Stormy Weather

Werth: Hey, Wise.

Wise: Hey, Werth. How come you have a five-day beard and your hair looks like a before picture from a Wen Hair Care infomercial? 

Werth: Because unfortunately due to the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, I still don't have electricty.

Wise: That stinks, Werth.



Werth: But still, there are those who lost much more than I have in the storm.

Wise: True, true. Our thoughts go out to all those who lost power, property and loved ones.

Werth: Of course every chance I get to go to a friend's house and charge up my laptop, I pop in a DVD and try a little Hollywood classic film escapism. And when I think of movies where hurricanes play an integral part, a rare gem immediately comes to mind. Samuel Goldwyn's production of the Gershwin classic Porgy and Bess (1959) was complicated from its very start. Many of the African American stars approached to appear in the film were initially hesitant because the characters of Catfish Row were viewed as stereotypes from a former time.

Sidney Poitier in particular downright refused to do the film because he felt that Porgy singing songs like "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" was the wrong image to portray during the Civil Rights Movement. But Hollywood legend has it that Goldwyn played hardball and Poitier decided to do the film lest Goldwyn decide not to use him in the much more progressive film The Defiant Ones (1958).

Wise: In Hollywood, you're only as good as your last compromise. 

Werth: Ultimately the production came together under the direction of Otto Preminger and the beloved/notorious musical was put to film with Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis, Jr. hunkering down as a hurricane blows into town. Normally, I'd give a lovingly detailed description of the film based on on a recent viewing—however, if the racial thorniness of Porgy and Bess was bad in 1959, it has become even more conflicted in the ensuing years—and unfortunately, Porgy and Bess has never been transferred to DVD.

Wise: Geena Davis makes it to DVD, but Gershwin doesn't?

Werth: The reported reason for the film to be kept in the vaults is conflicts with the Gershwin estate, but Poitier has been very vocal about his disgust for the project, recruiting tastemakers like Oprah to denounce the film. It's a shame because, racial issues aside, the film is an amazing record of some of the best African-American performers of the time giving life to a score that despite its "Black patois" is truly one of the greatest ever written.

And Oscar-nominated Leon Shamroy's color cinematography is vibrant and beautiful. When I saw the film at a special event at the Ziegfeld Theater several years ago, the future looked bleak for Porgy and Bess.

The last remaining prints are decaying and no one seems to want to devote the money to saving them. I think that's a shame. The conversation that Porgy and Bess generates is a unique perspective on racial issues of that time, and the film should not be erased because it is difficult. In fact, that is the very reason it should be saved.

Wise: While the gale-force winds have driven you back to re-examining neglected classics, I spent my storm watch deeply invested in dudes in frocks (Team Jujubee!) as well as another category five disaster: Twister (1989).  

Werth: Twister wasn't a total disaster area. There were some lovely close-ups on Cary Elwes and his lips. 

Wise: Actually, this is the other Twister based on the novel Oh! by Mary Robison. Kansas soda pop and mini golf millionaire Eugene Cleveland (Harry Dean Stanton) has been neglecting his kids while chasing his fortune as well as the sexy, but snappish host of a local Christian children's TV program.  His daughter Maureen (Suzy Amis) spends most of her time sipping beer from a can and ignoring her own daughter Violet, while his son Howdy (Crispin Clover) swans about the house in velvet jackets and a sleek bob, looking like the source material for Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka.  

Werth: Crispin Glover invented fey creepiness. 

Wise: Into this maelstrom of family dysfunction bursts Maureen's ex Chris (Dylan McDermott) who wants to marry Maureen and save both her and Violet from the insanity of their family.  Just as his efforts begin to look hopeless, a tornado touches down and the family flees into the basement where they are forced to confront their frustrations and each other.  

Werth: Kansas basements are great for frustrating confrontations.  

Wise: The film is something like an awkward family reunion with mismatched performances and oddball connections, lots of shouting, narrative doglegs, and even though things end up happily enough, no one is sure if attending was a good idea.  McDermott gives soulful intensity and energizes his scenes, but it's Glover who gives the most memorable—and bizarre—performance of the film.  (His guitar solo is not to be missed.)  


Werth:  Speaking of things not to be missed, everyone should tune in next week for a less stormy Film Gab.  

Wise: And hopefully Werth will look less like Tom Hanks in Castaway.  



No More Teacher’s Dirty Gab

Wise: What’s up, Werth?

Werth: Shhhh!  I’m studying.

Wise: Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s homepage?

Werth: While everyone else is gearing up for the Memorial Day Weekend, I’m studying for college finals. And they can’t happen soon enough.

Wise: Would talking about a school-themed classic film make the time go by faster for you?

Werth: You know me too well, Wise. One of my favorite school movies gives new meaning to the words “School House Rock”. When MGM’s Blackboard Jungle came out in 1955, much ado was made over its gritty depiction of a new teacher literally fighting to teach at an inner city boys’ school. The opening credits were underscored by the unthinkable—a rock-n-roll song.

Wise: Max Steiner must have been appalled.  

Werth: Bill Hailey and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” shot to number one, and legend has it that teenagers tore up movie theaters across the country. Director Richard Brooks uses the song as a rough, musical symbol of a young generation lashing out at a  society obsessed with conformity. He shot Blackboard in dark tones with low lighting and sparse studio sets, cleverly neglecting to mention which city it was set in to remind us this failing high school could be anywhere. There are no great cinematic flourishes here as Brooks went instead for raw, emotional intensity. The scenes of violence (including an attempted rape in a library) are remorseless, bloody and ugly. 

These no-good-niks aren’t your father’s Dead End Kids. Instigated by Artie Wilson (a truly menacing Vic Morrow), they are a lawless, arrogant, sadistic crew that make us question whether Richard Dadier’s (Glenn Ford) goal of teaching them is a misguided pipe dream.

Wise: Having pipe dreams about inner city youth seems like it might get you into trouble.  

Werth: Aside from the stylistic choices, this movie works because of the performances of its two stars—Ford and, in his first major role, Sidney Poitier. Through great films like Gilda (1946) and The Big Heat (1953), Ford had crafted a handsome, intelligent, masculine screen persona that seemed to flow naturally. Like Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck, Ford embodied simple traits and translated them to the big screen to serve the wide variety of films he made. In Blackboard Jungle he is optimistic and strong, not in a saccharine, “Aw shucks, we can do anything” way. He reminds us instead of a tough, flawed, but ultimately well-meaning father figure. And in his moments of doubt Ford really makes us wonder if he believes the convictions he’s been spouting. 

One student he focuses his “you too can learn” philosophy on is Gregory Miller, played by Poitier. Poitier’s electric charm and quick-fuse fury create a performance that portended the great actor this young man would become. He is sleek, angry and gives tantalizing hints of the grace and pride that would become hallmarks of his career.

Wise: Sort of like, Guess Who’s Coming to Detention?  

Werth: Blackboard Jungle may seem a little dated with it’s “Daddy-o’s” and use of the word “stinkin’” instead of another word that ends with a ‘k’, but the issues of social inequality, racism and impenetrable bureaucracy in our schools are as topical today as they were when juvenile delinquents threatened the ‘50’s American Way. And where else will you see an early walk-on from Richard Deacon (Mel Cooley from the Dick Van Dyke Show) and a very young Jamie Farr (Klinger of M.A.S.H fame) as a constantly-grinning hoodlum?

Wise: The hoodlums in The Trouble with Angels (1966) are of the more girlish variety. Angels is something of an anomaly in Hollywood: a slapstick comedy about the lives of teenage girls, written and directed by women and starring an almost all-female cast.  It’s certainly not overburdened by a heavy feminist message, but it does take its characters quite seriously and uses the daily lives of women as fodder for the hilarity that ensues.  Haley Mills, in an attempt to overcome the good-girl image of her Disney past, plays Mary Clancy, a rebellious teenager with a penchant for hijinks, sent to staid St. Francis Academy where she teams up with the morose Rachel Devery (June Harding), and together they run afoul of the Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell).  

Werth: Rosalind Russell—the smokiest Catholic baritone since Joan of Arc burned at the stake.

Wise: It’s also something of a departure for her.  Long after her run in classic screwball comedies and just past her outsize roles in Gypsy and Auntie Mame, Russell still gets to show off her comic chops, but she’s also doing something a bit more subtle.  Amid the pratfalls and double-takes, she exudes wisdom and gentleness and really makes the audience believe that she is a woman with a religious calling and not just a dame in a habit.  

Werth: It probably helped that Russell was a devout Catholic—or as biographers like to say, “deeply religious.”

Wise: That deep humanity runs through the entire film, largely thanks to the direction by Ida Lupino who began her career at Warner Bros. as their second-string Bette Davis and grew into the most prominent female director in 50’s and 60’s Hollywood.  She did a lot of TV (including several episodes of Gilligan’s Island) and B movies, and although a lot of that was genre work, she was consistently able to subvert the conventions of formula work and examine the inner lives of women within the confines of the Hollywood system. 

Werth: Subverting the dominant paradigm is a hoot!

Wise: The Trouble with Angels is one of the rare movies that makes me laugh just as much as an adult as it did when I was a kid.  The timing is so spot-on, but there’s an undercurrent of seriousness that grounds the comedy and makes it not just a picture about jokes, but one about wit. 

Werth: Jesse Tyler Ferguson is very witty.

Wise: What happened to studying for finals?

Werth: Jesse’s ginger-ness is very distracting.

 Wise: Tune in to next week’s Film Gab for more cinematic distractions!