Thursday Minute
No. 219 | February 24, 2011

Oscar Perspective

Our theme this week
Films and filmmakers overlooked by Oscar

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction)
Monday         —   Actors Who Never Won an Oscar
Tuesday         —   Actresses Who Never Won an Oscar
Wednesday    —   Directors Who Never Won an Oscar

Films That Didn’t Win a Single Oscar

Double Indemnity, The Searchers, Mean Streets, The Shawshank Redemption:  the kind of movies they make movie awards to honor.  But not Oscars.

The theme so far this week is non-winners:  actors, actresses, and directors who never won an Oscar—but should have.  Today we turn to films.  All of the movies are very good—classics, even—but not one of them won a single Oscar for anything.  We have two lists.  On the first are five movies that racked up a considerable number of nominations, seven apiece, yet all the cast and crew went home empty-handed.  The second has fifteen films, none even getting to the ceremony—not one measly nomination for any of them.

Movies don’t get much better than these, and the lesson is that the ultimate quality of a film isn’t measured by the fickle taste of the Academy.  There’s more than a bit of guesswork (and bias and other noise) that goes into the honors that Oscar voters bestow each year.  Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t.

5 FILMS THAT WENT 0 FOR 7 AT THE OSCARS

Double Indemnity (1944)
Billy Wilder, director
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson
An insurance salesman and suburban housewife plot to kill her husband
Nominations:  7 (including picture, director, actress/lead, screenplay)
Oscars:  0

The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Edward Dmytryk, director
Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Robert Francis, Fred MacMurray
A navy captain loses his command and the mutineers are court martialed
Nominations:  7 (including picture, actor/lead, actor/supporting, screenplay)
Oscars:  0

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Otto Preminger, director
James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara
A small-town lawyer defends an army lieutenant on trial for murder
Nominations:  7 (including picture, actor/lead, two actors/supporting, screenplay)
Oscars:  0

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Frank Darabont, director
Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman
A banker convicted of his wife’s murder finds friendship and redemption in prison
Nominations:  7 (including picture, actor/lead, screenplay)
Oscars:  0

The Thin Red Line (1998)
Terrence Malick, director
James Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte
The lives of soldiers during the Battle of Guadalcanal
Nominations:  7 (including picture, director, screenplay)
Oscars:  0

Failing to win an Oscar hasn’t hurt the reputations of these five films.  They’re generally regarded highly, very good to great.  They are not, however, the record holders for shut-outs at the Oscars.  A handful of films, not all of the same rank, had more nominations yet still didn’t win an award:  The Turning Point (11 nominations; 1977); The Color Purple (11; 1985); Gangs of New York (10; 2002);  The Little Foxes (9; 1941); Peyton Place (9; 1957); Quo Vadis? (8; 1951); The Nun’s Story (8; 1959); The Sand Pebbles (8; 1959); The Elephant Man (8; 1980); Ragtime (8; 1981); The Remains of the Day (8; 1993).

15 FILMS WITHOUT A SINGLE OSCAR NOMINATION

The General (1927)
Buster Keaton, director
Buster Keaton
A Civil War train engineer seeks to rescue his beloved Annabelle Lee

City Lights (1931)
Charlie Chaplin, director
Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill
The Tramp falls in love with a blind girl

Duck Soup (1933)
Leo McCarey, director
The Marx Brothers
Freedonia declares war on Sylvania

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Preston Sturges, director
Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake
A Hollywood film director hits the road as a hobo

The Big Sleep (1946)
Howard Hawks, director
Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
Philip Marlowe investigates blackmail and murder in a case for General Sternwood

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Charles Laughton, director
Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
A preacher marries, and murders, for money

The Searchers (1956)
John Ford, director
John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
A Civil War veteran searches for his niece, captured by Comanches

Paths of Glory (1957)
Stanley Kubrick, director
Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
A tale of treachery in the trenches of World War I

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Alexander Mackendrick, director
Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis
A powerful columnist hires a press agent to break up his sister’s romance

Touch of Evil (1958)
Orson Welles, director
Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles
A crooked cop plants evidence in a murder case on the Mexican border

Mean Streets (1973)
Martin Scorsese, director
Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel
Small-time hoods on the streets of Little Italy

Body Heat (1981)
Lawrence Kasdan, director
William Hurt, Kathleen Turner
A neo-noir set in hot and steamy Florida

Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Quentin Tarantino, director
Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi
The search for a police informant after a jewelry heist goes wrong

Donnie Darko (2001)
Richard Kelly, director
Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell
A troubled teen has visions of a large bunny rabbit

Zodiac (2007)
David Fincher, director
Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr.
The search for a famous serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area

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Double Indemnity (1944)
Billy Wilder, director
James M. Cain (novel); Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler (screenplay); writers
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck

The big winner at the 1944 Oscars was the lighthearted and relatively lightweight Going My Way, with 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Leo McCarey), Best Actor (Bing Crosby), Best Supporting Actor (Barry Fitzgerald), and Best Adapted Screenplay.  In those days, at the Oscars, crime did not pay.

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Quote of note
“How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”
—Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), Double Indemnity (1944)

…58…59…60.

Wednesday Minute
No. 218 | February 23, 2011

Oscar Perspective

Our theme this week
Films and filmmakers overlooked by Oscar

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction)
Monday         —   Actors Who Never Won an Oscar
Tuesday         —   Actresses Who Never Won an Oscar

Directors Who Never Won an Oscar

Howard Hawks, Stanley Kubrick, Sidney Lumet:  great directors with something in common.  Who needs an expensive doorstop anyway?

Each year the Academy hands out four Oscars to actors but just one to directors.   It’s so much easier to ignore the great ones that way.  Today’s list includes many of Hollywood’s big-name filmmakers, ones who somehow never won an Academy Award for directing.  (Foreign directors have been snubbed too.  In fact, no director has earned an Oscar for a foreign-language film.  The foreign-born directors who have won Oscars include Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Miloš Forman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Roman Polanski, and Ang Lee, all who won for movies predominantly in English.)

Robert Altman
Directing nominations:  5
Award-caliber film:  Nashville (1975)
Honorary Oscar:  2005

Tim Burton
Directing nominations:  0
Award-caliber film:  Ed Wood (1994)

Jane Campion
Directing nominations:  1
Award-caliber film:  The Piano (1993)
Screenplay Oscar (The Piano, 1993)

John Cassavetes
Directing nominations:  1
Award-caliber film:  A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

Charlie Chaplin
Directing nominations:  0
Award-caliber film:  City Lights (1931)
Best Score (Limelight, 1952, awarded in 1973); Honorary Award:  1929, 1971

Lumet was nominated for Best Director.  Miloš Forman, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, won the Oscar.

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Quote of note
Sonny:  So what country do you want to go to?
Sal:  Wyoming.
Sonny:  Sal, Wyoming’s not a country.
—Sonny (Al Pacino), Sal (John Cazale), Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 217 | February 22, 2011

Oscar Perspective

Our theme this week
Films and filmmakers overlooked by Oscar

Featured this week
(See Monday post for theme introduction)
Monday         —   Actors Who Never Won an Oscar

Actresses Who Never Won an Oscar

Barbara Stanwyck, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe:  stood up on their date with Oscar.  Some guy!

Next up for our week of lists:  40 actresses, 88 nominations, and no Oscars.  The biggest scandal may be the lack of a single nod for Monroe.  She was always getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop, onscreen and off.  (Another reminder:  the focus the week is on those with Hollywood careers, or stars in English-language films;  Catherine Deneuve, Liv Ullmann, and countless others from elsewhere also missed the golden man at Oscar-time.)

Joan Allen
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Nixon (1995)

Jean Arthur
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Lauren Bacall
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  To Have and Have Not (1944)
Honorary Oscar:  2009

Annette Bening
Acting nominations:  4 (including this year)
Award-caliber performance:  The American President (1995)

Glenn Close
Acting nominations:  5
Award-caliber performance:  Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Doris Day
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Love Me or Leave Me (1954)

Marlene Dietrich
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Blue Angel (1930)

Irene Dunne
Acting nominations:  5
Award-caliber performance:  The Awful Truth (1937)

Mia Farrow
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Greta Garbo
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Camille (1937)
Honorary Oscar:  1954

Ava Gardner
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Night of the Iguana (1964)

Judy Garland
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  A Star Is Born (1954)
Juvenile Oscar:  1939

Jean Harlow
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Red Dust (1932)

Rita Hayworth
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Gilda (1946)

Deborah Kerr
Acting nominations:  6
Award-caliber performance:  Black Narcissus (1947)
Honorary Oscar:  1993

Angela Lansbury
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Gaslight (1944)

Piper Laurie
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  The Hustler (1961)

Janet Leigh
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Touch of Evil (1958)

Laura Linney
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  You Can Count on Me (2000)

Carole Lombard
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Twentieth Century (1934)

Myrna Loy
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Honorary Oscar:  1990

Ida Lupino
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  They Drive By Night (1940)

Marsha Mason
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Marilyn Monroe
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Some Like It Hot (1959)

Julianne Moore
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  Far From Heaven (2002)

Agnes Moorehead
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Kim Novak
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Vertigo (1958)

Maureen O’Hara
Acting nominations: 0
Award-caliber performance:  The Quiet Man (1952)

Eleanor Parker
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Caged (1950)

Michelle Pfeiffer
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Thelma Ritter
Acting nominations:  6
Award-caliber performance:  Pickup on South Street (1953)

Gena Rowlands
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

Meg Ryan
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  When a Man Loves a Woman (1994)

Jean Simmons
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Elmer Gantry (1960)

Kim Stanley
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)

Barbara Stanwyck
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  Double Indemnity (1944)
Honorary Oscar:  1981

Gloria Swanson
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Lana Turner
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Debra Winger
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Terms of Endearment (1983)

Natalie Wood
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Splendor in the Grass (1961)

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Ball of Fire (1941)
Howard Hawks, director
Thomas Monroe, Billy Wilder (story); Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder (screenplay); writers
Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper

Stanwyck was nominated for Best Actress.  Joan Fontaine, for Suspicion, won the Oscar.

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Quote of note
“Yes, I love him.  I love those hick shirts he wears with the boiled cuffs and the way he always has his vest buttoned wrong.  He looks like a giraffe, and I love him.”
—Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), Ball of Fire (1941)

…58…59…60.

Monday Minute
No. 216 | February 21, 2011

Oscar Perspective

Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock:  not a happy bunch.

Well, you might be feeling rather glum yourself if you were (arguably) the greatest male star, female star, or director in Hollywood and had another Oscar week to look forward to.  Despite ten nominations between them, this famously brilliant trio of moviemakers never won an Academy Award.  And though it’s too late for them now, at least they don’t have to sit through any more ceremonies to watch lesser talents walk off with honors that were rightfully theirs.

Each year when it came time to hand out the hardware, the Academy presented its statuettes to somebody else.  Eventually, Grant, Garbo, and Hitchcock each got an Honorary Oscar—the Academy’s way of saying, “Boy, did we screw up!”—but the oversights remain a part of Hollywood history.  (“Snubs” seem now to have become an annual tradition.)

As I see it, what it all means is, Let’s put the awards into perspective.  Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture:  the honors have the ring of authority, but any glance in the rear-view mirror should remind us that the the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor the Oscar to the most deserving.

The list of those who never got to give an acceptance speech is, well, endless, but among the names are many of the greatest talents and greatest stars of all time.  Some earned nominations in multiple years; others, inexplicably, never a single nod.  But for those we’ll take a look at this week, all have done, at one time or another, award-caliber work.  Maybe if the stars had been aligned—or, if the Academy had paid proper attention—they would’ve been Oscar winners.

Here’s the plan for the week ahead.  We’ll start with a look back at the actors, actresses, and directors who never once had to lug home that eight-and-a-half-pound, gold-plated little man.  I’ll have a list of 40 each day (and focus on just those with Hollywood careers, to keep it somewhat manageable).  On Thursday, we’ll look at some great movies that were ignored, or famously snubbed.  By then you should have a firm idea that these things called the Academy Awards don’t really matter much at all.  Nevertheless, on Friday I’ll post my picks (who should win) and predictions (who will win) for the big show this coming weekend.

Our theme this week
Films and filmmakers overlooked by Oscar

Actors Who Never Won an Oscar

Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, Albert Finney:  good hair, 20 nominations, still an empty space on the mantel.

It will be a week of lists, and this is the first:  40 actors, great performers, and not a single competitive Academy Award for acting.  (A reminder:  the focus this week is on those with careers primarily in Hollywood or English-language films;  Marcello Mastroianni, Toshirō Mifune, and too many others to mention never won an Oscar either.)

Fred Astaire
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Band Wagon (1953)
Honorary Oscar:  1949

John Barrymore
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Dinner at Eight (1933)

Warren Beatty
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  Bugsy (1991)
Best Director (Reds, 1981); Irving G. Thalberg Award:  1999

Charles Boyer
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  The Earrings of Madame de… (1953)

Richard Burton
Acting nominations:  7
Award-caliber performance:  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Charlie Chaplin
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Great Dictator (1940)
Best Score (Limelight, 1952, awarded in 1973); Honorary Award:  1929, 1971

Lee J. Cobb
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  12 Angry Men (1957)

Tom Cruise
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Montgomery Clift
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  A Place in the Sun (1951)

Joseph Cotten
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Tony Curtis
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Defiant Ones (1958)

James Dean
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  East of Eden (1955)

Johnny Depp
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Finding Neverland (2004)

Kirk Douglas
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  Ace in the Hole (1951)
Honorary Oscar:  1995

Clint Eastwood
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Best Director/Best Picture (Unforgiven, 1992; Million Dollar Baby, 2004); Irving G. Thalberg Award:  1994

Ralph Fiennes
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Schindler’s List (1993)

Albert Finney
Acting nominations:  5
Award-caliber performance:  Tom Jones (1963)

Harrison Ford
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Witness (1985)

Richard Gere
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  The Hoax (2007)

Cary Grant
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Penny Serenade (1941)
Honorary Oscar:  1969

Rock Hudson
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Giant (1956)

Gene Kelly
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  An American in Paris (1951)
Honorary Oscar:  1951

Arthur Kennedy
Acting nominations:  5
Award-caliber performance:  Champion (1949)

Peter Lorre
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  The Maltese Falcon (1941)

James Mason
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  A Star Is Born (1954)

Joel McCrea
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Robert Mitchum
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Peter O’Toole
Acting nominations:  8
Award-caliber performance:  Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Honorary Oscar:  2002

Brad Pitt
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

William Powell
Acting nominations:  3
Award-caliber performance:  My Man Godfrey (1936)
 
Tyrone Power
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  The Razor’s Edge (1946)

Claude Rains
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  Notorious (1946)

Robert Redford
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  The Candidate (1972)
Best Director (Ordinary People, 1980); Honorary Oscar:  2001

Edward G. Robinson
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Scarlet Street (1945)
Honorary Oscar:  1972

Mickey Rooney
Acting nominations:  4
Award-caliber performance:  Baby Face Nelson (1957)
Juvenile Oscar:  1938; Honorary Oscar:  1982

Peter Sellers
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Will Smith
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Ali (2001)

John Travolta
Acting nominations:  2
Award-caliber performance:  Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Eli Wallach
Acting nominations:  0
Award-caliber performance:  Baby Doll (1956)
Honorary Oscar:  2010

Orson Welles
Acting nominations:  1
Award-caliber performance:  Citizen Kane (1941)
Screenplay Oscar (Citizen Kane, 1941); Honorary Oscar:  1970

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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Mike Nichols, director
Edward Albee (play), Ernest Lehman (screenplay), writers
Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

 

Burton was nominated for Best Actor.  Paul Scofield, for A Man for All Seasons, won the Oscar.

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Quote of note
“And that’s how you play ‘Get the Guests.’”
—George (Richard Burton), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

…58…59…60.

Monday Minute
No. 42 | March 1, 2010

Oscar Déjà Vu

Someday if you sit down to watch the film Notorious you may begin to wonder what the Notorious B.I.G. is doing in a Cary Grant film.  How could that be?  Well, Notorious is not one film, but two.  There’s Notorious (1946) and Notorious (2009).  The year tells you which one, and that popular convention of appending dates to movie titles is often needed because of Hollywood’s notorious habit of reusing old titles for new movies.

No one knows exactly why there’s such a shortage of film titles.  Rumor has it one studio blew the budget on craft services and had to fire its title department.  Other reports are that more titles used to exist, but the cleaning crew took them when no one was looking.

In any case, the reuse of old titles leads to the age-old question:  Haven’t we seen this picture before?

Often the answer is “Yes!”  But we’re a forgetful bunch, apparently, which may explain why there are at least eight film versions of Little Women (and it’s been a few years since the last—I’m afraid we’re due for another).

The Motion Picture Academy may have had a few memory lapses itself.  As far as I know, there’s only been one Best Picture prize awarded to a film called Gone With the Wind, and though I haven’t checked, I’m betting no previous Best Picture nominee used the title Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire.  But on a few occasions the Academy has nominated a film for Best Picture after a film with the same title had been nominated before.  It’s happened five times, in fact.

Noting that, I hope, doesn’t encourage anyone to name their next movie Casablanca or On the Waterfront or Midnight Cowboy.  No, that would not be a good idea.  Just as baseball retired Jackie Robinson’s number 42, Hollywood should find a way to retire a few old movie titles.  If you do want to make the next Citizen Kane, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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

Moulin Rouge (1952, 2001)

Moulin Rouge (1952)
Director:  John Huston
Writers:  John Huston, Anthony Veiller; screenplay based on Pierre La Mure’s biographical novel Moulin Rouge
Cast:  José Ferrer (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and his father, the comte), Colette Marchand (Marie Charlet), Suzanne Flon (Myriamme Hayam), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Jane Avril)
Oscar Summary:  7 nominations, including Picture, Director, Actor (Ferrer), Supporting Actress (Marchand); 2 wins (Art Direction, Costume Design)

 

Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Director:  Baz Luhrmann
Writers:  Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce
Cast:  Nicole Kidman (Satine), Ewan McGregor (Christian), John Leguizamo (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), Jim Broadbent (Harold Zidler), Richard Roxburgh (Duke of Monroth)
Oscar Summary:  8 nominations, including Picture, Actress (Kidman); 2 wins (Art Direction, Costume Design)

The essentials
There have been at least five films titled Moulin Rouge.  These two are the most recent and the best known.  (One of the earlier releases, by the way, had introduced the song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” in 1934.)  Both films are set in fin de siècle Paris.  Both feature the character of French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  There the similarity ends.  The two films are far more different than that exclamation mark in the title.

At first glance the John Huston film may seem a bit old-fashioned.  The cinematography, in garish Technicolor, and the very loud costume design, may be overdone.  The accents are an odd mix for a group of Parisians—French, American, and Zsa Zsa Gabor’s, which is neither.  The acting is not always a style we’re used to seeing today.  But the story is not only solid, it’s an effective and moving portrait of the great Post-Impressionist painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.  The film is essentially a character study, and the character may have had a special resonance for Huston.  The director was a painter in his own right (“Nothing has played a more important role in my life,” he wrote in his autobiography), and he, like Toulouse-Lautrec, struggled to overcome the long shadow of a prominent father.  We meet the French painter at the Moulin Rouge, the famous cabaret of Pigalle, where he sketches the scene while downing a bottle of cognac.  Amid a world of vibrant color, the artist alone is darkly clad, as he is most of the movie.  A childhood accident has left him deformed (the film skirts the issue of inbreeding, believed to have been in part responsible for his health problems) and destined to be unloved.  His life changes when he meets the streetwalker Marie.  He falls in love, but their relationship is difficult.  When she leaves, he is unable to work.  He searches for her, and what he eventually finds is success as an artist, a deepening sense of self-pity, and in the end, when it is too late, the admiration of his father.  Unlike his contemporary Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec was “a painter of the street and of the gutter.”  Respect, like love, was not something that came easily for the artist during his brief life.  José Ferrer portrays Toulouse-Lautrece with a combination of purpose and restraint, and his scenes with Colette Marchand as the fiery Marie are among the film’s best.

The Toulouse-Lautrec of the 2001 film, in a hammy performance by John Leguizamo, bears no relation to the José Ferrer character, nor the real-life artist.  In Baz Luhrmann’s vision, he’s the leader of a musical troupe, and mostly on the periphery.  The main action is the secretive love affair between the courtesan Satine and the bohemian Christian, mixed with intrigue provided by the duke, the wealthy investor who’s paying for the show that’s to open at the Moulin Rouge, not to mention the services of Satine.  The show is called “Spectacular Spectacular,” and it’s filled with plenty of singing singing and dancing dancing.  The musical features songs from Elton John, Madonna, the Police, Nirvana, and a dozen or two other artists you don’t normally associate with a story set in 1899.  Luhrmann has said the inspiration for the film was a Bollywood musical.  That may explain why it goes in a thousand different directions at once.  It was certainly a novel production, a hyperactive music video stretched out to two hours.  At the time it was well-received by critics and popular with audiences.  I doubt, though, the sheer impatience of the storytelling will wear well, and the more hip and current of the two Moulin Rouge films is the one more likely to look dated, someday if not already.  Huston’s film may be a bit stodgy but it’s still very watchable, and worth a look.

Beyond the final credits

In the John Huston film, there’s a scene with Toulouse-Lautrec painting Colette.  He says she can have the painting if she likes it.  She’s curious:

Colette:  How much is a painting worth?
Henri:  It all depends who painted it.
Colette:  One of yours, I mean.
Henri:  It’s too soon to tell.
Colette:  How do you mean, too soon?
Henri:  Some 300 years ago a man named Da Vinci painted a portrait of a woman.  Her husband did not like it and would not pay for it.  Today it hangs in the Louvre and no one man in the world has enough money to buy it.
Colette:  What good does that do—what’s his name, the painter?
Henri:  He had his reward.  He painted it.

Lucky for Henri that he had his reward.  But a century later, so did somebody else.  The painter’s “La Blanchisseuse” sold in 2005 for $22.4 million.

La Blanchisseuse (The Laundress), 1884
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

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Moulin Rouge (1952)
John Huston, director
Trailer

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Moulin Rouge (2001)
Baz Luhrmann, director
“Tango de Roxanne”

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All You Need to Know About Toulouse-Lautrec

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Quote of Note
Kitty March: Well, I was going to do this myself, but, uh…[handing her toenail polish to Christopher Cross]…Paint me, Chris!  They’ll be masterpieces.
—Kitty March (Joan Bennett), Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson), Scarlet Street (1945)

…58…59…60.