Season seven, can you believe.
Twisty episodes. Sophie Okenedo in episode in which writers appear to be writing one another's stories. The Wise Old Owl - dark stuff. Kid / Nap = Daisy Haggard and Danny Mays.
Mind-bending, dark, funny. They evoke a sort of hideous laughter.
Written by John Morton, Ella Road, Keith Akushie, Cat Clarke, Bryce Hart, Abigail Wilson.
A superfluous remake of Dix Pour Cent, with rather too much of the 'Yes. No. Exactly.' type of dialogue from W1A, on which Morton was a writer (and Twenty Twelve).
With Jack Davenport, Lydia Leonard, Maggie Steed (who steals the show), Prasanna Puwanarajah, Hiftu Quasem, Fola Evans-Akingbola, Harry Tevalwyn, Natasha Little, Rebecca Humphries, Tim McInnerny. And Chelsea Crisp as the new American boss.
With guest stars Dominic West, Clémence Poesy, Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter, Kelly Macdonald, Olivia Williams, Himesh Patel, David Harewood, David and Jessica Oleyowo, that guy from the political thing again.
And so once again I find myself reaching for that indispensable volume, 'Who the Devil Made It?' by Peter Bogdanovich, for the lowdown on B movie king Ulmer's low budget independent movie, which paints Hedy Lamarr as a worse woman than Scarlett O'Hara. Well, the first thing I read was that it was an A picture. Ulmer says "Beautiful picture. It nearly got Hedy Lamarr an Academy nomination. It's the only picture where she ever had to act. A beautiful picture - very difficult, very beautiful." Lamarr was acting as executive producer - she got Ulmer involved. (Let's not forget, Ulmer was one of the team who made People on Sunday in Berlin - Billy Wilder's first film.)
Well, it may have had a bigger budget than some of Ulmer's, but let's just say it feels economical. Bangor, Maine, 1820s. A wild child with an alcoholic father grows up as a beauty, marries the elder post office owner, then brazenly begins flirting with his son. She makes him kill her father, then completely rejects him. Then George Sanders comes along...
I found it quite funny. I'm not sure myself it's a great performance from Lamarr - she comes across like some scheming bitch in Dallas or the like. It feels quite risqué for its time. It seems overly underscored, though moves on well. Lucien Andriot shot it. IMDB reports Douglas Sirk directed the opening but I don't know the source for that - it's not in 'Sirk on Sirk' as far as I can see, though he did work with producer Hunt Stromberg, so it's possible, I guess.
I don't want to start getting too scriptural, but the title comes from an early version of Proverbs V - 'the lips of the strange woman drip honey and her mouth is as smooth as oil' - more recent versions update 'strange' to 'immoral' or plain 'adulterous'. And it continues 'But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of hell', which is kind of the end of the film. It was written by Herb Meadow (the film, not the Bible) from Ben Ames Williams' novel, and (again according to IMDB, uncredited) Hunt Stromberg and Ulmer himself.
With Louis Hayward (the son), Gene Lockhart (the father), Hillary Brooke, Rhys Williams, Alan Napier.
An interesting film which seems to explore sides of the Irish question - in particular it's framed by a couple of ? friends who represent the Irish and British points of view (Joseph Tomelty and Gilbert Harding). Then as the action moves from London to Ireland, it's about the internal divisions, the IRA versus the peace-abiding citizens. So John Mills has turned his back on violence, but isn't a snitch, neither, whilst younger brother Dirk Bogarde is still a little confused. It's a good plot, well filmed by Dearden (making the most of desolate Irish locations - or wherever it is) and photographed by Gordon Dines; written by Roger MacDougall from his own play.
With Robert Beatty (the scary Shinto), Elizabeth Sellars (The Barefoot Contessa), Molly Fagan, Eddie Byrne, Jack MacGowran.
Great scene with kids playing round suitcase with bomb in Underground. Another scene involving the bombing of a truck also uses children suspensefully. The ending could have been wildly different - and quite powerful - if the two freed men (who've just popped into the pub for a quick one) arrive too late and find Mills has been unfairly executed.
It's unfortunate that Mills and Bogarde are unable to deliver a convincing Irish accent between them. A late Ealing film.
Richardson, let us not forget, made some excellent films in the sixties such as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Tom Jones, but it's the tricks from the latter (speeded up footage, rather rough overdubs) that don't work so well here - in fact some of it is downright crudely put together.
The John Irving adaptation has memorable characters and situations and is certainly quirky, but it at times is unexpectedly moving (after Jodie's rape and she says to Lowe 'Just another Halloween, kid'). Loved the moment before that when Lowe goes to summon help, and is introduced to a most angry black man, Dorsey Wright, who refreshingly (though underwritten) becomes a part of the family.
Still don't understand why Jodie is still into the bastard Chip (Matthew Modine, who does also play the Viennese alter ego). She gives a splendid performance. With Rob Lowe, Beau Bridges, Jennie Dundas, Seth Green, Joely Richardson (good), Wallace Shawn, Wilford Brimley, Paul McCrane, Nastassia Kinski, Amanda Plummer.
Some of it - situations, characters, dialogue, plot - seem very Garpy, in other words, Irvingy.
Shot by David Watkin. Edited by Robert K Lambert. Music by Jacques Offenbach. The hotel is The Tasouusac in Quebec, and still looks exactly the same.
Jodie: "She fainted while diaphragming herself."
Written with Peter and Bobby Farrelly, and based on the former's novel, this is a refreshing seventies set comedy-romance, starring Shawn Hatosy (been in tons of things we haven't seen, except Alpha Dog) and Amy Smart (been in tons of things we haven't seen). And Alec Baldwin.
The boy gets into trouble with his stoned pals and is sent to a prep school, where he mixes with other stoners, and meets the boy-meets-girl girl.
I have to say I found the romance angle refreshing (they don't even have sex, or if they do, it's off camera), and laughed out loud at a few things, such as the stoner friend Jon Abraham who drives the wheelchair-bound brother behind his van to expedite paper round, and Jack Ferver being sick on Hatosy's arm.
Good soundtrack of seventies rock standards. The lighting's rather blue. Feels autobiographical.
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| George Wendt is far left |
Gabriel Mann is not James Spader.
Weirdly, Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) gets another mention - we just saw some of it featured in The Outsiders.
And what was the great sign? Something like, "Three Fingered Steve's Fireworks Emporium"!
Kit de Waal novel, adapted by Shola Amoo, (who also did The Last Tree) stars Cole Martin, Monica Dolan (great as always), Malachi Kirby (Boiling Point), Olivia Williams, Poppy Lee Friar, Shobna Gulati, Leemore Marrett Jr., Chris Eccleston, Lenny Henry (exec producer).
Linton is often very close in on Cole. Story is set in Birmingham in early eighties and features Handsworth-type riots and police racism. And allotments.
Lots of good music includes Marvyn Gaye's 'What's Going On' as the boy finds his 'people'. Good.
Made back-to-back with The Outsiders, from the same novelist S.E. Hinton (who in this one cameos as a prostitute) - she co-wrote. Both films were made in Oklahoma. Matt Dillon takes the lead, with Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper, Diana Scarwid (stoned teacher, Inside Moves), Vincent Spano, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, Larry Fishburne, Tom Waits, Sofia Coppola (Lane's sister, billed as 'Domino').
It comes across like an Orson Welles film for the eighties, Touch of Evil in tone (though in later, night city sequences, Fellini). It's a staggering film in which you can frequently preserve the image as art. But the sound design by Richard Beggs is also amazing, e.g. the scene where they frequent the lively black area of town and there's a moment where the sound is replaced by different sound - I think the sound of the family home.
The style threatens to submerge the story, which is quite slim. But sequences like the fight to flickering lights and birds are outstanding.
The (outstanding) photographer is Stephen Burum (not a single award or nomination). Editor Barry Malkin. Percussive score courtesy Stewart Copeland.
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| Symbolic clocks run throughout the picture - time is running out? |
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| In this amazing interview, Diane reveals she debuted on stage aged six in Medea - in Greek! |
There's even a touch of Soy Cuba to it, though it can't have been on Coppola's radar as it was not shown in the US until 1992 (Telluride). He and Scorsese helped to revive it.
So, it's exhaustingly beautiful, and slightly annoying, but unquestionably a remarkable film.
A strange film. What kind of man is Sefton? He's out for what he can get, but in his defence, 'The first week I was in this joint, somebody stole my Red Cross Package, my blanket and my left shoe' - love the left shoe - writers take note. It's a tough and quite grim storyline mashed up with a broad comedy (Robert Strauss and Harvey Lembeck dancing together, the former thinking he's Betty Grable). It works, though, as the whole thing is underpinned by Billy's tough humour and his great construction and direction, as we slowly uncover who is the traitor in their midst.
William Holden, Don Taylor (the lieutenant), Otto Preminger, Richard Erdman, Peter Graves, Neville Brand (the one with the temper), Sig Ruman, Robinson Stone (the flute player).
Co-written with Edwin Blum, based on the play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, from which several cast members repeated their roles. It was photographed by Ernest Laszlo and scored by Franz Waxman. Doane Harrison is the supervising editor, George Tomasini cut it. Paramount.
It's funny:
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| "One Führer is enough!" |
Kirk Douglas turned it down; Holden won the Oscar.
I was fascinated to learn (via 'Billy Wilder in Hollywood', Maurice Zolotow 1987) that Paramount wanted to release the film in Germany, and requested that the identity of the Nazi spy in their midst should be changed to that of a Polish POW who had sold out to the Nazis. Wilder wrote back expressing his outrage, talking of his background in Galicia (then Poland), the deaths of his family in Auschwitz and his support for the Polish Resistance, and demanding an apology. He didn't get one, so Billy severed his relationship with Paramount immediately (and drove through the studio gates for the last time in his Jaguar - love that detail).
Q pointed out in episode 4 that the staircase is a really weird one for a house of that size - she described it as being 'in a cupboard' - but it feels much like back stairs rather than a main staircase. Maybe it is the back stairs. I'll have to check on the next episode. I did. It is the back stairs. Why did she go up the back stairs? Ask Marple.
Anyway, it's based on the true case of a woman who was found dead at the bottom of the stairs with evidence that she hadn't just fallen down them (she's Toni Collette, the husband is a variably accented Colin Firth).
Various lawyers, children and step-children take differing views of what's going on, complicated by a French documentary maker recording the events. There's bats in the attic, too, but at this point in time I'm not sure whether that's got anything to do with anything.
I found the episode which puts forward the theory that she was attacked by an owl rather funny. You have to feel for Toni, who has to keep re-enacting her death in various different ways.
Many episodes have an extended single take scene. I'm glad to see these coming back into fashion. Though there's definitely not enough material here to fill its run time. One episode, seven I think it was, seemed to have no significant content whatsoever. So thrilled were we by the season finale that we stopped 10 minutes before the end to watch Gogglebox.
Michael Stuhlbarg is the defence attorney. With Dane DeHaan, Tim Guinee, Sophie Turner, Odessa Young, a disconcertingly blonde Juliette Binoche, Rosemarie DeWitt, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Parker Posey.
Created by Antonio Campos, who also directed six of the eight episodes, and has mixed credits (was one of the producers of Mary Marcy May Marlene).
Annapurna for HBO Max / Sky Atlantic.
Kathleen Rowell's adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel evokes fifties colour cinematography and GWTW (both specifically and visually). Turf war between lower class Greasers and upper class Socs leads to murder, redemption through fire, death.
C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane, Tom Cruise, Glenn Withrow, Leif Garrett, Tom Waits, S.E. Hinton (nurse).
With loads of Elvis on the soundtrack (including his very stripped-back version of 'Blue Moon'), well photographed by Stephen Burum and edited in a style approaching Jim Clark's by Anne Goursaud (One From the Heart, The Two Jakes, Bram Stoker's Dracula).
And, as a complete tangent, Diane Lane's mum:
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| Colleen Farrington, Playboy 1957 |
Apart from the fact that Jean Simmons only knows one piece on the piano (as far as I can tell, an original and beautiful composition by Dmitri Tiomkin called 'Nostalgia') we know she's a bit crazy as when medic Robert Mitchum slaps her to counter her hysteria, she slaps him back. (The story goes that when Preminger asked Mitchum to slap her, he slapped the director, with "Like that?" Preminger wanted him fired but Howard Hughes refused. Hughes always had a soft spot for Mitchum, as recorded elsewhere in these pages.)
We're reasonably sure she is trying to knock off her step-mother. When her project backfires, I'm not sure the writers Frank Nugent and Oscar Millard handle it as well as they might, though the downbeat ending is a doozy. Apart from these knockout car episodes the film is quite static.
Meanwhile Mitchum has blown relationship with Mona Freeman. Also in cast: Herbert Marshall, Barbara O'Neill, Leon Ames, Kenneth Tobey.
Shot by Harry Stradling Sr. RKO. Our print says 1952 but Tiomkin's cue sheet is dated March 13 1953.
We unfortunately saw a cropped version of Losey's rare 1959 thriller on TPTV, thus only half of Hardy Kruger's head is sometimes visible. It's rather good. Kruger arrives at a lady's apartment, followed soon after by the police - Gordon Jackson, then Stanley Baker and John Van Eyssen (both also in Losey's next film The Criminal). It appears the woman he is there to meet is murdered and they think the Dutchman did it. But as we've seen him arrive, we know he didn't... or do we? There's enough in Ben Barzman and Millard Lampell's BAFTA-nominated screenplay to keep you guessing, whilst it backtracks to show a slightly weird relationship progressing between artist Kruger and bored housewife Micheline Presle.
There's a slight foreshadowing in this of The Servant, in the social difference between down to earth Welshman Baker and more upper class Van Eyssen, who's connected to a Lord who has some peripheral connection to the case (old boys' network sticking together) and also in the way that much of the action - initially at any rate - is confined to a single, tastefully furnished dwelling. Also the opening, almost a version of Kafka, in which a man is accused of a crime that isn't even specified, must have suited Losey, who was booted out of his own country as part of the McCarthy Witch Hunt. Plays also slightly on the fact that the Kruger character is 'foreign', an 'artist', 'different' (an American in England).
Considering it was only a year after John Mills and Slyia Syms were censored for rolling around in the desert in Ice Cold in Alex, it features a quite risqué sex scene, for its time.
Losey's in the good company of Powell/Pressburger alumni Christopher Challis and Reginald Mills. Robert Flemying's in it as well. And Jack MacGowran.
Micheline Presle will be 100 in August. She has been working steadily, mainly in France, since the 1930s.
From story 'Love Man' by John D Weaver. College professor Clifton Webb is in danger of losing his teaching job when it's discovered he was once a silent movie star. He and his repressed daughter Anne Francis journey to New York to have the show canceled, which is hosted by his former co-star, Ginger Rogers. Jeffrey Hunter woos the young lady, Elsa Lanchester is a professor who yearns for Webb, Fred Clark is the producer (Move Over Darling, Boys' Night Out, The Solid Gold Cadillac, How to Marry a Millionaire and Sunset Blvd, as 'Sheldrake').
The 'don't mention the dumb bits' part: A. Any college would become more popular if one of its professors was a former silent film star. B. Rogers we learn is minted so doesn't need the TV show at all.
Animated ad for 'Penetroleum' hair product is hilarious. Amusing moment where Webb fights off attacker in bar by copying his own moves on-screen. Surreal ending in which he becomes a star again, watching himself in Sitting Pretty!
Fox. Milton Krasner, Cyril Mockridge.
Deja (Lyric Ross) has me in tears from episode 1 on. Then in 3, when three Kates share a dream sequence, with dad (Milo Ventimiglia), it just blows you away.
It's so fucking clever, the plotting, the cross-cutting. Thus we later have two Vietnams: Jack's and Kevin's, and where Kevin in Vietnam passes his dad going the other way. A wonderful puzzle.
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| I took almost exactly the same screen shot last time! |
There's a moment here where a Vietnam buddy holds his hands either side of Jack's face - he then transfers this to the kids in moments of crisis.
Season 3 ending highlight: Deja takes Randall to one of her foster homes, where five of them would share a tin of soup while the owners put all their money on scratch cards. Then tells Randall he's won the lottery twice - once when he was adopted, the second in finding Beth - and to pull himself together.
Melanie Liburd is Beth's cousin and Kevin's girlfriend, Phylicia Rashad Beth's strict mum (The Cosby Show), Griffin Dunne Jack's brother.
Cinematographer: Yasu Tanida.
Music: Siddhartha Khosla.
Editors: Bjørn Myrholt, Howard Leder, Susan Vaill (in rotation) and Julia Grove (2 eps).
One of Conrad Hall's own favourites. He adopted a very naturalistic low light look, keeping the exposure the same interior and out - so external stuff looks over-exposed whilst those dark bars and training rooms remain dark. You'll find no blue skies in this film. The opening montage of the real people of Stockton California were shot by him from a camper van.
The naturalism extends to the acting and fight scenes too. In particular the dialogue between trainers Nicholas Colasanto and Art Aragon is both realistic and funny, like they're an old married couple. Leonard Gardener's screenplay is elliptical - we don't see Jeff Bridges' continuing successes, it's just alluded too. (Huston had spotted Bridges in The Last Picture Show.) And Stacey Keach's relationship with Susan Tyrrell - she as pathetic but real a creation as Marion Bailey's drunk in All or Nothing - is utterly familiar and convincing (she received the film's only Oscar nomination.) Its fatalism is perhaps the most Hustonian thing about it.
Which is well caught in the dialogue:
"How do you like your steak?"
"I don't care."
And - "Did I get knocked out?"
"No - you won!"
Produced by Ray Stark (his own favourite of his films). Edited by Walter Thompson, supervising editor Margaret Booth.
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| When they leave the bar, he zips her up. I thanked him, but I'm not sure he heard me. |
It was a flop. "I suppose the public found it too sad," Huston in summary.
As soon as Lalo Schifrin's acoustic guitar theme starts, you're in familiar waters in classic sixties celebration of independence from institutionalism - how much it's like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in that respect, I had never considered before. Newman is fabulous and there's strong supporting cast led by George Kennedy. It's fun also watching how Conrad Hall tries to damp down those blue skies - and indeed, Newman's baby blues are noticeably absent too. Having just worked together on Harper, it may have been Newman who requested the cinematographer (they were together for Hall's last film The Road to Perdition).
There's possibly some deliberate religious subtext to this, but the ending - Newman being shot when he's at the supposedly safe place of a church - is decidedly anti-Establishment. Written by Frank Pierson and Donn Pearce, based on the latter's 1965 novel (Kesey's was published in 1962, but Pearce's is more autobiographically about his own terms in prison, an interesting life, see here.) Rosenberg had had a mass of TV experience, including episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone - this was his first feature film. He went on to The April Fools, WUSA (Newman, Woodward), Pocket Money (Newman and Marvin), The Laughing Policeman (Matthau), The Drowning Pool.
Without those last freeze frames of Newman's great smile we would have been left on something of a downer. Sam O'Steen cut it (he'd just started working with Mike Nichols). Kennedy won Oscar; Newman, Pierce/Pearson and Schifrin nominated
"Paul Newman was standing in line after he's been caught, and we had him in backlight. When I went to shoot his close up I did it in backlight and I added fill so you could see his expression, but you couldn't really see his baby blues. The studio asked for a retake of the close up. I didn't realize why at first until the second time I did a retake and they said 'No, we want to see his baby blues, Conrad.' So I brought the light around and slammed it in to Paul's face and made the close-up totally out of character with the master shot of the scene. They got their baby blues." (I have to say I was looking out for this and didn't see it.)
ASC magazine tribute issue, May 2003.
"I wish we'd been able to shoot it in black and white. I hadn't seen I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, but I saw it about six months ago - Jesus Christ, what a film! It's ten times better than Cool Hand Luke, and it's so right in black and white."
Conrad Hall in Leonard Maltin, 'The Art of the Cinematographer' 1971.
Written by David Mamet, an engrossing Boston-set legal drama. Newman is the out-of-control, washed up drunk who goes after a Catholic hospital which has left a young woman a vegetable. He and his partner Jack Warden must face a huge legal team, led by James Mason, and deal with a disappearing witness (who no doubt has been paid off) and an entirely inimical judge (well played by Milo O'Shea - Theatre of Blood, Ulysses, Purple Rose of Cairo, Sacco e Vanzetti). A Charlotte Rampling complicates matters in sneaky turn of events, in good story, well acted.
Nicely photographed by Andrjez Bartkowiak, didn't take in Johnny Mandel's music at all. Edited by Peter Frank, with Lumet having designed a lot of shots to be covered in masters.
Had long wanted to see this because of the title and Roy Scheider - TPTV broadcast it in Fuzzorama. At that early credit 'Associate Producer and Supervising Film Editor Jerry Greenberg' I commented that 'Dede's boys were everywhere' but it wasn't until the end that we realised the film had been edited by Stephen A Rotter, who we were due to Zoom with the very next day! (John Horger also worked on it, Angelo Corrao was an assistant, as was Cynthia Scheider, then Roy's wife, who also cut Breaking Away).
Initially somewhat confusing tale is actually really well written, has an awesome car chase and two great thrillery scenes involving a car wash, of all things. Screenplay by Albert Ruben and Alexander Jacobs, story by Sonny Grosso, who was a New York detective and the subject of the book / film 'The French Connection', which D'Antoni produced.
Scheider is great as usual. The other Seven-Ups are Victor Arnold, Jerry Leon and Ken Kercheval. Tony Lo Bianco is the cop's childhood friend and snitch, Larry Haines one of the Mafiosi, Richard Lynch is the scary killer.
The striking music is by Don Ellis, photographed by Urs Furrer in a dingy NYC.
Steve later gave us some background. He was brought in by Jerry Greenberg to work on it and then as it progressed was let go. He went down to Florida to visit his family and then got a call, 'Do you want to come back as an assistant?' His Mum said 'Don't go. If they want you to be the editor they should ask you' but Steve decided he would go back. He didn't rate his work on it. He said there was a little 'bip' audible whenever there was a cut and he said he'd cut it so much that the sound was 'bip-bip-bip-bip-bip' constantly. 'I got better on my next picture.' Agreed the car chase was difficult to shoot and loved the stunt where the driver goes into the back of the truck. He explained that the top of the car had been sawn almost through and when the driver hit it, he dropped into a roll cage to protect himself.
One of those colour widescreen fifties dramas we're so fond of (actually debuted in March 1960), written by Harriet Frank and Irving Ravetch from a novel (of course) by William Humphrey.
Robert Mitchum is the big man around the Texas place, Eleanor Parker (Detective Story) his unloving wife, George Hamilton their impressionable son and George Peppard a sort of loyal family retainer. Hamilton falls for Luana Patten and hunts a wild boar (not necessarily in that order) and there's a dangerous place full of yellow smoke and quicksand, which you think will play a part in the finale but doesn't. Milton Krasner's crew are happy driving around in jeeps in the woods performing lateral tracking shots and catching that yellow smoke.
Everett Sloane is the girl's offended father, and there's a particularly good score from Bronislau Kaper. Edited by Howard Kress. MGM.
