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The
great producer Samuel Goldwyn is perhaps
best remembered for his many contributions
to American colloquialism, in other words,
his mangling of the English language.
Consider some of these pearls that are
attributed to Mr. Goldwyn:
“Include
me out!”
“Two
words … im possible!”
“A
verbal contract isn't worth the paper
it's written on!”
“Anyone
who goes to a psychiatrist should have
his head examined!”
Those
are the best known “Goldwynisms,” but
I'm partial to these:
“When
you're a star, you have to take the bitter
with the sour.”
“What
we need now is some new, fresh clichés.”
“Every
director bites the hand that lays the
golden egg.”
“Flashbacks
are a thing of the past.”
And
then there's this comment, which he allegedly
uttered upon the death of his bitter enemy
Louis B. Mayer: “The reason so many people
turned up at his funeral is that they
wanted to make sure he was dead.”
Now,
some contend that Mr. Goldwyn's quaint
sayings were the product of his top-notch
publicity department rather than his own
spontaneous quips; in any event, they
obscure his very great contribution to
our film heritage, for Samuel Goldwyn
was perhaps our most outstanding independent
producer.
David
O. Selznick is sometimes given this herald,
but take a closer look. Most of the great
Selznick productions were made while he
was a studio executive at Paramount (THE
FOUR FEATHERS), at RKO (KING KONG, LITTLE
WOMEN), and at MGM (DINNER AT EIGHT, DAVID
COPPERFIELD, A TALE OF TWO CITIES). In
1936 he founded Selznick International
Pictures, his independent company, and
over the next four years he did produce
A STAR IS BORN, NOTHING SACRED, GONE WITH
THE WIND and REBECCA, and while he made
other films after 1940 (notably NOTORIOUS
and DUEL IN THE SUN, both in 1946), Selznick
was for all intents and purposes finished
by the mid-Forties, dedicating himself
to the career of his wife, actress Jennifer
Jones.
Goldwyn,
on the other hand, made his own independent
movies from 1923 through 1959, with a
commitment to quality rare in Hollywood.
He was born Shmuel Gelbfisch in Warsaw's
Jewish ghetto in 1879, moved to England
looking for a better life when he was
sixteen, Anglicizing his name to Samuel
Goldfish. He made his way to America in
steerage and ended up in upstate Gloversville,
New York, where he entered the glove business,
eventually making his first fortune. In
1910, he married Blanche Lasky, whose
brother Jesse was a vaudeville producer.
It was Jesse who convinced his brother-in-law
about the potential of the new moving
picture business, and partnered with novice
director Cecil B. DeMille, they produced
THE SQUAW MAN (1914), filming in a sleepy
Los Angeles suburb called Hollywood. THE
SQUAW MAN helped established that burg
as the movie capital of the world, and
the firm of DeMille, Lasky and Goldfish
were on their way.
The
rambunctious Sam Goldfish was soon squeezed
out of the company (which, with new partner
Adolph Zukor, eventually became Paramount
Pictures), and, after divorcing Blanche,
he partnered with New York theatre man
Edgar Selwyn, combining their surnames
to form The Goldwyn Company in 1916. Sam
then officially changed his own name to
Goldwyn; for years, Hollywood wags reflected
on his other name possibility –
Samuel Selfish!
The
Goldwyn Company grew rapidly and Sam teamed
with Metro Pictures and producer Louis
B. Mayer to start Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Pictures in 1923 … but once again, Sam
was bought out before the merger. It was
at this point in his career that Goldwyn
vowed to never take partners again, and
in his new company, he had no one to answer
to … unless it was to his wife Frances,
half his age, who he married in 1925 after
a four-week courtship.
Throughout
his career, Goldwyn had an unyielding
commitment to quality and a begrudging
respect for talent – the best writers,
the best directors, the best everything.
Gregg Toland (CITIZEN KANE), greatest
of cinematographers, was under contract
for years, as was music composer Alfred
Newman and production designer Richard
Day. On several occasions, Goldwyn scrapped
a film already in production if he was
unhappy with the results (THE DEVIL TO
PAY, NANA, THE BISHOP'S WIFE), and rarely
produced original screenplays, relying
instead on proven novels and plays. Releasing
briefly through First National, then starting
in 1925 through United Artists, then,
after 1940, through RKO, Goldwyn had a
thorough grasp of marketing and advertising.
During the silent era, he produced hit
romances teaming Ronald Colman and Vilma
Banky. During the Depression, Colman carried
the weight of the Goldwyn dramatic vehicles,
while Eddie Cantor's musical comedies
gave the producer million dollar grosses.
His contract players in the thirties and
forties included Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins,
David Niven, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo,
Danny Kaye and Joel McCrea (whose name
Goldwyn pronounced as “Joe McCrail”).
He routinely engaged Hollywood's highest
priced screenwriters, including Ben Hecht,
Sidney Howard, Lillian Hellman, George
S. Kaufman, Edna Ferber, and Preston Sturges
(Goldwyn thought his name was
“Preston Sturgeon”!).
Goldwyn's
greatest collaboration was with director
William Wyler. It was a stormy relationship,
but from 1936 to 1946, it yielded brilliant
pictures – THESE THREE, DODSWORTH,
DEAD END, WUTHERING HEIGHTS (Goldwyn thought
it was called WITHERING HEIGHTS), THE
WESTERNER, THE LITTLE FOXES, and their
penultimate work, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR
LIVES, which won Goldwyn his long coveted
Academy Award for Best Picture as well
as the Irving G. Thalberg Award (Goldwyn
pronounced it “Tallboy”).
The
definitive biography, Goldwyn ,
was written by Scott Berg and published
by Alfred A. Knopf in 1989. It's a fantastic
read about a fascinating personality and
pioneer.
This
month, MGM Home Video is releasing seven
Goldwyn titles (all priced at a friendly
$14.95) that are a wonderful representation
of the producer's Golden Age output:
ARROWSMITH
( 1931): Banking
on a best-selling novel, Goldwyn bought
Sinclair Lewis' Pulitzer Prize work, hiring
playwright Sidney Howard to write the
script about an idealistic doctor's journey
from farmland to the big city to plague-ravaged
tropics. John Ford had directed several
acclaimed silent films (THE IRON HORSE,
THREE BAD MEN, FOUR SONS) and made a relatively
smooth transition to talkies with 1929's
THE BLACK WATCH and 1930's MEN WITHOUT
WOMEN; Goldwyn saw his great potential
and borrowed Ford from Fox to direct ARROWSMITH.
It was the director's first truly “prestige”
project and gave his career a tremendous
boost. Ronald Colman is somewhat miscast
as idealistic country doctor Dr. Martin
Arrowsmith, but he has such charisma (as
well as the most mellifluent voice in
the movies) that one can overlook the
choice. We also get a rare chance to see
Broadway legend Helen Hayes in one of
her few screen roles, as Colman's devoted
wife. ARROWSMITH was nominated for Best
Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best
Cinematography and Best Interior Decorations
(art direction), and indeed the DVD gives
us a great look at Ray June's sterling
camerawork and Richard Day's forced perspective
sets. It's also a key film for John Ford
aficionados, many of whom may not be familiar
with the picture.
WE
LIVE AGAIN (1934): Once again
we have Goldwyn hiring a top director
– in this case Rouben Mamoulian,
fresh off QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933), LOVE
ME TONIGHT (1932) and DR. JEKYLL AND MR.
HYDE (1932) -- on a prestige literary
project, an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's
Resurrection scripted by Preston
Sturges, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Maxwell Anderson, and veteran screenwriter
Leonard Praskins. Fredric March, who had
won an Oscar for JEKYLL AND HYDE under
Mamoulian's direction, plays Prince Dimitri
in turn-of-the-century Czarist Russia,
a young man whose socialist ideals are
corrupted by a decadent life as a military
officer. March had an absolutely
remarkable screen career in the Thirties,
beginning with his early Paramount pictures
ROYAL FAMILY OF BROADWAY (1930), LAUGHTER
(1930), Lubitsch's DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933)
and Leisen's THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK (1933)
and DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY (1934), before
embarking on an independent run of hits
for a variety of studios, beginning with
WE LIVE AGAIN – La Cava's THE AFFAIRS
OF CELLINI (1934), Brown's ANNA KARENINA
(1935), Boleslawski's LES MISERABLES (1935),
LeRoy's ANTHONY ADVERSE (1936), Hawks'
THE ROAD TO GLORY (1936), Wellman's A
STAR IS BORN and NOTHING SACRED, Garnett's
TRADE WINDS (1938), DeMille's THE BUCCANEER
(1938) and the aforementioned Mamoulian
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. These films epitomize
the decade's standards of filmmaking quality,
and March's performances remain fresh
and modern.
Even
more than Mamoulian's direction (check
out the opening montage and the seduction
scene), March's rich performance,
Gregg Toland's camerawork and Goldwyn's
impeccable production value, WE LIVE AGAIN
is distinguished by the presence of the
Russian actress Anna Sten. Goldwyn desperately
wanted his own Garbo, his own Dietrich;
when he saw Sten in a German version of
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV (1931),
he signed her to an exclusive contract,
brought her to Hollywood, started the
publicity machine rolling, and spent millions
trying to make her a Garbo-Dietrich star.
He cast her first in an adaptation of
Zola's NANA (1934); unhappy with the picture,
he shut down production, changed directors
and started from scratch. The picture
bombed. Mamoulian had directed both Garbo
and Dietrich, and Resurrection
was a Russian story, hence WE LIVE AGAIN.
The picture bombed. NANA and WE LIVE AGAIN
were period pictures, so next time Goldwyn
tried a contemporary story, THE WEDDING
NIGHT (1935) starring his discovery opposite
no less a box office draw than Gary Cooper.
Once again, the picture bombed –
critics called it “Goldwyn's Last Sten”
– and Goldwyn gave up.
The
irony is that all three Anna Sten/Goldwyn
pictures are excellent, and she really
was a very fine actress … some have pointed
out that she possessed many of the qualities
of the young Ingrid Bergman, another foreign
actress imported and groomed for stardom
by a headstrong indie producer –
in her case David O. Selznick.
I think Goldwyn was simply ahead of his
time. When he launched Sten on an unsuspecting
public, audiences were still reeling from
the Depression and preferred more populist
actresses like Joan Crawford, Ginger Rogers
and even Mae West. Ingrid Bergman didn't
make her first appearance in American
movies until 1939, and only really clicked
in 1941-42. At any rate, WE LIVE AGAIN
is a rare title well worth seeing for
Sten's transition from sweet naïf to hardened
prostitute as well as for its other virtues.
WE
LIVE AGAIN is also the source of my all-time
favorite Goldwynism. Visiting the set
one day, Goldwyn saw that Fredric March
was depressed over his clearly supporting
role. “Freddie,” Goldwyn offered, “You
got the best part in the picture.” Suddenly
Goldwyn noticed that Anna Sten was within
earshot. “And Anna,” declared the producer,
“You got the best part too.”
BARBARY
COAST (1935): Goldwyn fared
better with this rollicking tale of Gold
Rush days in 1849 San Francisco. Originally
announced as a Gary Cooper-Anna Sten vehicle
to be directed by Wild Bill Wellman, the
Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur has more than
a passing resemblance to Von Sternberg's
MOROCCO (1930), Dietrich's first American
movie. World-weary woman of mystery Miriam
Hopkins gets off the boat in an exotic
port (Frisco) and is kept by a rich rogue
(Edward G. Robinson) while falling in
love with young stud Joel McCrea (in MOROCCO,
the parts were played respectively by
Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou and Gary Cooper).
Howard Hawks keeps the proceedings lively,
with lots of foggy nocturnal ambience
beautifully photographed by Ray June,
lavish Goldwyn saloon sets and period
recreations, and an especially excellent
reel in which the local vigilantes wreak
their vengeance. Edward G. Robinson's
ripe performance as the King of the Frisco
Underworld is lusty and entertainingly
overblown; while Hopkins and McCrea keep
their work pretty natural, we're treated
to a quirky performance by a young Walter
Brennan as Old Atrocity, as well as an
effectively sadistic Brian Donlevy. Don't
blink and you'll see David Niven come
sailing through the saloon doors into
the muddy street. I've always been fond
of BARBARY COAST – it's great, cheesy
fun and as you'd expect, never looked
better.
COME
AND GET IT (1936): For me, this
is the real gem of this batch of Goldwyn
titles. Edna Ferber's novel dealt with
loggers in northern Wisconsin raping the
forests for personal gain, with the character
of Barney Glasgow the main architect of
the environmental massacre. Goldwyn eviscerated
the controversial aspects of the novel
and instructed screenwriters Jane Murfin
and Jules Furthman to focus on Glasgow's
personal ambition.. Goldwyn once again
hired Howard Hawks to direct, who in turn
commissioned second unit director Richard
Rosson to film real logging operations,
terrific footage that is liberally used
in the movie's first half hour. After
Goldwyn arch-enemy Louis B. Mayer refused
to loan Spencer Tracy, Goldwyn settled
for Edward Arnold as Barney – Hawks
elicited his finest performance in a career
that included heavy roles in three Capra
classics – YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH
YOU, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON and
MEET JOHN DOE.
As
the film begins, Arnold works timber with
his loyal Swedish sidekick, played by
Walter Brennan, who was given the first
Best Supporting Actor award for his work
here. Arnold falls for a tough maid, and
just when we think they're going to get
hitched, Arnold bails and marries the
uptight daughter of the logging company
boss, securing his future millions. Brennan
marries the broken hearted bar maid and
20 years pass. Arnold is rich and miserable
with his shrewish wife (Mary Nash) and
two earnest kids (Joel McCrea and Andrea
Leeds). Arnold goes back to the northwoods
to visit Brennan, whose wife has
died, but not before leaving him with
a stunningly beautiful daughter who is
the spittin' image of his dead wife. Arnold
falls for the girl and proceeds to embarrass
himself in front of family and friends
as the girl falls for McCrea. Hawks wanted
to create a new star for the dual role
of the bar maid and the daughter, and
he found her in Frances Farmer, who is
absolutely luminous in this movie, by
far her best screen work.
The
plot of this picture may not sound like
much, but in the hands of Hawks and his
talented cast, it's a stunner. The only
problem was that Goldwyn was in Europe
for much of the filming; when he returned
and saw the dailies he flipped out. Hawks
loved to work up bits of business and
improvise new dialogue on the set, and
this is the very reason why so many of
his movies play so spontaneously today
(e.g. BRINGING UP BABY, ONLY ANGELS HAVE
WINGS, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, TO HAVE AND HAVE
NOT). Goldwyn believed strongly that writers
should write and directors should direct,
and he took Hawks to task. The two men
quarreled, and depending on who you believe,
either Hawks quit or Goldwyn fired him.
Since William Wyler was under contract
to him, Goldwyn demanded he finish the
picture, which Wyler did under protest.
It's been estimated that approximately
the first hour is Hawks, the last half-hour
Wyler. It all meshes beautifully, and
that is a tribute to Goldwyn the producer.
COME AND GET IT consequently has a shared
directorial credit by two of the greatest
movie directors of all time; it's something
of a forgotten Thirties masterpiece, full
of life and emotion.
DEAD
END (1937): Wyler was on DEAD
END from the get-go -- he and Goldwyn
actually saw the Broadway show together
-- and it's one of their best. The Sidney
Kingsley play about poverty and crime
on Manhattan's East Side was a huge Broadway
hit, and although Wyler wanted to shoot
on Gotham locations, Goldwyn dictated
that the tenements be recreated on his
Santa Monica Boulevard soundstages. Richard
Day's sets are pretty astounding, although
legend has it that Goldwyn would clean
up the set every morning because it was
too dirty; once he left or the day, Wyler
would restore the artificial soot and
grime. This is the movie that introduced
the original “Dead End” kids – Billy
Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan,
Gabriel Dell et al – recreating
their Broadway roles. After DEAD END they
moved on to Warners for another “A” picture,
ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (included in Warners
new gangster collection; see last month's
column), and a couple of B's before
moving to Universal and then eventually
to Monogram, where their super-low-budget
comedy entries became double feature staples
well into the Fifties, and Saturday morning
TV fare for a generation after that. So
the Dead End Kids became the East Side
Kids and eventually the Bowery Boys, but
DEAD END is a document of their birth,
and they give the film its greatest asset.
The
other performances range from very good
– earnest architect Joel McCrea
and perpetual Child of the Depression
Sylvia Sidney – who hated Wyler
for his inarticulate direction and insistence
on take after take – to really great
… Humphrey Bogart as Baby Face Martin,
local boy turned Public Enemy One, coming
home to see his ghetto-weary mother, Marjorie
Main (only to be slapped in the face)
and his childhood sweetheart, Claire Trevor,
who has become a streetwalker. Miss Trevor
was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting
Actress for DEAD END; I interviewed her
in her apartment at New York's Hotel Pierre
on March 10, 1983:
JOHN
GALLAGHER: How would you rate the Goldwyn
Studios against say, MGM?
CLAIRE
TREVOR: Sam Goldwyn Studio had the reputation,
and it was true, of doing everything with
absolute perfection, real style and class.
Metro knew how to build stars, I think,
better than any other studio. It seems
that most other studios got stars by accident
and kept them alive but Metro nurtured
people and built them and created them.
JG:
Did you have the experience with William
Wyler on DEAD END of doing take after
take, or did his reputation for that come
about later on?
CT:
William Wyler to me was pure gold. I loved
working with him. Bear in mind I'd
made fast pictures with directors, some
who were new and didn't know really what
they were doing, and he was a real pro
and a genius, a man of taste. The night
before I was supposed to shoot he said,
“You better come down to the studio about
eight o'clock.” But I had no wardrobe,
so we went through the wardrobe department
together, those racks and racks of thousands
of clothes that they gather through the
years, and he picked out a sleazy looking
black satin dress. He said, “Try that
on,” I put it on, he said “Yeah, I like
that, that's good.” Maybe it needed a
little fitting. I had long blonde hair
then, and he said, “A hat, we'll get a
hat.” We looked through the hats, picked
out a hat, and he said “I want you to
wear stockings because I want them to
have runs in them, and high-heeled broken
down shoes, an old purse.” We got shoes
and an old purse, and he said, “When you
go to bed tonight, get up in the morning
and don't comb your hair. Come
to the studio exactly as you get out of
bed.” I wore no makeup, just some eye
makeup and some lipstick, that was it.
I felt dirty and run-down and awful, and
it was marvelous. He told me explicitly
what he wanted. He gave me a wonderful
feeling of the whole thing. I wished that
scene had gone on forever. I could have
worked with him for weeks. It only took
a day and a half. A day and a half to
shoot. I was so disappointed. I was through
at twelve the next day! I just adored
it. He was just great.
JG:
What was Bogart like?
CT:
Well, Bogart was one of our very best
friends, my husband (Milton Bren) and
me. I almost could never ever describe
him to you because he was something so
special, so wonderful, and I hated his
whole end, it was so horrible to me and
my husband. They asked me to be in a documentary
quite soon afterwards. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't talk about him. There's so
much to say, it would take two books,
you know? And how can I get up and just
say a few words about him? Impossible.
DEAD
END was considered a progressive social
document in its day, emphasizing the evils
of tenement housing and the corrupting
influence of crime. It was nominated for
Best Picture, Trevor's performance, the
Toland photography and the Richard Day
set. This is a must for Bogart, Wyler
and Bowery Boys fans. If you've never
seen it, make this a permanent part of
your collection; if you have, I doubt
you've seen a print of this quality.
STELLA
DALLAS (1937): In 1925, Goldwyn
guaranteed the life of his company by
producing the ultimate tale of mother
love, a melodrama that audiences could
relish and relate to. Olive Higgins Prouty's
novel STELLA DALLAS was the vehicle, a
five star tearjerker directed by Henry
King, starring Belle Bennett and a young
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The 1925 STELLA
DALLAS became one of the highest grossing
movies of the silent era, impacting moviegoers
with what might be considered today a
cross between TERMS OF ENDEARMENT and
LOVE STORY. STELLA DALLAS was reportedly
Goldwyn's favorite movie, perhaps as much
for its box office receipts as for its
unabashed sentiment.
In
1937 he produced a sound remake, and was
smart enough to hire King Vidor as director,
casting Barbara Stanwyck in what would
become her favorite role. Yet again, Goldwyn
spared no expense to tell the story
of a wild heart (Stanwyck) who finds herself
in the throes of motherhood. I don't want
to say too much about the plot if you
haven't seen the movie, other than to
say that if this film doesn't touch you,
you need to seek professional help. Stanwyck's
Oscar-nominated performance (she inexplicably
lost to Luise Rainer for THE GOOD EARTH;
the other nominees that year were Garbo
for CAMILLE, Janet Gaynor for A STAR IS
BORN, and Irene Dunne for THE AWFUL TRUTH),
the presence of wonderful Anne Shirley
as Stanwyck's cherished daughter and Alan
Hale as Barbara's well-meaning but boorish
boyfriend add immeasurably to the proceedings.
Bottom line here –- if you want
some high quality, beautifully characterized,
magnificently produced, sensitively directed
cinema starring the exquisite Barbara
Stanwyck … then STELLA DALLAS is the movie
for you … and I challenge anyone to maintain
a dry eye for the justifiably famous finale.
ENCHANTMENT
(1948): This is a real old-fashioned
love story, set in London, backlot Hollywood-style,
with the story told through the “eyes”
of a British townhouse. David Niven and
Teresa Wright play star-crossed lovers,
with Farley Granger and Evelyn Keyes as
the next generation lovebirds. There's
a fairly dazzling finale set during the
London blitz, but this isn't one of Goldwyn's
best; he obviously was trying to recapture
some of the magic of 1939's WUTHERING
HEIGHTS but director Irving Ries is no
William Wyler. This movie was made towards
the end of the Goldwyn dynasty, with contract
players Niven and Wright, and cinematographer
Gregg Toland, doing their last picture
for the producer. ENCHANTMENT is perhaps
most interesting as Toland's swan song,
with his typically dazzling manipulation
of light and shadow on full display. He
died of a heart attack at age 44 at the
completion of the shoot.
THE
WARNER COMEDY COLLECTION :
Yes, Warner Home Video has done it again,
film fans. Just check out the titles in
this box set: DINNER AT EIGHT, LIBELED
LADY, TO BE OR NOT TO BE, and three of
the very best Katharine Hepburns … STAGE
DOOR, BRINGING UP BABY, and THE PHILADELPHIA
STORY. In fact, Warner is fast overtaking
Criterion Home Video as the number one
DVD purveyor of classic cinema; the argument
is eloquently put forth at www.Slate.MSN.com/id/2114143.
Their
comedy set is yet another vast embarrassment
of cinematic riches, chockfull of quality
extra features. Here we go …
DINNER
AT EIGHT (1933): MGM production
chief Irving Thalberg gave the studio
a huge hit and a Best Picture Oscar with
the 1932 drama GRAND HOTEL, with a large
part of the film's success attributed
to the all-star cast – Greta Garbo,
John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery,
Joan Crawford, Jean Hersholt, Lewis Stone.
When David O. Selznick joined MGM and
father-in-law Louis B. Mayer the following
year, he took a cue from Thalberg and
produced DINNER AT EIGHT, with another
all-star cast that proved Metro's boast
that they had more stars than there are
in heaven. Selznick chose the George S.
Kaufman-Edna Ferber stage hit and director
George Cukor to film it, and the result
is one of the delights of the Golden Age
of cinema, as a diverse group of actors
prepare to gather at the home of Lionel
Barrymore and Billie Burke for the titular
repast. Like GRAND HOTEL, the real fun
here is in the performances: John Barrymore
as the washed-up ham actor; motor-mouthed
Lee Tracy as his flack; Marie Dressler
as an aging diva; and especially boorish
Wallace Beery and his gold-digging, two-timing
wife Jean Harlow. The DVD includes the
trailer, a Vitaphone parody, COME TO DINNER
(1933) and an excellent Turner documentary
on Harlow (HARLOW: THE BLONDE BOMBSHELL),
hosted by Sharon Stone, loaded with clips
from most of her movies, including the
extremely rare early Universal talkie
THE IRON MAN (1931).
LIBELED
LADY (!936): While DINNER AT
EIGHT can properly be called a comedy-drama,
or, as Danny Peary termed it “a serious-at-the-core
comedy,” LIBELED LADY is out-and-out screwball
comedy, a sparkling romantic gem with
a luminous MGM cast – William Powell,
Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy and once again,
Jean Harlow. The Powell-Loy combo plays
magnificently off Tracy and Harlow, and
Walter Connolly fulfills the father-of-the-rich
girl role he perfected in Frank Capra's
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) and Tay Garnett's
SHE COULDN'T TAKE IT (1935). The plot
is secondary to the star power, with all
the actors at their youthful prime, perfectly
directed by MGM workhorse Jack Conway
(RED HEADED WOMAN, VIVA VILLA!, A TALE
OF TWO CITIES). We're also treated on
this disc to a 1936 radio promo, LEO IS
ON THE AIR and the theatrical trailer.
STAGE
DOOR (1937): Like DINNER AT
EIGHT, RKO's STAGE DOOR was based on a
Kaufman-Ferber Broadway hit, this time
about a Manhattan theatrical boarding
house for young actresses, the fictitious
Footlight Club (for the record the address
cited in the movie is 87 West 58 th Street).
Director Gregory LaCava was notorious
for improvising on set, even with a high
pedigree text; the result always seemed
fresh and spontaneous, whether he was
directing comedy (THE HALF NAKED TRUTH,
MY MAN GODFREY, FIFTH AVENUE GIRL) or
drama (GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE, PRIVATE
WORLDS). STAGE DOOR is the ultimate expression
of the LaCava style, fast and furious,
emotional and inspiring, with the best
female cast this side of THE WOMEN (1939)
– Katharine Hepburn (uttering her
famous on-stage line “The callalilies
are in bloom again”), Ginger Rogers (establishing
herself as a serious actress), Oscar-nominated
Andrea Leeds (on loan from Goldwyn), future
50s television icons Lucille Ball (in
one of her first substantial roles after
starting out as a Goldwyn Girl) and Eve
Arden (queen of the double-take) and a
teenage Ann Miller. Even though this movie
is nearly 70 years old, it's still hilarious,
moving, and must for aspiring actors.
I
interviewed Eve Arden on June 12, 1985
in New York City, on the occasion of the
publication of her autobiography, and
here's what she told me about Gregory
LaCava and her experience making STAGE
DOOR:
EVE
ARDEN: “Gregory LaCava was wonderful,
one of the greats. He made the set such
a fun place to be. STAGE DOOR was one
of my first pictures and he made me feel
safe and protected. He was extremely creative,
with the most incredible ear for dialogue,
and that shows in his pictures, When I
interviewed for the part, he told me he
worked quite differently from other directors,
essentially writing the script as he filmed.
He wanted to know what you thought and
he asked me if I had any ideas for my
character. I mentioned that I had just
gotten two cats from the pound and he
told me to use it, so I became the girl
with the cat in STAGE DOOR.”
Ten
years later, I was asked by the San Sebastian
Film Festival in Spain to write about
Gregory LaCava's films for a retrospective
of this late, great neglected director.
I wrote to Katharine Hepburn requesting
an interview, asking my friend Tony Harvey,
who directed her in four films, including
THE LION IN WINTER, to put in a good word
for me (see the December 2004 edition
of this column for more about Tony's work).
Sure enough, a week later, on June 12,
1995, I received an 8:30 AM phone call.
“Is
there someone called John Gallagher there?”
I
knew it was either Katharine Hepburn or
Martin Short.
“Yes,
Miss Hepburn, this is he.”
“Are
you dressed?”
“Yes,”
I lied.
“Well,
why don't you come on over and we'll talk
about Greg LaCava.”
I
went over to her East 49 th Street townhouse,
and spoke with the Great Kate for 20 minutes;
she was clearly not well, but very much
wanted to go on the record about this
director who meant so much to her:
KATHARINE
HEPBURN: “Gregory LaCava was brilliant,
simply brilliant, a man of enormous originality
and great wit. He wasn't particularly
a friend of mine; I just thought he was
brilliant. And very funny and very sweet
with great humor. We had tried to work
together before on a picture (THREE CAME
UNARMED, 1932, unproduced), but it didn't
work out with the studio, so I was quite
happy when we did STAGE DOOR together.
But it was quite terrifying, because he
threw the play out the window. Films were
usually quite different than plays, but
this one was really changed. There was
always rehearsal with LaCava, oh yes,
but he was open to everything. He called
me the human question mark, because my
character was always asking questions.
He really knew how to keep you sharp,
keep you guessing. I just adored him.
He was an actor's delight. The front office
didn't bother us on STAGE DOOR. RKO was
a small studio, anyway, it was much smaller
than Metro. I started at RKO so I was
right at home. He didn't give a damn about
the studio executives. I don't think anyone
paid too much attention to the front office,
unless they were scared of them, and LaCava
wasn't scared of anybody.”
Warner
Home Video's DVD release of STAGE DOOR
includes the theatrical trailer, the Lux
Radio Theatre version of the movie, with
original cast members Ginger Rogers and
Adolphe Menjou, and Rosalind Russell filling
in for Hepburn, and a quite entertaining
1937 musical short called UPS AND DOWNS
starring a very blonde, very young June
Allyson a few years before her own stardom
at MGM.
BRINGING
UP BABY (1938): This is one
of the highlights of the Warner Comedy
Collection, a double-disc Special Edition.
First and foremost, of course, is the
movie, beautifully remastered, the epitome
of the screwball comedy genre with the
delicious pairing of ditzy heiress Katharine
Hepburn and absent-minded paleontologist
Cary Grant under the unerring direction
of Howard Hawks. The movie consists of
one super-fun scene after another, as
Hepburn's dog George (Asta of THIN MAN
fame) buries Grant's intercostals clavicle,
the missing link from his reconstructed
brontosaurus skeleton, somewhere on the
grounds of a Connecticut estate where,
oh yeah, by the way, a dangerous escaped
leopard is on the loose, not to be confused
with Hepburn's harmless pet leopard Baby.
General wackiness ensues in this all-time
audience favorite, which was also the
inspiration for Peter Bogdanovich's terrific
1972 WHAT'S UP, DOC?, with Barbra Streisand
and Ryan O'Neal in the Hepburn-Grant roles.
Loads
of extras on this one – Bogdanovich's
feature-length audio commentary is absolutely
great. He knew Hawks and Grant well, wrote
about them both, and did one of the best
Hawks interviews ever (see the August
2004 column of “Between Action and Cut”
for my marathon interview with Bogdanovich).
It's also a great treat to hear Bogdanovich
do his dead-on impersonation of Hawks'
speaking voice. There's a 1938 Vitaphone
musical comedy short, CAMPUS CINDERELLA,
starring Penny Singleton just before she
did her first BLONDIE movie; the short
is notable for one of the first appearances
by 19-year-old Susan Hayward and as the
screen debut of Dorothy Comingore, three
years before playing Orson Welles' mistress
in CITIZEN KANE. WHV has also included
a terrific 1938 Looney Tune, directed
by Friz Freleng, A STAR IS HATCHED … with
a brutal parody of Katharine Hepburn.
We
also get a gallery of Howard Hawks theatrical
trailers (BRINGING UP BABY, SERGEANT YORK,
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE BIG SLEEP, RIO
BRAVO), a wonderful feature-length Turner
Classic Movies documentary CARY GRANT:
A CLASS APART, and the recently revised
version of the 1973 documentary on Hawks
that was part of PBS' THE MEN WHO MADE
THE MOVIES series, written, produced and
directed by the NBR's 2004 William K.
Everson Film History Award winner Richard
Schickel.
In
his audio commentary, Peter Bogdanovich
calls BRINGING UP BABY “one of the great
comic treasures of the American screen.”
Kudos to Warner Home Video for giving
it the grand DVD treatment.
THE
PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940): Here's
another of our most beloved movies … the
fantastic screen version of the Phillip
Barry play that saved Katharine Hepburn's
career. After she was labeled box office
poison by motion picture exhibitors in
1938, Hepburn persuaded paramour Howard
Hughes to buy the new Barry play for her.
It was a Broadway hit, and when the studios
came around for the screen rights, they
had to deal with Hepburn, who of course
insisted on starring as Philadelphia Main
Line socialite Tracy Lord. MGM won the
bidding, and while she didn't get her
original co-starring choices Spencer Tracy
and Clark Gable, she did get Cary Grant
and James Stewart (winning an Oscar for
his work here, but really an Academy consolation
prize for not winning for the previous
year's MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON).
This was Hepburn's fourth of eight films
with director George Cukor, and is tough
to beat for sophisticated romantic comedy.
This was one of the first movies released
to DVD, but Warner has remastered it and
given it the Special Edition treatment
– a Robert Benchley comedy short
(THAT INFERIOR FEELING), a Looney Tune
(THE HOMELESS FLEA), two contemporary
radio adaptations with all three stars,
a collection of trailer galleries, the
feature documentaries KATHARINE HEPBURN:
ALL ABOUT ME – A SELF PORTRAIT and
Richard Schickel's THE MEN WHO MADE THE
MOVIES: GEORGE CUKOR … and best of all,
insightful and entertaining audio commentary
from NBR member and Everson Film History
Award honoree Jeannine Basinger.
TO
BE OR NOT TO BE (1942): It's
only fitting that a work by Ernst Lubitsch
is included in this collection. His influence
on his fellow directors was enormous,
and he practically defined the romantic
comedy with his silent films LADY WINDERMERES
FAN (1925) and SO THIS IS PARIS
(1926) and the talkies NINOTCHKA (!939)
and especially TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932).
His independent 1942 production TO BE
OR NO TO BE is set in the Warsaw ghetto
under Nazi domination, and concerns a
theatrical troupe headed by its stars,
the husband and wife team of Josef and
Maria Tura (Jack Benny and Carole Lombard),
as they use their acting skills to help
the underground Resistance. The wonderful
supporting cast includes a callow Robert
Stack, and the great character actors
Sig Ruman, Lionel Atwill and Felix Bressart.
The film is smart and witty, and like
most Lubitsch films, way ahead of its
time, and feels quite modern today. Unfortunately,
the movie is perhaps best known as the
last film of the dazzling Carole Lombard
(married at the time to Clark Gable),
who was killed in a tragic plane crash
prior to the film's release while on a
war bond tour. She gives one of her best
performances in TO BE OR NOT TO BE, and
it's certainly the highlight of Jack Benny's
screen career as well. Special features
here include a pretty funny Benny comedy
short for MGM, THE ROUNDER (!930) and
the wartime promo BUY SAVINGS BONDS.
So,
there you have it, yet another amazing
DVD collection from the folks at Warner
Home Video – with last month's Warner
Gangster Collection, guaranteed to be
one of the year's top ten vintage releases
– outstanding titles with quality
presentations, the best picture and sound
available, with lots of love and respect
for the film heritage these movies represent,
as witnessed by the documentaries and
audio commentaries included here.
Also
from Warner Home Video this month comes:
HEAT:
SPECIAL EDITION
With
fifteen years hindsight, HEAT is one of
the great movies of the 90s, and to date,
Michael Mann's masterpiece, a complicated,
complex, beautifully characterized and
directed contempo L.A. crime epic. Where
else do you get the polished mastermind
(Robert DeNiro) and his crew, the even
more obsessive detective (Al Pacino)-on-the-case-with-his-posse,
a full exploration of everyone's live
and loves, with big budget technical virtuosity
and the by-now trademark Mann emphasis
on style, design and performance? Watching
HEAT again in all its remastered glory
reminded me of nothing less than the best
policiers of Jean Pierre Melville and
Alain Delon in its honesty, with Michael
Mann flexing his own directorial prowess.
A lot of people obviously like THE LAST
OF THE MOHICANS (I'm one of them), and
certainly you gotta have respect for THE
INSIDER and ALI, but Mann is at his best
with his unique take on the underbelly
of the underworld (THIEF, MANHUNTER, the
TV series MIAMI VICE and CRIME STORY,
COLLATERAL, which won him this year's
NBR Award for Best Director) … and I can't
wait too see his feature version of MIAMI
VICE starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell.
HEAT
has a simply world class performance from
DeNiro. Every second is truthful, every
second is real, with no hint of mannerism,
a beautiful, subdued performance, just
great film acting, criminally neglected
in its day because DeNiro made it all
look so damn easy. Mann also restrains
Pacino, allowing him room to go atomic,
as has been his wont in the second half
of his career, as in his soliloquoy to
Hank Azaria about womens' asses, or his
rant to the informer, or his jive acting
when he realizes DeNiro's crew is surveilling
him. Unlike many Pacino performances in
the last decade, where it seems like the
director is afraid to say “This time,
Al … less … MUCH less,” Pacino's work
in HEAT is just spectacular, a perfect
balance of feeling and ferocity.
The
action setpieces in HEAT are thrilling,
suspenseful, movie-movie highs (the armored
car heist, the aborted platinum caper,
the big blowout bank robbery that we all
remember as the film's climax, but actually
happens an hour before the end credits).
They offer enough adrenalin for any action
junkie, but wait a minute.
Mann
makes us think.
He
brings at least 20 characters to vivid
life – complete with backstory …
DeNiro and Amy Brenneman, Val Kilmer and
Ashley Judd (in her first major movie).
Pacino and Diane Venora and stepdaughter
Natalie Portman, everyone on Pacino's
team (including Mykelti Williamson and
Wes Studi), and DeNiro's accomplices Tom
Sizemore, Jon Voight. Tom Noonan …
Mann
makes us FEEL.
That's
why this movie reminds me so much of the
best of Raoul Walsh. In his crime movies
--- most notably THE ROARING TWENTIES
(1939), HIGH SIERRA (1941) and 1949's
WHITE HEAT (all available on beautifully
restored Warner Home Video DVDs) --- Walsh
not only thrilled us but made us care
about the miscreant protagonists. Mann
does the near impossible in HEAT, carrying
the Walsh tradition into the millennium.
Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill and John
Milius have occasionally touched Walsh's
grail, but none so completely as Michael
Mann. Watching HEAT again, there can be
no question that Michael Mann is an incredible
filmmaker, and a remarkable stylist.
The
HEAT Special Edition is a two-disc offering
with an audio commentary by Mann, three
theatrical trailers, eleven short deleted
scenes and five new documentaries. The
docs cover the film's genesis, the real-life
Chicago thief who inspired the story,
how the picture was prepped, cast, shot
and cut, how the bank shootout was made,
and how the famous DeNiro-Pacino conversation
was filmed. And yes, we get the answer
to that great Urban Cinema Legend, putting
to rest the years of rumors that Pacino
and DeNiro were filmed separately for
the diner conversation .. they were BOTH
present. I hope the IMDB message boarders
can sleep now, or at least move on to
an equally inane thread.
UNIVERSAL
HOME VIDEO: Back to classic
comedy … Universal presents – as
copyright owners and caretakers of the
1929-49 Paramount library, THE
PALM BEACH STORY (1942), written
and directed by Preston Sturges at the
height of his incredible 1940-1944 streak
of Paramount comedy classics (the others
are THE GREAT McGINTY, CHRISTMAS IN JULY,
THE LADY EVE, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS,
HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO and THE
MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK). Claudette
Colbert and Joe McCrail, I mean Joel McCrea,
co-star as a married couple who can't
live with or without each other. She runs
off to Florida, taking a train with the
Ale and Quail Club, a geriatric troupe
of shotgun-totin', cocktail-swillin' millionaire
degenerates, and hooks up with eccentric
tycoon John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy
Vallee, in a revelatory comedic turn)
and his addle-brained sister Princess
(Mary Astor). McCrea pursues Colbert,
of course, for 90 minutes of mirth. Nothing
in the way of extras on this disc, but
it's still wonderful to have this delightful
Sturges comedy available.
The
real big news from Universal Home Video
is the forthcoming release (in May?) of
a Gary Cooper DVD set that includes Lubitsch's
DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933), Hathaway's PETER
IBBETSON (1935) and LIVES OF A BENGAL
LANCER (1935), Milestone's THE GENERAL
DIED AT DAWN (1936) and Wellman's BEAU
GESTE (1939) – all great Golden
Age Paramounts, all mandatory viewing,
all titles that movie lovers will want
to own. There are only a couple of early
Coopers available on DVD (THE PLAINSMAN
from 1936 and FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
from 1943), probably the fewest
by any major Hollywood star from the studio
system days. Universal holds so many vintage
Paramounts (including 30 Gary Cooper movies!),
we can just hope that this is the beginning
of a major library excavation, similar
to what Warner Home Video is doing with
their classic MGM, RKO and Warner Brothers
titles.
FOX
STUDIO CLASSICS :
Fox's classic DVD releases have been universally
outstanding, with the requisite great
transfers and satisfying extras, and they
haven't been shy about exploiting their
classic library. This month Fox releases
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945), A
LETTER TO THREE WIVES (1949) ,
and, presumably because they previously
released PEYTON PLACE (1957), the hardly-a-Fox-Studio-Classic
sequel RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE
(1961). John Brahm's LEAVE HER
TO HEAVEN is a riveting noir, a powerful
melodrama of jealousy and compulsion,
beautifully acted by Cornel Wilde, Oscar-nominated
Gene Tierney, Jeanne Crain and Vincent
Price. Jo Swerling's screenplay is compelling,
but what really makes this movie special
is the fact that its dark psychological
elements are counterpointed by the glorious
Oscar-winning Technicolor cinematography
of Leon Shamroy, and beautiful woodland
locations. John Brahm specialized in thrillers,
and is well remembered among genre fans
for his 1944-45 Laird Cregars THE LODGER
and HANGOVER SQUARE, and some of the best
of Rod Serling's original TWILIGHT ZONE
series. HEAVEN co-star Darryl Hickman
offers audio commentary along with Richard
Schickel, and there's another special
feature that compares this new restoration
with previous prints. Stills, theatrical
trailer and a Movietone newsreel covering
the premiere completes the impressive
package.
A
LETTER TO THREE WIVES was written and
directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz just
prior to ALL ABOUT EVE, and shares that
masterpiece's scalding dialogue, complex
structure, searing performances and emotional
operatics. In s small Hudson Valley suburban
town, three women (Jeanne Crain, Linda
Darnell, Ann Sothern) are off together
on a day cruise; on the boat, they receive
a letter informing them that one of their
husbands has run off with the local temptress.
As they wait for the end of the trip,
they each reflect on their marriages (to,
respectively, Jeffrey Lynn, Paul Douglas
and Kirk Douglas). This is biting Mankiewicz
cynicism at its best, and long overdue
for DVD; he won Oscars for writing and
directing, and the film was nominated
for Best Picture. Special features includes
commentary by the filmmaker's son Christopher
Mankiewicz and long-time NBR member Kenneth
Geist, who authored the definitive Mankiewicz
biography, People Will Talk ; theatrical
trailer, restoration comparison, Movietone
newsreel of the Oscar presentation, and
the A & E Biography LINDA DARNELL:
HOLLYWOOD'S FALLEN ANGEL.
As
for RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE, well, let's
just say that it's not as good as the
original, even though it was directed
by Jose Ferrer and stars Carol Lynley,
Mary Astor and Tuesday Weld. If you're
a fan of the Peyton Place franchose, then
by all means check it out. You'll be rewarded
with audio commentary by author-historian
Sylvia Stoddard, restoration comparison
and a Movietone newsreel.
SONY
PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT:
Three really interesting war-themed dramas
come to us this month from SPE:
BITTER
VICTORY (1958) is director Nicholas
Ray's downbeat World War Two drama about
a mission into the North African desert
led by Curt Jurgens, who has just found
out that his subordinate Richard Burton
has been sleeping with wife Eleanor Parker.
Gavin Lambert (1997 NBR William K. Everson
Film History Award winner) co-wrote the
screenplay with Ray and Rene Hardy from
Hardy's novel; the film comes at the end
of Ray's string of interesting works (JOHNNY
GUITAR in 1954, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
in 1955, BIGGER THAN LIFE in 1956) before
he left for Spain and career suicide directing
bloated epics (KING OF KINGS, 55 DAYS
IN PEKING) for producer Sam Bronston.
Like the best of Nicholas Ray's films,
BITTER VICTORY seethes with brooding angst,
as the psychological tension between Jurgens
and Burton grows to the breaking point.
The film is also enhanced by the Libyan
locations (including the Roman ruins at
Crown City), a supporting performance
by cult favorite Christopher Lee, and
the black-and-white photography by Michel
Kelber (A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE). This
release runs 20 minutes longer than prints
previously available in the United States,
and deserves to be better known.
The
aforesaid can also be said about WE
WERE STRANGERS (1949), an almost
completely forgotten John Huston movie,
directed after he had just done TREASURE
OF THE SIERRA MADRE and KEY LARGO (both
1948), and right before THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
(1950). It's a great film about underground
freedom fighters in 1933 Cuba, rebelling
against a harsh fascist regime. Shooting
on location in pre-Castro Havana, Huston
gives us a fascinating look at the old
city ten years before the next revolution
in 1959. The cast is superb, with intense
performances from rebel-with-a-cause John
Garfield, police terrorista Pedro Armendariz,
and as a young woman stirred to revolt
by the assassination of her brother, Jennifer
Jones in a really fine performance. I
found this movie very stirring, and can't
imagine why it has been so rarely revived.
At the time of its release, Huston was
very visibly and vocally involved in protests
against the House Un-American Activities
Commission, the forerunner of the McCarthy
witch-hunters, so perhaps that's why WE
WERE STRANGERS never received its due.
BEHOLD
A PALE HORSE (1964) was considered
a disappointment upon its release. The
director was Fred Zinnemann (FROM HERE
TO ETERNITY, THE NUN'S STORY), and the
story concerned a Spanish rebel's (Gregory
Peck) two-decade border war with one of
Franco's fascist gestapos (Anthony Quinn).
The movie was exquisitely photographed
in the Pyrenees, with France doubling
for Spain, intelligently scripted by JP
Miller, with an excellent supporting performance
by Omar Sharif. It holds up very well
as drama, but it was originally sold as
an action film, with two of the same stars
(Quinn and Sharif), the same composer
(Maurice Jarre) and the same distributor
(Columbia) as the previous year's smash
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. BEHOLD A PALE HORSE
was unfavorably compared, but stands up
very well today on its own. Yes, except
for an exciting finale, it is short
on action, but it's long on thought, and
that's a rare thing.
For
sheer fun and a guaranteed good time,
check out the DVD release of MY
SISTER EILEEN (1955). Originally
filmed by Columbia in 1942 as a straight
comedy, this is the musical comedy version,
directed by Richard Quine, scripted by
Blake Edwards, starring Janet Leigh and
Betty Garrett as the sisters from Ohio
who move to Greenwich Village to conquer
New York – Broadway for Janet, publishing
for Betty. There are some great shots
of midtown Manhattan and Washington Square
(in the days when it allowed thru traffic
under the arch), but most of the movie
was shot on Columbia's Hollywood backlot,
unquestionably inspired by the previous
year's REAR WINDOW. In one of his first
movies, Jack Lemmon plays Betty Garrett's
love interest, and as the soda jerk who
slays Janet Leigh, it's none other than
the film's choreographer, the great Bob
Fosse. It's a gas to see Fosse act and
dance, and all the numbers bear his indelible
print, even though this movie predates
such early successes as DAMN YANKEES and
SWEET CHARITY. Of special interest is
the “Competition Dance” between Fosse
and Tommy Rall, the bandstand sequence
with Fosse, Leigh, Garrett and Rall, the
Conga finale … and Jack Lemmon singing
“It's Bigger Than Both of Us” to Betty
Garrett. This is Fifties kitsch at its
best!
There's
never been a better time to be a movie
fan. DVD technology and the right titles
make for an unbeatable viewing experience!
-- JOHN GALLAGHER
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