Some Thoughts on the Crypt Scene in Dracula (1931)

Notice that the vampires don't exit their coffins by simpy pushing the lid open with the palm of their hands. Rather, they stick their hand out first, contorted and menacing, almost as if, in a friendly manner, they're warning anyone present, "I'm coming out now."

They have pets, kind of. How awesome that there's a possum. There could be bats or a feral cat or a wolf or a snake or some massive spiders.  Instead, a possum and a bee. And the bee get its own coffin. Is the bee undead? Possibly, there's no evidence of a hive and it's waking at the same time as the other vampires.  I have no idea what the implications of an undead bee are.

I want to know more about her. She seems interesting, vampire-wise. I wish Browning had done just a little more with the vamps.

She scares our little possum friend back into this coffin. I like that there's a dead vampire here. It signals that Dracula has had some close calls before but he got them before they got him, but not before they got one of his vamps. It also shows Dracula isn't much into disposing of bodies.

And then there's this: One of the greatest entrances in all of movie history, still. And the movies weren't even 50 years old yet when this was done. Damn.

One final thing. I've always loved that bat logo behind the credits but there's no place where it is free of said credits. They fade into each other. I took several credit screens, including the last which merely has the directing credit, and isolated it. Why? Why not?

I Have Nothing New To Say About Alfred Hitchcock

I can think of nothing to say about Alfred Hitchcock that several million fans, critics, directors and writers haven't already said. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. He's Alfred Hitchcock. It's like coming up with a completely new and original take on Casablanca and not some limping, half-clever, grasping-at-straws take, which this post is clearly headed for in a screaming spiral of despair but, rather, a fresh analysis that prior to this moment in time was undiscovered, undetected. Who comes up with that for Casablanca? Nobody. Don't misunderstand, I've read some excellent stuff on Casablanca, just nothing I didn't already know because... you know... Casablanca.

So Hitchcock. Yeah. Hitch.

It goes like this: There are very few human beings in world history who achieve so much in their chosen field in such an utterly magnificent and glorious way that a mere 30 plus years removed from their death the whole world is already saying, "What, him again? Jesus, okay, cut it out, will ya?" I assure you that most of us will saunter into an old age where our greatest achievement remains that time our Facebook status update got 27 "likes." ("Did you see that?! Did you? 27!")

But I digress.

So... Hitchcock.

It's an achievement on an extraordinary level to become so inundated with third-party analysis that even before your career ends another director who was formerly a film critic has already written a book about you. Alfred Hitchcock achieved all of this while never winning an Oscar for Best Director and having far too many of his greatest achievements not nominated for Best Picture. Go ahead and think of all the films that Hitchcock made in the fifties. There are some really great ones in there, right? Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. Not a one was even nominated for the top award. Aha, ha, haaaaaaaa. Sometimes, it really is too easy to answer the challenge, "Okay, smartass, prove to me the Academy is full of morons!"

Why spoil that kind of achievement by rehashing the same old, same old? What new is there to even say? I suppose there's Hitch's foot fetish but that doesn't really get to the heart of anything, does it? Except to say that if you have a favorite actress and you want to see her stockinged legs and feet and never have and she's in a Hitchcock movie, you're in luck! Madeleine Carrol, Tallulah Bankhead, Carole Lombard, Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedren... hell, the only time I've ever seen Marlene Dietrich perform a number without shoes on was... oh yeah, Stage Fright. Christ, if he had to get the foot of a corpse in there by way of a potato truck, he'd find a way. And even make it kick the killer's face. Barbara Harris stepping on Bruce Dern's face? Give him a minute, he'll figure it out. But again, what's that tell us? Damned if I know.

I do know this: On the David Cavett show, he talked about the jokes he liked to play on people. They were gentle, victimless jokes but got to the soul of Hitchcock in a very strange but, for me, perfectly understandable way. He described one in which he was meeting a large group of people for a film wrap or perhaps a meet and greet for the start of a shoot. I can't remember, it's not important. What is important is this: He hired an actress in her fifties to show up dressed to the nines and sit at the head of the table. She began to talk to people like she was a duchess or something and everyone starting asking Hitch who she was to which he responded, "Oh, I don't know. She seems very nice and perhaps a bit delusional. Let's be kind and just let her stay and enjoy the attention." Damn I love this guy! There was no payoff! At no point did he tell anyone about her or reveal the joke in any way. The whole joke was merely for him to enjoy. I do that all the time.

I do enjoy the way Hitchcock knew that fans and critics had pigeonholed him into some nebulous genre grouping of, what, suspense? Thrillers? Something anyway and because they had crammed his talents into that hole he was pretty much free to do as he pleased. As a result, he could go from one experiment to the next, from a Rope and a Rear Window to a Vertigo and a Psycho without anyone ever thinking, "Wait a minute. The guy who did Notorious also did The Birds?!" Seriously. It's like the same director doing Star Wars and Hannah and her Sisters. I mean, they have nothing in common. Notorious and The Birds? Nothing. Well, except for the exit out the door at the end and the hero leading the distressed and physically beaten heroine to safety as the car drives off. And both cars drive off from catastrophe and imminent death to freedom, perhaps? And what's left behind is a horrifying mess of violence and brutality with no sense of remorse or empathy. Just pure, cold-blooded survival instincts. Okay, maybe they are alike and maybe, in the end, that was Hitchcock's genius. He could take a story and reexamine it in such a way that you'd think he never made this movie before, not once, not ever. But he did.

He made the same movies, over and over, because he never found the answers. The second an artist finds the answer, the art is dead. They didn't all work. Some were good, some bad. Some great, some pretty dull. Some of the later ones even felt like warmed over ABC Movies of the Week. But by God, when he did it right nobody did it better. I have nothing new to say about Alfred Hitchcock because his movies made everyone want to talk about him and them and by the time we reached the tenth anniversary of his death, it felt like we'd already talked him out. But we hadn't and we haven't and I'm wrong because, hell, it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned The Birds online elsewhere that I even thought about the ending of Notorious in connection with it.

Son of a bitch.

Fahrenheit 451: Pictures Good, Words Bad

History and the Movies: The Hindenburg

When making a movie about a historical disaster, the disaster remains the focus.  There can be plenty of fictionalized plot around it, but the disaster itself is in the forefront.  With the Titanic, most movies based on it (the notable exception being A Night to Remember) create mini-melodramas around fictionalized characters that make up the story (the lovers in the 1997 version, the divorcing couple in the 1953 version, etc) while the audience awaits disaster to strike.  The Titanic makes it even easier by the historically valid fact that the ship, in fact, took three hours to sink.  The airship Hindenburg, on the other hand, went from mint condition to burning rubble in less than a minute, 75 years ago today.  That means any theatrical movie needs to fill roughly 99 percent of its running time with fictional characters engaged in fictional melodramas.

Of course, for any other fictional narrative, this isn't a problem but when the event the movie is based upon is what people are coming to see, it's a huge problem.  Unfortunately, the movie The Hindenburg (d. Robert Wise, 1975) doesn't counter the problem by giving the audience a very compelling story.  George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft and William Atherton (among many others) all do admirable work in the service of a tepid plot about spies and sabotage, none of which ever seems very urgent given the fact that we know the outcome.  That sounds like the same problem as any other historically based disaster movie but actually, it's not.

With the story of the Titanic, we know it's going to sink but we don't know the outcome of the fictional narrative.  Will Julia (Barbara Stanwyck) and Richard (Clifton Webb) reconcile and make it to the lifeboats together with their children?  Will Jack (Leonardo DiCiprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) drown in the bowels of the ship or will they make it off safely?  And so on.  Their story is not tied directly to the ship hitting an iceberg.  In The Hindenburg, that is indeed what happens.

The story concerns possible sabotage of the ship with a bomb that the SS and George C. Scott are investigating.  William Atherton, as it turns out, is planting the bomb because he hates the Nazis and, well, who doesn't.  But, as you can see, the direct lines of the plot are tied to the ship exploding so while we may not know if Jack and Rose are going to survive together, only to have Jack die later (because from the flashback structure we certainly know Rose survives to the present day), we do know the bomb will go off.  It would be like making the story of the Titanic into a spy thriller in which one saboteur was determined to steer the ship into an iceberg.  Will he succeed?  Well, yes, obviously.  It's a stupid thing to tie your plot to.

Nonetheless, The Hindenburg ultimately fails due to a pacing that mimics the casual, lackadaisical air speed of the zeppelin itself.  The movie, despite some stunning visuals achieved with superb model making and optical printing and matte work, never achieves the kind of lift necessary to keep it aloft (sorry, couldn't help it).  The history of the Hindenburg and the mystery of what truly happened that day is better left to the documentary form where the short but tragic event can be rehashed and analysed all while giving a brief history of airships along the way.

Make Me Wanna Holler!

Look at this guy.  This guy right here, below.

"I've got one hand in my pocket and the other one's clenching my throbbing gin-soaked head."

He's sleeping on the side of the road.  Know why?  Because he was going to a picnic and the campgrounds were packed and the traffic was backing up and he was like, "Screw this, we're having our picnic here.  After I nap!" and he pulled over to the side of the road and he collapsed on the grass and if you look ahead, other cars are starting to follow his lead.  They're looking in the rear view and they're like, "Yeah, you know, fuck it."

Or how about these two?

"Except for the suffocating stench of this filthy camisole, this is really comfortable."

There's a fashion show going on and they can't turn off the light and there's no place to sleep because of the hustle and the bustle and the shucking and the jiving and they're like, "Man, fuck this noise!" and they put some blouses over their heads and they pass out.

I take inspiration from these free spirits except in kind of the reverse way in which I should wake up but at the same time put to rest some old notions I have about this blog.

"Curiouser and curiouser." "The suspense is killing me.  Not really."

You know why I don't post here as much anymore?  Because I keep thinking I'll have time to put together some extraordinary goddamn piece of Pulitzer Prize winning analysis on... well, shit, I don't even know.  I keep thinking, "No, don't post that little observation, put it on Facebook."  Then I get to Facebook and I think, "No this is too long for Facebook but too short for Cinema Styles." [cue laugh track] Jesus, sometimes the ridiculousness of my brain makes me want to fling shit at it or, at least, an effigy of it because, you know, shit.

Same thing goes for If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger.  I find a picture.  It's unique.  I think, "There's no series for this so I'll to create one but what if I never find another picture to go in that series?  Then what?"  Then the overthinking begins, the youtube cat videos start rolling while I collect my thoughts and before I know it, it's one in the morning and I've spent another day hilariously accomplishing nothing.  Only it's the kind of hilarious where you down a shot of bourbon and start to cry.  L.O... ah, fuck it.

So I'm just going to pull over to the side of the road, take a nap, regain some strength and chill the fuck out.  I miss Cinema Styles and The Gunslinger.   Time to get back on track.  See you soon.  [cue befuddled silence.  Audience member overheard: "Who is this again?"]

Hooray for "Hooray for Hollywood"

I love the opening of Hollywood Hotel and I love the song Hooray for Hollywood (watching The Long Goodbye again recently, it was on my mind). The version I listen to all the time comes from 50 Years of Film Music (1923 to 1973), an album released in June that I highly recommend. It's got scores and songs, all from the original soundtracks with dialogue from the films as well. In some cases, like As Time Goes By, we hear Dooley Wilson and Ingrid Bergman talking about the song from the movie but when the song starts, it's a full recording Wilson did for the soundtrack. As we all know, in the movie Rick breaks up the song before it's finished so the switch is necessary.

But back to Hooray for Hollywood. What a great song. With music by Richard A. Whiting and perfectly biting lyrics by Johnny Mercer, it's a joy to take in. Mercer wrote so many verses that couldn't all fit in the movie that alternate versions have been recorded for years. Below are the original lyrics from the opening number. Below that, some alternates. Enjoy and HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD!

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD Hooray for Hollywood That screwy, ballyhooey Hollywood! Where any office boy Or young mechanic can be a panic With just a good-looking pan And any shop girl Can be a top girl If she pleases the tired business man Hooray for Hollywood! You may be homely in your neighborhood. To be an actor See Mister Factor He'll make your kisser look good! Go out and try your luck You could be Donald Duck Hooray for Hollywood! Hooray for Hollywood! Hooray for Hollywood That bully, wild and woolly Hollywood They hire cowboys then they hang their chaps up And doll their maps up And give them all that they lack Now ain't it funny They pay them money? Shows what you can do if your horse can act Hooray for Hollywood They hire fellas whose physiques are good And then they tell them they're the perfect shape, man To act like apemen And they convince them they should They make them grunt and yell And people think they're swell Hooray for Hollywood

Now for some alternate lyrics. In some versions, for the "shop girl" part, the lines are:

And any barmaid
Can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan

But mostly, it's just whole other verses added on at the beginning, middle or end, depending on the recording. Some of my favorites:

Hooray for Hollywood!
Where you're terrific
if you're even good!
Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple
to Aimee Semple
is equally understood.

Hooray for Hollywood!
That phony, super Coney, Hollywood
They come from Chilicothes and Padukahs
with their bazookas
To see their names up in lights
All armed with photos
From local rotos
With their hair in curlers
and legs in tights

And an alternate on the Mister Factor line in the opening:

Hooray for Hollywood!
You may be homely in your neighborhood.
Still, if you think that you can be an actor
See Mister Factor
He'd make a monkey look good!
Within a half an hour
You'll look like Tyrone Power

It's Called Murder, Hitchy - Part II

Part I of this post, that is, a wholly different post discussing the film itself, is up at the Movie Morlocks here.

 I watched this video recently of the set of Rear Window taken from all existing shots in the film and stitched together using video software. The result is a pretty cool one, allowing the viewer to see the entire apartment complex together, in one long shot. The action within the apartments even follows along the timeline of the film. Give it a look, it's pretty good.

That got me thinking about shots I love that don't exist, which is to say, long tracking or panning shots that I'd love to see a panorama of but can't because it's a movie camera tracking along, not a still camera taken an extreme wide angle shot.  From time to time I put together a shot to use as a banner or wallpaper and the urge struck me again recently when I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1930 Murder!

The movie begins with a scream signalling something awful has occurred.  As characters rush to the house where the scream was heard, a murder scene is already being attended to inside.  Hitchcock takes us in to view the scene.

We can see a crowd at the back of the room on the left of the screen looking down towards the fireplace.  Sitting in the forefront, the only not looking down, is a still woman with a bloodied poker at her feet.  We can assume she is the murderer.  The gentleman standing in the direct center of the image draws in our eye and will become the hero of the film.  Another man kneels down over the victim and a policeman stands along the fireplace wall, contemplating the scene below.  And the victim?  Brilliantly, Hitchcock put her in the mirror. It's difficult to see here but click the photo to enlarge it for a better look.

After this master shot, the camera focuses in on the policeman, zooms out to the presumed murderer and then pans across to the victim, like so:




It's that final shot, the pan over to the victim that I wanted to capture.  With a tracking shot, where the camera moves in a parallel line to the action, I could just take a snapshot of each section of the track and stitch them together but this one was tougher:  It's a pan, not a track.  The camera simply pivots from killer to victim so putting them together requires some complicated reorientation work because when the camera pivots, the action is taking place before the camera at a slightly different angle than it was when it started the pan.  Nonetheless, I was determined. The result seen below. Click to enlarge.

Lovely Delphine, Gone Too Soon

I recently watched Daughters of Darkness and was reminded that it's beautiful star, Delphine Seyrig, died at the too young age of 58 from lung cancer. But what a career she had. From Last Year at Marienbad and Stolen Kisses to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, she had one of the most interesting careers an actress can have. In response to Peter Bogdanovich's remark about Greta Garbo that it was "too bad that she had only been in two really good pictures," Orson Welles famously replied, "You only need one." Well, Delphine had a whole stock of them.

Daughters of Darkness isn't the best vampire movie you'll ever see, in fact, it might not even be a vampire movie at all, not in the strict sense of the term. But it is an interesting movie, well shot, well composed and well paced and the fact that it plays away from normal vampire tropes keeps it mysterious and dreamlike.  The ambiance is enticing and inviting and it's Delphine that really makes the whole thing work. I won't lie to you, when she's not on the screen, it's not nearly as interesting but when she is, her charms take over.

A friend of mine, Dennis Cozzalio, recently had the pleasure of seeing Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles on the big screen and wrote it up here. I thought it was a stunning film when I saw it first but found it didn't stick with me and a second viewing felt pointless. Why is that? I defer to Dennis or anyone else who has seen it for the answer. However, none of that changes the fact that to see it is to celebrate the discreet charm of Delphine Seyrig. She left us too soon.

P.S. Won't someone please release her 1976 documentary on sexism with actresses in the movies, featuring Maria Schneider, Shirley MacLaine and Jane Fonda,Sois belle et tais-toi (Be Pretty and Shut Up). I'd love to see it!

Opening Credits I Love: The Blob

Seriously, this movie's opening credits are just awesome. Now, there's disagreement among fans as to which is better. The original release, which had the theme song written by Burt Bacharach, or the intended release with the original score played over it.

Here's both. Personally, I like the loopy song version the best. The undulations of the blob animation fit that music much better and it's a fun movie so, what the hell, open it with that song. Of course, I like the original score, but for The Blob, I think "loopy" is best.

First, the version with the song:



Next, the version with the score:



As the old NFL commercials used to say, "You make the call!"

Dear Sirs, About Ann-Margret's Bust...

I was looking through an August, 1971 issue of LIFE Magazine last week with letters to the editor concerning the previous issue and I've got to say, they didn't inspire a lot of confidence in the claims that comments were better back in the day when you had to write out the letter, mail it in and hope it got selected. On the contrary, I think maybe the truly smart people, interested in a conversation they knew could never happen, threw up their arms and said, "Ah, screw it." Which left these brainiacs to fill in the void (actual letters in bold, my comments in italics):

Sirs: Thank you so much for your wonderful article on Ann-Margret ("After Ten Years, Big Success for the 'Sex Kitten:" Aug. 6). I have been following her career for those ten years, and I think it's about time she received the recognition she has long deserved.

JIMMIE RINALDI College Point. N.Y.

(Now that seems like your average, run-of-the-mill "great post" blog comment you'd get today)

Sirs: Ex-“sex kitten" Ann-Margret's career and bust development since 1961 are truly amazing.
J. SIMMONS Seattle, Wash.

(That would be the wise-ass making the joke comment)

Sirs: I cannot fathom why you would waste six precious pages on such drivel. Big deal, who cares! If you had to profile an actress at all, why not Annette Crosbie who portrayed Catherine of Aragon in the superb series The Six Wives of Henry VIII?
VERONICA GRAEME Lemon Grove. Calif.

(The Kill-Joy)

Sirs: I have nothing against Ann-Margret as an actress (a very surprising one!) or as a person except that she and her husband are ecological disaster - seven motorcycles, a 14-carat gold-leaf golf cart engraved with her signature, a Cadillac El Dorado among other air polluters, and a raft of fur coats. I even consider her very pretty. But honestly! That cover picture!
MRS. LANI HARRIS
Glendale, Calif.

(And the goddamn finger-wagging, self-righteous a-hole that wants to show everyone how enlightened she is.)

Okay, so on second thought, let's call it a wash. I don't think a damn thing's changed after all.