When Disaster Gabs

Wise: Werth, where's your life jacket?  

Werth: With my yacht. 

Wise: It's the anniversary of both the launch of the Titanic and the Johnstown Flood which makes it highly probable that something disastrous is going to happen today.  

 

Werth: You can't avoid disaster, Wise.  But you can prepare yourself by indulging in some classic disaster flicks and gleaning some tips for making it out alive.  

 

Wise: San Francisco (1936) is one of the first great disaster flicks, setting the template for all the films that follow its lead.  The film opens on New Year's Eve 1904, and stars Clark Gable as Blackie Norton, a casino owner from the wrong side of town, and Spencer Tracy as his best friend Father Mullin who happens to be the local parish priest.  Blackie has no time for religion, but he is determined to spend his wealth trying to make things better for anyone down on his luck.  After a fire ravages a run-down boarding house, Blackie offers a job to displaced chanteuse Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) who has dreams of singing in the local opera house.  

Soon, the two fall in love, but Mary flees into the arms of Jack Holt (Jack Burley), the richest man in town, when she realizes that she'll lose good-girl image if she becomes Jackie's bride.  What she doesn't know is that her new beau made his fortune building shoddy tenements, leaving the city vulnerable to catastrophe. 

Werth: Never date a contractor.

Wise: When that catastrophe strikes in the form of the famous San Francisco earthquake of 1905, the city is thrown into chaos and only those with quick wits and good morals survive.  Gable plays a variation of his famous tough-guy persona, but he's also a man on a spiritual journey.  

Contemptuous of religion, the tragedy forces him to confront both despair and the threat of losing the two people he loves most.  Cast in the familiar role of the understanding clergyman, Tracy has less of an emotional arc, but his palpable chemistry with Gable makes them believable lifelong friends.  MacDonald was the biggest star of the three at the time of the film, and it's interesting to see how MGM's star diva stepped away from the operettas for which she was famous and into a grubby, frontier town.  

Werth: "As she stood in the ruins and sang. A-A-And saaannnggg!"

Wise: To be honest, for years I thought San Francisco was something of a joke, based mostly on the fun Judy Garland made of it when she sang the title song.  But it's actually quite moving, full of the spectacle and big emotions that have become characteristic of this type of film.  Nothing about it is subtle, but it's full of passion, of Clark Gable's snarls and tenderness, of Spencer Tracy's wry morality, and the peculiar—yet compelling—sight of Jeanette MacDonald stooping to a project she clearly felt beneath her, but still having a grand time.
  

Werth: San Francisco must be ground zero for cinematic disasters because Irwin Allen's hit epic, The Towering Inferno (1974), is also set there. Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) is ready to leave the rat race behind after designing a 138 story skyscraper for building guru Jim Duncan (William Holden.) 

But he soon uncovers some shady building practices that Duncan's son-in-law, the corner-cutting queen Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain in a rare unlikeable role) has been implementing to lower costs and pocket kickbacks, threatening the safety of the building. Unfortunately, while a red carpet opening event is in full swing on the top floor, an electrical box in a storage room that just happens to contain buckets of flammable material, a wall of Krylon spray-paint cans, and what looks like someone's discarded wedding dress bursts into flame and an evening of blazing terror in the world's tallest building begins.

Wise: Shelley Winters' swim team gold ain't gonna fix this mess. 

Werth: After striking box office gold with The Poseidon Adventure in 1972, Allen stuck to his hit-making blueprint and stocked Inferno with just about every star in Hollywood. Aside from Newman and Holden, there's Steve McQueen as tough-as-nails Fire Chief O'Hallorhan; Faye Dunaway as Roberts' over-sexed wife; Fred Astaire as a dapper, washed-up con man; 

Jennifer Jones as an art tutor with cheek implants that would make Madonna jealous; Robert Wagner as an executive who dips into the secretarial pool; and even O.J. Simpson as a take charge security officer who can't resist rescuing a kitten.

Wise: Making this scene the most ironic in Hollywood history. 

Werth: All of those stars certainly attract attention, but unfortunately, there are too many of them to allow much character development. Newman and McQueen mix up a welcome testosterone cocktail whenever they are together, but for the most part the fragmented stories don't allow for the cohesion that Allen achieved in Poseidon. Inferno is too complicated and too cynical to achieve the heartfelt catharsis of its predecessor, but that doesn't stop it from being a hoot. 

Like a cinematic flume ride, Inferno flies through its sometimes ridiculous plot providing the audience with the thrills it desires—mainly stars (and extras) screaming, falling and burning... in a couple cases all three at the same time. 

While it falls short of the heights achieved in Poseidon, Inferno earned eight Oscar noms, winning three—including one for best song, "We May Never Love Like This Again" which, if you think sounds familiar, it's because it was both written and sung by the same folks who brought you the Oscar-winning song from Poseidon, "The Morning After."

Wise: With all this talk of disaster, maybe we should check out this week's premiere of After Earth.

Werth: I'd rather sit through the San Francisco earthquake... on fire...

Wise: Check back next week for more earth-shaking Film Gab!

A Gab of Thousands

Werth: What's up, Wise?  

Wise: Ugh, I'm having a weird craving for smorgasbord.  Kind of like the place near my parents where busloads of seniors come to feast on a mile-long buffet of food.  And afterward maybe I could catch a showing of Movie 43 because sometimes the only thing that will satisfy is an overflowing serving of mixed delights. 

Werth: According to early reviews, you might not want to mix food and Movie 43. Might I suggest you curb your hunger pangs with our own festival of ensemble films?  

Wise: Will there be an all-you-can-eat sundae bar included?  

Werth: I'm afraid you'll have to bring your own frozen treat.

Wise: Well, I suppose I could do worse than Lucille Bremer's chilly mug in one of the greatest line-ups of MGM stars ever assembled: Ziegfeld Follies (1946).

Werth: Ann Miller lovingly dubbed Bremer, "Arthur Freed's whore." 

Wise: But she was at the apex of her professional life in Ziegfeld.  Paired with Fred Astaire in two elaborate musical numbers, she joined a cast that included some of the studio's best song and dance talent, including Gene Kelly, Astaire, Judy Garland, Cyd Charisse and Lena Horne.  

The film also included some of the studio's top comedy stars with the likes of Lucille Ball, Fanny Brice and Red Skelton dishing out the laughs.  William Powell reprises his role as the titular Broadway impresario from The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and envisions casting one of his legendary revues with the top stars of the day.  

Werth: A white-haired Powell replaced the original opening which included puppets doing blackface and a talking Leo the Lion.

Wise: Fred Astaire opens with "Here's to the Girls," a confection of song and dance that includes a carousel of live horses, the requisite Ziegfeld girls bedecked in frothy layers of pink tulle, and a ballet solo by Charisse.  Later, Ball emerges from the chorus and takes up a sequined whip to tame a pack of black-spangled dancers in puma costumes.  

Werth: It's nice to see they used a little restraint in the first number.

Wise: Producer Arthur Freed had spent years assembling a team of top talent at MGM, and his production unit had proven itself with hits like Babes on Broadway (1941) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); Follies capitalized on that success and predicted two decades of the most sophisticated and popular movie musicals ever made.  

And at the center of the Follies is a Judy Garland number titled "A Great Lady has an Interview" where she parodies a certain type of self-serious, Oscar-winning actress (think Greer Garson) who would much rather play a Betty Grable role.  The segment was directed by Vincent Minnelli, choreographed by Charles Walters, written by Kay Thompson, and epitomizes the kind of smart, yet exhilarating, movie entertainments that came from Freed's wildly talented collaborators on both sides of the camera.
  

Werth: Another film that seems to have just about everyone in Hollywood in it is Stanley Kramer's 1963 epic comedy, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. After a group of travelers survive a car smash-up on a Southern California highway, they witness the last words of crook Smiler Grogan (played with bucket-kickin' glee by Jimmy Durante), detailing the whereabouts of a stash of hot loot. 

Soon, it's every funny man and funny lady for themselves as they take cars, planes and even a little girl's bicycle to find the mysterious "big W" in Santa Rosita State Park.

Wise: I'm usually watching out for bears when I'm outdoors. 

Werth: Following these cash hounds is Captain T.G. Culpeper (Spencer Tracy), who is hoping to end his career on a high note by finding the stolen simoleans. Mad World is truly madcap with several storylines breaking off and coming back together, then breaking off again before the big finish (three hours after it began) at a Long Beach hotel that is about to be demolished. 

If it sounds exhausting, it is, but it is worth it to have fun with some of the great comedic talents of the era. Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Terry Thomas, Ethel Merman, Phil Sivers, Dick Shawn, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Peter Falk and that pint-sized ham Mickey Rooney trip, slap, insult and swindle their way across gorgeous Southern California. 

And if that's not enough talent for you, the cameos include everyone from Jack Benny to the Three Stooges, Buster Keaton, Zasu Pitts, Joe E. Brown and Wise favorite, Edward Everett Horton.

Wise: I cribbed all my best comedy bits from him and Laura Hope Crews. 

Werth: Mad World was a runaway smash and if it doesn't still hit all of its comedic marks today, it gives us some great nostalgia amongst the images of Mickey Rooney trying to fly a plane and Ethel slipping on a banana peel.

Wise: Speaking of bananas I'm ready to eat.

Werth: Strap on your feedbag and join us next week for another heaping helping of Film Gab!

Order in the Gab!

Wise: Hi there, Werth.  Why the glum face?

Werth: Oh, hello, Wise.  I've been doing jury duty all week and I'm bored, bored, bored.

Wise: Aren't you excited by fulfilling your civic duty?

Werth: I'd only be excited by my civic duty if it involved Christopher Meloni and the patented Dick Wolf sting.

 

Wise: Come on, Werth.  It's your chance to participate in the wheels of justice.  And, of course, it's the perfect opportunity to salute the pleasures of cinematic courtroom drama, like Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957).  Adapted from Agatha Christie's West End hit dramatization of her own short story, Witness stars Charles Laughton as Sir Wilfrid Robarts, a brilliant English barrister just returned from a months-long stay in the hospital after a heart attack.  

Famous for his unconventional tactics, Sir Wilfrid cannot resist—despite the strenuous objections of his nurse Miss Plimsoll (Laughton's real-life wife Elsa Lanchester)—when an intriguing case falls into his lap.

Werth: Thinking of Elsa and Charles together in flagrante makes me want to object.

Wise: Hapless veteran Leonard Vole (a very sweaty Tyrone Power) stands accused of murdering a rich spinster who had just made him the beneficiary of her will.  His only alibi in the face of mounting circumstantial evidence is the testimony of his frigid German wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich).  

Recognizing that Christine's chilly demeanor will only stymie his defense, Sir Wilfrid instead pokes holes in the prosecutor's theories and seems close to winning until Christine is called to testify against her husband.  At the last minute, a mysterious phone call leads to evidence securing Leonard's exoneration, but it also raises Sir Wilfred's suspicions, culminating in a series of shocking reversals that theater owners warned viewers not to reveal.

Werth: The only mysterious phone call in my jury session was some old lady's marimba ringtone.

Wise: Part of Christie's genius is her ability to indulge in stereotypes as well as subvert them: Sir Wilfrid is both a blustering fool and a canny defender; Christine is both heartless and undone by her emotions.  Wilder capitalizes on this by heightening both the drama and the campy-ness—even creating the role of the nurse to take advantage of Lanchester's chemistry with Laughton—making Witness probably the best film version of any Christie property.

Werth: Even better than Murder on the Orient Express?
 

Wise: Yes, because I think Witness really captures Christie's sense of humor.  Her books feature some brutal crimes, but they're leavened by a certain tongue in cheek quality that the plummier adaptations of her work miss.  For all its pleasures, Orient Express overindulges in nostalgia for 1930's Deco Britain, and misses the point (that Wilder so brilliantly captures) that Dame Agatha's idealized England is the conveyance for murderous hijinks and not the destination itself.
 

Werth: If you're in the mood for hijinks, no courtroom has more of them than the Tracy-Hepburn classic, Adam's Rib (1949). Adam (Tracy) and Amanda (Hepburn) are married lawyers who find themselves on the opposite sides of the table at an attempted murder trial. Adam wants to throw the book at ditzy, would-be murderess Doris Attinger (a sparkling Judy Holliday), but Amanda defends her, turning the trial into a crusade for women's equality.

Wise: I love when homicide transforms into urbane wit. 

Werth: Written by married screenscribes Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, Adam's Rib mines the seemingly endless gold that the Tracy-Hepburn screen-teaming produced.Tracy is gruff and charming as a somewhat old-fashioned man who loves and respects his wife—but believes that the law is the law. Hepburn is regal in her defense of womanhood, but at the same time a giddy woman in love with her man. 

The courtroom moves into the bedroom and vice versa as the two butt heads and soon these two legal eagle love birds are pecking each other's eyes out. The famous massage scene culminates with the heinie smack heard around the world.

Wise: The happy ending joke writes itself.

Werth: By the end we are less worried about who wins the case and more about how these two people who are made for each other will find their way back to a happy marriage. Tracy and Hepburn were so good at these battle of the sexes flicks because they gave their comedy a serious side. 

If he was just a sexist pig and she an overheated women's libber, these movies would never work. But these two actors were so skilled at working their love and respect for each other into their characters that Adam and Amanda feel more full and real—making us see both sides and wanting to find a way for both of them to be right. 

Director George Cukor also wisely enlisted the comic abilities of Holliday and fey-neighbor extraordinaire David Wayne to heighten the level of comedy in the picture without making Tracy and Hepburn shoulder all the humor. Many feel Adam's Rib is the best display of the Tracy and Hepburn magic, and this juror is happy to find in their favor.

Wise: So did your jury service end with you hooking up with Cher like Dennis Quaid did in Suspect (1987)?

Werth: Only the jury box knows for sure. Tune in next week for more legal shenanigans from Film Gab!

They Go Together

Werth: Allo, Wise!

Wise: Same to ya’, Werth!

Werth: Did you happen to see that The Landmark Lowe’s Jersey Theatre in Jersey City is showing three Bogey & Bacall movies Saturday and Sunday?

Wise: I did—right after you told me about it.

Werth: I love the Bogey & Bacall story. It’s so crammed full of Hollywood history and legend.

Wise: Unlike the Brangelina Saga.

Werth: Perhaps one day Hollywood couples like Brad & Angelina and Demi & Ashton will have a more epic feel to them, but until then, my favorite on-screen/off-screen romance is the Tracy & Hepburn coupling.

Wise: Good ol’ Spence and Kate.

Werth: Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn starred together for the first time in 1942’s Woman of the Year. Their on-screen chemistry translated off-screen and soon the two began a love affair. The film was a success so future pairings of these two well-matched, accomplished actors were plotted by MGM to the cha-ching of Cupid's cash register. There was only one problem in promoting this new cinematic couple—

Wise: —Spence was married—

Werth: —to a Catholic with a daughter and a deaf son no less. Stories vary as to why Tracy never left his wife for Hepburn: powerful Catholic guilt, career ruination, Hepburn wasn’t the marrying kind. But whatever the reason, Tracy never divorced his wife. That meant Tracy and Hepburn had to try to pretend that they weren’t involved, but it seems their affair was one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood.

Wise: How could anyone see their on-screen sparks and not wonder if Spence was putting his Boys Town in Kate’s Stage Door?

Werth: Exactly. And the studios didn’t want to separate them. Hepburn and Tracy were coupled romantically nine times in classics like State of the Union (1948), Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952). It all helped create the impression that Tracy and Hepburn were a match made in MGM heaven, so if they happened to hook-up off the lot, as long as there were no sordid divorce proceedings, who cared?  It was kind of the best of both worlds. Nobody had to admit to a scandalous affair and the audience could live vicariously through the silver screen romance that Tracy and Hepburn’s illicit affections generated. It was a win-win.

Wise: Like when the McDonald’s McRib sandwich is on the dollar menu?

Werth: Most accounts have Hepburn and Tracy’s relationship cooling in the 1950’s to a very deep friendship. But when you watch their final film together, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967), you get a sense of the love that these two clearly shared for one another. Tracy was gravely ill during the shooting and legend has it that Hepburn had to offer her salary as a guarantee to the producers that Tracy would actually finish the film. Hepburn and Tracy’s scenes in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner are beautiful not just for the subtlety that both actors had developed over time, but for the ability of film to capture the last moments of the unmistakable bond between the two. 

Tracy’s final monologue in the film is powerful, touching and tragic as you watch Hepburn watching him, knowing that this very important man in her cinematic and personal life was dying. Seventeen days after filming ended, while making a pot of tea in Hepburn’s kitchen, Spencer Tracy died. Hepburn did not attend the funeral and claimed never to have watched Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, because it was too painful for her. It was the last chapter of a great romance on film and in real life.

Wise: Wow. It sounds like you’re having a sweet love hangover from last week’s Valentine’s posting.

Werth: That or someone slipped a little estrogen into my vodka tonic.

Wise: I plead the fifth.  Anyway, while you’re busy feeling verklempt, I want to talk about another cinematic couple that has fascinated millions on screen and off.  

Werth: Liz Taylor and Richard Burton?  

Wise: Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.  

Werth: Did we just get picked up by PBS?

Wise: I know this sounds like a joke, but I’m actually serious.  Kermit was a major character among the Muppet players, starting on a local kids show in the DC area, rising to stardom on Sesame Street, and becoming part of the cultural firmament with the premiere of The Muppet Show in 1976.  Miss Piggy began as a minor character on that show, but her role expanded as her insatiable twin desires for big time stardom and romance with Kermit made her an audience favorite.  

Werth: That explains why her her face changed so drastically from the first season. Not that Piggy would admit to having plastic surgery.

Wise: By the time of The Muppet Movie, her star had risen to a level almost equal to that of Kermit and their burgeoning romance allowed for some of the more tender moments amid all the slapstick, jokes and absurdity.  Of course their scenes had all those comic elements as well—I’m thinking specifically of a scene where Steve Martin plays their dimwitted waiter during a romantic dinner—but the romance allowed the movie to tap into a certain kind of overblown Hollywood romance that was ripe for Muppet parody.  One of the movie posters even copied the the famous one-sheet from Gone With the Wind featuring Rhett clutching Scarlett over the burning ashes of Atlanta.  

Werth: Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a ham!  

Wise: Their screen chemistry reached its apotheosis, however, with The Great Muppet Caper.  Kermit, Fozzie the Bear and the Great Gonzo play three reporters hot on the trail of jewel thieves, only to mistake Miss Piggy for her fashion designer boss, Lady Holiday, played by Diana Rigg with witty and sexy aplomb.  The mistaken identities, snappy dialogue, and visual verve put this movie on par with some of the best screwball comedies of the 1930s, but what really makes it special are the amazing song and dance numbers performed by the Muppets.  

Kermit and Piggy share a dance duet in a swank London nightclub, a romantic bicycle ride together in a park, and, perhaps best of all, Miss Piggy stars in a water ballet while Kermit and Charles Grodin compete for her in song.  

Werth: Even at nine-years-old I knew Charles Grodin was a bad man.

Wise: The frog and the pig’s romance continues to this day, so hopefully when Jason Segel’s reboot of the Muppet franchise hits theaters later this year, we’ll get the chance to fall in love with them all over again.  

Werth: I think there’s one more sassily fun cinematic couple we should mention before we close.  

Wise: Statler & Waldorf?  

Werth: Haven’t you ever heard of self-promotion?  

Wise: Oh, right.  Check back next week for more pork from that witty and charming blogosphere twosome—Werth & Wise!”

Werth: Now I’m hungry for a McRib...