Vincente Minnelli’s Films (1946-1955)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by 4 Star Films

Undercurrent (1946)

Undercurrent hardly holds a substantial place in any noir conversations partially because Vincente Minnelli’s reputation in part seems antithetical to the dark style born out of chiaroscuro and German Expressionism. His background was squarely in luscious art design and stage productions.

Likewise, the combo of Katharine Hepburn and the two Roberts: Taylor and Mitchum, is not one that quickly springs to mind. However, there are some merits to it simply for the sake of it being different; not dramatically, these types of psychological women’s pictures were very much en vogue during the ’40s.

It’s the pieces assembled that feel unique if somewhat ill-suited. Still, the curious hybrid of tones and talents certainly is a historical curio more than intriguing to the invested party.

I almost have trouble buying Hepburn as a reticent, uncomfortable outsider among the D.C. elite her new husband Alan (Taylor) knows, a woman holding drinks in hand just waiting for someone to talk to. But if I don’t completely believe it, she does earn my empathy.

Mitchum, the legendary mule of RKO was simultaneously earmarked for 3 or 4 pictures at the time, and so he doesn’t show up in Undercurrent until much later. Still, he has the benefit of casting a Rebecca-like influence over the picture.

After an hour of building him up, we finally get sight of Mitchum, and we know where this story is going. Because he’s a real human being and fairly innocuous to the eye. As the presence of Mitchum begins to exert itself on the picture, the marital bliss of newlyweds grows more and more harrowing by the minute. We have a picture in the same vein as Suspicion and House on Telegraph Hill.

Despite choosing the part, the constraints of the role don’t feel totally in line with Hepburn’s talents. She isn’t a shrinking violet or the kind of timorous beauty befitting Joan Fontaine or even Ingrid Bergman. Robert Taylor is mostly adequate in the vengeful husband part. He flip-flops efficiently between these stints of gracious charm — a perfect husband and lover — then, becomes clouded by these perverse streaks of jealousy and rage.

3/5 Stars

The Pirate (1948)

It’s plain that The Pirate is born out of the traditions of the 1940s Hollywood lineage like Blood and Sand or Black Swan, even Gene Kelly’s own Three Musketeers. However, between the bright evocative staging of Vicente Minnelli and the instant performance-driven rapport of Garland and Kelly, it works quite splendidly with what it has to offer.

Today it doesn’t hold much of a reputation, and I would stop short of saying it’s a minor masterpiece. What we do have is a picture banking on the charisma of its leads and a certain pictorial opulence supplied by its primary mastermind.

Kelly, taking all the niñas of the town by storm, is full of allure and his usual magnetism as he twirls, leaps, and bounds between all the pretty girls. It’s all about the patter between the stars as he plays the foxy street performer, and Garland is the put-upon maiden who is betrothed to another man. His vocation gives the director license to use these elements of theatricality and faux drama to tell the story.

What do I mean? It could be a story of tragic, unrequited love. It might just as well be a tale of marauding pirates, and yet somehow, between the song and dance, it becomes a kind of tongue-in-cheek comedy of two lovers perfectly suited for one another being thrown together.

There are moments where Garland and Kelly seem to be playing in a separate movie, or at least they are in on the joke with the rest of us, even as they mess with each other. Trashing his apartment feels like the highest form of romantic tension only for the drama to become slightly heady again: Kelly is set to be hung as the dreaded pirate Macoco. Is it a first to have a musical number performed under a hangman’s noose? I’m not sure.

Thankfully, he gets some stellar support. While I’ll be the first to admit “Be a Clown” feels like a less funny prototype for “Make em Laugh,” if you’ve never seen the Nicholas Brothers, it’s a small recompense to see them join Gene Kelly and get some commendation in the spotlight as his momentary equals. It feels like a flawed but heartfelt apex to a picture that could be described in much the same terms.

3/5 Stars

Madame Bovary (1949)

Madame Bovary is the kind of trenchant literary work the Production Codes would go to all costs to declaw. In one manner, it’s somewhat remedied by James Mason’s framing by providing a mostly blase narrative device to enter the story.

Even as something leaner in budgeted black & white (one could hardly confuse The Pirate with Madame Bovary), it’s still the same Minnelli. The ball sequence spelling the ascension of Emma (Jennifer Jones) as a society darling, while somewhat compact, exudes an impressive opulence.

The director makes sure to follow Jones’s incandescent form as she prances and waltzes her way across the dance floor with great distinction. Her gown alone is enough to make the upper classes stand up and take note. The dashing Louis Jourdan is certainly more than aware of her. It’s totally taken up by the kind of swirling euphoria also holding a place in the oeuvre of Marcel Ophuls — Letter from an Unknown Woman and Earrings of Madame De…spring instantly to mind.

It becomes more and more of a gothic drama as things progress, overtaken by gales of wind, thunder, lightning, and an incessant downpour of rains to go with the equally tumultuous score of Miklos Roza.

However, more importantly, Emma becomes possessed by all of her own ambitions and preoccupations. She is emotionally distant from her husband (Van Heflin), absent from her child, and totally involved with other men. She entreats them to take her away from such a dreary life, constantly prone to these histrionic gestures of love and loss at the hands of her suitors and husband. They hardly know how to respond to her.

If the terminology was present at the time, she is cut out of the cloth of some kind of femme fatale, albeit born out of the annals of classic literature. Moreover, she is a woman who never seems to know what she truly wants. She sends out an array of mixed signals — living a life made up of so many contours and emotions — and never settling on anything honest.

It’s as if she’s fashioned a kind of fantasy life for herself woven out of her own personal whims though she remains self-destructive to the very last iota of her being. There’s something unnerving about her and Jones plays her as such; it’s easy to understand how society was scandalized by her because she does not live by societal norms. Mason’s concessions for her character aren’t enough to totally wipe out the harrowing impact of the performance.

3.5/5 Stars

The Cobweb (1955)

“What happens if you go into town to the movies? You start screaming or something? They’d think you’re a critic, that’s all.” – John Kerr as Steven

If it’s true you can make a screwball comedy like Easy Living (1937) about a fur coat falling from the sky, then it’s equally possible to make a portrait of psychological horror about drapes. The Cobweb busies itself with the vast array of interpersonal relationships taking place on the grounds of a psych ward. Richard Widmark does his best to aid his patients in their recoveries as he juggles familial and boardroom responsibilities. It’s no easy balancing act.

For a film that is mostly disregarded, it’s easy to clump it together with something like Executive Suite (also produced by John Houseman) with one of the most phenomenal assortments of players one could hope to cobble together during the golden era of Hollywood.

Lilian Gish is at her most ornery but lest we forget, she truly is the queen of the movies. Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall are equally crucial touchstones of film history, playing two respective love interests as Widmark struggles to connect with his wife, Gloria Grahame. Even ’30s scream queen, Fay Wray, has a brief appearance in a picture that boasts Oscar Levant and then the up-and-coming talents of John Kerr and Susan Strasberg.

In one scene with all the various folks blocked throughout the room, it’s almost difficult to distinguish who’s a patient and who’s not, but if we are to appreciate this drama, it doesn’t half matter. Widmark falls for another woman. Grahame flaunts her charms and goes looking for love from Boyer, who is now mentally compromised. Gish is incensed about having her opinions disregarded. Some of them are petty and others are stricken with loneliness and actual psychoses.

The palette becomes such an evocative way to color the emotional undercurrent and elements of suburban life, not unlike some of Nicholas Ray‘s work or something like Strangers When We Meet. The visual world is beautiful; still, it lets loose an environment full of pain and inner turmoil. Although Minnelli handles his characters deftly, there’s no place for the film to go but toward a hysterical fever pitch.

3.5/5 Stars

CMBA Blogathon: Classic Hollywood Stars on The Dick Cavett Show

Posted on May 18, 2023 by 4 Star Films

This is my entry in The CMBA Spring Blogathon: Big Stars on the Small Screen

There are several more recent late-night hosts like Stephen Colbert or Conan O’Brien who have managed to use the truncated form (and podcasts) to try and go deeper with guests beyond surface-level pleasantries. Colbert even had Dick Cavett on his show, and I’m sure he’s not the only one.

However, as I’ve pored over more and more of his interviews over on Youtube, it feels like Dick Cavett was often the gold standard for lengthier, in-depth discussions will all sorts of talents and luminaries. He had several Beatles on his show, boxing champions, prominent thinkers, along with plenty of Classic Hollywood talent. And his show in its various forms acted as a representation of the dying art of the extended interview.

Cavett’s gift seemed to be his capacity to somehow straddle two worlds. He was an intellectual with a dry comic wit, but also a midwesterner who dressed mostly innocuously and came off unassuming. He looked establishment and yet crammed his shows full of personalities like Janis Joplin and Muhammad Ali.

Often the pairing of his guests seems downright peculiar (ie. Joplin and Raquel Welch for one). However, when he was given the opportunity to sit down with one individual and have a conversation, there were often some wonderful tidbits that came out in the process. And he has a non-grating style of asking the questions we want to know without making them sound totally asinine. He also normally took time to listen.

It does feel like he sits down, not for an interview, but for a chat with a friend. And in some cases, people like Groucho and Brando became his friends in real life even as he did his best to coax answers out of the most reticent guests by making them feel comfortable.

I could spend a significant amount of time just discussing some of the directors he had on his show like Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, even Frank Capra, but I thought I would focus on a handful of the stars. Here we go:

Groucho Marx (1969 and 71):

Cavett was quick to praise Groucho as one of his heroes, and it’s fun to watch them together full of laughter but also genuine affection. You can tell the appreciation is mutual between them and it makes the discussions lively.

One anecdote involves Groucho’s encounter with Greta Garbo in the elevator. Not seeing who it was, he pulled her hat brim way down over her head, and when she gave him a withering look, he apologized and said, “I’m terribly sorry, I thought you were a fellow I knew in Kansas City.” That’s Groucho to a tee.

In one candid moment, Groucho says he doesn’t read the news anymore before bed because it’s just a remake of what he’s been hearing all day. It goes to show there’s nothing new under the sun or in the news cycle.

Fred Astaire (1970 and 71):

This is a lovely set of interviews. Astaire is quick to deflect praise and mentions how he doesn’t like watching his old movies because he’s always thinking about how he could do it better. He also provides some insight on a few of his numbers from films like Funny Face. It turns out he’s still got it and besides dancing with Dick, he does a seated rendition of “A Fine Romance” much to the audience’s jubilation.

It turns out his grandson likes the Beatles, and Astaire even owns some of their records himself. On top of his career as a dancer (or “hoofer”), he wrote quite a few songs of his own. I recall seeing him do a rendition of his composition “City of the Angels,” but I could not find it anywhere online.

Robert Mitchum (1971)

Mitchum is an actor I’ve grown to admire over the years, and Cavett makes a point of acknowledging he was known in Hollywood as a tough interview. However, he’s surprisingly forthcoming. He talks about his school years, his time in a southern chain gang, his famous drug bust, and also insomnia.

He recounts sitting in on a Hopalong Cassidy movie with his wife early in his career and eavesdropping on a lady saying, “That is the most immoral face I’ve ever seen!” He made a career out of it starting as a “mule” for RKO as he called it. Since the air date is around Ryan’s Daughter’s release, he also mentions an experience when he was in Ireland with Richard Harris, and he got in an altercation with a local who mistook Mitchum for Kirk Douglas! Otherwise, I’m impressed by his use of words like convivial and peregrination.

Bette Davis (1971)

Bette Davis is such a vibrant personality, and she regales the audience with her early career, her battles with Warner Bros, and how she ties into Gone With The Wind lore. She calls Eroll Flynn the most beautiful man to ever live, and the most charming, but in her estimation, he could not have played Rhett Butler.

She also shares how she perceives Now, Voyager would have developed after the credits, in that her protagonist would have ultimately ended up with Claud Rains’ character because he had a strength perhaps missing from Paul Heinreid. Davis talks more about her friendship with Rains — a man she called “witty, amusing, and beautiful.” She even takes time to mention her most repulsive screen kiss with an actor who (in 1971) was still alive and therefore left nameless. Although she is quick to praise some English actors including Richard Harris and Dirk Bogarde.

Marlon Brando (1973)

Marlon Brando feels like another person who was notoriously difficult to pin down. Here he’s quite candid about his thoughts on racism against minorities and, at the time, the quite controversial boycott of the Academy Awards.

When Cavett tries to talk about acting style, Brando makes the case that all human beings are acting all the time in life just to survive. Cavett’s trying to get at how what Brando does is far and away from what anybody else can manage, but perhaps it’s semantics.

Brando goes on to say that acting is a good business — a worthy craft — but he doesn’t think of it in terms of art like other people. It’s intriguing since many would laud him for being a part of some of the most artistic production of the 20th century. (Side note: Brando uses the word “inured” which I thought was pretty impressive).

Katharine Hepburn (1973)

Like Bette Davis, Katharine Hepurn was considered for Gone With The Wind as she had working relationships with the producer David O. Selznick and the original director George Cukor. She and Cavett also spend some time talking about Humphrey Bogart, and Hepburn says he was a gent with good manners and completely different than his persona. She said Spencer Tracy always seemed a bit uncomfortable as a man being a professional actor, but Bogey seemed to love it and be proud of his job.

She calls the movie business thrilling, but she had no interest in immortality or people remembering her in the year 2050. As we’re now only a couple decades away, I can say that people certainly will remember stars such as her, and we’re thankful for their movies and interviews like these to help keep their stories alive for ensuing generations. I count myself among this lucky group who can reap the benefit of this readily available visual history both on the big and small screen.

For fun, I wanted to make a list of their films including my personal favorites. In no particular order off the top of my head these were my choices:

–Duck Soup (1933)
–Night at The Opera (1935)
–Swing Time (1936)
–The Band Wagon (1953)
-Out of The Past (1947)
-Night of The Hunter (1955)
-The Little Foxes (1941)
–All About Eve (1950)
–The Godfather (1972)
–On The Waterfront (1954)
–Philadelphia Story (1940)
–The African Queen (1951)

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959): A Venus Flytrap of a Film

Posted on September 28, 2021 by 4 Star Films

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For some Suddenly, Last Summer plays like the Holy Grail of Classic Hollywood cult films. It’s a bit like seeing those old Warner Bros. Studio clips of famed actors muffing their lines and then proceeding to blurt out obscenities. It breaks all illusions for those who have a certain perception of what these old movies represent, whether it’s something twee or a sort of refreshing simplicity.

Somewhere between Tennesse Williams and Gore Vidal, we find the origins of something with the carnal instinct of a venus flytrap. Fitting, as the curious plants become one of the film’s earliest portents. One Mrs. Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) keeps them well-fed in her arboretum. Really, the space — like an overgrown Eden in her backyard — is in memoriam to her dearly beloved son Sebastian.

He’s never seen in the flesh, but he haunts this picture like a male equivalent to Mrs. Rebecca De Winter. The memory of him is kept alive by those closest to him almost to the point of obsession.

But to understand this we must start earlier. At Lion’s View State Asylum in 1937, a brain surgeon (Montgomery Clift) has made strides in lobotomy to provide relief to schizophrenic patients. It’s a primitive solution and his facilities are subpar at best. As a state institution, they lack the funds to take care of their growing population of patients.

Their savior might just come in the form of the same Mrs. Venable who is looking for some aid for her niece (Elizabeth Taylor), a young woman who has recently been interned at St. Mary’s hospitable. She’s purportedly prone to obscene outbursts and other unseemly behavior.

The way it’s described, she might as well be as mad as a hatter. Meanwhile, the way the lady talks about her departed son to the good doctor you would think the former poet was almost like a god. She sees both men’s art — that of surgeon and poet — as supremely powerful and grandly creative. What’s more, there’s no pretense. She’s absolutely infatuated with the memory of her dead son.

She’s further obsessed with everything she witnessed on her travels with Sebastian the year before: particularly birds devouring baby sea turtles. Nature is not known for its compassion, and we are all trapped in a devouring creation. In this world, the face of God is not a supreme being but a horrible inescapable truth. If anything, God is made in our own image and it’s a terrifying reflection.

Elizabeth Taylor finally makes her entrance, and she’s as alluring as ever. She’s hardly the world’s idea of an unhinged ward patient, done up as she is in her typical Hollywood glamor, with a slight redux free of charge.

As she meets Dr. Cukrowicz (Clift) and becomes accustomed to his calming presence, there’s an uneasy trust being formed. But if anything, it might as well play off the close friendship of Liz and Monty offscreen. He doesn’t do much — at least in a histrionic sense — and she commands most of the scenes, still, it only works if they are together. For all the struggles Clift endured after his career-altering injury, in tandem with the likes of Hepburn and Taylor, he works quite well.

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Of course, there is no real pretense to believe this story is really concerned in any regard with mental health. Catherine goes wandering around the facility only to terrorize herself. If she’s not “mad,” it might all be subjective anyway. At any rate, it feels like a high-profile precursor to Shock Corridor.

However, in that film, the shock befits the low-profile punchiness of Sam Fuller more than Mankiewicz and his A-list cast. Here it feels more than a little dimorphic, bearing two forms that don’t fit together. To be sure, Suddenly, Last Summer transcends mediocrity altogether. It’s arguably something far better or something far worse than it seems.

These long, drawn-out scenes loaded to the gills with theatrical dialogue meet their piece de resistance as Taylor goes off — divulging all the secrets she’s been holding onto. However, if any of this gives off the putrid stench of convention, rest assured the finale is as striking as it is genuinely perturbing.

It paints in oblique language, clouded images, and the drone of Taylor’s own voice as we watch her terrorized face recount the horrors she witnessed. Suddenly, Last Summer reaches the summit with clanging drums and music, cobblestone streets, and streams of lecherous feet chasing after their prize. Here again the overgrown gardens, venus fly traps, and flesh-eating birds have renewed significance.

It takes her to the brink — a cinematic equivalent to visual insanity — and the precipice of reality, leaving her all but ready to jump off. Whether it’s totally effective or not, above all, it leaves a polarizing impression. Thus, the most surprising reaction to the picture would be one of total indifference.

What sets it apart from its brethren and even other Tennessee Williams pictures is how it’s able to lay into its themes even more overtly, almost on the encouragement of The Production Codes. Because it’s preaching a message of the twisted roads humanity can take, paths that ultimately lead to destruction. And yet with all those involved, there is this subversive sense of something else — something more, its screenplay’s skin is crawling with all sorts of undercurrents.

In what universe do Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift star in a picture helmed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz culminating in cannibalism and interwoven with any number of delectably salacious taboos? It happens here. And yet more perverse still is how God or hope or meaning, in any form, is absent. From a worldview perspective, there is no such thing as Truth (or is it truth serum?). Take your poison.

Either is fitfully terrifying until it gives way to a meaningless apathy. No wonder the asylums are so full of patients. It might be the safest place to be in a world such as this. Our initial fear is poor Elizabeth Taylor receiving a lobotomy. Rest assured we get something far worse: a senseless, devouring world. It’s poised and ready to eat us all up.

2.5/5 Stars

Classic Movie Beginner’s Guide: Katharine Hepburn

Posted on December 7, 2019 by 4 Star Films

I’m back at it again with a new Beginner’s Guide where we take a famous person and make their lengthy career manageable by picking 4 films to watch in order to get your feet wet. Here’s a jumping-off point for Katharine Hepburn.

I make a point of not quantifying actors by how many awards they’ve won. Still, she did win 4 Oscars! There’s little else to say. She was a gem.

Little Women (1933)

I’m partial to this film because Hepburn exudes all the attributes of Jo March for me. The cast is a fine array of young talent and if you have any attachment to Louisa May Alcott’s material, it’s hard not to appreciate the antiquated candor of this one.

Philadelphia Story (1940)

It’s almost old-hat to mention Katharine Hepburn was considered “Box Office Poison” at this time in her career (after “failures” like Bringing Up Baby and Holiday). So, of course, I mention it. But Philadelphia Story reestablished her and to this day remains one of her finest vehicles. With director George Cukor, James Stewart, Cary Grant, and Ruth Hussey, what could go wrong?

The African Queen (1951)

Bogart and Hepburn. It’s about as indelible a pair as you can get onscreen. They hardly disappoint in this character piece by John Huston setting the two seafarers off on a conflict-filled adventure through the swamps aboard the titular vessel. As a side note, it’s rather reminiscent of Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison featuring two other luminaries.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

It’s as much an ending as a beginning. Hepburn was well-known for her on and off-screen romances with Spencer Tracy who was deathly ill. This film would be his last and capped off a partnership that included the likes of Woman of The Year and Adam’s Rib (On second thought, go watch this!). There’s so much history there and they work wonders together one final time.

Worth Watching:

Stage Door, Summertime, The Lion in Winter, On Golden Pond, and so many more!

Classic Movie Beginner’s Guide: Cary Grant

Posted on November 2, 2019 by 4 Star Films

It’s that time again to profile a classic Hollywood star by briefly looking at 4 of their films. Today’s centerpiece is Archibald Leach more commonly remembered as Cary Grant, the suave, debonair, screwball extraordinaire who groomed himself into one of Hollywood’s preeminent leading men.

Philadelphia Story (1940)

He’s rude and obnoxious and yet something about him makes it hard for Katharine Hepburn to say no to her old beau even as he tries to scandalize her latest marriage. The dynamics between Grant, Hepburn, and Stewart are what you dream for with such a pairing. While you’re at it, Bringing Up Baby is a must.

His Girl Friday (1940)

This is a true Cary Grant tour de force as he whizzes through the newsroom sparring with his old matrimonial partner in crime Rosalind Russell. Their verbal jousts are truly frenetic poetry, and the turbulence they churn up is some of the best conflict any screwball comedy was ever blessed with. The Awful Truth and The Favorite Wife with Irene Dunne are swell as well.

Notorious (1946)

He’s always a bit of a debonair or lovable cad. In this one there’s no pretense. As the callous government agent Devlin, he makes Ingrid Bergman cry. This total revision of his persona is powerful, and it would lay the groundwork for one of the great Hitchcock movies. Not only that, their amorous kiss fest would slyly obliterate Hollywood convention.

North By Northwest (1959)

What makes him so great in North By Northwest is how ordinary and amicable his Roger Thornhill is only to be thrown pell-mell into a cross-country murder plot. The advertising exec finds himself fleeing from the authorities and the perpetrators in this delightful man-on-the-run pulse-pounder.

Worth Watching:

Holiday, Only Angels Have Wings, Gunga Din, Suspicion, Talk of The Town, The Bishop’s Wife, People Will Talk, To Catch a Thief, An Affair to Remember, Indiscreet, Charade, and many more!

Summertime (1955)

Posted on August 17, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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It’s summertime and the living is easy. It makes me think of sultry summer days and cool summer nights and George Gershwin. But summertime also means travel. It did for my family when we were growing up as kids and it took us to many places near and far off. That’s what this film gives us license to do. Venture into another world for a picturesque vacation.

News that Summertime was supposedly David Lean’s favorite picture of his own work is not all that surprising when put into the context of his career. When I think of him I am quick to reference monumental epics or British narratives out of Charles Dickens but here is a picture that feels strikingly different. It’s intimate and small yet still gorgeously photographed and affecting. It’s no Lawrence of Arabia (1962) or even Great Expectations (1946) but it has no aims to be. That’s what makes it a delightful change of pace.

Katharine Hepburn plays an American school secretary from Akron Ohio, one Jane Hudson, who has always had a dream to travel and get out of Middle America to see the world. We see her aboard a train bound for Venice and she’s beyond ecstatic chatting up her fellow traveler and snapping pictures on her camera that’s already logged rolls and rolls of film undoubtedly, capturing the most mundane things for the simple fact that they come from a foreign land.

But there are even more stereotypical American tourists who are hilariously ignorant and subsequently stick out like a sore thumb wherever they wind up. To say the McIlhennys are slightly insufferable is kind of the point. Still, they’re hardly to be taken seriously. It’s people like them that cause Jane to want to venture to Italy to get away and allow herself to be wrapped up in the throes of another culture. I can certainly resonate with that sentiment. I feel that way now.

So, in one sense, she still maintains the awe of a tourist but manages to experience the life as if she were a local and that’s the key, boarding in a pensione and trying to get a taste of everyday life.

First, she is befriended by a spunky little boy who tries to sell her his goods and out of that grows a mutual affection for one another. She also wanders into an antique shop to buy what she deems to be a precious goblet and strikes up a conversation with the proprietor (Rossano Brazzi) who she had unwittingly crossed paths with before. This is the first of many meetings.

In a film such as this where the sets are left behind for a foreign locale, a place like Venice very easily becomes almost another character in the film because being there alone creates a dimension you would never get otherwise. Without Venice, those layers of history, accents, and textures, something magical would be lost. But with it, Lean makes something that rings with gentle passion.

The sumptuous visuals capture both the immense character and quaint waterways with their gondolas drifting lazily by. Tailor-made for romance especially between an American school teacher and a handsome Italian shopkeeper, bringing them so close together over the course of the film. The Piazza San Marco is showcased front and center in numerous sequences but even with its presence this still exists on a smaller scale than the parade through Rome that is Roman Holiday (1953). Because it readily occupies itself with many smaller scenes too.

Lean even preceded Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955) with a very similar fireworks show. In both cases, the moment signifies the strides made in the relationship and just how splendorous they are.

Summertime also features one of the most striking endings because it’s not quite as cathartic as we are used to in a love story and yet it hardly can be considered downbeat or melancholy. A lot like life, it simply is and how can you be glum anyway? It’s summertime. Venice is immaculate. Love is afoot.

It so enraptured David Lean that he would make it his home away from home. At that point, it doesn’t matter if we like this movie because as its director Lean was taken with it. That’s praise enough.

3.5/5 Stars

Little Women (1933)

Posted on August 10, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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I still remember visiting Louisa May Alcott’s home in Massachusetts and of course, my sister read her magnum opus innumerable times when we were younger but for some reason, maybe it was a fear of what the title suggested, I still never cracked it open during my childhood. But I’ve always been intrigued by the story usually brought to me in snippets or in bits and pieces from films (namely the wonderful 1994 version).

Here we have a quintessential Cukor picture that embodies the nobler side of humanity — the little women as represented by the March family — and it’s a winsome charmer, where the world seems vibrant and gay.

Despite their humble state, the March girls are cultivated by love and affection. They grew up playing at John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress when they were children and now as they become young women they have real burdens.

And yet their lives are still fortified by hope and the pure optimism of youth is captured within this picture. It provides access to that time of life which you wish you could hold onto. You see it most aggressively in Jo (Katharine Hepburn) — young, wild, and free as she is — her life full of frolicking and exuberance. She sees the world as perfect bliss surrounded by her mother and sisters — her father to return from the war at some point, a hero in her eyes.

Her next-door neighbor starts out a stranger and soon becomes one of her finest companions. Laurie (Douglass Montgomery) stirs up all her energy and welcomes being brought into the fold while his stately grandfather proves to have one of the most capacious hearts with which to bless the March girls with. Not to mention the fact that Laurie’s tutor Mr. Brook takes an immediate liking to Meg (Frances Dee) and she harbors a mutual fondness for his gentleness and good manners.

Even a life such as this is struck unmercifully by tragedy. Beth (Jean Parker) is stricken with scarlet fever after watching a neighbor’s baby die in her arms. These are the depths of woe. These are the moments for which the March family stands around the piano and sing a chorus of “Abide With Me.”

The shining moment arrives when the father of the house returns. He barely has any screen time in the entire picture because after all, this isn’t his film. But his presence is used exquisitely to aid how Cukor approaches the material. We look on as he sees each daughter and his wife until the camera’s focus turns completely on Beth bedridden and stricken with sickness as she is. Seeing her father the girl miraculously rises to her feet recalled to life after being incapacitated for so long. The miracle of the moment isn’t lost to us nor the imagery of her father arriving as a savior to lift her up. It’s deeply moving.

But it’s funny how life works. Things cannot and will not stay the same forever. Sisters mature. People grow up and share the company of men. We too grow and progress though we only seem to see it in others and not ourselves.

Jo cannot bear for her older sister Meg to get married – to be forced to watch things change within her household – still they do change and she must accept it. However, she cannot accept that Laurie is in love with her and she reacts to his professions the only way she knows how.

The final act follows Jo as she looks to pursue her career as a writer, Meg is happily married now, and Amy (Joan Bennett) is off to Europe with curmudgeon Aunt March. Time passes and old wounds slowly begin to heal, especially when Jo meets another person of peace in Professor Baehr (Paul Lukas). He is a man of great intellect but humble means and he encourages his “little friend” in her writing. Developing a relationship that they both cherish deeply.

Little Women has always been such a striking example of how life can end up so much different than we could ever imagine and yet in hindsight, there are hardly any complaints to be had. It’s never about the complaints but the difficult things that tear us apart only to tie us closer together. Because, at the end of this story, Jo has progressed so far and yet she still has her family and they love her as much as ever.

Katharine Hepburn feels perfectly at home in the role of Jo always the tomboy, independent, boisterous and such. She rumbles with “coarse talk” her favorite exclamation being “Christopher Columbus!”

I’ll try to head off any criticism that might suggest this adaptation is quaint or dated because I would argue that it’s recalling a different era that in so many ways boasted so much that we should yearn for today in our current world. People putting other’s before themselves — living only with what is necessary not in excess or in pursuit of some self-serving hedonism. These are people who cherish what family can give them and the simplicity of quality time and relationships.

Where Christmas festivities have nothing to do with gifts or monetary value but a spirit of giving and a joyful heart. The March sisters even have the original home theater putting on a performance of their own creation letting their imagination and creativity ignite.

What I respect deeply about this story is that it doesn’t feel like it has to be a romance. True, people get married and fall in love but that is not the pretense for the story. As their father entreats them in his letter, they are to “conqueror themselves.” Finding a man is not the point of their existence and this story makes it clear that life is so much more than that. It’s about love, selflessness, humility, and a great many other traits that we would do well to pursue.

4.5/5 Stars

The African Queen (1951)

Posted on December 14, 2017 by 4 Star Films

And you call yourself a Christian! Do you hear me? Don’t ya? Don’t ya? Huh? What ya being so mean for, Miss? A man takes a drop too much once and a while, it’s only human nature. ~ Charlie
Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. ~ Rose

Sometimes when great talent comes together we see the result and question where it all went wrong. Sometimes it just works pure and simple. The African Queen is such a picture and it’s true that the greatest films function on multiple levels finding ways to exceed our expectations, enrapturing us with storylines and developments that are a far cry from what we first considered. Far from not disappointing, they join the pantheon of classics we would gladly watch over and over again. That is probably the highest praise you can give a picture and The African Queen is such a film.

It’s christened The African Queen because she is the vessel that Charlie Allnut calls his own and she is the very vehicle for this entire adventure. Emblematic of their own grit, ingenuity, and indestructibility. Because the narrative begins with missionaries and the hint of colonialism as Rosie (Katharine Hepburn) and her Reverend brother look to bring the Gospel to the peoples of the Congo.

But due to the outbreak of World War I, Africa too is thrown into the fray as the Germans look to overrun the countryside and sweep it into their clutches. Rosie’s whole peaceful existence of Sunday services and afternoon tea are brutally disrupted. The village is burned, her brother’s physical and mental well-being suffers, and in the end, she has no recourse but to leave her little slice of home behind.

Ironically, her savior is the uncouth, uneducated Mr. Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), a jack of all trades who formerly worked at a mine before it was commandeered by the Germans. He too is an inbetweener in this war, caught on the fringes and simply trying to survive. It’s in these very circumstances that these two diverging personalities are thrown together. And in an act of defiance and pure survival tactics, they do rise above their present circumstances.

Aside from mere plot points, the very fact that the film was shot prominently on location like John Huston’s previous classic Treasure of Siera Madre benefits the film greatly because there’s an authenticity to the entire undertaking that could never be fabricated. You see the waters and the jungles. You’re almost suffocated by the sheer humidity and apprehensiveness of every successive rapid they must ford because this feels like more than a movie. The dividing line between fact and fiction in many ways feels paper thin.

Huston had some wonderful black and white films including The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, and Sierra Madre but it seems rather fortuitous that The African Queen was made in color given the pedigree of cinematographer Jack Cardiff on such earlier vibrant classics as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. He brings a certain colorful exoticism to the frames that feels foreign to the eyes and yet still strangely beautiful. It all works so exquisitely.

Likewise, this is not simply a script penned by film critic, author extraordinaire James Agee with direction by Huston and the talents of legendary screen icons like Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Yes, those are the separate entities that are joined together in this endeavor but they become far more than the sum of their parts.

Agee’s script which Huston also got partial credit for sings with life because of the two individuals it draws up and the world it dares to place them in. Rosie Sayer is a prim and proper missionary in Africa who nevertheless has a fearless streak brought to life so spiritedly by Hepburn as only she could play it. There’s a wonderful stubbornness that’s undeniable but remove the layers and you have the same giddy passion that crept into some of her earlier screwball performances. Mr. Charlie Allnut, as such, is perhaps the most lovable Humphrey Bogart has ever been. Allnut is content just getting by and surviving and he’s good at it — trying to find little bits of comfort in this world medicating himself when gin and a nice cigar every now and again.

But while he pushes Ms. Sayer’s to be practical and lose some of her stuffier tendencies, she, in turn, prods him to step out and do something worthwhile with his life. And it’s not simply about their romance which begins as a small feud, becomes a friendship, and evolves into a frenzied relationship full of affection. Their romance is being forged as they hang onto the faint objective of driving The African Queen into the ominous German gunboat the Louisa. It feels like a small battleground amidst the chaos of World War I but it all depends on your perspective because for Rosie and Charlie this is really is the very pinnacle of their existence. It involves their very will to survive.

They cling to this purpose and the joy of their adventure is the very fact that they are able to see it to the end, in the name of their country but also for their own vindication. And the telling aspect is that they both have been transformed by their experience. They are not so much forged by fire as the jungles that engulf them and the wildlife, foes, and raging falls that all look to be their undoing. And yet this unlikely pair, these polar opposites, prove to be the most formidable allies you could draw together.

The African Queen also has its own forays into spirituality and although they do not remain front and center for the entire film, there is a certain import to them. In a particularly formative scene, Mr. Allnut calls into question the other’s Christian faith which seems at the very least unfeeling if not hypocritical. But you could say the main conflict of this film is voiced by Charlie. It’s human nature.

Charlie has grown passive towards it while Ms. Sayers affirms that humanity is meant to “rise above” and this statement can be taken spiritually or maybe even with a tinge of imperialism (as man must tame the vast wastelands of his environment and such).

But there could also be a more universal ring in her words, suggesting that humanity must rise above every trial and tribulation whether personal, environmental, or social. Any number of these interpretations have stock. The question to ask is where does that will come from? It seems ludicrous to say it comes from within, closer still to say it comes from others, and maybe there’s still something broader going on in the background. No matter your opinion on such matters, The African Queen is still without question, one of the grandest, most rewarding romantic adventures hewn out of 1950s Hollywood.

5/5 Stars

Stage Door Canteen (1943)

Posted on May 14, 2016 by 4 Star Films

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Director Frank Borzage’s Stage Door Canteen is a gentle-handed piece of propaganda. It plays out rather like a scripted 1940s wartime reality. It’s less a film and more of a historical relic commemorating the eponymous Stage Door Canteen in New York City. Thus, any effort to give it some sort of rating almost seems beside the point, because it was meant to be a rallying cry of comfort, entertainment, and escape from the war right outside. It met the general public right where they were and inundated them with mega star power. This wasn’t the only nightclub or film to do this either. The Stage Door’s west coast counterpart was the Hollywood Canteen, and it received a film treatment of its own in 1944.

In truth, the real nightclub was still in full use every day so the next best alternative was the RKO Lot in Culver City. That’s where it all happens like a day in the life. We follow three soldiers: the perfect cross-section of white red-blooded American G.I.s. Each one gets to dance and talk their last days away with a pretty girl serving as a hostess at the canteen. Each one of them will never forget it.

The entertainment is full of partial cameos, pop-ups, and performances from a plethora of stars. For even the most well-acquainted modern viewer, it’s hard to recognize all the faces and names that show up. Katherine Cornell, Count Basie, and Yehudi Menuhin are a few such figures who come to mind.

stagedoorcan1 There are also strategic vignettes sprinkled throughout to boost morale and the camaraderie between allies. A few Brits can be heard taking part in the gaiety and making friends with our protagonists. A table of Hispanic soldiers takes in a floor show. One of our hostesses gets a moving letter from her older brother in the marines who is bent on returning to his family and proving that his training can outlast any “Jap” out there. There’s a last-minute marriage ceremony that we are privy to. Sam Jaffe introduces the audience to a few Russian allies, an Australian soldier has just returned from the front, and several Chinese air cadets get a rousing appreciation. Merle Oberon (the only actress close to being Asian in the film) gives them a stirring sendoff. Finally, Katharine Hepburn drops in for the premier cameo, to tie together all the loose ends and rally her fellow men and women to keep on keeping on for the sake of the country, so that the Allies might win the war.

From our modern day perspective, this might all come off like saccharine hogwash, but that’s not giving the material its due sensitivity. For that point in history, it was exactly what the American public was looking for. Today it’s a fascinating piece of remembrance. Then, it was still a story with a “to be continued” ending.

3.5/5 Stars

Review: Shane (1953)

Posted on March 8, 2016 by 4 Star Films

Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the looming Tetons lend the same iconic majesty to this western that Monument Valley does for many of Ford’s best pictures. But then again, George Stevens was another master and he too was changed by the war, coming back with a different tone and an “American Trilogy” that included some of his best work. Shot in Technicolor, this picture boasts more than wide open spaces and raw Midwestern imagery. Stevens has some wonderfully constructed sequences and there are a number of great characters to inhabit them.

Shane is the eponymous gunman who is content to linger in the background while others become the focal point. Namely, Joe Starrett (Van Heflin), a man who came to the untamed land due to the Homestead Act and won’t let the rancher Stryker muscle them off the land that he believes is rightfully theirs. Despite this being her final film — and a favor to her previous collaborator Stevens — Jean Arthur is as wonderful as ever. The character Marian is brimming with goodness and a sensitivity that is hard to discount. It’s a part very different than her earlier work and yet she plays it so wonderfully. As for newcomer Brandon De Wilde, he’s an astute little actor and we really see this world through his eyes, so he does wonders to hold the story together.

Grafton’s general store and saloon become a wonderful arena of conflict within the film because it is rather like Ryker’s stomping ground since he and his men can always be found lounging around there when they aren’t terrorizing some poor sodbuster. After he agrees to work for Starrett, Shane goes into town for new duds, leaving his gun behind, and he quickly learns what he’s in for. It’s in such a scene that we learn who this man really is. He’s not a hot-head and he initially takes the abuse of Stryker’s guns, who call him out for purchasing soda pop. It’s for the boy Joey, but he doesn’t have to say that, because he needs not prove himself, at least not yet. Also, the relationship between Shane and Marian might be troubling to some — will they fall for each other — but when Ryker makes insinuations about Starrett’s wife, Shane is quick to shut him up. He’s not that kind of man. When Shane does return to the store, he’s prepared this time for retaliation and although it might not have been the smartest thing, it sure is gratifying for him and for the audience. He and Starrett make a killer team, after all, beaten and bruised as they end up.

What follows is retribution from Stryker as he tries to buy out, threaten, and continually lean on the sodbusters, but Starrett remains resolute in keeping his friends together. In fact, there’s still time to share a wonderful Fourth of July dance with all the neighbors and it shows signs of a brighter, happier time that could be possible. With neighbors joining together in simple community and sharing life together. Shane feels somewhat out of place in this type of environment, and maybe deep down he knows it too, but he seems oddly content.

This happy time is juxtaposed with the funeral of ornery “Stonewall” (Elisha Cook Jr.), who was gunned down near the saloon by hired gun Jack Wilson (Jack Palance). His death is making some of the others jumpy, but once again Starrett keeps his group together, by first giving their former friend a proper burial and banding together once more. But by this point, they’re barely hanging on. Stryker’s got them on the run and Joe knows he needs to have it out with his arch-nemesis once and for all if things are ever going to return to the status quo. His dreams of ending this whole thing are ludicrous because there is no way he can get out alive. His wife knows it. He knows it, but it doesn’t stop him and his American Dream.

It’s interesting how Shane at first does not try to stop him, but then he gets tipped off to what awaits Joe, and he decides to go in his place. This is his arena after all. The gun we all fawn over is finally getting put to use as Shane rides into town for the final showdown to have it out with the men in the saloon. However, although the shootout is intense it ends very quickly. Thus, what is really interesting are the moments beforehand where friend is literally fighting friend. Both doing what they think is right. However, since Joey only thinks in absolutes, when he sees Shane hit his father over the back of the head, he initially reacts with hatred towards his fallen hero. He doesn’t understand why all this is necessary. But as time goes on and he sees events unfold, he gets it.

As Shane rides off into the night, Joey yells after him to come back, he cannot bear for this idolized man to ride off. It makes me wonder if young Joey grew up with the image of Shane, the hero of his childhood. The doer of good and the ultimate champion of the oppressed.

The cast was rounded out nicely by some solid supporting players like Palance, Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Elisha Cook Jr., and down to Ellen Corby and even Nancy Kulp. It’s astounding to think that this film could have starred Monty Clift and William Holden potentially with Katharine Hepburn as well. Because, after all, the casting of Shane feels just right. Clift would have brought depth and emotional chops to the role, as a wonderfully impassioned actor. Just look at George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (1951) for proof of that. However, what Alan Ladd has is a serenity and simple goodness that still somehow suggests something under the surface. It begs the question, how can someone so upright make a living packing a six-shooter? No doubt I like Holden better as an actor, but Heflin has the scruffy outdoors-man look, while still reflecting high ideals. Hepburn just does not seem to fit a western. This is one of the instances when all the pieces seemed to fit into place and we were blessed by a western classic that never seems to lose its luster. In a sense, we become boys again like Joey, completely in awe of Shane. Let us revel in that feeling, that moment of innocence once more.

5/5 Stars