Christmas in July

I just got back from the first evening of the NWFC's annual TOP DOWN film festival @ the Mallory. They started this year with one of Preston Sturges' greatest and most underrated films Christmas in July.
Based on Sturges' own play called A Cup of Coffee, Christmas in July stars Dick Powell as hopeful nobody who is tricked into believing that he has won $25,000 in a Coffee slogan contest, by his coworkers. This film is so witty, and the dialog is so fresh and snappy, that I hope when I die I can live in a movie written by Sturges. I highly recommend this film to anyone who wants to have a great time in 67 minutes! Polly, you would love this movie because it is the ultimate movie with a Christmas feel to it, though it has nothing to do with Christmas. I think the play would be great to see as well, and it still appears every now and again on the stage. Well, I've got to go, just thought I would right a quick post. Later.

P.S. Next week the film is going to be Woody Allen's Sleeper, and the next Week John Water's Polyester, then at some time they are playing a film from the 40's called Bill and Coo, staring birds! this title of this post is a link to the NWFC site. See you there!

The Death of the "Anti-Western"

I hate the term "Anti-Western", or I guess I should say I hate the use of the term "Anti-Western", I mean there are things that I'm sure could be called "anti-Western", but when it is applied to Western films there is almost always a narrow snobbish view behind the comment. Even among Western fans there is an element of animosity towards one type of western and another, and it is usually caused by the inability of said fans to accept the many different facets of the Western genre, the many facets that actually make the Western one of the richest art forms of the 20th century.
To many people The Classic Western is a celebration of Christian-Anglo-Masculine-Superiority coupled with excessive violence. And, certainly many westerns will include at least some of these qualities, in particular violence, as a matter of fact I don't know if I could name a Western that does not feature a gun shot. Yet, it is interesting how many of these very themes are undermined even in classic Westerns. With closer inspection, many of the values that conservative "American's" hold dearly are questioned quite openly in the most classic of the Classics. Let's take for example John Ford's beloved Western Stagecoach. Now this film is about as Classic as you get and the characters in this film are hardly wholesome. Most of the protagonists are conventionally undesirable Dr. Boone is a drunk, Dallas is a whore, The Ringo Kid is a escaped convict, yet the righteous characters seem to have more disturbing faults, obviously the thieving banker Gatewood, the dubious gentleman Hatfield and even the pregnant Lucy Mallory seems waspish and haughty for the first half of the film.
Early in the film, Dr. Boone says to Dallas, when they are both run out of town by the ladies of the Law and Order League, "We are the victims of a foul disease called Social Prejudice, my child". This line alone seems a pretty solid indictment of American puritanical values for a film made in 1939. And, I only mention it as an example of the fact that even classic Westerns were not beyond attacking many of the injustices of modern society. As a matter of fact the Western was one of the most successful genres to challenge modern corruption. Though women were often portrayed as either the Mother or the Whore (often with the proverbial heart of gold) in Westerns, and lets be fair considering that these films are set during the 1800's there were few other roles for women during the era, there are several examples of strong women in classic and modern Westerns, in films such as Forty Guns, Rio Bravo, Rancho Notorious, Johnny Guitar, The Hired Hand, McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Actually, to be honest even the aforementioned Whore with the heart of gold, which is as old as the hills she worked on, seems like a novelty, compared to today's films were a whore is rarely every portrayed as anything more than trash. The subject of Indians, is one that also concerns many detractors of Westerns. There have been several films that show the corruption and racism of the Whites during the Indian wars, some more heavy-handed than others. But, unfortunately considering the lack of genuine Native Americans working in the film business, Indians have too rarely been given justice on film.
Many Western fans see a righteous American dream of Manifest-Destiny in the Western genre, even when that was not the intention of the film. I believe these people are often victims of a nostalgic vision of the perceived past. I often think about comments made by John Wayne in an interview with Brian Huberman in 1974, about his character Ethan Edwards in John Ford's dark masterpiece The Searchers. Huberman praised Wayne for playing the villain. "He was no villain," Wayne responded indignantly, "He was a man living in his times. The Indians fucked his wife. What would you have done?". Now, it is interesting that Wayne claims that the Indians fucked his wife, because it was actually his sister-in-law who was raped and killed, and his niece who was kidnapped and raised as Scar's wife. Now, I consider Wayne's performance in The Searchers to be one of the greatest captured on film. So the question is raised as to whether he had forgotten the actions of the film after 20 years, or had he somehow never understood that the Ethan character was a terrifying, if complexly sympathetic figure? It is hard to tell. But I think this is a perfect example of how even a major contributor to the Western genre, such as Wayne, might not see anything outside of his preconceived vision of the genre.

During the 1960's the genre was again changing, as it had changed numerous times in the past from Edwin Porter's The Great Train Robbery to the silent "realist" films of William S. Hart, and Harry Carey to the epic Western's such as The Covered Wagon and The Iron Horse to The singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, then again after Stagecoach, western's began displaying a new maturity leading to the post WWII Westerns where you have the dark influence of Noir creeping into films such as Pursued, Canyon Passage, Rancho notorious, all of Anthony Mann's Westerns and of course The Searchers.

During the cultural shock of the sixties the Western genre was caught in a limbo, that I feel it has never fully recovered from. Not, that there was any lack of new talent, several young talents emerged during the sixties, such as Sam Pechinpah, Monte Hellman, and Sergio Leone to name only a few. But, even these filmmaker's seemed to want to keep a distance from the genre that was now considered fusty. When the Wild Bunch was released, Sam Pechinpah told Paul Schrader "I have never made a 'Western'. I have made a lot of films about men on horseback.". Now, to anyone who has seen his films, to say that Ride the High Country, Major Dundee and The Wild Bunch are not Westerns is obviously absurd, yet it shows that he wanted his films to be considered more than just merely Westerns, or that he was using the form of a Western to explore themes that were not associated with Horse-Operas and Oaters. But really that is exactly what Westerns do, and had been doing for at the time 70 years. Almost every ten years the Western would take a new form, and would be a stage to express the concerns of it's contemporary audience, like all great art forms.

Once, I was interviewed by Ted Mahar for his horrible column in the Oregonian titled "Film Freak", and after talking for about an hour or so about films that I loved, Ted asked me how I felt about Westerns, and granted, I had really only seen a handful of Westerns at the time, so I told him how wild I was for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Well, he quietly scoffed, and mumbled "That's really more of an Anti-Western". That was the end of our discussion. While it is hard to say if the Western will ever return as a major part of our culture. I hope that a renewed appreciation of the genre will emerge. And, I hope that future fans will be able to appreciate both She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, and feel that they just saw "A Damn Fine Western!"

"Point Blank"

John Boorman's 1967 film "Point Blank" is really essential viewing, for everyone I know.

Lee Marvin in a truly bigger than life performance plays a mysterious man with only one name, Walker, who single handedly destroys a corporate crime syndicate known as The Organization, that was party to cutting him out of his $93,000 share of a large heist and leaving him to die on Alcatraz. The film leaves you to wonder if Walker is even alive, or if he is actually an avenging ghost, hell bent on destroying the people who betrayed him. This in particular would influence Clint Eastwood's brilliant western High Plains Drifter. I should mention that even though "Point Blank" is definitely Lee Marvin's film, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn and Carroll O'Connor, each give strong supporting performances.

"Point Blank" was only the second film directed by John Boorman, his first being the Dave Clark Five vehicle Catch Us If You Can, he would later go on to direct such films as Deliverance, Excalibur and Zardoz. But, "Point Blank" is possibly his most influencial film. In many ways I feel this film is occupys the same world as the characters in Michelangelo Antonioni's classic 60's film Blow-Up inhabit. With creative use of editing, and location, and being stylish as hell, "Point Blank" is one of the seminal films of modern cinema. Highly Reccomended!

The Warriors, "Are Good, Very Good"

"Warriors, come out to plaaay!"

These words will haunt me from this day forward.
Sweet and I just got back from watching Walter Hill's strongly influential 1979 film The Warriors at the Clinton St. Theater. It's really amazing to me that I had never seen this film until tonight. I'd been meaning to watch it now for years, even just to see another magnificently terrible performance by the stunning (and seemingly stunned) Michael Beck whom, you might remember forgetting about, due to his embarrassing performance in the Olivia Newton-John vehicle Xanadu. A personal guilty pleasure (though I have no guilt what-so-ever, fore my love of the soundtrack, because it's fuckin' awesome!) This film does have some pretty bitchin' gangs, like the gang of Mimes, and evil Baseball clowns, to the Orphan's, The Rogues, and The Lizzies. The synth soundtrack was also pretty tight, and quite reminiscent of one of John Carpenter's scores. The fight scenes were kick-ass. I loved it. I have little else to say about the subject.
So, I'll leave it at that.

Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon

One of the great highlights in what I consider to be one of the most abysmal decades for film (the 1980's), is the fantastic film Barry Gordy's The Last Dragon.
Yes, Barry Gordy the man who delivered the music of the motor-city to the rest of the world with his legendary record company Motown, reaches out to humanity once again to bestow upon us a giant spoonful of stew from America's infamous Melting-Pot. And, we swallow it with pleasure and gratitude!
Taimak stars as "Bruce" Leroy Green a black inner-city youth who has almost entirely co-oped the "Oriental" culture in his attempt at becoming one of the greatest martial artists in the world, but first he must find the illusive Glow, the source of his greatest power. But, Leroy is not alone in his quest for The Glow, enter Sho'Nuff "the Shogun of Harlem" who, threatened by the power that Leroy himself is capable of, will stop at nothing to destroy Leroy. Then there is the sultry Laura Charles played by Prince protege Vanity (Prince once tried to convince her to change her name to Vagina) the host of 7th Heaven a popular music video TV show, that features up and coming talent such as DeBarge. And then there is Laura's battle with gangster Eddie Arcadian
who will stop at nothing to get his girlfriend's music video played on Laura's show. Within 109 minutes can Leroy find "The Glow", save Laura and battle Sho'Nuff in the fantastic battle of "The Last Dragon"? Well, I'm not telling.

Besides Leroy's and Sho'Nuff's adoption of asian culture (down to eating popcorn with chop-sticks), there are several humorous examples of culture swaping by the charactors in the film. Leroy's parents run an Italian Pizza Parlor "Just Runna Your Feetsa, to Daddy Green's Pizza" as their slogan says, there are a group of pot smoking asian dudes who run the fortune cookie factory, and tease Leroy's china-man costume, while they jive like hip-hop brothers, then there is a white guy who seems to have grown up as a wookie, and then you have Vanity who's style of singing seems to have been borrowed from Helen Keller. Basically meant as a feature length music video for Motown artists, Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon transcends it's commercial boundaries, by delivering Top-Notch entertainment, and a charming look at racial identity in modern America. To quote my friend Amanda

"Motown should make more movies!"

My only response to this sugestion is, Yes Amanda, Motown should make more movies.

Bang Bang! Gun Crazy!

Another Film Noir I must talk about is Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy!

This film is SO fantastic that I can't recommend it enough. Boy is hot for guns, Girl is hot for guns, Boy meets girl who is hot for guns, both go fucking crazy shooting their guns. This film is one of the several films that are considered to be fore-runners to Bonnie and Clyde, the other films are Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once and Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night both of which are truly amazing. Yet, the characters in Gun Crazy seem more perverse. Where the characters in the other films are victims of a cruel world, Bart and Annie Laurie Star become victims of their ruthless and unrelentless desire. A desire that ultimately leads to their demise.

This film is so fast and exciting you cannot turn it off. Just yesterday Lauren and I felt like watching a scene of it because we love that movie, but we couldn't turn it off! It is like a magnificent vortex that you want to jump into, much like the Characters in the film who are so driven by their passions that there is no escape, yet you would have it no other way. This film might have been a considered a B-film at the time, but it holds up way better than other more respectable films made in it's time or anytime. Joseph H. Lewis would go on to direct other notable films, in particular his wonderful Film Noir The Big Combo, yet Gun Crazy would be his greatest contribution to the world of film. And, that is saying quite a bit!

More films set on Trains! The Narrow Margin

Ahh Summer. That time of year to sit next to the pool in your sexiest bathing suit, sip an icy cold mint-julep as the warm breeze of dusk blows though your hair, and watch some jerk get in the back from some brassy dame with dollar signs for eyes. Well, that is if you're me.

For some reason Summer always brings on Noir fever for me. Spending the short summer evenings watching shady characters cross and double cross each other is as refreshing as a picnic in the park.

My latest Film Noir favorite, is Richard Fleischer's 1952 B-film The Narrow Margin*. Starring Charles McGraw as a jaded cop escorting and guarding a tough talking gangster's moll (Marie Windsor) as she travels from Chicago to Los Angeles to testify for the grand jury. But, will syndicate hit-men who don't know what she looks like, find her before she gets there? The Narrow Margin is an incredibly fast paced thriller, chock-full of suspense. The dialog is sharp, the photography is beautiful, and the direction is stylish and amazingly resourceful (down to the magnificent use of costuming, which is both clever and economic). The Narrow Margin is a hard-boiled 71 minutes of nail-biting suspense, that after 53 years has barely aged. Not to be missed.

*Later remade in 1990 as simply Narrow Margin starring Gene Hackman. I haven't seen that film so I cannot compare.

Buster Keaton's The General

The General
Originally uploaded by livingfilm.

Buster Keaton's film The General, is not only one of the greatest films ever made, it is by far the greatest film made here in Oregon (Forest Grove).
Set in Georgia during the Civil War*, Buster Keaton is a railroad engineer who is not allowed to enlist, because it is believed that he will be of more use to the south engineering than soldiering, to his chagrin and the dismay of his sweetheart. But, Buster proves himself, in some of the most brilliantly comedic scenes in the history of cinema. Buster Keaton's attention to detail has led many Civil War scholars to name The General the most visually accurate film set during the war. The film often looks like a moving Mathew Brady photograph. One of the most stunning aspects of the film, like all of Keaton's films, are the stunts, all of which were performed without the help of special effects. We are talking about Locomotive comedy using real Trains! The climatic scene of the engine collapsing on the burning bridge was the most expensive shot of the entire Silent period. The remains of the engine were for many years a tourist attraction before it was dismantled during WWII for scrap metal. After 80 years The General will still make you laugh, because it is genuinely funny, and will amaze you with it's virtuosity! And it is only 75 minutes long! Highest Recommendation!

* Do you ever wonder why most films set during the Civil War have Southern protagonists? I do. Particularly how sensitive to the subject of slavery Americans are. I wonder if it is easier to show the underdog in a war where both sides motives were rather dubious, please leave comments if you have any ideas on the subject.

A few words about Budd Boetticher

The Tall T
Originally uploaded by livingfilm.

So, I once again will need to turn the subject to Westerns. The most loathed genre, right behind the Musical.
I love Westerns. And, I have been again reminded of my deep amour for the subject after a few days of watching some fantastic examples of its type.
I would like to take a moment to talk about Budd Boetticher.
Budd Boetticher is one of the great western directors, though his name is usually foreign to those not closely interested in westerns. Before directing films Boetticher had a career as a bullfighter, this would also be the subject of a few of his films such as The Bullfighter and the Lady-1951 and Arruza-1972. Boetticher first came to Hollywood in 1941 to be the technical adviser on Rouban Mamoulian's Blood and Sand. Fifteen years later after making several mostly low budget films, Boetticher began a close association with the actor Randolph Scott, beginning with the film Seven Men from Now-1956 made for John Wayne's Batjac production company. Boetticher and Scott would make five more films together, now made for Ranown Productions, I mention this because this series of films is usually referred to as "The Ranown Cycle" often including Seven Men from Now which as I mentioned before was actually produced by Batjac Productions.

Boetticher's Westerns are on the surface very simple, and modest (rarely do any of these films run longer than 72 minutes, making them very easy to watch I might add). In Martin Scorsese's words..

"Boetticher's style was as simple his impassive hero's, deceptively simple. The archetypes of the genre were distilled to the point of abstraction."

This I feel, is a pretty clear description of these films. Character was always given precedents over action in the Ranown films. There is a solid if understated humor, wit and sophistication to these films, almost as if Ernst Lubistch had directed them. Actually, I feel you might convincingly translate many of these films to the stage the dialoge is so solid. Yet, you would miss that Boetticher touch. That touch that impregnates The Ranown Cycle with a quiet exitential darkness that seems to drive and haunt the characters through these films, and their destiny.

The other films after Seven Men From Now are The Tall T -1957, Decision at Sundown -1957, Buchanan Rides Again -1958, Ride Lonesome -1959 and Comanche Station -1960. None of these films are available on DVD as of yet, but can be found on VHS or on Cable television. I cannot reccomend these films enough. If you happen to come across one of them, please just invest the 72 minutes and watch it. If for any reason you are dissatisfied, talk to me.