Handy Dandy Woody Allen Crib Sheet for July, 2012

This post owes a debt to, and is dedicated to Spy Magazine The New York Monthly, and one of the greatest books ever written, An Incomplete Education, by Judy Jones and William Wilson.

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WOODY ALLEN FILMS I HAVE WATCHED AT HOME SINCE SEEING TO ROME WITH LOVE:

Crimes and Misdemeanors; Stardust Memories; Radio Days; and Love and Death

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989)

Running Time:  One hundred and four minutes

Windsor EF light condensed?:  Yes

Four fabulous quotes:  Halley Reed: He wants to produce something of mine. 

Clifford Stern: Yeah. Your first child. 

Cliff Stern: Last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.

Clifford Stern: [on Lester] When he tells you he wants to exchange ideas, what he wants is to exchange fluids.

Professor Levy: [voiceover] We are all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions. Moral choices. Some are on a grand scale. Most of these choices are on lesser points. But! We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are in fact the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to have been included, in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love, that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying, and even to find joy from simple things like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more. 

STARDUST MEMORIES (1980)

Running Time:  Eighty-nine minutes

Windsor EF light condensed?:  Yes

Three fabulous quotes:  Sandy Bates: To you, I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the loyal opposition.

Sandy Bates: But shouldn't I stop making movies and do something that counts, like-like helping blind people or becoming a missionary or something? 

Voice of Martian: Let me tell you, you're not the missionary type. You'd never last. And-and incidentally, you're also not Superman; you're a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes. 

Dorrie: Mmm. You smell nice. 

Sandy Bates: Yeah? 

Dorrie: That aftershave. It just made my whole childhood come back with a sudden Proustian rush. 

Sandy Bates: Yeah? That's 'cause I'm wearing Proustian Rush by Chanel. It's-it's reduced. I got a vat of it. 

RADIO DAYS (1987)

Running Time:  Eighty-eight minutes

Windsor EF light condensed?:  Yes

Three fabulous quotes:  Rocco: This is a coincidence. I meet nobody from the old neighbourhood in years. I finally do, and I gotta kill her.

Narrator: For some miraculous reason, it's a wonderful feeling having a teacher you've seen dance naked in front of a mirror. 

Sally: Who is Pearl Harbor? 

LOVE AND DEATH (1975)

Running Time:  Eighty-five minutes

Windsor EF light condensed?:  No.  It appears to be a slightly different version of the Windsor typeface.  

Five fabulous quotes:  Sergeant: Imagine your loved ones conquered by Napoleon and forced to live under French rule. Do you want them to eat that rich food and those heavy sauces? 

Soldiers: No...! 

Sergeant: Do you want them to have soufflé every meal and croissant? 

Boris: Something's missing. 

Doctor: What? 

Boris: I don't know, I feel a void at the center of my being. 

Doctor: What kind of void? 

Boris: Well... an empty void. 

Anton: If you so much as come near the Countess, I'll see that you never see the light of day again. 

Boris: If a man said that to me, I'd break his neck. 

Anton: I am a man. 

Boris: Well, I mean a much shorter man. 

Sonja: He kissed me. 

Boris: Any place I should know about? 

Sonja: He warmed the cockles of my heart. 

Boris: That's just great. Nothing like hot cockles.

Sonja: Oh don't, Boris, please. Sex without love is an empty experience. 

Boris: Yes, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. 

Mwah, ... 

I love you all, ... 

"These are the wrong questions!"

Windsor EF light condensed

 

What a fantastic motion picture, one of his all-time best.

TCM did a Ladd/Lake double feature the other night.

Are you kidding me? Damn! Five feet of sexy fury.

That would be five foot six, Alan Ladd, and the five foot (in her stocking feet), Veronica Lake.  They showed This Gun for Hire and The Blue Dahlia.

(The great Veronica Lake story is that her peek a boo haircut was so popular amongst US women during war time that many were getting their hair caught in the machinery.  The studio asked Lake to cut her hair for all future pictures.  Those are the days when Hollywood cinema was king.)

This Gun for Hire is much better than Dahlia.  Dahlia is bigger, faster, more complicated, and has a better-known cast, but suffers from some v silly melodrama involving William Bendix's character, Buzz.  Plus, we barely get to see the ravishing Ms Lake, at all.

This Gun for Hire, on the other hand, is dirty, moody, dark, and features a v bleak (happy) Hollywood ending, which is astonishing for 1942.  Yeah, I know, Raven is a bad dude but he is our hero, nonetheless, and it is surprising, to say the least, to see what happens to him at the end.

Ah, now I ruined it for you?

Nah.  Cause if you have not seen the film, you have not seen the cat scene, which is a splendid, gripping, yet v sad Hollywood moment.  Or, Gates.  Gates is a fascinating character, a pusillanimous yes man, wealthy, spoiled, and, shall we say (for 1942, at least), fey.  Laird Cregar played Gates and one of his scenes with his hired goon, Tommy (played by Marc Lawrence), is fascinating, rich film making.  Woody Allen used that scene in Crimes and Misdemeanors, brilliantly.

If it took four years to reunite Ladd and Lake for The Blue Dahlia, that is a shame.  According to my boy, David Thomson, Ladd and Lake never got along, even though the public adored them together.  Both ended up drunk, desperate, lonely, and miserable.  Ladd killed himself, eventually.

This Gun for Hire comes highly recommended by Ardent Henry.  "Check it out, Syd."  (h/t to Spalding Grey, Swimming to Cambodia, and The Killing Fields.)

Mwah, ...