I'd like to start a New Year's tradition on this blog of listing off the year's highlights of my old movie-watching. I've been meaning to do this for years, but my problem is that each movie I see, I want to blather on and on about, even the ones I don't care about much. That’s a big obstacle towards wrestling together a manageable list, even if people did want to hear my thoughts on why Trooper Hook was a much bigger disappointment than His Brother’s Wife. So, with that in mind, I’m keeping this to a Top Ten (In No Particular Order) Favorite Old Movies I Saw in 2016.
Favorite Old Movies I Saw in 2016
Colorado Territory (1949)
I’ll have to watch this one on a double bill with High Sierra to decide if Raoul Walsh's classic story of a regretful outlaw looking for love and freedom works better as a Humphrey Bogart noir film or a Joel McCrea Western. Honestly, I enjoyed this one, but wasn't expecting to list it on my year’s best. Still, to my surprise, it stuck with me. My heart ached for the wistful chemistry between Virginia Mayo and Joel McCrea. I loved the way Walsh mixes his sets and scenery here, so that the movie flows smoothly between scenes that show McCrea dominating a group of outlaws to Western landscapes that turn him into one small man scrambling for a few more breaths of life. The tragic ending of this one also hits harder than in the earlier movie. High Sierra might have done this story first but Colorado Territory might just tell it sweeter.
Dead End (1937)
Now that I've poked a little at the movie that helped make Bogart a legend, let me throw some praise at one from his pre-stardom years. Dead End to me feels like the movie City for Conquest wanted to be, a statement about the dreams and disappointments of slum life that finds beauty in the grime. Wyler's direction shows how a movie camera can overcome “staginess” with elegantly composed shots and lighting. In a way, the film’s obvious use of sets helps it play better today than it might have if Goldwyn had allowed Wyler to try to more directly copy real slum life. The original play, however it might have seemed in 1937, reads like more of a dark little fairy tale now, in which innocence can be rewarded and guilt punished. Add to that two great performances by Humphrey Bogart and Claire Trevor, as well as good ones from Sylvia Sidney and the Dead End Kids and you've got a thirties melodrama that knows how to do it right.
Les Girls (1957)
Some movie musicals are events. They show up at your door with a full brass band in tow, banners waving, feet stomping, the whole nine yards, and you barely have space to breathe. And some musicals slip in quietly, like an old friend from long ago that just wants to share a few laughs and drinks. Les Girls is like that, a lesser-known Gene Kelly musical that works well as a quieter, calmer cousin to the more frantic musicals of the era. Les Girls tells the story of a dance troupe leader, Barry Nichols, and the three women in his troupe that all, for one reason or another, believe they were the real love of his life. Thankfully, all three actresses, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg, come off like smart, sassy, distinct people so sitting down to listen to each of their three versions of the Barry Nichols story is a pleasure. (Honestly, they come off as much more interesting than Leslie Caron or Vera-Ellen ever had the chance to in Kelly’s bigger hits.) Not to mention, this film is dazzlingly pretty in its color, costumes, and choreography.
Underworld U.S.A. (1961)
Samuel Fuller movies are for me, like iced espresso shots. Not the most subtle, never mellow, but oh man, they can blast you awake. At his best, Fuller finds ways to move his camera that startle me; nobody else makes movies that look like his. Underworld USA follows Tolly, a young delinquent who watches his father’s murder in a back alley and grows up to be a ruthless, deadly cold Cliff Robertson, out for vengeance at all costs. He is a cool-headed schemer that plays both cops and crooks against each other and yet, it is clear that Tolly is also a case of arrested development, a man who throws away real human relationships for something empty and dead. What struck me most watching this one is how well it walks a line between telling a cynical gangster story where law enforcement and lawbreakers play by the same rule book, and a story that finds the fragile humanity in those same lowlifes. Fuller’s underworld sings.
Hobson’s Choice (1954)
Cliff Robertson’s Tolly might be a tough, smart ex-con, but I think Brenda de Banzie’s Maggie Hobson could eat him for breakfast. In the sly and wonderful Hobson’s Choice, Maggie Hobson, the plain, sensible and unmarried daughter of a supremely self-involved Victorian bootmaker, decides to seize the life she wants and steamrollers past anyone who stands in her way. If Tolly stands for the idea that losing your humanity is the price you must pay for accomplishing big things, than Maggie Hobson stands for the notion that big things happen only with small steps, clear heads, and eyes that sees the humanity in the humble. Watching Brenda de Banzie slowly but surely pull the rug out from under her Fallstaffian father (played hugely by Charles Laughton) is fantastic.
They Drive By Night (1940)
I have a special place in my heart for those everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Warner Brothers melodramas, where they toss in crime, romance, high society, street toughs, and plotlines that meander all over the place. They Drive By Night is one of those charmers, a movie whose erratic tone and plot shifts might owe something to the fact that it grafts a murder plot from an earlier Bette Davis flick to a tale of truck driver brothers (George Raft and Humphrey Bogart) and their rough, risky jobs. What you get is a story that starts out like Thieves Highway and ends up like Angel Face, with a wisecracking Ann Sheridan thrown in, because heck, don’t we all love Ann Sheridan? Still, director Raoul Walsh manages to hold this one together and at its best, They Drive By Night feels like a roll call of all the things we love about good Warner Brothers films. Even if George Raft and Humphrey Bogart really, really feel like they should have switched roles.
The Man I Love (1947)
Raoul Walsh had quite a year with me, since this is the third film of his I’m putting in my Top Ten list. In many ways, The Man I Love is a close cousin to They Drive By Night. Same kind of rambling, genre-straddling plot, the same plush, velvety art design and camerawork that Warner Brothers used for all its ’40s melodramas. The main differences are that The Man I Love replaces truck drivers with torch singers and piano players and that this film has a heroine, Ida Lupino. Lupino was the villain in They Drive By Night but here, she’s in my favorite kind of Lupino role: the tough, smart dame who can tangle with anyone she wants and come out ahead. Even when she’s in skintight gold lamé. Her character may be infatuated with a rather sad sack piano player, but Lupino still walks through this thing with her shoulders straight and her head high, fully capable of sorting out everyone’s life but her own. Robert Alda is also a standout in this one, suggesting more depth to his sleazy nightclub owner than the script allows him.
It’s Love I’m After (1937)
This was an unexpected fizzy delight, a ’30s comedy that pokes delicious fun at theatrical egos and talents. I enjoyed this one way more than the frantic, nastier Twentieth Century--at least Leslie Howard’s vain Basil Underwood and Bette Davis’ flighty Joyce Arden are people I actually enjoy spending time with. Howard and Davis play a pair of theatre stars who’ve been romantically entangled on and off the stage for years, but can’t stop fighting long enough to get married. Their lives get more complicated by the arrival of Olivia de Havilland’s breathless, lovestruck ingenue, who’s utterly convinced that Basil is the man of her dreams. Bette Davis never got to do much screwball comedy and she’s great here, as is de Havilland, playing against her later types as a a ditzy heiress. The real love story here though, is between Leslie Howard and Eric Blore and their symbiotic relationship of egotistical actor and supremely supportive butler. This is a truly underrated, hilarious comedy.
Advise and Consent (1962)
The cynical politics of Advise and Consent feel like something out of another world as we
stand here in 2017. And I promise, I thought so well before the events of last November. A strange naivete has crept into this gripping story of backroom Congress deals, flip-flopping sympathies and cold power struggles. At least these men have a system they are willing to cheat, lie, and betray for. At least they believe it is worth their time to play the game. And yet, that doesn’t make this adaptation of Allen Drury’s novel feel at all dated to me. Instead, I felt compelled right along with the characters to go down the rabbit hole and see where the scandals led. Otto Preminger, in adapting the material, toned down much of the source material into a more ambiguous work that doesn’t take sides, finding something to value even in Charles Laughton’s spidery Southern senator and something to condemn in Henry Fonda’s self-righteous candidate. The tragedy of Don Murray’s tormented senator carries all the more force in a world where his compatriots condemn his destroyers, not out of moral outrage, but because Murray was one of their own. In today’s Washington, such loyalty would be a rare and beautiful thing.
Scaramouche (1952)
I’m topping off my list with Scaramouche which is only fitting because this gorgeous Technicolor adventure is a pure dessert film, from the costumes, to the sword fights, to the witty lines. A classic tale of an aristocrat out from revenge comes second to the banter and battles between the characters, all of whom have much more to them than they absolutely need to. Eleanor Parker may be the sexy Bad Girl, but she’s also a lively, loyal friend who’s strong enough to befriend her hated rival. Janet Leigh may be the sweet Nice Girl, but she’s not above a little manipulation of her own. Mel Ferrer is the Bad Guy, but he’s sincerely in love with both Janet Leigh and Nina Foch’s Marie Antoinette (kudos to Ferrer for pulling that off), as well as being a worthy opponent to Stewart Granger’s hero. When I think about Scaramouche, I keep coming back to this: They put more effort into this one than they had to. And it definitely shows.
I've talked before on this blog about miscasting. It's one of my eternal fascinations. Not just the plainly ludicrous decisions like casting Susan Hayward as a Tartar princess or Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist. No, I'm more interested in those casting glitches where everything seems like it should perfectly line up and yet it still goes wrong. Why are some of the greatest acting legends of all time so stymied by roles that other, less talented people can carry off like gold medalists? So I decided to draw up a list, focusing not so much this time on just the movies but on the performers themselves. Why are great actors unable to play certain parts?
Please note that I'm aware some of my readers will fiercely disagree with my selections here. I welcome a good debate so feel free to bring up any rebuttal in the comments section. Also, since I never like dwelling too much on the negative, stay tuned for Part Two, where I talk about the times when seemingly miscast actors turned in great performances.
Without further ado, here's my list:
Cary Grant Can't Do Costume Pictures
Of all the great film stars, perhaps nobody was as skillful and deliberate in managing their career image as Cary Grant. He turned down roles other actors would have sold their entire toupee collections for and he ended up with a resume that's enough to send the nicest, most easygoing man in Hollywood reeling with sheer envy. He worked with the best directors, the greatest leading ladies. But there was famously one thing that Grant spent most of his career avoiding and that was this: he would not do historical costume pictures. After seeing himself in The Howards of Virginia, a critically reviled flop about the Revolutionary War, Grant said, "I don't belong in costumes." He stuck to that notion for seventeen years, until agreeing to star in The Pride and The Passion, another film that got a sound drubbing from critics and audiences alike.
The standard answer to why Cary Grant just doesn't seem right for costume pictures was that he was too modern. He was to the tuxedo born and nothing else would do. But I'm inclined to take issue with that a little. After all, he does a perfectly good job in Gunga Din and in that one, he was a good twenty years away from the twentieth century and nearly forty years from the nearest cocktail party. The man wore costumes well and while he looks admittedly kind of silly in The Howards of Virginia, if you just look at stills of him in The Pride and the Passion (the performance itself is another matter), he wears the old British naval uniform with perfect dignity. Grant's voice and mannerisms are distinctive of course, but if the public can accept Tony Curtis as a Greek slave and Clark Gable as a Southern gentleman and Robert Ryan as John the Baptist, why then is Grant singled out?
No, I think the reason lies somewhere in the fact that Grant is a natural clown. He needs to kid his surroundings to belong to them. If he tries to be self-serious, he turns stiff. And the problem is that most historical epic films are just that, they're epics. They're trying to preserve history like a monument and Grant is one actor that should never be set in marble. He can fit in just fine when the movie is a historical romp like Gunga Din. But if the subject is weighty, forget it. In short, I think he misfires in costume pictures for the exact opposite reason that Charlton Heston succeeds in them. Because Heston is serious enough to believe himself anywhere and Grant is smart enough to disbelieve himself everywhere.
Barbara Stanwyck Can't Play Ingenues
People who follow my blog know that I'm a firm believer in the "Barbara Stanwyck Can Do Pretty Much Anything" Doctrine. She could do comedy, Western, film noir, drama, crime, soap opera, horror, and do it all with no apparent effort. That alone makes her stand out from the other female acting icons like Crawford and Davis. They could reach her heights but they never rivaled her range.
The one gap I've really found in Stanwyck's career is this: she could never really play the innocent. Even in her earliest movies like Ladies of Leisure and Shopworn, she's already cynical and experienced, a young woman who's had plenty of hard knocks and starts to get suspicious if she can't see one coming. This characterization carried her through most of her career, but even for someone like Stanwyck, there were times when being a tough cookie just wouldn't cut it.
While Frank Capra can be credited as the director who discovered and refined Stanwyck's talent for hard-edged, secretly vulnerable women, he also gave her some fairly awkward roles as well. Take her part as the lovelorn, self-sacrificing heroine of Forbidden. The movie opens with Stanwyck as the shy, bespectacled librarian (!), who only opens up to life after she falls in love with dapper Adolphe Menjou (?). Remember that ridiculous scene in It's a Wonderful Life where we get the dreaded reveal of Donna Reeds, sans makeup, as the town's spinster librarian? Nearly the whole first half of Forbidden plays like that scene. Stanwyck can't even begin to settle into character until the second half, where she gets a new job and starts trading sexy banter with Ralph Bellamy (?). Capra would push Stanwyck's credibility even further by casting her as the naive missionary in The Bitter Tea of General Yen. But this is where it gets interesting. Stanwyck should, by all rights, be utterly wrong for this part. She's no sucker and she's no saint. Despite that though, Stanwyck manages to plow through the role because she plays the missionary, not for gentleness, but for bull-headed, stubborn pioneering spirit. She's deluded, but not soft.
By this point, I've seen fifty Barbara Stanwyck movies and I never cease to marvel at how Stanwyck takes the same tactic whenever they force her to play innocent girls. She plays them like bulldozers. Whether they're sweet wives smiling through their tears (Ten Cents a Dance), power-behind-the-throne spouses (The Great Man's Lady) or feisty Irish tomboys (Union Pacific), they're always 100% determined. It doesn't always fit the role, but it sure as hell fits Stanwyck and that's enough to lift the curse of miscasting.
Claudette Colbert Isn't Motherly
Clearly, Hollywood didn't agree with me on this one since it was happy to cast smiling, purring Claudette Colbert in quite a lot of maternal parts, particularly as she aged. Most famously there was Since You Went Away, with Colbert doing the American version of the Mrs. Miniver character, but there's also Imitation of Life, Tomorrow is Forever, Family Honeymoon, and Parrish. I can only speak for Imitation of Life and Tomorrow is Forever, but I can't help thinking that whenever that potent Colbert charm gets hit with a dose of syrupy sentimentality, the result is like a batch of rock candy. It glitters alright but it's too sweet to eat and too hardened to melt on your tongue.
In Imitation of Life, Colbert is in top form whenever she has to run her business or trade banter with her friends. She's smart, witty, sophisticated, she's the epitome of everything you want Claudette Colbert to be. But the minute her bratty moppet of a daughter is onscreen, lisping and begging for her rubber duck (bet you didn't know that the actual closing line of Imitation of Life is "I want my quack-quack"), Colbert coos and giggles and plasters a warm, motherly smile on her face. It's about as artificial as it gets. It makes the ending of the film, in which Colbert agrees to postpone her wedding to Warren William until her teenage daughter gets over him, even more risible than it might otherwise have been. I can't watch Colbert getting all trembly and noble without wanting Sandra Dee to teleport in from the 1959 remake and snap, "Oh, mama, quit acting!"
The funny thing is, there is a strong note of "come-to-Mama" in Colbert's love scenes. Watch her in something like Cleopatra or Midnight and it's totally there in her mannerisms, in the way she bends over her leading men. She tends to them, she humors them, and all the time she knows she's wiser than they'll ever be. On her, it works and she's mesmerizingly sexy and confident. But when it comes to motherhood, or rather the oft-times sickly sweet, sentimental vision of motherhood that Hollywood went for in the '30s and '40s, Colbert just can't make it work. After all, it's pretty hard to look like you're burning with the sacrificial flame of unconditional love when you can't even be bothered to turn your head to the left.
Gregory Peck Can't Be Wicked
Of all our acting legends, I find Gregory Peck to be one of the most off-and-on in terms of what he can and can't do. Whenever I start to think he's overrated, I'll remember To Kill a Mockingbird and The Gunfighter and ask for forgiveness. Then, I catch a glimpse of him in something like Moby Dick or Cape Fear and gnash my teeth in frustration that these parts didn't go to actors who would make more of them. But just when I've decided that the man is hopelessly stiff and humorless, I'll catch a rerun of Roman Holiday and be enraptured all over again by how charming and romantic he can be. It's Audrey Hepburn's picture, but it's easy to forget how much support Peck gives her and how graciously he draws attention to her side. Really, for someone who came to embody straight-arrow decency in movies, the man is surprisingly mercurial in what he brings to the screen.
So many actors, especially those tagged as bland or boring, shine particularly bright when they get to play evil. Gene Tierney won her only Oscar nomination for playing a child-drowning madwoman in Leave Her to Heaven. Robert Montgomery got some of the best notices of his career for his turn as a psychopath in Night Must Fall. Robert Walker, cast over and over again as a boy next door, turned out to be one of the greatest villains in cinema as the complicated killer Bruno Anthony in Strangers On a Train. But Gregory Peck does not belong to this class. He is never worse than when he plays bad.
Case in point is his performance as bad, bad Lewt McCanles in Duel in the Sun. He plays the dangerously seductive, totally amoral rancher's son who merrily proceeds to wreck Jennifer Jones' life, just because he can. At this point in his career, Peck was preternaturally gorgeous. He always had incredible screen presence. He looks like a man who could drive a woman to the brink. But his performance in Duel in the Sun is the most unconvincing thing ever, a weird combination of campy, over-the-top line readings and stilted boredom. To be fair, nobody really comes off that well, performance-wise, in Duel in the Sun. Still, I think there's a difference between the acting of Jones, who comes off more like a well-meaning performer undone by over-direction and bad scripting, and Peck, who just cannot fit this role. He's just not the wicked seducer. Having also seen him try to play a more redeemable version of the type in How the West Was Won, I think I can say that with some confidence. However, I still haven't seen The Boys From Brazil, so maybe Peck finally does manage to unlock his evil self by playing a Nazi. I'll have my fingers crossed for him.
Gene Tierney Isn't Lower-Class
"I suppose you were a model of all the virtues when you were young."
"Certainly I was. I won a prize for deportment at school."
That bit of dialogue comes from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir but it could just as easily come from several other Gene Tierney movies, including nearly all her best ones (Laura, The Shanghai Gesture, Leave Her to Heaven, Dragonwyck, Heaven Can Wait). She belongs to that class of actresses (Grace Kelly is another), who can't help but remind you of the good little girl in the classroom, the one who wins all the prizes and has a stunning debutante ball when she turns eighteen. Onscreen, she's the born aristocrat. Well-bred, well-mannered, and smooth as silk. Tierney was often a harder actress to cast than she seems at first glance. She's not really warm onscreen, but there's a sweetness and mildness to her presence that's difficult to shake. This made her too cool and remote for "America's Sweetheart" roles and too nice for tarts or rebels. Her best parts could turn that to her advantage, letting her play women whose gentle nobility shone through in difficult circumstances. She could play costume parts with ease because that kind of feminine ideal half-belonged to another era anyway. And when she did play villainesses, as in Leave Her to Heaven or The Razor's Edge, she turned them into "good girls gone bad," women who probably had won prizes for deportment in school, women so perfect that of course they had to snap. The Shanghai Gesture takes that idea to a whole new level, giving us cool-as-ice-cream Tierney in the first half and dragging her down into a sullen, opium-addicted slave in the second.
Still, Darryl Zanuck didn't always choose the right parts for his star and Tierney also got miscast quite frequently, having to play everything from Western outlaws to South Seas island girls. But for me, one of the more interesting misfires is Tierney in the screwball comedy Rings on Her Fingers. The movie is a poorly concealed rehash of The Lady Eve, with Henry Fonda once again playing the lovestruck sap and Tierney cast in the Barbara Stanwyck role as the con artist falling for her mark. And you pretty much find out everything you need to know about how wrong Tierney is for this part in the very first scene of her as a wisecracking, cynical shopgirl. She's smacking her gum, she's rolling her eyes and trying out a Brooklyn accent. She's about as convincing as Wallace Beery in drag. Tierney might have been able to play a lower-class character if said character was sweet and polite. But a chip-on-her-shoulder floozy? Forget it. The filmmakers themselves must have figured this out pretty quickly, because they shove Tierney into the role of adoring and reformed spouse only halfway into the movie, dooming any hope of real comedy.
Gene Tierney herself illustrated the nature of her screen persona in an anecdote in her memoirs. She and Groucho Marx were entertaining the troops during World War II and he talked her into coming out on stage and doing a sassy little bump and grind. Tierney was doubtful but did it. The crowd responded, not with catcalls or applause, but with dead silence. When she went back to Marx, he told her, "You were right, you can't do a bump." Tierney ruefully summed it up by saying, "Marilyn Monroe would have done that bump and looked adorable. On me, it was all wrong."
Humphrey Bogart Ain't Upper-Class
Humphrey Bogart had the most perfect sneer in movies. It was perfect because he always aimed it above and not below. Bogart fans know the fun always starts when someone tries to plant their boot on him because that's the moment when Bogart hunkers down, grins, and proceeds to shred them. He knows it's probably a lost battle, he knows they're not worth his busted bones, but he'll do it anyway. Bogart's so good in these moments that it's easy to forget how many miscastings the man had to suffer through in his career. Some are obvious, like the Irish horse trainer in Dark Victory. But there's a less immediate problem that crops up with Bogart, one that kicks the old "Classic Hollywood stars only played themselves" chestnut right down the stairs. He just couldn't play rich men. He couldn't play top of the heap. When he tries to play a self-satisfied businessman in Sabrina, the result is a world of awkwardness.
This one's a puzzler because in real life, Bogart was upper class. His family was pure New York high society, complete with a fashionable apartment in the Upper West Side, a cottage on the lake, and the money to send their rebellious son to the most prestigious prep schools in the state. Hell, Bogart even started out his stage career by playing the kind of namby-pamby rich dweebs who signaled a change of scene by calling, "Tennis, anyone?" And one look at a photo of young Bogart shows that he polished up pretty nicely. For all that though, Humphrey Bogart never belonged in glittering romantic comedies. He only found his true cinematic self on the rougher side of things. He needed something to fight against. If ever he'd been cast in an Ernst Lubitsch film, which one do you think would've detonated first?
Burt Lancaster Can't Be Repressed
Burt Lancaster's ambition as an actor carried him so far and in so many different directions, from lovelorn thugs to fast-talking con artists to dignified Italian noblemen, that when he actually does manage to hit a wall, it reverberates like a shock. He was nobody's idea of a man who could disappear into a part. And yet, looking back, it's rather remarkable how the man could twist his beaming, tanned presence to suit the requirements of a part; he could be elegant or rough, reckless or controlled, brilliant or brutish. He could even pretend to be intimidated by Hume Cronyn. But the one thing he couldn't do is the one thing that ends up sinking an otherwise decent performance in Come Back, Little Sheba. He can't be insignificant.
Part of the problem with casting Burt Lancaster as the repressed, miserable alcoholic "Doc" Delaney in Come Back, Little Sheba is simply his youth. Even though the movie tries to age him up a bit with grey hair, there is no way to make the handsome, thirty-nine-year-old Lancaster look like any kind of probable mate for fifty-four-year-old Shirley Booth. The whole point of the character is that this man has tied himself down to a lifetime of regret with a dowdy, unappealing woman. The only option left is to find some way of growing old with her. Except that there is not one single frame of this movie in which Lancaster doesn't look perfectly capable of hopping in his car, cruising down to the nearest night club, picking up five or six of the prettiest women, and then riding off into the rising dawn. But even if you try to squint through the age difference, the problem is that Lancaster doesn't seem like an ordinary man. His miseries will never be common ones. He is incapable of convincing me that he would spend any length of time pondering the whereabouts of a dog named Sheba.
At the time, the movie, adapted from William Inge's play was an example of the '50s fascination with gray, downbeat realism. But looking at it now, J.J. Hunsecker had more realism in the flickering light of his match than anything Come Back, Little Sheba has to offer.
Julie Andrews Can't Play Hitchcock Blondes
People who've grown up watching Mary Poppins and Sound of Music might be tempted to chime in here with, "Well, of course she can't!" This is after all, the most famous nanny in movies, the woman with a song in her heart and a soul of pure sunshine. Her costar Christopher Plummer compared working with her to "being hit over the head with a big Valentine's Day card every day." But still, I can't shake the feeling that there must be a deeper explanation for why Julie Andrews just seems so painfully miscast as the troubled Hitchcock heroine in Torn Curtain.
After all, nobody excelled at bringing out the buttoned-up sensuality and yearning of blonde actresses like Hitchcock did. He looked at warm, earnest Eva Marie Saint and saw a femme fatale just waiting to break out. He took lovable Doris Day and subtly chipped away at her image in The Man Who Knew Too Much, revealing a woman of buried resentments and animal desperation. But Torn Curtain never finds anything to excavate in Andrews; she just comes across as gracious, pleasant, and hopelessly straight-laced. You'd think it would be near impossible for a woman to be rolling around under the covers with 1966-era Paul Newman without generating some kind of electrical charge. But Andrews' tinkling laugh and repeated titters of "Oh, Michael" just flash freezes the whole thing. Did Hitchcock lose interest in the movie? Was Andrews unwilling to let loose a little? Was it those ugly costumes (surely some of the most unflattering stuff ever put on a Hitchcock leading lady)? Whatever the reason, it makes for some memorable miscasting. The Master of Suspense met his match and it was Mary Poppins.
Vivien Leigh Will Never Be Mousy
We never actually got to see Vivien Leigh take on the role of the shy, shrinking Mrs. DeWinter in Rebecca. She wanted the part very much, more because it offered the chance to play opposite her lover Laurence Olivier than for its dramatic potential. But even though Selznick and Hitchcock humored her with a screen test, they both agreed that she was all wrong. It wasn't even a close call. According to Hitchcock himself, Leigh was "uniquely strong," a bold, determined woman who was "absolutely right to play Rebecca but Rebecca never appears in the film." Instead, Joan Fontaine got the part, winning both an Oscar nomination and an A-list career.
There's a surplus of explanations for why Leigh never fit the role. She was too ravishingly beautiful and raven-haired to be believable as an awkward girl trying to melt into the wallpaper. Her sexual attraction to Olivier was too obvious when they worked together; nobody would buy them as as an estranged married couple. Or, as Hitchcock put it, she was just too strong, too much of a Rebecca. All very good reasons. Except...does it really explain everything? After all, Fontaine herself was the polar opposite of Mrs. De Winter in real life. She was witty, sharp, and more than capable of shoving off her troubles. And while it's plainly ludicrous to imagine Vivien Leigh cursing her lack of beauty, is it really that much more believable when it's Joan Fontaine?
The other reason I toyed with this one is that Vivien Leigh actually can play an innocent, awkward girl. Anyone who's seen her play Myra, the crushed-by-circumstance young lover in Waterloo Bridge knows she's capable of more than devious minxes and psychotic beauties. I struggled for a long time, wondering why Leigh might find it easier to work her way into the head of the painfully innocent Myra and not the shy, naive Mrs. DeWinter. The conclusion I came to is that Leigh just can't play characters who don't ask for anything. Myra reaches for love with both hands and ends up rushing to her fate. Mrs. DeWinter is terrified of asking for anything from life. When you see Leigh talk to Olivier in the test, she's arch, even amused. She can't sell that timidity. In life she was a woman who never stopped grasping for more and if she was the same way on film, audiences can only be grateful we got the benefit of so many memorable, daring, desperate, impossible female characters. Characters that remain unforgettable because they want so much and get so little in the end.
If anyone asks me what I'm thankful for, it's that we had our first snowfall this week. It doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing, the first snow of the season will always send a little jolt of electricity down my spine. Growing up in my tiny hometown in northern California, the first snowfall always followed a certain pattern. It would come at night, sudden and silent as a thief, and you would wake up to streets soaked in white. Because it was early in the season, the snow would melt as rapidly as it came and by lunchtime, all your dreams of snowball fights and sledding would have dwindled to the size of the slush puddles. But that didn't mean you couldn't still hope for a day off from school, since the ice could make the back roads a hazard. And that meant an early morning of waiting by the phone, listening to the snow fall off the tree branches, as you prayed for it to stay just a little longer.
Well, the first snowfall this year got me thinking about the way movies use snow. I'm such a fan of snow that even just watching it on film makes me happier. So on that note, I present you with a list of some of my favorite "snowy day" movies.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
It's best to get the most obvious entry out of the way early and as over-familiar as this film might be, it doesn't take away from the emotional power of watching George Bailey's life come apart in the falling snow. It's a movie that illustrates perfectly the first principle of snow. When you're miserable, it's just one more sign that God hates you. But when you're happy, it's a sign of renewal. A reminder that things can become beautiful again. Watching Jimmy Stewart joyfully wipe away blood and and flakes of frost from his face is one of cinema's great moments for a reason.
Queen Christina (1933)
Garbo just looks so fantastically healthy in this movie, doesn't she? As the headstrong, regal Queen Christina, Garbo is so beautiful and so vividly aware of her own body, that it's impossible to take your eyes from her. I don't know what kind of beauty regimen consists of staying up all night reading and then washing your face with snow but who can argue with such results? This movie earns a place here solely for that scene, which always makes me want to just copy Garbo and bury my face in some fresh snow.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
My astute readers will notice that I'm not including Citizen Kane on my list, despite it containing arguably the most famous snow scene in all of cinema. Well, that's because, great as it is, the sleigh ride sequence is many times greater. It's a perfectly staged vignette, a short story in its own right that foretells the dramatic clashes to come (youth versus age, the modern versus the traditional, and the first stirrings of infatuation versus an old love coming back into life). And more than that, it's also the last, truest moment of happiness before these characters will be consumed by a future they barely understand.
Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Curse of the Cat People should be taught in film schools as an object lesson that a low budget does not mean a film can't look beautiful. It's glorious to look at, a vivid evocation of a little girl's inner life and the mysteries she finds lurking in twisted trees and shadowed houses. But the film positively shimmers in the snowy scenes, as our heroine's friendship with Simone Simon's ghost comes to a moving conclusion. Simon appears in the snow, garbed like the Good Fairy, her usual seductive appeal mellowed to a sweet melancholy. If you've seen Cat People, then Simon's scenes here act as a generous counterpoint to her character in the previous film. Instead of the tormented monster, she's become the innocent fantasy.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
The sight of Catherine Deneuve, with her absurd tower of blonde hair and her fur coat, shaking off the snow and staring into the eyes of her former lover, is one that will never leave you.
Lost Horizon (1937)
I saw Lost Horizon as a kid and surprisingly, it's stuck with me all these years. I say "surprisingly" because really, how much can a child relate to the philosophical yearnings of Shangri-La and the malaise of adults wondering whether or not to surrender to happiness? But I think what caught my imagination wasn't the High Lama's speeches or the carefully Code-appropriate romance of Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt. It was for the scene where Colman and his brother are fleeing Shangri-La. They have taken a native woman along with them, played by the glamorous Margo. They climb the Himalayas, with the wind shrieking at their backs and the icy air lit up like the flames of Hell. Colman knows in his heart that it's senseless to leave the paradise of Shangri-La but the others are bitter, determined. And then his brother screams. "Look at her face, Bob, look at her face!" The beautiful woman they were carrying in their arms has aged a century in a single moment, turning into a withered crone. By leaving Shangri-La, she's doomed herself. And as Colman watches in horror, his brother goes mad and leaps from the mountain. He is left alone, with nothing to do but to keep walking away from the place he never wanted to leave.
Portrait of Jennie (1948)
(image taken from Classic Movies Digest)
Wins a place on this list for the moment where Joseph Cotten walks through Central Park with Jennifer Jones. Jones is Jennie, the strange, beguiling girl that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Jones was almost thirty at the time but she's perfectly childlike, clutching her muff and prattling on about school and the Kaiser and paintings, while Cotten listens, half-confused, half-enchanted. But as they start walking, the shadows fall over their faces and Jennie starts to sing. "Where I come from nobody knows and where I am going, everything goes. The wind blows, the sea flows, nobody knows. And where I am going, nobody knows." It's a moment to send a shiver down your spine as you realize you're not dealing with any conventional Hollywood romance.
Odd Man Out (1947)
I saw this film for the first time a few months ago and its final moments immediately became my favorite snow scene of all time. As you can see by this list, that's saying a lot. It's superb, haunting, unforgettable.
In his review of Sunset Boulevard, Roger Ebert spends nearly half of it talking about Erich von Stroheim's character Max. It's my favorite kind of Ebert review, the kind where he just throws out trying to sum up a film classic and instead just follows his own interests.
"The performance that holds the film together, that gives it emotional resonance and makes it real in spite of its gothic flamboyance, is by Erich von Stroheim, as Norma's faithful butler Max...We might not take (Norma) seriously. That's where Max comes in. Because he believes, because he has devoted his life to her shrine, we believe. His love convinces us there must be something worth loving in Norma."
His description of Max always fascinated me because I think it nails down a very important concept. The idea that a film can rise or fall, not just on the protagonist, but also on a supporting character, shoring up the film's foundations without calling attention to the fact. Without Max, Norma Desmond could so easily have been a campy parody, despite Swanson's superb performance. Without Alida Valli's haunted devotion, would Harry Lime be nearly as memorable a villain? Well, I got to thinking about the subject and just had to make a short, by-no-means-conclusive list. For the sake of a title, let's call them "tentpole" characters.
1. Lew Ayres in Holiday
In Holiday, Katharine Hepburn plays the upscale but troubled Linda Seton, a free spirit who's been stifled all her life by her controlling father. Now, when it comes to fiction, I'm usually quite willing to sympathize with rich, beautiful people, but man does Linda test that limit. And I say that as someone who loves this film. This is a wealthy woman in 1938 with the gall to say this: "Compared to the life I lead, the last man on a chain gang thoroughly enjoys himself." It's all I can do not to yell, "Oh cry me a river, rich girl!" This is where Lew Ayres comes in. He plays Linda's brother Ned, a melancholy alcoholic who has given up his musical ambitions to grind his soul to death in his father's office. He is Linda's confidante as she slowly comes to realize her love for Johnny Case (Cary Grant), her sister's fiancee. Ayres plays this witty, unhappy man to perfection. Without once even raising his voice for sympathy, Ayres shows us how this man has been worn down by convention and family duty. He has no fight in him, except when it comes to Linda. He shows us everything Linda stands to lose. And because of that, we're on their side.
2. Patricia Neal in The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still cuts its way through the overheated, pulpy jungles of '50s science fiction like some vast, frozen iceberg. It's a smart, suspenseful movie, but so cold. Even the scenes of Klautu bonding with the little boy carry that feeling of unease. We are faced with the unhappy prospect that these advanced aliens will come down and intone, in the wise voice of Michael Rennie, that humanity better get with the program or else. But the humanity personified in scenes of generals barking orders or by the furrowed brow of Hugh Marlowe doesn't really put up much of a show for itself. Thank God then, for Patrica Neal. She's the only fully realized human character in this film; it's her warmth, confusion, and courage that we cling to. Neal had the great gift for creating characters who feel lived-in, from the practical but yearning Alma in Hud to the coolly cynical lover in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Her characters never feel like they started existing the moment the director yelled "Action." Would "Gort, Klaatu barada nikto" have been half so memorable without that tremor of mingled fear and determination in Neal's voice? Klaatu may be Space Jesus but Helen is our true savior.
3. Gladys Cooper in Now, Voyager
People like to cite Now, Voyager as one of the definitive romantic films. But for my money, the real force behind the story isn't the swoony love story of Bette Davis and Paul Henreid, it's the battle of wills between Davis and Gladys Cooper. Cooper is one of the bitchiest mothers ever put on screen, a woman so ruthless she would throw her rickety body down the stairs just to make her own daughter feel guilty. She torments poor Bette Davis (how often do you get to say that?) into a nervous breakdown, simply by refusing to give any kind of affection or freedom to her offspring. Cooper's performance in such a juicy role is understated. She delivers Mrs. Vale's constant stream of complaints in the kind of everyday, distracted tone you might expect from someone who's been speaking poison so long they've forgotten how to talk any other way. Now, Voyager tells a pretty old story: the ugly duckling who finds love and beauty. It's wish fulfillment. But it would all collapse into a soggy mess without Cooper, who shows us how much heft and emotion there can be in these kind of stories. Especially when the freedom of a human soul is at stake.
4. Ann Sheridan in Kings Row
This selection might be a little biased due to the fact that I love Ann Sheridan and wish she'd gotten more roles like this. Warner Brothers liked to advertise Sheridan as the "Oomph Girl," branding the gorgeous Texan redhead like she was a flavor of bubble gum. But when she got the chance, Sheridan proved she was plenty more than that. She had energy and humor and an irrepressible down-to-earth attitude. There's always a normalcy peeking out from under her performances. In Kings Row, she plays Randy Monaghan, the tomboy from the wrong side of the tracks who grows up into the loving, courageous wife of Ronald Reagan's character. Sheridan gives Randy an overlying pragmatism and intelligence that grounds the romance perfectly. She's the kind of woman who would always be a friend first, a lover second. As the spiritual predecessor to films like Peyton Place and Picnic, Kings Row is the kind of "small-town, dark secrets" melodrama that risks becoming too overblown. Lucky for us that Ann Sheridan is there to remind us that loving people can also just be good common sense.
5. Thomas Mitchell in Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings might go neck and neck with To Have and Have Not for the title of most Hawksian Howard Hawks film. A wisecracking and sexy woman (Jean Arthur) falls in with a group of daredevil men and quickly becomes fascinated by their tough and emotionally distant leader (Cary Grant). The leader is quick with the quips but slow to open his heart. Lucky for poor Jean Arthur, she has Grant's loyal number 2 on her side, "Kid" Dabb (Thomas Mitchell). Mitchell would have had my everlasting gratitude just by virtue of not being Walter Brennan ranting about dead bees but his portrayal of Kid is worth more than that. Mitchell had a way of watching his fellow actors that always gets to me. There's kindness there and understanding, but he never tries to draw too much attention. He bides his time. His gentle regard for Arthur is such a relief after seeing her get constantly embarrassed and berated by Grant. And of course, his character here is a powerful reminder that Grant really is a great guy. He'd have to be to win the loyalty of such a man.
6. Rita Moreno in West Side Story
It's funny how growing older has flipped my perception of West Side Story. As a kid, I was dazzled by Natalie Wood and couldn't understand why Rita Moreno and George Chakiris got all the attention. Now, I get it. In the original Romeo and Juliet, the tragedy isn't just about two lovers who can never be together. The tragedy is also about two families who have mindlessly destroyed all their best, brightest, and most cherished children for an empty rivalry. This is soft-pedaled in the musical by turning it into a very '50s style story of teenagers and grownups who just can't understand. We never see the parents, only ineffectual police officers and a head-shaking storekeeper ("You kids make the world lousy!"). When you take out the family aspect of the story and replace it with street gangs, it muddles everything. Why would street gangs react with such outsized horror at the thought of actually killing each other? It makes characters like Tony and Riff and Maria seem a little like suburban kids who've been teleported into the wrong story. This is where Rita Moreno is so essential as Anita. She's the only one who seems to truly feel the passion and pain of the situation. The near-rape she suffers at the hands of the Jets is still the only part of the film where I want to cringe and look away. But it's more than just one scene. Without Moreno's sexy, vibrant presence at the beginning (I love her back-and-forth with Chakiris), the film would lose a lot of its charm. Just as it would lose so much of the tragedy without her. If we hold onto the Romeo and Juliet connection, then Anita is clearly Mercutio. A plague on both your houses, all right.
7. Julie Harris in East of Eden
I have an ingrained resistance to love triangles and the way they cause presumably intelligent characters to flutter around as indecisively as little kids choosing snow cone flavors. It's even harder when one character stands at the apex, wittering over the hardships of life. In East of Eden however, Julie Harris manages the incredibly tricky feat of convincing us that she really is as sensitive, intelligent, and loving as the other characters think she is. Even as she flirts and falls in love with her brother's troubled boyfriend, Harris never seems truly petty. Offscreen, Elia Kazan would credit Julie Harris for giving James Dean invaluable support, adjusting her acting rhythm to his and calming her shaky costar with long car rides and talks. East of Eden may be a tale of fathers and sons, but Harris is the film's heroine.
8. Diana Lynn in The Major and the Minor
Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor belongs to that rarefied class of romantic comedy where you never know whether to laugh or to be disturbed. Ginger Rogers pretends to be twelve years old so that she can afford a train ticket. In the process, she falls in with Ray Milland, who's charmed by her but believes she's only an innocent kid. Through one of those comedy contrivances, she ends up at Ray Milland's military academy, having to dodge amorous cadets while falling in love with Milland herself. Thankfully Rogers doesn't look even remotely twelve, so watching her prance around as baby-voiced "Su-Su," cooing and smiling and calling Milland "Uncle Phil" isn't nearly as unbearable as it could have been. But the true saving grace of the film is Diana Lynn, as the smart and snarky kid sister of Milland's fiancee. She takes one look at Rogers' Baby Snooks routine and tells her, "Oh stop that baby talk, you're not twelve. " The way Lynn's eyes light up with pure glee as she then offers Rogers a cigarette is unforgettable. Lynn is a blessed dash of cold water in all the movie's silliness; as all the other characters are falling for Rogers' machinations like cartoon lemmings, Lynn sees through it. She forges an alliance with Rogers that is undoubtedly the film's only healthy relationship. And because of that, she becomes the film's greatest ally as well.