Supreme Artist of Glamour Photography

 

Hurrell's Hollywood as Revealed by Mark Vieira

Permit Greenbriar to sing unabashed praise for Mark A. Vieira’s latest book, a reprint, with much new content, the image rich Hurrell’s Hollywood, all of what was great from the 2013 edition plus more the author obtained since and put to his own, and remarkable, process of restoration and enhancement. Technology can do miracles with vintage photography, but only where the user comes equipped with knowledge of fresh resources plus technique applied generations ago by George Hurrell. In less capable hands, effort to “improve” upon classic photography will but distort beauty of subjects captured by Hurrell when glamour was the goal and images were precision designed to achieve ends. Mark Vieira understands these subtleties as result of fifty years he has spent celebrating subjects, their character, personalities, “You’re able to photograph thought” as one star sitter told him. Vieira studied Hurrell and mastered his approach, in addition to establishing his own. He describes the artist’s rise, fall, and rise again while acknowledging Hurrell as often his own worst enemy. The book explores the nether world of collectors who chased both an aging Hurrell and survivor images spread thin over Hollywood memorabilia shops and “lavender-scented” lairs of oft-ruthless sorts who would do anything, just anything, to secure treasures they valued over all else. Mark Vieira explores the psychology of obsession as it applies to classic Hollywood and gods it manufactured. “Get a life,” we might say of single-minded hunter/gatherers, and no one reveals that subculture so vividly as Vieira does here.

Hurrell could be temperamental as stars he shot. Dancing and prancing round the camera to put life into sometime dull subjects, this artist could, like a painter (Hurrell’s early ambition), be frustrated by result had. Silk purse from sow ears was his known specialty, players plain as milk emerging transformed from sessions with Hurrell. Smart ones recognized the magic, courted Hurrell, wanted him and no other to capture them, Norma Shearer in such category, and not alone in her insistence that he photograph her. Then of course there were those Hurrell rubbed wrong ways, Garbo for instance, or Olivia De Havilland. Latter sort of froze before his lens, would not do “sexy” as he liked, and insisted upon, with distaff subjects. Hurrell understood well what “glamour” was really about, film star portraiture in some ways like calendar art with richer patina. Mindful of this, Hurrell let it rip where immortalizing beauty. His way was plainly unique, and bosses saw benefit of keeping him close. Hurrell would not suffer fools nor interference, once telling Louis Mayer to go to hell. So here was classic case of a man too valuable not to tolerate while he’s hot but come dawn upon decline and … here’s your hat, George. Hurrell humbled, though no less cocksure, took work he could find, alas beneath him, rushing about sets for bad 60/70’s movies grabbing “stills” with compact modern cameras. He might have quit but for half a dozen offspring sired over several marriages. There was an 80-90’s comeback, Hurrell trendy all of a sudden and money pouring back in, restless nature having forgot worth of work he’d done in Golden Times, not saving negatives and having precious few prints, so what to do when galleries called for stuff they could hang, George with so little to supply?

Mark Vieira Learning from the Master, George Hurrell

Here was when collectors suddenly mattered. They would be recognized, courted, chased, for suddenly valuable relics they and no one else possessed. Mark Vieira knew these people and watched them scramble for what survived of Hurrell’s art. Vieira tell of how Hurrell legacy rose anew against backdrop of decaying Hollywood and its under-dwelling pack rats is reality check of first order. The author dissects twisted process that placed George Hurrell finally among great photographers of the twentieth century, status enhanced the more by progress Vieira has made toward restoring portraiture that was for years ignored or endangered. Too complex a process for laymen to readily comprehend, I asked the author to describe just how he works magic upon images to make them shine as never before. What follows is Mark Vieira’s own account of how he does it:

THOUGHTS ON PRINTING CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY 

If this were a perfect world, I would snap my fingers and instantly have access to 8x10 nitrate camera negatives made in 1934 on the set of Josef von Sternberg’s visual masterpiece, The Scarlet Empress. These are extraordinary images, worthy of fine-art printing. But we live in an imperfect world, and in 1949, Paramount Pictures, the onetime owner of those camera negatives, decided that they were taking up space. 

The negatives were thrown out, except for a few dozen that survived to find dubious use in the Universal TV Department. (Universal bought the pre-1948 Paramount film library in 1957 for TV syndication.) At other studios, many negatives survived these purges, only to succumb to Vinegar Syndrome, where latent gases cause negatives to wrinkle and crack. 

Only once were any of the Paramount negatives printed to reveal the full glory of their lighting, composition, and tonalities. This was in 1999, when I secured permission from Universal to make fine-art darkroom prints for an exhibition publicizing my book Sin in Soft Focus. Not long afterward, Universal turned its Paramount negatives over to the Motion Picture Academy for proper nitrate storage.

In the mid-2000s, digital technology spelled the end of film-and-darkroom photography. I’d been working as a photographer since 1969 and was threatened by what was happening. I didn’t like what I’d seen of digital photography. I thought digital printing looked flat and lifeless. I held on to my darkroom work, even as orders dwindled and Hollywood negatives held by collectors were sold to investors who refused to let me print the negatives. 

Flash forward to 2019: I’d learned to scan vintage black-and-white photographs because publishers would no longer accept boxes of photographs for the purpose of illustrating a book; I had to send high-resolution scans. In addition to scanning, I’d learned how to improve the images. This process became my stock in trade. 

The first step is to “clean” the image, removing white dust spots, scratches, and cracks. There are Dust Removal tools in Photoshop, but often this process must be done one spot at a time, using either the Clone Tool or the Spot Healing Tool. 

Once the image is free of ugly “artifacts,” the next step is to adjust brightness and contrast, because few images have ideal printing histories. If there is one area of the image that is too bright, I “burn” it; if it’s too dark, I “dodge” it.

The next step requires subjective judgment, because there comes a point where an image can be brought to life by adjustments in highlight and shadow detail. If done correctly, this gives the photograph a lifelike, three-dimensional look. The newly added Camera Raw Filter allows for much more dimensionality. 

Lastly, I use the Colorize Tool to give the image a slightly warm tone, but only a bit, because too much looks silly, or worse, faded, which is how many of the old pictures look when I start to work on them.

In 2019 there occurred a turning point in my photographic career. Eric Joseph of Freestyle Photographic in Hollywood led me to the Canon Pro Graf Pro 1000 inkjet printer. I had remained skeptical of digital printing, doubting that it could ever match the quality I’d achieved in the darkroom with an 8x10 enlarger. After I bought the Canon printer, I made tests. I scanned vintage negatives. I scanned vintage prints. I scanned darkroom prints I’d made from these vintage negatives. I wanted to see if I could get the Canon printer to produce prints as fine as my darkroom prints. 

The side-by-side comparisons were startling. In most cases, the Canon prints looked as good as the darkroom prints. About twenty percent of them looked better, with a wider tonal scale, improving both shadow and highlight detail. With certain Canson matte papers, I was able to find effects that I could never have found in traditional papers. This was unexpected; I’d hoped to match, not surpass. 

I’m happy, and my clients are happy, because they can purchase large fine-art prints of favorite images—for which it would be impossible to find original negatives. Before digital, the accepted practice was to shoot a copy negative (see the picture of me in 1975). The quality I got from copy negatives varied widely. Even the prints that looked good didn’t look like a print struck from a vintage camera negative. Ironically, I’ve been able to scan and upgrade old copy negatives and copy prints, in most cases so successfully that the Canon prints I make from the new scans look like originals. 

This is the most important element of the digital story—how much improvement is possible with a discerning application of Photoshop. These Before-and-After pictures should give you an idea of what’s possible. What’s rewarding is sharing an image you never thought you’d get, and seeing details you couldn’t see in a small, damaged, faded print. The photographers who made these images were artists, so what I’m doing is art restoration—and I’m teaching art history.

Much further info, and imagery, at Mark Vieira's Starlight Studio site. Visit also his Facebook page for daily updates.

Category Called Comedy #3

 

CCC: Million Dollar Legs, The Lucky Dog, They Got Me Covered, and Big Jack

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS (1932) --- Really wacky, almost perverse comedy. Million Dollar Legs got latter years boost when Pauline Kael wrote somewhere that it was good, and so of course, others followed suit. How could one tire of mere 64 minutes? Looks like everybody who ever raised a laugh was hired, none so long as to fatigue, Jack Oakie most visible. Shown if at all because W.C. Fields is aboard, Million Dollar Legs has him by-playing with other comics. We wonder how competitive these clowns were, on-set or off. This was Bill’s first time talking for Paramount, them trusting him for support or specialties for the time being, starring work to wait until a public seemed ready. Gags are saucy and travel fast. There’s constant sense of having missed something that might be funny. Laughter arises from the unexpected, at times outrageous. Young Joseph Mankiewicz was among writers. He’d recall later what a mess it all seemed. Paramount refined a sense of the absurd thanks to talent not of norm (Fields, the Marx Bros.), seemed intent on being the lead comedy shop, at least for features. But hold, they were releasing shorts too, from independents, including mighty Mack Sennett in waning days. If the Million Dollar Legs applied to a character, that would have been Susan Fleming, appealing and offbeat presence sold as “Girl With …” the title assets. She stayed with movies until trade-up to marriage with Harpo Marx that endured till he died in 1964. She lived to age 94 and left memoirs lately published, a book I keep meaning to read, as word says it is fine and thoroughly candid. TCM released Million Dollar Legs on their DVD label in 2013, ran it a few times on the network, an old transfer unfortunately, plus there is a Region Two disc as part of a crowded W.C. Fields box. I’ve not so far seen a Blu-Ray offered.

THE LUCKY DOG (1917? 1919? No, 1921) --- The Lucky Dog marked a first time Laurel and Hardy performed on screen together. Not upon many screens however, as this two-reel subject played precious few venues due to fold of the firm producing it, The Lucky Dog interchangeable with others of commonplace content. We care for obvious reason of L&H and not a lot else, the century old obscurity made meaningful from initial “rediscovery” in 1963 when Robert Youngson came across a 16mm print and blew it up to highlight 30 Years of Fun. Found footage was less a thing then, Youngson and crew wrong as to when The Lucky Dog was made (they said 1919, others had floated 1917). Never mind though, as it was unexpected joy to see Laurel and Hardy cavort in something few knew existed till Youngson’s reveal. Truth was The Lucky Dog being around and sold to hobbyists on 16mm since the early 30’s, but how many of these still had their print, or remembered L&H both being involved? What Youngson came across was 1963 equivalent to The Battle of the Century turning up complete in 2015. Lucky Dog would be a basis to benefit 30 Years of Fun. Who would assert, or care enough, that it had never been lost? Emerging Laurel-Hardy fans of nit-pick nature challenged 1919 as production date for The Lucky Dog, one among them noting a license plate barely visible in the film, car confirming date that was actually 1921, not news in a mainstream sense but meaningful to community from which members compiled a Blu-Ray of L&H silents to lately enter the public domain. What impresses me and undoubted others is hunt and gather of more Lucky Dog footage since Robert Youngson shared his four or so minutes in 1963, visual quality hugely improved as expected, this completing a historical record plus giving us not just an artifact put right but an entertaining comedy, in Blackhawk parlance, “substantially” as seen at few theatrical slots The Lucky Dog filled in 1921.

THEY GOT ME COVERED (1943) --- So much war reference as to date grievously, fun had for that reason mainly, us to wonder the while if there were really spy conspiracies to approach what Otto Preminger and crew have in mind here, or for that matter, what German operatives planned in Saboteur and All Through the Night. Bob Hope was his own resistance force apart from what he did in movies, the public well abreast of the comedian's globe canvas on victory behalf and hazards he willingly faced in the doing. Hope as radio spokesman for films he made was guarantor of earning, $3.3 million in worldwide rentals for They Got Me Covered more than anyone else’s comedy could dream of. Bob as hopeless bungler of a war correspondent misses the German invasion of Russia, so must compensate by quelling Axis takedown of US industry. This he does by check-off of then-hot topics meaningless to us now, but again, that’s essence for watching and a history lesson if not the laff riot Covered must have seemed in 1943. Hope did not make movies for the ages anymore than contemporaries Danny Kaye or Abbott-Costello, but these were clowns that prospered best in their day, freshness as then perceived, while immortals we’d propose, Keaton, Laurel-Hardy, even Chaplin, represented humor fashion now past. Hope was quick, relevant, and naughty as a vigilant Code allowed, the comic for whom daily news supplied gags. Watching him was to be hep to headlines almost before they happened, Hope a good as any barometer as to how our war was going. They Got Me Covered was untypically for Goldwyn rather than Paramount, so production is elevated, Rudolph Maté for instance behind cameras, this to make Covered desired by collectors in 16mm, him supplier of handsome look for whatever he photographed. They Got Me Covered is playing “free” at present on You Tube. Don’t know how long that will last.

BIG JACK (1949) --- Wallace Beery’s last picture. Why discuss him at all? Maybe for fact that of all MGM stars, his vehicles never lost money, and vehicles they most resolutely were, change or variation things anathema to Wally’s fans as well as employers. Could he have sustained the fifties? Possibly … imagine Beery’s First in Cinemascope! or him being shotgun-toting dad to some of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Beery may have had questionable appeal for ladies, but was catnip to men who’d lay about home with suspenders down and being truculent to wives. Wally was truculent too, not to everybody as some would allege. Jeanette MacDonald in fact liked him, said Beery gave her best advice of all from Hollywood, Squeakiest wheels get the grease, he said, and she from that point on applied the principle to Leo’s front office. A few of kid co-stars liked him OK; it was mainly ones he had to work with repeatedly that got Beery’s goat. Margaret O’Brian famously tells of how he stole her box lunch on Bad Bascomb’s location. Yeah, but can you prove that, Margaret? To my untrained eye, Beery was one of the best performers the business ever had, simply for going totally his own way and hang the dialogue others prepared for him. Players learned to follow his lead and find marks where they could. Would director/producers straighten Wally out? Good luck with that. Beery kept a cabin in the woods, being like Chaney for preferring his own company. Big Jack might as well be called Big Slob for Beery expectations met. In fact, they all could have been titled that. Co-star was Marjorie Main, who wouldn’t seem so inadequate had not Marie Dressler been around in the early thirties to show how such a part should be played.

Swing Shift Deanna Goes All In for Victory

 

War, Love, Loss, and Deanna Durbin

Constant wartime query was What Are We Fighting For, to which Hollywood supplied answer off respective contract lists. Prominent was Deanna Durbin, watched intently as she grew from girlhood to romantic leads. Age 21 and Hers to Hold was leeway for Durbin to clench and be clenched by partners mostly older, in this case Joseph Cotten, then 38 as undisguised “wolf” endorsed by industry favoring men who fought. Cotten’s credo is “When a girl says no, she means yes,” though like comrades bound for battle, he shuns commitment and stateside expectation that will create. How could he or affianced be assured of his coming back? Stories were then told by slide rule that guided war-set narratives. Impressionable watchers might engage courtship based on how screen couples did theirs, so fantasy figures needed to be on best and most responsible behavior. Truest love should prevail whatever the gamble, especially now that it was life or death. Homefront drama therefore got greater intensity by default, like being spotted points in a sporting match. Urgency bred into wartime relationships permitted star images to mature more rapidly than circumstance might otherwise allow, Durbin’s passion for Cotten a distinct depart from two years earlier Nice Girl? with infatuates Franchot Tone, too mature thus disqualified, and Robert Stack, unthreatening Tiger Beat boy for the 40’s. Similar background of love, war, and parting lent new conviction also to Judy Garland’s romance with Robert Walker in The Clock, audiences gratified to see once-girls become seasoned women in the face of national emergency.

Uncertain opening of Hers to Hold suggests the old Deanna of ingenue ways, her again “Penny Craig” of previous two (as in Three) Smart Girl vehicles, this time a West Coast Deb whom photographers follow to ritual of her donating blood. Did daughters of the rich fascinate simply for being daughters of the rich? And were so-called debutantes as noteworthy in L.A. as they evidently were in New York? The character of Penny struck me as a sort of Oona O’Neill transplanted west, nothing accomplished besides being bred by wealth. Hers to Hold begins as another frivolous Durbin venture, Cotten coming on strong amidst sort-of screwball circumstance, posing as a doctor at the blood bank. He steals a kiss, in fact several, the second when he crashes a party at Deanna’s plush home. Here being 1943 and Cotten lately off Shadow of a Doubt, there is heavy remnant of Uncle Charlie in his “Bill Morley,” a character resorting to deceit in pursuit of Penny. Bill like Charlie is more surface charm than sincerity. Is he stalking Penny for access to money he knows she is heiress to? His maintaining the doctor pose is countered by a knowing Penny who inflicts him with a hypochondriac dowager much like “fat, silly, useless women” Uncle Charlie so detested, and despite Hers to Hold comedic intent, we can’t help being uneased by the Morley character as essayed by an actor just off spurt of wife killing in Hitchcock's film. Could then-audience reaction have been like seeing Anthony Perkins in something after Psycho? Morley/Charlie even blows smoke rings from his cigar, a signature Cotten made a point to repeat in roles, habit I had not noted till reading an article in the Hers to Hold pressbook where the actor described cigars as a must for all his screen work (remember Kane’s Jed Leland asking for them, Pearl Chavez enticed by them in Duel in the Sun?).

Slick Seducer Bill Morley (Joseph Cotten) Wants to Play Doctor with Deanna

There is something calculated in Joseph Cotten’s persona, an aspect that makes his Bill Morley more intriguing than, for instance, Gene Kelly opposite Deanna in Christmas Holiday, a character we know from outset is not to be trusted, Durbin’s dogged loyalty almost an irritant. Penny takes a defense plant job to be near sneaky Morley. We are given to understand that no woman is too good for aircraft assembly lines, thus Penny democratized and among class-unconscious labor force of You Fly ‘Em, We’ll Build ‘Em credo. Bill is there but higher up, him having been with the Flying Tigers and now awaiting U.S. Air Force orders, this why he’ll give Deanna the breeze same as gals who get too serious, their invite home for a thick steak his cue to fade. Were men in or out of uniform so casual in the face of willing consorts? Possibility of not surviving combat would seem to me a greater reason to push for whatever could be got in a meantime, this recalling "don’t do as we do, do as we say" ethos as Hollywood-practiced. Two offscreen incidents for evidence: Offscreen Durbin and Cotten were hot/heavy in a parked car one beach evening, patrolling police in receipt of a peek and spilling the story to Hedda Hopper spies at the station house. Hopper told it next day in her column and fur flew. Stuff of legend this was till Orson Welles confirmed truth to Henry Jaglom in 2013’s My Lunches with Orson, Welles tattling thus: “He (Cotten) came up to her (Hopper) at a party and said, “Hedda, I just want you to understand, if you say that again, I’m going to kick you in the ass.” She didn’t believe him, kept talking about it, “and he (Cotten) just came and kicked her in the ass.” As to what had gone on between Cotten and Durbin, Welles merely said, “… he was balling Deanna Durbin … In cars, in daylight, where everybody could see!” Bless survivors of old Hollywood living long enough to give away long kept secrets.

War Workers Hangout Where Short Term Relationships Form

Vivid chunks of Hers to Hold took place on location that was the Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California, Vega a subsidiary of Lockheed. The plant opened during 1940 and by 1943 was in full-time production of military hardware. Hers to Hold showed viewers what many wanted to see, work as ongoing at Vega and maybe glimpse of folk they knew. Vega is presented as a place where labor is concentrated and so is leisure. Close-by diners offer dancing and chance at brief assignations. Cotten’s Bill Morley keeps a willing Evelyn Ankers on the string even as he pursues Penny. Wartime hook-ups are understood to be fleeting and anything but permanent. Arrival of a telegram invariably means bad news, such as when Vega employee Fay Helm receives hers and everyone backs off knowing how it will read. Film stars could not volunteer at Vega or any war plant for myriad and obvious reasons. A most they might contribute was safety and morale boosts like Veronica Lake’s hair twisted in a drill press, 11/9/43 warn to fans who would imitate her styling, then venture close to machinery that could strip them bald. Best for notables to do their bit at the Canteen or join troupes that would travel and entertain. Deanna Durbin made herself available for greet-and-dance, was in readiness also for victory broadcasts like others of her screen stature. Friend who was a prominent historian and writer told me how Deanna would often select a serviceman at the Canteen who particularly appealed to her and take him home, to which I say you go DD, this further basis for my being a fan.

Temporary Lapse of Patriotic Spirit Sees Penny Asking Dad to Save Sweetheart from Active Service

As closeness to Bill increases, Penny will do anything to spare him active service, appealing to her father whose influence could keep Bill out of harm’s way. Judson Craig (Charles Winninger) shames his daughter on learning what she has in mind and Penny is contrite. How many in real life had power sufficient to enable offspring or close friends to stay home and thus duck combat? Slackers were shunned in movies but there were plenty in real life and I wonder how many regretted later (or didn’t) their decision to wangle out of the fray. One thing we seldom got and for good reason was servicemen expressing doubt about worthiness of their mission like cynical John Garfield in Air Force who learns folly of me-first under fire. Penny hires on initially at Vega just to be near Bill but will recognize the greater cause she must serve, this to culminate with Durbin rendering showstopper Say a Prayer for the Boys Over There, a ballad hugely evocative in 1943 but heard less on lookbacks since. Hers to Hold has not so far been seen on DVD or Blu-Ray in the US or streamed/used by broadcasters stateside. Only way to see it apart from bootlegs is Region Two release in the UK from years back, part of a Durbin box and unfortunately a sole one of the lot derived from 16mm elements. We could implore Kino to lease Hers to Hold from Universal, but where is likelihood after reported soft sales of their previous Durbin set, more a pity because of all her grown-up vehicles, Hers to Hold may be a most evocative and ultimately rewarding.

Stills That Speak #2

 

STS: The Great Audience, The Wonderful Thing, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and Atragon

THE GREAT AUDIENCE --- Infinitude might be defined as ways an audience can behave badly, carry-on digital doo-dads but latter means by which watchers torment one another. Is this what emptied cinemas? I’ve barely attended since cells became prime menace, not my reason for quitting, though it will do for starter. Is concentrating on any movie a past thing? Television as forum for film was doomed from outset, the more where commercial breaks were rife. Home alone with your show permits full absorption, but what of the “audience experience”? Would you sit content among the jammed lot shown here? OMG, think of the germs. People didn’t used to worry so much about such things, so elders claim. I on the other hand would expect to exit such auditora with whooping cough at least --- and what about the smell? Don’t forget many places did not have air-conditioning until well after the war, seats off Iron Maiden blueprint before “luxury” or rocking-chairs protected rears from insult of hard surface. Remember feet and legs violating sanctity of space? I’ve been kicked like by mules from behind, had waded wrappers whizz past or upon me. Movie theatres --- who needs them? Some would appear to, says attendance to Barbie and isolated others. We walked up from “The Dispensary” (drug store converted to a restaurant) for peek into the Liberty, still (and surprisingly) operative. I spoke with the popcorn attendant and he invited us to peep into one of twin screen rooms (the Liberty was bisected in 1975 and you may imagine result). There was scant attendance for Barbie, her largely played out after initial weekend, several frames ago. I knew the glimpse would be bittersweet so should have spared myself. Who’s for going back to stuffed tuna cans? I'll take vanilla that is home viewing, Barbie perhaps the better for wait till gift that is streaming.

THE WONDERFUL THING (1921) --- Still await melodrama gaining respect. Who’s to say The Wonderful Thing is not a wonderful thing? I assumed it lost before reading online that The Wonderful Thing is “abysmal,” so perhaps it is extant. Was problem Norma Talmadge as “the daughter of a hog farmer”? We, at least me, might prefer her some other way, image here enough to sum up what is best about The Wonderful Thing. I’m for Norma in regal pose, ordering out what appears to be a loathed creditor. “You’re paid in full. Go!” says she, as a cowed (presumed) husband avoids either’s sightline. Did the miser in jodhpurs stop enroute to fox hunting? Had he suggested other means by which Norma might square the debt? It could explain her high moral dudgeon. Assuming that's the case, the husband should deck him or at least be at point of doing so, else Norma repair back to the hog farm. I admire acting such as Ms. Talmadge engages here. There should be more such today. Won’t reiterate how her films are shamefully ignored, because then we’re obliged to mention Gloria Swanson, Billie Dove, Corinne Griffith, plenty more who silently emoted and lived to see work not just fade away, but rot so. No one wanted talk-less movies once talk came, save some of slapstick they figured for fun minus caring what anyone on screen said. Melodrama stood for worst excess of the era unless Chaney or maybe Garbo came with it. Lamps shined seasons back when Beyond the Rocks surfaced, more for Valentino than Gloria Swanson. I see old newspaper ads and long for alleged 90% of silents since decomposed. Abysmal or not, surely they merit at least one sit.

ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS (1957) --- Ann asked what I watched at the Parkland with my popcorn. “Something with unexpected depth, a surprisingly complex narrative that fully immersed me for 63 minutes,” said I. "Well, what was it?" replied she. Attack of the Crab Monsters … at which point I was invited to vacate her presence. Oh, ye all of such little faith who are yet to know Attack of the Crab Monsters for quality it embodies. My ardor grows with each watch. Startling for you-are-there quality is this color capture of Pamela Duncan fronting a woebegone crab that looks run over by a truck en route to Bronson Caves where this crew appears to have gathered. Note the Hollywood sign in smog-free distance. When did that atmospheric condition become a problem for Los Angeles? Maybe there was smog here and I’m not seeing it. California was a fun place to visit but I'll (again) take vanilla that is NC. Did they construct a single crab and have him/her play all the other crabs? I never saw two in a same frame so am convinced that yes, such was (half) measure taken. Credit Roger Corman as capable director who did better work than anyone else could at his speed. Richard Garland had a shifty and somewhat Ray Danton thing going. Beverly Garland was married to Richard (hence her last name), said one day he just split and she never knew why. How could gals lovely as Beverly or Julie Adams rely on guys like Richard and Ray? On the other hand, there were times I sought to be shifty, though not blessed with Richard/Ray’s cruel good looks, came a cropper. Was it a passerby fan who got this snap of Crab and crew? If so, we owe that onlooker our eternal gratitude.

ATRAGON (1963) --- I doctored this image on Photoshop, removing graphics AIP-imposed. Atragon was Toho-made but had no monsters but for one seen briefly undersea and easily disposed of, reminiscent of Reptilicus which then or now was not necessarily a good thing. Colonel Forehand gave me the pressbook for Atragon and I fell hard for Reynold Brown’s artwork, a super submarine that drills through rock and flies besides. Monsters to boot would be mere window dressing. Atragon had a mid-week date at the Liberty which was somewhat prestigious. I saw it midst heartache of an after school live performance (Hansel and Gretel) which the girl of my fifth-grade dreams chose to attend with a rival. Well, at least I got to see Atragon and they did not, so there. Fact is, a great many others missed Atragon as well, it earning but $222,000 in domestic rentals from 4778 engagements, very poor indeed for a color AIP. I’m guessing a dearth of dinosaurs did it in, or maybe Toho imports were losing their fizz. I enjoyed Atragon and still do, a final third especially good. Lost civilization stuff reminded me of The Mole People at the time, having seen that at the Liberty shortly before Atragon showed up. We can acquire Atragon on DVD, just not the AIP-released version, which is what I prefer for its being what unspooled before awestruck boyhood eyes. As was case with others Jim and Sam brought across, there were changes, cuts, and perhaps a new score grafted onto Atragon. The Japanese original is fine, but this is one time I’d opt for bastardized AIPillaging seen in ’64. 

Canon Fire #7

 

Among the One-Hundred: Rear Window (1954)

Time again to be honest re passage of time and taste. When does merely old become antiquity? Do I dare propose the eighties, even nineties? Look at You Tube and know this is happening, in fact has happened. Herewith quotes from a video clocking movies added of late to Amazon Prime and “Freevee,” as in separating bad from good, old from too old. Says the host on Hook (1991): “It holds up beyond your wildest dreams!” Then Kindergarten Cop (1990), which “still holds up to this day.” Of ancients lent to streaming, there is the venerable Breakfast Club from 1983: “Even though it’s quintessential eighties, so many of the themes and the things that people talk about in this movie are somehow still relevant today, even though we live in a vastly different world.” I’d ask all to ponder key words "somehow" and "vastly." Does somehow imply that things people talked about during the eighties are irrelevant apart from what’s talked about in The Breakfast Club? We might cede to the world being a vastly different place since 1983 --- heck, it's vastly different since 2020. To imagine human nature changes materially is the misnomer, whatever change in conditions. Much writing from the eighteenth century and before remains vital after all. I remember my mother in 1965 telling how she saw Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1932, “Movies were better then,” she said. “They certainly were,” I replied, having just come home from Zebra in the Kitchen at the Liberty.

Rear Window for so long seemed a freshest of AH output, “The People’s Hitchcock” you could show to crowd satisfaction, but what of now and seventy years going/gone since 1954? The YT videographer spoke of Hook in terms of nostalgia and wondered how his small child would react. Eureka! --- the kid loved it. There is urgency for what we long ago thought good to still be good. Are individuals judged by what they treasure as art? For most of life so far, I have thought Rear Window sure-fire, one to show civilians without fear of rejection. But think of all that has gone by boards. Were John Bunny fans still among us, they’d surely get feelings hurt by modern and culturewide kiss-off of the rotund comedian. Someday there might be no one left to defend Hook, or Kindergarten Cop, let alone Rear Window. There was time in early aughts (this century, not the past one) when Hitchcock on Greenbriar’s university screen was guarantor of seats filled. They knew him for entertainment coin of the realm. Psycho was Standing Room Only for four runs over a weekend. In fact, some did stand, and gladly. Rear Window was similarly socko. I'd hesitate to drive up the mountain twenty years later and try again. For being boon companion since seeing it first on NBC in 1965, there is no chance Rear Window will fade in my estimation (certainly not now in 4K), but how about we watch again, if possible through eyes of those who venerate The Breakfast Club, and at least guess how these might respond to Rear Window.

Rear Window survives in a world of central air and storm windows with screens. My childhood lacked air-conditioning, at home or school, this an aspect of growing up less recalled as I prefer pleasanter memories. Do general states of ongoing discomfort fade with passage of time? Pall hangs over L.B. Jeffries that is fear and dread of marriage --- were his parents unhappy? --- Jeff, if the age of the man portraying him, would be forty-six. Maybe the broken leg reminds Jeff that life trotting a globe with cameras is done for him. Two broken legs at Rear Window’s finish further implies an end to that lifestyle. I’d say Jeff will remain in New York and do portraits as arranged by helpmate and inevitable wife Lisa. They will not know again such excitement as exposing the Thorwald killing, but life deals routine to all eventually, wisest of us accepting it. Jeff never exits his wheelchair to sleep or take physical therapy, latter not mentioned as necessary component to recovery. Sandwiches as prepared by “Stella” (Thelma Ritter) are bland in the extreme, ham on white with but glaze of mustard. Jeff should appreciate more a lobster dinner Lisa has delivered from Sardi’s. He thinks she is too “perfect” and says so to a point of being tiresome if not outright cruel. I still wait for Kelly/Lisa to exit his drab environs and get back to bed with Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, or Ray Milland. Jeff seems to have midlife issues. Does Lisa really want to marry into that? Plaster cast Jeff wears is like a piano tied about his leg. Casts were once oppressive as that. So were teeth braces and other things that were supposed to fix us. Perhaps too late for me to break a limb or rejigger the mouth and find out what strides have been made in such areas.

Jeff doesn’t show much sympathy or understanding for Miss Lonely Hearts. Doesn’t he realize that she represents much of viewership for this movie? Jeff laughs too at the songwriter who in drunken despair sweeps away a composition he cannot complete. Maybe it is Jeff who has had life too “perfect.” Miss Torso juggles “wolves,” pushing one away who’d force himself through her door after a date. Miss Lonely Hearts has the same experience with a pick-up she unwisely invites in, so beautiful Miss Torso is no more blessed than baleful Miss Lonely Hearts, though we are relieved to see both end happy, or seemingly so. The new-wed couple after vigorous and days-long consummation hit reality's brick wall as Jeff regards it (along with Hitchcock and writer John Michael Hayes?). She nags, and he’s jobless. Small cruelties are easy overlooked. Lars Thorwald lovingly tends flowers, places one on his invalid wife’s dinner tray, which she tosses away. Grounds for murder? No, but hint at least for how wedded life came to this, and a detail easy to miss w/o benefit of 4K, or at least Blu-ray. Mrs. Thorwald ridicules rather than attacks Lars for furtive phone calling just outside their bedroom. She knows he has an interest elsewhere and doubts his capacity to make anything of it, as mean an insult as one partner could hand another. We don’t hear words between Lars and Anna, only tones discordant. Are they what Jeff and Lisa will become? What if those two damaged legs devolve into full disability, and it is Jeff who assumes the role of Mrs. Thorwald? He figures any marriage will come to rancor and says so, but by Lisa's straightforward 1954 definition, if they can’t wed, then they can’t be together, for Lisa must have a “future” to remain with Jeff.

Rear Window seems ideal to watch alone and late at night, an experience solitary and confined as L.B. Jeffries in his wheelchair. There is hypnotic sense of day turning dusk, then dark, slowly back, cycle repeated till denouement. Exposition is relaxed till maybe-murder is casually indicated, soothing background of Paramount songbook in seeming toto save Isn’t It Romantic. Rear Window is in that sense a cousin to also-1954’s Sabrina.  Jeff takes time realizing what may have happened and then persuading others to agree. It’s progress for us and him when Lisa buys the premise and decides to help. Her commitment to pitch in assures Jeff’s commitment to her. But must she expose herself to terrible danger to qualify as his life partner? Can she now join him in hazardous travel and exposure to conditions that laid him up and may well again? Jeff’s wartime buddy “Tom Doyle” of the detective division (Wendell Corey) casts jaundiced eye upon Lisa’s overnight case with its negligee loose within. “Careful, Tom,” warns Jeff. Is this Tom’s display of moral dudgeon? Jeff pointedly asks “How’s your wife” when he catches Doyle staring out the window at Miss Torso. Jeff pre-empting Tom’s notice of another woman is not something a man appreciates from another man, certainly not one he went through combat with and who is now doing a large favor for him. Would/should any man judge a friend’s moral laxity other than when it’s his own wife or girlfriend the other guy is trespassing upon?

Where It Matters Most to Make Nice: Vacationing Exhibitor and Wife Visit the Set

Raymond Burr had large expressive eyes. Nothing conveyed  menace like those staring into us, as when Lisa points at the ring on her finger for Jeff’s benefit and Lars looks across the courtyard to realize his real quarry is there, Rear Window’s supreme wordless moment. But if Jeff is playing for time when Thorwald confronts him, why bother about flashbulbs? Why not assure Lars that he can and will retrieve the ring, then seek help during interim? Less excitement perhaps, but Jeff is at least spared another broken limb. John Michael Hayes (w/Hitchcock above) did a splendid job adapting and improving upon Cornell Woolrich’s source story. Maybe too splendid in a long run, as Hayes got recognition for Rear Window and three features to follow, critics lauding “team” work of director and writer. Hayes started out on $750 per week as a nobody hireling that was Hitchcock’s favorite sort of scribe, but then won awards all his own after Rear Window came off so well, a thing you didn’t do where working with Hitchcock meant working for him and never toward your own advancement. Here emerged dark-side genius Spoto wrote of, Hayes recounting years later the brush-off he got for not bending to shared credit with Angus McPhail on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), this as much to humble Hayes as to help Hitchcock's old friend, letting the younger writer know that berries can be given or snatched away. Fascinating is genius that will forfeit advantage to satisfy pique, human factor writ large. Would Rear Window have emerged as good without John Michael Hayes? Maybe not, but I doubt that occurred to Hitchcock one way or the other once he had enough of Hayes.