Aug. 1 has John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950; Jean-Pierre Melville's favorite film) and Otto Preminger's beautiful widescreen Western, River of No Return (1954).
Aug. 2 has Billy Wilder's great film about dipsomania Lost Week-End (1945).
On Aug. 3 is Victor Seastrom's intense silent film He Who Gets Slapped (1924).
Aug. 4 is a great film noir by Anthony Mann, Raw Deal (1948), with cinematography by the great John Alton.
On Aug. 6 is John Brahm's exquisite The Locket (1946) and Preminger's corrosive Angel Face (1953).
On Aug. 9 is Peter Tewksbury's strangely funny Doctor You've Got to Be Kidding (1967).
Aug. 11 has Mark Sandrich's Follow the Fleet (1936), with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing to the music of Irving Berlin.
On Aug. 12 are films by John Ford: Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
Aug. 13 has Preston Sturges's elegantly funny The Lady Eve (1941) and Douglas Sirk's emotional and ironic All I Desire (1953), both with Barbara Stanwyck.
On Aug. 17 is Howard Hawks's His Girl Friday (1940), based on The Front Page.
Aug. 19 has Albert Lewin's literary The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947) and Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember (1957).
Aug. 22 has Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954), a fatalistic remake of a Jean Renoir film from a Zola novel.
On the 25th is Max Ophuls elegant La Ronde (1950).
The 26th has Raoul Walsh's funny and moving The Strawberry Blonde (1941) and Aug. 30 has Rossellini's stylish Viaggio in Italia.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Staten Island Yankees vs. Lowell Spinners, July 25, 2017
Not too much has changed at Richmond County Bank Ballpark since I last wrote about it (see my post of Aug. 16, 2015): it is a little harder to get to from the ferry because it is surrounded by construction; the cheerleaders, The Pinstripe Patrol, were nowhere around (though I don't know if that means they have been disbanded); it was somewhat quieter between innings and I had the fish-and-chips there, which was not bad at all. The Yankees won 2-1 behind the strong pitching of starter Jorge Guzman, who pitched six innings and struck out nine and the young players (it is A League ball) played the fundamental baseball that is disappearing in the major leagues in this era that over-emphasizes home runs. There were only two errors, one a bad throw to first by Yankee catcher Keith Skinner on a dropped third strike and the other a misplayed ground ball by Lowell second baseman Yomar Valentin.
It was the first game my six-year-old daughter had ever been to and she was underwhelmed. She thought it would be more exciting than it was (I don't think I said anything to make her believe that) and, at this point, is not interested in the elegant geometry of the game itself, nor does she countenance any comparisons to ballet (which she loves). It turned out to be a game of relatively serene beauty, as many of the camps that were scheduled to come may have hesitated because of the possibility of rain. Richmond County Bank Ballpark is a wonderful place to see a baseball game: the best seats are only $16, with the young ballplayers making up for their somewhat underdeveloped skill with a passion for the game. I also enjoy watching the umpires, with only two (the major leagues have four for each game), and this game included umpire Jennifer Pawol, who had just moved up from the rookie leagues and hopes to eventually get to the majors, where there has yet to be a female umpire. She did a good job on the bases.
Of course it becomes difficult to watch a game on TV after seeing one in person, since TV shows so little of the game. At the ballpark there is so much to watch and keep track of, though if one's mind does wander while watching a game on Staten Island there is always the bay to look at, with boats continually passing by not too far from the outfield fence and Manhattan not too far away.
It was the first game my six-year-old daughter had ever been to and she was underwhelmed. She thought it would be more exciting than it was (I don't think I said anything to make her believe that) and, at this point, is not interested in the elegant geometry of the game itself, nor does she countenance any comparisons to ballet (which she loves). It turned out to be a game of relatively serene beauty, as many of the camps that were scheduled to come may have hesitated because of the possibility of rain. Richmond County Bank Ballpark is a wonderful place to see a baseball game: the best seats are only $16, with the young ballplayers making up for their somewhat underdeveloped skill with a passion for the game. I also enjoy watching the umpires, with only two (the major leagues have four for each game), and this game included umpire Jennifer Pawol, who had just moved up from the rookie leagues and hopes to eventually get to the majors, where there has yet to be a female umpire. She did a good job on the bases.
Of course it becomes difficult to watch a game on TV after seeing one in person, since TV shows so little of the game. At the ballpark there is so much to watch and keep track of, though if one's mind does wander while watching a game on Staten Island there is always the bay to look at, with boats continually passing by not too far from the outfield fence and Manhattan not too far away.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The first [version of The Man Who Knew Too Much] is faster, more irrational and sports a poetic flair for the bizarre.
---Raymond Durgnat, The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock (Faber and Faber Limited, 1974)
The conjunction of music and murder is one of Hitchcock's many ways of showing that evil lurks very near the surface of respectability.
--Elisabeth Weis, The Silent Scream (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 1982)
The current series of Hitchcock films on Turner Classic Movies gives one a chance to compare his early work in England with the later work in America; The Man Who Knew Too Much was made in England in 1934 and re-made in America in 1956. When I was younger I thought of Hitchcock's English films as genteel trivia, certainly in comparison with the later American ones. After watching much of Hitchcock's work again recently I see things as much more complicated: the English films of the thirties as an attempt to deal with the anxieties and insecurities of the coming war, the American films an attempt to undermine the complacency of America in the fifties.
There are four set-pieces in the 1934 (shorter) version: a quiet murder in a nightclub in Switzerland, a fight with chairs in a church (for sun worshippers!), an attempted murder at a concert in Albert Hall and an extended shootout with police at the assassins' hideout (based on an actual shootout with anarchists in 1911 and cinematically influenced by Howard Hawks's 1931 Scarface). As usual Hitchcock overcomes the many challenges of his relatively low budget, including the outstanding use of the Schufftan special mirror effects (named after its inventor) to shoot the Albert Hall scene, which includes an attempt to recover a kidnapped young girl and prevent a political assassination. It is another common Hitchcock theme: ordinary people in an extraordinary situation, in this case with sinister characters using a dentist's office and a church as fronts.
---Raymond Durgnat, The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock (Faber and Faber Limited, 1974)
The conjunction of music and murder is one of Hitchcock's many ways of showing that evil lurks very near the surface of respectability.
--Elisabeth Weis, The Silent Scream (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press 1982)
The current series of Hitchcock films on Turner Classic Movies gives one a chance to compare his early work in England with the later work in America; The Man Who Knew Too Much was made in England in 1934 and re-made in America in 1956. When I was younger I thought of Hitchcock's English films as genteel trivia, certainly in comparison with the later American ones. After watching much of Hitchcock's work again recently I see things as much more complicated: the English films of the thirties as an attempt to deal with the anxieties and insecurities of the coming war, the American films an attempt to undermine the complacency of America in the fifties.
There are four set-pieces in the 1934 (shorter) version: a quiet murder in a nightclub in Switzerland, a fight with chairs in a church (for sun worshippers!), an attempted murder at a concert in Albert Hall and an extended shootout with police at the assassins' hideout (based on an actual shootout with anarchists in 1911 and cinematically influenced by Howard Hawks's 1931 Scarface). As usual Hitchcock overcomes the many challenges of his relatively low budget, including the outstanding use of the Schufftan special mirror effects (named after its inventor) to shoot the Albert Hall scene, which includes an attempt to recover a kidnapped young girl and prevent a political assassination. It is another common Hitchcock theme: ordinary people in an extraordinary situation, in this case with sinister characters using a dentist's office and a church as fronts.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Patriotism in Jimmy's Hall and A Dancer in the Dust
"Are you waving the flag at me?"
--Richard Widmark in Samuel Fuller's Pick-Up on South Street, 1956
"You wave the flag with one hand and pick pockets with the other."
--Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946, written by Ben Hecht)
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
--Ben Johnson
It is certainly understandable why one would be cynical about patriotism in today's political climate, but Ken Loach's movie Jimmy's Hall (2015) and Thomas H. Cook's novel A Dancer in the Dust
(The Mysterious Press, 2014) demonstrate the positive qualities of patriotism, in the right time and circumstances. Loach has been making politically conscious movies since the 60's and his films have always centered on people and communities, with the political elements underneath or in the background. The film opens with a black-and-white New York during the Depression, as Jimmy leaves to see his ailing mother in Ireland, living in a lovely green valley in a remote town. Once he returns to Ireland he is encouraged to open his dance hall, that has fallen into disrepair He does so and plays jazz brought from America. This arouses the ire of the local Catholic priest, who reads out loud in church those who have been going to the dance hall, which also functions as a school and community center. Jimmy and his friends fight back against the church and the local fascists and eventually Jimmy is arrested and deported back to America. Jimmy loves Ireland and the people there but the English and the Church do not love him. The film is about many things, one of them being the ability to love the good things in one's country while fighting against intolerance and oppression.
Thomas Cook's novel A Dancer in the Dust examines some of the same themes, including an unrequited love, but from the perspective of a white person in an African country. Ray Campbell, an aid worker in Lubanda, falls in love with Martine Aubert and cannot understand why a white woman would want to continue working her farm in an African country, even if it is her homeland. Martine just wants the aid workers to leave Lubanda alone and let it continue to survive on its own. The misunderstanding on both sides has tragic consequences and twenty years later Ray returns to Lubanda. "For though we may get a second chance to make back the money we squandered, we rarely get the chance, however inadequately, to address a wrong, much less one done long ago, in a distant land, to one who never knew we did it, nor would ever know."
--Richard Widmark in Samuel Fuller's Pick-Up on South Street, 1956
"You wave the flag with one hand and pick pockets with the other."
--Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946, written by Ben Hecht)
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
--Ben Johnson
It is certainly understandable why one would be cynical about patriotism in today's political climate, but Ken Loach's movie Jimmy's Hall (2015) and Thomas H. Cook's novel A Dancer in the Dust
(The Mysterious Press, 2014) demonstrate the positive qualities of patriotism, in the right time and circumstances. Loach has been making politically conscious movies since the 60's and his films have always centered on people and communities, with the political elements underneath or in the background. The film opens with a black-and-white New York during the Depression, as Jimmy leaves to see his ailing mother in Ireland, living in a lovely green valley in a remote town. Once he returns to Ireland he is encouraged to open his dance hall, that has fallen into disrepair He does so and plays jazz brought from America. This arouses the ire of the local Catholic priest, who reads out loud in church those who have been going to the dance hall, which also functions as a school and community center. Jimmy and his friends fight back against the church and the local fascists and eventually Jimmy is arrested and deported back to America. Jimmy loves Ireland and the people there but the English and the Church do not love him. The film is about many things, one of them being the ability to love the good things in one's country while fighting against intolerance and oppression.
Thomas Cook's novel A Dancer in the Dust examines some of the same themes, including an unrequited love, but from the perspective of a white person in an African country. Ray Campbell, an aid worker in Lubanda, falls in love with Martine Aubert and cannot understand why a white woman would want to continue working her farm in an African country, even if it is her homeland. Martine just wants the aid workers to leave Lubanda alone and let it continue to survive on its own. The misunderstanding on both sides has tragic consequences and twenty years later Ray returns to Lubanda. "For though we may get a second chance to make back the money we squandered, we rarely get the chance, however inadequately, to address a wrong, much less one done long ago, in a distant land, to one who never knew we did it, nor would ever know."
Smart Baseball by Keith Law; Vin Scully
I would have loved Keith Law's Smart Baseball (William Morrow, 2017) when I was eleven years old and fascinated by baseball statistics, recalculating the batting averages of my favorite players after each game. It amuses me that statistics have been getting more and more complicated as fewer and fewer fans understand them: my experience is that only very sophisticated fans (who are mostly older) can even tell you how to calculate slugging percentage and ERA and most fans have little idea what these numbers actually mean (most announcers don't know either or they would tell you once in a while). Meanwhile all teams are doing statistical analysis that dates from what Bill James started with his "abstracts" in 1977, rating players by various formulae for Wins Above Replacement, a compendium of individual stats that show how many more wins an individual is responsible for than would be the case with a top AAA player replacing him. These formulae all have inherent problems due to all the variables that have to be taken into account, from the dimensions of parks to the problems with analyzing fielding to who the pitcher is. Even James himself has become concerned with the overuse of stats since Michael Lewis published Moneyball, about Billy Beane and the Oakland A's in 2003. I certainly think statistics have their place and Law's book is a fairly solid summary of current thinking about stats but I care, at this point, more for the beauty of the game and gladly leave the statistics to others, though I do enjoy reading about them, just as I enjoy reading about the long and fascinating history of baseball.
For a different approach this week instead of watching the all-star game (baseball for those who do not like baseball; see my post of July 15, 2014) I watched a Dodgers/Rays game from July 26, 2016, mainly because it was an MLB channel game I had taped, played in L.A. , with Vic Scully announcing. There are a number of reasons why Vin Scully adds so much to a game (unlike other announcers who subtract from the enjoyment and whom I often mute): he works alone (no babbling about favorite restaurants or other irrelevancies that are so common with multiple announcers), he knows a great deal about baseball and its history, he knows when to be quiet and often lets the game speak for itself, he has an eye for the poetry of the game, and he sees the players as individual human beings and not just a collection of statistics. His descriptions of what players are doing in the on-deck circle, what kind of wood they like for their bats and even what they like to cook (he described how Brandon Guyer picked out a turkey and related it to how he looked at pitches).
For a different approach this week instead of watching the all-star game (baseball for those who do not like baseball; see my post of July 15, 2014) I watched a Dodgers/Rays game from July 26, 2016, mainly because it was an MLB channel game I had taped, played in L.A. , with Vic Scully announcing. There are a number of reasons why Vin Scully adds so much to a game (unlike other announcers who subtract from the enjoyment and whom I often mute): he works alone (no babbling about favorite restaurants or other irrelevancies that are so common with multiple announcers), he knows a great deal about baseball and its history, he knows when to be quiet and often lets the game speak for itself, he has an eye for the poetry of the game, and he sees the players as individual human beings and not just a collection of statistics. His descriptions of what players are doing in the on-deck circle, what kind of wood they like for their bats and even what they like to cook (he described how Brandon Guyer picked out a turkey and related it to how he looked at pitches).
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976)
An exhilarating experiment in mise en scene from beginning to end. His characters, played by a new breed of actors, are freed from the often suffocating restraints of his highly composed frames, enabling them to move around in front of the camera and invent their lives in a visual universe of medium shots and medium close-ups. Hitchcock overturns the principles of his cinema and makes a film that belongs to the cinema of the eternally young, along with Seven Women (John Ford, 1966), A King in New York (Chaplin, 1957) and La Petit Theatre de Jean Renoir (1971).
--Bill Krohn, Hitchcock at Work, (Phaidon,2000).
When I originally saw Family Plot in 1976 a friend said, when Hitchcock appeared in silhouette at the Registrar of Births and Deaths, "Hitchcock is a shadow of his former self" and I reluctantly agreed. I should have been used to Hitchcock confounding one's expectations. In my current course on Hitchcock (Ball State and Turner Classic Movies have joined together to offer the course on-line) there is an understandable attempt to emphasize what Hitchcock's movies have in common. Family Plot is summed up for me in an overhead shot of a cemetery where George Lumley (Bruce Dern) and Mrs. Maloney (Katerine Helmond) follow geometric paths to a confrontation: the shot is slow and deliberate, from a high angle, emphasizing the important information that Lumley is seeking and how two stories are coming together. Hitchcock has abandoned the importance that stars once had for him (he felt that audiences would be more concerned for them in suspense situations), especially after his failures with Julie Andrews and Paul Newman in Torn Curtain, 1966); Hitchcock's last three films did not have well-established stars, allowing Hitchcock a new freedom.
In Family Plot Hitchcock has less interest in music (by John Williams), cinematography (by Leonard South) and more interest in production design (by Henry Bumstead), plot, in its double meaning (script by Ernest Lehman) and staring death in the face while establishing a new abstract universe (there are no overt symbols of place, as there are in most of his films) using younger actors.
--Bill Krohn, Hitchcock at Work, (Phaidon,2000).
When I originally saw Family Plot in 1976 a friend said, when Hitchcock appeared in silhouette at the Registrar of Births and Deaths, "Hitchcock is a shadow of his former self" and I reluctantly agreed. I should have been used to Hitchcock confounding one's expectations. In my current course on Hitchcock (Ball State and Turner Classic Movies have joined together to offer the course on-line) there is an understandable attempt to emphasize what Hitchcock's movies have in common. Family Plot is summed up for me in an overhead shot of a cemetery where George Lumley (Bruce Dern) and Mrs. Maloney (Katerine Helmond) follow geometric paths to a confrontation: the shot is slow and deliberate, from a high angle, emphasizing the important information that Lumley is seeking and how two stories are coming together. Hitchcock has abandoned the importance that stars once had for him (he felt that audiences would be more concerned for them in suspense situations), especially after his failures with Julie Andrews and Paul Newman in Torn Curtain, 1966); Hitchcock's last three films did not have well-established stars, allowing Hitchcock a new freedom.
In Family Plot Hitchcock has less interest in music (by John Williams), cinematography (by Leonard South) and more interest in production design (by Henry Bumstead), plot, in its double meaning (script by Ernest Lehman) and staring death in the face while establishing a new abstract universe (there are no overt symbols of place, as there are in most of his films) using younger actors.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
resistance, The Resistance, Resistance: in books and movies.
That afternoon the city wore its habitual color -- grey skies, grey stone -- triste if you were melancholy, soft and inspiring when life went your way.
He didn't want to be in love with her because it was possible that some night he wouldn't come home and she would never see him again and he knew what that would do to a woman who loved you.
--Alan Furst, A Hero of France (Random House, 2016)
Although I think Furst's recent novels, mostly about the French Resistance, are rather elegant and well-written I still prefer his earlier, more intricate and complex works, such as Night Soldiers (1988) and Dark Star (1991). Turner Classic Movies recently showed Alfred Hitchcock's short film Aventure Malgache, about the Resistance in Madagascar, at that time (1944) a French colony. The film takes place in 1940 and the French Resistance seeks the support of England. This film was never shown in France because it had too much humor and showed too much division among the Resistance to be effective propaganda (the communists did not join until Hitler invaded Russia); it's a beautifully directed film, using French actors who were in exile in England.,
The French Resistance is what we know in this country, from movies mainly. A Hero of France has fascinating details about how English airmen who crashed in France were spirited out of the country and the risks taken by the French, as well as the attempts by the Germans to infiltrate their operation, desperate for assistance. Something one in this country knows much less about is the Korean resistance to the Japanese occupation, from 1910 to 1945. Kim Jee-woon's film, Age of Shadows (2016, not to be confused with Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows, 1969, about the French resistance, of which Melville was a part) has some intense wide-screen action scenes (in a village, on a train, in a train station) but, as in many action films these days, it seems as though the director did the second-unit action and an assistant did the personal relationships and the narrative. I found the constantly shifting alliances confusing and my lack of knowledge of Korean and the Japanese occupation of Korea didn't help, though there is little written in English on the subject.
My favorite film about the French Resistance is John Ford's serious comedy When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950), in which soldier Dan Dailey spends a week-end in WWII France accidentally and aids the Resistance. They confirm he is an American by asking him about Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees (something that might not work in today's less baseball-centric America).
He didn't want to be in love with her because it was possible that some night he wouldn't come home and she would never see him again and he knew what that would do to a woman who loved you.
--Alan Furst, A Hero of France (Random House, 2016)
Although I think Furst's recent novels, mostly about the French Resistance, are rather elegant and well-written I still prefer his earlier, more intricate and complex works, such as Night Soldiers (1988) and Dark Star (1991). Turner Classic Movies recently showed Alfred Hitchcock's short film Aventure Malgache, about the Resistance in Madagascar, at that time (1944) a French colony. The film takes place in 1940 and the French Resistance seeks the support of England. This film was never shown in France because it had too much humor and showed too much division among the Resistance to be effective propaganda (the communists did not join until Hitler invaded Russia); it's a beautifully directed film, using French actors who were in exile in England.,
The French Resistance is what we know in this country, from movies mainly. A Hero of France has fascinating details about how English airmen who crashed in France were spirited out of the country and the risks taken by the French, as well as the attempts by the Germans to infiltrate their operation, desperate for assistance. Something one in this country knows much less about is the Korean resistance to the Japanese occupation, from 1910 to 1945. Kim Jee-woon's film, Age of Shadows (2016, not to be confused with Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows, 1969, about the French resistance, of which Melville was a part) has some intense wide-screen action scenes (in a village, on a train, in a train station) but, as in many action films these days, it seems as though the director did the second-unit action and an assistant did the personal relationships and the narrative. I found the constantly shifting alliances confusing and my lack of knowledge of Korean and the Japanese occupation of Korea didn't help, though there is little written in English on the subject.
My favorite film about the French Resistance is John Ford's serious comedy When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950), in which soldier Dan Dailey spends a week-end in WWII France accidentally and aids the Resistance. They confirm he is an American by asking him about Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees (something that might not work in today's less baseball-centric America).
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help it (1956)
Tashlin's films derive much of their originality from his awareness of innovations and his alacrity in taking advantage of them. The Girl Can't Help It managed to use rock 'n' roll when it was still the kids' latest craze and its first quickies had hardly hit the circuits.
---Ian Cameron, Frank Tashlin, Edinburgh Film Festival 1973
I have written about Tashlin and his films a number of times on this blog: April 11, 2014; Oct. 22, 2015; March 25, 2016; Sept. 22, 2016. Tashlin tends to get a bad reputation for having been a cartoonist and working with Jerry Lewis and not everyone can see that his films are both funny and serious, parodies and spoofs with genuine emotion. He was one of the few directors to give African-Americans the credit for rock 'n' roll that they deserved. Not only does he use a number of black musicians in The Girl Can't Help It but at one point he shows an African-American maid, played by Juanita Moore, dancing to the music of Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," illustrating how much of rock and rockabilly came from black sources.
Tashlin uses Jayne Mansfield effectively and compassionately in The Girl Can't Help It; his satire is not of her but of the American male fetish for large breasts. Tashlin slowly builds up the relationship between Mansfield and her agent Tom Ewell while Ewell tries to make her a star at the behest of gangster Edmond O'Brien. Meanwhile, Ewell drinks because he can't live with how he treated Julie London, who appears to him in glamorous outfits every time he puts her beautiful recording of "Cry Me a River" on the record player. Mansfield pretends not to be able to sing until Ewell leaves her on stage and then she sings to him a lovely version of "Every Time It Happens."
Tashlin knows how to use cinemascope and color; the film starts in the academic ratio with the 20th Century logo in back and white; then Tom Ewell comes on and widens the screen and adds color. The film emphasizes primary colors, with Mansfield usually in red or yellow until she reveals her love for Ewell, when she wears a pastel-colored gown of pink and purple. The cinematography is by the reliable Leon Shamroy, who did a number of Otto Preminger films, including the hallucinatory Skidoo (1968).
It's quite a pleasure to see the music acts in The Girl Can't Help It; many of them get a chance to do complete songs (my own favorites in the film are Fats Domino and Gene Vincent and the Bluecaps). They make for an effective comment on the music business of the time, with juke boxes shown as controlled by organized crime and artists dependent on live performances. The Girl Can't Help It is a vivid portrait of its time, but also transcends it with its insights into performance, passion and love.
---Ian Cameron, Frank Tashlin, Edinburgh Film Festival 1973
I have written about Tashlin and his films a number of times on this blog: April 11, 2014; Oct. 22, 2015; March 25, 2016; Sept. 22, 2016. Tashlin tends to get a bad reputation for having been a cartoonist and working with Jerry Lewis and not everyone can see that his films are both funny and serious, parodies and spoofs with genuine emotion. He was one of the few directors to give African-Americans the credit for rock 'n' roll that they deserved. Not only does he use a number of black musicians in The Girl Can't Help It but at one point he shows an African-American maid, played by Juanita Moore, dancing to the music of Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock," illustrating how much of rock and rockabilly came from black sources.
Tashlin uses Jayne Mansfield effectively and compassionately in The Girl Can't Help It; his satire is not of her but of the American male fetish for large breasts. Tashlin slowly builds up the relationship between Mansfield and her agent Tom Ewell while Ewell tries to make her a star at the behest of gangster Edmond O'Brien. Meanwhile, Ewell drinks because he can't live with how he treated Julie London, who appears to him in glamorous outfits every time he puts her beautiful recording of "Cry Me a River" on the record player. Mansfield pretends not to be able to sing until Ewell leaves her on stage and then she sings to him a lovely version of "Every Time It Happens."
Tashlin knows how to use cinemascope and color; the film starts in the academic ratio with the 20th Century logo in back and white; then Tom Ewell comes on and widens the screen and adds color. The film emphasizes primary colors, with Mansfield usually in red or yellow until she reveals her love for Ewell, when she wears a pastel-colored gown of pink and purple. The cinematography is by the reliable Leon Shamroy, who did a number of Otto Preminger films, including the hallucinatory Skidoo (1968).
It's quite a pleasure to see the music acts in The Girl Can't Help It; many of them get a chance to do complete songs (my own favorites in the film are Fats Domino and Gene Vincent and the Bluecaps). They make for an effective comment on the music business of the time, with juke boxes shown as controlled by organized crime and artists dependent on live performances. The Girl Can't Help It is a vivid portrait of its time, but also transcends it with its insights into performance, passion and love.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
Colin Harrison's You Belong to Me
In fact [law] firms were unstable, churning caldrons of hatred, fury, jealous greed. revolution, florid egomania, sexual intrigue, Shakespearean betrayal, alcoholism, cardiac blackjack, drug use, thievery, and even grandiose fraud -- and were most instructively seen as high-risk mountaineering parties in which some climbers were guaranteed to die.
--Colin Harrison, You Belong to Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2017)
This is Harrison's first book in eight years and though not as dark and intricate as some of his earlier novels it is still an intimate portrait of New Yorkers on the make. The title refers not only to how an Iranian-American businessman views his wife, but also how immigration attorney Paul Reeves feels about the 18th C. maps he covets and how some of the protagonists feel about money. In the same way that a good film director will make even the smallest part come alive Harrison does the same with the many peripheral characters in his story; my favorites include a vermin-control specialist, a "flinty blonde" real estate agent, a weary cop and an assassin with a crossbow. Harrison also vividly portrays New York in all its complex beauty, from Brooklyn to Staten Island, while celebrating things that have not changed (such as The Oyster Bar) and lamenting some that have (such as rent).
--Colin Harrison, You Belong to Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2017)
This is Harrison's first book in eight years and though not as dark and intricate as some of his earlier novels it is still an intimate portrait of New Yorkers on the make. The title refers not only to how an Iranian-American businessman views his wife, but also how immigration attorney Paul Reeves feels about the 18th C. maps he covets and how some of the protagonists feel about money. In the same way that a good film director will make even the smallest part come alive Harrison does the same with the many peripheral characters in his story; my favorites include a vermin-control specialist, a "flinty blonde" real estate agent, a weary cop and an assassin with a crossbow. Harrison also vividly portrays New York in all its complex beauty, from Brooklyn to Staten Island, while celebrating things that have not changed (such as The Oyster Bar) and lamenting some that have (such as rent).
Saturday, July 1, 2017
Turner Classic Movies July 2017
There will be 40 movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock on Turner this month. This is in conjunction with a course on Hitchcock from Ball State University. This course is free and can be accessed through TCM or the Canvas Network. I recently took the courses they offered on film noir and on slapstick comedy and they were both excellent.
The Hitchcock films I like the most are:
The Lodger (1927) from the silent period, July 5
The Lady Vanishes (1938) from the British sound period, July 7
Foreign Correspondent(1940), July 12 and Notorious (1946), July 14, from the 40's
Vertigo (1958) from the 50's
Frenzy (1972) from Hitchcock's last decade of filmmaking, July 28
It's a pretty good month for films, including:
Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941) on July 1
Nicholas Ray's They Live by Night (1949) on July 2
Fritz Lang on July 5, including Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956).
Anthony Mann on July 7, including Raw Deal (1948)
Samuel Fuller's I Shot Jesse James (1949) on July 8
Leo McCarey's Love Affair (1939) on July 9
King Vidor's silent masterpiece The Big Parade (1925) on July 10
Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (1965) on July 11
Vincente Minnelli's oneiric Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) on July 12
Val Lewton's disturbing Seventh Victim (1943) on July 13
Joseph H. Lewis's corrosive Gun Crazy (1949) on July 16th
Mark Sandrich's delightful Astaire/Rogers musical Follow the Fleet (1936), with wonderful dancing, and music by Irving Berlin, on July 28
Don Weis's quite funny The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) on July 29
The Hitchcock films I like the most are:
The Lodger (1927) from the silent period, July 5
The Lady Vanishes (1938) from the British sound period, July 7
Foreign Correspondent(1940), July 12 and Notorious (1946), July 14, from the 40's
Vertigo (1958) from the 50's
Frenzy (1972) from Hitchcock's last decade of filmmaking, July 28
It's a pretty good month for films, including:
Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941) on July 1
Nicholas Ray's They Live by Night (1949) on July 2
Fritz Lang on July 5, including Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956).
Anthony Mann on July 7, including Raw Deal (1948)
Samuel Fuller's I Shot Jesse James (1949) on July 8
Leo McCarey's Love Affair (1939) on July 9
King Vidor's silent masterpiece The Big Parade (1925) on July 10
Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (1965) on July 11
Vincente Minnelli's oneiric Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) on July 12
Val Lewton's disturbing Seventh Victim (1943) on July 13
Joseph H. Lewis's corrosive Gun Crazy (1949) on July 16th
Mark Sandrich's delightful Astaire/Rogers musical Follow the Fleet (1936), with wonderful dancing, and music by Irving Berlin, on July 28
Don Weis's quite funny The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) on July 29
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