Thursday Minute
No. 155 | September 9, 2010

Once Is Enough

Our theme this week
Actors who have directed one film only

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Marlon Brando:  One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Tuesday         —   Gary Oldman:  Nil by Mouth (1997)
Wednesday    —   Morgan Freeman:  Bopha! (1993)

Frank Sinatra:  None But the Brave (1965)

“Nobody Ever Wins.”  Those words, rather than “The End,” appear just before the end credits.  It’s a war film with a message we never seem to learn.

It’s an anti-war film, and not one you’d expect to find from the middle of the 1960s.  Hardly the work of a young radical looking to make a point about the country’s involvement in Vietnam (Kent State, in fact, was still a few years off), None But the Brave is a story about World War II, directed by a guy from the generation who fought it. 

The action takes place on a small island in the Solomons.  A platoon of Japanese soldiers is stranded with no contact to the outside world.  Then a plane carrying American soldiers crashes nearby.   As the two sides learn of each other’s existence, they first have a skirmish, destroying a boat that may have saved them, then begin to cooperate, calling a truce.  The armistice offers an environment for survival.  It lasts only until the Americans establish radio communications with the Navy.  With help on the way, the Americans extend the Japanese the chance to surrender—an offer that’s refused.  Hostilities arise and after a final gun battle the point of the movie—the pointlessness of war—is vividly clear.

Frank Sinatra’s company made the film for Warner Bros, a co-production with Tokyo-based Toho Studios.  It was Sinatra’s only time in the director’s chair (though he had a hands-on role in making several other films without taking director’s credit).  Sinatra starred as well, as a pharmacist with the American platoon.  It’s hardly the most inspired of his performances—he could be quite good at times, though not here.  Among the other actors, the one that got the most attention was Sinatra’s son-in-law, singer Tommy Sands, who was panned for his over-the-top performance.  (Sands was married briefly to Nancy Sinatra and after the divorce, Frank was famously reported to have ruined his career.)

The production was not especially notable, effective at times, cheesy in parts.  What makes the film worth watching is the story, a timeless tale with some crisp writing.  None But the Brave might in fact be a good candidate for a remake.  Hollywood is obsessed with telling the same stories over and over.  Here’s one worth seeing again, where a new, updated production could actually offer an improvement.

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None But the Brave (1965)
Frank Sinatra, director
John Twist, Katsuya Susaki (screenplay), writers
Trailer

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Quote of note
Craddock:  Lieutenant Kuroki.  Our communications have been restored.  One of our destroyers is on her way to remove us from this island.  Captain Dennis has extended me permission to offer you terms.
Kuroki:  Surrender?
Craddock:  I’ll see you and your men receive good treatment.
Kuroki:  Prisoners of war?  No, thank you.  As you can see, I am moving my camp.
Craddock:  Yes, we looked for you there.
Kuroki:  That position was no longer defensible, since you know it so well.
Craddock:  We wouldn’t attack you, lieutenant.
Kuroki:  I would!  The truce is ended.  I belong to the Japanese army.  Until my country advises otherwise, I remain at war.
—Lieutenant Kuroki (Tatsuya Mihashi), Corporal Craddock (Sammy Jackson), None But the Brave (1965)

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 98 | May 18, 2010

Six Packs

Our theme this week
Rat Packs, and other “Packs” that made movies

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Holmby Hills Rat Pack

Rat Pack

 

The Holmby Hills Rat Pack was a private group, a mix of friends who spent evenings together mostly out of the spotlight.  The Rat Pack of the 1960s, in contrast, went public.  They dropped in on one another’s shows, performed together on stage, and made movies.  They sang and they joked and they drank, and by all appearances, they enjoyed their time immensely.  They were famously cool, and the standard they set still hasn’t been touched.  

The core members of the group were Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.  Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop were in or out at different times, depending on the whim of Sinatra.  It was an all-guys group, but there were always women around for the womanizing; Shirley MacLaine and Angie Dickinson were often on hand.

Sinatra had been in movies with Martin (Some Came Running, 1958) and Lawford (Never So Few, 1959), but the one that brought them all together was Ocean’s Eleven in 1960.  Set in Las Vegas, Sinatra stars as Danny Ocean, ringleader of a band of World War II vets who set out to rob five casinos on New Year’s Eve.  As you might expect with eleven crooks in on the action, the story is hardly a model of concision.  It didn’t (and wasn’t apparently trying to) win any awards.  Yet the film has its pleasures.  It’s an icon of sorts, an enduring work that hasn’t been forgotten, and an influence on directors Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino, among others.

There would be a few Rat Pack movies to follow, typically with a non-sequential number in the title, including Sergeants 3 (1962), 4 for Texas (1963), Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), and Marriage on the Rocks (1965).

Not to mention, a generation or two later, there was a remake.  Only Joey Bishop survived to see it.

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Ocean’s Eleven (1960)
Lewis Milestone, director
Trailer

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Ocean’s Eleven
Shirley MacLaine (uncredited cameo), Dean Martin, Richard Conte

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Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
Sammy Davis Jr.
“Bang!  Bang!” (Sammy Cahn & Jimmy Van Heusen)

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St. Louis Concert (Kiel Opera House, 1965)
Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Johnny Carson (subbing for Joey Bishop)
“The Birth of the Blues” (Ray Henderson, Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown)

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Quote of Note
Zack Thomas:  Tell me something, Mr. Jarrett.  How many states would you say you’re wanted in?
Joe Jarrett:  How many states are there, Mr. Thomas?
—Zack Thomas (Frank Sinatra), Joe Jarrett (Dean Martin), 4 for Texas (1963)

…58…59…60

Monday Minute
No. 97 | May 17, 2010

Six Packs

Summer’s on the way, the temperature’s rising, and MAD About Movies is here to help.  This week a theme I think we can all enjoy—beer!  We’ll be serving up some ice cold cinematic brewskis so you can beat the heat and—

Hey, Farmer!

Yeah, what?

The theme of the week is not beer.

No?

No.

You see that title up there.  It says Six Packs, right?

Yeah, but not that kind of six pack.

Oh, really.  Well, okay then, bear with me, folks.  It’s no problem—yes, you can still get “ripped,” if you know what I mean.  This week we’ll be featuring a theme about muscles, those well-defined features you might not see when you look in the mirror but you can surely find at the local gym.  Also known as washboard abs—

No, no, not that kind of six pack either.

No?  Well, then what—oh, I got it!  Here you go, everyone.  This week’s theme is all about Joe Six Pack, that all-American guy, the subject of countless movies over the years—or one or two, anyway—and that wonderful family of his.

Wrong!

Wrong?

Wrong!

Hmm…then…then…then I give up!  You’re so smart, why don’t you do it?

Okay.  Here.

Our theme this week
Rat Packs, and other “Packs” that made movies [Really!]

Holmby Hills Rat Pack

We probably should start at the beginning, with the original Rat Pack.  I know what you’re thinking, but those guys can wait till tomorrow.

Humphrey Bogart was in his forties.  Lauren Bacall was nineteen.  In 1944 they co-starred in the Howard Hawks film To Have and Have Not, they fell in love, and they were married a year later.  For the next decade, until Bogart’s death in 1957, they were the reigning couple in all of filmdom.

Bogie and Bacall preferred entertaining at home over the Hollywood party circuit.  Their circle of close friends included some of the biggest names of the day:  Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, David Niven, Cary Grant, and notably, Frank Sinatra.  Other regulars included Garland’s husband, Sid Luft, director George Cukor, agent Swifty Lazar, humorist Nathaniel Benchley, composer Jimmy Van Heusen, and Mike and Gloria Romanoff, owners of Romanoff’s resaurant.

In her 1978 autobiography, By Myself, Bacall explained how one qualified for membership:

One had to be addicted to nonconformity, staying up late, drinking, laughing, and not caring what anyone thought or said about us….  We held a dinner in a private room at Romanoff’s to elect officials and draw up rules….  I was voted Den Mother, Bogie was in charge of public relations.  No one could join without unanimous approval of the charter members….  What fun we had with it all!

Holmby Hills is the exclusive neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles where several members of the original Rat Pack lived.  When it came to evenings at the Bogart’s, here’s how Bacall described it:  “If the light over the front door was on, we were home and awake; a chosen very few could ring the bell; if not, we were not receiving.”

Bacall coined the nickname for the group.  Once, when Bogart and a few of his drinking buddies returned from a trip to Las Vegas, she told them:  “You look like a goddamn rat pack.”  The name stuck.

Bogart’s death was the end of an era, and the end of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack.  Sinatra and Bacall began to see a lot of each other (“Frank was the only unattached man I knew,” she said).  They had an affair and were briefly engaged, but when news of their relationship hit the papers, Sinatra called it off.

Soon, a new Rat Pack was launched, with Sinatra at the helm.

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To Have and Have Not (1944)
Howard Hawks, director
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Hoagy Carmichael
“How Little We Know”

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Dark Passage (1947)
Delmer Daves, director
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall

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Long Beach, Calif., Concert (1955)
Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart
Part 1

Long Beach, Calif., Concert (1955)
Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Judy Garland
Part 2

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Quote of Note
“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve.  You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything.  Not a thing.  Oh, maybe just whistle.  You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?  You just put your lips together, and blow.”
—Slim (Lauren Bacall), To Have and Have Not (1944)

…58…59…60

Friday Minute
No. 96 | May 14, 2010

Act Naturally

Our theme this week
Oscar-winning singers-turned-actors

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Cher
Tuesday         —   Bing Crosby
Wednesday    —   Barbra Streisand
Thursday        —   Jennifer Hudson

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra was the greatest moonlighter in the history of cinema.  He made more than 50 movies, from the 1940s into the ’80s, starring in musicals, thrillers, comedies, and dramas, many of them hits, while earning the respect of critics and more than a few awards along the way.  All the while, he kept his day job.  You may have heard.  He sang a few songs.

Undeniably, Sinatra has a spot on the short list of great entertainers of the 20th century.  From this vantage, his career may look like one success after another.  Yet his enduring fame wasn’t inevitable.  He had his highs, and he had his lows.  When he was down, he came back.  In the end he triumphed.  As the song says, he did it his way.

Sinatra’s music career had several phases.  He got his start as a singer in a band, with Harry James, then Tommy Dorsey.  Later he was a solo recording artist, working most notably with Nelson Riddle.  Sinatra went through different periods in his film career too, from his song and dance days in the heyday of Hollywood musicals, to an impressive series of dramas in the ’50s, to comedy and movie star roles in later years.

A trio of MGM musicals were his most successful films of the ’40s.  In each he co-starred with Gene Kelly, and for a couple he played a sailor on shore leave.  Anchors Aweigh (1945) featured “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” and On the Town (1949), “New York, New York” (same title as another song that Sinatra would make his own in the ’80s).  Busby Berkeley’s Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949) was another hit.

In the next few years his marriage broke up, after a public affair with his next wife, Ava Gardner, and his appeal to bobby soxers was on the wane.  Sinatra turned his career around with From Here to Eternity, the big screen adaptation of James Jones’s novel set on the eve of World War II.  He played Private Maggio, a supporting role, and it was an all-around success.  The film was a box office hit and won Best Picture.  Sinatra took home an Oscar for his performance, and established himself as a dramatic actor. 

Sinatra’s films of the ’50s include his best dramatic performances.  In 1954 he starred in Suddenly as a tough guy out to assassinate the president.  The next year he was a heroin addict in Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm.  Other films were the drama-musical-biopic The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958).  Sinatra continued making musicals, notably Guys and Dolls (1955), as Nathan Detroit, opposite Marlon Brando, High Society (1956), with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, and Pal Joey (1957), from Rodgers and Hart, with Rita Hayworth.

Ocean’s Eleven (1960) was hardly a great cinematic achievement, yet it put the Rat Pack together, those icons of cool, with Ol’ Blue Eyes the ringleader.  The film has been remade, and relatively well, but the aura of the original gang still hasn’t been touched.  The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is a classic, with Sinatra in one of his most memorable roles as Major Marco, a Korea vet trying to unravel a bizarre assassination plot.

Sinatra’s approach to recording music and to making movies was quite distinct.  He was meticulous with his records, taking long hours for rehearsal and laying down many tracks in the studio.  On the film set, he was in and out, preferring a single take.  With music, he aimed for perfection.   With films, spontaneity.  In either case, no one can argue with the result.

Academy Award nominations
The House I Live In (1946, short subject, Honorary Award)*
From Here to Eternity (1953, BSA)*
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955, BA)
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, 1971*
* Won Oscar

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The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
John Frankenheimer, director
Frank Sinatra, Henry Silva
Karate Fight

Sinatra broke the little finger on his right hand while filming the fight.

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The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Otto Preminger, director
Frank Sinatra

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Pal Joey (1957)
George Sidney, director
Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth
“The Lady Is a Tramp” (Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart)

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Quote of Note
Rosie:  Maryland’s a beautiful state.
Marco:  This is Delaware.
Rosie:  I know.  I was one of the original Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch.  But nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio, for that matter.
Marco:  I guess so.  Columbus is a tremendous football town.  You in the railroad business?
Rosie:  Not anymore.  However, if you will permit me to point out, when you ask that question you really should say, “Are you in the railroad line?”  Where’s your home?
Marco:  I’m in the army.  I’m a major.  I’ve been in the army most of my life.  We move a good deal.  I was born in New Hampshire.
Rosie:  I went to a girls’ camp once on Lake Francis.
Marco:  That’s pretty far north.  What’s your name?
Rosie:  Eugenie.
Marco:  Pardon?
Rosie:  No kidding, I really mean it.  Crazy French pronunciation and all.
Marco:  It’s pretty.
Rosie:  Well, thank you.
Marco:  I guess your friends call you Jenny.
Rosie:  Not yet they haven’t, for which I am deeply grateful.  But you may call me Jenny.
Marco:  What do your friends call you?
Rosie:  Rosie.
Marco:  Why?
Rosie:  My full name is Eugenie Rose.  Of the two names, I’ve always favored Rosie because it smells of brown soap and beer.  Eugenie is somehow more fragile.
Marco:  Still, when I asked you what your name was, you said it was Eugenie.
Rosie:  It’s quite possible I was feeling more or less fragile at that instant.
Marco:  I could never figure out what that phrase meant: more or less.  You Arabic?
Rosie:  No.
Marco:  My name is Ben, really Bennett.  Named after Arnold Bennett.
Rosie:  The writer?
Marco:  No, a lieutenant colonel.  He was my father’s commanding officer at the time.
Rosie:  What’s your last name?
Marco:  Marco.
Rosie:  Major Marco.  Are you Arabic?
Marco:  No.
Rosie:  Let me put it another way.  Are you married?
Marco:  No.  You?
Rosie:  No.
Marco:  What’s your last name?
Rosie:  Chaney.  I’m a production assistant for a man named Justin, who had two hits last season.  I live on 54th Street, a few doors from the modern museum of art, of which I’m a tea-privileges member, no cream.  I live at 53 West 54th Street, Apartment 3B.  Can you remember that?
Marco:  Yes.
Rosie:  ELdorado 5-9970.  Can you remember that?
Marco:  Yes.
Rosie:  Are you stationed in New York?  Or is stationed the right word?
Marco:  I’m not exactly stationed in New York.  I was stationed in Washington, but I got sick, and now I’m on leave, and I’m going to spend it in New York.
Rosie:  ELdorado 5-9970.
Marco:  I’m gonna look up an old friend of mine who’s a newspaper man.  We were in Korea together.
—Major Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), Eugenie Rose Chaney (Janet Leigh), The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

…58…59…60