ON THIS DAY in 1905, screenwriter and member of “the Hollywood Ten” Dalton Trumbo was born. His refusal to testify about Communists in the film industry was depicted in the 2007 documentary, TRUMBO.
The great screwball comedies of the ‘30s and ‘40s from acclaimed directors like Wyler, Hawks, Lubitsch, and Sturges are always crowd pleasers. These are movies chock full of star power, snappy dialogue, stunning sets, and buckets of style.
What’s not to like?
Sometimes, I fear, what is not to like is when mean-spirited revenge is played for comedy and a supposedly “happy ending” of wedded bliss is sure to be doomed because the bride and groom will, in no way, ever operate on the same level and with any sense of trust.
Call me a poop, but for that reason, I just can’t put THE LADY EVE (1941) by Preston Sturges at the top of my list of favorite comedies from that era.
You’ll get no argument from me that THE LADY EVE is indeed a funny and clever film with laugh-out-loud lines so full of double entendre that they’re actually shocking. I can watch selected scenes from this movie over and over and over and never stop being entertained by their hilarity.
I have a friend who often waxes on how THE LADY EVE is one of the most brilliant comedies of all, and I’m just using this space to put in my two cents that it’s a bit depressing as well.
Barbara Stanwyck is gorgeous as Jean, a manipulative con artist, and Henry Fonda is the handsome but bumbling Charles Pike (aka “Hopsie”) as her love interest — although you can’t help but wonder how the scenes would have sounded and looked with Hepburn and Grant in charge. Co-stars William Demarest as Fonda’s right-hand man is delightful, and Charles Coburn as Stanwyck’s father is the lovable criminal you can’t help but like.
On a trans-Atlantic crossing, Stanwyck plays the ultimate “cruiser,” setting her sights on Fonda when she discovers he is an heir to a beer fortune—and even better, he is completely clueless to feminine and cardsharp wiles. Within minutes of their first meeting, Stanywck gets him to her room and actually has him picking out her shoes and falling on his knees to slip them on for her. Who is this guy?
And who in the world is this dame? She is lusty and lovely and not to be trusted. You feel a bit sorry for Fonda’s Hopsie character, but the again, maybe not.
Hopsie falls hard for her but quickly finds out that Stanwyck’s Jean isn’t who she says she is. Hurt and dismayed, he rejects her. She doesn’t even try to explain that she has genuine feelings for him and regrets trying to dupe him. Couldn’t they just have had an honest conversation to clear things up? There could have been some solid comedy from that scenario. Instead, she turns callous and bitter and plots her revenge. She even calls him a “sucker.”
Once Stanwyck’s countenance goes cold and her wheels start turning on an “I’ll get you” path, the movie loses its laugh power. I’m not rooting for her anymore. I’m annoyed by her nasty spirit and smug self-assuredness that she’s in a fight to win, in the name of winning alone, not in the name of finding love.
If you’re watching THE LADY EVE at home, this is the point in the movie when might want to get up, pour yourself a glass of wine, go to the bathroom, make a list of things to do for the next day. Keep within earshot to catch a few clever lines however.
And when you hear froggy-voiced Eugene Palette (playing Fonda’s father) banging on the table demanding that someone feed him, settle back in. He steals the show. The movie regains its momentum here and as we watch the kitchen staff get ready for a dinner party—a brilliant series of scenes. This is joyful moviemaking at its best. But then the devious Stanwyck walks in, and the spirit of fun dissolves.
A lot of time, and I mean A LOT of time goes by as Stanwyck lies, postures, and poses, and we head to the inevitable conclusion: Hopsie will stay clueless and Stanwyck will get her man. And no one, in the end, will be the happier for it.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
ON THIS DAY in 1626, Queen regnant of Sweden Christina Alexandra was born in Tre Kronor castle, Sweden. The 1933 Rouben Mamoulian film, QUEEN CHRISTINA, starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, was based upon her life.
Good evening. We’re seeing a lot of the Master of Suspense these days, what with his self-titled movie currently playing at theaters. But we have always had the opportunity to catch his familiar face and form often over the years, right there during his cameo appearances in the very pictures he directed. We can identify that distinctive shape easily in those movies, but can you name the movie’s title? (In case you missed it last week, here’s part 1.)
(*The quiz title was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest:“Something wrong with your eyes?” “Yes”, says the sunglass-clad Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant), “They’re sensitive to questions”. In the hotel room of the fictitious George Kaplan, Roger spots a photograph of his kidnapper, Philip Vandamm, and says, “Oh, well, look who’s here!”.)
Dansk: Blikdåse med reklamefilm på Statsbiblioteket. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The last episodes of the 15-part of THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY(2011), filmmaker and narrator Mark Cousins continues to explore the constancy of change in cinema as it moves from celluloid to the digital era. Throughout the 1990s and onward, authenticity and artifice weave in and out of the picture as directors all over the world explore, question, and reference the realm of possibilities.
During this time, film becomes more “real” with expanded use of documentary style demonstrated in Iranian films like LIFE, AND NOTHING MORE (1992) by Abbas Kiarostami and the handheld roughness of BLAIR WITCH PROJECT(1999) by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Paradoxically, directors are exploring the “unreal” with movies such as the jaw-dropping HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS(2004) by Yimou Zhang, horror film RINGU (1998) by Hideo Nakata; and the “mash-up” music video style of MOULIN ROUGE (2001) by Baz Luhrmann.
Of course, as time moves on, computer-generated graphics create spectacle of the kind created in GLADIATOR (2000) and AVATAR (2009) to the point that films start feeling like video games. (The utter disdain with which Cousins spits out the words “hobbits and avatars” is highly entertaining, by the way.)
On the other end of the spectrum are directors like Van Trier, Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers who erase boundaries and artifice to create films that strive to be more real — and less real — at the same time.
Like the adage goes, “Nothing is constant but change.” And film is no different. Technology will continue to influence the realm of possibilities. More corporate marketing (and perhaps less of culture) will continue to influence what’s seen on the silver screen. And directors will continue to strive to deliver their individual visions.
One of the most compelling clips in this part of STORY is the side-by-side comparison the shower scene in Hitchcock’s PSYCHO and Van Sant’s 1998 version. Like an ongoing conversation with the past, film will continue to quote film.
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THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY(2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema. Music Box Films is distributing this new documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater has just completed a multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD has been released. You will want to add it to your collection.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
ON THIS DAY in 1969, during a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in California, Meredith Hunter was assaulted by Hells Angels security guards and stabbed to death. The incident was documented in the 1970 film, GIMME SHELTER.
ON THIS DAY in 1960, the musical Camelot debuted on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre. In 1967, Joshua Logan directed the film adaptation of CAMELOT, which starred Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave.
ON THIS DAY in 1908, Pu Yi (age two years, 10 months) became Emperor of China. This event was dramatized in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 film, THE LAST EMPEROR.
When I think of the blockbusters of the 1970s, I think of Spielberg gems like JAWS (1975) and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977); Freidkin’s THE EXORCIST (1973); and Lucas’s STAR WARS (1977) masterpiece.
According to Mark Cousins, narrator and filmmaker of THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY(2011), these innovative films were the candy that lured American audiences back into the country’s movie theaters, these new things being built that were called “multiplexes.”
These Hollywood blockbusters were innovative, to be sure, because of new technology like Dolby sound and enhanced deep space perspective. But there was something more in these movies, a focus on universal emotions, showcasing REALLY BIG, inspired moments that relied on the ever-present “awe and revelation scene,” where the audience doesn’t see what the actor sees. Picture CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, with Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon, staring, dumfounded, while we wait in expectation to see what they’re seeing, spellbound ourselves, mouths open, on the edge of our seats.
And while American audiences were wowed by their newest contemporary directors, the Asian mainstream cinema was also being kickstarted (pun intended) by the Shaw Brothers Studios (Hong Kong’s sprawling film center) and Bruce Lee movies. From Lee’s physicality, the martial arts genre grew, inspiring more cinematic innovation, with the super fast cut and slow motion “spinning” effects that enthrall and mesmerize and later show up in films like THE MATRIX (1999).
The Bollywood film industry also became a force in this era, building the biggest moviemaking empire in the world, churning out 433 movies in one year, for example, and in the present day releasing more than 1,000 per year, double that of a typical production year in Hollywood.
Since almost everyone in the world has seen them, you may want to add two world cinema blockbusters from the ’70s on your must-watch list: THE MESSAGE: THE STORY OF ISLAM (1976), directed by Moustapha Akkad and starring Anthony Quinn, which Cousins says has probably been “seen by more people than any other,” and SHOLAY (1975) by director Ramesh Sippy, considered “one of the most influential films of the time.” It played in one cinema alone for 7 years!
As the 1970s retreated and the ’80s emerged, film took a new turn, where the focus of moviemaking was on politics, leveraging film as a protest mechanism heard ’round the world. Cousins cites a long list of influential titles from the “fight the power” era: THE HORSE THIEF (1988) from China, which led the rebirth of that country’s film industry; REPETANCE (1984) by Tengiz Abuladze; COME AND SEE (1985), pegged by Cousins as the “greatest war film ever made”; Krzysztof Kieslowski’s A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING (1988), which changed death penalty law in Poland; and award-winning MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE (1985), which Cousins calls “a kick in the balls to right-wing England.”
Cousins defines these ’80s protest films as cinema that “speaks truth to power,” and as this influence grew around the world, America’s up-and-coming directors like David Lynch, Spike Lee, John Sayles, and David Croenenberg took note.
These heady days of filmmaking of the ’80s made way for stretching the boundaries of world cinema even further as the 1990s arrive. Stay tuned….
_________
THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY (2011) is a 15-part, 15-hour documentary exploring the convergence of technology, business, intelligence, and vision that has created the remarkable and powerful art of cinema. Music Box Films is distributing this new documentary, and Chicago’s Music Box Theater has just completed a multi-week screening of this ambitious effort. The DVD has been released. You will want to add it to your collection.
Gloria Bowman is a writer, storyteller, blogger, movie lover, freelance editor,
and author of the novel, Human Slices.
Access her blog at www.gloriabowman.com; on Twitter @GloriaBow
Good evening. We’re seeing a lot of the Master of Suspense these days, what with his self-titled movie currently playing at theaters. But we have always had the opportunity to catch his familiar face and form often over the years, right there during his cameo appearances in the very pictures he directed. We can identify that distinctive shape easily in those movies, but can you name the movie’s title?
(*The quiz title was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest:“Something wrong with your eyes?” “Yes”, says the sunglass-clad Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant), “They’re sensitive to questions”. In the hotel room of the fictitious George Kaplan, Roger spots a photograph of his kidnapper, Philip Vandamm, and says, “Oh, well, look who’s here!”.)
ON THIS DAY in 1874, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Sir Winston Churchill was born. Churchill’s early days were dramatized in Richard Attenborough’s 1972 film, YOUNG WINSTON.
First film choreographed: WHOOPEE! with Eddie Cantor
Deleted choreography: Ray Bolger’s WIZARD OF OZ scarecrow dance number
Acquitted: at third trial for second degree murder charges following car accident in 1935
Fun fact: was uncredited actor in three films he choreographed
Directed at age 75: Broadway revival of No, No Nanette, starring Ruby Keeler
Quote: “In an era of breadlines, depression and wars, I tried to help people get away from all the misery…to turn their minds to something else. I wanted to make people happy, if only for an hour.”
Busby Berkeley’s “Remember My Forgotten Man”, from GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933:
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