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Home , Gladys Pearl Baker, Jed Harris, Rex Bell, Russell Metty, That Touch of Mink, Thelma Ritter

February 21, 2017 (XXXIV:4) , THE MISFITS (1961, 124 min) The online version of this handout—http://csac.buffalo.edu/goldenrodhandouts.html—contains working URLs.

Director John Huston Writer (short story, screenplay) Producers Frank E. Taylor, John Huston Music Alex North Cinematography Film Editing George Tomasini Art Direction Stephen B. Grimes, Bill Newberry Set Decoration Frank R. McKelvy

Cast …Gay Langland Monroe…Roslyn Taber Montgomery Clift…Perce Howland Thelma Ritter…Isabelle Steers Eli Wallach…Guido James Barton…Fletcher's Grandfather Kevin McCarthy…Raymond Taber they were convinced that if the American public saw Huston’s Estelle Winwood…Church Lady Collecting Money in Bar scenes of American soldiers crying and suffering what in those Peggy Barton…Young Bride days was called “shellshock” and “battle fatigue” they would Rex Bell…Old Cowboy have an even more difficult time getting Americans to go off and Ryall Bowker…Man in Bar get themselves killed in future wars. One military official Frank Fanelli Sr….Gambler at Bar accused Huston of being “anti-war,” to which he replied, “If I John Huston…Extra in Blackjack Scene ever make a pro-war film I hope they take me out and shoot me.” Bobby LaSalle…Bartender During his long career he made a number of real dogs e.g. Annie Philip Mitchell…Charles Steers (1982), Victory (1981), Phobia (1980), and The Macintosh Man Walter Ramage …Old Groom (1973), part of the price of being a director in the studio system. Ralph Roberts…Ambulance Driver at Rodeo He also made films that regularly turn up on all major critics’ Dennis Shaw…Fletcher - Young Boy in Bar lists of classics. Probably no director anywhere made so many J. Lewis Smith…Fresh Cowboy in Bar films of major works of literature. Some of his fine films are The Marietta Tree…Susan Dead (1987) based on James Joyce’s short story, Prizzi's Honor (1985), Under the Volcano (1984), Wise Blood (1979), The Man John Houston (b. August 5, 1906 in , Missouri—d. Who Would Be King (1975), The Misfits (1961), Moby Dick August 28, 1987) was a writer, painter, boxer, actor and, most (1956), Moulin Rouge (1952), The African Queen (1951), The famously, director. He directed 41 films over 46 years and co- Red Badge of Courage (1951), The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and adapted and acted in more than 20. He was a flamboyant The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). The best Huston films raconteur, bon vivant, horseman, big-game hunter and eventually have lean, fast-paced scripts and vibrant plots and filmdom’s grand old maverick. His first film is the classic film characterizations, and many of them deal ironically with vanity, noir, The Maltese Falcon (1941). Soon after finishing it, he was avarice and unfulfilled quests. In them, nonconformists and drafted into the army, making documentaries for the Department misfits brave danger fatalistically in a world where women are of War with San Pietro (1945) noted as being one of the two or often peripheral. Among the filmmaker’s distinctive three best documentaries made by the US military during WW II. achievements was casting his father, Walter, in The Treasure of Another, Let There Be Light (1946), so frightened military the Sierra Madre in 1948 and his daughter Anjelica in Prizzi’s officials they kept it under lock and key for 25 years because Honor 37 years later, in roles for which each won an Academy Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—2

Award. He was given the ’s Life Best Play and Best Author for Miller. Miller also was awarded Achievement Award in 1983. He also won the Razzie for Worst the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Salesman also made lead Director for Annie. The film maker, who lived as hard and at actor Lee J. Cobb, as Willy Loman, an icon of the stage times as dangerously as the protagonists of his movies, rarely comparable to the Hamlet of John Barrymore: a synthesis of slowed his pace. Though he had suffered for decades from acute actor and role that created a legend that survives through the emphysema, which forced him in recent years to rely on oxygen bends of time. A contemporary classic was recognized, though tanks to help him breathe, he some critics complained that the play continued to smoke. Like Clark wasn't truly a tragedy, as Willy Loman Gable, Mr. Huston was married was such a pathetic soul. The fall of five times. He was divorced from such a small person as Loman could all his wives except one, who was not qualify as tragedy, as there was so killed in an auto crash in 1969 little height from which to fall. Miller, after a 10-year marital separation. a dedicated progressive and a man of Speaking of his wives right before integrity, never accepted the criticism. his passing, Huston told an As Willy's wife Linda said at his interviewer, “They were a mixed funeral, "Attention must be paid," bag: a schoolgirl, a gentlewoman, even to the little people who were a motion picture actress, a crucified alongside the capitalist gods ballerina and a crocodile.” Lauren in the pursuit of the American Dream. Bacall, a longtime friend, Miller never again attained the critical described him as “daring, heights nor smash Broadway success unpredictable, maddening, of Salesman, though he continued to mystifying and probably the most write fine plays that were appreciated charming man on earth.” by critics and audiences alike for another two decades. In fun facts: In Arthur Miller (b. October 17, his autobiography Timebends, Miller 1915 in Harlem, New York—d. recounts that he had written a February 10, 2005, age 89, in screenplay dealing with corruption on Roxbury, Connecticut) wrote the New York waterfront called The plays, screenplays, novels, short Hook. Kazan had agreed to direct it, stories, non-fiction, and an autobiography, most famously, Death and in 1951 they went to see Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures of a Salesman and . Miller's characters often suffer about making the picture. Cohn agreed in principle to make the from anxiety, depression, and guilt, and it was the genius of the picture, but his minions were troubled by the portrayal of corrupt writer to portray their pain and sorrow realistically, creating union officials. When Cohn asked that the antagonists of the works that were familiar, yet uncanny in their power to move an script be changed to Communists, Miller refused. Cohn sent audience. Miller's stature is based on his refusal to avoid moral Miller a letter telling him it was interesting that he had resisted and social issues in his writing, even when the personal cost was Columbia's desire to make the movie pro-American. Kazan later terrible. Miller is of Austrian-Jewish descent, whose father made a movie about corruption on the waterfront that did include manufactured women's coats, but whose business was devastated corrupt union officials, based on articles by Malcolm Johnson. by the Depression, seeding his son's disillusionment with the He asked Miller to write the script, but Miller declined due to his American Dream and those blue-sky-seeking Americans who disenchantment with Kazan's friendly testimony before the pursued it with both eyes focused on the Grail of Materialism. House Un-American Activities Committee. Budd Schulberg, a Due to his father's strained financial circumstances, Miller had to fellow HUAC informer, developed the story and wrote the script. work for tuition money to attend the University of Michigan. It The movie was produced by Sam Spiegel and distributed through was at Michigan that he wrote his first plays. They were Columbia. On the Waterfront (1954), which won eight Oscars, successes, earning him numerous student awards, including the including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, is Avery Hopwood Award in Drama for No Villain in 1937. In considered a classic and was one of the first films named to the 1938, upon graduating from Michigan, he received a Theatre National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry in Guild National Award and returned to New York, joining the 1989. Disenchanted with Kazan over his testimony before the Federal Theatre Project. In 1944, he made his Broadway debut House Un-American Activities Committee, the two parted with The Man Who Had All the Luck, a flop that lasted only four company when Kazan refused to direct The Crucible, Miller's performances. He then went on to publish two books, Situation parable of the witch hunts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Directed by Normal in and Focus, but it was in 1947 that his star became another Broadway legend, Jed Harris, the play won Miller the ascendant. His play All My Sons, directed by Elia Kazan, became 1953 Tony Award for Best Play. In 1956 that Miller made a hit on Broadway, running for 328 performances. Both Miller perhaps his most fateful personal decision, when married movie and Kazan received , and Miller won the New York siren-cum-legend . With this marriage Miller Drama Critics Circle Award. It was a taste of what was to come. achieved a different type of fame, a pop culture status he Staged by Kazan, Death of a Salesman opened at the Morosco abhorred. It was a marriage doomed to fail, as Monroe was, in Theatre and ran for 742 performances. The play was the Miller's words, "highly self-destructive." Ever the bleak realist, sensation of the season, winning six Tony Awards, including in his autobiography Miller wrote that a marriage was a Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—3 conspiracy to keep out the light. When one or more of the he worked as music director for the Latvian State Theatre, before partners could no longer prevent the light from coming in and returning to the U.S. in 1935 to perfect his craft under Aaron illuminating the other's faults, the marriage was doomed. In his Copland. At the same time, he produced his first compositions, own autobiography, A Life, Kazan said that he could not chamber music and dance scores for Martha Graham and Agnes understand the marriage. Monroe, who had slept with Kazan on a de Mille. After a spell in Mexico as conductor/composer, he casual basis, as she did with many other Hollywood players, was served as a captain with the U.S. Army, in charge of 'self- the type of woman someone took as a mistress, not as a wife. entertainment programs' for hospitalized psychiatric patients. He Miller, however, was a man of principle. He was in love. “[A]ll also did his first film work, scoring documentaries for the Office my energy and attention were devoted to trying to help her solve of War Information. Profoundly influenced by, Duke Ellington, her problems,” Miller confessed to a French newspaper in 1992. North began to write several innovative compositions in jazz. His "Unfortunately, I didn't have much success." The marriage “Revue for Clarinet and Orchestra” was originally commissioned collapsed during the filming of The Misfits (1961), with John by Benny Goodman and first performed in 1946 under the Huston shooting the original script Miller had written expressly direction of Goodman and Leonard Bernstein with the New York for his wife. Basing the script on his stay in Reno while waiting Philharmonic Orchestra. Joining ASCAP in 1947, North went on for his first divorce, Miller met a group of cowboys who inspired to compose theatrical scores, including “Death of a Salesman” the short story “The Misfits”, which he later adapted as a vehicle for Elia Kazan, which opened the door to Hollywood. North’s for his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. However, Monroe hated work on A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) was the first all-jazz her character Roslyn, claiming score ever written for a motion that Miller had made her out to picture. His next assignment was be the dumb blond stereotype the film version of Death of a she so loathed and had been Salesman (1951), followed by trying to escape. Withering in Viva Zapata! (1952), for which her criticism of Miller, and he used traditional instruments, ultimately unfaithful to him, including marimbas and she and Miller separated. The timbales. Much of his film’s shoot was strained as subsequent work was Monroe was convinced Miller characterized by sparse was poisoning Huston against instrumentation, for example, her, and both partners took on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? other lovers (Miller notoriously (1966) and the Oscar-nominated started seeing the film’s Under the Volcano (1984). He photographer, Inge Morath, in used jazz again, evocatively, to front of Monroe). The marriage score The Long, Hot Summer was over. Miller would later reunite with Kazan to launch the (1958) and The Sound and the Fury (1959), but was rather less new Lincoln Center Repertory Theater, with the play After the successful on more conventional themes, such as The Misfits Fall, a fictionalization of his relationship with Monroe. The play (1961). One of his most beautiful and lyrical works was the love won 1964 Tony Awards for Jason Robards and Kazan's future theme from Spartacus (1960). For the small screen, he composed wife Barbara Loden, playing the Miller and Monroe stand-ins, the music for the two instalments of the popular miniseries Rich Quentin and Maggie. Miller never again achieved success on Man, Poor Man (1976). North was Oscar-nominated fifteen Broadway with an original play. In the 1980s, when he was times but only received the coveted statuette as a Lifetime hailed as the greatest living American playwright after the death Achievement Award in 1986. of Tennessee Williams, he even had trouble getting full-scale revivals of his work staged. One of his more significant later Russell Metty (b. September 20, 1906 in , works, "The American Clock", based on Studs Terkel's oral California—d. April 28, 1978, age 71, in Canoga Park, history of the Great Depression Hard Times, ran for only 11 California) was a superb craftsman who worked with such top previews and 12 performances in late 1980 at the Biltmore directors as John Huston, , Steven Spielberg and Theatre. In the ‘90s Miller’s daughter Rebecca, who is married to . Entering the movie industry as a lab assistant, he Daniel Day-Lewis, starred in the film version of her father’s apprenticed as an assistant cameraman and graduated to lighting play, The Crucible (1996). Never without female company, at the cameraman at RKO Radio Pictures in 1935. Metty's ability to time of his deather, Miller was living with his girlfriend Agnes create effects with black-and-white contrast while shooting Barley, who was approximately 50 years his junior. Miller died twilight and night were on display in two films he shot for on the 56th anniversary of the opening night of his greatest Welles, The Stranger (1946) and (1958), the latter success Death of a Salesman. showing his mastery of complex crane shots. At Universal in the he enjoyed a productive collaboration with director Alex North (b. December 4, 1910 in Chester, Pennsylvania—d. on ten films from 1953-59, including Sirk's September 8, 1991, age 80, in Los Angeles, California) studied masterpieces Magnificent Obsession (1954) and the 1959 remake music at the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia, before winning a of Imitation of Life. However, it was Metty’s collaboration with scholarship to Juilliard in New York in 1929 and then Moscow Kubrick on Spartacus (1960) proved troublesome. Metty was Conservatoire in 1933, making him the first-ever American to actually chosen by the film’s original director, Anthony Mann, become a member of the Union of Soviet Composers. In Europe, who was unceremoniously fired by the film’s star, Kirk Douglas. Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—4

Douglas then brought in Kubrick, a union cinematographer by 1939. While Gable acted on stage, he became a lifelong friend himself who had been an accomplished professional of Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests, in 1930 photographer, who tended to exerted control over the look of his Gable finally signed to MGM. He had a small part in The films. Kubrick gave far less leeway to his directors of Painted Desert (1931). Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in photography than did traditional directors, even directors such as Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him Welles and noted bizarre-camera-angle freak Sidney J. Furie manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931). His [The Appaloosa (1966)], men who were extraordinarily active unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust partners in crafting the look of their films. Metty and Kubrick (1932) made him MGM's most important star and his acting also clashed on title, as it was Kurbrick, with his extraordinary career then flourished. At one point, he refused an assignment, sense of light and effect—who considered himself to be the and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) director of photography on the film. Ironically, Spartacus won low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in 's It Metty his sole Academy Award for color cinematography. Metty Happened One Night (1934), which won him an Academy continued to work on top productions into the 1970s, including Award. The next year saw a starring role for Gable in Call of the The Misfits (1961), (1962), Thoroughly Wild (1935) with Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair Modern Millie (1967), Madigan (1968), and The Omega Man (resulting in the birth of a daughter, Judy Lewis). He returned to (1971). He also worked extensively on television, including far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Columbo (1971) and The Waltons (1971). Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and perhaps his most famous role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939). Then came his marriage to Carole Lombard. The couple, each with a lusty sense of humor, quickly became a Hollywood legend. Shortly after World War II broke out, the actress went on a bond selling tour and on her return home was killed in a plane crash. A few months after, Gable enlisted in the Army as a private at the age of 41. He later entered the Army Officer's candidate school at Miami Beach. He emerged from the school a second lieutenant in 1942 and won his wings as an aerial gunner. He later went overseas and was awarded the Air Force Air Medal for “exceptionally meritorious achievement” in five combat missions. He returned to the United States in late 1943 to assemble a film subject for the Air Force. In the latter part of 1944, Gable resume civilian life. The actor struggled for the next decade as the studio deemed his salary too high and refused to re- sign him. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office. In 1949 the actor married Douglas Fairbanks' widow, Lady Sylvia Ashley. She divorced him in 1952. Finally, he was cast in what was to be his last film, The Misfits. According to Clark Gable (b. February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio—d. November lore, Monroe wasn't the only production member who had 16, 1960, age 59, in Los Angeles, California) made females trouble showing up on time. Huston was often late after spending swoon in the days before anyone ever heard of bobby-soxers. He all night gambling. Clark Gable took it all in stride. He was ready once said he had received 5,000 marriage proposals in the mail. when called and simply waited with his script open to the page Young Gable took his first job in a rubber factory in Dayton being shot that day. When someone asked if the lateness upset when he was only 15 and while working there saw his first play. him, he said, “No, it doesn't drive me mad. Of course it would be He was immediately stagestruck. He gave up his night course in better if we did start. But I'm being paid for it, very handsomely.” medicine at the University of Akron and got a job as a callboy in However, to his personal friends, Gable confessed that the the theater at no salary. He slept in the wings and ate with the production delays bothered him a great deal. “It's stealing,” he money the actors tipped him. He was doing walk-on parts when told screenwriter John Lee Mahin. “It’s stealing the banks money he was called home because his stepmother was dying. After her and United Artists’ money.” While the other actors in The Misfits death, Gable and his father went to the Oklahoma oil fields to competed to win director Huston's approval, Gable saw him work. Gable left the oil fields after two years of toil there and more as a rival. Both were known for their masculine took a job with a stock company theater which folded in Butte, escapades—drinking, hunting, womanizing. Yet, the older Gable Mont., on a subzero night in 1922. The young actor grabbed a was at times baffled and annoyed at the director’s carousing freight train for Oregon and went to work there in a lumber during filming, particularly his habit of losing large sums of camp. He later sold neckties in a department store and for a while money at the gambling tables and bragging about it. The Misfits was a telephone lineman in Portland. It was while he was completed filming on November 4, 1960, with a brief re-take of repairing telephone wire at the Little Theater of Portland that he the film’s final scene with Gable and Monroe. The next day met Josephine Dillon, who hired him and later helped him join Gable had a heart attack. Eleven days later, he died. Although the Forest Taylor stock company. Gable married Dillion, who many felt the physical strain of his role in The Misfits was was fifteen years his senior, and acquired acting "polish" that responsible, Gable's heavy smoking, drinking and grief over the soon shot him to stardom. The couple divorced on in 1930, and recent death of his friend Ward Bond probably contributed to his Gable later married in 1931, only to find himself divorced again early passing as well. Gable was known in Hollywood circles as Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—5 a “loner”; despite his brash movie roles and rugged, he-man Century-Fox would be the better choice for her, since it was the appearance, the mustachioed actor was a bashful man who was bigger and more prestigious studio. Despite her reputation as a nervous in crowds. Even so, Gable was known as the epitome of “ditzy blonde”, Monroe owned 200 books (including Tolstoy, masculinity with his unmatched charm and knowing smile. He Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting was named the seventh greatest male star of classic American at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at cinema by the American Film Institute. UCLA. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B-movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948). Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in (1950), resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar. It was also the same year she began dating the baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Monroe was now a genuine box-office drawing card. Later, she appeared with Betty Grable, and Rory Calhoun in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Although her co- stars got the rave reviews, it was the sight of Monroe that really excited the audience, especially the male members. That same year, Monroe wed DiMaggio and proceeded to film There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). This was quickly followed by The Seven Year Itch (1955), which showcased her considerable comedic talent and contained what is arguably one of the most memorable moments in cinema history: Monroe standing above a subway grating and the wind from a passing subway blowing her white dress up (it is rumored that DiMaggio, who was there for the shoot, was not amused by the cheering onlookers and the famed shot led to the demise of their marriage). In 1955, Fox suspended her for not reporting for work on How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955). It was her second suspension, the first being for not reporting for the production of The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955). Both roles went to others. Due to her habit of being continually late to the set, her Marilyn Monroe (b. June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, California— illnesses (whether real or imagined) and generally being d. August 5, 1962, age 36, in Los Angeles, California) was born unwilling to cooperate with her producers, directors, and fellow Norma Jeane Mortenson to Gladys Pearl Baker, a film-cutter at actors her roles began to slow down. However, in Bus Stop Consolidated Film Industries. Monroe's father's identity was (1956), Monore finally showed critics that she could play a never known. Because Gladys was mentally and financially straight dramatic role. It was also the same year she married unable to care for young Marilyn, she placed her in the care of a playwright, Arthur Miller. In 1957, Marilyn flew to Britain to foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family film The Prince and the Showgirl, which proved less than wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize impressive critically and financially. It made money, but many her lifestyle and took the 7-year old Monroe back in her care. critics panned it for being slow-moving. After a year off in 1958, However, shortly after regaining custody, Gladys had a complete Monroe returned to the screen the next year for the delightful mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid comedy, (1959) with Tony Curtis and Jack schizophrenic and was later committed to a state mental hospital. Lemmon. The film was an absolute smash hit, though behind the She spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and scenes tales paint a much more frustrating picture, especially never again had contact with Marilyn. Her mother’s best friend tensions between Curtis and Monroe over her flubbing lines and Grace Goddard then placed Monroe into the Los Angeles continual tardiness. In 1960, Monroe appeared in 's Orphan’s Home in 1935. Monroe was traumatized by her Let's Make Love (1960), with Tony Randall and Yves Montand. experience there despite the Orphan's Home. Goddard eventually Again, while it made money, it was critically panned as stodgy. took the child back to live with her in 1937, although this stay The following year, Monroe made what was to be her final film. did not last long as Goddard’s husband began molesting Marilyn. The Misfits (1961), which also proved to be the final film for the After a series of foster placements, the 16-year old faced with legendary Clark Gable, who died later that year of a heart attack. two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. She decided The film was popular with critics and the public alike. In 1962, to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he Marilyn was chosen to star in Fox's Something's Got to Give went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. By (1962). Again, her absenteeism caused delay after delay in this time, Monroe began to model swimsuits and bleached her production, resulting in her being fired from the production in hair blonde. Various shots made their way into the public eye, June of that year. It looked as though her career was finished. where RKO Pictures head Howard Hughes eventually saw them. Studios just didn't want to take a chance on her as would cost He offered Monroe a screen test, but an agent suggested that 20th them thousands of dollars in delays. Later that year, she was Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—6 discovered dead at her home with a phone in one of her hands, perhaps tragic—men ever to appear in film. Born minutes after her body was completely nude and face down, on her bed. An his twin sister Roberta, he was quickly nicknamed “Monty”, a investigation concluded that the actress committed suicide or name he would keep his whole life. At age 13, Monty appeared accidentally overdosed, and was not murdered—rumors that on Broadway and chose to remain in the New York Theater for were fueled by the sloppy handling of evidence, the delay in over ten years before finally heading out West to Hollywood. He securing the scene and the disappearance of tissue samples. This gained excellent theatrical notices and soon piqued the interests was just two and a half months after she’d performed her famous of numerous lovelorn actresses, though Clift’s struggle with his “Happy Birthday Mr. President” for John F. Kennedy at Madison sexuality usually left them unsatisfied. While working in New Square Garden. She was only 36 years old. In tonight’s film, York in the early 1940s, he met wealthy former Broadway star Monroe's marriage to Arthur Miller fell apart, partly because of Libby Holman. She developed an intense decade-plus obsession disagreements over the script and her feelings of betrayal over over the young actor, even financing an experimental play, how he had written her character. She also felt he had turned Mexican Mural, for him. His relationship with the bisexual Huston against her, leading him to treat her like an idiot. Within middle-aged Holman would be the principal (and likely the last) a few weeks of the production's start, they were staying in heterosexual relationship of his life and only caused him further separate suites. They had stopped speaking by August, with anguish over his sexuality. She would wield considerable Monroe's acting coach, Paula influence over the early part of his film Strasberg, serving as intercessor. career, advising him in decisions to In addition, Miller had begun decline lead roles in Sunset Boulevard seeing photographer Inge (1950), (originally written specifically Morath, who was documenting for him; the story perhaps hitting a little the production and would too close to home) and High Noon become his third wife. As (1952). His long apprenticeship on stage shooting progressed, Monroe made him a thoroughly accomplished became increasingly dependent actor, notable for the intensity with upon pills. She had prescriptions which he researched and approached his flown in every other day by her roles. By the early 1950s he was Los Angeles doctors and exclusively homosexual, though he received additional medication continued to hide this and maintained a from local doctors. She was number of close friendships with theater taking three times the normal women (heavily promoted by studio dosage of the sleeping aid publicists). His film debut was Red Nembutal. The pills left her disoriented, unsteady on her feet and River (1948) with John Wayne quickly followed by his early incoherent. They also led to wild mood swings and rashes. personal success The Search (1948) He received Oscar Additionally, Monroe was terrified at the thought of working nominations for this, A Place in the Sun (1951), From Here to with Clark Gable. As a child growing up in foster homes and Eternity (1953) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). However, with her single mother, she had slept with Gable's picture under by 1950, troubled with allergies and colitis and, along with pill her pillow and fantasized that he was her father. The night before problems, he was becoming a full-blown alcoholic. In 1956, their first scene together, she couldn't sleep without a large dose during filming of Raintree County (1957), he ran his Chevrolet of Nembutal. As a result, she was two hours late getting to the into a tree after leaving a party at Elizabeth Taylor's; it was she set. When she apologized to Gable, he simply said, “You're not who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth lodged in late, honey,” and led her aside to talk. Throughout the filming, he his throat. His smashed face was rebuilt, but he continued treated her with the same courtesy. One of the most difficult bedeviled by dependency on drugs and his unrelenting guilt over scenes in The Misfits was a five minute exchange between his homosexuality. Though he appeared in only 17 films during Monroe and Clift that Huston wanted to shoot in one long take - his short but illustrious career, Clift left an indelible impression the longest single take in his entire career. Nobody believed the on cinema as one of its pioneers of Method acting—also known two actors, notorious for their problems remembering lines, as that thing Jared Leto ruined for everyone—inspiring a could pull it off. Monroe requested that all strangers be removed generation of actors including James Dean and Marlon Brando. from the set beforehand and asked that nobody stand in her line In tonight’s film, as Monroe had been for him, Gable was equally of sight. Each actor was so concerned for the other, that they solicitous of Montgomery Clift and so impressed with his talents pulled it off in just six tries, giving Huston two perfect takes. that he showed up to watch him work even when he himself Against the odds, Monroe gives an extraordinary performance. wasn’t called for the day. Also like Monroe, Clift had a problem It's one that at times seems artificial, but what she does convey in with medication having become dependent upon painkillers after uncanny and febrile fashion is her character's power of empathy, his automobile accident. Many on the film were concerned about whether it is her sympathy for the cowboys (Clark Gable and his ability to perform the role, particularly since the first scene he Montgomery Clift) out of kilter with a modern, wages-based was scheduled to shoot was a long telephone scene in which he world, or for the wild mustangs they plan to kill. calls his mother on a pay phone as the other characters—played by Monroe, Gable, Wallach and Thelma Ritter—watch in the Montgomery Clift (b. Edward Montgomery Clift on October 17, background. Clift described the shot as an “audition in front of 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska—d. July 23, 1966, age 45, in New the gods and goddesses of the performing arts,” but he pulled it York City, New York) was one of the most beautiful—and off in one take. That was the moment that won Gable over to his Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—7 side. While he continued to find sporadic work after The Misfits, with two more nominations for Pillow Talk (1959) and Birdman on July 23, 1966 his body was found lying nude on top of his of Alcatraz (1962). Six nominations for Best Supporting Actress bed, dead from a heart attack. Clift's last 10 years prior to his and no wins brought out Ritter's considerable sense of humor. death from his 1956 car accident was called the "longest suicide She threw “Come Over and Watch Me Lose Again” parties on in history" by famed acting teacher, Robert Lewis. Oscar night. In 1953 Paramount borrowed Ritter from 20th Century Fox to appear in 's (1954) in a part that was adapted especially for her. Based on Cornell Woolrich's story It Had to be Murder, Ritter's part was originally that of an African-American houseman named Sam, but became physical therapist Stella. Ritter was billed fourth under , Grace Kelly and Wendell Corey, but she received the highest salary, $25,694. Of working with Hitchcock, a director well-known for his remark that “actors should be treated like cattle”, Ritter said, “You knew whether you were OK or not. If he liked what you did he said nothing. If he didn't he looked as though he was going to throw up.” As with all of her costars, Ritter found working on The Misfits physically challenging. Not only was the heat of the desert unbearable, but Ritter had to be hospitalized for exhaustion. Still, she forged on. Her final films include Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), How the Thelma Ritter (b. February 14, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York— West Was Won (1962), Move Over, Darling (1963), and Boeing, d. February 5, 1969, age 66, in New York, New York) was the Boeing (1965). greatest character actress in Hollywood from the 1940s through the . What made Ritter stand out was an utter sense of Eli Wallach (b. Born: December 7, 1915 in Red Hook, realism that she brought to her parts and a completely unique Brooklyn, New York—d. June 24, 2014, age 98, in Manhattan, voice that was gravelly one moment and heart-breaking the next. New York) was, like Clift (and arguably Monroe), one of the As with so many character actors, the face is familiar even if the most well-known Method actors who remained in demand for name is not. Characters actors during the Golden Age of over sixty years. After failing the New York teachers' exam, Hollywood often appeared in scores of films without much Wallach won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse and recognition. It is a tribute to Ritter's talent that she made only spent two years there. Among his classmates were , thirty films and received Oscar nominations for six of them. As a Lorne Greene, and Tony Randall. Wallach made his screen debut child, she would perform monologues such as “Mr. Brown Gets in 1956 in the film version of the Tennessee Williams play Baby His Hair Cut” at Public School 77 in Brooklyn. By age 11 she Doll (1956), followed Don Siegel's film-noir The Lineup (1958). was playing Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream with a semi- Director John Sturges then cast Wallach as vicious Mexican professional theatrical troupe, and often did readings at different bandit Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), the venues in Brooklyn. However, her career was not a fast rise to adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa epic Seven Samurai (1954). By fame and fortune. She appeared on Broadway in The Shelf in the all reports, Wallach could not ride a horse prior to making the fall of 1926 and In Times Square for a brief run in November film, but quickly learned from the on-set Mexican stunt riders. 1931, but also appeared in Vaudeville and small-time theater. His Western roles continued as he appeared in the superb The Ritter made her screen debut in 1947 when director George Misfits (1961) and in the star-spangled western opus How the Seaton, who was an old family friend, came to New York to film West Was Won (1962). He also starred in the underrated WWII and asked her to play a small role of a film The Victors (1963), The Moon-Spinners (1964), in the sea shopper trying to find a toy for her son. “It isn't much of a part, epic Lord Jim (1965) and in the romantic comedy How to Steal a but it'll be fun and maybe you'll bring me luck.” Her role didn’t Million (1966). Looking for a third lead actor in the final episode rate billing in the film but it brought her to the attention of 20th of the “Dollars Trilogy”, Sergio Leone cast the versatile Wallach Century-Fox chief Darryl Zanuck who placed her under contract. as the lying, two-faced, money-hungry (but somehow lovable) For her next film (1949) she also didn’t bandit “Tuco” in the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), receive a screen credit but she made an impact on the film’s arguably his most memorable performance. Wallach kept busy director, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who was preparing All About throughout the remainder of the ‘60s and into the ‘70s with roles Eve (1950). Impressed with her performance, Mankiewicz was in Mackenna's Gold (1969), Cinderella Liberty (1973), Crazy determined to give her a juicy part that would allow her talents to Joe (1974), The Deep (1977) and well as Steve McQueen's bail shine. He settled on that of Bette Davis’ wise-cracking maid, buddy in The Hunter (1980). In the 1980s, Wallach was regularly Birdie. The film made her as close to a star as was possible for a cast as an aging doctor, a Mafia figure or an over-the-hill hitman, character actress. As she would in most of her films, Ritter was a such as in The Executioner's Song (1982), Our Family Honor scene-stealer even up against the biggest stars and reviews for the (1985), Tough Guys (1986), Nuts (1987), The Two Jakes (1990) film were unanimous in their praise for her. Ritter was nominated and as the candy-addicted "Don Altabello" in The Godfather: for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for All About Part III (1990). Additionally, Wallach is one of three actors to Eve, but did not win. Then, she was nominated each year play the character of Mr. Freeze on the TV series Batman (1966). between 1950 and 1953: The Mating Season (1951), With a (The other two were and Otto Preminger.) He Song in My Heart (1952), and Pickup on South Street (1953), Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—8 once said that he has received more fan mail for that role than for (with a permanently flattened nose) while studying at the Art any other role he has ever done. Students League in Los Angeles. He was also “infatuated” with the cinema, though as yet only as a spectator. “Charlie Chaplin was a god, and William S. Hart. I remember the enormous impact the UFA films had on me, those of Emil Jannings and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I saw this many times.” had moved over from vaudeville to the legitimate theatre, and in 1924 achieved fame on Broadway with the lead in O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms. Watching his father’s rehearsals, Huston was deeply impressed by O’Neill’s work and fascinated by the mechanism of acting: “What I learned there, during those weeks of rehearsal, would serve me for the rest of my life.” He himself acted briefly with the Provincetown Players in 1924. The following year, recovering from a mastoid operation, he took a long vacation in Mexico, where among other adventures he rode as an honorary member of the Mexican cavalry. On his return, Huston married a friend from high school, Dorothy Harvey. The marriage lasted barely a year. He had begun to write short stories, one of which was From World Film Directors, Vol I. Edited by John Wakeman. published by H.L. Mencken in the American Mercury. Further H. W. Wilson Co., NY, 1987, entry by Philip Kemp pieces, clearly influence by Hemingway, appeared in Esquire, John (Marcellus) Huston, American director, scenarist, , and other journals He also wrote Frankie actor, and producer, was born in the town of Nevada, Missouri, and Johnny, “ a puppet play with music (the music being by Sam where the Water and Power Company—or, according to some Jaffe). This was produced in Greenwich Village by Ruth Squires accounts, the entire town—had been won by his maternal and published in book form. Through his mother, Huston was grandfather, John Gore, in a poker game. Huston’s father, given a job on the New York Graphic. “I had no talent as a Walter, was at that time a small-time actor whose itinerant troupe journalist whatever and I was fired oftener than any reporter ever had just gone bust in Arizona; John Gore therefore installed him has been within such a limited time. There was a kind-hearted as head of Nevada’s public utilities. Totally without engineering city editor who kept hiring me back.” When even that man’s training, he proved spectacularly unsuited for this post, and when patience ran out, Huston headed for Hollywood, where his father a fire broke out he mishandled a valve, cutting off the water had moved with the coming of talkies. supply. Half of Nevada burned to the ground, and Walter, with Huston was hired as a scenarist by Goldwyn Studios, his wife and infant son John, went back on the road. spent six months there with no assignments, and then moved to Huston’s parents’ marriage—contracted at the St. Louis his father’s studio, Universal, where he collaborated on four World’s Fair was never a great success, and in 1909 they scripts, two of them for films starring his father: A House separated, divorcing four years later. Huston spent his boyhood Divided and Law and Order. His colleagues had no doubt of his shuttling between them, spending most of the time with his talent, but one of them described him at this time as “just a mother, who became a journalist under her own name of Rhea drunken boy, hopelessly immature.” After a lethal automobile Gore. With her he traveled the Midwest, picking up her taste for accident in which he was the driver, he “wanted nothing so much literature, horses, plush hotels, and gambling. He remained as to get away” and left Universal for a job at Gaumont-British in somewhat in awe of her, though, feeling that she despised him as London. Unhappy there, he quit again and lived rough for a a romantic fantasist. “Nothing I ever did pleased my mother,” he while, before bumming his way to Paris and eventually back to later remarked. New York. After a brief stint as a journalist there and a few He was far more at ease with his father, who when not months with the WPA Theatre in , he returned to acting in New York would take him on the vaudeville circuit, Hollywood in 1937 and went to work as a writer for Warner staying in hotels that were anything but plush. Huston thoroughly Brothers. relished the contrast, and was enthralled by the theatrical low-life Newly married to Leslie Black, Huston now seemed he encountered. But at twelve he was found to be suffering from ready to settle to a serious career as a screenwriter. His first Bright’s disease and an “enlarged heart.” The boy was placed in credit was for William Wyler’s Jezebel (1937); this was followed a sanatorium in Phoenix, Arizona, and told he must henceforth by The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), and two of Warner’s live as a cautious invalid. Rebelling, he took up secret midnight prestigious biopics, Juarez (1939) and Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic swimming in a nearby river. After some months, this pastime Bullet (1940). Dr. Ehrlich won Huston an Academy Award was discovered, and it was decided that he must have made a nomination. As did his next script, for Howard Hawks’ Sergeant fortunate recovery. York (1941). He was now successful enough to persuade the His mother, who had remarried, moved to Los Angeles, studio that, if his next script was a hit, he should be allowed a where Huston attended Lincoln High School. As if making up for chance to direct. “They indulged me rather. They liked my work list time, he plunged into a multitude of interests: abstract as a writer and they wanted to keep me on. If I wanted to direct, painting, ballet, English and French literature, opera, horseback why, they’d give me a shot at it, and if it didn’t come off all that riding, and boxing. At fifteen he dropped out of high school, well, they wouldn’t be too disappointed as it was to be a very becoming one of the state’s top-ranking amateur lightweights small picture.” Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—9

Huston’s next script was for High Sierra (1941). His last film for the army was Let There Be Light Directed by Raoul Walsh, it gave Humphrey Bogart, as a (1945), on the rehabilitation of soldiers suffering from combat gunman on the run, his breakthrough to stardom, and provided neuroses. The overtly optimistic message was constantly Huston with the hit he wanted. Warners kept their word and undercut by the compassionate objectivity of the filming, which offered him his choice of subject. He chose Dashiell Hammett’s for Huston was “practically a religious experience.” The War thriller, The Maltese Falcon, which had already been adapted Department shelved the picture, but it was finally given general twice by Warners, both times badly. Wisely, Huston stuck release in 1980. Noting “its voice-over narration [provided by closely to the original, taking Walter Huston], its use of wipes over much of Hammett’s and dissolves, and its full- dialogue unchanged, and orchestra soundtrack music,” filming with a clean, Vincent Canby called it “an uncluttered style that provided amazingly elegant movie.” a cinematic equivalent to the Discharged from the Army in novel’s fast, laconic narrative. 1945, Huston returned to He also benefited from a Hollywood, where he was superb cast. George Raft was divorced from his second wife. offered the role of the private After a brief, spectacular affair eye Sam Spade but turned it with Olivia de Havilland, he down (as he had previously married the actress Evelyn Keyes with the lead in High Sierra). in 1946…. Bogart, who liked Huston, At this period Huston had a was happy to take over, reputation—which he did little to supported by Mary Astor, discourage—as one of the wild Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet (in his first film role), Elisha men of Hollywood. Along with such friends as Bogart and Cook, Jr. and—in a walk-on part “for luck”—Walter Huston. William Wyler, he indulged in frequent and well-publicized The Maltese Falcon (1941) was made on a small, B- bouts of drinking, gambling, and general horseplay. …Jack picture budget, and put out by Warners with minimal publicity. Warner, though autocratic, was ready to tolerate a lot in return They were taken aback by the enthusiastic response of public and for talent and box-office success. He even let himself be critics. The latter immediately hailed the film as a classic, and it persuaded-though with considerable misgivings—to allow has since been claimed as the best detective melodrama ever Huston to shoot his next film almost entirely on location, and in made. “It is hard to say,” wrote Harold Barnes in the Herald Mexico. At the time, this was a radical move. Tribune, “whether Huston the adapter or Huston the fledgling The results justified it. The Treasure of the Sierra director, is more responsible for this triumph.” Already, in his Madre (1948) is generally agreed to be one of Huston’s finest directorial debut, many of Huston’s characteristic preoccupations films. …Treasure has often been cited as the archetypal Huston appear. The plot is a web of deceptive appearances; characters movie, though the director himself denies the presence of any and even objects (including the coveted falcon itself) are authorial unity in his films.” I fail to see any continuity in my duplicitous and untrustworthy, and the hero himself is not what work from picture to picture—what’s remarkable is how he seems. Spade, outwardly a cynical opportunist, proves to be different the pictures are, one from another. In fact, though driven by a scrupulous personal code. “When a man’s partner is Huston’s cinematic style varies according to the nature of his killed,” he says, turning the woman he wants over to justice,” subject matter, clear thematic preoccupations can be seen to recur he’s supposed to do something about it.” throughout his work. The classic “Huston movie” concerns a …A few days before shooting was complete on Across quest, often a parody of one of society’s sanctioned forms of the Pacific, Huston received his army induction endeavor—the pursuit of wealth, power, religious knowledge, papers….Appositely, his first assignment as a documentary imperial sovereignty—which is destined, after initial success, to filmmaker for the Signal Corps was across the Pacific—in the end in failure and futility. (This kind of denouement became Aleutian islands off Alaska. The resulting film, Report From the known in the trade as “the Huston ending.”)… Aleutians (1943) was described in the Ne York Times as “one of The art, technique, and moral implications of The the war’s outstanding records of what our men are doing. It is Treasure of the Sierra Madre (as of The Maltese Falcon) have furthermore an honest record.” Promoted to captain, Huston was since been discussed in great detail by many critics. …Warners sent to Italy to make The Battle of San Pietro (1944) regarded as were less circumspect over Huston’s next film, his fourth with one of the finest combat documentaries ever filmed. “No war Bogart. Key Largo (1948) was adapted from a prewar play by film I have seen,” wrote James Agee in The Nation, “has been Maxwell Anderson, originally written in blank verse. Huston and quite so attentive to the heaviness of casualties, and to the his co-scriptwriter Richard Brooks, junked the verse and updated number of yards gained or lost, in such an action.”…Huston’s the plot….To Huston’s annoyance, the studio cut several scenes ironic realism disconcerted the War Department. One general from the final release. Not long before this, Huston had been accused him of having made “a film against war,” eliciting the refused permission, under the terms of his contract, to direct a response: “Well, sir, when I make a picture that’s for war—why I play by his idol Eugene O’Neill for the Broadway stage, Angered hope you take me out and shoot me.” Despite this, he was by these incidents, Huston left Warners when his contract promoted to major and awarded the Legion of Merit. expired. Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—10

Together with Sam Spiegel and Jules Buck, Huston After two financially unsuccessful picture [Beat the founded Horizon Films. The new company’s first feature was a Devil and Moby Dick]…deep in debt…he accepted a three- courageous failure. Huston had been among the strongest picture contract with 20th Century-Fox…Heaven Knows, Mr opponents of HUAC and the Hollywood blacklist, and when Allison (1957), teaming Robert Mitchum and as a John Garfield came under pressure, Huston offered him the lead marine and a nun stranded on a Japanese-held island during on We Were Strangers (1949) as a deliberate gesture of World War II, struck many reviewers as an attempt to repeat The defiance—the more so since the prophetic plot concerned a African Queen. Huston coscripted, and enjoyed working with revolution in Cuba against a corrupt dictatorship. It was attacked Mitchum, whom he considers “one of the really fine actors of my on release by both left and right. It was also a box-office disaster, time.” and Huston admitted that “it didn’t turn out to be a very good …A retrospective atmosphere of doom hangs over the picture.” Needing funds, he signed a short-term contract with Misfits (1961). Clark Gable died shortly after shooting was MGM. finished. Marilyn Monroe never completed another film. Having refused Quo Vadis—despite an amazing episode Montgomery Clift and Thelma Ritter were dead within a few when Louis B. Mayer (according to Huston) “crawled across the years. While the film was being made, the marriage between floor and took my hands and kissed them” in order to persuade Monroe and Arthur Miller (who had written the script) broke up, him to reconsider—Huston took on a far more congenial subject virtually on set. The story, about down-and-out modern cowboys in The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Based on a novel by W.R. Burnett who round up wild horses to be made into dog food, carries (author of Little Caesar and High Sierra), this was the progenitor strong allegorical overtones as a metaphor for the trashing of the of a long cycle of “caper movies,” in which a crime (here a American dream of innocence and freedom, the closing of the million-dollar jewel theft) is successfully frontier. Despite problems with Monroe, who carried out by sympathetically depicted by this stage in her career was in a desperate criminals, only to fail through subsequent condition, Huston was pleased with the finished ill-chance or internal dissension. Huston picture. “I had obtained the qualities I wanted.” was breaking new ground in presenting Critical and public reception was lukewarm, but crime as an occupation like any other, “a the film’s reputation has grown steadily ever left-handed form of human endeavor” since. carried out by ordinary people motivated not by the megalomanic will to power of Huston had conceived the idea of making a film the 1930s movie gangsters, but simply by about Freud while working on Let There Be the desire to feed their families or realize Light. He now invited Jean-Paul Sartre to some small private ambition….That same prepare a script. Sartre did so—four hundred year, 1950, Huston was amicably pages of it. Huston tactfully suggested that cuts divorced from Evelyn Keyes; one day might be necessary, and he and Sartre went over later he married Enrica Soma. In August, the script together. Sartre returned to Paris, and while Asphalt Jungle was still filming, his in due course submitted his revised script—of father died of a heart attack. Huston’s six hundred pages. With the help of Charles second picture for MGM was…The Red Kaufman, who had coscripted Let There Be Badge of Courage (1951), taken from Light, the scenario was pruned to a manageable Stephen Crane’s novel of the Civil hundred and fifty pages, although Sartre War….Huston left for Africa to make a film for Sam Spiegel, his disowned it. partner in Horizon Films. Freud: The Secret Passion (1962) is not a conventional The script of The African Queen (1951) was taken from biopic, but rather an intellectual detective story, in which Freud C.S. Forester’s novel and written by Huston in collaboration with is shown tracking down, in himself as much as in others, the his greatest critical supporter, James Agee….Filming, on location psychosexual source of the guilt which torments them….By way in the Congo and Uganda, took place under appalling conditions: of relaxation, Huston turned to a spoof murder mystery, The List not only extreme heat and humidity, but dysentery, malaria, of Adrian Messenger (1963), in which the villain, played by Kirk mosquitoes, crocodiles and safari ants beset actors and crew. Douglas, appears in numerous elaborate disguises. As an Everybody became ill except Bogart, Lauren Bacall (who came additional gimmick, the film features various guest stars, also to keep Bogart company) and Huston, who all ascribed their heavily disguised. Response was mainly puzzled…. immunity to copious quantities of Scotch….The film was a huge “The Huston ending” wherein all human activities popular success, and won Bogart the only Oscar of his career. culminate in ironic futility and disaster was notably absent from Through some financial sleight-of-hand, little of the The Night of the Iguana (1964). Huston and his co-scriptwriter, profits from The African Queen ever reached Huston, who Anthony Veiller, took a characteristically overheated and doom- consequently pulled out of Horizon Films. For his next three laden play by Tennessee Williams and transformed it into a films he acted as his own producer….Meanwhile, disgusted by melodramatic farce with a happy ending. Amazingly, Williams the HUAC “witch-hunt” and the “moral rot” it had induced in the went along with their changes and even helped with the script…. entertainment industry, Huston had moved to Ireland. He had While Iguana was doing well at the box office, Huston bought a house in Galway, St. Clerans, and moved there in 1952 was visited in Ireland by Dino de Laurentiis, who planned to film with his wife Enrica and their children Anthony and Angelica. The Bible. He envisaged a multiplicity of episodes, each with its Twelve years later he took Irish citizenship…. own eminent director. Eventually, the producer modestly limited Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—11 himself to half the Book of Genesis, with Huston as sole director. convoluted series of double-crosses and unexpected revelations, Huston also played Noah and the voice of God….The film Charley is forced to make the ultimate choice between personal finally cost eighteen million—by far the most expensive of happiness and family obligation. The film, wrote Vincent Canby, Huston’s career—and received atrocious notices…. “does to The Godfather what Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews did to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. It locates the deliriously In Fat City (1972) Huston drew on the boxing world of comic center within all sentimentality.” Many critics thought it a his youth. Unlike most fight movies, though, the film offered its perfect Huston vehicle and the director’s most fully realized film characters no moment of glory in the big time; these were the since The Man who Would be King. After this success, Huston small-time losers on the lower fringes of the sport, failures and set to work on an adaptation of James Joyce’s story” The Dead,” derelicts never more than a step away from defeat. Filmed in which he completed shortly before his death. muted, smoky tones in the bars, tenements, and pool-halls of Robin Wood wrote of Huston in Richard Roud’s dead-end Stockton, California, Fat City offers the clearest Cinema that “the problem lies in tracing any significant unifying statement of Huston’s fascination with defeat, and the small or developing pattern through his career as a whole….This is but vestiges of dignity that can be salvaged from it. As a washed-up one of several signs—though a crucial one—that Huston is not a fighter, Stacy Keach gave the performance of a lifetime. Critics major artist, though he has at different stages of his career been hailed the film as a return to form, and John Russell Taylor mistaken for one.” This is the view that has dominated serious described it as “one of those late films by old masters that look discussion of Huston’s work since the rise of auteurist criticism effortless because they are effortless.”… in the 1960s. But Andrew Sarris, once one of the director’s most dismissive critics, wrote in 1980 that “what I have always tended Huston had long cherished an ambition to film Kipling’s to underestimate in Huston was how deep in his guts he could story The Man Who Would Be feel the universal experience of King. Originally he planned it pointlessness and failure. And with Gable and Bogart; then there are other signs that with Peter O’Toole and Richard Huston’s films are being Burton. It finally reached the reassessed—notably the thirty- screen with Sean Connery and page essay by Richard T. Michael Caine in the leading Jameson in Film Comment (May- roles as the two British soldiers June, 1980). who set up a private kingdom Although all of Huston’s in the wild mountains of pictures are adaptations, in which Afghanistan. For once, delay he has sought “to find the proved beneficial. As Huston particular style or look best remarked, his modern actors suited to render a script into a brought “a reality to it that the persuasive and distinctive old stars could not do. Today cinematic reality,” Jameson they would seem synthetic, so maintains that “we do encounter in a way I’m glad I didn’t make a cohesive world-view, not only the picture with them.” thematically, but also Certainly it would be hard to stylistically; there is a Huston imagine the film done better. There is a sweep and grandeur, a look,” though one extremely difficult to define. Jameson might legendary resonance to the narrative for which the misused term agree with James Agee that this “look” proceeds from Huston’s “epic” is for once wholly appropriate.…For the first time in a “sense of what is natural to the eye and his delicate, simple decade, Huston achieved success at the box office as well as with feeling for space relationships.” It is, moreover, Jameson’s the critics, and he and Gladys Hill were nominated for an “considered opinion that with The Misfits Huston entered upon Academy Award for their screenplay. After The Man Who Would virtually a second career (after a few years of wandering in the Be King, Huston underwent heart surgery and as a result contract wilderness) that includes some of the most mature, most produced no feature films for four years. Any speculation, personal, and most provocative films, not only of his oeuvre but though, that his career as a director might be over was answered also of the Sixties and Seventies at large.” by Wise Blood (1979). … In his last years, Huston pursued a parallel career as a An unmixed success was Prizzi’s Honor (1985), based film actor. In 1963 he was invited by Otto Preminger to portray a on the book by Richard Condon, starring Jack Nicholson, Boston prelate in The Cardinal and virtually stole the picture. Katherine Turner, William Hickey and Huston’s daughter Then, besides taking key roles in several of his own films, he Anjelica (who won an Oscar for best supporting actress), and appeared in a wide variety of works directed by others: most featuring a witty opera-spouting score by Alex North. Huston’s notably as the sinister patriarch Noah Cross in Polanski’s gift for eliciting definitive performances from his actors and his Chinatown (1974), and as Teddy Roosevelt’s adviser John Hay delight in labyrinthine plots were evident in this dark satire on in Milius’s The Wind and the Lion (1975). Huston evidently the Mafia, American business, family honor, and romantic love. enjoyed acting and invariably denied that he took it at all Nicolson, as Charley Partanna, a faithful enforcer for the Prizzi seriously. “It’s a cinch,” he maintained, “and they pay you damn family, falls in love with a glamorous mystery woman (Turner), near as much as you make directing.” who turns out to be a professional killer as well. After a Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—12

Suffering from emphysema, Huston spent some time in a sketch of each set-up. If it was to be a pan or dolly shot, I’d hospitals at the end of his life. When in Mexico, he lived at his indicate it. I didn’t want ever to be at a loss before the actors or home in Las Calletas, near Puerta Vallarta, in a clearing between the camera crew. I went over the sketches with Willy Wyler. He the jungle and the Pacific Ocean, accessible only by boat, had a few suggestions to make, but on the whole, approved what together with various friends and a wide variety of animals. he saw. I also showed the sketches to my producer, Henry Living by the sea, he said, quoting an Irish saying, “lends Blanke. All Blanke said was, “John, just remember that each tranquility to the soul. I’m content to have arrived at this moment scene as you shoot it, is the most important scene in the picture.” in eternity, but for the life of me I don’t know how I got here.” That’s the best advice a young director could have. from John Huston’s Filmmaking. Lesley Brill. Cambridge U from John Huston Interviews. Edited by Robert Emmet Long. Press NY 1997 University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2001. Why has Huston’s artistic personality gone more or less “An Interview with John Huston” David Brandes, 1977 unremarked for so long? Briefly, his neglect seems to be a DB: Mr. Huston, you’re a writer, you’re a director, and consequence partly of the history of taste and fashion among you’re an actor. And you’re famous in all three areas. Which do critics and academics in film studies, and partly of a stylistic you prefer? finish so smooth and self-effacing that it conceals its remarkable JH: I don’t make a distinction between writing and art as straightforward. Generic story-telling (if such a thing directing. But to write and direct one’s own material is certainly exists). Huston’s art looks to us, the best approach. The directing is kind I suspect, as Shakespeare’s did of an extension of the writing. So far as to his contemporaries: like the acting is concerned, that’s just a sort nature itself. of lark—a well-paid lark, I might add— to relieve the responsibilities of being a James Agee, in his director. enormously influential 1950 Life DB: Why would a creative person magazine portrait established like yourself become a filmmaker rather this understanding: “Each of than, say, a novel writer? Huston’s pictures has a visual JH: I was raised in the tradition tone and style of its own, of films—that is, like so many children dictated to his camera by the of my generation, we looked to the story’s essential content and screen for our heroes; we imitated and spirit.” emulated William S. Hart; people like Hart and Chaplin were gods. The films were every bit as much James Naremore characterizes Huston’s method by alive as literature, and I was always fascinated by films. So I contrasting it with Dashiell Hammett’s: “Hammett’s art is started out to become a writer but I wasn’t aware I wanted to minimalist and deadpan, but Huston, contrary to his reputation. Is become a director until after I had written for films for several a highly energetic and expressive storyteller who like to make years. Then I decided I could do my own material better than comments through his images. someone else. So I really just drifted into directing…. To my knowledge, at least thirty-four of Huston’s DB: What about the writing itself? Is there anything about thirty-seven features films derive directly from novels, stories, or the screenplay form which makes it appeal to you? plays. JH: The ideal screenplay has a kind of discipline. You must make your points with a certain clarity and decisiveness which Huston began in as a writer of screenplays. . makes the ideal screenplay closer to poetry than to the novel. I . .He has spoken of the intimate connection between writing and find the form itself attracts me. directing: “There’s really no difference between them, it’s an DB: Yet poetry is such a pure form whereas film seems to be extension, one from the other. Ideally I think the writer should go much more of a composite, so much less pure. on and direct the picture. I think of the director as an extension of JH: I think of pictures as being quite pure when they are the writer.” truly realized. And closer, perhaps , to the thought processes than any other form. The ideal picture is almost as though the reel Implicit in early works like The Maltese Falcon, In This were behind your own eyes and you were projecting your own Our Life, and Key Largo (’48), themes of identity continue to thoughts. Its only when the picture falters that your thoughts dominate at the end of Huston’s career in Prizzi’s Honor and The stumble as a result of the picture’s faltering. Something “wrong” Dead. appears on the screen and the dream is broken…. I don’t make drawings anymore, but there’s a logic to In a 1981 interview, Huston spoke of his first film as “a shooting a scene. After your first shot, everything else falls into dramatization of myself, how I felt about things.” place. And shooting on location as I do and not in the studio, the circumstances usually tell you what the first shot is going to be. from An Open Book. John Huston Knopf NY 1980 By the way, I’d like to make an observation here. Very I [Huston] came well to my very first directorial seldom does an audience realize what you’re doing with the assignment. The Maltese Falcon was a very carefully tailored camera. When the camera is performing at its best, the audience screenplay, not only scene by scene, but set-up by set-up. I made isn’t aware of it. It’s so close to the thought process that you’re Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—13 watching the scene, not the movement of the camera—no matter thought the movie would work. And then I saw the movie. It was what kind of ballet it might be doing. wonderful. Most directors today don’t know what they want-so As a rule, I think of the camera as part of the scene. It’s they shoot everything they can think of. They use the camera like the camera as protagonist. You enter the scene through the a machine gun. John uses it like a sniper.”… camera’s eyes. It has a physiological function. Like the physiology of the cut. Try this little trick yourself. Look at Almost every movie you make is filmed on location. Any movies something directly in front of you. Then look at something to the you would rather have done on a back lot? direct right of you. You’ve made a complete right angle. But Heavens, no. If I have a trademark at all, it’s that I prefer to make notice that in doing it you blink your eyes. In other words, my movies where they happen. I was on one of the first location because you’re familiar with the whole area in between, you pictures, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And African Queen blank it out and go directly from point A to point B. That is a cut. would have been very difficult to do on the back lot of some Only when the intervening space—the relationship studio. The point is that in a sense it’s easier to just do it than to between those two objects—is important do you pan. If it isn't fabricate it. important, you cut…. Was Moby Dick the most wretched location experience you’ve Making a film is like every other undertaking in life. Its ever had? success depends on whether or not No, it was in Africa making you’re equipped for it. And I’m The Roots of Heaven. That not referring to learning. I don’t was the most physically know that I’ve learned a hell of a difficult. Temperatures were lot. I think I was probably as good quite unbelievable. One didn’t a director at the beginning as I am eat, myself included. But now. Oh I’ve probably learned a Moby Dick was difficult. It few small technical things. But was the worst winter in I’m not sure my understanding maritime history. Three of our has deepened since I was nine lifeboats capsized. We just years old…. had one storm after another, DV: Do you feel a film like wretched storms. Certainly Jaws will have the same appeal once we were on our way to over time? the bottom. And three times I JH: I haven’t seen Jaws so I thought were. We had started can’t comment on it. But good out with three mechanical films—truly good films—will whales, and we lost two of endure. Granted the camera used them. And I knew that if we to turn at a different speed and the acting style was one of lost the third one, we were shit out of luck. This was our last exaggerated delivery. Today we’re closer to reality. Figures on hope. So I just got in the whale, and I stayed there. I knew they’d the screen move at the same pace we do in life. And the style has have to rescue it if I was in it. If that whale had gone, the picture changed, of course. But a Chaplin film is as good today as it was would have died. Every day we would go out to sea. That didn’t then. take long, but as soon as we got out, the storms would just DB: What is your opinion of the state of the art today? surround us—longboats would be separated, and everything JH: One of the ill effects of the modern set up of the would become disordered and chaotic. industry is that if a picture isn’t immediately successful, they I guess by today’s standards, if you were that far behind, they won’t risk any more money publicizing it. I’ve seen a number of might have stopped the picture. fine films that the public was barely able to see. Like The By today’s standards, it’s nothing to be a few weeks behind. Traveling Executioner with Stacy Keach, or Walkabout from Think of Apocalypse Now. I thought there were wonderful things Australia. I think Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller was a kind about it, some unbelievable things, but I thought it was a poor of masterpiece. Midnight Cowboy was a wonderful film. picture. It didn’t know what to do with itself. Beautiful pictures—and our loss, as a result of the present There is no plot to Heart of Darkness. It's an economic set up. atmosphere, and it’s a wonderful evocation, but it isn’t a story On the other hand, Earthquake, Towering Inferno, etc. I with a beginning, a middle, and an end. haven’t seen them and I’m not drawn to them because they seem And there were absurdities in the film. I mean, why do to contain a formula. What I hear about them doesn’t sufficiently they all go up the river in a boat, when they can take a helicopter attract me. I’d rather read a book. and go up the river? And so on. The nonsense of that American placement of light and so on and the bombing area….And “Saints and Stinkers: The Rolling Stone Interview” Peter S. showing a bridge all lit up at night. It's absurd. Coppola took Greenberg, 1981 refuge. He escaped into the metaphysical at the finish. And,, you “At first I didn’t know what was going on with the man,” says know, shithouse writers have been doing that since time Caine, who last worked with Huston on The Man Who Would Be immemorial. King. We were on location in Morocco, and I’d do a scene with The problem is that the concept of story can very easily Sean [Connery], and we’d finish it and John would say ‘cut,’ and be misunderstood. I mean, a story is not necessarily something then we’d do the next scene on the first take as well. I never that’s as wooden as a first, second, and third act, or that comes Powell and Pressburger—THE RED SHOES—14 out with a moral and a message or something that’s all myself in Coppola’s boat. Luckily I found the ending well before underscored and in italics and capitalized. starting the cameras. That’s not what I mean. Peer Gynt has a dramatic structure. And At what point did you decide that you were going to let Katherine even Tennessee Williams has a dramatic structure. When we Hepburn and Bogart sink that ship? were doing African Queen—and we were just about to film it—I I wrote the finish in Africa. I didn’t feel that it should have an discovered myself without a story. That’s why I say I can put unhappy ending. It wasn’t that kind of a picture.

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2011 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXXIV: Feb28 Stanley Kubrick: Dr Strangelove 1964 Mar 7 Robert Bresson: Au Hasard Balthazar 1966 Mar 14 Bahram Beizai: Downpour/Ragbar 1972 Mar 28 Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones: Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975 April 4 Nicolas Roeg The Man Who Fell to Earth 1976 April 11 Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in America 1984 April 18 Krzysztof Kieslowski: Double Life of Veronique 1991 April 25 Wong Kar-Wei: In the Mood for Love 2000 May 2 David Ayer: Fury 2014 May 9 Mike Leigh: Topsy Turvy 1999

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