What to Watch When Quarantined Week 2,345 1/2

Now that my hair has grown into Seventies ballplayer mullet territory, I've realized that I need to stop fucking around. This quarantine is serious, and you, my faithful readers rely on me to give you ideas of what classic films to watch during this critical time. So here's what I watched to stave off the insanity that lurks just under my sofa.






Miller's Crossing (1990)

One of those insipidly viral Facebook post-y thingies that has flourished in this isolated time asked me to list my favorite gangster flick. I can now say without a drot of online sarcasm that it's Miller's Crossing. The third film from Joel and Ethan Coen is pure mob poetry.

Tom Reagan (the icily enigmatic Gabriel Byrne) is the number one guy of Irish crime boss Leo (Albert Finney in a bravura turn). So why is Tom screwing Leo's lady (delightfully duplicitous Marcia Gay Harden) and making a rumpus with his Italian enemy (the perfectly porcine Jon Polito)?

This film is full of the Coen Brothers' signature touches- a whip-smart script, an insanely talented and quirky band of actors, a luxurious production design that makes you want to hop into a time machine, and a viciously dark sense of humor. Miller's Crossing questions the underpinnings of mob film classics like The Godfather (1972) by exposing the "ethics" of a criminal enterprise and the frail nature of loyalty.

The scene where Leo is attacked in his home is a textbook example of the Coen style- brutal, fanciful, and funny. Amazingly, not a single Oscar nom was granted to Miller's Crossing. But six years later they would make up for it with noms and wins for their modern crime classic, Fargo (1996).

Humoresque (1946)

I'm often asked, "Hey, Lance, you fanatical Joan Crawford nut, what is your favorite Joan film?" My reply, "All of them." And then I exhale a veil of cigarette smoke and slap them in the face. But if I did have to choose a favorite from Joan's long and storied career, I would say 1946's Humoresque. Hot off her Best Actress win for Mildred Pierce (1945), Crawford is Helen Wright, a classical music benefactress whose parties are full of young men eager to light her cigarette while her husband looks on in doleful resignation. A young violinist (the intense and volatile John Garfield) plays a damned good fiddle and zing goes the strings of Joan's heart.

Humoresque is interesting in how director Jean Negulesco depicts the female gaze. In scene after scene the camera focuses on women watching men- from motherly to sexually- and those watching and judging that intense scrutiny. The act of a woman looking is punctuated by Crawford wearing glasses. But those cheaters can't hide Crawford's stunning beauty, and a performance that is equal parts bitchery and vulnerability. Humoresque has one of those "only on a Hollywood set" locations- a piano bar called Teddy's that I wish existed so I could go there for a drink the minute this quarantine lifts.

Dodsworth (1936)

Don't ask me why- but I thought this movie would be about a butler. Well, it's not. Instead, Walter Huston's (Anjelica's grand-pappy) midwestern auto manufacturing company is bought out, and his wife (Ruth Chatterton) encourages him to experience the good life by taking her to Europe for a couple months. The only problem is that wifey's idea of the good life starts to include dashing rues and cads who make poor Walter look positively provincial.

This American morality tale about the sins of chic-ness could have been unbearable, but in the hands of prolific director William Wyler, the sharp edges of righteousness are sanded away. Chatterton is infuriatingly selfish- but takes the time to show the underpinnings of a woman terrified of growing old. Huston is equally nuanced- a pushover who can only be pushed so far before he breaks.

Mary Astor lends her worldly stateliness to the proceedings as does not-having-it potential mother-in-law Maria Ouspenskaya. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, Dodsworth feels ahead of its time... even if it's not about a butler.

Now, when can I get a haircut?

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of...

TCM Big Screen Classics is bringing one of my favorites to movie theaters around the country on Sunday, 2/21 and Wednesday 2/24! It's the 75th Anniversary of The Maltese Falcon (1941) and if you've never seen it, now's your chance!
Maltese Falcon isn't the first film noir. In fact it's not even the first time this Dashiell Hammett story was adapted for the screen.

But John Huston's version has the definitive, dark, gritty look that would be copied in detective movies throughout the '40's and '50's- a style that would later be called Film Noir. Quite an accomplishment for Huston's directorial debut. While Huston certainly grasps the shadowed look of noir- what I think he really excels at in his films is wrangling a talented cast- and Maltese Falcon is a tour de force.

Humphrey Bogart had made a name for himself as a world-weary tough guy in films like The Petrified Forest (1936), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and High Sierra (1941), but none of those roles impacted his career like Sam Spade. Bogart seemed tailor-made for this tough-talking, conflicted private detective whose baggy eyes have seen more than their fair share of tough breaks. This is the movie where Bogart's screen persona found the perfect vehicle to become legendary. He'd do it again a year later in Casablanca (1942).

Mary Astor had been making movies for about twenty years when she took on the role of Brigid O'Shaughnessey. Some would say that at 35, Astor was looking at the backend of her Hollywood career. But some of Astor's best work was just ahead. Astor's usual stock in trade was portraying high born ladies who had to struggle with a hidden, burning desire like her third side of the love triangle in Victor Fleming's classic Red Dust (1932). Astor exuded an upper-crust vibe with a smoldering, lower class inner life. So, O'Shaughnessey's hidden layers of truth were right up her alley. As Spade peeled her slowly, Astor was both sinister and vulnerable, making this broad's tearful downfall warranted- but regretful.

The character actors filling out the rest of the cast were just as well-suited to their roles. Sydney Greenstreet made his screen debut as blimp-like criminal boss Kasper Gutman, laughing and grunting his lines with delicious abandon. Peter Lorre gets to play an early gay character, perm-headed Joel Cairo. How do we know he's gay? Cause he "smells like lavender" and practically fellates his cane in one scene. It's those little cues that directors like Huston liked to slip by the censors of the time.

Bogart, Greenstreet, and Lorre were so great together, Warner Brothers teamed them up again in Casablanca and Passage to Marseilles (1944). Rounding out the team was reliable Elisha Cook Jr. doing his best neurotic toughie act, getting smacked around and getting heated about it.

So there are plenty of reasons to go and see The Maltese Falcon. Much fewer to miss this classic bird.

Happy Birthday, King!

 From the early 1930's until his death in 1960, the undisputed king of the silver screen was jug-eared rogue, Clark Gable. Before the birth of the Method and the death of the studio system, Gable ruled the Hollywood roost. His presence in a movie was, for a time, a surefire guarantee to send ticket sales soaring. Women wanted to be hauled up a staircase by him, and men hoped to achieve his mastery of masculinity so they could haul their own women. Even little Judy Garland crooned him a love song. His romances on and off the screen were fodder for the gossip columns. He is believed to have fathered a love child with Loretta Young out of wedlock, had a long-standing affair with co-star Joan Crawford, and married his match in Hollywood beauty Carole Lombard. Her death in a plane accident in 1942 devastated Gable, and added mourning widower to the Gable persona. His life became even more like one of his Hollywood movies when he enlisted in the Air Force and flew missions in World War II, becoming a real-life American hero.

While Gable was a male ideal in the golden era of Hollywood, his masculinity was different from those of his cowboy contemporaries. Gable seemed equally at home in a tux or a pair of a dungarees, moving easily between the two classes. He was like a mixture of John Wayne and William Powell. His real talent seemed to be to mesh so well with some of the strongest actresses of the period- in fact, it's hard to think of Gable without his leading ladies. Where the more solitary men like Wayne and Spencer Tracy came off as images of singular manhood, Gable was masculine because he went toe-to-toe with feisty, powerful women, and came out as their equal.

On what would have been his 115th birthday, here is a list of some of my favorite Clark Gable films:

Night Nurse (1931)
Gable's breakout role was as Nick, a dick-y chauffeur for a messed-up rich family (a role James Cagney turned down due to his rising stardom). Nick's not terribly lovable in this- he knocks out Barbara Stanwyck for chrissakes. But there was something about him that stood out, and after this picture, MGM groomed Gable for stardom. The film is dark with drunks and attempted infanticide- and Pre-Code Stanwyck is always a treat.

Red Dust (1932)
The pairing of Gable with MGM blonde bombshell Jean Harlow is cinema magic. Gable is rubber plantation manager Dennis Carson who willingly hosts smartmouth hooker, Vantine (Harlow) during the rainy season. Vantine has hopes of keeping Dennis' attentions until married goody-goody, Barbara Willis  (the beautifully uptight Mary Astor) shows up and piques Dennis' libido. The sexual tension is palpable in this love triangle and as the typhoon rages so do these lovers. Gable and Harlow became good friends on this film and he was co-starring with Harlow when she died suddenly during the making of Saratoga (1937). For those of you who recoil at Asian stereotypes, watch out for Willie Fung as an inane, cackling functionary.

It Happened One Night (1934)
Winner of five Oscars including the only win for Gable, It Happened One Night is an iconic Hollywood comedy that lives up to the hype. Claudette Colbert and Gable are evenly matched as a runaway heiress and a newspaperman who is desperate to get the story. Directed by cinematic master Frank Capra, the movie blends a comedy of classes, a road movie, and a screwball romance. Who can forget Colbert hiking up her skirt to grab a ride on a country road? Or Gable wearing no undershirt in a hotel room divided by a sheet? Legend has it that the scene killed the undershirt industry because men everywhere went undershirt-less like Gable- but that's probably a lot of PR puffing.

Gone with the Wind (1939)
While the earnest search for the actress to play Scarlett O'Hara filled every possible newspaper column and radio minute, the search for Rhett Butler was much easier. Producer David O. Selznick wanted Gable from the beginning so all he had to do was convince his father-in-law Louis B. Mayer to loan out his biggest star to play the role. Mayer acquiesced for a high price and the rest, as they say, is history. The making of GWTW is as much an epic as the movie itself. Books have been written on the subject and the legends have been proved and disproved time and time again.

I'll only say this- Gable seems flawlessly comfortable in the role and with his formidable co-star, Vivien Leigh. It's probably a combination of his acting talent and the director. Gable was keen to get Victor Fleming to replace "women's director" George Cukor. Maybe he was worried the women's performances would overshadow him under Cukor's guidance (he'd acted with strong women before to no complaint), maybe he was uncomfortable working with a "fag" director (the most swishy item of gossip suggested that Gable was once a callboy and Cukor knew it), or maybe he was just very comfortable with Victor Fleming, having already worked with him on the wildly successful Red Dust. Whatever the reason, it is impossible to imagine anyone else saying, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn", as he exits one of the greatest screen romances ever made.

Strange Cargo (1940)
Strange is the operative word. This film is about a bunch of prisoners who escape a French penal colony and brave a jungle and the ocean to find freedom. Seems like a typical action film, right? Well what if one of the escapees turns out to be Jesus? And what if the prisoners bring along Joan Crawford? Can Jesus and Joan sit in the same boat? In their eighth and final film together, Crawford and Gable spark wonderfully with verbal barbs and slaps to the face before clinching embraces. Crawford said that Gable was the greatest actor because he had balls. And she should know. Crawford claimed that when Carole Lombard died, Gable turned to her for comfort. Watching Gable and Crawford on-screen you can sense that there was indeed a deep bond between these two "tough-guys."

The Misfits (1961)
Marilyn Monroe used to fantasize when she was a child that Clark Gable was her father. So it must have been a titch surreal for Monroe when Gable was cast as her lover in her husband, Arthur Miller's movie. Monroe was ecstatic to work with Gable, but it didn't take long for Monroe's demons, drug abuse, and disintegrating marriage to overwhelm the production. Gable is rumored to have said, "Working with Marilyn on The Misfits nearly gave me a heart attack." He died twelve days after shooting ended of a heart attack.
This is the last completed film of both Gable and Monroe who died in August of 1962 of a drug overdose. For that reason alone, it is a memorable piece of film history. But there is something more to the picture. There is an ethereal quality to it- almost as if these two huge stars were already entering the dreamland of their posthumous legends. At the end they drive into the desert night towards the star-filled horizon- right where they belonged.