Monday Minute
No. 112 | June 7, 2010

Derrick and the Dominoes

“Drill, baby, drill!” is not an argument meant to win a debate.  It’s a slogan mocking the idea that we should even have a debate.  But like it or not, it’s been the de facto energy policy of the country for many decades.  Presidents for as long as anyone can remember have been promising change.  Nothing happens.  Maybe now the time has come.  We shall see.

I generally don’t aim to be topical with weekly themes, but the story that’s dominating the news is not going away.  Oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico today, and it will again tomorrow, and the day after.  Based on the latest predictions, the gushing will continue until August, if not Christmas.  This isn’t just a news story.  It’s history as it happens.

Before we get to the five films of the week, you may want to look at a clip from the great Robert Flaherty, a filmmaker with a fondness for exotic locations and the people who live in them (Nanook of the North, Man of Aran).  Near the end of his career he filmed Louisiana Story.  A film about life on the bayou, it’s a relatively early depiction of the effects of oil.  When a cajun family finds oil bubbling up in their swamp, they lease the land to an oil company, which erects a derrick to drill 14,000 feet into the earth.  After a blowout, the rig is soon capped, but mostly the film portrays the harmony of industry and nature, and the promise of oil to bring prosperity to the people.  The film won accolades at the time.  It is arfully done, though today it seems somewhat naïve.  There may be a reason for that.  The film was funded by Standard Oil of New Jersey.

The film has value, in any case.  It offers us a glimpse of Louisiana life that doesn’t exist anymore.  There’s no oil derrick in the clip here, just a cajun boy with a lot of courage, and an alligator.

Louisiana Story (1948)
Robert Flaherty, director
Virgil Thomson, composer (the only film score to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music)

Our theme this week
Films about oil, and what it does to people

Giant (1956)

Don’t bother to watch the movie unless you have nothing else to do for three hours and twenty-one minutes.  They don’t call it Giant for nothing.

In the last of his three great film performances, James Dean co-stars as Jett Rink, a worker on a ranch in Texas owned by the Benedict family.  When Luz Benedict (Mercedes McCambridge) dies, she leaves a small plot of land to Jett.  Before long, he strikes oil, and that changes everything.  Tensions run high between Jett and the rest of the Benedicts, including Bick and Leslie (Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor), before Jett heads off to start an oil drilling company.  Jett goes from rich to super-rich.  During the war Jett persuades Bick to get into the oil business, and soon Bick and the Benedict family are wealthier than even before.  They are all rolling in it, though not particularly happy, and feuding.  Jett is worst off, ending up a pathetic drunk.  Ain’t oil grand?

More than just a story about the bad fortunes of getting rich, Giant is also a reminder that poor treatment of Mexican Americans has a long history.  The Benedicts are less than enlightened in their attitudes toward immigrants, but after some time—and children, intermarriage, and grandchildren—Bick, at least, has a change of heart.

Adapted from the Edna Ferber novel, the film garnered ten Oscar nominations, including a posthumous nod for Dean, who died before the film opened.  George Stevens won the Best Director prize.  The film did great box office, setting a record for Warner Bros., its top grosser until Superman in 1978.

One casting note, from the “please check that woman’s ID” department:  Elizabeth Taylor played the mother of the late Dennis Hopper and Caroll Baker.  Yet Taylor was only four years older than Hopper, and is a year younger than Baker.

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Giant (1956)
George Stevens, director
Trailer

 

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Giant (1956)
George Stevens, director
James Dean, Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor

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Quote of Note
Leslie Benedict:  Money isn’t everything, Jett.
Jett Rink:  Not when you’ve got it.
—Leslie Benedict (Elizabeth Taylor), Jett Rink (James Dean), Giant (1956)

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 51 | March 12, 2010

What’s the Score?

Our theme this week (theme introduction)
Unforgettable film scores of the 1960s

Featured this week
Monday         —   Bernard Herrmann:  “Psycho” (1960)
Tuesday         —   Elmer Bernstein:  “The Magnificent Seven” (1960)
Wednesday    —   Ennio Morricone:  “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966)
Thursday        —   Henry Mancini:  “The Pink Panther” (1963)

Maurice Jarre:  “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962)

About Maurice Jarre

• French, 1924-2009; active in film 1952-2001
• Left his engineering studies at the Sorbonne to pursue music at the Conservatoire de Paris
• Best known for his collaborations with director David Lean; four films, including three Oscars
• Wrote primarily orchestral works, though composed electronic scores in the 1980s (Witness, Fatal Attraction)
• “Somewhere My Love,” a Top 10 hit from 1966, is based on Jarre’s “Lara’s Theme” from the Doctor Zhivago soundtrack

Honors

• Academy Awards: 3 Oscars, 9 nominations
• One score among the top 25 American film scores chosen by the AFI in 2005 (Lawrence of Arabia, #3)

Select list of film credits

• Eyes Without a Face (1960)
• Sundays and Cybele (1962)
• The Longest Day (1962)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Doctor Zhivago (1965)
• Is Paris Burning? (1966)
• Grand Prix (1966)
• Isadora (1968)
• Topaz (1969)
• Ryan’s Daughter (1970)
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
• The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
• A Passage to India (1984)
• Witness (1985)
• Fatal Attraction (1987)
• Dead Poets Society (1989)
• Enemies: A Love Story (1989)
• After Dark, My Sweet (1990)
• Ghost (1990)
• Mr. Jones (1993)
• Fearless (1993)

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Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Maurice Jarre, composer

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Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean, director
Freddie Young, director of photography

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Quote of Note
“You know what the business community thinks of you?  They think that a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other’s heads off and that’s where you’ll be in another hundred years, so on behalf of my firm I accept your offer.”
—Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon), Syriana (2005)

…58…59…60.

Friday Minute
No. 46 | March 5, 2010

Oscar Déjà Vu

Our theme this week (theme introduction)
Film titles with two Oscar nominations for Best Picture

Featured this week
Monday         —   Moulin Rouge (1952, 2001)
Tuesday         —   Cleopatra (1934, 1963)
Wednesday    —   Heaven Can Wait (1943, 1978)
Thursday        —   Romeo and Juliet (1936, 1968)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935, 1962)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Director:  Frank Lloyd
Writers:  Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman, Carey Wilson; based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff, James Norman Hall
Cast:  Charles Laughton (William Bligh), Clark Gable (Fletcher Christian), Franchot Tone (Roger Byam), Movita (Tehani), Mamo Clark (Maimiti)
Oscar Summary:  8 nominations, including Picture, Director, Actor (Laughton, Gable, Tone), Adapted Screenplay; 1 win (Picture)

The essentials
The math says 1962 is much closer to 1935 (27 years) than to 2010 (48 years), but the look of the later production feels closer to something from our era of moviemaking than it does to the earlier film.  In part that’s a result of the widescreen color photography, the spare-no-expense budget, and the three-hour length.  But the performances also make a difference, with a cast led by Marlon Brando offering a more naturalistic, less hammy, rendering of the story.  That’s not to say the newer version is a better film; I rather enjoyed 1935 film.  (These days, we’re not likely to see another Mutiny on the Bounty made.  Now, they’d change the ship to a spaceship and those nature-loving Tahitians to the Na’vi; they wouldn’t film it in Panavision, but 3-D, and they’d shorten the title too.  Avatar fans may want to note, for the record, the ship sent a year later to search for the missing Bounty was the HMS Pandora.) 

The 1962 film took more liberties with the truth, though both films were based on the 1932 book Mutiny on the Bounty, which itself is a historical novel, not a history, of the real-life mutiny that took place in 1789.  William Bligh was the commanding officer of the Bounty during its fateful voyage of the South Pacific.  After a stop in Tahiti, a group led by Fletcher Christian took command in a bloodless mutiny, sending Bligh out to sea in a small boat with a few of his loyalists.  Bligh lived to return to England.  The mutineers settled in Tahiti and Pitcairn Island, where some of their descendents live today.  The mutiny, and the cruelty of Bligh toward his crew that led to it, is the stuff of legend.  The tale’s been told in poetry and prose (among the storytellers:  Lord Byron, Mark Twain, and Jules Verne), and at least half a dozen films. 

Beyond the final credits
Of the ten Best Picture nominees featured this week, the 1935 release of Mutiny of the Bounty was the only one to win the prize.  The film was the first ever to have three acting nominations, and the only one to have three nominations for Best Actor—Laughton, a great actor here chewing the scenery, Gable, minus his mustache, and Tone, as the true hero of the story.

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Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Frank Lloyd, director
Trailer

 

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Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
Lewis Milestone, director
Trailer

 

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Quote of Note
Greenwald:  And now we come to the man who should have stood trial.  The Caine’s favorite author.  The Shakespeare whose testimony nearly sunk us all.  Tell ‘em, Keefer.
Keefer:  No, you go ahead.  You’re telling it better.
Greenwald:  You ought to read his testimony.  He never even heard of Captain Queeg!
Maryk:  Let’s forget it, Barney.
Greenwald:  Queeg was sick, he couldn’t help himself.  But you, you’re real healthy.  Only you didn’t have one-tenth the guts that he had.
Keefer:  Except I never fooled myself, Mr. Greenwald.
Greenwald:  I wanna drink a toast to you, Mr. Keefer.  From the beginning you hated the Navy.  And then you thought up this whole idea and you managed to keep your skirts nice and starched and clean, even in the court martial.  Steve Maryk will always be remembered as a mutineer.  But you, you’ll publish your novel, you’ll make a million bucks, you’ll marry a big movie star, and for the rest of your life you’ll live with your conscience, if you have any.  Here’s to the real author of the Caine mutiny.  Here’s to you, Mr. Keefer.  [Greenwald throws wine in Keefer's face]  If you wanna do anything about it, I’ll be outside.  I’m a lot drunker than you are—so it’ll be a fair fight.”
—Lt. Barney Greenwald (José Ferrer), Lt. Tom Keefer (Fred MacMurray), Lt. Steve Maryk (Van Johnson), The Caine Mutiny (1954)

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 43 | March 2, 2010

Oscar Déjà Vu

Our theme this week (theme introduction)
Film titles with two Oscar nominations for Best Picture

Featured this week
Monday         —   Moulin Rouge (1952, 2001)

Cleopatra (1934, 1963)

Cleopatra (1934)
Director:  Cecil B. DeMille
Writers:  Waldemar Young, Vincent Lawrence, screenplay; Bartlett Cormack, historical material
Cast:  Claudette Colbert (Cleopatra), Warren William (Julius Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Marc Antony), Joseph Schildkraut (King Herod)
Oscar Summary:  5 nominations, including Picture; 1 win (Cinematography)

 

Cleopatra (1963)
Director:  Joseph L. Mankiewicz (replacing Rouben Mamoulian)
Writers:  Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall, Sidney Buchman
Cast:  Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra), Richard Burton (Mark Antony),  Rex Harrison (Julius Caesar)
Oscar Summary:  9 nominations, including Picture, Actor (Harrison); 4 wins (Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Effects)

 

The essentials
Egypt had seven queens named Cleopatra but you never see much about the first six.  It’s always Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last of the Ptolemaic rulers, who gets the love.  Many times her life has been dramatized.  In Shakespeare, she splits title billing with Antony.  In movies, it’s often her name alone in the title.  Among several silent Cleopatras, the most famous is the 1917 Fox production starring Theda Bara, though prints of that film, unfortunately, were lost to fire.  The talking era would give the world several more chances to see the queen onscreen.

The tagline for the 1934 version was “History’s most seductive woman!  The screen’s mightiest spectacle!”  Who but Cecil B. DeMille would have directed that.  The film was a lavish, big-budget affair, and a big deal at the time.  DeMille squeezed it in just before the Hays production code was enforced, and perhaps got away with more vamping than would have been allowed later.  The star of the show was Claudette Colbert, in one of her three memorable performances that year.  She made Imitation of Life and won the Oscar for Best Actress opposite Clark Gable in the Frank Capra classic It Happened One Night.  Even at the time, Colbert probably seemed like a modern update for the old queen of the Nile.  Same for the dialogue.  Anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s play might not have been expecting this:  “Together we could conquer the world” / “Nice of you to include me” (Cleopatra / Caesar), and “The wife is always the last to know” (Octavia).  Not exactly the Bard, but Shakespeare was hardly the language of the ancients either.  A 75th-anniversary DVD was released last year.

The 1963 film is better known for its epic failure than for the epic on the screen.  It was the most expensive movie ever made, running north of $40 million—quite an overrun for a film originally budgeted at $2-to-$6 million.  Elizabeth Taylor became the first Hollywood star to earn more than $1 million for a single film, and her health problems—including an emergency tracheotomy that saved her life—were among the many complications that threatened the production.  After the first director and lead actors were replaced, Richard Burton joined the cast, and his affair with Taylor was a huge scandal.  A few years after production had started, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz completed the film.  His six-hour version, though, was cut by the studio, and at four hours the film was still exceedingly long but perhaps not long enough to tell its story in a coherent way.  Theater owners, disturbed by the film’s running time, jacked ticket prices three times the normal rate (all the way up to $5.50!).  The film did make money at the box office—it was the number-one draw of the year—but that was not enough.  The huge expense of Cleopatra nearly put 20th Century Fox out of business.  The success of The Longest Day (1963) and The Sound of Music (1965) ultimately saved the studio, but it had to sell much of its backlot to recoup losses.  The high-rises of L.A.’s Century City business district now stand where movies once were made.

 

Beyond the final credits

Cleopatra is often depicted as a woman of great, classical beauty.  It’s hard to judge, since we don’t have pictures of her today, but with her history of attracting and seducing some of the most powerful men in the world, there’s a case to be made.  Blaise Pascal had this famous line:  “Cleopatra’s nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed.”  In his time, a prominent nose was considered a sign of dominance and strength of character.  Ironically, one of the few works believed to have captured Cleopatra’s image is the bust above.  The nose did not survive.

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Cleopatra (1934)
Cecil B. DeMille, director
Trailer

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Cleopatra (1963)
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, director

Wanna know how you make a movie four hours long?  Watch this.

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Point of View
“An actor is something less than a man, while an actress is something more than a woman.”
—Richard Burton

…58…59…60.