Scope Samples #1

 

Wide Worlds: The Spirit of St. Louis and 55 Days at Peking

“Wide Worlds” for Greenbriar purpose will recognize scope titles available to us for home view. Whether streamed, on physical media, or broadcast at TCM, they all are accessible and for me at least worth seeing upon a flat screen TV or projected at a wall to engulf like in days when these attractions were new. “Count Your Blessings” surely applies here as with titles under that Greenbriar heading elsewhere.

THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (1957) --- Going anyplace alone during childhood meant my mother again telling what happened to the Lindbergh baby in 1932. A couple of kidnaps did take place in my town during the early sixties, “Lineberry” the accused, a name I forevermore connect with child snatching. Charles Lindbergh was secondarily the man who flew a plane non-stop from New York to Paris in 1927. Who could convey excitement this event generated? All who might have gone. My father was twenty, my mother ten, when it happened. Both recalled where they were, what they were doing, when Lindy touched down. Youth en masse went daffy for flying. There was a man I worked with selling dry goods in the early eighties who built a plane that flew after Lindbergh example. A picture of teenage him and dog companion in the cockpit, goggles and all, was proof provided. Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s widow spent decades trying to clear her husband of infamy for which he was electrocuted in 1936. Used to see her on TV testifying before one committee or other. Lindbergh was vivid for me in ways he apparently was not for 1957 viewership that shunned The Spirit of St. Louis, Billy Wilder’s telling of the Lone Eagle saga that went down like a Titanic of fact-based failures, no fault of the excellent picture it was, but what did public indifference say of ingratitude for historic achievement and those who made it? Possible explanation, if not excuse … what’s the big deal of flying the Atlantic when jets with passengers were doing so every day, and what about rockets poised for outer space?

Blame in part was fixed on James Stewart being miscast, but how many knew, or cared, of accurate age for Lindbergh when he flew? Stewart wanted the part badly for being a fan of the flyer from teen-age. Analysis suggested a younger man could soften onus of far-back setting, '27 to '57 a chasm in terms of change to popular culture. I previous wrote that Warners would have done better to cast Tab Hunter as Lindbergh and trust Billy Wilder’s strong direction plus topmost dialogue, to see the age-appropriate star through. Surely youth, which was most of a 1957 cinemagoing audience, could then take The Spirit of St. Louis past break-even, though maybe not where an astronomical seven million was spent on the negative. And what of Tab Hunter in Lafayette Escadrille, also period set, piloting, Warner money lost again in 1958. Was telling Lindbergh’s story on screen a bad idea on its face? I watch and enjoy The Spirit of St. Louis and wonder the while why it came such a cropper. They evidently spent a million dollars just building a replica of the airplane. We visited Washington in 1965 and went to the Smithsonian where the Spirit hung on wires from the ceiling. Is it still suspended that way? I had not seen the movie at that time. None among NC stations used it till much later when SFM(?) did a broadcast hosted by James Stewart. The Spirit of St. Louis seems in hindsight to have been an ultra-Establishment endeavor for which only the very best was good enough, money no object where the twentieth-century’s greatest folk hero was being celebrated. Fiscal sense seems therefore to have been suspended for this occasion. It would, in fact, have been unpatriotic to trim any of corners for such august occasion as this.

Charles Lindbergh himself sort of did and did not cooperate. He let them adapt his memoir but would not allow depictions beyond content from the book. Wilder had frisky ideas which would have made The Spirit of St. Louis a terrific Wilder movie, the sort we’d want and expect from him, but this time it was cuffs on and Billy, like everyone else, wore them. Lindbergh also would not do appearances to support the film. Everybody in and out of the industry attended the premiere but him. Wilder wove dramatic thread of the pilot being sleep-deprived over days up to, and spent in, flight. Duly impressed viewers who later met Lindbergh brought up the ordeal and his overcoming it, to which the Lone Eagle said he slept fine pre-flight, half-smiling to suckers who’d fallen for the movie’s device. What a cool deck this man dealt from. Wilder recalled him as quite the enigma. I doubt Lindbergh cared a hoot about The Spirit of St. Louis apart from the money, his likely a flat fee at front end as opposed to a percentage of profit that would have ended up worth nothing. Anybody know different? Query too: Did the wife ever catch on to those Euro families Charles sired over years after his triumph? Greater triumph sure was keeping the truth from her and his legit kids. Lawyer friend once told me there were two kinds of married men, the caught and the uncaught. Was Charlie among the uncaught?  By the time the thing became public, most of Lindbergh worshippers were too old to be much disillusioned or gathered to reward. Meanwhile what we have is The Spirit of St. Louis shows up at TCM, wide and HD at least, plus streaming at customary outlets. A fresh transfer and 4K release would be welcome, for here is one worthy and I think undeservedly obscure.

55 DAYS AT PEKING (1963) --- Not so far as I know released in the US on Blu-Ray, situation common to the Samuel Bronston epics. Ownership is said to lie with the Weinstein Company. Still true? The Bronstons are imperfect enough to need whatever visual sweep they can get. With that, they mightily impress. 55 Days at Peking was among other things the last mainstream feature Nicholas Ray directed. Ten years after, he was teaching at a small New England college, showed kids how to make movies, him pretty near a wreck by that time. The story of how 55 Days at Peking was dragged to completion was told by many. To read multiple accounts is to fully commit. I chose Andrew Marton’s lookback. He oversaw second units, wound up responsible for sixty-four to sixty-five percent of the finished project, or so he estimated years later. Marton didn’t seek or claim sole credit for reasons he explains in a McFarland oral history that is very good and long out of print. Nicholas Ray had done alright with King of Kings a couple years earlier and it was figured he could handle another large-scale feature, but habits mostly bad and a general crack-up said adios to his Hollywood career. Ray made many efforts to restart and had help among industry influencers, but nobody would take a chance on him. 55 Days at Peking for such difficult birthing plays fine where seen Blu and wide, a Region Two from Europe worth seeking out. Being 70mm Super-Technirama meant roadshows and if not as long a sit as it might have been (two hours, 34 minutes), still seems long. History is recounted, the Boxer Rebellion and how it impacted world powers in 1900. Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven are there to settle matters, whole of 55 Days shot at Spain acreage Bronston decorated to evoke the East. Like many a swollen saga, 55 Days at Peking lights up in sections, flags in others, but overall awes in ways unique to big-format filmmaking unique to the late fifties and much of the sixties. When these things clicked, there weren’t banks enough to hold all the profit, but where they didn’t … well, consider how Samuel Bronston finished up.