Jack Cole: The Jazz Dancer

Eons ago, when I was a small child, I was privileged to study modern dance at a West Hollywood mecca known as the Lester Horton Dance Theater. Among my early teachers was a lovely woman named Carmen de Lavallade, who would go on to have a solid career as a dancer and actress, and would take home a Kennedy Center Honor in the days before the fate of the center was headline news. I was thrilled, many decades later, to share a meal with the still-beautiful eighty-year-old Carmen in New York City. I was also thrilled that, at a reunion event in L.A., the great Alvin Ailey remembered my childhood nickname. Alvin, Carmen, and I were all, of course, huge fans of the creative work of Dance Theater’s founder, Lester Horton. So were the writers at the New York Times, one of whom wrote a rave review of the Horton troupe under the headline, “Genius on the Wrong Coast.”

 Back then I heard fleetingly about other L.A.-based dancers and choreographers, In particular I heard about Jack Cole, whom I associated with sexy movie routines. But I never considered myself knowledgeable about Cole’s contributions to the art of the dance, until now. I’ve just finished reading Debra Levine’s exhaustive (but hardly exhausting) new Jazzed: Jack Cole and Twentieth-Century American Dance, published by the University Press of Kentucky. Levine, a longtime dance writer whose lively prose contributes hugely to the success of this book, seems to have dug into every corner of Cole’s eventful life: his nightclub adventures, his years in Hollywood, his forays into choreography for the Broadway stage, where Man of La Mancha was his biggest hit. Having interviewed what appears to be everyone who ever danced under Cole’s tutelage—a group that includes Gwen Verdon, Barrie Chase, Alvin Ailey, and Carmen de Lavallade—she is also able to convey the complexity of Cole’s on-stage and off-stage personality. (He inspired love, fear, and pretty much everything in between.)

 Cole’s first contribution to dance lore was his invention of something called “Hindu swing,” which evolved out of his serious study of Indian dance, combined with a jazzy uptempo beat. Throughout his career he (like Lester Horton) explored dance forms from many cultures, then demanded of his dancers a grueling technique that few could master. But he also, in Hollywood, found himself obliged to create effective movement for non-dancers like Marlene Dietrich and Jane Russell. Levine credits him with significantly energizing Rita Hayworth’s portrayal of the title role in Gilda (1946): his uncredited staging of Hayworth’s “Put the Blame on Mame” in that film turned her into an unforgettable silver-screen vamp. 

 But most of all, Cole  was known for his work with Marilyn Monroe. Throughout her troubled career Marilyn trusted him implicitly as both a choreographer and a drama coach. Levine says Cole taught her how to move onscreen, and led her through her sexiest and most famous musical number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” from 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (He was responsible for every aspect of that number, including its bold red-and-shocking-pink color scheme.) Years later, he struggled to coach her through the troubled Let’s Make Love as well as Something’s Got to Give, which remains unfinished because of its star’s sudden death.

 Though Cole never won a major award for his choreography, Levine insists that such later greats as Bob Fosse learned from his stylistic experimentation. Count me as a new fan . . . of both Jack Cole and Debra Levine. Though Cole (1911-1974) is long gone, may they both keep on dancing.  

Marilyn Monroe sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"

 

Visiting the Museo

The other day, I noticed in the L.A. Times an article about a major robbery at a small French museum, located in the lordly final home of Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. A pair of original Renoir paintings were taken by thieves, but the article speculated that these valuable works of art were unsellable in the world’s marketplace, because they were too well known to entice any would-be buyers to lay out millions. (See, by way of a comic contrast, the secret selling of the so-called Cellini Venus in one of my favorite romantic comedies, How to Steal a Million.)

 On the same day that I read the Times piece on the Renoir thefts, I chanced to watch a Mexican heist film from 2018. It chronicles, surely with some poetic license, an actual famous theft that took place on Christmas Eve in the year 1985. The two young robbers, both veterinary students,   snuck into Mexico City’s Museo Nacional de Antropología, and made off with a number of  priceless pre-Colombian artifacts. One of the thieves was eventually caught, though the other still, after all these years, remains at large. Thankfully most, though not all, of the national treasures they stole have been recovered in good condition..  

 The 2018 film starring the ubiquitous Gael Garcia Bernal changes various details, but remains true to the basic thrust of the actual story.  I remember particularly the striking contrast between the two young men. Juan Núñez (Bernal) is clearly the leader, both logistically and philosophically. He comes from a large and loving extended family, but seems to resent their Christmas Eve frivolity, particularly since he’s expected to take his dead uncle’s place in wearing a Santa suit and doling out gifts. By contrast, his sidekick, Benjamin Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris) would clearly prefer to spend Christmas Eve quietly at home with his dying father. Still, at midnight, the two are on their way (in Juan’s father’s car) to the famous museum, where they remove numerous exotic treasures from their glass cases with exquisite care.

 But leaving town with their booty is only half the battle. They get some lucky breaks—like cops who pull them over but don’t realize the value of the trinkets in their possession—but it’s far more difficult than they assumed to find a buyer for priceless antiquities. Their road trip has its funny moments, including a visit to a seedy nightclub where one of the dancers is an ageing former Mexican film star. But tensions are growing between the two.

 Inevitably they end up back in Mexico City, where they need to return the car appropriated from Juan’s father. And, inevitably, the loot they’ve been spiriting around Mexico. I won’t go into detail about what happens next, except to mention a vivid moment in which Juan displays his reverence for one of the relics, the so-called Jade Mask of Pakal, as he returns it to its place of honor in the museum. It’s his salute, I feel, to the ancestors who long ago owned these treasures.

 The keepers of Mexico’s National Museum must care deeply about this story, because the magnificent museum building in Chapultepec Park is lovingly depicted on film. It’s a destination that should be part of everyone’s Mexican travel plans. And perhaps the film has the virtue of making us think, just a bit, about the complex—and sometimes bloody—history of the objects that two young men take such great pains to steal. The Aztecs and the Mayan committed their share of bad deeds, but they displayed a grandeur that these two young thieves sorely lack. 

 

The Rain Pounds in “Ponyo”

Of course I admire the films of Studio Ghibli, as led by the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, That being said, although I find much of the master’s work thrilling, I believe some of it is overly complicated and occasionally downright grim. But I’ve just seen Ponyo, a story oriented toward a young audience, and found it thoroughly charming, deftly blending a lively sense of magic with the studio’s long-time commitment to the wellbeing of the natural world.

 In watching Ponyo, I found myself thinking about “The Little Mermaid,” not the Disney animated film but rather the original Hans Christian Andersen story. That’s why I was pleased to discover that Miyazaki recalled reading Andersen’s tale as a young child and being bitterly disappointed by its ending. In Ponyo, which features along with the title character a good-hearted boy and his mother, five-year-old Sōsuke truly loves his mysterious playmate, and his devotion allows her to live on in his world instead of melting into seafoam. Ponyo takes place in and near the ocean: its young heroine evolves in the course of the film from a goldfish-like sea creature into a spunky little red-headed  girl. She’s magical both because of what she’s capable of doing (like expanding a toy boat until it’s large enough to sail on) and because she has an unstoppable love of life.

 In the early 2000s, Miyazaki was such a superstar that major English-speaking actors were eager to voice the characters for his films’ international versions. In 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle, based on a British children’s novel, the central figure, Sophie, is played as a young girl by Emily Mortimer and as a much older one by the ageless Jean Simmons. Christian Bale voices the exotic Howl, and none other than Lauren Bacall is the Witch of the Waste.  

Four years later,  the English-language dub of Ponyo was directed by John Lasseter and other Pixar honchos. Ponyo herself is voiced by Miley Cyrus’s young sister, Noah, Sōsuke by Nick Jonas, and his mother by the indomitable Tina Fey. Key smaller roles are played by Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, and Cate Blanchett as an ethereal Goddess of Mercy. And the clutch of colorful oldsters (a popular element in many Ghibli films) is voiced by some of Hollywood’s finest: Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin, and Betty White.

 As always in Ghibli films, characters reflect anime traditions and do not look especially Asian. For central roles, wild red hair and a tall, thin frame seem particularly popular. For instance, these traits help to identify Neeson’s character, the ambiguous semi-human Fujimoto, who considers himself Ponyo’s father as well as the protector of the natural world. But the film’s landscape, full of seaside crags. step promontories, and wild waves, unquestionably reflects Japan’s own dramatic topography. As, in the wake of Ponyo’s adoption of life on land, the natural order gets skewed, the ocean boils up into a terrifying maelstrom, threatening both ships at sea and homes on the shore. Giant waves rock tiny boats full of fleeing citizens, capturing the sense of heightened natural turmoil we know from Tokugawa-period Japanese woodblock prints (One classic example: Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic 1831 “Great Wave Off Kanagawa”). Meanwhile torrential rain pounds the land, submerging whole villages. The animation in these scenes is powerful indeed, adding hugely to the dramatic force  of what could in other hands be a sugary-sweet little tale.

 The weather gods tell us to expect intense El Niño conditions later this year. That means, at least where I live, heavy rains pounding the very dry earth. Who know? Maybe more Ghibli inspiration. 

 

When a Face Emerges from the Crowd

When I was in, perhaps, the seventh grade, I enjoyed a weekly trip to the local library with my mom and little sister. As a voracious reader with a special appreciation for stage musicals and comedies, I would curl up in the theatre section and read to my heart’s content. One day I came across a work I didn’t know: A Face in the Crowd, by Budd Schulberg. The title and the author’s  name were both unfamiliar to me. But I was well-acquainted with the star of the production. Andy Griffith, who had appeared on the Broadway stage and then the film adaptation of No Time for Sergeants. This was the comic tale of a hillbilly bumpkin drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. My father, a veteran himself, loved good-hearted humorous takes on military protocol, and so I saw—and adored—the film at an early age. With Andy Griffith as the leading man, I  assumed A Face in the Crowd would be equally lovable and funny.

 Wrong! This 1957 work (which turns out to have been a film script based on Schulberg’s original story) does star Griffith as a country boy not much used to sophisticated folk. But he’s far from good-hearted. When we first meet him, he’s drunk and disorderly in a smalltown Southern jail, one that just happens to be visited by an attractive young radio producer (Patricia Neal) searching out local color. Discovering his gift of gab and his easy way with an acoustic guitar, she christens him “Lonesome” Rhodes, and helps turn him into the star of his own local radio show. Then TV comes calling. Soon he’s attracting serious attention, especially from women of all ages. When I discovered his sexual adventuring, both with Neal and with a young high school cheerleader (Lee Remick was introduced in this role), I was seriously shocked. (Needless to say, in the late-1950s, the physical nature of these relationships was not shown on screen, but I certainly got the message. And I’ve always considered A Face in the Crowd  my jump into adult reading material.)

 Today I’m a lot less easily shocked. But A Face in the Crowd still startles in its prescience about the way demagogues get started. Lonesome Rhodes is not simply interested in pretty women. He also quickly realizes that, thanks to the new medium of television, his homespun charm is his ticket into the halls of power. We see him instinctively discovering how to spread a sponsor’s message for an essentially worthless product. And before long he’s advising a major U.S. Senate candidate on how to improve upon his stuffy image, by way of a cute nickname and some new folksy mannerisms.  

 Essentially, the country boy is turning into a monster, one who is well aware that—thanks to the hold he has on his enormous TV audience—there’s nothing to stop him from making his own power grab in the near future. Surely we can well imagine him joking and crooning his way into the White House. Sound familiar? Back in the day, screenwriter Budd Schulberg and director Elia Kazan pointed to Will Rogers, Arthur Godfrey, and other media folk of the era as partial models for their central character, along with preacher Billy Graham and populist politician Huey Long. Today there are some obvious celebrity types who’ve made far bigger gains in the political world. Thanks to their street smarts as well as their ability to break all the rules and come out smiling, it sometimes seems as though nothing can stop them. 

 

Ingrid on Insta

There’s a special kick in discovering a modest indie previously unknown to me. Ingrid Goes West sounds, at the outset, like a folksy comedy tracing a young woman’s arrival in a small western town—an update on Cat Ballou, maybe. Hardly! This modest 2017 release starring Aubrey Plaza (whom I realize now was the engaging star of My Old Ass) mashes together laughs and chills in a wonderfully contemporary way. Though in 2017 Plaza herself was hardly a newcomer to showbiz, the writing/directing team of Matt Spicer and David Branson Smith were total newbies, who deservedly took home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, as well as an Independent Spirit nod for Best First Feature. As the instructor, through UCLA Extension, of many aspiring filmmakers, I love seeing what can be done with a small but talented cast and a timely premise.

 Ingrid Goes West is a darkly comic satire on the way social media feeds can ruin young lives. Ingrid, who starts out in Pittsburgh, is obsessed with the would-be celebrities who flaunt their cool lifestyles via Instagram. Following her mother’s death and an embarrassing exploit that shows her the wisdom of leaving town quickly, she takes her entire inheritance (some $60,000, as I recall) in cash and heads for the west coast. There she scores a rental near Venice Beach and focuses all her energy on befriending hot influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), who is delighted to accept her as a new (and clearly well-heeled) bestie. On long girls-day-out jaunts to Joshua Tree, they trade confidences. But Ingrid never reveals how badly she wants to be part of Taylor’s casually hip—and very well publicized—world.

 Yet Ingrid is making enemies as well as friends. She can easily get around her sweet-natured neighbor (the engaging O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a would-be screenwriter who soon loves her almost as much as he does Batman. But Taylor’s husband, who left the corporate world at Taylor’s urging to become a would-be artist, is immune to the charms of social media, and is increasingly uneasy about Ingrid’s near-constant presence. Then there’s Taylor’s hunky but slightly menacing brother, newly arrived from a sweet stay in Paris, who for understandable reasons knows a grifter when he sees one. 

 As the film gets going and the bad behavior escalates, you can hardly call it comedic. I was, frankly, disappointed when Ingrid, finally realizing the error of her ways, seems to publicly acknowledge that she’s a total fraud. But the sappy ending that appeared to be on tap at this point quickly converts—via a great shifting of gears—into a cheeky and uproarious coda that I would not want to spoil.

 Plaza (who also stepped in as one of the film’s producers) has the gift of being able to veer from sweet to scary, and from pathetic to obnoxious, at the drop of a hat. I’ll look forward to seeing her onscreen again, especially if she continues to back edgy material that suits her particular gifts. There’s a lot of smart writing too, and I love the way in-the-moment texting to one’s followers is introduced into this story from its opening scenes onward.  

 As a screenwriting instructor who teaches advanced rewrite classes through UCLA Extension, I am open to stories of all kinds, including those that require far-flung locations and casts of thousands. But I particularly appreciate the small, clever scripts that can make do with a few good actors and limited locations. Ingrid Goes West, with its tiny cast and present-day SoCal vibe, is a wonderful way to jump into the bigtime.

 

 

 

"8 Women": A French-Fried Musical

The French, as we know, are in love with old American cinema. They adore Hitchcock thrillers; they adore female-centric social comedies with couture by Edith Head; they adore what they’ve helpfully named film noir; they adore old MGM musicals. That’s why it has somehow occurred to them to combine all these genres into what Wikipedia calls “a 2002 jukebox musical comedy mystery film.” Based on a 1958 stage play, 8 Femmes (or, in English, 8 Women) is a mildly amusing entertainment that features some of France’s greatest female film stars: everyone from the still-gorgeous Catherine Deneuve to the hyper-sexy Fanny Ardent to the much-admired Isabelle Huppert to the now-octogenarian Danielle Darrieux, along with several attractive younger players.

 The set-up is familiar from many old plays and movies of this type. We’re in the great room of a large country home, where a wealthy family and its retainers are all preparing for a snowy Christmas Eve celebration. Deneuve, the lady of the house, has just arrived home with her vivacious elder daughter, newly back from college. There to greet her are the wheelchair-bound family matriarch (Darrieux), Deneuve’s neurotic sister (Huppert), and Deneuve’s plain-jane younger daughter, along with the family cook and a sexy chambermaid (Emmanuelle Béart) whom no one seems to trust. Because this is a musical, mother and daughters quickly launch into a satiric song about their homelife, "Papa t'es plus dans le coup" ("Dad, You're Out of Touch")

 But where is the pater familias about whom they sing? Upstairs in his bedchamber, with a knife in his back. Suddenly we’re in a whodunit, with everyone apparently having a motive to murder the wealthy but not exactly virtuous man. An additional suspect eventually shows up: Ardent as the victim’s sultry (and financially needy) sister. That makes eight women altogether: they all have their secrets, which get more and more lurid, and they all have musical numbers to perform, leading up to the elderly Darrieux’s solo rendition of the lugubrious “Il n’y a pas amour heureux” (“There is no happy love.”)  Eventually, the not-very-interesting mystery of Marcel’s death is solved, and we can all go home.

 I’ve read that François Ozon, who both wrote and directed this film, originally wanted to do a French remake of George Cukor’s 1939 all-female The Women, though legal issues got in the way.. Alas, the catty wit of the Cukor original (adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin from the play by Claire Boothe Luce) seems to be missing here, along with The Women’s ultra-sharp delineation of social mores. And the determination to make this movie into both a murder mystery and a musical leads to a failure on both counts.

 Though I personally love musicals, I’m honestly not sure why the French are so keen to embrace them. They did have one genuine musical hit, Jacques Demy’s 1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which could hardly be mistaken for a Hollywood musical comedy. It’s a beautiful film, with gorgeous art direction and a lovely score by Michel Legrand, but there’s absolutely nothing comic about this story of love and loss. Three years later, Demy tried for a lighter tone in another musical, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort), which again stars Deneuve, along with her sister Françoise Dorléac, and even finds a place for George Chakiris and Gene Kelly. For years I wanted to see this film, but when I finally did I was sadly disappointed. It’s flat and inconsequential: no fizz, no real joy. Much like that strange hybrid, 8 Femmes. 

 

Telling the Truth about “True Lies”

I admit I’m not a huge fan of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster, Titanic. Still, I have to admire Cameron’s cleverness in combining two eternally popular film genres. Most disaster movies (as well as a stage musical, based on the Titanic’s sinking. that played on Broadway in the late nineties) rely on a broad canvas. Their goal is to cut across social lines, revealing how a single cataclysmic event upends the lives of a wide swath of people from various backgrounds and economic levels. Some survive; some die; life goes on. (In the case of the Broadway musical, there are a lot of forgettable ballads along the way. And I cannot remember a single character who actually stood out from the throng.)

 Cameron’s take on the sinking of the huge British ocean liner by an iceberg while on its 1912 maiden voyage is not entirely different from what I’ve described above. There’s a cast of what seem like thousands, and class differences are very much a part of the story. But Cameron is smart enough (as both the film’s screenwriter and its director) not to spread his gaze too wide. Instead, he combines his disaster film with a strong focus on a single couple of his own invention, two attractive young people from very different social circumstances who meet aboard the doomed ship and violate social norms by falling passionately in love.  So the disaster film is combined with a doomed romance that audiences around the world quickly took to their hearts.

 Cameron’s talent for genre-mashing did not begin with Titanic. In 1994, he released a film with a wonderfully oxymoronic title: True Lies. In its opening moments, it’s easy to think of a James Bond thriller. There’s a lordly European manor, dusted with snow. While inside well-dressed couples dance and shmooze, a man encased in what looks like a SCUBA suit is descending through the icy grounds on the perimeter. Somehow he surfaces inside the manor, where he quickly peels off the SCUBA gear and appears, sleek and slim, in a dapper tuxedo. Quickly he’s inside the party, making small-talk with guests and engaging one particular lovely in a sexy tango. OMG—it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it’s pretty clear he’s a spy in the Sean Connery mode.

 But we’re not exactly in James Bond territory. Once he’s done with the mission, which involves checking out a Middle Eastern terrorist group called the Crimson Jihad, Arnold’s Harry Tasker returns home to the DC suburbs to rejoin his wife Helen, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Knowing nothing about her husband’s days as a counter-terrorism expert working under deep cover for the U.S. government, she assumes he’s a mild-mannered computer salesman whose life is totally lacking in excitement. And, frankly, she could use some excitement. Which is why she’s vulnerable to the advances of a would-be man of mystery (he’s wonderfully played by Bill Paxton). And this of course is what prompts Harry to stop saving the world, at least temporarily, in order to focus instead on winning back his wife, by any means necessary. There’s much hilarity in this classic domestic comedy, which eventually folds in the defeat of the bad guys and a wonderfully satisfying (and sexy) ending sequence.

 Schwarzenegger, who had starred in Cameron’s career-making—and hardly funny—The Terminator (1984) shows himself here to be a polished comic actor. And I can’t say enough about Jamie Lee Curtis, whose transformation from bored housewife to would-be vamp is hilariously funny. At some moments she reminded me of the great Carol Burnett, who made awkwardness into an artform. Bravo to all! 

Sniffing The Rose

Though I’m a Baby Boomer in good standing, I was never much for rock concerts. I never saw Janis Joplin perform live, and I never (until last night) saw The Rose, the 1979 Joplin-inspired film that became the auspicious big-screen debut of Bette Midler. Yes, I knew the powerful title song, and I was certainly familiar with some of the big names in the cast, including Alan Bates as Rose’s hard-assed manager and Harry Dean Stanton as the surly singer-songwriter who puts her in her place. But I went into this film with a certain skepticism about watching yet another movie about a rocker coping with personal demons (see, for instance, the 2018 Freddy Mercury biopic starring an Oscar-winning Rami Malek). One big difference: the character of Rose is female, with all that implies about being a gifted but deeply impressionable woman in what is very much a man’s world.

 So what did I think of The Rose? I was dazzled, as almost everyone has been, by Midler’s powerfully unhinged lead performance. (She was Oscar-nominated, but lost to Sally Field as Norma Rae.) As directed by the talented Mark Rydell, himself a former Juilliard-trained jazz musician, the other actors were strong too. But I admit I was somewhat frustrated by Bo Goldman’s screenplay, which—though giving us an intimate look at the life of a touring rock star—never really explored the forces that had turned Mary Rose Foster into the talented but troubled rock star she was.

 For me perhaps the most gratifying viewing came courtesy of the second disc in my library copy of The Rose. In an interview filmed for the Criterion Collection release of The Rose in 2015, Bette Midler herself (looking none the worse for wear) candidly explained how she came to identify with a fierce on-stage performer who was not wholly unlike herself. She particularly praised costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge for providing her with floaty, sparkly garments—many of them rose-colored—that captured the character’s dynamic onstage aura. Director Mark Rydell  explained to an interviewer how his own musical background contributed to the making of this film. (Rydell, who died just a few weeks ago at the age of 97, was also responsible for directing such stellar flicks as Cinderella Liberty and On Golden Pond.) Wanting to truly capture what he called “the strain and pain of performing,” Rydell insisted to his studio bosses that his leading lady be an actual singer, not a great actress like Jane Fonda equipped with a dubbed singing voice.

 But my favorite interviewee was cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who talked at length about his stylized use of light and perspective. The several outdoor concert scenes in the film were shot with the help of some 6000 extras (who were instructed by Rydell not to clap wildly for Midler’s Rose unless she had truly won them over). To capture the onstage performances at one go, Zsigmond enlisted such ace cinematographers as Conrad Hall and Haskell Wexler to show up and help shoot the concert footage from their own chosen perspective, while cameraman David Myers, a veteran of rock ‘n’ roll documentaries, provided his own take on the onstage action.

 Though the film’s concert scenes are indeed spectacular,  Zsigmond and his interviewer (the cinematographer John Bailey) also pointed to a dynamic cinematographic moment in which Midler as Rose cruises through a gay men’s bathhouse. There’s also the essential twilight scene in which Rose—ensconced in a telephone booth at the edge of her hometown’s darkened football field—makes a fateful decision that will change her life.

 

 

Bob Mackie, Naked? (A farewell to a man of the cloth)

 

(On the occasion of Bob Mackie's passing, I can't resist re-posting this tribute to his talent and wit.) 

I met Bob Mackie circa 1981, on the fabled MGM studio lot. We were on the set for Herbert Ross’s ambitious musical, Pennies from Heaven, starring Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters. They played dreamers who (almost) survive the Great Depression by fantasizing about living lives filled with music, dance, and luxuries like spectacular clothing. Needless to say, this was a dream assignment for Mackie, whose chief claim to fame at the time was his flamboyant duds for TV divas like Carol Burnett and Cher.

 As a big fan of the Carol Burnett Show, I asked the amiable blond Mackie (wearing a polo shirt and looking like a kid) whether he was responsible solely for the lavish gowns in which Burnett greeted her weekly studio audiences. In fact, he explained, he did everything related to costuming for the long-running weekly variety show. This meant bunny suits for the dancers, when needed, and goofy garb for Burnett in her various skits. It turns out—as Burnett herself is quick to admit—that it was Mackie who came up with the crowning sight-gag in a movie parody of Gone With the Wind that got one of the show’s all-time biggest laughs. Burnett plays Scarlett O’Hara, forced to greet a post-war Rhett Butler in a dress hastily crafted from her plantation’s green velvet curtains. When she wafts down Tara’s majestic staircase, viewers can’t help guffawing: her home-made gown still retains its original curtain rod.

 Burnett is one of many celebs interviewed by Matthew Miele for his lively 2024 documentary, Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion. Its title refers to the tantalizingly sheer sheath gowns designed by Mackie first for Mitzi Gaynor and eventually for Cher, who—with her scintillatingly slender figure—has been perhaps his ultimate muse. His glittery gowns hint at nudity but leave the wearer’s private areas discreetly covered, though oh so sexy. For Mackie, all this now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t glitz is fun to design, and has led him to costume everyone from Vegas show girls to Barbie. Another of his more unusual clients in Elton John, who encouraged Mackie’s outrageous side, allowing him to come up with a Donald Duck ensemble and an Amadeus-style frock coat, as well as a sequined baseball uniform for a sold-out concert at Dodger Stadium.

 It's clear that Mackie adores pretty women (and pretty men like RuPaul), but in fact he seems to like pretty much everyone. The documentary carefully hints at his sexual orientation, but also shows homey scenes of the now-eighty-plus-year-old Mackie (grey-haired but still boyish) cozily hanging out with his recently-discovered granddaughter and her children on a sunny patio. (His son Robin, a Hollywood make-up artist, died in 1993 at age 33 after an apparently turbulent life.) Though he dresses top stars, Mackie seems wholly comfortable—even overjoyed—to be dressing conservatively and blending into family surroundings.

 Mackie’s talent for glamour has earned him fame and fortune, as well as many accolades from his peers. (The film opens with him modestly accepting myriad awards from fellow designers and critics.) But the top Hollywood honors have eluded him. He has three long-ago Oscar nominations—for Lady Sings the Blues, Funny Lady, and Pennies from Heaven. In the documentary, Carol Burnett expresses outrage that the 1982 Oscar for costume design went not to Pennies from Heaven but to the year’s big film, Chariots of Fire. In this well-crafted period Olympic Games drama, veteran designer Milena Canonero’s cast mostly wear track suits that look like long underwear. Ah well! I guess no one can win them all. 

Bloodfist: Remembering “Body and Soul”

It’s hard to believe how many Hollywood films (and international films, for that matter) have focused on prizefighting. Such ring-set films seem to have a built-in audience: Wikipedia lists 50 boxing movies that over the years have grossed between $3 million and $300 million at the worldwide box office. At the very top of the list are five Rocky movies, as well as three Creed films that can be considered Rocky spinoffs with an African-American twist. A number of highly successful boxing movies are biopics: see Ali (2001), with “The Greatest” played by Will Smith; The Hurricane (1999), about the ringside and legal woes of Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter; The Great White Hope (1970), the slightly fictionalizing story of early Black prizefighter Jack Johnson; and of course Martin Scorsese’s great Raging Bull (1980) in which Robert De Niro plays the deeply troubled Jake La Motta. (I could name a good many more boxing biopics, but enough is enough.)

 Then there are boxing-related films that qualify as comedies. See for instance, Danny Kaye in a musical called The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), about a neighborhood milkman who accidentally becomes a boxing sensation. The high-grossing Any Which Way But Loose (1978) and its sequel, Any Which Way You Can (1980), both star no less than Clint Eastwood as a trucker who’s also a bare-knuckles brawler, and who roams the American West along with an orangutan named Clyde. In a more sentimental vein, a desperate Charlie Chaplin tries boxing in City Lights (1931), a film that many consider his masterpiece. Even more sentimental is another 1931 flick, The Champ, starring Wallace Beery as an over-the-hill prizefighter desperately trying to care for his young son. And let’s not forget Hilary Swank as a female boxer whose dreams are shattered, along with her body, in Clint Eastwood’s poignant Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby (2004)

 My parents, who loathed John Wayne westerns as well as anything to do with boxing, made room in their hearts for John Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952). It’s the rollicking story of a former pro boxer with a guilty conscience who must reluctantly fight on behalf of the lass he loves. It’s a carefree Gaelic romp just right for St. Patrick’s Day.

 On the other hand, there’s 1947’s Body and Soul, which is a great deal more somber, but is often considered one of the best boxing films of all time. This designation is partly because it was shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, who later won Oscars for both The Rose Tattoo and Hud. If part of the attraction of boxing on film is that it allows for intense close-ups of two human bodies in motion, Howe’s in-tight camerawork beautifully conveys the sport’s intensity. Meanwhile director Robert Rossen’s strong cast, led by John Garfield, punches home a powerful story about a young would-be boxer, his girl, his worried mother, and the dangerous men who control him. The film was a critical and commercial hit, accruing three Oscar nominations (it won a statuette for its editing). But its cast and crew paid a high price. The story, which specifically pointed to Jews and African Americans as victimized by powerful WASP interests, was not a safe one to be telling in an era when the House Un-American Activities Committee was on the rise. Star Garfield, screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, and director Robert Rossen all found themselves called to testify before HUAC, and only Rossen (who eventually agreed to name names) emerged unscathed. Garfield continued to make films, but was deeply scarred by the HUAC experience. He died in 1952 at age 39. 

 

Responding to an Invite

I am not the first commentator to compare The Invite to Edward Albee’s classic drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Actually, there’s a whole theatrical genre of what I call couch plays—stories that unfold almost entirely within a living-room set, featuring two married couples who meet, mingle, clash, and maybe flirt before ultimately going their separate ways. See, for example, the play and eventually the film God of Carnage, by Yasmina Reza. But that work focuses on the two couples’ status as the indignant parents of (unseen) brawling schoolboys. The Invite,  by contrast, hews much closer to Virginia Woolf territory by dedicating itself to the sexual side of marriage.

 This was originally a Spanish play and film, but it works perfectly well in its cinematic transfer to yuppie San Francisco. The first character we meet is Joe (Seth Rogen), a forty-something failed musician who now uncomfortably leads the jazz ensemble at a mediocre local music conservatory. He is, it turns out, uncomfortable about a lot of things, including a marriage that has over time become contentious. His wife Angela, played by Olivia Wilde (who also smartly directed this piece) is a stay-at-home hausfrau who has recently poured her artistic skills into an extensive renovation. She’s neurotic and controlling; he’s neurotic and wants nothing more than to be left alone. But tonight that won’t work, because she has unexpectedly invited over the rather glamorous couple upstairs, who have made a big impression at odd hours of the night with their wild sexual antics. So Angela is first seen obsessively fussing over a charcuterie arrangement and worrying about which wine to serve, while Joe bemoans his bad back and his disinclination to hobnob with strangers.

 The guests, when they arrive, seem determined to be charming. Basically, they want to charm the pants off their hosts.  Hawk and Piña (Edward Norton and a platinum-blonde Penelope Cruz) are about a decade older than their hosts, and have clearly had a more varied life experience. They apologize profusely for the noise that has disturbed their neighbors’ sleep, but explain that they might not have been the guilty parties. You see, they like to invite friendly folks over for an evening of group sex. And, hey, would Angela and Joe care to partake?

 What follows is a series of revelations in which we come to know all four of these neighbors better. Joe and Angela’s strained marriage comes in for scrutiny, but we gradually discover that Piña and Hawk—despite their freewheeling sexuality—have their own twisty past lives and are experiencing their own tensions.  

 Far be it from me to disclose how the film resolves itself. Suffice it to say that the mood keeps shifting—from distrust to fascination to hilarity to something far different—leading to a coda that leaves us at least a bit hopeful for the future of these complicated folks.

 If you’re tired of cast-of-thousands movies, and prefer those with stories that are intimate, psychologically acute, and occasionally very funny, The Invite has much to offer. All four actors are at the top of their game, and seem to be ready for anything. Seth Rogen, in particular, is both exasperating and hilarious, and I personally loved spending a fraught evening with him and the neuroses that just won’t quit. Then there is Olivia Wilde’s jittery eagerness to please, Edward Norton’s deceptively cheery bonhomie, and Penelope Cruz’s take-charge smarts. The ending of The Invite may contain a touch of Virginia Woolf, but these four are definitely not imitations of Edward Albee’s characters. Instead, they’re fully (and fascinatingly) themselves.  

 

Sybil: The Many Faces of Sally Field

It’s been a very long time since a barely twenty-one-year-old Sally Field soared as the Flying Nun. For years she was defined as a “cute” TV actress, a girl-next-door type, but her determination to be taken seriously sent her to the Actors Studio for intensive training with the noted drama coach, Lee Strasberg. Soon thereafter, she auditioned for a TV movie based on a true-life story that had mesmerized the American public. Sybil was the written account of a young teacher caught in the grip of what was then known as “multiple personality disorder.” (The condition, exceedingly rare, is now called dissociative identity disorder). Sybil, the product of a ghastly upbringing, was apt to morph without warning into one of thirteen alternate personalities. But a kindly therapist managed to help Sybil reintegrate herself into a functioning adult, so the story ultimately ended in triumph.

 Having admired Field’s work as a fairly young actress (1979’s Norma Rae).and a fairly old one (2026’s Remarkably Bright Creatures), I was curious to see her in the role that elevated her into Hollywood superstardom. The two-disc DVD edition of Sybil I got from my local library contains fascinating behind-the-scenes interviews with the film’s screenwriter and others. I was fascinated by the presence of Joanne Woodward, who had won an Oscar for starring as three distinct personalities in a 1957 film on a similar topic, The Three Faces of Eve. In Sybil, Woodward plays not the patient but the warm and nurturing psychiatrist who makes the young woman whole again. Woodward’s explanation of how she came to play this role is a fascinating example of the way Hollywood works. The TV network behind the project was apparently eager to attach a major star to it, maybe someone of the caliber of Audrey Hepburn or Natalie Wood. Woodward, as a close friend of the screenwriter, knew all about the project, and wanted to see it go forward. That’s why she proposed herself as someone with enough credentials to (perhaps) attract a viewing audience. It worked, and she gave a lovely performance.

 But of course a project called Sybil must have a really strong actress in the title role. Screenwriter Stewart Stern remembers seeing a number of young hopefuls parade through the casting office. Eventually lunchtime came and went, and everyone was more than ready to take a break. That’s when Sally Field entered, and to everyone’s total surprise BECAME the character in all her complexity. From that point on, no one else was considered, and Field’s on-screen 1976 triumph won her both an Emmy and the industry’s full respect.  Within three years she won her first Oscar for Norma Rae, and the second one—for Places in the Heart—followed eight years later. Then Steven Spielberg eventually cast her opposite Daniel Day-Lewis as Mary Todd Lincoln, surely no one’s idea of a cute ingenue. (She’s said she DEFINITELY has no desire to play Mrs. Lincoln again via Cole Escola’s outrageous Broadway hit, Oh, Mary!)    

 In reading up, after the fact, on Sybil, I had a bit of a shock. It seems that in a 2011 book called Sybil Exposed, author Debbie Nathan uncovered the fact that the real Sybil—actually named Shirley Mason— later in life admitted to deliberately concocting the multiple  personalities she claimed were taking over her body. This was, apparently, her way of keeping her therapist, Dr. Connie Wilbur, deeply involved in her case. So in a sense, we’ve all been bamboozled, right? I’d love to see Sally Field  next play the real-life Dr. Wilbur, taken in by the masquerade concocted by her patient.

 

 

Remarkably Bright Actress: Sally Field

Not long ago, I read Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus, a 2016 non-fiction study of one of the most fascinating of all sea creatures. Montgomery’s book, based on the author’s years of interaction with giant Pacific octopuses at the New England Aquarium, gave me a new respect for an undersea critter with eight limbs, several hearts, and a good deal of intelligence. One of Montgomery’s many fans is Shelby van Pelt, whose debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, became a worldwide best-seller. One of its unusual features: an octopus named Marcellus serves as its narrator.

 Van Pelt’s novel has evolved into a new Amazon made-for-TV drama that’s now nominated for two Emmy awards, including Outstanding Movie. Moreover, star Sally Field is up for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Despite her two Oscars and multiple other prizes, Field is by no means a shoo-in: also in the running are such bright—and much younger—Hollywood stars as Claire Danes (The Beast in Me) and Carey Mulligan (Beef).

 But for Emmy voters, Field will be hard to overlook. In a poignant tale that somehow avoids being cloying, she’s a widow living in a small costal town of what looks to be Washington State. Having survived her son’s death and other heartbreak, she has turned inward, taking an after-hours job as a cleaning lady at the local aquarium where she identifies with the frequently on-the-loose Marcellus. Though she resists most human relationships, she remains spunky (in that irresistible Sally Field way), even after she’s sprained her ankle and seen her janitorial job claimed by an unhappy young musician. Cameron, a drifter, is on the lookout for the father who’s missing from his life. Of course Field’s character, Tova Sullivan, ultimately gets involved with his quest; both eventually find rewards in unexpected places. At the end it all ties together, perhaps too neatly, but the sincerity of everyone involved comes through . Kudos to Alfred Molina who gives the octopus an acerbic, authoritative voice, and to all the technical wizards who make a sometimes puppet/sometimes CGI cephalopod seem to have a life of its own.  

Field’s career has been one of Hollywood’s longest, starting off when she was barely out of her teens with such lightweight TV fare as the title roles in Gidget and The Flying Nun. Trying to break away from these “cute” performances, she fought for the role of a young woman with multiple-personality disorder in the acclaimed TV film, Sybil (1976), winning her first Emmy. She went on to win two Best Actress Oscars, one for her role as a spunky union organizer in Norma Rae (1979)) and a second for her portrayal of a (yes) spunky Texas widow in Places in the Heart (1984). Always tiny and youthful-seeming, she gradually evolved into a mature on-screen wife and mother, notably as Mary Todd Lincoln opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Spielberg’s 2012 Lincoln. For this highly dramatic performance she was yet again Oscar-nominated, but lost out to Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables.

Now almost 80, Field seems in interviews both as sweet and as spunky as ever.  Which doesn’t stop her for being convincingly crochety as Tova Sullivan. There’s an ornery side to this character that stops her from appearing overly twee, and we’re meant to recognize that at times she can be totally exasperating. No wonder that the hyper-sensitive Cameron, well-played by Bill Pullman’s son Lewis, at first considers her merely a pain in the neck. Marcellus the Octopus, though, is smart enough to see Tova as the caring friend she is.

 

“The Accused”: Alumni from the Roger Corman School of Directing

One of the late Roger Corman’s many claims to fame is his knack for sniffing out talented future directors. Some of his most notable discoveries—Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich—entered Cormanville long before I did. But when I joined the staff of Corman’s New World Pictures in 1973 I met some eager young chaps who’d do just about anything for a chance to direct a low-budget genre flick. In those days Joe Dante (who’d go on to make such pop culture landmarks as Gremlins) was Roger’s trailer cutter, a quiet fellow who hardly seemed capable of commandeering a film set. And wandering the corridors of New World Pictures you’d find many a scruffy wannabe, each of them hoping for his big break.

 I especially remember Jonathan Demme, a shaggy-haired writer-type who favored brown-and-white saddle oxfords and would cruise the halls with his very tall wife in tow. (In later years he’d shed the wife and adopt a more blow-dried look.) When I first met him, he was just back from the Philippines, where he’d directed for Roger a classic women-in-prison opus, Caged Heat. Later he moved on to much better opportunities at much bigger companies, eventually winning an Oscar for directing a 1991 blockbuster, The Silence of the Lambs. I also fondly remember Paul Bartel, a wildly eccentric sometimes-actor whose 1975 directing debut for Roger, Death Race 2000, led to such indie triumphs as the hilariously gruesome Eating Raoul (1982). And then there was Jonathan Kaplan, who graduated from sexy Corman nurse movies (Night Call Nurses) to action flicks (White Line Fever, 1975).

 Kaplan’s career hit the skids after years of being offered only the same kind of projects he’d already mastered, what he described as "boy meets truck, boy gets truck, boy loses truck and boy gets truck again." But in 1988 he bounced back with a powerful drama that helped Jodie Foster win her first Oscar. The movie was The Accused, a moderately-budgeted legal thriller. The top-billed star was Kelly McGillis, who had recently grabbed attention as the beautiful Amish widow in Witness, and followed that up by  playing Tom Cruise’s girlfriend in Top Gun. In The Accused, McGillis  was a hard-driving district attorney determined to prosecute the young men who joined in the gang assault on her client, a small-town waitress. It was by no means a given that Foster would take on the role of the rape victim. Due to the film’s graphic nature, the part of Sarah Tobias was turned down by a number of rising actresses. Foster at this point had largely backed away from acting, focusing on her studies at Yale, and there were some who felt she lacked the blatant sexuality the role demanded.

 When I watched The Accused, I didn’t know quite what to expect. The film starts just after the hideous doings in the back room of a scruffy bar. Foster’s Sarah escapes from her tormentors and ends up at a local clinic, shell-shocked. It’s the opposite of the spunky performances we usually associate with Foster. But gradually, as the legal proceedings move forward, we watch her character regain her sense of self—her cockiness, her anger. The rape sequence itself is held until near the end –-as a flashback mirroring goings-on in the courtroom—and it’s clear to see what’s triggered it: Sarah boldly flaunts her sexuality, until the moment when she discovers it’s too late to say “No.” The whole grotesque business, with looky-loos egging on the perpetrators, is hard to forget. Score another triumph for a Roger Corman director-in-the-making.  

 

Pretty in Black and White

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, after viewing several vintage Anne Hathaway films, about how often Hollywood has focused on stories of young women emerging to take over their lives. Obviously, such plot lines are meant to appeal to youthful female audiences, who hope that they too will burst like butterflies from the drab cocoons that have long been holding them in. Think Cinderella turning from a scullery maid to a princess. Think Eliza Doolittle casting aside her Cockney upbringing and her native speech patterns to go to the Embassy Ball and be mistaken for royalty. Think, more recently, of Pretty in Pink (representing other Eighties films of John Hughes) in which Molly Ringwald crosses from the wrong side of the tracks to wow her classmates at her high school prom.

 In many of these films, the focus is on the young protagonist discovering her physical beauty, or maybe demonstrating that she has learned the social skills that will help her navigate the adult world. But there’s a classic 1950 black-&-white comedy (somehow characterized by the often obtuse Golden Globes folks as a drama) in which the female protagonist blossoms, but not because of her improved looks or social manners. Instead, Born Yesterday is a comic paean to the way that political education can change a gal’s life.

 Born Yesterday, based on Garson Kanin’s hit Broadway play, stars the inimitable Judy Holliday as a former nightclub cutie with a New Yawk accent that won’t quit. Though basically a chorine with pretensions—she once spoke three lines on stage—she has long been the sidepiece of Harry Brock, a crude and very rich junkman with his eye on a shady deal involving a U.S. Congressman. (He’s played in the film by Broderick Crawford, who’d just nabbed an Oscar for his lead role as a Huey Long-type in All the King’s Men.) Harry loves Billie Dawn, when he isn’t busy abusing her, because she accepts her own ignorance and never pries into his sordid business affairs. But now that he’s arrived in Washington DC, he figures her uncouth social behavior may become a liability. So he recruits a straight-arrow local reporter named Paul (William Holden) to give Billie a smattering of education.

 Squiring Billie around the nation’s capital, Paul gives her some serious tutelage about American ideals and principles (something we could surely all use today). Though her vocabulary is limited and her shrill voice seems capable of shattering glass, she discovers in herself a thirst for knowledge, as well as a firm determination to no longer be anyone’s patsy. Needless to say, this change in attitude makes an ongoing relationship with Harry Brock untenable. And the smart, well-educated Paul (perhaps savoring his role as her Pygmalion) comes to love Billie’s oddball combination of budding idealism and street smarts.

 George Cukor was known, perhaps unfairly, as a women’s director. He certainly knew how to transfer Holliday’s acclaimed stage performance as Billie Dawn to the silver screen. The voice, the dimples, and the would-be haughty walk are all captured for moviegoers to enjoy. Holliday’s characterization is both funny and lovable, which is perhaps how she remarkably beat out Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard) and both Bette Davis and Anne Baxter (All About Eve) for the Best Actress Oscar of 1951. It was the great triumph of a brilliant but sadly short career. Born in 1921, she died of breast cancer in 1960, just a decade after her greatest triumph. Her last role was a musical performance in another Broadway transfer, Bells are Ringing, in which she was once again irresistibly adorable.

 Dedicated to the memory of Dolly Parton, another adorable blonde who was smarter than she sometimes let on.

 

 

Hayden Panettiere: Showbiz Kid

I’m not exactly a Hayden Panettiere groupie. Truth be told, I never saw the TV series for which she was best known: Nashville and Heroes. Yes, I watched her childhood performance in Remember the Titans, but couldn’t tell you anything about it. So I was surprised by the outpouring of public grief that has followed Panettiere’s sudden death this past week at the sadly early age of 36. I read with great interest that—following a broken engagement, severe post-partum depression, and a long sad history of substance abuse—Hayden had published in May of this year a memoir titled This Is Me: A Reckoning. In it she owned up to a difficult coming-of-age and an ongoing struggle with mental health issues.

 All this meant something to me because, while writing for the Hollywood Reporter, I had interviewed a newly eleven-year-old Hayden (and her mom) for a special “showbiz kids” issue that featured the young actress as “one to watch.” We spoke on the telephone, and both mother and daughter sounded intelligent and serious about the complexities of a life lived on soundstages. Mom Lesley, once an actress herself, talked knowingly about casting sessions and about gauging her daughter’s comfort level when she was introduced to challenging material. Lesley clearly saw herself as a serious protector of Hayden’s physical and mental well-being.

 Hayden, who began her career doing commercials when she was a mere 8 months old, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying her on-set adventures. She proved herself a trouper, even when expected to perform difficult stunts like (in an historical drama called The Affair of the Necklace) jumping out of a moving carriage while carrying a heavy pretend-baby on her back. When we spoke, she seemed well aware that as she matured there would be new expectations to manage. Said she, “I’m sure when the kissing scenes come along, I’ll be very uncomfortable.” Giggling, she speculated on what it must be like to smooch in front of the cameras, with a director on hand to call the shots.

 I asked how well she fit into her home environment when she was not busy filming. She admitted that having friends was a bit complicated: “They judge me by my acting and not by me.”  Nonetheless, “I don’t think of myself as anybody special. I think of myself as just another kid.” 

 When writing my article about showbiz kids like Hayden, I consulted with Dr. Charles Portney, a psychiatrist who focused on adolescents. In his SoCal practice he treated many former young actors who were now finally able to speak for themselves. In some cases, patients who had played the role of crime victims suffered years later from “delayed onset” trauma. Another danger, he told me, was that kids might come out of their Hollywood experience “precocious and cynical. It’s too big a dose of reality at too young an age.” In the long term, they “can have problems, because your childhood is supposed to prepare you for adulthood.”

 Dr. Portney made clear that “there are many [showbiz] parents who try very hard to do a good job.” Still, you can only protect  your child up to a point. In the long run, showbiz kids are “oriented toward giving a performance, not preparing for adulthood.” When kids are too precocious, it’s at the expense of normal childhood experiences. This can affect future romantic and intimate relationships.  

 Some young actors, whether through good parenting or good luck, survive beautifully: look at Jodie Foster or Ron Howard. For Hayden Panettiere and others, though, truly adult coping skills are delayed until too late.

 

 

 

 

Anne Hathaway: Once Upon a Princess

A long airline flight always gives me a great excuse to check out movies old and new on my seat-back screen. Sometimes there are surprises: flying over the Atlantic in a plane full of sleeping passengers, I decided to watch an oldie: Astaire and Rogers in 1939’s The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. It’s the true tale of a famous dance duo hugely popular just before World War I.  I hadn’t realized, until I saw the film, that the historical Vernon, who had patriotically joined the Royal Flying Corps, died in a plane crash. Uh oh—not a nice thing to think about while aloft in the middle of the night.

 A recent cross-country trip allowed me to watch the new sequel to a comedy favorite of mine, The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Now, twenty years later, filmmakers have gathered the original cast—Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci—to update the story of an ambitious young journalist who finds herself taking orders from the imperious editor of Runway magazine, played by Streep with memorable sangfroid. In the original film, Hathaway’s Andy Sachs was a smart but naïve young college grad who thought she could handle the complexities of a job in the fashion industry while dealing with the demands of the capricious editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly. Ultimately Andy learned . . . and triumphed (mostly) on her own terms. I had heard that the 2026 sequel would take an updated look at the waning role of the print medium within today’s fashion industry, and so it does. Andy is now an award-winning journalist with a new, and much more impressive, job at Runway, and Miranda is now threatened by unexpected forces that want to push her out of her top-dog position. That being said, not a lot has changed in terms of the film’s central relationship. Miranda is still icy; Andy is still puppy-dog eager. (Actually, it’s supporting player Blunt who makes the most striking evolution in the course of the story.) 

Having mildly (but no more) enjoyed this return to the ladies of Runway, I decided to check out the film that first put Hathaway on the map. She was not yet 20 when she starred for director Garry Marshall in Disney’s The Princess Diaries (2001), a family-friendly tale of a girl who makes the most romantic of transformations. Mia, played by Hathaway, is a San Francisco kid with a bohemian mom and very few friends at her trendy prep school. When she first appears on screen she’s almost unrecognizable in her requisite uniform: her hair is a frizzy mop and she wears thick spectacles. Beyond this, she’s gangly and awkward, and  clearly not the greatest of students. But life has a surprise for her, which comes in the form of a soignée Julie Andrews, who turns out to be Mia’s long-absent paternal grandmother—and the reigning monarch of the tiny European kingdom of Genovia. Now Mia, because of her father’s recent death, is next in line for the throne . . . and therefore must learn to conform to royal standards of looks and behavior. Hilarity ensues, as the ugly duckling is (with her grandmother’s loving help) transformed into a swan. It’s the Disney Princess version of Andy Sacks discovering how to dress, how to behave, and how to thrive in the fashion industry.

 Come to think of it, movies are full of these Cinderella stories, in which the drab or gawky young girl metamorphoses into some sort of princess.  I’m thinking, for instance, of Gigi, but YOU may have other examples in mind.

 

 

Sharks, Sirens, and Other Hollywood Icons

 

I’m lucky indeed to live in a place where movies are part of the landscape. And I’m doubly lucky because I’m a member of the Motion Picture Academy’s new museum, which takes pride in investigating the culture of movies from every angle. Since its opening in 2021, I’ve been to the Academy Museum multiple times, exploring movies in terms of their artistry, their technological mastery, and their impact upon world culture.

 The Academy Museum hardly ignores the motion pictures that represent foreign lands. I remember an exhibit vividly showing off key clips from the audacious Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodóvar. Currently, there’s a lovely tribute to Hayao Miyazaki’s charming animated Ponyo, as well as an in-depth look at the career of Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho, the brilliant satirist behind Okja and the Oscar-winning Parasite.   

 Still, the museum is fundamentally in and of Hollywood, and so you can rightly expect that many exhibits will focus on the men and women of the Hollywood studio system. (A newish permanent exhibit highlights the building of studio lots in the still-wide-open Southern California landscape, as well as the background of the men—several of them immigrants—who arrived in town with a gleam in their eyes and began to create an industry.) And some of the museum’s most lavish exhibits delve into the making of Hollywood’s greatest hits as well as the careers of Hollywood’s most indelible stars.

 Set to close soon is an appropriately massive  exhibit on the making and marketing of Jaws. (No surprise that this blockbuster is given star treatment, given that its director—Steven Spielberg—has been a generous supporter of the museum since its inception. And the surviving 25-foot fiberglass model of the film’s arch-villain, Bruce the Shark, permanently hangs over the museum’s escalator to give visitors a quick thrill.)  It was fascinating to discover how the timely improvisation of the three central actors helped bring to life Peter Benchley’s novel, but I equally enjoyed my glimpses of the film’s global marketing campaign. It featured  Jaws foreign language posters (the one from Japan, riffing on a hugely famous Hokusai woodblock print, is particularly clever) as well as zany collectors’ items like a shark-shaped souvenir cup with a straw that looks like a hapless swimmer.

 Though Jaws is going bye-bye, there’s a new and extensive salute to Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood Icon. For those who associate Monroe solely with her sexy role in Some Like It Hot or with the gossip surrounding her connection with President John F. Kennedy, it’s refreshing to focus in on other aspects of her talents. Though she certainly nourished her siren image, the off-screen Monroe was a serious reader who worked hard to polish her dramatic skills. The exhibit includes, along with some fabulous spangled gowns, the casual streetwear she preferred when she was not in front of the cameras. By happenstance, I’d just re-watched The Seven Year Itch, the (slightly toned-down) film version of a naughty Broadway hit about a middle-aged husband—home alone for the summer—who fantasizes abut the sexy young woman living upstairs. Tom Ewell, a terrifically average-looking comic actor, was the male lead on both stage and screen. In the film version, the dream girl was played by Monroe, as a charming though slightly dizzy blonde languishing in the heat of her top-floor digs. This is the film in which her flouncy white dress billows up when she stands over a subway grate. But the museum also displays the modest pink pjs she wears when invited downstairs for a nightcap, thus crushing Ewell’s erotic expectations.

 

Japanese "woodblock" ad for "Jaws"

Marilyn's PJs in "The Seven Year Itch"  

 

Hitchcock: Man and Myth

Alfred Hitchcock is hardly filmdom’s forgotten man. Although Hitchcock passed from the scene in 1980, every year seems to bring forth another few books about his films and his life. One of the latest, from University Press of Kentucky, is A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, The Myths, The Legacy by British filmmaker Tony Lee Moral. Moral, who poses in his book jacket author-photo with a vicious-looking crow on his arm, has previously published studies of both Hitchcock’s Marnie and The Birds. This new Moral work goes back to the beginning, showing Hitchcock developing his filmmaking talents among the German Expressionist. Still, Moral spends the bulk of his time on the late Hollywood Hitchcock, especially on his fraught relationship with anointed star-in-the-making Tippi Hedren.

 The interaction between Hitchcock and Hedren was clearly complex. Once the exquisite Grace Kelly had departed for Monaco, there to take the throne as Princess Grace, Hitchcock was casting around for a new leading lady. There’s not much discussion of why such later Hitchcock blondes as Doris Day (The Man Who Knew Too Much), Kim Novak (Vertigo), and Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest) didn’t entirely fill the bill. But Hickock was apparently after a Hollywood newcomer whom he could mold to his own aesthetic specifications. He found Hedren, a successful New York cover-girl model, while watching a TV commercial for a diet drink. Their first project together, The Birds (1963), proved to be a physical and emotional challenge for the newcomer. But the film’s massive box-office success led to Hedren being given another opportunity, this time for the title role in Hitchcock’s Marnie. This 1964 film, with its lurid sexual subtext, earned mixed reviews and box-office earnings (though it has been rediscovered by critics since). But ultimately tension between director and star led to a break in their relationship, and Hedren never acted for Hitchcock again. In fact, she was later to claim that he actively worked to sabotage her future film career.

 Enter Donald Spoto, a young scholar and film critic who began by idolizing Hitchcock. (His first book, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock, was published in 1976).) Though, while teaching in Los Angeles,  he got to meet his idol, Moral posits that Spoto was disappointed not to be able to establish a closer connection. Ultimately, after meeting Tippi Hedren, Spoto published a sensational second book, 1983’s The Dark Side of Genius, which explores what he sees as Hitchcock’s bad behavior toward Hedren and other actresses. He was to expand on this theme once again in 2008’s Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, a study even more lurid than the previous one. Moral, after doggedly questioning Hedren and other Hitchcock cast and crew members, is deeply skeptical about what Spoto sees as Hitchcock’s warped psyche and possessive attitude toward women. (For the record, Hitchcock had a long and apparently successful marriage to screenwriter and film editor Alma Reville, who was his frequent collaborator and sounding-board on his films. He had as well as a solid relationship with daughter Pat, who plays a key role in her father’s Strangers on a Train and continues to defend him today.)

 Frankly, I was surprised by how much of this book focuses on Spoto (including an exploration of his personal sexuality and his rather arcane  religious views). But Moral does make the valid point that, in a “Me Too” era, movie fans are less forgiving of behavior that once might have seemed quite normal on a film set. Did Hitchcock really demand sexual favors of Tippi Hedren? I guess we’ll never know.