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Archive for the ‘Shirley MacLaine’ Category

Sweet Charity

15 Sep

Sweet Charity — choreographed and directed by Bob Fosse. Musical. 147 minutes Color 1969.

★★★★★

The Story: A good-time but naïve dime-a-dance girl hopes for a better life and falls into many comic and confusing situations.

~

Shirley MacLaine is not an actor I much like, and so I keep waiting for her make a misstep here, and then I stop waiting, because she is really remarkable as this cockeyed optimist girl who continually finds herself outclassed by the men she stumbles onto.

To perform it the actress might play off of her own innocence as Giulietta Masina did in the part which was written for her, in her husband Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria and play it as a charming, ingrown, shy, child, which worked real well for Masina.

Or what Gwen Verdon did which was to play it with Broadway-patented false naiveté, which would have been workman-like and freed her for the dance marathon her husband Bob Fosse created for her in the part.

Or the actor would play her as a raving extrovert, dancing down the street with glee, and speaking her mind as she sees it wherever she lands. This it seems to me is by far the more dangerous of the two possible approaches. And MacLaine negotiates its perils easily.

She was at that stage in her work that she understood something about screen acting which she has since forgotten or dismissed, which is the virtue of being unforced. So everything that comes out of her mouth, onto her face, and off of her body registers as honest, sudden, unpredicted. Whatever she does is right, and often unexpectedly funny.

MacLaine was never a musical vocalist; one doesn’t go to her for that. But she more than sells the songs on the surfboard of her enthusiasm, projection, and physical investment. As a dancer, she is right up there with the phenomenal Chita Rivera and Paula Kelly.

The result of all of this is that she is highly entertaining throughout. And since the work is focused on her solely, since she is in every scene, both our eye and the camera are justified by being on her every minute.

Except for “Big Spender” Cy Coleman’s score lacks lyrical interest, but Dorothy Field’s lyrics supply the deficiency. Neil Simon’s book is drawn out unduly, and the choreographic showcase, which it is, extends the film even into the realm of a parody of New Age spirituality, with Sammy Davis Junior miscast as a guru and inadequately used even then. It’s cluttered and advances the story not an inch.

Nonetheless, Fosse is a master of sleazy choreography. And his directorial manner is striking. The film sustains itself with MacLaine, Fosse, and most important with Robert Surtees who filmed it so magnificently he proved that nothing can date a masterpiece.

 
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Posted in HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, Ricardo Montalban, Sammy Davis Junior, Shirley MacLaine, Singing & Dancng Musical

 

Downton Abby, Season 3

18 Jul

Downton Abby, season 3 – various directors. Period drama, 8 part TV series. Will the great house fall or will it not fall? Color 2012.

★★★★★

Is it based on George Stevens’ Giant? It is largely the same story: enormous holdings are  invaded by the younger generation with ideas of their own and with tolerances intolerable to the masters of the spreads. Bick Benedict is the American Robert Earl of Grantham, and The Riata the holding comparable to Downton. Outsiders and lower-class folk interlope into the families, and Robert and Bick must learn new ways, or succumb. Members of the families marry outside their station, and always hypogamously. And everywhere the ranching and the farming are impressive.

Anyhow, here we have another topping season of one’s favorite characters, acted by a first class cast. I won’t summarize the story, why should I? Once you start it, two seasons back, you tell it yourself as it goes along. This version does contain the killing of two major actors, but be it far from me to reveal who. (One of them got a job in a Broadway play, and so must die. Serves that actor right.)

The clothes gain in brilliance and beauty and cut and tailoring. The makeup. The direction. The writing.

Oh, wait, the writing. This version includes the presence of Shirley MacLaine, and writing of her part is all wrong. Why is that? Because there is nothing dramatic at stake with the character being brought in. There is no question in the MacLaine character that she will provide the money. She cannot, even if she would.

Vilely costumed and wigged, her entrance is a put-up job. The scenes she plays are also not well written in terms of the other characters. All Americans are thought of as vulgar upstarts by the aristos of Downton, and perhaps by the author Julian Fellowes as well. Indeed she is even given the Jewish name of Levinson, although nothing is made of this. Her daughter, The Countess Cora, beautifully played by Elizabeth McGovern, is the finest lady in the Abby – so how could she have such a woman for a mother?

To play the part, Shirley MacLaine, who actually as a person is vulgar, is hired, I imagine, in order to confirm this view of American vulgarity. And she does. Therefore the play, even on the level of character surprise has nowhere to go when she comes on.

Nor does anything witty or rare arise in the playing of MacLaine with the other characters, such as Mrs Crawly or The Dowager. Their scenes together are not filmed as matches.

Nor indeed can MacLaine actually act them. She has no timing. It is as if she cannot act at all any more; doesn’t even know what acting is. To all reports she is great off-camera, but on camera she is inexplicable and a mess.

But this is a minor error. The rest is tops. Of course, you will see it. It is not a question of volition. It is inevitable as birth. If you were born, then sooner or later Downton Abby lies before you.

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: ENGLISH REALISTIC, COSTUME ROMANCE, ENGLISH ROYALS, ENSEMBLE DRAMA, FAMILY DRAMA, Filmed in England, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, Maggie Smith, Shirley MacLaine

 

Bernie

10 Jun

Bernie – directed by. Richard Linklater. Crime Docu-Comedy. A Texan do-gooder befriends a nasty old woman who abuses him mightily and he offs her. 104 minutes Color 2012.

★★★★

A missed opportunity, here, particularly for Jack Black who plays Bernie to perfection. Perfection is never enough. The sweetest man in town and the meanest woman in town, yes – the opportunity missed, though, is that they are really the same person, and we never get to know it. The same person? There are certain males who from an early age decide to be old women. Bernie is such. We do not imagine he has or wants a sex life. All he wants is to hobnob with widows. In fact, it could be said that, more than an old woman, he is himself a widow; that is to say, an old lady who does not have sex. Everyone in town loves Bernie: he is so kind, so thoughtful, so giving. A little swish, it is true, but who cares? – he sings in the choir, gives to charity, and organizes the community for its better good. However, we only see him in public, singing in amateur theatricals, giving money to the Boy Scouts, presiding beautifully as an undertaker. Everyone is his friend. But he has no friend. But that we do not see. What we do see is that he woos the town witch. Under the aegis of all they have in common, they become buddies; they go to concerts together, travel together, and she hands her financial affairs over to him. She melts like Margaret Hamilton under the douse of his decency. But, since she has a great deal of money, she pays for everything, and bit by bit he buys into the life style she provides and bit by bit she enslaves him to it. And when she does she becomes mean to him. Why doesn’t he just quit? Because she’s so bad, something comes over him first and he shoots her four times in the back with an armadillo rifle. What is the something that comes over him? We are never given to know. What it is is that he has a great public life, but he has no private life, but we are never given to glimpse that fact. We get neither inside Bernie’s house nor Bernie. The script scoots along on the surface, and never examines the bitter gun of his essential solitude. She thinks she is her money; he thinks he is his niceness. They are both suckered by themselves. Shirley MacLaine plays the old lady expectedly. That is to say, we expect her to be cast in the part and we expect her to play it the same way she has played this same part for years, and she does. Plastic surgery has mummified her face; it is quite awful to behold. What was she thinking of; she’s in her seventies; did she think people would think she wasn’t? The detestable Matthew Mconaghey is perfectly cast as the detestable  D.A. who puts Bernie away. And the big treat is the Carthage townspeople (for this is a true story), whose heads talk brilliantly and funnily all in favor not just of Bernie but of the murder itself. “Suddenly I was someone else,” says Bernie at his trial. The real gun was in him all along. But, alas, we never see it, for those scenes are missing or were never written. What we see is a performance of great discretion, appeal, and fairness by Black, which makes the film worthwhile viewing, not just because it gives us the liberation of watching a nance as a leading role, but because of the acceptance of him by all those smart good-hearted East Texas types who refresh the film with their innate democracy and talk their heads off about him for us. Their perspicacity is nil, but their diction in achieving it is priceless.

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, CRIME DRAMA, Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine

 

Ocean’s Eleven – Sinatra Version

30 Jan

Ocean’s Eleven – Sinatra Version — directed by Lewis Milestone. Caper Flick. Eleven chums from WW II convene to rob 5 Las Vegas Casinos. 127 minutes Color 1960.

* * *

As hackneyed a piece of direction as you could wish to see, this picture brings Frank Sinatra, that master of self-satisfaction, as the old sergeant gathering his cadre for a heist. The piece is very well constructed and wittily written, but the mixture of non-actors with professionals with a few cameos thrown in makes the adventure stagger along like a drunkard. Set beside the suave George Clooney versions of this, with his cast of brilliant actors, this ur-version looks dated and dumb. And it is. None of the actors seem able to deliver their lines with any aplomb. On the list of professionals, we have the genius of Akim Tamiroff as the worry wart, Dean Martin who with a few paltry songs manages to sustain his suavity as a lounge act singer, Ilka Chase as the rich mother of that Duke Of Eurotrash, Peter Lawford, and Cesar Romero who brings the humor of his massive authority to the role of a mafia don. Others who get by without disgracing themselves are Richard Conte who is, as usual, straightforward in his part, and Sammy Davis Junior, who gets by, as usual, on a superabundance of natural talent. Shirley MacLaine overdoes a soused chick for us, and Red Skelton is absolutely on the money as a gambling addict. The rest of the cast, including Peter Lawford, we shall not shame by mentioning.

 

 
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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, Aim Tamiroff: ACTING GOD, Angie Dickinson, CAPER FLICK, Cesar Romero, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Ilka Chase, Peter Lawford, Red Skelton, Richard Conte, Sammy Davis Junior, Shirley MacLaine

 

These Old Broads

21 Sep

These Old Broads – Directed by Matthew Diamond. Show Biz Comedy. A singing trio of the 60s is urged to make a comeback. 89 minutes Color 2001.

* * * *

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you The Sunshine Girls! They fight, they throw hissy fits at one another, they stalk out, they tear off one another’s wigs, and they make some very witty wisecracks. It holds one’s attention because it moves along licketty-split and because no pretense is made to turn it into The Bandwagon, and because the three stars are accomplished entertainers and know what they are about. Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins, and Debbie Reynolds are the ladies in question. They are well supported by Hinton Battle as the choreographer, Jonathan Silverman as the 40-year-old orphan, and by Nestor Carbonell as the slay-tongued producer. The performances of the last two with one another are worth the price of admission, just to see two actors play it for all its worth, even if the three stars weren’t doing the same, and even if Elizabeth Taylor were not really quite out front as a bullying Jewish agent. She describes herself as “big as a bungalow”. (The Jewels she wears, which are also big as bungalows, are being auctioned off at Christie’s now.) You will enjoy some very funny lines and the same pained nostalgia for those ladies in the days of their youth and glory as I felt too. Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor even have a scene about a husband the Elizabeth Taylor character stole from the Debbie Reynolds character all those years ago. Boy! You will do no harm to life and limb to sit back and enjoy it.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: HOLLYWOOD CRISP, BACK SOUNDSTAGE COMEDY, BROAD COMEDY, Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor: SCREEN GODDESS, ACTING GODDESS, Joan Collins, Shirley MacLaine

 

Rumor Has It

20 Jul

Rumor Has It – Directed by Rob Reiner. Upper Class Romantic Comedy. The Graduate Part II. 97 minutes Color 2005.

* * *

We are doing fine as long as Mark Ruffalo is with us. When force of circumstances require our heroine, Jennifer Aniston, to separate him out, the story declines in all areas of its life. Kathy Bates in a white Harpo wig enters in a muumuu the size of a stadium and give a performance to match. This followed by Kevin Costner who almost escapes execution by the false premise of a script which takes Miss Aniston on a billionaire bash, a treat which impresses her nothing, since the gal is from Pasadena, where billionaires are as to flies on cheese. Even the remarkable Richard Jenkins turns in a bad performance. Now, I ask you, if he fails, can winter be far behind? It is not. It takes the form of Shirley MacLaine, in a part requiring the deftness of Myrna Loy; instead she runs the schtick she has run for the past 30 years, that of a stinker granny, turning every line she utters into the stab of a yellow jacket. Aniston alone skims across this mire unscathed, I don’t know how. For one thing her touch on a role is infinitely light. For another, she really is a master comedienne. She seems to be quite tiny, but her size gives her an appeal, which is met by her tiny features in the broad plains of her face. Inside her, as inside Mickey Rourke, is the instrument of a harpsichord, so that she is never stuffy but also never undignified, even when disdignity looms. She is probably not a physical comedienne, as were Katharine Hepburn and Carole Lombard, but is more along the lines of Jean Arthur, who had a quirky voice just as Aniston has quirky mouth, and one we love to have with us so we can watch it and wonder. She knows exactly how to register the merest ripple of difficulty. You’ve got to hand it to her, except I hope no one ever again hands her a movie so badly written and directed as this one is. Mark Ruffalo, where are you when we need you? Oh, there you are, gasp, true blue to the end!

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: AMERICAN REALISTIC, Jennifer Aniston GODDESS COMEDIENNE, Kathy Bates, Kevin Costner, Mark Ruffalo, Richard Jenkins ACTING GOD, Shirley MacLaine, Upper Class Romantic Comedy

 

Closing The Ring

31 Mar

Closing The Ring — Directed by Richard Attenborough — Romantic Drama A 70 year old widow comes to terms with her past love. 117 minutes Color 2007.

* * *

Shirley MacClaine sabotages this film by employing the same unnecessarily nasty and bitter energy she has employed for the past thirty years in playing characters, and by asking us to believe this rudeness constitutes a human. The problem is not so much that she has used this energy before; the problem is that, as with all neuroses, nothing lies behind it, for it has forsaken the real. Neuroses is often interesting, because it sometimes displays flashes of truth, and MacClaine certainly began her career this way. But terminal cuteness, a family trait, may have ended her. For now, one observes there is nothing behind the nastiness for one to hope for, to latch onto, to root for. The nastiness is not only unforgivable and out of character, it is uninteresting. It is certainly not entertaining, for where a character should be, there is simply a blank paten, a flat metallic stencil, and the notion that anyone could find this person overwhelmingly lovable must be to also question the sanity of the lover. So the actress wrecks the story by a wide miscalculation or, more likely, by an inveterate laziness. One must believe that the character loved and loves, but one never does. All one gets is that she despises the man she married instead of the one she loved, for that is all the actress gives and perhaps all she has to give. Christopher Plummer, for all his experience, probably doesn’t know how to act. His daughter knows. He should watch her carefully. Pete Postlethwaite has a large role as the go-between of the 50 years span. Now there is an actor who gives one pause. What is the cause for his harshness and bluntness to his young assistant? Postlethwaite always has this reserve of possibility in his character work. He is never hammy, he is always clear, definite, and a cause of wonder. But the real reason to see the film is to see Martin McCann, the young man who finds the ring of the title and who is the innocent and eager catalyst of all trouble that follows and all that follows that trouble. Brenda Fricker is, of course, wonderful as the blowsy old tart, his grandmother. The problem arising from the promise to love after death is an interesting premise. But the task of putting a grand passion on screen is probably the hardest thing to do for a writer, actor, or director — and, indeed, it may be impossible.

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Posted in ACTING STYLE: INTERNATIONAL REALISTIC, Brenda Fricker, Christopher Plummer, Filmed in Ireland, Martin McCann, Pete Postlethwaite: ACTING GOD, ROMANTIC DRAMA, Shirley MacLaine, War Story, World War II

 
 
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