WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[knitwit45]

LOVE NTA John Wayne's befuddlement, Capucine, Ernie Kovacs' Snidely (great comparison!) and Stewart Granger at his most gorgeous... And Kathleen Freeman is a complete hoot. Love the Loggers picnic.

[JackFavell]

I agree, North to Alaska is a favorite of mine... I think Capucine and Wayne are great together.

Hatari is another movie I love that seems like it ought to be a cartoon, but somehow, due to the congeniality of the cast, works.

[feaito]

Mike, I bought North to Alaska quite a long time ago and I haven't gotten around to seeing it... I'll try to watch it during this long WE (Easter Friday is a National Holiday in Chile).

[knitwit45]

Jacks, Hatari and North to Alaska are my 2 favorite JW non-westerns...well, after The Quiet Man, of course...

[Rita Hayworth]

1957 Classic - 12 Angry Men
Produced by Henry Fonda, Directed by Stanley Lumet, and Written by Reginald Rose.

I have waited all week long to watch this movie on Turner Classic Movies. This is a Stanley Lumet at his very best :!: The older I get the more and more I love it. I waited 10 long years to watch this wonderful courtroom classic and this movie has a galaxy of stars ... Henry Fonda, E.G. Marshall, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, Martin Balsam, and others.

What amazing about this movie that in 99% of the time - they spent in a jury-like room that measured 16x24 feet. What even more impressive that this movie was very inexpensive to make ... $350,000.00 for everything.
:!:
This is Stanley Lumet's best work as a director. I loved the way Henry Fonda directing the 12 jurors to make them believe that a young man did not kill his father and the way he work with Martin Balsam - the Jury Foreman to recast the vote and one by one ... each of the 12 jurors changed their vote from "guilty" to "not guilty". So wonderfully written, great direction, superb drama, and most importantly - well acted by all 12 actors in this 1957 classic.

This Movie will always remains a Timeless Classic ...

[feaito]

Today I revisited an extremelly well set, done and performed drama: "Lady Jane" (1986). It's all what a period film should be, capturing the atmosphere of the times in which the events took place and just the opposite of misfires like The Tudors, The Other Boleyn Girl, the new Spartacus et al. Perhaps the love story between Guildford Dudley and Jane Grey has been romanticized, but which film does not take its share of liberties? (i.e. the recent "The King's Speech" (2010)). From what I read, perhaps also Jane's mother, Frances Brandon has been extremely maligned as a heartless, scheming woman, but a film must take a point of view, notwithstanding later revisions of historical facts. Helena Bonham-Carter and Cary Elwes are completely appealing, believable and likable as the doomed lovers of the story and are supported by a splendid cast. Completely recommended.

[Ann Harding]

Yesterday I went to see Ramona (1936, Henry King) at the Cinémathèque. It was one of the very first Technicolor films shot on locations (it came out shortly after The Trail of the Lonesome Pine another beautiful Technicolor film). This often-told story is here played by Loretta Young and a young beginner called Don Ameche. Rather than a western, it feels more like Americana/melodrama. Beautiful Ramona (L. Young) has been brought up by the patrician Señora Moreno (Pauline Frederick). But when she falls in love with Alessandro (D. Ameche), an Indian, she is told her mother was a squaw. She marries him and they live happily in a farm until American farmer arrive. The film, beyond its cinematography, is interesting in showing how racial prejudices are different with origines. Aunt Ri (Jane Darwell) is a formidable woman from Tennessee. She is not afraid of Indians (she doesn't seem to know exactly what they are, anyway) but of pagans! As soon as they mention they are catholics, everything is fine with her. As for the Señora Moreno, her own prejudices are anchored and she raised Ramona to be a 'white girl'. Loretta Young has never looked more beautiful in the early Technicolor process. Wearing beautiful crinoline dresses (with some lovely delicate floral prints), she is enchanting to watch. It's a shame the film has got a silly happy end. (I guess Zanuck must have asked for it!) But overall, it was a pleasure to the eye to see this nice 35 mm print of this King picture.

[moira finnie]

Yesterday I went to see Ramona (1936, Henry King) at the Cinémathèque.

Having seen the beautifully photographed Ramona on television only, I can imagine how breath-taking the outdoor scenes and Loretta Young must have looked on a large screen in the Technicolor 35mm version of Ramona (1936). I never expected to be touched by such a hokey story, but I'll be darned if this movie didn't get to me when Ramona and her husband were put off their own land. While I noticed the Catholic vs.Heathen vibe in the script too, (reflecting historical tensions that did exist between Roman Catholics and Protestant sects in America in the 19th and early 20th century) I thought that the story marked one of the rare moments when American movies prior to 1950 attempted to explore life from the Native American point-of-view, which was very progressive for that period. (Have you seen Broken Arrow and Devil's Doorway, both from 1950? As you probably know already, they helped to change the portrayals of American tribal people in commercial movies).

I also enjoyed seeing the stage and silent star Pauline Frederick snarl in her next to last role on film as the starchy Señora Moreno, a character who was a catalyst for the events that followed the revelation that her formal manners masked an inbred racism. Also, any time the earth mother Jane Darwell lurched and clucked her way onto the screen, it was a treat. My only objection to the melodramatic little story: Don Ameche's unfortunate wig! I think it may have been the same ill-fitting mop that Ramon Novarro wore in Laughing Boy (1934), another movie that tried to treat the indigenous people with some modicum of humanity.


Btw, I read a 1964 interview with Dolores del Rio and Gilbert Roland on the set of Cheyenne Autumn. Roland confessed that Fox was interested in remaking the film with del Rio repeating her role as Ramona and himself as Alessandro (Warner Baxter was in the '28 version, but I hope Baxter wasn't as awful in that as he was when he played The Cisco Kid)--but box office concerns led to a rejection of that casting choice, since Young and Ameche were more "bankable."

I envy you having the Cinémathèque so nearby. April in Paris--and with classic movies too.

[Papermoon]

I saw La Strada, I've been wanting to see it for some time, I seemed to keep on missing it. It was good...Italian films are really starting to grow on me.

[Ann Harding]

Of course, Moira, I'm familiar with Devil's Doorway and Broken Arrow. In fact, Devil's Doorway is my favourite western ever. But, regarding native Americans, it's rather funny that in the teens and twenties, you find far more pro-Indian westerns than in the 30s or 40s. If you ever watch The Invaders (1912, TH Ince), you'll see that the Indians are the victims of the American invasion of their lands. The Vanishing American (1925) and Redskin (1929) are two pro-Indian westerns with messages similar to Devil's Doorway. It's really surprising that it took 25 years afterwards to make another one....

[moira finnie]

I agree about the tendency to treat Native Americans more humanely in the '10s and '20s, having seen The Invaders (1912), The Vanishing American (1925) and Redskin (1929), as well as The Squaw Man (1914), The Last of the Mohicans (1920), and William Douglas Burden's interesting The Silent Enemy (1930) from those early days--but the "noble savage" does seem to have faded with sound for a time, overwhelmed by the depictions of American Indians as an enemy. Except for the serials and B movies (which are sometimes great fun) which were cranked out and marketed for the hinterlands in the '30s, most film historians seem to believe that the Western went through a period of doldrums in the '30s--reemerging in popular films such as De Mille's Union Pacific (1939) and Ford's Stagecoach (1939) and Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) with the largely faceless Indians "out there" as a stand-in for the dark forces in the world that were perceived as threatening America in that period, and using film to help prepare audiences psychologically for the coming war with the Axis powers. Once in awhile Indian characters were sometimes portrayed as helpmates to the white settlers, but more detailed portraits were fewer.

This is a fascinating topic to consider. Thanks for bringing it up.

[Ann Harding]

I think you are right, Moira. Westerns became B-pictures during the early 30s with tons of serials. When they reappeared as A-pictures at the end of the 30s, the Indian was just invisible cannon-fodder. It took really a long time before he got a human face again. I am always fasciated by these kind of sociological changes in movies. Another interesting subjects are masculity and men actors from the 20s to the 30s. Sound transition also made a tremendous change in the image of men. The silent hero could be gentle, while with sound the gangster 'he-man' came to the fore. I read a really good book about that: Big Bad Wolves-Masculinity in the American Film by Joan Mellen (1978, Elm Tree Book). She also talked of the 70s and how men were threatened by the new feminism and retreated in buddy pictures where women were a threat.

[JackFavell]

I agree...it's a very interesting discussion. Devil's Doorway is one of my top westerns, and most of these movies mentioned are on my favorites list.

D. W. Griffith portrayed native Americans in a most positive light in The Red Man's View in 1909. Thomas Ince, Francis Ford and Grace Cunard also gave a beautiful evocation of motherhood, no matter what race, in the wonderful Heart of an Indian (1912). They are both quite moving. Judging solely on the titles of his early films, I think Francis Ford may have created more silents with positive native American themes, but of course, we may never know.

Thanks for the book review, AnnHarding, I am quite fascinated with both topics too. The changing image of men in the late twenties early thirties is a great topic for review so I definitely look for that book. It seems to have happened so quickly. In 1926, actors like John Gilbert with a rich, polished air or "the college boy" were considered manly and a great catch. Suddenly, panache and striking, smooth good looks were passe, and Cagney, Gable and Tracy were the new heroes for a depression hardened audience...Richard Dix seems to me to have been a bridge between the two types of leading men.

[Ann Harding]

I think the change in men's images in the 30s has also a lot to do with the new screenwriters who arrived in Hollywood at the time. During the 20s, many screenwriters were women (like Frances Marion). But, in the 30s, the studios sort of eliminated them to bring men screenwriters from Broadway. It was the same with actors and actresses. The move has something to do with salary : they could get cheap Broadway people rather than expensive Hollywood ones. But, beyond that, I think sound has also a lot to do with the perception of actors. Their voices became as importat as their faces. The change in film subjects happened also in France with the arrival of sound. We also got many actors who left cinema for ever... This is really an endless subject of discussion!

[JackFavell]

Oh, my, you are right about the screenwriters! I never thought of that part of the equation. I've read a little about the way women were pushed out of screenwriting, and having seen the documentary about Frances Marion, but I still never put it all together like that! And the fact that the studio heads wanted to push the highest salaried stars out, especially if they were on a down-swing, makes sense too. Thanks for winding all those threads together for me. I always chalked it all up to depression era audiences wanting tougher portrayals, heroes who could take it and dish it out, like they had to. All of it combined to be really catastrophic for some actors.