British host Michael Parkinson interviews American actor Jimmy Stewart (and later Stewart’s wife, Gloria)
In the 1973 interview above with British TV presenter Michael Parkinson (1935-2023), actor Jimmy Stewart shares a number of interesting trivia from his life and career. They embarrass him in the beginning by sharing a clip from a romantic musical he did, and then at 9:25 shift to It’s a Wonderful Life. Stewart says the film didn’t do well at the box office, but it’s both his and director Frank Capra’s favorite movie.
He goes on to say he has a theory that “creating moments in movies” is most important. “Nobody knows exactly how it happens. What you should do is prepare yourself as best you can to make these moments happen.” Movies are less about the overall performance and more about moments like George Bailey’s desperation in the bar, crying out to God to show him the way.
I found this interview via Anthony Sacramone, who is very smart and a film buff. He added to Stewart’s comments with moments of his own.
Think about Bogart at the bar. Or the look on Hackman’s face as he sees the woman pushing the baby carriage in the middle of the street under the El. Or the “Ba-da-bing!” scene in The Godfather (or the expression on Michael’s face just before he shoots McCluskey and Sollozzo and changes the trajectory of his life forever). Think about that shot of John Wayne through the doorway as he turns and walks off into the distance in The Searchers. James Dean crying, “You’re tearing me ap-a-a-art!” in Rebel without a Cause. Rocky screaming for Adrian at the big fight’s end.
Clare Coffey talks about the annual criticism people shovel at one of the best Christmas movies of all time, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. She said she could dismiss most of it as small-minded or stuck in its own bitter slough from which no reply could deliver. But one criticism, that of Mary’s role, seemed to stick. Why did Mary need George to save her from a single life? She was a vibrant young woman in her own right. If George hadn’t been around, she would have chosen another path for herself.
But after seeing the film on the big screen, Coffey noticed something that changed her mind.
The scenario that the counterfactual world presents us is explicitly foreshadowed by Mary’s playful, obviously ridiculous rejoinder, “to keep from being an old maid.” Once I realized this, it became my interpretive key to the problematic later scene.
From the beginning, it is Mary who chooses George, not the other way around.
Okay, I’ll just start this semi-review by mentioning (in case you’re new here) that I have a dysfunctional relationship with the genre called “Nordic Noir.” Much as I love Norway, I find myself unable to get in the spirit of the boom in Scandinavian mysteries that persists today. I find Nordic Noir – in general – depressing and nihilistic. I’ve tried to enjoy Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole mysteries, but I have trouble sympathizing with – or even believing in – a police detective who’s so desperately alcoholic that it interferes with his work, and who yet manages to keep his job and even be an asset to his department.
But I checked out the 2017 film adaptation of the Harry Hole book The Snowman on Amazon Prime. It’s not a film I did translation for (indeed, it’s not even a Norwegian production, but Swedish along with other countries), so I can say what I like about it.
I gave the novel a less than negative review (for a Nordic Noir) here. I guess I feel pretty much the same about the movie. Which seems to mean I liked it better than most people.
How very odd.
Michael Fassbender plays the role of Harry, whom we first observe, after a prologue, sleeping off a binge in a bus shelter in mid-winter. When he gets to work he meets a new partner, Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), whom he finds annoyingly fresh and spunky. They investigate the disappearance of a young mother. Over time they discover that there have been a string of such disappearances, in different places over a long period of time. When the bodies are discovered, they are decapitated, the heads placed on snowmen. Harry’s difficult relationship with his ex-girlfriend’s son, who sees him as a father figure, provides a subplot that will eventually merge with the main plot.
The best part of the movie – as is often the case when they’re filming in Norway – is the scenery. There’s some spectacular footage here, especially as characters drive along the causeways of the famous Atlantic Road. J.K. Simmons, who always elevates any production, is on hand as a sleazy businessman/politician, an easy character for good Socialists to hate.
I can also see the problems in the film. One is a very dark plot, including one particularly awful surprise. Another is the odd presence of Val Kilmer, playing a now-dead character in flashbacks. He looks barely functional, and indeed was recovering from a stroke during filming. All his dialogue is dubbed but still hard to understand.
My big problem was a fairly heavy-handed message about abortion.
Still, I found the movie watchable, and it kept my interest.
Semi-recommended, but with cautions (language, sexual situations, brief nudity, disturbing violence) and without great enthusiasm.
Trilby (Marian Marsh), Billee (Bramwell Fletcher), and Svengali (John Barrymore) in “Svengali” (1931).
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been watching old mystery movies, of which a surprising number can be found posted on YouTube. This is, I freely admit, an exercise in pure escapism. I can’t watch new movies these days; they’re more moralistic than Victorian stage plays – and the morality is wrong. Old movies remind me of the world we threw away in the 1960s. I’m more at home there.
Last night I caught the movie Svengali (1931), which I remember used to show up on TV a lot when I was a kid. That film is only the most famous of a number of dramatic adaptations of the novel Trilby, by the English/French artist and author George du Maurier (grandfather of Daphne du Maurier, who wrote The Birds). I haven’t read the book (I’m thinking about it; I can probably find a free digital version), but according to Wikipedia, the Trilby/Svengali narrative forms only a small part of the novel. The novel is largely an evocation of du Maurier’s own youth as a struggling artist in Paris in the 1850s. The book was very influential – many of our conceptions of “bohemian” life in Paris, even today, are based on it.
Trilby O’Farrell is a half-Irish artist’s model in Paris, a free spirit. The young artist “little Billee” (inseparable from his friends Taffy and Laird, whose gorgeous whiskers provide much of the movie’s visual charm) falls in love with her. But she also comes to the attention of Svengali, the Jewish mesmerist who recognizes that she has a beautiful – though untrained – voice. He hypnotizes her, making her into a stellar concert artist. (The Victorians had excessive ideas about the power of hypnosis.) When she and Billee fall out, Svengali takes the opportunity to put her under a permanent spell. He fakes her suicide, spirits her out of Paris, and embarks on a concert career. Before long, “Mdme. Svengali” is the toast of Europe. By the time Billee finds her again, she’s lost beyond recall.
The movie is really a vehicle for its star John Barrymore, whose intense gaze (emphasized by makeup) and theatrical acting style suit the character perfectly. (The costumers also do a good job of making him look much taller than he really was.) The acting in general is the sort you see in early sound films – the actors are still moving slow and holding their expressions for the camera, waiting for a cue card. The potential of snappy dialogue and throw-away lines hasn’t been discovered yet. Some of the cinematography is very effective, though. There’s a wonderful scene where Svengali takes control of Trilby from a distance. An intense shot of Barrymore’s burning eyes cuts to a moving shot that travels over the roofs of Paris, into Trilby’s chamber window. The age of the technology shows, but it was impressive special effects for the time.
You may be aware, even in these debased times, that there’s a kind of hat called a “trilby.” It was named after the character in the book; illustrations and stage costumes put her in this hat – basically a fedora with a stingy brim. It became very fashionable for both men and women, and had a long run. Frank Sinatra was rarely without his trilby.
Oddly, Marian Marsh, who plays Trilby in the movie, never seems to wear a trilby (or else I glanced away and missed it). Seems like a lost opportunity, like doing Sherlock Holmes without the deerstalker cap. One of my main memories of Miss Marsh, from the many times I saw the film when I was a kid (it always seemed to show up on some local station two or three times a year), was her hair. Not as she originally appears, in a sort of Dutch Boy wig that hasn’t aged well, but as it looks during her first big concert scene. It’s curly, and it hangs to her shoulders. I remember saying to my brothers, way back then, that she “looked like a cocker spaniel.” (At the time, girls wore their hair straight, sometimes ironing it for effect.)
I remember this keenly because – in a small irony only important to me – just a few years later, in college, I fell in love with a girl whose hair looked exactly like Trilby’s concert hair (styles had changed), and it didn’t seem funny to me at all anymore. Makes watching it bittersweet, even now.
I love discussions that delve into how the whole world has changed under the influence of Christianity. Speaking to unbelievers, Glen Scrivener writes, “You already hold particularly ‘Christian-ish’ views, and the fact that you think of these values as natural, obvious, or universal shows how profoundly the Christian revolution has shaped you.”
Scrivener has a new book, The Air We Breathe, in which he discusses how all manner of modern ideals have Christian origins, and when debating Christian speakers, atheists and other non-Christians will assume Christian positions on their way to undermining Christian principles. Black Lives Matter couldn’t exist as a popular American concept brought up in many arguments over human dignity without the foundation of God’s created image so many assume today (despite explicitly rejecting it, as some do). It’s marvelous.
Movies: The state of cinema today (via Prufrock) “We are in the present losing more movies from the past faster than ever before. It seems like we aren’t, but the mere disappearance of physical media is already having corporations curating what we watch, faster for us,” Guillermo Del Toro said.
A Memorial Day Story: Elliot Ritzema heard from his grandpa via the marginal notes in Citizen Soldiers. “When Ambrose wrote, ‘The Ninth Tactical Air Force had a dozen airstrips in Normandy by this time,’ my grandpa added, We were one of these airstrips, 36th Fighter Group, 32nd Service Group.”
The Hobbit in Bears: Is this is a case of life imitating art?
Photo: Big Ole, Alexandria, Minnesota, 2001. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
My girls would love to watch endless varieties of good holiday rom-coms, but multiple factors work against them. We don’t have a TV service to feed us the Hallmark Channel or network broadcasting (also the reason we don’t catch the full Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade). We don’t have Netflix anymore. And, fundamentally, “good holiday rom-coms” are as common as good, ugly Christmas sweaters. They call them “ugly” for legit reasons, so to find good ones you have to take up a particular mindset.
Remaking Notre Dame Cathedral: “Newly released plans for reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral will incorporate what some describe as a ‘politically correct Disneyland,’ reports the Telegraph. Christophe Rousselot, the director-general of the Notre Dame Foundation, says the intent is to make the cathedral and Christianity accessible for those not raised in a Christian society.”
Willa Cather wrote, “I think even stupid people like to puzzle over a book. A slight element of mystery is a great asset.”
Adam B. Coleman asks, “To the people who would insinuate that I am being used by white conservatives or that I express ‘right’ leaning viewpoints for white acceptance, I have a question: Would you say this to a black liberal?”
Movies in China: “One of the last vestiges of free speech in Hong Kong is now gone. The result is self-censorship by filmmakers who now have to question what might run afoul of the new rules and increased scrutiny by financiers and distributors who now must consider that very same question.”
From “Snow Day” by Billy Collins In a while, I will put on some boots and step out like someone walking in water, and the dog will porpoise through the drifts, and I will shake a laden branch sending a cold shower down on us both.
Photo: Southampton Theater, Montauk Highway, Southhampton, New York. 1989. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
It’s full strength for fall colors in my area this week, at least on my morning commute when the sunlight is set to Golden Hour status. The same trees don’t look quite as vibrant at noon. I’ve taken a few short videos while driving to or from work and this morning when taking the trash to the dump. I’ve been recording second-long videos this year. It’s been fun, but I’m not sure I’ll do it again next year.
From the new biography on Czesław Miłosz: “In immigrating to the United States, and specifically to California in 1960,” Haven writes, “he thought he was coming to the timeless world of nature. However, Berkeley was about to become a lightning rod for […] the world of change […] and he would be in the thick of it.” (via Books, Inq)
Gene Veith is revisiting his book on contemporary fascism: “The rise of Donald Trump has caused many people to worry about the emergence of a new fascism, but hardly anyone seems aware of what the fascists actually believed.”
Sophia Lee is a solid young reporter with World News Group. She got married during COVID restrictions, which they streamed over Zoom. A virtual wedding ceremony meant her parents met his parents for the first time in August. A month later, her mother-in-law died.
Chocolates and Caramels: With Christmas and other holidays coming up, allow me to link to Monastery Candy “by the contemplative nuns of Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa.” They say their hazelnut meltaways are their favorites.
Photo: Diner (American and Korean food), Route 27, Columbus, Georgia 1982. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
“Look: I would hate to have it on my conscience if we didn’t do a miracle when nice people were involved.”
“You’re a pushy lady,” Max said, but he went back upstairs. “Okay,” he said to the skinny guy, “What’s so special I should bring back out of all the hundreds of people pestering me every day for my miracles this particular fella? And, believe me, it better be worth while.”
A couple years ago, a rumor went around that Sony Pictures wanted to remake The Princess Bride, and many fans respectfully demurred. Remaking it after the pattern of many remakes would produce just another sequel film no one wants to see.
But having read William Goldman’s novel, which is now available in beautifully illustrated hardcover–can you imagine–I could see another movie made from this book. Definitely not a remake of the movie. But another movie based on the book could work if it were done creatively independent from the existing movie.
I’m thinking of something in an artsy style that includes new scenes and probably original material. Maybe the part about dad reading to his son is limited and animated. Inigo’s and Fezzik’s backstories could be told. Prince Humperdink would be a barrel-chested hunter who hated matters of state and enjoyed playing around in his Zoo of Death. There’s enough in the book to do something different with it in a movie–even though while reading the book it’s easy to believe all the best part made it into the existing movie. Goldman did the adaptation himself masterfully.
I think there’s room for a little original material too: another woman to interact with Buttercup and give her some screen time in the castle or before. They could adapt scenes to show how Humperdink noticed her and solicited her hand in marriage like the big jerk he is–no love required. And they could probably insert a Monty Python-style historian toward the end of the first half to comment on Florin and Guilder relations, which of the women alive at the time were known to be uncommonly beautiful, and related innanity.
It would be tough, but I think it could work.
Is the book worth reading? Yes, it is. But if you’ve seen the movie several times already, you may find the book to be a little different.
It’ll be a day or two until my next book review. I’m reading Act One, the autobiography of Moss Hart, the renowned Broadway playwright and director. It came up as a bargain e-book on Amazon, and it’s about two things I like – writing and the theater. It is an interesting book, and I’ll have much to say about it when I’ve finished reading.
The book was made into a biographical movie in 1963. I didn’t see it, of course (we rarely saw movies in our family), but I caught part of it on TV at some point over the years. My perception of the film (which got mediocre reviews) is marked by an article I saw in Parade Magazine at the time of the release. At least I’m pretty sure the article was about this movie. There’s a scene that exactly corresponds to what it described.
According to the article, when they were casting the parts of famous people who only appear briefly, they hired some of those people’s actual children to play them. I’m pretty sure a son of Robert Benchley played him in the scene where there’s a gathering in George S. Kaufman’s apartment. (Might have been Nathaniel, but I can find no mention of it online). There were others as well — I forget who. IMDb says nothing about this casting gimmick, but I like to believe I remember correctly.
There’s a formula in the movie business, I read somewhere: “When you’re casting famous real-life characters, the smaller the part, the more they must resemble the person they’re playing.”
That sounds paradoxical, but it makes sense in practice. When you’re dealing with a lead, you’ve got the whole length of the production to convince the audience that (taking an example purely at random) Kyle MacLachlan is Franklin Roosevelt. But when you bring somebody on for a minute as, oh, Humphrey Bogart, you don’t want the viewer to be diverted from following the story to ask, “Is that supposed to be Bogey?”
The movie that jumps to my mind when I consider this rule is “The Plainsman,” a 1936 film by Cecil B. DeMille, which stars Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok. Except in height, Coop bears no resemblance whatever to Hickok. His nose is the wrong shape, his hair is way too short, and there’s no mustache at all (Hollywood, after World War I, adopted a long-standing tradition of erasing almost all mustaches from historical characters. Only the Hippie Era shook them off it). But Buffalo Bill Cody wears the proper long hair and imperial goatee. As does General Custer.
I’m not sure how they managed to preserve Buffalo Bill’s beard and hair style in 1944’s movie, “Buffalo Bill,” starring Joel McCrae. But they got away with it. I suppose Buffalo Bill’s appearance was so iconic they couldn’t escape it.
Note to future producers: If a movie is ever made of my life, you have my permission to cast somebody thinner and taller to play me. But you need to keep the pigtail in the older scenes.
Safe with Julianne Moore and Xander Berkeley tells the story of a woman who has closed herself off from those around her. She comes to believe she is allergic to the modern world and, if not already, at least on the verge of becoming desperately ill. She takes refuge in a kind of spiritual camp in the desert to help keep the world away.
Ahmari describes the message of the camp: “Things are getting better out there in the dangerous outside world, thanks to ‘workplace sensitivity training’ and ‘multiculturalism,’ but meanwhile, the patients must avoid all risk, must remain at the center, and must avoid negative thoughts.”
Because we can control our world, if we only remain aware of it and ourselves. We can survive by receiving positivity and blocking out germs and whatever else the environment has to kill us.
Carol begins the movie in an alienating gated community—and ends it even more alienated, eventually in a literal safety pod. Rather than face the social-structural crises head-on—crises rooted in our modern obsession with individual mastery and autonomy—the safetyist “cure” requires an even more aggressively individualistic vision. As [Director] Haynes himself told an interviewer in 2015, “isolation becomes the problem and the answer to the problem.”
