Mean Streets (1973) Martin Scorsese

    Every serious film lover sees a film that once in awhile affects you so deeply that it changes your life. You look at the screen and you say to yourself, yes this is what it is all about, this is why I love movies; this is why I sit through so many crappy films searching for the one that moves me to high levels never reached before. “Mean Streets” is one of those films. It is not perfect. It is not Scorsese’s greatest film, it does not have to be, it is what it is, a personal work by a young filmmaker that reflects a time and a place that connected with me deeply.     

    The first Martin Scorsese film I ever saw was “Who That Knocking at My Door” back in September 1969 at the Carnegie Hall Cinema, a movie theater located beneath the famed Carnegie Hall. At the time, the theatre showed mostly art house, foreign, independent and classic films. I was home on leave from the Army, having just completed Basic Training and AIT, trying to avoid thinking about where I was going to be next month (Vietnam) by losing myself  in as many movies as I could. And if you want to lose yourself in movies, New York City is the best place to be other than maybe Paris.

     I must have read a review of the film in a newspaper and the synopsis of a young Italian-American kid living on the streets of Little Italy struggling with life’s complexities (girls, Catholic guilt) appealed to me on a personal level.  The film was amazingly unlike just about any other I had ever seen. The fact that the filmmaker was this Italian-American guy, like me, and he wrote and directed the film made it even more enticing. My wildest fantasies were coming true, only it was Martin Scorsese who was living it.  I never forgot the film or the name Scorsese as I went off to Vietnam, survived and went on with my life, when in 1972; a Roger Corman produced film called “Boxcar Bertha” came out and I noted the director’s name, Martin Scorsese. Hmm…  The film was typical King of the B’s Corman stuff, maybe somewhat better than most of his films filled with the prerequisite amount of violence and sex, all the good things low-budget filmmaking does best.

    Then came October 1973.

    Scorsese wrote the script for “Mean Streets” along with his friend and fellow NYU student, Mardik Martin with whom he collaborated with previously on some of his short films. In his book, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Briskind states the two friends sat in Martin’s Valiant during a cold winter and wrote the script. Much of the story is from Scorsese’s own experiences growing up in Little Italy. During the filming of “Boxcar Bertha” Scorsese tried to interest Corman into financing his next film. However, Corman would agree only if Marty changed all the characters to black. Fortunately, for all he found other financing from Jonathan Taplin, then a road manager for the rock group, “The Band.”   

    Scorsese hired Harvey Keitel to play Charlie Cappa, in time to film the San Gennaro festival, which takes place every October in Little Italy. He then offered Robert DeNiro a choice of any of the other roles in the film. The two originally met when teenagers but did not hang out together, DeNiro the child of two artists, grew up in Greenwich Village though he spent much of his time in the Little Italy neighborhood next door. He had seen Scorsese’s first feature “Who’s That Knocking at my Door” and was impressed with the film’s accurate portrayal of life in Little Italy.  After some discussions and a meeting with Keitel, who suggested he play Johnny Boy, it was settled.

    “Mean Streets” does not have much of a plot; it focuses on Charlie Cappa a small time collector for his Uncle Giovanni (Cesare Danova), the local Don. Charlie also has taken personal responsibility for Johnny Boy, an anarchistic simple-minded hothead who is in debt some two thousands to local loan sharks. Charlie is also having an affair with Johnny Boy’s epileptic cousin Theresa (Amy Robinson).

    Part of what drives “Mean Streets” is the interaction between the two protagonists whose improvised street-wise dialogue has a free form jazz like quality. Just listen to the Joey Clams/Frankie Bones monologue between Charlie and Johnny Boy.  Scorsese encouraged his actors to improvise, much of it worked on during rehearsals, which contributes to the film’s tempo. It helped that along with Scorsese, DeNiro and Keitel, some of the others in the cast grew up in similar New York neighborhoods and were familiar with the type of environment portrayed on screen.

    Little Italy and its inhabitants were an enclave unto themselves, living a mostly separate existence from the rest of the city, insulated from the rest of the world. Outsiders were foreign and not wanted.  Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” shows us a world mixed with the old country and the new, a hybrid that never fully integrated. This is evident even in the superb use of music where the soundtrack combines the old (Opera), the traditional (Italian) and the modern (Rock and Roll).

    Early in the film, Charlie enters a local bar owned by Tony (David Proval), sharply dressed, confident; he is greeted like a king. He dances to the beat of The Rolling Stones “Tell Me”, shaking hands with associates and friends, swaying to the music. Gliding through the room, he makes his way to the stage joining two topless dancers. This is Charlie’s world, he is the center of attention, and he is a man in his element.

    Yet, Charlie is conflicted; he needs to reconcile his Catholic upcoming with his outlaw life. “Taking care” of Johnny Boy is Charlie’s attempt at redemption for his lifestyle. He knows that praying his ten “Hail Mary’s” and ten “Our Fathers” every week after confession is useless. As the voice over (Scorsese) at the beginning of film says, “You don’t pay for your sins in church; you pay for them in the streets.  Charlie is also conflicted with the women in his life. He is attracted to the black topless dancer and arranges a date with her, only when the time comes he stands her up knowing that in his world he can’t get involved with a black woman. He is already involved in a delicate relationship with the epileptic Theresa, who his Uncle disapproves of, telling him she’s crazy. Charlie, like many of Scorsese’s men has a Madonna/Whore complex. He resents Theresa’s independence. He chastises her for her vulgar language, which he and his cronies use all the time. He gladly has sex with her but fears a lasting relationship and his Uncle’s wrath. Theresa is in love with Charlie and she wants out of the neighborhood. She wants Charlie to commit to her and wants them to move uptown away from the neighborhood and into the outside world. Charlie cannot commit and he certainly will not leave the neighborhood. For men like Charlie, the neighborhood is everything.  

    Charlie’s relationship with Johnny Boy will lead to its inevitable violent ending. Johnny Boy’s disrespect to the local loan sharks like Michael (Richard Romanus) cannot be peacefully negotiated forever. While Charlie “protects” Johnny Boy, he will not go the distance, that is talk to his Uncle, who thinks Johnny Boy is a flake and dangerous, and is the only one who can ease the volatile situation with the loan sharks.

    Scorsese shows us a world where violence can erupt at any moment as it does in the now well-known “Mook” scene. Here we see Charlie and his boys go to a local pool hall to make a collection. The owner is happy to pay until one of the guys calls another a “mook.” While no one is sure, what’s a “mook” they are sure it’s an insult and soon a brawl breaks out between the two groups as The Marvelettes “Please Mr. Postman” blast away on the soundtrack. Scorsese’s mobile camera is in the middle of the mix as we watch these guys battle each other, Johnny Boy jumping on a pool table swinging a broken cue stick and kicking wildly. The police break it up but are paid off not to press any charges. As the cops leave, the two sides agree to have a drink together; however before you know it, another fight breaks out.    

    Scorsese poured himself into this film; Charlie is Marty’s on screen surrogate. There are indicators throughout the film most obviously with the lead character’s name. Charlie was Scorsese’s father’s name and Cappa was his mother’s maiden name. Like Scorsese, Charlie likes movies, twice we see him in a movie theater. Also, Charlie’s struggle with religion versus his outside life reflects the young Scorsese’s own internal battle.

    Influenced by the cinema verite documentary movement of the 1960’s, the French New Wave as well as by film noir of the 1940’s (Charlie’s Uncle watches Lang’s “The Big Heat” on TV) film critics greeted the film with warm open arms. Pauline Kael in The New Yorker called “Mean Streets”, “a true original of our period, a triumph of personal filmmaking.” Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times,   “No matter how bleak the milieu, no matter how heartbreaking the narrative, some films are so thoroughly, beautifully realized they have a kind of tonic effect that has no relation to the subject matter. Such a film is Mean Streets…” “Mean Streets” premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1973 and opened two weeks later exclusively at the Cinema 1 theater on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the film did not do well at the box office, it may have been too New York, too isolated to the tribal rituals of Italian-Americans or too blue collar. Finally, the film is not so much a gangster film as a coming of age story.

    Amazingly, most of this New York film was shot in Los Angeles for budgetary reasons. Scorsese only shot about six days of exteriors in New York, including the annual San Gennaro festival in Little Italy. In addition, the tenement building shots were filmed in New York because of their authenticity and atmosphere. In those six days of filming Scorsese crammed in a lot of Little Italy including the old St. Patrick’s Cathedral and even a drive by shot of the Waverly Theater (now the IFC) in Greenwich Village.

    Unlike “The Godfather”, which deals with the upper echelons of the mob world and mythologizes the gangster lifestyle “Mean Streets” give you a view of small time marginal thugs living in Little Italy. As influenced as Scorsese was by those who came before, “Mean Streets” would go on to influence filmmakers of the next generation.

    From the opening pounding beat of Ronnie Spector’s voice singing “Be My Baby” to the final bloody ending “Mean Streets” is one of the great rides in cinema. I love it.

The Steel Helmet (1951) Sam Fuller

This is a revised version of a review originally written for Halo-17

 He has been called guerrilla filmmaker, a primitive filmmaker and a tabloid filmmaker. Whatever title you want to label him with, Sam Fuller’s “The Steel Helmet” is a low budget masterpiece made for $100,000 in 10 days, and it may just be the most honest and brutal look at war ever put on film.  Produced, directed and written (he used his own diaries as source material) by Fuller, “The Steel Helmet” is the story of a battle weary Sergeant known only as Zack the sole survivor in his unit, massacred by the North Koreans.  As portrayed by Gene Evans, a World War II veteran himself, Zack is cynical, bad-tempered and unemotional. The film opens with Fuller’s camera focusing in an extreme close-up of a bullet-ridden helmet. As the camera pulls back, we see the dirt filled face of an American soldier underneath. We not sure at first if he is alive or dead. He starts to crawl hoping to avoid any potential lingering enemies. Suddenly, we see a pair of legs in peasant pants with a rifle hanging down by his side. Like us, Zack is at first unsure who the legs and the gun belong to. Fortunately, they belong to a sympathetic young Korean orphan who will tag along with Zack as he tries to make his way back to safe territory. The kid is soon nicknamed Short –Round (Guess where Spielberg and Lucas borrowed the name for the young kid in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”).

 The two make there way through the foggy terrain soon meeting up with a black American soldier, Corporal Thompson (James Edward), a medic, and escaped POW. Together they move on, eventually meeting up with a rag tag squad of American soldiers led by an arrogant, by the book, Second Lieutenant named Driscoll (Steve Brodie). Zack takes an instant dislike to the shake and bake officer. As a harden World War II veteran he resents Driscoll whose only credentials for being an officer are six months of training and an Act of Congress. When Driscoll ask Zack to lead his unit to a deserted Buddhist Temple, Zack refuses, telling them they’ll have to make it on their own. Zack does have his Achilles heel though, cigars. Offered a box of cigars, he reluctantly agrees to lead them. Once at the Temple, they set up an observation post, which they use to direct artillery attacks on the enemy. The North Koreans eventually zero in on where the American firepower is directed from and a vicious deadly battle takes place.

Fuller has filled the screen with brutal battle scenes presenting one of the harshest views of the realities of war. Bloody, horrific and deadly. The men are dirty and scared. There are no heroes, and no cowards, just men trying to survive and survival is precarious.  Fullers American’s are multi-cultural, from different backgrounds, filled with misfits and offbeat characters. From John Wayne’s patriotic war films to Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan”, we have seen the unit composed of the misfit, the hotheaded kid, the kid from Brooklyn, the kid from the mid-west, the pacifist and so on. What makes “The Steel Helmet” unique is a coarse quality that filters throughout separating it from the others. This coarseness is apparent in most of Fuller’s works and probably due to his tabloid newspaper background.     

Released while the Korean War was still going on, Fuller’s film, a financial hit, was no flag-waving piece of propaganda. The film pulls no punches in dealing with racial issues. In one scene, a captured North Korean Major tries to undermine Corporal Thompson, the black soldier, telling him here he is fighting for America, yet back home he is forced to ride in the back of the bus. Later the major attempts similar type bait with a Japanese-American soldier who he tells is a fool fighting for America since during World War II many Japanese-American citizens were placed in internment camps. This stark honesty in dealing with racial issues was rare and shocking for its time, likewise was Fuller’s vision on the treatment of prisoners of war. When an enemy sniper kills Short Round, the young orphan, and the North Korean Major ridicules the boy’s death, Zack shoots and mortally wounds the POW. When Lieutenant Driscoll threatens Zack with a court-martial after the shooting, Zack grabs, the dying North Korean being treated for his wounds by Corporal Thompson and yells at him “If you die, I’ll kill ya!”

Fuller’s tackling of sensitive issues like racial relations and the treatment of POW’s upset the U.S. Government to such a point the he was put under investigation, even though he served in the First Infantry Division (The Big Red One) during World War II seeing action in North Africa, Sicily and Omaha Beach on D-Day. Politically, Fuller’s film upset both the left and the right each side accusing him of favoring the other.  Despite all this, “The Steel Helmet” was a big hit at the box office.

Gene Evans, in his first starring role, gives an extraordinary performance as the tough, cold, cynical loner who does not let his emotions cloud his survivor instincts.  He survives because he shows no mercy and his only interest is in killing as many “gooks” as he can. There is no political motivation for Zack, no discussion about whether war is right or wrong. This was Evans first role under Fuller’s direction. He would go on to make four more films with Sam, including “Park Row”, “Fixed Bayonets”, “Hell and High Water” and “Shock Corridor.” Also noteworthy is James Edwards who gives a great performance as the war fatigued black medic. “The Steel Helmet” was only Fuller’s third film as a director. This independent production, filmed partially in Los Angles Griffith Park was a financial success with film audiences making over two million dollars and bringing Fuller to the attention of Twentieth Century Fox.

In 1998, soon after the American Film Institute announced their Top 100 American films, “The Steel Helmet” was included in noted critic Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Alternate Top 100 American Films list. Rosenbaum compiled his list as an alternative to the “lackluster” listing provided by the staid and corporate minded AFI. If you are interested in Sam Fuller and his work, a wonderful documentary called “The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera” is certainly worth seeking out.

Cape Fear (1962) J. Lee Thompson

    Max Cady is one of the cinema’s most terrifying villains and no one personifies evil more than Robert Mitchum in this 1962 work. I am a big fan of Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro however,  the 1992 remake while a fine film in of itself is not in the same class as the original film. “Cape Fear” was adapted by screenwriter James R. Webb from John D. MacDonald’s 1958 novel, “The Executioners” and was directed by J. Lee Thompson.

    After serving eight years in prison, Max Cady is released and comes to a small North Carolina town to find Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), a lawyer he holds responsible for his guilty verdict and incarnation. From the first moment Cady appears on screen, he unleashes an assault of vicious menace that flows throughout the entire film. He quickly confronts Sam in his car letting him know he is back in town and out for revenge. He begins to follow Sam, making veiled threats against Sam’s wife and daughter and soon poison’s the Bowden’s dog. Sam attempts to  diffuse the situation when he asks police chief Mark Dutton( Martin Balsam) to intercede and find any excuse to arrest and or run Cady out of town.  However, Cady knows his rights, they cannot arrest him for vagrancy; he has money in the bank.  When that fails Sam hires three thugs to beat Cady up, then he hires a private detective (Telly Savalas). All attempts to convince Cady to leave are in vain. Cady’s one mistake may have been when he seduces and physically assaults a young woman (Barrie Chase) he picks up. However, his sheer terror frightened the girl to such an extent she is too scared to press charges and just wants to get out of town.

    Cady is brazen, face to face with Bowden he insinuates how he will ravish his wife nad daughter. One of the most terrifying scenes occurs when Cady confronts Peggy Bowden (Polly Bergen), Sam’s wife, in the family boat where he cracks a raw egg in his hands and rubs it all over Peggy’s chest. The scene fades leaving you with the impression he is about to rape her. Bergen’s horrified look during the egg smearing is one of total shock and apparently real. The egg cracking and rubbing it across her neck and chest was not in the script and fully unexpected. Director Thompson and Mitchum planned the situation without letting Bergen in on the change in plans. From what I have read, Bergen was a bundle of nerves for a couple of days after filming this scene. The final confrontation is a brutal excruciating confrontation between the two men in the murky waters of Cape Fear.

    The film oozes violent sexual tension right from the beginning. When we first meet Cady, he eyes every woman that walks by like a lion in heat. Mitchum’s sleepy eyes and slow matter just reek with innuendo. Every threat he makes against Bowden’s wife and daughter are overflowing with sexual intimidation. When he eyes the young woman up in the bar, he informs her she got one hour to dump the guy she’s with.  For 1962, this film spill over with sexual tension.

    “Cape Fear” is filled with great performances but it is Robert Mitchum who walks away with the honors. He is just plain scary, and unlike DeNiro’s Max Cady, comes across as a real person and thus his menace is particularly terrifying.  It is a masterful performance, made to look so easy by Mitchum’s “I don’t give a damn” style. Gregory Peck is dogged as the protector of his family, though here he is not quite as righteous as Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, another lawyer he portrayed that same year.  Director Thompson and Gregory Peck, who owned the rights to the book, had to convince Mitchum to accept the role, which he originally turned down. Interestingly, Haley Mills was considered for the role of Nancy, the daughter, but was still under contract to Disney who refused to let her do it. 

    An enormous part of the films success is Bernard Herrmann’s excitingly tense score, which contributes so much to the on edge atmosphere of the film, along with Sam Leavitt’s graphic black and white cinematography. Thompson’s direction is quickly paced with no wasted time moving the film along at an ever nerve wracking pace. 

    In 1992, when Martin Scorsese remade “Cape Fear” he stated that in the original film the Bowden family was too one note, too good and Cady pure evil. In his remake, Scorsese made the Bowden’s victims of martial infidelity and the daughter was no longer the sweet little girl but a rebellious sexy adventuress who is seduced and attracted to the disturbed Cady. He also turned Cady into a bible-frenzied fanatic of doomsday proportions.  The two films make interesting bookends.

Some Like it Hot (1959) Billy Wilder

 

        This is the 50^th Anniversary of “Some Like it Hot’s” release and in commemoration , the Film Forum is showing a new print of the film from Oct 2^nd to Oct 8^th. Additionally, two new books are being released. “The Making of Some Like it Hot” by Tony Curtis and Mark Vieria and “Some Like Hot: The Official 50^th Anniversary Companion”  by Laurence Maulon. 

     Do you remember the first film you ever recorded? I do, it was Billy Wilder’s “Some Like it Hot” way back sometime in the 1960’s. “Wait a minute!” You say, “How can you have recorded it back in the 1960’s when VCR’s did not come out until the late 1970’s?”  Well, it was simple, on a reel-to-reel tape recorder.  I loved this film so much I recorded the entire soundtrack. I use to lay down with headphones on, and listen to the entire movie, visualizing all the scenes.

      Crazy, weird?  Well my parents certainly thought so.

      Needless to say, “Some Like it Hot” is one of my favorite movies, it has stood the test of time. Because of this film, I became a lifelong admirer of both director Wilder and Jack Lemmon. It is a film I never get tired of watching.

     Before and since its release in 1959, there have been many films (“I Was A Male War Bride”, “Tootsie”, “La Cage aux Folles”) and TV shows like (“Bosom Buddies”) that have used men in drag as plot device but none have come close or surpassed “Some Like it Hot” it in its farcical  humor.  The well-known plot is simple, two Chicago musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), in the 1920’s witness The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre after which they decide it might be best for their health if they leave town. The only jobs available are as musicians in an all girl band heading for Florida. It is at the train station they meet Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk (Monroe) a ukulele player and singer with the band. 

    The film begins with an old fashion 1930’s Warner Brothers style shootout. The police are hot in pursuit of a Hearst packed with members of Spats Columbo’s gang. Firepower is exploding from both sides with no concern for innocent passersby. The battle rages until the police car skids and smashes into a poll.  Losing the cops, the hoodlums in the back of the Hearst open up the damaged coffin to find the bullet ridden remains of hundreds of bottles of bootleg booze.

     Inside a speakeasy we meet Joe and Jerry, two musicians whose lives are about to change drastically. Within moments, they will be out of work after a raid by the police. Evading the police during the raid, the now out of work boys  make the rounds of various music agencies only to find out the only jobs for a sax player and bass player are in an All Girls Band or a $6 a piece gig some one hundred miles away. They opt for the long snowy drive borrowing Nellie Wymers car which is parked in a garage where they innocently witness the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Suddenly, the job dressed as women in an All Girls Band, more than a thousand miles away in Florida, does not seem so bad.       

    As they join the band on the train, Joe and Jerry transform into Josephine and Geraldine, who is soon to become Daphne. The “girls” meet the rest of the band on the train including Sugar “Kane” the beautiful singer/ukulele player.

      Once in Florida, Joe in a second disguise as Junior the wealthy son of a millionaire (Shell Oil) attempts to seduce Sugar. Meanwhile Jerry, I mean Daphne is pursued by octogenarian Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) who wants to marry her. Before long the Chicago gangsters show up for a “convention” of the Friends of Italian Opera and well all hell breaks loose leading to the now classic closing line by Osgood after proposing marriage to Daphne who reveals she’s a he.

    “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

    At the time of its release, the Catholic Legion of Decency gave the film a condemned rating (in Kansas, they actually banned the film); subsequently “Some Like it Hot” joined a flock of notable films ruled objectionable to viewing by all Catholics.  This included films like “The Outlaw”, “Black Narcissus”, Fritz Lang’s “M”, “And God Created Woman” and “Baby Doll.”  The big “C” rating usually meant the large Catholic population would stay away from these films and boycott them into oblivion. However, by 1959, the Legion, along with the Motion Picture Production Code was beginning to lose their grip. Audiences, both Catholic and non-Catholic went to see “Some Like it Hot” making it into one of the biggest hits of the year.  So why was “Some Like it Hot” condemned? One three-letter word…sex!

      Billy Wilder and co-screenwriter I.A.L Diamond wrote a script that is not only funny but also loaded with sexual innuendo. The now classic railroad berth scene where Jerry/Daphne plans on a unexpected private slumber party with just him and Sugar turns into an accidental wild party with just about every female band member climbing into the berth ready to party including one flaunting a large salami. The scene progresses into a sea of pajama clad female bodies climbing all over each other, reminiscent of the stateroom scene in The Marx Brothers “A Night at the Opera”, with plenty of booze spilling, inappropriate hand movement and by the end of the scene a frustrated Jerry/Daphne in the middle of a male fantasy gone haywire.  Later on, Joe’s seduction of Sugar aboard Osgood’s yacht where he pretends to be an impotent millionaire speaking with an obvious phony Cary Grant accent. Sugar’s attempts to “revive” the millionaire’s sleeping libido steams up not only his glasses but also the entire movie screen. Meanwhile on shore, Jerry/Daphne and lecherous millionaire Osgood are steaming up the floor with a hot tango.

     So where are we here? We have Joe posing as woman (Josephine) who is  impersonating a guy (Junior) all in an attempt to get Sugar into bed. Jerry is Daphne pursued by a millionaire dirty old mama’s boy and finally there is Sugar who somehow manages to wear a dress that defies gravity and must have been glued to her body.  Anyone familar with Wilder’s work is aware that impersonation is a common theme in his films. In his very first directorial effort, “The Major and the Minor” he had Ginger Rogers posing as a 12-year-old girl. In “Irma La Douce”, Jack Lemmon is a French police officer who poses as an English Lord; Kim Novak was Polly the Pistol, a hooker who becomes a housewife in “Kiss Me Stupid.”

       Acting kudos belong to all three leads. Monroe, rarely given the credit for being a great comedic actress offers a combination of strong womanly sexuality, yet maintains a childlike innocence that manages to make the most explicit double entrendres sound well, innocent.  Sex with Marilyn is exciting but never threatening.

    Jack Lemmon became a major star with this film and found a career partner in Billy Wilder whom he would go on to make six more films. Curtis as Joe was generally overshadowed by Lemmon’s performance, and Monroe’s, yet Curtis is an accomplished comedic actor who has been overlooked throughout his career, not just in comedy but in dramatic parts too. His Cary Grant imitation came about when Wilder asked him if there is anyone, he could imitate. When Curtis said Cary Grant, Wilder was ecstatic; he always wanted to make a film with the suave Grant. This would be as close as he would ever come. Curtis also suffered because of Marilyn’s bad work habits. Her performance would improve after many takes, while Tony was generally at his best in the early takes. Wilder usually went with Marilyn’s best sacrificing Tony’s performance. After all, most eyes were going to be on Monroe.

    Wilder and Diamond’s dialogue just rolls off the tongues of his cast like an expensive bottle of wine. When Joe/Josephine and Jerry/Daphne first spot Sugar walking along the train platform,   Jerry tells Joe, “It’s just like Jell-O on springs! Some sort of built in motor. I tell ya’ it’s a whole different sex.”  The movie is filled with just about one classic scene after another. When Jerry announces to Joe that he is engaged.

Joe asks, “Who’s the lucky girl?”

 “I am” Jerry replies. “Osgood proposed to me. We’re planning a June Wedding.”

“You can’t marry Osgood!” Joe tells him.

“Why? Do you think he’s too old for me?”

Joe tells Jerry he had better lie down.

Jerry replies, “Will you stop treating me like a child. I know there’s a problem.”

“I’ll say there is” Joe said

“His mother, we need her approval. But I’m not worried, because I don’t smoke.”

“Jerry there is another problem. Like what are you going to do on your honeymoon?”

“We’ve been discussing that,” Jerry says, “He wants to go to the Riviera and I kinda lean toward Niagara Falls.”

    Who else but Wilder, and he knew Marilyn’s childlike delivery could get away with it, would write a line like “That’s the story of my life; I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”

    Wilder once swore he would never work with Monroe again. After making “The Seven Year Itch”, Wilder swore up and down he would not make another film with her, claiming life is too short. Yet, here he was with MM again because well, no one was like Marilyn.  She was oblivious to others, not necessarily uncaring just oblivious. Lemmon and Curtis would spend hours getting ready in makeup for the roles and then would still have to wait until Marilyn came out of her trailer. Still when you saw her on the screen, it was magical. Wilder compared her screen presence to Garbo. Speaking of Monroe, there is the scene where she sings “I Wanna Be Love By Love” while wearing what amounts to a see-through gown, so carefully lit that Wilder managed to get it passed the vigilant eyes of the censors.     

    Tony Curtis was pretty much signed up for the film from the start. Wilder originally planned on Frank Sinatra as Joe and Mitzi Gaynor as Sugar. Curtis was originally scheduled to play Jerry. Then Monroe signed on.  Along the way, Sinatra was out and the young and upcoming Jack Lemmon signed on for the role of Jerry. Curtis switched over to the role of Joe. The film was originally to be shot in color, however, after some screen test of the boys dressed as girls were completed, it was decided they would be more believable in black and white. In truth, neither Lemmon nor Curtis was very convincing as women, unlike Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie.” Watching the film recently, I keep getting the feeling that Lemmon looked at times like a deranged combination of Jessica Fletcher and Heath Ledger’s The Joker. They get away with it mainly because “Some Like it Hot” is a farce as opposed to more serious straight comedic film with a message, like “Tootsie.”

    The movie is not just Monroe, Lemmon and Curtis; Wilder pays loving tribute to the Warner Brothers gangster film with George Raft playing Spats Colombo and Pat O’Brien as Police Detective Mulligan. Wilder also used “Little Caesar” alumni George E. Stone in the role of “Toothpick” Charlie. There is a wonderful scene with Raft as Spats and a young thug flipping a coin in the air, Raft’s trademark move from “Scarface.” He tells the thug, “Where did you get that cheap trick?” The thug is played by Edward G. Robinson Jr.  Robinson Sr. was originally supposed to play Little Bonaparte, a role ultimately played by Nehemiah Peroff.  Then there is Joe E. Brown whose pronunciation of Wilder and Diamonds dialogue is well, zowie thanks to a very large mouth. Also on board are Wilder favorite Joan Shawlee as Sweet Sue. Character actor Mike Mazurski (“Ain’t I had the pleasure of meeting you two broads before?”) is one of the not so brightly lit hoods.

    The Florida scenes were actually filmed in San Diego at the famed Coronado Hotel. And I would be remiss if I did not mention Charles Lang’s beautuful black and white photography.

      Not all critics at the time were bowled over by “Some Like it Hot.”  Some were shocked by the risqué humor, still the film was a monumental hit. Today, it is considered arguably one of the funniest films ever put on celluloid. The American Film Institute named it the funniest film ever made, for what that is worth. Is it Wilder’s best film? Many would argue, and with a filmography consisting of such works like “The Apartment”, “Double Indemnity”, “Sunset Blvd”, “Ace in the Hole” and others it is tough to make a definitive choice. For me, as I stated in the beginning, it was the first film I ever recorded and one of my all-time favorites, I consider it up there with “Duck Soup” and “The Producers as one of the greatest comedies ever made  and a sentimental favorite to say the least.

Last Summer (1969) Frank Perry

  

As a adolescent, acceptance into your peer group is always an undeniable desire, rejection from the group scars you for life. Few films broach this topic as compelling and intelligently as “Last Summer.”  Based on a novel by Evan Hunter (The Blackboard Jungle), “Last Summer” is the story of three middle class teenagers who spend a summer on Fire Island with their parents, though the parents are never seen. Sandy (Barbara Hershey), a beautiful dark longhaired girl is highly intelligent and while she expresses a sexual confidence her actual experience is limited. The two boys, Peter (Richard Thomas) and Dan (Bruce Davison) are sexually less sure of themselves; they talk a lot about getting laid, would Sandy be willing, when should they make a move.

    The three form close-knit circles of friendship. When they first meet, Sandy is on the beach nursing a wounded seagull. They remove a hook and the three nurse and rehabilitate the injured bird back to health. They spend the summer swimming, drinking beer on the beach, smoke pot and bonding. The threesome go on a date to the movies on the mainland where the boys work up the nerve to feel up Sandy, sharing a breast each. The look on Sandy’s face tells you she’s excited. Outside the theater she tells the boys how sexy they made her feel. They run into some local punks and are chased, barely escaping their reach by catching the ferry back to the island.

     Into their tight circle comes Rhoda (Catherine Burns), a short plump lonely girl who practically forces her way into their company. She really does not fit in but they let her hang out with them, mostly because they take spiteful pleasure in taunting and mocking her. One afternoon, the boys discover Sandy has killed the seagull after the wild bird bit her. Admonishing her for lying, Peter begins to spend time with Rhoda teaching her how to swim.

    Sandy instigates a decision to push the reluctant and inexperienced Rhoda to go on a computer matched date that Sandy initiated as a kick to “trick the computer” with a shy Puerto Rican man named Anibal (Ernesto Gonzalez). At a bar, after a night of drinking and dancing, they run into the same bullies who they escaped from a few nights earlier at the movies. They run off again abandoning the inebriated Anibal who is beaten up by the three punks. Rhoda, the only one reluctant to leave the scene, is dragged away by the others. Later she berates Peter for his behavior which only makes him run take with Sandy and Dan.   

    On a hot summer’s day, the three go into the woods to cool off from the burning sun, Rhoda tags along. Annoyed that she followed, Sandy removes the top of her bikini swimsuit and badgers Rhoda to do the same. Disgusted by Sandy’s unashamed behavior Rhoda attempts to leave however, Sandy pushes the boys to stop her. Sandy’s desire to destroy Rhoda results in a brutal scene that will bind the three forever.

     Sandy, Dan and Peter, lack a moral compass. Everything they do is just for kicks, not seeing any problem; heck all they were doing was having a few laughs. They didn’t mean for the Puerto Rican guy to get beat up; the whole date thing was just an attempt by Sandy to screw up the computer-dating model. This callous treatment is seen throughout the film, Rhoda, is similarly treated, like the wounded seagull, at first she is somewhat accepted into the group and then disregarded always at the mercy of the callous indifference of Sandy.

       The four leads are all portrayed so well that it is challenging to select a standout though, Catherine Burns as Rhoda, has a touching monologue sadly describing the circumstances of her mother’s death that is extremely moving. Burns received an Academy Award nomination for her role. Richard Thomas was still a few years away from his career making role of John-Boy in “The Waltons”, and fans who associate Thomas only with that role may be a bit shocked seeing him here as one of the two callous immature teen boys. Of the two, Thomas’ Peter at times shows a sensitivity the others lack, yet his strong bond with Sandy and Dan draws him to side with them in the film’s final heinous conclusion. Bruce Davison adds a strong and convincing dimension as the cocky, sex minded Dan. The two boys are well matched and come across as realistic buddies. One of the film’s strongest features is the authenticity of the way the characters talk, like real teenagers. Barbara Hershey was the best known of the four actors, having already starred in the TV series “The Monroes” a few years earlier. As Sandy, she uses her beauty and brains to sexually tease the horny boys as well as manipulate them. A combination of heartless cruelty and teenage seduction, she’s a dangerous adolescent mix, at one point killing the rescued seagull, then turning the boys against Rhoda.

    There are few adults in their lives with who they can connect. When we do see an adult it turns out to Sandy’s mothers’ boyfriend who she confesses, as a “major truth” to the boys, attempted to molest her. The boys talk about uncaring parents who are too busy with their own lives to have much concern for their kids.

    ”Last Summer” was directed and  written by the husband and wife team of Frank and Eleanor Perry. Eleanor adapted the screenplay from  Evan Hunter’s novel. During the 1960’s the Perry’s worked on the fringes of Hollywood, other films included “David and Lisa”, “Ladybug, Ladybug”, “Trilogy”, “The Swimmer” and Diary of a Mad Housewife.”  Overall, their career together, they separated in 1970, was an interesting mix of flawed successes and misfires.  “Last Summer” fits right in as a flawed (technically, I noticed some mismatching shots in some scenes) though engrossing lifelike middle class story about the growing pains of adolescence.

    A reoccurring theme in the Perry’s work is the battle between the sensitive individual dealing the more callous tougher personalities met in life.  Here it is Rhoda versus Sandy. In “Diary of a Mad Housewife”, your have Carrie Snodgrass’ meek wife finding her independence faced against an obnoxious husband and a sexiest callous lover.

   Add “Last Summer” to the list of films unavailable for DVD. The film was released on VHS video many years ago (Key Video), however it has since remained an elusive work to the home video market, as has “Dairy of a Mad Housewife”, another that has only seen a VHS release. I found a used VHS tape some years ago at a video store  specializing in used videos. The film was released with an R rating though it was originally given an X until scenes from the explicit ending were toned down. Be careful if you find the film on TV. Apparently, there are some PG versions floating around that will ruin the premise.  Overall, “Last Summer” is an effective though disturbing look at youth with too many empty summer hours to fill with experimentation, sexual awakening, the desire to fit in, and the cruelty of just growing up. Then again, isn’t that what adolescence is all about.

Repulsion (1965) Roman Polanski

With the recent Criterion Collection release of Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” I thought it would be a good time to post my orginal review written for Halo-17.

       Repulsion is absolutely one of my favorite films. I was stunned the first time I watched it back in 1965 at some small now long forgotten art house in NYC.  I had never seen a horror film like this before (I had yet to see Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho). At the time, I was only in my middle teens and I know for sure much of it went over my head. Still the film was memorizing.

    Polanski draws us, the audience, quickly into Carol’s splintered deteriorating mind. Sexually repressed, surrounded by boorish men, “abandoned” by her sister who goes off on a weekend of lovemaking with her lover, Carol spirals downward into total psychosis. Polanski film’s explores the dark side of the mind, unfamiliar to some of us but an unwanted companion to others. He brilliantly uses wide-angle lens, harsh lighting and sound to create Carol’s nightmarish decent into a catatonic world.

    It is a harrowing journey and in the end we never find out what is the basis of Carol’s sickness, only a hint is provided, with the final shot, a family photo, Carol as a child, suggesting there may have been sexual abuse.  

High Noon (1952) Fred Zinnemann

“This is just a dirty little town in the middle of nowhere. Nothing that happens here is really important.”- The Judge

 

    First a confession!  Dave over at the excellent Goodfella’s Movie Blog is in the middle of a year-by-year countdown of the best movie of each year. If you have yet to visit his site please do, you won’t be sorry. Now that’s not the confession, so what is, you ask? Well, in my comments at Dave’s blog for the 1952 best film selection, I stated that I was not a big fan of Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon”; subsequently I did not include it in my own list of favorite films for that year. Recently, TCM ran the film again, and unlike the many times it has been aired before, I did not ignore,  but decided to revisit it for the first time in many years. So here is my big confession, truth be told, I was wrong, “High Noon” is one of the great films of 1952 and one of the great westerns of all time! Now this won’t come as a shock to many of you who even without my proclamation already knew “High Noon” was a great movie. Frankly, I am just catching up.

    Now that I got that weight off my chest, I can move on…

    John Wayne proclaimed his dislike for this movie, seeing it as a parable for the blacklisting and anti-communist furor that was taking hold in the early 1950’s.  He found it disgraceful that Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) tosses his badge into the dirt at the end of the film. Seven years later, Wayne and Howard Hawks would made “Rio Bravo” as a response to the radical “High Noon.” As late as 1971, Wayne, in a Playboy magazine interview, called “High Noon”, “the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” If Wayne disliked what the film stood for, Hawks abhorred it, insulting his sense of professionalism. He therefore made a film where the sheriff refuses help from the town’s citizens, instead accepting help from only other “outsiders” like the young gunslinger and the town drunk. Whereas, Will Kane, in “High Noon”, was an accepted member of the town’s social circle with friends. John T. Chance, in “Rio Bravo” separates himself from the town, he is a professional lawman, an outsider and not part of the town’s citizenship.

     Ironically, over the years, people and even countries, from both sides of the political spectrum have come to find their own personal values in this film. The former Soviet Union accused the film of being “a glorification of the individual.”  Pro-McCarthyites saw the film as communist propaganda and anti-American. Yet President Ronald Reagan loved the film for it lead character’s “strong sense of and dedication to duty and law.” Both Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton loved the movie. Clinton ran the film no less than 17 times while in office! He even recommended it to then incoming President Bush.  So how can one film be interpreted and satisfying on both sides of the political fence? Possibly, because, no matter where you stand politically, the film has come to symbolize the courage and perseverance an individual needs during hard and difficult times. Here was one man who stood up for what he believed in, despite the abandonment, the lack of conviction and courage from the community he helped build and protect. Perhaps the Soviet Union was right, “High Noon” is the glorification of the individual, how American!

    Even before the film was completed, staunch conservatives were attacking it. The film was made during the height of the anti-communist witch-hunts. The House of Un-American Activities (HUAC) was finding communist everywhere including in your toaster! Hollywood was under siege, forced by Congress to rid itself of any writer, actor, director who even smelled of leftist leanings. Socially conscience filmmakers were driven out of the country, Jules Dassin, Joseph Losey to name two, while others were put in jail (the Hollywood 10).  Still, more lost their livelihood and had to retreat to theater or get out of the business all together. Screenwriter Carl Forman, a known left-winger, was eventually fired by producer Stanley Kramer who was under pressure to do so. There is plenty of irony when you consider that star Gary Cooper was conservative, as was composer Dimitri Tiomkin, both card-carrying members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an anti-communist group that worked with the HUAC in “cleaning up” Hollywood. Additionally, Tex Ritter who sang the title song shared similar sentiments. Lloyd Bridges and cinematographer Floyd Crosby (father of rock singer David Crosby) were “gray listed” for working in the film. producer Stanley Kramer and director Fred Zinnemann had liberal views and while not blacklisted were considered sympathizers.   

    The plot is simple, three men ride into the town of Hadleyville, one is Ben Miller, brother of recently released ex-convict Frank Miller, who is arriving on the noon train. Five years ago, Marshal Will Kane sent Miller to prison. Originally, Miller was sentenced to death until the courts changed his sentence to life in prison. Eventually he was released after serving only five years. At the time of his sentencing Miller swore vengeance and now he has come back to collect. This same day, Will Kane is retiring as Marshal and marrying his young sweetheart Amy (Grace Kelly). Right after the ceremony, word arrives that Miller is out of prison and coming to town, to kill Kane. His neighbors tell him it is best if he and his wife leave and disappear. They hustle the couple quickly out of town; however, once on the trail Kane has second thoughts. His wife tells him it is crazy to return, Kane says he has never run from anyone before; he has to go back. When he seeks help from the town people, they refuse. Some resented Kane’s tactics while he was Marshal. Others say since Will is no longer Marshal, why should they risk their lives.  Some thought life was better years ago when Frank Miller was here and the town was wide open. Kane’s Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges) quits, blaming Will for not speaking up for him so he could inherit the Marshal’s job upon his retirement. Even the judge who sentenced Miller is packing and leaving town, urging Kane to reconsider and leave too. “The man is crazy”, he says. 

    Approximately 1 hour and 11 minutes into the film, director Zinnemann and his editors, create a mosaic of tension, and a class in film editing. It starts with Kane sitting at his desk writing out his last will and testament, Dimitri Tiomkin’s music begins a tense pounding. Kane looks up at the clock, in extreme close up we see the swinging of the pendulum, the camera moves upward toward the hands of the clock, which reads 11:58. We cut to the outlaws waiting at the train station, then to a low angle shot of the tracks. Next, we see the interior of the church, close-ups of the solemn parishioners. Zinnemann cuts to the saloon, its customers. Back to the pendulum swinging, Will Kane at his desk, a long shot of the exterior of the town, cut to another angle of the town. Back to the railroad tracks, the killers waiting. By this point, the pace of the cuts have accelerated. Zinnemann cuts to a close up of the previous Marshal sitting in his chair, a friend cowering in his home, a close-up of Helen (Katy Jurado) the saloon owner,  and then a close up of Amy. Back to the swinging pendulum, and then the clock, as it is about to strike noon. Quick cuts to the killers, Amy and then, the sudden sound of the train’s whistle. It’s high noon. The camera is back on the tracks and far off we see the smoke puffing from the train engine, the music stops, the quietness is startling; we are back looking at Kane.

    It’s time.

    Kane comes outside on to the street, he sees Amy and Helen on a buckboard riding toward the train station. Zinnemann now gives us a shot the Marshal in close up. As he looks around Zinnemann’s camera begins to pull back. A crane shot, the camera moves back and up high over the entire town. The streets are empty except for the Marshal.

    In the final sequence, we see Kane marching toward his confrontation with the band of four who are walking toward him from the other end of town. The gun battle ends as we expect with Kane the victor but only after he gets some unexpected help from his Quaker wife, who came back from the train when she heard the first gunshots, and shoots one of the outlaws in the back just as he was about to kill Will.       

    The town’s citizens come out of hiding surrounding Kane and his wife. He looks at them in disgust, takes off his badge and tosses it into the dirt. The Marshal and his wife climb up on the buckboard and ride off.

  “High Noon” is less than 90 minutes long and takes place in almost real time starting with the three men riding into town and the wedding of Kane and his young bride. Time is a recurring motif in the film. We constantly have shot of clocks, men looking at watches as the minutes tick away toward the arrival of the noon train and Frank Miller.  The film is unconventional in many ways. Unlike most westerns, there is little action here, except for a fight between Kane and his former deputy Harvey and the climatic ending. At one point, the Marshal openly admits to Harvey that he is afraid. There is also no talk of the west being the opening of a new frontier or the beginning of a new community, themes common at the time to western film mythology. “High Noon” is nothing a typical western is suppose to be, it is the antithesis of John Ford’s more romanticized version of west. No wonder The Duke hated it.

     Additionally, much was made at the time of the age difference between Cooper, who was fifty-one, and looked a lot older (he was ill), and the young and beautiful Grace Kelly who was about twenty-three.

     Cooper gives an impressive performance as Kane. Looking visually worried, sweat on his face, bound by a sense of honor, he finds himself standing alone amongst the town people he swore to protect.  Like John Wayne, Gary Cooper is one of cinema’s iconic western heroes,  having appeared in “The Virginia”, “The Plainsman”, “The Westerner”, “Vera Cruz” and “Man of the West” among others.   

     “High Noon” is one of the most beautifully framed and photographed films, brilliantly shot with deep rich blacks. I was truly impressed by the framing of many of the images that could have easily been plucked from the film and work elegantly as black and white still photographs. The man responsible was Floyd Crosby, who surprisingly did not even receive a nomination for Best B&W Cinematography that year. The music by Dimitri Tiomkin has become as iconic as Cooper’s image walking down the empty streets of the town. The haunting title song with the word’s “do not forsake me oh my darling”, a constant reminder that Kane has been abandoned by everyone. Tiomkin by the way would score Hawks “Rio Bravo.” The film also has some great character actors including Lee Van Cleef as one of the killer’s, Lon Chaney Jr. as the former sheriff, Harry Morgan as a so called friend of Kane’s, Katy Jurado as the saloon owner and former lover to both Will Kane and Frank Miller. Most recently, she had hooked up with the young immature deputy played by Lloyd Bridges. Other well known charcter actors include Thomas Mitchell, Jack Elam Otto Kruger and Harry Morgan.

    The films political overtones are still there, a reminder of uglier times. Though they have faded from memory of some, younger viewers may even be unaware of any political overtones; just read the comments on IMDB.  Still the film resonates with many in the audience today. The politics of prisoners receiving early releases, their sentences being reduced is as timely today with audiences as it is portrayed in the film. Note the discussion about this topic in the church when Will seeks help from the churchgoers. One of the town people speak out saying Miller’s release from prison is not their fight, it is the responsibility of those northern politicians, who released him from prison. In the final analysis, “High Noon” does not fit snugly into any one philosophy. It does not take a straight liberal or a conservative stance. Viewers looking for a particular ideology that fits neatly into their vision will be disappointed. Politically, there is no comfort food here such as conservatives find when they watch FOX news or liberals find watching MSNBC.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971) Jerry Schatzberg

   “The Panic in Needle Park” is raw unnerved New York filmmaking from the 1970’s. Its locations reek with the underbelly of city life, the subways, Whalen’s drugstore and the infamous Sherman Park aka Needle Park. Al Pacino in his first leading role is on fire, gum chewing, chain-smoking and wired. This is Pacino, pre-Godfather, unadulterated, years before too many mannerisms would turn to clichéd performances.  

 

    The film is directed by Jerry Schatzberg, his first, a well known photographer, who spent his hours taking portraits of Bob Dylan, ( including the cover of Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album), Faye Dunaway, The Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol. Schatzberg would go on to directed other downbeat works like rarely seen “Puzzle of a Downfall Child” and “Scarecrow.”

 

This is a sad love story of two drug-addicted people with no escape. Schatzberg never had a hit film, maybe because he was too honest in his best work. His sophistication and honesty shows by not making either of the two characters die at the end of the film such as would happen in most films today. They live, still going nowhere.

 Attached HERE is a review I wrote for Halo-17 a while back.

The 39 Steps (1935) Alfred Hitchcock

               

    Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 thriller “The 39 Steps” speeds along like a ray of light shooting through dark clouds. The film waste not a moment from the opening scene at the Music Hall to the closing tense finale at the London Palladium. The script was written by Charles Bennett who had already worked with Hitch on two other works (The Man Who Knew Too Much and Blackmail), and would collaborate on other films including “Secret Agent” and “Sabotage” and “Foreign Correspondent.” The screenplay is very loosely based on a novel by John Buchan, originally published in 1915, which by the time it was filmed was too antiquated in style for the 1930’s cinema. Subsequently, Hitchcock and Bennett made many changes including the adding of the leading female character, Pamela (Madeleine Carroll).  

                            Canadian Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is mistakenly implicated in the murder a woman, Annabelle Smith (Lucie Mannheim); he met at the music hall while watching an act called Mr. Memory. She admits to being a spy selling herself to the highest bidder and right now, the British were paying the best. She is being followed by foreign agents who are on the verge of smuggling top-secret papers out of the country. In a Hitchcock film, it does not really matter what the papers are, this is the MacGuffin, a red herring that gets the story moving.   Taking sanctuary in Hannay’s apartment, Annabelle tells the skeptical Canadian that two men are following her. After looking out his window, seeing two shadowy figures standing out on the street Hannay become’s a believer. Unfortunately, her time is short, as Hannay sleeps; Annabelle is knifed in the back. With Annabelle leaving few details before her death, something about “39 Steps”  a map of Scotland with the area known as Alt-na Shellach marked on the map as the location she believes the ring leader of the spies is located, Hannay heads for Scotland with the police on his trail as the accused murderer of Annabelle Smith. Along the way, Hannay ends up handcuffed to Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) who turns him into the police or so she thought, as they turned out to be foreign agents kidnapping both Hannay and Pamela.  The plot leads up back to London and the famed Palladium where Hannay comes to the realization how the foreign agents are going smuggle the secret plans out of the country.

                                This quickly paced episodic film runs from one short descriptive scene to another. Filled with suspense and humor, some risqué for its time, the film is a rollercoaster ride that does not stop for 85 minutes. The opening music hall scene get things off to a rousing start filled with laughter and a marvelous setup; the meeting of Hannay and Annabelle that sets the rest of the film in motion. Hannay’s relationship with Pamela is another highlight. Taking an instant dislike to him after he burst into her compartment on the train and begins kissing her in order to hide from the pursuing police, she quickly turns him in. The couple will soon meet again and find themselves handcuffed together in a series of scenes that are both suspenseful and comedic. Hitchcock liked pushing the censors’ buttons even as far back as 1935 when the British board did not allow unmarried couples to share a bed. Hitchcock gets away with this through some clever direction and   skillful performances by Donat and Carroll including the scene where Pamela removes her stocking and Hannay, his hand handcuffed to Pamela’s, is “forced” to rub up against her leg. Left unsaid, but still it must be in the back of filmgoers mind is how did they go to the bathroom? The film is actually filled with sexual innuendo. The salesmen Hannay meets on the train heading Scotland, displayed their samples, women’s under garments. When Hannay takes refuge in a Scotsman farmhouse, the farmer at one point insinuates Hannay and his wife have slept together. Even at the beginning of the film when Hannay meets Annabelle, one of the first things she says to him is “May I come to your home.” Hannay quickly agrees, and when Hannay tries to sneak out of his apartment after Annabelle’s murder, the only way he can convince the milkman to switch clothes with him so he can sneak past the two men watching outside is to tell him he has just spent the night with a married woman.

                         Speed is of the essence in this film, with swift cuts and lightening transitions from one scene to the next. Note how quick the editing is when the housekeeper finds Annabelle’s body and screams, her scream blending together with the train whistle of the next scene. Hitchcock and his editors do this so well the train’s whistle seeming coming from the woman’s mouth as she screams.

    For the first time, Hitchcock used what would become one of his most famous motifs that of the innocent man accused of a crime he did not commit. It would surface again in films like “The Wrong Man”, “Saboteur” and “North by Northwest.” Other themes that show up again and again in his films appearing here are the cool blonde; Madeleine Carroll may be the first in a long line of cool Hitchcock blondes. Spies and secret organizations are another theme that would continue to show up in future works.

    When the film opened at the Roxy Theater in New York in September of 1935, New York Times critic Andre Sennwald called it “one of the most fascinating pictures of the year.” He continues, “If the work has any single rival as the most original, literate, and entertaining melodrama of the year, it is “The Man Who Knew Too Much” which is also out of Mr., Hitchcock’s workshop.” Today, the film remains one of the greatest from his under appreciated English period.

Ossessione (1943) Luchino Visconti

    Luchino Visconti’ first directorial effort “Ossessione” was made in 1942 and released in 1943. That we still have Visconti’s first feature film to watch today is an amazing story in itself. Filmed during World War II while Italy was still under the control of Mussolini’s deteriorating fascist government, Visconti read a copy of James M. Cain’s pulp classic  novel, “The Postman Always Rings Twice” given to him by Jean Renoir. Visconti wrote the script along with Mario Alicata, Guiseppie DeSantis and Gianni Puccini. The repressive government, which controlled the Italian film industry, Mussolini’s son was a film executive, was expecting a simple lightweight superficial run of the mill murder mystery. What they got instead was a film now generally considered the first of a new movement called neo-realism.

     When the film was shown publicly, it was denounced by the Italian government; it was too realistic, shooting in real locations with natural lighting.  The government forced the film to be withdrawn from circulation. Due to the war, Visconti never got the official rights to film Cain’s novel, subsequently, copyright restrictions prevented the film to be shown in the U.S. In 1946, MGM, who owned the official rights made their version with John Garfield and Lana Turner. The film was remade in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange.

Due to the copyright infringement, the film would not reach the American cinemas until 1976 when it played at the New York Film Festival. Vincent Canby in his New York Times review said “Comparing the Visconti “Ossessione” with the Garnett “Postman” is to stand a production of Traviata next to a McDonald’s television commercial, which is not to underrate the American film that is as effectively steamy, tough, and terse as the Hollywood law allowed in those days.”   

    Cain’s sweaty, sex filled novel seemed destined to always have a difficult time getting to the screen. MGM tried for years to develop a successful script that would pass the censorship Gods. It was not until after World War II, a somewhat more relaxed board allowed MGM to do a watered down version. Meanwhile, Visconti’s film, now more than three years old, remained ostracized somewhere in a backroom in Visconti’s closet. The original negative was apparently destroyed by the Fascist government though fortunately Visconti had a duplicate negative from which the existing copies we have today are all decedents of.

    Visconti’s version follows Cain’s novel closely, Gino (Massimo Girotti), a wanderer stops by a small diner/gas station in the middle of nowhere. It is run by Giuseppe LaBragana (Juan De Landa) a gruff slimy older man and his younger wife Giovanna (Clara Calamai), an attractive woman with upward mobility on her mind. The husband and wife come to like Gino though for very different reasons. Gino and Giovanna begin an affair behind the husband’s back. Restless but with no destination in mind Gino takes off with Giovanna, but she turns back, reluctant to give up what she has for the unknown. Gino travels on alone meeting a fellow wanderer, Spagnolo, a traveling artist who presents Gino with a more bohemian lifestyle. In the resort town of Ancona, Gino meets up again with Giuseppe and Giovanna who are vacationing. Still attracted to her, he follows them back to their diner. Bound together by lust the lovers’ murder the husband, as they always knew they always would.

    Though this was Visconti’s first film, he proved himself a visual master quickly. Particularly impressive is the way Visconti handles the first meeting between Gino and Giovanna.  Gino enters the diner, there is no one behind the counter, he walks to the back into the kitchen. There we hear a woman humming, she is sitting on a table, her legs daggling swinging back and forth, which is all of her, we can see. “Can I get something to eat here?” Gino says. At this point, Visconti has not shown us either of their faces. He now cuts to a close up of Giovanna whose head is down as she eats. She looks up at him, a bored look on her face, and as quickly, her head goes back down to her dish of food she lifts her head back up with a look of enchantment. Visconti quickly cuts to our first shot of Gino as the camera zooms in, from Giovanna’s POV, on a close up of his handsome face. There is an immediate fiery attraction between the two. With this shot, Visconti draws his doomed lovers in and the audience as well.       

    Unlike the MGM version, Visconti’s protagonist are unglamorous, Cora (Lana Turner) in “Postman” is blonde, wears stylist clothing, Turner never making you forget she is a Hollywood star. On the other hand, Giovanna who is dark haired, like Cain’s originally written character and wears more the appropriate clothes you would expect someone in her position to have. Clara Calamai, an attractive actress of her day was forced by Visconti to dress down, wear drab clothes and no makeup. When she first saw herself on screen, she apparently broke down and cried. Lana Turner would have not accepted these terms and the MGM version suffers for it.

    Gino is a grimier version of John Garfield’s Frank Chambers with a torn T-shirt and holes in his pants. Both are drifters going nowhere. Gino is restless and indecisive, he cannot see himself working at a diner, while Giovanna, worried more about her self-preservation, does not want to follow Gino’s restless nature and take off with no direction known. After the murder, Gino has another reason for hating the diner; Giovanna’s husband seems to haunt him.

     In the MGM film, Cecil Kellaway’s, Nick Smith, is a whitewash of the husband character, known as The Greek in Cain’s novel. He is a sweet kind man compared to Giovanna’s sweaty gross husband.  To emphasize the difference between the two men in Giovanna’s life, Visconti had both men at different times take their shirts off showing the obvious dissimilarity between the handsome well built Gino and  flabby out of shape husband.

    The Italian landscape becomes an important factor in this movie capitalizing on the vast wide emptiness emphasizing the hopelessness of the characters and their eventual fated doom.  In 1939, a French version called “Le dernier tournant” directed by Pierre Chenal, which I have not seen, was the first adaptation of Cain’ novel. “Ossessione” is the second, and of the three versions I have seen of Cain’s novel, and easily the best.

A special thanks to Sam.