Did You Know...?

As well as talking about old movies, i also like take photographs. Here are a few i'm quite proud of...

A Window at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge.

Some Chimneys, Cambridge

My Family

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Is Blazing Saddles a Western? I suppose thats the question that needs answering before a film like this can be discussed. 

I guess the short answer is Yes, it is a Western. Its set in the desert plains of America, there are Cowboys, Indians, guns, shoot outs, saloons and a town whereby everyone is called 'Johnson'. Aesthetically, it possesses everything that a film requires to be considered a Western, but why does it not feel like one?

The long (and correct) answer, is No. Blazing Saddles references some of the greatest Westerns ever made like Once Upon A Time in the West and High Noon and rather than being a spoof of these movies, it becomes more of a western satire. An  example of this would be when the newly appointed Sheriff rides gallantly across the desert on a horse to some triumphant, heroic music and he rides past a full brass band and conductor in the desert playing the music he's riding to. Brooks plays about like this quite a bit in Blazing Saddles and breaks the codes and conventions that films should follow and taking something that should be off screen and invisible to the protagonist and placing it so brazenly in the shot like this was new to audiences. How about the ending? Need i say anymore? If thats not messing about with conventions of cinema, then i don't know what is. Tarantino did the exact same thing a few years later with From Dusk Til Dawn, whereby what started out as a typically Pulp Fictionesque 'gangster movie' turned in to a gruesome vampire movie about halfway through. Just as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid did in 1969, Blazing Saddles just has fun with the genre, so much so, it stops being of that genre and seemingly creates a super-genre of its own. Lets not forget that Blazing Saddles is as much a satire of Westerns as it is an allegory of the Civil Rights Movement, so brashly displayed in its language and liberal use of the word Nigger. Inter-racial relations was still considered to be taboo and the KKK were just ironing their hats at the time Blazing Saddles was made. Brooks was obviously poking fun at the absurdity of peoples distaste for African -American's during this time. 

Whatever Blazing Saddles is, its undeniably hilarious, clever, different, stupid, witty and did is say hilarious? Gene Wilder is the star for me as Jim AKA The Waco Kid, fastest hands in the world, and his first meeting with Sheriff Bart is unforgettably funny. Sheriff Bart is the towns first black Sheriff, although his presence there is purely to be hated by the townsfolk, as is the plot of drunken Governor Petomane (Brooks) and his crooked counterpart Hedley Lemarr. He hires Bart as the new Sheriff so the townsfolk abandon their town from fear and Lemarr can demolish it for his new railroad. However, after a shaky beginning, the townsfolk come round to the idea of Bart and he is accepted. Jim is hanging upside down in a jail cell when Bart first meets him and after gettig him down, they play a game of chess together. The dialogue in this part is as much stupid as it is genius, as Wilder is drunk, Bart is curious of his desire to be so drunk. We learn he was humiliated as The Waco Kid when he was challenged by a small child and his reputation was ruined, since then he turned to the bottle and hasn't crawled out since. All emotion is taken out of this moment by Wilders delivery of the story, you really can't help but snigger at his sad, depressed little state.. I promise, its funny. 

Along with Wilder, Brooks is equally as hilarious as Governor Petomane, who is also very drunk and very interested in women rather than the running of his state. Hence the influence of nasty Lemarr being so strong in his decision making. Finally, it would be rude not to mention the lady of this film, the beautiful, sexy, seductive singer Lili Von Shtupp hire by Lemarr to seduce Bart and corrupt him, but Bart's naturally smooth sexual capabilities sends Lili wild for him, thus thwarting Lemarrs plans. Played by Madeline Kahn, Lili is completely talentless as her song proves, but he long legs, tight little bottom and inability to pronounce her 'r's gives her a sexy but adorable edge. 

The films finale leaves me lost for words every time, as Lemarrs plans are consistently being ruined by Sheriff Bart, he hires a huge gang of thugs to attack the town and Bart has 24 hours to come up with a master plan. They build a fake town riddled with dynamite and try to find a way to slow the thugs down, so the construct a tollbooth whereby the thugs have to queue up and pay to cross into Rock Ridge, no one things t just ride around the tollbooth....but this only holds them off for so long and they ride into the fake Rock Ridge and explosions send the thugs flying. The townsfolk then attack the thugs and the rabble explodes through the walls of the Warner Brothers Studio right into a Musical being directed by Dom DeLuise. I'll stop there, but trust me when i say it is COMPLETE madness. 

Blazing Saddles is one of a kind and the madness of Brooks is ever present and channelled through Wilder's Waco Kid. A must watch for anyone, remember, its not a Western. 

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

November sees in the release of the highly anticipated film The Master. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who has brought us such films as Magnolia and There Will Be Blood, The Master is set to be one of the films of the year. What’s so special about it? Probably the most exciting thing is that it has been shot on 70mm film and will be shown in this format, which means that the resolution will be higher, clearer and much crisper. To put it simply, it has been shot on a much larger piece of film within the camera than most other films, so its double the size and double the quality. For those of you who thought IMAX was the best picture quality you were going to see, think again!

This swiftly brings me on to today’s film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was famously, shot on 70mm, just like The Master, but way back in 1968. This didn’t stop it being a spectacular looking film which earned the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick, an Oscar for visual effects. What perhaps is most remarkable about 2001, is that audiences marvelled at what it was creating as a future world, showing huge space ships spinning through space, high tech gadgets, special anti-gravity shoes and futuristic furniture that no one had really seen before, as science fiction films were not particularly well established at the time. The visual effects were so breath takingly realistic and Stanley Kubrick created them without even using a computer. He used models and manipulation of the film cells to create his effects, an art which has long since bitten the dust. Before Man had even landed on the moon, Kubrick had made a convincing and technologically accurate film about space travel.

2001 starts off on Earth in prehistoric times where we watch a family of Apes or ‘hominids’ as they would rather be known, with the help of a tall, black oblong, learn how to use rocks and sticks as weapons to kill other animals for food, kick starting our rapid evolution into Man. We then hop forward a few thousand years to Dr Heywood Floyd who is travelling through space in a large, rotating vessel travelling to the moon. We learn that something has been discovered on the moon which is remarkably similar to the object that appeared before the hominids. A great amount of mystery surrounds this object – the monolith - which is assumed to be extra-terrestrial intelligence which is millions of years old and Dr Floyd and his team are sent to the moon to examine it, only to be deafened by a high pitched noise omitting from it. 18 months later Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, two young astronauts, are travelling on board the ‘Discovery’ – a spaceship bound for Jupiter sending them on a so called ‘training mission’. Little do they know, they are following up the discovery on the moon 18 months previous.  Their space ship is controlled by super computer HAL-9000 who has been programmed to behave and speak like a human, and to act as a friend to Bowman and Poole.  HAL suddenly starts behaving strangely and reporting that communication devices are broken when they are not. Things rapidly go from bad to worse when HAL completely turns on Bowman and Poole and tries to kill them. Bowman escapes in a small pod and travels through a psychedelic tunnel of lights and flies over strange foreign lands in a spiralling, trippy sequence that is quite un-nerving to watch. Eventually he is spat out of this vortex of light and he finds himself orbiting Jupiter, along with our old friend the Monolith. It’s about to get very strange now as Bowman lands in a baroque, French style bedroom. There are no windows, no doors and the floor is made out of light. Bowman goes through a series of stages in the room, when he lands he has aged slightly and when he is outside of his pod he has aged even more.

He hears a noise and investigates where he sees himself as an old man, eating dinner. He turns into his aged self and then sees himself on the verge of death lying in his bed. He then becomes this man and the monolith appears before him. He is transported through the monolith as a foetal baby where he is reborn as a master of the universe. I know this may sound like I am making it up, but I promise you this is what happens.

Kubrick and Clarke had a vision to create the ultimate science fiction movie and this one has it all. Its meaning is hard to decipher, especially of the end, but Kubrick didn’t want everyone to been spoon-fed meanings and philosophies. He left the whole thing completely open to interpretation and when asked about the meaning of 2001 he would skirt around the question without really giving an answer. It was a well known fact that Kubrick and Clarke had serious reservations about the possibility of man creating artificial intelligence, like HAL, and that we would never be able to fully understand what we create. So what do they do? They turn HAL completely evil for seemingly no reason at all, thus making their point.  

2001 is essentially a depiction of the evolution of Man from our most primitive form to our most intelligent, predicting what Man could be capable of doing in the year 2001. Throw in a murderous computer, a few reprises of Strauss’ Thus Spake Zarathustra and a horse painted like a zebra and you’ve got yourself something really quite special.

Paving the way for great science fiction movies of the future like Bladerunner, The Alien Trilogy and even Prometheus, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a ground-breaking piece of cinema that is replicated time and time again in modern culture. If I had a penny for every time I saw an inter-textual reference of 2001 in The Simpsons, I’d have enough to buy myself a Freddo bar.  Unfortunately, it’s not for everyone. It was poorly received when it was released and gained its fame from a cult following of 60’s youths who found it ‘trippy’ and has been splitting audiences for the past 44 years. I highly recommend it to science fiction fans, Kubrick fans and those of you who enjoy something a little bit different.

The nights are drawing in and the weekends are predominantly rainy, so why not give it a try? Snuggle up in the warm and prepare yourself for the ultimate Stanley Kubrick experience…

Breaking the Chain

Following on from my last post, here is a rather good movie poster, courtesy of Minimal Movie Posters, who have quite a vast back catalogue of simple and clever movie posters.

 

 

The Shining (1980)

If any of my wonderful, devoted readers know me in person you will no doubt be aware of my fondness for the work of Stanley Kubrick.  Having written my undergraduate dissertation on 2001: A Space Odyssey I opened up the monolithic door to the mysterious world of Kubrick, leading me to plunge myself into the depths of the Stanley Kubrick Archives in London and the secretive scribbling’s of Mr Kubrick himself. It’s definitely worth booking yourself in to visit, but I highly recommend knowing what you are looking for as it would appear Kubrick never EVER threw anything away…

Anyway, seeing as its Halloween, I thought what better opportunity to discuss a Kubrick classic – The Shining. Appropriately, I went to see the newly released extra-long version, which had an added twenty-four minutes that have never been seen by a UK audience. Even more exciting is the documentary Room 237 which hit our art-house cinema’s this week, an apparently exposing feature uncovering never before discussed secrets of The Shining. Exciting no? Undoubtedly, it’s a great horror movie and despite pissing Stephen King off, Kubrick has most definitely pleased audiences worldwide for the last 30 years with this sinister little tale.

Starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall as Jack and Wendy Torrance, the film is about a family of three who are hired to be the winter care-takers of The Overlook Hotel, a secluded retreat that is closed off in the winter due to the dangerous conditions on the road leading up to it. What better setting for a horror movie; a secluded, massive old mansion house where someone once went nuts and murdered their family. Quite. Jack, Wendy and their 5 year old son Danny, who has an imaginary friend called Tony who ‘lives in his mouth’ drive to the house to begin their seven month stint in the hotel. Not long after the Torrance family arrive do strange and spooky things start happening in the hotel, especially to Jack as the house starts taking a sinister turn on him. He starts to see apparitions of people who used to live and work in the hotel, including the previous caretaker, Delbert Grady, who murdered his family. Danny also experiences some strange things and becomes aware of his telepathy, dubbed ‘Shining’ by head-chef Dick Hallorann who shares Danny’s gift. An unfortunate event in the hallway leads Danny to see the twins of the previous caretaker who appear to him both in full form, and as a bloody heap, all they want to do is play, what’s so horrible about that? Watch and see my friends. An even more unfortunate event takes Danny to Room 237, to which we do not bear witness to but he manages to land himself some fairly sinister bruises around his neck. Jack’s mind begins to warp and seeing Danny’s bruises, he too ventures to Room 237 and becomes exposed to the horrors within. I shall say no more. He denies to Wendy that there’s anything in Room 237 and he becomes increasingly nuts, remember: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.  Eventually he completely turns on his wife and son and tries to kill them, after a few bumps on the head, a few hours in the larder and an axe through a door, we come to the films iconic finale in the hedge maze.

Even though the extra scenes I watched last night didn’t add anything new to the story, I still felt quite privileged to be watching them and you can’t help but wonder why he cut them out. There weren’t many scenes, but enough to make the film feel fresh. The anticipation of being shown something I’d never seen before in something I’d seen hundreds of times almost completely distracted my from the heavy nose breather sitting next to me. Cinema’s eh? Some scenes certainly did open a few doors to the sub-plots that were more prominent in King’s novel, especially Jack’s alcohol dependency and the abusive nature of his personality before he quit drinking. My favourite cut scene however was definitely when Wendy is weepily staggering around the hotel with a kitchen knife looking for Danny. She stumbles across a room filled with skeletons, some at a table, some sitting on sofas and one of them was even strangely standing up. It didn’t add much, story-wise, but its gave it this ghostly element that it didn’t have before. All the ghosts we have seen up to this point have looked like real people, as if stuck in the time when they died. This scene was spooky and made the sense of death in the hotel smell sweeter. However, it did feel quite out of place for this very reason, and perhaps Kubrick wanted to keep the ‘ghosts’ as apparitions of real people so as not to disjoint Jack too much from his past life.

The Shining took almost a year to film and Kubrick certainly put his actors through their paces, Jack Nicholson was physically exhausted and Shelley Duvall emotionally drained. Kubrick and Nicholson would often fall out, but it was Duvall that Kubrick made life hell for. He would push her to her limits physically and psychologically to the point where she would often break down in tears on set. Kubrick is seen in the ‘Making Of’ documentary telling the production crew not to give her any sympathy,  Duvall says that he treated her this way to help her become her character of Wendy, an unappreciated and bullied housewife, even though it was a horrible experience, she has no regrets for doing it. Be that as it may, it was hard work for everyone and Kubrick’s relentless need for perfection resulted in 148 takes of the scene where Hallorann is explaining to Danny what ‘shining’ is. A world record. He wouldn’t stop at anything, even Stephen Spielberg breathing down his neck didn’t stop him and Spielberg was forced to put off filming Raiders of the Lost Ark until Kubrick was finished.

But was it all worth it? Stephen King would probably say no, as he has a serious distaste Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel, he didn’t like the casting, the script, the sets or Stanley Kubrick himself. This lead the film to be officially released as “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining” as it was so far removed from what King had envisioned for his adaptation, even the ending and body count was different to the novel…I think I prefer Kubrick’s ending though, sorry Stephen.

Nevertheless, it’s a blood curdling tale and houses some of the most iconic moments in horror cinema including its most famous and mimicked line ‘Heeere’s Jonny!’ A questionable source for this would be Jonny Cash, as he famously axed the door between his hotel room and that of his band mates, however there are many ideas for where Nicholson sprung this from. Lets not forget the brilliant exchange between Jack and Wendy on the stairs as she feebily swings a baseball bat at him as he tells her ‘I’m not gonna hurt ya, I’m just gonna bash your brains in. I’m gonna bash them right the fuck in’, I can’t help but laugh at the genius of Nicholson in this film, he encapsulates Dad gone mad brilliantly and even though terrifying in places, his facial expressions are undeniably humourous.

Impeccable writing, unrelenting direction and perfect acting, The Shining is Kubrick’s horror masterpiece, and a thoroughly entertaining watch. It has earned itself some of horrors most memorable moments and it will be cherished for ever.

And ever.

And ever…

Psycho (1960)

It’s Halloween! What better way to spend it than watching the glorious Psycho? Made in 1960, by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, it stars John Gavin, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles as three unfortunate souls who come face to face with the superbly creepy Mr Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins. Based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, Psycho is loosely based around the notorious grave robbing psychopath, Ed Gein, a man who had a bit of thing for using decayed body parts as ‘decorations’ in his home. We’ll leave it at that shall we?

The film opens on the beautiful Marion Crane who is discussing money matters with her soon to be divorced boyfriend Sam. They need a lot of money, pronto, as Sam is about to lose everything in his divorce proceedings. Marion is entrusted with $40’000 by her boss to pay in to the company bank account which she obviously steals and runs to California where Sam is waiting for her. In what is potentially one of the film’s most iconic scenes (aside from that incident in the shower) Marion driving depicts her satisfaction for stealing the money and her fear of getting caught perfectly. She nervously glances in her rear view mirror often enough to look suspicious, but she looks pleased with herself at the same time, creating an excellent ‘secretary gone wild’ feel about her. Her journey is interrupted by a huge rain storm and she is forced to pull in to the slightly off-the-beaten-track, Bates Motel. It’s here that she meets the superbly creepy Norman Bates and becomes aware of his illusive ‘Mother’. Norman tells her he doesn’t get many people coming his way, a typical thing for someone like Norman to divulge to a beautiful woman, and shyly invites her to supper. She begrudgingly accepts but after hearing an uncomfortable exchange between Norman and his Mother about Norman’s sexual intentions with Marion, she suggests he have her sectioned. Obviously, Norman doesn’t respond well to this and Marion awkwardly retires to her room where she decides to take a shower. Need I say anymore? I think we all know what happens to Marion in the shower.

So less than an hour in, the woman we all invested so much time in has been slashed, thus thickening the tasty plot that’s about to unravel before us. Not long after this hideous crime is committed and the evidence is plunged into a lake, Detective Arbogast is hired by Lila, Marion’s sister and Sam, Marion’s boyfriend to locate Marion and the missing $40’000. He traces Marion to the Bates Motel and questions Norman as to her whereabouts. Norman’s not the best at lying to Detectives and comes across edgy and suspicious, so Arbogast takes a room for the night to continue his investigation in the morning. He calls Lila while looking out at the house on the hill behind the motel and he spots a womanly figure standing in one of the windows. He tells Lila he will call her back and ventures up to the house to investigate. Not long after her arrives is he stabbed in the face and pushed down the stairs by a mysterious figure. Goodbye Detective Arbogast.

Lila and Sam end up phoning the local police when Arbogast doesn’t call her back, explaining about the woman in the window. The Deputy seems puzzled as he recalls the house behind the motel belonged to Norman and his Mother, but she had died 10 years ago. He brushes their story off thinking there’s nothing to be worrying about, cops eh? This leaves them no choice but to pose as husband and wife and stay at the Bates Motel together. It doesn’t take long for Lila to be drawn to the house where she tries to find her sister and the Detective. When Norman notices she’s gone, he knocks Sam to the ground and angrily runs up to the house to find her. I shall stop there for fear of ruining the ending, but let’s just say this; it’s not exactly a happy one.

Psycho is considered to be Hitchcock’s ultimate masterpiece, earning him a fortune at the box office as the studio didn’t want to associate themselves too much with what they thought was going to be a failure. Hitchcock succeeded in creating a suspenseful and highly successful horror film that terrified audiences, and even Janet Leigh into never having a shower again. By hiding so many elements of the story from the audience, and retaining the mystery surrounding the Mother character builds high levels of suspense. He never shows her face or body in full so we begin to question why Hitchcock is keeping her from us, what is so horrific about this woman that we’re not allowed to see her? *snigger snigger*

Hitchcock shrouded the production of his film in mystery to enhance the actual mystery within and to make absolutely sure that no one would find out the ending. He made production staff take an oath not to reveal the ending, and he even had a chair made up for ‘Mrs Bates’ so that nothing could be leaked or speculated upon. All this attention to detail, and willingness to protect his own movie made the ending all the more terrifying, giving it the ‘masterpiece’ status that it still has today. If only Gus Van Sant and Vince Vaughn hadn’t ruined it, I mean honestly…VINCE VAUGHN? As Norman Bates? It was never going to work.

Psycho is what horror movies are made of and fifty-two years on, it’s obviously quite dated. So my advice is this; watch it with friends on Halloween and have a good laugh, or watch it on your own at night in the dark and have nightmares.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Some Like it Hot (1959)

"Maybe those Dames aint Dames!!"

In 1959 Billy Wilder created a wildly hilarious comedy about two men on the run after witnessing the notorious Valentines Day Massacre. These two men, played flawlessly by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis disguised themselves as women and stowed away on a train full of female musicians. Upon joining the group as Cellist Daphne and Saxophonist Josephine, they meet Sugar, a softly spoken and elegant ukulele player, in the form of Marilyn Monroe.  The two men instantly fall about themselves and become besotted with her. They go to Florida and cavort in the sun, romp in the sand and play jazz music to rich people, all goes well until Daphne is targeted by serial womanizer Osgood Fielding III who attempts to woo ‘her’, meanwhile, Josephine returns to his original manly form and pretends to be a rich yachtsman in a bid to woo the ditsy Sugar. Soon enough though the past catches up on them and they become face to face with the men they had originally fled from. A hilarious and ridiculous tale of deceit, cross dressing, inappropriate bum pinching and a whole lotta laughs.

What was most amusing was that Daphne and Josephine were quite obviously two men dressed as women, and they miraculously managed to fool everyone they met.  Their voices sounded silly, their outfits were silly, but most of all their attempt to walk in heels was silliest of all. By avoiding slapstick comedy, Some Like It Hot got its laughs from witty writing and men dressed as women. Lemmon and Curtis were the biggest stars of the film, despite Monroe’s name being up in lights as the selling point for the movie (a decision, I’m sure, that was not made by Wilder). They bounce off each other in a way that makes their friendship completely believable in a totally unrealistic story world. Who can forget the infamous scene when Joe (Curtis) dons his disguise as a millionaire yachtsman and seduces Sugar on the yacht of actual millionaire Osgood who is simultaneously dating the supposedly seasick Daphne (Lemmon). The winning moment for me to this ridiculous situation is when Daphne returns to the hotel room engaged to Osgood, completely smitten and loved up with a diamond bracelet on his wrist. Its only when he repeats the words ‘Im a man, I’m a man, I’m a man” does he realize his mistake.

The films finale, in true Hollywood style, ends in a chase. The mobsters they were originally running from end up coming to the hotel where they are staying. Not fooled by their womanly disguises, they chase them out of the hotel and onto a small speedboat, driven by Osgood. Monroe comes tottering down the jetty and jumps in the boat after them, after discovering Josephine is the ‘millionaire yachtsman’ the two sink down and canoodle in the back of the boat. This leaves Osgood and Daphne, who are still engaged. After several ridiculous made up excuses for why they can’t get married Daphne ends up pulling off her wig and revealing Jerry underneath, declaring “I’m a man!” Prompting the films final and most famous lines from Osgood, “Well, Nobody’s perfect!”.

Three years after Some Like it Hot was released, Marilyn Monroe died, and this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of her death. As someone who isn’t particularly well versed on Marilyn Monroe, I thought it a fitting opportunity to write about her and one of her most famous roles. It seems Miss Monroe was a bit of a nightmare on a film set, notorious for being late and not knowing her lines. In the scene where Sugar comes into Daphne and Josephine’s hotel room looking for a bottle of Bourbon, the line was “Where’s the Bourbon?’ which took so long for her to get right that Billy Wilder actually had to write the line inside the drawer she was looking in while searching for the Bourbon.  Wilder told in an interview of how she would sometimes not even come out of her dressing room, causing huge delays in filming.

Her behavior aside, Marilyn Monroe was an absolute joy to watch as Sugar, she was charming, witty and charismatic. The scene on the train when the girls decide to have a little party in Daphne’s bunk was pure entertainment, which she played a massive part in creating. 

All in all, Some Like it Hot deserves the praise it received and Monroe deserved her Golden Globe. It is a great film, magnificently acted and beautifully scripted.  A perfect Sunday afternoon black and white to curl up on the sofa with.

Last Lines:

Osgood Fielding III – ‘Well, nobody’s perfect!’