jemnyc

Hey, Frank -- Must be feeling nice, Cowboys stomping the Bears, sitting atop NFC East. Getting Parcels to walk, that the key? he's now being rumored as the next GM of the Giants ... talk about the beast that wouldn't die?!? Terrific stuff on Man/West. Have to watch it again, soon, and see an awful lot I missed. Thanks, you make it even richer. Since I believe that Link and Billie have slept together, I find the end rather grey; grey and extraordinarily bleak. Even Unforgiven takes us back to the farm and offers a coda that Munny took the children and had another life. It doesn't end as he rides out of town in the driving night rain, knowing he has become what he had run so hard from. Man/West has Link, at the end, wanted by the law, and very likely he could be hung for his earlier crimes. And even as Billie says that she knows nothing can come of their relationship, Cooper's expression of emotional devastation lets us know that he is a very conflicted man. The shooting script opened with Link and his wife and kids as he is about to leave to hire the teacher. He's seen with a few of the townspeople. It's only three pages, but it forces you to be aware of this side of his life from then on. Rose never said why Mann had cut the sequence. Again, thanks for the cogent reading on Man/West. Since I think it Mann's masterpiece, richer and deeper than the Stewart westerns (which I very much like!), I'm always happy to see good thoughts on it. Critics and educators seem to to concentrate on the Mann/Stewart ouevre. A friend who teaches and writes about film -- also does a lot of audio commentary work for Criterion dvds -- says this is because they're basically lazy, and it's easy to teach and write about a batch of films.

Yup GC and Audrey Hepburn were an item during the making of LITA. Not sure why Spoto ignored this, and the actual filming of LITA, in general. Perhaps because Spoto does not hold GC in particularly high regard? Nice pic!

Angie mentioned that GC had an affair with Audrey Hepburn in the discussion about GC and younger women ... regarding this: While this is in no way an attempt to justify GC's epic womanizing, one of the fascinating results of researching GC/Hem is that I was unable to uncover a single instance of a woman resenting GC post-affair. I tried to dig beneath the stories, not so much looking for dirt, but just trying to find a truth from the woman's POV. Back in the late 80s, way before ever thinking about GC/Hem, spent some time with Fay Wray after she'd moved to NYC. Just happened to connect at Elaine's, where there's quite a bit of bouncing from table to table. GC never had an affair with Wray, and she was open that it was her regret. She told me that in her apartment, she had what she called the Gary Cooper closet. In it, she had all sorts of mementoes, photos, GC stuff. It was her own personal homage to a man she adored. Jean Arthur, whom I never met, was quoted after GC's death: "If Gary had married me, he'd still be alive." Never sure just what she meant by this, that she'd have gotten him to quit smoking, perhaps? But given current speculation on her sexuality, this is a rather amazing statement. And even more amazing about GC! Audrey Hepburn never lost her affection for GC. He was one of her very favorite people. She had been a trifle uneasy about doing Love/Afternoon because of the terrible way she'd been treated by Bogart on Sabrina. In talking with many women out in Idaho, who knew him well -- some biblically, some not -- they spoke so highly of him, and these were women who'd known all the Hollywood celebs who flocked to Sun Valley, all the phonies and tricksters ... but it was GC they remembered with the most fondness. And none, nary a single woman, expressed distaste or disgust or criticism of his philandering. Ingrid Bergman, an almost two year affair, never had a negative word for him. Sophia Loren and Anita Ekberg, whom he had flings with in the mid-fifties, always speak highly of him. So many others ... As Pat Neal told me once, GC was the first man she'd met who actually listened to her, whose eyes weren't roving over her shoulder, who maintained eye contact as she spoke and as he spoke, who laughed and chuckled when she said something vaguely humorous. Hemingway, four times married, was openly critical of GC's womanizing. But this may have been envy. Gregory Hemingway told me of being at the Metropolitan Museum one morning, the Impressionist wing, with his father and GC. Place was empty, they were chatting about this and that painting. Then, slowly, women began appearing, as if they'd heard a bugle call. Soon, the entire room was filled with women, and they were crowding around GC, not Hemingway -- who had his own masculine charisma. Gregory said it was truly amazing, especially how gracious GC was, gentle flirting, signing autographs, exchanging pleasantries. The morning for GC and Hem was ruined, but GC never once expressed any dismay. posed for photos, Gregory said this went on for fully an hour. And then GC, Hem and Gregory left. GC and Robert Mitchum were good friends. Chris, Mitchum's son, who looks exactly like his father, told me that his father once said that you always knew when GC arrived at a party. Mitchum said that no matter who was there, Ty Power, Gable, Colman, whomever, once GC ambled in, women would automatically desert whatever man they were talking with and gravitate to GC. Mitchum told Chris that the best way to meet women was to hang with GC. Again, not a defense ...

Hi, Mrs. C: Thanks for the welcome back. I still muck it up when I plop a comment from another post within my own post, so am not doing so with your comments. That's interesting, about the personal life and the screen portrayal. I suspect that most actors would agree with you, at least to the extent that they have to find some kernel of humanity upon which to build a character. GC himself once said, when asked what he looked for in a character, that he looked for a character who left the world a better place. Films like Cordura, Man/West, Blowing Wild, etc., though his characters are hardly earth angels, they are men struggling with conflict within, trying to come to terms with their more base nature. I have a friend, a writer and critic who has written extensively on the western, GC is his favorite actor, but he doesn't like Man/West, because he just can't buy Gary Cooper being a killer. Interestingly, when GC turned down the role of Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind, his comment was: "How could I play in that? The slave owners are the good guys." It isn't that he wouldn't play a confederate soldier, it's just that he felt the story was on the side of the confederacy, which he found untenable with his beliefs. Whether that's true is not the issue, it's that he had to believe in the moral center of the story in order to play in it. I guess that a Jack Nicholson, a DeNiro, a Pacino, approach it differently, if the character is interesting, they'll play it no matter what.

Miss G, regarding your comment: My list of favorite Coop films is sometimes in flux, but many times Man of the West has been at the top. Me, too! Such a rich film. Man/West does some of the same things in regards to rooting for violence as A History Of Violence. The scene where the gargoyles in the Tobin gang force Billie to strip is a case in point. On the one hand, it's an ugly moment, we feel such dread for her and shame as she's forced to disrobe. It's still, to this day, hard to watch. Most films would never have offered the kicker that Man/West does. The stunningly vicious and graphic fight between Link and Coaley -- without stunt doubles, Mann wanted to shoot it with close-ups, three camera set-up -- they are finally like primitive beasts, and then the kicker -- Link makes Coaley strip, humiliating him. It's brilliant and we in the audience are eager to see Coaley so humiliated. History/Violence plays with violence and audience response in the same way.

Miss G, regarding: Blowing Wild is one of the few later Coop movies I still have never seen. I just can't wait to, especially after all this discussion. I have the feeling I'm going to love it. It's always surprised me how Blowing Wild is so little appreciated. I don't know if that's because it's such a fish-out-of-water type film for GC, or simply that coming so soon after High Noon, audiences and critics felt it a letdown. Anthony Quinn thought it one of his best. It's dark, and as I mentioned earlier, has many of the touchstones to qualify as noir. Be curious what you think? Was glad to hear Angie speak so highly of it. And now Dan is a convert.

Miss G, regarding John Are those your thoughts or were you quoting? Mine. Never know it, of course, since the quote from the previous post managed to evaporate from the time I'd press Post message and the time the message appeared. But they're mine. I found this 3:10 To Yuma remake unforgivably nihilistic. Utterly pointless. And while it is graphically violent, it is the lack of a moral center which offends me. I don't care if character A is a villain, if character B is morally conflicted, if Character C is not a likable person, etc. As long as you give me a reason to stay with and be interested in these characters, I'm with you. The absurdist ending to this 3:10 remake throws the entire film out of whack. And the ending following the ending is even more shameful, since it closes on the equivalent of a smarmy wisecrack. I am amazed at how critics have ignored the deep, deep cynical backbone of the film. The Wild Bunch was graphically violent, filled with a lot of morally reprehensible characters, and yet, because the script gave me a reason to follow these men and their lives, I went with it and think it one of the greatest westerns ever made. But there was a moral center to the film, it wasn't cynical, nihilistic. Unforgiven is very violent, yet there's a moral gravity to the situation, the characters, thus the violence works within the context. As far as Eastern Promises, Miss G, it is very violent. But it's a film dealing with the Russian mob in London, and couldn't be anything but violent. It's not irresponsible. the issues it tackles under the guise of a gangster film are very real. Tragically so. My wife and I found it brilliant, with Viggo Mortensen once again turning in a sublime performance. It is far more violent than A History Of Violence (same director and another great Viggo perf). The violence in A History Of Violence is absolutely necessary, and because of the way the story is structured, we feel revulsion at the first violent incident, but from then on, we are put in the position of actually cheering each succeeding act of violence. It forces an audience to confront its own perhaps not-so-latent violent instinct. A History Of Violence is also a loose reworking of Man Of The West.

If you want to see Barbara Stanwyck in one of her best "mean girl" roles, catch the Glenn Ford western, The Violent Men, from 1955. A noir western, as she leads male schlump Brian Kieth to his doom when she gets him to try and kill her husband -- played by Edward G. Robinson, who played the insurance investigator who brings Stanwyck down in Double Indemnity. Very good film, underrated. Stanwyck is one of the all-time champs. Jean Arthur, too. What a voice!

Quite a while ago, Dan, you were discussing Souls At Sea, your fondness for it. I started scrolling back to find your comments, but it must have been a couple of hundred posts back -- even if only a week or so! -- so I'm responding without your quotes -- which I'd no doubt mess up, anyway. If Souls At Sea seems somewhat choppy, there's a very good reason. It was planned as a roadshow film, two shows a day, buy tickets beforehand, an intermission, etc. The finished film was 2 hrs and 20 minutes, without interruption. However, a long sequence in the middle -- almost half-an-hour, had to do with a slave revolt on a ship. GC is instrumental in starting it and freeing the slaves, killing the slavers on board, taking the ship to land and all of the slaves escape. There were other scenes which played off this. However, when Paramount execs viewed the rough cut, they realized they could never play the film as it was in the south. I've never been able to nail this down, but apparently the sequence was based (loosely) on the Amistad. Jack Hathaway, director Henry Hathaway's son, first told me this. There was a sequence in which GC and the slaves force the white slavers off the ship, which mirrors the later scenes when GC forces people off the lifeboats. But Paramount knew this could never be shown down south. Which meant they'd lose a lot of money. So they took the film from Hathaway and sliced-and-diced it down to 90 minutes. That's 50 minutes, gone! It was this which convinced GC to get out of his Paramount contract. He was disgusted, felt the film made little sense now, and that Paramount was cowardly for running from what he thought was a powerful film. And within six months, he'd managed to find a way to get out of his contract. Even though Paramount sued him for six million dollars, took him to court, he fought, refused to give in, and got his freedom. The irony is that he signed with Goldwyn because he thought that Goldwyn, as basically an independent producer, would be more open to doing the sort of things GC wanted to do. Example, GC tried to get Goldwyn to buy the rights to both Grapes Of Wrath (GC wanted Wyler to direct) and Appointment In Samarra (GC and O'Hara had become friends during the filming of General/Dawn). Goldwyn refused to buy either. So, GC being GC, after his six-film contract with Goldwyn was finished, he refused to resign with him, either.

Regarding noir -- and what a nice thread you've got going on noir -- I've often wondered if Blowing Wild isn't a noir? It's got Stanwyck, definitely a woman leading a man to his doom; in fact, two, both Quinn and GC. And a second woman, Ruth Roman, trying to scam GC at the beginning. Black & white, menacing shadows, off-kilter lighting -- the scene when GC is lying in bed, only a dim bulb at the bedside table, Stanwyck comes in and works her wiles to get him to cheat his friend, Quinn, and take off with her. Very good scene. Blowing Wild has something of a cult following, rarely mentioned among GC's films. maybe because it's part Treasure/Madre at the start, then veers off into noir melodrama. Whatever it is, I find it a fascinating film. Certainly not classic noir, i.e., Out Of The Past, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Big Heat, etc.

Hey, Frank, thanks for the info on highlighting. Here goes, and what follows is (or should be) from Dan's post a couple of days back: What Lies Beneath 2000 was pretty good as well. With all the talk everywhere on the movie he was in called Bladerunner it is quite strange that this may be one of the only pre 2000 movies of his that I have never seen. Blade Runner may not be for all tastes, rather violent and downbeat, but I happen to think it terrific. In fact, it's being revived in theatres in early October. Here in NYC, it's going to play at the Ziegfeld, a great huge place with a huge screen, terrific sound, etc. Very much looking forward to it. As for What Lies Beneath, to tie this in with GC, Harrison Ford and Robert Zemeckis -- who both have great admiration for GC -- made a point of calling the family dog Coop. This was done to reference GC, and Harrison Ford said in interviews that he went all the way, actually was the murderer, whereas Coop in The Naked Edge was not. Here goes ... The bottom four grafs are from me, should not be italics. But each time I try to correct this, I end up losing my quote from Dan. Message was edited by: jemnyc

In scrolling back comments, trying to catch up, came upon comments on the current 3:10 To Yuma, part of which: What is so especially alarming, for me, about this appalling remake is its utter cynicism, which borders on outright nihilism. Characters introduced for no other reason than they can die a violent death. Plot hooks tossed in as an excuse to have a gunfight. And the conclusion, dramatically incomprehensible, renders all that has happened in the previous 1:55 meaningless. And, with easily a hundred people slaughtered by the time we come to the lunacy masquerading as a showdown, who cares that a principal character lies dead? What's one more body? Shame on critics for ignoring all of this and instead on congratulating director James Mangold for bringing back the western. Although, Assassination of Jesse James et al will put it back in the coffin. Message was edited by: jemnyc Message was edited by: jemnyc Message was edited by: jemnyc Message was edited by: jemnyc Tried to separate previous comment and my own, giving up.

And so it did ... even as the Mets self-destruct and the Yankees become, well, the NY Yankees ... I can once again post ... not sure what I was doing wrong.

Am trying this, again, to see if my post appears ... Have been finding it so difficult the past few weeks, stopped trying a couple of weeks ago ...

Mrs. Cooper, would that we'd had you as our photo researcher on Coop/Hem! Man ... What an amazing selection.

Dan, for Wyler, try these, some downers, but each worth a look and then some: Dodsworth (Walter Huston) Dead End (Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, Bogart, Dead End Kids) Jezebel (Bette Davis, Henry Fonda) Wuthering Heights (Olivier, Merle Oberon) The Letter (Bette Davis) The Little Foxes (Bette Davis) Best Years Of Our Lives (Myrna Loy, F/March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright) The Heiress (Olivia de Haviland, M/Clift) Detective Story (Kirk Douglas) The Big Country (Peck, Heston, Jean Simmons, Burl Ives, etc.) The Children's Hour (Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner) The Collector How To Steal A Million (Peter O'Toole, Audrey Hepburn) For Bette Davis, try some of these, some of which--, strike that, many are downers: The Old Maid Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex The Great Lie The Bride Came C.O.D. (comedy, w/Cagney) Man Who Came To Dinner (comedy) Now, Voyager Watch On The Rhine Old Acquaintance (this is currently playing on Broadway in a revival, holds up very well) The Corn Is green Mr. Skeffington All About Eve The Catered Affair Pocketful Of Miracles Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (made by same director as Baby Jane, Robert Aldrich, who also directed Vera Cruz and one of your favs, Emperor Of The North. For me, personally, this is a far superior film to Baby Jane, with one of the best perfs Bette Davis ever gave). Bette Davis was a great admirer of GC, and in 1940, she got the rights to the novel, Ethan Frome, and wanted GC to play opposite her. He agreed. But GC did York and MJD with WB, and Goldwyn wouldn't lend him out a third time. A shame, because GC and Davis are great casting for the roles of Frome and Zenobia). Enjoy!

Angie, this line: <'he was a gentleman in a world with no further use for gentlemen'.> is so very apt, regarding GC. You're so right. And if he suffers with today's audiences because of this, it says more about today than GC. And not positively.

Angie -- Very smooth, and as usual, your sound track is spot-on. Fine selection of clips, thank you, a lot. Hey, maybe having to be around those Clint/Wayne flicks from a while ago, especially Kelly's Heroes with its off-angle pop tune behind the credits, perchance it had a subliminal affect?

Hi, Dan: < I have always hoped that Ten North Frederick was not similar in anyway to Gary's own personal life. I have heard and read many stories on Mrs Cooper not allowing Gary's friends like Jimmy Stewart into the house and making them wait in the driveway and such and on her not being very well liked in Hollywood but hope that Gary had a much better relationship with her than Joe Chaplin had with his wife.> Not to worry, not true at all, any of those kind of tales. What is true is that Rocky was not particularly well liked in Hollywood. However, this was because she had little use for a lot of the shallowness of the way the successful people lived. She was a very direct woman, very outspoken (something GC very much admired), and didn't hesitate to speak her mind about how she felt. She very much wanted to move back to NYC, away from the whole Hollywood world. They spent summers in the Hamptons, on LI, from 1940 on. And Rocky moved back to NYC after getting the estate settled upon GC's death. Here is a Rocky/GC story: Peter Lawford and Dorothy Dandridge were in love, but this was a severe no-no, goodness, white/black!!!. And they were in many places shunned by those who called themselves friends. Nor were they allowed in restaurants in LA together, so much for the South having a hammerlock on racism. Enter Rocky and GC. They would serve as beards, GC going out with Lawford to a restaurant, bar, and Rocky with Dandridge to the same restaurant. And the four would sit together, and Lawford and Dandridge could have their date. How sad this was necessary, but it says something about Rocky and GC. <I have read stories of Huston becoming jealous of Bogart's and Bacall's relationship on the set of Too Have and Have Not and many other stories about the man> No, that was Howard Hawks who was such a jerk about Bogart/Bacall. And the main reason was that Hawks wanted to have an affair with Bacall. Hawks, his abilities as a director notwithstanding, left a lot to be desired as a human being.

Miss G: <Gary really made "Joe Chapin" come to life. And there are still countless "Joe Chapin's" out here that could relate to this film, and so it deserves to be seen and counted among Coop's grandest accomplishments. But I'll settle for a decent dvd release.> Nice, that, referring to 'countless "Joe Chapin's" out here that could relate to the film'. Hadn't looked at it from that avenue, but you are so right. And yes, that gives it a resonance still today. It would be nice to have a dvd release. There are rumors there are some sort of rights issues, but with whom I can't track down. Has the odd plot misfire ever popped out to you, Miss G? The flashback is through Joe Chapin's daughter's eyes. She tells it. But she only learns about her father's affair with her roommate after the flashback is over and we're back in the present, at her roommate's wedding. So how could she tell the story of the affair when she didn't know about the affair? Isn't it amazing that nobody picked up on this while the script went through development or the actual shooting? Doesn't detract from the film for me, but it is a rather stark mistake.

What an extraordinary library of photos this board showcases. Many I surely have never seen. Wonderful stuff! Thanks, loads.

Miss G, as to: <I really spat fire when he dismissed his performance in Ten North Frederick---if he'd only criticized the film itself I could live with it, but to fail to see anything worthwhile in that highly moving portrayal is just plain blindness.> I agree with you on Ten North Frederick, GC's perf is stunning, very, very moving. Even with its weird plot misfire, it is the best film made of any John O'Hara book (O'hara agreed, and thought it the best perf of GC's career). Mention of O'Hara brings me to a topic which I just came upon, from dozens and dozens of threads ago, which has to do with the idea that GC was not particularly bright, etc. When I first became interested in doing something on Cooper and Hemingway's friendship, one of the intriguing things to me was how these two -- with their public personas -- could have spent five minutes together. Hemingway -- the loudmouth, the braggart, the bully, the boozer, the war lover, the misogynist, etc. -- vs. Cooper -- the cowboy, the guy with no curiosity, the guy who couldn't carry a conversation, the boring yup/nope guy, etc. Natch, as I started doing research and talking to people who knew both men, a far different reality emerged concerning them both. Cooper, especially, was a revelation. Without going into a lot of extraneous material, just consider GC's good friends: Hemingway John O'Hara Clifford Odets Irwin Shaw Robert Sherwood James Watson (DNA, Nobel Prize) Sen. Jacob Javits (NY) Picasso Avril Harriman (Gov, NY) Anthony Quinn (who had a terrific, very funny, story on why John Wayne picked up GC's Oscar for High Noon, but that's for another post) and many others. Point being that these were all men of substance, accomplishment. GC was drawn to writers, hung out in the writer's building while at Paramount. Was fascinated how a writer could fill up a blank page with words, as he was just as fascinated how painters filled up a blank canvas. I discovered a man far removed from the public GC, he managed to hide so much about himself, about who he really was. I think that if there are drawbacks to much of what is written about GC, it is that this other side of GC is missing. Not sure why. I interviewed Kirk Douglas for Coop/Hem, he read the letter (after his stroke, and it makes his reading of the letter even more touching) he wrote to GC in the spring of 61, about trying to understand just who was Gary Cooper. It's a beautiful letter, probably most of you on this board are familiar with it. But Douglas told me off camera, as we waited for set-ups and lighting adjustments, just what a remarkable man was GC, a true original. How much he admired him, as man and as actor.

Dan, regarding: <I will certainly try to track down the book written by Brian Garfield as it sounds like he knows what he is talking about when it comes to Gary Cooper.> Most definitely do. Brian Garfield really knows his stuff. Several of his novels have been turned into films. One of his books -- Death Wish -- became something of a cinema industry. Although, Brian's novel is a complex anti-vigilante story which forces you to view events from the vigilante's POV, whereas Hollywood turned it inside out and the film became a pro-vigilante piece. But, as Brian says, he can't complain since there were so many sequels it has become an annuity for him.

Hey, Angie/Dan: Regarding your kind wishes: <definitely second Dan's wish John in hoping that one day you may write a book about Gary. Besides Maria's book I can imagine it would be the best one out there. I just flat out had to stop reading Swindell's Last Hero book b/c it was seriously raising my blood pressure.> Thanks for the thumbs up on this idea, but I suspect that there are others far better equipped than I to take on such an endeavor. I'm in early pre-production on my next doc -- Quite Irreplacible -- the friendship and working relationship between John Huston and Humphrey Bogart - and stumbling along on one I've long hoped to get going, on author Graham Greene, who had as fascinating a private life as Hemingway, to say nothing of an equal talent. Key word is "stumbling", on the Greene doc. For what it's worth, Greene was an early champion of GC, back in the thrities, when he was a film critic. His critique of GC in The Real Glory is especially prescient. It's interesting, though, about Larry Swindell. I interviewed him for Coop/Hem, and he was never less than laudatory on GC and his talent. I must go back over his bio, I didn't remember that he was so negative.

Miss G: < I haven't seen any of the Bourne films, ... I might rent one of those .> Make it the first one, the Bourne Identity.