For Mark, at 'So It Goes' ....

Monica and an adorable kitten. (I liked his Sophia one).

Summer re-views: favourite cat moments ....

Some favourite cat moments ..... here is Orangey, a famous 1950s cat - here he is terrorising that INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN in 1957. His most famous role of course is as 'Cat' in the 1961 perennial favourite (what other 1961 movie is on television all the time?) BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S .... we have covered that here a few times (Audrey label.). Cat is a leading role really, Audrey hated having to throw him out of the taxi into the rain and we love how he gets squashed between them in the rain at the heavenly climax ... Its of course probably easier to train dogs.

Then of course another leading cat role is that of Pyewacket in the 1958 favourite BELL BOOK AND CANDLE, where Pye gets thrown around and has to run across a busy New York street - before providing that happy ending for Kim and Jimmy (Kim label). 

Our other favourite cat, another marmalade one, is Thomasina in the 1964 Disney treat THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA.  Another orange cat features in the opening credits of our long-runnng soap CORONATION STREET (below right).

We also like that black cat prowling through the opening credits of 1962's Trash Classic WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (really must re-view that again soon); there's also that kitten Anita Ekberg plays with in the Trevi Fountain in LA DOLCE VITA.  

And of course there's CAT PEOPLE where Natassja Kinski gives in to her feline desires .... as per review Horror label.   More on all these cats at Cat label. 

Return to Tiffanys with Pal Joey

Apartments we love - hey, thats an idea for a post: BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

Lazy afternoon on sofa, nursing a cold, with a divine double bill on television - well, it saves digging out the dvds. I can watch BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S any time and PAL JOEY was fairly new to me, not having seen it in years. Here's what I did on TIFFANY'S a year or two back ....

I can never resist another look at BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S whenever it screens, and so it was again yesterday. One can look at it for so many reasons: Audrey, the wit, romance, Capote, Blake Edwards' sure direction, its a great New York Movie etc. This time I focused on the cat -
who gets quite a bit to do in it. I wonder what this cat who lived 50 years ago made of it? He (or she) is put out in the rain, thrown around, and sits and observes. It is a great feline performance.
Who can resist that climax when Cat miows and Holly picks him up and Cat is crushed between them as they kiss in the rain and the heavenly choir soars - did two people ever look better in the rain? - they must have used glycerine or suchlike. .... 
TIFFANY'S remains one of the imperishable hits of 1961 along with THE MISFITS, TWO WOMEN, ONE EYED JACKS, COME SEPTEMBER ... That ending though: in Capote's novella Holly does go off to South America, and the gay (we understand) narrator keeps looking for the cat, and finds him one afternoon, sitting happily in the window of someone else's apartment. That is perfect too but the movie went for the softer option. Its still an iconic early '60s classic ... then there is Patricia Neal's "stylish girl" waving her chequebook and coming on like a vampiric dragon lady ... Audrey oddly reminds me a lot of Kay Kendall in her early zany scenes, waking up, getting ready to go out etc. Kendall had died 2 years previously in 1959, and she and her sister were showgirls in revues in early '50s London, as was Audrey, and I understand they all knew each other.

1957's PAL JOEY is also a sanitised version of the John O'Hara original - it was a terrific stage musical in London in the 80s with Sian Phillips dynamic in the Hayworth role and those Rodgers & Hart songs. This is 1957 though but at least Sinatra looks at his peak here as the heel with that hat and the coat slung over his shoulder. Rita Hayworth is delicious as Mrs Simpson the ex-showgirl/rich bitch who bankrolls Joey's nightclub but on her terms, while Kim Novak, nearing her zenith (as she would do next year 1958 with VERTIGO and BELL BOOK AND CANDLE) gives her showgirl a sad quality that is just right,

 and then there is that adorable pooch. San Francisco is the back-drop, Barbara Nicols is a brassy showgirl and the numbers include Kim miming "My Funny Valentine", Rita also mimes the zingy "Zip" and "Bewitched /Bothered and Bewildered" while showering - dig that ritzy shower ! Then Frank sings "The Lady Is A Tramp" and we are watching another iconic moment. Musicals veteran Charles Walters keeps it moving nicely. 1957 was a great year for musicals: THE PAJAMA GAME, LES GIRLS, SILK STOCKINGS and this .... we like them a lot.  Lots of ritzy clothes too - Kim looks edible in that lavender dress, and those gloves ! ..... while Rita sizzles in some Jean Louis creations.

Cat people, or bewitched again ....

BELL BOOK AND CANDLE, 1958. A pleasure to see again yesterday. John Van Druten's play [the Harrisons - Rex and Lilli - had done it on the stage] is nicely transferred to screen in '58 by Richard Quine, with his muse of the time, Kim Novak at her zenith here as the witch who cannot fall in love - enter publisher James Stewart who has moved into the apartment above .... Its a lovely look at New York in the '50s, Stewart and Novak are teamed again right after Hitch's VERTIGO. The great supporting cast includes Jack Lemmon (just before SOME LIKE IT HOT) as her warlock brother, Ernie Kovacs as the writer on the lookout for witches, and Hermione Gingold as head witch, aided by Elsa Lanchester at her most ditzy, plus Janice Rule as Stewart's bitchy girlfriend, who it turns out was at college with Kim. Pyewacket the cat is super too. 

This is a great New York movie, and would be a terrific, if long, double bill with BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S -  which also has a great cat. 

Amusingly, this has now been seen in a gay context. Druten it seems was gay, and the coven of witches with their hidden culture and their own nightclub (presided over by la Gingold) could be read as coded for the secret life of gays in '50s New York. "They are all around us" Lemmon happily tells the bewildered Kovacs ... The Zodiac Club too is a great beat haven - in fact gays and beatniks are not too hard to find here in this Greenwich Village. It is tres amusing at the Club when Stewart and Janice turn up, and Kim causes a return of those thunderstorms which plagued Janice so, back at college. It was also Stewart's last as a romantic lead [he is 50 here], he really slipped into character parts with his next, the still terrific ANATOMY OF A MURDER, plus those father parts. [Nice to see him and Novak re-united handing out an award on one of those 80s Oscar shows].

Richard Quine directs with a light touch, ably assisted by James Wong Howe's lovely camerawork making New York at Christmas in the snow, positively enchanting. Daniel Taradash did the script (he also scripted FROM HERE TO ETERNITY) and the nice score is by George Duning. Kim makes a magical rather beatnik witch, always in black and that nice cape for the snow scene - with her shop of primitive art - then at the end when she is human she is in lavender and yellow and her shop is now "Flowers of the Sea" with sea shells - perhaps this, VERTIGO and STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET are her key roles. Pyewacket excels too ..... BB&C remains a welcome treat anytime. 

Thomasina

THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA, 1963. If you like orange or marmalade cats you will be in seventh heaven watching Thomasina as she tells us about her first three lives in this Disney classic, with a great cast of British players. Ably directed by Don Chaffey (who also did GREYFRIARS BOBBY and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS in a long career) from a Paul Gallico story, and set in some idyllic Scottish highland scenery, we watch Thomasina with Karen Dotrice as Mary, who lives with her widowed father, Patrick McGoohan, a no-nonsense vet, as we see when he brusquely puts old Nora Nicholson’s dog to sleep. 

Thomasina gets injured too and as father is busy saving a guide dog’s life he has no time to tend to the cat, who seemingly dies too. The children give it a proper funeral in the glen, but they do not know Lori McGregor, the local “witch” (Susan Hampshire) with that cottage in the wood where she heals and tends sick animals, discovers Thomasina just in time ….. 

Thomasina gets well but knows she belongs somewhere else – we also get her journey to Cat Heaven before she returns to her new life; meanwhile Mary blames her father for killing her pet and refuses all contact with him, even when he brings a delightful puppy home. Jean Anderson is the family housekeeper, and Laurence Naismith the local priest and there is also Finlay Currie, Wilfrid Brambell, Rita Webb and Francis De Wolff as the dastardly circus owner who neglects his animals. Things come to a climax one stormy night as Thomasina just has to return to her former home as wee Mary is very ill from pneumonia, and the cat has to go to the father who can return her to his daughter. 

There won’t be a dry eye in the house by this stage, but all is resolved as the happy new family, with Thomasina too of course sit around the dinner table. 
Matthew Gerber scores too as Mary’s friend who takes his frog with a broken leg to the witch to cure it – he and Karen Dotrice went into MARY POPPINS next, (what a shame he died aged 21). 
Thomasina is a screen natural, even when dressed up and wearing a bonnet -  how on earth did they train her? The cat’s thoughts are voiced by Elspeth March. 

This is a Disney classic for all ages, and another of those nice early '60s ones like SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE, THIRD MAN ON THE MOUNTAIN, POLLYANNA and the afore-mentioned GREYFRIARS BOBBY. I can't though seem to find his 1965 one THE FIGHTING PRINCE OF DONEGAL with his MOONSPINNERS star Peter McEnery and Susan Hampshire again, its a fond memory. 

The Long Goodbye, 40 years later ....

Now on Blu-ray, with neat new cover art (left), and a host of extras including documentaries, interviews, and a fascinating booklet, Robert Altman's 1973 THE LONG GOODBYE, misunderstood at the time, now makes its claim as one of the great American movies of the Seventies, on a par with CHINATOWN (with whom it shares a surprise climax), there are also shades of THE THIRD MAN with that perfect ending. As scripted by the great Leigh Brackett (who had also done THE BIG SLEEP in 1946), and shot by Vilmos Zsigmond with his trademark camerawork and that great score by John Williams and Johnny Mercer - that theme song, played and sung in different styles will not be easy to forget. Altman regular Alan Rudolph, who later helmed some films we like, was second assistant director. It makes Los Angeles look good here too.

The Projector has not done too much on Altman here, but, like Woody Allen, we love his early stuff: M.A.S.H, McCABE & MRS MILLER, NASHVILLE are all classics we return to, and now THE LONG GOODBYE. Other items like THIEVES LIKE US were seen and liked too at the time - the later oddball Altman like 3 WOMEN or QUINTET left us cold. So, lets head back to L.A. and the Malibu Colony:

When private eye Philip Marlowe is visited by an old friend in trouble, it sets in motion a series of events in which he is hired to search for a missing writer and finds himself on the wrong side of vicious gangsters. So far so faithful to Raymond Chandler, but Robert Altman's inspired adaptatation of the writer's most personal novel takes the legendary detective and relocates him to the hedonistic, selfish culture of the 1970s in laid-back L.A. where he finds that his old fashioned notions of honour and loyalty carry little weight. 

Widely misunderstood at the time, THE LONG GOODBYE is now regarded as one of Altman's best films and one of the outstanding American films of its era, with Elliot Gould's shambling, cat-obsessed Marlowe ranking alongside those portrayals by Bogart and Mitchum. 

The start is marvellous as the cat demands to be fed and is not fooled by the wrong catfoot in the right tin, as Marlowe goes to the supermarket and also gets some cookie mix for the girls next door  .... this demanding cat joins the BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS and BELL BOOK & CANDLE cats, or that cat in Truffaut's LE PEAU DEUCE and DAY FOR NIGHT. 

SPOILERS, maybe. .. Marlowe's old pal Terry Malloy, whose wife has been murdered, turns up and needs a favour - a drive to Tijuana, before the cops come looking for him; they take in Marlowe to answer questions and he is quietly hilarious with them. Then there is the search for missing novelist, Sterling Hayden (JOHNNY GUITAR) in Hemingway mode, and his mysterious wife Ellen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt - who played a similar role in that other great L.A. movie Paul Schrader's AMERICAN GIGOLO, see label). 
Plots interweave with the introduction of gangster Marty Augustine (director Mark Rydell) and his goons, including a silent young Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is a moment of shocking violence with Marty's young girlfriend and a coke bottle .... and Marlowe trying to catch up with Ellen Wade in her car, which lands him in hospital. Finally, the pieces fit and we head back to Mexico to find out who has been fooling who as Terry Malloy re-appears, it seems he regarded Marlowe as a loser, as he double-crossed everybody and killed his wife .... then his lover Mrs Wade re-appears driving her jeep as Marlowe walks away. Perfect ending ..... did I mention that theme song? 

Gould had just done an Ingmar Bergman film THE TOUCH - unseen for decades now - and was certainly the hot actor of that time, an Altman regular. He comes across marvellously in the later interviews as his and Altman's work is re-assessed. 

Leigh Brackett sounds a mascline name, but was a woman - and was born the same date as me, 7th December - but in 1915 and died aged 62 in 1978, another victim of smoking! A Howard Hawks regular, she also scripted HATARI, RIO LOBO, EL DORADO, the great RIO BRAVO in 1959. and that rather gay 1961 Clint Walker western I like GOLD OF THE SEVEN SAINTS (Westerns label), 

Altman, the great maverick, died in 2006, aged 81. I still have his last one to watch: A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION. His last hit was probably GOSFORD PARK in 2001, others like PRET-A-PORTER were spectacular misfires, but with great casts. His 1996 KANSAS CITY seems highly regarded too, and of course SHORT CUTS and THE PLAYER. Before THE LONG GOODBYE he did IMAGES with Susannah York in Ireland, one worth seeking out. I didn't want to see POPEYE, it may be fun now, and we certainly like COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN.

Another of Marcello's co-stars ...

Marcello worked with them all: Sophia, Gina, Claudia, Monica, Anouk, Romy, Belinda, Brigitte, Silvana, Anita, Catherine, Faye, Jeanne, even Shirley McLaine, Billie Whitelaw and Rita Tushingham - but this feline co-star steals this scene from YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW in 1964, which I wrote about last week - see below. What a gorgeous cat! It plays in several scenes with Sophia and Marcello and the young man next door, in that marvellous apartment/roof terrace practically overlooking the Vatican in Rome. Bellissima !

That Cat

I can never resist another look at BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S whenever it screens, and so it was again yesterday. One can look at it for so many reasons: Audrey, the wit, romance, Capote, Blake Edwards' sure direction, its a great New York Movie etc. This time I focused on the cat - who gets quite a bit to do in it. I wonder what this cat who lived 50 years ago made of it? He (or she) is put out in the rain, thrown around, and sits and observes. It is a great feline performance. Who can resist that climax when Cat miouws and Holly picks him up and Cat is crushed between them as they kiss in the rain and the heavenly choir soars .... TIFFANY'S remains one of the imperishable hits of 1961 along with THE MISFITS, TWO WOMEN, ONE EYED JACKS, COME SEPTEMBER ... Cats of course are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to train - there is that nice moment in Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT when they try to get the cat to come in on cue to investigate the breakfast tray - based on a scene from his earlier LE PEAU DEUCE.



What other great cats are there in the movies? Kim's Pyewacket in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (review at cat label) who leaves when she is no longer a witch, that cat prowling the credits of WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, Walt's THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA a delightful cat movie, and of course the bunch of lethal cats in EYE OF THE CAT (reviewed here last year, cat label).

Japan

A moment to be serious. This photo of a woman and cat at a rescue centre in Japan really caught my attention. We may be innured to tragedy after all those natural disasters hitting much poorer countries but seeing large parts of Japan reduced to matchwood makes one wonder how on earth can people get over this when one's home and town have just vanished, not to mention family and neighbours .... and of course animals too.

But we learned a new word today: " gaman" - alongside the chaos and utter devastation wrought by nature have been scenes of heartbreaking orderliness and self-control as people try to remain calm and carry on. There seems to be no looting or panic. Western news crews search for images of fear and anguish as the survivors try to maintain their dignity. This stoicism can be summed up by the word "gaman" roughly meaning calm forebearance, perseverence and poise in the face of events beyond one's control. It is so commendable. Japan has emerged from devastation before so it will have to do it again.

Fun and Games

“Ze snake iss loose"!!

VENOM – How about this storyline: the kidnapping of a wealthy kid goes wrong and the kidnappers find themselves holed up in the family home as the police surround them and THEN they find out that the snake the kid collected that morning is not harmless but is in fact a deadly mambo who soon escapes from its box and slithers into the ventilation shaft, after biting the nanny (Susan George, expiring in grand fashion) … This farrago was originally to be directed by Tope Hooper, but was taken over by Piers Haggard and features a cast of temperamental actors who here, in 1981, were not quite as famous as they used to be, but when one’s career is in the descendant one has to take what work one can – so we find Klaus Kinsi and burly Oliver Reed as the kidnappers, Sarah Miles with nothing to do as the medical specialist and Sterling Hayden as the grand-father, and the once promising Nicol Williamson is the police superintendent. Its satisfyingly worked out – Klaus gets a good scene with ze snake – as does Olly when it slithers up his trouser leg! and dear old Rita Webb owns the pet shop the snake comes from!

EYE OF THE CAT - A drifter and a mercenary nurse plan to murder his eccentric but wealthy aunt once she has changed her will in his favour. However, the aunt keeps dozens of cats in her home, and the man is deathly afraid of cats … interesting premise for a Joseph Stefano (he scripted PSYCHO) thriller ably directed by David Lowell Rich in 1969 and with another top notch Lalo Schifrin score. Its another of those glossy Universal late 60s thrillers – which we saw here in England as supporting features but they certainly made their mark. This one is fabulously entertaining to see again now as its twists and turns and the cats are all terrific, particularly that main cat. What a star! Stunning sequences include the aunt in the runaway wheelchair, Sarrazin explaining his childhood fear of cats and Gayle Hunnicutt surrounded by all those hungry moggies – not only a clever homage to Tippi and those BIRDS but surpassing it! All 3 leads are terrific: Hunnicutt with her big hair and Sarrazin are so typically late ‘60s and nice to see Eleanor Parker again as the aunt. Even dependable Laurence Naismith pops in as the doctor! Then there is the brother, Tim Henry – whatever happened to him? San Francisco looks terrific too as lensed by Russell Metty.

GAMES – another young couple back in the swinging 60s in San Francisco (not seen much as its mainly interiors) and an older woman who joins their games in Curtis Harrington’s stylish whodunit which also looks terrific (and may well have influenced EYE OF THE CAT) and benefits from the casting of Simone Signoret in a terrific role for her here in 1967. She is Lisa Schindler the saleslady who manages to become the houseguest of bored rich couple James Caan and Katharine Ross and joins in their kinky mind-games. The games turn deadly though when mysterious Lisa insinuates herself into their lives. After a rather slow start, Games soon segues into an exciting, serpentine mystery that seems way ahead of its time for 1967. Good to see Estelle Winwood too. Another interesting thriller then with twists one can almost anticipate as one begins to realise who is pulling the strings. Signoret of course was in LES DIABOLIQUES ... It was a second feature when I first saw it back then, I loved seeing it again.

A Shelley Winters double bill!

WILD IN THE STREETS – Another ‘60s trash classic I had forgotten but its also vastly enjoyable now. Barry Shear’s film of the Robert Thom story for American-International was a hit in 1968. Its certainly a wild and woolly view of hip culture then as millionaire singing idol (Christopher Jones) helps a Kennedy-like congressman (Hal Halbrook) become senator on the platform of lowering the voting age to 15, through sheer charisma gathers to rallies in both L.A. and D.C., Jones even wins the office of U.S. President and then forces anyone over 30 into a "paradise camp" to be forever happy on LSD so that they are incapable of causing any more trouble. Its mad, its wacky, its enormous fun, particularly with Shelley Winters on the rampage as Jones’ whacked out mother. Chris Jones is much more animated here than the waxwork he had to play for David Lean in RYAN’S DAUGHTER, and there’s also ‘50s starlets Diane Varsi as a spaced out senator and Millie Perkins as the senator’s wife, and there's a young Richard Pryor! Nice ending too with Jones being told he is too old by the new generation of kids wanting power... Its all an outrageous take on events of the counterculture late 60s. Now for A-I’s companion piece THREE IN THE ATTIC!

SOUTH SEA SINNER (not SOUTHSEA SINNER, that part of Portsmouth where I lived for 10 years!). This 1950 yarn finds Shelley in the South Seas as the bar singer Coral, Macdonald Carey is as dull as ever, also Frank Lovejoy. There is a kind of plot but its mainly Shelley torn between the two men and warbling a few ditties, in some very kitsch costumes. A nice programmer for a rainy afternoon, pity its not in colour. Also called EAST OF JAVA.