Sanctuary, sanctuary ...

Fascinating to catch up now with THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE, the first movie version of William Faulkner's novel SANCTUARY, it makes for a terrific 70 minute Pre-Code movie, directed by Stephen Roberts in 1933, with Miriam Hopkins in full throttle as that spoilt, selfish tease Temple, wno thinks she can flirt and control her men, until she is held captive by bootleggers and raped by Jack Le Rue, and Temple finds she likes it ... eventually back home she has to testify about what really happened and who killed Trigger (La Rue) which will show her up in her true light. Miriam of course went on to VANITY FAIR in 35, the first colour main movie, and appearing a few times with her rival Bette Davis and she was very effective in later roles, mainly for Wyler, in films like THE HEIRESS, CARRIE and THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. Many indeed are the stories of her feuds with Davis and others... I particularly relish 1943's OLD ACQUAINTANCE, a delirious treat anytime.

Fascinating too to compare with the 1960 version SANCTUARY, long unseen here, directed by Tony Richardson as his first venture in Hollywood, with Lee Remick perfect as Temple and Yves Montand doing an impersonation of La Rue. Here is what I said about it last year:


"Also long unseen here, is Tony Richardson’s 1961 film of SANCTUARY which I had wanted to catch up with for Lee Remick’s performance as Temple Drake. Bradford Dillman plays her husband and Yves Montand (fresh from Marilyn Monroe and LET’S MAKE LOVE) as the bootlegger Candyman who rapes her. Blues singer Odetta is also in the cast. Remick is as fascinating as ever as the tease who takes to sex and booze, and that remote to us now 20s era of flappers and the Charleston is well conveyed. The story is bizarre though with the death of the baby – again, perhaps a reading of the book would be useful. An odd choice though for director Tony Richardson. Montand has a great 'look' with the hat and the cigarette, but back then the English language continued to defeat him. Remick though is the reason to see this, with lots of lingering close-ups of her."

Soon: the real Jeanne Eagels in THE LETTER in 1929, also compared to Bette's in 1940 and Lee Remick's in 1982, and Kim Novak as Jeanne in the 1957 meller JEANNE EAGELS

L'Avventura again, and again

Here is an early post of mine from 2 years ago, on Antononi's L'AVVENTURA:

The late English film critic and writer Alexander Walker [whom I used to see around town regularly] was very perceptive in his movie reviews and his biographies on the likes of Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Garbo and the silent era. His Thursday reviews were essential reading.

Here are his comments from a recommendation on a screening of L'AVVENTURA:

"Not all great movies, as Pauline Kael tartly observed, are received "in an atmosphere of incense burning". Michelangelo Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA was greeted at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival with a storm of cat-calling and booing. Yet within the year it had become the most fashionable film in European arthouses, and one that set the tone of other bleakly visionary film-makers. It begins with an almost glossy magazine depiction of the affluent Rome middle-class on a yachting holiday in the Lipari islands. Tensions are perceptible, but enigmatically conveyed. Then, as they prepare to leave an island, one woman (Lea Massari) is found to be missing. A search is mounted. With marvellous sleight-of-hand, Antonioni misdirects our attention: gradually we realise that instead of being looked for by her friends, she is being forgotten as two of them fall in love. The film changes key subtly, yet again to suggest how the emotions of a social class have become deadened and selfish. Monica Vitti made her name with this puzzle picture. The last sequence in a Taormina luxury hotel became notorious for her apparantly endless walk through the midnight corridors to discover her treacherous lover (Gabriele Ferzetti). It tried the patience of the black-tie crowd beyond endurance; yet The Walk soon became the trademark of other heroines, in other movies, who exemplified the sick soul of sixties Europe."

L'AVVENTURA was though the most problematic of the Antonioni films for me, I much preferred L'ECLISSE but now I have seen L'AVVENTURA a few more times and suddenly I think its wonderful in all its stark beauty. Our arty film channel Film4 ran it again last week, and despite having the Criterion dvd, I recorded it and found myself returning to it several times. It is pure cinema and I can now lose myself in it repeatedly. The first section on the island is brilliant - the photographs here show what a difficult shoot it must have been on the island in that magic year 1959. Monica Vitti is mesmerising and its a very multi-faceted performance: her anguish on the island searching for Anna, then trying to evade Sandro and finally giving in to her feelings and being deliriously in love and then that climax at the hotel in Taormina in that cold dawn ... a gold plated classic then and as I said in other posts on it, it and PSYCHO usher in that new modern world of 1960, both in their way about a woman who disappears and the people looking for her.

Another Italian discovery: La Lunga Notte del '43

"I was surpised at how much I enjoyed THE LONG NIGHT OF '43 - it was not at all what I was expecting from a "war movie" (which is what I thought it was) let alone a Belinda Lee movie", so says my friend Melvelvit (from IMDB). It is certainly a big re-discovery for me, as I saw it back in 1967 when I was 21 as an older friend then took me to see it at London's National Film Theatre so many thanks to Guy Tremlett for introducing me to the NFT, - I more or less lived there in the '70s; this film though never showed up anywhere since.

Florestano Vancini made his debut with this 1960 drama, a potent mix of illicit romance and politics, set in Ferrara [Antonioni's home town] as the Fascists tighten their grip to maintain control. Belinda Lee is the wife of a crippled pharmacy owner who spends his time looking out the front window in the apartment above the pharmacy where she works at the till - so he sees too much. At the cinema she meets old flame Gabriele Ferzetti, who is hiding with his family, and they embark on a romance. The personal and the political come to a climax one long night in that December 1943. A wartime atrocity occurs [several prominent locals are rounded up and shot including Ferzetti's father], pushing the two lovers in very different directions. A coda, set in present-day 1960, plays out bitterly but beautifully, jettisoning romance in favor of a grim reminder that the murderers are still among us. It's a remarkable finish to a very compelling film. The leads are excellent; Pier Paolo Pasolini is one of the credited screenwriters, its from a story by Giorgio Bassani, author of THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS.



The film brought director Vancini a "Best First Work" award at the Venice Film Festival in 1960, and according to my other IMDB pal Jorge, he is now resident in Brazil. Jorge by the way is looking forward to seeing a copy of this.



Gabriele Ferzetti, the same year as L'AVVENTURA, plays another selfish, hollow man here [and he is still working, playing the patriarch in my 2010 favourite I AM LOVE, 2000s label], while Belinda Lee in one of her last roles (before that fatal car crash in 1961) shows what a loss she was - she is a compelling actress here jettisoning most of her glamour - quite a contrast to her Rank Organisation or sword-and-sandal peplum roles. Deglamorised and playing an ordindary Italian woman she is like a young Magnani or Loren, and shows how her career could have gone if fate had been different. It is a very engrossing film with the central massacre sequence being brilliantly staged. One of my re-discoveries of the year then.

It has been interesting too catching up with 2 of Belinda's peplums: the 1957 APHRODITE GODDESS OF LOVE, and her last film CONSTANTINE AND THE CROSS with Cornel Wilde, released in 1962.

1960 !

A thread on The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) on 1960 unleashed a torrent of memories:

1960 - what a year to have been 14 and "deeper into movies". Looking at it retrospectively now I am firmly in the PSYCHO and L'AVVENTURA camp (though I did not see the latter until years later) as the two most important films of the year, ushering in the new modern world (both of course feature a woman who goes missing and the people searching for her....)



So the major ones that year for me are: The 10 Big Ones:

PSYCHO
L'AVVENTURA
LA DOLCE VITA
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS
PLEIN SOLEIL [I was entranced by that cool European style, and Delon and Laforet]
WILD RIVER [ditto Lee Remick]
THE APARTMENT
SPARTACUS
A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (BREATHLESS)
PEEPING TOM.

Lots of solid middlebrow entertainment:

SONS AND LOVERS
TWO WOMEN [Sophia at her peak]
NEVER ON SUNDAY
ELMER GANTRY
LETS MAKE LOVE
THE UNFORGIVEN
EXODUS
NORTH TO ALASKA [a favourite!]
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
WHERE THE BOYS ARE
THE CROWDED SKY
THE TIME MACHINE
SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON [great fun]
POLLYANNA [how we loved that in Ireland!]
BUTTERFIELD 8
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
BRIDES OF DRACULA
SINK THE BISMARCK
THE ENTERTAINER
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING
TUNES OF GLORY
THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN
THE SUNDOWNERS [Mitch and Kerr were so ideally perfect here, again]
THE GRASS IS GREENER
CIMARRON
THE LOST WORLD.

I suppose THE ALAMO should be included too among the year's hits, and I also liked Blake Edwards' HIGH TIME where rich Bing Crosby goes back to college, and rooms with Fabian, Richard Beymer and Tuesday Weld!

It was certainly the year for call girls - apart from Elizabeth and Melina (NEVER ON SUNDAY) there were also

Gina Lollobrigida - GO NAKED IN THE WORLD (high class call girl falls for Tony Franciosa but his powerful father - Ernest Borgnine, an ex-client of hers, has other ideas...)

Nancy Kwan - THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG

Anne Francis - GIRL OF THE NIGHT (downbeat indie film)

and award-winning Shirley Jones in ELMER GANTRY.

Adultery in suburbia was covered in Quine's STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET, with Kim Novak at her zenith.

It may have been Sophia Loren's best year: apart from the success of TWO WOMEN, she was also in Cukor's charming western HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS, plus THE MILLIONAIRESS with Peter Sellers' Indian doctor, with Gable in his second last film IT STARTED IN NAPLES which is still a charmer, and the under-rated A BREATH OF SCANDAL which I liked a lot.

Brigitte Bardot acted in LA VERITE, and Ingmar Bergman provided the austere THE VIRGIN SPRING, while Stanley Kramer inflicted the ponderous INHERIT THE WIND on us, and John Ford provided a good late western SERGEANT RUTLEDGE.

Donen's ONCE MORE WITH FEELING showcased Kay Kendall in her last role, she had died in 1959.

There were 2 Minnelli's: another hothouse melodrama HOME FROM THE HILL, and the under-rated musical BELLS ARE RINGING, Judy Holliday's last appearance.

Elvis was back from the army in GI BLUES and FLAMING STAR.

For those who like that kind of thing: Jerry Lewis as THE BELLBOY.

Some ghastly musicals were Fox's CAN-CAN and Columbia's all-star PEPE, and the Rat Pack played around in OCEAN'S 11.

One that did not work at all was Lumet's too highbrow THE FUGITIVE KIND, though Brando, Magnani and Woodward should have generated some box office .... despite playing what seemed like caricatures of themselves.

and for Trash you can't beat MGM and Arthur Freed for THE SUBTERRANEANS, their sanitised version of Jack Kerouac and the beat generation as depicted by Leslie Caron, George Peppard and Roddy McDowell - followed by the star quartet of Natalie, RJ Wagner, Susan Kohner and George Hamilton tearing each other apart in ALL THE FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS, plus the afore-mentioned GO NAKED IN THE WORLD. Lurid melodrama doesn't get much better... though there were also two Burton starrers: THE BRAMBLE BUSH and ICE PALACE; while THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS and FROM THE TERRACE were also contenders.

Some other delirious treats - not Trash, but Guilty Pleasures - were two Ross Hunter extravaganzas: Lana, Sandra and Quinn in PORTRAIT IN BLACK and Doris and Rex in MIDNIGHT LACE, and Dirk Bogarde as Lizst in SONG WITHOUT END, plus Fox's biblical: THE STORY OF RUTH, while Gordon Scott was Tarzan and Belinda Lee and Steve Reeves headed the Italian sword-and-sandal movies.

Lots of these are covered at the Trash label.

Sophia - two more rarities

A BREATH OF SCANDAL, 1960. This, the last of the films Sophia Loren made for Paramount, seems rather forgotten now. I last saw it back in the days when revival houses ran double bills, coupled with BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS – gosh, one got value for money then! This though was not really a success, despite the opulent sets of palaces, hunting lodges and stunning interiors, set as it is in the Austrian empire circa 1900, shortly after Mayerling, as automobile salesman John Gavin from Pittsburgh gets involved with princess Olympia (Loren) who has been banned from court for being indiscreet. Maurice Chevalier and Isobel Jeans (so splendid in GIGI) are improbably her parents. Loren thinks papa has a mistress, but he only pretends to, as it is expected of him! Gavin though lacks the light comedy touch required here. Like THE SWAN it is from a play by Molnar and what sinks it is the leaden direction from old timer Michael Curtiz – I thought this was actually his last film, but he helmed a few more.

The best thing about it now of course (apart from Sophia) is another scene-stealing performance by Angela Lansbury – rather reprising her similar one in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE – as the catty Countess trying to get everyone into trouble at the Royal Palace. An amusing soufflé then with a few nice moments. I enjoyed it a lot when I was 12 though. Cukor regular George Hoyningen-Heune is credited with the costumes and he creates some stunning ones for Loren, incuding that hat which looks like she has a dead bird on her head!


DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS. The one Sophia Loren title I had not seen of her early American films - perhaps it was considered too strong for Ireland in the '50s? This Delbert Mann film, scripted by Irwin Shaw from the Eugene O'Neill play must have been heavy stuff back in 1958 – but it all seems rather risible now. There is something inherently funny in the sight (and sound) of Burl Ives’ portrayal of the despotic biblical patriarch Ephraim (who has already buried two over-worked wives) returning with Anna, his new Italian wife (Loren) a shrewish woman who married him for security and the farm. Resentful son Tony Perkins gets rid of the two other sons (who not only share a room but also a bed, common practice then, but would raise eyebrows now) and the stage is set for a variant on Greek tragedy. The actors do their best with the material which gets rather ponderous towards the end, with the party and the return of the other sons and their “fancy women”. Mann from MARTY and SEPARATE TABLES to some Doris Day films certainly helmed some interesting choices then, rather like Martin Ritt did. Certainly an interesting oddity and very stage-bound; Sophia and Tony were better cast in 1962's FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT.

Rome, 1960

LES ADOLESCENTES (I DOLCI INGANNI or SWEET DECEPTIONS). Another Italian rarity, this 1960 Alberto Lattuada film is marvellously compelling now, and is a lovely companion piece to those better known Italian films of the time, (like LES DRAGUEURS is a nice unknown companion to those better known French New Wavers). Here we are in Rome in 1960 in crisp black and white images, as we spend a day with a teenage girl, Francesca – yes it is a coming of age film but from the girl’s view.



She is the gravely beautiful Catherine Spaak whom the camera loves and lingers on. It starts with her in bed for several minutes, she gets ready for school, goes out with her brother and friends, meets older man Christian Marquand, gets to meet the aristocracy and bumps into (literally as their cars collide) petulant young gigolo Jean Sorel. The Sweet Life looks very attractive here. She ends up later with Marquand and has her first sexual experience, but is it what she expected? It ends back in her room with her looking into the camera as the film fades ... It all adds up to a very engrossing movie. Spaak went on to a prolific career (Vadim’s LA RONDE, HOTEL) and is still working – she was the mother of Italian detective ZEN (Rufus Sewell) in last year’s BBC series. A Titanus-Carlo Ponti production.

Alberto Lattuada also directed the 1958 De Laurentiis production THE TEMPEST, (Silvano Mangano label), which I liked a lot back then, and it was good to see again recently.
Another marvellous early '60s look at Italy is that recently restored episode by Monicelli, in the now 4-episode BOCCACCIO 70 (1962) featuring Marisa Solinas and Germano Giglioli as the young couple trying to get some time together, a nice addition to the other 3 segments: Anita Ekberg with Fellini, Romy Schneider with Visconti, and Sophia Loren with De Sica!

Movies I love: Johnny Guitar / North to Alaska

A western double bill!







JOHNNY GUITAR was the very first film I saw, aged 8 - what a vivid introduction to cinema, I was mesmerised by the woman in white about to be hanged, and that other woman in black shooting down the lamps and setting the place on fire. Then of course later when I knew which film it was repeated viewings made it more delirious and desirable than ever. I just simply love it. Nice now to have good dvd showing that odd Republic Technicolor, with an introduction by Marty Scorsese, no less (as good as his one for EL CID).





Then there are those tales of the feud between Joan and Mercedes on set, it is all though oddly poetic as directed by Nick Ray. Joan is perfect as Vienna "sitting at her piano in her own home" waiting for the railroad to come so she can sell out. McCambridge is Emma Small the vicious town boss who is oddly drawn to the Dancing Kid, or perhaps it is Vienna she is drawn to and cannot act on it? The men - even Ward Bond - are just stooges here, as Emma and Vienna dominate. Events move at a pace as the two women face up to the climax. Sterling Hayden is sterling again as the quiet Johnny - his scenes with Vienna as they try to recapture their lost love are just so perfect. Then the lynch mob arrive ... For a child of 8 it was a marvellous experience and led to my being taken to other westerns that year: THE COMMAND, DRUM BEAT, SITTING BULL and other movies like A STAR IS BORN. Looking at it again now the architecture is fascinating: Vienna's large casino, the waterfall hiding the way to the mountain cabin - and what a perfect cabin it is... one almost wants to live there.



Moving on to 1960, that perennial comedy western NORTH TO ALASKA is thankfully a tv staple - one simply never tires of it. Henry Hathaway directs and 20th Century Fox producton values ensure it looks good - that early sequence with the tree loggers at their picnic is not really necessary at all but all part of the lazy rambling structure of the film. Wayne here, after those iconic roles in THE QUIET MAN, THE SEARCHERS and RIO BRAVO the previous year (and those perfect 50s programmers like THE SEA CHASE and LEGEND OF THE LOST), is having fun as is Stewart Granger - good to see them together, Fabian is the younger brother (he was cute then after HOUND DOG MAN in '59) and there is the running joke of him continually being manhandled by exasperated Wayne, especially when Capucine arrives as the replacement girlfriend. Cap is delightful here and holds her own well with Wayne and joins in the knockabout.







That muddly climax at the end has them all fighting in the mud - with Ernie Kovacs as the shady operator and lots of fun all round. It shows frontier life then almost as well as in McCABE & MRS MILLER! So, a fun film with people I like! Wayne and Granger are as adroit as ever at this late stage of their careers but they were not winding down yet - while Capucine and Fabian show comedy skills and provide the eye candy. What's not to like?

Edit: It won't let me reply to the Comment, so here is what I wanted to add:



Indeed - Johnny Guitar is so vivid it plays almost like a cartoon - very accessible for a child seeing his first movie!

Capucine is indeed a very independent woman in Alaska, holding her own with the men, even if she is playing a haughty "saloon girl" but she is not a pathetic one like Lee Remick was in the '59 western "These Thousand Hills".