Film Forno

There’s a great article by Richard Brody in the New Yorker about the relationship and feud of these two superstars of the New Wave.Check it out if you can. I recently watched Contempt on TCM. It was pan and scan and not a great copy but the stunning power of the film rang through clear as a bell. Godard plays with so many ideas in such a unique way. Fritz Lang is filming The Odyssey for American producer Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli is hired to write the script and they argue about re writing Homer. The purity and immediacy of The Odyssey, the experiential purity is at stake. The American wants to change it, Lang resists, Piccoli tries to talk him into it so he can earn enough to buy an apartment for his wife, Bridgitte Bardot, until he loses her to the American. Then he agrees with Lang. The emotions of the characters in this film are so true, so reminiscent of that first big breakup, your first adult breakup, it’s as if it were written by a modern Homer, a cinematic Homer, Godard.

The magical prism of Cinema, free of the restraints of Time, takes us back to Capri, 1964 and at the same moment the Hellenic Greece of Odysseus

Here’s an interview with Jean Luc from the time of Contempt.

And here’s a recent quote from Mr. Godard in the New Yorker article “Today I feel rather like an exile in my own land. The land of Cinema.”

The Great Alberto Sordi takes aim in Il Mafioso

This is an incredible film, it languished in obscurity until the geniuses at Rialto brought it back from the dead, just like they did with Jean Pierre Melville’s Army Of Shadows. All I can say about this film is that it accomplishes something that is very hard to do and does it better than any other film I can think of. It changes from a comedy to a tragedy in the blink of an eye and it works perfectly, seamlessly, in an exciting effortless way. Maybe because the comedy is understated, not stupid, real situations that reveal something about human beings, in this case the Sicilian clan of our main character, Nino. Sordi is a great actor, compare Nino with the Sordi’s portrayal of The White Sheik in Fellini’s film of the same name, they seem like two entirely different people. Speaking of Fellini, it was Lattuada who gave Federico his directing break, sharing credit on Variety Lights. The end of Il Mafioso is incredible as well, an off the cuff remark that teeters you on the edge of the Abyss. The incredible music is by the Genius Pierro Piccone, you can hear some of it in the trailer I’ve linked to. It’s magnificent.

My recent post on Night Of The Hunter and some correspondence about it got me thinking, here’s a Confidential Magazine piece about the star, Robert Mitchum and the producer, Paul Gregory and the director, Charles Laughton. Mitchum sued the scandal sheet and won. Thanks to Larry Harnisch and his DailyMirror Blog for the article.

p.s. click on the scans to make them bigger.

Jules Dassin as the Informer Cesaer in his masterpice “Rififi”

The great filmmaker Jules Dassin has dies at age 96. I grew up watching Brute Force , a masterful prison drama with Burt Lancaster and a fascistic warden, Hume Croynin,

and The Naked City on WOR’s Million Dollar Movie. The Naked City is a groundbreaking film, shot on location in NYC, it’s gritty, real,and a genre creating film. It spawned a TV show of the same name and countless cop shows and films.

Angry Mob Of Convicts in Brute Force

But it’s Dassin’s two foreign noirs that really get me. Rififi, the classic heist film shot in Paris. It’s a model for all caper movies and it’s 30 minute wordless burglary sequence has never been equalled.Economy, style, pace, drama, musical editing and use of natural sound make it a timeless heist gem that will be studied as long as people watch film.

Jean Pierre Melville was pissed off that he didn’t get to make Rififi and his response was the sublime Le Circle Rouge. Dassin wound up in Paris after an auspicious Hollywood beginning, he was apprenticed to Alfred Hitchcock and Garson Kanin, and he directed several studio pictures before he was blacklisted as a Communist. It took 5 years of scuffling in Paris to get Rififi, he was dead broke, he hated the book it was based on but he needed a job. He took it, wrote the script in a week (based on a small episode in the book) and made the film. At the last moment an Italian actor cancelled so Dassin played the part of Cesaer (under the psuedonym Perlo Vita), an interesting choice as Ceaser informs on his fellow conspirators and is murdered in retribution. Edward Dymytrk and Frank Tuttle named Dassin a Communist at their trials.

The other great noir Dassin directed abroad is the fantastic Night and The City set in London and starring the recently deceased Richard Widmark.

One of the most beautiful Noirs ever made. All Dassins films and his noirs in particular are incredibly photographed. He would wait for the right light, an overcast day, he took the time to make it right and it shows.

Night and the City will screen at the American Cinematheque as part of their up coming film noir series. There’s an interview with Dassin on the Criterion dvd of Rififi, he tells of going to Cannes with the film. He was absolutely flat broke and he asked the producer of the film to give him some money so he could enjoy himself a little. The producer forked over a small sum. Dassin and his wife went to the roulette table and put all the dough on a number, the wheel spun, their number came up! They had some money to enjoy themselves and the film won the Palm d’Or!

A while back I was working at a trailer company in NYC, a place where we made Previews Of Coming Attractions for films. I was talking to a fellow editor named Nick Meyers and I mentioned Jules Dassin. At the time I thought he was French so I pronounced his name Francophonically “Jhooles Dahsan”. Nick says “Who?” I repeated it. ” Oh, you mean Julie Dassin, he’s from the Bronx.” Nick’s dad Sidney Meyers was an old pal of Julie Dassin from NY theater and a fellow Lefty. Sidney went on to be a founding member of NY’s Editor’s Guild. So Fare Thee Well Jules Dassin, your films will be watched till the end of time.

Have you ever seen The Night Of The Hunter? The film directed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Mitchum and featuring Lilian Gish and Shelly Winters? It’s a great film, considered by many critics to be one of the top 50 films of all time. It is a beautiful, poetic, unique creation. There are sequences unlike any other in Cinema. For example when the children are traveling by rowboat, just floating down the river at night and there are all these shots of animals, frogs, owls, rabbits, spiders, in the foreground and the skiff with the children floating by in the background, accompanied by a beautiful voice singing a melancholy folk/ nursery rhyme motif.

It’s a gorgeous, deep sequence that transports you to a magical place, sort of a glancing back at the mystery of childhood, the psychic spaces we inhabit as children when we are closer to the elemental , to nature, to animals, to magic. We accept the arcane without questioning.

And the acting is great too. Mitchum said Laughton was his favorite director because he loved everything he did and he would tell him so.

Robert Mitchum as the Murderous Preacher, Harry Powell, with LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers

Shelly Winters is great as well, it’s funny here she is playing a mother who is married by a man whose real target is her children, a role she would repeat in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita.

She studied Acting in Charles Laughton’s class

Lillian Gish is superb and it’s wonderful that she appears in this film. A lot of the imagery seems to come directly out of silent film, a kind of stark poetic imagery, powerful visuals that remind you of Murnau, or Lang or even Caligari. She spoke of the making of the film in a reverential manner. “I have to go back as far as DW Griffith,” wrote Gish, “to find a set so infused with purpose and harmony. There was not ever a moment’s doubt as to what we were doing or how we were doing it. To please Charles Laughton was our aim. We believed in and respected him. Totally.”

The film was shot by the great Stanley Cortez, camerman for Orson Welles on his follow up to Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons ( Another Cautionary Tale in a future post). The thing is this, when Night Of The Hunter was released, it flopped, didn’t make money, although the critics were respectful, if somewhat baffled.

This devastated Laughton. It’s obvious the man poured his heart and soul into this film and when no one liked it he was shattered. ” I’ll never direct another film.” he said and he never did. He died six years later without knowing his film would one day be called a masterpiece. So here’s to you Charles Laughton, up there in Film Heaven. Captain Bligh, Quasimodo, Dr. Moreau,Gracchus Galileo. We on planet Earth Salute You!

Cheerio

Richard Widmark, the blonde, cool killer has died. He was the quintessential film noir protagonist, running down a dark street at night, chasing or being chased. His career really blasted into orbit with Kiss Of Death, a 1947 (that magical year!) noir directed by that talented curmudgeon Henry Hathaway. The story goes that Hathaway didn’t want Widmark for the role of Tommy Udo, sociopath killer with a snickering laugh, but Big Boss Darryl Zanuck overrode Hathaway’s objections and Widmark got the part. A pissed off Hathaway made it tough on Widmark and messed with him every chance he got. But so what, once Tommy Udo pushed a crippled old lady down a flight of apartment house stairs in her wheelchair, Widmark ascended to the stellar firmament atop a hugh geyser of pop culture appeal! Instant Stardom!

Tommy Udo’s Push To Stardom

He later appeared in some more classic Noir’s like Sam Fuller’s Pickup On South Street, a no holds barred tale of a sleazy pickpocket, Commies after Atomic secrets, floozies, patriotism, Thelma Ritter, murder, and an apartment on a barge in the East River! Check this one out for yourself!

Also one of my favorite’s Jules Dassin’s Night And The City, a down and dirty tale of a two-bit hustler turned wrestling promoter in London. (Dassin was fleeing the Commie Witch Hunt Trials and had to make films in Europe) This film features some of the best B+W noir Cinematography of all time! It is a pleasure to look at, you can get drunk, revelling in all that silver nitrate!

They are showing this masterpiece at the American Cinematheque as part of their upcoming Noir City film festival. Be sure to make it if you can! This is an incredible film, it unspools April 24th at 7:30 pm. I will be there, drinking a glass of Nebbiolo, toasting that gone blonde genius of darkness, Richard Widmark. May you never be chased down a dark alley in Film Heaven.

Night And The City trailer

I went to last night’s installment of the Mario Bava Retrospective. The night began on a sour note. I left early so I could grab a hot dog at Skooby’s on Hollywood Blvd. unfortunately it was inexplicably closed!

So I hit The Pig and Whistle for a draft Guiness, it’s right next door to the theater and a great way to start an evening of Cinematic fun.

First off Chuck D got up to do the intro, I had a bad feeling because of the way the screen was masked, we weren’t going to be seeing a 35mm print! That’s exactly what Chuck revealed, spinning a tale of woe about the print of The Whip and The Body. According to Chuck the Cinematheque has an arrangement with a film director/collector who let’s them borrow films to screen. It seems this director (Chuck wouldn’t tell his name) allows a friend of his access to his collection that’s stored at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. This friend borrowed the print of The Whip and The Body and decided it was suffering from “vinegar syndrome”, a deterioration of acetate film that produces a vinegar like smell. Now this was an original print from the 60’s, possibly a dye transfer Technicolor print. Chuck said they had screened it in 2002 and it looked good. Anyway the friend decided to try and restore the print and in the process destroyed it! I really was hoping to see this film projected , ideally from an old dye transfer print! It makes such an incredible use of color and as Ernest Dickerson commented in his introductory spiel, great use of darkness! One of the earliest color films to use so much rich deep black! The (I think it was laser disk?) digital projection looked very good but seeing a film in it’s original form is like a trip through time! I went to a Technicolor Festival a few years back and saw some films projected from Technicolor nitrate prints, it was amazing! I encourage everyone to go see this series if they ever run it again! I watched The Phantom Of The Opera with Claude Raines and it was a major deja vu experience. (I had seen the film when I was about 10 in a re-release) So Dear Mr. Unknown Film director/Collector and your equally Unknown Friend, please have your films restored professionally at Triage Motion Picture Services, don’t destroy rare and priceless treasures with good intentions. Ask Martin Scorsese’s Fund to finance the restoration and get it done by people that know what they are doing. Our beautiful IB Technicolor prints are disappearing, it’s like someone going to a museum and erasing the paintings.

The next film shown was Bava’s Kill Baby Kill and it was shown in 35mm from a print loaned by Alfred Leone and made around 2000 A.D. , unfortunately it looked like it was made from a bad dupe and a lot of detail and color was just not there. This is such a visually stunning film, with so much delicate shading of light, color,and atmosphere that any reduction in the quality of the image is a major detriment to the overall impact . I’ve seen the DVD of this film and it looks great. It needs to be restored. So there must be a good element somewhere. I appeal to Mr. Leone send the negative or whatever you have to Triage, ask for Tony or Paul, tell ’em Joe sent you.
p.s. Here’s a piece about Kill Baby Kill.

Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln in Nothing But A Man

Ivan Dixon, star of Nothing But A Man and director of The Spook Who Sat By The Door has checked out. Most people probably know him from his role on that idiotic show Hogan’s Heroes. He quit that gig after 5 years, I guess he couldn’t take it any more. than he got into directing. He acted in a ton of cool TV shows, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, The Man Fron U.N.C.L.E., etc., etc.. He also directed a whole bunch of T.V shows, he was a ground breaking Black TV director, opening the door for a lot of people.Bill Cosby gave him his directing break, they had acted together in I Spy. But I think to Mr. Dixon, his biggest accomplishments were acting in Nothing But A Man, a film that told it like it was about being Black in America, and directing The Spook Who Sat By The Door, a hard to see film about a Black C.I.A. operative who uses his knowledge to train Black militants in a plot to overthrow the government.

Luckily for me Jerry’s Video Reruns had a copy but now they’re out of business. Check it out if you can find it. Here’s the trailer

p.s. As an added bonus we get trailer narration by the legendary Adolph Caesar, check him out in A Soldier’s Story.

Hey there Pally! Here’s some previews of Coming Attractions for the triple feature Sunday, March 23 at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd.(AKA The American Cinematheque). They’re ending the Mario Bava retrospective with La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo(USA,The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The Evil Eye), Il Rosso Segno Della Follial (Hatchet for The Honeymoon) and Caltiki, Il Monstro Immortale. Here’s a post about The Evil Eye.

Here’s the trailer for Hatchet for The Honeymoon.

And here’s the opening for Caltiki, The Immortal Monster!