CCC: Dean/Jerry/Irma/Monkey, Opera Objections, and Fairbanks Faces Away
WHEN MARTIN-LEWIS HEAT WAS ON --- This no doubt opined by others before
… I’m thinking Jerry needed Dean more than Dean ever needed Jerry. Might Martin
have been better leaving Lewis, let’s say five years sooner, to stake his own
singing and romance place in films, clubs, television? Doing so, that is,
before becoming so entrenched in a public’s team expectation? Seeing this Lewis-centered
trade ad for My Friend Irma Goes West prodded me to at last unpeel Paramount’s
DVD. Remember sticky labels, “security” measures to keep us from stealing these
off presumed store shelves? Hardly seemed worth the guff once adhesion was
finally got off, My Friend Irma Goes West ninety-minute hell to follow. My
thumb numbed from fast-forwarding Jerry in extended antics with a monkey, Jerry
frankly doing anything. How to cope with two rib-tickle pairs tag teaming?
Friend Irma surely was more so on home radio, here embodied by Marie Wilson as
frightfully stupid, a distaff Lewis where we hardly need one of the sort. Laughter
came of 1950 source quite alien to what amuses now, and I must inquire
what becomes of Jerry Lewis standing once his original fan base finally
shuffles off in toto. To think he preserved everything to document a long
career. Do scholars consult it? Lewis could be clever --- I don’t blame those
who laughed then --- but a little of him goes a long etcetra, and again, Martin
seems the better overall bargain. This trade ad sorts out priorities for the
time, Dean in an upper corner and nowhere else, Jerry mugging with Para
merchandiser captions to instruct us when, if not why, to laugh. Lewis hosted
the trailer, which interestingly had John Lund first in official billing, Corinne
Calvet pushed prominently. Read her book for realities of being Wallis-owned. Was
the producer asked if he thought the team was funny? Wallis would surely have asked
back what makes that a relevant question?, his a first yok team since Abbott and
Costello to phenomenally click, and ask yourself how long they might have
sustained had not break come in 1956. My Friend Irma Goes West was years out of
circulation before the DVD came. It streams at present with a High-Def option,
but is not available on Blu-Ray. Occurs to me that Kino lately leased
a post-49 Paramount group that did not include any Martin-Lewis, commentary
perhaps in itself.
NEVER MIND MY CLOSE-UP --- There is a particular technique to acting
called “backting.” Sheila O’Malley describes it skillfully at her site. Simple
put, it is a player conveying emotion while turned away from us, idea to put
across drama somehow other than head on. We see this lots without noticing, in
life as well as film. Accurate read can be got from other characters looking
at your object of interest, his expression key to how an onlooker, them on screen, or us watching, will feel. To
snatch meaning from something other than your face is acting done well, but it
needs close observe to appreciate. I was years exposed to 1930’s Reaching
for the Moon before realizing what magic Douglas Fairbanks caught in bottle
that was simplest exchange near a start of the show. Doug is a Depression-era
self-made millionaire speculator, his Wall Street success being celebrated at a
dinner in his honor. Being late but unconscious of same, Doug breezes in and
interrupts a windy speaker, the old man offended enough by the interruption to
take up his briefcase and head exit-way. Realizing he has hurt his guest’s
feelings, Fairbanks rushes to explain and apologize. Their exchange has the man
facing Doug, and Doug in at most quarter profile, yet we “see” Doug clear as if
he were close-up, part because we imagine just how Douglas Fairbanks himself might react to a circumstance like this.
14 Comments:
Having personally witnessed audiences in paroxysms of laughter over the Marx Brothers during my over fifty year career as a film programmer I have to say they always delivered on my watch. Very much your piece on Fairbanks.
Phil Smoot has some thoughts on Jerry Lewis and The Marx Brothers:
Any negative reaction to the 1949 re-release of "A Night At The Opera" is a shocker to me!
Maybe those theaters had poor projection or terrible sound - -
I've never been anywhere at any age and found anything but wild laughter (except for the, fortunately, few sequences where the audience patiently giggles as they [we, I, everyone] anxiously prays for Allan Jones to finish singing).
To the Marx Opera, the UNC-Chapel Hill crowd roared with laughter during the early 1970s Brothers fan revival,
and
in January of 2018 my (then 25 year-old) son was happily surprised (at the Red Cinema in Greensboro NC) when we saw it on the big screen with Kitty Carlisle's son in attendance. "I didn't think it would be anything that good" was his first reply to me. He loved it, and wanted to see more Marx madness.
More recent:
A couple years after Warner released the film on Blu-ray, I showed it to a mid-thirties Latina friend of mine, and she loved it and has since asked to see more.
But, to Jerry Lewis - -
How time changed my relation from the height of his solo career. I liked and saw everything during my pre-teen viewing from "The Sad Sack" & "The Delicate Delinquent" years to "The Family Jewels" in 1965 - -
Then it was over.
I enjoyed "The Family Jewels", but Lewis didn't seem to do anything for me after that, and I stayed away. Even the previews seemed bad. My only future visit was to Martin Scorsese's 1983 "The King of Comedy".
My mom was with me to see the 1963 theatrical release of "The Nutty Professor". We laughed and loved it. 30 years later, I tried to relive that experience by watching it again. Ugh!
Had I changed! Thought Lewis was such a manic egoist (to think that outside of Lewis being a rich movie star that he/his Buddy Love would be the dream of any normal female) - - It was a great memory with my Mother and me as a 12 year old boy, but time (and knowledge and better judgment) had dramatically changed the movie for me.
My whole family consistently laughed when the 1958 "Rock-A-Bye Baby" was (years later) shown (likely as one of those network television movies of the week), and my dad almost rolled over seeing the final shot of the statue at the end.
But, buying the Blu-ray a few years ago, I found that the film just does not feel anything like the energy that I got from Lewis as a pre-teen.
Lewis was for a time.
The Marx Brothers seem to be for all time - -
Only their classic "Duck Soup" now seeming like real life politics-as-usual rather than on-screen comic anarchy.
Interesting how the when and the where of presentation can determine an audience's reaction to any film, especially comedy. This is what I like about exhibitor reports in the trade magazines. They are eye witness accounts of how at least one group of patrons responded to a movie. No two moviegoing experiences are going to be the same ... who would want it any other way?
A good excuse to hit the Greenbriar archives to read about "Jesse James" getting booked onto Southern screens into the 1980s, the first insanely successful pairing of "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" as a double feature, late period Abbott and Costello having to compete with reissues of their earlier features, etc.
I get the impression a lot of stuff was in perpetual release, battered old prints cheaply filling Saturday matinees and drive-in triple features. Was "Night at the Opera" on exchange shelves before MGM's official reissue?
I'd venture that, in addition to TV replacing frequent moviegoing, postwar films had a shorter shelf life because of more obvious dating. It's one thing to watch a reasonably sturdy old western, or even a contemporary film that has clearly become a period piece. Something else to watch a "present day" film that's just old enough to be stale rather than vintage, betrayed by speeded-up obsolescence of fashion, cars, and once-racy dialogue. What was once cutting edge or genuinely brave is quickly run into the ground by everybody else. More often it's a matter of what was hysterical at an exact moment in time burns out. Anyone remember when you couldn't go wrong with a beatnik mistaking rubbish for Modern Art? Or a shaggy hippie being mistaken for a girl?
Of course Martin and Lewis films look like antiques now. But it's probable they had that patina of dowdiness just a few years after release, Hollywood evolving so rapidly. Meanwhile, an early 50s audience might easily be fooled by an old Abbott and Costello, so long as WWII didn't figure too obviously.
If I had a point, it was probably a few hundred keystrokes ago.
Meanwhile, did Laurel and Hardy features ever get official re-releases in America?
We're the first people ever to have high quality recordings and even duplicates of what our ancestors enjoyed as routine entertainment; but we are not our ancestors. We are different people.
Most of the people I know simply aren't fans of any kind of antique recorded entertainment, which they consider to be anything made or recorded prior to ten or fifteen years ago. They have more current things to keep them entertained.
If they're visiting, and we actually decide to watch a film, they always but always wish to view the more recent films I may have on the shelf, particularly the more recent films which they may have heard of but which they have not themselves yet seen.
My guests never but never ask to see anything in black and white, and they won't sit still for any such if I try to put any such on for them.
I cannot say that I blame them, for way back when I was young - say 1985 - I myself then thought that any movie released before 1960 was very old indeed.
That people today should now think any movie made prior to 2000 is very old is not any kind of a surprise to me. Time flies!
As to comedy not dating very well, that's true for some of it; and some of it doesn't - and didn't - travel very well either. But that's also true of any entertainment, whether or not it's live or comes out of a can. One person laughs uproariously, while the one next to her sits stone-faced.
Entertainment simply cannot be separated from those whom it seeks or sought to entertain - the audience remains the most important thing for all entertainment, past or present; and the truth is, all entertainment will inevitably lose its original audience, and not all of it will be able to find a new one when the old one goes away.
Mourn not, for 'twas ever thus!
The Dean Martin biography Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams by Nick Tosches spends a lot of time on the Martin & Lewis phenomenon, mostly wondering why the audiences thought they were funny. Like Abbott and Costello they really, really have not aged well, but Abbott and Costello are Mike Nichols and Elaine May compared to Martin & Lewis. But in the 50's Martin & Lewis were the biggest act in the world. And yes, they grew to hate each other, Martin sick of the infantile humor and Lewis resentful of the attention given to Martin while Lewis was dismissed. In Dino Tosches quotes a Paramount exec who said after viewing their screen test, "the wop's OK but what do I do with the monkey?". That dynamic defined their image and relationship.
I've read that A Night At The Opera was a personal project of Irving Thalberg to give the Marx Bros. a hit. He hired the writers and insisted the Marxes try out scenes on stage in movie theaters to gauge audience reaction. It shows. Compare with previous film Duck Soup, which I dearly love but is a much cruder production.
I remember a short interview with Dean Martin late in his life where in answering a question about the team, he asked, "Have you ever seen a Martin and Lewis picture? --- They're terrible!"
It seems inevitable that most comedy teams and musical acts break up, when you consider they usually spent years joined at the hip before anyone noticed them, and then spend more years in a gilded fishbowl. Laurel and Hardy connected when each of them was already an old pro, and they had separate lives at quitting time. Martin and Lewis were likewise pros when they met, but for ten years they were chained together and constantly working. Also, Jerry and Dino were ambitious and competitive. Babe did some solo work during the partnership, and Stan was definitely the creative boss, but neither appeared jealous of the other or eager to move on.
The Beatles, Monty Python, and Beyond the Fringe all started out as tight outfits of very young men. All exploded as temperaments and interests diverged.
Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara broke up their act and pursued separate careers, but stayed married. Meara in later life was emphatic about the value of couples counseling. The Smothers Brothers likewise said they went through counseling in order to keep working together.
Recall an interview in which Penn Jillette talked about his long partnership with Teller. He said he came home and his wife asked a question about Teller, and he realized that they hadn't had a personal exchange all day -- they very comfortably and sociably went about their business. He reflected that they'd have long personal talks when either was dealing with serious matters, such as the death of Teller's father and Jillette's decision to marry, but otherwise there was no need to talk.
Martin & Lewis are pretty funny in their Colgate Comedy Hour appearances, but I've never been able to sit through any of their movies. Their very last TV spot, on the Today show a week before their final live act at the Copa, is really difficult to watch. Dean looks like he'd like to throw Jerry through the nearest window.
Hey Kevin --- I just watched this TODAY clip at You Tube. Never knew about it before, and agree with you that Dean looks ready to bail out of the M&L thing right then and there. Like always with YT, I found myself dredging other "dark Jerry" videos, and as you might imagine, there are plenty of those.
"Dark Jerry"! I've gotta remember that. This is kind off-topic, but if you have a chance, you should go on YouTube and watch the Hecht-MacArthur movie "Once in a Blue Moon". It's surprisingly terrible for such a pedigree, but pay attention to the star, Jimmy Savo. His cloying, pathos-laden performance is a forerunner of what Jerry did years later. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he saw the movie when he was a child and never forgot it. There's a reason why the movie sat on the shelf for two years before being released.
Dan Mercer speaks to Douglas Fairbanks and REACHING FOR THE MOON (Part One):
I think that "Reaching for the Moon" is a delightful romantic comedy that is much underrated. Perhaps one reason is that it is associated with other early talkies that were bastardized when the studios realized that people were no longer interested in all talking-all singing-all dancing pictures anymore. "Reaching for the Moon" had five musical numbers, of which four were removed, leaving only the "When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down" one performed by a young Bing Crosby and others. The studios' mistake was that people were not so much tired of musicals as of poor musicals. A picture with an Irving Berlin score, as this one had, would not have fallen into that category.
Another reason is that this was one of the last pictures made by a giant silent star, Douglas Fairbanks, whose career seemed to fade away rather abruptly with the coming of sound. That probably had more to do with the temperament of the star than his ability as an actor. Fairbanks had worked hard and enjoyed massive successes. The coming of sound found him tired, middle-aged, in a troubled marriage, and simply not interested in continuing his career, once he'd demonstrated his mastery of the new medium. He was quite good in his talkies, especially "The Taming of the Shrew," this picture, and later "The Private Life of Don Juan." But making films wasn't fun any more and, indeed, life itself wasn't much fun. When his health declined with the onset of cardiac problems, he simply walked away. So, this picture might be regarded as something left over, an encouragement to bring the show to a close.
While "Reaching for the Moon" is a little ragged here and there, with those cuts, it is also quite entertaining, with a clever script, some risque double entendres, and good performances. Edward Everett Horton is marvelous as Fairbank's butler, orchestrating his master's affairs with droll aplomb and Fairbanks is Fairbanks, energetic but charming, with an undiminished acrobatic ability, as expressed in one scene, and a physique enviable for a man of any age, let alone one 47 years old, as he was here. He and the beautiful Bebe Daniels have an uncommon rapport and are most engaging together. The sets are marvelous excursions into art deco, especially that of the luxury liner where most of the story is told. And the director, a young Edmund Goulding, already demonstrates a masterly touch that would be exercised often in years to come.
Part Two from Dan Mercer:
The most remarkable aspect, however, is how the film seamlessly transitions from the gay comedy of the opening sequences to the financial disaster following the Wall Street crash of 1929. It is as though its structure corresponds to the wild party that was the 1920s and the country's awakening to the gray, dismal dawn of the coming Great Depression. The Fairbanks character finds himself in the radio room of the liner, headphones on and a telephone before him. We only hear his side of the conversation, expressed in occasional sardonic comments as it is revealed that he has lost everything and that most of his friends have as well. He walks away afterwards, quiet and thoughtful. What concerns him, though, is not so much the disaster that has befallen him as its consequence, that he was no longer worthy of this woman he had just fallen in love with. He couldn't allow her to know, lest she make a decision founded not on love, but pity, so he finesses it, letting her believe that their affair was just a flirtation, just a bit of fun they can walk away from now. She's devastated, however. Later, she chances upon his butler, who mistakenly believes that she has been told the full story and allows her to know the truth.
This leads to the penultimate scene, where she tells him that she loves him. He responds that it's out of the question, that he's broke, and that no man should live off his wife. She assures him that she loves him for who he is and that he could never be broke. She's known many big men and she knows that he could make fifty fortunes back. "Do you think that I could love you if you weren't you?" she asks.
She would go on, but he tells her to wait, that he's just discovered something, something he never realized. There is a pause and, breathlessly, she asks, "What?" "I know what 'woman' means," he says, looking away from her to somewhere else, very distant. "She's not the sort of thing you pursue and love and hold. She something that leans over and whispers in your ear what you are, what you can do, and what you're going to do." He looks back to her, the jaunty smile once more on his lips. "Why, let me tell you," he says, reaching out for her.
The scene fades into the last scene, of their wedding. Maybe one of the excised musical numbers was here, but it hardly matters, so little needed was it. The playing between Fairbanks and Daniels is exquisite and I can imagine other actors, great actors, who could handle those lines of his as well, but not better. Fairbanks is superb, in his timing--the pauses that allows each one of the lines to resonate with meaning, like a bronze bell sounding--and in the emotion he invests them with, with only the roiling of the surface to suggest the great depth from which they have been brought. Had it been a valedictory, it would have excused all and justified all, for this validation of a magnificent actor at the top of his game.
Fantastic, Dan, as always.
I'm just recalling how our Channel 14 in Hickory bought REACHING FOR THE MOON and a number of other PD titles a few years after you decamped to Wake Forest. This was where I saw the movie, and re-saw it several times after. Too bad REACHING has not so far reached quality Blu-ray release.
Post a Comment
<< Home