Potrzebie
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Pauline Kael (1919-2001)
Here are excerpts from 2,846 film reviews by Pauline Kael, the film critic other film critics acknowledged as the pack leader. A review by Kael could sometimes be more thought-provoking than the film she was reviewing. Thanks to Tom Sutpen we have this audio of Kael speaking at San Fernando Valley State College in 1963. Roger Ebert wrote that she ''had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades."
Below is a sample Kael review, Home Before Dark, a memorable psychological drama which has never been on VHS or DVD. The original negative is lost, but it would be nice to once again see this 1958 film, adapted by Eileen and Robert Bassing from the novel by Eileen Bassing. The scene of Charlotte Bronn (Jean Simmons) drifting into madness outside the Bonwit Teller department store in Boston is unforgettable.
Boston's New England Museum of Natural History was in a building constructed in 1863 at 234 Berkeley Street. When the Museum closed in 1947, the building was taken over by Bonwit Teller, which was at that location from 1947 to 1988. On the side facing Berkeley was a peculiar architectural feature, a window display which extruded from the building. This had the appearance of a glass gazebo, enabling a single dress to be viewed from three different sides. Director Mervyn LeRoy used this unusual location to create a sequence of mental erosion worthy of Tennessee Williams.
That Home Before Dark location scene shows the Fanny Farmer Candies shop at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley. Two decades later, I used to get coffee at that same Fanny Farmer shop. During the 1970s it still looked exactly the same; it was like stepping into the 1958 movie. (The coffee, I soon discovered, sometimes tasted like it had been sitting there for 20 years.)
Charlotte is married to college professor Arnold Bronn (Dan O'Herlihy), and she has long suspected that her cold and distant husband is secretly in love with her stepsister Joan (Rhonda Fleming). In her mentally disturbed state, Charlotte gets a makeover so she will look like Joan.
Home Before Dark
US (1958): Drama
136 min, No rating, Black & White
Jean Simmons gives a reserved, beautifully modulated performance that is so much better than the material that at times her exquisite reading of the rather mediocre lines seems a more tragic waste than her character's wrecked life. The script starts with a good idea. A professor (Dan O'Herlihy) commits his young wife to a state mental hospital; she returns home after a year, exhausted from eight rounds of shock treatment, her hair gray, but feeling cured-reasonable and happy, rid of her former delusions. Then as she slowly discovers that the delusions the doctors were shocking out of her were actually the truth, she loses her bearings and begins to go mad. Unfortunately, the script makes the heroine too sympathetic, and it has an edge of fashionable, self-congratulatory virtue-the "one must be more understanding toward discharged mental patients" attitude, and Mervyn LeRoy directs in a glossy, uninspired style that drags the material out at least half an hour too long. With Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Rhonda Fleming. Warners. -- Pauline Kael
Control click heading at top to hear Terry Gross interview with Kael (February 4, 1986).
Here are excerpts from 2,846 film reviews by Pauline Kael, the film critic other film critics acknowledged as the pack leader. A review by Kael could sometimes be more thought-provoking than the film she was reviewing. Thanks to Tom Sutpen we have this audio of Kael speaking at San Fernando Valley State College in 1963. Roger Ebert wrote that she ''had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades."Below is a sample Kael review, Home Before Dark, a memorable psychological drama which has never been on VHS or DVD. The original negative is lost, but it would be nice to once again see this 1958 film, adapted by Eileen and Robert Bassing from the novel by Eileen Bassing. The scene of Charlotte Bronn (Jean Simmons) drifting into madness outside the Bonwit Teller department store in Boston is unforgettable.
Boston's New England Museum of Natural History was in a building constructed in 1863 at 234 Berkeley Street. When the Museum closed in 1947, the building was taken over by Bonwit Teller, which was at that location from 1947 to 1988. On the side facing Berkeley was a peculiar architectural feature, a window display which extruded from the building. This had the appearance of a glass gazebo, enabling a single dress to be viewed from three different sides. Director Mervyn LeRoy used this unusual location to create a sequence of mental erosion worthy of Tennessee Williams.That Home Before Dark location scene shows the Fanny Farmer Candies shop at the corner of Boylston and Berkeley. Two decades later, I used to get coffee at that same Fanny Farmer shop. During the 1970s it still looked exactly the same; it was like stepping into the 1958 movie. (The coffee, I soon discovered, sometimes tasted like it had been sitting there for 20 years.)
Charlotte is married to college professor Arnold Bronn (Dan O'Herlihy), and she has long suspected that her cold and distant husband is secretly in love with her stepsister Joan (Rhonda Fleming). In her mentally disturbed state, Charlotte gets a makeover so she will look like Joan. LeRoy positioned his camera on Boylston Street and panned from Fanny Farmer to Bonwit Teller. When Charlotte walks to the exterior window display gazebo, she stares at a spectacular sparkling gold dress. She goes inside, requests the dress in Joan's size, tries it on and buys the dress, despite protests from Bonwit Teller saleswomen who tell her the size is much too large.
In a Boston restaurant during the holiday season, Arnold and his friends await Charlotte's arrival. She enters with her new hairstyle and the ill-fitting gold dress slipping off her shoulders and breasts. Arnold is aghast as she makes her way between tables in the crowded restaurant with a fixed smile, repeating over and over, "Merry Christmas... Merry Christmas... Merry Christmas... "
In a Boston restaurant during the holiday season, Arnold and his friends await Charlotte's arrival. She enters with her new hairstyle and the ill-fitting gold dress slipping off her shoulders and breasts. Arnold is aghast as she makes her way between tables in the crowded restaurant with a fixed smile, repeating over and over, "Merry Christmas... Merry Christmas... Merry Christmas... "
Home Before Dark
US (1958): Drama
136 min, No rating, Black & White
Jean Simmons gives a reserved, beautifully modulated performance that is so much better than the material that at times her exquisite reading of the rather mediocre lines seems a more tragic waste than her character's wrecked life. The script starts with a good idea. A professor (Dan O'Herlihy) commits his young wife to a state mental hospital; she returns home after a year, exhausted from eight rounds of shock treatment, her hair gray, but feeling cured-reasonable and happy, rid of her former delusions. Then as she slowly discovers that the delusions the doctors were shocking out of her were actually the truth, she loses her bearings and begins to go mad. Unfortunately, the script makes the heroine too sympathetic, and it has an edge of fashionable, self-congratulatory virtue-the "one must be more understanding toward discharged mental patients" attitude, and Mervyn LeRoy directs in a glossy, uninspired style that drags the material out at least half an hour too long. With Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and Rhonda Fleming. Warners. -- Pauline KaelJerry Lewis on Pauline Kael:
Control click heading at top to hear Terry Gross interview with Kael (February 4, 1986).
Labels: back bay, bassing, bonwit teller, fanny farmer, film, kael, simmons
¶ 1:40 PM 3 comments
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Raising Orson Annie
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep
But why didn't Kael supply the Lockhart parody? In the mid-1970s I made a trip to the Boston Public Library to see if I could locate Lockhart's song, and after searching through a pile of books, I found it. I copied it down, but as years passed, the sheet I wrote on was eventually buried somewhere in my paper jungle. Recently, I decided to try again, this time doing a Google Books search. Once again, I found very few places where the lyrics were ever published, yet at last I can rescue it from obscurity. Here it is:
Little Orson Annie
Little Orson Annie's come to our house to play,
An' josh the motion pitchers up an' skeer the stars away
An' shoo the Laughtons off the lot an' build the sets an' sweep
An' wind the film an' write the talk an' earn her board-an'-keep
An' all us other acters, when our pitchur work is done,
We set around the Derby bar an' has the mostest fun,
A-list'nin' to the me-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobblewelles 'll git YOU
Ef you DON'T WATCH OUT!
In her famed 1971 "Raising Kane" essay (originally in The New Yorker), Pauline Kael made a curious reference that stuck with me. She mentioned a 1939 song about Orson Welles by Gene Lockhart, but she did not elaborate or supply the lyrics. In a paragraph about the attitude of the film community to Welles prior to Citizen Kane (1941), she wrote:
Welles was hated in Hollywood long before he'd made a movie; he was hated almost upon his arrival. From time to time, Hollywood used to work up considerable puerile resentment against "outsiders" who dared to make movies. The scope of Welles' reputation seems to have infuriated Hollywood; it was a cultural reproach from the East, and the Hollywood people tried to protect themselves by closing ranks and making Welles a butt of their humor. Gene Lockhart composed a stupid, nasty ditty called "Little Orson Annie," which was sung at Hollywood parties; the name stuck and was used by the columnists, though Hedda Hopper supported him and suggested that Hollywood reserve judgment, and Louella Parsons, on December 31st, selected him as "the most discussed personality to come to the films in 1939."Intriguing, right? Well, obviously some sort of satirical springboard from James Whitcomb Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" (1885), still taught in schools in Indiana:
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep
But why didn't Kael supply the Lockhart parody? In the mid-1970s I made a trip to the Boston Public Library to see if I could locate Lockhart's song, and after searching through a pile of books, I found it. I copied it down, but as years passed, the sheet I wrote on was eventually buried somewhere in my paper jungle. Recently, I decided to try again, this time doing a Google Books search. Once again, I found very few places where the lyrics were ever published, yet at last I can rescue it from obscurity. Here it is:
Little Orson Annie
Little Orson Annie's come to our house to play,
An' josh the motion pitchers up an' skeer the stars away
An' shoo the Laughtons off the lot an' build the sets an' sweep
An' wind the film an' write the talk an' earn her board-an'-keep
An' all us other acters, when our pitchur work is done,
We set around the Derby bar an' has the mostest fun,
A-list'nin' to the me-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobblewelles 'll git YOU
Ef you DON'T WATCH OUT!
-- Gene Lockhart
Labels: kael, kane, little orphan annie, welles
¶ 1:23 PM 0 comments
