Film director William Wyler may be the least appreciated auteur from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Despite repeated honors from the Academy, including three Best Director Oscars for Mrs. Miniver in 1942, The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946, and Ben-Hur, 1959's epic to end all epics, Wyler's reputation has suffered since his retirement in 1970. While these three films alone should solidify Wyler's star in the cinema firmament, film history and its gatewatchers occasionally do not give the greats their due. While the reputations of Nicholas Ray, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Sam Fuller, and even Budd Boetticher have improved over the last forty or fifty years, Wyler's has not. William Wyler's best defense in the face of a lessened reputation, however, is--as Andrew Sarris said of director George Cukor--his filmography. From 1936 to 1965, Wyler's films equaled the best of his generation: Dodsworth and These Three, Dead End, Jezebel, Wuthering Heights, The Little Foxes, and The Heiress constitute an incredible run of good-to-great cinema--and this list only covers 1936 to 1949.
For me, Wyler is an amazing director, seemingly without a personal style. His films did not distract with arty camera angles and unique editing styles; rather, he set himself apart by maintaining a visual style that did not call attention to itself. Wyler favored long takes, usually in medium or two shot, sometimes employing the "deep focus" technique favored by his favorite cinematographer (and one of Hollywood's best), Gregg Toland, with occasional closeups to emphasize a dramatic moment or important bit of information. Wyler's reluctance to move the camera became his own visual style. This is one of the reasons The Letter with Bette Davis may be my favorite of the director and star's three collaborations. For me, The Letter stands side-by-side with Dodsworth (1936), Wyler's impressively mature adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel, and The Best Years of Our Lives, the classic Best Picture Oscar winner from 1946 as the best of Wyler's work.
The Letter fascinates me. Made and released in 1940, the film is a remake of a 1929 goodie, starring the legendary Jeanne Eagles in the lead role (played by Davis in the remake). Like the remake, the original film also starred Herbert Marshall, albeit in the role of Leslie Crosbie's lover/victim, who is never actually seen in Wyler's remake except in shadow as he is shot by Davis' Leslie. Wyler's version is about as lurid as a major Hollywood studio like Warner Brothers could get away with in 1940 as the plot unfolds to include the marriage of a European man and an Asian woman, the depiction of a kind of opium den in a Chinatown shop, and the victim's widow--the aforementioned Asian woman (Gale Sondergaard, playing the widow of the murdered man as a silent, intense,
honorable, passionate, wronged woman in what, for me, is one of the most appealing aspects of the film)--hell bent on gaining revenge for her husband's death. (The letter of the title implicates Leslie as the lover of the man she killed. The price to buy the letter is $10,000, all the money her husband has in savings. The letter is obtained, Leslie is found not guilty, yet her marriage is destroyed. In the film's final scene, the victim's widow takes her revenge on Leslie.)
The great Gale Sondergaard as the widow and owner of The Letter
This is all highly melodramatic stuff and not easy to pull off, but William Wyler and his production team were up to the challenge and delivered one of cinema's most operatic films. Max Steiner's over-the-top musical score is delicious in its grandeur and contributes greatly to the heightened dramatics. All the players are exceptional with Bette Davis as the stand-out performer. Bette Davis was at the peak of her reign as queen of Warner Brothers when the film was made in spring of 1940. With recent hits including Dark Victory; The Old Maid; the costume epic Juarez; and Jezebel, which was Jack Warner's gift to Davis after she lost the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, and also directed by Wyler. Davis had wanted to work with Wyler again (the two had an affair during Jezebel, but Wyler had since married) and sought him out as director. Though Wyler was under contract to Sam Goldwyn, one of Hollywood's main independent producers, Warners and Goldwyn worked out a deal for The Letter, and Wyler came to work in May 1940.
This scene caused a big rift in the film's production between Davis and Wyler.
Filming went relatively smoothly until Wyler and Davis clashed over the key line of dialogue. "With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!" Leslie tells her cuckolded husband, Robert (Herbert Marshall). Wyler wanted Davis to say the words while she looked Marshall in the eye. Davis thought she should turn away in shame. "If you try to soften the blow, you shouldn't say it at all," Wyler told her. At an impasse, Davis walked off the set. But of course she came back and "did it his way." For the rest of her life Davis thought her way was right, but she lost, she said "to an artist." The Letter was released in November 1940 to great acclaim and solid box office, and, in early 1941, seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Bette Davis, and Best Director for William Wyler. Ultimately, however, the film won nothing but the admiration of the movie-going public.
The ever-present moon
As I said, The Letter fascinates me. Wyler was not known for his striking camera and lighting. The Letter refutes any notion that his camera and lighting styles were pedestrian. The opening is a tracking shot outside the Crosbie house where their rubber plantation workers sleep. As the camera passes the tired men in hammocks, the oppressive the heat and humidity is palpable. Wyler's camera tracks to the end of hammocks when the silence is broken by gunshots. Even more visually impressive is the moon as it makes its ominous presence felt not only in the sky but through window blinds, generating shadows that remind us of the prison bars. No one--not even Wyler--knew what he wanted in a scene until he saw it. That instinct for what is right and true in a scene was Wyler's gift. His friend and fellow director John Huston wondered "where Willy got it." Perhaps The Letter screenwriter Howard Koch said it best: While wrestling with the front office--something that happened more and more over Wyler's meticulous filming method as his career progressed--the director, perhaps unable or unwilling to please the money men, "pleased himself." Luckily, it pleased us too.
Sources
Books: A Talent for Trouble by Jan Herman Bette Davis, The Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Jerry Vermilye
Internet: IMDB
Wikipedia
Turner Classic Movies
YouTube
I seem to be in a musical frame of mind. This is not unusual, though I haven't been on a real all singing/all dancing/all talkie binge for a while. My previous post was on Cukor's semi-musical refashioning of those 1932 and 1937 chestnuts, A Star Is Born. Then I stumbled across this bit of info: May10th was Fred Astaire's birthday.
The Man, himself
Fred Astaire, I found, is an acquired taste. His air is perceived as too rarefied and his persona too dandified (though that used to be called elegant). Hollywood's other male dancer extraordinaire--and Astaire's only rival--Gene Kelly, had a more muscular, "masculine" style. And despite some lovely female co-stars, Kelly's best musical numbers were usually either solo (think Singin' in the Rain's title song and dance, and The Pirate, in which his best work is partnerless) or with another male dancer (Frank Sinatra in Anchors Aweigh and Take Me Out to the Ballgame, for example, or Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain). Kelly's personality was more working class--down to earth with a bit of sexual rakishness and shanty Irishness. By comparison, the jaunty Astaire is thinner, smoother, and more sophisticated, though no less fun. For a kid from Omaha, Nebraska, Astaire had the uncanny ability to project a remarkable amount of sophistication and more than a little joie de vivre. Astaire is also famous for making his dance partners, usually exceptional, look even better. His first co-star was Joan Crawford of all people, seldom remembered for her great dancing roles.
Going Bavarian with costar Joan Crawford,
here's Fred in his film debut, MGM's Dancing Lady (1933).
"Can't act. Slightly bald, also dances." This succinct description was the reaction to Astaire's MGM screen test. If ever a performer evaluation was an understatement, this is it! In Fred's screen debut, after more than twenty years of performing onstage with his sister Adele, he had a supporting role (billed sixth) in 1933's Dancing Lady, a fun, yet undistinguished movie. From there, he was swept away in Flying Down to Rio, pairing him for the first time with the talented, young yet experienced song-and-dance veteran, Ginger Rogers. Brought together by chance, the duo's show-stopping dance number "The Carioca," ensured they would be paired again soon. The next year, Astaire and Rogers appeared--this time as the leads--in The Gay Divorcee, which was based on one of Astaire's Broadway successes.
Together, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made a total of ten musicals together, all but one for RKO; all but one in glorious black and white (the one at MGM was in "glorious" technicolor, natch); and all but one made during the tough years of the Depression. Their last film together, The Barkleys of Broadway, made in 1949 for MGM,came ten years after their previous pairing, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. The Castle film is the one Fred & Ginger movie I still haven't seen.
Since it's impossible to pick just one, I offer two of my favorites: 1935's Top Hat--generally considered their best--with Swing Time (1936) a close second. (Unfortunately, Swing Time contains a number called "Bojangles of Harlem." Meant to be a tribute to dancer Bill Robinson, with Fred in blackface, it's mostly embarrassing.) By the end of the decade, Astaire and Rogers were two of Tinseltown's biggest stars. Together they were a peerless team that danced love, romance, and dreams. The films they made were all love stories: boy meets girl; boy falls in love; girl is hard to get; boy gets girl. Simple but classic.
While a team, Rogers made six other movies; Fred only one--1937's A Damsel in Distress alongside non-dancer Joan Fontaine. After Shall We Dance in 1937, the last two films the dance team made for RKO were a pale reminder of the past successes as audiences began to find younger performers like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney more appealing. Against considerable competition, Rogers went on to win 1940's Best Actress Oscar for Kitty Foyle. She remained a solid box office attraction throughout the 1940s. But Fred Astaire's future without Ginger Rogers was far from certain.
After those early years with RKO, Astaire was never tied down to one studio again. Like Ginger, Fred was lucky with his first film after their split. With Broadway Melody of 1940, Astaire was teamed with the movies' number one tap dancer, Eleanor Powell. Their take on Cole Porter's "Being the Beguine" is about as good as tap gets.
Fred's next film, Second Chorus, was described as "dismal" by film scholar Stephen Harvey. And without a doubt, the pairing of Astaire with the non-musical Paulette Goddard is puzzling even if it is unique. From here Fred partnered Rita Hayworth in two very popular musicals, You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942). Hayworth, at the peak of her beauty and well on her way to becoming the movies' "Love Goddess," was one of Fred's best partners, matching him step for step.Between the two movies with Hayworth, Astaire made a Christmas season favorite, Holiday Inn, with Der Bingle, Bing Crosby. After this initial burst of mostly good films, Astaire's output seemed to have some missing element, whether a lack of good songs or off-beat casting. Still, Astaire's films always had at least one good moment in which song blended with dance to create a memorable viewing experience. The Sky's the Limit from 1943 is a good example, with memorable songs like "My Shining Hour" and "One For My Baby (and One More for the Road)."
1946's Ziegfeld Follies was a milestone in Fred's career--his first encounter with the legendary Freed Unit at MGM. That was the name of producer Arthur (TheWizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, Gigi just to name a few) Freed's collection of highly talented (mostly) young people, many of whom came from Broadway. It was only a matter of time before the best musical producer in the movies met the best dancer in the movies. Their first collaborations, however, left some folks scratching their heads wondering what all this cinematic, technicolor dreamscape was about. Florenz Ziegfeld was Broadway's premier of musical extravaganzas, and Hollywood--MGM in particular--had a fascination with him. The company had used the Ziegfeld name in their 1936 Best Picture Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld, a bio of the man's life.
MGM's own version of the Ziegfeld Follies is a gaudy, tuneful, outrageous, tedious, funny, stupid, colorful, one-of-a-kind confection that took years to complete with a score of directors, writers, and performers. By the time the movie hit the screens in the spring of 1946, much had been left on the cinematic scrap heap.
Filming started in March of 1944 with a budget of $3 million, an enormous amount for a time when movie tickets cost 35 cents. Movie attendance was approaching an all-time high ninety million patrons per week. Starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Lena Horne, Esther Williams, Kathryn Grayson, Fanny Brice, and many others, Astaire was the film's de facto lead, sharing time in four musical vignettes one with Gene Kelly, two with Lucille Bremer, and the opening number with Lucille Ball and various women dressed in cat suits (the film is nothing if not flamboyant). Astaire has four numbers, including "Limehouse Blues" with Lucille Bremer and "The Babbitt and the Bromide" with Gene Kelly, combining song with great dancing.
Tony Duquette's amazing design for the "This Heart of Mine" sequence in Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
Follies was mostly directed by Vincente Minnelli, a fresh talent hot off the success of Meet Me in St. Louis. Astaire's next hot-house concoction, Yolanda and The Thief, was Minnelli's and Freed's as well. Yolanda is a fairy tale with its eccentric characters (Bremer's flamboyant aunt, Mildred Natwick, is all dither and fuss), Dali-esque dream sequences, and elements of fantasy (Leon Ames' mysterious Mr. Candle). The film alienated fans when it was released, and is still regarded as a curious, bizarre, failed project. Many considered the film a vanity production to show off Freed's lover, the lovely and talented Lucille Bremer. Its failure, blamed on her, was a hit her career never recovered from. However, the film does have many virtues, including its leading lady, production design, costumes, choreography, and vibrant technicolor. The number, "Coffee Time," still entertains.
Astaire and Lucille Bremer in the Dali-esque dream sequence
from Vincente Minnelli's Yolanda and The Thief.
After this less-than-auspicious start to the Freed-Astaire working relationship, Astaire quickly tapped his way to Paramount Studios and a reunion with Bing Crosby for the colorful, entertaining Blue Skies. Featuring the songs of Irving Berlin, Blue Skies tells of Bing and Fred rivalry for the affections of leading lady Joan Caulfield. Despite its tired plot, Astaire and Crosby do what they did best: entertain us. Fred's "Puttin' on the Ritz" routine is especially memorable. The film was profitable, one of the biggest of 1946.
At this point that Fred Astaire decided to hang up his dancing shoes. A chronic worrier, Astaire thought he had gone stale, and that newer film fans found him passe. Then fate intervened. Over at MGM, Gene Kelly and Judy Garland planned to team up for the third time in Easter Parade, a Freed Unit presentation with Minnelli as director. Several things changed this talent line-up. First up was Minnelli. As Garland's husband, Vincente Minnelli had guided her from the young girl in her Mickey Rooney collaborations to the lovely young woman in the three films they made together between 1944 and 1946. At this point Garland's personal demons began to emerge in a frightening way. MGM's Louis B. Mayer figured the studio would get more from Garland if her husband weren't around, so Charles Walters replaced Minnelli on the Easter Parade production. Then, on the eve of production, Gene Kelly broke an ankle playing baseball. Freed made a frantic call to Astaire. Would he replace Kelly? With Kelly's blessing, Astaire agreed. Easter Parade was an instant classic upon its 1948 release. Using the Irving Berlin song catalogue, Garland and Astaire made a great team. With support from Peter Lawford and, especially, Ann Miller, Easter Parade has become a perennial holiday favorite of generations (I once knew a girl who said it was her favorite film). Easter Parade also gave Astaire's career a new lease. Garland and Astaire were set to team up a second time on 1949's The Barkleys of Broadway, but Judy's fragile health forced her bow out, which sparked Freed's idea of reuniting Astaire with Ginger Rogers after a ten-year hiatus. It proved a popular decision.
"We're a couple of swells...." With Judy in the classic routine that Garland later adapted
for her stage show. From 1948's Easter Parade.
With these two musicals, Astaire headed into the 1950s with a revitalized film career, even as the musical genre peaked--early Fifties musicals included An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, Kiss Me, Kate, and The Band Wagon--and diminished. Successful musicals from the mid-Fifties forward were big (at times bloated), slow-moving adaptations of major Broadway hits. It was in this atmosphere that Astaire agreed to get aboard The Band Wagon, my favorite Fred Astaire movie.
In Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon (1953),
here's Astaire with the best dance partner he ever had, Cyd Charisse
Directed once again by Vincente Minnelli, 1953's The Band Wagonis not just a simple story--its characters near cliches, the dialogue ordinary. The physical production; the tuneful, classic songs by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz; the great choreography by Broadway's Michael Kidd; and scene-stealing turns by an irrepressible Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant and his neuroses, and Jack Buchanan as the egomaniacal director all combine to create one of the last great movie musicals. Partnered for the first time with the sublime Cyd Charisse, Astaire is at the top of his game. From the "Dancing in the Dark" number to the film's ultimate musical-in-a-musical number, "The Girl Hunt Ballet," the pair are entirely attuned each other. Not since Ginger Rogers had a dance partner of Astaire's worked so perfectly.
1953 was Astaire's twentieth year in film, and at age 54 he contemplated retirement--again. The movies' premier song-and-dance man nearly hung it up, feeling he had gone stale. His Band Wagon character, Tony Hunter, has a clear connection to Astaire: old hoofer from
Hollywood in a career slump, goes east to try and revive it, and finds
love in the process. It's true Fred ended the 1940s on an upswing, but the 1950s found him in more pedestrian ventures.
Dancing to the great song "All of You" by Cole Porter.
Charisse and Astaire do it one more time in 1957's Silk Stockings.
In 1954, Astaire's wife, Phyllis, died of cancer. He returned to Hollywood for Fox's Daddy Long Legs in 1955 and then made his last two musicals in a one-two punch: Paramount's Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn and MGM's Silk Stockings, a showcase for Cole Porter's songs, that reunited him with Cyd Charisse. Astaire, the male lead in both movies, is nearly upstaged by his female co-stars. The stories are about the women, and the films belong to them. While both films were warmly received by critics, audiences favored Silk Stockings over the stylish Funny Face. Except for his turn in Francis Ford Coppola's version of Finian's Rainbow in 1968, Fred Astaire never made another musical on the big screen. With his wife gone, his two children grown, and his song-and-dance-man years pretty much behind him, Astaire looked for new challenges. He found it in his next film.
It's the end of the world as they know it....
Stanley Kramer's films are well known for their social awareness. The director--who began as a producer--was known for his tackling difficult subjects like 1925's Scopes "Monkey" Trial in the film Inherit the Wind (1960); racism and bigotry in The Defiant Ones (1958); Nazi war criminals in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961); and, with On the Beach, nuclear destruction of Earth. Without naming who exactly is at fault, the film takes place in Australia and deals with the last known survivors. Though the film suffers from some very poor Australian accents (apart from Gregory Peck's Commander Dwight Lionel Towers, all the characters--played by American actors--are meant to be Australians), On the Beach rewards patient audiences with good performances, including Astaire's as a scientist who helped make the bomb during World War II and is grappling with his role in the devastating event. When released, On the Beach was extremely timely, though a slight disappointment on release late in 1959. Astaire's dramatic turn brought some acclaim but no Oscar gold.
At a rehearsal hall with Gene Kelly (early Fifties-ish)
Fred was 60 now. Time was getting short, but he still had some dance steps. When movies were no longer an option for musical performances, Astaire moved on to television. With Barrie Chase, a collaborator more than thirty years his junior, Astaire made four television variety specials between 1958 and 1968. Astaire adapted rather well to television, as his co-starring role as Robert Wagner's gentleman-thief father in the popular suspense/comedy show, It Takes a Thief, shows.
Movies were still a part of his life as well. In 1974, Astaire starred in two very different movies. The mega budget The Towering Inferno included Fred along with the all-star cast of Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Robert Wagner, Richard Chamberlain, and O.J. Simpson. The Towering Inferno was a box office blockbuster, gaining several Oscar nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor nomination to Astaire for his performance as a shady yet gentlemanly con man who falls in love with Jennifer Jones. It was the lone Oscar nomination of his forty-year film career, and Fred was undoubtedly the sentimental favorite. I remember watching that Oscar show and being pretty surprised when the winner was Robert DeNiro for The Godfather, Part II. (It was one time when the Academy got it right. DeNiro's work in Part II is nothing short of amazing.) Astaire's work in Inferno was good but not Oscar-worthy. No surprises; not even a real good last scene.
Fred's other 1974 movie was the classic showbiz documentary, That's Entertainment!, a film so popular it spawned sequels in 1976 (again with Fred) and 1993. That's Entertainment! was instrumental in the creation of the great nostalgia wave of the early-to-mid 1970s. Fred Astaire's farewell to film was the well-regarded horror film from 1981, Ghost Story, in which he starred with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Melvyn Douglas, and John Houseman.
In 1950, Ginger Rogers presented Astaire with an Oscar for lifetime achievement. It's nice to know Fred wasn't empty handed when it came to Oscar.
Fred Astaire received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1981. At the time, Astaire was only the ninth film legend awarded the honor. He was also the first recipient of The Kennedy Center Honors in 1978. In 1980, Fred--a widower since his wife's death in the mid-Fifties--married horse race jockey, Robyn Smith. The marriage lasted until his death in June 1988 when he was 89.
The immortal team: dancing love, dancing magic, and dancing dreams
Fred Astaire was unique to the movies, and he still is. It seems that style and grace are not really a part of our world anymore. Seen through contemporary eyes, Astaire's demeanor and old-fashioned manners and charm are out of touch in an American society that prizes boorishness. Astaire is from a time when movies--all movies, not just love stories--were romantic. Fred Astaire and the films of his generation laid the groundwork that subsequent generations have been trying to recreate for fifty years. As Gene Kelly said at an AFI dinner in his honor (to paraphrase) up there on the screen you dance dreams, you dance joy, and you dance love. Today's films are technically superior, yet they are often cold and lack emotion. Movies used to have song, joy, magic, and love. Now it seems all they offer are green screen-generated special effects. We shouldn't leave a theater feeling empty. In his day, Fred Astaire wouldn't have let us.
Sources
Books: Fred Astaire, Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Stephen Harvey Ginger Rogers, Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Patrick McGilligan Joan Crawford, Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Stephen Harvey Rita Hayworth, Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Gerald Peary Starring Fred Astaire by Stanley Green and Burt Goldblatt
Internet: IMDB
Wikipedia
Images of Astaire
YouTube
