By Scott Ross
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Shampoo (1975) Warren Beatty’s extraordinary dramatic sex-farce (and no, that is not a contradiction in terms) about empty, self-absorbed Angelinos on the eve of Nixon’s 1968 election, one of the great movie comedies of a great movie era.
The Muppet Movie (1979) The joyous movie debut of Jim Henson’s menagerie, one of the genuine cinematic charmers of its time.
Call Northside 777 (1948) A straightforward, intelligent, un-hysterical account of the Chicago Times reporter James McGuire’s attempts to re-examine a 1932 killing and, having become convinced of the man’s innocence, to exonerate a young Polish-American sentenced to life for the crime. As far from the rapid-fire, wise-cracking 1930s newspaper picture as can be imagined, the movie depicts the journey of a skeptic without pushing any agenda aside from telling a good story well… an object once of much of the American press. James Stewart is the reporter, and he limns the character’s transition from cynic to passionate believer with admirable restraint. Richard Conte gives a good account of the convict as well but, aside from Stewart, where Call Northside 777 really soars in in the supporting performances. These include Lee J. Cobb as the Times editor who sets the thing in motion; Helen Walker as Stewart’s wife, with whom he has a couple of beautifully observed sequences; Betty Garde as a slovenly witness to the crime; Joanne De Bergh as the convict’s gentle ex-wife; and Kasia Orzazewski, who gives an exquisitely detailed performance as his immigrant mother. It’s interesting from a 21st century perspective to observe Leonarde Keeler, the inventor of the now thoroughly discredited Polygraph, as himself performing a test on Conte.
Leonard Hoffman and Quentin Reynolds adapted McGuire and Jack McPhaul’s 1944 articles and the lean, effective screenplay was by Jerome Cady and Jay Dratler. I’ve never been able to fathom why Henry Hathaway is adored by so many reactive auteurists but he directed the picture efficiently, aided immeasurably by Joseph MacDonald’s mouth-wateringly beautiful black-and-white photography. When I tell you that MacDonald also shot My Darling Clementine, Panic in the Streets, Viva Zapata!, Pickup on South Street, Hell and High Water, House of Bamboo, The List of Adrian Messenger, Rio Conchos and The Sand Pebbles you will if you’ve seen these pictures have an idea of how good his work could be.
Call Northside 777 is an engaging relic from a time, not so long ago as time is measured, when newspapers occasionally defended the powerless instead of, as they now habitually do, attacking them.
The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) Another miraculous comedy-drama, this one from a period notably short on intelligent movies for adults.
Lost Horizon (1937) I am fascinated by the world-wide success of James Hilton’s 1933 fantasy for three reasons: First because, while exceedingly well-written it is unsatisfying in nearly every respect, from stereotyped characterization to ambiguous denouement; second because its depiction of an earthly Himalayan paradise is predicated wholly on the colonial model — Shangri-La was begun by a French priest and is supposed to be continued by a British diplomat, benignly lording it over both the native Tibetan population and the lesser monks such as the British-educated Chinese Chang; and third because its High Lama thinks nothing of kidnapping not only his successor but a planeload of others who are given no say about where they are taken. The arrogance of the thing is monumental.
The inevitable motion picture was an obsession of its director, Frank Capra, who seemed to have gone completely loopy while making it, doing such things as filming endless reels of Sam Jaffe as the High Lama telling Ronald Colman’s Robert Conway his and his monastery’s life stories, footage which then had to be edited down and paired, unsuccessfully, with badly-matched film of Jaffe’s truncated narrative shot later. (Jaffe’s makeup also varies.) Capra’s innate story sense seems to have left him as well, and the first two reels had to be lopped off the opening following a disastrous preview. His usual scenarist Robert Riskin at least eliminated Hilton’s pinched spinster missionary but I’m not sure his substitution of a consumptive whore (Isabel Jewell) was any real improvement, nor was cobbling up a fussy paleontologist played by Edward Everett Horton at his simperingly prissiest. Neither was turning Conway’s militant young companion in the novel into his brother a felicitous change from the manuscript; either way the character is a tantrum-throwing irritant whom you would think Conway would be glad to see the back of instead of, in a sudden “revelation,” throwing away his own pacific love for Shangri-La and walking away from paradise on the say-so of a hysterical girl, who in any case is lying. The best things about Lost Horizon are Thomas Mitchell’s typically robust performance as the financial fugitive Barnard, H.B. Warner’s beautiful portrayal of Chang (even though he looks no more Chinese than Boris Johnson), the exquisite art direction of Stephen Goosson and set decoration by Babs Johnstone, the luminous cinematography by Joseph Walker and the splendid score by Dimitri Tiomkin who for once does not overbalance things with thunderous ostentation.
I know I’m speaking heresy about Lost Horizon, since it is nearly as beloved as another, equally wobbly Capra construction called It’s a Wonderful Life, but although each time I’ve seen it over the decades I’ve approached it with generosity the picture is always, to me, a gorgeous bore.
You’ll Never Get Rich (1941) An extremely slight Fred Astaire/Rita Hayworth mini-musical with a score by Cole Porter that contains not a single hit, or even memorable, number. Worse, the dances are also unmemorable, which in an Astaire picture is an indication of near-total failure. The screenplay by Michael Fessier and Ernest Pagano is at best perfunctory and at worst wholly unbelievable and gives over entirely too much time to the supposed humor of the double-talk comedian Cliff Nazarro. If you want to hear a real master of the form, and one who in addition is actually funny, watch some old Sid Caesar videos instead.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker’s topical comedy is still, despite its dated externals, both funny and surprisingly relevant.
The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) Don Knotts’ follow-up to the delightful The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) is a pale variation on the great Preston Sturges comedy Hail the Conquering Hero, this time with an amusement park kiddie-ride proprietor who is accepted for a job at NASA which everyone including him assumes is to become an astronaut. (He’s actually been hired as a janitor.) In the Sturges picture the father was dead, sanctifying his war-hero status. Here the hero (Arthur O’Connell) is very much alive, and an overbearing phony. While O’Connell is annoyingly broad the rest of the supporting cast is terrific and includes Jeanette Nolan as Knotts’ mother, Joan Freeman as his would-be girlfriend, Jesse White as his barking NASA boss and Burt Mustin as his ancient carnival sidekick. Although written by Mr. Chicken‘s screenwriters Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum it doesn’t have the special quality of freshness of that unexpected hit and isn’t nearly as funny. Nor is Edward Montagne’s direction as pleasing as Alan Rafkin’s on the earlier picture, and the special effects blue-screen shots are notably poor. Only Vic Mizzy’s characteristically sprightly score is comparable to what he came up with for Mr. Chicken, although nowhere near as good. But the movie is far from a total loss: Knotts is always a pleasure to watch, even in material that isn’t as inspired as he is, and there are several good laughs here amidst the dross. If you get too bored you can always contemplate how no one, including the actor himself, could have predicted that staunch Leslie Nielsen, who plays the object of Knotts’ hero-worship, would one day surpass his famous co-star and become for a time and against all odds the funniest man in the world.
After the Fox (1966) A fitfully amusing farce caper that could have been a minor classic but for its director’s interference. So Neil Simon, the writer, said, and the picture tends to bear him out. What works — what’s funny about it — is what feels written, worked out by a man who understood both comic dialogue and construction. What doesn’t jell are the directorial flourishes and the impositions into the script by the writer (Cesare Zavattini) foisted as co-author on the original scenarist. Simon believed that Vittorio De Sica took the job to support his gambling obsession, and the movie has the feel of work done sloppily by people who are capable of far more, and have achieved it often.*
Aside from the clever plot — to receive a shipment of stolen gold an Italian career criminal with a penchant for disguises takes over a coastal town by pretending to be a film director making a movie — and a few witty lines the chief reasons to watch the picture are Peter Sellers’ often hilarious performance as Aldo Vanucci, Victor Mature’s surprisingly sweet one as the ageing (and failing) American movie star Vanucci engages for his movie-within-a-movie, Akim Tamiroff as the mastermind behind the gold theft, Dick Horn and Maurice Binder’s stylish animated titles and the absolutely wonderful music by Burt Bacharach. It’s one of the greatest of all comedy scores, but unfortunately De Sica did violence to it as well, too often dialing the music out. Fortunately the LP (and later CD reissue) preserves it in full.
*De Sica was the Neo-Realist master whose Shoeshine and Bicycle Thieves had a vast influence on post-war cinema and whose other pictures include the internationally acclaimed Miracle in Milan, Umberto D., Two Women, Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Marriage Italian-Style and his late masterwork The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. In other words, a serious artist.
Text copyright 2002 by Scott Ross
So few critics, so many poets 