Brand New Gab

Werth: Happy New Year, Wise!   

Wise: Happy New Year, Werth!  

Werth: The New Year is all about new beginnings, and some of the best movies are about characters who start new lives as new people.  





Wise: Are we talking about identity theft?  Because my parents are obsessed with that.
 

Werth: Not exactly, although theft and identity are part of my "new beginnings" classic, 1969's Midnight Cowboy. John Schlesinger's controversial film starts off with a shot of a mostly deserted Texas drive-in with the prairie and the sky stretching off into the distance. It's the perfect image for Joe Buck's (Jon Voight) Hollywood-style fantasy of moving out of his one-horse town to New York City to become a successful gigolo.

Wise: It must have been a much more glamorous career path before the advent of Craig's List. 

Werth: Dressed in his fringe jacket, green shirt and black cowboy hat and boots, Joe Buck packs up his cowhide suitcase with western shirts and a picture of Paul Newman from the movie Hud and rides a Greyhound to New York City only to find his new beginning as a "stud" is fraught with wake-up calls. 

After being swindled by a blousy penthouse-frau (don't-ask-me-why Academy Award-nominated Sylvia Miles), Joe meets skanky cripple Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (a post-Graduate Dustin Hoffman) and these two outsiders forge an uncomfortable, yet touching bond.  

They hatch scheme after scheme, exhausting themselves and the chances around them, until they have no other choice but to leave New York City for good. Sadly, as Nilsson croons "Everybody's Talkin'", we know that the movie-inspired dreams of these luckless scavengers are doomed whether they are in a condemned apartment building in Manhattan or on the sunny beaches of Florida.

Wise: At least the fresh orange juice will keep scurvy at bay. 

Werth: Many film-folk like to point to Easy Rider (1969) as the movie that ushered in a new era for Hollywood, but I think a better case can be made for Midnight Cowboy dragging Tinseltown into the '70's. 

Even with an initial X-Rating due to the nudity, sex, drag queens, drug use and a gay blowjob courtesy of a young Bob Balaban, Midnight Cowboy earned seven Academy Award noms and won three—including Best Picture and Best Director. 

It was the first time that the Old Guard handed its highest accolade to such edgy, raw material. Schelsinger's use of montage editing was fresh and impactful in visualizing the crossroads of daydreams, nightmares, and real life—and helped define a cinematic style, making Midnight Cowboy a new beginning for Hollywood film.

Wise: In Now, Voyager (1942), Bette Davis plays Charlotte Vale, a dowdy Boston spinster suffering under her dictatorial mother (Gladys Cooper who made a career of playing judgmental society matrons).  A kind psychiatrist, Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) admits her to his sanitarium where Charlotte transforms into a self-possessed woman; fearing relapse if she returns to her mother's house, Charlotte instead embarks on a cruise to South America where she meets a handsome (and married) stranger Jeremiah Duvaux Durrance (Paul Henreid).  

An accident during a sightseeing excursion, separates them from the ship and while stranded, they fall in love.  

Werth: Stuck together in a cabin after their Portugese taxi driver nearly takes them off a mountain cliff is reason enough for anyone to fall in love.
 

Wise: Unwilling to break up her lover's marriage, Charlotte returns to Boston heartbroken, but full of a strength she never knew she had.  She takes control of her relationship with her mother and gets engaged to a handsome widower from one of the most prominent Boston Brahmin families, but when a fierce argument with her mother results in her mother's sudden death, Charlotte returns to the sanitarium where she attempts to forge a new life for the second time.  

Werth: The scene of Charlotte sassing her mother to death is one of my all-time favorites.

Wise: Davis, who had always struggled against the confines of the studio system, found new independence in Now, Voyager both onscreen and off.  Because producer Hal B. Wallace developed the film as an independent production within Warner Bros., Davis was able to exert her influence on costumes, casting, and even her director Irving Rapper who found the collaboration both rewarding and exhausting.  

But it's onscreen that Davis makes her biggest transformation, not just within the film by trading dowdy foulard dresses for sleek Orry-Kelly designs, but by putting aside the snarling independence of her earlier roles and taking on a new fortitude grounded in moral certainty.  It's shocking to see Davis this tender, yet just as ferocious as she had ever been.  

Werth: And even more shocking to see her with those eyebrows.

Wise: Tune in to next week's Film Gab when we pluck out more classic films!

 

Two Gabba Gabba

Werth: Happy Film Gab-iversary, Wise!  Our little celluloid-loving blog has just turned two!

Wise: Happy Gab-iversary to you too, Werth.  It's hard to believe that another year has passed, full of thrills, chills, and the eternal cage match between Joan and Bette.  

Werth: Joan would never put herself in a cage.  

Wise: And what better way to kick off a celebration of ourselves, except by revisiting some of our most popular posts from the past year, including one celebrating the birthday of one of Hollywood's biggest stars: Kirk Douglas.  There's nothing better than sharing some cake with a guy who looks great in a loincloth and whose talent is even bigger than the cleft in his chin.  


Werth: But we're not all about lantern jaws here at Film Gab because sometimes we get a hankering for the softer side of things, like dudes in dresses.  

Wise: Or the stranger side, like when we discussed Hollywood's oddball auteur David Lynch.  

Werth: Fun Film Gab fact: Kyle MacLachlan's tuckus is almost as popular among Film Gab readers as Julian Sands' rump.   

Wise: Talk about a celebrity cage match! 

Werth: One of the biggest defeats at the box office this year was Disney's John Carter, a sci-fi flop overstuffed with Martians, mayhem, and Taylor Kitsch attempting to act through his abs.  We had much better luck with our voyages with time and space traveling hunks.  

Wise: Of course we're not adverse to disasters, especially when it gives us a chance to revisit a modern classic like Titanic and plunge into shipboard romances of various stripes.

Werth: Maybe they would have had better luck forming a ragtag band of misfits determined to fight injustice instead of getting caught up in the pitfalls of romance.  

Wise: Some of the most enduring Tinsel Town romances are between celebrities and their political party, much like a certain tap-dancing tot or particular tough guy with brains and a penchant for fast-talking showgirls.  

Werth: We here at Film Gab have a penchant for great actresses, especially those with long and varied careers who aren't afraid to get a little pig's blood on their hands.  

Wise: So, Werth, are there any entries from the past year that you wish had attracted more readers?  

Werth: Well I'm still mourning the loss of gap-toothed classic Ernest Borgnine. A 61-year career in Hollywood deserves props... even with films like Bunny O'Hare on his resume. What about you, Wise?  

Wise: I'd have to say that our salute to Hollywood's funny ladies is one of my favorites.  It's just too bad that a giggly blonde never got a chance to share the big screen with a legendary fast-talking brunette.  

Werth: I know one silver screen pair that's destined for more laughs.

Wise: Join us for another rollicking year of leading ladies, Hollywood toughs, big budget bonanzas, gut busting comedies—

Werth: —And the finer side of Julian Sands.  

   

 

Drag Gab

Wise: Hiya, Werth.

Werth: Hello, Wise.  I assume you've been ogling over the Oscar noms this week.

Wise: I was pleased to see that my fellow alum Glenn Close scored a sixth nom for her work in Albert Nobbs.  Her chances at taking home the gold seem pretty good.  Even The Huffington Post was excited enough to publish a piece about other women who have taken on trouser roles. 

Werth: I love Glenn Close, but there's no way she'll be taking home the statuette this year. It's all about the Meryl... or the Viola... or the Michelle. 

But speaking of cross-dressing roles that earned Oscar noms, the king/queen of drag films has to be 1982's Tootise. With ten nominations and one win, Tootsie stars Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey, a frustrated, struggling character actor who knows how to play a part, but doesn't know how to be himself. He really creates an identity crisis when he decides to prove to his agent he is castable by auditioning for a part in soap opera Southwest General... as a woman.

Wise: Is that how Katherine Heigl booked Grey's Anatomy? 

Werth: Dorsey gets the part, but finds that playing the role of hospital administrator Emily Kimberly is nothing compared to playing the role of his drag-ego Dorothy Michaels. What starts off as a satire of the acting world turns into a heartfelt romantic comedy with lots of love angles. 

Dorsey falls in love with castmate Julie (Jessica Lange) whose father Les (Charles Durning) falls in love with Dorothy, who has to make sure that Sandy (Teri Garr), who is in love with Michael doesn't find out that Michael is Dorothy while Dorothy avoids the advances of soap-star John Van Horn (George Gaynes).

Wise: I got whiplash just from reading that.

Werth: While Hoffman is not necessarily known for his comedy, what he instinctively understands is character. Dorothy's lilting, no nonsense Southern voice is the perfect core for the strong-willed, semi-dowdy Dorothy. Hoffman's make-up and costume aren't flashy, and his physicality isn't campy. Hoffman doesn't pretend to be a woman, he becomes one. 

Dorothy's reveal scene where she/he sheds the character live on the set of Southwest General is one of the most memorable moments on film, not just for the situation, but for how brilliantly Hoffman navigates between two seemingly real people.

Wise: If only he'd coached the Wayans Brothers before they made White Chicks. 

Werth: Tootsie's script by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal is airtight and full of the kind of lines comic actors kill for—and boy is the cast full of killers. Bill Murray is hysterical as Michael's morose playwright roommate Jeff (it is said that he improvised his lines). Garr is a riot as the perkily neurotic Sandy. 

Lange earned an Oscar for playing Julie as a jaded-but-vulnerable soap-stress. Durning, Gaynes, Dabney Coleman, Geena Davis, and Doris Belack show how good character acting can elevate even the smallest of roles. 

And Sydney Pollack not only seamlessly directed this awesome cast, but put in a stellar performance himself as beleaugured agent George Fields who believes, "A tomato doesn't have logic!"



Wise: Although this tomato had a penis.

Werth: And with fantastic NYC location shots and an 80's soundtrack with enough saxophone to choke Kenny G, Tootsie is one of those must-see classics that will have you laughing your wig off.

Wise: Wig-wearing is beside the point in the gleefully absurd Girls Will Be Girls (2003).  Starring drag queens Evie Harris (Jack Potnick), Miss Coco Peru (Clinton Leupp) and Varla Jean Merman (Jeffery Roberson), the film never acknowledges that these are men in drag.

Werth: I won't even acknowledge that this is a real film.

Wise: All three characters existed long before the movie was made, and that process of honing these personalities through performance—Evie as the drunk has-been; Coco as the girl with big dreams and bad luck; Varla as the small-town girl determined to make it—lends each of them a certain verisimilitude.  I mean, no one is going to mistake any of them for some Disney Channel 'tween queen—

Werth: Although Venessa Hudgens has been looking a little burly lately.  

Wise: The plot is nonsense—the script cribs from all manner of classic Hollywood camp—but writer/director Richard Day (who cut his teeth producing for Ellen, The Drew Carey Show and Arrested Development) keeps the jokes and dramatic twists at a cheerful clip, never letting the action get bogged down.  

Werth: It's like an evening at Lucky Cheng's—without the two drink minimum.

Wise: It's certainly not a great movie, but it does have a cheerful panache that stems, I think, from the actors' refusal to wink knowingly at the audience.  And while I have trouble believing that genuine camp can be created rather than found, these ladies exert themselves manfully in maintaining the illusion that they're just as real as any Hollywood star.  

Werth: Well, at least as real as any star in Wigstock: the Movie (1995).   

Wise: Just as long as you keep it real and meet us back here next week for more Film Gab.  

Young Werth practicing for his future Film Gab.