Movie review - "Rally Round the Flag Boys" (1958) **

 George Axelrod complained he and Leo McCarey came up with a bold plan to adapt this novel but Fox backed out and so Axelrod left. Maybe his approach would've been better. But it's hard to see even that working with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the leads. Both are attractive and obviously talented actors but their comic timing is a mess and they seem too young - as does Joan Collins. Newman's trying to be Cary Grant but he doesn't seem like a family man especially one with an itchy eye. Maybe Tom Ewell? 

Joan Collins is better - too young as well but she's hugely fun. She would've been better a decade older but I liked her. She's stronger than Jayne Mansfield (the original choice vetoed by the Newmans) would have been.

Tuesday Weld is perfect as their yappy babysitter. She is involved in a very funny love triangle with Dwayne Hickman as a Marlon Brandon worshipper and some yokel soldier. This is funny. Jack Carson is funny too as a bombastic soldier.

But Newman wrecks it, basically. 

William Holden's cold streak

 With The World of Suzie Wong (1960) he was at his peak. Then: 

- Satan Never Sleeps (1962) Leo McCarey dud that killed off Clifton Webb and McCarey

- The Counterfeit Traitor (1962) - spy story did poorly

- The Lion (1962) - dull drama

- Paris When it Sizzles (1964) a flop rom com with Audrey Hepburn

- The Seventh Dawn (1964) flop Malayan Emergency drama

- Alvarez Kelly (1966) flop Wesern

- The Devil's Brigade (1968) disappointing war film

Then The Wild Bunch (1969) brought him back. 

Movie review - "King Cohn: The Life and Times of Harry Cohn" by Bob Thomas (1967)

Its frustrating this isn't footnoted but it was very entertaining and remains perhaps the best known book about Cohn, one of Hollywood's legendary tycoons. Like most of them he was Jewish, and admirable and terrible and missed.

Cohn's reputation has suffered in recent years along with Darryl F Zanuck because they are the tycoons probably most like Harvey Weinstein - i.e. skirt chases - which means it's highly likely they would have engaged in sexual harrasment and possibly worse. Cohn was also a bully like Weinstein who swore and was prone to fits of rage.

He could be kind and decent but also a prick. His second marriage seems to have been happy - they had three kids, lost one, adopted another. He had a lot of admirers but a lot of that was due to his business acumen.

He worked his way up the hard way like all the great tycoons. He was a song plugger and fur salesman before going into films. Columbia started as a poverty row studio but Cohn and his brother (like the Warners there was a brother) pulled it up to the majors. He was helped by the skill of Frank Capra, but a lot of it was Cohn... he was very well informed, and he had a nose for talent: Leo McCarey, George Stevens, Cary Grant, Sidney Buchman, Stanley Kramer, Daniel Taradash, Buddy Adler are among those who benefited and prospered from working for Cohn... then had to leave because there can only be one. He built some stars like Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.

Things that were once seen to hold Columbia back like having no theatres helped it thrive in the 50s - also he got in on the ground floor with TV via Screen Gems.

People have affection for Cohn in part because he exemplified the role of Hollywood tycoon so well - lecherous, foul mouthed, cunning.

Thomas has a journo's gift for funny/scary/ touching anecdotes - there are moving accounts of his last months, funny tales of Norman Krasna teasing him, the unexpectedly strong friendship with Buchman,  bullying Jean Arthur and John Wayne, enjoying fighting with Broderick Crawford. Very human, very smart, very ideal for his job, very good man to stay away from.

Script review - "Duck Soup"

The Marx brothers most anarchic, political and beloved-by-hardcore-fans movie. This draft of the script offers some intriguing differences - Rufus Firefly is appointed dictator, there are some key comedy sequences in the second half that were replaced (there is a lot more of the final war, no mirror or trial sequence, instead there are other ones). It's done in terms of sequences, up to "sequence K". It's fascinating to see how tightly scripted the action on screen was. The freewheeling, mad cap nature of the movie bounces off the page.

Movie review – “Make Way for Tomorrow” (1937) ****

This film was a flop at the time - not surprisingly, since it's leads are two old people and it ends unhappily - but has come to be regarded as a classic. The plot is about an old married couple who are unable to afford living in their house any longer; they split up for three months while they figure out what’s going to happen next. But even though they’ve got five kids, none of them want to take them in.

 

Director Leo McCarey is on the side of the parents but is careful to point out that they can be annoying. Mum interrupts a bridge game (which her daughter in law uses to raise money) with an incessant phone call, and has to share the bedroom with her boy crazy granddaughter. Even during the “final day together” sequence, when strangers chat to them, they’re still a pretty boring pair, nattering on; yes the restaurant managers and such are nice to them, but people like that are nice to paying customers. Still, they love each other and it's heartbreaking to see them torn apart.

 

It’s frustrating that the couple can’t be a bit smarter and think about a way they could live together (what about that offer to act as caretakers for a cottage?). The elderly make up on the lead actors is a little distracting at times. And there's some corny moments. But it's full of warmth, humour and great sadness. And truth. You can't say something like this wouldn't happen - parents mistakenly thinking their children will look after them, children trying to do the right thing but ultimately looking after their own families, old people going along with a tragic decision because they don't want to make waves, parents using their mother in law as a convenient scape goat for their own dodgy parenting.

 

Many memorable scenes - the mother asking her son if she can go live in an old person’s home (the son is played by Thomas Mitchell - it's weird seeing him having parents on screen), the grand-daughter explaining how she wants to party, the awkward bridge game interruption. Mots of all is the emotionally devastating ending where the husband and wife say goodbye forever at the train station. It gets you in the gut.

Radio review – Lux – “Ruggles of Red Gap” (1939) ***1/2

Charming comedy from Leo McCarey at his peak before he turned into a foaming anti-Communist and features one of Charles Laughton’s best performances as the butler who’s transferred to a family out west (Washington state in 1908) and decides to liberate himself. Decent fish out of water comedy moments and a famous one where Laughton recites the Gettysburg address. There’s a good villain in the snobby American. It does seem to end at the finale of Act two, although there’s an extra bit where Ruggles sets up his restaurant and is visited by his old boss. Charles Ruggles and Zasu Pitts lend support.

Radio review – Lux – “The Awful Truth” (1955) ***1/2

The film that launched Cary Grant as the major romantic comedian of the 20th century - this radio adaptation sees him reunited with Irene Dunne, and their playing remains highly enjoyable. It has more of a driving story than My Favourite Wife, although the basic situation is less strong - it has four parts: the break up of the marriage, both having new trashy partners (she an Oklahoma oil man, he a trashy singer), he looks like getting engaged, they get back together. Listening to this years later it's striking how easy it would be to do a gay remake of the story - a sophisticated, childless couple who have a hard time remaining faithful (in spirit if nothing else), who have custody disputes over their dog and make fun of people from fly-over states.

Radio review – SDP – “My Favourite Wife” (1951) **

The playing of Cary Grant and Betsy Drake (standing in for Irene Dunne) is immaculate, the central idea is a good one – but listening to this again it is striking how bitsy this is for a comedy considered to be a classic. There’s an awful lot of jumping up and down on the spot as the ex-wife turns up, then the other guy on the island turns up. This really needed a spine –some reason to propel the action (of course in the 40s maybe it was enough to stop Grant having sex with his new wife but that doesn’t come across now). At the end producer Leo McCarey speaks and he’s careful to praise actual director Garson Kanin.

Radio review – Biography – WC Fields (1956) ***

Radio biography of the famous comedian, the chief note of which today is hearing reminsences from Field’s friends and colleagues who have since become legends themselves – including Maurice Chevalier, Errol Flynn and Leo McCarey. I was particularly interested to hear Flynn tell a few Fields’ anecdotes – he chuckles away , having a good time; you get the impression from Flynn’s writings he was a strong raconteur and its interesting to hear an example of it.

Movie review – Marx #5 - “Duck Soup” (1933) *****

The “purest” Marx Brothers film – no romantic sub plot, no juveniles, no non-comic songs or music interludes, a magnificent canvass within which the brothers can wreck havoc (Groucho is president of a country), Margaret Dumont, short running time, the brothers in magnificent form, Zeppo only has a small role, Groucho’s wise cracks are consistently strong (something which didn’t always happen) as are Chico’s puns (ditto). Good one for Zeppo to go out on – he’s Groucho’s secretary yet again, but he gets to play in two of the film’s stand out sequences: the “we’re going to war” production number, and the final battle sequence.

This film didn’t do as well financially as others despite those things – or rather because of those things. I think audiences preferred it when there were music interludes (a break from the comedy, like a variety show); they definitely preferred films with “real people” in them. (Howard Hawks always thought Bringing Up Baby flopped because everyone in it was crazy, i.e. there was no one for people to identify with – which conversely was partly why it became such a cult film). 

Also the humour in this one was dark, especially at the end when the war’s on – I mean, it’s an actual war, and although it’s never spelt out that people are killed it’s definitely implied. Maybe that was a bit too bleak at the time (it is even now when you think about it).

Another thought struck me watching this, with the brothers running around. A great part of their appeal was (and is) I believe due to the fact they were brothers and close – and this bond comes across on screen. Despite all the anarchy and madness it’s still family anarchy. Awww….

Book review – “It Ain’t No Sin” by Simon Louvish

The only previous book I read on Mae West I only remember because the jacket photo had the author holding a white cat – it was one of the worst author photos I’d seen. I had the sense it wasn’t very thorough a work, so it was terrific to see Louvish turn his eye to the blonde not-as-young-as-she-claimed bombshell.

Louvish has written biographies on WC Fields and the Marx Brothers, both of which I’ve kept meaning to read but never gotten around to. That is no dig at him – it’s just a weird thing that’s happened. He’s a good writer and excellent researcher.

He has two strengths (1) he treats West’s movie career as one chapter in a long career rather than the be all and end all, so he gives appropriate weight to her time in vaudeville, burlesque and on the legitimate stage. In particular he pays particular attention to her writing (something at which she worked long and hard) (2) he goes over his subject thoroughly. Sometimes West gets lost in the context but in some ways that’s inevitable – when all’s said in done West was a bit dull, she just did the hard yards at home.

West was pure show biz – she never stopped thinking of herself as a star until the end, always pushing her stage shows, movie scripts, etc. Her persona was incredibly strong – when you think about it she only really made three classic films (She Done Him Wrong, I’m No Angel, My Little Chickadee) – there were others which probably could and would have been classics had not they been neutered by the Hays office (Belle of the Nineties and Klondike Annie – Louvish argues the latter was perhaps West’s most autobiographical work, which is fascinating). But you do something well, everyone will remember you.