Intriguing New Book

I saw the promos for Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer before and thought that it would be a book I should read, seeing that I am really interested in MGM. But I just read an excerpt from the book and some of the paragraphs made it sound like it might have a lot of old Hollywood gossip.

Louis B. Mayer, sitting in his office with white leather walls, a custom-designed wraparound desk, and an adjoining soundproof telephone room where he could consult with New York a half-dozen times a day, had a serious problem: He believed that his most popular young leading man was homosexual.

This issue had arisen before, when MGM had to finesse the fact that two of its top stars, William Haines and Ramon Novarro, were gay, but that had been more than fifteen years ago. The movie business had expanded exponentially since then -- weekly movie attendance had increased by a third, from 65 million in 1928 to 85 million in 1944. Now, there was more at stake.

Van Johnson had been handed the job of replacing Lew Ayres in the Dr. Kildare movies, then landed a supporting part in The Human Comedy. The fan mail had perked up, and the fan magazines were avid for interviews and photographs.

Johnson was an engaging personality, a competent actor. And he was an ex-chorus boy who was, claimed one MGM employee, "notorious on Broadway." Mayer knew it was only a question of time until MGM's money would have to be used to buy somebody's silence. The studio had done that be-fore, with William Haines, an experience Mayer had vowed he would never repeat.

For Louis B. Mayer, homosexuality was not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle. As with many people of his time, Mayer believed that homosexuality was a psychological aberration that could be successfully treated -- especially by a good woman. As Mayer's suspicions about Johnson grew, he ordered every available, beautiful woman on the lot thrown at the young actor in an effort to establish his heterosexual bona fides.

Nothing.

But now there was a chance...

On April 1, 1943, during the production of A Guy Named Joe, Johnson had been badly hurt in an auto accident on Venice Boulevard and had spent a month or so recuperating at the home of his best friend, MGM character actor Keenan Wynn, the son of the legendary comedian Ed Wynn. While recuperating, Johnson had sparked to Evie, Keenan Wynn's vivacious, entertaining wife. He had told anybody who would listen about how sweet she had been to him after his accident, how he envied Keenan's taste in women. Word got back to Louis B. Mayer. Word always did. Ida Koverman, the dreaded Mount Ida, Mayer's executive secretary and protectress, sent a limousine for Evie Wynn.

How will it all end? (Of course, those of y'all who have paid attention during my Van Johnson biography review should know that Evie and Van did marry, whatever his proclivities might have been.) I'll have to find the book at work and write up a review of it.

FILE UNDER: Van Johnson

1. Sex and the Single Girl

Loosely based on the book of the same title, Sex and the Single Girl is a pretty innocent romp through the mores of the early 1960s, pre-sexual revolution. It features a trashy magazine writer named Bob (Tony Curtis) and his attempts to get the dirt on the writer of Sex and the Single girl for his magazine Stop. (Stop, incidentally, is run by a character played by Edward Everett Horton, a native Baltimorean!)The author and our heroine, Helen Gurley Brown (Natalie Wood), is a psychologist. In order to find out more about Helen, Bob poses as his neighbor, Frank (Henry Fonda), a stocking manufacturer, who is having problems with his wife Sylvia (Lauren Bacall).

Essentially, the movie deals with many mistaken identities and the fact that Helen falls in love with Bob as Frank and think she loves a (gasp!) married man! Comedy ensues as she finds out that her Frank isn't the real Frank, and a madcap car chase to the airport ensues. Sylvia wants to apologize to Frank, Bob wants to apologize to Helen, Helen wants to go to Fiji with a co-worker (played by Mel Ferrer, definitely the more handsome of the two Ferrers!), the taxi drivers just want to get there, the motorcycle cop goes crazy, and Frank wants to escape to Hawaii -- but he's got a girl in the car with him! It all works out in the end and all the couples are coupled off accordingly.

Fairly entertaining and fluffy, but I will probably tape over this film. I'm not a huge fan of any of the stars -- except maybe a little amused by Mel Ferrer -- but it was pretty good.

FILE UNDER: 31 Films in 31 Days ; Classic Films

31 Films in 31 Days, Redux

It's a new Summer Under the Stars at TCM and I'm working on the same challenge as last year -- watch 31 films in 31 days and write up reviews of them. I think it should be a little more manageable this year, since I have now have high speed Internet.

I've got the tentative list of the 31 Films for August and they are as follows:

August 1 - Lauren Bacall - Sex and the Single Girl
August 2 - James Cagney - Angels with Dirty Faces
August 3 - Joel McCrea - Sullivan's Travels
August 4 - Alec Guiness - The Lavendar Hill Mob
August 5 - Katherine Hepburn - Holiday
August 6 - John Wayne - Red River
August 7 - Judy Garland - Thoroughbreds Don't Cry
August 8 - Shelley Winters - The Night of the Hunter
August 9 - Ray Milland - A Life of Her Own
August 10 - Lena Horne - Till the Clouds Roll By
August 11 - Kirk Douglas - Out of the Past
August 12 - Jane Wyman - Make Your Own Bed
August 13 - Cary Grant - Monkey Business
August 14 - Glenn Ford - The Courtship of Eddie's Father
August 15 - Fred Astaire - Silk Stockings
August 16 - Donna Reed - Faithful in My Fashion
August 17 - James Garner - 36 Hours
August 18 - Irene Dunne - Bachelor Apartment
August 19 - Marlon Brando - The Teahouse of the August Moon
August 20 - James Stewart - You Can't Take It with You
August 21 - Maureen O'Hara - Dance, Girl, Dance
August 22 - Joan Crawford - Possessed
August 23 - Basil Rathbone - The Dawn Patrol
August 24 - Sophia Loren - The Key
August 25 - Norma Shearer - Private Lives
August 26 - Randolph Scott - The Desperadoes
August 27 - Spencer Tracy - 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing
August 28 - William Holden - Rachel and the Stranger
August 29 - Constance Bennett - Bed of Roses
August 30 - Deborah Kerr - Tea and Sympathy
August 31 - Humphrey Bogart - One Fatal Hour

Let me say again, this is just a tentative list. It's already August 6 and I've only managed to watch two movies thus far, but I have a feeling this weekend I can knock off the ones from this week. So, here goes nothing!

Oh, and another sad note: Van Johnson didn't get a day to himself. How sad for poor Van. Oh well, he does pop up in a few films this month and I've scheduled myself to watch one with him in it -- Till the Clouds Roll By features both Van Johnson and Van Heflin. Awesome!!!

FILE UNDER: 31 Films in 31 Days ; News and Notes

July Picks

Audrey Hepburn is the star of the month for July, but there are still a lot of good movies worth watching on TCM. If I manage to watch every thing that I pick, I wouldn’t be doing much else in July. Descriptions are cribbed from Now Playing.

Friday, July 1

It’s Love I’m After – 6:00 am
Looks like a fun trio of Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland as a squabbling stage couple and an amorous fan.

The Heiress – 4:00 pm
Olivia de Havilland gets picked up by Montgomery Clift for her money – or does she? “Bolt the door Mariah.”

Tuesday, July 5

Red Dust – 6:00 am
Clark Gable and Jean Harlow spark in the red dust of Indochina. Classic!

Wednesday, July 6

The Romance of Rosy Ridge – 6:00 am
Janet Leigh makes her film debut with my boy Van Johnson. Set in post-Civil War, a farmer’s daughter falls in love with a man who fought against her family.

Friday, July 8

Johnny Eager – 2:00 pm
Combine a racketeer and a beautiful D.A.’s daughter and you’ve got an interesting film noir. Add Van Heflin as an alcoholic best friend who quotes Shakespeare and it’s worth watching.

Sunday, July 10

Daddy-Long-Legs – 12:00 am
A silent film version of the book which can’t be any worse than the musical version starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron. Stars Mary Pickford as the orphan who falls in love through the mail.

Monday, July 11

Too Many Girls – 8:30 am
Van Johnson’s film debut and an entertaining yet fluffy musical about life in a Western college.

Texas Carnival – 4:30 pm
A penniless carnival worker runs up a mountain of debts when he’s mistaken for a millionaire. Starring Esther Williams, Red Skelton (boo!), and Howard Keel (the real reason to watch it!).

Tuesday, July 19

Week-End at the Waldorf – 11:30 pm
An updated version of Grand Hotel, only this time set in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Cast includes Ginger Rogers, Walter Pidgeon, and (best of all!) Van Johnson.

Madame Bovary – 2:00 am
For a double feature of Vans, catch Van Heflin as the cuckolded husband in this film, also costarring Jennifer Jones and James Mason.

Saturday, July 23

Described in Now Playing as “Big Balls Night” (get your mind out of the gutter!), it looks like a fun night of films featuring dances.

The Magnificent Ambersons – 8:00 pm
One of Orson Welles’s masterpieces, starring Joseph Cotten.

Jezebel - 10:00 pm
One life lesson to learn: unmarried girls never wear a scarlet dress to a ball unless they are able to face the consequences. Bette Davis doesn’t manage to learn that, but Henry Fonda does finally stand up to her.

Wuthering Heights – 12:00 am
Heathcliff!!

Pride and Prejudice – 2:00 am
Not quite the most faithful version, but Laurence Olivier does make a really smokin’ Mr. Darcy.

Sunday, July 24

Summer Stock - 10:00 am
The musical that got me into classic movies. Perhaps not the best musical ever, but probably the best one that Judy Garland and Gene Kelly did together.

FILE UNDER: Lists ; News and Notes

Vertigo

Despite being considered by critics to be Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest film, I have never really found Vertigo to be a very accessible film. Perhaps that is part of its greatness – the film actually manages to evoke some of the affects of vertigo by keeping the viewer off kilter and always questioning things. I have only seen it twice, and the first time I watched it with my mom and sister and they were not so impressed with it either. But a second viewing changed my opinion a little…but first a little bit about the plot.

The film starts with John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) chasing someone over the rooftop. His partner ends up falling to his death off the roof and Scottie gets vertigo as a result of the emotional trauma. After retiring from the police force, Scottie is over at his friend Midge’s (Barbara Bel Geddes) apartment complaining about his acrophobia. She’s as sympathetic as one can be, especially if one was engaged to Scottie years ago. One comment that Scottie makes while at Midge’s apartment is worth remembering – “I’m not going to crack up.”

Eventually, an old college friend contacts Scottie to convince him to keep an eye on his wife. Apparently, the wife is a bit crazy – she thinks she is Carlotta, a historical figure from San Francisco’s past. Madeleine (Kim Novak) leads Scottie around the city to all kinds of different places. (As a side note, how she doesn’t notice that he’s following her is really, really unbelievable, especially if he was a detective, but presumably she does know that he’s following her. But I’m getting ahead of myself.) Madeleine ends up jumping into the San Francisco Bay, but Scottie fishes her out and takes her to his apartment to dry off. She takes off while he’s calling her husband, but Madeleine comes back the next day to give him an apology. The two end up wandering together and see the sequoias. She tries to recount her dreams, which might explain how crazy she is.

Eventually, the two end up at the San Juan Barrista mission outside of San Francisco, where Madeleine runs away from Scottie after cryptically talking about how if she leaves him it will mean that she really loves him. So she runs into the church and up to the bell tower. Scottie tries to follow her, but his vertigo takes over and he can’t make it up the tower in time to prevent her suicide.

There is an inquest, where Scottie is blamed for not being able to prevent her suicide, but in the end, it is considered a suicide. And then the famous weird dream sequence occurs – it’s Jimmy Stewart’s head coming to get you, complete with weird green lighting and everything! Scottie, of course, goes a little crazy and ends up in the hospital where he won’t talk. Midge is there, trying to take care of him and finds out that it’ll be at least six to twelve months before he will be able to talk again. Poor Midge, always cleaning up the pieces.

Flash forward a year and Scottie has pulled himself together. He keeps seeing girls that look like Madeleine, especially ones wearing fitted grey suits. And he does manage to find a girl on the street who looks an awful lot like Madeleine, only with more makeup and brown hair. She acts pretty suspiciously, and we find out that she is Madeleine – or was pretending to be Madeleine. Yes, Scottie was a dupe for his college friend – he got to be the perfect witness to an apparent suicide. And Judy is all mixed up with – only she actually fell in love with Scottie. So Judy allows herself to be made over to look like Madeleine so that she can win Scottie over again. Judy wants to be loved for herself, but Scottie is a single-minded person, which is seriously kind of creepy! Judy goes along with his determination to make her over into Madeleine, dying her hair blonde, buying the right dresses, and being made under. She doesn’t put her hair up until the end when it is apparent Scottie is only interested in her as a substitute for Madeleine.

But Judy has made one fatal mistake – she kept the necklace that she wore as Madeleine and Scottie figures things out. Instead of taking her out to dinner, he takes her to the mission and makes her go up the stairs, recreating the events. As they are talking up at the top of the bell tower, a nun comes out of the shadows and startles Judy into falling off the tower. Scottie had just managed to find his Madeleine again, and she dies in the same fashion.

I can see why Vertigo is considered such a classic. It is a rather unsettling film, and having James Stewart as a character who essentially descends into madness in his obsession to recreate Madeleine really keeps the viewer off balance. Multiple layers and things that you wouldn’t notice on first viewing definitely make it more interesting. The evocation of the sense of vertigo and being off balance by the viewer makes the title very apt. I’m sure that many other critics have said it better than I, but it’s an unsettling film and one that needs to be looked at closely to really understand. I realize that the first time that I saw the film, I probably wasn’t really thinking about it critically. It’s perhaps not a film that one watches for fun – well, maybe that’s not the right way to put it – it’s not as fun as many other Hitchcock films, but it still has a place. A film I might have to look at again, but right now, I’m just going to be happy with a little bit of a better understanding about why it’s good

FILE UNDER: Classic Films

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

Well, it has been a long time. I have, indeed, still been watching movies, although not at the same clip as I used to. But I have been thinking about the fact that I am obsessing over work too much, and have decided that posting more in this blog might help out with things.

And I have decided to try again in August, when TCM has its "Summer Under the Stars" again, to repeat last year's challenge -- 31 Movies in 31 Days! So, that shall be something fun to do.

I have also been writing up my TCM Picks every couple of months, so that might also become another feature of this blog. And hopefully, I will actually manage to watch the movies that I pick and write them up!

So, in other news, I am going to be blogging about movies again.

FILE UNDER: News and Notes

Hearts of the West

Despite the fact that I saw Hearts of the West on Turner Classic Movies, I would probably categorize it as a modern film. Well, maybe. It's from 1975 so it's kind of on the edge of "classic film" and not-so-classic film. I think modern films can be classic, but only if they demonstrate a timelessness that will allow them to be watched fifty or sixty years from now and understood and enjoyed. Well, that was quite a ramble, so let's get into the film.

Cavaet: I was working on something else when I was watching(-ish) this film, so the plot is a little fuzzy to me. But I have to say, I found this movie entertaining mostly for its time period and actors, so the plot was a little less relevant. But it was still good, just that I don't remember everything that happened. I also did not take notes, as I try to do during V-Jo movies.

Hearts of the West stars a young, young Jeff Bridges as Lewis Tater, a young man trying to write Western novels. He comes out to Hollywood and ends up working as a cowboy in a serial film. Lewis meets Howard Pike (Andy Griffith), another "cowboy," who ends up giving him career advice. The career advice includes reading Lewis's Western novel and then stealing it and submitting it to a publisher. Despite the conflicts, Lewis ends up with the girl (Blythe Danner) and the film ends with him leaving in an ambulence. (Seriously, I don't know why, but it looked cool. Perhaps I will watch this one again.)

My favorite part of Hearts of the West was the Western film-making atmosphere. It reminded me of one of my favorite books -- Miranda Goes to Hollywood: Adventures in the Land of Palm Trees, Cowboys, and Moving Pictures by Jane Kendall. The book is all about the adventures of a young girl in Hollywood (it's a sequel to Miranda and the Movies, a truly beautiful book with a fun story about early movie-making) and mostly about her adventures as a cowgirl. (Eventually, I'll write up a review of both books for this blog -- they're not books about movies per se, but they're close enough for my standards.) I really enjoy movies about movies, especially if they are well done and entertaining. And movies about old film-making are awesome.

FILE UNDER: Modern Films

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

I have a tremendous backlog of films that I started on this past weekend.

Yes, I know that I have like five Van Johnson movies to watch, including Plymouth Adventure, a story of the pilgrims and the very first Thanksgiving. But this movie was totally worth skipping V-Jo over.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith is Alfred Hitchcock's lone foray into screwball comedy. It's a pretty entertaining piece of fluff, and at ninty-five minutes, I would definitely watch it again.

The titular Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard) find out that they are not really married at the beginning of the film. From this problem, the plot springs forth, because, you see, David has told his bride that if he had to do it all over again -- referring to marrying her -- he wouldn't. Oh, David, it's called a polite lie!

Ann finds out that she isn't properly married and leaves David after he doesn't remarry her. She eventually gets engaged to a lovely Southern gentleman, despite the fact that his family doesn't quite approve of her. However, there's one problem: Ann is still in love with David.

And David continues to pop up in the same places and Ann and her fiancee. He even tries to make Ann jealous by pretending to be with a society lady instead of the low-class broad his friend Chuck (Jack Carson) has set him up with.

In the end, David cons Ann into thinking that he has fallen deadly ill at a ski lodge. She cares for him until she realizes that he's been pulling a fast one on her. She tries to leave David, but after a confrontation with her fiancee's family and a realization that she still loves David, Ann decides to stay with him and all ends happily.

As I said before, I really enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Robert Montgomery is oddly attractive, despite his round face. And Carole Lombard is a superb comedian and managed to make her role pretty funny. I would definitely think about watching it again.

FILE UNDER: Classic Films

Harold Lloyd and the '50

Continuing in the same vein as my post yesterday, I found an interesting article online about another semi-famous silent film comedian, Harold Lloyd. The New York Times published an article entitled "Harold Lloyd's Adventures on the Lens's Other Side" which reviewed a book published by his granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd.

And the book is not what you would expect the mild-mannered but adventuresome Lloyd to be the author of -- it's called Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D! and features photographs of starlets -- and some more famous stars like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, albeit fully clothed -- in the nude.

Apparently, Lloyd has never quite gotten the credit that he deserves for his films of the 1920s -- Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton have usurped him with their artistry, although Lloyd outgrossed both of them. (As a sidenote, I have to say that box-office gross didn't really mean that much back then. It seems like only now has the public become obsessed with how movies did financially. And finally, just because a lot of people see a movie, that doesn't make it good. There are lots of examples nowadays of this phenomenom, say Titanic for example.) According to the article, Suzanne Lloyd feels like film scholars know about Lloyd, but the book will help introduce him to a larger audience. She also says, "My grandfather was a star, someone who had a creative edge and liked to push it. He did stunts that scared the hell out of people, and the nude photography was just one more instance of pushing on the edges of what was being done."

I don't think that I would run out to buy the book, but I have seen a couple Lloyd pictures and they are entertaining. I think the world would probably be a better place if more people knew about silent comedians.

FILE UNDER: News and Notes

Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton had a new documentary by Kevin Brownlow (author of The Parade's Gone By..., a book which I own but haven't managed to finish reading yet.) on TCM last night, So Funny It Hurt!. The documentary is all about Keaton's years at MGM and his downfall from great silent films like Sherlock Jr. and The General to schlocky movies co-starring Jimmy Durante. I didn't watch So Funny It Hurts! because I really like Buster's silent films and I've read quite a few biographies on him (including a really awesome one called Buster Keaton Remembered co-authored by his second wife Eleanor).

However, there was a really interesting article entitled "Deadpan Alley" on Slate about the documentary that made me think about catching it when it reruns on December 19. The parts the intrigued me:

"In a filmed interview from the '60s, the older Buster bemoans the Marx Brothers' lack of on-set preparation, remembering that "When we made movies, we ate, slept and breathed 'em." There's also a rare clip of Keaton delivering lines in painfully phonetic Spanish; before the days of dubbing, films were simply remade several times in different languages for the international market. In a scene from one of Buster's early shorts, Coney Island, the famously stone-faced comedian can be seen laughing heartily after whacking Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in the head with a mallet."

It sounds pretty interesting, and perhaps worth spending 38 minutes on.

FILE UNDER: News and Notes

How to Steal a Million

I haven't written a review in like, forever. But I will rectify that right now by writing about one of my favorite films, How to Steal a Million.

How to Steal a Million is coming out on DVD on Tuesday (!) and I am really, really excited for it. I caught the film while I was in high school (back when AMC was commercial free and actually worth watching). It's an entertaining caper/romantic comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole.

The film opens at an art auction where a Cezanne painting from the fabeled Bonnet collection is being sold. Nicole Bonnet (Hepburn) is driving in her tiny convertible to her Parisian home and hears about the sale on the radio. Her father (Hugh Griffith) is not a famed art collector, but rather a brilliant forger of the masters.

And one of their masterpieces, a statue purported to have been done by Celinni, is going to be exhibited in an art museum. Nicole worries, but because it is so much easier to detect fraud, but her father pooh-poohs her worries. The evening that the statue is exhibited in the museum, Nicole finds a burglar in their house! It's Simon Dermott (O'Toole, a burglar I would like to find in my house) and he's actually pulling something out of the faux Van Gogh. Simon and Nicole have a meet-cute interaction which leads to her shooting him by accident, Nicole driving his car back to the Ritz in her nightie, black rubber boots, and a pink coat thrown over it all, and Simon giving Nicole a good-night kiss before gently placing her in a taxi to go home.

The next morning Nicole and Bonnet find out that there needs to be a technical examination of the Celinni Venus before a million-dollar insurance policy can go into force. This is not a good thing for them, and Nicole decides to be proactive and contact Simon about stealing the Venus back. They meet at the Ritz Bar, and Nicole's outfit of a lace cocktail dress complete with lace mask and silver eye shadow has to be seen to be believed.

Simon decides to take the job and they wander around Paris while he tries to solve the problem of thwarting the security around the statue. The plan he comes up with is brilliant and utterly implausible in the computerized era. It must also be seen to be believed, but it involves a lot of time spent in a tiny broom closet. Eventually Simon gets it out of Nicole that the statue is a fake and reveals that he is going through with this crazy scheme because he loves her.

Every girl would love to be trapped in a closet with him!

The film wraps up quite nicely from there, with only a hint of intrigue with Nicole's fiancee, David Leland (Eli Wallach) and his acquisition of the Cellini Venus.

It's quite a nice little film, a nice companion to Charade, which has a similar story line. But honestly, I have to say that the real reason to see this film is for Peter O'Toole. He's so pretty. It's those eyes!

FILE UNDER: Classic Films