Bogart In Love, Part One

The first film that helped Bogart become something other than Hollywood's best bad guy.

     In 1943 Humphrey Bogart had finally achieved the kind of success he'd only dreamed of. Nearly ten years and fifty films of playing heavies, villains and heels opposite the likes of James Cagney, George Raft and Edward G.Robinson, after spending the 1920's on Broadway in juvenile { " Tennis, anyone?" } roles, Bogie had struck the mother lode of movie stardom in the Oscar winning hit Casablanca. In year's previous, if not cast as the bad ass that the hero rubs out in the end, Bogie was, at best, cast as the second lead. Some of these non-gangster parts included Raoul Walsh's They Drive By Night, and the Bette Davis 1939 classic Dark Victory, in which Bogie unsuccessfully dusted off his Irish brogue. However these type of films were few and far between. Warner Brothers, the studio who had him under contract since 1936's The Petrified Forest, found audiences and critics alike responded to Bogie most favorably as the biggest bad guy on the Silver Screen, who would get his comeuppance in the final reel. High Sierra in 1940 helped turn the tide for Bogart. Directed by Raoul Walsh in his usual rough-house manner, High Sierra offered Bogart a chance to play the lead in an "A" picture with a decent budget. In it Bogart was still a gangster, "Mad Dog " Roy Earle, just recently paroled, but for once he portrayed a sympathetic heavy, getting involved with two very different women, being used by one { Joan Leslie } while the other { Ida Lupino } falls in love with him. It's a movie Bogie could thank Paul Muni and George Raft for, as they both turned it down. Though not a huge moneyspinner, the movie garnered good reviews, did good enough biz and helped establish the Bogart Legend. From this point on, though he didn't know it at the time, Bogart would play second fiddle to no one. Next up was the lead in the forgettable The Wagons Roll At Night, but after that came a game changer that really set his career in motion, playing detective Sam Spade in John Huston's adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. An early entry in the film noir sweepstakes, the story had been filmed twice before, both unsuccessfully. The Huston version of Falcon was a major achievement for all involved, no more so than for it's leading man who displayed the tough exterior moviegoers had come to expect from Bogie, with the added element of pathos and empathy. Like when he tells Mary Astor he "won't play the sap for no one." :  

     This represented a new kind of tough guy. One who was vulnerable to love but would still send that love up to the Big House if she were guilty. Released on October 3, 1941, Falcon went on to recorded three Oscar nominations : Huston for Best Adapted Screenplay, Sydney Greenstreet as chief baddie Kaspar Gutman in the Best Supporting Actor category and the film for Best Picture. They all lost, but being in such elite company as Citizen Kane, How Green Was My Valley and The Little Foxes was ample reward for a film no one at Warners initially had much faith in. Huston and Bogart, who would go on to become great pals and drinking buddies, went on to make five more films together some of them the best either man would ever make. But all that was in the future. By 1942  Bogart was trying to endure married life to Mayo Methot, a character actress who hadn't been working much of late due mostly to her weight gain, which in turn was due to her excessive alcoholic intake. Known in Hollywood circles and the gossip rags as "The Battling Bogart's", they made good copy and were generally well liked amongst writers, especially Bogie. It was no secret that Bogie also enjoyed a drink or several { Bogart was once famously quoted as saying the world was three drinks behind and needed to catch up, or words to that effect.} and Mayo, whom Bogie nicknamed "Sluggy", had a tendency to get jealous or downright violent when under the influence, once pulling a gun on him and another time successfully stabbing him in the shoulder. Mayo was wife number three for Bogie, the first two, also actresses, were Helen Menken and Mary Philips. Besides their chosen profession they all had a quality that must have held an attraction for Bogie : they were all strong-willed, formidable women. Bogart it seems, liked a woman who could give as good as she got, one who was not about to kowtow to him or anyone else.

Great pic of Bogie with his Sluggy tee on, which was not only the nickname for his wife, but also the name of his schooner.

     After the success of Falcon Bogart went on to make the lighthearted All Through The Night { again inheriting another of George Raft's rejects } and  Huston's Across The Pacific, before beginning Casablanca in late spring of 1942. Like many great films from that Golden Era of the movies, Casablanca was just another movie for the brothers Warner and executive producer Hal B.Wallis, of no more importance than The Hard Way, Edge of Darkness or any other "A" budget picture with a top star attached. The fact that Casablanca was timely worked in it's favor at the box office, yet something more intangible made it click and become one of the screen's most memorable films. An absolutely stellar cast also helped { Lorre, Greenstreet, Henreid, Rains, etc }, probably the most quoted and economical screenplay ever written { by the Epstein brothers } didn't hurt, along with the brilliant assurance of Michael Curtiz, and his graceful, swooping camera at the helm, and the improbable chemistry between Ingrid Bergman { in her prime } and Bogart made the film irresistible,  both then and now. For Bogart, on a personally/professional level, it made him sexy for the first time on film. If Ingrid Bergman is saying on screen how much she loves you, audiences - then and forever after - believed her. In other words, it is the cinema's happiest accident of all-time. If one cannot relate to Casablanca, one cannot relate to film in general. I mean, what's not to like ??

Original poster for the film that really turned the tide for Bogart. From this point on, Bogie became not only a great box office draw but a romantic one too. 

      Because of Casablanca Bogart became not only a star but a superstar before that phrase had been invented. It's success landed him in the Top Ten Box Office Stars Poll, where he would remain ensconced for the remainder of the decade, checking in at #7 for 1943. Casablanca also made Bogie a quite unlikely sex symbol. Call it sexy-ugly, but  women responded to his tough veneer, smoking, boozing and cynical wisecracks. The success of his career made Mayo all the more jealous and paranoid, afraid that some starlit or hatcheck girl would wisk her beloved away, not that Bogie gave Mayo any reason to believe he would stray; by all accounts he was a loyal husband, not only Mayo but to his wives and didn't indulge in hanky-panky on or off the set. Bogart had standards, it seems, and morals. By the time he entered into the making of director Howard Hawks latest opus, To Have and Have Not,  it is not unreasonable to assume Bogart had endured enough of Mayo's shenanigan's, that he was not the happy man he ought to be and he might be looking for a way out, though probably on an unconscious level. In other words, Bogart was vulnerable. It is at this moment Lauren Bacall walked into his life.

Bogie and Baby. The film that started it all. 

      To Have and Have Not is loosely based on a novel by the esteemed Ernest Hemingway. Howard Hawks { Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday, the original Scarface, The Big Sleep, Red River, Rio Bravo and even more } specialized in movies that featured men who could hold there own, men that were, in Hawks-speak, " professionals ", whatever that profession may be. This "professionalism" was probably best brought home in his 1939 aviation epic Only Angels Have Wings, which includes the famous "Who's Joe?" sequence. Hawks was also a master of giving his hero's women who were just as strong, if not stronger, than their male counterparts. Jean Arthur in Angels, Roz Russell in His Girl Friday, Ann Sheridan in I Was A Male War Bride, Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo - and after To Have and Have Not, Bacall again in The Big Sleep - are prime examples. These women, if not professional equals, were at least equal in giving back a brand of toughness and world weariness; sexy femmes who can pull a gun out of their purse as well as a lipstick and make both gestures memorable, while never losing their femininity, which is not easy to do { just ask Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider or Mila Jovovich in the dreadful Ultraviolet or Resident Evil movies, tough broads who could kick-butt with the best of them, but whose sex appeal is sorely lacking }. In 1944, Lauren Bacall became the epitome of the Hawksian woman.

Bacall teaching Bogie how to whistle, she fairly drips with an insolent sensuality . 

      From the start of filming Bogie and Bacall seemed to enjoy each others company on set. When introduced to her Bogart, who had viewed Bacall's screen test and approved her casting, said " we should have a lot of fun together ". Understatement of the decade, bub! The relationship began with a fun, kidding kind of camaraderie. After a few weeks into filming Bogart came by her dressing room at the end of the day's shooting. After some small talk, according to Bacall, he put his hand under her chin and kissed her. That's all it took and soon the pair were plunged into an affair. Bogart, the married superstar who had never strayed, was stymied. Refusing to hurt Mayo, Bogart said and did nothing to motivate a change of residence or cohabitation. Bogart was also disturbed by Bacall's age, he being 44 to her 19. 25 years is a sizable age gap for any couple to overcome. Therefore, Bogie having been married three times previous, may have thought a happy marriage just wasn't in the cards for him.

Bogie, Bacall and Marcel Dalio on set. Just look at that woman. Sexy, slinky and not afraid of anyone.

      Director Howard Hawks with his ice cold persona, was livid that Bacall would prefer Bogie over him. Bacall was signed to a personal contract by Hawks, not Warners, and one night threatened Bacall with a life sentence to Monogram or one of the other various low budget "Poverty Row " studios if she did not see the light of day and make her appreciation to Hawks a physical reality. The next day Bacall, in tears, related the situation to Bogie. He told her not to worry, that there was way too much time and money spent on her for Hawks to let her get away to some cheap, fly-by-night operation, Howard was simply jealous, that's all. However, Bogart was upset over Hawks treatment of his new love and was ready to walk off the picture if Hawks didn't back down his threats. It took a peace conference with studio boss Jack Warner to mediate a " personal talk to smooth over everything," with Bogart and Hawks coming to an understanding regarding Lauren Bacall; in other words, " hands off, Bacall is my girl."  Filming resumed, and things went fine from that point forward. Life with Mayo, however, with her tendency for jealous rages, didn't get any easier. Having just turned forty, her youth and figure essentially gone, Mayo was more unpredictable than ever. As his affair with Bacall increased so did his absences from home, leading Mayo to believe, correctly for once, that Bogie had fallen for his new co-star. She took to call him on set, needling him with things like " How are you doing with your daughter? She's half your age, you know. "

The Look. There will never be another like her.

      From the start Warners figured Bacall was a star with a future and the publicity department worked hard on her behalf, coming up with the nicknane " The Look ", much like Lana Turner's Sweater Girl and Ann Sheridan's Oomph Girl, and Bacall was happy to oblige becoming well liked for her cooperation and professionalism. Finally, on May 10, 1944 filming wrapped on To Have and Have Not, with Bogie and Bacall going off together. In real life it was different, Bacall went to dinner with Hawks and his wife Slim with Bogart driving off alone, apparently to Mayo. Despite the fact that filming was concluded Bogie and Bacall continued to meet in secret. During this period Bogart would write tender, vulnerable love letters to Bacall, wishing he had more time to spend with her. Bacall would later recall her willingness to meet him at a moments notice anywhere he wanted. Age did not seem to matter to her, Bogie having so much energy, Bacall being so much more mature than her nineteen years. For his part, Bogart was caught between his love for his new co-star and his obligation and responsibility to Mayo, and it tore him apart. The goodbye to Mayo would be a long, hard one. It was at this time, October 10, 1944, when filming of The Big Sleep reuniting Bogie, Bacall and director Hawks would commence, that Bogie's life would get really complicated.


Sources :                   Bogart by A. M. Sperber & Eric Lax
                                 Wikipedia page on To Have and Have Not
                                 IMDB on To Have and Have Not
                                 By Myself by Lauren Bacall 
                                 Turner Classic Movies
                                   

The Missouri Breaks : When Titans Meet

My favorite actors and two of the best ever.

       This is a movie that was too much for me. I have been movie obsessed since I was about 15 years old. Next month I will be 55 { shit ! } which means this kind of thing has gone on for 40 years and I am powerless to stop it now. When I first heard that Marlon Brando, in his first film since 1973's Last Tango in Paris { being not quite 17, a film I had yet to see Tango being X-rated }, and Jack Nicholson fresh from his Last Detail, Chinatown and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest trifecta had made a movie together, I expected noting short of earthshaking, brilliant film-making and film-acting. All the others could try, but to me Brando and Nicholson rise above the fray. Brando - father of "The Method"- was a living legend who had comeback from a decade worth of box office failure { he had just made The Godfather in 1972, for which he won and refused a Best Actor Oscar } and the truly myth-making, visually and emotionally stunning Last Tango in Paris - which would earn him another Best Actor Nomination, his seventh { don't let it be said the Academy plays favorites }. Both films brought Marlon back to the forefront of the film world with a vengeance. With The Missouri Breaks, Brando took the smaller, showier part as " the regulator", Robert E.Lee Clayton, who is hired by a ranch baron to suss out and kill the gang of rustlers who are stealing his horses. Nicholson plays the lead outlaw, Tom Logan, head of a motley group of rustlers. His gang comprised of film veteran Harry Dean Stanton and newcomers Randy Quaid, John Ryan and Fredric Forest. Jack's love interest was played by another newbie, Kathleen Lloyd. Add to this mix of talent director of Arthur { Bonnie & Clyde } Penn and how could this movie go wrong ? It couldn't; it just had to be incredible. From the first I'd heard of the film, I marked my calender and started the countdown, like a little kid does for Christmas. When it arrived on May 19, 1976 I, a callow high school student nearing the end of his junior year, was the first person in line at the now long-gone State Theater in Santa Barbara, California. No one else seemed to be there. Where was everyone? Didn't they know an acting lesson was about to commence? Foolish people, I thought, it's their loss. Regarding the fate of the film, The Movie Gods had different plans.

This poster was on my bedroom wall for many years. I still have it.

      Coming half way between Jaws and Star Wars, The Missouri Breaks was meant to be the sort of 70's film experience audiences had come to expect : in this instance a serious film study of the old west, not how it should've been, but how we thought it was; tough, grimy, gritty, bloody. The film was a bit of a disappointment to me, one I didn't expect. Nicholson seemed not only subdued but kind of wandering through the film, not exactly knowing what to do opposite his acting idol { " He gave us our freedom ", said Jack of Marlon's influence on, not only himself, but other actors }. The film, a tad over two hours, seemed to be off-center or somewhat off-kilter, and tended to drag on a bit, even the showdowns with the two best film actors in the world appeared, at the time, anti-climatic. Was I expecting too much?  -  wasn't everyone? -  probably, and I wasn't alone. I have to say the one thing I did appreciate was Brando's outrageously entertaining turn as Robert E. Lee Clayton, regulator. He intially appears about 25 minutes in, only we don't see him because his horse is camouflaging his body as it lumbers down a hill, when he suddenly sticks his head out from underneath the horse's head { a Godfather reference ? } which surprises Kathleen Lloyd in the film, and us in the theater. It's a clever, startling entrance and one that reveals Clayton's character as one who is shifty, deceptive and not to be trusted, all done without a word of dialogue.

     Long lines at the box office didn't materialize; maybe they wanted a "buddy" western like the classic Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Critics were not kind to it calling the film self indulgent or worse. Director Penn, fresh from his critically - acclaimed, commercial - failure Night Moves, and with a resume that includes Bonnie & Clyde and the revisionist western Little Big Man, never really got his footing back after this. He wouldn't make another film until 1981's Four Friends, followed by1985's thriller Target, and the ghost story Dead of Winter two years after that, all three received coolly by both audiences and film scribes. In the 90's his career would continue to lose momentum with a couple of made-for-cable movies { when that wasn't yet fashionable }.  As for the two main cogs in this lark of a western, most reviewers felt Jack actually came off best - if this were a heavyweight bout judged on points - with his straight forward portrayal of an outlaw unwittingly going legit due to love for the rancher's daughter, yet Marlon clearly landed so many heavy punches Nicholson at times seems like he is on the ropes. Most critics who liked Brando loathed the film, and if they liked the film they felt Brando tended to keep it from jelling, with New York Times critic Vincent Canby referring to his work in the film as " out of control ". It's true Brando's work in the film is one of his most eccentric, ranking up there with his Fletcher Christian from Mutiny on the Bounty in it's uneven - even campy - creativity, yet his portrayal works. Clayton's Irish brogue is not authentic, nor is it meant to be for Lee Clayton is not an authentic Irish potato fresh off the boat from Cork County, but a hired gun who amuses himself with accents and disguises { at one point wearing a gingham dress and bonnet } to keep his adversaries on their toes. In other words, it's not a performance to take at face value, something reviewers at the time didn't understand. " Oh, it's just Marlon being a silly ass. Up to his old tricks by upstaging and ruining a costly $8 million production ", they said at the time. Following The Godfather, Last Tango and biting the hand that fed him by refusing his Oscar, the film world was ready to knock him down a peg or two. The film is also notable for being the first in which Brando appears obviously overweight { a condition that would accelerate over time }, his appearance being a distraction to many in 1976. Many film historians call the last 25 years of Brando's screen career a waste. It would all begin here. Likewise it would also mark the beginning of Brando's " take the money and run " phase, when he would demand the most money for the briefest screen time and shooting schedule. His five weeks on Breaks for $1 million would lead to his two weeks on Superman for $3.7 million, followed by his $3 million for three weeks on Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Brando in his granny outfit that outraged many a film critic.

         The Missouri Breaks ended up losing money becoming one of the most reviled movies of the decade, proof of what can happen when a company offers the moon to it's top of the line talent, only to get burned with the demands of those stars and the deficiency of a script still being written { or re-written } when filming commenced. One of the consistent complaints at the time was that the stars' contracts were longer than the script; how Hollywood had become enamored with deal-making, not movie-making. I went back to see the film a couple of months later at the local drive-in where it was double billed with the Richard Harris western Return of a Man Called Horse, a sequel to that 1970 opus. I admit to not liking more it second time around, but my fondness for Brando's madcap killer remained unabated. I caught the film time and again through the years on television and when it was made available at a bargain price on VHS in the 90's I made sure to buy it, not only for me, but for the video store I owned back then. Seeing it now, after so many years, Brando is still amazing, yet I am struck by Nicholson's job of work. He really keeps the thing going while Marlon is zipping around the fringes of the story " like a firefly ", to use his description of his character. Seen in that light, Jack's work is not only Herculean but selfless. Nicholson knows Brando is walking away with the film, but Jack is still in there trying like hell to throw strikes and keep himself in the ballgame, even though he knows it is a futile gesture. I like to think that, for Jack, working with his idol was reward enough. I guess that's the breaks.

Jack, Kathleen Lloyd, Harry Dean and Marlon serenade on location in Montana.

References : Wikipedia page on Arthur Penn, The Missouri Breaks, Marlon Brando
                      IMDB on Missouri Breaks
                      Jacks Life by Patrick McGilligan
                      Time Magazine
                       
                   
       

Vincente Minnelli's War

Opening credit after Garland and Walker's names. This is an image that has remained in my mind for at least 38 years.

      No one could ever confuse Vincente Minnelli with John Ford, Sam Fuller, John Huston, William Wellman or any other rugged, rough and tumble filmmaker. Minnelli's films featured gentler, kinder, more conflicted - even tormented - personalities : artists { Gene Kelly in An American in Paris, Kirk Douglas in Lust For Life and Two Weeks in Another Town, Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running, to name a few }, lost young men and women { John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy and The Cobweb, George Hamilton in Home From The Hill, Jennifer Jones as Madame Bovary and others }, people trying to discover their own nature, and then be true to it, however difficult that may be. Quickly scanning his oeuvre the musicals he is best remembered for obviously stand out, for Minnelli made some of the best ever : Meet Me in St.Louis, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, Gigi; Minnelli's musicals are second to none. Along with Busby Berkeley, Minnelli could be called - and I'm sure he has been - the Grandfather of the genre. However a closer look reveals a varied group of films, perhaps more diverse than expected. Domestic family comedies such as Father of the Bride, The Long, Long Trailer, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, dramatic outings like Undercurrent, The Bad & The Beautiful, The Sandpiper. Among his films are two that have the effects of war front and center : 1962's epic The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and 1945's romantic The Clock. If William Wyler's Oscar winning 1946 Best Years of Our Lives is the quintessential film about the effects of veterans coming home to a different America than the one they left, then Minnelli's 1945 film The Clock is the epitome of the war time romance.

The farewell scene in Penn Station, the exact place they first met 48 hours ago. A great still from The Clock.

    Robert Walker plays a soldier on 48 hour leave in New York City who "meets cute" with secretary Judy Garland. Walker plays Joe Allen a green-as-grass soldier from a small town in Indiana, Judy is Alice Mayberry, secretary in one of those impersonal New York City skyscrapers. If Judy has a movie soul-sister, think Hope Lange in 1959's The Best of Everything. They meet when Alice accidentally trips over Joe's feet in Penn Station and breaks the heel of her shoe. Joe, not only lonely but ever the gentleman, helps Alice find a repair shop to fix her shoe and proceeds to ingratiate himself. They end up spending the remainder of Joe's leave together, fall in love and get married.  From this story director Minnelli fashions a romance that is both simple and profound. Minnelli - himself from a small town in Ohio - threw all his love and remembrances, all his experience from his early days in the Big Apple as a Broadway director in the 30's, into recreating New York on the MGM backlot in Culver City. The sights, the people, the noise, the excitement, the overwhelming feeling of being out of one's comfort zone, this is all brought to us from the opening moments of the film when Joe steps off the train at Penn Station. Lost, confused, lonely, intimidated by the sheer size of the place, Walker's sensitive Joe Allen is an early Minnelli lost boy.  

The " meet cute " scene, when the two stars come together for the first time in Minnelli's The Clock.

     All this, and more, happens within a 48 hour time span in a movie than runs 90 minutes. In those 90 minutes Garland and Walker, both fragile and damaged souls in real life, give wonderfully honest performances. Walker's naive Joe Allen is a soldier many could recognize either in themselves or in their sons, boyfriends and brothers. Garland as Alice Mayberry's working girl was one of millions of women who were picking up the slack all over the country, and were surprised they liked it, as the men and boys of America went off to make the world safe for democracy. For Judy it was a long way from the world producer Arthur Freed and Minnelli had charted for her previous films, all musicals.  For the first time we got to see Judy as a straight dramatic actress playing an everyday regular person, not a show biz chanteuse making time with Gene Kelly or Mickey Rooney. No song for her to sing, not even a theme song over the credits. Judy was still the girl next door to millions of servicemen; thanks to Minnelli that girl was beginning to grow into a enchanting young woman { I don't think Garland ever looked lovelier on screen than when she was in the hands of Minnelli, they were to marry shortly after production on The Clock wrapped up } and it was he who helped her achieve that transition, having guided her first in 1944's Meet Me in St.Louis.

     The overall emotional effect of The Clock is done without a gunshot or dead body in sight, yet the realities of the war are always close at hand, lending the movie an urgency and anxiety that many were feeling in those years. In today's cynically moribund marketplace of film The Clock wouldn't play very well, with the comic book mentality of many movies that come off the studio assembly line, but for the most part The Clock has a remarkably restrained believability that works. I first saw this as teenager in the 70's, being home sick from school, on Ben Hunter's Matinee Movie, a mid-day break on what was then KTTV Channel 11 out of Los Angeles, from the soap opera's and game shows that flooded the airwaves in those pre-cable days, and I still like to dust it off every year or so for a viewing. Long after others films have faded from my memory The Clock still works it's magic.

         By 1960 MetroGoldwynMayer, despite the success of Ben-Hur { 11 Oscars, box office record breaker }, was still a company with financial trouble. With big Ben's enormous success, the powers that be decided remakes of great films from the studio's past was the way to stay solvent with cash and Oscars. Thenceforth Leo The Lion thrust upon the public a 1960 remake from 1931's Oscar-winning Cimarron with Glenn Ford and directed by western auteur Anthony Mann. What was suppose to be a cash cow was instead a dead duck. Critics blasted it and the public stayed away in droves { it lost nearly $2 million of 1960 dollars, }  The know-it-alls in Culver City had earmarked a redeux of the movie that made Valentino a star forty years previous, the WWI epic Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for their big 1961 movie-of-the-year.

Old school poster art to promote the film.

      Most, if not all, film historians feel this remake was a bad idea from the get-go. I'm not so sure, for Minnelli's take on the subject has some beautiful moments. The story was updated from WWI to WWII and if Minnelli had his way the leads would have been young, sexy French actor Alain Delon { 25 in 1960 }, not stodgy middle aged Glenn Ford { 44 in 1960 } and Romy Schneider.  But Schneider passed and with a budget of $7 million { over $50 million in today's inflated dollars, still a sizable chunk of change, pre-advertising and distribution costs } the bosses at Metro, having vetoed Delon as an unproven box office commodity, insisted that a proven star with clout at the box office was necessary. Having just signed Ford to a big fat, star-friendly contract, and also the star of the aforementioned box office loser Cimarron, which had yet to be released, Metro decided they should get their monies worth and { mis } cast Ford as the Argentinian playboy/artist Julio. Playing the love interest opposite Ford  Minnelli cast Ingmar Bergman favorite, Swedish star Ingrid Thulin, then about 34. Having compromised on his lead actors Minnelli decided on a diverse cast of supporting players : some old timers like former heartthrob, Frenchman Charles Boyer, Casablanca's Paul Heinreid and Oscar winner Paul Lukas, but also newcomers like Karl Boehm fresh from Michael Powell's disturbing Peeping Tom, and MGM contract player Yvette Mimieux, plus dependable character actor Lee J. Cobb.

Vincente and his beloved camera crane.

      With a somewhat eclectic and international band of players, after interior filming on the stages in Culver City, Minnelli took his cast and crew to Europe, France specifically, for exteriors that are lovingly captured on film. When the film was completed the studio had a two and a half hour drama of love and sacrifice. Some colorized stock footage of the fall of France with bombs dropping all around, sirens signaling an air raid and talk of the blackout, with its shuttered windows and dark draped restaurants give the viewer a short hand sense of what was going down all around our main characters, but the thrust of the film stayed with Julio and his adulterous affair with the married Marguerite. 

Glenn Ford and the lovely Ingrid Thulin as the illicit lovers sitting on a Minnelli red cushion. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1962.

          When all was said and done, the film's final tally was $7.5 million{ $58 million adjusted for inflation } and the MGM exec's held their breath, hoping lightning would strike twice with their most recent remake. Premiering the picture in Washington D.C. on February 7, 1962, the film was roundly blasted by American critics as ridiculous, unnecessary and unrealistic and what author Stephen Harvey called " it's era's prime candidate for the Heaven's Gate sweepstakes"  { I would defer that dubious honor to another, greater MGM fiasco 1962's Mutiny On The Bounty or Fox's Cleopatra a year later } It may be all those things, but it is also a visual feast { what Minnelli production isn't }, with photography by the legendary Milton Krasner, a nearly 40 year veteran of the cinematic wars with a great eye for composition { All About Eve, A Double Life, Scarlet Street, his Oscar-winner Three Coins in the Fountain and many, many more }, a brilliant musical score byAndre Previn that evokes the passion and upheaval the two lovers are feeling, Tony Duquette's design of the mythical Four Horsemen is stunning, with elegant costumes by Walter Plunkett, Orry-Kelly, etc; in other words, no dollar was spared to bring the best to the screen. So what went wrong? If I were to pinpoint the weaknesses I would have to say Ford and the script. Maybe it's not so much the screenplay, but the story. The original Four Horsemen was essentially a star vehicle that was shaped for Valentino and made him the heartthrob of the silent era, with his smoldering tango the highlight of the 1921 original. By 1960 the idea of a Latin lover was obviously out of touch with the Rock N' Roll Eisenhower years. Updating the film from WWI to WWII didn't help much; when the first Four Horsemen saw light WWI had just finished and was fresh in everyone's mind, so it had an immediacy. The update to WWII came over fifteen years after that great conflict had ended, the world, as it must, had moved on. In other words, the picture seemed old fashioned.

Charles Boyer with Glenn Ford as father and son. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1962.

      Glenn Ford as Julio was too old, too American, too stiff for the part of a devil-may-care rich boy from South America, who just wants to have fun and bed down with as  many women as he can, but inadvertently gets involved with the French resistance. A fine actor in the right part { Blackboard Jungle, Gilda, The Big Heat } Ford, try though he does, is simply out of his element. Thulin is an other matter. I find her most alluring, however her portrayal of the unfaithful wife of Paul Heinreid's Etienne, is impossible judge properly because the boys at Metro decided her Swedish accent too think and unintelligible, so they hired Angela Lansbury to dub over her every line. Why would a studio hire a foreign actor and later decide she couldn't be understood?  Had they never spoke to he ?  How about a verbal screen test to she how her voice would sound in English? To my way of thinking, that's bad management on the part of Metro. Lee J.Cobb's patriarch Madariaga is thickly sliced ham as only Cobb was capable of { witness also his work in The Brothers Karamazov, for which he was rewarded with an Oscar nom for Supporting Actor of 1958, or his screen debut in Golden Boy as William Holden father }. Whether these issues were brought to Minnelli's attention during filming is impossible to say, other than the script problems and the casting of Ford, Minnelli - always a good company man - was mum on the subject. I enjoy the film despite it's flaws and like it on it's own terms. Is it a classic, no. But a film hat has so much to offer should never be dismissed out of hand. I can understand, to a certain degree, the critics carping at the film's credibility gap, but let's not kid ourselves; we are in Minnelli-land. What did they expect?  Minnelli's a director who always, even in his most basic films, found beauty everywhere and filmed it accordingly. It's possible Four Horsemen would have been more effective as a lower budget, filmed in gritty black and white, with a Cinema verite or neo-realistic style . Critics expecting a Rossellini or DeSica, should have reviewed Open City or The Bicycle Thief. 

Lee J Cobb as the patriarch Madariaga, Glenn Ford as his grandson. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1962.

       Four Horsemen would fail at the box office, too. Losing over $5.8 million { over $40 million today } the film would rapidly expedite Minnelli's fall from grace. When production on the film began in 1961, Minnelli was only two years past winning his only Oscar for directing Gigi, more recently he guided Judy Holliday and Dean Martin thru the musical Bells Are Ringing, more success would follow in Home From The Hill with Robert Mitchum in one of those big melodramas Minnelli did so well. After the Four Horsemen debacle Minnelli would encounter trouble and more resistance than usual with his next project Two Weeks in Another Town, being re-edited without his say of the cuts involved; follow by an underrated, charming, yet at times dark exploration of childhood, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, with a more appropriately cast Glenn Ford alongside scene stealer Ronny Howard; 1964's sex-changing comedy Goodbye, Charlie, and his last big hit 1965's The Sandpiper, although that movie was crunched by critics, it made a bucket full of cash thanks to the film's two stars, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, then at the peak of their notorious reputation. Minnelli was high up on Warner Brothers list of directors for My Fair Lady, and he wanted to do it, but his asking price was too high, so Jack Warner went with the more cost-friendly George Cukor. Cukor's version is grand, lush entertainment, if visually static. Minnelli's cinema had a tendency for fluid, swooping camera movements. Along with Max Ophuls and Michael Curtiz, Minnelli is one of the cinema's masters of the moving camera, his take on the Lerner and Loewe musical would've been fascinating viewing; it makes the mouth water as a great never-was of film. As the 1960's wore on more filmmakers from the classic period of 1930-1960 found themselves increasingly out of work or with long periods between assignments. The list of great directors who gave up on film making yet lived on for many years is impressive : Raoul Walsh, King Vidor, William Wellman, Rouben Mamoulian, Frank Capra, William Wyler, Leo McCarey. These men just stopped making films by 1970, yet all, except for McCarey, lived on for at least ten or more years in retirement, for one reason or another. Then there was another group, a little younger than those movie pioneers, who found it harder and harder to get a film made in the free-for-all, catch-as-catch-can world of independent film production that Hollywood had recently embraced : Joseph Mankiewicz, Cukor, Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, George Stevens, Elia Kazan, these and a few others had long periods between films as some projects would come together, get delayed or be swept away when a new regime would take over what would become a revolving door of new studio executives. Add Minnelli to the list of these latter filmmakers. From 1965, when he finished The Sandpiper, to his death in 1986, Minnelli would helm only two more films, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever in 1970 was to be his final musical and 1976's A Matter of Time which, despite daughter Liza starring, is not a musical. On A Clear Day didn't do well, though it's worth seeing and entertaining enough, but A Matter of Time was an utter disaster, with the cutting being taken out of his hands by Samuel Z. Arkoff, the film's producer, and when shown in theaters proved a box office dud. Such a sad exit for one of the great stylists of the movies. Minnelli's real war was in fought on the soundstages, cutting rooms and inner sanctums of the studio bosses, fighting to get the image from his head up to the screen. In that war Vincente Minnelli won more battles than he lost, and we all benefited from his vision.