Mrs Stone, on her Roman balcony, 1960

We have written about Mrs Stone here before - that beauty on a Roman balcony in 1960. That Tennessee Williams boxset some years back (in the great era of dvds when we had to collect everything) was an ideal compendium of his greatest hits, with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (with new added material like Brando's screen tests etc), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, BABY DOLL, NIGHT OF THE IGUANA and the 1960 film of his story THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE. (I suppose it couldn't fit in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, SUMMER AND SMOKE, THE FUGITIVE KIND, THE ROSE RATTOO, BOOM! or THIS PROPERTY IS CONDEMNED (I always forget THE GLASS MENAGERIE, as have never seen any version of it, though I have read the text). ... more on all these at Tennessee label).

Right: Rich, lonely and vulnerable, Mrs Stone is easy prey for heartless gigolo Paolo (Warren Beatty) and his malevolent female pimp The Contessa (Lotte Lenya).

THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE is always a pleasure to see again, maybe not a great movie, but a splendidly enjoyable melodrama where Vivien Leigh is again ideal - this time as Karen Stone, an ageing famous actress fleeing from her public and taking up residence in Rome where she "drifts" after her husband inconsiderately dies next to her on the plane. She avoids concerned friends like Coral Browne, but soon falls prey to predatory creatures like the Contessa and her stable of young beauties for every taste (viz the old gent meeting his trick in the opening credits). No-one suggests decadence like Lotte Lenya and she certainly scores here, as Mrs Stone is soon bedazzled by Paolo (Warren Beatty in his debut) who treats her mean and takes her money, but as Mrs Stone becomes addicted to sex she throws caution to the winds after coolly resisting Paolo's casual blandishments at the start.

Soon though he is mocking her and arranging other dates with that young actress new in Rome (Jill St John), while the homeless young man stalking Mrs Stone (Jeremy Spenser, below) becomes more bold ... finally the abandoned Mrs Stone throws down her keys to the vagrant and thinks that five years more is all she wants ... one almost laughs out loud at Beatty's youthful beauty and petulence as Vivien again sketches her desperation (this of course captures her after the Olivier years) - 
if the film had been better (it was directed by theatre director Jose Quintero) it could have been one of her great roles equalling Scarlett O'Hara or Blanche DuBois, or THE DEEP BLUE SEA or her last appearance in SHIP OF FOOLS and she looks great in those Balmain outfits. 
(Pauline Kael in "I Lost It At The Movies" says: "The Tennessee Williams novella is about a proud, cold-hearted bitch without cares or responsibilities who learns that sex is all that holds her to life, it is the only sensation that momentarily saves her from the meaningless drift of her existance" and who used her youth and beauty to get ahead and now finds she is reduced to purchasing both. Vivian has some delicious scenes with Lotte, who is as perfect as her Rosa Klebb here.   

Penny Stalling in the very entertaining Flesh and Fantasy (1978) says: 
“Tennessee Williams wanted the lead in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone to go to Katherine Hepburn, after seeing her performance as the scheming mother in Suddenly Last Summer. But Hepburn, who resented the way her advancing years had been treated in that film, had no intention of inviting comparison between herself and the lonely middle-aged actress who buys the attentions of a male hustler. Although the public was intrigued by rumors of an off-screen liaison between the film’s subsequent stars, Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty, Spring was a disappointment at the box office. It seems that audiences were uncomfortable with the film’s depressing theme, and with the painful similarities between the lives of Vivien Leigh and Karen Stone.”
(Hepburn, of course, had already done the love-starved woman in Italy falling for a handsome man, in Lean's SUMMERTIME in 1955, so would hardly have repeated herself). 

(There was, incidentally, a 2003 remake of MRS STONE with Helen Mirren and Olivier Martinez (right) - they may have shown more flesh and Helen did her usual thing, but (like THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY where they also trowel on period detail) it just couldn't catch that 1960 original, and Anne Bancroft in one of her final roles as the Contessa was somehow all wrong, her decadence amounting to stealing the chocolate biscuits...). 
Contrast with Tom Hiddleston in HIGH RISE: 

A NEW Sound of Music ....

THE SOUND OF MUSIC was one musical I never wanted to see and I successfully avoided it until New Year's Day 1996 when I had to give in and watch it with my then ill partner (he died 2 weeks later) and his mother ..... and ok, I enjoyed it, but it is not my favourite or even favourite Oscar & Hammerstein musical (that would be SOUTH PACIFIC). Far too saccharine - I relished Pauline Kael's famous review at the time, where she muses "Wasn't there one little Von Trapp who did not want to sing on cue with the others or who threw up before having to go on stage?" - or words to that effect; or as "Films and Filming" said: "THE SOUND OF MUSIC is 179 minutes, and the first minute is rather good".  Eleanor Parker was marvellous as the Baroness, she could do a lot with very little.

I also saw the London Palladium production some years ago which starred television discovery Connie Fisher, who was an ideal Maria too. The O&H show was first staged in 1959 with Mary Martin. The 1965 film air again here also on new Year's Day. But now our ITV commercial channel has aired a new production, done 'live' and as my current partner (of 13 years) also loves the show and has done the whole Salzburg thing, I had to sit down and watch it again, and actually liked it a lot, it may be the best production yet. Obviously it could not be opened out like the Robert Wise film with location shooting, but it was nicely done and included the songs, mainly for the Baroness, which were not included in the film. 

Kara Tointon was an ideal Maria - she is a television actress here (EASTENDERS)  and won a series of STRICTLY COME DANCING so is well versed in show business and is quite charming, particularly as her Maria matures. The children were all ok, TV regulars Alexander Armstrong was Max, Mel from the BAKE-OFF was the housekeeper, Katherine Kelly (CORONATION STREET, MR SELFRIDGE) as the Baroness, but Julian Ovendon seemed a tad too young for Von Trapp, though he too matures into the role - he sings at the Proms, was in FOYLES'S WAR and one of Lady Mary's suitors in DOWNTON ABBEY (final episode screens here on Christmas Day - there will be a report) and he stripped for that scene in that revival of MY NIGHT WITH REG at the Donmar, which we saw last year. Maria Friedman is a great mother superior at the convent and sings a convincing "Climb Every Mountain".  So in all, we quite liked it and it adds a new dimension to the well-known show. With David Bamber and Paul Copley. Directed by Mel's sister Coky Giedroyc and Richard Valentine. It is due to be repeated soon.

Getting back to SOUTH PACIFIC, I was wondering why it did not do more for Mitzi Gaynor - its really her last film of note, after that came that dreadful SURPRISE PACKAGE (reviewed a while back, Stanley Donen label), then a forgettable David Niven comedy and her final screen credit in 1963 in a long-forgotten comedy with Kirk Douglas. 
Mitz was a talented hoofer and comedienne who arrived just as musicals were going out of fashion, but she scores in the 1954 THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (above, relaxing with Marilyn and Ethel), and ANYTHING GOES and she was one of the LES GIRLS with Kay Kendall and Taina Elg in Gene Kelly's dance troupe for Cukor in 1957, one of our favourites here, see label - and then her Nellie Forbush in SOUTH PACIFIC, where she seems ideal - I loved the movie as a kid and it was one of the first soundtrack albums I got. I would not have bought the more well known Doris Day in the role. Mitzi then had a good television career with all her musical specials and, like Debbie Reynolds, is still a game gal now.  
Below: those guys on the island, including muscle boy Ed Fury - ideal rainy day viewing.

Filmed Theatre: A View From The Bridge

Arthur Miller’s A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE must have been a powerhouse play back in the ‘50s, with Van Heflin in the lead as that Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone. Did Miller see him as a tragic hero who was a common man, a blue collar longshoreman in a gritty working class world? That’s how he is presented in Sidney Lumet’s film released in 1962. It is almost an European film, interiors were filmed in Paris, with Raf Vallone, Jean Sorel, Raymond Pellegrin, and Americans Maureen Stapleton and Carol Lawrence (the original Maria in WEST SIDE STORY). However the overheated dramatics seem a tad risible now as the films veers into Greek tragedy territory. Was Lumet trying for another ON THE WATERFRONT?

Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman is married to Beatrice and unconsciously in love with Catherine, her niece they have raised from childhood. Into his house come two brothers, illegal immigrants, Marco and Rodolpho. Catherine falls in love with Rodolpho; and Eddie, tormented but unable to admit even to himself his quasi-incestuous love, reports the illegal immigrants to the authorities.

Miller’s play focuses on the old world Italian immigrants making their home in America and bringing over their relations, some of whom want to integrate, as does Rodolpho, who can gain citizenship when married to an American girl. Vallone’s Eddie builds up an unreasoning hatred of the younger man, because of his attraction for his niece. Lawrence either is naive or just puts it out of her mind, but Stapleton sees what is happening all too clearly and tries to reason with her husband. Things come to a climax when Eddie kisses Rodolpho, implying he is homosexual – but surely if he were that should please Eddie as then Rodolpho would not be interested in Catherine …..

Pauline Kael in her pertinent review (in I LOST IT AT THE MOVIES) skewers the film’s odd thinking perfectly. 
As she puts it: “What does Eddie Carbone want?” – he no longer desires his homely wife (Stapleton at her most irritating) whom he is only supposed to have sex with for evermore. Kael also had words on that kiss - the first time men kissed (it seems) on screen, and neither were meant to enjoy it! Meanwhile the young couple fall for each other. Eddie loses his good name and is a lone man at the end, armed with his meathook as he and Pellegrin, armed with his, confront each other. It is powerful stuff typical of its era, but rather over the top. Vallone however in his prime is never less than compulsive, Stapleton excels as ever, and Sorel was that popular young actor of the time who had a long career – more on him at Sorel label. 

I saw Arthur Miller at a book signing for his novella "Plain Girl" in his later years, when he signed copies but nobody could talk to or speak to the great man. But just to see him and get a signed copy was enough. 

PS: I mentioned above that A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE was not performed much now - I was wrong, a new production is opening at London's Old Vic from April to June, with the intriguing casting of Mark Strong - the discerning director's hard man or villain of choice - as Eddie Carbone. Strong, from THE LONG FIRM to THE EAGLE, THE GUARD, ROCKNROLLA and ROBIN HOOD and more, should be ideal here. 

'60s rarities continue: The Sea Gull

Finally, the 1968 film of Chekhov's THE SEA GULL is available (a no-frills Warner Archive all region release). This has been one of my holy grails - as it never appeared anywhere here in the last 40 years or so. Hard to fathom why, as its a Sidney Lumet film with a stunning cast of the time. James Mason, Simone Signoret, Harry Andrews and David Warner (briefly) had all appeared in his 1967 London thriller THE DEADLY AFFAIR, and here they are again for this film of the Chekhov play.

Love yearned for and love cast aisde. The powerful, all-star film version of Chehov's classic. A brilliant cast brings playwright Anton Chekov's masterpiece of the capricious power of passion to the screen. The story is set during two gatherings, two years apart, on the same Russian country estate and among six lovers, most of whom are not loved in return. Those who are hard-shelled and wordly shrug off romantic disappointment. Those who are not, cannot ... and tragedy ensues. With direction by Sidney Lumet (NETWORK, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, THE VERDICT) and the talents of James Mason, Vanessa Redgrave, Simone Signoret, David Warner, Denholm Elliot and more lights of film and stage, THE SEA GULL resonates with profound emotion.

That's the dvd blurb. I am not familar with this play, but know Chekhov's THE THREE SISTERS (Theatre label) very well, from various productions (Janet Suzman and Joan Plowright were ideal Mashas, but the best one and still vivid in my memory is a 1968 production at London's Royal Court with Glenda Jackson ideal, and the young Marianne Faithfull a radiant Irina). Also, having last seen Vanessa Redgrave as the dying wife of Terence Stamp in last year's SONG FOR MARION (review below) another of those tedious movies for the older generation, it is marvellous to go back and see her in her '60s prime here.

First of it, it looks lovely (as staged by Tony Walton, and photographed in Sweden by Gerry Fisher), set in that countryside by the lake, with the woods and the trees and that country house estate where they gather to watch the play, which the bored mother, actress Arkadina, soon interrupts. Konstantin the son (David Warner) is distraught, he loves Nina who was playing on stage, but she gets to meet Trigorin (James Mason) the companion of Arkadina (we earlier see him sleeping naked in bed, while she sits at her dressing table). Arkadina is visiting the estate of her brother Sorin (Harry Andrews), and also to hand is Alfred Lynch (WEST 11- London label) as the schoolteacher who is in love with Masha (Kathleen Widdoes, from Lumet's THE GROUP) - the one who wears black as she is in mourning for her life - daughter of the estate bailiff Ronald Radd. Eileen Herlie is the bailiff's wife, and also to hand is Denholm Elliot, a doctor, sporting an odd wig. We spend the first act watching them gather and interact as Konstantin stages the play. Vanessa's Nina is spellbinding and luminescent here, and Warner suitably intense. The last absorbing if melancholy act takes place two years later ...

Lumet had already done the highly-regarded 1962 film of O'Neill's LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, among other successes, but somehow comes a cropper here, as it all gets tedious, there are long speeches shot with few close-ups, with some odd casting choices, the chief one being that Simone Signoret with her Franch accent seems all wrong here, playing with her English brother and son. Pauline Kael's long review came to hand in her book "Going Steady" so let's quote a bit: she calls it a badly-filmed play as characters playing educated middle class and professional people - mixed with bohemians - mingle just before the turn of the 20th century. They are beset by financial problems (the schoolteacher does not earn enough), unrequited love, unrealised aspirations, they indulge in unhappiness and nostalgia and despair. Signoret's accent gives her lines the wrong shadings and emphases. Because her style isn't in tune with the others and because her lines sound heavy, Arkadina loses her charm and becomes the villainess of the piece - a selfish, stingy, son-devouring Freudian mother. And every time this monster speaks she stomps on the remnants of the fragile play. But its interesting to see actors wrestling with real roles, even when the actors are wrong for them. Simone Signoret is bad here, but she is still Simone Signoret. And THE SEA GULL is a terrible movie, but it is still a movie of THE SEA GULL". (Signoret though was terrific in SHIP OF FOOLS, GAMES, THE DEADLY AFFAIR, ARMY OF SHADOWS in those years).

Well that certainly gives one food for thought when watching Lumet's film, at least it is in circulation again. (Kael is also very pertinent on another Lumet filmed play, Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE from 1961, which I may get around to soon too). Maybe time soon for Chekhov's other drama of loss and regret UNCLE VANYA ...

Next: Another rarity, Maximilian Schell's 1970 film of Turgenev's FIRST LOVE (more Russian costume drama angst), plus Warner & Redgrave again in MORGAN A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT in 1966, and Warner as MICHAEL KOHLHAAS in 1968, Sophia Loren as MADAME SANS-GENE with Robert Hossein in '61, and our 1962 favourite THE CHAPMAN REPORT, also finally on dvd - all more '60s rarities; plus Terry and Julie again (AWAY FROM HER and THE LIMEY) and back to Peplums with HELEN OF TROY.

Advise and Consent, 1962, and that Sergeant ...

1962! - is it really 50 years ago? I was 16 and mad about movies, books and magazines and music; I see my 16 year old nephew now just as mad about his computer games and all his gadgets - he had his own laptop and internet since he was 15, I just had the radio and the two local cinemas and bookshops and library ... see 1962 label for other posts on that fascinating year - of course there is Marilyn's 50th anniversary too...

 One of 1962's big hitters, Otto Preminger's ADVISE AND CONSENT remains a fascinating re-watch now. Its from one of those important novels of the time by Allen Drury, purporting to take the lid off American politics and the inner workings of the Senate.  It was the ideal subject for Preminger after the success of ANATOMY OF A MURDER in 1959 (somehow his EXODUS in 1960 just does not do it for me), and is another great black and white film with good scope compositions and that fascinating cast: Henry Fonda as the proposed Secretary of State who may have communist leanings, Charles Laughton (his last role) as the wily Southern senator Seb Cooley trying to smear him, Walter Pidgeon has a good roles as the Senate Majority Leader, along with Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney (Otto's LAURA) as an elegant Washington hostess, Franchot Tone as the ailing President and Lew Ayres as the Vice President, Burgess Meredith and Don Murray as the blackmailed senator Brig Anderson with Inga Swenson as his uncomprehending wife.

"Films & Filming", October 1962 -
click to enlarge

What is fascinating now is that Anderson, as President of the Senatorial sub-committee considering the nomination of Leffingwell (Fonda), is being blackmailed [by Cooley's minions] over a gay relationship during his youth in wartime Hawaii - will the ambitious young senator crack under the pressure? Instead he goes to New York and tries to reason with his old army buddy, so we get that gay bar - maybe the first in a mainstream American film? - with those shadowy denizens of this strange underword; we see the senator recoil in horror and flee in a taxi, leaving his ex-pal lying in the gutter ... we soon realise due to the music and shadowy camerawork that the senator has only one solution open to him, and that involves an open razor ...

Cooley and the others are left to sort out the mess as the film shows the workings of U.S. politics and seems to be shot in the real locations.  It is a very ambitious and entertaining work with a large cast, and certainly one of the best of that great year 1962. (see label).

The advertising tried to make it more sensational ...

More '60s gays: by 1967 Marlon Brando was giving us his closeted army major deep in the American south in Huston's REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE where he is married to deep south gal Elizabeth Taylor but hankering after that soldier who goes horseriding naked in the woods .... then Rod Steiger as another frustrated sergeant in, yes, THE SERGEANT, is that lonely man in an army base in France who does not realise how much he yearns for soldier John Philip Law until he fumbles a pass at the horrified soldier, so he has to go and shoot himself. Getting back to critic Pauline Kael again, as she said at the time: Rod Steiger chases after John Philip Law so long that when he grabs him and kisses him its the climax of the picture. Then Law slugs him and Steiger goes out and shoots himself, and that's it. If Steiger had grabbed Law and been rebuffed an hour and a half earlier, he could have said "All right, so I made a mistake", and maybe the picture could have gone on and been about something. Everyone is so "normal" here that only a monster could have such aberrant impulses. Except for the Sergeant's there is no passion or sexuality of any kind in this sterile movie (directed by John Flynn) .... A repressed homosexual seems to be outside his (Steiger's) range; he keeps his face prissy, with his lips pursed - does playing a homosexual paralyze him as an actor? He gives such a tense, constricted performance its almost as if he didn't want to convince anybody. He never looks at Law with love (he looked at Poitier with more affection in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT) ... THE SERGEANT is so insufferably "tasteful" that ironically it has less homosexuality in it than many movies have had unconsciously due to casting or indifference ...

ADVISE & CONSENT

Frank Sinatra too as THE DETECTIVE in 1967 goes after that murderer of a swishy guy picked up in a luridly depicted (no black and white shadows here, but Fox scope and colour) bar - the malicious gay guy of course taunts the repressed married man who goes berserk and bashes him with an ashtray; the other gays are all lonely oddballs whom the cops despise and treat like dirt.  By 1968 though Steiger had loosened up enough to have fun with his gay hairdresser in NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY - one of the many disguises he used to murder lonely widows (Rod Steiger label). Its a hilarious treat and George Segal and Lee Remick are a perfect late '60s couple, as were Steve and Faye in THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. Then '69 gave us the dreadful STAIRCASE where Donen, Burton and Harrison were way off key - it was quite a good play on stage actually.

[Law too, who died aged 70 in 2008, had his 10 good years from the mid 60s - with Faye in Otto's HURRY SUNDOWN and Euro-fare like DANGER: DIABOLIK and of course Pygar the blind angel in BARBARELLA ... and trash classic THE LOVE MACHINE in 1970 (Trash label)].

The gals didn't fare so well either: Shirley McLaine as Martha Dobie in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR (or THE LOUDEST WHISPER), Wyler's second film of Hellman's THESE THREE, has to hang herself when she realises she really does love Audrey Hepburn - while in '67's THE FOX Keir Dullea's woodman comes between Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis, also with fatal results ... but the '70s and liberation were just around the corner. Vito Russo's book and the film of THE CELLULOID CLOSET has all the details and lots more ....

ADVISE AND CONSENT remains a fascinating movie - THE SERGEANT played on TCM here a while back but I couldn't bring myself to look at it again, and Preminger's next one, tackling religion, THE CARDINAL from 1963 gets a re-run this Saturday - it could be another rainy afternoon movie here, not least of its attractions being Romy Schneider in one of her early American films as The Cardinal's love interest ...

Thoroughly modern star!

After the '50s golden age the rise and fall of musicals in the '60s seems curious now: WEST SIDE STORY was huge, as was GYPSY and there was FLOWER DRUM SONG, THE MUSIC MAN, JUMBO and the French (Jacques Demy) got in on the act with UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG and '67's YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT, and of course those Beatles films A HARD DAYS NIGHT and HELP!.. and then of course there was the behemoth that was THE SOUND OF MUSIC - [in that pre-video age it was the best-selling soundtrack of the decade] which I never wanted to see (and didn't until New Year's Day 1996 when it was the ideal afternoon choice with Rory and Helen) BUT I absolutely loved THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE and it remains a firm favourite now, my pal Stan loved it too - we knew most of the lines and quoted them along with Mrs Meers, Miss Dorothy and Muzzy not to mention Trevor Graydon and Jimmy. Then though came flops like STAR!, DOCTOR DOOLITTLE and DARLING LILI and somehow musicals were no longer popular - SWEET CHARITY had to struggle to find an audience. The exception though of course was the arrival of Barbra Streisand on screen: we loved her early albums and tv specials, I saw FUNNY GIRL on the stage in London in 1966, when I was 20, and we rushed to the movie and were not disappointed. I even liked HELLO DOLLY and like it a lot more now, it was curiously old fashioned at the time (as well as Streisand being too young of course...) and ON A CLEAR DAY was ok too, despite Yves Montand's atrocious English accent, but Barbra, Beaton and Minnelli gave the Regency flashbacks the required oomph. After that Barbra wisely got modern and turned to comedy with the brilliant OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT and WHAT'S UP DOC, as she reigned supreme ... 

Julie Andrews though is a curious case: she was a great Broadway star of course in the original MY FAIR LADY (the original cast album was one of the first records I bought as a teen) and CAMELOT, and MARY POPPINS established her as a screen favourite, though it never did much for me, hence my having no interest in SOUND OF MUSIC, one of the first hits people returned to over and over. They didn't though really want to see Julie in TORN CURTAIN (the only Hitch I never wanted to see..), HAWAII though was popular, and then the divine MILLIE. Robert Wise who could turn his hand to any genre (editing CITIZEN KANE and directed films as diverse as THE HAUNTING, I WANT TO LIVE, HELEN OF TROY, WEST SIDE STORY) decided to do another musical with Julie and they decided to do the story of Broadway star Gertrude Lawrence, and structured it as a film within a film with Gertrude/Julie looking at and commenting on the film being made about her ....it seemed they wanted to deconstruct a great star and show us the truth behind the glossy facade, but in 1968 nobody was interested much in Gertrude Lawrence any more and young people such as myself barely knew who she was.  The woman they present here is an absolute nightmare - she comes across early on as a more strident insensitive Auntie Mame with gay best friend Noel Coward (Daniel Massey (below on stage with Julie) is a delight here and was Noel's godson) as her Vera Charles with a quip for every situation.

It is amusing now reading Pauline Kael's review of STAR! (in her "Going Steady" collection of reviews) where she says Andrews lacks the required glamour: Gertrude Lawrence wasn't much of a singer and she was an odd, limited sort of actress. What made her a star was not something that can be taught, even to as good a pupil as Julie Andrews ... she does her duties efficiently but mechanically, like an airline hostess; she's pert and cheerful in some professional way that is finally cheerless. Their version of Lawrence is a hard, ruthless, self-centred, almost detestable woman who is only interested in rich bankers, who ignores her child who then ignores her ... some of the best Noel Coward, Cole Porter and Kurt Weill and the Gershwins are mangled while one sits there wishing Vincente Minnelli would magically take over and save it all. 

The many songs are staged as musical show numbers which don't advance the plot; the set designs and ugly, unflattering clothes add to the sense of disaster - Michael Craig (who was Streisand's Nicky Arnstein in the London production of FUNNY GIRL) is Lawrence's main beau, Richard Crenna is the man who finally understands her, Bruce Forsyth (playing her father) and Beryl Reid are wasted in a early music hall scene, Jenny Agutter is the daughter. Some songs though like "Parisian Pierrot", "Limehouse Blues", "My Ship" and "The Saga of Jenny" sound better with the passage of time ...pity though they didn't finish their story with Lawrence expiring during the stage run of THE KING AND I ... or would that be a too downbeat ending ?

Let Kael have the last word: The movie suggests that those who made it wanted a big popular project (with a pre-sold box-office star) and at the same time wanted to feel they were showing people what they really thought of Miss Lawrence. From the evidence of this movie, they don't have enough talent to know what to think. Their hostility to the subject just adds unpleasantness to the incompetence. 

Amusing footnote: the the DVD I have has a 25th anniversary reunion feature where the cast and crew assemble (including Andrews and Wise) and the general impression is that they had created a lost masterpiece that was and remains misunderstood!

I have grown to like Julie more over the years - her Millie Dillmount (below) is a perennial favourite - and thankfully introduced me to Bea Lillie. Julie too is really super in SOUND OF MUSIC which I can enjoy more now, and I simply love the first half of VICTOR/VICTORIA where her looks and inflections and double act with Robert Preston are all ideal - "Le Jazz Hot"!.  Like Barbra and Liza she remains a copper-bottomed legend; amusing too seeing her now in films like RELATIVE VALUES or that '80s AIDS drama OUR SONS.

Millie Dillmount becomes a "modern"

Fantasies of the Art House Audience

It has been illuminating this dreary wet summer to return to those early books of the collected writings of critic Pauline Kael [1919-2001]. We did not get the "New Yorker" at the time here in the UK, but those early books like "I Lost It At The Movies" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" were essential early cinema books to cherish.

Her 1961 essay "Fantasies of the Art House Audience" [it was also published in "Sight and Sound"] is interesting now in it's depiction of that new phenomenon: the art house audience and their expectations. Suddenly every city or large town had its local art house where those early Bergmans and Fellinis were watched and dissected. Movie-going was no longer "going to the pictures" but a more rewarding, cultural experience. As Pauline puts it: "in the past few years there has appeared a new kind of filmgoer - he isn't interested in movies but in cinema". She mentions that a doctor friend told her she needn't bother with THE PINK PANTHER as it was just slapstick, when she told him she had had a good time at it "he was irritated and informed her that a movie should be more than a waste of time, it should be an exercise in taste that will enrich your life"!

She details the reverence with which HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR was received: "here was the audience soaking it up - audiences of social workers, scientists, doctors, architects, professors - living and loving and suffering just like the stenographer watching Susan Hayward. Are the experiences involved really so different? (It may be relevant to note that the educated audience which generally ignores Miss Hayward turned out for I WANT TO LIVE in which the character of Barabara Graham was turned into a sort of modern Tess of the D'Urbervilles: not only innocent of crime but horribly sinned against and nobler than anyone else)".

It is this kind of phrase that makes Kael so cherishable. She also says of "High Culture Cinema" that there is "more energy, more originality, more excitement, more art in American kitsch like GUNGA DIN, EASY LIVING, the Rogers and Astaire films like SWINGTIME and TOP HAT, in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, CITIZEN KANE, THE LADY EVE, THE CRIMSON PIRATE, TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE AFRICAN QUEEN, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS or more recently THE HUSTLER, LOLITA, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, HUD, CHARADE than in the presumed "High Culture" of HIROSHIMA, MARIENBAD, LA NOTTE, L'ECLISSE - as Nabokov remarked "Nothing is more exhilerating than Philistine vulgarity"!

Well I defer to no one in my admiration of Antonioni and the others, but she does have a point. I had to disagree with her over her demolitions of UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME and BLOW-UP, but she is on the ball discussing films like VICTIM or A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, as well as her notorious reviews of THE SOUND OF MUSIC (MONEY) or the abomination that is THE SINGING NUN.

"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" [I still have my penfriend Gary Kendall's copy which he lent me in 1969 on his arrival in London from Australia] also has her terrific piece on "Movies On TV", followed up in her "5001 Nights At The Movies". "Going Steady" is a great collection on late '60s movies, her championing of Stresiand in FUNNY GIRL and as well as her demolition of Julie Andrews in STAR! and Hepburn in THE LION IN WINTER. Throughout the '70s and '80s one had to have her latest writings - titles like "Deeper Into Movies", "When the Lights Go Out", "Reeling" and the later ones like "Movie Love". A great critic should stimulate and make one revise one's own opinions, sometimes one may violently disagree with some trenchant views, but that is the joy of reading and writing about movies. These are tomes for every movie shelf.