Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

Review #2549: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Cast: 

Jane Russell (Dorothy Shaw), Marilyn Monroe (Lorelei Lee), Charles Coburn (Sir Francis "Piggy" Beekman), Elliott Reid (Ernie Malone), Tommy Noonan (Gus Esmond Jr), George Winslow (Henry Spofford III), Marcel Dalio (the magistrate), Taylor Holmes (Mr. Esmond Sr), Norma Varden (Lady Beekman), and Howard Wendell (Watson) Directed by Howard Hawks (#951 - The Big Sleep, #1352 - His Girl Friday, #1399 - Rio Bravo, #1687 - O. Henry's Full House, #1773 - Red River, #2060 - Bringing Up Baby)

Review: 

Sure, Howard Hawks made a musical. Apparently, Hawks had one more film he owed to 20th Century Fox, so it fell to this. The film is based on the 1949 Broadway musical of the same name (with the book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, lyrics by Leo Robin, and music by Jule Styne), which in turn was based on the hit 1925 novel (originally serialized as sketches in Harper's Bazaar) that had been written by Anita Loos about, well, a blonde gold-digger and a flapper. Sure, the film was not going to retain the original Broadway duo of Carol Channing and Yvonne Adair as the two stars, because Fox wanted Betty Grable and Ginger Rogers, but what they saw from Niagara (1953) with Monroe led to them going with her. Hawks stated he did none of the production numbers on purpose, which were staged by Jack Cole, once called the "the Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance"; he ultimately worked with Monroe on several films all the way to his last with Let's Make Love [1960]. In his book Hawks on Hawks, he described Monroe as "the most frightened little girl who had no confidence in her ability", with filming basically relying on the patience of Hawks and Russell, although he said he did have fun on the film. In 1955, United Artists released Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (as based on, what else, an Anita Loos novel) that had Russell in a different role paired with Jeanne Crain that had Cole involved but with Richard Sale as director, which did not end up as a major success.

This is one of those movies that I find myself waffling over how good it is, mainly because my patience for musicals is not nearly as great as I wish it was (I think when I was younger I never really got off the high of Singin' in the Rain). With this movie, it rides well on the shenanigans from a fairly game duo of leading women that make worthwhile friends from the jump that is far more curious than, say, seeing where the actual ending goes. It zips along with a few musical numbers of varying quality (mostly good, but I think we know which one is the most discussed) that has some glamour (along with mostly authentic singing* from the actual stars) for 91 minutes. To be honest, for me, Russell is the more interesting of the two leads when it comes to timing*, because she is quite funny without having to strain at actually having fun with the people around her or the good friendship with Monroe, because they exchange the type of pleasantries and hijinks that is alluringly curious. Monroe is just as fun, a real go-getter with the natural ability to just exude bubbly charm without being swallowed up in ditzy generalizations, which helps when considering the ditzy qualities that actually around with the prominent men in the film (Reid, Coburn, Noonan, although at least Holmes is supposed to be stuffy and Winslow, well, he's a kid). Basically, both Russell and Monroe glide through the film as if they were laughing the whole way through. Hell, they both get to do renditions of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" (Russell in a wig for a delightfully funny scene near the end and, well, you know the sequence with Monroe in a pink dress), what's not to like? The diamonds may be somebody's best friend, but it's the dynamic between the two in that authentic sense of self that makes it all go together far more than wondering what the fuss about tiaras are about. As a whole, it's basically a movie that freewheels on the charm of Russell and Monroe with a few fine songs and some sparkly glamour to basically ride to the finish line with excitement for those who buy into its charms.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day (obvious choice)!

*Yes, the last musical I saw in theaters was Cats (2019), why do you ask?

*Varied claims say that Gloria Wood and Marni Nixon provided a bit of help with "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"

La Grande Illusion.

Review #2017: La Grande Illusion.

Cast: 

Jean Gabin (Lieutenant Maréchal), Marcel Dalio (Lieutenant Rosenthal), Pierre Fresnay (Captain de Boëldieu), Erich von Stroheim (Captain (later Major) von Rauffenstein), Dita Parlo (Elsa), Julien Carette (Cartier), Gaston Modot (Engineer), and Georges Péclet (Officer) Directed by Jean Renoir (#1234 - The River)

Review: 

"[La Grande Illusion] is a story about human relationships and I am confident that such a question is so important today that if we don't solve it, we will just have to say 'goodbye' to our beautiful world.”

You know, the label of "auteur" apparently went out first to directors such as Jean Renoir. That is the theory that a director had such a control of their filmmaking in personal style that one could identify a film as made by them alone when it comes to talking about cinema. So yes, folks like Renoir or Hitchcock (depending on what critic is talking about, of course, since it was François Truffaut who called Renoir one of the "la politique des auteurs"). Renoir served in the French cavalry prior to the start of World War I. He took a gunshot to the leg and grew interested in cinema when recovering before eventually serving as a reconnaissance pilot. His father (Pierre-Auguste, a famed Impressionist painter who raised an actor son in Pierre, and a ceramic artist in Claude) suggested he should go into ceramics, but Renoir took inspiration from Erich von Stroheim and became a filmmaker in 1924. The film takes its title from the 1909 book The Great Illusion, as written by Norman Angell that said theorized that a European war wouldn't occur because of the economic cost of war being so great. The film was written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak; it is a French film that due to its interesting circumstances of character setup sees a mix of French, German, and English spoken all throughout the film.

As a film of brotherhood, it was quite popular in its day (despite trouble in finding a producer for years), owing to Renoir's goal of apparently doing a true picture of the men doing the fighting that had been done (in his eyes) by only All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Franklin D. Roosevelt called it a film for "everyone who believes in Democracy". Renoir finished the decade with La Marseillaise (1938), La Bête Humaine (1938), and The Rules of the Game (1939); the latter was eventually referred to as one of his best films. Fierce bonds between prisoners clearly must have irked Nazi Germany, since the country not only banned the film (with a label of it being "Cinematographic Enemy Number One") but also found time to destroy most (not all) of the prints of the film. Given that the film was made right in the middle of two World Wars, it probably says more about the nature of people than anything, as if it isn't enough to have "class ailments" to go with wars that treat all folks the same in terms of who goes first or not. There may be time for POWs to go in drag and sing "La Marseillaise", but there isn't time for sentiment in war or time to wonder just what the place will be for a "Boëldieu" in a post-war society or if one is snuffed out before that can happen. In that sense, for an anti-war film that shows the plight of one trying to eke out with some sort of humanity remaining that basically says "damn the classes, let's get the hell out of this war".

Gabin has been called one of France's key stars in cinema, and he appeared in a wide range of films of varying directors beyond a handful of collaborations with Renoir. He has an understated charm that seems effortless when it comes to making a pursuit of escape at all costs, and the repertoire with Dalio (playing a rich but generous prisoner, with his Jewish heritage being noted) makes them a worthy pair to follow in solid timing (most tragically, Dalio would later see members of his family perish in concentration camps at the hands of the Germans, who used his face as a "typical Jew" on posters). The film is neither dour nor mired in sentimentality, finding a balance with its seamless sense of cinematography and humane spirit to make a mostly effective pacifist feature. Even the moments spent with Parlo (near the climax, which apparently came to Renoir late in production) make for a fruitful time in saying what needs to be said in the true measure of war from the only key person not playing a soldier. Evidently, von Stroheim and Renoir had an eventful time when it came to making the film together, but the former later said, "I have never found a more sympathetic, understanding and artistic director and friend than Jean Renoir." With certain suggestions made by von Stroheim (such as certain parts of dialogue) mixed in with Renoir's collaborative directing, it makes for a quality performance that doesn't seem constricted with the ratio of screentime to presence. Him and Fresnay represent the last of a potential dying breed when it comes to "needed names in society", and they play it straight to the bone in high-measured honesty, which makes their last scene together all the more poignant. The final sequence (the one after a would-be romance is essentially put on pause) is one best left to looking for oneself to imagine where it could go from there, pragmatic or not. As a whole, you can't go wrong picking this film when looking upon messages about people or war as is the case here, and it is easy to see why this endures as one of Renoir's most distinct films.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Pillow Talk.

Review #1401: Pillow Talk.

Cast: 
Rock Hudson (Brad Allen), Doris Day (Jan Morrow), Tony Randall (Jonathan Forbes), Thelma Ritter (Alma), Nick Adams (Tony Walters), Karen Norris (Miss Dickenson), Julia Meade (Marie), Allen Jenkins (Harry), Marcel Dalio (Mr. Pierot), Lee Patrick (Mrs. Walters), Mary McCarty (Nurse Resnick), and Alex Gerry (Dr. Maxwell) Directed by Michael Gordon.

Review: 
"Comedy is the most serious tragedy in the world. Play it that way and you can't go wrong. If you ever think of yourself as funny, you haven't got a chance."

Sometimes the best way to talk about a film is to just say it is nice and leave it that. This is a decent comedy for its time, a fair highlight for its stars and director to take pride in. Michael Gordon went from being a student of the Yale Drama School and member of the Group Theatre to working in films and stage, where he would go from crafting low-budget b-movies in the early 1940s to noirs and dramas by the end of the decade, with Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) serving as a highlight. His career was interrupted the following year due to blacklisting; he would do stage productions for the next eight years until successes in that field led to Universal-International wanting to bring him back into directing with this film, which would be the first in a string of eight comedies he would do for the rest of his career, which ended with How Do I Love Thee? (1970). As for Day and Hudson, both were established stars in their own right, with the former having success in musicals, comedies, and thrillers that went with a prolific singing career and the latter was a leading man for adventures and melodramas since the early 1950s. The two would collaborate on two further films together over the next five years, and they became lifelong friends.

For the time, this surely proved a fun daring time for enjoyment. The film was written by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin that was based on a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, who had done the script in the 1940s that was bought and sold numerous times without being produced (each would receive an Academy Award for their work in the category of Best Original Screenplay, beating out noted films such as The 400 Blows and North by Northwest). This was a time where even the title of the film had to go through wrangling with the Production Code before giving in (imagine if it had gone with the alternate choice of Any Way the Wind Blows). Party lines are (mostly) a thing of the past now, but they were quite prevalent for most of the 20th century as a way to provide service for cities both rural and urban through a shared local loop circuit. At any rate, there certainly is enough room for some clever moments with Day and Hudson with this scenario, particularly with the use of split-screens in certain sequences that make for some humor and passion. They click together in ways that seem instant, natural at inspiring curiosity and charm in their respective manners with class in romance, with Day being quite passionate and Hudson being subtle in charming humor. Randall (who would appear with Day and Hudson twice more) does well as a fussy foil while Ritter rounds out the cast with deadpan stupor. While one will know what they are in for pretty early in its 104 minute run-time, the film maintains itself with careful vigor that doesn't lead to impatience or a lack of meaningful interest in where the film wants to go to drive some laughs and passion, doing a relatively fine job in making appealing entertainment that has kept most of its luster through six decades of time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.