Take Three: Gloria Grahame

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Gloria Grahame.

Take One: The Big Heat (1953)
When you think of Film Noir, you think of hard-boiled anti-heroes in fedoras, smoking, permanently with gun. But in some noirs it’s ladies first. Fritz Lang’s dirty, masterful noir par excellence The Big Heat has a first-rate femme fatale in Grahame’s Debby Marsh. Thank 20th Century Fox for replacement pleasures then: Grahame stepped in when original pick Marilyn Monroe’s fee became too high, giving the the film an extra sprinkling of salty sass. She excelled in each moment, whether heartfelt or hardened; I can only hazard a guess that Monroe might have made Debby’s eventual desperation too pleading. Under Grahame’s control Debby’s desperate dilemma was frenetic and wrenching. Never has the rapid flush of devastation been so well conveyed on screen as when she runs to Glenn Ford’s apartment to beg for cover.

Grahame’s transformation, from carefree nonchalance to scornful grittiness is more readily noticeable after a second viewing of the film. Indeed, The Big Heat deserves two watches for Grahame’s performance alone. She flips drastically in a scene wherein Lee Marvin (as Vince, her criminal beau) throws hot coffee in her face. It occurs off screen and we are withheld the image of her scarred visage until... well, let’s say she gets her revenge in an apt way. But her face, now fuelled with anger and half covered with bandages, tells us everything we need to know about what she’s thinking. It’s a beautifully judged and performance. No wonder Stephen Frears insisted on her influence for his Grifters ladies. Grahame had the film’s best line too. “Hey, that's nice perfume.” Vince says. “Something new,” Debby replies, “it attracts mosquitoes and repels men.”

Take Two: In a Lonely Place (1950)

As with The Big Heat, Grahame wasn’t the first choice for Nicholas Ray’s 1950 masterpiece In a Lonely Place. She was third in line to play Laurel Gray. This being a Humphrey Bogart film, the obvious choice at the time would have been Bogart’s wife, Lauren Bacall. But, under contract, Warner Bros. refused to loan Bacall out; Ray, who was married to Grahame (though they subsequently separated during filming) managed to get her cast over Ginger Rogers, too.

Laurel Gray is a struggling actress, living across the courtyard in an adjacent apartment to Dixon Steele (Bogart). In fact, this is how she comes to be embroiled in his affairs and ends up falling in love with him. We see her go from cool, aloof social gal to a woman in dire need of a supportive shoulder to spill her woes to; "is-he-isn’t-he a killer?" conundrums are tough to sort out. Grahame takes obvious pleasure in the spiky moments of dialogue between herself and Bogart, leaving the air in recently-vacated spaces pungent with tease. Referring to Bogart’s face she says

I said I liked it. I didn’t say I wanted to kiss it.

Off she walks, daring us to scuttle after her.

Her performance gives way to darker edges as the plot sinks further into muddy emotional territory, but throughout the entire film Grahame is on full actressing alert. Her last lines find their way out of her conscience at the close. “I lived a few weeks while you loved me...” She adds a sad “Goodbye Dix” at the end. In a lonely place, indeed.

Take Three: Crossfire (1947)

Grahame’s is the first name after the title in Crossfire, but she shares the screen caption with four others, a trio of Roberts: Mitchum, Young and Ryan, aptly sounding like a private detective firm. The Roberts³ head this 1947 noir from Edward Dmytryk. Grahame only really has two scenes in the film. But what a pair of scenes. Each is nearly ten minutes long and crucial to the plot. She dominates both with a characteristically captivating allure, leaving us wanting at least another half dozen more. We first see her emerge from a blurred dissolve: she enters the film as she enters the recollection of Ryan’s soldier. She’s in the Red Dragon, the “stinking gin mill” out of which she procures her men folk. She’s Ginny “because [she’s] from Virginia”, lit by cinematographer J. Roy Hunt as a seductive blonde vapour, only her showy attributes are spotlit: the hard glint in her eyes matches the gleam from her bling.

It’s her second scene, much later in the film, where she gives good talk to match the face. It’s surely the scene that earned her the Supporting Actress Oscar nomination (she would win the award in The Bad and the Beautiful five years later). The shimmy has dimmed - she’s dowdy in a housedress - but she's no less captivating. Here we see another side to Grahame, a defiant irritation, as Ginny is questioned on Ryan’s whereabouts the night of the anti-Semitic murder that propels the narrative. Dmytryk’s camera searches her for the answers the plot demands. Grahame’s greatness in the role becomes all the more evident because of this scrutiny.

Three more key films for the taking: The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Oklahoma! (1955), Human Desire (1954)

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

To honor the passing of the great songwriter Hugh Martin Friday at 96 years of age, a repost of a review of one of my 100 favorite movies, a member of my personal canon. (If you joined us after 2008 you can pretend it's a new essay!) Imagine giving the world such perfectly crafted enduring gifts as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and "The Trolley Song". R.I.P. Mr. Martin.

Meet Me in St. Louis "The Blossoming of Judy Garland"

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Directed by Vincente Minnelli; Written by Irving Brecher and Fred F Finklehoffe from the novel "5135 Kensington" by Sally Benson; Starring Judy Garland, Mary Astor, Leon Ames, Margaret O'Brien, Lucille Bremer, Harry Davenport, June Lockhart, Tom Drake and Marjorie Main; Production & Distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM); Released 11/28/1944

It's Summer 1903 in Missouri and the Smith family are buzzing about the World's Fair coming to their town the following spring. Teenage daughters Rose (Lucille Bremer) and Esther (Judy Garland) are dreaming about proposals from handsome men, the eldest son Lonnie (Henry H Daniels Jr) is off to college and the father Lon (Leon Ames), a junior partner at a law firm, is about to tell the family that they're all relocating to New York Ci -- oh, but let's stop there. For any plot summary of Meet Me in St. Louis does the movie a great disservice. This classic musical isn't plot driven at all so much as a series of three seasonal vignettes of family life: Summer, Autumn and Winter with the following Spring in 1904 serving as a coda. Almost all of what might be called "plot" in Meet Me In St. Louis is imagined. That is to say, that the story drivers are all in the future. One day the family will move to New York. One day Rose, Lonnie, and Esther will be married. One day St. Louis will catch the attention of the nation. In essence the movie is a lovingly rendered still life of a family (and town) on the brink of great changes rather than an animated portrait of the changes themselves.

St. Louis begins smartly in the kitchen, the heart of any home. Mrs. Anna Smith (Mary Astor) and her maid and cook Katie (Marjorie Main) are preparing ketchup. Katie thinks it's too sweet, Anna thinks her husband will like it that way. Various members of the cast scoot through the kitchen sharing their opinions, too. They can't seem to agree on the flavor: too sweet? too sour? too spicy? too watery? Vincente Minnelli the real gourmet cook in the director's chair doesn't have the same problem. He gets everything right.

If the director was nervous about handling his first big budget color feature with a bonafide superstar in the lead role, you'd never know it from the results. Minnelli had only directed two black and white pictures (Cabin in the Sky, see previous article, and I Dood It both in 1943) prior to this big break but Meet Me In St Louis moves with such easy confidence, gently in and out of song and book scenes, you'd think he had nothing at all to prove.

Take the terrific economy and pacing --the movie is at once both leisurely and jam packed with comic, musical and dramatic beats -- of the final two scenes that conclude the first and longest act in the movie (Summer 1903). First there's a lengthy party sequence at the Smith home wherein Esther comically tries to seduce "The Boy Next Door" John Pruett (Tom Drake). She's endearingly amateur at seduction though Judy Garland is of course anything but amateurish when it comes to ingratiating herself to the viewer. John accompanies her through her house as she turns off the lights. It's ostensibly her duty but she's makes a huge drawn out production of it -- she's only doing it to set the mood for their first kiss. The amusement of the scene is that Esther doesn't realize she's succeeding and misreads John's nerves and equally adolescent flirting. When he finally hightails it out of her house without the kiss she's been longing for she flips the lights back on, at once. It's a great deflating punchline. The follow up scene, the classic Trolley sequence, repeats the punchline.

Buzz, buzz, buzz went the buzzer
Plop, plop, plop went the wheels
Stop, stop, stop went my heartstrings

As he started to leave, I took hold of his sleeve with my hand
And as if it were planned... he stayed on with me
And it was grand just to stand with his hand holding mine
To the end of the line.

Esther is obviously singing/dreaming about John but hasn't noticed his arrival beside her for the last chorus. On her last joyous note she turns to finds the object of her affections staring her in the face. It totally throws her. Oops! Once again she's more comfortable in the dream than in the reality. It's the perfect performance note to hit for this girl who is not quite yet a woman.

Speaking of which...

Judy Garland was 22 years old when St. Louis hit theaters. She was already a screen sensation with multiple Mickey Rooney hits and The Wizard of Oz behind her. According to reports she was hesitant to take this role, another teenage character, since she had wanted to move into more grown up roles. Esther Smith turned out to be just what she was after all along. The answer was right in front of her. (There's no place like home and all that).

Esther Smith proved the perfect bridge role for one of the greatest stars of all time, taking Garland from teenager to woman both onscreen and off. By the third act (Winter 1903) Esther and John are in the thrall of requited love and faced with rather adult choices about their futures. By the time Esther is singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to her young sister Tootie (Margaret O'Brien), Judy Garland is a grown woman in full bloom and the camera treats her accordingly. By the time the film was released, Garland and Minnelli were in love and living together. It all came together gloriously. Arguably Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) is the emblematic peak of Garland's film career between her 'star is born' role in The Wizard of Oz (1939) to, well, A Star is Born (1954) itself.

But all this talk of Judy's blossoming (she was never lovelier onscreen), changing seasons, loving families and screen romances also does a disservice to the spicy flavors within this musical. While it is a sweet nostalgic slice of Americana, it never descends into mere treacly pablum. The Fall 1903 segment adds enough sour to the soup, focusing on the sometimes gruesome antics and morbid imaginations of Esther's young sisters Agnes (Joan Carroll) and particularly Tootie played by child star Margaret O'Brien who received a juvenile Academy Award for her performance --just like her co-star had in The Wizard of Oz. And the delicate balance of flavors continues all through The Winter 1903 segment when Rose and Esther behave badly at a local dance. One particular bit has Esther putting on her first corset. Rather than play up the beauty of her figure, Minnelli and Garland opt to spike the scene with laughs and physical comedy.

I feel elegant but I can't breathe.

Furthermore, the sweetness of Esther and John's romance is tempered with their very un movie-like (if barely acknowledged) realization that they're moving too quickly. The movie never settles for just one flavor. In short, it's delicious. Or, to quote Esther herself, "heavenly... simply heavenly".

For all of the undoubtedly careful mix of moods and delicate character arcs that Minnelli stirs into his career-making hit, the most impressive thing might well be how effortless his achievement plays. With the semi resurgence of the film musical in the Aughts, much has been written about modern audiences hesistation to suspend their disbelief when characters burst into song. Modern musicals still feel a bit tentative, like they're scared to do at all what musicals are best at doing. Today's filmmakers would do well to study Meet Me In St. Louis which fills its central family's life with music: they hum, they sing phrases of songs even when no production number is on the way, they play piano; Music feels as natural here as it's ever felt in a movie. The space between musical performance and acting of the non-singing variety is blissfully blurred. In the Trolley Song sequence already discussed Judy spends the first verse of the song fretting. She's not singing at all, letting the crowd handle the number as she makes her way through the crowded car. By the time she's spotted her would be man running toward the car (He hadn't forgotten her invitation after all!) the sudden lift in her spirits is expressed quite naturally by her joining in... Everyone else is singing, why shouldn't she? There's another wonderful moment late in the film which I think best expresses Minnelli's graceful direction through performance, plot and song. Mr and Mrs Smith have had a row over the family's impending move to New York and their children have already exited the scene in anger. The mother and father begin to make peace at the piano. And as the father's voice lifts, the sisters are all gently coaxed back into frame, with unspoken forgiveness on their minds. It's a beautiful grace note in an altogether heavenly movie. A

Request: Tyrone Power in "The Black Swan"

Reader Appreciation Month
Several people requested this during the TCM Contest, most of them mentioning the modern Black Swan (2010, not a remake) so I thought I'd give it a go. Methinks people will be disappointed if Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara don't see themselves in mirrors or have hallucinatory mental breakdowns scored to Tchaikovsky.

Maureen O'Hara and Tyrone Power in "The Black Swan" (1942)

Sometimes I feel like I'm hallucinating when I look at Tyrone Power or Maureen O'Hara in Technicolor so maybe I'll be the one breaking down?

As the movie begins we see a pirate ship called "Black Swan" and a super saturated matte painting of a blue sky (no one speaks of matte paintings anymore) and the following campy text.

This is a story of the Spanish Main -- when Villainy wore a Sash, and the only political creed in the world was --- Love, Gold, and Adventure.

The last time I remember villainy wearing a sash was the X-Men Dark Phoenix saga -- Villainy wore a gold lame sash to be precise. But back to the beginning of the movie. A town crier is shouting "All is well". Oh foolish extra, that's the kind of thing you only shout at the end of a story. Otherwise, you're basically asking for trouble!

(I'm waiting to see what color Villainy's sash is.)

Turns out sashes aren't that much of a focal point of the costumes, mostly because Tyrone is always out of his. I present the evidence...

Click to read more ...

Love Scenes: Light me Up.

Jose here. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, Nathaniel asked us to share our favorite love scenes. I'm not really big on V-Day itself. I just don't get it. So I tried to think of the feeling in a "bigger" way, something a bit out of the box if you may call it that, so without further ado, here's one of my favorite love scenes of all time.

Be warned...spoilers ahead! 

Double Indemnity is highly regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made. When it premiered a lot was made about the fact that it dealt with sex in such a blunt way, how Walter Neff's (Fred McMurray) passion for married femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (the fantastic Barbara Stanwyck) leads them to crime and mutual destruction.

The love affair between Phyllis and Walter is volatile and incredibly sexy but my favorite 'love scene' in the film takes place with two guys. Throughout the film we see the fascinating relationship between Walter and his boss Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). They both work for an insurance company. When Walter gets involved with Phyllis, little does Barton suspect that they're double crossing him. In a way then Double Indemnity deals not only with Phyllis' infidelity but also with Walter's.

The entire film, which is told in flashback, contains Walter's confession to the man he, well, loves. In a way this framing device could pair this film quite nicely with Brief Encounter (I'll leave for you to decide which one's more tragic).

In the film's final scene, a gunshot wounded Walter has finished his confession and he plans to escape. given the fact that he's practically dead by then, this escape is more symbolic; an atonement of sorts. A running gag during the film has Walter lighting up Barton's cigars (the man never seems to have a match on him). In one of these moments an angry Barton looks for a match desperately while discussing a case with Walter. He then proceeds to light him up, Barton gives him a wondrous eye and Walter simply tells him "I love you, too".

In the last scene Walter falls, about to die, and of course decides to smoke a cigarette (don't you love how much actors smoked in classic films?) He weakly looks for a match and it's only at this moment that the roles are exchanged. Barton kneels next to him and lights up his cigarette looking at him with a combination of pity, disappointment and honest to god love.

Then, the following exchange:

Walter: Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya. 

Barton: Closer than that Walter...

Walter: I love you too. 

It makes no difference that Stanwyck's character is long gone by this scene. The finale makes you reevaluate everything you saw. You realize that Double Indemnity is about love just as much as it's about lust.

Hollywood makes such a big deal about romantic love that we often forget fraternal, familial and other kinds of love in the movies. I might be reading too much into the moment but if this scene isn't as romantic and perfect as anything in Casablanca or West Side Story, then I don't know what love is.

Anyone else has any "alternative" fave movie scenes they wanna share? Light us up!

"I'm an excellent driver"

Yes, readers, the blog goes right here. Everything's now in one place. (Well, everything except co-productions which alternate location like Best Pictures From the Outside In and such.)

Fake Jew, Real ScientologistNick, Mike and I are proud to bring back "Best Pictures From the Outside In" series for its 20th episode (the halfway mark). The films are Gentleman's Agreement in which Gregory Peck poses as a Jewish man to write a scathing expose on anti-Semitism and Tom Cruise plays a cocky jerk who suddenly finds he is with family (no, not in that way) in Rain Man.

If you're new to the series and need a refresher, here is the index to all 20 episodes. Nick, being the overachiever that he is, also keeps a tournament list a readers poll and ranks all the winners.

Please join in the conversation of that episode at Goatdog's blog. There's so much to discuss. Do you love the 80s time capsule of Rain Man. Do you like being lectured to by Gregory Peck? Mike sums both films up in an animated 2 minute recap, I share my theory on how Tom Cruise inspired Twitter (no really) and Nick overshares his Scientology (not really).

P.S. I think you should know that Bull Durham was totally robbed of an Oscar nomination in 1988 and Black Narcissus (which we recently wrote about) was robbed in 1947. What were they thinking?