Birth of a Notion: 1950

Showing posts with label 1950. Show all posts

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Judy Holliday Was No Dummy

Billie (Judy Holliday): You're just not couth!

Harry (Broderick Crawford): Yeah? Well, I'm as couth as you are!

Judy Holliday wasn't the movies' first dumb blonde, and she certainly wasn't the last. But she may have been the best.

Let's be clear here, though. Judy Holliday was not dumb. She was said to have had an IQ of 172. That would put her in the ballpark with Albert Einstein, whose IQ is unknown but is estimated to have been between 160 and 190, and just behind Leonardo da Vinci, whose IQ was estimated to be between 180 and 190. That's pretty impressive company.

But she knew how to play dumb. She won the Oscar for Best Actress for playing the dumb blonde in "Born Yesterday," which premiered on this date in 1950. For a comedy, it garnered quite a few Oscar nominations — for Best Picture, Best Director (George Cukor), Best Screenplay, Best Black and White Costume Design — in addition to Holliday's. When she smiled for the camera, her twinkling eyes seemed to be saying, "You know, this is really an act. I'm a lot smarter than I seem."

"Born Yesterday" is a movie I never tire of watching — and what a treat it must have been for audiences 65 years ago to go to the theaters the day after Christmas and see Judy Holliday co–starring with William Holden and Broderick Crawford.

Kind of reminds me of Christmases when I was a child, and my parents would take my brother and me to the movies either on Christmas Day or the day after Christmas.

I don't think we ever went to a theater during the Christmas season and saw a movie that is regarded as a classic today, though, and I know for sure that we never saw a trio as talented as Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford and William Holden.

Even so, Christmas always seemed to me to be a smart time for a studio to release a movie that seemed destined to be a blockbuster — or that the studio simply wanted to draw bigger audiences — but they didn't really seem to do that much when I was growing up. They do it a lot more now.

It was an interesting shift for Crawford, who won a Best Actor Oscar for "All the King's Men" the year before. In some ways, though, it was the same character. They were both manipulators; Willie Stark was just better at it than Harry Brock. Maybe the product that Willie Stark was selling (himself) was more highly regarded than what Harry Brock was selling (junk) — although, given the reputation politicians seem to have always had, that seems to be backward, doesn't it?

Of course, the story did take place in Washington, D.C., which was where Harry was trying to buy a congressman.

For that matter, Holden hadn't yet been nominated for an Oscar when he made "Born Yesterday," but he got his first Oscar nomination for his performance in "Sunset Boulevard," which was in theaters only a few months earlier — and probably was still showing in many theaters in that pre–multiscreen cineplex era when movies could and did show at the same theaters for months.

Initially, Harry hired Holden's character to smooth Holliday's rough edges and instruct her in some of the finer points of government and history.

That way she could converse intelligently with Harry's clients. But she learned a lot more than he expected her to learn from Holden.

In the process, they fell in love.

And Holliday's character showed millions of Americans what being a liberated woman was about — a couple of decades before the phrase became a part of modern American lingo.

Holliday played the role with true panache.

And, really, I would expect no less from someone as smart as she was.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Ann Sheridan's Little Known Gem

Inspector (Robert Keith): Don't you eat anything but dog food?

Eleanor (Ann Sheridan): He's not particular, and I'm lazy, so we eat out.

With its snappy dialogue, I'm kind of surprised that "Woman on the Run," which debuted on this date in 1950, didn't receive an Oscar nomination for its writing.

But not really. A film noir seldom seems to have been recognized by Oscar in those days — unless a big name was involved.

It was still a good story. When the movie began, a fellow was out at night walking his dog, and he saw someone in a car talking about a crime. That person was shot at point–blank range by the driver of the car, who then saw the shadow of the fellow and fired at it twice, thinking it was a person and, consequently, missing both times. Unseen by the audience, the killer then drove off in a hurry.

Turned out that the person who was shot had been planning to testify in court against a gangster. He wisely went into hiding.

The police then tried to get information from his barely wife (Ann Sheridan), who didn't seem to have much love left for her husband but did appear to be loyal to him. When he called her and the police tried to trace the call, the wife warned him and he promptly hung up.

Dennis O'Keefe played a newspaperman who was after an exclusive story, and he managed to enlist the wife in helping him search for her husband.

And thus was launched a kind of competition between the wife (with the newspaperman) and the police.

As the story went on, Sheridan's character learned that her husband was still in love with her — and the audience learned that O'Keefe's character was really the killer, trying to find — and silence — Sheridan's husband with her help.

At one point, the police thought they had found Sheridan's husband — or what was left of him. The body had been badly beaten, and the police had to ask Sheridan to come in to make an identification. When she saw the body, she got weak at the knees and had to be helped from the room. But she later confided to O'Keefe that the corpse had not been her husband.

And, in a scene that foretold an event early in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train," which made its debut the following year, Sheridan and O'Keefe found themselves in a seaside amusement park at night — and Sheridan took a harrowing roller coaster ride.

Before Sheridan rode that roller coaster, the movie had one of my favorite dialogue exchanges. It's the kind of snappy dialogue that was sprinkled throughout "Woman on the Run," so much so that it may well have been overlooked by audiences then — and now — simply because it came late in a movie in which that kind of dialogue was commonplace.

Eleanor: I don't like this place.

Danny (Dennis O'Keefe): It's a good spot. I used to come here with my girl when I was a kid.

Eleanor: It's more frightening than romantic.

Danny: It's the way love is when you're young ... life is when you're older.

Sheridan's character was a hardened woman of her times who probably would be uncomfortable in the modern world. In a conversation with the police early in the movie, she spoke of how her husband was a drifter who drifted from job to job and city to city. When she was asked if she had ever gotten a job to help the couple through the rough patches, she observed that supporting the family was his responsibility, not hers.

Saying that her role in "Woman on the Run" may have been the best of Sheridan's career probably doesn't mean much to modern viewers. Few have ever heard of her. If they have seen any of her movies, it was purely by accident, and they may not even remember seeing her.

But if "Woman on the Run" had been recognized at the time, Sheridan might be better known today.

As I say, a film noir typically does not receive that kind of recognition. But "Woman on the Run" wasn't a typical film noir.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

A Pooka's a Pooka ...

"Harvey and I have things to do ... we sit in the bars ... have a drink or two ... play the jukebox. Very soon the faces of all the other people turn towards me, and they smile. They say, 'We don't know your name, mister, but you're a very nice fellow.' Harvey and I warm ourselves in these golden moments. We came as strangers — soon we have friends. They come over. They sit with us. They drink with us. They talk to us. They tell us about the great big terrible things they've done and the great big wonderful things they're going to do. Their hopes, their regrets. Their loves, their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. Then I introduce them to Harvey, and he's bigger and grander than anything they can offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back, but that's — that's envy, my dear. There's a little bit of envy in the best of us."

Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart)

Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors, and he has been in some of my favorite movies, but my very favorite Jimmy Stewart performance of all was the one he gave in "Harvey," which premiered 65 years ago today.

As she so often did, my mother introduced me to that movie. She laughed at eventual Best Supporting Actress winner Josephine Hull, who played Stewart's sister, when she delivered lines like "Myrtle Mae, you have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it."

Myrtle Mae was her daughter (played by Victoria Horne), and Hull was always giving her advice about men, such as "Oh, Myrtle, don't be didactic. It's not becoming in a young girl. Besides, men loathe it."

I laughed, too, and I still do when I watch "Harvey." Josephine Hull reminded me then — and she still reminds me today — of the older women I knew when I was growing up.

Harvey was a pooka, a six–foot invisible rabbit — or, as Stewart (as Elwood P. Dowd) said in the movie, "Six feet 3½ inches. Now let's stick to the facts."

Speaking of the facts, Stewart was 6–foot–4 and wanted to change Harvey's height from what it had been in the original play. But the folks who made the movie wouldn't give in on that point.

Stewart played a mild–mannered tippler who was always embarrassing his family with his invisible rabbit — which led to some pretty delicious dialogue. With writing like that, it was no wonder the play on which the movie was based was such a hit.

For example, at an afternoon tea party, Hull and Horne had a delightful conversation with an elderly aunt, who noticed that Elwood wasn't around and wanted to know if "Elwood sees anyone these days."

"Oh, yes, Aunt Ethel," Myrtle Mae replied, "he does."

But no one else could see Harvey. Well, almost no one.

At one point, Hull confessed there were times when she thought she could see Harvey, too. And a doctor at the sanatorium where Hull tried to commit Stewart spoke of seeing Harvey as well.

But everyone else seemed to think Stewart was nuts — even though there was ample evidence that Harvey the pooka really did exist.

Anyway, whether Hull really did see Harvey or not, she conspired to have her brother committed to that sanatorium I mentioned earlier. When the head of the sanatorium told Stewart what his sister had done — "This sister of yours is at the bottom of a conspiracy against you. She's trying to persuade me to lock you up. Today she had commitment papers drawn up. She has your power of attorney and the key to your safety box, and she brought you here!" — Stewart's disarming reply was "She did all that in one afternoon. That Veta certainly is a whirlwind, isn't she?"

Stewart had several conversations with the head of the sanatorium (Cecil Kellaway), at one point getting the doctor to talk about his secret desires, the greatest of which seemed to be to spend two weeks in Akron, Ohio, with a woman whose name he didn't know. They would drink cold beer, and he would tell her of his life, and she would pat his hand and say, "You poor, poor thing."

"Wouldn't that get a little monotonous," Stewart wanted to know, "just Akron, cold beer and 'poor, poor thing' for two weeks?"

Wallace Ford was a character actor who probably was best known for his westerns, but he played a crucial role in "Harvey" as a taxi driver who drove Stewart to the sanatorium, where he was scheduled to be given an injection of a serum that would bring him back to the reality his sister wanted for him.

The cab driver tried to explain to Veta that it wouldn't be a good thing.

"I've been driving this route for 15 years," he said to her. "I've brought 'em out here to get that stuff, and I've drove 'em home after they had it. It changes them. On they way out here, they sit back and enjoy the ride. They talk to me. Sometimes we stop and watch the sunset and look at the birds fly. And sometimes we stop and watch the birds when there ain't no birds. And look at the sunset when it's raining. We have a swell time. And I always get a big tip."

"But afterwards, uh oh!"

Veta asked him to clarify, and the cabbie was only too happy to do so.

"They crab, crab, crab," he told her. "They yell at me. Watch the lights. Watch the brakes, Watch the intersection. They scream at me to hurry. They got no faith in me or my buggy. Yep, it's the same cab, the same driver. And we're going back over the very same road. It's no fun. And no tips."

Then Ford delivered what has always been the line of the movie for me.

"After this he'll be a perfectly normal human being — and you know what stinkers they are!"

That statement certainly resonated with Veta. She ran back inside the sanatorium demanding to stop the procedure.

And Harvey remained a part of the family.

In addition to Hull, Stewart was nominated for an Oscar, but he lost Best Actor to José Ferrer.

All About Catty Backstage Backstabbing

"Funny business, a woman's career — the things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not: being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis, nothing's any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed, and there he is. Without that, you're not a woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings, but you're not a woman. Slow curtain, the end."

Margo Channing (Bette Davis)

As its title implied, "All About Eve" — which premiered on this day in 1950 — was, well, all about Eve (Anne Baxter), an ambitious ladder climber in the theatrical world. Fate threw her in with Bette Davis, who played an aging (and sensitive about it) actress.

I'll spare you most of the details — after all, you might want to see it if you haven't already, and I would encourage you to do so — but Eve maneuvered her way into more than Davis' home. She became Davis' understudy in the Broadway play in which she was appearing — then Celeste Holm manipulated events so Davis was unable to make it to the theater, and Eve had to fill in for her, as understudies are sometimes required to do.

And a star was born.

Her performance was so good it ultimately led to the awards ceremony that opened the movie, in which she was being honored for her work. The rest of the story was told in a kind of flashback mode.

In spite of the title, the movie was not all about Eve. At times, it seemed to be about everyone but Eve. You probably guessed that — even if you haven't seen the movie. Eve was like a pebble that is dropped in the middle of a pond, sending ripples in all directions. She was disarmingly modest — calculatedly so.

Much of the movie was about Davis, whose character's name was Margo, and Bill (Gary Merrill), a director who was in love with her. Their relationship was threatened at times by the young, vivacious (and manipulative) Eve.

Davis claimed that her inspiration for her portrayal of Margo was Tallulah Bankhead. Davis' line "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" was #9 on the American Film Institute's list of the Top 100 movie quotes of all time. It certainly was a great line, but the truth is that just about all the lines in "All About Eve" were gems.

As always, Thelma Ritter played a blunt character — this time named Birdie — who didn't hesitate to voice her opinion of Eve.

"Birdie, you don't like Eve, do you?" Margo asked her at one point.

"You looking for an answer or an argument?" Birdie asked.

"An answer," Margo replied.

"No," Birdie said.

"Why not?" Margo wanted to know.

"Now you want an argument," Birdie replied.

With dialogue like that, it is no wonder that both Baxter and Davis were nominated for Best Actress — but both lost to Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday" — and Holm and Ritter were nominated for Best Supporting Actress — both lost to Josephine Hull in "Harvey."

Those who are fans of movie trivia will note that "All About Eve" was one of Marilyn Monroe's early films. See her there at the bottom right?

George Sanders was nominated for Best Supporting Actor — in a movie that was primarily about women and their relationships with each other — and he won! Ironic, huh?

"All About Eve" also won Best Picture, Best Director (Joseph Mankiewicz), Best Screenplay (Mankiewicz), Best Sound Recording and Best Black–and–White Costume Design.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Just a Gigolo ...

Joe Gillis (William Holden): You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson): I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

#24 movie quote of all time, American Film Institute

I'm not an authority on Bill Holden's body of work. I've seen many of his movies, and I know he was one of the best actors of his generation, but I certainly haven't seen all of his movies. And, while I am hesitant to proclaim anything the best that someone ever did unless I have seen or heard or read all the entries for myself, I would probably have no problem declaring his performance in Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," which premiered on this day in 1950, his best. It's hard for me to see how he could have topped it.

In a story that began at the end, with Holden's lifeless body floating in a swimming pool, and was told in flashback, Holden played a down–on–his–luck screenwriter, trying to scrape together enough cash to square things with his aggressive auto finance company. I'm sure there were equally pressing issues in his life, but that was the one on which he was fixated when the movie began — and it dictated his every move.

It was while trying to evade the guys from the finance company who wanted to collect past–due payments or repossess the vehicle that Holden's character found himself on the estate of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a great star from the silent movie era but a has–been since the advent of talkies. He first thought the mansion was deserted, but it wasn't. Swanson's character lived virtually alone in a cavernous mansion, accompanied only by her dedicated — and fiercely protective — servant (Erich von Stroheim).

When I say "cavernous," I mean it. Really. In the viewer's first real glimpse of it, that huge mansion — with its overgrown tennis court and empty swimming pool — always reminds me of Xanadu in "Citizen Kane." A big, mostly empty (of people, that is, not things) coliseum. About the only things missing were the animals Charles Foster Kane had gathered from around the world.

But Norma Desmond matched Citizen Kane when it came to manipulating people. She always got her way — or she got her revenge.

Holden became something of a kept man. Swanson's character had been working on a script to be used as her comeback vehicle, and she needed a writer to polish it. He accepted the job, not realizing that she intended for him to move in to the mansion. He discovered that the next day, when he woke up in the room she had provided — supposedly for one night — to find his belongings all around him. Max (von Stroheim) had moved them himself, and Norma had settled things with his landlord. Holden resented his sudden dependent status, but he accepted it as the price of doing business.

It was at a New Year's party that he realized that Norma was in love with him, and he bailed. He felt liberated, but later, when he called to ask that his things be forwarded to a new address, Max informed him that Norma had attempted suicide, and he was back in her web.

It seems to me that Swanson was so good in that role not because she was the best actress but because she had lived much of the character's life. The character had been a huge silent film star, and so had Swanson, but a key difference (well, sorta) is that Swanson was quick to embrace talkies, appearing in her first talkie in 1929. But she never really made it in talkies. Swanson made her attempts to fit in to the world of the talkies, but she never really caught on and had made only half a dozen movies in the two decades before she starred in "Sunset Boulevard."

In "Sunset Boulevard," Norma Desmond appeared to have resisted the changing technology — I don't think it was established whether she had ever tried to make a talkie — but she also seemed to have reached the conclusion that she would have to adapt if she wanted her career to have a new life — and she clearly did. It was, after all, her motivation for the script.

But, whether it was stated or not, it was clear to me that Norma hadn't been around the movie culture much after talkies came along. Why was that? I don't know. Maybe her character was one of those people who don't like the sounds of their own voices. Maybe she believed her skill as an actress was only suited for a silent environment. We can only guess.

In Swanson's visit to the studio to meet with her former director, Cecil B. DeMille, the legendary filmmaker offered to show her around because so much had changed since the last time she had been there. He artfully avoided any discussion of Norma's script — which he really didn't want, anyway — and then escorted her to her car. She seemed none the wiser.

In fact, she embarked on a beauty regimen in anticipation of her big comeback, and Holden began working nights with a pretty script reader on an idea she thought showed promise. In the course of their work together, the two fell in love. Swanson found out about it and, in a series of events that are better seen than explained, wound up shooting Holden three times.

And, as the movie came to its conclusion, the viewers were returned to the present day, with Holden's body floating in the pool and the police filling both the poolside and the house. Norma descended her staircase, believing that the cameras were there to film her comeback. Max — who, the audience learned earlier, was once a film director who discovered the teenage Norma, made her a star, married and then divorced her and became her servant rather than live apart from her — played along with her, giving her directions while she spoke of being ready for her close–up.

The American Film Institute, by the way, chose that line about her close–up as the #7 movie line of all time.

Swanson was good enough to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday.

"Sunset Boulevard" got 11 Oscar nominations in all — including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress — but won only three in more technical categories (Best Story and Screenplay, Best Dramatic or Comedy Score and Best Black and White Art Direction).

Franz Waxman won the Oscar for Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, and the American Film Institute ranked his work on "Sunset Boulevard" 16th among all film scores.

The American Film Institute also ranked "Sunset Boulevard" 16th among all films.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Spencer Tracy's Finest Hour?

"I would like to say a few words about weddings. I've just been through one. Not my own. My daughter's. Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence but not now. I always used to think that marriages were a simple affair. Boy meets girl. Fall in love. They get married. Have babies. Eventually the babies grow up and meet other babies. They fall in love. Get married. Have babies. And so on and on and on. Looked at that way, it's not only simple, it's downright monotonous. But I was wrong. I figured without the wedding."

Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy)

I like Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, and I thought their remake of "Father of the Bride" in 1991 had some creative and imaginative elements that the original did not have, but, if given a choice, I would rather watch the original version, starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor, that made its debut on this date in 1950.

I'm not sure there is a logical reason for this preference. Martin is really a professional funny man. You'd think a professional funny man would be perfect for the male lead in a comedy. Tracy wasn't a professional funny man. He could do comedy, but he could do so many other things, too. That may be what worked in his favor. Being the butt of jokes was so out of character for him. As the father of the bride, he was playing against type.

Anyway, it worked well enough for him to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. It was one of three nominations "Father of the Bride"
received. Three nominations, no wins.

In fact, it worked well enough that I am almost tempted to call it his finest acting achievement. Almost.

It wasn't surprising that he lost, though. Tracy was facing some long odds. He was competing with Jimmy Stewart and Bill Holden — and the winner was José Ferrer. Actors in comedies don't usually win Oscars, anyway. It's pretty rare for them even to be nominated.

It wasn't rare for Tracy to be nominated for Oscars. He was nominated for Best Actor nine times in his career and won twice. But, even for him, it was rare to be nominated for his roles in comedies. He could do them — pretty well, in fact — but he was quite versatile. He could shine in any genre.

And I suppose labeling this movie a comedy would be a matter of perspective. For any man who has ever been the father of the bride, many of the scenes that were played out on the silver screen must have rung painfully true. Even if they can laugh about it now, those fathers must have found the experience, at some times and at the very least, awkward.

Of course, Tracy was confronted with just about every conceivable pitfall that can plague a father of the bride. Most only have to contend with one or two; Tracy got the whole ball of wax.

"You fathers will understand," Tracy's character told the fathers of the bride in the audience, past and potential. "You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic."

If "Father of the Bride" was an accurate reflection of a, more or less, typical wedding in 1950, then I suppose it must have been a lucrative business for anyone who contributed anything to a typical wedding — flowers, wedding cakes, bridal gowns, bridesmaids' dresses, groomsmen's attire — and there are lots of rituals that go into a traditional wedding.

By modern standards, though, this certainly wouldn't be a middle–class wedding. Only an upper–class family could afford all the trimmings, and it may not have been that typical after all. It was mostly done at the insistence of the mother of the bride, played by Joan Bennett, who wanted the kind of wedding she and Tracy didn't have. Tracy had to foot the bill for the lavish proceedings plus he had to meet the groom's parents, have a man–to–man conversation with the groom, host the engagement party — as well as put out any other fires he encountered along the way.

And, of course, then — as now — the father of the bride was really only a supporting player in a wedding. Just like the groom. They were there to perform certain functions, but a wedding is really about the bride — and, by extension, the bride's mother.

Tracy and the audience had to be certain that it would all be worth it when the big day arrived. But when the big day actually did arrive, Tracy barely got to see his daughter and appeared to have missed his chance when things began to wind down and he realized the couple had left on their honeymoon.

But just before they were to board their train, Liz Taylor called her parents — and it really was all worth it for the father of the bride.

Now Martin and Keaton did a reasonably good job in the remake, but Tracy and Bennett gave it all a very human touch that elevated this version far above the remake.