James Garner Has Made His Great Escape

Sorry to hear that James Garner aka Jim Rockford/ Bret Maverick, has passed on today at the age of 86. Garner made a name for himself in the late 50's on the television western Maverick, beginning in 1957. Garner would leave the top-rated show after the third season to pursue a life in film. A major star of TV, jumping to the big screen was a new and fairly radical venture. Garner's film career began with A-List projects, starting off with William Wellman's second-to-the-last-directed feature Darby's Rangers, followed by Cash McCall with ingenue Natalie Wood. 1961 found Garner caught between Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in The Children's Hour, director William Wyler's remake of his own 1936 adaptation of These Three, based on the play by Lillian Hellman. His biggest hit of the 1960's, possibly of his entire career, came in 1963's POW - WW II classic The Great Escape. Starring alongside Steve McQueen and a couple of not quite but future stars, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, Garner played "the scrounger ", Flt. Lt. Robert Hendley.

The success of Escape helped pave the way for Garner the rest of the decade. One of his best roles was in The Americaniztion Of Emily, with Julie Andrews, as Lt.Cmdr. Charlie Madison, a self confessed coward who is picked to be a hero at the invasion on Normandy on D-Day. Though not a big success at the time, this Paddy Chayevsky-penned film has gathered a cult following thru the years and is the personal favorite of both Andrews and Garner. Per Wikipedia, William Holden was originally tabbed for Garner's role, but when Holden backed out, Garner stepped in. If so, I can imagine Holden in the part too. Probably would have fit him like a glove as both actors project an ease and naturalism on camera, with Garner being particularly adept in comedic parts. Garner would round out the 60's in just such a role, Support Your Local Sheriff, a surprise hit from 1969. For most of the 1970's Garner would focus on television. His big success portraying P.I. Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files, and it may be the work he is best remembered for today. Premiering on NBC on September 13, 1974 at 9pm, Rockford was an instant hit with tube watchers. However, due to the pressures of a weekly television show, Garner was to suffer from ulcers, which would precipitate his leaving the show. Just goes to show the stress involved in making it all look easy.

 1982 brought the gender-bending comedy Victor/Victoria, again with Julie Andrews, and in 1985's Murphy's Romance, Garner - opposite a sexy, thirty-something Sally Field as a divorced mother with a teenage son - played the widowed, 50-ish Murphy Jones, druggist of a small Arizona town, who gets a second chance at love. Charming and easy going - though at times irascible - Garner had one of the best parts of his career and was honored with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Irascibility combined with an easy going charm may seem opposite ends of the spectrum, yet Garner, like Cary Grant, seemed to make crabby almost likeable. Certainly, he made it funny. In the 1969 film Marlowe { not an especially good adaptation of Chandler's book Little Sister, yet as to date the only one we have }, there is a scene in which Marlowe is getting roughed up by some thugs. Check out the very beginning of this video. It is an example of what James Garner did so well.

I have always loved that smart-ass, throw-away humor that Garner was so great at. A lost art, I'm afraid. That's what Garner seemed to do best, and may qualify as to why he never really got his due as an actor. Like Mitchum, Grant, Holden and a handful of others, these guys made the difficult craft of acting look effortless. Garner never showed the wheels spinning. I cannot even think of a film or television show in which Garner was not, at least, good. The man never gave a bad performance.  R.I.P. Jim Rockford/Bret Maverick/Murphy Jones/Charlie Madison, etc. You were one of the best.

Happy Birthday, Ringo

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite films, A Hard Day's Night, 1964

Very sincere and heartfelt birthday wishes to Ringo, the beloved drummer from that band called The Beatles. Seventy Four years young today, Ringo may be the most beloved of all the Fab Four. His affable good humor { which led to at least a couple of immortal songs like, a hard days' night and tomorrow never knows, both Ringo-isms } , even temperament, off-key singing,  and steady drumbeat helped keep the group jelled throughout their time together. While John may have had issues with Paul or George, or George may have had issues with Paul or John, nobody, I mean nobody ever had issues with Ringo: it may be that his greatest strength was, paradoxically, his greatest weakness. At times, because of his ability to be everybody's friend, { good ol'  Ringo }, they took him for granted.

Good ol ' Ringo, everyone's best mate, circa 1967.

At least once, it seems, Ringo got fed up with it all. Whether it had to do with being overlooked, tried of the fighting that had recently started within the group, or he just went on holiday, is not known. What is a known is that in August 1968, while the band was working on what came to be known as The White Album, Ringo - the last to join The Beatles - was the first to walk out. Just left. For two weeks or so, leaving the band without a drummer. Therefore, Ringo has the distinction of being the first member to quit the world's most famous band. Consequently, the band's all-round utility player, Paul McCartney, played drums on Back in the USSR and Dear Prudence. Ringo eventually came back a couple of weeks later, after the band sent him flowers and love letters saying things like " you're the best rock drummer ever ", and " we love you, Ringo, come back ".  Goes to show how bad things had gotten for the Fabs when the most affable member is fed up and needed a holiday.

Ringo, about to knock the button off Paul's lapel, circa 1965.

Besides excelling as a drummer, Ringo also dabbled in acting. Besides the good reviews he received for A Hard Day's Night and Help!, Ringo also appeared in the all-star sex-romp Candy, and The Magic Christian opposite comic genius Peter Sellers, while still making music with the band. After the group split Ringo still made music and had a surprising run of hit records thru the 70's.  According to that beacon of facts, Wikipedia, at one time RIngo had seven straight top ten hits including : Photograph { co-written by George Harrison }, Oh My My, a cover of the 50's hit You're Sixteen { which made #1 }, and the No No Song. The 1970's were a busy time for Ringo, besides records he continued with his movie making : That'll Be The Day,  Ken Russell's Lisztomania and Mae West's last film, Sextette. Starr's biggest try for the big time as an actor was in 1981 with the comedy Caveman, which also starred Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long,  and Bond Girl Barbara Bach. Ringo and the lovely Ms. Bach would be married about a year after the film was made, and have been in happy cohabitation ever since. The failure of Caveman essentially ended Ringo's big screen ambition's, although he would appear in Paul McCartney's movie Give My Regards To Broad Street and the first two seasons on the TV kiddie show, Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends, as the best Mr. Conductor ever { just ask my son Tim }. Except for a rare cameo, Ringo's film appearances have been confined to documentaries in which he is usually the warmest,  most honest person in the film. His reminisces in The Beatles Anthology and, especially Living In The Material World, Martin Scorsese's film on the life of Harrison, are especially poignant.

 The above clip is what I like about Ringo. He's not afraid of just being himself, not shy of sharing his emotions when most would keep that side private, and then come up with the Barbara Walters line as a topper. Perfect. Just so folks don't think Ringo is resting on his laurels, he is currently on tour with the latest edition of Ringo Starr and His All-Star Band. In fact, Ringo and his chums will be at the Santa Barbara Bowl this Saturday July 12. So, Happy Birthday to the boy from The Dingle - Liverpool's rough slum where he grew up a sickly youth - the lad who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Happy Birthday Mr. Starkey, the luckiest man in show biz.

P.S. Just for the record, my favorite song Ringo sang is one he did back in 1967 with his best mates, a little ditty called With A Little Help From My Friends.

 

A Hard Day's Night, "The 'Citizen Kane' of jukebox musicals"

Opening night in London, July 6, 1964

It's been 50 years this month since A Hard Day's Night opened in British cinemas. The movie, which wouldn't open stateside until August, was a revelation upon release. The Beatles proved they could not only handle dialogue with the best of them, but they also had expert comic timing and screen presence to burn. Screenwriter Alun Owen followed the group around for a couple of weeks to get their Liverpudlian rhythm down, incorporating their unique speech patterns and slang into the screenplay while the film's director, Richard Lester, imbued the film with a silent-movie slapstick, cinema verite style.

"Hey mister, can we have our ball back?"

Filmed in black and white for just $500,600 over seven weeks shortly following their Ed Sullivan Show appearances on American television, the movie was made so United Artists could get the rights to a Beatles soundtrack album. UA got that and a whole lot more; they got a commercial hit (no big surprise); a critical, Academy Award-nominated hit (big surprise); and ultimately, a bona fide classic (biggest surprise of all), making the movie, as Andrew Sarris called it, "The Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals."

Today, "jukebox" is an antiquated term, but 50 years on, the movie - unlike jukeboxes - not only holds up, it may actually have improved with age. It's still a rollicking, good, fictional day-in-the-life of The Beatles. Besieged by fans, living life in "a train and a room a car and a room and a room and a room," it makes life on the road of the world's most wildly successful band manic with its perpetual movement. Indeed even by today's on-the-go standards, A Hard Day's Night is never boring; it hardly stops for a breath. The witty repartee between the Fabs, the press conference, the tormenting of the TV director and the band's manager (in fact, any authority figure), the sheer exuberance and joy of being young and alive with talent and promise (best represented by the "Can't Buy Me Love" sequence, below) with all the world as their oyster make the film irresistible.

And then there's the music. The songs in the movie were from the Beatles third album, but it was the first to have only Lennon and McCartney songs with no covers. McCartney's contribution is significant but relatively small with "And I Love Her," "Things We Said Today," and "Can't Buy Me Love" figuring prominently. But there is no doubt who the mover and shaker is on the soundtrack: John Lennon.

The bulk of the writing was done by Lennon, still in the manic/leadership role he had been in since the group began to jell in the late 1950s. Giddy from the insane heights the band had scaled in just two years, Lennon hadn't yet found the time to let the fame - and, for him, emptiness - sink in. That would arrive on his psychological doorstep soon enough. By the time The Beatles next film, Help!, was being filmed in early 1965, Lennon and the rest of the group had discovered the magic of marijuana and were consuming it with a vengeance (when they were "smoking marijuana for breakfast.") But none of the others were affected by a drug-induced introspection like Lennon was. While he continued to write brilliant songs, he would never again dominate a Beatles album like he did A Hard Day's Night.

The original soundtrack that was issued in the US had only the eight songs performed in the film. The  five additional songs on the UK version would find their way to American shores via other albums released by the Capitol record label that distributed the Fabs records here. With only eight cuts on the US version, United Artists added four instrumental tracks to round out the soundtrack.

The original soundtrack album issued in America, courtesy of United Artists

The movie opened to surprisingly glowing reviews, with special regard for the eclectic array of songs (the album is probably their best from the Beatlemania days, with both uptempo and more melancholy compositions). The zest of director Lester's vision, the wit of Owen's screenplay, and the film's slashing cut-and-run editing and photography were all singled out. Among the four Beatles as actors, Ringo was praised for the vignette in which he temporarily walks out on the band just before a television appearance and makes friends with a ten-year-old boy who has cut class for the day ("I'm a deserter, too."). The concert performed at film's end is, to me, the best example of the frenzy and fury of Beatlemania, the word that gave the movie its original title. By the time the dust had settled, A Hard Day's Night would receive two Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Scoring of Music. Amazingly, given the subsequent success of pop music artists at the Oscars, none of the Lennon-McCartney songs got a nod from Oscar. There may not have been any kind of uproar at the time regarding that snub, but if the film were made today there certainly would be. At the time, however, the two noms it did get were pretty big news for a movie that wasn't expected to achieve much. At the box office the film raked in over $12 million, according to IMDB, which is a ridiculously successful return on investment (adjusted for inflation, the cost would be $3.6 million, and a return of nearly $90 million).

One of the most interesting aspects of A Hard Day's Night is that the band is never named. In other words no one, not once, refers to them as "Beatle Paul" or "Beatle John" or "The Beatles." The only real acknowledgement that they are, in fact, The Beatles, is the logo on the front of Ringo's drum kit. Other movies with musicians like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley were successful, but they didn't play anyone like themselves. Elvis, maybe in Jailhouse Rock, was an extension of his real self, but they always played characters. With A Hard Day's Night, we are thrown into this movie knowing exactly who John, Paul, George, and Ringo are. No needless exposition on how they got where they got, no backstory. Since they are all named after themselves, and the film is shot in a semi-documentary style, audiences of the day assumed this was who they were since they were not actors in real life. Seeing their press conferences on TV news - the way they would volley answers back to the reporters - made the film seem a genuine portrayal of their life, which undoubtedly contributed to its success. (This, of course, would only confuse fans just two years later in 1966 when rumors began to swirl about a possible break up of the band, following the group's decision to stop touring. Those rumors would intensify a year after that when their manager Brian Epstein died of a drug overdose. But that was all in the future.)

Americans were already traveling a hard road by 1964. The shock and dismay that accompanied the assassination of President John Kennedy signaled the turmoil to come over the next six years of the decade. But thanks to the lads from Liverpool, Americans got a little joy back into their lives. In the summer of 1964, A Hard Day's Night was the right antidote for a battered world.

It still is.

Sources: IMDB
              Wikipedia
              My Beatles.net