Fathers

Some of our favourite fathers, seeing as its Father's Day ....   (for Dad) 

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, 1962 - Has there been a more fundamentally decent father than Atticus Finch?, the widower and small-town lawyer expertly played by Gregory Peck, in Robert Mulligan's classic from the perennially loved book by Harper Lee. I loved the book, and then I loved the film ... as we spend time with Scout and Jem and Boo Radley, while Atticus has his day in court, in this Deep South Gothic drama with the spellbinding images. It all works perfectly, particularly that ending as Atticus watches over the children ....

BICYCLE THIEVES, 1948 - In broken post-war Rome, a father struggles to provide for his family. He gets a job sticking posters on walls but his bicycle gets stolen. Father and son scour the city looking for it, and then the unthinkable happens - the father is reduced to stealing a bicycle and gets caught and we see it all through his son's eyes ..... Since its release in 1948 Vittorio Se Sica's masterpiece has come to define the Italian New-Realistic movement, but it is a timeless classic, acted by non-professionals and De Sica finds the humanity in all of them, as we share the father's desperation to provide for the family when the world is conspiring against him. There is that stunning moment when the family sheets are pawned, and the pawnbroker places them on top of a pile of other families' sheets, all waiting to be reclaimed .... (see De Sica label for review).

FINDING NEMO, 2003 - One of Pixar's most enduringly popular animated features which one can enjoy time and time again, as we follow Nemo's worried father (a clown fish voiced by Albert Brooks) who seems to go half way round the planet to find his lost son, the only survivor when his family are destroyed .... Andrew Stanton's film captures the father's helplessness as he wants the best for his offspring and then allowing him to discover whats best for himself, as I suppose all our fathers had to ....

MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, 1944 - Before the 1904 World Fair in St Louis, the Smith family learn lessons about life and love as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York, as the paterfamilias Mr Smith (Leon Ames) think it is best for them. He had not reckoned though on Tootie and her snowmen, the boy next door, and daughters Esther (Judy Garland) and Rose (Lucille Bremer) and their romantic complications. Add in Marjorie Main's cook and Henry Davenport's grandpa, as well as Mary Astor's perfect mother who will stand by her husband, no matter what, and poor Mr Smith (who vetoes having dinner an hour early so Rose can get her call from her beau in New York without all the family listening) does not stand a chance of moving ..... A Golden Age (and Minnelli) Classic and the ultimate dream factory movie made at that crucial point in the Second World War, when dreadful things were happening in Europe ....

Dirk's Victim & those west end boys ...

Our London Live cable channel
showing old British movies

I have done quite a bit on Dirk here - check all the various posts and pictures at Dirk label - but I have not actually said much about his 1961 VICTIM, a film I know so well, having seen it several times since I was a teenager. It was interesting looking at it again the other day, its a thriller of course but is also a classic London film and like Dearden's POOL OF LONDON and SAPPHIRE, a perfect period piece now, as we take in the gay society of the early Sixties, from working class lads, to toffs and famous actors and their milieus of gentlemens' clubs and of course that then famous gay bar, The Salisbury. 

Boy Barrett, a junior accountant on a building site, flees when he sees the police arriving - he has been stealing money to pay blackmailers, as have several other homosexuals, as homosexuality was then illegal in Britain. When the police catch up with him he is trying to destroy evidence that links him to prominent barrister Melville Farr, soon to be  QC. When Farr realises Barrett has killed himself to protect him, he determines to track down the blackmailers no matter what cost to his reputation or his marriage. Will the other blackmail victims help and just who, among all the red herrings, is the real blackmailer? 

I know all these haunts, from the bedsits and flats of Boy Barrett and his crowd, to the West End we see in aspic here. Its fascinating for a London guy to see these locations now. Henry's barber shop is just off Cambridge Circus and Charing Cross Road/Seven Dials, just over from the big Palace Theatre where FLOWER DRUM SONG is playing - and later we see Dirk as barrister Melville Farr with the police outside that other theatre near the Salisbury where OLIVER is playing, with Ron Moody and Georgia Brown on nameboards above their heads. Norman Bird's bookshop must be one of those in Cecil Court, just off St Martin's Lane. (I had that paperback of the film then, when a teenager...).

The Salisbury is fascinating too, seeing those gilt interiors once again. This was a gay haunt during my working in the area in the 80s, where I would meet pals every Friday lunchime, and sometimes in the evening too, when out on the razz. As I mentioned elsewhere, Susannah York was standing next to me there once, as she drank with a friend. It was a famous theatrical bar, near the theatres, where actors appearing in the west end would hang out. A friend said he saw Alec Guinness there ... It has since been de-gayed and is now a tourist trap ...

Its a lovely cast here - not only Dirk as Melville Farr, but young Peter McEnery is an ideal Boy Barrett - he went on to Disney films (see label), a Vadim with Jane Fonda and lots of theatre: he was the first HAMLET I saw in 1967, and also in SHADOW OF A GUNMAN and a LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC) and of course he was the ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE. He should be doing more now in his 70s. 
Dennis Price also scores as the blackmailed actor, with society friends Anthony Nicholls and Peter Copley, while barfly Madge (Mavis Villiers) chats to the gay-hating barman at The Salisbury, and Hilton Edwards has a charity scam; Charles Lloyd-Pack is poor Henry, while Derren Nesbitt is suitably butch as the blackmailing leather boy. It works as an efficient thriller and the police nicely discuss the pros and cons of homosexuality being illegal causing lots of blackmail cases. We have to laugh at Boy's friend and his blonde cutie in her baby doll nightie, feeling sorry for Boy as he does not have what they have ...

Dirk famously lost his "Idol of the Odeons" image for playing gay here and looking a bit older than he did in those Rank opuses like CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM or THE WIND CANNOT READ, and Sylvia Syms is perfect as the puzzled wife. Dirk apparantly wrote much of the confrontation scene with her, with his "because I wanted him" speech. His performance was all the more courageous for the sensitivity and depth he afforded the role; of course the film is now “hopelessly outdated” in its attitude to homosexuality (Philip Kemp, Sight and Sound, 2005), despite being an 'X' certificate film - but it was an incredibly significant landmark of queer representation in British cinema. Dearden, as ever, delivers it all with panache. Its a quaint but still richly rewarding British Noir thriller, as well as a significant one, and well worth seeing any time. 

More groovy Fifties/Sixties London coming up: SERIOUS CHARGE / THE CHALLENGE / THE BOYS / IDOL ON PARADE / THE PARTY'S OVER / THAT KIND OF GIRL / TAM LIN ...

Weekend soundtrack ...

A delicious brace from the 1980s: I love this Fairground Attraction video and Eddi Reader, its of course "Perfect". and that blast from the Frankies: "Welcome to the Pleasure Dome" .... Holly rules! and a chillout classic from A Man Called Adam ....

Then some old classics we love: Randy Meisner with that great song he wrote with The Eagles, and Cream with the great Jack Bruce, "Sleepy Time Time" is one of their best. 

And a brace of new Adam Lambert videos, from America and UK, for his new track "Ghost Town" from his new album

Flamboyant or what? Adam of course steps out with whats left of Queen. Like Markus Feehily (below, music label)  he is another unapologetic out gay - part of that new wave of young actors (Andrew Scott, Russell Tovey, Ben Whishaw, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto) and singers, and Olympic poster boy Tom Daley who came out on their terms, and not forced out by the tabloid press. Now the focus can be on their work, not their private life.

Weekend gay things: the UK DVD of  LOVE IS STRANGE is finally unleashed. this did not fare too well here, It didn't even play anywhere near me, but I got the USA dvd and reviewed it here, months ago (11 March in the archive, or gay interest label). Its still a fascinating film with that very odd ending ..... London Pride week is just starting, kick-starting tomorrow with a concert in Hyde Park: Kylie, Grace Jones, Nile Rogers/Chic, Mika etc. I've seen Kylie a few times, and Grace knocked me out when I finally saw her live, a decade or more now, one of the most amazing live acts I have seen; And  Madonna? yes, her new single (from the rather flop album) has arrived: Bitch, she's Madonna

Still of the day ...

I just had to use this fantastic still from DUNE, that David Lynch epic that puzzled us all back in 1984. It certainly had a very eclectic cast. Here's three of my favourite ladies looking very fierce: Francesca Annis is in the centre, fronted by those two grand dames Sian Phillips and Silvana Mangano (Mrs De Laurentiis at the time). 

More on Francesca coming up ...

To Indo-china and Japan via the sea wall ....

I liked the French epic INDOCHINE a couple of years back, nice to see it again now, plus also that 1950s favourite of mine, Rene Clement's THE SEA WALL, also set in colonial Indo-China (exteriors filmed in Thailand in 1957); and also Mikio Naruse's 1954 LOST CHRYSANTHEMUMS was also screened here again, I was captured all over again ...... here are my reviews of these ....

INDOCHINE. This was a free dvd in one of our newspapers a few years ago, but I never bothered watching it till now. I like it a lot, it plays like a French GONE WITH THE WIND or a David Lean film with those crowd scenes and sampans sailing on marvellous landscapes .... as directed in 1992 by Regis Wargnier.

Indochina during the 1930s: One of the largest rubber-tree plantations is owned by French colonist Eliane who lives with her father and her native adopted daughter Camille (Linh Dan Pham). Elaine gets to know young French officer Jean-Baptiste (Vincent Perez); after a short affair she refuses to see him again, as Camille falls deeply in love with him. Elaine gets him transferred to a far island where Camille goes in search of him, despite an arranged marriage. Her saga is rivetting and engrossing, as the fates of the three leads play out, rather like a parable of France's place in Indochina and Vietnam. It looks marvellous - Deneuve is perfect in those 30s clothes, and striding around her plantation in jodhpurs. Colonial life is nicely depicted showing also the brutality meted out to the peasants (like that family Camille travels with to that island).

It is a vast, panoramic love story set in the twilight years of French Indo-China. Comparisons with David Lean are inevitable, considering director Régis Wargnier's use of the setting as a backdrop to the love-triangle between the three main characters. Catherine Deneuve gives a strong, emotionally restrained performance as Eliane, the plantation owner whose colonial paradise is slowly falling apart. Linh Dan Pham is affecting as Camille, Eliane's adopted daughter whose journey from aristocratic ancestry to Marxist induction personifies the changing face of South-East Asia in the period around World War Two. It won the Oscar for best Foreign Film of 1992, and Deneuve was nominated as Leading Actress.
As I said to pal Martin to encourage him to see it, it is a saga featuring glamorous ladie wearing fabulous 1930s frocks in exotic locations making grand gestures and suffering, suffering, suffering while an epic tale unfolds about France and Indo-China; there's gorgeous men in white uniforms a well and some marvellously composed images. 

Another Fifties favourite I have featured here quite a bit, but not lately, is Rene Clement's 1957 THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE, which I liked as a kid back in 1958.

Above is a nice clip of Tony Perkins and Silvana Mangano doing their jive number.

There is a lot more on THE SEA WALL (or THIS ANGRY AGE) at the labels below. I loved it as a kid, and it still works for me now, Silvana Mangano is as fascinating as ever, and Jo Van Fleet of course is extraordinary as always, and Alida Valli picks up Tony at the cinema! It was an early international co-production, French/Italian and shot in Thailand, from the Marguerite Duras novel. Tony of course went from Silvana to Sophia Loren in his next, DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS, while Clement stunned and fascinated me with his next - PLEIN SOLEIL .... but thats a whole different story. 

Update: I now have my third copy - the first was Italian only / then a friend sourced a black and white copy in English / last year I got a copy in colour and in English with French Sub-titles, copied from French television - and introduced by Alain Delon ! - he must have been commenting on a Rene Clement season ... perfect viewing then.

LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS from 1954 is rather slow-moving and not much actually happens but Naruse creates this mood where we identify with each of his characters and the Japanese life of the time - all those sliding doors! - is nicely depicted. I have not seen any other films by Naruse or much Japanese cinema apart from the Kurosawa and Ozu classics. I love TOKYO STORY of course and Ozu's fellow classics like LATE SPRING and EARLY SUMMER (featuring the great Setsuko Hara as Noriko) and his earlier THERE WAS A FATHER and THE ONLY SON and his final, AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON. Naruse was equally prolific with 91 titles, the best known seem to be FLOATING CLOUDS and WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS - so, more Naruse to explore, then there is Mizoguchi ...

Mikio Naruse's examination of the lives of three idling, constantly complaining, single ex-geishas in post-war Japan is a marvellous character piece. What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Okin has saved her money, and has become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days cold-heartedly collecting debts. Even her best friends, Tomi  and Tamae, who were her fellow Geisha, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamor of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have children, but their children have disappointed them. Okin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves to be a disappointment. 

 As in Ozu's TOKYO STORY, sadness and nostalgia permeate LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS particularly when Tomi and Tamae are getting drunk and reflecting on their children busy with their own lives, 
while Okin comforts herself with her home and deaf-mute maid. Everyone it seems wants to borrow money from her ... Haruko Sugimura (also in TOKYO STORY as the thankless daughter) is marvellous as Okin. All the characters accept the stoic acceptance of life and their circumstances. Okin has her money and the others have their memories and companionship to keep them going. The men meanwhile, particularly, Okin's two previous lovers are desperate for money ... 

The Monroe Walk ! 
One fascinating moment has the two ex-geishas walking along when a modern Japanese girl strolls by swaying her hips.Tamae asks "Is that the Monroe walk?" as Tomi imitates it. It made me realise that here in 1954 Monroe was already a worldwide sensation since 1953 and her tour to Korea. 

A new Mr Ripley at 60, plus Carol too ...

Tom Ripley is 60 – he first appeared in 1955 in Patricia Highsmith’s novel THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY. I had a Pan paperback edition when I was a teenager, circa 1962, and a few editions since, but I just had to get this new 60^th anniversary hardback, from Virago, a handsome volume for the bookshelf, with new introduction, etc. Its a book I love re-reading. Highsmith's lucid prose draws one in from the first sentence. 

We like Ripley – and his Alain Delon incarnation a lot, here at the Projector – as per the labels. Rene Clement’s 1960 film PLEIN SOLEIL, shot in 1959, captures that high end Mediterranean glamour perfectly, and entranced me when I was 14. I did not relate to the 1999 film much at all, as Anthony Minghella expanded and changed the characters and the ‘50s fashions were too fussy and overdone – back in the 1959 film they – Delon, Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet – looks very smart casual wearing clothes that still work now.  The book, too, is surprisingly frank for one written in the mid-'50s about Tom and the gay milieu he lived in New York (it starts with Tom sharing a grotty room with an obviously gay window dresser who is putting Tom up for a while, before Mr Greenleaf sends him to Italy ...), before more erotic frissons in Italy. Back in the Fifties, before mass air travel, a trip to Europe on an ocean liner was a treat indeed - by page 50 Tom has left seedy New York behind and arrives in that Italian village ...

Reading the book again one realises how easy it must have been to impersonate someone else back in that pre-internet world without computers, the risk of being photographed on cellphones or on constant CCTV ... 

Its shaping up to a Highsmith year, with Todd Haynes’ film of CAROL finally coming out of the traps, after very positive reviews at Cannes recently. If its half as good as his FAR FROM HEAVEN ….

I have just read her novel CAROL, here is the blurb:

Therese is just an ordinary sales assistant working in a New York department store just before Christmas when a beautiful, alluring woman in her thirties walks up to her counter. Standing there, Therese is wholly unprepared for the first shock of love. Therese is an awkward 19 year old with a job she hates and a boyfriend she doesn’t love; Carol is a sophisticated, bored suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce and a custody battle for her only daughter. As Therese becomes irresistibly drawn into Carol’s world, she soon realizes how much they both stand to lose …

First published pseudonymously in 1952 as THE PRICE OF SALT, CAROL is a hauntingly atmospheric love story set against the backdrop of Fifties New York. 

It was a bit hit at the time, the first lesbian love story with a happy ending …. As Highsmith says in the Afterword at the end. The thriller element comes into force too as the women realise they are being followed on their extended car trip and decide to confront the detective, and Carol has a gun ...

THE TALENTER MR RIPLEY also begins in Fifties New York with jittery Tom trying to evade that man who is following him through the bars of that gay milieu he inhabits – he thinks it is one of his shady deals coming apart but he turns out to be the father of Dickie Greenleaf, setting that plot in motion ….

Cate Blanchett, whom one imagines is the perfect Carol as one reads the book, was also of course in Mingella’s 1999 film of MR RIPLEY – one of her first eye-catching roles. Now she is finally leading CAROL (it was filmed last year, but does not open until this November) into the next award season … no doubt, a cunning Weinstein strategy. 

Rebecca at 75

No, not REBECCA and those Forties dramas!  Fascinating too to see REBECCA again, this lush Forties romantic drama/mystery, typically Hitchcock and Selznick, from of course that classic novel by Daphne Du Maurier, still weaves it spell as once again we go back to Manderley. How those wartime audiences must have lapped it up, along with GWTW ......

1940 was an amazing year actually, following on from the great 1939. REBECCA won Best Picture Oscar for Selznick, but Hitchcock did not get best director - that went to John Ford for THE GRAPES OF WRATH, other contenders were Wyler for THE LETTER and Cukor for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Likewise James Stewart, in the Cukor, won Best Actor. Olivier was nominated of course, as was Joan Fontaine here, but like Grace Kelly winning over Judy Garland in 1954 - see post below - it was Ginger Rogers as KITTY FOYLE who won Best Actress. But who sees KITTY FOYLE now?, I have never seen it, and its never revived these days. Also nominated were Bette Davis (THE LETTER) and Katharine Hepburn for playing herself - sorry, Tracy Lord - in PHILADELPHIA STORY.

Joan is superlative here as the shy new Mrs De Winter, its a great performance and she is absolutely captivating. Olivier with that moustache is perfect too. No wonder women of that generation swooned over him. Add in Florence Bates as the ghastly Mrs Van Hopper and those amusing scenes in the South of France (California actually), and cad George Sanders and Gladys Cooper, Hitchcock regular Leo G Carroll as the doctor with the key to the mystery, and of course Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers, and that great location and art direction for Manderley,  

It seems though a film of two halfs. I love the first half . The cinematography, the direction, the chemistry between the two leads (though it seems Larry and Hitch used to say dirty words to Joan to disconcert her), the acting, the large house and the enigma of the dead first wife, Rebecca, are all fantastic, as Hitch builds up the eerie atmosphere with the sinister Mrs Danvers. But once we find out about the true story about Rebecca it loses, for me, some of its magic and turns into a simple mystery/thriller. But, 75 years on, audiences still love REBECCA and it remains a key Hitchcock classic.

We like Joan a lot, see labels for more on her and Olivier and Hitchcock. 

A Star Is Born and those Fifties dramas

Nice to catch 1951's A PLACE IN THE SUN again on television, along with SUNSET BOULEVARD and ALL ABOUT EVE, those great early '50s dramas, and of course, as the decade wore on, those Kazan classics like EAST OF EDEN, and the later 50s dramas like ANATOMY OF A MURDER or the over-heated SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER or Susan Hayward classics like I WANT TO LIVE or I'LL CRY TOMORROW, or Magnani or .... See Drama-1 label for my first post here on all those ...

Now, a few more comments on Cukor's A STAR IS BORN, that 1954 musical drama that just keeps looking better and better each time I see it.  There is quite a bit on it here - see the labels - as its one of the first movies I saw that year as a kid of 8. JOHNNY GUITAR was the first, what a vivid introduction to movies that was - but A STAR IS BORN may well have been the second. I loved the widescreen images, like that beach house with the sun reflected on the glass, and that rich Warnercolor just glows now, particularly after the film was restored and the extras included those 3 alternative versions of "The Man That Got Away" and all that premiere footage with all the stars of the time (Doris, Peggy Lee, Crawford, Bacall, the Wildings, the Curtises, the Fishers etc) 

It is one of the great Fifties dramas - a drama with music, as opposed to one of those MGM spectaculars, It was Brando's year of course but for me Mason delivers the performance of the year, and of his career, as Norman Maine. 

Judy of course is something else. It is easy to see now why Grace Kelly got the Oscar for that year. She was the hot new girl in town (like Audrey the year before, and Judy Holliday in 1950 when Bette and Gloria were seen as old-timers; and a decade later in the bright shiny early Sixties when the two Julies - Andrews and Christie - were the next hot new girls in town..).   Judy too had burned her boats a lot and had antagonised too many with her tantrums and delays, maybe caused by a bi-polar or medical condition caused by all her medications and addictions. 

It is though a Hollywood drama at its dizzying peak. Unlike more modern filmed musicals where the performances are edited to pieces (Rob Marshall) or upstaged by other action (Baz Lurhmann), Cukor goes in for long takes and full musical sequences. So many scenes that were phenomenal showing Esther's rise through Hollywood:  "The Man That Got Away" when Norman discovers her again after prowling the nightclub circuit in search of freash cuties (but not from Pasadena!), the number Judy stages for Mason ("I am discovered on a rather simple divan");  the Academy Award scene, the dressing room breakdown scene, Norman's shamed appearance in court ....any one of them would have propelled another actress to an Oscar. At least A STAR IS BORN is appreciated more today - when was the last time anyone mentioned THE COUNTRY GIRL or saw it on television?, its a dull boring film enlived by Grace playing dowdy in a cardigan. 

Yes, Judy's weight fluctuated and she does not always look her best (at only 32) but it is still Garland at her peak and she is thrilling. She was robbed of that Oscar. She and Mason deliver timeless, great performances, maybe the best in any musical. Add in Cukor's great widescreen compositions and lots of savage humour, like Jack Carson's vicious PR man, and Charles Bickford marvellous as the studio head. That first "You Gotta Have Me Go With You" number is brilliantly staged too as the drunk Norman invades Esther's act on stage .... It is full of lovely moments, like the studio makeup men trying to decide on Esther's face and Norman then wiping all the gunk off, or Esther getting her new name Vicki Lester - "Go to L" or the "We can see your face" moment ..... it made no sense to cut the scene where she works in the drive-in burger bar and leave in Norman telling her to "think of a man eating a nutburger" ! The "Born in a Trunk" sequence too has some delicious moments .... 

Judy might well have started out with good intentions but she quickly fell back into her old undependable patterns and habits from her MGM days. George Cukor vowed never to work with her again he was so frustrated with her. Jack Warner lost interest in promoting Judy or the film for any Oscars after his disastrous dealings with her husband and the film's producer Sid Luft, and Judy, (he was also furious to discover they had furnished their house with furniture from the set) and the film was quickly cut to fit in more screenings.  
She did, indeed, burn her bridges with Warners, her last chance to prove that, with all her talent, that she could behave responsibly, professionally.  It irreperably damaged her career. Blame it on drugs or being bipolar or whatever. 

It was the same problem with her last film I COULD GO ON SINGING in 1963, when again she is marvellous, and its a great record of Judy then more or less playing herself, but as Dirk Bogarde related in his memoirs, the shoot was a nightmare with everyone quickly getting tired of Judy's dramas, wanting to sack the director, etc. Mel Torme wrote a book on the nightmare her early '60s tv shows had become. The films continue to fascinate though. More on them at Judy/Dirk labels.

The Misfits and those Sixties dramas

Nice to see THE MISFITS back in selected cinemas again, with a new poster (well, at the BFI Southbank in a new restoration extended run as part of their Monroe season) with interesting reviews in the papers, it seems Huston's 1961 drama (often seen as too melancholy and downbeat for some - lacking the savage humour of Tennessee's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, another Huston hit - or Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?) so now THE MISFITS has been re-evaluated and appreciated, with its star power as potent as ever and its certainly a key Huston film.

 "Monroe and Clift are both truly remarkable, especially together" says The Daily Telegraph, at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-misfits/review/

Against the odds a highly erratic Marilyn Monroe gives an extraordinary performance in John Huston's elegaic film  of Arthur Miller's script, conveying her character's great empathy with the cowboys (Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift) out of kilter with a modern, wages-based world, and her identification with the wild mustangs they're plannng to kill for petfood. Gable and Clift are also exceptional (as is Eli Wallach as the resentful car mechanic Guido) in roles that celebrate and subvert their screen images. 

I was obsessed about THE MISFITS for a long time, back in my twenties when back in that pre-video age before we could own copies of favourite films, I could never miss a screening. Apart from the cast, it has maybe the most perfect black and white photography, as lensed by Russell Metty (who did TOUCH OF EVIL among others) . It was a very difficult shoot, with all the world press covering it - including Magnum's Eve Arnold, who knew Monroe and later published her book on the film and its making - Eve Arnold label. I was a kid at the time and remember all the press coverage.  Like EAST OF EDEN, PLEIN SOLEIL or the later BLOW-UP, it was a film that just spoke to me .... particularly as the Monroe mythology took off in the early '60s. 

Gable seems sadly aged here, after his previous one IT STARTED IN NAPLES where he looks fine with Sophia Loren (over 30 years younger than him), Clift is of course marvellous as usual, after his great WILD RIVER with Kazan, and before going back to Huston for the questionable FREUD, Wallach (who lived on to 98, it was fascinating seeing him as a wizened old man) scores as the bitter, resentful Guido using the death of his wife to try to score with Marilyn's Roslyn, while Thelma Ritter is bliss as the Reno landlady used to the ways of those cowboys. As in ALL ABOUT EVE (which of course Marilyn was also in as Miss Caswell) she vanishes from the film too soon.

Thats another fascinating thing about THE MISFITS - its a mere ten years from those bit parts in Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE and Mank's ALL ABOUT EVE in 1950 to her final completed role here, filmed in 1960, as Miller's heroine. She has some great moments here, hugging the tree or relating to the dog, and just with Gable and that marvellous ending with them in the car .... its a very affecting moment. (She did though look marvellous in the uncompleted SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, back with Fox and Cukor). 
The scenes with the horses too are perfectly done and perfectly Huston. 

It is of course a great early Sixties black and white drama, along with other favourites like ALL FALL DOWN, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES Demy's BAY OF ANGELS, Malle's LE FEU FOLLET, Losey's THE SERVANT, Huston's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, Nichols' WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? etc. Sixties dramas, we love them. 
More on THE MISFITS at label.  

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA

Coming up (before my 1,500th post): A STAR IS BORN and those Fifties dramas / REBECCA at 75 / A new MR RIPLEY at 60 / Bette Davis / Flora Robson / Diana Dors / Dorothy McGuire - the perfect mother / British B-movies continued / and back to Marcello, Romy, Catherine, Dirk, Antonioni, Lee Remick  et al ...

For the weekend ...

Some widescreen early 1950s glamour - it doesn't get better than this:

and a dance - which also defines its era.

and a couple more club classics ....

RIP continues

Sir Christopher Lee (1922-2015) at the great age of 93, gentleman, hero, titan of British and international cinema and always good value no matter how dire the film - in his very long and prolific career he did some classics as well as the occasional dross (AIRPORT '77?). He will be my generation's DRACULA, THE MUMMY, RASPUTIN, FU MANCHU in all those Hammer movies (like HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, SHE) along with his great friend and fellow great actor Peter Cushing). He was hissably evil in the 1958 A TALE OF TWO CITIES, a great Bond villain as Scaramanga in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, he led the '70s horror classic THE WICKER MAN, then off to STAR WARS as Count Dooku and of course his magnificent Saruman in THE LORD OF THE RINGS.- above with Sir Ian's Gandalf. Thats only a thumbnail view of his great career. I liked him in the Lester MUSKETEER films as the bumbling Rochfort (plotting with Milady, Faye Dunaway, right) and that final terrific duel with Michael York's D'Artagnan. 

He also played JINNAH - and nobody else could have brought what he did to Saruman in the LOTR and HOBBIT films. He was a very effective MUMMY in 1959 where he did it all with his eyes and his great height was just right and of course a terrifying DRACULA. Good to see him so respected in his later years. He was also a war hero, he served with the Special Operations Executive and the SAS, and had a long happy marriage. What a great life and career. 

Ron Moody (1924-2015), aged 91. Alec Guinness may have been the defining early Fagin in David Lean's 1948 classic OLIVER TWIST, but Ron Moody certainly made the part his own in Carol Reed's 1968 OLIVER! where Moody was nominated for an Oscar and has delighted generations ever since as the most delightfully engaging musical villain of all time, with that leering smirk and devilish grin. He also played Fagin on the stage, just one highlight of a distinguished career. He was one of the most original comic talents of his post-war generation (others: Barry Humphies  [who also did a stint as Fagin], the Goons, the Pythons, Pete and Dud).  He did not start acting until he was 29, and was also a memorable Uriah Heep in the 1969 all-star DAVID COPPERFIELD. He turned down being a DR WHO. Television roles included EASTENDERS, MURDER SHE WROTE and more. 

Richard Johnson (1927-2015), aged 87. Another stalwart of stage and screen, Johnson's good looks got him movie roles in films like THE HAUNTING and THE AMOROUS ADVENTURES OF MOLL FLANDERS in 1965 (when he briefly married its star Kim Novak), as Duncan Sandys he holds the various strands of OPERATION CROSSBOW together (far right, with fellow thesps John Fraser, Trevor Howard, Richard Todd, John Mills). Like Christopher Lee was was also in the 1951 CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER. Other films include KHARTOUM, HENNESSEY (where he devised the storyline), ACES HIGH and much more. 

Also: Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), aged 85, jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. 

James Last (1929-2015), aged 86, music man and big band leader.

Marguerite Patten (1915-2015), aged 99 - the first post-war cookery writer and broadcaster.

Loretta's Beauty Shop .......... (for M.B.)

Loretta's Beauty Shop is open again today - it is of course located at Cabot Cove somewhere in New England - Maine, perhaps? - where that amazing sleuth and thriller writer Jessica Fletcher resides - when she is not globe-trotting around the world solving murders where-ever she goes .... Jessica of course is the tireless Angela Lansbury (still working in her late 80s - she was back on the London stage earlier this year) - while her MURDER SHE WROTE TV series are replayed endlessly - there is at least one a day on here. 

I never bothered with the series back when first shown - being younger and out a lot and it was not my sort of TV, but hey 30 or so years later, its amusing to check them out now and then, if only for the great guest stars - we have seen Jean Simmons, Janet Leigh, Carroll Baker, Rod Taylor, David Hemmings and lots more including Angela's old pals from her MGM days. Some episodes are set in a make-believe Ireland (where Angela lived for some years) and its fun seeing their recreations of Paris, Hong Kong, Cairo and others.

A particular favourite of mine, Ruth Roman, wound down her career here, doing three episodes set in Cabot Cove where she plays Loretta who runs the local beauty parlour (where everything is pink), its where Angela and her gossipy neighbours hang out: Julia Adams still looking terrific, a rather portly Kathryn Grayson, and Gloria De Haven, This particular episode I saw the other day "The Sins of Castle Cove" (Season 5, episode 17, 1989) concerns a PEYTON PLACE type novel written by a local girl, using all the local scandals, which becomes a best seller and, yes, inevitably leads to murder. But fear not, Jessica will soon unravel it, meanwhile relax with the girls at the parlour presided over by the good-natured, jovial Loretta, a vision in pink - go Ruth, a good final role for her.