Crush of the Week: Rita Hayworth, The Lonely Love Goddess

When she died in 1986, there is a good chance Rita Hayworth didn't know who she was. The Love Goddess of the 1940s and 50s was a victim of Alzheimer's disease. Maybe it's just as well she didn't remember, though. Rita Hayworth's life had more than its share of heartache.

The Life magazine photo that made Orson Welles and millions of others swoon

She was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, to two dancers, Eduardo Cansino and Volga Hayworth. Young Rita, whose father wanted her to be a dancer, took dancing lessons almost from the time she could walk. In 1927, Eduardo took his family, which now also included two boys, Eduardo, Jr., and Vernon, and moved to Hollywood where he hoped his dancing talent would open the film industry's doors to him. Though his movie star aspirations were not to be, Eduardo did open up his own dance studio, which was very successful until the Great Depression forced him to close it. In 1931, Eduardo partnered with Rita as the Dancing Cansino's, but since Rita was underage, Eduardo took their act south of the border to the popular tourist town of Tijuana, Mexico. According to biographer Barbara Leaming's interview with Hayworth's second husband, Orson Welles, Eduardo also partnered with Rita behind closed doors, sexually abusing her and undoubtedly leaving her in search of a man she could trust for the rest of her life.

Natural (Marga)Rita, pre-make over

In 1934, while dancing in Tijuana at the Caliente Club, Rita caught the eye of Fox Studios chief, Winfield Sheehan, and he signed the re-christened Rita Cansino to a six-month contract. Unfortunately, Rita was a victim of studio politics when Fox merged with Twentieth Pictures and became 20th Century-Fox. When Darryl Zanuck replaced Sheehan as studio boss, he let Rita's contract to expire.

It didn't take long for the young dancer to find another studio that was interested in her talent, though. Edward Judson, a salesman and promoter, saw Rita, became her manager and agent, and got her some freelance work at several studios, eventually convincing Columbia Pictures studio chief, Harry Cohn, to sign her to a seven-year contract and try her out in small roles. Feeling that Rita's look and name were too "exotic" for audiences of the time, Cohn had her name changed from Cansino to Hayworth, colored her hair from its natural black to red, and raised her hairline with the help of electrolysis. Margarita Cansino's first film as Rita Hayworth was a 1937 programmer called Criminals of the Air. Thirteen more low budget films followed, including forgettable movies like Paid to Dance, Convicted, The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, and The Game That Kills. 1937 was also a big year in other ways for Rita: On May 29 she married her benefactor, Ed Judson, who was more than twenty years her senior.

A breakthrough with Cary Grant: Only Angels Have Wings, 1939

Rita's big break came in 1939 when director Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, Scarface, Twentieth Century) cast her as the other woman in his action picture, Only Angels Have Wings. This quintessential Hawksian adventure film about American flyers in South America gave Rita a good supporting part as the ex-flame of Cary Grant's character, Jeff, and was a big hit in that banner year. The faith Harry Cohn showed Rita began to pay off, and the next year she was loaned to MGM to co-star in George Cukor's version of Susan and God. Adapted from a stage play that starred Gertrude Lawrence, the film was a showcase for Joan Crawford, who was just beginning to flex her acting muscles after spending years as America's favorite working girl. The film was not a popular success, but it was an important stepping stone for Hayworth. Back at Columbia, 1940 proved a busy year for Rita. She was the female lead in both The Lady in Question, playing alongside Glenn Ford in the first of five movies they made together, and the critically acclaimed Angels Over Broadway.

1941 was a pivotal year for Rita. She appeared in four movies-The Strawberry Blonde, a major hit, with James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland, and the forgettable Affectionately Yours with Merle Oberon and Dennis Morgan, both for Warner Bros.-as well as the high grossing Blood and Sand, with Rita as the luscious yet heartless Dona Sol, tempting bullfighter Tyrone Power with sex. Blood and Sand finally propelled Rita to superstar status. Her lone Columbia picture that year was also one of her most popular. You'll Never Get Rich showcased her dancing with the movies premier hoofer, Fred Astaire. These movies, along with her Life magazine photograph published that same year-a favorite of American servicemen recently called to war-made Rita one of the most desirable women in the world.

Her next film, a musical with Victor Mature called My Gal Sal for 20th Century-Fox, was also popular, and Hayworth and Mature began an affair, leading to her divorce from Ed Judson in mid-1942. At the time she said, "[Judson] regarded me as an investment and I had no fun.... But I'm not bitter now. I realize how much Ed has done for me. He fought for me.... [M]y career was his only concern." Mature went public with his love for Rita; however, while he was on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard, Rita never publicly confirmed her affection for him, dating several others, including Tony Martin, David Niven, and Howard Hughes. Then came Orson Welles.

Rita, Orson, and future best man Joseph Cotten: The Mercury Wonder Show

When Orson Welles saw Rita Hayworth's famous Life magazine photo, he supposedly said, "I'm gonna marry her." They met, and Rita became part of Welles' The Mercury Wonder Show, a sort of vaudeville show that he and friends like Joseph Cotten and Marlene Dietrich were performing for troops in Los Angeles. Harry Cohn was not thrilled about Rita's appearances in Orson's little revue but let her go on performing. Orson was dazzled by Rita's beauty, and Rita was besotted by Orson's brain. She said he not only was brilliant but that he was the only person who listened to her and took her seriously. After a whirlwind courtship, they married on September 7, 1943. But while Rita gave birth to their daughter, Rebecca, on December 17, 1944, the marriage was doomed. Welles, it was said, didn't like to be tied down to just one woman.

In spite of the turmoil of her years with Welles, she continued making movies. In 1944, she made Cover Girl, a musical with Gene Kelly that is considered among her best and was known to be one of her favorites. She does display some great dancing, but I find the film doesn't live up to its reputation. In 1945, she made Tonight and Every Night, an interesting backstage look at a London musical show determined not to miss one performance during the World War II Blitz. And in 1946, Rita Hayworth made the film for which she would be best remembered: Gilda.

Co-starring Glenn Ford, Gilda is a film noir with a sour romance at its core. Rita's Gilda and Ford's Johnny Farrell were once lovers in America. When the movie begins, Johnny is on the bum in Buenos Aires when fate intervenes, and Johnny is saved from getting robbed by Balin Mundson, a rich casino owner. He gives Johnny his card and invites him to visit the club. Johnny, an ace gambler, shows up, befriends Mundson, and is soon supervising the club for him. Then one night at Mundson's home, Johnny hears a familiar song. It's "Put the Blame on Mame," and soon it's being performed by Johnny's lost love, Gilda. From there it's just one big innuendo after another.

"Gilda? Are you decent?"  "Me?"

I can't stress enough how much I love this movie. It's all about Johnny's twisted sexual obsession, Balin's repression, and Gilda, stuck in the middle. Every time I see Gilda I'm amazed that it got past the censors. The camerawork and staging suggests the prison these two men have trapped Gilda in. Rita's costumes are incredibly sexy. And, of course, I cannot say enough about her rendition of "Put the Blame on Mame."
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Gilda was a huge hit in 1946, and its reputation as a classic has only grown through the years. For Rita, however, the film and its title character became a kind of curse. Years later Rita lamented,"Men went to bed with Gilda, but they woke up with me." Gilda was the symbol of sex Rita could never live up to. At age 28, she had reached the cinematic peak of her career. While she made several very good films after Gilda, it was for this femme fatale that audiences would forever recognize her.

As Gilda packed theaters, Rita was making a new film with estranged husband Welles. The Lady From Shanghai was also seeped in noir decadence. For it, Rita had her famous long, red hair cut short and dyed blonde. It almost seems Welles was eager to destroy the Gilda myth. Maybe Rita welcomed the change, maybe not, but it made Harry Cohn furious. To Cohn, Welles was maiming Columbia Studios' biggest asset.

Good still of Rita as the blonde Welles made over in 1948's The Lady From Shanghai

The new look certainly made her look thinner and older. It gave her a harder look, which suited her character, Elsa, well. When finally released in 1948, The Lady From Shanghai was a flop-everything Gilda was not. Rita had agreed to make the film because she hoped to reconcile with Welles. Welles made it because he needed the money after his notorious Broadway flop, Around The World. In the end, it was the film that won. Eventually, The Lady From Shanghai became a well-respected piece of film noir as the popularity of that genre grew. The climatic mirror scene near the film's conclusion is a sterling example of what imagination could achieve within the limits of noir's conventions.

The Lady From Shanghai's dialogue is superb-razor sharp-and the visuals are justly praised. Every time I view the mirror scene, I find myself thinking that Welles, who also wrote the script, must have been commenting on how he felt about the state of his relationship with Hayworth. The lines "I'm aiming at your lover" and " You know I'm pretty tired of both of us" ring true for me. As much as Rita wanted him, he wanted just as strongly to be free. No one-not a producer, not a movie studio, not a wife-could tie down Welles because Welles always did exactly what he wanted to do. Soon after the film was released to the public (after nearly half of it was cut by Harry Cohn's studio editor) both Rita and Orson were in Europe, though not together (their divorce was final in November 1947). Welles was escaping communist witch-hunters-and the IRS-and Rita was escaping into the arms of playboy, Prince Aly Kahn.

Rita with her Prince

In May 1949, Rita and Aly Khan were married in Cannes. At 30, Rita embarked on yet another marriage, giving up her film career to become a princess long before Grace Kelly ever did. Seemingly, Rita had finally found her Prince Charming and happiness. But, despite the birth of daughter Yasmin, this marriage didn't work either. Aly was a playboy and lived up to his reputation. Shortly after the press published photos of Aly dancing in a night club with Joan Fontaine, Rita left for Reno with her daughters to set up residence and file for divorce.

Harry Cohn, who technically still had her under contract, welcomed his biggest cash magnet back to the Columbia fold. But it was 1952, and Rita hadn't been in a movie in four years when most stars made two or three a year. The world had moved on since Gilda in 1946. And Rita had aged. In her absence Hollywood had discovered other sex goddesses, including Marilyn Monroe, who was on the cusp of fame that would far outlast her remaining ten years; Elizabeth Taylor, who was starting to bloom; and Sophia Loren, Jayne Mansfield, Anita Ekberg, and Brigitte Bardot, who were also right around the cinematic corner. With all this in mind, Harry Cohn decided it was best to act as if time had stood still. He cast Rita with Glenn Ford in the potboiler, Affair in Trinidad. It isn't much of a film, but it showed Hollywood that Rita's name could still sell a film, and it made money.

Interestingly, there was a tailor-made part in a first class production that would have done Rita a world of good, both professionally and personally. Harry Cohn had bought the rights to the "unfilmable" novel, From Here To Eternity. Helmed by Fred Zinnemann-fresh off his High Noon triumph-the film had Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, and Deborah Kerr in the leading roles. Why Rita wasn't considered for Kerr's role is one of the all-time movie mysteries. Joan Crawford had been penciled in for the part of Karen Richards, the unhappily married wife of Lancaster's commanding officer, but after (allegedly) fussing about who her costume designer would be, she was erased from the project. Rita would have been perfect, but no offer was made. As far as I know she was never even considered, opening the door for Kerr's great run of movies (The King and I; Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; Bonjour, Tristesse; The Sundowners) through the 1950s. Meanwhile Rita made two other movies in 1953: Salome (bad) and Miss Sadie Thompson (good).

One of my favorite Rita portrayals, Miss Sadie Thompson, 1953

Miss Sadie Thompson, adapted from "Rain," a 1923 story by W. Somerset Maugham, had already been made twice in Hollywood-a 1928 silent with Gloria Swanson called Sadie Thompson and a 1932 sound version with Joan Crawford called Rain-before the 1953 version, starring Rita. Both earlier version were more faithful to the story as they are what is now known as "pre-code" movies-films made before the film censorship board made serious inroads as to what content could be shown on the screen. By the time Rita's Sadie arrived, censors had been having their way for nearly twenty years, resulting in a significantly watered down version in 1953. In Maugham's story, Sadie is a prostitute; here she is a clip joint "entertainer." Bounced out of Hawaii's red light district-by way of San Francisco-on a vague morals charge, Sadie is bound for New Caledonia but temporarily stuck on a remote island occupied by U.S. Marines.

Despite the lack of critical kudos, Rita's first two comeback films had done good business, so Harry Cohn decided to brush up the Maugham story with the added attractions of color and 3-D, the movie's latest television-combating fad. No doubt a stunner in its original process, Miss Sadie Thompson was mostly exhibited in its so-called flat, or normal, process. Rita makes a good Sadie, suggesting the character's low class roots and the somewhat innocent hold she has over men. She knows men want her, but she treats them mostly as harmless, good-hearted goons, even though the look on their faces-especially during Sadie's "The Heat Is On" number, performed in a sweaty, smoky atmosphere-shows the unbridled lust they have for her. With Miss Sadie Thompson Rita Hayworth, age 35-every year showing on her beautiful face-gives what may be her best performance. Unfortunately, the movie is not worthy of her effort. Capable director Curtis Bernhardt doesn't provide Rita anything to play off of. Her primary male counterparts are Aldo Ray as the main Marine on base and Jose Ferrer, whose Alfred Davidson was also sanitized, are stilted compared to Rita's swaggering Sadie.

Rita as a watered-down version of Sadie Thompson, whore of the South Seas

According to director Bernhardt, Rita wasn't her cheeriest during the making of Miss Sadie Thompson. After three failed marriages, she had begun a relationship with singer Dick Haymes. In fact the two were wed in September 1953, the fourth marriage for both (Haymes' previous wives included Joanne Dru and Nora Eddington, who was also Errol Flynn's ex). According to all reports, the union was not a happy one. Haymes supposedly beat the hell out of her. He also was in major financial straits with debts to the IRS and his ex-wives. He drank too much, and, more often than not, Rita, who had developed her own dependency on alcohol, joined him. Rita finally left Haymes in 1955 after he hit her in the face at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Rita said, "I'm basically a good person who is attracted to mean personalities."

Rita as Mrs. Prentice Simpson, aka "Vanessa the Undressa," in Pal Joey with Frank Sinatra.

After Miss Sadie Thompson, Rita was off the screen for another four years (years spent suing Columbia Pictures and others), finally re-appearing in 1957's Fire Down Below with Robert Mitchum and Jack Lemmon, a film that promised more than it delivered; and returning to musicals in Pal Joey. Fire Down Below is a fairly entertaining buddy/adventure film with Rita as a woman who comes between Mitchum and Lemmon. Some lines sound almost autobiographical, dialogue Rita could have written herself.  Pal Joey co-starred Rita with Frank Sinatra and Columbia's newest sex symbol, Kim Novak. Next to Hayworth, Novak is out of her element. The film belongs to Sinatra (his performance of  "The Lady Is a Tramp" is not just a showstopper; it may be Frank's best moment on film, ever), yet Rita holds her own, especially in the first half of the film. She has two good numbers-the faux striptease "Zip!" and her real highlight, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," which is begun with Rita lounging in bed after a night with Sinatra's Joey, and ends with her in the shower discreetly surrounded by smoked windows.

Pal Joey was Rita's last great showcase and a worthy farewell to the movie musical genre she contributed so much to. But time was running out on her career, and the last decade brought many starts and stops. 1958's Separate Tables was highly acclaimed, yielding Oscars for David Niven and Wendy Hiller, but not much for Rita. Though top billed among the starry cast, Rita was overlooked by Oscar as well as most critics of the day.

Still beautiful in 1957's Fire Down Below

After Separate Tables Rita made They Came to Cordura, one of  Gary Cooper's last film's; The Story on Page One; The Happy Thieves produced by her fifth husband, James Hill of Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, just before their relationship ended; Circus World with John Wayne; and her last with Glenn Ford, 1966's The Money Trap. By now Rita was having trouble remembering her lines and having violent tantrums. After staying active in some low budget European films and several television spots for the remainder of the sixties, Rita Hayworth's last movie was 1972's The Wrath of God with old friend and co-star, Robert Mitchum. The rest of her life was a blur of embarrassing newspaper photos and headlines. Eventually her daughter, Yasmin, came to her rescue and took over as her mother's caretaker. In 1980, Rita was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Kept away from the paparazzi's hungry eyes, she died on May 14, 1987.

Happier times with Orson

Rita Hayworth's career seldom seemed to being her satisfaction or happiness. Until the end of her life Rita maintained she'd been happiest with Orson Welles-that he was the love of her life. Shortly before his own death in 1985, Welles told biographer Barbara Leaming, "If this was happiness, can you imagine what the rest of her life must have been?"

Sources: If This Was Happiness by Barbara Leaming
               Rita Hayworth : The Time, The Place and The Woman by John Kobal
               Rita Hayworth, The Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Gerald Peary
               Wikipedia
               IMDB
               Photos courtesy of the internet
               Rita's films courtesy of TCM
             

The Professionals: MGM's Robert Z. Leonard

Robert Z. Leonard was an MGM house director for more than thirty years. Like most of the filmmakers who toiled under Leo the Lion's powerful roar (among them, W.S. Van Dyke, Richard Thorpe, Jack Conway, Victor Fleming), Leonard is all but neglected by today's film historians and run-of-the-mill fan-critics. And while his filmography has its share of clunkers - as anyone who made over seventy movies would have - a careful look at Leonard's films also show a great number of underrated and still entertaining movies.

Robert Z. Leonard (above) was known as "Pops"
to nearly everyone who worked with him.

Born in Chicago on October 7, 1889, Leonard originally studied law but dropped out to pursue a career in the theater. Leonard crashed the burgeoning movie business when his family moved west to Hollywood, and by 1916 he had established himself as an actor - a reliable leading man. It was behind the camera that Leonard was most interested, however, and he began by directing dozens of shorts between 1913 and 1917. Under contract to Universal Pictures, Leonard was paired up with actress and diva-deluxe, Mae Murray. (Nicknamed The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips, Murray, who was a Ziegfeld Follies star before she was in the movies, is best known today as the title character in Erich Von Stroheim's 1925 version of The Merry Widow opposite silent film heartthrob, John Gilbert.) Leonard and Murray fell in love and were married in 1918. The union lasted until 1925. The next year Leonard married another actress, Gertrude Olmstead. By that time Leonard had been signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he would flourish for the next thirty years.

Leonard on set, sitting to the left of Marion Davies

During his years at MGM, Leonard worked with nearly every top star at the studio, including Norma Shearer in her Oscar-winning performance as The Divorcee in 1930; Greta Garbo and Clark Gable in their only film together, 1931's Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise); Joan Crawford in Dancing Lady, the 1933 musical that also introduced a young Broadway hoofer named Fred Astaire to the movies; William Powell in 1936's Best Picture Oscar winner, The Great Ziegfeld; and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier in the still entertaining 1940 adaptation (written by Aldous Huxley) of Pride and Prejudice. That is just a sample of Leonard's vast record of work. His two biggest hits from the 1930s, The Divorcee and The Great Ziegfeld, also garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Director, though he lost the golden guy on both occasions. A company man body and soul, Leonard rarely refused an assignment and, like all contract directors, stepped in at times when a fellow lensman was ill or had moved on to another project. He did this, always without credit, in such films as Jack Conway's 1935 adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities. 

Freud would have a field day: Gable and Garbo in their only film together,
the underrated Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)

I don't claim to have seen every film Robert Z. Leonard directed, but I can tell you to avoid - I mean AVOID - Strange Interlude, the 1932 adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning play with Norma Shearer and Clark Gable. Staying faithful to the style of the original stage production, the story is presented with the actors detailing their inner thoughts via a series of increasingly distracting (and often plain silly) voice-overs. It succeeded only in making the performers look like overacting amateurs. 

The Great Ziegfeld is, at nearly three hours, also a bit of a chore to sit through. It may qualify as one of those overrated Best Picture winners, in spite of the work of William Powell, who never gave a bad performance, Myrna Loy, Frank Morgan, and Louise Rainer in her first Oscar-winning role (whether that award was deserved over the other Best Actress contenders like my personal favorite - Carole Lombard's wacky socialite in My Man Godfrey - is debatable). Similarly, 1948's B.F.'s Daughter, starring the always compelling Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin and based on John P. Marquand's bestselling novel, is another movie that may cure insomniacs. As for Leonard's silent output, I don't think I've seen any.

A still from Maytime, the Jeanette McDonald-Nelson Eddy starrer
in which John Barrymore (far right) steals the show.

With all this said, I have enjoyed and do recommend several of Leonard's films - some surprisingly. While he collaborated with the singing team of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald several times, their best effort was Maytime. Made in 1937 when the duo was at the peak of their popularity, the film is a fascinating take on love, jealousy, and good old-fashioned showbiz. John Barrymore does a great job playing up his obsessive love for wife MacDonald who, in turn, is in love with Eddy. It's the classic love-hate-jealousy triangle that was already old in 1937, but the performers - Barrymore especially - make it work.

Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise), with the unlikely pairing of Greta Garbo and Clark Gable - the latter just beginning his long reign as King of Hollywood - is better than I was ever led to believe. In it, Garbo plays the daughter of Swedish immigrant, Jean Hersholt, who runs away one rain-drenched night to escape an arranged marriage to the hulking Alan Hale (long before his immortal turns as Errol Flynn's best buddy in Robin Hood, Don Juan, Dodge City, and others). The story is classic pre-code: Garbo hooks up with Gable after he discovers her taking shelter in his garage. Their connection is short-lived, however, when Garbo must again escape when daddy Hersholt and dumb-bell Hale find her while Gable is away. She hides out with a circus, becomes a cooch dancer, and compromises her virtue with the circus owner when the police come looking for her. All ends happily (unfortunately, perhaps, as the pre-code appellation might indicate a conclusion a bit more complex), but the journey is worth the trip thanks to wonderful sets, atmospheric camera work, and the magnetic once-in-a-career pairing of the two leads. 

MGM gloss at its finest: Walter Pidgeon and Ginger Rogers start to fall in love in Week-End at the Waldorf.

Week-End at the Waldorf, starring Ginger Rogers, Walter Pidgeon, Lana Turner, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold, Keenan Wynn, Robert Benchley, and Xavier Cugat, is the kind of movie they don't make anymore - that is, the kind of movie MGM could make with its eyes closed and audiences eventually lost its taste for. A sort of Reader's Digest remake of the studio's 1932 Oscar winner, Grand Hotel, updated to New York City circa 1945, Week-End at the Waldorf gives barely a hint of the original's Berlin angst, but the ease and professionalism is really a marvel to behold, with Leonard juggling egos, budgets, and the front office while making a first-rate entertainment. Every year or so when I watch it, I am reminded of what the Hollywood studio system could do at its peak: recreate a time and place without ever leaving the friendly confines of a California studio.

The next year Leonard directed one of his and MGM's most interesting films from this period, The Secret Heart. With a starry cast that includes Claudette Colbert, Walter Pidgeon, June Allyson, and Lionel Barrymore, The Secret Heart is about Larry Addams (Richard Derr), a brilliant pianist who must earn his living working in a bank. A widower with two small children, Larry meets Lee (Colbert) and falls in love. Love, however, isn't enough and Larry, who has a drinking problem, commits suicide, though his daughter Penny (Allyson) believes it an accident. With her father's death leaving her in in a near-constant state of depression, her brother, Chase, and Lee try to bring Penny out of her despair with the aid of psychotherapy. Post-war movie audiences were beginning to move past the escapism of the pre-war days and become more willing to accept the complex, adult themes the film presented. Nonetheless, it was an unusual film to open on Christmas Day, 1946. While it did moderately well at the box office, it was perceived a failure. Today, The Secret Heart seems refreshingly modern, though the psychobabble is a bit cliched seventy years on. Still, his interest in such a topic is a credit to Leonard, and the against-type casting of musical comedy star June Allyson as the depressed Penny is daring. For me, it works and remains an underrated and neglected film ripe for rediscovery.

 Dangerous beauty Ava Gardner with Robert Taylor in the noir, The Bribe

Robert Z. Leonard's excursion to noir's dark side was also his last truly notable film, 1949's The Bribe. Since returning from World War II, star Robert Taylor had displayed an aptitude for weak, fallen men, starting with his first post-war role in 1946's Undercurrent and continuing with the exemplary High Wall in 1947. Working with an outstanding cast that included Ava Gardner, John Hodiak, Charles Laughton, and Vincent Price, The Bribe was a flop upon release, losing nearly $400,000 (about $4 million in today's dollars); however, intervening years have seen it slowly gain a following among fans of noir. The assets of the picture, which is a bit slow paced and lacking in subtlety, include a Miklos Rozsa score, appropriately oppressive cinematography by the renowned Joseph Ruttenberg, and south-of-the-border art direction by the legendary Cedric Gibbons. The film may have been better executed in the hands of a Nicholas Ray or Robert Siodmak, but Leonard must be given points for his sense of style. He was also fortunate in having Ava Gardner, then at the height of the beauty and sensuality that made her career, as the female lead.

Ava in The Bribe (Need I say more?)

Leonard's final MGM film was The King's Thief in 1956. He directed two more movies, an Italian production with Gina Lollobrigida called Beautiful But Dangerous and the family film, Kelly and Me, in 1957. Nicknamed "Pops" by nearly everyone whom he worked with, Robert Z. Leonard was a well-liked, talented craftsman who always gave his best. The results lie in his body of work.

Sources: IMDB
               Wikipedia
               Turner Classic Movies

Underrated Gem: Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow

Douglas Sirk is rightly regarded today as the leading exponent of the so-called women's pictures of the 1950s. He's best remembered for 1954's Magnificent Obsession; 1955's All That Heaven Allows; and 1956's Written on the Wind - all starring Rock Hudson - as well as his 1959 swan song, Imitation of Life, with Lana Turner. Along with Written on the Wind, in 1956, Sirk also directed what is my favorite of his films, There's Always Tomorrow. Like Obsession and Imitation, There's Always Tomorrow is a remake of a 1934 film, also called There's Always Tomorrow. Unlike Sirk's other films, which focused primarily on women, There's Always Tomorrow is about male angst.

Director Sirk and stars Stanwyck and MacMurray work out the details In There's Always Tomorrow.

Starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray - both a long way from the killer couple of their best known pairing in 1944's Double Indemnity - the film tells the story of Clifford Groves (MacMurray), a toy manufacturer who is being neglected and taken advantage of by his family. That family is the typical nuclear one with a wife (Joan Bennett) and three children: the eldest, Vinnie, is in college with a nice sweetheart; teenaged Ellen; and Frankie, the youngest. Every one of his family takes advantage of Cliff and treats him horribly. Vinnie hushes his father because he is on the phone with his girlfriend, Ann. Frankie is off to her dance recital. Wife Marion is busy tending to last minute preparations for the recital. Cliff has tickets to the theater for the evening, but Marion has to take Frankie to her recital. He asks his other two children if they would like to go with him, but Vinnie has a date with Ann, and Ellen is headed over to her best friend's house to discuss their "emotional problems." Cliff pleads with Marion to go away with him for the weekend or go out to dinner (it's her birthday), but Marion is all about the kids, leaving Cliff with a dinner to heat and apron to wear. Entering this domestic scene is Stanwyck's Norma (nee Miller) Vale, a former employee and love interest of Cliff's who left for New York City years earlier, feeling Cliff was more in love with his work than he was with her, and has become a successful dress designer.

Lonely and grateful for the companionship, Cliff and Norma use Cliff's theater tickets, visit his toy shop, talk over old times, and catch up on new ones. As nothing illicit happens, Cliff shares with Marion his night out with Norma. Marion thinks nothing of it and is glad Cliff had a good time. Her complete trust is another example of Cliff being taken for granted as a reliable ol' stuffed shirt. Scheduled for a business trip to Palm Springs, Cliff implores Marion to join him, but daughter Frankie, the ballerina, twists her ankle, so mother Marion feels she can't possibly go with Cliff, much to his consternation. While there, Cliff runs into - you guessed it -  Norma who is also there on business. Cliff and Norma go horseback riding, swimming, dancing, and have an all-round great time. But while they are having a nice time together, son Vinnie, girlfriend Ann, and a couple of Vinnie's friends show up. Vinnie overhears the concierge making an off-hand remark about Cliff and Norma, sees them together, and, naturally, jumps to the conclusion that his goody-goody Dad and bad-girl Norma are enjoying some hanky panky.

Douglas Sirk's exquisite mise en scene

At this point in the film it's interesting to note that Cliff is being accused of something he is innocent of, yet is thinking about. Norma has stirred feelings in Cliff he thought had been long since crushed. He feels, if not exactly young again, alive and revitalized. And with that feeling comes emotions he had tried to give Marion and his family but had been shut down time and again. Once Vinnie gets back home, he shares his revelation with his sister Ellen, and together they try to put the kibosh on any potential romance between Cliff and Norma. Vinnie, in particular, behaves like a jerk, and Ann tells him so. Things pretty much come to a head when Norma is invited to dinner, and Vinnie and Ellen are openly hostile to her. Through all this, Marion is completely clueless, as the children feel they have to protect her from any knowledge of their philandering father. By the next day Cliff is ready to give into his emotions, say goodbye to his wife and kids, run off with Norma, and live happily ever after. However, fate and Cliff's two oldest intervene by going to see Norma to tell her what a nasty slut she would be to take their father away from them (never mind that they are entirely ungrateful). Norma, despite being sensitive enough to the situation, tells Vinnie and Ellen how awful they have treated their father. Later, however, Norma tells Cliff that their relationship wouldn't work, that he would always regret leaving his family, and that it's best that she go back to New York alone. The film ends with Norma, teary eyed on her flight east, and Cliff staring longingly out the window as Norma's plane flies overhead. (His family, I suppose it must be said, finally realize what a good father they have.)

Vinnie and Ellen confront Norma.

The film is a bitter indictment of the 1950's American family. The Groves have a seemingly enviable life, with a nice, big house, provider husband and father, model wife and mother, and three kids. But no one - except possibly Marion - is happy or even content. It was Douglas Sirk's specialty to expose that facade for what it was: an empty, zombie-like existence with little or no warmth, compassion, or meaning. In Sirk's world, money, family, and all the good things that are suppose to go with it don't matter at all. Clifford Groves' children are selfish, spoiled brats who take everything they are given for granted. Sirk was never easy on children in his films - a similar situation occurs in All That Heaven Allows when Jane Wyman wishes to brush off the dusty shackles of convention and go off with younger, hunky Rock Hudson instead of fuddy-duddy Conrad Nagel (who looks old enough to be her father), thus throwing her two grown children into confusion at their mother's non-traditional leanings. At the beginning of There's Always Tomorrow, a character making a delivery to Cliff's toy factory remarks how "dreamy" it would be to work in a place that has hobby horses and pinafores to which Cliff's secretary wearily replies, "Oh, I suppose it is." It seems there isn't a person in Douglas Sirk's universe who knows how good they have it.

Clifford Groves contemplates the emptiness of his life.

The cast of There's Always Tomorrow is first rate. Stanwyck and MacMurray had been electric together in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity some 12 years previous, and their work here is just as fine. Stanwyck, an all-time favorite of mine, is always good. The lady just couldn't give a bad performance, and she was incredibly versatile, appearing in comedies, dramas, noirs, and even westerns. By this time in her career she, like her contemporary Joan Crawford, had begun to acquire a hard look - a kind of hardening that came with maturity. The pair made a total of four films from 1940 to this Sirkian angst-fest. Joan Bennett was by this time making a career of playing the good wife and mother, and the role of Marion fits her to a T. Her looks also took on the mask of maturity. One could hardly guess that less than a decade earlier Bennett was still playing femme fatales in noir thrillers by European masters like Fritz Lang and Max Ophuls. As for MacMurray, I would go so far as to say his performance as Clifford Groves is the high-water mark of a long career, which began in the mid-thirties as a light, amiable leading man opposite the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, and Carole Lombard (with whom he made four films between 1935 and 1937). MacMurray, always a reliable performer, had a long and more varied career than people probably remember. His forte was comedy, but he could be equally compelling in dramatic fare. As recently as 1954, he had appeared in the all-star, well received The Caine Mutiny; Richard Quine's excursion to the dark side with Kim Novak in Pushover; in The Far Horizons as Meriwether Lewis opposite Charlton Heston's William Clark; and, of course, his reptilian Mr. Sheldrake in Billy Wilder's great 1960 Oscar winner, The Apartment. But it is for his work as Steve Douglas, the kindly father of My Three Sons, the weekly television show that ran on CBS from 1960 to 1972, and the Disney films, The Absent Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, and The Shaggy Dog, that MacMurray will always be most closely associated.

MacMurray and Stanwyck are dwarfed by Clifford Groves latest toy, Rex,
the walkie-talkie robot man and metaphor for Cliff's character.

Douglas Sirk's last Hollywood production was his biggest money-maker, Imitation of Life, in 1959. Shortly after, he turned his back on films in Hollywood and return to his native Germany. He lived a long while after that, passing on in 1987 at age 89, having lived long enough to see his films rightly  acknowledged for the classics they are. His influence is felt in the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and in Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, to name a few.

Title card from 1956's Written on the Wind

Mr. Clift's Wild Ride

He told himself he was only doing it for Bessie Mae. Ever since they first worked together six years before on A Place in the Sun, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth (Bessie Mae) Taylor had been close friends, and now Taylor's second marriage to Michael Wilding was on the verge of collapse. So, in light of the circumstances and the fact that he had hardly worked at all since 1954, Monty said yes to Dore Schary, MGM, and Raintree County. Neither Monty nor Elizabeth thought much of the script, but they did think it might prove as popular as the 1948 book on which it was based. MGM was feeding a lot of money into the production (legend has it that Clift had accepted the role of John Shawnessey for $300,000, then declined it, requesting just $250,000 and telling MGM to take the extra $50,000 and "make a better movie"). Raintree County was Dore Schary's pet project - his Gone With the Wind - before he was ousted as MGM Head of Production in November 1956.

Monty and Bessie Mae start their day in makeup.

Roughly halfway through the shoot, on the eve of the production's move from studio shooting at MGM Studios in Culver City, California, to location shooting in Danville, Kentucky, Taylor held a small dinner party at her home in Beverly Hills. Wanting to back out of the party, an exhausted and hung over Clift nevertheless made the drive to the Taylor/Wilding house. "The dinner was subdued," said party guest Kevin McCarthy. Also in attendance were Rock Hudson and his future wife, Phyllis Gates. Clift told McCarthy he wanted to leave early and asked McCarthy to drive ahead, leading the way down the hill to Sunset Boulevard since Clift wasn't familiar with winding roads of the foothills where Taylor lived. According to McCarthy, Clift only had one glass of wine at the party, so drunk driving was not the apparent culprit of the gruesome wreck on that night in May 1956 when Montgomery Clift wrapped his car around a telephone pole and nearly killed himself. On the way down the hill,  McCarthy lost sight of Clift's headlights in the rearview mirror and went back to find Monty's car looking like this:

McCarthy raced back to Elizabeth Taylor's house, "shaking like a leaf," telling all that there had been a "terrible accident." Right away Taylor and others rushed to help. According to McCarthy, when they got to the site of the accident, they found Monty "curled under the dashboard, his face torn away - a bloody pulp." He wasn't dead, as McCarthy feared, but he was choking. Two of his teeth had lodged in his throat, and he couldn't breathe. McCarthy continued," I'll never forget what Liz did. She stuck her fingers down his throat and she pulled out those teeth." Clift survived the crash - physically anyway. The damage done to his body was bad; the damage to his face profound. As Patricia Bosworth writes in her excellent biography of Clift, he suffered from "heavy lacerations on the left side of his face. His nose was broken...jaw on both sides crushed...severe cerebral concussion... [but] no plastic surgery [was performed]. The biggest reconstruction was his teeth." In addition, the left side of his face was partially paralyzed. MGM, rather than shut down the production, decided to postpone the shoot until Clift was ready to continue. Nine weeks passed before Clift returned to the set.  

When the time came for Montgomery Clift to return to work, he wasn't ready. He'd returned to the production too soon and suffered constant pain. Some blamed MGM for forcing his hand, yet Clift wanted to complete the film, feeling not only a deep sense of responsibility to the cast and crew of Raintree County but also to himself. To Clift it suddenly seemed that his whole reputation was at stake. Location filming was a struggle. There were reports of him running naked down the streets of Danville, Kentucky. Clift's already prodigious alcohol intake increased, spilling over to the film set for the first time in his career.

Monty before the accident (left) and after (right)

All this made filming difficult at best. Clift became withdrawn on set and, except for Taylor, kept mostly to himself. Friend (and lover, according to the fan mags of the day), torch singer Libby Holman, came to visit, hoping to help ease his pain. But the most help he received came from the pills he took to get through his day. Clift had become a hot mess. Insecure about his talent and unsure if he would have a career in films, the pills and booze accelerated at an alarming rate. Director Edward Dmytryk, who knew of Monty's pill intake, snuck into his hotel room and found pills of every kind, needles, and syringes. Another time the director found Clift passed out, dead drunk with a cigarette burnt down to his fingers. Finally, Clift's diet was exceedingly poor, as he often ate so-called blue-rare, or practically uncooked steak, slathered with pepper and butter.

With Libby Holman during break in filming Raintree County

When Raintree County was released in December 1957, movie audiences were fascinated with the before and after looks of Montgomery Clift. While movie critics were not particularly kind to the film, it did make a lot of money, though not enough to turn a profit. MGM's books showed a nearly $500,000 loss, due to the movie's costly $6 million (50 million in 2015 dollars) production. Rotten Tomatoes posts a dreadful 11% rating (an average from nine critics' reviews), and a much better 6.4 ranking appears on IMDB.  I find much to recommend, however, in its music, costumes, production design, and supporting players, including Lee Marvin, who is especially good as the braggart, Flash Perkins, and Nigel Patrick as the morally suspect Professor. Elizabeth Taylor received the first of four Oscar nominations in a row for Best Actress (losing to Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve), but her work here is middling; Eva Marie Saint's Nell is goody-goody bore; And Clift's John Shawnessey leaves much to be desired. It may be his most pedestrian performance, though 1959's Lonelyhearts runs a close second.

I find Raintree an intriguing failure, effective at times. I first saw it in the 1970s and have revisited it several times since then. It was only the third or fourth movie of Clift's I saw after A Place in the Sun and Red River. Some movies remind me of a very particular time and place - not of the film, but of  what I was experiencing in my own life. The 1970s was a time of discovery for me of all things cinematic. Acting, especially Method acting, held my interest. I wanted to be an actor, and even though I ultimately didn't pursue that career, when I revisit Raintree County, I am reminded of a time when I was experiencing legendary acting like Montgomery Clift's for the first time. When I see Raintree County, I can almost recapture that feeling of when my world was ripe with possibilities, and my future was an expanded horizon waiting to be explored.

By the time Raintree County was playing around the country, Montgomery Clift had discovered that he still did have a life in the movies. The Young Lions with Method rival Marlon Brando came out in April 1958, and he worked with his beloved Bessie Mae again in 1959's Suddenly, Last Summer. Nevertheless, Clift's acting had taken on a hesitant quality. His voice, too, was affected by the 1956 car crash and seemed to waver sometimes. Other times his "new" face and voice would work to his advantage, such as when he played a victim of Nazi experiments in 1961's Judgement at Nuremberg (a performance resulting in the last of four Oscar nominations, which he should have won for) - and in John Huston's The Misfits as the busted up rodeo rider Perce Howland.

Liquor and drug intake quickly took a toll on Clift's body, mind, and spirit. It also lessened his bankability as fewer and fewer producers were willing to take him on. One of the last to do so was Huston again for his movie and box office dud, Freud, released in 1962. The shooting of that film was a disaster. Clift suffered from cataracts and had difficulty remembering his lines. Huston and Clift had many disagreements on set due to differences of interpretation. The film effectively ended his career.

Montgomery Clift's last film, 1966's The Defector, was a low-budget spy film. He took the part only to prove to investors in the upcoming film adaptation of Carson McCullers' Reflections in a Golden Eye - in which in would be reunited with Elizabeth Taylor as well as his bete noir John Huston - that he could get though it and was healthy enough to work. But before production began, Clift died in his sleep of a heart attack at age 45 on July 23, 1966. He was replaced by Marlon Brando.

The cult of Montgomery Clift is not as strong as James Dean's or Marilyn Monroe's. His achievements as an actor have been overshadowed by more forceful personalities like Brando. It takes a strong film with mass appeal for multiple generations to endure after a performer has died. Clift made many good films and even some great ones (Red River, A Place in the Sun, From Here to Eternity), but none of his films seem to resonate today like Marlon Brando in The Godfather or James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause or East of Eden. But the cult of Clift may be gearing up for a comeback as HBO has a biopic in the works, which may help the world rediscover one of the 20th Century's most vulnerable, refined, lonely, romantic, and singular talents. I hope so.

Sources:    Wikipedia Page on Raintree County and Montgomery Clift
                 The Films of Montgomery Clift by Judith M.Kass
                 Montgomery Clift, A Biography by Patricia Bosworth
                 IMDB on Raintree County
                 Rotten Tomatoes
                 Images courtesy of the Internet

Underrated Gem: "Criss Cross"

When I was on my initial voyage of noir discovery in the 1990s, Robert Siodmak's near perfect Criss Cross was nowhere near the top of the food chain, and that puzzled me. Here was a tremendously affecting story: Burt Lancaster plays Steve, a guy who returns to his hometown of Los Angeles still pining for ex (Yvonne "Lily Munster" DeCarlo) and gets mixed up in a armored car heist.

Lancaster was essentially discovered by director Siodmak three years earlier when he was cast in 1946's The Killers, based on Ernest Hemingway's short story. That film, Lancaster's debut, made him a star instantly. By 1949, Lancaster had begun to feel his oats and had just expanded his cinematic horizons with his own production company, one of the first independents in Hollywood, and the noir-ish Kiss the Blood Off My Hands. However, still under contract to Hal Wallis and Paramount, Lancaster was loaned to Universal Studios for Criss Cross, his eighth film.

One of the benefits of the film is its extensive location work in and around Bunker Hill near downtown Los Angeles. All of these locations were destroyed in the 1960s to make way for the new Los Angeles Courthouse and other federal buildings. (With the refurbishment, the city also lost the fabled "Angels Flight," a tramcar that connected Hill Street and Olive Street, and can be seen in the film.)

Like all the best noir films, Criss Cross has a tremendous sense of atmosphere.

It's interesting to note that in the New York Times review, Criss Cross was labeled "a suspenseful action picture," when today's critics and scholars refer to it as a film noir. Star Lancaster was not pleased with the liberties Siodmak and screenwriter Daniel Fuchs made to the story after producer Mark Hellinger suddenly died of a heart attack prior to filming. The director and screenwriter slanted the story, which was originally a basic robbery yarn, to emphasize scenes and dialogue between Steve, Anna (DeCarlo), and Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), and the poisonous threesome they have developed. Steve's passion and love for Anna becomes his sole motivation for participating in the robbery with Slim and his gang. Lancaster's Steve is one of the most passive, love-struck saps of all films noir. His love for the opportunistic Anna blinds him to the trouble and double cross ahead, and I'm assuming Lancaster wasn't crazy about playing such a passive guy. Nevertheless, I feel his performance is one of Lancaster's most effective, with his vulnerability making Steve more sympathetic and much better than his "Swede" character in The Killers, who just seemed stupid. That film had a great critical and box office reputation from the time it premiered, yet Criss Cross has struggled for over sixty years to make it to the top of critics' and scholars' lists. (Criss Cross currently sits at number two on "noir czar" Eddie Muller's list of all-time noirs right behind 1950's great In a Lonely Place.)

 

Tension is mounting: DeCarlo's Anna, Duryea as Slim, Tom Pedi's Vincent, Lancaster as Steve (left to right).

One of the benefits of the film is its marvelous cast. DeCarlo, who I previously tagged as Lily Munster from the 1960's sitcom, The Munsters, had one of her greatest roles as Anna, Steve's two-timing ex and current wife of Duryea's Slim. DeCarlo's beauty staggers everyone she comes into contact with. While maybe not quite on par with Ava Gardner's femme fatale in The Killers, DeCarlo more than holds her own. For me, who had only been in contact with her through her sitcom character and the old chestnut, Band of Angels with Clark Gable, DeCarlo's turn in Criss Cross was an eye opener. 

Not enough can be said of Dan Duryea, one of cinema's great bad guys. His Slim Dundee is creepy, slimy, scary, and oddly sympathetic. Slim, too, is in love with Anna, and it drives him crazy with jealousy, never trusting her or letting her out of his sight (if Slim isn't around, one of his flunkies escorts her with rides and so forth). In fact, although the basic plot is an armored car heist, the actual tension comes from the triangle these three develop. 

Saving the best for last is Burt Lancaster as Steve, a poor sap if ever there was one. Steve believes all the sweet talk Anna gives him about hating Slim, and Steve being the only one she ever wanted. Steve believes it because he wants to more than anything. From Steve's opening scene, all he thinks about is Anna, although he denies it to anyone who asks. If you've ever had a break-up with a dame and then thought only about ways of getting her back, then Steve is your go-to guy. 

Criss Cross also benefits from a tremendous supporting cast, some familiar, some not. Starting with Steve's pal, Detective Pete Ramirez, played by Stephen McNalley; Tom Pedi's Vincent ("That's the ticket! That's the way to be!!!"); Alan Napier (best known as Alfred from the 1960s Batman TV show) as Finchley; Richard Long as Steve's brother, Slade; and, best of all, Percy Helton as bartender, Frank. Also, I have to give a shout out to an actress I haven't seen in a movie since, Joan Miller as The Lush, as she's credited on IMDB. 

Yvonne DeCarlo in Criss Cross, at the height of her beauty.
Steve and Slim battle over her the entire film. Come on, wouldn't you?

Director Robert Siodmak, a German refugee, was a noir expert. Coming to America in the late 1930s, he made 23 films in Tinseltown, but he started slow and near the bottom. After a few minor features, Siodmak signed with Universal Pictures where his first job came in the form of Son of Dracula, featuring a robust Lon Chaney, Jr., as Count Alucard (get it? "Dracula" spelled backwards). According to Wikipedia, Son of Dracula is the first Dracula film to show the Count turning into a bat. Although a B-picture, the film is drenched in a smoky atmosphere suitable to its Southern setting. From there, Siodmak went on to make several of the best noirs ever, including Phantom Lady in 1944; Christmas Holiday with singing star Deanna Durbin giving her pipes a rest and shedding her wholesome image opposite a menacing against-type Gene Kelly, also in 1944; 1945's The Spiral Staircase; The Killers (for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Director) and The Dark Mirror, both in 1946. After finishing his work in American movies with the rousing, very un-noir-like The Crimson Pirate with an acrobatic Burt Lancaster, Siodmak returned to Europe to continue his career. He died in 1973 without ever really getting the recognition he deserved.

The end is nigh.

For my money, the best part of Criss Cross is the ending. The robbery goes horribly wrong, leaving Steve in the hospital after being shot in the shoulder during the heist. He's taken by one of Slim's henchmen and driven to the beach house where he told Anna to meet him. Once there, Anna shows her true colors: she is leaving Steve, bad shoulder and all, telling him that what has happened is not her fault, that people "gotta look out for themselves." Crushed, Steve quietly tells her of his never-ending love and obsession. "I never wanted the money," he tells her. "I only wanted you." Then, just before Anna hits the road with a suitcase full of dough, Slim shows up. Shot in the hold-up as well, Slim comes limping in with cane for help. Catching Anna with Steve is the ultimate betrayal. Slim pulls out a gun. . . . It's one of the saddest, most heartbreaking conclusions in film history. Along with the finale to another noir classic, Chinatown, the last five minutes of Criss Cross haunt the viewer long after the movie ends.

What a cast of characters! That's Percy Helton top left.

Sources : IMDB
                Wikipedia
                TCM (film viewing)

Underrated Gem: Billy Wilder's "Fedora"

The year is 1976. The place, Hollywood USA. Billy Wilder, one of Hollywood's greatest writer-directors is at loose ends. His last film, a remake of The Front Page, starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their first film together since 1968's hit comedy, The Odd Couple, had "underperformed," Tinseltown-speak for failed. For his next project, the six-time Oscar winner came across a book called Crowned Heads by Thomas Tryon, a former actor whose most notable role was the title character in Otto Preminger's 1963 film, The Cardinal. Crowned Heads told four different stories of Hollywood: of Lorna, a movie sex goddess who travels to a remote part of Mexico to find herself; of Bobbitt, an aging child star whose films have been forgotten; of Willie, a gay silent film star who encounters a Manson-like hustler and pays the price (much like Ramon Navarro, the model for the character); and of Fedora, an enigmatic old school movie queen ala Garbo and Dietrich whose beautiful face has been untouched by time. 

The not-so-great poster: the art work showcasing Marthe Keller's title character is great, but Holden's superimposed photo knocks it down a peg or two.

Plans to film Fedora had originated at Universal Pictures around 1976, shortly after the novel's publication, but due to that studio's poor track record with films about old Hollywood (Gable & Lombard, W.C. Fields & Me both released in 1976), the recent wave of nostalgia had dissipated, resulting in Wilder's film going into turnaround (i.e., "Good luck, Billy, you can take this piece of shit script elsewhere."). With two options - to press on, looking for interest from other studios or to give up and search for another worthwhile project - Wilder decided to press on. No one has ever explained exactly why he held onto Fedora so tenaciously. It would prove to be one of the most difficult for him to get on screen.

Back in 1951, Wilder got thoroughly roasted by critics and audiences alike (crowds, as they say, stayed away in droves) when his film Ace in the Hole, a brilliant though unrelentingly bleak view of the human condition, was released. Since the failure of that movie, Wilder had hightailed it to more proven commodities, like stage hits Stalag 17, Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, and Witness for the Prosecution. The couple of times Wilder did step outside the box of these proven winners he tripped up with The Spirit of St. Louis and Love in the Afternoon. These movies - with the exception of Spirit of St. Louis - were comedies, or at least lighter takes on serious subjects as with Prosecution and Stalag 17. Wilder would continue in this comic vein for the rest of the 1950s and into the 60s. It wasn't until Fedora that Wilder would be completely serious again.

The film that sent Billy Wilder running for comedic cover, 1951.

I read somewhere (having read so much about Wilder and his films, I'm not sure where, but obviously it has stayed with me) that Wilder has claimed that when he was depressed he made comedies and when happy he made dramas. If that's true Wilder was depressed for the better part of 20 years. From 1953 to 1974, Wilder made only two dramas - 1957's The Spirit of St. Louis  and 1970's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The rest could all be classified as lighter films, if not outright comedies.

With Fedora, Wilder had something to say - something he had been holding onto for at least a decade and probably more: Hollywood and its movies were going to the dogs. Told in flashback, the accent of Fedora is on youth, the mystical allure of movie queens, and how to remain forever young and desirable whatever the cost. Wilder gets his jabs in on the New Hollywood of the 1970s via William Holden's character Barry Detweiler (the film's story is narrated by Detweiler; its events seen via Detweiler's POV), a down-on-his-luck producer trying to pitch his Anna Karenina adaptation - retitled The Snows of Yesteryear - to Fedora.

Detweiler, we learn, is not only trying to sell Fedora on his script; he is also on a kind of sentimental journey of lost love and past regrets. He has a history with her. Flashing back to 1947, Detweiler, called Dutch at the time, is an assistant director on a movie called Leda and the Swan, starring none other than Fedora. During the shooting of a seduction scene in an artificial pond, Dutch is summoned to place water lilies strategically on Fedora's exposed breasts, so the scene will pass the censors' review. Dutch does so, yet makes the ultimate faux pas of yawning while covering her breasts, an action which offends Fedora (apparently no one had ever yawned while she was nude). Fedora is so incensed that she and Dutch end up spending the night together as she proves to him what a great lover she can be.

Fedora before the water lilies.

In the present, Detweiler is kept from Fedora by her strange entourage - the Countess Sobryanski, Dr. Vando, and Miss Balfour - and finally pitches his script to them. They tell Detweiler that his script is typical Hollywood trash. The Countess tells Detweiler that no woman would leap to her death under a moving train, leaving herself completely disfigured. A woman, she claims, would always wants to look her best, even at her own funeral. Fedora, however, who has been eavesdropping on Detweiler's pitch to her entourage, emerges, claiming, "I love that ending.... It is so inevitable." She approaches Detweiler, wanting to know who her leading man will be. Detweiler tells her that she can have any male star since they are all dying to work with her. She suggests Michael York, whom she had worked with in the last picture before her "retirement" and with whom she had developed an intense obsession. The story goes cleverly on from there with a twist or two that should be saved for a viewing of the film. 


Fedora is Billy Wilder's swan song of Classic Hollywood and his kind of movies - movies that have a plot, genuine - or at least genuine-seeming - characters, and inspired dialogue. New Hollywood's recently adapted Star Wars mentality of keeping character and dialog to a minimum with action and special effects coming as fast as possible was anathema to someone like Wilder and his longtime co-writer I.A.L. Diamond. They wrote films in which the actors' dialogue was its own special effect. Even Fedora, though not top-of-the-line Billy Wilder, has a couple of good lines, like Detweiler's "The kids with the beards have taken over. Just give them a hand-held camera and a zoom lens." I sense a lot of Wilder in Detweiler, much like Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (which Fedora is a clear descendant of). That earlier film saw Wilder at the height of his powers and represents not only a peak in his career but one of the best movies to ever come out of the so-called dream factory. As Wilder himself claimed in an interview, he got very lucky making Sunset Boulevard. They needed DeMille for a cameo in the picture, and they got him. They needed an old-time silent film star and found Gloria Swanson. A washed up director? Erich Von Stroheim as butler/director/protector was perfection. Whatever Wilder needed, he got. Even Montgomery Clift's early exit from the production was a blessing in disguise, as he likely would have been too anxious about the reflection of his own personal life in the role of Joe Gillis. I don't think anyone can top William Holden's interpretation of Joe as a combination of bemused, desperate, hopeful, and self-loathing (Holden should've won the Oscar, in my opinion).

Is this a knock-knock joke? Holden and Keller in Fedora.

Fedora was not so lucky. Wilder had wanted Marlene Dietrich for the Countess and Faye Dunaway for Fedora. Supposedly Dietrich hated the book and thought Wilder's script was no better. With Dietrich out, Wilder evidently decided not to approach Dunaway and gave the part to Marthe Keller, a Swiss beauty in the process of making a small splash with Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man (1976) and Black Sunday (1977) and opposite Al Pacino in Bobby Deerfield (also 1977).  Problem after problem plagued Wilder during filming and in post-production. While viewing a rough cut of the film, Wilder realized that Keller and Hildegard Knef's strong accents made their lines practically unintelligible. Further, their voices did not sound remotely similar, an element vital to the plot, so Wilder had to dub both women's voices with another actress's. Allied Artists, a financially sketchy company that had the distribution deal on the film, pulled out after an unenthusiastic screening at a benefit in New York City. The film was then picked up by Lorimar Productions which planned to sell it as a television movie to CBS. Before that happened, however, United Artists (UA) stepped in to save the film for theatrical exhibition. Based on recommendations from UA, Wilder cut twelve minutes from the film and previewed it in Santa Barbara, California, in May 1978. Wilder was hoping to show it at a theater that was playing either Fred Zinnemann's Julia or Herb Ross's The Turning Point to get a more similarly-minded audience, but neither film was playing in town. Wilder settled on the Walter Matthau/Glenda Jackson comedy House Calls.

I was at that preview held at the now-long-gone State Theater. The first half seemed to play well, but after the secret of Fedora's true identity was revealed, the audience began to get restless. By the time a line of dialogue was spoken about Detweiler and Fedora's affair years previous on a "beach somewhere ... Santa Barbara!" the audience burst into a roar of laughter. The scenes with Michael York didn't play well either. The film's mood had been broken, and Wilder had lost his audience. Watching the film, knowing Wilder was sitting in a roped-off section a few rows behind me, I felt bad for him and his writing partner Diamond. When the film ended and I got up to leave the theater, I was surprised to see Wilder and Diamond had already left. But it makes sense. Why would Wilder want to sit with an audience who could not appreciate the fruit of his labor?

Wilder, Keller, and Michael York filming the important flashback scene.

At this point Wilder refused to make any more cuts to the troubled film that he had worked on for nearly three years (Wilder later said, "In three years I could've made three lousy pictures instead of one."). He was done. Let Fedora sink or swim as is. On May 30, 1978, the nearly $7 million (a not insignificant amount in the late 1970s) Fedora had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which was honoring Wilder with a small retrospective of his films. Almost another year would pass before Fedora received an American release in April 1979. It performed poorly, earning only about $1 million. Domestic reviews were harsh. Richard Schickel stated that the film was "ludicrous" and its maker over the hill. European critics were kinder than American ones with the phrase "old fashioned" used several times. So, Wilder was out of touch with the current cinema. He didn't necessarily perceive it as an insult. "Who wants to be in touch with these times?" he asked. The good news is that Fedora has been reappraised by modern critics who consider it Wilder's last film worth viewing (1981's abysmal Buddy, Buddy is a must to avoid) with a 6.9 rating on IMDB and 73% on Rotten Tomatoes. And the movie, which only received a VHS release back in the early 90s, got a proper Blu-Ray transfer just this year. So it seems after all this time the world is finally catching up to and appreciating the beauty, elegance, charm, wit, and heartbreak that is Fedora.

What price fame?

Sources: On Sunset Boulevard: The Life & Times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov
               Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe
               Film Comment Volume 15, Number 1, Jan-Feb.1979
               Wikipedia page on Fedora
               IMDB
               Images courtesy of the internet