The Window 1949.

Fast little B noir that was based on a fast Cornell Woolrich short story. Running only 73 minutes this one has a lot going for it including on location New York City East Side story tenement life, a marvelous performance by little boy Bobby Driscoll who won a juvenile Oscar for this movie, and good supporting support from Arthur Kennedy, Barbara Hale, Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman. The story takes place in a hot and steamy city where Bobby lives with his parents (Kennedy and Hale) in a cramped and dingy ugly place and for fun the kid likes to make up wild stories that keep getting him in trouble. He’s the little boy who cried wolf too many times and when danger in real life comes knocking of course no one believes him and the chase is on. Danger lives here and actually lived in Driscoll’s sad short life when in 1968 his 31 year old drug overdosed marked body was found in an abandoned lower east side tenement forgotten and unknown, and thrown away in Potter’s Field. He had a good career as a Walt Disney kid star, but then nothing but dark skies in his life. He’s very good in this one, even with that squeaky cartoon like voice. I could have used a not so tidy and neat happy ending, but the getting there is good and nervous. Directed with care and assurance by Ted Tetzlaff who was known more as a cinematographer who began shooting movies in 1926 and did many wonderful films including his lush work for Hitchcock’s “Notorious.” 

Mixed on notebook paper October 2022

 

 Meret Oppenheim at the Moma.

Took in the members preview of the wonderful Meret Oppenheim show yesterday at the Moma. I of course loved it, and yes the fur lined tea cup is there, but its just one of the 200 objects, paintings, drawings that amazed me. Little known especially in this country this show should raise her shadow to the sky and there is so much there to admire and love. The show is full of rich surprises and gems, her skill and imagination is wonderful and she only lived to the age of 72. A shame. The city is open, and up and annoying and getting there from Brooklyn was of course a pain. Man there are so many nut jobs riding the rails, its fucking surreal. I had a book and magazines to read, my sunglasses to protect me from making eye contact and I still wear my mask. I was aware. If its a nice day out, the city shines, it is still spectacular in many ways, but its also jarring and annoying but this is my native land of mine my Man Hat Tan Tan. The Moma was crowded so the days of empty spaces and being alone in museums is long gone but see the Meret's. You will be surprised and might be inspired to make art or something.

Jerry Lee Lewis 1935-2022

 A whole lot of shaking went on. 

ink and crayon on notebook paper Oct. 2022

 

notebook drawing Ink on paper Oct. 2022

 

Interior notebook covers. 2022. Mixed

 

The Barefoot Contessa. 1954

 

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s storied career and reputation pretty much rests on two movies “A Letter To Three Wives” in 1949 and “All About Eve” in 1950. The films were huge hits and won him back to back Oscars for writing and directing, the only director ever to do so. Both films were and still are sophisticated witty dramas with smart and funny dialogue and a big shopping bag full of memorable performances. Mankiewicz comes from a historically important family of writers including his older brother Herman who wrote the script for a little movie called “Citizen Kane”.

It’s after these two classics that for me his career fell down and bruised it’s knees with failed films both critically and at the box office. Like many of the giants of the golden age Cukor, Minnelli, Ford, Vidor, Stevens and even Hitchcock these great talents ended their careers on sorry notes with films that failed more or less with the critics and audiences alike. Still there are supporters of these films among contemporary critics and movie goers today who cherish, love and defend these films.  

Mankiewicz also petered, out ending his career with “Sleuth” and “There Was A Crooked Man”. Sleuth based on a play did well at the box office and even got him his final Oscar nomination for Directing, but I recall not liking it. His films right after “Eve” were an uneven bunch, “Julius Caesar”, “Guys and Dolls” and the Tennesse Williams horror gothic show “Suddenly Last Summer” which is famous for Katherine Hepburn spitting in Mankiewicz’s  face at the end of the filming because of his sour horrible treatment of the fragile Montgomery Clift and Liz Taylor’s white tight fitting bathing suit. I won’t go into “Cleopatra” I’ll leave that one for another day.

For now I want to focus on his 1954 film “The Barefoot Contessa” which I finally saw a short time ago.  This was another show biz film, set in Europe among the international jet setters and Hollywood among the usual suspects. The film is  supposedly based on Rita Hayworth’s life story and filtered through several back looks into the life of the fictional Maria Vargas a world famous movie star whose sparsely attended outdoor rain soaked  funeral opens the film. Maria is played by Ava Gardner who in flashbacks and voice overs most notably by Humphrey Bogart (looking tired) who plays an up and down (more down) Hollywood writer and director who is painted as sort of a hack tells how she was discovered dancing in some low rung nightclub in Madrid. Bogart becomes her mentor, friend and from what I could tell her only director. We never see her dancing and Mankiewicz handles this well by panning over the patrons in the nightclub and showing their expressions and little dramas as they watch the “invisible” Ava dancing.

This is one of the major problems with the film, as we never see why Maria/Ava becomes such a great international star. Sure Maria/Ava is truly gorgeous and Gardner was indeed one of the most beautiful stars in the history of film but in this movie she is way over her head. The camera loves her, and so do I, but she was never known for her great acting skills and sadly she keeps loosing her Spanish accent. We do later in the film finally get to see her dance in a scene doing a pathetic sort of flamingo in a gypsy camp but we never see or feel why she became such a big international movie star. There are no clips of her acting and Mankiewicz uses big time movie premieres to show her popularity, which is not enough. Yes celebrity can hinge on looks and beauty alone, but the truly great transcending glamorous stars have also had magical acting powers think Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren . Another film that same year about a rising movie star also directed by an aging director from the golden years of Hollywood “A Star Is Born” has a lot in common with “Contessa” except we totally buy the rise of the star because she is played by one of the great singer-entertainers of the 20^th Century and we get to see her do her stuff.   

The film is also misogynistic, the ads and posters boasted “The World’s Most Beautiful Animal” to describe the character that Gardner plays and she is indeed treated like an animal. She is stalked, caged,(metaphorically)  trained, prodded, shaped and finally destroyed by a collection of nasty men including the sleezy Howard Hughes like producer played by an oily Warren Stevens. All the women that come and go with the exception of Bogart’s wife acted by Elizabeth Sellers are treated like trash, property and whores and makes for uncomfortable retrospective viewing.  There is also the loud sweaty go for PR man Oscar Muldoon played by Edmond O’Brien who won an Oscar for this obvious performance. Another comparison to this film and “A Star Is Born” is Jack Carson’s similar role as a go for studio lackey who was so much  better at this sort of impersonation than O’Brien that he wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. Nobody played disgust and revulsion better than Carson. The film is stiff and looks it. Mankiewicz was not a great visual stylist as a filmmaker and his movies are straight up and down, up front and not personal. Just set up the scene Mank and shoot it, and even though Barefoot is lush in color (the saturated color cinematography is by the great jack Cardiff) the film looks dull and stodgy it just sits there even though it was filmed in Italy among lush surroundings and at the vast Cinecitta Studios. The final part of the film is the most ludicrous and features the handsome Rossano Brazzi as a count  who Ava marries and comes with a terrible secret that brings the film to its tragic ending. With some wonderful 50’s fashions and gowns by Fontana that is extra eye candy besides Ava.  

 

 

Angela Lansbury 1925-2022

 The Great Angela Lansbury has passed. 

Billy Al Bengston 1934-2022

 

Notebook drawing mixed october 2022

 

Loretta Lynn 1932-2022

 

Oct. 2022 Notebook drawing

 

Dahmer-Monster The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Netflix 2022

A nearly 10 hour mini series about the tragic miserable life of Jeffrey Dahmer who murdered 17 young men and who almost got away with it thanks to the incompetent racist and homophobic Milwaukee police force. This is the latest heaping from Ryan Murphy and its well done with spot on direction by several people including Jennifer Lynch (yes she’s the daughter of David) Carl Franklin and Gregg Araki. At times its hard to watch, its pretty explicit and grim in telling this American tale of horror. It goes back and forth in telling his story from his youth to his years as a killing machine and I have to say right here and now it is definitely not for everyone. The cast is strong. Evan Peters plays Dahmer and is supported by Richard Jenkins as his pathetic father, a surprising Molly Ringwald as Jenkins second wife, Niecy Nash as Dahmer’s concerned and troubled neighbor and Michael Learned as his trusting grandmother. All good and watchable. This is the kind of mini series that does well in the ratings and look for it next year to reap many Emmy nominations and probably some wins. It’s a sad and shocking story that I really don't know what to do with. Should I put it in a box tie it up with ribbon and throw it into the deep blue sea?

October 2022. Mixed on notebook paper