The Long Hot Summer (1958)

Flame follows that man around like a dog! Ben Quick (Paul Newman) is on trial for barn-burning but when no solid evidence is found the judge expels him from town. Ben hitches a ride to Frenchman’s Bend, Mississippi, with two young women in a convertible, Clara Varner (Joanne Woodward) and her sister-in-law Eula (Lee Remick). Clara’s father, Will Varner (Orson Welles) is the domineering owner of most of the town. Ben goes to the Varner plantation. Will is away, but his only son, Jody (Anthony Franciosa) agrees to let Ben become a sharecropper on a vacant farm. When Will returns from a stay in the hospital, he is furious at Jody for hiring a notorious barn burner but soon begins to see in Ben a younger version of himself and comes to admire his ruthlessness and ambition, qualities that Jody lacks. Will is also disappointed with the man that his 23-year-old daughter, Clara, has been seeing for five or six years: Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson), a genteel Southern blue blood and a mama’s boy. Will schemes to push his daughter and Ben together, to try to bring fresh, virile blood into the family but she is openly hostile to the crude, if magnetic, upstart. Will is determined to have his bloodline go on, so he offers to make Ben wealthy if he marries Clara. Meanwhile, Will’s mistress Minnie Littlejohn (Angela Lansbury) is dissatisfied with their arrangement and wants to get married. Jody becomes increasingly frustrated, seeing his position in the family being undermined. After Ben sells some wild horses for Will, he is rewarded with the position of clerk in the general store, alongside Jody. Will even invites him to live in the family mansion: this is the final straw for Jody … Most people say I’m fightin’ for the twentieth century. Adapted from William Faulkner’s stories Barn Burning, Spotted Horses and The Hamlet by husband and wife screenwriting team Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., who pick wonderful elements to highlight some indelible characterisation. It’s vivid, moody, atmospheric storytelling with a standout performance from Welles whose positively Falstaffian character is a riff on Big Daddy from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the Tennessee Williams adaptation that starred Newman the same year and that story of familial vicissitudes, sex and power struggles is a companion piece to this, its spawn in theme and tone. Newman got the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his Quick – gorgeous, smooth, probably inherently wicked but persuasive and lovable. He’s quite the charmer. It’s great to see his work with Woodward, the first time the couple were paired onscreen – the chemistry is sparky and she is powerful in the role. Get out of character, lady. Get way off! The strong Freudian tropes are magnified by the Method performances from all these Actors Studio alumni – Franciosa is such a wimp but believably sympathetic as the son who can never measure up and does something unbelievable to earn Will’s respect when he’s usurped. Remick is a delight as the ballsy Eula. This is flavoursome, angst-ridden and sexy stuff with even Lansbury getting in on the illicit carry on. Directed by Martin Ritt who would team up with the screenwriters again to make the unforgettable Hud with Newman half a dozen years later. The year before this he shot No Down Payment with Woodward and after this he worked for a third time with her on another Faulkner adaptation, The Sound and the Fury. Then Newman-Woodward got together with him again for Paris Blues and Newman and he made The Outrage and later Hombre. Those were the days. It’s all beautifully shot in sunny Clinton, Louisiana by Joseph LaShelle where you can practically feel the rays bristle on your skin. There’s a sonorous jazzy score from Alex North and the title song co-written with Sammy Cahn is performed by Jimmie Rogers. I got me a son again

Trent’s Last Case (1952)

 

The crowd is very friendly. English newsman Philip Trent (Michael Wilding) wants to retire and carry on with his art but he is lured back to the fray and reckons American business tycoon Sigsbee Manerson’s (Orson Welles) suicide was murder and that his widow Margaret’s (Margaret Lockwood) lover John Marlowe (John McCallum) did it but a series of interviews yield a very different perspective … Never cultivate a luxury until you can afford to support it as a habit. The third version of the 1913 E.C Bentley murder mystery adapted here by Pamela Bower is a stop-start affair with three flashbacks giving us the story as it might have been, a la Rashomon or even Stage Fright (which also starred Wilding) but there’s so much repetitive staging it might be twenty-three. Producer/director Herbert Wilcox had made a star of his wife Anna Neagle and for reasons one suspects might be nefarious gave her box office rival Lockwood her comeback here after two years away and tied her to a contract that ended her screen career. Hmm. One staid hour in finally sees the appearance of Welles (in the style of The Third Man) or more properly his huge prosthetic proboscis and the brows which enter the room ahead of him, then the plot really unfurls and it’s not as straightforward as the outline suggests. Kenneth Williams gives his best Welsh accent in the witness box, Sam Kydd shows up as a policeman and there’s an opportunity to see the acclaimed pianist Eileen Joyce perform in the concert sequence. For the second time the Manderson case is closed

I Was a Male War Bride (1949)

If the American army says that I CAN be my wife, who am I to dispute them? French Army Captain Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) is assigned to work with American 1st Lieutenant Catherine Gates on a mission to locate a German lens maker Schindler (Martin Miller) in post-war Occupied Germany. Henri and Catherine worked together before and are at daggers drawn. However despite the initial problems between the two, with only Catherine being allowed to drive a motorcycle to Bad Neuheim and Henri forced to sit in a sidecar, it’s not long before their battling turns to romance and they hastily arrange to get married. But a steady stream of bureaucratic red tape ensures the couple cannot be together and with Catherine receiving orders that she’s to be sent home, there is just one option – Henri will have to invoke a War Brides Clause in army regulations and be recognised as Catherine’s bride but to do that he has to disguise himself as a WAC … Oh, no! You mean you and ME? Well, I’d be glad to explain to them. The very idea of any connection is revolting. Shot in the last months of 1948 in post-war Germany, this is resolutely apolitical in the typical manner of producer/director Howard Hawks but it was plagued by problems. Illness meant that the beginning and end of the midpoint sequence – Grant vanishing into a haystack and coming out the other side – were shot several months apart, with Grant 37 pounds lighter from hepatitis when we meet him again. Sheridan was also ill, with pleurisy. Hawks got hives. Even co-writer Charles Lederer got sick and Orson Welles stepped in to write a scene (allegedly). When the production moved to London for the interiors they were subjected to work-to-rule habits of the British unions which prolonged things further. However it’s still fun to watch for its low-key fashion rather than the antic hilarity of Hawks and Grant’s earlier Bringing Up Baby.  Despite its being promoted on the basis of Grant’s cross-dressing, that only takes place in the last 10 minutes and it works because Grant listened to Hawks and didn’t do effeminate, he plays it totally straight, a man dressed in women’s clothes – and it ain’t pretty. This is a whip smart attack on bureaucracy and transatlantic misunderstandings and the whole plot basically revolves around coitus postponus because even when the squabbling couple agree to the three marriages deemed necessary to be legal they still can’t get five minutes together, not even in a haystack (which led to their marriage in the first place). It fits nicely into that crossover between screwball and army farce with the entire construction designed to be an affront to Grant’s dignity and an essay on sexual frustration. That said, it’s slow to set up and a lot of the jokes are sight gags, relying on Grant’s acrobatic background to pull them off, while Sheridan is a great broad in the best sense, fizzing with common sense and sex appeal, the very incarnation of a good sport. Hawks’ very young girlfriend Marion Marshall has a nice role as her colleague who gets to relay verbally what women see in Grant and the whole thing is a very relaxed entertainment, the antithesis of the circumstances in which it was apparently produced. It marked Hawks’ and Grant’s fourth collaboration and Grant always said it was his favourite of his own films while it was the third highest grossing of Hawks’ career. Adapted by Lederer & Leonard Spigelgass and Hagar Wilde from  I Was an Alien Spouse of Female Military Personnel Enroute to the United States Under Public Law 271 of the Congress, a biographical account of Belgian officer Henri Rochard’s [the pseudonym for Roger Charlier] experience entering the US when he married an American nurse during WW2. My name is Rochard. You’ll think I’m a bride but actually I’m a husband. There’ll be a moment or two of confusion but, if we all keep our heads, everything will be fine

Catch-22 (1970)

Help the bombardier. Captain John Yossarian (Alan Arkin) an American pilot stationed in the Mediterranean who flies bombing missions during World War II attempts to cope with the madness of armed conflict. Convinced that everyone is trying to murder him, he decides to try to become certified insane but that is merely proof that he’s fully competent. Surrounded by eccentric military officers, such as the opportunistic 1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder (Jon Voight), Yossarian has to resort to extreme measures to escape his dire and increasingly absurd situation... All great countries are destroyed, why not yours? Not being a fan of the rather repetitive and circular source novel aids one’s enjoyment of this adaptation by director Mike Nichols who was coasting on the stunning success of his first two movies (also adaptations), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate, which was also adapted by Buck Henry.  The critical reception for this resisted adulation instead focusing on a flawed construction which really goes back to Joseph Heller’s book and does not conform to the rules of a combat picture as well as contracting the action and removing and substituting characters. But aside from the overall absurdity which is literally cut in an act of stunning violence which shears through one character in shocking fashion, there is dialogue of the machine gun variety which you’d expect from a services satire and there are good jokes about communication, following orders, profiteering and stealing parachutes to sell silk on the black market.  There are interesting visual and auditory ways of conveying Yossarian’s inner life – in the first scene we can’t hear him over the noise of the bombings, because his superiors are literally deaf to what he’s saying, a useful metaphor. The impressionistic approach of Henry’s adaptation is one used consistently, preparing the audience for the culmination of the action in a surreal episode worthy of Fellini. I like it a lot, certainly more than the recent TV adaptation and the cast are just incredible:  Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel, Charles Grodin, Bob Newhart, Austin Pendleton, Anthony Perkins, Paula Prentiss, Martin Sheen and Orson Welles among a large ensemble. Even novelist Philip Roth plays a doctor. It’s shot by David Watkin, edited by Sam O’Steen and the production is designed by Richard Sylbert. Where the hell’s my parachute?

The Vikings (1958)

What would be the worst thing for a Viking? Viking Prince Einar (Kirk Douglas) doesn’t know it but his worst enemy, the slave Erik (Tony Curtis), is actually his half brother and their father King Ragnar’s (Ernest Borgnine) legitimate heir. Their feud only intensifies when Einar kidnaps Princess Morgana (Janet Leigh), on her way to be the intended bride of the brutal Northumbrian King Aella (Frank Thring). Einar intends to make her his own. However Morgana has eyes only for Erik – leading to the capture of  Ragnar and a terrible final attempt to win her heart ...  Let’s not question flesh for wanting to remain flesh. Good looking, well put together and great fun, and that’s just the cast, in this spectacular historical epic, an action adventure produced by Kirk Douglas that capitalises on his muscular masculinity opposite husband and wife team Curtis and Leigh who get to seriously smoulder for the cameras in their love scenes:  it was the third of their onscreen pairings. With some very fruity language, mistaken identity, axe-throwing, pillaging, actual bodice-ripping, walking the plank for fun, unconscious sibling rivalry, brawny sailors, death by wolf pit, romance and swashbuckling, this has everything going for it except horned helmets. It might well be about eighth or ninth century Viking lord Ragnar Lodbrok and the probably-real Northumbrian king Aella (who died 867) but it’s really about Kirk and Tony and Janet. Jack Cardiff shoots the expansive Technicolor images, and director Richard Fleischer lets every character have their moment in this fast-paced entertainment. The beautiful tapestry-style animated titles are voiced by Orson Welles and the incredible score is by (paradoxically unsung) soundtrack hero Mario Naschimbene who brings both vigour and mystery to this good-humoured story of war and violence: you will believe that those voices in the sky are coming from the heavens. Adapted by Dale Wasserman from the 1951 novel The Viking by Edison Marshall, with a screenplay by Calder Willingham, this is one of the very best action-adventure films of all time with some great editing by Elmo Williams who also helmed the second unit and made the TV series inspired by it, Tales of the Vikings, also produced by Douglas’  Bryna Productions. Within a few short years Douglas would cement his legend as a Hollywood liberal with the cry, I am Spartacus! but for now it’s Odin!

The Birthday of Orson Welles 6th May 2019

That radical filmmaker, director, screenwriter, producer and actor Orson Welles, would have celebrated his 104th birthday today. Still making news 34 years after he left our orbit with last year’s The Other Side of the Wind, we are still awed by his achievements in radio, theatre and cinema. Happy birthday Mr Welles.

The Kremlin Letter (1970)

You’re a fool.  What’s worse, you’re a romantic fool. When an unauthorised letter is sent to Moscow alleging the U.S. government’s willingness to help Russia attack Red China, US Navy Intelligence Officer Charles Rone (Patrick O’Neal) has his commission revoked so he can do an extra-governmental espionage mission.  He speaks eight languages fluently and has a flawless photographic memory. He and his team are sent to retrieve the letter, going undercover and successfully reaching out to Erika (Bibi Andersson), the wife of a former agent now married to the head of Russia’s secret police, Kosnov (Max von Sydow). Their plans are interrupted, however, when their Moscow hideout is raided by cunning politician Bresnavitch (Orson Welles) and Rone finds himself being played by a network of older spies seeking revenge … My father says bed is integral to this and one must be good at it. Adapted by director John Huston with his regular collaborator Gladys Hill (who began as dialogue director on Welles’ The Stranger) from Noel Behn’s 1966 novel, this complex canvas of betrayal, treason, murder and double cross is in a line with Huston’s film noir period with a soupçon of Beat the Devil‘s absurdism. Its convoluted plot is best appreciated in response to the hijinks of Bond with its determinedly low-key approach allowing the banal thuggery of the spy master to be revealed. The cast is astonishing – Richard Boone as Ward, the peroxide instigator capable of literally anything, sadism, torture and murder;  two Bergman alumni united in transcontinental jiggery pokery; George Sanders playing piano in drag at a gay nightclub and worse, with a penchant for knitting; Barbara Parkins as Niall MacGinnis’ safe-cracking daughter; Vonetta McGee as a Lesbian seductress;  Nigel Green as The Whore, another old spy keen on playing dress up; Lila Kedrova as a Russian brothel keeper;  and Welles’ Gate Theatre mentor Micheál MacLiammóir shows up – in fact he’s the first character we encounter. A crazy cast in a fascinating Cold War timepiece that requires keen attention. Even so, it’s a stretch to have dour O’Neal pose as a gigolo to win Andersson’s affections. Still, Ted Scaife’s cinematography is a thing of beauty. Never mind the story, feel the wit. Huston appears early as the Admiral who gives Rone his marching papers. If you believe in a cause no danger is frightening

The Bible (1966)

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. The first 22 books of the Old Testament are dramatised in 5 main sequences:  Creation, narrated by God (John Huston);  Adam (Michael Parks) and Eve (Ulla Bergryd) meet and procreate;  Cain (Richard Harris) slays his brother Abel (Franco Nero);  Noah (Huston again) creates his ark for the animals and there’s a spectacular flood;  and Abraham’s (George C. Scott) story is recounted – his long life with the beautiful but barren Sarah (Ava Gardner), the conceiving of his only son Isaac, with Sarah’s maid, and his calling by God to make a sacrifice. There are two shorter sections, one recounting the building of the Tower of Babel;  and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah… Am I my brother’s keeper?  An awesome epic of tension-free tedium that is quite literally beyond belief with some (few) honourable exceptions:  director Huston himself, who also narrates this Italian-American co-production and makes for an amiable animal lover;  the lustrous Gardner;  O’Toole in his brief appearance as the Three Angels; and the final sequence in which Abraham comes closerthanthis to putting his only son Isaac on the BBQ instead of the more conventional sacrificial ram. Nero was the film’s still photographer until Huston spotted him and started his screen career. Adam and Eve’s nude frolics were choreographed by Katharine Dunham. Huston’s girlfriend Zoe Sallis features as Hagar. Notable for a score by Toshiro Mayuzumi with uncredited work by Ennio Morricone, this will have you reaching for your own traveller’s friend – it’s light work after this. The screenplay, on the other hand, is credited to Christopher Fry although Orson Welles and Mario Soldati also contributed something or other. There is nothing that He may not ask of thee?

The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018)

You left no autobiography but you left this. Writer and filmmaker Mark Cousins was given access to hundreds of paintings and drawings by Orson Welles and he uses these as a prism to gain entry into how the man’s mind worked and discusses how this level of visual creativity was fused with narrative to create his films. This is an intensely personal work:  Cousins addresses Welles in the voiceover, doing away with any sense of chronology, making a mosaic of thoughts, inflections, inferences and putting together a narrative that deals with his films, his politics, his acting, his working methods and his extensive romantic life. This is filmic storytelling of a superior type, stressing the way in which Welles’ designs actively structured his cinematic approach, garnering detailed insights from these previously undiscovered and unsung artistic outpourings to make an intimate free-associating portrait of a fascinating man. This is an utterly unique take on a larger than life character whose indelible performances as an actor (with their king or king-like personae) form a parallel or diptych with his directing work. Welles has never seemed more attractive, more interesting, more Shakespearean in scope, more mysterious and dreamlike or yet more relevant. A seer. Featuring his daughter Beatrice Welles, this is executive produced by Michael Moore. You thought in lines and shapes

Journey Into Fear (1943)

I’m not indispensable! There are plenty of men with my qualifications! Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten) an American gunnery engineer in Istanbul becomes the target of a Nazi assassination due to his involvement in improving the Turkish navy. With the help of the chief of the Turkish secret police Colonel Haki (an underplaying Orson Welles) who doesn’t want the Germans killing him on his watch, Graham escapes from his hotel where he’s booked in with his wife Stephanie (Ruth Warrick) to board a ship to safety, leaving his wife behind. On board, he encounters a number of passengers, including the dancer Josette Martel (Dolores del Río). However, the passenger Peter Banat (Jack Moss) is not who he appears to be and as we know from the opening scene he’s in Istanbul to carry out an assassination…You’re a ballistics expert and you’ve never fired one of these things?! Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten adapted Eric Ambler’s transeuropean spy novel (with uncredited contributions by Richard Collins) and Welles also co-directed the film (uncredited) with Norman Foster. The protagonist is altered from the novel and there are as many blind alleys as there are red herrings in this confusing mélange but it’s still what Graham Greene would call an entertainment with the Mercury Theater/Citizen Kane crew augmented by the stunning Dolores Del Rio in pussycat headgear. Ah, you have this advantage over the soldier, Mr. Graham. You can run away without being a coward.  There’s a level of wit (including some amusing sound edits and the song I’d Know You Anywhere) in the enterprise which you’d expect from all concerned and a nice role for Everett Sloane as Kopeikin – whoever he might be! Despite its being butchered by RKO (Ambler reportedly didn’t even recognise the story as his own at a screening) and its original narration being removed (restored for a screening at Locarno some years back) there are still enough flourishes to flatter Welles in his detective/thriller-directing incarnation and a very enjoyable high stakes finale. You are going to hospital. You are going to have typhus!