arturus Reviews

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Charming little romantic fantasy

[6/10 · 1 July 2011]

This is a lovely little film, extravagant in its visuals, with Paris serving as another character in the story, looking glorious of course. The photography alone is worth the price of admission. The premise is charming and is executed in a believable way. The filming of it is simple and effective, with no tricks, just as straightforward realism.

The contemporary characters are out of Allen's stock barrel of characters. The two leads could be played by Allen and Diane Keaton, but they are now too old to play them, so the young actors serve as stand-ins for the two originals. Wilson has an interesting face but is too good-looking and too WASP-y to play the "Allen character". He does a spot on imitation of Allan's quirky mannerisms, vocal and physical, in this role. I wish he hadn't. I think a more original take on the "Allen character" might have been more effective. Here, he just seems like an imitation, and not a believable one.

The writing is fair. The dialogue is Allen's usual "realistic" way of making his characters speak, which never seems like the way people talk, just someones Idea of how they talk.

The best part of this film for me are the time travel scenes, populated by all of the main character's heroes from the past. They could be a dream, but they are executed with total realism. These roles are written and acted with more success than the 2010 characters, which all seem as if they actually belong in the 1970s, not the 2010s. All of the great people the hero meets in these episodes are done quite well, except for a stilted Hemingway (but how else could you portray a character who was mostly bluster and defensive pretense in real life?) Kathy Bates is the real standout as Gertrude Stein. She takes an underwritten part and creates a portrait of the iconic figure not at all as a caricature of her, but as real, breathing person, intelligent, savvy and believable.

The real problem with this charming film is that it's too long for its slight story. This might have been better as a short or as one episode in a multiple-story film, which Allen has done before. Here, about halfway through, it starts to drag and you begin to wonder...

I think this is a fine little picture, but not a great one, and not one of Allen's best. I think it is garnering the praise it's been getting because it's superb in contrast to most of the drek that's being released right now.

Ladybug Ladybug (1963)

A well crafted and well acted little gem

[4/10 · 1 November 2010]

I've only seen this film a few times when it was shown on Showtime in the mid 80s. It's a chilling and realistic film about children in a suburban school caught in the middle of what they suspect is a real nuclear attack, although the reality of it is never actually confirmed. I was impressed with the quality of the writing, the direction and the solid acting of the cast, all prominent New York actors then, with good local reputations for their work no stage and in 50s television, but none of them stars yet. What thrilled me most was that I had known two of the child actors, the two Howard brothers, playing brothers in the film, and seeing them again looking just as they did then was a moving experience for me.

He & She (1967–1968)

Intelligent, classy, sexy and very funny!

[10/10 · 6 April 2010]

I saw this as a teenager and even then I was deeply impressed with everything about it, the writing, the casting, the superb performances. I thought that Dick and Paula would certainly become the Lunt and Fontanne of my generation, a gifted married couple who could play comedy brilliantly, and drama, too! But CBS never gave this show the slot it deserved or the promotion it needed. It got rave reviews and had a devoted if small audience, but it was canceled after only one season. I liked it so much I made (audio) recordings of several episodes, just for the writing and to hear the way these two, Benjamin and Prentiss, played off of each other. Sheer brilliance!

Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Touching and funny

[9/10 · 24 December 2008]

In a first class production, Davis and Rains provide two more character portraits: Fanny Trellis, vain and superficial, and Job Skeffington, patient and loving. Davis' performance in particular is impressive, showing her versatility and insight as an actor. Her portrayal of Fanny is totally different from the characters she played the year before this production, in "Watch on the Rhine" and "Old Acquaintance", and the year after, in "The Corn is Green". And in this one, she allows herself to to appear less than glamorous: her character ages hideously, true to the character. This was one daring theater artist!

Besides the usual opulent and beautiful production from the Warners studio, what no one seems to mention here is Franz Waxman's musical score, funny and brilliant, full of Straussian touches and near-quotes, just right for the period it depicts, from pre-World War I to the late 1930s.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Astonishing

[10/10 · 3 September 2008]

I never quite knew what to make of this movie. Was it horror? Camp? Comedy? Noir? I just couldn't make sense of it, and so I dismissed it as something of a joke, as many people did at the time, and a BAD joke at that.

Well I just saw it again this morning and I was astonished by how good this movie is. It is gorgeously made, in spite of a limited budget and a fast shooting schedule, masterfully edited and shot, every detail of set design, costume and makeup just exactly right, gorgeously acted by every single person in it, with perhaps the exception of Davis' daughter, BD Merrill (now known as BD Hyman, "Christian" teacher) who is excruciatingly bad in her tiny role. Everyone else is spot on, blazingly, terrifyingly honest and truthful in every single scene, even Crawford, who could be awfully phony sometimes. Davis's performance is a miraculous tour de force, brilliant in its technical mastery, acting with her entire body (she DID study dance with Martha Graham after all!), her face, her eyes, her voice, her hands, always true to the character and the moment, but still playing with a sense of style, which is the character's but also is the actor's. I don't think there's anyone now who could pull off something like this. Actors today lack the technique to do it, most of them.

It's all done so well, with such utter seriousness of purpose by everyone involved, that I still didn't quite get why! One comment here, by one Robert Glass, explains it for me. These people were making an honest film about the Hollywood they knew, about PEOPLE they knew, about what that crazy level of fame does to the people who have it and the people who crave it. They were all of them familiar with this scene, they all knew people who had sunk into it or crawled their way out of it. This accounts for the almost documentary-style photography, with no cheating, no gauze filters or flattering lights. This accounts for cinematographer Ernie Haller, Bette's favorite, following her around for days with his camera, sometimes in the back seat, as she tooled around Los Angeles as Baby Jane in that gorgeous 1940 Lincoln convertible, in full "Jane Hudson" makeup and costume, just right for the character as written. Davis said, "She's the kind of woman who doesn't wash her face, she just puts on another layer of makeup!" And you know her through Davis' compassionate interpretation, and know why she is the way she is.

Davis had looked at some of this before, giving a good, unflinching performance in "The Star" ten years before, but not as deeply and in not as good a film. Crawford had never done anything quite like this and she doesn't come across as honest with herself or as insightful as Davis does, though she is pretty honest (for Crawford) in the way she dresses and looks the part.

But everyone else matches Davis's honesty, shot for shot and line for line and approaches this with the same utter seriousness. And now I know why.

I'd suggest to everyone that they look at this picture again with all of this in mind. There was a reason, beyond the surface chills and thrills, why this picture was such a hit in 1962.

Now, Voyager (1942)

Marvelous...

[10/10 · 27 July 2008]

Having just finished reading Olive Prouty's original novel of 1941 I am absolutely amazed by the picture that was made from it the following year. It exactly captures the tone of the book, condenses and streamlines the plot without violating it, and takes most of its dialogue directly from Prouty's well-written romance. All in a first class, sumptuously produced film of just the right length.

This is probably the best "pictureization" (to use an archaic word) of a novel I have ever seen. The novel gives clearer motivation for the shipboard romance, which is only hinted at in the film, but that can be overlooked. In the novel, Jerry, or "J. D.", has also suffered a nervous breakdown, so he can understand Charlotte's difficulty from first hand experience.

Everything about this film is just right. This was a best selling book in 1941 and no wonder the film received such a rapturous reception the following year! In addition, Davis gives probably the best performance of her long career here, understanding the character and really liking her, playing in the moment in every scene, and making the transformation from "frumpy librarian" (as a friend once described the pre-breakdown Charlotte) to glowing swan entirely believable. You end the picture cheering for her!

Deep Valley (1947)

Wondrous acting

[16 May 2008]

...is what makes this picture work so well, from every cast member. Everything works here, especially the really inspired score.

Others have commented on the cinematography and direction, all first class, and the really gorgeous work of Ida Lupino, but no one mentions Fay Bainter as the mother. She was as terrific a performer, as accomplished and communicative as the great Lupino is here, really playing a character and making her real. These two do more with a lowering of the eyes and a simple gesture than any "Method"-trained actor manages today, with all their talk of "truthfulness" and "realism".

The File on Thelma Jordon (1949)

Like "Double Indemnity" on steroids!

[5/10 · 18 January 2008]

Now, don't get me wrong. I love good "noir", even fair "noir". And I'm a great admirer of Barbara Stanwyck, possibly the most all-around gifted performer of all the Golden Age stars, female or male. But when La Stanwyck, after she's been madly kissed by a drunk Wendell Corey (?!) utters the line, "Maybe I'm just a dame and didn't know it. Maybe I like being picked up by a guy on a bench!" I was so convulsed with laughter that I just couldn't take this overheated "noir" seriously.

The overcooked dialogue, the overwrought acting, the impossibly convoluted plot: there's one panicky crime cover-up sequence that seems to go on forever!...well. There were times when I thought I was watching a movie spoof on the old "Carol Burnett Show"...and I finally "got" where the writers on that marvelous, classic show show got their outlandish ideas for noir spoofs: from THIS PICTURE!

And the ending! The cigarette lighter sequence in the car, when that light went on in La Stanwyck's eyes as she realized what she was about to do...I screamed, "Oh, NO!!" and then fell apart laughing again when she actually DID what I thought she was about to do! The final confession sequence, with the dying Stanwyck, in full makeup, of course, saying possibly the most ridiculous final words of any character on film, was just way too much.

I simply cannot believe that Hal Wallis, the producer, or the actors, writers and crew, didn't do this INTENDING to be funny, in the way that say, Mel Brooks patented two decades later. It's clear to me why this picture disappeared and isn't known. I'm sure audiences didn't know what to make of it. I didn't.

Kings Row (1942)

Quite marvelous

[9/10 · 2 December 2007]

I've only recently seen this film in its entirety (after decades of watching the clip of Ronnie Reagan's best scene in it) and am totally surprised by how fine this film really is; in fact, when it ended, I found myself wanting to burst into applause. But to appreciate it you must put yourself into the time it was made, mid- to late 1941. This picture was meant to be an "A" picture (that is, the first picture to be shown on a double bill, or the only film being shown) showcasing the up and coming generation of Warners actors. None of the young players was particularly well-known, except in supporting roles. The older players were all familiar to film, theater and radio audiences. Radio, since radio drama was a major national venue then and all of these older players, in fact, most major stars, had starring roles in radio plays.

This picture would have been shown in its first run in the chain of theaters owned by Warners, mostly large ones, and shown in a large house, holding an audience of a thousand people or more, with a very large screen yards wide and high and a sound system that was louder and definitely more "high fidelity" than any member of the audience had at home or had heard anywhere else.

The book on which the film was based had been a scandalous best seller two years before and many if not most had read it (people read books then!) and in fact many in the audience were probably alive when this film takes place, in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th. Everyone would have been familiar with the style of dialogue and acting, which seems stilted to us, since it originated on the stage, with no microphones; the costumes, customs and speech would have been in living memory for many watching it in its first run, if not theirs, then their parents'.

As for Korngold's superb score, this too was a familiar part of a theatrical experience at the time. Most stage plays had live incidental music accompanying them. All major Broadway plays did. Opera, operetta and vaudeville were all part of the audience's experience, all with live music as part of the experience, and no one would have found Korngold's score obtrusive, just part of the show and gorgeous to hear. In fact, Korngold's score for "Robin Hood" in 1938 was premiered live on network radio as a major event, before the picture opened!

As for black and white, these films were truly in "black and white" on the big screen. Blacks WERE black and whites were silvery white. We see then on video screens, and so far, even with the best of those, these films look to be in "gray and grayer", with not the high contrast they had in the theater. So we dismiss them as flat and lifeless; in the theater, black and white has quite a lot of depth and sparkle.

So in its proper context, this film is really quite astonishingly good. The production design is by the same man who designed the look of "Gone With the Wind", so there are the gorgeously composed shots, the depth of field, use of light and shadow and attention to detail in that film. Even the landscapes, matte paintings that so many of them are, most have looked quite beautiful projected large. The acting is all first rate. All the actors, in their late twenties and early thirties, are playing younger than their ages. Cummings has the right wide eyed innocence of an only child reared in relative isolation by his grandmother, Sheridan is beautiful and true, Reagan lively and cocky, and Field, the disturbed adolescent. Reagan is the real surprise here; totally unaffected, he acts effortlessly here on film, building a character, listening to the actors in the scene and reacting in the moment. And his best scenes, "THAT" one, and the final scene, are excellent.

And when it ends, with a flourish those audiences would have found entirely familiar and even comforting, I can imagine an audience of a thousand bursting into prolonged applause.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The future we imagined...

[10/10 · 1 October 2007]

I don't think contemporary audiences can recreate what it felt like to see this film on its first release. I was seventeen years old and had been an avid science fiction reader since my early teens. I had read all of Clarke's novels, all of Heinlein's written up to 1966 and I was eager to see what Clarke and Kubrick had come up with.

And this did indeed show how those of my generation (before the cultural "break" and the craziness of the late 60s and 70s) imagined that our future would be. And there it was, on the screen! Seeing this on a huge screen, in stereophonic sound, in a large theater with a large audience, for the FIRST time, was awe inspiring. No one had quite done anything like it before, though George Pal had come close.

We did indeed imagine that we were at the dawn of a new era, the era of space travel, and that perhaps we would live to see our first contact with extraterrestrial beings. It was a nice dream, though premature, and Kubrick and Clarke put this vision of it, with its positive, affirming ending, right out there for us to see. The Star Child is humankind, at the beginning of our real existence in the universe.

This didn't come to pass in our lifetime, not yet. But it will.

The White Countess (2005)

A grand finale

[8/10 · 28 August 2007]

This, the last of the Merchant/Ivory collaborations, is a long, rich and well-crafted film, a fitting finale to the collaboration of these two. It is perhaps a little too long and doesn't quite fit together, but the rich visuals, the intriguing characters, the evocation of time and place, the richly effective musical score and the fine, nuanced acting pull you right in and keep you watching, just as all of their films have done.

As I say, one of the strengths of the film is the acting, by the Redgraves, mother, daughter and aunt; by the supporting cast, and by the lead actor. The Redgrave sisters, Vanessa and Lynn, give a splendid evocation of exiled Russians, perhaps from the experience of playing Chekov. Venessa's daughter Richardson is less successful: though she is beautiful and intriguing in the part, her attempt at a Russian accent is really awful.

Fiennes gives an insightful performance as a recently blinded man who has lost his family under tragic circumstances. I had blind parents, grew up around blind people and am legally blind myself (partially sighted) so I must say that though his interior life is spot on, his playing "blind" is really inaccurate and unbelievable, both as the character in unfamiliar and in familiar surroundings. This may be partially the fault of the screenplay. First, a small detail: no blind person can eat with chopsticks. It's impossible! Secondly, his inconsistent use of a walking stick as a cane. A short stick like that would give him next to no information concerning what is in front of him and would be essentially useless, except as a prop; as an actor, Fiennes' use of it is inconsistent and not accurate. Third, when the character expresses a desire to "see" the Countess's face by feeling it...well, I'm sorry, but NO blind person does that! In fact the idea is quite abhorrent, even offensive to us. This only happens in the movies and it provides one of the few false moments in the picture.

The other false moment is his mad dash through the crowded Shanghai streets to find the Countess. It is wildly melodramatic, way over the top and unbelievable. Again, this is the screenplay's fault. Fiennes tries to downplay the melodrama by underplaying, but it still comes across as false.

My other problem with Fiennes' performance is that he plays the character as a modern American man, not as an upper class American of that time, much too, well, "Kevin Kostner". This character is upper class with money, an American diplomat. If this were a 1930s picture I CAN imagine an Englishman playing him, but he would be more like Ronald Colman or Robert Donat. If an American of that time were to play this character, he would be Tyrone Power, not Humphrey Bogart. Though Bogart did in fact come from an upper class New York family, he almost never played that in the movies.

Among modern American actors, I think only Kevin Kline could play this character accurately, with the right speech and manner, as a well educated, upper class American of the early 20th century. Most other American actors of his generation just lack the technique to pull it off.

Within the choices he made, Fiennes does very well. His American accent is quite consistent and very good, though occasionally he speaks his lines using English "speech melody" rather than authentic American intonations.

Overall, I found this to be a satisfying picture, telling a good story on a large, rich canvas, in the Merchant/Ivory tradition, a fitting ending to their collaboration.

Adam's Rib (1949)

Such fun...

[7/10 · 4 June 2007]

...to watch these two, Tracy and Hepburn, play so expertly together. The writing team of Kanin and Gordon knew these two offscreen and supposedly based their writing of this picture on the way Kate and Spence interacted in private life, and based the story on two married lawyers that they also knew. However true this may have been about how Tracy and Hepburn were together in private life (there seems to be some evidence that their very real friendship was turned into more than friendship by all of the participants to cover up what was, in fact, REALLY going on in their lives), on screen it works beautifully. They spar, make up, break up and come back together again in sweet, lighthearted fashion.

The director George Cukor of course knew all of them intimately too, and so his direction is equally responsible for its success: he seemingly points the camera at them, gets out of the way of the actors and the material, and lets the sparks fly.

The supporting cast is expert, especially Judy Holliday in her first real screen performance. David Wayne and Tom Ewell were well-known by Broadway and radio audiences at the time and this was also their first film. Ewell plays the husband perfectly, as a sleazy cheat.

Wayne plays the successful Broadway songwriter for just what he is, a not very likable gay guy who puts up the pretense of not being gay, though everyone knows he is and goes along with his "down low" ploy. This may seem revolting to contemporary audiences but was just the way it was for many in the 40s and 50s. It was the only way guys like him could survive and have any kind of success. If you didn't play the game you got nowhere. This is not as true as it used to be but in certain circles it certainly is, or people think it is.

The writers, actors and director were all people who knew New York very well, and from my own memories of it this does indeed capture the flavor of postwar New York City beautifully, the street life, the wildly crowded and even then ancient subways, the speech accents and rhythm of the place. The location shooting, what little there is of it, is excellent, and even the stock footage used as background looks just right for 1949 New York.

But it's the on screen work of the two stars that pulls this together. See it for that, and for a picture of a New York which no longer exists.

The Iron Curtain (1948)

Well done spy story...

[6/10 · 1 June 2007]

...done in the "documentary" style then used by Fox, even using the same narrator used in other, similar pictures, such as "The House on 92nd Street" from a few years earlier.

This picture shows much effort and talent, but somehow it doesn't quite come off, perhaps because it was clearly approached as a propaganda film, almost shrill in its pro-Western slant, just as the Cold War was beginning.

What I noticed most about the picture was its artful and effective use of music by Soviet composers, without crediting them except in the dialogue. As a musician I am shocked and appalled to learn that these composers' music was used without their permission. The Fifth Symphony of Prokofiev, which is quoted extensively, had only been given its Western premiere a few years before this picture was released, and was then given a landmark 1945 recording, by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, for Victor Records. Using the music of these composers without their knowledge or permission is like stealing!

I don't understand how a serious musician like Alfred Newman could have been party to this. Perhaps he thought he was making a patriotic, pro-Western statement, but as an artist he should have known how these composers would feel.

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)

Sweet 60s comedy

[8/10 · 30 May 2007]

This picture wasn't thought to be much when it was released. Most people thought it was a silly sitcom style comedy not up to Day's earlier romantic comedies. Arthur Godfrey gave it some air play on his daytime radio show, with Day and Taylor as guests, but there wasn't much else as I remember. By this point in his career Godfrey had lost his star lustre of just ten years before and his network radio show on CBS was just about all that was left, so his appearance in a major Hollywood movie was a big deal for him.

The picture did get a Music Hall premiere run in New York, but as I say, most people just yawned.

Seen forty years later it has a lot going for it, especially compared to today's cinema "comedies": good writing, expert direction, good pacing and editing, colorful location shots of Catalina and vicinity, good playing by the leads, who look to be having fun, and really good support from that amazing cast of 60s character actors.

There is a surprising amount of frank sexuality in this picture for the time, without nudity or profanity (Doris' character is a widow so she plays her as sexually mature and sophisticated), Godfrey's character has a wife/girlfriend about whom he's absolutely crazy and shows it, often (!), and there's even a surprising gay subplot that's played for laughs of course, but not offensively so. There's even Paul Lynde in drag...priceless!

Forty years later, it still makes me laugh. You will too.

The High and the Mighty (1954)

What?

[3/10 · 24 May 2007]

This picture has been talked about for decades, apparently because it wasn't available and no one had seen it for that long.

Well, I did, last night. This picture is so bad it even makes "Airport '79" look good! The treacly dialogue and situations, the overdone and unbelievable acting, the horrible special effects (which must look worse on a large screen!) the overwritten Tiomkin music, bad even for an old time movie score...I could go on and on. Wayne seems to walk through the picture, looking stoic and expressionless, which I guess for him passed for acting. When he lost his patience and literally slapped Robert Stack's pilot character out of it, well, I laughed, it was so ludicrous.

The print I saw on TCM is very good; the sound recording, one of Warners' early attempts at stereo, is pretty bad compared to what Fox was achieving in their new CinemaScope pictures, since Fox had been recording stereophonically for almost a decade. It IS interesting to hear the Warners orchestra, sounding just as it did in the 40s but in stereo.

But the picture...ugh. What was all the fuss about?!

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

A director's folly

[3/10 · 15 April 2007]

I know Wilde's masterful play very well. I have read it, seen several productions of it and acted in scenes from it. You would think that with this basic material, a brilliant cast, lots of money, a sumptuous production and a truckload of talented people, this would be a great success. WRONG!

From the first moments, hearing that totally inappropriate musical score with its strange melange of swing, ragtime and 1920s jazz, all totally anachronistic for the time depicted in this play, the mid-1890s, I knew the viewer was in for trouble. And was I right about that!

This was the strangest and most confusing bit of nonsense I have ever seen. This ego-driven production (the director/screenwriter's ego) threw out much of Wilde's effervescent dialogue and substituted campy "shtick" for it, turning Wilde's subtle comedy of manners into a strangely stupid modern "interpretation", complete with tasteless flashbacks and intercuts. I'm surprised this "director" didn't add a few four letter words, farts and burps, which seem to be the current substitutes for comedy in today's films, stage plays and television. We're spared those here, thankfully, but not much else.

I don't know what Dame Judi thought of this chance to immortalize her take on Lady Bracknell. This misguided director turns what could have been a brilliant characterization into a shrill one-note performance. Dame Judi does "indignant" and "imperious" very well, but that's not all Lady Bracknell is. And Dench can display these qualities and be funny at the same time, as she does so brilliantly on the BBC series "As Time Goes By". This accomplished actor hardly has a chance for subtlety, or comedy, for that matter, in this mess of a film.

I was wishing for more, a chance to see a great actor (Dench) in a great play. How disappointing this was.

Prince of Players (1955)

What a disappointment

[3/10 · 26 March 2007]

This film has all the ingredients to be a great achievement: a stirring story of the Booths, the most famous family of American actors of the 19th Century, a Bernard Herrmann score (though containing much material he'd already used in other pictures), a good script, Technicolor and CinemaScope cinematography, stereophonic sound. It has some of the best actors of the mid 20th Century, including Raymond Massey and even a cameo by the largely forgotten Eva Le Gallienne, one of the greatest stage actors of her time.

But somehow, its strength proves to be its weakness. This film showcases Richard Burton playing Edwin Booth. Burton was perhaps the greatest British actor of his generation, and we see him in scenes from Richard III, Hamlet and even the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet, played in the garden of a New Orleans brothel (what an idea!), all in the over-the-top but truthful style of the 19th century. It's thrilling to hear Shakespeare's words so well-delivered...but the length and weight of these scenes just sink the movie rather than elevating it to the status it might have achieved, totally smothering the interesting story of this troubled but gifted family. WHAT was this director thinking?!

It's interesting to note how few Americans are in this piece. Brits play Shakespeare beautifully of course, but so should Americans be able to. The only major American is Le Gallienne, who does well in her tiny scene. John Derek plays John Wilkes Booth, but we mercifully never see him try to play Shakespeare. He comes across as a lightweight compared to Burton and Massey, which must have been the point the producers were trying to make, stressing his jealousy of his brother's gifts as motivation for his playing his role in American history as Lincoln's assassin.

So we have a Brit and a Canadian (Massey) playing most of the major scenes of Shakespeare, movingly and thrillingly done. McNamara gamely tries to play the balcony scene (in the brothel garden!) opposite Burton (that must have been quite intimidating for her!) but though she projects an interesting vulnerability on screen, she has inadequate technique to read Shakespeare and her strong New York accent (she pronounces "Romeo" as "Vromeo"!) is funny and tragic at the same time.

It would be nice to see this in wide-screen format; the big scenes of Shakespeare might make more sense. The Fox channel is showing a pan and scan print, with only the main and closing titles in widescreen.

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Striking melodrama

[8/10 · 13 March 2007]

This is the kind of film you have to watch understanding the time in which it was made. Talking pictures were only just under twenty years old and people did not realize that film required techniques different from the stage. Two of the leads (Tierney and Price) were both stage actors and were taught to play in the large style that was part of the time and was what audiences expected, as were the grand emotional gestures in the plot of this picture and others, and the ever-present music.

Stage productions at that time mostly all had incidental music, specially written for them (one example is Paul Bowles' score for the Broadway stage production of "The Glass Menagerie"), performed live, in the theater.

This film has a particularly effective score by Alfred Newman, though loud and melodramatic by today's standards, using an ostinato timpani figure, a kind of throbbing heartbeat, and the musical intervallic motive of the descending augmented fourth, the "tritone", which in the middle ages was called the "Devil in Music", to express the darker side of the lead character's motives and persona.

So we should be careful in watching films like this, to understand the context and try to put ourselves in the place of the audiences of that time. If one does, this is a grand experience, with top-notch performances, cinematography, writing and music. Stretch your mind and heart to fit the big emotions and seemingly impossible plot turns, imagine yourself watching this in a huge theater, with hundreds if not thousands of others, on a huge screen, with a very powerful sound system, and suddenly it works.

Of course, this is a vehicle for a "star" actress, and Tierney rises to the occasion admirably, holding your attention in every scene she's in, by her beauty and her sheer magnetism on the screen. On the DVD commentary for it, the actor who appeared opposite Tierney as the young boy Danny belittles her "technical" acting approach (that is, working from the outside in, rather than using the inner-directed "Method" developed around that time in America by Lee Strasberg, taking and often misunderstanding and misinterpreting techniques developed in Russia by Constantin Stanislavsky) and he says that, in scenes, she gave nothing to the actor (himself) playing opposite her.

Well, first, that's the character she's playing, icy cold, with a "flat affect", as written. As a relatively inexperienced film actress, she was possibly one of those actors who cannot get out of character between shots or while resting on a shoot. In retrospect we know of her serious mental problems which manifested later, and perhaps this role was just too close for comfort!

Considering that, watching her playing from this distance, I think she does very well, always present in the scene and listening, with only a very few moments of self-conscious posing. I think Mr Hickman has an ax to grind here; in fact, he does, and he goes as far as to advertise his own teaching practice and book about acting!

Let's face it, when we think of this picture and others like it, after all, we remember Tierney, her beauty, her strong screen presence and her vulnerability as the character, not his performance, good as it is.

Star! (1968)

What is it?!

[3/10 · 4 February 2007]

That's what I kept asking myself when I watched this picture, which I'd only seen in snippets before, and in the truncated, second release version. A documentary, comedy, drama, musical? Is this a film by Robert Wise? I remember when the film was first released, in the fall of 1968, after months of drum rolls. I didn't even see it (though as I remember the billboard plugging it on Times Square was so huge it seemed you could see it for miles on a cloudy day) and even I heard the "thud" when it flopped.

After all that had happened in the world in the five years before it was released, producing a biopic about Gertrude Lawrence seemed totally absurd and made no sense. All I knew about her was that she was on my original cast album of "The King and I", sounding like an actress with little or no singing voice, wobbly and out of tune. Marni Nixon's voice in the film was SO much better, it seemed to me. But here Fox was, actually doing it, acting as if it was going to be the biggest picture ever made, and casting Julie Andrews, who could actually sing! Seeing it now, I can understand why it flopped. The plot is thin, the supporting performances bland (Robert Reed, pre-Brady Bunch, as a suitor!!), the musical numbers, though well produced, come from nowhere, with no context, and are far too long.

The last straw, for me, was when Gertie was to appear in "Oh, Kay!". This is a Gershwin musical. There was no mention of Gershwin at all, though they show her singing "Someone to Watch Over Me". At the opening night party, who but NOEL COWARD (in a deft impersonation by Daniel Massey) is the one to sit at the piano and accompany Gertie in one of HIS songs. I'm sorry, but at those parties I've read that it was ALWAYS George himself who sat at the piano. You couldn't get him off the bench and no one wanted to! Not even Sir Noel himself, I'm sure. I was hoping he'd appear...but no!

The only thing that's really worthy here is to hear Julie Andrews sing again, especially knowing the tragedy of her lost voice due to botched surgery. In this day of "no voice", "singer" winners of "American Idol" (on which anyone who actually CAN sing is laughed off the show; I saw it happen, with blistering cruelty, to one young contestant a few nights ago, after which another contestant, caterwauling in the "accepted by Randy-Paula-Simon" definition of singing, that is, out of tune screaming/screeching) is passed on to the next round, incredibly), well, it's refreshing, lovely and tragic.

White Banners (1938)

Small picture telling a big story

[10/10 · 7 January 2007]

I missed the opening credits so I didn't know the source material for this film, but all during the picture I kept thinking that it reminded me of "Magnificent Obsession"...and of course Lloyd Douglas wrote the story for this picture as well.

This is a small masterpiece, well written, nicely and realistically produced on a small scale, leaving room for the largeness of the story and its message about faith and true character, which both seem to be lacking in modern life.

The acting is the most outstanding element in this dated but beautiful piece. Rains of course was the most famous and accomplished character actor of his time and he takes this character and makes him his own, though Rains was English, as the character is not, and makes no effort to hide his British accent. Still, we believe him. Bonita Granville and Jackie Cooper are splendid as the two youngsters.

The big surprise is Fay Bainter. She was a renowned stage actress of her time and if you only know her later character work on film, you wouldn't suspect it. Here, she shines brightly and gives a touching, riveting performance. It's clear why she was so revered! I kept watching just waiting for her next scene to see what she would do with it.

Try to catch this when it's shown again. You'll be deeply moved by the story and by its people, living their lives full-tilt!

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Disappointing and tedious

[4/10 · 30 December 2006]

Granted, Dan Brown's intriguing though incredibly poorly written book would have been a real challenge for anyone to turn into film. Ron Howard has always had such an unfailing sense of narrative film-making that I was certain he of all people could pull it off.

But, sadly, he doesn't. Nothing seems to work, from the dark, murky photography to the miscasting of Tom Hanks as Langdon to the wooden, flat dialogue to the poor use of locations and the confusing and disjointed narrative. There are long stretches of film which are in French and the resulting distraction of subtitles slows the film down even more. Why do that? It's not necessary! Speaking accented English with a few words in French would have made the same point. We KNOW they speak French in France, for God's sake. This is an American film from a book written in American English, by an American filmmaker for an American audience. Putting those stretches in French was just unbearably pretentious.

So much of the film was disjointed that Zimmer's over the top score had to work overtime to create any kind of tension, involvement or emotional impact. It reminded me of what Jack Warner used to do when he saw that a film he was producing wasn't working: he'd say to the composer, "Write more music!" And in this case, LOUDER music!

Too bad. This film COULD have raised some serious issues to a very large public of non-readers...but it's so poor it never stands a chance of doing that. The message gets lost in the mess.

Black Widow (1954)

Rather stiff melodrama

[5/10 · 5 December 2006]

Everyone tries hard to make this work, but somehow, it never fits together. Johnson's script gives some authentic 50s New York texture to the early scenes (some location shots help a lot) and the theatrical atmosphere seems right for its time (this theatrical milieu is almost totally gone from New York now), but the plot creaks its way to an oddly flat conclusion.

The standouts for me are Rogers, who tries hard to play a character different from her usual, Mabel Albertson as a restaurant owner, and Cathleen Nesbitt, again playing against type, as an American housekeeper. Tierney looks distracted and is wasted here (were her mental problems beginning to surface during the making of this?), Hefliin goes though the motions; the supporting cast is decent but flat, quite missing the opportunity to add some texture to the piece, except for those I've mentioned, Nesbitt and Albertson.

And finally, Fox has started to show this creaky but interesting melodrama in its original, widescreen version. New York City at last takes its role as another character in the piece.

Copying Beethoven (2006)

Fine film about music, with a superb Ed Harris performance

[9/10 · 25 November 2006]

As a professional musician I'm tired of seeing movies that claim to depict the lives of musicians, but just don't "get" it. This one, with all its poetic excesses and liberties taken with the "real" story, does "get" it, and more. The writing has some good scenes, the acting for the most part is good. The scenes of music being written and made are quite true to the reality of the doing. In certain ways adding a fictional character to heighten the story weakens the integrity of the film, especially as the film clearly depicts Beethoven's unrequited love for his nephew Karl. Beethoven's real copyists at this point in his life were men. So what was the point of turning them into a young woman, except to sell the picture and make a political statement?

But no matter. The picture has its moments of real beauty visually and emotionally. It captures the look and sound of a world lit only by daylight, candles and firelight, and in which the loudest sounds heard are those of church bells, added by the sound designer at very telling points in the story.

But the strongest thing about the film is the performance of Ed Harris. This is an amazing theater artist. He totally inhabits the character as written, with no tricks, no Method-izing, no self-conscious showing off, as do his contemporaries, DeNiro and Pacino. He totally disappears into the character, and unlike the actors I mentioned, is totally different in each role, in appearance and in voice. It's done so simply, too, without any extra attention-grabbing flourishes. As I've said elsewhere, his work reminds me most of classic film actors like Tracy, Fonda and Stewart in that respect.

I was astounded by the way he acted the role of a musician, which was incredibly accurate, in ways I would expect from this actor, but still it surprised me. The only other performance on film that I've seen which equals it in this respect is that of Claude Rains in the 1946 melodrama "Deception". But then, Harris' father was a musician, singing in the most famous small chorus of his time, Fred Waring's "Pennsylvanians". So Ed Harris grew up around musicians, accounting for his accurate portrayal and his singing voice.

So do see this film, for the music of course, but also for Ed Harris' riveting performance.

Brothers & Sisters (2006–2011)

Aside from the cast, well...

[5/10 · 24 September 2006]

...this series, at least from the first episode, doesn't have much going for it. It attempts to be a "relationship drama", whatever that is, with some depth, but it comes across instead as a rudderless nighttime soap. The writing is faceless, the characters don't grab the viewer's attention much, the show lacks a "look" and the director, Ken Olin of "thirtysomething", plots an unsteady course through the first hour.

The plot twists seem contrived and the confrontations between the characters seem so too. The final plot twist was so appallingly WRONG (why deprive the series of a central character before it begins?) that we sincerely doubted if we'd continue watching it.

We watched it basically to see the stellar cast, especially the glowing Sally Field. Seeing "Gidget" on the edge of old age was something of a shock. One particular closeup shot of her was terribly unflattering to the still-sparkling Field. What were the cinematographer and director THINKING?! Even Patricia Wettig, the little we saw of her, was unflatteringly photographed, and she's the producer/director's wife!

So I can't really tell where this new series was going. With all its good intentions, I'm sorry to say I don't have much hope for it.

The Dick Cavett Show with Mel Brooks (2006 TV Special)

Absolutely wonderful!

[10/10 · 7 September 2006]

I am NOT a Mel Brooks fan, not by any means, but I was held totally spellbound by this show...and it was all Cavett. He managed to bring the best out of Brooks, as he always does with his interviewees. He brings himself to the interview without being intrusive, and at 70 years old, his boyish "gee whiz" admiration of his guest just shines.

Seeing "The Dick Cavett Show" again here, using his old graphics and entrance and exit music, and seeing him just as brilliant, articulate, witty and charming as ever, well, my hat's off to you, Cavett! You make all the other talk show hosts, comedians and stand up "comics" of 2006 look cheap and stupid by comparison.

If you want to, and have the will and energy to do it, please do more of these! I for one will watch every single show with pleasure.