Television: Alfred Hitchcock Presents

The Alfred Hitchcock Blogathon is an event dedicated to the life and career of the legendary filmmaker, hosted by Maddy Loves Her Classic Films. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

Good evening.

Perhaps more than any other director of the Golden Age, Alfred Hitchcock was a personality, someone known by movie audiences as well as any movie star, and never was that more apparent than when he made the leap to television in 1955 with Alfred Hitchcock Presents, AKA The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

A weekly anthology of suspense and horror stories, it’s notable not just for the quality of the stories but for how it shaped the Hitchcock persona. His droll sense of deadpan humor was often on display in his movies, sometimes as part of the cameo appearances he’d make in them. For TV, it was like he became an eccentric uncle with whom you were never sure if he was pulling your leg or not.

His introductions to each episode painted him as macabre yet self-depreciating, with a dry wit and a strong sense of the absurd, much like The Addams Family years later. The creepy theme song and the stylized cartoon silhouette of him also helped sell him as an iconic persona that one looked forward to seeing as much as the stories themselves. Here’s a collection of some of his more memorable intros and outros and here are some fun facts about the show.

So nothing fancy here; just my take on a few episodes picked at random. I didn’t realize when I began planning for this post AHP (a half hour) was a little different from AHH (an hour), though it’s all basically the same show.

Diabolique (1955)

Diabolique (1955) (AKA Les Diaboliques)
YouTube viewing

In 1940, Henri-Georges Clouzot was in a desperate state. The screenwriter had spent five years in a sanatorium during the 30s, recovering from tuberculosis, and while he had used the time to further study his craft, his scripts were selling poorly and he was running out of money. Meanwhile, World War 2 had broken out. When an offer came his way to work for a German-based film production company, HGC had no choice but to take it.

It led to him becoming a director, but after the war, he and other filmmakers were tried in court as German collaborators. He was banned from making films for life, but that sentence was reduced to only two years thanks to a bunch of artists rallying to his cause, including Jean Cocteau, Rene Clair and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Thanks to their efforts in reducing his exile, HGC went on to become one of the finest filmmakers in the long and proud history of French cinema, and one of his greatest hits is today’s subject, Diabolique, an entertaining thriller he co-adapted from a book and made with his wife.

Brazilian actress Vera Gibson-Amado had divorced French actor Leo Lapara when she met HGC in the late 40s. Lapara had roles in earlier HGC films and she worked as a continuity assistant. Long story short, Vera and HGC fell in love, got married and she became Vera Clouzot.

As a film actress, she would only make three films before her death from a heart attack in 1960, but they were all for her husband and the production company named for her, Vera Films. Diabolique was one. If it feels like a Hitchcock film to you, well, the Master did express an interest in making it, but HGC beat him to the punch.

In the movie, the wife and mistress of the same man conspire to kill him, but after they do the deed, strange things occur that lead them to believe he’s not as dead as they thought. Vera plays the wife, future Oscar winner Simone Signoret plays the mistress. Their characters both work for male lead Paul Meurisse, the man in both their lives, in the same boarding school, so they’re all closely connected even outside their infidelities.

As you might expect, the mounting evidence that something about the murder didn’t go right hinders the women’s partnership, and while their triangle is an open secret amongst their co-workers (and even the kids in the school), Meurisse’s sudden disappearance raises some uncomfortable questions the women have to deal with. The truth revealed at the end definitely surprised me, though I had to think further to remember the clues as to its plausibility.

Perhaps you remember Sharon Stone’s remake in 1996. If not, you didn’t miss much; it bombed big time.

Lady of Burlesque

Lady of Burlesque
YouTube viewing

Well, I certainly didn’t expect a murder mystery from a movie titled Lady of Burlesque! Maybe I should’ve looked at the poster first. This one was kinda hard to follow for three reasons: a huge cast, with most of them talking a mile a minute, and in a hipster lingo from almost a century ago. It was worth it, though, to see Barbara Stanwyck shaking her moneymaker!

The history of burlesque dancing is a long one, covering much of world history, cultural mores, fashion, etc. Here’s a Cliff Notes version written by modern burlesque dancer Dita von Teese. For this post, we need to focus on one dancer in particular.

Gypsy Rose Lee was exposed to showbiz early in life. To support the family, she performed in vaudeville, dancing with her older sister, June Havoc, as kids. When June eloped, GRL was able to continue solo as a striptease artist. The legend has it that she chose this path when she had a wardrobe malfunction one night on stage that turned in her favor. She added humor to her act and became a star, performing as part of the Minsky Brothers’ burlesque show in New York.

Parasite

Parasite
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY

When I began WSW over nine years ago (!), I was more up on new releases than I am now. You could say I believed it was part of my responsibility as a film blogger. Hanging around classic film bloggers over time made me think otherwise, and now I no longer pay as close attention to things like who’s getting cast in what movie, what project a given director is eyeing, or what the weekend box office take for the latest franchise movie was.

So when I saw that this foreign movie I had only recently heard of called Parasite was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, it took me completely by surprise—but if I had been following the Oscar race year-round, like I used to, chances are I could’ve seen it coming. This was the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes. It has a score of 99 at Rotten Tomatoes. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and has been nominated for a ton of other awards around the world.

This film is a huge hit. I had thought the Academy was being enlightened and progressive by nominating it for its top honor, and they kind of are, but I think in this case, it might have been simply too big for them to ignore.

Still getting used to the name Bong Joon Ho, the director and co-writer (I keep saying “Boon Jong” instead). He’s been around awhile—months ago I saw his SF movie Snowpiercer on Netflix. I thought about doing a post on it, but never did. No real reason.

I’ve watched quite a few movies on Netflix I haven’t blogged about. That might be another way WSW has evolved: used to be I felt I needed constant content to stay visible, so I would blog four to six times a week, on everything I saw, but a pace like that was unsustainable for me. Some bloggers can do it. I can’t.

Snowpiercer had Western stars like Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton in it (a sign of how well known he is already), but Parasite was made in his native South Korea, with Korean actors. The premise is original and delightfully subversive: a dirt-poor, unemployed family figures out a way to infiltrate the household of a rich family by posing as strangers and secretly getting the established staff out, one by one, which leads to different problems. There are plans for an HBO miniseries that will expand the original story further.

Once I figured out the basic premise, I really got into the story. It’s funny in places, and the climax is a gory bloodbath, so it’s hard to classify this movie. I’ve seen it described both as a black comedy and a thriller; I lean more toward the latter but really, it’s its own thing. The class struggle is obviously a major theme, but it’s not like it preaches. Every character is unsympathetic to one degree or another, and the friction between the two families produces the movie’s memorable moments. I’m reminded of the work of Luis Bunuel, or to a lesser extent, Mike Leigh, crossed with Tarantino. I’d have to see more of Bong’s work to know whether or not this is typical of him.

Not much more to say. Good acting, good set design—the contrast between the families’ homes is sharp—great screenplay, obviously, good score. This is everything you would want in a movie.

Knives Out

Knives Out
seen @ Cinepolis Chelsea, New York NY

Knives Out is a movie based on an ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY. These days it’s rare that such a beast exists in Hollywood, much less one that becomes a hit, much much less that it’s written and directed by the same person, so I feel it’s important to establish this up front. In this case, that person is current wunderkind Rian Johnson, the guy who directed the Star Wars movie everybody hated—or so it seems, if you go by social media.

I did not see The Last Jedi, nor am I likely to anytime soon. I’m burnt out on Star Wars right now, and being reminded of it everywhere I go these days doesn’t help—but I am familiar with Johnson’s career before he hit the motherload. He did the SF time travel flick Looper, which was interesting, and he did an earlier one called Brick, a suspense movie of a different stripe from the sound of it, which is currently in my Netflix queue.

Johnson has become the new caretaker of the Star Wars franchise: he’s slated to write the next three movies after this month’s latest installment, The Rise of Skywalker (which he did not write or direct). If so, I hope it doesn’t mean a moratorium on films like Knives, because it was good. If you’ve heard about it, you know it’s a modern-day, Agatha Christie-style murder mystery, with an all-star cast.

Daniel Craig plays the sleuth looking to solve the mystery, a character who’s more Tennessee Williams than Agatha Christie. Craig puts on a broad Southern accent for this one, and once you get past the sight of James Bond talking like Burl Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, he’s actually not bad. I wouldn’t call him flamboyant; it’s just that he stands out among a cast of very Northern, very modern characters.

In this story, you’re led to believe a specific someone committed the murder; in fact, halfway through the film you even see how the deed was done, but the murder only leads to subsequent events that are equally important—and was it a murder anyway, or did it only look like one? Johnson guides you down one blind alley after another before changing the rules of the game so that you’re no longer sure of anything. It’s quite clever.

Is Knives meant to be a comedy? The marketing for it, as well as interviews with Johnson I read, made me think so, but neither I nor the smallish audience I saw it with (perhaps 20-30 people) did a great deal of laughing. That’s okay, it was still an excellent movie, but I was kinda hoping it was a comedy, in the vein of earlier flicks like Clue and Murder By Death.

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first fiction movie I’ve seen that directly discusses the current occupant of the White House. His actions are debated in a scene where they’re both condemned and defended, and while this scene doesn’t play into the plot, it gives us a deeper insight into the squabbling family of the story: their privilege, their conscience, and ultimately their cluelessness. One of the big themes of Knives involves immigration and what it means to live in America as a foreigner, but Johnson doesn’t hit you over the head with it, to his credit. This movie’s real good.

Have I talked about Cinepolis before? It’s in Chelsea. The national chain took over this local theater a few years ago and they’ve done a good job. Gourmet food though not on the level of Alamo Drafthouse, single-digit matinee screenings (barely; it’s $9.50, but still), reclining seats with trays, even programmed events and film series. It’s a good bargain, for Manhattan.

The Good Liar

The Good Liar
seen @ AMC Lincoln Square 13, New York NY

Sometimes two actors star in a movie for the first time and you wonder why they never appeared together sooner. Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen have both become big-bordering-on-household names later in their respective careers; the former as a result of her Oscar win for the 2006 biopic The Queen, the latter for his leading roles in the X-Men and Lord of the Rings franchises, but both of them have done consistently good work from earlier in life.

In an industry that worships at the altar of youth, it’s reassuring to know the two of them can be perceived not only as legitimate stars but glamorous ones, in their own ways. McKellen has this sly, almost roguish charm partly inspired by his great friendship with Patrick Stewart. He’s the cool grandpa who’ll not only let you play that Sex Pistols record that drives your folks up the wall, but he’ll buy you tickets to see them in concert and mosh in the pit with you!

As for Mirren, much has been written of her status as a GMILF icon. Recently, actresses like Jamie Lee Curtis and Linda Hamilton have found new life late in their careers as a result of reviving franchises they’re known for, and re-presenting themselves as badass mamas on par with their male counterparts. Mirren, by contrast, can be badass with a look better than other actresses her age can with a gun. She’s deliciously, irresistibly, unmistakably female—and powerful.

Therefore, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see them together in The Good Liar, the latest collaboration between McKellen and director Bill Condon, of Gods and Monsters fame—despite the mediocre reviews. Besides, as I said to Virginia after we saw it, it’s really nice to see thespians of their caliber together in a film that for once, doesn’t have mutants, aliens, giant robots or dragons. There’s still a place for films like this today, and if they’re good, they should be supported when possible.

And we thought it was good. Mirren and McKellen meet through an online dating service for seniors. They see each other, but he has an ulterior motive: he’s a con man trying to cheat her out of her savings. Her grandson suspects McKellen’s not what he seems, but then, neither is she... Lots of great location shots of London and Berlin, lots of double-dealing, an important World War 2 connection, and our two stars, in a story that only works with them as older people, not younger ones. They’re sexy without having sex, though there’s a very good in-story reason for that—-and while there’s some violence, it serves the story. Is it Hitchcock? Not quite, but it’s very watchable.

From what I could tell, it was close to a full house on an early Saturday evening, mostly full of old farts like me and Virginia. Going to the movies with her is a gas. She’s the type that’ll audibly react to everything: an “umph” at a notable plot twist, an “oooh” when things take a sinister turn, a “No, no, no” when the protagonist is on the verge of making the wrong decision—but with a big crowd, like last Saturday, I’m always worried someone will try to shush her, especially in a crowd of old farts! It didn’t happen, and I hope it doesn’t, but I can’t help but wonder...

I don’t go to many “senior-sploitation” flicks like this, probably because I don’t like thinking I’m the audience for them. I’m not even fifty yet! Still, the truth is, most of my friends these days are well north of fifty—hell, north of sixty. Don’t ask me why; it just happened that way. When I wrote about recent shifts in audience taste for comedy films, I acknowledged my tastes have changed from when I was younger. Does that mean I’ve gotten old? I fear it does—but if Mirren and McKellen are any kind of example, being old ain’t what it used to be.

Duel

The Richard Matheson Blogathon is an event devoted to the career of the science fiction/thriller writer of film, television and fiction. Debbie and I thank you for taking part. Be sure to check our blogs to discover all the entries!

Duel
YouTube viewing

I never learned to drive, so I've never been subject to "road rage." Sure, I've ridden with drivers who have gotten mad at other drivers and vented their frustration at them in some fashion. Sadly, it happens all too often these days because some people are either too ignorant or too impatient to follow the rules of the road.

But being mad enough at another driver to try to do them harm? Man, I hope I never see that first-hand. That takes a special kind of crazy. Why does that kinda stuff happen anyway?

The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey Theater, Jersey City NJ

I think part of the reason The Silence of the Lambs is as unsettling as it is has to do with the cinematography. Jonathan Demme (and his DP, Tak Fujimoto) used so many tight close-ups, which in another film, might feel different, but here I found them claustrophobic, as if Jodie Foster was trapped in the frame with Anthony Hopkins — which, in a way, she was.

Apparently, this was a motif of the late Demme's work, although I don't remember for sure because it's been a long time since I've seen his films (Married to the Mob, Stop Making Sense, Philadelphia, Beloved, Rachel Getting Married, etc.).

Usually we welcome seeing our favorite stars' faces twenty feet high, but in Silence, I longed for room to breathe, metaphorically speaking, to get away from Hannibal Lecter. And of course, Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill was so revolting, you wouldn't want to look at him up close, but we get that too.

At the time of Demme's death last year, this article by a gay writer went up on Slate, discussing Silence and Philadelphia in a gay context. You may recall the Buffalo Bill character was the focus of controversy from gay groups, and the latter film was believed to be Demme's apology for it.

At the time, I understood very little of the whole thing, and I'm probably not the one to address it now; I only bring it up here to note how the conversation about Demme and Silence has evolved, however slowly, in the past quarter century.

I was pleasantly surprised to see who else was in this movie. I knew about Kasi Lemmons, who went on to become a filmmaker. Demme's former mentor, Roger Corman, has a brief cameo as the FBI director; Charles Napier is the guard Hannibal kills when he escapes; singer Chris Isaak is a SWAT officer; even George Romero has an uncredited bit as a fed (though that one I found out about later, on IMDB).

Going to the Loews JC was a last-minute decision, but as usual, I'm glad I did it. Nothing particularly special to report this time; just another fun night out at the best place to see a film in the tri-state area.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
seen @ AMC Loews Orpheum 7, New York NY

I regret I have not travelled often by train. Oh, I take the subway all the time, living in New York, not to mention the occasional ride on the commuter rails to Long Island and upstate, but to sit in a reclining seat (one you can sleep in), to have a separate car where you can eat, another where you can look out on the vast landscape as you chug along to wherever you're going... that's special.

Train travel is more of a social experience than air travel - or it used to be, anyway, before everyone had a laptop or a cell phone or an iPod. Back in the 90s, I went to Chicago by train; on the way back, I met this pregnant Japanese girl who was meeting her husband in New York. We had a nice time chatting. When we arrived in Penn Station, I recall giving her directions to - was it Port Authority? - someplace important like that; wherever it was her husband was supposed to meet her.

Currently, Amtrak links New York to the rest of the country via two tracks within a single tunnel, however, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy dealt serious damage to this connection.

The Gateway Tunnel project is an initiative led by Amtrak to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River. Amtrak believes construction could begin next year, despite a lack of commitment by the president to supply federal funding. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it.

Around the world, train travel is regarded differently. High-speed rail (HSR) makes regional travel quick and relatively easy. China's trains are the fastest overall, but the "Red Arrow," the Trenitalia Frecciarossa 1000 - doing a crisp 220 MPH up and down Italy - is currently the fastest in Europe. The Amtrak Acela Express, by contrast, goes 150 MPH between Boston and DC. Although HSR is coming to California soon, the truth is, rail travel isn't the priority here that it is in other developed nations.

Still, none of these sleek, ultra-modern jaguars have the mystique and allure of the Orient Express. Begun in 1883 as a route from Paris to Istanbul (not Constantinople), it evolved into the ultimate luxury rail line. A version of the original line still exists today; if you got the dough, you can ride it.

The Orient Express has been represented in almost every popular media you can think of, including the Bond film From Russia with Love, a George Cukor film called Travels with My Aunt, and of course, a caboose-ful of adaptations of the Agatha Christie novel Murder on the Orient Express.

Kenneth Branagh is the latest filmmaker to ride the famous rail, readapting the Christie tale; he also leads an all-star cast as the epically-mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot. This was my first exposure to the story; I never read the book or saw any of the other films, so I liked it more, perhaps, than a number of reviewers, or Vija, with whom I saw the film.

I recognize the classic mystery conventions of the story, because they've been re-used and parodied so often: everyone bowing to Poirot's genius; the relative civility of the suspects; the way they conveniently line up for Poirot when he's about to reveal whodunnit. It's okay. This is a modern movie but it has an old-fashioned aesthetic.

Mother!

Mother!
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

I'm sorry, but I didn't get this movie. I understood that Darren Aronofsky was going for an allegorical kind of story, that what was presented shouldn't be taken literally (how can it?), and given a second or third screening, its true meaning might become clearer (the perils of the creative process, is my best guess at the moment), but I'm not sure I wanna sit through two more hours of watching Jenny Lawrence going through what she goes through. I mean, I could describe it as "Married couple in isolated house receive strange visitors," but that doesn't begin to describe the crazy. I will say it felt a hell of a lot like a Lars von Trier movie. That's either a compliment or an insult, depending on how you view him. I went into this one blind, like I did for Scorsese's Silence last winter, thinking I didn't need to know any more than the director and the stars (it was good to see Javier Bardem again), but maybe I should reconsider doing that for awhile! I will avoid reading about it until after I post this, in order to keep my impressions fresh. I reserve the right to amend this at a later date, though.

A Double Life

A Double Life

YouTube viewing

I still remember how shocking it was when Heath Ledger died. The widely-held belief at the time, which has persisted for years, was that his role as the Joker in the Batman film The Dark Knight somehow drove him nuts, that he took the role of the psychopathic thrill-killer too seriously, and this led to his death from drug overdose at the age of 29. Indeed, this perception may have led to his posthumous Oscar win. A documentary was released earlier this year, made with his family's support, that disputes this belief, but one suspects it will forever be a part of his legend, that it will cling to his memory like a shadow. It simply makes for better copy.

In my limited experience in acting, I was taught to find an emotional truth that you can bring to your role, to inform your character. I remember trying to do that, though it was never for more than a scene or two in class. If I were to try it for the length of a play, well, I can only imagine what that might be like. I suspect it's difficult to draw upon that emotional well for an extended length of time and not have it do something to your head.

This is the subject of A Double Life, the George Cukor film written by Ruth Gordon & Garson Kanin about theater acting, featuring Ronald Colman in his Oscar-winning role. 

This was one of the most unusual Old Hollywood films I've ever seen. Colman literally did two movies in one: the story of Tony, the Broadway thespian and his descent into madness, and Othello, performed on an actual stage in front of an actual audience, with makeup, costume, sets and everything. 

Cukor and the Kanins sought to immerse us in the life of the theater; we see big chunks of the Othello play, but we also see random audience reactions during key scenes, something you don't see often. Colman gives a great monologue about theater acting, set to a montage of behind-the-scenes preparation. Also, the film takes its time to get going. It feels more like a character-driven story than a plot-driven one.

The Othello half looks magnificent. This is one time I can accept seeing blackface in an old Hollywood film, partly because it's Shakespeare, partly because it doesn't feel exploitative. In fact, given Colman's beard, wig, and wardrobe, I thought he looked a lot like a Klingon! (And as we all know, you cannot truly appreciate Shakespeare until you have read it in the original Klingon.)

Tony takes the role of Othello reluctantly, as if he knows he shouldn't get too close to it. Events in his personal life begin to resemble the play, but even before they do, we see him thinking about the role, letting it get under his skin (which we're led to believe is not necessarily a bad thing), even causing him to have an illicit affair with Shelley Winters. He doesn't come across as peculiar or emotionally disturbed at first, but then, Ledger probably didn't, either.

I don't wanna draw too many comparisons between this fictional character and Ledger, especially since no one really knows what he was thinking while he filmed The Dark Knight. His family insists playing the Joker didn't mess with his head; fine, but something did, or else he'd be alive now. Life makes clear the role of Othello did screw with Tony, but something within him made him susceptible. That is less clear. Maybe it can't be known. Why does anyone succumb to mental illness?

Life is so unlike Cukor's other work in terms of subject matter and characterization, one wonders why he, or the Kanins, for that matter, didn't do more work in this vein. Maybe it hit too close to home?

Rebecca (1940)

The Till Death Us Do Part Blogathon is an event studying murder in movie marriages, hosted by Cinemaven's Essays From the Couch. For a list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

Rebecca (1940)
from my DVD collection

As a movie about murdering spouses, Rebecca is a bit of a cheat, since the "murder" happens prior to the beginning. We know now that Hitchcock had to change the ending of Daphne du Maurier's book to appease the censors - Laurence Olivier only thought about killing Rebecca for having another man's baby; her death was an accident (yeah, right!) - but most people agree this is still a compelling movie.

According to the Criterion DVD liner notes, Du Maurier was less than thrilled with Hitchcock as the choice of director, because she didn't believe he'd stick with her original story, yet she turned down the opportunity to write the screenplay herself. Producer David O. Selznick was determined to keep the story as is, but the Production Code specifically stated murderers had to pay for their crime - hence the revision.

Hitch wasn't all that satisfied with the finished product, but for different reasons. He wanted Margaret Sullavan as the nameless protagonist; Selznick, after a long tryout, went with the relative newcomer Joan Fontaine. Hitch came to like her eventually, but he had to coach her a lot. Plus, members of the crew were snitching behind his back to Selznick. Hitch also was dissatisfied with what he felt was a lack of humor in the screenplay, although there's certainly a little bit, like in the early scenes with Fontaine's governess. As the director told Francois Truffaut years later,"[Rebecca] has held up quite well over the years. I don't know why."

The day I re-watched the movie was a full and slightly unusual one. I chose to watch it with Vija at her place, but before that, I had spent the day out in Long Island. I had a yen to spend the day someplace I had never been to before; I wanted to go upstate again, but I knew I wouldn't have had as much time. The seaside town of Long Beach was closer. They have a beautiful beach and boardwalk.

I went to a donut shop I had read about, but it was on the opposite end of town, a long walk from where I was. This might not have been so bad, except halfway there, it rained. Hard. I had to rush back to the train station in a downpour under my tiny umbrella, clutching the bag with my box of donuts, my feet soaked in my shoes from all the puddles.

Fast forward to Vija's place in the city. She had opened the occasion up to our movie-going group. Susan came, whom I hadn't seen in awhile. She enjoyed playing with Vija's cat. The DVD player was a second-hand gift from Franz, only he neglected to mention how second-hand it was. While it worked okay when we watched Lust for Life (despite the scratchy disc), here it chose to act up.

Vija had to fiddle with the wires and controls just to get the main menu. The disc played for awhile, but then the player stopped cold at the worst possible moment: right when Olivier was about to tell Fontaine the truth about how Rebecca died! This time, no amount of fiddling worked - and my DVD was stuck inside the player, unable to come out! If Franz had been there, I would've made him pay for my DVD! As for the movie, I had to tell Vija and Susan the ending by reading it off of Wikipedia.

But that's not all! We talked for awhile, and eventually Susan and I left. I walked to nearby Penn Station and bought a LIRR ticket home. Right after I did that, Vija called to tell me she got the player working again! I had about another forty minutes until my train departed, so I rushed back to her place to get my DVD. As I did, I got another call - from Sandi, back from her vacation. We talked for a little bit, made plans to get together on the Fourth, right as I arrived at Vija's place again.

She wanted to watch a little more of the movie, so we did. We got as far as the inquisition scene, in which Olivier is questioned about his marriage to Rebecca and Fontaine faints. Then I had to catch my train. At least I got my DVD back!

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Other movies about homicidal spouses (an abbreviated list):
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Double Indemnity
Gaslight
Mildred Pierce

Bug

Bug
Cinemax viewing

Everybody remembers William Friedkin as the director of two of the biggest hit films of the 70s, The French Connection and The Exorcist. He was one of the "new Hollywood" breed from that pivotal era, the ones who rewrote the rules of American cinema. In Peter Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Friedkin describes the moment he met director Howard Hawks, after the younger filmmaker had made the gay melodrama The Boys in the Band. Hawks, Old Hollywood and macho to the core, had criticized Friedkin for making such a somber, dramatic movie instead of something with more action:

...Hawks's words did matter to Friedkin. "They really stayed with me," he recalls. "I would have embarked on a course of having made obscure Miramax type films before Miramax. But I had this epiphany that what we were doing wasn't making fucking films to hang in the Louvre. We were making films to entertain people and if they didn't do that first they didn't fulfill their primary purpose. It's like somebody gives you a key and you didn't even know there was a lock; it led to The French Connection."

It was an approach that had worked for him for a time. A life of excess, however, led to ambitious projects that failed at the box office, and Friedkin's career was never the same.

Over thirty years later, Friedkin teamed up with playwright Tracy Letts, to adapt his play Bug. The result was more of a "Miramax type film" (it was actually made at Lionsgate), meaning - if I interpret this correctly - heavy on the drama, B-level stars at best, narrower distribution.

Does that equal obscure in this case? Bug opened domestically on 1661 screens in May 2007. By way of contrast, Spider-Man 3, which opened the same month, played on 4252 screens. As for Miramax itself, they released the French drama Golden Door on two screens in June, while Oscar-winner No Country for Old Men opened on 28 screens in November, so Bug actually had a much wider release than the average Miramax movie. I think, though, Friedkin may have referred to content instead of distribution.

Regardless, this was an awesome movie. Ashley Judd plays a waitress living in a motel room, trying to avoid her ex-con ex-husband. She meets a pre-fame Michael Shannon, who's also trying to put his past behind him, only in his case, it's much worse. When his personal demons are brought to the surface, they infect Judd in a profound way. Revealing any more would spoil the story.

Bug doesn't resemble any of Friedkin's other work visually; it looks modern. Perhaps because it's a play, there are fewer cuts; we linger on the actors in longer takes, a refreshing contrast to many modern films. I never thought of Friedkin as an actor's director - he is the guy who nearly crippled Ellen Burstyn just to get a genuine reaction from her on camera - but he gets Oscar-caliber performances from Judd and Shannon. Much of the action takes place in Judd's motel room, but it doesn't feel too stagey.

According to Riders, Friedkin was afraid of being labeled an art film director. When Connection took off, making big money and winning Oscars, he embraced commercialism. Bug made a little over $7 million from an estimated $4 million budget. Granted, the 21st century economics of American film are substantially different from the 70s, but with this film, it does look like Friedkin reembraced his original aesthetic.

Bug wraps themes of paranoia and conspiracy within an unconventional love story, one with a downer ending - not the kind of movie audiences flock to the way they did for The Exorcist, and certainly not the kind of which Hawks would have approved. I suspect, though, that Friedkin no longer cared.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

The Blind Spot is an ongoing series hosted by The Matinee in which bloggers watch and write about movies they've never seen before. For a list of past movies, visit the home site.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
TCM viewing

I never had any prior interest in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I've written about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford here before. I probably will again. For years, though, this particular film has had... a reputation. The impression I had was that it was made long after their glory days and it wasn't very good.

Also, I'll admit it: I wasn't comfortable with the way it has been embraced by the gay community. I've discussed how I worked with an older gay man during my years in video retail. I learned a great deal about movies from him. I also discovered a few tidbits about gay culture. I think some things about it, though, such as their connection to movies like Baby Jane, will remain forever misunderstood by me, and I think that was what kept me from watching this movie for so long. 

In my mind, it can't be just another classic film because it's so closely identified with gay camp. It's as if it's "their" movie now. To watch it would be like encroaching on their territory... and it might say something about me also. So there you have it: my own personal bit of prejudice. I'm not proud of it, but it exists.

It's perhaps no surprise, then, that it took an external force to get me to overcome my bias. I knew, from the moment I saw the ads for the FX mini-series Feud: Bette and Joan, that I'd have to write about it for the blog. In addition to my general interest in seeing two modern acting powerhouses, Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, playing two classic ones, it would also let me do something new: write about a current TV show as it airs, week by week. After the first episode, though, it became clear that while I could watch Feud without having seen Baby Jane, I'd appreciate the former more if I did.

The movie is not that great, but it's not as terrible as I had thought it would be, either. It's basically a Sunset Boulevard ripoff: two has-beens, a former child star from vaudeville and her crippled sister, a former film star, grapple for possession of the house that has been their de facto prison for years. When one sees the opportunity for a comeback in showbiz, the decades of spite and jealousy between the two are exacerbated.

I liked that director Robert Aldrich used footage from actual Davis & Crawford movies to show Baby Jane & Blanche's Hollywood careers. Billy Wilder did the same thing with Gloria Swanson in Sunset, though, so it's not like this was a new trick. Still, I didn't expect to see that.

I also liked seeing the difference television made during this time period, the early 60s. One character says how happy she was to see Blanche's movies on TV again. I believe her words were, "It was like seeing an old friend again." TV has become so integral to everyday life today that we easily forget what it was like when it was new; what it did for the careers of many actors and films who might have otherwise gone forgotten - much the same way Turner Classic Movies does for a new generation of film fans.

An able-bodied person keeping a wheelchair-bound person prisoner is obviously something I've seen in Misery, which came decades after Baby Jane. However, I can appreciate how this angle must have seemed fresh in 1962. Crawford gets to do physical things without the use of her legs, which must have been quite a challenge at her age (she would have been 56 when she made the movie).

Feud has made me aware of how much she needed to make Baby Jane, for personal and professional reasons, to the point where she was willing to bury the hatchet, however temporarily, with her great rival Davis. I recalled the moments in Feud where we see Crawford undermining Davis' performance, like wearing 10-pound weights on her waist when Davis has to carry her, or padding her bra so she'll get more attention. Even if stuff like this is exaggeration, one gets the feeling it should have happened.

As for Davis, again, Feud showed how wearing that gaudy makeup was a conscious choice on her part, an acting decision that was meant to inform the Baby Jane character. You have to admire the guts of someone like Davis to just go for broke, unafraid of how she'll look, in the name of art. Baby Jane is a pathetic character, yet tragic as well. Her look emphasizes that, even in black and white.

All that said, this movie still feels very derivative of Sunset: the reclusive movie star forgotten by modern audiences, the attempt at a comeback through collaboration with a young man, murder and madness. Even the ending, where Baby Jane goes completely over the edge, feels like a carbon copy of Sunset's famous final frames. Davis & Crawford have their moments, but I would have preferred their one team-up to have been for something a little less over-the-top. Would it have been as memorable, though? We'll never know. (Kudos also to Maidie Norman as the maid. She got a fair amount of screen time with both principals.)

Still, I'm glad I finally saw it, as a means to overcome my prejudice, if nothing else.

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Related:
Feud: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Previous Blind Spot films:
Gone With the Wind
Charlie Chan in Paris
Jaws
Lawrence of Arabia

Misery

Misery
IFC viewing

It's not hard to imagine what Kathy Bates' character in Misery would be like today. Annie would have a Misery blog at the very least; probably a full website as well. I could see her debating minutiae about the Misery books with other fans on message boards and holding court in chatrooms. It goes without saying that her Twitter avatar would be taken from the cover of a Misery book. Her handle would be something like @Misery4Eva or maybe even @Higher_Justice. Do romance book fans cosplay?

Was fandom always obsessive? Did Shakespeare's fans pester him in the streets, demanding to know when the next play was coming out? Did Beethoven fans bag and board his sheet music? Did Dickens fans run around quoting Great Expectations at each other? We like to think the stereotypical obsessive fan is a modern invention, but surely there were precedents? I feel like it must be something within human nature that drives us this way. Not being a psychologist, I couldn't say for sure, but it does make you wonder.

I read comic books as a kid, but only Marvel comics. Through in-house advertising, letters pages and promotional editorials, I was subtly conditioned to believe Marvel was the best and everything else was inferior. As a result, I bought almost everything with the Marvel name on the cover, regardless of quality. Looking back now, I can see this as the compulsive behavior it was, but I can also write it off as youthful enthusiasm coupled with ignorance.

Sometimes I think blogging about film is an obsession. I know much more about movies, past and present, than the average person, though not nearly as much as others. Some might call that unusual. Again, though, I feel like I can justify it: I've always said the blog keeps me writing, and movies are the means to that end. Rationalization or convenient excuse?

I mean, it does seem like there's no such thing as a casual fan anymore, at least if you go by the Internet (which is no substitute for reality, I know, but bear with me). My Twitter feed is full of (as far as I know) ordinary, non-psychopathic killers who are not shy about sharing their enthusiasms with each other. If the Internet didn't exist, would we all sit at home with our Buster Keaton DVDs and X-Men comics and Nick Hornby novels, like Annie in Misery, waiting for someone to talk to about all this cock-a-doodie stuff?

I think that's why I can't help feeling for Annie, despite her homicidal tendencies. (Well, that and the fact that Bates is outstanding in the role.) Maybe if she had other Misery fans to hang out with, her life would be different. Maybe she wouldn't have to sit up in that small, isolated house all alone with her pig, listening to Liberace records, re-reading her Misery books over and over and wishing she had a child. Maybe she could put a one-in-a-million encounter with Paul Sheldon in the proper perspective, instead of demanding more Misery novels from him.

Then again, maybe not. One major drawback of Online Fandom Assembled that has reared its ugly head in recent years is the groupthink mentality, particularly when it's directed towards anyone with an opinion opposite that of the herd. This fustercluck over Suicide Squad is but the latest in a long, long line of recent examples. Strange how this sort of thing never happens with, say, Woody Allen movies...

Perhaps we should just accept that to be a fan of anything is to be a little crazy. Maybe not hobbling-people's-feet crazy, but crazy nonetheless. Because like my father used to say, "fan" is only a short way of saying "fanatic"... Mister Man!