Happy Birthday Deborah Kerr!

Deborah Kerr is a real classy dame. The Scottish lass started off on the English stage but her peaches and cream complexion and lilting voice were discovered in 1941 by English film producer Gabriel Pascal and the rest, as they say, is film history. She made a splash in English films like Major Barbara (1941) and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and six years later she crossed the pond to work for MGM. Kerr racked up six Oscar nominations in her ensuing movie career until she became disgusted with the sex and violence of Hollywood films and retired in 1969.

The Academy's oversight in not giving this great actress a statuette was remedied in 1994 when she was presented with an honorary Oscar. I can't put it any better than Glenn Close did when she presented Kerr with her long overdue award.

In honor of what would have been her 95th birthday (she passed away in 2007), here are my Top 5 Deborah Kerr pictures:






Black Narcissus (1947)

I've written a titch about Black Narcissus as it pertains to screen censorship, but let's talk about how gorgeous this movie looks. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were geniuses in the use of Technicolor. The greens, pinks, reds, and deep blues of this film transcend the two dimensions of the screen, giving rich life to the image.

More than just visual, these colors are used to maximum psychological effect. The deserted palace that these nuns now inhabit seems haunted by the colorful lives that have long since passed. All that is left is the color to coax these sisters from their sheltered lives. Both the cinematography and the sets would win Oscars.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Kerr's screen persona is her "veddy, veddy" British demeanor that at first appears reserved and cautious. But beneath Kerr's blue-green eyes burned desirous passions. This talent of Kerr's found perfect expression as Sister Clodagh, a woman trying to escape a past love by running off to the nunnery- only to find that you can't escape passion. Even in an old convent perched on Himalayan cliffs, love- and madness will find you.

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Even if you haven't seen From Here to Eternity, it's very probable that you've seen Kerr in the movie. The image of Kerr  macking Burt Lancaster right into the sand as a wave crashes over them is one of the most iconic in Hollywood history. But there's more to this multi-storied film than just that famous smooch.

The plot takes place on a Hawaiian army base right before the beginning of WWII. Montgomery Clift  (Oscar-nommed) is Private Prewitt who likes playing a horn instead of boxing- because you can't blind anyone with a trumpet. But his captain doesn't approve and proceeds to try and make his life hell until he boxes. So the Captain orders Sergeant Warden (Lancaster who was Oscar-nommed too)  to crack down on Pru, but what the C.O. doesn't know is Warden is making it with his wife (Kerr) while he's away.

All this abuse drives Pru to the local jukejoint/whorehouse where he falls into the arms of a prostitute (Oscar-winning TV housewife Donna Reed). During one of his visits, his best friend Maggio (Frank Sinatra winning his only Oscar) pisses off Hawaiian-shirted 'Fatso' (Ernest Borgnine in a beastly role that amazingly didn't get a nomination) and keeps paying for it for the rest of the film.

It sounds complicated- and it is- but it works as a sort of male-starring soap opera. Directed by Fred Zinnemann (Yes, another Oscar winner), the film does a great job of portraying the intersection of a group of people who are all dissatisfied with their lives in one way or another- finding in those connections some sort of fulfillment- however short-lived.

Kerr is wonderful as a neglected wife who is forced to choose between an unhappy- but stable marriage and a passionate romance. Joan Crawford was originally considered for the role- but was rejected when she insisted on using her own cameraman. I love my Crawford, but Kerr has an innate soft, damaged quality that really works in the role- earning Kerr her second Oscar nom. Eternity went on to win eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, but Kerr and Lancaster were not among them. As a consolation prize, we will always see them making out on that beach.

The King and I (1956)

A lush Rodgers and Hammerstein score with several indelible songs, gorgeous Thai sets and costumes (both of which won Oscars), Yul Brynner with his shirt off- What's not to love about The King and I?

This musical re-telling of the popular, somewhat true novel Anna and the King of Siam was a smash on Broadway and expectations were high for the film version. Since Yul Brynner had won a Tony for his role as King Mongkut of Siam (I like to call him Mong the Shirtless) he was a shoe-in for the movie.

Sadly, Gertrude Lawrence who won a Tony for her portrayal of Anna died from cancer, so a new Anna had to be found. After seeing her stagework, Brynner suggested Kerr- and while studio execs loved her looks and her acting, they didn't love her singing pipes. So legendary ghost-singer Marni Nixon was called-in to be Kerr's singing voice.

Nixon at a screening of the film talked about Kerr quite fondly, pointing out that most of the time actresses were told not to make it public that they were dubbed. But Kerr proudly announced that the beautiful voice you heard was Nixon's- giving credit where credit was due. That sense of independence and fairness shows in her plucky portrayal of Anna.

K & I is not without its issues. The casting of Russian Brynner and Puerto Rican Rita Moreno as Asians and the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" musical fantasy number are reminders that Hollywood musicals aren't shooting for racial authenticity. Heck! The film is banned in Thailand cause they don't like the portrayal of the king. But with nine Academy award nominations- including five wins (Kerr lost to Ingrid Bergman for Anastasia) this musical is worth some suspension of disbelief.

Tea and Sympathy (1956)

Speaking of stage to screen transfers, Kerr was no slouch on the boards herself. Even after she became a movie star she returned to the theater and in 1953 starred in the controversial Broadway play Tea and Sympathy. The story revolves around a young prep student named Tom (played both on Broadway and in the movie by the unrelated John Kerr) who has trouble at school because- well, he's a big old nelly.

But in the Fifties it wasn't as easy as recording an "It Gets Better" segment or going to your prom with your straight best friend. Openly discussing homosexuality was difficult on stage- and it was verboten on the screen (not to mention in real-life). Many thought the play's touchy subject would make it impossible to be made into a movie. But director Vincente Minnelli and writer Robert Anderson found a way to do it.

In the film, lots of codewords are used to describe Tom- like, "sensitive", "artistic", and "sister boy". All of which mean he does not measure up to the standard of masculinity that society dictates to young men. So Tom gets bullied and ostracized- which distresses Laura (Kerr) the wife of the sports coach. She decides to nurture the boy and provide him a safe haven to read, listen to classical music, and have a soft, feminine shoulder to cry on... and more.

What the film gets wrong by trying to hetero-wash Tom's sexuality and in a changed ending make Laura apologize for trying to "awaken" Tom, it gets right by highlighting that feeling of "otherness."

Minnelli was familiar with how it felt to not match society's definitions of manliness, and he beautifully depicts that yearning to be yourself while at the same time confronting a society that wants you to conform to sexual standards. Cinematically Minnelli creates a space where Tom can be Tom- much like the movies gave Minnelli a place to be an artist. T & S is a relic in how it addresses sexuality, but relics are also reminders of how far we've come- and how far we still have to go.

An Affair to Remember (1957)

I guess you could call it flattery when a Nora Ephron flick references one of your favorite classic romantic movies, bringing it back into the cultural zeitgeist. But I swear if one more person refers to An Affair to Remember as that "movie in Sleepless in Seattle"- there will be blood.

Affair is a re-make of the Charles Boyer/Irene Dunne starrer Love Affair (1939). And when I say re-make I mean it's literally a re-make. Director Leo McCarey who directed both movies saw no reason to change the script from the successful original and made very few changes. What did change was the actors- and while Boyer and Dunne are great- Cary Grant and Kerr are pure movie magic.

Nickie Ferrante (Grant) and Terry McKay (Kerr) meet cute on a transatlantic cruise and while sparks fly, both are in relationships with other people, so shipboard bridge partners are all they can be. But as the ship steams along, so do their feelings for each other, and before long they have fallen madly in love with each other. A trip to Nickie's Grandmere's bucolic Mediterranean home seals the deal and the two promise to meet each other at the top of the Empire State Building in six months if they are able to break-up with their respective partners and start a new life together. I will say no more.

Grant and Kerr have the kind of screen chemistry that legends are made of. The two are equals at witty banter and charm. Both know how to dress impeccably and order the best champagne- and drink it. The way they look at each other seems at once so human and so much more intense than real life. They are an impossible ideal that we nevertheless long for. It's no wonder we tear-up at An Affair to Remember- it's a cinematic impossibility that we wish wasn't so impossible.

No wonder Meg Ryan and Rosie O'Donnell blubbered watching it.

When in the Desert...

Hello Faithful LWCMD Readers!

Tomorrow, I head off for my annual sojourn to the CA oasis, Palm Springs. PS is lovely- an old Hollywood colony sitting in the middle of a desert with enough palm trees and pools to make you forget the heat... and the snakes.


Everytime I fly into Sonny Bono International Airport and see the mountainous desert spread out beneath me, I can't help but think of my favorite California desert movie, Eegah (1962).

The early Sixties were great for terrible movies. With the sinking of the studio system and a loosening of the grip of the dreaded Production Code, small, independent movie makers were able to slip into the industry with cheap action, sex and romance, and horror movies that appealed to the younger drive-in movie set. Producer/director/song-writer Arch Hall, Sr. had success with a schlock flick called The Choppers (1961) and decided to make his next movie a vehicle for his Elvis-wannabe son Arch Jr. How Eegah was chosen to be a vehicle for anybody is a mystery.

Eegah (with an exclamation point if you're nasty) is basically King Kong if King Kong was a prehistoric caveman (played by recognizably tall actor, Richard Kiel) living in a cave in the California desert between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. Roxy (brunette Eegah-bait, Marilyn Manning) nearly runs over a "monster" as she drives to a party in the middle of the night, and her story intrigues her scientist father Robert (Arch Hall Sr. casting himself in a pith helmet).

When Daddy disappears in the desert, Roxy and her boyfriend Tom (Junior) take a dune buggy to try and find him, only to find out that Eegah is sick of all these visitors. After some big rock-throwing, Eegah kidnaps Roxy and hauls her off to his cave for some cave-drawing and heavy-petting- all under the overly watchful eye of Dad.

Of course Roxy and Popsy escape and make it back to civilization, and of course Eegah follows his brown-haired girl back to town, ruining a perfectly groovy pool party. Will Eegah get the girl? Will Roxy wear another bikini? Will they find yet another opportunity to shoehorn in a pop song written by Arch, Sr.? This film has been rightly called one of the worst ever made, but one look at the trailer, and you know that it is going to be a laugh-filled riot.

So while I'm sunning it up in Palm Springs, turn on Eegah (it's available on Youtube) and you can feel like you're by the pool with me... sans caveman.

Another Christmas Present Idea...

Tod Browning's collection of stills from his movies? Yes, Santa! Please!

Top 5 Indies

Today a new Blair Witch film opens. I know I never asked for a sequel, but the first The Blair Witch Project was such a huge sensation when it came out in 1999, I guess it was inevitable. Not only was Blair Witch one of the most successful indie films ever made, it popularized the "found footage" film style. Often unknown actors perform into a handheld camera, creating a modern verite feel that brings a sense of reality to everything from horror, to sci-fi, to comedy.

I'm not a fan. These movies usually make me seasick- and the sound design is so "real" I have to pull out my ear horn and listen really hard to figure out what is going on. But my opinion aside, Blair Witch gave a boost to the indie scene that is undeniable.


Indie films have always had an influence on mainstream films, so here are my picks for Top 5 Indie Films:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero is the father of the modern zombie movie. No, really. He is.

With his 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead, Romero popularized the idea of zombies being dead cadavers that rise from the grave and stalk living humans for their flesh. Before this film, there were zombie movies- as early as White Zombie (1932), but the zombies tended to be the product of Caribbean voodoo. Witch doctors could turn someone into a mindless zombie who would do their master's evil bidding.

There are definitely variations on this theme- for instance aliens raise the dead to try and take over the world (or at least as much of Southern California as Tor Johnson and Maila Nurmi can manage) in Ed Wood's "worst movie ever" classic Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). But typically the zombies in movies were a product of an evil villain using otherworldly means to produce the terrifying- though slow-moving- undead.

What Romero does in NOLD that is so fascinating is that he turns the cause of zombie-ism from a personal to a social peril. In NOLD the dead rise en masse due to some sort of radioactive contamination. What's worse- is once someone has been bitten, they then become contaminated and transform into one of the flesh-eating creatures.

This contagion spreads quickly and soon your friends and neighbors (and in one horrifying scene your young daughter) are mindlessly turning against you. As the group of survivors that we are following cower in a farmhouse, they listen to the radio news reporting mass murder and cannibalism, the reanimated horde outside the door threatening to break-in and devour them. The only hope is of a military intervention with enough firepower to mow down this constantly advancing inhuman swarm.

It doesn't take a brilliant sociologist to see the fears of the 1960's in this movie. The Cold War; the nuclear bomb; the social upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Liberation, and the Sexual Revolution- all of these cultural terrors are rolled-up into the seemingly unstoppable wave of chaos- an image of our culture literally devouring itself.

Of particular interest is Romero's choice of leading man Ben- African American actor Duane Jones. In a house full of white people, Ben is the only one who seems to know what to do and to have the courage to do it. It was a bold step forward for Black roles- nihilistic ending notwithstanding.

NOLD would go on to make beaucoup box office- unheard of at the time for a movie made outside of the studios and would spawn a host of movies and now television shows. So you can thank or blame George Romero for that.






Pink Flamingos (1972)

Everyone's favorite Pope of Trash John Waters was only 26 when he made the movie that would bring him to national attention. Before Pink Flamingos, Waters made wild shorts and one full length feature with his crew of Baltimore actors, drag queens, and garden variety wack-a-doos. His work was popular on college campuses and at underground screenings, but nothing could prepare the world for the popularity of the pure filth that was Pink Flamingos.

Babs Johnson (Divine being divine) is proud to be the filthiest woman alive, so when fashionable couple Connie and Raymond Marble (David Lochary and Mink Stole) challenge her by sending her a turd in a box- it's game on. The laundry list of mind-boggling images is without peer in film history:

Babs' son Crackers (Danny Mills) having sex with a woman and a chicken, Raymond flashing innocent victims in the park with a sausage tied to his sausage, a literal lipsynching asshole, Babs licking the Marbles' living room furniture so it will physically reject them all while making it with her son, and of course there is the famous dog-shit eating scene that ends the picture.

Waters loves to poke fun at the rules of our world. This movie is just one long game of cultural chicken. Waters wants to see how far he can push our limits before we- what? Get up and leave? Throw our popcorn at the screen? Ban his film? Or tell our friends all about the disgusting movie we just saw so they will go see it? Plenty of people were turned-off, but the film developed a cult following that has only grown over the years.

Waters is unique in that his culture-poking is all in good fun- clothed in cheap suburban glamour and kitsch. He doesn't seek to change cinema- he just wants to be allowed to operate on the outskirts of the Hollywood system where he can film an old lady sitting in a playpen eating eggs and not have to worry about it winding up on the cutting room floor. As his later work gained more mainstream acceptance, his sharp wit seemed to lose some of its edge- probably a victim of the very system he had sought to avoid. But we will always have Pink Flamingos to remind us what can happen when a director gets to play by his own rule-less rules.

Mean Streets (1973)

Today Martin Scorsese is one of the lords of film directing, able to make big budget bio-pics starring Leonardo DiCaprio in between shining his Oscar (only one???) and re-watching The Red Shoes (1948). But in 1972 he was just another NYU graduate with a film camera and a Mean dream.

Scorsese's breakout film was based in part on childhood stories he'd heard and seen on the streets of Little Italy in New York City. Mean Streets stars then newcomers Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel as a pair of American-Italian boys who are looking to get ahead any way they can. Charlie's (Keitel) goal to get in with the mafia is hindered by his unhinged friend Johnny (De Niro) whose big mouth and big gambling debts are a constant source of trouble. The film becomes a crisis of faith between an inborn Italian Catholicism and friendship, and the allure of the American dream achieved at any cost. It is a theme Scorsese has returned to many times.

The look of Mean Streets is no frills- much like the dimly-lit world it depicts. Scorsese mainly shoots with a handheld camera that brings the audience right into the film's action.

The poolhall fight scene is stunning- the camera swirling around the room as people punch and fight- dizzying us as the punches dizzy the fighters while the Marvelettes croon "Please Mr. Postman." It's an extraordinary melding of filming technique and story- a case study that modern handheld directors should watch more closely. The characters spew profanity amidst their natural-sounding dialogue immersing us further in what feels like a real place full of real people.

While many people love Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990), I feel Mean Streets' smaller production values lend themselves better to the grubby world of mafia wannabes. These are little men striving for a greatness that only exists through the pain and victimization of others. Triumph is always achieved on the backs of others and never lasts. Today's mafia king is tomorrow's crime scene.

Ultimately released by Warner Brothers, Mean Streets would be one of the last "little" movies Scorsese would make.

Blood Simple (1984)

Joel and Ethan Coen were really excited to write and direct their first movie, Blood Simple. But how could they raise the money necessary to make it happen? They came up with the idea of shooting a short two-minute trailer-like version starring themselves that they could take from living room to living room convincing potential donors to back the finished film- raising money like a couple of directorial Girl Scouts. Luckily for us- their plan worked!

Blood Simple is the Texas take on the modern noir. Mr. Marty (the perfectly grumpy Dan Hedaya) suspects his wife Abby (Frances McDormand in the first of many Coen Brothers roles) of having an affair with one of his bartenders, Ray (John Getz) and hires a private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to get the goods on them. This starts in motion a succession of fuck-ups, double-crosses, and murders that result in a bodycount and a particularly gruesome incident involving a knife and a window sill.

The Coen's cinematic style is on full display here with the lighting strategy of shadows and neon applied to the backrooms of cheap Texas bars and seedy motels instead of the streets and alleys of urban America. The characters in a Coen noir usually aren't very competent and frequently make situations worse than we could have ever imagined- showing us that crime doesn't pay- not necessarily because justice intervenes- but because it's almost impossible to do correctly.

While not as laugh-out-loud funny as their next film Raising Arizona (1987), Blood Simple contains the dark comic elements that the Coen Boys have become famous for and is a blueprint of sorts for what they would achieve later with their Oscar-winning hit Fargo (1996).

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

There is one scene in Todd Solondz's Sundance Award-winning dark comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse that has always stuck with me. Dorky outcast Dawn "Weiner Dog" Weiner (the perfectly cast Heather Matarazzo) walks into her seventh grade lunchroom with her lunchtray and looks around for somewhere to sit. She is rejected at every turn, ultimately having to sit alone before being accosted by a group of cheerleaders questioning whether she's a lesbian.

My seventh grade Harrison Junior High PTSD kicks in every time I see Dawn and I viscerally understand what this poor girl is going through.

It's not just teen a-holes that make Dawn's life a living hell. Her parents don't get her and don't understand why she can't be as adorable as her younger sister Missy- who takes every possible opportunity to torture Dawn while whirling around in a tutu. Dawn's "boyfriend" starts their relationship by threatening to rape her- and afterwards only meets with her in secret. She is so desperate for any kind of attention, she complies.

But her heart belongs to dream-y older rock band boy Steve Rodgers (Eric Mabius) who is so far out of her league that not even a prayer shrine devoted to him can change the outcome of this doomed crush.

Dollhouse is full of moments where the despair and the over-imaginative hopes of a teen who doesn't belong come all-too-accurately to life. But unlike some of the films of the teen fish-out-of-water genre, Solondz doesn't go for the "it gets better" ending. There is no "nerd-y but lovable girl gets the cool guy who is more than his looks" moment for Dawn.

She is trapped in a suburban life that she will never really be part of. Her only hope is of someday escaping to another town- but if my reaction to this film is any indication, you never really escape.



So those are my favorite Indie films. What are yours?