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Month: August 2019

Apartment, The (1960)

Apartment, The (1960)

“When you’re in love with a married man, you shouldn’t wear mascara.”

Synopsis:
An aspiring insurance clerk (Jack Lemmon) allows his married colleagues to use his apartment as a love nest in exchange for advancement opportunities at work — but when he falls in love with his building’s elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) and learns she’s the mistress of his supervisor (Fred MacMurray), he begins to rethink his goals.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Billy Wilder Films
  • Fred MacMurray Films
  • Jack Lemmon Films
  • Infidelity
  • Love Triangle
  • Romantic Comedy
  • Shirley MacLaine Films
  • Suicide

Review:
The Apartment — directed by Billy Wilder and co-scripted by I.A.L. Diamond — won five Oscars (including Best Picture) and was nominated for five more, possibly as a belated or combined acknowledgement of the team’s comedy classic Some Like It Hot (1959) from the year before. In his Alternate Oscars, Peary gives the Best Picture award for 1960 to Psycho rather than this film, which he argues “was daring in its day because of the amorality of its characters and because it mixed humor with such serious elements as a suicide attempt”, but today is “somewhat dated and… still has a dubious premise”. While I can’t argue with Peary’s choice of Psycho as Best Picture, I disagree that this film — inspired by a sequence from David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) — is dubious or dated; it’s actually held up remarkably well on numerous fronts.

While one might question the need for a usable apartment when hotel rooms are readily available, it seems clear that this type of arrangement is about much more than a private space for sex: it’s about making the woman feel comfortable, happy, and unashamed of her fling (much easier in a fully furnished apartment with a kitchen, bar, sofa, and record player). It’s also, of course, about power: as an underling lost in a sea of other employees, Lemmon “freely” giving up his apartment night after night (even during bitterly cold weather, when he has nowhere else to go) is a way for him to demonstrate his loyalty and willingness to suffer in order to become part of the upper-echelon crowd. His aspiration story is a fascinating one, but so is MacLaine’s tale of woebegone romance — and the lives of the other supporting characters (including MacMurray, wonderfully cast against type here) are rich as well. Wilder’s direction, combined with Joseph LaShelle’s cinematography, create a seamy yet emotion-drenched world where unlikely couplings can take place, and power dynamics can eventually be disrupted.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

  • Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter (nominated as one of the Best Actors of the Year in Alternate Oscars)
  • Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik
  • Fine supporting performances
  • Joseph LaShelle’s b&w cinematography

Must See?
Yes, as a fine and deserving Oscar winner. Listed as a film with Historical Importance in the back of Peary’s book.

Categories

  • Oscar Winner or Nominee

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)

It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)

“I’m a scientist, commander — I don’t need to be reminded that your objectives are not necessarily my own.”

Synopsis:
A submarine commander (Kenneth Tobey) enlists the help of a pair of scientists (Faith Domergue and Donald Curtis) in identifying and snaring an atomically charged octopus wreaking havoc in the ocean — but will his romantic interest in Domergue get in the way of his military duties?

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Love Triangle
  • Mutant Monsters
  • Ray Harryhausen Films
  • Science Fiction
  • Scientists

Review:
Special effects guru Ray Harryhausen’s next film after The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953) (also co-starring Kenneth Tobey) was this similarly-themed mutant-monster flick, featuring impressive animation of an octopus (actually a six-tentacled creature — a.k.a. a “hexapus”) taking down the Golden Gate Bridge. As narrative filler, we’re given an unintentionally chuckle-worthy love triangle between Domergue, Tobey, and Curtis, filled with plenty of thinly veiled sexual allure (Domergue strokes beakers in her lab while Tobey first converses with her) and amusing banter — such as Tobey mollifying the agitated Domergue by showing her he knows what she REALLY wants in a fancy restaurant:

Tobey (to Domergue): “We, my dear doctor, are going to dance.” (To Curtis): “With your permission, sir.”
Curtis: “Live it up, children.”
Domergue: “But… you haven’t even asked me!”
Tobey: “That’s the way we do it in the navy.”
Domergue: “But I haven’t even had my dinner!”
Tobey (to Curtis): “Would you order another t-bone, doctor?
Domergue: “I don’t like t-bones, and you’re being a fool!”
Curtis: “Don’t believe her, Pete. She says that to all the boys.”
Domergue: “You’re both being fools! Just because you’re men, you think that…”
Tobey (leaning in seductively): “Do you like lobster?
Domergue (tentatively): “Yes…”
Tobey: “Broiled, with garlic butter and parsley?”
Domergue (smiling and laughing): “Yes.”

This film is also notable for marking the beginning of Harryhausen’s decades-long collaboration with producer Charles Schneer, during which time they made 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), Mysterious Island (1961), First Men in the Moon (1964), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and Clash of the Titans (1981).

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

  • Fun special effects by Ray Harryhausen

Must See?
Yes, for Harryhausen’s work, and as a representative “’50s monster movie”.

Categories

  • Representative Film

Links:

Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)

Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)

“Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty.”

Synopsis:
When a mentally and emotionally fragile woman (Vivien Leigh) comes to stay with her pregnant sister (Kim Hunter) and callous brother-in-law (Marlon Brando) in New Orleans, she struggles to hold on to her dignity, but experiences renewed hope for a bright future when she begins dating Brando’s co-worker (Karl Malden).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

  • Deep South
  • Elia Kazan Films
  • Karl Malden Films
  • Kim Hunter Films
  • Marlon Brando Films
  • Mental Breakdown
  • Play Adaptation
  • Tennessee Williams Films
  • Vivien Leigh Films

Response to Peary’s Review:
Peary writes that in Elia Kazan’s Oscar-winning adaptation of the 1947 Broadway play, “Vivien Leigh gives an emotionally shattering performance as Blanche Dubois, the most vulnerable, bruised, and battered of Tennessee Williams’ tragic heroines,” whose “unhappy and humiliating past and the passing of her youth have left her on the brink of sanity”. Given that “brutish, t-shirt clad” Stanley (Brando) “won’t let her find needed escape and solace in her desperate flights into fantasy” — and they are stuck in stiflingly close quarters with one another — she eventually devolves and decomposes to the point of no return. Peary notes that while the “film is a bit theatrical — at times it looks like an old kinescope” — “Elia Kazan’s direction of actors was never better… and Brando’s devastating portrayal (‘Stella!!!’) is regarded as one of the screen’s greatest characterizations.”

In Alternate Oscars, Peary agrees with the Academy’s choice of Leigh as Best Actress of the Year, noting, “Those of us who see the optimistic twenty-six-year-old Leigh in Scarlett [from Gone With the Wind] surely see in Blanche the older Leigh who suffered from depression and experienced mental breakdowns”. Indeed, there’s “no doubt her own condition helped her sympathize with Blanche — at times it seems like she is exorcising her own demons.” He spends considerable time discussing how Blanche is “on her last legs” since “she has lost her youth” and “has no prospects”, and points out that the “part is difficult because Blanche has no foundation, no key that can be turned to put her back into the correct mode of motion and speech” — “not anymore”, given that “everything solid has been clawed out of her.” Only during a brief, “seemingly minor scene in which Blanche flirts with a young man who is collecting for the newspaper” does she “regain her power” and “shine” — at which point she is “wistful, poetic, haunting, alluring, and both amoral… and moral”.

Leigh’s performance is undeniably the centerpiece of this devastating film (one I find both challenging and mesmerizing to watch), but there is much more to make note of as well. Brando’s screen presence is a visceral gut-punch of brutality; while we completely understand Hunter’s physical attraction to him — and it makes sobering sense that she would put up with his domestic violence, given the warped nature of such enmeshments — it’s less easy to understand how she deals with his “subhuman” personality. Regardless, such is love and lust — and Hunter masterfully embodies her complex character in a way that allows us to stick with and believe in this aspect of the story. Also notable is the highly atmospheric cinematography by Harry Stradling, who sharply highlights nearly every scene in black-and-white contrast, showcasing the many extremes at play in this toxic swirl of a muggy landscape. Meanwhile, Alex North’s score is haunting, percussive, lyrical, and mystical — the perfect background to a gothic tale of madness.

Redeeming Qualities and Moments:

  • Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois
  • Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
  • Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski
  • Karl Malden as Mitch
  • Harry Stradling’s cinematography

  • Atmospheric sets
  • Alex North’s score

Must See?
Yes, as a powerful cinematic adaptation of a classic play.

Categories

  • Genuine Classic
  • Oscar Winner or Nominee

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links: