Summer Repeats: Movies I Absolutely Love

Summertime and TCM (UK) are finally showing some interesting afternoon double-bills, so its a case of laying out some cold drinks and snacks and enjoying once more items like Minnelli's LES GIRLS followed by Tashlin's ever-delirious THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT. Logically speaking as I have the dvds I can watch these any old time, but if they are on television I simply have to watch them again. There was also a nice double bill of two I don't have and have not seen since I was a kid: BELOVED INFIDEL and THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA. INFIDEL is one of the 3 Kerr made in '59, all very unseen now - I like THE JOURNEY (as per Kerr label), but will we ever get to see again COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS? Deborah and Peck should have been a dream team in '59 (like Greg was with Jean Simmons, Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall, Ava Gardner) if only the film had been worthy of them.
But it got me thinkiing on all those movies I love and can see any time: not only my top 25 or so movies (Top 50+ movies label) but choice items like: THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, WOMAN'S WORLD, DESIGNING WOMAN, THE OPPOSITE SEX, JUPITER'S DARLING, ANATOMY OF A MURDER, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, WILD RIVER. Then there's those recent (re)discoveries of mine like I WAS HAPPY HERE (Sarah Miles label), THAT MAN FROM RIO (Belmondo, Dorleac labels), Visconti's SANDRA or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS (Visconti, Cardinale, Sorel labels), THE SEA WALL or THIS ANGRY AGE (Mangano label), and Jayne in the delirious THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT - it will be on to WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? next!



So,just a few images to remind ourselves of Lady Wren (Kay Kendall label) in court in LES GIRLS, Jimmy Dean in EAST OF EDEN, Lee Remick in WILD RIVER, Kay and Rex and Angela in DEBUTANTE, Sarah back in Ireland in I WAS HAPPY HERE, Belmondo and Francoise Dorleac in THAT MAN FROM RIO, Silvana and Tony Perkins dancing in THE SEA WALL, Jean Sorel and Lilli Palmer in ADORABLE JULIA, Kate in SUMMERTIME, and those striking images from Visconti's SENSO and SANDRA (Sorel, Cardinale, Alida Valli, Visconti labels)...

Then there's all those other favourites, commented on here, like ALL FALL DOWN, THE CHAPMAN REPORT, QUENTIN DURWARD, MOONFLEET, THE PRODIGAL, THE EGPYTIAN, THE WAY TO THE STARS, NOW VOYAGER, OLD ACQUAINTANCE, PLEIN SOLEIL, THE LION IN WINTER, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, SOME LIKE IT HOT, BLACK NARCISSUS, I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, LA LOI, THE LEOPARD, AMERICAN GIGOLO, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, and those Lorens, Hitchcocks, Von Sternbergs ... quite a few more "Movies I Love" to write about then!

Fabulous interiors

Or who lives in a house like this?

Bunny Watson's [Katharine Hepburn] New York apartment in DESK SET - it looks so comfy, particularly when the fire is lit!



Then we have that very roomy lush apartment belonging to Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall in 1958's THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, with that corridor, and those very Minnelli touches: the yellow and red armchairs and lamps, and that perfect shade of green chair and matching lamp ...



Then more Minnelli: the red room and that yellow and white study in THE BANDWAGON, part of theatre ham Jeffrey Cordova's [Jack Buchanan] townhouse. I want to live there too ...



as I do of course in Julian Kay's [Richard Gere] perfect living space in AMERICAN GIGOLO.

Blondie

Blondie's PARALLEL LINES (which has just been given away free here in an English newspaper) is a classic album featuring brilliant singles and it turned the group Blondie into massive international stars. It brings back a lot of memories of that late '70s early '80s time and its great hearing those songs like Heart of Glass, Picture This, Hanging on the Telephone, Fade Away and Radiate etc again. It has driven me back to their other material, classics like Rapture, The Tide Is High and Debbie Harry's I Want That Man.

This album shows the band at the peak of their powers. It reached Nr 1 in the UK charts in February 1979 and heralded a period when the New York group was one of the biggest in the world. I was just in my 30s then and it was all very relevant to me. They were 5 boys and one drop-dead gorgeous girl who burst on the music scene highlighting that New York vibe of the time. Female rock stars like Madonna and Lady Gaga owe many of their ideas to Debbie Harry.

PARALLEL LINES now looks like a vivid postcard from a cool, mixed up corner of late '70s New York, a time when disco, punk and art collided. The New York of those years was not the affluent city of today but was a lethal semi-derelict place where Blondie made their headquarters. Chris Stein the band's guitarist was Debbie's boyfriend and so-founder of the group. Their contemporaries were legends-in-waiting like Talking Heads but it was Blondie who bottled their sound and vision of the sound and attitude of New York and exported the city to the world's pop charts.

Their Call Me was also another giant hit, used over the opening credits of Paul Schrader's hymn to the era, AMERICAN GIGOLO. Their momentum stalled in 1982 when Stein developed a rare skin disease and Debbie Harry retired from the spotlight to nurse him back to health. They returned in the late '90s with more hits like Maria and a hit album, and there is a new album out in January - 3 of which tracks are on this free giveaway. It does whet one's appetite for more Blondie. Blondie are arguably the greatest band of New York City and those years and PARALLEL LINES captures every element of their brilliance. It was good too to see Debbie during her solo years and when she performed with the Jazz Passengers. Cool is the word.

Just a gigolo

I noticed AMERICAN GIGOLO was showing late in the tv schedules so I decided to record it and have another look. I have the dvd of course but I would never have got around to playing it. So I had another look - and I loved it all over again!

Sometimes one can love a movie too much - you can become obsessed about it, go back to see it several times [this is before video, let alone dvd...], one gets the poster, the soundtrack album, it becomes part of that period of your life. Then you get over it and never want to go back to it but it will always be there for you: EAST OF EDEN, THE MISFITS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, 2001, EL CID, CHARADE and THE PINK PANTHER, KLUTE for Jane Fonda's Bree Daniels, Isabelle Adjani stunning me in THE HISTORY OF ADELE H, Genevieve Bujold in OBSESSION, MODESTY BLAISE, BLOW-UP [ideal when I was 21], UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME, A BIGGER SPLASH, THE PASSENGER, CHINATOWN, TAXI DRIVER, BARRY LYNDON and AMERICAN GIGOLO for my early 30s. It caught that end of the 70s and into the 80s vibe exactly and made Los Angeles a dream city, Hockney-esque as Richard Gere drove around to Giorgio Moroder's score and Blondie's "Call Me".

That sequence is still perfection: Gere full of himself laying out his clothes in that apartment I wanted to live in, as Smokey Robinson sings that perfect song which the scene seems to be edited to: "We used to meet in romantic places .... the way you wrecked my life was just like sabotage ... the love I saw in you was just a mirage". Pity the song wasn't included on the soundtrack album, but I found it on a Smokey compilation! and then of course for the disco scene with all those macho guys dancing - how very 1980 - Cheryl Barnes' "Love and Passion".

By the mid 70s Paul Schrader was the guy to watch with his scripts for TAXI DRIVER and OBSESSION and being lionised by the likes of "Film Comment" - then his gritty early movies like BLUE COLLAR and HARDCORE emerging from his Calvinist upbringing. Then the glossy AMERICAN GIGOLO caught the moment perfectly and sealed Richard Gere's reputation after those roles in those key movies like DAYS OF HEAVEN, LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR and Schlesinger's YANKS. Oddly enough I had no interest in him after that - I didn't want to see the big hit AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN (which like TOP GUN became symbolic of the era) and seeing some of the BREATHLESS remake on television confirmed that he was now playing to his admirers.

But as Julian Kay, alone in his apartment with his weights and his clothes and learning Swedish for a new client he does not realise the enemies he is making by falling out with Nina Van Pallandt's madam who created him, or the pimp Leon - before he knows it he is framed for murder and has to turn on himself and wreck his apartment to find those hidden jewels. His clients and socialite friends desert him - but there is Lauren Hutton as the woman he is finding out how to love another person who stands by him. Hutton has hardly been accused of acting, but I love her here; she is perfectly in tune with the film and displays great vulnerability and layers of character. Gere too steps up to the mark with Schrader's exploration of his vulnerabilities and why he does what he does, including that nude scene. One could hardly picture John Travolta doing it. He is so central to the movie, like how Antonioni idealised David Hemmings in BLOW-UP.



This is a perfect summation by Jed Medina of its themes: "A slick Los Angeles callboy finds love and redemption in Paul Schrader's ultra-stylish drama. High-living prostitute Julian Kay has it all: the Mercedes, the clothes, access to Beverly Hills' swankiest establishments, and a stable of rich, older female clients. But it all falls apart after he does a favor for his former pimp (Bill Duke) and the trick turns up dead a short while later; Julian's actual client won't give him an alibi, and police detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) doesn't believe the gigolo's denials. The one person who can help him is frustrated politician's wife (and sole non-paying bedmate) Michelle (Lauren Hutton), if only Julian could let down his defenses and accept her gesture of love. Mixing his admiration for European art cinema with a voyeuristic view of the seamier side of sex and affluence, Schrader renders Julian an inscrutable, emotionally disengaged purveyor of pleasure, decked out in Giorgio Armani clothes coordinated with Ferdinando Scarfiotti's meticulous production design.
With some audiences reportedly showing up for repeat viewings of Gere's seductive charms, it became a moderate hit, turning Gere into a star and Armani into the new fashion sensation. Whatever reservations one may have about the movie, it provided two indelible images of 1980s decadence to come: Gere's perusing his "artist's palette" of shirts, ties, and jackets, and cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in his convertible to the New Wave strains of Blondie's "Call Me"."

The other elements - the stylised apartment, Moroder's score, the set design of Ferdinando Scarfiotti (a victim of the 80s Aids crisis), the Armani clothes and Schrader's script and direction, all those serpentine camera movements - blend to create a perfect zeitgeist movie for its time, like Fosse and ALL THAT JAZZ. And of course those Robert Bresson influences, like that ending echoing PICKPOCKET as Julian finds redemption by finally accepting love. It all still works now. Nice to have seen it again and put it back for some other future time. Schrader went on to his intriguing remake of CAT PEOPLE and LIGHT SLEEPER and then after a dip while exploring his demons, returned the other year with THE WALKER, with its echoes of AMERICAN GIGOLO and another great central performance one would not expect from Woody Harrelson. Hopefully there will be more Schrader films to fascinate us. The older Gere is also turning out the occasional interesting movie as well as some very disposable ones!

Soundtracks

Favourite soundtrack albums of a '60s/'70s boy:

Back in that pre-video age of the '60s and '70s the soundtrack album was essential, as witness the sales of THE SOUND OF MUSIC album! I started off as a teen with those big hits like SOUTH PACIFIC, WEST SIDE STORY and the Broadway cast of MY FAIR LADY. The following though were my essentials before getting my first vhs recorder at the end of 1979! The Beatles albums A HARD DAYS NIGHT and HELP! did not seem like soundtrack albums at all, but were regarded as the new Beatles albums.
BLOWUP - this 1966 soundtrack has been part of my life, first on album, then CD and now on the ipod. Herbie Hancock's spare score still fascinates and was my introduction to modern jazz, its great background music too. One felt very cool playing this to friends back then...
UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME - Francis Lai's score was also much played over the years, particularly that "Samba Saravah" number with its enticing bossa nova beat.
2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY - Kubrick's films all have great scores and make great use of music, this being the daddy of them all giving "The Blue Danube" and "Thus Spake Zarathustra" a new lease of life...
AMERICAN GIGOLO - this sums up the late '70s for me - disco grooves like "Love and Passion" and more laid back Giorgio Moroder ambient pieces
CLEOPATRA - a great soundtrack by Alex North capturing the lushness of the film, particularly the love theme and Cleo's entry into Rome. (also of course the scores for BEN HUR, EL CID etc)
THE LION IN WINTER - John Barry's score of this much loved 1968 film is a perfect blend of faux medieval chants and choral work that perfectly capture the period - and he did not use "Carmina Burana"!
MIDNIGHT COWBOY - Barry's 1969 hit album is also just right, with the "Everybody's Talking" hit...
FUNNY GIRL - how we loved it at the time, also the Broadway cast album (as I had seen the London stage production in 1966, when 20 and in the front row!). We also liked the soundtrack for HELLY DOLLY!
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - perhaps the best of the John Williams scores?
BARRY LYNDON / DEATH IN VENICE / ELVIRA MADIGAN - the great classical crossover albums - Mahler became the sound of the Visconti film, and Mozart for Bo Widerberg's almost too pretty ELVIRA.
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER - kitsch now of course but enormous at the time, we had to have it.