Images of the day, 11/4/09

From the furious climax of Don Siegel's spectacular 1958 The Lineup, one of the crown jewels of Sony's new and very welcome Film Noir Classics I set. The getaway car taking an exit ramp to nowhere and narrowly missing a fatal drop is classic Siegel: a fantastic thrill generator first and foremost, and also a fantastic visual metaphor that the director knows just how far to push.

The Lineup, written by Sterling Silliphant, is an odd, tetchy, tingly little beast without a single ingratiating character within miles. The first section sees a couple of San Francisco cops dourly investigating the death of one of their own. These two characters, played by the sleekly officious Warner Anderson and a lumbering, oafish Emile Meyer, are clearly not officers you want to get on the wrong side of, even a little bit. About a half-hour through the picture shifts focus to a couple of hired criminals out to retrieve a shipment of drugs that was stashed in items held by various tourists on a trans-Pacific cruise. The tricky part is that the tourists are unknowing mules. 

These two guys, the loose-cannon psycho Julian Dancer (an electric Eli Wallach) and his dourly avuncular keeper Julian (a pathetically poignant Robert Keith) are among the most memorable hoods in movie history, and SIegel's camera just eats up their every interaction and individual tic. The picture's boiling point happens when Dancer feels compelled to abduct a single mom and her little girl. 

Anyway, if you haven't seen it, it's an absolute must, a cinematic daredevil act leaping from one giddily charged moment to another. Amidst all the thrills, there's a  distinctly intellectual vibe that creeps into the movie, particularly when Wallach's Dancer negotiates with a wheelchair-bound fellow known as "The Man" (Vaughn Taylor, Janet Leigh's fussbudget boss in Psycho, here cast brilliantly against type as something like a human icepick).

 

There's an almost, dare I say it, Sartre-esque feel to the way fate is doled out in this scene. Spooky, and practically edifying!

The presentation also features a commentary in which the sober film noir expert Eddie Mueller attempts to rein in crime novelist James Ellroy, who sounds as if a) he's hopped up on what they used to call goofballs, and b) would like to come off like one of the more offensively non-PC characters who populate his novels. When Mueller can sit on Ellroy a little bit, they both strut their erudition most impressively, but it's when Ellroy can't be contained that this feature is most entertaining. Although you're likely to be grateful that the guy's only talking to you from your home theater and not actually in the same room with you. I just started on Ellroy's American Tabloid trilogy, and I must say, when he's cooking the writer pretty much defines the term "compulsively readable."

I want to delve in to the Sony set a little more soon, but right now I'm obliged to contrast the coming-to-American-screens soon one-part version of John Woo's Red Cliff with the sprawling Chinese two-parter. Which I may talk about at The Auteurs' next week. 

Comments

[Pete Segall]

The most recent Paris Review has an Art of Fiction interview with Ellroy which does seem to indicate that, yes, he is one of his own characters.

http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/5948

[bill]

Want box set. Very much.

Have you not read Ellroy before, Glenn? Some of his stuff is truly amazing (like THE BIG NOWHERE). AMERICAN TABLOID is the only part of that trilogy I've read so far, and much of the general philosophy behind those books is very much anathema to me, but I'll be goddamned if I could stop reading it.

His commentary with Muller on CRIME WAVE is very good. I like when Ellroy says it's a better movie than CHINATOWN, and Muller says, "You're insane."

I also really like the commentary he does with James Vanderbilt and Brad Fischer on the director's cut of ZODIAC. At one point, apropos of not much, Ellroy says, "Do you guys know the message of MOBY DICK?" They say no, what is it, and Ellroy says, "Don't fuck with a white whale." Then one of the other guys (I think Vanderbilt) says, "It's subtle, but it's in there."

[Glenn Kenny]

@ bill: Up until now the only Ellroy I've read is "My Dark Places," which killed me so good that it kind of spoiled me for his fiction for a while. Now I'm in danger of getting hooked real bad. I love the "Crime Wave" commentary and clearly have to get around to the "Zodiac" one.

Did any book reviewers get on Ellroy's dick for rewriting history in "Tabloid" the way some film critics condemned Tarantino for "IG?"

[bill]

@Glenn -

"Did any book reviewers get on Ellroy's dick for rewriting history in "Tabloid" the way some film critics condemned Tarantino for "IG?"

Ha, no, to my knowledge no one ever did. Funny, isn't it?

Can you believe I still haven't read MY DARK PLACES? Every time I've tried to start it, I couldn't connect, for which I blame my general mood, distractions, and so forth. I absolutely NEED to get on that.

Also, for a good, non-sensational (despite the title) look at Ellroy, you should watch the documentary JAMES ELLROY'S FEAST OF DEATH (sometimes just called FEAST OF DEATH). It's very good.

[Michael Adams]

Am old enough to have seen and loved THE LINEUP TV series. Saw film in its original release as possibly first movie based on TV series, as opposed to remakes or cobbled-together episodes, and remember liking it even better. Haven't seen it since. Seeing it, BABY FACE NELSON, and EDGE OF ETERNITY within two years made me, even as a snotnosed kid, aware of Siegel as director during a time when Hitchcock, Welles,and Ford were the only ones I knew.

[lazarus]

This talk of Ellroy and Zodiac reminds me once again of how we could have had a phenomenal Black Dahlia adaptation instead of that THING wrought by Brian De Palma.

Fincher's withdrawal from that project is one of the saddest bits of movie news I've ever experienced.

And Glenn, if you think the history rewriting in American Tabloid is controversial, you're going to freak over The Cold Six Thousand. A great follow-up, and I really need to get the concluding installment that was just released.

[trooper york]

Check out Ellroy's book "My Dark Places" where he investigates the murder of his mother and you will get a pretty good idea of where the crazy comes from. Really interesting stuff.

[trooper york]

Sorry, didn't read your comment where you said you have already read it. So you know. What a character!

[Flickhead]

Glenn, perhaps you can help me ID a movie I saw several times on TV in the early 60s. It was probably B&W, mid/late 50s -- the era of The Lineup. A group of criminals were hiding inside the empty tank of an oil truck. (One of them wore eyeglasses.) All nervous and sweaty, they start freaking out and may have opened fire on one another (my memory's sketchy). At a roadblock, a cop questions the driver, and, to make sure there's oil in the truck, opens the spigot. Out of the spigot fall the eyeglasses of one of the bad guys.

That's all I got. I thought it was Hubert Cornfield's Plunder Road, but, alas, it's not.

[Earthworm Jim]

I really like Ellroy, but I couldn't get through "The Cold Six Thousand," the second volume in the trilogy he just wrapped up. At some point the hyper-staccato prose style crossed over from compelling (as it mostly was in "American Tabloid") to unreadable, for me at least. A consensus seems to be forming that Ellroy's political books comprise his best work, but I prefer the earlier L.A. Quartet novels--or, rather, the two of them I've read ("The Black Dahlia" and "The Big Nowhere," both stunning, transcendent works of crime fiction).

"Big Nowhere" is practically *begging* to be a movie. Somebody needs to get on that. Fincher, maybe?

[bill]

"Out of the spigot fall the eyeglasses of one of the bad guys."

Shit, that sounds familiar. That may be just because I've heard that scene described before, but still...it rings the faintest of bells.

[lazarus]

White Jazz has been in various stages of pre-production for like 5 years now, right? Last I remember John Cusack was attached. That book is pretty crazy too, and really began the change in Ellroy's style that would be in full benzedrine force in the current series.

[The Confidence Man]

1. That's not just any unfinished freeway -- that's the Embarcadero Freeway, which SF used to amputate the waterfront from the city. It also made several notable appearances in various SF-set films over the years, and was torn down post-Loma Prieta. I think that street crossing in front of the unfinished EF in the foreground is Howard Street.

2. lazarus, I must step in to defend -- well, not the whole film, but at least certain aspects of De Palma's Black Dahlia. Yes, the casting was unfortunate. I actually think BDP's problem was that he was *too* faithful to Ellroy's material -- the parts where De Palma made it his own (especially the "screen tests" with Mia Kershner, and the full-on gonzo family scenes) were really fantastic. A big disappointment, yes -- but with willpower and vision it really should have been amazing.

[bill]

WHITE JAZZ is my least favorite of the LA Quartet, though it does have its moments. I remember loving a bit of describing Klein "kicking through TV wreckage" (or something like that) to get out of a room.

But the LA Quartet relied too heavily on one particular plot device, in each of the books (something that was cut out of the film version of LA CONFIDENTIAL, and something I won't describe in deferrence to those who haven't read the novels) and by WHITE JAZZ it just seemed silly. If looked at from a distance, all the books would probably look silly, but I don't look at them like that, of course. It's just that with WHITE JAZZ Ellroy seemed to be spinning his wheels a little bit, and I think it's best that he left those books behind at that point.

As for the BLACK DAHLIA film, didn't Ellroy see an early cut of the movie that he absolutely flipped for, but was considerably colder towards the cut that was actually released? That's what I've heard, and I know he said very nice things about the film early on, but I don't know of any direct quotes about the final film.

[Glenn Kenny]

@ Flickhead, and Bill: Yeah, a bell's ringing for me too, but very faintly. Obviously whichever picture this is, it lifted the "gang hiding out in the tank of a gas/oil truck" from "White Heat," back in 1949. So I need to draw a mental line from there...

This is the second "Ask Glenn"-type question I've gotten in the past week. Could be time to revive that feature as a recurring blog post!...

[bill]

Also, I just want to third what I said about THE BIG NOWHERE (which Earthworm Jim unofficially seconded): I really think that's Ellroy's masterpiece. I haven't read all of his books yet, but I've read enough to feel reasonably secure in that opinion. This might sound snooty, but I think AMERICAN TABLOID is broadly considered his best, but the deep-down crime fiction fans gravitate towards THE BIG NOWHERE, and with very good reason. Parts of that book made my jaw drop. It's really extraordinary.

Also, it has the best title, and proudly carries the tradition of crime novels, or films, with "Big" in the title. Where did that start, I wonder? Hammett's THE BIG KNOCKOVER came before THE BIG SLEEP, but Chandler's novel is the first to my knowledge to us the "Big" as part of a death metaphor. My personal favorite such title, though it's not a great book (it's not bad, though) is John D. MacDonald's SLAM THE BIG DOOR. Anyway, a lot of crime writers have a "Big" title to their resume (death metaphor or not). George Pelecanos (ptui!) has THE BIG BLOWDOWN, Elmore Leonard has THE BIG BOUNCE, and so on. I don't know why I find that interesting, but I do.

[lazarus]

I don't know what Ellroy's take on De Palma's film was, in a finished or unfinished version, but all I know what that I found the book heartbreaking, and the film adaptation didn't move me one inch. I did see a screening where the screenwriter was present, and he seemed pretty embarrassed to speak about it after the film because of how far it had strayed from the original conception of the adaptation.

@ Confidence Man: I don't consider myself a De Palma hater, but I think he had his head up his own ass on this one. Yeah, there was some great stuff in there but the guy has a lot of talent so that's to be expected. But again, as someone who is a huge fan of the source material, I wouldn't say the film's problem was anything to do with over-faithfulness. There's no doubt in my mind (and Zodiac pretty much proves it with its similarity) that Fincher would have turned in a masterpiece. And at least it wouldn't have starred Josh Hartnett.

[The Confidence Man]

@ lazarus: I'd venture to guess that De Palma's problem was less having his head up his own ass, than having it up Ellroy's or the producer's or the studio's ass. When BDP does work-for-hire, the results are at best spotty.

And, yes, a Fincher Black Dahlia would probably have been pretty great.

[Fuzzy Bastarrd]

I find Ellroy a solid, but frustratingly limited writer, and his historical books really clarified my problems with him: he's so cynical as to be kind of naive. In Ellroy's fiction, no one ever does anything out of conviction, it's all thugs looking for a payout. Which is a fun perspective to write from (and the books are flawlessly entertaining), but pretty screamingly implausible to anyone who's ever had the least contact with actual government, where true believers are thick on the ground. Much prefer Don DeLillo's Libra for a plausible-albeit-false take on the Kennedy assassination.

[bill]

"he's so cynical as to be kind of naive."

I don't disagree, and that's a good way of putting the worldview of his books, Fuzzy. But he's such a good writer that I can't bring myself to mind that much. My angle on this problem would be his treatment of law enforcement, which is the same as his treatment of politicians: they're all corrupt thugs, or ladder-climbers, and decency has to be beaten out of them. In real life, Ellroy makes no secret of his genuine admiration for cops, but in his fiction he's often doing something else, and if the book works, the book works.

But I agree, LIBRA is brilliant. I'm not the world's biggest DeLillo fan generally, but that book is fantastic. Ellroy thinks so to, for what it's worth.

[Earthworm Jim]

I think "American Tabloid" and "Libra" actually work well in tandem, since the latter focuses on Oswald, and Ellroy wisely leaves him out altogether. Plus they're really coming at it from different perspectives; DeLillo is interested in how the personal details of a life affect the sweep of history, and Ellroy's thesis is basically that dangerous sociopaths were the secret architects of 20th century America. Both perspectives are fascinating from where I sit, although I definitely prefer DeLillo in general. (And I'd certainly rather have lunch with him; I'd never want to go anywhere near Ellroy.)

[David N]

The only half-decent article in the latest issue of Empire is an Ellroy interview, in which he talks a little about the status of the HBO future of "American Tabloid" and "Cold Six Thousand" and discusses the DePalma "Black Dahlia" (he loved what he saw in dailies, basically, and says that the cuts destroyed Hartnett's performance). He also disses "Libra" as full of "arty-farty" writing before basically admitting that he stole the entire idea of the political novels from DeLillo.

I love Ellroy, have read everything, and my favourites are "The Big Nowhere" (which may be his darkest book, so full of pain is it) and "American Tabloid" (where he perfects his later staccato jazz style - funny that he accuses DeLillo of being arty-farty when the writing in "Cold Six Thousand" is so experimental and, yes, full of its own attempted poetry). "My Dark Places" is really a fantastic compliment to his fiction - it explains each of his thematic obsessions in turn.

Besides "Libra", DeLillo's massive, amazing "Underworld" also has quite a lot in common with late Ellroy.

[bill]

@David - Ellroy often goes out of his way to contradict himself and provoke people. He has said MANY times that LIBRA is so good that he knew he would never be able to match it:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982796,00.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-21/ellroys-favorite-crime-reads/

[otherbill]

To any and all who might be curious, Ellroy's latest - "Blood's a Rover"- ratchets back the the stylistic tics that made "Cold Six Thousand" a bit of an endurance test at times. It also becomes very much about broken men seeking the approbation of women who are stronger than they.

Two other Ellroy notes: I attended one of his book signings about five years ago. As he took my copy, I told him that I'd read the LA Quartet while working the worst job I've ever had for a law firm in Carlsbad NM (I still tell the story at parties). He reared back- "Oh god! You're a lawyer?!" I assured him I was not. My copy was returned with the inscription "To Bill- Fuck lawyers!- James Ellroy"

There's a documentary on Ellroy subtitled something like DEMON DOG OF CRIME FICTION. There's a great bit where he's on a hill overlooking downtown LA. He looks into the camera- "I didn't just want to write crime novels. I wanted to write big books about society. Like Balzac and Tolstoy and all of those other writers I... really never read."

[jbryant]

Michael: I think 1954's DRAGNET was the first film based on a TV series.

Siegel was the man. I'd kill to see BABY FACE NELSON. I guess CHARLEY VARRICK is my favorite. Would love to see THE LINEUP again, and indeed every film in this box. They're all good'uns.

[bill]

This is off topic, but Glenn, are you aware of this?

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/thedead.php

[John]

Very excited for this, as well as Murder by Contract. Ellroy on the DVD commentary of Crime Wave as well is a must listen.

[Glenn Kenny]

@ Bill: Yeah, I'm aware of the "Dead" screwup, but only via the same reports you are; I haven't seen it yet. The notion that only fly-by-night outfits can screw up a DVD has always been a naive myth, but this example would appear to take a very particular cake...

[Tom Russell]

"The notion that only fly-by-night outfits can screw up a DVD has always been a naive myth, but this example would appear to take a very particular cake..."

That is, indeed, the cake-taker.

Another example would be Magnolia's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN subtitling snafu. Hopefully, Lion's Gate will come clean about their mishap instead of claiming there's nothing wrong with it, as Magnolia did with their botched and insulting subtitles; any company that seems content on giving Soderbergh money to make movies is alright in my book, but Magnolia does seem content on doing everything else in their power to alienate people who care about movies (cf. the REDACTED controversy, or providing VOD releases that start in widescreen and then shift to pan-and-scan after the credits; seriously, is there anyone still left who thinks letterboxing gives you less of the picture?)

But I'm probably getting on my own hobby-horse here. To center things a bit more, and because it is, indeed, fun to Ask Glenn (or anyone, for that matter): what are some of the other notable DVD screw-ups?

[bill]

Even if Lion's Gate hadn't made this unforgivable error with the print they used, they should still be strung up for that horrific cover art. That sweet, sparkly picture of Angelica Huston under the title THE DEAD is almost hilarious. Almost.

Tom - If you and I are thinking of the same REDACTED controversy, I don't blame Magnolia for that one. At all.