Graham Greene quote

From a false equation you get only a chain of errors.
Graham Greene, The Honorary Consul

Having worked with numbers, equations and a variety of mathematical topics, when I came across this I loved it. It summarises everything so perfectly well. Pity most people don't grasp it, either in Maths or in Life.

Jane Austen quote

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 58)

Since I read "Pride and Prejudice" years ago this has been one of my favourite quotes. I must re-read it sometime soon.

Saul Bass and Love in the Afternoon (1957)

(c) Saul Bass (I suppose)

"Love in the Afternoon" is neither my favourite Wilder nor my favourite Audrey Hepburn film. It doesn't even rank high in either list. It has Gary Cooper in it, who is a poor replacement for Cary Grant (Wilder's first choice and who would probably have made this one of the great romantic comedies) and Maurice Chevalier, who I really, really, really don't like. And yet, it has one of my favourite movie posters of all time - created by Saul Bass.

I first saw it in an retrospective at the Design Museum a few years ago. I knew of Bass' connection to Preminger and Hitchcock but not Wilder (he also did the posters for One, Two, Three and Irma La Douce, and the credits for The Seventh Year Itch). It was love at first sight. I like its suggestiveness, its naughtiness and I think it works brilliant as an advert for the film - it leaves me wanting for more.

Update: Christie's sold a vintage copy for £375 on the 12th March. And no, it wasn't me.

The Furies (1950)

Two of the most charismatic actors to grace the screen in Hollywood’s Golden Age were Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Houston. While she is not very well remembered by the large public, some of her films are - which in a way keeps her in people’s memories. Walter Houston on the other hand, is mostly forgotten despite amazing performances, of which I recognise having seen but a handful, the most famous in his son’s The Treasure of Sierra Madre. They both came together in Anthony Mann’s The Furies.

I don’t like regular westerns, cowboys and indians, male dominated worlds where women are ready to be taken by the handsome hero, a world where the goody wears white and the baddy wears black. But I like unusual westerns - stuff like Johnny Guitar, Once upon a time in the West, The Searchers and The Man who short Liberty Valance, and more recently Unforgiven. I can now add "The Furies" to that list.

This is a story of a quasi-incestuous relationship of a landowner and his daughter, the presumptive heiress to his throne. All is well until the father brings a new queen home, which starts a chain of events of which only one can come out alive.

Here's a random list of things I loved about it: the B&W cinematography, Judith Anderson who is amazing as the potential new wife of Walter Huston, Barbara Stanwyck descending the stairs after she has heard of the impending marriage, the hanging scene. It was a blind buy (as much as a major Barbara Stanwyck film is a blind buy) from the nice but overpriced people at Criterion, but it was worth every penny.

Snow and a poor excuse of a snowman

Bad Dates

(c) John Forgetta

This is dedicated to everyone who has ever been on a bad date. It's from The Meaning of Lila, which from time to time can be quite inspired.

Caught (1949)

For better or for worst, Max Ophüls is a director who keeps surprising me. First, I loved "Letter from an Unknown Woman". Then I disliked, in different degrees, "La Ronde", "Madame de..." and "Libelei". Then I was in awe (still am) of "Lola Montès" (for some reason I thought I had written something on it a few months ago). All of these I saw for the first time on the big screen. Then I rented the DVDs for "The Recless Moment" and "Le Plaisir" and neither made a great impact, except for the two lead performances on the former (Joan Bennett and James Mason). And now "Caught" - and again, I was taken by surprise and I am truly fascinated by it. Why?, you may ask.

I need to summarise the plot. Leonora is a poor young girl from Denver, dreaming big and big money in LA, who meets a millionaire (played by Robert Ryan). He is manipulative and decides to marry her to spite his psychiatrist (such a great premise for a happy life). Only married life is a bit of a disappointment and she decides to leave her husband and get a job as a receptionist at a doctor's surgery and proceeds to fall in love with James Mason's character.

So far, so 1940's Hollywood melodrama. Only it isn't really. Because it's slightly off from the standard of the time. I wouldn't consider it as a film noir, but I think I'm in a minority. It's ambiguous. There is a character who is overtly cruel and on a power trip, and yet we are revealed why Leonora loves him. But here again, we are on shaky ground. We are asked to put our loyalty with a character, played magnificently by Barbara Bel Geddes, who may deep down be much less pure than she, herself, thinks. And the battle for control/independence that is at the heart of the film is something to behold.

Barbara Bel Geddes takes over from Joan Fontaine as the heroine ("Letter..." was Ophüls' previous film) and is simply fantastic as the woman who steadly faces up to a manipulative husband and tries to find her own path in life. And so are James Mason in a atypical hero/love interest sort of role and Robert Ryan in the controling Howard Hughes-inspired milionaire. Ophüls' touches are everywhere. I like some of his camera work, and certainly his mise-en-scene. I lost count on the number of doors closing (on- or offscreen), creating more and more barriers between the characters. But best of all, there's a scene where James Mason's character is talking about Leonora's disappearance after a date with him, and the camera dances around, focusing the empty desk left by the secretary.

I'm not sure if it's better than "Lola Montès" or "Letter from an Unknown Woman", but it did please me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And maybe, just maybe, it might be my new favourite film of Max Ophüls .