Some Came Running

Audrey Hitchcock

How To Steal A Million, William Wyler, 1966

I apologize, sir, for not telling you sooner that you're a DEGENERATE!

Just wanted to get that out there.

For those of you following from home, the news is that the manufacturer of my on-the-fritz-since-July plasma display has managed, according to them, to have successfully rebuilt the defective part that caused all the trouble, and depending on when the part reaches my TV repair facility, I could have my set fixed some time this week. What on earth shall I revel in first? The Criterion Blu-ray of Paths of Glory—the above screen cap is from the standard def edition of a new master/transfer—is only one of many exciting potential choices. I'll keep you posted. A new Blu-ray Consumer Guide should follow the blessed event in short order, if said event comes off. 

The divine Kim

Some selected images from Jeanne Eagels (George Sidney, 1957):

 

 

 

Yeah, I finally bit the bullet last night and watched the damn thing (the new DVD, that is, from the new Kim Novak collection from Sony) in all its glory on my 13-inch backup TV. Quite a whacked-out picture, surely; certain portions of it had me spinning my wheels, speculating as to whether Sidney was in fact some diabolical hybrid of Douglas Sirk and Ed Wood. A subject for further research to be sure, although I don't know if I have the intestinal fortitude to go back to those late '30s "Our Gang" shorts, in which all the kids have by now reached middle age, or something. Anyway. Eagels is cited by the Surrealist critic and filmmaker Ado Kyrou as one of those "sublime melodramas in which the most unbridled sense of the baroque remains senseless for those unable to read between the images." Also on his lists are a couple of Sirks (Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life), which means maybe I'm on to something; the "admirable" Minnelli film which gives this blog its name; and, um, Jack Webb's Pete Kelly's Blues. Watching this again also reminded me of how, way back in the day, when I'd get into a political argument with my friend and then colleague Ed Hulse (whose book on Lone Pine in the movies you should definitely own), and he would have my back to the wall on some issue or other, the only thing I would have left would be to exclaim, "I don't need you! I don't need anybody! I'm Jeanne Eagels!" Which would crack him up to the extent that he would at least stop attacking me, sob.

Anyhow, as you may have noticed, I'm kind of queer for Novak. No, wait, that came out wrong. How about, I've ever been of the considered opinion that she can do no wrong. (My mom tells me that even as a very small child I "liked" her, but I've never asked for Mater to give me any more specific example of how said like was manifested.) I feel about her pretty much as that MacMahonist nut felt about Charlton Heston, that her mere presence in any film was enough to create beauty. And there, above, she is. How can one disagree, I wonder. Some things are just, you know, cinematically sound. Novak was always one of them.

UPDATE: "This photo needs a proper 'lol' caption," notes commenter Dizzy, but his link doesn't work. No matter, I found it, and decided that in this case simpler is better.

Palate cleanser

Jeanne Moreau and Jean Ozenne, Diary of a Chambermaid, Luis Buñuel, 1964

Newton/Jackson

My friend Joseph Failla writes:

In light of Michael Jackson's sudden demise, I thought it might be time to revisit The Man Who Fell To Earth. If you look at its sci-fi elements as demonstrations of the main character's delusions, there are some interesting parallels between Jackson and Thomas Newton. Both achieve great wealth and celebrity status because of their genius, only to fall from grace and end up in ever increasing isolation and loneliness. As played by Bowie (also a mega star of slight build), Newton could be viewed as an eccentric billionaire who just thinks he's an alien trapped in human disguise, and Jackson's change in physical appearance also suggests a similar cry for help. In fact the film's last great shot of Newton wearing a wide brimmed hat and dropping his head foward in self misery speaks volumes against the pitfalls of being rich and famous.

 

Meeting Laszlo Szabo

Anna Karina, the back of Howard Vernon, Laszlo Szabo, Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard, 1965

First things first: you should check out the official version of this story, at the fabulous Auteurs website. 

The official version is formatted so as to leave myself out of it. To let Mr. Szabo, whose body, mind, and soul contain a complete secret history of French cinema from the late '50s until...now, and probably beyond, speak for himself, as best as I could reproduce that speech. The lived reality of encountering Mr. Szabo is, for this correspondent, something rather different than what I put together for the Auteurs. Not to say that what I put together for the Auteurs is inaccurate. No, I think it's a good representation and I hope it's illuminating and enjoyable for everyone. But. Here's the deal.

I'm not someone you could call star-struck. I've had tea with Scarlett Johansson and interiorly bemoaned, while speaking with her, the fact that she was just so much less interesting than I'd hoped. Cinephile I may be, but the number of times I've felt relatively Cowed In The Presence can be counted on the fingers of one of my hands. Yep, I was gobsmacked in 1987, before I was a film critic or any such thing, on glimpsing Jean-Luc Godard pacing in the lobby of Manhattan's Parker-Meridian Hotel one morning. And when Martin Scorsese strode into his office a few minutes prior to a dual interview with him and Spike Lee that I had put together for Premiere, and said, "Good to see you again, Glenn," I have to admit my heart flipped. And interviewing Miss Olivia de Havilland...forget it.

Laszlo Szabo is a guy who's been in my film consciousness for so long...well, for example, when I was a kid, and was almost fatally curious about Godard's Alphaville, having read about it in Carlos Clarens' history of sci-fi and horror films, I'd scour TV Guide, and when the film would turn up at two a.m. on Channel Seven I'd beg my parents to let me take their 13-inch Sony up to my room to tune the thing in after hours. And Alphaville is just one of the several Godard pictures of the '60s in which Mr. Szabo, always an intriguing, shifting, enigmatic presence, appeared in. He wasn't a lead player, like Belmondo or Brialy, or a star anomaly like Constantine or, later, Leaud. But he was there, and he was interesting, and you always thought, "What's his deal?"

And then he'd turn up in a Truffaut, and a Rohmer, and a Rivette, and you'd look backwards and find him in early Chabrol, and he seemed almost mythic, a Zelig of the French cinema. But—he actually existed. Exists! And one day, when the smart guys at Rialto Pictures got hold of Godard's Made In USA for U.S. exhibition, you get the press release that says Laszlo Szabo is available for interviews...and you think, "Well isn't that a kick in the head?"

And of course you're going to raise your hand and say, "May I?"

Laszlo Szabo, January 7, 2009, Manhattan. Photo courtesy of Mighty Cub Enterprises

Well. What a marvelous afternoon. Szabo is a born storyteller and a dyed-in-the-wool cinephile, and as he recollected friendships and discrete encounters he would every now and again succumb to very sincere emotion. But he still had the bearing of a creator who looked ahead to doing more; in his mind the past was not gone but rather just a portion of his own creative and spiritual continuum. An inspiring fellow. I wish I had brought a video camera of sorts, because his way of telling stories was delightfully visual; he frequently acted things out, drawing out numbers on the fabric of his couch, looking at his watch when describing figures who were concerned about time, making gestures that took the place of what could have been whole paragraphs. In writing the interview up for The Auteurs, I left out one very good anecdote, because it would have needed prose interpolations along the lines of stage directions to get across properly, and that would go against the format I decided on for the piece. I'll present it here, with my own clumsy prose interpolations/stage directions. 

SZABO:  (In the course of describing Godard's directing methods, he hooks on to a memory of working on Alphaville.)

I remember in '65, Godard was making Alphaville, with Eddie Constantine. An actor born in America, here in France playing this hardboiled hero Lemmy Caution. I liked him very much. But, you know...he drank a little. And one day he came to the set, he was, you see, an hour late. And he was a little ashamed for being late. And Jean-Luc didn't say anything, he didn't shout. But...he was not going to shoot what had been scheduled for the day. Instead...

(Szabo's shoulders sink.)

...he had Eddie in a hotel room, with one of the girls playing the prostitutes of Alphaville, and he directed Eddie to slap the girl. It was just a small scene, and Jean-Luc said to him, "This girl, Eddie, here, just slap her." And Eddie went up to her, and he went...

(Szabo mimes a very soft slap, not even a slap, really, just a tap on the cheek. He smiles, a little ruefully.)

And then, Godard comes up to Eddie, and says, "No, you don't slap her lightly, you slap her for good, like this!"

(Szabo mimes a real wallop.)

And Jean-Luc slaps Eddie for real, like that.

GK: He was aiming for a very direct provocation. 

SZABO: (shrugs) Yes.