Better than Lang's 'While the City Sleeps'?

Yes, I know the Cotswolds (very slightly!); haven't been to the UK for many years now but hope one day to return.

Actually, I quite agree with your assessment of Dana Andrews vis-a-vis his sort-of "blankness" quality in the two Langs. (I don't think that was a contractual matter, though it might have been; RKO was about to sink for good, D.A. wasn't a contract player, and while he might have had a two-picture deal with the studio, and so ended up with Lang, I tend to guess that his casting was Lang's choice, rather than someone foisted on him by the studio.)

I'll go further than his being sort of bland: I always thought his love scenes, by the time we got to the mid-50s, were kind of creepy. Especially in "WTCS", and that last scene in the Miami hotel room, where he has this somewhat unpleasant exchange with his new bride -- his leering over her nightgown ("And a shorty, too!"). Yecch. I like Dana and thought he should have had a better career after c. 1951 than he had, but I'm not really a "fan", and his shortcomings do not escape me. It's scenes like that, plus of course his bar scenes (in both WTCS and BARD), that make it clear he was laboring under a drinking problem. (Watch how he holds a glass when he drinks, as in "Laura" or the Langs; he seems to have some weird way of wrapping his fingers around the lower part of the glass. I don't know, something always looked a bit off about it.)

Interesting you mention "Night of the Demon" because I saw that just a week ago, except that it was the edited American version (about 11 minutes shorter), retitled "Curse of the Demon". That's a terrific film, and of course its director, Jacques Tourneur, was another brilliant one at fashioning film noirs (or is that films noir?), at RKO and elsewhere in the 40s. The R1 DVD here contains both versions, and of course I've only ever watched the original, full-length, British version. I understand there was quite a row over whether to show the demon, with Tourneur adamantly opposed; but the studio wanted a monster, and so.... But it isn't really so bad. I always loved Niall McGinness -- one of my favorite British character actors, from working with Michael Powell (with whom I had the great good fortune to dine many years ago, via mutual friends) in "Edge of the World" and "49th Parallel", to innumerable appearances in things like "Henry V", "No Highway" (US: "No Highway in the Sky"), "The Nun's Story", "Becket" and of course his turn as Zeus in "Jason and the Argonauts". He had one of his best roles in "Demon", and was always great. By the way, that's another film where Dana's repeated come-ons (to Peggy Cummins) were really, really creepy. I'd have called the cops. (Plus his character was so stubborn and blindly stupid that he was dislikable throughout -- even as Niall's intended victim you felt little sympathy for him. I almost rooted for the demon.)

I'd never read that about Kubrick but in thinking about it it seems spot on. He does seem to have mostly chosen the bland or the bombastic as the years wore on (not so evident in his early years, but from "2001" on I'd say that statement had much merit). I run hot and cold on Kubrick; I still think he never bettered "Paths of Glory", and from about '68 on he confused length and ponderousness with weight and depth. There were always pieces of brilliance in each of his films, but very unevenly. "Eyes Wide Shut" was lousy -- slow, of course, but cold, pointless, uninvolving and vapid, and not that well acted. I found "Full Metal Jacket" absolutely riveting in its first half (on, allegedly, the US Marine base at Parris Island, South Carolina, though he of course filmed it somewhere in England), but the second half was unfocused and meandering (and his attempt to re-create tropical Vietnam in decidedly un-tropical Britain was laughably inept). And so on. He did better when he had someone overseeing him, or for reasons of plot had to keep a rein on his lengthiness (i.e., "Dr. Strangelove").

Fritz Lang was I think much the better director, and showed he could do a lot with a lot less -- less money, even less plot, than could the often elephantine Kubrick. Guess what -- still haven't had time to watch "You Only Live Once". Gonna try this week. For now, thanks for your as-usual great response; I now see your connection to the industry has many forms! I myself am an ex-real estate manager, but trained, and worked sporadically, as a journalist. I write for a local newspaper in the summer (a summer community), where I'm also a very, very minor elected official, and this year they've got me doing a classic DVD column for the paper each week. Just wrote one on the forthcoming release here of Billy Wilder's terrific "Ace in the Hole" (1951), one of my favorites, as was BW. What do you think of him?

I'm so glad that I haven't offended any sensibilities about Dana - I was a bit worried. I will now look closely at both his drinking habits and his seduction techniques - and try not to learn from either (!). If he was, to a greater or lesser extent, chosen by Lang, though, for these two roles, I wonder why. I can see, perhaps, that he lends something to the archetype in "While...", but I can't help feeling that a more driven player might not have made more of "Beyond...". I'm sort of thinking of Glenn Ford and his turn in "Human desire". Or do you think that the makers were so keen to keep the final twist an absolute surprise to initial audiences, that Andrews' blankness was exactly what was needed? Would Ford's sweatiness have given the game away too early? While typing that I just indulged in a brief cross-casting flash of imagination: wouldn't it have been great to have had Dana's part in "Beyond..." played by Vincent Price? He would have made a wonderful job of the character's twisted nature, even if it would have been ham, ham and more ham.

Enough of such silliness, though. What about Joan Fontaine? Another person, I'm afraid, whom I have never particularly liked, and who often looked a little as if she thought she were doing everyone a favour by turning up. Certainly not someone to be associated with passion. I have a bit of a theory here about why Lang might have wanted an actor like that, but I'd be interested to see what you have to say about her first. I'll happily give you both "Jane Eyre" and "Rebecca", but Welles in the one and Hitchcock on the other mean that I'm not sure how much she brought to either picture. Or am I, once again, being way too harsh?

Very impressed that you have had dinner with Michael Powell. I shook his hand once after a lecture he gave at London's NFT, but that's hardly the same thing. The greatest British director ever, bar none, in my opinion, and "I know where I'm going!" is always amongst my favourite films.

Not really going to argue with you about Kubrick, except that he was the first "arty" director I ever became aware of, the first to introduce me to exactly what it is a director does, and therefore I will always have a soft spot for him. My favourite would probably be "Dr Strangelove...", but I must admit a sneaking admiration for "Barry Lyndon" because, by the standards of the time, it's such brave film-making to go out on such a different limb. The problem I have with "Paths of glory" is the way it ends, with Mrs Kubrick (at the time) singing that song and everyone bursting into tears. I'm not a big fan of sentimentality, and I can't believe that Stanley was either. It seems so lame, somehow. Everything up to that bit is, yes, just about perfect.

As usual, I think you've hit upon a good point that never occurred to me -- I do think Dana was the better choice for "Beyond..." because of his somewhat immobile, expressionless face. Someone like Glenn Ford would have been too "hmmm'ing" and "mmmm'ing" and scratching his cheek with his index finger and as you say sweaty as the game went along, ruining the surprise at the end, or at least tipping you off something was afoot. The drawback is that there may be too little suspense due to Andrews's stolid demeanor. Price I don't think would have been good -- the role required more subtlety than he could usually muster, and he made too obvious a villain. But taking a page from "While...", what about Howard Duff? He might have had the best of both ends, neither too emotional nor too inscrutable for the role, plus there was often something a little sleazy about the characters he played.

Agreed, Joan Fontaine always left me a bit cold; not a bad actress, but not really all that interesting (though I thought she looked terrific in her black evening dress in one scene in "Rebecca"). But she lost the softness of her looks fairly early on and became too, well, Dana Andrewsy, in a quasi-feminine sort of way. See her in "Island in the Sun", a year after "Beyond...": she plays the romantic interest of Harry Belafonte, but there is absolutely zero chemistry between them, and pairing her with another of the stars wouldn't have worked either (and she was ten years older than Harry anyway). I had a brief discussion about JF on the site of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), in which all agreed her best scene was falling into a tank and being eaten by a shark. However...happy 90th birthday to her this Oct. 22...and I understand she's a licensed pilot, champion baloonist, prize-winning tuna fisherman, expert golfer, licensed interior decorator and Cordon Bleu chef, so she certainly has her talents and wide-ranging interests: not a bad life.

As to Kubrick, I actually rather like "Barry Lyndon", which a lot of people don't, but I find its authenticity and most of the characters quite impressive. Even its slow-moving nature isn't so bad, compared to other K movies, in part I think because he maintains about the same pace throughout -- compared, say, to "Full Metal Jacket" or "A Clockwork Orange", which start out pretty rivetingly then fall off in pacing and content after a time. By the way, he wasn't married to Suzanne Christian, the girl singing at the end of "Paths of Glory", at the time of filming -- that's where they met. When he returned to NY he divorced his second wife and married SC in 1958, and they remained married until his death. I don't think of the ending as especially sentimental, though I guess in part it is, but more tragic/hopeful, a reminder of the underlying commonality of all men, and of their desire just to live peaceful lives. That said, I was never a big fan of it, though after all these years I'm used to it and appreciate it more than I once did. But from a Kubrickian point of view, the movie showed what he could do with a tight budget and limited running time -- he didn't need to allow his films to balloon into elephantine ponderousness to make them great. It's his somewhat self-conscious attitude of the later years, the "My films are so important I can only make one a decade, they're immortal works of art" approach that turns me off -- and resulted in some not-so-great films from a guy with obvious talent. Yet he could handle an epic-size film just fine, witness the underrated and oft-maligned "Spartacus", which I find to be not only consistently entertaining throughout but an exceptionally intelligent, superbly acted and directed film -- far better than, say, "Ben-Hur", which is of course very good but too often sinks under its own weight and is quite slow at times, which "Spartacus" never is.

My only regret about my dinner with Michael Powell was that it took place when I was in my twenties (my then girlfriend's father was a TV producer here and knew MP quite well). I knew him and much of his work even then, of course, but I could certainly speak with much more knowledge today than at the time. But we had a good time and he was very witty and down-to-earth. I also love the absolutely charming "I Know Where I'm Going" -- like all his films, of necessity, reflecting a very different kind of England, long lost (one reason I wish sometimes I were thirty years older and could have experienced Britain, and my own country especially, in the 30s and 40s and so on: of course, I'd probably be dead by now, but given the state of the world I don't think I'd be missing much!). Also love "A Matter of Life and Death", "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", "A Canterbury Tale", and the exquisite "Black Narcissus", voted by the representatives of the Technicolor Corporation the finest color film ever made ("The Red Shoes" came a close second): a thank-you to another brilliant filmmaker, Jack Cardiff. I may have said in an earlier post that my favorite Powell/Pressburger film is "49th Parallel", not because it's their best (though I'd rank it in the top four), just because it too is resonant of a lost era and place, and a top-notch film anyway. (I just realized I wrote that I'd "rank" it in the top four -- no pun intended as to their releasing organization...pardon me, "Organisation"!) At the least, The Archers were strikingly original in their conceptualizations and executions, and usually, though not always, in their plots as well (an exception: "Red Shoes" is really pretty banal as plots go; it's the color and style and direction that made it seem so impressive). But I've never fathomed what all the modern fuss is about Powell's "Peeping Tom". I understand why some people might have found it too lurid for 1960 (the way some found "Psycho" equally offensive the same year), but even in retrospect I don't see anything in it that's so striking or original or ground-breaking or even all that interesting. Not a bad film, just sort of blah...but I suspect you might disagree, my friend!

We are getting rather off-Lang on this thread, aren't we? I may yet have to steer this line to an in-depth discourse on "American Guerrilla in the Phillippines": like, how about Dana Andrews instead of Tommy Cook as the helpful Filipino guerrilla? Or Vincent Price instead of Tom Ewell? Joan Fontaine as General MacArthur? You have fair warning.

Stay dry over there! Talk to you next week.

Just a quick one, since I suddenly realised that I'd forgotten to mention "Ace in the hole" and Billy Wilder. I had written three letters to Criterion about this film, and another three to Paramount about Lindsay Anderson's awesome "If...." over the course of the last year, and suddenly they are both out in the same month. Now, if only I knew who to write to about "Beyond...", we'd be in business. Anyway, "Ace..." is outstanding, and Wilder was a fabulous director ("One, two, three" being the one I always cite as my favourite, simply because no-one has ever seen it, and I want to get it more widely known; also love "Kiss me, stupid", "The fortune cookie" and "The private life of Sherlock Holmes"). Can discuss him more if you want later.

Like the fact that you get to review these pictures for your local paper. Nice one.

Re Michael Powell, I'm afraid I do disagree about "Peeping Tom", which is, I think, a masterpiece. But I won't stress the point, for fear you think me a weirdo (!).

Will save my Joan Fontaine casting theory for next time - I'm late right now. Sorry about that.

I ought to ask - can you get your hands on a video machine that will play a PAL tape? If so, there are several tapes of "Beyond..." on British Amazon for only a couple of quid or so (or I could send you mine).

Just one point about your nostalgia: you wouldn't have wanted to be poor in Britain in the thirties or forties, or there wouldn't have been much to enjoy. I know what you mean, but I suspect it's best to enjoy previous ages from a period of comparative comfort. My English grandparents never stopped moaning about how tough everything was before the war came along - which they loved, strangely, probably because it finally meant that society became less hidebound. Of course, if you were rich in the thirties, then it would have been a different story.

Will try to write more - and more on the point - later.

Thomas

Well, I have time for a quick one, too. Glad you like "Ace" -- I received my copies this week and watched it twice already (even though I'd seen it on cable only last month). Beautiful print. Haven't gotten "If" yet but will. Criterion has licensed several Paramount films for release -- another one coming in Sept. is, of all things, "Robinson Crusoe On Mars", which actually is pretty good.

I love "One, Two, Three" too -- I showed that on my Thursday night movie schedule last summer. I may be showing "Ace" tonight, but I want to make sure I've a large enough crowd so as not to waste it on a mere handful! But our respective favorites of Billy's films seem different -- my preferences tend towards his stuff of the 40s - early 60s, whereas I think his later films fall off quite a bit. The only one of his films post 1,2,3 I have is "The Fortune Cookie". Speaking of "Holmes", I had never seen that pic until about two years ago, and I confess seldom to have been more disappointed in a movie -- a huge letdown from what I'd been led to expect. The denoument struck me as totally idiotic and crashed the entire film for me, but even before that point I thought it uninvolving and not very interesting. I suppose I'm in a minority on this but I just felt the entire enterprise overrated in the extreme; I thought it was one of his worst films. My favorites of Wilder's, besides "Ace" and "One...", are "Witness for the Prosecution", "Stalag 17", "Sunset Boulevard", "The Apartment", "Sabrina", and the usual duo of "Double Indemnity" and "The Lost Weekend", plus some lesser known items such as "Five Graves to Cairo" and "A Foreign Affair". There are a couple of others.

Oh yes, my nostalgia for the 30s and 40s presupposes having enough money to glide above it all. Same with the 50s, to a less extreme extent. Britain was economically so mismanaged in the postwar period, say from '45-'55, that I'm fascinated by the re-emergence of middle-class life in the wake of the war. This is in sharp contrast to the US, where the economy took off to reach its greatest heights ever. Of course, we were lucky to have escaped the war unscathed, in contrast to most of the planet, but Britain fared worse than even its Continental neighbors, including Germany, and also Japan. I was amazed to learn years ago that while bread had never been rationed in Britain during the war, it was rationed after the war, and some rationing lasted until 1955, well past any other country's. That doesn't speak well of the government's policies. But it's a big reason I find films from that era, and depictions of life in the country then, so fascinating.

Joan Fontaine as Anthony Eden?

Once again, an incredibly long gap before a reply. Sorry: my excuse is the Edinburgh Festival, one of my company's main money-spinners every year, so late July to early September always gets a little fraught.

Yes, rationing went on a long time in Britain after the war, partly due to the massive sacrifices made by the British during the fighting, but also due to a major political upheaval in the 1946 general election, which saw Churchill (representative of the old school) kicked out and the Socialist Clement Atlee installed. He spent an awful lot of money setting up the National Health Service (admired all around the world, but never copied anywhere), and providing a universal welfare state, which ate up a large chunk of money that might have gone elsewhere. It was the right thing to do, of course, and what the public had voted for, but it meant that Britain took much longer to get it together economically than most other combatant countries.

Joan Fontaine, by the way, was surely cast, quite cruelly, because she was of a certain age and a certain starchiness which would have made someone like the Dana Andrews character quite appealing: stolid enough to be safe, but with a few risky edges to be interesting. She's on the fringe of being desperate, isn't she, and wants to snag her man, no matter what? It's fascinating to think about a film like this (I usually get hung up on the technical stuff and don't go much further), but I guess they don't just throw them together - even cheapo productions like this one. If you have a wildly unlikely plot, you need just the right people to put them across in just the right way.

I see from another post on the board that "Beyond..." is showing in America this week; will you be watching?

As far as Billy W goes...yes, I think, unlike most American directors, he had a very good sixties. His acerbity struck exactly the right note against all the rampant optimism of the decade and suggested that everything was going to hell all over. It's why I'm particularly fond of "Kiss me, stupid", which seems genuinely acidic/nasty to me. It's also why I'm so big a fan of "...Sherlock Holmes", surely one of Billy's most mellow pictures (I also like "Avanti", in a similar vein), because it contrasts with his normal image as America's ultimate mordant satirist of the period. Am having trouble coming to terms with someone who doesn't like it (you're the first I've ever met!), and can only suggest that you take a deep breath and try it again, because it's really wonderful. The ending is, as you say, a bit of a mess, but that's because the producers had cold feet about its length and insisted an entire episode be cut; I do think the rest is fabulous, though. I have no argument with the ones you list, except perhaps "A foreign affair", which I find just a teensy bit long-winded. Still, without opinions, where would we be?

If you watch "Beyond..." on television, I'll watch my tape again, and we'll both know what we're talking about much better - although that might spoil the fun, of course.

Thomas

Hello, Thomas, I have time for a quick reply tonight (it's 3:30 a.m. here!)....

Love your observations about Joan F...yeah, she was desperate, I mean, the poor woman was 39 and on the shelf, who better than a creepy alcoholic/murderer? The next year she co-starred in "Island in the Sun" and as I think I said earlier was completely miscast as the icy blond would-be girlfriend of a ten-years-younger Harry Belafonte, in her "forbidden" interracial romance. Never caught a break after Olivier and Grant, it seems.

Yes, "Beyond" is on this Wednesday afternoon at 5PM eastern time, and I do plan to watch it. It's part of Turner Classic Movies's annual "Summer Under the Stars" programming for August, each day highlighting the work of a different star. Dana is Wednesday's, but they're not showing "While the City Sleeps", that day or any other this month, which is too bad -- direct comparisons would have been marvelous. Some others of D.A.'s they're showing include "A Walk in the Sun", "The Best Years of Our Lives" (which I think is the finest American movie ever made), "The Satan Bug" and..."Night of the Demon" (though I fear it's the cut, American version, "Curse of the Demon").

My apologies, and not to be pedantic, but the first election in the UK after the European war ended was in 1945, not '46 -- remember, Attlee replaced Churchill in mid-Potsdam Conference? "A modest man with plenty to be modest about!" was, I believe, Churchill's assessment of the man who bested him (though WSC got his revenge in 1951).

I promise to give "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" another go when next it's on. But I do like "Avanti!" as well. I see your point about "A Foreign Affair", though I think its assets outweigh its liabilities, and overall like it very much. To me the main drawback is Jean Arthur, an acquired taste I've never acquired. Wilder too apparently had had enough of her by the end of filming, calling her a "doozie" and contrasting the characters of the two female stars (Arthur and Dietrich) he'd had to navigate between during production: "What a picture!" he said. "One dame who's afraid to look in the mirror, and one who won't stop."

Later.

You've caught me again! This time I plead a slip of the keyboard - I had certainly intended to type 1945. That'll teach me to proof these things more carefully. Coincidentally, I was talking to someone about this exact subject today, and she said that, as well as Attlee's plunging money into his new welfare state, the problem was that not enough of Britain had been destroyed. In other words, by starting completely from scratch, Germany and Japan could re-tool from the bottom up, while Britain still had most of its Victorian infrastructure (still has it, come to that) which was too expensive to rip out. Apparently, economists call this the "Hopscotch Effect", whereby you often do better simply by missing out an entire advance in a field, and then starting again. Whatever the reason, rationing certainly did go on. And on.

Best American film ever? That's a big claim. Especially for a film by William Wyler (is that too catty?). I guess mine changes too often for me to have a definitive one, but I've always liked either "Once upon a time in America" or "Chinatown". "Best years..." is very, very good, though.

Jean Arthur is completely lovable when directed by Frank Capra (how can anyone not adore her in "Mr Smith goes to Washington"?), but yes, I agree, much less so with others at the helm. (We seem to have very similar taste in players: do you agree that Robert Mitchum was the coolest fellow ever?). I do feel a little sorry for her over "A foreign affair", though, since I could imagine Wilder and Dietrich forming a little clique of their ex-pat own against her all-American-ness. I didn't know about the unpleasantness, and I've no idea whether that happened, but Wilder could be poisonous at times.

So, did you watch "Beyond..."? What did/do you think? I've shifted it back to the top of my tape pile, and look forward to reading your thoughts, and responding to them.

By the way, I never said at the time, but I don't think we need that question mark you instated a few posts ago. Watch me as I jump off the fence here - but it damned well is better than "While..."!

Thomas

Wow! Delete the ? ? Maybe. I only caught part of the film yesterday and again my main problem is that it had great potential that was never fully realized, for budgetary and (partly; = JF) casting reasons. A nearly bankrupt RKO was probably not the best place to film anything by then. Still, I do think the storyline really is better that "While...", which is to me pretty conventional, and Barrymore's killer the most overacted, heavy-handed villain in screen history!

I was teasing, I figured your 1945/6 typo was just a keyboard slip. Funny, I almost wrote just what you were discussing -- that Britain would have been better off had its infrastructure been bombed more; Germany and Japan certainly did recover faster by having to start from scratch. But they also used their foreign aid (almost all from the US) to rebuild their industry and housing, whereas Britain used most of its Marshall Plan assistance to fund national health and state takeovers of industry. Given the huge disparity between classes in the UK of that era, it's sort of understandable, especially as, unlike in the US, upward social and economic mobility was not encouraged or often even possible, but it was still a mistake. As an old saying goes, the problem with socialism is socialism; the problem with capitalism is capitalists. I'm pretty liberal, but that doesn't make me an imbecilic ideologue! But another reason the UK was so slow to recover is that it was pretty insular in its ideas, a widespread belief, not entirely dead, that anything done in England is best, never to be changed. A hundred years ago there was an apocryphal rubber stamp groused about by reformers in the Royal Navy -- it said "NIH", for Not Invented Here, a supposed stamp applied to all novel or imported ideas for improvements the reformers tried to implement.

Back to movies..."Best Years..." was on last night, and I reaffirm my best film ever stance. And yes, I can imagine someone much better than Jean Arthur for Mr. Smith -- Barbara Stanwyck. A far better actress, and more suitable role for her. Jean was too whiny. I ran that film a few weeks ago for my Thursday night classic, in honor of the late Charles Lane, a long-time and ubiqutous character actor who died in early July at age 102! You've certainly seen him if you don't quite place the name. I ran "Smith" because Lane's the very first person you see on screen, a reporter phoning in the news of the death of the sitting senator who Smith replaces. He's got a few other scenes as well, as a reported called Nosey. Typical. Capra used him nine times and wrote him a letter calling him his good luck charm. Look for him!

Gotta run now, leaving for the weekend -- looking forward to our next round, I hope next week! You're an excellent and learned correspondent!

I can't believe you only caught a bit of "Beyond..." on television! I am going to watch it again tomorrow night and have purchased a fine Australian Shiraz to go with it. Expect copious further notes (assuming I can decipher them come the morning) to follow. Plus, perhaps, a partial defence of Ms Fontaine, whom we are in danger of libelling scandalously.

Definitely disagree with you re-Jean Arthur. Barbara Stanwyck is my absolute favourite female actor from the golden age, but I don't think comedy was her forte. The obvious exception to that rash generalisation is the superb "The lady Eve" by the sublime Preston Sturges, but I still don't think you can beat Ms Arthur in Capra's film. I will stand by this even should you use torture. And yes, Charles Lane is an old friend and a fine fellow.

I have nothing against "Best years...", which is a very, very good film - except, I'm afraid, that it was directed by William Wyler, who had a nasty tendency to embalm almost all his films. His ultra-textbook style is very smooth and easy on the eye (just about the polar opposite of Lang) and in many ways absolutely admirable, but his films seem to me to lack life. Even "Best years..." appears - to me - to be too consciously planned out: he's a director who always gets to C having passed through A and B at exactly the right time and in the right manner. It's an approach which I could see coming back into fashion at some point (he's distinctly out of fashion with critics in this country at the moment, although I know that Sidney Lumet, whom I admire a good deal, is a big Wyler fan), but I don't think it ever really hits the spot for me. Again there are exceptions: I can't really fault either "The little foxes" or "The heiress" (which Scorsese is crazy for), in both of which his clinical approach proves a perfect counterpoint to the melodramatic excesses of the narratives.

And perhaps just one more word on poor Clem Attlee (anyone else reading these posts is going to wonder how he ever turned up in a discussion about late-period Fritz Lang). For a long time Churchill's rather bitchy comment (a sore loser, perhaps?) was pretty much the received wisdom on him, but there has been a bit of a reassessment since 2000 (the inevitable "greatest prime minister of the century" tedium), and his reputation now stands very high indeed. I think it's because he genuinely believed in what he was doing, and he managed to create a lasting legacy which people over here still respect and admire (even if no-one knows how to afford it).

Lastly, you don't need to tell a mixed-race half-Australian that the British have their moments of insularity. Since Americans don't play the same international team sports as the British and Australians, you are actually spared the worst excesses, but it's exactly as bad as it ever was. Which means it's rather hilarious, so long as you know not to take it personally.

Thomas.

Hi Thomas,

You haven't lost me, even after three weeks, but it's been a busy time hereabouts, end of summer and all that rot, so things are just settling down. Now, where to begin...

Stanwyck: I don't think it was a case of comedy not being her forte but rather that she was given few opportunties to exploit her talents in that direction; she was always so in demand for tough or ruthless roles that comedy wasn't much on the agenda. Nevertheless, same year as "The Lady Eve", how about her performance in Howard Hawks's "Ball of Fire"? The one for which she was nominated for an Oscar. But there too it was clear no one thought of her for comedy; I know the role was offered first to Ginger Rogers, who turned it down because she was so full of herself after winning an undeserved Oscar for her dramatic performance in "Kitty Foyle" a few months earlier. A couple of others, I forget who but you might remember, also turned it down before they offered it to Barbara. "Ball of Fire" showed her both funny and sexy, and she always said that while it was great it would have been even better had Billy Wilder, who co-wrote the script from his own original story, directed it; it was the last film Wilder wrote that he did not direct, and frankly it has much more the feel of a Wilder than a Hawks film (though both rank among my favorite directors). Under torture also, I stand by my Stanwyck preference for "Mr. Smith." I was never an Arthur fan, as I've said, and the more I see her the less impressed I am with her kind of whiny, grating acting style. She was an acting teacher at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and I attended graduate school at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in the same town, a few blocks away, around the time she was wrapping up her career there. Never saw her, and regret now that I never tried to do so, though in my early 20s I doubt I was too concerned with it.

(Off to another subject, do you recall a 1952 film called "With a Song in My Heart" starring Susan Hayward? She played a wartime singer named Jane Froman who at the height of her career (when else?) was severely injured in a plane crash in Lisbon while on her way to entertain the troops, and fought for years to avoid having her badly damaged leg amputated. She was also a resident of Columbia, Mo., when I was there, but unfortunately I never knew it. For a small town (58,000 then, mid-70s) in the middle of the continent, it certainly had its share of celebrities. That movie is coming out on DVD over here in Nov. -- it's actually not bad. The real Froman sings the songs as Susan, who recieved her third Oscar nom for the role, mouths the words, quite well, too. Froman died in 1980; I never found out if she finally lost that leg or not.)

Couldn't disagree with you more about Wyler. Actually there's an interesting school of thought that says that, far from being a static director, he was one of the most "democratic" (that's the word that was used) directors ever, in that each of his shots was deliberately framed so as to allow the viewer to choose which portion of it to concentrate on; that each section of a given shot was so carefully set up that it conveyed something important to the scene, and it was left to each audience member to look over, dissect and choose those elements that meant most to him and furthered the story line. I cannot think of a more perfectly structured film than "Best Years", either in its overall content or in its particulars; it is superb in every sense. As a particularly American film it may still mean more to an American, even today, 61 years later, than to others, but there are so many human values, constants of human behavior, within it that it conveys something even to people in other lands and backgrounds...not to mention of different generations. And a look at Wyler's overall work, at least from his most productive periods, the early 30s through the early 60s, shows a consistently high level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, and above all an ability to extract superior performances from his actors, that make him one of the stand-out directors of all time. He's so good it's natural that a counter-movement would have set in to reexamine and lessen his status; but while I'm all in favor of reassessing filmmakers (or any famous people), up or down, it's interesting that the down-Wyler side has never quite managed to sustain its pejorative view of the man. He's one instance of someone whose reputation is indeed deserved, and which in fact may even grow in ways not fully appreciated before.

About Mr. Atlee: wasn't he Lang's first choice for "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse"? No, I agree, he wasn't so bad, he had the misfortune to be sandwiched in between the PM'ships of one of the most famous men of -- really, of all time, not just the 20th century. And to have pursued economic policies that were ultimately disastrous (witness Bitrain's retaining rationing until 1955, years after it had ended everywhere else in the west, even in Germany [West] and Japan, along with the rest of western Europe).

Right, did you have your Shiraz accompanying your viewing of BARD last month? I hope so. You certainly made me feel guilty over having missed most of it when I had the chance! But I do need to catch it again next time. I'm still hoping for a proper DVD release of it before too many eons have passed. Remember to relate what you may have observed about Dana's odd way of holding a glass, a practice with which he was certainly familiar. By the way, I think too we've been a bit hard on poor Joan, who'll turn 90 next month (we'll have to commiserate on this site about that then). I think she may have been too ladylike for her own good in too many films, and that that limited her roles, or her effectiveness in some of them (e.g., "Island in the Sun"). But BARD suited her pretty well, though perhaps a more emotive actress might have done more with it. [SPOILER ALERT FOR ANY NEW READER!] More than his being sent back to the death house, I think Dana's most admonitory moment came with the glare of Joan's disapproval and dismay etched into her face: "Dana! How could you!" That's probably what made him feel he really deserved to die as they strapped him into the chair or the gas chamber or whatever device they used to do away with him back then: disappointing Joan! Tsk-tsk.

Now doing that to Rhonda Fleming in "While the City Sleeps", that's another thing altogether. She's definitely worth killing for, and you get the impression from that film that not only would she not be disappointed in such behavior, she'd actually concoct an alibi for you, help dispose of the body, and answer the door when the cops came in that black bikini in order to distract them and throw them off the scent. Would've worked for me. Interesting how Lang handled these two very different women, different types, in each of his 1956 films.

Too bad he quit Hollywood right after. Out from under the plummeting RKO, he could have done many other interesting things elsewhere, I think.

Okay, my friend, my sincere apologies for the delayed response, but I hope you needed the respite! Look forward to hearing from you when you have the chance...by the way, from which vineyard did the Shiraz come from? I'm always looking, and love a good Aussie wine.

hob

Hello again, Hob!

Good to hear from you once more - I feared I had offended you with my anti-Wyler comments. I'm afraid I'll have to get back to you on the provenance of the Shiraz - I made a note (I'm a mad-keen note-taker on just about any subject) but I don't have it to hand. Obviously it enhanced my enjoyment of the picture no end.

Where to start? We'd better lay old Clement Attlee to rest, I think, although it may be worth pointing out that people over here usually consider Churchill's second (peace-time) stint as Prime Minister to have been not a success at all, even if, yes, he probably is amongst the greatest people of all time: not many have a chance to save the free world almost single-handed.

And I'm prepared to go with you on Barbara Stanwyck because I adore her completely, even if, Preston Sturges apart, I prefer her in melodramas (is "The strange love of Martha Ivers" not one of the most under-rated pictures ever?). "Ball of fire" is one of those films which is only okay; somehow it never really takes wing for me, in the way that Hawks' best comedies do.

Re-Mr Wyler, well, it's not that I don't like him, it's just that I tend to admire his work rather than love it. Although, almost as soon as I finished my last post, I suddenly realised I had forgotten the other picture of his which I think fantastic: "Carrie". Olivier's best screen performance, an unusually good Jennifer Jones, a terrific production, and an impressive adaptation of a difficult novel. I understand that the contemporary public stayed away in droves, but that was their loss. Your point about his "democracy" of composition is interesting. I will have to think about that a little. Do you know anything of a couple of foreign directors, Japan's Yasujiro Ozu and Italy's Roberto Rossellini. They come to mind when I'm thinking about democracy of both composition and subject matter, people who tried to maintain an inclusive frame and to efface themselves from their "style". I shall try to re-watch some Wylers (inc, if possible, "The best years of our lives") and get back on this.

Either way, though, it's the complete opposite of Lang, who points his camera at the drama exactly as he wants you to see it, without an inch being given to the audience. And this is, I think, as perfect an example of his work (at least his American work) as you could wish for. BBC2 has been showing a short season of his films this week (with "Beyond...", "While...", "The big heat"), and it's been a treat. But before I get into more thoughts about this film, I must pick your brains about a guy who does a wonderful little cameo towards the end. You seem to have a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of American film from this period, so what can you tell me about Dan Seymour? He does a terrific, tiny turn as the sweaty owner of a very sweaty Miami strip club who has crucial information for the private detective (check out his wonderful air conditioning system), and somehow I had never noticed him before. The whole film is tremendously atmospheric, but just for a couple of minutes, Lang ratchets it up even more.

My main new thoughts about "Beyond...", however, are that it's really all about repression, and that the screenplay is actually much more clever (in an Agatha Christie-ish way) than I had given it credit for. Andrews and Fontaine are so amazingly repressed in their relationship: it's made clear from the start, when she complains that she's "never even seen his apartment" - and you should check out the look on Sidney Blackmer's face when Andrews makes a lewd comment about what he'd "like to do to" Joan Fontaine (Blackmer's daughter). And set against this (and the uptight world of toney bars and newspaper deadlines) we have brassy burlesque dancers with broad Brooklyn accents and shreds for clothes. It's no wonder Andrews can't keep a lid on his wilder desires - there's no middle way in Lang's view of the fifties. All of which, of course, makes Fontaine absolutely perfect casting, and, in her lady-like way, she probably couldn't be bettered, even if you wonder whether there's more skill from Lang in using her performance than there is from her in giving it.

This is going on way, way too long, so I'll save the cleverness for next time, but there are a couple of genuine "oooh, that's brilliant" moments that only make sense when you re-watch it.

Cheers, Thomas.

PS You never have to apologise to me for being late replying; I seem to have been the king of that over this conversation.

Hi Thomas,

I've just been back an hour and actually emailing an old girlfriend from England (who's in Spain this week), so figured another transatlantic post was in order.

First, I have to say your references to Ozu and Rossellini vis-a-vis their "democratic" use of the camera is intriguing and an eye-opener. Somehow I feel this more about Ozu than RR, but then I've never been a big fan of Roberto, as I find much of his work rather too pretentious for me. (And I say that in a sentence using the word "rather".) But I think I can apply the concept to them too; I found it an interesting idea to toy with, and a new way to look at films. But of course, per Lang, you're quite right, he was not a democratic director. But then, consider his nationality -- you can take the German out of the country, but.... Sorry, how nationalistic and provincial of me. (For some unknown reason, the Rossellini film that popped into my mind while writing this was, of all things, "Europa '51", with Ingrid B. and Alexander Knox. Not a great film at all, but different, and some scenes in that might qualify for the democratic-vision notion. Don't know why of all his films that's what came to me first.)

Dan Seymour -- 1915-1992, I believe -- haven't even had time to check him out on IMDb! He may be most famous as "Abdul", the doorman to the gambling room at Rick's in "Casablanca". He was one of the film's last surviving cast members (I wondered how he made it to 77 tipping the scales at over 300 lbs.!), and I remember a televised tribute to Ingrid Bergman in the late 1970s in which he was dressed as Abdul, greeted her at the "door" (on the stage where the reception was held), and escorted her to her seat -- she seemed genuinely pleased to see him again. (Maybe that's why "Europa '51" came into my mind, indirectly from Dan Seymour!) He usually played sweaty heavies, if not outright crooks then surly scum, as in "The Big Heat" -- the junkyard man who wouldn't cooperate with Glenn Ford. Which film were you referring to, about his owning a Miami strip club? Doesn't ring a bell right away. He was also in things like "Key Largo" (one of Eddie G.'s henchmen, whom Eddie shoots when he won't go out on deck to see what Bogie's gunshots are all about -- good way to maintain mob loyalty, don't you think?), and "Return of the Fly", the 1959 b&w sequel to '58's "The Fly", in which he plays a sweaty, crooked, conniving funeral home owner whose cheating ways come to an end when The Fly grabs him in the parlor one night. Cool scene. Oh, also, in "To Have and Have Not", the crooked, sweaty, etc., etc., and add to that, Vichyite, police prefect on Martinique who takes bribes, steals money, oversees murders, the usual pro-Petain/Laval cop. I also remember him as a frequent guest villain on early TV, in the first season of "The Adventures of Superman" with George Reeves in 1951 (I saw the repeats for decades, one of my sentimental favorite shows) -- he always was a thuggish criminal, and those first season episodes were actually quite serious and violent for the time; in the most famous he and his moll/doll/floozy found Superman's outfit in Clark Kent's apartment (actually one of their hoodlums found it while burglarizing the place, got shot, escaped, got back to Dan's apartment, spilled the beans, then died, after which Dan unceremoniously orders that "the crumb's" body be dumped in the river -- all Dan Seymour, all the time!). Anyway, Superman refuses to be blackmailed, flies the pair to a mountaintop, promising to return with supplies for a cabin but intending to strand them there until he can figure out something else. Dan begs, Supe says no and leaves, and then Dan and his babe decide to climb down to escape, despite a pointed admonition from Supe that such a climb is impossible. Sure enough, the babe slips in her high heels (!), falls onto Dan below, and the two plunge to their deserved demise. As you can tell by the boring lengths to which I went describing this scene, my favorite Dan Seymour episode. But in real life he was apparently a nice guy.

Don't think he ever worked with Ozu, though. Ouzo, maybe.

By the way, your dissection of the personalities of Andrews's and Fontaine's characters in BARD are spot-on -- never quite thought about them that way -- you're damn good! (Really.) I'd forgotten that bit about her never having seen DA's apartment -- yes, talk about repressed, even for the 50s. Now that you jogged my memory I do recall thinking that an odd aspect, meaning that it conveyed some bad, or weird, vibes about Dana right off the bat, too much for even the mores of the time. Dana does seem rather too creepy in this one, and your point makes this even more discernable...and a tip-off, if one were clever enough to perceive all this, as to his guilt, or better, to the type of personality that would lead him to commit such an act -- the murder, and the bizarre cover-up. Add to that his obvious predilection for "the dark side" -- murder, but even strippers, sleazy areas of the city, and so on -- and you have one screwed-up guy. Probably he'd have done away with Joan as soon as she refused to strip to music for him, which would have been the first night. Or as soon as he was sure he was in the will.

No, Joan was better off with Arthur Franz...another of those second leads who never quite made the front rank, but a nice guy (he died last year at 86 -- although, as he was born on Leap Year Day, 1920, I suppose it could be argued he was only 21). Trivia: he was the "third man" in the only movie Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis Reagan ever made together, the immortal "Hellcats of the Navy" (1957), a decidedly unmemorable sub drama in which Mrs. Reagan actually tells Commander Ronnie that she "wanted to be sure he was Mr. Right". Which I guess he was, in another sense of the term. Fairly unbearable. Like a poor man's "Run Silent, Run Deep", but with stock footage, a sappy love background, and Arthur Franz. Poor guy!

I should start a thread on the "Hellcats" site -- "Better than 'American Guerrilla in the Phillippines'?" All I'd get is about 6000 "No!"'s in response.

Oh, I do like "Strange Love of Martha Ivers" which I saw a couple of weeks ago again, though I kind of dislike all the characters in it, including Van Heflin, for one reason or another. This film also fell into the public domain but Paramount, which released it and owns the original camera negative, issued a pristine DVD the other year, far better than the junk p.d. versions previously available. Kirk Douglas's film debut, as you know. My main problem with the film is I can't stand Judith Anderson killing Bundles the cat, even though Martha takes her immediate revenge. Things like that are apt to damage a person's psyche, not to mention the cat.

Well, ran on too long anyway. Away for the weekend tomorrow, and from email, but hope to catch up and expand next week if we can. Thanks for all your insights! Terrific correspondent.

hob

Sorry, looking back I didn't make it quite clear. Dan Seymour is in "Beyond...". When Joan is desperate to prove Dana's innocence, after her daddy has died, she gets this guy to go digging into the victim's past, which sends him off to a previous joint she had worked at, down in Miami, which is where Dan turns up, sweating copiously and setting up huge blocks of ice in front of a regular fan, to function as primitive air-conditioning. He is absolutely rivetting - perhaps the only character in the film who isn't in some way repressed, and who seems perfectly at ease. I've had a look at his filmography and, although I've seen a good many of his pictures, nothing, not even Abdul, springs to mind. But he's fantastic in "Beyond..."

Your points about Dana's creepiness of character are well made and right, but what I wanted to go on to was a couple of extra plot points which would get completely missed by anyone seeing the film without knowing the ending. First of all, there's a phone call which Andrews receives when Joan has finally talked him into taking her back to his place, and which he uses to get rid of her, saying that it's his publisher, demanding new material (he's constantly pleading overwork, despite obviously never doing a stroke). That seems perfectly plausible, but when you watch the film again, you realise it's from the wifey, suddenly turned up again after his literary success and out for what she can get. Thus, it takes Andrews very little time at all to decide to kill her and then to do the deed.

Worse, however, is to come. During the police investigation we learn that the probable perpetrator has been hanging around the burlesque joint for some while - Dana just can't keep away, even when he has a respectable squeeze - but the only description the other girls can give is of a certain type of coat, and that the man smokes a pipe. The only pipe-smoker in the film is Sidney Blackmer, who also just happens to be seen in that certain type of coat. Now it could be that the makers just wanted one good red herring for the eagle-eyed in the audience (since no-one had VCRs back then to watch and re-watch their favourite films), but it sends genuine chills down the spine if you want to think that Dana has actually originally plotted to set up his own prospective father-in-law in some way.

And a neat little piece of symbolism which suggests the writer might have done a writing course: Andrews' cigarette lighter never works (is that why he has to visit strip clubs?), so Fontaine has to give him one as a gift (which he promptly throws away as a clue for the police).

I really, really think there's more going on in this cheap, sleazy little B-picture made as RKO was crumbling than a lot of people give it credit for.

I'll get back to you on your other references in subsequent posts, but "Hellcats..." I recall as being quite embarrassing to watch, while I seem to think I enjoyed the Susan Froman film. I'll check - and on the wine.

Enjoy your weekend,
Thomas

Only have a moment, but I must be losing my mind -- I had no recollection of the Seymour scene in BARD. But now of course it comes to mind.

Also, your theory as to Dana's character and motivations amid all the "little" things he does is quite right -- I'd forgotten, but I'd noticed at some point that business about Blackmer being the only pipe smoker, etc. -- I remember wondering too if he were setting the old boy up, but then he did need his alibi. But the fact that he was so removed from Joan, and kept returning to his sleazy side of strippers etc., makes watching him an increasingly uneasy, distasteful experience -- and is of course a tip-off if you can be discerning enough.

But as we delve into this film I agree, there is certainly much more, on more layers, to it than first hits the eye. Ergo, I think it really is "better than Lang's 'While the City Sleeps'", which is good but not half so interesting in its components and motivations and all-around creepiness/sleaziness. (Barrymore is as I said elsewhere too blatant, over the top, and not all that interesting, though he is scary. But the bad guy's clear from the start in WTCS -- hardly the case in BARD, in itself a reason to commend the latter as the "better" film.)

I've got to re-watch this movie -- I'm losing all the fine points! Sorry about that.

Dan Seymour would, I'm sure, willingly dump me in the river for my derelictions.

A good weekend to you!

hob

Oh, you slipped another one in before going away. Well, that gives me the chance to tell you that the Shiraz came from the Lindemann's vineyards in New South Wales and was 2005 vintage. Like most Australian wines (and South African ones, come to that), they insist on ratcheting up the alcohol content so it has that slight burn in the aftertaste, which I regret (and which Californian growers - much more sensible people - tend to avoid), but otherwise it was most, er, potable.

I shall also take this opportunity to reflect a little on a couple of points you raised in passing which seem very relevant to the way the discussion is going. First of all, you referred to poor old Arthur Franz, who gets to hang around Joan like a lost dog and look whimperingly hopeful a lot of the time. There is some exposition about his love for her, which is then swept away by her saying, really quite coldly, that she "just wasn't interested" in him. Poor chap, especially given that, as you mentioned, at the end you just know she's going to take him on, as very second best. But the thing is that, a few scenes before that, we have heard, during some banter about why it is taking Dana so long to marry Joan ("I have to get on with the novel first," he says), her father says something to the effect that Dana "would never have been able to afford her before, not on what I was paying him". He says it with a smile on his face - and I suppose all fathers-in-law worry about whether some fellow will be able to keep their daughter properly, but it's one of those odd little exchanges which this film seems to be full of, and which suggests that, while Dana is primarily looking for dirty sex (perhaps dirty, secondhand sex, at that, since he never has any matches of his own), Joan is obsessed mainly with money. Certainly she dresses as if that were the case: Lang and his costume designer have her dolled up as if it were the height of MGM, making her look even more out of place in such a cheap little film.

And that kind of brings me on to the second point, which you hinted at when you said that Dana's no-sex attitude toward Joan seemed unduly holy even for the fifties. I seem to think the first time I saw the film, that is exactly what I presumed: in the mid-fifties films didn't show sexual relationships so that explains Dana's staidness. But you're absolutely right: it is genuinely weird, and in that line about never having seen his apartment, the film draws our attention to that weirdness, and then plays it off pretty explicitly with its depiction of the sort of place that Dana does like to go to after hours. I think there's a sour little satire going on here on Lang's part about American attitudes to sex: either it doesn't happen at all, or it's shameful and sordid (and inextricably linked to murder). Another reason, of course, to cast a straight-looking actor like Dana, rather than someone who might sweat a bit like Glenn Ford or Edward G. ("Scarlet Street" was on television a couple of nights ago, a film which is much more direct about this dichotomy in American life and, therefore, perhaps (??) less effective). Dana won't have sex with Joan because she's too glassily perfect; Joan will only have sex with someone who can maintain her glassy perfection. In the end, he goes to the electric chair, and she gets dull old Arthur Franz.

I'm not making any judgments about American society myself, you understand, Hob, but I think those are the lines that Lang is working on, perverting what must have looked, on paper, like a fairly straightforward thriller-with-a-twist.

Oh, and isn't it amusing that most things like this involve a last-minute revelation that saves our hero from the chair, while this one has a last-minute revelation that condemns him?

Thomas

I just forced myself to watch "Reasonable" and I think it is anything but. I feel Lang wanted to get out of the American studio system as quickly as possible and did so with this dud of a supposed thriller. For me its as unbelievable as needing snowshoes on the moon. Who in their right mind would ever think they could get away with such a farfetched scheme? No one. Its a movie afterall and a decidedly silly trifle. He made it to end his captivity in the US. He went home where he could continue to be a proper German martinet and crank out some really fun stuff.



Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Snowshoes on the moon? Have you seen Frau im Mond??

Nay. Is it worth a shot?

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Lang's last silent. It's interesting more than massively entertaining. He claims he invented the concept of the countdown in this movie, later of course used in all real rocket launches. It's overlong but surprisingly accurate for its time (1929), until they get to the moon -- where they discover it's got a (very convenient) atmosphere, allowing our protagonists to cavort about the lunar surface in Lederhausen and Alpine feather hats (really). They discover gold on the moon, which makes it a target for greedy industrialist barons. As I say, worth a look, it has its moments, but not as good as it should have been.