Film Pairings — One Man’s Poison And A Plague On your City, All In One Night

So many films, watched years after they’re first released, don’t hold up.  On the positive side, some, not so happily welcomed at the time, look pretty good today.  D.O.A. and Panic in the Streets seem to have bested the test of time and of some its original reviews.

Few plots could be more compelling than this one that unfolds in just 83 minutes of D.O.A.  A man discovers he’s been murdered. He just isn’t dead yet. He only has 48 hours to discover who poisoned him and why. Fundamentally a fine supporting actor, Edmond O’Brien takes over the screen. It is the signature role of his career. D.O.A., in shadowy black and white, is fast-paced and tense. There are glimpses of 1950 San Francisco and Los Angeles and a Studebaker Commander convertible (Okay, that was a personal thrill). D.O.A. is a must-see for noir fans, especially for Ernest Laszlo’s brilliant camerawork.

Panic in the Streets is less single-minded. But similarly, a public health officer must find carriers of the plague and do so despite bureaucratic and criminal attempts to stop him.  Like O’Brien, The official, Richard Widmark, has a 48-hour deadline. Widmark does a great job, and he is surrounded by an extraordinary cast probably more accustomed to a Broadway stage. Director Elia Kazan brought in Barbara Bel Geddes. Paul Douglas, Jack Palance and Zero Mostel.  Panic in The Streets, also released in 1950, was filmed in New Orleans and used many of the locals in smaller roles to add authenticity — and they did.  Also, the stunning cinematography of Joseph MacDonald created a gritty realism

Whatever you drink for this wonderfully moody double feature should be consumed straight. However, make sure it hasn’t been spiked with a luminous toxin or prepared by someone with a body temperature above 104.

Film Pairing — Joan Crawford, Ready For Her Close-Ups And Ready For Murder

Using the vernacular of the times, Joan Crawford was a “tough broad,” and she usually played one. In both Mildred Pierce (1945) and in Sudden Fear (1952) she had the opportunity to reveal her ability to portray characters of a little more emotional depth.  She won an Academy Award for the title role in Mildred Pierce and received another nomination for her principal role in Sudden Fear.

Mildred Pierce was revived with a new production on Cable to high acclaim and is just one of many movies made from books by James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity among them).  The original b&w classic was directed by Michael Curtiz, who also did Casablanca.  William Faulkner reportedly contributed to the screenplay.  With Academy Award winning cinematographer Ernest Haller, who picks up great backdrops in Los Angeles (Pasadena and Santa Monica), behind the lens, there’s plenty of talent putting this classic altogether.

Mildred’s daughter, played by Ann Blyth, wants the good life.  She is ashamed of her mother’s lowly beginnings and prompts Crawford’s character to seek wealth and status by nearly any means to please her daughter’s ambition. Blyth is outstanding as the heartless, manipulative girl with the innocent façade.  She and Eve Arden were both deservedly nominated for Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards. Jack Carson plays a sleazy business partner and Zachary Scott is the slippery gigolo who gets it in the end and very much in the beginning.

My favorite of the two is Sudden Fear.  We spend most of this movie in San Francisco with Jack Palance trying to live off an extremely wealthy widow.  Joan Crawford plays the widow who is also an immensely popular playwright.  Palance is an actor who was 86’d from Crawford’s new play and is determined to get revenge — killing with kindness. Crawford is taken in by the romantic overtures, but by accident discovers that Palance and his criminally inspired girlfriend (noir’s standard bad girl, Gloria Grahame) want to do her in.  Hence, Sudden Fear.  But Crawford’s character is no pushover, and life and death become a bit more complicated for everyone. Like Mildred Pierce, Sudden Fear was nominated for a number of Awards including Academy nominations for Palance, costume design and cinematography — great work by Charles Lang, Jr.

My recommendation for drinks this drizzly cinematic evening is keeping is simple.  A fine whiskey, not the cheap stuff, goes well with the hard-drinking roles played by Crawford and her worldly friends.

Film Pairing — The Lodgers — Laird Cregar, Jack Palance, Simon Baker

Marie Belloc Lowndes wrote a book in 1913 about Jack the Ripper called The Lodger.  It has been made into a movie a number of times, including the very first as a silent film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926 and later made with sound in 1932.  In slightly more modern times, there are three films that use the book, two of them surprisingly faithfully, as the basis for cinema drama. 

Incidentally, there have been other Ripper movies about or allude to the notorious throat slasher, but the following are based on Lowndes’ classic version of the story.

The Lodger (1944).  I think this is the classic version.  And it boasts a more renowned set of actors.  Laird Cregar plays the Ripper, building the monstrous madness of his character, step by step, until the riveting end.  There are subtle suggestions of love and incest as well as a kind of Biblical madness, carefully and brilliantly hinted at in Cregar’s portrayal. The cast, plucked from the best of the 1940s actors, also includes Merle Oberon, George Sanders and the fine Sir Cedric Hardwicke.  We are definitely dealing with gothic horror and the first glimpses of psycho-sexual aberration as a plot device.  The cinematography by Lucien Ballard and the direction by John Brahm create an eerie environment for the story to unfold.  The suggestion at the very end may, though we know very little, seems to be at odds with what we do know about the real “Jack the Ripper.”

Man in the Attic (1953). We are returned to London of the late 1800s, cobblestone streets winding through darkness only slightly lit by gas lamps, with sets and scenes almost directly lifted from the 1944 film.  While the Man in the Attic isn’t poorly done, it’s difficult to figure out why they made it.  It’s nearly identical — and the first is very well done. There are some shifts.  One is the final horse and buggy chase through the damp streets to the dark waters.  But the main difference is the choice of actors to portray the Ripper. In this one the strange, new lodger is Jack Palance.  Criminally insane is written all over Palance’s face from the start, but then it always is. It was also fun to see Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee) in a significant role in the film. Constance Smith as the female lead is effective and may have been more charming than Merle Oberon.

The Lodger (2009). I liked this, but there were a number of people who get paid for their opinions who didn’t.  In this version, liberties were obviously taken.  The time is now, and the place is Los Angeles.  We are also drawn into two subplots not part of the original story line.  While we are still trying to trap the murderer, we are drawn into the serious relationship problems between the possibly mentally unbalanced landlady and her suspiciously disappearing husband.  Additionally we are compelled to deal with the investigating detective’s troubled private life.   Both of these plots may create mystery as well as horror. Certainly these sublplots were not part of the earlier films, but they do provide an interesting twist at the end.  I’ve always appreciated Simon Baker’s low-key acting.  As the lodger, he is far less the obvious psychopath.  Alfred Molina does his usual fine job of being interesting while not being particularly likable. It works here. Lots of darkness, rain and blood.  Some artistically jumpy camera moves.  Hope Davis does a fine job in the complex role of the landlady.  Perfect film for a rainy night at home.

I think that all three in one evening is way too much.  Choose two.  If it were up to me, I’d choose the 1944 and the 2009 versions, unless you particularly enjoy seeing the same dialogue delivered by a different set of actors.  With regard to what we imbibe during an evening of throat-cutting, my guess is start with Guinness and finish with a hot toddy. 

Film Pairing — The Fame Game, The Seamier Sides of Hollywood and Broadway

When I watched the two films I’m recommending I was trying to find a couple of the great old black and white films with tough guys, dark alleys, the kind of 50’s comic-book crime films that were comforting in their predictability and provide a little escape from reality. Sometimes I’m just in the mood for the mood. Sometimes, though, I’m fooled. The description or the movie poster doesn’t really get it right.

This was especially true of The Big Knife. The name said that its going to be a rough ‘em up black and white film. After all, it starred Jack Palance and Ida Lupino. That’s not what happened. What I found was a story that was a little larger in scope than what I expected and incredibly better written. The Sweet Smell of Success came highly recommended by another mystery writer and I found it to be the movie he said it was. And, as it turned out, the two were a perfect match. But it wasn’t until I did a little further research that I understood the relationship one had with the other.

Both The Big Knife (1955), an adaptation of a Broadway play, and Sweet Smell of Success (1957) were based on the words of American playwright Clifford Odets. He didn’t have kind things to say about what went on beneath the surface of the great white way and behind the private gates of Hollywood.

The Big Knife tells the story of a popular film actor whose dark secret was covered up by studio big shots, essentially saving his career and a lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. The actor, who always portrays the strong, principled hero, must pay the price, however. And the price is his freedom. He is now just another studio puppet, a rich one, but a puppet nonetheless. He is neither the man he portrays on screen nor the man he used to be. The cast is stellar. In addition to Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, who played against type, there was Wendell Corey, Rod Steiger, Miss Shelley Winters (as she was uniquely designated in the credits), Jean Hagen and Everett Sloane. The action all takes place inside the actor’s luxurious Beverly Hills home, revealing the film’s theatrical roots.

If The Big Knife is good — and it is — The Sweet Smell of Success is better. Minus the touch of melodrama that affected The Big Knife, this film exposes a nasty, overbearing New York gossip columnist who could make or break a celebrity’s career and a Gollum-styled agent who would do anything to get his clients in the papers. The two combine to control the life of the columnist’s younger sister — for her own good, of course. Burt Lancaster masterfully undertakes the role that at least spoke to the kind of power real-life columnists like Walter Winchell held over the lives of others. The late Tony Curtisplayed the slimy agent, showing anyone who might have doubted it that Curtis was an actor of the first order. Martin Milner played the object of cold-blooded, malicious rumor.

The two films, together, provide a glimpse at the underbelly of the entertainment world. Broadway and Hollywood are, in many ways it seems, not so different or at least weren’t so different in the mid fifties.

The evening demands cocktails. This is the sophisticated 1950s. Rum and Coke for the ingénues and Martinis for the tough-minded. Most of us probably fall somewhere in between