Werth: Good, Eefning.
Wise: Nice Hitchcock impersonation, Werth.
Werth: Thank you.
Wise: Especially the double-chin.
Werth: I'm not wearing a double—yes, thank you. I'm wearing this clearly fake double-chin in honor of BAM's The Hitchcock 9, starting tomorrow.
Wise. They will be showing nine restored Hitchcock silent films giving Hitch aficionados the chance to see some of the master's earliest work.
Werth: We've covered many Hitchcock films over the last couple of years, but one Hitchcock film I've always wanted to gab about is his 1963 feather-fest, The Birds.
Wise: I hope you weren't too chicken to do it before.
Werth: The Birds is a genuinely terrifying film that shows what would happen if Nature turned against her human oppressors and pecked out mankind's eyes.
But I don't think that's what The Birds is really about. The more I watch the film, the more I notice how the environmental angle comes up quite late in the film, and that a good part of the film is focusing on something else—sex.
Wise: Sounds like we need a double feature of The Birds and Killer Bees.
Werth: The entire first part of the film has nothing to do with crazed seagulls. Melanie Daniels (introducing Tippi Hedren) is a blonde, debutante phony. After pretending to be a salesgirl in a bird shop to flirt with g-gorgeous Mitch Brenner (60's heartthrob Rod Taylor), Daniels decides to pursue this virtual stranger to his seaside country home to give his daughter a couple of lovebirds.
As Daniels drives her expensive sportscar into the rustic town of Bodega Bay the townspeople gaze at her with distrust. This stranger isn't just a fur-clad city-girl in the country. She is a woman doing the unthinkable: she is chasing the man. Daniels' sexual aggressiveness is as garish as the two lovebirds in her car and Hitchcock slyly shoots the first part of the film to accentuate how unwelcome Daniels is. After sneaking into his house and dropping off the birds, causing Brenner to chase her, Daniels grins like a cat, sensing she has snagged her romantic prey.
It is at this moment that the first bird dives at her head, drawing blood. From this moment on Daniels is not only being attacked by Bodega Bay's birdlife, but also Brenner's stuffy mother (Jessica Tandy) and the citizenry who tell her she is "evil."
Wise:It doesn't pay to cross Miss Daisy.
Werth: But film analysis aside, Hitchcock is in top thriller form in The Birds. He uses his signature camera tricks of characters in the foreground, hallways that create a forced perspective, and an ingenious bird's eye view of the destruction of Bodega Bay care of Oscar-nommed special effects director Ub Iwerks.
He takes great delight in making the audience aware of the dangers that the film's characters are not aware of. You just want to shout at Tippi, "Get off that bench and run before those crows mess up your impeccable hair!!!"
And the sound design by Remmi Gassmann is eerie, achieving all its impact without a single note of orchestration. While it's never mentioned with the same gravitas as Vertigo or Psycho, The Birds is memorable because Hitchcock was exploring so much more than screaming kids being attacked by some peck-happy fowl.
Wise: Rope (1948) is another Hitchcock project where sex is the subtext. Inspired by thrill killers Leopold and Loeb, the film begins with the murder of golden boy David Kentley (Dick Hogan) by his former classmates Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) who are out to prove that their intellectual superiority allows them to commit the perfect crime. Before disposing of the body—and to add a grisly embellishment—they plan a party with the dead man's parents and fiancée as well as with their former prep school housemaster Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart).
Brandon has always idolized Rupert who taught the boys about Nietzsche's theories, and by committing the murder, Brandon hopes to intellectually surpass his mentor. The scheme only falls apart as Phillip gradually loses his nerve.
Werth: It's hard to sit on a trunk containing a corpse and not sweat a little.
Wise: The action unspools in real time, and Hitchcock used long takes carefully edited together to simulate a single continuous take, the camera moving among the actors and the set in a complicated ballet that allows the tension to build to an almost unbearable extreme. These extended shots also allow the actors space to explore their character's body language, moving in and out of the frame while still being present in the scene.
Rope was also Hitchcock's first color film, and he uses his palette carefully, confining himself mostly to muted grays in the beginning as Brandon and Phillip attempt to convince each other of their rationality, but descends into lurid neon flashes as the horror of their act comes to light.
Werth: I love how Stewart toys with his old students. It's almost as if he knows from the moment he walks into the room that there's something in that hope chest...
Wise: Although the focus of the film is on a single murder, it films much closer to a movie about a lovers' quarrel.
Brandon and Phillip stand uncomfortably close to one another and speak in a post-coital whisper, particularly in the moments just after they have committed the murder and dissect their feelings (Brandon is exhilarated while Phillip suffers from regret). Even the practicalities of their daily lives are peculiarly intertwined; Brandon treats Phillip as a sensitive genius, managing his career as a pianist and carefully tending to his emotional outbursts.
The thorn in their relationship comes with the arrival of Rupert who not only teases out the crime but also inspired it with his lofty talk of philosophy. Brandon has obviously harbored a long-standing fascination with his former housemaster that festered into the kind of one-upmanship usually reserved for past lovers. But it's this fascination twisted into obsession that finally unravels the crime.
Werth: So, Wise, with all this gabbing about color Hitchcock films, I hope our devoted readers check out some of his black and white fare.
Wise: And neither killer birds nor murderous aesthetes will keep them away from next week's Film Gab.
Werth: How do, Wise?
Wise: I do well, Werth. I see you're baking another cake. Who's the lucky star? Rod Taylor?
Werth: While it is the dashing Aussie actor's 83rd birthday, today also marks the 80th Anniversary of the first movie shown at what was once New York's most famous movie theater, Radio City Music Hall. It's hard to believe what with all the concerts and Cirque de Soleil antics that currently go into Radio City, that until 1979 you could actually watch movies at the opulent landmark.
Wise: Did the Rockettes sell jujubes between showings of Burt Reynolds flicks?
Werth: The first film shown was The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck and it was an auspicious start to 1933 for the budding actress. In July of the same year, Stanwyck starred in what would become one of her most notorious classics, Baby Face. Stanwyck plays Lily, a girl from the mining town side of Erie, PA, who works in her father's rundown speakeasy slinging drinks and dodging come-ons from the sometimes shirtless clientele.
After her father tries to pimp her out for police protection and is karmically blown-up by his own still, Lily hikes up her garters and heads to New York City to use her feminine charms to get everything she never had.
Wise: You mean a gay best friend and Louis Vuitton bag?
Werth: A very clever cinematic device is used to show how Lily climbs the corporate ladder man by man (including a young, un-western John Wayne) until she is using her sexy gaze to woo the president of the bank and living high on the hog. But like the stock market crash that haunted the era, Lily's success doesn't last and she is forced to face the consequences of using love to manipulate people.
Stanwyck's ability to play hard-edged dames that were eminently likable made her the perfect actress for Lily. Stanwyck played Lily's sexuality like a cat, aggressive when she sees something she wants, but reluctant once she is finished to do anything other than curl up in a ball and lap at her milkbowl. It's the kind of multi-layered performance that she became legendary for, with explosive outbursts of anger and tenderness that exposed the human side to this hard-edged tramp.
But in case you thought Stanwyck was all smart-mouth and come hither glances, Orry-Kelly's posterior-hugging gowns also remind us that Stanwyck was a beautiful woman. In one particular scene she is given the Garbo-look, with swept back hair and penciled eyebrows that show this spunky gal from Brooklyn was one of Hollywood's great lookers as well as one its best actresses.
Wise: I know a few Brooklyn gals who could use a little Orry-Kelly in their lives.
Werth: Baby Face became a lightening rod for controversy due to its explicit display of immoral character and was altered after its initial release to include strange German moralizing from a cobbler (Alphonse Ethier) and a new ending. Once the Production Code began being enforced by Joseph I. Breen and Company in 1934, the likes of Baby Face would not be seen again in American film until the dismantling of the Hays Code in the mid-1960's.
Wise: 1933 also saw the premiere of Paramount's all-star film extravaganza of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. An amalgam of both Alice books, the film was adapted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and was based in part on the successful stage version of the Carroll's classic by Eva LaGallienne and Florida Friebus. In our contemporary world where fantasy has become box office bread and butter, it's strange to see the filmmakers struggling to bring Great Britain's classic fairy tale to the screen.
Werth: Looking at some of the stock photos, I'm actually terrified of these characters.
Wise: The film scrupulously tries to recreate Sir John Tenniel's famous illustrations through clever use of sets, make-up and costumes, and lifts dialogue wholesale from Carroll's text, but despite this fidelity to the source material, the film lacks the sourball pleasure of the original.
The all-star cast—including W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Gary Cooper as the White Knight, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen and May Robeson as the Queen of Hearts—works hard to capture the book's absurdity, but are hampered by Norman McLeod's static direction and utter lack of pace. Part of the problem also lies with Charlotte Henry's Alice: she looks the part, but is completely unable to summon the occasional prickly impatience of Carroll's heroine.
Werth: I'm often described as prickily impatient.
Wise: There have been many claims over the years that the film's failure at the box office was caused by audiences unable to recognize their favorite stars under the heavy character make-up, but it seems to me that the real problem wasn't so much Wally Westmore's cleverly designed prosthetics as it was the entire production's effort to be laboriously faithful to the books without injecting the kind of madcap zip that Depression era films were capturing so well.
There are plenty of moments just aching to leap off the screen—particularly Fields' cantankerous turn and the always genius Edward Everett Horton's Mad Hatter—but just never make it. It was a film carefully studied by the powers at MGM as they began production on The Wizard of Oz,
and it's probably no coincidence that the latter movie eschewed Baum's turn of the century setting and plainspoken dialogue in favor of contemporary Kansas and the zing of Tin Pan Alley swing.
Werth: It's nice to see how you always bring it back to Judy.
Wise: As long as we both bring it back for next week's Film Gab.
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.
Werth: Howdy, Wise.
Wise: Howdy, Werth.
Werth: Are you ready?
Wise: Ready? For an early spring at the farm market and an eagerly awaited pea and radish salad?
Werth: No, for the much-hyped birth of Disney's new sci-fi franchise, John Carter?
Wise: It's hard to tell from the cacophonous ad campaign, but John Carter is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic sci-fi novel from 1917, A Princess of Mars, which has been cited by writers as diverse as Ray Bradbury and Junot Díaz as inspiration for their careers.
Werth: One of my favorite sci-fi franchises also started with a book. In 1963 author Pierre Boulle wrote a science fiction novel called, La planete des singes and in 1968, Hollywood released the movie version au anglais, Planet of the Apes.
Wise: Visions of a dystopian future just sound so much more alluring in French.
Werth: Planet of the Apes begins with a trio of astronauts led by George Taylor (an eternally biblical Charlton Heston) who awaken to find themselves crash-landed on an alien planet in the year 3978. But they are not alone. They quickly find themselves part of a pack of primitive, loincloth-covered humans being hunted by gun-toting apes on horseback.
Wise: I wonder if Heston's support of the Second Amendment extended to primates.
Werth: Probably not, because Taylor is shot in the throat and faints as he hears an ape tell his companions to "Smile," before their picture is snapped in front of their daily catch.
Taylor awakens again in a medical facility where he is the object of human study by chimp scientists Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zera (Kim Hunter). Nicknaming him "Bright Eyes" the primate probers soon learn they have a very unique find and Taylor quickly takes advantage of them so he can make his escape—only to discover a shocking truth about this "alien" world.
Wise: I'd give a spoiler alert, but who doesn't already know about the ending?
Werth: From the oft-quoted "filthy apes" line to the cultural touchstone ending, Planet of the Apes is the perfect example of how good sci-fi transcends simple popcorn entertainment. Through unorthodox use of storytelling, classic sci-fi's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) can communicate socially relevant themes not through overt soap-boxing, but by having it seep into our cultural consciousness under the guise of alien invaders or simian fascists.
Beneath the driving, tribal Jerry Goldsmith score and the amazing, Special Oscar-winning makeup of John Chambers is a clever depiction of the race issue in America and the inhumanity of nuclear proliferation. Spawning four sequels, a television series, an animated series, a Tim Burton re-make and a recent successful prequel, Planet of the Apes also proved that sci-fi was big business—long before Luke Skywalker looked out over the horizon of Tatooine.
Wise: The Time Machine (1960) is another classic sci-fi film that portrays future worlds while cleverly commenting on the present. Based on H.G. Wells' 1895 novella, it stars ruggedly handsome Rod Taylor as H. George Wells—
Werth: Rod's one man I'd like to squeeze into a time machine with...
Wise: —a ruggedly handsome Victorian inventor who attempts to convince his friends that he has been to the future—and survived.
Werth: I sometimes wonder how I survive when I'm in a horseless carriage with some chirpy girl on her cellphone.
Wise: Of course his friends are skeptical, and he launches into his tale, describing pending wars, natural catastrophes and women's hemlines reaching above the knee. These disasters buffet him far into the future, until finally he descends into the normal timeline in the year 802,701. He discovers that the world has become a paradise, filled with riotous flowers, bounteous fruits, and the Eloi, a race of gorgeous, golden humans with not much going on upstairs.
Werth: Add a drive-in movie theater and it sounds like heaven to me.
Wise: The only wrench in this prospective paradise is that the Eloi are occasionally harvested for dinner by the Morlocks, a subterranean breed of monstrous humanoids.
Werth: Subterranean humanoids spoil everything.
Wise: Of course, Taylor leaps into action, battles the Morlocks, rouses the Eloi from their stupor, and falls for the planet's prime sex kitten (Yvette Mimieux), only to be forced back to his present day where his dubious friends are waiting. Only the loyal Filby (a brogue-ing Alan Young rehearsing for his future career as Scrooge McDuck), believes him, and in frustration, Taylor decides to abandon his stultifying gentleman's life and goes back to the future for adventure.
Werth: I go Back to the Future for Crispin Glover.
Wise: Director George Pal did have plans for a sequel, but that never came to fruition. Instead, there have been multiple re-makes for both television and theaters, documentaries, fan fictions, and the entire steampunk movement. Still, the best way to enjoy this classic is with repeated viewings, returning again and again to Pal's charming (and Oscar-winning) stop motion special effects, Taylor's lantern-jawed sensitivity, and especially Russell Garcia's romantic, yet restrained, score.
Werth: Wow, Wise, we make the future sound so classic.
Wise: The only future I'm anticipating is next week's Film Gab.
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