Jurassic Park. USA 1993

Bob Peck, Samuel Jackson and a concerned Richard Attenborough

By this stage of his career Attenborough worked mainly as a film-maker with occasional screen appearances; some as a guest star, some more substantial. His character, John Hammond, rather falls between the two. The film itself is part of a genre series and a media franchise. On its release it became the highest grossing film to that date and in its various manifestations it is still one of the all-time box office successes. The film is adapted from a novel by a very successful U.S. writer Michael Crichton. He already had successful screenplay for films like Coma (1978) and Westworld. (1973) The bidding war for the screen rights for this novel started before it was even published. Finally Steven Spielberg, an equally successful film-maker, obtained the rights.

The basic premise of the film is a new Wildlife Park Attraction being prepared for opening. The park uses sophisticated cloning techniques to producer actual animals which have been extinct for millennia. The setting is a fictional island off the east coast of Latin America. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is the entrepreneur though he relies on funding from other capitalists and employing a team of geneticists. He invites a palaeontologist to join a tour of the park; Alan Grant (Sam Neill) together with a palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). There is also a lawyer in charge of safety certification, Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), accompanied by chaotician Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum). The latter scientist provides a counter-view to that embodied in the park. During the tour they are joined by Hammond’s two grandchildren, also visiting the island.

The film opens with a series of brief sequences that set up the narrative. An accident involving one of the cloned prehistoric beasts  prompts the need for safety certification. An archaeozoological dig introduces the palaeontologists. And a meeting between two disreputable characters in Mexico, one the computer expert from the park Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) sets up the fix that will disrupt things.

The site of the wildlife park is in a hidden valley on the remote island; a standard generic setting for such disasters. Initially the tourists are really impressed as they see actual live dinosaurs. Hammond takes them through the tourist centre guides that explain [for the audience] how the whole parks and its cloning work., |Ian Malcom continually raises critical points about the park and the way it is run..

A tropical storm causes the majority of the staff to leave by boat. This leaves Hammond, the visitors, a warden Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck), Ray Arnold (Samuel Jackson) and Nedry alone on the island. Sure enough disaster strikes: security breaks down: and the wild prehistoric animals go on the rampage. There are not that many species on show and critics later complained that what is included does not all together stack up. But there are exciting and violent scenes as the main characters strive to avoid injury and death. Arnold, Muldoon, and Nedry all die.. The rest survive. The survivors, which include Hammond, leave on a helicopter passing a flight of cormorants; a reference to an earlier comment by the Malcom.

What happens to the remaining animals on the island, now capable of reproduction, is left open as is the opportunity for endless sequels or even prequels. ‘Bond’ has achieved two dozen: Star Wars has passed a dozen: and Fast ‘n Furious is fast approaching that number.

The film was an immense success and continues with video versions and the addition of 3D as well as spin-offs on television. And there was a vast and successful marketing campaign.. The sequels have done less well. The box office ran into billions and broke numerous records. The majority of critics were equally impressed with all sorts of accolades for the film. Robert Ebert was less impressed, writing,

“The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values”.

I tend to agree. What made the film stand out were the recreations of moving animal images; computer generated imagery, still in its early days. At the time this was impressive, though equal effects have become common in other movies. However, the characters and actions that surround these are pretty conventional. The action at times is stereotypical. And it is reminiscent of tropes in earlier Crichton works, like Westworld or the earlier The Andromeda Strain (1971); both movies rely on supposedly foolproof systems turning out to be flawed.

Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond is an avuncular father figure with little sign of the presumably commercial instinct behind such an entertainment project. He spend most of the film in the tourist centre, not directly threatened by the rampaging beasts, but gradually losing his confidence and surety.  Sam Neill’s Alan Grant is a laid back hero who rises to the occasion, but whose character relies on names and terms rather than demonstrable archaeozoological skill. The same applies to Laura Dern’s Ellie Sattler, who is also a strong and capable woman. The voice of scientific reality belongs to Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcom, facing another of ‘history’s bad ideas’; in fact with little to do but contribute scathing one-liner. The leading players do not seem to have had demanding roles; certainly less so than the numerous craft people credited in the very long end credits. Attenborough’s performance occupies an amount of screen time but much less acting input. The children are best passed over in silence and are typical examples of Hollywood’s ‘cute juniors’. Martin Ferrero, Bob Peck and Samuel Jackson all suffer the fate of supporting stars; death and lower down the cast list. Wayne Knight has just the right physical and behavioural appearance for the incompetent villainy that causes the disaster.

The location filming was mainly in Hawaii but the film relies extensively on computerised inputs. The dialogue is in English with some Spanish, not translated in subtitles. The production values are impressive and the film looks great on a big screen. The music is by John Williams and sounds familiar. The soundtrack is as good as the visuals though the latter command most attention.

As a warning about the possible misapplication of science the film is really too generalised to generate serious concern. As parable of contemporary capitalism it is really insufficient. As usual with Hollywood it is villainy rather than the imperatives of profit that cause the downfall. And the idea of competition between capitalists is with on a poorly managed company that has to rely on crime rather than the forces of the market.

In Eastmancolor and 1.85:1, running time 127 minutes: also released in 70mm blow-up. The film enjoyed the new Digital Theatre Sound System.

Chaplin, USA 1992

Richard Attenborough and Robert Downey Jr.

Richard Attenborough explained

“My wish is that people will come away from Chaplin with a greater feeling for what a wonderful medium the cinema is: a deeper understanding of the human foibles and frailties exemplified in this man who was a genius: and the reasons why he finds himself at such odds with what is accepted as proper and appropriate behaviour.”

This film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. The production company was Carolco (Tri-Star) with collaboration from Japanese Television, the French Canal and a video company. It is based partly on Charles Chaplin’s 1964 My Autobiography and David Robinson’s 1985 Chaplin, His Life and Art. Chaplin died in 1977 but his family, especially his widow Oona, resisted attempts to make a biographical film. Attenborough visited her in Switzerland and she agreed, partly it seems because she had liked his earlier Gandhi. The basic story was written by Diana Hawkins, and then several writers worked on the screenplay: William Boyd, Bryan Forbes and William Goldman. A continuing hurdle was fitting Chaplin’s life into a reasonable length film. It seems that Goldman added a fictional character, editor of Chaplin’s autobiography, as a structuring and linking device. The idea for this originated with Attenborough. It took some time to get the production going because of hesitations among the funding producers. A key aspect was casting Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role; Chaplin was his first major role.

The film opens with a relatively young Chaplin removing the make-up and attire of his famous creation, ‘the Tramp’. The scene starts in black and white and gradually changes to colour. A voice is hear on the soundtrack; it will later become apparent that this is the editor of My Autobiography, George Hayden (Anthony Hopkins) in 1963. It also becomes apparent that he has a list of questions regarding a manuscript of the intended book by Chaplin; his questions relate to issues that are not treated in detail in the book or are missed out almost completely.

Thus, apart from brief glimpses of Chaplin and Hayden at the Swiss mansion, the rest of the film is in flashback. First we get Chaplin’s childhood, with a particular emphasis on his mother Hannah; the father is almost completely absent. Starting to suffer from mental problems Hannah is booed off stage in a Music Hall; but the young Charlie takes her place  and wows the vocal audience. Charlie and his half- bother Syd are put in a workhouse and then separated. Later Hannah is committed to a mental asylum. Syd reappears and assist Charlie in joining the Music Hall troupe of Fred Karno (John Thaw). He soon becomes a star turn.

The troupe tour the USA and Charlie receives an offer from the Max Sennett film studio, already located in the developing Hollywood suburb of Los Angeles. Sennett (Dan Aykroyd) is at first sceptical of Chaplin’s youth, but Charlie convinces him and is soon starring in the typical one reeler films made at the studio; running about fifteen minutes each. Here Chaplin develops his on-screen persona of ‘the tramp’. Chaplin’s career in the teens of the C19th is severely compressed. But we see him evolving as a major star: becoming a director of his own films: acquiring his own studio: and earning increasingly large salaries. The only characters we see in this period are Max Sennett and one of his stars, Mabel Norman (Marisa Tomei): the cameraman who worked most frequently with Chaplin,  Roland Totheroh (David Duchovny): a young actress who becomes a regular leading lady Edna Purviance (Penelope Ann Miller): and Syd who joins Chaplin in Hollywood and acts as a sort of manager.

We move into the 1920s when Chaplin, like other comics, moved onto feature length films. He becomes friendly with Douglas Fairbanks (Kevin Kline), and the his wife-cum-star Mary Pickford (Maria Pitillo). An amount of attention is given to his first marriage to Mildred Harris (Mila Jocovich). An issue here is that several of Chaplin’s relationship are with young women under legal age in the USA. In Mildred’s case there is a divorce with her lawyers attempting to seize Chaplin’s latest film, The Kid. There is sequence, shot like a Sennett comedy, as Chaplin and his aides edit the film in secret.

There is also a scene of a dinner party attended by the future director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover (Kevin Dunn). Hoover indulges in his racist and homophobic views and Chaplin makes fun of him. For the film this provides the motivation for a long-running witch hunt by Hoover of Chaplin; though he was doing the same to countless other liberals and lefties.

In 1921 Chaplin visits England and gets a massive reception, though some people are still angry that he spent World War I in the safety of the USA. From this point Chaplin makes his home in the USA. The rest of what was a world tour is missing from the film.

The 1920s are also compressed though we gets references in the studio scenes to The Gold Rush. We also see and hear debates about the advent of films with sounds, ‘the talkies’. Chaplin resists following the almost total turnover of Hollywood to sound production; the example here being City Lights, which follows an argument between Chaplin and Syd over sound.

The 1930s bring his marriage to Paulette Godard (originally Marion Levy – Diane Lane) and his film Modern Times. Here Chaplin uses a soundtrack but not dialogue. There are several scenes with Chaplin supervising the recording of the soundtrack and the music. We do not see either Alfred Newman or David Raksin, both involved in the arranging and scoring. Chaplin plays the tramp for the last time and Goddard appears as ‘The Gamin’.

Wold War II arrives though the USA is isolationist. There is a scene where Chaplin refuses the hand of the German Ambassador. This is followed by the filming of The Great Dictator; there are scenes of the production and the filming of a scene where Chaplin makes a political but also sentimental speech.

There is the affair with a young actress Joan Barry (Nancy Travis). This later leads to a court case over claimed paternity of child. Chaplin’s case rests on blood tests that show he is not the father, but these are deemed inadmissible. There is a trenchant and deliberately rude portrayal of Chaplin by the prosecuting attorney, Joseph Scott (James Wood). In a film with many short scenes this is an extended declamation; designed to show how Chaplin was maligned in the USA, by such as Hoover.

A title, ‘Seven years later’ has Chaplin at a première for Limelight. By this time he has married Oona O’Neill; much younger than Chaplin but the partner in a successful marriage. She is played by Moira Kelly, who also played an earlier romance, Hettie Kelly; the film clearly trying to explore Chaplin’s romanticism with this parallel. Chaplin then finds that his visa for the USA, [he never took out citizenship] has been withdrawn. Ten years later Oona accompanies Chaplin when he travel to Los Angeles to be presented with an honorary Academy Award. First we see him waiting in a dressing room, now tied to a wheelchair. Then he sits on a darkened stage watching a montage of excerpts from his silent films, ending with the final shot from The Circus. The end credits follow. Characters appear alongside mini-biographies. The film is dominated by Charlie Chaplin, and his portrayal by Robert Downey Jr.. This won universal acclaim, and he and the film received nominations at different award ceremonious. But the only major award was for Downey at the BAFTAS. The supporting cast are generally very good. There are popular star sin many minor roles, most more than a cameo but not that developed. Paul Rhys Sydney and Geraldine Chaplin’s Hannah do both get developed. And to varying degrees Chaplin’s amours and wives are developed. In the 1920s Kevin Kline’s Douglas Fairbanks has a number of scenes. Kevin Dunn’s Hoover gets a number of scenes and is suitably malevolent. And Anthony Hopkins editor is frequent and important in structuring the narrative, but the scripted questions lack depth.

Sven Nykvist, Stuart Craig and Richard Attenborough

The production values are very good. The cinematography is down to the internationally acclaimed Sven Nykvist. The British Anne V. Coates is editor and clearly had her hands full with the complexity of scene changes and cuts. There are some very well done ‘classical’ techniques, such as the wipes in the Keystone sequences: and a brilliant pastiche of Keystone in the sequence as Charlie and his team flee the lawyers hired by Mildred Harris. The music by John Barry is also very well done. He makes use frequently of the music from Chaplin’s films, much composed by Chaplin himself. The most frequent is ‘Smile, a theme in Modern Times later turned into a song.

The film did suffer in pre-production by changes in the production company, Universal pulled out of the project, with the original idea of the project severely reduced and preparatory work, including sets being wasted. Presumably the long gestation period affected the final outcome.

Two criticisms of the final film were that it was ‘overly glossy’ and that it took ‘dramatic licence’ with some of Chaplin’s’ biography. The film really focuses on Chaplin’s personal life and his many romantic and sexual involvements. There are presented alongside his film work. But Chaplin himself always regarded his film work as the most important aspect of his life. At one point he says to the editor that one is ‘judged by what you did.’

And much of Chaplin’s film work is missing from the film. The teens are presented through Keystone, increasing earnings and Chaplin moving until he had his owns studio. However, between Keystone and United Artists Chaplin was contracted to Essanay, Mutual and First National. Moreover we only a see a few of the Chaplin titles of that period. Yet this is when his stardom and his career were established. So the film does not really justify the world-wide stardom that he achieved.

Missing from the 1920s is A Woman of Paris, a film that Chaplin directed but in which he did not star. That role went to Edna Purviance, but the film does not develop her at all; apart from a companion of Chaplin she played the lead in numerous of his fine silent shorts.

And in the 1940s  another missing film is Monsieur Verdoux. This film was not a success. But it revealed a particular sardonic streak in Chaplin and was his most direct attack on the social system in which he worked. Missing again is the later A King in New York; not a particularly good Chaplin feature but one in which he attacked HUAC, which was a public extension of the repression that Hoover organised through the FBI.

The overall film has the episodic form that is also found in the earlier biopics. But Chaplin also has an important difference. Young Winston, Gandhi and Cry Freedom all focused on the public face of their subject with the personal story given less emphasis. In Chaplin it is the personal that takes precedence over the public face.  As is demonstrated by the series of questions of the editor this is the opposite of Chaplin’s focus in his autobiography; and one that the film gives insufficient attention. Whilst this biopic addresses Chaplin’s personal character and ‘foibles’ it does not really illuminate cinema as a medium. Interestingly whilst David Robinson offers several pages on the film in the Dossier he does not offer a comment on how effectively the film presents Chaplin as a great film director.

In Eastmancolor with black and white sequences, 1.85:1, running time 143 minutes, with English, Italian and German and some sub-titles

 

 

 

Magic, USA 1978

This is a Joseph Levine production scripted by William Goldman from his own novel. Several film-makers and actors were considered for the production but finally it was Richard Attenborough as director and Anthony Hopkins playing the lead role.

Attenborough recalls careful preparation,

“Of course, when you go in for so much advanced planning you’re in an agony in case it’s going to appear self-conscious and pedantic in the result. Also vitally important from the outset is the casting – a usually largely underestimated part of the director’s armoury. If you get the casting wrong, you might as well pack up.” (Dossier, page 63).

This has been described as psychological horror; whilst it has some explicit violence it is the psychology that is the main focus.

Anthony Hopkins as Corky is a would-be stand-up comic. His first outing at an amateur entertainer event is a failure and he caps the poor performance by haranguing the audience. He describes this bitterly to his mentor, Merlin (E. J. André) an ageing and retired entertainer. He is advised to go away and find a distinctive act. The film cuts to a year later and we see Corky in a successful club performance. He plays a comic ventriloquist and his attraction is the dummy, called Fats; rude and foul mouthed but found very funny by a packed audience. He is seen by a major entertainment agent, Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith), who offers to get him a television contract with a major New York channel. When he succeeds Corky hesitates and then leaves New York secretly.

He returns with Fats to the Catskills, where he was raised and schooled. He takes a cabin at a run-down holiday business. This is run by Peggy (Ann-Margret), whose husband Duke (Ed Lauter) is absent at this point. We learn that Corky was at school with her and has retained the teenage crush. We also learn why Corky fled New York; his mental state is precarious even unbalanced. Much of the time he and Fats talk, with Fats increasingly dominant and possessive.

The situation deteriorates when Ben turns up having tracked Corky down. Then Duke returns and becomes jealous of the developing relationship between Peggy and Corky.  By this stage we know it is going to end badly.

Wikipedia helpfully has a list of other films where the relationships between a ventriloquist and his/her dummy becomes problematic. The obvious example is the final story of the fine British portmanteau film, Dead of Night (1945). Here Maxwell (Michael Redgrave) has a dummy, Hugo, who bears some affinity to Fats. The drama is finely directed by Cavalcanti from a story by John Baines, with likely some assistance from Angus McPhail.

Attenborough’s drama is a fine successor to that earlier and equally disturbing film; only time allows more literal violence. Anthony Hopkins and Ann-Margaret are really fine, catching the emotional tones of the characters. Burgess Meredith and Ed Lauter fill out the story with panache. The film has some fine location work by cinematographer Victor J Kemper and the experienced Jerry Goldsmith provides music that ranges from romantic to dark gothic.

The film is atypical of Attenborough’s directorial output; he was recruited to a planned production and finished script. His more personal movies have a greater input, often as producer; but the tone of the film is exactly right.

In De Luxe colour, 1.85:1 and a running time of 107 minutes.

The BBFC awarded an X Certificate noting detailed violence, strong language and moderate sex.

Brannigan, Britain / USA 1975

John Wayne and Richard Attenborough

Produced by United Artists in Britain this is a John Wayne vehicle. It is an original story, then scripted up by the authors and two additional writers. The director, Douglas Hickox, started as an assistant director in the 1950s and in the 1960s and 70s worked as a director for both cinema and television. His best effort is likely Theatre of Blood (1975), a macabre but entertaining play on Shakespearean performance and criticism. This film is clearly an action thriller. Wikipedia suggests:

“It was one of many Dirty Harry-type films released in the wake of that film’s success, featuring rogue cops who don’t “play by the rules.”.

Wayne had earlier turned down the opportunity to play Harry Callaghan.

The opening credits set the tone over shots of a revolver and ammunition. The narrative opens with Lieutenant ‘Jim’ Brannigan in New York; demonstrating his maverick ways in arresting a counterfeiter. His real target is the criminal Ben Larkin (John Vernon). So, he is packed off to Britain where Larkin has been apprehended by the Metropolitan police. In London we also meet Larkin’s lawyer Mel Fields (Mel Ferrer): his London counterpart Commander Sir Charles Swann (Richard Attenborough): and a young Detective Sergeant Jennifer Thatcher (Judy Geeson). Brannigan’s NYPD methods are out of the norm in London; as is his Colt 38. Swann at first seems a  rather stuffy senior police officer, but he soon reveals that is something of a maverick as well, but with typical British restraint. Their efforts to find Larkin become complicated as a US hit-man is working on a contract to eliminate Brannigan in London. When the kidnapping is resolved, mainly by Brannigan, it transpires that Larkin and Fields were involved in a scam to pocket one million dollars. As they are taken away Brannigan has to thwart and then eliminate the hit-man. We assume that he is able to take both Larkin and Fields back to the USA for justice.

The film is constructed around Wayne, who is his usual on-screen persona. Attenborough is fine as Swann though it is mostly an undemanding role.  He recalled in an interview his amusement at a scene in a pub

“in which ostensibly I laid ‘Duke’ Wayne low with a right-hander to his chin.”

Judy Geeson, for most of the movie, looks overcome by working with a major Hollywood star. Ferrer is good; Vernon pretty much so. The supporting British cast work well but do not have a lot to do.

The film is constructed around scenes of action and violent, often not really motivated by characters or plot. The fight scene in a pub is an example. And the trailing round London by the hit-man in an E-type Jaguar also contains some odd scenes. The kidnappers work better; there are two sequences where their methods are ingenious. The film also seems constructed around London views; since it mainly uses locations there are a number of sites, like Buckingham Palace,  Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square and Tower Bridge, that seem to be there for US audiences to enjoy. One location is The Garrick Club; a ‘gentlemen’ club dating from 1831, which to date has resisted women membership. The location was only allowed because Attenborough is a member. This is not usually in the list of Attenborough’s activities; one assume he joined to ‘network’, as the contemporary phrase goes: something he seems to be very effective at.

The production values are fine, as one would expect. The film often features odd camera angles which seem rather unnecessary. The editing goes at a pace; and the music is suitably action toned as well. Like Dirty Harry (1971), it has not aged that well.

Deluxe colour and Panavision, 2.39:1: the slight change in the ratio at this time from 2.35:1 was actually a reduction in the height rather than the width in projection and masking, [see the Widescreen Musuem.com]: running time 111 minutes.

Rosebud, USA 1975

Richard Attenborough and Peter O’Toole

There is a two year gap between Young Winston and Attenborough’s next assignment as actor or film-maker. In 1973 he became involved in trying to set up Capital Radio. a project that started but then failed. He wrote,

“Capital was a great stimulus to my morale. It did not, however, assist my bank balance. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was flat broke. My last salary had come from Young Winston some two years beforehand.” (In search of Gandhi, page 155).

He goes on to mention Then There Were None and later Brannigan. But he omits any mention of this title which preceded both..

The film opens as we follow a man landing from a ship in what turns out to be Corsica. He journeys to a remote spot with a gate and fence bearing the sign ‘Defense’, meaning forbidden. Entering, he arrives at a gated compound with several stone buildings. The occupants are Arab and the interior suggests that they are criminals or terrorists. One has a nasty looking hand spike for use in stabbings. The cellars of the building store weapons including AK47s. And an inner room has been adapted with beds, a toilet and shower.

At a European port five young women, daughters of wealthy European and U.S. families board a luxury yacht. There is Isabelle Huppert as Helene Nikolaos, Brigitte Ariel as Sabine Fargeau, Lalla Ward as Margaret Carter, Kim Cattrall as Joyce Donnovan, Debra Berger as Gertrud Freyer. Sabine, is visited by a young man, Patrice; he leaves the boat in the early evening. At night the Arabs board the yacht with the help of a bribed crewman, who is instantly killed. The rest of the crew are also killed and the five young women taken hostage. The women are successfully transferred to the buildings and cellar in Corsica, Meanwhile, the police find the abandoned yacht and an investigation and search in commenced.

We cut to a British newsroom where a journalist, Larry Martin (Peter O’Toole) is contacted by some security official. He is taken to be seen by the father of one of the kidnapped girls. We gradually learn that Martin works in some fashion for the C.I.A, but also works with the German security services and with Israeli security services. It becomes clear than rather being a secret agent in the style of James Bond that he acts as an investigator and negotiator.

The film proceeds in parallel, cutting between the activities of Martin and the hostages and their captors. As the film progresses more time is spent on Martin and his progress. The captors release a captor, Margaret [British] with a pre-recorded video which defines their demands, read on-camera by Margaret. and this includes the video to be shown on a number of prime time television. stations. The video itself is watched by Martin with two of the parents of the young women: Charles Andre Fargeau (Claude Dauphin), a wealthy French business who is Jewish, though he has kept that secret: he is the grandfather of Sabine: and U.S. Senator Donnovan (John Lindsay), father of Joyce. If the video is broadcast the captors will release a further prisoner with more demands. In the USA the President leaves that issue up to the television networks who do screen the video.

The second prisoner released is Helene Nikolaos. In order to thwart tracking the captors use a pretend flight to make the released prisoner believe she has been flown from somewhere; where as she is released on Corsica. The new video requires Fargeau to read a statement on-camera, revealing that he is Jewish and also that he played a role in the Jordanian massacre of the Black September Palestinian group. The video advises that in order to publicise the Palestinian plight they will release two more prisoners at four-monthly intervals and finally, after a year, Sabine.

Martin is busy contacting intelligence agencies including that of Israel, not identified by name. With German help he identifies a key leader of the Black September group; Edward Sloat (Richard Attleborough), as the name implies he is actually British. Martin also arranges for Patrice, arrested on Corsica, to be released. Disguised as Patrice Martin contacts and then meets Sloat at a secret Black September hideout. Sloat tells him that

“I want the elimination of Israel”

Martin manages to bring samples from the rock of the hide-out. He takes this and his memories of his travel to the hideout to Israeli intelligence. They, using sophisticated computer software, [‘better than that of the USA’] identify the site of the hideout in Lebanon. They agree they will take no action whilst Martin attempts to rescue the hostages.

He returns to Corsica, bizarrely with Helene in tow. He soon discovers the large estate in which he will find the hideout of the kidnappers. An Israeli hit squad meets him under cover: they sabotage the water supply: and knock out the captors and hostages with a sleeping gas. As they enter the only awake person is the assassin with the murderous spike and Martin disarms him. Once the hostages are released an Israeli hit squad attacks the Lebanese hideout, not actually shooting the Palestinians but capturing Sloat. Apparently they do this whilst the Palestinians pray towards Mecca without noticing the hijack. Confronted by Martin, the CIA and others, Sloat boasts that his real purpose is to attack both Israel and Black September; the latter, he maintains, are not genuine Muslims as they support the idol of communism. He also threatens that the remaining hostages will be killed. This tirade is recorded and played back to Sloat as well as the information that the hostages are already free.

In a final twist the film ends with a hijacker, holding a hand grenade, and announcing to the air plane crew that he will hold them and the passengers hostages against the release of the Palestinians/captors imprisoned by the French.

The politics of the film are reactionary and I will return to this. But the film itself develops into what is called in film parlance, ‘a turkey’. It starts out well with the introduction of the kidnapping group. This is followed by the young women coming together at the yacht. How they all came to be part of the party is not explained, and as the movie goes on more and more is unexplained. The release of the two captives and the videos is well done but after that what is happening at the Corsican hideout is not followed up. Martin’s intelligent connections are as implausible as Bond’s action talents. We do learn he helped out German Intelligence after the Munich Olympics massacre; a sneaky way of bringing in Black September but with no attempt to explain their politics.

Martin’s foray as Patrice is ridiculous. Sloat tells him to ‘remove his makeup’, something that should have been obvious to Martin. And the idea of a British leader of Black September really beggars belief.

The plot becomes even more implausible when Martin returns to Corsica with Helen; why he agrees? The raid on the hideout is a little too pat. Whilst the raid on the Lebanese cave is bizarre. I was trying to decide if the praying Palestinians did not notice the Israeli squad or were held in praying stance at gunpoint. And we are asked to believe that a man who rises to leadership in a terrorist organisation would allow himself to be trapped into recording an expose.

At least the final shot with the hijacker in a fresh plane has some feel of realism.

There are holes in the narrative, like the lack of coverage of the hostages in the latter stages. I wondered if for production reasons the later parts of the film were rushed, and possibly had scenes cut. The film does run to 126 minutes, which is longer than the norm. Perhaps the writers could not just fit all the novel’s plot into the movie?

Even worse are the politics of the film. This is another of those Hollywood tracts, disguised as narrative, supporting Zionism and pillorying the Palestinians. Preminger has form on this; his 1960 film version of the novel by Leon Uris, Exodus. The book provides a Zionist travesty of the partition of Palestine and the setting up of a Zionist State. The book is well characterised,

“The book was first criticised in 1960 by Aziz S. Sahwell of the Arab Information Center for historical inaccuracies and its depiction of Arabs. This criticism has been maintained by others. Edward Said suggested in 2001 that the novel still provides “the main narrative model that dominates American thinking” with respect to the foundation of Israel. British writer Robert Fisk wrote in 2014 that it was “a racist, fictional account of the birth of Israel in which Arabs are rarely mentioned without the adjectives ‘dirty’ and ‘stinking’ [and] was one of the best pieces of Socialist-Zionist propaganda that Israel could have sought”. Norman Finkelstein espoused a similar view as Robert Fisk, in his 2008 work Beyond Chutzpah. In addition, Rashid Khalidi has stated that the book has served “to confirm and deepen pre-existing prejudices” about Palestinians and Arabs in general.” [Wikipedia with citations for the references].

The film version simplifies the novel but does little to dilute the racism. There is a ‘good’ Arab character, i.e. he supports the Zionists. And the latter are played by major Hollywood stars, amplifying the impact of the film.

The depiction of Palestinians carries over into Rosebud. Their presentation follows the tropes of Hollywood movies celebrating the actions of U.S. security agencies. Whilst they do not indulge in the terrorism attributed to Arabs in other films they are presented as ruthless. What is worse about the film is that their supposed leader is Sloat; British and actually trying to destroy their group. This is an even more common trope, the idea that people taking subversive action are always motivated and steered by a subversive; thus not capable of organising their own resistance.

The massacre at the Munich Olympics is merely a sign for the audience. There is no attempt to explain or situate it. And this also applies to the presentation of Black September and, with opposite effect, the Zionist security agents.

The involvement of some people is odd. The main writer is actually Preminger’s son, which probably explains his contribution: given his limited scriptwriting experience this may explain some of the problems with the film. Peter O’Toole‘s career suggests he was not that adept or caring about his choice of projects; he was the star of the inexorable What’s New Pussycat?’

Attenborough’s involvement takes more explaining. He was taking acting roles in the period to raise income because of his commitment to the making of Gandhi. Even so, the film is a bizarre choice. At least in the earlier The Last Grenade his character was a reasonably well crafted role with him playing it well. The scene where he offers a tirade to be recorded as evidence shows none of the restraint that made his best roles memorable.

The |Observer review included the following,

“Richard Attenborough as a renegade British mercenary in charge of Arab terrorists is essential viewing. Beseeching Allah to let him know why he has been forsaken in the last reel, Attenborough is favoured with the reply of one of his captors, “Perhaps you embarrassed him.” Much the same could and should be said of the film as a whole.”

Then there is Isabelle Hubert as Helene? This film was before the roles that established her acting credentials, like The Lacemaker. Perhaps she thought it would open up a Hollywood career; clearly she was sadly mistaken if that was the case. Denys Neil Coop was director of Photography. His earlier films included This Sporting Life but also Bunny Lake Is Missing; perhaps he liked working with Preminger.

In De Luxe colour and with a ratio of 2.35:1, running time 126 minutes

The Sand Pebbles, USA

Richard Crenna, Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough

The film was both produced and directed by Robert Wise. It was adapted by from a novel by Richard McKenna. The author had some experience of the world of the book he served in China in the 1930s on a naval gunship. The screenplay was written by Robert Anderson who also wrote for the theatre and for television. The film follows the main outline of the book but it is clear that the politics of the situation are spelt out with greater clarity in the book.

The film opens with a title explaining that the action takes place in China in 1926, suggesting that it is a place of chaos at that time. The leading character is Petty Office Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), an experienced engineer assigned to a gunboat, the US San Pablo, stationed on the Yangtze River.  The old and battered boat is manned by Chinese labourers, referred to as ‘coolie’s, under the supervision of US naval officers and ratings. The men are referred to as ‘sand pebbles’, playing on the name of the ship. Jake does not fit the character of the ship’s crew, who soon regard him as a ‘Jonah’. Lieutenant Collins (Richard Crenna) is commanding officer; he is a complex character caught between sympathy for his men and the demands of an unstable political situation. The crew are presented as stereotypical ratings, brutal, licentious and racist, especially towards the ‘coolies’ on the ship and the women they frequent on shore at bars. The exception is Mate Second Class Frenchy Burgoyne (Richard Attenborough), more sympathetic, with whom Jake becomes friendly.

Two important incidents bring out the character of the crew. Jake trains up one of the Chinese on board, Mako Iwamatsu as Po-han, to run the engines. This leads to a boxing bout at a local bar between Po-han and Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Stawski (Simon Oakland); which Po-han wins.  And at the same bar Frenchy befriends a young woman educated by missionaries, Marayat Andriane as Maily. Stawski wants to buy her favours from the bar owner with whom she is in debt. Frenchy manages to find the 200 dollars to pay her debts; though not before some colonialists attempt to auction her favours publicly in the bar. Both the fight and the auction display the racist and misogynistic values of the Europeans.

Meanwhile Collins and the ship have to navigate the political situation. There is conflict between Chinese war lords, the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek, called ‘Nationalists’: the growing communist movement called ‘Bolsheviks’; and the several colonial military forces occupying parts of  China. Initially the film presents the Nationalists as relatively friendly whilst the opposition, Bolsheviks, are seen as creating trouble for the colonial military. There are several instances of mass demonstrations against the ship; and in one of these Po-han dies.

Then the ship receives orders to avoid any confrontation with the Chinese. The ship is cut off from shore by river Junks and the crew not allowed ashore. But Frenchy, who has carried out an unofficial marriage with Maily, secretly swims ashore to visit her. Jake goes on the only allowed shore trip to check the mail. He goes looking for Frenchy and finds that he has died of pneumonia; caught from swimming ashore. There is a violent scuffle with Chinese and Maily dies,. There is a demonstration then demanding Jake be tried for justice as the murderer of Maily. The film suggests all this is down to manipulation by Bolsheviks.

Collins has to deal with a threatened mutiny by the crew over Jake. He faces this down and his problems are resolved when he receives a signal about events in Nanking. This historical incident is not explained, we merely learn that Chinese, British and US people have been killed. Collins uses the opportunity to mount a rescue mission for missionaries up a tributary of the Yangtze. This involves breaching a boom made of Junks and rope across the river. Both Chinese, including Nationalist troops, and US sailors are killed in the action. But the gunboat sails on. At the mission US minister Jameson with young teacher Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen) decline to leave. Shirley has in fact developed a romantic relationship with Jake. Nationalist troops arrive and Jameson is shot. Collins orders the three sailors, with Shirley, to leave as he provides covering fire. He though is also shot. So Jake provides the covering fire whilst Shirley leaves with the two sailors. Despite shooting a number of the soldiers Jake also dies. We see Shirley and the sailors on the way to the gunboat; last seen in a long shot sailing away as ‘The End’ title appears.

At the beginning of the film Jake arrives in a river port and joins some Europeans for dinner, including Shirley. Jameson holds forth on the iniquities of the colonial forces and their disruptive and violent effect on China. However, we do not hear any more of this until right at the end. The attitude of westerners, including Collins, is to regard the Chinese as inferior. Jake and Frenchy are the exceptions, but only to an extent. It is only when Frenchy encounters Maily that he shows interest in a Chinese person. And whilst Jake trains Po-han and treats him well he also arranges the boxing bout as a bet without even asking Po-han.

Po-han and Maily are the only Chinese characters with any depth in the film. Whilst the Nationalist seem relatively positive the signal on Nanking blames both them and the Bolsheviks. It should be noted that actually the British and US military used the occasion of rioting to have their warships bombard the port city. The way the Bolsheviks are distinguished from the Nationalists is that the latter tend to be officious but that the Bolsheviks snarl and agitate the mass of the people. Ordinary Chinese are just extras in the background, and in a trope that applies to working class people in the colonies, but also often to the working class in an advanced capitalist society, as cannon fodder for manipulation by subversives.

The small amount of criticism of the colonial forces in China presumably survived from the original novel. But the brief criticism by Jameson is soon overwhelmed by the plot, character and mise en scéne. This is especially noticeable when the mass of Chinese demonstrate against the presence of the US warship. This happens a number of times and is one of the repetitions that fill out the movie.

The only positive Chinese characters die, at the hands of fellow Chinese; a third is killed by Jake at the boom but he only recognises him after the death. What is more interesting is that the leading western male characters all die; Frenchy, Collins, Jake and Jameson. In Frenchy’s case his death seems to be a punishment for miscegenation; another familiar trope in Hollywood.  Such deaths are tropes found in some modern colonial melodramas. And the film uses another trope from this genre; as we see The San Pablo leave the westerners have all gone home; and, as usual, leaving the chaos they created behind them.

The film runs three hours, a little longer in the road show version. But the action is limited: there are repetitious scenes such as the anti-colonial demonstrations: and it is over two hours into the film before a proper battle. The action is predominately individualised, most of it led in some form by Jake. In fact, when the captain leads the assault on the boom and Junks it comes a surprise. Steve McQueen dominates the screen with his familiar persona; not that different from The Great Escape. Attenborough’s is a familiar vulnerable performance but with an emphasis on emotion and romance not always part of his character. Apart from Crenna the supporting cast are underwritten.  Bergen has little to do but smile winsomely at McQueen. And Oakland has the most noticeable part among the ratings.

The film was well reviewed and garnered a number of Academy Award Nominations. Because of the expense of the production the box office takings do not seem to have produced a large profit. It certainly became one of the titles that was popular among McQueen fans. The posters and publicity for the film predominately focus on Steve McQueen.

I have not found any Chinese reviews; the film was exhibited in Hong Kong and Taiwan but I found no record for China. Apart from the representation of the Chinese, especially communists: and given the overall pro-US stance: and given that the film used Hong Kong [still controlled by the British} and Taiwan for locations: this cannot have been a movie that was likely to be acceptable to the Socialist Government.

In De Luxe and Panavision, both 35mm and 70mm versions, the former in 2.35:1: a running time of 182 minutes with some slightly longer versions: in English and Mandarin with some English subtitles.

The Flight of the Phoenix, USA

James Stewart and Richard Attenborough

This film was produced and directed by Robert Aldrich and distributed by C20th Fox. Aldrich was generally regarded as a Hollywood maverick, but he made many successful and impressive movies. These include the early cult classic Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and the later subversive Vietnam movie Twilight’s Last Gleaming (1977). This film is adapted from a novel of the same name by Elleston Trevor, a writer of many successful novels including ‘The Berlin Memorandum’ [writing as Adam Hall], also made into a movie and likewise  ‘The Quiller Memorandum’ (1966). This film was written by Lucas Heller. He worked on a number of films with Aldrich, including the successful The Dirty Dozen (1967).

The movie follows the book fairly closely but has at least one major difference, changing the nationality of a key character from English to German.

Frank Towns, pilot (James Stewart) and Lew Moran, navigator (Richard Attenborough) are flying a two-engined transport plane across the Libyan desert with a complement of twelve passengers. These include workers from the Arabco Oil Company: an Army officer and NCO who have hitched a lift: a French physician: a relative of an oil worker returning from a holiday visit: and a pet monkey. Unexpectedly the plane is caught in a sandstorm: first blown off course: and then forced to land in the desert when both engines stall. They find themselves away from any likely search area: off the usual plane and land transport routes: and with a diet of mainly pitted dates but limited supplies of water.

Two men died in the crash; a third succumbs later to his injuries. The army officer attempts to trek for help and later dies as do two of other passenger, including the doctor. At this point the visitor who is German, Heinrich Dorfman [Hardy Kruger, English in the book] comes up with the idea of using part of the crashed plane to construct a fairly basic plane to fly to safety. Importantly, he explains that he is an aeronautical engineer with enough knowledge to designs the replacement. Also importantly, the plane is a Fairchild cargo ship: it has twin engines but also twin booms at the rear rather a typical tail plane. The plan involves taking part of a wing and fixing it on to an engine with an adjoining wing tip. It also involves the men in hard manual labour, mostly done at night to avoid the heat of the sun.

Apart from the technical problems the greatest hurdle is an animosity between the Towns and Dorfman. Towns is a pilot with long experience and his stance is that he could ‘fly by the seat of his pants’. Dorfman is a stereotypical German, precise, pedantic and rather arrogant. Lou finds himself struggling to mediate between the two men. There is a great scene where Frank and Lou suddenly realise that Dormann’s aeronautical expertise is on model aircraft, not full-size ones like the Fairchild. Lou realises that, for Dorfman, the difference is irrelevant; and the plot bears him out.

Frank gets a sort of comeback when the plane is ready to fly. It is his pilot expertise that means that the engine is started and revved up for take-off. The other men lie strapped to the wings. All, including the monkey, reach safety at a small oasis where there is another oil rig.

This is a sparse drama in terms of settings. Apart from the opening and closing flying sequences the whole film, running over two hours, is stuck with the survivors of the crash in and around the plane. They are a mixed bunch; presumably to introduce variety into the static situation. The film version also spends a lot of attention on the construction of the replacement aircraft. Stewart, Attenborough and Hardy dominate the action and the dialogue. All three are excellent, though there characters tend towards stereotypes; Lou is a recovering alcoholic. This is a familiar  Attenborough performance is slightly breezy with vulnerabilities under the surface and acting as a middle character between extremes.

He recalled that,

“The prospect of working with yet another Hollywood’s living legends was a stroke of good fortune given to few people whose home is on the other side of the Atlantic.”

This continued Attenborough’s developing relationship with the Hollywood studios.

The supporting cast play their roles well and all, to a degree, have their dramatic moments; even the monkey acts as a sort of sentry warning of approaches. The only indigenous people seen are a group mounted Nomads and whilst they do not stumble on the plane two of the deaths are at their hands. The dialogue is in  English with some Italian and Arabic. Clearly the plane is very important. In fact there were several used and whilst similar, they are not all the same model. The flying version of the constructed air plane was a particular problem. In fact, a stunt pilot, Paul Mantz, was killed in a crash and has an opening tribute in the credits.

Joseph Biroc’s cinematography makes good use of the desert and the various planes or mock-ups. The movie was actually filmed in California and Arizona. The editing allows the slow developing rhythm of the situation. The music, by a busy arranger and composer for film, Frank De Vol, is sparse and only noticeable for dramatic statements.

Some in the production feared that the limited cast and setting might not appeal to audiences. This seems to have been the case. It had mixed reviews and failed to recoup its cost at the box office. On the other hand it is a regular title on television channels. There is a remake from 2004, based on the 1965 script,  which also failed at the box office.  This version was filmed in Africa but the plot sets it in Mongolia?

In DeLuxe colour, 1.85:1, running 142 minutes

He Who Gets Slapped

That slap

Despite the furore at the Academy Awards in 2022 there is a long tradition of slapping in Hollywood movies. The title refers to a classic silent film adapted from a Russian play and then directed by the Swedish émigré to the film capital, Victor Seatrom (Victor Sjöström); A Metro-Goldwyn Pictures, 1924. It stars Lon Chaney as a scientist humiliated at the Academy of Sciences who subsequently becomes a clown with the focus of his act as shown in the title. The plot is typical of films featuring the charismatic Chaney, who dramatically suffers physical and psychological pain in many of his features. The masochism of Marlon Brando is a pale shadow of Chaney.

The tradition continued in the 1937 A Star is Born from United Artists from a story by Williams Wellman and directed by him. The slap here occurs at an Academy Award ceremony. Rising star Vicky Lester (real name Esther Blodgett and played by Janet Gaynor] is struck by drunken husband and fading star Norman Maine (Frederick March). In fact the actual slap is not on-screen as an edit cuts from Maine’s outstretched arm to Lester’s shocked response. The 1954 remake, directed by George Cukor and released by Warner Brothers, does show the actual slap. The 1937 version is extremely similar to the earlier RKO What Price Hollywood?, but the Wellman version does add the slap to the action.

Hollywood’s all-time box office success, Gone With the Wind (1939 and really down to David O. Selznick) not only has Scarlett O-Hara (Vivian Leigh) slapping  Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard)  but also hurling a ceramic figurine at Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). And, in many ways the real star of the film, Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) has to threaten to chastise Scarlett in this manner on several occasions.

The Maltese Falcon has Peter Lorre slapped both by Mary Astor and by Humphrey Bogart. The latter adds insult to injury by telling him to ‘like it’. Private eye movies frequently feature slapping.

Vivian Leigh gets far more than just a single slap in A Streetcar Named Desire (released by Warner Brothers in 1951), an adaptation by Tennessee Williams of his play together with director Elia Kazan. As faded belle Blanche Dubois Leigh suffers at the hands of her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando). Brando here hands out the violence that, as a character, he himself suffers in many other titles.

Tip Hedren as Melanie Daniels in The Birds slaps a distraught woman onlooker (Doreen Lang) in the seaside restaurant at Bodega Bay. This is nothing compared with what the character suffers from the feathered attackers in the film and which Tipp Hedren herself suffered at the hands of the director Alfred Hitchcock.

In The Heat of the Night has the town’s patriarch Endicott (Larry Gates) slap Afro-American detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) who, in a great moment for all black detectives in the USA, slaps him right back.

In Jaws Chief Brody (Roy Schneider) gets slapped by grieving mother Mrs Kinter (Lee Fiero). Unlike most of the othjer victims, Brody is innocent as the Mayor (Murray Hamilton) shamefacedly has to admit.

More subversive is Chinatown where we watch J. J. ‘Jake’ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) repeatedly slap Evelyn Cross Mulray (Faye Dunnaway). Like the audience he is shocked by her revelation. However, it fails to cure his misogyny or illuminate his detection skills. The film ends with the death of Evelyn at the hands [once removed] of her rapist father whilst Jake looks on helplessly. Ironically the film’s director, Roman Polanski, is one of the only five members expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; of these three others were expelled for sexual misdemeanours and one for copyright. It seems that the other eight commandments do not apply in Hollywood.

Marlon Brando as the titular Vito Corleone in  The Godfather (Paramount, 1972) hands out another slap to his protégé Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino). On this occasion the slap is in response to Johnny’s complete lack of Sicilian machismo.

In Summer of Sam (Touchstone Pictures/40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, 1999) Dionna (Mira Sorvino) slaps Vinny (John Leguisamo) after he calls her a ‘slut’; in the USA ‘A person considered to be sexually promiscuous: a woman prostitute: an untidy, dirty woman; a slattern’. The film got much negative comment and the threat of an NC17 rating; [no-one seventeen and under admitted]. Like Spike Lee’s earlier Do The Right Thing (1989) this title shows how a heat wave can heighten the contradictions of a city, particular communities and individuals.

 

The Magnificent Ambersons USA 1942

Produced at the RKO Studio and scripted and directed by Orson Welles; this film is a flawed classic, missing about forty minutes of the original version. It screened on BBC 4 as one of the titles accompanying the six part documentary, The RKO Story Tales from Hollywood [Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story]. This is a six part series, each episode an hour long, originally produced and transmitted in 1987. It made a welcome return to terrestrial television and was accompanied by a number of classic titles from the RKO Studio. The series was jointly produced by the BBC and RKO Pictures. The RKO studio closed in 1957 but had a reinvention in the 1980s as RKO Pictures Inc. This company controlled the archive of studio records and titles. These offer a wealth of information on RKO presented by Edward Asner. But what makes the series stands out are the interviews with surviving stars and production personnel from the studio era. This provides an impressive and fascinating account of the studio; something that is rarely offered in contemporary cinema programmes.

Part four of the series deals with the period in which Orson Welles worked at RKO. Following the seminal Citizen Kane Welles then made an adaptation of the novel ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ [Ambersons] by Booth Tarkington. Not that well known now in the early decades of the C20th Tarkington was a popular and highly respected writer; he won Pulitzer Prizes for two of his novels, ‘Ambersons’ and Alice Adams. The latter was filmed at RKO in 1935. In fact both ‘Ambersons’ and ‘Alice Adams’ were also filmed in silent versions in the 1920s.

Tarkington was the chronicler of ‘mid-western USA’; in another sense that central cultural artefact in US Americana, ‘small-town America’. As well as the two award-winning novels Tarkington also wrote a series of  ‘Penrod’ stories; following young boys growing up in a Midwestern town. Welles read these and other Tarkington works in his youth. He remained an admirer. Welles himself and his biographers frequently drew attention to the parallels between his childhood and characters and settings in the Tarkington novels. Simon Callow, in his biopic of the years leading up to Welles’ Hollywood ventures , ‘Orson Welles The Road to Xanadu’. quotes a description of a mansion in ‘Ambersons’ which was very similar to Welles’ first home.

In fact, Welles adapted the novel in his long-running series of radio adaptations; in October 1939 in the Campbell Playhouse on CBS. In this version Welles played the key protagonist, George Amberson Minafer. However, when it came to a film, with a character seen and heard, Welles settled for the narrative voice. In one of those innovations of which Welles was so fond, even the credits were voiced by Welles as narrator.

The story in the novel and the film follows the declining fortunes of the Amberson clan.

“Major Amberson had “made a fortune” in 1878, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then. Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even Magnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New York in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city, but reached its topmost during the period when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland dog.”

Times moved on and the family fortunes declined as new social movements and new technologies arose. The Ambersons’ decline was symbolised in both novel and film by the arrival and rise of the motor car. The Major’s daughter Isabel was courted by a host of ‘ineligible’ young men. Finally she chose and married Wilbur Minafer,

“a steady young man and a good churchgoer…”

The marriage dashed the hopes of another young romantic, Eugene Morgan, who left town. The Minafer marriage was passionless and Isabel devoted her love and attention to the child George Amberson Minafer. He was bought up a spoilt and arrogant child and young man; one whose behaviours caused many townspeople to wait for his ‘comeuppance’. Meanwhile Eugene returned to town, a widower and with a daughter. He became a pioneer in the new motor-car business and grew wealthy. Young George disliked Eugene and his business but found Eugene’s daughter Lucy very attractive. Minafer suffered from bad investments and died. Eugene renewed his romantic interest in Isabel but George prevented the potential union. Later Lucy turned down George’s proposal of marriage, partly because of his behaviour, partly because of his arrogance.

After Isabel’s death it was discovered that family fortune has evaporated. The great Amberson mansion was sold. George and his Aunt Fanny, who for years has carried a passion for Eugene, were forced into lowly lodgings. George, for the first time in his life, was forced to work in manual labour at Eugene’s factory; ‘comeuppance!” Then George was injured in an accident and he was visited in hospital by Eugene,; but there the resolution in his relationship with Lucy changes from novel to film.

The older generation

The film of Ambersons was shot at the RKO Studio and around Los Angeles. When production finished Welles had directed a rough cut of approximately 132 minutes. Welles, in characteristic fashion, was already involved in a new film, It’s All True; to be shot in Latin America, mainly Brazil, and a film supporting the US war effort and its ‘Good Neighbour policy’ in Latin America. Welles accepted the full-length Ambersons needed cuts and entrusted this to the editor Robert Wise. After some editing and two previews the film was seen as a likely box office failure. Welles, who had the unusual option of a ‘final cut’ on Citizen Kane, had lost this option after changes in his contract. RKO bosses took over and Wise’s editing finally produced a version running only 88 minutes. There were reshot and additional scenes, [some by Wise, some by Fred Fleck]; moreover the finale of the film was reshot to produce a clear resolution.

Welles was appalled by the cuts and changes in the release version. Film critics and later audiences have tended to see the result as an example of Hollywood ‘commercial butchery’. What remains and what is known of Welles’ original version suggest a film that would have offered an equivalence to Citizen Kane though with a very different tone and some rather different stylistic achievements. The Studio later destroyed the original negatives so that a ‘director’s cut’ was not possible. In the 1970s Welles toyed with the idea of completing the film in some way but nothing came of this. There was a rough cut with sound sent for inspection by Welles as he worked in Brazil. This has never been found, though fresh searches are regularly organised, it remains  a lost ‘holy grail’ rather like Erich von Stroheim’s earlier butchered masterpiece, Greed (1924).

Welles wrote a number of letters and memos suggesting ways of reducing the film’s length; these were mainly ignored. Peter Bogdanovich in his ‘This is Orson Welles’ (1993, a series of interviews and supporting materials) provides a lot of detail and extracts. At one point Welles suggested a ‘happy ending’ which differs from that imposed on the film. Bogdanovich also includes records from the preview screenings and it is apparent that the audience responses were not as bad as suggested; a minority of comments were positive. However, there was new studio management, and as with Von Stroheim and M-G-M, there seems to have been a basic antagonism to Welles and his project.

Yet the surviving film is still a fine example of Welles’ film-making. The overall elegiac tone of the film is maintained until the changed ending; Welles reckoned the first sixty minutes were a reasonable approximation of his intent. Cinematically it has many bravura qualities reminiscent of Citizen Kane. There are great set pieces like an Amberson grandiose entertainment in the impressive mansion: a sleigh ride in the snow: the gloom of the decline as family members die and the fortune melts away: and the settings in the changed circumstances of George and Fanny. As with Kane the sets that Welles required to be designed and constructed are really impressive and innovatory; some of the ceiling effects late in the film are impressive. Many of the craft people are not credited in the film version. This includes the production design by Albert S. Agostino. Mark Lee Kirk gets a credit as Set Designer, which presumably included the Amberson mansion built with moveable walls to allow long tracking shots in the interiors. The cinematography by Stanley Cortez is excellent, there are Welles typical use of chiaroscuro and long takes: fine tracking shots: and the use of blocking and reflections in windows and mirrors.  But Welles found him too slow compared with Gregg Toland who filmed Citizen Kane and he was dismissed before the end of principal cinematography; a couple of personnel worked on late shots uncredited. The sound team are likewise only partially credited though their work is as impressive as the cinematography; both contributing to the powerful ambience created in the Amberson mansion and the later lodging house.  Wise’s editing is good, allowing for the studio imposed cuts: but the latter replaced a lengthy camera movement for the ball sequence with a number of cuts: and there was some more uncredited editing work. There is no music credit though the surviving music overall is fine: the score was by Bernard Hermann but his music was also cut down by the studio and replaced in places so he had his name removed from the credits.

The studio version  has material removed: added shots and sequences moved from their original place. In ‘This is Orson Welles’ the editor, Jonathan Rosenbaum, helpfully provides ‘The Oriignal Ambersons’ which  records the changes, deletions and insertions from Welles’ cut to the release version. So the magificently conceived Amberson ball suffers both cuts and the removal of dilaogue.  The less mauled snow ride still suffers cuts.  Reel nine has inserted close-ups in a meeting of George and Lucy which really does not fit the sequence. And in reel ten a later meeting betwen them has redubbed dialogue over one shot from the sequence. After George’s come-uppance three short scenes were moved from their original place in the narrative; this includes a discussion in a garden between Eugene and Lucy which seems oddly out of place. And the final sequnce of the film, especially a vist by Eugene to see Fanny in the lodging house, in reel fourteen is almost entirely replaced. Like earlier insertions the camera work, and to a lesser degree the sound, lack the quality of much of the earlier film. And the tone of this sequence is seriously different from Welles’ conception. Rosenbaum provides a description with dialogue of Welles original; the difference shows.

The cast are very good. Dolores del Rio really achieves Isabel and Tim Holt makes an excellent George. Richard Bennett is the Major and patriarch. Both Joseph Cotten as Eugene and Anne Baxter as Lucy make fine contributions. And there is an outstanding performance from Agnes Moorehead as Fanny; her late scene after the family collapse is memorable. Another Welles regular, Ray Collins, as Isabel’s brother Jack, brings a slightly caustic note in the decline. But dominating the whole film is the narration of Orson Welles. Unseen but with one of the memorable voices in Hollywood cinema, much of the tone of the film is down to this audio aspect.

The parallels between Welles himself and the Tarkington character are found in his childhood and subsequently as an adult film-maker. Ambersons seemed to many a ‘comeuppance’ for this young, thrusting and egoistical artist; this was especially true in the Hollywood studios. Welles never again enjoyed the control he exercised on Citizen Kane or during the actual production of Ambersons. In the 1970s Welles appeared in a lengthy interview on BBC television. At one point he commented,

“I always liked Hollywood but they never reciprocated.”

One can see this, not just in Ambersons, but in later projects made in Hollywood studios. The best of these was Touch of Evil (1957) but that film was re-cut and changed. Welles produced a long letter setting out how he had envisaged and filmed the original. In 1998 this was the basis for a restored version which approximates to the vision of Welles. But to date material for a likewise restoration of Ambersons is wanting. Charles Higham in his biography comments finally,

“some streak of anti commercialism drove him…”

I t is true that Welles was more interested in art than in commerce but recognising him as an iconoclast is better, as does Bogdanovich. He was iconoclastic about the studios: many features of genre movies: styles of management: and the dominant political discourse. Successful directors in Hollywood needed to love, or at least fit in with, the box-office, Alfred Hitchcock is a prime example. The ironies in the making of Ambersons in many ways parallel the ironies in the Tarkington original novel and in the film itself.

Higham also recognises Welles artistic talents, his biography is sub-titled ‘The rise and fall of an American Genius’; more accurate would be a ‘US genius’, but Welles achievement in theatre, radio and film do stand out in these arts. But he was a wayward genius. His ego interfered with his work with supporting artists. He often did not give due credit where due credit was due. Stanley Cortez was taken off Ambersons because Welles found his work to slow. But the many of the replacement shots after his exit were poorly executed.

Orson Welles with Stanley Cortez

And Welles was overly ambitious. He was always juggling a number of artistic projects; often too many even for his talent Thus in the later stages of the Amberson production Welles was involved in producing, scripting and acting in Journey into Fear (1943): He was producing an unfinished segment [Bonito the Bull] for a planned film It’s All True: preparing for his trip to South America for what was eventually the proposed but unfinished film, It’s All True: a CBS radio series The Lady Esther Show: and politically, with the Pacific war beginning, involved with the Roosevelt government in ideas for the war effort: and in addition a campaign to save Soviet diplomats in danger from the Nazis. This also was typical of Welles’ career.

Even so, Welles’ career, and this particular film, stand out in the world of film, radio and theatre. The story of the vicissitudes of The Magnificent Ambersons, told many times in various biographies and studies, is a depressing one. Yet the film that remains is still a fine experience and well worth watching many times. It is some years since I saw a screening on 35mm, its original format. However, the digital facsimile on the BBC was good video quality. And the impressive soundtrack of the movie was good. A flawed Orson Welles film is still a greater experience than much of the alternative product produced in Hollywood.

The RKO Story: Tales from Hollywood.

1. Birth of a Titan

The funding of the Studio as sound arrived and its early days and films.

2. Let’s Face the Music and Dance

The 1930s musicals, mainly Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

3. A Woman’s Lot

The woman stars, Lucille ball, Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers

4. It’s All True

RKO and Orson Welles

5. Dark Victory

RKO and film noir [including HUAC] and Robert Mitchum

6. Howard’s Way

Howard Hughes and the studio; and its demise.

Each episode had two classic RKO title accompanying it.

Episode 1 King Kong (1933) and The Thing From Another World (1951)

Episode 2 Top Hat (1935) and The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Episode 3 Bringing Up Baby  (1938) and My Favourite Wife (1940)

Episode 4  Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Episode 5 Suspicion  (1941) and Angel Face (1953)

Episode 6 The BBC had already screened Hughes’ The Outlaw (1943) between episodes; now thte provided Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Unbforetunately not any of the anti-communist titles that Hughes insisted on producing.

‘This Is Orson Welles Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich’ (1993), edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum has much interesting material on Welles and this particular film; including details about the different versions and some of the changes that Welles introduced to Tarkington’s novel.

Ace in Hole, Paramount 1951.

As the 49^th President of the USA prepares for his final [hopefully] Christmas in the White House it is worth discussing this film which presents a world modelled on the values of Donald Trump.

The basic plot is simple and contemporary for the 1950s. A journalist covers the developing story of the rescue of a man trapped in a network of ancient Indian caves in New Mexico. The journalist’s dream of a Pulitzer Prize leads him to organise the rescue in the most news-worthy fashion. However, the values of the film are embodied in the characters.

Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is the reporter, driven by unbridled egoism and ambition. He is prepared to use every person and every event to achieve his goals.

Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) is the man trapped in an inaccessible cave. He is dominated by Tatum’s personality and right up until the end remains an uncritical fan.

Lorraine Mimosa (Jan Sterling) is the venal wife of Leo; her wedding vows are subordinated to every dollar that goes into the cash register.

Herbie Cook (Bob Arthur) is the junior photographer dazzled by Tatum’s power and apparent success.

Sheriff Kretzer (Ray Teal) is the corrupt local official whose only concern is his re-election to this sinecure.

Construction contractor Sam Smollett (Frank Jacquet) is easily persuaded to set up a news worthy rescue.

Dr. Hilton (Harry Harvey) tends the patient, Leo, as best he can but never seems to question the method of rescue; with Leo’s condition becoming more and more serious.

Mr. Federber (Frank Cady), is a tourist and voyeur; the representative of the crowds that come to follow the dram. He happily claims to have been the first onlooker to arrive.

Jacob Q. Boot (Porter Hall) is the editor, publisher and owner of the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin. He employs Tatum despite the journalist’s previous escapades which led him to leave New York and work for a local newspaper. Boot never really confronts Tatum.

The competing journalists from national titles are solely concerned with Tatum’s monopoly of the story and press coverage. A New York editor is willing to pay a high p[rice for that story despite his previous [negative] experience with Tatum.

A local priest comes to give Leo the last rites [he is a Catholic] but the minister shows no awareness of the larger event.

Papa Minosa (John Berkes) and Mama Minosa (Frances Dominguez) are the only characters who wholly sympathise and worry about Leo. Both are either migrants or descendants of the indigenous people in the lands stolen from Mexico.

It is intriguing that Salt of the Earth (1954), a truly radical film, is also set in New Mexico among the Mexican people exploited by a US mining company; the latter aided and abetted by the US law enforcement officers.

Billy Wilder, the writer and director, is known for his critical and often satirical treatment of US culture. This is probably his most sardonic treatment of what is known as ‘the American dream’; that ‘dream’, an illusion and a delusion, which Hollywood so frequently valorised.

Ace in the Hole provides a world that certainly existed in its time but which has now appeared in its most grotesque manifestation. Sadly this actuality following fiction differs in one important respect; we do not [yet] see the resolution in the film repeated in reality.