Tonight I watched a very funny Silent movie called "The Love Trap" (1929), which I discovered in a search for Neil Hamilton in the library database. I think I saw Hamilton in one of my "Forbidden Hollywood" flicks, and as you know I do a lot of searches of actors, directors and producers just to uncover movies I haven't seen. Neil Hamilton was known to kids of the 1960s (including me) as "Commissioner Gordon" on the "Batman" TV series. I did not know until recently that he starred in several films in the early 1930s as a very handsome and suave leading man.
But he was not the revelation in this film. That honor goes to the leading lady Laura LaPlante. I had heard her name before in regards to the Silent era but had never seen her. She turns out to have been very talented, with natural movie star charisma, and she is a hoot in this picture.
She plays an off-Broadway chorus girl who has just been fired as the movie opens, because she can't get her dance steps down. The director has made an example of her in front of the other girls. She is humiliated, but worse, she is late on her rent and has received a "pay or else" note from her landlady.
A friend from the chorus line suggests she attend a party at the home of a wealthy gentleman. The friend will be there, all LaPlante has to do is "show up and look pretty" to earn fifty bucks. I think we have heard this line in another pre-Code movie. It sounded familiar, but anyway, you can be sure that LaPlante will be expected to do more than look pretty once she gets there. This is depicted in a fairly blunt way, considering that the year was 1929, but the enactment is done within studio limitations . The crudeness is implied. One of the blueblood partygoers deliberately spills a drink on her so that she will have to change her dress. He naturally offers an upstairs bedroom for changing, and it begins to sound like a scenario that was so common to Hollywood that it lasted until the MeToo# generation finally spoke up about it. You can picture what I am talking about, though it is mild in a 1929 film.
LaPlante is spunky, however, and doesn't give the rich dude what he wants. He takes his fifty bucks back and the next we see her she is sitting on the sidewalk in front of her apartment with all of her furniture. She has been evicted. It is nighttime and pouring rain.
As the script would have it, a cab pulls up and another rich guy gets out. He is Neil Hamilton, and he is an actual gentleman. He offers to take the lady and her furniture to shelter, and he calls up four more cabs to do it. All of the preceding scenarios are played for humor and not pathos. This is a funny film all the way.
A short time later, LaPlante and Hamilton are married. Now the major plot points can kick in, because the rich man at the "fifty dollar" party at the beginning of the film just so happens to be Neil Hamilton's uncle. He is a phony baloney judge, a bastion of society, who goes to parties to hook up with chorus girls. And now he is excoriating his nephew, the similarly wealthy but nice Hamilton, about the shame that will be brought upon the family by this marriage.
Neil Hamilton is ignorant of what transpired before he met his wife, but she knows about his uncle, and this sets up a revenge plot for the final third of the story, where LaPlante tricks the hypocritical uncle, into coming to "visit" her. Now she can threaten him with blackmail and save her marriage.
She never did anything wrong in the first place, but she is dealing with the Upper Crust, and they will do anything to avoid being implicated in their own scandals. They have money, she doesn't. But she has smarts and sex appeal. You can guess who wins.
As I say, the whole thing is played for laughs, but there is a surprise two thirds of the way through. All of a sudden, 45 minutes into the picture, it becomes a "Talkie"! Yep, and apparently this was a gimmick used in some motion pictures that were produced right on the cusp between Silent and Sound. The year would certainly be 1929 for any crossover film, and it seems that before the studios were able to release a full fledged sound film, they teased audiences with short sections of talking. This is what happens here. You have a traditional Silent, with the corresponding facial expressions and gestures, and then all of a sudden, two thirds of the way through, the characters start talking. From what I have read by Googling, this sudden change caused a sensation in theaters. The studios were gearing people up for sound, and then it took off into the Golden Era of Hollywood.
"The Love Trap" is mostly for fun, and could be considered a Silent example of a screwball comedy. Laura LaPlante is delightful as the chorus girl from the wrong side of the tracks. According to IMDB, she retired from the film business in 1935, but I think she could have had a major career like Carole Lombard had she stuck with it. Watch and see for yourself. The movie was directed by William Wyler, an early effort in his career, but he would go on to direct more Oscar nominated performances than any other director. ////
I am tired tonight, back at Pearl's after my time off, and so I didn't make my Scarlatti pick yet, for my classical Top Ten list, but I promise I will do it tomorrow. I also wanna comment on a couple of books I've been reading. I hope you had a great day.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Thursday, March 7, 2019
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
"I'll Cry Tomorrow", starring the fearless Susan Hayward
Tonight's movie was "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955), the harrowing story of real life stage actress and singer Lillian Roth, who was pushed into show business as a child in the early 1900s by her mother, a "Stage Mother" if there ever was one. Her experience of constant auditions as an eight year old, having to be charming and professional for endless producers, is depicted in the first 15 minutes of the film. She never gets a chance to play with her friends in their Brooklyn neighborhood. She also has a child's crush on one boy, but her mother pulls her away. She is allowed no time to just be a kid.
Cut to adulthood, and - as played by Susan Hayward in the starring role - she is now on the rise, gaining marquee parts in small theaters. She still lives with Mom, who exerts control over her career in an "I'm doing it all for you" kind of way. Sweet, but pushy. Insistent if not demanding.
Out of the blue, a young man comes into her life. He is David, the boy she knew as a child. He is a real gentleman to her, and her feelings for him are rekindled. She feels a new confidence to be herself, and she tells her mother that she really doesn't want to act or sing anymore. She and Mom both know that she was only doing it to please her mother, despite the minor level of success she has attained.
The story moves quickly forward from there. Next we see that she and David are planning to marry. He is a lawyer with some showbiz contacts, which is how he came back into her life in the first place, and to appease Mom, he has arranged a contract for Hayward to do one final tour of her stage show. The mother feels slighted, naturally, because as with all Stage Mothers it's really all about her. But a Stage Mom can't show this, so she plays nice. But in truth, the Mom - played by the great character actress Jo Van Fleet (of "East Of Eden" fame) - resents the heck out of David, for taking Lillian away from her, and the career she had planned for her daughter since she was little.
Soon, the mother's worries are over, because David takes ill with tuberculosis and dies a short time later. Lillian is devastated but has no time to even grieve because her mother is telling her to move past it, to resume her career. She is back on stage in no time and plenty shook up. It is at this critical juncture that her nurse, hired by Mom to stabilize her daughter's emotions, introduces young Miss Roth to whiskey.
Here begins the story in earnest. It is brutal and very melodramatic, and if you have seen any of Susan Hayward's other famous performances, in movies like "Smash-Up" or "I Want To Live" (for which she won Best Actress), you can see why she was chosen for this role. Her technique was given to raw, naked emotion; few actresses let it all hang out onscreen like Hayward, and what she does here is pretty courageous. She was sometimes accused of chewing scenery, and there are a few instances in this movie where the director could have reined her in just a tad. But I think that he saw overall that she was giving her performance everything she had and decided to let her go for it.
It's about as fearless a portrayal of rock-bottom alcoholic behavior as you will ever see. She is the victim of her life circumstances but also of her own anger, which she unleashes on Mom in a stunning scene, very hard to watch. Also, she is taken advantage of by men, one a violent alcoholic himself who uses his sleazy charm to fool her into marrying him. Man, she is a basket case by this point, but the script takes you step-by-step through her descent to this place, with Hayward acting out all of the vulnerabilities of the terminal alcoholic, but also the manipulations, when she will do or say anything for a drink.
Listen movie fans, though I am giving this movie Two Big Thumbs Up, despite the few scenes of heavy-handed acting (a small quibble), I nevertheless am not sure I can recommend it to you, unless you are ready for such a depressing ride. If you are on an even keel, go ahead and watch, and anyway, there is a happy ending of sorts. But if hard core melodrama, meaning strung out addiction in this case, is too strong a theme, then I would suggest you give it a pass.
The movie was nominated for several Academy Awards, including another Best Actress nomination for Hayward. She didn't win but she could have, and I think it is time for critics to re-evaluate her career and talent. You know how athletes talk about "leaving it all on the field", meaning not holding back? That's what Susan Hayward did, in every role I've seen her in. She didn't exhibit the total stylistic control of a Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck, whose acting techniques required them to maintain their star power at all times, even when they were playing vulnerability. And of course those two were great actresses, but they were never gonna show themselves really and truly in the gutter. What Susan Hayward did was take her talent, and movie star beauty, and throw out all rules and constraints. She wasn't afraid to go crazy or make a mess of herself onscreen, and in that way she paved the way for a lot of the soul bearing actresses of the future.
You always know you will get 100% from a Susan Hayward performance, even if her characters and their stories are not always easy to watch. ////
Today was my last day off work for the time being. Tomorrow begins a new cycle and I will be once again writing to you from Pearl's. What is happening with Trump? Is he toast yet? I have not been paying attention since I don't have cable here at The Tiny Apartment. I did go on a minor hike at Chatsworth Park this afternoon, though the thunderheads were forming over the mountains and the lightning began to flash shortly after I arrived back home.
I have been listening to Scarlatti sonatas as played by Alexandre Tharaud, so I will choose a favorite in the next blog, as Scarlatti was one of our Top Ten Composers.
That's all I know for today. Hope your day was good. Love as always through the night.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Cut to adulthood, and - as played by Susan Hayward in the starring role - she is now on the rise, gaining marquee parts in small theaters. She still lives with Mom, who exerts control over her career in an "I'm doing it all for you" kind of way. Sweet, but pushy. Insistent if not demanding.
Out of the blue, a young man comes into her life. He is David, the boy she knew as a child. He is a real gentleman to her, and her feelings for him are rekindled. She feels a new confidence to be herself, and she tells her mother that she really doesn't want to act or sing anymore. She and Mom both know that she was only doing it to please her mother, despite the minor level of success she has attained.
The story moves quickly forward from there. Next we see that she and David are planning to marry. He is a lawyer with some showbiz contacts, which is how he came back into her life in the first place, and to appease Mom, he has arranged a contract for Hayward to do one final tour of her stage show. The mother feels slighted, naturally, because as with all Stage Mothers it's really all about her. But a Stage Mom can't show this, so she plays nice. But in truth, the Mom - played by the great character actress Jo Van Fleet (of "East Of Eden" fame) - resents the heck out of David, for taking Lillian away from her, and the career she had planned for her daughter since she was little.
Soon, the mother's worries are over, because David takes ill with tuberculosis and dies a short time later. Lillian is devastated but has no time to even grieve because her mother is telling her to move past it, to resume her career. She is back on stage in no time and plenty shook up. It is at this critical juncture that her nurse, hired by Mom to stabilize her daughter's emotions, introduces young Miss Roth to whiskey.
Here begins the story in earnest. It is brutal and very melodramatic, and if you have seen any of Susan Hayward's other famous performances, in movies like "Smash-Up" or "I Want To Live" (for which she won Best Actress), you can see why she was chosen for this role. Her technique was given to raw, naked emotion; few actresses let it all hang out onscreen like Hayward, and what she does here is pretty courageous. She was sometimes accused of chewing scenery, and there are a few instances in this movie where the director could have reined her in just a tad. But I think that he saw overall that she was giving her performance everything she had and decided to let her go for it.
It's about as fearless a portrayal of rock-bottom alcoholic behavior as you will ever see. She is the victim of her life circumstances but also of her own anger, which she unleashes on Mom in a stunning scene, very hard to watch. Also, she is taken advantage of by men, one a violent alcoholic himself who uses his sleazy charm to fool her into marrying him. Man, she is a basket case by this point, but the script takes you step-by-step through her descent to this place, with Hayward acting out all of the vulnerabilities of the terminal alcoholic, but also the manipulations, when she will do or say anything for a drink.
Listen movie fans, though I am giving this movie Two Big Thumbs Up, despite the few scenes of heavy-handed acting (a small quibble), I nevertheless am not sure I can recommend it to you, unless you are ready for such a depressing ride. If you are on an even keel, go ahead and watch, and anyway, there is a happy ending of sorts. But if hard core melodrama, meaning strung out addiction in this case, is too strong a theme, then I would suggest you give it a pass.
The movie was nominated for several Academy Awards, including another Best Actress nomination for Hayward. She didn't win but she could have, and I think it is time for critics to re-evaluate her career and talent. You know how athletes talk about "leaving it all on the field", meaning not holding back? That's what Susan Hayward did, in every role I've seen her in. She didn't exhibit the total stylistic control of a Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck, whose acting techniques required them to maintain their star power at all times, even when they were playing vulnerability. And of course those two were great actresses, but they were never gonna show themselves really and truly in the gutter. What Susan Hayward did was take her talent, and movie star beauty, and throw out all rules and constraints. She wasn't afraid to go crazy or make a mess of herself onscreen, and in that way she paved the way for a lot of the soul bearing actresses of the future.
You always know you will get 100% from a Susan Hayward performance, even if her characters and their stories are not always easy to watch. ////
Today was my last day off work for the time being. Tomorrow begins a new cycle and I will be once again writing to you from Pearl's. What is happening with Trump? Is he toast yet? I have not been paying attention since I don't have cable here at The Tiny Apartment. I did go on a minor hike at Chatsworth Park this afternoon, though the thunderheads were forming over the mountains and the lightning began to flash shortly after I arrived back home.
I have been listening to Scarlatti sonatas as played by Alexandre Tharaud, so I will choose a favorite in the next blog, as Scarlatti was one of our Top Ten Composers.
That's all I know for today. Hope your day was good. Love as always through the night.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Elizabeth + "Ghost Story" + The Miracle Of Nature at El Escorpion Park
Elizabeth, just in case you still read this thing, I wanted to say that I was glad to see your photos yesterday on Instagram. That is so awesome that you are getting ready to shoot another dance film, and I don't know if you've chosen your location(s) yet, but that forest would be an incredible place to stage some scenes, I think, if the space permitted enough room for dancing. I am talking about the area of thick trees in a couple of yesterday's pictures. I know that wherever you choose to shoot will look spectacular and will complement your specific dance theme, so best of luck once again.
I think it's great that you are again doing what you love to do, and I hope you get to do more and more of it - including your music and photography too.
Post when you can. I miss seeing your photos and posts on FB, you sure have created a lot of art over the last few years. And you're only getting started. :)
Looking forward, as always, to seeing the finished film. Keep posting updates, and congrats in advance. I hope all is going well in your life and with your job, etc. Good things are gonna happen for you, for certain. :):)
Well, I didn't watch a movie tonight because I am waiting on another batch from the Libe, but I did watch an episode of "Ghost Story" (aka "Circle Of Fear") from my complete series dvd set. This is the show produced by our old friend William Castle, who I think I mentioned when I reviewed the first episode a couple of weeks ago. It's a creepy little show (which is nice, right?), full of lurid 1970s colors and weird characters that don't look as celebrity-perfect as do today's TV stars. Tonight's episode starred Jason Robards as a ranger who is based in a remote shack in what looks like the Angeles National Forest. As the show opens, he is helping a taciturn old coot bury someone just off the roadside in a freshly dug grave. None of this is explained, i.e who they are burying, how the person died, nor why they are not going the normal route of using a funeral home and proper cemetery.
All we can gather from the old coot's mumblings is that it is important to get the guy in the ground quickly, because of some zombie superstition related to the mountain area.
Well, so that's a weird start. But we like Weird, right? :)
It gets a whole lot weirder when he gets back to his forest ranger shack and finds his wife (Stella Stevens) getting ready to leave him because she finds him "boring". You want to yell at her, "wait a minute Stella! He's not boring. He just buried a guy in the dirt to prevent him from becoming a Zombie"! C'mon, Stella......how many guys are you gonna find with that kind of resume? Maybe hubby's pretty exciting after all.
Anyhow, it goes further downhill from there, because she does leave (or...ahem...tries to), and after she is gone, her television set - which she watched constantly while husband Robards was at work - begins to show him visions of the future - his immediate future, which doesn't look too promising, haha.
As I said, it's a demented little show, which means Two Big Thumbs Up. It will take you back to the look and vibe of the early 70s, when things were just a tad garish and horror was beginning another peak period in movies and television. We will keep doling out the occasional "Ghost Story" episodes, during rare lulls in the action when motion pictures are not available and the mood is not right for a "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" (which isn't very often).
But we've got twenty more "Ghost Stories" to go, so we will probably see them all by the end of the year.
Finally, I would like to say that I was extremely heartened to see all the new growth on the grounds and hillsides at El Escorpion park in West Hills, where I went for a hike this afternoon. I had not been there since Thanksgiving week, about three and a half months ago, and at the time, the park had been severely damaged by the terrible fires of last Fall. You may remember the photos I posted on FB of the park in it's burned state, which was awful. Three quarters of the entire grounds were blackened.
But today, I saw hills covered in lush green, the return of the first wildflowers, and most reassuringly, I saw green leaves on the tops of some old oak trees that I would have thought were dead last November.
That did so much for my spirit that I can't even begin to tell you, to see the resilience of the Oaks after what they must have withstood in the fire. Other folks were strolling the trails and you could tell that they felt the wonder of nature's recovery, too.
It was simply beautiful, a faith-strengthening experience if there ever was one. I can't wait to see what it looks like in May, when the wildflowers will be in full bloom. /////
That's all I know for tonight. Hope you had a great day. See you in the morning.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I think it's great that you are again doing what you love to do, and I hope you get to do more and more of it - including your music and photography too.
Post when you can. I miss seeing your photos and posts on FB, you sure have created a lot of art over the last few years. And you're only getting started. :)
Looking forward, as always, to seeing the finished film. Keep posting updates, and congrats in advance. I hope all is going well in your life and with your job, etc. Good things are gonna happen for you, for certain. :):)
Well, I didn't watch a movie tonight because I am waiting on another batch from the Libe, but I did watch an episode of "Ghost Story" (aka "Circle Of Fear") from my complete series dvd set. This is the show produced by our old friend William Castle, who I think I mentioned when I reviewed the first episode a couple of weeks ago. It's a creepy little show (which is nice, right?), full of lurid 1970s colors and weird characters that don't look as celebrity-perfect as do today's TV stars. Tonight's episode starred Jason Robards as a ranger who is based in a remote shack in what looks like the Angeles National Forest. As the show opens, he is helping a taciturn old coot bury someone just off the roadside in a freshly dug grave. None of this is explained, i.e who they are burying, how the person died, nor why they are not going the normal route of using a funeral home and proper cemetery.
All we can gather from the old coot's mumblings is that it is important to get the guy in the ground quickly, because of some zombie superstition related to the mountain area.
Well, so that's a weird start. But we like Weird, right? :)
It gets a whole lot weirder when he gets back to his forest ranger shack and finds his wife (Stella Stevens) getting ready to leave him because she finds him "boring". You want to yell at her, "wait a minute Stella! He's not boring. He just buried a guy in the dirt to prevent him from becoming a Zombie"! C'mon, Stella......how many guys are you gonna find with that kind of resume? Maybe hubby's pretty exciting after all.
Anyhow, it goes further downhill from there, because she does leave (or...ahem...tries to), and after she is gone, her television set - which she watched constantly while husband Robards was at work - begins to show him visions of the future - his immediate future, which doesn't look too promising, haha.
As I said, it's a demented little show, which means Two Big Thumbs Up. It will take you back to the look and vibe of the early 70s, when things were just a tad garish and horror was beginning another peak period in movies and television. We will keep doling out the occasional "Ghost Story" episodes, during rare lulls in the action when motion pictures are not available and the mood is not right for a "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" (which isn't very often).
But we've got twenty more "Ghost Stories" to go, so we will probably see them all by the end of the year.
Finally, I would like to say that I was extremely heartened to see all the new growth on the grounds and hillsides at El Escorpion park in West Hills, where I went for a hike this afternoon. I had not been there since Thanksgiving week, about three and a half months ago, and at the time, the park had been severely damaged by the terrible fires of last Fall. You may remember the photos I posted on FB of the park in it's burned state, which was awful. Three quarters of the entire grounds were blackened.
But today, I saw hills covered in lush green, the return of the first wildflowers, and most reassuringly, I saw green leaves on the tops of some old oak trees that I would have thought were dead last November.
That did so much for my spirit that I can't even begin to tell you, to see the resilience of the Oaks after what they must have withstood in the fire. Other folks were strolling the trails and you could tell that they felt the wonder of nature's recovery, too.
It was simply beautiful, a faith-strengthening experience if there ever was one. I can't wait to see what it looks like in May, when the wildflowers will be in full bloom. /////
That's all I know for tonight. Hope you had a great day. See you in the morning.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Monday, March 4, 2019
"Tannhauser Overture" by Wagner + "Wooden Crosses" by Raymond Bernard
Before I review tonight's film, I should mention another classical music pick. I keep forgetting to do so because I've been getting carried away writing about recent movies, haha. But I don't want to neglect the music, especially since I already started going through my list and have named my favorite pieces by Bach, Chopin, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Mozart. A couple nights ago I said I would do Wagner next, so here goes. I need to preface my pick by confessing that I don't know much of Wagner's work. I have the Ring Cycle on cd, and I was fortunate to see the "Valkyrie" section of the cycle performed by LA Opera in 2008. Five hours long, and incredible from beginning to end. I've also heard parts of other Wagner operas on KUSC, such as "Tristan und Isolde" and "Parsifal".
But there is one piece, from the opera "Tannhauser" that is played regularly on the station, so often that it could be considered a Top 40 hit. :) It is the Overture from "Tannhauser", and you may know it yourself. I first heard it about ten years ago, or at least that was when I paid attention to it for the first time. Slowly, as time passed and I heard it repeatedly, it became a classical music version of an earworm. One day, I was driving along listening to an especially good version of it and I got major goosebumps. This was maybe four or five years ago. Now I get goosebumps every time I hear it.
I was talking to my friend Mike B., who passed away last year, and I cannot remember if this conversation took place the last time I saw him, at the PFM concert at the Whisky in 2015, or if it was online on Facebook, but at any rate, now that I consider it, it must've been on FB, because I probably had posted the Tannhauser Overture and my post would've led to Mike's comment on the piece.
I may have remarked on the towering greatness of this piece of music, and Mike's reply was that it could be considered the greatest piece ever written.
It certainly is a contender for that honor, and without doubt it fills the listener with powerful emotion, as if the music is a living force.
The "Tannhauser Overture" all by itself is enough to confirm Richard Wagner as one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Listen to the Youtube version by the Berliner Philharmoniker, as conducted by Herbert Von Karajan. I posted it on my FB a few weeks ago. I don't even know what to say about such music, to be honest with you.....//////
The movie I watched tonight was called "Wooden Crosses" (1932), a World War One battle film directed by a Frenchman named Raymond Bernard. I had never heard of Bernard before last December, when his name and his Criterion Eclipse dvd set came up in an Amazon recommendation. He was an early sound director in France, and like the early American directors (Griffith, DeMille, Hawks), his milieu was spectacle.
I apologize for using the word "milieu", but I was drawing a blank until it came up. I promise not to use it again this year.
Anyhow, think of Raymond Bernard as you would a big studio director in America during the Golden Age. He had substantial budgets to work with (his next film was a four hour plus version of "Les Miserables"), and with "Wooden Crosses" he wanted to put his stamp on the war commentary.
I am tired because of early morning Sunday, so I will sum up my review by saying that this is possibly the most brutal war film ever made, at least until some of the more ultra graphic ones surfaced in recent years. "Wooden Crosses" was made 87 years ago, however, and is even more realistic looking because, like Pabst's "Westfront 1918", it was produced about a dozen years after the war ended, close enough so that the horror was fresh in the minds of the storytellers. We have seen two WW1 masterpieces this weekend, "Westfront" and "Crosses". The former told the German side of the story, the latter the French. Both directors, Pabst and Bernard, wanted to lay out the relentless, exhausting absurdity of the experience, of soldiers on both sides enduring days and days of constant artillery barrages. The shells rain down on the French/German wasteland without cease until it looks like a moonscape strewn with blackened tree stumps and parts of dead bodies. Sorry to be grim, but it seems like WW1 was even more gruesome than 2, in a way, because the violence seems so pure, so organic and evil, without purpose. Men are bombing each other for weeks, with nothing to obtain. The land is scorched and bare, with only more artillery shells to go around.
What you take away from "Wooden Crosses" is the sheer absurdity that men could find themselves in such a situation, created by other more calculating men, who have more authority and who don't have to be on the battlefield. You think, "how could humanity come to this"?
But of course the Devil has been in the world for a long time now, and that is how humanity Comes To This, in any given calamitous situation. I could go on a tirade against the Devil, because he is weak and it is fairly easy to resist him. All he can do is tempt. He has no other power; he has never created a mountain or an ocean, or the sky or the universe. All he can do is try to influence a human being in the wrong direction. And all a human being needs to do is to say no, and refuse to go along.
When you watch a movie like "Wooden Crosses", with it's otherworldly imagery that looks like it is taking place on the moon, with humans engaged in unceasing violence, the only conclusion you can come to is that the Devil has had a major influence in our world, because what you see on the screen makes no sense in any other context. It is horrible but also absurd, and the Devil is that, too.
Which is why we resist, and believe in Peace and Love. /////
Two Enormous Thumbs Up for "Wooden Crosses", though it is not an easy film to watch.
I am Super Tired so I will see you in the morning, with tons of love til then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
But there is one piece, from the opera "Tannhauser" that is played regularly on the station, so often that it could be considered a Top 40 hit. :) It is the Overture from "Tannhauser", and you may know it yourself. I first heard it about ten years ago, or at least that was when I paid attention to it for the first time. Slowly, as time passed and I heard it repeatedly, it became a classical music version of an earworm. One day, I was driving along listening to an especially good version of it and I got major goosebumps. This was maybe four or five years ago. Now I get goosebumps every time I hear it.
I was talking to my friend Mike B., who passed away last year, and I cannot remember if this conversation took place the last time I saw him, at the PFM concert at the Whisky in 2015, or if it was online on Facebook, but at any rate, now that I consider it, it must've been on FB, because I probably had posted the Tannhauser Overture and my post would've led to Mike's comment on the piece.
I may have remarked on the towering greatness of this piece of music, and Mike's reply was that it could be considered the greatest piece ever written.
It certainly is a contender for that honor, and without doubt it fills the listener with powerful emotion, as if the music is a living force.
The "Tannhauser Overture" all by itself is enough to confirm Richard Wagner as one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Listen to the Youtube version by the Berliner Philharmoniker, as conducted by Herbert Von Karajan. I posted it on my FB a few weeks ago. I don't even know what to say about such music, to be honest with you.....//////
The movie I watched tonight was called "Wooden Crosses" (1932), a World War One battle film directed by a Frenchman named Raymond Bernard. I had never heard of Bernard before last December, when his name and his Criterion Eclipse dvd set came up in an Amazon recommendation. He was an early sound director in France, and like the early American directors (Griffith, DeMille, Hawks), his milieu was spectacle.
I apologize for using the word "milieu", but I was drawing a blank until it came up. I promise not to use it again this year.
Anyhow, think of Raymond Bernard as you would a big studio director in America during the Golden Age. He had substantial budgets to work with (his next film was a four hour plus version of "Les Miserables"), and with "Wooden Crosses" he wanted to put his stamp on the war commentary.
I am tired because of early morning Sunday, so I will sum up my review by saying that this is possibly the most brutal war film ever made, at least until some of the more ultra graphic ones surfaced in recent years. "Wooden Crosses" was made 87 years ago, however, and is even more realistic looking because, like Pabst's "Westfront 1918", it was produced about a dozen years after the war ended, close enough so that the horror was fresh in the minds of the storytellers. We have seen two WW1 masterpieces this weekend, "Westfront" and "Crosses". The former told the German side of the story, the latter the French. Both directors, Pabst and Bernard, wanted to lay out the relentless, exhausting absurdity of the experience, of soldiers on both sides enduring days and days of constant artillery barrages. The shells rain down on the French/German wasteland without cease until it looks like a moonscape strewn with blackened tree stumps and parts of dead bodies. Sorry to be grim, but it seems like WW1 was even more gruesome than 2, in a way, because the violence seems so pure, so organic and evil, without purpose. Men are bombing each other for weeks, with nothing to obtain. The land is scorched and bare, with only more artillery shells to go around.
What you take away from "Wooden Crosses" is the sheer absurdity that men could find themselves in such a situation, created by other more calculating men, who have more authority and who don't have to be on the battlefield. You think, "how could humanity come to this"?
But of course the Devil has been in the world for a long time now, and that is how humanity Comes To This, in any given calamitous situation. I could go on a tirade against the Devil, because he is weak and it is fairly easy to resist him. All he can do is tempt. He has no other power; he has never created a mountain or an ocean, or the sky or the universe. All he can do is try to influence a human being in the wrong direction. And all a human being needs to do is to say no, and refuse to go along.
When you watch a movie like "Wooden Crosses", with it's otherworldly imagery that looks like it is taking place on the moon, with humans engaged in unceasing violence, the only conclusion you can come to is that the Devil has had a major influence in our world, because what you see on the screen makes no sense in any other context. It is horrible but also absurd, and the Devil is that, too.
Which is why we resist, and believe in Peace and Love. /////
Two Enormous Thumbs Up for "Wooden Crosses", though it is not an easy film to watch.
I am Super Tired so I will see you in the morning, with tons of love til then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, March 3, 2019
"Make Way For Tomorrow" starring Beulah Bondi
Tonight's motion picture selection was another new Criterion release, obtained as usual from Northridge Libe, called "Make Way For Tomorrow" (1937). Victor Moore and the great character actress Beulah Bondi star as a senior couple who have called their adult children, spread miles apart, to come over for dinner and a special announcement. The children, middle aged and with lives of their own, arrive impatient and wanting to hear whatever news their folks have to impart. The dinner can wait.
Moore (the father) tells them that the bank has foreclosed on the house. He is 70 (but looks 85 in the way that generation seemed to age faster than we do now), and can no longer find work. This is before there was Social Security, and now the parents have no money to make the house payments. They are going to have to move out within the week.
Their children discuss the matter, though they are visibly distracted because it is clear that none of them wants to take on the burden of housing their folks. They all have their excuses. No one seems to have enough room for Mom and Dad. The eldest son, who seems the most compassionate, suggests a temporary solution. Ma will come and live at his house, and perhaps the older sister could take in Dad. Sis is rather cold, and it is intimated in the opening dialogue, when the children arrive for the gathering, that three of the four (eldest son excepted) have not had much contact with their parents since they left home. This is a story about how we rush through life in search of success, moving past our upbringing (and thus past our parents who raised us) so that we can establish adult lives of our own. But in the process, we shove the older generation out of the way.
The eldest son has a conscience, so he takes Mom in. His wife, who teaches the game of Bridge to locals for extra money, tolerates her mother-in-law's presence in the home, but just barely, and here director Leo McCarey plays things straight, making no one the villain. Mom (Bondi) is a sweet old lady, but also a little overbearing and self centered, so you can feel sympathy for her daughter-in-law. Ditto for the teenaged daughter, who is embarrassed to bring her friends over any more, because grandma corrals them and talks their ears off. This results in a subplot in which the daughter begins to sneak out on dates with older men who are unknown to her parents. The situation in the house is reaching a boiling point, and Eldest Son & Bridge Teaching Wife begin to research Old Folks Homes for grandma.
Meanwhile, director McCarey generates some sympathy for her, by showing that she is aware of being a burden, and that all she really wants is to be with her husband again.
Beulah Bondi, who you have seen in a lot of movies, is a wonderful actress and she carries this movie with her complex portrayal of an old woman set in her ways but who is willing to sacrifice her wishes more than the younger people realize. She will move aside for them, if that is what they want. The irony is that they are all hypocrites, telling Ma that they'd love to help, but.....here's the brochure for the Rest Home.
The tandem story thread with Dad is similar. He lives with his daughter and her husband who don't want him there, and he is cantankerous too. McCarey shows that it is the older people in town who are kind to him. They are of the same generation. But as I mentioned, the script is so well written and even handed, that no cliches are used to generate false sympathies or alliances with particular characters.
What is made explicit, though, is that the children are copping out on their parents, who are now separated by 300 miles and living apart - for the first time in fifty years - as elderly people who cannot do much to fend for themselves anymore. Their kids could do more to keep them together, but they don't want to. That's the moral of the story, and it's a sad one.
"Make Way For Tomorrow" isn't a tearjerker per se because of the way McCarey refuses to place blame and thus overemotionalize the situation. Rather it is a poignant tale, because the parents accept their fate with dignity. Parts of this movie affected me greatly, because I had a complex relationship with my own folks well into my adulthood (as have many of us), and yet in the long run, after everything we had been through, I came to love them overwhelmingly and they became my best friends. I would up caring for both Mom and Dad before they passed away and then ended up becoming a caregiver for another lady (Pearl) as you probably know. So I have a lot of feelings and opinions about treating older people with love and respect. It's a prime example of the Golden Rule, because one day we will be the older ones, and we will hope that those younger than us will treat us as they will one day hope to be treated when they, in turn, become old.
Fortunately, the story never becomes maudlin because director McCarey chooses to make heroes of Moore and Bondi. They may be old, but they still have years of built-in knowledge and strength, or at least resolve. And they have fifty years of love under their belts.
I don't want to give away any spoilers from the final act, but I will tell you that they do reunite, because you can see that coming anyway. And when they do, they have a truly Grand Finale.
Except at the end, but even there you are left with a slight ray of hope. ////
"Make Way For Tomorrow" has the visual appearance, in it's costuming and art direction, of a truly "old fashioned" movie that might be a stereotype for folks who are not accustomed to films about Depression-era America. The age-advancing makeup on Moore and Bondi, and the way they create Ma and Pa as nearly senile but still spunky seniors are depictions from a bygone cinematic age and they look like characters from a stage play, as does the initial setting of the family home. Much of the movie looks antiquated, and Bondi's character is the centerpiece of this feeling. She looks like she came from Victorian times, and history is passing her by.
I was initially going to give the film either one and a half thumbs up or two regular thumbs, because of the lack of emotional wallop, which a viewer conditioned to such dramatic provocations would expect from a movie like this. There are none here, but after I thought about it, I realized that I was affected even more by not having my emotions manipulated. The story and performances were straightforward and felt like real life, the way people really are.
Therefore, Two Huge Thumbs Up for a deeply affecting tragicomic story about growing old, but with resolve. /////
I had another nice hike at Santa Susana for the second day in a row. The water was falling on the Waterfall Trail as you may have seen in my FB pic.
Tomorrow I will see you in church, and the singing will be good because you are there. :)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Moore (the father) tells them that the bank has foreclosed on the house. He is 70 (but looks 85 in the way that generation seemed to age faster than we do now), and can no longer find work. This is before there was Social Security, and now the parents have no money to make the house payments. They are going to have to move out within the week.
Their children discuss the matter, though they are visibly distracted because it is clear that none of them wants to take on the burden of housing their folks. They all have their excuses. No one seems to have enough room for Mom and Dad. The eldest son, who seems the most compassionate, suggests a temporary solution. Ma will come and live at his house, and perhaps the older sister could take in Dad. Sis is rather cold, and it is intimated in the opening dialogue, when the children arrive for the gathering, that three of the four (eldest son excepted) have not had much contact with their parents since they left home. This is a story about how we rush through life in search of success, moving past our upbringing (and thus past our parents who raised us) so that we can establish adult lives of our own. But in the process, we shove the older generation out of the way.
The eldest son has a conscience, so he takes Mom in. His wife, who teaches the game of Bridge to locals for extra money, tolerates her mother-in-law's presence in the home, but just barely, and here director Leo McCarey plays things straight, making no one the villain. Mom (Bondi) is a sweet old lady, but also a little overbearing and self centered, so you can feel sympathy for her daughter-in-law. Ditto for the teenaged daughter, who is embarrassed to bring her friends over any more, because grandma corrals them and talks their ears off. This results in a subplot in which the daughter begins to sneak out on dates with older men who are unknown to her parents. The situation in the house is reaching a boiling point, and Eldest Son & Bridge Teaching Wife begin to research Old Folks Homes for grandma.
Meanwhile, director McCarey generates some sympathy for her, by showing that she is aware of being a burden, and that all she really wants is to be with her husband again.
Beulah Bondi, who you have seen in a lot of movies, is a wonderful actress and she carries this movie with her complex portrayal of an old woman set in her ways but who is willing to sacrifice her wishes more than the younger people realize. She will move aside for them, if that is what they want. The irony is that they are all hypocrites, telling Ma that they'd love to help, but.....here's the brochure for the Rest Home.
The tandem story thread with Dad is similar. He lives with his daughter and her husband who don't want him there, and he is cantankerous too. McCarey shows that it is the older people in town who are kind to him. They are of the same generation. But as I mentioned, the script is so well written and even handed, that no cliches are used to generate false sympathies or alliances with particular characters.
What is made explicit, though, is that the children are copping out on their parents, who are now separated by 300 miles and living apart - for the first time in fifty years - as elderly people who cannot do much to fend for themselves anymore. Their kids could do more to keep them together, but they don't want to. That's the moral of the story, and it's a sad one.
"Make Way For Tomorrow" isn't a tearjerker per se because of the way McCarey refuses to place blame and thus overemotionalize the situation. Rather it is a poignant tale, because the parents accept their fate with dignity. Parts of this movie affected me greatly, because I had a complex relationship with my own folks well into my adulthood (as have many of us), and yet in the long run, after everything we had been through, I came to love them overwhelmingly and they became my best friends. I would up caring for both Mom and Dad before they passed away and then ended up becoming a caregiver for another lady (Pearl) as you probably know. So I have a lot of feelings and opinions about treating older people with love and respect. It's a prime example of the Golden Rule, because one day we will be the older ones, and we will hope that those younger than us will treat us as they will one day hope to be treated when they, in turn, become old.
Fortunately, the story never becomes maudlin because director McCarey chooses to make heroes of Moore and Bondi. They may be old, but they still have years of built-in knowledge and strength, or at least resolve. And they have fifty years of love under their belts.
I don't want to give away any spoilers from the final act, but I will tell you that they do reunite, because you can see that coming anyway. And when they do, they have a truly Grand Finale.
Except at the end, but even there you are left with a slight ray of hope. ////
"Make Way For Tomorrow" has the visual appearance, in it's costuming and art direction, of a truly "old fashioned" movie that might be a stereotype for folks who are not accustomed to films about Depression-era America. The age-advancing makeup on Moore and Bondi, and the way they create Ma and Pa as nearly senile but still spunky seniors are depictions from a bygone cinematic age and they look like characters from a stage play, as does the initial setting of the family home. Much of the movie looks antiquated, and Bondi's character is the centerpiece of this feeling. She looks like she came from Victorian times, and history is passing her by.
I was initially going to give the film either one and a half thumbs up or two regular thumbs, because of the lack of emotional wallop, which a viewer conditioned to such dramatic provocations would expect from a movie like this. There are none here, but after I thought about it, I realized that I was affected even more by not having my emotions manipulated. The story and performances were straightforward and felt like real life, the way people really are.
Therefore, Two Huge Thumbs Up for a deeply affecting tragicomic story about growing old, but with resolve. /////
I had another nice hike at Santa Susana for the second day in a row. The water was falling on the Waterfall Trail as you may have seen in my FB pic.
Tomorrow I will see you in church, and the singing will be good because you are there. :)
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, March 2, 2019
"Kameradschaft" by G.W. Pabst, a truly great director
Tonight I watched another outstanding picture from director G.W. Pabst, recently released on Criterion and obtained from the Libe, called "Kameradschaft" (1931). The film, made the year after his antiwar masterpiece "Westfront 1918" (reviewed two nights ago), tells the harrowing story of a real life mine collapse in France, in which 1200 coal miners were trapped. The mine was located at the French/German border and was partitioned into two sides, one for each country. The title of the film translates to "Comradeship", and represents the kinship the miners feel, despite the fact that their countries were enemies in the First World War. When the German miners hear of the collapse on the French side, one man - a trained rescue worker - raises his voice to urge the other members of the German rescue squads to join him in helping their French brethren. Some scoff at the prospect : "Ha!, The French....would they help you if you were trapped"? Others merely look away, not wanting to be asked to help. The leader then tells his men : "They are just like you, doing the same job on the other side of that wall. They have wives and children just as you have".
Slowly, one by one, the German rescue workers step up to volunteer, and end up sending two flatbed trucks full of men to the French side of the mine, where they announce themselves as ready to help.
The mine is located 2500 feet beneath the Earth's surface (holy smokes) and the rescue workers will face many obstacles in the effort to discover any survivors. Pabst shows the same commitment to realism here as he did in "Westfront". Though filmed on sets, it looks to the viewer as if the entire scenario is indeed unfolding in an actual deep earth mine. This is partly due to Pabst's use of ground level shots of an actual large operation mine. The workers descend in a "cage" elevator down a wide shaft that looks like a giant iron pipe going down into darkness. The enormity of scale and scope of factory engineering - like that of the machinery in a steel mill or a mine - is something that truly astounds me.
The deep labyrinthian tunnel system, collapsed as it is, challenges the rescue workers in their efforts to locate their French comrades. Here the story is split three ways. Besides the overall rescue attempt by the well organized German crew, there is also a singular effort being made by an elderly Frenchman, a former miner himself and still agile, to rescue his trapped grandson. The old man has snuck past the sentries and into the mineshaft, taking an emergency tunnel ladder all the way down to the bottom. Holy Smokes yet again!
The third story thread involves a small group of three German co-workers, not part of the rescue team but ordinary miners who are on the German side of the tunnel partition and working a normal shift for the company. The movie has opened with scenes of these three friends enjoying themselves off duty in a French bar, drinking and joking with the patrons. The point established by Pabst right off the bat is that the comradeship of the miners superseded the nationalistic pride (and resultant enmity) that had been pumped into the citizens of both countries and had resulted in World War.
Pabst was a humanitarian artist, and "Kameradschaft" is as much about establishing friendship between cultures and fellow men as it is about the mine disaster. But he was also a director with a tight command of the tension in his movies. The rescue effort keeps you on edge as would such a movie made today, and perhaps moreso because of the ultra realistic look of Pabst's films.
I was so moved by some of the dialogue in this film, including the motivating words of the lead German rescuer to his fellow miners, that I could feel my heart quietly soaring and the goosebumps rising on my arms. I felt great hope for the world, knowing that such a film could be made almost 90 years ago, and that an artist like G.W. Pabst - who must now be included on the list of The Very Great Directors - had the courage, vision and articulation to get his point across in such a forceful way, even as National Socialism was rising in his country, but he did so with good feeling and without slamming his audience with politics or anything divisive.
In "Kameradschaft", Pabst combines the taut action of a disaster film with the poetry of great art cinema. All by itself, it is a great film on the order of a Mizoguchi movie (though different in style), but taken in combination with "Westfront 1918", it can be seen as an authoritative and enormously powerful statement for World Peace, by an artist of the highest order.
As I say, having viewed such a film, there simply aren't enough Thumbs to point upwards.
Make sure you see it, as well as "Westfront 1918". Watch them back to back. /////
I had a nice hike at Santa Susana this afternoon. Being off work I was able to take my time and go all over the place, so it was very relaxing and meditative. The hills are bright green and a few drops of rain fell as I climbed past the ancient rocks.
I hope you have had a chance, and the desire, to listen to one or more of the classical music pieces I have mentioned in the recent blogs. Tomorrow night we will continue with another entry, by Richard Wagner. You can probably guess what it is because I have posted it on FB several times.......
See you in the morning. Love through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Slowly, one by one, the German rescue workers step up to volunteer, and end up sending two flatbed trucks full of men to the French side of the mine, where they announce themselves as ready to help.
The mine is located 2500 feet beneath the Earth's surface (holy smokes) and the rescue workers will face many obstacles in the effort to discover any survivors. Pabst shows the same commitment to realism here as he did in "Westfront". Though filmed on sets, it looks to the viewer as if the entire scenario is indeed unfolding in an actual deep earth mine. This is partly due to Pabst's use of ground level shots of an actual large operation mine. The workers descend in a "cage" elevator down a wide shaft that looks like a giant iron pipe going down into darkness. The enormity of scale and scope of factory engineering - like that of the machinery in a steel mill or a mine - is something that truly astounds me.
The deep labyrinthian tunnel system, collapsed as it is, challenges the rescue workers in their efforts to locate their French comrades. Here the story is split three ways. Besides the overall rescue attempt by the well organized German crew, there is also a singular effort being made by an elderly Frenchman, a former miner himself and still agile, to rescue his trapped grandson. The old man has snuck past the sentries and into the mineshaft, taking an emergency tunnel ladder all the way down to the bottom. Holy Smokes yet again!
The third story thread involves a small group of three German co-workers, not part of the rescue team but ordinary miners who are on the German side of the tunnel partition and working a normal shift for the company. The movie has opened with scenes of these three friends enjoying themselves off duty in a French bar, drinking and joking with the patrons. The point established by Pabst right off the bat is that the comradeship of the miners superseded the nationalistic pride (and resultant enmity) that had been pumped into the citizens of both countries and had resulted in World War.
Pabst was a humanitarian artist, and "Kameradschaft" is as much about establishing friendship between cultures and fellow men as it is about the mine disaster. But he was also a director with a tight command of the tension in his movies. The rescue effort keeps you on edge as would such a movie made today, and perhaps moreso because of the ultra realistic look of Pabst's films.
I was so moved by some of the dialogue in this film, including the motivating words of the lead German rescuer to his fellow miners, that I could feel my heart quietly soaring and the goosebumps rising on my arms. I felt great hope for the world, knowing that such a film could be made almost 90 years ago, and that an artist like G.W. Pabst - who must now be included on the list of The Very Great Directors - had the courage, vision and articulation to get his point across in such a forceful way, even as National Socialism was rising in his country, but he did so with good feeling and without slamming his audience with politics or anything divisive.
In "Kameradschaft", Pabst combines the taut action of a disaster film with the poetry of great art cinema. All by itself, it is a great film on the order of a Mizoguchi movie (though different in style), but taken in combination with "Westfront 1918", it can be seen as an authoritative and enormously powerful statement for World Peace, by an artist of the highest order.
As I say, having viewed such a film, there simply aren't enough Thumbs to point upwards.
Make sure you see it, as well as "Westfront 1918". Watch them back to back. /////
I had a nice hike at Santa Susana this afternoon. Being off work I was able to take my time and go all over the place, so it was very relaxing and meditative. The hills are bright green and a few drops of rain fell as I climbed past the ancient rocks.
I hope you have had a chance, and the desire, to listen to one or more of the classical music pieces I have mentioned in the recent blogs. Tomorrow night we will continue with another entry, by Richard Wagner. You can probably guess what it is because I have posted it on FB several times.......
See you in the morning. Love through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, March 1, 2019
"Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" at CSUN + Jean Gabin + Favorite Mozart + Baked Chips
Tonight I went over to the Armer Theater at CSUN to see a screening of a classic French crime film called "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" (1954), directed by Jacques Becker. The title translates to "Hands Off The Loot". :) This presentation was hosted by Professor Schultheiss and was not part of what is now a Wednesday evening Cinematheque series, which I have not attended so far this semester (though I probably will at some point). Speaking of the Cinematheque, Professor Tim was not in attendance tonight, though many of the "regulars" besides myself were there, so it was a reunion of sorts as I mentioned last night.
The film itself is awesome. I had seen it once before, about ten years ago, on dvd from the Libe. The great French star Jean Gabin stars as an aging thief - the kind who pulls off heists rather than strong arm bank robberies. The Professor explained before the film that director Becker preferred to show a lot of "ordinary details" in his stories, even at the expense of plot, so at first we see the suave, immaculately groomed Gabin hanging out in clubs and restaurants, casually chatting with men who are obviously connected to crime in some way. You know the look : fancy suit, nice haircut but mookish, hardguy face. These men, one a dance hall owner, all seem to defer to Gabin because he is more sophisticated and carries himself with authority. The ladies of the dance hall all want to be his girl, even though he is edging beyond middle age (and as an aside, Gabin really was The Man. There is a book about him called "The Coolest Movie Star", and it is said that without him there would be no Humphrey Bogart).
It turns out that a few of the men who are kissing up to him have an ulterior motive. They know a secret, that Gabin is behind a recent theft of 200 pounds of gold bars from a Paris bank. He took great pains to keep the job under wraps and to hide the gold where no one would ever find it......but he didn't count on his partner letting the secret slip to the partner's girlfriend, who in turn is fooling around with the casino owner (played by a great "Hoodlum" actor named Lino Venturi). So now the casino owner knows about the gold, worth an enormous sum, but he doesn't know where it is stashed. He plans to find out, though, and he has a Mook Squad of his own - beefy French tough guys - to help him in his search.
I mentioned that Jacques Becker would rather show mundane details of life than engage in conventional A to B storytelling, so for quite a while we see the men and their various factions simply hanging out and making small talk. One scene in a Gabin hideout has him and his loose-lipped partner putting on their pajamas and taking turns brushing their teeth in the bathroom. This was apparently the Becker style of filmmaking, but his photography and editing are so lush and smooth that they compare to the "liquid film" style of Ernst Lubitch, so no matter how mundane the screen activity, it just plain Looks Great, and flows like cream.
Lest you think Becker is all Small Talk, however, just you wait. When he gets to the final thirty minutes, it is time for the previously casual and easygoing Jean Gabin to slip back into his action persona as a very dangerous and ruthless criminal. This is who he is when he is crossed, and he has been crossed by the casino owner, who has made the mistake of kidnapping Gabin's partner so that he can find out where the gold is hidden.
This results in a chase scene shot at night out in the French countryside. There is a shootout in which only the most clever and cold blooded will survive. The staging of this scene is, in my opinion, maybe the greatest of it's type in all of film noir, and I will bet you a nickle that Scorcese and Coppolla both saw it and used it for later inspiration. This scene alone makes "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" one of the most riveting crime films ever made, and if you have not yet seen Jean Gabin (who was in many other well known French films including "Grand Illusion"), then this is the place to start. He is the ultimate "Good" Bad Guy in this film, kind to his friends and super stylish, but also 100% deadly. He also has his pick of the ladies. One, I had to look up on IMDB because she was quite striking. Her name was Marilyn Buferd, and it turned out that, besides being an actress, she was Miss America of 1946, so it figures that Gabin winds up with her in the end. ////
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up For "Grisbi", not just one of the best crime films ever made, but one of the best looking, in sumptuous black and white.
I have suggested this before, but again I will say that, if you like Noir, you should check out the many French examples. Boy can they ever make a crime film, and again, I am sure that directors like Becker and Jean-Pierre Melville were an influence on their American counterparts. ////
Tonight, for my Classical Music Pick - selected from another Top Ten Favorite Composer - I am going to choose Piano Sonata #545 by Mozart. You may know the opening melody, and for me it holds a special place, because it is one of the first pieces of music I can recall hearing, maybe even before The Beatles. We had a piano in the house (my Dad could play a bit) and I remember him going over this melody again and again at night, when it was my bedtime as perhaps a three year old. Dad loved Mozart, and while I find him more elegant than emotional, he wrote so many outstanding compositions in all areas of classical music, for every instrument and for opera as well, that it might be fair to say that, after Bach, he was the highest musical genius of the classical age.
For my very favorite piano music, I prefer something that will stir my heart a little more than Mozart does, but his elegance stands out in all of his work, and #545 remains for me a favorite melody even 56 years after I first remember hearing it. Listen to the version by Mitsuko Uchida, one of the great Mozart pianists. ////
That's all I know for tonight.
Except that I forgot to tell you about the baked tortilla chips from the other night at Pearl's. They came out pretty good, better than you would expect. I put 'em in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 for fifteen minutes. No oil, of course, because that would defeat my purpose of trying to cut down on fats. Just cut up corn tortillas, no other ingredients. I ate 'em with salsa, and they were a little bit hard, not as crispy as they would be if fried, but really the difference in crunch was worth it because the taste was superb. Baking brings out the lime taste in the Trader Joe's tortillas, and they taste "restaurant style" this way, when you bake 'em. I made two trays full, and will keep doing so at least when I am at Pearl's house which is most of the time. I mention this only in the name of heart health and cutting excess fat, even the "good kind", of which I was likely consuming too much.
So now, that is really all I know for tonight! See you in the morning with much love in between.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The film itself is awesome. I had seen it once before, about ten years ago, on dvd from the Libe. The great French star Jean Gabin stars as an aging thief - the kind who pulls off heists rather than strong arm bank robberies. The Professor explained before the film that director Becker preferred to show a lot of "ordinary details" in his stories, even at the expense of plot, so at first we see the suave, immaculately groomed Gabin hanging out in clubs and restaurants, casually chatting with men who are obviously connected to crime in some way. You know the look : fancy suit, nice haircut but mookish, hardguy face. These men, one a dance hall owner, all seem to defer to Gabin because he is more sophisticated and carries himself with authority. The ladies of the dance hall all want to be his girl, even though he is edging beyond middle age (and as an aside, Gabin really was The Man. There is a book about him called "The Coolest Movie Star", and it is said that without him there would be no Humphrey Bogart).
It turns out that a few of the men who are kissing up to him have an ulterior motive. They know a secret, that Gabin is behind a recent theft of 200 pounds of gold bars from a Paris bank. He took great pains to keep the job under wraps and to hide the gold where no one would ever find it......but he didn't count on his partner letting the secret slip to the partner's girlfriend, who in turn is fooling around with the casino owner (played by a great "Hoodlum" actor named Lino Venturi). So now the casino owner knows about the gold, worth an enormous sum, but he doesn't know where it is stashed. He plans to find out, though, and he has a Mook Squad of his own - beefy French tough guys - to help him in his search.
I mentioned that Jacques Becker would rather show mundane details of life than engage in conventional A to B storytelling, so for quite a while we see the men and their various factions simply hanging out and making small talk. One scene in a Gabin hideout has him and his loose-lipped partner putting on their pajamas and taking turns brushing their teeth in the bathroom. This was apparently the Becker style of filmmaking, but his photography and editing are so lush and smooth that they compare to the "liquid film" style of Ernst Lubitch, so no matter how mundane the screen activity, it just plain Looks Great, and flows like cream.
Lest you think Becker is all Small Talk, however, just you wait. When he gets to the final thirty minutes, it is time for the previously casual and easygoing Jean Gabin to slip back into his action persona as a very dangerous and ruthless criminal. This is who he is when he is crossed, and he has been crossed by the casino owner, who has made the mistake of kidnapping Gabin's partner so that he can find out where the gold is hidden.
This results in a chase scene shot at night out in the French countryside. There is a shootout in which only the most clever and cold blooded will survive. The staging of this scene is, in my opinion, maybe the greatest of it's type in all of film noir, and I will bet you a nickle that Scorcese and Coppolla both saw it and used it for later inspiration. This scene alone makes "Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" one of the most riveting crime films ever made, and if you have not yet seen Jean Gabin (who was in many other well known French films including "Grand Illusion"), then this is the place to start. He is the ultimate "Good" Bad Guy in this film, kind to his friends and super stylish, but also 100% deadly. He also has his pick of the ladies. One, I had to look up on IMDB because she was quite striking. Her name was Marilyn Buferd, and it turned out that, besides being an actress, she was Miss America of 1946, so it figures that Gabin winds up with her in the end. ////
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up For "Grisbi", not just one of the best crime films ever made, but one of the best looking, in sumptuous black and white.
I have suggested this before, but again I will say that, if you like Noir, you should check out the many French examples. Boy can they ever make a crime film, and again, I am sure that directors like Becker and Jean-Pierre Melville were an influence on their American counterparts. ////
Tonight, for my Classical Music Pick - selected from another Top Ten Favorite Composer - I am going to choose Piano Sonata #545 by Mozart. You may know the opening melody, and for me it holds a special place, because it is one of the first pieces of music I can recall hearing, maybe even before The Beatles. We had a piano in the house (my Dad could play a bit) and I remember him going over this melody again and again at night, when it was my bedtime as perhaps a three year old. Dad loved Mozart, and while I find him more elegant than emotional, he wrote so many outstanding compositions in all areas of classical music, for every instrument and for opera as well, that it might be fair to say that, after Bach, he was the highest musical genius of the classical age.
For my very favorite piano music, I prefer something that will stir my heart a little more than Mozart does, but his elegance stands out in all of his work, and #545 remains for me a favorite melody even 56 years after I first remember hearing it. Listen to the version by Mitsuko Uchida, one of the great Mozart pianists. ////
That's all I know for tonight.
Except that I forgot to tell you about the baked tortilla chips from the other night at Pearl's. They came out pretty good, better than you would expect. I put 'em in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 for fifteen minutes. No oil, of course, because that would defeat my purpose of trying to cut down on fats. Just cut up corn tortillas, no other ingredients. I ate 'em with salsa, and they were a little bit hard, not as crispy as they would be if fried, but really the difference in crunch was worth it because the taste was superb. Baking brings out the lime taste in the Trader Joe's tortillas, and they taste "restaurant style" this way, when you bake 'em. I made two trays full, and will keep doing so at least when I am at Pearl's house which is most of the time. I mention this only in the name of heart health and cutting excess fat, even the "good kind", of which I was likely consuming too much.
So now, that is really all I know for tonight! See you in the morning with much love in between.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)