The month of May starts on the 1st with two elegant movies by Max Ophuls: The Earrings of Madame de .. from 1953 and La Ronde from 1950, full of stylish camera movement. Also on the 1st is Jacques Demy's Une Chambre en Ville, 1982.
On the 4th is Jack Arnold's poetic The Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954.
On the 7th is Edmund O'Brien's intense film noir Shield for Murder, 1954, and the beautiful Night of the Hunter, 1955, directed by Charles Laughton with cinematography by Stanley Cortez
Two superb Westerns by Anthony Mann: The Far Country, 1955, on the 8th and The Naked Spur, .1953, on the 13th.
On the 14th is Joseph Losey's corrosive The Prowler, 1951, and on the 15th is Alfred E. Green's Union Depot, 1932, a complex and impressive programmer.
On the 16th is Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent, 1962, one of the best films about politics ever made in this country, in widescreen black-and-white.
On the 19th is John Boorman's Point Blank, 1967, from a Richard Stark novel, and on the 21st is Gerd Oswald's excellent crime story, Crime of Passion, 1957.
On the 23rd is Fritz Lang's first American film, Fury, 1936, and John Ford's gorgeous The Searchers, 1956.
Also on the 23rd are three moving films about the Korean War: Anthony Mann's Men in War, 1957. Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet, 1951, and Douglas Sirk's Battle Hymn,1957.
And the month of May ends on the 30th with four films by Howard Hawks, showing his versatility in different genres. My favorite of these is Rio Bravo, 1959, an explosive Western.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about any films showing in May, or any other month, on Turner Classic Movies.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Friday, April 28, 2017
The Circle
The Circle is a highly polished, expertly structured piece that deals with the difficulties of the survival of love within marriage, with the pressures of society, and the triumph of character over circumstance.
Selina Hastings, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, Random House (2009)
Frank Borzage was that rarest of rarities, an uncompromising romanticist.
--Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema, The University of Chicago Press, 1968
The romantic and the cynical are flip sides of the same coin and it is indeed fascinating to view Maugham's cynical play, successfully performed in New York and London in 1921, turned into a movie in 1925 by Frank Borzage, who overlaid the cynicism with overt romanticism. The ending of the play is ambiguous, with the married Elizabeth running off with her lover Edward, perhaps to face the same fate as her mother-in-law who ran off with her lover twenty-five years before. In the play and in the film Elizabeth' s mother-in-law returns to visit her son Arnold, Elizabeth's husband, with her lover Lord Porteous, whose wife would never divorce him, even after twenty-five years. But in Borzage's film Elizabeth's attempt to run off is thwarted by her newly assertive husband, encouraged by Arnold's father, while in the play Arnold's father is unsuccessful, while thinking he succeeded.
The play and the film quite elegantly view the complexities of marriage and the many different ways that love and commitment can be expressed. I have always liked the intelligence and sophistication of Maugham but The Circle is the first play of his that I have read (Maugham stopped writing plays in 1933 when his cynicism became unpopular; he turned to novels, where he felt he could write more freely). Borzage's film, of course, is silent and he uses gesture, camera movement and editing to effectively portray the ups and downs of marriage that Maugham conveys with dialogue.
Selina Hastings, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, Random House (2009)
Frank Borzage was that rarest of rarities, an uncompromising romanticist.
--Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema, The University of Chicago Press, 1968
The romantic and the cynical are flip sides of the same coin and it is indeed fascinating to view Maugham's cynical play, successfully performed in New York and London in 1921, turned into a movie in 1925 by Frank Borzage, who overlaid the cynicism with overt romanticism. The ending of the play is ambiguous, with the married Elizabeth running off with her lover Edward, perhaps to face the same fate as her mother-in-law who ran off with her lover twenty-five years before. In the play and in the film Elizabeth' s mother-in-law returns to visit her son Arnold, Elizabeth's husband, with her lover Lord Porteous, whose wife would never divorce him, even after twenty-five years. But in Borzage's film Elizabeth's attempt to run off is thwarted by her newly assertive husband, encouraged by Arnold's father, while in the play Arnold's father is unsuccessful, while thinking he succeeded.
The play and the film quite elegantly view the complexities of marriage and the many different ways that love and commitment can be expressed. I have always liked the intelligence and sophistication of Maugham but The Circle is the first play of his that I have read (Maugham stopped writing plays in 1933 when his cynicism became unpopular; he turned to novels, where he felt he could write more freely). Borzage's film, of course, is silent and he uses gesture, camera movement and editing to effectively portray the ups and downs of marriage that Maugham conveys with dialogue.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
New York City Ballet, April 23, 2017
The program on Sunday night of three ballets by George Balanchine effectively captured the extreme range of his ballets, from the classical Allegro Brillante, to the austerely ritualistic The Four Temperaments to the extravagant Symphony in C.
Allegro Brillant was originally done on Maria Tallchief in 1956 and is purely classical pure dance, with solos and pas de deux for the two leads --Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette -- as well as parts for four women and four men, all to Tschaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3. Balanchine uses much of the classical vocabulary, especially variations on the tour jete, to propel the dancing forward with the music.
The Four Temperaments is performed to a score that Balanchine commissioned from Hindemith in 1940; the ballet was first performed in 1946. There is no attempt to literally interpret choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic temperaments (I tried to do so when I first saw the ballet years ago), rather the Greek and medieval ideas are incorporated into the movement, giving it a powerfully ritualistic quality. There are only so many steps in classical ballet but Balanchine uses them in unusual ways, with a special emphasis on the grand battement en balancoire in The Four Temperaments, using the familiar steps in new ways.
Symphony in C, first performed in 1947 to the music of Bizet, was one of the first Balanchine ballets I saw, when I was a student at Columbia in 1970. I have seen it many times since and, like most Balanchine ballets, it never fails to show me things I have not seen or noticed before. Unfortunately Balanchine is no longer around to make changes in his ballets to account for the idiosyncracies of each new dancer, but the adagio in Symphony in C is still, as Arlene Croce said, "the most privileged role in the Balanchine repertory" and it was beautifully danced by Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle, who supported Kowroski as she softly fell backwards into his arms.
These three ballets are so closely entwined with the music, almost as if the steps are between the notes, that one can't hear the music separately without visualizing the steps Balanchine choreographed. And each ballet is elegantly structured, with solos, pas de deux and ensemble dancing that build to extraordinary finales.
Allegro Brillant was originally done on Maria Tallchief in 1956 and is purely classical pure dance, with solos and pas de deux for the two leads --Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette -- as well as parts for four women and four men, all to Tschaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3. Balanchine uses much of the classical vocabulary, especially variations on the tour jete, to propel the dancing forward with the music.
The Four Temperaments is performed to a score that Balanchine commissioned from Hindemith in 1940; the ballet was first performed in 1946. There is no attempt to literally interpret choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic temperaments (I tried to do so when I first saw the ballet years ago), rather the Greek and medieval ideas are incorporated into the movement, giving it a powerfully ritualistic quality. There are only so many steps in classical ballet but Balanchine uses them in unusual ways, with a special emphasis on the grand battement en balancoire in The Four Temperaments, using the familiar steps in new ways.
Symphony in C, first performed in 1947 to the music of Bizet, was one of the first Balanchine ballets I saw, when I was a student at Columbia in 1970. I have seen it many times since and, like most Balanchine ballets, it never fails to show me things I have not seen or noticed before. Unfortunately Balanchine is no longer around to make changes in his ballets to account for the idiosyncracies of each new dancer, but the adagio in Symphony in C is still, as Arlene Croce said, "the most privileged role in the Balanchine repertory" and it was beautifully danced by Maria Kowroski and Tyler Angle, who supported Kowroski as she softly fell backwards into his arms.
These three ballets are so closely entwined with the music, almost as if the steps are between the notes, that one can't hear the music separately without visualizing the steps Balanchine choreographed. And each ballet is elegantly structured, with solos, pas de deux and ensemble dancing that build to extraordinary finales.
Monday, April 24, 2017
Anthony Mann's Winchester '73
The hallmark of Mann's style is a mobile camera, moving fluidly with the action, its pace and direction dictated by the drive of the character.
----Jim Kitses, Horizons West
Winchester '73 was the first Western Mann made with James Stewart and was followed by four others, all with plots of suffering, revenge and family struggles. Whoever it was that said the best movie would have exteriors by Anthony Mann and interiors by Nicholas Ray was probably not thinking of this film, which is in beautiful black-and-white, with exquisite cinematography by William Daniels, who was Garbo's favorite cameraman (Ninotchka, 1939). Mann and Daniels beautifully cover the different light at different times of the day, as well as the dust of Dodge City and arid landscape around it, with a lovely emphasis on men riding with backlighting by the sun.
Using many effective character actors -- from Will Geer as Wyatt Earp to John McEntire as an Indian trader and Jay C. Flippen as a grizzled cavalry sergeant -- Mann captures the desolate and dangerous beauty of the post-Civil-War West as Stewart chases his brother, the man who shot their father. There is a certain amount of historical context included, with references to President Grant and Buffalo Bill Cody as well as the recent Battle of the Little Bighorn (the film takes place in the summer of 1876). Stewart is not only after his brother, he is also after the "perfect" Winchester '73 rifle that he wins in a 4th of July shooting match and then is fought over and eventually ends up with Dan Duryea, who shares the villain role with Stephen McNally.
Stewart's ferocious role as Lin McAdam began a series of new roles for Stewart, as he played neurotic heroes for Mann, Hitchcock, John Ford and others throughout the fifties and early sixties, reflecting the mood of America at that time as effectively as Dennis O'Keefe and others reflected the late forties in Anthony Mann's films noir of that period.
----Jim Kitses, Horizons West
Winchester '73 was the first Western Mann made with James Stewart and was followed by four others, all with plots of suffering, revenge and family struggles. Whoever it was that said the best movie would have exteriors by Anthony Mann and interiors by Nicholas Ray was probably not thinking of this film, which is in beautiful black-and-white, with exquisite cinematography by William Daniels, who was Garbo's favorite cameraman (Ninotchka, 1939). Mann and Daniels beautifully cover the different light at different times of the day, as well as the dust of Dodge City and arid landscape around it, with a lovely emphasis on men riding with backlighting by the sun.
Using many effective character actors -- from Will Geer as Wyatt Earp to John McEntire as an Indian trader and Jay C. Flippen as a grizzled cavalry sergeant -- Mann captures the desolate and dangerous beauty of the post-Civil-War West as Stewart chases his brother, the man who shot their father. There is a certain amount of historical context included, with references to President Grant and Buffalo Bill Cody as well as the recent Battle of the Little Bighorn (the film takes place in the summer of 1876). Stewart is not only after his brother, he is also after the "perfect" Winchester '73 rifle that he wins in a 4th of July shooting match and then is fought over and eventually ends up with Dan Duryea, who shares the villain role with Stephen McNally.
Stewart's ferocious role as Lin McAdam began a series of new roles for Stewart, as he played neurotic heroes for Mann, Hitchcock, John Ford and others throughout the fifties and early sixties, reflecting the mood of America at that time as effectively as Dennis O'Keefe and others reflected the late forties in Anthony Mann's films noir of that period.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Preston Sturges's Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
When I want something done I always ask the busy person; the others never have time.
--from Sturges's screenplay for Unfaithfully Yours
One of the many wonderful things about director Preston Sturges is how he flouts categories, mixing elegant slapstick with verbal wit and invention. When I took a course on slapstick ("Painfully Funny") Sturges was never mentioned. For verbal wit there is Lubitsch and for physical humor there is, among others, Tashlin. In Unfaithfully Yours Sturges brilliantly combines genres and one could even call the movie a comic film noir, as conductor Rex Harrison imagines getting rid of his unfaithful wife Daphne while conducting. During the overture to Rossini's Semiramide he imagines killing her and framing her lover; during Wagner's reconciliation theme from Tannhauser he forgives her and pays her off; and while conducting Tchaikovsky's tone poem Francesca da Rimini he plays a game of Russia roulette in which he himself dies. (The shadowy cinematography is by Victor Milner, who did this movie between the film noir The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946 and the noir Western The Furies in 1950)
After he finishes conducting these scores Harrison tries to enact all his fantasies, one by one, and fails disastrously and hilariously at them all. Sturges brilliantly orchestrates Harrison's personal insecurity (his wife, played lovingly by Linda Darnell, is considerably younger than he is) in contrast with his love of music and conducting, the movie even including a long rehearsal scene where the mobile camera shows all the instruments and their players. (My wife Susan said, "can you imagine a scene like this in a movie today?"), effectively establishing Harrison's rapport with the orchestra.
Unfaithfully Yours explores, with intelligence and humor, the gaps between fantasy and reality, the complex beauties and pleasures of of classical music, the importance of trust and passion in one's life, work and love.
--from Sturges's screenplay for Unfaithfully Yours
One of the many wonderful things about director Preston Sturges is how he flouts categories, mixing elegant slapstick with verbal wit and invention. When I took a course on slapstick ("Painfully Funny") Sturges was never mentioned. For verbal wit there is Lubitsch and for physical humor there is, among others, Tashlin. In Unfaithfully Yours Sturges brilliantly combines genres and one could even call the movie a comic film noir, as conductor Rex Harrison imagines getting rid of his unfaithful wife Daphne while conducting. During the overture to Rossini's Semiramide he imagines killing her and framing her lover; during Wagner's reconciliation theme from Tannhauser he forgives her and pays her off; and while conducting Tchaikovsky's tone poem Francesca da Rimini he plays a game of Russia roulette in which he himself dies. (The shadowy cinematography is by Victor Milner, who did this movie between the film noir The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946 and the noir Western The Furies in 1950)
After he finishes conducting these scores Harrison tries to enact all his fantasies, one by one, and fails disastrously and hilariously at them all. Sturges brilliantly orchestrates Harrison's personal insecurity (his wife, played lovingly by Linda Darnell, is considerably younger than he is) in contrast with his love of music and conducting, the movie even including a long rehearsal scene where the mobile camera shows all the instruments and their players. (My wife Susan said, "can you imagine a scene like this in a movie today?"), effectively establishing Harrison's rapport with the orchestra.
Unfaithfully Yours explores, with intelligence and humor, the gaps between fantasy and reality, the complex beauties and pleasures of of classical music, the importance of trust and passion in one's life, work and love.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb
Robert Gottlieb's Avid Reader (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2016) sets some kind of record for name-dropping: the index is nothing but names, from Kobo Abe to Michael Young. Gottlieb doesn't just get phone calls from his wife it always happens when, for instance, "I was having dinner with Edna O'Brien, just the two of us."
Gottlieb is not above comparing himself to legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, who supposedly re-wrote much of Thomas Wolfe. Editor Gottlieb always finds manuscripts --whether from Lauren Bacall or Joseph Heller -- to be in terrible shape and he has to work night and day and all weekend to make them readable. He made Simon and Schuster a success, brought Knopf back from the dead and improved "The New Yorker" considerably when he took over from William Shawn (and then it went downhill after he was replaced with Tina Brown.)
Gottlieb was not only a great editor he also practically ran two ballet companies, first the NYC Ballet (he was fired from the board when Peter Martins objected to an Arlene Croce piece he ran in The New Yorker, not just because Gottlieb ran it but because, as Martins says, "you believe it."). Then Gottlieb went to work with Lourdes Lopez at Miami City Ballet, after personally choosing her to run the company. Gottlieb also published a book about Balanchine (George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker, Harper and Collins, 2004) with little insight into Balanchine's genius and no discernible knowledge of ballet steps or choreography, falling back on subjective terms such as "speed" and "attack."
In fairness to Gottlieb he does seem to have chosen good assistants to work with him and apparently always got along with his bosses. It would have been nice to hear more about the writers he worked with and details of editing, other than that he took a box full of scribbled notes and turned it into a book. And does he truly think that being selected for Book-of-the-Month club or making the best-seller list are measures of the quality of a book?
Gottlieb is not above comparing himself to legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, who supposedly re-wrote much of Thomas Wolfe. Editor Gottlieb always finds manuscripts --whether from Lauren Bacall or Joseph Heller -- to be in terrible shape and he has to work night and day and all weekend to make them readable. He made Simon and Schuster a success, brought Knopf back from the dead and improved "The New Yorker" considerably when he took over from William Shawn (and then it went downhill after he was replaced with Tina Brown.)
Gottlieb was not only a great editor he also practically ran two ballet companies, first the NYC Ballet (he was fired from the board when Peter Martins objected to an Arlene Croce piece he ran in The New Yorker, not just because Gottlieb ran it but because, as Martins says, "you believe it."). Then Gottlieb went to work with Lourdes Lopez at Miami City Ballet, after personally choosing her to run the company. Gottlieb also published a book about Balanchine (George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker, Harper and Collins, 2004) with little insight into Balanchine's genius and no discernible knowledge of ballet steps or choreography, falling back on subjective terms such as "speed" and "attack."
In fairness to Gottlieb he does seem to have chosen good assistants to work with him and apparently always got along with his bosses. It would have been nice to hear more about the writers he worked with and details of editing, other than that he took a box full of scribbled notes and turned it into a book. And does he truly think that being selected for Book-of-the-Month club or making the best-seller list are measures of the quality of a book?
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Irving Rapper's Voice of the Turtle (1947)
One of the pleasures of Turner Classic Movies is discovering unheralded films that one sees with no great expectations and that turn out to be quite charming; Irving Rapper's Voice of the Turtle is one such film, the title referring to the coming of Spring. Rapper does not have a particularly personal visual style but he was a Warner Brothers house director who could, like Michael Curtiz, soar somewhat with the right material, as in this film and Now, Voyager (1942). Voice of the Turtle is from a John Van Druten play that ran for three seasons during WWII and, though filmed in 1947, it takes place during the war years, as a soldier on leave falls in love in New York City (Vincente Minnelli's The Clock, from 1945, is one of the best examples of this kind of film)
The improbable stars of this film are Ronald Reagan and Eleanor Parker. Reagan had a long career with Warner Brothers but seldom got important parts and seldom worked with the best directors, though he later made two pretty good films with Don Siegel and two Westerns with Allan Dwan. In the Rapper film he shows some surprising ability with both physical and verbal comedy, at one point beautifully juggling a hot toaster quietly to keep his presence unknown, lest he compromise Parker's reputation. Reagan comes to New York to take out man-eater Eve Arden, who has received a better offer and pushes him on the gentle Parker, who has just had a serious break-up and is trying to avoid love. Parker and Reagan share their melancholy stories and when Parker says, "You're not happy now?" Reagan's reply is "Is anyone?", it effectively captures the sadness and loneliness of the wartime years.
The film unselfconsciously explores, with humor and intelligence, the quotidian details of a couple learning about each other: making a bed, cooking a breakfast (Reagan sleeps on Parker's couch when he can't find a hotel room), eating an apple, turning on a light, choosing a hat to wear, going for a walk. The music is by Max Steiner, the editing by Rudi Fehr, the elegant cinematography by Sol Polito, all Warner Brothers regulars who worked with director Irving Rapper and writer Van Druten to capture initial affection gradually turning into love.
The improbable stars of this film are Ronald Reagan and Eleanor Parker. Reagan had a long career with Warner Brothers but seldom got important parts and seldom worked with the best directors, though he later made two pretty good films with Don Siegel and two Westerns with Allan Dwan. In the Rapper film he shows some surprising ability with both physical and verbal comedy, at one point beautifully juggling a hot toaster quietly to keep his presence unknown, lest he compromise Parker's reputation. Reagan comes to New York to take out man-eater Eve Arden, who has received a better offer and pushes him on the gentle Parker, who has just had a serious break-up and is trying to avoid love. Parker and Reagan share their melancholy stories and when Parker says, "You're not happy now?" Reagan's reply is "Is anyone?", it effectively captures the sadness and loneliness of the wartime years.
The film unselfconsciously explores, with humor and intelligence, the quotidian details of a couple learning about each other: making a bed, cooking a breakfast (Reagan sleeps on Parker's couch when he can't find a hotel room), eating an apple, turning on a light, choosing a hat to wear, going for a walk. The music is by Max Steiner, the editing by Rudi Fehr, the elegant cinematography by Sol Polito, all Warner Brothers regulars who worked with director Irving Rapper and writer Van Druten to capture initial affection gradually turning into love.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Kenji Mizoguchi's Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954)
The use of the camera to convey emotional ideas or intelligent feeling is the definition of cinema derived from Mizoguchi's films.
--David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film
Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi made over ninety movies, many during the silent period, and few of them have been seen in the West (are you listening David Kehr at MoMA and Bruce Goldstein at Film Forum?) What we have seen is exquisite. Among the few: Ugetsu (1953), The Life of Oharu (1952) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). Turner Classic Movies recently showed Story from Chikamatsu (1954) based on a 17th Century Bunraku (puppet) play.
I mention all the time --probably too often -- that many of today's films look at though D.W. Griffith had never lived (the dubious Arrival and the odious Elle are two examples that I had the misfortune to see recently) and Mizoguchi's film is a nice change, with its influences of Griffith and John Ford and their views of love in a society that does not make it easy for lovers or even women. Mizoguchi's 17th century lovers have to escape from the oppressive interiors of a master scroll-maker-- Mohei (Kazuo Hasegawa) is an assistant and Osan (Kyoko Kagawa) is the master's wife -- to a river where they contemplate suicide and eventually to a bamboo forest, where the tall bamboo seems to be a symbolic prison. They are eventually caught and crucified, a common punishment for adulterers in 17th century Japan. Mizoguchi shows an extraordinary concern for the role of women in Japanese society and he and cinematographer Kasuq Miyagawa (who does a wonderful job with rich black-and-white interiors and exteriors) learned from Griffith's subtle use of emotions and Ford's use of space and landscape, though Mizoguchi is more fatalistic than either of those directors, with his particular view of Japanese society, history, and class hierarchy.
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