Movie review - "Stage Struck" (1958) **1/2

 I get the rationale - RKO remaking its back catalogue, get exciting new stars (Susan Strasberg, Chris Plummer) and director (Sidney Lumet), add colour. But Morning Glory didn't just launch Katherine Hepburn the film was all about how great Hepburn was - magnetic, talented, etc. So you'd better cast a Hepburn. From this period maybe Kim Stanley could have pulled it off. Or Anne Bancroft. Someone really great. Strasberg is pretty and sweet but not up to it - when she does soliloquies watched by everyone at a party you feel bad for her. To rub it in Plummer moons over her so does Fonda so does Herbert Marshall and then the critics.

Also Strasberg is meant, I think, to be this likeable stage struck kid but comes across more of a manipulative socipath like Eve in All About Eve - she sleeps with producer Fonda (more than 30 years older), gets writer Plummer to fall for her, enchants actor Marshall, manages to get cast in the lead after diva star Joan Greenwood leaves. We're supposed to find the final farewell between Strasberg and Fonda moving I think - Christ, she's 30 years older.

I think this film killed Strasberg's movie career before it began. 

Sunny side - looks good, Lumet loves the theatre, Plummer is relaxed and believable as a slightly stiff writer, Fonda is strong. 

Movie review - "Lovin' Molly" (1974) *

 This film is an abomination.

The credits started I thought "this is okay" but it's sunk within the first two minutes with Tony Perkins (then 40) as a young cowboy and Beau Bridges and Blythe Danner (both around 30) as his friends. They needed to be the same age and played by young actors.

I think the rationale was "well they're playing older later in the film let's get older actors" but there's 50 minutes of them being young.

Perkins is spectacularly bad. Danner is sweet and lovely and might've succeeded in another film but goes down with the ship. Beau Bridges is too chunky. He's not as bad as Perkins but isn't great either.

Susan Sarandon's part - quite big in the book - is blink and miss.

The whole thing feels fake. The friendship. The sex. The mood.

It's awful.

Movie review - "Last of the Mobile Hot Shots" (1970) **

 Having missed with an earlier Tennessee Williams film, Lumet strikes out again. An even more imperfect source - The Seven Descents of Myrtle - an even more distinguished screenwriter (Gore Vidal), an impressive cast (James Coburn, Lynn Redgrave, Robert Hooks), James Wong How as cinematographer, Quincy Jones did the score.

I know it's Tennessee Williams but this is a lot of hammy yapping in rooms mostly. Coburn marries Redgrave on a game show then they go to an old house and meet Coburn's brother, Hooks. None of the casting feels right. Coburn starts off bad, I got used to him, he grew into the role more, but he feels wrong. I liked Redgrave at first but then she got on my nerves more and more and was eventually too hard. I wanted to like Hooks, it was great to see a black man in a Williams production but he doesn't feel right. Too lightweight or something.

I didn't get it. I'm not sure Lumet did. On a basic level, the themes of sexual attraction and the menace of the incoming flood are not felt at all.

This film and Boom! killed Williams' appeal as someone whose work Hollywood wanted to adapt (though he came back on TV in the 1980s).

I've got to say though - it's oddness has an appeal.

Movie review - "The Fugitive Kind" (1960) **

 Must have seemed like a sure fire thing - Brando, Magnani, Lumet, Williams, Woodward.

But it doesn't work. It's so long - two hours and feels it. Lots of chat. A small town in New York stood in for the South - that doesn't really work.

I mean, it's interesting to watch these actors. But it's not sexy. Magnani feels off. Brando seems a little too old - he's meant to be thirty, ageing... but he's not trying. The opening scene where he talks is interesting.

On a basic level the film doesn't work - it's not sexy, we don't feel a sense of impending doom about the town.  The material isn't the strongest- there's a reason the play flopped - but it has inherent sex and violence so could work on a base level but doesn't here. Maybe Lumet was the wrong director.

This movie has its fans. I just wasn't in to it.

Brando only did it for the money - oh the days when he'd sell out making a million dollars to appea in a Tennessee Williams adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet!

Book review - "Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies" by Dave Itzkoff

 I think Network means more to Americans who didn't grow up with public broadcasting but I recognise the film's excellence and power. This is a worthy book - the writer did his research, especiallu going through the different drafts that Chayefsky did. Getting finance was not too hard - I mean, it wasn't super easy, but it was the 70s and The Hospital had made money. Also Sidney Lumet was idea and there were stars - William Holden, Faye Dunaway.

No one wanted to play the Peter Finch part. He wasn't on any lists but his agent pestered and he got it. Though he had to audition, sulked, then called back and said "sorry darling I forgot I was an actor". Finch stories are the most lively - he got bored acting opposite Ned Beatty during Beatty's speech so started impersonating a monkey, he moved to LA from "semi retirement" because the film reignited his career, he warned everyone that black extras would find him irresistible, he campaigned for his Oscar, he'd walk to the Beverly Hills hotel every day (couldn't drive) and wait until someone bought him breakfast (so he died trying to scab a freebie), William Friedkin organiser of the Oscars told Chayefsky that Finch's black wife couldn't accept the Oscar but Chayefsky or Lumet could, Chayefsky invited her up anyway.

Chayefsky was a pain on the film but Lumet could handle it -what a bummer they just didn't pay Lumet the few extra hundred thou to do Altered States (though what happened with Arthur Hiller?). 

William Holden was boozy and insecure with emotional scenes. Fay Dunaway was terrific but freaked out about her sex scene - the author makes diva claims but she had to do most of her career surrounded by men with their hands down their pants around her. She was very sympathetic here. I think the film and Oscar made her a bit nuts - she made it to the top and didn't know what to do next, went for star parts as opposd to best parts.

The impact/fandom of the movie is well conveyed. A totally decent book.

Book review - "Flim Flam" by Larry McMurtry

 Collection of essays on movies by McMurtry mostly from the 70s which McMurtry finds a lot to gripe about. Some interesting takes on film critics and theorists - I wasn't that wild about his thoughts on movies - he doesn't like Keith Carradine. Not really great analyst. I did like his enthusiasms and his pieces on his own films especially Picture Show and Loving Molly (he gets stuck into Sidney Lumet).  Last chapter from the 80s is about his friendship with Diane Keaton. He chats briefly about some odd films like Velvet Vampire (in a piece on Times Square) and Istanbul with Errol Flynn. Criticises his own plot for Hud.

TV review - "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates" (1958) ***

 Really sweet ice skating musical based on a Dutch story that I'm unfamiliar with. Tab Hunter could sing and was a champion ice skater so he's a natural - well, a little too old, but it does work.

Basil Rathbone is in it and Sidney Lumet directs. There's some skaters and it's fun.

Warners should've made an ice skating film for Hunter. Disney did a version of this tale and it feels Disney like in a good way. Sweet.

Movie review - "That Kind of Woman" (1959) ***

 Fascinating. Because on one hand it's a good movie - Sidney Lumet directs with sensitivity, Tab Hunter has never been better (seriously), Sophia Loren is charismatic and terrific, Jack Warden offers a strong support part, George Sanders is accomplished as Loren's lover. The black and white photography works as does the location filming.

But the movie doesn't work. I didn't buy it. Didn't buy Loren falling for Hunter, and being reluctant to leave because of her lover. I buy his infatuation. But she's too mature, too gorgeous, she has too many options.

Maybe this would've worked in Italy, war torn Italy and she's a mistress to provide and she's never felt love before. I think that's it... Loren has clearly felt love before. Hunter isn't it for him. 

Maybe it would've worked Deep Blue Sea style with the lead girl being bland and dull with a dull boyfriend and this charismatic type whisks her away.

Book review - "Making Movies" by Sidney Lumet

 Superb. Lumet made so many movies he can simply draw on examples from his own CV though he does refer to others - he's a big fan of Spielberg, particularly Schindler's List. Very no-nonsense, passionate and hardworking, as you can imagine. I would've liked more gossip - I did spend some time guessing who was the female star who just "didn't have it" in a film with three big stars. Stage Struck? That Kind of Woman?

Book review - "Sidney Lumet" by Maura Spiegel

Superb book on the legendary director - probably the one "TV guy" whose reputation was still high. I knew a fair bit about Lumet's career, in part from reading Making Movies but also from seeing the sheer amount of credits he turned out. There was a lot I did know like:
- he was a top child actor, starred in a film
- his dad was a self centered actor, who cheated on the mother
- mother died traumatically young
- sister spent all Sidney's army pay
- Sidney did radar training in the Himalayas during WW2 and hated his war service bc of all the rednecks
- he was married four times, the first to actress/model, the second to Gloria Vanderbilt, the third to Lena Horne's daughter, the fourth did the trick
- one of his daughters became a coke snorting party girl then reinvented herself as a body building neo con
- Bobby Canavale was his son in law for a piece.
A great soap character.
The main had his flaws, and a surprising lack of success directing theatre, but managed to keep relevant and fresh for his career. So many good lessons to learn how to handle a career - work hard, keep working, aim to do good material, all that stuff. Fabulous book.

Thoughts on Susan Strasberg

Watching Susan Strasberg in The Other Side of the Wind made me waste/spend an hour or so googling her and her career. I always liked her because of her good work in Taste of Fear (1961), The High Bright Sun (1965) and Psych Out (1968) where she specialised in the role of Woman Who Gets Scared By Things (mean step mothers, Cyprus terrorists, hippies).

The daughter of Lee Strasberg, she started her career with a real bang - she is great as Kim Novak's sister in Picnic (1955) and became a Broadway sensation before she was 20 playing the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank. It was thought she was going to be this incredible star but after she was in Stage Struck (1958), a remake of the Katherine Hepburn film Morning Glory, everyone seemed to decide she was crap and she didn't help by doing things like run off to Italy and believe Richard Burton when he said he'd leave his wife for her. 

As she later admitted she also didn't try as hard as she could in part because she was afraid of not living up to the family name. She kept working for most of her life as an actor and later wrote some memoirs. It's a shame she didn't make more better quality stuff but she had an interesting life. And (SPOILERS) no one seems to comment how the climax of Other Side of the Wind involves the John Huston character punching her character in the face for suggesting he might be gay.

Script review - "Prince of the City" by Jay Presson Allen and Sidney Lumet

Highly regarded look at police corruption. I respect it more than I admire it. It's obviously smart but it's long - scenes felt repetitive. I didn't get to know many of the characters. The domestic scenes weren't that interesting. A lot of New Yawk acting. Heaps of typos in the draft of the script I read.

The basic material is fascinating - a little-bit corrupt cop has a crisis of confidence and tries to help IA. He vows to not give up his partners but that's easier said than done. He has a cousin in the mob. The officials who help him are ambitious and flawed like his corrupt fellow cops.

There's some suspense where you think the main guy might die but the best stuff comes at the end, when one cop kills himself and other, Levy, tells the main guy to f*ck off.

Movie review - "De Palma" (2017) ***1/2

Funny sort of doco - basically just De Palma talking to camera about his career, interspersed with photos, clips from his films and home movies. But since his career has been so long and varied and De Palma is a strong raconteur (I'd actually never heard him speak before, I think!) it passes the time well.

I particularly enjoyed hearing about his upbringing - upper middle class (dad was a surgeon), squabbling family life but Brian seemed to have plenty of cash (another spoilt boomer director!), lots of education, he only got the film bug at college. Loved seeing clips of a young De Niro, Jennifer Salt and Jill Clayburgh.

De Palma was given a lot of advantages in life (his sex, his background) but was/is a self starter - he had the moxie to make his own feature back in the 60s, and made a living out of doing promotional documentaries. He also has resilience to bounce back from things like being booted off Getting to Know Your Rabbit.

He's got one of those careers where failures are followed by successes then failures. The success of Sisters led to the failure of Phantom of the Paradise led to the success of Obsession (Cliff Robertson was a pain in the neck which was sad to hear) and Carrie, led to the failure of Home Movies, led to the success of Dressed to Kill (the script was hot property and sold for $1 million), led to the failure of Blow Out, led to the success (ish) of Scarface, led to the failure of Body Double and Wise Guys led to the success of The Untouchables led to the failure of Casualties of War and Bonfire of the Vanities, led to the success of Carlito's Way (which he says "I can't do better than that"), Raising Cain and Mission Impossible (clashes in approach from David Koepp and Robert Towne), the mixed success of Snake Eyes and the failure of Mission to Mars, then the more "indie" path he's tread since then.

De Palma comes across as affable and confident, hungering for success as much as anyone in Hollywood, remarkably unaware and un-analytical of what all these scenes in his films where women die violently might mean for him or how derivative he is, and simplistic in his political takes ("it's a sewer"). He's appreciative of great composers and actors and collaborators.

Lots of interesting bits:
- Sean Penn punched out Michael J Fox in Casualties of War to help Fox's performance - thanks Sean
- he still stands by Bonfire of the Vanities
- he's bitter Sidney Lumet pinched Prince of the City off him
- he was offered Flashdance
- he followed his father around when younger to see who his dad was cheating on his mother with
- he hit up Spielberg and Scorsese for money to finish Home Movies

Very much worthwhile.

Book review - "Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters" by Michael Digby (2015)

Larry Cohen has done a lot of interviews in his time - one of them, for The Incredibly Strange Film Book, is one of my favourite, his no-nonsense approach to filmmaking helped encourage me to be a writer. When I heard about this book I wondered if there was a point to reading it, because there are so many other Cohen interviews out there. But there is, because it's so exhaustive.

Absolutely, some of it will be familiar, especially his writings on his more cult-y favourites like God Told Me To, It's Alive and Black Caesar, as well as the recent blockbuster Phone Booth and famous-for-being-Bette-Davis'-last-film The Wicked Stepmother and The Private Files of J Edgar Hoover which Cohen likes to talk about a lot. I did know of his TV work, which is well covered in Backstory 4.

But because Cohen is so incredibly prolific there was heaps I didn't know - his childhood, plays, lesser known directorial efforts (The Ambulance, Special Effects, Perfect Strangers), recent concentration on being a screenwriter, the extent of his success in 60s TV. He was often unhappy with the work directors who weren't him did on his films - even Sidney Lumet on Guilty as Sin and Joel Schumacher on Phone Booth (he basically likes the job the latter did but wished it had a bigger star than Colin Farrell and thought Schumacher could have shown him more respect). He really gives it to William Lustig, director of the Maniac Cop series.

A very clear picture of Cohen emerges - as you'd hope from 700 plus pages of interviews! Talented, smart, a ferocious work ethic, independent, grumpy, always a little touchy about lack of industry respect and mistreatment. He talks about his encounters with Alfred Hitchcock, troubles with Bette Davis, a friendship with Sam Fuller (who he used as an actor), his good experiences with some difficult actors (eg Eric Roberts), his fights with friend David Carradine, his unhappy experiences in network television (even on NYPD Blue), Billy Dee Williams' drinking problem, working for AIP in the 70s, getting fired off several movies, and lots more.

His key creative impulses seem to be social commentary, a lively imagination, and old movies of the 30s and 40s, particularly Warner Bros and Universal. It's a very comprehensive, impressive book that made me want to go revisit Cohen's work.

Movie review - "The Hill" (1965) ***

One of the reasons people love Sean Connery, and why his career lasted so long, was at the height of Bond mania, when he could've been in anything, he ditched the toupee and took a role in what was basically an ensemble piece, an account of life in a British military prison.

Although essentially British, it was directed by Sidney Lumet, who ensures there is nothing pukka and toff nosed about it. It's gritty kitchen sink realism really, the sink being in a military prison, as Connery and his fellow prisoners deal with tough but decent Harry Andrews and tough but sadistic Ian Henry (who is always acting under a hat so you never get a decent look at his face).

Other prisoners include Alfred Lynch (the whimpy one who shouldn't really be in the army and who is basically killed by too much running in the sun), Ossie Davis as a Jamaican, Roy Kinnear and Jack Watson. Michael Redgrave has a small role as the medical officer; I thought Ian Bannen would have a bigger part too, as a more sensitive officer.

It goes for over two hours and is a hard slog at times. There's a lot of characters running up and down that hill and yelling at each other. Then when the ending comes it's very abrupt - though effective. I admired this movie more than I actually liked it. Still, I keep thinking about it, a few days after I saw it, and that doesn't always happen.

Movie review - "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974) *** (warning: spoilers)

The success of this film kicked off a spate of all star Agatha Christie adaptations - with the quality of the stars declining as things went along. This has a couple of genuine big names, albeit ones whose great days were behind (or in front) of them - Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Albert Finney, Tony Perkins (who appeared in many all star films around this time), Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud - plus well known types such as Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts, Michael York, Richard Widmark, Martin Balsam, and a couple of not really well known people, like Dennis Quilley and Colin Blakeney.

This is one of the most famous Christie works, for two reasons - the title (and thus setting) and the twist, in that all of them dunnit. A lot of the stars are extremely good value - especially Connery, Bisset, Redgrave, Bacall, Perkins and Gielgud. Ingrid Bergman's performance got on my nerves, indicating all over the place. But the biggest flaw for me was Albert Finney - I thought he was terrible, all tics and hammy mannerisms. Not a patch on Peter Ustinov in later movies in the series.

I'm not a big fan of that soft focus period photography used in the movie (or maybe I saw a crappy print). But some of the cameos are effective and there's genuinely spooky moments such as the opening montage of the kidnapping, and the final recreation of the crime - not enough Christie adaptations made you chill but this one, in these sequences at least, do.

Movie review - "Serpico" (1973) ***

Many excellent things about this famous crime drama - Al Pacino's performance in the title role, a superb array of New York actors playing cops, the whole gritty feel of it, Lumet's brisk direction, Pacino's groovy hairstyles and costumes; it's a movie for grown ups.

Other things aren't as good - the film goes for too long and for much of the time the action felt repetitive; the female roles are negligible (in common with much classic 70s cinema) - naggers or bimbos; the only character we got to know well was Serpico; the music is overblown. Still, much of it holds up well.

Movie review - "Prince of the City" (1981) ***1/2

Epic treatment of a New York cop who decides to bust some corrupt colleagues but is determined not to indict his friends... only to find himself unable to control the impact of what he does. You can smell the streets of New York - the dirty streets, colourful characters, dingy life of police. Very well acted, although Treat Williams was excellent I couldn't help wishing at times the role had been played by a star.

The domestic scenes in these sort of movies never really catch fire - they mostly consist of a wife nagging/worrying - but there are some great vignettes, such as a prosecutor who tries to be sympathetic, a ruthless prosecutor, and Jerry Orbach's honourable corrupt cop. It goes for very long and the florid musical score occasionally got on my nerves. But it's an intelligent, complex film for grown ups and you don't get many of them any more.

Script review – “The Verdict” by David Mamet

An early script from Mamet and although it’s an adaptation of a novel, he’s made it very much his own. The speeches are very Mamet – tough dialogue, short sentences, long speeches, specific words underlined. It has a Mamet feel, too: the hero, Frank Galvin, is alcoholic, once brilliant, a fallen Angel desperate for redemption; there's lots of macho male competition and some references to hunting; the female characters aren't as well etched (Galvin punches out the woman who betrays her - no kidding he floors her with one; you show those bitches who's boss!) The broken-man-seeking redemption template has been much copied in recent years. So too has the topic of the court case - it's a medical malpractice suit. But it still works, and the Boston setting remains fresh.

Book review – “Paddy Chayefsky Scripts Vol 2 – Hospital, Network, Altered States” by Paddy Chayefsky

A reminder – if any were needed – of Chayefsky’s brilliance. These are three superb scripts, full of passion, humour, rich characters, dynamic dialogue and research (they’re all really well researched) – they could all be greenlit tomorrow. Okay, they’re not perfect – Chayefsky really had an obsession with young women falling in love with middle aged men: The Hospital, Network, Middle of the Night…

 

The Hospital is dynamite social satire – it’s a bit more (though not much more) realistic than Network, which was more prophetic. The through line concerns a spate of mysterious deaths which are afflicting a large hospital. In a way it’s a monster film – so too is Network, with the Peter Finch character as the monster. I didn’t notice until reading this that you didn’t need the William Holden character – he doesn’t do anything except have a fling with Faye Dunaway.

 

I was particularly interested to read Altered States because I’ve never seen the film – shooting was an incredibly turbulent time, with Chayefsky being devastated by the result, despite having a clause which ensured not a word of his script could be changed. (He even sacked a director, only to replace him with Ken Russell.) It’s a version of the Jekyll and Hyde story about a uni professor, Jessup, determined to experiment with different states of being. Brilliantly researched, full of far out concepts, it’s something special. And what’s more it has a happy, positive ending. No middle aged-young woman romance here – although there is a professor-student one, and there’s lots of sex.