Errol Flynn, The Baron

Relaxing

Nicknamed ' Baron ' by employer and nemesis Jack L. Warner, Errol Flynn swashbuckled his way through over 50 films. Starting in 1934 under contract to Warner Brothers Pictures at the age of 25, to his last, the exploitation film Cuban Rebel Girls, at age 50, Flynn cut a large path in Hollywood film history as the cinema's preeminent action-adventure star of his day before his death on October 14, 1959. His detractor's [ and there have been many ] say his best work was not on the screen but between the sheets, for Flynn was known far and wide for his wanton, wild ways. He made no secret of his love of women, drink and the occasional narcotic and his devil may care attitude toward hard work and his love of a good time sometimes spilled over into his work so that some critics, especially contemporary ones, had trouble separating the man from his myth. And some of the roles he took have a particularly autobiographical tinge to them. His Don Juan in 1949's  The Adventures of Don Juan  is one of his best post WWII films and shows us a Flynn that understands the character he is portraying all too well.

Climbing to new heights as Don Juan, 1949

     Flynn's Don Juan may be the most melancholy adventure hero in cinema history, for he plays Don Juan in a very world weary manner, a manner that entirely fits the situation Don Juan finds himself restricted to. Just returned to Spain after being kicked out of England, Juan finds himself a phallic symbol, as Flynn also did ever since his celebrated rape trial in 1942-43. It was a reputation Flynn could never escape. Juan also finds himself caught up in political intrigue between the King and Queen of Spain and the evil Duke de Lorca who has his sights on seizing the throne for himself. Furthermore, Juan finds he is strongly attracted to the Queen, but things being what they are and the Queen also not able to see Juan beyond his public reputation, nothing much comes of this relationship in a physical sense. Flynn married 3 times, but never found domestic life comforting for very long. He  proposed to Ida Lupino in the late forties, while still unhappily married to wife #2 Nora Eddington. Lupino was reportedly a great pal of Flynn's and loved him dearly, but she turned him down [ probably a wise thing ]. However, Adventures of Don Juan being an adventure for young adult males, there is a spectacular dual between Juan and de Lorca and their men. Juan beats de Lorca and saves the crown for the Queen but decides it is time to move on down the road in pursuit of more adventures, carnal or otherwise. Through it all, the women in this film are ready, willing and able to be alone with Juan and practically throw themselves at him simply because he is reputed to be a great lover. These are things Flynn repeatedly went through in his own life. In his portrait of Don Juan, Flynn plays this off as rather a bore and something that he must do, whether he likes it or not. And though he rather enjoys his time with the ladies while in their company, it seems he would rather be elsewhere. Adventures of Don Juan is pretty much Flynn's swan song to the type of film he toiled in since 1935 when Captain Blood made him an instant star and made his film reputation, although there would be 2 or 3 more swashbuckler's in the next few years with scaled back production values, deflated budgets, and poor scripts, Don Juan is Flynn's last classic in the genre. 

With first wife " Tiger" Lil ",aka, Lily Damita

With 3 of his 4 children Deidre, Rory and only son Sean in 1951 on set of Kim

                1957's The Sun Also Rises finds a Flynn post-bankruptcy, on his third and last wife, playing a supporting part for the first time since stardom hit 22 years earlier and having to take fourth billing behind Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner and Mel Ferrer [ ! ]. Taking billing after the first two stars is understandable but Mel Ferrer? Never mind the billing, because our boy Errol walked off with the picture. Some said it was petty theft, but at this juncture in his sagging career Flynn needed a boost and Sun was first class production all the way. In the previous 8 years since Don Juan, Flynn in 1953 rode out his Warners contract of 18 years, making one mediocre picture after another. Flynn started but was unable to complete an independent CinemaScope production of William Tell in Switzerland [ Flynn put up $430,000 of his own money but the Italian backers, backed out, leaving Flynn holding the bag ], his business manager died but not before embezzling thousands of dollars from Flynn, the IRS slapped him with a back taxes statement for a cool million and because of these financial setbacks ex- wife Lily claimed ownership of Errol's beloved home, Mulholland Farm, for his failure to pay back alimony. One body blow after another, it pretty much did Flynn in and he would take any job offered, for he was much in needed of cash. His last 6 films before Sun had all been money losing ventures - foreign produced epics like Crossed Swords and Dark Avenger,  Flynn's name still carrying some weight with the European movie going public. Others like 1956's Istanbul were tired old rehashed plots with backlots standing in for the real locale. A couple of these films didn't even play America until much later or were on the second half of double bills. In other words, when Errol took fourth billing on Sun he had nowhere to go but up.

As Mike Campbell in The Sun Also Rises, with Eddie Albert

     The Sun Also Rises, produced by former 20th Century-Fox production head Daryl F. Zanuck, is based on the celebrated novel by Ernest Hemingway about a handful of expatriates after WWI who, instead of returning home to the U.S., decide to stay on and work, play, drink and generally carouse their way through Europe. The plot isn't much, in fact the plot is pretty much what I described in my previous sentence. Flynn plays one Mike Campbell, once wealthy- now bankrupt - and down on his luck, but engaged to Lady Brett Ashley, played by Ava Gardner, the woman they all want to have. Tyrone Power is the lead, Jake Barnes. Mel Ferrer is Robert Cohn, friend of Jake's, who falls hard for Brett and causes all kinds of trouble during their time in Pamplona, Spain for the fiesta. The annual running of the bulls sequence is a highlight as are all the scenes in which Flynn appears but since he doesn't enter the picture until about the 40 minute mark the beginning can be especially trying. Once Jake and sidekick Bill Gorton, played by Green Acres' Eddie Albert, arrive in Spain, the pace picks up considerably with Eddie and Errol finding an immediate rapport as they both have a fondness for the bottle and are literally drunk for nearly the rest of the movie. This is what provides the most entertaining part of the film, the hijinks of these 2 drunks causing mayhem whenever we see them, though Flynn is also none too happy with Mel Ferrer's attention to his Brett and tries to pick fights with him every chance he gets.

Lobby card from the hotel room scene with Tyrone Power in The Sun Also Rises 

Flynn's best scene, the one that gives us a hint to his character's problem, is with Power's Jake Barnes [ see picture above ] after Lady Brett, who is rather the slut of all time, runs off with star bullfighter Pedro Romero [ an inept Robert Evans, years before his days as production chief of Paramount Pictures ]. Barnes goes to Mike in his room and asks Mike if he's going to be joining him and Bill for dinner and Mike reply's, with drink in hand, is sure he'll be there, but that it seems that there are about 12 people missing and laments his loss of Brett, and as Barnes leaves him on his own we see Mike setting his drink down and lowering his head into his hands. It's a touching scene and shows the real anguish Mike must be going through, despite appearances to the contrary. How many times did Flynn do this same kind of thing ? Drinking alone, wondering how his life may have been different and where he took the wrong road ? In his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways, published in December 1959 after his death, Flynn recounts sitting on the bed in his home, with gun in hand, seriously considering suicide but being unable to. When Flynn did these things isn't made clear in the book and maybe it doesn't have to, because the image of Errol Flynn--Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Sir Geoffrey Thorpe, Gentleman Jim Corbett, George Armstrong Custer, all whom he played in movies--considering suicide is quite startling.

Errol's favorite time of day, the cocktail hour

No one in their right mind is saying The Sun Also Rises is good cinema. Although the movie has much going for it including an outstanding musical score by Hugo Friedhofer, nice photography by Leo Tover, excellent location work and a not bad screenplay, the main level of criticism of the film is that the movie was miscast, that all the actors were a good 10 to 15 years too old for their parts. It's a legitimate complaint and I would have to agree with it, if this movie was made in say 1945 or 1946 the casting would've been spot on. But by 1957 the cast was way too old. Especially Flynn, who made a nice little comeback and got the best reviews of his career with this movie, was too old and he looked it. 47 when Sun was made, he looks a good 10 years older and Mike Campbell, indeed all these characters, should be in their late 20's or early 30's. The best one can say about the film is that it's a guilty pleasure.

With his last companion, the teenaged Beverly Aadland, at his 50th and last birthday, June 1959

In fact the last few films Flynn made were guilty pleasures and Errol was generally the best thing in them. Following Sun in 1958 Errol got the chance to play one of his idols and a man whom he befriended, John Barrymore, in Too Much, Too Soon. This slice of Hollywood biography based on the memoir of Diana Barrymore, John's eldest, is ripe with fiction whether it be the names of certain people who played not insignificant parts in Diana's life or title's of the movie's both Diana and John made or the studio's each worked for, all are fictionalized. The one thing the film gets right or at least seems to have a sense of truth about, is the relationship between Diana and daddy dearest. Flynn's Barrymore is way past his prime, as Flynn was in real life. Alone in his decaying Beverly Hills palace, an estranged father, drink his only constant companion, in danger of losing his home, with no work in sight and living off past triumphs, Flynn's Barrymore must clearly have been a man he not only understood but empathised with. Flynn himself was a year away from death, living in the once fashionable but now run down Garden of Allah [ in fact it would be torn down in 1959 ], living with his underage mistress, Flynn was essentially a laughing stock in Hollywood despite his good showing in Sun the year before, there being talk of a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his stellar work. But there was no nomination for him and when Too Much, Too Soon [ love that title ] was released, Flynn again walked away with the acting honors and talk of award consideration, but in the end nothing, for people believed Flynn was playing himself, a burnt out, alcoholic, wash-out, and to a degree he was. But if Cary Grant is to be believed, that the hardest thing to do is play one's self, then Flynn did, indeed, achieve excellence.

The ultimate adventurer. Flynn as Captain Geoffrey Thorpe in The Sea Hawk.

 Errol Flynn passed away in Vancouver on October 14, 1959. Always short on funds in the last 6 or 7 years of his life, he was trying to sell his beloved schooner, the Zaca. At the home of  Dr. Grant A. Gould, Errol Flynn died of a heart attack, after complaining of back pains, at the age of 50, though the autopsy revealed a great many other ailments such as liver and kidney disease and cancer of the mouth. The coroner concluded that it was amazing that Flynn reached the age of 50. In those 50 years Flynn had seen more, done more, loved more, hated more and lost more than most men or women do in two life times. I suppose that is fitting for a man who was both heroic and cowardly, wild and introspective, rich and poor, sullen and comic, once handsome and later aged before his time, who would not let an opportunity for a new experience go by without at least dipping his foot into the pool. It may be that Errol Flynn was a portrait of Dorian Gray come to life.

An Epic "Lawrence"

Thursday night, with my three sons and our significant others, I had the rare privilege of viewing David Lean's masterpiece of epic storytelling, Lawrence of Arabia at the Arlington theater in Santa Barbara, Ca. I had seen Lawrence many times both on cable TV and on home video but never before in a movie theater, on a big screen, the way director Lean intended it to be seen. This is a film that must be seen on the big screen and as this is an opportunity that doesn't happen every day, I made sure I had my tickets well in advance. In fact I purchased them about a month before the screening and the person that was working the ticket window was somewhat bewildered about what movie I wanted to buy the ticket for. Ignorant 20-something that she was, she had never heard of the movie. I told her very briefly about the film and that she should do herself a favor and purchase a ticket for herself and view one of the greatest films ever made. She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. I may have. 

The night of the screening I was full of anxiety, mixed with anticipation. I had seen a couple of previous screenings of different classic films in the past year and came away with a somewhat disappointed feeling. I was pleased and grateful that I was able to witness classic films in a theater and on a big screen, this becoming rarer as time goes on, but the picture quality was somewhat lacking. It wasn't vibrant or sharp, the image presented was somewhat muddled, the colors muted. I attributed this as poor presentation and hoped that the screening of Lawrence would get these things right. I was not disappointed. The quality of the picture and sound were magnificent.

Seeing Lawrence in a theater for the first and probably only time, after numerous viewings on home video, I got a different perspective on the vastness of the desert, an almost 3D effect that I was never aware of. Also, the performances! I have always been appreciative of Peter O'Toole's Lawrence [ it surely is one of cinema's great performances ], but Omar Sharif's Sherif Ali, Anthony Quinn as Auda Abu Tayi, Jose Ferrer's perverse and sadistic Turkish Bey and the always great Claude [ I'm shocked, SHOCKED!, to find gambling going on in here ] Rains as Mr. Dryden the architect of the Arab conflict during WWI, come alive as never before on the big screen. The epic sound of Maurice Jarre's magnificent, iconic score, Lean's masterful control of the editing and camera placement are truly astounding when viewed in a theater. The images come alive like never before and jump out at the spectator at certain times: Lawrence blowing out the match followed by the cut of the sun of the Arabian desert, the blowing up of the turkish train carrying rifle's and ammunition, the conquering of Aqaba, Lawrence's return journey to Cairo, all these and more are highlights of an epic film that one cannot praise enough.

Lawrence of Arabia is a magnificent, epic film of tremendous grandeur and sweep, though the time span covered in the film is relatively small, about 1916 to1920. The film was budgeted at around $3 million, however, by the time filming and post production was completed the final cost was $10 million and grossed $70 million per wikipedia. In 2012 dollars that would adjust to $75.2 million for the cost and $526.5 million for the gross. Dare I say any studio today would envy a 7 to1 cost to gross ratio. The epic qualities of the film tend to overwhelm the less sensational aspects of the movie. Indeed,  one of the enduring aspects of Lawrence is the screenplay. The dialogue is memorable and the characters are finely drawn, if not always historically accurate. It is one of the finest examples of filmmaking ever presented and even more so in the kind of large-scale, wide-screen spectacular that is not seen these days and for some critics not appreciated in it's day as much as it is now. In fact two of the most influential critics of the day, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times and Andrew Sarris, were particularly harsh on the film, criticizing it's lack of depth [ think of what they would have made of today's big scale,' wide screen epics ' with their poor script's and shallow or non-characterizations].

Finally, Lawrence of Arabia succeeds or fails on the performance of it's lead actor. Peter O'Toole is more than up to the challenge portraying of T.E. Lawrence. However, he was far from the first actor the filmmakers considered for the part. Marlon Brando was the first choice but decided he couldn't stand being in the desert for a year and bowed out to make Mutiny on the Bounty.  Albert Finney was tested and costumed but ultimately the part went to O'Toole. At the 1962 Oscars, Lawrence was nominated for 10 awards winning 7 including Picture and Director. The only ' losers' were for Omar Sharif in the Supporting catagory, Adapted Screenplay and O'Toole for Leading Actor, the first nomination of eight he would receive, yet he would never take home the Oscar for any one performance [O'Toole, at last, did get an honorary Oscar for his body of work in 2003] This latter omission, it seems to modern eyes, is unthinkable [to quote Lawrence:" the trick is not minding that it hurts"]. In the first leading part of many in a 50 year screen career, O'Toole as Lawrence, is an actor possessed. In nearly every scene of this three and one half hour film, he holds it all together and carries it away. The madness, anger, fragility, hubris, ambiguity, forcefulness, vanity and humanity are all embodied and captured in his performance. For any actor in any role it would be exceptional. In a film of this scope and magnitude it is nothing short of brilliance.

Film on Film: A Minnelli double feature anniversary

 " I thought, ' What the hell am I doing if my work is as bad as all this? ' I didn't want to do another film. I thought, ' I'll do something else '. I went travelling round the world and I didn't make a film for fourteen years. I thought, ' What's the point?' " -  Director David Lean reflecting on the disastrous reviews of 1970's Ryan's Daughter

" When a picture is finished and there is nothing more you can do about it, it is like falling out of love. Making a picture is all work and worry and fear and panic. But not making a picture is worse. There is no happiness in this business " - Carol Reed, director [The Third Man, Oliver!, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol]

 " You know, for me working on a picture is like romancing a girl.You see her, you want her, you go after her. The big moment! Then the let down, every time every picture, the after picture blues " - Jonathan Shields in The Bad & The Beautiful, 1952

 

Opening credit

   One of my favorite films about Hollywood and movie making would have to be 1952's The Bad & The Beautiful from MGM. Directed with ease and assurance by the great Vincente Minnelli and starring Kirk Douglas [the Bad], Lana Turner [the Beautiful], and Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan and Gloria Grahame in an Oscar winning role. Nominated for six Academy Awards and winning five, it holds a record for a movie winning the most Oscars without being nominated for Best Picture [although it should have]. Winning for Best Supporting Actress [Gloria Grahame], Art Direction/Set Decoration-Black & White, Cinematography-Black & White, Costume Design-Black & White and Screenplay. Only Douglas' dominate Jonathan Shields failed to win the top prize, losing to Gary Cooper for High Noon.

Minnelli on the left, producer Houseman on the right. Not sure who's in the middle, but they seem to be trying hard to state their case for something. This kind of passion is one of the things lacking in today's cinema.

    The film is a roman-a-clef of various Hollywood types, some based on fact, others mere caricatures. Douglas' character, the ruthless producer Jonathan Shields, is part producer David O.Selznick [Gone With The Wind, Rebecca, A Star is Born {1937}, Duel in the Sun] part B-movie producer Val Lewton [the original Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Seventh Victim], with perhaps a bit of Minnelli on the side. Turner's Georgia Lorrison is a distinct riff on Diana Barrymore, John's young daughter, who drinks too much, worships her dead father and falls in love too easily, but with the help of Shields becomes a star instead of a slut. Other types who inhabit this Hollywood make believe is Walter Pidgeon as Harry Pebbel, Shields long suffering associate [MGM's Harry Rapf ?] who is the first to give Shields a job in the dog-eat-dog world of the movies. Former crooner Dick Powell plays James Lee Bartlow, a Fitzgerald/Faulkner-esque novelist who comes to Hollywood with his nympho wife Rosemary [Zelda ?], played with sass by Gloria Grahame. There is Barry Sullivan's movie director who befriends Shields early on in the movie, but, like anyone close to Shields, ends up betrayed by him. One of the most enjoyable performers is Gilbert Roland as 'Gaucho', Victor Rivera. Gaucho is all rumba's, fast cars, and women and a good friend to Shields but is the one person who doesn't live to regret it. One thing about this film is that it plays fast and loose with the times it portrays: The movie opens in the early 1930's but the fashions are pretty much 1950's chic. And Gaucho is touted as a " 'Latin Lover', the whole town is crying for 'Latin Lovers' ", however with the coming of sound in the late 20's Latin Lovers were pretty much out of vogue by the 1930's.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Gaucho

"Miss Lorrison will hold herself like Miss Lorrison. Miss Lorrison happens to be an actress"- Jonathan Shields to wardrobe mistress.

Shields coaching Georgia

The rundown Lorrison mansion that Jonathan and Fred visit after the preview of their movie ' The Doom of the Cat Men'.

But this is quibbling. The pitch perfect perfs of Douglas' ferocity as Shields and the romanticism of Turner's Georgia to the opprotunistic starlet of Elaine Stewart and the kittenish appeal of Grahame's Rosemary to the stoicism of Powell's Bartlow, all these people live & breathe under Minnelli's inspired direction and the finely etched Oscar winning screenplay of Charles Schnee.                                                                                                                                                                                    Without using one true star name or a real movie title to tell the tale, Bad & The Beautiful is a wonderfully detailed portrait of the type of filmmaking long since past. From the costume fittings to the "sneak" previews to the ballyhooed opening nights, Bad & The Beautiful is infused with the knowledge and awareness that the town they knew and the movies they made are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Much like Sunset Boulevard and In a Lonely Place, both from 1950, Bad has a bittersweet aftertaste, a love/hate relationship for the town, the work and the people who dwell there.

Kruger, with Oscar, trying to convince Andrus he really needs him

  1962's Two Weeks in Another Town doesn't carry the same weight as Bad does. Made in Rome and released by MGM, with the same creative team behind and in front of the cameras: Minnelli directing, Houseman producing and a screenplay by Schnee. Again starring Kirk Douglas, Two Weeks deals with a different kind of tinsel. This is the Rome of La Dolce Vita, the Via Veneto-one of the most famous and expensive streets in Italy-and runaway film productions. It is not as successful as Bad in presenting the lives and inner workings of movie people run amok but it is still an endlessly fascinating artifact. Douglas plays former actor Jack Andrus, fresh out of an asylum for alcoholism after suffering an emotional breakdown. Edward G.Robinson's Kruger is an on-the-skids director, who, having taken a job for hire in Rome, employs Andrus with the promise of a small part in the picture, which would've been Andrus' first acting job in seven years. When Andrus gets to Rome, Kruger is forced by a "fine Italian contract" to do the dubbing of his picture in two weeks, which Kruger finds clearly impossible as he is still in the midst of shooting his film. Subsequently, Kruger asks Andrus to supervise the dubbing and give it the "real Kruger sound" [ a dig at Orson Welles ?] Andrus, with no prospects and little money, accepts.         

Screening room. Do you know what movie they are viewing??

                               

Two Weeks poster art.

                                                                                                                                 Along the way Douglas' Andrus meets a beautiful Italian girl, Veronica, who turns out to be the sometime girlfriend of Davey Drew, played by George Hamilton, the star of Kruger's epic. Andrus also is loathe to discover his sluttish ex-wife Carlotta, played by Cyd Charisse, has remarried and is currently living in Rome and who we find out is the root of all Andrus' problems. Kruger ends up having a heart attack [ironic, as this is one character whose heart would be hard to find, let alone attack], is hospitalized and asks Andrus to finish filming the picture for him.  Andrus comes through this baptism of fire but not before coming face to face with his demons during a night of partying and drinking and  finding himself at some kind of bizarre orgy where the guests all look zonked out on something or other. One of Two Weeks' fault's is that it does not detail certain aspects of the plot so that one is left somewhat puzzled by the characters motivations, presumably due to the cutting that was forced on Minnelli in post-production.                                                                                                                                                                      What the movie does provide is a fascinating look into what movie people in Rome where up against in the 1960's. Far away from Hollywood and essentially out of their comfort zone, these American's are all unhappily flailing around without the slightest idea of what they are doing or why. As Kruger says late one night to his wife "how can a man go wrong and not know why", it may be a question but it's a rhetorical one. Kruger appears to be a director of somewhat high esteem who has fallen on hard times in the 'New' Hollywood. He couldn't get a job anywhere in the states so he took the only one that was offered to him in Rome. Andrus is obviously in a quandary about his life anywhere. Trying to fit in, still hooked on his ex-wife Carlotta, dealing with a mental condition that is precarious at best and suffering from an occasional shaky hand [ from his alcoholism? ], Andrus seems unlikely to survive his two week stay, yet he not only survives it, but by the film's end, appears to be able to learn from it and move on.                                           

Two Weeks in Another Town flopped badly when it was released on August 17, 1962. One can only speculate on how personal a film it was to make for it's creators. Being a top box office name, Kirk Douglas had by 1962, made many films in Europe. From the early 50's with films like The Juggler, Act of Love and Ulysses, Douglas was a semi-familiar face in Rome, Paris and other major cities of Europe. He had just finished his epic Spartacus and still had a few more years as a top flight star [In Harm's Way, Seven Days in May], but his best films were behind him. As for Minnelli, this was to be his second European-based flop in a row, coming fast on the heels of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse made in France in 1961 and released in February 1962, Four Horsemen, even more than Two Weeks, was lamblasted by most critics in America and audiences stayed away in droves, it's only real acceptance coming from the French critics. Though no masterpiece, Two Weeks like Four Horsemen, has seen it's reputation grow slightly in the ensuing 50 years since it's release. But at the time, Minnelli's reputation among the critical elite was dimming. The late fifties brought possibly his high watermark as a director: Lust For Life in 1956,  Some Came Running and the Oscar winning Gigi both in 1958 and  Home from the Hill  which brought star Robert Mitchum the New York Critics Circle award for Best Actor of 1960 were all critically or financially successful or both. But just a few years later his status, especially in the states, was on the decline and though some of his subsequent work had merit and are worth seeing [ 1970's On A Clear Day You Can See Forever is particularly intriguing] he would never have a completely satisfying film again. In fact his last film, 1976's A Matter of Time, was probably his worst. More than any other film director Vincente Minnelli tried to bring beauty to every frame of his films. Whether he was filming a family in St. Louis, Madame Bovary in France, Van Gogh in Arles, or Gene Kelly in a paper mache Scotland, Minnelli succeeded more often than not. As Minnelli himself said " there is beauty in more things than people realize." 

Lost Cities

The movies are over and done with, Hollywood is a ghost town making foolish efforts to seem alive. Hollywood is like Egypt, full of crumbled pyramids. It'll never come back. It'll just keep on crumbling until finally the wind blows the last studio prop across the sands.- David O. Selznick, producer of Gone With The Wind, walking at dawn in the deserted Hollywood streets with Ben Hecht,1951

Hooray for Hollywood !!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      During this past Memorial Day weekend, as part of an early birthday present, my significant other and I spent the weekend down in Hollywood and Burbank at the Warner Brothers studio and took their tour of the lot. It's quite a tour, one that I first took way back in 1990 or 1991 [ memory fails ] that I took with my niece. It's partly a walking tour through the back lot and some sound stages of one of Hollywood's oldest studios.

The watertower

 In 1919 the brothers Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner rented a small studio in Culver City, California. Then they built their own in Hollywood at Sunset and Bronson. They took out incorporation papers in 1923. The brothers first star was a dog, Rin Tin Tin. In 1924 Warners hired a 24 year old Daryl F. Zanuck to write stories for their wonder dog and ' Rinty ' helped keep the brothers in the black. In 1924 Warners also signed John Barrymore, leading star of Broadway, to come west and make a partial sound film Don Juan.  It was a hit and Warners were leaders in a race with Fox Studios in bringing sound to motion pictures and on October 6,1927 with the release of  The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson the brothers Warner won that race. Though not entirely free of silence, The Jazz Singer was tantamount to a revolution.
Audiences, thrilled by all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing movies, made Warner Bros. the number one studio in Hollywood which is to say, the world. In 1929 the Warners bought the First National studios in Burbank, Ca.
and renamed the facility the Warners/First National Studio.

Various logos through the ages

Moi, posing with pictures from Warners Best Picture Oscar winners.

This intro was just taking the long way of telling you readers  some of the rich film history that has taken place on the fabled Burbank lot and the events leading up to the brothers occupancy of that piece of real estate. The tour is quite unlike the one Universal Studios has done for years. First off the Warner tour is only partially done by tram. The tour frequently stops at various sites and points of interest and lets the tourists debark and walk  the grounds as the guide explains some films and television shows that have been filmed right where you are standing.

The New York street. Feels like Cagney or Bogart are right around the corner.

Small town square: Well, ya got 'Trouble' my friends!

Another view of the NY street.

The movie theater from A Star is Born [1954]

The tour, which lasts about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, is also rather small in size with only about a dozen or so souls along for any given tour. Our guide was quite knowledgeable about the studio and various productions, some old but mostly new, that have been made there. I recognized the sets from some movies she didn't point out: the town square which was used for The Music Man, the small town street which was used for Young at Heart with Sinatra and Doris Day and King's Row with Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan, the movie theater used in 1954's A Star is Born and The Way We Were. And I could swear I saw a facade from Casablanca but our guide made no mention of it, so maybe not.

Was this a building used in Casablanca? It sure looks like it could be.

You gotta have 'Friends'

We also caught a glimpse of a still standing set from Friends  the long running hit TV show. Our guide says it's one of the most popular stops on the tour. Maybe, but not for me.

The schoolhouse/Jail from Rebel, Music Man and many more

Another view of small town. Is that a set from Casablanca on the right? We'll never know as out guide didn't say. Looks to me like ' Le Belle Aurora '

Of much more interest to me was the school house which was used for  The Music Man [ the school ], Rebel Without a Cause [ the jail ], The Chase [ a jail again ] with Marlon Brando. Then there are sets on the backlot that no longer exists: The western street and the jungle set, long since lost, bulldozed to make room for asphalt parking lots. But when one considers what other movie studios have gone thru, one must be grateful that this much is still here, with us to glimpse up close and personal. MGM in Culver City for example, was nearly completely decimated back in the early 1970's by a bottom-line casino and hotel owner. MGM, at the time the new owner took control, was $35 million dollars in the red. So the home of Garland, Gable, Garbo, Tracy, Hepburn, Loy, Harlow and many more, in fact All The Stars There Are in Heaven, sold it's props and costumes to the highest bidder in an infamous auction in May 1970. This was also before the great nostalgia wave that hit America in about 1974/75 and still continues, somewhat, today. But the real blow to that fabulous studio was the selling and destruction of it's backlot. The backlot of a movie studio is where one can see it's character. No two studio backlots are identical, each has it's particular brand of fake realism. The loss of MGM's is especially painful to me. So many terrific movies were lensed there, so that without it's backlot so much of it has receded, like a lost city, an Atlantis for movie buffs. The MGM backlot was more than one lot. MGM had a total of three. Lot one housed the soundstages and administration, make-up, props, costumes, music, editing, etc; and it is physically still there, though it is now the Sony Studios, home of Columbia Pictures and much changed.

MGM back in the day, main entrance.

Lost city: skyview of the MGM backlot

Lot two had the Andy Hardy house and New England street, Small town square, a cemetery, Tarzan's jungle and lake, Waterloo Bridge, a french courtyard, a railroad terminal, a spanish street, Verona square, Esther Williams pool, Copperfield court, Wimpole street and a southern mansion [ contrary to legend Gone With The Wind wasn't filmed at MGM, though it was an MGM release due to the fact that Metro had Clark Gable under contract and loaned him to Selznick, whose own studio was right down the street. That studio's backlot is another lost city, gone with the wind ] Lot 3 housed a western street, the St.Louis street, a Salem waterfront, the Kismet staircase, the Easter Parade street, circus grounds, Brooklyn street, an army base and a process tank. So one can imagine the enormity of the place.                                                                                                                                                                                            

Sony Studios, former home of MGM

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The irony of course, is that the Sony Studios tour the history of Columbia Studios: It Happened One Night, Lawrence of Arabia, Gilda, Only Angels Have Wings, From Here To Eternity, and so on. But not one of these movies were made on this lot. This was the MGM studios. Columbia Pictures was originally a poverty row operation on Gower Street not far from Paramount and RKO [ another lost city ] in Hollywood. So the street and house where Judy adored the boy next door in Meet Me in St.Louis and the streetlamp that Gene Kelly famously wrapped himself around in Singin in the Rain, the house where Katharine Hepburn lived in The Philadelphia Story, the Verona that Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard tragically fell in love in Romeo and Juliet and more and more are all gone by way of the wrecking ball and bulldozer. Not only that but the studios were a city unto themselves. All studios had a police, fire and first aid department, a Western Union office, commissary, etc. And if a studio employee wanted or needed a alcoholic libation most studios had a bar near by. For the RKO/Paramount crowd it was Lucey's Restaurant and the now- gone Oblath's, which was practically right outside the gates of Paramount. I know all this lament is 40 years too late, but I find it tragic that way back in 1970 MGM's new owners didn't recognize the riches they owned. Didn't see that they had a Disneyland right under their feet and if they had slowed down and taken a little thought and foresight these owners not only could have saved movie history but would have become very rich in the process. The mind boggles when I think how much more money Universal has made off it's backlot tour than MGM made on it's get -the-money-quick fire sale. As Debbie Reynolds said " The shame of it is why didn't they see it. It's too late now ". This is one of several reasons why my trip to Warner Brothers studios was such a blast, yet also somewhat melancholy. Not only did I not want the tour to ever end, but I also realized I was witnessing a dying breed. Tomorrow it may not be there.            

                                                                                                                                   

The Classic Logo.

You think you can dance? Check out this guy : Gene Kelly's Centennial

Love sick as An American in Paris, 1951

Gene Kelly is one of those rare performers who became a star with his first film. In 1942 MGM borrowed Kelly from David O. Selznick to star opposite Judy Garland in For Me & My Gal, a Busby Berkeley directed opus that takes place just before and during the Great War. Kelly plays a heel, an opportunistic song and dance man who wants nothing more than to play the Palace, the ultimate showcase that all vaudeville performers aspired to in pre-WWI entertainment. Kelly's ambition runs so high that, despite his love for leading lady Judy Garland, he smashes his hand with the lid of a costume trunk rather than get drafted into fighting a war he doesn't believe in. The movie wasn't as heavy as related here, but in 1942 with America involved in a new war, Kelly's character seemed cowardly at best and un-patriotic at worst. Re-shoots were made so that Kelly is a bit more sympathetic and all's well that end's well. It also made Gene Kelly a star first time out of the box. His contract was sold to MGM, Selznick not making many movies in the early forties and the few he did make were not musicals. So the MGM dream factory put Kelly to work in a lot of films some musical, some not, almost all forgettable: Pilot no.5, DuBarry Was A Lady, Thousands Cheer, The Cross of Lorraine. Then in 1944 MGM loaned him out to two different studios for two very different films: Cover Girl at Columbia with the leading love goddess of the era and someone who'd already co-starred with Fred Astaire in two pictures, Rita Hayworth. It was a huge success both with critics and war weary audiences. The other loan out was to Universal for Christmas Holiday with their leading songbird, former child star Deanna Durbin, who was expanding her range somewhat and trying on more adult roles to fit her maturing size. Now this film may sound like a musical comedy but it is really a early example of film noir with Kelly as a charming killer. It was his most off beat performance to date.

Menacing Deanna Durbin for the Christmas Holiday, 1944

Having proven he could be team player and do and go where MGM told him, he was rewarded with his biggest hit to date, Anchors Aweigh, with 'The Voice' Frank Sinatra. This was the first of three pairings for the two and it started a life long friendship and mutual admiration society between them. Frank always credited Kelly with helping him fool the audience that he wasn't born with 2 left feet.

Helping Frank decide which is his left & which is his right, Anchors Aweigh

This movie, which also had a cute Kathryn Grayson as the love interest and a very young Dean Stockwell as her nephew [ watch this and Blue Velvet back to back for a real mind fuck ], won over a huge number of moviegoers, helping establish Ol' Blue Eyes as a legit film star and solidified Kelly's rep as the only serious rival to Astaire as king of the musical. It also brought Kelly his first and only nomination for Best Actor by the Academy. It must have been a weak year because Kelly is ok but not really a contender for one of filmland's biggest prizes. Clocking in at some 139 minutes the movie is at least 20 to 30 minutes too long, however it does contain some fine musical numbers including " I Begged Her ", 

   "  Look at me, I'm Dancin' ! "

" The Worry Song " with Jerry the mouse of Tom & Jerry fame, " The Mexican Hat Dance " and a lovely, underrated Sinatra ballad, " I Fall in Love Too Easily ". From here Kelly's career was about to reach it's peak, but he first had to slog thru some Metro mush like Living in a Big Way and Words and Music. In these years  he also had his one and only on screen appearance with Fred Astaire [ I don't count their appearance in 1976's That's Entertainment 2, as they were past their prime and didn't really dance ] in Vincente Minnelli's Ziegfeld Follies. Like Ziegfeld's famous shows of yesteryear, the film was a revue with no plot, only a tun of MGM talent. The star power is almost indecent, for besides Fred and Gene there was Garland, William Powell, Cyd Charisse, Lucille Ball, Fanny Brice, Lena Horne, Red Skelton, Esther Williams among others. These two were, are, the supreme male dancers in the movies. No questions, no doubts. Kelly was a proletarian dancer, a man of the people so to speak while Astaire was the more upper class elegant one and not only in their attire did they differ. Kelly smoked cigarettes, Astaire didn't [ except on screen ], Kelly not only sang & danced, he choreographed and eventually directed movies, Astaire danced and left the rest of that stuff to others. Kelly was a lifelong Democrat, Astaire a Republican. Yet each knew the value of hard work and not quitting until they felt the number they were perfecting was just that: perfect. And there was no bitterness or rivalry for each knew and respected the others unique brand of dance. In later years, Kelly expressed regret about the number feeling it too lightweight, just a bit of fluff. But I think that is what gives the routine it's charm. It never fails to entertain me.                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The years 1948 to 1952 were the golden years of Kelly's stardom. He seemed to go from one hit movie to another: An athletic turn as d'Artagnan in George Sidney's lumbering, yet sumptuous, version of The Three Musketeers and his equally physical turn as the ham actor posing as Mac the black Macoco in Minnelli's troubled production of The Pirate and Take Me Out To The Ballgame, again with Sinatra, all in 1948. The year 1949 would bring a major change in his career when, with buddy Stanley Donen, he co-directed On The Town. Besides Kelly the film co-starred him with Sinatra [ for the last time ], along with the talents of Ann Miller, Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett and Jules Munchin. An exuberant musical that never takes it's time to let the viewer catch it's breath, On The Town was an tremendous bell-ringer all around the nation's box offices when it opened in December 1949. It helped justify Donen and Kelly's insistence that location shooting in the Big Apple was necessary, as they both felt the backlot in Culver City just wouldn't do to bring that helluva town to life. Being an actor or dancer in 1940's Hollywood one just didn't direct his or her own movie. This was Von Stroheim or Orson Welles territory and those two men got brought down and destroyed in the process. Kelly on the other hand, for a time, seemed to thrive. He went on to Minnelli's An American in Paris, 1951's Best Picture Oscar winner over the tough competition of A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place In The Sun and was presented with a special Oscar himself. That film ended with a 16 minute ballet sequence that was quite revolutionary in Hollywood films at the time, though similar things were done with Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes in 1948 but that film was an English, not a Hollywood, production. Though it may have dated since it's debut some 61 years ago, and taken over by such pictures as Meet Me in St. Louis and Kelly's own Singin' in the Rain among buffs, in it's day An American in Paris was received as the ultimate in Hollywood musicals. It made a pocketful of green for MGM's coffers, not to mention some prestige when the studio really needed it [ Metro was actually in turmoil at the time the film was in production and co-founder Louis B Mayer was forced out of his job as head of MGM just 9 months before the film won it's Oscar, a position he'd held since 1924 ]

1952 brought another triumph, everybody's favorite musical, Singin' in the Rain. I'm telling you if you don't like this valentine to the early days of talking pictures, when sound was supplanting silents, you don't like movies. It covers much the same ground as last year's Oscar winner The Artist, a big star in silent movies see's his secure position in the Hollywood pecking order shaken by the earth-shattering advent of all-singing ,all-dancing, [ this is the big one ] all-talking pictures. But while The Artist played it serious, Singin' in the Rain is musical comedy of the highest order and, with 1953's The Band Wagon, probably the finest example of the Hollywood musical, something no one else but Hollywood seemed to get quite right. Somewhat based on facts, but not on any one in particular, Singin' in the Rain charts the rise, fall and rise again of one Don Lockwood played by Kelly. His best friend is played by Donald O' Connor in what would be his best film role [ his show stopping ' Make Em' Laugh ' number still brings down the house ] and the ingenue is played by wet-behind-the-ears Debbie Reynolds, all of 20 years old, in what was only her sixth screen appearance. At the time of it's release, Singin' in the Rain garnered generous reviews and good box office but fell somewhat short of On The Town and An American in Paris in effect with both critics and audiences. To them it was just another good, ol' entertaining song and dance show. It is that but it's also art of the highest order, which critics and audiences acknowledge today.

   1952 would mark the high point in Kelly's career as far as complete, total classic film is concerned. In 1952 he went to Europe to begin filming his ballet film, his " dream " film, Invitation To The Dance, which was a commercial and critical flop when it finally reached the screens in 1956. Before that the adaptation of  Brigadoon reuniting him with director Minnelli and co-star Charisse should have brought big box office and hosannas from the critics, but instead brought shrugs. Another reason for this indifference to Kelly's post-Singin in the Rain output was the changing times in American, indeed world, film. With the occasional exceptions of Gigi and West Side Story, the musical in the mid-50's to early 60's had a rough time, especially with moviegoers. Kelly would have a few highlights in the years ahead: 1957's Les Girls, his last musical at MGM and his real swan song to the genre, directed by George Cukor, is a personal favorite of mine and 1955's It's Always Fair Weather is another highlight, but Singin' in the Rain, in retrospect, was the pinnacle, the summit of his achievement as a whole. It's Always Fair Weather, his last collaboration with Stanley Donen, is the one movie which I feel contains Gene Kelly's finest moment on film: 

   This clip demonstrates Gene Kelly's ability to make one glad to be alive. That vibrant, joyous, exuberant, heart pounding, anything-could-happen-to-me-glad-to-be-in-love feeling we all have from time to time. He was able to bottle it and thanks to home video and cable it is our privilege to uncork that bottle, sample that vintage and bask in the flowing champagne of his genius. Because of you, sometimes I like myself too. August 23 is your 100th birthday, so happy birthday Gene Kelly and thanks for making my world a more joyous place.  

Hitch @ 113

From the Master.

Today is the 113th birthday of Alfred Hitchcock, the universally acknowledged ' Master of Suspense ', which is a fairly accurate description of his work as a whole for no one has really gotten the anxiety, paranoia, that unsettling feeling we sometimes get in the pit of our stomach, quite as well. It has been documented in the last 30 years or so, that Sir Alfred was a bit creepy or that, at least, he had certain hang ups. These so called obsessions worked their way into his film time and again: The voyeurism [ Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo ],  domineering or overbearing mothers [ The Birds, Notorious, Psycho, To Catch a Thief ], the cool blondes [ Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, Marnie or just about any film Hitch made ] sex and food [ Frenzy, Rope, To Catch a Thief ], misogyny [ Marnie, Vertigo, Psycho, Dial M for Murder ],  fear of heights [ Vertigo, North by Northwest, Saboteur, Rebecca ], role-playing [ North by Northwest, Stage Fright, Vertigo, Psycho, To Catch a Thief ],  wrongful accusation [ Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, The Wrong Man, I Confess, Saboteur, North by Northwest, The 39 Steps] etc; these and other themes crop up in his films over and over. These, among others, are the things Hitchcock feared, fantasied and preoccupied him all his adult life. 

Jimmy is watching you.

The chubby, shy, Catholic-British boy grew up to become one of the most celebrated movie directors ever. Recognized round the world, Hitchcock had everything a man could possibly want except, perhaps, true love. It's pretty well known that Hitch was obsessed with the ice-blonde female princess, best personified by Grace Kelly in ' Rear Window ', ' Dial M for Murder' and ' To Catch a Thief '.

Alfred's Muse

The ultimate cool blonde that Hitchcock said was a perfect lady, until one got her into the back of a taxi cab and then watch out! That elegance would unleash itself and devour the male. Or so he liked to believe. According to legend this impulse to pursue such a woman remained a fantasy of his that he never acted upon. His lust for Ingrid Bergman or Grace Kelly or Joan Fontaine remained private. Then he met Tippi Hedren in 1962. Hitch cast her as Melanie Daniels in ' The Birds' and he was besotted. It wasn't until he made ' Marnie ' with Miss Hedren the following year that Hitchcock's lust got the better of him. He supposedly made a pass at her, she rebuffed it and the rest, as they say, is history. Hitch, who had her under personal contract, refused to let her work for either himself or other directors [ one exception was 1967's ' A Countess from Hong Kong ' Charlie Chaplin's last directed feature ] for years. So her career was ruined. Not so her life, Miss Hedren says. 

Alfred's obsession

But such bad manners doesn't prevent one from still enjoying his films. For Hitchcock was a master. Has any one filmmaker had such a run of classics? Without even going into his output from the previous 10 or 15 years, consider this run of films from 1951 to 1960: ' Strangers on a Train ', ' I Confess ', ' Dial M for Murder ', ' Rear Window ', ' To Catch a Thief ', ' The Trouble with Harry ', ' The Man Who Knew Too Much ', ' The Wrong Man ', ' Vertigo ', ' North by Northwest ' and 'Psycho '. That's 11 films in 10 years. No, not every one is a masterpiece but each one is at least watchable [  I Confess , Trouble with Harry  ], or at least entertaining [  Dial M for Murder , To Catch a Thief , Man Who Knew Too Much  ] with the remaining excellent examples of brilliant cinema with at least 3 of those being masterpieces [ you can pick at least 3 can't you ? ]. For today's audiences it's possible that some have highly improbable plots that at times stretch the limits of believability, but Hitchcock always regarded his films not as " a slice of life, but a slice of cake ".  All of very high quality, that I dare say is impossible to match in almost anyone's filmography.

Psycho

With Doris Day, on location.