A Tale of Two Epics: I, Claudius

Josef von Sternberg, Merle Oberon and Charles Laughton

In 1934, British scholar/writer Robert Graves published his best known and most successful work, the sweeping historical novel I, Claudius, written in the form of an autobiography by the Roman Emperor Claudius (10 B.C. - 54 A.D.). 40 years later this classic work would receive plaudits and a new audience in an entirely different medium.

The golden age of the television miniseries began in the mid-'70s - Rich Man, Poor Man was a sensation in 1976 and Roots made history in 1977. Classics like Shogun (1980), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and Winds of War (1983) soon followed. In 1976 the BBC's Masterpiece Theatre adapted Graves's historical fiction into a 12-episode landmark starring Derek Jacobi (Claudius), John Hurt (Caligula), Sian Phillips (Livia) and Patrick Stewart (Sejanus). An Emmy and BAFTA winner, I, Claudius debuted in the U.S. in 1977 and was, among other things, later acknowledged as inspiration for the blockbuster prime-time soap, Dynasty (1981 - 1989).

This year, in March, Acorn Media released a new boxed set edition celebrating the 35th anniversary of I, Claudius. Among the bonus features are extended original versions of episodes one and two, a behind-the-scenes documentary entitled I,Claudius: A Television Epic, an interview with Derek Jacobi and...a 70+ minute BBC documentary from 1965, The Epic That Never Was, about the unfinished Alexander Korda production of a Josef von Sternberg-directed film. This first version of the Graves novel starred Charles Laughton (Claudius), Merle Oberon (Messalina), Flora Robson (Livia) and Emlyn Williams (Caligula).

A sketch by Art Director/Production Designer Vincent Korda for I, Claudius

In 1937 Korda, who would later marry Oberon, set out to produce a grand epic. In 1933 he had produced and directed The Private Life of Henry VIII, the popular film that brought Charles Laughton a Best Actor Oscar, and produced another great success in 1934 with The Scarlet Pimpernel starring Leslie Howard. Hungarian-born but based in Great Britain, Korda's dream was to make pictures in England that rivaled those coming out of Hollywood. With Henry VIII and The Scarlet Pimpernel, he'd begun to realize his dream but wanted to reach further. With Charles Laughton still under contract to him in 1937, Korda's ambition was to create a film greater than either Henry VIII or their most recent collaboration, Rembrandt (1936). Korda bought the rights from Robert Graves for the recently published I, Claudius, hired Josef von Sternberg to direct, and the project moved forward.

Charles Laughton as Claudius

The Epic That Never Was is hosted by actor Dirk Bogarde, who recalls in his narration that as a teenager he ventured with friends to Korda's Denham Studios to watch the filming of I, Claudius. The documentary features interviews with many who worked on the film: Merle Oberon, Josef von Sternberg, Robert Graves, Emlyn Williams and Flora Robson, as well as Korda's longtime script girl and others. Only Korda and Laughton, no longer alive in 1965, are absent.

Merle Oberon as Messalina

According to Merle Oberon, Korda wanted his friend von Sternberg to direct hoping that the filmmaker who masterminded Marlene Dietrich's ascent to stardom would handle Oberon with the same care and artistry so that she, too, might become a great star. The actress recalled vividly once filming began, "something odd happened," suddenly Charles Laughton "couldn't find his character." Laughton began to break down and the script girl remembered him despairing, "I can't find the man!" Josef von Sternberg recalled the actor "had some difficulty getting into his part" but felt, all in all, that Laughton's performance was "magnificent" and that his problems would pass.  Eventually Laughton determined that Claudius was Edward VIII and began listening to the former king's abdication speech to help sustain his motivation.

Flora Robson as Livia

Flora Robson remembered that Josef von Sternberg was very much the flamboyant director and that he came to the set dressed in riding boots and other regalia. The script girl recalled that the director was also a first-rate editor and noted that he seemed to "edit in his head" before he shot a scene. Her remarks bring to mind critic Andrew Sarris's observation that von Sternberg "entered the cinema through the camera rather than the cutting room" and Marlene Dietrich's flat statement that "he was the greatest cameraman the world has ever seen..."

About 30 minutes of the 1937 production footage survives and is included in The Epic That Never Was; it is fascinating. Emlyn Williams is vile and reptilian as Caligula and Laughton's inspired Claudius foreshadows Jacobi's brilliant interpretation. As always, von Sternberg composed visually stunning, painterly scenes drenched in atmosphere.

Just a month into shooting, Oberon suffered a car accident in which she was thrown into the windshield. She was badly injured and filming was permanently halted. Emlyn Williams considered this "a godsend;" according to him, producer, director and star were not happy. Author Robert Graves, who had written an unused script for the project, assigned credit for the film's demise to Claudius himself - from beyond the grave...

The Masterpiece Theatre drama met a far better fate than Korda's promising but ill-starred venture. Along with awards won and influence extended, TV's I, Claudius earned an enduring reputation and remains today among the top-ranked miniseries of all time. Any speculation by Robert Graves, who lived until 1985 and the age of 90, on the late Emperor's reaction to the BBC series is unknown...

John Hurt as Caligula, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Sian Phillips as Livia

Read More

One of a Kind: Kay Thompson

 

Kay Thompson, born in St. Louis early in the 20th Century (1909 is the general consensus, but there is some disagreement), can be most easily be described as unique.

Eloise in Paris (1957)

On-screen she is remembered for her role as vibrant, sophisticated Maggie Prescott in Funny Face (1957), shown above, but Thompson was a woman of many talents: singer, composer, vocal coach, actress, comedienne, dancer, choreographer, author and clothing designer. She is perhaps best known today for the series of best-selling "Eloise" children's books she began writing in the mid-'50s about a precocious 6-year-old who lives at New York's Plaza Hotel.

Kay Thompson was born Catherine L. Fink, the daughter of a St. Louis jeweler...and she was always musical. She began her singing career straight out of college and by the time she was in her mid-20s she was working in radio as a singer and choral director. She toured with Fred Waring as a singer and arranger, and her group, The Kay Thompson Swing Choir, appeared in Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937).

Through songwriter friends Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin, Thompson became a vocal arranger at MGM in the early '40s. Her projects included Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), The Harvey Girls (1946) and Good News (1947). She had a small part in another of her assignments, The Kid From Brooklyn (1946).

Thompson was also vocal coach to the stars: Sinatra, Garland (who named her Liza's godmother), Lena Horne (who termed her "the best vocal coach in the world"), Ann Sothern, June Allyson and others. Critic Rex Reed has remarked, "Kay did things with June Allyson, who didn't have much range, to make her sound great in Good News."

Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers

In 1948, when her MGM contract was up, Thompson left the studio and formed a ground-breaking nightclub act, Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers (Andy was one of the brothers). It was a trend-setting smash. Singer Julie Wilson recalled Kay's show, "Her act at the Persian Room was electric. Kay and the Williams Brothers moved so well, with one terrific pose after another. It was an absolute knockout. Kay's energy took your breath away. She wore those wonderful white pantsuits, which no one wore at the time. The show was very stark and modern, and the rhythm never stopped." A critic from Varietyreported, "Her act is paced like a North Atlantic gale," and concluded, "Miss Thompson is more than an act. She's an experience."

Andy Williams remembered, "It's hard to imagine there wasn't an act like us before, because there have been so many since. Up to that time everyone just sang around a microphone, and when the song was over, the singers would raise their arms...[Kay] wrote wonderful songs, she could arrange, she could play the piano beautifully, she could stage numbers. And she could sing! She taught me more about singing and show business than anyone else in the world."

Kay Thompson in 1954

Her show-stopping turn in Funny Face was Kay Thompson's only major film role. Her next and final outing was a small (but memorable) part in Otto Preminger's Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) starring goddaughter Liza Minnelli. During her final years, Thompson lived in Liza's Upper East Side penthouse; she passed away there in 1998.

In 2003 Disney produced two movies for TV based on Thompson's first two Eloise books, Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime, both starring Julie Andrews as Nanny (the first Eloise book had originally been adapted for TV in 1956). In 2006 an animated TV series based on the characters from the Eloise books debuted on Starz! Kids & Family with Lynn Redgrave as Nanny. Following Thompson's death, her estate authorized additional books in the Eloise series and several have been written and published since.

"Liza's at the Palace...!" was a limited-run engagement at New York's Palace Theatre from December 3, 2008 - January 4, 2009. Included in the concert was a recreation of Kay Thompson's nightclub act. The NY Times critic wrote, "From the moment Ms. Minnelli joins forces with a male singing and dancing quartet to resurrect part of a famous nightclub act Thompson created in the late '40s and early '50s with the Williams Brothers, the Palace Theater blasts off into orbit." The show was a popular and critical success that won several awards including a Tony for Best Special Theatrical Event.

Liza Minnelli at the Palace Theatre, 2008, recreating Thompson's club act

And - on yet another front, New York's Plaza Hotel opened an Eloise boutique in 2009 and in 2010 opened the Betsey Johnson-designed confection called "The Eloise Suite." Think pink, indeed!

The Eloise Suite at New York's Plaza Hotel

Read More

Break out the champagne (again), the '55 Hitchcock...

Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief screens today at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival. In celebration of the third annual greatest-classic-film-festival-in-the-world, I’m posting this new and improved version of a piece on To Catch a Thief that first appeared here on New Year’s Day 2011.

Traditionally, champagne is the drink du jour (or nuit) at New Year’s, and so champagne it shall be now. A bottle of ‘96 Dom Pérignon Rosé would be fitting, but I’m in the mood for something really special…an old favorite… Hitchcock’s distinctive ’55 vintage from the Cote d'Azur. To Catch a Thief (1955), a delectable “Hitchcock champagne,” boasts a rare combination of elegance and flair. Light-bodied with a smooth finish that lingers, it remains unmatched, though it has been imitated far and wide for decades.

"the azure coast" of France

A jaunty score sets the tone as opening credits roll over a shot of an international travel service with a poster in the window, “If you like life, you’ll love France.” The tinkling keys of a grand piano hint at continental sophistication and adventure long before the first scream bemoaning stolen jewelry issues from a Riviera hotel balcony.

Quickly the action picks up speed with a colorful cruise through the Cote d'Azur as French police race to the village of Sainte-Jeannet and the hillside villa of retired jewel thief and prime suspect, John Robie (Cary Grant). From these early sequences and throughout the film, cinematographer Robert Burks displays VistaVision/Technicolor to full effect; it was Hitchcock's first use of the widescreen/color process that would become a signature of his color films for the rest of the 1950s.

Cinematographer Robert Burks

Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Burks had initially worked together five years earlier following the director’s return to the U.S. after making two films in England. Hitchcock was beginning production on Strangers on a Train for Warner Bros. and the studio cinematographer assigned to the project was 40-year-old Burks. It would be the beginning of a fabled partnership. Burks began his career at 19 in the Warner Bros. special effects lab when Hal Wallis, who favored shadows and high contrast on the screen, was in charge of production. Burks apprenticed under James Wong Howe, worked his way up to DP and, by 1948, had risen to cinematographer.

The early influence of German expressionism on Hitchcock corresponded nicely with the influences Burks absorbed at Warner Bros. and the two would collaborate on 12 films from 1951 – 1964, every picture Hitchcock made during that period except Psycho. Like Burks, Hitchcock had intimate knowledge of special effects and had an affinity for scenes of complex imagery. One of the most memorable in the Hitchcock/Burks canon came in Strangers on a Train with the scene in which Robert Walker’s murder of Laura Elliott is reflected in the lens of her fallen eyeglasses.

Hitchcock (top center) beside the VistaVision camera

Robert Burks was Oscar-nominated for Strangers and again for Rear Window. With To Catch a Thief, he finally won an Academy Award for cinematography. From 1955 – 1958, Burks shot five Hitchcock films in VistaVision/ Technicolor; four of the five were for Paramount Pictures. Paramount had been the only major film studio to balk at the widescreen CinemaScope system when it came on the scene in 1953. The studio set out to develop a process of its own and worked with Eastman Kodak to develop VistaVision, a method that delivered a higher resolution widescreen version of 35 mm. The VistaVision process printed down large format negatives to standard 35 mm, creating a finer-grained print and improved image. The use of Technicolor's dye transfer process was key to VistaVision color image quality. For his first foray into VistaVision/Technicolor, Hitchcock devised a stylish romantic thriller infused with dazzling starpower.

When he introduced a recent screening of To Catch a Thief, TCM’s Robert Osborne remarked that it had “the best asset any film could have...Cary Grant.” Good point. This was the third of Grant’s four Hitchcock pictures and it came nearly ten years after their last collaboration, Notorious (1946), one of the best films in either man’s illustrious filmography. In the interim, Hitchcock’s career had gone into and dramatically come out of a slump. During the same period, Grant had continued to make popular films, but had begun to move away from the kind of part he had trademarked – the dapper, self-effacing man of the world. Following Dream Wife (1953) Grant retired, dissatisfied with the parts and films he was being offered. But then he was approached by Alfred Hitchcock who had a project in mind with the requisite amount of elegance and humor to attract him. In To Catch a Thief Cary Grant returned to type; John Robie, “The Cat,” is a dashing charmer, “a man of obvious good taste” very few could or would want to resist. Grant seldom departed from type during the remaining years of his career.

To Catch a Thief was the third and final film Grace Kelly would make with Hitchcock, who would have worked with her for the rest of his career had she not left movies to become Princess of Monaco. Hitchcock’s breathtaking onscreen vision of Kelly brings to mind Josef von Sternberg’s ravishing cinematic glorification of Marlene Dietrich 20 years earlier. Kelly was a beautiful woman but among the handful of films she made, it was in her films for Hitchcock that her image as a screen goddess achieved perfection. In To Catch a Thief she plays a spoiled rich girl, the ultimate "snow covered volcano" and "Hitchcock blonde."

Grace Kelly and Cary Grant

Grant and Kelly are captivating together onscreen and both deliver iconic characterizations with ease - Grant as a debonair retired thief/innocent man, and she as a haughty/hot debutante. The pair literally generates fireworks.

Jessie Royce Landis

In her first Hitchcock outing, Jessie Royce Landis portrays Kelly’s insouciant and earthy, bourbon-sipping mother. Hitchcock liked to include colorful women as supporting characters in his films, ranging from the ridiculous (Florence Bates in Rebecca) and the oblivious (Patricia Collinge in Shadow of a Doubt), to the observant and wisecracking (Thelma Ritter in Rear Window, Barbara Bel Geddes in Vertigo). Royce Landis portrayed two of the most appealing of the latter type in this film and North by Northwest.

Actor John Williams made his third appearance in a Hitchcock film with To Catch a Thief, this time as an insurance agent helping Robie track down the real jewel thief. His H.H. Hughson is a fine foil for Grant’s Robie. Their early scenes provide Hitchcock the opportunity to have some fun with a favorite theme, the ambiguity of guilt and innocence. Robie tells Hughson flatly that though he “only stole from those who wouldn’t go hungry,” he “kept everything myself.” Chiding Hughson for stealing hotel sundries and cheating on his expense account, Robie comments, “I was an out and out thief…like you.” Robie emphasizes his point with the throwaway line, “I wish I’d known someone in the insurance racket when I went into the burglary business.” Hitchcock toys with subject again when Robie refers to the sensitive hands and delicate touch of his cook and housekeeper, Germaine, who bakes a quiche as "light as air" and who, during the war, “strangled a German general once…without a sound.” 

John Williams, Grace Kelly, Rene Blancard...costumes by Edith Head

While some dismiss To Catch a Thief for lack of substance, there's no question that it is a solid film of its genre. With meticulous craftsmanship and tremendous style, Hitchcock delivered exactly what he intended - a voluptuous romantic thriller. All elements blend in harmony, from the John Michael Hayes screenplay to Robert Burks' VistaVision/ Technicolor photography, Lyn Murray’s score, Edith Head’s eyeball-popping costumes, two scintillating stars and the Cote d’Azur setting. 

To Catch a Thief was successful and influential, and many later films bear its earmarks...most prominently Stanley Donen’s Charade, as well as his Arabesque, William Wyler's How to Steal a Million, Blake Edwards' The Pink Panther and countless romance/thriller romps ever since.

~

One of the principal  themes of this year's 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival is Style in the Movies. Kimberly Truhler of GlamAmor.com, who is attending and blogging on the festival, produced and hosts the following video, Cinema Style File - Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief: 

Read More

Give 'Em the Old Pizzazz - Funny Face (1957)

Director Stanley Donen and actress Audrey Hepburn are being honored separately and together at this year's TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. The director, who will be making personal appearances at all screenings of his films, did some of his best work with the sublime Audrey as his leading lady. With a "happy birthday" to Stanley Donen who celebrates his 88th birthday today, this post is dedicated to them both...
 
Pizzazz! The very word came into being with Funny Face in 1957.

Stylish and energetic, Funny Face is a collaboration extraordinaire involving some of the great talents of the era: Producer Roger Edens and director Stanley Donen, screenwriter Leonard Gershe, cinematographer Ray June, costumer Edith Head, couture designer Hubert de Givenchy, photographer Richard Avedon and the film's matchless stars Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson. Sprinkled with an assortment of Gershwin tunes, this is a movie of considerable pizzazz...

Audrey Hepburn as Jo Stockton

Funny Face had been a work in progress for years, but the vital element that finally brought the project together was Audrey Hepburn. Then under contract to Paramount, Hepburn was a white-hot star at the time and any picture with her name attached had a very good chance of being made. She loved both the script and the opportunity to dance with Fred Astaire and quickly agreed to do the picture.

Astaire, then nearing 60, was coming to the end of his career in musical films. Funny Face and Silk Stockings were released within months of each other in 1957 and were his last popular movie musicals.

Though its name was taken from a '20s Gershwin musical in which Astaire had starred, the title and a few tunes were all the film had in common with the original New York show. The film's story came from Wedding Day, Leonard Gershe's Broadway musical about the fashion world based on 'the aura' (rather than the life) of legend-to-be photographer Richard Avedon and his wife. Doe Avedon, a great beauty of the time, was a reluctant muse; it was her husband who turned her into a top-notch model and who guided her career.

Kay Thompson, ace vocal coach, arranger and cabaret star, had worked with Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Lena Horne and many others during her years in MGM's music department. Gershe had her in mind from the start for the role of Maggie Prescott, a character closely modeled on powerhouse fashion editor and style doyenne of the era, Diana Vreeland. According to Leonard Gershe, it was Vreeland who coined the word 'bizzazz' that mutated into 'pizzazz.' Thompson as Prescott is an invigorating presence and she steals just about every scene she's in; early on, her "Think Pink!" number kicks Funny Face into high gear...

Think Pink!

Funny Face is a Cinderella tale, the kind of story that was Audrey Hepburn's bread and butter. The film begins in the offices of Quality magazine where editor Maggie Prescott (Thompson) decrees that the world of fashion shall think and wear pink (though she does not)! Soon after, she and photographer Dick Avery (Astaire) venture to bohemian Greenwich Village on a shoot...where bookstore clerk Jo Stockton (Hepburn), an ugly duckling with swan potential, is unearthed. The plot takes off from here. Cut to Paris where newly made-over model Jo wears exquisite Givenchy haute couture and is gorgeously photographed by Dick everywhere in the City of Light. Songs are sung. Dances are danced. Love blooms. A fairytale ending eventually comes to pass.

Fred Astaire as Dick Avery

The basic storyline is nothing new, but watching Hepburn, Astaire and Thompson cut loose in New York and Paris (and in song) is so easy on the eyes and ears that in so many ways...'s wonderful.

And there's the 'beatnik' interlude, most noteworthy for Audrey's dance routine in a subterranean Parisian club dressed in black turtleneck and capris with white socks. Though Hepburn battled Donen over the color of her socks, he won and the result is memorable.

Stanley Donen was never nominated for an Academy Award, although he created some of the greatest musicals in movie history - including Singin' in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He also made several successful non-musicals, films like Charade and Two for the Road. In 1998, the Academy honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award and in his acceptance speech he both sang and danced to Cole Porter's "Cheek to Cheek"...he still knew how to "give 'em the old pizzazz!"

Stanley Donen and his Lifetime Achievement Oscar, 1998

Click here to watch his acceptance of his Lifetime Achievement Award

Read More

Celebrating the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood

Hollywood's legendary Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Just as Turner Classic Movies will pay on-air tribute to the films, talents and themes of the third annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood April 12 – 15, The Lady Eve’s Reel Life will also salute this year’s festival. From now until the 15th, TLE will feature posts and links to reviews of some of the 70+ film classics being shown in Hollywood and the end of this week.

TCM's Robert Osborne

Opening night, Thursday, April 12, features the world premiere screening of the 40th anniversary restoration of 1972 Best Picture Oscar nominee Cabaret.  The film's stars Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, both of whom won Academy Awards for their performances, will appear with TCM host Robert Osborne.

The festival's celebration of Style in the Movies will honor Audrey Hepburn: Style Icon with presentations of four of her films and the first, Sabrina (1954), screens Thursday night. Janie Bryant, acclaimed costume designer of the Emmy winning series Mad Men, will be on hand.

Style in the Movies: The Legendary Costumes of Travis Banton will spotlight Paramount's long-time costume Designer-in-Chief who, before he moved on to 20th Century Fox, mentored his successor Edith Head. Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis will introduce all six Banton films (those asterisked below are part of the Travis Banton tribute). The Noir Style will also be celebrated and Eddie Muller, founder of the Film Noir Foundation, will be on hand for several noir screenings along with 'dames noir' like Rhonda Fleming, Marsha Hunt and Peggy Cummins.

There is so much packed into the four day festival that only a closer look at the daily schedules can give a real sense of how wide-ranging and spectacular TCMFF #3 promises to be. Click here (and scroll down) for Thursday's full schedule.

Friday offers a day of non-stop events:

James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo

At world-famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre: John Ford's masterpiece, The Searchers (1956), Funny Face (1957) with  director and festival honoree Stanley Donen (on his birthday) and Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) with its star, Kirk Douglas. Kim Novak will introduce the screening of Vertigo (1958) (click here for Brandie Ashe's review for this blog on Novak's performance) and the final Chinese Theatre presentation for the night, Roman Polanski's brilliant 1974 neo-noir, Chinatown, will be discussed by legendary producer and former Paramount exec, Robert Evans, and screenwriter Robert Towne, who won an Oscar for his screenplay.

Audrey Hepburn in Stanley Donen's Funny Face

Among the films screening Friday at Chinese Multiplex 1 are William Wellman's Wings (1927), presented by Bill Wellman, Jr., and former Paramount exec A.C. Lyles (a sprightly 93-year-old), the world premiere restoration of Two for the Road (1967) presented by Stanley Donen (click here for Kevin Deany's take on the film at Kevin's Movie Corner), and the U.S. premiere of the 75th anniversary restoration of Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937). At Chinese Multiplex 3, highlights include screenings of Nothing Sacred* (1937) and the Astaire/Rogers classic Swing Time (1936). A Friday night high point at Chinese Multiplex 4 will be the screening of Max Ophuls' Letter From an Unknown Woman* (1948), starring Joan Fontaine (click here for R.D. Finch's reflection on this underappreciated gem at The Movie Projector). At the Egyptian Theatre, Shirley Jones will present the screening of Elmer Gantry (1960), and Rhonda Fleming will join 'czar of noir' Eddie Muller for the screening of Cry Danger (1951).

Click here for the complete schedule of events for Friday, April 13.

Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Film festivals are always frantically busy on weekends, and TCMFF will be no exception. On Saturday at Grauman's, Kim Novak will have her hand and footprints enshrined in the courtyard concrete. Later, screenings at the theatre will include Disney's Snow White (1937), Casablanca (1942) and the 60th anniversary world premiere restoration of Singin' in the Rain (1952) - introduced by Debbie Reynolds. At Chinese Multiplex 1, Robert Wagner will appear for the presentation of The Longest Day (1962) and director Norman Jewison will be on hand for a 25th anniversary screening of his 1987 classic Moonstruck. At Chinese Multiplex 3 fashion designer Barbara Tfank will appear for the screening of Otto Preminger's sumptuous Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Eddie Muller will introduce Jules Dassin's 1950 noir classic, Night and the City, and actor Richard Anderson will be on hand for the screening of John Frankenheimer's underrated 1966 film, Seconds (click here for John Greco's review at Twenty Four Frames). Chinese Multiplex 4 will feature a program of Laurel & Hardy shorts, A Fine Mess (1932 - 1933), and the astonishing Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich 1934 historical fantasy, The Scarlet Empress* (click here for my series on the von Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration).

Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress

The Egyptian Theatre will showcase the sparkling 1958 comedy Auntie Mame, with an appearance by designer Todd Oldham, director Norman Jewison will  discuss his very stylish The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Eddie Muller and actress Peggy Cummins (now 86) will discuss her best-known film, a standout of its genre and a shocker in its time, Gun Crazy (1950).

Click here for Saturday's full schedule.

Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief

Though Sunday's schedule isn't yet complete, the day is by no means quiet . At Grauman's: Hitchcock's glittering 1955 VistaVision romp To Catch a Thief, Robert Evans will appear at the screening of Roman Polanski's 1968 trendsetter Rosemary's Baby (my take here), Thelma Schoonmaker, Oscar winning film editor and widow of the incomparable Michael Powell, will introduce Powell's masterful 1948 collaboration with Emeric Pressburger, Black Narcissus (click here for Ivan G. Shreve's review at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear), and Todd Oldman is set to appear for the screening of George Cukor's sly and fabulous The Women (1939). At the Cinerama Dome, Debbie Reynolds will introduce the Cinerama epic How the West Was Won (1962). 

Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus

Click here for the Sunday schedule. 

As even a brief glance at its schedule makes crystal clear, TCM's Classic Film Festival is truly bigger and better than ever in 2012.

John Wayne, The Searchers

Click here to watch a TCM festival promo...

Read More

Sunday Night is Still "Mad Men" Night

As the fourth installment (the 2 hour premiere covered two episodes) of Mad Men Season 5 approaches (see below for Episode 4 update), there are no signs of waning interest from its audience or the rapt media. In my travels through cyberspace over the past two weeks I've come upon a wide assortment of posts about the new season of this most intriguing series. Here is a sampling - click on titles for links...

Betty Francis

In Episode 3 Roger Sterling (John Slattery), becoming ever more frustrated with changing times, utters a phrase that will no doubt echo on the series - and off - for some time to come, "When is everything going to get back to normal?" Laurel Brown, senior writer at BuddyTV, contemplates the implications of Roger's question with Normal Isn't Coming Back.

By far the most talked-about element of last week's episode was the revelation that beautiful Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis (January Jones) had gained more than a new home in recent months. This new twist in Betty's story arc created intense discussion, some controversy, and a variety of reactions. Jessica Grose presents her Defense of Betty Draper at New York (.com) magazine's Vulture. Bruce Handy of Vanity Fair considers Betty's dilemma from a different perspective by delving into The Amazing Junk Food of the '60's. 

Megan and Don Draper

Not soon to be forgotten is that 5th Season opener moment when Don Draper's young and slender new wife, Megan (French-Canadian actress Jessica Paré), turned heads and inspired tongues to wag when she gave Don (Jon Hamm) a surprise 40th birthday party and a very special gift. Megan's rendition of the French pop tune "Zou Bisou Bisou" lit up the Twitterverse, and was the water cooler subject of the week. Leaving no stone unturned, Lauren Streib looks into the History of Zou Bisou Bisou for The Daily Beast.

The Return of the Ladies of Mad Men is the focus of Alison Willmore at Indiewire, who views the series as one "about gender, about masculine ideals and shifting female identity." Eleanor Clift, a former Newsweek staffer (and sister-in-law of Montgomery Clift), recalls her memories as a woman in that news magazine's workplace during the '60s with Mad Men and Working Women (here, courtesy of The Daily Beast).

Joan Harris and Peggy Olson of SCDP

At the UK's Daily Mail, Kristie Lau contemplates How Mad Men Embraced the Fashion Trends of 1966, and at GQ, Matthew Sebra posts weekly on what the men of Mad Men are wearing, so far: Season 5/Style Report 1 and Season 5/Style Report 2.


Update: Click here for Bonnie Stiernberg's take on Episode 5.04 at PasteMagazine.com 

Stay tuned...

Note: Sunday Night is Mad Men Night will continue. Next up, Jill of Sittin' on a Backyard Fence  - date TBA...

Read More

Revisiting the "Youthquake"

Landon Jones coined the term “baby boomers” in his 1980 tome Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation, but, as the book's title indicates, the great horde born in the years following World War II was already distinguished as more than just a baby boom – it was the baby boom. In fact, boomers had been the subject of intense interest and considerable attention from the beginning; Dr. Benjamin Spock’s runaway best-seller, Baby and Child Care, was first published in 1946.

LA's Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip

And then Dr. Spock’s babies grew up.  In 1963, Diana Vreeland, long-time editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, coined the word “youthquake” to define a cultural phenomenon dominated by the young that was a mixture of music, fashion and political disaffection.

Britain figured prominently in “youthquake” culture. Designers like Mary Quant whipped up trendy “mod” fashions and Carnaby Street became an epicenter of style; British models Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy epitomized the waifish, leggy look of the era, and London-born hairdresser Vidal Sassoon created “wash & wear” geometric cuts that revolutionized hair styling. “The British Invasion” swept popular music in 1964 when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who,  The Kinks, The Animals and a multitude of others generated a flood of hit records. But the U.S. was not without influence. New York, where Bob Dylan made his ascent, had a thriving youth scene and in L.A., where youth is what it's all about (still), bands like The Byrds and The Doors built their reputations at clubs on the Sunset Strip before breaking out nationally.

Twiggy

The Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York has been showcasing “Youthquake! The 1960s Fashion Revolution” since March 6. An exploration of the impact of the youth culture of the ‘60s, the exhibit features clothing, accessories, videos and related media and runs through this Saturday, April 7. Click here for more information.

The Rolling Stones in the '60s

Click here for a link to Sunday Night is Mad Men Night, the blog event that inspired this post...

Read More

A Meditation on Mad Men

 "...nostalgia. It's delicate...but potent...in Greek, nostalgia literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone."

Sterling Cooper's creative director Don Draper is pitching his promotional concept to Kodak, a prospective client, for its new product, a wheel-like slide projector. As images of his own young family flash by, one by one, on a projection screen, he continues his inspired dream-spinning:

"This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again."

With these words, words that also echo an aspect of Mad Men's emotional appeal,  the client and everyone else inside the hushed room is in the palm of Draper's hand; he concludes:

"It's not called 'the Wheel." It's called a 'Carousel.' It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again...to a place where we know we are loved."

The carousel whirl that is AMC's Mad Men sweeps the viewer along on the labyrinthine journey of Don Draper, preternaturally savvy and eloquent Madison Avenue dreamweaver, as he and those close to him navigate the dark and white nights of their own souls and that of 1960s America.

Click here to watch Don Draper's entire 'Carousel' pitch

In an early episode, Betty Draper, Don's then-wife, stares at him as he lies sleeping and wonders aloud, "Who are you?"  Betty's late father, Gene, didn't like his son-in-law at all and, in another episode, complains of him, "He has no people. You can't trust a person like that..." Season 4 opened with the question, "Who is Don Draper?" posed to Draper over lunch by a reporter from Advertising Age. Series loyalists learned early on that Draper was once a neglected farm boy whose impoverished family moved from the Midwest to Pennsylvania coal country. While serving in the Korean war he saw a way out of his nowhere-man future and seized the opportunity. In just a few years he would be a rising star on Madison Avenue with the trophy wife, children, Cadillac and suburban Ossining house to certify his status.

Don and Betty Draper at home

Draper's mysterious past and meteoric ascent have inspired comparisons to another iconic fictional character, Jay Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It was of Gatsby that Fitzgerald's narrator, Nick, would say, "If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him..." Gatsby, born James Gatz in an upper Midwestern backwater, was based on a character out of ancient fiction named Trimalchio. A freed Roman slave who became wealthy and powerful and was intent on winning over the 1st century crème de la crème, Trimalchio hosted an elaborate but tasteless feast about which the elite laughed behind his back. Gatsby, who made his fortune through confidence schemes and shady connections, was rich but naive, and his grand soirees were attended but scorned by New York's finest.

A man in full

Though, like Gatsby, Don Draper is an arriviste who was once "a penniless young man without a past," no one is laughing at him. By 1960, when Mad Men picks up, the talented and charismatic Mr. Draper has sparked awe and envy throughout the world of advertising. No, at this point, Don Draper is perceived less like the ill-fated Gatsby and perhaps more like a more fortunate young man who fled his roots and re-made himself: Archie Leach of Bristol, England, who made his name in America and of his reinvented self said, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."

Despite his great success, Draper lives in barely contained turmoil. He wrestles with personal demons and chafes under mounting pressures at work and at home. The very time in which he lives is a jittery age - it is the height of ‘the cold war’ and American culture is in the midst of rapid change.

Soviet missiles in Cuba

It was at just about this time, in 1959, that developmental psychologist/psychoanalyst Erik Erikson coined the term ‘identity crisis,’ a condition of disorientation or role confusion that results from conflicting internal and external experiences, pressures and expectations that can lead to acute anxiety. Though Erikson originally viewed 'identity crisis' as primarily an adolescent experience, its definition expanded to include crises that occur during major life transitions as well as within social structures.

Not too many years earlier, in 1950, sociologist David Riesman had written what became, and remains, the best-selling book ever in the U.S. on sociology. The Lonely Crowd examined America’s social character and described the country’s shift from 19^th century ‘inner-direction’ (behavior internalized early through parents and community) to mid-20^th century ‘other-direction’ (responsiveness to peer groups and the media). Riesman’s theories spoke to concerns of the time regarding the conformity that accompanied the sweeping spread of suburban culture. It was Riesman’s view that the confidence and unity that followed World War II were in part an attempt to deflect cultural despair, and his term ‘the lonely crowd’ entered the mainstream as a description of alienation within an affluent society.

America, perhaps in its adolescence at mid-century and reeling under the weight of too much power, wealth and responsibility too soon, was entering a period of increasing uncertainty and anxiety as the 1960s unfolded. Clearly Don Draper, with his double life and murky past, is guarded and isolated, and most in his professional and personal orbit are perplexed by the changing, often frightening times.

November 22, 1963 at Sterling Cooper

Walter Cronkite reporting for CBS News, November 22, 1963

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has said that it was during his tenure as a writer on the sitcom Becker that an idea occurred to him for a show set in the ‘60s about someone like himself, “who… had everything and was miserable.”

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

As Weiner focused on writing the story of a character he thought of as a man who has sold out in some ways but is still trying to find himself, he hired a researcher to investigate the 1960s in detail. According to Weiner, the very first piece of research he received was about the crisis in cigarette advertising in 1960. And so it followed that when we first catch sight of Don Draper in the series opener it is 1960 and he is alone at a table in a cocktail lounge quizzing a black waiter about his brand of cigarettes - Old Gold. Draper is struggling to come up with an ad concept for Sterling Draper’s biggest account, Lucky Strike. The noisy, smoke-filled room is dim and in the background a recording of Don Cherry singing “Band of Gold” plays. The episode tracks the sharp, charming and handsome Mr. Draper through the evening and into a night spent with his commercial artist girlfriend, his next day at the office and his trip home after work to – surprise! – his wife and children in the suburbs.

Since then Don Draper and his family and his colleagues at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (formerly Sterling Cooper) have grappled with the wildly unpredictable 1960s as best they can. Having witnessed everything on the national scene from historic space flights and assassination to the explosion of the civil rights movement and the beginnings of women’s movement, they are at the same time dealing with upheaval in their personal lives.

The 1960s are accurately reflected and exquisitely replicated in Mad Men, and immersion in that glittering and chaotic decade is mesmerizing. But it is the series’ finely drawn, palpably authentic characters, credible story lines and archetypal themes that provide its greatest appeal. Mad Men, to borrow a phrase from Don Draper's Kodak presentation, affords that "rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash."

Season 5 begins...

Read More