Wednesday, May 29, 2013
"A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" "That's what I got."
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
After the opening credits end, Howard Hawks begins Rio Bravo with a sequence somewhat unusual for a Western, or, for that matter, any film made in 1959. On the other hand, beneath the surface of Rio Bravo
Burdette and his buddies don't take the sheriff seriously and seem intent to mow the lawman down when a still-shaky Dude arrives as backup, having composed himself enough to shoot the guns out of a couple of bad guys' hands. Seems Dude might have a drinking problem, but he's also Chance's deputy, and the lawmen take Joe into custody where the movie's waiting game begins. Can Chance, Duke (always battling the battle) and Chance's other deputy, Stumpy (Walter Brennan), aging and falling apart physically, keep Joe locked up until the U.S. marshal's arrival several days later to take Joe into custody for trial before Burdette's clan tries to free him In a few short minutes of screentime, the main story that drives most of Rio Bravo's 2 hours and 20 minutes has been set. Sideplots await, but all basically will converge in the main thread. Though nearly 2½ hours long, Hawks doesn't rush his film along, yet somehow he still keeps it moving and it holds its length incredibly well.
I'm not reporting earth-shattering news when I inform readers that Howard Hawks belongs to that select group of directors who excelled in every genre he attempted. One thing that sets Rio Bravo apart from Hawks' other works is that, while it resides in the Western genre, it snatches from many others — romantic comedies, war tales, detective stories, social dramas, even musicals. As film critic Richard Schickel says on a commentary track for Rio Bravo, Hawks liked saying
Hawks originally intended the action and imagery that runs beneath the opening credits to be its own sequence in the film, but later decided just to use it to accompany the list of cast and crew to a quieter piece of Dimitri Tiomkin's score before the set piece in the bar officially launches Rio Bravo. He films the footage of a wagon train caravan at such a distance that you can't readily identify its contents or characters, but a careful viewer connects it later as being the approach of the wagon train of Pat Wheeler
Labels: 50s, Angie Dickinson, Blog-a-thons, Dean Martin, Faulkner, Hawks, John Hughes, Mitchum, Movie Tributes, W. Brennan, Wayne
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"My Rifle, My Pony and Me" (Rio Bravo tribute, Part II)
While Sheriff Chance took on a major task by arresting Joe Burdette and incarcerating him in his small Presidio County jail, with Stumpy left to guard the bad guy most of the time, he still bears the responsibility for maintaining the law elsewhere in his town, something he accomplishes through street patrols and his nights staying at The Hotel Alamo (of all the names to pick) run by Carlos Robante (Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez) and his wife Consuela (Estelita Rodriguez). One night, a poker game piques his interest as two of the players (Angie Dickinson, Walter Barnes) fit the profile of two hustlers warned about on handbills. After a cursory investigation, Chance arrests the woman, who goes by the name Feathers. She declares her innocence and Chance fails to find the crooked cards on her after she's left the table following a huge winning streak. When he returns though, he does find the stacked deck on the man, who has raked it in since her departure and tells him to return his ill-gotten gains and be on the morning stagecoach. He suggests that Feathers do the same, but she decides to stick around.
That next day, the Burdettes arrive as expected, led by Joe's smooth brother Nathan (John Russell, the gaunt, veteran actor of mostly Westerns where he usually played the villain. His second-to-last film was as the cold-blooded killer in Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider). He asks Chance why the streets appear so full of people. Chance offers no explanation, but suggests that perhaps gawkers came to town, drawn to the possibility that the Burdettes planned to put on a show.
Chance makes his nightly trek to the Hotel Alamo. When he gets there, Spencer pulls him over for a drink. The wagon master has heard of the trouble Chance faces. "A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" Spencer asks in disbelief. "That's what I got," Chance responds. Spencer offers himself and his men as help against the Burdettes, but the sheriff expresses reluctance to take responsibility for others. He does ask about the confident young gunman Colorado that Spencer has hired. If he is as good as he thinks he is and lacks the family ties of the older men, Chance would be willing to take him on if Colorado agrees. Spencer calls Colorado over, but the young man politely declines, earning Chance's respect for being smart enough to know when to sit out a fight. Not long afterward, while Feathers flirts again and Chance urges her to get on the morning stage, shots ring out on the street and Spencer falls dead. Later, Nathan Burdette makes his first visit to see his brother Joe, despite Stumpy's withering verbal assaults, at the jail. First, Nathan wants the sheriff to
The murder of Spencer fully incorporates the last two major characters more fully into the film and the action. With his boss dead, Colorado at first finds himself content to take his pay from the slain wagon master's possessions and remains determined to mind his own business. Once he witnesses some more of the Burdette brutality, Colorado decides to join up and Chance deputizes him. Colorado becomes part of the team and helps Chance escape an ambush, an ambush for which the sheriff seems prepared to occur, quickly pumping off rounds from his rifle. "You always leave the carbine cocked?" Colorado asks. "Only when I carry it," Chance replies. Originally, Hawks opposed casting Ricky Nelson, though the director admits he probably boosted box office. He had sought someone popular with young viewers, but felt Nelson — who turned 18 during filming — lacked age and experience for the part. Hawks had chased Elvis Presley for the role, but as often was the case, Col. Tom Parker demanded too much money for his client and the Rio Bravo production had to take a pass. The pseudo love affair between Feathers and Chance also heats up, though Wayne's discomfort with the romantic scenes with Dickinson is readily apparent. Wayne felt uneasy about the 25-year age gap between him and Dickinson. On top of that, nervous studio bosses wanted no implication made that Chance and Feathers ever sleep together. Double entendres and innuendos abound, but truthfully more sparks fly in brief scenes between Martin and Dickinson and Nelson and Dickinson than ever produce friction in the Wayne-Dickinson scenes. What becomes most interesting about the relationship between Feathers and Chance is Feathers' transformation into the sheriff's protector, keeping watch over him as he sleeps to make sure that no Burdette makes a move on him.
You don't need to know how the rest of Rio Bravo unfolds. Besides, part of what makes the film so fascinating and more than your ordinary Western comes from the multiple tones Hawks balances. A viewer seeing Rio Bravo for the first time couldn't positively predict what mood shall prevail by the final reel: light-hearted, tragic, heroic, romantic, some combination of those elements. At any given moment, you might change your mind. Most of this uncertainty reflects the nature of the character Dude. With the possible exception of Feathers, almost every other character in the film stays on a static path. Dude captures our attention the most because of the dynamics within him. Will he maintain the upper hand in his battle with booze or will he fall off the wagon again and if he does, what consequences does that
Hawks' behind-the-scenes collaborators provided as much of the magic of Rio Bravo as its cast. From Russell Harlan's crisp and lush cinematography to Tiomkin's score that complements Hawks' leisurely pacing well. Tiomkin also teamed with lyricist Paul Francis West for the film's songs — "Cindy" and "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" in the extended musical interlude by Dude, Stumpy and
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Labels: 50s, Altman, Angie Dickinson, Blog-a-thons, Dean Martin, Eastwood, Elvis, Hawks, Jerry Lewis, John Carpenter, MacLaine, Movie Tributes, Sinatra, Star Wars, W. Brennan, Wayne
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Friday, May 17, 2013
Enough beef for hungry cinephiles
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post originally appeared Sept. 30, 2008. I'm re-posting it as part of The Howard Hawks Blogathon occurring through May 31 at Seetimaar — Diary of a Movie Lover
By Edward Copeland
Has any filmmaker shown mastery in more genres than Howard Hawks? Sixty years ago today, Hawks released one of his best Westerns (not a motel) in Red River, which also gave John Wayne one of his best roles and Montgomery Clift a notable early screen appearance.
Hawks made other great Westerns (most notably Rio Bravo, which also featured Wayne and Walter Brennan), but Red River, despite its abrupt climax, remains my favorite with its tale of a long cattle drive, surrogate father-son conflict and unmistakable gay subtext. Wayne admittedly was a limited actor, but he always was at his best when he played a character steeped in darkness and obsession such as Thomas Dunson here or Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers. He's helped immeasurably by getting to act opposite the young Clift, the antithesis of acting style when compared to Wayne. Hawks' direction of the film itself truly amazes, especially in the many scenes of the huge numbers of cattle, all done in the days without the easy out of CGI (A scene of the drive even earned a shoutout in Peter Bogdanovich's great 1971 film The Last Picture Show). He also manages to include plenty of his trademark humor, mostly through the ensemble of supporting character actors led by Brennan (whose character loses his false teeth in a poker game) and including Hank Worden (the decrepit waiter in Twin Peaks for those unfamiliar with the name) who gets plenty of throwaway lines such as how he doesn't like when things go good or bad, he just wants them to go in between.
Hawks even manages to toss in what may be an example of the ultimate Hawksian woman with Joanne Dru as Tess Millay, who doesn't let a little thing such as an arrow stop her from nagging a man with questions. Hawks astounds viewers to this day with his versatility among genres: Westerns, screwball comedies, musicals, war films, noirs, sci-fi — pick a genre and Hawks probably took it on and scored. It's a mystery to me why his name isn't brought up more by people other than the most obsessive film buffs. Red River isn't my favorite Hawks, but it's one of his many great ones and continues to entertain after 60 years.
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Labels: 40s, Bogdanovich, Clift, Hawks, John Ford, Movie Tributes, Twin Peaks, W. Brennan, Wayne
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Saturday, March 17, 2012
Round is funny
This post originally ran as part of The Slapstick Blog-a-Thon held at Film of the Year in September 2007. I've revised the piece slightly to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of the Coen brothers' second feature on March 13, 1987.
They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisers are confused." — H.I. McDunnough
By Edward Copeland
The frenetic slapstick nature of Raising Arizona doesn't kick in immediately. As it begins, the movie restricts most of its wackiness to wordplay. The first (and I still think the best) instance of the Coen brothers milking laughs by creating dimwitted characters that spout purple prose in thickly painted-on accents, churning out phrases that people such as these never would utter if they existed in the real world. The Coens would recycle that formula many times in films such as Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the ill-advised remake of The Ealing Studios classic The Ladykillers, having Tom Hanks assume Alec Guinness' memorable turn by impersonating Colonel Sanders. However, the Coens never would go that route with as much hilarious and charming success as they did in Raising Arizona, which holds up strongly 25 years later.
What impressed me first when I saw Raising Arizona a quarter-century ago was its opening prologue, which lasts a full 11 minutes before the title even appears. It's an amazingly efficient 11 minutes as well, setting up nearly all the main characters and situations. We meet habitual convenience store robber H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage), whose parole board he frequently visits (and which frequently frees him) warns that he's only hurting himself with this "rambunctious behavior." We also meet his prison friends Gale and Evelle Snoats (John Goodman, William Forsythe). Most importantly, we meet the police officer who takes H.I.'s mugshot and prints each time he returns to prison. The
All that comes later. Today, we're praising when it worked in what was just their second feature. At the same time that the childless McDunnoughs are beginning married life, furniture kingpin Nathan Arizona (the late Trey Wilson) and his wife, thanks to fertility drugs, end up having quintuplets which prompts Nathan to remark is
H.I.'s prison buddies Gale and Evelle literally burst through the mud outside the prison and escape, or as Evelle puts it, they released themselves "on their own recognizance." After briefly cleaning themselves up in a gas station rest room (Dr. Strangelove fans, check the
From that moment on, Raising Arizona essentially becomes an extended free-for-all chase. Since H.I. figures that Glen will make good on his word and fire him, he finds himself passing by convenience stores again "that weren't on the way home." Ed puts her foot down and wants Gale and Evelle gone. "I'd rather light a candle than curse your darkness," Gale tells H.I., while trying to convince him to help with a bank robbery. H.I. declines, but with Ed and the baby in the car, he does proceed to rob a convenience store for money and Huggies, setting off a loopy, more than five-minute long pursuit sequence. A pissed off Ed drives off with the baby, leaving H.I. to escape on foot. The Coens' hyperkinetic camera doesn't stop for a second as it rolls through groceries, streets and houses while clerks and dogs join the H.I. hunt.
Of course, the deadliest pursuit has yet to occur. H.I. already has had visions of a strange biker who takes no mercy on anyone or anything, and the vision turns out to be Leonard Smalls (Randall "Tex" Cobb), a self-described tracker, "some say hound dog." He meets with Nathan Arizona and offers to find his boy, but for a higher price than the reward the furniture magnate has offered. Arizona refuses, but Smalls insists he'll find the baby anyway and take whatever price "the market will bear." Back at the trailer, the chaos escalates as Glen figures out where H.I. and Ed got the baby and demands they turn the tot over to him and Dot. Before H.I. can even contemplate what to do, Gale and Evelle, who
From top to bottom, all the actors hit exactly the right notes for the movie. Forsythe and Goodman make for a hysterical pair of not-so-swift criminals. Cobb displays just the right amount of menace to remain a cartoon without pushing the film off its comic tone and into a terror mode. The late Parker gets some great material as Nathan Arizona as well as when he yells at the multitude of cops loitering at his house. "Dammit, are you boys gonna chase down your leads or are you gonna sit drinkin' coffee in the one house in the state where I know my boy ain't at?" Even the small roles of bank customers and store owners get priceless moments, especially Charles "Lew" Smith who plays the store owner who utters the response that gives this post its title when Evelle asks a question about some balloons. Cage still was in the early years of his career and Arizona marked the middle film of a three-film run of great Cage performances that started the year before with Peggy Sue Got Married and would concluded later in 1987 with Moonstruck. The breakout actor though was undoubtedly Holly Hunter as Ed. Hunter had appeared in a handful of films and TV movies, but Raising Arizona gave Hunter her biggest exposure so far, but it was just an appetizer for the gourmet meal Hunter would serve fans of great movies and acting in December 1987: Broadcast News.
UPDATE March 17, 2012: As we now know, my hopes for No Country for Old Men ended up being more than fulfilled. That same year, the brothers wrote and directed "Tuileries," one of the best shorts in the great compilation film, Paris, je t'aime . The Coens took a minor step backward with the so-so Burn After Reading that came next. However, the next movie they made ranked as one of their all-time greatest. A Serious Man also introduced me to the great actor Michael Stuhlbarg, who had mostly toiled upon the stage but would go on to impress me in a completely different type of role than his Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man when he became 1920s gangster Arnold Rothstein on HBO's Boardwalk Empire. Most recently, the Coens accomplished that rare feat of remaking a film and producing a greater version. Granted, the original True Grit wasn't a masterpiece, but it did contain John Wayne's Oscar-winning role as Rooster Cogburn which Jeff Bridges took on, easily besting the Duke. What really made the Coens' True Grit exceed the 1969 film version was young Hailee Steinfeld playing Mattie Ross. Yes, the Coens I loved early in their career have matured and returned better than ever. It's good that they can produce great works again and we continue to have their older classics such as Raising Arizona holding up after 25 years.
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Labels: 80s, Blog-a-thons, Boardwalk Empire, Coens, Guinness, Hanks, Holly Hunter, Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, John Williams, McDormand, Movie Tributes, Nicolas Cage, Oscars, Remakes, Wayne
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
I'm Never Too Old for This Shit!
By Kevin J. Olson
Lethal Weapon is one of those movies that explains my love of the medium. Sure, it’s not as sexy as saying that Fellini’s 8½ or Vertigo or something by Rohmer or Godard were the catalyst for my cinephilia, but — as odd as it may sound — Richard Donner’s buddy cop movie starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover helped shaped me as a lover of film. The progression goes something like this: As a kid, I loved Lethal Weapon. I wore out my Columbia House copy of the tape after only a few years. The more I watched it, the more I was curious about things that hadn’t always occurred to me. Things such as: “I wonder how they pulled that shot off” or “I like how they go from this scene to this scene.” Essentially what was happening was I was becoming more aware of the process of how a film was constructed. Naturally as a fan of Lethal Weapon (and its fantastic sequel), I devoured every action film I could. Sure, there were some horrible titles that I saw, but I remember one day biking home from my local Mom and Pop with a Cantonese movie that looked awesome. John Woo’s The Killer would have never been on my radar had I not loved Lethal Weapon so much that I went out and explored every kind of action movie. I become obsessed with Woo’s films, and as nerds are wont to do, I began researching (before Google! Yes, I had to use a library.) in magazines and movie encyclopedias what films possibly could have influenced John Woo to make this cinematic obsession of mine. This led to me finding out about Jean-Pierre Melville and how his Le Samourai was a huge influence on Woo’s version of the same film. So, in a roundabout way, Lethal Weapon led me to Le Samourai which led me to seeking out more world cinema.
The reason for this story is that my appreciation for Lethal Weapon goes far beyond mere nostalgia (although they don’t make ‘em like this anymore) or a kind of detached, ironic appreciation for a ‘80s action/comedy. I legitimately do love Richard Donner’s film for being the catalyst for my seeking out world cinema (a spark can come from the most unlikely of places), but I also love the film as its own entity separate from just being the movie I credit to interest in “higher” art. And on this, the film’s 25th anniversary, I found myself channeling the pre-teen that watched the film endlessly on VHS as I found myself, upon my most recent viewing of the film, to be just as wound up and invested in the film’s story and utterly elated by the finished product as I was all those years ago.
So, what was it that made this film about an oddball, yet endearing, duo of Los Angeles cops Martin Riggs (Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Glover) so appealing and engaging to audiences? Part of it may be the combination of two rising stars (Gibson was coming off the success of the Mad Max movies, although he wasn’t quite the international megastar yet; Glover had appeared in an important bit part in Witness and a major star turn in The Color Purple) and a more than competent action director, but I think a lot of the credit has to go to Shane Black’s script. Before he became a parody of himself with bloated screenplays for The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight, Black wrote a screenplay that featured great dialogue for two actors who spouted it perfectly. The film’s narrative — a basic murder mystery that naturally finds its way into the drug world — actually develops nicely and wraps up without us thinking about how implausible it all was. The film’s script had attention to detail that so many action films lack today. It also allowed for Glover and Gibson to buy into these characters creating one of the most charismatic duos in the history of buddy-action movies (this formula had really only been done once prior to this with the lesser Walter Hill movie 48 Hrs.).
Richard Donner was really the only established commodity working on the film when it went into production (although one could make a case for Gibson due to his international success), and he makes sure the film is paced perfectly so that we never get worn out by the relentless action. The pacing of the film has an impeccable rhythm: we are introduced the mystery over the opening credits (using
It’s crazy to think that Donner shot the film’s original ending with the intent that the film would be a “oner,” a movie that had no intentions of having a sequel. This original ending can be seen on the DVD special features and shows the partners at ease with their friendship and saying goodbye to one another. However, Donner felt the chemistry between Glover and Gibson — which they didn’t predict when the film went into production — was so good that he couldn’t just let these two characters part ways as the original ending intended. So, a new ending (the one in the film where Riggs gives Murtaugh a bullet signifying he won’t kill himself and Murtaugh letting Riggs into his home for Christmas) was shot that gave the duo a happier ending that allowed room to maneuver should they want to make a sequel. It’s a tribute to just how good Glover and Gibson were in these roles and their chemistry together that they convinced the director to change the ending of the film.
One of my favorite scenes that really showcases Gibson’s acting ability is when we’re first introduced to the suicidal tendencies of Riggs. Looking at a picture of his deceased wife, Riggs puts a gun in his mouth unable to go on. It’s overdramatic, sure, but Gibson acts the hell out of this scene and gives the character more depth than what we’re used to in action films. These aren’t Dirty Harry-type cops who just shoot the bad guys and simply allow that trait to define them. Riggs is mentally unstable, and we know why, and it plays a lot better than the film’s original opening which shows Riggs as a maniacal bad ass as he roughs up a handful of toughs in a bar. Having a director such as Donner helped the filmmakers to see that they had a better scene in the can for introducing Riggs and how they wanted him to relate to the audience; they definitely made the correct choice.
Murtaugh, conversely, is a family man who just turned 50, is unsure of his place as a cop in a modern police department and a father in a modern family, and we know why (the great opening scene of him in the tub on his birthday being serenaded by his family is another favorite) because the film gives these characters depth and dimensions that allow the viewer to get invested while juxtaposing these two very different eras of the cop prototype. Murtaugh feels more like John Wayne and Riggs seems inspired by the Schwarzenegger/Stallone inspired superman style of action heroes. By grounding Murtaugh in the past and in more of a reality than we’re accustomed to with action films from the ‘80s, it makes Riggs’ character stand out more (which is good because Gibson is more than up to the task as a performer) and the violence he inflicts (and has inflicted upon him…Murtaugh, too) means more when it happens.
So instead of the murder that Riggs and Murtaugh investigate just being an excuse for them to kill people and blow things up real-good, it actually begins the process of renewal and reawakening for the two characters; it gives them purpose. Riggs is able to channel his elite killing skills for something good (making him less suicidal in the process), and Murtaugh — once the investigation turns to personal threats — is able to reestablish his worth as a cop and father when those things seemed to be slipping away from him and becoming altogether obsolete (this family dynamic of the Murtaugh’s is actually one of the aspects that attracted Glover to the film’s script). All of these touches of character development were more abnormal in 1987 than in today’s modern action film (and keep in mind they did all of this and still kept the movie less than two hours, go figure).
Donner also makes the film re-watchable all these years later because the logistics of the action scenes make sense. Something modern action films are completely devoid of, letting your audience get their bearings and understand the confines of the space the film’s characters inhabit (especially during fight scenes) is what separates the really good action films from the bad ones. Look at the final fight scene between Riggs and the mercenary Joshua (a fantastic performance from Gary Busey in a role he credits to saving his career at the time) which is an interesting mix of Brazilian ju-jitsu and a fighting style known as Jailhouse Rock which is a mixture of different styles. These fighting styles hadn’t been seen onscreen before in a mainstream action movie (Steven Seagal’s Above the Law wouldn’t come out for another year) and showcase just how lethal Riggs is; they also put the viewer right into the chaos of the final fight which is a brutal, intense hand-to-hand battle. The difference between this final fight scene and say something from the Bourne movies is that Donner wisely cuts back about every 20 seconds to an establishing shot to remind the audience where they are so they can logically follow the action in the scene despite its chaotic aesthetic. It’s one of my favorite fight scenes in any action movie.
The time the film spends with these characters in their everyday lives, and the way the viewer always is aware of where the characters are and what is going on is one of the reasons the film still holds up 25 years later. But what really makes it special and memorable this many years after its initial release is the on-screen chemistry between Gibson and Glover. Maybe an argument could be made for the duo
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Labels: 80s, Ebert, Eddie Murphy, Fellini, Godard, Mel Gibson, Movie Tributes, Nolte, Rohmer, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Wayne, Woo
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
Centennial Tributes: Jules Dassin Part I
By Edward Copeland
With a name like Jules Dassin and some of his most classic films made in France, Turkey, Italy and Greece and mostly filmed in French with some Italian, Greek, Turkish and Russian thrown in, it's easy to assume that the great director himself hailed from Europe, probably France. In actuality, when Dassin was born 100 years ago today, that event occurred in Middletown, Conn., and he grew up in Harlem, N.Y., and went to school in The Bronx. Dassin was quintessentially American — until after working in the theater and making 11 features
As was the case with many directors, Dassin's first foray into the creative arts began as a theater actor, in Dassin's case working with The Yiddish Theater called ARTEF (acronym for the Arbeter Teater Farband or Worker’s Theatrical Alliance) in New York in the mid-1930s after studying acting at the Civic Repertory Theatre Company begun by Eva Le Gallienne. It was during this time that he joined the Communist Party, though he quit in 1939 when Stalin signed the Soviet Union's nonaggression pact with Hitler. “You grow up in Harlem where there’s trouble getting fed and keeping families warm, and live very close to Fifth Avenue, which is elegant,” he told The Guardian newspaper in a 2002 interview. “You fret, you get ideas, seeing a lot of poverty around you, and it’s a very natural process.”
Around the same time, he quit the party. Dassin decided to take his career in another direction — both literally and geographically. He headed to Hollywood where he was hired by RKO to a six-month apprentice director contract at $250 a week where Dassin got to assist directors at work but didn't actually do much in the way of hands-on participation. At least that was the way Dassin described it in the 2004 L.A. County museum interview on The Naked City DVD. One director working on the lot at the time that Dassin who Dassin was assigned to and who particularly fascinated Dassin with his technique was Alfred Hitchcock, who was making Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the time. As Dassin tells it, his awestruck gazing at Hitch at work became very noticeable — so much so that after each take Hitchcock would turn to find Dassin and ask him if the take was OK. As the RKO contract neared its end, the studio informed Dassin that he was being let go. Fortunately, MGM hired Dassin and gave him his first film assignment making shorts. Dassin said his farewells to his friends at RKO — even working up the nerve to say goodbye to Hitchcock, who already had heard that Dassin would be making his first film. Hitchcock gave Dassin these words of advice: "Don't ever make a picture with children, animals or Charles Laughton." Of course, Dassin would end up doing films with all three.
At MGM, he made short documentaries about Arthur Rubinstein and Marian Andersen. He then made a short adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart." Frustrated with his progress, Dassin was able to get his short of the Poe story screened theatrically and that prompted MGM to sign him to a seven-year contract. In that 2004 interview, Dassin didn't express much affection for his time at MGM, equating the contract to being a slave. While he was tied to them for seven years and had to make what they told him to make, they had the option of dumping him every six months. Dassin had tried to get time off to direct a play on Broadway, but MGM wouldn't even let him do that. (He had directed one play that ran a month in 1940 called Medicine Show.) Of the seven features and the Poe short (I have no idea if the other shorts still exist) that he made at MGM, I've only managed to see the short and two of the features. While none come close to what Dassin made later of the ones I saw, they weren't complete embarrassments.
This 20-minute adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story proves to be quite a stylish film debut for Jules Dassin. The short opens with a biblical quote, specifically Romans II.15: "The law is written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." It stars Joseph
Didn't get to see this one which starred Conrad Veidt (best known as Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca) as identical twins: one a stamp collector and rare bookshop owner, the other a ruthless Nazi. On one of the many interviews included on Criterion DVDs, Dassin said of Veidt on the French TV program Ciné Parade in 1972, "At the time, he was the big European star. He was a big actor with a personality to match." When Veidt realized he would be directed by a first-timer, he objected. Dassin sought advice and one of the crew suggested setting up dolly tracks so when Veidt returned to the set, he asked what they were for and Dassin explained that they were doing a shot that started back at one point and then zoomed up to him for a close-up. Veidt thought it sounded great and was satisfied after that.
Dassin's next film was a comedy I also haven't seen, so here's the IMDb summary by Les Adams, though I've added performers' names. "The town gossips are reporting that a household servant in exclusive Rocky Point is writing an expose of the colony. Mrs. Sophia Sommerfield (Spring Byington) is convinced it can't be either one of her maids, Martha Lindstrom (Marsha Hunt) or Mrs. McKessic (Marjorie Main), although, unknown to Sophia, she is totally unaware that her son, Jeff (Richard Carlson), is married to Martha."
Of Dassin's MGM features, this Joan Crawford vehicle happens to be the earliest one I've seen. Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Reunion in France opens telling us it's May 9, 1940, in Paris and then adds these words: The Ninth Night of the Ninth Month Too Uneventful to Be Taken Seriously and Too Far Away to Worry About. Crawford plays Michele de la Becque, a Parisian society figure with a high-profile
Dassin's next film has been seen so rarely, IMDb doesn't even have a plot synopsis or summary. It's never been released on any home format, but apparently pops up on TCM now and then. I borrowed the first two grafs by Laura at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings to at least get an idea of the movie. "Young Ideas is an MGM "B" movie which starts poorly but builds to an entertaining second half, thanks largely to the talent of its fine cast. Jo (Mary Astor), a best-selling author, is swept off her feet by small-town chemistry professor Michael (Herbert Marshall), much to the dismay of Jo's college-age children Jeff and Susan (Elliott Reid, Susan Peters). Jeff and Susan don't want to leave their home in New York, and Jo's agent Adam (Allyn Joslyn) is also apoplectic. Adam conspires with Jeff and Susan to break up Jo and Michael's marriage."
When I saw The Canterville Ghost, I had no idea that it was directed by the man responsible for films such as Rififi and Night and the City. This fun little trifle teamed the charming Margaret O'Brien, the same year she stole the show in Meet Me in St. Louis as Judy
Again, I must rely on the plot summary provided by an IMDb user, this time by Kathy Li. Again, I've inserted the performers' names. "Evie's co-workers at the uniform shirt factory, and her almost-fiancée's inability to kiss, inspire Evie (Marsha Hunt) to slip a letter into a size 16½ shirt for some anonymous soldier. It's received by 'Wolf' Larson (John Carroll), who immediately throws it away, but his sensitive, dreaming — and short — buddy John McPherson (Hume Cronyn) snags it, and begins a correspondence with Evie, pretending to be Wolf. But things get complicated when Evie wants to meet her tall, handsome soldier. And even more complicated when Wolf sees Evie and likes what he sees."
Dassin finally finished his MGM contract with this film that IMDb also lacks a synopsis or summary to describe. TCM's website does, but I had to insert the performers' names there as well. "Carrying $500,000 in stolen government certificates, which are stashed in the binding of his favorite cookbook, master confidence artist Ace Connors (John Hodiak) meets with businessman Dwight Chadwick (Lloyd Corrigan) at a posh Beverly Hills hotel to discuss an oil investment deal. Chadwick's sultry friend, Ricki Woodner (Lucille Ball), a confidence artist working a phony art racket, joins the men at their poolside rendezvous and tries to sell Chadwick on some paintings she claims were smuggled out of Europe. Ricki wastes little time in souring Chadwick on his deal with Ace, to which Ace responds by identifying one of her paintings as a fake. Following the meeting, Ace receives word that detectives in New York are closing in on his bond scheme, and that a deal is being made in which he is to serve a five-year sentence in Sing Sing penitentiary in exchange for his voluntary return to New York to face trial. Assigned to escort Ace back to New York is detective Bob Simms (Lloyd Nolan), Ace's inept but persistent nemesis of many years. Ace accepts the terms of the Sing Sing deal after a menacing visit from Fly Feletti (Elisha Cook Jr.), his former partner, who is seeking his share of the half million-dollar bond deal."
With MGM's shackles removed from Dassin, you almost can say that it was at this point that his film career truly began and he began to direct the classic films that earned him his reputation. Mark Hellinger, who had achieved national fame as a New York columnist after starting out as a theater critic before trying his luck in Hollywood, spending several years at Warner Bros., where he worked on films such as They Drive By Night and High Sierra. Frustrated by the lack of social realism in films and being under the thumb of Jack Warner, Hellinger leaped at the opportunity to set himself up as an independent producer at Universal-International. The first film to come out of his new deal was The Killers starring Burt Lancaster. For his second film, he hired Lancaster again to star and Dassin to direct the prison noir Brute Force, Dassin's first great film. It also reunited the director with Cronyn from A Letter to Evie, but though I've only read the description of Cronyn's Evie character, that comedy's John McPherson bears little resemblance to Brute Force's Captain Munsey, head of the prison guards at Westgate Penitentiary and one of the all-time hissable screen villains. The film also had a screenplay by Richard Brooks, who would go on to write and direct films such as The Blackboard Jungle, Elmer Gantry, The Professionals and In Cold Blood. The opening credits for Brute Force show an imaginative flair, first listing Lancaster, Cronyn and Charles Bickford "As The Men Inside." After that, it ticks off the names Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines and Anita Colby "As The Women On The Outside." That hardly accounts for the entire ensemble as the credits announce that Brute Force is "Introducing Howard Duff, 'Radio's Sam Spade' as Soldier."
Though the film was made in 1947, Brute Force maintains a lot of intensity in its scenes today. Early on, there's a scene where inmates use blowtorches to drive another prisoner into a press to his death. Watch Brute Force and try to imagine The Shawshank Redemption being made without it. Granted, there isn't any shower rape in Brute Force and the warden (Roman Bohnen, the old man in Dassin's Tell-Tale Heart short) isn't corrupt as much as ineffective but the guards, led by Cronyn's Munsey are a different story. The overcrowded penitentiary has been facing political pressures from outside over a series of incidents, the most recent being a prisoner's suicide that Munsey provoked, so harsher discipline is demanded, including revoking all privileges, including paroles, and making all the men on the cell block where the suicide took place work on the prison's drain pipe. Of the prison staff, only the alcoholic Doc Walters (Art Smith) argues against a harder line doing any good. "He doesn't know that kindness is actually a weakness and weakness is an infection that makes a man a follower instead of a leader," the evil and ambitious Munsey says in the meeting. "You're worse than the worst inmates in this prison," the doctor tells Munsey.
The suspension of parole hearings even angers the generally genial Gallagher (Bickford), who runs the prison paper, The Westgate News, and is nearing release. Before Gallagher always urged the hot-head de facto inmate leader Joe Collins (Lancaster) to calm his rage, telling
Brooks' dialogue overflows with memorable lines from the talented cast. Brute Force gets around the pure prison scenes when the various inmates share tales of their lives in the outside world, some touching, some funny. One of the best gets told by the inmate Spencer (John Hoyt, who decades later would play the grandfather on the Nell Carter sitcom Gimme a Break). His story becomes a first-person film noir parody within a tough prison noir drama. Spencer talks about the woman he still dreams about named Flossie (Anita Colby) back when he was a gambling fool. He delivers his voiceover monologue in the pitch-perfect style of the genre while the flashbacks play as a pantomime. Here's just the punchline excerpt: "Flossie had looks, brains and all the accessories. She was better than a deck with six aces. I regret to report that she also knew how to handle a gun — my gun…She wanted all the money I'd won and I never refused a lady — especially when she's armed." Spencer also gets one of the film's other most memorable lines when he says, "You know, I was just thinking. An insurance company could go flat broke in this prison." Brute Force really introduced Jules Dassin to the world as a director to watch. The great cast, daring producer and solid screenplay helped make Brute Force a classic, but the pulsating score by Miklos Rozsa, the crisp, stark cinematography by William H. Daniels and Edward Curtiss' film editing all contributed as well. Dassin's earlier works had shown hints of what he could do, but Brute Force was the first film where he could really show his stuff which he'd be able to do even more in his next three American-financed films.
Unfortunately, these would come just as he became a victim of the blacklist and headed to Europe so he could continue to work in film. When I started to delve into Dassin and discovered so many of the DVDS of his best films contained interviews with him, this tribute began to morph into something larger than usual. I hope to keep it two parts and I hope the second part comes today, but to do his life and work justice may end up taking three parts and two days.
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Labels: blacklist, Crawford, Cronyn, Dassin, Documentary, Foreign, Garland, Hitchcock, L. Ball, Lancaster, Laughton, Mankiewicz, Mary Astor, Musicals, Oscars, R. Brooks, Wayne
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