Lists: those American dramas ...

Final List of the season - we are all listed out! After covering British, French and Italian favourites its now a return look at those great American dramas from the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s - the heyday of Kazan and Kramer,  Wyler and Wilder, Huston, Mankiewicz, Cukor, Minnelli, Nick Ray, Preminger, Brooks, Ritt, etc. and when American drama was ruled by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, William Faulkner, William Inge etc. We have covered them in detail here before, so this is a quick roundup. Lots more at labels - particularly Tennessee Williams ,,, (below: NIGHT OF THE IGUANA)

We have to begin of course with those early Kazans; 

• A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
• ON THE WATERFRONT
  
• EAST OF EDEN
• A FACE IN THE CROWD
• Nicholas Ray's THE LUSTY MEN in 1952, a strong rodeo drama bringing out the best in Mitchum and Susan Hayward.(right) 
• More baroque Ray with his 1954 JOHNNY GUITAR - the first film I saw, aged 8. 
• Ray's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE of course, and Stevens' GIANT to complete the Dean hat-trick. 
• Cukor's 1954 A STAR IS BORN, the best musical drama ever
• THE BIG COUNTRY in 1958 is really a William Wyler drama which just happens to be set in the west. 
• CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
• SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER
• BONJOUR TRISTESSE
• SEPARATE TABLES
• THE NUN'S STORY
• ON THE BEACH.

Those 20th Century Fox literarary adaptations came thick and fast:

• THE LONG HOT SUMMER - Faulkner, 1958
• THE SOUND AND THE FURY in 1959 - Faulkner, Good cast: Brynner, Woodward, Leighton
• THE WAYWARD BUS - a long unseen Steinbeck from 1957, Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins! Its a fascinating mess or Trash Classic
• SONS AND LOVERS - D H Lawrence gets the Fox treatment in 1960 ...
• SANCTUARY - another Faulkner misfire, from Tony Richardson in 1961 - Lee Remick and Yves Montand make the oddest team, but Lee shines ...
• HEMINGWAY'S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN - 1962, as per recent review. 

The 1960s upped the ranks with those new directors like John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Robert Mulligan, while John Huston went on and on ....

• THE MISFITS
• ONE EYED JACKS - Brando's brooding western, 1961
• ALL FALL DOWN - a perennial favourite
• THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
• SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS
• THE MIRACLE WORKER
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
• DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
• LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
• THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS
  
• TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN 
• THE STRIPPER
• NIGHT OF THE IGUANA 
• WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
• REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE
• SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH
• SUMMER AND SMOKE
• THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED
• INSIDE DAISY CLOVER
• THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE 
• MIDNIGHT COWBOY.
  

Showpeople: favourite fotos

Part of our Showpeople strand here - see label for previous - focusing on some fascinating snaps of Marilyn, Marlon and Sir Larry .....

I like this shot of MM with Olivier and Susan Strasberg, taken in 1956 when Strasberg was playing in THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK on Broadway, and before Monroe and Olivier had started THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL in London. Marilyn looks marvellous here but Olivier and Strasberg seem to have eyes only for each other - the young Miss Strasberg (a friend of MM's due to Marilyn being at her father Lee's Actors' Studio) was it seems already romancing Richard Burton, so maybe had a thing for British actors ....

Marlon and Marilyn have been snapped together several times too, here at the premiere of EAST OF EDEN in 1955, and photographed by Milton Greene (who did those great mid-50s shots of Monroe) and also on the set of DESIREE in 1954, where MM is wearing a dress from THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS, being filmed by Fox at the same time.

Coming Up: several more on Monroe, after reading Lawrence Schiller's memoir on shooting those pool pictures from the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, and some new Monroe magazines, like the VANITY FAIR ICONS issue on her, 

Brando - Streetcar

I had forgotten how stunning Brando was in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. No-one looked like this in 1951. Time for a re-view ...

Class of '54 ....

Audrey in Paris: SABRINA

A quick look at those 1954 gals all going places ... Marlon (in DESIREE Napoleon costume) meets Marilyn (in one of her THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS frocks); Audrey scores in SABRINA - Wilder's valentine to her after the success of ROMAN HOLIDAY; a marvellous shot of Grace by Irving Penn - 1954 was her busy breakout year with those Hitchs + THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI and the GREEN FIRE programmer; 
Ava scored as THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA, and Elizabeth looked sensational in that haircut for THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS, one of 4 she did that year. (here with young Roger Moore),

Marilyn consolidated her 1953 successes with the Fox musical and then off to Canada for RIVER OF NO RETURN.and created headlines marrying and divorcing Joe DiMaggio. 

Other busy gals included Shelley Winters, Virginia Mayo, Janet Leigh, Jean Simmons, Deborah Kerr, June Allyson, while Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck and Susan Hayward were out west. Judy Garland delivered and how in A STAR IS BORN. Over in Italy young Sophia Loren had her first teaming with Marcello in the delightful TOO BAD SHE'S BAD, one of 8 she did that year ...  while in England Dirk Bogarde and pal Kay Kendall helped make DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE the comedy of the year. And again, that great REAR WINDOW shot with Hitch, Grace, Stewart and that set. Brando and Mason were actors of the year as Kazan began a new drama with an exciting youngster James Dean, who would explode on the scene next year in 1955 and be gone just as quick ...

The ones that got away ... *

I have been, as mentioned previously, tracking down 1950s issues of British film magazine "Films and Filming" - a magazine I grew up with which I first discovered in 1962 when 16, so over the years I have been collecting earlier issues, and had them all from 1960 onwards through the 60s and 70s, when it folded. 

I even worked there for a year in the mid-70s and got to know the reclusive owner and that great crew of staff, as we manually did subscriptions and got each issue out - of course it would all be computerised now. 
But it also gave me a chance to catch up with some more back issues. Now that the magazine has been gone for decades, I feel I am keeping its memory alive. I also got to know its editor Robin Bean and did some reviews for him. But by the late '70s the magazine was in decline, there were other good film magazines around (FILMS ILUSTRATED) and its quality declined as did its finances ..... it got more explicit too due to the changing movie scene.

The back issues are fascinating reading, covering reviews and feautures, as they interviewed all the names with movies coming out: Lee Remick, Dirk Bogarde, David Hemmings, Michael York, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Lean and almost any director one could mention. It was big on European cinema too and introduced me to the works of Antonioni, Visconti, Fellini, Losey et al and it had several French and Italian editions where the likes of Delon and Belmondo were interviewed and there were at least 7 issues with Delon on the cover. Brando had 6 covers, Bette Davis was on 4 covers, Dirk Bogarde, and Sophia Loren had 5 each. Gina was on the cover of the 2nd issue (below), the first (in October 1954) had Brando and Saint in a shot from ON THE WATERFRONT.

So, I have been collecting the 1950s back numbers, from eBay (plenty of 60s and 70s issues still available...), but there are just four I cannot find ... I finally got a 1957 one I was missing, which had Monroe and Olivier on the cover from THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, that is now winging its way to me from America. But the June 1959 number with SOME LIKE IT HOT on the cover may be unobtainable now, and perhaps the third issue in December 1954 with Judy and A STAR IS BORN. 

The unique thing about "Films and Filming" is that it was a quality monthly - the only one in England at the time, as "Sight and Sound" was then a quarterly producing just 4 issues a year until it went monthly in the 1990s, of course it was/is a BFI publication so no lack of finance there, whereas "Films and Filming" and Philip Dosse's other arts magazines were privately financed.  For magazine junkies these are endlessly fascinating, not least for their not-so-coded gay subtext and advertisements. 
Left and right: F&F in the 1960s. The chunky 100-page 100th issue January 1963, with a long interview with David Lean for LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and features on BB, CC, DD, and MM: Brigitte, Claudia Cardinale, Diana Dors and Marilyn.  More F&F covers at label ....

* They didn't get away - I've got them, from a job lot of 40 F&F mags on eBay, at a very reasonable price - they arrive this week, and my friend Martin will buy the spares I don't need. So its all good.

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 ....

Showpeople: visiting colleagues ...

Never seen this shot before: Montgomery Clift with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon - presumably Monty was visiting the set of SOME LIKE IT HOT, shot in 1958, released early 1959. - and below, Tony Perkins dropping in on John Wayne and Sophia Loren on LEGEND OF THE LOST, Tony and Sophia were going to do DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS next ...

and that famous shot of Brando visiting EAST OF EDEN with a rapt Julie Harris and little boy lost James Dean ... 

RIP - Julie Harris

It was to be expected at 87 and she had been in ill-health, but this is one celebrity death that I am truly sad about. I always loved Julie Harris (1925-2013), ever since her wonderful Abra in EAST OF EDEN (where she was just 5 years older than Dean). Her Sally Bowles is tremendous too in I AM A CAMERA, and of course her 12 year old (when she was 26) in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING.

She excelled in so many things. In 1977 she brought her Emily Dickinson show to London, THE BELLE OF AMHERST, and a friend and I had booked, but I felt unwell on the night with a bad cold and did not think I was up to it, but he persuaded me. Of course I loved it and her as Emily, and without thinking anything more about it, I wrote her a note to tell her so, posted to the theatre. It must have been towards the year's end but some days later I received a lovely handwritten note from her, thanking me and wishing me all the best for 1978, as shown at link below. 
RIP to one of the great ladies of the American theatre and a much-loved iconic film actress and star.

It was enjoyable seeing her in recent re-runs of HARPER, REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW, THE HAUNTING. I never saw her later tv work such as KNOT'S LANDING, but its good it provided a retirement fund for her later years.

As said on IMDb: She was one of a kind and, like Kim Stanley, Geraldine Page, and Marlon Brando, was an actor's actor. She will be missed and remembered. What a gift she was to the art she loved. 

She was one of my 'People We Like' profiles here, back in 2010:
http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/people-we-like-julie-harris.html

Brando visits Kazan, Harris & Dean on EAST OF EDEN.

Forgotten '60s movies: The Defector

THE DEFECTOR, 1966. A dull ‘60s spy story, only of interest now as the last film by Montgomery Clift – what a dismal experience it is. Seeing the frail Clift next to the sturdy Hardy Kruger shows us how ill he must have been, compared to how he looked in the '50s (or even in WILD RIVER or THE MISFITS); he died the next year and going by how he looks here would have been in no shape for another tough Huston shoot (on REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE) - See Brando label for review of that. 

The mid-60s had some terrific thrillers on spies and spying: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM, THE DEADLY AFFAIR, Hitch’s TORN CURTAIN and flashy spoofs like MODESTY BLAISE, but THE DEFECTOR is just dull, dull, dull as we follow Clift around some modest East European sites (meant to be Leipzig) as the secret services seem interested in his movements. It all makes no sense and is hardly worth unravelling. Kruger, Roddy McDowall, David Opatoshu and Macha Meril (Godard’s UNE FEMME MARIEE) as the nurse/romantic interest do their best. 

Watching Clift in a long scene with McDowall one suddenly wonders if Monty is actually paying attention and in the moment as he seems totally distracted. Monica Vitti was originally cast as the nurse, which would have been an interesting teaming with Clift. Produced and directed by Raoul Levy, who committed suicide shortly afterwards, (he had produced the Vadim Bardot films among others) … the photography by Raoul Coutard makes it look good, and I am sure that was Jean-Luc Godard seen for a moment in the office ….

More forgotten '60s soon: LES GODELUREAUX, THE 10TH VICTIM, DEAR BRIGITTE, MICHAEL KOHLHASS ...

More Brando: the Countess & Reflections ...

Two more Brando films from his great era in the '60s. After Penn's marvellous THE CHASE in 1966 (see below), its a return visit to A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG - Charlie Chaplin's last film which opened in January 1967 (I was in the crowd at the London premiere and saw Brando and the Chaplin family arrive, but no Loren ....). Being 20 at the time I did not like this one at all, it seeming hopelessly old-fashioned. Looking at it again now I have mixed feelings, it does not really work as a comedy or a romance, as there is so little chemistry between the two leads ....

Natascha, a White Russian countess, stows away on a luxury liner at Hong Kong, determined to seek a new life in America. Natascha hides in the cabin of Ogden Mears, a millionaire diplomat, thereby causing an endless stream of misunderstandings and complications; particularly when his wife, Martha, joins the trip at Honolulu, necessitating a 'marriage' to Ogden's valet, Hudson, a saronged-dive overboard and more subterfuge on the part of Ogdon and his associate, Harvey.

Loren & Chaplin by Eve Arnold

Brando and Loren did not get on at all, the early scenes are fitfully amusing as we are entranced by the old-fashioned feel of it all. We are obviously on a studio set for the ship's suite with all those doors and endless dashing in and out of rooms. Loren carries it all by herself and certainly worked hard, she apparantly had good rapport with Chaplin and was pleased to work with him. Brando though is the wrong leading man here, he had done comedy before but seems bored and ill at ease here, and looks fed up with it all by the end, but it seems he had to replicate exactly what Charlie wanted as Chaplin used to act out the scenes for them .... so it probably didnt give him any room to improvise. Someone like James Garner would surely have been more ideal

though the whole selling point is that this is Brando in a romantic comedy with Loren, written and directed by Chaplin, who did the music too, including that nice tune "This Is My Song". His script though may have been fine in the '30s and '40s (where there were lots of movie stowaways and runaway heiresses) but in the middle of the Swinging '60s seemed hopelessly old-fashioned. Margaret Rutherford has a delicious scene, English farceur Patrick Cargill has his moments, and our THE BIRDS favourite Tippi Hedren pops in to play Brando's icy wife. Questions remain unanswered: how does our  countess who has no money get the changes of clothes including the Hawaiian outfit to dive overboard in, and the scenes in Hawaii and on the beach are obviously studio too and rather clumsy.
That other older English director Alfred Hitchcock also did a film at that year TORN CURTAIN with another top two '60s stars (Newman and Andrews)  similarly ill at ease.  A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG then is fitfully amusing, but does not really work. Various Chaplin children pop up, including Geraldine, and the venerable Chaplin himself too.Its a pity Loren's mid-'60s two with Brando and Newman (Ustinov's LADY L, also fitfully amusing and good to look at) were not better films or better received. She didn't fare much better with Burton and O'Toole in the early '70s (1972's MAN OF LA MANCHA is certainly worth discovering now, as per review, Loren/O'Toole labels.)

REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE - Southern Fried Gothic!

In 1967 Marlon headed John Huston's drama, replacing Montgomery Clift (who died in 1966) initially cast in what would have been his 4th outing with Taylor .... we are back in that Deep South Gothic universe as created by Tennessee Williams or Carson McCullers or William Inge.  This is a McCullers tale and a very twisted bizarre one it is ...

On a U.S. Army post circa 1948, a major who is an impotent, latent homosexual is married to an infantile wife who never misses an opportunity to ridicule his masculine failings. He displaces his hostility by brutally flogging her horse and she retaliates by humiliating him before a houseful of guests, repeatedly slashing him across the face with her riding crop. She is also committing adultery with the officer next door, who's wife cut off her nipples with garden shears after the death of her baby, and has sought solace in the ministrations of her effeminate houseboy. The sixth character, coveted by the major, is a darkly handsome soldier, a voyeur and lingerie-fondler, given to nightly appearances as a peeping tom in the wife's bedroom and daily sessions of horseback riding in the middle of the woods stark naked.....

 I think that about covers it. Naturally it all climaxes in an outpouring of violence as repressed feelings come to the surface. The cast is the thing here ... Brando acquits himself well as the oddly gay major (Steiger was also playing repressed gay that year in THE SERGEANT, also set on a military base - in France - in contrast to his more flamboyant gay in '68's NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY, Steiger label); Elizabeth Taylor is over-ripe and note perfect in another of her Southern roles as the rather dim, rather coarse insensitive wife (her hilarious party food monologue is a career highlight), and the great Julie Harris is back in McCullers territory (as in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING) as the other wife, with her houseboy. Seeing Taylor and Harris together inevitably reminds one of Abra in EAST OF EDEN and Leslie Benedict in GIANT and how they both liked James Dean .... Brando shows what a fascinating actor he is when engaged in a role, he has some great moments here, the scene with Firebird the horse and his breakdown, his monologue on the enlisted men's lives and comeraderie "without clutter", and Taylor whipping him in her Alexandre of Paris hair creation! Brian Keith is solid as Harris's baffled husband, and Robert Forster is the naked solider. One can see too Huston's fascinating with the horses ....

Huston's film was originally meant to be shown in washed-out, desaturated golden tones, which certainly did not happen with the prints on general release, but the dvd now has the correct look. Good now to savour this again - it has long been unseen here, and this is in fact a Korean dvd issue I got. Key moments include Brando talking to himself and rubbing cosmetics into his face, and a supposedly naked Taylor (body double obviously) and all Julie Harris's scenes ... its all a weird mix of camp and drama, Southern Fried Gothic! - certainly one of Huston's most intriguing and under-rated, from his great '50s-'60s period (which included HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, THE UNFORGIVEN, THE MISFITS (see label), NIGHT OF THE IGUANA).  Must dig out his equally odd 1969 THE KRELIN LETTER again soon too.