“Boys, this is my church.  And if you don’t think Christ is down here on the waterfront, you’ve got another guess coming.”

Karl Malden has passed away at the age of 97.  Malden won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1951′s A Streetcar Named Desire, but I liked him best as the dockyard priest, Fr. Barry, in On the Waterfront.   Both films (as well as Baby Doll) were directed by Elia Kazan, whom Malden knew from his early days on Broadway.  Malden was instantly recognizable for his bulbous nose, but he had a kind face and a gentle manner.  His talent is inarguable.  Malden also will be remembered by many for his television show, Streets of San Francisco (co-starring Michael Douglas), as well as AmEx commercials.  Besides his contributions to film and television, Malden’s achievements include service in World War II, a five-year stint as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, committee work for the US Post Office, and, perhaps most impressively, a 70 year marriage.  Though any passing is marked by grief, Malden lived for nearly a century, was married to one woman for more than two/thirds of that time, and appeared in some of the most important and well-loved movies of the time (besides the Kazan movies, some others are Ruby Gentry, Hitchcock’s I Confess, Fear Strikes Out, Pollyanna, One-Eyed Jacks, Birdman of Alcatraz, How the West Was Won, Gypsy, The Cincinnatti Kid, and Patton).  My mom would call that “a good run.”

*No posts for a month!  June flew by because of unavoidable work obligations and the like. The Divorcee has been sitting by my DVD player just begging to be watched, and will be soon.  Incidentally, I did get a chance to watch Spaced.  I may be 10 years too late to the party, but how genius was that show?  I’m obsessed.

Huzzah!

Wow– just read some fantastic news over at The Digital Bits.  Per them, Sony will be releasing, not one, but TWO volumes of lesser known, truly delightful comedy gems on August 4.   Here’s your rundown:

Icons of Screwball Comedy – Volume One

If You Could Only Cook (Columbia, 1935) Stars Jean Arthur, Herbert Marshall, and Leo Carillo; Directed by William A. Seiter.

Too Many Husbands (Columbia, 1940) Stars Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray, and Melvyn Douglas; Directed by Wesley Ruggles.

My Sister Eileen (Columbia, 1942) Stars Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne, and Janet Blair; Directed by Alexander Hall. I assume its this first version, but there is a 1955 remake starring Janet Leigh, Jack Lemmon, Betty Garrett and Bob Fosse.  My Sister Eileen would be reborn again as the musical Wonderful Town (“Christopher Street!”).

She Wouldn’t Say Yes (Columbia, 1945) Stars Rosalind Russell and Lee Bowman; Directed by Alexander Hall.

Icons of Screwball Comedy – Volume 2

Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936) Stars Irene Dunne, Melvyn Douglas, and Thomas Mitchell; Directed by Richard Boleslawski.

Together Again (Columbia, 1944) Stars Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, and Charles Coburn; Directed by Charles Vidor.

The Doctor Takes A Wife (Columbia, 1940) Stars Loretta Young, Ray Milland, and Reginald Gardiner; Dirccted by Alexander Hall.

A Night to Remember (Columbia, 1943) Stars Loretta Young and Brian Aherne; Directed by Richard Wallace.

* * *

Truth, I’ve only seen about half of these.  If You Could Only Cook is especially fine, and one I’m surprised to find on DVD.  It’s a classic Depression-era, screwball plot (and by that I mean, equal parts romance and highly improbable lunacy):  Marshall is a rich inventor who poses as a butler when he meets poor girl Arthur.  In order to to get work as a cook (which, girl can’t cook), she needs a butler.  The boss, who it turns out is an actual mob boss, wants a pair, like a salt and pepper shaker.   The other Arthur vehicle, Too Many Husbands, is basically a retread of the earlier Cary Grant/Irene Dunne hit, My Favorite Wife, but fun and lively, nonetheless.   Theodora Goes Wild came just as Dunne was hitting her stride.   In this one, she’s the author of a smutty bestseller, only her uptight town doesn’t know it yet.  As for My Sister Eileen, I wouldn’t have classified it as a “screwball” but it’s pretty decent, nonetheless.   The other’s I’ve not seen, but so much the better as its always a treat to find a new Boyer or Milland film.

I’m heartened that Sony is investing in these older, lesser known movies, especially when it would seem based on the upcoming release schedule that the DVD studios are lightening their output.  There’s still an armload of comedies (some more screwball than others) that I’m hoping will make it to DVD, namely Bachelor Mother, Remember the Night, George Washington Slept Here, I Married A Witch, and The Strawberry Blonde, as well as a few from the Hal Roach Studios: Merrily We Live, There Goes My Heart, and San Diego, I Love You.  Hopefully, if these are not found in proper releases, at least some of the Warner Bros. properties will be released via The Warner Archive.

Courtesy the FDR Library & Museum

Turner Classic Movies, Fox Movie Channel and AMC have scheduled a slate of war-related films for the weekend.

TCM’s Sunday/Monday schedule includes Destination Tokyo (Cary Grant!), The Bridge on the River Kwai (William Holden!!), Above and Beyond (Robert Taylor!!!) and Action in the North Atlantic (Bogie!!!!).

Meanwhile, Fox Movie Channel’s Monday lineup will feature Cagney in What Price Glory?, the musical Something for the Boys, Robert Mitchum (swoon) and Deborah Kerr (“rhymes with star”) in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and a Gene Tierney flick that intrigues me called Thunder Birds.

AMC is showing some biggies on Monday: Battle of the Bulge, The Longest Day, Patton, Midway, and Hamburger Hill, but unlike TCM and Fox, the films are edited and shown with commercial interruptions.

The AMC marathon will be hosted by Sen. John McCain, which will be interesting.  McCain has revealed a fondness and definite knowledge of classic film in interviews, so points for that.  Also, many points for his decades of service to this country, including those five years at the Hanoi Hilton.  (Fun game for tomorrow’s barbecue:  Tell people that Sen. McCain is the same family as the McCain frozen food people.  It’s just weird and random enough that people believe it.  ‘Course it’s not true, least as far as I know.  Tell them that, too, eventually.)

There’s a thoughtful article by David Denby about director Victor Fleming (Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, both 1939) in the May 26 issue of The New Yorker.  Denby asserts that critics ought to give consideration to Fleming as an auteur, or at least a major director of Hollywood’s Golden Age.  It is frustrating that the same half dozen or so directors from that period (Hitchcock, Ford, Welles, Lubitsch, Wilder and Capra all immediately jump to mind, and I’m a fan of each of them) are mentioned as The Greats with little thought to the other workhorses of the day who have equal (or, dare I suggest, even meatier) filmographies.  My pet director is Mitchell Liesen, whose films are perhaps not all as well known today, but for sure have style and thematic similarities.  Certainly, Fleming having directed two undisputed masterpieces from the studio era deserves serious discussion.   For that matter, then, how about Michael Curtiz?

The article appears in conjunction with two recent books, Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master by Michael Sragow and Frankly, My Dear: Gone With the Wind Revisited by (the great) Molly Haskell, which I am particularly interested in.   I’ve always enjoyed Haskell’s commentary and GWTW was one of my first classic film crushes.  In eighth grade, everyone had to give a two minute speech on any subject as part of a public speaking exercise.  Now understand, my classmates hadn’t heard me speak five words together since nursery, so they were necessarily gobsmacked by my twelve and a half minute oral presentation on a movie well over fifty years old.  Such is the effect of GWTW on a certain type of teenage girl.  She is also probably the type of girl to read Jane Eyre with a passion then sit in the cafeteria and imagine she is a student at Jane’s miserable Lowood institution.  But then I was a weird kid and I went to an even weirder elementary school.

Also as before, its set entirely to a a classical piece.  Considering that jazz, swing and Tin Pan Alley were the popular musical styles of the time, it’s interesting that classical music was used, especially since that this early incarnation of Mickey was less cuddly and more a scamp and a wiseacre.  Certainly, classical music lends itself to a broader visual interpretation, but so would jazz.  Perhaps Disney himself was not enthusiastic about the music of the day, or he felt that new, modern music might be alienating to older or more traditional audiences.   I think its likely that Disney was trying to elevate a “low” art form by pairing it with classical music.  Funny, that, inasmuch as it could be argued that many Americans (including yours truly) first and most lasting exposure to classical music was through cartoons.  Mozart could never have imagined it.   As it is, the piece performed is Franz von Suppe’s “Poet and Peasant Overture.”

Director: Walt Disney; Cast includes Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse).

“The Barnyard Concert” is available as part of Walt Disney Treasures Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Volume Two, 1928 – 1935.

“The Barnyard Concert” at IMDb.

“I think we are rather indebted to Charlie Chaplin for the idea. We wanted something appealing, and we thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of Chaplin — a little fellow trying to do the best he could. When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it’s because he’s so human; and that is the secret of his popularity. I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse.” — Walt Disney, justdisney.com, via Wikipedia

I won’t pretend to be an expert of anything, except of my own feelings and reactions to the movies which I write about.  Necessarily, then, I consulted Wikipedia for a primer on the history of Mickey Mouse. Created by Walt Disney and animator Ub Iwerks (a fellow that doesn’t get the mainstream recognition that is his due) after a deal with Universal Studios went sour, Mickey Mouse (nee Mortimer) was born November 18, 1928.  That’s when “Steamboat Willie,” the third cartoon produced but the first to be picked up for distribution, was released upon the world.  A parody of Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr., it was a hit in no small part due to its use of synchronized sound for comedic effect.  Twelve more cartoons would be released in 1929 alone.  Mickey Mouse had arrived.

“Just Mickey,” the first of 1930, was just the seventh cartoon in which Mickey spoke.  He was a little over a year old.  I think he must have still seemed novel to audiences.  Its always something to remember that in order to see pictures moving and speaking, in those days you had to leave your house, pay your money and sit with others in the dark for a few hours.  Sure, there was a daily comic strip and Mickey was merchandising phenomenom (if you doubt this, watch Antiques Roadshow), but there was magic to behold in watching “a tiny bit of a mouse” slip about the silvery screen.

“Just Mickey” is a brief, lovely cartoon.  He’s not yet quite the Mickey we think of today.  His look is close, but his personality is more peevish, pricklier.  There’s little dialogue and a few sight gags, including one about asbestos (call the lawyers!), as well as some play on proportion.  There’s no story; only Mickey performing a violin solo for an unappreciative, derisive crowd.

The soundtrack includes the eighth movement, Traumerei (“Dreaming”) from Kinderszene (“Scenes from Childhood”), Opus 15, by Robert Schumann and a small portion of Rossini’s William Tell Overture.

Directed by Walt Disney; Cast includes Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse).

“Just Mickey” at Imdb.

“Just Micky” is available as part of Walt Disney Treasures Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Volume Two, 1928 – 1935.

Garbo Talks.

That was the only thing one needed to know about this adaptation of the 1922 Eugene O’Neill play.  Finally, a voice to match the image.  And, in a way, Garbo was already Garbo as we think of her.  She was aloof and exotic and passionate and reclusive and beautiful and strange.  Sort of like Angelina Jolie, minus the brood of children and tattoos, but totally with the famous relationships and alleged husband-stealing and alleged bisexuality.   Imagine we had never heard Jolie speak.  And then, she spoke.  All of which is to say,  Anna Christie was a Big Deal.

MGM, apparently firm believers in the pleasures of delayed gratification, held Garbo’s talkie debut back for a good long time.  The Jazz Singer had debuted in 1927, after all, though it took a bit of time for Hollywood (some believed that talking pictures were a fluke and a fad) to adapt.  Remember, also, that thousands of theaters around the country would have to upgrade their own set-ups to accommodate talking pictures, and this took a few years.  The Jazz Singer may have been a big hit, but it would be a couple of years, in come cases, until people could hear it.

As for historical context, the country was mired in the dark of the Great Depression (Black Tuesday was October 29, 1929– a scant three months prior).   Hoover was president and hemoraghing popularity as the Depression swallowed the country.   Folks flocked to movie theaters in an effort to forget their trouble for a few hours.  By the way, some analysts are predicting that 2009 will be the best year yet for the film industry (and this article was written pre-Star Trek and Angels & Demons).

So,  Anna Christie.  I had never seen it before tonight, but for the famous scene You-Tubed above.  Friends, MGM wasn’t fooling about the delaying the gratification of  Garbo Talks.  She doesn’t even come on the scene until sixteen minutes in, but you hardly notice it, thanks to Marie Dressler as the boozy, blowzy Marthy.  Dressler, a former vaudeville and silent film star (such as in Tillie’s Punctured Romance opposite Chaplin) was 61 and cleaning houses when screenwriter Frances Marion persuaded her MGM bosses to cast her.  Dressler just about walked about with the movie and would be an Oscar-winning box office star until her 1934 death.  After watching Anna Christie, its easy to understand why.   Broad and with a face like a catfish, Dressler is all warmth, earthy good humor, and grace.  There is an effortlessness to her comedy and she is real without becoming maudlin or saccharine.  Like the recent Susan Boyle phenomenom (granted, the best part of that whole business is watching Simon’s heart grow three sizes), Dressler was a reminder that good things can happen to ordinary, deserving people when they perhaps least expect it.

Dressler is the high point of Anna Christie and, after sharing a charming scene with Garbo, she departs for most of the rest of the movie.  And Garbo?  She’s a bit of a downer.   Even when she’s supposed to be happy, she seems uneasy and morbidly attached to gloom.   At 20, Anna has returned home to Sweden and her seafaring father Chris Christofferson (George F. Marion, yup, like that other Kris.).  Both father  and daughter look forward to a cozy future.  A boyfriend (Charles Bickford) washes up for Anna (literally) and it looks to be smooth sailing from there on.

Then, that fickle finger of fate intervenes and Anna is forced to confess her past to her father and boyfriend.  Can I tell you about this scene?  Because its really quite something.  With absolute relish and a stubborn pride, she tells them for the past two years she’s been a prostitute.  She really does say that in nearly so many words.  And she dares them to call her out on it.   She tells them she doesn’t need a man and, with a sneer, that she’s not “decent.”  She rips into them about the whole Madonna/whore complex, a theme that’s still played out weekly, relevantly, on Gossip Girl.  And this is 1930, remember.  Women had only been voting for a decade and that was equal rights in name only.  Imagine you’re a woman sitting in a theater in 1930 watching the most glamourous, famous star give a proto-women’s lib speech, showing up her father and her lover.  It must have been simultaneously empowering and frightening to think that a woman could speak so forcefully about sexual politics and her history and own it.  It’s a pretty righteous scene and Garbo tears into it.  For a moment, at least, she’s electric.

The film ends quickly thereafter with some gibberish about crosses and Catholicism v. Lutheranism.  Anna is forgiven and absolved, I suppose.  A few years later when the Production Code would grow teeth, I imagine Anna Christie would have been deemed immoral and unfilmable.  Anna would have had to drown in some act of self-sacrifice leaving the boyfriend to marry the local librarian or some such.  We’re not there yet, though, and Anna is allowed to have her past and a future.

As a postscript, “Gimme a whiskey with ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby” is the (justly) famous line, but I’d rather let Marthy (Dressler) have the last word:“’Ladies entrance?’  Well, why not, said she with all the dignity in the world.”

Oscar Nominated for Director, Actress (Garbo) and Cinematography

Directed by Clarence Brown; Written by Frances Marion, adapted from Eugene O’Neill;  Starring Greta Garbo (Anna), Charles Bickford (Matt) and Marie Dressler (Marthy)

Available on DVD, either alone or as a part of the Garbo Signature Collection.

DVR it, June 15 at 8:00 a.m. on TCM

Anna Christie at TCM, IMDb, Allmovie and Wikipedia. 

Chronologically, more or less, beginning January 22, 1930, the day Garbo talked.

Why?

A personal test of endurance.   Call it masochism, if you like, I won’t mind.

To get my money’s worth.  I buy DVDs and DVR movies at an alarming rate and then watch The Princess Bride or Almost Famous for the 97th time (not a bad thing, per se, it’s my favorite movie for a reason), while the other discs gather dust.  And don’t look at me that way, because you do it too.

To travel back in time.  Without access to Doc Brown’s Delorean, old films are one of the best resources to understand how people lived back in the day, before they even thought of kicking it old school.  More accurately, I suppose, its a glimpse back to how those people wanted their lives to be and their fantasies and fears, insofar as: how many movies are truly, accurately, a document of The Way We Live Now?  And if they were, we wouldn’t be that interested in them, because movie life is just more interesting.

I’m starting with Anna Christie, though I mean this as no slight to silent film.  Anyone at all interested in film history must seek out the works of Griffith, Stroheim, Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Chaney, Murnau.  See Sunrise.  See The Phantom of the Opera.  And, by all means, watch The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture; it’s really something.  But I’m starting with 1930 because, more and more, it seems their time is not so unlike our own.