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".

Peter O'Toole (1932-2013)

It was his first leading role on screen, and it was the one which made him immortal. No matter that his career lasted a further fifty years, he'll always be T.E. Lawrence, i.e. Lawrence of Arabia. The only reason he didn't sweap all awards, Oscar included, was Gregory Peck and "To Kill a Mockingbird".

A magnificient actor, not just in Lean's film but in films as diverse as "The Lion in the Winter" and "Venus" and two of my personal favourites the delightful "How to Steal a Million" with Audrey Hepburn and as the voice of food critic Anton Ego in "Ratatouille".

After seven missed nominations, the Academy gave him an honourary Oscar. He almost declined it, saying he wasn't over yet. He wasn't - he got an eighth for "Venus".

Eleanor Parker (1922-2013)

I don't think I have seen that many of her films. Of course, the ubiquitous "The Sound of Music". Minnelli's "Home from the Hill". "Caged", the film that made her and for which she got her first Oscar nomination. And of course, "Scaramouche", in which she is absolutely wonderful. That red hair of hers in three-strip Technicolor is unforgetable.

Now on Twitter...

So now there's a twittter account for the blog. Follow it @cinemaandchoc

Longer posts will continue here, of course.

The Deep Blue Sea (1955)

There are some films that are lost without being so: films that have no home video release and are only screened very rarely. One of these is Anatole Litvak’s adaptation of Rattigan’s “The Deep Blue Sea” starring Vivien Leigh. Fortunately, the BFI decided to include it as part of the actress’ centenary season. It is telling that the original two screenings sold out very quickly and a third one was added. More worryingly, was the fact that the BFI only managed to locate one copy (of variable quality).

The film, like the play, is set during a day, after Hester Collyer (Leigh) is found after a failed suicide attempt. Ten months before the play starts, she abandoned her husband for Freddie, a younger man, and now is confronted with the eminent ending of that relationship as well.

The play is compelling and does wonders with the claustrophobia of the space, and the compression of time, but is designed as a play. A cinematographic adaptation will never be easy – you keep the play closed, and it’s not very film-like; or you open it up, which can tear the play’s fabric apart. The TV adaptation with Penelope Wilton and Colin Firth falls in the first category, while the 2011 film with Rachel Weisz went in the second (or at least the 20 minutes or so, I lasted watching it). However, this film fared better, partly because Rattigan wrote it himself. So instead of fabricating a whole story of an unhappy marriage (as in the 2011 version, which created a horrible mother in law), he kept the flashbacks to key moments during Hester’s affair, and all prior her leaving husband. He also added/developed a few supporting characters, although I wasn’t entirely convinced he pulled it off.

More disappointingly, at least to me, the film lacked the lust between the characters that I saw in the 2008 revival. This is a key plot point. After all, Hester doesn’t run away with Freddie for a companionship of minds. Repressed all her life, she finally found a way to escape her social chains. I understand that censorship was tighter on film (see the moralising tagline), this absence makes the affair more doomed and less understandable that it should be.

The contemporary reviews praised Kenneth More for his portrayal of Freddie. I wasn’t particularly impressed. I assume his casting was due to having originated the part on stage. But Freddie is supposed to be good looking, or at least extremely charming (Colin Firth was a much better cast). More was too old, lacking on screen the sex appeal he might have projected on stage.

On the other hand, Leigh was very good, much better than I expected. I liked the control in her voice (so unlike Blanche DuBois, much closer to her younger self), and the occasional fire she allowed her character to release. There was a close-up towards the end that Litvak might have borrowed from “Gone with the Wind” and felt a bit out of place.

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.

O Lugar do Morto (1984)

First, a confession. Like most Portuguese persons I know, I don't watch many Portuguese films. My reasons are many - ackward dialogues, often wooden performances, poor availability (good luck in finding some titles...), terrible sound quality, and an industry that by large makes films more for its own pleasure than for a wider audience. A wider reason is the small market. Some Portuguese films are highly regarded by critics and festivals, but fail miserably to get bums on seats. There are of course exceptions. In the 1980s, one of these exceptions was "O Lugar do Morto" which for nearly a decade held the record for tickets sold. At the time it came out, the film also caused some scandal (which I am sure it didn't harm the box-office). For mid-1980s Portugal, the film dared to show two sex scenes (very tame even by 1984's international standards) and imply abortion (which was illegal then).

The film starts with a twice-divorced journalist, after a frustrating night with his lover, going to spend the last few hours before work asleep by the coast in his car. However, once there, a woman enters his car after a discussion with her male companion (we will never know the full nature of their relationship) and asks the journalist to take her away. He does so, she changes her mind, and when they return the man has killed himself. She runs away.

What follows is very much a cross between Hitchock and film noir. From the latter, there is an impending doom and randomness in the hero's life and his endless pursuit of this woman, who more than just a femme fatale, might easily be Death herself. From Hitchcock, there's the rhythm, the McGuffin (the dead man is really nothing else) and a scene clearly inspired by Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in "North by Northwest".The title is a give away, but looses something in translation. The meaning is "death seat", the seat next to the driver. However, a literal translation could be "dead man's seat" or, and I am slightly inclined to prefer this one, "dead man's place".

I watched it recently for the first time, and for about two thirds of it, I was genuinely taken. It was one the best films I had seen in a long while. The performances were excellent (well, by large - the music critic was a noticeable disaster). Ana Zanatti, the leading lady is a famous face I grew up with, but I have no idea who the leading man (Pedro Oliveira) is or was, or what else has he done - IMDb credits him only with this, Google wasn't much more helpful and I found elsewhere he was a journalist. It is the pity, as he clearly had the talent and could have made a really good career. For the final third, I found the film dragged, the plot going on dead ends that I felt weren't necessary (the journalist's eldest son) and particularly, I found the ending incredibly unsatisfactory, although - and here's a spoiler alert - I liked the fact that I knew little more about what really had happened than at the start.

I was particularly appreciative of the fact that most of world the characters live and move is actually real Lisbon. The buildings shown are what they're supposed to be (schools, hotels, the headquarters of the criminal police). And as a particular pleasure, it allowed me revisit the Lisbon of my childhood, with orange buses, black dial phones, five or six digit phone numbers, kids' books I recognised and a few buildings that are no longer there.