DISQUS

Dan, you have made my week, thank you. If you can take this much disaster I recommend viewing NTR again just before you see what one commenter at my place just called "Cameron's overblown bathtub toy." It points up what Cameron gets wrong, but you can also see Cameron having a conversation with the earlier film's notions of class and survivor guilt--not to mention its visual vocabulary.

As for Wagner, no, no love at all. Now that I think of it, he did cross my mind for my earlier list of what Wolcott called "Hollywooden" but I left him off, in part because I want to go easy on the legends still with us, even if they are far from favorites of mine. One thing that always befuddled me about Wagner, though, was the incredible ability he had to get the greatest of Hollywood's female stars to do these usually bad late-period TV movies with him. Did he have an incredible collection of naked photos, or what?

You're the 2nd person to mention the Unsinkable Molly Brown, which I liked okay when it wasn't focused on the ship but found to be in gruesomely poor taste when it moved on to the Titanic. Do you remember Titanic: The Musical? I do, although I didn't see it.

I agree with your points about the big stuff--and thank you for reminding me of that superb pullback shot. With the exception of Zane and Fisher (both given impossible parts) I don't think the acting's bad at all. In acting class at dear old Stella Adler they would talk about how an actor has to "give it away;" well, Leo in particular hasn't given it away at all since his very open, joyous performance in Titanic. And Kate has to play a modern gal in period dress and acquits herself very well, I think.

We agree, however, about Kathy Bates. If she has given a bad performance I haven't seen it.

As for Celine Dion, she's heard only over the closing credits, thank GOD. Caterwauling is le mot juste. Sometimes I wonder if Dion doesn't deserve a large share of blame for the poor regard the movie is held in. The song was so massive and it's indefensibly bad, and despite the fact that the caterwauling is never heard during the running time it's the first thing people remember. Cameron didn't want a song in the movie at first and he should have stuck by that, I think.

Billy Zane's whole character should have been given the heave-ho. There just wasn't anything he added to the movie. I guess the iceberg wasn't enough of a villain for Cameron. I think the movie works as romance and spectacle and I liked the way Cameron tried simultaneously to de-bunk and enshrine myths. But yeah, not a wholly good movie, just an unevenly good movie.

Thanks so much for this thoughtful response. The Celluloid Closet was a thunderclap for me when I read it more than a decade ago, and made me look in particular at character actors in a far different way. In the Doherty book he quotes from Breen's stern warnings about "pansy" characters or connotations, so it is always interesting when I come scenes that have decidedly forbidden overtones, such as the bar in "Crossfire."

It's only in the past decade or so that so-called pre-code films have become widely available and I agree, the more I see of the era the more fascinated I become.

Fable is the perfect word for Sunrise. And I agree, trying to convince O'Neil of the merits of the performances was a secondary issue. I was and remain astonished that he couldn't back down enough even to acknowledge the film's influence. But it seems clear to me that his grasp of film history is tenuous.

I followed your link here from Mr. O'Neil's post, because I liked your arguments there. I like them here as well. I agree with your general point, of course--you need not like a movie to appreciate its significance. There are several important movies that I personally disliked, such as 2001. But I'd be a fool not to acknowledge that movie's inventiveness and influence.

One point of disagreement, though. I think one thing (out of many) that O'Neil gets wrong is that what he is dismissing as melodramatic or "hammy" acting is just another form of performance. Realism is an acting style like any other and there's no reason to consider it the only valid way to approach the art. I'd argue that the performances in Sunrise (as well as the other great films made in the very great year 1927) are not melodramatic at all, if you consider melodrama to be a story where the high-pitched plot is taking precedence over character development. Character is all Sunrise has, the plot is deliberately kept as classically simple as possible. Rather, the acting is Romantic, presentational, deliberately done at a heightened emotional pitch. To me Gaynor is a wonder in Sunrise. To attach the adjective "schmaltzy" to her performance hurts my heart. Murnau was a genius and I am convinced he could have gotten any sort of acting out of the three main characters that he wanted. He got the performances that the film needed.

I hope you don't mind my stopping by to share my rather long-winded thoughts, as I plan to continue to read your blog.

I still think Davis would have made the definitive Martha, good though Taylor is in the movie.

It's true, recommending a Davis movie is a breeze as so many have held up remarkably well. I have noticed more people mentioning Mr. Skeffington of late--that's a great one, Davis playing a legendary beauty, which she was not. But you watch the movie convinced that she is, she was that good an actress.

Dan, if you go over to The Ballerina Gallery, which is a fantastic site, you can see what ballerinas looked like in the 1930s by looking at someone like Ulanova. In a nutshell: not the teensy sylphs of Balanchine's NYCB, but not Garbo either. And it's more than physical typing, there's a very peculiar gait and rhythm to the way a classical ballerina moves that Garbo just doesn't have. But she's Garbo, and that ain't hay.

MaryC, I had drinks last night with a friend who reacted the same way you did to the excerpt, but for a slightly different reason. She thought Cathy's emphasis on how wonderful everything was became just a leetle too repetitious. I don't think we'll ever know for sure what childhood was like chez Crawford, but I don't have much trouble saying I am glad she wasn't MY mother. But I did lose patience with Christina when she suggested a few years ago that Joan might have murdered one of her husbands. It was like, enough already. And over the years it's become plain that a lot of stars were probably dreadful parents--Bing Crosby comes to mind--but that isn't ALL the general public knows about them. I'd just like to see the good Joan work come more to the forefront.

Dan, there were a good many straight men who loved her a lot, including Gable and Tracy as well as Mankiewicz, so you have very good company.

As for Grand Hotel, I always find it fabulous. Garbo strikes some people as too dramatic but she's playing a very self-dramatizing part. The one thing the movie can't do is make her LOOK like a ballerina, though.

Thanks for the kind words. She was definitely a star who required a good director but in the right hands she could be quite a presence.

As for the language, yes, it's something isn't it? but the "rode through the studio" remark was too fabulous not to repeat. :D

Someone was gently rebuking me for saying I wanted more movies from Scheider, seeing as how he was 75 years old. But I am greedy that way, like all fans. I wanted another movie out of 90-year-old Ingmar Bergman. And Scheider never really got his due. I wanted a great swan song for him.

Jim, I thought of Demarest and cut him at the last minute, but you have me thoroughly chastened. His delivery of Sturges' line on daughters in Morgan's Creek alone should have earned him a spot.

Dan, I never saw F Troop but I am sure Horton earned the classic actor's epitaph: "darling, you're the best thing in it."

Shamus, I don't know. One time at my workplace my colleagues staged an intervention: they took away my WSJ editorial page. 'You do not need to be reading that, hon.' Maybe I need a 12-step program.

I do like The Fury but rarely list it because Amy Irving irritates me, for reasons I can't completely explain.

The closest Hitch came was having Doris Day sing Que Sera, Sera in The Man Who Knew Too Much. In one scene she sings it like a dirge. I

Thank you very much, Dan.

So, are you saying Eli might go for it? ;)

That's one of the few Sirks I haven't seen, and I am a huge Sirk fan. Remember the Night is such a good movie. I wrote it up right before Christmas and discovered that several other bloggers had, too. I think we all saw it on TCM. My favorite Stanwyck moment in that one: the way her face changes from eager nostalgia to apprehension, as they drive through her old town.

Ah, The Furies is great, and missing from DVD, like The Bitter Tea of General Yen, which probably ranks No. 1 on the list of titles Stanwyck fans want to see on DVD. I have not seen Night Nurse; here I must admit that my knowledge of Stanwyck's earliest work is pretty spotty.

It is wonderful to see her finally get her due. To me, Stanwyck's voice retained a hint of Brooklyn no matter what she was playing, but unlike fellow Brooklynite Susan Hayward it never intruded on the character.

There is no question that Double Indemnity was her peak, but the reason I like her as Martha Ivers is that she gets to play the backstory in that one. You know why Martha is the way she is and Stanwyck fleshes her out. Whereas Phyllis Dietrichson is just rotten to the core--deliciously, wondrously so, but not as layered a woman.

These lists are always fun for the discussions they sprak. But I do get irked at how safe and boring the AFI choices continue to be. No Lang, no Lubitsch. Epics, Oscar-winners, adventure stories, some comedies, some musicals (but nothing too fey), crime dramas (but nothing too dark or sleazy). And MALE. God is it male. And I am not talking about the directors. So few women's pictures, so little of anything that doesn't appeal to a very straight he-man sensibility.

I posted more objections at my place too.

Ms Peel, I made the same point, about How Green getting unfairly dissed because of beating Citizen Kane, in a post a while back about Best Picture winners. I think a contemporary example is Shakespeare in Love.

Thanks Dan. :)

Viscount, having met you & read your blog many times, I am not surprised you like the film. :) Ford's own politics, as Lance has argued, were not as conservative as some folks like to argue, especially not in a contemporary sense. But looking at the movie as it stands on its own, it is as harsh an indictment of rampaging, unregulated, unaccountable capitalism as you are likely to find in an American film of that era. You see how not only the Morgan family disintegrates, but also the environment of the valley itself. (That may also be due to the avowedly left-wing screenwriter, Philip Dunne.)

So many of that generation were raised to just get on with it, no matter what life--or their country--demanded of them. Beautiful post. I wish you well this Father's Day.

Yes, the roller-coaster comparison is spot-on. In fact I am tempted to a do a film-blogger survey and see whether enjoying the wilder reaches of horror -- willingness to watch anything, as Kevin says -- correlates with a willingness to ride things that send you hurtling along upside down and far up into the sky. It can't be coincidence that I turn green on Ferris wheels.

Ha, I remember that Sternberg sequence! It is probably the most accurate thing in that movie, historically speaking. Sometimes old movies can surprise you with how chilling they are. There is a scene in The Big Combo (coincidentally, it's on TCM tonight at 8) where Cornel Wilde is tortured that is quite difficult to watch even in 2007.

Dan, our minds are on parallel tracks this week.

Kevin, I love The Seven Samurai too. In the spirit of adventure I would like to say I will watch anything but it isn't true. There are certain pictures I just do not want in my head. One of my favorite bloggers confessed to me that he wished he had never seen Last House on the Left, because now those images would be with him forever, ready to jump into his brain whether he wanted them or not.

We really are curiously in sync this week. Over at my place I just posted in brief about a film by Jean Negulesco, a guy who made several movies which I treasure but cannot really defend as cap-A Art. Or even little-a art. It does rather boil down to which sort of cinematic Twinkie you choose to consume.

I do believe, however, that certain types of genre dreck get more respect than others, and that is frequently tied to who enjoys it. The sort of stuff Tarantino favors--grindhouse, slasher, giallo, kung fu, whatever--appeals to the still very male critical establishment, and therefore gets more respect. Whereas the kind of stuff I favor when I want empty movie calories--the lesser-grade women's pictures, Sandra Dee, Baghdad-and-boobs--have less boy-appeal.

Dan, I think you were responding here even as I posted my Schlondorff quote on your Melville post. :)