Dan Navarro's Blog

SUNDAY IN NEW YORK (1963)

2011-11-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2011

Produced right on the cusp of the sexual revolution in America, Sunday in New York (1963) probably stirred the libidos of many viewers. Previously, it was considered improper for young people to indulge in sex before they got married. But by 1963, with many couples challenging that taboo, the subject was due for another assessment. And it got one, in this clever and charming Peter Tewksbury romantic comedy, based on a script by Norman Krasna.

Jane Fonda plays a 22-year-old virgin, Eileen. She's just lost the man of her dreams, Russ (Robert Culp) because he wanted sex before marriage and she refused. Now she's traveled from her home town of Albany to New York City, to visit her brother Adam (Cliff Robertson). Little sis wants to get big brother's views on the subject of extra-marital sex.

On the 5th Avenue bus, Eileen meets Mike (Rod Taylor), and they go to get coffee together. Caught in a rainstorm, the two are drenched, and with no umbrellas and no taxis in sight, they have no choice but to repair to Adam's apartment to dry off.

After some nervous conversation, Eileen decides to try and seduce Mike, if only to get the "virginity" monkey off her back. He's all for the sex, until he discovers -- at apparently the last moment -- that she is, er, a "beginner." Infuriated, Mike retreats to the safety of his bathrobe, then lectures the girl on the perils of seduction when one is a virgin. Eileen asks, logically, "Well, how is a girl supposed to learn?"

Good question. But there's no time to discuss it, because just then, who should burst into the apartment but Russ, all the way from Albany to propose marriage to Eileen, whom he has decided he cannot live without. Russ has never met Eileen's brother, so seeing the two together in the apartment -- in their robes -- he assumes that Mike is Adam, and begins joshing with him and treating him like a future brother-in-law.

The fun escalates when the real Adam comes home and discovers that Mike has co-opted his identity, and must now call himself "Mike" and pretend to be his own best friend.

Rod Taylor is very game about his role in this film. He gets punched and knocked down by both Culp and Robertson, is drenched repeatedly in New York City's rainstorms, and is made to be Eileen's fall guy when the whole charade falls apart. Still -- SPOILERS AHEAD -- at the end Taylor's Mike gets to romance Fonda's Eileen, and the film appears headed for a happy ending.

But Mike had to go through hell before he could find his heaven, in the arms of Eileen.

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (2002)

2010-03-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (2002)

A Film Review

by Dan Navarro

When a motion picture is based on a literary work of art, film critics invariably separate themselves into two opposing camps. One insists that the film must be a rigorous adaptation of the book, a near-slavish adherence to the words on the page. The other camp allows the film to be a film, with all the cinematic flair that makes the movie attractive to audiences of the time.

Kevin Reynolds' The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) belongs in the second category. Based on the renowned classic by Alexandre Dumas, it tells an epic tale of love, betrayal and retribution. Purists may deride the modern liberties taken in the name of entertainment, but they cannot deny that the basic outline of the book remains intact... and yes, a modern film viewer who hasn't taken the time to slog through the more than 1,500 pages of the original work, can still enjoy this story of sweet revenge, exacted in a most colorful fashion.

Dumas' classic has been adapted for the screen no fewer than a dozen times, beginning with a one-reel silent version in 1908. Before the Reynolds film, perhaps the 1934 version starring Robert Donat was considered the best adaptation, especially in the last half, where Edmond Dantes' fearsome vengeance is being carried out. (The worst adaptation, hands down, is the sappy 1975 TV version starring Richard Chamberlain.)

Edmond Dantes (played by James Caviezel in the 2002 version) was a lovable but simple and perhaps naive French sailor in Napoleonic times. He and his friend Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce) sail out to the island of Elba, and there Dantes meets the famous exile Napoleon, who gives him a letter to deliver to a friend back in France. The guileless Edmond meekly accepts the letter and promises to tell no one about it.

But back in France, the letter falls into the hands of Villefort, the local magistrate, who immediately charges Dantes with treason. He has the gullible sailor arrested and shipped off to the infamous prison island, the Chateau d'If, there to spend the rest of his life in lonely captivity.

Edmond spends the next 13 years in his dungeon cell, but fortunately meets a fellow prisoner, an old priest named Faria (Richard Harris, in his final role). Faria is no ordinary priest. Apparently he is skilled in the martial arts, in philosophy, in literature. Over a period of several years, Faria teaches Edmond the art of swordplay, teaches him to read, and tells him of an uncharted island on which is hidden a limitless fortune, more money than one could spend in 20 lifetimes. Even better, Faria has a map showing the location of the treasure.

But the Abbe Faria is growing old, and his long confinement has taken its toll on his lungs. He dies in his cell, leaving Edmond the treasure map. Edmond knows the prison guards will take away the body, so he substitutes himself in its place. The guards obligingly carry the shroud out to the cliffs and toss it into the ocean. Once underwater, Edmond cuts his way to freedom.

After acquiring an assistant, Jacopo (Luiz Guzman), in a knife fight with some pirates, Edmond sets sail for the tiny island of Monte Cristo, uncovers the hidden treasure, and becomes wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. But the desire for revenge against his betrayers festers in his heart. Dantes harbors resentment not only against Villefort, but also Danglars, a former ship captain who sold him out, and especially against his former "best friend," Fernand Mondego, who not only aided in the villainy to get Dantes imprisoned... but who has also married Dantes' former love, the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk).

Edmond hatches a devious plan. Renaming himself the Count of Monte Cristo and buying the grandest estate in Paris, he hosts an elegant "coming out" party, inviting all the nobles and their ladies, including two men he has particular interest in seeing again: Mondego and Villefort.

Make no mistake, Caviezel earns his acting stripes here. In the first act, Dantes had been a humble, soft-spoken working sailor. Now, more than 13 years later and enriched with not only a fortune but also with a grand new sense of confidence, the formidable "Count" dazzles his party guests, impressing one and all. No one from his past recognizes him, partly because of the passing years but also because he now sports a handsome, neatly trimmed mustache and beard. He is sophisticated and bold, as unlike the old Dantes as night is from day. Caviezel makes us believe it.

With the help of Jacopo and his pirate friends, Dantes sets up Danglars and gets him arrested by the French military. Next, he takes his vengeance on Villefort, in the unlikely setting of a steam room where Villefort is basking. Dantes, though fully clad, turns up the heat to an unbearable degree, and Villefort is cooked until done.

But the juiciest revenge is saved for the final act, when Dantes confronts his former "friend," Fernand Mondego. After letting Mondego learn his true identity, Dantes engages him in a rousing, prolonged sword fight. Years earlier, Mondego had easily bested Dantes in swordplay; but now, Edmond uses all the moves and cunning taught to him by the Abbe Faria during his long imprisonment. Furiously, the two men buckle their swashes in a grandly choreographed and lengthy duel that begins indoors, then moves outside... where Edmond gets his final revenge at last.

There is one other surprise at the ending, but it's best for you to discover it for yourselves. I've written that Jim Caviezel comes of age as an actor in this film; but Guy Pearce also shines, serving up what is, in context, the best line in the movie. It's only one word, but Pearce's delivery will make you shiver. The word is: "Premature."

SWITCH (1991)

2010-02-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

SWITCH (1991)

A film review by Dan Navarro

Have you ever wished for a modern movie that could deliver a strong, uplifting spiritual message without being boring? Once upon a time, Hollywood could accomplish that feat with ease. But in today's sex-and-sensationalism market, films with spiritual themes are mocked, patronized, or even worse, ignored. That's why Blake Edwards' 1991 comedy Switch (Warners-HBO Films) is such a serendipitous find: A bawdy rib-tickler with ribald humor aplenty, yet one that delivers the spiritual goods too.

To be sure, the fabled Edwards raunch is intact in Switch. The film is sexy, funny, and cheerfully vulgar. But there is a sweetness here also, a frank admission that some things are more important than animal appetites, for example the salvation of one's soul. Against all odds, Switch not only delivers that message, but does it in a positive, exhilarating way that rivals the best work of Preston Struges and Frank Capra.

In Switch's opening reel, a smug chauvinist named Steve (Perry King) is murdered by three women who once loved him. Steve's soul descends into purgatory, where he is informed by God that he cannot gain admission to Heaven until he atones for his many offenses against womankind. So Steve is returned to Earth for his second chance, with the admonition that he cannot enter Heaven until he finds one female who likes him. To make things tougher, the womanizing Steve is reincarnated as Amanda (Ellen Barkin), a gorgeous blonde with the sort of dynamite body that has been Steve's lifelong playground.

What ensues is a comedic tour-de-force by Barkin, who is splendidly funny as a man trying to cope inside a woman's body. She wobbles shakily on stiletto heels, struggles to sit demurely in short skirts, and suffers a storm of sexual confusions when confronted with Steve's former girlfriends. Even when Amanda is with a genuinely nice guy (Jimmy Smits), she cannot warm up to him, because inside she still thinks like a man.

But the comedy is being played out against a deadly serious bass motif, the struggle for Steve/Amanda's immortal soul. Satan wants it too, and he appears to Amanda with an offer to release her from her tortured existence, if she will consent to join him forever in Hell. Horrified, she refuses. But she knows, and we know too, that her time is growing short; for after weeks of searching, she has failed to find one female who likes her in either incarnation.

Edwards, who wrote and directed Switch, was a prolific filmmaker who often turned out edgy comedies (The Pink Panther, S.O.B., Victor/Victoria), but with Switch he seems to be going for something new: mixing farce and spirituality. Even the way he treats the Devil is witty. Satan, played by Bruce Martyn Payne, seems to show up everywhere Steve/Amanda goes, sometimes in disguise, sometimes not. Audaciously, Satan even shows up in drag, playing the piano at a lesbian party.

In the early 1940s, Preston Sturges' seriocomedy Sullivan's Travels told the story of a man who is thrust into a world completely alien to his own, but a world in which he learns truths that would enrich his life forever. Frank Capra's superb It's a Wonderful Life (1946) used the same idea in a different way, making that movie a perennial favorite, one of the most loved films of all time.

Unlike the Sturges and Capra heroes, Switch's protagonist is no innocent, but an unrepentant heel suddenly challenged by fate to amend his miserable life. But this is precisely what makes the message even stronger. All souls are equally precious to God, are they not? Because Switch is a comedy, it does not seem unfair to disclose that in the end, the redeemed sinner does, indeed, gain admission to Paradise. But the twist that leads to this happy ending is wondrous, a plot element strikingly outside the standard routine of modern sex comedies. It is nothing less than an example of what is meant when people speak of the all-conquering love of God.

Edwards' deus ex machina is no heavenly puppetmaster pulling strings, but a benevolent God who helps those who help themselves. Seek and you shall find. To find that point driven home so forcefully in a '90s sex farce like Switch is more than surprising, it is miraculous. Sturges and Capra would have approved.

CALAMITY JANE (1953)

2010-01-05T02:01:00.000-08:00

CALAMITY JANE (1953)

A film review by Dan Navarro

It’s unsettling to read modern reviews of the Doris Day film Calamity Jane (1953) and find that critics use terms like “sexist,” “racist,” and “Sapphic” applied to this harmless musical entertainment.

None of those terms were used then, and the public found favor in Calamity Jane, making it one of the year’s biggest grossing films.

Doris Day stars as the eponymous heroine, but at first she is just barely recognizable under the grimy buckskin clothes she wears. She’s the rootin’ tootin’ facsimile of a Billy the Kid, but with a winning smile. She can outshoot any man in the Dakota territory – all except one, that is. Her friendly rival Wild Bill Hickok (Howard Keel) is number one in that department, but he allows Calamity Jane (she goes by the name Calam) to continue struttin’ and spittin’ and riding shotgun on the Deadwood stagecoach, from which she regularly shoots down dozens of Sioux warriors. (She calls them "redskin naked heathens.")

She’s brash too, at one point bragging to the local saloon owner that she can travel to Chicago, Illinois, and snag the biggest musical star around, one Adelaid Adams, and bring her back to perform in the Deadwood saloon, known as the Golden Garter.

Calam does get to Chicago, and visits Adelaid's (Gale Robbins) dressing room. Unfortunately, Miss Adams has left for Europe, and the girl Calam finds in that room is Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie), Adelaid's maid and assistant.

Now there is a double deception, and it's delicious. Calamity thinks Katie is Adelaid, and Katie looks at this dusty person in buckskin and thinks it's a man. Calam laughs heartily at Katie's confusion, then suddenly realizes that maybe it ain't so funny, bein' took fer a feller. That's the beginning of Calamity's sexual awakening. For the rest of the movie, she becomes more feminine by the reel.

Katie goes with Calam to Deadwood, and appears on the Golden Garter stage in front of an SRO crowd of rowdy cowpokes, eager for a look at the pretty chanteuse from the big city. At first, Katie sings off-key and is just awful; but after she tearfully tells the audience that she isn't Adelaid Adams, the star they had expected, she lets them know that she's just Katie Brown, a working girl hoping for a break in show business. The cowpokes' bitterness and disappointment is almost palpable. Calam jumps on stage and encourages Katie to sing the way she wants to -- as just Katie Brown instead of an ersatz Adelaid -- and Katie pulls out the stops, sings and dances in her own style, and scores a major hit.

A hit in more ways than one. Katie is now an artiste, but she's also charmed the hearts of the two best-looking guys in Deadwood: Bill Hickok and Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin (Philip Carey), an officer stationed at the fort nearby. Both begin wooing her, and once again Calam has to step in... because she's been secretly in love with Lt. Danny all along.

The score of Calamity Jane is filled with hummable tunes, all sung by Doris Day, Keel, and Miss McLerie. Miss Day proves herself an able hoofer, too, in her soft-shoe solo to "Windy City," danced partly on a bar room floor covered in salt.

The four principals -- Calamity, Wild Bill, Katie, and Lt. Danny -- go to a fancy-dress ball, and for the first time ever, Wild Bill gets a look at his friend Calamity Jane wearing a (gulp!) dress! She's still pining for her shiny lieutenant, though, and hopes to snare him before the ball is over. But then she spies him kissing Katie Brown, and Katie enthusiastically kissing him back. Furious over this "double cross," Calamity challenges Katie to a gunfight... until Wild Bill talks some sense to her, saying "Who are you to tell people who they can love?"

It's good advice, but at the same time Bill's heart is breaking, for he craved Katie's love for himself. To console each other in their grief, Bill and Calamity kiss. We surmise it's their first kiss ever.

Here is where Doris Day, singer and popular recording star, earns her acting laurels. As Bill and Calam break after the kiss, we see her lovely face as we have not seen it before. Her expression is one of wonderment, of ecstatic realization. Can it be? Can this man who has always been like a brother to her actually be the man she will love for life?

This, of course, leads to Miss Day's most enduring hit song, "Secret Love." If you hear it on a record or on the radio, it sounds like a nice tune. But hearing it here, in the film where she discovers the man of her dreams was right next to her all along, gives it a charm we never suspected. Her secret love's no secret any more.

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP

2009-12-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp

(1926)

A film review by Dan Navarro

Harry Langdon was a supernova. As far as silent cinema is concerned, he was – this is the dictionary definiton – “an extremely bright, short-lived object that emits vast amounts of energy.”

Short-lived is right. Over the years, film researchers have remarked on the brilliance of this comic who came along and almost instantly challenged the greats of film comedy – Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd – and then quickly disappeared. Film historian Kevin Brownlow called Langdon “the fourth genius of screen comedy.” He was that, but for a very short period of time.

Langdon came to films late – in 1924, when he was already 40 years old – and soon became a favorite in Mack Sennett short comedies. Two years later, he branched out as an independent producer and starred in a feature-length comedy, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926).

In character, Langdon was as grotesque as Chaplin’s Little Tramp or Keaton’s Great Stone Face. He played a doleful, innocent man-child, baby-like in his mannerisms and gestures. In Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, he plays Harry Logan, son of an elderly, handicapped bootmaker (Alec B. Francis) who is behind in the rent. To earn enough money to pay the landlord, Harry enters a coast-to-coast walking race, with the winner to receive a $25,000 prize.

The contest is sponsored by a shoe tycoon whose ads feature a picture of his beautiful daughter Betty (the 22-year-old Joan Crawford). Harry takes one look at Betty’s image and falls madly, impossibly, incongruously in love with her. I say “incongruously” because Langdon’s character looks so immature and fragile, you can’t imagine him having enough pep to love a woman. But he loves this woman.

The race begins. Soon all the best walkers in the world are on the path, heading from New York to California. Harry, naturally, is late… but he catches up. Then he makes a wrong turn and winds up on a ranch, surrounded by hundreds of sheep. To escape them, he climbs a nearby fence and clambers over the side… not realizing that he is now on the edge of a very steep cliff.

It’s a “thrill” moment that would do Harold Lloyd proud. Harry tries to escape his predicament by dismantling the fence with a hammer, but the darned thing falls apart and Harry rides it like a sled, down the hill, hundreds of feet down… and it lands right on the racing path, in front of the other contestants.

The racers rendezvous in Cleveland, Ohio. There, the shoe tycoon and his daughter greet the contestants and Harry, impulsively, steals a kiss from her. Joan Crawford reacts as if she’s just seen a wire coat hanger. But she lets it pass, and soon the racers are off again.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp’s most spectacular scene comes after the racers have crossed what an intertitle calls “the great American desert.” A cyclone hits Sand City, and buildings are destroyed, cars are overturned, and the violent wind threatens to kill everyone in town. That would be too bad, because now Betty and her dad have arrived, and Betty finds herself trapped – alone – on the second floor of a building that is ready to collapse. Harry summons the nerve to climb the stairs and he carries Betty down to safety.

Then, seeing that the cyclone is still wreaking havoc, Harry starts throwing bricks at it. That’s right, bricks. He is thinking as a child would; but lo and behold, the cyclone responds by moving away from town and dissipating into the desert.

An intertitle reads: “David slew Goliath; Daniel tamed the lions; Joshua stopped the sun; and Harry made a cyclone take the air.”

At the finish line, the world’s champion walker, Nick Kargas (Tom Murray) appears to be on his way to victory… but this time, the perpetually late Harry puts on a determined sprint, passes him up, and finishes first. He wins not only the prize money, but also Betty’s hand in marriage. And that’s love.

MY BEST GIRL (1927)

2009-09-12T19:43:00.000-07:00

My Best Girl

(1927)

A Film Review by Dan Navarro

If you’ve heard of the Mary Pickford legend and wondered what all the fuss was about, look no further than My Best Girl (1927), Miss Pickford’s last silent film and, arguably, her best film ever.

Mary Pickford appeared in almost 250 movies and produced 30, besides several uncredited stints as writer and director. By 1920, the year she helped establish United Artists, she was the most popular female movie star in the world. In 1927, she became one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In a word, she was Hollywood.

It’s ironic that this Very Big Star – probably the biggest of them all – was physically tiny, standing just a shade over five feet tall.

In the wonderfully warm romantic comedy My Best Girl, Miss Pickford is Maggie Johnson, a stock room girl employed at Merrill’s Department Store. There’s a clever early scene where Maggie is asked to bring some kitchen pots from the stock room, and finds she can’t carry all of them; so she wears one of them as a shoe and brings it out that way.

Maggie falls for Joe Grant (Charles “Buddy” Rogers), a new co-worker with a charming smile. His smile may be a winner, but as a stock room worker Joe seems a bit slow to learn. At one point, Maggie teasingly tells him: “You know, you’re awfully dumb!”

What Maggie doesn’t know is that Joe Grant is really Joe Merrill, the son of the store’s owner, working incognito to learn the business from the ground up. Young Joe is “engaged to be engaged” to an upper-crust girl named Millicent (Avonne Taylor), but she doesn’t seem to light Joe’s fire the way Maggie does. The two co-workers eat lunch together, sometimes sitting in a large crate in the stock room, and we can feel their love for each other growing.

There’s a charming scene where Maggie is riding in the open bed of a truck and Joe chases after her, running pell-mell down the street, trying to keep up with the moving truck. Director Sam Taylor and cinematographer Charles Rosher keep things lively with a long tracking shot that follows Joe on his run, with Maggie and the truck bed framed in the foreground. When Joe finally catches the truck, he climbs aboard and, thoroughly smitten, builds a “throne” for Maggie out of the crates and barrels on board. He even fashions an ersatz tiara for her to wear. It’s as if Rogers and Miss Pickford invented meet-cute.

Eventually, after a comic subterfuge that lands Joe and Maggie at the Merrill mansion, the truth comes out when Mr. and Mrs. Merrill return home unexpectedly. The terrified Maggie jumps into hiding under the dining room table, but to her surprise, Joe remains standing to greet the Merrills. Hearing their conversation, Maggie finally gets the picture: She’s been romancing the store owner’s son!

Maggie’s own family is what nowadays we would call dysfunctional. Her dad (Lucien Littlefield) is a mailman and a reliable breadwinner, but his wife (Sunshine Hart) and younger daughter Liz (Carmelita Geraghty) are a pair of world-class flakes, and Pa can’t deal with them. So, Maggie’s the one who puts dinner on the table night after night, even after working a full day at the store.

One night, flapper Liz and her loser boyfriend get in a jam with the law and wind up in night court, possibly facing jail terms. When Maggie hears of it, she rushes to the court and, putting on her best Clarence Darrow impersonation, pleads a sob story that utterly melts the judge’s (Mack Swain) heart and leads to the dropping of all charges. Because this is a silent film, we can’t hear Maggie’s words, but we don’t have to. Her facial expressions, especially the puckishly pursed lips and sad eyes, convey her sincerity and tell us all we need to know.

My Best Girl is lovely, witty… and busy. Taylor sees to it that the screen is never idle; in nearly every scene there is some bit of business going on in the background. And there’s a whirlwind climax, when Joe proposes to Maggie in front of her family and the two lovers have to scurry to the docks in time to catch the ship that will take them to their honeymoon – all in just ten minutes! With this sequence, Taylor emulates the best of Mack Sennett, Hal Roach, and Leo McCarey, as the screen is packed with comic action during a frenzied final reel.

And, in case you’ve come late to the party and didn’t know this, the romance between Mary Pickford and Charles “Buddy” Rogers was repeated in real life, though not right away. Ten years after they made My Best Girl, Mary and Buddy tied the knot and remained a loving married couple for life.

DUETS (2000)

2009-08-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

DUETS (2000)

A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2009

A couple of lifetimes ago, musical films were all the rage. Astaire and Rogers, Gene Kelly, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Ann Miller, and other talented musical performers practically owned the screen, and the folks turned out in large numbers to see their films.

Then a curious thing happened. Nobody knows exactly why, but American moviegoers turned their backs on musicals. Drama and, later, gross-out romantic comedies became the new standard, and those genres still rule today.

But occasionally, some director or producer will serve up a “pseudo musical” – a film that incorporates some music to appeal to the tastes of nostalgic purists (like me), but still conforms to the modern formats of comedy and/or drama. Such a film is Bruce Paltrow’s DUETS (2000).

Elsewhere, you may find film reviews that imperiously deride DUETS as a contrived and uneven road-trip movie. It may have its dramatic faults, but in this review I intend to salute it as the “stealth musical” it clearly is.

Briefly summed up, DUETS is a story about three odd-couple pairs who make their way across the United States to attend a karaoke contest in Omaha, Nebraska, where the winner stands to earn $5,000. There is comedy interlaced with serious drama (the Andre Braugher character is an escaped convict, and his buddy, played by Paul Giamatti, is a burned-out salesman at the end of his rope)… but the movie really shines when the characters stand before the microphone in the karaoke bar in whatever city, open their mouths, forget their troubles, and sing.

Because the singing in this film is invariably fine, it recalls the heyday of the Hollywood musical. There’s no dancing in DUETS. But with musicals an endangered species anyway, there is comfort in knowing that someone in Hollywood still appreciates good popular music. You’ll find a lot of it here.

Giamatti, already known as a versatile character actor, turns out to be a good singer, too. When his character, Todd, and his friend Reggie (Andre Braugher) take the stage to sing a duet to the Harry Woods standard “Try a Little Tenderness,” their rendition becomes the hit of the show.

Giamatti sings in his own voice, but Braugher lip-syncs to the prerecorded voice of Arnold McCuller. Most fans know that lip-synching is a standard technique used in musical films; but Braugher’s performance is probably the best lip-synching since the THE JOLSON STORY (1946) and the legendary perfection achieved by actor Larry Parks when he mimicked the great Al Jolson. You’ll see that same perfection here.

Suzy Loomis (Maria Bello) is a footloose babe who’s blessed with a killer bod and a superb singing voice, and she shows both off here, in miniskirted renderings of the Eurythmics classic “Sweet Dreams are Made of This” and Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Her partner in this road-trip to Nebraska is Billy Hannan, a handsome cab driver played by Scott Speedman. Billy is the only member of this odd-couple trek that doesn’t sing; but he provides solid support for the sometimes flighty Suzy.

The third couple combines Ricky (Huey Lewis) and his long-estranged daughter Liv (Gwyneth Paltrow, daughter of director Paltrow). We’ve always known that Lewis is a fine singer, but Paltrow is a revelation. She delivers a dynamite solo rendition of “Bette Davis Eyes,” then partners with Lewis in the Smokey Robinson classic “Cruisin.’” That duet is the highlight of the film, and it’s in fine company.

Though the main characters all get a chance to shine at the mic, there are of course many other singers we hear along the road to Omaha. One of them – a mere extra at the time – is Michael Bublé, who warbles a few bars of “Strangers in the Night,” about three (3) years before he would take the pop world by storm with a string of hit albums.

There’s also a fat kid in the Omaha competition, unnamed in the film, who sings and does a bit of a dance to the Barry Manilow classic “Copacabana.” He’s only on screen for a minute or two, but his talent is genuine. In his otherwise dismissive revue of DUETS, Roger Ebert calls this kid “fascinating.”

The Golden Age of film musicals may be history now, but every so often a film maker has the good grace to showcase good popular music in one of his movies. DUETS is such a film.

TRUE HEART SUSIE (1919)

2009-06-26T00:06:00.000-07:00

True Heart Susie

(1919)

A film review by Dan Navarro

There is a story – perhaps apocryphal, perhaps not – about the 1987 film The Whales of August , starring the graceful, willowy Lillian Gish. She was then 94 years of age, appearing in her final movie after a remarkable 75-year film career. Lillian co-starred with the 81-year-old Bette Davis, playing her sister.

Someone remarked on the wonderful close-ups of Lillian in that film, and the tart-tongued Bette Davis supposedly replied: “They should be. The bitch invented them.”

Movie close-ups have, of course, been around since the 1890s. But they were honed to a fine art by D.W. Griffith, who utilized these and other innovations in his epics The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). His muse was the delicate, angelic-faced Lillian Gish.

In Griffith’s True Heart Susie (1919), Miss Gish plays the title role as a young rustic who’s enamored of a neighbor boy, gangly William (Robert Harron), but doesn’t know how to convey the affection she feels for him. She has some money, and secretly finances William’s college education so that he can make something of himself. But once he’s found success, she lets him slip off the hook, and he marries a gold-digging flirt (Clarine Seymour), leaving Susie’s love unrequited.

Halfway through the film, there is a moment when Susie realizes that her hopes are dashed, her sacrifice has been for naught, and the love of her life can never be hers.

This may be the shot that got Bette Davis so worked up. Griffith gives Miss Gish a giant close-up and lets it run for 37 seconds – an eternity in the silent era. During that time, we see Susie’s face register a panoply of emotions: stunned surprise; resentment; sorrow; puzzlement; wry amusement over what a fool she’s been; then her large eyes open wide as she contemplates the emptiness of her own future; supreme heartbreak; and finally, bitter resignation. All this, with only the finely honed delicacy of her beautiful face. We watch in awe, and we know what it’s called: acting.

In all the years I’ve been watching films, I’ve never seen another virtuoso performance that comes close to matching that one Lillian Gish close-up. Katherine Hepburn had her moments, and so, too, did Emma Thompson. Perhaps there were others.

But Lillian Gish, I think, did it best.

True Heart Susie is standard Griffith, meaning it is superbly organized, photographed and directed. At the beginning, Miss Gish and Harron appear as teenagers, and quite convincing they are. They enjoy walking down the country lanes together, and he even carves their initials on a “friendship tree.” But he never gets up enough nerve to kiss her, though she seemingly gives him every opportunity to do so.

Near the end of the film, William’s cheating wife dies from the pneumonia she contracted during a rainstorm while out with her boyfriend. The grieving widower does the right thing, arranging for a proper funeral. Then, and only then, does he learn that his education had been arranged by his teenage gal-pal, Susie, and that she has always been madly in love with him.

William’s own love for Susie, long denied, rushes to the surface, they embrace, and finally – after 87 minutes of mounting audience tension engineered by Griffith – William takes his life-long friend into his arms for the first time, and they enjoy their first kiss.

Most directors would end it there, but Griffith shows us no mercy. He fades on the kiss, then opens a new scene: William and Susie, walking together down the country lane, youngsters again. On this wishful note, the film ends.

True Heart Susie has been restored by David Shepard’s Film Preservation Associates and is available in DVD format from Image Entertainment.

2009-02-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

SILENT MOVIE (1976)
a film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright 2009 Dan Navarro

Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie (1976), the first silent picture to be made in 40 years, strives to blend the director’s manic sense of humor with silent film conventions. Surprisingly, they make a good fit. Brooks’ comic repertoire doesn’t begin and end with witty double-entendres; here, he proves himself a master of physical comedy, too.

Brooks (who also co-wrote and directed) plays Mel Funn, a former film director who’s hit the skids, by way of the bottle. Now sober and seeking a comeback, he teams with his buddies, Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman) and Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise), to try to sell Big Pictures Studio (“If it’s a big picture, it was made here”) on the idea of making the first silent movie in 40 years.

The Studio Chief – er, make that the current Studio Chief (in Brooks’ universe, everything echoes the turmoil of real life) – played by Sid Caesar, thinks it’s insane to try to make money these days (“these days” meaning 1976) with a silent picture… unless the intrepid trio can talk some really big movie stars into appearing in it.

So off they go, in search of stars. Some of Hollywood’s big names do appear in this film, as themselves, and Funn and his pals nab all of them – Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli, James Caan, Anne Bancroft, Burt Reynolds – and they begin production of the picture.

But trouble lurks around the corner. Big Pictures Studio is on the verge of bankruptcy, and is a take-over target of Engulf and Devour, a ruthless conglomerate. (Brooks has stated, publicly, that any resemblance to Gulf & Western, which had recently swallowed up Paramount Pictures, is purely coincidental.) The only thing that can save Big Pictures is a major hit, and that’s just what Funn & Co. aims to deliver… unless Engulf and Devour can stop them.

That’s where E. & D.’s weasely CEO (Harold Gould) steps in and plots sabotage. Knowing that Funn’s two big weaknesses are women and liquor, he hires a “bundle of lust” – one Vilma Kaplan (Bernadette Peters) – to seduce Funn and drive him back to drink.

Silent Movie captures the spirit of the silent era amazingly well, for a film made in 1976. The opening scene shows the trio of Funn, Eggs, and Bell driving down a sunny, palm-lined Southern California street, and we don’t hear a single sound. I’ll admit that I suspected something must have gone wrong in the projection booth, because I was watching a motion picture, but hearing no sound, not even music. Brooks got me good, with that one.

We don’t hear any sound until their convertible coupe passes a giant billboard… and then the camera lingers on that billboard, to show us: “20th Century-Fox”… and the music begins, followed by the opening credits.

In 1948 James Agee wrote an essay, “Comedy’s Greatest Era,” extolling the virtues of silent era comedies when compared to the limp humor of talkies of the current period. Agee described the four main grades of a laugh: the titter, the yowl, the bellylaugh and the boffo.

An ideally good gag, wrote Agee, “would bring the victim up this ladder of laughs by cruelly controlled degrees to the top rung, and would then proceed to wobble, shake, wave and brandish the ladder until he groaned for mercy….”

Mel Brooks may have read that essay, for in Silent Movie he builds on his gags at every opportunity. In one scene, for example, Eggs (Feldman) is trying to board an elevator, but the door snaps shut just before he can get into it. He pushes the button again. Another elevator door opens and Eggs is ready to run – no, sprint – to it before it closes. But inside the elevator are dozens of doctors and nurses, filing out. Eggs must wait for them. He waits for what seems an eternity, but they keep coming. And coming. Nearly one hundred people, all emptying out of this one elevator. Finally only one person is left: a gigantic nurse with a malevolent glare. Eggs tries to sidestep her, but she’s too quick for him. Face to face, they continue to dance, her glare darkening all the time. Finally she moves away and the elevator door closes, leaving Eggs without a ride. Again.

That scene is a nice spin on a turn in a Harold Lloyd comedy, Girl Shy (1924), in which Harold is trying to board a trolley car but is shoved aside by hundreds of men who materialize out of seemingly nowhere. Later in Silent Movie, Brooks appropriates a gag of Charlie Chaplin’s, from Chaplin’s 1916 short, One A.M., when he does battle with a recalcitrant Murphy bed. (In a shabby edifice known, naturally, as the Hotel Sleez.)

Each of the guest stars gets a generous share of screen time, but the most sparkling is Anne Bancroft (Mrs. Mel Brooks in real life). She does a table-top dance in a night club, tangos with all three principals… and guts it out though she’s taking quite a beating. One moment, Funn is dancing with her and, when they dip, he bangs her head on a table. Later, she is being carried off stage – horizontally – by the three funnymen, who “accidentally” ram her head into a wall.

Vilma, the Bernadette Peters character, converts from femme fatale to a loving partner for Mel Funn. With Engulf and Devour now out of the way, the trio follow through and complete their movie. The night of the Sneak Preview, however, it is learned that the film has been stolen – and it’s the only copy!

Cue up some more jokes from Brooks & Co., enlivened by an encounter with a vicious Coke machine. That’s right, a Coke machine! This gag defies description; it must be seen to be believed. But with Mel Brooks at his manic best, the whole crazy cavalcade delivers some of the heartiest laughs since the real silent era ended.

Silent Movie was released to the public on DVD by Twentieth Century-Fox Video, making this consistently funny grab bag of comedy routines available for the first time.

FIRST A GIRL (1935)

2008-11-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

First a Girl (1935)

A film review by Dan Navarro

Copyright Dan Navarro 2008

By now, it is probably not possible to review the sparkling Jessie Matthews musical First a Girl (1935) without referencing Blake Edwards’ 1982 smash hit Victor/Victoria, since they were both based on the same story (by Reinhold Schünzel). The Edwards film became so popular, it threatened to erase memory of Miss Matthews’ 1935 tour-de-force as well as the original film of the story, Germany’s Viktor und Viktoria (1933). Ironically, a modern viewing of the Matthews vehicle actually wins new respect for Miss Matthews' performance.

For one thing, First a Girl makes no mention of homosexuality. While the Edwards film is fueled by gay jokes, the Matthews version shows us that the subject of female impersonation is perfectly legitimate outside the lavender world.

Miss Matthews, who had her breakthrough role in the spectacular British musical Evergreen (1934), is here serviced by the two gents who helped to secure her star persona in that film: director Victor Seville and cinematographer Glen MacWilliams.

In First a Girl, Jessie is Elizabeth, a girl with a good singing voice and dancing talent who yearns for a show business career, but keeps getting turned down at auditions. Frustrated, she breaks down and cries one rainy afternoon at a coffee shop in a seedy London neighborhood. There, she is comforted by Victor (Sonnie Hale), an aspiring Shakespearean actor (read: ham) who pays the bills by doing a drag act on stage.

As it happens, Victor has caught a cold in the rain, and he’s lost his voice. So, he convinces Elizabeth that she could replace him in the act, with himself as her "manager," and no one need be the wiser.

Elizabeth, desperate for work and a place to stay, agrees to spell Victor in his act for one night only. She becomes “Victoria,” a girl pretending to be a man pretending to be a girl – on stage.

Her act gets off to a rocky start due to stage fright, but eventually she belts out her song with confidence, and wins over the raucous audience. All manner of things go wrong in the wings, though, and soon a flock of geese are swarming the stage; someone knocks over a vat of liquid paste that coats the performing area, and Elizabeth (as Victoria) slips and falls – a neat pratfall that is shown in one take, meaning it was really Jessie Matthews who took the tumble and not some anonymous stunt woman. The audience roars its approval, thinking it’s all part of the act.

When, at the end of the act, Victoria removes her wig and reveals the short haircut that marks her as a “man,” the audience is stunned for a moment… and then, they go wild again, applauding the performer who had them so badly fooled.

A certain Mr. McLintock, a high-class impresario who’s slumming in hopes of finding a good act for his upper-crust audiences, happens to catch “Victoria’s” act. He visits her and her “manager” back stage, and offers them a contract. Elizabeth, it seems, is on her way to fame and fortune – just as long as she continues pretending she is a man pretending to be a woman.

Fame and fortune does come her way, and Victor’s too. Together they tour the continent, wowing audiences everywhere they go. At a ritzy stop on the French Riviera, they encounter the glamorous Princess Mironoff (Anna Lee) and her wealthy fiancé Robert (Griffith Jones). Robert is much taken by Victoria when he sees her on stage, much to his fiancée’s amusement. She knows that “Victoria” is really a “man," but Robert does not… until the end of the act, when “Victoria” takes off her wig and exposes the impersonation.

But the deception ends one sunny afternoon in the waters of the Mediterranean, when Elizabeth goes for an ocean swim. It seems Robert is out for a swim that day too. When she encounters trouble and begins to drown, Robert rescues her and carries her to shore. There, as he deposits her unconscious body on the sand, he cannot help but notice her swimsuit and the feminine curves it displays. Now the secret is out.

Following this exposé, she returns to the club to perform her act as usual. And it is one of the strengths of First a Girl that here, when Elizabeth’s fear of her future is so severe, she delivers the film’s most glorious number: “Everything’s in Rhythm With my Heart,” a beautiful song (by the team of Maurice Sigler, Al Goodhart and Al Hoffman) that should have become a popular standard and might have, had it been performed in an American musical of that era. The song is followed by an elaborate dance routine involving dozens of chorus girls, highlighted by a brilliant solo turn by Jessie Matthews, the “Dancing Divinity” of English cinema.

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, Robert proposes to Elizabeth, she accepts, and together they set out to motor back to England. At a border stop, they are asked to show their passports. When the official sees her passport, he exclaims: “But this passport is for a MAN!” To which the beaming Elizabeth replies, “Yes, but first a girl!” And they drive off.

THE FALLING (2007)

2008-03-05T00:14:00.000-08:00

The Falling

(2007)

a film review by Dan Navarro

For years now, movie fans have been exposed to allegorical films about the battle between the forces of God and the forces of evil. The devil always gets the best lines, whether played by Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, or Tilda Swinton. A new independent film, The Falling (2007), by first-time director Nicholas Gyeney, continues that tradition.

When the devil (Michael Ayden) confronts the hero, Grayson Reed, in The Falling, he snarls:

“Do you know what God is? He preaches love, faith, and prosperity to his people. But that’s not what he is. He’s a selfish child who wants more. I want to make things the way they should be, but I need your help. Help me to take what is rightfully mine, and I promise you, you can change the world. He’s a tyrant, Grayson. He’s kept people blinded for so long. Help me free people.”

Those words could have been taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew (4:1-11), in the passage where the devil tries to tempt Jesus in the desert. It is chilling to imagine that the prince of darkness could be so persuasive, though we know he probably does tempt someone in similar fashion, every day.

In Gyeney’s film – which he also wrote, produced, shot, and edited – Grayson turns down Lucifer’s enticements, just as Jesus did. Grayson, played by George Clooney lookalike Scott Gabelein, is a Seattle cop who has no connection to Satan until “The Five” – a group of Archangels – come down from Heaven in search of a warrior to stop the forces of evil.

Gyeney and his crew of actors and technicians – including his mother and his sister – shot The Falling in and around the Seattle area, and used elements of fantasy and mysticism to tell his story.

Visually, the film is gorgeous. Shots of the countryside flora, especially, are a treat for the eyes, captured in lush greens and yellows, probably in the Seattle springtime. The editing, too, is first-rate. My only nit with the look of the film is that frequently, Gyeney seems to be using hand-held cameras, even when the subjects on screen are stationary. If The Falling does good business, perhaps he should invest in a tripod or other steadying device.

Amid all this beauty, we find a world that is “in chaos,” to quote from a speech given by a spiritual leader in the first reel. Soon, we meet The Five, sent by a Higher Power to locate a human capable of standing up to the devil himself. Of course, Grayson has no idea what he’s in for. When he first meets their leader, the Archangel Michael (Rory Colin Fretland), he suspects the guy is wacko.

Grayson lives comfortably with his kid sister in the tidy home left to them by their parents, does his job by day, and relaxes by night. He doesn’t go to church, though the local parish priest (Donovan Marley) tries to coax him and his sister Kristy (Tellier Killaby) to rejoin the congregation.

The entreaties of their religious community go for naught, until the day Grayson realizes The Five are real, and their mission is to enlist him as a warrior for the Lord. This story could have been spun off from one of Frank Peretti’s apocalyptic novels, and the fact that Peretti was raised in the Seattle area makes one wonder if he had a hand in the planning of this film.

You may read reviews of The Falling that criticize some of the acting as “amateurish.” The fact that almost everyone in the cast is appearing in their first film may contribute to that view, but I found both the villain and the hero thoroughly compelling. Gabelein and Ayden put real intensity into their roles, and although I tried to catch them “acting,” I couldn’t.

There is some bloodshed in this film, but the part that I found particularly disturbing has nothing to do with physical violence, but rather the spiritual kind. In the creepiest scene, the devil tries to seduce Kristy – who knows nothing about his real identity – and actually gets to first base. Were it not for her brother’s timely intervention, Satan may have hit one out of the park.

Undoubtedly, The Falling will play better before an audience of true believers than before agnostics. Hopefully, it will reach those who are aware of the dangers posed by a secularist view of our earthly home… and open the eyes of those who aren’t.

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)

2007-01-04T23:31:00.000-08:00

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)

A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2007

Writer-director Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941), a wicked satire of Hollywood, is a masterpiece, one of the best films ever made.

The first time I saw this pinnacle of Sturges' estimable career was at an "aud call" when I was in grammar school. The teachers herded us kids into the auditorium to watch a 16mm print of it and, they hoped, get us out of their hair for an hour and a half. I was only about 6 years old, but I believe Sullivan's Travels is the first film that ever made me cry tears of joy. It's been more than half a century, but my eyes still well up when I watch it, a sign that either the film is effective or I'm an easy mark. I prefer to believe it's the former.

The plot tells of John L. "Sully" Sullivan, a Hollywood director who is a big success at turning out comedies, but then gets it into his head that he should direct a "serious" film with social significance, all about tragedy, hopelessness, and suffering. To prepare himself for this bleak scenario, he decides to go on the road dressed as a bum, with only ten cents in his pocket, to learn what it's like to be poor and hungry. Be careful what you wish for. Before Sullivan's travels come to an end, he will have visited the darkest corner of the deepest pit of the human condition.

This being a Preston Sturges picture, of course there's a happy ending. But he puts the hero through hell before that happens. There's also a romance of sorts, pairing Sullivan (Joel McRea) with a young woman we know only as The Girl (Veronica Lake). I say "of sorts" because there is no love scene per se, no kissing, not even any fond hugging. The closest they ever get physically is one evening when the two ersatz hobos (The Girl has joined him in his masquerade) stop to admire the moon... and put their arms around each other, lightly. Less is more. I think the love between them seems stronger than if they were pawing each other every few minutes.

Preston Sturges began his Hollywood career as a screenwriter (Never Say Die [1939], Remember the Night [1940]), but soon prevailed on the studio brass to put him on as a director, because he was frustrated at the way directors were reshaping his words. His first film as both writer and director, The Great McGinty (1940), was a hit, and won him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Sturges was on his way.

There's an early scene in Sullivan's Travels that deftly shows off Sturges' skill with wordplay. McRea, Robert Warwick, and Porter Hall are having a vigorous debate over the wisdom of embarking on Sullivan's new, change-of-pace film. The rapid-fire dialogue is intoxicating to listen to, because it seems the actors never take a breath. As each line ends, a new one begins, as if we are watching a relay race with words instead of batons. That's not all: The entire scene, from beginning to end, is shot in one continuous take, with no cuts. The camera moves as necessary, to follow the actors, but essentially it is all a single shot. And Sturges manages to bring the scene in at four minutes flat. I have no idea how he did it, or how many retakes were needed to achieve this precision. But the effect is mesmerizing.

Sturges gives us many great scenes in Sullivan's Travels, but there is one that really put a lump in my throat. Sully has been imprisoned in a Deep South chain gang presided over by a ruthless warden (the great Alan Bridge). The warden won't brook Sully's independent attitude and resolves to crush his spirit by locking him in "the sweat box," a sadistic, one-man windowless cell where the hapless prisoner is forced to stand for hours, alone.

The prison trusty, played by Sturges regular Jimmy Conlin, visits the sweat box periodically and gives water to the dehydrated prisoner, and also gives him words of encouragement. Finally, at night, the trusty is allowed to open the sweat box and release Sullivan from this torture device. He unlocks the door, and the exhausted Sullivan collapses into his arms. The camera remains still for several seconds while the trusty cradles him gently. I don't know if Sturges intended this, but the shot reminded me of a Renaissance painting of St. John holding the body of Christ after the Crucifixion.

Sullivan's personal epiphany comes when he joins the other prisoners as guests at a local black church, where they are treated to an evening of Mickey Mouse cartoons. The prisoners, the warden, even the preacher, laugh uproariously at the antics of Mickey and his dog Pluto. Finally, Sullivan starts to laugh, too. And that's when this great comedy director realizes the truth: the best gift he can offer his audiences is not dour drama, but comedy -- pictures that enrich the human condition by offering a touch of happiness in a world too filled with tragedy.

McRea's final line in the movie is one of the greatest closers ever. After Sullivan's eventual escape and reunion with his Hollywood friends, he announces that he won't be making that "socially significant" picture after all. He'll stick to making comedies. Why? "There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Do you know that's all some people have? It's not a lot, in this cockeyed caravan, but it's better than nothing. Boy!"

DERAILED (2005)

2007-01-04T20:46:00.000-08:00

DERAILED (2005)

WHY is this film lambasted by the critics?

I've said I'm a big fan of classic films, but I still watch for good NEW films. One of the best I've seen lately is the 2005 thriller Derailed, starring Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston.

I caught this on one of the Starz channels, got hooked on the film's noirish suspense, and watched it all the way through. When the film was over, I went straight to the computer to see what the professional critics had to say about Derailed.

But what a disappointment! With very few exceptions, the pros gave it a "thumbs down." They said it's "derivative." Well, yes, it is. Double Indemnity (1944) comes to mind. So does Fatal Attraction (1987). So too, intensely, does Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat (1981). But the way things are handled is so entertaining, we should be able to just relax and enjoy this new riff on a familiar old tune.

The good news is that there are several independent commentaries posted to the IMDb, by individual viewers, and they are almost all positive.

As I've said, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and thought Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston both did a good job of playing against type. Owen, so tough and mean in Sin City (also 2005), here plays a simple -- maybe even a little simple-MINDED -- married business exec who gets distracted by a lovely brunette. Cocktails lead to dinner, then to a hotel room where they plan to satisfy their lust. I did NOT expect that -- SPOILERS ALERT -- about one second before penetration, the would-be adulterers are disrupted by the entrance of a brawny thug who threatens to blow Owen's brains out, then pistol-whips him to unconsciousness.

And NO, I certainly did not predict that, once Owen has been dispatched, our little Jen -- the romantic sweetie from "Friends" and about a dozen movies where she played, essentially, the same role -- would then get brutally and graphically raped. Anyone who tells you they PREDICTED all this is, well... a liar.

I think that, when detractors of Derailed engineer their stories about how "predictable" this film is, they're thinking about what happens AFTER the rape. Yes, it did occur to me, in the minutes that followed, that the Jennifer Aniston character may have been "in on" the whole scheme to rob the Clive Owen character. It turns out that she WAS in on it. Big time.

But that revelation, startling as it is, doesn't come at the end of the movie... it comes two-thirds of the way through! There is still the dicey business of seeing how Owen's character will avenge the beating/robbery/rape, so there's really no reason to walk out of the theater, or to change the channel. With a setup like that, don't people want to see how the whole thing plays out? Does Owen get his revenge? Does the villain return to menace him again? All these issues are resolved, and, to my mind, resolved satisfactorily, by the final fade-out.

Sort it out, and you might just agree: Derailed is a Fatal Attraction for the 21st century.

SUNNY SIDE UP (1929)

2006-11-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

SUNNY SIDE UP (1929)

A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2006

Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell were teamed again in Sunny Side Up (1929), one of the first film musicals. Farrell and Miss Gaynor had starred -- successfully -- as a romantic couple in three silent films, so it must have seemed a "natural" pairing when Fox cast them in this, their first musical film. Gaynor plays Molly, a girl who lives happily in the New York tenements, and she gets things rolling with a charming rendition of the title song. Farrell is Jack Cromwell, a handsome Long Island millionaire who drives into Molly's neighborhood on a lark one evening, and is instantly smitten with her.

He doesn't know, of course, that secretly, Molly has worshipped him from afar after cutting his photo out of the newspaper. They meet cute -- he wanders into her apartment while she's still in her lingerie -- and after that, they get along famously, though she's in love and he thinks merely that Molly is "a swell girl."

All that changes, though, after Molly goes to Long Island at Jack's request -- properly chaperoned by her best galpal and two trusted male friends. As they get to know each other, Jack comes to realize he truly loves Molly; but now there's a barrier between them, for she thinks he is merely pitying her for being poor.

There are plenty of good songs, all written by the formidable team of DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson: In addition to the title song, we hear "I'm a Dreamer (Aren't we All)" sung by Miss Gaynor; "If I Had a Talking Picture of You," sung by both stars; and, in a big production number, "Turn on the Heat," sung and danced by dozens of girls who go from wearing parkas and heavy boots to stripping down to bathing suits, as the set warms up to tropical temps.

Sunny Side Up is probably the first film musical that isn't a "backstage" musical. All the songs and dances take place in what passes for real life.

Farrell and Miss Gaynor can't really sing, of course. But they could both carry a tune, and they were both charmers. And, as Samuel L. Jackson would say, several decades later, of an entirely different creature, "A little charm can go a long way."

KIKI (1931)

2006-11-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

KIKI (1931)

Mary Pickford's Kiki (1931) is not generally considered one of her best films, but I found it thoroughly enjoyable. Probably this was an attempt by the legendary Ms. Pickford to "jazz up" her image. Long gone were the billowy curls of her early films, where she played young girls even after she was in her thirties. Here, she sports jazz-age bobbed hair, plays a flirtatious chorus girl, and is clearly a woman "on the make" -- though chastely -- for the character played by her costar, Reginald Denny. Quite a departure from Mary Pickford's "America's Sweetheart" persona.

I've said that in Kiki, Ms. Pickford tries to "jazz up" her image. Here, she shows us her legs (which were "not bad" for someone only 5 feet tall); she removes her brassiere from beneath her blouse while standing in front of Denny; and in a later scene, she sits in front of his male assistant in her lingerie and unconcernedly puts on her stockings, slowly, one leg at a time.

The film is lively and kinetic, almost a slapstick comedy. Ms. Pickford delivers kicks to various backsides, among them Reginald Denny's and Margaret Livingston's, and gets kicked herself. Twice, Ms. Pickford is seen falling on her rear end. She even tumbles off the stage and into the orchestra pit, landing seat first into a drum -- a stunt her friend Charles Chaplin would use, years later, in Limelight (1952). I thought everyone in Kiki was extraordinarily game. They were all obviously hoping to make this film hilarious.

Unfortunately, Kiki flopped at the box office, and Ms. Pickford would make only one more film -- Secrets, another flop. The writing on the wall was now more legible than ever. Maybe the public felt that, at age 38, Ms. Pickford was reaching a little too hard for the youth serum. The era of "America's Sweetheart" was over.

But she left behind a legacy of great performances, and a great public enthusiasm for America's first major female movie star.

ROBERTA (1935)

2006-11-07T20:18:00.000-08:00

ROBERTA (1935)

A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2006

"Roberta" was one of the major musical triumphs of the 1933 Broadway season. Set in a glamorous Paris between the two world wars, the play oozed romance, elegance, and continental sophistication... or at least enough of those qualities to divert attention from its absurd plot. A winning score by Jerome Kern lifted "Roberta" several stratospheres above its banal libretto; a good thing too, because without that boost, the show might never have been translated to the screen to become the perfect showcase for the talents of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Reams have been written, and will continue to be written, about the superb dance partnership that was Astaire and Rogers. In their initial pairing as supporting players in Flying Down to Rio (1933), they captivated the public, and soon became the movies' favorite dancing couple. But a quirk of fate has, until recently, shrouded what is arguably their finest collaboration, in RKO's 1935 movie version of Roberta.

Because M-G-M bought the rights to the musical in order to create its own version, Lovely to Look At, in 1952, the RKO movie was kept off television and off video dealers' shelves until the 1990s. Whole generations of film fans have grown up loving Fred and Ginger in classics such as The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), and Swing Time (1936) without ever savoring the one film -- Roberta -- that really established Astaire and Rogers as superstars. This is dancing at its endlessly watchable best.

The plot, such as it is, concerns American football player John Kent (Randolph Scott), who inherits his aunt Minnie's successful dress salon ("Gowns by Roberta") in Paris. There, he falls in love with the firm's head designer, Stephanie (Irene Dunne), who turns out to be an exiled Russian princess in disguise. Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, then girl storms back like the cavalry in the last reel to save the faltering business by staging a mammoth fashion show, complete with beautiful models, and lots of singing and dancing. Finis.

Fred Astaire plays Huck Haines, a struggling bandleader and the hero's best pal. Ginger Rogers is Huck's old childhood flame Lizzie Gatz, who is in Europe masquerading as a Polish countess, Tanka Scharwenka. Perhaps because they have little responsibility for carrying the burden of the plot, Astaire and Rogers seem positively liberated in their roles, and their dancing together seems more spontaneous than ever.

Lizzie, using her fake title as leverage to persuade a reluctant impresario (Luis Alberni), gets Huck's band a job at the Cafe Russe, where she sings as Countess Scharwenka. Then, during a rehearsal session with the band, Lizzie sings the Jerome Kern-Bernard Dougall ditty, "I'll Be Hard to Handle", complete with phony accent and much sly humor... and in so doing, she launches one of the great Astaire-Rogers dance duets. The song is sweet and hot, two choruses and it ends, and we think the number is over. But it isn't, yet. While the band vamps lightly, Huck and Lizzie begin a friendly conversation, reminiscing about the old days; then, in the most casual, spontaneous way, they begin dancing together. Lightly they sway, then so gradually that we don't realize it's happening, their dance becomes a major musical event.

Arlene Croce, author of a definitive volume on Astaire and Rogers, says of "I'll Be Hard to Handle": "This is the big event of the film, the number in which 'Fred and Ginger' became fixed screen deities." It certainly gets your attention. They start with a rhythmic shuffle, then after eight bars he gently takes her by the waist and together they spin around and around, settling at last into one of the most brilliant and inventive tap duets ever filmed. Halfway through the number, they separate and have a tap "conversation", each taking a phrase, then each responding with a salvo of taps. The band strikes up a bugle call, and Rogers snaps to military attention, only to be distracted by Astaire's invitation to resume their buoyant pas de deux. They continue the breathtaking duet as the music rises to a new wave of excitement; then, just as our hearts are ready to burst with exhilaration, they whirl one last time and collapse into two chairs.

As satisfying as the number is, "I'll Be Hard to Handle" seems to resonate with us out of all proportion to its value as a screen event, to move us in a way few movie dance numbers ever have. Now that we have video that can be played and replayed endlessly, at last we can put our finger on the number's special ingredient: The entire sequence -- three minutes of exquisite skill and grace -- is filmed as a single shot, with no breaks in the action, no skewing of camera angles, no interruptions in the flow of the dance. Knowing that Astaire was a perfectionist who sometimes demanded as many as eighty takes before pronouncing a dance number fit to be seen, we can appreciate how pleased he must have been with this particular take, to let it occupy three minutes of uninterrupted screen time, with no cuts. And he was right: This performance is perfection itself. There would be other great dance duets by Astaire and Rogers, and by other dancers; but prophetic title and all, "I'll Be Hard to Handle" would be tough to top.

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is probably the most famous of the Roberta songs. In the film it is sung by Irene Dunne as Princess Stephanie, and is later reprised as a romantic adagio by Astaire and Rogers. Astaire once told this reviewer that he didn't like to do love scenes -- and, sure enough, there are very few conventional love scenes in the Fred Astaire oeuvre; he always preferred to express his feelings for his partners through their dances. His choreography for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is like a love scene, treating Rogers both like a queen and like a delicate rose. There is a moment where they walk side by side, he pressing her head lightly against his shoulder. The dance casts a powerful spell, but it is kept short, and it ends with us wanting more.

The climactic fashion show, showcasing the new gowns by Roberta's dress salon draped on several gorgeous models (Lucille Ball among them), is played out to "Lovely to Look At", a romantic ballad written by Kern for the film. Irene Dunne sings while the models parade their stylish frocks, and soon afterwards the temporary conflict between Stephanie and John Kent is resolved. The lovers embrace, romance is in the air, and it seems to be contagious; even Huck and Lizzie make tentative plans to marry.

RKO, which was gleefully raking in the gate receipts from the previous Astaire-Rogers film, The Gay Divorcee, while Roberta was in production, wisely chose to close Roberta with a shot of Astaire and Rogers, the new superstars, rather than the top-billed Irene Dunne. The die was cast. Cite Flying Down to Rio as the first film to pair this extraordinary duo. Credit The Gay Divorcee for being their first starring vehicle. But salute Roberta as the film that finally distilled the essence of Astaire and Rogers, and sent their lucky star spinning into permanent orbit.

DESTRY (1954)

2006-11-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

DESTRY (1954)

Destry Rides Again (Universal, 1939) is usually accorded near-mythic status in books and film commentaries. It teamed James Stewart, a hot new star fresh from his triumphant Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with the glamorous Marlene Dietrich in the story of a gun-hating deputy sheriff who succeeds in cleaning up a lawless town. The film was so well-received, its title is nearly always mentioned in lists of the great films of that banner year, 1939.

But Destry Rides Again is not the last word. The film was remade as Destry fifteen years later by the same director, George Marshall, this time in Technicolor, with Audie Murphy in the central role of the gun-shy deputy. The slick patina of the Stewart-Dietrich version, combined with the celebrated legend naming 1939 as Hollywood's Greatest Year, have worked to downgrade the 1954 Destry in the public's mind as an inferior remake. It is nothing of the sort. Destry is a near-classic Western, complete and satisfying in every way, and it boasts performances that in some ways eclipse the efforts of the 1939 cast.

In the old West, a small frontier town named Restful is anything but. Hooligans roam the streets freely, random gunplay erupts everywhere, and peaceful citizens live in fear for their lives. The town has an overworked sheriff, but the real power in Restful resides with Phil Decker (Lyle Bettger), a corrupt saloon owner who is the equivalent of a big-city crime boss. Decker and his cronies operate in league with the slimy local mayor (Edgar Buchanan, magnificent in a rare villainous role) and Decker's own dance hall girl, Brandy (Mari Blanchard, so luminous she almost gives corruption a good name).

When the sheriff tries to interfere in one of Decker's crooked schemes, Decker has the lawman casually gunned down. Then, to insulate himself from further interference, Decker arranges to have the town drunk, Rags Barnaby (Thomas Mitchell), named the new sheriff, thinking he will be ineffectual. But Rags surprises everyone by taking his new appointment seriously. He goes on the wagon, then sends for Tom Destry, the son of a former two-fisted lawman, to be his deputy.

Tom Destry (Audie Murphy) arrives in Restful, looking nothing like the swaggering he-man the sheriff had in mind. In fact, Destry doesn't even carry a gun. The new arrival is soft-spoken, polite and deferential, the antithesis of the intrepid Western hero of legend. And Destry does let himself get pushed around -- by Decker, by his gunsels, even by the femme fatale, Brandy. But director Marshall is just setting us up, and we know it. We watch in silent glee, waiting for the inevitable moment when the worm will turn, and the meek will inherit the earth. When Destry's controlled rage surfaces at long last, he smites the villains mightily, with a vengeance that out-Shanes Shane.

Marshall's chief asset in this retelling of the Destry story is, of course, Audie Murphy. In World War II, Murphy had won the Congressional Medal of Honor for valor in combat, as well as 23 other decorations; and yet, this heroic fighting tiger turned out to be diminutive and baby-faced. Standing no more than five feet eight, with the angelic face of a well-scrubbed choir boy, Murphy must have seemed a "natural" for the role of the reluctant gunfighter Tom Destry. As it turned out, not only was his physical appearance ideal for the role; his acting style, always low-key, fit the Destry mold perfectly.

James Stewart was, of course, one of the finest actors ever to appear in American cinema, and he was eminently qualified for most of the roles he played. But at well over 6 feet tall, he towered over his fellow cast members in Destry Rides Again, and was by nature unable to project the vulnerability his role demanded. (Perversely, the casting department gave the role of Destry's chief nemesis to the shorter-than-average Brian Donlevy.) Stewart also had a habit of punctuating his most intense dramatic moments with the dark, wild-eyed visage of a deranged man. We can see that look in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), when Stewart's George Bailey is confronted with a nightmarish vision of the world, and in that sequence his expression was most appropriate. But he uses the "crazy George Bailey look" four times in Destry Rides Again, and it's unsettling, because we never expect to see the easy-going, nonviolent Tom Destry look that unstable.

Audie Murphy's Destry is, by contrast, calm and friendly even in his most trying moments, as when he is forced to break up some recreational gunplay by local toughs. Instead of glaring daggers at them, he smiles and graciously asks the men to let him borrow their guns. Amused, they decide to humor the pint-sized pacifist by handing him their guns, because up until now they have had no reason to fear him. All that changes, as Destry rapidly empties the pistols by picking off twelve tiny furniture knobs from a distance, in a dazzling display of marksmanship. In that instant, the lamb shows his fangs. It's a defining moment in the film. Even if you knew it was coming because you saw the 1939 version, it still catches you by surprise because this time around, Destry has seemed like such a powerless little pussycat.

Mari Blanchard sparkles as Brandy, the amoral saloon queen. She plays Brandy with a sexy exuberance, perhaps mindful that she was enjoying the best role of her career, after a string of small parts in B-pictures.

Brandy is an intriguing puzzle: A bad girl who cheerfully aids and abets her lover, Decker, as he runs crooked poker games and fraudulent land schemes -- but who is nevertheless attracted to the peace-loving Destry and his basic decency. Blanchard also gets to sing and dance to three numbers composed for the film by Frederick Herbert and Arnold Hughes, although an upbeat tempo can't disguise the fact that one of the songs, "Bang! Bang!", is basically the same tune as "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have", sans Dietrich's husky vibrato.

Destry's dramatic stability is provided by the redoubtable Thomas Mitchell, as the town drunk turned sheriff. The veteran screen actor had won an Oscar (for Stagecoach, 1939) and two nominations, and was clearly the class of the Destry cast. There is hardly a moment in any of his scenes when he does not own the camera. Every inflection in Mitchell's voice, every nuance of expression, is done with authority. Watch him in the scene where Rags Barnaby is informed, upon being awakened from a drunken stupor, that he has been named the new sheriff. He steadies his bloodshot eyes, firms his jaw, flings away the bottle he was holding, and declares, in the voice of a man who's trying desperately not to sound inebriated, "A man's got to choose between th' bottle and th' badge!" And with head held high, he marches away on wobbly legs that haven't quite sobered up yet. It's a moment of bravura acting by an old pro who understood what screen presence was all about.

But the enduring image in Destry is of Audie Murphy as the quietly courageous man of peace who, in the end, is forced to take up arms against the forces of evil. The moment when Destry finally, reluctantly, straps on his gunbelt and heads out the door to take care of business is one of the great scenes in Western films. It is beautiful, as justice is beautiful. And we have been so carefully set up for this moment that we are no longer sophisticated observers; we are little children, cheering in the knowledge that soon, all the ugliness will be wiped out, and the world will be a happy place again.

THE OFFICE WIFE (1930)

2006-10-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2006

The Office Wife (1930) puts the beautiful silent screen actress Dorothy Mackaill into sound pictures and introduces Joan Blondell to the screen. For those laudable achievements alone, this film deserves kudos.

But it really earns its welcome by presenting a charming story about wealthy businessman Larry Fellowes (Lewis Stone) who, though married, finds himself falling for his private secretary, Anne Murdock -- the "office wife" of the title -- in the person of Ms. Mackaill.

Anne likes him too, and we are treated to an exquisite tension between them, as they go about the firm's business, each of them falling more and more in love with the other, yet having to remain very businesslike in their relationship.

Finally Larry gets up the nerve to give Anne a kiss... but before you holler "employee harassment!", take a good look at Anne's posture just before the kiss. She is totally asking for it. She puts her face close to his, and her body language practically DARES him to kiss her. He does. What to do now? Joan Blondell, as Anne's sister, learns that Fellowes' wife is planning to divorce him -- for reasons unconnected to Anne -- so Joan gives her sister's boss a phone call, letting him know that Anne has "fallen for her boss," without explicitly naming him. Our gal Joan knows how to set up a situation.

I didn't signal "spoilers" at the start of this commentary, because I think that's unnecessary. We know from Anne and Larry's first meeting that these two are going to wind up together. One may say that Lewis Stone is "too old" for Dorothy Mackaill, and in truth he was her senior by 24 years. But they are very "simpatico" together, and are a winning couple. Sort of like Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the modern day.

Dale Fuller, who played tragic females in Souls for Sale (1923) and Greed (1924), plays another one here, as a secretary who secretly yearns for Larry's love. Maybe Ms. Fuller was typecast, but she certainly did play that sort of role well.

In this precode, we get to see Joan Blondell put on her stockings, slowly, one leg at a time... a scenario that she would duplicate in several other films of the era. The act became so familiar that, in Foothill Parade (1933), she threw the folks a switcheroo, putting both stockings on the same leg. "Accidentally," of course.

The Office Wife clocks in at just under one hour in length, making it one of the shortest and most enjoyable precodes ever.

GOOD NEWS (1947)

2006-10-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

GOOD NEWS (1947) --
It put the "camp" in campus!

A film review by Dan Navarro
copyright Dan Navarro 2006

What a delicious find! Although Good News is a Technicolor musical, a genre I love, the film has no first-rank musical stars such as a Gene, a Fred, or a Judy. No Howard Keel or Kathryn Grayson. No Doris Day. No Frank Sinatra. Nevertheless, Good News is a gorgeous musical entertainment, and deserves mention among the best musicals of its generation.

The tiny (5 ft. 2 in.) June Allyson, she of the smoky voice and perpetual smile, stars as Connie, a coed working her way through Tait College. She likes Tommy Marlowe (Peter Lawford), a football player who seems like a nice guy; but while helping him with his grades so he'll be eligible to play in The Big Game, she learns that he's smitten with Pat, a scheming gold digger who thinks Tommy's family is worth millions.

With a set-up like that, you already know the rest: Tommy learns he really loves Connie, but she spurns him, thinking he's in love with Pat. In the Big Game, Tommy plays badly, and Tait is about to lose, until... good girl Connie gets bad girl Pat out of the picture, Tommy is energized to play his All-American best, Tait wins the game, Connie wins Tommy, and the whole school celebrates with singing and dancing. The end.

That simplistic plot -- echoed in dozens of movies over the years -- might have sunk Good News but for the energetic treatment it receives. Little Tait College is displayed in glorious Technicolor hues; the songs by Buddy DeSilva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson are first-rate; and the choreography (by Charles Walters and Robert Alton) is eye-poppingly spectacular.

Best of all, first-time director Charles Walters (who would later helm such musical hits as Easter Parade [1948] and High Society [1956]) kept the film moving briskly, with not a dead spot in sight.

Walters also displayed a cinematic virtue I wish more directors would use: He liked to let the shots run long, and would not "cut" a scene until absolutely necessary. Orson Welles and Woody Allen were advocates of this "long cuts" approach. So is Robert Altman, on occasion. But in Good News, Walters used it to perfection.

Consider the two big production numbers, "Pass That Peace Pipe," sung and danced by Joan McCracken and Ray McDonald, and the big finale "The Varsity Drag." Both numbers use dozens of singers and dancers, both are colorful and energetic, both employ intricate dance movements. And yet, there were only TEN CUTS in each of these mammoth production numbers! That means the dancers and crew had to perform their jobs perfectly, because there was almost no opportunity to "cover up" mistakes by simply cutting away, and then cutting back again.

By comparison, look at a modern musical: Chicago (2002), the Oscar winner of a few seasons ago. In just one big number, "The Cell Block Tango," director Rob Marshall used more than TWO HUNDRED cuts! Even in the relatively short finale number, "Hot Honey Rag," there were 72 cuts. This MTV-style editing has captured the imagination of today's young directors, who must think all viewers are afflicted with ADD and can't concentrate on scenes that last longer than two seconds. But there was a time when continuity of image and action mattered in musicals. Charles Walters showed he prized that continuity, with his masterful treatment of the dances in Good News.

It isn't the same as sitting in a theater seat, watching a dance number on stage. You get to see it all the way through, from start to finish, yes; but because you are rooted to that theater seat, your view of the action is always the same. In Walters' movie, the camera swoops, it pans, it tracks... giving us continuity of action, but also a subtly changing angle to it. Walters' masterful alchemy took a routine plot and transformed it into a spectacular viewing experience.

Even without Gene, Fred, or Judy, Good News is one of the best musical films of Hollywood's storied Golden Age.

2006-10-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

It's a moviegoer's maxim that, when a film is based on material from another medium -- a book, a play, a TV drama -- the movie will always be inferior to the source material. But that tired notion is eclipsed, if not demolished, by M-G-M's Kiss Me Kate (1953), a sparkling and energetic version of the 1948 Broadway musical triumph written by Sam and Bella Spewack, with a dazzling score by Cole Porter.

Much has been written over the years about the charm and durability of Porter's melodies and the cleverness of the Spewacks' libretto. Well-deserved tributes, both; but not enough has been said about the imaginative ways in which the movie version of Kiss Me Kate improves on the stage original. The Spewacks crafted an ingenious, double-tiered story about a play within a play, in which the stars' backstage bickering mirrors the bickering of the characters they play on stage. For the movie, Dorothy Kingsley re-fashioned the libretto into a seamless shooting script that "opens up" the story and smooths out some of the rough edges.

The story concerns a troupe of actors performing a musical version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". The male star and director of the show, Fred Graham (Howard Keel), was once married to his leading lady Lilli Vanessi (Kathryn Grayson), for whom he still carries a torch. Lilli is temperamental and a spitfire, but still capable of great affection if a man proves himself worthy of it. In this uneasy atmosphere, they launch their new collaboration: He as Petruchio, she as Katharine, the shrew Petruchio must tame.

Complicating matters is the presence of a supporting actress, Lois Lane (Ann Miller), who is to play Bianca, the younger sister of Katharine. Lois and Graham have a light flirtation going, but she is no more constant than Lilli is; in fact, Lois is semi-engaged to Bill Calhoun (Tommy Rall), a dancer who will play Lucentio in the show.

The first evidence of Kingsley's genius (and of director George Sidney) is seen right after the opening credits. In a scene not in the stage original, the fade-in takes us to Fred Graham's apartment, where he is welcoming Lilli, Lois, and Cole Porter himself (in the person of actor Ron Randell). They discuss doing the show, Fred and Lilli sing the beautiful love duet "So in Love", then Lois does a sizzling, take-no-prisoners tap routine to the lively "Too Darn Hot". The dance is so spectacular, as Lois whirls about the room in a skimpy red dress trimmed with fringe, it invariably draws wild applause from the audience whenever the film is revived. Today, "Too Darn Hot" is usually cited as "the definitive Ann Miller number" by fans of her musicals.

Dazzling though her dance routine is, Lois is soon informed by Graham and Porter that the song has been taken out of the show. "There's no place to put it", explains Porter. That might have been an in-joke in 1953, because in real life that was almost the fate of the song, in the original stage play. "Too Darn Hot" has no real place in the narrative of the show, so it is usually sung by a chorus of dancers performing between acts of the play within the play. It was considered so expendable that, in 1958, when NBC-TV staged a performance of Kiss Me Kate as part of its prestigious Hallmark series, "Too Darn Hot" was simply dropped from the show. But it lives on, spectacularly, in the movie.

Howard Keel's Fred is self-absorbed and vainglorious, but at least he isn't the insufferable ham played by Alfred Drake in the stage play. Drake's broad, extravagant gestures may have played well to the balcony, but in a film, restraint is called for, and Keel provides it admirably. Grayson, for her part, gives us an interesting Lilli/Katharine, a shrew with a heart. In both roles, she lets us see her own vulnerability, even as she is throwing dishes or throwing a punch. This is a shrew made to be tamed, by the right man.

When Fred and Lilli's bickering escalates into all-out war -- on stage, on opening night, in front of a packed house -- she ad-libs insults, slaps, kicks... until finally, exasperated, Fred puts his ex-wife and co-star across his lap and gives her a sound spanking in front of the footlights.

But Fred Graham's "triumph" is short-lived. Backstage during intermission, Lilli belts him again, then defiantly announces that she is walking out on the show. He does manage to keep her onstage (through a comedic subterfuge), and by the fade-out, you get the feeling that these two sparring partners are ready to hang up their gloves. Somehow, you doubt that their fragile egos can survive together for very long; but for now, at least, all is Edenic bliss.

Good as the leads are, the movie version of Kiss Me Kate belongs to the dancers. Ann Miller had the best role of her career, and she responded with some of the finest dancing ever seen on the silver screen. In this, she had a formidable team to work with: Choreographer Hermes Pan, and fellow dancers Tommy Rall, Bob Fosse, Bobby Van, Carol Haney, and Jeannie Coyne. Miller's dance duets with Rall are sharp and inventive, in particular "Why Can't You Behave?", danced on a Manhattan rooftop (another example of the camera's ability to "open up" a scene), and the slyly erotic "Always True to You Darling in My Fashion" (Pan makes a brief appearance here, as a sailor on the prowl).

As was customary in M-G-M musicals in the Golden Age, the best number is saved for last; and a delectable treat it is. In one last, bravura display of the film's superiority to the stage play, the final dance number uses a song, "From This Moment On", that was not in the original play, but was lifted from a 1950 Cole Porter show, "Out Of This World". It is an inspired choice. Hermes Pan uses all six lead dancers in a brightly-colored, lively and kinetic mating ritual, with the dancers taking turns pairing off in separate pas de deux. Tommy Rall and Ann Miller dance the first sequence, giving way to Bobby Van and Jeannie Coyne. Then, for the third duet, we get to see the only dance in the movie not choreographed by Hermes Pan. This is Bob Fosse's turf: We see Fosse and the wonderfully agile Carol Haney take center stage in a finger-snapping, back-flipping, jazzy interlude that sets the screen ablaze. Their duet lasts only about one minute, but for that minute the screen is on fire.

Katharine's final speech is truncated Shakespeare: "I am asham'd that women are so simple... To offer war where they should kneel for peace....", but Grayson makes the most of it; and, in yet another triumph of the screen version, this time the speech is spoken rather than sung, as it was in the play. This allows Katharine to put a neo-feminist "spin" on the words, implying through inflection and gesture that Petruchio may have tamed his shrew this time, but he had best watch his step in the future. This is no surrender, it's a marital detente. And it is the genius of Kiss Me Kate -- both the play and the film -- that we feel the story's happy resolution on two levels at once: Between Petruchio and Katharine, and between Fred and Lilli. That's the magic of great story-telling, and it is the particular magic of Kiss Me Kate.

NO SMALL AFFAIR (1984)

2006-10-08T21:16:00.000-07:00












NO  SMALL  AFFAIR  (1984)

A Film Review by Dan Navarro
Copyright 2006 by Dan Navarro

About halfway through No Small Affair, there's a scene where Laura, the singer played by Demi Moore, belts out a knockout rendition of the Madeira/Dorsey standard, "I'm Glad There Is You." It's a jazzy paean to romance. Watching the movie again recently, I was jolted when Laura sang the line about "underrated treasures", because it's a capsule description of the film itself. No Small Affair, unheralded in its day and rarely revived since, is itself a treasure, a gem among the gravel of cynical 1980s films.

It's a coming-of-age tale, chronicling the conversion of Charles Cummings (Jon Cryer) from gawky teenager to confident young adult. Nothing new there, except that director Jerry Schatzberg and screenwriters Charles Bolt and Terence Mulcahy have fashioned a charming film that sings with a bittersweet passion about Cummings' wrenching transformation. His catalyst is Laura, the 23-year-old saloon singer played by Demi Moore. With her youthful yet worldly manner, and her scratchy violin voice playing its siren song on Cummings' sensibilities, the lad is a goner. What ensues is a funny and endearing rite-of-passage story with brilliantly clever complications.

Cummings -- he prefers not to be called Charles -- is a 16-year-old amateur photographer who likes to shoot pictures of colorful San Francisco locales. One day, when Laura and a friend wander into camera range, Cummings waves them off, but not before he's snapped a few shots of Laura's beautiful face. Seeing that face later in his proof sheets, Cummings is hooked.

Infatuated beyond reason, Cummings searches for his new beloved. He begins by staking out the dock where he first saw her. After several hours of fruitless waiting, he sulks: "Someone said, if you stand in one spot long enough, the whole world will pass by. I don't know who said that, but he's an idiot."

Fortune finally smiles on Cummings on a night out with his big brother Leonard (Peter Frechette) and Leonard's fiancee Susan (Elizabeth Daily). Armed with a fake ID, Charles joins the pair at a downtown nitery, and there, on the tiny stage, the object of his affections warbles into a hand mike, barely audible above the blare of a heavy-metal band. But the next morning, Cummings' exhilaration at finding Laura is tempered by the news that her band is breaking up, and the lady may wind up out of a job.

Worlds above Cummings in sophistication, Laura nevertheless turns to her new friend for comfort when her career goes sour. One afternoon, she accedes to his request to pose for his camera, and we can feel their deepening friendship as the hours pass by and Cummings shoots roll after roll of film, happily taking pictures of this glowing Circe in front of some of San Francisco's most picturesque landmarks. Night falls, and the pair are tired, hungry, and broke. So they decide to crash a wedding reception and help themselves to food and drink. When they are caught by the father of the bride (Hamilton Camp) and threatened with arrest, Cummings makes a deal with the irascible paterfamilias: Let Laura sing for their supper. She does... and, to everyone's surprise, including Laura's, her rendition of a classic ballad (the above-mentioned "I'm Glad There is You") is a big hit. Who knew this grunge diva could sing pop?

This revelation inspires Cummings to take drastic action. Rounding up his life's savings, he pays to have Laura's likeness and telephone number posted on taxicabs all over the city. He's hoping the publicity will attract attention to Laura's talents, but at first it seems only to attract heavy-breathing weirdos. Exasperated, Laura pulls her phone out of the wall. But a newswire service picks up the story about the young fan and his generous gesture and prints it, and soon the phones are ringing off the wall at Laura's old place of business. The bar owner, Jake (George Wendt), pleads with Laura to return and sing at his establishment. She agrees, but she is still furious with Cummings.

Laura's "debut", in front of a packed house that includes record company talent agents, is a success. She is offered a recording contract, and the possibility of stardom beckons. But now, in a neat reversal of the first half of the film, the hunted becomes the hunter, as she tries frantically to locate Cummings and thank him.

What makes No Small Affair so winning is the delicious array of comedy performers director Schatzberg has united for his film. Jon Cryer, making his first film at age 19, has all the right moves, whether making sheep's eyes at his costar or doing a nifty moonwalk upon receiving a bit of good news. Demi Moore, in her first starring role, makes Laura tender/tough, a savvy woman who combines a strong sense of independence with a most touching vulnerability. (In one climactic scene, Laura wraps her arms around her young benefactor and says, "When I grow up, I want to be just like you.") It wouldn't be the last time Demi Moore enchanted a younger man.

Among the supporting players, none resonates more delightfully than Judy Baldwin as Stephanie, the elegant call girl Cummings meets at his brother's bachelor party. Baldwin's bit is little more than a cameo, but her luminous and hilarious scene with Cryer will be remembered long after most of the other performances are forgotten.

THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941)

2006-10-02T18:38:00.000-07:00

THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES (1941)
A film review by Dan Navarro
Copyright Dan Navarro 2006

When I first watched The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) years ago, I liked it so much I didn't want it to end. I couldn't believe that a black-and-white comedy made so long ago could have the power to move me like that. The depth of my affection for the film is reflected in the fact that, just recently, I saw it for the second time ever... and I felt just as strongly about it as I did the first time.

Charles Coburn plays J.P. Merrick, the richest man in the world, who lives in comfortable isolation in his New York mansion. He's so wealthy that he doesn't realize he owns Neeley's department store... until one day, the newspaper runs a story about Neeley's employees demonstrating for better working conditions. To add insult to injury, they've hoisted an effigy of Merrick.

"That dummy doesn't look anything like me," grumbles Merrick to his servile board of directors. He decides to go undercover, gain employment at his own department store, try to worm his way into the employees' confidence, and "root out the troublemakers!"

Spoilers coming. Okay, now Merrick -- calling himself "Tom Higgins" -- has a job as a shoe salesman, and he's learning who the offenders are among the employees. Much to his surprise (but not to ours), he comes to like them. The "Miss Jones" of the title is Mary Jones, a salesperson played by Jean Arthur at the peak of her considerable powers. She's kind to "Tom." Her boyfriend Joe (Robert Cummings) is the ringleader of the demonstrators, but he's not the fire-breathing agitator Merrick was expecting. He's warm, friendly, and only wants what is best for all the employees.Then there's Elizabeth (Spring Byington), a lady close to Merrick's own age, and he learns to like her enough to consider proposing marriage. But, in a critical scene one evening on the subway, Elizabeth confides to "Tom" that she could never marry a man with money. It's against her principles. Of course, at that point, she thinks he's a poor man.

There are plenty of comedic subplots here, and director Sam Wood steers them skillfully. One has Tom and Mary being arrested for minor offenses on the Coney Island boardwalk, then Joe shows up at the police station and advises the cops that they are in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Funny stuff. But don't worry, this isn't an anti-establishment film, it's an anti-injustice movie. Joe is a fellow who knows right from wrong, and Mary loves him for that.

Finally the day of reckoning comes, when Merrick will have to reveal to his new friends who he really is. In the hands of some hack director, this scene could have crashed and burned, taking the movie with it. But to our great delight, Wood makes it a truly memorable epiphany.

And in this, the film's penultimate scene, Coburn himself delivers the funniest line in the movie. In context, it is funnier than any line I've ever heard. And, although I've warned of spoilers, I won't repeat his line here. Nothing should prevent you from the joy of hearing it for the first time, when you finally see The Devil and Miss Jones.

2006-10-02T17:11:00.000-07:00

Here's my lovely daughter Julie and her hubbie Dan (another Dan), at lakeside in the mountains.

Like most Californians, Julie and Dan love the beach. When they're not at the seashore, look for them here.

2006-10-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

And this is your obedient servant.