jemnyc
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Posts posted by jemnyc
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Miss G:
That top photo is very interesting, Kim---where Gary looks like he's getting a massage. He really looks beat, I wonder what western that's from?
I think it's from Man/West, as if the director (Mann? Or the assistant director) is demonstrating how he wants the knife to be used against GC's throat as Billie is forced to strip.
As usual, pix are spot-on!
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Miss G:
The Museum of Radio and Television is up on 52nd Street, just west of 5th, north side of the street. here's the website:
Great place. When it first began, in the seventies, was known as the Museum of Broadcasting, now has changed names.
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Miss G, regarding:
Following an ex-con (Gary Cooper) who?s trying to procure a teacher for his small west Texas settlement,
I've always been confused a little by this---when O'Connell finagles the introduction of Julie London's character to Link, didn't he say she was looking for a job as a "teacher"? Yet, she later admits to working in "saloons"...which is true? Both? Was she going along with O'Connell to try and pull a fast one on Link? She does seem to want to be legitimate, if not as someone's wife then to work at a legitimate trade...did she honestly want a job as a teacher in the beginning is what I can't figure out.
I've always felt that O'Connell's shady con man had talked her into going along with him, pretend you're a teacher, let's scam the bumpkin. On the train when Link turns down O'Connell, London's expression as she glances at O'Connell is disgust, she's been used again by yet another male loser. In fact, that exquisite bit of non-verbal/body language performing by London perhaps belies the feeling that London wasn't up to some of the more complex emotional characterization that Mann had in mind?
Can anyone tell me what is a "Mexican standoff"?
A stalemate between more than two sides/guys (or gals, for that matter)/people. Not sure where he's referring to in Man/West. Good/Bad/Ugly has a classic standoff at the end, between Eastwood, Van Cleef and Eli Wallach.
And it features, as a major narrative vector, a constant threat of rape - Cooper, forced to take up with his old gang, must also protect a cabaret singer/schoolteacher (Julie London) from their brutal, lascivious advances. His two goals - destroying the gang and protecting London - are often at odds with one another, and it?s within this extraordinarily grey area that Mann finds the heart of his film, almost a moral treatise - wherein lies the duty of man? Is it to protect the forces/emblems of goodness, or is it to destroy the forces of wrong?
That's a remarkable point---one I've always felt but never articulated in my mind. As a woman, I react very deeply to that aspect of the story. Frankly, they could have found no better choice to play such a part than Gary. His innate sense of decency makes him ideal for it.
Man/West is such a deep film, seemingly bottomless in its meanings. It's that rare western--, no, that rare film which takes genuine chances, with characters, situations, motivations, plotting, visuals, etc.
The film ends, as many great westerns do, with characters riding out into the great abandon, but with them they bring the promise of the educational/political infrastructure that would eventually render the West moot. The west isn?t dying here - but it?s always darkest before the sun rises?
The writer apparently sees the ending quite optimistically, though he doesn't remark specifically on Billie's future. Her destiny seems to be the saddest...without a protector like Link, she seems doomed to go on to more of the kind of jobs she's weary of...until she's too old for them.
Again, it's so rich, so emotionally evocative, it can be read seven ways from Sunday. Not necessarily putting it in the class of Hamlet, but like Hamlet, it is open to so many valid interpretations,
Message was edited by: jemnyc
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Phones, mail boxes, stationery envelopes and pens are beginning to be obsolete; and it'll only be a matter of time until Back to the Future is a proven fact.
Mrs. C: in line with this (alarming?) news, studies are revealing that our memories are evaporating, all age groups, because we need use memory less and less. Examples cited are cell phones, where the number we dial is programmed in, we no longer need know it; check out counters in stores, where everything is computerized, and when the computer fails, out comes a calculator. There were scads of other examples, but these are two which have stuck in my increasingly faulty memory bank
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Great story about Quinn on The Plainsman set. From stories I've heard it sounds like Gary was probably one of the best actors to work with not only b/c of his wonderful talent, but also b/c he seems to have treated everybody with respect and stood up for the little guys too. I really admire people who use their celebrity and influence to help others instead of using it to just get as much as they can for themselves and acting like divas.
Here's another story from The Plainsman, along those lines, this from Iron Eyes Cody (You're too young to remember, Angie, but in the 70s, there was an anti-littering campaign, and they used a huge close up of a Native American, with a single tear rolling down his cheek; this was Iron Eyes Cody, whose Native American pedigree is somewhat suspect, apparently, but that's another story). Cooper grew friendly with a lot of the actual Souix who played in the exterior, Montana location footage on The Plainsman. Grew so friendly, in fact, that he went through the Sioux Medicine Man ceremony, becoming an honorable Sioux Medicine Man (It's a wicked initiation ceremony, and Cooper almost had to quit).
There were two separate areas where the crews stayed during the location work. One, with the stars, director, cinematographer, etc., in a well-appointed place, nice housing, booze, lots of food, all the amenities. The rest of the cast, the extras, crew members, etc., were in a second area, without virtually any of the amenities, including booze and all the food, etc. So, Cooper goes to the extra's encampment one night, gets a batch of the Native American extras, grips, etc., and after midnight, led a raid on the main encampment, filched booze, food, etc., brought it back for the other extras, low level crew members.
Also, De Mille had no intention of bringing the Sioux extras from Montana back to LA. Planned on using regular Hollywood extras for anything shot on the sets. Cooper argued that this wasn't fair, they deserved it. De Mille said it was too expensive. So, Cooper -- on his own dime -- flew dozens and dozens of Sioux down to LA, put them up in hotels, and they were used in the set-bound material. Iron Eyes Cody said that he did it a second time, but I couldn't figure out if he meant with Northwest Mounted Police or Unconquered.
Cody and Cooper remained friends until Cooper's death. Cooper got Cody extra work, stunt work, on many of his films, including Vera Cruz. Cooper was still separated at the time, having an on/off affair with a French model. Cody claimed that Cooper and Sarita Monteil had a fling, which goes against some of the comments from GC biographers, who wrote that he was turned off by Monteil's bathing habits. But I'd believe Cody first, since so many comments attributed to Cooper by biolgraphers don't jibe at all with the man that I though I uncovered.
Who knows?
One of the flat out dumbest things I've heard that I believe Hawks (I think it was him and not Wayne) said about High Noon was that if Kane was a good enough marshal he wouldn't need help from the townspeople.
How dumb is that, eh? Talk about the absurdity of macho raised to flashpoint.
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Here's a video I made using clips from Ball of Fire set to Jerry Lee Lewis's song Great Balls of Fire. I made it several days ago but have had a hard time getting it to upload.
Angie, that is so damned clever! the visuals match the lyrics, hit their marks precisely.
Thanks much!
And, as usual, your photo uploads are amazing.
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Dan, regarding:
So Claudette was in other great comedies other than Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. I don't think she was in any movies with any leading men that I follow as I have only ever seen her in His Woman and Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. Can you name some of the comedies you liked better than Bluebeard or other movies. I may want to rent them out some time.
Since I really like Claudette Colbert, this list is perhaps skewed, but try:
The Palm Beach Story
Midnight
It Happened One Night (Kind of the template for the romantic comedy, deservedly so)
Under Two Flags (Not a comedy -- at least not intentionally -- but her co-star is one of your favorites, Ronald Colman)
Imitation Of Life (The original, and it's a fail safe plot, if you've ever watched the delicious Lana Turner version from the fifties)
It's A Wonderful World (Utter froth, but she and James Stewart are a terrific pair)
Drums Along The Mohawk -- Again, not a comedy, but a wonderful John Ford film, with Henry Fonda, and based on an actual upstate NY incident, circa Revolutionary War.
So Proudly We Hail (Again, no comedy, but WW II, the Pacific, Corregidor, from the nurse's POV, excellent)
Since You Went Away -- WW II, home front, very fine; makes a nice companion piece to Best Years Of Our Lives -- two great war films without a frame of actual battle)
Tomorrow Is Forever -- what today would be called a 'chick flick', it's a film unafraid to treat the emotional with respect. Welles is her co-star, they're terrific together.
Without Reservations
Her career rather evaporated post-war. As with too many actresses, the roles were simply not there for a maturing woman. However, she did loads of TV work in the fifties, a lot of which is available at the Museum Of Broadcasting in NYC, and possibly at the one in LA, though I can't say for sure.
Claudette Colbert could do it all.
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Angie, thanks for the link to the High Noon article -- conservative/liberal, changing over time.
It's interesting how few people pick up that it doesn't matter if you are pro-McCarthy
or anti, liberal or conservative, the meat of the film is about civic complacency. A
citizenry which abdicates its rights as citizens can no longer call itself free.
Nor will it be.
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Mrs. C:
Regarding:
I can't wait to hear more.
Here's how Wayne ended up accepting GC's Oscar for High Noon. It always baffled me, didn't seem to make sense, given what went on with Wayne and High Noon. When I spoke with Anthony Quinn in the spring of 2001 (some six weeks before his death), as I was lining up potential talking heads, he went into detail about how it happened.
Cooper was Quinn's idol. As he told me, he was in awe of Cooper, everything about him was worth aspiring to. On Quinn's first day on a film set, at 19, for The Plainsman, before he ever uttered his first line, he refused to say the lines. Claimed they were all wrong, not what an Indian would say at that moment. De Mille erupted and fired him on the spot. As Quinn said, his career was over before it ever began. But then came a voice out of the back of the sound stage: "The young man is right, C. B. His lines don't make sense. Better listen to him" It was Cooper, who then stepped into the lights. De Mille wasn't about to dispute his star and the lines were rewritten, Quinn stayed on board, and he and Cooper became lifelong friends.
Cut to the set of Blowing Wild, March 1953, Mexico. Both Cooper and Quinn were nominated for Academy Awards. Quinn wanted to go up to LA for the awards, but when he found out Cooper wasn't, he decided not to -- "If Coop wasn't going, neither was I." So, comes the day of the awards and production set up a radio feed and had a party. Quinn said how excited he was, very nervous. But then, he catches sight of Cooper and Stanwyck, both grabbing bottles of wine and heading out the door. Quinn yelled out to Cooper, "Aren't you listening to the Oscars?" Cooper shook his head and he and Stanwyck disappeared through the door, with their wine. Quinn told me that he really wanted to listen, but if Coop wasn't listening, neither was he. So, he grabs a bottle of wine and follows them up a hill where the three of them settle in to drink their wine and while away the evening.
It was dark and Quinn said Cooper gave them a lesson on the stars, pointing out which was which, the genesis of the names, etc. Pretty soon, the three of them are on their backs, gazing up at the night sky, quaffing their wine. Then Cooper starts chuckling to himself, and soon has to sit up, he's choking on his laughter. Quinn said he and Stanwyck exchanged mystified glances. Finally, Quinn asked Cooper what was so funny. "I ran into John Wayne over in Cuernavaca couple of weeks ago." Quinn said, :Did you pop him one?" Cooper: "Nope, but I asked him if he'd pick up my Oscar if I won." Quinn: "You nuts! What'd you do that for?"
Cooper: "What's the sunuvabitch going to say if I win!"
Cooper laughed to himself all over again. Quinn told me that Coop thought he'd really put Wayne in an impossible situation. But as Quinn said, he hadn't counted on Wayne's chutzpah. Because Wayne told the audience he was going to find out why he wasn't offered High Noon, this great script by Carl Foreman, etc. There's terrific footage of this, must have been the first Oscar televised. And it is sheer hypocrisy from Wayne.
Quinn had so many great stories about Cooper -- and Hemingway -- he knew both men. But he died in June 2001. He was an amazing man, Anthony Quinn.
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Such crystal clear High Noon pix. Nice stuff, Angie.
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Regarding some of the following, on High Noon:
Bill Clinton's all-time favorite film. He watched it seventeen times during his two terms as President of the United States.
True. Interviewed Clinton for our doc, Inside High Noon. He was so articulate on it, every facet. Often, when interviewing people, they like to have some guidelines, areas of enquiry, not Clinton. I sent him a couple of pages of questions, he didn't try to limit the scope, and when we chatted beforehand about the questions, he told me to feel free to delve into any area I wanted. He could talk about High Noon all day.
The pained expression on Kane's (Gary Cooper's) face throughout the film was not acting; Cooper had a bleeding ulcer at the time.
This was started in the sixties, I suspect by the auteurist crowd, which loathes High Noon. Anything they can find to erase its popularity, they use. Cooper did have an ulcer during the shooting. However, this makes his perf even more remarkable, since he did not have the pained expression in every scene, only certain ones. And the level of agony was tempered, depending on whether he was alone or with others.
Aside: The auteurist crowd has always denigrated Cooper's perf, saying he was whiny, feeling sorry for himself, etc. They miss the point. Cooper gives, in affect, two separate performances in Noon: When he's with others, asking for help, etc., he's firm, in control, shows no sign of weakness; however, when he's alone, when no-one is looking, we see him without that masculine facade, he's afraid, he's angry, he's bitter, he's hurt. It's an extremely naked perf, not in the Brando/Clift sense, but in that it is one of the few times I am aware that a major male star allowed an audience to see the man behind the masculine mask. That's what makes the scene in the Marshal's office right before noon so powerful. He's alone, afraid, hurt, bitter, and he puts his head down on the desk and cries -- can you imagine Wayne doing that?!? But when he becomes aware of the boy, he quickly puts on his strong-jawed masculine mask.
Although the picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.. slightly longer than the 84-minute running time, this was due to the reediting ordered by both Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann, both of whom were unhappy over the first assemblage. Editor Elmo Williams experimented by using the final portion of the material shot and condensed it to exactly 60 minutes of footage timed to real-time in the film. Thus the film we see is Williams' experimental version, which met with both Kramer's and Zinnemann's approval.
There is so much written about who edited what, that it's impossible to know at this late stage just who did what. However, Kramer had nothing -- n-o-t-h-i-n-g -- to do with the final cut. A close reading of the shooting script tells anyone that there was very little wiggle room for an editor. And that is because there are clocks in virtually every scene, and you couldn't take a scene with the clock at 11:10 and splice it into a scene where it's now 11:35, and so on. There was a disastrous screening, which mostly had to do with the song, Tex Ritter was warbling in practically every scene. Foreman's orginal script is like a jigsaw puzzle (Zinnemann's term) and pretty much had to be shot and edited as is. And it is, except for the deputy sequence out of town and Jack Elam in the jail.
Although John Wayne often complained that the film was "un-American", when he collected Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf at the The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953) (TV) he complained that he wasn't offered the part himself, so he could have made it more like one of his own westerns. He later teamed up with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo (1959) as a right-wing response.
I will deal with this in a separate post. A great story, on why this happened, told to me by Anthony Quinn. Paramount made us cut this from the Noon doc (as they made us cut every reference to Wayne), they put out Wayne dvds, and felt it wouldn't be good for the sales.
Gary Cooper, B movie producer Robert L. Lippert and screenwriter 'Carl Foreman' were set to go into a production company together, after the success of this film. John Wayne and Ward Bond ordered Cooper to back out of the deal, as HUAC was preparing to blacklist Foreman from Hollywood. Shortly afterwards, Lippert was made persona non grata by the Screen Actors Guild, which destroyed his independent production company.
More nonsense. Wayne had nothing to do with Cooper backing out. Oh, Wayne was among the disgraceful leaders in publicly going after anyone who tried to work with Foreman n his new company. He formed it after the film was finished, and after he'd been blacklisted, but befre it had become such a huge hit. Cooper became a partner, big headlines in variety and the NY Times. But the ressure grew so intense for Cooper to back out, that Foreman realized it could never happen, and there was no point in Cooper's career being ruined, too. He released Cooper from any legal obligations and moved to England. They remained friends until Cooper's death in 1961.
Lippert had been hoping to enter the mainstream film community, after a string of B films. This was going to be his entry. But Cooper was the main partner.
As 'Carl Foreman' 's script bore certain similarities to John Cunningham's story "The Tin Star", producer Stanley Kramer bought the rights to Cunningham's novel to protect the production against accusations of plagiarism.
Wrong. Foreman bought the rights, and it's what saved him when Kramer triedn to remove him as producer and screenwriter.
Henry Fonda was prevented from accepting the role of Will Kane because he had been graylisted from Hollywood due to his political activism, forcing him to act exclusively on the stage from 1947 to 1955.
True, Foreman wrote it with Fonda in mind. Peter Fonda told me that John Wayne had his father graylisted -- passport even taken -- after Fort Apache. Kirk Douglas also turned it down, in addition to Peck (good story on this, in a separate post), Brando, Clift and Heston.
Much of the film was filmed in the gold rush town of Columbia, CA. Today it is a state park right by Sonora on Highway 49.
Most shot on the backlot at Columbia. Only the hillside sequence and the train station shot elsewhere.
A tip of the hat to Scott. It worked!!!
Message was edited by: jemnyc
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Regarding some of the following, on High Noon:
This film was intended as an allegory in Hollywood for the failure of Hollywood people to stand up to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era.
True. Foreman was supboened during pre-production and he re-wrote accordingly. Some of the sequences in which Kane is reproached or turned down are encounters which Foreman went through.
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The irony of the fact that GC turned down Ninotchka because of the negative
reaction to Bluebeard's Eighth Wife is made even more ironic because of the
growing reputation of Bluebeard in the last decade. Bluebeard was far ahead
of its time, I guess.
It would have been terrific to see GC and Garbo in Ninotchka.
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Miss G:
Here's another link to a nice review of Man/West:
http://www.myfiveyearplan.net/archives/145
Yes, I'm the one who sent DVDSavant (Glenn Erickson) the response
at the bottom of his review of Man/West. I spoke with Reginald Rose
about Man/West, some of my ideas -- he sent me a copy of his
shooting script, 178 pages, and the last 30 are missing; today, if
it's much over a hundred, it's tossed without being read -- and he
told me about the sequences between Link and Billie, how London
wasn't up to it. That's when he also passed on that GC, Mann and
he had discussed making Billie Link's wife, but again it was felt that
London wasn't a solid enough actress to pull it off. To my regret, I
never asked Rose why London wasn't simply replaced? She was
hardly box office, so I'm not sure why she was kept on even though
Mann felt her inadequate in certain ways.
It's funny, the last time I spoke with Rose, not too long before he
died in the spring of 2002, he told me that for the most part, he was
always asked about 12 Angry Men, the tv show he created, The
Defenders, etc., and rarely about Man/West. Then, in the mid-90s,
that started to change, and by 2000, it was virtually only Man/West
he was asked to discuss.
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Hey, Miss G:
Thanks for the 3:10 To Yuma link. In-depth analysis on that thread.
It's nice to see that others feel as we do about 3:10 II.
Of course, the fact that it's already made its money back,
just in the U.S. showings, means that there will be more
westerns -- Viggo Mortensen, Reese Witherspoon and Ed
Harris are doing one, Appaloosa -- the trouble is that I fear
the powers-that-be will note that it is violent, utterly
incomprehensible in motivation and plotting, and therefore
they'll repeat the formula.
Duffy Hecht, whose father produced Vera Cruz, owns the
rights to it. He's been hoping to remake it. Sam Peckinpah
loved Vera Cruz, it is clearly one of the stepping-stones to
The Wild Bunch. Duffy sent me a copy of a spec script
that Peckinpah wrote in the mid-seventies, Vera Cruz. He
was hoping to remake it. It's basically the same, yet it's
different, perhaps it's the Peckinpah sensibility (or lack of
it, depending on how one feels about Peckinpah).
Wonder why directors who love a film want to remake it?
A la, Mangold and 3:10 To Yuma, which he says is his
favorite film. Mangold is on TCM in early October, discussing
3:10 and other films he likes. One of the four films he picked
to show and discuss is MJD.
By the by, Peckinpah also thought The Hanging Tree
brilliant, one of the best westerns ever.
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Angie -- As spot-on as is Paisley's "Online" -- and it surely is! --
I wonder if it isn't far more prevalent than any of us know? I sometimes
think that there are two parallel universes now, our (so-called) real
world, and our online world.
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Man, take a few days off, zip down to Charleston for a quick
break, and this board's messages don't just increase, they
explode.
Some of the pix I've seen as I scrolled backwards, terrific.
As I've said before, could have used some of you as graphic
researchers on GC/Hem, wonderful stuff.
Can't begin to respond at once, so am just adding a couple
of titles for Dan, noir-wise. In case you are interested in more
modern takes on film noir, it hasn't died.
The Last Seduction -- Linda Fiorentino's perf is sublime, every
bit the equal of Stanwyck in several noirs or Jane Greer in
Out Of The Past. Brilliant film, proof that color and noir aren't
exclusive to one another.
Body Heat -- Kathleen Turner, delicious, and William Hurt is
one of noir's all-time male schlumps, which is really saying
something, given a lineup with the likes of MacMurray,
Mitchum, Holden, Ryan, etc.
Must start embedding myself in the posts from this past Monday
forward.
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[/bThat's both sweet and sad about Pat Neal and her collection of Gary stuff./b]
Well put, Angie. So true. However, the woman enjoys herself, still gets a hoot out of life. Give her a call in the afternoon, suggest a bite out that evening, and bam! You're on.
She's still with it, for the most part.
Once, we shot (what a clumsy way to put that we interviewed her on camera) her for The Fountainhead, WB had hired us to do the Sgt. York dvd doc (which we did) and The Fountainhead. I kind of blew it by saying I didn't much care for behind-the-scenes docs (which they already knew, since we did York only if we could stray beyond the film itself; they reluctantly agreed), but I wanted to do some other things with Fountainhead. They hesitated, but we went ahead and shot Pat Neal, just in case. She was a trifle uncertain in some of her responses. I was uneasy about forging ahead. But she took a glass of brandy, and then a second. And she started whipping out the answers like a teenager! Really amazing. Alas, WB decided not to spring for a new dvd Fountainhead doc and picked up a cheapie already floating around out of Canada.
But that night, after the interview, several of us went out to dinner, Pat included. She had a couple of drinks, big dinner, seems to me we plowed out of the restaurant after 1 am.
A truly remarkable and admirable woman.
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**** it makes you wonder how many other of the women he had affairs with such as patricia neal, or even the other leading ladies such as helen hayes who regretted never having an affair with him, had pics of him in their closets too. heehee! im sure we wouldnt be the least bit surpised if they actually did****
Funny you should mention that!
In her apartment, nice view, overlooking the East River, Pat Neal has a work study, and it is jammed with pix of her and GC, newspaper headlines on GC, mementoes, etc. May not be in a closet, but the spirit remains the same.
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Hey, Miss G:
I started copying/pasting your comments, but I kept bolluxing it up, so this shall be free form and on memory. Apologies.
Yup, everything still there. Yeah, it's been kind of amazing, the response about our response to 3:10 II. Astonishing, really. And depressing, actually.
I agree about Cooper's statement which WB cut, it would have given a depth and resonance that is now missing.
About the 50 minutes which was cut, Miss G, that was cut from Souls At Sea. I would guess that
Cloak & Dagger had around 13 minutes, one reel. Either way, a shame about both. And you're so right, hadn't thought of that, today all of that would be a part of dvd extras.
I could well be looking at the glass half empty concerning Man/West's ending. It's just that he says very little on the wagon, only about what will happen to her, and nothing about his future. Which, with the wanted posters now up again, means that he's a sitting duck for lawmen and bounty hunters. And in returning to wife and kids, he's bringing his newly resurfaced past not just to the family, but to all the townspeople. I would think that this weighs heavily on him. I also think that in going to bed with Billie, he understands another part of his old self has appeared.
It's such a rich film, as we agreed earlier, Shakespearean in its plotting, reaching for far more than the typical studio film. And Frank gave me so much more to look for in his analysis.
Here's a link to a review of Man/West, from dvd savant, Glenn Ericson. This is from 1999, which surprised me -- eight years!. I e-mailed Glenn about the review and we've since become e-mailers.
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Yes, I suspect that it's not so unheard of as we might imagine.
And Fay Wray said it without an ounce of embarrassment.
As I remember, she also announced it during the GC Cenntennial
weekend at MOMA, in 2001. But I may be wrong on that! There'd
been cocktails (Heinekens or Fosters) before the event, and
maybe I wasn't hearing so clear.
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Didn't know that she'd received an award from Eastman House.
Nice to hear. That's funny, to think of Audrey Hepburn wandering
upstate NY.
My agent, who produced both Breakfast At Tiffany's
and Robin & Marian (and The Hanging Tree, too, his first), holds
Audrey Hepburn in such high esteem. Utterly wonderful human
being. In fact, it's Cooper and Hepburn whom he cites as the two
most memorable and enchanting people he ever worked with.
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Dan -- Regarding Part II of The Western, we hadn't planned on doing this,
but the listenership and response was so extraordinary, just overwhelming,
that we rushed Part II to Wednesday night. Some of the e-mails were
quite vitriolic because of our strong negative criticism about
the current 3:10 To Yuma. And how boring the original was, b&w, who ever
heard of Glenn Ford, no action, no FX, etc.
Now, later in October, Meir and I are going to natter about spy thrillers,
from Mata Hari up through this great Bourne trilogy. Be a good chance
for me to get in some good words about Cloak & Dagger, which as you
know from our e-mails, I think a very underrated film, even with the
final reel deleted.
You quoted here on this thread from Glenn Erickson's good piece on his
DVD Savant page about the butchering by WB. He left out the line which
really led to the whole reel being cut. This line really frightened the government
and led to the government demanding the final reel be cut:
"Peace? There's no peace. It's year one of the Atomic Age
and God have mercy on us all! ... if we think we can wage
other wars without destroying ourselves."
Cooper's character, Jesper, says this after they've come out of the
cave and realize that the group has escaped with the atomic bomb
secrets. The U.S. had believed -- stupidly, naively -- that it could keep
the A-Bomb to itself. Cooper's line here was predicting just the
opposite. And, as it turns out, the truth.
I've often wondered if, after cutting the final reel, WB didn't insert
extra footage of Cooper/Palmer when they're hiding out in her
apartment. the scene goes on far too long, without telling us anything
we don't already knw. They did this, I believe, so that the film
wouldn't appear so short, with the final reel now deleted.
It's still a very good film. Better than Lang's other WW II thrillers --
Ministry Of Fear (based on a terrific Graham Greene novel) and Man Hunt
(also based on a much better novel, Rogue Male) -- even though the
auteurist Lang crowd believes the opposite. I especially like how
Jesper screws up, he's an amateur, and isn't some superman hero.
I think the Bourne trilogy is magnificent, but Cooper's hero is the
exact antithesis of Jason Bourne.
It also has one of the most brutal fights ever filmed, so graphic that
it wouldn't be out of place in Eastern Promises, which has a brutal
fight in a Russian bathhouse. GC and Marc Lawrence (blacklisted
not long after Cloak & Dagger) fight in an outer lobby and doorway.
No Marquis of Queensbury rules here!
Cloak & Dagger is based, somewhat loosely, on Michael Burke's experiences
in the OSS. Michael Burke later went on to run Ringling Brothers and the
NY Yankees -- pre-Steinbrenner. Burke retired to Ireland and in his memoirs,
spoke highly of GC. They met during filming, and remained friends until
GC's death.
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Angie -- That's funny, you and Fay Wray and your GC closets. Wonder if
perhaps that's not as uncommon as you'd think? Wray wasn't at all
hesitant about discussing it, hell, she brought it up! We weren't even
talking about GC.
I agree that without the fans, where would they be? Fifth billed, below
the title, in second rate films.
Any Gary Cooper Fans?
in Your Favorites
Posted
Angie, regarding:
Great pics Kim! I noticed too in the one from The Westerner it has that other girl in it. I've seen at least one other promo pic with her too and I've wondered who she was and why she wasn't in the movie instead of Doris Davenport who I thought was the weakest part of that film.
Funny you should mention that. Wyler had originally cast a young actress with whom he was involved -- she later became his wife. Goldwyn was annoyed with this and instructed Wyler to instead use a Goldwyn actress, Doris Davenport. Had no choice but to agree. I, too, feel that she's the weakest thing in the film.
A few years ago, I spoke with Cathy Wyler about her doc, and asked her if Wyler gave The Westerner short shrift because of Goldwyn having made him use Davenport instead of his gf/wife. She laughed, but wasn't sure, and admitted that might explain why.