Wednesday, June 26, 2013

 

Different ways of playing 'Cards'


BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post contains spoilers for the three segment British miniseries House of Cards from the 1990s starring Ian Richardson and this year's 13-episode U.S. version made for Netflix, produced by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey. If you plan to watch either version and haven't yet, read no further.

By Edward Copeland
After giving people time to watch the American version of House of Cards and with its availability on DVD and Blu-ray for those without access to Netflix Instant, I thought enough time had transpired to discuss both the new version as well as the original BBC miniseries, whose first part premiered in 1990. Prior to watching the David Fincher-produced D.C.-set House of Cards with Kevin Spacey playing the wily lead, I felt I needed to see the British version to see how well the differences translated. (Obviously, Britain's parliamentary system of government works quite differently from our legislative branch — which, in its current state, doesn't work at all, but House of Cards exists in the land of make-believe. I lacked either the time or the energy given personal matters to attempt to read the novel by Michael Dobbs that spawned the BBC miniseries.)

Though the new version pads out its story to 13 roughly one-hour episodes while the first of the three British House of Cards miniseries told mostly the same story in four episodes of approximately the same length, the U.S. take does hit many of the same plot points except when it comes to the ending, but the makers of the U.S. House of Cards envision it as a continuing series. (I needn't have watched the second and third BBC miniseries, To Play the King and The Final Cut, since the stories in those sequels aren't covered in the first season of the U.S. House of Cards.) Both versions of the political chicanery, whether set here or across the pond, offer solid entertainment and mostly solid performances, though the U.S. House of Cards wins out in terms of production values. Unfortunately, when it comes to the battle of FUs (Francis Urquhart in the U.K., Francis Underwood in the U.S.), the late Ian Richardson wins hands down. Spacey proves capable as usual for the most part, but he burdens himself with an off-and-on Southern drawl that's wholly unnecessary and, at times, a major distraction. When Richardson's Urquhart speaks to the viewer in his well-mannered, upper-crust tone, it always works. When Spacey's Underwood attempts to pull it off while simultaneously putting on a generic son of the South voice for his South Carolina representative, at times it comes off as too cutesy by half.

Despite the differences in forms of government, both House of Cards begin with essentially the same kernel of a motivation for our two Francises. In the 1990 BBC version, Urquhart has served faithfully as an MP of the Conservative Party, functioning as their Chief Whip under Margaret Thatcher's reign as prime minister. In its fictionalized view of history, Thatcher's loss of support has led to her resignation and while the Conservatives look bound to keep a weakened majority hold of the British government, Urquhart expects the new prime minister, Hal Collinridge (David Lyon, whose death at 72 was announced today), to appoint him to a long-sought Cabinet position and remove him from his duties as whip. Instead, with the slimmer majority, Collinridge decides not to shake up the Cabinet and an angry Urquhart starts maneuvering many people to get his revenge and build his own rise to power. In the 2013 U.S. take on the tale, Underwood long has held the title of Democratic Whip in the House, now the Majority Whip as a new Democratic president (not Barack Obama), Garrett Walker (Michael Gill), takes office. but Walker reneges on a promise to pick Underwood as his secretary of state. This begins Underwood's convoluted maneuvering. One problem that separates the two versions comes down to logic. You see why Urquhart longs to become the prime minister himself, but if you know U.S. history, it seems downright silly for Underwood to leap through all the hoops and commit all the deeds he does just to end up as vice president. When George H.W. Bush won the presidency, he was the first sitting vice president to manage the victory in his own right since Martin Van Buren. Unless Underwood plans to kill off Walker in a subsequent season of the U.S. House of Cards, why does he see that as a plausible path to the Oval Office?

What delineates our two Francises (the U.S. version only uses the FU joke once as its expected, vulgar stand-in by some of Underwood's opponents while the BBC call Urquhart FU frequently and affectionately by both friends and foes to his face without a hit of a double meaning) most distinctly comes from the difference in the way Spacey acts the words by Beau Willmon and his writing staff and Richardson's delivery of Andrew Davies' dialogue. Almost everyone appears to be on to what Frank Underwood conspires to do at all times, even if his machinations win in the end since Spacey doesn't take much of an effort to hide his moves from those he attempts to manipulate. In contrast, it takes some time for people to catch on to the lengths that Francis Urquhart will go to to accomplish his means thanks to Richardson's performance, which he keeps close to his vest. Both versions rely on the conceit that the Francises speak in asides to the television viewer about what they think and plan, only Spacey talks to audiences in the same basic tone as most of the other characters. Richardson confides to us, letting us in on secrets that others aren't aware of and it makes his performance much richer and, given the late actor's training, provides Francis Urquhart with an almost Shakespearean air. Urquhart picks off opponents with a variety of means and accomplishes most of this without leaving any fingerprints. The game plan in the U.S. House of Cards differs slightly as no list of vice presidential contenders stand in Underwood's way, but they do match in terms of subject matter. Urquhart must sink health and education ministers while those two issues become legislative hurdles that play a part in Underwood's climb.


Both House of Cards include two main women in the lives of their protagonists: their wives and young reporters who become the pols' lovers as well as their tool to help advance their plots. The idea of the female journalist follows fairly closely in both versions (except where they end up in the first installment and the level of their naïveté). In the BBC, the young reporter Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) takes a long time (too long for her sake) to catch on to Urquhart's true nature and their illicit romance takes on a somewhat twisted father figure complex where the young Mattie tends to call the much older Francis "Daddy" during their dalliances. In the U.S. version, the young woman journalist Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) contains a much more ambitious nature and she uses Underwood as much as he uses her. Both Mattie and Zoe do make colleagues jealous with their scoops and end up booted from their newspapers, only the U.S. version updates for technological changes and makes Zoe's success come via instant blog posts and finds her gaining new employment with an online political publication. Probably due to the way Mattie is written, Harker comes off as a weaker actress than Mara, who has a more fully developed character. The bigger difference presents itself in the portrayal of the political wives. Elizabeth Urquhart (Diane Fletcher) truly serves as her husband's partner-in-crime. She knows of his affair with Mattie (and other women in the later installments) but approves wholeheartedly because she knows that letting him have his extracurricular activity with Mattie only serves the couple's ultimate goal and doesn't pose a threat to her position. Claire Underwood (Robin Wright) begins that way early in the U.S. House of Cards, but as the series develops she exhibits jealousy. showing up at Zoe's apartment, interfering with part of Underwood's legislative agenda and even leaving D.C. to renew an affair with a former lover, a famous photographer (Ben Daniels). Presumably, the part required beefing up in order to get someone of Wright's caliber to agree to accept it in the first place. Claire also gets her own sideline with story strands involving the charitable foundation that she runs whereas Elizabeth Urquhart basically serves as Francis' adornment at party and sounding board at home but little else.

Both versions equip our FUs with henchmen named Stamper to help him carry out the more unseemly parts of his schemes, though the portrayals as well as the job titles come off quite differently in each country. In England, Urquhart's underling, Tim Stamper, comes across as quite a weasel in the hands of actor Colin Jeavons. Tim Stamper functions as the Assistant Whip for the Conservatives in the House of Commons until Urquhart succeeds at ascending to the position of prime minister and Stamper moves up to Chief Whip. Later, unhappily, Urquhart moves him to the post party chairman. The British Stamper not only gets his hands dirty with delight, he also overflows with ambition himself and it costs him in the end (part of which may have been necessitated by Jeavons' decision to retire from acting after completing the second installment, To Play the King). The American Stamper gets a new first name — Doug — and does show signs of conscience even while he performs Underwood's errands. Doug Stamper serves as the House Majority Whip's chief of staff and holds no elected position. Michael Kelly, who most people will recognize him from many roles on television and in film, doesn't get down and dirty with the same glee that Jeavons does, but Kelly creates a different persona and plays him well. Odds are, depending how many seasons House of Cards continues, Doug Stamper either will turn on his boss or become a liability to him.

The one area besides production design where the U.S. House of Cards bests the British original comes from the actor who portrays Underwood's actual victim and how the U.S. version fleshes out his character in the first place. Before I began this piece, I issued a spoiler warning, but the U.S. House of Cards doesn't make it a secret that Underwood's deviousness takes a lethal turn, thanks to some of its promotional posters, and the very first sequence of the series gives viewers that impression by showing Underwood putting an injured dog out of its misery with his bare hands but making it clear that he isn't doing it to be merciful. In the British take, even though the first installment only consists of four 1-hour installments, it doesn't let the audience know that Urquhart's manipulations include murder. In the BBC version, the first life that Urquhart literally takes with his own hand belongs to Roger O'Neill (Miles Anderson), the P.R. consultant for the Conservative Party whom Urquhart gets to use his girlfriend, Penny Guy (Alphonsia Emmanuel), to seduce Foreign Secretary Patrick Woolton (Malcolm Tierney), one of Urquhart's competitors for the prime minister post. Unfortunately, O'Neill loves Penny as much as he loves cocaine and when she dumps him when she realizes O'Neill used her, O'Neill becomes a wild card that Urquhart can't trust. To make sure nothing comes out that damages FU's plan and reveals his role in the Woolton revelation, Urquhart spikes O'Neill's coke supply with rat poison, assuring Mattie who figures out he did it that he was just putting O'Neill out of his misery.


Overall, the American ensemble beats the British one. Granted, the U.S. version provides nine extra hours to fill with juicy parts for actors to the BBC's mere four, so the original lacks the room to develop many characters in depth so it's easy to see how Ian Richardson steals the show. Kevin Spacey, in addition to his aforementioned accent problem, shares time with a lot of great performers in parts large and small. On top of those mentioned already, Sebastian Arcelus, Reg E. Cathey, Kathleen Chalfant, Nathan Darrow, Sandrine Holt, Boris McGiver, Larry Pine, Al Sapienza, Constance Zimmer and Gerald McRaney all put in appearances. We also get three actors familiar to Treme fans in parts of various scope: Mahershala Ali, Lance E. Nichols and Dan Ziskie. The M.V.P. of the entire cast though turns out to be Corey Stoll, so great as Hemingway in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, as the U.S. equivalent of Roger O'Neill. Instead of a P.R. guy, Stoll plays Pennsylvania Rep. Peter Russo, a divorced father of two with a penchant for drugs, booze and sex, despite his deep feelings for and relationship with his chief of staff Christina Gallagher (Kristen Connolly). For those who only know Stoll from Midnight in Paris, he'll be unrecognizable. In the short number of episodes though, he takes Russo through the largest journey of any character in the series, battling to sobriety and attempting to believe in himself, unaware of his status as a pawn in Underwood's game (both Underwoods, actually), until it's too late. Stoll makes Russo the only character that the audience develops any sympathy for at all. Though Russo behaves badly, his mistakes all flow from his personal weaknesses. He doesn't do things maliciously the way that Underwood and other characters do. When he commits wrongs, it's because he can't control himself. Underwood always stays in control, even if unexpected events force him to improvise. You feel bad for Russo when he can't stand up for himself and acts against his own interests and those of his constituents, just to be Underwood's toady and pay him back for covering up an incident when he got caught drunk with a prostitute. You get a sense of where this comes from a in a couple of brief scenes involving Russo and his hospitalized mother (a great Phyllis Somerville) that gives you insight into Russo and makes you feel sorry for the man at the same time it provides some wickedly dark humor. When he begins to turn himself around, you develop a rooting interest for him to succeed (even though having seen the U.K. version first, I figured what fate awaited Russo, though the U.S. changes the manner of his inevitable death at Underwood's hands slightly differently). Though the U.S. House of Cards contains a lot of great acting, no one comes close to turning in a performance as wonderful as Stoll's and no character gets as much development and detail as Rep. Peter Russo.

Since the British House of Cards only ran four hours, it had a sole director, Paul Seed, and writer, Andrew Davies. Davies and Seed returned to the same roles on the second installment, To Play the King, but Seed's directing work consists almost entirely of British television. Davies wrote the third and final part, The Final Cut, but Mike Vardy took over helming duties. Similarly, his directing work stayed restricted to British TV. Davies' writing extends to film including the screenplays for Circle of Friends, Emma, The Tailor of Panama, Bridget Jones's Diary, the 2008 feature of Brideshead Revisited and the 2011 version of The Three Musketeers directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.

While Beau Willmon had a hand in writing most of the U.S. episodes, he also had a staff of writers who either contributed or turned in their own episodes. On the directing side, Fincher started the series off by directing the first two episodes while James Foley directed the most at 4 episodes and Allen Coulter, Carl Franklin, Charles McDougall and Joel Schumacher helmed two each.

In the final assessment, the U.S. House of Cards moves fairly well except at times when it feels as if it stuffed itself with too many character and plot strands and an episode set at Underwood's reunion at The Citadel that, while OK, feels and plays like filler. The U.K. House of Cards comes off as far more efficient, even if most of the characters aside from Richardson's Urquhart prove far less compelling. In the second and third parts, they do at least give him actual adversaries, which make things slightly more interesting, but in the end all the British House of Cards episodes always belong to the great Richardson and his rich and delicious performance. One really bizarre viewing experience for me came from the miniseries — which aired in 1990, 1995 and 1996 — incorporating Margaret Thatcher's fictional death. She died in the miniseries as I watched it before she died in real life earlier this year. Part of the subtext is that Francis Urquhart wants to break Thatcher's record for serving as prime minister longer in the post-WW2 era. One other thing that makes the British version slightly better than the American take is that the first installment ends with a great cliffhanger mystery that plays out over the course of the next two parts. The new House of Cards leaves us with reporters hot on Underwood's trail about Russo's "suicide," but it doesn't come off nearly as intriguing as the British version. I'm also curious where the U.S. version goes next. It obviously can't follow the storyline of the British To Play the King since we don't have a constitutional monarch and a newly sworn in Vice President Underwood wouldn't run into conflict with a recently crowned king. Presumably, that tension will present itself with his new boss, President Walker. It's a shame that Ian Richardson isn't with us anymore and that the third British House of Cards installment resolved the Francis Urquhart character. It might have been fun to see U.S. President Francis Underwood face off against British Prime Minister Francis Urquhart. I'd probably root for Urquhart, if only because he doesn't have that corny and awful Southern accent.


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Thursday, April 04, 2013

 

Roger Ebert (1942-2013)


By Edward Copeland
If there ever were a reason to brush the cobwebs off my long-dormant blog, today provided it. I wasn't going to waste my thoughts on the passing of Roger Ebert on a note on Facebook or try to squeeze them into multiple 140-word tweets on Twitter. He deserves much more than that and so do I. I'm still forced to use a limited technology, but I'll try to make the best of it.

I debated whether or not to use a photo or Roger solo or Siskel & Ebert together again, but I felt I had to acknowledge them both. It would be nice to say that my interest in film criticism began pouring over the works of Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Manny Farber and the like, but that wouldn't be true. I'm a child of television and those two men up there and their PBS television show Sneak Previews, which I first saw in fourth grade, was my first exposure to movie criticism. I already was a budding film buff, but this was new to me.

During the many years that Roger and Gene worked together on their various shows — going from Sneak Previews to At the Movies to Siskel & Ebert & the Movies before simplifying to plain Siskel & Ebert — I attempted to watch faithfully, not an easy task given the constant switch in TV stations and time periods that come with syndicated fare. I also developed my own voice and did begin reading those other critics, as well as the many books Roger put out himself. I can't remember how many editions of his Movie Home Companion I had.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I wrote both men, seeking advice about the path to film criticism. Siskel never responded, but Roger returned a great form letter that apologized for being a form letter and mentioned how when he was young he had written a letter to Betty Furness, having a crush on the actress turned TV fixture. He received a form letter along with what supposedly was one of Ms. Furness' hairpins and that inspired him try to personalize his necessary form letters for the piles of mail he got just a bit. During senior year of high school, members of our newspaper and yearbook staffs went to a national journalism convention in Chicago and we toured the Sun-Times. I noticed a staff phone directory on a desk and jotted down Roger's extension, but I never worked up the guts to call it.

The only time I actually was in the same room with Roger was at the 1995 junket for Casino in New York. I wish I'd stopped to say hi, but it was a news conference setup with Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Martin Scorsese seated at a long table. When the Q&A was over, I had to make a beeline to Scorsese.

Roger truly entered my life in the past couple of years when, much to my surprise, he wrote a piece about online criticism for The Wall Street Journal and listed this blog as one of his must-reads. I had no idea that he even knew who I was. Later, with details much too complicated to explain, he saved my bacon when I had started work on a 20th anniversary piece on The Larry Sanders Show — including interviews with many people in front of and behind the cameras — and despite it not being movie-related, he gave me a home. I also got to give him a funny story about Gene that he didn't know, thanks to Joshua Malina.

Roger Ebert adapted to the Internet amazingly well, especially Twitter. Small compensation for losing the ability to speak, but it kept him vibrant. He was a champion fighting against the perils put upon him over the past several years, yet it only sharpened his already great writing ability. I miss my friend, even if we never met. Good night, you generous talented man. The balcony will be closed in your honor.





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Sunday, June 03, 2012

 

Paging Dr. House!

UPDATE: Final installment that completes list of 10 favorite episodes has been posted. You can skip directly to the fourth part by clicking here.


By Edward Copeland
On May 21, the television series House (I refuse to use that blasted M.D. in the title — no one does anyway) ended its eight season run. I planned to do a suitable tribute along with a list of my 10 favorite episodes later in the week. I felt no need to rush my piece — no time-sensitive projects loomed on my calendar and I managed to get a review of the finale posted the day after — so I thought I'd earned the right to let it ferment before allowing the world a chance to read it. Unfortunately, as I prepared the piece with care, my body began to weaken from some sort of bug so I got less done and it did begin to bump up against other projects so I finally had to bite the bullet and get this out there — then a series of violent thunderstorms combined with my laptop suddenly acting flaky bumped against my longest, most exhausting doctor's appointment just as I neared completion. I kept feeling puny — sometimes sleeping most of a day away. Then I got pissed and decided I would finish this, starting by sending the two completed portions out ASAP. (The 10 favorites will begin in the second part). I owe it to the show, the character, Hugh Laurie and most of the cast. I wish this had turned out better, but the fates seemed aligned against it, but here it is, warts and all. I also wanted the thought that occurred to me while contemplating this tribute finally out in the universe (if anyone else posited this theory before, I apologize because it never crossed my path). I already miss Laurie and the creation he embodied for eight seasons, a character with a secure spot on the list of all-time great television characters. That ill-mannered, tell-it-like-it-is, Vicodin-addicted, crippled, socially maladjusted genius never failed to entertain me (even though the series that contained him hadn't accomplished that consistently for several seasons). As noted repeatedly and endlessly, House basically reimagined Sherlock Holmes in a medical setting, with Robert Sean Leonard's Wilson serving as his Dr. Watson. However, the more I reflected on Gregory House, the more I noticed that it's a different detective with whom he shares more striking similarities.

The detective that I saw signs of in Gregory House and vice versa (though not a 100 percent match — except for a brief separation, Pembleton had a happy married life) received his induction in that great TV character hall of fame back in the 1990s. When this parallel punched me in the face as I began this tribute, I believe the behind-the-scenes team at House must have had this thought in mind when they cast Andre Braugher as House's psychiatrist, Dr. Darryl Nolan, during his stay at Mayfield Mental Hospital since Braugher brought Baltimore homicide detective Frank Pembleton to life on Homicide: Life on the Street. I also think we can rule out coincidence as a factor because of Paul Attanasio, Attanasio served as an executive producer for all eight seasons of House. He also created Homicide: Life on the Street and wrote its first episode, “Gone for Goode,” basing Frank and the other characters on real Baltimore homicide detectives depicted in former Baltimore Sun crime reporter David Simon's nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, before Simon turned to television himself. If you don't believe me, let's compare the detective and the doctor in more detail.

ADDICTIONS

  • GREGORY HOUSE: Mainly Vicodin, but what else you got?
  • FRANK PEMBLETON: Nicotine and caffeine


    • JOB PERFORMANCE

  • HOUSE: Brilliant but alienates others with arrogance
  • PEMBLETON: Brilliant but alienates others with arrogance


    • TYPICAL THOUGHT ON DUMB PEOPLE AND THEIR JOBS

  • HOUSE: "Our job is to find what's killing patients, not treat them for chronic idiocy."
  • PEMBLETON: "Crime makes you stupid."


    • ATTITUDE TOWARD WORK

  • PEMBLETON: Prefers to work solo; protests when forced to work with partners. Early in "Gone for Goode," Frank's boss, Lt. Al Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) forces him to investigate a murder with Detective Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin).
    FELTON: Amazing. Life is amazing.
    PEMBLETON: Really?
    FELTON: This must be a mistake. Am I actually going on a routine call with Frank Pembleton?
    PEMBLETON: You're right. It's a mistake.
    FELTON: Frank Pembleton only works the big investigations. This is just some dead guy.
    PEMBLETON See what happens when I come into the office?
    FELTON: Imagine — handling a routine call with Detective Frank Pembleton.
    PEMBLETON: I'm slumming.

  • HOUSE: Would avoid work entirely if he could; eventually values team since it means he can avoid patients. In the first episode of House, "Everybody Lies," Cameron, Chase and Foreman (Jennifer Morrison, Jesse Spencer and Omar Epps) have sat idle in the conference room for days while House holes up in his office, not using them or doing much of anything. It prompts Wilson to get on his case and remind him of the qualified staff at his disposal, finally convincing him to take a case by telling him the patient happens to be his cousin. It does set the precedent for the series of House doing everything he can to avoid speaking to the patients. "Isn't treating patients why we became doctors?" Foreman asks his new boss. "No, treating illnesses is why we became doctors. Treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable," House replies.


    • OFFICE POLICIES

  • PEMBLETON: Department rules requires detectives to carry their guns with them at all times, though Frank often ignores it unless they're apprehending a suspect,
  • HOUSE: If you have to ask, you probably never watched the show, but for a sample from the first episode pertaining to dress codes.

    • HOUSE: "See that, they all assume I'm a patient because of the cane."
    WILSON: "Then why don't you put on a white coat like the rest of us?"
    HOUSE: "Then they'll think I'm a doctor."

    PUZZLES, RELIGION AND BRAGGADOCIO

    House might enjoy staying away from his patients as long as he can, but he isn't bashful about boasting about his successes with a blurted, "I rock!" or some equivalent just as Pembleton similarly brags to rookie Detective Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor), now his unwelcome partner, about what he will see in the infamous Box, where they interrogate murder suspects. "What you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship — as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swampland, or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term, to a client who has no genuine use for the product," Pembleton proclaims. Needless to say, both men lived to solve puzzles, the major difference comes from what motivates the detective and the doctor. House figures out the puzzle for the puzzle's sake, but Frank puts the mystery to an end because he feels as if the responsibility to speak for those murder victims who can't rests with him. The reason Pembleton believes this is his duty brings him closer to House in yet another way. While House makes no secret of his atheism, Pembleton hasn't gone that far, but he doesn't hide his anger at God, who the Jesuit-educated detective thinks no longer watches or cares about his creations. Pembleton's loss of faith runs so deep that he refuses to step inside a church. While Pembleton's character lacked an infirmity akin to House's leg when Homicide began, but he suffered a stroke at the end of the fourth season that he necessitated a recovery. (Well acted, as always, by Braugher, but why give your best character whose greatest attribute comes from his use of language impairment of that gift?) Finally, though Pembleton wasn't in charge of the one in the squad room, white boards played key roles in both shows.


    The two shows almost followed similar paths in other ways as well. Both produced three nearly flawless seasons and fourth seasons that continued to offer enough rewards to earn viewer fidelity worthwhile — then both series bore the signs that they'd overstayed their welcomes. The cases, be they murder or medical, ceased to hold our interest as they once did, and constant cast changes made each new season look as if the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (or the Baltimore homicide department) underwent extreme makeovers during the summer hiatus. (Each show had its annoying new additions too — Olivia Wilde's Thirteen on House; Jon Seda's Falsone on Homicide.) In the end, Wilde must have frustrated the show's producers as much as viewers, being absent for most of the seventh season and only present for four or so episodes of the eighth so she wouldn't miss out on once-in-a-lifetime acting opportunities such as Tron: Legacy, Cowboys & Aliens and The Change-Up. Granted, Amber's death resulted in some compelling episodes such as "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart" as well as when Anne Dudek returned to play Cutthroat Bitch as one of House's hallucinations. Still, wouldn't most fans willingly give those episodes up if it meant that House had fired Thirteen instead and Amber had joined the team? Awful decision on someone's part. I heard some people complain about Peter Jacobson as Taub, but I always liked him and if Kal Penn (Kutner) decides he wants to take a huge pay cut to work for the White House and what he believes in most strongly, you hardly can fault him for that. Of the final two additions for season eight, Charlyne Yi's Dr. Chi Park proved to be interesting and funny from the moment she showed up. On the other hand, Odette Annable's character turned out to be such a nonentity that I had to look up her character's name. (Dr. Jessica Adams. Adams rings a bell, but does anyone remember her being called Jessica?) When she showed up with a new hairdo, I didn't immediately recognize that she'd been the doctor in the prison episode. However, though I liked Jacobson, Penn and Yi, no chemistry worked as well as the original cast (which, though I said it immediately afterward, made the ending all the more incomplete without the presence of Lisa Edelstein as Cuddy. I had nothing against Amber Tamblyn's brief role, but I didn't need closure with Masters. Cuddy's absence left a giant gaping hole in the finale.)

    That's why, when I think most fondly about my favorite episodes of House, that my memory inevitably returns to those first three initial seasons. While House, at its core, presents mysteries in the form of medical stories, even in the early seasons and the occasional interesting one that would pop up in later seasons, the puzzle might have been what kept House interested but for the viewer, the regular characters grabbed our attention and earned our loyalty to the show. Sure, Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison continued to be on the show, but once Chase and Cameron left the team, it wasn't the same. This wasn't a series like Law & Order where the procedure proved pivotal to the show and it new cast members could be plugged into roles without harming the series. What a testament not only to Hugh Laurie's brilliance and David Shore's for inventing the character of House in the first place, but the magical chemistry between Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard and Lisa Edelstein. Omar Epps, Morrison and Spencer fit well in those first three seasons as well, but when they came back to the team, some of that magic had vanished through no fault of the performers. How many times could Foreman reasonably quit or threaten to quit? The early elements that made Cameron fascinating — such as the desire to save everyone, especially House — seemed to vanish. What made for an initially interesting idea of Chase choosing to kill the genocidal dictator played by James Earl Jones faded from everyone's memory too fast. That's why it was funny when Cameron returned in the Season 6 episode "Lockdown" to have Chase sign divorce papers and the hospital gets locked down because of a missing infant, trapping the soon-to-be ex-spouses together. "You had a conversation with House, and came back, informed me I had been forever poisoned by him, and started packing," Chase told her, explaining his version of their breakup. "Interesting how your story leaves out the part where you murdered another human being," Cameron replied. As far as I can remember, the incident went unmentioned for the remainder of the series. House's reaction actually could be taken as out of character. When he figures out what happened and he and Chase talk, House says, "Better murder than a misdiagnosis." He advises Chase seek some help, but that's it. When Wilson planned to give a speech endorsing euthanasia, he intervened to save his friend's career. Back in the Season 2 episode "Clueless," he had the wife secretly poisoning her husband to death with gold arrested. He even called the police on one of the potential team candidates, Dr. Travis Brennan (Andy Comeau), after he told him to quit for purposely making a patient sicker with polio-like symptoms to try to fund research for his idea that high doses of Vitamin C would eradicate polio in the Third World. Granted, Chase killed a dictator who ordered genocide, but the Aussie doc, who once entered a seminary, eventually seemed free of any guilt over his act and Foreman bore no regrets about covering it up and even gave House's old job to Chase after House "died." Enough about the series' failings and parallels between House, Pembleton and their shows. This piece celebrates what House did well.

    As I mentioned in my brief farewell to the show prior to the airing of the finale, I came to House late. The show hooked me in a setting where you'd think a series involving medical crises wouldn't prove amenable. Despite the odds, my habitual viewing of House started while imprisoned in two hospitals for three-and-a-half months in summer 2008. Often the only palatable programming on the room's TV turned out to be the endless marathons of House episodes that USA ran. Other than Scrubs, which I counted more as a comedy than a medical drama in spite of serious moments, I hadn't watched any new medical shows since my beloved St. Elsewhere went off the air in 1988. (I admit to watching a single episode of ER, but that's simply because Quentin Tarantino directed it.) Honestly, that much of a line shouldn't be drawn between House and Scrubs because most everything I enjoy on television and in movies tends to contain some comedy or it loses me quickly (and, in its own way, Scrubs touched on reality more than House simply by addressing the issues of billing and insurance). That's why House proved to be such a comfort to me during my long hospital imprisonment. I identified with Gregory House as my personal horror story dragged on. I didn't have a pain pill addiction, but I confess to appropriating parts of his attitude when necessary to get what I wanted and to put idiots in their place. I also enjoyed watching those marathons in the first hospital, a Catholic "not-for-profit" hospital that charged ridiculous fees (A 72-year-old woman was shocked to find she'd been billed for labor and maternity costs) and had the worst TV channel selection that thankfully included USA but only included one cable news channel — Fox. Enjoying my role as asshole, I told them that could violate their tax-exempt status as a religious-affiliated institution by seemingly taking political sides and come January, a new sheriff would be in the White House and I'd feel forced to report them. They kept bribing me to try to shut me up. I got a DVD player. They hooked up a laptop. Thank you, House. Since his exit leaves the prime time landscape with one less openly atheist on TV and the remainder exist on shows I don't watch, a clip of some of his best lines concerning religion.


    It surprised me when I discovered House to see Bryan Singer's name in the credits as one of the executive producers. I knew him as a film director, most of whose films had left me cold until he made the first two X-Men movies. He also directed the House pilot episode, "Everybody Lies," which, like most first episodes, gets bogged down in exposition and character introductions that prevents it from soaring. Singer also helmed the third episode, "Occam's Razor," and by then House's slide into a comfortable groove nearly was complete. Creator David Shore wrote "Occam's Razor" and, like nearly every episode of those early seasons, it came full of memorable dialogue. Two choice selections courtesy of House himself: "No, there is not a thin line between love and hate. There is, in fact, a Great Wall of China with armed sentries posted every twenty feet between love and hate."; "What would you prefer — a doctor who holds your hand while you die or one who ignores you while you get better? I suppose it would particularly suck to have a doctor who ignores you while you die." Then House responses to Wilson and Cameron.
    WILSON: That smugness of yours really is an attractive quality.
    HOUSE: Thank you. It was either that or get my hair highlighted. Smugness is easier to maintain.

    CAMERON: Men should grow up.
    HOUSE: Yeah, and dogs should stop licking themselves. It's not going to happen.

    CAMERON: Brandon's not ready for surgery.
    HOUSE: OK, let's leave it a couple of weeks. He should be feeling better by then. Oh wait, which way does time go?

    Those examples don't show what made the original cast such a miracle of casting chemistry — while Laurie certainly ranked at the top of the heap in the humor department among the performers, the others didn't merely act as his straight men. The entire ensemble contributed to the comedic elements of the show as well. I think that lies behind why so many fans had such a negative reaction to Olivia Wilde's Thirteen — she just wasn't funny. Peter Jacobson's Taub and Kal Penn's Kutner were funny. Charlyne Yi's Park garnered laughs from the moment she joined the show. Even Odette Annable's (what was her name again?) Adams had her moments. Anne Dudek's Amber — I don't think I have to elaborate on her comic gifts whether her character had a pulse or afterward. Returning to Bryan Singer for a moment, at least his sense of humor extends to himself. The Usual Suspects, the film that first gained Singer attention as a director, was an incredibly overrated film as far as I was concerned. Apparently House agreed, at least in the fifth season episode "Joy to the World" written by Peter Blake, who co-wrote the series finale with Shore and Eli Attie. "Why don't you hang out in the video store and tell everyone Kevin Spacey's Keyser Söze? And by the way, that ending really made no sense at all." While the show's ability to make me laugh definitely drew me in during my time of need, by no means am I trying to slight the emotional impact that it routinely delivered as well. The series portrayed all its characters as fallible — cumulatively almost as much as House himself. Though House almost always solved the puzzle, that didn't mean he'd always save the patient.

    The fourth episode of Season 1, "Maternity," turned out to be one of the most serious episodes as House noticed first a mystery infection sickening all the newborn babies. The episode, the first Peter Blake wrote for the series, did allow time for some levity, mostly involving a ditzy clinic patient named Jill (Hedy Burress) who can't believe she's pregnant because she had an implanted birth control device. Even worse, she also cheated on her husband Charlie. House advises that she just tell Charlie (Dwight Armstrong) that the baby belongs to him, but she drags Charlie in during the crisis for a "mono" test so House can check paternity. When everything turns out well, Jill asks House to handle all her prenatal care and delivery, which he naturally refuses. Jill tells him she feels as if she owes him a present of some kind. "Sometimes the best gift is the gift of never seeing you again," House replies. The bulk of the episode though concerned the serious storyline and House stayed focused and serious as he fought with administrators over what they should try to solve the puzzle. We gained more insight into Cameron's character. Wilson dropped one laugh line as he saw House examine a sick baby and said, "I'm still amazed you're actually in the same room with a patient." "People don't bug me until they get teeth," House replies. Early on in the crisis, he blames his entire profession for creating the environment that allows something like this to happen. "This is our fault. Doctors over-prescribing antibiotics. Got a cold? Take some penicillin. Sniffles? No problem. Have some azithromycin. Is that not working anymore? Oh, got your Levaquin. Antibacterial soaps in every bathroom. We'll be adding vancomycin to the water supply soon. We bred these superbugs. They're our babies. And they're all grown up and they've got body piercings and a lot of anger." "Maternity" marked the series' arrival as a polished product — and as compelling and great as this episode is, it didn't come close to making my cut for my 10 favorite episodes, which will come at the end of the concluding post.

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    Monday, May 21, 2012

     

    Centennial Tributes: Richard Brooks Part III


    By Edward Copeland
    It isn't often that a masterpiece of literature begets a masterpiece of cinema yet both retain distinct identities all their own, but that's the case with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's "nonfiction novel" and Richard Brooks' stunning film adaptation of his book. Capote often gets credit for inventing the genre of adapting the techniques of a novelist to that of straight reporting, but earlier attempts existed — Capote's stood out because In Cold Blood 's excellence made everyone forget any other examples (at least until more than a decade later when Norman Mailer added his own brilliant take on the genre with The Executioner's Song). Brooks, with his job as a crime reporter in his past, on the surface appears to follow Capote's approach, but the director, forever the activist, skips the objectivity that Capote tried to evoke in his book. Brooks didn't want to minimize the horror of the crime that occurred at the Clutter farm in Holcomb, Kans., but he also wanted to humanize the killers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. In a way, Brooks' film inspired the path for the two films made decades later telling the story of Capote's writing of the book and his getting to know the killers first-hand as they waited on Death Row. Even today, Brooks' 1967 film remains more powerful and better made than the two more recent tales. Undoubtedly, In Cold Blood remains Brooks' greatest film. If you got here before reading either Part I or Part II of this tribute, click on the respective links.
    The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.


    Capote begins his book with that paragraph in the first chapter titled The Last to See Them Alive. Brooks begins the film of In Cold Blood introducing us to The Last to See Them Alive in the forms of Robert Blake as newly paroled inmate Perry Smith and Scott Wilson as an acquaintance he met in prison who had been freed earlier, Dick Hickok. Brooks gives Blake — and the movie — a memorable entrance, especially thanks to his decision to go against the grain of the time and film in black-and-white Panavision. We see a bus driving down a two-lane highway, passing signs showing the distance to different Kansas towns, including the horrific Olathe. On the bus, a young female stumbles down the aisle to get a closer look at the pair of pointed-toe cowboy boots with buckles on its heels before creeping back. The shadowy man who wears the boots also has a guitar strung around his neck. A flame suddenly illuminates Robert Blake's face as he lights a cigarette and Quincy Jones' ominous yet jazzy score kicks in to start the credits. The sequence not only sets the tone for the film that follows, it also introduces us to the movie's most important participant — cinematographer Conrad L. Hall (though he didn't need to use the L. yet since his son, Conrad W. Hall, wasn't old enough to follow his dad into the business).

    The movie spends its opening minutes introducing us to the soft-spoken Perry and getting him hooked up with Dick. Whereas Blake's Perry comes off as a puppy repeatedly kicked by his owner, Scott Wilson portrays Hickok as a cocky, livewire and a chatterbox — and Brooks gives him great lines, especially in the scenes where he and Blake drive around. "Ever seen a millionaire fry in the electric chair? Hell, no. There's two kinds of laws, one for the rich and one for the poor," Dick imparts as wisdom to Perry. When the two buy supplies for the planned robbery of the Clutter farm, Dick shoplifts some razorblades for no good reason, leading Perry to chastise him for taking such a risk for something so small. "That was stupid — stealin' a lousy pack of razor blades! To prove what?" Perry asks. Smiling, Dick replies, "It's the national pastime, baby, stealin' and cheatin'. If they ever count every cheatin' wife and tax chiseler, the whole country would be behind prison walls." Though in the two recent biographical films about Truman Capote's research into the case, it's strongly implied that Capote at least developed a crush on Smith and that Perry may have been gay. In Cold Blood never explicltly claims that Perry Smith was gay, but throughout the film Dick taunts him by calling him "honey," "baby" or something along those lines. Hickock on the other hand chases every skirt he gets near and during the robbery/murder, Perry intervenes to stop Dick from raping the Clutters' 16-year-old daughter Nancy (Brenda Currin). Wilson made his first two feature films in 1967 and he landed roles in two of the biggest — this one and the eventual Oscar winner for best picture, Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night. The jaws of younger readers should hit the floor when they see Wilson's great work here and it slowly dawns on them that playing Dick Hickok is a younger incarnation of Herschel on AMC's The Walking Dead. When Perry and Dick do get together, they meet at Dick's father's house where Dick tries to aid his old man, who's slowly losing his battle with terminal cancer. (Veteran character actor Jeff Corey, who co-starred in the Brooks-scripted 1947 classic Brute Force, plays the elder Hickock.) Contrasting Capote's take with Brooks' version fascinates in the ways the works reflect each other yet, like a mirror, many things appear on the opposite side. The book introduces its readers to the Clutter family first before Perry and Dick enter the story (by name anyway). Brooks' screenplay reverses the order, beginning with the killers then letting us meet the Kansas family. However, both aim to draw parallels between the victims and their eventual murderers. "That morning an apple and a glass of milk were enough for him; because he touched neither coffee or tea, he was accustomed to begin the day on a cold stomach. The truth was he opposed all stimulants, however gentle. He did not smoke, and of course he did not drink; indeed, he had never tasted spirits, and was inclined to avoid people who had — a circumstance that did not shrink his social circle as much as might be supposed, for the center of that circle was supplied by the members of Garden City's First Methodist Church, a congregation totaling seventeen hundred, most of whom were as abstemious as Mr. Clutter could desire," Capote described the Clutter patriarch. A few pages later in the first chapter, Perry Smith makes his entrance into Capote's book. "Like Mr. Clutter, the young man breakfasting in a cafe called the Little Jewel never drank coffee. He preferred root beer. Three aspirin, cold root beer, and a chain of Pall Mall cigarettes — that was his notion of a proper "chow-down." Sipping and smoking, he studied a map spread on the counter before him — a Phillips 66 map of Mexico — but it was difficult to concentrate, for he was expecting a friend, and the friend was late. He looked out a window at the silent small-town street, a street he had never seen until yesterday. Still no sign of Dick," Capote wrote. Brooks uses a visual link to draw victim and killer together, showing Herbert Clutter (John McLiam) performing his morning shave. As Clutter leans into the sink to rinse the remaining shaving cream from his face, the face that rises up and looks in the mirror sees Perry Smith, excising his excess whiskers as well.

    The biggest difference between the book and the movie came with Brooks' introduction of a Truman Capote surrogate, a magazine reporter named Jensen, who travels to Holcomb to cover the case. Jensen isn't played in a way similar to the extremely distinctive Capote — such as the way that won Philip Seymour Hoffman an Oscar for Capote, that Toby Jones played even better in Infamous or that Tru himself played best of all as Lionel Twain in Neil Simon's 1976 mystery spoof Murder By Death. Brooks wrote the Jensen character straight (no pun intended) and conventionally, even giving him a narrator's function at times. He doesn't precisely follow how Capote researched the story though because Capote didn't arrive in Kansas until after Smith and Hickok had been apprehended. In the movie, Jensen arrives almost from the beginning of the investigation. For the role of Jensen, Brooks cast another veteran character actor — Paul Stewart, whose first credited screen role was the butler Raymond in Citizen Kane. His 42-year film and television career ended in 1983 with an episode of Remington Steele and he died three years later, a month shy of his 88th birthday. After starting with Kane, a few of Stewart's eclectic highlights included Champion, Brooks' Deadline-U.S.A., The Bad and the Beautiful, Kiss Me Deadly, Hell on Frisco Bay, King Creole, Opening Night, Revenge of the Pink Panther, S.O.B. and appearances on nearly every episodic police or detective show between the 1950s and the 1970s, including The Mod Squad. The Jensen character arrives around the same time that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation joins the case led by John Forsythe as Alvin Dewey, what may be Forsythe's best performance. Brooks gives him a lot of speeches — and some come off as less pristine than others, but Forsythe succeeds at selling most of them. Forsythe gets so identified with Dynasty or as a voice on Charlie's Angels that I think people forget that he really act when the material was there for him as it was here or in the short-lived and underrated Norman Lear sitcom The Powers That Be and having fun with Hitchcock in The Trouble With Harry (though no one could help Topaz much). He also was a replacement performer of one of the major roles in Arthur Miller's All My Sons on Broadway. Granted, didn't see him, but he had to show some chops to land that one. Of his filmed work though, I think In Cold Blood stands as the best. Sure, this speech reads as overwrought, but he pulled it off as he delivered it to Jensen. "Someday, someone will have to explain the motive of a newspaper to me. First, you scream, 'Find the bastards.' Till we do find 'em, you want to get us fired. When we find 'em, you accuse us of brutality. Before we go into court, you give them a trial in the newspaper, When we finally get a conviction, you want to save 'em by proving they were really crazy in the first place. All of which adds up to one thing — you've got the killers," Dewey tells Jensen as he's taking down to the basement of the Clutter house. Dewey also serves as Mr. Exposition, explaining why these two numbskulls just out of prison would decide to go to this one particular farmhouse and rob this family, making sure to "leave no witnesses," even though Dick and Perry only gain $40 from the crime. A fellow investigator asks Dewey if Clutter might have been rich and Alvin sort of laughs knowingly. "Ahh — the old Kansas myth. Every farmer with a big spread is supposed to have a secret black box with lots of money in it." It isn't until the ending that you realize the Brooks gave Dewey some of that dialogue because he's supposed to symbolize the parts of the system that disgust him. Brooks ardently opposed capital punishment and he made no secret that he wanted the ending to make clear that it was murder. At Smith's hanging, another reporter asks Dewey about how much the executioner makes. "Three hundred dollars a man," Dewey answers. "Who does he work for? Does he have a name?" the reporter follows up and then poor John Forsythe has to deliver the clunkiest line of dialogue in the entire film. "Yes. We the people." Earlier, it had been the topic of discussion between Jensen and an imprisoned Hickock.
    DICK: Perry's the only one talking against capital punishment.
    JENSEN: Don't tell me you're for it.
    DICK: Hell, hangin' only getting revenge. What's wrong with revenge? I've been revenging myself all my life.


    Part of the film's brilliance stems from the way Brooks structures the scenes detailing the crime itself. Toward the beginning of the movie, he presents what probably remains the greatest sequence of his directing career without actually showing the murder. Then, as the film winds down, he shows us what we didn't see and it's horrifying. Through a window of the farmhouse, we can see Nancy kneeling beside her bed saying her prayers. At that moment, it isn't made clear who could be seeing that — are Dick and Perry outside her window or are we simply the voyeurs right then? A split second later we spot Dick and Perry still sitting in the car beneath the cover of night. I guess it was us. The discordant sound of a doorbell suddenly fills the soundtrack and the viewer realizes he or she has moved inside the Clutter house — and sunlight shines through the windows. The camera tracks slowly around the furniture of the living room as it makes its way toward the front door. A woman and some other people open the door calling out for the Clutters. We faintly hear church bells tolling and the visitors wear their Sunday best. The woman continues to call out the Clutters by their first names as she ascends the stairs to the second floor. The film cuts quickly to the house's exterior just as we hear the woman let out a horrified scream. Coming on the heels of The Professionals, it's as if somehow Brooks transformed himself from a competent director and damn good writer into a master of both. I don't know if the fact he had Conrad Hall working as his d.p. on both films made any sort of difference or if that proved to be just fortuitous, but that one-two punch sealed Brooks' artistic reputation forever beyond what respect he'd earned before. I've never been fortunate enough to see In Cold Blood on the big screen and allow Hall's haunting and beautiful mix of light and shadow to bathe me in its glow, but I did get the next best thing when in 1993 at the Inwood Theater in Dallas I saw Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels' documentary Visions of Light, a film devoted to the art of cinematography and highlighting some of its greatest practitioners and their best moments. One of the highlighted scenes comes from In Cold Blood when Robert Blake as Perry gives an emotional monologue about his father in his prison cell while he looks out the window at the rain coming down. The reflection of the raindrops cast shadows on Blake's face that make it appear as if he's crying. The moment stuns in its beauty — even when you learn that as so many say, accidents ends up producing some of the best parts of film. Hall admitted it hadn't been planned but the humidity in the prison set had pumped up the window's perspiration so much (as well as everyone else's) that's how the magic happened. Thankfully, YouTube had that clip.


    It must be said how good a performance Blake gives while at the same time acknowledging that it can't be viewed the way many of us assessed it originally. When a Naked Gun movie pops up and you see O.J. Simpson play an idiot and constantly take a beating, somehow that's OK. When you watch In Cold Blood again and see Blake give such a convincing and chilling performance as a mass murderer (especially when Forsythe's Alvin Dewey engages him in conversation during the ride to jail and Perry tells him, "I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought it right till the moment I cut his throat."), you can't help but recall that a few decades later, the actor stood trial and received an acquittal for killing his wife. It doesn't stand out as groundbreaking now, when last night's Mad Men said shit twice, but in 1967, In Cold Blood became the first major release to utter the word bullshit. For the second year in a row, Brooks received Oscar nominations for directing and adapted screenplay and Hall got one for cinematography. Quincy Jones also picked up a nomination for original score, though Jones didn't receive one for his music for In the Heat of the Night. I don't understand how the nimrods at the Academy left it out of the top five for best picture. They nominated two films that deserved to be there: Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. The film that won, a fine film but certainly expendable: In the Heat of the Night. A perceived prestige project of social significance that's overrated as hell: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. The fifth nominee that would make no sense in any year: Doctor Dofuckinglittle. Basically, three out of the five films could have been tossed to make room for In Cold Blood. A few other more deserving 1967 titles: Cool Hand Luke, The Dirty Dozen, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Accident, Wait Until Dark, Point Blank, The Jungle Book. The National Board of Review did honor Brooks' direction. Brooks also received his sixth Directors Guild nomination and his sixth Writers Guild nomination. With the exception of the WGA, Brooks would never be named for any of the top awards again. In Cold Blood marked his best, but from there things went downhill fast.

    THE HAPPY ENDING (1969)

    One of the most difficult films to find (I've never seen it) for that recent a film with a best actress nomination. Brooks wrote his first original screenplay since Deadline-U.S.A. as a vehicle for wife Jean Simmons. From descriptions I've read, Simmons plays Mary Wilson, who was raised on romantic notions of marriage from the movies, finds herself in a funk on her anniversary and flies to the Bahamas on a whim, running into a free spirit (Shirley Jones) while there.

    $ (1971)

    I missed this one as well. From TCM's web site; "In Hamburg, Germany, American Joe Collins (Warren Beatty) is considered by bank manager Kessel (Gert Fröbe) to be the most honest, hard-working bank security expert in the world. Unknown to Kessel, Joe has been devising a plan with his girlfriend, American expatriate prostitute Dawn Divine (Goldie Hawn), to take the contents from bank safe-deposit boxes owned by several criminals and place them into one owned by Dawn. Roger Ebert gave it three stars in his original review.

    BITE THE BULLET (1975)

    I wanted to see this one, but just ran out of time. Here's what qualifies as TCM's full synopsis: A former roughrider (Gene Hackman) matches wits with a lovely but shady lady-in-distress (Candice Bergen), as a drifting ex-cowboy (James Coburn) and a young, reckless cowboy (Jan-Michael Vincent) join in on a 700 mile journey. Ebert gave it three and a half stars in his original review.

    LOOKING FOR NR. GOODBAR (1977)

    I've actually seen this one. In fact, as we near the end of Brooks' career, I've watched two of the last three movies. As an unrelated sidenote, this year also marked the end of Brooks' 17-year marriage to Jean Simmons. If by chance you aren't familiar with this movie, think of it as sort of the Shame of the 1970s — and I don't mean the Ingmar Bergman movie. Diane Keaton stars as a teacher of deaf students whose affair with her college professor ends badly. She reacts as anyone would to a breakup — she starts cruising New York bars and picking up strangers for one-night stands while also developing a taste for drugs. The film definitely didn't belong in the genre of liberated women films of the 1970s as Keaton's character will pay. I saw this when I was a young man and I found it distasteful then, though it did have more sensible plotting than last year's Shame. Brooks directed his last performer to an Oscar nomination with Tuesday Weld getting a supporting actress nod. Keaton won the best actress Oscar for 1977 — but for Annie Hall. Brooks adapted a novel by Judith Rossen that was loosely based on a real incident, but most reviews by people who had read the novel seemed to indicate that Brooks changed key elements. Then, that matches the speech Brooks gave the movie's cast and crew on the first day of shooting, according to Douglass K. Daniel's Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks. "I'm sure that all of you have your own ideas about what kind of contributions you can make to this film, what you can do to improve it or make it better. Keep it to yourself. It's my fucking movie and I'm going to make it my way!" Daniel wrote. Goodbar also featured Richard Gere in one of his earliest roles. This clip plays off the tension of whether fun and games are at hands or something more dangerous.


    WRONG IS RIGHT (1982)

    Brooks referred to this film as "the biggest disaster" of his career. Later, he amended it slightly, blaming TV for purposely not coverage the film because the movie criticized "checkbook journalism." Having watched Wrong Is Right for the first time recently, this compels me to ask, "It did?" Sean Connery stars as a globetrotting reporting for what appears to be a CNN-like news station. The opening sequence contains some amusing moments, (including a young Jennifer Jason Leigh, nearly 30 years after her dad Vic Morrow played the worst punk in Brooks; Blackboard Jungle) but what could be cutting-edge satire of a media form just being born transforms into a scattershot satire involving fictional oil-rich African countries, the CIA, a presidential race and arms dealers trading suitcase nukes, Based on a novel, I hope that it had a plot, but Wrong Is Right just ends up being one of those strange satires like The Men Who Stared at Goats where once it ends you still don't know what the hell happened. This clip shows the opening sequence. Nothing after it deserves your attention.


    FEVER PITCH (1985)

    I've got good news and bad news when it comes to Richard Brooks' final film. The good news: it brought him awards consideration again. The bad news: It was at the Razzies where it earned nominations for worst picture, worst director, worst screenplay and worst musical score. I'm not sure whether or not it relieved him that the film lost in all four categories, with Rambo: First Blood Part II taking worst picture, director and screenplay and Rocky IV winning worst score dishonors. I have not seen Fever Pitch which TCM hasn't even given a synopsis, but I know enough to tell you that Ryan O'Neal plays an investigator reporter doing a story on compulsive gambling who discovers he suffers from the problem. The subject of the movie came up on my Facebook page and Richard Brody, critic at The New Yorker, commented, "I saw Fever Pitch when it came out and loved every overheated second. Haven't seen it since then. Seeing The Connection has brought it back: no detached observer but a participant almost instantly in over his head." At the time of its release, it became one of the rare films that Ebert gave zero stars.

    Following Fever Pitch, Brooks toyed with the idea of writing a screenplay about the blacklist, basing it around an incident in 1950 when fights broke out at the Directors Guild over the loyalty oath, but he didn't get around to it. The man who could be quite a bully on the set, had quite a bit of bitterness toward the industry by now as he showed in the second half of that 1985 interview.


    Richard Brooks died of congestive heart failure on March 11, 1992, at 79. He did have close friends, but most of them had died themselves by then. The stepdaughter he basically raised as his own when he married Jean Simmons, Tracy Granger, made certain, his tombstone bore the only appropriate epitaph for the man.

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    # posted by Edward Copeland @ 6:00 AM 1 comments

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