Watched: Swingers from the Sixties, Over There (The Knack), Over Here (Elvis)
THE KNACK … and HOW TO GET IT (1965) --- This is what director Richard
Lester was up to between A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, him on to things mod,
hip, gear, whatever else made up Brit slang of the time. We’d learn the
language just for seeing enough off the Isles, fully a third of what the
Liberty showed me during the mid-sixties British boom. Did however skip The
Knack as I would Having a Wild Weekend and Ferry Cross the Mersey, latter even
though I’d bought a ticket for the Saturday co-feature which was Tomb of
Ligeia, also UK-shot (a story told here). Lester had unique style seen
initially on over-there television where the Beatles tabbed him for loopy humor
that would liven their first and second features. The director did much with jumpy
edits, funny reactions from staid elders watching kids loose on streets and
living it up. You’d think there never was a war and years of austerity that
followed, this still evident for beat-down spots where virtually all of The
Knack was shot, houses distressed rather than mere sets to look that way. Why
fake what was all too real in daily life? Postwar locations in London as well
as Berlin had to sidestep bombing damage still not repaired unless they wanted
to focus on such, which mid-60’s celebrations of youth did not. The
Knack was based on a play which was popular despite what its stage director called
a collapsing third act. You get that from the movie in spite of Lester to partial
rescue with energy he seemed never to run out of. Such talent belonged to times
where it burned brightest. When that time passed, Lester and others as dynamic would
face workaday where found and projects not necessarily aimed at strengths. The
Knack is delightful when it delights, a movie perhaps best watched as “Best Of”
highlights, glimpses of what had made the sixties so trippy. Interview extras
on the Region Two Blu-Ray see each of participants, Richard Lester, Rita
Tushingham among others, asked “what it was like” to live amidst a swinging
London scene during such souped-up epoch, them saying they best understood it
from hindsight, that while it was happening, there was more a blur from swirling past so fast. Couldn’t all of us say that about all our young years?
TRIPLE ELVIS --- I have twice this week seen Elvis drive irresponsibly
on public roads, offenses occurring in Live a Little, Love a Little, and
Spinout. He raced too in Speedway but principally at the Charlotte Motor
Speedway where seeming all races took place that year (1968). Speedway also
references wild animals escaped from Charlotte’s zoo, but to my memory there
was not and still isn’t a zoo in Charlotte. Nearest such attraction is Asheboro
or Columbia, SC, latter which we visited twenty years ago and learned how fast
gorillas can run. In fact, they don’t run, but lope at least twenty feet per
exert, which made me realize there is no escaping a gorilla once he/she decides
to eat you. Speedway was the first Elvis I ever walked out on. Same annum saw also
The Green Slime abandoned. Last week was occasion to see if I’m more tolerant
with age. Got through Speedway and did not altogether dislike it. Studio
interiors sub for outdoors (a trailer park), sets are plywood, “money” shots
take place at a disco where Elvis and co-star Nancy Sinatra sing. She has but
one solo (did Colonel Parker draw lines to prevent another Ann-Margret steal?).
Elvis socks a hole in a door that looks like cardboard any of us could
penetrate with a fingertip. Speedway doesn’t suggest $2.8 million spent, but
that's how it was. Elvis raked-off at least a million, plus Nancy took
more than average Presley girls. Loss to Metro was $450K. They took a hit also
with Stay Away, Joe, suggesting a public now allergic to Elvis movies. Speedway
if anything confirmed this. Live a Little, Love a Little was thus necessary
reboot. “Watch Elvis click with all these chicks,” said posters, but in fact he
clicks with but one, and how, because here for a first time, Elvis spends an
unwed night with a “chick,” Michele Carey lately of El Dorado. All this and no
clergy present.
A fun fact to entertain your friends at parties...Besides the actors who filled in for Raymond Burr on the Perry Mason series (Bette Davis, Michael Rennie, Walter Pidgeon, Hugh O'Brian, Barry Sullivan, Mike Connors) when Ray was forced to sit out episodes due to health reasons, Cecil Kellaway is one of only two actors who received special billing for his Perry appearance. Frankie Laine, the other. Both were season two episodes.
ReplyDeleteSaw Kellaway yesterday in another good one, "Luck of the Irish" with Tyrone Power and Anne Baxter.
DeleteSPEEDWAY opened at the Playhouse Theatre in beautiful Statesville, NC the same day I began working there. If I remember correctly, Elvis never came to Charlotte during the filming of the movie. Also sad to read of the passing of Shelly Faberes over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI had a what-if speculation on getting to meet Shelly Faberes that had to be dropped from the column just before it went up yesterday.
DeleteElvis's generation grew up, got married, had kids, got fatter and heavier while Elvis seemed to stay young. The kids that came up knew he wasn't. He was not hip to them. The bad boy that wowed America became the good boy who bored America. With you on GREEN SLIME. Could not believe it made it to the screen.
ReplyDeleteMy memory is it was mostly kids who attended Elvis movies. I did not see teen-agers there, but then it was matinees we always attended, so maybe teen fans showed up for evening shows. When "Viva Las Vegas" played the Liberty, my mother drove my sister and her friends downtown and dropped them off, me riding along but not going inside. The place looked full and there was a line at the boxoffice window. I would say Viva's 1963 release, one of the King's most popular, handily drew kids, teens, if not a portion of all age groups.
DeleteNever did I ever think Una Merkle would appear in an Elvis movie.
ReplyDeleteShe did a couple of Disneys as well. Only in recent years did I connect her with the sexy girl in 30s musicals.
DeleteIt's been pointed out before that the high-spirited sequence from Lester's film with the old four-poster antique bed being trundled out and about on London's streets is remarkably similar to a part of the opening sequence of "The Monkees" hit US TV show of a couple of years later.
ReplyDelete"The Knack" is pretty obscure now, to be sure, but the Region Two Blu-Ray has nice extras and the feature looks good. I wish someone would release "Ferry Cross the Mersey." Who knows ... maybe it's already out there somewhere.
DeleteRecall seeing a special / pilot for what became "Laugh-In" and it emphatically swiped some gags from Lester's "The Running, Jumping & Standing Still Film." They recreated them on film, same actions and angles. Perhaps the assumption was that nobody watching American TV would know about a British cult item.
DeleteOn the actual series they focused on what I assume were original film insert gags. The most frequent, if I recollect with accuracy, was a man in a raincoat trying to ride a tricycle and tipping over.
Dan Mercer's latest group of observations (Part One):
ReplyDeleteWilliam Powell in “One Way Passage”
William Powell is perhaps better known for his skill in playing wry comedy. His talent was much broader than that, however. Note how his performance is modulated by the way he holds his head, the tone of his voice, and the pauses before he speaks. His character is in emotional agony, needing to tell the woman he loves something terrible--something she senses, not the details but their import--and she will not hear it. He presses against her reluctance but realizes that he would love her whether he spoke those words or not. The moment passes; the love remains. Powell is perfect in the way he captures this sense of timelessness.
Helen Twelvetrees
Helen Twelvetrees had the piquant beauty of one too generous with her heart, with large eyes set wide apart, a retroussé nose, and a sensuous rosebud of a mouth. It was the face of someone who would suffer for what she gave away, her pain readily apparent. For a little while in her career, there would be an audience delighting in her anguish.
Madge Bellamy
Madge Bellamy is best known today for "White Zombie,” a picture she made after leaving Fox and silent film stardom. Quickly and cheaply produced by Halperin Productions, it was a modest success for United Artists but did her career no favors, suggesting her limitations as an actress in the talkies. Today it is considered a minor classic, more a fairy tale than a horror movie and featuring a charismatic performance by Bela Lugosi. Bellamy was actually very good playing a lost princess, with her delicate ways and cameo-like beauty. Unfortunately, after this she would only have a few more chances, consisting either of leads in Poverty Row pictures or supporting roles in Fox programmers, as her career rapidly wound down in the mid-thirties.
“Jane Eyre” (1943)
A critic referred to Fontaine initiating the earnest ping pong of romance, to which Welles seemed indifferent. Her mother told her that she had been defeated in the role by her beauty. Later, Welles disparaged her as one of those pretty English actresses who have only two expressions. So, the film is not universally accepted as a great or even good film, even by some of those involved with it. I disagree with them, however, and would suggest they open their hearts as well as their eyes to it. The direction by Robert Stevenson is superb, with its chiaroscuro compositions, the stylized sets are marvelously evocative of the tumult of passion and morality, and the crucial pairing of Fontaine and Welles is a whirlpool of emotions and thwarted desire. I find it enthralling each time I watch it, always absorbed by it, even when I know the hope that will be realized in the end. The opinion of Welles may be dismissed, especially towards the end of his life, when he played the raconteur as he always played the showman, while Fontaine could never be less than beautiful, when her beauty was chiefly what she revealed about the human heart. But then, the proponents of various acting methods aside, what counts is not from where a performance comes but where it is received.
Natalie Keaton in “Our Hospitality”
Natalie was pretty and charming and, as shown in this film, not without talent. Such a pity, then, that everything went so badly wrong in her marriage to Buster. Possibly the lesson is that when you marry someone, you create a new family, and your priority lies with them as make it.
Louise Brooks Montage
A collage that might well span the whole of the cinematic experience, formed from the facets of an extraordinary talent.
Part Two from Dan Mercer:
ReplyDeleteAnn Dvorak
A sinuous brunette whose appearance could vary markedly, depending on lighting and camera angle, but was rarely less than beautiful. Her talent, as well, allowed her to span the emotional landscape in her performances, especially in "Three on a Match." Her socialite in that film begins with brittle, self-centered charm, then descends into the depths of drug addiction, only to find in the end a kind of transcendent love that only mothers know. It should have been the making of a major star, when that stardom proved elusive, but remains as one of the glories of the movies.
Note Card from Louise Brooks
"1934 – When Pabst was under contract to Warners – He got them a print of Lulu, hoping to get me for A Modern Hero –
1943 – This was the print Iris Barry at MOMA saw and decided not to buy Lulu because “it was not of lasting interest.”
Fascinating details, written with the concision one might expect of from someone with a mind like Brooks’. It would be interesting to see what graphoanalysis would make of that handwriting. As for Iris Barry, it's odd that she would have missed the mark so badly with "Pandora's Box," since she considered silent film to be a legitimate and powerful art form. However, she may have been swayed by critical opinion when it was released, when it was regarded merely as a transient work without importance. This was during the talkie revolution, when silent films in general had been eclipsed.
Fritz Lang on “Metropolis”
Ironically, we find ourselves living in a time where decisions will increasingly be made by the machine rather than by human beings. The question, then, of whether the heart should be the intermediary between the head and the hands will become irrelevant, if we allow this to go on.
Adrienne Ames
Adrienne Ames was extraordinarily beautiful with a face almost perfected suited for the movies. The large, heavy-lidded eyes, well-shaped nose, high cheekbones, and a delicately sensual mouth set in a heart-shaped face surmounted by wavy, light brown hair: it was scarcely possible to find a bad angle or to photograph her when she didn't appear beautiful. But, like Gwili Andre, that beauty somehow did not merit stardom or even many good films. Ames appeared mostly in programmers, mostly made for poverty row studios. After her career in Hollywood ended, she enjoyed success on New York radio for several years as the hostess of two shows, where, of course, her physical beauty was not relevant.
Part Three from Dan Mercer:
ReplyDeleteOrson Welles on His Production of a Black “Macbeth”
Having black actors play Shakespeare "without it being funny... or even exotic"? A laudable ambition, but how does that go with voodoo drummers and witch doctors from the west coast of Africa? Magical it may have been but not without the element of exploitation.
Colleen Gray
Colleen Gray was born of Danish parents in Nebraska and had a very European beauty, with large, wide-set eyes, long, delicate nose, and small, well-shaped mouth. There was always a freshness about her, which made her most effective in roles stressing the innocence of her character, such as "Nightmare Alley" and "Kiss of Death." Perhaps that was why, however, that she did not become a major star, since she was not afforded the opportunities that other actresses with virtues perhaps not so apparent were. Most of her films were programmers for the studio, which was Twentieth Century-Fox when she began, as her career gradually faded into inexpensive productions and television. "The Leech Woman," a later effort in which she played a bitter, older woman who "drains men of their loves and lives!" to preserve her rejuvenated beauty, was very much against type.
“The Wrong Man”
A brilliant but underrated film, in which lives are pressed and broken by the system intended to protect them. It is a waking nightmare detailed in the seemingly innocuous moments that lead its victims ever more deeply into the pit. The last moments, as the man prays before an icon, the one he's mistaken for walks into view, and a detective suddenly remembers, are transcendent. The Lord wants for our salvation and bends all things to his will.
“Metropolis”
Such projections have a fantasy aspect because there is an assumption of uninterrupted progress from set principles. The time in which the film was made followed a war of immense destruction which ruined much of the world involved in it. Another war, even more destructive, followed just 12 years afterwards. The peoples caught up in those wars have seemingly lost the will to live and are being inundated by other peoples with other cultures and gods. The future may be grand or not, but it will surely be different than this.
Richard M. Roberts remembers when he was an Elvis projectionist, among other things:
ReplyDeleteJohn,
Perhaps the worst gig I ever had was as a projectionist for a low-rent Elvis convention out in Scottsdale back in the 80's.It was so low-rent, that the only Elvis films the promoter rented for the whole weekend were SPEEDWAY, LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE, and STAY AWAY JOE. So for four days, I projected those three films, over and over and over and over.
It was pretty rough, but one learned to grab the moments one could: MIchele Carey's swimsuit in the first ten minutes of LIVE A LITTLE, Burgess Meredith's Indian sidekick to Presley in STAY AWAY JOE. I have to admit, I have absolutely no memory of SPEEDWAY at all, but I got to be pretty good at changing reels in my sleep. Those late Elvis pics were indeed pretty gawdawful, the only thing I remember of any redeeming value was The Wiere Brothers in DOUBLE TROUBLE (1967).
If you want to see Richard Lester practicing his chops for staging musical numbers and putting surrealistic comedy into his movies, look no further than his first feature film, IT'S TRAD DAD (aka RING-A-DING RHYTHM in the states) (1962) where Lester, fresh from doing TV commercials and the short film with the Goons, the aforementioned RUNNING, JUMPING, AND STANDING STILL FILM (1959) shows what he would bring to A HARD DAYS NIGHT shooting this musical based around the unbelievable hot British musical genre of -----Trad Dixieland Jazz! Yep, after skiffle, folk music and calypso, trad jazz had it's fifteen minutes of popularity, just long enough for Lester to make this very entertaining film featuring the likes of Chris Barber's Jazz Band, Acker-Bilk, The Temperance Seven, and American pop/rock acts like Gary U.S. Bonds. It's actually a really fun little film, especially for a jazz fan like myself, and we get to see Lester's whole directorial style in embryo. Of course The Beatles came along soon after, and trad jazz's popularity became a footnote in the history of British popular music, but it was great while it lasted.
Saw THE GREEN SLIME at a Wallace and Ladmo matinee back in 69, never seen it since, save maybe a few bits on THE CBS LATE NIGHT MOVIE, where it was a mainstay, but again, remember little but bad rubber slime suits for the monsters and some pretty hot space station babes in tight-fitting uniforms (and a terrific poster), but this was another from Robert Horton's unfortunate euro-trash/Japanese career that MGM grabbed onto for some ridiculous reason (well, after 2001 perhaps, some idiot executive of Kirk Kerkorian's thought this was more of the same).
RICHARD M ROBERTS