HOLLYWOODLAND and THE BLACK DAHLIA

These two films reached the theatres in 2006. They share some of the distinct impressions that make up films devoted to life in Los Angeles and in particular those centered on that part of the city encompassed in Hollywood. Both dealt with some of the peculiarities of life in L.A. Though only one of these, The Black Dahlia, was a genuine crime, some of the events depicted in Hollywoodland also include criminal activities including a possible murder. I'll deal with both of these films relative to the events they depicted and the aspects that were literally fiction as opposed to the real world and in particular in its more sordid moments.


Hollywoodland

Hollywoodland deals with the death of television star George Reeves who portrayed Superman in the TV series of that name. Reeves reached the height of his film career earlier with an important film role in Gone With the Wind portraying the Tarleton Twin who married Scarlett O'Hara and who was killed early in the Civil War. After that supposed breakthrough role Reeves' career stagnated. Eventually, he got the Superman part, one he didn't really like and one he held until his untimely death from a gunshot wound, supposedly self-inflicted, but with enough controversy to invite a skeptical conclusion, i.e., the old conspiracy theory.

Hollywoodland covers this story with interest, but adds some special embellishments and details some of the unusual aspects to the story. These settle on the role of Toni Mannix in life. Ms. Mannix was the wife of one of the real strongmen in the MGM organization. In some respect he was considered an enforcer of studio policy. Ms. Mannix had met Eddie Mannix in Hawaii back in the middle thirties. She was a woman with a stage background most notably as a Ziegfeld chorine, under her maiden name of Toni Laneir. She was also known as the girl with the million dollar legs and had an uncredited role in The Great Ziegfeld film.

The three important roles portraying real people were performed by Ben Affleck as Reeves, Diane Lane as Toni Mannix and Bob Hoskins as Eddie Mannix. Each of them does a credible job at making the person they are portraying come to life. In particular, Land and Hoskins are really believable, and Affleck, though not as dynamic as the other two, did perform in one of his best if not his top performance.

The relationship between the three is quite remarkable. Toni and George met at a party where George in a continuing attempt to secure another top role manages to insert himself in a publicity picture take of Rita Hayworth at a nightclub party. Toni notes this and comments to him later about it without identifying herself. This chance encounter results in a long term affair with Toni providing Reeves with a house to live in and many other expensive gifts. She obviously was very much in love with the TV personality. Television back in the 50's was not nearly as big a career move as it would be today. At that time someone doing TV was obviously not strong enough to do films. Reeves resented this and was increasingly discouraged with his comic strip hero role. Eddie Mannix for reasons not explained in the film doesn't seem to mind Toni's interest in Reeves and in fact is involved with someone else as well. It's not an easy relationship to understand.

There is one other lead player in Hollywoodland, a man named Louis Simo played by Adrian Brody. For some reason Simo just doesn't come across. Perhaps it's became Brody is playing a fictional person in a film where most of the others are real. Simo is convinced that Reeves' death was a murder and spends most of the movie trying to prove it. This results in some beatings handed out by people under the order of Eddie Mannix. At the end he's still not convinced that it was a suicide, but is frustrated in his attempt to prove it.

The film, though not great, does tell an interesting story in an entertaining way. The photography is well done and the staging for the times, it represents, the late 1950s, is well done. There are enough good performances to make it an entertaining viewing.


The Black Dahlia

The story of Elizabeth Short, the real life Black Dahlia, has been addressed previously in film. What has been depicted is the ugliness of the crime, the finding of a young woman's body following her horrific murder. This was most notable in the film True Confessions (1982), where the depiction of the corpse and where she was found were covered. Actually this film, that starred Robert Duval as a Los Angeles Police Department detective and Robert DeNiro as his brother, who was a high official in the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese, is an entirely different story. The real story is about corruption in the Diocese and its discovery and the resulting punishment dealt to DeNiro. The film covers the relationship of the two brothers and DeNiro's role in the Diocese corruption case and Duval's involvement in that event with the Dahlia type murder being incidental.

Oddly enough in The Black Dahlia a similar bit of fiction is offered to supplement the murder. Here Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett play a couple of detectives (Lee Blanchard and Bucky Buckhost) in the LAPD who though working on other cases are eventually put on the Black Dahlia case. Eckhart has a girl friend in Scarlett Johannsen (Kay in the film) who he seemingly shares with Hartnett. It's not really one of Johannsen's better performances. Hilary Swank also plays a heavy in the film a young woman named Madeleine Lincott. Like Toni Mannix, she's very wealthy. Though her performance is okay, the role itself seems rather unreal. She apparently is a switch hitter with sexual interest in the Black Dahlia but also gets involved with Hartnett. That is about the sum of who is in the film except for Mia Kirshner who plays the 'Dahlia' to a certain extent in the way the girl lived her life as a drifter. It's a sad performance.

This film has the Black Dahlia performing in a stag film, i.e. porno production, something the real Elizabeth Short never accomplished. Though she was interested in breaking into the film business she didn't have the intestinal fortitude to work at gaining any recognition.

Some of the story is really completely unrelated to reality. James Elroy wrote the book the film is based on. It is far less successful than LA Confidential the really big film that just failed to win the Academy Award for best picture. Both the latter film and Mr. Elroy's Get Shorty really caught the mood of L.A. The Black Dahlia only marginally catches those nuances since the story itself is not as clever as Elroy's other two efforts. Elroy was particularly interested in the story, since his own mother was murdered in a somewhat similar fashion. It was a crime, somewhat like that of the Dahlia, and similarly, has never been solved.

Still, the film is not a waste of time. It is well shot and does a good job of depicting Southern California at the time, 1946. It certainly can be enjoyed, but it is not really a very close to the rendition of the Black Dahlia reality.

There is one other film that resonates with the Black Dahlia. That's the Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix film called the Blue Dahlia. It s a film noir from 1942 and is generally considered the source for the Black Dahlia name. Actually, the Blue Dahlia was a nightclub supposedly located on Sunset Strip. The film also involved murder.

I have a separate article that discusses the Black Dahlia murder in some detail, but also relates some aspects of the crime that were of particular interest to me. This article can be found in "Reflections on the Black Dahlia" on the Fairview Collaborative Website in their "Observations" section under the secondary listing called "Reflections."

Dick Gardner, Classic Films

Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 17, March 1983

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The Good Shepherd

Spy films have been a popular film genre for many years. They largely fit into either of two forms. In the first of these, which is typified by the various James Bond films, the spy is a slam bang tough and usually suave guy. These films are primarily action films, more interested in dramatic effect than actual story telling.

The Good Shepherd does not fit this description. It is more in the category of a serious, deeply involving setting where dialogue is far more important than action. The mysteries are genuinely complex and the endings usually tie all the loose ends into a logical package. The how we get to there is definitely more on the cerebral side.

There are two ways of addressing these types of spy films. One, and a very popular one is the focusing on an individual who is involved in spy and espionage activities without knowing what is really going on. One of the best of the early use of this technique was "The Thirty Nine Steps," made in the thirties. It starred Robert Donat as an everyman playing opposite Madeline Carroll neither of which was aware of what was going on either, though Donat was suspected of murdering a woman involved in espionage activities. A number of other films through the years used this format, most notably Alfred Hitchcock in several productions made in either England or the United States.

In the second method of developing films of this type the focus is on the mechanism of the spy business and addresses the procedures and processes used in spying and counter espionage. These kinds of films have been most successfully done for television as long series. Three good examples are the Alex Guinness television series on PBS where he plays the role of John LeCarre's deep thinking spy genius George Smiley. There were two of these films which appeared on PBS back in the late eighties and early nineties. In the first of these, Smiley was chosen by the head of British intelligence, referred to in the films as "Control." There is a mole, a term used to identify an enemy agent, who has infiltrated the system somewhere in the British Secret Service and who is providing information to Control's counterpart in Moscow. Smiley is giving the task of ferreting him out. This set of events is covered in the mini-series called "Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy."

In a follow up series Smiley is now running the "Circus," which is the name used to identify the British Secret Service. He has a new objective, to turn Karla, the Moscow Center operator who set up the mole. 'Turn' is a term used by those in the spy business to get a member of the opposition government or spy agency to turn traitor.

In 1983, on PBS, there was an extremely interesting investigation of British intelligence from the period of the Russo-Japanese War (1905) until the mid-20's when the Communists were finally consolidating their power in Russia. The chief British spy in this series was the real life Sidney Reilly who was played by New Zealand actor Sam Neill in his first really large role. The series was called "Reilly, Ace of Spies." It's far longer than the George Smiley productions, and covers a different period of espionage activity, but it is every bit as interesting. Like the Smiley films it deals in part with the competition between Reilly and the head of the Soviet Intelligence system, Dzerzhinsky, played expertly by British actor Tom Bell. Reilly can be seen as rather full of himself. Because of his success in the spy business,Reilly eventionally sees himself rather pretentiously thinking that he might be able to overturn the Soviet government and see himself established as dictator of that nation.

The Good Shepherd deals with spy work much in the tradition of the three productions describe above. It doesn't have mini-series length, though it's more than two and a half hours running time provides some opportunities to examine issues in detail. The story is told mostly in flashback. It begins with Matt Damon in the role of Steven Wilson examining his participation in The Bay of Pigs venture during the Kennedy Administration and why it drastically failed. It seems apparent that there was an inside source, a mole, providing information to Fidel Castro, which provided the latter with information as to when and how the attack was going to take place. Also occupying Wilson's time, is an audio tape plus a photo that has come into his possession. In listening to the tape and studying the photo he continually seeks clues as to the tape and photo's source. This analysis occurs continually during the film using various electronic methods to reveal more clues.

In flashback Wilson considers his own life and dwells on the death of his father, by suicide, when he was just a child. His father had tried to impress on him one thing in particular, "Always tell the truth."

He also mentally addresses his career at Yale University, his participation in a secret society of that school, and his disgust at the hazing he is forced to go through along with other pledges which include such activity as being urinated on while participating in a mud fight. Among his contacts at Yale is a Poetry professor played by Michael Gambon who will have an influence on his life later. During this time he is also approached by Sam Murach played by Alec Baldwin, who holds an important role in American intelligence operations, and who tries to interest him becoming a part of the intelligence service.

Wilson is eventually recruited and vetted to London. While in London, Hitler's attack on Poland takes place in 1939 and the British declare war on the Germans. His old Yale Professor is there as well. The latter is now a member of British intelligence, and the two of them interface in joint British and American intelligence activities. It is while in London, however, that Wilson learns of the Professor's secret role as a suppler of intelligence to the Nazis.

During his time in Washington before posting to London Wilson has met Laura, played by Tammy Blanchard, a lovely young college age girl who is deaf. Though their relationship blossoms it doesn't result in anything beyond warm personal friendship. At approximately the same time he is put in contact with Clover Russell, the sister of one of his friends from Yale. She is a predator and obviously is either particularly smitten with Wilson or with young men in general. She is played by Angelina Jolie. They meet at a big party held at her parent's home. Later than evening she entices Wilson to go to the beach nearby where they get involved in a sexual liaison. Clover ends up pregnant and Wilson at the urging of his friend, Clover's brother, and his own sense of responsibility marries her. At the same time, Wilson is contacted again by Sam Murach and is requested to take the London intelligence assignment.

It is apparent through these and later events that Wilson is totally devoted to his work in American intelligence. His career moves ahead even though his personal and family life is largely destroyed. Clover becomes more and more reclusive and resigned to a life without love and affection.

Laura, the girl Wilson really loved finally has a liaison with Wilson which ends up in their being photographed by orders of a Russian spy who is supposedly a defector from the Soviet Union, but actually is neither a defector or who he says he is.

Laura is devastated by the photo's and goes out of Wilson's life. She really is the one person he feels affection for. Later, Wilson's son gets involved in an affair with a woman who he wants to marry, and who Wilson discovers is being used by the same Russian agent. At the film's close Wilson is given the opportunity of becoming an important cog in the expansion of the CIA and thereby cementing his commitment to the spy business.

The film would seem to reflect that spying, as an occupation, is not nearly as exciting as it might seem to be. Wilson, and I suppose many other member's of this service, end up having to sacrifice much of what makes life worth living.

Damon is very effective in his performance. Only once or perhaps twice did he show his characteristic half smile. His performance was all seriousness. Robert DeNiro, who directed the film, has a small role as an American general. He is just one of many strong cast members, though his role is not that big. John Turturro is especially memorable as an American enlisted man assigned to Wilson in London. Later on he has a pivotal role including initiation of a beating while interrogating a Russian defector who claims to be the same man as the earlier defector. Wilson plays a critical role in following this up and learns that the man posing as the defector is not who he claims to be, and the man who took the beating is the real defector.

There are only two other scenes of violence and both appear off camera. These include the beating to death of a Nazi spy and the murder of a girl used as a tool by the Soviets in trying to blackmail Wilson. Somehow, neither of these events seem that realistic to me, but of course I'm not involved in the secrecy game so they may be right on.

The Good Shepherd is a highly recommended film if you like films that are steady and take concentration to fully understand what is happening and where it will end. Despite it's large cast, only two people have major roles, Matt Damon as Wilson and Angelina Jolie as his wife.

Dick Gardner, Classic Films

Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 16, February 1983

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The Good German

During the two decades of the 40's and 50's a new kind of film style was developed. The French, who had been deprived of many American films in the early 40's during the occupation by Nazi Germany, adopted the term, "Film Noir." They came up with the phrase to describe a kind of film that was different in various ways. First these films were most notably photographed in black and white and featured dark shadows and a feeling of menace. Generally their stories evolved around the seamier sides of life. Most of these were crime films shot in this stark black and white style. In addition, there were a few that were devoted to war in the more corrupt sense, though it is difficult to see war as anything but corruption on a grand scale and as a demonstration that once again diplomacy and common sense have failed.

The first film to be described as film noir was the now famous crime drama starring Humphrey Bogart and a crew of other outstanding actors and actresses. It was the third try at depicting the perversity in Dashiell Hammet's novelistic style with the same basic storyline. It was called "The Maltese Falcon." Hammett had written quite successfully up to then for the popular pulp magazine's that provided fast moving short stories in a variety of environments and most particularly in a criminal environment . Most critics, though not all, consider this 1941 production as the first true film noir. The nearly 20-year history of film noir is generally considered as ending with Orson Welles direction and acting in the "The Touch of Evil" a film of corruption and darkness supposedly shot on the American-Mexican border but which was actually filmed in the then seedy Los Angeles district near the ocean known as Venice.

In between these 1941 to 1958 milestones more than a score of other films were qualified as genuine film noir productions. Just a few of these included such classics as "The Big Sleep," which again starred Humphrey Bogart in a classic story of intrigue and murders. This story was derived from the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, a name which Chandler created as a euphemism for death. Chandler scored with several other of his tight novels including "Murder My Sweet," starring Dick Powell in his initial excursion outside his usual film roles as a singer in Busby Berkeley type musicals. This film was remade a few years later under the title Chandler had originally written it under, "Farewell My Lovely." Both films featured the same private eye, Philip Marlowe.

A number of other films were produced in this kind of crime environment and a few more were delivered to movie theater goers with intrigue type plots. Graham Greene and Eric Ambler were the principal writers in this genre which included such gems as "The Mask of Demetrious" featuring two veterans of the Maltese Falcon, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre against the legendary Balkans villain Demetrious, played by Zachary Scott . "Journey Into Fear" was another of this type along with "The Third Man" perhaps the greatest film noir of all. The latter and the previously identified film saw Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton as leads. Cotton plays a somewhat befuddled man not sure of what is going on in both films while Welles is a Turkish Secret Service Director in the former and the film's villain, Harry Lime in the second.

This somewhat long introduction brings us up to considering the "The Good German" which was described in its ads as a film of the past with all the qualities that marked the film noir of some 50 or so years earlier. In some respects it most resembles the "Third Man" dealing with corruption after the finish of World War II fighting in Europe. While the Third Man was set in Vienna the "The Good German" finds us in a suburb of Berlin located in the Soviet occupational area. It is the time of the Potsdam talks. This was a three power meeting between Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman. The man who provides a sort of Joseph Cotton persona in The Third Man is played by George Clooney. Clooney is Jacob "Jake" Geismer a newsman attached to one of the news services who is there to cover the talks.

The U.S. Military has furnished Clooney an American officer's uniform to facilitate his passage between the Soviet and American occupation zones. It has also provided him with a driver, Tobey Maguire playing an American soldier, Patrick Tully, who we quickly learn is the epitome of corruption. He's dealing in the Black Market and is also involved in other shady deals. Tully has a mistress, a German girl named Lena Brandt played by Cate Blanchett. As an example of Tully's corruption he offers Brandt to Geismer if he wants to sleep with her.

When Geismer first sees Brandt in a shady bar it is obvious that he is very surprised. It develops that she worked for him when he was assigned to Berlin by an American news magazine before the war. Actually, she was more than just an employee since they had a sexual relationship as well. Finally we meet one more important player, Beau Bridges as American Colonel Muller. Muller has a key role in American occupation forces. He is trying to locate high level German scientists to get them to go to the United States before the Soviets get them into Russia. He is particularly interested in one scientist, a man who had an important role in the development of German rocket science, and specifically in the V2's that went up into the stratosphere and came down in Britain where they exploded with great effectiveness.

Lena Brandt has an important role in this scenario since her husband worked for the rocket scientist. She declares both her husband and the rocket scientist are dead. The film primarily deals with the search for both men, and a murder that is of particular interest to Geismer.

Tully has agreed to try and help Lena get out of Germany. He deals with both the Russians and Colonel Muller. The scenario is involved in that Muller assigns Tully to be Geismer's driver because he knows of the latter's pre-war relationship with Lena. He is hopeful that their pre-war relationship will lead to the location of Lena's husband and from him to the rocket scientist. Neither the Russians or the Americans really believe the two men are dead, but believe they are in hiding somewhere.

Geimer finally learns the truth from Lena and agrees to try to aid in her escape from Berlin. The closing scene is at an airport where the two talk together and a U.S. Military transport, the very familiar DC-3, warms up in the background. It's a nice touch to recall this same setting from "Casablanca." where Bogart says goodbye to Ingrid Bergman. It is a telling moment in "The Good German" for it is at this moment that Lena tells Geismer of her corrupt war time activities .

"The Good German" is a very successful invoking of the film noir technique. The lighting is outstanding with heavy shadows. The story is quite interesting, and the principles, primarily Maguire and Blanchett perform their roles to perfection. The film is a welcome addition to the repertoire that makes up the film noir genre.

Dick Gardner, Classic Films

Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 15, January 1983

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Charles Coburn and Jean Arthur

In the early 1940's Charles Coburn and Jean Arthur were co-starred in two of the finest comedies of that period. Coburn had been well received in the 1940 film "The Lady Eve" playing card shark Handsome Harry Harrington. In 1941 Colburn and Arthur were matched in the superb comedy "The Devil and Miss Jones." It was a period when labor strife was an important part of American culture and organizing workers was at the forefront. Two years later the two were reunited again another really fun comedy. By then the U.S. was involved in World War II. This picture was devoted to the home front, but was centered on life in Washington, D.C. and the problems entailed in going to that city in those days. Coburn received the best supporting actor award for "The Devil and Miss Jones." The similarities between the acting styles required for each film indicated that they could be properly reviewed in tandem.

The Devil and Miss Jones

Charles Coburn, as J.P. Merrick, is one of the world's richest men, a millionaire many times over with investments and operations in many areas. One of his properties is Neeley's, a big department store in New York city. There are problems at Neeley's. Many employees are disgruntled at not being treated fairly and are in the process of trying to get organized into a union. Merrick wants to get to the bottom of this union movement and hires a detective to snoop on the employees. When this plan falls through, he decides to get himself a job at the department store and do his own spying. He gets hired under an assumed name, Tom Higgins, but has problems right off the bat. First, he learns he was just able to pass the stores minimum standards relative to intelligence.

Problem number two occurs when he arrives at the store for his first day of work. He is assigned to Mr. Hooper, (Edmund Gwynne). Mr. Hooper is one of those supervisors who we all come up against at sometime in our careers, a low level supervisor with a strong inclination to throw his weight around. Mr. Hooper's area is shoes, but because Higgins/Merrick scored so low on the intelligence test he assigns the latter to slippers. There, Higgins meets Mary Jones played by Jean Arthur in one of her typical cheery helpful roles. She fills him on the routine and explains how to deal with Hooper, and lets him know when the lunch hour occurs. Merrick has a stomach problem which he tries to control by eating only graham crackers. When he tells her this she misunderstands the reason for his eating graham crackers and thinks he is just to poor to afford lunch. In sympathy, she forces him to accept a half dollar from her to pay for a regular lunch.

Robert Cummings is Arthur's romantic interest, Joe. At about this time, Joe creates a disturbance by chaining himself to radiator and starts yelling union propaganda at the top of his lungs. He doesn't work for Neeley's and is promptly escorted out of the store by William Demarest, who you might remember as one of Preston Sturgis' favorite actors.Miss Jones persuades Higgins to go to lunch with her. She introduces him to fellow employee, Elizabeth (Spring Byington), in a role not typical of her. Higgins is taken with Elizabeth and asks her to sit with him. Then, despite his stomach problems, he promptly eats all of her homemade tuna sandwiches. In their discussions, he makes up a history of long time employment at two different stores with layoffs between jobs.

Higgins'/Merrick's friendship with Miss Jones continues to grow. For one, he meets Joe and learns he is Jones' boyfriend. The three of them go to a Union meeting at the insistence of Joe and while there Jones gets up and makes an impassioned speech where she describes Higgins unfortunate situation, 55 years old, only two long term jobs, and includes his supposed poverty by her providing him with 50 cents for lunch and his having eaten all of Elizabeth's sandwiches because of hunger. The next days events include the failure of a setup that Merrick had worked out to sell some of the stores shoe inventory that can't be sold. This is very funny in that the buyer is a 12 or 13 year old girl that Merrick's servant at his mansion, played by S.Z. Sakall has brought to the store. The girl is a real brat and impossible to work with and forces Merrick to go through all kinds of gyrations to get her into a pair of shoes.

Impossible to imagine, but Higgins is persuaded by Jones to join her and Joe along with Elizabeth for an afternoon at Coney Island. There, jam-packed in with thousand's of beach lovers Higgin's whole life seems to unwind because of some unwitting mistakes. Eventually he ends up in court facing a charge which Joe makes even worse by launching an oppressing the workers speech. This is followed by a closure that finds the union organizers led by Joe having a meeting with Neeley's Board of Directors to discuss the Unions objectives. This is also done very cleverly with the board members thinking Mr. Merrick is sitting with them and the union organizer's thinking he is sitting with them. As you might expect, this results in the happy ending we knew was coming, but in a different fashion than we would have imagined. The film is dominated by Arthur with her characteristic way of delivering lines and with Coburn doing the same with his material.

The More, the Merrier

Two years later found Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn again in another new refreshing comedy. The setting is 1943 and deep into American participation in World War II. At that time the nation's capital was bursting at the seams with the growth in government employees and military personnel required for the successful prosecution of the War. The result was to make housing extremely difficult to come by. Jean Arthur plays Connie Milligan a secretarial type with an apartment in Washington. To help her make ends meet she has decided to sublet her two bedroom apartment and take in a border. Meanwhile Coburn in the role of Benjamin Dingle has come to Washington to contribute his expertise to the war effort. He is a retired millionaire. In those days, a millionaire was equivalent to a multi-millionaire today. Coburn is a dollar a year man. A dollar a year man, contributed his services to the government at the maximum income of $1.00 for a year's work.

Well, Mr. Dingle has discovered that though he wants to help the war effort, he is entirely unsuccessful at finding a hotel room. After struggling from place to place he spots Arthur's ad for a roommate. He goes to the apartment address while she is at work. He discovers a long line of prospective candidates for the room. Mr. Dingle's success in his work career was in motivational speaking. He featured a slogan "Damn the torpedo's, full speed ahead," which had been adopted in a previous American conflict. He puts this slogan to work this time by telling those waiting in line that the room has been rented, and proceeds to remove the rental sign. When Arthur comes home he convinces her of his trustworthiness and is accepted as her new tenant. She provides him with a list of special directions relative to using the bathroom, eating breakfast, and sharing these two facilitates. Coburn is really impressed with the list. Their resulting discussion is very entertaining.

Also arriving at Washington at this time is Joel McCrea playing Army Sergeant Joe Carter. Carter is carrying with him a new propeller concept which he is under orders to deliver to testing authorities. The propeller is quite large, about as tall as he is. If you recall Mr. McCrea, you will probably remember that he is well over 6 feet tall.

He is also having housing problems in Washington and fortuitously makes contact with Mr. Dingle who offers him the opportunity of sharing half of his sublet for a nominal rental fee. Miss Milligan is really shocked at this state of affairs and a long period of persuasion is built in the film to resolve this problem. She first becomes aware of Carter when she hears him singing in the bathroom while bathing. It is obvious what the end result will be. Three people sharing a two bedroom apartment are bound to have some difficulties in adjusting. As you may remember from "The Lady Eve," there are two long seduction scenes involving Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda.

There is a similar one in this film. In this case the seducer is Joel McCrea, and the recipient of his efforts is Jean Arthur. McCrea does a very fine portrayal of a man showing a single lady what love is all about and what the future might include. Arthur is single, and not only that is engaged to a conservative gentleman of 42 who wears a toupee. This seduction starts on the sidewalk as they are walking home and they observe other couples in war time, where things are often different, enjoying the pleasures of romance. She is luxuriously dressed in a formal evening gown. They had come together accidentally, and as they near home he finds himself more and more enchanted with her loveliness. He strokes her bare shoulders and whispers sweet nothings in her ear and eventually begins to kiss her as well. She tells him of her plans to marry her Mr. Pendergast who is older and steadier. Eventually they reach the front steps of her apartment building. Finally, she realizes that despite her enjoying his attentions, caresses and kisses, he is interfering with her lifetime plans. Like Wendy Hiller in "I Know Where I'm Going," common sense eventually takes control of her. Mr. Dingle has been encouraging this match making and following his own philosophy of "Damn the Torpedo's, Full Speed Ahead," his influence causes Miss Milligan to give up her dreams with very practical Mr. Pendergast for a far more romantic dreams with Joe Carter.

****

As a whole, the two films make a nice complementary double feature. Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn were both outstanding film performers. It's difficult to think of Arthur without two of her finest roles, as an entertainer in the Howard Hawks All Star production in 1939 "Only Angels Have Wings" and of course her wonderful performance as Van Heflin's wife in "Shane," a film that also is probably Alan Ladd's finest effort. Coburn made one other memorable comedy performance as mentioned earlier in "The Lady Eve." He is also remembered for one of his untypical roles as the sadistic doctor who amputated Ronald Reagan's legs in "Kings Row."

Dick Gardner, Classic Films

Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 14, December 1982

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The Singing Detective

Dennis Potter was a very innovative director, particularly noted for the way he incorporated music into his productions. What he does is use actual recordings and have the performers lip sync the lyrics. This is not unusual except in Potter's case he doesn't do it as you normally would, i.e. girl singing for a girl, but will have men singing women's parts, etc. This is very disconcerting when you first see and hear it, but like many things it grows on you as you adjust to it.

He had three big television mini series using this concept. The first of these was "Pennies From Heaven," which was a seven hour special on Masterpiece Theatre a number of years ago, and was set to the depression era music of the thirties. The Second Masterpiece Theatre production was "The Singing Detective," which used music popular during the war years. The third one is less well known, a four hour show called "Lipstick on Your Collar," which was set in the post World War II era and used the music of that period, i.e. The Platters, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.

In the "Singing Detective," which many consider to be Potter's finest work of this type, he tells three separate stories and they bounce around between segments and not in a clear and easy sequence to follow. The mini series starts in a hospital where Michael Gambon, in the lead role is hospitalized with a very debilitating skin allergy problem. He plays a man named Philip Marlowe, note the name, who writes detective fiction. During the run of the six hour production he mentally reworks one of his earlier crime novel's, "the Singing Detective," trying out different story ideas. This becomes the films second theme. In these imaginary scenes he becomes the detective he is writing about. He's called the Singing Detective because he does sing with a small group in a nightclub and at the same time is trying to solve a crime. There is a third segment as well that deals with Marlowe the writer when he was a child. The three parts, the hospitalization of Marlowe, the rewriting of his novel "The Singing Detective," and his life as a child are intermixed. Each has a particular theme. During the segment of Marlowe as a child you gradually become aware of major effects on his life at that time, the infidelity of his mother and his great love for his father and the latter of Philip.

Only one person figures in both the dream and fantasy sequences, Gambon, playing the hospital patient and the detective story novelist the Singing Detective. One other person figures in these two sequences, that is the English actor Patrick Malahyde, who plays a villain in both the childhood and fantasy segments.

Joanne Whalley and Imelda Staunton, Academy Award winner for best actress a couple of years ago, play nurses at the hospital. Bill Patterson plays the Hospital psychiatrist who is examining Marlowe's allergy as perhaps a product of psychological problems. This is partly confirmed because Marlowe the patient seems to be continually hallucinating. In one hospital segment he is pursued by a couple of the fictional characters from the rewrite he is working on.

In the youth portions, Marlowe's mother is played by Alison Steadman. Janet Suzman plays Marlow's wife, who he strongly dislikes. You may not know some of these performers, but you will recognize them if you have been a regular follower of Masterpiece Theatre on PBS.

A possible way to describe this whole long six hour TV series is "The Several Veils of the Singing Detective" in a take off on the Seven Veils of Salome and of the film made in the late 1940's starring James Mason and Ann Todd that was called "The Seventh Veil." In the latter film Todd plays a concert pianist and Mason is her guardian. The film starts with her throwing herself into the Thames in an attempt to drown herself. She is rescued and her life probed by a psychiatrist played by Leo Genn trying to isolate what is causing her bizarre behavior. In this process he gradually strips the veils that she had created around herself mentally to avoid something from her background.

As an example, the lip sync from the film version of "Pennies from Heaven, as performed by "Bernadette Peters, Steve Martin and Tess Harper to a Boswell Sisters recording might not be satisfying to many film enthusiasts as should be expected, however the cleverness of the writing and the interesting stories should be a stimulus. Ultimately, "The Singing Detective" is the hardest Potter production to follow, but if the viewer is willing to put in the time to analyze what he or she has seen they will be well rewarded.

Dick Gardner, Classic Films

Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 13, November 1982

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The Gestation of Classic Films

Classic Films was created back in October 1981 as a Special Interest Group (SIG) for the Mensa organization. Des Kennelley and I both worked for a company in the Aerospace Industry that specialized in space surveillance systems. I was working in the proposal development group responsible for developing management sections of company bids for government contracts. Ms. Kennelley was an editor in the publications department responsible for editorial proofing and correcting before the bid packages were sent to the potential government agency or sometimes major defense contractors that we were subcontractors to.

During our contacts we learned that we had a mutual interest in movies and that we were both members of Mensa. It was my thought that we should pool our smarts and put out a SIG publication which we named Classic Films. Starting with the two of us initially Classic Films continued to grow and eventually we added three additional writers. Since one of these was New York based and a second in Canada it broadened the base of our coverage.

We put out Classic Films for a little over six years. Since then it has sat in limbo until earlier this year when we were approached by one of our former subscribers from back in the 80's about putting the 60 or 70 issues on to the Fairview Collaborative website:

Classic Films

The Webmaster recently suggested that we could possibly update the work we did some 25 years ago with some current comments and perhaps reviewing more recent films. This has proved attractive and we have decided to pursue that event. The first such effort in this line was a piece which was done on the exceptionally focused English actress Wendy Hiller who made several outstanding films in the 40's and one Academy Award winning film in the late 50's. Ms. Hiller was principally a stage actress and reportedly was George Bernard Shaw's favorite actress having starred in two of his plays including "Pygmalion" which she also starred in on the screen.

We have a number of other pieces in mind which I'm sure will interest many of you.

Dick Gardner, Classic Films

Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 12, October 1982

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Preston Sturges

After spending nearly ten years writing for film makers, Preston Sturges, finally in 1940, achieved his goal of film directing. This resulted in the decade of 1940 through 1949 of eleven films some of which have come down as Classic's in the areas of dialogue and humor primarily based on dialogue but engaging visual incidents that add to a films hilarity quotient. It is a terrific collection of movies and one that led to adoption of similar writing and directing techniques still in use by directors, particularly those in humor. In this piece I will review evaluate ten Sturges films as typical of his best work. Only eight of the films will be from the 40's. I have decided to include two films that Sturges wrote dialogue for and which were products of the previous decade. Both of these film when I saw them were indicative of Sturgis's work just by listening to the dialogue of the actors playing roles in the films. The films will be discussed in order of their release dates. It might be worth noting that there is a lot of boyishness in Sturges pictures. By that I mean, two elements that are found in many of his pictures, are train trips and parades. These to me represent the preferences of young men, those still not in their teen years. I suspect their is some prejudice on my part since both miniature trains, and parades were a really likable part of my own youth.

THE FILMS

1. Thirty Day Princes (1934) This film was one of the items in a ten film DVD package of Cary Grant films. I had marked them as a package to consider buying, but my daughter surprised me by making it a Christmas gift. It included some of Grant's best films and also a couple that were not too impressive. Thirty Day Princess was an unknown product to me and started off rather interestingly with Edward Arnold and Henry Stephenson occupying adjacent tubs of a mud bath. From there we learn that Arnold is Richard Gresham a big time American banker from New York, that Stephenson is the King of one of those Ruritanian type countries that were usually placed in the Balkans, and that his daughter is the lovely Zizzi played by Sylvia Sidney. The rest of the film involves guaranteeing a loan to the King by Gresham's bank which will use Zizzi as the bait to get U.S. approval. The switch in this scenario is that Zizzi catches the Mumps when she arrives via ocean liner to the U.S. and Gresham is forced to find a substitute. The latter turns out to be a currently out of work small time actress who is called on to play the princess for 30 days. You can find a parallel to Barbara Stanwyck's apparent dual roles in the Lady Eve. Grant's role is pretty incidental in that he is a New York newspaper publisher who thinks the loan is a fraud, but unfortunately he also meets and falls in love with the Princess, actually Lane in Sidney's dual role. It takes just a short time to appreciate that this film bears the handprint of Sturgis's clever writing. Sidney is excellent and plays both of her roles very convincingly.

2. If I Were A King - 1938 I saw this film initially on TV a few years back, and again I didn't realize that this was also a Sturges effort. It's a period piece which is different from most of Sturges's work. The Beautiful Blond from Bashful Bend is the only other one I can think of, and it was set in the Wild West of about 125 years ago. If I Were a King is set in France in the middle to late 15th century and stars Ronald Colman as Francois Vallon. Much of the film has historical accuracy, or at least is based on events of the time. Vallon was indeed a poet of renown in France, but also he was a criminal, a thief and was also a noted murderer. He vanished from Paris after being banned because of some of his escapades when he was just 34, and was never heard from again. The film which is based on a historical novel develops the imaginary premise of his meeting with King Louis XI, Basis Rathbone, in a really out of character portrayal from him. The dialogue between Louis and Vallon is typical work by Sturges. Colman is his usual warm voiced self. Rathbone received a supporting actor nomination for his performance as Louis.

3. The Great McGinty -1940 This was Sturges's first effort under his own direction. Supposedly he offered the script to the studio for one dollar if they would allow him to direct it. How fortunate the studio agreed with this arrangement. I loved this film when I first saw it as a 13 year old in 1940. McGinty, Dan McGinty is played by Brian Donlevy. He is a down and outer in what I assumed was Chicago. He happens into an old time saloon where you could get a free lunch cold cuts, mustard, and bread for sandwiches. While there he is approached by a man who asks him if he would like to make a couple of bucks. This results in an introduction to the operations of a low level boss who pays men to show up at the poll and vote under someone else's name. McGinty likes this so well that he proceeds back and continues to pick up vouchers so that in the end he votes 21 times and earns $42.00. With that as a starting point it is the beginning of a career that eventually leads to his being elected governor, and after corruption is discovered he is forced to flee the city. Akim Tamiroff plays the corrupt boss. In what is the funniest scene to me, McGinty hauls off and socks Tamiroff and knocks him down. The latter surrounded by his henchmen gets up, mad, and finally says with humor this bum thinks he's me. This picture also has one of Sturges's parades and includes a train.

4. The Lady Eve This, in my book, is the greatest Sturges comedy of them all. As I mentioned earlier it involves Barbara Stanwyck playing two roles, card shark Jean Harrington, and fabulously wealthy English woman, Lady Eve Sidwich. Her opposite member in this love affair, which can only be cautiously called a love affair, is Charles "Hopsie" Pike, heir to the great Pikes' Ale fortune. There are so many humorous incidents in this film that it would take several pages to note just some of them. I will mention something typical of Sturges inventiveness. The Pikes Brewery is located in Connecticut and it's slogan is "Pikes Pale, the ale that won for Yale." There is no parade in the film but a wonderful sequence on board a train where Popsie learns the truth or rather some falsehoods from his bride Lady Eve. This culminates with his leaving the train in his pajama's and landing in a muddy pool or water. There are a couple of seduction scenes which are real classics in themselves, with the card shark Jean getting Hopsie all steamed up. This has to be seen to really appreciate both the acting and the dialog. The close is also terrific with Fonda apologizing for something while talking to Stanwyck in her cabin. He tells her he shouldn't be here, She asks why, and he responds since he's married. Her response, "But so am I, so am I."

5. Sullivan's Travels - 1941 Sturges followed up The Lady Eve with this film about the movie business. It features many of the standard supporting players used by Sturges in his previous films. These include William Demarest, and such lesser knowns as Franklin Pangborn playing way out of character and the similarly used Porter Hall. The stars are Joel McCrea playing Hollywood Director John L. "Sully" Sullivan who previously directed such light material as "So Long Sarong," and "Hey Hey in the Hayloft." Sullivan is scheduled to direct "Ants in Your Pants in 1939," and frankly refuses. He wants to do a film on poverty in the U.S. titled "Oh Brother, Where Art Though." Yes, the same film that the Coen Brothers produced in 2000. Sullivan starts his investigation of poverty and after an initial pitfall starts out a second time with "The Girl," Veronica Lake in her second film. On this occasion he loses his shoes from a thief while riding on a freight train. The latter is killed in a fall from the train and Sullivan is picked up as a vagrant, put in a southern chain gang where he is eventually rescued after being assumed to have been deceased. The film is far too involved to describe all the humor. It's really one that has to be seen to be believed.

6. Palm Beach Story - 1942 Sturges takes on a train ride again, this time from New York's Grand Central station to Miami. He followed up his successful production of the previous year with Joel McCrea again playing the lead role as inventor Tom Jeffers also known as Capt. McGlew. Jeffers has invented a new airport concept where an airfield is built right over the top of a city. Besides this ridiculous concept we have Jeffers being sued for divorce by his wife Geraldine "Gerry" Jeffers. On the trip south Jeffers is accompanied by some of the familiar Sturges supporting players including Jack Norton and William Demarest who are a couple of the members of the "Ale and Quail Club" who are traveling on the same train. Eventually Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor a wealthy brother and sister get involved in the story. Ultimately, there is a wedding scene that really defies description.

7. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek - 1944 This is the story of a young lady who gets drunk at a dance for service personnel, is accidentally knocked out and discovers in a few weeks that she is pregnant. The person who did the deed is apparently named RatzkySkatzky, but that's all she knows. The young lady known in the film as Trudy Kockenlocker is played very humorously by Betty Hutton. Trudy has a boy friend, Norval Jones, Eddie Bracken in his usual befuddled style. She also has kind of a smart aleck younger sister, Diana Lynn, and a father played by Sturges's most often used supporting player, William Demarest. To add to the improbability is a bit with Akim Tamiroff and Bryan Donlevy playing McGinty and the Boss from the "Great McGinty" film Add it all together it proves confusing, but the film is delightfully funny and well worth viewing. Perhaps it should be reminded that films depicting a fallen woman were never presented with such logical sympathy for Trudy's condition in those years.

8. Hail the Conquering Hero - 1944 Sturges returned to Eddie Bracken in this hilarious story about a 4F in World War II remade into a hero by a small group of marines led by William Demarest. Bracken's role name is a mouthful in itself, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith. Several of Sturges's other supporting players are in this including Jack Norton, for a change not playing a drunk, but rather as a brass band conductor. Franklin Pangborn runs and schedules the parade for Truesmith when the latter arrives by train with his new found Marine buddies. The female lead Libby is played by the largely forgotten Ella Raines. Per usual there is a lot of Sturges's usual clever dialogue.

9. Unfaithfully Yours - 1948 Some consider this to be Sturges's last great film. Rex Harrison plays famed conductor Sir Alfred De Carter. He is a man thoroughly impressed with himself but also very jealous of any attention shown to his beautiful wife, Daphne, a very different role for Linda Darnell. He suspects her of infidelity as revealed to him by Rudy Vallee in the role of August Heshler, his brother-in-law and has hired a private detective, Edgar Kennedy in one of his right on performances, to spy on Daphne to try to catch her in an infidelity. He thinks he has and the main core of the film rests in Harrison imagining how he is going to take care of the matter while conducting three classical works for orchestra. Finally trying to put his plan into action results in a whole series of screw ups. The film was not as popular as it could have been. At the time, though married, Harrison was having an affair with Carole Landis, who committed suicide about the time the film was released. This resulted in some negative publicity for Harrison and affected the film at the box office.


10. The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend - 1949 Betty Grable is the beautiful Blond Winifred Jones a dancehall girl back in the 19th century. Her boy friend is gambler, Blackie Jobero, played by Cesar Romero. Rudy Vallee in his third Sturges picture plays a wealthy mine owner. Finally, Olga San Juan is the final member of the cast leads. She is kind of an assistant to Jones but later in the film changes herself into Conchita, an Indian girl complete with faux Indian outfit including a pigtail and a feather in her hair. She is very funny. Porter Hall, one of the Sturges regulars plays a judge in the film and unfortunately for him is shot in the fanny by Jones forcing her to get out of town. This provides an opportunity for a Sturges train scene this time in a vintage layout. The two girls arrive in Bashful Bend where they are mistaken for the new school teacher and her assistant due to arrive about the same time. The film is not great Sturges work but includes some funny lines and features one of the greatest outlaw shoot-outs of all time. Thousands of shots are fired but no one is hit from either side. There are of course several other Sturges films, but these are the ones I enjoyed the most. Sturges seemed to lose his touch after this film and his productivity decidedly declined. In sum though he provided more laughs per capita than any other writer or director in Hollywood during those years, he seemed to burn out early.

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25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 11 from September 1982

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Fairview Collaborative review of Nobody's Fool

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