (1952) and you'll see how Drake's singular British/boyish style was appropriated by Julie Andrews and, in another, later era, by Emma Thompson. In fact, Andrews isn't so much playing Marie Von Trapp in Robert Wise's "The Sound of Music" (1965) as she's aping Betsy Drake.

Lansbury Night (Jan. 18, starting at 8 p.m.) If you have only one night to spend watching Angela Lansbury movies, this is the one. It kicks off with George Roy Hill's "The World of Henry Orient" (1964), followed by John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate" and "All Fall Down" (both 1962), Norman Panama's "The Court Jester" (1956) Leslie Norman's "Season of Passion" (1959), an oddity also starring Anne Baxter, John Mills and Ernest Borgnine, and Vincente Minnelli's "The Reluctant Debutante" (1958). Noteworthy: MM undermines and walks off with Laurence Olivier's "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957, Jan. 19 @ midnight), the basis for the current so-so "My Week with Marilyn"; David Butler directs Jack Carson as himself in "It's a Great Feeling" (1949, Jan. 20 @ 6 a.m.), also starring Doris Day and Dennis Morgan; Andy Griffith inadvertently comments on - and nails - the current GOP race in Elia Kazan's brilliant "A Face in the Crowd" (1957, Jan. 20 @ 3 p.m.); Rod Steiger plays "Al Capone" in Richard Wilson's biopic (1959, Jan. 20 @ 8 p.m.; Sidney Lumet directs Sean Connery in "The Anderson Tapes" (1971, Jan. 20 @ 10 p.m.); Joseph Sargent's one and only original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1977; Jan. 20 @ midnight) airs, not to be confused with Tony Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 123" (read in the film by Denzel Washington as "One-Twenty-Three"), and Blake Edwards makes my beloved San Francisco downright spooky in "Experiment in Terror" (1962, Jan 21 @ 3:45 a.m.)

The Week of January 22nd

"Island of Lost Souls" (1933, Jan. 22 @10;30 p.m.) Erle C. Kenton helmed this powerful and prescient horror film that painstakingly (and rather gleefully) degrades the human body - and the idea of being human. Charles Laughton, at his creepiest, stars as H.G. Welles' mad Dr. Moreau. Welles' material has been filmed several times, always with great difficulty because of the provocative subject matter. For example: The 1977 Burt Lancaster version, directed by Don Taylor, was heavily censored and cut before its release. Kenton got it right; we'll never know about the Lancaster film, which is ripe for a restoration but is apparently lost. So was this one - until Criterion rescued it and restored it. That's the version that Turner will be airing.

"Caught" (1949; Jan. 23 @ 9:30 p.m.) Max Ophuls' compelling drama with Barbara Bel Geddes as a woman who discovers that her millionaire husband, played by Robert Ryan, is insane. James Mason Ryan co-stars; written by Arthur Laurents. The film is part of an Ophuls night that also includes "The Reckless Moment" (1949), also with Mason; "The Exile" (1947); "Letter form an Unknown Woman" (1948), "La ronde" (1950) and "The Earrings of Madame De..." (1954).

"A Catered Affair" (1956; Jan. 24 @ 11;30 a.m.) Richard Brooks and writers Paddy Chayefsky and Gore Vidal collaborated on the best (read: most bearable) of the wedding-film genre. Good cast: Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor as the young couple; Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine as her parents. Unlike the others, this one has grit and spit. "Sing Out, Louise!" January 25th. Mark it down. The afternoon of that day is something of a wet dream for musical fans. Interconnected here are composer Jule Styne, Ethel Merman and ... Angela Lansbury. The day kicks off with a film that, frankly, I could live without - William Wyler's leaden "Funny Girl" (1968; @ 12:30 p.m.), starring a highly resistible Barbra Streisand. This show was Styne's attempt to recreate the magic of "Gypsy," something impossible. As unimpressive as it was on stage, "Funny Girl" is even more blah on screen, despite all the money and vulgarity in which Columbia drenched the production. Much better is the film that follows it - the one and only Mervyn LeRoy's "Gypsy" (@ 3:15 p.m.), a film that is superior to any of its stage incarnations (and I've seen them all) and in which Rosalind Russell's line-readings are impeccable. Her timing, particularly her comic timing, is peerless. Ethel Merman, the star of the original, and the stars of the assorted revivals - Patti Lupone, Berenadette Peters, Tyne Daley and ... Angela Lansbury - all pale in comparison to this world-class actress in the role.

Merman created the role of Madam Rose (she is never referred to as Mama Rose in the show) and she played essentially the same part in Walter Lang's delirous and deliriously campy "There's No Business Like Show Business," which immediately follows "Gypsy" (@ 6 p.m.).

Lansbury got to create her own great powerhouse musical character - the very sick Mrs. Lovett in the Harold Prince production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1982; @ 9 p.m.), directed for video by Terry Hughes.

Alas, Lansbury's original co-star, the towering Len Cariou, was no longer in the show when it was filmed; but George Hearn (pictured here with Lansbury), his replacement, is wonderful nevertheless. Best of all, unlike the Tim Burton film with Johnny Depp, the Sondheim score is intact. Thank heaven that Hughes preserved the original. BTW, both Cariou and Hearn appeared in Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" (2006).

There's more Lansbury on the 25th - John Guillermin's "Death on the Nile" (1978), the best of the Hercule Poirot/Paramount films; Delbert Mann's "Mister Buddwing" (1966)and "Dear Heart" (1964) and Robert Stevens' "In the Cool of the Day" (1963).

Paul Newman Double-Bill. On Jan. 26, starting at 4 p.m., Turner airs two with Newman - Martin Ritt's "The Outrage" (1964), an American remake of the Kurosawa film, "Rashomon," and Jack Smight's "Harper" (1966), with a collection of sublime actresses - Janet Leigh, Lauren Bacall, Pamela Tiffin, Shelley Winters and Julie Harris. More Cardiff. The films directed by cinematographer Jack Cardiff continues on Jan. 26 with five films, starting at 8 p.m. with "Intent to Kill" (1958) starring Richard Todd and - ah! - Betsy Drake, "The Lion" (1962), with William Holden and Capucine, and three with Rod Taylor, "Young Cassidy" (1965), a biopic of Sean O'Casey in which Cardiff took over for an ailing John Ford, "The Liquidator" again and "Dark of the Sun" (1968). Cardiff must have liked Taylor.

Creepy Art. Stay up late (or get up early) on Jan. 28 and experience the raw and brutal force of Andrzej Zulawski's "Possession" (1981) with Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill, followed by Roman Polanski's classic "Repulsion" (1965) with Catherine Deneuve. This late-night festive of the unsettling kicks off at 2 a.m. "The Misfits" (Jan. 28 @ 8 p.m.) Arthur Miller's heartfelt tribute to his then-wife Marilyn Monroe, directed by John Huston, now reads like a death knell. Her attempt to save innocent wild mustangs from being trapped by moneygrubbers vividly captures what she experienced while trapped inside the ruthless movie industry. The innocent rarely prevail.

They die.

"Soylent Green" (1973; Jan. 28 @ midnight) Richard Fleischer's delightfully drole take on cannibalism, underlined when star Charlton Heston intones the now-classic line, "Soylent Green is people!"

The Week of January 29th

"The Thrill of It All" (1963; Jan. 29 @ 2 p.m.) Doris Day's crowning achievement came in this alert Norman Jewison-Carl Reiner farce in which Doris plays Beverly Boyer, an average housewife (married to a doctor, natch) who is called upon to hawk Happy Soap in a series of misleading TV commericials. Rock may have pushed the envelope with the fictitious product VIP in the aforementioned "Lover Come Back" but Doris makes the disreputable advertising madhouse surrounding Happy Soap downright therapeutic as only she could.

"Man's Favorite Sport?" (1964; Jan. 29 @ 4 p.m.) Immediately following is Howard Hawks' pop-culture take on a sportsman who knows nothing about any kind of physical activity but is finessed into entering a fishing contest. Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss star. Hawks understood, as few other filmmakers have, how men lie to themselves so often that they actually come to believe in their fantasies.

Jack Webb, early auteur. The macho mastermind behind "Dragnet" directs and stars in films about two intimidating creatures - the drill Marine sergeant ("The D.I.," 1957; Jan. 29 @ 8 p.m.) and the bigtime newspaper editor ("-30-," 1959; Jan. 29 @ 10 p.m.).

"The Vanishing" (1988; Jan. 30 @ 2 a.m.) George Sluzier's original Dutch version of the unnerving story of a woman who disappears at a rest stop during a car trip. Totally creepy.

"The Las Vegas Story" (1952; Jan. 30 @ 6 a.m.) What's not to like? Jane Russell, Victor Mature and Vegas. An immediate guilty pleasure. Directed by Robert Stevenson.

"The Rain People" (1969, Feb. 1 @ 4 a.m.)This one was way ahead of its time in '69 - the story of a runaway housewife, motivated more by her neuroses than by anything resembling real problems. It's a strong feminist saga directed by a man - Francis Ford Coppola, who employs expressive flourishes to imply what torments his heroine, played by Shirley Knight (in a role originally written for Elizabeth Hartman). Knight feuls her performance with palpable passion; she's excellent. And James Caan, as the hunky hitchhiker she picks up, plays his role with a sardonic wink. With Robert Duvall as a scary, sexily intimidating cop.

outfoxed

2011-12-31T06:30:00.021-05:00

I never quite "got" the Fox Movie Channel.

Considering how many titles must be in the Fox library, the same ones kept popping up again and again - and only a precious few were letterboxed, usually the more recent titles. "April Love"? Forget it.

Anyway, this halfhearted attempt to celebrate the films of Twentieth Century-Fox has been altered.

Very recently (and quietly), the Fox Movie Channel was reduced to daytime programming exclusively, with the remainder of the schedule handed over, piggyback-style, to something called FXM, or the FX Movie Channel, which is devoted to, well, mall movies. And, unlike the now-limited Fox Movie Channel, FXM airs with "limited commercial breaks."

Happy New Year!

the smile

2011-12-29T21:52:00.045-05:00

You'll get no argument from me. Michel Hazanavicius’s novelty film, "The Artist," is an artful charmer but it's little more than that, taking its inspiration from such Tinseltown chestnuts as "A Star Is Born" and "Singin' in the Rain" as it tracks the downward spiral of fictional silent film fave George Valentin following his willful refusal to make talkies.

And that's it.

It's difficult to get fully invested in George's plight because, unlike Jean Hagan's Lina Lamont in "Singin' in the Rain," the problem apparently isn't a horrible speaking voice. He just doesn't want to be seen talking on film.

Why? Well, because he doesn't believe in it.

Anyway, getting engaged in the life of someone who willfully sabotages his own career is hardly worth the time. Frankly, it makes no sense.

The one element that does engage us - or me, at least - is star Jean Dujardin as George. Dujardin is a terrifically magnetic actor, but it's his wide smile that's irresistible and that attracts us - a smile made for CinemaScope. The fact is, when Dujardin is on screen, you can't take your eyes off him. He's a real Movie Star. This is masterful casting. And playing Esther Blodgett to his Norman Maine, Bérénice Bejo is pitch-perfect as an ingénue who lives up to her name - Peppy Miller.

Now, on to other things...

The film's composer Ludovic Bource (or perhaps Hazanavicius himself) has appropriated a huge hunk of music from Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958) - namely, Bernard Hermann's extended Love Suite - for the middle section of the film. I'm referring to the 10-minute sequence (spoiler alert!) in which (1) Dujardin spots himself in the reflection of a store window, (2) finds all his belongings that Bejo clandestinely purchased at the auction and then (3) goes home to commit suicide, a sequence that crosscuts to a frantic Bejo driving through L.A. hoping to rescue him.

Hermann's music receives the usual perfunctory, miniscule mention in the end credits, which doesn't seem nearly enough. And exacerbating the situation, the title "Vertigo" isn't invoked at all for some curious reason.

I believe that it can be safely assumed that Bource will be a major contender for a scoring Oscar - and will be the presumed winner, given that the film is literally wall-to-wall music. His score is very good, but the fact is, the most impressive piece of music in "The Artist" was written by...

Bernard Hermann.

It's likely that most viewers (and perhaps even some uninformed Academy voters) will not be aware of this; I don't think any critic has mentioned it so far. I wonder if, should he win the Oscar, Bource will mention Hermann's contribution to the film. I'm a little disappointed that the Hitchcock and Hermann estates would allow such an appropriation without more prominent screen credit: Hermann should be mentioned in the opening credits - below, or parathentical to, Bource's credit.

Any opinions on this? Share!

Addendum: After writing this, I learned that several others concur with me regarding the use of the Hermann music in the film, including one of the stars of "Vertigo," Kim Novak. Here's what Anne Thompson has to say on the matter of Novak's protest.

retrofuturism

2011-12-29T11:49:00.016-05:00

David Fincher has demonstrated his penchant for transcending conventions, as evidenced by his filmography - "Fight Club" (1999), "Panic Room" (2002), "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008), "The Social Network" (2010) and his unoffical policier trilogy, "Se7en" (1995), "Zodiac" (2006) and now an English-language remake of the Swedish sensation, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

An adaptation of the inaugural book in Stieg Larsson’s best-selling “Millennium” trilogy and, less directly, Niels Arden Oplev's first 2009 film version of the book, Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" looms as a shrewd commingling of up-to-minute, kick-ass grrrl outlawism and the core idea from Dashiell Hammett's "Thin Man" creation.

Despite the new paint job with its modern look, Fincher's hugely atmospheric film is driven by two characters who hark back to Nick and Nora Charles in their taste for righteousness and antiauthoritarianism.

In this case, it's disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played by a soulful Daniel Craig) and punk computer hacker Lisbeth (Rooney Mara, most mesmerizing), an abused young woman whose need for vengeance dovetils with Mikael's assignment to track down "a killer of women."

Withdrawn, never making eye contact and telegraphing a hurt that is palatable, Rooney Mara is a revelation in the sheer solipsism of her performance. Her Lisbeth personifies a term that has been applied to someone else on our cultural scene - she is very much The Other.

Which means she is singular.

blood sport

2011-12-24T11:53:00.012-05:00

"Carnage," Roman Polanski's sinewy adaptation of Yasmina Reza's play, "Le dieu du carnage," is a cozily evil little acting exercise whose four characters amuse as they struggle, without a hint of success, with civility.

Two sets of parents are brought together in the handsome Brooklyn apartment of one of the couples to iron out the differences which brought their respective sons into a schoolyard fracus. Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster), a rather rigid left-wing stereotype whose son suffered a dental injury, wants to document the incident in writing - with the help, of course, of her rough-hewn husband Michael (John C. Reilly), who claims he was "forced to dress as a liberal" for the occasion, and the parents of the other child, The Cowans, Alan (Christoph Waltz and Nancy (Kate Winslet).

Matters don't go well.

The guarded defensiveness that each one initially exhibits eventually disintegrates into an afternoon of blame and accusation, hilariously so.

Given that one of my (many) editors once referred to me as "evil" (a charge that fit but for reasons that will go unexplained here), I relished the verbal bloodletting that trivializes the couples' misguided intentions.

Co-scripters Polanski and Reza, working from Michael Katims' English language adaptation, provide their actors with one juicy moment after another. Foster's pinched, brittle persona, in particular, is exploited to the hilt under Polanski's direction, while Waltz, a standout here, absolutely nails his unctous careerist. Winslet turns in a shrewdly witty performance as the most reasonable and most sensitive of the group. The only wink link is Reilly who can't redeem the bore he's playing.

And through no fault of his own: It's a poorly written character.

These roles in New York were played by Marcia Gay Harden and James Gandolfini (as The Longstreets) and Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels (as The Cowans). Ralph Fiennes played Alan in the British production, and Isabelle Huppert created the role of Penelope (who was actually named Veronica on Broadway and Véronique in France) in the original French version.

flipflop

2011-12-20T13:01:00.003-05:00

Sometimes we outgrow films and filmmakers, even those we adore.

At least, I did - and still do. As a working critic, this often put me at odds with some of my colleagues who, from my perspective, harbored a blind loyalty to their favorites. This may sound harsh, but there's really no place for loyalty in film criticism. Only hardcore honesty.

Case in point: Robert Altman. As a young pup, I lapped up, devoured, memorized and repeatedly viewed his films. I couldn't get enough of "Brewster McCloud" (1970). But as I aged, we grew apart. I became less titillated by Altman's penchant for overlapping dialogue, cluttered mise-en-scène and trendy contempt for his characters - a cinematic style that reached its nadir (for me, at least) with 1978's nasty "A Wedding," which has become something of a staple on the Fox Movie Channel.

But there are contemporaries who still swoon at the mention of his name and, when I'm in their company, I know to keep my mouth shut about Altman and about my own sacrilegious flipflopping tendencies.

Even guilty pleasures can become less, well, pleasurable.

Taking inventory recently of my home entertainment collection and purging, I finally tossed out my DVD copy of Randall Kleiser's "Grease," a loud, rather unwholesome movie musical - also from '78 (if that means anything) - that, for some unaccountable reason, I once thought of as engaging and fun but that I now find mirthless and unwatchable.

As I placed it in a giveaway bin, I remembered the enthusiastic review I wrote in 1978 and also realized that, almost unconsciously, I had slowly evolved - or should that be "devolved"? - into an avowed flipflopper.

Throwing away "Grease" felt cathartic, liberating and healthy.

There were no regrets or rancor.

of consequence

2011-12-18T10:42:00.106-05:00

TEN PLUS

1. Hugo

2. Margaret

3. The Double Hour (La doppia ora)

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

5. Shame

6. The Descendants

7. Higher Ground

8. Young Adult

9. Margin Call

10. A Somewhat Gentle Man (En ganske snill mann)

THE OTHERS...

The Artist

Carnage

In Time

Love Crime (Crime d'amour)

Drive

Midnight in Paris

Salvation Boulevard

Win Win

J. Edgar

Contagion

The Lincoln Lawyer

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Just Go with It

Super 8

Brighton Rock

Magic Trip

Twelve Thirty

Everything Must Go

THE TALENT...

Top Leads

Michael Fassbender/Shame

Charlize Theron/Young Adult

Top Support

Armie Hammer/J. Edgar

Shailene Woodley/The Descendants

THE OTHERS...

Jean Dujardin & Uggie/The Artist

Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Hesher

Stellan Skarsgård/A Somewhat Gentle Man

Anna Paquin & Jeannie Berlin/Margaret

Viggo Mortensen/A Dangerous Method

Daniel Craig & Rooney Mara/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

George Clooney/The Descendants

Chloë Grace Moretz & Asa Butterfield/Hugo

Elizabeth Olsen/Martha Marcy May Marlene

Viola Davis & Octavia Spencer/The Help

Leonardo DiCaprio/J. Edgar

Brad Pitt/Moneyball & The Tree of Life

Vera Farmiga/Higher Ground

Ryan Gosling/Drive, The Ides of March & Crazy, Stupid, Love

Owen Wilson & Michael Sheen/Midnight in Paris

Brendon Gleeson/The Guard

Melissa McCarthy/Bridemaids

Matthew McConaughey/The Lincoln Lawyer

Emma Stone/The Help, Friends with Benefits & Crazy, Stupid, Love

the "other" medium

2011-12-18T06:18:00.006-05:00

Morning Joe (MSNBC)

Pan Am (ABC)

The Middle (ABC)

Revenge (ABC)

Enlightened (HBO)

The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

Ringer (CW)

Two Broke Girls (CBS)

Prime Suspect (NBC)

Keeping Up with the Kardashians (E!)

dark holiday

2011-12-16T17:09:00.008-05:00

Bridges and Jones shine in an atypical holiday movie.

Every Christmas, my wife and I treat ourselves to a double-bill of two of our favorite films, titles which are only peripherally related to the holiday.

Our matinee is Morton DaCosta's "Auntie Mame" and our evening program is Richard Quine's "Bell, Book and Candle." Perhaps not coincidentally, both were major year-end holiday releases in 1958.

We never divert.

But if we did, I'd suggest two other titles are are far removed from the usual suspects - you know, "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."

First, there would be Tim Burton’s exquisite “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993), one of the best film musicals of recent years that clearly prepared Burton for the task of taking on Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” - and almost as triumpantly. Like the Sondheim classic, "Nightmare" boasts a major song score by Danny Elfman, gloriously symphonic and gloriously idiosyncratic.

The combination of Elfman's songs, Burton's strangely appealing little characters and director Henry Selick's wonderous stop-motion animation combine to make "The Nightmare Before Christmas" compulsively watchable.

Then there's Daniel Petrie's superior 1969 TV film, "Silent Night, Lonely Light." The estimable Robert Anderson (who penned "Tea and Sympathy" and "I Never Sang for My Father") wrote the lovely play on which Patrie's movie is based - about two lonely people who have a chance meeting as a cozy New England inn during the Christmas holiday.

Each one is there for personal, troubling reasons.

On stage, "Silent Night" was directed by Peter Glenville with Henry Fonda and Barbara Bel Geddes in the leads and Lois Nettleton, Bill Berger, Peter De Vise and Eda Hainemann in support. It opened at the Morosco Theater on December 28th, 1959 and was immediately snapped up for filming by Universal which then let the project linger for ten years.
No, the film version of "Silent Night, Lonely Night" was not made for theaters. Nevertheless, it's an excellent movie, intimate and involving.

Lloyd Bridges (outstanding) and Shirley Jones (an Emmy nominee) take over the Fonda-Bel Geddes roles (and would subsequently be reteamed in Richard Brooks' "The Happy Ending" the same year); Carrie Snodgress plays the Nettleton part and Lynn Carlin and Cloris Leachman show up in roles created for the film by adapter John Vlahos, who wisely retained most of Anderson's script. Its dialogue is nearly verbetim.

It's a wrenching work that, for some bizarre reason, is never telecast during the holiday season and is available only on out-of-print VHS tapes.

Sad

cinema obscura: two with don johnson

2011-12-12T19:59:00.004-05:00

Don Johnson is one of those effortless actors who rarely, if ever, attracts praise. His softshoe performances, more often than not expended on worthless films, have battled against the distraction of his tabloid life.

His signature role remains one that he played on TV - as Detective "Sonny" Crockett on the TV series, "Miami Vice" (1984-1990) - although he was much more commanding in the Paul Newman role in the 1985 TV adaptation of "The Long Hot Summer," playing alongside Judith Ivey, Jason Robards, Cybill Shepherd and Ava Gardner.

His film career has been largely negligible.

But for one brief moment, he shined in two too-little-seen films that should have jumpstarted a life on the big screen.

"Sweet Hearts Dance" - a 1989 effort by writen by playwright Ernest Thompson ("On Golden Pond") and directed by Robert Greenwald (who also helmed "Xanadu" and who now makes excellent liberal-leaning political documentaries) - is a lovely, mournful little film about disillusionment, about being young but not as young as you once were and realizing that time has passed while you're still waiting. Waiting for what? For something, anything - for your life to get started.

That's what hits Johnson's character, Wiley Boon, and to a lesser extent his best friend, Sam (Jeff Daniels). Wiley has everything that has evaded Sam - a wife (Susan Sarandon) and kids - and Sam can't understand why Wiley is so unhappy. Sam, on the other hand, is self-aware. He knows what ails him - and Adie (Elizabeth Perkins), a new teacher in town, just might make a difference in his life. We get two duets here.

This tiny ensemble settles in nicely under Greenwald's direction, with Johnson in particular exhibiting strong innocence and innocent strength.

His is a solid performance.

In 1991, Johnson teamed with his then-wife Melanie Griffin for "Paradise," Mary Agnes Donoghue's evocative American remake of Jean-Lopu Hubert's 1987 French rural film, "Le Grand Chemin" ("The Grand Highway"). Hubert's fragile material travels well to America under Donoghue's careful, sensitive direction, which honors elements otherwise abandoned by the American film industry - namely, attention to people and the common issues and crises in their lives.

Johnson and Griffin play a childless couple whose young son died two years earlier and whose lives are disrupted, blissfully, by the arrival of a little boy (Elijah Wood), a friend's son who has come to spend the summer with them in the wetlands of South Carolina. (A very young Thora Birch, in her film debut, charms as a local kid who befriends Wood).

Johnson summons a natural honesty and candidness that provide the supporting titanic structure for Griffin's major performance - a great piece of film acting by Melanie, well worth checking out.

Much of what happens in "Paradise" is moodily emotional and internal, which may explain why the film came in under the radar when it was initially released - and why it is now, sadly, a lost movie.

the guiltiest

2011-12-08T09:26:00.025-05:00

"Morning Joe," the compulsively watchable political coffeklatch hosted every morning by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC, is without exception my favorite television show.

But I have one minor quibble and it involves the Kardashians, of all people. On a recurring basis, Mika gratuitously bashes the Kardashian shows, without giving the slightest indiction that she's ever actually watched the show. Her misguided superior 'tude towards the Kardashians seems to be based on hearsay and buzz - which makes her opinion, well, worthless. Because it really isn't an opinion, see? It's just snark.

Joe occasionally goes a step further. In order to inflate his own importance, he'll comment that the people who watch his show and who read The New York Times - you know, smart people - aren't the people who watch the Kardashians.

Say what?

Well, here's one person who watches both "Morning Joe" and E!'s "Keeping up with the Kardashians" (and its assorted off-shoots). Does that make me a different kind of ignoramus, Joe? And is it necessary to pump yourself up by denegrating something else?

The Kardashian shows are the most misunderstood programs on TV. They're not reality shows, pre se, but very shrewd sitcoms - better than the beloved, overrated "Modern Family." They're fast, funny and smart - the guiltiest of all guilty pleasures. And Kris Jenner outsoars the mother of all stage mothers, "Gypsy's" Momma Rose. She's a force of nature.

Alas, the only people who don't like the Ks seem to be those, like Mika and Joe, who have never seen an episode. If they did, they'd be hooked.

Anyway, I wouldn't think of missing my daily helping of "Morning Joe" any more than I would deprive myself of my nightly Kardashian fix. So there!

cinema obscura: George Cukor's "The Chapman Report" (1962)

2011-12-01T09:38:00.007-05:00

Long unavailable on home entertainment, George Cukor's "The Chapman Report" of 1962 is rescued from oblivion by - you got it! - Turner Classic Movies, which has scheduled it for an early screening on Wednesday, December 21 - at 7:15 a.m. (est) and 4:15 a.m. (pacific time).

A mischievious, willfully sordid take on Kinsey's findings, this guilty pleasure offers up four text-book case examples of sexually dysfunctional women before concluding, despite everything that preceded its fade-out scene, American women are indeed sexually healthy. Talk about having it both ways - titillating the men in the audience and appeasing the women.

Not surprisingly, Cukor has four terrific actresses taking his cues here - Shelley Winters as a bored housewife who momentarily entertains the idea of running off with another man; Jane Fonda as a young widow who has lost interest in sex; Claire Bloom as a nymphomaniac who is punished via a gang rape for her avid interest in sex, and Glynis Johns as an arty type who finds that testosterone is responsible not only for a man's physical perfections but also for his brutish qualities.

The reliable Andrew Duggan plays the titular Dr. Chapman, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., a Warner contract player wasted by Warners in largely TV roles, plays his assistant, a thoughtful guy who doesn't believe Fonda is frigid and wants to prove it. Camp doesn't get any better than this.

Jane Fonda and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in scenes from the film

The other token men here are played by Harold J. Stone (Winters' husband) and Ray Danton (as her lover), and John Dehner (Johns' husband) and another Warner contract player, Ty Hardin (as her fleeting interest).

I don't know about you, but I'd like to see "The Chapman Report" again.
One of these days.

cinema obscura: Sidney Lumet's "Garbo Talks" (1984)

2011-11-29T15:08:00.018-05:00

When Sidney Lumet passed last April, the assorted appreciations rhapsodized predictably about his hard-edged New York dramas devoted to the city's outsiders, misfits and miscreants. But nary a word about his three comedies - "Bye Bye Braverman" (1968), "Just Tell Me What You Want" (1980) and, most atypical of all, "Garbo Talks" (1984).

"Bye Bye Braverman" and, to a larger extent, "Just Tell Me What You Want," were admittedly singled out by my friend and colleague Carrie Rickey in her Flickgrrl post for The Philadelphia Inquirer, but both are every bit as rough around the edges as Lumet's dramas. He was a pop-New York virtuoso. The genial, sentimental "Garbo Talks," however, was a real departure for Lumet (not unlike his film version of the musical "The Wiz") in that he suddenly came upon new-found softness and warmth in the familiar haunts of the city.

The premise is a mere wisp. A dutiful son is determined to make his dying mother's final dream come true - namely, to meet Greta Garbo.

I know, I know. On paper, it sounds awful. But in the hands of Anne Bancroft and Ron Silver, as mother and son, it's irresistible.

Carrie Fisher rings in as Silver's wife, from whom he becomes estranged during his single-minded search, and a very desirable Catherine Hicks (who enjoyed a brief movie career and deserved better) is the dream woman who joins him on his adventure. Such New York fixtures as Howard Da Silva, Dorothy Loudon, Harvey Fierstein, Hermione Gingold, Richard B. Shull and Michael Lombard make appearances that add color.

And, best of all, there's musical-comedy legend Betty Comden, that Garbo lookalike, as The Face herself. Uncredited, natch.

"Garbo Talks" receives a rare screening on Turner Classic Movies at 3:45 a.m. (est) on Thursday, December 1st. Worth watching. Worth recording.

humbling

2011-11-28T11:39:00.012-05:00

At once exhilarating and graceful, Martin Scorsese's masterful "Hugo" takes one by surprise - and aback - despite its maker's credentials.

The skill on display in this so-called "family film" is underlined by the audacious camerawork of Scorsese's new house cinematographer, the great Robert Richardson who, starting with the film's initial sequence, pulls us in, embracing us and whirling us along. It's a dizzying, delerious journey (which helps the modern 3-D process realize its potential), seen from a child's point of view but not necessarily a journey for children.

"Hugo" may have a young protagonist, embodied by the excellent Asa Butterfield as a kid who lives within the innards of the complicated clockworks of a Parisian train station, but its soul is old.

No, this is not a "family film" (unless it's a family of particularly sophisticated children). Scorsese uses little Hugo, the hero of Brian Selznick's source book, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” as an excuse to conjur up a lovelorn, movie-fed daydream about the humble beginnings of film via the revolutionary vision of Georges Méliès (played here with an aching sadness by Ben Kingsley).

A film that does not condescend or compromise, "Hugo" remains faithful to its own vision - one that's quiet but intense. Blessed with a remarkable ingénue performance by the preternaturally gifted Chloë Grace Moretz and an atypically dimensional one by Sacha Baron Cohen, "Hugo" looms as a touchstone of films in the new millenium.

Note in Passing: Scorsese quotes other films and filmmakers here, but unobrustively. I was particularly taken by the scenes in which young Hugo views the conversations shared by the characters played by Frances de la Tour and Richard Griffiths from a distance - in his clocktower. Like James Stewart spying on his neighbors in Hitchcock's "Rear Window," Hugo hears only heavily gestured mumbles, muttering and half-sentences.

the "south pacific" conundrum

2011-11-27T15:02:00.023-05:00

My friend Paul reminded me of a curious movie moment that I had safely tucked away in the recesses of my mind.

It involves Joshua Logan's lavish 1958 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific."

Twenty years after the original roadshow release of the film, another friend, the New York exhibitor Ralph Donnelly, programed the film as part of a roadshow-musical revival when he was booking Broadway's Warner Cinerama theater. It was a rare print, Ralph told me, that he acquired from the people overseeing the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate. ("South Pacific" was made independently by the Magna Theater Corporation and was only distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox.) Alas, Ralph's print was not in Todd-AO but in standard 70mm. Still, it was the original roadshow version, Ralph promised.

This was major because "South Pacific" initially ran 171 minutes when it premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York and, shortly thereafter, was trimmed to 157 minutes (following the scathing reviews) for the roadshow presentations throughout the rest of the country. For years, the 171-minute running time persisted in details about the film, even though it was displaced by the 157-minute version.

Well, the print that Ralph screened was the shorter 157-minute version. However, it was special in another way. This version, which was made for the Mexico run and had Spanish subtitles, hewed closer to the play, which immediately introduced the Emile De Becque and Nellie Forbush characters and opened with the back-to-back "Twin Soliloquies" and "Some Enchanted Evening" numbers, followed a scene later by the Seabees' "Bloody Mary."

Every version of "South Pacific" that I've seen - the roadshow and general release versions and the assorted home-entertaiment presentations - has opened with the "Bloody Mary" number.

Given that Ralph presented a 70mm print of the film and not the Todd-AO version, my hunch is that he had a preview print that was prepared for the Spanish-speaking market and that, by the time the film opened, the chronology of the opening numbers was changed. Commercially, I guess, it made more sense to open the film with the rousing (and witty) "Bloody Mary" than with the somber classic, "Some Enchanted Evening."

Anyway, when I bought the two-disc DVD of "S.P." a few years ago, I was hoping that the advertised roadshow version on one of the discs might be the one we saw back in '78, plus the missing footage. It indeed turned out to be the 171-minute version (which includes mostly deleted dialogue scenes, all of them seemingly involving Ray Walston's Luther Billis) but it didn't have the alternate opening that screened at the Warner Cinerama.

By the way, Ralph was able to secure an original Todd-AO version of R-&-H's "Oklahoma!" for his series, a print which was a-mazing, so eerie in its clarity that the figures on the screen looked lifelike - only magnified a thousand times over, of course.

Paul's reminder of that screening of "South Pacific" makes we wonder if that rare Mexican print still exists, if it is still in the archives of the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate. I hope so.

false negative

2011-11-26T22:07:00.010-05:00

Simon Curtis's "My Week with Marilyn," a minor film backed by a major marketing campaign, requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.

First, one has to believe author Colin Clark's claim that he spent one (relatively) wild week with Marilyn Monroe while she was filming "The Prince and the Showgirl" in London and he was working as a production assistant on the film.

With just about everyone connected with the film now deceased, who's around to challenge his boast?

Secondly, there's Michelle Williams, an actress who has been very good on occasion but whose sole credentials for playing Monroe are that she's female and blonde.

To the film's credit, it is not entirely reverential of its central icon. In many ways, it ventures into risky "Mommie Dearest" territory. The Marilyn here is in touch with her own naked feelings but oblivous to the feelings of others, almost to the point of casual sadism.

And her work on "The Prince and the Showgirl" is so painfully awful, at least as portrayed here, that one spends the film wondering exactly what was so special about her or why anyone would put up with her.

A very odd movie.

doris, janis & jean

2011-11-25T12:31:00.005-05:00

Happily, Charles Walters' generally overlooked 1960 comedy, "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," has become something of a Turner Classics staple. The MGM film pops up with some frequency - more recently at 6 p.m. (est) tonight - and becomes more watchable with each viewing.

Based on the book of the same title by the late Jean Kerr, who was, of course, the wife of the great New York Times theater critic, Walter Kerr, the film slyly fictionalizes her adventures as the wife of an influential critic and benefits strongly from the offbeat teaming of Doris Day and David Niven in the roles of Jean and Walter, here named Kate and Larry Mackay.

The titantic supporting structure of the film is Day who turns in one of her most naturalistic, effortless performances (this film was wedged between her roles in 1959's "Pillow Talk" and 1960's "Midnight Lace") and her chemistry with the always game, smoothly professional Niven is singular.

And for a filmic soufflé, the movie astutely suggests the essence of criticism, which can be heady and dark. (It isn't long before Larry is cracking cruel, snarky jokes in print and Kate is wondering if he made up his mind beforehand about how he'd respond to a play he just panned.)

The ace supporting cast includes Jack Weston, Richard Haydn, Patsy Kelly, Spring Byington, the invaluable Carmen Phillips and ... Janis Paige, who here comes full circle with Day.

Paige and Day first appeared together in Day's debut film under her Warner contract, Michael Curtiz' 1948 "Romance on the High Seas." Six years later, in 1954, Paige starred on Broadway as feisty Babe Williams in the Jerry Rose-Richard Adler musical, "The Pajama Game," playing opposite John Raitt. Day, of course, was recruited by Jack Warner to play the same role, also opposite Raitt, in his 1957 film version, directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott.

Three years later, Day and Paige were together again in "Daisies."

Getting back to Jean Kerr, her life as a writer of books and plays and as the wife of a drama critic was also chronicled in Don Weis' 1963 comedy "Critic's Choice" (also for Warners), with Bob Hope as a theater critic whose wife, played by Lucille Ball, decides to write her own play.

"Critic's Choice" is based, in turn, on the 1960 Ira Levin stage comedy which was directed by Otto Preminger and starred Henry Fonda in the role of the critic.

The ever-resourceful programmers at TCM were cleverly enough to pair "Critic's Choice" with "Please Don't Eat the Daisie" on November 6th. To complete this "Jean Kerr package," they might have gone all the way and added "Mary, Mary," Mervyn LeRoy's film version of the 1960 hit play by Kerr that inspired Levin to pen "Critic's Choice."

In his Friday, October 25, 1963 review, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote of the Warner film:

"Obviously, Mervyn LeRoy did a little bit more than merely place his camera in the Helen Hayes Theater and shoot a straight running photograph of a performance of 'Mary, Mary' to get a film of the Jean Kerr comedy. But you would hardly be able to tell it from the rigidly setbound quality of his film version of the long-run stage play, which came to the (Radio City) Music Hall yesterday."

That just about says it all. Rarely has a film of a play been as faithful as LeRoy's film version of Kerr's urbane comedy, which was the most acclaimed stage farce of its time. As Crowther indicated, the work of LeRoy's art director John Beckman and set decorator Ralph S. Hurst borrows heavily from the play's celebrated designer, Oliver Smith. Debbie Reynolds took over Barbara Bel Geddes's stage role, but the play's leading men, Barry Nelson and Michael Rennie, were back on that familiar set.

Yes, the film - about a divorced couple brought together for income tax purposes - is stagebound, but that's what I find wonderful about it. I like the idea of being transported back to the Helen Hayes Theater in 1960. LeRoy's movie perfectly approximates the joy of attending a matinee performance of a stylish, sophisticated comedy.

Anway, next time around, TCM, a Jean Kerr triple-bill is in order.

Note in Passing: Whoever writes the film capsules for The New York Times these days misidentifies the source of "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," crediting it as being based on "Jean Kerr's play."

This is The New York Times, folks.

façade: Janis Paige

2011-11-25T08:15:00.022-05:00

Cocktails and flirting - Paige uses both on Bob Hope in Jack Arnold's "Bachelor in Paradise" (1961)

In terms the the Hollywood-&-Vine axis, the irrepressible Janis Paige was a B star and a co-star. Yeah, maybe on paper. But in reality, on the big screen, whatever film she was in, she commanded as only a Star can.

Her filmography is varied and lengthy but in her most entertaining performances, Paige played randy women of a certain age with va-va-voom in her eyes and a chilled Martini in hand - her hair seeming red even when it was blonde: Charles Walters' "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (1960) and Jack Arnold's "Bachelor in Paradise" (1961). For me, she's always been a hands-down pleasure to watch and I get an added kick from Paige being a fellow Virgo. We share the same birthday!

For all intents and purposes, she had what I call the Kay Thompson role in Rouben Mamoulian's film of Cole Porter's "Silk Stockings" (1975). Surely you remember her one big scene, belting out and dancing with antic glee with Fred Astaire in the "Stereophonic Sound" number (choreographed by Hermès Pan, with an assisst from Eugene Loring). She was no substitute here. In "Silk Stockings," Paige pretty much out-Thompsons Thompson.

Her lead film roles usually cast Paige opposite Jack Carson or Dennis Morgan, again in B movies. True stardom came on stage in 1954 when she appeared as Babe Williams, the in-your-face head of a labor union's grivance committee in the Rose-Adler musical, "The Pajama Game," playing opposite John Raitt. When Warner Bros. bought the film rights for the show, Jack Warner was intent on casting the entire Broadway cast to reprise their roles, except for a major name in one of the two leads.

It was a crap shoot - literally - if either Paige or Raitt would be in the film. Frank Sinatra was approached for the Raitt role - he would have played opposite Paige - but he declined. Enter Doris Day, who accepted the female lead and played opposite Raitt in the 1957 film.

Oddly enough, Paige had starred with Day in the latter's first film, Michael Curtiz' 1948 "Romance on the High Seas," and went on to appear with her in the aforementioned "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," in which they played rivals.

In 1963, Paige got another lead role in a big Broadway musical - Meredith Willson's "Here's Love," based on "Miracle on 34th Street," in which Paige played the part originated by Maureen O'Hara. But on screen during these years, the '60s, the actress rarely got to stray from her fun-gal roles - until Hall Bartlett did give her the opportunity to do a variation on this archetype in his 1963 psychodrama, "The Caretakers," in which Paige played an aging prostitute undergoing a serious meltdown.

Bartlett showcased Paige and the critics, who rather casually dismissed the film, singled her out. Like Janis, it remains a guilty pleasure.

Inarguably.

bad "art"

2011-11-22T09:28:00.016-05:00

Cannes, an annual filmic exposition living on dusty credentials, has a penchant for honoring movies and performances that eventually, inevitably, slide into oblivion by the time Oscar season rolls around.

This year, the festival showcased "Melancholia," a bit of addlepated provocation/pretension by Lars von Trier, who's described in some quarters as an enfant terrible of cinema - and who, complicitly, works to accomodate this pseudo-flattering profile by behaving that way.

Me? I see von Trier, who functions more as a poseur than an actual filmmaker, as a brilliant crackpot. That said, in "Melancholia," which runs about two hours longer than it should, he juxtaposes one person's immobilizing depression (apparently his own) with the end of the world as exacted by an angry planet named - ta-da! - Melancholia.

Kirsten Dunst, a pleasing but lightweight actress way in over her head here, is von Trier's on-screen surrogate as he works out his problems in a public forum. Not surprisingly, she won the best actress award at Cannes. Which means she won't be nominated for an Oscar. Charlotte Gainsbourg, who plays Dunst's sister (even though they look nothing alike, not even remotely), is seemingly better as the seemingly well-balanced sibling.

Seemingly.

Thank heaven for a movie-saving Stellan Skarsgård, who enlivens the film's painfully prolonged opening wedding sequence with a performance that underlines that "Melancholia" isn't an art film but a parody of one.

Manuel Alberto Claro is responsible for the relentless hand-held camera work which doesn't so much capture the sensation of depression as it approximates what it feels like to be in hell.

the new money

2011-11-19T08:45:00.012-05:00

For some bizarre reason, Andrew Niccol's prescient "In Time" came in under the radar, despite its urgent timeliness and first-rate storytelling.

The film is a scifi allegory for the current economic woes, only it isn't money problems that nag the country's population. It's time - which is running out. Money is nothing here. Time is the new commodity, with people bartering, stealing and losing time as, well, time runs out. It's a clever premise and Niccol ("Gattaca" and "Simone") pulls it off with verve and with a very slight bow to Hitchcock. I sense that the filmmaker used Hitch's "North by Northwest" as a template for the chase that ensues.

Justin Timberlake is terrifically twitchy and anguished as a guy living on borrowed time who takes up with a woman who fairly drips in timely wealth - played by Amanda Seyfried with her trademark anime eyes and a Louise Brooks bob. Cillian Murphy is the "timekeeper" on their trail as they steal time, Bonnie & Clyde-style, and give it away, and Olivia Wilde has an amusing, yet poignant bit, as Timberlake's eternally young mother, who stopped aging at 25 and knows her time is up soon.

"In Time" deals with timeless movie conventions with a smart modernity.

Note in Passing: Kudos to The San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle, The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis and The New Yorker’s Bruce Diones for seeing the value in this otherwise critically undervalued film.

clipped wings

2011-10-20T20:01:00.019-04:00

"The Big Year" is, well, an odd bird. (Bad pun intended.)

Seeemingly a comedy with an ace cast, it never takes flight. (There I go again!)

The problem is that the film, from source material by memorist Mark Obmascik, isn't a comedy. Which is a tad confusing, given that it's toplined by Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black as obsessed bird-watchers (that's right) who use this curious pasttime as yet another excuse for male competitiveness. But it isn't necessarily a drama either. It isn't much of anything - a gentle, anecdotal, lovingly filmed nothing.

"There is no there there," to borrow from Gertrude Stein.

The three stars have zero chemistry, but more alarming is that, despite detailed work by director David Frankel ("The Devil Wears Prada" and "Marley & Me") and his scenarist Howard Franklin ("Quick Change"), the film fails massively to engage us in "birding," as it's called.

Nevertheless, it has a handsome cast - Brian Dennehy and Dianne Weist as Black's parents; JoBeth Williams as Martin's wife; Rosamund Pike as Wilson's wife; Joel McHale and Kevin Pollak as two of Martin's business associates; Rashida Jones as a potential love interest for Black; Tim Blake Nelson as another birder; Jim Parsons as a birding blogger - and Frankel has conjured up quite a few cozy, companionable sequences set in restaurants and bars. The tony narration is read by John Cleese.

indelible moment: Donen's "The Little Prince"

2011-10-16T16:24:00.002-04:00

In the mid-1970s, Stanley Donen teamed up with Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe - you know, the guys who did "My Fair Lady" - for a musical film based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry beloved gem, "The Little Prince"/"Le Petit Prince." The film was troubled given that the casting of The Pilot - Frank Sinatra, Gene Hackman, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Richard Burton were all suggested - proved gnawingly elusive.

Reliable Richard Kiley would play the role.

The resulting film ran a trim 88 minutes which was considered perfect in some quarters and suspect in others. Studio intervention? Hmmm. Donna McKechnie's role as The Rose seemed particularly truncated. But, overall, the movie is a tiny gem. Donen got it right, particularly in his casting of Bob Fosse as The Snake and, truly inspired, Gene Wilder as The Fox.

The film's stand-out moment is also the book's: It comes when Wilder, with his champagne-colored, fluffy hair and dressed in a handsome auburn suit, scurries about and stops in a field of wheat to intone:

"It's only with the heart that one can see clearly. What's essential, is invisible to the eye."

Lovely. And, yes, indelible.

façade: Inger Stevens

2011-10-12T14:54:00.007-04:00

Inger Stevens, circa 1963

Inger Stevens' star - and sweet face - twinkled brightly but briefly from the late 1950s to 1970 when she died at age 36, reportedly a suicide.

She was one of those curious stars whose troubled personal life contrasted sharply with her public persona, which was probably best defined by her role as a plucky Swedish governess opposite William Windom (and the invaluable Cathleen Nesbitt) on the popular TV series, "The Farmer's Daughter," a sitcom with a realistic edge.

Stevens made her film debut in 1957 in the very small Bing Crosby vehicle, "Man on Fire," directed by Ranald MacDougall. She had just turned 20 when she was cast and 22 when it was released, immediately following it with an eclectic collection of titles - Andrew L. Stone's "Cry Terror!" (1958), with James Mason; Anthony Quinn's "The Buccaneer" (1958), with Charlton Heston; MacDougall's "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" (1959) with Harry Belafonte and Mel Ferrer, and an Emmy-nominated role opposite Peter Falk in David Friedkin's "The Price of Tomatoes" (1962), a playlet on Dick Powell's anthology series.

During this period, Stevens reportedly had doomed affairs with most of her leading men, including Crosby, Mason and Quinn.

After interrupting her screen work to do "The Farmer's Daughter," Stevens returned to films in, among others, Gene Kelly's "A Guide for the Married Man" (1967), John Guillermin's "House of Cards" (1968) and, opposite Quinn, in Daniel Mann's "A Dream of Kings" (1969), finally a role worthy of her talents. But it was too little too late.

In less than a year, the ultimately enigmatic Inger Stevens was dead - another Hollywood casualty but also a tragic missed opportunity.

Fourteen years is way too brief a career.

cinema obscura: Richard Quine's "So This Is Paris" (1955)

2011-10-08T08:08:00.005-04:00

Richard Quine is largely noted for his work at Columbia, where he started out as a contract player (he was sodajerk Frank Lippincott in Roz Russell's "My Sister Eileen") and then segued into directing there (the musical version of "My Sister Eileen," among others).

He made his directorial debut at Columbia in 1954 with "Drive a Crooked Road" (co-written by colleague and friend, Blake Edwards, one of several of their collaborations) and became a reliable house director there the same year with the marvelous "Pushover" (starring his muse, Kim Novak).

But Quine also ventured out to other studios for such titles as "The World of Suzie Wong," "Sex and the Single Girl," "The Moonshine War," "Hotel" and the film of Arthur Kopit's quirky play, "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad" (which starred Russell).

In 1955, the year he made the excellent "My Sister Eileen" for Columbia, Quine was loaned out to Universal for another musical, "So This Is Paris," a throwaway charmer starring a singing and dancing Tony Curtis as an avid, skirt-chasing sailor. With Gene Nelson (on Curtis' right above) and Paul Gilbert (on his left), the film can be mistaken for nothing less than a tracing-over of "On the Town," only set in Paris rather than New York.

The naturally engaging Gloria DeHaven (also above) has the Vera-Ellen role of a showgirl who isn't exactly what she seems to be. Corinne Calvet, the low-rent, G-rated Brigette Bardot of her day, and Mary Corday are the two other gals who team up with the ... gobs. (Quine's movie was alternately titled "So This is Paree" and, yes, "Three Gobs in Paris.")

If you know the drill, you know the rest.

"So This Is Paris" is one of those B-musicals (if there is such a genre) that were prominent during the early- to mid-1950s, when the studios still had expansive music departments and when musicals were still accepted, no questions asked, by audiences. In fact, Janet Leigh, Curtis' wife at the time, starred in two of her own - James V. Kern's "Two Tickets to Broadway" (1951), which happened to co-star DeHaven, and Quine's aforementioned "My Sister Eileen" (1955).

By the way, Curtis played another sex-sick soldier on the loose in Paris in Blake Edwards' difficult-to-see "The Perfect Furlough" (1958) and Leigh teamed up with him (one of their many films together) as a no-nonsense Army psychologist keeping tabs on him by acting as chaperone.

unmoored, brilliantly

2011-10-04T16:55:00.016-04:00

Lonergan directs Damon and Paquin

Kenneth Lonergan's long-awaited/long-delayed "Margaret" submerges a willing viewer in the scattered yet fascinating day-to-day activities of a privileged New York teenager named Lisa Cohen - or, as Lisa describes herself to one of her teachers, "an entitled liberal Jew."

The movie is an Altmanesque ensemble piece anchored by a major performance by a very game and very brave (and very young) Anna Paquin, who would normally be a shoo-in for an Oscar if "Margaret" wasn't made way back in 2005 and if it hadn't been mired in distracting legal and editing issues. Paquin's Lisa attends a progressive private school whose precocious students are smarter, more probing and verbally quicker than their teachers (who include Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick).

Particularly Lisa.

The lynchpin of Lisa's otherwise aimless life is a horrific accident that Lisa causes when she distracts a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) who promptly mows down a pedestrian (Allison Janney). This brilliantly staged sequence shrewdly juxtaposes the death of one person with the rebirth of another.

Lisa, now no longer adrift, is jolted by bracing, powerful feelings. She's been enlightened and, once one is enlightened, there's no going back. Lisa can't unlearn this harsh lesson and return to her former self.

Lonergan's movie runs two-and-a-half hours (reportedly shortened from the director's three-hour cut by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker) and, frankly, I wanted more. More of Paquin. And more of the cast surrounding her - J. Smith-Cameron and Lonergan himself as her divorced, estranged parents; Jeannie Berlin as a middle-aged woman who becomes Lisa's unlikely new best friend; Jean Reno as a European sophisticate romancing her mom, and Rosemarie DeWitt as Ruffalo's wife.

cinema obscura: Yves Robert's "Alexandre le bienheureux" (1968)

2011-10-01T12:14:00.007-04:00

The late French filmmaker Yves Robert rarely received his due, but three years before he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 2002 at the age of 82, he directed his twin art-house triumphs, "La Gloire de mon père"/"My Father's Glory" and "Le Château de ma mère"/"My Mother's Castle" (1990), handsome adaptations of Marcel Pagnol's childhood memoirs. Belatedly, and suddenly, Robert became a critics' darling.

There were other Robert films, however, that I think were greater achievements, despite their self-effacing modesty - particularly "La Guerre des boutons"/"War of the Buttons"(1962), based on Louis Pergaud's much-filmed novel, and "Salut l'artiste" (1973), a light farce which teamed Marcello Mastroianni and Jean Rochefort to perfection as two working actors often trapped in thankless roles.

Arguably, Robert's best film - and certainly my personal favorite - is "Alexandre le bienheureux" (1968), which was known alternately as "A Very Happy Alexander" and simply "Alexander" during its brief U.S. life in 1969.

"Alexandre le bienheureux," which has the sensuous contours of a classic French peasant comedy, is a disarming celebration of laziness and fits in perfectly with the ethos and sensibilities of the late 1960s and early '70s.

I'm not sure the same film could be made today, given how driven everyone seems to be (including slackers). A contributor on IMDb in assessing the film refers to an essay, "Le Droit à la Paresse"/"The Right to Laziness", that Paul Laforgue wrote in 1880 in which Laforgue offered a positive definition for laziness, something that is generally considered as one of the biggest vices in the world. Robert follows the same logic in his little film, which remains timeless in its appeal. It is hugely watchable and, despite its surface goofiness and anarchy, has a forbidden message worth savoring.

That great bear of an actor, Philippe Noiret, who died of cancer in 2006 at age 76, is unaccountably light and fizzy in the title role of a humble farmer who is henpecked and overworked by his ambitious new wife (Françoise Brion), known only (and humorously) as La Grande. She supervises him with a walkie-talkie. Poor Alexander's only friend is a little dog (played by a remarkable pooch named Kaly), of which La Grande, of course, disapproves.

Well, one day a new girl named Agathe (Marlene Jobert) zips into town in a bright red Citroen 2CV, and her entrance collides - fatally - with not only La Grande but also Alexander's decrepit in-laws. Suddenly free, Alexander retires from life, staying in bed 24/7, letting his farm go to pot (much to the chagrin of his neighbors) and letting his little dog do most of the chores. There are few images as charming as little Kaly carrying a basket in her mouth, shopping for cheese, milk and groceries.

As it turns out, Agathe is as lazy as Alexander. They make a perfect - or imperfect - couple, living slovenly ever after.

"Alexandre le bienheureux" has never been released in this country on home entertainment in any format. I have a beta copy of the film made from a subtitled 16-mm print. It remains vital as long as my reliable old betamax remains operable. About 15 years ago, I had an opportunity to interview David Zucker in regard to his "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" At one point, Zucker mentioned that he was eager to work with John Candy, an actor he thought was being misused in movies. He asked me if I had any ideas. I immediately offered "Alexandre le bienheureux" as a possible American remake. It would have been perfect for Candy.

Zucker vaguely remembered the film and seemed genuinely interested in the idea. And so, with much anxiety, I loaned him my beta copy of it. About two months later, Zucker mailed the tape back with a "thank you" note. The film was never made and Candy, alas, died 1994.

Two final notes about Robert's endearing little film: La musique de Vladimir Cosma est sublime! Formidable! Et la photographie de René Mathelin est fabuleux!

About the artwork: The original French poster art for Yves Robert's "Alexandre le bienheureux"; Philippe Noiret and Kaly in a scene from the film; Robert directing, and Françoise Brion, Noiret, Marlene Jobert and Kaly pose on set.

indelible moment: "Mean Girls" (2004)

2011-09-20T19:56:00.006-04:00

Gretchen Weiners: "That is so fetch!"

Regina George: "Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen! It's so not going to happen!"

Rachel McAdams as the alpha mean girl of The Plastics setting Lacey Chabert straight on her phraseology in Mark Waters' delightful teen comedy.

infectious

2011-09-19T11:42:00.011-04:00

"Contagion," the new metathriller gorgeously shot and rather playfully directed by Steven Soderbergh, is the filmmaker's Altmanesque take on a deadly disease that takes down a good part of the world's population in record time and, disturbingly, without any promise of surcease.

As the challenged professionals who work in disease control and prevention scramble to find clues and a cure, both the disease and the film itself breathlessly crisscross among locations and among an A-list cast.

The ever-reliable Matt Damon, who has slowly become this generation's Jimmy Stewart, anchors the film as a confused, frightened Everyman, but the acting honors here go to Jude Law who really rips into his entertaining role as an unctious San Francisco blogger named Alan Krumwiede (pronounced "crumb-weedy"), a creep replete with crooked teeth, and Jennifer Ehle (that's her above), who brings a Meryl Streep calm and professionalism to the role a committed scientist.

Topping it off is Cliff Martinez's jangly electric score which, like "Contagion" itself, is discordant, unnerving and yet perfectly right.

cinema obscura: Two with Julie Andrews

2011-09-18T09:19:00.028-04:00

Andrews and Bates in an acting duet

I've met Julie Andrews only once - for an interview session at the 1986 Toronto Film Festival (aka, Festival of Festivals) when her husband Blake Edwards' "That's Life!" had an unscheduled screening there.

I can't recall what I asked her - that's if I asked her anything at all - or what she said because I was so struck by her beauty. You've heard of someone having alabaster skin. Well, that was Julie Andrews. And her profile!

Anyway, I bring this up because in those days, Andrews' film career had been given a second life by Edwards. Her Hollywood career in general could be neatly divided between her pre-Edwards films ("Mary Poppins," "The Sound of Music," "Hawaii" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie") and those titles she made for her beloved Blake ("The Tamarind Seed," "10" and "S.O.B.). Neatly divided, indeed: Robert Wise's "Star!" (1968), the last film of her superstar phase, was followed two years later by Edwards' "Darling Lili" (1970).

Although she was decidedly Edwards' house leading lady during this period, she also dabbled in interesting work for other filmmakers. Two come to mind, both forgotten titles.

In Andrei Konchalovsky's "Duet for One," based on the play by Tom Kempinski and released the same year as "That's Life!" (1986), Andrews plays Stephanie Anderson, a world-famous violinist who has developed Multiple Sclerosis and is slipping into depression. Kempinski, who wrote the adaptation with Konchalovsky and Jeremy Lipp, based his stage play on the life of cellist Jacqueline du Pré, the wife of conductor Daniel Barenboim. (Frances de la Tour played the role in the 1980 play; and Juliette Stevenson in the 2009 revival.)

The film's first-rate cast also includes Alan Bates as Andrews' husband; Rupert Everett as one of her pupils; Liam Neeson as a man with whom she has an affair, and Max von Sydow as her psychiatrist - four men who come with edges that might not make them entirely likable but who are uncompromisingly realistic.

Andrews, in a rare dramatic turn, plays her part with a steady grit and a willfulness that should have brought her more acclaim. This is a level-headed performance that doesn't beg for sympathy, only a little empathy, which Stephanie feels is evasive for the people around her.

In 1992, Andrews joined director Gene Saks and co-star Marcello Mastroianni for the film version of the play, "Tchin-Tchin," adapted by Ronald Harwood from the French work by François Billetdoux (by way of Sidney Michaels' Americanized version for Broadway).

By the time it got to the screen (and it played precious few screens), it was retitled the more generic "A Fine Romance."

The material here is stuff of a typical boulevard farce: A gegarious Italian man, Cesareo Grimaldi, and a stiff-backed British woman, Pamela Piquet, come together when their respective spouses run off with each other. The Broadway version, which opened at the Plymouth Theatre on October 25, 1962, starred Margaret Leighton and Anthony Quinn (who was quite ubiquitous that year, what with "Requiem for a Heavyweaight," "Barabbas" and "Lawrence of Arabia" playing on screen).

The play enjoyed only a brief Broadway run and lasted as long as it did because of its stars and their chemistry. The film version, which took 30 years to get to the screen, magnified the material's age and, while Andrews and Mastroianni sparkled together, they couldn't breathe life into it. A fine romance, it wasn't. Anyway, I prefer the title "Tchin-Tchin."

getting bucked

2011-09-14T09:31:00.021-04:00

The base "Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" never stood a chance, not even with Adam Sandler's imprematur stamped on it.

Sandler may be able to get a movie made, via his Happy Madison company, natch, but he can't get a studio to respect it.

In a year of dubious comedies that pushed buttons and envelopes - namely, "Bridesmaids," "Hall Pass," "Bad Teacher," "Horrible Bosses," "The Hangover 2" and, worst of all, "A Good, Old-Fashioned Orgy" - "Bucky Larson" was the only one to be treated as if it had cooties.

Jeez, even the soiled, god-awful "A Good, Old-Fashioned Orgy" was screened for critics. But "Bucky" was hidden from the press, with all its pans running in Saturday papers. If Columbia felt so embarrassed by the film, why greenlight it in the first place? Oh, yeah, right - Adam Sandler.

This is not to indicate that "Bucky Larson" is a good or even not-bad film. But it says something about an industry that finds something harmlessly hilarious about women vomiting and defecating uncontrollably (as they did in the big setpiece in "Bridesmaids") but gets all judgmental about a film about a bucktoothed nerd with a tiny penis who has pretensions of becoming a huge porn star (that would be "Bucky Larson").

And he does become a porn star because of that small member. See, it doesn't intimiate the guys who download his films and it makes the women more admiring of their boyfriends/husbands, regardless of size.

Tom Brady, who directed, is no auteur (far from it, his two previous accomplishments were "The Hot Chicks" and "The Comebacks"), but he is smart enough to stand back and let his rather estimable cast members(Christina Ricci, Don Johnson, Edward Hermann, Miriam Flynn, Kevin Nealon and Stephen Dorff, among them) take a bat at the low material without exactly embarrassing themselves except when they want to.

Nick Swardson, who limns the role of Bucky, is a reliable Sandler house player ("Just Go With It" and "Don't Mess with the Zohan") and funny character man ("The House Bunny" and "Grandma's Boy") who has been sitting on the sidelines too long and deserves a breakthrough.

"Bucky Larson" is not exactly the film that will put him on the map and, hopefully, it won't completely derail his career. As he has in other films, Swardson makes the most of theoretically unplayable material, working beyond the call of duty as his film's star who is also its best team player.

Adam Sandler obviously likes and has nurtured him, but at this point, Nick Swardson needs a Judd Apatow in his life. Like right now.

cinema obscura: Dore Schary's "Act One" (1963)

2011-09-11T12:23:00.007-04:00

The playwright-director Moss Hart co-wrote both ''You Can't Take It With You'' and ''The Man Who Came to Dinner'' with George S. Kaufman and won his Tony as director for Lerner and Loewe's ''My Fair Lady.''

He also wrote the autobiography, “Act One,” which was filmed for Jack Warner and Warner Bros. by the legendary Dore Schary in 1963.

The little-seen, now-forgotten film, which stars George Hamilton as Hart, dwells on the early part of Hart's career, before he met and married Kitty Carlisle, and boasts an impressive supporting cast – Jason Robards as George S. Kaufman, Jack Klugman as Joe Hyman, Eli Wallach as Warren Stone, Sam Levine as Richard Maxwell, George Segal as Lester Sweyd, Bert Convy as Archie Leach (who would, of course, become Cary Grant) and the great stage actress Ruth Ford as Beatrice Kaufman.

It’s not a particularly good movie, but it does capture the atmospheric New York theater milieu with impressive accuracy – the glittering New York life that Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle represented. Ambience.

You know - when life was all about the opening night on Broadway of “Auntie Mame,” a cocktail party on Beekman Place, a charity soirée at the Museum of Modern Art and a late-night supper at the Stork Club.

"Act One," like the golden era it depicts, was gone until Turner Classic Movies somehow unearthed it; it airs on TCM at 6 p.m. (est) on 13 September. That's your ticket for front row center.

façade: Margo Martindale

2011-09-09T12:27:00.010-04:00

Now is the time to praise Margo Martindale, an actress who goes down easy, like a soft, soothing bourbon.

One of the more reassuring presences in modern films, Martindale first took my attention with an early role, her supporting turn as Birdy in Robert Benton's "Nobody's Fool" (1994), and perhaps was most memorable ten years later as Hilary Swank's crude, cruel "white trash" momma, perfectly named Earline, in Clint Eastwood's wrenching "Million Dollar Baby" (2004).

Most recently, she's shined as John C. Reilly's mother in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," in a brief bits in Tamara Jenkins' "The Savages" and Tom McCarthy's "Win Win" and as Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard's strange, game neighbor on the superior FX series, "The Riches."

But her long-coming breakthrough role, also on TV, is as the irrepressible Mags Bennett on Timothy Olyphant's "Justified," for which she's been Emmy-nominated, and this season, Martindale shows up opposite Patrick Wilson on ABC's "A Gifted Man."

But her most satisfying turn came as Carol, an American tourist, in "14ème Arrondissement," Alexander Payne's wry segment for the omnibus French film, "Paris, je t'aime" (2006), speaking fractured French with her familiar drawl. (She was born in Jacksonville, Texas.)

That's a scene from the film above.

Other roles include "Days of Thunder," "Practical Magic," "The Hours" and "The Human Stain," all with Nicole Kidman; "Lorenzo's Oil," "The Firm," "Twlight,"
"Earthly Possessions" and "Dead Man Walking," all with Susan Sarandon; and the recent "Feast of Love," "Rails and Ties," and "Stop-Loss," in which she simply contributes her mellow intonations in a voiceover.

On stage, Martindale orginated the part of Turvy (aka, "the Dolly Parton role") in "Steel Magnolias," was showcased in the remarkable one-woman show, "Always ... Patsy Cline" (playing a diehard Cline fane) and soared as Big Momma opposite Ned Beatty's Big Daddy in the recent revival of "Cat on the Hot Tin Roof," for which she was nominated for a Tony.

Huzzah!

superior

2011-08-21T21:48:00.025-04:00

Franco bonds, believably, with Serkis' Caesar

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes," Rupert Wyatt's socially aware, achingly humane update of the venerable Fox franchise, is a supreme reminder never to assume. I mean, who thought that this seemingly well-worn series could be rehabilitated in such a clever, sophisticated way?

Wyatt and his scenarists Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver surmounted this challenge by honoring the soul of Pierre Boulle's original French novel, "La planète des singes," while bringing a timeless modernity to the piece.

The Biritsh filmmaker has also contrasted the free-wheeling '60s of the original film with the unfortunate conformist mentality that pervades the so-called New Millenium, giving this update a '50s aftertaste.

James Franco is utterly convincing as a San Francisco scientist/idealist, with both a mission and an agenda, who is experimenting on chimps to find a cure for the Alzheimer's disease that afflicts his father (John Lithgow). And Wyatt brings a certain element to his film, one essential to all films, that has fallen in disrepair in recent years - namely, exposition.

He takes his time creating the timeline that will take baby Caesar, a chimp from Franco's high-tech pharmaceutical headquarters (named Gen-Sys), to his home where Caesar bonds with his father, to the animal refuge which is anything but. Here, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" becomes a shrewd take on the prison-film genre, and the innocent, loving Caesar (brilliantly played by a digitally costumed Andy Serkis) becomes a hardened inmate. Think Eastwood in Don Siegel's "Escape from Alcatraz."

All of this plays as a commantary/allegory on the fate of all captive animals, including those who we think are comfortably domesticated.

The film's big setpiece is a standoff between Caesar and his fellow escapees and gun-toting authorities on the expansive Golden Gate Bridge (there's never any question which species is the superior one) - a huge action scene amidst a film that's largely spoken. The dialogue penned by Jaffa and Silver is often quick, alert and literate, but there's one word here, a mere monosylable, that speaks volumes. Memorably.

unwanted child/part one

2011-08-09T10:30:00.594-04:00

During an interview, Billy Wilder said to me, "All my movies are my children. I love them all."

Not all films are so lucky.

Case in point: "At Long Last Love," a film that was hastily dismissed by critics in 1975, ignored by the moviegoing public and seemingly abandoned by 20th Century-Fox, the studio that produced and released it.

The movie, now more than 35 years old, has never been released on home entertainment in any format whatsoever - not Beta, not VHS, not LaserDisc, not DVD, certainly not Blu-Ray. Yet Fox has found the wherewithal to release something like, say, "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" - and other titles far worse - to home entertainment.

And until just recently, "At Long Last Love" has not been telecast or shown in retrospective houses. (Check out my postscript below.)

But perhaps most telling, in a candid moment during an interview conducted last winter by Adam Hulin (who co-programs with Matt Pennachi the fine Cinema Overdrive screening series in North Carolina), its maker Peter Bogdanovich flatly stated, "I don't love it ... because it’s too painful," thereby sealing his movie's fate.

Frankly, that's not reason enough, Peter, given that "At Long Last Love" was originally, obviously, a labor of love.

One can excuse the public, which essentially does what it's told to do, as well as Fox which, like any studio worth its salt, is interested in the bottom line and in looking good. And, well, a failed film does not look very good.

Yeah, one can excuse the public and the studio, but the critics, who seemed to be reacting more to Bogdanovich's relationship with his star, Cybill Shepherd, than to the film itself, should have known better. They came to the film with a disapproving gaze (or rather, in this particular case, a non-gaze) and it was exactly what they had hoped it would be.

As for Peter's decision to disavow his own film, I'll comment on that in a subsequent post.

Besides, this post - or, rather, series of posts - is not about Peter Bogdanovich.

It's about his lost masterwork, "At Long Last Love," the very film that compelled me to pursue this site and dedicate it to movies misunderstood, neglected, lost and forgotten.

Note in Passing: Wait! Wait a minute. Recently, after years of being dormant, ALLL has suddenly reappeared and, with it, an apparant resurgence of interest. It has been streaming on Netflix; it was screened at the Anthology Film Archive in June as part of its '70s movie musicals retrospective, and it now shows up with some regularity on the Fox Movie Channel, with more screenings scheduled for August 9 & 10 and
September 10 & 22. It's worth discovering/reevaluating. Now, read on...

Next Up- My anaylsis of the film
Comments can be posted at the end of Part Six.

unwanted child/part two

2011-08-09T10:30:00.590-04:00

Bogdanovich directs Shepherd and Del Prete in the "You're the Top" number from "At Long Last Love"

With its elegantly schematic storyline, Peter Bogdanovich's "At Long Last Love" works on a dual-level as both heartfelt hommage and light spoof, lovingly appropriating, as my friend and colleague Carrie Rickey so aptly puts it, "the feel of early Mamoulian or Lubitsch."

The film has insouciance to spare and is tinged with a haunting air of melancholy.

Originally graced with 21 songs by Cole Porter (eventually scaled back to 16, thanks to a series of visits to the editing room), the 1975 release tells the unrushed story of a rondelay - four people who pair up and break up over the course of what seems to be a long weekend, only to regroup in yet another uncertain variation.

Burt Reynolds is spot on as Michael Oliver Pritchard III, a wealthy playboy suffering from bad case of ennui; Cybill Shepherd is the languid, petulant heiress-on-the-skids Brooke Carter; Duilio Del Prete fractures English as Johnny Spanish, a dashing, devil-may-care Venetian gambler, and Madeline Kahn entertains as brassy showgirl Kitty O'Kelly, who's unlucky in love, natch.

On the sidelines is another uneasy couple - John Hillerman as Rodney James, Pritchard's very proper manservant, and Eileen Brennan as Elizabeth, Brooke's sassy, hard-nosed maid. And Mildred Natwick pops in as Mabel, Pritchard's mother, understandably confused about her son's love life.

Bogdanovich handles these amusing denizens and the luxe material that encircles them with easy aplomb, bringing sly wit, a cinéphile's eye and panache to his breezy, fluffy storytelling.

In 1975, Bogdanovich was a young director of great reach, a budding auteur willing to try anything. And, here, he reached rare artistic heights with his rather perilous decisions to (1) have all the film's songs sung "live" (rather than pre-record them); (2) have his cast largely improvise their dance steps (with some help from dance coordinators Rita Abrams and Albert Lantieri), bits that are done with the scratch-pad casualness of those carefree, in-between numbers in the Astaire-Rogers musicals, and (3) style his film with black and white costumes and set decorations exclusively (after Fox vetoed his plans to shoot in black-&-white). Cinematographer László Kovács certainly shares in Bogdanovich's triumph here.

"At Long Last Love" was something of a filmic preëmptive strike in its day, not surprising given that Bogdanovich was young, ambitious and brash (some might say arrogant). Remember, this was the same year when Steven Speilberg's "Jaws" changed everything in film. And here was a movie musical, a genre considered resolutely old-fashioned. The fact that Bogdanovich purposely kept his film "old-fashioned" is something that most people simply didn't get.

That said, "At Long Last Love" is lovely, loving, engaging and fun, and its only true failing is its maker's audacity.

Perhaps it' simply too good for audiences, then and now. I've a hunch, however, that Mamoulian and Lubitsch would have loved it.

Next up- The criticism
Comments can be posted at the end of Part Six.

unwanted child/part three

2011-08-09T10:30:00.589-04:00

One of the built-in problems with criticism is that when reviewers like a film, they go back and see it again and again, studying it and elevating it even further in their minds.

This doesn't happen with a film that they revile or receive negatively. They move on and the awfulness of the film in question remains burned in their minds.

And, frankly, when the buzz is bad, watching a film with an open mind can be difficult – akin to trying to see the screen at the end of a lo-n-ng corridor where there are all kinds of wires and other paraphrenalia obstructing the view.

I can say this with some authority and certainty, having been a critic way longer than it's healthy to be.

Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" is that rare exception of a film that was hastily dismissed by the critics in its day but that has been reevaluated, its standing adjusted upward. This James Stewart-Kim Novak fever dream has managed to survive its critically beatings in 1958 to become a "masterpiece." Richard Quine's "Bell, Book and Candle," another Stewart/Novak film from the same year, has also grown in stature after being initially written off.
In the case of "At Long Last Love," the critics saw it, disliked it and moved on, putting it out of their minds. I recall the critics complaining about the film but without ever really verbalizing exactly what it was they didn't like about it. (Not surprisingly, most of the negativity that continues to surround the film seems to come from people who haven't even seen it. This is not uncommon. Still, opinions based on hearsay or assumptions are ... worthless.)

Incidentally, one of the easier, more common slams against the film by its critics was that its cast couldn't sing, which is just not true. Everyone in the film can carry a tune; no one hits a sour note. And I admire their definace in the aftermath: Cybill Shepherd, for one, went on to do a well-regarded jazz album with Stan Getz, titled "mad about the boy." (Prior to the film, she had recorded an album of Porter songs titled "Cybill Shepherd Does It ... to Cole Porter.")

And Reynolds, unfazed, went on to sing in Colin Higgins' "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." (Reynolds - whose singing voice, to my untrained ears, goes down easy in the style of Dean Martin's - also recorded an album, "Ask Me What I Am.")

Prior to doing "At Long Last Love," Mildred Natwick headlined the 1971 Kander-Ebb stage musical, "70, Girls, 70," about larcenous old-timers, which was based on the 1959 British play by Peter Coke, "Breath of Spring," which also became Robert Asher's 1960 film, "Make Mine Mink."

And Kahn and Del Prete both had musical backgrounds.

Note in Passing: If my memory serves me correctly, when Peter was planning ALLL, he had a different cast in mind, with the exception of Cybill Shepherd, who was always part of the plan; actually, Peter has credited her with initiating the film. However, the roles eventually played by Burt Reynolds, Madeline Kahn and Duilio Del Prete, were once envisioned with Ryan O'Neal, Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould, respectively. I remember those names having been bandied about during pre-production, although I can't vouch for the veracity of the reports where I read them.

Next Up- The songs
Comments can be posted at the end of Part Six.

unwanted child/part four

2011-08-09T10:30:00.588-04:00

The Songs

(I'll annotate those songs that were edited out/restored)

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Music supervised and conducted by Lionel Newman and Artie Butler
Orchestrations by Gus Levene

Overture
-A medley of “At Long Last Love,” “You’re the Top,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “It’s De-Lovely” and “Just One of Those Things”

1. “Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor” – sung by Madeline Kahn
(This number was cut prior to theatrical release; reinstated in 16mm and TV prints and restored 35mm prints)

2. “Tomorrow” – sung by Duilio Del Prete
(cut prior to theatrical release; reinstated in 16mm and TV prints and restored 35mm prints)

3. “Which” – sung by Cybill Shepherd
(subsequently shortened during first-run engagements)

4. “Poor Young Millionaire” – sung by Burt Reynolds

5. “Etiquette” – sung by Eileen Brennan and Shepherd
(cut prior to theatrical release; reinstated in 16mm prints; deleted from TV prints)

6. “You’re the Top” – sung by Reynolds, Kahn, Shepherd and Del Prete

7. “Find Me a Primitive Man” – sung by Kahn

8. “Friendship” – sung by Shepherd, Kahn, Reynolds and Del Prete

9. “Friendship” (reprise) – sung by John Hillerman, Brennan, Shepherd, Kahn, Reynolds and Del Prete

10. “But in the Morning, No” – sung by Brennan and Hillerman

11. “At Long Last Love” – sung by Kahn, Reynolds, Shepherd and Del Prete

12. “Kate the Great” – sung by Mildred Natwick and company
(cut prior to theatrical release; never reinstated)

13. “Well, Did You Evah?” - sung by Reynolds, Shepherd, Del Prete, Kahn and Natwick

14. Centerpiece Medley:
“From Alpha to Omega” – sung by Del Prete and Kahn
“But in the Morning, No” – sung by Hillerman and Brennan
(cut prior to theatrical release; never reinstated)
“Let’s Misbehave”/ “It’s Delovely” – sung by Shepherd and Reynolds
“From Alpha to Omega” – sung by Del Prete and Kahn
(cut prior to theatrical release; never reinstated)
“It’s Delovely” - sung by Shepherd and Reynolds
(cut prior to theatrical release; never reinstated)
“From Alpha to Omega” (soft-shoe version) – sung by Del Prete and Kahn
(cut prior to theatrical release; reinstated in 16mm prints; deleted from TV prints)
“It’s Delovely” - sung by Shepherd and Reynolds
“But in the Morning, No” – sung by Hillerman and Brennan
“From Alpha to Omega” – sung by Del Prete and Kahn
(cut prior to theatrical release; never reinstated)
“It’s Delovely”/”Let’s Misbehave” - sung by Shepherd and Reynolds

15. “Just One of Those Things” – sung by Reynolds, Shepherd and Del Prete

16. “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye” – sung by Kahn
(cut prior to theatrical release; never reinstated)

17. “I Get a Kick Out of You” – sung by Shepherd

18. “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love” – sung by Brennan, Kahn and Shepherd

19. “I Loved Him (but He Didn't Love Me)” – sung by Kahn and Shepherd
(cut during first run; subsequently reinstated)

20. Finale: “A Picture of Me Without You” – sung by Reynolds, Shepherd, Del Prete and Kahn

End Titles
-A medley of “You’re the Top,” “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “Just One of Those Things”
(This medley was deleted for certain versions of the film; the end credits were played mute)

Next Up- The different versions of ALLL
Comments can be posted at the end of Part Six.

"Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love"

"Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor"

Del Prete, Kahn, Reynolds and Shepherd performing in the "Friendship" number

unwanted child/part five

2011-08-09T10:30:00.587-04:00

A Work in Progress

Or, The Seven Different Versions of "At Long Last Love"

Initially, Bogdanovich couldn't be demoralized by the response to ALLL. Like a champ, he continued to work on it, and with some passion, long after its release. Finally, he gave up and the film disappeared.

For decades.

Much of the various editing sessions that the film endured involved the musical numbers. No surprise here. For some bizarre reason, songs are usually the first things to go when a musical has to be shortened. No surprise also because ALLL started out with 21 songs in its script.

Each of the four main characters had an introductory song when the film was previewed. By the time the film opened, the first two songs - those for Kahn and Del Prete - were eliminated. Bad move. The release version opened with Shepherd's song which, given how critics felt about the actress at the time, made a bad - very bad - first impression.

Lost was Madeline Kahn's sublime reading of "Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor," a smashing way to open the film.

But its greatest loss during the editing process was the abridgement of the ambitious centerpiece medley, which breathlessly alternates among the three couples in the film, each of them with a signature song.

And at one point, the bouncy exit music, played over the end credits, was deleted and played with no sound, an eerie, funereal effect: The film doesn't so much end - now, it literally dies.

By my count, there are at least seven different cuts of "At Long Last Love" out there. What follows is a listing of the different versions and their content...

1. Preview Versions (previewed twice)
- Presumably the most complete versions.

2. Release Version
- The opening songs, “Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor” and “Tomorrow,” were eliminated, along with “Etiquette,” “Kate the Great,” “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye” and most of the aforementioned centerpiece medley.

3. Re-edit Version (during initial run)
- “Which” was shortened and, unbelievably, “I Loved Him” (which synopsizes the film's plot) was elminated.

4. 16mm Version #1
“Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor,” “Tomorrow,” “Etiquette” and “I Loved Him” were all reinstated; “Kate the Great” and "Little Dream" are still missing, and “Which” remains abbreviated.

5. 16mm #2
“Tomorrow” is here in a slightly different version; the “Alpha to Omega” soft shoe during centerpiece medley is reinstated;, and the exit music eliminated. The end-credit scroll is now presented mute, very unnerving.

6. Syndicated TV version
“Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor” and “Tomorrow” remain in film; “Which” is still abbreviated; “Kate the Great” and "Little Dream" are still missing; “Alpha to Omega” soft shoe eliminated, and the end titles remain mute.

7. Fox Movie Channel
“Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor” and “Tomorrow” remain in film; “Which” still abbreviated; “Kate the Great” and "Little Dream" are still missing; “Alpha to Omega” soft shoe eliminated; but the end-titles music has been reinstated. Huzzah!

Next Up- Why ALLL Disappeared
Comments can be posted at the end of Part Six.

unwanted child/part six

2011-08-09T10:30:00.585-04:00

"At Long Last Love" had the misfortune to get caught in Peter/Cybill crossfire. There's nothing wrong with the film, except possibly its unlucky timing.

By the time it was released, the press - including film critics - had grown weary of the Peter-Cybill relationship. There was the misconception that Cybill was in every film that Bogdanovich made - that she was being overexposed by him - when the fact is, the two had made only two films prior to ALLL. And both are good and Cybill is good in them - "The Last Picture Show" and "Daisy Miller," an underrated film that, unlike ALLL, hasn't been buried.

Anyway, in that environment, the film didn't stand a chance.

But why has it been made impossible to see? And who made it impossible?

I have several theories. It would be easy to blame Fox which might have been embarrassed by the movie's failure, but Peter contends the studio loved it and, as noted in the first post here, the studio has made far more inferior films available for home entertainment.

Could it have something to do the song rights? The music licensing might be too expense to justify a home-video release. Fact is, that’s the problem behind a lot of the higher-profile MIA movies.

Or perhaps the Cole Porter estate would prefer it remain out of sight, a la the restraint that the Gershwin estate allegedly has put on Otto Preminger's film of "Porgy and Bess," which has been largely unseen since its première engagement in 1959.

And then there's Peter. According to Brian Mills' "101 Forgotten Films" (Kamera Books, 2008), "Bogdanovich owns the rights (to the film) and has stated that he does not intend to release the film on DVD."

It is not unusual for a film personality to totally disavow a movie. Faye Dunaway has deleted "Mommie Dearest" from her filmmography, for example, the suspicion being that the film hurt her career. But Dunaway has asserted that she ignores it because it simply isn't a good movie.

In her opinion.

There's no doubt that Peter's Hollywood career was seriously affected by ALLL. He made one major studio film following it - Columbia's "Nickelodeon" - and a few scattered studio titles aftewards ("Mask," "Texasville" and "Noises Off") but has largely been consigned to smaller independent and TV films.

He was no longer the golden-boy auteur.

What's telling is that just about everything he's done, even some nondescript TV stuff, is available on home entertainment.

But not "At Long Last Love."

The film is way overdue for a restoration. Perhaps with Criterion working its magic. Perhaps with Peter's involvement. Such a move could validate both the film and its maker.

Vindication, yes. At long last. But that seems unlikely.

And "At Long Last Love" is fated to remain an orphaned, unwanted child.

Tinged with an air of melancholy. .............................................The End.............................................

unwanted child/Peter's Interview

2011-08-09T10:30:00.584-04:00

What follows is a transcript of an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, conducted last winter by Adam Hulin who, as previously noted, co-programs the Cinema Overdrive screening series in North Carolina. The interview is the the sixth segment in an excellent 12-part session with Hulin.

Bogdanovich is mesmerizing in it and quite entertaining. When the subject of "At Long Last Love" comes up, Peter opens up about the film (for the first time, it seems to me) and describes it as a "painful" experience. And when Hulin observes that ALLL has never been put out on video, Peter for all intents and purposes skirts the reference.

Here goes:

Peter: “When I made ‘Daisy Miller,’ Frank Yablans commented that it was like ‘Babe Ruth punting.’ With ‘At Long Last Love,’ I tried to hit it out of the fence. It was a disaster.

"Cybill had given me a book of lyrics by Cole Porter – a big coffee table book of lyrics.

"I thought it would be fun to write a script based on the lyrics and did. I wrote it for the cast that did it pretty much. And it was an original musical comedy. Now, an original musical comedy for Broadway, they take it out on the road for six months before bringing it to Broadway. We had two previews. The first was a complete disaster; the second was pretty good.

"And then I screwed it up and we opened cold without previewing it more. It was a terrible mistake. I was rushed into opening. Everyone at the studio loved it. Big mistake."

Hulin: “Visually, it’s very monochromatic with the set design in very, very black and white.”

Peter: "Yeah, we did it black and white in color.

"I wanted to do it what Lubitsch had done with the first musicals ever made - 'Love Parade,' 'The Smiling Lieutenant,' 'Monte Carlo.' They did the singing ‘live’ with the orchestra off camera.

"I wanted to do the singing ‘live’ for which Fox invented a whole speaker that would fit in the ear and the antenna was combed into the hair and we had someone playing an electric piano with the horn turned off so they could hear it in their ear but we wouldn’t record it. It was very complicated - cost about $25,000 to invent this.

"It was great. Everyone loved the picture but it was cut wrong. And It was my fault and the studio’s fault for rushing me. We should have taken more time before opening it. Once it was opened, I saw what was wrong with it."

Hulin: “What in your opinion was wrong with it?”

Peter: "Wrong sequences. Wrong things we used – some of the wrong stuff. Things cut that shouldn’t have been cut. Things that should have been cut weren’t. It was a mess. When I afterward recut it for television, that’s the version everybody sees and they say ‘What’s wrong with the picture? Why’d it get such bad reviews?’ Well, that’s not the version that was released."

Hulin: “That’s the only version I’ve ever seen. Because really, it’s a lost picture - because Fox has never put it out on video.”

Peter: There’s a beautiful print of it – a 35 mm print – that they showed in San Francisco a couple of years ago when they did a tribute to me. They loved the picture. People loved the picture. I don’t love it ... because it’s too painful."

* * *
For its June 18 and 21 screenings of ALLL, the Anthology Film Archive printed the following program note:

"Fresh off his highly successful features of the early 70s (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, WHAT’S UP DOC?, and PAPER MOON), Bogdanovich decided to try his hand at the Hollywood musical. Despite featuring Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd, the music of Cole Porter, and sumptuous production values, it was a box office failure, not least of all because of Bogdanovich’s daring decision to record the songs live on-set, despite his stars’ lack of polished musical talent. As a result the film is rarely revived – but it’s nevertheless a fascinating experiment, one Bogdanovich continues to proclaim a personal favorite among his films. These extremely rare screenings are not to be missed!"

"Personal favorite"? I wish. But, unfortunately, that doesn't jibe with what Peter said in the above interview.

Next Up- Roger Ebert's 1975 review

unwanted child/Roger's Review

2011-08-09T10:29:00.037-04:00

Movie Review:"At Long Last Love"
By Roger Ebert / January 1, 1975 / Chicago Sun-Times

It's impossible not to feel affection for "At Long Last Love," Peter Bogdanovich's much-maligned evocation of the classical 1930s musical. It's a light, silly, impeccably stylish entertainment, and if the performers don't come up to the comparisons they evoke with the genius of Astaire and Rogers, that's not entirely their fault; the studio tradition that developed and nurtured the great musical stars no longer exists, and a movie like this has to be made from scratch....

...The movie's no masterpiece, but I can't account for the viciousness of some of the critical attacks against it. It's almost as if Bogdanovich is being accused of the sin of pride for daring to make a musical in the classical Hollywood style.

Click here for Roger's full review

the corner

2011-08-08T11:07:00.028-04:00

Every bit of news that comes out of Hollywood about song-and-dance films (we really can't call them musicals anymore) is bad news...

An unecessary remake of "Gypsy," starring the wildly age-inappropriate Barbra Streisand, who will be 70 in April, as Momma Rose (she'll probably be 72, if and when the film ever gets made)...

Willow Smith as "Annie," its score presumably to be fortified with an anachronistic hiphop sound...

Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Damn Yankees," a project announced so long ago that it might actually be dead now...

Hugh Jackman's threats to remake "Carousel," which is both a musical and a period piece, two genres not exactly beloved among contemporary moviegoers...

A planned filming of "Miss Saigon," which seems a tad dated and inconsequential now...

And, the final nail in the coffin, Justin Beiber's fantasy of doing a reboot of "Grease" with Myley Cyrus.

On the horizon, of course, is the remake of "Footloose," which, if you go by its trailer, now looks like an action film.

Now comes the breathless announcement that Lionsgate has greenlit a remake of the late Emile Ardolino's "Dirty Dancing" (1987).

In her blog, Flickgrrl," for The Philadelphia Inquirer, my friend Carrie Rickey wrote, "'Dirty Dancing' is like 'The Godfather.' It's a classic and you don't mess with it or otherwise try to improve, rethink, or update it." And besides, asked Carrie, "How do you take Eleanor Bergstein's autobiographical story and transpose it to another period?"

The most obvious answer is, You do it anyway.

Clearly, the motivation for this latest Bad Idea is to film two physically attractive, personality-free young actors gyrating aggressively to the original movie's jukebox score (again, fortified with new beats) and ignore the little narrative curlicues that made the original somewhat original.

To elaborate on my response to Carrie's post, while “Dirty Dancing” is not a masterwork like “The Godfather,” it is definitely a populist classic – a film embraced by the average moviegoer, not necessarily the cinéphile.

What people forget - and what Carrie brings to light - is that the film was a shrewd period piece (set in 1962, I believe) and that it had a pervasive Jewishness (Kellerman's Lodge!) that gave it its backbone and color.

The original film was about more than just class differences. It wasn't that simple.

I’m sure these two elements will be discarded in the remake. Only the dancing will remain intact and I’ve a sick feeling that Baby and Johnny (so wonderfully immortalized by Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze, pictured) might even be gyrating to entirely different songs in the reboot.

One other thing: The new film won’t have the invaluable Jack Weston as Max Kellerman; Jerry Orbach as Baby's bigoted doctor father or Kelly Bishop as her sexy mother; the terrific Jane Brucker as her princess-sister Lisa, or Lonny Price as the unctuous Neil Kellerman, "the catch of the county" - all of them so crucial to the singular ethnicity of what everyone thinks of as just “a great dance movie.”

indelible moment: "Auntie Mame" (1958)

2011-08-06T13:01:00.002-04:00

That incorrigible Liberal, Mame Dennis, trapped by arch Conservatives (and close talkers) Doris and Claude Upson who threaten to turn her beloved nephew Patrick into "an Aryan from Darien"

For my money, there are any number of memorable moments in Morton DaCosta's hugely entertaining film of his Broadway hit, "Auntie Mame."

Armed with a terrific script by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green (working from the stage original by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee) and abetted by his Broadway star, Rosalind Russell (plus the divine Coral Browne), DaCosta breezily swept his audience from one richly comic scene to another. There are umpteen of them in "Auntie Mame" and singling out one is near-impossible, but my hands-down favorite arrives late in the film when Russell's Mame Dennis pays a visit to her nephew Patrick's future in-laws, Claude and Doris Upson, at their Early American manse in Mountebank (their signpost reads "Upson Downs"), described as being "right above Darien and completely exclusive and restricted."

"Exclusive to what and restricted to whom?," asks an annoyed, impatient Mame. Mame Dennis, you see, has zero tolerance of intolerance.

Claude and Doris, played to the hilt by Willard Waterman and Lee Patrick, are Conservative to the max, terribly unctuous and given to talking up close. Mame, on the other hand, is a Liberal and decidely a provocateur.

The Upsons' flagstone patio is decorated to reflect "authentic Colonial America" (Doris' words), replete with assorted chachkas and a spinning wheel. (Robert Hanley and George James Hopkins collaborated on the terrific set decorations for the film.) While plying Mame with "daiquiris made with honey" and canapes made of "strained tuna fish, clam juice and peanut butter" (a recipe from the Ladies Home Journal), the Upsons announce that they plan for Mame to go in with them and buy the adjoining property as a wedding gift for Patrick and their daughter, Gloria.

The phonograph in the background is playing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," as Claude shakes his daiquiri mixture in time to the rhythm.

"But we have to move fast," Claude intones. "Some people are bidding on that property. The wrong kind. Fella named Epstein. A-bra-ham Epstein."

"This section is restricted only to our property line," Doris adds. "So we feel we have an obligation to make sure that - well - you know."

Exactly how Mame upends the Upsons' plans provides the film with the perfect punchline/comeuppance - and me with an indelible moment.

Made more than five decades ago, DaCosta's "Auntie Mame" remains a bracing, ever-modern cheer for the left that the right can enjoy.

love, lucy

2011-08-04T11:20:00.024-04:00

When Warner Bros. purchased the screen rights to Jerry Herman's musical version of "Auntie Mame" in 1971, it was made clear from the getgo that the show's original star, Angela Lansbury, would not be starring.

I interviewed Lansbury in December of that year - in conjunction with Disney's "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" - and asked for her take on the matter and about the then-recently announced casting of Lucille Ball as "Mame." Lansbury, ever the pro, took it in stride, explaining that Warners planned to make an inexpensive version of the show and that most of the film's budget would be invested in its star's salary.

The studio needed not just a big star, but an icon.

Rosalind Russell, meanwhile, the original Auntie Mame and a contemporary of Lucille Ball, questioned her friend's age.

Roz opined that maybe Cher would have been a more appropriate choice.

Well, it took nearly three years for "Mame" to finally premiere at Radio City Music Hall (on 27 March, 1974). In the interim, when the film was still in production, I wrote a column about Lucy's big comeback: "Mame" - being filmed by Gene Saks, who also directed it on stage - would be her first movie in 6 years, following Melville Shavelson's "Yours, Mine and Ours" in 1968. It would also be Lucy's final film.

About a week after the column ran, this note arrived in the mail.

Would it be too much of a cliché for me to confess that I love Lucy?

Note in Passing: On Saturday, 6 August, the day that would have been Lucille Ball's 100th birthday, Turner Classic Movies will screen 14 of her films over a 12-hour period, starting at 6 a.m. (est) and The Hallmark Channel will air an "I Love Lucy" marathon all day weekend. Can't wait.

cinema obscura: Billy Wilder's "Fedora" (1978)

2011-08-03T19:32:00.024-04:00

Billy Wilder remained a vital, prolific filmmaker, while many of his contemporaries were slowing down with only an occasional film.

But Wilder kept churning out title after title, particularly in the 1950s and '60s. In 1957, for example, he was actually able to produce a wildly diverse trio - "Love in the Afternoon," "The Spirit of St. Louis" and "Witness for the Prosecution." Whew.

But after "The Fortune Cookie" in 1966, he abruptly pulled back. It was four years later when he returned with the troubled but appealing "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes," followed another two years by "Avanti!," a sophisticated but clearly middle-aged entertainment. Yes, he was beginning to slow down, too, and would make only three more films, two of them rather lethargic Lemmon-Matthau teamings, "The Front Page" and "Buddy Buddy," the latter being Wilder's final film.

But sandwiched in-between was the compelling"Fedora" (1978), an attempt by Wilder to return to form. More accurately, it was a companion piece to his triumphant "Sunset Blvd." (1950), replete with the same leading man - William Holden. It was nearly 30 years later and Wilder and, to a degree, Holden were out to prove that they still had it in them to make a seminal, influential movie about the filmmaking process. Only this time, the pervasive eerieness of the material wasn't simple camp.

"Fedora" is genuinely eerie. Actually, it's downright creepy.

Once again, Holden plays a washed-up movie opportunist hoping to nudge a retired, reclusive actress - the Polish Fedora - toward a comeback with his new version of "Anna Karenina." But something is amiss, strange.

And when Fedora dies suddenly, after jumping in front of a moving train, Holden attempts to ferret out the ... "truth." That word comes with ominous underpinings. "Fedora" is an atmospheric, chilly affair, not quite as companionable as "Sunset Blvd.," and while Wilder opted for color cinematography (courtesy of Gerry Fisher's painterly hues) rather than black-&-white, he conjurs up dreamy shadow imagery that efficiently distills his film's disturbing themes. (A French-German co-production, "Fedora" is essentially the European sibling of "Sunset Blvd.")

The film's Big Secret, concocted by Tom Tryon (the late film-actor-turned-writer) for a short story in his 1978 collection, "Crowned Heads," remains provocative, and Wilder surrounded Holden with both a top international cast - Marthe Keller (pictured above with Holden), Hildegard Kneff, Stephen Collins, José Ferrer, Frances Sternhagen, Henry Fonda, Mario Adorf (below with Holden), Arlene Francis and Michael York - and a fabulous setting, the Greek Island of Corfu.

For the occasion, the director adapted Tryon's story in collaboration with his long-time writing partner, I.A.L. "Izzy" Diamond, and these vets make it clear that they are striving not for the modernity of the other films at the time but for something ageless. Again, not unlike "Sunset Blvd."

Their efforts here almost matched their previous projects. Almost.

Note in Passing: In his book, "Conversations with Wilder," Cameron Crowe writes, "Wilder is quick to point out that his original casting plan would have served the picture better." I believe, if my recollections are correct, that his original plan was to cast Vanessa Redgrave and her mother Rachel Kempson is the roles ultimately played by Keller and Kneff.

quirky working title

2011-08-03T10:01:00.003-04:00

The above still from "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," directed by Edward Zwick from the David Mamet play of the same title, was included in the summer preview press kit distributed by TriStar Pictures in 1986.

However, by the time the film was actually released that July, the studio got cold feet and retitled the film with the generic moniker, "About Last Night."

It always seemed too good to be true that TriStar would retain the work's original, edgier title.

In the meantime, I have a Kris Kritofferson autographed shooting script for a Michael Cimino film titled "The Jackson County War" which, of course, became "Heaven's Gate" (1980). And let's not forget that Billy Wilder's "Ace in a Hole" (1951) became "The Big Carnival" in Paramount's desperate attempt to rescue it from box-office failure. Which brings me to the point of this post - namely, those films that underwent a title change and rarely for the good. I've come up with a few others that originally had singular titles that were vetoed in favor of the nondescript. Feel free to share others that come into mind. Here goes:

Sir Carol Reed's "Nobody Loves a Drunken Indian" (1970), starring Anthony Quinn and based on the Clair Huffaker novel, became the more politically-correct "Flap."

Norman Taurog's Cary Grant/Betsy Drake vehicle, "Room for One More," (1951) became "The Easy Way" for its TV syndication when Warner Bros. decided to spin the film into a sitcom in 1961. That new title stuck, even after the series was long forgotten. The original title returned when Warner Archives put the film on DVD.

Paul Mazursky's "Jerry Saved from Drowning" (1986) became "Down and Out in Beverly Hills."

Sidney Lumet's Brando-infused "Orpheus Descending" (1960) became "The Fugitive Kind."

Joseph Losey's "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" (1968) - like "Orpheus Descending," by way of Tennessee Williams - became "Boom!"

Edouard Molinaro's "I Won't Dance" (1984), with the much-missed Kristy McNichol, became "Just the Way You Are."

Tony Bill's "The Baboon Heart" (1993), with Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater, became "Untamed Heart."

Peter Yates' "The Janitor Doesn't Dance" (1981), starring William Hurt as the janitor and Sigourney Weaver as a reporter, became "Eyewitness."

Robert Aldrich's remake of "No Orchids for Miss Blandish" (1971) became "The Grissom Gang."

Howard Zeiff's sweet-natured "Born Jaundiced" (1991) became "My Girl."

Robert Altman's "The Presbyterian Church Wager" (1971) became "McCabe and Mrs. Miller."

Altman's "Brewster McCloud and His Sexy Flying Machine" (1970) was simplied to "Brewster McCloud."

Altman's all-star "Prêt-à-Porter" (1994) was translated to "Ready to Wear."

Joan Micklin Silver's "Chilly Scenes of Winter" (1979) became "Head Over Heels," only to be retitled back to "Chilly Scenes of Winter."

Andrew Bergman's "Cop Gives Waitress Two Million Dollar Tip" (1994), with Bridget Fonda and Nicolas Cage, became "It Could Happen to You."

Jon Avnet's hugely poplular "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" (1991), based on the book by Fannie Flagg, was reduced to "Fried Green Tomatoes."

George Cukor's Judy Holliday gem, "A Name for Herself" (1954), became "It Should Happen to You."

Finally, there's a film whose re-title I prefer. Jonathan Demme's "Citizen Band" (1977) was momentarily changed to "Handle with Care."
Two other perfectly fine titles, meanwhile, were preserved at the 11th hour. Gilbert Cates' "I Never Sang for My Father" (1970) was slated to be retitled "Strangers" (replete with a title song sung by Roy Clark) and William Wyler's film version of the Lillian Helman play, "The Children's Hour" (1961), almost became "The Infamous." (When Wyler earlier filmed "The Children's Hour" in 1936, the title was changed to "These Three." )

And this just in! Roman Polanski has shortened the title of his upcoming film version of "God of Carnage" to ... "Carnage."

cinema obscura: Two with Joanne Woodward

2011-08-02T16:15:00.026-04:00

As usual, Turner Classic Movies turns its August schedule over to its daily star tributes - better known as "Summer Under the Stars."

I'm particularly interested in the star celebrated on 16-17 August - Joanne Woodward - largely because Woodward is an unsung gem among Hollywood's acting fraternity but also because two certain Woodward films - long lost - will be showcased.
They are titles that have been celebrated here in my on-going Cinema Obscura essays - Martin Ritt's "The Sound and the Fury" (1959), airing at 10 p.m. (est) on 16 August, and Paul Newman's "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (1972), slotted at 2 a.m. on 17 August. I can't wait. These are two Fox titles that don't even show up on the Fox Movie Channel anymore. Go figure. Both are worth checking out, as are some of Woodward's other titles - Leo McCarey's "Rally 'Round the Flag Boys," Ritt's "Paris Blues," Fielder Cook's "A Big Hand for the Little Lady," Irvin Kershner's "A Fine Madness," Gilbert Cates' "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams," Burt Reynolds' "The End," Stuart Rosenberg's "The Drowning Pool," Gerd Oswald's "A Kiss Before Dying" and, of course, Newman's "Rachel, Rachel."

Other Star nights that I'll be checking out are Shirley MacLaine (10 August), Debbie Reynolds (19 August), Montgomery Clift (20 August), Cary Grant (21 August), Peter Lawford (26 August), Carole Lombard (28 August), Anne Francis (29 August) and Howard Keel (30 August).

façade: Diane Varsi

2011-08-02T12:58:00.006-04:00

Mark Robson's 1957 film version of Grace Metalious' "Peyton Place" was a huge popular and critical hit in its day, surprisingly so, and I'm convinced that most of its credbility can be traced to its two appealing young ingenués - Hope Lange who played Selena Cross and, especially, Diane Varsi, who starred as Allison MacKenzie.

Diane Varsi. Yes, Diane Varsi. What a singular actress, perhaps too singular for American moviegoers. Certainly too good for American moviegoers.

Varsi, who died in virtual anonymity of respiratory failure in 1992, made her last film appearance more than 30 years ago with a small role in Kathleen Quinlan's 1977 movie, "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." Although she received an Oscar nomination for "Peyton Place," Varsi made it difficult for her home studio, 20th Century-Fox, to cast her in subsequent productions because she was essentially ahead of her time - a maverick and rebel with an off-kilter personality and a penchant for off-beat, sing-song line-readings.

But she managed to work for Fox, giving good performances in the Gary Cooper-Suzy Parker film, "Ten North Frederick" (based on the John O'Hara story), directed by Philip Dunne; the Don Murray Western, "From Hell to Texas" (aka, "Man Hunt"), directed by Henry Hathaway, and Richard Fleishcer's fine film on the Leopold-Loeb case, "Compulsion," starring Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. But by 1959, a mere two years later, her Hollywood career was dead. A decade later, she surfaced in a series of anti-social/protest films, including "Sweet Love, Bitter" (with Dick Gregory and, again, Murray); Two Shelley Winters films, "Wild in the Streets" and "Bloody Mama" (the latter a Ma Barker flick with a young Robert DeNiro); the intriuging crime-spree film, "Killers Three" (with Dick Clark and Robert Walker, Jr.), and Dalton Trumbo's anti-war saga, "Johnny Got His Gun" (starring Timothy Bottoms).

Then, she disappeared again, returning briefly in "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."

Diana Varsi's slight filmmography is as idiosyncratic as the actress herself, not unlike another curious personality from a decade later, Mimsy Farmer. One of a kind, again too good for the marketplace

cinema obscura: Two with Robert Preston

2011-08-01T09:42:00.022-04:00

Following his incredible success on Broadway in "The Music Man," the fabulous Robert Preston went on to give his defining performance in the 1962 film version - a performance which should have earned him at least an Oscar nomination but didn't.

What's fascinating is that he bookended that performance with roles in the film version of two plays, both apparently lost.

Delbert Mann's "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1960)

There are those who thought that the great playwright William Inge would enjoy the household-name status of Tennessee Williams, given that in the 1950s he wrote such plays as "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Picnic," "Bus Stop" and, in 1957, "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," all of which were adapted into films. His 1959 play, "A Loss of Roses," became the 1963 film, "The Stripper" and he also wrote the screenplay for Elia Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass" (1961), in which Inge played the small role of of a minister who counsels Natalie Wood.

Kazan also directed the Broadway version of "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," which opend at the Music Box Theatre on December 5, 1957, with a cast including of Eileen Heckart, Pat Hingle and Teresa Wright. Once again, we have another dysfunctional family drama about a man who, in middle age and out of work, tries to compensate for a lack of self esteem by cheating on his wife with another woman in another town.

The 1960 film, directed by Delbert Mann from Harriet Frank, Jr.'s adapation, starred Preston in the Pat Hingle role, along with Dorothy McGuire, Eve Arden, Angela Lansbury and a young Shirley Knight, an Oscar nominee. Preston was great as always in this and ... "All the Way Home."

Alex Segal's "All the Way Home" (1963)

This piece has something of a legendary history. Based on James Agee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "A Death in the Family," it was first adapted by Tad Mosel for the stage in 1960. It opened at the Belasco Theater on November 30th of that year, with a cast headed by Arthur Hill, Colleen Dewhurt and - now get this - Lillian Gish and Aline MacMahon. Actor's heaven. Arthur Penn directed.
Set in Tennessee in the early 1900's, "All the Way Home" revolves around a man's sudden, accidental death and the ramifications that it has on his family, especially his young son. The play examines the process of mourning and the heartache that makes it almost impossible to heal.

The 1963 film version, directed by Alex Segal, starred Preston as the father, Jean Simmons as his wife, Pat Hingle as his brother and, recreating her Broadway role, the great MacMahon as Aunt Hannah. Michael Kearney played the boy, a role played on Broadway by John Megna, a child actor best known for his role as Dill in the film, "To Kill a Mockingbird." Philip H. Reisman Jr. did the adaptation for this most affecting film. "All the Way Home" was also filmed twice for televison - first in 1971 with Fred Coe direcing Richard Kiley, Joanne Woodward and (again) Hingle in a teleplay adaptation by Mosel. The second TV version, shot in 1981 by Delbert Mann, starred William Hurt, Sally Field and Ned Beatty. Polly Holliday played Aunt Hannah.

Robert Preston had a terrific second act. Thanks to the success of his signature musical, he went on to do the aforementioned films, plus Sam Peckinpah's "Junior Bonner," Sidney Lumet's "Child's Play" (the above photo of Preston is from the Lumet film), Michael Ritchie's "Semi-Tough" Gene Saks' "Mame," Nick Castle's "The Last Starfighter" and, of course, two Blake Edwards titles, "Victor/Victoria" and "S.O.B."

actresses, adrift

2011-07-30T11:46:00.012-04:00

One of the more curious movie trends of late - either encouraging or distrubing, depending on how one's perspective - has been the terrific performances of some actresses in films that are fair-to-middling.

Case in point: Julia Roberts shrewdly thought-out bravura turn in "Larry Crowne," Tom Hanks' rather facile, TV-movie take on the current economic straits. Working with material that is nearly non-existent, Roberts (smiling above) effortlessly breathes some semblance of real life into a film determined to put a Happy Face on an unfortunate situation.

Running a close second to Roberts is Kate Hudson's full-fledged Movie-Star turn as a high maintenance good-time gal in Luke Greenfield's "Something Borrowed," a film which struggles to be something more, something deeper, than your usual by-the-numbers RomCom/Chick Flick, and that succeeds in its quest whenever Hudson (that's her below with Colin Egglesfield) is on camera. This is the kind vibrant great performance that's too ofter overlooked or hastily dismissed.

Two of our more refreshing young film actresses - Mila Kunis and Emma Stone - are currently also multi-tasking as rescue artists. Their respective films, Will Gluck's "Friends with Benefits" and Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's "Crazy, Stupid, Love," are agreeable but naggingly familiar RomComs - even though the former serves up some hip, rapid-fire dialogue and the latter adds a touch of Bromance for good measure. But Kunis and Stone (who actually manages to upstage a one-note Julianne Moore in her film) both give their movies a much-needed shot in the arm.

The singular Lucy Punch and Cameron Diaz are the game players who elevate Jake Kasdan's "Bad Teacher," while the affecting Jenna Fischer, long overdue for a starring movie role, is the only reason to see Michael J. Weithorn's well-intentioned downer, "A Little Help."

And, finally, there's Jennifer Connelly who soars, comedically, in a film that is way better than "fair-to-middling" - George Ratliff's wise and witty attack on organized religion, "Salvation Boulevard." As a religious fanatic on the verge of a serious meltdown, Connelly affects wildly avid facial expressions and hyper gestures that are topped by her maniacal line readings. She stands out in a cast that includes Pierce Brosnan (always a good sport), Greg Kinnear, Marisa Tomei, Ed Harris and Ciarán Hinds.

façade: Greg Kinnear

2011-07-27T12:20:00.019-04:00

Affable and casually attractive in a way that would have been appreciated within the old studio system, Greg Kinnear is the kind of smoothly reliable actor who rarely commands attention - at least not from the critics.

He's the new Glenn Ford in that regard.

Ever since he made a surprisingly credible leading-man debut in Sydney Pollack's remake of "Sabrina" in 1995, Kinnear has worked steadily and without much fanfare, despite an Oscar nomination two years later for his work in James L. Brooks' "As Good as It Gets" (1997).

A good sport and an all-around generous actor with his co-stars, Kinnear has moved from one movie to another in a little more than a decade, building up an interesting filmography dotted with a fascinating collection of directors - Nora Ephron ("You've Got Mail," 1998), Mike Nichols ("What Planet Are You From?," 2000), Neil LaBute ("Nurse Betty," 2000), Amy Heckerling ("Loser," 2000), Sam Raimi ("The Gift," 2000), Norman Jewison ("Dinner with Friends," 2001), Tony Goldwyn ("Someone Like You," 2001), Paul Schrader ("Auto Focus," 2002), The Farrelly Brothers ("Stuck on You," 2003), Richard Linklater ("The Bad News Bears," 2005, and "Fast Food Nation," 2006), Richard Shepard ("The Matador," 2005), Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris ("Little Miss Sunshine," 2006), Robert Benton ("Feast of Love," 2007) and Marc Abraham (the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't "Flash of Genius," a populist film from 2008 that, for some bizarre, inexplicable reason, never caught on).
In 2008, he provided what little quality and respectability that Michael McCullers'
negligible "Baby Mama" had and did a nimble Cary Grant/"Topper" turn in David Koepp's "Ghost Town."

But last year, Kinnear provided invaluable support to Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass's "Green Zone," and this year, he'll be reunited with his "Matador" co-star
Pierce Brosnan in "Salvation Boulevard," George Ratliff's second film. (Ratliff made his directorial debut with "Joshua.")

Yes, he's the new Glenn Ford. But wait. Every decade, there seems to be talk about exactly who is "the new Cary Grant." Most people point to George Clooney these days as the logical candidate. Makes sense. But Clooney seems to have respectfully excused himself.

"The new Cary Grant"? I go with Greg Kinnear. It's about time we start pointing at him. A little acknowledgement please.

Note in Passing: Kinnear has a third film with Pierce Brosnan in the can: Douglas McGrath's romantic comedy, "I Don't Know How She Does it," also starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Christina Hendricks and Busy Phillips.

cinema obscura: Robert Enders' "Stevie" (1978)

2011-07-25T11:32:00.037-04:00

Jackson with Washbourne, wearing the flowered dress that Jackson's Stevie wittily describes as "they all came up."

Robert Enders' endearing "Stevie" (1978), adapted by Hugh Whitemore from his West End stage play, is essentially a precise acting duet between two titans of the British stage and cinema, Glenda Jackson and Mona Washbourne, respectively playing the poet Stevie Smith and her beloved aunt (who remains agreeably nameless throughout).

Yes, the piece is stagebound but also, somehow, surprisingly cinematic because Enders (a novice filmmaker at the time who worked largely as a producer) fills his movie with a sharp array of words - the tricky, observant wordplay of Smith's poetry (which Jackson reads directly into the camera at intervals) and Whitemore's affectionate imagination of the bracingly articulate conversations between Smith and her aunt, who lived together.

Through all the talk we come to know Stevie and her emotional problems.

Intimately.

All of this is staged in a cozy cottage designed by John Lageu and photographed by Freddie Young with an eye for the prevading warmth of the central relationship and Stevie's work.

There's a third character on the periphery - Freddy, a close friend played on stage by Peter Eyre and in the film by Alec McGowen - as well a Stevie as a child (Emma Louise Fox) who appears in flashbacks, moments that were only spoken about on stage. The addition of the flashbacks, as well as a narrator for the film (courtesy of Trevor Howard's marvelously sonorous intonations), are the only filmic compromises made by Enders, whose fidelity to the piece's frail nature is remarkable and admirable.

"Stevie" remains the only film directed by Enders, who died in 2007. His film was picked up for American distribution by First Artists, a fledgling company which had a short life in the late 1970s and which had little faith in "Stevie." It opened the film for two weeks in Los Angeles in 1978 and then promptly shelved it. Two years later, when First Artists was long gone, Enders bought back his film and opened it on the East Coast in 1980, where it was a huge hit with the critics and art-house patrons.

Other limited engagements in other cities followed.

It was made available on home entertainment in Great Britain, but never here. "Stevie" remains a lost film.

Note in Passing: Because of her film's irregular release pattern, Jackson never received the Oscar nomination that she so fully deserved. But the Golden Globes honored her and Washbourne in 1979 and both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards gave the best actress and supporting actress awards to Jackson and Washbourne in 1981. Washbourne was honored as supporting actress by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards in 1978.

* * *

"Not Waving but Drowning"
by Stevie Smith

"Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning;
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning

"Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

"Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning."

façade: John Goodman

2011-07-14T13:24:00.019-04:00

I first noticed the remarkable character actor John Goodman in David Byrne's 1986 new-style film musical, "True Stories," a film that Goodman made after having just scored big on Broadway in Roger Miller's 1985 musical, "Big River," and having played small roles in such films as "Sweet Dreams" and "Revenge of the Nerds."

He became a staple in some of the best films of the late 1980s and a household name on the TV series, "Roseanne." The choice supporting roles continued to roll in, but in the early '90s, Goodman started to score lead roles, starting with Frank Marshall's "Arachnophobia" in 1990. His name was suddenly above the title - for a while - and then things went back to the way they had been.

I was reminded of this by "The Babe," the 1992 Arthur Hiller film in which Goodman played Babe Ruth and which pops up occasionaly on HBO. Around this time, Goodman had the star roles in Joe Dante's "Matinee," David S. Ward's "King Ralph" (opposite Peter O'Toole, no less), Brian Levant's "The Flintstones" and Luis Mandoki's remake of "Born Yesterday" (in which Goodman replaced Nick Nolte). He was also Bette Midler's leading man in "Stella," a re-do of "Stella Dallas."

But as dazzling as these roles may have been for Goodman, they paled beside the exceptional supporting turns he did, particularly those for the Coen Brothers -"Raising Arizona," "The Hudsucker Proxy," "Barton Fink," "The Big Lebowski" and "O Brother, Where art Thou?"

More recently, Goodman single-handedly rescued Andy and Larry Wachowski's "Speed Racer," as only he can.

A true supporting player, invaluable.

indelible moment: John Huston's "The Misfits"

2011-07-14T13:23:00.023-04:00

"Horse killers! Killers! Murderers!

"You're liars! All of you, liars!

"You're only happy when you can see something die!

"Why don't you kill yourselves and be happy?!

"You and your God's country! Freedom! I pity you! You're three dear, sweet, dead men!

"Butchers! Murderers!

"I pity you! You're three dead men!"

-Marilyn Monroe as Roslyn, a lonely, stricken divorcée begging three modern cowboys - played by Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach - not to trap wild horses for dog food Note in Passing: "The Misfits" airs at 8 p.m. 16 July on Turner Classic Movies. Meanwhile, MM's body of work continues to be celebrated in a retrospective simply titled "Marilyn!" at BAM Cinémark, the film arm of the Brooklyn Art Museum, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn NY, 11217 (718-636-4100), through 17 July. To borrow a quote from that wise bard, Ms. Lorelei Lee of Howard Hawks' "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes":

"Thank you ever so!"

cinema obscura: Otto Preminger's "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon" (1970)

2011-07-11T13:53:00.014-04:00

While the resourceful Olive Films, which has access to the sadly neglected films in the Paramount library, has come to the rescue of two latter-day Otto Preminger films - 1967's “Hurry Sundown,” based on Preminger's favorite source, the bestsellers, and 1972's “Such Good Friends,” a dip into trendiness via Elain May's pseudonymous script - the title that came between these two is still missing.

"Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon," based on another best-seller (by Marjoria Kellogg), was released in 1970, the year of Altman's "M*A*S*H," Wadleigh's "Woodstock" and, yes, Hiller's "Love Story." It seemed to fit in nowhere - neither in the radical cinema of Altman nor the more traditional mode of Erich Segal. Which made sense, given that the film itself is about a ragtag family of misfits.

This most affecting "little" film features Liza Minnelli in the title role as a young woman with a grotesquely scarred face (courtesy of battery acid tossed at her by her boy friend) and, as her roomies, Ken Howard as an epileptic and the late stage (and occasional film) director Robert Moore as a wheelchair-using gay man.

James Coco, who would star along with Howard again in "Such Good Friends," was also in the cast.

"Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon" was an anomaly for Hollywood at the time, as was Coppola's "The Rain People" - namely, an art film made within the constraints of a hulking studio. It didn't stand a chance. It was doomed. It also appears to be lost.

Note in Passing: Robert Moore would direct a trio of Neil Simon films - "The Cheap Detective," "Murder by Death" and "Chapter Two" - before his death in 1984; he also helmed the 1976 televison version of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," with Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Laurence Olivier, and Maureen Stapleton.

ox-bow, updated

2011-07-06T15:27:00.007-04:00

Not surprisingly, the American lynch-mob mentality reared its ugly head following the Casey Anthony trial. The judgmental vitriol exhibited is reminiscent of “A Cry in the Dark,” Fred Schepisi's excellent 1988 film in which Meryl Streep played Lindy Chamberlain, the Australian woman demonized because her form of grief following the killing of her child didn’t meet societal standards, making her suspect.

It's a disturbing film and the American public should be forced to watch it so that it can witness a mirror image of itself.

To that end, "A Cry in the Dark" should be played on a loop with Billy Wilder's prescient 1951 film, "Ace in a Hole" (aka, "The Big Carnival"), which indicted the ravenous meat-eating ways of the media and its penchant for turning human tragedy into a circus.

And that was 60 years ago.

huh?

2011-07-03T22:09:00.013-04:00

The ubiquitous Alec Baldwin has apparently become a permanent staple of Turner Classic Movies' weekly The Essentials series, which he co-hosts with Turner's house expert, Robert Osborne, and where he makes facile quips with great authority and misguided confidence.

He often seems silly, never more so than after Saturday's screening of Charles Chaplin's 1931 silent gem "City Lights" - "a comedy romance in pantomime" - when he pronounced that Chaplin's modern heirs are two comic actors who have worked with Baldwin. Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller.

Say what?

Osborne looked stricken, with back arched as he clutched the arms of his chair in disbelief - and with an expression on his face resembling something out of an Edvard Munch painting. Much to his credit, the usually deferential Osborne did not let the ridiculous comment slide but actually challenged it.

Given Carrey's penchant for physical comedy, one could almost - almost - see his similarity to Chaplin. It's a stretch. It requires squinting your eyes.

But Ben Stiller! He's an urbane, funny performer, actually the polar opposite of Chaplin.

The sad fact is, there is no modern equivalent to Charlies Chaplin.

Movies have moved on, replacing his sophisticated simplicity with coarse simple-mindedness.

It's rather like comparing Alec Baldwin to ... Cary Grant.

so far

2011-07-01T12:39:00.055-04:00

The movie year 2011. So far. Not your usual movie year. Which is something I appreciate. In fact, it's been a real grab-bag of oddities.

Which I also appreciate.

Case in point: The following oddball ten - which I consider to be the best of 2011. To date. Be forewarned, however. The choices are a tad eclectic.

1. Hans Petter Moland's “A Somewhat Gentle Man” (“En ganske snill mann”) - A veritable one-man film, showcasing the estimable talents of Stellan Skarsgård, who gives a deft, droll performance as an ex-con/ex-murderer trying to redeem himself in an ugly world. A small, wry film with an amusing supporting cast - the women are especially, well, colorful.

2. Woody Allen's
“Midnight in Paris” - Woody Allen doing Woody Allen, with Owen Wilson also doing Woody Allen. And perfectly. The Paris setting is the whipped cream on this dreamy confection.

3. Dan Rush's “Everything Must Go” - A slip of a Raymond Carver short story has been ever-so-gently molded into a feature-length film about the melancholy - and euphoria - of losing everything. Will Ferrell is our guide through his hero's travails, both witty and sad.

4. Giuseppe Capotondi's
“The Double Hour” (“La doppia ora”) - At once creepy, sexy, sordid and compulsively watchable, Capotondi's Italian crime drama stars Kseniya Rappoport as a hotel maid and Flippo Timi as an ex-cop turned security guard who meet intially at a speed dating seminar - and elsewhere. Their paths keep crossing, lethally.
5. Dennis Dugan's “Just Go With It” - A genuinely hilarious modern comedy about deception/mistaken identity, an update of Abe Burrows' "Cactus Flower" (by way of a French stage comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy), with Adam Sandler continuing to hone his soulful side and Jennifer Aniston proving, as The New Yorker's Richard Brody so aptly put it, to be "a genre unto herself." She has great comic timing, terrific rapport with Sandler and does a mean Mean Girl duet with good sport Nicole Kidman. This hastily dismissed film "nicely combines Adam Sandler's acerbic sweetness with Aniston's down-to-earth warmth," as critic Mick LaSalle wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle.

6. Tom McCarthy's
“Win Win” - McCarthy (that's him on the left), who seems like Sturges, Wilder and McCarey roled into one, delivers another of his sharp character-driven dramedies, in which nice people do bad things and often - now get this - on purpose. Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Melanie Lynskey, Burt Young and the magnificent Margo Martindale make fine company here.

7. J.J. Abrams' “Super 8” - Abrams brings the Spielberg oeuvre kicking and screaming into the New Millenium, replete with a knockoff John Williams score by Michael Giacchino.

8. François Ozon's “Potiche” (“Trophy Wife”) - A slight, very slight love letter to Catherine Deneuve, which actually ends with the cast applauding the star. Shameless. (Based on a play by the aforementioned/ubiquitous Barillet and Grédy.)

9. Brad Furman's “The Lincoln Lawyer” - A throwback to the 1970s, an era of filmmaking that Furman nails. Matthew McConaughey channels Burt Reynolds.

10. Terrence Malick's “The Tree of Life” - Sure it's pretentious and ponderous and ever-so-entitled but it's a Malick, after all. Which also means that it's gorgeous and, more to the point, thoughtful, a rarity in modern movies. Once again, Malick has made a film in which his actors are so muted they're almost irrelevant to his filmic mission statement. And once again, Malick has made a film difficult to ignore.

And the fascinating combos:

“Source Code”/”Unknown”/”Limitless”/”The Adjustment Bureau” - All wannabe Hitchcocks and all fairly effective.

“Twelve Thirty”/”Lebanon, Pa.” - Two genuinely old-fashioned indie films, the kind made before film festivals and studio boutique branches bastardized them.

"Bridesmaids”/”Bad Teacher” - A duo that proves that filthy-mouthed women are more palatable than filthy-mouthed men. There's been no greater guilty pleasure in movies this year than the sight of Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids" - stradlding a sink, sick with diarrhea - ordering Wendi McLendon-Covey (who is busy vomiting in the toilet) to "Look away!" Her reading of that two-word line is perfect.

The dinner that leads to all kinds of intestinal mayhem

ten years

2011-06-27T09:37:00.008-04:00

"Jack Lemmon has become the perfect personification of all harassed mankind - the outranked, outnumbered, outmanipulated little fellow with sound instincts and bad judgment. He is the one who is always taken advantage of. And if, in the end, he emerges triumphant, it's because of a basic decency rather than superior cunning or sudden inspiration."

-an unsigned critique of Richard Murphy's "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" (1961) in Saturday Review (written most likely by Hollis Alpert)

"From the moment he pokes the doorbell of Kim Novak's London house and starts sparking brightly on the instant she guardedly answers it, Lemmon is full of delightful little gurgles, witty spayings, appreciate looks and all the amusing indications of a healthy fellow falling - well, in love ... Credit a clever little story and a comic performance by Lemmon that twinkles like a mischief-maker's eyes for the unexpected good humor that generally crackles and pops in Columbia's 'The Notorious Landlady,' which came to the Criterion and the Beekman yesterday."

-Bosley Crowther reviewing Richard Quine's film (1962) in The New York Times

Jack Lemmon, ever boyish, died on 27 June, 2001

henry, alice & george

2011-06-25T21:28:00.007-04:00

The death of that Broadway ball of energy, Alice Playten (1947-2011), brought back a flood of memories of George Roy Hill's 1964 lark, "The World of Henry Orient," and its lesser-known musical incarnation three years later, "Henry, Sweet Henry."

For Hill, an under-appreciated filmmaker if there ever was one, it was a fleeting return to his roots. Hill directed the original stage production of the Tennessee Williams comedy, "Period of Adjustment," and when MGM made it into a movie in 1962, Hill was part of the package, guiding star Jane Fonda through one of her most charming performances.

He followed this directorial debut with another filmed play, Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic," made a year later and starring Dean Martin, Geraldine Page and Wendy Hiller.

"Henry Orient," starring Peter Sellers at his most incorrigible, was Hill's third film, based on the novel of the same name by Nora Johnson. When Hill decided to translate the material into a stage musical - a great idea, by the way - he recruited veteran screen writer Nunnally Johnson (the father of Nora) to do the adaptation and Bob Merrill to compose the music and lyrics. Don Ameche assumed the title role of the hapless lothario-pianist, and Neva Small and Robin Wilson took over the roles his loyal fans, created in the film by Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker, respectively.

The show opened in 1967 the same week as "Hair," and seemed hopelessly dated to the critics, who hastily dismissed it - in spite of a terrific score by Merrill (the title song, sung by Small and Wilson, is especially wonderful) and a showstopping supporting performance by Playten as Lillian Kafritz, a little snip of a girl who is totally, shamelessly evil. The original Mean Girl.

The eternally youthful-looking Playten was 20 playing the role of a 13-year-old and she brought the house down with her two numbers - the hilarious "Nobody Steps on Kafritz" and the devious "Poor Little Person."

Funny how someone's passing - someone you really didn't know - can transport you back in time, isn't it? Today, for a couple blissful hours, I dreamily returned to Radio City Music Hall, where I saw "The World of Henry Orient" during the spring of 1964 and to the Palace Theater where I enjoyed "Henry, Sweet Henry" - and Alice Playten - during the show's too-short run.

Note in Passing: Playten, with her Kewpie doll looks and disarming little-girl's voice, was a talk-show staple during the 1970s, appearing with Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett, but her true triumph was the classic commercial for Alka Seltzer that she did with Terry Kiser, playing a bride thumbing through a cookbook looking for dubious meals for her groom:

"Stuffed crab surprise, creamed duck delight, marshmallowed meatballs, sweet and sour snails ... yum! ... POACHED OYSTERS!"

Priceless.

angel face

2011-06-25T10:53:00.008-04:00

Poised somewhere between Deborah Kerr and Elizabeth Taylor, between Kerr's reserved British demeanor and Taylor's affecting smolder, Jean Simmons never quite received the recognition she deserved - although I'd argue that, of the three, she was the best actress. Certainly, the most versatile and adaptable.

Turner Classic Movies has been paying tribute to her in June as its Star of the Month, screening 26 of her films over four Tuesday evenings, including her fine work in Joseph Mankiewicz's discordant "Guys and Dolls," Robert Wise's charming "This Could Be the Night," George Cukor's seminal "The Actress" and Otto Preminger's terrific "Angel Face."

Arugably, the best night to watch Jean is the long evening of 28-29 June, when TCM screens her strong performances in Mervyn LeRoy's "Home Before Dark," Ted Kotcheff's "Life at the Top," Robert Wise's "Until They Sail," William Wyler's "The Big Country," and the Richard Brooks duo, "Elmer Gantry" and "The Happy Ending." I'll be up.

Note in Passing: You'll have to wait until 9 August to catch Jean in Bud Yorkin's excellent marital comedy, "Divorce - American-Style."

façade: Glenda Jackson

2011-04-16T22:57:00.002-04:00

The Great Glenda with Peter Finch and Murray Head in John Schlesinger's lacerating masterwork, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971)

Watching Meryl Streep giddily go through her "She Can Do No Wrong" phase brings to mind two major actresses from the 1970s who enjoyed the same free pass - Liv Ullmann and Glenda Jackson.

But my mind is really on Jackson. Ullmann still works in movies - occasionally as an actress, more often as a filmmaker herself - but Jackson, always something more of an activist than an actress, made a crucial decision to walk away.

And when she did, people - her fans, the critics - seem to have walked away, too. In the opposite direction. Jackson's name is rarely invoked these days in movie reviews or film essays. I don't know why - because when she was active, she was positively electric. There was always this unquenchable hunger in a Glenda Jackson performance. It was as if she wanted to make acting so much more than what it was.

In retrospect, she was far too serious for what is essentially a silly profession - play acting. At least, Streep seems to be aware of the joke (see her performances in "Mamma Mia!" and the current "Julie & Julia") but Jackson couldn't really make light of it. And so she left.

It was during her last few years of acting that Jackson became actively involved in politics in her native Great Britain and she formally and officially retired from acting in order to enter the House of Commons in the 1992 general election as the Labour Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Highgate. She is currently Labour MP for the constituency of Hampstead and Highgate in the London Borough of Camden.

I feel fairly confident that she is giving an on-going passionate performance in her new role. It would be nice to once again witness that no-nonsense Jackson drive - that sometimes frightening energy that she brought to such Ken Russell films as "Women in Love" (her Oscar winner) and "The Music Lovers," as well as John Schlesinger's "Sunday Bloody Sunday," Robert Ender's "Stevie," Charles Jarrott's "Mary, Queen of Scotts" (opposite Vanessa Redgrave!), John Irvin's "Turtle Diary" and even her wicked cameo in Russell's "The Boy Friend" and her romcom turn in Melvin Frank's "A Touch of Class." I could go on.

Thinking about her makes me long for her once again. Glenda Jackson is now 73. It is unlikely she will ever make another movie.

But thank God for video!

modern mediocrity & better stuff

2011-04-12T08:38:00.044-04:00

"Big Bang Theory" - the polar opposite of mediocre

"Modern Family," the sitcom that apparently has been the answer to all of ABC's desperate prayers, is the latest bit of dreariness to be hastily acclaimed by TV critics.

This is understandable, given what's on the tube these days and how anxious TV scribes are to demonstrate to their readers and their bosses that they aren't completely negative. I mean, you have to like something if you want to keep your job in an era when critics are not only expendable but completely unnecesssary.

And, of all the mediums, televison is the most critic-proof.

"Modern Family" - created by Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd - isn't necessarily bad, just depressingly conventional.

Let's see... There's the sassy wife (the indespensible, show-saving Julie Bowen), her boob of a husband (the increasingly irritating, unamusing Ty Burrell), her vulgar, crotchety father (Ed O'Neill playing an updated, well-heeled version of Archie Bunker, something which at least, oh, three viewers were absolutely dying to see, right?) and a bunch of kids who talk like, well, middle-aged sitcom writers. This is revolutionary?

No, it's the other characters who give this dated piece the semblence of a new paint job - a gay couple (played by a very good Eric Longstreet and the hugely annoying Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and the granddad's va-va-voom Latina wife (Sofía Viagra - er, Vergara - who is actually more annoying than Ferguson). I say all of this not on the basis of just watching the show's pilot or two or three subsequent episodes but all of them.

I didn't exactly refuse the Kool-Aid that everyone else seemingly drank.

Masochism? No. I just had to see if I was the one who was out of step - or every TV critic in America. This reception isn't surprising, given that "Modern Family" has the veneer of trendiness and entitlement - qualities that the public (and critics) too often mistake for sophistication. ("Murphy Brown" and "Frasier" are two other humdrum sitcoms that came with the same sense of entitlement, effectively hookwinking audiences.)

In the meantime, there are - for me, at least - four other present sitcoms deserving of the acclaim that has been so mindlessly lavished on MF.

For starters, there's "The Big Bang Theory," covered here in August of '09 in which I proffered the opinion that its creator Chuck Lorre was channeling Howard Hawks' "Ball of Fire" in his celebration of nerddom. Stars Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch have become close friends.

Then there's the Independent Film Channel's eccentric, eclectic and very saavy "Portlandia," created by and starring the new Mike Nichols and Elaine May - Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

Sweet and fractured are the two best words to describe Greg Garcia's completely endearing "Raising Hope," shown on Fox. Martha Plympton is a revelation and comes into her own as the way-casual matriarch of the blue-collar Chance clan that sweats the small things but manage to sail through major catastrophes unscathed. Cloris Leachman is inventively used each week as a running joke on old-age dementia - which would be cruel if each joke wasn't so darn funny and observant. Lucas Neff, Shannon Woodard and Garrett Dillahunt round out the excellent cast. Finally, there's "The Middle," the criminally neglected ABC show that precedes the overrated "Modern Family" and that has more heart and more laughs in a single episode than MF has had for the past two seasons. Patricia Heaton is, hands-down, the wittiest woman working in Hollywood and her Frankie Heck is the most inspired female character to show up on TV in ages.

And she is ably supported by the wonderful Neil Flynn as her husband and the three kid actors who actually seem like kids and not something recruited from a cereal commercial - Charlie McDermott, Eden Sher and Atticus Shaffer.

cinema obscura: John Korty's "Alex and the Gypsy" (1976)

2011-04-08T12:35:00.021-04:00

I suppose that it's a sign of wavering faith when a studio goes through as many titles for a film as a moviegoer goes through popcorn.

Jack Lemmon's now-forgotten "Alex and the Gypsy," which the actor made for one-time directing wunderkind John Korty, is one of those unfortunate films. Made and released by 20th Century-Fox in 1976, the movie's assorted working titles included "The Gypsy and the Phoenician," "The Main Man and the Gypsy," "Tattoo" and "Skipping." At the producer's sneak preview that I attended in Westwood in September of '76, the on-screen credit read "Love and Other Crimes." Good title.

But by the time it was released a month later, it was "Alex and the Gypsy."

The edgy movie was an attempt by Lemmon to keep up with the changing times. Director Korty was a critics' darling who specialized in small indie films ("riverrun," "Crazy Quilt" and "Funnyman") and first-rate TV films ("The Diary of Miss Jane Pitman" and "Go Ask Alice"). "Alex" would be his first film for a major studio. His next, Paramount's "Oliver's Story" two years later, pretty much ended Korty's big-screen career.

He's worked exclusively in TV ever since.

Lemmon's co-star, meanwhile - the Gypsy of the title - was the unique, tempestuous Geneviève Bujold who was the go-to actress at the time when a filmmaker wanted someone who was young, singular and trendy.

"Alex" also marked the first major screen role for James Woods following his bits in Sydney Pollack's "The Way We Were," Karel Reisz's "The Gambler and Arthur Penn's "Night Moves," a good role in Elia Kazan's low-profile (way low-profile) "The Visitors" and a small sampling of TV credits.

Lemmon had just come off Melvin Frank's film of Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," in which he turned in one of his finest, if least heraled, performances and was looking for the antithesis of Neil Simon. Lawrence B. Marcus's script for "Alex" resembled nothing that Lemmon had ever done before, dealing with a fiery love affair between mismatched people - an affair told bracingly in unchronological form. The action skips around, buncing back and forth in time, revealing bits and pieces that add up to a colorful, multi-dimensional whole.

Thirty-five years ago, this film apparently both exhilarated and baffled Fox. It was something that mainstream studios rarely, if ever, pursued. "Alex and the Gypsy" suffered the fate of being ahead of its time. If there was ever a template film for Fox Searchlight, this is it.

Lemmon plays Alexander Main, a rumpled, cynical bail bondsman (the middle-aged counterpart to the Elliott Gould of that era) and Bujold is Maritza, a woman from his past who has stabbed her husband and now needs Main's services. However, he's reluctant, given that she's "crazy" (his word) and likely to skip. On the sidelines is Wood as Crainpool, Main's Bartlesby-like office assistant for whom Main once posted bail and, as a form of repayment, keeps the young man in veritable servitude.

"Alex and the Gypsy" is worth discovering - or rediscovering. It's a pitch-black comedy - grim, gritty and unapologetically realistic. And it gives Bujold one of film's great fade-out lines. (Spoiler alert, here!) Yes, Maritza does skip on Alex by chartering a small plane. As he desperately chases after it down the runway, the pilot asks her, "Who the hell is that?"

"Oh, him," she replies. "He's just a crazy gypsy."

Note in Passing: Like Fox, Jack was also somewhat unsure of "Alex and the Gypsy." In his book, "A Twist of Lemmon," Chris Lemmon recounts how his father asked buddy Walter Matthau what he thought of it.

Without missing a beat, Matthau quipped, "Get out of it."

Bad advice - comical but bad nevertheless.

For what it's worth, Jack followed "Alex" with ... "Airport '77," studio drek about as far away from counterculture cinema as one can get.

Truth be told, I've always marched to a different drummer where Jack's films are concerned and I humbly submit "Alex and the Gypsy" as one of his better efforts, certainly in terms of his brave performance.

Release it on DVD already!

turner classic movies. april. 2011.

2011-04-01T12:11:00.023-04:00

Turner Classic
Movies in April puts the spotlight on Ray Milland, its star of the month, screening 30 films that spanned a 22-year career, including his Oscar-winning role in Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend (1945), pictured here and airing at 8 p.m. (est) on 26 April.

The month kicks off with a mini-tribute to Jane Powell, one of MGM's more endearing musical-comedy talents who, from where I sit, was never fully appreciated by Metro. (Those deadly "That's Entertainment!" films kept pushing Judy, Fred and Gene, while ignoring such essentials Powell, Howard Keel and The Champions.) Worth checking out, Powell-wise, are Leslie Kardos' "Small Town Girl" (1953), airing on 1 April at 6 a.m.; definitely Roy Rowland's "Hit the Deck" (1955) at 4 p.m. and Roy Del Ruth's "Three Sailors and a Girl" (1953), with the indispensible Gene Nelson, at 6 p.m.

In his Friday, October 25, 1963 review, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote:

"Obviously, Mervyn LeRoy did a little bit more than merely place his camera in the Helen Hayes Theater and shoot a straight running photograph of a performance of 'Mary, Mary' to get a film of the Jean Kerr comedy. But you would hardly be able to tell it from the rigidly setbound quality of his film version of the long-run stage play, which came to the (Radio City) Music Hall yesterday."
That just about says it all. Rarely has a film of a play been as faithful as LeRoy's film version of Kerr's urbane comedy, which was the most celebrated stage farce of its time. Turner airs it at 10 p.m., 1 April. As Crowther indicated, the work of LeRoy's art director John Beckman and set decorator Ralph S. Hurst borrows heavily from the play's famed designer, Oliver Smith. Debbie Reynolds took over Barbara Bel Geddes's stage role, but the play's leading men, Barry Nelson and Michael Rennie, were back on that familiar set.

Yes, the film - about a divorced couple brought together for income tax purposes - is stagebound, but that's not necessarily bad. I like the idea of being transported back to the Helen Hayes Theater in 1960. The film perfectly approximates the joy of attending a matinee performance of a stylish, sophisticated comedy.

Jean Kerr, who wrote "Mary, Mary," was of course the wife of the Times' great theater critic, Walter Kerr, and her adventures as the wife of a critic has been the subject of two other films - Charles Walters' bubbly "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (1960), with Doris Day and David Niven as Jean's and Walter's on-screen surrogages, and Don Weis' "Critic's Choice," the film version of the 1960 Ira Levin stage comedy with Bob Hope as a theater critic whose wife, played by Lucille Ball, writes her own play.

"Secret Ceremony" (1968), a helping of fabulous trash directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow as a faux mother-daughter team and Robert Mitchum, airs at 2 a.m. on 2 April. I suggest you either stay up late or tape it.
Joshua Logan is not exactly beloved by cinéphiles but I like his filmography and his movie version of "Tall Story" (1960), the play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse which he directed on Broadway, remains a hugely watchable collegiate delight. Jane Fonda, in her film debut, plays a girl who goes to college largely to snare a tall man. Anthony Perkins, in the role created on Broadway by Hans Conreid, is the basketball star she hopes to ensnare. There's top support here by Ray Walston, Anne Jackson, Murray Hamilton, the playwright Marc Connelly,Joe E. Ross and, in a small bit, Tom Laughlin and, an even smaller role, Robert Redford.

Perkins made "Tall Story" the same year that Hitchcock's "Psycho" was released. The two roles could not be more dissimilar and we all know which one took. Immediately following "Tall Story" are two more Perkins titles, both directed by Anatole Litvak - "Goodbye Again" (1961) and "Five Miles to Midnight" (1963), both in glorious black-and-white and pretty glorious in themselves.

You can't go wrong with Billy Wilder's "The Major and the Minor" (1942), starring what is probably my favorite actress, Ginger Rogers, in a comic tour-de-force. It airs at 8 p.m. on 5 April. A few days later, on 7 April, James Garner commands the spotlight on Turner with a day of screenings that culminates with a 6:15 p.m. screening of Delbert Mann's intriguing "Mister Buddwing" (1966) perhaps Garner's artiest film - an Evan Hunter story which pairs the actor with Jean Simmons, Katherine Ross, Susanne Pleshette and Angela Lansbury.

Elia Kazan honoros his heritage with the stirring personal epic (all 168 minutes of it), "America, America" (1963) at 12:20 a.m. on 10 April.

As for the rest of the day, Turner Classic Movies will preempt its scheduled programming for a memorial tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, screening the following titles (all times Eastern) through 11 April:
6 a.m. – Lassie Come Home (1943)
7:30 a.m. – National Velvet (1944)
10 a.m. – Conspirator (1952)

11:30 a.m. – Father of the Bride (1950)
1:15 a.m. – Father’s Little Dividend (1951)
2:45 p.m. – Raintree County (1957)
6 p.m. – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
8 p.m. – BUtterfield 8 (1960)
10 p.m. – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
12:30 a.m. – Giant (1956)
4 a.m. – Ivanhoe (1952)

A shameless, obscenely entertaining guilty pleasure, "Home Before Dark" is a tangy, campy soap opera in which director Mervyn LeRoy out-Sirks Douglas Sirk.

This handsome 1958 Warner Bros. film, which Turner airs at 2:30 p.m. on 11 April, deserves the success - and the following - that Sirk's "Imitation of Life" enjoyed a year later. Instead, it has fallen into oblivion. Who knows what happened? Perhaps, at 136 minutes, the film was a tad too long to be fully companionable for audiences. Too long? Personally, I wouldn't sacrifice a minute.

Or perhaps Joseph F. Biroc's handsome black-and-white cinematography put off people who were expecting Technicolored glamour. Or maybe, Jean Simmons, its leading lady, was more of an actress than a Star, unlike "Imitation of Life's" Lana Turner who clearly relished the high-camp theatricality of Sirk's piece.

The skeletal plot, written by Eileen and Robert Bassing (based on a novel by Eileen), is also something of a heartbreaker, with Simmons cast as Charlotte, a woman unwanted by her pretentious husband Arnold (Dan O'Herlihy), who conspires with her stepmother Inez (Mabel Albertson) and stepsister Joan (Rhonda Fleming) to steal Charlotte's inheritance from her father. Charlotte is especially fragile, having just been released from a state mental facility in Massachusetts - and it becomes clear what drove her there. Exacerbating matters, her husband is having an affair with the stepsister.

LeRoy masterfully exploits the juiciness of his material, taking it into camp when necessary, such as the delicious sequence in which, Charlotte, more unstable than usual, has her hair done up like Joan's platinum 'do, buys a dress that Joan would wear and generally makes a fool of herself at a dinner party - all to impress Arnold and win his love.

Simmons, who gives a quiet, relatively simple performance considering the material, won the New York Film Critics award for this top-notch, seriously neglected film.

"Home Before Dark" will be sandwiched by Paul Henried's juicy Bette Davis vehicle,"Dead Ringer" (1964) and Vincent Sherman's Paul Newman-starrer, "The Young Philadelphians" (1959).

RKO raided MGM for its casting of James V. Kerns sprightly film musical, "Two Tickets to Broadway" (1951), with a nifty score by Sammy Cahn (who came up with the story for the film) and Jule Styne. Janet Leigh, Tony Martin, Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven and Ann Miller head the cast of this unsung charmer, with the inimitable Barbara Lawrence (a Fox contract player) on hand for good measure.

"Hostile Witness," airing at 3:30 a.m. on 13 April, is a play that star-of-the-month Ray Milland first appeared on London's West End in 1966 and, later than year, moved to Broadway's Music Box Theater. It played on Broadway for 156 performances, after which Milland toured the U.S. with a road production and then made it into a film, directing it himself. Milland plays an attorney with a knack for successfully defending guilty criminals. In his New York Times review on 18 February, 1966, Stanley Kaufmann called Jack Roffey's play "sturdy and servicable" - an example of "that hardy perennial, the courtroom melodrama."

For something lighter, there's George Marshall's comic Civil War novelty, "Adance to the Rear" (1964) with the appealing cast of Glenn Ford, Stella Stevens and Melvyn Douglas, at 11:30 p.m. on 13 April, followed immediately by the early Mitzi Gaynor vehicle, "Golden Girl" (1951), directed by Lloyd Bacon. Jack Lemmon has one of his more curious film roles in Robert Parrish's "Fire Down Below" (1957) in which he and Robert Mitchum are the unlikely owners of a tramp steamer with a single passanger - a very shady Rita Hayworth. Well, at least it has a catchy title song. Catch it at 11:30 p.m. on 16 April.

Delmer Daves wore many hats as a filmmaker, which made it impossible to pidgeon-hole him. He often moonlighted as the Douglas Sirk of the teen melodrama and, "Parrish" (1961) is something of his masterwork in this singular genre, what with Troy Donohue in the title role, Claudette Colbert as his mother and Karl Malden, scaring the bejesus out him as his wicked stepfather. Compulsively watchable, "Parrish" airs at 4 p.m. on 17 April.

Speaking of singulr, Chantal Ackerman is highlighted with two works early on 18 April - her towering "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975), with the sublime Dlphine Seyrig as a most unlikely prostitute, and the documentary "Hotel Monterey" (1972), about the residents of that hotel. This invaluable double-bill kicks off at 2 a.m.

Turner, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War this month with 34 titles, offers one of the lesser known at 5 a.m. on 19 April - Phil Karlson's "A Time for Killing" (1967), starring Glenn Ford and Inger Stevens.

Doris Day earns a seven-film tribute on 22 April, with Hy Averback's difficult-to-see "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?," one of Day's final films, airing at 4:30 p.m. It's all about the infamous New York blackout, during which she somehow got pregnant. Terry-Thomas and Robert Morse co-star.

The month winds down with Henry Koster's "The Inspector General" (1949) with a very good Danny Kaye at 9:30 a.m. on 27 April; Phil Karlson's "The Phenix City Story" (1955) at 10 a.m. on 29 April and another Glenn Ford title, Delbert Mann's "Dear Heart" (1964) at 4 p.m. on the same day.

Moving into May, you don't want to miss the irristable Stanely Donen film musical, "Give a Girl a Break" (1953) at 4:30 a.m. on 1 May. It stars Debbie Reynolds, Bob Fosse and The Champions - Marge and Gower.

dave kehr: when movies mattered

2011-03-26T13:22:00.010-04:00

Ryan O'Neal is Hill's driver in a movie that matters

Übercritic Dave Kehr celebrates his upcoming, aptly title anthology of reviews, "When Movies Mattered: Reviews from a Transformative Decade" (University of Chicago Press), with two days of screenings of five titles analyzed in his tome at The Museum of Modern Image, 36-01 35th Avenue, Astoria, New York (718-777-6888), on March 26–27.

The exceptional titles include "Sailor's Luck" (Raoul Walsh, 1933); "The Driver" (Walter Hill, 1978); "That Obscure Object of Desire" (Luis Buñuel, 1977); "Melvin and Howard" (Jonathan Demme; 1980), and "Every Man for Himself" (Jean-Luc Godard; 1980).

the last movie star

2011-03-23T09:20:00.036-04:00

She's with Richard now. Her beloved Richard.

And with Mike and Monty and Roddy and Rock and Jimmy.

Elizabeth Taylor, second only to Mickey Rooney in terms of having the capacity to hang around seemingly forever, has had her final fade-out. The End. But she's left us with a wealth of films and a score of memories of someone who was not just a bona fide Renaissance woman, but a woman for all seasons - a reason to cuddle up with on a long, lazy summer night at an outdoor screening or on a long, chilly wintry night in front of a TV glowing with one of her movies.

She made her film debut at the wee age of 10 - in Harold Young's "There's One Born Every Minute" of 1942 - and for the past 70 or so years, some of us have watched her grow, grow up, carouse, suffer and survive. She seemed to have one hell of a good time, and we all shared in it vicariously, because Elizabeth Taylor was probably the most public - and, reportedly, generous - person we've ever known.

Close to being "family."

Elizabeth Taylor was - is - The Last Movie Star, certainly the last representative of the Golden Age of Movies. In her, we saw a blend of the theatrical and the real (she was never outright artificial), which I think is the essence of stardom. Taylor remained glamorous and larger than life, even at a time when those qualities were either denigrated or turned into something camp. She was the last remaining goddess in a godless age.

Taylor, in addition to her rapturous beauty and spunk, had a penchant for acting out our fantasies, a time-honored tradition in movies.

She had been a powerful presence on screen in something like 50 movies. In life, she was critiqued, analyzed by the press and deified by fans. There have been in-depth magazine articles, a few books and, predictably, an attempt (albeit aborted) to do a televison movie on her life.

The fact is, however - and this is the reason for her enduring box-office appeal - her life's tale has been told already, time and time again, via several thousand miles of celluloid, in everything frrm Fred M. Wilcox's "Lassie Come Home" (1943), her first major role, to Harold Prince's "A Little Night Music" (1978), a movie and role (as Desiree Armfeldt) that probably captured the Taylor temperament and charm better than any others. "Night Music" is her story - only told in song.

Courtesy of Stephen Sondheim.

When she sings Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" in her tiny, tentative voice, it just sounds right. That little girl's voice somehow redefined the weary maturity of the song, making it more poignant.

Growing up with Elizabeth Taylor, from "Lassie" to "Night Music," we've been able to see her through several incarnations. We've seen that "grown-up" child's face give way to the face of a sensualist (with never an "awkward period" in-between), commanding our attention with haughty violet eyes that were like jewels. (God - those eyes glorious, shining eyes have been dimmed!) Only the snippiness of her little girl's voice remained the same, the one link between little Velvet Brown in "National Velvet" (1944), arguably her greatest movie role, and wanton Gloria Wandrous in "BUtterfield 8" (1960), a role and film that the actress thoroughly detested, despite the Oscar it brought her. And she had the confidence to say so.

It's a toss-up, I guess, as to when Elizabeth Taylor was at her most beautiful, looking every inch Hollywood royalty. I, for one, find it impossible to watch "National Velvet," a rare family film about passion and obsession, without losing myself to that painfully beautiful face, which was already the face of an adult. And she was only 12.

Elizabeth Taylor's career was clearly divided into three parts, starting with her MGM period, during which she was largely wasted. Her resources weren't really tapped until 1951, when MGM loaned her to Paramount for George Stevens' "A Place in the Sun" and her power wasn't evident until 1956 when she was loaned out again to Stevens and Warner Bros. for "Giant."

She remained artistically in control of those resources and power until 1967, the year of Franco Zeffirelli's "The Taming of the Shrew" and John Huston's "Reflections in a Golden Eye." Thereafter, her career went downhill with only a few features, mostly lackluster, and TV appearances.

But there have been roles to savor... Kay Banks, the young bride in Vincente Minnelli's "Father of the Bride" (1950) and Angela Vickers, the debutante she played in "A Place in the Sun" are women of that great combination - good breeding and accessibility. In "Giant," she played the mature, liberated family woman, a role that Taylor socked across by dint of her own feisty personality. She imbues Edna Ferber's heroine, Leslie Lynnton Benedict,
with a soft facade and a core of steel. She voices a need for self-expression, fulfillment and assertion that were rare for a woman in films in the 1950s. She, of course, played Tennessee Williams' Maggie the Cat in Richard Brooks' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958). Maggie the Cat, indeed - as a child, her nickname was Kitten. But she is even better in another film version of a Williams play, Joseph Mankiewicz's "Suddenly, Last Summer" (1960), in which she perfectly limns the psychic trauma of a woman, Catherine Holly, whose haunted memories of rejection have left her mentally maimed, confused and suicidal. Her gestures as Catherine are exact.

Taylor with Len Cariou in "A Little Night Music"

Taylor was joined by her dear "Place in the Sun" co-star, Montgomery Clift, in "Suddenly, Last Summer" and they also starred together in Edward Dmytryk's epic, "Raintree County" (1957). At that point in their respective careers, both had graduated to playing out emotional masochism. And Taylor was joined by yet another illustrious screen masochist, Marlon Brando, in Huston's perversely fascinating "Reflections in a Golden Eye" ('67) in which she played a character with the nifty name, Lenora Penderton.

In perhaps her most controversial movie, Mike Nichols' screen version of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), Taylor essayed the role of Martha, an emotionally upset dishrag who manges to muster up a little self-esteem by the end of the movie. With this film, she illustrated her prowess. Only great actresses have that special gift of making a character's interior life utterly transparent. With Martha, we see right through Taylor's eyes (not violet but gray in this black-&-white film), read between the lines and see the woman inside the rampaging harpy.

Taylor's powerful performance in "Virginia Woolf," arguably her best performance, ironically brought her to a dead end, career-wise. Her following appearances on screen (big and small) became more infrequent and less challenging. But some were playful.

Among my many secret guilty pleasures, for example, is her game characterization in a lost Peter Ustinov movie, "Hammersmith Is Out" (1972). In this fractured Faustian comedy, Taylor slithers through the role of hash-slinger Jimmie Jean Jackson as if she were slumming and having the time of her life. She was a good sport. And who could help but be amused by the big-league bitchiness she brought to her guest appearances in those "General Hospital" episodes decades ago?

GH should really interrupt its schedule and re-air those episodes.

Taylor as Jimmy Jean Jackson

Taylor was nominated for an Academy Award as best actress for four consecutive years - in 1957 for "Raintree County," in 1958 for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," in 1959 for "Suddenly, Last Summer," and in 1960 for "BUtterfield Eight," which finally won her one. Her second Oscar, of course, came in 1966 for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Unfortunately, however, she worked for an industry much more interested in the marketing of notoriety than of talent, and so a lot of her screen work has been eclipsed by her media adventures, specifically by her eight marriages to seven men - to Nicky Hilton, Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton, Richard Burton (she married him twice), John Warner and Larry Fortensky.

As it turned out, for most of her life, Elizabeth Taylor, the screen actress, has been upstaged by Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky, the ultimate celebrity. This had a tremendous effect on her screen work - both in how she worked and the way she was preceived. She lost credibility rather quickly, undeservedly so, and one can only look at those early performances, at Velvet Brown and Angela Vickers, and wonder how Elizabeth Taylor might have developed as an actress if she hadn't been so celebrated as a Star.

Velvet Brown. Kay Banks. Desiree Armfeldt. Jimmie Jean Jackson. Catherine Holly. Maggie the Cat. Gloria Wandrous. Martha. Elizabeth.

The Last Movie Star.

ELIZABETH CAPTURED! (Taylor on celluloid, including TV, cameo, uncredited and documentary appearances):
There's One Born Every Minute (1942)
Lassie Come Home (1943)
Jane Eyre (1944)
White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
National Velvet (1944)
Courage of Lassie (1946)
Cynthia (1947)
Life with Father (1947)
A Date with Judy (1948)
Julie Misbehaves (1948)
Little Women (1949)
Conspirator (1949)
The Big Hangover (1950)
Father of the Bride (1950)
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Father's Little Dividend (1951)
Quo Vadis (1951)
Love Is Better Than Ever (1952)
Ivanhoe (1952)
The Girl Who Had Everything (1953)
Rhapsody (1954)
Elephant Walk (1954)
Beau Brummel (1954)
The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)
Giant (1956)
Raintree County (1957)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
BUtterfield 8 (1960)
Scent of Mystery (1960)
Cleopatra (1963)
The V.I.P.s (1963)
The Sandpiper (1965)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
The Comedians (1967)
Doctor Faustus (1968)
Secret Ceremony (1968)
Boom! (1968)
Anne of the Thousand Days (1969)
The Only Game in Town (1970)
Under Milk Wood (1971)
X, Y and Zee (1972)
Hammersmith Is Out (1972)
Divorce His; Divorce Hers (1972)
Night Watch (1973)
Ash Wednesday (1973)
The Driver's Seat (1973)
That's Entertainment! (1974)
The Blue Bird (1976)
Victory at Entebbe (1976)
A Little Night Music (1978)
Winter Kills (1978)
The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
General Hospital (1981)
Genocide (1981)
Between Friends (1983)
All My Children (1984)
Hotel (1984, TV-series version)
George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey (1985)
North & South (1985)
Poker Alice (1986)
There Must Be a Pony (1986)
Malice in Wonderland (1988)
Young Toscanini (1988)
Sweet Bird of Youth (1989)
The Simpsons (1992)
The Flintstones (1994)
God, the Devil and Bob (2001)
These Old Broads (2001)

Note in Passing: Turner Classic Movies has set aside Sunday and Monday, 10-11 April for a memorial tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, screening the following titles (all times Eastern):
6 a.m. – Lassie Come Home (1943)
7:30 a.m. – National Velvet (1944)
10 a.m. – Conspirator (1952)
11:30 a.m. – Father of the Bride (1950)
1:15 a.m. – Father’s Little Dividend (1951)
2:45 p.m. – Raintree County (1957)
6 p.m. – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
8 p.m. – BUtterfield 8 (1960)
10 p.m. – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
12:30 a.m. – Giant (1956)
4 a.m. – Ivanhoe (1952)

odd couple

2011-03-21T10:50:00.004-04:00

Eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire - of "Rabbit Hole" fame - signed on to work on the screenplay for Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful," a prequel slated to star James Franco and Mila Kunis.

Actually, Raimi and Lindsay-Abaire nearly collaborated on the film version of Lindsay-Abaair's "Rabbit Hole." If you go back and do some research, you'll find that Raimi was the first director originally linked to the Nicole Kidman-starrer.

After Raimi bowed out, John Cameron Mitchell signed on.

Now you know.

red riding hood is (gasp!) a woman

2011-03-16T15:35:00.008-04:00

Catherine Hardwicke's "Red Riding Hood," starring the sublime Amanda Seyfried, has been reviewed - and dismissed - mostly by male critics.

Clueless male critics.

While the reviewers were busy thinking of oh-so-clever quips to level at Hardwicke's film, what was lost on them is what Hardwicke actually accomplished here, for better or worse, in terms of feminist filmmaking.

Major positions on Hardwicke's team are filled by ... women.

The film's director of photograhy is Mandy Walker.

Her film was edited by Nancy Richardson and Julia Wong.

Cindy Evans did the costume designs.

Maxine Gervais worked as the film's all-important digital intermediate colorist, and Katie Largay served as digital editor/assistant colorist.

Go, Hardwicke!

jeune fille en fleur

2011-03-04T09:13:00.022-05:00

Yes, "jeune fille en fleur." That's how British film historian Douglas McVay referred to Catherine Deneuve's presence in Jacques Demy's "Les parapluies de Cherbourg"/"The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964), one of 25 Deneuve titles that make up the BAMcinématek's simply-titled retrospect, "Deneuve," which plays 4 March through 31 March. (BAMcinématek is, of course, part of the Brooklyn Art Museum.)

The ambitious program includes only Deneuve's foreign-language performances (she's made a jaw-dropping 111 films to date) and I've taken the liberty of highlighting personal favorites with an asterisk.

Here's the dazzling line-up:

-"Potiche"/"Trophy Wife" (including a Q&A with Catherine Deneuve and director François Ozon) | 4 March @ 7 pm

-"Repulsion" | 4 March @ 940 pm and 12 March @ 2, 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm (Deneuve herself will introduce the 4 March screening) *

-"Changing Times"/"Les temps qui changent" | 5 March @ 4:30pm

-"Genealogies of a Crime"/"Généalogies d'un crime" | 6 March @ 4:30pm

-"Thieves"/"Les voleurs" | 6 March @ 2 and 9:30pm

-"The Creatures"/"Les Créatures" | 8 March @ 7pm

-"Heartbeat"/"La chamade" | 9 March @ 7pm

-"The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"/"Les parapluies de Cherbourg"(top photo) | 10 March @ 7 pm *

-"A Matter of Resistance"/"La vie de château" | 11 March @ 2, 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm

-"Belle de Jour" | 13 March @ 2, 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm *

-"Le sauvage"/"Call Me Savage" | 15 March @ 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm

-"Don't Touch the White Woman"/"Touche pas à la femme blanche" | 16 March @ 6:50 & 9:15pm *

-"Manon 70" | 17 March @ 7:30 & 9:40pm

-"Mississippi Mermaid"/"La sirène du Mississipi" (upper left photo, with Jean-Paul Belmondo) | 18 March @ 2, 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm *

-"Tristana" | 19 March @ 6:50 & 9:15pm *

-"The Young Girls of Rochefort"/"Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" (bottom photo with her late sister Françoise Dorléac) | 20 March @ 2, 4:30, 7 & 9:30pm *

-"Liza" | 22 March @ at 7pm *

-"Time Regained"/"Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust" | 23 March @ 6:30 & 9:40pm

-"Scene of the Crime"/"Le lieu du crime" | 24 March @ 6:50 & 9:15pm

-"My Favorite Season"/"Ma saison préférée" (upper right photo with Daniel Auteuil) | 25 March @ 3, 6 & 9pm *

-"The Last Metro"/"Le dernier métro" | 26 March @ 3, 6 & 9pm *

-"Donkey Skin"/"Peau d'âne" | 27 March @ 2, 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm *

-"A Talking Picture"/"Um Filme Falado" | 29 March @ 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm

-"8 Women"/"8 femmes" | 30 March @ 4:30, 6:50 & 9:15pm *

-"A Christmas Tale"/"Un conte de Noël" | 31 March @ 6:30 & 9:30pm

All screenings are at the BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11217 (718.636.4100 | tickets@BAM.org)

indelible moment: H.C. Potter's "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House"

2011-03-01T22:55:00.015-05:00

The scene: Muriel Blandings (Myrna Loy) going over color schemes with Mr. PeDelford (Emory Parnell), a contractor working on her house-in-progress, and Charlie (Don Brodie), a painter who will do the work...

Muriel: "I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds."

Mr. PeDelford (in agreement): "A-ha."

Muriel: "Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green."

Mr. PeDelford (repeating himself): "A-ha."

Muriel: "Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong!"

Mr. PeDelford (repeating again): "A-ha."

Muriel: "Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear?"

Mr. PeDelford (almost robotic now): "A-ha."

Muriel: "Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white."

Mr. PeDelford (clearly growing weary): "A-ha."

Muriel: "Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. (There's commotion in the background.) Oh, excuse me..."

Mr. PeDelford: "You got that, Charlie?"

Charlie: "Red, green, blue, yellow, white."

Mr. PeDelford: "Check!"

-written by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, from the novel by Eric Hodgins.

turner classic movies. march. 2011.

2011-03-01T18:41:00.050-05:00

With February's "31 Days of Oscar," my least favorite Turner event, out of the way, the premiere movie channel can get back to what it does best - showing movies of all sorts without bias. I mean, Presley's "Clambake" (1967) gets the star spot - the 8 p.m. slot - on 4 March.

The star of the month is the irresistible Jean Harlow, seen here on the studio backlot with her snazzy convertible; with the magnetic James Cagney in William A. Wellman's "The Public Enemy" (1931), screening at 8 p.m. (est) on 15 January, and with the inimitable Wallace Beery in George Cukor's "Dinner at Eight" (1933) airing at 8 p.m. on 29 March: A month after my own heart, March kicks off with three favorites which I find compulsively watchable - Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" (1959), a rare film which becomes more enjoyable with each viewing (12:30 p.m., 3 March); Robert Aldrich's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962), a camp fest noted for its unusual restraint (9:30 p.m., 7 March), and Vincente Minnelli's "Two Weeks in Another Town" (also 1962, a very good year), an obscenely watchable industry pic (5 p.m., 8 March). Michael Gordon's "Pillow Talk," released by Universal in October of 1959, is largely regarded as something of a first - "the fluff sex comedy," a modern subgenre of the time-tested battle-of-the-sexes romps. It was a huge hit, both a turning point in Doris Day's career and an on-going source of references for subsequent comedies trying to be just like it.

But predating it by a few months was Charles Walter's "Ask Any Girl," a working-girl lark released by Metro in May of that year. This difficult-to-see title airs on Turner at 8 p.m., 9 March.

Shirley MacLaine, in a role that Day would patent, plays a career woman and romantic naïf caught between two men - both her bosses, who happen also to be brothers. She's interested in nabbing dashing Gig Young, see, but leans on his older brother, stuffy David Niven, for pointers and guidance, not realizing that he's really the guy for her - or that, in fact, he's interested.

On the sidelines is Rod Taylor, delightfully on the prowl.
"Ask Any Girl," a bit of wispy fun with a distant relationship to "Pygmalion," doesn't have the legendary reputation of "Pillow Talk." It virtually has no reputation at all because it's been almost impossible to see. But it's worth searching out, if only for the ace supporting cast - Elisabeth Fraser, Dodie Heath (fresh off "The Diary of Anne Frank" that year), Jim Backus, Claire Kelly, and the sublime Carman Phillips (left).

There are a couple interesting connections here: MacLaine previously appeared with Niven in Michael Anderson's "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956) and with Phillips in Vincente Minnelli's "...Some Came Running" (1958). Niven would play opposite Day a year later in Walters' "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (1960), and Young, of course, was something of a Day staple, appearing with her in Gordon Douglas' "Young at Heart" (1954), George Seaton's "Teacher's Pet" and Gene Kelly's "Tunnel of Love" (both 1958) and Delbert Mann's "That Touch of Mink" (1962).

The British "kitchen sink" drama of the 1960s, an inherently dreary but not unappealing genre, hit something of a peak with Tony Richardson's superb filming of the Shelagh Delaney play, "A Taste of Honey" (1961). The singular Rita Tushingham broke through with this film as the indomitable Jo (inspired perhaps by Louisa May Alcott's Jo?), ably supported by Dora Bryan and Robert Stephens as the contemptible adults in her life), but most memorable of all is Murray Melvin, playing arguably the first unabashed gay man on screen as Jo's closest friend.

"A Taste of Honey" screens at 10:15 p.m., 10 March.

Two always reliable players, Melvyn Douglas and Joan Blondell, team in Alexander Hall's charming romance, "Good Girls Go to Paris" (1936). Don't miss it at 10:30 a.m., 11 March.

A must-see double-bill screens on 12 March, beginning at 5:30 p.m. - Howard Hawks' great "Rio Bravo" (1959), which features (among other things) incredible chemistry among John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan and Angie Dickinson (quite an atypical crew), and Rouben Mamoulian scintillating musical, "Love Me Tonight" (1932) with the divine Jeanette MacDonald, perfectly cast opposite Maurice Chevalier, with Charlie Ruggles on hand for good measure. A quartet of films about Joan of Arc dominate Turner's schedule on 13 March, kicking off at 8 p.m. with Victor Fleming's "Joan of Arc" (1948), starring Ingrid Bergman (and José Ferrer), followed by Otto Preminger's "Saint Joan" (1957); with Jean Seberg (above with Richard Widmark); Carl Theodor Dryer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), with Renée Falconetti, and Robert Bresson's "LeProces de Jeanne D'arc" (1962), starring Florence Delay.

John Kerr, one of the more interesting young actors of the 1950s, had a relatively brief film career and one of his titles was Curtis Bernhardt's remake of "Waterloo Bridge" - "Gaby," a 1956 Leslie Caron vehicle (disliked by Caron), airing at 4:30 p.m. on 14 March. Edna Ferber's durable "So Big" was filmed three times, first in 1924 by Charles Brabin with Colleen Moore as Ferber's gutsy heroine and also in 1953 by Robert Wise, a particularly weak version starring Jane Wyman. But the second remains the best - directed by William A. Wellman in 1932 and with a remarkable performance by Barbara Stanwyck (shown in the photos with Dickie Moore, playing her son, and Mae Madison), airing at 8 a/m/, 16 March. Look for Bette Davis, excellent in a small but telling role.

By the way, Richard Beymer, who played the older version of the son in the Wyman version, would be cast by Wise again nearly a decade later as the hero in his 1961 Academy Award-winner, "West Side Story."

Gene Nelson (left), for my money the best male dancer on screen ever (apologies to Fred and the other Gene), had a modest career as a film director and Turner airs what may well be his best effort - "Your Cheatin' Heart" (1964), the Hank Williams biopic starring George Hamilton - at 8:30 a.m., 19 March.

At 4:15 a.m. on 20 March, Turner airs Bud Yorkins' film of "Never Too Late," the stage comedy with the inimitable Paul Ford and Maureen O'Sullivan recreating their Broadway roles as a late middle-aged couple dealing with the wife's unexpected pregnancy. It provided a rare (the only?) leading role for Ford. Jim Hutton and Connie Stevens co-star as the younger second generation dealing with ... pregnancy problems. Good fun.

I'm a sucker for anything with Roz Russell and, this month, Turner airs W.S. Van Dyke II's aptly titled "The Feminine Touch" (1941) at 1:45 p.m, 21 March. And, finally, the month winds down, just as it started - with a handful of titles that will have me committed to my Sony Bravia. And they are... Samuel Fuller's crack-up masterwork, "Shock Corridor" (1963), starring Constance Towers and Peter Breck; Vincent Sherman's enchanting homefront comedy (1:30 p.m., 23 March); "Pillow to Post" (1945), starring an equally enchanting Ida Lupino and the Fonda-like William Prince (at 11:45 p.m., 25 March); Delbert Mann's "Dear Heart" (1964), an intelligent soaper well-cast with Glenn Ford and Geraldine Page (below), plus Angela Lansbury and Barbara Nichols (4 p.m., 27 March), and Herbert Ross' intoxicating "The Last Of Sheila" (1973), an all-star "fluff thriller" penned by no less than Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim (10:30 p.m., 31 March).

death by awards show

2011-02-28T10:38:00.034-05:00

How difficult is it to hand out movie awards to avaricious recipients who are more than willing to accept them?

It's apparently overwhelming, wildly so, if one is to judge this dubious exercise by what The Independent Spirit Awards and The 83rd Oscarcast - polar opposites in temperament - separately wrought this weekend.

A deadly dose of forced fun and self-conscious trendiness was the hallmark of The Independent Spirit Awards (aired by the Independent Film Channel late Saturday evening), a show that got off to an immediate bad start with host Joel McHale's adolescent opening monologue.

McHale, who is genuinely funny and usually reliable, set the base tone of the evening, practically inviting presenters and winners alike to be as crass as possible. And everyone seemed more than willing to comply. The show reached its nadir when Craig Robinson, so witty on "The Office," sat down at a piano to sing an obscene (and seemingly endless) saloon song that managed to make even devil rum and dirty sex both unappealing.

You needed a body-sized prophylactic to get through this show.

The Oscarcast, lavish as usual (you could nearly smell the money on ABC last night), has already been ripped by Roger Ebert and Tim Goodman in The Hollywood Reporter.

Yes, it was a trainwreck from the get-go, what with a montage (also seemingly endless) which insinutated the charmless hosts James Franco and Ann Hathaway into clips from the ten films nominated for Best Picture. Frankly, I had completely forgotten that there were ten films nominated again this year - quick! name them! - given that only four titles ("The Social Network," "The King's Speech," "The Fighter" and "Black Swan") have been discussed for the past two months.

Where to start? Franco stood there like a stick throughout the show (legs apart, hands cupped at his crotch), with a smug, complacent smirk on his face. (Or is that the way he always smiles?) He seemed superior to the whole thing and made no eye contact whatsoever with Hathaway.

Heck, he hardly even looked at her.

Hathaway, meanwhile, worked overtime, perhaps trying to make up for Franco's vacancy. She changed her outfit at least a half dozen times and was totally "on" - in her wide-eyed, gee-whiz, "ain't-Hollywood-grand-?" mode. Which I can take only in small doses. The woman is exhausting.

Hathaway has that brand of confidence and self-satisfaction that makes it seem as if she's always hugging herself. She also did a gratuitous solo, for no apparent reason other than to show what a gosh-darn great singing voice she has. It was capped with Franco walking on stage, crossdressed as Marilyn Monroe. Why? The "bit" ended there. It went nowhere.

On "Morning Joe" today, Joe Scarborough bemoaned the fact that she was stuck on stage with Franco because Hathaway is such "a great actress." On what basis? "Rachel Getting Married"? That's one film and that's it. In other films, she's never been more than competent.

But Hathaway is preferrable to Franco, who uttered the single most jaw-dropping line of the night when, after Marisa Tomei introduced the technical winners (whose awards were given at a separate event), Franco shouted "Congratulations, nerds!" He should talk.

indelible moment: Aldrich's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

2011-02-26T17:26:00.014-05:00

"You mean all this time we could have been ... friends?"

-Baby Jane Hudson to her sister Blanche, dying on a Santa Monica beach.