Stop the presses! Sam Fuller's at it again! I can just picture him, sitting there at his typewriter, white hair sticking out in every direction, chomping on a cigar and churning out another hardboiled script about a crooked newspaper publisher. Didn't we just go through this with "Power of the Press"? Well, Fuller must've really had it in for yellow journalists, because this time around he's crucifying Broderick Crawford in "Scandal Sheet"(1952), the story of a newsman who becomes the lead story.
Crawford has taken a once reputable paper and turned it into a scandal-spouting tabloid. Some board members are upset about the change in content. Crawford points to his circulation chart, which shows a steady climb toward 750,000 subscribers. "What do you think brought you that dividend check"?, he asks in retort. "This is what the average person wants to read. No one cares about bond issues or abstract political analysis. They want excitement, they want thrills. The numbers bear that out". This shuts up the stockholders, who remain disgusted but earn big returns.
"Steve McCleary" (John Derek) is the hotshot reporter who gets Crawford most of his stories. He's got a nose for news, so sharp that he arrives at crime scenes ahead of the cops. He twists witness testimony to produce startling headlines. His photographer (Harry Morgan) gets the gory pictures, and it's not above the two of them to fake one when necessary : "Pour some chocolate syrup on that axe, I'll shoot it close up".
In short, these guys are lower than snakes in the grass. Only Donna Reed, a veteran reporter from the old days, holds fast to the previous standards, when the paper was a highly regarded journal.
To paint himself sympathetic (and pump up circulation even more), Crawford stages a Lonely Hearts Ball. This makes him a champion of his average reader, poorly educated folks all alone in the world. Door prizes are offered, including a Grand Prize of instant marriage, in which two lonely souls will dance, fall in love and be wed on the very same night. A minister is on hand to perform the service. It's just another sales gimmick, but it backfires on Crawford. One Lonely Heart who attends is his ex-wife (Rosemary DeCamp), whom he ran out on twenty years earlier. She recognises him on the stage and approaches, trembling with anger.
"Hello George", she sneers. "Bet you thought you'd never see me again. Look at you now, head of your own empire. When I met you, you didn't have a nickel. How'd you make that climb to the top, huh? How many people did you step on? I'm gonna tell the truth about you George, and when I do you'll be back in the gutter".
He tries to ignore her. "Excuse me, ma'am, but you must have me mixed up with someone else. My name is Mark Chapman. I don't believe we've ever met".
"Nice try, George, but you'll be seeing more of me later. Then you'll wish we never met"!
It turns out Crawford's real name is George Grant. He changed it to Mark Chapman (unfortunate choice, I know) to dodge his past. Fearing what his wife might do (they're still legally married, despite his twenty year absence), he follows her home after the dance. After barging into her apartment, he confronts her. She threatens him once again and he strikes her. Her head hits a water pipe and she falls down and dies. Crawford stages it to look like an accident and leaves the scene. But here's where things get tricky, and if you'll visualize along with me, we can picture Sam Fuller's glee as he sits in his smoke-filled writing room, setting an ironic trap for his villain. You see, Crawford has trained John Derek well, to go after stories like a bulldog. And it's Derek who gets the first tip, from a police scanner, about a female dead body in a bathtub. He's on it in an instant and brings the scoop back to Crawford, his publisher.
"Boss! I've got our next headline! 'Miss Lonely Heart Murdered' ! That woman was at the dance last night"!
Crawford is now in the hot seat, but at the moment only he knows it, so after mopping his sweaty brow, he tries to disinterest reporter Derek. "What do you mean 'murdered' ? I think the cops are calling it an accident. No one's gonna care about some woman who fell down in her tub. Can it and find me something juicier".
"But Boss, the police are wrong on this one! I've been inside the lady's apartment. There's blood on a pipe in the bathroom. But more than that, I checked her closet. On her dress was a tag from the Lonely Hearts Ball, only someone tore it off. Here, I brought what was left of it with me. You can still see her ticket number at the bottom! Why would she rip her own dress, instead of unpinning it? No sir, there's no doubt she was murdered. This'll sell like hotcakes! Don't worry, Boss, I'm all over it"!
At this point, Broderick has no choice but to agree, lest he seem unenthusiastic about a scandal.
"Okay, okay.......go back there and dig up what you can. It was probably some geezer she met at the dance, or one of the stewbums in the Bowery. Don't worry right now about I.D.ing the killer, just get me more on the woman, you know......the Miss Lonely Heart angle".
"Don't worry, Boss, I'll get you both"! Derek runs off to do the job he's so good at, digging up dirt on a murder. This time, however, though he's not yet aware, he's also digging Crawford's grave. Things get worse for ol' Broderick in a moment, as Sam Fuller twists the noose even tighter.
"Charlie Barnes" (Henry O'Neill) is a former Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, now an alcoholic, who loiters in the bars of the Bowery. Longing for past glories, he hopes to get his old job back. One day Crawford passes him on the street. They know each other. "Hey Mark, it's great to see ya! Hey, whattaya think about giving me another shot? I know I don't look so good at the moment, but I've still got the old eagle eye for a story. If you give me a chance I can sober up and be ready to work in a day". Crawford feels uneasy seeing his old pal in this condition and brushes him off with money. "Yeah, Charlie. Here's five bucks. Get yourself a room and get cleaned up. Gimme a call when you're ready". Then he walks away. But when Crawford pulled out the bill, a pawn ticket fell out of his wallet. Charlie finds it on the ground and redeems it.
The ticket belonged to Crawford's estranged wife. He took it from her purse when he cleared it of identifying material. Now it's inadvertently come into Charlie's possession. At the pawn shop, he says he's redeeming it "for a friend". The pawnbroker gives him a battered old suitcase. Back at his flophouse, Charlie opens it. The suitcase contains a lifetime of romantic treasures, including a marriage certificate for "George and Charlotte Grant", and a photograph of the two on their wedding day. Charlotte (the dead woman) is pictured facing forward, but her new husband is seen only in shadow.
Charlie is excited and immediately calls Crawford. "Hey Mark I've gotta show you something. I've found the identity of the Miss Lonely Heart killer! I found a pawn ticket today after we met. When I turned it in I got a suitcase. There's a picture in it of the woman that was murdered! Her name was Charlotte Grant, but I know her husband's name too. That's what I'm calling to tell you. He's George Grant - gotta be the guy who killed her, right"?
Crawford : "Uh.....Charlie......where are you calling from? I'd like to come right over and take a look at what you've got". And that of course is the end of poor old Charlie.
I'll leave the plot right there, but I love Fuller's set-up, where he hoists Broderick Crawford by his own petard. Irony drives the story. John Derek, a smirking but talented scribe, is hot on the trail of the Lonely Hearts Killer, and is presenting all his evidence to Crawford! Crawford has to think of excuses to deep six the story, but Derek keeps pushing : "C'mon, Boss! This is what sells papers! Isn't that what you want"?
Before Crawford became known as "Dan Matthews" on "Highway Patrol", he was in many Noirs and even comedies, and was good at playing heavies with fast-talking panache. John Derek is interesting also. Ultra handsome, he was also an above average actor, but in the long run he became known for his marriages to beautiful women, including Ursula Andress, Linda Evans and Bo Derek. The real star of this movie, though, is Sam Fuller's screenplay, which builds to an inexorable conclusion. Let's picture him one last time, as he types out "The End", then taps his cigar in the ashtray with a satisfied grin.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Scandal Sheet", one of the best Noirs we've seen in a while. /////
We've got something of a bottleneck to get through, a Motion Picture Traffic Jam if you will. Over the past couple days I've seen four other films and my screen time-to-writing time is out of proportion (hence another late blog). In an effort to clear the deck, I'll just summarise our next movie. Grimsley brought over "The King of Comedy" a few nights ago. Have you seen it? It's one of Martin Scorsese's lesser known works. Robert Deniro stars as "Rupert Pupkin", an aspiring stand-up comedian. What sets him apart from a thousand other would-be comics is that Rupert has never performed in front of an audience. In fact, he's a delusional man who lives in his mother's basement, where he sits fixated on "Jerry Langford" (Jerry Lewis), America's #1 late night talk show host whom Rupert worships as a god. He dreams of the day when he will appear on Jerry's show, and has even constructed a replica of the show's set, where he sits in the celebrity lounge chair practicing one-liners at which Jerry will laugh and slap his knee. All he ever thinks about is appearing on Jerry's show, and he practices day and night, playing the parts of both Langford and himself. His mother shouts down from the living room : "Rupert, lower your voice"!
By day, Rupert tries to promote himself, and as the movie opens we see him squirm into a taxi that Jerry Langford has hailed. Suddenly he's got Jerry isolated and he throws his spiel at him, talking a mile a minute. Right away, Scorsese shows us an aspect of the price of fame - constant attention from fans and hopeful newcomers. Pupkin is a little bit of both, but he's also nuts. He definitely knows what he wants, however - a slot on Jerry's show - and he'll do whatever it takes to get it. So when Jerry gives him the standard show-business brush off ("Give my secretary a call"), Rupert takes him at his word and goes him one better. He starts showing up at Langford's office. When he's repeatedly intercepted there by Langford's assistant Shelly Hack, he takes the next deluded step forward and goes to Langford's house. He even brings along a date (Diahnne Abbott), a local barmaid for whom Rupert is posing as Jerry's friend. "Oh yeah, I know him. He invited me out there for a luncheon. You could call it part-business, part-pleasure cause he wants to hear my new material, but there will be other guests too. You're gonna meet a lot of famous people! Of course, you'll also meet Jerry. We're real close, y'know".
As you can imagine, Langford isn't happy to find Rupert in his living room. There's no lunch party, it was all in Rupert's mind. Or was it? Scorsese walks a fine line with Rupert's psyche and his grasp on reality. Is he crazy or merely cunning, or a mixture of both? Langford will find out. After he throws Rupert and Abbott off his property, Rupert hatches a plan with an unhinged gal-pal of his (Sandra Bernhard). She idolises Jerry too, and rivals Rupert in her obsession. I won't tell you what they end up doing (and you may already know if you've seen the film), but it's every celebrity's nightmare. Scorsese presents the duo's caper as black comedy, but it's easy to imagine the terrifying real thing, or to simply watch "Joker" which in my opinion is a rip-off of "The King of Comedy". That disgusting movie was the gory flip-side to Scorsese's picture, which leaves us with a cheery sympathy for Rupert Pupkin, who has a happy ending after all. Grimsley and I discussed the possibility that "Rupert" might be DeNiro's greatest performance. Watch it for yourself and decide. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The King of Comedy". ////
Now to keep writing, to clear the cinematic gridlock and get the blog flowing freely once again.
Back a.s.a.p. Have a great afternoon. I send you Tons of Love as always!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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