Summer re-runs: You're A Big Boy Now, 1966

Summer re-runs for a rainy afternoon:

YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW - Francis Ford Coppola's delightful 1966 coming-of-age comedy.

Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner) is an ordinary young man anxious to step out into the "adult world". His plan is to move out of his parents' Long Island house into an eight-floor Greenwich Village walk-up - and to try and convince someone to share his new "liberated lifestyle". This was Francis Ford Coppola's UCLA Film School master's thesis - and a hilarious, high-speed debut in film comedy for the future director of THE GODFATHER and APOCALPSE NOW. Fresh off A PATCH OF BLUE Elizabeth Hartman suitably plays the kooky spiteful actress who toys with Bernard. Karen Black makes her debut as the nice girl Bernard overlooks and Geraldine Page nearly steals the show with her Academy Award-nominated performance as Bernard's possessive mother.

Go-go dancer and actress Barbara Darling (Elizabeth Hartman)

My pal Stan and I loved this when we were 20 (at Balham ABC in '67) and I had not seen it since. It brings it all back - being 19 or 20, living in the big city - that soundtrack by John Sebastian and The Lovin Spoonful. I loved that sound then: "Did you ever have to make up your mind", "Warm Baby" etc. Its certainly a free-wheeling zany take on the standard coming-of-age scenario (a more funny ALL FALL DOWN, another one I like) and for me as essential a 60s romp as THE KNACK or our English equivalent of this, HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH. It captures that mid-60s look too.
The cast here is the thing: Elizabeth Hartman as the man-hating actress and go-go dancer Barbara Darling who gets our hapless hero in her thrall. We see flashbacks to her youth, laughing at horror flicks like THE PIT AND THE PENDELUM ... Kastner is just right as Benjamin, with Tony Bill as his colleague at the New York Central Library (we were back there recently with THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW), where Bernard's father is curator of the secret pornography section which Miss Thing stumbles into.... did I not mention Miss Thing? - she is Bernard's landlady and is the great Julie Harris and she is wonderful here ... there is the rooster guarding the corridor and who attacks girls; and then we have the equally wonderful Geraldine Page (above) as Bernard's mother, with Rip Torn as his father.  This was based on a popular book by David Benedictus which I remember reading at the time. It reminds me a lot too of that zany free-wheeling HAROLD AND MAUDE.

Miss Harris as Miss Thing - see Harris label for her very nice note to me in 1977

It is all fresh, zany, funny, everything about being young and captures that time perfectly. Good to see this Seven Arts production again now as part of the Warner Archive Collection (no-frills dvds) and great to see theatre legends and friends Page and Harris enjoying themselves here. Elizabeth Hartman was that very individual actress (also in THE GROUP, THE FIXER, THE BEGUILED) who later committed suicide - and Karen Black (before her hits like FIVE EASY PIECES, NASHVILLE or AIRPORT 75) is the nice girl our hero will of course run around New York with at the end with the dog, called of course Dog. We are 20 again when we see this. I must have another look at Lumet's THE GROUP soon...  
I have just seen on IMDB: Peter Kastner 1943-2008, aged 64, he was also in another interesting '60s one: NOBODY WAVED GOODBYE, a Canadian indie in 1964.

Legendary ladies at lunch ....

I remember this particular issue of AFTER DARK from February 1981 and had it at the time, nice to find it on ebay, cheap too. I wanted to re-read this interview with two great Broadway ladies having lunch: Geraldine Page and Julie Harris. They were doing a new play at the time, MIXED COUPLES, their first time on stage together - they had though both been in Coppola's YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW, his lovely debut feature in 1966. 

I read somewhere that we Londoners were lucky in that Maggie Smith and/or Judi Dench were often on the boards here - but New Yorkers had regular appearances by Harris and Page. 
Harris though did bring her wonderful 1977 show THE BELLE OF AMHERST to London, which wowed me so much I had to write and tell her, and surprisingly, she wrote back, with this lovely card - the only time I ever wrote to (and got a reply) from a performer I liked. 

We have been entranced with Miss Harris (who passed away in 2013) ever since THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING and of course EAST OF EDEN. 

Page knew Dean too, as per the photograph below: (They were in THE IMMORALIST on Broadway).

This issue of AFTER DARK too has great interviews and pictures with David Hockney and Lily Tomlin (who I am now enjoying in the GRACE AND FRANKIE boxset) and there are also comments on LA from the likes of LA regulars like Natalie Wood, Bette Davis, Gore Vidal etc. as well as Quentin Crisp on Mae West!

We also remember having this photobook FAME reviewed here, some great images by Brad Benedict of celebrity culture, like this great image of Richard Gere (then hot off AMERICAN GIGOLO)  as presumably a L.A. hustler ... More on Harris & Page at their labels - Julie was a 'Person we Like' in  2010 (that got 1,992 views here).  

10 great nights at the theatre

OK, so its more than 10 .... some choice plums from decades of shows.

A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY - Turgenev's play has current productions in London and Dublin, but I am glad this 1965 production was one of my first London theatre experiences, with a great cast led by Ingrid Bergman, Michael Redgrave, Emlyn Williams and Jeremy Brett. I was 20 and joined the crowd at the stage door and got all their autographs.

THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN, 1966 - the original Old Vic production, a staggering piece of theatre by Peter Shaffer, where Robert Stephens made his reputation as the Inca king. I was up in the 'gods' (cheap seats) at the Old Vic.

FUNNY GIRL - I was in the front row for this one, also 1966, when Barbra Streisand brought her Broadway hit to London. It was the hot ticket then. Needless to say Streisand lived up to her reputation. As with lots of musicals a lot of the songs did not make it to the movie.

THE THREE SISTERS - Chekhov's play had a mesmerising production at The Royal Court in 1968. I was in the front row for this too - Glenda Jackson as Masha and the luminous young Marianne Faithfull as Irina glow in the memory.

HEDDA - Ingmar Bergman directed this 1970 stark production of Ibsen, with a severe Maggie Smith as a very haughty Hedda, with Robert Stephens and Jeremy Brett. It was played out in red rooms with the actors all in black. So rivetting I went to it twice. 

HOME - David Storey's play was a big success in 1970, first at the Royal Court and then in the West End. I also went to this twice. John Giegud, Ralph Richardson, Mona Washbourne and DandyNichols were sublime as the inhabitants of a care home. I had to wait and meet Gielgud (very pleasant with a twinkle in his eye) and Richardson who came out in leathers to drive his motorcycle. He grandly signed "Richadson" across the programme page. 

HAMLET - as mentioned below I have seen several Hamlets, but the 1980 production at The Royal Court brought the audience to a standing ovation, Jonathan Price excelled as did Jill Bennett at Gertrude. 

A CHORUS LINE - maybe the best musical night at the theatre ever, at Drury Lane, on my thirtieth birthday in 1976.

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC - I have seen three productions of the Sondheim classic, but the National Theatre's 1990s one with Judi Dench and Sian Phillips was tops, I was at a preview with Sondheim himself just one seat away, scribbling furiously throughout. There was that great FOLLIES production too, and of course SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM, another one I went to twice, and was taken backstage to meet Julia McKenzie and Millicent Martin - thanks Pamela. 

NOT I - the seminal 1973 Royal Court production of Samuel Beckett's astonishing work, a disembodied mouth on a blacked out stage ..... Beckett muse Billie Whitelaw was astounding as the voice.  Also at the Court that first preview for Martin Sherman's BENT - we had no idea what to expect and were blown away by it all, pure theatre ...

ALL OVER - more serious drama with this lesser known Edward Albee, at the RSC circa 1973. It was a masterclass watching Peggy Ashcroft and Angela Lansbury sharing the stage, along with Sheila Hancock. 

GYPSY - the new current production in London was total bliss too - perfectly staged and Imelda Staunton was dynamic. She is still playing it until November ...... 

There were other recent pleasures too - revivals of MY NIGHT WITH REG, ONCE A CATHOLIC, THE JUDAS KISS at those interesting theatres like The Donmar, Kilburn Tricycle, Hampstead Theatre, and ASSASSINS at the Menier Chocolate Factory ...

and how could I forget  a delicious production of Coward's DESIGN FOR LIVING in 1973 with Vanessa Redgrave, John Stride and Jeremy Brett making a divine threesome; or Joan Greenwood and Gladys Cooper in a 1971 production of THE CHALK GARDEN ...

Being in London of course over the years one to to see some great performances and favourite players on stage: Ingrid Bergman several times, ditto Maggie Smith and Judi Dench; Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons, O'Toole, Bacall, Lee Remick, Liv Ullmann, Claire Bloom's Blanche in STREETCAR and the great Julie Harris as THE BELLE OF AMHERST in 1977. I had to write to Miss Harris (the only star I ever wrote to) and she sent a charming reply - as per the Julie Harris label, page 2. 

More on these plus illustrations at Theatre-1 label. 

Favourite movie stills .... an occasional series.

1950s: EAST OF EDEN: More on Dean, Richard Davalos and Julie Harris at labels ..... 

1960s: BLOW-UP - David and Vanessa and that perfectly 1960s studio space ...

1970s: NEW YORK NEW YORK, De Niro and Liza in Scorsese's powerhouse musical drama, a new A STAR IS BORN ...

1980s: BODY HEAT: Kathleen Turner's sizzling walk past dumb William Hurt in Lawrence Kasdan's sizzling modern noir.

Different choices, next time. 

Life is strange .... (and so is love)

Finally, LOVE IS STRANGE - which has just recently limped into London and with no award nominations, I can see why now .... It was shown here initially last October at the BFI Londn Film Festival and seems the last of the Festival's big ones to open here, and is not on many screens, so I got the American dvd.

Looking at it now it seems like a two hour movie that has been chopped down to 90+ minute, as various strands seem rushed or ignored, as we follow the saga of Ben and George having to live separately after 39 years together .....

After nearly four decades together, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) finally tie the knot in an idyllic wedding ceremony in lower Manhattan. But when George loses his job teaching music (at a Cathlic school) soon after, the couple must sell their apartment and - victims of the relentless New York City real estate market - temporarily live apart until they can find an affordable new home. While George moves in with two cops (Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez) who live down stairs, Ben lands in Brooklyn with his nephew (Darren Burrows), his wife (Marisa Tomei), and their temperamental teenage son (Charlie Tahan), with whom Ben shares a bedroom and bunk beds. While struggling with the pain of separation, Ben and George are further challenged by the family dynamics of their new living arrangements.

Well yes, there's all that, and its great seeing Molina (playing gay again - check out his Kenneth Halliwell in PRICK UP YOUR EARS (right) with Gary Oldman as Joe Orton in 1987, I really must go back and re-see that...) and Lithgow being so perfectly in tune with each other here, they are old friends, and it shows. The story though is problematic and rather becomes an excruciating comedy of embarrassment as they start to annoy the friends they are staying with - rather like that excruciating old couple in Capra's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW back in 1937 (1930s label). 

Several things puzzle: After 39 years they have no savings or pension funds or things they could sell to pay that mortgage. They have lived there for over 20 years but only owned for the last five, and want to sell before the 5-year deadline so only come away with $17,500? Didn't they understand that initially?  Why not leave expensive Manhattan? And why proceed with the wedding when he had signed that agreement when he took the job with the Catholic school - could he not sue them? So, all these questions, and then Ben is getting older, at 71 ..... and has heart problems.  The question of their possessions is not addressed, presumably its all in storage until they get a new apartment (I put my stufff in storage back in 1998 when moving house, for a period that turned out to be 15 months!).

SPOILER AHEAD: Yes, it is one of those dramas where one of the gay couple dies at the end - cue the old lesbians in CLOUDBURST, and that first EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL which I loathed, as per my review - 2000s/gay interest labels - where the gay character summarily drops dead after his story arc, as presumably they could think of nothing else to do with him - couldn't he have continued living in India like the straight people?  I suppose they mean to convey that nothing in life is permanent ....

Back to LOVE IS STRANGE. pleased to have finally seen it, but it raises more questions than it answers (particularly regarding that teenage son Joey and his friend Vlad). Directed and co-written by Ira Sachs, whose cast serves him well, Marisa Tomei is spot-on too as the novelist who keeps going on about her writing and whom poor Ben keeps interrupting ... after that nicely written and played scene where a rent-controlled apartment suddenly falls into George's lap, as he chats to Tim, that nice English guy at the cop's disco party (who just happens to be relocating to Mexico), we have a final scene with Ben and George at a concert and at a bar afterwards as they stroll back to the subway and part - it seems they have not moved into the new apartment yet. 
Then in an Antonioni kind of finale, the film moves away from George and Ben and becomes all about young Joey - arriving to see George at the new apartment, after Ben's funeral, and he produces - from nowhere - Ben's last unfinished painting, and we stay with Joey crying on the stairs for for what seems like a few minutes, before he goes skate-boarding with a girl at sunset .... its as though the story moves from the older generation to the younger, taking in the middle-aged folk (Joey's parents) as well. 
The dvd has a useful Q&A with the cast and director at the end, as well as commentaries by the actors, etc. 

Another LOVE IS STRANGE: We also caught a 1999 tele-movie on dvd, another LOVE IS STRANGE purely as it featured our great favourite Julie Harris in a good role as Kate Nelligan's wilful Irish mother. In this (rather superior it has to be said) tearfest Kate is a busness woman who finds she is dying of cancer and rights to right wrongs between her ex husband and son. 

Supporting programme: some gay shorts: 

GLOBAL WARMING, 2012. This collection of 4 gay shorts by Reid Waterer is worth a look – as we go from Bollywood to Hollywood, via London, India, Greece, Croatia and USA. PERFORMANCE ANXIETY is an amusing fifteen minutes as we see  two attractive straight actors (Danny Lopes and Lawrence Nichols) get ready to film an explicit gay scene as they try to get used to each other and block out how to play it. 

Set in India YOU CAN’T CURRY LOVE is irresistibly likeable (and provides a tour of India); DADDY’S BIG GIRL (a bitter woman vs. her gay dad) and FOREIGN RELATIONS (an award holiday tour romance) are more uneven but each tackles gay issues head on. An amusing supporting package then. 

That concludes our gay mini-festival, before the BFI's annual Flare festival this month (which opens with I AM MICHAEL).
Next: THE DRESSER and CALVARY.

Bad things

Before moving on to some classy repeats on television this week (Antonioni's THE PASSENGER and Haneke's AMOUR - I have covered them both previously, but more in due course), here's a round-up of some trashy items we enjoyed or endured recently ...

Its always a pain to see performers one likes doing something rubbishy later in their careers, say hello to HOW AWFUL ABOUT ALLAN a so-called shocker from that year of Trash Classics 1970 - its by Curtis Harrington who gave us the campy delights of WHATS THE MATTER WITH HELEN?, WHOEVER SLEW AUNT ROO? and GAMES (reviews at Horror label) but this one is dull fare indeed and wastes the talents of Anthony Perkins (perfecting his twitchy neurotics a decade after PSYCHO) and one of my great favourites Julie Harris (see label) in a thankless role.

After an eight-month stay in a mental hospital, a tormented man comes home to live with his sister; but a mysterious boarder may be trying to kill him.

Its a drab affair, that also features Joan Hacklett, and is thankfully only about 70 minutes.

More campy and glamorous is 1973's NIGHT WATCH, which re-unites Elizabeth Taylor with Laurence Harvey, and adds in Billie Whitelaw. 

Ellen Wheeler, a rich widow, is recovering from a nervous breakdown. One day, while staring out the window, she witnesses a murder. But does anybody believe her?

This is one of those campy thrillers with a twist ending - think Doris Day in MIDNIGHT LACE or Lana in PORTRAIT IN BLACK. They also ramp up the glam here with Liz in different gowns and furs and diamonds for every scene .... she and Larry were much more fun in BUTTERFIELD 8, both their careers were on the slide by this time, he was terminally ill and died later that year. NIGHT WATCH is an efficient potboiler which passes the time agreeably as one laughs at it, as dully directed by Brian G Hutton, who also helmed Liz's other 70s Trash Classic ZEE & CO. One cannot reveal the twist .... but its a howler. 

On to 1998 and VERY BAD THINGS - a thriller starring Christian Slater and Cameron Diaz.

A group of friends head to Las Vegas for a bachelor party.. only things go wrong and a woman is killed. Soon, the bodies are piling up and the friends find themselves turning against one another as the cover-up builds.

The main interest in this now is that one of the guys (the one who accidentally kills the prostitute) is an almost unrecognisable Jeremy Piven (right), well it was 17 years ago - a long way from his sleek MR SELFRIDGE which entertains us on Sunday nights here now.

Its a dark black comedy which keeps one watching, as director Peter Berg mixes laughs with chills as bodies get cut up to be buried out in the desert. Daniel Stern is good too and Cameron is ace as the bride-to-be from hell. Chunky hairy Piven is deliciously sleazy and its certainly ramps up some scuzzy Tarantino-esque fun as we watch some good guys do evil things as events get progressively out of hand. VERY BAD THINGS remains a polarising movie, with some either loving or hating it.

Back to 1944 for FRENCHMAN'S CREEK, a costume drama about pirates from a novel by Daphne De Maurier, with her REBECCA star Joan Fontaine. This is now a Spanish dvd: EL PIRATA Y LA DAMA (The Pirate and the Lady), by that interesting gay director Mitchell Leisen. Mexican Arturo de Cordova is the pirate, with hissable Basil Rathbone, dependable Cecil Kellway and blustering Nigel Bruce. 

Joan is the noblewoman who tires of her husband and his decadent friends in bawdy Restoration London and who decamps with her children to her country estate, run by kindly Cecil, in remote Cornwall. She soon finds out that a French pirate moors his ship in a nearby cove and has been using her house and bedroom. They get to meet and have a chaste affair.  She soon enjoys herself dressing up a his cabin boy and getting involved in his pirate activities. 
Then her husband and suspicious Basil turn up as the plot works out to a satisfactory, for its time, conclusion as she has to give up her pirate lover and settle for dull marriage and looking after her children. Joan gives it her all and gets to wear some nice gowns. Arturo and his pirate gang seem a gay lot .... a subtext picked up by my IMDB pal melvelvit, who commented:  "I see what cinema scribes mean when they speak of Leisen's "gay sensibility"; the camera practically caressed Arturo's hairy (unusual for the time) chest and there were lots of lovingly photographed bare-chested pirates" ... A sometimes campy, sometimes dull swashbuckler then. Joan's and Basil's fight to the death on the stairs is certainly well done and packs a punch! 

Another ship of fools ....

Based on the true story of a ship carrying German-Jewish refugees which was sent to Havana in 1939 by the Nazis but was denied permission to land anywhere. The ship was eventually obliged to return to Germany, where certain death awaited its passengers. This terrible outcome had been cynically anticipated by the Nazis when granting permission for the voyage in the first place.

The 1970s was that era of all-star disaster movies: the US studios gave us EARTHQUAKE, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, AIRPLANE 75 and all the rest, while in England TV mogul Sir Lew Grade assembled several all star packages, some of which were amusingly awful like our favourite THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (Sophia! Ava! Ingrid Thulin! Alida Valli! Burt Lancaster! John Philip Law! and more) and others like ESCAPE TO ATHENA was just silly, but VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED in 1976 was meant to be a serious drama but it is so crammed with names that one just sits there bemused by it all - "look, there's Julie Harris talking to Wendy Hiller" - but a lot of them have nothing to do and some barely get a look in: 

James Mason, Katharine Ross as a prostitute, Orson pops in a scene or two, as does Ben Gazzara, Helmut Griem reprises his evil Nazi (a la CABARET and Visconti's THE DAMNED), Malcolm McDowell, playing nice for once, is the young steward having a romance with Lynn Frederick (the last Mrs Peter Sellers), her parents are Lee Grant (who goes over the top spectacularly as the berserk mother cutting her hair in the concentration camp style) and Sam Wanamaker. Other well known faces here are Nehemiah Persoff and Maria Schell (also barely seen), while Jonathan Pryce is one of the persecuted refugees hoping for a new life. 

Topping the bill are Faye Dunaway and Oscar Werner (his final role) - Faye as an embittered wife displays her haughty glamour and gets to wear a monacle and strut around while her husband, Werner, practically reprising his role in SHIP OF FOOLS plays an esteemed Jewish surgeon. The captain of the "St Louis" is none other than Max Von Sydow. It should be a grim drama but the all-star cast and plodding direction of Stuart Rosenberg render it interesting for all the wrong reasons. Kramer's 1965 plodder SHIP OF FOOLS, which we caught and reviewed a year or so ago (Simone Signoret label), did it all much better. 

THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN in 1969 was also an all-star spectacular, helmed by the reliable Michael Anderson - one of several that year (BATTLE OF BRITAIN, OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR) - from a novel about the first Russian pope and how he tackles world poverty, from a novel by Morris West - which is another long, if entertaining, plod to see now, but at least it employed Anthony Quinn as the pope, Laurence Olivier as a wily Russian official, Oscar Werner again as another doomed priest, Gielgud as another ailing pope, and many, many more. 

Showpeople: more candids of stars at work and play ...

A Monroe and Brando shot I had not seen before, from 1954: he is in his Napeoleon outfit for DESIREE and she is wearing one of her THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW-BUSINESS dresses, and smoking!; those LES GIRLS relax between takes in 1957: divine Kay Kendall, Taina Elg and Mitzi Gaynor in those Orry-Kelly costumes; Faye Dunaway in her goddess period with Kazan on THE ARRANGEMENT, 1969; James Dean holding court with his EAST OF EDEN co-stars: Julie Harris, Richard Davalos, Lois Smith and Harold Gordon; Marilyn again with Robert Mitchum, Rock Hudson and Terry Moore at a party at Jean Negulesco's house in 1953 - her breakout year, this is the Marilyn I first got to know from those '50s magazine covers. That could be Negulesco in the background. Mitchum had been in the marines with MM's first husband, and they went on to star in RIVER OF NO RETURN in '54. Bette Davis visits Audrey Hepburn on THE NUN'S STORY in 1959, left, and right: Rock and Marilyn again, in 1962 when he presented her with an Italian award. And again: that fascinating shot of Montgomery Clift visiting Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon on SOME LIKE IT HOT!

Sophia and Ingrid in 1958 on set of INDISCREET. See Showpeople label for more candids,including Marilyn with Marlene, and with Gina Lollobrigida, and Marlene meeting Elizabeth Taylor, or Sophia meeting Audrey, Dirk meeting Rock, or ....