Golden Holden, Part One: The Rise

William Holden was a star of the first rank for over forty years. From his screen debut in 1939's Golden Boy to his last in 1981's S.O.B., Holden personified the solid, steady American male. He hit his peak as a box office name in the 1950s, appearing six times on Quigley Publication's Annual Top Ten and topping the list in 1956. By the time of his death, however, few would have predicted such a sad and lonely demise.

William Holden at his peak in the mid-50s

Born on April 17, 1918, William Holden, after early success in 1939's Golden Boy and 1940's Our Town, spent most of the 1940s in routine films. In 1943--after eleven features of dwindling quality-- Holden enlisted in the United States Army. Upon his return to Hollywood, Holden found the going rough for a returning G.I. whose best work was nearly eight years earlier. His first film back was a routine western, Blaze of Noon, in 1947. While he stayed busy in post-war Hollywood, Holden made little impression on it, commenting later that in these films--another eleven from 1947 to 1950--he played "Smiling Jim," the clean-cut guy with a nice smile and no substance. As often happens in the movie business, though, along came a role that changed his career and his life in a film he wasn't even originally considered for: Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. 

Holden as screenwriter Joe Gillis, floating through Sunset Boulevard.
"The poor dope. He always wanted a pool."

Montgomery Clift was director Billy Wilder's first choice to play the down-on-his-luck screenwriter, Joe Gillis, in Sunset Boulevard. The sensitive and troubled Clift backed out at the last minute, however, leaving Wilder without a leading man. The director considered several others for the part of Gillis without actually approaching any of them for the part--Fred MacMurray, Gene Kelly, Marlon Brando. One by one, Wilder crossed them off his list. William Holden, under contract to Paramount where the film was made, was a name that intrigued Wilder. In spite of Holden's previous bland performances, he was attractive and appealing, and he looked like he could be a writer, or so Wilder thought. Wilder met with Holden and gave him the role. (He continued to struggle with the casting of an actress for the film's female lead character, Norma Desmond. Wilder saw everyone from Mary Pickford to Mae West [can you imagine?], yet none of them would commit. Eventually Gloria Swanson proved perfect casting as the aging silent screen star. )

To call Sunset Boulevard a game changer in Holden's career is an understatement. Fact is, without that great film, Holden probably wouldn't have had much of a film career. But due to that film, he was subsequently presented with many more opportunities. His performance in Sunset Boulevard is one of the two or three best he ever gave. Holden was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar--one of eleven the film captured--but lost to Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac. In my opinion, Holden was robbed on March 29, 1951, when Academy voters bowed to the high-toned Cyrano. No matter, though. Holden's Oscar loss was cinema's gain.

Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer with our boy, Bill, as Joe Gillis.
"Who wants true? Who wants moving?"

The tide was finally turning on Holden's screen career. Later in 1950, Holden appeared in another success, George Cukor's classic adaptation of Garson Kanin's Broadway stage comedy, Born Yesterday. He kept busy the next couple of years in solid-yet-unmemorable, bread-and-butter pictures, but in 1953, Holden had major success with two features--Otto Preminger's scandalous-for-its-time sex comedy, The Moon is Blue, and the big one, Billy Wilder's Stalag 17.  Wilder's comedy about a group of Americans in a Nazi POW camp was originally a successful Broadway play. In the film version, Holden plays Sergeant J.J. Sefton, a cynical, isolated G.I. con man who only looks out for himself. When a spy is suspected of giving the German's information on an escape plan, Sefton is the natural suspect and must find the real spy to prove his innocence to his fellow prisoners. When Wilder approached him for the film Holden was intrigued but skeptical. Ultimately, however, Holden trusted Wilder's instinct and valued his talent as writer and director, and took the role. The film was a kind of precursor to the 1960s television comedy, Hogan's Heroes, with some buffoonish comedy stuck in between a genuinely serious theme. Released in July 1953, Stalag 17 was a popular and critical success, and in early 1954, Holden was up for an Oscar again. Competition was tough. Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster were also nominated for 1953's big winner in the Oscar sweepstakes, From Here to Eternity. Also nominated was a Shakespearian Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar and newcomer Richard Burton in the Cinemascope extravaganza, The Robe. Unlike the 1951 ceremony, this time Holden prevailed. Professionally, he was on top of the world, and his biggest financial successes were still in front of him.

As Sefton, his Oscar winning role in Stalag 17

1954, the year Holden won his Oscar was also another huge one for him on screen as he appeared in five high-profile films (a testament to the efficiency of filmmaking in the mid-20th Century, this could never happen today) with three of them landing on Variety's Top Twenty Moneymaking films. The films varied in subject and content, including the comedy, Forever Female; the western, Escape From Fort Bravo; and the all-star drama, Executive Suite. But the two that stand out for me are The Country Girl and Sabrina. In these two movies, Holden did not play the lead, yet he contributed his distinctive presence.

Released in the fall, Sabrina, with Audrey Hepburn in the title role, is undoubtedly the best remembered of the two. Humphrey Bogart--stepping away from his usual tough guy roles--plays Linus Larrabee, a Wall Street whiz to Holden's playboy younger brother, David. Directed for the third time by the expert Billy Wilder, Holden has less to do in the film as it progresses, though he plays the integral role of bringing together Linus and Sabrina. Some feel Bogart was miscast in this Cinderella-like, romance, but I feel that the craggy Bogart is believable as the all-work, no-play executive who finally falls under Sabrina's spell. As David, Holden is winning as the ever-smiling, carefree brother. Of course, Sabrina is one of Hepburn's signature roles along with Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's. The film scored a slew of Oscar nominations and a bucketful of box office gold for Paramount Studios.

Lunch time on the Paramount lot with Holden, Hepburn, Wilder,
and unknown man on the left.

The Country Girl stars Holden along with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly as an alcoholic, out-of-work former Broadway musical star and his dowdy wife (played by Crosby and Kelly, respectively), and  details what happens when Crosby's Frank Elgin is offered a plum comeback role by director Bernie Dodd, played by Holden. Based on a play by Clifford Odets (the same playwright who wrote the original material behind Holden's first success, Golden Boy), the film was a stretch for Crosby and Kelly, and they both received Oscar nominations. In all these 1954 releases, Holden is in very good company--at times even overshadowed, though all of them would be poorer without him. Interestingly, as big a star as he was at the time, Holden only received top billing in two of these five 1954 releases. Nevertheless, his name was a draw: in 1954 Holden appeared at number six on the Quigley Box Office Top Ten list for the first time.

Holden with wife, Ardis (a.k.a., actress Brenda Marshall) on Oscar night, 1954

Through the early years of his career, William Holden's private life was as busy as his public one. He married Ardis Ankerson, an actress, in 1942. Together the couple had two sons, Peter and Scott. Though she made eighteen features under the professional name, Brenda Marshall, including the Errol Flynn adventure, The Sea Hawk, in 1940, Ardis essentially retired after 1943 to devote full time to marriage and family. The couple had a variety of friends, including actors Glenn Ford and Broderick Crawford, and portrait painter Paul Clemens. They were present at the wedding of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis in 1952 where Holden, a good friend of Reagan's, served as best man. At the studio Holden enjoyed the company of his fellow actors like Dean Martin, whose sense of humor he especially enjoyed.

Holden likened his life as an actor to that of a successful businessman. He was on the Screen Actor's Guild Board of Directors; he was a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission; and he attended PTA meetings whenever possible at his children's schools. But as his fame grew, his marriage started to fray. Things got so bad at the Holden residence that he bought scuba gear, so he could sit at the bottom of the pool when things became too tense with Ardis. His fondness for large quantities of liquor (few would argue that he was an alcoholic) and his numerous affairs (Grace Kelly, Capucine, Audrey Hepburn) contributed most significantly to the end of his nearly thirty-year marriage in 1971. Also, it is apparent Holden had a real wild side that he tried to suppress. He loved fast sports cars and motorcycles. Eventually, many of these dangerous and bad habits would catch up to him.

1955 continued a hot streak of hit films for Holden: the big, timely Korean War film, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, with Grace Kelly again and Fredric March; a big, romantic, interracial love story, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing with Jennifer Jones; and a big, all-star version of William Inge's stage success, Picnic, with Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell, Cliff Robertson, Betty Field, and Arthur O'Connell. These were all box office winners. By 1957, Holden was looking for ways to get out of the house more and with location work in far away countries becoming more frequent by movie companies looking to capitalize on the popularity of new widescreen technology, he spent more and more time outside the U.S. Holden found that he enjoyed seeing other parts of the world and living like a bachelor since Ardis usually stayed behind with their children. David Lean's epic World War II film, Bridge on the River Kwai, offered him such an opportunity. The film's theme, "war is madness," is well played out on location in Ceylon with Alec Guinness in his Oscar-winning role of Colonel Nicholson, a rigid, by-the-book, prisoner of war of the Japanese. In charge of the POW camp is Colonel Saito played with gusto by famed Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa, who has ordered the prisoners to build a bridge over the Kwai River. Holden plays an American named Shears, who escapes from Saito's prison camp, reaches a base hospital, and declares himself a coward in an attempt to be dishonorably discharged. However, Shears is talked into going back to the Saito's prison war camp to blow up the bridge Colonel Nicholson is building. A huge hit in its day, netting more than 18 million in 1957 dollars in its first year alone, Kwai holds up as an excellent anti-war statement and first-rate entertainment. Holden's percentage of the box office gross deal also ensured that he never had to worry about money again. From the Kwai location, Holden was off to London for The Key, a film in which co-starred with new international sex symbol, Sophia Loren, and British actor, Trevor Howard.

Holden's next film, the Civil War action picture, The Horse Soldiers, paired him with John Wayne for director John Ford. The film was not exceptional, with no one claiming it as the shining hour of anyone involved, but it was popular--number 14 on Variety's 1959 Moneymaking List--and the stars each received $750,000 plus a percentage of the gross. It was one of the biggest deals Hollywood had yet to offer any star, with the deal--an early version of "the package,"in which an agent or agency puts some of its biggest names in one film--more significant that the finished product.

(Stay tuned for the next part of this look back at William Holden's career, which will pick up with Holden's ups and downs in the 1960s and beyond.)


Sources
Books: Golden Boy: The Untold Story of William Holden by Bob Thomas
            William Holden, The Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies by Will Holtzman
            The Films of William Holden by Lawrence J. Quirk
            Reel Facts - The Movie Book of Records by Cobbett Steinberg
Internet: Wikipedia
               All photographs

Essential William Wyler: 1940's The Letter

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

Astaire!

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 (The Wizard 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.

With another master of dance, Gene Kelly, in Ziegfeld Follies (1946)

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 Wagon is 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

The Film That Got Away: George Cukor's A Star Is Born (1954)

In his time, George Cukor was one of cinema's best, unsung craftsman. Specializing in comedy, Cukor's skill with a dramatic story was somewhat overlooked. But the best of Cukor's comedies have dramatic undercurrents and characters. Consider Lew Ayres' Ned, the alcoholic brother of free spirit--and family black sheep--Katharine Hepburn in Holiday; or the relationship entanglements of The Philadelphia Story's main characters. A brief list of Cukor's serious films reveal some of the best dramas of classic cinema: the 1933 version Little Women, also starring Katharine Hepburn; the 1936 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet; 1944's Gaslight; 1947's A Double Life, which included an Oscar-winning turn by Ronald Colman.

Early in his career Cukor directed a drama at RKO Studios for studio chief David O. Selznick that told the soon-to-be-classic Hollywood story of Mary Evans, a young woman desperate to break into the movies. One night at her waitressing job, she waits on big-time film director, Max Carey. The two become friends, and the young woman is put through a crash course on Movie Stardom 101 circa 1932. She experiences a lot of life, marrying, having a baby, separating and reconciling with her husband, all while best friend Max, who has a massive drinking problem, becomes increasingly disenchanted with his life in the limelight. Max takes drastic measures after she posts his bail (on an Oscar night when she's collected the Best Actress award, no less) when he's jailed on a drunk driving charge. The film, called What Price Hollywood? served as an outline for three versions of the story that followed. That story was A Star Is Born.

Title card from the 1937 version

Produced independently by David Selznick, the first "official" version of the story, 1937's A Star Is Born, laid the ground work for the two versions that followed, changing a few things from What Price Hollywood?. One was the elimination of the 1932 movie's main character, film director Max Carey. Max's more compelling characteristics--drinking, boredom, humor, ennui--were made facets of the new male lead character, dashing matinee idol actor, Norman Maine. Mary Evans, the young woman from the 1932 story became wide-eyed, innocent Vicki Lester from the Midwest. Through various plot twists, Norman Maine and Vicki Lester meet and fall in love, with Vicki's new film career blossoming while Norman's is dying on the cinematic vine, thus increasing his affection for body- and mind-numbing substances. The ending, similar to What Price, is tragic. A huge hit in its day, the 1937 Star Is Born played the wife-on-way-up female character against the I-was-good-once-and-I-love-you-but-now-I'm-too-pissed-to-care male angst.

German poster art for 1954's A Star Is Born

The 1954 take on A Star Is Born put the "big" in big screen entertainment. Using the new widescreen process called CinemaScope, this version included musical numbers, tailor made for its star, Judy Garland. And it was Garland and her new production company (run by her third husband, Sid Luft) that served as the impetus for putting this version of the story in front of the cameras.

While no doubt existed about who would play the female lead, early on the very important male lead was offered to several legendary actors, including some fascinating possibilities like Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Cary Grant. Grant--Cukor's first choice--read at the director's home, and Cukor claimed that the reading was nothing short of outstanding; however, Grant steadfastly said no. Cukor, according to Ronald Haver's book on the film's production, wasn't surprised. Grant, he knew, would never "expose himself" on screen like that. Eventually, Cary Grant-esque British actor, James Mason, was awarded the difficult job of giving Norman Maine another chance in Hollywood. Frederic March played Maine as a sort of happy drunk in the 1937 version of the story. Mason's take on the character would be much darker, with a rough, masochistic edge.

James Mason played Norman with a fascinating quality of danger. This Norman Maine is devotedly self destructive, charming yet angry. Minutes after his introduction, he is blind drunk at a very public event, pushing a member of the press through a mirror. As good as Fredric March's Maine is, Mason is so much the better, adding more subtlety and incredible sensitivity. The contrast between the two actors is never more evident that in the scene where the studio boss (played in this version by Charles Bickford) visits Norman in an alcoholic sanitarium. 1937's version plays the scene somewhat light; 1954's is much more somber with the humor of the scene emerging slowly, dryly, sardonically.

Garland-larger than life-lamenting the man that got away.

Judy's Esther Blodgett ("Vicki Lester" is her studio-imposed name, a nice echo of Frances Gumm, who came to Hollywood and became "Judy Garland") is also different from the earlier version. Garland's Esther is no wide-eyed innocent fresh in town from Minnesota. Though not jaded like Norman Maine, this Esther is singing with a band that travels the country. Indeed, with Garland as one of the leads, a musical element was inevitable. Seven musical numbers made the final cut for the film, including a new song by peerless songwriters Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen, "The Man That Got Away," which was nominated for a Best Song Oscar (somehow losing to the theme from Three Coins in the Fountain) and went on to be a classic.

 The lovely Lola Lavery at the Shrine Auditorium. 

That's studio chief Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) on the left.

Throughout 1954's A Star Is Born, George Cukor's touch is evident. Attuned to his actors, Cukor's guidance of the cast, particularly the two leads, yields some of the best performances of any of his films. A more surprising aspect of the film is the visual scheme. Prior to A Star is Born, Cukor's visual sense was secondary to the performances. This film changed that. In this, his first widescreen feature, Cukor hired visual and color consultants, Gene Allen and George Hoyningen Huene who became important collaborators on almost all of Cukor's subsequent color films.

Norman, listening to Esther singing, makes the big decision to go for a swim.

After nine months of on/off production and a price tag of $5 million (about 45 million in 2015 dollars),  A Star Is Born's premiere was set for September 29, 1954, at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. It was a truly spectacular event, attended by Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Joan Crawford, Groucho Marx, and Clark Gable, as well as a young actor as yet unknown to movie audiences named James Dean. Co-star Jack Carson emceed until a late George Jessel took over the proceedings. Studio chief Jack Warner paid the bills for it all, including a to-die-for post-premiere party at the Cocoanut Grove. Garland and Carson were the only cast members in attendance that night (fascinating footage of the premiere and the post-premiere party is available on the film's DVD and blu-ray discs as well as YouTube). James Mason was a no-show due to his dislike of "that premiere nonsense." Director Cukor was off on location in India, filming Bhowani Junction with Ava Gardner. The New York opening was reportedly even more spectacular.

Frank, Betty Bacall, Judy, and Bogie announce their arrival at
the fabled Cocoanut Grove after party.

The reviews were good, especially for the two leads. Mason and Garland both landed Oscar nominations, two of six the movie received. Also nominated were the film's art direction, costume design, song, and musical score. While none took home the award, Judy was the front runner going into the ceremony. About to give birth to her third child, Joey, Garland was in the hospital. News crews were all set up, anticipating a Garland victory. When presenter William Holden opened the envelope and named Grace Kelly Best Actress, the news crew quietly left. Groucho Marx called Kelly's victory "the greatest robbery since Brink's." (In light of the justified praise for Garland's performance, James Mason's terrific portrayal of the lost Norman Maine tends to go overlooked. It shouldn't.)

In spite of the positive attention, the film had a kind of jinx on it from the beginning of production through theatrical bookings. Audiences were initially enthusiastic and business brisk. But due to its 182-minute length, exhibitors had the same complaint--theaters couldn't fit as many showings into a day as they could with more standard length movies. The decision makers at Warner Bros. decided "excess" footage had to be scrapped, resulting in a 154-minute version that most folks, like me, saw on television for many years after the film's release. The cuts broke Cukor's heart.

If memory serves I first saw this fable of Hollywood on KHJ-TV Channel 9, an independent TV station from Los Angeles, about 95 miles south of my hometown. It was New Year's Eve--no school the next day--and my folks were out for the holiday, so my older sister, Debbi, and I watched this chestnut of a film. I'm not certain of the year, but I think it was 1971, which means that I was 12 and  Debbi 15. That sounds about right. (I cannot say enough about my older sister and the culture she introduced me to at a young age. Maybe one day I'll devote an entire entry to that special person.)

The 154-minute version was the only one projected until Ronald Haver--film curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art--did his best Philip Marlowe and dug deep in the Warner Bros. film and music archives, turning up footage not seen since 1954. Haver eventually discovered enough footage of the film to justify funding the recovery, restoration, and rediscovery of this transfixing film. Ultimately, the restoration lacked only about six minutes of missing visual information. Since Haver recovered the film's entire soundtrack, those visuals were replaced with existing still photos from the missing scenes with the recorded dialog played over the stills. Upon release of the completed restoration, I believed the 182-minute version to be a blessing handed down from the cinematic gods. Time and consideration, however, has allowed me a little more objectivity, and I can't say that I'm as sold on the complete film as I used to be. The film never ceases to entertain and move me, though. It remains an all-time favorite.

Another photo op at the post-premiere party.
This time Marlene Dietrich snuggles up to star of the night, Judy Garland. 

I woke the day after I saw A Star Is Born for the first time and read that Peter Duell, the star of the television western, Alias Smith and Jones, had supposedly killed himself with a gun the night before. This news, on top of the tragic movie I had seen just the previous night, jolted me out of my 12-year-old world. I began to wonder if movies--and Hollywood by extension--had a special, hidden portal, one that not all can access, even when it's right in front of them. I fell for the myth of Tinseltown, suddenly and abruptly. From then on, movies were a major part of my life. Within two years I was taking baby steps into the wonderful, mysterious, unique, specialized, informal, obsessive world of a cinephile. Westerns, noir, musicals, screwball comedies, Broadway adaptations, action, adventure, silents, grind house, classics. The year doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if a movie is five years old or fifty years old; if you've never seen it, it's new. A Star is Born is one of the first movies that introduced me to this obsession. Since then I have watched the movie more times than I can count, mostly on television and once, in the early Eighties, on the big screen in a double bill with South Pacific. Though it was pre-restoration, it looked fine to me in the friendly confines of the Arlington Theatre. (Note that 1976 saw remake number two, starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. The music was well received, and Streisand herself would share the Best Song Oscar with Paul Williams, but the film was a shallow rendering of the classic story.)

Upon its 1983 restoration, A Star Is Born had roadshow-like showings in theaters around the country. Unfortunately, George Cukor never saw the result of Ronald Haver's hard work. The night before Haver was to show Cukor the restored version, the director died in his sleep. He was 83. In recent years another remake, rumored to be starring Beyonce, has been in the works, though no definitive start date has been named. Honestly, I hope the film never gets made. A Star is Born will always occupy a large place in my cinematic heart, ticking at 24 beats per second.

Sources:
A Star Is Born: The making of the 1954 movie and it's 1983 restoration by Ronald Haver
IMDB
Wikipedia Pages: A Star Is Born, George Cukor
A Star Is Born (DVD, Warner Bros., 2000)                          
                

Short Takes: Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Hail, Caesar!

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I have to say up front that I didn't expect to enjoy the J.J. Abrams re-boot of the legendary Star Wars franchise. Although I have seen every Star Wars movie on the big screen in original release, I was never a true fan of the films. My favorite is still The Empire Strikes Back. Since that film I have found each successive chapter a bit weak. I even thought Return of the Jedi was disappointing (like many others, too many cuddly creatures made it seem too much like a Muppet movie to me), and forget about the most recent three. In fact, I think I fell asleep during the Attack of the Clones. The latest entry, however, kept me thoroughly riveted from start to finish. I left the theater believing that the best thing that happened to the franchise is that is got taken from of the clutches of Darth Vader ... uh, George Lucas.

The biggest asset Abrams made was to bring back the original characters: Luke Skywalker, Princess--now General--Leia Organa, and, last but far from least, Han Solo along with faithful sidekicks, Chewbacca, C3PO, and R2D2. Of all these, Harrison Ford's Han Solo nearly steals the film, much like he did the first three movies, but for a different reason. Ford brings a world weary been-there-done-that quality that he didn't have in the original trilogy. It also helps that he has the best lines.

Carrie Fisher--looking more like her mom, Debbie Reynolds, than ever--is ok as General Leia, though, I unfortunately found her head, with its piled up hairstyle, to resemble E.T. As for Luke--I don't think I'm spoiling anything since the whole world saw the movie before I did--he doesn't show until the end, thereby setting him up as a major player in the next installment.

The other major players--new to the show--are Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron; John Boyega as Finn; Daisy Ridley as Rey; and Adam Driver as the villain-with-a-big-secret, Kylo Ren. It's a credit to Abrams and screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt that I enjoyed meeting these new characters almost as much as I did catching up with the older ones.

This matte painting is a great example of the art work in the new Star Wars film.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens lived up to the hype, something few films achieve. After nearly forty years, it appears the Force really is still with us. The original Star Wars changed movie-going--and movies--forever, arguably not all in good ways, but The Force Awakens is well on its way to being one of the most successful films of all time. Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.


Hail, Caesar!

Featured players in Hail, Caesar!: George Clooney, Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin

Joel and Ethan Coen have been creating their unique film universe for more than thirty years. Beginning with the low budget, neo-noir, Blood Simple, the siblings have consistently balanced drama and comedy, sometimes simultaneously. Fargo remains the best example of the Coen Brothers' style, blending gruesome blood-letting and wacky, semi-comedic characters, though it is closely followed by their biggest cult film, The Big Lebowski. Though less successful in its original release that Fargo, Lebowski, a reworking of the classic noir The Big Sleep, is a prime example of Coenesque cinema with its detailed plots, dark humor, and quirky characters.

Hail, Caesar!, the Coen's latest--and their tenth film in eighteen years--is a peek into the studio system of 1950s Hollywood, a time when the town was starting to feel the effects of television but hadn't yet lost its grip on the movie-going public. Like 1950's Tinseltown, in the world of Hail, Caesar!, image is all, gossip columns rule, and Communists are a clear and present danger. The film's central figure is Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), chief troubleshooter for the fictional Capitol Pictures. Mannix's main concern is the disappearance of leading man, Baird Whitlock, (George Clooney), who is making the biblical epic, Hail, Caesar, A Tale of the Christ, and has been kidnapped by a collective group of Communist screenwriters. Along the way we meet assorted Hollywood types, including Esther Williams-like aquatic star, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson); twin gossip columnists, Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton in a dual role); singing cowboy star, Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich); singing and dancing star, Bert Gurney (Channing Tatum); and sophisticated film director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes).

In one of the films funniest scenes, cowboy star, Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich),
tries to perfect a line reading from sophisticated director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes).

Due to its classic Hollywood setting, Hail, Caesar! most closely resembles the Coen's 1991 ode to pre-war Hollywood, Barton Fink. Though not as dark as that earlier film, Hail, Caesar! is a bittersweet valentine to a long-gone Hollywood, and it's clear from several of the brothers films--Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Blood Simple, The Hudsucker Proxy--that the Coens have a love and appreciation of classic film and Hollywood history. What makes the movie fascinating for film buffs like me is where fact ends and dramatic license begins. For example, Clooney's Whitlock is a take on Charlton Heston by way of Robert Taylor; Brolin's Mannix is based on the real-life Eddie Mannix, an MGM studio executive from the 1920s until the early 1960s, though without the threat of violence the real-life Mannix carried with him; and DeeAnna Moran's film-within-a-film is a clear take-off of the aquatic spectacle Esther Williams made so popular, yet Moran is nothing like the real-life Williams.

The film is an ensemble piece, but I want to single out a couple of standouts. Ralph Fiennes as director, Laurence Laurentz, is terrific in little more than a cameo; Alden Ehrenreich as Hobie Doyle is the epitome of an innocent cowboy star in way over his head when he's brought in to make a drawing room comedy; and best of all, Channing Tatum as the singing and dancing Gene Kelly-type was the biggest surprise of the film for me. His song and dance interlude, which stops the show, must have been included by the Coens simply because they enjoyed the set piece so much. Mr. Tatum astounded me as well. In my opinion, he is one of today's few stars who not only could have survived in the studio system but actually could have flourished in it.

Studio fixer, Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) counsels bathing beauty,
DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson).

Hail, Caesar! may leave moviegoers unfamiliar with Hollywood history scratching their heads, wondering what all the fuss is about. But for students of the classic Hollywood studio system, it's refreshing to see a plot-driven film with fun, eccentric characters and juicy dialogue released into the mainstream without all the explosives and comic book mentality so often found in today's multiplexes. Hail, Caesar!, like 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy, reminds me of a screwball Preston Sturges film.

Auteurism has essentially disappeared from American cinema since its glory days in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, with film critics disappearing from major news publications and audience interest focused so much on franchise films, Hollywood just doesn't seem to have room for the unique, individual style of an auteur. With the exception of Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Wes Anderson, and David Fincher, most directors today are staying afloat via blockbuster-style movies. The Coen Brothers are one of the last of their kind--genuine auteurs concerned with their own world, themes, and obsessions. Hail, Caesar! may not be a perfect example of the particular brand of cinematic drug they push, but in this day and age it is nevertheless a welcome, refreshing high. 

Underrated Gem: Freud (The Secret Passion)

In 1962, director John Huston's Freud (a.k.a, The Secret Passion) was released by Universal Pictures to near universal disdain. Starring Montgomery Clift in one of his last movie roles, Freud began life as a screenplay by French writer, Jean-Paul Sartre. However, Sartre left the project after failing to please Huston with his script revisions. (At one point Huston requested that Sartre pare down his script, which would run over five hours; Sartre delivered a revision that would require eight hours of screen time). Final writing credit went to Charles Kaufman for the story and Wolfgang Reinhardt--also the film's producer--for the screenplay. Huston himself put in time on the rewrites though he took no credit.

Filmed on location in Germany, Freud, which unfolds much like a mystery, deals with the psychoanalyst in an early point in his career, from 1885 to 1890. Along with his mentor, Josef Breuer (Larry Parks), Freud uses hypnosis to peel away the layer that lies beneath his patients' psychosis and begins to develop the ideas that would contribute to his best-known theory, the Oedipus complex. After establishing Freud as a pioneer who is nevertheless perceived as a quack by his colleagues, the film establishes his hypnotherapy technique. One of his patients is Carl Von Schlossen (David McCallum), a young man who has tried to kill his father. When Freud puts the young man into a hypnotic trance, he discovers that Carl's father raped his mother, and that Carl is sexually attracted to her (so much so that Carl kisses a mannequin that he imagines is his mother). Freud, who nurses something of a mother fixation himself, is frightened enough by this revelation that he locks young Carl in his room and abstains for a time the practice of psychoanalysis. Eventually, Breuer visits Freud and persuades him to help with a particularly difficult case. His patient's name is Cecily Koertner (played by Susannah York), a young woman whose initial problems include a refusal to drink water and horrible nightmares. Freud quickly discovers, however, that these symptoms are the tip of the iceberg. Cecily is also sexually repressed, and she has fixated on her father.

Freud, in a dream sequence, confronts his fears

Freud is not an easily accessible film. There is no Region 1 DVD or Blu-Ray, and the movie never shows up on the schedules of cable movie channels. Even Turner Classic Movies (TCM) hasn't shown it. Way back in the early 1990s, AMC--when it was still American Movie Classics--broadcast it, and I recorded it onto videotape. Since then I have transferred it to disc, and even though the picture quality is poor, I am glad to have a copy--any copy--to view. 

A nice collage from the film

Beyond its script issue, Freud had a troubled production. Huston--who'd worked with Montgomery Clift the year before on The Misfits--had nothing but trouble with his his star--and vice versa. In addition to his increasing drug and alcohol intake, Clift was suffering from cataracts, which obviously impaired his vision. At this point in his career, Clift was also experiencing difficulty with memorizing his lines. Unfortunately, Huston, who was never one to coddle, went after Clift, trying to bully a performance out of the increasingly insecure actor. Consequently, the film production became divided into two camps--one pro-Clift and one pro-Huston. Susannah York was especially vocal about Huston's nasty treatment of his troubled lead actor. Huston, carrying more power as director, had more allies, though the actors generally sided with Clift. Upon release, Huston's film wasn't popular and didn't play in the theaters for long, though it did appear on some ten best lists. Today, the movie has a 7.3 rating on IMDB and a 71% on Rotten Tomatoes (though that's based on only six reviews). 

Freud (Montgomery Clift) and Breuer (Larry Parks) working side by side.

Montgomery Clift gives, in my opinion, a stellar performance as Freud. The film benefits from Clift's tortured, alienated persona, which helps convey Freud's anxiety and lack of confidence. In Clift's deft hands, the uncertain quality he brings to the role makes him relatable and sympathetic. Larry Parks, a gifted actor who was not seen on screen for nearly ten years due to the Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s and 1950s, is equally effective as Joseph Breuer. And the demanding role of Cecily is skillfully played by Susannah York in what was only her fourth film. Her effort was rewarded with a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a Drama. The film similarly garnered nominations for Best Picture-Drama, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Susan Kohner's performance as Freud's wife, Martha.  Freud also received Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Score but lost both to Divorce, Italian Style and Lawrence of  Arabia, respectively. 

The beautiful Susannah York as Cecily Koertner, 

Dr. Freud's most demanding patient.

John Huston is one of cinema's most celebrated figures with films like The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen, Moby Dick, The Misfits, The Man Who Would Be King, and Prizzi's Honor to his credit. However Huston, whose directing career lasted nearly fifty years and almost forty films, has many "failures" whose reputation could stand re-evaluation. Freud would definitely benefit from such a re-evaluation and might even stand at the top of such a list. I, personally, am proud to have discovered it way back in the 1970s when, remarkably, it was more accessible than it is today. Freud isn't perfect--at nearly two hours and twenty minutes, it could be labeled a trifle long; and its black and white photography may be off-putting to a younger audience raised on color--but its virtues, including good writing, sensitive performances, and an excellent score by Jerry Goldsmith are well worth its length. If you ever get a chance to view this forgotten film, I'd definitely recommend you do. I wish Universal Pictures would issue this movie on disc--even a bare bones on-demand one--as it is a worthy title, lost in a sea of underrated gems. 

Freud's mother (Rosalie Crutchley) as she appears to him
in one of film's several dream sequences.

Sources: 

IMDB

Wikipedia

Rotten Tomatoes