In Love with the Joy Delirious...Redux

In the relatively short time I have been writing down my thoughts and impressions on classic film and television, I have received more comments about one piece I wrote than almost any other. So, in commemoration of the her 100th birthday, I offer it refreshed for this new blog. It is not the same, but then again, neither am I. Nothing in life is constant...except, of course, for re-runs. So it is fitting that today, we celebrate the woman who invented them. For so many of us, she not only made the perplexing days of our childhood brighter, she made many of the darkest ones bearable...and she continues to do it to this day. It is my extreme honor to play even the smallest part in the legacy of this extraordinary force of talent who touched so many lives so profoundly. My own, personal "joy delirious".

As I make my journey through the landscape of "Classic Hollywood", I am continually awestruck by the thrill of discovery. I will never forget the first time I witnessed the cinematic poetry of Chaplin, the other-worldliness of Garbo, the devastating wit of Wilder, the singularity of Streisand, the overwhelming emotion of Garland, the heartbreaking vulnerability of Monroe, or the galvanizing force of Bette Davis. Yet for me, every new experience always came with a slight caveat. Though brilliant -iconic - in their respective gifts, each was, to me, a slight pretender to the throne. It wasn't their fault. They were simply the newcomers who stood in the shadow of the great first love. Because for me, before there was Wilder and Wyler, before there was Davis and Crawford, before there was Chaplin and Lloyd, there was Lucy.

Like so many of you, I grew up in the aftermath of the 1970s nuclear family meltdown. My mother didn't chose to work outside the home - life chose it for her. Likewise, my father's having to work twelve hour shifts had less to do with career advancement than the time and 1/2 that it paid. So, who was there to greet the industrious second-grader coming home from school after a long day's journey into cursive writing? No one but that little black box (actually, it was the 1970s, so it was a big brown console) and all the wonders that emanated from it's smorgasbord of delights: All to be found on channels 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Ah, 11 ! The end of the line -- but the only one I ever went to--because that was the one where SHE was! That delirious woman/child with the wild clown hair (which even in black and white, looked crayola), the devilishly devious mind, and the huge eyes that lit up like searchlights every time she "had an idea". She seemed to have more fun in 23 minutes than anyone on earth EVER had. And--the best part-- she took ME with her!! How lucky was I?! Nothing that I had done in school that day could compare with the adventures she and I had. And we weren't alone, because her best friend was there, too. A lifetime friend. Someone you could always count on. She was my friend, too... I liked her a lot. Although I admit, she did confuse me at times, because sometimes her name was "Ethel", and sometimes her name was "Viv". But not my friend with the orange hair who had all the fun. She only ever had one name: Lucy. And I loved her.

Many people have asked me over time--especially now that my life has taken the recent turns that it has -- exactly what was it about Lucille Ball? Well, that's question that could be a thesis for a dissertation on the nature of humor and in twentieth century post-war culture. My answer is always: Who cares? I just say that if you love Lucy, you don't have to ask. It is undefinable; indescribable. Why bother to explain sunlight? How do you explain bliss? You just accept the gift of it --and if you're smart enough, you'll simply allow yourself to drink in the delirious joy of its moment. That's what she gave us. Endless moments of delirious joy. Why go on and on with a lot of technical verbiage about her technique, her process-- or ,even more tediously, the unpleasantness of her personal life. Let the magician keep her secrets... our only obligation is to enjoy the magic. And I did. And I still do.

Happy Birthday, Big Red. Thanks for taking me along.

Cinematic City, Part One: City in Silence

As film historians have often pointed out, the first great home of motion pictures was a little Utopian village that seemed to have it all: idyllic vistas of bucolic country roads, stark urban landscapes, open fields, majestic bluffs, and charming 19th century facades. It was called Fort Lee, New Jersey. It also had the long arm of Thomas Edison and his intimidating Motion Picture Patents Trust, which continually strove to stifle the burgeoning talents of movie makers struggling to break free of its control. It was for this reason, as well as the unpredictable east coast weather, that pioneering filmmakers, like the American frontiersman before them, left the Hudson River Valley and traversed westward, eventually settling in the idyllic climate of Southern California. There, in a sleeply little hamlet of orange groves and chicken farms called "Hollywood", an industry was born.

By the time Edison's Trust was declared an illegal monopoly in 1915, the movies and Hollywood were irrevocably united. When the European film industry was decimated as a result of the First World War, the American film industry moved to the forefront of the world, and to the world, movies meant America, and America meant Hollywood. Though a few renegade filmmakers worked outside the Hollywood box, by and large  the most  films successful films  of the period  were those created and produced within the environs of Southern California.

At the same time, New York enjoyed its first halcyon period as the playground for the roaring hoards of revelers celebrating the heady times of the 1920s. The city saw an economic boom that redesigned both the cultural and urban skyline of Manhattan. By 1925, New York City became the most populous city in the world, overtaking London which had reigned for a century. This huge influx of divergent energies, cultures, and races created a metropolis that was itself a living, breathing entity. Ask anyone who has spent even the smallest amount of time traversing it's thoroughfares; unlike any other city, New York has rhythms, intentions, and motivations all its own.

This singular characteristic appealed to two filmmakers who were both reaching the apex of their careers in the late 1920s: Harold Lloyd and King Vidor. Today, Lloyd is most recognizable as the bespectacled young man dangling precariously from the hands of a clock on the side of a skyscraper; it is one of the great iconic images of American film. In the 1920s, however, he rivaled Chaplin and Keaton in popularity and acclaim. What distinguished Lloyd was that he was the most archetypal  "American" of the group; his aggressive, resilient, romantic character was perfectly in tune with the era. He was 1920s America. More specifically, he was 1920s New York City. His qualities, and the city's qualities, were a perfect mesh. While the majority of his films tapped into this unique and cosmopolitan (ie: New York) quality, ironically they were shot on the streets of Los Angeles, not New York. When the time came to film what would be his final silent film, Speedy (1928), Lloyd decided to rectify that.

"Speedy" was Harold Lloyd's real nickname, and there is no better adjective for this incredibly raucous, rollicking, roller-coaster ride of a film, or for the city that it joyously celebrates. From the elevated trains criss-crossing the canyons of Manhattan to the thrills of Coney Island, to a cameo appearance by Yankee legend Babe Ruth, Speedy is a Valentine to an era long gone -- and that was quickly disappearing as the film itself was being made. In Speedy, Lloyd portrays Harold "Speedy" Swift , the blindly optimistic young man in love with the young girl with a predicament: her grandfather's horse-drawn trolley is in danger of being swallowed up into a corporate monopoly. But these characters and their story are really secondary to the third character of the film: New York City. The immigrant neighborhoods, the impossibly crowded thoroughfares, the overwhelming urban spectacles are just as integral to the unfolding of the plot as any human character. They present obstacles, entice and seduce with their pleasures, threaten danger, create mishaps, but eventually bring our hero and heroine together at the end of the film.

Take for example, a Sunday afternoon spent at Coney Island. From the opening shots, when the boy and girl excitedly enter the subway station en route to Luna Park, the the atmosphere is charged with anticipation. Rather than construct a set, the sequence was shot at the actual Wall Street subway station - complete with animated crowds pushing and shoving each other into the waiting train - which lends the scene not only a palpable energy, but an added layer of authenticity. For many film goers, this was their first glimpse at the chaos of an subway ride, and the swift and startling physical proximity between strangers that it creates. This sudden and enforced physical intimacy naturally leads to closer emotional intimacy for the couple, and it continues to build with each subsequent "ride" once the couple arrives at Coney Island. This is "The City" bringing the couple together.

As in most of his films, Lloyd's character confronts one obstacle after another in an attempt to reach his goal. The difference in Speedy is that it is often "The City" throwing up the obstacle, and by turn, "The City" coming to his aid. Whether romancing his girl with the plebeian pleasures of Coney Island, taking "The Babe" on the taxi ride of his life to Yankee Stadium, or the final climax of the film, a breathtaking chase on the trolley car through the streets of Manhattan, Lloyd and his team were fearless in capturing as much of the city as they could . At various times their near "guerrilla filmmaking" techniques employed cameras hidden in milk wagons, on the back of trucks, and in one instance, on the top of a speeding ambulance. Their fearlessness resulted in the only Academy Award nomination a Lloyd film ever received, for director Ted Wilde in the short lived "Best Director of a Comedy " category.

Even at this point in the history of the city, the enormity of this achievement cannot be overstated. New York City, and it's huddled masses, had defeated more than one filmmaker in 1928 -- notably Buster Keaton. One of  cinema's great risk-takers, Keaton packed up after only a few weeks of frustrating New York filming and headed back to the controlled environment of Culver City to complete The Cameraman. And, though Lloyd did indeed film key scenes on his studio lot in West Los Angeles, what remains in the finished film is remarkable. The final race to the rescue, a hallmark of many of Lloyd's films, is especially noteworthy considering that  a real accident--Lloyd's trolley car collided with an elevated train column--threatened to derail filming. ("The City" literally throwing an obstacle in his path). Showing the same remarkable ingenuity for which his film character's were noted, Lloyd and his crew integrated the crash into the plot, resulting in an even more thrilling finale.  It remains one of the most exciting and daring sequences in film comedy.

In retrospect, Speedy can be viewed as a comic metaphor for the breakneck pace at which New York (and therefore, America) was hurling itself through the dizzying decade of the 1920s, as well as the inevitable crash that was to come. Whereas Lloyd's Speedy assumes a lighthearted and satiric slant , King Vidor's masterpiece, The Crowd, made the same year, shows the other side of this desperate race - and its dangerous and devastating toll on the human psyche. And once again, New York City  is at the forefront  of it all.


To be continued...

Cinematic City

So, here I find myself waking up in the city that never sleeps. The best of everything in the world is here -- fashion, finance, food -- but what is it that lights the corners of my mind as I walk the sidewalks of New York?

Films.
 

More  specifically, films about New York. It is not that surprising, considering that  this most cinematic of cities has inspired filmmakers since film was a one reel wonder. After all,  motion pictures were born here -- or just across the Hudson River  at the Edison Laboratory in  New Jersey. The earliest productions were shot on these very streets, and the first American motion picture studios, such as  Vitagraph, Biograph, and Kalem were founded here. This is where D.W. Griffith,  Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Blanche Sweet, and Douglas Fairbanks all began their careers in cinema.

Even though the center of  production eventually moved three thousand miles away to a little hamlet called Hollywood, movies never forgot where they started.  The silent era saw many films utilize the Great Gotham, including two of my favorites from 1928, The Crowd  and Harold Lloyd's last silent feature, Speedy.  Movies  have always had a love affair with Manhattan, but the advent of sound made location filming prohibitive,  and what was once a film maker's playground was relegated to replicated sets on studio back lots. Thus, "naughty, bawdy, gaudy" 42nd Street was in reality a sound stage  in the San Fernando Valley, and the "lights of Fourteenth Street" were florescent bulbs strung on an outdoor set in Century City, California.

With rare exception (such as 1945's The Lost Weekend) New York filming was limited to quick  background shots to establish location, and then production quickly headed back to the controlled atmosphere of the sound stage.  It wasn't until On the Town (1949), when Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen  convinced a skeptical MGM  to allow them to film the opening number, "New York, New York" entirely on Manhattan locations, rather than on the back lot, that the singular joys of the city's character were re-discovered. After that, film steadily began to dip its toe into the rich New York waters, and  through the 1950s  films  such as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953),  It Should Happen To You (1954), The Marrying Kind (1955),  The Seven Year Itch  (1955), The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and North by Northwest (1959) captured the particular joys, romance, and chaos of post-war Manhattan. These films, though shot primarily in studio, featured key scenes filmed on the streets of the city, thus providing added dimension to the finished product.Some brave film makers, however, jumped into the  New York waters feet first -- literally. Elia Kazan filmed On the Waterfront (1954) in and around the docks of  Hoboken, New Jersey, and the film won the 1954 Best Picture Oscar in the process.  The following year, director Delbert Mann repeated the feat, filming  1955's Best Picture winner, Marty, in and  around the area that New Yorker's refer to as  "uptown and to the right":  the Bronx.

Hollywood's love affair with New York hit its zenith in 1961 with the release of what is considered  by  many to be the ultimate New York romance, Breakfast At Tiffany's. That year  saw the release of another New York story, this one centered on the city's chaotic and often violent West Side.   While the former  remains a classic in escapist romance, the latter, West Side Story, suggested  that not all was huckleberries and rainbows; there were  some pretty turbulent times "waitin' round the bend".  Indeed, as the decade wore on, what was post-war euphoria turned into a cosmopolitan nightmare for many,  and film began to reflect the growing sense of urban paranoia.   In Rosemary's Baby (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969), The Out of Towners (1970),   Mean Streets (1973),  Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Taxi Driver (1976) and Cruising (1980), the city was often cast as an adversary - in both comic and tragic vein.

But, as in all fairy tales,  the hero arrives in the nick of time to save his damsel in distress. In this instance,  Manhattan's Prince Charming  was the ultimate New Yorker himself, Woody Allen.    Beginning with Annie Hall (1977), and especially the lyrical Manhattan (1979), Allen began creating cinematic valentines that reflected his romantic vision of his battered but  beautiful lady.  Set to the strains of Gershwin and  Rogers and Hart, it was impossible not to be moved by the cinematic splendor of the tarnished cityscape, and Manhattan began a cinematic renaissance. This renewed passion for the magnificence of the city dovetailed with its economic resurgence, and throughout the next two decades films such as Arthur (1981), Tootsie (1983), Moonstruck (1987), When Harry Met Sally (1989), The Prince of Tides (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), As Good As it Gets (1997) and   You've Got Mail (1998) depicted a veritable wonderland. With the sudden influx of millions of dollars   into the urban renewal of the 1990s, the city rose to even greater heights.  By the end of the twentieth century, New York was second only to Paris as the most romantic city in the world.

So, this summer, I will be taking a trip to classic Hollywood in New York, and highlighting some of my  favorite New York stories.  I hope you'll come on along,  and we'll take a look at how  filmmakers from Griffith to Ephron have turned Manhattan into a cinematic isle of  joy.

I Mean To Shine

Here comes another dawn
For every child to see
This time the morning sun
Is burning just for me
I've got the skyward eyes
Like I've never had before
Just smile and say goodbye
And show me to the door

For everyone there comes a precious time to break away
I mean to shine
Oh, oh I mean to shine
As I look out on the morning sun
I know I mean to shine.

This day I realize the world I knew is gone
New seasons come and change the crown that stood upon
I've been afraid to feel
And scared of falling free
You said so I'm real
It seemed so clear to me

For everyone who breathes
There comes a time to fly away
I mean to shine
0h I mean to shine
As I look at all the morning sun
I know I mean to shine

written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker

The Thing About Elizabeth
(Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-Burton-Warner-Fortensky)

PART ONE

Like many people these past few days, I am pondering the meaning of Dame Elizabeth Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-Burton- Warner-Fortensky. I have, on occasion, shared my thoughts on one or two notable losses in the world of "Classic Hollywood". But this one is different. This one calls for something more. To put it bluntly-- this one is the big one.

Elizabeth Taylor was her own one-woman epic. She lived her life in proportions that dwarfed Cleopatra, (both the woman, and the infamous 1963 film) and went so far beyond the parameters of Hollywood stardom that a new term - "superstar"- was invented to describe her. Never settling for enough when she could have it all, conversely, she never gave enough if she could give it all. And for Dame Elizabeth, all was everything. At the end, even a career that garnered three Academy Awards, voluminous wealth, world wide acclaim and infamy, condemnation from the U.S. Congress and a Pope, and a Royal Order of the British Empire did not define her. She saved her greatest achievements for her last act: those of a fearless crusader who brought a horrific disease out of the closet of shame and into the light of compassion and understanding. It is difficult not to speak in hyperbole when you are discussing Elizabeth Taylor, because Elizabeth Taylor was hyperbole.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor was that she was a child star who was never really a child. From the first moment she first appeared on the screen, she was simply a miniature version of her adult self. Possessed of an un-earthly beauty and poise, she gave veteran MGM film producer Samuel Marx pause when he first encountered the precocious ten year old, and after an acclaimed supporting role in Lassie Come Home (1943) led to her breakout performance in National Velvet (1944) she entered the legendary MGM star-making machine. Yet the thing about Elizabeth Taylor was that she was never just a cog in its well-oiled wheels. Her languorously demure physical appearance belied a headstrong nature that would develop notoriously as she grew into adulthood, and would cause her "home" studio much grief and consternation in later years. At age 15, she famously told an apoplectic Louis B. Mayer to "go to Hell" after he berated her mother in her presence. Taylor remembered this moment as a turning point in her life; the moment when she realized that "I was a complete, free individual". This belief in the rightness of her own moral compass would dictate her actions for the rest of her life.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Hilton was that she was the most beautiful young woman in the world. At least, that is what famed columnist Hedda Hopper declared, and most other accounts followed suit. Her splendor was, by the age of 17, such an overpowering visceral experience that in her best films of the era it became as integral a part as the story itself. As socialite Angela Vickers in George Steven's A Place In the Sun (1951), her outrageous beauty is as much an impetus for Montgomery Clift's actions as the social position he longs to attain through her, and the tragic consequences of these actions become doubly devastating for the loss of it. Moreover, the chemistry she shares with Clift (perhaps the only actor in Hollywood who could approach her physical perfection) not only hints at the emotional fires banked beneath her "Park Avenue" exterior, it portends her performances to come later in the decade.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Wilding was that she was discovering the strength within herself. Forever altered after the near fatal car crash of her soul mate Clift (she saved his life by reaching into his mangled throat and pulling out the shattered teeth obstructing his airway), Taylor began to wander beyond the shallow waters of MGM glamour girl and into more challenging depths that lay beyond. In Giant (1956), she stretched outside her comfort zone for the first time to explore the life of a woman in a conflict of morality, desire and prejudice. It is a tenuous exploration, to be sure, but her performance rings true in moments of absolute faith in character and intent. Surrounded by a cast as overpowering as the Texas locale itself, including titans Rock Hudson, Mercedes McCambridge and James Dean, she emerges as the film's emotional core. It is in Giant, that Elizabeth Taylor Wilding became an actress.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Todd was that she was a passionate force of nature. In the most creatively fertile and rewarding period of her film career, she found her artistry first through joy, then through anguish. Marrying impresario Mike Todd, she was rapturous in the glow of love, and then despondent after Todd's tragic death in a plane crash. Midway through filming Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) director Richard Brooks convinced an emotionally shattered Taylor to return to work, where she channelled her all consuming grief into a searing portrait of "Maggie the Cat". In doing so, Taylor fulfilled the early promise of Angela Vickers and her suspected fires of passion, sexual frustration, and fury. As Maggie, she screeches - she paws - she seethes -but she still manages to hold on tenaciously to the hot tin roof of her emotions, never allowing herself to fall into the desolation below. Her performance of fire and ice earned her an Oscar nomination. Exhilarated from the experience, she delved even further into the dark depths of her psyche in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Tennessee Williams unsettling exploration of repression, mental illness, and questionable motherly love. Too lurid for many at the time of its release, it none-the-less garnered Taylor another Oscar nomination, as well as condemnation for its contentious subject matter. For its emotionally liberated star, however, the controversey was merely an appetizer for the main course of reprobation that was to come...for just after its release, Elizabeth Taylor Todd became Mrs. Eddie Fisher.

The thing about Elizabeth Taylor Fisher was that she was fearless. As if liberated by the grief over the death of Mike Todd, she flew in the face of public censure and married Todd's best friend, singer Eddie Fisher, three hours after his divorce from her friend Debbie Reynolds was final. She was a hellion unleashed and ready for battle; and battle she did, particularly with her "home" studio, MGM. Tasting sweet freedom, she chafed at the artistic and financial restraints of her long term contract and longed to break free...particularly when Twentieth Century Fox began courting her to star in their planned remake of Cleopatra. At first thinking the idea ridiculous, Taylor half-jokingly told them she would do it -- for a salary of ONE MILLION DOLLARS. To her stunned surprise, they agreed. But there was a stumbling block: her MGM contract. In order to gain her freedom, Taylor agreed to star in a project which she loathed: the film version of the salacious novel, Butterfield 8. Frequently referring to the film as "Butterball 4", her disdain for the project was apparent to all involved, especially during an early preview when she allegedly offered her own critical assessment of the film by taking off her shoes and throwing them at the screen. But, free at last from the studio that had been her home for 17 years, she and Fisher headed to London to begin filming on the (then) modestly-budgeted Cleopatra. The swirl of negative press that enveloped the unapologetic star and her husband as they left for England was nothing, however, compared to the harsh English weather that greeted her, as well as the ever-present dampness of London's Pinewood Studios. She was soon plagued by one malady after another, and was unable to appear on the set but for a few days of tests before she fell ill with an infection that quickly developed into a rare and virulent strain of pneumonia. After collapsing in her hotel room, she was rushed to The London Clinic where an emergency tracheotomy was performed. As she hovered for hours between life and death, many overeager press reporters declared that Elizabeth Taylor, screen beauty, had died at the age of 28.

What they didn't know was this: the thing about Elizabeth Taylor Fisher was that she was also a survivor.

To be continued...

Does a Cactus Flower by any other name still smell...?

I know it's been a while since I've posted a blog, and my apologies to my follower. It's not that I haven't had material lately (Hi, Charlie Sheen) but, to be honest, I just haven't felt sufficient motivation to delve into the inner depths of my psychic pool.

And then, today, I was driving up La Cienega Blvd and found my muse.

As I sat at the traffic light, I glanced up to one of the ubiquitous billboards that pepper the Hollywood Hills like so many pimples on a high school cheerleader, and I saw it looming above me: the towering advertisement for the Russell Brand remake of the 1981 classic, Arthur. As a feeling began to overtake me that can best be described as "vomity" (yes, I did co-author a book), my mind began to reel with the plague of remakes that has polluted the cineplexes of the world these past few years. The most recent offender that caught my attention was the Adam Sandler opus, Just Go With It. Considering that an Adam Sandler film rarely requires substantive reflection, you can be forgiven for not knowing that the pithily titled comedy is actually a remake of the 1969 comedy, Cactus Flower, which starred Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman. Now, here's the thing: although it starred two of the greatest screen personalities of their generations, Cactus Flower is not a great movie. Or even a good one. The fact that the film is primarily known today as Goldie Hawn's Oscar-winning film debut should tell you something right there. So, why in the world would Hollywood go back to the same shallow well?

Remakes have been around almost as long as movies themselves (some historians date the first to 1904 - a remake of The Great Train Robbery, the first narrative film which had been filmed the year before). Movie-making is a "crap-shoot", and one of the few ways to hedge the bet of the box office is to utilize to a proven commodity. Unfortunately, what constitutes a good business decision doesn't always guarantee a good artistic one, and too often the term "crap-shoot" takes on a literal meaning.

This is not, by any means, always the case. Two of the greatest film comedies of all time, The Awful Truth (1937) and His Girl Friday (1940), were remakes of previously filmed material. In both cases, however, they were more "re-imaginings" than "re-makes"; they took very strong source material and re-interpreted it. In this spirit, Cactus Flower is actually a very good candidate for remaking. Adapted from a French comedy by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Abe Burrows, the resulting play not only featured Lauren Bacall in her Broadway debut, it was a smash hit that ran 1,234 performances (although the current Broadway revival is not faring nearly as well). It was, however, very much a reflection of its era (the "swinging 60s"), and by the time the movie version was released in 1969, it already seemed dated. Plus, the miscasting of Bergman in the Bacall role didn't help matters. So, all these factors would make it seem a good candidate for a second chance in a contemporary film re-imagining. Just Go With It, unfortunately, is just not that film.

Which brings us back to my muse: the remake of Arthur, a classic film which meets NONE of the criteria listed above. The original Arthur was that rarest of Hollywood occurrences: the result of a magical amalgamation of perfect cast, perfect script, and perfect director all meeting in the perfect era and creating...well...perfection. Even its theme song, the lilting The Best That You Can Do, is perfectly wedded to the film. But in case you still are not convinced, I would rest my case against a remake in four little words: Dudley Moore and John Gielgud. (OK, that's five little words).

In short, Arthur is Dudley Moore and John Gielgud. The relationship between these two men is the heart and soul of the film; its true romantic core. This does not in any way slight the contributions of Steve Gordon (directing his own wonderfully witty screenplay), the hysterical Jill Eikenberg, or most of all, Liza Minnelli --who shines in a refreshingly restrained and understated performance. But even Minnelli admitted that she was little more than a prop in the love story of the billionaire playboy and his devoted valet. The shared history that is communicated through the slightest droop of an eyelid (Gielgud), turn of a smile (Moore), or glint in an eye (both) is recognizably human, hysterically funny and profoundly moving. So much so, that the emotional climax of the film is NOT the anticipated wedding of Moore and Minnelli, but the death of Gielgud and the resulting effect on Moore--the chemistry between the two men is that powerful. Anyone who doubts this assertion should refer to the dismal 1988 sequel, Arthur 2: On the Rocks, for verification.

It may seem as if I am taking this all a bit too personally, and perhaps this is true. However, I believe that film can be (and should be) an intensely personal experience. For me, Arthur was one of a triumvirate of films that formed a tight bond between myself and my college friends during the first frightening weeks of freshman year. It was through Arthur (What's Up, Doc? (1972) and High Anxiety (1977) were the other two) that a band of lonely misfits found a common bond, and through this bond found each other... and eventually themselves. In an awkward moment of adolescent angst, all it took was one of us to utter: "Usually, one must go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature", or "Don't you hate Perry's wife?", to shift the mood, and a stranger slowly became a friend. This is one of the true wonders of film, isn't it? It can not only take a room full of strangers and, in a few hours, make them a family, it can reach beyond - and make these strangers recognize themselves in each other. That's what Arthur did for me.

So, there, I guess I am not feeling too "vomity" anymore. I wish you luck in your endeavor, Mr. Brand and company. I even wish you a huge opening weekend. Perhaps it will prompt the brain trusts who came up with the idea of this remake to go all the way and put you in a remake of Arthur 2. That should fix you.

For me, I am content because I know that you will never touch the magic that I felt the first time I got caught between the Moon and New York City.

Revisiting The Apartment

I recently returned from a wonderful trip to New York City in a true blur of theatre-delirium, a state from which I must confess I am still having trouble coming down. Angela Lansbury once said "One of the most wonderful--and terrible -- things about theatre is that it's a memory". The great Lansbury was right: in the theatre, the only rewind button is in your mind. However, I am happy to report that sometimes there is a way that one can recapture the magic --at least partially-- and perhaps acquire some new spine tingling moments in the process. Here is how you can do it.

The magic that caught me was in two productions in particular, both of which will be closing in a few weeks: The revivals of A Little Night Music and Promises, Promises. For the former, I am at a loss ( I do not recommend the 1977 film version) but for the latter -ah! I am in luck!! Because there is no way to better relive the pleasures of Promises, Promises than through The Apartment (1960).

I have always had a special fascination for that most interesting animal, the un-original Broadway musical. It is easy to understand why musicals are frequently adapted from successful, non-musical source material: they already have proven track records. Unfortunately, for every Pygmalion/My Fair Lady there is a Caesar and Cleopatra/Her First Roman. So, in the late 1960s when the idea to translate Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning masterpiece The Apartment into a Broadway musical first surfaced, all were not convinced it was a surefire proposition. Even after Neil Simon, Burt Bacharach and Hal David signed on, its producer, the redoubtable David Merrick, still had a few. But The Apartment turned out to be an ideal template for a Broadway musical. Even in the most optimistic of times, Wilder was an unapologetic cynic - frequently piercing the most bilious of complacent bubbles with his sharp and uncompromising wit. And while The Apartment is no exception to this Wilder tenant, it also contains an element that is essential for a successful musical: a sentimental heart. And although Wilder does his best to camouflage, its presence can be felt in every frame: from Jack Lemmon's wistful longing for the elevator girl of his dreams, to Shirley MacLaine's heartbreaking confession of love for her married lover, The Apartment wears its raw and overwhelming emotion on its sleeve. Unusual for a filmmaker who's stock in trade was always the "trade" of love-- but perhaps not really. After all, scratch a cynic, and you will most likely uncover a wounded romantic; and the characters in The Apartment are all wounded romantics attempting to find a bit of respite in a harsh and cynical world.

Lemmon's C.C. Baxter was the template for what became his screen persona: the "invisible" everyman struggling to be noticed in an indifferent world (think The Fortune Cookie (1966), Save the Tiger (1973), The Out-of-Towners (1970). But what was so appealing about Lemmon, and what made him the perfect Wilder hero, was that he always instilled in these characters a hint of the eternal optimist. Continually thwarted in his struggle to move far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Baxter remains remarkably sanguine. Even when he discovers that the object of his affections, the luminous Shirley MacLaine, is the girl who's been sleeping in his bed--with his boss--he remains steadfast in his devotion to her. By the end of the film, Baxter has been left literally beaten and bruised after tangling with the "big boys". Yet, left alone in the ruins of his life, he doesn't pop his revolver, he pops a bottle of champagne. Baxter is down but not out...beaten up, but not beaten.

Likewise, Shirley MacLaine also sets the template for her decade-long portrayals of hookers with hearts of gold. Her impossibly fresh face with its cherubic cheeks and eyes set wide in perpetual wonder was the perfect counterpoint to the sensual and vulnerable women that lay beneath—women who frequently traded their bodies in the hope of emotional compensation. (Think Some Came Running (1958), Irma La Douce (1963), Sweet Charity (1970). In The Apartment, Fran Kubelik is a prostitute not of her body, but of her heart; a behavior which, in the end, proves much more injurious. Witness, for example, the devastating scene in which Fred MacMurray's loathsome boss, Sheldrake, hands Fran $100 as a Christmas "present". Wilder is very careful to make sure we realize that a sexual liaison has not occurred between the two; this is payment for emotional services rendered. In the aftermath of the devastation, Fran attempts suicide. No one was better than the young MacLaine in portraying this sort of emotional wanton, and her heart-wrenching performance won the actress her second Oscar nomination.

All this seems to be pretty dour stuff for something labeled a "comedy" –but, in true Wilder fashion, it is this attempted suicide which finally brings our disparate hero and heroine together. This seamless melding of tragedy with comedy is a Wilder hallmark, and is very much the emotional environment in which The Apartment dwells. Like life, it is a comedy which tips precariously on the edge of tragedy. It's also the brilliant Wilder "push-pull" -- leading us down one path, and then suddenly unexpectedly shoving us down another. This is no more magnificently illustrated than in the film’s final moments. As Shirley MacLaine romantically rushes through the streets of New York and back to Lemmon (to the strains of Adolphe Deutsch's lush theme), our romantic assumptions of happily ever after seem to be coming to certain fruition. Then, just as she (and the music) reach their crescendo, both are jarringly halted by what sounds like a gunshot. Comedy tipping on tragedy. Racing to the door of the apartment in a panic, she begins pounding on it in terror, only to greeted by a very much alive Jack Lemmon holding an over-flowing champagne bottle. Tragedy dips back into comedy . And when the lovers are finally re-united, and Baxter confesses his love for Miss Kubelik, what are we left with? Our lovers embracing in a romantic clinch? No. A game of cards. And one of the greatest final lines in movie history. From the man who gave us the surreal "No body's perfect" the year before in Some Like it Hot, we get the most pragmatic of summations: “Shut up, and deal”.

In life…sometimes…that is all you can do.