Movie review - "Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) *****

 Over seventy years on few cinema entrances beat Marlon Brando walking into the apartment here with his insolence and confidence. Vivien Leigh matches him of course with her brilliance - she has the added advantage of having gone mad. Kim Hunter and Karl Malden are very solid support - the less flashy roles, but so crucial.

It's so much better plotted than most Williams works - the arrival, the mystery of Blanche's past, the concern over money, the use of Mitch, the build to climax.

The domestic violence is startling as is the depiction of sexual longing and satisfaction. The censor imposed final scene is fine because we all know Stella will go back to Stanley within a week.

A masterpiece.

Book review - "Son of Any Wednesday" by Muriel Resnick

William Goldman alluded to this book in The Season though he didn't name names - he quoted the comment about all English directors being called Peter and the quote that the author had never read an Ibsen play. It was a little mean.

This is an entertaining book. I had a lot of fun reading it. Resnick decided to write a play after the failure of her last novel, feeling that it at least would get reviewed. She joins the Group Theatre writers workshop of Molly Kazan, writes something that she is told will be sellable (part for a star, one set, small cast)... pitches it to Greer Garson who turns it down, but it gets optioned quite quickly, money is raised quite quickly.

But then the troubles start. There's never enough money so more producers have to be brought in. They have troubles getting directors then when they geet them have trouble keeping them. George Morrison for instance keeps wanting changes and things added, and slows the play down. They keep getting people as they go before eventually getting Henry Kaplan.

They get a cast, after a lot of rejection but have trouble holding on to it. Sandy Dennis doesn't want Gene Hackman because he's not hot enough so they get Dick York who quits so they get Gene Hackman who does so well that Michael Rennie, the big star attached, gets jealous and quits so they bring in Don Porter.

There are nice reviews but a bad one from Eliot Norton makes everyone panic. They have trouble getting a theatre. Trouble with balloons the author wrote in. Mike Nichols pops in periodically and assures her it's fine but people still panic. Opening night goes terrifically well, the piee runs and runs and sells for a huge amount to the movies.

Triumph. Although exhausted.

Resnick lists the short runs of the next shows her cast and crew did which is a little mean, as it the appendix of all the people who turned down the play, but I guess she's entitled to.

This is like a season arc of Mrs Maisel where she wrote a play. She gets married to some dude during it too. I really enjoyed it.

Play review - "After the Fall" by Arthur Miller

 Controversial play - thought to be mean about Marilyn Monroe. Maybe it is a little, or too soft on the Miller character, but there is a lot of compassion and the character is terrific - messed up, insecure, confused. Not entirely smoothly shapen by constantly interesting.

Book review - "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimmage of the Flesh" by John Lahr (2014)

 Excellent look at Williams' life and times - occasionally reads like a series of in depth New Yorker profiles cobbled together but since those profiles are in depth that's okay. Very well researched, beautifully written, it analyses Williams' life and how it informed his work and vice versa. A had just read Williams' memoirs and this counter balanced it beautifully.

Full of exotic characters - the star, plus Elia Kazan, Audrey Wood, Maria St Just, Diana Barrymore (they were mates), Frank Merlo and so on. Worthy look at one of our greatest writers, even if he was a shit a lot of the times.

Book review - "Memoirs" by Tennessee Williams

 The 1970s weren't an easy decade for Williams but this is a first rate memoir - the writing is tight, clever, wry, warm. He was always good on himself. Honest. Maybe too accepting of flaws... a little restraint wouldn't have hurt.

John Waters wrote an entertaining introduction posing the question what would have happened had he lived. I wonder. Amazing work ethic.

Full of colourful characters: his sister Rose, mother, father, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, Frank Merlo, Tallulah Bankhead, Maria St Just, David Merrick, Elia Kazan, Brando. There's lots of gay sex - like a lot. And pill popping and meltdowns and cracking up.

Williams writes with lucidity and power. His skills had not deserted him.

Book review - "A Girl's Got to Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright" by Donald Spoto

 Teresa Wright seems a little bland a subject for Spoto until one reads they were good friends. I guess she deserves a book but there wasn't that much drama. She was pretty, nice, a good actor. She had a spectacular start to her career - understudied on Our Town then a part in Life with Father then Goldwyn and Little Foxes, Pride of the Yankees, Mrs Miniver... that's an amazing run. Throw in Best Years of Our Lives... it's a wonder she isn't better remembered.

A few things. She moved out of town at the behest of her husband Niven Busch and also quit her contract with Goldwyn. Both were mistakes. I think Wright would've struggled post war anyway - nice girls tend to have a short life span as stars (eg Jeanne Crain). But Wright could've delayed it - maybe done a Loretta Young/Donna Reed style transition to TV star. She did enjoy some successes later on like Dark at the Top of the Stairs on stage. A lot of stage acting.

The marriage with Busch busted up though he wasn't bad, just liked rooting around and living on ranches. Second husband was Robert Anderson - this book fleshes out him and that was really interesting because not much is known about him. For someone accused of being gay when younger (hence Tea and Sympathy) he had a lively straight love life - flings with Deborah Kerr, Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn (I guess everyone sleeps with them) then Wright but also cheating on her. She had an emotional fling with Sterling Hayden.

Wright seems to have been a decent, hard working nice person. It doesn't always make for a compelling antagonist - the colourful support players like Busch and Anderson steal the show.

But a really interesting book - two biographies really because it goes in depth on Anderson. 

Book review - "Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life" by J. W. Rinzler

 Interesting book. Kazanjian isn't one of the famous producers, he's more of a line producer, but he worked during interesting times. There's a lot of quotes from Marcia Lucas and the book is especially insightful on that and makes you wonder why she doesn't do a memoir.

Kanzanjian was one of the DGA trainees alongside Walter Hill which is interesting. He became a top AD and after doing heaps of TV worked for a lot of directors at the end of their careers, such as Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Robert Wise and Elia Kazan. He also worked for Coppola on Finian's Rainbow and with Peckinpah on The Wild Bunch (this section is terrific).

He was mates with George Lucas and eventually went to Lucasfilm in the late 70s, producing Raiders and Return of the Jedi as well as More American Graffiti (the account of that is fascinating).

Fans of Star Wars and Raiders will find this interesting. Neat trivia like Kazanjian talking Lucas out of considering Jack Smight for directing a film. Bruce Beresford was considered for Jedi.

Kazanjian's credits post Lucasfilm are not that amazing - The Rookie, Demolition Man, a bunch of other films I hadn't heard of.

Still it's good to have a book about a less recognised figure.

Script review - "Baby Doll" by Tennessee Williams

 Really it should be credited to Williams and Kazan. It's a Williams work don't get me wrong - the South, the sex, the odd characters. But it has more of a Kazan drive and passion. The plots about burning down the gin, and getting revenge feel like they've been infused with Kazan. Odd ending.

I don't rate this as highly as others do but it is its own thing.

Play review - "Camino Real" by Tennessee Williams (1953)

 William Goldman loves this play so I was keen to read it. I think Williams likes it too and Elia Kazan. I've seen it staged. I tried to like it. Some of its interesting. It's fourteen scenes - blocks on the Camino Real. The main character is the boxer Kilroy. There's shady figures, lost figures, a hooker whose virginity is restored when the moon rises. It's a bit nutty. 

I also read the original shorter version which I think played better because it's episodic. There's lots of literary characters some of whom i got like Lord Byron and Don Quixote some which I had to look up like Maguerite. Interesting finale with Kilroy's heart and organs being extracted.

Play review - "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams

 Great old melodrama with that Williams poetry. Act one is a long Maggie monologue interspersed with Brick blocking as she tries to have sex with him. Act two is dominated by Big Daddy. Act three is the family. The version of the play I read showed two act threes - one without Big Daddy one with (the latter done at the request of Elia Kazan who I think was right to have Big Daddy back). I would've liked a more definite ending but the play is very good.

Play review - "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams

 When I read this at high school I admit I used to identify with Stanley Kowalski - the penny didn't drop he raped Blanche at the end, and if he hit Stella well he said sorry didn't he, and he was trying to figure out why Blanche was lying. I'm not proud of that fact, just being honest.

As time goes on you can see that wife beating Stanley isn't exactly admirable, though Blanche like Williams is still attracted to him. They are a great mismatched couple, Stanley and Blanche, with Mitch and Stella providing counter balance.

Re reading it, it's so wonderfully theatrical - the noise and bustle of the neughbourhood, the sounds of the poker game, the monologues, the memory.  It's beautifully structured and has good old fashioned story telling at its core, with basic mysteries: why is Blanche here? What is her secret?

It's been much mocked and sent up but the work still has basic power. And it's rich because both Blanche and Stanley are right and wrong.

Play review - "Dark at the Top of the Stairs" by William Inge

 Probably the least remembered of Inge's stage hits even though it too was made into a movie and the original stage production was directed by Elia Kazan. The title indicates a horror movie but this is a family drama, belonging to the universe of Splendor in the Grass, set in the 1920s Oklahoma about a family headed by a woman married to a travelling salesman. He talks a good game, cheats on her and hits her in a fight but is forgiven because that was the way then. Some moving stuff about the passing of time. A beautiful 17 year old boy appears then later turns out to have killed himself because of some anti Semitic taunts at which point I admit I thought "oh come on, Inge". It's fine.

Movie review - "Wild River" (1960) ***

 A bit of an underground work of Elia Kazan's studio films. A box office flop, not widely available afterwards, it took a while to get a cult but it got there. That's why you try to work with good directors - people will analyse the movies eventually. Some critics claim this is one of Kazan's  best movies. I'm sure they honestly feel that way. But personally I think they're influenced by its underground and little known status. Praising On the Waterfront gets boring so they look for other idols to worship.

This has a simple story - get the old lady off her land to build a dam. Normally in Westerns the old lady is the hero but here the hero is the TVA man who is doing it. He's played by Montgomery Clift who is always interesting to watch but he's simply miscast. The younger, handsome, soulful Clift would have been perfect but this is post accident, dyed hair, nervy, crazy eyed Clift. Kazan would've been better off using Warren Beatty in this one (but I guess Beatty was still a film away from being discovered). Look, as I say, it's interesting to see him - but maybe too interesting in a way. Clift's presence gives rise to questions about this character that aren't dealt with in the script. The character was envisioned as younger - 25 and Jewish. I think he should've been younger, in over his head; maybe Jewish as well but really he just had to be "city". 

This plot actually could make the basis of a cheerful musical in a way.  Maybe it's too much of a downer.

It's beautifully shot - colour, CinemaScope (this was a Fox film), location filming. James Earl Jones' dad is in it. The Clift-Remick scenes have decent intensity.

Best performance comes from the guy who plays the racist who threatens Clift and beats him up not once but twice. Clift's character is pretty whimpy.

Movie review - "Splendor in the Grass" (1961) ****

 It's a shame in a way that Elia Kazan and William Inge didn't do more teen-related stuff... there would have been a market for it, and they had a real feel for it. Inge understood outsiders, teen pressures and everyone being horny all the time. Kazan could also bring his excellent casting eye for young players - this not only introduced Warren Beatty, but Sandy Dennis, Gary Lockwood, Barbara Loden and revitalised Natalie Wood's career.

Wood is stunningly good as the pretty but poor girl dating the popular rich boy. Beatty and Robert Wagner insisted the Beatty-Wood romance didn't start until after filming ended and Wood and Wagner had gotten divorced. Well, all I can say is she seems to be enjoying her work. I actually think Wagner could have played the role of Bud... the rich boy who is happy... but Beatty was new, and also a champion football player himself, and came from a small town. He also has an element of moodiness with helps.

Pat Hingle's performance is very much in the Karl Malden vein - loud, bombastic, energetic, over the top. He does add a burst of energy which is needed in the Beatty scenes.

Wood is sensational. Achingly pretty. Her eyes on the people she's doing scenes with. I like that they didn't demonise the mother. Her character clearly has some mental issues - as did Wood in real life. She gets to be upbeat, trashy, happy, in love, in agony, wise... it's wonderful work. Beatty is effective because he's stakes, surrounded by bigger personalities - trashy sister (Loden), loud dad, crazy Wood.

Gary Lockwood is effective as a slime. It's beautifully shot.

A simple, very well made movie.

Book review - "Girl Next Door: The Life and Career of Jeanne Crain" by Rupert Alistair

Crain is one of those movie stars whose reputation has not aged well, to put it mildly. She was a big star in her day and appeared in some genuine classics: State Fair, Leave Her to Heaven, Pinky and A Letter to Three Wives. She was nominated for an Oscar. She worked with Joe Mankiewicz, Elia Kazan and Otto Preminger.

But when the tide turned her career went downhill very fast and she never got it back - she went to work on stage and TV and as a character actress, but there was no late career appearance to make people appreciate her.

Crain was very pretty and not very good as an actor. I get the impression even Alistair felt this after analysing her career but was too polite to say so (I may be completely wrong).

But she had a look that was perfect for the time - the war and post-war era. This period is better remembered for its sultry film noir stars like Ava Gardner, or feisty heroines like Kate Hepburn, or exotic actors like Dorothy Lamour, or musical legends like Judy Garland, and they were definitely around, but so too "good girls" like Crain, June Allyson and Janet Leigh. Wholesome types who GIs could dream about on the front, who reassured people in a world gone mad that there were still nice, clean decent people out there.

Crain's dad shot through at an early age, and she wound up in California and started entering and winning beauty contests. She was spotted by a talent scout and her rise was fairly rapid. Orson Welles, of all people, seriously considered her for the role of Lucy in The Magnificent Ambersons, of all things before going with Anne Baxter. She was signed to 20th Century Fox who gave her a small part in The Gang's All Here then she was given the lead in Home in Indiana and - bang - she was away.

In hindsight Fox was ideal for her because Zanuck liked making Americana (eg Kentucky, State Fair) - you can imagine Crain would've played Will Rogers' daughter a lot had Rogers still been alive. State Fair remake was a huge hit as was Leave Her to Heaven (even though you might be likely to forget she was in it) and Margie. She made some unsatisfactory films with Otto Preminger and wound up in Letter to Three Wives because Zanuck insisted. Zanuck also refused to let her play the role of Clementine in My Darling Clementine because she was too big a star (a shame, I think she should have done it, but not doing it didn't hurt her career).

Pinky was a massive hit and she was in another Mankiewicz film People Will Talk but then in the early 50s her career hit a snag - Dangerous Crossing, Vicki, City of Bad Men - and she left Fox. She never regained her career momentum, being relegated to "the girl" parts like in Fastest Gun Alive and Guns of the Timberland. She did some TV (including a version of The Great Gatsby with Rod Taylor) and theatre and cabaret, as well as the obligatory films in Italy.

What happened? Admittedly Crain lost out on some roles because she was pregnant a lot - seven kids! She had four then she and her husband separated, then they got back together and had three more! She often lost roles to Anne Baxter, and missed some parts which would've suited her like the Jean Simmons part in The Robe. She wasn't suited for musicals, not really being a singer or dancer. I also think she was hurt by the emergence of Susan Hayward, who became Fox's go-to star for dramas.

I think the big thing is she wasn't very good. No actor could ask for more than a part in something like Pinky, Letter to Three Wives or People Will Talk. Crain always gave a similar performance - nice, polite, pert. When she was young and fresh she brought those qualities as well; over time they faded and she didn't have anything else.

Maybe that's unfair - she seems to have been a professional and worked hard. I'm sure she was a decent actor. She's not terrible in her films. But she never had the fire or spark of the great stars. (Admittedly I haven't seen every Crain performance.) Both Mankiewicz and Kazan disparaged her ability in their memoirs.

She could have been distracted by her love life. This book is good on Crain's career but fascinating on her marriage - she married Paul Brickman, a businessman so handsome he was briefly under contract to Warner Bros as a back up to Errol Flynn. They were together a long time, until her death, but it was not an easy marriage. They almost got divorced - she claimed he drank and hit her several times. He had affairs; he claimed she did too with friends (which seems true - doesn't excuse the hitting). They got back together. Despite seven kids they constantly went to parties and worked all over the place.

I don't think they were particularly focused parents - maybe that's not true but two of their children predeceased her, one a son who drank himself to death, the other son (a musician who would jam with the founder of Jane's Addiction!) who died of a heroin overdose. Crain and her husband did separate towards the end and lived in separate residences for the last part of their lives, but they never divorced. It's like something out of Mad Men - all those nannies looking after kids while the parents go to parties, drink and have affairs over cocktails.

It's an interesting book - probably more interesting than Crain on screen.

Movie review - "Elia Kazan: A Director's Journey" (1995) **1/2

Richard Schickel look at the famous director, similar to the one he did on Gary Cooper - some decent clips, lots of talk about themes, not that much on the actual life. This has the advantage of an extensive interview with Kazan himself, then still firey and virile. The blacklist is mentioned but not dwealt on in detail. We hear a lot about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Baby Doll, Streetcar, Brando, Waterfront, Wild River, Viva Zapata, Gentleman's Agreement, Splendor in the Grass and America, America - not a lot about The Visitors, Sea of Grass, Pinky, Man on the Tightrope, Last Tycoon, The Arrangement, his later stage work.

To be fair there's a lot to get through. I liked seeing his old screen tests. Would've liked more of a straight up narrative. Eli Wallach narrates.

Book review - "Dropped Names" by Frank Langella

Langella is probably best known to movie buffs for his portrayal as Dracula and Richard Nixon, and his many villainous roles; he was also the off screen partner of Whoopi Goldberg for a time. I admit to not knowing a lot about his career except that he worked extensively in theatre; this entertaining memoir fills in a lot of blanks.

Rather in the matter of Bring on the Empty Horses by David Niven, it's structured in the form of a series of encounters with famous people - Laurence Olivier, Yvonne de Carlo, Bob Mitchum, Rita Hayworth, Rex Harrison, George C Scott.

A lot of this is great - Burton was a drunken bore, forever reciting stock pieces; Tony Perkins made a joke about the size of his cock as a come on; his homoerotic relationship with Raoul Julia; being mysteriously hated by Colleen Dewhurst; Laurence Olivier saying gay actors need to "hide the Nellie" and talking about his premature ejaculation; affairs with Rita Hayworth, Yvonne de Carlo (who was happy just to hop on and go), Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy. An interesting analysis of working with director George C Scott and Elia Kazan (who Langella never official works with but regrets). Worth a read.

Book review - "Take Two" by Philip Dunne (1992)

In his diaries, Charles Brackett makes a few swipes at Philip Dunne as a dull, boring liberal. It was a little nasty of Brackett - and ironic, especially considering Brackett worked as Dunne's producer at 20th Century Fox several times in the 1950s. But after reading this book I get the feeling Brackett was right.

Dunne was a very good writer who seems like a nice guy with impeccable liberal credentials - helping set up with WGA, early opposition to Nazism and communism, making movies in the war, solid Democrat... But his memoirs are so dull.

To me, at any rate - he talks far too much about the politics in Hollywood at the time, all the dealings with anti-fascist organisations, and Communist groups, and labour and the studios, and it's written in stuffy, unengaging manner. Towards the end of the book he goes on and on (and on and on) about Ronald Reagan the politician, and American politics of the 80s and 90s, and it's just so dull and you don't care.

And more surprisingly it's not very well written. Yes, okay, I"m not that much interested in the politics of the time but surely Dunne could have made things more lively - had more of an eye for character and anecdote?

The most interesting big comes in the middle where Dunne talks about some of his adventures in the screen trade - a screenwriter for Fox in the 30s, working his way up to become one of Daryl Zanuck's top guns, credits including How Green Was My Valley and Pinky - eventually turning producer and director.  Film buffs will particularly enjoy his anecdotes about making Wild in the Country, The Robe, David and Bathsheba, Prince of Players and Ten North Frederick. But Dunne doesn't seem that interested in talking about films - his preference seems to be crapping on about politics.

Dunne would up directing ten features none of them particularly distinguished except Ten North Frederick (he did helm Wild in the Country with Elvis Presley!). He's full of excuses as to why none of the movies particularly worked - not enough budget, public didn't go for the subject matter, studio wouldn't give him the names he wanted in the cast. So it comes as a shock at the end to read Dunne considered him more suited to directing than writing; I'm sorry but ten times at bat, you should have an idea of how good you are and he was simply mediocre. A very good screenwriter - and obviously a decent humane man. A mediocre memoirist.

Book review - "Fredric March: A Consumate Actor" by Charles Tranberg

March was an odd actor - very well respected and talented, technically a star (he headlined numerous popular movies) but not very well remembered today, despite winning two Oscars. The main reason I think is that he wasn't a personality star like say Errol Flynn, Bogart or Gary Grant - you never hear someone call a part a "Fredric March type character" or a "Fredric March" vehicle. He really was a character actor with leading man looks. So many times in his career he seemed to get a role that someone else turned down - Fred March was the star you had to settle for.

Still it was an amazing career with a swag of classic films. He deserved a book although his life wasn't super exciting - small town upbringing, well off family, he attended college and went into banking but got the acting bug. It didn't actually take that long for him to make it - he had talent, enthusiasm and looks (it's always easiest if you're a good looking young guy) - and was soon a name on stage, being particularly regarded for his John Barrymore turn in The Royal Family. Then it was off to Hollywood, where he signed for a time with Paramount then freelanced successfully: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Nothing Sacred, The Buccaneer.

Towards the end of the 30s he returned to the stage, which he gets props for doing because he was still much in demand as a movie star. I think he did it to make his wife happy but ultimately it proved to be a smart move (as Charles Tingwell once said, if you look after the acting the career will take care of itself) and his Broadway career would thrive when his star roles got less impressive - in the 50s he was no longer a box office draw, but he was a Broadway draw. March liked to blame the down turn in his movie carer on the fact he was accused of being a Communist; now that may have had a little bit to do with it, but I think more important was the fact that he appeared in a bunch of flops in the late 40s, he was getting on in years, and also he didn't fall back into some sure fire commercial genre like Westerns to stay in the public eye.

March didn't always do good work but he never sold out, always pushed himself; he seems to have been a joy for directors to work with - conscientious, diligent, aware of his tendency to ham, very open to new talents and directors, like Paddy Chayefsky and Elia Kazan when they were starting out, saying that films were getting better instead of whining about the old days. He also had excellent relationships with people like William Wyler and John Frankenheimer. This meant he was always in work, right up to the end - and it was consistently varied and interesting work too: The Best Years of Our Lives, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Gideon, Inherit the Wind, Hombre.

He was married for along time to Florence Elridge, always overshadowing her in terms of career success (on films and stage) and popularity with people - but they clearly relied on each other; he seemed to need her discipline and drive, and political nous (he was more a little boy); he was protective of her, promoted her career, and she would tolerate his many infidelities and constant on-set lechery (March was very much pro-sexual harassment in the work place). Their marriage reads like one of those arrangements where the wife basically mothers the husband. I doubt he would have accomplished half as much without her.

They adopted two kids - got along well with the girl but the boy was more of a handful, getting into trouble with the law and eventually dying in a car crash. (I wouldn't have minded more about their son actually.)

But this is a fine book, a worth tribute to a good actor and not particularly memorable star.

Movie review - "Baby Doll" (1956) ***

After a series of heavy dramas, Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan kicked off their shoes and had a bit of fun with this twisted Southern comedy. There's no other film quite like it, with its combination of sexual frustration, seediness and jail bait sexual attraction.

Carroll Baker plays the title role, a 19 year old who still sleeps in a cot and sucks her thumb and is yet to be deflowered by hubby Karl Malden (in his most "yelling" performance yet, which is saying something for this actor). When Malden burns down a cotton gin owned by Eli Wallach, Wallach seeks for revenge by seducing Baby Doll.

It goes on too long - almost two hours - but there is plenty to enjoy once you get into the mindset of the filmmakers. While Elia Kazan later claimed he wondered what the fuss was about surely he must have known it was racy material - or maybe he was unaware of the whole tone of what he'd made until it was all cut together.

It's very well acted; Baker makes an impressive star debut as the evocative yet naive Baby Doll; Wallach has one of his best film roles as the outsider "wop" - hardly a lady killer (let's be honest) but it's not as though Karl Malden gave him much competition. Mildred Dunnock is very good and there's some terrific southern faces among the support cast. I would have enjoyed a little less ambiguity and more certainty over what happened.