Psycho and Damn Yankees!
Was watching the latter film for the first time in years. It's amazing how much Tab Hunter's Joe Hardy resembles a non-psychotic version of Norman Bates in this, right down to the insecure stammering.
share@Andrew. We had a big discussion of Tab Hunter here on the occasion of his death three years ago:
https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/5b4d41aa064c50001403e4bf/ON-Topic-Tab-Hunter-RIP
I'll also bump that thread to the top since it's currently on page 28 of threads. (Thanks to the moviechat.org gods for continuing to preserve 5 years of threads on this board!)
At any rate, Ecarle's original post in that thread details some of the parallels between Perkins' Norman & Hunter's Shoeless Joe in Damn Yankees but also contributes a range of observations about Perkins' and Hunter's personal connection and their somewhat parallel careers, e.g., that at the time of Psycho's release in July 1960 Perkins was actually playing Shoeless Joe in a Damn Yankees production in Boston. I contributed a discussion of Hunter's full on apeing of Norman in The Arousers a.k.a. Sweet Kill (1972/1973), Curtis Hanson's cheapie writing and directing debut for Roger Corman.
What fun...
....things can be seen from various viewpoints and "they come around again."
Tab Hunter's peformance in Damn Yankees DOES have echoes in Tony Perkins' performance in Psycho....both characters often come off as awfully nice young men, polite. But both nice men have secrets.
I suppose that my preference for Damn Yankees over Vertigo for 1958 stems from an overall lack of commitment to Vertigo in general. Vertigo wasn't ever going to be my favorite for 1958, so I had to "look around" for what I really enjoyed from that year. Gigi? A bit too foo-foo. I Want to Live? Naw. Separate Tables? Some nice performances but that's about it.
No, Damn Yankees has some songs that I really love(the guy's morale booster "Heart" above all), a great villain(he's the Devil, but he's something both more and less than that)...a sexy dame, a happy ending. But mainly a great carefree attitude. Its sort of hip. I love when the Devil "insults" a female sports reporter with the curse: "Get married. Have children."
CONT
Meanwhile, here's a line that struck my fancy from author Scott Eyeman's book about Cary Grant. Its just as he is entering a passage about North by Northwest that makes the case -- yet again -- for that being Grant's peak and one of Hitchcock's.
But wait. Writes Eyeman:
"...Hitchcock had felt that the fact that Stewart had looked his age had been one of the reasons Vertigo underperformed. Rather than acknowledge a diffuse and, at its core, completely unbelievable tale, Hitchcock pinned the blame on its star."
Hmm..I've encountered sidelong shots at Vertigo for many years now, in many writings. Perhaps something about that Sight and Sound "greatest movie of all time" designation put a target on its back. Again, I've always felt that Vertigo was rather forced into its top Hitchcock status by a sub-group of critics who were out to be contrarian.
North by Northwest is pretty unbelievable, too, but ENJOYABLY so. Meanwhile, Psycho is actually pretty plausible --its the presentation(the house, the murders) that are "fantastical."
I simply don't think that the screenplay for Vertigo is as good as the ones for NXNW and Psycho. Especially the mid-section of the film, where Madeleine/Judy is "sellling"(poorly) her "haunted by Carlotta" bit and Stewart (despite attempts to show him as skeptical) rather falls for it. Also, Vertigo lacks the sharp humor of NXNW and Psycho.
And so...fonder memories of Damn Yankees won the day.
Vertigo doesn't get the Number Two slot for 1958 -- that goes to Touch of Evil. But I suppose Vertigo is Number Three. It DOES move me in the final act, Judy emerging from the bathroom as Madeleine IS a profound merging of image, music and acting, and it DOES have something to say about how men put women on a pedestal until they get them. Etc.
I actually saw Damn Yankees on Broadway back in 1995 as a little kid. It was incredible. Victor Garber was Applegate.
shareVictor Garber would have been great.
I understand that Jerry Lewis toured in it for a few months as Applegate. He wouldn't be MY choice for such a cool bad guy but...evidently Lewis did quite well by the role...and Lewis had fun with Applegate's sole number about "The Good Old Days" of plague, torture, Jack the Ripper, etc.
For awhile there, it looked like Kevin Spacey would have played the part in a movie (circa the early 2000s.) He would have been perfect but...not anymore.
And way back when the movie was made in 1958...Cary Grant was under serious consideration to play Applegate, because he and director Stanley Donen had done "Indiscreet" together and had a production company together.
Grant would have been great.
Still, it was Ray Walston's on Broadway and he made it his own on film. The Apartment and My Favorite Martin followed, fame-wise. And also the terrible misfire of Walston's one true "leading man role"(in for Peter Sellers after the latter's heart attack) in "Kiss Me Stupid," in which we all learned that Ray Walston ...was not a leading man.
But as Mr. Applegate...he kinda was.
Jerry Lewis seemed pretty miscast in the role, seeing him in clips from it only confirms this. Phil Silvers also was miscast (though not as much as Lewis) in the 1967 television production alongside Lee Remick as Lola.
Kevin Spacey on the other hand seems born to play Applegate.
Jerry Lewis seemed pretty miscast in the role, seeing him in clips from it only confirms this. Phil Silvers also was miscast (though not as much as Lewis) in the 1967 television production alongside Lee Remick as Lola.
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I vaguely remember watching that NBC TV version of Damn Yankees. I found it to be a "cheapjack video" version of a movie I loved. I don't recall Silvers in the role, but yeah, he's wrong.
Applegate is a variation on the "suave Hitchcock villain," but with a certain coarse edge. Jerry Lewis and Phil Silvers were broadly comic(in different ways)...vaudeville.
And a salute in passing: Lee Remick. Great voice, great face, the ability to play light or serious...and sexy. I don't recall her as much of a singer -- I'd like to see her version of "Whatever Lola Wants"(which, by the way, was the name given to the movie "Damn Yankees" in some parts of America where the original title was deemed too naughty. The 50s!
Kevin Spacey on the other hand seems born to play Applegate.
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Oh, yes. Spacey was riding high off of two Oscars and several great movies and I think HE was the impetus for the Damn Yankees remake. He had the hair and shape of head of Ray Walston; you could just SEE it. And he specialized in a kind of suave-oily edge --whether villain(Se7en) or soiled hero(LA Confidential.) I would have seen that Damn Yankees -- which would have come out of the Chicago team.
Hence Catherine Zeta-Jones for Lola.
Not to nitpick, but the real title "Damn Yankees" was used in all of the United States as far as I know. It was only called "What Lola Wants" in the U.K. where they were even more sensitive at the time than we were here.
Anyway, this really baffles me, but for years I recall Jim Carrey of all people being attached to play Applegate in a proposed new film adaptation. I have no clue why anyone would ever think this is a good idea as just watching one scene with Ray Walston pretty much tells you that it's a role Carrey would have no business ever playing.
Not to nitpick, but the real title "Damn Yankees" was used in all of the United States as far as I know. It was only called "What Lola Wants" in the U.K. where they were even more sensitive at the time than we were here.
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I stand corrected. I inferred that from seeing a trailer with that other title. My apologies, and thank you for the correction!
(Someone once wrote that on some US marquees, the title was posted as Darn Yankees, but that may just be "a story.")
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Anyway, this really baffles me, but for years I recall Jim Carrey of all people being attached to play Applegate in a proposed new film adaptation. I have no clue why anyone would ever think this is a good idea as just watching one scene with Ray Walston pretty much tells you that it's a role Carrey would have no business ever playing.
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Hmmm...well, I guess they wanted Carrey to follow in Jerry Lewis' footsteps?
The way to think about this, I think, is to imagine if Hitchcock cast Jerry Lewis as , say Philip Vandamm in North by Northwest. Applegate plays best as suave, with some hip edge.
As for Ray Walston, he came a cropper in a "sexual" role in Wilder's Kiss Me Stupid(we are asked to believe that he could charm Kim Novak into bed), but in a "supporting star role" in Damn Yankees, Ray Walston was -- for that one time only -- truly a STAR. Applegate is the driving force in Damn Yankees, Verdon and Hunter rather play second fiddle to him. He's simply perfect for the role in look, voice, and manner.
I like Walston's first sit-down with his seductive henchwoman, Gwen Verdon as Lola:
"This is a straight seduction job," he says, all business. And when Verdon tells him how she dumped a guy and he jumped from a window to his death, this exchange:
Verdon: He jumped from the 20th floor.
Walston: That's high enough.
(I made up that floor number; I can't remember.)