MissGoddess

September 12, 2007

I ain't Cloak-and-Dagger copout weenie. And I can even find it in my heart to forgive anyone who can't appreciate Ford. Not everyone has to like Shakespeare, either.

I'll only include those I've seen at least three major works they did, not the many who turned me off after just one opportunity:

1. Stanley Kubrick leaves me chilled to the bone, with the exception of the movies he seemed to disparage the most, his early ones, namely Spartacus and in part, Paths of Glory and The Killing.

2. Robert Altman - I just don't get his movies, what is supposed to be special about them. I would welcome insight on this.

3. Martin Scorcese - I will qualify this by saying I love this man for his passion and the wonderful, wonderful efforts he's made to save old movies and expose them to later generations. I just can't stand his slaughterhouse style.

4. Quentin Tarantino - I don't know if he's int he "Canon" yet, but I suspect he will be but not with my vote.

5. Joel & Ethan Cohen - Perhaps they too are not yet in the pantheon, but I also suspect they eventually will be, alas. The only movie they did I liked was Intolerable Cruelty, which should illustrate my appreciation of their true style.

6. Ingmar Bergman - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

September 12, 2007

Kyle is playing with fire, he almost had ME packing up my things and dashing off to LAX!

Actually I'm glad you posted that, Kyle, because it brought up a couple of movies I've never seen and would like to seek out if they are at all available:

*Shockproof* With a tagline like "You?ve got to change your brand of men." it sounds like it was just made for moi.

*THE BREAKING POINT* 1950, Warner Bros., 97 min. The finest film version of Hemingway?s novel To Have and Have Not (and yes, we?re not forgetting the Bogart-Hawks classic). I have been searching for this one ever since I first read about it years ago, and I'm surprised it didn't make it into the Ernest Hemingway Collection DVD Box Set, which I thought was a Fox/WB co-production.

And, among the other goodies listed, I never thought to see *A Double Life, The Wrong Man and The People Against O'Hara* shown in one festival. That must have been sweet. Actually, the Spencer Tracy flick is another film that has eluded me and continues to taunt.

*I cannot close without, of course, making note of this GLARING ommission on the part of the writer of that piece* :

(Regarding ACT OF VIOLENCE) Directed by the great Fred Zinnemann (A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS; DAY OF THE JACKAL) Anyone notice a certain movie not mentioned as directed by the Great Fred Zinnemann? Only the MOST famous movie he ever directed???????? HIGH NOON?????????????

That's two. Gary Cooper needs to come over and seriously kick some noir patooty.

September 12, 2007

>>>Cloak and Dagger is next up for me. I forget who the star of the film is, though.<<<

What? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat did you just ask, Frank? Have all my patient hours spent on this board taught you nothing!!!? The next time you visit That Thread several ladies will be whipping out their wet noodles, so beware.

>>>5. A soft white candy, usually containing nuts.<<<

I think right now that one comes closest to describing me.

September 12, 2007

A heads up to anyone living in Southern California!

UCLA Film & TV Archive are mounting a retrospective focusing on screwball screenwriters, in particular, *Robert Riskin, who wrote Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe for Capra* :

From the L.A. Times Caldendar:

CINE FILE

Putting words into the mouths of screwballs

UCLA Film and Television Archive honors legendary screenwriters with 'Nothing Sacred.'

*By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer*

It's the dialogue, stupid.

Sure, the directors and actors in the classic screwball comedies were terrific, but without some fantastic scripts all that talent would have gone to waste.

UCLA Film and Television Archive's latest program, which opens Friday, gives these legendary scribes the respect they deserve. "Nothing Sacred: Hollywood Comedy's Writers in the Age of Screwball, 1933-1944" examines the major contributions made by former journalists and playwrights who came to Hollywood and created the wacky characters and snappy dialogue in such classic comedies as "It Happened One Night," "Nothing Sacred," "Easy Living" and "Theodora Goes Wild," all of which screen during the festival.

Among the writers represented in the 14-film series are Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Robert Riskin, Jo Swerling, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Preston Sturges, Sidney Buchman, Claude Binyon, Norman Krasna, Jules Furthman and John Lee Mahin. Several of the writers, including Sturges and Wilder, went on to more acclaim as directors.

"The series began as a challenge, in a way," says UCLA programmer David Pendleton. "Screwball comedy is so often talked about as a director's genre or as a genre that showcased performers. But we felt that a lot of these films draw their energy from the dialogue."

The frenetic, romantic, crazy and sophisticated screwball genre was born in 1934 when the Production Code put an end to sex and innuendo. With the bedroom farce history, Hollywood created the screwball comedy.

"One reason why some of the behavior and characters seem a little shrill in screwball comedies," says Pendleton, "is because there is a certain amount of romantic energy that gets amped up to replace some of the sexual energy in pre-Code films. Because there are a lot of things you can't show or imply, you have much more colorful dialogue, which makes for more memorable characters."

Perhaps the greatest collaboration between a writer and director during the screwball era was Riskin and director Frank Capra. Their 1934 romantic comedy "It Happened One Night," which swept the Oscars, is considered the first screwball comedy. The film stars Claudette Colbert as a spoiled rich girl and runaway bride and Clark Gable as the hungry reporter who meets her on a bus and smells a big story. Though the Code meant eroticism was taboo, there were many sexy scenes in "Night," including Gable's famous demonstration of the order in which he takes off his clothes before going to bed. Colbert stops him after he reveals he's not wearing an undershirt. "One Night" screens Sunday with 1935's "The Whole Town's Talking," a comedy Riskin wrote with Swerling for director John Ford.

Riskin and Capra, who worked at Columbia for studio head Harry Cohn, collaborated on several more films, including 1936's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," 1937's fantasy "Lost Horizon," the 1938 Oscar winner "You Can't Take It With You" and the 1941 political fable "Meet John Doe."

"They had a remarkable partnership," says his daughter, screenwriter Victoria Riskin. "They enhanced each other's strengths. I think Capra had a wonderful cinematic sense, and my father had an extraordinary sense of humor and story. . . . He was above all a great humanitarian. He loves people, and it comes through in his writing because his characters, even the small characters, had wonderful idiosyncratic qualities that he liked to emphasize in his pictures. He was a great observer of human foibles, but with a human eye."

Riskin says Cohn went out of his way to hire playwrights and journalists. "He knew his success depended on having very strong writers," she says. "The way my dad came to Hollywood is a play he had written was optioned [by Columbia]. He was truly penniless. I think he probably had a nickel in his pocket when the agent representing the studio said, 'We'll give you $3,000 for that project.' He said, 'Really?' But he didn't say 'thank you.' So they said, 'We'll give you $5,000.' And he said 'hmmmm.' They said, '$10,000, but that's tops.' So he went from having a nickel to having $10,000 overnight."

September 12, 2007

Since this thread was in danger of, Gasp!, falling to the second page, I thought I'd share this article which is about a new UCLA Film & TV Archive retrospective focusing on screwball screenwriters, in particular, *Robert Riskin, who wrote Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Meet John Doe for Capra* :