It's Miller Time!

Wise: Howdy, Werth.  Have a piece of cake!  

Werth: Is it already birthday time again at Film Gab?  No wonder I can't fit into my Z. Cavaricci jeans.

Wise: Quit your bellyaching and put on these tap shoes.  It's Ann Miller's birthday.  

Werth: Why didn't you say so in the first place?  Make it a big piece of cake and I'll break out my dancing fan.  

Wise: Just be sure to leave some room for soup.  

Werth: All that's missing from that number is a giant saltine.

Wise: Miller's career really took off in the late 40's when she landed at MGM.  Her tough girl style and gorgeous gams injected a jolt of electricity into the sumptuous musicals produced by Arthur Freed, but few films take as full advantage of her talents as On the Town (1949).  The film follows three sailors on shore leave—Gene Kelly as Gabey, Frank Sinatra as Chip, and Jules Munshin as Ozzie—as they sing, dance and find sweethearts while exploring New York City.  

Miller plays Claire, an anthropologist with a penchant for prehistoric man, who eventually falls for Ozzie, while Chips falls for Hildy (Betty Garrett) and Gabey falls for the elusive Miss Turnstiles, Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen).  This was the first movie that Gene Kelly co-directed with Stanley Donen, and his signature, muscular style of dancing infuses the film with the kind of aggressive exuberance that was so much a part of his persona.  

Werth: You say aggressive exuberance, I say unrelenting ham.

Wise: At Kelly's insistence, a fair amount of the film was shot on location in New York—most notably the American Museum of Natural History, Rockefeller Center, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge—instead of recreating those landmarks in the studio, and, surprisingly, the juxtaposition of the real and the manufactured works incredibly well.  

Cinematographer Harold Rossen makes the city look like a picture postcard, transforming the streets and avenues into a fantasy landscape that blends seamlessly with the Hollywood sets.  


Werth: The one downside of shooting on location was the crowd of screaming fans that showed-up wherever Sinatra appeared.

Wise: The screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green is full of zest and wit while highlighting each member of the leading sextet.  Sinatra shares a duet with Betty Garrett that manages to be both funny and touching, and Kelly leads Vera-Ellen in one of the dream ballets that were rapidly becoming part of his movie signature.  

But it's Ann Miller who steals scene after scene, not just with her top notch dancing skills, but with the incredible force of her personality as it bursts from the screen.

Werth: Before Miller was known for tap-dancing her way through scenery, she appeared in 1938's Best Picture Oscar-winner, You Can't Take It with You. Based on the Pulitzer prize-winning George S. Kaufman play of the same name, You Can't stars Jean Arthur as Alice Sycamore, a secretary who has a yen for her young boss, Tony Kirby (a pre-Mr. Smith James Stewart.) Their romance is running hot and heavy until Tony tries to introduce his upper-crust mother and father to Alice's bohemian family.

Wise: This is beginning to sound like the plot to a Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell flick.

Werth: Besides the fact that the Sycamore clan is a bunch of artistic, anarchist goofballs led by the folksy Grandpa Vanderhof (a usually seated Lionel Barrymore), their home is the last holdout on the block that Tony's dad (Edward Arnold) is attempting to buy out before demolishing it to make way for his new munitions plant. 

This makes for an uncomfortable dinner, made even more uncomfortable by sister Essie's (Miller) clumsy attempts at ballet in the living room. According to her teacher, Kolenkhov, "Confidentially, it steenks."

Wise: I'm sure Ann Miller mostly smelled of Jean Naté and shoe polish.

Werth: Social stratum collide in a courtroom and love has to find a way to overcome the gap between the haves and the have-nots all while Essie twirls and falls on the carpet. The little man versus corporate greed story was one that director Frank Capra made his stock in trade. 

He'd already won two Oscars for Best Director (It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and the Academy would add another one to his mantle for You Can't. Capra had a knack for kooky characters, like the denizens of the Sycamore home, and created supportive, tough communities on screen that resembled his ideal of America.  

You Can't isn't as compelling as Mr. Deeds, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), or It's a Wonderful Life (1946), partly because it feels preachy in a way that those other films don't. But it's still a great example of the successful post-Depression/pre-WWII films that gave cinematic voice to the political struggle going on in America, all while audiences munched away on their popcorn.

Wise: And on that note, I think I'll try to hunt down a video of Ann Miller with Mickey Rooney in Sugar Babies.

Werth: You're welcome. Tune-in next week for more fancy footwork here at Film Gab. 

 

 
 

Film Gab Birthday Duo!

Wise: Werth, I see you have two cakes prepared again. Is it another double birthday or are you binging?

Werth: I'm binging on birthdays because today is the birthday of not one, but two great character actors, Eileen Heckart and Arthur O'Connell.

Wise: They not only shared a birthday but they also shared the Broadway stage in the premiere of William Inge's Picnic in 1953 and the silver screen in 1956's Bus Stop.

Werth: Eileen was the younger of the two Oscar-nominated actors, greeting the world as Anna Eileen Herbet in Columbus, OH. Eileen graduated from Ohio State and while her husband was away at war, she moved to NYC to pursue a stage career. She would go on to become a Tony-nominated fixture on the Great White Way and found her way into the fledgling television biz performing stage properites on classic shows like The Ford Theatre Hour and Lux Video Theatre. Her road to Hollywood was a little rougher, as her looks didn't easily translate to the screen. But in 1956 she was in four—count 'em four—films and earned her first Oscar nomination for the camp classic, The Bad Seed. 

One of those films was also a big starting vehicle for a then fairly unknown actor named Paul Newman. Somebody Up There Likes Me is the film adaptation of boxer Rocky Graziano's autobiography and follows the young Rocky from boyhood no-goodnik, to adult no-goodnik, to boxing champion.

Wise: But not up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, I assume.
 

Werth: Filmed by director Robert Wise in black-and-white, the film maintains a gritty, noir-ish look at poverty-stricken New York and Brooklyn and at the shady world of prize-fighting. Newman is a wonder to behold, his classic good looks busted into broken noses and swollen eyes care of makeup artist William Tuttle. 

But Newman proves he's not just a man to drool over. He gives Rocky a torn characterization that gives him more humanity than a simple punching bag. Newman's Rocky is dumb and lazy but resourceful and driven, a callous thug and a tender father. The NY accent hinders Newman's innate naturalness on screen, but his role in Somebody clearly shows a star was born.

Wise: That and his boxing trunks.
 

Werth: And only six years Newman's senior, Heckart plays Rocky's mother, Ma Barbella, a guilt-ridden mother who only wants the best for her son—even when he doesn't deserve it. Heckart was wonderful at playing flawed survivors. 

As Ma, she lives with the guilt of knowing that her husband's abusive, downward spiral into the shit-heel we see is all because she begged him to stop boxing, killing his dream at the expense of her desire not to see his mug get beat-up all the time. Wrapped in a shawl watching Rocky get the crap knocked out of him on television, Ma has to re-face the consequences of the sweet science. 

Wise:I bet Newman's agent was doing the same thing. 

Werth: While the fight scenes are not as realistic as a post-Rocky and Raging Bull audience might be used to, the black-and-white photography of the fight scenes brings the ring into stark-reality, the audience encircling it thrown into darkness as they watch two men punching their way to what they hope will be a better life. Cinematopgrapher Joseph Ruttenberg earned an Oscar for his work on the film.  

Heckart would join the Oscar Winner's Circle in 1972 when she won for the role she created on stage in Butterflies Are Free, before going on to a busy career in television playing everything from Mary's aunt on the Mary Tyler Moore Show to playing Ellen's Grandma on Ellen. 

Wise: Arthur O'Connell had a similarly varied career, making his big break as a reporter in the final moments of Citizen Kane (1941) before earning an Oscar nom for Picnic (1955), sharing screen time with James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder (1956), and playing a friendly pharmacist in a series of ads for Crest.  This versatility came in handy when he joined the cast of Frank Capra's Pocket Full of Miracles (1961) in a small but pivotal role.  

The film, a remake of Capra's own Lady for a Day (1933), features a deep bench of some of Hollywood's great character actors.  

Werth: And Ann-Margret playing Ann-Margret.

Wise: The film stars Glenn Ford as Dave the Dude, a superstitious gangster on the make who refuses to seal a deal without first buying a rosy-cheeked fruit from Apple Annie (a bedraggled Bette Davis).  

When he discovers that Annie has a secret daughter whom she's been supporting in a Spanish boarding school and who now wants to finally meet her mother, Dave and his girlfriend Queenie (Hope Lange) clean Annie up, install her in a swank apartment, and assemble a cast of underground toughs to pose as her society friends.  

Werth: There should be a reality show based on this.

Wise: O'Connell plays Count Alfonso Romero, the potential father-in-law to Annie's daughter, and the role calls for a very nuanced take—stern enough to put the ruse at risk, but tender enough to make audiences root for the romance to succeed—and O'Connell succeeds brilliantly.  Davis has a lot of fun in the first half of the film playing a drunk guttersnipe with a heart of gold, and later, after she's had a makeover and the script calls for little more than smiling beatifically, she still radiates the passion of a mother who would do anything for her child. 

Peter Falk has a few great lines (and received a Best Supporting Actor nomination) as Dave's sidekick Joy Boy.  But it's veteran scene-stealer and Film Gab favorite Edward Everett Horton who seems to 
be having the best time onscreen, making sly nods to the audience while taking full advantage of all the plum bits that Capra and his screenwriters were feeding him.  

Even amidst this wealth of talent, O'Connell shines, bringing dignity and humor to a role that anchors the madcap shenanigans around him.

Werth: So, Wise, are you ready to dig into this cake?  

 Wise: I'll take two pieces.  One for now and one for next week's Film Gab.

 

It's a Wonderful Gab!

Werth: Hello, Wise.  

Wise: Hello, Werth. What cinematic-themed gab awaits us today?

Werth: Well, Wise. If I read my Film Gab Hollywood Birthday Calendar correctly, today would have been the 115th birthday of one of the most memorable directors of classic Hollywood: Frank Capra!  

Wise: Good ol' Capra. No filmmaker became more associated with Americana than Capra with his folksy approach to American society in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

Werth: But what was so great about Sicily-born Capra is that he was equally capable of making flat-out comedies like It Happened One Night (1934)—and one of my favorites, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).  

Wise: Arsenic and Old Lace. Sounds like our future codenames in the Shady Queens Rest Home.

Werth: Arsenic and Old Lace, based on the hit Broadway play of the same name, was filmed in the middle of a spate of WWII documentaries that Capra shot for the war effort—so its giddy, yet dark treatment of the Brewster Family must have been a refreshing escape from the horrors of the real world for Capra. 

The film opens on Halloween night as author and drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) gathers up his newlywed bride Elaine (Priscilla Lane) for some honeymoon action.

Wise: Doubles tennis with George Cukor and Edward Everett Horton?

Werth: Luckily for Mortimer, Elaine is the next-door-neighbor to his two spinster Aunts Abby and Martha (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair), so he can say goodbye to them before the happy couple catches a train for Niagara Falls. The only problem is that Mortimer's day begins to unravel as he discovers his sweet, kindly old aunts have been hiding something from him.

Wise: Compromising photos of Randolph Scott?

Werth: Abby and Martha feel so badly for lonely old men with no friends or family that they put notices in the paper for boarders and when these older men come to take the room, these angelic spinsters poison them so the men can stop being so miserable and alone. The most recent victim, Mr. Hoskins, is hanging out in the window seat when Mortimer accidentally finds him.

Wise: Those great old architectural details make a home so inviting—and so convenient for homicide.

Werth: The comic plot spirals wildly from there with Mortimer's loony brother Teddy (John Alexander) shouting "Charge!" everytime he runs up the stairs because he thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt; Mortimer's other brother Jonathan, who has just finished a world-wide killing spree with his plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein (played with unsubtle creepiness by the droopy-eyed Peter Lorre), wanting to use the 

"Panama Canal" in the basement to get rid of his own pesky dead body, and a dopey beat cop (Jack Carson) trying to tell Mortimer his new play idea—all this while Elaine dithers between heady romance and annulment papers.

 Wise: Familial insanity would be enough for me to re-think a marriage.

Werth: At times the insanity is a bit much. Grant makes more bug-eyed faces and does more double-takes than any film of his I can recall and by the end there's a plethora of character types coming in and out of the plot at a dizzying pace. But it's all good fun, with the two murderous aunts coming off as the normal people in this farce. Capra's gift was a directorial light touch that could even make serial murder something to laugh at.

Wise: Here Comes the Groom (1951) stars Bing Crosby as Pete Garvey, an ace reporter assigned to post-war Paris where he files heartbreaking stories about war orphans in the hopes of getting them adopted by well-to-do Americans.  His work is interrupted when his fiancée Emmadel (Jane Wyman) reminds him that he promised to marry her three years ago.  Packing up and setting off for home, he can't help but bring along the two most adorable orphans in the hope that he and Emmadel can adopt them.  Arriving in Boston, he's stunned to discover that Emmadel is planning to marry her high-toned boss Wilbur Stanley (a good-natured Franchot Tone in the Ralph Bellamy role).  

Knowing that his orphans will be sent back to Paris if he doesn't succeed, Pete hatches a scheme to make Emmadel realize she still loves him, as well as helping Wilbur to discover the charms of his dowdy cousin Winifred (Alexis Smith).

 Werth: Because the only thing more adorable than Parisian street urchins is incest.

Wise: With Bing Crosby being the star, it's no surprise when he launches into song.  It's a bit of a shock, however, when Jane Wyman does too.  The film isn't exactly a musical—most of the songs involve Bing leaning against a piano—but there are two production numbers: "Misto Cristofo Columbo" is a spontaneous jam aboard the flight back to the U.S. with cameos from Louis Armstrong and Dorothy Lamour; 

and the Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael tune "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" that begins as something Peter hums with Emmadel in her office and erupts into a full song and dance number amid the filing cabinets and continues on the elevator and into the street.  Wyman spent much of her career playing ice princesses melted by love, but she began as a chorus girl, and seeing her hoof it on the silver screen is a welcome surprise.

 Werth: I guess after you win an Oscar for playing a deaf-mute rape victim, you want to dance with some filing cabinets for a change of pace.

Wise: Crosby is the real mystery in this film.  Capra often unleashed the desperation in his male stars—think of Jimmy Stewart's attempted suicide in It's a Wonderful Life—but Crosby's unflappably romantic persona (honed on the radio and in the "Road" pictures with Bob Hope) prevents the tension from ever escalating and making the happy ending feel a bit flat.  And unlike 

Wyman, who gamely indulges in the pratfalls intrinsic to screwball comedy, Crosby remains aloof.  Still, his charisma is undeniable and when the final credits roll, the audience is happy he's won Jane Wyman back.

Werth: Well after a post full of serial killers and war orphans, I'm ready to lighten up a little.

Wise: I've got some great pics of Randolph Scott, Arsenic.

Werth: Bring 'em on, Old Lace!  

Dear Mr. Gab-le...

Wise: Happy Friday, Werth!

Werth: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!

Wise: Someone's still on a Clark Gable high after seeing The Misfits last Sunday.

Werth: All Hail the King!

Wise: Even at nearly twice his co-star's age, Gable still exudes a magnetic sex-appeal that makes him a formidable match to Monroe's golden goddess routine.

Werth: Gable always had a way with the ladies. To quote his co-star and on-and-off lover Joan Crawford, Gable had "balls." Gable's matinee idol looks and masculine performances were so recognizable and influential that it's hard to imagine old Hollywood without him. One of his early films, 1932's Red Dust contains the cinematic recipe for Gable's long and successful career, and coincidentally is being shown at Film Forum August 5th. After being paired a year earlier with Greta Garbo (Susan Lenox: Her Rise and Fall) and Crawford (Possessed), MGM cast Gable with one of their biggest female stars, Jean Harlow. The combination of these two irresistible smart-asses was electric. In Red Dust Gable plays Dennis Carson, the owner of a rubber plantation in the armpit of Indochina.

Wise: It's certainly no Tara. 

Werth: When Vantine (Harlow), a platinum-blond, wise-cracking floozy on the run, winds up on his front step, Gable does what any red-blooded rubber plantation owner would do—

Wise: Rubber?  He hardly knows her. 

Werth: But their budding romance is interrupted by the arrival of a new manager (Gene Raymond) and his wife (the masterful Mary Astor.) 

Astor's icy prim and proper act is like cheese to Gable's rat, so when a conveniently-timed monsoon soaks them both, Gable can't help but take a big, wet bite. Soon he is busy juggling these two personifications of the Madonna-Whore Complex, a jealous husband, and a failing rubber crop.

Wise: That's a lot of balls in the air. 

Werth: Directed by the also man-ly Victor Fleming, Red Dust crackles with adventure, sex and wit. Gable cemented the screen persona that would stay with him most of his career- the lovable cad who can tromp through the jungle one minute and make sweet love to a woman the next. And Harlow is Gable's perfect foil, unable to resist him at the same time she's telling him to get lost. 

Her famous pre-Code water barrel scene gave the Catholic League conniption fits and is as fresh and flirty today as it was in 1932. For those who enjoy their Asian stereotypes turned up to 11, don't miss Willie Fung as the houseboy you wish you could understand.

Wise: Asian houseboys aside, part of what makes Gable so entertaining to watch is the humor he uses to leaven his rugged persona, and nowhere is his wit on better display than in It Happened One Night (1934).  Directed by Frank Capra, the film helped to set the pattern for the screwball comedies that would come to define the era.  Spoiled socialite Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) is kidnapped by her father (Walter Connolly) in an attempt to prevent her from marrying a fortune-hunting playboy.  

Werth: Similar to what's keeping me apart from Prince Harry.  

Wise: Escaping from her father's yacht, she is discovered by Peter Warne (Gable), a recently fired reporter who forces her to choose between giving him the exclusive story on her rebellion or contacting her father and collecting the reward.  

Reluctantly, Ellie agrees to the former and the two set off cross-country to deliver her back to her shiftless sweetheart in New York.  After a series of misadventures (including bus rides, doughnut dunking, haystack sleeping and a very famous scene where Ellie uses her gams to hitch a ride with Alan Hale), the two fall in love only to be separated by a misunderstanding at the last minute.  

Werth: Again, just like me and Harry.

Wise: Luckily this is Hollywood and they're reunited before the final fadeout.  It Happened One Night was the first movie to win all five top awards at the Oscars, and was the only picture to have done so until it was joined by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Silence of the Lambs.  It is also one of the most beloved films of old Hollywood with the requisite legends (Gable's fast-talking scene with a carrot inspired Bugs Bunny)—

Werth: Not to mention the cinema legend that the sight of a shirtless Gable made the sales of men's undershirts plummet.

Wise: —and homages (in everything from Grey's Anatomy to Spaceballs).   

Werth: It's great to see Gable appreciated by new generations of moviegoers.  

Wise: Those moviegoers should check in next week and appreciate another edition of Film Gab.

Werth: Now that's something I can give a damn about.