Barefoot in the Park (1967 Gene Saks)

Much opening out of Neil Simon play which debuted in 1963 - and did have Redford in the same role (and Mildred Natwick and Herb Edelman) - Mike Nichols was the director. I don't know how long Redford ran in that - Elizabeth Ashley was opposite him, who became Jane Fonda. 

The argument they have - which seems palpably real - is silly, but we've all been there. Though I wonder how differently a woman would have written it...

I think they missed a joke with the six flights of stairs - one of them - the elderly postman preferably - should have breezed in as though it was nothing. ("In my youth, I climbed the Matterhorn - twice in one day.")

Some of the dialogue seems noticeably post-dubbed.

It's one of those late colour Joe LaShelle pictures, and while Neal Hefti's music is recognisably his, it's not in the How To Murder Your Wife league.

It's pretty crazy. Fonda is energetic, Natwick fabulous ("I feel like we've died... And gone to heaven... And we climbed up" - with great timing.) Boyer is fun, Redford fine.

"That's the first time you've asked my advice since you were twelve" is a sweet line, delivered sweetly.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020 David Dobkin)

I dreamed I was walking on one of those moving airport walkways, pulling a heavy suitcase behind me, while snatches of annoying music played at me from side to side. And I walked and walked and it seemed like the ending would never come, though I did manage a couple of weak smiles at some of the outlandish clothing I witnessed on some of my fellow travellers. And then just as I thought I'd never get there, everything went black, and with a jolt I'd reached the end, and I woke up, and realised I'd just watched this film.

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946 William Wyler) - all the reviews

First of all, can you believe this review on Amazon:
'Prior to ordering this film I had just watched the superb Mrs Miniver and was attracted to this title by the awards and favourable reviews on Amazon. I have to say I found the film overlong and boring, perhaps life in post war America is not very appealing to us Brits!'

Unbelievable. 

An absolute classic, Best Years of Our Lives takes its sweet time: begins in a most leisurely manner as three demobbed servicemen catch a flight to return to their hometown. Here they are, Harold Russell, Dana Andrews (never better) and Frederic March:

I hadn't realised in the many times I've seen this film how long the takes are, allowing extra concentration on the acting. Russell, whose only film this was, received a special Oscar but also won for Best Supporting Actor. Wyler holds the record for directing actors to Oscars (13*): March also won, as did Robert Sherwood's brilliant screenplay and Daniel Mandell's editing, which is very smooth, using little dissolves to move us from one scene to another.

Here's some interesting background from Wikipedia:

'Samuel Goldwyn was inspired to produce a film about veterans after reading an August 7, 1944, article in Time about the difficulties experienced by men returning to civilian life. Goldwyn hired former war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor to write a screenplay. His work was first published as a novella,' Glory for Me', which Kantor wrote in blank verse. Robert Sherwood then adapted the novella as a screenplay.

'The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Academy Awards [eight, actally], including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Sherwood), and Best Original Score (Hugo Friedhofer). In addition to its critical success, the film quickly became a great commercial success upon release. It became the highest-grossing film and most attended film in both the United States and UK since the release of Gone with the Wind.'

That I did not know. Because Wyler has these long takes and he's not in a hurry with his actors you get these just great moments. One example is when March tells Andrews he can't see his daughter any more, you can see Andrews really thinking, wrestling with the problem and his feelings for her and knowing the father is right. Most of this scene is payed with these two looking directly in each other's eyes and not breaking the gaze.  Teresa Wright (who is as fantastic as all the other cast members) - when she sits down with Andrews' shallow wife Virginia Mayo and gradually realises what she's like - this look of barely perceptible face changes is her hallmark - she does it again in confrontation scene with Andrews later. March is a great drunk. Loy has wonderfully subtle registrations, they both do. And so on. And you forget while all this stuff is going on that it's normally in some really long take in which Russell's lit two matches and had a glass of beer or something equally complicated.

Despite its reputation for being a brave and powerful film about the after effects (social, physical, psychological, financial, romantic) of war - timeless reflections - it is superbly a top class director directing top class actors.

And unlike Now Voyager the camera is rarely moving. Gregg Toland allows everything to take place in the lovely deep staging that you just never get any more. The framing is so precise that I feel only a viewing in 1.37:1 will do, and the Blu Ray is a must.

What is quite remarkable (and it's not the first such occasion) is that Gregg Toland's incredible deep focus photography was completely overlooked by the Academy - yes, not even nominated (but not overlooked by the filmmaker, who in recognition gave him a full screen credit). Look at this shot: we're more interested in what's going on in the far, far background as Andrews breaks it off with March's daughter Teresa Wright then the foreground conversation:

And in the climactic wedding scene, the deep focus allows us to consider the thwarted relationship between Andrews and Wright:

This wonderful shot helps us to appreciate Wright's growing disgust of Andrews' money-grabbing wife Virginia Mayo:

For such a serious film it also has some great humour (modern film writers please take note). Myrna Loy: "They make a lovely couple!"

Hugo Friedhofer's score isn't necessarily one you'll rush out and buy but it most successfully underscores the emotion.

Also supporting brilliantly are Hoagey Carmichael, Cathy O'Donnell (sympathetic fiancée), Ray Collins (bank boss), Roman Bohnen (Dana's dad) and Gladys George (Hortense).

Wyler must have been a hell of a director to get these performances (e.g. Russell was a non-professional, Cathy O'Donnell a newcomer) in such long takes. Also there's a kind of poetry in it. The way the camera moves in the bathroom scene between Wright and Mayo is sublime, picking up its various combinations of mirrors and reflections (without a lighting shadow in sight). The staging in those deep, deep focus shots (not one is shallow) in which the actors' movements are carefully staged, like in a play. Note Myrna Loy's very subtle restraining motion towards March where Wright is threatening to become a homewrecker. And the line that is drawn between Andrews and Wright in final, beautifully staged wedding scene (in which we're not as interested in the couple getting married).

A brave film, one of the Hollywood Greats, and one of our favourites.

* They were:

Greer Garson and Theresa Wright in Mrs Miniver

Harold Russell and Frederic March The Best Years of our Lives

Bette Davies and Fay Bainter in Jezebel

Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday

Burl Ives in The Big Country

Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl

Walter Brennan in Come and Get It

Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress

Charlton Heston and Hugh Griffith in Ben Hur

P.S. 26/10/20.

We've been chatting about editing in preparation for Q's new film about Great Women Film Editors. It occurred to me that I couldn't think of any close ups in The Best Years of Our Lives - most of the action is kind of medium or even further away than that. I'm not sure it's true to say there are none - below is about as close as you get, though...

                               

Trouble in Paradise (1932 Ernst Lubitsch)

George Marshall and Miriam Hopkins are sophisticated high class thieves working first in Venice, where Edward Everett Horton is a victim - then in Paris, where the latter again turns up. He is a love rival with Charlie Ruggles (the Major) over rich business owner Kay Francis, who Marshall sees as a business opportunity, becoming her secretary - cueing lots of jokes around doors (as always) and staircases. It's very smooth and funny, and adult (it's just pre-Code).

With C. Aubrey Smith and Robert Greig. And (uncredited) Luis Alberni and Leonid Kinskey. Made by Paramount.

Was tempted in fact to watch Lubitsch all day long - Design for Living, To Be Or Not To Be, That Uncertain Feeling, Ninotchka, Cluny Brown, Heaven Can Wait...

Avanti (1972 Billy Wilder) - all the reviews

Juliet Mills on the terrace of the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria, Sorrento, doubling for Ischia

Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill (an absolute sensation as the Italian hotel manager), Edward Andrews (J.J. Blodgett).

Brilliantly written by Wilder and IAL Diamond - "The black socks... was it because you were in mourning?" From a play by Samuel A Taylor.

Carlo Rustichelli is only credited as music arranger leading me to infer that the properly catchy melodies are all Italian traditionals.

Notice the brilliant, silent movie opening. Plenty of jokes at the expense of America (and Italy and GB too, come to that). 'Will and Kate Carlucci'. Pippo Franco is Qued's wonderful mortuary guy. So well constructed. Use of 'avanti', three coffins, 'weight problem' etc.

Can't argue with Cameron Crowe: "The prize of Wilder's later-period work." This beautifully constructed, wonderfully written jewel of a film is unfairly undervalued and all but unknown.

The hotel set is very clearly modelled on the Excelsior's actual decor

A view of the front of the hotel - still very much as it is today

Only a few scenes were actually filmed on Ischia - for example, the morgue, harbour and burial scenes, Actually I don't know that! Does anyone?

Shot by Luigi Kuveiller (Profondo Rosso, Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein. Wilder liked his work on Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna 1969, directed by Elio Petri, Repulsion-like, with music by Morricone.)

New York Times: "Italy is not a country," Miss Mills says ecstatically, "it's an emotion." But emotion wears thin fairly quickly in "Avanti!" despite its share of shtick, zany local color and flip cracks.

We just can't leave it alone. Every time we go to or come back from Italy...

Notes:

Lemmon as roses. Clive Revill brilliant as Carlucci: "When do you sleep?" "In the winter."

The film seems full of Lubitsch touches. Like Hitchcock making Frenzy (basically a return to his old London films) Wilder is going against the grain of the American New Wave in 1972 making an old-time comedy (though it's full of up-to-the-minute pot-shots at the US, Italy and England).

Pippo Franco is the meticulous pathologist. "He always lunches well. He knows all the widows."

A great character actor, Franco joins the ranks of brilliant supporting players like Walter Hampden and Marcel Hillaire in Sabrina.

"Let's have what they would have had."

This surely is from where the Airplane! joke is derived.

"This 'dame' is my niece. She was raised by the Carvelline Sisters!" (Whoever they may be.) Can Juliet Mills look any more angelic? (Compare to So Well Remembered.) She is perfect in this film.

Film writing masterclass - this way...

I'm running out of things to say about this fried gold masterpiece. Though I did notice the lovely detail that the hotel reception rug has been turned up to clean around it better - that's a really professional touch.

"Right now he's writing a musical called 'Splash'. It's about the sinking of the Titanic."

We think the room with the green blind is our room, the real Room 122:

The people in the hotel don't even realise this film was made there.

Maybe why I love those mini vans so much is that J.J. Blodgett is delivered to the hotel on one:

Note Juliet's restless feet in the scene where they're having breakfast in bed together. She has the most expressive feet in film history:

"The things that go on on this floor."

"Three bullets, right between the photographs."

"I don't want to land on Africa."
"That would be bigger sir."

"What are we going to do about you?"

It was inevitable. In a great film you've seen over and over, and can quote and tell the background stories, it's always a pleasure when you spot something new. In the opening scene on the plane when the pilots are alerted that two men are in the toilet, one, then another, then another come out to have a look. Who's flying the plane?

Jack and Juliet are a dream team. I particularly like her reaction shots as they're driving through Ischia (or wherever they are).

Also should mention lower down the cast list Gianfranco Barra (as Bruno), Franco Angrisano (chief negotiating Trotta), Guidarino Guidi (Maitre d' - 'Can I have the apple peeled for you?'), Giacomo Rizzo (barman) and Harry Ray (Dr. Fleischmann - makeup artist on many things including The Odd Couple, How To Murder Your Wife, Kotch, The April Fools, The Apartment and this!)

It's also a text book example of how to choose shot sizes to great effect e.g. morgue scene.

Is this from the upper floor of the Grand Hotel Vittoria Exclesior?

Noticed little Lubitsch subtleties like the dog which knows there's been a murder. Also, the coffee scene - Lemmon drinks it, adds milk, adds sugar, seems to be appreciating it more, then heads to the bathroom and - off camera - we hear him flushing it down the toilet.

There's that feeling which is well caught in Elizabethtown of a character slowly thawing to a place - to a woman, the delicious Juliet Mills, whose best film this is. It's a pleasure to see these actors at work.

It ends where They All Laughed begins. 

And here's some stuff about Izzy Diamond.

Naturally occurring split screen

Q spotted a street scene that must have been filmed in Napoli.

Wilder: "I don't particularly like that picture.. Now what I really wanted to do was, the father is a homosexual, and he had a bellhop with him [in the car]. (Wilder smiles proudly.)  That was the first thing I thought of - wouldn't it be funny if an elderly man who goes every year to take the baths is actually having an affair with the bellhop? But of course they [Paramount] talked me out of it ." I don't see why that wouldn't have worked...

Cactus Flower (1969 Gene Saks) / Avanti (1972 Billy Wilder)

Two films connected by funny dancing, Izzy Diamond and the friends Matthau and Lemmon. (In fact, I had proposed Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise), Cactus Flower and Love in the Afternoon, but it was the funny dancing in Cactus Flower that connected us to the later Wilder.)

Cactus Flower is based on a play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, which was adapted for Broadway by Abe Burrows and was a hit with Lauren Bacall and Barry Foster. So while the plot and structure were there (it still 'looks' like a play) you can guess that some of the great writing belongs to Diamond.

I dunno, as can't find a copy of the play online.

"I should have known better than to keep one in the city."

"A girl?"

"No, a car."

I love the way that Goldie kisses her neighbour Rick Lenz, and then he says "What do you want?"

Enormously enjoyable thanks to Matthau (playing it absolutely straight as ever), Bergman (great as ever) and a frothy Goldie Hawn in her (almost) debut. With Jack Weston, Vito Scotti, Irene Hervey (patient), Eve Bruce (Weston's date who can't believe what she's hearing about Matthau). 

I read that the line in the Guggenheim spoken about a sculpture ("I bet someone cheated and used a ruler") was intended to be about a piece of op art. When the exhibition changed, no one had the sense to realise the line wouldn't work any more and to ask Izzy to write another one.

In fact you don't expect to see Bergman and Hawn in the same film at all, let alone dancing together.

Which neatly takes us to Avanti - well, we realised we weren't going to be in Italy this year, so we brought it to us. What's amazing is that even the staff at the Hotel Grand Vittoria Excelsior in Sorrento don't know the film and consequently don't realise it was filmed there - their claim to fame. We've watched in twelve times since 2007. It's a joy, one of those films that should be massively well known yet somehow isn't (like They All Laughed).

Naturally occurring split screen

"Frogleap."

"The Four Apostles - John, Paul George.. and Bertram."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2015, released 2016 Glenn Ficarra & John Requa)

It's great when you find something you've never heard of and it turns out to be fabulous. So I was flicking through the Margot Robbie back catalogue (because she's good) and came upon WTF, which is either a black comedy about war, politics and journalism, or a drama about war, politics and journalism told with humour. Does it matter? It should have been on my radar anyway because of Ficarra and Requa.

Tina Fey carries it well as the new intrepid war correspondent in Afghanistan ('Kabubble') where she encounters a protective local guide Fahim, played by Christopher Abbott (Catch-22's Yossarian, also First Man), correspondents Margot Robbie (who you just know is going to do something underhand) and Scot Martin Freeman, cameraman Nicholas Braun and security guy Stephen Peacocke. During her three year service she also runs into General Billy Bob Thornton, a slimy politician (Alfred Molina) and a soldier, Evan Jonigkeit.

This is all based on Kim Barker's autobiography 'The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan', written by Robert Carlock, whose credits included SNL and 30 Rock.

Really good use of music throughout. Photographed by Xavier Grobet (the earlier Ficarra / Requa picture I Love You Phillip Morris, The Woodsman) and edited by Jan Kovac (Focus).

Has a misty eyed ending too. Really good.

Fierce People (2005 Griffin Dunne)

A definite original, written by Dirk Wittenborn, based on his own novel, co-writer of the also interesting The Lucky Ones. The contrasts between the South American tribes people and the privileged and less families of North America are well played. The only slight plot weakness really is why Donald Sutherland would begat a murderous psycho - that isn't really explained. But overall this is a very interesting and distinct experience, performed by a very capable cast and shot and edited well (didn't know William Rexer or Allyson Johnson).

We are sad that Anton Yelchin is gone because like in Charlie Bartlett here he is a very honest and likable presence (his pain is so well evinced). Diane Lane is just great as his mum, as is Donald Sutherland. And so's the rest of the cast: Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Perkins, Chris Evans, Paz de la Huerta, Blu Wankuma, Christopher Shyer.

And - this is why you should always watch all the credits (I was always the last person to leave the cinema) - there's a special thanks to David Gilmour. His mate Nick Laird-Clowes wrote the music, and the very last track features the unmistakable playing of DG. (The soundtrack also features a very eclectic list.)

It made me want to watch all Diane Lane's films again.

There's a still of young Donald that looks like it comes from 1900 or something.

Normal People (2020)

Written by Sally Rooney (from her novel), Alice Birch and Mark O'Rowe, and directed by Room's Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald (six half hours each). Stylistically it reminds me of a Drake Doremus, who created a slow intimate style which worked so well in Breathe In but not so well in Like Crazy. This unfortunately falls into the second film's category - it's slow and not easy to watch - seems like it takes forever. (When you strip it down, it's two 'normal' people talking and fucking.)

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal are the young lovers, frequently in close up, often not saying a lot. The sex scenes feel more intimate than most. They're both frustrating characters, he because he keeps hiding his feelings in broad daylight, and she because she looks like she's going to kill you with a bread knife at any given moment. Her's is unquestionably a fucked up family.

Chapter in Italy is uncomfortable. Ep 10 is particularly downbeat as he becomes depressed following his mate's suicide - they didn't seem close, so it's puzzling - and revealing he doesn't fit in - she's still in Sweden following relationship with another dodgy bloke. Also I'm beginning to be distracted by that little 'um' Mescal keeps doing.

With Sarah Greene, Aislin McGuckin, Desmond Eastwood, India Mullen, Sebastian de Souza. Photographed by Suzie Lavelle (first six), Kate McCullough.

Two actors getting to know each other

It feels honest, anyway, and I have a feeling that the situations and emotions on display would have resonated with many people.

Mirage (1965 Edward Dmytryk)

Rather enjoyable, utterly bizarre thriller, which begins effectively in a blackout and quickly becomes a nightmare for 'accountant' Gregory Peck. Along the way he encounters a woman who seems to know him, Diane Baker (Marnie, The Prize), a PI on his first case (the wonderful Matthau), a dismissive psychoanalyst (Robert H Harris) and several bad guys - Jack Weston (Wait Until Dark, Cactus Flower), George Kennedy and Kevin McCarthy. With Leif Erickson, Walter Abel and Hari Rhodes (Shock Corridor).

Expertly shot by Joe MacDonald, good music from Quincy Jones, written by Charade's Peter Stone (from Walter Ericson novel 'Fallen Angel'). Universal.

Anything Else (2003 Woody Allen & scr)

Widescreen (only his second since Manhattan), and featuring the main character addressing the audience, and long takes without cutting. 

The Woody Allen character is nuts, but also talks more sense than anyone in it. Because of him, Biggs changes his life.

Woody writes women well. In this, the character he writes for Christina Ricci is both shallow and duplicitous - she says she loves him, but there's absolutely no evidence of that. It's also one of those life stories that if you start dating someone who's already in another relationship (as are you) it isn't going to end up well. Love is blind... Or is it lust? Anyway, she's a nightmare.

Let's say 'attraction'.

Woody often pays attention to the first time we see a female character. This is Christina's first shot.

And in the flashback, this is the first time he sees her...

Darius Khondji shot it. Weird. We watched two films in a row shot by someone called 'Darius(z)'.

With Stockard Channing, Anthony Arkin (yes another son of), Danny de Vito, Adrian Grenier (with his back to the camera), Jimmy Fallon, Erica Leerhsen.

Watching Woody smash up the car is funny because it's so atypical.

Hebetudinous? Tergiversate? Are these real words? Yes, it turns out they are. 'Dull' and 'make evasive statements'.

That Doisneau 'The Kiss' is up on the wall, as is a Freaks poster (referenced in 'One of us' line).

A Gordon Willis moment... But actually, what's also going on here is 'natural' editing. Ricci has walked out of shot, Biggs is about to come back into it..

"Do you love me?"

"What a question! Just because I pull away when you touch me?"

"There's something compelling about your apathy."

Woody was pleased with it himself, but said it was hurt by negative reviews.