Showing posts with label 50s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50s. Show all posts

Saturday, October 12, 2013

A PLACE IN THE SUN 1951

“Life is never quite interesting enough, somehow. You people who come to the movies know that.”                                     Shirley Booth as Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker (1958)

No truer words were ever spoken on the topic of what movies mean to us “dreamers.” I, like a great many film buffs (and as the title of this blog reiterates), am a dyed-in-the-wool dreamer. And for as long as I can remember, the allure of motion pictures for me has been their intrinsic link to the fundamental human need to dream, to long for, to imagine, to aspire to, and to hope.

Because I’m essentially an impractical, head-in-the-clouds fantasist for whom dreams have often proved a contradictory source of my greatest joys and deepest sorrows; I've always been intrigued by the curiously dual nature of dreaming. Dreams are inarguably at the root of all human ambition and invention, possessing the power to ease spiritual pain by way of escapism, inciting creativity, and spurring on the imagination to all manner of human achievement. Yet at the same time, dreams are equally prone to sowing seeds of dissatisfaction...fostering discontent and delusion when they create a hunger and desire for things that can never be attained. 
When I think about it, a great many of my favorite novels seem to be about the pernicious nature of idealism and dreams: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust, and, apropos of this post, Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. Dreiser being specifically the author I find to be the most compelling purveyor of narratives sensitive to the healing/hurtful siren song that is the myth of The American Dream.
Montgomery Clift as George Eastman
Elizabeth Taylor as Angela Vickers
Shelley Winters as Alice Tripp
A Place in the Sun is the story of George Eastman (Clift), the poor-relation nephew of pillar-of-society industrialist Charles Eastman, who flees a dead-end bellhop job in Chicago to be taken on as a worker in his uncle’s bathing suit factory. George is haunted by his stiflingly poor, rigidly religious upbringing, and is drivento an almost pathological degreeto overcome the limitations of his meager education and humble origins. Applying considerable initiative toward his ambitions (evinced by his taking home-study courses and devising plans for factory efficiency in his spare time) George appears at first resigned, albeit restlessly, to work hard for his modest piece of the American Dream. But as bedeviled as George is about his impoverished past, it soon becomes clear that he is equally consumed with the desire for the kind of brass ring life his Eastman lineage dangles teasingly just beyond his grasp.
Locked Out
George Eastman stands dejectedly outside the gate of his uncle's estate, Charles Eastman. The large, ornamental "E" on the gate serving as a caustic reminder of a birthright denied

Ultimately, fate deals George an ironically cruel hand when the realization of all of his ambitions and dreams become certainties (his professional advancement and social acceptance coincide with a blossoming romance with the beautiful and glamorous socialite, Angela Vickers [Taylor]) at the very moment news of his impregnation of Alice, the plain-but-sweet factory co-worker (Winters) just as certainly signals the end to all he has ever hoped for.
While An American Tragedy (both the novel and the original 1931 film, which is said to be the most faithful adaptation) posit George’s dilemma within the parameters of a sociopath’s conundrum: George, not feeling much of anything for either girl, weighs the most selfishly advantageous outcome and plots to rid himself of the problematic pregnant girlfriend. A Place in the Sun’s intentionally romanticized construct encourages the viewer to sympathize/identify with George’s predicament. A device that ultimately (and provocatively) implicates us in the tragic turn of events as they play out.
"The reason they call it 'The American Dream' is that you have to be asleep to believe it."
George Carlin

Theodore Dreiser's pre-Depression era novel An American Tragedy sought to address the accepted American belief that hard work equaled affluence and advancement in a country where nepotism, bloodlines, and arbitrary class/social hierarchies impose distinct limitations. A Place in the Sun uses the false promise of post-war American prosperity as the bait that lures dreamers like George Eastman into believing "the good life" is his for the taking.
It always struck me as a little sad that George, so consumed with achieving his own dreams, never stopped to consider that a romance with a handsome Eastman (even a poor relation) might have felt like a dream come true to a plain factory girl like Alice.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM
A common complaint leveled at A Place in the Sun is that the tension of the film’s central conflict is significantly weakened in having the drab and ultimately annoying Shelley Winters character rendered as such a blatantly unappealing option to the dream-girl perfection of Elizabeth Taylor. The implication being, I suppose, is that if given the opportunity, anyone in his right mind is going to try to drown the sympathetic but whiny Winters if it will help land them the exquisitely beautiful, sweet-natured (and let’s not forget, loaded) Elizabeth Taylor. If that’s true, what does that say about us?
The near-identical beauty of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor emphasizes their compatibility
Therein lies my fascination with A Place in the Sun. Instead of turning Dreiser’s novel into just another crime story with a social commentary overlay, George Stevensdrawing upon the entire arsenal of cinematic devices that helped give Hollywood its reputation as America’s “Dream Factory”idealizes the tale and subtly seduces, making us complicit allies in George’s social-climbing fantasies. He structures the film as an unabashedly romanticized, male Cinderella fairy tale about “fated to be mated” lovers threatened by the ugly specter of poverty and deprivation. The latter is embodied by the likable but difficult-to-root-for Shelley Winters.

With every lovingly-photographed close-up of the impossibly beautiful couple…with every lushly orchestrated romantic idyll captured in passionate tableau…we’re not only encouraged to project our fantasies onto the idealized couple, but to see them as sympathetic souls deserving of having their dreams come true. Something not possible without vilifying the story’s real victim (Winters) as the sole obstacle to their happiness. 
The genius of A Place in the Sun, and why I consider it to be a minor masterpiece, is how, through the juxtaposition of appealing images of wealth and dreary images of poverty, the audience, when faced with the issue of what to do about the blameless but problematic Shelly Winters character, are placed in the same morally ambiguous position as Montgomery Clift.

PERFORMANCES
Only two of the 9 Oscar nominations A Place in the Sun garnered in 1951 were in the acting categories: Best Actor, Montgomery Clift, and Best Actress Shelley Winters (it won a whopping 6 awards, including Best Director for Stevens). The always-impressive Clift brings a heartbreaking vulnerability to what I think is one of his best screen performances. At no moment do you ever feel he is being moved forward by the plot. You can see every thought and motivation play out on his face. 
On A Place in the Sun’s DVD commentary track, much is made of the fact that in taking on the role of the mousy Alice Tripp, blond bombshell Shelley Winters astounded audiences by so playing against type. Winters is, indeed, very good, but if you’re like me and largely unfamiliar with the work of Shelley the sexpot, her role feels right in step with characters she played in a great many of her latter films (1955s The Night of the Hunter comes to mind), and thus her performance doesn't feel like the huge departure it perhaps once did.

If your goal is to make plausible the notion that an otherwise sane man would resort to murder for the love of a woman, you're definitely on the right track if that woman is then 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. What a knockout! Overlooked by the Academy, her performance in A Place in the Sun is rather remarkable. She gives a surprisingly mature performanceone of her best, in factproving to be particularly effective in her later scenes. Taylor would work again with director George Stevens in Giant (1956), and the truly bizarre misfire, The Only Game in Town (1970).


THE STUFF OF FANTASY
My deep affection for A Place in the Sun extends to the way it uses romantic imagery to convey the illusory allure of desire and longing. And by illusory allure, I mean that dreams are only pleasant when they hold out the possibility of coming true. To want for something you can't have tears you apart.
George is frequently photographed surrounded by idealized images of success and wealth
Like the beckoning light on Daisy's dock in The Great Gatsby
George studies high school classes under the flickering neon reminder of the Vickers family fortune
(Above) "Ophelia", John Everett Millais' mid-19th Century painting depicting the drowning death of Shakespeare's heroine, looms ominously over George's head (below) as he ponders: how do you solve a problem like Alice Tripp?


THE STUFF OF DREAMS
A Place in the Sun is one of those rare screen adaptations of a beloved book that captures the author's intent even though it plays fast and loose with the original text. Theodore Dreiser's 1925 novel was turned into a Broadway play in 1926, and a film by Josef von Sternberg in 1931 (for which it is said Dreiser didn't care).  Screenwriters Michael Wilson and Harry Brown adapted the 1951 film, and while faithful adaptations are fine, I love when collaborators are able to stay true to the feel of an artist's work, even when its superficial form has been altered. George Stevens has created a forcefully cinematic film that tells its story with a language all its own. It's beautiful to look at, wonderful to listen to (the Franz Waxman score is a real highlight), and boasts a slew of first-rate performances. It's a near-perfect film.
Near perfect...
Although Raymond Burr, cast as the prosecuting attorney, is actually fine (I guess. It's the same performance he's given for decades), his close association with the Perry Mason character proves a big distraction to me. When he shows up, this absolutely breathtakingly engrossing romantic drama suddenly becomes a TV program.
Similarly, and due to no fault of the actor himself, the casting of Paul Frees as the priest during the film's pivotal final minutes just sticks in my craw. Why? Because as I child, I watched Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on TV for years. Anyone familiar with the show will recognize Frees' distinctive voice as the narrator of a million Disney documentaries. And as he is also the voice of the Ghost Host at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, every time he speaks I'm thrust out of the narrative. Frees' voice is waaaay too hardwired with Disney associations to work on any level for me. Given that he's also the voice of animated no-goodnick Boris Badenov (whom I adore), I suppose I should just be thankful Frees never resorts to speaking in a Pottsylvanian accent.

Watching A Place in the Sun is an immensely pleasurable experience that satisfies no matter what aspect of its story you choose to focus on: the romance, the social commentary, the crime drama, or, my personal preference, the melancholy discourse on the failings of the American Dream. If you haven't seen A Place in the Sun in a while, it's definitely worth another look. If you've never seen it before, well, prepare to be swept away. I am...every time I see it.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 -2013

Thursday, May 23, 2013

ANGEL FACE 1953

As a child, the only film directors whose names and faces I recognized were Alfred Hitchcock and Otto Preminger. Hitchcock: for the obvious reasons (Honestly, was there ever such a talented, yet at the same time, tirelessly self-promoting, self-mythologizing director? One had to wonder when he found time to plot out all those famously intricate shots while still having the energy to chase Tippi Hedren around the set); and Otto Preminger: for his frequent colorful and quotable appearances on television talk shows like Merv Griffin, but especially for his portrayal of supervillain Mr. Freeze, on the Batman TV series.

Based on the quality (or, more accurately, the lack) of his latter-career output (Hurry Sundown, Skidoo, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, Such Good Friends), for the longest time, I considered Otto Preminger more an eccentric TV personality than a serious director. It wasn't until my late-in-life exposure to some of his earlier films on TCM that I came to appreciate the diversity of this filmmaker’s output and the strides many of his films made in the battle against censorship. 

Although I still only enjoy but a handful of the films Preminger directed in his nearly 50-year career, among my favorites is Angel Face. A film, if Hollywood legends are to be believed, green-lighted by RKO studio head Howard Hughes specifically to make life miserable for soon-to-depart contract actress and recent Hughes object-of-obsession, Jean Simmons. (Check out IMDB’s Trivia section for details, or better still, the commentary track on the DVD.)  
Jean Simmons as Diane Tremayne
Robert Mitchum as Frank Jessup
The plot of Angel Face is your typical '50s femme fatale film noir to the point of déjà vu. Yet, one enlivened considerably by a particularly unsympathetic turn by genre stalwart Robert Mitchum, and the pleasingly against-type assaying of the role of an alluring psychopath by the beautiful, but to me, usually ineffectual, Jean Simmons.

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Mitchum) falls for dark-eyed socialite/siren, Diane Tremayne (LOVE that name!) when called to her estate to look into a suspicious case of gas inhalation suffered by Diane’s wealthy stepmother. With surprisingly little effort on her part, the distraught but grateful heiress insinuates herself into the life of Frank and standby girlfriend Mary (Mona Freeman), successfully opening up a chasm between the couple she’s more than willing to step into. In record time, and without alerting the suspicions of the shrewd but somewhat opportunistic Frank, Diane not only gets the laid-back lothario to detail for her the particulars of his love life and professional aspirations (a former race car driver, Frank dreams of opening a garage of his own), but unsubtly unburdens herself to him her own woeful tale of how she and her beloved father (Herbert Marshall) have fallen under the despotic sway of her bridge-club-addicted, purse-strings clutching, wealthy evil stepmother, Catherine (Barbara O’Neil).
Family Plot
Ever-leery moneybags Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil), listens guardedly as Diane (Jean Simmons) transparently campaigns to have hunky ambulance driver Frank Jessup taken on as a personal chauffeur. Meanwhile, emasculated novelist and full-time lapdog Charles Tremayne (Herbert Marshall) just hopes he's not doing anything to draw his wife's ire...like breathing.

Faster than you can say Double Indemnity and before that hearkened-after postman has had a chance to ring even once, Frank and Diane find themselves suspects in a nasty case of double homicide. Was it really an accident? Were they in on it together? Did you ever doubt it for a minute? To fans of the genre, the who, what, where, and whys of the plot won’t come as much of a surprise. What really makes Preminger’s steamy goulash of Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain so much black-hearted fun are its characters. The dark alleys of obsession and fixation Angel Face takes you through are murky with hidden agendas, neurotic pathologies, and the kind of moral cynicism that made noir films such a narrative oasis in the desert of suburban conformity that was Hollywood in the postwar years.
"Do you love me at all? I must know."
"Well, I suppose it's a kind of love. But with a girl like you, how can a man be sure?"

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM
I've always had a thing for film noir. I love all the intrigue, double-crosses, plot twists, and 11th-hour surprise reveals characteristic of the genre, but what has always appealed to me most is the genre's core of nastiness. It always seemed like such a brazen challenge to the Production Code-mandated moral conventions of the day.
In today’s climate of moral relativity, we have iniquity devoid of stakes. Barring an overriding imperative of decency, the kind of bad behavior exemplified by Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown, Lindsay Lohan, and the whole reality show “betray each other to win” mentality, exists within a misanthropic vacuum. That's why I have no patience with contemporary films which revel in the display of bad people behaving badly (cue, Quentin Tarantino); there's no measurable "good" behavior in these films for contrast.
Conversely, film noir works as the yin to the yang of America's idealized self-perception during the '40s and '50s. A time when movies, TV, and advertising all promoted a standard, middle-class image of conformity typified by those “social guidance films” shown in schools back then. 
The Ladies Who Lunch
Diane not-so-innocently sets up a lunch date with Frank's girlfriend, Mary (Mona Freeman), to let her know that Frank was not at all where he said he was the previous night.

The nihilism of film noir stood as a thrilling alternative to all those inevitable happy endings in movies from the 1940s & '50s. It is almost exhilarating to see movies in which people operate out of flagrant self-interest and behave in ways totally unconcerned with bettering society or helping their fellow man. Another nice difference is that so many of the women of film noir are so independent-minded. They're dangerous, sexually aggressive, and exert power over their lives. These extreme cultural contrasts are what give film noir its kick. Without the subtextual context of a repressed culture for the lead characters to rebel against, film noir would be like a great many of the movies and TV programs of today: just a bunch of unsympathetic people meeting bad ends.
Otto Preminger would revisit the theme of a close father/daughter relationship threatened by
 a stepmother in 1958s Bonjour Tristesse  

PERFORMANCES
Prior to seeing Angel Face, I’d read so many accounts of how unhappy Jean Simmons was during the making of the film that I leapt to the assumption that her portrayal of a wicked vamp was one of those against-type embarrassments like Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun (Simmons' embarrassment would come many decades later, as Helen Lawson in the 1981 TV version of Valley of the Dolls). I couldn't have been more wrong. Although I've only seen Simmons in a handful of films (she’s particularly appealing and her versatility shines in 1953s The Actress), her Angel Face femme fatale is one of her strongest, most persuasive screen performances. 
As the always-plotting Diana, Jean Simmons' somewhat remote, coy appeal is used to great effect in Angel Face 
Of course, Simmons’ performance is greatly enhanced by the chemistry she shares with co-star, Robert Mitchum. A sleepy-eyed hunk o’ burnin' love a person doesn't need Method Acting to believably express a sexual obsession over. Mitchum may not be an actor with a particularly broad range, but within that range, there’s not another leading man who can touch him. In the films I consider to be his best: Angel Face, Out of the Past, His Kind of Woman, Cape Fear, and The Night of the Hunter, Mitchum's slouching brand of masculine charisma has always revealed a hint of vulnerable malleability. Either that or outright sexual menace. In either instance, he dominates the screen with a natural ease that makes him a charismatic, fascinating actor to watch.
Fave character actor Leon Ames plays defense attorney Fred Barrett. A reversal of his chores in 1946s The Postman Always Rings Twice.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Fans of film noir generally agree that much of the genre’s predominately male perspective is fueled by a fear of women. Perhaps that’s what makes them so entertaining. It's like the male id unleashed...a woman with any kind of power perceived only as a threat to manhood. Indeed, unlike the self-sacrificing heroines of the popular “women’s films” of the day, the women of film noir tend to call all the shots and are as likely to kill a man as kiss him. Angel Face consistently juxtaposes Frank's loutish neglect of his girlfriend Mary, with his being manipulated and led around by the nose by the scheming Diane. At a time when women held very little social power and were inevitably relegated to supporting, serving, and supplicating, film noir provided one of the few arenas where women were allowed to show some moxie and guts. Alas, because the vast majority of these films were written and directed by males, women with power were also almost always made to pay for their gender transgressions, with "natural order" usually restored by fadeout.
なぜあなたは死んでドロップしない!
Roughly translated, Tremayne household maid Chiyo (Max Takasugi) tells her put-upon husband, Ito (Frank Kamagai) to "Drop dead!"
The world of Angel Face is one where the natural order is corrupted by domineering women (Diane, Catherine, and Chiyo) and emasculated men (Frank, Charles, and Ito, the household butler who laments, "The only trouble with America...it spoils the women!").

Revealing herself to be a far more self-possessed and level-headed character than initially perceived, Mary, having had enough of Frank's seesawing emotions, opts for the solid and loving Bill (Kenneth Tobey), a man who doesn't make her compete for his affections.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
If I were to pick my absolute favorite Otto Preminger movie, it would have to be Bonjour Tristesse (1958), that film is just a dream. But for pure noir bliss, I rate Angel Face above even the superior Laura (1944), which in spite of its excellence, has always seemed a tad too cool and never really has done much for me. Angel Face has the feel of a cheap pulp novel brought to life, complete with its economy of narrative and straight-to-the-point characterizations. While falling short of being a true classic of the genre, it stands as an example of the genre at its best. A fast and dark thrill ride through the Hollywood Hills...but I'd skip the short-cuts if I were you.



Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2013

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME 1955

The musical biopic, as a genre, is one grown so homogeneous and formulaic over the years, even films I’m seeing for the first time have a sense of déjà vu about them. Irrespective of the subject or its title - The Helen Morgan Story, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, Funny Girl, Star!, or Lady Sings The Blues - these films hew so closely to a standard Hollywood rags-to-riches soap opera blueprint that their basis in biographical fact matters, at most, only tangentially. 
Doris Day as Ruth Etting
James Cagney as Martin (Moe the Gimp) Snyder
Cameron Mitchell as Johnny Alderman
For a public never tiring of being fed endless variations on the same Horatio Alger myth, celebrities and their alternately sordid/glamorous life stories have long been a wellspring of source material for Hollywood's dream machine. Hollywood and the old studio system has always trafficked in the wholesale packaging and commodification of reassuring fantasies designed to both titillate and tranquilize. And as such, movie biographies, musical or otherwise, have never really been about the actual lives of their chosen subjects so much as they were middle-class cautionary tales detailing the perils of pursuing the very sort of fame, glamour and wealth that make going to the movies so alluring in the first place. These interchangeable tales of sin and sequins always start out advocating the virtues of hard work, talent, and ambition; only to pull a moralistic about-face in the last reel, revealing the brass ring of success to be only nickel plate.

America’s perverse love/hate relationship with celebrity demands that our glorification of wealth and notoriety never be rewarded with stories about famous people who are actually happy. In the end, it always seems as if our innate puritanism gets the better of us, allowing only for the depiction of stardom as a fundamentally empty, joyless kind of ambition. A goal fraught with heartache and awash with tears behind the tinsel.
Love Me or Leave Me follows a similar course, but distinguishes itself by making the road it takes toward its anticipated comforting conclusion one of the bitterest and bumpiest I've ever encountered in an MGM musical.
The biographical musical's claim to being "Life-inspired," "Told as it really happened," or "Based on a true story," is less an assertion of verisimilitude so much as a marketing ploy allowing for the recycling of "showbiz melodrama" tropes dating back as far as 1929's Broadway Melody.

If queried about its track record of making biographical films that bear little to no resemblance to the actual lives of their subjects, Hollywood’s response would most likely be along the lines of: “If you want facts, go see a documentary!” And indeed, dramatic interest and entertainment value always trumps truth in movie bios. And so it goes with Love Me or Leave Me, the reasonably accurate (read: mostly made-up ) story of Ruth Etting, popular jazz singing star of the '20s and '30s.
During the 1920s and '30s, Ruth Etting gained fame as "America's Radio Sweetheart" and  "America's Sweetheart of Song."

When we first meet Ruth Etting (Doris Day), it’s the 1920s and she’s working as a taxi dancer in a seedy Chicago dime-a-dance dive that’s being squeezed by small-time racketeer Marty Snyder (James Cagney). Recognizing an opportunity for exploitation when he sees one, Snyder attempts to put a squeeze of another sort on the spunky, well-put-together Etting after she's sacked for defending herself against the physical advances of an over-ardent customer. In a romantic song-and-dance as old as Herod and as topical as an episode of Judge Judy; Snyder hopes to curry the favor of Etting through the gracious bestowing of a lot of strings-attached assistance. Although initially apprehensive, Ruth, a woman not unfamiliar with bread and knowing upon which side hers is buttered, soon finds herself the begrudging recipient of the diminutive mobster’s largesse. (That sentence reads smuttier than perhaps intended.)
As Martin Snyder, Cagney adds another memorable character to his Rogues Gallery of cinema bad guys. My favorite character touch: Snyder's inability to remember Ruth Etting's last name (he calls her "Ettling" for the longest time!)

In spite of an awareness of Snyder's increasingly possessive actions on her behalf being motivated by a romantic interest she cannot return, Etting—the nakedly opportunistic possessor of both a burning ambition to be a singer and a moral compass desperately in need of adjustment—nevertheless permits the gangster to bankroll and promote her career while she strings him along. Not exactly a problem until continued success incites in the songstress a longing for independence that increases in direct proportion to Snyder’s obsessive need to control her every waking moment. Further fanning the flames of discontent is the ongoing flirtation between Etting and onetime on-the-Snyder-payroll pianist, Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell). Yes, for a brief period, both Etting and Alderman are being paid by Snyder while making goo-goo eyes at one another behind his back. A mobster, an opportunist, and a double-crosser: what a lovable cast of characters!
Although Love Me or Leave Me was made with the compensated consent of then-living Martin Snyder, Ruth Etting, and Myrl Alderman (changed to "Johnny" for the film), upon the film's release Etting is said to have dismissed the film as "Half fairy tale." 

That I even enjoyed spending time in the company of three such largely unsympathetic and self-interested individuals is a testament to the irreproachable charm of both Doris Day and James Cagney; the tuneful score of period standards made famous by Etting; and the obfuscating dexterity of Daniel Fuchs Oscar-winning story and Isobel Lennart’s (Funny Girl) Oscar-nominated screenplay.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM
If the above statement gives the impression that I’m less than thrilled by Love Me or Leave Me’s somewhat flinty cast of characters, let me clarify that nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, the hard-bitten characterizations and refreshingly cynical tone of Love Me or Leave Me place it far beyond the pale of your typical, sentimental, MGM musical fare. And by me, that is just fine. I truly love movie musicals, but a rarely-discussed downside to this pop-cultural predilection of mine is how frequently I'm forced to endure the most cloyingly false and saccharine plotlines just to get to the singing and dancing. Love Me or Leave Me is such an atypically dark depiction of ambition and obsessive love that one immediately senses that there is no way a film this sordid would ever be green-lighted were it not purportedly based on true events.
Doris Day has had just about enough of your shit.

Succeeding where Martin Scorsese’s not-dissimilar New York, New York failed, Love Me or Leave Me finds the humanity behind its hard-boiled characters and delivers a solid musical drama that takes an unflinching look at the kind of relationship that is doubtless more common in show business than we're usually shown. It all makes for a remarkably gripping viewing experience as anticipated romantic clinches and cliches are dashed left and right by characters with scarcely a sentimental bone in their bodies. Chiefly due to the powerhouse performances of Doris Day & James Cagney, what might otherwise be abhorrently unpleasant material becomes truly compelling human drama. Marred only by the occasional lapse into perhaps Production Code-mandated, tacked-on morality.
Although the film's production values are all top notch, one has to keep reminding oneself that Love Me or Leave Me is set in the 1920s. The musical and visual tone is decidedly '50s. Doris Day's big musical number,"Shaking the Blues Away," owes more to Judy Garland's "Get Happy" number in Summer Stock (1950) than The Ziegfeld Follies.

PERFORMANCES
If you’re a fan of the extensive catalog of mobsters, hoods, and mugs that made James Cagney one of the biggest stars at Warner Bros. in the '30s & '40s, then his performance in Love Me or Leave Me might feel like a late-career “best of” reprisal of the kind of roles he near-copyrighted in his heyday (Cagney was 55 at the time). Fair enough. For Cagney doesn't do a lot here that he hasn't done before. But whether his pugnacious, poignantly lovesick Moe the Gimp is your first or fiftieth exposure to James Cagney onscreen, there’s no getting past the fact that the man kicks serious ass. Looking very much throughout the film like a fist with eyes, Cagney—whether combative, funny, wounded, or monstrous—is such a magnetic, menacing, and dynamic a presence, you literally can’t take your eyes off of him.
I never fail to marvel at Cagney's ability to create sympathetic monsters. As versatile an actor as they come, Cagney could have you rooting for a character in one scene and booing him in the next. Pictured here with character actor Harry Bellaver, Cagney gives one of those looks you really wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of.

I’m a Doris Day fan from way back. But unlike most, my least favorite films of hers are those so-called sophisticated sex comedies she made with that interchangeably bland lineup of lantern-jawed stiffs: Rock Hudson, Rod Taylor, and James Garner. I know I’m alone in this, but I've always felt Doris Day—an actress of untapped versatility and an effortless appeal that made her considerable talent all too easy to dismiss—was sabotaged throughout her career by always being paired with handsome-but-dull leading men. Doris had a lot more danger and sex behind that million-dollar smile than she was ever able (or willing) to take advantage of, but in Love Me or Leave Me, she more than rises to the occasion.

She delivers what is to me the best performance of her career and meets Cagney’s intensity head to head. She drinks, she's tough, she fires off her hard-bitten dialogue as if to the manner born, and she's one helluva crier (her sobs are so body-wracking they break your heart). There’s no way to look at her work here and not wish she had ventured into more dramatic roles in her career. (Perhaps the story is apocryphal, but if it’s true Doris Day was offered the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduatebased on her performance here, more's the pity she didn't accept it.)
In this particularly harrowing scene, Doris Day is nothing short of phenomenal. How she failed to receive an Oscar nomination for her performance is a mystery (of the film's 6 Oscar nods, Cagney's was the only nomination in the acting categories). The scenes these two share crackle with a vibrancy and tension thoroughly absent from Day's scenes with Cameron Mitchell. Day and Cagney had previously appeared together in the 1950 musical, The West Point Story.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Lest one begin to think Love Me or Leave Me is nothing but a lot of sturm und drang, rest assured that things are enlivened considerably by a passel of songs Doris Day gets to sing and dance to (quite marvelously, I might add). Although the songs are period-perfect, the arrangements are strictly 1950s, and Ms. Day sounds absolutely nothing like Ruth Etting, which is all to the better since she looks nothing like her either. Day is in fine voice and for once her spectacular figure is shown off to full advantage...in a series of sexy, form-fitting gowns totally wrong for the 1920s, but who's complaining?
A staple of show-biz biographies is the played for laughs "starting at the bottom" scene where the neophyte star "amusingly" ruins a musical number by not knowing the steps. In Funny Girl it was "Roller Skate Rag," in Star! it was "Oh! What a Lovely War." In Love Me or Leave Me, Doris flubs the dance steps to "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?" Curious how in all of these scenes the least experienced dancer is always placed front and center.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
Tossing aside any need for Love Me or Leave Me to actually be a historically/narratively accurate biography of Ruth Etting (If you must, you can see and hear her on YouTube, and read her considerably seamier story online), I have to say that I have nothing but praise for this film. In fact, I admire it a great deal and consider it to be one of the best of the overworked musical biopic genre. It isn't often that a mere musical offers up so gloomy a portrait of obsession, or showcases characters of such ambiguously complex motives and attachments.
Love Me or Leave Me's old-school, MGM gloss is considerable, but there's a maturity to the whole enterprise which more than makes up for the film's occasional adherence to by-the-numbers movie bio plotting. In a way that feels very contemporary now but must have been jarring in 1955, Love Me or Leave Me maneuvers its tricky shifts in tone expertly. The songs never bring the story to a halt and the drama always feels honest (sometimes brutally so) to the characters.

Of course, what brings me back to Love Me or Leave Me time and time again are the performances of Doris Day and James Cagney. Who would ever guess that Doris Day could be so rivetingly sexy playing sullen and cynical? And as for Cagney...well, they don't make 'em like him any more. A polished diamond in the rough if there ever was one.

Copyright © Ken Anderson

Sunday, March 31, 2013

QUEEN BEE 1955

In the overheated melodrama Queen Bee, the Joan Crawford we’re given is one so seemingly tailor-made for the post-Mommie Dearest crowd; I find myself hard-pressed to even imagine how this film was received before Crawford became a camp punchline. Who was its intended audience? Certainly, its dominant female lead and soap-opera histrionics qualify it as a late entry in the “woman’s film” genre so popular in the '40s. But the camp factor is pitched so high in Queen Bee, at times, the entire enterprise feels like a well-financed drag act pandering to Crawford’s legion gay fan base. Like All About Eve (1950), Queen Bee seems to be operating on two levels at all times: 1) The straightforward southern-fried potboiler (the least interesting level); 2) The gay-friendly parade of camp-diva posturing, elaborate costuming, and bitchy dialogue.

But whether self-aware or inadvertent, the ever-present gay sensibilities that make Queen Bee such a rip-snorter of an entertainment are thanks solely to Joan Crawford ruling the roost in full female drag queen mode. Always in charge, always fascinating to watch, in Queen Bee, Crawford rolls out the entire arsenal of her patented, crowd-pleasing shtick: mannered delivery, mannish countenance, slaps to the faces of co-stars, pointed barbs delivered with haughty disdain, menacing eyebrows, teary-eyed close-ups…the works! And delivered as reliably and on cue as though she were taking requests from the audience.
Joan Crawford as Eva Phillips
Barry Sullivan as Avery Phillips
Betsy Palmer as Carol Lee Phillips
John Ireland as Judson Prentiss
Lucy Marlow as Jennifer Stewart
Based on the 1949 novel The Queen Bee by Edna Lee, Queen Bee is a curiosity in that its plot, upon reflection, seems to have no real point to it. It's like a monster movie in which an unprovoked evilembodied by a beast of single-minded malevolenceis introduced purely for the fun of watching the havoc it can wreak, then quickly dispatched so that normalcy can be regained. Eva Phillips is the monster in question (Joan Crawford, surprise!), a character whose sole defining character trait is Bitch on Wheels, with little to no variance or shading. Eva is a southern socialite who tricked her way into the moneyed Phillips clan (true to Joan Crawford movie tradition, Eva comes from humble beginnings) and is hell-bent on making everyone pay for their part in having made her feel like an outsider.
This manifests itself in her pathologically keeping a mean-spirited, ankle-strapped heel on the necks of anyone foolish enough to stay under her roof. In spite of the fact that her behavior seems to gain her very little, Eva gives herself over to it with spontaneity and enthusiasm. Something her victims seem to mind a great deal, but not so much that it ever occurs to any of them to leave the comfy confines of the Phillips mansion/plantation.
Eva Phillips, spreading joy wherever she goes 
It's gently alluded to that Eva's contemptibility stems from a frustration born of her embittered, guilt-ridden husband Avery (Sullivan), having emotionally and sexually abandoned their marriage to retreat into the bottle. You see, in order to wed Eva, Avery jilted his then-fiancé, Sue McKinnon (the lovely Fay Wray in a small role); one-time southern belle, now local Ruby Red Dress. It's nice Eva's one-note biliousness has been given a backstory by way of exposition, but considering Eva dumped Avery's best friend, Jud (Ireland), for the bigger fish that was Avery (by way of a faked pregnancy), it's clear she was quite a piece of work to begin with.


WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM
People I know who are unfamiliar with Queen Bee are always surprised when I set about summarizing the plot, for it truly boils down to merely 95 minutes of Joan Crawford behaving badly. That's it. For the average moviegoer, that's a mighty slim entertainment prospect. For a guy like me, a man capable of simultaneously appreciating Crawford as both a talented, underrated actress and a laugh-a-minute camp-fest, Queen Bee is the gold-standard. In earlier essays on the films Harriet Craig and Mommie Dearest, I've explained a bit what it is about Joan Crawford that so appeals to me. Suffice it to say that there has never been anyone quite like her before or since, and a true original is hard to resist. I love her when she's really on her game and delivering a solid, serious performance (she's terrific in A Woman's Face), but I'm just as gaga when she succumbs to excess and self-parody, as she does here. She's Joan Crawford, she doesn't have to be anything else!
A slap in a Joan Crawford movie is as sure and anticipated
 as a back-lit close-up in a Barbra Streisand movie.

PERFORMANCES
If it's a Joan Crawford movie, it's a pretty safe bet that the only star one is apt to walk away from the film singing the praises of is Joan Crawford. In Queen Bee, Crawford dominates the movie screen with the same iron will she dominates the lives of the Phillips household. And I couldn't be happier about it. When playing bad, both Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis are more adept at delivering performances that are dimensional and based within a recognizable reality. But Crawford's appeal for me is how she so often plays everything (her character's highs and lows) in such boldface type. She's unsubtle and frequently full-tilt over the top, but I find her to be SO magnetic a screen personality. I love watching her. I just wish I knew whether my adoration was ironic or not.
A scene where we get to watch the tears well up in her eyes
is always a favored part of any Joan Crawford movie.

Ingenue Lucy Marlow (is that a great name for an actress, or what?), considerably deglamorized from the first time I saw her in A Star is Born (1954), does fine with a purposely colorless role (Eva: "Jen, you really must learn to join in conversations. Otherwise you give such a mousy impression!"), and while not being a particular favorite of mine, should be credited with not simply fading into the woodwork. Toothsome Betsy Palmer, whom I barely recognized without a game show panelist podium in front of her, is rather appealing and wins camp points for playing her role as Avery's sister Carol with so much misdirected ponderousness.
Taking the proceedings all-too-seriously, Palmer actually comes close to achieving the impossible ...overacting opposite Crawford! When not trying to wise up the wide-eyed Phillips house newbie to the pernicious ways of the Queen Bee, her character is otherwise a walking bullseye target for Eva's frequent scorn (Eva:"My, Carol, you look sweet! Even in those tacky old riding clothes!").
King Kong's inamorata, Fay Wray, makes a brief but welcome appearance as Sue McKinnon, a left-standing-at-the-altar, Blanche Dubois type. Although the film is set in Atlanta, GA., Wray is the only actor considerate enough to supply us with a southern accent.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
When Christina Crawford gave Crawford fans and detractors the heads-up about Harriet Craig and Queen Bee supplying the closest (not to mention safest) glimpses into what real life was like inside the Crawford household, both films rose to the top of my must-see list. No one will ever know the truth of all that Christina disclosed in her book, but I tell you this, these films make a hell of a double feature. Based exclusively on what Joan Crawford's image has become of late, both films bear that indelible stamp of re-enacted documentary. You can't watch either without your mind going to some bit of nightmarish lore attached to the whole Mommie Dearest legend. Depending on your taste for celebrity self-exposure, this can come off as either highly entertaining or uncomfortably squirm-inducing.
In this scene where Eva lays waste the bedroom of a particularly disliked in-law, it doesn't take much imagination to picture one of those "night raids" so vividly evoked in Christina Crawford's memoir, Mommie Dearest.

And for those who are most familiar with Joan through Faye Dunaway's portrayal of the actress in the legendary Mommie Dearest, there's still plenty of déjà vu cross-referencing to call your grip on truth and illusion into question.
A criticism consistently leveled at Mommie Dearest on its release was how many scenes appeared to have been culled from Crawford's films, and not her life. I have no idea what Crawford's real-life home looked like, but these staircase scenes definitely suggest that someone on the Mommie Dearest production team did a little of their research by way of The Late, Late Show. 
The Jean Louis costumes for Queen Bee were one of two Oscar nominations the film received (the other, Best Cinematography). Here in the center image, you see Faye Dunaway sporting a Jean Louis-inspired creation (and a  Joan Crawford-inspired expression) in Mommie Dearest

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
Perhaps it's a sign of age, but the soporific blandness of so many contemporary "movie stars" is one of the reasons Joan Crawfordconsidered by many to be more a defined screen personality than an actressis starting to look better to me with each film. The dull beigeness of actors like Channing Tatum, Jennifer Aniston, and Ryan Reynolds, makes me long for Crawford's brand of imposed-personality intensity.
Although John Ireland brings a kind of perpetually peeved severity to his role, and I'm fascinated with Barry Sullivan's ability to deliver most of his dialogue through clenched teeth; true to form for movies with strong female leads, the males are an oddly bland and wooden bunch.

Joan Crawford is first and foremost a star. And a movie like Queen Bee needs a true star at the helm. Obviously relishing every moment, Crawford isn't stretching very far with her performance here, but in tapping into the character's narcissism and malicious manipulativeness with such fiery gusto, one can't help but admire her style and commitment even as you're giggling at her mannered excesses (hell, this is the actress who approached even her role in Trog with straight-faced earnestness). Although I would truly love it were I to detect a note of knowing self-parody in Crawford's Eva Phillips, I nevertheless enjoy her performance here very much. It has command, humor, touches of pathos, and there's a scene or two where she borders on the terrifying. I only recently discovered Queen Bee through TCM, but I have since placed it at the top of my list of all-time favorite Joan Crawford films.
The Queen Bee...who stings all her rivals to death.

Bonus Materials
Hear Barbra Streisand sing QUEEN BEE from A Star is Born (1976) the unofficial theme song to "Queen Bee." For Joan Crawford screening parties, may I suggest playing this over the film's closing credits for full camp diva effect. Begin music immediately after Barry Sullivan says the line: "The sun is shining. I didn't expect the sun to be shining." Click Here.

Hey, Pepsi fans! Joan Crawford appears in and narrates this 1969 Pepsi-Cola-sponsored video. A kinder and gentler Joan (who, oddly enough, comes off as even more terrifying) visits a supermarket...complete with hat, gloves, and a really obnoxious kid! The fact that she doesn't wallop the just-asking-to-be-slapped child is a testament to Mommie Dearest's control. (At least when a camera is around.) Click Here!
The Queen of Showmanship herself. (Image courtesy of Joancrawfordbest.com)

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2013