-Harry`s Film Impressions (6)

von am 17. November 2018 um 23:28
Veröffentlicht in: Film, Text

Too Much Cotton

Orson Weles reaped great praise for Touch of Evil, a sloppy job compared with Kane, but nevertheless with moments of greatness like all post-Kane films. A corpulent Welles plays a, dishevelled cop, but he felt needed a bit of padding for the jowls, so cotton was the answer. The padding is too much of a bad thing. Guess the Kane make-up man was not available.

Touch-of-Evil

Ditto for Brando’s elderly Mafioso in Godfather. His comeback got him an Oscar but you know that the cotton is there, and knowing it as well as having it, makes chills run up and down your spine. It must have affected the acting in one way or another. Guess the Oscar jury ignored it.

Master-actor Larry Olivier would have said: “Why don’t you try acting, dear boy?!”
And he might have added: “Fire the makeup man!”

 

Christian Dies before His Time

One-eyed Jacks is the only directorial effort by Marlon Brando, a vengeance western, in which Karl Malden plays the turncoat pal that Brando has to hunt down. Plebeian is the word that best describes this cliché-ridden formula film. Jack can be classified as “entertainment.”

But while the entertainment is delivered you can sort of enjoy it with more than a bit of squirming in your seat, but any enjoyment ends after you leave the theater and think about what you’ve seen.

The same can be said for Mutiny of the Bounty, in which Lewis Milstone does Brando’s bidding, after the great Carol Reed threw in the towel. Mutiny cannot compare with the Frank Lloyd film in which Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian outshines Charles Laughten as a bushy-eyed Captain Bligh. It’s reverse outshining with Trevor Howard as Bligh. Brando does not play the pouting, brooding Fletcher any better than he played the pouting, brooding Wehrmacht officer in The Young Lions.

I should interject that Brando has achieved excellence as an actor, but when he is aware that he is in a mediocre vehicle, he lets self-indulgence get the better of him. Erratic is the word for him. When he’s up, he’s up high, but when he takes a downward plunge, only the ground can stop him. Sensing that he was sinking with the Bounty, he felt that he had to do something drastic in order to retrieve the film. And what did he does he do? He dies playing the role. The real Fletcher Christian settled on Pitcairn Island with his fellow mutineers, where they settled down with native girls, had families and eventually died in deadly disputes. However, Brando wrenched history from its hinges and had Christian die while torching the Bounty. This drastic deed, which defied reality, just provided another set of histrionic gestures that helped sink both boat and film.

Anthony Hopkins as Bligh

Twenty-two years later Roger Donaldson made The Bounty, trying to set things aright, with Mel Gibson as Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Bligh. This time Christian dies on Pitcairn Island, as he did in real life. Gibson, to be sure, toned down the role of Christian. Later, however, he carried on in Brando fashion, matching Brando’s flamboyance as director of The Passion of the Christ.

That’s how we get from Christian to Christ.

 

Stephan Boyd and the Blades

Remember the chariot race in Ben-Hur?! This is touted to be the greatest cinematic races in film history. Now if this were a fair race, Charlton Heston aka reston Ben Hur would simply have out-charioted Stephen Boyd aka Messala Simple as that! But in order to make it interesting, Boyd, who was Heston’s turncoat pal, has blades attached to his chariot wheels. So Boyd has the advantage. And he uses the blades to chop up the wheels of some of the chariot competition and send it to Kingdom Come.

But in spite of being handicapped by having to race and fight at a disadvantage, a bloodied Heston hurtles over the finish line to win.

Thrilling race to be sure! William Wyler, dealt with the pedestrian and equestrian spectacle-fare handily since he was master director. He certainly knew how to pull the cinema wool over the eyes of critical viewers – but not quite.

I’ve always wondered why one of the charioteers didn’t bring Boyd’s blades to the attention of the judges. The answer must have been that Boyd either bribed the judges, or that his “family” was running the show. At any rate, the background of Boyd’s blades was not considered important enough to convey to the viewer. Important was that Heston raced at a disadvantage and won in spite of it, with Boyd biting the dust.

On-the-set-of-Ben-Hur-directed-by-William-Wyler-1959

to be continued . . .

– Herbert Kuhner

-APHORISMS by Žarko Petan

von am 16. November 2018 um 11:40
Veröffentlicht in: Text, Translations

APHORISMS
by Žarko Petan

Translated by Herbert Kuhner

I’m a fatalist;
I love femme fatales.

The male dream:
a virgin with experience.

The ideal women:
hot in winter, frigid in summer.

A nudist fell in love with a nudist
upon seeing her dressed
for the first time.

I’ve had bad experiences
with experience.

Marriage begins
with a happy end.

In marriage women are true —
to their principles.

Divorce is time out
between marriages.

Dog is man’s best friend;
with girlfriends he’s more particular.

War is a tragedy
that becomes a parody
in history books.

Soldiers are involuntary
blond donors.

A coward’s heart beats fester
than a hero’s
and for a longer time.

In war
death is the modus vivendi.

Military tactics
have nothing to do with tact.

A blitzkrieg usually ends
with a short circuit.

After a revolution
the number of revolutionaries
increases.

I blindfolded justice
and said:
let’s play pin the tail on the donkey.

Everything is possible in a democracy.
Nothing is impossible in a dictatorship.

The foreign minister
always denies having anything to do
with the minister of the interior.

When bureaucrats feud,
ink flows profusely.

You can always spot your enemy
by his friendly grin.

Some patriots are only
gigolos of the state.

A bad future
is better than none.

Sometimes there‘s only one round
between o.k. and k.o.

It’s hard to answer
the wrong question in the right way.

A Yugoslav orchestra:
ten conductors and one musician.

A dilemma for writers:
either you write for future generations
or today’s editors.

There are books
that age more quickly
than their authors.

For modern drama
the audience often needs a prompter.

Architects should live
in their own errors.

You learn from your own mistakes;
you profit from the mistakes of others.

We’ve almost abolished religion. –
Thank God!

What came first?
The chicken or the egg? – the rooster.

Even atheists believe in the devil.

The first shall be last –
the last will be next-to-last.

Perhaps Cain and Abel
weren’t brothers —
but good neighbors.

In the theater
the director is God,
but the actors are atheists.

Death is the natural end
of an unnatural life.

Suicide is the most radical form
of self-criticism.

He was so decadent
that he wanted to leave the world
the way he entered it.

Death hurts
those left behind.

I became a pessimist
upon learning that those around me
were optimists.

Both pessimist and optimist
live in a desert.
But the optimist is located in an oasis.

Whenever I read Kafka
I’m surprised at how idyllic
life was in his time.

One day all men will be equal:
equally rich or equally poor?

He who laughs last
laughs alone.

Žarko Petan

-Harry`s Film Impressions (5)

von am 15. November 2018 um 0:52
Veröffentlicht in: Text

Larry and Orson

We Americans who strive for elegance are invariably cowed by our British lingual non-compatriots.

The most beautiful British voice and delivery belong to Laurence Olivier. He is matched by our Orson.

The most beautiful American voice and delivery belong to Orson Welles. Orson proved that America English can be just as melodic and mellifluous as its British counterpart. Thank you Orson

Laurence Olivier

 

Male Deities and Love Goddesses

Rita Hayworth

A Male Deity or a Love Goddess should die young. We don’t want a Deity or a Goddess to age. When they age the cease to

be Divine. We don’t want them to marry, and God forbid that they should have children who would be anything but Divine! The last thing we want to do is shatter their Divinity by the intrusion of reality. They must cater to our fantasy. They should be worshipped from afar. Male Deities and Love Goddesses cannot be worshipped at close range.

Dying young means being young for all eternity

 

 

 

Dean the Drop-out of Drop-outs

He had the good luck of dying at the age of twenty-four. He personified the drop-out, who was too sensitive and uncompromising to cope with life, but he didn’t have much time to drop out. Life did him the favor of removing him from the scene. That is the most commendable way of being defeated. It is true that he did his part in exiting by recklessly speeding in his sports car.

Dean didn’t have the bad luck of surviving his accident with scars like Monty Clift, who went on to decline and die at the age of forty-five. Fate was even more unkind to Dean’s precursor Brando. His magnificent physique hit the skids along with his fiery rebellious mien.

Yes, Dean was lucky; he didn’t have to do the job himself like Marilyn. He died at the peak of his career with no bald spot or streaks of grey in his hair – and no paunch.

The option for an artist seems to be between longevity and becoming immortal.

Dean’s age for eternity, will always be twenty-four. Dying young is the best way of being done in by life.

James Dean

 

Looking for the John

Marlon Brando approached Darry Zanuck concerning The Egyptian. But when things were set, Marlon was on the set and asked for the toilet. He may have headed for the john and found it, he kept on walking until the set was far behind him. And he never returned.

He must have sensed that the film would be costume jewelry, which it turned out to be.

Marlon Brando

Zanuck was steaming and threatened to draw and quarter him, so Marlon relented and starred with Jean Simmons in the equally trite Desirée. His Napoleon was all swagger and fit in well to the mediocre proceedings.

Marlon’s One-Eyed Jacks, which he directed, was an okay western, but it was nothing to rave about.

In Mutiny on the Bounty Marlon directed director Carol Reed, who threw in the towel. Then he directed Lewis Milestone who lasted the film out. The result was in the celluloid pulp-fiction category.

Marlon’s search for the toilet at least saved him once.

 

 

to be continued . . .

– Herbert Kuhner

-Blackface

von am 11. November 2018 um 13:00
Veröffentlicht in: Poetry, Text

“Blackface” is not a slur.

Entertainers who put on black paint
were not putting African Americans down.

In the Twenties and Thirties
those who didn’t need paint
stepped forward
to do their own thing
in spite of Jim Crow
and all the impediments.

They have my admiration
and love!
For all the pain and problems we endured
being black men in America,
we really had some good times.
– Jo Jones

George helped get the ball rolling!

 

George Gershwin

George Gershwin,
composer,
piano player and pianist,
didn’t have to struggle much
before he caught on.
With people like
Paul Whiteman around to help,
how could he miss?
He was born with the knack
and poured it out easily
till his untimely death
at the age of 38 in ’37.

George was a Brooklyn boy,
who started out as a champion.
He was fastest on roller skates
on his block,
and he’d race along
in the short span
that was his allotment.

When you look at his photos,
you know
that he knew where he was going.
The sultry eyes convey the message.

His nose was a bit too thick,
he had slightly protruding lower lip
and too much jaw,
yet the over-all impression
was suave and hip,
and the clothes: spiffy and collegiate.

He wrote popular songs,
classical pieces,
a folk opera
and music for Broadway shows
and Hollywood films.

He was so prodigious
and worked on so many projects
at one time
that he had to juggle
in order to get things done,
and he got more than a lot done
in his short life.

In ’24, he took ten days to compose
Rhapsody in Blue
and kept it in his hands
till the last minute,
insisting that it wasn’t good enough.
Whiteman’s comment:
“The damn fool,
did he think he could improve it?”

Due to other commitments,
he had Ferde Grofé
orchestrate it.

Did George keep that hectic pace
because he had an inkling
that his life
would be nipped in the bud?

He was aware
of the significance of jazz
and his use of it was natural.

What he touched
turned to gold,
but he interrupted
the lucrative composing
of hit tunes and musical scores
in order to take time to study
music composition,
so that he could blend jazz
with classical forms.

To quote Marvin Hamlish:
„He took the European tradition
bequeathed to all composers
and poured his jazzy soul into it.“

Gershwin himself wrote:
„Jazz is not Negro but American.
It is the spontaneous expression
of the nervous energy
of modern American life.“

Let me humbly beg to differ:
jazz is black as well as American.

Paul Whiteman begged to differ:
“Jazz came to America
three hundred years ago in chains.”

It was the blacks who gave it to us,
but a lot of whites like Gershwin
became part of it
and he was also one
who gave blacks their due.

When Porgy and Bess was completed,
Gershwin stipulated
that it be performed by blacks,
and not in „blackface,“
thus dashing Al Jolson’s plans
to use it as a vehicle for himself
and turn it into a novelty.

That helped
put an end to blackface.
There’d be no more
taking off the color
in dressing rooms
after the show.

Jolson faded away
and Eddie Canter
had to can the black paint.

Blacks were doing
their own thing,
and audiences wanted to see and hear
the real McCoy.

In his last year
Gershwin wrote the score
for an Astaire-Rogers musical
Shall we Dance
and for an Astaire musical
Damsel in Distress
in which the great dancer
does a dance
with a set of drums
as a substitute for missing Ginger.

Fred was the interpreter
of the Thirties for Gershwin songs,
as well as for those of Porter, Kern,
Berlin and many others
and as far as dancing is concerned,
and did anyone come closer to flying
than he and Ginger?

Gershwin songs like
Lady Be Good and I Got Rhythm,
in addition to brightening
films and musicals,
are among the mainstay
of jazz bands and groups.

Gershwin died at the peak
of his creative powers.
What he could have done
had he been able to go on
remains in the field of fantasy.

There was never to be
an old George Gershwin;
there will always be
a young George Gershwin.

– Herbert Kuhner

George Gershwin

 

-Harry`s Film Impressions (4)

von am 9. November 2018 um 13:14
Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein, Satire, Text

A Princess

There was a beautiful princess who went to Hollywood and became the most elegant and attractive actress in the history of cinema. She acted well in every film she was in and each one was a box office success. You could say that she had a dream career.

Photo by SSPL/Getty Images

In her mid-twenties, the princess decided that it was time to wed. She found an eligible prince, who however was not a prince in the same sense that she was a princess. They tied the knot, making her a genuine princess. That was the end of her film career and the beginning of matron-hood. It was as if a fairy godmother had waved her wand over the princess, but the wand was a wand in reverse. It did not provide magic, but rather removed it.

She was more of a princess before she became a princess. The sparkle in the eyes disappeared and her beauty rapidly faded. She played her new rule well, but it was the least exciting of all her roles. It was a role that she would play until her death.

The moral of this story is that being a tinsel-town princess beats being a real princess.

 

Cinema Beauties of the Fifties

In the staid Fifties you had Marilyn Monroe, who was naughty, albeit naughty but nice. Then you had the clones who were also blonde and just plain vulgar. They never caught on.

June Allyson

On the other end of the spectrum were the wholesome, nice-girl-cum-wifey types. They were personified by such stellar paradigms as Debbie Reynolds, June Allyson, and Jane Powell.

You also had Shirley MacLaine the buddy-type who you went to ballgames with. At the time, she played doxies and virgins so that they were indiscernible. (Years later she successfully assayed character roles.)

Then you had that freckle-faced girl next door with the mellow voice, Doris Day. Unfortunately, she gave up musicals to become a straight-laced, ramrod-postured middle-aged virgin in very unfunny comedies. Her cinema virginity was the Hollywood joke of the time. Oscar Levant quipped, “I knew her before she was a virgin.”

So in those days, sex was out – save the unsavory nude-calendar kind. That depiction merely served as inspiration for daydreaming or more active matters of fantasy. The marriage bed was a frilly repose where the act sometimes took place away from public conjuncture, and did indeed often have an antiseptic aura to it.

On the other hand, today’s preoccupation with distasteful provocation can only result in a cold shower.

Ah, those good old days!

 

Ideal Husbands and Film Nepotism

Let me start by saying that I am a fan of Orson Welles and Welles’ situations always come up in my work.

Welles could never again match the discipline that is apparent in his famous Citizen Film.

In Touch of Evil, Marlene Dietrich tells Orson’s corrupt cop, “You’re a mess, baby.” That comment became a famous quote and dogged Orson for the rest of his life.

In Mr. Arkadin Welles made a mess. Welles assessed the film as “a flawed masterpiece…a disaster,” actually a contradiction in terms.

Mercury-Player Joseph Cotten, installed his wife Patricia Medina in Arkadin. Mrs. Cotten was a B-film actress who bestowed a B-film aura to any film she appeared in.

(Charles Bronson carried on the tradition by stipulating that Jill Ireland’s name be inserted in every film contract. Mrs. Bronson was a desirable, sloe-eyed beauty, but her acting left a lot to be desired. Cotten and Bronson may have been ideal husbands, but they were guilty of film nepotism in the first degree.)

 

Encounter with Hitch

Carol and I were in both Quebec in 1952 while Alfred Hitchcock was shooting I Confess with Montgomery Clift and Ann Baxter. Although Carol and I were there at the same time, we had not yet met. Later she would tell me about her encounter with Hitchcock.

Quebec is the most European city on the American continent and perhaps even in Europe.

As I film buff, I saw all of Hitchcock’s films, although I must say I was never really a fan.
I found the plots a bit on the banal side, although I had to admit certain sequences were well-filmed.

Hitch cock had trouble with Clift since he often insisted on having certain scenes explained instead of just doing what the director directed.

This irritated Hitchcock and inspired him to declare: “All actors are cattle.”

One night when we were together, Carole said that she had dinner Le Panache, she saw Hitchcock sitting at another table with what was obviously a film team. She could not help staring. Suddenly he placed his napkin on the table, got up and approached her and said: “Young lady, if you were as ugly as I am, people would stare at you.”

Guess the great director was not the nicest of men.

 

Alfred Hitchcock

 

to be continued . . .

– Herbert Kuhner