Auntie Mame – You Have to LIVE, LIVE LIVE!

One of my favorite fun movies, and definitely my favorite Rosalind Russell film, is Auntie Mame. Hilarious from start to finish, it takes me back to the adventures I used to have with my fiercely single yet sought after, staunchly independent and lovable grandmother Jean, who was as stylish and adventurous as Rosalind’s Mame. That’s why I identify so much with the mantra Mame proclaimed through the whole film, “Yes! Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”.

Rosalind plays the beyond vivacious eccentric Mame Dennis, aunt to the recently orphaned Patrick (younger played by Jan Handzlik, older played by Roger Smith) and takes him in as his guardian. Patrick is immediately exposed to Mame’s bohemian and exciting world of parties, world travel, unconventional education and love of art, style, and interior design.  Proctoring this relationship however is the conservative and judgmental executor, Mr. Dwight Babcock, played with great aplomb by Fred Clark.

With every new experience, Patrick is an open-minded and curious sponge to his thrilling auntie, while Babcock is equally as mortified as he is threatening to separate Mame from Patrick. Although viewers somehow understand these may be empty threats, it’s abundantly clear that Mame and Patrick developed a resilient and sweet love bond that they both cherish and will not let anyone ruin.

As we watch Patrick grow up under the fabulous influence of his Auntie Mame, we see this small family unit and their nonconformist oddball friends go through adverse times, all to comedic effect. When Mame's investments are lost in the stock market crash of 1929, she takes a series of jobs: stage acting, telephone operator, and finally a sales girl at Macy's, all of which end miserably. However it is at her job at Macy’s during the Christmas holidays that she meets her future husband, a rich Southern oil man named Beauregard Burnside. They fall in love and get married just at the point when Mame is about to lose everything.

One of the funniest scenes is when Beauregard takes Mame home to meet the family and she goes on a fox hunt to both fit in with the family and compete with an old flame of her fiancé’s, Sally Cato. Mame who has never ridden a horse in her life is set up by Sally to ride a wild horse; Mame manages to stay on the horse purely because she’s stuck in the saddle, and catches the fox at the end! This scene shows what a consummate pro Rosalind always was at high-brow slapstick comedy, long after her role in 1940’s His Girl Friday (with another pro, Cary Grant).

Another classic scene is when a college-aged Patrick brings home his vapid, bigoted and conceited snob of a fiancée, Gloria Upson, but out of pure love for him, she agrees to his request to mute and hide all her eccentricities. But the fire that is in Mame and exquisitely revealed by Rosalind’s expressive face is when she sets a plan in place to thwart the marriage of her beloved Patrick to the brash and elitist Upsons by simply being herself and including her entourage.

The party scene includes some of the best quotes, one that was repurposed in the 1983 film Trading Places but originated in Auntie Mame when Gloria tried to tell an amusing story:

“Bunny Bixler and I were in the semi-finals - the very semi-finals, mind you - of the ping-pong tournament at the club and this ghastly thing happened. We were both playing way over our heads and the score was 29-28. And we had this really terrific volley and I stepped back to get this really terrific shot. And I stepped on the ping-pong ball! I just squashed it to bits. And then Bunny and I ran to the closet of the game room to get another ping-pong ball and the closet was locked! Imagine? We had to call the whole thing off. Well, it was ghastly. Well, it was just ghastly.”

Not only does no one laugh, but Mame’s best friend Vera takes her drink and puts it in Mame’s hand, since she clearly needs it! Another great Vera moment, played by Coral Browne, is when Gloria makes a faux-pas:

Gloria Upson: Miss Charles, I've just got to tell you how I adored you in "Mary of Scotland."
Vera Charles: Did you dear? That was Helen Hayes.

The comical role of Mame’s secretary Agnes Gooch is played by character actress Peggy Cass, who undergoes quite a transformation from mousy hausfrau to a glamour girl make-over at the hands of Mame, to assumed unwed mother before the realization that she is in fact married after a drunken night with Brian O’Bannion, Mame’s editor. Agnes herself can barely keep up with the transformation, “I lived. I gotta find out what to do now!”

Throughout the entire film, both Rosalind and the amazing film set that is her apartment undergo several fantastic design changes, reflecting the style of the time and the mood of Mame. Rosalind won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Mame Dennis, which added to the five Golden Globes she received in her career, a record she kept until Meryl Streep won her sixth in 2007. Rosalind was as outspoken and lovable off screen as she was on, married to her producer husband, Freddie Brisson, for 35 years until she succumbed to breast cancer in 1978.

The film Auntie Mame is a feast for the eyes and pure laugh therapy. The image of a grown Patrick, now married and a father, handing his son over to his eternally young at heart Auntie Mame so they can go off and find new adventures, has stayed with me always. I can still see Mame walking the young boy up her grand stairs describing the next foreign land they will explore, which is the image I’ll always keep of both Rosalind and my grandmother Jean, climbing new heights, giving love and a joi-de-vivre every step of the way.

The African Queen – The Role That Won Bogie the Oscar

When we consider some of the major male movie stars today (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington), a bevy of talented pretty boys, it’s hard to imagine that Humphrey Bogart could have ever been deemed the most successful and sought after movie star of his time. Given his short stature, hardened face, and speech impediment, one could imagine that at best, he’d simply be categorized as a character actor, much like Peter Lorre of his day or Philip Seymour Hoffman of today. All scarily talented, but not the type to make the girls swoon.

But the reality is, Bogie was as big in life as any matinee idol, preceding the Paul Newmans, Marlon Brandos and Robert Redfords, and out-manning the Clark Gables, Montgomery Cliffs and Cary Grants of his day by sheer masculinity and raw power. Not to put down these other actors, they offered very specific styles and vision. But Bogie was an improbable star and a master of his craft, with the ability to show cold-blooded malice yet raw vulnerability at the same time.

I have many favorite Bogart movies, starting with Dead End and Angels With Dirty Faces, both of which he expertly displayed the gangster psyche so well, it not only pigeon-holed him into that role for years, but also turned those gangster roles into quintessential Bogie personas, such that other actors like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and especially George Raft would try to buck playing what they called “Humphrey Bogart-type criminals”.

Other favorite Bogie films of mine of course include Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have Not, and Casablanca, which even if you are not a film lover, odds are you can recite most of that script (“You played it for her, now play it for me…” is a line sampled in many hip hop tracks!).

But by far my most favorite Bogart film is The African Queen, in which he plays a lazy, crass boat captain who drinks too much, Charlie Allnut, opposite the ever upright, dignified and uptight missionary, Rose Sayer, played exquisitely by Katherine Hepburn. What is appealing about this movie is its unlikeliness – the star power of two aging actors, the setting in the Congo in the days were large Technicolor film productions were only just beginning to catch on, the dynamic of a film where the majority of the action happens in a boat with only two people to watch…

The film is about Charlie and Rosie who are thrown together after the Nazis burn down the missionary that Rosie and her brother Samuel have built in the village of Kunghdu in German East Africa. Samuel is beaten and eventually dies from fever, leaving Rosie to flee with Charlie down the river in Charlie’s small rickety steam boat, the African Queen. Charlie mentions to Rose that the Germans have a gunboat, the Louisa, which patrols a large lake downriver, blocking any British attacks. Rose comes up with a plan to convert the Queen into a torpedo boat, and sink the Louisa. Despite Charlie’s repeated attempts to sway Rosie, since navigating the river may be suicidal (hippos, alligators, swarms of mosquitos, as well as deadly rapids), Rose is insistent.

One can’t help but be drawn in by both Charlie and Rosie ole’ girl (as he affectionately calls her) from the initial hilariously awkward scene at the beginning of the film when Charlie delivers the mail to Rosie and Samuel, then sits uncomfortably during tea while his stomach loudly growls. “Ain’t a thing I can do about it!” he smiles while Rosie and her brother try to ignore it. The abrasive crassness of Charlie and Rosie’s embarrassed reactions creates funny banter, but also reveals two personalities that eventually fit like puzzle pieces.

It’s a bumpy ride to that realization though, including a fantastic scene where Charlie gets sloshed and insults Rosie, calling her an old maid – Bogie’s delivery of those drunken lines was the best drunken performance to date (far better than Gable or Grant who often clearly looked like they were acting drunk – perhaps the fact that Bogie was a huge drinker helped). Katherine’s pained expression at the insult was pitch perfect, with her chin trembling as she proudly fought back hurt tears. But the best part of the scene was when Charlie woke from his inebriated sleep to find Rosie pouring out every bottle of his whiskey. His head throbbing and he unable to get up and do anything about it leads to the classic line: “Oh Missus, have a heart.”

 Through every brush with death, both characters find themselves drawn to each other and surprise themselves in such a sweet and honest way. But equally as intriguing was the filming process itself: John Huston who had already directed Bogie in Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon, were two peas in a pod – both very direct, hard drinking men’s men, they were the only two on the African set who did not become terribly ill. They credited that to only drinking whiskey the entire time they were in Africa. Poor Katherine and Lauren Bacall, Bogie’s young wife, and most of the crew all got sick as dogs throughout the entire shoot.

Although Huston and Bogie were great friends who worked very well together, they did clash over the infamous leech scene, where Charlie has to get out and drag the boat through the quagmire. Huston brought a leech breeder on the set, but Bogie was having none of it. He refused to have a single live leech on his body (who could blame him), and instead Huston had to put adhesive on Bogie and place rubber leeches on him. All the close ups of body shots were actually the leech breeder with real leeches sucking on him!

Although Bogie worked constantly and was extremely well respected by Hollywood, the Oscar remained elusive to him. With his portrayal of Charlie Allnut in The African Queen, he was rightly confident that he would finally get the recognition he was due. He had only been nominated once before and that was for his role in Casablanca 12 years earlier. The 1953 Oscars had some serious contenders: the biggest of them was A Streetcar Named Desire, which would take home the Best Actress award for Vivien Leigh, Best Supporting Actor for Karl Malden, Best Supporting Actress for Kim Hunter, Best Art Direction (Black & White). But when Bogie’s name was called, Lauren (who was pregnant with their daughter Leslie at the time) jumped up and screamed! Bogie was quite humbled, but a few weeks later in his typical keeping it real style, he was quoted, “The best way to survive an Oscar is to never try to win another one.”

Although Bogie tended to bristle at any comparisons between his acting style and newcomers like Brando and Newman who were flexing their Method-based approaches, honestly The African Queen showed how Bogie was evolving into a similar realism-based dynamic. You can see in scenes where Bogie and Katherine talk over each other in overlapping dialogue, giving the feel of a normal everyday conversation. It was clear that Bogie was keeping pace with more contemporary performance styles.

The African Queen is a treasure not to be missed. A particularly touching scene at the end of the film is when Charlie asks the Nazi captain of the Louisa who has captured both him and Rosie and is preparing to hang them to marry them before the hanging. Rosie’s response and the sensitivity on Charlie’s face is pure Hollywood gold and truly unforgettable. And when their plan to bomb the Louisa accidentally comes to fruition, we all celebrate as they swim off to safety in the Belgian Congo.

All About Eve - One of the Most Perfect Films of All Time

What can I say about All About Eve that admirers don’t already know and that those who haven’t seen it will want to rush out and join our inner circle? Could it be the fact that one of the most perfect scripts and starring an impeccably cast troupe of stars was only outshined by the juicy gossip that happened off camera? The irreplaceable Bette Davis as the uber star, stage actress Margo Channing, the cunning conniving Ann Baxter as the Machiavellian Eve Harrington, the rock solid convincing Celeste Holm as Margo’s best friend Karen Richards… but it’s more than just the cat-fighting on and off screen, even to call this an epic cat fight is to belittle the poetic script by Joe Mankiewitz and the human emotion so thoughtfully played by all.

You’ll just have to watch the film (seriously, go get it now and don’t miss a single scene!) to see how deliciously such hilarious lines like “That I should want you at all suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability…” uttered by Mr. Sophistication himself George Sanders as Addison DeWitt, an actor who mastered the art of delivering his lines with an air of condescension wrapped in a nonchalant style. It proved heart breakingly ironic that he was a) once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor (who desperately begged him to get her a bit part in the picture), and b) eventually committed suicide at the age of 65 by downing 5 bottles of Nembutal and leaving a suicide note which read: “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.” Just imagine if a note like that was found with Heath Ledger – although whether it was suicide or an accidental drug overdose that cut short his talented life remains unclear, George made sure the world knew his intentions.

But both his line to Eve Harrington and his eventual suicide (after he divorced Zsa Zsa and later married her older sister Magda  - DRAMA!) came much much later.

See how easy it is to get sidetracked with All About Eve? There are so many side stories, the mind races!

Let’s start with Bette herself, again to quote Addison DeWitt, “an improbable person” (although he was speaking to Eve in that scene) – Bette was an improbable movie star, but a star none-the-less. Although not a traditional beauty by any stretch of the imagination, she had an unquestionable stranglehold on the ability to deliver raw human emotion (just see her in Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, or The Little Foxes). Watching her in Eve, one can see how our generation’s Merrill Streep, Annette Benning, and Melissa Leo emulate her in so many ways. A strong woman unafraid to play strong women on screen, Bette was 42 when she was cast as the highly respected but aging stage actress, Margo Channing. It was a role that struck very close to home, and in fact, Bette and her younger love interest co-star, Gary Merrill, began dating on set almost immediately (both quickly divorced their then spouses and began playing their roles in reality, outside of the bright lights and Edith Head costumes).

As perfect as Bette was to play Margo, she was not the first choice in casting. Joe Mankiewitz (writer and director) had his heart set on Susan Hayward. And Darryl Zanuck, the producer, had already pretty much locked in Claudette Colbert, who had great comedic timing (see It Happened One Night). But Claudette ruptured a disc on another film just as Eve was set to shoot. When that happened, Zanuck also thought to cast Marlene Dietrich, but Mankiewitz adamantly opposed that choice (my guess is because of the accent – to this day, who could imagine Margo played by anyone other than Bette with her New England affected accent!).

Although they played best friends on camera very convincingly, Celeste and Bette did not get along: “There was one bitch in the cast: Celeste Holm”, Bette once said. And Celeste had choice words for Bette too, “Bette Davis was so rude, so constantly rude. I think it had to do with sex.” Perez Hilton would have a field day with that kind of great off screen fodder today!

It was undoubtedly sensitive for Bette to play an aging actress when in fact, she was an aging actress. How relatable is Bette when as Margo she confides to her producer Max Fabian, “Three months ago I turned 40. 4-0. Now all of a sudden I feel like I’ve taken all my clothes off.” Many had theorized that her best roles were behind her, so when she jumped at the chance to play Margo, she had good reason. To quote Eve later in the film, “I’d do much more for a part like that.” But all the acclaim and success had to be bittersweet, since after All About Eve, although it garnered Bette (and Ann) a Best Actress Oscar nomination, it was truly her final best role – although she made many movies after Eve, none compared. Plus, to put it literally in her own words, Bette once said, “People get the idea that actresses my age are dying to play younger women. The fact is, we die every time we play one.” Clearly she was keeping it real with the roles she chose; but she was very aware that she was in the autumn of her career.

But glorious she was as Margo, poetically delivering iconic lines like

Margo: “Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.”

Eve: “I’d like to hear it.”

Margo: “Some snowy night in front of the fire…”

And even those who haven’t seen the classic, recognize: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Her careful delivery of that line after downing a martini will live forever.

But she isn’t the only one with the juicy lines: Thelma Ritter, just as she did in Hitchock’s Rear Window, plays the no-nonsense, all knowing New Yorker/Brooklynite, Margo’s maid Birdie. Actually many of Birdie’s most hilarious lines are unspoken – Thelma could deliver a look that spoke a thousand words. Watch her eye Eve up and down, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

But it’s not just about the women, the men in this film play an important role. Although I personally think the most enjoyable to watch was the character Addison, as deliciously evil as Eve, there was a wry likeability in Gary Merrill’s Bill Sampson. Playing the younger lover (on and off screen), he’s not at all the Ashton Kutcher just as Bette is not seen as a Demi Moore-like “cougar”. Both respect each other for who they are, regardless of the age difference, the compatibility is clear; although Margo struggles with the age difference throughout the film primarily due to the presence and quiet threat of Eve. Bill is believable because those times Margo allows herself to be girly and vulnerable around him are also believable scenes, and probably due to the chemistry between the real life lovers. It helps that Gary truly was an affable guy – born in Hartford CT, All About Eve was his biggest role. He was also very politically active, and took part in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 to promote African American voter registration.

But although their romance ends in happy wedded bliss in the film, it was ill-fated in reality. Bette would say that Gary fell for Margo, and Gary would say that Bette fell for Bill – the marriage lasted 10 tumultuous years (an eternity in Hollywood).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that two young ingénues make an appearance in All About Eve: Marilyn Monroe as the gorgeous, flirty, strategically ditzy aspiring actress Ms. Caswell, and Barbara Bates as the younger, equally as plotting Eve-like ambitious bobby-soxer Phoebe who appears at the end of the film to hint that Eve Harrington will get her come-uppance. As Phoebe, Barbara Bates has a young unspoiled air about her, but is clearly ready to cut her teeth on the unsuspecting Eve (although how Eve is oblivious to this, one has to wonder). It is Phoebe’s face we see reflected in so many mirrors as she holds Eve’s award and plans her next move – in fact, this was the role that Zsa Zsa begged George Sanders to convince Mankiewitz to give to her.

But Barbara’s life was far more difficult than Phoebe’s future seemed. She was best known for her role as Phoebe, despite a modest run in films. She battled chronic depression her entire life, and after the death of her first husband, she attempted suicide. She was hospitalized and seemed to recover and even eventually remarried. But depression haunted her and she eventually committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in her mother’s garage at the age of 43.

Marilyn, you’ll see, lights up the screen in her few cameos. Although she only has a few lines, her comedic timing and delivery belie the air-head demeanor she conveys. Her maneuvering to have Max Fabian, a producer she is trying to wow, fetch her a drink is a coy combination of dingbat meets Samantha Jones, and she pulls it off sexily and smartly. Again to quote Addison, “I see your career rising in the east like the sun.” and he was spot on! Virtually all the women on the set disliked Marilyn, and the rumor mill (driven by Zsa Zsa who often visited the set and stirred up trouble) as alive with gossip that Marilyn “was sleeping with everyone” including the crew. Haters haunted Marilyn her entire life…

Finally, about Eve herself, portrayed brilliantly by Anne Baxter. Surprisingly, both Anne and Bette got along on set, despite effectively conveying cool animosity between their characters on screen. That said, many have hypothesized that if Anne hadn’t lobbied for a leading actress Academy Award nomination alongside Bette (in lieu of a Best Supporting nom), Bette would have one her Oscar for playing Margo, hands down. In any case, both actresses remained friendly long after All About Eve, and Anne went on to play the role of Margo Channing in the later Broadway version, Applause. No doubt she acted as real-life understudy to Bette, observing the master on set during that filming.

All About Eve is the stuff that Hollywood film lovers could write dissertations on, and have. I’ll make a long story short (too late!): own it, watch it again and again, and revel in all its juicy snipes, including Margo’s final line to the back-stabbing bitch Eve after she has received her Sara Siddons Award, “You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.”

Gone With The Wind – As God As My Witness, I’ll Watch It Again and Again!

I often feel a little self conscious admitting that one of my favorite films of all time is Gone With The Wind. Of course I realize the portrayal of the Black actors was demeaning, but maybe it’s because having read the Pulitzer Prize-winning Margaret Mitchell novel, I knew how integral and influential and beloved the matriarch, Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy really was. Also, I fell immediately in love with the exquisite, plotting, and stunning Vivian Leigh, and equally as in love with the virile, sexy and uber-masculine Clark Gable.

And just to keep it real, it’s incredibly important to look back on the portrayal of African Americans in Hollywood film, analyze and accept it as part of our American history. To shun it or try to erase it from memory is to deny where we come from and what harsh stereotypes once shaped not only our view of race, but also our behavior and attitudes. It is critical that we remember even the more difficult to swallow iconic images such as the indelible creation of the character Mammy, as well as the woman who bravely played her, Hattie McDaniel, and the cross she had to bear in doing so.

Not only was my bewilderment around the “shuck and jive” depictions of Black characters a point of fascination, but also how it was framed amidst the old Hollywood epic excess that Victor Fleming and David Selznick employed, literally setting the studio lot on fire for the burning of Atlanta scene that drew me in. Up to that point, GWTW was the longest sound film ever produced, topping out at 3 hours and 44 minutes, plus an intermission! In 1939, long before later epics of that magnitude like Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, and much later Braveheart, Dances with Wolves, or Avatar, they pushed creatively and certainly financially to film lovers’ eternal gain. Truthfully, Victor and David were the real predecessors in whose footsteps directors like James Cameron aspire to fill. But at the time, industry folks and movie-goers simply assumed the GWTW producers were crazy in their budget-busting spending spree (this could have been a 1939 version of Waterworld if the level of talent on and off screen hadn’t been so exquisite)!

But back to my obsession with the film itself, it may have been the fact that I knew Vivian would eventually be diagnosed with bipolar disorder much later in life that I searched her face and performance for any sign of early symptoms. Maybe it was because I knew she beat the odds of being cast, the only Brit to audition for the role, beating out Paulette Goddard (a huge star at the time), and so many other better known actresses, and at the time was merely known as Olivier’s mistress. Maybe it was how she simply became Scarlett, just like she became Blanche Dubois so convincingly 12 years later, that in even later years she had a hard time discerning own identity with the characters she once played.

But the bottom line is that she still soaks up the screen and dominates every scene, her sequences with her male counterparts are delicious – as she flirts with Leslie Howard’s poor put-upon Ashley and then meets her match in Gable’s unbridled Rhett. But the real interplay is her scenes with Hattie, who knows her better than anyone.

Of course the historic event of Hattie McDaniel as the first Black actor or actress to win an Oscar, as best supporting actress, is truly bittersweet. Hattie received a lot of flak from the Black community for playing Mammy, ostracized as a “sell-out” not only for playing Mammy, but for her acceptance speech in which she said she hoped to be “a credit to her race”. That speech was written for her by the Selznick organization, and when she read it, she was being the consummate actress she always was: reading lines that were given to her. In fact, Hattie was invited to the Oscar ceremony but was not seated at the Selznick table with the rest of the cast; she was seated at a small table in the back.

But it is important to recognize her and her counterpart Butterfly McQueen for their courage and grace under fire, and their pioneer status that blazed a new trail for Black actors and actresses. For pushing forward even under demeaning circumstances to set important precedence for those that came decades later.

GWTW won 10 Oscars in 1939, a record that stood for 2 decades. With incredibly astute, touching and often comedic performances by fellow cast mates Olivia de Havilland, Leslie Howard, Thomas Mitchell and of course Vivian and Clark, plus the sweepingly gorgeous music by Max Steiner, you simply cannot hate on this classic.

 

Philadelphia Story – A Classic Favorite For Good Reason!

Although I was born in Philadelphia and raised in its idyllic suburban enclave called “The Main Line”, you don’t have to have that experience to fall in love with the 1940 classic, The Philadelphia Story. All three actors, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, were at the height of their talent and appeal in this film, although in fact, Hepburn had already been labeled “box office poison” after a few disappointing runs in Break of Hearts, Mary of Scotland and A Woman Rebels. Despite early success in her career (after all, she won an Oscar for her role as Jo in Little Women), and later fantastic performances in Stage Door and Bringing up Baby, RKO really didn’t know what to do with such a unique talent. There had never been a Katharine Hepburn before and they didn’t know how to market her.

It may seem commonplace today, but her sophistication, independent and strong will, she was a precursor to the feminist movement and visionary of style; Katharine set the stage for later actresses like Annette Benning, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.

In a ballsy and shrewd move completely consistent with Hepburn’s style, she commissioned the play A Philadelphia Story (using money from her then boyfriend Howard Hughes), and played it to great acclaim on Broadway. Wisely, she waived salary for a cut of the profits and movie rights, thereby securing it for herself and dictating the choice of director (George Cukor) and co-stars, Grant and Stewart. She received an impressive sum by selling the movie rights to MGM. Cukor, often described as a woman’s director due to his ability to generate and/or revive actresses’ star power in his films, was supremely effective in capturing Katharine’s character, Tracy Lord, feminine defiance and frailty all at once. Many view this film as a key turning point in Katharine’s career, since she then went on to do Woman of the Year in 1942, which of course is where another turning point occurred personally for her: she met Spencer Tracy.

There are so many gems in this film, it’s hard to list my favorites: classic lines like “Oh Mac, put me in your pocket…” when she and Jimmy find themselves tipsy and flirting one magical evening – that line is poetry. Cary Grant was entirely overlooked by the Oscars for his role as CK Dexter Haven, not even receiving a nomination. He only received Oscar nods twice in his career, one for Penny Serenade and the other for None But The Lonely Heart, both incredible performances (he did eventually receive a special Academy Award in 1970, which he cherished the rest of his life). But pay close attention to not only his comedic timing in Philadelphia Story, but his non-verbal expressiveness as he grapples with his anger, resentment and continued love for Tracy as she prepares to remarry.

There is also a great scene where Cary and Jimmy almost break character because Jimmy, playing a very drunk Macaulay (Mac) Connor, actually hiccups by accident. Not in the script, Cary says, “Excuse me” and you can see them both crack up before the next line. Those little glimpses at these iconic actors are delicious gems that leave us craving for outtakes.

It was clear these actors liked each other and liked working together; the scene where Mac tells CK he’d “sell his grandmother for a drink” shows that they barely got through their lines without laughing. Cukor saw this as genuine and kept it in, to our benefit!

But every moment of this film is a joy to watch as the tri-fecta of talent comes together. The script is almost musical and the players artfully dance through each scene, making it look far too easy.

Why the Ox-Bow Incident is Deep on So Many Levels

One of the first movies I remember seeing as a kid had an eerie almost film-noir aesthetic, yet it was a Western: 1943’s The Ox-Bow Incident. What stuck out in my mind was the bravery and vocal honesty of Henry Fonda, the desperate pleading of a very handsome and obviously innocent Dana Andrews (who I first developed a crush on in 1944’s The Best Years of Our Lives, which I saw first), and the otherworldly almost prophetic presence of Leigh Whipper, the Black actor who played Sparks, the preacher and voice of reason to the vengeful mob.

As many know, the film, directed by William Weldmann, is about corruption and the murderous power of a mob that throws law and order to the side in pursuit of revenge and vigilantism. Henry Fonda, who plays Gil Carter, and Harry Morgan (who many remember from his later days on the hit TV series MASH), who plays Art Croft, are two drifters passing through a small subdued town when a beloved rancher is robbed and murdered. With very little information, a mob, led by Marc Lawrence as the plotting Farnley , and Frank Conroy as the amoral Major Tetley, is quickly formed. Soon any voices of reason are not only drowned out by the mob, but also threatened for possibly being in cahoots with the sought after murderers.

The timing of the production is no coincidence, when American audiences saw the film in the early 1940s it was during the progress of World War II, and the implication was obvious that Hitler's evils in Europe could also inhabit the ethos of the sacred American/western frontier. It was a call to action against tyranny everywhere and for America not to turn a blind eye toward the atrocities happening in Germany as well as early rumblings of paranoid concerns around Communism right here at home.

To that latter point, many also view this timeless classic as a condemnation of McCarthyism, although not even a turn of phrase until almost 10 years later, many of the actors and producers of The Ox-Bow Incident were in fact asked to testify and name names of any colleagues thought to belong to the Communist Party.

But I have to say the scenes with Leigh Whipper as Sparks are often the most haunting; it wasn’t very often at that period of time that a Black man was portrayed as the sage voice of reason. Leigh’s story is a fascinating one: Born in South Carolina in 1876, at the end of the Reconstruction Era in which his parents had participated, he was educated in D.C., attended Howard University, before turning permanently to a life in the theater. At a time when work for black actors was limited, Whipper became a successful actor, appearing in more than twenty plays and a greater number of films. He not only joined Actors Equity in 1913 (the first Black actor to do so) and other organizations where African-Americans were few in number, but he also helped fellow African-American thespians by founding the Negro Actors Guild in 1937.

Many people thought Whipper was a white actor playing in blackface because of his keen features, due in part to some Native American heritage.  Already in his 60s during the shooting of Ox-Bow, he was honored a year later by the Ethiopian government for his portrayal of the superior Emperor Haile Selassie in the movie Mission to Moscow (1943), in which he delivers a speech before the League of the Nations.

He appeared in almost two dozen films, but I’ll always remember him singing a gospel hymn in an almost comedic yet stark rhythm once the mob hung the three innocent men, the lyrics are equally as haunting, “You got to go before your Maker, you got to go there by yourself. Nobody here can go there for you, you got to go here by yourself.” Check out Leigh, Dana, Anthony, Henry and Art in this timeless and very TIMELY classic, The Ox-Bow Incident. And while you do, think of the current political mobs who bully and accuse people who think differently as “un-American” or “Communist”….for me, I see a real life Major Tetley in Donald Trump, bull-horning his mob of Tea Party-ers, hankering for a lynching party of our President.

One-Eyed Jacks: An Underappreciated Classic Western

One of my earliest recollections of Old Western film art is of a lesser known film called One-Eyed Jacks, made in 1961. The film stars Marlon Brando as Rio, somewhat past the height of his career 10 years earlier in classics such as Street Car Named Desire and On The Waterfront, and co-starring one of his best friends, Karl Malden who plays Dad Longworth. The film is a bit of a departure for both actors, probably one of the reasons they gravitated toward making the movie; Marlon plays a fellow bank robber/hustler friend of Karl’s who during one of their capers, gives Karl the sack of gold they’ve stolen in order to go ahead to garner horses and ammo so that they can both escape from the Mexican desert standoff they were trapped in. Karl takes the gold but never returns to help Marlon fend off the local authorities; Karl escapes and ultimately violating the guy code of the day: he leaves his boy behind to rot in a Mexican prison.

Marlon ends up doing his bid and Karl’s and 5 years later, remains angry and vengeful over Karl’s betrayal. The movie effectively focuses on Marlon’s singular goal: to find and kill Karl. The twist is that Karl has become the sheriff of the town of Monterrey, has married and adopted his wife’ beautiful daughter. By redefining himself, Karl exquisitely plays a man haunted by his own betrayal of his best friend who he now fears, and a man living a lie in the sense that he is still very much the callous, conniving hustler he always was, but now with a badge. Quite a departure from the actor who so convincingly played the likeable oaf in Streetcar, and the honorable, tenacious and fearless priest in On the Waterfront.

Other notable and hilarious performances include Slim Pickens as Karl’s sidekick Lon Kendrick, and Ben Johnson as Bob Emory. The film also features the debut of the actress Pina Pellicer who plays Dad Longworth’s adopted daughter, Louisa. She showed great promise, despite the fact that she essentially learned to speak English on the set of this film. She came to a tragic end in real life, after falling in love with her co-star Marlon who she had an affair with, and eventually committing suicide. Imagine that happening today to a young ingénue, like say Jennifer Lawrence (from Winter’s Bone) if she had fallen for and killed herself over her co-star John Hawkes! Only a star as monumental as Marlon Brando could move past the tabloid effect of that event fairly unscathed. If say a young Juliette Binoche had even attempted suicide after co-starring with Daniel Day Lewis (some might say, our generation’s Brando) in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the tabloid ripple effect would most likely still plague both actors.

Back to One Eyed Jacks, this was Marlon’s directorial debut, and the movie was originally to be directed by Stanley Kubrick; Sam Peckinpah wrote the screenplay, and went on to great critical acclaim for writing the Wild Bunch just 8 years later in 1969. Brando had actually fired Peckinpah over creative disagreements, and eventually Kubrick was also fired. Brando decided to direct the film himself, and did an excellent job as you’ll see, focusing on human emotion and capturing with great effect the subtleties and tensions between the characters. In fact, the dialogue is loaded with tension and there is a great economy to the characters’ communications. This film is jam-packed with awesome one-liners like Lon’s “You ain’t getting’ no older than tomorrow…” as he teases Rio, sentenced to hang.

Although not meant to be a comedy, there are many funny moments in this film. Keep an eye on when Dad publicly whips Rio, who not only spits in his face, but then whips his hair back in one of the coolest Brando-esque moves you don’t want to miss. Both of these men were one of a kind. The movie did not do very well at the box office, but still remains an underappreciated classic.

Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Monterrey California in the early ‘60s, check out One Eyed Jacks. You won’t be disappointed.