Still Panning For Pans

 

Before It Was Agreed They Were Great

Remember Agee acid poured on To Each His Own? Colleague Manny Farber could deal as harsh. Read him on first-run My Darling Clementine, or Strangers on A Train, then retire to a fainting couch, never so fierce barbs aimed at sacred cows John Ford (“unimaginative”) and Alfred Hitchcock (“ … has gone farther on fewer brains than any director since Griffith”). Classics when new were open season for critics not yet instructed on how to respond to them. Farber was an independent thinker, him bracing as old-style shave lotion. Is our accepting “Great Films” as great films just going along to get along? A masterpiece once certified is tough to un-certify. Auteurists gaining influence took down directors they saw as not singular enough: Fred Zinnemann, Stanley Kramer, even George Stevens, but Ford and Hitchcock have stayed inviolate. Farber spoke heresy to what would become strict placement for directors. I enjoy him for shock value current evaluation of old film lacks. Was Farber misguided, blind to splendor set before him? He was too skilled for us to dismiss so easy. Clementine the “slow-poke cowboy epic … a dazzling example of how to ruin some wonderful western history with pompous movie making” is not a quote for the Criterion box, and much as I like the movie, Farber’s voice, niggling since 1946, causes me (and others?) to wonder if maybe he made some valid points.

Object was to read Farber with an open mind before screening again My Darling Clementine (for what, a fiftieth at-least time?). Pleased to report it remains secure in my estimation. Not for a moment was I put off by “cloudscapes … as saccharine as picture postcards,” Ford applying same techniques “ever since Art Acord was a baby,” that last good for a titter, but why not point out fact that both began around a same time, in the teens, Ford by ‘46 still a working survivor where Acord was not (d. 1931). Otherwise JF might have kept Art fed with extra work. Any reference to Art Acord was by then a gag line, which brings us to reality that critics were, still are, there/here to entertain. Where clever or funny at the expense of accuracy, or even point, well … that’s the job, and everyone, even Art Acord, has to eat, this in part why I deny being, or ever having been, a critic. Also shrink from “historian” label, for wasn't it me that misspelled Donald O’Connor’s name? (bless alert readers and Blogger edit function) There was 1968-69 on The Wilkes News payroll as “chief” (only) reviewer, visits to the Liberty grown awkward as columns got less informative, and more smarty-pants (mine should have been taken down for a paddling). Don’t know why, but Farber prose evokes tilt I had with Yellow Submarine, wherein punk pundit me swapped edifying for cute, honing on one of a kid group in the auditorium that somehow got shoes off another, hurling them across seat rows as the victim gave chase. Usher staff, what there was, paid nary heed. Not willing to let well enough alone, I pointed out the same group “wrestling for a nickel that was misplaced on the floor,” that likelier invention on my part to score another laugh. Everyone’s a comedian, they say, especially movie critics wanting to juice up humdrum work they do.

I bought Strangers On A Train blind in November 1977, $175 from a collector in Charlotte who I wonder what ever happened to. He dealt anything … 35mm, 16, had begun with military surplus equipment from age twelve. My gamble on Strangers was the more so for no one I knew having seen it, me included. I took the word of writers that here was a pearl among Hitchcocks. Glad I didn’t read Farber in 1977. Being one AH did for Warners, SOAT had not network exposure like higher profile Paramounts. Syndicated TV was heir to Strangers plus Stage Fright, I Confess, Dial M For Murder, and The Wrong Man, all largely buried on late shows since 1961. I wish I could see Strangers the way I saw it that day in 1977. A crackling thriller, everything a surprise. Being still on safe side of gross over-analysis this and others of Hitchcock ultimately got, I had not worry of duality, moral ambiguity, Guy as mirror image of Bruno, or was it other way around (in short, no baggage). How much of entertainment has been denuded by microscoping? Lots, I aver. Strangers a masterpiece? Yes for me, but let Manny Farber be devil’s advocate to that, his conception of Hitchcock a director who “has made his living by subjecting the movie audience to a series of cheap, glossy, mechanically perfect shocks … cleverly masking his deficiency and his underlying petty and pointless sadism, with a honey-smooth patina of “sophistication,” irony, and general glitter.” Simple to dismiss this as bad attitude, “dated” viewpoint, but if we lack skill and personnel to create things as good as Strangers On A Train today, how do we casually dismiss those who responded to such work when it was new? Obviously they took good movies more for granted, and so kept tougher standards. Are we since too complacent where settled classics are concerned? I wonder if anyone of cultural authority ventures that Hamlet is not so hot a play after all, and what would happen to him/her for saying it?

My Darling Clementine was 1946-sold on absurdly misleading terms. Here was not a western to be held in reverence. Wish I could have heard what people said coming out. Plain folks, that is, not Ford scholars (too early for them in any case). I had a friend, William Wooten, who lived in Statesville, did what is understood to be the first monograph and filmography for Ford, in 1947. Now there was a vanguard Fordist. “Captivating Hell-Cat, Tantalizing Siren, Luring Men To Madness … To Murder!” cried ads. Such was “Clementine,” but Linda Darnell hell-catting across print pages was not Clementine in the film, nor does she lure men to madness, unless H. Fonda dunking her in a trough amounts to that, but one could argue she lures “Billy Clanton” (John Ireland) to murder … her own. The Garrick was a first-run Chicago trend-setter, independent of Fox, let alone Ford, so far as guidance toward maximum sex-sell. Showmen elsewhere would have seen their handiwork and followed suit. Lest we forget people’s concept of a movie in those days being based almost entirely on theatre ads in newspapers. Fewer actually went to see the shows. I doubt ones who did resented subterfuge out front or in dailies, all complicit in pas de deux between exhibitors and those they exhibited to.

Was a critic establishment loathe to respect Hitchcock? His seemed seldom to command respect. Rebecca was 1940's “Best Picture,” but that was more Selznick’s award. Hitchcock never won in Academy competition. They gave him Thalberg recognition to which he spoke a terse thank you. Hitchcock left England for not being regarded high enough (he thought) and never mind how much how much a public enjoyed him. I saw somewhere that Gary Cooper turned down Foreign Correspondent because it was beneath a large star's consideration. Were Hitchcock stunt thrillers unworthy to put beside serious drama? Farber seems annoyed by this director’s devices. I think part of the reason Hitchcock stayed current was his always thinking ahead of staid convention. Look at Psycho, brimming with protest toward limit movies imposed, seeming work of a maverick newcomer rather than a man sixty who had been at it forty years. For that matter, think how outlandish Strangers On A Train seemed to viewers in 1951. What we groove with easily now was break from many a steadfast rule then. What annoyed Farber, and others who’d deny Hitchcock industry reward (other than boxoffice, not within their power to withhold), was his being a true and ongoing iconoclast oblivious to custom they were of mind to uphold.

For a better if not best among Hitchcocks, Strangers On A Train kept wide of higher profile others, as did My Darling Clementine from Fords a public embraced more. Both seem vague outliers in their respective director’s output, consequence I think of stars, rather than merit, lacking. How many more would have seen My Darling Clementine over the years had John Wayne been Wyatt Earp rather than Fonda? Latter would eventually be an only recognizable name from Clementine cast. Who of latter-day viewers knew from Linda Darnell, or cared much about Victor Mature? You needed to live on late shows to realize value in these two. I wouldn’t be surprised if local listings had “Henry Fonda and Ward Bond in …” To Strangers On A Train came first-and-second billed Farley Granger and Ruth Roman, eventual strangers on promoting trains. I’d been but faintly exposed to either when Strangers On A Train came through collecting doors in 1977. Robert Walker was familiar only because I had lately got a print of Since You Went Away. Other 50’s Hitchcock had color, Cary Grant, or James Stewart, and played networks as well. “Warner Brothers Film Gallery” offered Strangers On A Train, Stage Fright, I Confess, and The Wrong Man for non-theatrical rent on 16mm., $100 each or grouped as a “Hitchcock Festival” for $340. Titles that colleges or film societies preferred, specifically the Paramounts, were unavailable with exception of To Catch A Thief. In that sense, Strangers On A Train was easier to see than others of Hitchcock oeuvre, even as it remained in the shade otherwise.

Extras with Strangers On A Train and My Darling Clementine Blu-Rays have become artifacts themselves, almost twenty years tacked on to backward glancing when content accompanied standard DVD releases. Much is here, hours, to show where these films have stood for a fan, academic, and archival community since distributors saw gain in putting more than a mere movie on discs. Instruction began with alternate versions of Clementine. Seems there was a ending that tested badly with preview audiences, was replaced by Zanuck (Lloyd Bacon hired to reshoot it). Difference was Henry Fonda kissing “Clementine” (Cathy Downs), or not kissing her, John Ford for a handshake only, so that's how he shot it. DFZ opted for the kiss, so that's how he changed it, bringing back Fonda/Downs to see that done. I am philistine enough to prefer the kiss, so would have made an ideal Zanuck Yes Man in 1946. There is analysis of real-life Wyatt Earp and what the O.K. showdown was like. Wonder how I might have responded to all this had Channel 3 used it with their mid-60’s Clementine late show, first time view for me. Criterion bonuses being there would have kept me up till cock crow. Too much even of a marvelous thing? Strangers On A Train extras were made in 2003, eighteen years ago that seems shorter (like everything 18 years ago). Of note was most on-camera contributors gone now, or not likely to sit before interviewing cameras again. Who will take their place to deep-dish Hitchcock, Ford, the rest? Or has it all been said? Fresh crop of commentators who have come to the fore will sustain, or not, for a next twenty years, plus whoever might emerge over that coming period of time. Will another Manny Farber rise up to challenge ingrained definition of Great Films as we’ve been so long taught them?