This comes a day late because I needed to organize and better express my thoughts on some of these films. They are thought-provoking. They are entertaining. They are pretty heavy, considering most of them were released on Christmas Day, at least in Los Angeles. Here's how they celebrated Santa and the birth of Christ in 1952:
The Bad and the Beautiful
release: December 25
wins: Best Supporting Actress (Gloria Grahame), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography - Black-and-White, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Black-and-White (Cedric Gibbons / Edward C. Carfagno / Edwin B. Willis / F. Keogh Gleason), Best Costume Design - Black-and-White (Helen Rose)
nominations: Best Actor (Kirk Douglas)
dir: Vincente Minnelli
pr: John Houseman
scr: Charles Schnee, from the story "Memorial of a Bad Man" by George Bradshaw
cin: Robert Surtees
The triumphs and sins of a film producer, as remembered by the people he hurt the most. A Hollywood film about Hollywood, but this one feels much more cynical than the others. The framing device sees the industry's top director, actress, writer, all sitting with a studio exec who's trying to convince them to work one last time with a producer who manipulated, humiliated, and betrayed them...but who also was the key to their successes. This is the story of a remorseless bastard, sure; it's the story of Hollywood ingenuity, yes; but it's also the story of what loyalty and honor mean in this industry, and no matter how Walter Pidgeon's smooth-talking, seemingly straightforward exec puts it, it all comes down to money and ego. The producer is a bad man but a great artist, and even though they're all at the top of the heap already, they're willing to sacrifice dignity and principle for...what exactly? More praise? Another Oscar? More than any other film about Hollywood that I've seen, this one stresses the vampiric nature, everyone feeding of off each other 'til there's nothing left. A rotten business, full of rotten people. Isn't it marvelous? Anyway, I loved this movie, loved loved loved this movie.
Come Back, Little Sheba
release: December 25
wins: Best Actress (Shirley Booth)
nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Terry Moore), Best Film Editing (Warren Low)
dir: Daniel Mann
pr: Hal B. Wallis
scr: Ketti Frings, from the play by William Inge
cin: James Wong Howe
A recovering alcoholic and his flighty wife take in a young woman as a boarder, upending things in unexpected ways. For this to work, you have to believe in the relationship at the center, and as good as Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster both are, they can't overcome how mismatched they are as a couple; it's worse when Terry Moore shows up as the college girl boarder, because when Lancaster begins to feel affectionate towards her, it doesn't feel impotent nor could you mistake it as perhaps paternal affection misinterpreted - it's prime Burt Lancaster! The story itself? I dunno, maybe something is getting lost in translation, but I'm beginning to think I just don't get William Inge.
The Member of the Wedding
release: December 25
nominations: Best Actress (Julie Harris)
dir: Fred Zinnemann
pr: Stanley Kramer
scr: Edna Anhalt and Edward Anhalt, from the novel and play by Carson McCullers
cin: Hal Mohr
Her brother's impending nuptials jolt an adolescent into coming of age. What an odd movie, in which a 27-year-old woman plays a twelve-year-old girl while nine-year-old Brandon de Wilde plays I guess a seven-year-old but with a Dakota Fanning-esque sophistication, a precocious awareness of how to "play" a child. Ethel Waters completes this odd trio as the eyepatch-wearing cook who's got her own problems. It's an unusual film, and I haven't fully been able to articulate just why, but I want to watch it several more times. It's weird and beautiful, shocking and yet...familiar.
My Cousin Rachel
release: December 25
nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Richard Burton), Best Cinematography - Black-and-White, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Black-and-White (Lyle R. Wheeler / John DeCuir / Walter M. Scott), Best Costume Design - Black-and-White (Charles Le Maire / Dorothy Jeakins)
dir: Henry Koster
pr/scr: Nunnally Johnson, from the novel by Daphne Du Maurier
cin: Joseph LaShelle
A young man begins to suspect that his uncle, whose fortune and estate he inherited, may have been murdered by his enticing widow. It's funny how much of 1952 is in conversation with 1940 and 1941, isn't it? This Daphne du Maurier adaptation comes 12 years after Best Picture winner Rebecca, turning the tables so that the Lord of the Manor is wrapped up in the mystery of his new tenant, with whom he is falling in love. We'll talk more about Richard Burton's performance as My next week, but Olivia de Havilland is Rachel and heaven help me, this is one of my favorite performances of hers, constantly keeps you guessing while still playing a very definite person. The craft nods are no surprise. Just terrific - and terrifically fun.
Road to Bali
release: December 25
dir: Hal Walker
pr: Daniel Dare / Harry Tugend
scr: Frank Butler & Hal Kanter & William Morrow, story by Frank Butler and Harry Tugend
cin: George Barnes
Bing and Bob find themselves embroiled in Polynesian royal intrigue. The only color Road film. Great recurring gag revolving around beautiful women being "snake-charmed" from a basket. Nightmare gag about Bob Hope's resemblance to a chimpanzee. Race stuff is unfortunate. Contains one the year's ten best songs, "The Merry-Go-Run-Around." Can't help it, I love these movies, not my fault they're hilarious.
The Star
release: December 25
nominations: Best Actress (Bette Davis)
dir: Stuart Heisler
pr: Bert E. Friedlob
scr: Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert
cin: Ernest Laszlo
A washed-up actress must decide what she really wants in life. A condescending, half-considered movie. Peaks in the first five minutes when the actress has to auction off some of her possessions and her own agent's wife picks up some pieces she always wanted.
The Jazz Singer
release: December 30
nominations: Best Musical Score (Ray Heindorf / Max Steiner)
dir: Michael Curtiz
pr: Louis F. Edelman
scr: Frank Davis and Leonard Stern and Lewis Meltzer, from the play by Samson Raphaelson
cin: Carl E. Guthrie
A young man has aspirations to be a singer/comic/entertainer, but his father expects him to continue the family business: cantor at the neighborhood Temple. Not a Jewish actor to be found, but OK. Danny Thomas, everyone's favorite lesbian, is a real charmer, and chief support is provided by Peggy Lee (great instincts), Mildred Dunnock (great actress), and Eduard Franz (great, great, great as the father). I like the songs, I like the performances, I don't regret watching it.
Stars and Stripes Forever
release: December 31
dir: Henry Koster
pr: Lamar Trotti
scr: Lamar Trotti, story by Ernest Vajda, from the book Marching Along by John Philip Sousa
cin: Charles G. Clarke
The career of John Philip Sousa. Thought a lot about With a Song in My Heart while watching this one. This, too, is a music biopic with one central premise that one could hardly call a conflict - Stars and Stripes Forever's even less so, its main conflict being, "Will Sousa become famous and influential?" only to become "Will Sousa remain famous and influential?" Both also feature Robert Wagner as a soldier, though With a Song in My Heart gives him but two scenes to illustrate Jane Froman's impact on the boys fighting overseas while Stars and Stripes Forever creates a protege of Sousa's for him to play, a man who invents the Sousaphone as tribute and falls for a music hall girl. I was not impressed with With a Song in My Heart, and that at least has an arc. This one doesn't, but I don't care. The costumes are gorgeous. The deadpan performance by Clifton Webb is right at the level of what I love. Ruth Hussey (remember her in The Philadelphia Story?) plays his wife so patiently and with such equal deadpan, you understand their relationship entirely, instinctively. When Sousa seduces a mob of Confederate veterans into listening to a Black choir sing "Battle Hymn of the Republic," one cannot help but feel goosebumps and a lump in the throat. And then the finale, where the titular song, Sousa's greatest work, is played over images of soldiers throughout American history, his music outlasting his own life. Maybe not much conflict or story, to be sure, but it's 90 minutes of appreciation for what music can do for a nation's soul. Isn't that terrific?
That's the end of 1952 the year, but now we begin our journey through its awards season. Starting Sunday with the Best Picture nominees: The Greatest Show on Earth, High Noon, Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge, and The Quiet Man.
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