Big Screen in the Sky

One of Hollywood's most regal actresses has passed away today. Celeste Holm is probably best remembered as the best friend of Broadway diva Margot Channing in All About Eve (1950), but Holm had a long and memorable career starring in the original stage production of Oklahoma! before going to Hollywood to earn an Oscar in Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and roles in classics like The Tender Trap (1955) and High Society (1956). She transitioned to television with appearances throughout the '50's and '60's including a stint on her own show, Honestly Celeste! (1954). Through it all, Holm was the personification of class—when Holm greeted Bette Davis for the first time on the set of All About Eve with "Good Morning," Davis said, "Oh shit. Good manners." Film Gab bids a fond farewell to one heck of a lady.

Big Screen in the Sky

Film Gab is sad to report that producer and all-around hollywood mover and shaker Richard Zanuck has passed away. Behind such great films as The Sound of Music (1965), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), M*A*S*H (1972), The Sting (1973), Jaws (1975), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and Big Fish (2003), Zanuck admirably emerged from the shadow of his legendary studio chief father Darryl Zanuck to carve his own name in the Hollywood history books. Saint Peter, you're going to need a bigger boat.

BAM Graces Grace

As if today's launch of Film Forum's tribute to Universal Studios wasn't enough, BAM is celebrating one of cinema's coolest blondes with a Grace Kelly Film Festival. With such great classics as High Noon (1952), Rear Window(1954), To Catch a Thief (1955) and her oscar-winning turn in The Country Girl (1954) on the bill, Grace is sure to give you a cool escape from the summer heat. 

Honoring Ernie

Werth:  Hiya, Wise!

Wise: Oh, hi, Werth.  I thought you'd be a little more glum this week after hearing about the passing of Ernest Borgnine.

Werth: It's always sad when a Hollywood legend heads for the heavenly box office, but it's also a chance to salute that artist's accomplishments. And with a talent as big as Borgnine, there's a lot to celebrate.

Wise: Although often remembered today for the broad humor of his WWII-set sitcom McHale's Navy (1962), Borgnine was a talented actor, deploying his gap-toothed smile and hulking shoulders indelibly in countless roles, whether comedic or dramatic.

Werth: I would say that Borgnine's television career actually took a backseat to his film success with classics like From Here to Eternity (1953), Johnny Guitar (1954), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), and The Catered Affair (1956) pre-dating McHale and The Dirty Dozen (1967), Ice Station Zebra (1968), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and Escape from NewYork (1981) coming after. Perhaps most laudable is the movie he won the Best Actor Oscar for, Marty (1955).

Wise: Oscars trump Airwolf every time.

Werth: Marty is one of those movies that I can't believe ever got made. It tells the story of a Bronx butcher (Borgnine) who gets harrassed by everyone from his brother, to his mother, to his customers about being a 34 year old bachelor. Choruses of "What's the matter with you?" dog him wherever he goes.

Wise: I'm sure Clifton Webb could relate.

Werth: Marty winds up at a dancehall where he rescues fellow sad-sack Clara (Best Supporting Actress nominee and wife of Gene Kelly, Betsy Blair) from being dumped by her date. The two begin a conversation with talk about how neither one of them is such a dog, their thoughts of suicide and crying, and how kindness is what's important in a relationship.

Wise: Try putting that in your OkCupid profile.

Werth: The movie has shockingly little to push its plot forward. It literally is the story of how two plain people find each other in a world obsessed with looks and coupling. Previously a television movie aired in 1953, Paddy Chayefsky authored the simple plot and dialogue, making Marty and Clara unassuming heroes for anyone who's ever felt forgotten or overlooked. Without being maudlin or preachy, Marty celebrates those in the world who aren't lucky enough to have big dreams and ambition, but still yearn for a human connection.

It's a beautiful exercise in restraint and Borgnine brilliantly worked a soft side into his typically hyper-toughie character. It's a film totally bereft of glitz and glamour and it rightfully earned four Oscars including Best Director (Delbert Mann) and Best Picture.

Wise: In Bunny O' Hare (1979) Borgnine plays Bill Green, a junkman with a past who turns up to scavenge the plumbing fixtures from recently foreclosed houses before they get bulldozed.  Things get complicated when he starts to feel sorry for the titular character, a mild-mannered widow played by Bette Davis.

Werth: What?  Davis is mild-mannered?

Wise: Bunny is also a non-smoker.  Which do you think was the bigger challenge?  Anyway, the two embark on a road trip in Bill's rattletrap camper, and they form a grudging friendship after Bunny discovers Bill's past as a bank robber and convinces him to teach her how to pull heists to get revenge on the bank that took her house.  Instead of keeping the money, Bunny sends it to her deadbeat adult children, Lulu (Reva Rose) and Ad (John Astin as a creepy playboy with a gambling habit and a penchant for bimbos and silk bathrobes).

Werth: I hope people who are currently having mortgage problems are paying attention. 

Wise: Of course their crime spree doesn't go unnoticed by the local police, especially Lieutenant Greeley (Jack Cassidy).  Greeley vows to haul in the criminals despite being distracted by his Nixonian paranoia toward hippies and by his fixation on his recently hired, pert-nosed criminologist assistant (Joan Delaney).

Werth: Joans are very distracting. Just ask Bette.

Wise: Photographed in a cheapo 70's aesthetic with awkward camera moves and flat lighting, the film is about as visually interesting as the kind of home movies that turn up in a rummage sale.

Werth: Sort of the Me Decade's cinéma vérité.

Wise: More like cinema charité.  Still, it's impressive what two pros like Borgnine and Davis can do despite the mediocre film that surrounds them.  He transforms from a suspicious loner to noble daredevil, while Davis blooms from a downtrodden housewife into woman who throws off drudgery in favor of happiness.  Their romantic chemistry doesn't exactly shoot off fireworks, but both actors give deeply humane performances and elevate this junky fluff into something special. 

Werth: I don't know if Ernie gets Film Gab where he's at now, but I hope he knows how much happiness he brought to millions of movie lovers everywhere. Rest in Peace Mr. Borgnine—

Wise: And thank you.

Universal Fun!

Film Forum is throwing a heck of a party for Universal Studios' 100th birthday! From this Friday, 7/13 until Aug 9th, New York City's premiere revival house will be showing some of the best films from Universal Studios' storied history, starting with two of the studio's most legendary films Dracula and Frankenstein (1931). We here at Film Gab will give you periodic recommendations for when our favorites are playing, so stay tuned to Film Gab! Carl Laemmle would want you to.



Movies You've Never Gabbed

Werth: Hiya, Wise.  Whatcha reading?  

Wise: Oh, it's an article in the July 6 issue of Entertainment Weekly discussing "The 50 Best Movies You've Never Seen."  

Werth: Of course you have to read on to find out they mean movies you've never seen that were made in the last two decades.  EW could at least try to pretend the world existed before hipsters roamed the Earth.

Wise: One of my favorites from the EW list is Cold Comfort Farm (1995) starring a teenage Kate Beckinsale as Flora Poste, a society girl banished from her high-rolling city life who must make a new life for herself among her backwards relations.

Werth: Before it was remade into Party Girl. 

Wise: While there are some similarities to the Parker Posey classic, Cold Comfort Farm is actually based on the novel of the same name published by Stella Gibbons in 1932.  Both the novel and the film take advantage of the nostalgia surrounding 19th Century English pastoral novels, sending up the conventions and clichés so beloved by lit majors.

Werth: And sending the rest of us rushing for the Cliff's Notes.

Wise: While a background in the western cannon might tease out a few subtleties, just about anyone who survived high school English (or the 90's Jane Austen renaissance) will immediately appreciate the film's droll take on lusty farm hands, unsuitable society marriages, plodding suitors, verse-addicted girls given over to sylvan fantasies, dour preachers, and crazy old ladies in the attic.

Werth: Droll, plodding, sylvan and dour. It sounds like Jane Austen wrote that last sentence.

Wise: Even though some of the jokes are broad, the performances are incredibly precise.  The cast list includes some of Britain's most renowned actors, and each uses the skills honed on Shakespeare and those plummy BBC adaptations to make their roles totally authentic and totally hilarious.

Rufus Sewell does a lot of shirtless brooding; Ian McKellen's brimstone preacher has his sights set on celestial glory; Joanna Lumley dispenses madcap advice; Stephen Fry fumbles romance.

But it is Eileen Atkins who has the juiciest part as the doom-y matriarch of the family who must contend with the haunted lady upstairs, her lusty sons, and Flora's pert machinations to modernize the farm.

Werth: You had me at Joanna Lumley. There are definitely some interesting films on EW's list, but for sheer "nobody's seen it" magic, I am going to go back to a time when films weren't even in color.


Wise: When they saved all the color for the dialogue. 

Werth: 1950's Caged has re-appeared of late as a "cult classic," which is exactly why I went to see it at Film Forum a couple years ago. I figured a women's prison movie with Agnes Moorehead as the warden had to be worth some laughs.

Wise: Endora running a prison. What's not to like?

Werth: While there are definitely some good campy moments, what floored me was how astonishingly touching and dark this film is. Young Marie Allen (Sound of Music's own Baroness, Eleanor Parker) winds up in the clink for helping her no-good husband commit armed robbery. But this naive dope is all tears and remorse so a quick "reform-girl with a heart of gold" ending appears imminent. But Caged couldn't have made my jaw drop further.

Wise: Your jaw dropping in a prison movie. Too easy.

Werth: Marie is thrown in with a bunch of hardened felons and an even harder ward matron (the delightfully giant Hope Emerson). No peep-show shower scenes here, as the cast is positively ugly with their faces only slightly more grizzled than their souls. Marie is soon being subjected to the horrors of prison and more lesbian overtures than any movie I've seen of the era.

Wise: Except, of course, for Rebecca.

Werth: Any hope that the over-worked, but idealistic, warden (Moorehead) has that she can make a difference in Marie's or any other inmate's life soon withers and dies as prison life takes a hold of these women. Director John Cromwell does an amazing job of simulating "reality." 

The cast (with the exception of the ethereal Parker) looks like a casting-call for washed-up people, and Cromwell shoots the picture with the stark contrast of a noir, not always worried about showing everything. The performances are deftly large and subtle with both Parker and Emerson receiving Oscar nods for their work. Caged is one of those hidden gems that shocked and surprised me, and I can't recommend more insistently that Gabbers everywhere see it.

Wise: More insistently than EW recommends Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2010)?

Werth: Tune in next week for more flick recs from your friends here at Film Gab!

Fashionable Funny Face

Looking for the perfect event to go with your summer wardrobe? Try catching Isaac Mizrahi introduce Stanley Donen's Funny Face (1957) tonight at Film Forum! You'll be in the chicest company possible with Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson. But please, don't show up wearing flip-flops.