Eternally Yours (1939)

For my first illusion this evening I intend to create a woman. Socialite Anita Halstead (Loretta Young) is engaged to be married and goes with all her galpals to see a magic act performed by Tony (David Niven), known as The Great Arturo after her bridal shower for her forthcoming wedding to Don Burns (Broderick Crawford). Anita and Tony are immediately attracted to each other and get married. She becomes his assistant in the act. One night, Tony becomes drunk in the company of a woman reporter Gloria (Eve Arden) and boasts he will jump out of an aircraft at 15,000 feet with his hands handcuffed behind his back. When she prints his claim, he first tries to get out of it with a fake cast on his arm, but when he sees the thousands of fans, he goes through with it, freeing himself in mid-air and parachuting safely to the ground. He promises Anita that he will not attempt the dangerous stunt again but breaks his word and performs it repeatedly all over the world. Anita becomes weary of the constant travel and longs to settle down and start a family. Secretly, she sells her jewellery and has a house built in the Connecticut countryside. When it is completed, she shows Tony a picture of it but his uninterested reaction stops her from telling him it is theirs. When he signs up for a two-year, round-the-world tour rather than take the vacation he had promised, she finally gives up. She leaves him and gets a divorce in Reno. Anita’s grandfather, Gramps aka Bishop Peabody (C. Aubrey Smith) breaks the news to a distraught Tony who has taken a clipper back to the US from his South American tour. On an ocean cruise with her Aunt Abby (Billie Burke), Anita is surprised to run into Don. She gets the ship’s captain (Granville Bates) to marry them. However, she spends their honeymoon night with her grandfather. The next night, Don insists on introducing her to his boss, Harley Bingham (Raymond Walburn), at a nightclub. The entertainment is none other than the Great Arturo, with his old assistant Lola De Vere (Virginia Field). He persuades Bingham to let him perform at Bingham’s company retreat at a resort, much to Anita’s discomfort. Mrs. Bingham (ZaSu Pitts) has a dilemma, though. They have not booked enough rooms to provide separate bedrooms for the unmarried Tony and Lola. Tony suggests he and Don share one room, while Anita and Lola take the other. During his stay, Tony tries unsuccessfully to persuade Anita to take him back. If the cold didn’t get him the water will. Meanwhile, the hapless Don becomes sick so the doctor prescribes no physical activity of any sort for a month. Bishop Peabody is told by his lawyer that Anita’s divorce is not legal. Later, he informs his granddaughter that Tony will be doing his parachute stunt that day. She attends … No woman likes a fake and everything about you is fake. The pairing of playful Niven with the luminously beautiful Young was a good idea – they would wind up doing a handful of films together including The Perfect Marriage (1946) and The Bishop’s Wife (1947). This is the first collaboration, based on a screenplay by C. Graham Baker and Gene Towne that was so loosely based on Sacha Guitry’s 1917 play L’Illusioniste it became original. This was tinkered with by others who are uncredited – including Garnett but also Peter Godfrey (who would direct our favourite Christmas movie, Christmas in Connecticut), Mack Sennett, Ben Hect and Charles Lederer. Whew. It’s not quite a romcom – it starts out like one – until Crawford’s overbearing presence and poor directing and timing from Tay Garnett (with Assistant Director Charles Kerr) unpick the performances which then find themselves in something of a melodrama despite the ripe screwball-style scenario and dialogue. The uneven tone is matched scene for scene with an inappropriately overwrought score from Werner Janssen which merely abets the situation heightening the drama and echoing Tony’s dilemma, time after time hoping the parachute will open – it’s not just a metaphor but the audience shares his shredded nerves when he’s doing his Houdini-like stunts. The central dramatic joke – life with a magician is anything but magic/an illusionist causes a woman to disappear – twice! – is well worked out despite the strange atmosphere. And there are some zingers: to compensate There you stand dripping in chinchilla and wishing it was a bungalow apron. And were it Don Ameche or Ralph Bellamy instead of the hunk of dead lead that was Crawford (mostly), Young’s marvellous befuddlement when she tries to explain what has happened with Tony – an act – a performance! – has some of the sexy Pre-Code echoing that dogged the original writing but is wasted on her unresponsive opposite number and it lands with a thud. If she’s lost on Crawford just look at her fabulous fashion by Travis Banton. There is a sterling supporting cast but Burke and Pitts don’t have enough to do while Aubrey Smith at least gets to perform with his colleague from the Hollywood Raj, that elite gathering of ex-pat British actors who liked to spend Sundays playing cricket. F. Hugh Herbert plays down his sardonic butler role. It was a banner year for Niven cast as a lead here and also performing in Wuthering Heights and Bachelor Mother. Not a bad 1939. Produced by Walter Wanger, this was in development so long that he and Garnett made another film, Trade Winds and footage from that and the 1939 New York’s World Fair is included here. I swear, I’m the only woman in the world who could live with you

Downhill (2020)

It wasn’t nothing – at all. It was something. Pete Stanton (Will Ferrell) and his lawyer wife Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) are holidaying in Ischgl, Austria with their young sons Finn (Julian Grey) and Emerson (Ammon Jacob Ford) when a close call with an avalanche brings all the pre-existing tensions in their relationship to the fore after Pete runs with his mobile phone instead of ensuring his family’s safety. Publicly, Billie says it’s because Pete is mourning his father, dead eight months earlier. Their sexually forthright tour guide Lady Bobo (Miranda Otto) makes them uncomfortable but Billie starts to feel the seven year itch. Pete is in contact with his colleague Zach (Zach Woods) who’s on a whistlestop, country-a-day trip to Europe with girlfriend Rosie (Zoe Chao) and he invites them both to visit without informing Billie who promptly tells them about how he left the family in the lurch when he thought the avalanche was going to kill them. Then she has an assignation with a very forward ski instructor … Dad ran away. The American remake of Swedish filmmaker’s Ruben Ostlund’s fantastic 2014 black comedy Force Majeure is that rare thing – it works of itself, it’s subtle, funny, striking and just the right duration. If its sketchiness occasionally lacks the dark dynamism of the original and doesn’t capitalise on Ferrell in particular, it replaces it with some obvious sexual jokes but never loses the central conceit – the total failure of communications between two grown ups who cannot face the truth of their relationship. We’re in a stock image right now. Louis-Dreyfus’ outburst in front of Zach and Rosie is astonishing – and using the kids to back her up is a step even she eventually concedes is a bit de trop. Ferrell’s riposte – going apeshit in a nightclub off his head – doesn’t play the same but he’s a simpler, selfish beast. This is real battle of the sexes territory. The conclusion – when Billie tries to make Pete look good in front of their sons – suggests that this icy marriage might not even last to the end of the credits. Directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash who co-wrote the screenplay with Jesse Armstrong. Every day is all we have

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Welcome to Remote Control Airways! After a British information-gathering vessel gets sunk into the sea, MI6’s Agent 007 (Roger Moore) is given the responsibility of locating the lost encryption device the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) and thwarting it from entering enemy ie Russian military hands led by the KGB’s General Gogol (Walter Gotell). Bond becomes tangled in a web of deception spun by rival Greek businessmen Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover) who initially presents as Bond’s ally and Milos Columbo (Topol); along with Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), a British-Greek woman  seeking to avenge the murder of her parents, marine archaeologists working for the British Government … The Chinese have a saying: “When setting out on revenge, you first dig two graves”. This is the Bond that rather divides the purists. Culled from the title story in the eponymous collection along with another, Risico, plus an action sequence from Live and Let Die, this is back to basics and a down to earth reboot after the sci fi outing Moonraker. James visits late wife Tracy’s grave (from OHMSS) and has to live on his wits instead of Q’s (Desmond Llewelyn) gadgets – hence the Lotus exploding early on followed by a hair raising Keystone Cops-style chase through a Spanish village in a rickety little Citroën 2CV. It’s got to be one of the more visually pleasurable of all films, never mind in the franchise, with heart-stoppingly beautiful location shooting in Greece and Italy, and Greece standing in for some scenes set in Spain. Bouquet is a fabulous leading lady with great motivation – revenge – and she can shoot a very mean crossbow.  The action overall is simply breathtaking – that initial helicopter sequence around the abandoned Beckton Gas Works (which Kubrick would turn into Vietnam for Full Metal Jacket), the ski/motorbike chase and jump, the mountain top monastery that lends such a dramatic impact for the final scene, the Empress Sissi’s summer palace in Corfu that provides such a distinctive setting, the yachts that home the catalysing confrontations which include sharks! Glover (originally mooted as Bond himself, years earlier) makes for a satisfying ally turned villain after the jokey title set piece, the winter sports, and the use of the bob sleigh run are quite thrilling. Topol is very charismatic as the Greek helpmate Columbo, Kristatos’ former smuggling partner; and Lynn-Holly Johnson is totally disarming as the ice-skating Olympic hopeful and ingenue Bibi Dahl who has an unhealthy desire for inappropriate relations with a clearly embarrassed Bond. Smooth as butter with Moore very good in a demanding realistic production. What’s not to love in a film that channels the best bits of Black Magic and Martini adverts from the Seventies?! This boasts the first titles sequence in the series to feature the song’s performer, Sheena Easton, singing a composition by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson. Badass Cassandra Harris who plays Columbo’s mistress Countess Lisl Von Schlaf was visited by her husband Pierce Brosnan during production and the Bond team duly took notice. Charles Dance makes a brief appearance as a henchman of Locque (Emil Gothard), a hired killer deployed by Kristatos. Out of respect for the recent death of Bernard Lee, the role of M was put aside. The screenplay is by vet Richard Maibaum and executive producer Michael G. Wilson while long time editor John Glen graduates to the top job and does it wonderfully. Remarkably good in every way, this is one of the very best Bonds and even though it was the first one of the Eighties feels like it could have been made an hour ago. Don’t grow up. You’ll make life impossible for men

My Reputation (1946)

You have to start being yourself. Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) is a newly widowed upper class mother to two boys Kim (Scotty Beckett) and Keith (Bobby Cooper) with a domineering mother (Lucile Watson). Her estate lawyer Frank Everett (Warner Anderson) dates her casually while her society friend George Van Orman (Jerome Cowan) decides she’d be the ideal mistress. Her friend Ginna (Eve Arden) whisks her away to Tahoe with her husband Cary (John Ridgely) where she meets Major Scott Landis (George Brent) when she’s lost skiing in the mountains. They become close very quickly part badly when he thinks she’s ready to be kissed but then he shows up in her hometown of Chicago where he’s temporarily stationed and she finally allows herself to think of another romantic relationship despite the gossips… The world allows considerable liberty to wives it has never allowed to widows. I notice, for instance, you’re no longer wearing black. One of Stanwyck’s greatest roles, she excels as the rather innocent widow who finally embarks on a relationship with a bluff man who won’t stand for any nonsense from the naysayers in her midst. And who better than Gorgeous George to save her from social suffocation?! Watson is great as the vicious old bat of a mother and Leona Maricle and Nancy Evans are good as the bitchy so-called friends. Arden is in good form as the real friend who does the necessary when Jess needs it. Expertly adapted by the estimable Catherine Turney from Claire Jaynes’ wartime novel Instruct My Sorrows, this plays to all of Warner Brothers’ strengths in female transformation stories – a woman who finds herself again despite a domineering mother, problem sons, pawsy males, social exile and doubt. A gloriously romantic drama with a wondrous score by Max Steiner. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. I’ll never be lonely again

All For Mary (1955)

If Florence Nightingale had ever worked with her she’d have blown out her lamp. Debonair soldier Clive Morton (Nigel Patrick) and clumsy Humphrey ‘Humpy’ Miller (David Tomlinson) are bachelors holidaying separately at a Swiss ski resort.  They have nothing in common except that  they both fall for the hotel proprietor’s daughter Mary (Jill Day).  Humpy’s secret weapon, in the battle for Mary’s affections is his former nanny Miss Cartwright (Kathleen Harrison) who arrives to take charge of the pair as they are quarantined with chicken pox in the hotel attic … Anodyne but very picturesque adaptation of the titular stage play by Harold Brocke & Kaye Bannerman, by Peter Blackmore and producer Paul Soskin with additional dialogue by Alan Melville. It’s fairly typical of its era, a combination of coy, heavy-handed and mild, with two perfect exponents of their types in the amusing male leads and Harrison getting a nice showcase.  Leo McKern is somewhat miscast as a Greek tourist. This is mostly distinctive for its colour cinematography shot on location by Reginald H. Wyer and the fact that it was directed by Wendy Toye. She is one of the very few British women directors of the era and started out as a dancer and choreographer with a long and prolific career directing theatre and opera as well as early film collaborations with Jean Cocteau, the Crazy Gang and Carol Reed and then making award-winning shorts. If you can find a copy of her Cannes-winning film The Stranger Left No Card, do.  It’s terrific: she made a different version of it (Stranger in Town) for Anglia TV’s Tales of the Unexpected in 1981. And wouldn’t we all have loved to see her Broadway production of Peter Pan starring Boris Karloff.  When she appeared on BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs she chose as her luxury item framed Ronald Searle drawings. Fabulous. She died 27 February 2010, almost exactly 9 years ago, aged 92. She deserves to be better known.

Spellbound (1945)

If there’s anything I hate, it’s a smug woman. Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) arrives at Green Manors, a Vermont mental hospital, to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll).  Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), a psychoanalyst, discovers he is an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and he believes he might have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced he is innocent and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis…That Freud stuff’s a bunch of hooey/Oh, you are a fine one to talk! You have a guilt complex and amnesia and you don’t know if you are coming or going from somewhere, but Freud is hooey! *This* you know! Hmph! Wiseguy.  Adapted by Angus MacPhail and Ben Hecht (with uncredited contributions from David O. Selznick’s psychiatrist May Romm!) from the 1927 novel The House of Dr Edwardes by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer, this is the Hitchcock film that brought Salvador Dali to Hollywood and those dream sequences (only 2 of the original 20 minutes remain) are a fascinating component of a film that also boasts notable theremin work in the score by Miklós Rózsa. Peck and Bergman are quite wonderful in a story that has a solidly suspenseful plot with many surprises. It’s a mad film that isn’t so much directed as orchestrated and the melodramatic flourishes are perfectly pitched. A brilliant synthesis of talents and ideas that were all aswirl as Freudianism gripped America, awash with dream symbolism and nutty psychoanalysis, it is also fascinating to see Michael (Mikhail) Chekhov, the acting coach who famously trained talents as diverse as Marilyn Monroe and Jack Nicholson, in the role of Dr Alex Brulov, Constance’s mentor. Hitchcock regular Carroll is good as the inscrutable head of the hospital, while Rhonda Fleming has a nice supporting role as a patient.  Good night and sweet dreams… which we’ll analyze at breakfast

The Fearless Vampire Killers or, Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck (1967)

Aka Dance of the Vampires. That night, penetrating deep into the heart of Transylvania, Professor Abronsius was unaware that he was on the point of reaching the goal of his mysterious investigations. In the mid-nineteenth century tottering bat researcher (and vampire hunter) Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) and his dim-witted bumbling assistant Alfred (Roman Polanski) travel to a small mountain village where they find the tell-tale traces of vampirism. Shy Alfred becomes enchanted by Sarah (Sharon Tate) the local tavern keeper Yoine Shagal’s (Alfie Bass) daughter, before she is promptly abducted. Determined to save the buxom maiden they confront the undead Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne) in his castle… Takes me for a nincompoop, that necrophile. Despite its ostensible status as a parody, this is a mesmerising, beautiful concoction that might be the purest expression of writer/director Roman Polanski’s worldview:  witty, satirical, brilliantly poised between comedy and horror with hints of fairytale and deathly romance and a rather twist(ed) ending. From a story and screenplay by himself and Gérard Brach with exquisite cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, this mitteleuropäischer story was shot in the Trentino instead of Austria but it’s still in Polanski’s Alps and his love of the mountains and the juxtaposition of blood with snow is evident even in the titles sequence (the American version has a silly animation). The cast is perfection with Mayne hilarious in his Christopher Lee tribute and Iain Quarrier a hoot as his gay son;  Terry Downes is a scream as their servant; Bass has perhaps his best film part: Oy vey, have you got the wrong vampire!  The leads are sensational. MacGowran is lovable as the dotty expert and Polanski is positively Kafaesque as his fearful sidekick. Tate is one of the most staggeringly beautiful women ever on celluloid and the story gives her many bright moments. Last week I viewed those personal belongings of hers that are going on sale at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks and it made me very sad, indeed I felt somewhat vampiric. She is gone almost fifty years and this year she would have turned 75 (last January 24th). Seeing her possessions behind glass – clothing, mementos, photographs – was unbelievably poignant. It is simply unfathomable that she suffered such a terrible demise. This is a delightful memorial to her and she and Polanski are terrific in the one film they made together before their marriage.  That night, fleeing from Transylvania, Professor Abronsius never guessed he was carrying away with him the very evil he had wished to destroy. Thanks to him, this evil would at last be able to spread across the world

Downhill Racer (1969)

In seven years I’ve never had a hot dog like you.  Smug, arrogant and overly self-assured downhill skier, David Chappellet (Robert Redford), joins the American ski team after their star has an accident and quickly makes waves with his contemptuous behavior and his actions on the slopes, falling into conflict with the team’s coach Eugene Claire (Gene Hackman). He won’t ski at Wengen because he’s seeded too low. Then when he comes fourth he thinks he’s won. But he has a good face and attracts the attention of a ski manufacturer Machet (Karl Michael Vogler). A rivalry also develops between David and Johnny Creech (Jim McMullan), the man who is now considered the team’s best skier, firstly romantically as Chappelet immediately hits on Machet’s assistant Carole Stahl (Camilla Sparv) when he sees Creech with her.  The relationship lasts a season when Chappelet wins at Kitzbühel and alienates the rest of the team. Then the men find common ground when they are both in the running for the Olympic team and Chappelet realises Carole is even more driven and capricious than he is … He’s not for the team, and he never will be. Written by the great James Salter (from the uncredited novel The Downhill Racers by Oakley Hall), this is a classic character study told in terms of competitive skiing. The limitations of Chappelet’s smalltown origins paradoxically make him want to conquer the world – which in skiing terms means Europe. While Redford would make another kind of mountain movie in a few years (Jeremiah Johnson) this is about another paradox which team coach Hackman addresses in a press conference – why America has such fantastic mountains but lacks champion skiers (money). Chappelet wins the attentions of the glamorous Carole but he loves her money as much as the sex – when he snorts with laughter at the sight of her yellow Porsche you understand. His sketchy relationship with his farmer dad demonstrates the issue and why his tunnel vision exists. Claire is tolerant of his talent but antagonistic to Chappelet’s single-minded drive: All you ever had was your skis and it’s not enough. Chappelet may not be a nice guy, but Claire needs him and the team needs him. When a happy accident occurs, replaying a race held in jest, you know Chappelet’s glad. The almost-twist ending is just perfect. It’s amazing to realise that this was Michael Ritchie’s debut as director. He is often described as a master ironist and while the material is undoubtedly on the page, the staging is meticulously judged:  there is acute observation and colour (look at the difference a white turtleneck makes to Chappelet and how he dons blue jeans to talk to his uninterested father);  the production design in flawless in terms of contrast; there are also reverse shots that make you laugh out loud. (Look at how Claire laughs in a restaurant when Chappelet is cornered by a dumb journalist). This world is established leanly, using few reaction shots.The part is Redford’s. He had picked up on the property when Roman Polanski was working on it at Paramount prior to getting involved with Rosemary’s Baby and Salter developed the story outline from Polanski’s idea of a High Noon on the slopes, ignoring Hall’s novel. Redford and Salter travelled with the US ski team to the 1968 Winter Olympics at Grenoble and Hall picked up on an aloof quality in Billy Kidd but was also influenced by Spider Sabich and Buddy Werner who had died a few years earlier in an avalanche while fooling with a film crew. Sparv was married to Paramount Studio head Robert Evans for a few years and she has precisely the glacial attraction required for such a nonchalant self-absorbed woman. Superior, in fact. Chappelet’s need of money and fame needs that kind of woman in tow. When she doesn’t need him he is brought down to earth – literally. Claire is the warm team manager whose methods the cool Chappelet despises. There is a plot but it’s the anonymity of the slopes, the hotel rooms, the lifestyle, the effort, the brutality, that highlight the characterisations. The technical side of the film is superlative – rarely has the experience of skiing been so accurately shot and Ritchie hired cameraman Brian Probyn and sound man Kevin Sutton after seeing their work on Ken Loach’s Poor Cow. The images of Chappelet and Carole skirting the high line of the glistening white slopes under a bright blue sky are awesome. Some years ago an acquaintance regaled me with a little story about Redford at one of the Sundance Institute workshops. He kept a low profile, he said. Didn’t want to draw attention to himself. And then one morning he was out on the slopes. You could spot him without any effort:  he was the one in a hot pink suit. Somehow you just know he is channeling his inner Chappelet. Not just for ski bunnies and Jean-Claude Killy fans. Outstanding.

 

 

6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (2017)

Following a drug-related fall from grace and a car crash, former professional hockey player Eric LeMarque (Josh Hartnett) finds himself stranded on a mountain in the High Sierras during a fierce snowstorm and misses his crucial court date which his worried mother (Mira Sorvino) is hounding him to attend. Coming to terms with his personal demons, he soon rediscovers the power of faith while fighting for survival, suffering excruciating injuries and frostbite and it takes six days for anyone to even notice he’s gone from the cabin in the mountain, snowboard in hand … LeMarque’s book (co-written with Davin Seay) is adapted by Madison Turner in what is no doubt a well-intentioned cautionary tale about drugs and not getting caught on the side of a mountain during a storm. However the structure and the constant badly shot flashbacks don’t assist the dark night of the soul that LeMarque endures while he fights for his life. Mainly because we just don’t see him in action on the rink, just beating people up. It’s nice to see Sorvino back even in the absolutely thankless role of his mother which for the most part she (necessarily) phones in. Zzzzz….. Was that a bear? Nope. Too bad. Just say no, kids! Directed by Scott Waugh.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

This never happened to the other fellow. Secret agent 007 (George Lazenby) and the adventurous Tracy Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) who is mob boss Draco’s (Gabriele Ferzetti) daughter join forces to battle the evil SPECTRE organization in the treacherous Swiss Alps. But the group’s powerful leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), is launching his most calamitous scheme yet: a germ warfare plot that could kill millions! … What most true Bond fans know is that this is the probably the greatest of them all. It’s self-referential but is also true to the book; it has real emotion and not the ersatz pastiche variety underwriting past iterations and which sadly wouldn’t make a proper reappearance until the Eighties;  it’s a real action movie with life at stake;  it has Bond’s only functioning romantic relationship; the action is breathtaking and the safe-cracking scene is one of the best crime process scenes ever shot; it has one of the greatest songs ever written, never mind in the Bond canon – We Have All the Time in the World is just swoonsome and literally timeless; and Telly Savalas is a marvellous Blofeld, ensconced in his Alpine tower surrounded by pretty women – like Joanna Lumley. Lazenby isn’t given an easy ride taking over from Connery primarily because he spends a lot of the time undercover pretending to be a bespectacled man called Sir Hilary Bray presumed to be researching allergies and who must deal with Blofeld’s henchwoman Irma Blunt (Ilse Steppat). Rigg is a brilliant romantic foil, taking no nonsense and being quite Bond’s equal which makes the perfectly tragic ending so devastating.  For tourism porn there’s any amount of Alps, the cable car station and the Piz Gloria revolving restaurant above Bern, the Arrabida National Park and the Palacio Hotel in Estoril, Portugal – stunning scenery that still delights. Written by Richard Maibaum with additional dialogue by the fascinating Simon Raven and directed by Peter R. Hunt who had done assistant work on the earlier films. Simply brilliant.