Niagara (1953) Henry Hathway

If 1952 made Marilyn Monroe a name, a rising new film star, in 1953 she exploded on the screen with three standout Technicolor productions. “Niagara,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “How to Marry a Millionaire” all of which would help define the Monroe celluloid doctrine. Her screen persona was now full blown and propelled her into the Top 10 list of Hollywood stars.

Henry Hathaway’s “Niagara” opens with two great shots of natural beauty, first is the mighty Niagara Falls with millions upon millions of gallons of water falling with God given power. The second shot is our first view of Marilyn Monroe lying naked under a thin sheet in her motel bedroom. Light shines through the sheet giving us a silhouetted shape of her right thigh. In her hand, a cigarette dangles over the side of the bed. The look on her face is one of satisfaction making one wonder what she was doing while her husband Joseph Cotten was off admiring the falls. We quickly come to learn this marriage is in trouble. When she hears her husband’s keys unlock the door, she puts out the cigarettes, rolls over, her back to the door, faking she’s asleep. This all happens within the first three minutes of the film.

The Major and the Minor (1942) Billy Wilder

 

There was no love lost between Billy Wilder and film director Mitchell Leisen. Over the course of many interviews Billy expressed his strong feelings that Leisen ruined his scripts, he had no regard for the written word, changing, moving and deleting lines without a thought to storyline. Yet in Cameron Crowe’s essential “Conversations with Wilder,” Billy states, “Midnight, that was a good picture.” The distaste for Leisen seems to stem more from the making of “Hold Back the Dawn,” the final film Wilder, and his partner Charles Brackett, wrote for Leisen (their final screenplay before Wilder embarked on his directing career was “Ball of Fire” for Howard Hawks who Wilder admired). “As a director,” Wilder said to Crowe, “he was alright. You could get to be an old man writing just Mitch Leisen pictures.”  In “Hold Back the Dawn,” there was a scripted scene involving a cockroach that was never filmed. Wilder and Brackett worked on this scene for many long hours but Charles Boyer refused to talk to a cockroach as the script dictated, a bit which would have showed a softer side to his character. Leisen, siding with his star, just cut the scene out without regard. This burned Billy and they fought and fought but Billy, just a writer, low in the Hollywood hirarchy, lost the battle. In Leisen’s defense, one just has to take a look at “Midnight” and “Hold Back the Dawn” and ask how bad can he have destroyed them? Both of these films are good and still contain the wit and intelligence of Wilder’s and Brackett’s work. What’s lacking, is the acidic cynicism that Wilder’s self directed films contained throughout much of his career. I liked that cynicism, it is part of what separated and defined Wilder from most everyone else.     

Leisen was a successful and popular director whose films some claim were only as good as the script he was working with.  “Hands Across the Table” was penned by Norma Krasna. “Easy Living” and “Remember the Night” had Preston Sturges brilliance behind it, Sturges was another writer who had many of his own disagreements with Leisen. By 1941, Sturges had already paved the way for screenwriters to direct their own scripts with “The Great McGinty.” Wilder and Brackett were Paramount’s top screenwriters and from most reports, including Billy himself, the studio heads did not want Billy to  direct but they gave him a chance figuring the film would flop, he would get the directing urge out of his system and go back to script writing full time.

Ball of Fire (1941) Howard Hawks

When people think of Howard Hawks comedies, the titles that generally pop up are “Bringing Up Baby” and “His Girl Friday”, two quick-paced classics, no less distinguished though is this 1941 comedy that reunites Gary Cooper with Hawks (Sgt. York) and with Barbara Stanwyck (Meet John Doe).

Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, “Ball of Fire” is a witty comedy that retains plenty of laughs despite its almost seventy year years in age, a battle of intellect (Professors) versus brute force (gangsters).

The story itself revolves around a group of stuffy professors who are on a multiyear assignment to complete an encyclopedia.  The youngest professor, Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) is compiling a list American slang.  His research takes him throughout the city, Times Square, Yankee Stadium and to a nightclub where he comes upon entertainer Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), who is performing to Gene Krupa’s “Congo Boogie.”  Sugarpuss’ distinctive and colorful vocabulary is just what the professor ordered. Convinced she is an important resource not to be lost he asks her to help him, which she is reluctant to do until she finds out the police want to question her on the where bout’s of her boyfriend, underworld thug Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews).  Sugarpuss decides it might be best to “help” the stuffy professors, and hide out at their residence until she can get out of New York and meet up with her gangster boyfriend in New Jersey.

Secluded in the house, the professors, become fond of Sugarpuss as she teaches them to unstuff their rigid collars including an education on how to do the conga.  However, it is the sensuous seduction Sugarpuss knowingly displays toward the studious. naïve but good-looking Bertram that sets the fires burning. Once in the professors quarters, she removes her coat revealing her skimpy costume and when she gives Bertram her cold wet bare foot to warm up displaying her equally naked and shapely leg, the girl knows full well the effect she is having not just of Bertram but the entire professorial staff. Bertram is soon hooked and before you know it, he is impetuously proposing marriage.

Before the nuptials  can be finalized, Joe Lilac’s thugs show up and haul the entire group toward Jersey, using the professors as a cover to smuggle the on the lam Sugarpuss over the New York/New Jersey border. By this time, of course Sugarpuss has fallen in love with Bertram. There is a climatic confrontation between the professors and the hoods, and just like Hawks underdog heroes in “Rio Bravo”, the professors against all odds overcome their better-equipped adversaries with brains over brawn.

True, the premise is silly, seven professors secluded for years living under one roof. At close to two hours the film is a bit long, some trimming would have picked up the pace, yet there is more to recommend than dismiss, a witty script, fine performances from the top on down. There is also Gene Krupa and his orchestra and some nice deep focus photography courtesy of Greg Toland.

Stanwyck is sexy and uninhibited as Sugarpuss, perfect for the role conveying a combination of a typical sassy New York character only to reveal a soft tender side underneath the hard exterior. Deservedly she received an Oscar nomination for her performance. Surprisingly, Stanwyck was not producer Sam Goldwyn’s first choice for the role, nor was she second or even the third. Goldwyn first offered the role to Ginger Rogers who turned it down and then to Jean Arthur and Carole Lombard. Even Lucille Ball was considered before offering it to Stanwyck who gladly and wisely accepted.  While I relish the idea of Arthur or Lombard reading the dialogue of Wilder and Brackett, I cannot image anyone doing a better job in the role than Babs did here.

Cooper was set for his role from the beginning.  It all came about when Sam Goldwyn wanted Wilder and Brackett to write a script for Coop who he had under contract and was having a tough time finding a suitable project for him. Old Sam made a deal with Paramount, who the writers were under contract to, that involved Coop going to Paramount for one film, which would turn out to be “For Whom the Bells Toll” while Goldwyn got Wilder and Brackett, and the use of Bob Hope for another film (They Got Me Covered). The script Wilder came up with was from a story he wrote back in his early days in per-war Germany called “From A to Z.” It was updated with the help of a junior writer named Thomas Monroe.  Wilder also got Goldwyn to agree that he would be allowed to stay on the set during the filming and watch Howard Hawks direct. Wilder wanted to direct his own scripts and admired Hawks work, and like Lubitsch, would become a big influence on Wilder’s directing style.  Wilder has commented that he did not like the film thinking the story, a variation of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was silly, though one has to admit Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss made for a very sexy if somewhat tainted Snow White. Wilder and Brackett did receive an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. The script would be Wilder’s last screenplay that would be directed by someone else. The following year, he went on to direct his first feature, “The Major and the Minor.”

The supporting cast is filled with fine talents from Dana Andrews as the hoodlum Joe Lilac, to 1930′s Warner regular Allan Jenkins as the garbage collector to Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers and S.A. “Cuddles” Sakall as three of the bumbling professors. Finally there is Dan Duryea as one of Joe Lilac’s henchmen. Look also for Elisha Cook Jr. in a small role as a waiter in the early nightclub scene.

“Ball of Fire” opened to good reviews and excellent business. Released in December of 1941 to qualify for that year’s award nominations, it went into general release in January of 1942 when the film opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

There is a 1948 remake of this film called “A Song is Born”, also directed by Hawks with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in the Cooper/Stanwyck roles.  I have not seen it but I am going to go out on a small limb here and assume that it is not up to the same quality of the original.

****

Sources: Conversations with Wilder (Crowe)

Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood (McCarthy)