Calling Gloria!: Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

I have a love-hate relationship with Hollywood bio-pics. I love the meta-ness of sharing Hollywood history with an audience on the big screen. There's something especially ironic about telling the stories of our movie stars in the movies. But I hate when audiences take these often fact-stretching tales as the gospel truth now and forever. (I'm looking at you Mommie Dearest!) So when I heard they were making a movie about film noir queen Gloria Grahame, I was both clapping my hands in glee, and practicing my patented "what is this shit?" eyeroll.

Grahame was a true original. Born and bred in L.A., she was a beautiful blonde with a nice pair of stems and a great pout. But what made Grahame stand out in the Forties and Fifties was the voracious sexuality that was barley concealed beneath her lipstick. While Marilyn Monroe made a career of offering up a soft sensuality that men craved, Grahame's feline passion enticed- then devoured. It was tailor-made for the Freudian femme fatales of the film noir era, and her complex creations got critical notice, earning her two Oscar noms, winning once.

But if you thought Grahame's screen persona was provocative, it was nothing compared to her personal life: Botched plastic surgery, rumored ravenous sexual appetite, nervous breakdowns, electroshock therapy, four tumultuous marriages- one to volatile director Nicholas Ray and later to her stepson from that marriage, breast cancer battle, and the inevitable struggles to maintain an acting career in Hollywood when you're deemed to be past your prime. Gloria's life had everything you need for a good bio-pic. Too bad Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) didn't include any of that.

Based on the autobiography of the same name, Film Stars tells the story of how young actor Peter Turner (Billy Elliot all grown-up and jacked- Jamie Bell) met Grahame, falling in love and carrying on an affair with her for the last couple years of her life. Cinematically styled flashbacks abound between 1981 and 1979, but there is nothing about Grahame's life before she met Peter- no vivd display of the road that led Grahame to the dinky dressing room she occupied on the English theater circuit.

One brief, crackling dinner scene with Grahame's mother (hello Vanessa Redgrave!) and sister hints at the shock and the scandal that preceded dear Peter, but it's a temporary fix that leaves the audience wanting more.

Some bios-pics like My Week with Marilyn (2011) and Lincoln (2012) successfully condense what made a historical figure historical into a small moment of time, but Film Stars focuses on the moment- and it's just not as interesting as the rest of Grahame's life. Annette Bening does a spectacular job of translating Grahame's screen tics and affectations into the personal, but it's not enough to keep Film Stars from dying in Liverpool... and everywhere else.

For a look at what made Grahame worth the bio-pic treatment, here are my Top 5 Grahame Crackers!:

1.) A Lonely Place (1950)
Then husband Nicholas Ray directed Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in this queasy look at an abusive relationship, where love may be hiding a murder. Some of the plot points hit a little too close to home for Grahame and Ray.

2.) Sudden Fear (1952)
Joan Crawford's new husband (the slickly grinning Jack Palance) may not be in it for love- but for money. When Grahame shows up, we know it's the money. Crawford is outstanding in this "wait until the ending" thriller.

3.) The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Grahame nabbed the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing a southern belle sucked into the Hollywood meatgrinder while her screenwriter husband (Dick Powell) was distracted by rapacious producer Jonathan Shields (the Cleft himself- Kirk Douglas.) Lana Turner's stormy car drive is not to be missed.

4.) The Big Heat (1953)
Grahame learns the hard way not to piss off Lee Marvin when he's holding a coffee pot. Fritz Lang directs this excellent noir with Glenn Ford starring.

5.) The Cobweb (1955)- Vincent Minnelli directs a star-studded looney bin, with Grahame playing the neglected wife of the facility's psychiatrist (Richard Widmark). For the love of God, someone change those curtains!

God's Own Country or Brokeback Yorkshire

I love the English. There's just something about that accent that turns my spine to custard. So it's no surprise that I love gay English movies. Maurice (1987), Beautiful Thing (1996), Weekend (2011), and Handsome Devil (2016) not only provide plenty of eye and ear candy, but there's something about how the emotionally reserved English tell stories about gayness that feels so poignant and vital.
You may add God's Own Country (2017) to that list.

GOC takes place in West Yorkshire where the only thing tougher than the topography and the accent is the people. Johnny (the lanky and somber Josh O'Connor) is right well fooked. He is trapped working on his family's struggling cow and sheep farm. His mother left the scene years ago and his dad is a grouchy, cane-wielding overlord (Ian Hart) taken care of by his hard-nosed Nana (Gemma Jones). And if all that's not bad enough, Johnny's in the closet. Not known for its thriving gay community, West Yorkshire is as much a prison for Johnny's heart as his body. In spite of all that, Johnny's not much of a sympathetic character.

The first glimpse we have of dear Johnny is him unloading last night's alcohol into the toilet. He's an asshole drunk who shouts like a bully and sulks like the world's worst teenager. With all the ardor of a dog in heat, he screws a local in a cow trailer- spit and shoves filling-in for romantic gestures. Johnny believes his love life to be as grim as everything else around him, so there is no chance that he will fall in love with these brief conquests. Until Gheorghe.

The family hires a Romanian immigrant to help with lambing season. Gheorghe (the striking Alec Secareanu) is a man of few words and a tender knack for birthing lambs. Johnny and Gheorghe are sent off to the far reaches of the farm to manage the flock and in no time, Johnny attempts his typical backroom style hook-up.

But Gheorghe will not be treated as a conquest and is powerful enough to force Johnny to let down his walls and let him inside. For the first time Johnny experiences soul-stirring passion with another man- but is there any hope for these two lovers in this place?

Directed by Francis Lee the film is beautiful in its bleakness and brevity. Images of touching and glances communicate more than any of the character dialogue. This unadorned quality leaves an air of fresh reality, with no grand speeches or orchestral flourishes to sweeten this difficult love story.

GOC came out in January, 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival and was overshadowed by the other big gay movie in the festival, Call Me by Your Name. GOC and CMBYN are interesting films for comparison. Where CMBYN feels like an inevitable romance in a rarefied Italian countryside, GOC is at times a painful struggle in an unforgiving landscape. What CMBYN hides in dialogue, GOC reveals in silence. Where CMBYN uses fruit allegory and eschews images of the object of desire, GOC strips down the male form unashamedly. Even though I think CMBYN sucked all the air out of the gay film room last year, it's great that the film industry is making such diverse views of gay life- and doing it so well. It has indeed gotten better.