Bogie, High-Rise and another astonishing Philip Roth book - Reviews #232

Here's that update I promised.

FILMS



CINEMA: The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

“You go too far, Marlowe.”
"Harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom."

I saw The Big Sleep on the big screen for the first time, revelling in Bogie and Bacall’s badinage, the great gallery of desperate supporting characters – especially Agnes (Sonia Darrin), a wry, selfish accessory to blackmail who keeps betting on the wrong guy – and the sheer sardonic poetry of the dialogue, provided by no fewer than four exceptional writers: original author Raymond Chandler, legendary southern novelist William Faulkner, Hawks regular Jules Furthman and the extraordinary Leigh Brackett, who went on to co-write Rio Bravo and The Empire Strikes Back.

There’s an awful lot of plot, and the sets could be better, but this notoriously troubled production – two years in the making, with whole chunks of story chucked out and replaced by love scenes after it had already screened to troops overseas – is a heady proposition: sometimes sleazily, hazily nightmarish in the vein of Mulholland Drive, at others so frenetic and sarcastic that there’s nothing quite as much fun. While it’s not my favourite Marlowe film, and Bogart isn’t my favourite Marlowe (Murder, My Sweet and its star Dick Powell take those honours, and Altman’s The Long Goodbye gives this one a run for its money), there are new things to discover even on the fifth time round – the sixth if you count a recent viewing of the compromised original cut – including a throwaway line I’d missed that reveals just why Eddie Mars has held onto that crap henchman of his: it’s to keep the decent one company.

“My my, such a lot of guns around town, and so few brains.” (3.5)

See also: I've done a scene-by-scene breakdown of the differences between the pre-release and finished versions, on the off chance that you are also a big nerd.

***



In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009)

"Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult."

"'Climb the mountain of conflict'? You sounded like a fucking Nazi Julie Andrews."

"Within your purview? Where do you think you are, in some fucking regency costume drama?! This is a government department, not a fucking Jane fucking Austen novel."

"Yeah, apparently your fucking master race of highly-gifted toddlers can't get the job done."

This alternate-universe spin-off from The Thick of It is a little less specific, vitriolic, rapid-fire and British than the unimpeachable TV series that spawned it, but in dealing with the prelude to the Iraq War in that rough-edged, foul-mouthed, shamblingly cynical style, it comes armed with a hefty black comic edge that's simultaneously hysterical and chilling. Plus some of the best one-liners in the history of anything.

The story sees Tom Hollander as an ineffectual, gaffe-prone British government minister caught in a tug-of-war between the doves and hawks, as America limbers up for war.

Though not everyone is up to the standard of regulars Chris Addison, Paul Higgins and particularly Peter Capaldi (as the series' breakout character, psychotic spin doctor Malcolm Tucker), Hollander and a cameoing Coogan are in fine form, and at its sporadic best Armando Iannucci's satire is as funny as just about any film I've ever seen. (3.5)

***


This is actually one of the better bits of the film.

*MINOR SPOILERS*
Merry Wives of Reno (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1934) – A mediocre Warner Bros programmer in the studio's usual slangy style, with cheating wife Glenda Farrell causing two other couples to break up, sending Margaret Lindsay and Ruth Donnelly to Reno, with all the men involved (Donald Woods, Guy Kibbee and Hugh Herbert) pitching up too.

It's dated more poorly than most of the studio's comedies, with too much time spent on Herbert's familiarly irritating persona, and unfunny running gags about a sheep and a mentally fragile attorney, but there are a handful of very funny lines, and while the wonderful, fast-talking Farrell is largely wasted, Kibbee is good value playing his usual slightly pathetic ruddy-faced philanderer, and the great character comic Frank McHugh has a funny part as a hotel fixer, strolling off into the sunset with a wad of cash, two hotties in fur coats and that unmistakable 'one-two-three' laugh - as he called it - "Haaerrr haaerr haaerrrrr." The bit where he is chased by the sheep almost justifies that whole endless subplot. (2)

***



SHORT: Les mistons (Francois Truffaut, 1957) – Well this could be better. Truffaut's second film deals with the preoccupations that dominate most of his best (kids, eros, American gangster movies) without much of the instinctive genius evidenced by his debut feature, Les 400 Coups, released two years later.

Partly it's the bad dubbing, partly the charmless, faceless performances from a bunch of kids who never did anything else, partly the voiceover-itis that afflicts too many of his misfires, though at least the narratSuch ion here is erudite and in the first person.

Bernadette Lafont (later the star of the director's risible A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, arguably his worst film) is Bernadette, whose nascent love affair with the blameless Gerard inspires an explosion of confused, spiteful jealousy in the gang of pre-pubescent children who idolise her.

Shot outdoors, mostly in the woods but also in a striking, part-ruined amphitheatre, it's atmospheric but bitty, and hampered with curious gimmickry, including a sped-up sequence with a hosepipe that wouldn't look out of place in a Benny Hill episode (though he would have turned it on Lafont). Despite that, the 'shoot out' sequence is a little gem, and the ending is poetic and oddly profound, if not quite satisfying.

By 1959, Truffaut's ingenuity and innovation had reached a white-hot peak, allied to a pitch-perfect semi-autobiographical narrative of aimless adolescent alienation. That breathtaking film makes Les mistons look like the largely amateurish effort it is. (2)

***



CINEMA: High-Rise (Ben Wheatley, 2015) – Wheatley's supreme visual sense, gift for juxtaposition and staggering use of sound can't rescue Amy Jump's aloof, incoherent script, which is neither a capitalist critique nor a study of man: just a senseless, pointless wallow in moral and material degradation. The first 40 and the final two minutes are quite good, the rest is just extremely boring. Watch Skyscraper Souls instead. Or Attack the Block. (2)

***

BOOKS



The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004) – An astounding, chilling, completely believable piece of alternate history, with heroic aviator and fascist sympathiser Charles Lindbergh ascending to the US presidency in 1940 and agreeing an ‘understanding’ with Adolf Hitler. Against the slow-burn of burgeoning anti-semitism, the young Roth comes of age, while the older brother he idolises is co-opted by the establishment, his cousin is crippled by war and his parents are torn between pragmatism and self-respect. Occasionally the context that makes it so credible can drag, as you slog through the names and roles of those on opposing sides of the debate, but Roth’s gift for phrasing, impeccable personalisation of the narrative and jolting handbrake turns are beguiling to behold, while the unpredictable explosions of futile violence peppering the work are no mere plot devices, but rich manifestations of the irony central to Roth’s worldview. It's also the perfect time to read the book, as another racist demagogue approaches the White House on a wave of public euphoria. (4)



The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (2011) – When millions of people simply disappear in the Sudden Departure, the residents of a small American town try to come to terms with their losses, some looking for love, some going off the rails, others seeking answers or solace as they join cults like the Guilty Remnant or Holy Wayne’s Church of the Healing Hug. Perrotta’s novel, since adapted as an HBO mini-series, is very readable, excellently plotted and frequently moving, with memorable, sometimes surprising characterisations and a few superb vignettes, but its sense of humour is bafflingly blunt and broad considering it’s from the writer of the intensely funny Election, while the suburban backgrounds and preoccupations of its characters can be irritating and trivial, even as Perrotta uses them as a subversive counterpoint. Studying a major catastrophe on such a small-scale is a smart juxtaposition (Roth did much the same in The Plot Against America, above) but a re-draft cutting out some of the clichéd language and putting in a few decent jokes would have kicked this up a level. (3)



Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938) – A smug, underwhelming comic novel about journalism, with nature correspondent William Boot erroneously sent to cover a pre-war conflict that could have global ramifications. It's too much a self-satisfied hymn to language, with innumerable thin characters about whom it's difficult to care anything at all, though there are some funny passages, particularly in the mid-section. (2.5)



Hatchet Job by Mark Kermode (2013) – A lively, self-justifying polemic that's at its best when articulating its author's sheer love of film, but is ultimately both repetitive and shapeless, hopping from one subject to the next with a curious lack of narrative clarity, and grating when he ill-advisedly strains for comic effect. (2.5)



Duel in the Sun by Niven Busch (1944) – I read Busch's 1948 book, The Furies, last year and was impressed by his economic prose, sharp, shrewd characterisation and fatalistic plotting born of a bracing, cynical and deeply Freudian view of humanity - virtues familiar to anyone who's come across his peak-era screenwriting. A shame, then, that his earlier bestseller, Duel in the Sun, seems to be mostly descriptions of horses. The story sees fiery 'half breed' Pearl Chavez welcomed into the bosom of the powerful McCanles family, where her overpowering sexual connection to the nasty, feminine Lewt turns brother against brother, and unsurprisingly leads to cold-blooded murder. This one's a real slog, though, full of dislikeable characters, dense phrasing and tedious specifics relating to the minutiae of Western life, creating not a richly-textured evocation of a vanished world, more a shopping list of items seen on various ranches. Afterwards, you'll feel like a bath and probably something with which to prop open your eyes. Incidentally, the film adaptation (nicknamed 'Lust in the Dust') became one of the biggest hits of the decade, and gave Lillian Gish one of her few notable sound roles, as the gentle but opinionated Mrs McCanles, pickled by drink but still sure she knows what's best for her sons. (2)

***

TV



The Thick of It (2005-7) – Season 1 is an unpolished gem, Season 2 the programme at its darkest - the 'special needs' episode so extravagantly cynical and cruel that you may temporarily forget to breathe – and the specials slightly compromised by circumstance but a convincing, non-stop parade of back-stabbing, finagling and Machiavellian intrigue. At the centre of it all is Capaldi's exquisite, hard, impeccably nuanced performance, which could so easily have been cartoonish, but never is. Each of these early episodes is magnificent to some degree, though even better was to come. (4/4/3.5/3.5)



Elementary: Season 1 (2012-3) – One of the biggest TV-themed backtracks in recent memory concerned Elementary, the Conan Doyle update that followed lukewarm on the heels of BBC's Sherlock, sending Holmes to present-day New York and giving him an American, female Watson (Lucy Liu), a move that was ridiculed by everybody with access to a computer, telephone or broadcasting station. Imagine their surprise when it turned out to be really quite good. This first season takes a while to hit its stride, but the self-contained mysteries become increasingly neat and the warm, evolving friendship between recovering heroin addict Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and his sober companion (Liu) increasingly moving, helped by a pair of largely irresistible performances. Miller is occasionally gimmicky, Liu sometimes less than assured uttering putdowns, but mostly their story of mutual reliance and growing respect is persuasive and affecting, augmented by Miller's often intense emoting and Liu's innate implacability. The guest stars are largely a disappointing bunch (the first one I recognised was Vinnie Jones, and he couldn't act his way out of a Premier League midfield), though towards the end F. Murray Abraham adds some big-pored class to proceedings, a coup that augurs well for Season 2. I'm in two minds about the double-length final episode, with its ambitious reveal, but it certainly wasn't dull. And while the programme's look is rather too gory and murky for my tastes, the way it treats Holmes, his struggles and his addictions manage to warp Conan Doyle's creation without losing sight of who and what he is. A flawed but compelling first season. I'll be back for more. (3)



Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold (2008) – Between it being a late-night cult favourite and a dying staple of Saturday afternoon TV, this show managed to occupy a cherished place in the country's affections whilst also being pretty good. This first DVD captures that period of peak popularity, and while the programme had lost any teeth it had ever had and begun to lean on formula, it's still a diverting watch with a handful of massive laughs. "Marlon. Lanky Marlon." (3)

***

LIVE


(c) Christie Goodwin/Royal Albert Hall

CHVRCHES at the Royal Albert Hall (31 March 2016) - One of the best gigs I've seen at the Hall in my ongoing capacity as resident PR weasel: an irresistible collision of loud, satiating synth pop (in a Scottish accent), endearingly irrelevant between-songs verbiage and as much hopping, twirling and attention-swallowing stagecraft as you could possibly want. An intense, intensely enjoyable and extraordinarily cathartic experience. (4)


Probably the least interest thing in the exhibition... but the only picture I can find.

States of Mind: Tracing the Edges of Consciousness (Wellcome Collection) - This study of the fringes of the mind begins simply enough, with paintings representing synaesthesia and photos attempting to capture dreams, then becomes increasingly unsettling as it journeys through somnambulism, resistance to anaesthesia, temporary paralysis and memory disorders, augmented by eerie soundscapes and alarming, atmospheric installations. If you want to be terrified by reality, I would highly recommend going. (3.5)

***

Thanks for reading.

The Big Sleep as you've never seen it

*A FEW SPOILERS*
The Big Sleep: the pre-release version (Howard Hawks, 1945)



The Big Sleep is one of the most purely entertaining films of the 1940s, a zingy, slangy, sexy slice of film noir that takes full advantage of a classic Raymond Chandler story, a script by three of the best writers in Hollywood (including Leigh Brackett, who co-wrote Rio Bravo and The Empire Strikes Back), and Bogie and Bacall's sizzling chemistry.

Shabby detective Philip Marlowe (Bogart) is hired by the ailing General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to foil a blackmailing racket, and finds himself up to his neck in corpses and amorous dames, including the general's smoking-hot daughter, Mrs Rutledge (Lauren Bacall).

So far, so legendary.

The movie has a peculiar history, though. Originally wrapping in January 1945, just as Bacall's debut - To Have and Have Not - hit cinema screens and made her an instant sensation, The Big Sleep was ready for release by March of that year. But with World War Two nearing a close, Warner shelved the film as they rushed to release any and all propagandist flicks that would soon be rendered redundant. By the time The Big Sleep was reinstated for release in November, Bacall's second film - Confidential Agent - had come out, receiving savage reviews that suggested her career might be over as soon as it had started.



At that point, Bacall's agent, Charles K. Feldman, wrote to the head of the studio, Jack Warner, and urged him to take action: to add more scenes of Bacall, to scrap a scene in which she wore a veil (apparently because he didn't think she looked attractive in it, the mad bastard) and to chop various exposition in order to make way for the new material. Warner wrote back to him almost at once, saying that he'd been thinking exactly the same thing (Warner always said that), and Bogie and Bacall agreed to shoot the additional material if Howard Hawks would return to direct it.

The pre-release version (the one from March 1945, which actually played to US soldiers overseas) is available on the flipside of the Region 1 DVD, and is one of the most fascinating cinematic artefacts currently in popular circulation, the sort of bonus feature you dream about, if you're a massive nerd like me. It runs three minutes longer than the finished cut and has over 18 minutes of alternate material, including:

Reel 3



More footage of Marlowe searching Geiger's house. (This is a bit long-winded and was rightly cut for pacing reasons.) Alternate scenes with Marlowe and Carmen in the car, and a different conversation between the detective and his employer's butler. This was ultimately replaced with a superb, daring new scene in Bacall's bedroom that exploits the actress's feline sensuality and her leading man's sardonism (above), and gives the film a welcome injection of eroticism ("You go too far, Marlowe", "Harsh words to throw at a man - especially when he's walking out of your bedroom"). Some dialogue was overdubbed in Reel 4 to cover for the plot changes.

Reel 7



There's a full nine minutes of exposition, explanation and macho sparring in the 1945 version that was ultimately chucked out, with Thomas E. Jackson as a compromised D.A. and James Flavin playing a vaguely incompetent, Marlowe-hating police captain. In this cut sequence, Regis Toomey really comes through for Bogie, as Chief Inspector Bernie Ohls, getting him off the hook when it matters most. Toomey is excellent in the finished film too, but their bromance has much less to it without this chunk of story. Also, if you're someone who finds the finished film hard to follow (i.e. a member of the human race), then this passage should clear things up a bit. Having said that, you can see why it was snipped: whilst it's entertaining (and completely fascinating from a historical perspective), it's also a little slow and turns the movie into more of a procedural than you might expect. This sequence is followed by the notorious 'veil' scene, a piece of exposition in Marlowe's office that simply isn't very interesting, especially when compared to the scorching 'racehorses' passage that replaced it, taking place in the bar at Eddie Mars' casino and graduating from plot-point ticking to an awful lot of innuendo.

Reel 8

The scene where Mrs Rutledge is threatened by one of Eddie Mars' henchman was later redubbed to make her and Marlowe seem more familiar with one another, fitting with the more laid-back, sensual quality of the finished film.

Reel 9



The sequence in which Carmen is waiting in Marlowe's room was added for the theatrical release (she's sitting in his chair, fully-clothed (above), rather than naked in his bed, as she was in Chandler's novel and would be in the '78 version). There's also more information in the final film than in the '45 one regarding Mrs Rutledge getting the DA to drop the case. Here it's just a few lines. In the final film, Marlowe's feelings for her are given greater context, and he ultimately seems like a nicer guy. The '45 version does include a cool bit where Marlowe flicks his guns out of the hidden compartment on the dashboard, though.

Reel 11



Pat Clark, a bottle blonde with intimidating eyebrows and a rather artificial manner, plays Mrs Eddie Mars in the '45 version. She was unavailable for retakes and replaced by Peggy Knudsen, who's more sparky, energetic and believable (and attractive). Bacall gets fewer close-ups in the original, and they're shot from a less adulatory angle.

So there you have it. The 1945 version has a clearer plot, a couple of interesting additional characters, an alternate Mrs Eddie Mars and a stronger through-line for Bogie and Regis Toomey. For once, though, a messy production history and the interference of a powerful, nosey agent made a movie an awful lot better. The original cut is a very good film, but the final product is a classic, and a seamless-seeming one at that, flowing far more freely, easily and quickly than its earlier incarnation, and possessing an irresistible erotic charge that comes largely from those three extra scenes: two spotlighting Bogie and Bacall's badinage, and one casting further light on Carmen's character.

Still, many of the film's familiar virtues are already in place - like Max Steiner's stunning symphonic score (the way he underlines Elisha Cook's closing moments!) and that perfect closing shot, and it remains an extremely illuminating and valuable piece of film history: essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the Hollywood studio era.



See also: I did a similar piece on My Darling Clementine a few years back now.

***

Thanks for reading.

Maurice Chevalier, 22 Jump Street and old boxing movies - Reviews #191

Hello dear reader. I am on my summer hols, so I finally have time to tack up all these reviews that have been hanging around on my computer for aeons. Lucky you. This is the first of three - yes, three - upcoming updates.



CINEMA: 22 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2014) - This sequel to one of the most cheering surprises of the past decade goes the Gremlins 2 route, sacrificing a bit of heart and any minor semblance of reality for a lot of jokes – the overwhelming majority of them extraordinarily good.

Picking up with a brief recap of the first film (with the addition of an Annie Hall reference that later pays off in considerable style), 22 Jump Street sends undercover cops Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill to college, and pitches them into a hyper-intelligent, deliriously stupid, homoerotically-mannered meta-textual subversion of/homage to the original movie, every bit as clever, idiotic, intensely gay and pop culturally astounding as that sounds.

The gags are simply legion and many surely soon to become legendary, from Hill’s beautiful contention that “it’s so refreshing to have a black victim” to the references to his advancing years, an insanely brilliant trip scene, Tatum losing it entirely outside Ice Cube’s new office (which is like “a big cube of ice”) and a post-credits sequence that’s frankly the last word in post-credits sequences.

It’s nothing new in plot terms, but it also keeps telling you it’s nothing new in plot terms, which is something new. And if the slightly repetitive, bleak and overzealous mirroring of marital breakup that forms its centrepoint is no substitute for the real human emotion at the core of the first film, the prison stuff is basically just revolting, and it has a fair few lulls to accompany its immense sense of invention, it is at least brilliantly, bracingly and blissfully funny.

“Are you going to strangle me with your liver-spotted hands?” (3)

... and I'd rewatched this to prepare myself:



"What kind of bullshit do they say about cov... coviolent bonds in this school?"
21 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2012) - One of the nicest surprises - and the funniest films - of the past few years, with the creators of Cloudy, and screenwriter Michael Bacall, sending cops and best buds Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum back to school to bust a drugs ring.

The results are imaginative, intensely funny and just the right side of laddish, mixing sentiment, comedy and action with a smart subversive streak that extends to both meta parodies of the action-comedy genre and a brilliant, incisive examination of changing youth culture.

The stars are sublime, that YouTube video incapacitates me, and while the first half is better than the second, which gets a little bogged down in peril, plot and cameo, the pay-off - starting with Hill having to front up and take the killer shot - is just extraordinarily good.

So obviously I'm excited about next week and 22 Jump Street, whilst praying that Lord, Miller and Bacall keep away from the fratboy bobbins with which they briefly flirt here. Praying to Korean Jesus, naturally. (3.5)

***



Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932) - Mamoulian's musical masterpiece was at least a decade ahead of its time in terms of imagination and innovation, and still looks sensational today. Poking fun at Lubitsch's films in which millionaires masquerade as paupers, Mamoulian casts Maurice Chevalier as a penniless tailor mistaken for a baron by princess Jeanette MacDonald.

From the ingenious opening number - which seems to have influenced everything from Once Upon a Time in the West to Dancer in the Dark - it's an unstinting barrage of joy and invention, full of dazzling shots, hummable tunes and classic Lorenz Hart lyrics, with a gorgeous Myrna Loy just about stealing the show in her breakout role as a witty, sex-hungry countess. (4)

***



Delicacy (David and Stéphane Foenkinos, 2011) - A few sitcomish elements sometimes intrude - not least the improbable event that commences the central relationship - but this romantic comedy still doubles as a deep and resonant study of grief, with several unforgettable scenes, some very well-drawn characters and a magnificent performance from Audrey Tautou.

It's a film in which the female lead's best friend cries in happiness at her emotional rebirth, then makes the boyfriend feel like dirt when he isn't the vicariously enjoyable heartthrob she'd envisaged, a film where people hold a loyalty to people and events long past - despite how it's tearing them to pieces - and a film in which being polite about some soup is a one-way ticket to Sexytown.

A very good film, in other words. (3.5)

See also: I wrote a longer review the first time I saw Delicacy. It's here.

***



Everyone Says I Love You (Woody Allen, 1996) - I finally got Woody's musical on DVD (my ancient pan-and-scan VHS was looking a bit peaky), so it seemed ripe for a rewatch not long after my last one. It was also a first viewing in widescreen, meaning that the choreography and visual composition of the dance scenes made a little more sense.

This time around, Allen's romance with Julia Roberts fell the wrong side of creepy and a few of the characters and numbers got on my nerves, but the film remains fine entertainment - and parts of it are just pure cinematic magic, particularly that climactic song and dance on the banks of the Seine. (3)

***



Gentleman Jim (Raoul Walsh, 1942) - Mark Kermode quite often reviews a movie with the rather vague phrase: "It's not a great film, but it has great things in it." Well, that's Gentleman Jim.

The great things, almost exclusively, are the intoxicating, invigorating fight sequences, strikingly conceived and stunningly executed, as the art of boxing graduates from two meatheads smacking each other on wasteground, to relative respectability, thanks in no small way to Gentleman Jim Corbett (Errol Flynn), a fleet-footed, working class bank clerk sponsored by an aristocratic club.

The pièce de resistance is an intense, brutal slugfest on a riverside platform, but every single scene in the ring is marked by stylish photography, credible choreography and no small amount of panache, whether in the extended set pieces or the flashes of freeze-framed, overlayed action in the various montages, which still look startlingly modern.

Taken as a whole, the film isn't quite a contender, let alone a champ. Flynn is fun but rather one note in his favourite role, the story has little dramatic tension outside the ring, and the film is full of extremely grating comic relief - which even intrudes on the fight scenes at times.

It all looks great, though, thanks to Walsh and cinematographer Sid Hickox's eye for detail, while Ward Bond gives surely his finest - and possibly his biggest - performance as legendary prizefighter John L. Sullivan. If his boxing style is perhaps a little cartoonish, he atones in the beautifully tender presentation sequence near the close, which is followed by Flynn and Alexis Smith's touching heart-to-heart as the film finally serves up two scenes away from the ring that can compare to those inside it. (3)

***



*MINOR SPOILERS*
Invisible Stripes (Lloyd Bacon, 1939) - This is a surprisingly effective mix of social drama and crime film, not because it's from Warner Bros - who specialised in both - but because it starts off so unpromisingly, and stars George Raft.

Raft, a genuine hood spotted by a talent scout while the future star was scouting land for the mob, has always been among my least favourite classic actors, along with Joan Crawford and Charlton Heston. He's good in Scarface and cleverly used in Some Like It Hot, but elsewhere he's simply a plank of wood with an almost immobile face and an inability to generate any emotion beyond intense dislike.

I may have to make one of my periodic about-faces, though, as Raft is very persuasive here, playing a parolee who struggles to get a job once he's out of the big house, then becomes re-acquainted with his old mobster mate (Humphrey Bogart) as he strives to keep his callow brother (William Holden) on the right path, and out of the pen.

After a promising opening scene, the film becomes waylaid by some syrupy, over-written domestic drama, featuring another of Holden's characteristically terrible early performances. Was there ever an actor who improved so much - or so suddenly - as Holden, who some time in the late '40s got some cynicism, some stubble and some meaty roles, and became one of the key American screen actors of the 20th century.

But as Raft gets brutalised, patronised and ostracised by a succession of employers and co-workers, the film starts to grab a hold of you, and doesn't let up or let go, even when he starts robbing banks, and all realism goes out the window. Though the ending is essentially dictated by censorship restrictions of the period, in which all wrong-doing must be punished, its fatalistic air works largely in its favour, even going so far as to anticipate film noir.

In support, Flora Robson has some fine moments in a rather clichéd part as Raft and Holden's saintly mother ("When they were little I could always help them. I could pick them up when they fell down...", sob), and Bogart enjoys perhaps his best role of the '30s: an agreeably nuanced part bridging the gap between his straight out villains and the anti-heroes he would play from High Sierra onwards.

Invisible Stripes is predictable and preachy, with a rather hackneyed backdrop and some weak sequences, but it's also compelling for much of its length, with fine work from Bogart and Raft, and a few enduring things to say about how society breeds and treats its criminals. (3)

***



Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, 1937) - It's in the standard studio fodder, rather than the prestige pictures tailored to her talents, that you can truly see what a special performer Bette Davis was.

In Kid Galahad, a boxing film made about a decade before Hollywood learnt how to do them properly - exploring the fighter's psyche in classics like Body and Soul, The Set-Up, and Champion - she injects middling, even hokey material with both a wit and an enrapturing sincerity, as a conflicted, selfless moll knocked out by the hand of fate.

While everyone else is in a slightly superior gangster movie; Davis's film is timeless, an arresting, heart-wrenching tale of mutual reliance cast to the wind, crippling self-sacrifice and unrequited passion. The scene in which she packs her bags and attempts to leave Robinson contains some of the finest acting I've ever seen: remarkably modern and naturalistic. As in The Man Who Came to Dinner, another film where she played a supporting part, there are no histrionics and there's no grandstanding, she's just real - and really brilliant.

Director Michael Curtiz (or more likely his studio paymasters) must have known Davis was on the cusp of greatness - and of superstardom - as she's afforded the final shot here, despite playing essentially a supporting character who doubles as a plot catalyst.

Robinson is a fight promoter who builds and manipulates the career of a naive farm boy (Wayne Morris) with a good right hook. Fresh-faced Jane Bryan is Robinson's sister, for whom he has somewhat Scarface-ish protective tendencies, and Humphrey Bogart plays Robinson's gangland rival, the actor still stuck in villainous parts that largely required him to wince and bare his teeth. Rounding out the cast is Harry Carey, John Ford's first leading man, playing the now familiar role of the weather-beaten old trainer.

The plot is both predictable and rather corny, but the film as a whole is slick and entertaining, with good performances and a memorably nauseating pugilistic climax, fuelled by what I think we can safely call homoerotic sadism, with Robinson at his absolute best, shifting between panting malice and chubby-faced encouragement.

Kid Galahad is more a gangster picture with a ringside seat than a real boxing film, while its fight scenes, though commendable, pale alongside its '40s rivals (let alone Raging Bull). It's also rife with contrivances, right down the line. But if you're an old movie nerd looking for solid studio product, with a top-notch presentation and a cracking cast - including Bette Davis at her best - then you'll find yourself very much in luck. (3)

***



Seven Ways from Sundown (Harry Keller, 1960) - Audie Murphy's character in this film is called Seven. I wish I was called Seven. And Seven Days from Sundown is just a great name for a film, if not for a man.

The movie as a whole is one of a slew of interesting Audie Murphy Westerns made in the '50s and '60s, forming a loose, cool gang with those offbeat, complex and mature Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott starring vehicles shot around the same time. Seven Ways from Sundown starts poorly, but just gets better and better.

The baby-faced Murphy - in real life the most decorated American soldier of World War Two - plays a dogged, baby-faced Texas Ranger who tracks and then babysits a charming, loquacious killer (Barry Sullivan), little imagining that the toothy, reptilian bastard just murdered his brother. (Incidentally, what the film does with that information creates a stunningly astute counterpoint to the overtly, often overly personalised approach taken by so-called "revenge Westerns".)

The studio-shot footage here is seriously garish and ugly, and the acting has regular recourse to woodenness (Murphy's love interest is simply terrible), but Sullivan delivers a fine spin on a familiar character, and the sensational game of psychological cat-and-mouse between hunter and quarry - as mutual antipathy turns to homoerotic admiration - keeps it afloat during some spells of dodgy dialogue, aided by a few punchy, cleverly-conceived action interludes.

There's also one early, almost iconic shot of the star: his foot resting on the stone grave he's just made, his titular figure framed against the mountains and the grey-blue sky. It's actually just a set-up for some uninspiring gunplay, but in hindsight a sign that the film is about to burst into rather glorious life. (3)

***



Son of Rambow (Garth Jennings, 2007) - Two lonely, fatherless kids - one a troublemaker, the other a God-fearing mummy's boy - bond over a shared love of First Blood, and decide to remake it, but with the addition of an evil scarecrow.

Garth Jennings' hymn to friendship, film and the 1980s is best when rooted in the real - and articulating the upbeat - less effective when opting for (amusing but incongruous) comedy interludes concerning a cool French kid, or serving up a good half-hour of authentic but excessive human misery.

It is original, though, within the constraints of its formulaic structure, while exhibiting an invention, a humanism and a heightened sense of humour that reminded me of Danny Boyle's Millions, right down to the third act wobble.

From the sporadic flights of visual fantasy to Jessica Stevenson's heartfelt performance as a protective, conflicted mother, it's a movie studded with admirable attributes, if not ultimately an entirely successful film.

It's basically like Super 8 but English and good and with a flying plastic dog that attacks Adam Buxton instead of aliens. (3)

***



Catfish (Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, 2010) - A shy, improbably handsome photographer in his 20s befriends an eight-year-old painter and then begins a passionate online affair with her beautiful, artistic older sister - a relationship that seems too good to be true. And is.

This documentary is unquestionably seminal - having added the term "catfished" to the lexicon - and is by turns entertaining, disingenuous, tacky, poignant, sensationalist, exploitative, intrusive, funny and weird (that chat on the cable car - shudder).

Because while it has something to say about the way we create online personas (after all, I'm really an eight-year-old girl), it's really a story of extremes: extreme naïvete, extreme self-delusion and ultimately extremely dubious investigative journalism that's fuelled by a search for answers but completely fails to engage with the rather serious questions it raises about mental illness.

It's sustained as far as it is by the novelty value of its story and the way that tale was tracked every step of the way, rather than being a particularly proficient piece of filmmaking, though it's ultimately worth seeing, if only to engage with the enduring debate about its themes, its potential fakery and its undeniable rubbernecking. (2.5)

***

Thanks for reading.

Buster, Bogart and idolising New York City out of all proportion - Festival blurbs

The World's Smallest Film Festival took place at Rudding Park, near Harrogate, on Sunday. Myself and Harrogate International Festival programme co-ordinator Graham Chalmers picked the six black-and-white movies: Sherlock, Jr was my choice, The Artist was his, and the other four emerged from a 10-minute discussion in the work canteen. For the programme, he penned blurbs about The Thin Man, Les Quatre cents coups and The Artist, while I wrote the other three, which I thought I might as well peg up here.



Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924, 45 min) - A cinema projectionist (Buster Keaton) falls asleep on the job and dreams of being a brilliant detective – entering the screen itself to solve a jewel theft – in this groundbreaking comedy. Having served an apprenticeship under "Fatty" Arbuckle, Buster branched out on his own in 1920, unleashing a succession of dizzyingly inventive shorts that blended technical wizardry (The Playhouse saw him play no fewer than 25 parts) with devilishly clever incidental gags and astonishing stuntwork. He made his first feature in 1923 and reached his creative zenith the following year with Sherlock, Jr, a 45-minute comic masterwork that begins with whimsy and wonder, toys with the very nature of cinema and climaxes with some of the most extraordinary physical feats ever attempted on screen. Having been tossed around a vaudeville stage by his parents from the age of three, Buster was – in the modern parlance – as hard as nails, and when the water tower opens on him, you are watching a man having his neck broken. He didn't notice until the 1930s. Sherlock, Jr influenced the surrealists and formed the template for Woody Allen's classic 1984 film, The Purple Rose of Cairo, but, more importantly, it's a rollicking good ride, and still feels remarkably fresh and modern almost 90 years on.

(PS: When @Silent_London recently asked followers to nominate their favourite silent comedy, I sent this tweet, which, to my delight, they read out on this superlative podcast.)



Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 min) - Casablanca is a great advert for chaos. Its script was still being written as it was filmed, it came in $100,000 over budget and Warner belatedly decided to re-shoot all the scenes featuring As Time Goes By, only to find that they couldn't, as Ingrid Bergman had cut her hair. Now regarded as the definitive screen romance, it's a vivid, unforgettable and lushly-shot film (think of the tears shining in the leading lady's eyes) that sees bar owner Humphrey Bogart, ethereal Norwegian Bergman and resistance leader Paul Henreid play out a love triangle in the titular city - which is increasingly overrun by Nazi forces. The leads are sublime, just about every line of the wise and witty script has echoed down the years and there's perhaps the finest supporting cast ever assembled for a film, from Claude Rains and silent movie legend Conrad Veidt to Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, John Qualen, Dooley Wilson and S.Z. Sakall. All together now: "You must remember this..."



Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979, 96 min) - There are some sublime moments in Annie Hall, but really it's a bit of a mess. It was from 1979 that Woody Allen began firing on all cylinders, making a successful transition from those "early, funny films" (his words) to more thoughtful, affecting fare, and embarking on a devastating purple patch largely unrivalled in the history of American writer-directors. Surely only Buster Keaton or Preston Sturges have ever close to matching Allen's 13 years of unbroken brilliance, taking in films like The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanours. Manhattan, with its gorgeous black-and-white cinematography (spotlighted in that classic planetarium set-piece), wonderful Gershwin score and climactic concession to subtle sentimentality, is one of his most distinctive and appealing movies, tracking the romantic entanglements of a group of New York intellectuals (surely not!) in characteristically sure-footed and amusing style. There's a knockout of a supporting performance from Mariel Hemingway – playing Woody's 17-year-old girlfriend – and it all builds to a typically inspired pay-off. Just lovely.

Arthur Christmas, investment bankers and the most fun you can have while laughing* - Reviews #92

*I'm paraphrasing Woody Allen, and quite poorly at that. This batch of reviews is a veritable grab-bag of diverse stuff I found lying around in my room or at the cinema: a new movie, an old favourite, heaps of shorts (by which I mean short films), a romcom and a film in which Steve Coogan attacks someone with a swivel-chair. I think I've sworn a couple of times in a desperate bid to get in with the cool kids, so if that's likely to offend, please do proceed with caution.



CINEMA: Arthur Christmas 3D (Sarah Smith, 2011) - This is Aardman’s best full-length film to date, trumping Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (disappointing), Chicken Run (annoying) and Flushed Away (set down a toilet). It’s a great mix of myth-making, heart and visual humour that sparks into life with a spectacular early sequence showing a high-tech present drop by hundreds of highly-trained elves. Fast, funny and inventive, it sets the tone perfectly. Writing to Santa, six-year-old Cornish girl Gwen has asked a few tricky questions, but the film is happy to answer them, creating a cleverly-devised, believable world that features a whole family of Father Christmases: past, present and future. There’s 70-year-old Santa Claus (Jim Broadbent), who’s just going through the motions, his father (Bill Nighy) – a crotchety old sexist – and his two sons: good-hearted, clumsy Arthur (James McAvoy), and Steve (Hugh Laurie) – solid management material, if a touch unfeeling. Steve’s finely-tuned, tech-savvy Christmas Eve operation is something to behold, but when he accidentally overlooks one child – Gwen – it’s up to Arthur and a ragtag band of festive misfits to save the day.

It’s an unusual film, in that it has no love interest and no real baddie. But, co-written by director Sarah Smith and Peter Baynham – who has had a hand in landmark comedies from Fist of Fun to The Day Today and Borat – it’s deft, amusing and imaginative, with intelligent plotting and the odd concession to pitch-black humour, taking in the Blitz, the Cuban Missile Crisis and possible death in the desert. Not that it’s a dark film: quite the opposite. It’s simply joyous, glowing with a love of Christmas (like Arthur’s slippers), stuffed full of jokes (like a stocking) and – aside from the word “cookie” (they’re called biscuits) – possessing that certain idiosyncratic Britishness we’ve come to expect from Aardman (like Wallace and Gromit). The frenetic set-pieces are a wow, the sentimental message is never mawkish and the voicework is very impressive, particularly from Broadbent and the scene-stealing Jane Horrocks. Indeed, all of the elves are unfailingly hilarious, while rarely has a film generated so many laughs from the combination of old man and dustbin. (3.5)

***



Thank Your Lucky Stars (David Butler, 1943) is perhaps the most purely entertaining movie ever made. A slight plot – songwriter Joan Leslie tries to help crooner Dennis Morgan land a benefit gig with egomaniac Eddie Cantor – is simply an excuse for a glut of brilliant Loesser-Schwartz songs, star cameos and specialty numbers. Dinah Shore does three lovely vocals, including The Dreamer, Morgan and Leslie duet delightfully on I'm Riding for a Fall, and a host of Warner Bros stars turn up for unlikely guest spots. Bette Davis sings (and briefly dances) to They're Either Too Young or Too Old, Jack Carson and Alan Hale perform the vaudeville-flavoured North, and Errol Flynn – sporting a fantastic handle-bar moustache – dances the funniest jig you've ever seen, as a drunkard outrageously overstating his war record in That's What You Jolly Well Get. S.Z. Sakall and Edward Everett Horton buzz about fretting, Cantor does a couple of tunes while playing a dual role as himself and a tour guide who hates Eddie Cantor, Ann Sheridan pops up in a nightie, Bogart gets bullied by Sakall and uses the phrase "movie fans” and George Tobias, Ida Lupino and Olivia de Havilland are introduced as if they're about to provide some highbrow entertainment, before launching into a pig-Latin version of The Dreamer. There's also Spike Jones playing a song on some pans, Alexis Smith whirling around in a nightclub, John Garfield performing a tongue-in-cheek Blues in the Night full of gangster patter, a walk on from director Butler and maverick producer Mark Hellinger, and Hattie McDaniel and Willie Best doing an energetic, Harlem-set number about a cool would-be bride called Ice Cold Katy. Two hours of pure joy. It's as much fun as you can have with a DVD player. (4) (I had this in my last top 100, at #100.)


Bugs sort of half kind of does his bit for the war effort.

The "Warner Night at the Movies” feature is a wonderful DVD extra, providing the full programme (minus a B movie) that you might have seen with a film upon release: a smorgasbord of fun-size curios. They're usually amazing, though this one was a little below par, perhaps because they're mostly tub-thumping things about the war. The Vintage Newsreel (1.5), about the Hollywood Canteen, is shot from too far away and had no sound, though I did see Joan Leslie in the distance at one point. Three Cheers for the Girls (Jean Negulesco, 1943, 3) is a fun short that nabs some footage of chorines from various Warner musicals – most directed by Busby Berkeley – then frames it with (supposedly) the same girls sitting in their dressing rooms singing about their status. The excerpts are just that – they miss out key passages of the numbers – but it's still good fun, and a welcome reminder of just how brilliant the staging of that solitary song in Fashions of 1934 is. At the end it goes all propaganda-y in a way that makes no sense. The United States Navy Band (Jean Negulesco, 1943, 1.5) is pretty weak as these things go, with unmemorable music and lots of stock footage of Washington a. Food and Magic (Jean Negulesco, 1943, 2.5) is a fairly entertaining public information film, with Jack Carson explaining that a woman in the audience has wasted several billion tonnes of bread. I think she's emblematic of America, because it seems unlikely that one person could have done that, or that she wouldn't be in jail if she'd done so during a war. Falling Hare (Robert Clampett, 1943, 2) is a disappointing cartoon pitting Bugs against a malevolent little gremlin who likes to wreck aircraft. The story doesn't really make sense – it seems to be a propaganda film without a message – though it's notable for one eerie bit where the plane flies over an American city, and heads directly for two twin skyscrapers.

***


This man is about to look like a twat.

Inside Job (Charles H. Ferguson, 2010) - Excoriating polemic about the recession, explaining in crisp and clear detail what went wrong, who was to blame and what happened next. It's brilliantly-researched, cleverly assembled and forcefully-argued, though there is a slight issue with the selective and possibly disingenuous editing used to stitch up some apparently deserving interviewees. While it's revealing to see the dean of Columbia Business School drop his mask and spit: "You've got three minutes, so give it your best shot", I'm not exactly sure what the ethics are regarding that. Still, it's a vital film: passionate, infuriating and darkly funny, while serving as required viewing for anyone who still has the merest vestiges of trust in the financial sector, or indeed economics itself. "I had to revise a textbook" must be the worst excuse ever for leaving a key post at the Federal Reserve during a financial meltdown. (4)

***



The Parole Officer (John Duigan, 2001) - Pedestrian comedy-thriller that marked Steve Coogan's starring debut on the big screen. He's the title figure, who recruits some newly law-abiding ex-cons for a bank job after he's framed for murder. It's amiable enough, there are a handful of smile-worthy moments (the fight scene using office equipment is good value) and the film generates some suspense by taking its story surprisingly seriously, but the characters are poorly defined - aside from Stephen Dillane's bent copper - and that rollercoaster set-piece is just crap. It's always funny when future stars turn up in bit-parts and you wonder just how hard the producer is kicking himself for not giving them more to do. Here, Simon Pegg has a walk-on as "deflated husband", while Olivia Colman appears for all of 10 seconds, and isn't allowed to speak. (2.5)

***



Only You (Norman Jewison, 1994) - Pleasant "Rome-antic" comedy (yeah, I'm good) that's rather less than the sum of its parts. Marisa Tomei is a hopeless romantic who's held out her whole life for a man she's never met: Damon Bradley. Aged 11, she got his name via a ouija board, then had it confirmed by a plump mystic. When - 14 years later - she finally buckles and gets engaged to a foot doctor, she's congratulated on the phone by one ... Damon Bradley, and hotfoots it to Italy hot on his trail. It's a fun idea, but the film isn't particularly funny or romantic - it should have spent far more of its 100+ minutes on the relationship between Tomei and charming man-about-town Robert Downey, Jr. (who is wearing more make-up than her) - and its screwballish plotting is largely predictable. It does have some virtues, though: Tomei's extremely likeable, atypically sensitive characterisation, slick direction from Moonstruck helmer Jewison and photography by the legendary Sven Nyqvist, shooting in Venice, Rome and rural Italy. And Downey, Jr.'s impression of Gregory Peck made me laugh. (2.5)

***


He's behind the eight ball. If you don't know what that means, you haven't watched enough old movies.

SHORT: So You Want to Wear the Pants (Richard L. Bare, 1952) - Another outing from the Joe McDoakes series, which couldn't be more '50s if it starred Stanley Matthews as a Teddy Boy and Korean War draftee with a stack of Bill Haley 45s and a crush on Marilyn Monroe. It doesn't, more's the pity. Instead, George O'Hanlon has a row with his wife about who works harder, then they wake up in each other's bodies and a minimal lack of hilarity ensues. It's kind of bleak, though the way this series can take a promising premise and then accidentally mislay it on the way to the credits is truly remarkable. (1.5)

***


Something amusing but quite hard to fathom is about to happen.

SHORT: Terrier-Stricken (Chuck Jones, 1952) - Passable Tom and Jerry knock-off, which never bothers to introduce its characters' relationship, meaning that we're rather at sea when they start playing tricks on each other. Kind of alright. (2)

My 100 favourite movies of all time

From October 2009, I counted down my 100 favourite movies on the Harrogate Advertiser website, with little blurbs and everything. Changes to the site mean the list has since lost its formatting, but the text is all still on there if you're interested, beginning here and concluding here.

The other day I decided to freshen up the list, throwing in 21 new entries. There's no Godfather, Detour, Cry Danger or In Bruges, but then space was tight.

My 100 favourite movies of all time

1. Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940) - pic above
2. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1943)
3. Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994)
4. Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)
5. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
6. Les enfants du paradis (Marcel Carne, 1945)
7. Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings, 1945)
8. Cinema Paradiso: Director's Cut (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988/2002)
9. Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990)
10. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Elia Kazan, 1945)

11. The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
12. It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
13. Stars in My Crown (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
14. Blessed Event (Roy Del Ruth, 1932)
15. The Dead (John Huston, 1987)
16. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
17. Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960)
18. The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
19. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
20. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)



21. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (Ernst Lubitsch, 1927) - pic above
22. How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1940)
23. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
24. The Long Day Closes (Terence Davies, 1992)
25. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1947)
26. Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)
27. My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)
28. The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke II, 1934)
29. Listen to Britain (Humphrey Jennings, 1942) - SHORT
30. Up (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, 2009)

31. Spare Time (Humphrey Jennings, 1939) - SHORT
32. A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 1944)
33. Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
34. A Thousand Clowns (Fred Coe, 1965)
35. The Snowman (Dianne Jackson and Jimmy T. Murakami, 1982) - SHORT
36. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
37. Ball of Fire (Howard Hawks, 1941)
38. Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985)
39. The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
40. Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935)



41. Louisiana Story (Robert Flaherty, 1948) - pic above
42. In My Father’s Den (Brad McGann, 2004)
43. I Love You Again (W. S. Van Dyke II, 1940)
44. The Silent Village (Humphrey Jennings, 1943) - SHORT
45. Whistle Down the Wind (Bryan Forbes, 1961)
46. Le Doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1963)
47. The Wind (Victor Sjostrom, 1928)
48. Wagon Master (John Ford, 1950)
49. The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940)
50. The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992)

51. Les quatre cents coups (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
52. A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1986)
53. One False Move (Carl Franklin, 1992)
54. Becket (Peter Glenville, 1964)
55. Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
56. Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah, 1962)
57. Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996)
58. The Railway Children (Lionel Jeffries, 1970)
59. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
60. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)



61. The Killer (John Woo, 1989) - pic above
62. A Star Is Born (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)
63. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
64. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1984)
65. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935)
66. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies, 1988)
67. Broadway Melody of 1940 (Norman Taurog, 1940)
68. Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941)
69. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
70. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

71. The Iceman Cometh (John Frankenheimer, 1973)
72. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952)
73. The Sorrow and the Pity (Marcel Ophuls, 1969)
74. Charlie Chan at the Olympics (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1937)
75. Kiss Me Kate (George Sidney, 1953)
76. Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, 2006)
77. Pixote (Hector Babenco, 1981)
78. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
79. Hail the Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges, 1944)
80. Three Smart Girls (Henry Koster, 1936)



81. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955) - pic above
82. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
83. The General (Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1926)
84. Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)
85. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
86. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
87. The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
88. Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
89. Born Yesterday (George Cukor, 1950)
90. Judge Priest (John Ford, 1934)

91. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
92. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
93. Went the Day Well? (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942)
94. His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
95. Bugsy Malone (Alan Parker, 1976)
96. Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
97. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
98. Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948)
99. Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953)
100. Thank Your Lucky Stars (David Butler, 1943)

Goodness me, I really like films.

***

Some stats:

Decade-by-decade breakdown
1910s - 0
1920s - 5
1930s - 11
1940s - 27
1950s - 12
1960s - 11
1970s - 7
1980s - 11
1990s - 9
2000s - 7
2010s - 0

Most represented directors: John Ford (7), Humphrey Jennings (4), Ernst Lubitsch (3)
Number of foreign-language films: 10
Number of musicals: 8
Number of documentaries: 7
Number of films in which Humphrey Bogart plays himself and uses the phrase "movie fans": 1
Number of films starring Eddie Bracken: 1

A goldmine of flubbing bloopers

By Rick Burin



Remember the scene in Jezebel where Bette Davis finds out that the love of her life has married? “You’re funnin’,” she says incredulously. “Hardly,” he replies. Davis pauses. “Well I’m a son of a bitch,” she says. If that isn’t quite how you recall it, don’t worry. It's just how it appears in the Warner Bros ‘Breakdowns’, the blooper reels that reveal the cursing and corpsing behind some of the greatest films ever made.

The Breakdowns comprise fluffed lines, pranks and in-jokes omitted from Warner movies. They were compiled annually by the studio's social club, open to all Warner employees, and from 1935 to 1949 formed the centrepiece of the group's Christmas party, held at LA's Biltmore Hotel. The reels are now surfacing on DVD.

Film historian Leonard Maltin says the Breakdowns are revealing because they are genuine. “Back in the 1930s the studios protected their stars, quashed scandals-in-the-making, coordinated and supervised their interviews with the press, and even scripted their banter when they appeared on radio shows as ‘themselves’,” he says. “Given that, the opportunity to catch a glimpse of Bette Davis or James Cagney flubbing lines, and seeing how they respond to the situation, is fascinating.”

Bogart and George Brent seem prickly and short-tempered, while Cagney laughs off his mistakes. Pat O’Brien appears to enjoy slipping up: whether he’s forgetting dialogue, choking on a drink, or pulling off his own hairpiece during a fight. Bette Davis, meanwhile, is engaged in a running battle with the wardrobe department. She trips over her costume, complains she can’t move her head without her wig falling off and spoils an otherwise exemplary take by becoming caught on a co-star’s buttonhole. Edward G. Robinson, so frequently cast as a pitiless gangster, looks most affable, often grinning widely after a gaffe.

“The Breakdown reels are a very insightful view into the overall spirit of Warner Bros in its formative years,” says Warner’s George Feltenstein. “No other studio could let their hair down and have a little fun at their own expense the way this company did.”

Much of the material is extraordinary. There’s Gary Cooper breaking off from his Oscar-winning performance in Sergeant York to wonder: “That’s sure some accent I’ve got” and Carole Lombard destroying the delicate artifice of cinema as she sits down to a supposedly sumptuous screen meal. The food’s too tough to cut, she says, laughing, and it’s not warm.

The Breakdowns capture the breakneck pace of filming, with actors repeating a single line until it’s passable. The sense of fun on the lot is evident in the stars’ jokes. Errol Flynn responds to a dialogue cue by retorting: “Who the hell’s happy about getting a wife back?”, while convicts James Cagney and George Raft opt for a waltz instead of a punch-up in Each Dawn I Die, only for prison warden George Bancroft to weigh in. “Say, just a minute,” he says, “this is supposed to be my dance.”

As well as contracted players, stars loaned to the studio also appear, like James Stewart and Claudette Colbert. There are specially-filmed inserts too, including a Porky Pig animation that begs the question: does it feel more inappropriate to hear Porky or Jimmy Stewart say “son of a bitch”?

For fans of classic movies, the Breakdowns are a goldmine. They present an alternate universe where stars mangle their sparkling banter, Western heroes can’t climb on their horses and the sexual tension of Dark Victory evaporates as Bogart’s brooding stablehand somehow contrives to burn himself on a boiler. And in which other ‘30s film can a socialite return from a concert and regale party guests with this account of her evening: “Absolutely magnificent: seven curtain calls, the banquet on the stage, the farewell to Toscanini… ah balls!”

Eight ‘Breakdowns’ are available across the Warner Gangsters, Vol. 2 and Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection Vol. 2 box-sets (only available on Region 1 DVD). Breakdowns of 1938 appears on the Adventures of Robin Hood DVD in the UK.
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This article was published on p. 4 of the Guardian's Film and Music section on September 5, 2008, and can also be viewed here.