A signal goes up from Brooklyn to James Wolcott on the Upper West Side:
Looks like Turner Classic Movies' September Star of the Month is our own Kay Francis. The Siren has written before of her love for mellow-voiced, velvet-eyed Kay, her inimitable way with a chic frock and her ability to combine sophistication with a sense that life was wounding her. Francis had peaked by the mid-1930s and her films are not easy to come by. The Siren has been complaining privately to pals that TCM seemed to be slipping a bit in its commitment to programming the rarities. She takes it all back.
Here are the ones the Siren wants to catch. All times EDT:
Cynara (1932), directed by King Vidor. An early piece about adultery, discussed in David Shepard's book on Vidor. Kay plays the wronged wife, Ronald Colman the straying husband, Phyllis Barry the shopgirl who turns into an early form of bunny-boiler. (Sept. 11, 9:30PM)
Jewel Robbery (1932) (William Dieterle). The Siren likes Dieterle and this movie matches Kay with her One Way Passage costar, William Powell. (Sept. 4, 9:15 PM; Oct. 9, 6:15 AM)
The House on 56th Street (1933). (Robert Florey) The Siren's long-ago intro to Kay, discussed at length in Lawrence Quirk's The Great Romantic Films. She wears a terrible blonde wig for most of the film but the Siren has fond memories of this movie, which combines Doomed Romance with Sacrificial Mother Love. (Sept. 12, 11:15AM)
The Keyhole (1933) (Michael Curtiz). A blackmail melodrama with a plot highly typical of Kay's pictures of the period. (Sept. 19, 8:45AM)
Living on Velvet (Sept. 5, 6:45AM)
Stranded (both 1935) (Sept. 25, 3:15AM)
These are the two films Kay made for genius Frank Borzage, the great high-Romantic director whose films are about as easy to come by as reservations at the Waverly Inn. Consequently we cinephiles are starving for more and the prospect of two with Kay has me drooling. Although, to be honest, so scarce are this auteur's movies that TCM could drop me a line promising "Friday at 10 AM: PIECE OF KITSCH, directed by Frank Borzage" and the Siren would be dragging out the blank discs. Of everything on the schedule these are the two I will cry if I don't manage to record.
Stolen Holiday (1937) (Michael Curtiz). Aside from Curtiz, the Siren is intrigued by Kay opposite Claude Rains, who plays a crooked financier in over his head. (Sept. 11, 4:30AM)
Finally, just as a bonus, three that apparently aren't on the schedule, darn it:
Let's Go Native (1930) (Leo McCarey) Kay has a small part in this early musical farce directed by the great McCarey. Kay has a duet with Jack Oakie, "I Gotta Yen for You." This the Siren gotta see.
The Virtuous Sin (1930) Extremely early Cukor film co-directed with Louis J. Gasnier. Possibly (probably?) not very good but there aren't many Cukor movies the Siren hasn't seen so she's got a filmography to finish off.
Girls About Town (1931) See The Virtuous Sin, except this one is all Cukor and it's supposed to be good. Plus it has gold-diggers and the Siren loves gold-digging movies.
The Siren has already seen, and highly recommends, One Way Passage (1932), one of the most romantic movies ever made and, no matter what you've heard, bright and snappy, not mushy at all; Lubitsch's great Trouble in Paradise (1932), Kay's best film and Miriam Hopkins's best as well; and Mandalay, a fast-moving trek through some dens of iniquity and atmospheric rear-projection, directed by Michael Curtiz.
Fellow redhead Sheila O'Malley is never better than when she's got her Irish up, as she does over Peter Manso's Brando biography. James Wolcott already covered this one, but it bears another look. Sheila was particularly incensed by Manso's snide referrals to Brando's reliance on taped cue cards, as though the process somehow diminished the performance.
So this one is for the magnificent Sheila, and her superb collection of film books. May her series about them continue forever, or at least down to the very bottom shelf. This anecdote is from Garson Kanin's Hollywood, which is not the most unimpeachable of sources. In this case, however, the Siren catches a whiff of authenticity. See if you agree.
It's 1938, and Kanin is filming The Great Man Votes with John Barrymore, a star whose reliance on lines scrawled on blackboards owed more to a memory dented by years of diligent alcohol abuse than technique. How much Barrymore really needed them is anyone's guess--he could recite Shakespeare by the page even in the very depths of his binges--but insist upon them he always did. On this film Barrymore's "blackboard man" was named Henry, and Kanin came on set one day to find that Henry was about to mix it up big time with the principal gaffer.
The gaffer spoke. "Listen, I've put up with this goddamn pest every day since we started, but enough is enough. He doesn't have to be in here with that goddamn sliver. I need this spot for my key light and I want him the hell out of here."
Henry, a dignified old gentleman, said, "I know my job and I"m going to do it and no one's going to prevent me from doing it. My job."
I was confused. "What job? What do you mean 'sliver'"?
Henry held up a blackboard the size of a child's slate. On it was written the word "Yes."...
I went over to Barrymore...
"We have a little problem," I explained. "You know the scene. We're outside here with the camera. Miss [Katharine] Alexander knocks on the door. You open it. She says, 'Are you Gregory Vance?' You say 'Yes.' She walks in and that's it."
"Fine," said Barrymore. "What seems to be the trouble?"
"Well," I explained, "Henry here sems to feel that he has to be standing here with this little slate that says 'Yes.'"
"Oh by all means!" said Barrymore.
I did not grasp his meaning at once. "You mean it's all right for him not to be here. Is that it?"
"No, no," said Barrymore. "I'd like to have him here. With his slate."
I was losing patience, struggling for control. "But let's be reasonable, Mr. Barrymore. All she asks is, 'Are you Gregory Vance?' And you are, so what else could you possibly say?"
Barrymore thought for a long moment, then looked at me and said, "Well, I could say 'No,' and then where would you be?"
We found a spot for Henry and his slate.
*****
This week marks the start of a long-awaited vacation for la famille Campaspe. We'll be in France for three weeks, hence the banner change. The itinerary is Paris, then Normandy, then Paris again, then back home. I will have Internet access in Paris although Normandy is something of a question mark. In any event I have set up some posts via Blogger's spiffy new advance-post system, as well as my piece for Mike "Goatdog" Phillips's "Movies About Movies" blogathon. I will be checking in when possible but I hope you guys still chat amongst yourselves.
"It seems to me that the Bogie fad has faded, returning him to his real admirers," observed X. Trapnel recently. The Siren hopes that's true, because Humphrey Bogart, compared with other "icon" actors such as Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, gives the Siren the most consistent thrill of pleasure, again and again, even in a relatively bad movie. This was brought home to her when she saw Dead Reckoning.
The Siren was startled to find she'd written little to nothing about Bogart, then realized the omission makes a sort of sense. Bogart is somebody a cinephile covers early on. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, High Sierra, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen, The Big Sleep--unlike trying to fill in other filmographies, these are not items you have to hunt down one by one like so many peppercorns rolling to the far corners of the kitchen. Even his smaller parts from the 1930s, like Dead End and The Roaring Twenties, are absorbed early. He's so much a part of history, even for those barely aware of a time before color, that discussion seems superfluous, and yet discussing him is very rewarding. He was a highly technical actor, conscious of every effect, right down to the tremor in his cheek to signal anger (which Kenneth Geist says irritated Barefoot Contessa costar Marius Goring no end).
The best piece the Siren has read about Bogart remains Louise Brooks's "Bogie and Bogart." Its portrait of a cultivated man, doggedly pursuing stardom even as he's beset by his own attractions to impossible women (that is, until Bacall came along) jibes a lot more with what's on screen than just Bogie the tough guy. Certainly his persona was tough, but his characters also fall frequently for the femme fatale. He catches on, of course--he's Bogie--but not before almost becoming just another sap.
Which brings us back to Dead Reckoning. What a weird experience this movie is, like getting into a sleek car that keeps shuddering into a stall. Bogie's character runs through rain-slicked streets in a Southern town called Gulf City (standing in for Panama City? it certainly isn't New Orleans) and winds up in a church confessing to a just-discharged Army padre, even though he isn't Catholic. (Joe Breen must have loved that.) Then the movie skids into flashback about a trip to Washington as Bogart wants his buddy to accept a Medal of Honor--stall. Startup again as the buddy runs away and Bogart pursues to a rather Grand Hotel-ish accomodation in Gulf City. He finds out his buddy was once suspected of murder, but then his friend's body is discovered, charred beyond recognition. Off to the casino to find Lizabeth Scott, the buddy's true love. Scott sings a song--movie doesn't just stall here, it slams into a telephone pole.
Anyway, the Siren avoids excessive plot summary and you see where this is going, yes? In its fitful way Dead Reckoning hits all the noir themes. Soldiers in mufti. Buddy in trouble. Den of vipers. Cops no help. Woman shady, or maybe not, or maybe yes. Smooth-talking casino owner (Morris Carnovsky, not bad but demonstrating that George Macready deserves a LOT more credit for being so damn brilliant in the same role in Gilda). There were five writers on Dead Reckoning and boy does it show--the narrative arc is more like Morse code. Director John Cromwell gets some nice shots in here and there and some interesting visual motifs. Bogart and his dead pal were paratroopers and this is used as a recurrent image of falling, most interestingly when Bogart is knocked cold at a key moment in the film. But Cromwell wasn't a great enough talent to smooth out a script like this.
The script also robs the actors of the ability to create fully formed characters. The dialogue is too wordy (not a complaint the Siren often makes) and people run around with half-baked motivations. There is also a corpse stashed in a trunk at one point and while it's possible I missed the line, I could swear no real explanation is ever given as to where the poor slob winds up.
Despite all this the Siren couldn't stop watching, as Bogart kept giving her moments to love. There's one bit when the cops hammer on his hotel door at a bad time. He stashes the corpse (the same guy that eventually winds up in the trunk), changes out of his clothes, answers the door and while the cops are questioning him, he nonchalantly gets into bed in his silk jammies with black piping, still daring the coppers to hassle him. I tried to imagine Dick Powell doing this and couldn't--the movie would immediately turn into "Honeymoon Hotel," no matter how tough Powell had been acting beforehand.
The Siren thinks Bogart's needling is a key part of his cool. In real life he was famous for unapologetic rudeness to anyone who struck him as a phony. On screen he plays it the same way, a guy unable to resist mouthing off even if it's about to get him slugged, maybe even because it's about to get him slugged. Did anyone ever take a punch like Bogart? He gets beat up about midway through, mimes extreme pain quite well and yet you wholly believe that sneer that remains plastered to his face throughout, even as that bad attitude makes the thug even angrier.
Another element: his rock-solid sense of belief. At one point Bogart's character is driving along with Lizabeth Scott (and the corpse in the trunk, but let it slide) and he goes into a bit of dialogue about how a woman should be shrunk down to four inches tall and kept in your pocket until it's time to er, blow her up. I would have transcribed this exactly, but shock made me drop the pencil--you can read it here. Anyway Bogart delivers this mind-boggling speech with the same conviction he gives everything else--he doesn't wink or condescend no matter what kind of drivel he's speaking. But give him a good line and he'll wipe the floor with it, as when he's threatening Carnovsky with an incendiary device: "How do you like yourself, medium rare?"
It isn't a bad movie, just a mediocre one, a noir that has all the requisite elements--maybe too many requisite elements--and still misses the mark. But Bogart, playing a character whose shifting moods and motivations could give another actor whiplash, still fascinates. For the Siren he always will.
This one is for Dan, Gloria, X. Trapnel, Karen and all the other Charles Boyer lovers.
He was such a peerless actor. I remember he was in Jean Paul Sartre's play Red Gloves in New York. I was in the theater and there were two women sitting behind me and as soon as he came on they started, "Good God. Is that Charles Boyer! So small! And that stomach! And he's nearly bald." And after a few seconds of this I turned around and said, "Just wait. Just wait until he starts to act." And they waited. And he acted. He acted like he always did with such magic, he held the audience in his hand. And the two ladies didn't say anything else. Only applauded very loudly at the end. And didn't look at me as they went out.
--Ingrid Bergman, My Story
*****
The Siren's favorite links from the past week:
At Cinema Styles, the Siren's beloved Joan Fontaine tells Adlai Stevenson a joke. Jonathan, did you know that they dated? It ended when Adlai took her to lunch and told her that in his position, he simply couldn't marry an actress. Joan froze, then came back with "It's just as well. My family would hardly approve of my marrying a politician." In a nice bit of synchronicity, Jonathan also celebrates his witty new banner with a post on Gaslight through the years.
At House of Mirth and Movies, a simple list of 25 favorites, assembled with unerring taste and the best screen caps this side of Six Martinis and the Seventh Art.
The fearless Goatdog, Nick Davis and Nathaniel R forge ahead with their Best Pictures from the Outside In, this week tackling the double-Cs of Cavalcade (1933) and Chicago (2002).
A lovely tribute to the late Jo Stafford, with song links, at Another Old Movie Blog. The Siren has had "Shrimp Boats" stuck in her head all week.
Two from Category D: a brief meditation on lens flare, which effect always says "instant hippie" to the Siren, but in a good way. And another, longer and equally interesting one: Are Themes Important? ("It's not just that historical distance has allowed us to see art in classical Hollywood, but that even the flimsiest A pictures - and many Bs - borrowed a thematic approach from literature.")
Stinky Lulu posts about the odd habit of nominating tots for Oscars, as part of the Rugrats Blogathon at My Stuff 'n Crap. (The Siren would love to see Lulu write up Bonita Granville, the deliciously evil child villain of These Three, above.) Next up for Supporting Actress Sundays in August: 1966. StinkyLulu welcomes participation from anyone with a blog who's able to screen the movies.
The Cinetrix shows herself a kindred spirit: "I kinda don't want to see The Dark Knight. I know that's wrong and it's a cinematic achievement so magnificent it'll also do my taxes..." Another take on The Dark Knight, from Filmbrain, focuses on how pans from Keith Uhlich and Jurgen Fauth resulted in a fanboy inferno it would take Irwin Allen to film.
At Carole and Co., a post, with photos, about Marion Davies' stupendous beach home, Ocean House. It's gone now, like so many other beautiful buildings of the past. The Siren still curses the name of Pia Zadora, not for Butterfly--okay, maybe a little for Butterfly, but mainly for pulling down Pickfair.
An appreciation of Tod Browning's great The Unknown, with awesome screen caps, at Long Pauses.
Did the plot of Kevin Costner's Swing Vote seem familiar? According to Lou Lumenick, if you are a fan of John Barrymore, it definitely should.
Yes, it's another Greenbriar Picture Shows link. What can I say. This one is about trailers and is not to be missed.
For those who read the Siren's post about Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, the documentary will be playing in New York August 8-14, and in Los Angeles August 22-28. Here is the schedule:
In New York, screenings will be at
IFC Center
323 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY
Showtimes: 1:25 PM and 6:40 PM daily
Tickets are/will be available for purchase at the IFC Center Box Office or on line at www.ifccenter.com.
In Los Angeles, screenings will be at
Arclight Hollywood
6360 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Showtimes:
Friday 8/22 - 5:05 PM, 9:45 PM
Saturday 8/23 - 12:00 PM, 7:20 PM (Q&A with director Kurt Kuenne follows the 7:20 PM screening)
Sunday 8/24 - 2:30 PM (Q&A to follow this screening), 9:45 PM
Monday 8/25 - 12:00 PM, 4:45 PM
Tuesday 8/26 - 2:35 PM, 7:15 PM
Wednesday 8/27 - 5:05 PM, 9:45 PM
Thursday 8/28 - 12:00 PM, 7:20 PM