New Year's Eve at The Jade Sphinx

Toby Roan, the man behind the 50 Westerns From the 50s blog, graciously invited me to write a guest column on the Lone Ranger. 

At the same time, I was thinking about a special Year End column for The Jade Sphinx, and the more I thought about both, the more they morphed together.  So, please check Toby’s blog for a special post by Your Correspondent.  You can find it here:  https://fiftieswesterns.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/a-few-hundred-words-about-my-friend-the-lone-ranger-by-guest-blogger-james-abbott/.

Happy New Year to all my readers, and expect more of the same in 2017.

These Three, Starring Merle Oberon, Miriam Hopkins and Joel McCrea (1936); Part of The Joel McCrea Blogathon

We are delighted to participate in Toby Roan’s Joel McCrea blogathon.  Toby is the mastermind behind the always-delightful 50 Westerns From the 50s blog (see link to your right), and Western lovers – and you know who you are – should visit regularly.

Joel McCrea (1905-1990) has long been one of our favorite actors.  He was equally terrific in comedies, dramas, love stories and westerns.  It would be hard to select a single McCrea performance as his definitive role, as it is really the body of his work that is most impressive.  Some actors – Clark Gable, Gary Cooper or Humphrey Bogart come to mind – often play extensions of themselves.  Their screen personas are so clearly delineated that they all play within the confines of their screen characters.

But McCrea’s art was more subtle.  It’s not that he always played himself so much as he always played … us.  One of the great (and certainly the most missed) inventions of the mid-20^th century was the idea of the American Everyman.  Sometimes comedic, sometimes crusading, always savvy, unfailingly honest and always representative of the best in ourselves, the American Everyman was an idealization that did not strain the truth.  This is how Americans once saw themselves, and few actors better exemplified the American Everyman, with all his flaws and virtues, better than McCrea.  We didn’t want to be him, but, on our best days, we were him.

It’s not surprising that McCrea would eventually morph into a western specialist.  The West is the defining American myth, and McCrea was our surrogate in that world.  Whether opposing outlaws, crooked business interests, Washington fat cats or homicidal Indians, McCrea met the challenges of the West with honesty, integrity and modesty.  McCrea was the natural choice to play many of the great figures of the West, Wyatt Earp and Buffalo Bill Cody among them, because we would like to see these great figures much like we like to see ourselves.  He made them real by making them like us.

It is too easy to forget how terrific an actor he could be when rising to a challenge. There are two versions of Lillian Hellman’s (1905-1984) 1934 play, The Children’s Hour, and the 1936 version, called These Three and staring McCrea and directed by William Wyler (1902-1981), is easily the best.

Wyler would remake the film himself in 1961, with James Garner (1928-2014) in the McCrea role.  Because the play deals with two women teachers who find their lives ruined when a little girl accuses them of a lesbian relationship, one imagines that the later film would be superior, if for no other reason than Wyler could openly address the scandal.  However, that is not the case:  Wyler’s handling of the situation in 1936 actually has great emotional resonance and honesty.  His 1961 film is so over-the-top in its hysteria, that it lurches into melodrama, and then camp.

With his 1936 cast, Wyler had to change the story to fit the Hays Code: here, a little girl (the magnificent Bonita Granville – justifiably Oscar nominated) ruins the lives of teachers Merle Oberon (1911-1979) and Miriam Hopkins (1902-1972) by starting the rumor that the women are involved in a ménage à trois with local doctor, McCrea.  As a result, their school is ruined and they are later financially crushed when they unsuccessfully sue for libel.

McCrea – quietly heroic, rankling at injustice and eager to set things right – stands by both women.  It’s not that McCrea has any showy scene or overly dramatic monolog: no, it’s his presence.  Here once again McCrea is our surrogate, doing his best in an unwinnable situation … much as we hope we would behave ourselves.  In the later film, Garner (usually a more subtle actor) broadcasts at high volume his integrity and decency, becoming a cartoon.  McCrea just … is, the perfect friend and protector that we would want to be.

Amazingly, Wyler wanted to replace McCrea with Leslie Howard (1893-1943), which would have been a catastrophe.  A terrific actor (in fact, a better actor than McCrea), Howard would have played his helplessness in the situation, providing only dignified weakness, much like his turn in Gone With the Wind (1939).  The friction between Wyler and McCrea is not evident, and one wonders if he changed his mind after the finished film. 

One final note – the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves reflect our points of view and how we interact with the world.  That sense of a national identity – and American Everyman – is impossible in our currently fractured state.  Wouldn’t we be better off if we had a presence like Joel McCrea … who reflected the best impression of ourselves? 

One cannot help but think that we need a hero, not a figure in tights with superpowers, but one who embodies the best qualities in Americans as a people.  I, for one, would certainly welcome the return of more actors like Joel McCrea.

What I Did For Love: House on Haunted Hill

Writer Toby Roan – master of the 50 Westerns From the Fifties blog – invited various bloggers to write about films made by, or distributed through, Allied Artists.  Most of the films distributed through AA were, to put it politely, junk.  AA distributed hoards of Bowery Boys films, cut-rate Charlie Chan mysteries, Bomba the Jungle Boy flicks (a particular favorite here at The Jade Sphinx), and a seeming endless stream of westerns.

I’m sure Marshall Roan was hoping for a saddlebag full of westerns for his blogathon; and, knowing my love of westerns, it would only make sense that I comply.  So … to be utterly contrary, I decided to look at a horror film instead (!), starring arts-advocate and Renaissance Man Vincent Price (1911-1993).

There are movies that all of us saw in our childhood that we have returned to again and again.  One movie that I have been looking at all of my life is House on Haunted Hill (1959).  I am not blind (nor immune) to the many faults of this picture.  The screenplay makes almost no sense – and even less sense once everything is “explained.”  (It doesn’t even possess much of the internal logic necessary for the suspension of disbelief.)  The pacing is at times dodgy.  The special effects aren’t cheesy as much as they are silly. 

It is … irresistible.  I recently re-viewed this film before writing this piece, and just thinking about it inspires me to fire-up the DVD player once again.

The plot, briefly, is this:  eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Price) invites five strangers to a “haunted house” party he is throwing to amuse his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart).  He promises the survivors (or their heirs) $10,000 if they stay the night – the doors will be locked at midnight, and it would be impossible to get in or out of the house.

The five guests include newspaper columnist Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum, who is terrific), test pilot Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), Loren’s employee Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig, who screams fetchingly), and the house’s owner, Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook). 

Of course, there are all kinds of wonderful spook-show shenanigans.  Annabelle hangs herself (or does she?); Nora finds a severed head in her luggage (no TSA in those days); Schroeder is taken out of the action with a blow to the noggin in a dark closet; and Watson slowly gets drunker and drunker while warning everyone that they will die horribly before the night is out.  And did I mention there was a vat of acid in the basement?

House on Haunted Hill was produced and directed by the legendary William Castle (1914-1977).  Castle specialized in budget horror and suspense thrillers; but the real key to his peculiar genius was in marketing his films.  The Tingler (1959), about a lobster-like monster that … sort of tingles you to death, premiered in theaters wired with vibrating chairs.  The process was called Percepto – and Your Correspondent saw a revival of The Tingler at New York’s Film Forum, complete with vibrating chairs.  I still haven’t recovered.  His film 13 Ghosts (1960) included special red and blue glasses to see the ghosts.  Mr. Sardonicus (1961) allowed viewers to vote on the fate of the film’s villain.

House on Haunted Hill had as its gimmick a process called Emergo – where things actually come out of the screen.  At the key moment of the climax when a skeleton menaces one of the protagonists, a cardboard skeleton came out via a clothesline in select theaters.  I saw that at Film Forum as well, where the audience hooted in delirious derision, throwing popcorn and jujubes at the skeleton.  Take that, The Force Awakens.

There is no reason for this stuff to work, but it does.  Part of it is the performances, which are unusually fine.  Ohmart, as Price’s evil, ice-queen bride, is simply fabulous.  Sexy, scheming, clearly intelligent and purring like an over-fed cat, Ohmart delivers work that would not be out of place in a bigger-budget film noir.  Speaking of film noir, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe’s friend Elisha Cook performs with an admirable amount of intense terror – this is a man drinking himself into stupefaction because any other option is too horrifying to contemplate. Cook plays hysteria without ever becoming a cartoon, and it reminds us that he was actually a terrific actor with the right material.  Mitchum adds wonderful support as the sophisticated (but tough) newspaper columnist.  See this film and wonder … why wasn’t this woman a bigger star?

Vincent Price, however, completely owns House on Haunted Hill.  Though he had made horror pictures before (including House of Wax and The Fly), this is the film where Price finally honed his screen persona.  Tongue planted firmly in cheek, this is mischievous villainy; one could say that he served his nastiness on wry.  It’s not that Price delivers a camp performance (and, though that charge has been leveled against him, he never really did); but, rather, Price had a genius for making the audience complicit with him.  Price was a heavy who twinkled, and he carried out his most evil machinations on the balls of his feet.

He uses all of his many gifts to great effect here.  His silken, velvety voice brings the right touch of ironic menace to such lines as, “these miniature coffins were my wife’s idea – she’s so amusing;” or, my favorite, “remember the fun we had the night you poisoned me.”  In addition to his voice, he uses his imposing height, his infallible sense of comedic timing, and his look of blasé sophistication.  It really wasn’t until this film that he fully owned his own screen persona, and watching Vincent Price blossom is the chief delight of House on Haunted Hill.

Somehow, House on Haunted Hill has fallen into the public domain, and can be seen readily online.  Here is a Youtube link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwhfqgzsuVU.  Spend an hour and fifteen minutes at The House on Haunted Hill.  You won’t be disappointed.

You’d Do It For Randolph Scott…

Today is the birthday actor Randolph Scott (1898-1987) and we here at The Jade Sphinx are delighted to participate in the Randolph Scott Blogathon, sponsored by Toby Roan and his wonderful site, 50 Westerns From the 50s.

In thinking about the many attributes of this fine performer, I came to realize that he was not only a capable Western performer, but someone who personified the most admirable attributes of a Western Hero.

Born George Randolph Scott, this tall, handsome Southerner hailed from Virginia.  From a well-off family, he attended private schools (which, clearly, added a level of polish that was evident in his acting), and was an excellent athlete, concentrating on swimming and football.  When the Great War came around, he enlisted and saw action in France.  He returned home and went to college, dropping out before earning his degree and joining his father at the textile firm.

But … something about acting has also intrigued the handsome Virginian, and he moved West, thinking of a career in the movies.  He worked as a bit player and extra in several films, and then worked on stage to further develop his abilities.  After time he garnered a contract from Paramount, and went on to star in a series of Westerns based on the novels of Zane Grey.  His first important, starring role was in Heritage of the Desert (1932), and he went on to make 10 B Westerns for Paramount in their Zane Grey series.  A Western star was born.

Well … not quite.  In his early career, the Virginian starred in a wide variety of movies, including musicals (including turns with Shirley Temple!), comedies, crime pictures and adventure movies.  He appeared in everything from the science-fantasy She (1935) to the musical Roberta, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

But it was in Westerns that the Virginian made his most significant impact.  He would appear in more than 100 films, but the majority of them would be Westerns.  In his early Westerns, he is capable – and, in bigger-budgeted pictures, often the second banana.  But as he aged, he brought to his Western performances a gravitas, a hardness, and a touch of tragedy.  He wears stoicism like a suit of armor, only emerging from under it to write wrongs and mete out justice.

His face and body only improved with age.  As the Virginian entered his 50s, he lost much of his callow handsomeness, leaving him with an impressive, sculptural beauty.  It is a handsome face, but one carved from stone, with all the strength and impassivity associated with rock.  His muscular frame became leaner and harder as the Virginian aged into indestructability.  It is almost impossible to imagine, in these days of films made almost exclusively for addled children and undemanding adults, such a mature action hero.  But the maturity and the gravity were key ingredients to the Virginian’s later greatness; without them, he was diminished.

This Western persona hit its stride in the 1950s, and was particularly majestic in a series of seven Westerns he made with director Budd Boetticher (1916-2001).  Each and every one is a small masterpiece in its way, with the best being Ride Lonesome (1959).  When introducing people new to Westerns to the genre, this is usually the film I chose … and if you only see one Western, it may as well be this one.

When thinking about Scott and his Western screen persona for this retrospective, I realized that the actor had seemingly walked off of the very pages of the first great Western novel, The Virginian, written in 1902 by Owen Wister (1860-1938).

Like the nameless Virginian, Scott was a tall, handsome native of that state.  Like Wister’s hero, he would come to represent all of the virtues of the Western Hero – justice, chivalry, integrity, mercy and a sense of honor.  He is a straight-shooter, a man of moral substance and of self-respect.  He has seen it all and it has cost him much; but it has not made him bitter or hateful … merely watchful.  He is self-possessed and a gentleman around women, but not a ‘ladies man’ in the traditional sense.

For all of his exterior hardness and privacy, there is warmth and approachability in both Virginians.  There is a flinty hint of laughter around the crinkles of his eyes, and a wry humor.  Both Virginians live simply, speak honestly and are nature’s noblemen.  As the narrator in Wister’s novel says, often in their spirit sat hidden a true nobility, and often beneath its unexpected shining their figures took a heroic stature.

Scott’s final film was the excellent Ride the High Country (1962), which may be only good film by Sam Peckinpah.  In it, Scott and fellow-Western star Joel McCrea (1905-1990) are aging lawmen tasked with transporting gold across the frontier.  Both have lived hard lives, and both have seen the world change too much.  During the trip, one of the pair plans to make off with the gold and fund a comfortable retirement.  Playing against type – Scott plays the potential thief.

The real joy of High Country is the continual interplay between McCrea and Scott.  Originally, the roles were to be reversed, with Scott playing the honest and honorable lawman, and McCrea the more cynical, out-for-what-he-can-get ex-lawman.  However, during the initial reading, both realized that switching parts would be more effective, and they were entirely correct.  McCrea’s flat, Midwestern delivery is perfect for the moral compass of the picture, and Scott, in the role of a lifetime, uses his rich, Virginian accent to great effect as he makes sardonic, pithy remarks throughout the film.  In fact, his running commentary is one of the most satisfying elements of the screenplay, and the timbre of his voice is essential. 

Throughout the 1950s (and much of the 1940s), the Virginian focused primarily on Western films, and he brought to his performances the full weight of his screen image, and he played upon audience expectations of who he was and what he would do.

There have been many Western stars who rode tall in the saddle, but the Virginian, Randolph Scott, was one of the most impressive.  With his calm demeanor, steely reserve and moral compass, he was a reflection of the best part of ourselves.

The Law and Jake Wade

We conclude our week of looking at movies that have fallen through the cracks with The Law and Jake Wade (1958), a champion Western from director John Sturges (Gunfight at the OK Corral).

A quick side note before heading West – initially I had promised to write about Nijinsky, a sumptuous biopic from 1980 directed by Herb Ross and starring Alan Bates, but in pulling out my (very) worn VHS copy, I find that the quality has deteriorated so that I would not really be able to provide a fair reassessment of the film.  The good news is this – a quick look online indicates that Nijinsky will finally make its way to DVD and Blu-Ray at the end of this month.  Movie lovers and balletomanes stand at the ready, a more formal reassessment is at hand.

And so, instead, on the trail with The Law and Jake Wade – proving once again that we are nothing if not eclectic.  Jake Wade is certainly no masterpiece, but it is a remarkable example of the technical mastery and competence that were once the  watchwords of American movie making.  It could stand as a textbook course on construction, timing, casting and production.

The film starts running (literally) in its opening minutes.  Robert Taylor steps into the local jail and frees prisoner Richard Widmark.  Once outside of town, Widmark wonders where some long-missing stolen money is; Taylor announces that his days as a bad man are over and that the money is buried away – out of reach for them both.  Taylor got Widmark out of jail to repay his debt to him, but it ends there.

Taylor returns to his town alone and it’s then that we learn he has actually become a lawman.  He visits his fiancée (Patricia Owens) and, later that night, Widmark tracks down our hero with the aide of some slimy associates, including Henry Silva and DeForst Kelley (yes, Dr. McCoy from Star Trek). 

Widmark and the gang kidnap Owens, and use her to force Taylor to go with them once more into the desert and find the stolen money: an easy task, if you can avoid being massacred by a war party of rampaging Comanches…

Where to begin?  Robert Taylor (1911-1969) started his career in the 1930s, famous for his extraordinary beauty and perfect profile.  Time, however, was not particularly kind to Taylor, and a scant 20 years later he is a leathery, craggy leading man.  This works perfectly here, as his badman-turned-lawman is easily someone who has seen too much and is haunted by the memories.  His stoic delivery and honest line readings make for a believable performance, and it is clear why he was a dependable star for so many years.  Sadly, this is close to the twilight of his career, despite his relative youth.  He will transition to television, hosting Death Valley Days until his death from lung cancer.

Patricia Owens (1925-2000), always a second tier leading lady, shines in a thankless part.  Where so many Western heroines simper (or nag) with varying degrees of believability, one readily believes that Owens is heroic in her own right and more than a match for a group of old west hardcases.

The gang, most particularly DeForest Kelley (1920-1999), are the quintessential sidewinders of western lore.  Kelley made a minor career of playing old west weaklings, back-stabbers, sneaks and cheap gunman before being corralled into outer space.  His best performances remain his villains.

The real standout, however, is Richard Widmark (1914-2008), as the clearly psychotic ringleader.  Widmark’s oeuvre is an interesting one: he initially shot into stardom playing a psychopathic gangster in Kiss of Death.  From then on until his final film roles in the 1990s, Widmark was one of the few major stars to comfortably shift between heroes and villains.  Though his heroic performances were always credible, it is perhaps as badmen and nutcases that he excelled.  Here, Widmark is completely without control – shooting without provocation, taking wild and desperate chances, and seemingly untouched by life or death, including his own.  He is a dangerous man indeed.

The film was shot on location in the snowcapped Sierras, also utilizing an authentic ghost town.  John Sturges (1910-1992) directed a host of classic westerns, including The Last Train From Gun Hill (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and the overrated Hour of the Gun (1967).

The Law and Jake Wade is a masterpiece of concision – the opening scene details Taylor breaking Widmark out of prison, and from then on, the plot unwinds like a well-made watch.  In its 86 minute running time there is not a wasted moment, a superfluous gesture or an unnecessary plot point.  Anyone wanting to know how to plot effectively could learn from this film.

It also has a layer of complexity that is there beneath the surface, but certainly not ambiguous.  Widmark has a special animus for Owens and is hurt by Taylor, clearly this passion transcends the want of stolen money and is the result of sexual jealousy.  In the 1950s ‘adult westerns’ usually meant ‘gay subtext,’ and like Warlock and Gunfight at the OK Corral, Jake Wade follows suit.

The Law and Jake Wade is a type of film that we no longer have the knack of making.  It’s smart without pretention, action-packed without being frenetic, honest without being ironic.  It’s an artifact from an era that made movies for adults (in the truest sense of the words), and considered us intelligent enough to enjoy levels of ambiguity and complexity.

For some odd reason, The Law and Jake Wade has fallen off the radar.  This is amazing to me because it is such a taut, compelling and satisfying film – easily accessible on DVD.  It also has one of Widmark’s finest performances, and perhaps Taylors best latter one.  It is highly recommended to anyone who likes westerns or simply deft movie-making.

In many ways the 1950s was the Golden Age of movie westerns.  Readers interested in this era are urged to visit the blog 50 Westerns From the 50s, by film historian and writer Toby Roan.  You can find it here: http://fiftieswesterns.wordpress.com/.  Toby is writing a book on westerns from that era and his blog is always fun and insightful.