Don Goes to the Devil

Heaven Can Wait (1943) tells in flashback the life of Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche). After his death, Henry heads directly to Hell, where he meets with His Excellency (Laird Cregar). His Excellency is puzzled as to why Henry is there (he's a bit behind, due to the level of arrivals), and queries Henry on his reason for not heading first to  The Other Place (as most arrivals do). For one thing, His Excellency notes, the quality of the music is far better in The Other Place (Mozart and Beethoven are there!).  But Henry, who was a bit of a rapscallion in life, relates his story to explain why he didn't bother trying to obtain entry upstairs.

There is often some confusion between this film and the 1978 film with Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. That was indeed a remake, but its plot was taken from the Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941).  This story is a much simpler one, concerned with a man, his family, and their lives in turn-of-the-century New York City. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch with his tongue firmly embedded in his cheek, this is an amusing, slightly suggestive film that is always entertaining. Sure, in the 21st Century, it is a trifle sexist - Martha Strable Van Cleve (Gene Tierney) is off-handedly equated with her father's symbolic cow, Mabel by Grandfather Hugo Van Cleve (Charles Coburn) when Martha and Henry elope (We'll take Martha/You keep Mabel). But, in the final analysis, Martha is the backbone of the family, and much wiser than her mother-in-law, Bertha (Spring Byington) or her mother Mrs. Strabel (Marjorie Main) - or her husband, for that matter!

Several performances really shine in Heaven Can Wait, but none more than that of Charles Coburn. A remarkable character actor who coulc play anything, he is superb as Grandfather Hugo. With that little bit of a twinkle in his eye, you know from the start just where Henry "got it from." Mr. Coburn was already 60 when he began his film career. He had worked on the Broadway stage - beginning in 1901, he would appear in and/or produce 28 plays. He had formed his own theatrical company with his business and acting partner  - and wife - Ivah Wills Coburn. It was after Ivah's death in 1937 that he ventured permanently to Hollywood (he would return to Broadway in 1952, to produce The Long Watch). In the years between 1933 (he filmed a short that year, and a film in 1935) and his death in 1961, he appeared in 99 films and television shows (as well as occasional radio programs). Among his exceptional performances are The More the Merrier (1943), Bachelor Mother (1939), King's Row (1942), and In Name Only (1939). He was (sadly) an advocate of segregation, and a member of both the White Citizens' Council and the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (a right-wing, anti-Communist group in the 1950s). He married a second time at age 82 and fathered a daughter. He died of a heart attack at the age of 84.

Director Lubitsch was reluctant to use Don Ameche in the part of Henry - he had wanted Fredric March or Rex Harrison (AFI Catalog). But Ameche's screen test proved him perfect for the role, and Lubitsch reluctantly agreed (TCM article). Reginald Gardiner was considered for the role of Albert (which would eventually go to Allyn Joslyn), and Simone Simon was set to play Mademoiselle (Signe Hasso would take on the part when Simon's billing demands were not met).

Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review was reasonably pleased with the film. Regardless, it has been acknowledged as a classic, discussed by Richard Brody in the New Yorker, who calls it a story of "riotous, uninhibited love." Senses of Cinema calls it "a commentary on marriage, an appreciation for love and dedication, and belongs firmly in Lubitsch’s canon alongside One Hour With You (1932)."

All in all, Heaven Can Wait, is a lovely, wry, and witty film, well worth your viewing. I'll leave you with this interview between Henry and His Excellency, as they discuss the musical options in Hell.

Tyrone Finds the True Meaning of Life

This year's TCM Cruise presented a number of films with Tyrone Power (which is never a hardship for me); not surprisingly, I saw them all.  The third night of the cruise featured The Razor's Edge (1946), based on W. Somerset Maugham's novel, and introduced by Alex Trebek and Robert Osborne, both huge fans of this excellent rendition.  (For those of you who liked the Bill Murray remake, sorry - I didn't care for it, and neither did the evening's hosts).

The story focuses on Larry Darrell (Power), He has physically survived the First World War, but is tormented by the death of a friend, who died saving Larry's life on the eve of the armistice.  Why, Larry wonders, should he live, when this man is dead, and what can he do with his life to make up for that death?  Larry's fiance, Isabel Bradley (Gene Tierney) is sympathetic, and agrees that Larry should travel for a while, to try and find the answers to his questions.  But when, a year later, Larry is still determined to continue his quest, Isabel balks - she is not willing to live as an itinerant, with a husband who has no ambitions to anything but the life of a nomad.  So, they separate, only to be reunited years later, when both their lives - and the lives of their friends and relatives - have drastically changed.

This is a complex film, following the lives of a number of central characters over a period of nearly 15 years, all of whom are in some way related to Larry and Isabel.  The characters are real - with faults and flaws.  We admire Larry, but would find him impossible to live with.  We sympathize with Isabel, but gasp at her machinations.  It's a film of greys - there are almost no black and whites.

Elliot Templeton (Clifton Webb) is a prime example of a "grey" character.  Wealthy, selfish, and somewhat arrogant, Elliot is also generous and intrinsically good.  Late in the film, a priest characterizes Elliot as "a good man. His defects were on the surface, but he was generous of heart ...and kindly toward his fellow creatures."  That he is basically good is reflected in the fact that our narrator, Maugham (Herbert Marshall), actually likes Elliot (also calling him "kind and generous"), even though he feels that Elliot " has no friends, only acquaintances."  Elliot's wealth has allowed him to live his life in Europe, hobnobbing with the wealthy and noble, and to look with aghast at his much loved sister, Louisa (Lucile Watson), who has chosen to spend her life in the Midwest.  But, when his niece and nephew-in-law lose all their money in the Stock Market crash, it is Elliot who takes them in, and supports them and their children until they can get on their feet.  Webb paints a picture of a man whom you like in spite of yourself; he allows us to the see the inner Elliot.

Anne Baxter won her Academy Award for playing Sophie MacDonald, a loving wife and mother whose life is shattered after an automobile accident.  Other actresses were considered for the part (Susan Hayward, Betty Grable, Judy Garland, Anabel Shaw, Nancy Guild, and Bonita Granville, according to Ms. Baxter), but it is hard to imagine anyone else doing it.  The character of Sophie floats in and out of the story, as she does in the lives of the other characters.  Sophie's alcoholism becomes a major focus of the film, and it is Baxter's seering portrait of Sophie's problem that more than likely cinched the award for her.   While we sympathize with Sophie, Baxter is careful to make her unappealing in the latter half of the film - again, she is painted in grey tones.  And her alcoholism is not something that just appears because of the accident - early on, Sophie tells us that her husband Bob (Frank Latimore) doesn't like her to drink because of what it does to her.   Of course, Joseph Breen tried to get the alcoholism eliminated from the film - Darrel Zanuck refused to take it out, as essential to the story (for more on this and other casting issues see these AFI notes.)

Gene Tierney was not the first choice for Isabel.  Both Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Haviland were considered, as was Maureen O'Hara.  In her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, Ms O'Hara recalls that the deal was all but completed.  There was one proviso, however: producer Darrell Zanuck told her to keep quiet about her casting.  She didn't - she told her friend Linda Darnell - who was in a relationship with Zanuck at that point, unbeknownst to Ms. O'Hara - and Zanuck fired her later that day for blabbing.  Regardless of the fact she was not the first choice, Ms. Tierney shines (she was nominated for an Oscar - losing to Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce) as Isabel, and creates a character of dimension and layers.  As hideous as some of her actions are, even narrator Maugham cannot dislike her, nor in a sense can we do more than shake our heads at her selfishness.  According to this TCM article, Tyrone Power (newly back from his service in World War II), developed on crush on her.  She privately let him know that, though divorced from Oleg Cassini, she was seeing someone else - future president John Kennedy.  Though Tierney loved JFK deeply, it was not too be.  Kennedy was already looking towards his future in politics, and men married to divorcees just didn't get to be president in the 1940s.

Gray Maturin (John Payne) is the man who has loved Isabel for years, and who ends up married to her when Isabel is unwilling to wait for Larry.  It's interesting that his name is "Gray", because he is perhaps the only non-gray character in the film.  Gray is, in fact, the only really "good" person we meet.  He loves Isabel unquestioningly and he likes Larry, even though Larry is the competition.  It is Gray who has to interact with Sophie on the most critical day of her life - Payne gives us a man who is caring, but unable to do more than just sympathize.  Payne works hard to make Gray a complex, but not weak character;  he mostly succeeds, as we care about Gray and understand how deeply honorable he is. 

One other character of note is that of Miss Keith (played by Elsa Lanchester).  As the private secretary of the Princess Novemali, the part is tiny - at one point, we see her in the background of the action, but finally get to meet her at the film's end.  Like Gray, she is someone who is deeply good.  Though Lanchester only has this one brief scene with Tyrone Power, you will remember her.  Her Miss Keith is a woman of integrity in a world of mere surface.

In the discussion prior to the film, Robert Osborne cited one scene in the film that he thought one of the most beautiful on film.  You can see it below, as Isabel tries to seduce Larry, to keep him from going away again. A magnificent setting, and two of filmdom's most attractive people - this scene does shine.  

We'll be returning to more films from the festival in coming weeks (along with our regular conversations).

Thelma Moves to Ohio

Marriage, and the difficulties of dealing with the in-laws, is the subject of The Mating Season  (1951), a wonderful (and underrated) romantic comedy, which stars Gene Tierney and John Lund as newlyweds trying to deal with their respective mothers.

When Maggie Carleton (Gene Tierney) meets Val McNulty (John Lund) after she nearly runs her car off a cliff, love is almost immediately in bloom, much to the consternation of Maggie's wealthy suitor Junior Kalinger (James Lorimer) and Val's secretary, Betsy (Jan Sterling).  But, if the young couple thought life with Junior and Betsy were their only problems, they were mistaken, because in comes trouble in the form of his mother Ellen (Thelma Ritter) and HER mother Fran (Miriam Hopkins).  Problem 1 - Fran is a horror, who thinks her son-in-law is far beneath her (and Maggie's) notice.  Problem 2 - Maggie has mistaken Ellen for a housekeeper who was being sent over by an employment agency, and Ellen doesn't want her to know that she is Val's mother.  So, when both mothers move move in - Ellen as housekeeper, and Fran by taking over the master bedroom, the marriage begins to feel its growing pains.

Though Gene Tierney and John Lund are the official stars of this film, the movie really belongs to Thelma Ritter as the down-to-earth Ellen. Though Miriam Hopkins thinks it is her movie (see this TCM article for Ms. Hopkins hijinks), there is no way even Hopkins, the ultimate scene stealer, can get the film back from Ritter.  As with pretty much everything she does, when Ritter is on the screen, you are looking at HER.  Do you recall Ms. Ritter in Miracle on 34th Street? She has two, very brief scenes, but you will always remember her as the harried mother in Macys.  In 1951, she was nominated for her second Academy Award for her supporting role in The Mating Season; ultimately, she was nominated six times (and never won.  Go figure).  Ellen is the emotional core of the film, with Ritter providing a perfect foil to Hopkins meddling mother, as she carefully tries to maneuver past the dangers that come with two mothers-in-law in the same house.  There are perhaps no scenes more telling than the pair that show each child with his/her mother.  In one, we see Maggie and Fran in the master bedroom - where Fran has not only separated husband and wife, she has even gone so far as to steal Maggie's only pillow; this is followed by a conversation between Val and Ellen, in which Ellen's desire to sacrifice for her son and his wife is so very clear.

Ritter returned to acting in 1947 after a hiatus to raise her two children (she was married to her husband, Joseph Moran, for 42 years).  Her first picture was Miracle on 34th Street (1947), in which she was not credited.  By 1950, however, she had received her first Oscar nomination (for her work as Birdie in All About Eve), and was then nominated again the next four years in succession (for this film, With a Song in My Heart, and Pickup on South Street).  In her 21 year screen career, she appeared in 44 films and television shows.  In 1958, she returned to Broadway, and won a Tony for her role in New Girl in Town (a tie - with her co-star Gwen Verdon).  Ms. Ritter died of a heart attack in 1969, at age 67.

 

Gene Tierney is also quite wonderful as Maggie.   Badly played, Maggie could be a wimp, but Tierney gives her spunk and integrity.  Her blossoming relationship with Ellen is warm and affectionate.  And when Ellen's real position in the household is revealed, you sympathize with Maggie's fury for the deception that has robbed her of an even better relationship with her new mother.  

Equally wonderful in as very small role is Larry Keating  as George Kalinger, Sr.   The wealthy head of Val's company, Mr. Kalinger, Sr. is impressed by both Val, and especially with Val's mother.  How he got a son like Junior is a puzzle - and one Mr. Kalinger doesn't understand.  The comfortable nature of his relationship with Ellen provides a lovely picture of mature love - placed in juxtaposition to our young lovers, we can almost see the future for Maggie and Val.  Keating, who would eventually go on to a noted television career (as the original Harry Morton in The Burns and Allen Show, and as next-door neighbor Roger Addison in Mr. Ed), died in 1963.

John Lund, on the other hand, is rather banal.  It's hard to understand why Maggie falls for him so quickly, as he often appears stiff and up-tight.  It's not that Val isn't in a precarious position - it's just that, even when he is with Maggie and Ellen,  Lund gives us a Val who doesn't ever seem to become comfortable.  Interestingly, Lund himself was not really taken with his appearance on film.  He is quoted as saying (IMDB):  "Each picture has given me an inferiority complex. I've become face conscious. Projection rooms are torture chambers to me, at this point. When I saw the first day's rushes on To Each His Own (1946), I went home and started packing. I had thought I was smiling tenderly at Olivia de Havilland, but, on screen, I looked as though I were ready to bite her ear off, and I didn't have any eyes at all. After that, I refused to look at myself, but I began enjoying the work."  A competent actor, he might have been better off in character parts - and in fact, in his later years, he switched to radio, voicing the titular detective in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.  But for the most part, his leading man looks shoved him into the romantic lead.  But when he finally got to turn that model on its head - as the uptight George Kittredge in High Society (1956) - he was at his best..  Eventually, he left acting to become a successful businessman.  He died in 1992, after a battle with heart disease, aged 81.

Filmed under the working title of A Relative Stranger (AFI Notes), the film was given okay reviews (though Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was not particularly amused).  Regardless, this is a film that has aged remarkably well, and is just a delight from start to finish. We'll leave you with the trailer:

Gene's Portrait is Painted

Is there a better mystery than Laura (1944)? We don't think so, and this week we revisited a film that everyone in our group had seen before (though a few had some memory gaps).  Narrated by Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), Laura tells the story of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), a successful advertising executive whom it seemed was loved by everyone - except the murderer who shot her in the face with a rifle full of buckshot.  Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is assigned to investigate a case that is full of suspects - Lydecker, Laura's fiance Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), the woman who loves Shelby and Laura's aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson).  Even maid Bessie Clary (Dorothy Adams) is a suspect.  All profess to adore Laura, but someone pulled the trigger, and McPherson is having a problem as he tries to figure out who -   having read her diaries and seen her portrait (the color version is below), McPherson too has joined the many who love Laura.  As Waldo quips: "You'd better watch out, McPherson, or you'll finish up in a psychiatric ward. I doubt they've ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse."

Let's begin with the litany of well-deserved praise heaped upon this film:  it won the Oscar for Best B&W Cinematography in 1944; was nominated for Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction-Interior Design, Best Director (Otto Preminger) and Best Supporting Actor (Clifton Web).  In 1999, it was selected for the National Film Registry.  Since then, it has been named number 4 in  AFI's 10 Top 10 in Mystery, number 7 in  AFI's Top 25 Film Scores (if you've never heard the score of Laura you can listen to a version of it), and #74 in AFI's 100 Years 100 Thrills.  The film was extremely well received (you can see excerpts of some of the contemporary reviews within these TCM articles).  And Laura's theme was so popular that 20th Century Fox hired the magnificent Johnny Mercer to provide lyrics to the music the following year (want to hear the lovely words? Here is the incomparable Frank Sinatra singing the song in 1957).

For many of us who grew up watching Vincent Price as the Prince of the horror film, seeing him as the love interest is a new experience.  Price is an actor who makes everything (even those odd horror pieces he did in the 1960s) seem elegant.  His Shelby is equally elegant, but not in the least a nice person. Shelby is unambitious, greedy, self-absorbed, and innately selfish.  He uses everyone; though he professes to love Laura, he is merely using her the same way he uses Ann.  Ann, however, says she and Shelby are the same, and she (unlike Laura) can afford him. Judith Anderson conveys that aspect of Ann beautifully - she is similar to Shelby in many ways, primarily in their greed and in their total disregard for others.  But Anderson gives Ann a strength of character that Price removes from Shelby.  A marriage between the two characters will be interesting;  surely Shelby will again try to stray, but Ann will make certain that his leash is short - no longer than the checkbook in her hand.

And then there is Waldo.  Fox had a number of actors under consideration for this plum role.  Laird Cregar was their first choice, but producer Preminger felt he was too obviously a villain.  George Sanders, John Sutton, and Monty Woolley were also considered for the part, which was allegedly patterned after the critic Alexander Woollcott.  But Preminger wanted Clifton Webb.  Webb had appeared in a few silent films in the 1920s, but this was his first talkie - he had spent his career on Broadway.  He appeared in a total of 23 Broadway plays, most of them musicals.  In fact, if you ever visit the Music Box Theatre in New York City, there is a picture of him in the lobby from The Little Show (1929-1930).  Preminger wanted an actor who was relatively unknown and approached Webb, who ultimately consented.  His Waldo is brilliant, selfish, opinionated, vain - and delightful.  It's hard to dislike Waldo, though one would neither want to be the victim of his tongue (or his "goose quill dipped in venom") nor of his affections.  He is obsessed with Laura, trying toThe scene in which Waldo and Laura first meet - as he lunches at his favorite restaurant - was modeled after the Algonquin Hotel, where Alexander Woollcott had dined (as part of the famed Round Table). And the portrait was actually a photograph of Tierney with oil paint strategically touching it up. Just these two points suggest why the film was nominated for an art direction/interior design Oscar. away anyone to whom she might be attracted.  Yet, in some senses, would he have been a better choice for Laura had he been less obsessive?  Only Waldo appears to understands her drive for a career.

Jennifer Jones was the first person signed for the role of Laura Hunt, but she backed out at the last minute (this AFI article goes into some detail on the casting history of the film).  Also considered were Hedy Lamarr and Eva Gabor.  But Preminger wanted Gene Tierney, and she is luminous as Laura.  Tierney came into the film having suffered a huge personal tragedy - her daughter Daria was born in 1943 with massive physical problems - developmentally disabled, deaf, and sight-impaired.  Tierney was bereft, but things would get worse.  Several years later, a fan approached her, informing her that when Tierney was appearing at a USO show during her pregnancy, the woman broke quarantine to meet Tierney, transmitting the disease to the unborn child.  (The story was fictionalized by Agatha Christie in The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.  For more on rubella and birth defects and Gene Tierney, see this New Yorker article.)  Tierney's husband, Oleg Cassini suggested in his autobiography that Laura's ethereal quality reflected Tierney's grief. 

Dana Andrews also had competition for the role of Mark McPherson - both John Hodiak and George Raft were considered. Andrews was relatively new at Fox - he'd already co-starred with Gene Tierney in Belle Starr (1941), and had appeared in a number of war films for the studio (Wing and a Prayer, The Purple Heart, The North Star), but this was new territory for him.  His work was noticed - this New York Times review is especially impressed with his performance, as is director Martin Scorsese, who singles him out in one of the TCM articles mentioned above.  

Originally,  Rouben Mamoulian was to direct the film, but Otto Preminger took on the task after Mamoulian's first dailies proved to be unsatisfactory.  According to Vincent Price, Preminger felt that Mamoulian had one small issue with the film: "Rouben only knows nice people,  I understand the characters in Laura. They're all heels, just like my friends."  And, indeed they are heels.  One of the beauties of the film is that every character is flawed.  We talked at some length about what happened "after" the film - would Laura actually end up with Mark, or was he yet another one of her "lean strong bod[ies]" who Waldo complained was her criteria for love.  Would Mark understand her need to work? Would Laura leave a successful career to be a housewife, and live on a policeman's salary?  It's clear that she is someone who likes the finer things in life - she has happily given herself over to Waldo tutelage; his view of their relationship is frightening:

"She was quick to seize upon anything that would improve her mind or her appearance. Laura had innate breeding, but she deferred to my judgment and taste. I selected a more attractive hairdress for her. I taught her what clothes were more becoming to her. Through me, she met everyone: The famous and the infamous. Her youth and beauty, her poise and charm of manner captivated them all. She had warmth, vitality. She had authentic magnetism. Wherever we went, she stood out. Men admired her; women envied her. She became as famous as Waldo Lydecker's walking stick and his white carnation."

We know she has populated her apartment with his gifts, so his appraisal of her does give one pause.

The scene in which Waldo and Laura first meet - as he lunches at his favorite restaurant - was modeled after the Algonquin Hotel, where Alexander Woollcott had dined (as part of the famed Round Table).  And the portrait of Laura was actually a photograph of Tierney with oil paint strategically  touching it up.  Just these two points suggest why the film was nominated for an art direction/interior design Oscar. 

This version of Laura was broadcast on Lux Radio Theatre on 5 February 1945, with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price and Otto Kruger (as Waldo), and then again on 1 February 1954, with Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Joe Kearns and Carleton Young.  It's also been remade twice:  first as a one-hour telecast on 19 October 1955, on The 20th Century-Fox Hour, starring Dana Wynter, George Sanders and Robert Stack. Then, on 24 January 1968, a new adaptation by Truman Capote was aired, starring George Sanders, Robert Stack and Lee Bouvier.  George Sanders as Waldo was an especially delicious casting idea.

We'll leave you with the trailer from Laura.   Next time, we'll be viewing another film about a strong woman faced with the choice of career vs. home.