Most film noirs are cautionary as well as bad luck tales. But there’s a particular type that seems to be created by untrusting husbands and wives, the “you’ll be sorry if you cheat” noir. The most memorable for many of us are Fatal Attraction (1987) for the disloyal husband, Unfaithful (2002) for the straying wife. But the genre has a long history. The Prowler (1951) stands out in this list because it stars Van Heflin, whose charisma highlights just how easy the tumble into marital infidelity can be.
Van Heflin isn’t a name that stands out to any but classic movie fans despite his 1942 Oscar win, but his films do, particularly 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and Shane (1953), in which he plays steady husbands who can’t compete with the glamour of flashy gunslingers. In these films you feel the stamped-down passion of a man who has been worn down by hard work and harder luck. I prefer the roles in which Van Heflin plays lighter characters, like the gambler of The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), the adventurer in Green Dolphin Street (1947), or Althos in The Three Musketeers (1948). These roles capture the sexy quicksilver nature and physicality of a man who once left acting to be a sailor.
***some early spoilers ahead***
It’s that impulsiveness that makes Van Heflin so alluring as a cop in The Prowler. He might return to check on the lonely wife (Evelyn Keyes) who calls to report a peeping Tom, or he might not. He might call her back or pretend he doesn’t get her calls. He sets her at ease by sharing the Indiana roots he holds in common with her. But it’s his carefree manner of walking through her house that makes her prefer him to her older, stodgier husband, who–coded as the reference may be in a 50s film–seems to be impotent.
Unfortunately, the wife doesn’t notice the cop checking out her husband’s will in between visits to her bed. And so she doesn’t know for sure when he pretends to be the prowler in order to kill her husband whether it was an accidental killing (as the inquest claims), or not. When she marries the cop, she takes it for granted he’ll be pleased with her too-far-along pregnancy instead of seeing it as the danger it is. But as noir-aware audiences, we wonder, what happens when that bump gets bigger? I had eerie Fargo flashbacks as I watched the cop go about his plans. Will bystanders suffer the fate of those poor drivers in that Coen brother masterpiece? What about this new wife, who is now a liability? Suddenly, the unpredictability that attracted the now-widow looks less like sexiness, and more like the danger warned in the Coens’ own infidelity noir, Blood Simple (1984).
The Prowler plays its potential endings close to the vest, and the movie is bare and streamlined, as a good noir should be. It seems, in fact, like the film could have been written yesterday with a few tweaks. We audiences don’t know what the cop will do, but we are remindedthat cheating is a risky game, especially for a woman before her biological clock runs out. So beware of the sexy Van Heflins of the world, men with quick smiles and chips on their shoulder. Beware of the man who acts casual as he rifles through paperwork in your home. Beware–the jealous spouses of the world warn we viewers–and keep him safely outside of your door.
Perhaps you’re choosing to honor your cat by naming her after Mae West. (And can there be a greater honor?) You can’t go with Mae. It’s too delicate.
And you can’t go with Mae West. Too hard to say when your cat is jumping on the counter.
But you have to name her for Mae West: your feline is feisty, unrepentant, the center of her universe. So you scroll IMDB for Mae’s movie character names and land on Marlo from Sextette (1978). It has a ring to it, doesn’t it? You haven’t seen the film and don’t have time for it, so you watch a clip. Mae being Mae. It tracks. You name your little palm-sized kitty, and every time she flashes those bold eyes at her prey, you know you chose well.
Then, shortly after her third birthday, you watch Sextette, and think, “What have you done?”
Seriously, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
This is the hot mess to end all hot messes. When Ringo Star gives one of the best performances in the film, you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Who sees Mae West act and thinks, “You know a good person to cast in her picture? Dom DeLuise”? It’s so hard to watch a madcap, hijinks story with Mae performing her signature slow delivery like she’s in a different film. Then there are sudden, unnecessary musical sequences–and not unnecessary in a fun way, but in a do-we-have-to-do-this? way. And is Tony Curtis playing a Russian? And what the hell is Alice Cooper doing in this mix? The whole film is jarring and weird and utterly wrong.
The strange thing is, the critiques are wrong too. Sure, you heard it was bad–that’s true. But you also heard some sexist junk about how could this older woman be attractive to this young man (Timothy Dalton)? (As if 70-and 80-year-old men will ever stop presenting themselves as attractive to young women.) The age difference is extreme, and thinking of Mae West’s character as a global sex object in her mid-eighties might be a stretch, but here’s the delightful surprise: she is the ONLY sexy person in the film. She’s so confident and brash that you can’t take her eyes off of her, same as ever. And she’s the only one who looks like she’d know what she was doing in that bed.
The single male character who has ANY sex appeal in the film is one of Marlo’s ex-husbands, played by George Hamilton. Hamilton is acting as a—wait for it—gangster. (Because when you think gangster, you think, Where the Boys Are.) But unlike the virginal character played by Dalton, the histrionic Russian played by Tony Curtis, or the flashy director played by Ringo Star, George Hamilton seems like he might pause his movements long enough to actually have sex, which puts him a long stretch ahead of his competitors, sex appeal wise.
Mae manages to share several very funny one liners along the way, especially in a scene full of athletes who look like the hunks in her former shows. Too bad there’s so much noise and chaos around her that you can barely absorb them.
Sure, you despised the film. You really did. And yet….There was something poetic in it all. That George Raft was in the cast. That she didn’t take herself seriously in the film. That the plot–like all of her plots–was really no plot at all. That she refused to change one iota to the last.
She just kept on being Mae. 70s film fashions? Why bother? She’s going to wear that full-length gown if she feels like it. She’s amusing and charming and delightful and so much fun. And just as sassy and unwilling to change as that cat peering at you from atop the shelf on your wall.
I adore that Columbo is experiencing a renaissance with younger audiences. Gabrielle Sanchez attributes it to youth’s “clamor for more murder mysteries that skewer the rich.” Not hard to believe given the dominance of The White Lotus and Succession.
Columbo’s viewership had already been climbing steadily during quarantine, thanks to its soothing appeal. Then Rian Johnson embraced his own Columbo fandom with the Natasha-Lyonne helmed tribute series, Poker Face, this year, guaranteeing that his many young Knives Out fans would follow his wake back to the short man in the long raincoat the rest of us have been loving for decades. (I knew anyone who created Brick would be a classics fan.)
All of this fervor in turn brings new audiences to the classic movie stars we bloggers love, from Janet Leigh to Faye Dunaway to Myrna Loy to Celeste Holm. Even Don frickin Ameche (I’m a big fan of 1939’s Midnight). And of course, this fervor brings us to the suave, compelling Ray Milland, who appeared in two Columbo episodes—both early in the show’s run, when it was at its best.
I’ve often been curious about Milland. “The poor man’s Cary Grant” I read once in reference to him (though it might have been Melvyn Douglas). The dig was especially unfair since Milland was sometimes preferred to Grant: in the casting of Bringing Up Baby, for example. He was chosen over Grant for Dial M for Murder, due to salary or villain-casting worries. But the dig is fair in one sense: Grant was an icon everyone knows still today, and Milland?
“Who is that?” said my mother (echoing every other person I asked).
And yet, even those who don’t know Milland will catch a whiff of Grant. Close your eyes when watching a Ray Milland film, and for a minute, you’ll mistake the Welsh actor’s Mid-Atlantic accent for my favorite Bristol-born actor’s. Watch, for a moment, Milland move, and his easy grace and debonair expressions will trick your eyes too—as will his sharp wit and self-amusement.
And his slim build, height, dark hair, and air of confidence and wealth will throw you. As a Matinee and Mustache tumblr poster brilliantly put it, “Ray Milland looks like if Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart had a son together after the Philadelphia Story.”
No wonder when The Awful Truth was remade as a musical in 1953, Milland was chosen to play Grant’s role.
But the Oscar-winning star of The Lost Weekend deserves to be remembered for more than just a Grant resemblance. I’ve never thought he ought to be appreciated as much for the good, but miserable-to-watch film that won him his greatest honor as for the comedies and dramas to which he leant such a light comic touch or thrilling suspense. I loved him in The Major and the Minor (1942) with Ginger Rogers, despite the issues with that subject matter. I loved him in The Uninvited, where he’s a charming, funny companion to sister Pamela (Ruth Hussey), grounding a gothic tale that otherwise would have gone too far off the rails.
And of course, I love him as the coldblooded plotter in Dial M for Murder. In fact, that film is one of my least favorite Hitchcocks but for his performance. The superiority and cool assurance he displays in that story make him an especially riveting villain. I particularly admire his character’s appraisal of the hitman’s situation, and how coolly he explains to the poor man that he simply has no choice but to kill his wife.
So it fits then, that in his Columbo appearances, Milland tries his hand at two different kinds of roles: in the second episode of season 1, he plays the beloved husband of the victim, displaying the charm and intelligence that made him such a draw to women in his movies.
And in the second episode of season 2, “The Greenhouse Jungle,” he’s a version of his scheming Dial M for Murder villain, killing his nephew after an audacious kidnapping plot.
These episodes are such fun to watch. The first, “Death Lends a Hand,” features Robert Culp as the blackmailing private detective who accidentally kills the cheating wife of an influential newspaper owner, Arthur Kennicutt (Milland), after she refuses to give into his schemes. Columbo is a DELIGHT in this episode, playing his usual, I’m-harmless game in some of my favorite scenes. In an early moment, he not only walks into a closet instead of out a front door, but pretends to be a big believer in palmistry with a straight face. Wonderful. We get hints of Columbo’s rapscallion past. And throughout, Milland plays the grieving widower with a dignity that makes us feel for his loss. His growing appreciation for Columbo is subtly shown. The quick, almost impressionistic shots of the killing and cleanup are cleverly done. And Culp is at his irascible best.
“The Greenhouse Jungle” is a bit lengthy for me, with too many shots of cars driving, but the plot is fun to watch and the humor intense throughout thanks to an ambitious young police officer who thinks he’s outsmarting Columbo. In a wonderful scene, the young officer shows off expensive tech equipment he’s bought himself, and our favorite lieutenant quips that he must be a bachelor. I also enjoyed Columbo’s hilarious ploy of disarming Milland, an orchid aficionado, by asking that he repair his wife’s 90-percent-dead African violet. Milland has a blast playing a supercilious, judgmental, superior snob who thinks he’s come up with a genius plot. He is not as clever as the Dial M for Murder schemer, but thinks he is. Milland approaches, but doesn’t quite veer into, hamminess in the role, which makes him riveting. But my favorite aspect of both episodes is–not shockingly–Columbo’s insight and empathy.
In “Death Lends a Hand,” he shows such understanding for the man who had an affair with Kennicutt’s wife. He is surprisingly blunt with him, admitting his suspicions about the relationship right away, but also assuring him he’s not a suspect (and this time, he means it). The golf pro seems like such a nice guy, and it warms us to see Columbo treat him with so much understanding. The lieutenant is also adorably kind to the villain’s minion, right after fooling him to expose his boss.
In “The Greenhouse Jungle,” the wife of the victim is in an open relationship–which makes Milland’s character despise her and his nephew. But Columbo says he admires her for her honesty about who she is, and we believe him. It’s this lack of judgment and lack of the kind of he-man attitude toward women so familiar in other cop shows (then and now) that make Columbo always feel so modern and fresh and lovable.
And how lovely it is to see Ray Milland, an underrated actor in this day (if not in his), playing on a show that is all about the dangers of underestimating others.
For those of you who love both versions of The Thomas Crown Affair (and why wouldn’t you?), it can be tough to determine which of these slick, funny, seductive films is superior. But today I’ll make an attempt. I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments–1999, or 1968?
The crime. This may be an unfair one, as there have been too many good bank robbery movies between 1968 and 1999 for me to give 1968’s crime its due. Still, I preferred the 1999 one–the heaters were such a nifty trick. But both films’ clever capers hold up.
Male leads: Pierce Brosnan is not as attractive as Steve McQueen (who is?). But Brosnan is more convincing as a rich dude who pulls a crime because he’s bored. Also, McQueen’s lack of affect starts to grate after a while. Brosnan oozes charm. That said, McQueen’s laugh when he pulls off his caper is phenomenal.
Female leads: I am a lukewarm Dunaway fan. I like her style, confidence, charisma. I found her mesmerizing in Network and Bonnie and Clyde. I loved her in Columbo. But I disliked her performance in Three Days of the Condor and thought her histrionics in Mommy Dearest insufferable. She fits this role, but Rene Russo just owns her film, and her range is fantastic in it. Russo is also really, really funny. Dunaway has a hard time pulling off humor that isn’t smug.
Music? Love “The Windmills of your Mind” song In both. 10/10.
Sexiest scene: Dance scene (1999) vs. chess scene (1968).
It’s a close one. Generally, I think Russo is sexier than Dunaway–plus thrilling music–and that dress!
That said, I’m not exactly on solid ground saying Russo is sexier in hers.
In terms of male leads, though, I know I’m right: McQueen out-cools Brosnan in every way, and is smoking hot in every scene.
However, I would still argue it’s Brosnan’s sexiest performance.
All told, I have to give it to 1968’s version for sexiest scene. First, because it deserves extra points for making chess seductive. Second, because Brosnan’s delivery of “Do you wanna dance, or do you wanna dance?” hurts me.
Other Characters. No one in the 1968 version is as fun as Dennis Leary or Frankie Faison. But Jack Weston is great at playing a sap.
The Fashion. A tie, I’d say. I prefer Russo’s impossibly luxe wardrobe and killer sunglasses.
I’m not a fan of fur, but that leather outfit in her break-in scene kills me.
Dunaway’s fashion is fantastic in The Thomas Crown Affair too, and those hats are amazing. Plus, the actress always looks like she was born in whatever she wears.
The Script. The writing is better in the 1999 film–though I will admit that many of the best lines are pulled straight from the original. But the characters are more likable and nuanced in the 1999 version. The inclusion of the sailboat crash scene nails Crown’s excesses. The 1999 film is funnier (which I prefer). And Russo’s Catherine is a more powerful feminist (with her smarts and savvy and outplaying everyone) than Dunaway’s Vicki is, though I think they make Catherine too vulnerable in the end.
Editing. I love the clever transitions and cuts in the 1999 remake, but the 1968 version is more streamlined. The 1999 one could use some trimming in the second half.
In-Jokes. Loved Dunaway as the snarky psychiatrist for Brosnan’s Crown. We assume her commentary on porcupines to be from her own experience (from her 1968 caper), right? That’s SUCH a fun twist.
The Ending. 1968 does it for me. It’s poignant, and far more probable than 1999’s.
Because of the script and Russo’s performance, I’d give it to 1999, but it’s a tight one! How about you?
I’ve now watched the Jon Hamm-helmed remake of Fletch three times. This may surprise those of you who adored the original Fletch series–and Chevy Chase’s performance in it–as much as I did. But the film is a different animal and defies comparison; it also contains enough quirky humor to create nostalgia for those earlier films while making you eager for a new franchise with Hamm in the lead–one that would resemble the original novels more than Chase’s version did.
Jon Hamm is BRILLIANT in this new version of Fletch, and I will watch the film again. And again. And again. The opening–which begins with a shocking discovery of a dead body–is magic thanks to Hamm’s deadpan delivery. But it’s the scene with Annie Mumolo that I find myself watching on repeat.
You may not recall Mumolo’s name, but you’ll know you’ve seen her somewhere. You have. She’s the nervous plane passenger from Bridesmaids.
She’s also the co-screenwriter of that film with Kristin Wiig, and has a host of other credits. And as in that short but indelible plane scene, this woman cannot say an unfunny line.
In my favorite Confess, Fletch scene, former investigative reporter, now art-journalist Fletch is asking his neighbor, Eve (Mumolo), about her relationship with his landlord/a murder suspect. Standing in her kitchen, Eve proceeds to create a blizzard of poor hygiene, kitchen appliance hazards, and ill-advised confessions, all with zero awareness of the consequences of her actions. Fletch looks on and responds to Eve with various levels of repugnance, politeness, and shock.
The scene is a master class on comic delivery from both actors, and if you don’t watch it, you’re missing out.
That’s just one scene in SUCH a fun film, one that didn’t receive enough fanfare from its studio, and therefore escaped everyone’s notice. Cameos abound, including an appearance from Hamm’s former Mad Men buddy, John Slattery; Marcia Gay Harden in an unexpectedly daffy role; and the always game Lucy Punch as an influencer who could use a dictionary.
Spoil yourself; we could all use a little Confess, Fletch time right now.
Aftersun deserved best picture & directing Oscars this year, but it had no shot. The Academy doesn’t like to award intimate little stories about relationships. They like loud message films, and loud action films, and stories about men being men. And when they (rarely) pivot their patterns (Moonlight), it’s never for a woman helmer: It’s no accident that the only females who’ve won directing Oscars did so for stories about war, community job loss, and cowboys.
Academy voters like to throw a screenplay bone at the original, lovely intimate stories–though they occasionally alter that with acting (as with Aftersun) or song nominations/wins (as with Once). Even when a quiet, intimate little film like Il Postino is nominated for best picture, it wins for something else (in its case, score). That’s why when I’m searching for good films I don’t know from past Oscars, I go straight to the screenplay category. There I can find films that weren’t about the Academy trying to prove something, or the fact that many of them are too lazy to view all but blockbusters and movies with their friends in them.
What strikes me most about Academy voters is their fear. They’re afraid of being seen as racist, as they should be (#OscarsSoWhite), but they actually prove they are with nominations for movies like The Blind Side and Crash and Green Book. The pernicious roots of racism don’t lie in big headlines or loud messages or overt acts, but in the everyday moment, and the everyday moment is where all of us make mistakes of every kind. We are vulnerable there. Academy voters don’t like that space.
To nominate Aftersun for best picture or its writer-director Charlotte Wells would take guts. It’s not Oscar bait, and at first appears far less skillfully managed than it is. It fools you, posing as a student film, or just a kid’s camcorder records of her vacation with her dad. It’s slow. If you’re inattentive, you might find it boring. You don’t know at first the reasons for pauses; for impressionist shots; for quick flashes. You must be patient. But if you let the film in, you are caught up in the relationship between a charming young girl, Sophie (Frankie Corio), and her sweet dad, Calum (Paul Mescal). You soon sense, as when reading a book by Marilynne Robinson, that every little choice by the writer-director counts, that each choice has layers of meaning that build upon one another, and that the very everyday nature of the story is the point of the film. That’s what our relationships are about, our love, our pain, our loss, our joy. It’s missing the details of moments that haunt us later if the relationship is lost or even if it alters over time.
Aftersun is poignant because it’s about that, but more. About looking back and examining what you were too young or focused on understanding your own growing-up moments to understand, to see your father as human, with needs, pain, and insecurities. And Paul Mescal’s understated performance is much of what makes the film unforgettable.
This movie will stay with me a long time, will remind me to cherish the loved ones in my life, to try to be a more understanding person. I wonder how many people could say that about Avatar: The Way of Water.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. An enjoyable, meaningful film about a woman dealing with sex and her self-worth in middle age. A nuanced story, with a sympathetic portrait of sex workers. It gets nada from the Academy. A subtle, star-making turn by Daryl McCormack–ignored. And Emma Thompson not only snubbed, but not even listed as an Oscar snub. People couldn’t shut up about JLO not getting a nomination for Hustlers, but we’re going to forget that two-time-Oscar winner Emma Thompson was overlooked for one of her finest performances?
Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler Get No Nominations, and Ana de Armas Does for Razzie-Nominated Blonde. I read the book Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, even liked it. I am not sure the director did. That film? Oh no. No. No. No. Was de Armas good in it? For what she had to work with, which was not much. That’s not an Oscar nomination. Look, I’m a Marilyn fan. That woman had some serious chops as a comedienne. But that tired trope of fragile waif Marilyn again, with some gross additions thrown into the mix? That film deserves NOTHING. I am sick.
Tár. It seemsTodd Haynes makes a movie every decade, and with the best of materials and actresses, manages to turn wonderful storylines and potential into snores.
Triangle of Sadness. A fight over a check that should have taken five minutes being stretched to such ludicrous proportions that I forgot what the movie was about. A diarrhea-puke-&-other gross bodily-function scene that takes excruciating amounts of time for NO REASON (and doesn’t make me laugh once). And, of course, the earth-shattering message that power and money corrupt? This is some shit, people. Literal and figurative. NO FEMALE DIRECTORS were chosen so that this gem could make it into the best-directing category.
Top Gun Maverick. I admit it: I didn’t see the thing. I couldn’t bear it after I found out Kelly McGillis wasn’t invited back. I’ll watch this, that Avatar sequel (please), and other action extravaganzas nominated for Oscars once a female blockbuster gets a berth on the list. In the meantime, please everyone, stop bellyaching that crowd pleasers never make it, while nominating male-only fare like Master and Commander and Gladiator. Why is everyone so forgetful? Crowd pleasers OFTEN make it, and even win. What the hell was Braveheart? A subtle indie film? What about Jaws? The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)? I mean, NO ONE saw those, right?
And I’m just getting started. Rant, Part I over. Stay tuned for Part II….
I watched a tragedy the other day. It got under my skin. Its characters wouldn’t let me be. But I was also a bit sorry I’d seen it. A friend used a perfect word for it: grim.
The film, The Banshees of Inisherin, is being called a black comedy, and some strange critics are calling it hilarious.
Hilarious?????
I love black comedies. I will howl at Shaun of the Dead and Serial Mom and Dr. Strangelove. But what Martin McDonagh’s new film makes me want to do is weep.
Have we forgotten Yorick in Hamlet? Or the dying Mercutio’s quip in Romeo and Juliet, “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man”? Moments of humor do not make a tragedy a comedy. They highlight and accentuate the tragedy, make us feel for those who’ve suffered and make our sense of their losses heavier, more acute.
If you want to tell a story about a friend dying in the hospital, you don’t ONLY show that friend in the hospital. You show her lively and funny and nimble—help us see the distance between her then and now. Otherwise, all we audience members feel is a kind of generic sadness. We don’t think of your friend as an individual. We don’t understand the extent of the loss of this one amazing human being.
The Banshees of Inisherin is—on the surface–about the demise of a friendship for trivial reasons. But what it shows is how little it takes for one simple, everyday man’s life to spiral, for his days to go from easygoing to heartbreaking. And how that change brings out the worst in him. (The story is also a rather obvious metaphor about pointless warfare.)
I find Martin McDonagh’s work fascinating. I agree that many of his films are black comedies. But not this film. It’s not ridiculous and theatrical or over the top in the way Seven Psychopaths or In Bruges or even Three Billboards and other black comedies are. The story is too simple, and the pain of Padraic’s (Colin Farrell’s) now broken life is far too minutely and intimately told for the humor to do anything but make us feel for his losses. (And yes, his friend’s actions are over the top, but so are Romeo’s.)
If you want to see just how talented Farrell is, watch the movie. If you’re in the mood for a sad tale about the destructiveness of poor decisions, watch.
But don’t view this film on one of your vacation days, like I did. And stop listening to those critics who think a few jokes make something a comedy.
I just watched “The Funnier Sex,” an episode from CNN’s The History of Comedy. The segment features numerous current comediennes celebrating their groundbreaking predecessors. They highlight the sexism that marred their predecessor’s progress—especially that ridiculous view that women can’t be funny—and expressed how much harder it was for an attractive woman to also be considered funny. Lucille Ball—as usual—was singled out as the pretty woman who changed that for everyone.
Sigh.
Look, I love Lucy—we all do—and I get that most people’s sense of history is as developed as an ant’s. But are we going to ignore the vaudevillians entirely? Those women who used their sexiness to get away with cultural commentary? Who—like the standup artists who followed them—used live audience’s reactions to fine-tune their jokes, over and over again? You know, like STAND-UP COMICS??
In other words, WHERE IS MAE WEST?
West was not, of course, the first female comedienne in America. But as someone who starred in vaudeville, broke out in film, made appearances on TV, and then produced a live Vegas show with Chippendale-like men, she was hardly an invisible influence on the comediennes who followed her. And her humor was MUCH more like that of the stand-up stars celebrated in the series than Lucy’s ever was—and far more risqué.
And Mae wrote her own material, managed to be a rom-com star into her 40s, and even saved a studio. Mae peddled and exploited her own attractiveness in her jokes. She was known as a bombshell, even if some of her snarky male contemporaries—and ours—use their own sexist views of curvy women’s bodies to question it.
Let’s review just one incident—on the smash second day of her play Sex in 1926, which she records in her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It: Only 85 people appeared for the first performance, disappointing the star and the manager, who blamed the scandalous title for ticket sales. But at the next day’s matinee, Mae observed lines of men from the naval base “two and three deep.” The house manager was scrambling for extra seats for his theater. “And you said it was a bad title,” noted Mae. And he replied, “I forgot about the sailors.”
Sound like a woman who wasn’t using her sex appeal for humor?
I understand that standup is not the same as vaudeville, but the latter was clearly a forerunner, certainly more than scripted TV.
Look, I enjoyed the episode from The History of Comedy. It featured some of my own heroes, including Joan Rivers and Rachel Bloom. But why, after all these years, are TV historians still ignoring the extraordinary impact of Mae West?
What other comedian wrote lines we still repeat 100 years later, such as one of the all-timers?:
“It’s not the men in my life that count, it’s the life in my men.”
I suspect I know the reason she’s bypassed—the same reason early groundbreakers are so often forgotten: Because the wave of female comediennes would take years to follow in her wake. Because she was so ahead of her time that she wasn’t even part of the same generation who would supposedly “change everything.”
But all the more reason to own her. All the more reason to celebrate her. All the more reason, CNN, to give the sexy, groundbreaking, hilarious woman her due.
The common line on Detour (1945) is that it features one of the nastiest of femme fatales—a fascinating, feral creature. It’s true that Ann Savage as Vera is a powerhouse, and I can’t stop watching her. But is she really all that bad?
**Some plot reveals.***
So many reviewers skim over the incident that made Vera so raw in the first place. Yet to me, her reaction to that incident is what makes this B film worth watching. Can anyone honestly say they root for the sad-sack, self-pitying musician, Al Roberts (Tom Neal)?
What a dud this hero is. The movie is nothing until Vera enters the screen, and it’s nothing after she’s gone.
As far as her dangerousness, let’s review, shall we? Vera is a hitchhiker picked up by Charles Haskell Jr (Edmund MacDonald). We learn about her secondhand from Charles, who is complaining to his current passenger, Al, about the deep scratches on his hand. Charles says an “animal” inflicted the wounds on his body. “You know there ought to be a law against dames with claws,” he complains.
The reason for their disagreement is soon clear: “Give a lift to a tomato, you expect her to be nice, don’t you?….After all, what kind of dames thumb rides, Sunday school teachers?”
In other words, he thought she should be forced into sex with him because she must be that kind of girl. This dude felt entitled to rape her because she’s a hitchhiker. He assumes all men will agree with him (as Al does) that she’s nasty because she hurt him defending herself.
What’s intriguing—and unusual—about Detour for its time is that it gives voice to this assaulted woman. As soon as we meet Vera, we know she’s suffering from PTSD and doesn’t know how to manage her pain. Even Al, hardly an empath, says, “Man, she looked as if she’d just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world.”
Her angry words soon reveal that Charles is hardly the first man who has felt entitled to mistreat her: “I’ve been around,” she tells Al, looking at him intently, “and I know a wrong guy when I see one.”
That she lashes out at Al might be because of what she thinks he’s done—but it’s not the only reason.
Now Al is not the smartest dude, as Vera quickly realizes: “…You don’t have any brains.” He picks up a stranger right after he accidentally killed Charles and exchanged identities with him. If he were a smooth-talking liar, you could see him getting away with this move. If he were quick, you could see it too. But Al is not smooth. He is not quick. He is not smart. And he lies with all the skill of a toddler. He’s also unlucky because whom should he invite for a ride, but the only one who knows his identity is false? While many of his grievances are self imposed, it’s hard to argue with him that when it comes to encounters like his with Vera, fate was putting “out a foot to trip you.”
Vera’s instantly brutal to Al, whom she thinks killed her attacker. But she feels kinship with him too. She’s aiming for connection, an us-against-the-rich plan. She’s Bonnie and this idiot won’t be her Clyde. It pisses her off.
She wants him to recognize that they’re both presumed bad, that they don’t have a chance, so why not go for a con? Why not enjoy the advantages they have before everything goes to hell, as it certainly will, for people the deck is stacked against, like themselves? And when he won’t give in, she tries blackmail.
Her plan is not nice. She’s not nice. But I don’t find her nasty—even if some of her actions (and plans) are cruel. I find her tragic. She believes Charles’s wealth is part of what made him feel entitled to rape a poor girl, like her. She’s met a lot of men who act that way. Unfortunately, she didn’t find a man who could empathize with her suffering, or even enjoy a drink with her. She looked for something approximating an ally, and all she got was Al.
Oh Al. What a worthless character. He is a homme fatale BY ACCIDENT. He falls to pieces when a woman yells at him. He breaks into hives when he tries to sell a stolen car. Some theorize that he’s an unreliable narrator, deluding himself that he didn’t kill. Personally, I think he’s just deluded himself that his girlfriend wants him back. I don’t find Al’s psychology complex enough for any more sophisticated delusions.
But Vera? We lose her far too soon. If this film were the revenge fantasy this character deserves, she’d be living it up in Charles’s family mansion, smiling archly at the family as they bemoaned the loss of their heir.
“Oh yes,” she’d say, holding up champagne and affecting a snooty tone, “Wasn’t it a shame for Charles, all those women who did him wrong?”
This post is part of the Movies are Murder! blogathon hosted by the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA). Go check out all of thegreat entries.
