Olivia is 100

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Maureen O'Hara (1920-2015)

She had the reddest hair in Hollywood, often shot in gorgeous Technicolor, and I think I was aware of her since I saw "Against All Flags" as a very young boy. She was fun to watch. Other films only reinforced that: "The Quiet Man" (which I caught a glimpse of a few hours her death was announced), "The Parent Trap", "The Black Swan". Fiery and funny, she conquered her place in my love of film.

While I didn't like "How Green Was My Valley" (nor do I want to revisit it any time soon), she was also great in a minor Nicholas Ray "A Woman's Secret" with Melvyn Douglas and Gloria Grahame and "Our Man in Havana".

I don't think I have seen as many of her films as I thought I have (the above, "The Spanish Main", "Miracle on 34th Street", "The Hutchback of Notre Dame"). But in all of those she was unforgettable.

She never got an Oscar nomination but finally got a Life Achievement Award last year - aged 94. I am glad she got it on time.

Practically Yours (1944)

As I (finally) watched this, my only thought was "well, you wanted to see it".

I had high expectations, which were unlikely to be met, but at the very least I was expecting to enjoy it:  I love Claudette Colbert and like Fred MacMurray, the two leads, and I think Mitchell Leisen is one of the most underrated directors of the 1930s and 1940s. The three together produced an unusual 1940s comedy which I liked very much. So how could the follow-up be anything if not entertaining? From that opening line go, you can guess that I wasn't particularly impressed with the film. And not for the reasons that MacMurray mentioned somewhere (that they were too old, which is actually irrelevant for this story). No, the problem is that the premise isn't in the right tone and the plot is badly constructed.

The premise is that a pilot about to embark on a suicide mission says he'll miss Peggy the most in his farewell message. Except he didn't say Peggy (a former co-worker) but Piggy (his dog). This would have worked wonderfully in another context than a suicide mission during WWII and filmed straight (as it should). As he survives, the mistake needs to be upheld to the obvious conclusion. The problem is that we are expected to move from serious (and real) drama to light romance (and back again a few times). This is never an easy change in key and not Norman Krasna (the writer), not Leisen nor the actors manages to do so. And as the key keeps changing, we go from MacMurray's female pursuits to serious war concerns back to romance. You would need a better script, better motivated actors and more inspired director to do it.

If the wrong tone can be ascribed to everyone, Krasna is the sole responsible for the bad plot. Following a clear (and perhaps forced) three-act structure, implausibility sinks in when the two leads, allegedly in love, are never left alone for the whole of Act I. At this stage, the truth comes out and for the sake of war effort, they decide to continue with the deception. The plot is further contrived by the fact that they are "invited" to spend his two week leave in a house of a millionaire who decides he can meddle in other people's affairs and treating them as children (locking a door?!). By the end of Act II there has been way too much fuss about sleeping bags and other nonsense, but there was a decent, even amusing, Act III (with even a dig at twin beds).

The cast is painfully underused. Colbert's part is very one-dimensional, and her performance lacks any spark, only allowing some rather welcome mischief in the last third. This was her last film for Paramount, and by golly, it shows it was an obligation. MacMurray is wrong for the part and probably lacked any interest to do something with it, as around this time he was showing he could actually act in Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity". And there is a major problem in the architecture of 1940s romantic comedies. The de facto lead was always the woman. A few exceptions apply, as usual. Here the female lead is reduced to a cardboard figure, and MacMurray carries the film through the first hour. Or rather doesn't. Ray Milland, who usually got the not so wholesome leading ladies' leading men parts at Paramount would have been a better choice. Because the part is less than wholesome for the first two acts, and at times could be a young Sheldrake, his part in Wilder's "The Apartment".

This is the weakest of all Leisen's films I have seen (although I stopped "The Lady is Willing" because I thought it was atrocious) and second weakest of the seven Colbert/MacMurray pairings. I am glad to have seen it - I would have been very frustrated otherwise - but not something I intend to do again.

Lauren Bacall (1924-2014)

She was discovered by Hawks, met Bogart and became a legend. And that was only her first film.

But a 70 year career is often reduced to four years and four films made at its very beginning  is over simplistic (actually, usually only two or three - no one ever remembers "Dark Passage", sometimes probably not even "Key Largo"). As is to focus on her status as a fashion icon, on "The Look" or her looks (and by the way, she still looked amazing in her last public appearances). Bacall was much more interesting both off and on screen. I will focus on the second. This was a woman that worked both in Hollywood's Golden Age and in 21st Century arthouse. She was directed by Hawks, Minnelli and Sirk. But she was also directed by Lars von Trier and Jonathan Glazer.

And while an icon of Hollywood, she did surprisingly little film work during the Golden Age, just over a dozen films between 1944 and 1960. But she certainly knew how to pick them. In the early 1950s she played a lesbian in Curtiz's "Young Man with a Horn"(*), stealing the film from under Kirk Douglas and Doris Day's feet, and a romantic gold digger in the Cinemascope delight that is "How to Marry a Millionaire". As the decade moved on, she starrred in "Written in the Wind" for Sirk and "The Cobweb" and "Designing Woman" for Minnelli. The latter is one of her most memorable performances, in a opposites attract romantic comedy with Gregory Peck. She also played Elvira in a rarely seen TV adaptation of Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit".

For the next couple of decades she worked on television and theatre and her film work was in waves, but included a supporting role in a guilty pleasure of mine ("Sex and the Single Girl"), the leading lady in John Wayne's last film and a scene stealing performance in "Murder in the Orient Express".

In 1996, she ran away with "The Mirror Has Two Faces", her only Oscar nomination (which she lost unexpectedly to Juliette Binoche). In 2009, she finally got an special achievement award - but  then she got the limelight slightly stolen, as it was the first year where special Oscars were presented separately.

Yes, she taught Bogart how to whistle, but she did so much more than that.

(*) Until her death, "Young Man with a Horn" was likely to have been the oldest film with all leads still alive.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

I have no idea how many times I have watched "The Philadelphia Story". Three at least, very likely more. I remember for a while it being my most wanted in my "must watch" list, the high expectations and the deception it followed. I really didn't like it. I found it flat. None of the subsequent viewings (on TV/VHS/DVD) changed it. However, watching it at the cinema I fell for it and realised how good it is. But I am wondering what changed. Did I become more agreeable to the film with age? Or watching a nice print at the cinema made a difference? Or possibly both.

Based on a play by Philip Barry, "The Philadelphia Story" was directed by George Cukor and starred Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant (in their last film together) and James Stewart. It's a story of woman having to choose between three men while finding out that the flaws in oneself are what make us human and life worth living. It's also funny and at moments, very tender. The film also has an interesting backstory, with Hepburn (for whom the play was written) outsmarting Hollywood and ensuring the film was done on her terms, and in the process relaunching her career.

One of the things I noticed for the first time is how little Cary Grant (top billed) appears - or is perceived to appear - compared to James Stewart. Both are good, and Stewart got an Oscar for this (or as most people see it, a delayed one for "Mr Smith goes to Washington"). They both play well against each other, particularly in a key scene after the party in Grant's house: Stewart does a very good drunk, with Grant playing his straight man. Grant's character is actually the most interesting one to me, because he is the one that reveals the least. He is smart and aware. He is loyal to his ex-wife and clearly is in love with her, but we know very little more. But what's special is that this is not because he is underwritten but because he is a fully rounded character, acting consistently but choosing to do more than hint at his thoughts.

Another character the films gets extraordinarily well is Ruth Hussey's photographer. Her character shows an unusual maturity, almost modern, for 1940s films, waiting quietly for the right time to show her feelings (which technically she never really does, as I don't think she thinks the time was right). This was Hussey's career high and she got an Oscar nomination out of it, losing to Jane Darwell for "The Grapes of Wrath".

But the film belongs to Katharine Hepburn. She's is the focus of your attention despite the fact the film is constructed around her. Yet, she's never showy and delivers her character's transformation from self-righteous goddess to human being in a organic way. The final scenes are among her finest screen moments, particularly when she relinquishes one of her two men. She also looks amazing, exactly like one the many drawings Hirschfeld did of her.

Of course the film is not without faults. Virginia Weidler's performance hasn't aged well (or it could be that I never liked her in any of her films... I vaguely remember her being particularly annoying in "All this, and Heaven too"). The subplot with the father made me cringe: blaming the daughter's lack of devotion for his affairs?! This is probably the greatest plausibility
hole in Philip Barry's play and David Odgen Stewart's Oscar winning script.

Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)

The second most famous child actor of the 1930s and one of the most memorable presences in film. My favourite role is as the young Clark Gable in "Manhattan Melodrama". But that is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg.

I Married a Witch (1942)

Veronica Lake is a strange one in Hollywood stardom. She had an iconic hairstyle which propelled her to stardom. She was in a few movies ("Sullivan's Travels", the Alan Ladd noirs) which have endured well, and partly because of this, she has a reasonable cult following. What she didn't have was a wide range in her acting skills, and in René Clair's "I Married a Witch" she is absolutely dreadful - and I am aware I am in a minority here.

Actually the whole film is somewhat odd, on and off screen. Produced by Paramount, it was sold by the studio to United Artists when Paramount had a surplus of films and UA not enough. Assuming the film was sold after Lake's peekaboo hair made its first screen appearance (I have no evidence for making this assumption), Paramount only would have sold it either they thought the film was a sure hit and a lot of money passed hands or if the studio had little faith in the film and disposed of it as quickly as it could. I have to say that with the film as the only evidence, I am inclined for the second option.

The film tells the story of a witch falling in love and marrying a man (Fredric March) whose family condemned her to burn centuries before. It is perhaps better known as one of the inspirations of the TV series "Bewitched". Originally set to be produced by Preston Sturges and starring Joel McCrea, that might have resulted in a better film, as March and Lake famously didn't get along. This occasionally shows - Lake lacks the catlike playfulness she should have had while seducing him (I keep thinking what Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard or Irene Dunne could have done with it). Only at the very end of the film (when she sorts things out), was I happy with her performance.

Of course, the film fails elsewhere and I am not blaming Lake for it all. March is best described as competent here (and he could so much better) and the film takes a while to gather pace, with the first half dragging a bit. It does improve in the second half, particularly in the wedding scenes and the build-up to the climax. I also loved the epilogue (possibly the most Paramount-like moment of the whole film). The supporting cast, particularly a young Susan Hayward as the always nagging fiancée, is very good. She also would also have been a good choice for the lead. Oh, and the posters are great (and Lake does look very good indeed).

Family Honeymoon (1948)

"Family Honeymoon" is the last pairing of Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. And of the six I have seen (I am missing the elusive "Practically Yours"), it is the dullest and most uninspired. It is also the most reactionary, even if it starts off with a good premise. A widow with three children is to marry an academic. However, the kids babysitter (her spinster sister) breaks her leg and is unable to manage the kids who tag along on the honeymoon.

Up to the end of WWII, marriage meant the couple was finally allowed to have sex (e.g. Minnelli's "The Clock"). This meant that the film (and its leads) could, particularly in comedy, increase and escalate tension with the audience knowing that at the end there would be some release (yes, I know awful pun). Whereas here the children are the excuse to keep everything censor friendly. Colbert dexterously avoids any move from MacMurray; one scene has her giving a stern look, completely emasculating him: MacMurray is an an absent minded professor who is not will not be rewarded until he ascertains his masculinity over an over feminine Colbert, who seems to have failed to notice her children are unruly until she looses her man - the double implication that a) a woman can't raise children without a man and b) a woman needs a man to guide her to life. These are lazy post-war Hollywood stereotypes at their worst.

The plot is also full of preposterous incidents (a mother not paying attention to their kids at a train stop?!) and a predatory woman (Rita Johnson, failing to do what Gail Patrick could do so well) to keep the story moving to its 90th minute. This latter point is actually extraordinarily annoying, as it passes all possible suspension of disbelief, with Johnson's character too eager to disrupt the honeymoon. Although I must confess that the party sequence at the end was a slight improvement over the rest of the film.

Neither Colbert or MacMurray do more than the bare minimum and I would suggest that all they thought of was the pay check, and honestly I can't blame them. Hattie McDaniel has a small role, just a bit more than a cameo, and looks very ill in what was one of her last film roles. Only Lilian Bronson as Colbert's sister manages to make something interesting of what is an disappointing
farewell of one of my favourite actor pairings of old Hollywood.

Shirley Temple (1928-2014)

The most famous child film star of all time. No two ways about it.

Juanita Moore (1922-2014)

Oscar nominated for "Imitation for Life", I recently saw one of her (uncredited) performances in "A Child is Waiting".

A fine actress, whose skin colour prevented her go as far as her talent would have let her.

PS - She may have been born in 1914, but that date seems to have been mentioned only in obituaries.

Joan Fontaine (1917-2013)

Joan Fontaine was one of the last true stars from classic Hollywood left. From memory, and excluding child stars (e.g. Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney), the only ones left are Fontaine's sister, Olivia de Havilland, Maureen O'Hara, Angela Lansbury and Luise Rainer. (EDIT: As Judy mentioned in the comments, I forgot a few: Lauren Bacall, Kirk Douglas, Sidney Poitier and Doris Day.)

While her career dwindled after the mid-1960s, she left, mostly in the 1940s, a strong string of performances for which she is deservedly remembered. She went from minor role into minor role (most of which I don't think I have ever seen) in the 1930s until Cukor's "The Women" which was followed by her breakout and unforgettable performance as the second Mrs DeWinter in Hitchcock's "Rebecca". This film brought her recognition but also typecasted her as the suffering virginal damsel. She did this very well in the 1940s, in films that I love - "Suspicion", Ophüls' "Letter from an Unknown Woman" - and films that I don't  - "Jane Eyre", "The Constant Nymph". The one exception was "Frenchman's Creek", where (to quote my post) she was "not the Joan Fontaine Hitchcock and Ophüls showed the world, [she was] something else. Something much, much sexier." If I have to chose one performance other than "Rebecca" this would be it.

As the 1940s turned into the 1950s, despite an unforgettable performance in the Ophüls film, she found her limelight stolen by dogs (in Wilder's "The Emperor Waltz") or younger actresses (such as Elizabeth Taylor in "Ivanhoe"). She also did very well in a couple of darker roles, for instance in Nicholas Ray's "Born to Be Bad" (she makes the film watchable on her own) and more ambiguously in Lang's "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt". After that her roles became fewer and far between.

She got an Oscar for "Suspicion", which really should have been for "Rebecca"  (she lost to Ginger Rogers), making it the only performance in a Hitchcock film to win the award.  She was also nominated for "The Constant Nymph", which I find beyond my understanding.

Note: I have added a proper text to this post, which I didn't have a chance when the news first broke.

My thoughts on "The Constant Nymph" and "Frenchman's Creek".

Angela Lansbury's Oscar

She was nominated three times, for "Gaslight", "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "The Manchurian Candidate". She should have got it for the latter.

But at long last, she finally got an Oscar.

Daisy Kenyon (1947)

When I first saw "Daisy Kenyon" I was absolutely taken aback. I thought it was one of the most emotionally true and adult films Hollywood produced in the 1940s. On a second viewing, while I still agree with that, particularly during the film's second half, I was much less taken aback and start noticing things I missed or forgot from the first time around.

Otto Preminger's "Daisy Kenyon" is among many things a film about how good timing is an essential part of relationships. Daisy Kenyon (Joan Crawford) is a designer desiluded with her affair with a married man (Dana Andrews) when she meets war veteran (Henry Fonda) who proposes to her.

Among the things I liked about the film is Preminger usual pushing the envelope. The film touches subjects such as post-traumatic stress disorder; a mother using children at instruments to get back at their father; the plight of Japanese-Americans after World War II; and in a sense the maturity of the affair (Fonda's character acts like a normal human being). The cast is excellent. Joan Crawford gives one of her best performances, rid of some of her mannerisms, and Dana Andrews surprised  me tremendously. There a few moments who keep coming to mind, particularly his last scene. But the best, I think, is his reaction when Crawford tells him she has married Fonda. It is very subtle and really well done.

Yet, the film is unbalanced with something not quite right. Sometimes this is obvious: towards the end, Joan Crawford uses the most innapropriate shoes to get into the snow. Unrealistic touches like this are usually more evident in an otherwise realistic film. Sometimes it takes a bit of thinking to figure it out - while on the surface, the film seems to question till the end which man will end with Daisy, it's actually obvious, not just by the rules of the Hays Code but in more less obvious ways (there is a lot of rain whenever one of them is on screen).

No Time for Love (1943)

Mitchell Leisen's "No Time for Love", starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray is a slightly unusual romantic comedy of the 1940s. The key element that makes it different is its sexual politics, by how obviously it states that the attraction of its two leads is sexual, not romantic. This is highlighted by the fact that it is a socially unequal pairing (i.e. not a match of minds); he is a construction worker, she's a sophisticated photographer. This social inequality is a theme recurrent in Leisen's comedies of the early 40s, particularly "Take a Letter, Darling". Moreover, the audience's point of view (this being 1943 was expected to be mostly female) is Colbert's and Fred MacMurray is treated, from the first time we see him, as a sex object (shirtless and sweaty, see also his terrible portrait in a poster below).

In fact, the whole film works around this. Having seen him, and felt attracted to him, Colbert is unable to forget him (or stop lusting after him). When she inadvertently causes him to be suspended from his job; she offers him a temporary one, hoping (?) that spending time with him will cure her from her "problem". The film objectifies him as a masculine object of desire even further by pairing Colbert at the start with a man who isn't terribly different from her gay friends (something the film also doesn't shy from). And it is sexual jealousy they both feel, not a romantic one: she, when he has sex with the dancer; he, when feels less masculine than the model she's photographing.

(Slight spoilers ahead:) Perhaps feeling that all this was too overt, the characters' social differences are toned down slightly (turns out he's an engineer, not a worker - just doing the job of one for macguffin reasons), but by the time her most present (and hungry) gay friend joins them up, sex has resurfaced (their exit from scene and her last line should be enough). But, in difference to what would happen later in the decade, none conceded to the other. This is still a union of equals.

Both leads are great, Colbert exuding her usual charm and MacMurray giving one of his best comedic performances. It's also one of their best pairings. I also had a soft spot for Ilka Chase and Richard Haydn as Colbert's sister and aforementioned friend.

Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray worked together in seven films. Six are available on DVD. The one missing is their second outing directed by Mitchell Leisen, "Practically Yours" which I would like very much to watch. Last screening I know of was in 2008, in Paris. But my bigger question is why was it missed from a boxset collecting some of their films?

Kitty (1945)

Mitchell Leisen's "Kitty" is the story of a woman from the London slums in the 18th Century who, with the guidance of an unscrupulous and bankrupt nobleman, raises to the top of society. Think of an amoral "Pygmalion" and you won't be too far off. Paulette Goddard is the Galatea, Ray Milland is Pygmalion.

Mitchell Leisen's work has, I think, long be neglected for reasons which I have discussed before. I personally think that this is unfair, and he is actually a good director, whose work might even satisfy some aspects of the auteur (the theme of masquarades, of people pretending they are who they're not). His  comedies of the late 1930s and early 1940s owe a lot to its writers (Wilder and Sturges) it is obvious, but what about the others they didn't write (e.g. "No Time for Love")? In a sense, he is as much as Wilder and Sturges, one of the heirs of Lubitsch. And his melodramas are equally fine. "Kitty" is somewhere between the two groups, more dramatic than comedy, but with good comic relief by Constance Collier and Reginald Owen.

This is not a perfect film (and spoilers ahead). One main issue is that Ray Milland's character is too base and devoided of any good quality to justify Kitty's love or for me to believe in his redemption. Although I did buy his arrogance really well. Furthermore, attempting to put her down before her fiancé as a way of earning her heart is really not a good idea: either dramatically or in real life. This is exactly the same problem I had in Leisen's "Lady in the Dark" and it is a pity he didn't address it any better here (sometimes I wonder if someone at Paramount simply gave Fred McMurray all nice leading man and Ray Milland all the unpleasant ones). Another major flaw in the film the time scale: Kitty's education seems to last longer than her first marriage, and in a time where appearances were all, she has no morning period - I could just about buy this when she marries the duke because his social standing would just about allow it, but not the second time. Both these problems are in part the way Leisen deals with them, but also easy wait out for lazy writers.

On the other hand, Paulette Goddard is really good as the social climber with a heart. Her characterisation is really well done, with incremental steps up the social ladder. And then there's the brilliant moment when her beads (pearls?) fall over the floor. And so is most of the cast. I particularly liked Constance Collier as Milland's drunken aunt, Eric Blore as her servant and particularly, Cecil Kellaway as Thomas Gainsborough. The film seems to have more respect for historical authenticity than most at the time. More important, it is an entertaining film, even if it is one I shan't remember terribly well in a few months.

The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947)

First, there is Bernard Herrmann's gorgeous score. If nothing else, I could watch this film for one of the most beautiful, romantic and entrancing scores ever composed for a film. With "Vertigo" and "Psycho", it is one of Herrmann's masterpieces. Watching the film again, I realised how much of the film's magic it is due to its music.

I say magic, and really don't use the word lightly. This arguably one of the finest, most beautiful and certainly one of the loveliest films ever produced in Hollywood. I am left wondering if there is anything wrong with it - which probably there is, as nothing is perfect; but right now I am still basking on this feeling of falling in love all over again. Like love, I can't explain it all, but I will do my best.

I first came to this film in a screening in 1999 at the Portuguese Cinematheque, where has been regularly screened, as it was one of its late director favourite films. I have seen it a few times over the years (although not lately), shared it once with a friend in Bristol on a faulty DVD and had a few misses as well, chiefly missing a screening during a weekend in Paris cause I got ill.

It was directed (but not written) by Joe Mankiewicz, who brings an atypical balance of comedy, romance and other-worldliness. It is funny and touching, but you wouldn't describe it as a romantic comedy (although it might have been one if it had been filmed ten years earlier). This is a story of a young widow (Gene Tierney), who in search of independence from her nagging in-laws ends in a cottage by the sea in turn of the century England. In this cottage, she finds a ghost of the previous owner (Rex Harrison) who helps her find her independence, both financially and as an individual. George Sanders completes the leads and a very young Natalie Wood plays Tierney's daughter.

Tierney is perfect. I really can't find another word for her performance. As good as she was in "Laura" and "Leave Her to Heaven", she is even better here. She refuses to let Mrs Muir to be an object of pity, instead showing the character's strength and making you fall her over and over again. She also has the help of two fine actors - Harrison and Sanders - as the two men of her life; one alive (Sanders) and one dead or imagined (Harrison); with Harrison giving a career high performance in my opinion (with a confidence on screen that was lacking in some of his earlier British films). All three actors are actually key in Mankiewicz oeuvre; if Tierney has her summit here, Harrison would achieve it in "Cleopatra" and Sanders as the unforgettable Adison DeWitt in "All About Eve".

Charles Lang got an Oscar nomination for best Black and White cinematography. The only one that film got. Not one for Tierney, not one for Herrmann. Didn't they hear how wonderful it was? Every time I hear it, it transports me back to that cottage by the sea, surrounded by fog, and in it, a young widow is waiting for the ghost of a captain. And I'll fall in love all over again.

A Foreign Affair (1948)

In post-war Berlin, an US captain (John Lund) is having an affair with a German singer with a nebulous past (Marlene Dietrich). All is going well until the arrival of a delegation of Congressmen and particularly one Congresswoman (Jean Arthur), who thinks her main task is rid the US army of any improper behaviour.

Wilder's film, is often uneven, dragging a bit in the middle, despite a typical sharp Wilderean start (sharp dialogue, misbehaving characters, etc.) and some very good scenes towards the end. It is mostly a Old World vs New World motif, with neither coming out brilliantly, nor entirely tarnished. Representing both sides are the two women, the prudish US Congresswoman Phoebe Frost (the pun with the name is a bit too obvious for my liking) and resourceful, survivor, (ex-?) Nazi Erika von Schlülow. The prize is, on the surface, a man, only it's not really. It is more of a clash of cultures of identities, and the winner will be the dominant culture: the film mirroring the US taking over Europe as the leading world reference. As an Jewish emigré, Wilder was certainly very aware of this. Besides, as the end shows (and minor spoiler here), Dietrich's character is less concerned about him than she is about her future.

Wilder co-wrote the script with Charles Brackett (as usual, until after "Sunset Blvd."), with Richard L. Breen also credited. Annoyingly there is one major fault with it. Arthur's character is drawn or played too broadly for gags as a prudish and self-rightous nuisance in the beginning and later, as she's intended to become more sympathetic the film suffers from it. Jean Arthur's character grows as she leaves her bubble and sees the world, but I really never cared for her. It is also possible that she had already lost interest in acting (or that her wrinkles were too visible). This was her first film in four years, and she would only return once more five years later for "Shane". Dietrich's character on the other hand is much better written. Yes, she was (is?) a Nazi, but she has also experienced the war at its fulllest and become adept at survival. There are some very dark hints at what happened when the Soviet army arrived in Berlin. There is some ambiguity at how much she loves John Lund's character or if he's just a convinient person to know. I am inclined to say it's both. Dietrich is both wonderful and miscast, as she's perhaps a tad too glamorous for a 1948 Berlin underground bar. On the other hand, that helps explain a lot. But also by 1948 Dietrich was a myth not an actress - even if Wilder got much better out of her in "Witness for the Prosecution".

There are also a few wonderful one liners (the general wondering if investing in ping-pong tables had not been a waste of money, Dietrich saying her flat is a few ruins away, and her comment about losing her country, possessions and beliefs) and a few very good scenes (the mirroring filibuster scenes), my favourite being the confrontation scene between the two actresses at the flat, where everything is spot on: acting, dialogue, lighting, camera - truly Wilder's style at his best. And Wilder would return once more to post-war Berlin with "One, Two, Three".

The Pirate (1948)

Directed by Vincente Minnelli, produced by Arthur Freed, songs by Cole Porter, starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly at the peak of their careers, and shot in glorious Technicolor(*) "The Pirate" had everything to go in its favour. Instead, it flopped. I watched this last around fifteen years ago, and had good memories of it, but watching it again tonight, I can see why. It tries a lot of things and fails at most of them. I think it is an honourable failure.

It is meant to be musical, a farce, a comedy and a bit of a swashbuckler. The farce and the comedy more or less survive intact. Both Garland and Kelly were excellent comedians, although neither is fully recognised for it. The best scenes in the film are the farcical scenes between the two, particularly the sequences from his arrival to her village to his arrest. As for the swashbuckler, there isn't enough of it, and most of what is belongs to a five minute stylised dance sequence which left audiences bewildered at the time. It still leaves me cold, as do similar sequences in "An American in Paris" and "Singin' in the Rain".

The music is another problem. This is not vintage Cole Porter: for MGM he did better in "High Society" and even "Les Girls". Even the best song, "Be a Clown" is not at the same level of "Night and Day", "Let's do it, let's fall in Love" or "You're the Top". MGM was probably aware of this, as we hear it twice, in full, within minutes of each other. Also, most of the song and dance numbers drag - particularly "Nina" which adds very little to the plot.

The script is also weak, with not much of a first act, blossoming in the second and then dragging again in the third; and Minnelli probably got tired of arguing with his wife on set (the shooting was very problematic) and lost some enthusiasm. Although it could be simply that having seen most of his melodramas, I have outgrown his musicals, with the exception of the best cross between the two genres, "Meet me in St Louis".

(*) Unfortunately, either because of costs or available materials, the film was not selected by WB to be restored using their Ultra-Resolution process designed for three-strip Technicolor films. Instead something else was used for the DVD. This is a pity, as I think it would benefit the film tremendously if Minnelli's reds could pop to us.

Laura (1944)

“Laura”, directed by Otto Preminger, is a film where three men trying to assert their claims and possess a woman. One, Waldo Lydecker (played by Clifton Webb), wants her as the jewel in his collection of beautiful objects; the most beautiful ornament of them all. The second, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), wants her for the escape opportunities she represents, and the chance of a better life. The last, Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), falls in love with her portrait, a necrophiliac passion that anticipates something of “Vertigo” by more than a decade. None of them wants the real Laura, only the fantasy (the Laura in the portrait and of the flashbacks is not the one we see). Waldo in particular rejects any visions of her which don’t match and taint his own. In the end (and minor spoiler here), the one who does get her does so because his fantasy and her own desires match the best (for Laura is really made of flesh and blood). 

As Laura Hunt, the title character, Gene Tierney is wonderful. She has the allure and intelligence that Waldo refers to, but she also is enough of blank canvas that he and the others (as well as the audience) can project their fantasies into. Tierney’s gift is in showing us her real feelings and desires as the film progresses, and the portrait over the fireplace becomes more of a real person.

Another highlight of the film is Webb’s performance as Waldo. Caustic and sharp, with eyes that shoot daggers, he incarnates his character to give one of the most memorable performances of the 1940s. He got an Oscar nomination out of it, but lost (and he would loose two years later, for a similar role in “The Razor’s Edge”). Noteworthy are also Dana Andrews and Judith Anderson, as Laura’s patrician aunt with a soft spot for Price’s character.

And then, there’s the music. One of the most recognisable theme tunes of any film, Raksin’s score is a masterpiece. Heard mostly throughout as source music (i.e. from the radio, record, bands), I got the impression it became more of regular score once (and another minor spoiler) Laura enters the film, breaking Dana Andrews dream-like drunken stupor. Interestingly, the score did not get an Oscar nomination - in addition to Webb's, the film got nods for art direction, screenplay, director (Preminger's first) and won for Joseph LaShelle's beautiful black and white cinematography (beating, among others, "Double Indemnity", another noir with ravashing black and white cinematography).

If Laura” is one of the highlights in the careers of nearly all those involved (Tierney, Webb, Andrews, Anderson, Preminger and Raksin), the one sour note is Vincent Price’s grotesque miscasting. He doesn’t fit the character. He’s ill at ease in his clothes and his manner (and he shouldn’t in either) and I can’t buy him as someone who depends on his looks and charm to live. I also can’t see what either Laura or her aunt see in him.

As one minor note, the chronology of the film is a bit dubious: by Waldo’s account, Laura was around 17 when she first appears in his life, which might make her a tad too young for her job. That is not Tierney’s fault though, it’s just lazy scriptwriting. As is, Waldo’s opening narration, wonderfully delivered as it is – unless what we are hearing is what he is typing, it is completely inconsistent with the film’s time scale (the present, whereas the narration suggests the past)

Another (very minor) irritation is the silliness of some of the characters’ actions: everyone tags along Dana Andrews as if it was the most common thing in the world (and to a sense it is in 1930s and 1940s cinema); and everyone obstructs justice and gets away with it (particularly in the maid’s case).

The Constant Nymph (1943)

“The Constant Nymph” was a major production in 1943. It starred Joan Fontaine (who got an Oscar nomination for it), Charles Boyer and Alexis Smith, with Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall as support. Korngold wrote the score, and it was directed by Edmound Goulding, one of Warners’ directors responsible for a few women’s pictures of the period, including “Dark Victory” and “The Great Lie”.

Due to rights, the film lingered in the vaults of Warner Bros for about sixty years. This unavailability has, of course, raised its profile in some circles while ensuring the film faded out from the general public’s memory (“Letty Lynton”, a Joan Crawford 1932 film, is still to resurface). I am delighted it is finally available (it was screened in the US last year, and since made available by Warner Archives) and, of course, I was also looking forward to it – but it really did not live to my expectations (which weren’t much higher than those of, say, “The Gay Sisters”).

There are many ways to describe the story, but the simplest is to say it’s the obsession of one girl for a older composer who ends up marrying her cousin. This is a tale of obsession but packaged as a great love story. With some elements of "Lolita" added to the mix.

The problems of the film are the usual ones. They all start with a weak script. To me, obsession barely disguised as romantic heroism is a hard sell. Particularly when cliches are everywhere. From the idyllic childhood of a free spirit (ah, to be raised in Swiss Alps!), through the extreme unrealistic reaction of two teenage girls on the possibility of moving to London (and where did they learn English?) to the dreadful tear inducing end, complete with sacrifices from both women...

The second problem is the cast, or rather the mis-casting. Boyer was never good at anything, really (the closest I got to like a performance of his was “Madame de…”), so not much surprise there. He is also way too old for the part. He is supposed to be, as far as I could tell, a young composer. Funnily enough, someone who could have done really well with the part, was, I think, Ronald Reagan – who was about the right age, and I could see inspire such crush. As for Joan Fontaine, (who I usually like) let’s just say that she was not a teenager (in fact she was older than Alexis Smith). And it shows – the close-ups are of a woman in her mid-twenties, closing on thirty; not of a sixteen year old. But also, she’s all wrong – or directed all wrong. She’s unsubtle (you can tell how this going to end fairly early on), hysterical and manage to irritate the hell out of me. The remaining cast, except Alexis Smith (who is the best thing in it), play uninteresting versions of parts played elsewhere. 

But a lot of the blame has to go for the director, who clearly had no strength to keep his work (assignment?) together. He should have constrained Fontaine and try to keep the audience a bit more interested.

On the plus side, Korngold did a lovely score and Smith made the best out of the limitations of the bad script and managed to instill some heart into her performance. Although this is another problem: I was really rooting for her and I know I am not supposed to. 

On a footnote, spent a lot of the film trying to remember how many films I had seen the London house set in. From memory, "The Gay Sisters", "Now, Voyager" and I am pretty sure a couple of more Bette Davis films ("The Old Maid"?). I was trying to find out if it was still standing, but to no avail.