Hollywood Remembers

This past week, Hollywood has suffered three tragic losses--Sally Menke (Film Editor), Arthur Penn (Director), and Tony Curtis (Actor).

Sally Menke, "Pulp Fiction" editor dies at 56

Sally Menke
(17 December 1953-27 September 2010)
Sally Menke was a film editor who was known for working with writer-director Quentin Tarantino. Menke worked with Tarantino on such films as "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), "Pulp Fiction" (1994) (which earned her an Oscar nomination) and more recently on "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). She was found dead in the Hollywood Hills, after going for a hike with her dog.  Investigators are still working out the various details surrounding her death. Mrs. Menke was a fine editor, who worked on some of the greatest films of the contemporary film era, (Pulp Fiction (1994), which is on AFI's Top 10 Greatest Gangster Movies). Mrs. Menke will be dearly missed.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0579673/bio
http://www.comcast.net/articles/entertainment/20100928/ENTERTAINMENT-US-SALLYMENKE/

The director of the controversial groundbreaking "Bonnie & Clyde" (1967) dies at 88

Arthur Penn
(27 September 1922-28 September 2010)
Arthur Penn, the celebrated director of "Bonnie & Clyde" (1967) and "Mickey One" (1965), died at his New York home of heart failure at the very respectable age of 88. One of the great directors of American cinema, his work has been and will be honored by many. Mr. Penn will be dearly missed.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0671957/
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/09/in-memoriam-arthur-penn.html

The He-man from "Some Like It Hot" and countless others dies at 85

Tony Curtis
(3 June 1925-29 September 2010)
The pretty-boy/gritty star of "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), "Some Like It Hot" (1959), "Spartacus" (1960), and "The Great Race" (1965) dies in his Las Vegas home after suffering cardiac arrest at the age of 85. Mr. Curtis starred in "Sweet Smell of Success", "Some Like It Hot", and "The Great Race", three of my favorite movies. It was my pleasure to meet him in April 2010 at the Turner Classic Movies Festival. I listened to him introduce "Sweet Smell of Success" and then got his autograph. I stayed a moment and talked with him about one particular moment in "The Great Race", when he was engaged in a sword fight with Ross Martin. He was telling me how fun it had been to film the scene, and I told him how much fun I have watching it.
Mr. Curtis was a giant of an actor and has given one magnificent performance after another. As far as I'm concerned, he's one of the greatest of them all. Tony Curtis will be deeply missed.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000348/http://www.comcast.net/articles/entertainment-movies/20100930/US.Obit.Tony.Curtis/

Every year, Hollywood loses a few more stars. So many of the classic film stars are no longer with us--and I always feel glad for actors like Clint Eastwood (80), Olivia de Havilland (94) and Joan Fontaine (92), who are still alive.

A star may die, but they never go out. The performances they have left behind are their gifts to the world. They are immortal through these roles. We will always remember their shimmering greatness. Now, with the stars gone, how can we forget? But we still mourn their losses with heavy hearts.

God bless you, Sally Menke, Arthur Penn and Tony Curtis. Thank you for your work.  

Happy Birthday, Mr. Hitchcock!

Hitchcock once said, "Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual." Take this comment and apply it to all of the movies I've just reviewed.

Each one of those movies feature some fear existing in the human mind--to use an obvious example, a fear of heights in "Vertigo". That's one, but what about the other more subtler fears in the other movies? That's up to you to find out.

Hitchcock's movies aren't just about fear, though. They're about individuation, about people and about emotions. In a way, Hitchcock's movies are almost like fairy tales. They're not set in magic forests or in faraway kingdoms--but they play with the same things that fairy tales do. The morality of a set of characters with intriguing backgrounds thrust into an intriguing situation, while using human fears as a device to drive the plot forwards. The result is occasionally tragic, but then, not all fairy tales end with "happily ever after" and neither do all movies. Alfred Hitchcock is one the Shakespeares of the screen.

I would like to wish a happy 111th birthday to Mr. Hitchcock. His films and his style of directing have inspired me greatly. I hope I could manage to share some of that inspiration through my comments of his films. Some of the finest films ever made. Happy Birthday, Alfred Hitchcock--and happy Friday the 13th to all!  

Quote source:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/bio (Alfred Hitchcock Biography)

On "The Birds" (1963)

If I saw this, I'd be slightly intimidated

Star Rating: *** (3/4 stars)
The Master of Suspense becomes the Master of Horror with "The Birds", a horror epic of apocalyptic proportions. The film was one of Hitchcock’s last movies and was based on a novella by Daphne De Maurier, who was also the author of the novel "Rebecca", which was also made into a feature film by Hitchcock in 1940.

"The Birds" features two people who meet in a bird shop. They are Tippi Hedren as socialite Melanie Daniels and Rod Taylor as lawyer Mitch Brenner. Daniels becomes fascinated by Brenner, and, in the hopes of playing a flirty joke on him, drives down to his mother’s home in a small hamlet on the pacific coast called Bodega Bay. Brenner is spending the weekend at Bodega Bay and introduces Daniels to his weak-willed mother, played by Jessica Tandy. Daniels also makes the acquaintance of the village schoolteacher, played by Suzanne Pleshette, who is a past sweetheart of Brenner’s.

As Brenner and Daniels begin to realize that they have feelings for each other, their romance is marred by a series of vicious and bloody bird attacks on the village, resulting in the death of several townspeople including Pleshette’s character. In one especially horrifying moment, a large flock of birds attack a group of young children evacuating their schoolhouse to get to a safe shelter, away from the gathering creatures. The question of “what is this all adding up to” becomes stronger all the time.

I have to say that one needs staying power to stick with a movie like "The Birds". Its featured violence could quite easily detract an audience. However, the idea of groups of birds massacring civilians can’t just be meaningless violence. It has to represent something. First of all, this is not a realistic movie in any sense of the term. It starts off like a love story and then takes the form of a most grotesque piece of horror fiction.

One can assume that the violent and homicidal birds are intended to represent the strong emotions aroused by Brenner’s and Daniels’ sudden and unexpected infatuation. To use an example, the mother Mrs. Brenner, who is terrified of being left alone, is conflicted in trying to feel happy for her son finding happiness, but is scared of him leaving her permanently. There is also the suppressed jealousy of the schoolteacher to consider. Both of these are very intense emotions that could very well take the metaphorical form of the vile and cruel events shown throughout the film.

Because of its touching romantic aspects and complex characters and subject matter, "The Birds" is an incredibly thought provoking movie. But if you think of this movie as pure horror and violence, you aren’t getting the point. Look past the bird attacks as just violent cinematography and ask yourself what it all means. In a way, that’s what Hitchcock’s movies are all about—having the viewers draw their own conclusions. You’ll have a much more interesting time with "The Birds" this way.

Note: Special thanks to my friend Doug, who shared some of his views on this film that are reflected here

On "Psycho" (1960)

If you're a traveler looking for shelter, I'd recommend passing this place by

Star Rating: ***½ (3.5/4 stars)
One terrifying moment in the Bates Motel is enough to turn you on or off to "Psycho". This has to be one of Hitchcock’s most effective films. It dangles horrific images of violence in front of the viewer’s eyes while offering a story that is cunning, violent and disturbing. Most of the violent aspects of "Psycho" are entirely in the mind. That is why it is so effective as a thriller movie.

"Psycho" starts with Marion Crane, played by Janet Leigh, who steals $40,000 from her employer in order to marry her lover. While driving to her lover’s house, she hits bad weather and stops at the isolated Bates Motel. The motel is run primarily by the mentally insecure Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins. During her stay, Crane is brutally murdered in the shower of her cabin. Bates arrives soon after and hides the body and evidence, thinking that it was his insane mother who had committed the crime. Soon afterward, Crane’s sister and lover become involved in the case to try and find Marion, and they unravel the truth about Mr. Norman Bates and his mother.

Of all the actors in "Psycho", Anthony Perkins has to be the most notable. He plays a young man who is apparently emotionally terrorized by his elderly, mentally unstable and possessive mother. He stays with her because he doesn’t want to leave her all alone, yet he wants to go and seek his own place in the world. He just lacks the strength to do it.

Perkins puts forward a performance as satisfying and disturbing as Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lector in "The Silence of the Lambs". They are not identical roles, but they have their similarities. In his jail cell, Lector indirectly expresses his insanity with his notable fava beans speech, in which he calmly discusses how he murdered and ate a census taker “with some fava beans and a nice Chianti”. In a similar scenario, the setting being the Bates Motel, Norman Bates gives his iconic insane line, “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

Aside from Perkins is Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, the lost lamb who has broken the law and is haunted by her conscience and the prospect of getting caught by the police. Her face tells her story. The look of unrest in her eyes as she drives away with the stolen money while suspenseful and unsettling music sounds in the background. Too bad. She is killed off before she can redeem herself of robbery. One of the most haunting scenes the entire movie is the frozen look of fright and shock on Crane’s face as she lies dead on the bathroom floor of Cabin No. 1.

I have to hand it to Hitchcock. Throughout his career he has always picked an interesting project. He might not always create a masterpiece, but he always picks intriguing projects. "Psycho" may not be a perfect movie, with regards to the concepts of the story’s mind boggling ending, but it is a perfect thriller and I wouldn’t change any of it. This has to be the epitome of psychological thriller movies. The uneasy soundtrack, the words of the unstable Norman Bates and the chilling scream of Janet Leigh ringing like steel will chill you throughout the film’s duration. This is the perfect movie for a Halloween party.

On "North by Northwest" (1959)

Cary Grant tries to avoid a plane that has apparently lost control of itself

Star Rating: ****
I don’t know about you, but there is nothing I find more upsetting than starting my day by being abducted by secret agents and who think that I’m someone that I’ve never even heard of. In this way I sympathize very much with Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill in Alfred Hitchcock’s "North by Northwest".

Now here is an espionage film. Thrilling and exciting. Beautifully told with exquisite and stylish directing from Hitchcock, it has an intriguing plot-line in which United States governmental secrets are at stake. I was lucky enough to see this film shown at the first Turner Classic Movies film festival in Hollywood in April 2010. The experience was intensified by the presence of the movie’s co-stars Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau, who talked about their experiences making this film.

Robert Osborne with Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau at Grauman's Chinese Theater for a showing of "North by Northwest" (1959); April 25, 2010

Now for the movie itself. Cary Grant plays an innocent advertising agent who is unwillingly and unknowingly drawn into a spy chase across the United States when he is mistaken for a secret agent he had never heard of. Due to this mistake, he meets numerous calamities—being forcefully intoxicated, being framed for a murder he did not commit, and almost being shot down by an airplane. Along the way, he meets and falls in love with Eva Marie Saint, who is the mysterious and inviting woman in the train compartment across the hall. She also happens to be a secret agent apparently involved with the team assigned to kill Grant. As Eva herself said at the TCM film festival, “Who doesn’t want to play a sexy spy lady?”

Nobody can play a smooth talking and nefarious villain quite like James Mason. Five years earlier, he favored the screen with his portrayal of the unstable Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Here he plays the smooth smuggler who is on the run from the United States government. Mason paves the way for the similar low key, nefarious cinematic portrayal of Dr. Julius No by Joseph Wiseman in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, three years after "North by Northwest".

At Mason’s side is his faithful right-hand man, Martin Landau. When the film was shown at the festival in 2010, Landau explained that his character had been intentionally written as a homosexual. This was not supposed to be obvious to the audience, nor did it interfere with his role in the movie. However he does give the audience a hint as to his orientation with the line, “Call it my woman’s instinct.”

Secondary to all of the excitement of "North by Northwest" is its humor. Cary Grant’s dialogue is usually couched with witty cynicism as he desperately tries to find out what is happening to him throughout the movie. Couple that with his playful banter with Eva Marie Saint, who “never discusses love on an empty stomach.”

There is also humor in scenes that are meant to be dead serious. At the festival in 2010, Ms. Saint reminisces about one such scene, in which she prepares to shoot Cary Grant. The setting is a crowded café, and as soon as she draws her gun, a boy in the background, who had obviously been there during rehearsals, immediately covers his ears. However, when the gun goes off a moment later, he had removed his hands from his ears. Despite his crew’s insistence that Hitchcock redo the scene, he just left that scene in the movie, and he did right by doing so. It is perfect comic relief.

With action, suspense, humor and romance on its side, "North by Northwest" is a knockout. Dare I say that this even tops the James Bond series?

on "Vertigo" (1958)

 

James Stewart seems to have lost his vertigo in addition to other things as well

Star Rating: **** (4/4 Stars)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Technicolor Film Noir "Vertigo" cannot be described without the use of one word. Brilliant. It is a masterpiece featuring two mesmerizing characters that come together through fear, love, lust and mystery.

One of these characters is James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson, a detective who witnesses a fellow policeman fall to his death from a rooftop and develops a fear of heights. It interferes with his police duties and eventually causes him to quit the force. However, Scottie is called by a friend of his to do one last job—shadow this friend’s wife who has been acting suspiciously lately. The wife, Madeline, played by Kim Novak, is a mystical and mysterious woman, whose beauty and presence is simply haunting. And she does indeed act strangely. She visits a museum and stares at a painting of her great grandmother and visits the cemetery where her great grandmother is buried. It would seem she is revisiting the grief of losing her great grandmother. However, the plot thickens during Scottie’s investigations when he makes the predictable mistake of falling in love with Madeline. But not even the prospect of love can save her from committing suicide to end her psychological torment.

Now Scottie is on the lookout for a new lover. He finds Judy, who resembles Madeline. What particularly struck me about this film is the relationship Scottie has with the Judy. He is intrigued by her for her resemblance to Madeline, (of course Judy is also played by Kim Novak). She allows him into her life, and Scottie indirectly falls in love with her, while he is falling in love with Madeline all over again. He makes her over to look “exactly like she did.” He starts by buying new clothes for his lover and then having her hair cut and dyed to the same length and color that Madeline had.

I couldn’t believe the selfishness and the control Stewart brings to the screen in these scenes. I found myself thinking, “This is really the same gentle boyish patriot from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” What an excellent actor James Stewart is to transition from one personality to another.

From time to time, Hitchcock seems to experiment with the theory of a dead character indirectly controlling the actions of a living character. He presented us with Rebecca, whose premise was a social bride whose memory haunts the memory of the living. Also, not long after "Vertigo" would come Psycho, featuring the ultimate mama’s boy who refuses to let his mother die. I won’t get further into that—that’s another story. "Vertigo" plays with the same themes, but with different results.

First we have Madeline, supposedly possessed by her dead great grandmother, and grief stricken by her death. This drives her to an early suicide. Later we have Scottie, possessed by his love for Madeline, completely remaking another woman in his dead lover’s image. Psychology and love play two major themes here, and the result is unsettling, disturbing and one of the great treasures of the screen. "Vertigo" has to be seen to be believed.

On "Rear Window" (1954)

 

James Stewart in the act of spying on his neighbor through the "Rear Window" of his apartment

Star Rating: **** (4/4 stars)
“Just how would you even start to cut up a human body?” wonders L.B. Jeffries, as he is looking out of the rear window of his apartment across the street into his neighbor’s bedroom. The whole premise of "Rear Window" is based on one thing—that the main character, Jeffries, played by James Stewart, thinks he has seen a murder in his neighbor’s apartment. He takes to spying on his neighbor’s suspicious actions. And what he sees looks pretty suspicious. First, he sees quarrels between the neighbor, Lars Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr, and his invalid wife. Then, suddenly, Mrs. Thorwald disappears from the apartment and Mr. Thorwald is putting all of her personal belongings into boxes. It all begins to add up to one thing in Jeffries’ mind: that Thorwald has murdered his wife, cut her body into several pieces and buried them around the apartment grounds.

The movie is based on Cornel Woolrich’s short story, "It Had To Be Murder". The story was adapted and more characters and scenes were added and the result was this exquisite piece of suspense cinema. James Stewart plays the lead role; Jeffries, an adventurous photographer who has broken his leg and is now confined to his apartment. He sits there, day after day, bored out of mind. So he takes to looking out the window and watching the neighbors, who are each very interesting in their own way. The neighbors include a newly wed couple, a songwriter, a sculpture, a dancer, a salesman and his wife, (the couple that Jeffries is watching throughout the movie) and a lonely single woman, who Jeffries calls “Miss Lonelyhearts.” After being stuck inside his apartment with a broken leg for weeks with nothing interesting to do, Jeffries expressly mentions that he’d welcome trouble if it came. He looks out the window, wishing something would happen until, finally, he thinks he sees a murder.

From a directorial and cinematographic standpoint, "Rear Window" is almost perfect. Direction is the key element throughout the scenes when Jeffries is watching his neighbors. We transition from watching Jeffries, to seeing what he sees through his eyes and the lens of his camera and then return to the apartment with Jeffries. The audience sees what he sees. No more, no less. There are no shots inside his neighbors’ apartments. All of the shots are from the outside, from his point of view. I suppose this would be the cinematic equivalent of a book told in first person. Anyhow, it is very effective storytelling. It gets the audience inside the main characters’ heads and helps them fully understand what they are seeing. And seeing as how this whole movie revolves around what the main characters think they’ve seen, the direction is essential to the storytelling of the movie.

Jeffries has two main visitors throughout the movie, who both quickly become involved in trying to solve the mystery of the missing wife. The first is Stella, played by Thelma Ritter, an insurance nurse and maid who was assigned to aid Stewart’s recovery. The other is Stewart’s girlfriend, socialite Lisa Freemont, played by Grace Kelly. Freemont is madly in love with Jeffries, who does not altogether reciprocate. He likes her, but he feels that she is too social and urban bound, whereas he is more adventurous and free flowing. However, when he and Freemont work together to find Mrs. Thorwald, Jeffries realizes that they were meant for each other after all. Another visitor to Jeffries is Lt. Tom Doyle, played by Wendell Corey, a police detective and personal friend of Jeffries. Doyle investigates Thorwald’s record and tries to convince Jeffries that Thorwald is no murderer. Luckily for the audience, Jeffries is not convinced.

Perhaps one of the most effective performances in "Rear Window" was Lars Thorwald, played by Raymond Burr. It’s tough to think of Burr as a murder suspect when Burr would go on to play one of the great law champions of all time, Perry Mason, in the popular television series from the 1950s. Burr has little dialogue in "Rear Window", due to a lack of seeing his character up close. Most of his performance that the audience sees is him walking from room to room, doing things in his apartment. In the very end, Burr’s performance becomes very, very effective indeed. I’ll leave you, the reader and viewer, to find out for yourself why I make this statement.

"Rear Window" is a suspense thriller, but it is not only an exercise in suspense. Due to its emphasis on the point of view of the main characters, it is also a fine example of visual storytelling. One of Hitchcock’s greatest that will keep you excited and shivering even after the blinds have closed over the rear window, shutting the outside world from view.