ILL, How Do I Love Thee?: A Classic Movie Fan’s Tribute

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For years I’ve been grumbling, waiting for streaming access to classics I hear about from other blogs: Letter from an Unknown Woman, The Great Lie, A Foreign Affair. Without a Netflix DVD cache or TCM, the classic movie fan is left with few options, and my brief affair with the Warner Archive had given me little love. Then it occurred to me, like a (clichéd) beacon of light in the night: YOU HAVE ACCESS TO INTERLIBRARY LOAN.

How do I love thee, ILL? Let me count the ways.

  1. You don’t tarry. Within a week, all three films were at my library’s front desk. The student helping me didn’t notice my bated breath or strong desire to do the worm in celebration. Used to her fellow students’ desperate and grumpy research requests, she was unaware of the yummy chocolate cake she was handing over to me. Her loss.
  2. You have so much to offer. Greedy after receiving all three films, I thought I’d dare for my elusive, longed-for white whale of a book. I’d just emailed Grace Collins of True Stories of Tinseltown about our upcoming podcast chat on Mae West and Cary Grant when my long-stamped-out desire resurfaced: Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It. I needed it–obviously–for research. Amazon was charging boatloads of cash for Mae’s autobiography, but was it possible I could get my hands on it for free? YES!!!
  3. You give me so MANY moments to savor. Here is one of hundreds of funny interchanges from Mae’s bio: She’s just put on opening night for her first play in New London, CT in 1926. The house manager is grumbling about the ticket purchases: “The title’s scaring them away. Nobody in this town will buy tickets for a show with the title SEX….We don’t talk about sex hereabouts, and we don’t put it on signs.” Only 85 people show for the first performance, and Mae is feeling blue that the first play she wrote and starred in looks like a bomb. But at the next day’s matinee, she sees lines of men from the naval base “two and three deep,” and the manager is scrambling for extra seats for his theater. “And you said it was a bad title,” observes Mae. And he replies, “I forgot about the sailors.”
  4. You let me savor each moment. On Monday morning, I’d been reading my usual dose of terrifying headlines on CNN. I was feeling blue, and knew I had to banish that mood if I had any chance of cheering my 9 am students, who had been staring at me for days with a peculiar type of hostility they’d developed from years of New England winters—the “how-dare-you-deny-me-another-snow-day, woman” look I knew so well. Naturally, I looked to Mae for mood elevation, and found her defense against the newspaper baron, William Randolph Hearst, who–in the midst of delivering his own era’s brand of terrifying headlines–had written this, “Is it not time Congress did something about Mae West?” Thanks to my generous love, ILL, I got to read Mae’s response: “All I have ever wanted to do is entertain people, make them laugh so hard they forget they’d like to cry.” Such an important reminder to me about the need for humor, dear Mae; you bolstered me the rest of the week. And by Friday? I was enjoying Jean Arthur’s and Marlene Dietrich’s charismatic performances in The Foreign Affair. Oh ILL, how I love thee…..

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Give the Oscar to Glenn Close Already!

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So it’s time again, time to clench my teeth, hoping you don’t screw up, Academy. Don’t blow it, like you did with Thelma Ritter. Don’t blow it, like you did with Barbara Stanwyck. Don’t blow it, like you did with Cary FRICKIN Grant, the only classic movie star so many non-black-and-white film buffs even know. Don’t make her the Academy’s biggest loser, and add to that inexcusable 7 noms and 0 current wins record. GIVE GLENN CLOSE HER OSCAR ALREADY!

Would it be a consolation prize? No. She’s stunning in The Wife, mesmerizing in a deeply human performance of repression and silence and pent-up rage. This role depends on subtlety. Not many actresses of any age, of any time period, could make such a seemingly resigned, still woman look riveting. But Glenn Close? Let’s think about that for a moment…..

Did she fascinate you with her evil machinations in Dangerous Liaisons? Scare the hell out of you in Fatal Attraction? Did you love her in the criminally underrated The Paper? Were you touched by her sweetness in The Natural and The Big Chill? Did you fear for her in The Jagged Edge? Did you enjoy her bitter, yet resigned take-down of her former lover in Le Divorce? (And yes, even in a bit part, you can’t take your eyes off of her.)

I like Olivia Colman, but her weird, histrionic role in The Favourite is not the kind of part that deserves your Oscar. I adore Lady Gaga. But this was a good freshman performance, not an award-winning one. Melissa McCarthy should be your number two, with her deeply funny, deeply sad performance of a woman at the end of her resources. (I admit I have yet to see Yalitza Aparicio’s performance, but I know she’s not one of your frontrunners). But the only living actress besides Close who can show the full range of human experience with a few expressions, gestures, and lines–Meryl Streep–has been showered with THREE of your Oscars. Close? Not a one.

Here’s the thing: The Wife wasn’t watched by nearly as many people as some of the other films whose actresses are up there on the list. And yet, still nominated. WHY?

Because she’s GLENN CLOSE, Academy! The badass actress who OWNS every role she takes, who can make you watch (and yes, just try to resist it) seasons of a show you barely like just to catch her expressions, who can convince you into viewing a movie about dalmatians—dalmatians!–just to catch her take on Cruella de Ville.

Academy, don’t shame yourself, as you did with Close’s partner in non-winning Oscar noms, the wonderful Thelma Ritter (she, like Deborah Kerr, of the 6-0 record). You’ve got a chance not to wait till that lifetime oops-we-screwed-up prize. It’s an easy choice, Academy.

Just give Close the Oscar already.

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The Long Goodbye Film: It’s All about the Cat

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**spoilers***

I was afraid to watch The Long Goodbye. It’s a favorite book, so much so that I starting drinking gimlets for a couple years, even though I hate gin*. It was an odd affectation. Even I knew drinking a grandpa concoction wouldn’t impress anyone, and would only mystify bartenders. But it gave me some secret romantic joy to drink one, even on non-memorable nights (and many nights in my late 20s were just that). With its appreciation for short-lived and missed connections, Raymond Chandler’s masterpiece is great stuff for those in transition, those who are watching peers’ lives move on without them. And what could the film do, but ruin my book? Who could make sense of such a meandering, mood-based affair, with more characters and tangents than any two-hour film could master? And The Long Goodbye (1973) wasn’t exactly produced in my favorite film era.

But I’d heard there was a cool cat scene in the opening of the film, and since Chandler loved cats (which of course, I knew), I thought there might be something there. And with Leigh Brackett listed as a screenwriter, I had hope. For the first half hour, I was grinning. Any cat owner has to love Marlowe’s (Elliott Gould’s) demanding animal, and any cat owner will sympathize with the the way Marlowe tries to fake the cat out with a different brand of cat food than he/she expects with a can switch.

Marlowe’s scene with the cops when he’s refusing to give his friend Terry up is so funny (those fingerprint ink antics!), and the way the story is updated for current viewers wowed me. Something about the dreamy landscape and shots, the way Marlowe doesn’t fit in with the crooks and the hippies (including his gratuitously topless neighbors) around him really captures the loneliness of Chandler’s famous character and the “mean streets” he inhabits. His loyalty to his cat captures his sweetness, his romanticism, and his befuddlement with the world around him. That’s why at first I bought into the film’s characterization, as Marlowe mutters to himself and treats most people around him well in spite of poor treatment. There’s always something sad and noble about him. As Chandler wrote, his PI “must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”

In terms of acting, Gould is lovable in this movie. He doesn’t embody Marlowe’s pain, as Humphrey Bogart did. But unlike Dick Powell’s annoyingly slick Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, he’s believable and much more compelling than I expected (even if his toughness in the face of violence isn’t quite convincing).

But my mood toward the movie began to change about a third of the way in. Part of seeing the world through Marlowe’s eyes is finding something redeemable in those others have dismissed–Wade’s honesty, Eileen’s idealism, Mendy’s loyalty, Terry’s quaint good manners. Yet none of these characters are anything but one-notes in the film; none of them are even remotely redeemable. Altman’s violent take on The Big Heat‘s (1955) girlfriend treatment felt like a rip-off rather than a homage, and Marlowe’s lack of sympathy for her was baffling. I understood dispensing with the Linda character, but why not that sweet, yet hopeless tribute to Terry in the bar? Marlowe could have just had a conversation with the bartender. It would have SET UP that ending. Just knowing he was friends with Terry for a long time (a change from the book) wasn’t enough.

As for the plot, well, Chandler was famous for admitting to the convoluted nature of his plotting (though as anyone who reads The Big Sleep knows, censorship is a far greater reason for the plot’s confusing nature in the film.) Perhaps Chandler’s alleged plot aversion is what attracted Altman. As far as I was concerned, Altman could play with the plot all he wanted if he made it interesting. But he didn’t. And turning Mendy into such a loathsome bad guy made the story feel derivative in a boring way.

The ending was undoubtedly shocking and clever, and I liked that the cat became a symbol of Marlowe’s treatment and expectations, but look, if you want Marlowe this resentful about others’ treatment of him, you’re going to have to do more to foreshadow it. Marlowe is pretty much ALWAYS treated poorly in Chandler’s books–by nearly everyone. That isn’t enough to make him crack. And Gould doesn’t seem resentful as Marlowe; he seems naïve and stupid instead.

For Marlowe to betray his knight errant traits (what makes him admirable), and instead focus only on his own resentments, to have him flat out MURDER a former friend, you have to do more to make that betrayal convincing. What’s so lovable about him in the book is that he knows Terry’s pretty worthless, but cares about and defends him anyway, just as the crooks do. Terry’s war record (completely absent here) also makes him more sympathetic. Marlowe is not–as in the movie–shocked to discover Terry’s even more worthless as a friend than he thought–even if he’s not (in the book) a murderer. Marlowe is RESIGNED, expects little of others. In the film, Marlowe is anything but.

There is, of course, something fascinating in Altman essentially killing off the former PI character Chandler (and his peers) made famous. To take away his ethics is truly to murder the man. But I’m not going to believe (as Altman argues in this film) that such a character is unrealistic in today’s world without a better cinematic argument than the character floundering around (as Marlowe always did for a bit). The same year as this film came out, Robert Parker introduced Spenser to the world, a clear homage to Marlowe (so much so that Parker would later complete Chandler’s unfinished novel). And the 80s TV show of the Spenser character was still a decade after Altman’s film. Parker made a Marlowe type a modern man quite successfully (though Spenser was a significantly happier character than his predecessors).

Is it worth it to watch the film? Yes. But how I wish Altman had used that cat like he should have. The cat’s addition was, after all, brilliant. What if Marlowe had shown more love for the cat throughout? Shouldn’t the cat have come up more than a couple times after the beginning, given how crucial Marlowe’s devotion becomes at the end? I felt like Billy Madison as I watched Marlowe in the film. (In that dopey movie, Adam Sandler is outraged that a dog owner would wait for a lost dog’s return rather than making even a cursory effort to find it.)

What if the cat had starved while Marlowe was in jail for Terry, and the detective found out? Then that ending would be not about himself, but about the cat, the only connection he really had—just as Marlowe (in the book) is so lonely that Terry’s chance connection with him means more than anyone understands. Throughout the book and movie, Marlowe insists that Terry could have murdered his wife, but not as brutally as she’d been killed. Like him, I contend that Marlowe wasn’t the type to kill someone over his own hurts. But over his cat’s? Maybe.

*Gimlets symbolize Marlowe’s relationship with Terry.

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Men Who Love Too Much in Classic Film

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Continuing our theme on characters who love too much, Grace Collins of True Stories of Tinseltown and I turned our attention from women to men, especially Edward G. Robinson’s sad sap Chris in Scarlet Street, Claude Rains’s hoodwinked Alexander in Notorious and bad con artist Johnny of Suspicion (whose love runs to money rather than females). Of course, we took some detours too, commenting on the newest A Star Is Born and how much we’d suck as spies.

Check out the podcast here, here, or here.

And definitely enjoy Grace’s other wonderful posts and other podcasts:

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Mae West as the Outlaw: My Little Chickadee

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When asked what outlaw I wanted to feature for the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Outlaws blogathon, I immediately thought of Mae West’s character in My LIttle Chickadee. I know Mae West’s siren ways and bumpy pairing with W.C. Fields are more frequently associated with the film, but it’s hard to miss how West’s Flower Bell Lee flouts the law–not to mention convention–in this 1940s flick. And of course, being co-written by West, the film includes plenty of hilarious one liners and shimmying.

The story begins with Flower Bell (West) traveling by stagecoach to visit (and presumably settle with) her aunt and uncle in a Western town. She’s buffing her nails as the male passengers gawk and an accompanying woman, Mrs. Gideon (played by Margaret Hamilton, of witchy Wizard of Oz Fame), looks on disapprovingly.


Suddenly, a masked robber stops the coach to rob it of its gold. The rest of the passengers race out of the coach with their arms up. Flower Bell just sits there, sure it has nothing to do with her, and more interested in her nails.


The “Masked Bandit” (as he’ll later be called) threatens to kill the others if she doesn’t budge, so she reluctantly does. She doesn’t mind being “held up” she informs the masked bandit, but doesn’t like to be inconvenienced. And thus the delightful double entendres begin.

Of course the bandit notices Flower Bell’s beauty and abducts her. He returns her to her new town outskirts soon after, but clearly, she enjoyed her time away. He comes to visit her in her room at night, Romeo style, and kisses her while still hiding his identity. Unfortunately, her former stagecoach companion, Mrs. Gideon, spies the two in Flower Bell’s bedroom, and informs the town. Flower Bell is forced to defend her actions in court and identify the marauder. She refuses to tell anyone a thing, and gets kicked out of her new town, told she has to stay away till she’s married and respectable. The inflamed Mrs. Gideon also spreads the word to the ladies of the nearby town where Flower Bell is going, Greasewood City, saying Flower Bell won’t even be allowed to get off the train. But Flower Bell doesn’t care, as she makes clear with her parting words to the judge, when he asks if she’s trying to show contempt for his court: “I was doin’ my best to hide it.”

Since this is West, we audience members know she will not only get off the train, but have all of the townsmen in her thrall as well. And that happens. But first she has to fight off Indians attacking the train. Again, she’s buffing her nails, and when arrows almost hit her, she slowly pulls them out of the side of the rail car, rolling her eyes as she does so. Why must these pesky outlaws get in the way of her manicure?


But when a fellow passenger dies, she takes up his two guns, shoots a bunch of Indians with obvious relish, saying she’s dispensed them in a “shower of feathers.” She’s angry because they’ve dared to “intimidate” her (sounds like a typical outlaw response, huh?) Flower Bell’s nonchalance and bravery are hilarious to witness in this strange scene. Even as we viewers flinch at the Indian stereotyping, we know that Flower Bell doesn’t care about race (more on that later). She just doesn’t like any bother, and agrees to be a hero–but only if she must.


Meanwhile, a flirtatious passenger, Twillie (W.C. Fields), has been cozying up to her, and since she sees he has a bag of money, she doesn’t mind, and flirts right back.


He too plays his part in fending off the Indians, but mainly that part is yelling at them for assaulting a private car and bumbling in Fields’s typical physical-comedy way. Twillie has no problem with Indians; his best friend/servant/gambling partner is one (their strange interaction, and the film’s odd combination of racist terms and stereotypes and yet ahead-of-its-time treatment deserves a post of its own).

But even though Twillie doesn’t mind Indians attacking OTHER trains, he does object to being annoyed, much like Flower Bell, though he’s far less accomplished than she in fighting back. Once the danger has passed, the two get closer, as his marriage proposal gives Flower Bell a way to exit the train in peace. She soon ropes another gambling friend on the train into acting as minister. That friend uneasily performs the marital vows. Flower Bell has no intention of sleeping with Twillie, only using him to get a free room and the blameless rep she needs to keep seeing her outlaw and whomever else she pleases. Even Mrs. Gideon, again a fellow passenger, smiles her approval.

Once in Greasewood’s best shady saloon/hotel, a number of antics ensue as Flower Bell keeps Twillie out of her room while helping him with his gambling and lies. When he brags that he saved the train, she lets him take the credit. The town makes him the sheriff, but as the last few have died within months, this honor has more to do with Badger (Joe Calleia), the unscrupulous bar/hotel owner, wanting Flower Bell widowed than any conviction that Twillie has guts. Flower Bell then proceeds to flirt with the muckraking local reporter, even acting as a teacher to help him out in a classic West scene.

Flower Bell enjoys the reporter’s idealism and Badger’s dangerousness, and it’s very unclear which man (if either) will get her in the end. Meanwhile, the Masked Bandit continues his courting, and Twillie, finding out his “wife” likes a man in costume, pretends he’s the bandit himself. Naturally, she discovers the fraud, but can’t save him from the town posse, who is now convinced he’s the villain. Well, she can’t save him at first. Just as she defended him when he lied and cheated gambling, Flower Bell comes to his aid again. She claims he’s no bandit, and after getting put in jail for defending him and her own shady associations, she busts out and saves the day, without giving away her lover.

Of course, we find out who the bandit is, and there are no surprises there. The fact that the bandit’s accent makes it clear he’s Latino (even if the actor isn’t) doesn’t bother West’s Flower Bell. She may be portraying a woman from the last century, but West doesn’t even bother to defend interracial romance in the film, which clearly condones it. The fact that Flower Bell repeatedly breaks the law—in harboring the bandit, in escaping from jail, etc.–never gives the heroine (or her creator) a moment’s worry. In fact, Flower Bell takes the bandit’s gold with pleasure as a reward for her kisses, and encourages the town (when he leaves a bundle of goodies for them) to do the same.

But the transgressive nature of this film goes so much further. The female lead is the hero, the brave town leader and both defender against and abettor of outlaws. W.C. Fields at points seems to be in his own movie (and from what we know of how little the two got along, and how much they wrote their own parts, he basically was). But in all of their interactions, she bests him with no more effort than pushing back a cuticle. Her character’s name highlights her extreme femininity, which clearly doesn’t stop her from having mad skills with guns or enough bravery to face TWO towns full of people eager to attack her. Flower Bell does everything without a trace of fear; in fact, she performs dangerous acts with BOREDOM, proving, lest any males doubt it, that Mae West will always be the biggest, baddest outlaw of them all.


Check out all the fun outlaw entries at the Classic Movie Blog Association’s site.

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Comic Relief: A Simple Favor & Can You Ever Forgive Me?

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Need comic respite? I’m happy to report that two new dramedies featuring strong women are even better than you’ve heard.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring national treasure Melissa McCarthy, is based on the memoir of real-life writer Lee Israel, who became a con artist to pay the vet bills (out in wide release on Oct. 19th). Unable to get anyone to care about the subject of her new biography, Fanny Brice, much less her dwindling finances, Israel turns to stealing letters of famous movie stars and writers, and soon begins penning fake ones herself. Classic movie lovers and bibliophiles will sympathize with her alienation from those who don’t spend their days reading Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker. (And you’ll enjoy a line about Louise Brooks, a nod to classic movie fans.)

Appreciators of one-liners will ask themselves why they haven’t bought Israel’s memoir yet: this woman could WRITE. There’s a reason she was successful at mimicking Parker and Coward. Brought to caustic life by Melissa McCarthy, Israel is sympathetic even at her darkest and lowest. Despite the depth of her despair and loneliness, she is relentlessly funny in the film. Israel and her similarly lost companion (and later conspirator), Jack Hock (Richard Grant), engage in so much snarky, on-point banter that you wish the two could have had an Algonquin Round Table of their own.


These two boozy companions are simply joyful company for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of darkness in their humor. And McCarthy deserves the awards buzz she’s getting for a riveting performance.

McCarthy’s frequent director Paul Feig has a film of his own out this month. Feig, who has a George Cukor flair for creating great vehicles for female stars, is at it again. The only question is whether Blake Lively or Anna Kendrick gets a meatier, more complex part in A Simple Favor, a story that is tonally closer to the light cynicism of Young Adult (2011) or the campiness of Serial Mom (1994) than to the darkness of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2014), to which it’s being compared. I’m hearing references to Double Indemnity from classic movie fans due to the film’s humor. Beat the Devil (1953) is more like it. Though A Simple Favor is a bit more controlled than that messy Truman Capote delight, there’s a bit of Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones) in both of these heroines.

Feig; the director of Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, and Ghostbusters (the reboot); is so open about preferring female leads and so appreciative of their comedic skills that it’s unsurprising to see both stars so funny and magnetic in his film. Their profane banter is hilarious, and the casual cruelty, self-interest, and denial of these particular frenemies are a blast to watch. I won’t spoil the surprise of what becomes of Emily (Lively), whose disappearance spurs mommy blogger Stephanie (Kendrick) into amateur detective/life-stalker mode.

There are some seriously batty plot developments that seem more like old-school soap operas than big screen fare (again, like Beat the Devil). But anyone paying attention knows plausibility is not the point. Just sit back and enjoy this dark comedy fun. (And don’t miss the recent titles and commentary on Stephanie’s bizarrely eclectic blog.) Those of us who have been following Feig since his brilliant creation, Freaks and Geeks, will be glad to see his first female lead, Linda Cardellini, in a scene-chewing, funny bit part. Let’s hope the films to follow these two this fall are half as fun.

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Women Who Love Too Much in Film

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I had another fun talk with Grace Collins of True Stories of Tinseltown! We chatted about women who love too much–from Tierney’s character in Leave Her to Heaven to Irene Dunne’s in Back Street (1932 version). Grace is a wonderful host and we had so much to say, especially about the dreadful narcissists John Boles liked to play, and how Bette Davis could really be a post of her own on this topic.

Clearly, this is a subject that needs much, much more discussion! Check it out here:

And definitely check out Grace’s other posts and other podcasts. She’s so witty and so knowledgeable about so many things!

https://www.inyourfacewithdonnieandgrace.com/news

http://www.truestoriesoftinseltown.com/

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Two Critics Pan Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain

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Friends and fellow film buffs: Brian Wilkins and Mike Gutierrez have written wonderful guest posts here at Cary Grant Won’t Eat You—Brian, on fighting in Sword and Sandals films, and Mike, on his ideal casting for Hitchcock remakes. Today they’re joining the second annual Alfred Hitchcock blogathon to consider what the famous director could have been thinking with Torn Curtain (1966).

B: This all started because I had a memory of a movie where a drunken Paul Newman, at the Nobel Ceremony in Stockholm, chats up beautiful blondes and a physicist who may or may not be trying to defect to East Germany. So when Torn Curtain was still available, I texted Mike and said we should grab it.

There’s only one problem.

Torn Curtain is a Paul Newman and Julie Andrews vehicle, about a conference in Copenhagen that ends in a physicist possibly defecting to East Germany. And it’s not the movie I remembered. That movie is The Prize directed by Mark Robson. This was Torn Curtain, and as Mike put it…

M: Torn Curtain is a deeply stupid movie.

And it shouldn’t be.

It’s 1966.  Newman and Andrews are two of the biggest stars in the world. It’s true that Hitchcock was winding down by then, but he’d only done The Birds three years earlier. The three of them coming together for some Cold War intrigue sounds like a sure-fire hit, or at least a fun two hours. But that’s not what happened. And, frankly, I’m not sure what happened during the film.

Newman is “defecting,” but no one believes that for a minute. Andrews is his doting girlfriend who follows him to East Germany and decides to stay with him–betraying her country for a guy who has been lying to her. The East German secret police announce themselves as the “secret police,” which doesn’t seem like something the secret police should do. It’s not clear if Newman is working with the US government or is going completely rogue, but somehow he has ties to the resistance even though he’s just a scientist.

I could keep going–the plot is inane, the characters inconsistent, and Newman and Andrews seemed to have lost their charms on the flight to Berlin–but you get the point. So, Brian, what do you see as the reason this movie went off the rails?

B: They squeezed all the fun out of the movie. In every single case where you could find a joke or a bit of dash, they threw a lead blanket on it. I’m mostly blaming the writer.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t think it was humanly possible to have zero chemistry with Paul Newman. I’m pretty sure even inanimate objects have chemistry with Paul Newman. Even his crutch in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof looks into being leaned on. Julie Andrews looks like he started every take by mansplaining parliamentary procedure.

M: Do you think they took out the fun or had no intention of making a fun movie? I’m thinking the writer considered this his grand epic about a deadly serious topic and wanted to make a bold statement about love and patriotism and the threat of the Soviets; that he believed it was high art, Oscar-bait.

And tonally, it keeps shifting from a romance to faux-intrigue to, well, we should probably talk about how Paul Newman and some farmer’s wife re-imagined Sylvia Plath’s death on the Stasi officer. That scene manages the incredible trick of being both disturbing and boring.

B: Let me do some research <looks at Wikipedia for 2 minutes>…oh, shit, this was a hot mess. Hitchcock shopped the idea to Nabokov, who turned it down (genius) then gave the script to Brian Moore (shortlisted 3 three times for the Booker prize) who really should have known better. Moore complained Hitch had no sense of characters. Hitchcock complained Moore wasn’t funny. So Hitchcock thought he was making North by Northwest and Moore thought he was writing…a boring version of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold?

But to the murder. Listen, I hate to get all professional about this, but there are a million things to murder someone with in a kitchen other than a gas stove. It’s almost like the house frau in question was like, “Do you know how hard it is to get Stasi brains out of a cast iron pan? I just seasoned it!”

M: I just spent five minutes re-imagining this film as if Nabokov wrote it. Then I started imagining if he’d written The Sound of Music. “No, you cannot sing the Nazi’s away, Julie Andrews. No.” I digress.

B: Rolling pin. Cleaning chemicals. Towel garrote. Meat hammer. Fork.

M: Ice pick?

B: Only if he’s a real Communist (yes, that’s a Trotsky joke, David Ives fans).

M: This was one of the big set pieces, the one that shows us that Newman isn’t just a dainty scientist but a badass with a Ph.D. Now, you’re married to a scientist–who I’m certain would have used a paring knife—

B: Correct. Or poison.

M: …and you’ve met scores of scientists in your life: is there anything about Newman’s character that seems the least bit authentic? Or, a better question, what do you think Newman thought he was supposed to be? He’s never been so charmless. He has that great, knowing smirk in everything he does. What movie did he think he was in?

B:  I think Newman read the character as a boring CIA agent the whole time. His character “starts in Washington” and ends with a “teaching position.” He’s just a physicist who couldn’t actually cut it, but as a bureaucrat briefing real spies on what to steal, he’s sort of useful. And I think Paul Newman would hate that man intensely. I’m guessing he needed to fund some sort of charity for kids with horrific cancer. Seriously, that man is a sexy, sexy saint.

M: I’m not sure the first Mrs. Paul Newman would agree. There is a voodoo doll of Joanne Woodward out there floating in the aether.

B: I started wondering if Joanne Woodward would be better casting than Julie Andrews, but, honestly, I don’t think anyone could have chewing gum and twined a performance from this script. Is there any trace of Hitchcock at all with the escape scene?

M: Sure. It’s an elaborate set piece–a bus chase before sneaking onto a ship–that’s supposed to be Hitchcock’s version of how he’d escape past the Berlin Wall. But it feels like a knock-off version of a Hitchcock climax, sort of like how 2 Days in the Valley ripped off Tarantino. The problem is that Andrews and Newman are passive characters in the escape. They’re sitting on a bus driven by someone else, and then shuffled onto a boat where they are shoved into baskets to sit in their own filth for days (weeks?) while someone else pilots the ship. Passive. It’s like Hitchcock forgot what made for great Hitchcock.

B: I never even thought of how this would be Hitchcock’s personal fantasy of how to get away: “Well, I’m certainly not going to run. And riding a motorcycle sounds sweaty. Perhaps I could just drift peacefully into freedom?”

M: Here’s the thing: Cary Grant kills a dude and saves the girl in North by Northwest.

Paul Newman sits in the back of the bus and hopes no one hurts him.

B: I think this film needs more dynamite, there, Butch. I tried to think of something I liked about this film but I’m coming up as empty as a housefrau looking for a murder weapon in a gun closet.

M: Yeah, I’ve got nothing. In the end, I found myself rooting for the Stasi.

B: Well, thank you for your patience, kind readers. I hope you’ve enjoyed being warned off what has to be in my top 5 worst movies of all time. See The Prize instead for all your Paul Newman Cold War-related hijinks. And …oh! Bear Island with Julie Andrews. It’s got the UN, it’s set off the coast of Norway, and there’s a possibly gold-filled U-Boat.

M: That sounds awesome. I’ve never seen it. Let me do some research <looks at Wikipedia for 2 minutes>…. You did it again: You got Julie Andrews confused with Vanessa Redgrave.

B: That’s more telling about my fantasy life than I would like. MEA CULPA!

Check out the other posts in Maddy Loves Her Classic Film‘s The Second Annual Alfred Hitchcock Blogathon, including her post on Rebecca!

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My Podcast Talk on True Stories Of Tinseltown

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It was a riot talking with Grace Collins of True Stories of Tinseltown about Stella Dallas, William Powell, The Blue Gardenia, and Brief Encounter. We had fun comparing loves and gripes about classic films, particularly our united dislike for the husband in Stella Dallas and the supposedly romantic male lead of Brief Encounter. You can find the podcast here. I hope you will also check out her other podcasts. The one on Mary Astor’s diary is especially brilliant! Thanks to Grace for being such a great host and for taking the time to listen to me rant:)

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