Tag Archives: Kim Hunter

Double Feature: Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956) and (1962)

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Rooney, Gleason, and Quinn in the film version

Requiem for a Heavyweight was an early live television production that was so popular it garnered a feature-length adaptation a few years later.

It’s relatively easy to see the merits in both because although they enlisted the same director and screenwriter, the actors and the medium do quite a lot to make them feel textured and different. I couldn’t necessarily pick a favorite.

The original is bare-boned but intimate, and there’s a darker more caustic theatricality to the film version. It really comes down to preference. Here are my thoughts on the two versions:

Palance and Hunter on Playhouse 90

Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956)

This early showcase of the Playhouse 90 live TV format introduced the fragile and most sensitive version of Jack Palance. He’s a hoarse and husky-voiced journeyman boxer named Mountain McClintock.

One of his greatest claims to fame was that he was almost heavyweight champion of the world. But he’s most proud of his integrity. In 111 fights, he never took a dive. That includes his most recent bout. He got pulverized and still managed to make it seven rounds.

Between Rod Serling’s script — the writer called upon his own memories as a one-time boxer — and Palance’s endearing performance, you have the emotional heart of the tale. Because Mountain is proud and principled in his own way. He didn’t get into fighting to murder people or make a ton of money. It’s just the only thing he’s ever known — the only thing he was good at — and he took solace in it.

Now he’s on the way out. The Doc says he’d better quit before he earns more permanent damage. Somehow he’s impressionable like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Despite his physical presence, he needs protectors and others to look after him. There are certain people in his corner he deeply trusts just as all his words and pearls of wisdom come from the mouths of others.

The real-life familial bond of Keenan and Ed Wynn is equally key because they play the two most important people in Mountain’s life. There’s Maish, his manager, who’s currently in a bit of a bind. Then, Army, his cutman, who’s more resigned to the inevitably around him. He’s seen a lot.

Keenan can exhibit a kind of gruff intensity role to role, but since I know Ed Wynn as such a jovial figure, I almost didn’t recognize him. Both of them exhibit an earnestness in their respective parts. Maish has compromised his integrity and now feels bitter toward Mountain, a has-been fighter he sunk so much time and money into. How is he supposed to get any recompense?

Mountain looks a bit pitiful walking into a job agency with no work experience and a kisser as roughed up as his. However, the attendant behind the desk (Kim Hunter) sees his goodness and drops her business spiel for something more personal.

She responds with heart, tracking him down to his favorite watering hole and vowing to try and help him resurrect his life. The bar serves as the graveyard and burial ground for all the hard-up fighters who wither away inside their own heads. Mountain might easily be headed toward this end and worst yet, he might lose his dignity in service of Maish’s debts…

We must remember what the medium of television accorded the makers. Visually, they were working in fuzzy black and white with tiny boxes of composition but also a more familial viewership. This ultimately impacts the creative choices and the film takes on a hopeful final note.

It’s fascinating to watch the production since it was being taped live and throughout I only noticed one flubbed line rushed over by a mother on the train. Otherwise, around all the orchestrating and simple sets, there’s very little taking us out of the story and disrupting the primary performances. Given the restraints, it’s quite a startling achievement.

3.5/5 Stars

Quinn and Gleason

Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)

Ralph Nelson was the same director who filmed the original TV version. Instantly the big screen is more cinematic thanks to the subjective point of view in the ring. We see a solemn Jackie Gleason, the yelling Mickey Rooney, both standing just outside the ropes.

Then, the announcer calls out the name Cassius Clay, and there he is in all his youthful glory beating back the camera! It does feel like a bit of a gimmick, but then we finally see the face of Anthony Quinn battered and bruised and we have our movie.

I assumed the older Gleason was Army and having just recently been introduced to what Mickey Rooney was capable of in The Comedians, it seemed only too reasonable that he would play the more mercurial Maise. How wrong I was.

Quinn seems especially old for his part, but it’s intriguing to see how his character mythology was altered to fit his own Hollywood legacy. Mountain Rivera came out of New Mexico, he ditched school in the 6th grade (instead of 9th), and he’s been fighting longer than Palance’s counterpart. Still, like Palance, Quinn’s larynx sounds like it’s been beaten out of him positively eviscerated by his years of punishment in the ring.

The movie’s milieu is not too far away from The Hustler (also featuring Gleason) or the sensibilities of a TV-to-film scribe like Paddy Chayefsky. The jump to film also means it owns a sharper even more melancholic edge than its small-screen counterpart.

Maish (Gleason) is tailed and tracked out into the ring reminiscent of The Set-Up, and he’s threatened into paying up on his recently accrued debts. He needs the cash fast. Later, he willfully gets his dwindling prize fighter drunk. It’s all part of a ploy to keep him from getting a real job so he can earn money as a sideshow attraction in some trumped up wrestling showcase.

This time it is Julie Harris, who is tasked with helping Mountain turn a new leaf in his life. Her character never shared consequential time with Maish in the original version, but here they share dialogue on a stairwell adding an alternate dynamic to the picture. He says, “The rich get richer and the poor get drunk.” Mountain’s finished, and he’s skeptical of any do-gooder looking to peddle their charity. The edge of cynicism is deeply entrenched.

Also, in the previous rendition, there’s this happy denouement as we recognize Mountain entering into his post-boxing career. It’s possible for him to make something of himself and gain fulfillment beyond the ring by imparting his knowledge to younger generations.

Here it almost feels like the movie has been shifted and the focal point is Maish. Because he is the person who must come to terms with what he has done by totally denigrating Mountain for his own desperate gain.

When he’s marched out into the ring, totally racialized and trivialized, it sears with a level of pain television would have never dared. And we realize all the self-fulfilling prophesies have come true. Mountain really has become the geek, a kind of carnival show attraction, but it’s not out of his own desperation. He’s doing it for someone else. Mountain willfully subjects himself to the ignominy, but Maish is the one who must live with his conscience. I’m not sure what’s worse.

3.5/5 Stars

The Seventh Victim (1943): Lewton’s Economy Rules

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Seventh-victim-poster_one_sheet.jpgWhat a picture for Kim Hunter to have come into her own (and Mark Robson for that matter). The 7th Victim is a chilling gem, and the motor to move the story forward is an audacious girl, Mary Gibson (Hunter), who makes a decision to leave her boarding school of stain glass and angelic choirs, to search after her missing big sister.

Upon arriving in New York, Mary finds out Jacqueline, in an uncharacteristic fashion, sold her profitable cosmetic company eight months prior. Something must be up. Our kiddy noir hits its paces as Mary’s intrepid investigations lead her to Dante’s Italian Restaurant. She checks in on her sister’s rented room only to find a chair and an ominous hangman’s noose.

Next, she files a claim with the missing person’s bureau and looks to hire a private eye to give her help in a city that feels generally unfriendly. However, this is not entirely the case as she makes the acquaintance of Jason, a local poet who looks to lighten up the atmosphere. Likewise, Hugh Beaumont acts as a calming force in this labyrinth of turbulence and underlying dread. Nevertheless, he warns Mary that her sister, “Lived in a world of her own fancy. Didn’t always know the truth.” Another portent of some ill fate awaiting her.

Admittedly, on a micro-level, all the pieces simply do not fit together. To understand why we only need look at what moments were potentially left on the cutting room floor. In the age of narrative incoherence in crime storytelling, The 7th Victim is among the best (or worst). The fact that in such a short time it can be so befuddling must speak to something. Dissenters might clamor this is a disjointed mess but if this is faulty storytelling there is also a sense of apprehension present, inherent to such narratives.

It cannot simply be about four scenes that were famously cut out of the picture. Though we would have gained clarity in one sense, in another these missing pieces somehow aid in this byzantine journey weaving a yarn out of relatively meager resources. The dialogue is just okay but on a macro level, it’s all very intriguing.

The creme de la creme of chiaroscuro photography occurs when Mary goes down to a mysterious shop with Mr. August on a clandestine mission that goes awry. Anyone walking into such a world would know to begin with no good will come of it, inching down a hallway of darkness.

Then, we have the curious appearance of Dr. Judd (Tom Power) from Cat People who conveniently provides another male character with information on Jacqueline’s current situation. He subsequently has deep abscesses of knowledge about a cult of Palladian Devil Worshippers operating out of Greenwich Village. Again, we have a mythology evoked with traditions and sacred texts lending credence to this widespread conspiratorial atmosphere.

Because of course, as you might have guessed already, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), now cloaked in a bob of dark hair, found herself immersed in a very foreboding crowd. They don’t look too kindly on those who let their secrets out. Another stylistically rewarding moment comes right after the woman is released from certain death and winds up wandering the darkened streets in a near dazed state. She scurries away into the shadows to evade an unknown pursuer — frantically seeking the aid of an oblivious theater troupe.

We’re on again with the perplexing waling nightmares because the film chooses to dwell in such places. But if the picture chooses to acknowledge Satanic cults the equal and opposite must be called upon to whether the evil. Though not an obviously religious man, the good psychiatrist asserts there is proof that good is superior to evil.

It comes in the words of the Lord’s Prayer. He speaks the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…Deliver us from evil.” Again, the real world liturgy pads the narrative with a kind of believable ethos even as Jacqueline is still hounded by some unknowable, supernatural specter.

The final scene is a blink and you missed it circumstance. Provided a few more seconds to sink in it could have been a horrible thing. As is we hardly have time for the facts to dawn on us until the movie is over, literally seconds later. While not optimal there’s no discounting how the scene was handled visually. Even in this single moment, it says so much with what is not seen and a sound compared to so many other pictures bloated with extravagant sets and resources.

7th Victim is a reminder that sometimes our movies lack imagination, thinking money and special effects can be thrown at a story to make it novel. While this might be true on a most superficial level, sometimes it is constraints that bring out creativity and reveal to us how starkness in the right context can be a beautiful gift. Val Lewton’s horror unit is one of the small wonders of classic cinema, and they cast an indomitable shadow, widely in part to cinematographers like Nicholas Murucasa. This one is another low-lit gem. Once again economy rules.

4/5 Stars

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

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Matter_Life_Death_Hunter_Niven

Matter of Life and Death is planted in its era. It carries the vague notions of a war film, it’s certainly a romance, and it revels in the throes of fantasy. But on the whole Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s film functions outside the typical confines that are put on film as a medium. The scope it dares to take on is far more expansive.

The plot is made in the first few minutes when a pilot looks to eject amid the fog engulfing his failing bomber. It’s in that single moment where he picks up the signal of a radio dispatcher down below and their lives are never the same. Believable or not they fall instantly in love — in that moment of heightened emotion — they find a connection. She, never to see his face and he, never to make it out alive.

The Conductor (Marius Goring) from the other side is already looking to pick him up. Except something goes terribly wrong, or terribly right for the pilot, depending on your perspective. In other words, he doesn’t die. He escapes death. It causes a bit of a stir and Conductor 71 must try and rectify the situation.

But of course, Peter David Carter (David Niven) quite by chance is reunited with the woman from the other side of the wire, the American named June (Kim Hunter) and they are allowed a happy life together. Except with his reservation with the afterlife still up for contention, Peter finds himself being visited by the Conductor who coaxes him to accept his death. Instead, Peter calls for an appeal and his case is set to be brought before the highest authorities to decide once and for all if he must accept his death as ordained or have it postponed so that he might continue to cement his love for June.

It evolves into a wonderfully fantastical courtroom drama, wrapped up in romance, with a bit of time travel, purgatory, special effects, and color all mixed together in a tirelessly imaginative arc.  It’s true that the ambitions of the conceptual narrative are really unlike any other cinematic creature as it cycles so lithely through time and space. Freezing images, moving characters about this way and that, and cutting back and forth between worlds most easily differentiated by their color schemes.

Still, in some way, I was gripped more with the furious emotion of The Red Shoes (1948) and yet with its phenomenal conception and immaculate staging, A Matter of Life and Death manages to be an extraordinary picture by most accounts. If its waves of romance did not seize me instantly, its sheer inventiveness was nevertheless breathtaking.  And if the concept enthralls me even more than the narrative does then so be it. It shares a world akin to Seventh Heaven (1927) or Wings of Desire (1988) and that alone is worthy of praise — carving out a place in the pantheon of transcendent films — featured on the conveyor belt that makes its way through the years.

Fantasy films were made to be like this, arguably functioning in a realm that only films could facilitate and Powell and Pressburger examined near unfathomable realms. Not only with scripting but the selection of shots, and developing fascinating spectacles out of the Other World from the stairway to heaven to the infinite courtroom where Peter’s case is debated. Jack Cardiff’s photography takes on the monumental task of balancing two worlds with equal import — the world we know and the complete other realm that has yet to be revealed to us who are still among the living. It leaves us feeling enamored with both. Not simply because of beauty but sheer size and scale.

The storyline comes down to the final moments where Peter and June are asked to make the kind of choices we have been expecting. Right about now we can hear the words ringing in our ears, there’s no greater love than to lay down one’s life for the ones you love. Their actions say as much. But as we might just come to find, give and it will be given back to you more abundantly than you could ever imagine. Sacrifice all that you have and you will find yourself gaining so much more.

It brings to mind a dialogue that emerged from the courtroom when the prosecutor (Raymond Massey) notes that “nothing is more important than the law. The whole universe was built on it.” But his learned opposition (Roger Livesey) ascertains that “this is a court of justice not of law.” The implications being that the law is good and must still be fulfilled but justice is the key here, where right is done by all men and love reigns supreme.

There are a plethora of interesting topics that arise from The Archers’ film but one of the foremost is the sentiment of not only the post-war but of an entire millennium. It’s a belief that could arise from many marginalized points of views suggesting that there is a great deal of prejudice and ill-will that could be exacted against the English (and certainly Americans too), anyone who has been a major world power.

The jurors put up against the defendant all have grievances they could hold against the English people, but then again, we are not our fathers’ fathers and we cannot necessarily turn back the clock on their past sins. But what this film does suggest more powerfully still, relevant in a post-war era or any age really, is the idea that people can reach out across the sea and really across the world to be united by something. We’ll give it a name to it and call it love in its many forms — more specifically as the Greeks might call them, storge, philia, eros, and greatest of all agape.

4.5/5 Stars

Note: My entry in the Time Travel Blogathon

 

Review: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

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Brando_-_Leigh_-_1951Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski. They’re both so iconic not simply in the lore of cinema history but literature and American culture in general. It’s difficult to know exactly what to do with them. Stanley Kowalski the archetypical chauvinistic beast. Driven by anger, prone to abuse, and a mega slob in a bulging t-shirt who also happens to be a hardline adherent to the Napoleonic Codes. But then there’s Blanche, the fragile, flittering, self-conscious southern belle driven to the brink of insanity by her own efforts to maintain her epicurean facade. They’re larger than life figures.

In truth, A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those cases where play and film are so closely intertwined it’s hard to pull them apart. And there’s so many connecting points. Tennessee Williams helped to adapt his initial work and Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden all transposed their original stage roles to the screen while Elia Kazan took on direction once more.

As such it became the showcase of The Method, the shining beacon championing that long heralded yet controversial movement born of Stanislav Konstitine and disseminated in the U.S. by such instructors as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. It was from this latter teacher from whom Marlon Brando honed his craft and it’s true that he was one for the ages. The Greatest by some people’s account.

But before this film, Vivien Leigh was the biggest name on the marquee and she, of course, had ties to Laurence Olivier, the apex of Shakespearian actors and arguably the most reputed actor of the age until Brando came along. In Streetcar, you can invariably see the thin link connecting such luxuriant Hollywood offerings as Gone with the Wind to the evolution of cinema with later classics like The Godfather because it’s physically there on the screen.

Vivien Leigh, forever synonymous with Scarlet O’Hara and Brando’s own brand of sometimes brutal authenticity. She wavers and sashays through her scenes, clinging to the set and delivering her lines as pure searing drama. Whereas Brando just is. This animalistic force of brawn stuffing his face with chicken and moving through his home like he actually lives there. It’s social realism but it’s also a conflict on multiple levels that goes far beyond the main tension within the film itself.

Within the narrative, it is certainly a clash of culture, dialect, and acting styles and we’re never allowed to forget it anytime Stanley (Brando) or Blanche (Leigh) are in a room together. Still, they are not the only players in this film and Kim Hunter lends an added layer to the conflict as she simultaneously yearns for the romantic passion coursing through Stanely while wanting to protect her sister from harm. It’s a precarious tightrope to walk and Hunter makes it heartwrenching. Beyond her, Karl Malden plays Mitch, one of Stanley’s old war buddies who nevertheless exhibits a softer side that is easily taken with Blanche’s cursory level of class.

So in the end, Blanche’s fall not only harms Stella but Mitch too as he sees his heart get hurt and he feels lied too. But the one who fairs the worst is, of course, Blanche herself as she becomes completely overtaken by her delusions of grandeur. The fact that she goes for magic over reality ultimately becomes her undoing.

Today Streetcar does come off as stagy and yet Kazan is still able to personify the sticky, grungy, sweaty atmosphere of New Orleans — palpable with its billowing cigarette smoke and humidity. It somehow functions as this odd dichotomy between the theatrical and utter realism. In one way at odds and in another married perfectly because the juxtaposition only draws out the drama even further.  And the fact that the film pushed the boundaries as far as content easily heightens the drama. Stanley’s attack on Blanche is not only in a verbal or emotional sense but physical as well and we have little problem believing Brando in his role.

It also struck me that in her final moments Blanche feels hauntingly reminiscent of Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd only a year prior. But her delusions are far more pitiful because she never was anything and yet she still tries to cling to this sense of pride in her upbringing and the looks that once were. She constantly needs the affirmation and adulation of others to reassure her in her fears and frailties. Always putting on a pretense — a face to get by — but she’s the only one she’s able to deceive in the end. It’s one of the preeminent tragedies of the 20th century and its actors guide it into transcendent territory.

4.5/5 Stars

Planet of the Apes (1968)

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f0ab6-220px-planetoftheapesposter“Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” ~ Taylor

Planet of the Apes is a highly disconcerting tale despite the rubber visages of the apes which feel quite tacky at times. However, they are so unnatural that they seem to still work within the context of the film. This Sci-Fi classic also really works on another level, because it is an inversion of our accepted dogma. Yet it still shares a degree of similarity to our reality making it a frightening dystopian  world to take in.

The story begins calmly enough in outer space as a group of human explorers circle the solar system with the fate of earth up in the air. We assume the worst. After spending time in hibernation the crew finds that their ship is making a crash landing for an unknown reason so the three surviving passengers bailout. There’s Taylor (Charlton Heston), Landon and Dodge and though they do not always see eye to eye, they begin to explore the vast expanses of the seemingly lifeless world for any sign of life.

As time passes, they finally come across human life: a very primitive human society that has no form of communication. They assume they can run this society soon enough with their advanced intellect. However, what they were not counting on were the apes who have advanced far beyond the animalistic humans. Apes are the one with language, culture, weapons, and a whole stratified society.

Taylor and his shipmates are hunted down like common animals along with the rest of the mute natives. What ensues is a rather terrifying story following Taylor as he tries to prove his intellect only to be beat up and caged like a common zoo attraction. It feels strange watching the apes speak in common English as they laugh contemptuously at the stupidity of human lifeforms.

However, a pair of scientists (played by Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter) become interested in Taylor and he must fight an uphill battle to prove he is different. It is no easy task with beatings, chains, and court trials. The society is so set in its ways that no one will believe that a human actually can have intelligence. It is utterly impossible. This gives context for the famous insult that Taylor hurls at the apes. It’s the first time a mere human has addressed an ape. Needless to say,  they don’t take it well.

Taylor has enough grit and stubbornness to get what he wants, but only when he has gotten away does he really understand what has happened and where he is. How he didn’t realize it before is a puzzle. Then again, he probably was not the only one blinded. Planet of the Apes works on a number of levels, although it can feel a bit corny. First off, the music of Jerry Goldsmith makes every sequence feel all the more unnerving. The lack of CGI in the panoramic images is a breath of fresh air. I will assume that those cinematic shots were actually real, and they would undoubtedly look fantastic on the big screen. Amazing! Furthermore, Charlton Heston does a decent job as the cynical explorer Taylor and as I noted early on he got the girl. Just not the one I expected.

There are a lot of sequels/prequels to be watched and I will certainly try and get around to them some day because this film was definitely enjoyable. Without a question.

4/5 Stars