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.)
Missy's a member of the GOP, the dudes never get married, and Audra's still pure.
Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Cincinnati, Jackson Mississippi, etc, ... " ... The "lovers" next door are about to foreclose. They left the Legal Notice on their door far too long. Renee & I both got a look. The 28th is when the process starts, tomorrow ... Yaphet Kotto was in a good Big Valley I saw the other day. 1967. He played a prisoner, who the Barkleys "hired" to pick peaches from their orchard. (Major thing Renee & I have learned about the Barkleys and their Party-Sized Valley: It is better to ask what the Barkleys do not do, than to ask what they do do.) The Barkleys are ranchers, run a vineyard, make wine, grow stone fruits, grow frickin' rice (?!), of course Jared is one of the top lawyers in California and has an office in Stockton, and they do a little sheep raising as well. Plus, the Barkleys are big-time, late 19th century Liberals. (?!) They are not against the death penalty but they do believe in prison rehabilitation and were the first people in California to get legislation rolling on parole. (I wonder what the GOP Barbara Stanwyck thought about that. But then, as we learn every fucking day, that was a v different GOP back then. Ugh.) Anyhoo, Kotto was a buffalo soldier and nearly saves Audra's colt. Well, actually, he does save the colt but then the colt gets caught in the crossfire when another prisoner tries to rape Audra (The Big Valley, mid-60s mind you, had no compunction about showing rape scenes. The guilty are always punished, natch, and usually die within a few minutes of the rape, itself.) ... Another thing I have learned watching The Big Valley: Just because someone has a life-size Buddha statue in their front parlor does not mean that that person is a force for good. I learned that during the most psychedelic (1967) Big Valley I have seen yet, which involves Chinese gangs and the Barkleys all trying to corner or prevent someone else from cornering the (apparently massive Stockton/Big Family-Sized Valley/Sacto-Northern Cal [h/t Pavement]) rice market. This is one of the worst Big Valleys I have ever seen, btw (even if it does include Missy Stanwyck going mad through some weird-ass hypnotism/gaslight The Pink Floyd-like light show.) ... Tabloid was splendid. And you believe Ms McKinney right up until she has been home for a while after the whole sensational kidnapping furore has blown o'er. And the Interrortron, invented by the filmmaker, Errol Morris, truly has changed documentaries forever. It is especially funny to see past subjects of his, so furious, and threatening (or actually) suing. The Interrotron seems to capture folks at their most vulnerable and honest. (There was one "spy/intelligence" guy in Standard Operating Procedure who was not fooled. He was obv "properly brainwashed" [h/t Swimming to Cambodia]). That must be why they sue. They are seduced and then betrayed. Brilliant. ... Just like late last year I am fed up with politics again. Boehner's got the votes, he does not have the votes. Sensible friends of mine are willing to not raise the debt ceiling, something mother-fricking Hamilton stressed was of utmost importance to the health of our nation. These friends are aligning themselves w/ idiotic, ludicrous Teabaggers. (Tho, it was mildly satisfying to see "Ayn" Rand Paul and Jim DeMint lead a Default Teabagger Rally today. There were aboot fifty folks there, at the most.) Obama had already capitulated to an early GOP plan (that was fucking awful) & the GOP walked off in a huff, constantly talking aboot how mean Obama was. Your GOP. Your Teabagging Reps you elected in 2010 would rather see the global economy wrecked than deal with the black dude in office. Fucking sad. See why I am watching so much Big Valley? ... And back to The Big Truly Indescribably Monstrous-Sized Valley for a sec. What happened to Stockton? Obv, according to this very lifelike, historically-accurate teevee program from the 60s, Stockton was the big playa in the 1880-90s, not San Francisco. So, what went wrong? Did the Barkleys (who never seem to marry- well Jared did the other day but she was killed before the fucking reception, they eloped in Denver, you see) not reproduce, and shrivel away, letting the City boys muscle in on their Empire? I wonder what the Bay area would be like with Stockton (where The Sure Thing was shot, starring local Walnut Creek actress, Daphne Zuniga) as the The City. I don't know. Might not be my thing. ... "Drinking Douro/Say goodnight/To the last pyschedelic band/From Sacto-Northern Cal." ...
PS: I saw this Pavement tour. One of the greatest shows ever. Mark & I arrive in Prague by Trabant and I see flyposters for Pavement/Stereolab at the Jean-Paul Belmondo Theater that night. We get tickets (the tickets were huge heavy cardboard affairs, v cool) and go. The theater/"club" only served Pilsner-Urquell in 8 oz plastic cups so you had to wait in line forever, holding your two empty cups. Above the long bar was one photograph: Kafka, natch. The Mighty 'Lab blew oot one channel of the PA w/ their encore of We're Not Adult Orientated (but it did not seem to bother the ultra lowfi Pavement much.) When Pavement hit the boards, a drunk, loose twenty-five year-old Michael Spitler yelled out to SM, "Whoo! Stockton, Yeah!" Malkmus found me in the crowd and gave me the dirtiest look evah. I was the Ugly American FratBoie in Prague, according to him, I imagine. That was mid-March 1994.
PPS: Before we left Wurzburg, Deutschland (home of Dirk Nowitzki) we heard on Armed Services Radio that Kurt Cobain had nearly died from an overdose of Champagne and painkillers in Italy. When I arrived back in Berkeley on April 6 (a day before my birthday) my Mother asked if I had heard the news. Cobain (at twenty-seven, i.e. see Jimbo, Joplin, Hendrix, Pete May, Brian Jones, Amy Winehouse, et al, ... ) was dead. He got home just before I did.
(but I suppose I will anyway) but the weather here in the beautiful Bay Area is like Spalding Gray says, "A giant piece of calendar art." We live right by a 9 hole public golf course. All the sections of the condos are named after golfers, aficionados of the game, tournaments, whathaveyou. We live in Masters Court. I am doing laundry right now so as I walk to the laundry room presently I see fit white-haired folks lining up their fairway shots on the 5th. I see fortysomething ladies in bikinis by the pool. Folks are grilling, one family is listening to Holiday by Madonna and pushing the Hoover o'er the carpet. It is that kind of a Super Bowl Sunday in Walnut Creek. Lovely.
Honestly, I do not give a flying fudge aboot today's "game." My only small, vested interest in the game itself is I bought a square in a pool and I would like to win some money. My numbers are Green Bay 9 (not so great) and Pittsburgh 4 (very good.) I would not mind in the least if the CBA does not get resolved and we went a year without the NFL. Would love it, actually. Pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks.
(The Rangers are trying to trade The Face and his $14 million salary. I do not know how to feel about this. We have got to get that money off the books so we can sign CJ, Josh, and Nellie but Young is the Rangers to the rest of the world. And I loved how Young stood up to the media after the Washington cocaine flap, told them we believe in Wash, he and the team had his back, and everyone else needs to back the fuck off.)
Really I am here today to do a large movie wrap-up.
Ruth Gemmell works in the West End, as well.
I have never seen Fever Pitch from soup to nuts. I am talking about the original UK Hornby written version, not the Drew Barrymore Boston Red Sox US remake. I have always caught Fever Pitch on cable in mid-stream. So, I netflix'd it and watched it a couple of nights ago. It is not a great film. There are all kinds of problems with it. Where should I begin? Colin Firth's horrible wig, perhaps? Or the terrible original score? Or the sappy "cute" ending and kiss? Still, despite these obv rom-com faults, the film will always be v special and crucial to me. There is still a lot to really like about it: The Baba O Riley terraces montage stands out. So does Firth's performance. The film was made in 1997 and Firth already looks haggard, droopy and shattered about life, as he should. And Ruth Gemmell with her hair pulled back and her smart, static-clingy skirt and pantyhose brought back all my 8th grade English teacher desires. But the real star of the picture is Nick Hornby who wrote the screenplay, which is based on his Arsenal memoirs.
Nick Hornby is so crucial to me. He proves you can love Arsenal (the Rangers), Ella Fitzgerald, The Sex Pistols, and still hold your own at the party when folks start talking about Hannah Arendt or "Bunny" Wilson; that you can love Keats and the Steelers at the same time. Plus, Hornby reveals that there are hidden, insidious, selfish, benefits to sports obsessiveness, such as I have discussed in this very space. The film (maybe better than the excellent memoirs) does a brill job at discussing the, "Well, although, it seems really stupid and insignificant to you, it is something that really matters to me," gulf that exists in couples all around the world.
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TCM is doing their 31 days of Oscar bit, natch. I watched Five Easy Pieces and dvr'd The Last Detail, which I have not seen yet, ever. I first saw Five Easy Pieces around 1990 and lapped it up voraciously. Even then I recognized that it was episodic in structure, practically a sketch-film. And at that point of my life I really loved films like that. I called them "Pop Films." They were films that were hung on a few great scenes. I suppose that at that time I was more interested in single glorious moments in films than the whole package. And my "Pop Film" phase lasted throughout the nineties and a goodly portion of the aughts, as well. Thus, my mad appreciation for Wes Anderson. Rushmore and Bottle Rocket will always be among my favorite films but that episodic/sketch-film style is just not my bag anymore, I think.
Renee hated Five Easy Pieces. And I totally understand. Sure, the big moments still popped but there are so many other scenes that are completely unbelievable or laughable. I do not for a second believe today that Jack and Susan Anspach would share even a single afternoon in bed together. It is a joke. And the last scene with Jack and his father is an abomination, completely forced and unbelievable and unseemly. This film with its' prodigy family is obv a huge influence on Wes Anderson's work, along with Hal Ashby, and pre-Shining Kubrick, of course. Five Easy Pieces is not a masterpiece by any stretch. It is a disconnected "Jukebox Film." Playing piano on the moving truck, the Triumph t-shirt reveal, the diner scene, the last shot are the best tracks on what is ultimately a fairly lackluster LP.
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Last night I watched Separate Tables (1958) which has a splendid cast: Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, David Niven, Dame Wendy Hiller, Burt Lancaster, etc, ... The film is based on a Terence Rattigan play of the same name. Rattigan actually co-wrote the screenplay, too. I have never seen the play but I doubt that I would like it anymore than the tepid film I saw last night. Hayworth mails it in; Niven is good but certainly did not deserve an Oscar; Kerr was still sexy as the plain girl (but that is prob just me) and it is not one of her best performances; Hiller did deserve the Oscar she won, she and Burt Lancaster were the only really good things in this "who cares" drama. Lancaster, with his linebacker build, American accent, and strength of presence totally lights up the screen whene'er he enters. The great "scandal" of the Major's is so ridiculous it does not even need to be mentioned here. It got loads of Oscar nominations, incl Best Picture. Must have been a slow year, 1958. Yuck.
Dame Wendy played the West End, too.
And that is it for me today, my lovelies. Please be safe today and very special sweet to your special lady friends today. Even my gay friends today!
I have so much to write aboot & once agin, so little time. I have seen slightly more than a few movies recently that I would like to discuss. And if I were any kind of real writer I would link the "reviews", if you will, Pauline Kael-New Yorker stylee.
I will try my bestest.
First, I have another correction for my blog: Benedict Cumberbatch & Olivia Poulet are not married. They are long-time partners according to commenter Anonymous. And if any fucking person is taking the time to make a comment on my sorry-ass blog, I am taking their correction as gospel. So there.
I fucking nearly cried (has got to be the worst paragraph link in history) when I watched Soderburgh's Spalding Gray "doc" OnDemand (for the second time) last night. Soderburgh nailed it. No voice-over, no "history" whathaveyou, just Spalding Gray telling his life story through his monologues & interviews. Some would say (on Fox News), "What about his suicide?" Well, Soderburgh was smart enough, and disciplined enough, to proclaim through his film, 'That if Spuddy di'n't tell that story or appear in that interview then it does not make my film.'
(SPOILER ALERT! STOP NOW IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR W/ GRAY'S ANATOMY!) Of course, Soderburgh makes us cry at the end, w/ the howling dogs and the home movies. But the other, more crucial thing aboot this excellent film, basically aboot death and suicide, is how alive it makes me feel.
Say what you will aboot Gray's neuroses & hypochondria & desperate pleas for attention & fame, yet Gray told a kind of straight white-man truth that so many of us can identify with. & do identify with. & he did it through near the most esoteric, pretentious sort of way; monologues, performed on-stage, part of the off-Broadway, avant-garde (&, gawd, does not this country hate the avant-garde [especially if it originates from New York, like his performances did.])
I worked w/ a woman who knew Gray. She proclaimed to me aboot numerous late-night phone calls, what a nuisance he was. I di'n't believe her then & I do not believe her now.
Gray was an incredible talent who did something I honestly believe I could do, as well. He was so fortunate to be in Manhattan, w/ the Wooster Group, just when he discovered what his talent was. He was a fragile fragile soul; exposed, seduced, and intoxicated with, yet terrified of fame.
It was my buddy, Chris (I had made him watch Swimming to Cambodia & Monster in a Box) who told me that Gray was missing. Everyone knew. I knew. Even then. Everyone knew he had taken his own life.
But Soderburgh shows all the wisdom, hilarity, depth, & heart that made Gray such a great (albeit troubled) soul.
Gray, from Rhode Island, was really a New Yorker, a Manhattan-ite, living there, working there for a great period of his fame & livelihood. Well, if the Gray's Manhattan art scene is something to be admired, reached for, the Manhattan art scene of the film, Tiny Furniture, is something I would like to avoid like the plague.
Do not get me wrong, I liked the film. But it is so New York, so, "My Dad writes for TV," if you know what I mean. Some of the pop culture references fall completely flat, they are utilized way way too soon to resound w/ any kind of serious mainstream audience. (Let us face it, if you are showing your fucking film in Fresno or, say, Tulsa, where this film will play, then it had better play, no matter whatever your college-kid intentions were.)
I am flipping back & forth. I loved the Charlotte character. I loved the party scene where our protagonist is exposed as an attention whore. I loved how we are expected to love this contemptible, self-hating woman. I loved the film's depiction of the New York art scene as empty & blind to the new wave of media.
But, I cannot get over the fact that she cast herself in the starring role, of a film she directed, w/ her real-life Mom and real-life sister playing those roles. Even Plath's satiric, The Bell Jar, does not make me cringe like this film does.
The sex scene in the tube? Is it a reference to Fast Times? & why am I not believing it anyway?
Honestly, this director could grow & become a Todd Solondz-like master, or could fade away in to avant garde video theater & be never heard from again (except for cultish chick-y, gay types in the Village.)
Spalding Gray, made me change my mind what theater was.
OKAY, Fran Lebowitz, the Major & the Minor tomorrow.
