End of summer repeats: Millie, Pulp Fiction, Aviator ...

"In the Ritz elevator you just go up and down"

It seems like the end of summer here in the UK, as we face our second day of incessant rain, washing out a bank holiday yesterday, and much cooler weather - we were moaning about the heatwave the other week, but the nice thing about UK weather is that it changes all the time .... it may be a warm September and late autumn ... meanwhile, those tv repeats keep coming. It was bliss to chillax once again yesterday, with THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, 

a favourite musical ever since my best friend Stanley and I saw it during its first run, at the old (then new) Odeon in St Martins Lane, London, in 1967 - as per my other reports on it here .... its certainly my favourite Julie Andrews film, I love the look of it, the great pastiche of the 1920s, Julie, Mary Tyler Moore, Bea Lillie as Mrs Meers with all those great lines we loved and repeated all the time ("Just a restless girl", "sad to be all along in the world", "please go, enjoy yourself", "I bet its juicy" etc). and then there is Carol Channing as jazz-baby Muzzy etc. The guys are fun too - John Gavin as Trevor Graydon guying himself and cute young James Fox's Jimmy (now a senior actor here, good to see him last year at the 50th anniversary screening of THE SERVANT - as per my posts on that - Fox label) as he launches the friendship dance into doing "The Tapioca" or in drag to trap white slaver Mrs Meers who thinks he will be alright for "a dark corner of the late shift" ..... George Roy Hill directs it all with a sure touch, its produced by Ross Hunter, and lensed by the great Russell Metty (THE MISFITS etc) and then theres Elmer Bernstein and Andre Previn sorting out the score and the songs ... whats not to love?

All I need to say about PULP FICTION is: was it really 20 years ago it blew us away - still does now, as does INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and KILL BILL .... they repay frequent (or at least annual) re-visits. 

THE AVIATOR, 2004. I liked Scorsese’s Howard Hughes film a lot more now than I did back in 2004. One is bowled over by so many things, not least Cate Blanchett’s vivid cartoon portrayal of Katharine Hepburn – its audacious, but it works (Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner certainly doesn’t). Add in Jude Law for a minute or two as Errol Flynn and the film soars, just like Hughes does in his plane as takes Hepburn airborne in his plane and lets her fly it. Scorsese only shows us Hughes from the 1920s to the 1940s, with all that HELLS ANGELS movie-making, with Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani). Leonardo Di Caprio captures the spendthrift madness of Hughes in his early prime, as he spends, spends and spends more to get his vision on screen. 

Nobody it seems can say no to him, as we watch his staff and companions like Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly), and later his deadly foes like Alec Baldwin as Juan Trippe, CEO of Pan-American Airways, and Alan Alda as that very devious, corrupt politician. 
The basic facts about Hughes are present and correct, his unstoppable will and inner demons, including that Spruce Goose saga, and having starlets squirreled away all over town, as we see his growing obsession and OCD about health and germs and how he cannot open that washroom door … It is all vivid film-making, as the running time flies by, with Scorsese in his element, and all those fantastic planes and amazing set-pieces, and it has set me up to finally put on THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. It makes one wonder what Scorsese’s proposed Sinatra biopic would be like. 

Millie again !

"In the Ritz elevator you just go up and down"

It was on television, I recorded it (one has the dvd of course), its bliss watching it once again .... this may well be the only Julie Andrews film I love (apart from the first half of VICTOR/VICTORIA). I remember its opening in London in 1967 at that swanky new cinema The Odeon in St Martin's Lane - my best pal Stan and I went and loved it, we practically danced out of the cinema. It was one we returned to several times and used to quote those lines: "just a restless girl", "ARE you?", "sad to be all alone in the world", "please go, enjoy yourselves", "first that interfering Dillmount girl", "shooo show shooo show", "and her beads hang straight" etc - most of these uttered by the beyond words fabulous Beatrice Lillie as Mrs Meers the white slaver. The movie is a delicious pastiche of the 1920s - Millie trying to be a vamp and going out to interview bosses - "I'm in demand, I can typewrite 40 words a minute", then Millie's "first date" with Trevor Graydon (John Gavin spoofing his romantic leading man era), Julie is a delight as is Mary Tyler Moore as Miss Dorothy - the orphan with the chequebook - and James Fox scores again as Jimmy Smith, who invents that mad new dance The Tapioca and gamely drags up to trap Mrs Meers .... we had the soundtrack album. Ross Hunter produced, Russell Metty photographed, Jean Louis did the costumes, Elmer Bernstein did the score, Andre Previn was also involved, George Roy Hill directed it perfectly as he did THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT and THE STING. A class act then, and of course a camp delight.

Jimmy in drag with Millie ...

This is the movie that introduced us to Bea Lillie and we just had to find out more about her and collect her rare movie appearances (EXIT SMILING, ON APPROVAL, DR RHYTHM etc). There was somebody else also in the cast ... oh yes, Muzzy Van Hossmere, or Carol Channing who is delirious and had some terrific moments like her show-stopping "I'm a jazz baby" and "Do it again" - 
I saw Carol Channing in a solo performance at Drury Lane in 1968, I must dig out the programme, Throw in a Jewish wedding, high society Long Island parties, some dangling from skyscrapers, aeroplanes, and a fantastic finale in Chinatown.... 

Its A Movie I Love then, and a musical I cherish as much as A STAR IS BORN (1954) or THE BANDWAGON or GYPSY or SOUTH PACIFIC or ... 
If its the 1920s you want, forget the overblown  GREAT GATSBY and go back to MILLIE !Terrif !  
Later in the '80s, Rory loved it as well ...

Exit Smiling

I first saw the 1926 silent EXIT SMILING back in my 20s at the old London National Film Theatre (now BFI Southbank) and was enchanted with Bea Lillie as the hapless heroine, the skivvy of that tatty touring group of theatricals. She played "nothing" in "Much Ado About Nothing".  It is now though available on Warner Archive.com, and is just as amusing as I remember.

A maid who works for a traveling theatrical troupe wants desperately to be an actress, and manages to get some small roles in the company's productions, but is determined to do anything she can to show that she deserves a shot at the big time.

Beatrice Lillie's sparking screen debut! Running away to join the circus was a popular romantic sentiment in the 1920s for those wishing to escape life's drudgery. For wannabe actress Violet it was joining a third rate travelling actors troupe specialising in over-the-top melodramas. Too plain to play the vampy vixen, she was relegated to the menial but necessary tasks to keep the show afloat. She tutors and supports (and of course falls for) the handsome young man (Jack Pickford - Mary's brother) who becomes the male lead. This silent classic is a riveting time capsule into a pre-Depression world that will fascinate, draw tears and ultimately cheers ... 

Well thats the blurb. It is indeed a fascinating look at a vanished world of entertainment, as directed by Sam Taylor. Even silent, Lillie is the perfect clown - the business with the pearls and the boa are blissfully funny, as is her put-upon drudge who of course does not get her man.

I first encountered Lillie, as most did, as the wacky white slaver Mrs Meers "Sad to be all alone in the world" in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE where she effortlessly stole the film from Julie and Mary and Carol - that is a perpetual pleasure. I like too her perfect clowning and diction in ON APPROVAL in 1943 and she and Franklin Pangborn (also funny here in EXIT SMILING) do that hilarious routine about the damask napkins in an otherwise unremarkable Bing Crosby film in 1947, DR RHYTHM. Bea's rare appearances (like in AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS) are to be cherished, like those of the very individual comediennes Carole Lombard, Kay Kendall or Joan Greenwood.What a fascinating life Lillie (1894-1989) led, with her showbiz pals like Noel Coward in the 20s and 30s when she was indeed "the funniest woman in the world".