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Summer 2011:
The Adventures of Raoul Walsh
by
John Gallagher
THE ADVENTURES OF RAOUL WALSH: A comprehensive biography of Raoul Walsh (1887-1980), one of the most important directors of the Golden Age, with a career spanning nearly six decades of film history, has been long overdue. Now Marilyn Moss (George Stevens, a Life on Film) has mastered this daunting task beautifully with Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood’s Legendary Director (University Press of Kentucky). A protégé of D. W. Griffith as both director and actor (starring as Pancho Villa in the 1914 Griffith production THE LIFE OF VILLA and memorably playing John Wilkes Booth the same year in Griffith’s ground-breaking THE BIRTH OF A NATION), Walsh excelled at soldier-gangster-cowboy action movies, but also made musicals, screwball comedies, and women’s pictures with equal finesse. Like Hawks and Fuller, Walsh has always been revered by French cineastes; this book will go a long way in restoring his reputation in this country. Like Ford and Wellman, Walsh was able to leave a personal stamp on even the most mediocre studio assignment.
One of the top directors of the silent era, Walsh made his mark with REGENERATION (1915), probably the first gangster feature, filmed on location on Manhattan’s Bowery; the lost prison drama THE HONOR SYSTEM (1917), which Walsh crony John Ford considered one of the best movies ever made; the Douglas Fairbanks adventure fantasy THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1924); and the powerful World War One drama WHAT PRICE GLORY? (1926), so popular it spawned a series of entertainments with stars Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe. On loanout from Fox, Walsh directed and starred opposite producer Gloria Swanson in SADIE THOMPSON (1928); back at his home studio he directed and starred as The Cisco Kid in IN OLD ARIZONA. On location in Utah, a freak accident (a jackrabbit crashed through his car windshield) resulted in the loss of his eye and the eye patch that became his trademark along with his vigorous mise-en-scene and lusty, adventurous world view. Walsh produced and directed the epic Western saga THE BIG TRAIL (1930), introducing a callow John Wayne to stardom, filming in an early widescreen format, and turned out energetic Pre-Code entertainments like ME AND MY GAL (1932) with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett, WILD GIRL (1932) with Bennett, SAILOR’S LUCK (1933) with James Dunn, GOING HOLLYWOOD (1933) with Bing Crosby and Marian Davies, and especially THE BOWERY (1933) starring Wallace Beery and George Raft, with Walsh recreating the Gay ‘90s world of his youth. He floundered through the rest of the 30s, with comedies and musicals at Paramount and RKO, two movies (a thriller and a service comedy) in Britain, before signing with Warner Brothers for a series of remarkable films.
Walsh and Warners meshed perfectly, and he was handed choice projects with the studio’s biggest stars. He guided Cagney and Bogart in THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939), Bogart and Raft in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940), Bogart and Lupino in HIGH SIERRA (1941), Cagney in THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (1941), Dietrich, Raft and Robinson in MANPOWER (1941), Raft in BACKGROUND TO DANGER (1943), Lupino in THE MAN I LOVE (1946), Mitchum in PURSUED, Joel McCrea in COLORADO TERRITORY (1949), a Western remake of HIGH SIERRA, Cagney in the gangster classic WHITE HEAT (1949), and seven of Errol Flynn’s best movies – THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941), DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942), GENTLEMAN JIM (1942), NORTHERN PURSUIT (1943), UNCERTAIN GLORY (1944), OBJECTIVE BURMA! (1945), and SILVER RIVER (1948). At Warners he also did uncredited work with Bette Davis on IN THIS OUR LIFE (1942), with Flynn on SAN ANTONIO (1945), and with Bogart in ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC (1943) and THE ENFORCER (1951).
While many directors were winding down their careers in their ‘60s and early ‘70s, Walsh flourished, making nautical adventures (CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER with Gregory Peck in 1951, THE WORLD IN HIS ARMS, again with Peck, and BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE with Robert Newton in 1952, SEA DEVILS with his discovery Rock Hudson in 1953), WWII epics (BATTLE CRY in 1955 and THE NAKED AND THE DEAD in 1957, both with Aldo Ray), Westerns (THE LAWLESS BREED in 1952 and GUN FURY in 1953, both with Hudson), SASKATCHEWAN in 1954 with Alan Ladd, THE TALL MEN in 1955and THE KING AND FOUR QUEENS in 1956, both with Clark Gable, THE SHERIFF OF FRACTURED JAW in 1958 with Jayne Mansfield), melodramas (A LION IS IN THE STREETS with Cagney in 1953, THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER with Jane Russell in 1956, even a Biblical epic (ESTHER AND THE KING with Joan Collins in 1960), all filmed on strenuous locations. He directed his last film, the Cavalry Western A DISTANT TRUMPET (1964), with Troy Donahue, at the age of 76.
Walsh’s personal life was as colorful as his movies, and Moss has delved deeply into it: his decades-long battle with his first wife, the silent star Miriam Cooper (whom he directed in 11 movies between 1917 and 1922); his sad relationship with his children; his penchant for buying and gambling horses; his love for the ladies; his lifelong wanderlust; and his last two marriages. The author has tracked down and interviewed a number of Walsh relatives, and the result is a complete and telling portrait of Walsh the man.
Reading this book sent me back to revisit several dozen Walshs, and above all they are massively entertaining; the man really knew how to make moving pictures move. Andrew Sarris, a winner (with Molly Haskell) of the 2008 NBR William K. Everson Film History Award, said it best in his seminal The American Cinema: “If the heroes of Ford are sustained by tradition, and the heroes of Hawks by professionalism, the heroes of Walsh are sustained by nothing more than a feeling for adventure.” Moss covers each and every Walsh film, including his many lost silents, and makes strong cases for neglected films like KLONDIKE ANNIE (1936) with McLaglen and Mae West, SILVER RIVER and THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER. She’s been thorough in her primary research in studio archives; her interviews for the book include Olivia DeHavilland, Jane Russell, Kirk Douglas, Joan Leslie, Bryan Forbes, Hugh O’Brian, Harry Carey, Jr., Jack Larsen, Richard Erdman, art director Ken Adam and cameraman Peter Newbrook, and Walsh intimates Pierre Rissient and Bob Bookman. Raoul Walsh is one of the finest film books of the year, and an essential addition to your cinema bookshelf.
DONALD KRIM (1945-2011): We deeply mourn the passing of one of the best friends a film lover ever had, Donald Krim, after a year-long battle with cancer. For 30 years, Don was responsible for distributing some of the very best in classic and contemporary cinema. A true pioneer in specialty distribution, he headed UA:16, United Artists’ 16mm non-theatrical rental division, then created and ran UA Classics, the first studio classics division, precursor to such companies as Orion Classics and Sony Pictures Classics (SPC co-presidents Tom Bernard and Michael Barker both began their careers at UA Classics).
In 1977, Don took over Kino International and developed it into a leading source of vintage and independent films, releasing restorations of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS (1926), the Louise Brooks PANDORA’S BOX (1928) and DIARY OF A LOST GIRL (1929), Von Stroheim’s QUEEN KELLY (1928), and the 50th anniversary edition of Vittorio DeSica’s BICYCLE THIEVES (1948). Kino on Video has given us dozens of classic films a year, including box sets of Buster Keaton, Cecil B. DeMille and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Walsh’s REGENERATION (1915), Rouben Mamoulian’s revolutionary talkie APPLAUSE (1929), Josef Von Sternberg’s restored THE BLUE ANGEL (1930), the Arnold Fanck/Tay Garnett Arctic epic S.O.S. ICEBERG (1933), William Wyler’s first important film, COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW (1933), restorations of Fritz Lang’s SCARLET STREET (1945) and HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1950), fourteen films in the American Film Theatre series, including John Frankenheimer’s THE ICEMAN COMETH (1974), six films by Kieslowski, five by Wong Kar Wai, and WILD BILL: HOLLYWOOD MAVERICK (1995), winner of a National Board of Review Award for Best TV Documentary.
Kino also introduced many new directors to the U.S. market from the international festival circuit, including Shohei Imamura, Percy Adlon, Andre Techine, Julie Dash, Aki Kaurismaki, Amos Gitai, Michael Haneke, and Kelly Reichardt. While Kino won three consecutive Heritage Awards from the National Society of Film Critics, I know Don’s most prized honor was his 2006 William K. Everson Film History Award from the National Board of Review, not least because it’s named for his mentor, the patron saint of film history and film preservation, Bill Everson.
At the annual gala in January 2007, the Everson Award was presented by the NBR’s Jeanine Basinger, a previous Everson honoree and herself one of the greatest of film historians. Her introduction was unforgettable, as she addressed Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme and Clint Eastwood in the audience: “Someone has to care about all the work you do. Somebody has to come around tonight and bring it home and save it and get it out and show it again and show it again and put it in theatres and put it on DVD. And that’s the person we’re going to honor tonight … Mr. Don Krim. He’s the man who values your work the ten years, the twenty years, past the moment, who keeps it alive for history and keeps it alive for time and the next generation.”
“Movies without Kino International,” said The New York Times, “would be like parks without trees, museums without paintings … maintaining a rich catalog of cinematic touchstones … acquiring and releasing the classics of tomorrow.”
Donald Krim was a gentleman and a scholar, a friend and an inspiration, and a true visionary. His legacy lives on at http://www.kino.com/. Thank you, Don.
ENTERTAINMENT ONE has extensively restored and remastered SHOESHINE/ SCIUSCIA (1946) Vittorio DeSica’s humanistic Italian neorealist milestone. Two young teenage boys make their living in the scarred postwar streets of Rome shining G.I.’s shoes; a series of circumstances lead them to imprisonment as juvenile delinquents, setting the stage for a harrowing and heart-breaking test of their friendship. For years it’s been tough to see SHOESHINE in anything but a washed out dupe, so kudos to E1 for restoring this essential film, the forerunner to DeSica’s BICYCLE THIEVES (1948). The Academy gave the picture a special award, calling it “proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity,” and the NBR, in an early example of its commitment to freedom of expression, named SHOESHINE to its Ten Best list (highly unusual at the time for American ten best lists to include foreign-language works). Author Bert Cardullo provides a penetrating audio commentary to the disc.
HEN’S TOOTH VIDEO brings us a neglected Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger classic, the WWII adventure ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT (1957), a true story of resistance fighters on the Mediterranean isle of Crete (Dirk Bogarde, David Oxley, Cyril Cusack) who kidnap a Nazi general (Marius Goring). Powell and Pressburger expertly balance the adventure and suspense with a sly, understated humor, and lend verisimilitude to the movie with mountain and shore location filming in Crete, and having the Germans and Cretans speak in their native tongues sans subtitles. Released in the U.S. as NIGHT AMBUSH, the film has had eleven minutes restored, and HTV provides the original trailer.
OLIVE FILMS has more DVDs from the Paramount library. Jerry Hopper’s THE ATOMIC CITY (1952) is a suspenseful thriller starring Gene Barry as an atomic scientist whose son is kidnapped and held for ransom for nuclear secrets; locations in New Mexico cliff dwellings add to the suspense. Eugene Lourie’s THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK (1958) is cult sci-fi in the vein of FRANKENSTEIN, as a dead scientist’s brain is transplanted into the body of a giant robot; Van Cleave’s simple piano score lends an eerie quality to the proceedings. Cy Endfield’s THE SANDS OF THE KALAHARI (1965) is a terrific adventure drama about a chartered plane that crashes in the African desert and the effort to survival by the survivors (Stanley Baker, Stuart Whitman, Susannah York, Harry Andrews, Theodore Bikel, Nigel Davenport). Otto Preminger’s SKIDOO (1968) is the oddest entry in that director’s canon, a quirky psychedelic comedy about a retired gangster (Jackie Gleason) whose wife (Carol Channing) and daughter (Alexandra Hay) take up with hippies. The all-star cast includes Frannkie Avalon, Frank Gorshin, John Philip Law, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Geoge Raft, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Austin Pendleton and Groucho Marx as “God” !
WARNER HOME VIDEO: For decades, buffs have mourned the unavailability (due to lapsed underlying literary rights) of legendary producer David O. Selznick’s MGM production of NIGHT FLIGHT (1933), based on the 1931 novel by Antoine Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince). WHV has cleared the rights and released a much anticipated DVD. The cast could have only been assembled at Metro: John Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy. Clarence Brown (THE YEARLING, seven Garbo films including ANNA CHRISTIE) directs this taut (by MGM standards) aviation epic of fliers braving the weather and mountains of the Andes to deliver polio serum. NIGHT FLIGHT is not up to the stories or directorial high standards of John Ford’s AIR MAIL (1932) or Howard Hawks’ ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, but is still a key picture in the ‘30s aviation genre, and extremely valuable for its performances. Special features include the vintage sports short SWING HIGH (1932), featuring trapeze artists The Flying Codonas, and the three-strip Technicolor Harman-Ising cartoon WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY (1935).
WARNER ARCHIVE COLLECTION: With over 700 titles in their popular DVD-on-Demand program, WAC keeps adding a steady flow of titles. Recent additions include the noir triangle THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH (1947), one of Jean Renoir’s few Hollywood pictures, starring Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan and Charles Bickford; Richard Brooks’ kitchen sink drama THE CATERED AFFAIR (1956), with Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor, adapted by Gore Vidal from a Paddy Chayefsky teleplay; and Ralph Nelson’s bittersweet comedy-drama SOLDIER IN THE RAIN (1963). Co-scripted by Blake Edwards, SOLDIER tells the tale of Master Sgt. Slaughter (Jackie Gleason) and Supply Sgt. Clay (Steve McQueen), stationed at a Midwestern army base, bending the rules to enjoy the good life. McQueen’s devotion to Gleason is quite touching, and while Tuesday Weld, Tony Bill and Tom Poston help with the laughs, the movie pivots on their relationship, with an unexpected ending. For a look at all the Warner Archive titles, head to www.wbshop.com.
MGM LIMITED EDITIONS: Twentieth Century-Fox Home Entertainment follows the lead of the successful Warner Archive Collection with its own no-frills line of MGM Limited Edition DVDs (Fox currently owns the MGM/UA library), releasing dozens of desirable titles for the first time on DVD. Among the highlights: Shakespearean family drama transposed to the Old West in THE HALLIDAY BRAND (1957) with Joseph Cotton, Viveca Lindfors and Ward Bond, directed by cult filmmaker Joseph H. Lewis (GUN CRAZY); one of Errol Flynn’s last vehicles, Richard Wilson’s thriller THE BIG BOODLE (1957) filmed on location in Havana two years before the Castro revolution, and Flynn’s death at age 50; Jacques Tourneur’s political drama THE FEARMAKERS (1958) starring Dana Andrews; Michael Curtiz’ murder mystery THE MAN IN THE NET (1959) with Alan Ladd and Carolyn Jones; Jules Dassin’s compelling and sordid PHAEDRA (1962), with his real-life spouse Melina Mercouri as the wife of a Greek tycoon (Raf Vallone) having an affair with her stepson (Anthony Perkins); Milton Katselas’ outstanding NYC policier REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER (1975) starring Michael Moriarty, with Richard Gere in his screen debut as a street hustler; the exceptional APRIL MORNING, a long cherished John Ford project from the Howard Fast novel about a teenage boy’s coming of age at the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord, brought to fruition by producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., and director Delbert Mann as a high quality CBS telefilm in 1988, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Urich; and J. Lee Thompson’s eccentric Middle East thriller THE AMBASSADOR (1984) starring Robert Mitchum, Ellen Burstyn, Rock Hudson and Donald Pleasence. Check out the complete list of available MGM Limited Editions at http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000489701.
MORE CLASSICS ON BLU-RAY: The studios keep up the flowing of catalogue titles on stunning Blu-ray with a slew of releases. Robert Aldrich’s VERA CRUZ (1954, 20th Century-Fox/MGM-UA Home Entertainment) teams Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster as mercenaries during the 1866 Mexican Revolution in a Technicolor Western unusually violent for its day, a major influence on Sergio Leone’s movies and Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH (1969) a decade later. John Ford’s Civil War actioner THE HORSE SOLDIERS (1959, 20th Century-Fox/MGM-UA) has never been considered one of The Master’s best, but it’s a visual revelation on Blu-ray in color by Deluxe, with cinematographer William H. Clothier’s compositions in proper format; John Wayne and William Holden co-star. One of the funniest movies ever made, brilliant Billy Wilder’s beloved SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959, 20th Century-Fox/MGM-UA), starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O’Brien and Joe E. Brown, rewards endless viewings with endless laughs (it was another NBR Ten Best honoree). Blu-ray special features include memorable audio commentary by Lemmon, Curtis, and Paul Diamond (son of Wilder co-writer I. A. L. Diamond), and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babloo Mandel (SPLASH, CITY SLICKERS, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN), five featurettes and the original trailer. John Huston’s THE MISFITS (1961, 20th Century-Fox/MGM-UA) is still powerful drama, written by Arthur Miller, about lost souls wrangling mustangs in the Nevada desert. The powerhouse cast includes Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe (in their final roles), Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. Both SOME LIKE IT HOT and THE MISFITS benefit immensely from the Blu-ray treatment, with the blackest blacks and whitest whites restoring the filmmakers’ original vision.
Huston also directed THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975, Warner Home Video), based on Rudyard Kipling’s short story, a pet project of the director for many years. Originally intending to cast Bogart and Gable in the 50s, then Redford and Newman in the early 70s, Huston was blessed with perfect casting when he eventually got to make the movie. Sean Connery and Michael Caine play the unforgettable British sergeants Danny Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, off on a quest to become the rulers of the remote Khyber kingdom of Kafiristan. This is one of the greatest adventures ever filmed, and highly recommended. The WHV Blu-ray includes a vintage making-of featurette, the original trailer, and an attractive 25-page color photo book. Martin Scorsese’s musical drama NEW YORK, NEW YORK (1977, 20th Century-Fox/MGM-UA) was much maligned upon first release, with mostly negative reviews and poor grosses, but its reputation has grown over the years as one of Scorsese’s most personal works. Robert DeNiro and Liza Minnelli play saxophone player and signer, respectively, thrown headlong into romance and marriage after meeting at a 1945 Times Square celebration of V-E Day, which takes up the film’s first 20 minutes in a brilliant (largely improvised) sequence. Scorsese brilliantly essays the conflicts between love and work in a style that’s part Vincente Minnelli, part Cassavetes, part Kazan. Lionel Stander, Mary Kay Place, Barry Primus and the late lamented Clarence Clemons of Springsteen’s E Street Band co-star, there are dozens of great tunes and musical performances, and Laszlo Kovacs’ cinematography really dazzles on Blu-ray. There’s an introduction by Scorsese, commentary by Scorsese and critic Carrie Rickey, commentary by selected scenes by Kovacs, alternate takes and deleted scenes, and three featurettes. The German-language DAS BOOT (1981), a harrowing study of the life and death of a U-boat in WWII (NBR Top Five Foreign Language Film, 1982), has been newly remastered in director Wolfgang Petersen’s restored cut, adding another hour to the already two-and-a-half-hour film. The two disc-set includes the original theatrical version and almost three hours of all-new Blu-ray exclusive special features, including director’s commentary. It’s a spectacular filmmaking achievement.
SEPTEMBER TCM ALERT: One of the hits of the 2010 TCM Film Festival was a rare screening of Stephen Roberts’ THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE (1933), based on the William Faulkner novel Sanctuary, starring Miriam Hopkins. With SHE DONE HIM WRONG and BABY FACE (both 1933), this movie provoked the establishment of the Production Code in 1934. TCM broadcasts the restored version at 8 pm EST on Wednesday, September 14!
John Gallagher
jgmovie@gmail.com |
