What a score for film fans: The discovery of the talkie version of HIGH TREASON (1929). It was thought that only the silent version survived.
Kudos to the Northwest Chicago Film Society for its June 5 screening, “only the second showing since 1930, outside of the Library of Congress.” The sound restoration of this gem was completed by the Library of Congress in partnership with the Film Foundation, Chace Audio, and the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association.
It would be nearly treasonous if this piece of cinema history wasn’t readily available one day.
Directed by Maurice Elvey, “the most prolific film director in British history,” HIGH TREASON takes us to an eccentric, Metropolis-like, and very contemporary future vision of 1940.
The United States of Europe and the Empire States of the Atlantic are at the tipping point of declaring war. In the mix are national pride, terrorists, squabbling border patrols, a split war council, and greedy munitions industrialists. The President (Basil Gill) seeks the fight. He doesn’t expect that the leader of the Peace League, the virtuous Dr. Seymour (Humberston Wright), will commit murder to change the course of events.
Regardless of the threat of mayhem, there’s always time for love and romance. Dr. Seymour’s lovely daughter Evelyn (Benita Hume) is not only beautiful, vivacious, charming, and fashionable — but she’s also willing to stand down an entire army in the name of peace, even if it threatens her relationship with her suitor, Michael Deane (Jameson Thomas), the commander of the Air Force. His troops, by the way, have a very cool black leather fashion sense.
Regardless of Evelyn’s moral fortitude, we get to watch her ready for a shower and dry herself off, not with a towel, but with an impractical handheld blow dryer while she maneuvers behind a peekaboo screen. Women can hold their own in this future world, but they are indeed vulnerable to being exposed in various states of undress when being rescued from rubble and inducted into public service.
In and around the politics and cheesecake, what amazing technology there is! Blade-Runner-esque public projection screens. A one-man orchestra with automated instruments. Electronic scoreboards tallying up peacenik enrollment numbers (like the National Debt Clock in Times Square).
The lovers chat and woo through their retractable Skype machines, albeit with a bit of difficulty in a humorous, modern-day “Can you hear me now?” situation.
My favorite scene in the film is set in an Art Deco nightclub where glitzy couples take to the dance floor, alternating between a traditional twirl and a kind of Vogue, simultaneously freezing for breaks in the music. I’m still wondering why there is a floor show with a fencing demonstration, but maybe it’s a comment on the art of conflict, better that it be practiced as entertainment and a demonstration of skill rather than as a real battle to the death.
A compelling piece of cinema history, HIGH TREASON addresses a conundrum of human existence: We are capable of such powerful and wondrous things — like being in love and creating grand cityscapes with skies full of floating dirigibles. Unfortunately, we are also capable of justifying our self-destruction.
Fun facts about HIGH TREASON: Raymond Massey makes his first film appearance here. Basil Gill, who plays the President, was renowned as one of the finest voices in early cinema.
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.
When I saw the clip below from THE GREAT LIE (1941), I had to see the entire movie right away.
Why is Davis SO hell bent on monitoring Astor’s intake of booze and sandwiches?
After all, Sandra, Astor’s character, is HUNGRY. “I’m not one of you anemic creatures who can get nourishment from a lettuce leaf — I’m a musician, I’m an artist! I have zest and appetite — and I LIKE FOOD,” Sandra rails. “I’ve been lying awake in there thinking about FOOD!”
With an almost nonchalant grace, Davis’s Maggie pulls off one of the most striking double slaps in cinema history.
What fun these actresses must have had creating this scene. I can imagine them on set, sharing a satisfying cigarette after filming, as if they just had sex. (Together, Davis and Astor rewrote much of the original script, and Astor won the 1942 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.)
All in all, THE GREAT LIE is a treat, full of goofy plot twists and turns. Watching Davis play the “good girl” counterpoint to Astor’s paryting diva is worth the entire 108 minutes. The drag on the whole movie is George Brent’s dud character and wooden performance. The character of Pete, played by Brent, doesn’t deserve one iota of either women’s attention. Every time he appears on screen, he does something worthy of a big sigh and a dose of disdain, like demanding that Sandra cancel her piano concert to marry him — even though they could probably go to City Hall after her concert, right?
In a nutshell (spoiler alert), both of the gals love Pete. He’s dumped Maggie to marry Sandra, then finds out that their marriage isn’t legal (due to Sandra’s delayed divorce). He has regrets, sees a way out, reconnects with Maggie, and goes off to the jungle. When the women think that he’s died in a plane crash — and Sandra realizes she’s pregnant and on her way to ruining her career as a concert pianist — the women conspire: Sandra will have the baby and give it to Maggie who will raise it as her own.
Hence, THE GREAT LIE.
But there is a GREATER, BIGGER, JAW-DROPPING LIE in this film. It’s a simple statement spoken by the doctor who is tending to Sandra as she goes through labor. While Sandra writhes and moans, Maggie waits outside, pacing, looking much like the traditional expectant father. On a break, the doctor says to Maggie: “A woman without a baby is like a man without a right arm.”
WHAT??? That’s SO not true, Doc! And could you come up with a worse metaphor?
Not only does the doctor imply that a man without an arm is worthless and devoid of all prospects (pity his poor patient in that sticky situation), but in his position of authority, the doc also gives voice to a big ball of hooey.
Certainly, being a mother may be one of the most fulfilling roles of a woman’s life.
But is a woman without a baby crippled? dysfunctional? broken? useless?
Of course not.
And that’s the BIG, BIG LIE in THE GREAT LIE.
To be sure, cultural messages upholding and reaffirming the positive role of motherhood resonate in film. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we all know about the cold-hearted and childless spinsters and stepmothers who appear in everything from traditional fairy tales to contemporary cinema. But I’ve not often caught such a specific line in a movie that so directly carries the message of “Procreate or Fail.”
Can you cite any other specific lines like that in movies? I want to make a list of them. Bad metaphors, big lies, and all.
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.
In Otto Preminger’s 1968 film SKIDOO, actor Austin Pendleton talks Jackie Gleason through an LSD trip and smokes pot with Groucho Marx.
What a mind-blowing way to start his film career.
“Here’s a movie that was made all those years ago, and it’s still controversial and being talked about. That’s sort of amazing,” Pendleton said in a recent interivew with HOME PROJECTIONIST.
“I mean, the majority of movies you make are just forgotten. People don’t even know what you’re talking about when you bring one up.”
Madeline Kahn with Pendleton in What’s Up, Doc? (1972), Warner Bros. Photo: movieactors.com
If you bring up Pendleton’s name, some moviegoers will respond, “Oh, I loved him in WHAT’S UP, DOC?” — or fill in the blank with another title in the long list of his films.
Others will say, “Austin who?”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Pendleton said in his self-deprecating style.
Over the years, it would have been hard to miss seeing Austin Pendleton on the silver screen. He’s brought his distinctive presence and talent to more than 40 feature films — plus stage and television — during a prolific career that’s still going strong. He’s kind of a national treasure. (See below for more on Pendelton’s career.)
AN INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNING
Austin Pendleton Photo: Steppenwolf Theatre
As soon as Pendleton settled in at his dreary motel near Paramount Studios to start work on SKIDOO, all he wanted to do was turn around and go back to the stage in New York.
“SKIDOO was the first time I ever played a part of any size at all in a film,” Pendleton said.
“When we first began to shoot, I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know how to do this.’ I mean, for the first week I would call my agent in New York and I would say, ‘I gotta get outta here. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to function in front of a camera.’ And my agent would say, ‘Well, dear, you just can’t get out of a film.'”
With no easy escape route, Pendleton continued to endure Preminger’s demands and tirades. “You’re an amateur,” Preminger railed to the struggling actor one day.
“We were about a week into filming,” said Pendleton, “and at that point, I just agreed with him. I said, ‘Yes, I know I’m inexperienced, Mr. Preminger. I really don’t know what to do.'”
Pendleton’s words of resignation instantly transformed the difficult director. “From then on, Otto took me under his wing,” Pendleton said. “He taught me just about everything I know about film acting. ”
“He was very kind and patient. Before each scene was shot, he would talk to me, mainly about how every take was like an opening night in the theatre, and I found that very helpful, since that was what I was most familiar with. He talked about how important simplicity was. He told me to just keep it small, to talk and listen, essentially, not to act too theatrically.
“He would repeat these things over and over to get them into me. And it meant so much that he was taking the time to do that. As an actor, I still call upon what Otto taught me.”
With Preminger’s coaching and support, Pendleton created the memorable SKIDOO character of Fred the Professor, an endearing, low-key, mastermind hippie whose stash of LSD changes everyone’s lives…for the better.
A LOVE IT OR HATE IT THING
Critics and movie fans have called SKIDOO all things scathing — a train wreck, a hot mess, a hatchet job.
It’s also been praised by its evangelists as being one of the most delightful, must-see films of all time.
“You know,” Pendleton said, “I sort of still don’t know what I feel about it. I certainly am happy I made it because I got to know Otto Preminger. That was wonderful. But there are two schools of thought about SKIDOO. One is that it’s a total disaster, an embarrassment, infamous, and all of that.
“On the other hand, there are a lot of people, either I know or know of, and who I’ve read on the subject who seem to be very intelligent, who just love that movie. It has a real following.”
Once you see SKIDOO, you can’t ever forget it. It’s a comedy that’s not a comedy, a spoof that’s not a spoof. Literally, it’s a “trip” — enigmatic, to be sure, blundering and odd, yet also rich with well crafted and executed scenes that will feed your head for a long time.
You’ll be asking yourself: “Did I really just see Carol Channing dancing in her underpants and see-through bra? Did I really just watch Jackie Gleason ingest LSD and hallucinate a vision of mathematics?”
In a nutshell, the plot is wacky. Tony (Jackie Gleason) is full of existential angst because he’s wondering if his wife Flo (Carol Channing) has been untrue and if he is really the father of his daughter Darlene (Alexandra Hay).
He’s also been called upon by God (Groucho Marx), the head of his old mob outfit, to knock off Blue Chips (Mickey Rooney) in Alcatraz because of an upcoming investigation in which Chips is going to testify. Tony doesn’t want to do the hit, but he finally agrees after discovering his friend Harry (Arnold Stang) in a car wash with a bullet hole right through his head.
How’s that for a comedic setup?
Tony has other trouble brewing as well. The hippies have come to town, and daughter Darlene has taken up with Stash (John Phillip Law) and his crew of dope-smoking, body-painting anarchists.
As an incognito prisoner, Tony sneaks into Alcatraz to do the hit. He befriends his cellmate, Fred the Professor (Austin Pendleton), a long-haired draft dodger. When Tony realizes he won’t be able to get to Blue Chips because of tight prison security, he and the Professor devise a scheme to escape from prison in a makeshift hot air balloon, oh yes, while all of the guards and the other convicts are happily hallucinating.
In the meantime, Carol Channing, dressed in a Napoleonic admiral suit, bugaloos and breaks into the SKIDOO theme song (by Harry Nilsson), leading a flotilla of hippies to rescue her daughter from God, who is hiding out on his yacht in the Pacific Ocean.
Most hilarious — and historic — is the closing shot where we find Pendleton and Groucho, now serene as Hare Krishnas, making their getaway in a psychedelic sail boat. After Groucho takes a hit off a joint, he utters what will end up being his last line ever in a movie: “Mmmm…pumpkin.”
“Doing that scene,” Pendleton said, laughing, “was one of the most delicious parts of the whole experience, you know?
“We were on location, by the ocean. We had dinner the night before, and everything Groucho said was funny, in a relaxed and inviting way. We talked about all kinds of things, mostly related to the acting profession.
“Looking back, I guess I was relieved that the last scene was being shot. But more than that, I was having a wonderful time at dawn with Groucho Marx. It was heaven, actually, exactly what you’d think it would be like.
“As soon as I got back to New York, I told everybody about that scene. In fact, I still tell everybody about it.”
CHANGING SCRIPTS & VISIONS
Preminger needed a film in 1968. He was facing a contractual obligation to get a movie completed by the end of the year. He chose the SKIDOO script, which was written by screenwriter Doran William “Bill” Cannon. Cannon asked the director to cast his friend Pendleton in the role of Fred because he had written the part specifically for him. Preminger met Pendleton and agreed.
“I think the script of that movie was pretty good,” Pendleton recalled. “I think Otto was not exactly the right director for it. It should have been somebody like Brian DePalma, who was very young then and who was making those counterculture movies. It should have been directed by somebody like that. On the other hand, Otto is a very original director, you know. What he does is very striking.”
Script changes were relentless. Cannon had written a “love, peace, and sunshine” script, and Preminger ended up making it something else, something still indefinable. He contributed to the jumble himself with his own script changes and brought in other writers as well, including Mel Brooks, Rob Reiner, Elliott Baker, and Stanley Ralph Ross, who was the writer for the BEACH PARTYmovies and several episodes for “The Monkees” and “Batman” television series. The film certainly shows his influence.
[Trivia buffs like to note that the SKIDOO cast includes Batman villains The Riddler (Frank Gorshin); The Penguin (Burgess Meredith); and The Joker (Cesar Romero). Otto Preminger himself played Mr. Freeze.]
Once Preminger established a relationship with Pendleton, he expanded his role as Fred the Professor. “That kind of knocked me out,” Pendleton said. “I wanted to be done with the whole thing. Although Otto was brilliant, there was this sense of despair on the set. What was happening didn’t seem to be really igniting.”
Pendleton said he learned from his later film experiences that there is often a sense of anxiety and fear during filming, and it doesn’t necessarily impact the success of a movie.
“I mean, it was true of the first few films that I did after SKIDOO. CATCH-22and WHAT’S UP, DOC? are both terrific films, but difficult in the making. On the other hand, sometimes the set is heaven and the film just sits there in the end.”
Certainly Preminger wasn’t trying to fail or crank out a meaningless throwaway piece of work. In addition to the star-studded “old school” Hollywood cast of Gleason, Channing, Rooney, and Marx, Preminger added Frankie Avalon, Fred Clark, Michael Constantine, Peter Lawford, Slim Pickens, Richard Kiel, and George Raft. For cinematographer, he opted for Leon Shamroy, an 18-time Oscar nominee. He chose avant-garde designer Rudi Gernreich for costumes, newcomer Harry Nilsson for original music, and renowned Saul Bass for titles.
But what in the world was he trying to do?
“One of the most interesting things about SKIDOO,” said Pendleton, “is that it’s a comedy with a dark, even sad, pull under it. Jackie’s got a comic persona and everything, but he’s depressed. So these comic and serious qualities are pulling against each other and pulling together. That’s what creates something distinctive to Preminger, I think. He was no fool, you know. A different director would have emphasized the comedy.
“That’s Otto’s specific contribution to it. I think that combination of feelings is what gives SKIDOO a quality all of its own and why people want to see it again and again and again.”
A YEAR LACED WITH ACID AND UPHEAVAL
Preminger produced SKIDOO during a monumental crossroads in time. Old Hollywood was still hanging on while it tried to figure out what to do with the growing influence of the counterculture on everyone’s daily lives and the film business itself.
“It’s important to remember that SKIDOO was filmed in that momentous spring of 1968,” Pendleton said, setting the stage for the film’s place in history. “In the middle of our shoot, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and before that was the withdrawal of LBJ from the presidential race and the primaries and all of the Viet Nam protests.
“We shot on the Paramount lot, and at the end of each day Otto would invite a few of us to his office and pour some vodka, and we would talk politics. Otto would lead the discussions; he was a famous liberal. Well, everyone there was a liberal, and that spring of 1968 was at once exhilarating and sobering, a mixture strongly reflected in Otto’s office on those evenings.”
That same mixture of exhilaration and sobriety is apparent in the film. While there were riots in the streets from Memphis to Paris, there was also an emerging counterculture of hope and new horizons.
The hippies intrigued Preminger. He was a 63-year-old classic Hollywood director turned hipster in a Nehru suit, and he was sympathetic to their cause. Straddling a cultural divide, Preminger had one foot grounded in his own history and generation while the other struggled to find a place in a groovy and cool world gone crazy with change.
Maybe he could find a bridge with lysergic acid diethylamide.
LSD’s appearance as a driving force in a movie certainly wasn’t strange in 1968. As TCM’s Millie de Chirico summarized in The Gist, “1968 in fact was a big year for acid movies. PSYCH-OUT, WILD IN THE STREETS, ALICE IN ACIDLAND, MANTIS IN LACE and others were released in the wake of Roger Corman’s THE TRIP (1967) and EASY RIDER (1969) was just around the corner.”
SKIDOO was created in the middle of them all. In preparation for the film, Preminger dropped acid with Timothy Leary (who appeared in the movie’s trailer). Likewise, Groucho Marx enjoyed a trip with Paul Krassner. All accounts tell of wondrous rides. (See reference links below.)
What made SKIDOO so different from the other acid movies of its time is that Preminger portrayed the LSD experience as a positive, liberating, empowering, and cathartic experience.
The movie still seemed “square.”
THE WILL TO SURVIVE
Paramount released SKIDOO in 1968 as part of a double bill with UP-TIGHT!
“On the set, even though I thought the film wasn’t quite working, I didn’t think it would be a catastrophe,” Pendleton said.
Nonetheless, due to scathing reviews and lackluster box office receipts, the film disappeared within weeks of its Miami premiere, sunk, buried, its memory erased, and it appeared that Paramount and the Preminger estate liked it that way. The film stayed out of view for many, many years.
“Oh, I remember the premiere very vividly,” Pendleton said. “People were walking out. And I remember thinking that they were wrong. I thought, ‘No way, it’s not a film you walk out on.’ We’ve all been in those and we’ve all seen those. It’s just not right.”
No one even talked about the movie at the gloomy after party. “It was so awkward and unpleasant,” said Pendleton. “I thought they were underrating the movie, but it was just the way it went.
“I put it behind me, flew back to New York, and kind of forgot about it. And it wasn’t too long after that that I did CATCH-22. The SKIDOO premiere was in late 1968, and I was shooting CATCH-22 in early 1969.”
Olive Films
SKIDOO was out of distribution for decades, a scarcity that increased demand and created a kind of mythology and mystery around it. It was a movie of its time whose time didn’t come until appropriately aged on the shelf.
Movie buffs coveted and shared bootlegs of it. In the late ’70s, it periodically showed up on cable and special screenings. New audiences appeared when TCM featured it, along with THE LOVE-INS, as part of its 2008 Underground Series.
At last, in July 2011 SKIDOO was released on DVD by Olive Films, followed by the Blu-Ray release of The Otto Preminger Collection in November 2012. The collection includes SKIDOO, SUCH GOOD FRIENDS (1971), and HURRY SUNDOWN (1967), which claims a spot in the book, TheFifty Worst Films of All Time.
PENDLETON AND SKIDOO: TOTAL ORIGINALS
“I saw SKIDOO again recently, ” Pendleton said. “I hadn’t seen it since it came out essentially, except once in 1997 at the Dallas Film Festival where they were going to have a midnight screening of it and they invited me down. I was in Los Angeles so I went there. SKIDOO was in a category called “Films You Love to Hate,” and I thought, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve flown all the way down here for that?!’
“They had me do a Q&A before it started. I told the audience, ‘Well, I haven’t seen the movie in years, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again.’ I said that I thought Otto was one of the great film directors, and they thought I was joking.
“Now that’s ridiculous. I mean the man made several classic movies, LAURA, ANATOMY OF A MURDER. Even the ones that aren’t classics, there are a lot of them that are, you know, very well made. Otto was much admired by a lot of people who are knowledgeable about the movies. A lot of actors do some of their best work in his movies. He’s very supportive and thorough with actors and he’s also difficult, so you get the pull of those two things.”
The festival audience still had to be convinced that Preminger was one of the greats.
“But then as I watched SKIDOO that night, after the Q&A,” Pendleton said, “I thought, ‘God, no, it doesn’t work.’
“But what’s good about the movie is that there isn’t anything else like it. It’s totally original. I just don’t think it works, that’s all. I don’t think it’s either this undiscovered classic or a disaster. I just think it’s this weird thing that doesn’t work.”
Pendleton paused and thought for a moment about the crazy movie that launched his film career.“And although SKIDOO‘s this ‘weird thing,'” he said, “it’s a film that still has its moments.
“That’s what I kind of love about it.”
_____________________
Postscript: Even the harshest critics of SKIDOO give high marks for Nilsson’s singing of the closing credits. It’s good in the movie, but it’s even better when Nilsson does it with an introduction by Otto Preminger in a “Playboy After Dark” segment.
MORE ON PENDLETON’S PROLIFIC CAREER
Pendleton has brought his inimitable presence to more than 40 feature films, including THE FRONT PAGE (1974); THEMUPPET MOVIE (1979); MR. & MRS. BRIDGE (1990); A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001); and BAD CITY (2009) aka DIRTY CITY. His voice-over work includes Gurgle in FINDING NEMO (2003).
A long, long list of television appearances includes “Tales from the Crypt,” HBO’s “Oz,” “Law & Order,” “The Cosby Show,” “The West Wing,” and going way back, “Love, American Style.”
“I also direct,” Pendleton said,”so that keeps me busy a lot of the time. I do plays in attics. I’m kind of like a moving target,” he said. That’s a bit of an understatement. In the world of theatre, Pendleton is a well-respected and award-winning actor, playwright, and director whose presence is vast and still going strong.
In 1964, he originated the role of Motel the Tailor, singing the wonderful “Miracle of Miracle” in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF with Zero Mostel. He was nominated for a Tony for directing Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton in the THE LITTLE FOXES.
Today he is still garnering rave reviews, currently starring in and directing the off-Broadway premiere of THE LAST WILL, by Robert Brustein. He recently directed Harold Pinter’s THE BIRTHDAY PARTY for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, where he’s been a member of the ensemble since 1987, and concurrently, a New York Mississippi Mudd production of SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER. He’ll be back at Steppenwolf next season to direct TRIBES.
In addition to all of that, he teaches acting and directing at The New School in New York.
“Well, I do a whole lot of things,” Pendleton said. “I take a lot of work, and so that kind of keeps me going, and I try not to worry whether a role is going to promote my career or destroy it because you just simply can’t ever tell. But sometimes you can’t help worrying.”
Pendleton attributes his longevity and success to always being available and open to new work. “I think you have to follow your instincts and just go. That opens you up to a lot more things than if you tried to figure everything out. I guess thick-skinned and curious are the words I’d pick to describe myself. Sometimes I don’t pull off the thick-skinned part, though. I think everybody falls down with that one in this business sometimes.”
With support from an Indiegogo fundraising campaign, his students are producing a tribute to the man and his work with a new documentary, THE AUSTIN PENDLETON PROJECT: WHERE THE WORK IS. Set to be released this year, it’s described as Pendleton’s “five-decade journey…the colorful and dramatic life of this unsung artist…a portrait of the most famous actor you have never heard of.”
“You know,” he said, “I don’t know that much about it. It started out when two students of mine wanted to tape some of my classes. I sort of said ‘O.K.,’ although I got kind of nervous about it, but then it turned into this thing where they interview people.”
So far, the film includes interviews with the likes of Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, and Laurie Metcalf, to name a few of Pendleton’s colleagues and biggest fans.
“I haven’t really seen any of it. I don’t think I should interfere with it because I would start trying to shape it in ways. I would start even if I resisted it,” he said, laughing.
IN THE QUEUE
Of all his movie performances, Pendleton’s favorites include: MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE (1990) with Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman and BAD CITY (2009), aka DIRTY WORK, where, Pendleton said, “I play the worst human being you can imagine.”
A special thanks to Austin Pendleton
for his time, kindness, and attention
and to Jeffrey Fauver of Steppenwolf Theatre
for making it happen.
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.
Beloved TCM on-air host Robert Osborne added a special guest to the Festival at the start of its second day: the Sun. After a cloudy, damp Wednesday, it was wonderful to soak up some warmth prior to entering the often too-chilled theaters.
On Thursday, pass holder gift bags were dispersed, Club TCM opened at the Hollywood Roosevelt, more feast goers arrived, trivia contests were played, a red carpet screening of FUNNY GIRL was held at Grauman’s (now TCL) Chinese (special pass required) and–most importantly–the first two blocks of films kicked-off. Which, of course, required some decision-making.
I was set to watch SOUTH PACIFIC poolside, but made a last-second switcheroo and, coffee in hand, bolted over to Stanley Kubrick’s THE KILLING. Co-star Colleen (pronounced KO) recalled receiving no direction at all, and suggested we pay special attention to actor Tim Carey’s teeth.
Next at 9 pm was my first-time seeing David Lean’s 1955 SUMMERTIME. Absolutely mesmerizing, for the amazing views of Venice as well as Katherine Hepburn’s face and touching performance. Lean certainly had a thing for trains, and for love’s bittersweet moments.
The Festival kicks into full-metal gear today, with a 14-hour schedule and dozens of movies. Among personal choices I must make: Burt Lancaster in THE SWIMMER vs. Bette Davis in LIBELED LADY, Jean Gabin inLA TRAVERSEEÉ DE PARIS or RUGGLES OF RED GAP, a discussion with Mel Brooks at THE TWELVE CHAIRS up against a live orchestra at Clara Bow’s IT and, last but no less difficult, there’s ON THE TOWN at the beautiful Egyptian theater, or a 3-D HONDO, or Billy Wilder’s A FOREIGN AFFAIR.
Born on March 23, 1904, in San Antonio, she left us with a legacy of movies and a larger than life legend.
One of my favorite viewing parties ever included QUEEN BEE (1955) and STRAIT-JACKET(1964). We sat around on a hot summer day wearing improbable wigs, drinking beer, and staring at the screen. When Joan is on, you can’t look away.
Not long ago, we revisited FEMALE ON THE BEACH (1955). I had forgotten that Joan’s legs co-starred as much as hunky Jeff Chandler. Oh, yes, and this movie has some of the best snarky dialogue ever. Someone in the room proposed a drinking game: a sip of your libation of choice every time there was a gasp-worthy line. We had to stop just minutes into the movie because we couldn’t drink that fast.
Lines like —
“You’re about as friendly as a suction pump. ”
“I’d like to ask you to stay and have a drink, but I’m afraid you might.”
And the classic: “I wouldn’t have you if you were hung with diamonds, upside down!”
I’m sending Joan a BIG birthday wish through the cosmos and thanking her for her talent, her audacity, the memories, beauty, and pleasure she’s given to us all. She was a force, a one in a billion force.
One the loveliest and most memorable New Year’s Eve scenes in the movies comes in the closing minutes of THE APARTMENT (1960). Shirley MacLaine abandons her disappointing lover at a party and runs, with her head held high, down a New York City street and up the stairs to Jack Lemmon’s apartment. Her face is so bright with clarity, determination, and anticipation that you can’t help but feel the absolute joy in her heart. The soaring score doesn’t hurt the level of emotion either.
While assorted and varied lists of the “Best New Year’s Movies” include contenders like STRANGE DAYS (1995), THE GOLD RUSH (1925) and, of course, the incredible THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972), THE APARTMENTstill tops my list as the perfect film for ending one year and welcoming in a new. Not only is it a love story, but it’s also a story of reclamation, a tale of letting go of the bad to let in the good, an affirmation that every day brings an opportunity for you to choose how you want to live your life.
This film, which won Best Picture and Best Director for Billy Wilder in 1960, plus Oscar nominations for the cast, is a pure and eternal classic in all senses of the word. Its brilliant script is insightful and honest, the performances are perfect, it’s rewatchable and timeless, there’s an enduring emotional impact, and it’s perfectly engaging to look at — all those things that make great movies great.
Although it’s billed as a comedy and full of great lines and humor, THE APARTMENT is far from a screwball circus. Between the laughs, the film highlights the darker side of office life, rife with seduction, inappropriate behavior, and the daily drama of moral hazards.
MacLaine’s character is vulnerable Fran Kubelik, an office building elevator operator who is having an affair with Mr. Sheldrake, the head of human resources, played with impeccable smarminess by Fred MacMurray. He is a married man, powerful, certainly not well intentioned, and operating without any fear of consequences for toying with Miss Kubelik’s affections. Jack Lemmon, in one of his finest performances, takes on the role of C.C. Baxter, a young, ambitious employee at the firm who is not averse to letting his corporate higher ups use his bachelor pad for their sexual liaisons…in return for a key to the executive washroom.
Nothing good come of it. The script even goes so far as to include a suicide attempt.
These protagonists, Miss Kubelik and Mr. Baxter, have somehow found themselves in compromised positions. They are two people diminished, as it were, by what others want and expect from them. They have struck grand bargains, rationalizing that what they’re doing is in their best interests. Unfortunately, with their amoral decisions, both have lost the core of who they really are.
All is not lost, however. Happily, they both regain “consciousness” in time to recapture their own identities and, in turn, find each other, learning life can beat you up, but it also offers opportunities for changing course and finding what you really want and need.
Could there be a better uplifting message for celebrating new beginnings and ringing in a new year?
If you’re staying in and still don’t have a movie selection for this New Year’s Eve , TCM is airing THE APARTMENT tonight.
Wishing each and everyone the best of luck and love in this 13th year of the millennium!
SPECIAL NOTE: Home Projectionist is taking a brief hiatus as the New Year begins. We’ll be back soon.
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 1808, the 17th President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Johnson’s Presidency was documented in the 2005 History Channel documentary series, THE PRESIDENTS.
ON THIS DAY in 1856, 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia. Wilson’s Presidency was depicted in the 1944 biographical film, WILSON, starring Alexander Knox.
I am wondering about all of the families and friends who settled in Christmas Eve to sit back, relax, and share a holiday movie but nothing was available for streaming. I hope they at least had cable.
In case you haven’t heard, a big chunk of providers, including Netflix, relies on the servers of Amazon’s Web Service, better known as AWS, and that service happened to have a meltdown on Christmas Eve.
According to the Wall Street Journal article, Amazon’s Snafu Rattles Customers, “Millions of Netflix customers from Canada to Brazil were unable to stream video on Christmas Eve after technical issues in Amazon’s servers in Northern Virginia felled service from Dec. 24 through the following morning.” No explanation has yet been provided.
The plot thickens too. During the meltdown, the social networks were “abuzz with speculation about why Amazon’s competing Prime streaming movie service was still functioning.”
So, Amazon has some ‘splainin’ to do and some technology to tend to. In the meantime, I am using this opportunity create a kind of cautionary tale. Hence, the photo of the ring.
I have had this little piece of costume jewelry since high school, when I worked at an appliance store. One of my jobs there was to take service calls. One night, a woman called in an absolute panic. “Help me,” she said, “please help me.”
“Yes, ma’am, what can we do for you?” I asked.
“I just realized my television is out, and my husband will be home soon, and I’m just terrified.”
“Terrified?” I asked her. I had heard of husbands going ballistic over things but of a television not working? Being “terrified” seemed a bit of an overstatement.
“Not terrified of him,” she said. “I’m terrified that we’ll discover we don’t have anything to talk about. We always have the tv on. Is there someone who can come over now? Right now? Please?”
Coming from a family of non-stop talkers, I didn’t appreciate that urgent gravity of her situation, but I could sense in her voice that she was indeed terrified.
“Here’s the thing,” I told her. “We do have a technician available for a house call tonight.”
“I’ll pay anything…anything!” she promised.
“Well, before I set something up, I have to ask you to do something for me,” I told her, feeling as if I needed to use a quiet and calm therapist voice. “You have to check the plug.”
“The plug?” she asked, sounding annoyed.
“Yes. The plug.” I hadn’t worked at the appliance store for long, but we did have a protocol. “Before we can arrange any service call, I have to ask customers to check the plug. Ninety percent of the time, it turns out that the only problem is that the plug is pulled out.” There was silence on the other end of the line. “Really. It’s true,” I said. “Do me a favor and go see. I’ll hold.”
After just a few moments, the woman came back ont the line. “God bless you,” she said. “That’s all it was. The plug was pulled out, just a little. It must have happened today when I was cleaning. God bless you. God bless you.”
I was glad to have helped. I shared the story with my co-workers. They all laughed. “Dummy,” said the television repairman working in the backroom.
That next morning, which was a Saturday, a woman came into the store. She was young, blonde, and perky. She came right up to the service counter where I sat. “Are you the girl who helped me last night? Who told me to plug in my tv set?”
I nodded. Yes, I was that girl, one and the same.
“Well, God bless you. Thank you for saving my marriage.” She held out her hand and showed me a ring with a shining purple stone. “I make jewelry,” she said, “and I want to give you this as a token of my undying appreciation. You really saved my marriage.” She pressed the ring in my palm, gave my hand a hard squeeze, and walked out the door.
I don’t know why I’ve kept that ring all these years, but when I come across it in a drawer full of old costume jewelry, I always remember that bride and her sheer panic. I hope that she and her husband learned how to have a conversation.
When I read of the streaming outage on Christmas Eve, I wondered if there were any families or friends or couples out there who were thrown into a sudden panic that they didn’t have the streaming service they were expecting.
The cautionary tale here is that it’s important to have a backup plan…like an emergency stash of DVDs to help you ride out future glitches with streaming technology. And just in case, remember to check the plug.
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 1822, chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was born in France. His life was dramatized in the 1936 biographical film, THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR, starring Paul Muni.
ON THIS DAY in 1898, chemists Marie and Pierre Curie announced their discovery of radium. This event was depicted in the 1943 Mervyn LeRoy film, MADAME CURIE, with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.
ON THIS DAY in 1914, during World War I, German and British troops on the Western Front temporarily ceased fire as part of a Christmas truce. This event was dramatized in the 2005 French film, JOYEUX NOEL.
My friends laugh at me during the holidays when I dig out my DVD of a crackling fire and hit the play button. But then they do eventually admit that the video adds some wonderful ambience to my fireplace-less room — and they all end up looking great in the fire’s glow, eyes shining and skin warmed by that particular kind of light.
I think I’ve decided that the burning yule log is one of my favorite holiday “movies.”
Last week, the Northwest Film Society screened Charles Laughton’s very creepy THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), billing this troubling and terrifying story featuring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish as “an underrated and oddly heart-warming Christmas movie that makes a singular case for persistence of love over wickedness.”
I wondered what other movies — traditional and otherwise — were on people’s holiday viewing lists, so I posed the question to the Home Projectionist “What Are You Watching?” group on Facebook. (To participate in the Home Projectionist Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeprojectionist/.)
A number of suggestions surfaced, from scary to heartwarming, movies like BLACK CHRISTMAS; FAMILY STONE; LADY IN THE LAKE; and one of my personal favorites, BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE with Jimmy Stewart falling head over heels under Kim Novak’s bewitching spell on Christmas Eve.
Home Projectionist contributor Lindsay discovered Rod Serling’s dark version of A Christmas Carol, the made-for-tv CAROL FOR ANOTHER CHRISTMAS, starring Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers, during her quest to watch a variety of different versions of the classic Dickens tale this year. She made it through seven!
Home Projectionist blogger Dave identified a compelling and creative list of options inspired by the 12 Days of Christmas carol — for example, LITTLE WOMEN filed under the “Eight Maids A-Milking” verse — brilliant!
And I am officially adding the holiday yule log video to the list.
Celebrating the Winter’s Solstice (and what was not to be the end of the world) on December 21 with some friends, the crackling fire burned bright on my tv screen for hours and hours, in all of its artificial glory, next to the artificial tree. As one guest said, “But it really works, doesn’t it?”
There’s nothing like the light of a fire to enhance the sense of holiday spirit in a room. You can stream fireplace videos on Netflix, grab them from YouTube, or pick one up today at your local discount store. Once you start looking for them, they’re everywhere. I haven’t been disappointed by any that I’ve seen. (Warning: You may want to play your preferred fireplace video on a screen that’s close to the size of an actual fireplace. I almost called the fire department when I saw a neighbor’s towering inferno projected on their eight-foot screen.)
Enjoy basking in the glow … and have a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
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
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
IT HAPPENED ON FIFTH AVENUE(1947; Victor Moore, Don DeFore, Gale Storm, Ann Harding; directed by Roy Del Ruth)
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
You know that sometimes annoying song about the “Twelve Days”? We’re using it to highlight 12 Christmas movies that fit the lyrics of the song, more or less…
THE BISHOP’S WIFE(1947; Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven, Gladys Cooper; directed by Henry Koster)
Dave is a graphic designer (www.dhdd.net) and movie lover, and the caretaker of “The 3 Benny Theater” (also known as his living room). The moniker was inspired by an extinct movie house–The 3 Penny Theater–and by his black Manx cat, Benny. Favorite films: North By Northwest, The Third Man and The Dekalog.
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth." Leo Tolstoy
What a score for film fans: The discovery of the talkie version of HIGH TREASON (1929). It was thought that only the silent version survived.
