Forgotten movie stars - an occasional series: Anna, Nils

Anna May Wong (1905-1961)

The first Chinese-American movie star, a third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the taboo against miscegenation meant that Caucasian actresses were cast as "Oriental" women in lead parts opposite Caucasian leading men (even Katharine Hepburn in DRAGON SEED in 1944!). The discrimination she faced in the domestic industry caused her to go to Europe for work in English and German films, as in PICCADILLY in 1929 or   Von Sternberg's SHANGHAI EXPRESS with Marlene Dietrich in 1932. One of her final roles was in Ross Hunter's PORTRAIT IN BLACK in 1960 and she was signed to play in Hunter's FLOWER DRUM SONG before her death. 

Her IMDB biography is fascinating showing the racism of the time when Asian women could not be cast opposite white actors or have leading roles in films. Anna should be a major discovery now.  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0938923/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Nils Asther (1897-1981)

Nils was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1897 and raised in Malmö, Sweden. He moved to Hollywood in 1927, where his exotic looks landed him romantic roles with co-stars such as Garbo, Pola Negri and Joan Crawford, and his exotic Chinese warlord in THE  BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN with Barbara Stanwyck in 1933. Although his foreign accent was a hindrance in "talkies", his Hollywood career continued until 1934 when he was blacklisted for breaking a contract and went to Britain for four years. After his return to Hollywood in 1938, his career declined and by 1949 he was driving a truck. In 1958, he returned to Sweden, where he remained until his death, making occasional appearances in television and on stage. He was also unabashedly gay at a time when gays remained discreet about their sexual orientation so there was no public suggestion of impropriety.

Next: Charles Farrell, Ramon Novarro, Anton Walbrook - who may not be so forgotten ...

The blue dress and the red shoes

Just one marvellous costume from Michael Powell's THE RED SHOES that 1948 delirious movie - no wonder its a Scorsese favourite - from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger.

This particular costume was designed by Jacques Fath, a completely self-taught designer, learning his craft from studying museum exhibitions and books about fashion. He presented his first collection in 1937, and became - together with Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain - one of the three dominant influencers of postwar haute couture. 
In 1954, he died of leukemia. Thankfully he got to design some costumes for movies, He dressed Kay Kendall in GENEVIEVE and ABDULLAH THE GREAT.  She would have been ideal for his fashions (and she too died of leukemia in 1959 - as per my posts on her, Kendall label.). 

He also created this lovely outfit, in a wonderful shade of blue/sea green, for ballerina Moira Shearer. I love that dreamy scene where she wears it ascending those stairs to meet the ruthless but charismatic impressario Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) who will offer her that dream role in "The Red Shoes" ballet .... see Michael Powell/Jack Cardiff labels for more on this fantastic film, its a 1940s dreamworld where Jack Cardiff's Technicolor seems positively psychedelic - as in BLACK NARCISSUS. Moira Shearer is perfect here too - though she was later a victim of Powell's PEEPING TOM!  (right: Kay in GENEVIEVE).
Walbrook is a Person We Like here; he died in 1967 and is buried opposite Kay Kendall in that charming Hampstead cemetry I have written about here before - Walbrook label.

French classics - 1

2 by Max Ophuls; 2 by Roger Vadim ...

LA RONDE, 1950. Anton Walbrook is the enigmatic, omnipotent master of ceremonies (also a head waiter) guiding us through a series of amorous encounters in the Vienna of 1900. Cue Ophuls' circular, serpentine camera movements through those lush sets ... One fleeting encounter leads to the next, partners change and the dance goes on, turning like the waltz and the carousel until the final vignette brings the story full circle. Featuring some of the great names of French cinema, Max Ophuls' wonderful adaptation of Schnitzler's play won Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and seen now is a timeless classic of French cinema. Max Ophuls of course is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most revered directors in the history of cinema; his trademark array of lavish, fluid camera movements have influenced many film-makers.  Using the image of the carousel, the narrator takes us through a series of love/lust stories which by 1950 standards are at times very explicit. An interesting notion is that it is about the spread of veneral disease from partner to partner, affecting all of society, from streetwalkers and soldiers up to the gentry, but in this Ophuls vision it is pleasure not pain which is passed on.

LA RONDE starts with the wonderfully world-weary Anton Walbrook and his carousel as street-walker Signoret offers a freebie to soldier in a hurry Serge Regianni who then dallies with pert Simone Simon who then is the maid leading on young Daniel Gelin who then romances married woman Danielle Darrieux, whose husband Ferdnand Gravey covets Odette Joyeux who falls for Jean-Louis Barrault, who then dallies with sophisticated actress Isa Miranda, who knows all the ways of love, particuarly when count Gerard Philipe calls .... he then meets the prostitute (Signoret) we met at the start. As in the teasing episode between young son of the house Gelin and parlour maid Simone Simon there is no sex on view, but the teasing anticipation and suggestion of it. 

MADAME DE ..., 1953.  In the Paris of the late 19th century, Louise, wife of a general, sells the earrings her husband gave her as a wedding gift: she needs money to cover her debts. The general secretly buys the earrings again and gives them to his mistress, Lola, leaving to go to Constantinople where an Italian diplomat, Baron Donati, buys them. Back to Paris, Donati meets Louise and presents her with the earrings, which she had claimed she lost. How can she keep them and fool her husband who of course knows she had sold them
.... It is a slight tale but Ophuls invests it with a world of emotion as the foolish wife learns to her cost. Charles Boyer as the husband, and Vittorio De Sica as the Baron are perfect in their roles as is Darrieux as the flightly Madame De  ... The earrings go back and forth until the husband declines to buy them a fourth time. We then progress to a duel ... The gliding camera-work pays loving attention to the period sets while our three leads act out their roles in this sublime film.

Ophuls (1902-1957) made the 1948 classic LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, and that classic pair in America, CAUGHT and THE RECKLESS MOMENT, both in 1949 with James Mason. LA RONDE followed in 1950, MADAME DE... in 1953, and his 1955 LOLA MONTES is his last final masterpiece. LE PLAISIR from 1952 is another of his to seek out. 

LA RONDE, 1964. Roger Vadim created a LA RONDE for the 1960s with his colour version, featuring a round-up of European players of the time, including Maurice Ronet, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean Sorel, Catherine Spaak, Anna Karina and  Marie Dubois, plus Mrs Vadim, Jane Fonda, and scripted by Jean Anouilh, and photographed by the great Henri Decae. Maurice Binder does a neat title sequence, the equal of his Bond titles. Updated to Art Nouveau 1914, just before World War One, it is light and undemanding and the cast look good, if rather too Sixities. 

LES LIAISIONS DANGEREUSES. Vadim's 1959, introduced by himself, looks terrific with those gleaming black and white images, with Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Philipe, plus Jean-Louis Trintignant and the latest Vadim girl Annette Stroyberg (rather a blank actually). Add in that score by Thelonius Monk.
Juliette Merteuil and Valmont are a sophisticated couple, always looking for fun and excitement. Both have sexual affairs with others and share their experiences with one another. But there is one rule: never fall in love. But this time Valmont falls madly in love with a girl he meets at a ski resort, Marianne.
 
Moreau is sensational here as the evil woman with designs on others and wanting her revenge (which of course backfires on her) for a perceived slight. This was considered sensational time, from the De Laclos novel, updated to the 1950s with that smart Parisian set and was heady stuff for the arthouse crowd in 1959 with those decadent parties, and all that jazz .... there is that last great line about Juliette: after her face being burnt, that she is now wearing her soul on her face!

Gerard Philipe died that year, more on him at label, as Moreau was coming into her great era, as was Trintignant. It is as fascinating as the later Glenn Close-John Malkovich version by Stephen Frears in 1987.  

Forgotten '30s movies: Viktor Und Viktoria, 1933

Back in 1990 the London BFI ran a season on "Cross-Dressing in the Cinema" (cover, left, with Louise Brooks in BEGGARS OF LIFE, 1928). Looking at the booklet now, they ran the usual suspects (QUEEN CHRISTINA, SYLVIA SCARLETT, Old Mother Riley) as well as a lot of rarities including those two earlier versions of VICTOR/VICTORIA: the 1935 British FIRST A GIRL with Jessie Matthews (reviewed here recently, 1930s, gay interest labels), and the rare 1933 German VIKTOR UND VIKTORIA.

This is the original version of the thrice-filmed story about a woman who pretends to be a man who pretends to be a woman, with Renate Muller in the role later assumed by Matthews and Julie Andrews. She plays an aspiring (if rather chubby by today's standards) actress who meets a cabaret performer (Hermann Thimig) who does a comedy drag act (as he cannot succeed playing Shakespeare roles) and then substitutes for him when he falls ill, only to be discovered by an eminent producer, and made a star. 

The usual plot complications follow, but its interesting to compare with the later versions. Nobody here is starving (to force them into drag) or having to put cockroaches in their restaurant meals! There is also nothing homosexual or gay going on - doing a drag act seems a perfectly reasonable trade for someone in showbusiness; female and male impersonation were simply accepted theatrical forms and the drag is played for comedy - not glamour. The British 1935 version followed this 1933 one fairly closely. It must have been only in the '80s they decided the material had to be 'gayed up' to make sense, with Victoria's mentor now a full-time gay (as marvellously played by Robert Preston) and 'Victoria' so hungry she had to play along.

This early German production,directed by Reinhold Schunzel, is a fascinating curio now (there is even an atuomat, and the musical numbers are the height of kitsch) - from the Weimar Republic, just as Germany was turning Nazi ... It is totally square of course but fun, as Renate falls for a young Anton Walbrook (yet to make his mark) while Hermann is dizzy about an annoyingly brassy chorus girl! Go figure ... As for cross-dressing in the cinema, I will stick with SOME LIKE IT HOT thanks very much. Now there's a classic.

Rare '30s/'40s double feature: Michael Strogoff & Bel Ami

THE ADVENTURES OF MICHAEL STROGOFF, 1937. Part of an interesting double bill our BBC ran last Saturday morning, with the 1947 THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI. I loved this 1937 adventure “based on Jules Verne”, produced by Pandro Berman and directed by George Nichols, Jr. It actually looks and feels like a Josef Von Sternberg film, with so much going on, from Tartar hordes, gypsies, and a dancing bear! Anton Walbrook is our dashing hero who has to carry secret messages from Tsar Alexander II in 1870 Russia to a military outpost, while hissable villain Akim Tamiroff (chewing the scenery as usual) tries to intercept him. The film is only 80 minutes long but crams in so much it feels twice as long … Elizabeth Allen as the nice girl, Margot Graham as the bad one, even Eric Blore for comic relief, and Fay Bainter scores as our hero’s mother. Its all terrific fun, with torture, a supposed blinding of our hero and a rousing climax, the intense Walbrook (a Person We Like) is terrific here. (there was a 50s German version with Curt Jurgens, and a 1970 one with John Philip Law).

THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI, 1947. Having seen the recent RPatz version a while back (review at 2000s label), I was looking forward to this, as directed by Albert Lewin whose DORIAN GRAY and PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN are favourites of mine. While this starts out well tedium soon sets in and we are begging for it to be over as the two hour mark approaches … Not having read the De Maupassant novel I am not sure how faithful this is, George Sanders is ideally cast of course as George Duroy, that SOB on the make in 19th Century Paris. 
Angela Lansbury is a spirited Clothilde, Ann Dvorak is the married woman Madeleine Forestier, and John Carradine her ailing husband who sets events in motion … Frances Dee and Marie Wilson (Rachel, the prostitute) are also good but it all begins to drag, before that dawn duel with carriages and umbrellas in the rain – not quite how the recent version ends, interesting seeing '40s morality imposed on the material. There is one terrific scene of a frenetic can-can type dance Sanders and Lansbury engage in which leaves one as breathless as they are. 

Actors 2

A lovely still from Antonioni's L'ECLISSE, 1962, with Alain Delon. The link below, if you copy to your browser, features a terrific page of animated stills of this and other movies like TAXI DRIVER, BLADE RUNNER, 2001, LOLITA etc with brilliant animation of the stills. Enjoy!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2011/09/cinematographs_living_breathin.html

10 great male performances: (or my favourites at any rate)

Robert De Niro - TAXI DRIVER & RAGING BULL (and his sax player in NEW YORK NEW YORK!)
Dirk Bogarde - THE SERVANT / MODESTY BLAISE / DEATH IN VENICE
James Mason - A STAR IS BORN 
Maurice Ronet - LE FEU FOLLET
Peter Finch - SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY / THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE
Anton Walbrook - THE RED SHOES 
Ralph Richardson - THE HEIRESS
Montgomery Clift - WILD RIVER
David Hemmings - BLOW-UP
Cary Grant - NOTORIOUS
Gary Cooper - FRIENDLY PERSUASION
James Dean - EAST OF EDEN
and sneaking in Jack Lemmon as Daphne in SOME LIKE IT HOT - Tony ain't bad either!

People We Like: Anton Walbrook, actor

A moment to remember that debonair, suave Viennese actor Anton Walbrook [1896-1967]. What an impressive legacy he left. His key role for me is of course as Boris Lermontov in Powell & Pressburger's THE RED SHOES in '48. Lermontov is the obsessive head of the dance company who puts art above everything else. We can watch him over and over in this. It was also good to catch up with his demented gambling obsessive in Dickinson's THE QUEEN OF SPADES recently, a classy revival from 1949 introducing Edith Evans as the countess with the secret of winning at cards.

Walbrook began in the 1930s in lots of Austrian and German films including the first version of VIKTOR UND VICTORIA, MICHAEL STROGOFF and as Prince Albert opposite Anna Neagle in those two Queen Victoria films VICTORIA THE GREAT and 60 GLORIOUS YEARS. He is also the evil mastermind in the first GASLIGHT and other classics like THE 49TH PARALLEL and Powell's THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP. I must catch up with Powell's OH ROSALINDA! where he stars. He later appeared in the '50s as Ludwig of Bavaria in Max Ophuls' LOLA MONTES and of course in Ophuls' LA RONDE and in I ACCUSE, and later television work including as Waldo Lydecker in a German version of LAURA!



He has a simple grave in that actors' churchyard at St Johns church in Hampstead, London, a lovely 18th century spot, just opposite Kay Kendall. It says "Anton Walbrook, Actor". How very appropriate.