What a Life
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What a Life is a largely forgotten entry in the careers of Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett. Wilder doesn't even mention it in Conversations with Wilder, Cameron Crowe's book-length interview with the writer-director.
It's based on a play, but Paramount liked it enough to turn it into a franchise, featuring Jackie Cooper's lead character, Henry Aldrich, no doubt to compete with Andy Hardy over at Metro. Prior to this, I only knew Cooper from the Superman movies from the 70s and 80s, but of course, he had a notable career as a child star in the 30s, as one of the Little Rascals and in films like The Champ.
Henry is more of a schlemiel than Andy; he doesn't try to get into trouble, but it seems to find him anyway - and you can bet he gets the blame. He's Peter Parker without the benefit of a radioactive spider bite. Dad is implied but never seen, so there's no one with whom he can have a "man-to-man" talk (though a sympathetic teacher offers him guidance late in the film). There's a Mary Jane character for him to pine over and a Flash character to bully him, some oddball teachers, a semi-romantic adult couple, Hedda Hopper as Henry's mom, a glowering principal, even a cop!
To be honest, if this was the first Wilder film I saw (he only co-wrote; he didn't direct), I would not guess he'd go on to make films like Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, though there are hints, however small. The film opens with the school marching band parading through the campus and into the halls, and at the tail end, one kid provides a jazzy flair to the music before his music teacher scolds him. It's easy to miss, but it's there, and it's funny. The cop is called in to investigate some missing musical instruments, for which Henry is framed. The cop is belligerent to the snooty music teacher at first, but by the end, they're dancing together at the climactic school dance. The love interest actually has braces - but of course, she's only Hollywood Homely, so she gets a makeover and suddenly becomes a hottie.
What a Life came out in 1939, the same year as Ninotchka and Midnight; a huge difference. Here's a quote from Wilder about the film from Charlotte Chandler's Billy Wilder: A Personal Biography:
...The picture doesn't seem like much now, but at the time it was a very, very big challenge for me, it was so American. I had never worked on that kind of subject before, and this one was twice as tough, because it was about American teenagers in an American high school. The Europeans in Hollywood usually got European subjects, but with Charlie Brackett, they trusted me. The lines I contributed didn't speak with an accent.
Given those circumstances, I can certainly cut him slack. Still, this would probably be best appreciated by Wilder completists.
The Star Machine is the third book I've read by Jeanine Basinger, and for someone who doesn't read a great deal of books about Old Hollywood (at least not as much as some), I've found I really enjoy her writing in particular. She totally knows her stuff about film, but she writes almost like a really smart blogger than a university professor, which she is.
You get a sense of her through her books: her life, her history with film, the things about them she values, even her sense of humor. Her books give you an education for sure, but it's one filtered through her specific experiences. In a way, it's within the same ballpark as what I do here, only she's way smarter about film than me.
Oh, and she has some pretty famous students: Michael Bay, Joss Whedon, Akiva Goldsman, Martin Scorsese's daughter Domenica, among others. They talk about her in this THR article from a couple of years ago.
Machine is about how the old studio system, from the dawn of the sound era onward, took the actors in their films and made them stars. In a way, it's a rather sobering account: Basinger emphasizes the business side of show business, the way the studios took a given actor's on-screen persona, crafted films to match that persona, and sold it to the public through the media. The studios regarded stars the way GM regarded cars: as product, and they treated them as such - but they gave them fame, fortune and a sort of immortality in return.
Basinger provides examples of the machine at work, profiling the careers of not only A-list stars, but supporting players, actors who found stardom later in their lives, stars created to fill the void left by World War 2, stars who were, to put it kindly, less glamorous than others, even child stars. We see actors who worked with the system and those who rebelled against it, actors who strove to make quality material and those who provided light escapist fare.
Basinger understands their appeal. She writes critically about why a Tyrone Power or a Lana Turner were marked for stardom, and how the machine shaped their careers, but she never forgets the audience's perspective; indeed, it's crucial to that understanding, and she is as much a part of that audience as the reader. She never forgets that either. She also does a brief comparison at the end with today's stars, free of the studio system but with a different set of obstacles.
The Star Machine provides an intimate understanding of what it meant to be a star in Old Hollywood that's both terrifying and mesmerizing. It's a very unique film history book.
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Also by Jeanine Basinger:
I Do and I Don't
Silent Stars
I'm sure I've talked about this before, but I was reminded of it again recently and I feel like complaining. As you know, I come from a comics background. Marvel and DC Comics have broken into television and film in a big way now, to the point where secondary and tertiary characters, the ones only hardcore comics fans would have known in the past, are getting their moments in the spotlight.
If you still actually read the comics themselves, I imagine it's pretty exciting, though my passion for superhero comics cooled long ago. If you're a fan of a certain age, like I am, you can remember when they were - not a secret thing, exactly, but something that required specialized knowledge to fully comprehend, and only a minority possessed it. Having that knowledge made us unique and distinctive, if not exactly popular, but that was the price we paid for knowing important things like Wonder Girl's convoluted history or the fate of Cyclops' second brother.
It's more than a little grating to me to know the walls of the fortress called Comics Fandom have been breached; that anybody with a Netflix account can get a basic education on the fringe elements of the Marvel Universe, the kinda stuff that used to be the exclusive province of the fanboy. Even ten years ago, TV shows based on characters like Luke Cage and Iron Fist and now the Inhumans would have been nothing more than fodder for a Wizard magazine "Casting Call" column. It's just a struggle to accept (though I wonder how many people who watch these shows and films read the comics on which they were based).
Speaking of TV, between Discovery, The Orville and Feud, I've watched way more of it this year than usual, and um, how do I say this without sounding like a prude... It's surprising what you can say and do on TV now. You're all saying "No duh," but it's one thing to write about how shows look more like movies now and another to actually see it for myself. I mean, they were bandying the word dick around pretty casually on The Orville (it's a Fox show, so I really shouldn't have been surprised).
Feud was on basic cable, but even so, I couldn't quite get used to the profanity - which is odd, because if I were watching a movie on IFC or Cinemax that had profanity, I wouldn't think twice. Maybe it's because I know it's a movie that makes the difference?
It's not just the language. The production values on Feud, as I said at the time, were outstanding: sets, wardrobe, cinematography and editing. The aliens and ships in Discovery and Orville, not to mention the visual effects, make every episode look theatrical. It's no wonder film is suffering another downturn in sales. I guess that's why some theaters are so eager to install luxury recliner seats and have a wait staff bring you your food. What's next?
In other news, my novel is close to done. When it comes time to revise it, I'll have to do things like fill in research gaps, such as for medical and legal story details; rethink certain character traits now that I know more about them; rethink certain plot details; and rewrite where necessary... and it will be necessary. In a lot of ways, it's a bigger task than writing the story. This was a good idea, right?
Two blogathon posts for you this month, and now that fall is here, the good new releases will multiply. I may even write about a few.
Your links:
Ivan checks out an early film from dance legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
Marsha explains why Marilyn Monroe made her cry.
Aurora has a terrific guest post from a woman who grew up a classic film fan in Spain.
Silver Screenings Ruth peeps behind the curtain at movie stars before they were glamorous.
Le looks at the friendship of Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow.
The reaction to Mother! is the latest example of the need for audiences to have everything explained to them. (Excellent article.)
One of my favorite childhood TV series, The Carol Burnett Show, debuted 50 years ago last month.
John Lennon once appeared in a fourth wall-breaking war comedy.
Ever wonder how theaters started selling popcorn?
Wanna buy some of Audrey Hepburn's old clothes?
You can go all around the world and find mermaid stories. The earliest tales go as far back as around 1000 BC, in ancient Assyria. Christopher Columbus thought he saw some. PT Barnum claimed to have one, but it was just a hoax. And of course, millions of people see mermaids every day on their coffee cups!
A chance showing on TV of the Ron Howard romantic comedy Splash, a favorite from my childhood, reminded me of another mermaid movie, one I hadn't seen: Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. I doubted the latter was as good as the former, but I watched it on YouTube anyway, thinking it might be fun to compare the two. Well, I was right; Splash is better by a country mile.
I believed the romance in Splash more. Tom Hanks, a young man, is set up as a lovelorn guy, someone convinced true love was out of his reach. Darryl Hannah seems like a dream come true to him, but of course, she's got a secret: she's a fish. When he finds out, he has to learn to look past that, and with effort, he does.
In Peabody, William Powell meets Ann Blyth, the mermaid, as a much older man, a married one at that. For all his poetic waxing to her, he never struck me as going through anything more than a mid-life crisis, precipitated by his wife casually flirting with another man. Even when wifey goes conveniently missing, I never believed in Powell and Blyth as a couple; partly because of the age difference, which the movie, to its credit, doesn't ignore, but also because the wife, flirting aside, was a decent person, and Powell is not presented as a cad. Might've made for a more interesting movie if he was, but as it is, everything is milquetoast.
There's some talk in Peabody of the ruts marriages go through, which cause the eye to wander. As if a mermaid wasn't enough, there's another young chick who catches Powell's attention. She's not a mermaid, but she sings a song and swims a little. Powell actually implies at one point he prefers a woman he can feel superior to - and along comes Blyth, who can't speak, knows nothing of the world, and is totally reliant on him. Again, if his character began as more of a sleaze, and his dalliance with Blyth made him realize he really loved his wife after all, I could buy that, but this movie is too slight to go in that direction.
Hannah, by contrast, learns how to speak to Hanks on her own and was willing to give up her mermaid superpowers to be with him. She's a more active character than Blyth, and Hanks is way less paternalistic than Powell.
Peabody is a Blyth movie, so that means we gotta get Jacqueline's opinion:
...the 36-year difference between [Powell and Blyth] did not really make for any awkwardness in the crush the mermaid and the man had for each other on screen, mainly because the crush was so innocent and so was the mermaid. For his part, William Powell strolled through his character's midlife crisis with the panache and bemused sophistication of The Thin Man [movies], with that sly humor that uses discretion as a springboard to irony. He's perfect in the role.
She calls Peabody an "offbeat charmer." (Many behind-the-scenes pics at her post; take a look.) I was bored to death. It certainly wasn't as funny as Splash, which has lots of Noo Yawk character moments, plus it has the wonderful John Candy and Eugene Levy. Powell and Blyth fans should stick to his Thin Man movies and her musicals instead.
This one's a little complex. Follow closely.
Pam posted a link on her Go Retro Facebook page to an article about late-night television and how politicized it has become lately, especially in favor of the liberal side:
...Regardless of your position on Obamacare or on the 2016 election, the bigger picture here is how ponderous and self-reverential and sanctimonious our late night shows (and their hosts) have become. Can we get back to entertainment please? If I want political debates on candidates and issues, I’ve got plenty of cable channels to choose from.
Last I checked, the network late night talk shows were supposed to serve a different purpose. I want a humorous and entertaining talk show at the end of my busy and complicated day. and I doubt I’m alone.
However, in the post-Jon Stewart‘s Daily Show era, these hosts (or their producers and networks) have decided that it’s actually more important for a late night comedian to be important and relevant. In the immortal words of Casey Kasem: Ponderous.
I wish they'd admit Star Trek: Discovery is set in the alternate universe. From what I saw of it last night, I don't see how this could match up with The Original Series beyond the most basic ways. Everything about this new show, the sixth live-action Trek series, looks and feels like the Bad Robot-produced Trek films: the ships, the look of the aliens, the cinematography, the damn lens flares! And did everything have to be so grim?
In terms of story - what I saw of it, anyway, since we only got one half of a two-part story (thanks a lot, CBS) - I thought they jumped us into the action without letting us get to know the characters. Compare this to the TNG-era pilots of the other shows and you'll see what I mean. Those pilots had action to spare, but they also gave us a basic understanding of the cast. Then again, it wasn't clear to me which of the secondary characters, besides Doug Jones' alien, would be important. I had thought Cmdr. Burnham would go from the ship she was on with Michelle Yeoh to the Discovery and that's where we'd meet the rest of the cast, but clearly, they're doing things differently. I didn't even get to see Anthony Rapp!
Was it me or was there way too much cutting? BBC America was showing a Trek marathon (TNG), so during commercials, I flipped to that. The difference is obvious: shots were sustained for longer than three seconds. It was easier to pay attention to what people were saying. Shots were composed in such a way (and this was true of TOS, too) so you could see where everyone sat or stood relative to each other in a room, on the bridge, wherever. You didn't need to cut to Guy With Funky Headgear or Cute Redhead or Anonymous Engineer or Robot(?!) to remind us they're on the bridge too.
Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham was fine. Raised by Vulcans? That's a clever twist. I saw the flashback of her on Vulcan as a child, learning how to think logically; I saw her talking to Sarek (how convenient that she knows an important TOS character), but I didn't catch how she ended up there. You'd think that's something they would want to make clearer.
The argument is that Trek needed to get with the times. General television audiences supposedly demand a different storytelling method, that Discovery is Trek for the Game of Thrones generation. I might buy that, except Seth MacFarlane is putting the lie to that with The Orville. I know I said that show relies too much on knowledge of TNG-era Trek, but after watching Discovery, that's looking like less of a bad thing. Orville still hasn't found the right balance between humor and drama, but it feels much more like the Trek I remember, telling stories relevant to us in 2017, with clearly-defined characters. CBS can keep their pay-per-view Trek. I'm not sure I'll miss it.
Bibi and I talked about Discovery afterwards. She didn't like it either, and neither did Eric (he said it wasn't science fiction). She liked Doug Jones, but she thought they got the Vulcans all wrong - they fired first because that's how you deal with Klingons? Yeah, that didn't make sense to me either - nor was she that crazy about the Klingons. Again, I'd buy it if this was the alternate universe, but if they're gonna insist this is the prime universe, I can't go for that (no can do).
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Related:
Discovery to break the Trek mold
Sonequa Martin-Green
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.
