Fashion Makes the Gab

Wise: Howdy, Werth.  

Werth: Hello, Wise.  You look exhausted.  And what's with all the bags?  

Wise: It was Fashion Week here in New York last week, and I've been inspired to live with a greater sense of style.  So, I've been out shopping, trying to discover my very own je ne se quoi.  

Werth: And what have you found?  

Wise: That fashion is probably best left to the professionals and the teenage gazelles that inspire them.  Still, it's nice to look good, and when I can't afford the latest from Lanvin, I like to return to one of the style icons of the Silver Screen: William Powell in The Thin Man.  

Werth: You've sung the stylish praises of Nick and Nora Charles once before. 

Wise: Which is part of the pleasure of MGM's greatest detective duo: there's always another sequel to enjoy.  After the Thin Man (1936) begins a few days after the events of the first film as Nick (Powell) and Nora (the ever delightful Myrna Loy) alight from the train in their hometown of San Francisco, anxious to begin celebrating New Year's Eve. 

But first they have to overcome two obstacles: the crowd of unruly uninvited guests already jammed into their home and a last-minute invitation to dinner from Nora's strident Aunt Katherine (Jessie Ralph).  Once there, they discover that Nora's cousin Selma (Elissa Landi) is miserable because her two-timing husband has been missing for days.  Even her childhood sweetheart David Graham (Jimmy Stewart) can't seem to cheer her up. 

Werth: Maybe she should try jumping off a bridge and being saved by an angel.

Wise: Escaping Selma's tears (and Aunt Katherine's stultifying guests) Nick and Nora head to a nightclub where they find Selma's ne'er do well husband Robert (Alan Marshall) making time with a two-bit nightclub singer (Dorothy McNulty who later took the name Penny Singleton and provided the voice for Jane Jetson).  Robert recently convinced David to pay him off for leaving Selma, and when he turns up with a bullet in his back, Selma is the number one suspect, and Nick and Nora begin to investigate. 

Their search turns up an assortment of petty thieves, gangster lowlifes, stereotyped evil Asians, and a load of slapstick provided by Powell's tippling and their loyal dog Asta's not-so-loyal doggie wife.

Werth: That bitch.


Wise: As in the first film, the clues don't exactly lead up to the final revelation, but who really cares when the detectives are as charming as these? 

Not exactly a matinee idol, Powell and his tailor managed to transform him into one of the most debonair figures in Hollywood history: handsome, elegant, and charming no matter how much hooch he's poured down his gullet.  His trademark pencil mustache and swank double breasted suits with sharp lapels make him the epitome of style no matter the era.  And Myrna Loy, who began her career as little more than a pretty face, livens her beauty with crack comic timing, making her the fantasy wife of millions of moviegoers.  (She also gets to wear a jaw-dropping sequined gown that reveals plenty of décolletage and almost all of her back.)  Their pairing makes the perfect fashion statement, whatever the season.  

Werth: The fashion statement of Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (1998) would be a tad more overstated than Mr. Powell's. Set in the wild era of 70's glam-rock and after, Goldmine follows reporter Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) as he tries to find out whatever happened to his rock idol, Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) ten years after his 1974 feathery, faked assassination. The film becomes a glittery trip down memory lane as Stuart interviews an old manager (Michael Feast) and Slade's sycophantic ex-wife Mandy (Toni Collette) about the time they spent with the ego-maniacal performer.

Wise: So, sort of a disco-era Citizen Kane, only this time Rosebud's a Moog synthesizer. 

Werth: The timeline gets all jumbled as flashbacks collide and Stuart's own personal memories become intertwined with the saga of Brian Slade. The film's exploration of "otherness" and adoration is a mass of intense visual design, erotica, and fashion.

Sandy Powell's Oscar-nominated costumes bring the age back to vivid life with platform shoes and boots, boas, neckscarves, tight jeans, velvet jackets, and glitter adorning nearly every character, with the exception of when Ewan McGregor bares it all (and I mean all) on stage as the savage Curt Wild.

Wise: That's one rock show I'd pay to see.

Werth: Slade's show costumes are inspired constructions reminiscent of the creations from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust period. Bowie himself pulled his support of the film when he realized Haynes was basing it on unauthorized bios of Bowie, but the resemblances to infamous performers like Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and even Kurt Cobain are unmistakeable.

Goldmine feels like an extended music video at times, but then, looking back, perhaps that's the best way to depict that era. Haynes' focus on fashion goes beyond simple replication and celebrates the sense of identity, sexuality, and freedom that clothing can bring. So even if I wouldn't be caught dead in sequin-studded tights with thigh-high purple platform boots and a Louis XIV velvet jacket—

Wise: You wouldn't?

Werth: Maybe for next week's Film Gab.

Re-Maker's Mark

Werth: Say, Wise?

Wise: Yes, Werth?

Werth: Which of us is going to call our cable operator to subscribe to HBO so we can watch the new mini-series version of Mildred Pierce?

Wise: I assumed you were going to boycott it because they didn’t CGI Joan Crawford into it.

Werth: Well... as good as Joan would be in the new version, I am confident that Todd Haynes is going to do a beautiful job on it.

Wise: Beautiful—but not better?


Werth: Oh I’d never go that far. First of all, I don’t think that these two projects should even be compared. They are from two TOTALLY different eras and directorial styles and, to be honest, Haynes is going to be more faithful to the James M. Cain novel that was the source material for both films. Secondly, the original 1945 Mildred Pierce is a masterwork of filmmaking and performance that casts a long and unmatchable shadow.

Wise: Kate Winslet has big eyebrows to fill.

Werth: Exactly. When shooting began on Mildred Pierce in December of 1944, the film’s star, Joan Crawford, was in a very precarious position. Her reign as the queen of MGM had unceremoniously concluded a year earlier because she had been labeled box-office poison and even worse, she was approaching Tinseltown’s unacceptable feminine age of forty.

Wise: You’re going to be unacceptable soon.

Werth: Hopefully blogs are more forgiving than Hollywood. Crawford signed a deal with rival studio Warner Brothers and waited for the script offer that she hoped would put her back on top of the Hollywood heap. Crawford read Mildred Pierce and saw her opportunity, but director Michael Curtiz was initially not so keen on working with the notorious diva. He even made her audition for the part. Legend has it he ripped the shoulders of her dress from her body as he railed against shoulder pads, only to find, those were Crawford’s actual shoulders.

Wise: Curtiz would have hated 80’s fashions.

Werth: Despite Curtz’s initial doubts, after seeing the film it’s impossible to imagine anyone but Crawford in the role. Mildred Pierce tells the story of a hard-working, single mother who busts her hump as a waitress while climbing the rungs of the culinary ladder to success—all so she can provide everything she didn’t have for her daughter Veda. Played by actress Ann Blythe, Veda is like a tall, cool glass of acid. The ultimate social climber, Veda wants the finer things in life and is willing to step on anyone to achieve them, even if that means trading bitchslaps with her blindly adoring mother.

Wise: I'm gonna name my first baby Bitchslap.  

Werth: Curtiz expertly blended the drama of a woman’s film with the visual styling and plot of film noir (there were no murders in Cain’s novel). The film plays a riveting tennis game between the past’s bright, sunlit kitchens and the present’s starkly shadowed police station and is full of wonderful volleying from Blythe, slimy Jack Carson and fresh as paint Eve Arden. But without a doubt, the titan that stands out in this film is Crawford. She often played determined, come-from-nowhere shopgirls who had to fight their way to the top with nothing but raw ambition—

Wise:  After all, that was how Lucille LeSueur became Joan Crawford.

Werth: But something about this role is different. Crawford added nuances of vulnerability, naive motherly love, and worldly regret that made Mildred a complex and unique film character. She wasn’t just a bitch. She was a victim of social constraints and her own myopic love for her daughter. No matter how many critics, historians and feminists write about this role, Crawford defies easy definitions of the Post-WW II woman. There she stands on the steps of the courthouse at the end of the picture, a symbol of failure and possibility. Getting the last laugh at “box-office poison,” Crawford won the Academy Award for Best Actress that year and kick-started another fruitful period in her career.

Wise: You might say that Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce is a re-make of a movie that re-made Joan Crawford.

Werth: I’m guessing that’s your intricate segue into your favorite re-made movie.

Wise: I do love elaborate transitions, especially this week when I’m not just talking about one re-make, but two, plus the play that the original film was based on.  So it’s almost like a re-make to the fourth power.  

Werth: I might need a drink just to understand that. 

Wise: Me too.  But let’s try to figure this out together.  First there was 1940’s The Shop Around the Corner with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, directed by Ernst Lubitsch from a Hungarian play called Parfumerie.  Nine years later it became a musical vehicle for Judy Garland and Van Johnson called In the Good Old Summertime directed by Robert Z. Leonard.  Finally, in 1998, it became You’ve Got Mail directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. 

Werth: The ending of You’ve Got Mail literally caused me to stand up in the theater and shout out to Meg Ryan, “Stab him!”

Wise: While The Shop Around the Corner and In the Good Old Summertime share more plot points, all three films focus on the central couple who secretly exchange anonymous love letters while they unknowingly bicker with each other in their everyday lives.  What’s so interesting, though, is that despite the similarities, all three of these movies are decidedly different and they each showcase their stars in wildly different ways.  

Werth: Which is a big contrast to Mildred Pierce because no matter how great Kate Winslet is in the role—and I don’t doubt she will be—she’ll never be synonymous with the part the way Joan
Crawford is. 

Wise: Exactly.  The Shop Around the Corner is a rueful film, something of a love letter itself to the charms of European life that were rapidly disappearing under the heels of the Nazis during WWII.  Stewart and Sullavan both give tender, elegant performances under Lubitsch’s direction while preserving an undercurrent of bleakness that suggested that even the most star-crossed lovers had a chance of missing one another.  

Werth: Like me and Hugh Jackman.

Wise: Summertime has a much more rollicking tone.  Judy belts out some tender and fun numbers, all while keeping an eye on Johnson’s flimfalmmery.  It also features a fantastic tumble from the prince of silent pratfalls, Buster Keaton, the sweetly amusing love story between Spring Byington and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, plus the screen debut of three-year-old Liza Minnelli.  

Werth: I’m surprised she didn’t get her own number.  

Wise: You’ve Got Mail was the third onscreen pairing of Ryan and Hanks and a lot of the plot simply vanishes to make room for their patented, and very marketable, sparring, and yet it shares a certain melancholy with Lubitsch’s original film.  Ephron gives a plum role to New York’s Upper West Side, bathing it in golden light and lamenting the loss of its neighborhood feel.  Ephron even does the unthinkable by closing the central shop, Ryan’s bookstore for children, even though the gift shop in Around the Corner and the music store in Summertime both survive.  


Werth: It’s a tough world out there for bookstores... and books.

Wise: What makes up for it, in my mind at least, is the fact that life-long Oz fan Ephron prominently features a number of L. Frank Baum’s books in the set design.  

Werth: I knew you’d bring it back to Oz somehow.  

Wise: Does this mean you don’t want to hear about the planned Wizard of Oz remake?

Werth: Let’s save that for when we re-make Film Gab next week.

Auld Lang Gab!

Werth: Happy New Year, Wise!

Wise: Happy New Year, Werth!

Werth: Any fun plans for New Year’s Eve?

Wise: I’m coming to your house to watch your favorite New Year’s movie.

Werth: I know! I just love hearing you say it.

Wise: Between the curry-rubbed baked brie and the copious amounts of mid-level champagne, what will we be watching?

Werth: Well, Wise, you are really in for a treat, because my favorite New Year’s Eve movie is 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure.

Wise: You mean the re-make?

Werth: Bite your tongue! I pretend that disaster of a disaster movie never happened. In this case (as with most) the original really is the best. Irwin Allen produced this all-star adventure flick about the S.S. Poseidon and her passengers and crew as they ring in the New Year at sea. No sooner do they finish Auld Lang Syne than a tidal wave hits the ship and capsizes it, literally turning everyone’s world upside down.

Wise: Sounds like a dud way to start 1973.

Werth: Indeed. But as the Academy Award®-winning theme song says, “There’s got to be a morning after.” The rest of the film follows a small group of survivors as they struggle to climb to the bottom (now the top) of the ship to escape certain death by drowning and or/fiery explosions. Based on the exciting Paul Gallico book of the same name, Allen really makes some fun design and special-effects choices. When young Robin Shelby (played with borderline annoying juvenile pluck by Eric Shea) goes to the men’s room and stares hopelessly at the ceiling where the toilets hang with their lids open, we get a real sense of the pickle these people are in.

Wise: Please don’t ever use the words “pickle” and “men’s room” in the same sentence again.

Werth: I promise. Topping the effects is the stellar cast assembled to play this intrepid group: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Roddy McDowell, Red Buttons, Jack Albertson, Arthur O’Connell, Leslie Nielsen and the one and only Shelley Winters.

Wise: Please tell me Shelley lives.

 Werth: No spoilers! But her performance as Belle Rosen, legendary in camp circles, earned her a well-deserved Best-Suporting Actress nomination. All in all it’s a fun flick that actually makes you care about the characters so that you are invested in whether they survive the ordeal... or not. It became the first hit of Irwin Allen’s disaster dynasty that would go on to include The Towering Inferno, The Swarm and the inevitable Poseidon Adventure sequel.

Wise: Sounds like the perfect way to start 2011.

Werth: I mean, as long as you’re not trapped in a capsized luxury liner, you’re doing better than these folks, right? So if after the stroke of midnight we’re still sober enough, what would be your pick for a follow-up New Year’s flick?  

Wise: Well, I thought it might be a good idea to follow the deadly histrionics of The Poseidon Adventures with something a little quieter that focuses on domestic conflicts.  I’m thinking of Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven.  

Werth: I love that movie. Tell the New Year’s connection!  

Wise: A small but pivotal scene takes place on New Year’s Eve, but the majority of the film feels autumnal.  Julianne Moore plays the apotheosis of the 50s housewife struggling with the dawning knowledge that her seemingly ideal, ad executive husband, played by Dennis Quaid, is actually gay.

Werth: That makes him more ideal in my book. 

Wise: Not for her unfortunately.  The revelation destroys her marriage, plus the friendship she strikes up with her gardener, played by Dennis Haysbert, causes all kinds of gossip and backbiting among her proper Connecticut neighbors who rigidly, but politely, adhere to divisions made along racial lines.  It’s really the story of one woman’s discovery of the hollowness of her achievements and her subsequent determination to make a more honest life for herself.  

Werth: It’s so dramatic!

Wise: Melodramatic, actually.  Todd Haynes made the film as a tribute to the Douglass Sirk “women’s pictures” of the 1950s, and he uses the lurid color palette, the heightened emotionalism, and the undercurrent of social critique characteristic to those movies.  The cinematography is lush, gently floating though sets filled with crimsons, ochres, lavenders, jades and chartreuse.  Sandy Powell’s costumes are glamorous and chic, but somehow real.  And the score by Elmer Bernstein is perfectly calibrated, romantic when it needs to be, anguished and occasionally brittle.  

Werth: Elmer is my favorite of the Bernsteins.

Wise: Of course, the performances are fantastic too.  I don’t think I can say enough about Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid.  They both forgo their usual more contemporary, method-inflected acting style and delve into the more mannered performances of the 50s.  You might think that all this artifice would make a stilted picture, but like opera, the rigid form actually allows for a more moving experience.  

 Werth: It provides a gorgeous contrast between artifice and reality- which is something we all can relate to in our non-cinematic lives.

Wise: I should also mention how great Patricia Clarkson is as the neighbor and best friend and the fantastic Celia Weston as a pernicious gossip.  Even the child actors seem perfectly cast, screeching and stilted and interchangeable with the onscreen children of Lana Turner and Jane Wyman. 

Werth: Is there anything not to like about this movie? 

Wise: Not really.  It’s kind of a perfect film.  

Werth: Amen. So, dear readers, from both of us here at Film Gab, may your 2011 be as perfect as The Poseidon Adventure and Far From Heaven—

Wise: Minus the drowning and the heartbreak.

Werth & Wise: Happy New Year!