The Screengrab : elizabeth taylor

Bloody Valentines: The Worst Relationships in Cinema History (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

To paraphrase Edwin Starr: Valentine’s Day! Huh! What is it good for?

Well...depends who you ask: it certainly didn’t work out too well for the poor Roman priest who got himself beaten, stoned, beheaded (and later canonized) for nuptializing Christian couples out of season, nor for any of the other Catholic martyrs named Valentine whose various grisly fates somehow led to the annual tradition of grown-ass men dropping seventy bucks a pop to have teddy bears in boxer shorts with hearts on them delivered to grown-ass women in the middle of winter.

Scholars blame Geoffrey Chaucer for ruining February 14th by linking a bunch of obscure Roman Catholic feast days with the aggravating concept of courtly love, thus stressing out singles and couples alike for centuries to come with unrealistic, unattainable expectations about all the perfect moments of romance we’re all supposed to be having (instead of weeping lonely tears into our popcorn at solo matinees of He’s Just Not That Into You or forgetting to buy a frickin’ card for our significant others and never hearing the goddamn frickin’ end of it).

It should, of course, be remembered that St. Valentine’s ol’ pagan buddy Cupid is the son of both a goddess of love AND a god of war, and thus not all the couples the little bastard shoots with his arrows wind up living happily ever after. Therefore, as a cheery reminder that things could always be worse in this infernal season of l’amour, your friends-with-benefits here at the Screengrab are proud to present BLOODY VALENTINES: THE WORST RELATIONSHIPS IN CINEMA HISTORY!

PROF. IMMANUEL RATH & LOLA LOLA, THE BLUE ANGEL (1930)

A sort of preemptive riposte to the 20th century's literary canon of professors effectively leveraging their intellectual heft for the purpose of seducing their students, The Blue Angel has stuffy Rath (Emil Jannings) falling for cabaret singer Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich) when he goes down to waggle his finger in her face and tell her to stop distracting his students. Instead, she captivates and reduces him to a pathetic spectacle, as pathetic in the public's eyes as he is in hers. If Rath had at least a little touch of submissiveness in him, maybe he'd enjoy being constantly humiliated in a sub-dom 24/7 way; as it is, Lola reduces him to a man with no free will. Dietrich's star was made in this first collaboration with Josef von Sternberg; meanwhile, Jannings' performance is frequently looked down upon as an anachronistic acting style from another age. Which actually makes perfect sense for the character he's playing. As a depiction of a May-December, intellectual-emptyheaded, pompous-earthy, and every other kind of mismatch possible relationship, The Blue Angel isn't painful only because it's more conducive to distanced contemplation and sarcastic laughter than visceral empathy. Should you have extra time at work (should you still be employed, in fact), some kind soul has uploaded the whole German version to YouTube, but the embedding has been disabled, so enjoy the trailer above, then click here to watch the whole thing.

GEORGE & MARTHA, WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)

There may be bloodier couples in the history of cinema, but there are none whose hatred burned brighter. George and Martha – a small-time failure of a college professor and his crude harpy of a wife, played by real-life couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – may not want to kill each other, but it’s only because dead they would be past inflicting pain, which is all that keeps them going. Considering that Martha speaks of their marriage in terms of total warfare, and George’s idea of whimsical banter is to point a rifle at his wife’s head during a cocktail party, it’s no surprise that this movie has become shorthand for violently feuding couples. This is a couple that’s beyond mere feuding, but whose initial passion has never soured: it’s been transformed into something just as fiery, a loathing built on complete knowledge of, and complete dependence upon, one another. The film shocks us right out of the box by presenting us with a couple whose fury and loathing for each other is deeper than the love in an any big-screen romance; it then shocks us even further by showing how deeply, albeit bizarrely, they care for each other, and how much more profound their relationship is than the seemingly happy couple that contrasts them.

MICHAEL & KAY CORLEONE, THE GODFATHER (1972) and THE GODFATHER, PART II (1974)

There's a lesson here that a lot of you girls would do well to heed: when your boyfriend runs off to Sicily without a word, gets married to a perfect stranger he met over there about ten minutes after he got off the boat, and then, after somebody sticks dynamite under the hood of the car and blows her sky high, he shows up where you work, again without a word, and announces that, lucky you, he's looking to fill the position of second wife and he's prepared to consider your qualifications -- honey, take a breath. If you feel swayed by his liquid brown eyes and passionate words, try and think about how you're going to feel waking up next to him in a few years, when the face is set off by a toupee like an earth-tone fireworks display and that insinuating voice keeps erupting "HOO-hah!" Then you tell Casanova that as much as you appreciate the offer, you feel that you might be overqualified on account of your ability to count above ten without taking off your shoes. Unless you've got some kind of fetish for having doors slammed in your face.

JACK & WENDY TORRANCE, THE SHINING (1980)

If you've seen The Shining as many times as I have – and there's very little chance of that – you've probably spent some time speculating about the marriage of Jack and Wendy Torrance. How did they meet? What was the attraction? When did they decide to get married, and didn't they have any friends or family to talk them out of it? Some would point to the obvious incompatibility of the brooding, hot-tempered Jack (Jack Nicholson) and the frail, skittish Wendy (Shelly Duvall) as a flaw in the movie, but to those people I would pose this query: Do you know any married people? Because if you do, surely you are aware that for every couple that seems inevitable and perfect for each other, there are at least three that make no sense whatsoever on any rational level. It's easy to blame Jack for the eventual dissolution of the relationship. He is the guy who starts talking to ghosts and running around with an axe, after all. But let's not let Wendy entirely off the hook. She did go along with a plan that entailed living in total isolation with a man who has a history of alcohol abuse and domestic violence (no matter how much she may have tried to downplay it), and she brought her young son Danny into it. At the very least, she's guilty of poor judgment, but at least it all works out in the end.

FRANK BOOTH & DOROTHY VALLENS, BLUE VELVET (1986)

Frank Booth and Dorothy Vallens, the two emblems of maniacal deviance and defiled virtue (respectively) in David Lynch’s surrealistic neo-noir Blue Velvet, may share things...but love isn’t one of them. Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) is a nightclub singer with a daughter and an air of mystery, which – as Kyle MacLachlan’s amateur sleuth Jeffrey peeps after being shoved, post-blowjob, into a closet – is due to her association with Frank (Dennis Hopper). Frank is a sociopath holding Dorothy’s husband hostage so she might sexually gratify him, and the twisted sadomasochistic tryst (replete with helium inhalations and erotic asphyxiation) that Jeffrey witnesses while hiding in that closet may stand as some of the most disturbingly unsettling material ever shot by the peerlessly out-there Lynch. The couple’s relationship ultimately ends when Jeffrey shoots Frank dead, but this being Lynch, the ensuing happy ending is laced with perversion, due in part to the earlier suggestion that Dorothy, conditioned to Frank’s beatings, has been warped into associating pleasure with pain.

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four, Five, Six & Seven

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Vadim Rizov, Leonard Pierce, Phil Nugent, Scott Von Doviak & Nick Schager

Screengrab Presents: The Best Stage-To-Screen Adaptations Of All Time (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:00:00 GMT

DEATHTRAP (1982)

One set, five characters, a couple of twists and a few good, juicy murders: that’s the formula for success in Ira Levin’s puzzle box of a murder mystery about a struggling veteran playwright desperate for a hit. Add a nervous spouse with a weak heart, a gay lover, a weird psychic, a cagey agent and a wall full of handcuffs, pistols and crossbows and you’ve got one of the few stage plays with the power to make audiences scream and jump like a creature double-feature. The movie version wisely sticks to the basics, letting the cat-and-mouse triple-double-cross plotting speak for itself while sticking mostly to the confined but never claustrophobic Long Island home of the plotting protagonist (Michael Caine at his very Michael Caine-iest, having a helluva time). And though certain naysayers here at the Screengrab may say nay, I also give kudos to Christopher Reeve’s performance in the film, which tweaks his goody-two-shoes Superman image while letting him exercise the underutilized mischievous side of his (admittedly limited) range. Meanwhile, Dyan Cannon gives good scream as the wife, and if all that doesn’t win you over, the movie has at least one immortal line, delivered by a snarky critic (Joel Siegel) after Caine’s playwright Sidney Bruhl premieres a hackneyed whodunit nowhere near as clever as Deathtrap: “I'll tell you who done it. Sidney Bruhl done it. And he done it in public."

THE RULING CLASS (1972)

Adapted for the screen by Peter Barnes from his own deeply subversive play, The Ruling Class was sort of a last gasp for the British “Angry Young Man” movement. But its demise was also its salvation: the play – and the subsequent and very successful film – kept in place the elements of class warfare, generational conflict and family drama and turned them on their heads. It replaced rage with whimsy, a tone of rebellion with a sense of absurdity, and an overall tone of Pythonesque lunacy that proved the movement wasn’t entirely devoid of humor. The story of an upper-class family of British aristocrats forced by fortune into restoring as its head a deranged son who thinks he’s the second coming of Christ (played with delightfully silky craziness by Peter O’Toole, in one of his greatest roles), The Ruling Class is, even today, as vicious as it is hilarious. It expands on the play by adding a few memorable characters and trading up in the players (most especially Nigel Green as McKyle, “the Electric Christ”, and the unforgettable Alastair Sim as the bewildered Bishop Bertie Lampton) as well as taking the sets out-of-doors, but what made the stage version so great was its devastatingly funny and fiendish dialogue. Barnes and director Peter Medak are wise enough not to change a bit of that.

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007)

Tim Burton’s first full-blown attempt at a musical is so successful, it’s a wonder that he never tried it before. Without sacrificing the elements that have made him famous – the gloomy atmospherics, the high gothic sensibilities, the manic pace, the deft blend of dark humor and absurd violence – his big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s notorious musical gives him the perfect format. Why? Because musicals are infinitely forgiving of the qualities that, in many of Burton’s other films, can rightly be considered weaknesses: his overblown dialogue, his clumsy grasp of the dynamics of storytelling, his slight characterization, and his love of style over emotional substance. Everything really comes together for him here, and the result is one of the most enjoyable musicals in decades. Dismissals of the lead actors (Johnny Depp as the vengeance-addled Victorian hairstylist and Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter, as the vendor of unhygienic meat pies) as unable to sing at the level expected from a big-screen musical somewhat miss the point: Sweeney Todd is a fiendishly difficult production, its songs and structure much more akin to an opera than a musical comedy, and it contains precious few toe-tappers, so putting the words in the mouths of those not well-suited to the old school of musicals doesn’t sink it one bit.

INHERIT THE WIND (1960)

Almost fifty years down the road, there are a lot of problems with the Stanley Kramer adaptation of the then-controversial play (by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, no relation) about the Scopes Monkey Trial. It’s excessively stagey; Kramer doesn’t bother to open up the set very much, and too many scenes are given no chance to work in the very different medium of film. The casting is problematic; Spencer Tracy and Frederic March are terrific in the lead roles (as stand-ins for Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, respectively), and there are some good supporting jobs, especially by Elliott Reed as the county prosecutor, but Dick York and Donna Anderson as the romantic leads are flat as pancakes, and Gene Kelly playing a thinly-veiled H.L. Mencken is one of the biggest botch-jobs in casting history. It’s unfair, imbalanced, and historically inaccurate. And in a certain sense, it’s simply not as relevant as it once was; Inherit the Wind isn’t about what it’s about, but rather a Cold War narrative about the long-faded dangers of McCarthyism. But there are still some gorgeous speeches in this moldy oldie, and since America is, astonishingly, still debating the rightness of teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools some eighty-odd years after the Scopes Trial, it maintains a relevance its authors couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)

While many directors attempt to open up adaptations of stage plays for the big screen by taking the action up and out, Mike Nichols helps make Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a masterpiece by doing the opposite. Although he does take us outside once or twice, what makes the film so visually arresting is his camera’s perfect pace with the legendary dialogue: instead of going out, it circles endlessly in and around, like a shark. It darts in and out of scenes, whirls around like the heads of the characters after a stinging rejoinder, and creeps in for powerful closeups that reveal faces as ugly as the words they’re speaking. Who exactly gets credit for the screenplay has been the subject of endless disputes, arguments and lawsuits, but really, it’s as simple as going to the source; almost all of the hypnotic dialogue that takes place between timid, repressed college professor Richard Burton and his domineering, disapproving wife Elizabeth Taylor is present in Edward Albee’s original stage play. Not for nothing is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a sort of literary shorthand for viciously feuding married couples: as Burton and Taylor go for each other’s throats, the camera matches them slash for slash, portraying a couple so sick of each other – but so used to each other – that the object of their hatred fills their eyes and becomes all that they can see.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Six, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

Site of the Day: A John Waters Christmas

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:30:00 GMT

With the holiday season in full swing, we're about to be inundated with enough Christmas-related cinematic claptrap to make you want to go after Frosty the Snowman with a jumbo bag of Halite. Not only will we see dozens of Christmas films in theaters, but TV will be spilling forth its endless tankful of Yuletide cheer, and we'll get to hear a bunch of rookie entertainment reporters ask the likes of Todd Haynes and Jason Statham about the true meaning of Christmas. There's even a rumor that one of the schmucks who writes for this blog is going to start a Christmas-themed feature to run the rest of the month.

But don't despair, indie kids! There's still plenty of misanthropic dark-side-of-Christmas stuff out there for you even if you can't afford that Criterion Collection DVD box set of all the Silent Night, Deadly Night movies. For example, the good people over at Dreamland News have brought us this delightful Noel gift: Season's Greetings from John Waters!

It seems that every year, the Lowbrow Bard of Baltimore sends out a set of Christmas cards to his nearest and dearest that would be considered, well, slightly inappropriate for the general public. A few of Waters' friends have allowed these specially made cards to find their way onto the internet, and Dreamland News has done us the favor of collecting them -- from the cockroach tree ornament seen above to a post-surgery Elizabeth Taylor to a shot of Steve Buscemi impersonating Waters himself. As if all that's not enough, there's also a link to Waters' holly jolly essay, "Why I Love Christmas". Just the thing to pass the time while you're waiting for Annual Gift Man to arrive!

Related Posts:

John Waters Smokes Crack

Location, Location, Location: Baltimore

Screengrab Salutes: The Top 25 Leading Ladies of All Time (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:00:00 GMT

5. KATHARINE HEPBURN (1907-2003)

Given her longevity, and her four Academy Awards (out of a total twelve nominations), it's easy to forget what a tough time of it Hepburn had early in her career. With the aristocratic-goddess bone structure that was built to last and the tremulous voice and her no-nonsense regal quality and the tall frame and strapping physicality that went with it, she stood apart from the run of Hollywood ingenues in the 1930s: a Fox News commentator would proclaim her "elitist"-like. (In her first movie, she played John Barrymore's daughter. In her first Oscar-winning role, in Morning Glory, she played an ambitious young actress who cares more about her career than about finding love with Mr. Right -- exactly what the mass audience had been indoctrinated to view as an unsympathetic character.) She had great successes in such comedies as Bringing Up Baby and Alice Adams, but there was always a love-hate relationship going on with her and the movie audience, and after a string of flops (which included a number of deadly costume dramas but also the inventive and risky Sylvia Scarlett, where she was in male drag for most of the picture) got her designated box office poison by distributor's groups. She retreated to Broadway and came back in the film version of the hit play The Philadelphia Story -- which made her bigger than ever, but in a comedy whose point was partly to bring her down a peg. Her character there has to be humiliated a little so that she can be humanized and become more of a regular Josephine Sixpack, an idea that was also a constant of the many, mostly dull movies she made with Spencer Tracy. She left a more durable image co-starring with Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen -- a comic marriage of mismatched equals -- and in the very fine 1962 version of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. She spent much of her last several years tending to her image and the images of those closest to her in a string of books and interviews.

4. ELIZABETH TAYLOR (1932 - )

Taylor is one of those rare larger-than-life legends (not a fat joke!) who packed seven or eight careers into a lifetime. Or was it seven or eight marriages? Actually it was both (for the record, the total is eight marriages, seven husbands), and though her offscreen exploits always threatened to overshadow her movie career, there can be no denying her place in the pantheon of leading ladies. She became a star at twelve years old in National Velvet, making fans of young girls, adolescent boys and dirty old men as fresh-faced, buxom horse trainer Velvet Brown. She transitioned into adult roles through the original Father of the Bride and its sequel, but it was 1951's A Place in the Sun that set her on the path to superstardom. She was the first actor to crack the million dollar mark in salary for the title role in Cleopatra, which turned out to be a disaster of biblical proportions. She emerged unscathed, more famous than ever, although that had as much to do with her tumultuous marriage to co-star Richard Burton as her onscreen work. Taylor was always renowned more for her beauty and glamour than her acting talent, until those attributes began to fade in the late '60s. She emerged as a terrifying, emasculating force of nature in Reflections in a Golden Eye with Marlon Brando and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Burton, winning her second Academy Award for the latter (she'd earlier won for Butterfield 8). After that, her film career was more miss than hit, but she did have two indelible moments on the small screen: she cursed Luke and Laura on their wedding day in the most-watched episode of General Hospital in 1981, and she was the voice of baby Maggie in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons.

3. INGRID BERGMAN (1915-1982)

At a time when an actress could still seriously damage her career by having an extramarital affair, Ingrid Bergman jeopardized a reputation as one of the greatest of all Hollywood stars by falling in love with Italian director Roberto Rossellini, by whom she soon became pregnant. While most Europeans shrugged with indifference (Bergman continued making films in Italy to great acclaim), America went apeshit, and for several years, the moralistic fervor of the ‘50s cost us the good graces of one of the shining lights of cinema. Bergman was simply too good for this world; when she finally died in 1982, she was assumed directly into Heaven, where God immediately put her to work making a sequel to Casablanca and gave St. Peter a dirty look for even daring to mention her affair behind closed doors. She was always something special, even in the early days: she was tall and striking in an era of waifs, she rarely wore makeup in an era of kohl and lipstick, and she remained resolutely Ingmar Bergman when Lucy Fay LeSuer was trolling around for a more cinematic name. And, happily for American moviegoers, she was never one to hold grudges: after years of being treated shabbily for the crime of falling in love, she favored us with Anastasia, for which she won her second Academy Award. She always wore her heart on her sleeve, much like many of her most famous characters: when she finally returned to Hollywood in 1958 as an Academy Award presenter, she was given a standing ovation by a crowd who, presumably, couldn’t stand to see her cry.

2. AUDREY HEPBURN (1929-1993)

Audrey Hepburn’s early career was the stuff of Hollywood legend -- plucked from relative obscurity (a handful of minor roles in European films) to star in William Wyler’s Roman Holiday, she proceeded to charm the pants off of moviegoers worldwide, and took home an Oscar for her trouble. Throughout the 1950s, Hepburn sustained the stardom that her breakthrough performance had brought her, using her dancer’s grace and petite, almost elfin beauty to bewitching effect in movies like Billy Wilder’s Sabrina and the musical Funny Face, in which she starred opposite Fred Astaire. But it wasn’t until her performances became a little more melancholy that she revealed what a truly great star she was. 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s is fondly-remembered today largely for Hepburn’s turn as the soulful party girl Holly Golightly (and admittedly for Henry Mancini’s score), and she proved surprisingly adept within the thriller framework of Charade and Wait Until Dark. Best of all was Stanley Donen’s Two For the Road as the increasingly dissatisfied wife of Albert Finney, a role that takes her character through the many seasons of a marriage. It’s perhaps her most down-to-earth role; yet at the same time that unmistakable Audrey Hepburn glow is always in abundance. In the last few decades of her career, Hepburn worked sparingly, with memorable roles in Robin and Marian and They All Laughed (let’s forget about the star-studded stink bomb Sidney Sheldon’s Bloodline, shall we?). But despite being mostly absent from the screen, she remained busy as a fashion icon and goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, all the while raising her children and keeping them largely out of the limelight -- an appropriately graceful life for a star who practically embodied the word.

1. BARBARA STANWYCK (1907-1990)

According to her IMDb bio, Barbara Stanwyck is best remembered today for her work on TV’s The Big Valley and The Colbys. To which we can only say -- what? Any true pop culture maven will at least recognize Stanwyck from her iconic turn as Phyllis Dietrichson, one of the most famously fatale of film noir femmes, and the owner of cinema’s most legendary anklet. And any cinephile worth his salt should be familiar with a number of her priceless comedic roles, particularly the irresistible con artist Jean Harrington in The Lady Eve and gangster’s moll Sugarpuss O’Shea (who else could have pulled off that name?) in Ball of Fire. But lest one think Stanwyck was all about tough-talking dames, there’s also her performance in Sorry, Wrong Number as a bedridden woman who picks up the telephone and overhears two men plotting a murder. In short, Stanwyck was one of classical Hollywood’s most complete stars, male or female. She was equally at home in a racy pre-Code drama (like Ball of Fire, in which she played a shameless social climber) as she was in a Breen Office-approved weepie (King Vidor’s Stella Dallas), and equally adaptable to the worlds of Frank Capra (Meet John Doe), Fritz Lang (Clash by Night), and Sam Fuller (as the “high-ridin’ woman with the whip” Jessica Drummond in Forty Guns). We could keep going, but you get the idea -- Stanwyck was a true-blue movie star to the core, and to suggest that her most memorable roles came on two late-period TV series is tantamount to cinematic blasphemy.

Click Here for Part One, Two, Three, Four, Six, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Phil Nugent, Scott Von Doviak, Leonard Pierce, Paul Clark

Screengrab Salutes: The Paul Newman Top Ten (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

7. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958)

Newman's first on-screen brush with Tennessee Williams. (Four years later, he'd star in a hysterical version of Sweet Bird of Youth, and in 1987 he directed Joanne Woodward in a movie of The Glass Menagerie.) It suffers from the requirement that the play be bowdlerized for Hollywood: unless you know the original's big revelation about the exact nature of the relationship between Newman's Brick and his faithful football buddy Skip, you could run this movie backwards and forwards and still end up a little hazy on just what it is that's got the rich boy with the hot wife so pouty. But it gives Newman the chance to show off his Actors Studio chops and make with the heavy Broadway dramatics, especially in the famous showdown about "mendacity" with the doomed, cantankerous father figure, Big Daddy (Burl Ives, looking like a redneck cave troll). And seeing the Adonis-like Newman demonstrate his manly self-control by refusing the increasingly desperate advances of an in-her-prime Elizabeth Taylor must have inspired a compelling mixture of bewilderment and admiration in theaters from coast to coast.

6. THE STING (1973)

Shortly after Newman’s death, Larry King replayed a series of recent interviews with the flinty, taciturn actor, who came across as guarded and frankly embarrassed to be the center of attention under the glaring spotlights. The only times the star’s famous blue eyes really lit up with the kind of playful, mischievous glee familiar from so many of his film roles came when he spoke about a prank war between himself and his old running partner, Robert Redford. To say The Sting was only his second best on-screen pairing with Redford is hardly damning the seminal caper flick with faint praise, considering the American Film Institute named their best buddy flick (1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) one of the best westerns of all time, and both their paired collaborations racked up a total of 12 Academy Awards between them (with The Sting earning Oscars for Best Picture as well as Best Director for lucky charm helmer George Roy Hill, who would later direct Newman in Slap Shot). When asked why he and Redford never did another film together despite their palpable onscreen chemistry, Newman explained they wanted to, but simply never found a suitable project...understandable, considering the standard they’d set for themselves with films of a quality Hollywood barely even bothers to attempt anymore. Screenwriter David S. Ward’s twisty Depression-era tale of a grifter dream team seeking revenge on the Scottish gangster who killed one of their own makes Ocean’s Eleven (either version) seem like a simple snatch-and-grab job, and Hill’s direction elevates the impressive game of his two leads by surrounding them with a memorable ragtime score, gorgeous production design and an all-star character actor Who’s Who including Robert Shaw, Charles Durning and Eileen Brennan as a formidable floozy whose lived-in chemistry with Newman gives Redford a run for his money.

5. COOL HAND LUKE (1967)

What must have seemed like a stunner back in 1967 – Paul Newman, one of the most beloved actors in America, playing what essentially boiled down to a counterculture icon – has lost a bit of its punch. Stuart Rosenberg’s direction isn’t the most sure-handed in the world, and the screenplay (by Donn Pearce, based on his own novel) lays on the Jesus metaphor a bit thick. But even surrounded by a terrific supporting cast, including George Kennedy and Strother Martin, it’s Newman’s iconic performance that makes the irrepressible, defiant prisoner Luke into perhaps the most famous anti-hero in ‘60s cinema and keeps the movie’s reputation from falling in with a lot of other forgotten rebel-without-a-cause films of the day. Newman’s strength, as in so many of his best-known performances, is that he completely owns the role, in all its contradictions and confusions, and doesn’t slow down for a second. When we’re asked to laugh with him, we can’t help but do so; when we’re asked for feel for his suffering, we do it without a thought. A lot of actors wouldn’t be able to reconcile the swings of the character from grinning smart-ass to inspiring martyr, but Newman throws himself into the part with such conviction that while we may not always believe the script, we always believe him.

Click Here for Part One & Part Three

Contributors: Phil Nugent, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

Screengrab's Back To School Round-Up: The Top 15 College Movies (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Two weeks ago, in the spirit of the season, your overeducated friends at The Screengrab kicked off a two-part Back To School tribute with a list of the 18+ Top High School Films. The second part of our salute to readin’, writin’ and massive student loan debt was postponed so we could honor the memory of fallen voice-over king Don LaFontaine with a celebration of the Greatest Coming Attractions Trailers...mini-masterpieces of marketing that make even the worst movies seem like must-see events.

On further reflection, though, I realized the Coming Attractions list maybe wasn’t such a detour from our Back To School tribute after all. For me, at least, the College Movies I saw growing up were a vivid advertisement for all the wild ‘n crazy fun and (more importantly) SEX I’d be having in the hallowed halls of higher education.

But, like any number of flashy preview trailers, those cinematic depictions of frat party free love turned out to be VERY misleading, and I soon learned a liberal arts degree ain’t nothin’ but a one-way ticket to the Blogosphere of Broken Dreams...

...not that I’m bitter, like so many of the characters in the College Movie’s sister genres of Post-Graduate Malaise and Faculty Feuds...all of which await your approbation (it'll be on the SAT...look it up!) as we count down the Top 15 College Movies Of All Time!

ANIMAL HOUSE (1978)

I read an article recently about the way the success of Animal House led to a pernicious slob culture (or something like that...anyone who knows the article I’m talking about can probably correct me in the Comments section). But the gist, if I remember correctly, was the way the “misfits” of Delta House became the obnoxious norm in American society, in the same way that hip-hop and “alternative” music became all-pervasive and, in so doing, lost most of what made it good in the first place. The argument has some merit, I suppose...but in the same way Grandmaster Flash and Nirvana can’t be entirely blamed for all the crapulosity they inadvertently spawned, John Landis’ modern classic at least earns a high spot on this list as the template-setting granddaddy of the modern college film. It's also, it should be noted, much smarter than many people remember, neatly bridging the gap between Baby Boomer self-indulgence and Gen-X ironic detachment. Sure, Tim Matheson’s Otter is a smarmy asshole...but at least he’s an asshole with a sense of humor and a modicum of perspective (unlike those Omega House choads). John Belushi’s Bluto may be a monster of destructive Id...but the movie wisely uses him as a spice, perfect for those moments when revenge and treacley acoustic guitar smashing really ARE the best options. And the ever-delightful Peter Riegert and Karen Allen ground the movie with just enough brains, heart and maturity to remind us that villainous Dean Wormer has an actual point when he notes, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.”

COLLEGE (1927) & HORSE FEATHERS (1932)

The greatest film comedian of the silent era, Buster Keaton, and the greatest comedy team of the early talkies, the Marx Brothers, both brought off classics with collegiate settings, and both zeroed in on the same aspect of college life: sports. In Keaton's gentle-spirited slapstick romance, he plays a brainiac who abandons his books in hopes of proving himself on the athletic field so he can win the girl of his dreams. Less interested in fitting in or plucking heartstrings (though they do all takes turns throwing themselves at "the college widow", Thelma Todd), the Marxes head straight for the wheels of power, with Groucho installing himself as the head of Huxley College and devoting his time to trying to staff the university football team with ringers hired out of the local speakeasy. A more inspiring vision of the American higher education system is hard to imagine, though you might find one in Groucho laying out his administrative plan and philosophy of life in the introductory anthem, "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It."

RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

Future adaptations – of which there are many coming down the pike – may one day prove us wrong, but for our money here at the Screengrab, the most successful film adaptation to date of an H.P. Lovecraft story is the one that refused to take the material completely seriously. There’s no doubt that Stuart Gordon loves Lovecraft; one look at his oeuvre proves it. But when he made Re-Animator in 1985, he served it up with a wicked dose of black humor that’s entirely invisible in the source material. Of course, Lovecraft’s stories were rife with collegiate atmosphere; the legendary Miskatonic University plays a major role in almost all his Cthulhu-mythos tales. But Gordon updates it to the modern day, making his protagonist a medical-school everyman, his major villain a scheming blowhard with tenure, and his female lead’s father an ineffectual – and ultimately doomed – school administrator. Only the role of mad scientist Herbert West – played by a deliciously over-the-top Jeffrey Combs – seems like a throwback to classic movie horror. The rest of the movie, from its ultra-gory fright scenes to one of the most repulsively memorable sex scenes in modern cinema, plays like a filmed treatise on how to successfully screw with horror conventions. Like Night of the Creeps, it does more than set its action on campus; it takes a decidedly academic (and often sophomoric) approach to its subject, and the result is a modern-day classic.

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)

There’s nary a student to be seen in one of the greatest college movies of all time. In fact, there’s hardly anyone in it at all: two college professors at a small-town university – one an older history professor, the other a young chemistry professor – and their wives (and, briefly, an ancient couple who run a roadhouse on the edge of town). The history teacher, played by a quietly vicious Richard Burton, and his wife – whose father is the president of the university – despise each other, and over the course of the evening, they will attempt to destroy each other, stopping just short for the strangest of reasons. For Burton and his wife – a poisonous, unstoppable Elizabeth Taylor – the young professor and his agreeable nothing of a wife are nothing more than weapons to be deployed against one another; over the course of a single late night, which begins at a faculty party, and quickly moves on from campus politics to what has been memorably termed ‘the politics of personal destruction’, they will fully understand their status as knives waiting to be unsheathed. Featuring some of Edward Albee’s sharpest dialogue, and Burton and Taylor at the peak of their powers, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? has survived countless parodies (it’s virtually shorthand for hateful feuding couples) and the rising and falling stars of its actors, director, and author, and it’s remained one of the most riveting pieces of cinema of the 1960s.

Click Here for Part Two & Part Three

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce

Yesterday's Hits: Around the World in 80 Days (1956, Michael Anderson)

Paul Clark — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

If there’s one thing Hollywood is sorely lacking nowadays, it’s larger-than-life figures. Nowadays, most moviegoers want their industry types to be down to earth, but in the classical era of Hollywood, it was a different story. Tinseltown was ruled by grandiose, even vulgar men who flaunted their wealth, made bold statements and engaged in dangerous behavior just to fuel their taste for adventure. Today’s peekaboo paparazzi photos and pregnancy gossip pale in comparison to the stories of Errol Flynn’s legendary parties and John Huston deciding to make a movie in Africa with the notion of shooting an elephant while he was there.

Michael Todd was one of these men. Todd began his career in Hollywood by running a construction company that specialized in soundproofing studio stages, but after he was bankrupted by the Depression, his colorful life really began. He began producing stage shows, often of ill repute. He romanced Gypsy Rose Lee, star of one of his productions. He married Joan Blondell, after his first wife died under suspicious circumstances. He gambled and spent money like a decadent prince, causing Blondell to divorce him and leading to his second bankruptcy. He staged a nudie musical written by the future king of Thailand. And if that’s not enough drama for one lifetime, he later married Liz Taylor. Todd also had a hand in the development of the three-screen Cinerama process before pioneering a technological breakthrough of his own, the Todd-AO process, which Todd envisioned as being “Cinerama coming from one hole.” And the crown jewel of Todd-AO was 1956’s Around the World in 80 Days.

What made Around the World in 80 Days a hit?: In addition to its wide screen and greater clarity (Todd-AO cameras shot at 30 frames per second instead of the usual 24), Todd-AO also employed the widest-angle lens of the era, approximately 150 degrees. These factors made the format ideal for filming grand epics and panoramic vistas. The first Todd-AO release was 1955’s Oklahoma!, but the maximum potential of the format was realized the following year with Around the World in 80 Days. A long in-development project that had yet to come to fruition, Todd used his newly-regained resources- much of which had been earned by his stake in 1952’s This Is Cinerama- to film his adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel on location all around the world, showing off what Todd-AO was truly capable of doing.

For such an ambitious production, it was only fitting that Todd would fill it to the brim with international stars, all the better to draw in moviegoing audiences worldwide. After pairing up-and-coming Hollywood leading man David Niven with popular Mexican entertainer Cantinflas (as Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, respectively), Todd then surrounded them with a galaxy of stars in cameo roles. It seemed like wherever the travelers went, another handful of familiar faces would drop in to greet them, with bit roles for the likes of Noel Coward, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, Charles Boyer, Ronald Colman, Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre, George Raft, Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra, Buster Keaton, and Edward R. Murrow as the narrator of the film’s introduction. The combination of globetrotting adventure and big stars worked like gangbusters, with the Around the World in 80 Days pulling in $23.1 million dollars- the second-highest gross of 1956 behind The Ten Commandments- and taking home five Oscars including Best Picture.

What happened?: Jules Verne’s novel, written in 1872, was meant to inspire a sense of wonder in its readers. But as is often the case with gee-whiz science fiction, much of the wonder evaporated once the fantasy became reality. By 1956, humanity had long since “conquered the air,” and the notion of circumnavigating the globe in four score days didn’t hold too much magic. So while Around the World in 80 Days offered audiences the irresistible combination of big stars and widescreen vistas, the story was little more than an excuse for a series of misadventures involving Phileas and/or Passepartout rather than the wondrous futuristic spectacle Verne had intended.

In addition, while Michael Anderson was credited as the director, this was without a doubt Mike Todd’s film, something that was discovered early on by the film’s original director, John Farrow. But Todd wouldn’t be around much longer to enjoy his success. In 1958, while flying his unfortunately-monikered plane “The Lucky Liz,” Todd suffered a fatal crash. This negated the possibility of any more ambitious Todd-produced epics, as well as beginning the slow decline of the Todd-AO process, which continued in a more conventional 24fps format through the sixties before dying out altogether.

Does Around the World in 80 Days still work?: Not really. If the film was charming in 1956, it’s merely quaint today. For one thing, the much-ballyhooed international shoot comes across mostly as hype nowadays. To modern audiences’ more sophisticated eyes, the seams in the production really show, as when the film cuts from a sweeping foreign vista to a shot of the stars gazing at it in wonder. Much of the action that actually involves the actors looks like it was filmed on soundstages. This isn’t categorically a problem, but when a movie’s primary selling point is that it was filmed on locations around the world, it feels like something of a cheat when the international shots appear to be second-unit work.

In addition, the principal actors in the film are consistently underwhelming. Watching his work as Phileas Fogg, it’s clear why David Niven never became a superstar- not only does he lack the necessary star presence, but his screen persona isn’t very interesting. Phileas Fogg is clearly meant to be an upper-class eccentric- independently wealthy, time-obsessed yet impulsive. Yet with Niven in the role, we have to take the movie’s word for it as regards his eccentricity, since all he brings to the table is a vague air of urbane sophistication. Perhaps a leading man who was more adept at comedy- Cary Grant, perhaps, or Alec Guinness- could have made the role enjoyable, but with Niven it just sort of sits there.

Similarly, despite his celebrity status south of the border, Cantinflas wasn’t cut out for stardom stateside. He looks fairly uncomfortable acting in English, and his physical schtick isn’t very funny, although Anderson and Todd’s insistence on extreme long shots doesn’t help any. Shirley MacLaine, in one of her first films, is sorely miscast as the Indian maiden Aouda, in keeping with classic Hollywood’s highly uncool tradition of “browning-up” white actors for ethnic parts. And while Around the World in 80 Days popularized the practice of “cameo” roles, they’re almost always distracting. Is that brief flash of recognition that comes over audience members when the piano player turns out to be Frank Sinatra really worth the tedious setup? I would argue that it’s not.

In the end, Around the World in 80 Days hardly seems to warrant the “epic” label that many ascribe to it. Far from justifying the largesse of the production, the film feels like an amusing trifle with some picturesque scenes interspersed in order to make the film feel like an event. With comedy that isn’t especially funny and lead actors who get outshone by both the scenery and the stars in the bit roles, Around the World in 80 Days amounts to little more than a widescreen travelogue- diverting in spots with some pleasant company, but not very interesting cinematically, and not really worth revisiting.

Summerfest '08: "Suddenly Last Summer"

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:45:00 GMT

Last week on Summerfest '08, we brought you a ripe slice of faux-Tennessee Williams by way of William Faulkner, with the overheated 1958 steamer The Long Hot Summer. This week, we're cutting out the middleman and bringing you actual Tennessee Williams -- or as actual as Tennessee Williams could get given the restrictive studio censorship of the 1950s -- with Suddenly Last Summer. As if reacting to a thrown-down gauntlet, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, a year after The Long Hot Summer debuted, said "Oh yeah? We'll just see about that!", and brought in an even more dysfunctional cast to film an even more flowery tale of sexual repression with an even more transparently, and yet never explicitly, gay subtext than Hollywood was previously willing to put up with. If you think all this sublimated gayness, sweaty sexuality, and boiled-over Freudianism is pretty heavy water for a frivolous feature about movies with the word 'summer' in the title to carry, well, blame Hollywood, not us -- apparently there's something about the months from May to September that gets producers and directors all moist and lascivious. If someone out there has access to a university press, there's probably a good thesis floating around about why, exactly, "summer blockbuster" has transitioned in meaning these last few decades from "steamy romance about forbidden love" to "movie with lots of CGI where stuff gets blown all to shit". It probably says something profound about our culture, unless it doesn't.

Anyway, let's get on with the latest forbidden fruit in our cinematic basket: crack open some cognac, find yourself a nice Mediterranean beach on which to lounge, and join us for a viewing of Suddenly Last Summer!

THE ACTION: Catherine Holley (played by a luscious-looking Liz Taylor) has just returned from Europe, where she has gone all wiggy. Apparently, while she was visiting, her cousin Sebastian, played by nobody because we never see him, was killed under mysterious circumstances, and the whole thing was just too, too unpleasant and caused Catherine to have a nervous breakdown. Once she starts to recover, she makes cryptic but extremely disturbing comments about Sebastian's demise, which rubs his mom (played by Katherine Hepburn as the wonderfully named Mrs. Violet Venable) the wrong way. Violet insists that Sebastian was a very nice young man and a deeply sensitive artist and that's all there is to that, and when Catherine insists that there was something peculiar about the lad, she is instructed to shut her yapper or have it shut for her, in the person of professional psychiatrist and lobotomy practitioner Montgomery Clift. Eventually the truth comes out, or as much of the truth as the producers were allowed to show at the time: Sebastian was murdered by his neighbors for his predatory sexual practices, and Catherine -- like Violet before her -- was being used by the nefarious fellow as his procurer. (In fact, what is only hinted at in the movie is made explicit in the play: Sebastian was a pederast at worst and a seducer of young men at best, who was not only killed by his neighbors, but eaten by them as well. Creepy!)

THE PLAYERS: As if the plot of the movie, with its pedophilia, murder, pimping, lobotomies and cannibalism wasn't a big enough bummer, apparently the behind-the-scenes action was soaked in bad vibes as well. Pretty much everyone involved in the production of Suddenly Last Summer hated each other with a capital H: Katherine Hepburn hated Elizabeth Taylor for stealing her spotlight. Elizabeth Taylor hated Joseph L. Manckiewicz for mistreating her friend Monty Clift. Manckiewicz hated Clift for his alcoholism, bad behavior and unprofessional demeanor. Producer Sam Spiegel hated Montgomery Clift because he was gay. And the screenplay was co-written by Gore Vidal, who basically hates everyone on general principles. Clift had been in a horrible car accident on his way to Taylor's home before filming began, and the treatment he received (and dished out) on the set helped send him into a downward spiral from which he would never recover; and Taylor, on the end of a prolonged stretch as America's sweetheart, gained a reputation for difficulty during the filming of Suddenly Last Summer that would dog her throughout the 1960s and beyond.

SUMMER FUN: There's less fun going on here than in any film we've yet reviewed as part of Summerfest '08. Even Ingmar Bergman comes across as a good-time party happenin' kind of dude compared to the dour demeanours and permanent trauma expressed on screen in this bummer in the summer. Between Sebastian getting eaten by his neighbor and Liz and Kate being posthumously unmasked as gay pimps, no one is particularly enjoying themselves in this movie, not even the normally impish Gore Vidal. The one guy who has something to do in the movie other than feel sorry for himself is the psychiatrist played by Montgomery Clift, who if nothing else has the golden opportunity to run a couple of million volts through Liz Taylor's thinkbox, but even that doesn't seem to get him very excited.

HAWAIIAN SHIRTS: Folks, this movie stars Montgomery Clift as a brain specialist. He ain't wearing no Hawaiian shirts. We never get to see Sebastian, but it's a pretty fair bet he would prefer to have been killed and eaten to wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Albert "Dr. Cyclops" Dekker, who in perfect keeping with the tone of the film was a closeted homosexual who died of autoerotic asphyxiation with hypodermic needles jutting out of his arms and curse words written on his body, appears in Suddenly Last Summer, and while he might conceivably owned a Hawaiian shirt, he's certainly not wearing one here. Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams likely never touched a Hawaiian shirt in their entire lives. This is possibly the least Hawaiian-shirt-friendly summer movie ever made.

BIKINI PARTY TIME: Although the film is set in the 1930s, the fashions are all contemporary to when it was made, in 1959. And that's good, if for no other reason than it allows us to take a gander at the lovely Liz Taylor bedecked in a white bikini when seeing Liz Taylor in a bikini was still a very desirable thing. Of course, there isn't much of it -- the movie was made from a stage play, and almost all of the action still takes place indoors -- and she isn't exactly having a party in her bikini as she is sitting around feeling suicidal and blathering on and on about how her gay cousin was killed and eaten by teenagers. Still, in a movie as relentlessly bleak as Suddenly Last Summer, you take what you can get. Party on!

The Gay Pride Top Twenty (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:30:00 GMT

DESERT HEARTS (1985)

Unlike the much-heralded 1982 Olympic-athletes-in-love drama Personal Best, 1985’s lower-profile lesbian romance Desert Hearts (based on a novel by Jane Rule) was (A) actually directed by a woman (Donna Deitch) and (B) depicted a love story where neither participant ultimately winds up going back to a man after a tentative Sapphic fling. Like Marilyn Monroe’s character years before in The Misfits, Helen Shaver’s restrained English professor Vivian Bell finds herself in Reno, Nevada, sweating out the state’s six-week residency requirement in order to obtain a quick divorce from her husband. While killing time in a no-boys-allowed guest house (run by Jack Tripper’s old landlady, Audra Lindley), Vivian meets a free spirit named Cay (Patricia Charbonneau) and, much to her own surprise, discovers an intense spiritual and sexual connection she never experienced with the XY chromosome set. Given the don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t even acknowledge that homosexuality exists mindset of the story’s 1959 setting, Vivian isn’t even entirely aware that she’s been living in a closet, but once she’s out, her feelings trump her fears of a life less ordinary, and she invites Cay to follow her back to New York, and Cay admits that Vivian “reached in and put a string of lights” around her heart, one of the great swoony lines in the annals of romantic cinema.

THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED (2006)

A funny, real-life detective yarn, a brief history of film and a timely exposé of American cultural hypocrisy...all that AND a compendium of notorious, uncensored sex scenes? What's not to like? This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a gotcha! documentary in the Super Size Me tradition, where the filmmaker explores a larger topic by subjecting himself to a series of misadventures. In this case, the subject is the shadowy, puritanical Motion Picture Association of America, an unelected, unimpeachable board which subtly shapes our national cultural agenda by determining which films (and values) are "family-friendly" and which are marginalized by means of the current G-PG-PG13-R-NC17 ratings system. Combining movie clips and filmmaker interviews, director Kirby Dick demonstrates how the MPAA habitually demonizes sex in movies (particularly the homo- variety) while letting violence slide...but the real fun of the movie is watching the ironically-named Dick track down the secretive MPAA board members together with a spunky private detective (who, coincidentally but with obvious thematic irony, also happens to be a lesbian mother) before submitting the very film you're watching to the very group it's about for a rating in a great meta moment of "Fuck You" brio.

REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (1967)

Long before the "Don't ask, don't tell" era, a Southern army post was probably the least healthy environment for a deeply closeted homosexual imaginable. That's certainly the case in John Huston's adaptation of the Carson McCullers novel Reflections in a Golden Eye, in which pretty much every character has a psychosexual hang-up of some sort. Marlon Brando is Major Weldon Penderton, whose pride is entirely tied up in being something he's not: a portrait of courage, a leader of men. Elizabeth Taylor is his wife Leonora, one of the all-time ballbusters, and she's definitely got his number. "Firebird is a horse," he grumbles one morning, annoyed at his wife's devotion to the animal. "Firebird is a stallion," she hisses, and though it may have taken the 1967 audience a while to catch on (the words "gay" or "homosexual" are never mentioned – probably couldn't be mentioned), Penderton could hardly feel more emasculated if she horsewhipped him across the face in front of his colleagues – which she later does. A pent-up bottle of rage and self-loathing (he rides a horse like he's got the post's flagpole up his ass), Penderton finally pops his cork when he catches the object of his obsession, a hunky but dim young soldier played by Robert Forster in his movie debut, in his wife's bedroom sniffing through her undies. The movie's ending is a bit overheated, but Brando is brilliantly bizarre as a gay man who is definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

FOX AND HIS FRIENDS (1975)

He certainly wasn’t the first gay filmmaker, but a legitimate argument can be made that the brilliant German director Rainier Werner Fassbinder was the first gay filmmaker of importance. Fassbinder himself was openly gay, and homosexuality often played a part in his films, whether obviously or subtly, but Fox and His Friends was the first movie he made where a homosexual romance was the centerpiece of the plot. More importantly, though, as the director stressed in interviews, the gayness of the characters is not “a problem, or a comic term”. Fassbinder wanted nothing more – and nothing less – than to bring us a moving, tragic soap opera romance in which the main characters were not heterosexual. To accomplish this, he had to make the movie extremely personal (he filmed many of its scenes in the gay Berlin demimonde he frequented in his private life, and he chose to play the character of naïve working-class lottery winner Fox Biberkopf himself), but he also had to ensure that the movie would neither humiliate nor glorify its gay characters. In order for it to work, he had to show that gays were just as noble, as innocent, and as decent as other people, but he also had to show that they were just as base, as manipulative and as cruel as other people. The result is a masterpiece that contains everything that is great about Fassbinder as a director, and one of the most sad and human stories in the history of film drama: what Fox gives up for love, and the way his need for acceptance and affection leads him to ruin, resonates universally. That’s what good movies – be they ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ – are supposed to do.

BEN-HUR (1959)

One of the most iconic gay performances in cinema history came from a man who not only wasn’t gay, but apparently had no idea he was supposed to be playing a gay character, and when he found out, vehemently denied it for decades. The story goes that director William Wyler and screenwriter Gore Vidal found the notion that Messala and Judah Ben-Hur would have been so close, only to come to a position of extreme hatred over a fairly arcane dispute over politics, a tad hard to believe. Vidal, whose reputation as a bit of a troublemaker has never been a secret, came up with the notion that the two men had been lovers when they were young, and their split was not over politics, but over Ben-Hur’s eventual rejection of Messala. Wyler thought it was worth a shot, and while the two men discussed it with Stephen Boyd, who played Messala, they dared not bring the subject up with Heston, who was none too fond of gays. Naturally, the script never directly mentioned the situation either, but given the way Heston’s adult Ben-Hur interacts with Messala (the result, according to both Vidal and Boyd, of precise wording in the script and careful direction from Wyler), it’s a bit hard to believe that Heston couldn’t figure out that something was going on. Still, for reasons of his own, Heston spent the next forty years as the sole representative of the “I did not play a homo in Ben-Hur” position, going so far as to deny Gore Vidal had anything to do with the finished script of the film – a claim Vidal handily disproved, using, among other things, passages in Heston’s own autobiography as a source.

Click here to read Part One, Part Three and Part Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Andrew Osborne

Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds: 2 B 2-Together 4-Ever!

Phil Nugent — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds are getting hitched, and we here at the Screengrab haven't been this proud and excited since our guppies mated! These are two of our favorite people: Reynolds, because he's a likable fellow who's shown himself to be a reliable, capable actor whether he's flexing his chops in bad comedies (Van Wilder), bad action movies (Smokin' Aces), bad horror movies (The Amityville Horror), or bad unintentionally comic action horror movies (Blade : Trinity); Johansson, because she was once in a good movie (Ghost World) without doing it much harm, because Tom Waits isn't too proud to cash the royalty checks, and because every time we run a picture of her, such as this computer-generated simulation of what she'll look like in her wedding outfit, our page numbers go up for some reason. (Also, her name is Scarlett, but she's a blonde! How trippy is that!?) Interestingly, though both of them keep very busy, the 23-year-old Johansson and the 31-year-old cradle-robbing bastard Reynolds have never worked together before. (IMDB lists their only shared credit as 101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies on TV, which we haven't seen--we're waiting for the opera---but we have a hunch it would stretch the definition of "working together.") But if this marriage is going to work, and I think we can all agree that the thought of it failing is just too morbid to contemplate, then they're going to want to explore the possibility of co-starring vehicles to increase their volume of quality time together. (It worked for Julia and Kiefer, right?) Because the kids must have their hands full with wedding plans--registering at Sears, negotiating to rent out a bowling alley for the bachelor party, trying to get Survivor's Boston Robb on the phone to ask if he'd still lobby for the surf and turf buffet--they might not have a lot of time to flip through scripts, so we've taken the liberty of offering a few suggestions:

THE GETAWAY: Scarlett and Ryan have to co-star in a remake of the married-bank-robbers-on-the-lam thriller The Getaway, based on the Jim Thompson novel. This isn't our favorite choice for them, but after the Steve McQueen-Ali McGraw and Alec Baldwin-Kim Basinger versions, we're pretty sure that federal law demands it, so they might as well get it over with quick, like ripping off a band-aid or meeting the in-laws. (Personal to Ryan: just ignore Mr. Johnansson when he demands that you pull his finger.) After watching Ryan's steely gunplay in Smokin' Aces, we suspect that he'll actually be a solid, impressive Doc McCoy, and as for Scarlett, well, we're sure that she'll look shiny and immaculate even while camping out in a rat-infested dumpster. Since the movie will almost certainly blow, the newlyweds can't be judged too harshly for it, which means that the real suspense will be in seeing who gets to play the slimy killer nutjob chasing them and the lovable old goober who gives them a lift at the very end. We propose that the casting director go wide and unexpected with Steve Zahn as the psycho and pluck the viewers' nostalgic heartstrings by hiring Bob Newhart to play the sweet, gabby old thing. Or, if Newhart is unavailable, Robert De Niro.

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?: After the scathing reviews The Getaway is sure to earn, Scarlett in particular will be eager to jump in the deep end and show off her acting chops. That's a problem for her, because she can't act, but she can probably hollar, and that's really all you need to do to impress most critics with your range after they've sat through twenty pictures where you pretty much just stood there reflecting light. Playing Martha, the rampaging gorgon at the center of Edward Albee's marital slugfest, gave Elizabeth Taylor the chance to pick up an Academy Award for Best Hollaring by a One-Time Candidate for Most Beautiful Person in the World, so there's a ready-made tradition for Scarlett to tap into here. The husband, George, is supposed to be a prototypical middle-aged American wimp, but since most people's memories of the play are based on the movie starring Taylor and Richard Burton, they think George is English, which means that Reynolds too will have the chance to stretch by breaking out his best Monty Python accent to go with his prop eyeglasses. Throw in Elijah Wood and Bijou Phillipa as the goggle-eyed witnesses to this house of horrors and I think we've got a winner. Don't talk about the boy, Scarlett!

GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY: Tradition and awards are all well and good, but for full mutual career satisfaction, our little Lunt and Fontaine are also going to need to bring home that box-office gold. The ideal thing would be to sign them up for a franchise as crime-fighting superheroes. It isn't until you start trying to come up with possibilities that you realize just how few great man-and-woman superhero combos there have been, especially since Reed Richards and Sue Storm have already been spoken for. But we think that these two will make for a fine fit. Swear to God, we think there's always been something about Ryan Reynolds that's whispered, "Goatee! Robin Hood costume! Bow and arrows!" As for Scarlett, she's sure to rock the black leather slinkywear. The only problem is that there have been rumors of a Green Arrow movie in the works going back to when Kevin Smith was regarded as promising, and the property may be tied up. If it can't be pried free, then we propose going old-school and reviving Nick and Nora, the wisecracking alcoholic marrieds of the Thin Man series, "rebooting" the franchise to give it commercial potential for these sophisticated modern times. As Nick and Nora, Ryan and Scarlett will make wisecracks--or, to better keep with the nature of their talents, Ryan will make them while Scarlett stares at him blankly--chug martinis, and solve crimes. While wearing jet packs!

RYAN & SCARLETT'S XXX HONEYMOON SEX TAPE: A surefire career booster! With an IMAX 3-D sequence to be directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring Christopher Walken and Zac Efron in the musical numbers. To be released in conjunction with the premiere of their new reality series. "It's just called 'Chicken of the Sea' because people like chicken, Scarlett!"

“There Will Be Blood” Under the Marfa Lights

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:00:00 GMT

For as long as anyone can remember, Marfa, Texas has been known for two things. It’s the home of the Marfa Lights, those mysterious glowing blobs that could be paranormal entities, swamp gas or car headlights, depending on who you ask. And it’s the little town where George Stevens, James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor made Giant more than fifty years ago.

In the last year or so, however, Marfa has enhanced its cinematic pedigree considerably. Both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood were shot there, accounting for 40 percent of your 2007 Best Picture nominees, 16 nominations total, and six Oscars between them. Yet Marfa doesn’t even have its own movie theater.

Starting May 1st, however, it does have its own film festival. The first annual Marfa Film Festival will open with a screening of There Will Be Blood on the set where it was made, “just south of Marfa on the McGuire Ranch. Though some small parts of the set will remain after the event, the town (where we will screen) will soon be torn down, as the West Texas winds are already taking their toll on the scenic construction.” The closing night film on May 5th will be The Last Movie, Dennis Hopper’s notorious follow-up to Easy Rider, which Hopper will present in person. This will apparently be his first return to Marfa since shooting Giant.

The rest of the festival selections range from Texas-shot documentaries recently screened at SXSW (including Crawford and Tulia, Texas) to David Byrne’s Texas-lensed 1986 feature True Stories to films with no Texas connection at all, like the 1961 British horror classic The Innocents. The festival will also feature the world premiere to what may be the least likely sequel of all-time: Okie Noodling 2, the follow-up to the 2001 documentary about hillbillies who pull giant catfish out of holes with their hands. Apparently there’s even more to learn about this bizarre tradition, and I, for one, am intrigued.

You can check out the rest of the schedule and buy tickets here.

Yesterday's Hits: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963, Stanley Kramer)

Paul Clark — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

There’s an old critical truism that states that comedy isn’t debatable. In other words, funny is funny. However, like any other genre, big-screen comedy has always been subject to popular taste. Silent comedies were (necessarily) full of physical humor and slapstick. In the thirties, screwball comedy added the element of witty dialogue, often delivered in a rapid-fire style. By the time the sixties rolled around, audiences liked their comedies big. And It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was the biggest comedy of all.

What made It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World a hit?: Beginning in the 1950s, the movie industry was forced to compete with the immensely popular upstart medium of television. The studios’ most dependable solution was to give moviegoing audiences what they couldn’t get at home. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World had it all- glorious Technicolor! Ultra Panavision! Outrageous gags! And stars? You bet! Sure, you could see Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Phil Silvers on your television set, but if you wanted to see them all together you had to go to the movies. Add into the mix popular stars like Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, and Buddy Hackett, plus a bona fide acting legend in Spencer Tracy, and, to quote another hit of the period, the movie promised “something for everyone- a comedy tonight!” Audiences turned out in droves, making It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World the #2 box office hit of 1963, trailing only Cleopatra, proving that a raft full of stars wasn’t enough to torpedo the Taylor/Burton juggernaut.

What happened?: As I wrote above, big-screen comedy has always been susceptible to the whims of the audience. Star-studded comedy spectaculars like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World enjoyed a comfortable run at the box office for years, but by the end of the sixties they’d fallen out of fashion. Part of the problem was the cost of producing these movies- between the stars’ salaries and the price of the effects and stunts, Mad World’s budget was nearly $10 million, an exorbitant cost in 1963 Hollywood. And while Mad World itself was a hit, other movies like it weren’t so lucky.

Another problem was the demise of the Production Code. Once movies could get away with more risqué material, movies like Mad World and its ilk felt quaint and old-fashioned to many moviegoers. In the wake of films like MASH and the work of up-and-comers like Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, Mad World was a relic.

Does It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World still work?: Not really. Maybe you had to have grown up when the film’s comic titans were at their respective peaks, but I just didn’t find It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World all that funny. I’ve always found that the least entertaining movies tend to be failed comedies, since at least in the case of bad dramas, horror movies, etc., you still have something to laugh at. In Mad World the laughs are as sparse as the jokes are obvious. Consider that the opening scene of the movie finds a dying character literally kicking a bucket, and you’ll see the sort of humor you’re dealing with here. And if you think that’s corny, wait until you check out the final gag.

With few laughs to be had, the film becomes little more than a series of loud, overlong stunts and effects sequences, punctuated by liberal amounts of mugging from the stars. Needless to say, unfunny mugging gets old really quickly. After the first fifteen minutes, all I could think of was, “Jesus, I have to spend almost three hours with these people?” I’m guessing that wasn’t the reaction director Stanley Kramer was going for. All of the characters are given one note to play- Merman is domineering, Silvers is a pathological liar, Rooney and Hackett are bumblers, and so on. The film compounds this issue by sometimes pairing off characters with opposing viewpoints. For example, Berle resents the British, while Terry-Thomas hates Americans. Guess who winds up in a car together? Hilarity somehow fails to ensue.

Still, in a cast this stellar, there are bound to be a few bright spots. Tracy, ever the consummate professional, maintains his dignity primarily by underplaying. Among the comedians, the one who fares best is Dick Shawn as Merman’s mama’s-boy son, though more by virtue of his innate Dick Shawn-ness than with anything he actually does onscreen. But the only performer I felt any real affection for was Jimmy Durante as the ill-fated Smiler, who kicks the bucket (literally, let’s not forget) ten minutes into the movie. Not a good sign.

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World had an extravagant budget, and as publicists are fond of saying, every cent is up there on the screen. But to coin a phrase, money can’t buy funny. Yes, the cast is full of stars, but most of them are wasted in thin roles or trotted out for gratuitous cameos. Why get the Three Stooges when you’re just going to have them stand there? Likewise, the set pieces are big all right, but instead of providing a setup and payoff, they just flail around endlessly. It’s not enough for Jonathan Winters to destroy an entire filling station if there's no comedic logic behind the scene. During the film’s climax, when dozen characters are trapped at the end of a fireman’s ladder, all I could do was to keep asking myself why the scene was supposed to be funny. Which is the last question one should ask when watching a comedy.