People We Like: Lauren

No, not that one, the other one: Lauren Hutton in AMERICAN GIGOLO.

We have covered Paul Schrader's 1980 hit AMERICAN GIGOLO quite a bit here, see label, usually focusing on Richard Gere, this is the role, as gigolo Julian Kaye, which established him after DAYS OF HEAVEN and YANKS. The film for me ushers in the glamour and glitz of the Eighties, with that Moroder soundtrack. But the more I see it the more I am fascinated by Lauren Hutton as the senator's wife, she is the still centre of the film and is marvellously watchable, and how she wears clothes, being a top fashion model of course (she was on the cover of VOGUE 25 times). Her character though is so sympathetic compared to the others on view here and the climax is so affecting when she gives Julian the alibi he needs to get off that fixed murder rap. 

Lauren, in her seventies now, is as fascinating to look at as Joni Mitchell - they both have that blonde, Nordic look. She is also effective in Alan Rudolph's WELCOME TO L.A. and THE GAMBLER with James Caan, and Altman's A WEDDING, as well as assorted tv series like NIP/TUCK and FALCON CREST.  She has notched up 57 movie credits and has turned producer. Like that other fashion model turned actress, Marisa Berenson, it is always a pleasure to see Lauren. 

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).  

Thats a double bill!: Barbarella and American Gigolo

For those who saw them initially, or over the years, AMERICAN GIGOLO and BARBARELLA are the height of fashion and glamour and define the 1960s and the 1980s. So, as they were both on Sky Movies the same day (saves getting the dvds out...) let head off once again in Barbarella's space ship and enjoy the lush life as we cruise along with Richard as that Giorgio Moroder soundtrack sets the mood ...

The initial poster we liked

After experiencing Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER last week, scripted by Paul Schrader, now its back to his 1980 breakthrough movie AMERICAN GIGOLO which for me kickstarted the 1980s. I could rhapsodize about this for hours, and have, as per previous posts - see American Gigolo label.  Here though is David Thompson from his huge tome: "Have You Seen..."

"Paul Schrader directs from his own script and puts his every love and desire into the picture, so it thrills to the pulse of disco music, voyeuristic sex, Robert Bresson, the LA light, the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, driving on the freeway in a convertible, the “privacy” of Palm Springs, and the infinite blossom of corruption in Southern California. It is often like an advertisement (shot with exquisite taste by John Bailey), and it delights in streamlining moderne-ism and the sultry swish of the passing moment. The whole thing is poised on an edge where collapse or public mirth are equal possibilities, yet it survives and brings its fatuous Sirkian plot to a lovely finale. Within the delirium of cliches and pretension, something absolutely true strides forward, personified by Gere’s lounging walk and his shameless attitudinizing. This was a new kind of riveting trash. If you want to know about American in 1980, then go to American Gigolo and Raging Bull."

Looking at it this time, I was riveted by Lauren Hutton - Gere is so extraordinary here that one initially tends to overlook her, but she is the complex heart of the film and delivers exactly what is required. Whether its Gere's Julian in THAT apartment, or laying out his Armani clothes to that perfect Smokey Robinson track, or Moroder's soundtrack (I had it on vinyl and cd) pounding as he drives to Palm Springs, or "Love and Passion" by Cheryl Barnes as he enters the gay disco ---- Scharader's Calvinist upbringing makes this seem like a circle of hell - it is all a perfect re-working of Bresson's PICKPOCKET as Julian has to turn on himself and wreck his apartment to find those stolen jewels ... and then that moment of redemption. Schrader continued his obsessions with that remake of CAT PEOPLE in 1982 another glossy sexy exercise, as per my review, Schrader label. As much as I like Gere here, after Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN and Schlesigner's YANKS, I had no desire to see him in most of his following films. This is what I said a while back:  He is so central to the movie, like how Antonioni idealised David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.

I will have to upgrade mine to Blu-ray - as a great looking movie its up there with BARRY LYNDON, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, THE LEOPARD or THE GREAT BEAUTY. 
Here is some more on it:  http://altscreen.com/03/02/2012/thursday-editors-pick-american-gigolo-1980/

BARBARELLA, 1968, by contrast is a dated, throwaway comic strip but not without its own amusements, a key 60s movie certainly, with some great sequences and imagery, not least David Hemmings as the revolutionary, John Philip Law as the blind, blond angel Pygar, Milo O'Shea as Duran Duran, those dolls with the teeth - and Anita Pallenberg's evil Queen with designs on our heroine and who is surely voiced by the unique Joan Greenwood, and of course Jane's wide-eyed innocent in and out of those amazing costumes. A lot of fun all-round then, almost as good as MODESTY BLAISE! 

Weekend treat ....

I will be going back to 1980 and re-seeing Paul Schrader's AMERICAN GIGOLO again, it defines the early '80s for me (along with Kasdan's BODY HEAT)  as the combination of Schrader's Bresson-like tale, Gere in those Armani clothes, Giorgio Moroder's pulsing soundtrack, the fabulous Lauren Hutton and that-to die-for apartment (visual consultant: Ferdinando Scarfiotti) combine to make a fashion/glamour statement that still works now. I will have to re-see Schrader's unique take on CAT PEOPLE (1982) as well ... and Gere's recent ARBITRAGE which seemed better than usual. More on GIGOLO at label ...

Life - and love - during wartime

An interesting triple bill with a lot in common: YANKS and UNTIL THEY SAIL plus an English TV show.

Nice to see YANKS again, we liked John Schlesinger's 1979 film at the cinema and it still packs an emotional wallop now. Schlesinger's '60s/'70s output (A KIND OF LOVING, BILLY LIAR, DARLING, FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY) are all essential movies for me, and that thriller MARATHON MAN. YANKS is more of the same, a well-crafted tale by Colin Welland with a large cast of characters. It must have been a complex film to shoot, with all those soldiers and villagers of that Yorkshire town. Schlesinger orchestrates it all marvellously and for once the period detail seems just right without being trowelled on. It really looks like the 1940s here as G.I.s arrive in England, not knowing if they will survive the war or not ....

During WWII, the United States set up army bases in Great Britain as part of the war effort. Against their proper sensibilities, many of the Brits don't much like the brash Yanks (over a million of them), especially when it comes to the G.I.s making advances on the lonely British girls, some whose boyfriends are also away for the war. One Yank/Brit relationship that develops is between married John, an Army Captain, and the aristocratic Helen, whose naval husband is away at war. Another relationship develops between one of John's charges, Matt, a talented mess hall cook, and Jean. Jean is apprehensive at first about even seeing Matt, who is persistent in his pursuit of her.

We focus on 3 romances here, covering the social divide. Ordinary guy, Richard Gere (just before AMERICAN GIGOLO) is an army cook, along with his more working class buddy Chick Vennera who falls for working class girl Wendy Morgan a bus conductress. Richard has eyes for English rose type Jean (actually American Lisa Eichhorn - just right here) who works in her family's shop, as the village women wait outside for it to open ("one orange each"). Mother is ailing Rachel Roberts and father is perfect casting too in Tony Melody with that sad face. Her young brother and his friend are fascinatated by the Yanks and the chocolate they have to throw to them. The army base looks authentic too, with the men showering etc.. Then we have lady of the manor Vanessa Redgrave (luminous as ever) and U.S. officer William Devane consoling each other. Her husband is overseas (but returns by the end) while his wife wants a divorce. He and Vanessa know their romance is going nowhere but have some nice moments, including a nice interlude flying to Ireland.

Jean and Matt (Lisa and Gere) are drawn to each other despite her boyfriend overseas much to her parents disapproval - there is the scene where Gere is invited to tea with that cake he has baked. We also see the local cinema and the dance-hall where black G.I.s get into trouble for dancing with the local girls. There is an amusing scene too at the local hotel on New Year's Eve with Joan Hickson as the tipsy waitress ....

It all comes to a climax as the soldiers pull out and the whole town it seems rushes to the railway station to see them off,. Will Jean and Matt see each other before he has to go? It gets terribly emotional as the two girls (Wendy has married Vennera) get to wave them off, Jean's mother has died too. Anne Shelton singing "I'll Be Seeing You" is perfect over the closing credits. Its a great '70s movie with a knowing look back to the '40s. I like it a lot. Maybe Schlesinger's last major work ? and Lisa Eichhorn should surely have had a much bigger career ...

In the million G.I.s here during the war there must have been some gay ones too - this is nicely covered in an episode SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS by Drew Griffith in a 1981 Scottish tv series HOUSE ON THE HILL, 6 tales taking place in the same house in different eras; in the 1940s its cellar is a secret gay bar for servicemen presided over by house caretaker Rachel Davies (who was also in YANKS and A PRIVATE FUNCTION), where in 1944 an English and an American guy meet before going off to the conflict ... not seen since 1981 though, and I don't suppose it will ever surface again. - Its on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkdHEsMOsZc&list=ELcKyyi0nK3zc&index=5&feature=plcp

How come some films get totally forgotten or never revived? I never saw UNTIL THEY SAIL until recently (when a friend in America sent a copy taped from TCM) - it never turned when I was in Ireland or shown here in England during the last 40 years or so. I knew of its existance as it was Sandra Dee's first film ....

Its a 1957 MGM film directed by Robert Wise - who could turn his hand to anything it seems (as per my recent reviews of his HELEN OF TROY and Julie Andrews' STAR!) - in scope and nice black and white photography, from a James Michener (South Pacific) story about life in wartime New Zealand, focusing on 4 sisters - brunettes Jean Simmons and Piper Laurie, blondes Joan Fontaine and Sandra Dee - who dont really look like sisters at all; as the American fleet arrives en route to the war in the South Pacific, so relations form between local girls and the army boys; the local N Z men are away fighting the war in Europe.

Simmons is the lead, with Fontaine taking 2nd billing to her. Paul Newman (before CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF) is widow Jean's love interest and they are very appealing together - she certainly worked with them all in the 50s. He is the army officer investigating the backgrounds of girls who wish to marry G.I.s. Fontaine surprisingly for the time is having a baby before marriage but her beau Charles Drake is killed so she brings up the baby herself. Piper is the bad sister who sleeps around and gets murdered so there is a court case. Its nicely absorbing - I dont suppose they went to New Zealand, its probably a backlot job. Perhaps if it was in colour it be revived more. Like YANKS it shows the effect of soldiers arriving among the locals .... Wise does not sensationalise the material so its rather low-key unlike those other more sensational dramas of the time like PEYTON PLACE. Fascinating to see now though, Jean Simmons with her nicely understated performance shows once again why we like her so much, and Joan (Fontaine) does not overwork that raised eyebrow of hers ... its all looks more '50s than '40s though.

Just a gigolo

I noticed AMERICAN GIGOLO was showing late in the tv schedules so I decided to record it and have another look. I have the dvd of course but I would never have got around to playing it. So I had another look - and I loved it all over again!

Sometimes one can love a movie too much - you can become obsessed about it, go back to see it several times [this is before video, let alone dvd...], one gets the poster, the soundtrack album, it becomes part of that period of your life. Then you get over it and never want to go back to it but it will always be there for you: EAST OF EDEN, THE MISFITS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, 2001, EL CID, CHARADE and THE PINK PANTHER, KLUTE for Jane Fonda's Bree Daniels, Isabelle Adjani stunning me in THE HISTORY OF ADELE H, Genevieve Bujold in OBSESSION, MODESTY BLAISE, BLOW-UP [ideal when I was 21], UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, A BIGGER SPLASH, THE PASSENGER, CHINATOWN, TAXI DRIVER, BARRY LYNDON and AMERICAN GIGOLO for my early 30s. It caught that end of the 70s and into the 80s vibe exactly and made Los Angeles a dream city, Hockney-esque as Richard Gere drove around to Giorgio Moroder's score and Blondie's "Call Me".

That sequence is still perfection: Gere full of himself laying out his clothes in that apartment I wanted to live in, as Smokey Robinson sings that perfect song which the scene seems to be edited to: "We used to meet in romantic places .... the way you wrecked my life was just like sabotage ... the love I saw in you was just a mirage". Pity the song wasn't included on the soundtrack album, but I found it on a Smokey compilation! and then of course for the disco scene with all those macho guys dancing - how very 1980 - Cheryl Barnes' "Love and Passion".

By the mid 70s Paul Schrader was the guy to watch with his scripts for TAXI DRIVER and OBSESSION and being lionised by the likes of "Film Comment" - then his gritty early movies like BLUE COLLAR and HARDCORE emerging from his Calvinist upbringing. Then the glossy AMERICAN GIGOLO caught the moment perfectly and sealed Richard Gere's reputation after those roles in those key movies like DAYS OF HEAVEN, LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR and Schlesinger's YANKS. Oddly enough I had no interest in him after that - I didn't want to see the big hit AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (which like TOP GUN became symbolic of the era) and seeing some of the BREATHLESS remake on television confirmed that he was now playing to his admirers.

But as Julian Kay, alone in his apartment with his weights and his clothes and learning Swedish for a new client he does not realise the enemies he is making by falling out with Nina Van Pallandt's madam who created him, or the pimp Leon - before he knows it he is framed for murder and has to turn on himself and wreck his apartment to find those hidden jewels. His clients and socialite friends desert him - but there is Lauren Hutton as the woman he is finding out how to love another person who stands by him. Hutton has hardly been accused of acting, but I love her here; she is perfectly in tune with the film and displays great vulnerability and layers of character. Gere too steps up to the mark with Schrader's exploration of his vulnerabilities and why he does what he does, including that nude scene. One could hardly picture John Travolta doing it. He is so central to the movie, like how Antonioni idealised David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.

This is a perfect summation by Jed Medina of its themes: "A slick Los Angeles callboy finds love and redemption in Paul Schrader's ultra-stylish drama. High-living prostitute Julian Kay has it all: the Mercedes, the clothes, access to Beverly Hills' swankiest establishments, and a stable of rich, older female clients. But it all falls apart after he does a favor for his former pimp (Bill Duke) and the trick turns up dead a short while later; Julian's actual client won't give him an alibi, and police detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) doesn't believe the gigolo's denials. The one person who can help him is frustrated politician's wife (and sole non-paying bedmate) Michelle (Lauren Hutton), if only Julian could let down his defenses and accept her gesture of love. Mixing his admiration for European art cinema with a voyeuristic view of the seamier side of sex and affluence, Schrader renders Julian an inscrutable, emotionally disengaged purveyor of pleasure, decked out in Giorgio Armani clothes coordinated with Ferdinando Scarfiotti's meticulous production design.

With some audiences reportedly showing up for repeat viewings of Gere's seductive charms, it became a moderate hit, turning Gere into a star and Armani into the new fashion sensation. Whatever reservations one may have about the movie, it provided two indelible images of 1980s decadence to come: Gere's perusing his "artist's palette" of shirts, ties, and jackets, and cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in his convertible to the New Wave strains of Blondie's "Call Me"."

The other elements - the stylised apartment, Moroder's score, the set design of Ferdinando Scarfiotti (a victim of the 80s Aids crisis), the Armani clothes and Schrader's script and direction, all those serpentine camera movements - blend to create a perfect zeitgeist movie for its time, like Fosse and ALL THAT JAZZ. And of course those Robert Bresson influences, like that ending echoing PICKPOCKET as Julian finds redemption by finally accepting love. It all still works now. Nice to have seen it again and put it back for some other future time. Schrader went on to his intriguing remake of CAT PEOPLE and LIGHT SLEEPER and then after a dip while exploring his demons, returned the other year with THE WALKER, with its echoes of AMERICAN GIGOLO and another great central performance one would not expect from Woody Harrelson. Hopefully there will be more Schrader films to fascinate us. The older Gere is also turning out the occasional interesting movie as well as some very disposable ones!