Lists: those American dramas ...

Final List of the season - we are all listed out! After covering British, French and Italian favourites its now a return look at those great American dramas from the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s - the heyday of Kazan and Kramer,  Wyler and Wilder, Huston, Mankiewicz, Cukor, Minnelli, Nick Ray, Preminger, Brooks, Ritt, etc. and when American drama was ruled by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, William Faulkner, William Inge etc. We have covered them in detail here before, so this is a quick roundup. Lots more at labels - particularly Tennessee Williams ,,, (below: NIGHT OF THE IGUANA)

We have to begin of course with those early Kazans; 

• A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
• ON THE WATERFRONT
  
• EAST OF EDEN
• A FACE IN THE CROWD
• Nicholas Ray's THE LUSTY MEN in 1952, a strong rodeo drama bringing out the best in Mitchum and Susan Hayward.(right) 
• More baroque Ray with his 1954 JOHNNY GUITAR - the first film I saw, aged 8. 
• Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE of course, and Stevens' GIANT to complete the Dean hat-trick. 
• Cukor's 1954 A STAR IS BORN, the best musical drama ever
• THE BIG COUNTRY in 1958 is really a William Wyler drama which just happens to be set in the west. 
• CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
• SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
• BONJOUR TRISTESSE
• SEPARATE TABLES
• THE NUN'S STORY
• ON THE BEACH.

Those 20th Century Fox literarary adaptations came thick and fast:

• THE LONG HOT SUMMER - Faulkner, 1958
• THE SOUND AND THE FURY in 1959 - Faulkner, Good cast: Brynner, Woodward, Leighton
• THE WAYWARD BUS - a long unseen Steinbeck from 1957, Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins! Its a fascinating mess or Trash Classic
• SONS AND LOVERS - D H Lawrence gets the Fox treatment in 1960 ...
• SANCTUARY - another Faulkner misfire, from Tony Richardson in 1961 - Lee Remick and Yves Montand make the oddest team, but Lee shines ...
• HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN - 1962, as per recent review. 

The 1960s upped the ranks with those new directors like John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Robert Mulligan, while John Huston went on and on ....

• THE MISFITS
• ONE EYED JACKS - Brando's brooding western, 1961
• ALL FALL DOWN - a perennial favourite
• THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
• SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS
• THE MIRACLE WORKER
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
• DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
• LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
• THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS
  
• TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN 
• THE STRIPPER
• NIGHT OF THE IGUANA 
• WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
• REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE
• SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH
• SUMMER AND SMOKE
• THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED
• INSIDE DAISY CLOVER
• THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE 
• MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
  

Summer re-runs: You're A Big Boy Now, 1966

Summer re-runs for a rainy afternoon:

YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW - Francis Ford Coppola's delightful 1966 coming-of-age comedy.

Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner) is an ordinary young man anxious to step out into the "adult world". His plan is to move out of his parents' Long Island house into an eight-floor Greenwich Village walk-up - and to try and convince someone to share his new "liberated lifestyle". This was Francis Ford Coppola's UCLA Film School master's thesis - and a hilarious, high-speed debut in film comedy for the future director of THE GODFATHER and APOCALPSE NOW. Fresh off A PATCH OF BLUE Elizabeth Hartman suitably plays the kooky spiteful actress who toys with Bernard. Karen Black makes her debut as the nice girl Bernard overlooks and Geraldine Page nearly steals the show with her Academy Award-nominated performance as Bernard's possessive mother.

Go-go dancer and actress Barbara Darling (Elizabeth Hartman)

My pal Stan and I loved this when we were 20 (at Balham ABC in '67) and I had not seen it since. It brings it all back - being 19 or 20, living in the big city - that soundtrack by John Sebastian and The Lovin Spoonful. I loved that sound then: "Did you ever have to make up your mind", "Warm Baby" etc. Its certainly a free-wheeling zany take on the standard coming-of-age scenario (a more funny ALL FALL DOWN, another one I like) and for me as essential a 60s romp as THE KNACK or our English equivalent of this, HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH. It captures that mid-60s look too.
The cast here is the thing: Elizabeth Hartman as the man-hating actress and go-go dancer Barbara Darling who gets our hapless hero in her thrall. We see flashbacks to her youth, laughing at horror flicks like THE PIT AND THE PENDELUM ... Kastner is just right as Benjamin, with Tony Bill as his colleague at the New York Central Library (we were back there recently with THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW), where Bernard's father is curator of the secret pornography section which Miss Thing stumbles into.... did I not mention Miss Thing? - she is Bernard's landlady and is the great Julie Harris and she is wonderful here ... there is the rooster guarding the corridor and who attacks girls; and then we have the equally wonderful Geraldine Page (above) as Bernard's mother, with Rip Torn as his father.  This was based on a popular book by David Benedictus which I remember reading at the time. It reminds me a lot too of that zany free-wheeling HAROLD AND MAUDE.

Miss Harris as Miss Thing - see Harris label for her very nice note to me in 1977

It is all fresh, zany, funny, everything about being young and captures that time perfectly. Good to see this Seven Arts production again now as part of the Warner Archive Collection (no-frills dvds) and great to see theatre legends and friends Page and Harris enjoying themselves here. Elizabeth Hartman was that very individual actress (also in THE GROUP, THE FIXER, THE BEGUILED) who later committed suicide - and Karen Black (before her hits like FIVE EASY PIECES, NASHVILLE or AIRPORT 75) is the nice girl our hero will of course run around New York with at the end with the dog, called of course Dog. We are 20 again when we see this. I must have another look at Lumet's THE GROUP soon...  
I have just seen on IMDB: Peter Kastner 1943-2008, aged 64, he was also in another interesting '60s one: NOBODY WAVED GOODBYE, a Canadian indie in 1964.

Legendary ladies at lunch ....

I remember this particular issue of AFTER DARK from February 1981 and had it at the time, nice to find it on ebay, cheap too. I wanted to re-read this interview with two great Broadway ladies having lunch: Geraldine Page and Julie Harris. They were doing a new play at the time, MIXED COUPLES, their first time on stage together - they had though both been in Coppola's YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW, his lovely debut feature in 1966. 

I read somewhere that we Londoners were lucky in that Maggie Smith and/or Judi Dench were often on the boards here - but New Yorkers had regular appearances by Harris and Page. 
Harris though did bring her wonderful 1977 show THE BELLE OF AMHERST to London, which wowed me so much I had to write and tell her, and surprisingly, she wrote back, with this lovely card - the only time I ever wrote to (and got a reply) from a performer I liked. 

We have been entranced with Miss Harris (who passed away in 2013) ever since THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING and of course EAST OF EDEN. 

Page knew Dean too, as per the photograph below: (They were in THE IMMORALIST on Broadway).

This issue of AFTER DARK too has great interviews and pictures with David Hockney and Lily Tomlin (who I am now enjoying in the GRACE AND FRANKIE boxset) and there are also comments on LA from the likes of LA regulars like Natalie Wood, Bette Davis, Gore Vidal etc. as well as Quentin Crisp on Mae West!

We also remember having this photobook FAME reviewed here, some great images by Brad Benedict of celebrity culture, like this great image of Richard Gere (then hot off AMERICAN GIGOLO)  as presumably a L.A. hustler ... More on Harris & Page at their labels - Julie was a 'Person we Like' in  2010 (that got 1,992 views here).  

People we like: Glenn or Gilda ?

I had Glenn Ford pegged as one of those new post-war guys who came along after World War II - like Peck, Lancaster, Douglas, Mitchum - but, like his pal William Holden, Ford stole a march on them as he and Holden were in movies by the late 1930s - by 1946 Ford, after a busy time in genre movies, had worked his way up to co-starring with not one but two Bette Davis sisters in A STOLEN LIFE - then, came GILDA !

GILDA is a noir riot now - a fusion of sexual heat, jealousy, fear and hatred - terrific stuff!
Johnny Farrell is a gambling cheat who turns straight to work for sinister casino owner Ballin Mundson. But things take a turn for Johnny as his alluring ex-lover Gilda, whom he has come to hate, appears as Mundson's wife, and Mundson's machinations begin to unravel.

Ford's Johnny Farrell comes over like a sleazy punk on the make, down Argentina way, as he falls in with nightclub owner and racketeer George Macready - the two men seem to have an odd almost homoerotic relationship, and then Mundsen returns from a trip with his new wife: Gilda, an old flame of Farrell's and the sexual tensions build up, to that delirious climax. Rita is in her element here, and Glenn matches her all the way. It remains a key film noir set in that mythical 1940s world of nighclubs and casinos.

Ford has always been a person we like here, amiable (usually), unassuming, keeping busy shifting effortlessly between dramas, westerns, comedies - looking equally at home in a suit, military outfits or cowboy gear - but not in a toga or tights, like Bogart he just looked too modern for period films.  He seems curiously under-appreciated now, usually ignored by the fan mags, but was a busy actor right through the Fifties and into the mid-Sixties - and was effective as an ordindary, everyday hero.

Lang's THE  BIG HEAT in '53 and Brooks' THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE in 1955 were two of the major dramas of the era, as well as more routine items like TRIAL, RANSOM, and the romantic INTERRUPTED MELODY. He and Gloria Graham were also back with Fritz Lang for HUMAN DESIRE in '54. His westerns included THE AMERICANO, JUBAL, THE VIOLENT MEN, 3.10 TO YUMA, COWBOY, THE SHEEPMAN, CIMARRON in 1960, and then there were comedies like TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON (with Brando playing Japanese), two with Debbie Reynolds: THE GAZEBO and I remember IT STARTED WITH A KISS  being very funny.  He continued into the Sixties with two for Minnelli: the 1962 odd re-working of THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and the charming THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER in 1963. He was effective as the FBI agent in Blake Edwards' EXPERIMENT IN TERROR with Lee Remick, also 1962 - see Ford label, and the 1964 airline crash drama FATE IS THE HUNTER.  He was re-united with Bette Davis too (in a supporting role this time) in Capra's schmaltz-fest A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES in 1961, before BABY JANE revived her career.  
I did not get a chance to see Delbert Mann's DEAR HEART in 1964, it played the lower half of double bills here, but it seems well regarded, with Geraldine Page and Angela Lansbury. (I've just had to order it ....). Ford's later westerns like THE ROUNDERS also ended up as the lower part of double features.  There were also several more with Rita Hayworth, though not quite in the GILDA class: AFFAIR IN TRINIDAD, THE LOVES OF CARMEN, and THE MONEY TRAP in 1965 - poor Rita did not last long in that one.  

Ford (1916-2006) lived to be 90, had a long career, with over 100 credits - his last major role being Superman's earth father in SUPERMAN in '78. His first wife was dancer Eleanor Powell and it seems he romanced a lot of hollywood ladies .... and was a decorated war hero too - receiving the French Legion of Honour medal.
Next: The Hardy boy .... and then "Mitchell Leisen - Hollywood Director"

Grand Guignol quartet ...

Let us now turn our attention to some prime ham examples of those grand guignol bloody comedy thrillers dished up by Hollywood in the 1960s and '70s, featuring those older actresses who were determined to go on working. It all started of course with Robert Aldrich and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? followed by HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE and Bette's British efforts THE NANNY and THE ANNIVERSARY, while Joan went on to STRAITJACKET and BERSERK! while Tallulah went with DIE DIE MY DARLING!. Olivia may have been the best with LADY IN A CAGE in 1964, still very effective and shocking, in the best way. The late '60s though gave us campy thrills with WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? followed by WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN? and WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? with juicy roles for Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Agnes Moorehead et al. Then in 1973 a French film went even further - TRIO INFERNAL, another Romy Schneider-Michel Piccoli starrer .... roll them:

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? is delicioius fun now, with Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon going head to head, produced by Aldrich and directed by Lee H Katzin.

As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. 

We discovered Geraldine Page's great screen roles here last year: her Alexandra Del Lago in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH and Alma Winehouse in SUMMER AND SMOKE, both by Tennessee Williams. Gordon has long been a favourite from HAROLD AND MAUDE, LORD LOVE A DUCK, ROSEMARY'S BABY, and The Dealer, Natalie Wood's mother, in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER .... Both ladies are in their element here, along with Mildred Dunnock as the previous housekeeper that Gordon comes searching for as she is hired as the new housekeeper. It starts like a black comedy with widow Page finding out she is penniless after her husband's will is read. Page plays crazy perfectly, with her airs and graces, as her madness takes over. Rosemary Forsyth and Robert Fuller are the attractive couple next door ... and there is that dog sniffing at the contents of Mrs Marrable's garden ...  I loved every minute of it.

Even better is Curtis Harrington's 1971  WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN? with its perfect 1930s period feel. 

Two middle-aged women move to Hollywood, California after their sons are convicted of a notorious murder and open a dance school for children eager to tap their way to stardom.

Debbie Reynolds is dynamite as Adelle, the glamorous one who soon lands nice rich guy Dennis Weaver - its one of her best roles and she gives it her all. Shelley Winters is Helen, the frumpy one who too is going demented. Irish actor Micheal MacLiammoir has a juicy role as Hamilton Starr - though we do not find out what happens to him after he follows Helen upstairs .... 

Agnes Moorehead, an old friend of Debbie's,  also has a great scene as Sister Alma - a Aimee Semple McPherson type evangalist. Then there are the tots with their Shirley Temple and Mae West routines. Its a shame the poster gives away the climax, but its a marvellous roller-coaster ride along the way. Scripted by Henry Farrell who created the genre with the BABY JANE script back in 1962. Harrington also directed the odd 1967 thriller GAMES with Simone Signoret and James Caan and Katharine Ross (see 1967 label for review) and also the 1972 follow-up WHOEVER SLEW AUNT ROO?. Shame about the bunny rabbits though ...

This was filmed in England with some good thespians having fun here: Sir Ralph Richardson,  Liionel Jeffries,  Hugh Griffith, Rosalie Crutchley, Pat Heywood, Michael Gothard, and young Mark Lester, after his hit in OLIVER!. 

This is a retelling of the old tale of Hansel and Gretel, but set in England in the 1920s. To the children and staff at the orphanage, Auntie Roo is a kindly American widow who gives them a lavish Christmas party each year in her mansion, Forrest Grange. In reality, she is a severely disturbed woman, who keeps the mummified remains of her little daughter in a nursery in the attic. One Christmas, her eye falls upon a little girl who reminds her of her daughter and she imprisons her in her attic. Nobody believes her brother, Christopher, when he tells them what has happened, so he goes to rescue her ... 

Its an American-International replete with a creepy old mansion, and lots of spooky thrills. A Trash Classic then, like the others here. Shelley of course is over the top as usual, though not as much as in the Italian grand guignol by Bolognini: GRAN BOLLITO (review at Winters label).  Now over to France:

LE TRIO INFERNAL, 1974. Like the equally grim THE HONEYMOON KILLERS this is based on an actual story, Georges "Sarret" Sarrejani, a lawyer in Marseilles, and his two lovers, German sisters Philomene and Catherine Schmidt, started their "work" in the 20's. They used to sign life insurances for dying people and keep the money. Sarret shot M.Chambon, another swindler, and Chambon's lover, Noémie, to steal their money... 
But, in order to get rid of the bodies, he placed them in a bathtub and cover with sulfuric acid - when the corpses were just a black kind of glue, Sarret and sisters Schmidt put the glue on buckets and pour the content on the garden. After another murder all three of them were arrested in 1930 and in 1934, April 10th, Sarret was guillotined, the sisters were released after the War. 

This gruesome tale - no camp histrionics here - makes for a gruesome film as directed by Francis Girod ... Romy once again shows how compelling she was, and is another great teaming with Piccoli.  A bit sick though for popular tastes.

Dames & blithe spirits

A few assorted photos ..... 

Raves of course for Dame Angela back on stage agt 88, reprising her Madame Arcati in Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT, here is the Broadway production with Rupert Everett:

and we just have to include that priceless moment from David Lean's 1945 film when Rex Harrison first sees Elvira's ghost ....

More of Ruth Roman in Angela's MURDER SHE WROTE, finishing off her career here in a good way, as Loretta who runs Loretta's Beauty Shop - think pink! Ruthie enjoys herself here in '87 and '89 doing 3 episodes of Angela's series, set in Cabot Cove. The beauty shop regulars are fun too: Julie Adams looking better than ever, Kathryn Grayson and Gloria de Haven. 

Two more favourites: Geraldine Page and Dame Gladys Cooper who suprisingly have a duet in the 1967 Disney film THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE (its worth sitting through Fred McMurray, Tommy Steele and Greer Garson) for this number ! 

Soon: a real troupe of dames in some campy '60s fun with Curtis Harrington's grand guignol titles: Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Geraldine again with Ruth Gordon - as we find out WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN? WHO SLEW AUNT ROO? and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE?, plus Romy Schneider's grand guignol THE INFERNAL TRIO in 1973!

Summer and smoke ... and toys in the attic

Perfect for this sultry heatwave (with a long cool glass with clinking ice cubes to hand), SUMMER AND SMOKE is a return to that florid Deep South genteel world of Tennessee Williams. This is another florid tale of unrequited love, as Miss Alma yearns for local rake Doctor Laurence Harvey. We liked Geraldine Page a lot recently as Alexandra Del Lago in 1962's SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, (review below - Page, Williams labels), here she has a very contrasting role, but was Oscar-nominated both years '61 and '62 for her Alma and Alexandra.

Since childhood, spinster Alma Winemiller has loved handsome young Dr. John Buchanan, Jr.. But John has fallen hard for Rosa Zacharias, the town's sultry vamp, and descends into a seamy nightlife while ignoring Alma's dreams of romance and possible marriage.

SUMMER AND SMOKE takes place in 1916 rural Mississippi - 'Miss Alma' is the spinster daughter who feels she is becoming an old maid before her time, burdened as she is with caring for her unbalance mother, spiteful Una Merkel, and her stuffy minister father. Even as a child she had a crush on next door neighbour, wild boy John Buchanan - now back and running around town with local sexpot Rita Moreno, as they take in cock-fights and the like. Alma's genteel airs cause the locals to make fun of her as she sings on the bandstand with the local band and teaches voice lessons. Alma isn't just a repressed spinster - as with Hannah Jelkes in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA there is a whole lot more to her. Page shades her perfectly capturing the longing and loneliness, buiilding to that terrific monologue and climax. Williams is at his poetic best here even if the play is not one of his top notch ones. Harvey as usual is as one note as ever as once again one of his female co-stars dominates the screen. Pamela Tiffin also scores, as does Lee Patrick, and Earl Holliman as a traveling salesman  in that final scene with Page. It nicely captures that period detail (as in Kazan's EAST OF EDEN) and stifling small town life, nicely directed by Peter Glenville (BECKET), and scored by Elmer Bernstein. It is rather long at over two hours as the dissolute doctor reforms and of course gets engaged to nice girl Pamela Tiffin, an ex-pupil of Alma's, while Alma now hangs around parks in the middle of the night and goes off to explore the nightlife with that travelling salesman - the first of many perhaps. How coded-gay is that!

Alma is one of his great heroines like Alexandra, Blanche, Hannah and Maxine, Mrs Stone, or Maggie the Cat. Fascinating see this and THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED and SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH again recently. I still have THE FUGITIVE KIND and BABY DOLL to see, not sure if I want to return to THE ROSE TATTOO though ...

More Southern Fried American Gothic in TOYS IN THE ATTIC, a 1963 film by George Roy Hill from a play, not by Tennessee as it seemed, but Lillian Hellman. Filmed in black and white, the cast is the thing here. Geraldine Page and Wendy Hiller as unmarried sisters living in New Orleans welcoming home their ne'er-do-well brother, who arrives bearing gifts and ill-gotten cash. It's an overheated piece of would be-Gothic melodrama. Hiller and Page are excellent, trading niceties which quickly turn to hurtful revelations and stinging truths, but Dean Martin seems out of place as their brother. Maybe we are too used to seeing Dean coasting to take him seriously here, he seems too old too for Yvette Mimieux, as his new young wife - she looks particularly lovely here. Page and Hiller are the real show here.

Its another Southern family then with hidden secrets, but lacks the poetic quality of Williams' dialogue. Gene Tierney is also to hand as Martin's mother-in-law, good to see the more mature Tierney again - LAURA and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN will always be choice '40s treats for us. Martin and Mimieux seem wildly miscast though - its surely a Montgomery Clift role. 

Among other Page performances I have but not seen yet is her role in the 1967 Disney film THE HAPPIEST MILLIONAIRE which I must have a look at, hardly my fare, but the cast includes both Page and Dame Gladys Cooper. Her 1969 shocker WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? (yes, its an Aldrich production) is only available now for very silly money, but I just saw the trailer (on its Amazon page) where she and Ruth Gordon are both in their element. We will have to return to her imposing role in Clint's THE BEGUILED too, and Schlesinger's DAY OF THE LOCUST. The 1964 DEAR HEART seems a lost movie here though. She and Julie Harris are wonderful though in Coppola's YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW, as per review, 1966 label.

Like her great friend Julie Harris, Geraldine Page also knew James Dean