More strikeouts and more home runs this season. For how long will this continue? Will Major League Baseball actually do something next year to keep the ball from flying out of the ballparks so often?(see my previous posts for my suggestions). Will the strategies that once made baseball so beautiful return: the sacrifice bunt, the hit-and-run, et al.? One can only hope.
Meanwhile, the Yankees are in the post-season and the Mets are not; there are many differences between the two teams and the two managers and bullpens are one of them. Until I can study the stats in more detail I will just say that if the Mets had converted half of the saves that they blew then the Mets would have won the National League East.
A surprise pleasure came at the end of the season: Buck Showalter teaming with Michael Kaye in the final Yankee telecasts. Showalter was informed, intelligent and interesting; Michael Kaye was, as usual, trying hard to remember the score and the inning and getting them wrong more often than not. My favorite story of Buck's was how when he was a minor-league third base coach in the Yankee organization he was a factor in a triple-play in which, as Showalter said, "the ball never touched leather." As I was trying to figure out how that was possible Buck explained that there were men on first and second, nobody out and a 3-2 count on the batter. Buck signaled to the baserunners to run on the pitch. The batter hit a sky-high popup and the infield fly rule was called, batter out; the runner from second base had to return to second and as he was doing so the runner from first, head down, passed the runner from second on the base path so the runner from first was out and, finally, at that moment, the popup came down and clonked the runner from second on the head and he was out!
Showalter was full of insights into the game -- something relatively uncommon among baseball announcers since the death of Ralph Kiner -- including details of where to play the infield and the shift, depending on the score and the number of outs; whether to give an RBI on a double-play and where to place cameras in case of challenges. I think Showalter would make a great announcer, though few managers make that transition (Joe Girardi, former Yankee manager, is one who did, at least for the time being), perhaps because teams might worry that a former manager might be too critical or might give away managerial secrets.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Turner Classic Movies Oct. 2019
A good month for horror films, Godzilla movies and B Westerns, if you like those kinds of things. I do recommend the horror films of director Terence Fisher and producer Val Lewton.
On the 1st is Preson Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), which I wrote about earlier this month.
The 2nd has Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1933), one of his best British films.
On the 5th is Joseph Losey's version of M (1951).
October 6 is Mark Sandrich's Shall We Dance (1937), my favorite Rogers and Astaire film.
October 7 is Howard Hawks's Scarface (1932)
Oct. 10 has Budd Boetticher's austerely beautiful Western Ride Lonesome(1959)
On Oct. 12 has Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride (1950) and Fritz Lang's Clash by Night (1952)
Oct 13 has Anonioni's L'Avenntura (1960)
On the 16th is Edgar Ulmer's corrosive Detour (1945)
On the 17th is Mitch Leisen's Easy Living (1937), script by Preston Sturges
The 23rd has Don Weis's quite funny The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953).
On the 1st is Preson Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), which I wrote about earlier this month.
The 2nd has Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1933), one of his best British films.
On the 5th is Joseph Losey's version of M (1951).
October 6 is Mark Sandrich's Shall We Dance (1937), my favorite Rogers and Astaire film.
October 7 is Howard Hawks's Scarface (1932)
Oct. 10 has Budd Boetticher's austerely beautiful Western Ride Lonesome(1959)
On Oct. 12 has Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride (1950) and Fritz Lang's Clash by Night (1952)
Oct 13 has Anonioni's L'Avenntura (1960)
On the 16th is Edgar Ulmer's corrosive Detour (1945)
On the 17th is Mitch Leisen's Easy Living (1937), script by Preston Sturges
The 23rd has Don Weis's quite funny The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953).
Friday, September 27, 2019
Edward L. Cahn's Dangerous Partners (1945)
Dangerous Partners could be the title of almost any film noir, or indeed almost any crime film. In this one James Craig (the poor man's Clark Gable) and Signe Hasson (the poor woman's Greta Garbo) team up in a plot even more complicated than The Big Sleep, novel or film. The film starts at the site of a plane crash where Hasson discovers an unconscious man with a briefcase chained to his wrist; she frisks him, finds the key and discovers four wills, with different testators, with one Albert Kingby as the beneficiary of all four. She writes down the information of the testators and plans with her husband (John Warburton) to track them down, joining with Craig when her husband is killed by Kingby, One testator, Miles Kemper (Warner Anderson) has recently died after trying to change his will beneficiary from Kingby to benefit Lili Roegan, a nightclub singer played by Audrey Totter (who sings "Glad to be His" in the nightclub scene). Hasson and Craig seek out other testators -- they have the secret passwords from the briefcase, "plum torte, roast beef, pea soup" and manage to stay one step ahead of Kingby (Edmund Gwenn), until he catches them on an island only accessible by ferry.
This swiftly-moving B film uses the MGM (where the film was made) sound stages and character actors (Mabel Paige, Felix Bressart , et al.) quite effectively and much of the film takes place in downscale greasy spoons, hot dog stands and boarding houses. Veteran cinematographer Karl Freund, who worked with F.W. Murnau in Germany, does a superb job of capturing the atmospheric shadows and dark rooms where confrontations and torture take place; Gwenn is a Nazi supporter who has been laundering the money from the wills to use for highly-placed Nazis and he and his fellow thugs will stop at nothing to discover what Craig and Hasson know. The script is by veteran Marion Parsonnet and director Edward Cahn does his usual workmanlike and efficient job.
This swiftly-moving B film uses the MGM (where the film was made) sound stages and character actors (Mabel Paige, Felix Bressart , et al.) quite effectively and much of the film takes place in downscale greasy spoons, hot dog stands and boarding houses. Veteran cinematographer Karl Freund, who worked with F.W. Murnau in Germany, does a superb job of capturing the atmospheric shadows and dark rooms where confrontations and torture take place; Gwenn is a Nazi supporter who has been laundering the money from the wills to use for highly-placed Nazis and he and his fellow thugs will stop at nothing to discover what Craig and Hasson know. The script is by veteran Marion Parsonnet and director Edward Cahn does his usual workmanlike and efficient job.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Alfred E. Green's The Rich Are Always with Us 1932
Director Alfred E. Green is not a familiar name to most moviegoers, even though he directed more than 100 movies from 1917 to 1954 and is included in Jean-Pierre Melville's "pantheon of sixty-four pre-war American directors." I haven't seen very many of Green's films but he was obviously happy making pre-code films at Warner Brothers in the early thirties and The Rich Are Always with Us was one of five films he made in 1932, including the impressive Union Station.
The film stars Ruth Chatterton, who was forty and nearing the end of her film career, and Bette Davis, who was twenty-four and at the beginning of her film career. In the complex relationships in the film George Brent is pursuing Ruth Chatterton while Bette Davis pursues Brent. Chatterton and Davis are both wealthy and prefer Brent because he actually works for a living, as a writer. The film begins with Chatterton and Brent having dinner at a restaurant where Chatterton's husband is dining with his latest floozy. Chatterton later finds her husband kissing the floozy (played by Adrienne Dore) and leaves for a divorce in Paris, pursued by Brent who in turn is pursued by Davis.
Green and cinematographer Ernest Haller focus mostly on Davis and Chatterton, beautifully backlit, and on their clothes, furnishings, and motorcars; Brent, whose appeal is mysterious to a modern viewer, is mostly seen struggling with his typewriter. In the double standard common at the time Brent is not seen as a gold-digger after the wealthy Chatterton in the way Dore is in her pursuit of Chatterton's husband (played by John Milan, who appeared in eleven movies in 1932). A great deal happens in this seventy-four minute film: laughter and tears, triumph and tragedy, beauty and ugliness. The witty script is by Austin Parker, from E Pettit's novel, and includes plenty of references to sex and infidelity as well as alcohol and opium.
The film stars Ruth Chatterton, who was forty and nearing the end of her film career, and Bette Davis, who was twenty-four and at the beginning of her film career. In the complex relationships in the film George Brent is pursuing Ruth Chatterton while Bette Davis pursues Brent. Chatterton and Davis are both wealthy and prefer Brent because he actually works for a living, as a writer. The film begins with Chatterton and Brent having dinner at a restaurant where Chatterton's husband is dining with his latest floozy. Chatterton later finds her husband kissing the floozy (played by Adrienne Dore) and leaves for a divorce in Paris, pursued by Brent who in turn is pursued by Davis.
Green and cinematographer Ernest Haller focus mostly on Davis and Chatterton, beautifully backlit, and on their clothes, furnishings, and motorcars; Brent, whose appeal is mysterious to a modern viewer, is mostly seen struggling with his typewriter. In the double standard common at the time Brent is not seen as a gold-digger after the wealthy Chatterton in the way Dore is in her pursuit of Chatterton's husband (played by John Milan, who appeared in eleven movies in 1932). A great deal happens in this seventy-four minute film: laughter and tears, triumph and tragedy, beauty and ugliness. The witty script is by Austin Parker, from E Pettit's novel, and includes plenty of references to sex and infidelity as well as alcohol and opium.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Irving Pichel's Quicksand (1950)
Quicksand is a low-budget film noir that was a transitional role for Mickey Rooney four years after his last Andy Hardy picture. It was written by Robert Smith (who later wrote Phil Karlson's superb 99 River Street in 1953) photographed by veteran cinematographer Lionel Linden (who did The Blue Dahlia in 1946) and directed by Irving Pichel; the cynicism of Quicksand was undoubtedly fueled by Pichel's name coming up in the investigation of Hollywood by the House Committee on Un-American activities.
Rooney plays Dan Grady, an auto mechanic in California who falls for blonde Vera Novack, played by Jeanne Cagney (sister of James), a cashier in a greasy spoon. When Dan realizes he doesn't have enough dough to take Vera out he quietly takes $20 from the garage cash register, planning to repay it when his friend Buzz gives him what he is owed. But then the accountant shows up early and Dan has to get the money back in the till so he buys a watch for $100 on the installment plan and hocks it for $30. Then an "investigator" (with the A.C. Doyle name of Moriarity) shows Dan the contract he signed and says he now owes the whole one hundred by the next day. When Dan goes to drink away his cares he sees the drunken owner of a bingo game flashing his wad so he follows him and mugs him for the cash. The crooked proprietor of Joyland, the local arcade, Nick (played by a very oily Peter Lorre, who shorts sailors a nickel when they ask for change) finds out about the crime, he says Dan has to steal a car for him or he will call the cops. Dan steals the car from the garage where he works and then his boss Mackey (Art Smith) bluffs him into admitting it and tells him to come up with $3000 to pay for it. E-Z Money won't give him the cash and Jack for Your Old Hack won't give him enough for his jalopy (which looks like something Andy Hardy would drive). Vera says she knows where Nick keeps his money so Dan breaks in and steals Nick's stash, leaving the $3000 with Vera overnight. When he goes back to Vera the next day she has already spent $1200 on a mink coat and when Dan asks her "what kind of a dame are you?" she replies "the kind that watches out for herself." Dan then tries to get Mackey to accept $1800 and when he says yes and still calls the police Dan strangles him. Dan leaves and meets his old girlfriend Helen and she, still madly in love with him, agrees to go to Mexico with him. They stop a car and pull a gun on the driver and tell him to take them to Mexico. He turns out to be a lawyer and convinces them to turn around. Dan is shot when he tries to board his friend Buzz's boat; he survives and the lawyer says he will defend him.
Generally I do not care for a happy ending in a film noir, but as the genre progressed into the fifties redemption became more possible as personal tragedy clashed with fate. Dan and Vera had come to California to pursue the "American Dream" but had found only the squalor of boarding houses, garages and greasy spoons, where everyone seemed to be scamming in order not to be scammed themselves. They were stuck at the end of the continent and had to start again at the beginning. Whether Dan can overcome his own weaknesses with the help of Helen is the question at the end of Quicksand. What a tangled web we can weave.
Rooney plays Dan Grady, an auto mechanic in California who falls for blonde Vera Novack, played by Jeanne Cagney (sister of James), a cashier in a greasy spoon. When Dan realizes he doesn't have enough dough to take Vera out he quietly takes $20 from the garage cash register, planning to repay it when his friend Buzz gives him what he is owed. But then the accountant shows up early and Dan has to get the money back in the till so he buys a watch for $100 on the installment plan and hocks it for $30. Then an "investigator" (with the A.C. Doyle name of Moriarity) shows Dan the contract he signed and says he now owes the whole one hundred by the next day. When Dan goes to drink away his cares he sees the drunken owner of a bingo game flashing his wad so he follows him and mugs him for the cash. The crooked proprietor of Joyland, the local arcade, Nick (played by a very oily Peter Lorre, who shorts sailors a nickel when they ask for change) finds out about the crime, he says Dan has to steal a car for him or he will call the cops. Dan steals the car from the garage where he works and then his boss Mackey (Art Smith) bluffs him into admitting it and tells him to come up with $3000 to pay for it. E-Z Money won't give him the cash and Jack for Your Old Hack won't give him enough for his jalopy (which looks like something Andy Hardy would drive). Vera says she knows where Nick keeps his money so Dan breaks in and steals Nick's stash, leaving the $3000 with Vera overnight. When he goes back to Vera the next day she has already spent $1200 on a mink coat and when Dan asks her "what kind of a dame are you?" she replies "the kind that watches out for herself." Dan then tries to get Mackey to accept $1800 and when he says yes and still calls the police Dan strangles him. Dan leaves and meets his old girlfriend Helen and she, still madly in love with him, agrees to go to Mexico with him. They stop a car and pull a gun on the driver and tell him to take them to Mexico. He turns out to be a lawyer and convinces them to turn around. Dan is shot when he tries to board his friend Buzz's boat; he survives and the lawyer says he will defend him.
Generally I do not care for a happy ending in a film noir, but as the genre progressed into the fifties redemption became more possible as personal tragedy clashed with fate. Dan and Vera had come to California to pursue the "American Dream" but had found only the squalor of boarding houses, garages and greasy spoons, where everyone seemed to be scamming in order not to be scammed themselves. They were stuck at the end of the continent and had to start again at the beginning. Whether Dan can overcome his own weaknesses with the help of Helen is the question at the end of Quicksand. What a tangled web we can weave.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Like the turning lid that finds its thread, a multitude of disconnected facts revolved in Strike's mind and slid suddenly into place, incontrovertibly correct, unassailably right. He turned his theory around and around: it was perfect, snug and solid.
---Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm (Mulholland Books, 2014)
The Silkworm is the second of Galbraith's books about private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. There is much I like about this book, especially its detail about London: everything about food, the tube, the weather, the publishing industry that is at the center of the murder mystery, as well as the complex histories, personalities and relationship of Cormoran and Robin. Galbraith (a nom de plume for J.K, Rowling) writes well and has a good ear for London conversation, including slang and accents, that take up a good part of the novel. The Silkworm is well plotted as Robin and Cormoran go about their low-budget investigation but Galbraith has Strike figure out who the murderer is long before we are told his thought process and the result. This kind of phony suspense I find unfair to the reader, though it is unfortunately too common in genre fiction and undercuts the effective portrayal of characters and their milieu.
---Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm (Mulholland Books, 2014)
The Silkworm is the second of Galbraith's books about private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. There is much I like about this book, especially its detail about London: everything about food, the tube, the weather, the publishing industry that is at the center of the murder mystery, as well as the complex histories, personalities and relationship of Cormoran and Robin. Galbraith (a nom de plume for J.K, Rowling) writes well and has a good ear for London conversation, including slang and accents, that take up a good part of the novel. The Silkworm is well plotted as Robin and Cormoran go about their low-budget investigation but Galbraith has Strike figure out who the murderer is long before we are told his thought process and the result. This kind of phony suspense I find unfair to the reader, though it is unfortunately too common in genre fiction and undercuts the effective portrayal of characters and their milieu.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Jewels: New York City Ballet, Sept. 21, 2019
I don't have a great deal to add about the splendid choreography of Jewels to what I posted on Feb. 3, 2014 and Sept 24, 2018 but I do think Saturday's performance was absolutely thrilling; New York City Ballet has continued to be more and more exciting since the autocratic Peter Martins was replaced by Jonathan Stafford, Wendy Whelan, Justin Peck and Rebecca Krohn, who have consulted some of the original dancers in Balanchine's Jewels to re-invigorate the mythopoeic and pastoral Emeralds, the jazzy and sparkling Rubies, the elegant and exquisite Diamonds.
I also find that the more Susan and I go with our children the more we all see what Edward Villella calls the "multilayered" quality of Balanchine's ballets, layers of complexity that reveal more and more as one sees the ballets multiple times. Saturday Victoria, who takes ballet classes herself, mentioned that when the dancers jump one never is aware of them starting the jump or landing, but rather just floating in the air. And our son Gideon pointed out the beautiful structure of Jewels, with Diamonds (34 dancers) adding to its structure elements of Emeralds (17 dancers) and Rubies (34 dancers).
I was also impressed by how some of the leading dancers in Jewels have matured, particularly Amar Ramasar in Emeralds and Maria Kowroski in Diamonds, Ramasar having survived a scandal --with the help of his union -- and Kowrowski at the peak of her powers at the age of forty-three, three years after returning from maternity leave. Each dancer was able to simply walk on stage opposite their partner like giant cats walking with energy ready to emerge, Ramasar with Abi Stafford and Kowroski with Tyler Angle.
Kudos to conductor Andrew Litton, who achieved a full rich sound with three very different kinds of music. Especially beautiful and moving was the adagio ending of Emeralds, the overall playfulness of the Stravinsky's Rubies, the elegant and intense allegro ending of Tschaikovsky's Diamonds.
I also find that the more Susan and I go with our children the more we all see what Edward Villella calls the "multilayered" quality of Balanchine's ballets, layers of complexity that reveal more and more as one sees the ballets multiple times. Saturday Victoria, who takes ballet classes herself, mentioned that when the dancers jump one never is aware of them starting the jump or landing, but rather just floating in the air. And our son Gideon pointed out the beautiful structure of Jewels, with Diamonds (34 dancers) adding to its structure elements of Emeralds (17 dancers) and Rubies (34 dancers).
I was also impressed by how some of the leading dancers in Jewels have matured, particularly Amar Ramasar in Emeralds and Maria Kowroski in Diamonds, Ramasar having survived a scandal --with the help of his union -- and Kowrowski at the peak of her powers at the age of forty-three, three years after returning from maternity leave. Each dancer was able to simply walk on stage opposite their partner like giant cats walking with energy ready to emerge, Ramasar with Abi Stafford and Kowroski with Tyler Angle.
Kudos to conductor Andrew Litton, who achieved a full rich sound with three very different kinds of music. Especially beautiful and moving was the adagio ending of Emeralds, the overall playfulness of the Stravinsky's Rubies, the elegant and intense allegro ending of Tschaikovsky's Diamonds.
Friday, September 13, 2019
Curtis Bernhardt's The High Wall, 1947
The High Wall is a reflection --another one -- of the disillusionment of war veterans and their concern that their wives were cheating on them while they were away. In film noir we can never really get away from the heavy subject matter. It's all here: suicide, murder, lust, adultery. A cornucopia of sins.
--Wampa 12, The Film Noir Bible, 2003
In the forties and fifties romantic lead Robert Taylor effectively branched out into film noir, gangster films and war films, using all the resources of MGM, generally not known for genre films. The High Wall was directed by German émigré Curtis Bernhardt with a fatalism rather like that of Fritz Lang , written by newspaperman Sidney Boehm (who scripted Lang's corrosive The Big Heat in 1953) and Hollywood Ten member Lester Cole, photographed mostly in inky darkness by Paul Vogel, and starring Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter as the femme fatale and Herbert Marshall, a skillful and austere actor who could do comedy (Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise, 1932) as well as melodrama.
The High Wall (the title perhaps refers not only to the mental hospital where much of the film takes place but also the wall between people and the wall between the truth and lies) starts with Herbert Marshall drinking by himself in a bar, switches to Taylor and his dead wife speeding in a motorcar at night in the rain and ends on another rainy and dark night as Taylor and Totter seek the true killer of Taylor's wife while Taylor is getting ready for trial. In between are moving scenes with the inmates of the asylum (2500 inmates and only 12 doctors) as well as the attendants, who spend their time sleeping and smoking; shyster lawyers;, a blackmailing apartment superintendent;, distraught mothers and children. The ending is only superficially happy, with Totter and Taylor kissing in the hope that love will save the day.
--Wampa 12, The Film Noir Bible, 2003
In the forties and fifties romantic lead Robert Taylor effectively branched out into film noir, gangster films and war films, using all the resources of MGM, generally not known for genre films. The High Wall was directed by German émigré Curtis Bernhardt with a fatalism rather like that of Fritz Lang , written by newspaperman Sidney Boehm (who scripted Lang's corrosive The Big Heat in 1953) and Hollywood Ten member Lester Cole, photographed mostly in inky darkness by Paul Vogel, and starring Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter as the femme fatale and Herbert Marshall, a skillful and austere actor who could do comedy (Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise, 1932) as well as melodrama.
The High Wall (the title perhaps refers not only to the mental hospital where much of the film takes place but also the wall between people and the wall between the truth and lies) starts with Herbert Marshall drinking by himself in a bar, switches to Taylor and his dead wife speeding in a motorcar at night in the rain and ends on another rainy and dark night as Taylor and Totter seek the true killer of Taylor's wife while Taylor is getting ready for trial. In between are moving scenes with the inmates of the asylum (2500 inmates and only 12 doctors) as well as the attendants, who spend their time sleeping and smoking; shyster lawyers;, a blackmailing apartment superintendent;, distraught mothers and children. The ending is only superficially happy, with Totter and Taylor kissing in the hope that love will save the day.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Some Musings About Buster Keaton and Preston Sturges
I haven't written much about Buster Keaton and Preston Sturges -- two of my favorite directors -- perhaps because comedy is difficult to write about and humor is subjective; nobody likes to be told something is funny if they think otherwise. Keaton and Sturges each made a dozen masterpieces in a decade --Keaton in the twenties, Sturges in the forties -- and each then more or less self-destructed. Chaplin continued on because of his astute business sense -- he financed all his films himself and took as long as he felt he needed to make them -- while Keaton gave up his independence when sound came in and Sturges got caught up in Howard Hughes's orbit and then was cast aside as the studio system was ending.
Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. is a beautiful and elegant surrealistic film, as Keaton dreams he is in a film and that film becomes the film we are watching. Keaton comments eloquently on editing, as he enters a film and is edited into scenes of traffic, jungles and mountains; later on he does a brilliant scene where he walks on top of a moving train, is washed off the train by a water-feed which then pours down on some workers driving a handcart on the tracks, all done in a single shot. One gasps sometimes as much as laughs when Keaton rides on the front of a motorcycle without knowing the driver has fallen off, even crossing over a big hole in a bridge as two trucks pass under the hole in different directions to accidentally support the cycle.
Preston Sturges started as a writer of plays, then turned to writing scripts and started directing when he felt he could do a better job directing then the directors of his scripts, though both Mitch Leisen (Easy Living, 1937; Remember the Night, 1940) and William Wyler (The Good Fairy, 1935) did creditable jobs with his scripts. Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941) was the third film that Sturges directed and one of the few films made by anyone that used the combined comedic talents of Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. When my wife, son, daughter and I watched the film recently (age rage eight to seventy-two) we all enjoyed it in different ways and at different levels, from the beautifully executed physical comedy (a major influence on Blake Edwards and others) to the witty dialogue ("let us be crooked but never common") to the satire of the rich and the sadness and pain of rejected lovers.
Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. is a beautiful and elegant surrealistic film, as Keaton dreams he is in a film and that film becomes the film we are watching. Keaton comments eloquently on editing, as he enters a film and is edited into scenes of traffic, jungles and mountains; later on he does a brilliant scene where he walks on top of a moving train, is washed off the train by a water-feed which then pours down on some workers driving a handcart on the tracks, all done in a single shot. One gasps sometimes as much as laughs when Keaton rides on the front of a motorcycle without knowing the driver has fallen off, even crossing over a big hole in a bridge as two trucks pass under the hole in different directions to accidentally support the cycle.
Preston Sturges started as a writer of plays, then turned to writing scripts and started directing when he felt he could do a better job directing then the directors of his scripts, though both Mitch Leisen (Easy Living, 1937; Remember the Night, 1940) and William Wyler (The Good Fairy, 1935) did creditable jobs with his scripts. Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941) was the third film that Sturges directed and one of the few films made by anyone that used the combined comedic talents of Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. When my wife, son, daughter and I watched the film recently (age rage eight to seventy-two) we all enjoyed it in different ways and at different levels, from the beautifully executed physical comedy (a major influence on Blake Edwards and others) to the witty dialogue ("let us be crooked but never common") to the satire of the rich and the sadness and pain of rejected lovers.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Mark Robson's My Foolish Heart 1949
Eloise shook Mary Jane's arm. "I was a nice girl," she pleaded, "wasn't I?"
---J.D. Salinger
My Foolish Heart is based on J.D. Salinger's short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut", published in The New Yorker in 1948. Salinger supposedly hated the movie so much that he never allowed anything else to be sold for that purpose (Jerry Lewis tried for years to buy the rights to Catcher in the Rye and I think he would have done a great job as director and star). Unless Salinger had never seen a movie (which is possible) it's hard to see what exactly his objections were. The story is just a conversation between Eloise and Mary Jane and though I think it would make an interesting sixty-minute film or stage piece, one can't blame the filmmakers for expanding on the conversation and filling in the details, which I think was handled quite effectively.
The film was written by Julius and Phillip Epstein (who wrote Casablanca, 1942, among other films), photographed by the estimable Lee Garmes (a master of light and shadow, who did John Ford's The Sun Shines Bright in 1953), scored by Victor Young (Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow in 1953) and starred Susan Hayward and Dana Andrews. Readers of this blog know I prefer directors who varnish their films with their own personal style, but there are also directors such as Mark Robson and Michael Curtiz who can produce resonant work if they have a good script, skillful actors, and a strong producer. My Foolish Heart was produced by Samuel Goldwyn who responded to someone's suggestion that William Wyler "made" Wuthering Heights (1939) by saying "I made Wuthering Heights, Wyler only directed it." Robson's films considerably vary in quality; the best of his other films that I have seen is the eerie The Seventh Victim, 1943, produced by Val Lewton.
My Foolish Heart is a weepie melodrama very much of its time, without the humor of Leo McCarey. the romanticism of Frank Borzage, the irony of Douglas Sirk or the dreamlike mise-en-scene of Vincente Minnelli; it just has genuine tear-jerking, i.e., sentiment without sentimentality. Susan Hayward falls in love with soldier Dana Andrews and becomes pregnant just before Andrews is killed in a training accident after Pearl Harbor, the accident only shown in the startled face of another soldier to whom Andrews gave an unfinished letter for Hayward, Hayward marries Kent Smith on the rebound and passes off her child as Smith's while descending into alcoholism in Connecticut. ,Hayward's marriage ends and she stays with her young daughter in the final scene, gazing on her daughter as she did on Andrews when she first met him. Most of the film takes place at night or in the rain, suggesting the sorrow and sadness caused by war, its victims and its aftermath.
---J.D. Salinger
My Foolish Heart is based on J.D. Salinger's short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut", published in The New Yorker in 1948. Salinger supposedly hated the movie so much that he never allowed anything else to be sold for that purpose (Jerry Lewis tried for years to buy the rights to Catcher in the Rye and I think he would have done a great job as director and star). Unless Salinger had never seen a movie (which is possible) it's hard to see what exactly his objections were. The story is just a conversation between Eloise and Mary Jane and though I think it would make an interesting sixty-minute film or stage piece, one can't blame the filmmakers for expanding on the conversation and filling in the details, which I think was handled quite effectively.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
John M. Stahl's When Tomorrow Comes
Stahl was the Douglas Sirk of the 30's, though his irony was much further beneath the surface than Sirk's, whose remakes of Stahl's films --including Imitation of Life and Magnificent Obsession --reflect the more repressive 50's. Stahl had the good fortune to have the luminous Irene Dunne in several of his films, including Back Street (1932) and Magnificent Obsession (1935) as well as When Tomorrow Comes (1939).
"Soap opera" and "melodrama" are words often used to dismiss films, though not by me, for me the only question is whether it is genuine sentiment or meretricious sentimentality; to dismiss melodrama and soap opera is to dismiss most great directors, from D. W. Griffith to Kenji Mizoguchi In When Tomorrow Comes Stahl goes out of his way to establish Dunne as a passionately independent woman, before she meets and falls in love with Charles Boyer. She is working as a waitress in a restaurant and takes a lead in organizing a union, for her independence and that of her co-workers, so they don't have to accept that "the customer is always right, no matter how fresh he's been with you." She meets Boyer, they hit it off and go out together. The only problem is that Boyer has a sickly wife, for whom he feels responsible. Dunne discovers this when she visits Boyer's opulent county house and also discovers he is a famous pianist. She insists on going back to New York that night because she has to picket the restaurant in the morning. Dunne and Boyer get caught in a flash flood and spend the night together in a church, sleeping propped up against each other. She gets back to New York in a car with Boyer's wife and his wife's mother. Dunne is uncomfortable and even more so later in the day when Boyer's wife visits her and tells her "there are plenty of men for you" and Dunne agrees to leave Boyer alone, telling his wife "you win because you're helpless." Boyer sees Dunne one last time and urges her to come to Paris with him. She declines and Boyer leaves, with the last shot of Dunne showing conflicting emotions with minimalist expression.
Dwight Taylor wrote the film (he did brilliant scripts for several Astaire/Rogers films) and John J. Mescall did the straightforward cinematography (he also did Stahl's Magnificent Obsession). Stahl effectively conveys the uncertainty and vulnerability both Dunne and Boyer feel about their relationship, leaving it open for one to wonder if they will ever get back together again.
"Soap opera" and "melodrama" are words often used to dismiss films, though not by me, for me the only question is whether it is genuine sentiment or meretricious sentimentality; to dismiss melodrama and soap opera is to dismiss most great directors, from D. W. Griffith to Kenji Mizoguchi In When Tomorrow Comes Stahl goes out of his way to establish Dunne as a passionately independent woman, before she meets and falls in love with Charles Boyer. She is working as a waitress in a restaurant and takes a lead in organizing a union, for her independence and that of her co-workers, so they don't have to accept that "the customer is always right, no matter how fresh he's been with you." She meets Boyer, they hit it off and go out together. The only problem is that Boyer has a sickly wife, for whom he feels responsible. Dunne discovers this when she visits Boyer's opulent county house and also discovers he is a famous pianist. She insists on going back to New York that night because she has to picket the restaurant in the morning. Dunne and Boyer get caught in a flash flood and spend the night together in a church, sleeping propped up against each other. She gets back to New York in a car with Boyer's wife and his wife's mother. Dunne is uncomfortable and even more so later in the day when Boyer's wife visits her and tells her "there are plenty of men for you" and Dunne agrees to leave Boyer alone, telling his wife "you win because you're helpless." Boyer sees Dunne one last time and urges her to come to Paris with him. She declines and Boyer leaves, with the last shot of Dunne showing conflicting emotions with minimalist expression.
Dwight Taylor wrote the film (he did brilliant scripts for several Astaire/Rogers films) and John J. Mescall did the straightforward cinematography (he also did Stahl's Magnificent Obsession). Stahl effectively conveys the uncertainty and vulnerability both Dunne and Boyer feel about their relationship, leaving it open for one to wonder if they will ever get back together again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)