The Hench-Backs of Notre Gab

Werth: Hi,Wise!

Wise: Hi, Werth! Are you enjoying your Fourth of July vacation?

Werth: I sure am. I even found the time to squeeze in a movie between all the burgers, potato salad, and vodka-spiked lemonade.

Wise: I hope you left room for cake.

Werth: The movie was chosen by my pre-teen niece and nephew so I had to watch Despicable Me 2. While I normally avoid the kiddie set, I did find the little green multi-character Minions to be charming enough to make it worth sitting in a theater full of pint-sized film critics.

Wise: Henchmen have often been the highlight of Hollywood films. From the tough guy goons in 1930's Warner Bros. gangster pics to the colorful and sinister assassins who are out to destroy James Bond to the Crazy 88s of Tarantino's Kill Bill 1 & 2, these dastardly adjutants bring humor and horror to their attempts to take out the hero.  But no henchman is as terrifying (and weirdly compelling) as the assassin Chigurh (Javier Bardeem) in Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of the Carmac McCarthy novel No Country for Old Men ( 2007).  

A killer hired by an unnamed drug kingpin (Stephen Root) to recover $2 million from a deal gone wrong, Bardem brings the most terrifying dead eyes to the screen since Jaws.  

Werth: We're going to need a bigger pick-up truck.

Wise: Chigurh soon discovers that Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a West Texas welder and Vietnam vet, has absconded with the cash and sets off in deadly pursuit.  

Moss barely manages to stay one step ahead of the killer, narrowly escaping a gunfight in a hotel room before trying to arrange a rendezvous with his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) who tries to save his life by making a deal with the crooked, yet noble Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones).  

The final confrontation is between Chigurh and Carla Jean whose terror and anguish have made her almost as soulless as her would-be killer, and thus makes her a worthy opponent.  

Werth: I find their showdown a little anti-climactic, but then it's not really the Coen Brothers' fault. The McCarthy book ending is equally deflating.

Wise: Saddled with a bizarre haircut and only a few terse lines, Bardem fashions menace from the ridiculous which is something of a specialty of the Coens, although Bardem manages to elevate the black humor into horror.  Chigurh is nothing to laugh at, and yet the Coens deftly employ their crack comic timing in creating this monster.  

Clowns and killers may be at opposites sides of the spectrum, but they both deal in surprise, sudden reversals and gut-busting flash.  Bardem and the Coens take full advantage of this connection, and make Chigurh into one of the most deadly, yet compelling henchmen of all time.
 

Werth: If I had to pick my favorite movie henchman it would have to be Marty Feldman's Igor from the Mel Brooks classic, Young Frankenstein. With his strange, googly eyes, Feldman found his way into television and film with a wicked sense of humor and sly sexuality. In his short career he starred in his own television show (1968-69) and such films as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) and Silent Movie (1976).  

But it is as Dr. Frankenstein's (Gene Wilder) not-so-attentive henchmen that Feldman really makes his mark. Based on the script written by Wilder, Young Frankenstein is both an homage and a parody of the movie Frankenstein (1931) and all of its many sequels. 

The films opens on the young Dr. Frederick Frankenstein teaching a university class and  stumbling through a demonstration of nerve functions while also fielding questions about his infamous great-grandpapa.

Wise: Undergrads can be so nosy when they're not too busy getting drunk at frat parties. 

Werth: Frankenstein discovers that he has inherited his great-grandfather's estate and heads to Transylvania to see if he can figure out what his great paw-paw was up to. Igor greets him at the foggy train station in a strange hooded tunic and tights. Feldman cuts a disturbing figure, but he soon tosses out the old stereotype of the faithful, deformed servant by mocking his master, playing out vaudeville schtick and generally rolling his wild eyes at every opportunity, like Jimmy Durante with eyes a-bugging'. Feldman's ability to mock convention is perfect. 

His looks and his "What hump?" mentality poke fun at seriousness, making us question why Dr. Frankenstein (or anyone) could be so determined to do anything as monumental as creating life. 

Feldman is only one of a cast of characters who take their characters so seriously in a ridiculous way that the film feels less like a parody and more like a funnier realization of the source material. 

What Wilder and Brooks crafted was not just a deft homage, but a comedy that flaunts the hubris of the Frankenstein myth, bringing it down to earth with slapstick, Catskills-style reverie and an Irving Berlin tune.

Wise: Maybe a tap dance routine could have rescued a certain masked man at the box office. 

Werth: Wilder is ecstatic as the manic Dr. Frankenstein, Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher needs only a pursed look to cause peals of laughter (and horse neighs), Kenneth Mars flings his arm around the set with reckless abandon as Inspector Kemp, Peter Boyle as The Monster is a scream, and 

Madeline Kahn as Frederick's anal fiance Elizabeth is nothing short of inspired. Her scene with Feldman where they first meet is an expert improvisation and watching the take where Kahn loses it is worth a look in the DVD's extras. 

Wise: So, Werth, are the idylls of Kansas tempting you to make a break from the isle of Manhattan? 

Werth: Boundless vistas, hot tubs, and firepits are tempting diversions. But I promise to make it back to New York for next week's Film Gab.

  

There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays!

Werth: Happy Holidays, Wise!

Wise: Happy Holidays, Werth-- Wait, is it the Holiday Season already?  

Werth: I’m afraid so. 

Wise: How did that happen?  I barely made it through Thanksgiving and suddenly I’m expected to be buying gifts, sending cards, decorating trees, baking cookies, pretending to be jolly, and avoiding the crowds of tourists on the streets of Manhattan?  A fellow can only do so much.  

Werth: You’ll manage.  You were born to buy, send, decorate, bake, pretend and avoid. What are your plans for the holidays?  

Wise: You know how I roll whenever the calendar turns festive—beards, buggies, and shoo-fly pie.  I’m off to see my folks in Amish Country.  How about you?

Werth: I’m headed to the Land of Ahs for a couple days packed with family and corn.  

Wise: Something you just said made me a little queasy.  

Werth: It’s actually the perfect lead-in to this week’s films.  Full of schmaltz, conflict, navel gazing, angst, uncomfortable humor, dashed hopes—

Wise: Christmas dinner at the Lohan household?  

Werth: Movies about adult children returning home.  

Wise: Actually, one of my all-time favorite movies explores this very subject.  It’s called Judy Berlin—

Werth: Becky Prague?

Wise: Judy Berlin is about David Gold, a 30-something man who returns home to Babylon, New York after trying to make a go of it as a screenwriter in Hollywood.  He runs into a high school classmate—

Werth: Gina Barcelona.  

Wise: Judy Berlin played by Edie Falco just as The Sopranos was making her a star.  Her performance is energetic, wistful, a little bit naive, vastly different from the role of mobster’s wife that made her famous.  She’s about to leave for L.A where she hopes to become an actress and she takes her chance meeting with David as a good omen, but David wants to warn her that things might not turn out as well as she hopes.  Meanwhile, Judy’s mother—

Werth: Debbie London.

Wise: —Sue Berlin is acting out her frustrations with loneliness and her daughter’s leaving by having a flirtation with David’s father—

Werth: Morey Amsterdam.  

Wise: Arthur Gold, who’s the principal at the school where she teaches.  And Arthur feels thwarted in his own marriage to—

Werth: Katie Gstaad.

Wise: Alice, played by the magnificent Madeline Kahn in her final film role.  I know it’s a cliche to describe the performances of certain actresses of a certain calibre as luminous, but Kahn is spectacular in this movie.  An unexpected eclipse plunges the town into darkness, but she wanders the streets, caroling nursery rhymes and emitting a radiance that forces the other characters to confront their deepest disappointments. 

Werth: Sounds like one of those movies where’s there’s a lot going on, even though nothing happens. 

Wise: Kind of, but the tremendous acting carries through the lack of incident.  In addition to Falco and Kahn, Barbara Barrie is great as Judy’s mother, and so is Bob Dishy as the principal.  Plus it’s photographed beautifully in black and white and makes suburban Long Island into a kind of alien landscape.  I really can’t say enough good things about this film.  

Werth: Peggy Lisbon?  

Wise: Are you done yet?  

Werth: Are you frustrated yet?

Wise: Totally.  

Werth: Speaking of frustrated people who go to visit their families, I think we should talk about the grand-daddy “going home” picture of them all, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Wise: Oh that’s a good one.

Werth: It’s such a goodie, it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s begin with the fact that Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman are so gorgeous that it’s difficult to peel your eyes from the screen. Sure there are lots of hot people in the movies, but these two come together and raise the beauty bar to an impossible level. Newman’s unmistakable ice-blue eyes and cocksure, yet approachable, charm. Taylor’s sensual curves and seductive, knowing glances. How do these two not screw each other senseless in every scene?

Wise: Isn’t that the point? Something has to be wrong if they’re not constantly knocking boots.

Werth: Exactly. So, director Richard Brooks cast the two most beautiful stars in Hollywood to play two people who, for reasons of “mendacity,” can’t connect. They come home for Big Daddy’s birthday and an evening of family, greed, lies and confessions.

Wise: Still sounds like the Lohans.

Werth: Now if Taylor and Newman were just pretty, I wouldn’t be as geeked about their performances, but their acting is fairly compelling too. Both were nominated for Oscars® that year but got beat out by David Niven for Separate Tables and Susan Hayward for one of my favorite scenery chewing extravaganzas, I Want to Live! Taylor sometimes overplays her “big” scenes, as is her usual want, but when you realize that she shot this film right after her husband Michael Todd was killed in a plane accident, you understand the perseverance and the dedication that have made this woman a living legend.

Wise: White Diamonds doesn’t sell itself.

Werth: And let’s not forget Burl Ives and one of my absolute favorite character actresses, Judith Anderson. Ives is so gruff he’s lovable and his scene in the basement crowded with a lifetime of mouldering European furnishings is touching in its portrayal of lost sons. And Anderson— no one could play the patrician like her. She’s equal parts stern, flighty, heartfelt and ridiculous. She brandishes a handkerchief and utters gems like, “It ain’t nothin’ but a spastic colon!” with a finesse that only Anderson could employ. These actors take Tennessee Williams’ monumental story about a complicated homecoming and own it, making it almost impossible to see anyone else playing these roles.

Wise: But let’s get to the real question: Brick—gay or straight?

Werth: It’s harder to tell in the movie version since some of the gay subtext was removed for the 1958 censors. But there’s definitely enough left to make this movie groundbreaking in its attempt to name the sin that dare not speak its name… and Skipper was totally a bottom.

Wise: So, if you had a choice of going to see the family from Judy Berlin, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or your own family this Christmas, which would you visit?

Werth: I would go see my family and watch Judy Berlin and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Wise: Good answer. You AND your families tune in next week for more Film Gab with Werth & Wise!