Movie review - "Five Graves to Cairo" (1943) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Often overlooked in discussions of Wilder - it's a war propaganda film, has second tier stars, quite simple (mostly taking place in one location, a hotel), but is full of clever twists and plenty of story. It's a film of plot rather than character - I don't mind Franchot Tone but who is he playing? A rogue? Stock guy? He doesn't have the star persona to carry off playing himself (cf someone like Cary Grant).  Akim Tamiroff underplays, von Stroheim offers some star pizzaz, it's a clever story, I like it how Anne Baxter died it gave the piece some emotional weight. Visual flourishes too like opening with Tone passed out in a driving tank.

Book review - "Close-Up On Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, And The Dark Hollywood Dream" by Sam Staggs (2002)

 Not as good as Staggs' book on All About Eve because that had the X factor of finding the Girl. This one he's done his research, especially on the musical versions (including Swanson's attempts in the 50s and 60s to do one), the original script, chatting to Nancy Olson as well as others...  I loved the opening scene of Wilder meeting a drunk DW Griffith at a party. I maybe would've liked more on the silent era stuff and Brackett (he gets points though for bothering to read Brackett's novels). A lot of it did feel like padding and I felt Staggs was unnecessarily mean about much of Wilder's non Brackett output.

After reading this I went back to Brackett's published diaries and those entries, short as they were, are far superior to what's on here.

Book review - "Joseph Kennedy Presents" by Cari Beauchamp

For whatever reason it took me about ten or something goes to finish this book. No criticism of the author or subject matter - it was just one of those cursed books. Maybe also it was the size of the print. Or all the detail.

It's a very good book. Exhaustive. Thorough. I learned a hell of a lot. Joseph Kennedy often pops up in movie history books as a support character - he's there wrecking Gloria Swanson's career, or Fred Thomson's, or helping found RKO, or bailing on it to go and become ambassador to England.

This is surprisingly the first book to focus on Kennedy in Hollywood - maybe serious Kennedy historians didn't take it seriously. Which is silly because Hollywood provided a large slab of his fortune, not to mention high public profile.

Kennedy is a fascinating creature. A sociopath who demanded loyalty from people he'd discard when he no longer needed them; a womaniser who was apparently poor in the sack; a genuinely loving and devoted father (as devoted as you can be not actually being around) who took intense interest in his kids; a ruthless capitalist who nonetheless realised, after the Depression, the need for more equitable distribution of wealth or you'd have a revolution, and turning Democrat; someone who figured out the economic basis of movies v quickly and could actually make money out of it (lots of low budget programmers).

It's got to be said, Kennedy may have engaged in insider trading and been a sneaky fox and ruthless - but it was the fault of people for getting involved with him. Fred Thomson was clearly a bit of a dill, as was Gloria Swanson. People who got close to him should've known better it was always about his kids and his money. And it's a shame he didn't go back to running a Hollywood studio later in life - say RKO in the late 40s, who could've used him.

Film wise, Kennedy's legacy isn't that awesome - a lot of silent Westerns, mostly. The only two films of his that buffs are like to remember are two from Gloria Swanson - The Trespasser and Queen Kelly (the latter made with Eric Von Stroheim). His real passions were obviously elsewhere.

Movie review - "The Devil Doll" (1936) **

At first I wondered why this wasn't better known among horror aficionados - it's got a great title, was directed by Tod Browning, co-scripted by Eric Von Stroheim, and gets off to a strong start with Lionel Barrymore and a fellow old codger escaping from Devil's Island. (I've got a soft spot for Devil's Island escape sequences). The old guy dies but not before telling Barrymore that he's a mad scientist who can shrink things a la the doctor in Bride of Frankenstein, and he has a crazy wife who has a similar hairstyle to Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein, so when Barrymore says he wants to wreck some Count of Monte Cristo style revenge you think "ok he's going to use the shrinking things machine and kick some arse" which isn't a bad idea for a horror film, if a little more Bela Lugosi/Monogram than Lionel Barrymore/MGM.

But anyways that does happen a bit, but Barrymore actually spends most of the rest of the film in drag as a little old lady. It's played straight believe it or not, and is just plain silly.

Maureen O'Sullivan is always likeable as Barrymore's estranged daughter; Frank Lawton is wet as her fiancee. I wish the actors playing the people Barrymore gets revenge on had been stronger. Rafaele Ottiano - who I don't recall ever having seen in anything before - is fun as the crazy widow of the mad scientist.

Movie review – “Foolish Wives” (1922) ***1/2

Eric Von Stroheim may have spent money like a druken sailor but he got a hell of it up on screen – this is full of stunning sets and images, and is clearly the work of a great director. It’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the French Riviera – Von Stroheim and his two “cousins” try to bag rich partners – well actually on he seems to be the one who tries to get one, the others sort of hang around. He chases after the married wife of the American representative to Monte Carlo – she’s not very good looking (a bit chunky in the face) and is up for romance.

A lot of it is really sexy too like the American wife getting changed after a storm in a little out of the way place while Von Stroheim perves at her through a mirror, and the whole concept of Von Stroheim living with his two cousins (and a maid who he’s also tupping) is hot – JackThompson esque, really. There’s a touching suicide form the maid who loves von Stroheim.

Spectacular action sequences inclide a storm and fire, both brilliantly done, and I was knocked out to learn this wasn't actually shot in Monte Carlo. It looks like it was done on location, with teaming extras (sailors on the boat dropping off the Americans, all the people on the promenade, the packed casinos). Von Stroheim gets his comeuppance - killed by the crazed father of a woman he molests - so it is moral in a way.

Movie review – ‘The Wedding March” (1928) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Fay Wray is absolutely lovely, even more so than in King Kong, as the poor woman who eyes dashing lieutenant Eric Von Stroheim (well he’s meant to be dashing – he’s got bug eyes and a monocle, but apparently that made hearts a flutter in 1914 Vienna, or his cinematic recreations of them, anyway). However Von Stroheim is a lazy spend thrift seriously sort on cash so his parents arrange a marriage with a crippled daughter (Zasu Pitts) of a filthy rich manufacturer.

 

It's a simple story most notable for its images – Von Stroheim’s messy bedroom after a big night – the maid discovers a bra, then goes to pash him as he wakes up in bed; the sumptuousness of the imperial parade during Corpus Christie; the decadence of a party thrown by Von Stroheim’s parents (he gets drunk with a dude in a brothel); the faces of the old people (Von Stroheim’s walrus like dad, the big tub of guts who knows Fay Wray, the organ grinder moustache of Fay Wray’s aspiring lover); the impressive sets. It looks amazing.

 

It's also very cynical and matter of fact about lust and money – no wonder Billy Wilder loved Von Stroheim. The most poignant character is Pitts who knows she’s not that good looking and Von Stroheim doesn’t like her – but goes along with it (I liked it how she seems to genuinely lover her dad). 

 

There’s no happy ending – Wray marries a brute to stop him killing Von Stroheim at the wedding, Von Strohei goes off with his new wife. It’s 1914 so half the cast will presumably be killed/injured, the rest will become poor.

Radio review - Lux – Five Graves to Cairo (1943) ***1/2

One of Billy Wilder’s lesser known films perhaps because the lead was the unexciting Franchot Tone, who actually is pretty good. And it’s a pretty good story too (a remake of Hotel Imperial) with Tone as a British soldier cut off from his troops who finds himself forced to go undercover in a hotel occupied by the Germans. Anne Baxter is a spirited romantic lead but the best performance goes to Eric Von Stroheim as Rommel – his sardonic humour is unmistakeably Wilder (now I’ve said that I’ll probably read some article which demonstrates that Charles Brackett wrote it). Solid twists and turns – undercover stories almost always work. I especially like the way Tone made Baxter feel guilty by making up a wife and child.

Movie review - "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) ****

Classic Billy Wilder film is sometimes called a film noir but is really more of a horror film, an endlessly creepy tale of a struggling screenwriter (William Holden, in a role that got his career back on track) who hooks up with a faded silent movie star (superb Gloria Swanson). Full of weird off beat touches: a monkey funeral, the empty pool, the dialogue, the car, the butler (Eric Von Stroheim) who turns out to be a former great director and Swanson's ex-husband. Brilliant writing, with even a little sentimentality in the scenes between Holden and Nancy Olson. A writer once said you are either a Sunset Blvd type of person or a Casablanca person; I'm Casablanca but I still enjoy Sunset Blvd.