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Archive for the ‘Gene Tierney’ Category

Tobacco Road

18 Feb

Tobacco Road — directed by John Ford. Rural Comedy. Will the old folks be shunted out of their shanty on Tobacco Road? 84 minutes Black and White 1941.

* * *

Does John Ford think we’re all stupid? I have never understood the eminence into which this director fell – or perhaps he always belonged there – as a sub-popular entertainer. His sentimentality, his crude humor, his encouragement of excess in his performers, his delight in the sound ethics of a fistfight. It’s all here, Ward Bond included, playing a love-silly hick whose infant wife has run off to Atlanta. The whole thing is directed as though it were a Warner Brothers cartoon, with violence and improbability at every turn. Charlie Grapewin and Elizabeth Patterson play the old folks, and Grapewin is as supercharged as Paterson is American Gothic. Society-bitch actress Gene Tierney, smeared with hog-dirt, skulks behind the shrubs like Moonbeam McSwine in L’il Abner. William Tracy as a rageaholic nitwit does not bear looking at as he creates mayhem wherever his nasty nature drives him. The Broadway play was the longest running play in the history of the American theatre. The novel on which it is based is a trove of rich humor, funny in and of itself, written by America’s greatest short story writer and the finest novelist of his day, as Faulkner and all the others admitted, Erskine Caldwell. But Ford thinks Caldwell needs improving, as though Mark Twain needed slapstick to entertain. The material was supposed to be salacious. Which meant that these hillbillies got married and unmarried without ceremony, but in Caldwell that is not dirty, it simply a piece of the human comedy. And then…and then…you find Ford taking a picture of Elizabeth Patterson’s sad face as she faces homelessness And then Ford places them on the long walk to the poor farm pressed against a hard sky, two old people who have no place to go but down and a hard walk to get there, and you can forgive much. And then you realize that it is all being shot by Arthur Miller a great cinemaphotographer. And that whatever is being given us is in a very meritorious partnership. And that whatever it is, it is professionally done to the maximum. For essentially Ford is a storyteller’s eye. Then you remember Stagecoach a masterpiece. Then you take a star and you add it to the two you sourly accorded it, and you say no more.

 

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, Arthur Miller: MASTER PHOTOGRAPHER, Charley Grapewin, Dana Andrews, Directed by John Ford, Elizabeth Patterson, Gene Tierney, Low Comedy, Marjorie Rambeau, Ward Bond

 

Dragonwyck

26 Sep

 

Filmed by the great Arthur Miller. Dragonwyck – Written and Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Gothic Melodrama. A farm girl comes to live in a mansion whose married Byronic owner rolls his eyes at her. 103 minutes Black and White 1946.

* * *

Gene Tierney – a farm girl? – never. She’s too snooty. Look at the tricksy way she has of lowering her eyelids. Of course, the girl is a dreamer which is what sets her off to leave the sheep herd of her father, played by Walter Huston in one of his Duel In The Sun–Sadie Thompson religious fanatic roles. Anne Revere, an actress I do not admire much, plays the stalwart mother, also once again. The first thing you notice about them is that their aprons look just-off-the-rack, and that disease prevails throughout. The sets are brilliant but they are suborned by the film being over-costumed as though the things were built for one of Betty Grable’s musicals there at Fox. When no expense has been spared, vulgarity is usually the consequence. Connie Marshall does a fine job, in this her last film, as the food-addict wife; Spring Byington is interestingly cast against type as the cracked housekeeper; Jessica Tandy shows up just great as a gimpy maid, and Harry Morgan in one of his 130 film roles does fine by a rabble-rouser. Glenn Langan, a leading man I had never seen before, is lovely, chosen perhaps for his height, 6’5”. For the real lead in the film is that six foot four of toad, Vincent Price. I remember when the film first came out and how attracted I was by its grandiose title: Dragonwyck. But I declined to go, because I knew, even then, that Gene Tierney was an actress of imperceptible interest and that Vincent Price had no authentic authoriity. And besides people always said Vincent Price was a terrible ham. Well, why did they say that? When you look at this performance, you see an actor who is razor thin, with very long legs that look super in the straight trou of the 1840s and especially in that floor-length dressing gown. In execution of the part, Price never gesticulates, he scarcely moves, except to walk, so he is not throwing himself about. He is not of the bent wrist school of acting, the pre-Pickford silent screen school of acting. His voice is barely modulated, hardly any outward emotion is expressed on his face, and, as was the custom in Hollywood acting of his era, no subtext at all is perceptible. Why is he a ham then? A ham is someone who is overdoing it. A ham is someone who is pigging out as though all scenes were his. Is Price really doing that? Nope. And yet he is a ham. It is part the fault of his use of his voice. Vincent Price’s voice is cobalt velvet upon which a raw egg has been broken. And with it he overacts incontestably, not because he is extravagant with it but because he is the reverse. He overacts by overacting underacting. He overacts by maximizing minimization. He always makes less more. He reminds me of Orson Welles who was always and in everything a radio actor, an actor vain about his voice and in slavery to it. He, like Price, makes everything he does, macabre – which is to say humanly hollow. Price went on to make many pictures, but Dragonwyck is Price’s favorite of all. And he actually has scenes of genuine romantic attraction and a death scene that is quite touching. Filmed by the great Arthur Miller, it is Mankiewicz’s first directorial effort, to be followed by All About Eve, Suddenly Last Summer, Cleopatra. His writing style is canny; his directorial style is plain, but the film is goulash. Leave it to heaven.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, Anne Revere, DIRECTED BY Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Gene Tierney, GOTHIC ROMANCE, Harry Morgan, HOLLYWOOD HEYDAY 1930 - 1950, Jessica Tandy, Spring Byington, TURGID MELODRAMA, Vincent Price, Walter Huston, WRITTEN BY Joseph Mankiewicz

 

That Wonderful Urge

29 Jul

That Wonderful Urge – Directed by Robert B. Sinclair. Romantic Comedy. An heiress double-crosses a feisty reporter who has double-crossed her. 82 minutes Black and white. 1948.

**

The abuse and misuse of Tyrone Power by Fox is perfectly demonstrated by this 1948 remake of Love Is News which Power had made ten years before, in 1937. But World War II has intervened, which Power served in honorably as a marine private, and it left its mark on him. He was delightful at 23 in insouciant light comedy with Loretta Young, where he is full of mischief and imagination and fun. They really clicked as a comedy team. Here at 34 a weight hangs on Power. And it’s partly the weight of Gene Tierney who simply had no business playing light comedy at all. She didn’t have the instrument for it. She chews her lines with her overbite. She had also played with Power in Son Of Fury ten years before, and they were lovely together, but there they were a romantic duo not a comic duo. This version of the story, which is essentially It Happened One Night, made-in-Japan, is poorly produced. You never believe a thing you’re seeing, not a single location, not a single background, not a single room, and not a single word, except for those Power speaks, for, as an actor, he is never wrong, he is always believable, he is always natural. Anyhow, the part of a reporter on the make is ridiculous for him at 34. Of course, Gene Tierney is older too, a handsome woman in her way, but here, ridiculously costumed by her husband Oleg Cassini. You can see her beauty did not fade over the years, but it also did not ripen; she never grew as an actress; she was always grand, condescending, and haughty. She always deigned. It was her default position as an actor, and one which ill-suited  the society dames she was most frequently called upon to play, for society folks do not turn their noses up. And that’s what she’s cast as here, as she is in The Razor’s Edge, where the ill-suitablility of  her with Power is of the nature of the story. Power wanted to be the thing he already was: a fine actor. He was never at a loss for a chance to prove it and always did prove it, but sometimes he was more at a loss than others. As here.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, Gene Tierney, ROMANTIC COMEDY, Tyrone Power: screen god

 

Son Of Fury

10 Jul

Son Of Fury  Directed by John Cromwell. Costume Romance. The heir to a great English estate vows to take his rightful place presently occupied by a selfish Uncle. 94 mintues Black and White 1942.

* * * * *

In those days, the male stars were more beautiful than the female stars, but the female stars were better actors. Joel Macrea, John Wayne, John Payne, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable were gorgeous guys, and the most gorgeous of all was Tyrone Power. His looks were black Irish with Garbo-long eyelashes – along the lines of George Clooney, except Power, of course, was better looking. Clooney has one advantage over Power in that Clooney is now alive and Power is not, which means that Power is no longer seen as sexually attractive by those who grew up with him in the 30s, people whose sexual development is simultaneous with his own. It’s what makes a star and keeps a star a star. In Power’s case, he also had talent, but, because of his scripts, it was banked – right into Zanuck’s account, for Power was the biggest star at Fox. Zanuck assigned him role after role the same. You can see the responsibility a superstar of that era had to meet by the dumbing down of their range, while George Sanders and Dudley Digges especially savor the scenery. Diggs really has a good time; playing a mercenary lawyer, he gobbles up the camera like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. In the scene Power has the want; Digges want is to deflect the want, but just imagine what Digges comes on with in this scene. Sits behind a desk the whole time, and plays, not a particular action or want, but rather a way of life, all-powerful and impressed by nothing. What a perfect choice to make to play the key moment in the scene. And later on, to make his entrance into court and dress himself in court. Also check out George Sanders’ opening moment when he has to oblige a ruthless close-up to tell us that his long-lost nephew has been discovered. His response is conventional; what lies behind it is the genius to have created the energy of a man who enjoys his own greed. And that, not his technique and not his want or intention, is the force that drives the truth of the moment into life. And so we have the great character actors of the movies doing the same thing forever and also in this film, Henry Davenport as the loving gramps, John Carradine (who was a bad actor but an understandable one), and Elsa Lanchester (who is also a bad actor, because self-conscious of her effects, but believable here). And Tyrone Power was just such a type-cast actor. He played the Tyrone Power type, and film after film duplicated the format, including an early childhood, here played by little Roddy MacDowell, completely devoid of sentimentality, firm in his energy, and fascinating to watch in his withheld ruthlessness. Power was a master at mediating the unbelievable lines he was given in these costume shows. He never overplays his hand, and so the lines sound believable. It is not that he believes in them, so much that the decency he summons plays off a certain challenge to carry him through them. He was a romantic actor par excellence, which means that his sexual instrument is not lustful but lyrical. In wooing a lady he is not rapacious but fun and kind and heart struck. Bolder with Frances Farmer as milady and more bowled over by Gene Tierney doing a South Seas hula-hula, but always respectful of the lady. If you can look beyond his mesmerizing beauty, into his eyes you can see how he comes alive and in what ways. The direction by John Cromwell is discrete, the filming by Arthur C. Miller is narratively helpful, unintrusive, and, in the London rather than the South Seas scenes, spectacularly convincing, as are the fight scenes between Sanders and Power, for they are cunningly performed by bewigged stunt extras.  The score by Alfred (too-many-violins) Newman is intrusive, the exact opposite of Power’s presence, and the perfect model of what not to do while performing balderdash.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, COSTUME ROMANCE, Dudley Digges, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Tierney, George Sanders, Harry Davenport, Roddy MacDowell, Tyrone Power: screen god

 

Heaven Can Wait

15 Apr

Heaven Can Wait – Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Sophisticated Comedy. Standing before Satan to see if he qualified for the flames, an old roué reviews his long love-life. 112 minutes Color 1943.

* * * * *

Watch and learn. How does a director get a laugh from an audience by a scene in which nothing is seen but a closed door? All who direct comedy, all who like to watch it and care to wonder how it is done, sit, please, at the feet of the master. This is the Lubitsch Touch at its peak of charm and engagement. The story is a continental pastry of the kind that Lubitsch specialized in, but the war was on, so it’s all transported to New York City. It doesn’t work nearly so well as Budapest would have, but never mind. It extends one man’s entire love-life-time, in periods ranging from the romantic past, whenever that was supposed to be, to more-or-less the present, whenever that was supposed to be. Here as elsewhere, Lubitsch’s collaborator, the invaluable screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, brings us into the ruthless realistic room of sophisticated comedy once again and sets the tone. (Be sure to play his priceless comments on Special Features.) We have of course Charles Coburn to begin with who is a master of the style, indeed a master of all styles, and can do no wrong. Louis Calhern brings his magnificent carriage and his magnificent everything into the role of the roue’s father, towering over Spring Byington’s superb carriage. Dickie Moore plays Ameche as a teen hottie and I’m so glad for him. Gene Tierney is, for once, really good, because she is not forced to force. She plays a character written to triumph by throwing all her lines away. Don Ameche, whose masculinity no one could question, plays it for the fool lying behind his masher, a choice which carries the film perfectly. Laird Cregar is tops as the devil sinking that splendid galleon of an actress Florence Bates. Marjorie Main and Eugene Pallette are unthinkably cast as Tierney’s parents, which is a comic spectacle in and of itself. The difficulty with the material is that the persons of the script are essentially dealing with the  jilts and joys of infidelity, a habit of Ameche’s which, this being America and not Hungary, cannot go uncondemned. However, take a deep breath and dismiss all your moral and immoral scruples and sit back and imagine it is once upon a time, and enjoy once again another of Lubitsch’s tribute to life itself.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, Charles Coburn: Screen God: Acting God, Dane Clark, Don Ameche, Eugene Palllette, Gene Tierney, High Comedy, HUMAN COMEDY, Louis Calhern, Marjorie Main, Period: 1910-1914, Period: 19th Century, Signe Hasso, Spring Byington, Turn of the 19th Century

 

Black WIdow

22 Mar

Black Widow  — Directed by Nunnally Johnson  — Murder Melodrama. A man let’s a young chick stay at his place and there’s hell to pay. 95 minutes Color 1954

**

Glib trash. It’s not a Noir but a puerile Agatha Christie Who Dun It. One’s interest lodges not in Who but in How, which is all right, but it does mean that one cares nothing about the characters. For none of the performers are believable as husband (Reginald Gardner), producer (Van Heflin), actor (Ginger Rogers), chick (Peggy Ann Garner) wife (Gene Tierney, detective (George Raft, who appears in the same suit and tie and the same monotone he assumed for decades. He has great presence but no artistic authority.) This is the sort of bunk that we in the 50s were asked to swallow, the Valium of the age, a truly sinful time.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, Backstage Drama, Gene Tierney, Ginger Rogers: movie goddess, HOLLYWOOD HEYDAY 1930 - 1950, Mabel Albertson, MELODRAMA, Otto Kruger, Peggy Ann Garner, Reginald Gardiner, Van Heflin

 
 
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