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RIP: Director Stanley Donen (Charade, Singin' in the Rain....Damn Yankees)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
5 replies | jump to latest

Stanley Donen has passed. At age 94. That's a wonderful life.

Quite a career. Musicals. Thrillers(a couple.) Comedies. Dramas.

Reviewing his list, I was surprised at how many times he was a CO-director: Singin' in the Rain most famously. But also my favorite of 1958(Damn Yankees) and its companion piece Pajama Game(1957)...same team, same songwriters.

Singin' in the Rain, I suppose is the BIG one. But Donen rather has to share the glory on that with Gene Kelly.

Charade has been called "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock didn't make," but its only kinda/sorta like Hitchcock. Its got a Henry Mancini score for one thing. Hitch fired Mancini off off Frenzy, but Donen used him for both "Charade" and the other (lesser) thriller "Arabesque" and ended up with two thrillers that sounded like Blake Edwards directed them(given that Mancini scored Edwards TV show Peter Gunn and every Edwards movie ever made from Breakfast at Tiffany's.)

Charade is my favorite movie of 1963(when Its a Mad Mad World isn't). We get Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn together, perfectly. Hitchcock always wanted to work with Audrey Hepburn and almost did on "No Bail for the Judge," and certainly never got Hepburn with Grant. We got Walter Matthau in his "pre-star top supporting guy phase"(and he's got the most interesting role in the movie.) We got pre-star James Coburn, he of the lanky walk and the stereophonic deep voice as "Tex" the subvillain. And we got a great romantic thriller.

Damn Yankees is my favorite movie of 1958. ("Verti-WHAT?") Fast on its feet, sexy and with the surefire centerpiece of "Mr. Applegate"(Ray Walston as the Devil, actually) to keep the proceedings macabre and mean. Its also got one of my favorite musical songs of all time: "Heart." As in "You Gotta Have Heart" -- uplift, comedy, barbershop quartet harmonies, the whole nine yards.

One sleeper gem: "The Little Prince" a 70's musical with a very abstract whimsical quality, and two nifty musical cameos -- Gene Wilder (as a fox), and Bob Fosse(as a snake). Each man projects his animal in costume and manner only. Its magical. And the song "The Little Prince" is heartbreaking.

One naughty guilty pleasure(Donen's final film): Blame it on Rio. Michael Caine in his usual British manner, and the underrated Joe Bologna(all macho New Yawk) are male buddies who take their two teenage daughters on vacation in Rio. Caine's daughter is a prim young Demi Moore. Bologna's daughter is va-va-voom, often seen topless and in total sexual pursuit of Caine. Which means if tough guy Bologna finds out -- trouble for Mr. Caine. The father figure sex stuff outraged some critics and the movie isn't very good but -- its on-the-edge sexual and very funny: Caine is perfect as the man who strays and goes nuts trying to cover it up.

One big bomb: Lucky Lady. Top seventies stars Burt Reynolds and Gene Hackman buddy it up, with Liza Minnelli as the woman in between. It was meant to be a "Sting"-like period action comedy about rumrunning; it just played horribly, start to finish. (I blame the husband-and-wife screenwriters, who also wrote bad movies like Howard the Duck and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)

To linger on the little-known Donens is probably wrong, but The Little Prince and Blame it on Rio were memorable to me(for different reasons) and Lucky Lady saddened me -- and in all three cases, I KNEW Donen was their maker. And I was rooting for the man who made Charade and Damn Yankees.

And that Rain movie.

But this one, too: "Two for the Road" -- Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in a very adult tale of marriage and all it entails, with a Mancini score and not a scare in sight in the year Hepburn also made Wait Until Dark.

And this one: Funny Face. I've spoken ill of it, but I don't know why. Only saw it once. I know its pretty major. I know its highly ranked. I know its very sophisticated. Maybe its because Fred Astaire doesn't much send me. Likely its simple: versus the peppy, sexy Damn Yankees, its just TOO sophisticated.

And wait, THIS one: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. That was on the CBS Friday Night Movie, it seemed, in constant rotation. I remember the big barnstorming dance number in the middle, and how each brother wore a different bright colored outfit. Liked it, didn't love it.

No, its Charade and Damn Yankees for me, personally. And Singin' in the Rain as the Psycho-level acknowledged classic(I love the title number -- its like the crop duster scene of dance.)

And I like that for a year or two as an "old man," Stanley Donen was married to the hot Yvette Mimieux. Good for you, Stanley!

A great career. An interesting man. RIP, Stanley Donen.

[–] swanstep (2616) 5 years ago

In 1998 (Titanic's Oscar year) Donen got an Honorary Oscar after a lifetime of never even being nominated. It was the best moment of the night and maybe the best Oscar moment ever. The full video including the brilliant, overwhelming clips package introduced by Scorsese (and I suspect pulled together & edited by him and his team) is now on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozag5oXPYms
The tragedy is that moments like this - Oscars' living connection with film history - can't happen any more since all Honorary Awards have been bumped to a B-show, 'The Governor's Awards'. :(

Anyhow, Donen made a few turkeys - The Grass is Greener, Saturn 3, Lucky Lady, Kiss Them for Me - but the +ve side of the ledger is *enormous*. In addition to the films ecarle mentioned I'd cite Always Fair Weather as a great underrated, depressive musical (it's a bit like Best Years of Our Lives the musical), Bedazzled (1967) a truly great comedy (avoid the Harold Ramis remake!), Indiscreet (1958) a mature romance sounds dull but isn't, and his directorial debut w Kelly 'On The Town' - great stars, great songs, great dancing, great locations, what more do you want?

Donen got to spend his last decade or two shacked up with Elaine May. Talk about a happy ending!

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

In 1998 (Titanic's Oscar ear) Donen got an Honorary Oscar after a lifetime of never even being nominated. It was the best moment of the night and maybe the best Oscar moment ever. The full video including the brilliant, overwhelming clips package introduced by Scorsese (and I suspect pulled together & edited by him and his team) is now on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozag5oXPYms
The tragedy is that moments like this - Oscars' living connection with film history - can't happen any more since all Honorary Awards have been bumped to a B-show, 'The Governor's Awards'. :(

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That clip was wonderful...entertaining...and moving.

And it rather made things crystal clear about why the Oscars don't put things like this on the show anymore. The clips and the stars from the Golden Era(s) rather shame where the movies have ended up.

I know that's the "old man" in me speaking, but honestly. The "winnable" Oscar films anymore are mostly dramas, and not widely seen, and they won't be getting "memory" clips years from now.

Also: take a look at the stars in that room that night. Sean Connery, Gregory Peck, Robin Williams, Arnold Schwarzenegger(no Oscar winner, but a star). Hard to match them today. As someone wrote "today's stars have never been paid more...or mattered less."

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Anyhow, Donen made a few turkeys - The Grass is Greener, Saturn 3, Lucky Lady, Kiss Them for Me - but the +ve side of the ledger is *enormous*.

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Some not good ones there, that's for sure. Well, he was a "working director," dependent on his scripts. And there's probably nothing great on his resume after Two for the Road. I recall Saturn 3 being particularly bad, because it was a "title sequel" to the pop classic "Capricorn One." Its like Hitchcock after Psycho -- a problematic time. Blame it On Rio ends up being Donen's final film. I expect the film world would rather stop at Two for the Road and start in the forties. That's about 20 years -- the best years of a director's life.

But hey, Blame it on Rio isn't as bad as Buddy, Buddy(Wilder's last.) And "Family Plot" looks better all the time.

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In addition to the films ecarle mentioned I'd cite Always Fair Weather as a great underrated, depressive musical (it's a bit like Best Years of Our Lives the musical),

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Yes, that is a good one...great wide screen stuff.

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Bedazzled (1967) a truly great comedy (avoid the Harold Ramis remake!),

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Is that after Two for the Road? In which case we will take Donen's career farther in success.

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Indiscreet (1958) a mature romance sounds dull but isn't,

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I need to watch it all the way through. My main morbid thought on that one is how, 12 years after Notorious, Cary Grant was looking better than ever but Ingrid Bergman had become matronly. Its just not fair.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

and his directorial debut w Kelly 'On The Town' -

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How could I forget THAT one? As the Oscar clips showed Donen's greatest work is in the forties and fifties, except for Charade in the 60's.

The follow up to Charade -- Arabesque with Peck and Loren -- had a great Mancini overture and gorgeous stars, but lacked the supporting cast and wit of Charade. (As Peck kept telling Donen during filming, "Sorry, I'm not Cary Grant.")

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great stars, great songs, great dancing, great locations, what more do you want?

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As Audrey Hepburn said to Cary Grant in Charade, "...nothing." In context:

Hepburn: You know what's wrong with you?
Grant: What?
Hepburn: (Lingering, happy)....nothing!

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Donen got to spend his last decade or two shacked up with Elaine May. Talk about a happy ending!

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Donen seemed to have charmed all manner of ladies and wives over the years. If May stuck it out til the end, or near the end...there's hope past the 80's for all of us!

[–] swanstep (2616) 5 years ago

Donen seemed to have charmed all manner of ladies and wives over the years. If May stuck it out til the end, or near the end...there's hope past the 80's for all of us!

Yes, by all accounts Donen was personally a very warm, congenial, elegant guy that women (i.e., the sort of women who can get anyone they like) *loved*. Put another way, Donen *was* the guy Kelly always played on screen. Famously, Kelly himself was moody and difficult off-screen and his personal and professional lives suffered for it.

Elaine May's public comment or eulogy for Donen will be worth waiting for if it ever emerges, I'll keep an eye out for it and post a link here if it does.