Meg 8/27/23 Meg 8/27/23

The Sinister Fun of Bradford Dillman

Collage of about 20 images of Bradford Dillman with various facial expressions like surprise, anger, glee, concern

“By my reckoning, in over four decades I’ve been personally responsible for the demise of well over a thousand people. Heck, at Jonestown alone my Kool-Aid took out over nine hundred, and I’ve blown up the Queen Mary twice. Heroes are heroes. They pay the single greatest price of celebrity, the loss of privacy. This explains the army of bodyguards employed by some to keep the adoring multitudes at bay. Villains don’t have these problems. Me, I’ve never been bothered in a bar or boite. People can’t be sure I’m not carrying a knife or a gun.”

— Bradford Dillman, Are You Anybody? An Actor’s Life

It is April, the sun is shining, and life is returning to some of our weary bones after what can only be described as a long, harsh winter of total discontent. In short, it’s Aries season, friends; and there is no better time to talk about charismatic villainous virtuoso Bradford Dillman (who would have turned 91 this April 14th). Bradford Dillman was an omnipresent actor in Hollywood for decades with a range that took him from The Actors Studio--debuting on stage with James Dean--and originating the role of Edmund Tyrone in the Broadway production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night to creature-feature horror and endless guest-starring roles attempting to kill the heroes in seemingly every 1960s and 1970s television program. He also kissed an ape in Escape From the Planet of the Apes.

Bradford Dillman is an heir to Peter Lorre and predecessor to Michael Shannon in the spectrum of actors giving us high-caliber sinister charm all mixed up with genuine emotional connection. He had the best evil smile in the business: a bent, slightly twisted smile that promised chaos--or at the very least some premeditated malice. His presence filled up all the empty spaces in every medium he appeared. A particular maximalist specialty of Dillman’s was the extended close-up on his face as it moved through dichotomous emotions--joy to rage; sadness to glee. He was acutely aware of movement in his face and body, but at the same time seemed to understand that he was supposed to provide an experience that was not quite human, more like human+. Why go out quietly, when you can go out screaming, howling, and/or cackling?

One of his early film roles was in Compulsion (1959), dir. Richard Fleischer, a fictionalized retelling of the Leopold and Loeb murder and trial. He played Artie Strauss (Loeb), a petulant 18-year-old rich boy who has never experienced a single consequence in his life and is convinced of his own superior intellect. He is as terrifying as he is charming, and his dominance over his (boy)friend as played by Dean Stockwell is the kind of performance that does not let you look away from it. Certainly not when he can be found carrying on an entire sinister conversation with a teddy bear. He shared the award for Best Actor at Cannes with co-stars Stockwell and Orson Welles (but not the teddy bear, which was a total snub). Compulsion is a film which is at times ethically dubious (for one, the murdered child is given almost zero consideration), but is at all times a work of performer-first filmmaking that builds a tremendous amount of tension, lets its actors run wild, and also contains a classic Welles’ fake nose (and fake eyebags?).

Dillman began as a method actor in important productions™, but since he and his wife Suzy Parker (supermodel; inspiration for Audrey in Funny Face) had a large family together, after she retired, he pivoted to being what he called a “Safeway actor”--anything to put food on the table. This is where he really shines: leaving a legacy of untrustworthy characters with intoxicating charm in every possible kind of film or television production. He was the man to go to for southern gothic werewolves or cult leaders or egotistical supervillains, and also sad dads or sweet dates-of-the-week for Mary Richards, or if you needed someone to play the nephew getting murdered by Uncle Ray Milland in an episode of Columbo. (My kingdom, my kingdom for an episode of Columbo with Bradford Dillman playing the murderer! Come on, Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy--stop being so greedy!)

One such unassuming production that got injected with Dillman was Jigsaw (1968), dir. James Goldstone. Jigsaw is a drug-trip murder mystery of uncommon chaos. (One wonders if even the film stock itself was laced with LSD?) It is also total fun, and perhaps even the platonic ideal of a sinister fun Bradford Dillman performance. He plays a repressed, emotionless scientist who wakes up with amnesia, blood on his hands, and in a room with a dead body. Suffice to say, the plot does later require him to trip on acid for ten minutes so he can remember (that’s how it works). The film was shot as a TV movie, but the content was too hot, so it got a theatrical release instead. Bradford Dillman has a great time, and the film plays up his unmatched ability to depict mania. Aside from the unfortunate use of a gruesome murder of a woman as essentially a plot mcguffin, this film offers perfect 1968 colorful+chaotic vibes.

That same year saw a theatrical release of another American television production with The Helicopter Spies (1968), dir. Boris Sagal, a two-part episode of Man From U.N.C.L.E. edited together as a single film for an international theatrical release. It contains an astonishingly fun performance from Dillman as the leader of a cult called The Third Way. Everyone in the cult (aside from him) is forced to dye their hair white blonde to match The High Priestess, while he wears an entirely white outfit (suit, shirt, shoes). Cult members greet each other by saying, “Keep the faith!” while offering a thumbs up. Naturally, he has plans to take over the world, charms absolutely everyone into believing him (including our two heroes), and goes on scamming. Because it is Dillman, we are never quite sure whether he is maliciously scamming for power and using the cult as a means; or whether he is maliciously scamming for power while actually believing in the cult. Delicious!

It is that level of morally unstable character (to borrow a line from The Naked Spur) that makes even supporting performances in films like Five Desperate Women (1971), dir. Ted Post, so much fun. The titular women are Joan Hackett, Stefanie Powers, Anjanette Comer, Denise Nicholas, and Julie Sommars. They are college BFFS reuniting on a private island cabin after five years--and they are a "mess" (some of them don’t even have husbands or babies yikes!). The chemistry between the women is genuinely perfect, and is a great intersection of heartfelt and camp. What we know, but the women do not, is that a murderous man is currently loose in the area. Naturally, our suspicion falls on Bradford Dillman as the boat captain who ferries them over to the island. He is a real weirdo and alienates them all almost immediately by explaining nutrition and how they clearly do not understand health like he understands it. Bradford Dillman keeps us dancing the whole time on the power of his sinister reputation alone.

This reputation for crafting exceptionally twisted...but fun characters (imagine I am saying that in a Sullivan’s Travels-like “with a little sex in it” cadence) kept him employed for decades. One of his final films was the Roger Corman-produced Lords of the Deep (1989), dir. Mary Ann Fisher. Honestly, this film is weird and freaky--and worth it for the wild camera work and special effects alone. It opens with a title card letting us know the year is 2020, and “Man has used up and destroyed most of Earth’s resources.” *gulp* Bradford Dillman is the good company man who commands a huge corporation’s experimental underwater habitat. He is a sinister capitalist who will see everyone dead before losing a drop of profits. He slithers around saying things like, “Are you imPLYING that I would endanger the lives of MY crew?” and “We used to have a thing called an Ozone, Jack. Remember? ... You idiot.” It had been thirty years since Compulsion, and he had not lost an ounce of his ability to terrify and charm in equal measures.

These five films I have picked practically at random, and they do not even begin to touch on the levels of delight to be had in Bradford Dillman’s 40-year, 142-credit film and television career. (These five are all available on streaming, however. I would especially give a look toward searching these titles on YouTube, ahem.) You can choose any one of his 142 performances and find something to shock, awe, and/or entertain you.

And, he certainly did not always play the bad guy (not even in all of these five films), but just as his villainy was multifaceted--his goodness was complicated. Suspicious, dark, twisted and bent like his famous smile. The man knew how to show us a good time.

Bradford Dillman kissing the tip of a gold walking stick and pointing it towards camera with a slight smirk on his face

originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 04/05/2021.

-Meg

Meg 8/23/23 Meg 8/23/23

An Ode to Sandra Dee

collage of images of Sandra in various poses and faces with surf board and with dogs and smiling and looking pensive and looking shocked

Let me paint a picture for you: It’s 2008, and I am 14-years-old, and newly attending a local homeschool co-op that meets every Monday in a church that’s forty minutes from my home. A homeschool co-op is an educational construct in which a bunch of homeschool moms (and it’s always moms) create their own insular school system and then teach the children of the other moms so that the art moms can just focus on art, the theology moms theology, the founding fathers moms the founding fathers, and the one mom who is really good at math tries to explain calculus to a bunch of teens who had taught themselves how to add and subtract and multiply and divide. There is no science mom.

This is as close to a classroom or school setting as I had ever been at the time, and I was delighted by the concept of school supplies at last (oh, how I had coveted those overflowing bins at Target), and naturally, immediately decorated my class folders with photos printed out at the public library. I had a James Dean folder, a Grace Kelly folder, an Audrey Hepburn folder, an Ingrid Bergman folder, and a Sandra Dee folder.

On that first Monday, the teacher-mom for the Sandra Dee folder class (it was something like American Citizenship 101) asked me who was on my folder. I said with enthusiasm, “It’s Sandra Dee!” This was a few months before I started my film blog, and I was eager for any outlet to talk. In a move that prepared me for every internet-splainer to come, teacher-mom responded, “No that isn’t Sandra Dee. Sandra Dee is a character in Grease. ‘Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee…’” (She did not finish the lyric, which clearly was a spectre from her heathen youth, as Grease was not co-op approved.) I was torn between knowing that adults should never be corrected, and also by knowing that, well, it was Sandra Dee on my folder. I went with a mumbled, “This is Sandra Dee, the actress.” Teacher-mom said, “No, you must be confused.”

And that was that. I saw no path to victory, but internal fuming, and going home and turning on my library’s DVD of Gidget (1959, dir. Paul Wendkos) that was on semi-permanent loan to me, and watching Sandra Dee prove all her doubters wrong.

Sandra Dee on-screen always proved her doubters wrong. And it was exactly what I needed. She remains one of my favorite people to return to on film: a friendly cinema companion. Her presence carries a quality, a tangibility, a gravitas that has never been allowed to be attached to her name by critics or public opinion. Lucky then that Sandra Dee did not need permission to be indelible.

She is unmistakable onscreen and entirely irreplaceable. The Gidget sequels are enough to tell you that. I mean, look, I am one of the bigger supporters of Gidget Goes Hawaiian, and yes, I did once tell Carl Reiner that Gidget Goes Hawaiian was a great film to which he responded, “No.” But, Deborah Walley as Gidget is just filling space. (And we do not talk about nor acknowledge Gidget Goes to Rome.)

Sandra Dee surfing she is wearing pink floral bathing suit and smiling at camera with wet ponytail

Sandra Dee’s Gidget is alive, so fully alive. She is energy and enthusiasm and vulnerability and confusion and angst and elasticity. Her triumph in learning to surf feels like an earned triumph and the joy is palpable, and equally her scenes late in the film with Cliff Robertson’s predatory Big Kahuna are genuinely distressing because of her performance and her efforts. While Sandra Dee’s work is often tossed away as light-weight and sterile based on some historical collective false memory, her performance in Gidget should really be considered a direct predecessor to Elsie Fisher’s recent acclaimed work in Eighth Grade (2018). Sandra Dee gave us a realistic vulnerable yet determined teen girl who absolutely triumphs (with the loving support of her teen girl BFF) and teen girl me said, “You love to see it! Can you please ditch Moondoggie though? He is a drag.”

Sandra Dee’s known public image today and her original popularity was definitely predicated on her fulfilling some sort of white wholesome teen girl ideal for a 1950s American audience, but conversely her characters are boundary-crossing troublesome girls and young women. A defining characteristic across so many of her roles is a refusal to conform--in small ways and big.

In The Reluctant Debutante (1958, dir. Vincente Minnelli), only her second film, in the midst of swirling mania, she is the cool one--observing the hysteria with bemusement and maintaining her personal sense of self throughout. She assuredly partners with Kay Kendall and Angela Lansbury with a level of confidence that astounds. Her comic timing is already excellent here, and so is her ability to work ensemble. Her most perfect ensemble obviously being Come September (1961, dir. Robert Mulligan), a film that is surely one of the reasons cinema exists as a visual art medium. Sandra Dee and her tangibility are vital. With all due respect to the blonde youth actresses of the 1960s (I love many of them), how many of them would have the precise energy to match so comfortably on-scene with peak powers Gina Lollobrigida and Rock Hudson? There is a scene in which she psychoanalyzes Hudson that is masterfully funny. Her scenes with Bobby Darin are equal parts tentative and confident; sweet and confused. And with Gina Lollobrigida, she is sincere and kind with immediate rapport. There is no danger of fading into one-half of the obligatory forgettable youth B-couple of the movie--even in the presence of the dazzling Lollobrigida and Hudson.

Sandra Dee in bathtub in pale pink room. She is in bubble bath with one leg lifted out of the water she is smiling at the camera and has her hair piled on top of her head

The other two films in the Sandra Dee-Bobby Darin trilogy are also particular fun--with outlandish plots. In If A Man Answers (1962, dir. Henry Levin), she decides to change Darin’s behaviour with a dog training manual, and in That Funny Feeling (1965, dir. Richard Thorpe) via some classic mistaken identity she convinces him his apartment is actually her apartment. She is the firm center, sweetly spinning Darin and the rest of the film around in circles of befuddlement while she decides what she wants and when.

This aura of self-autonomy made Sandra Dee one of my figures of aspiration as a girl. In her characters, she lets the audience see the process of doubt and vulnerability while also making the decision. Her way of speaking is memorable: sometimes halting with clipped sentences and sometimes too many words spoken too quickly, but she really does always keep speaking.

Her openness onscreen is definitely why young me always preferred to rewatch her comedies rather than her melodramas--the vulnerability was too real. I have a very vivid memory of watching A Summer Place (1959, dir. Delmer Daves) as a 12-year-old hoping it would be another Gidget and my dawning horror as the melodrama played out. Sandra Dee played yearning angst and vulnerability so acutely--it hurt me. I must confess I have never rewatched the film, and to this day, hearing that wistful theme tune is enough to re-traumatize me.

Lana Turner is wearing strapless white gown and looking at Sandra Dee who is wearing blue gown and looking off into space

Sandra Dee played Lana Turner’s daughter twice, most famously in peak melodrama Imitation of Life (1959, dir. Douglas Sirk), and again in the seedy Portrait in Black (1960, dir. Michael Gordon). Dee and Turner match up perfectly, both so adept at playing girls and women grasping for self-autonomy and self-preservation in a world that has no intention of making it easy. I wonder if Sandra Dee’s career had continued past her 20s if she would have found herself in Lana Turner-like roles?

Instead her final film appearance came in 1970, at the age of 28, in The Dunwich Horror (dir. Daniel Haller). She plays opposite another former teen-actor-with-substance Dean Stockwell in a freaky tale of the occult and monsters that feels subtly template-like for many films that followed. Her soft vulnerability amidst the chaotic production stuns. In Sandra Dee’s hands, Nancy is not a stupid, gullible woman led easily into danger, but an open and empathetic woman trying to balance danger against desire: a navigation that is true in every day life even when your job and studies do not include the possibility of your body becoming a gateway vessel for demons.

Oh Sandra Dee, I wanted to compose an ode to you, but I do not have all the words I need.

Oh Sandra Dee, you’re not a pastiche of people’s false memories, a relic from a plastic era, or the line from a song-- instead, resolve and humor, humanity and kindness, and an absolute knowledge of the ridiculousness of life--it all showed up on screen and bolstered a girl who desperately needed to see another girl triumph. 💖

originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 09/05/2021.

-Meg

Meg 7/3/23 Meg 7/3/23

QUIZ: Who is Your Classic Film Character Summer Fling?

I love a personality quiz. When I was a kid, I lived for the quizzes in my American Girl magazines. Which kind of dog are you? What famous female athlete are you? What kind of cheese are you? It did not matter. I wanted to answer the questions, and then proudly know that I was unique. I was not like other girls. I was a border collie (as true now as it was then).

We’ve reached the highpoint of summer. Heat domes all over the place. Honestly, too much sun, if you ask me. (No thank you, sun. I’m good.) The time is right to kick back with a cold beverage and take my little quiz and learn who your perfect classic film summer fling is going to be (oooooooh)....from the 7 options I am giving you (to be frank, they were the ones top o’ my mind, and all delightful characters).

Here is how it’s going to work: as you go, write down the number of your answer to each question, and at the end, add up your answers to find your perfect partner for this season. Aka if you answer mostly 1s, then 1 is your summer fling or mostly 5s, etc. I have included an answer key at the bottom. If you’re more love ‘em and leave ‘em, then consider a ranked choice system to come up with your top three beaus!

QUESTION ONE: It’s summertime! It’s time to take a holiday. You’ve been working hard, and you deserve a break. Your ideal vacation is______.

1. Kicking it back in an Italian villa. You like to spend your time in luxury, and you are not looking to do much else but chill out. Maybe a vespa ride around the countryside or a dance here or there, but mostly you like lounging out in the sun.

2. Taking a trip on a sailboat. You don’t even mind working as crew–you just want to get out there on the waves and experience that freedom that only the open ocean can provide.

3. Staycation! You live in the big city, and you enjoy your life. There is always something new to do, or explore. You do not need to go anywhere to relax.

4. Nothing planned. You are all about spontaneity. You pick a new place to visit and just go exploring. You are sure you will find an adventure.

5. Not a family vacation! You are trying to get away from your family, not spend more time with them.

6. On a train. You love to travel by train and stop off along the way throughout the countryside and little towns. Hiking, running, scrambling over rocks–anything that gets you outside and active.

7. VACATION? Who has time for vacation? You do not. You have things to accomplish, and nothing else matters.

QUESTIONS TWO: Ahh food! There are few things better in the world than sitting down to eat your perfect meal. The food you crave most is____.

1. Italian food paired with a perfect wine.

2. Well, food does not really satisfy you in itself–but you love an experience. You have always wanted to have a real picnic!

3. This little Japanese restaurant down the street that has an incredible, authentic menu.

4. Whatever food is right in front of you! You love to feast and feast and feast. You keep snacks next to your bed–just in case–and a jar of pickles is never unwelcome.

5. A home-cooked meal from someone you love. It does not matter what it is, it is worth all your money.

6. Simple fare. Anything that is easy to find along the road. You love a sandwich.

7. FOOD? Who has time for food? You do not. You have things to accomplish, and nothing else matters.

QUESTION THREE: What is the most played song on your playlist?

1. "Mambo Italiano" by Rosemary Clooney

2. "bad guy" by Billie Eilish

3. Anything new and avant-garde.

4. "I Love It" by Icona Pop

5. "I’m On Fire" by Bruce Springsteen

6. "Run for Your Life" by The Beatles

7. You don’t listen to much music, but you love to sing. People always know you’re around when they can hear you singing.

QUESTION FOUR: What was your favorite game to play when you were a kid?

1. Musical Chairs. You love group games, dancing, and making sure everyone is having a good time.

2. Wink Murder. No one ever guessed it was you even though you drew the murderer card every time.

3. Anything you could make a bet on. You knew how to win and make money from a young age.

4. Games with rules are boring. And don’t even get you started on board games: you get tired of them easily and tend to flip the board!

5. Spin the Bottle. hehe.

6. Hide and Seek. You were always the best.

7. Clue. You are clever, patient, and determined. You always found the murderer.

QUESTION FIVE: What is your favorite animal?

1. Definitely not parakeets.

2. Sharks. You saw a group of sharks attack an injured shark once and have never forgotten the spectacular sight.

3. Anything wild and free. No domesticated cats.

4. Honey Bees. You're here for a good time, not a long time.

5. Geese. When you've found the right partner, you're in it for life.

6. Foxes. You love their cozy little hidden dens.

7. A lone wolf. You admire their ability to track and hunt.

QUESTION SIX: What is your greatest fear?

1. Not being taken seriously.

2. Not getting to see the sunrise one last time.

3. Getting trapped.

4. Being bored and/or running out of snacks.

5. Being disrespected.

6. Someone telling lies about you.

7. Not fulfilling your purpose in life.

QUESTION SEVEN: You’ve been shipwrecked and stranded on a desert island, but you managed to carry two items with you from the sinking boat that you knew you needed to survive. Those items are_____.

1. A portable two-way radio and signal flags.

2. A knife and a gun.

3. An inflatable lifeboat and a compass.

4. A pair of scissors and a large jar of pickles.

5. Flint and a first aid kit.

6. A tarp for shelter and a machete to cut open coconuts. I guess you live here now.

7. Does it matter? You’ll figure a way out.

QUESTION EIGHT: Your favorite way to interact with other people online is___.

1. You are on every app at all times and have literally thousands of devoted fans, errr, friends.

2. Twitter. It is both the source of your sickness and its only antidote.

3. LinkedIn. Professional use only. The real life is happening offline.

4. Tumblr, baby! You know how to curate!

5. Exchanging numbers with your Tinder matches and then texting for 12 hours straight.

6. Signal messaging via burner phones only please.

7. You do not really have time for this, but okay, you sometimes post cryptic yet wistful poetry on your old LiveJournal. It reminds you of a different time when you were younger and happier.

ANSWER KEY

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 1's....

Your summer fling is Lisa Fellini as played by Gina Lollobrigida in Come September (1961). You are fun and flirty and a great communicator. You love to socialize and everyone sees you as the life of the party. You know what you want and you have great boundaries. Enjoy riding that vespa around the Italian Coast with the most beautiful woman in Italy. She demands respect, honesty, and commitment–so do not mess this up!

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 2's....

Your summer fling is Elsa Bannister as played by Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai (1947). The people that know you would say that you are intense. But they also cannot look away from your allure. You are mesmerizing and totally misunderstood (but also a little evil, sorry!). Your cynicism is a good match for Elsa, and you both are not expecting more than you can offer. You and Elsa are either going to have a great summer or immediately break up. Hard to say, but it will be a wild ride while it lasts! Good luck!

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 3's....

Your summer fling is Jack Parks as played by Sidney Poitier in For Love of Ivy (1968). You are independent and reliable, and undeniably cool. You know all the best places to eat and hang out. You live in the city and you love it at every hour–day and night. Just like Jack, your community is important to you, and you work hard to make sure the people around you are taken care of each day. You and Jack are both not looking to settle down…or are you?

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 4's....

Your summer fling is Marie I and Marie II as played by Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová in Daisies (1966). You are chaotic, unpredictable, and totally vibrant! You are not big on plans and love to take each day as it comes. You deeply understand the futility of society and choose your own path of joyful nihilism. You absolutely do not like to be left alone for any amount of time, and neither do the Maries! Get ready for a summer of feasting, snacking, and decadent food fights. Grab a baguette and jump in–the milk bath temp is wonderful!

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 5's....

Your summer fling is Clara Varner and Ben Quick as played by Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in The Long, Hot Summer (1958). You’re intense and focused, but also a hopeless romantic. You have high standards and a great deal of self respect. You are not going to settle for anything less than the best, but once you have your sights on the best–watch out! Clara and Ben saw you from across the bar and liked your vibe…

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 6's....

Your summer fling is Richard Hannay as played by Robert Donat in The 39 Steps (1934). Frankly, you have a lot going on. You are a busy person always on the go, go, go. A natural traveler, you feel comfortable in every situation and circumstance and you make friends easily. There is nothing quite like a scramble over the rocks or a walk through the moors, and you do well outdoors. Although incredibly likable and adaptable, you and Richard both tend to hide your true selves and have trouble trusting other people. This may make your relationship a short-lived one, but if you can find a way to let each other in–maybe you go the distance together!

IF YOU ANSWERED MOSTLY 7's....

Your summer fling is Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo as played by Tetsuya Watari in Tokyo Drifter (1966). You do not have time for a relationship, as you are all-consumingly focused on your life’s mission. Everything else fades in the background. You must complete your task; you must fulfill your purpose. You are lonely, and although you might sometimes seem like a hard-hearted island of a person, you are actually very tender and gentle in your soul. There is a real softness about you, and if you could just be free of your work–free of your drive–you know that you would choose a very different life. Tetsu is on a parallel path as you, and together maybe you finally accomplish that

originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 08/11/2022.

-Meg

Meg 6/25/23 Meg 6/25/23

Steve McQueen, Cinema Goofball

Popular culture remembers Steve McQueen as the King of Cool, a paragon of stoic masculinity, a laconic man of few words and fewer emotions. But, what of the other side of Steve McQueen’s on-screen persona?

Popular culture remembers Steve McQueen as the King of Cool, a paragon of stoic masculinity, a laconic man of few words and fewer emotions. The remembered idea of him is two-dimensional, and–as a marketing scheme–highly successful: his name appears regularly in the lists of the most profitable dead celebrities. He is an image: stern, unflinching, immovable, untouchable. He doesn’t crack under any pressure, just like a Tag Heuer watch. He is “The Absolute Man” according to the vodka brand.

But, what of the other side of Steve McQueen’s on-screen persona? Not the vroom-vroom car chases and cool sunglasses and dialogue-free scripts. Not the decades of co-optive advertising. The other side: the much-maligned (but much-beloved-by-me), entirely uncontained, earnestly unsure total goofball.

I came to Steve McQueen early in life. He is my oldest brother’s favorite. Five years older than me, this brother always had a Steve McQueen movie playing, or a DVD lying about. My understanding of McQueen was formed first by the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive. And yes, he does play a cool loner bounty hunter traveling through the American settler west of the 1870s. But, his Josh Randall is also deeply connected to the people he meets along his travels, always getting involved, solving troubles, and occasionally forced into absolutely wacky shenanigans.

Burned into my memory, is an episode from the final season released in 1961, titled “Baa-Baa.” Josh Randall is sent in search of a lost pet sheep, there’s a singing chorus, montages of him chasing sheep over hills, and pratfall face grimace combinations not seen since the days of Cary Grant flying through Arsenic and Old Lace. That is my enduring image of Steve McQueen: flailing and just a little earnest.

I have written bits and pieces before about Steve McQueen’s depiction of masculinity. It fascinates me. It never seems to me to be the confident, unbreakable idea that endures from his most famous roles, but in actuality rather fractured and unsure, as if he was precariously holding himself together. Often the only outlet of emotions in these performances is violence. Once stardom took hold, there was an increasing unwillingness on-screen to divert from tightly-contained emotions and limited dialogue; almost as if to open himself up at all would be the end of his control.

This is a marked difference from some of the other enduring cool guys of the era, like Sidney Poitier, Toshiro Mifune, or James Garner. Their self-confidence felt entirely real and fully true to themselves in every kind of film or performance. James Garner was good pals with Steve McQueen, but also had this to say in The Garner Files, “He was a movie star, a poser who cultivated the image of a macho man. Steve wasn’t a bad guy; I think he was just insecure. … Deep down, he was just a wild kid. I think he thought of me as an older brother, and I guess I thought of him as a younger brother. A delinquent younger brother.” (Note: This is also what happens when you put two Aries together, I say as an Aries.)

That delinquent younger brother energy is a dominant theme in all of Steve McQueen’s “b-side” films: those films that do not comfortably fit into his steely iconography, and are left out of all the advertising and the cool montages.

Steve McQueen’s best performance comes in one of these films, Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). A romantic drama permeated with sweetness, it is McQueen’s softest role. His co-star Natalie Wood is glorious, confident, and self-assured even while her character is facing extraordinary fears and pressures. McQueen plays his character hesitant and awkward. He is a cool-cat jazz musician who trips over and mumbles his words and hunches and slouches his body. The finale of the film is the ultimate goofball gesture–and stunningly earnest.

Sometimes, Steve McQueen’s ventures into goofball territory are far less earnest. The Reivers (1969) is a film I would charitably describe as YIKES (but what a supporting cast! Rupert Crosse! The great Juano Hernández!). It is also a strange amalgamation of his competing film energies. There is the obsession with a car and emotions processed via violence (particularly directed at women), but there is also slapstick slipping in the mud and very big reaction faces. There is an internal battle for his performance soul warring throughout this film, and violent goofball is not really a comfortable spot to land.

Critical and public appraisal of McQueen’s ventures outside his narrow sphere has never been laudatory. Anything he did that came close to comedy has been thrown out in confusion with a note that it is “really not his thing.” Yet the problem with The Reivers is not the earnest comedy, but the elements of coldness and violence. Steve McQueen’s image sells luxurious watches under the promise that he doesn’t crack under pressure. Ice cold silence sells. Flailing limbs and high-pitched scrambling does not sell vodka--apparently!

Yes, the time has finally come to talk about The Honeymoon Machine (1961). This movie is bonkers, but with that impeccable internal logic that makes 1960s comedies run so smoothly in their own wild realities. It is also peak goofball McQueen. As a scheming sailor with a plan to game the roulette wheel in a Venice casino using a naval computer, he talks extraordinarily fast–often at a high-pitched squeak–and says more words than most of his other films all put together. He stumbles and trips and sways. He is a delight. He hated it.

He walked out of the first preview, and said he would never work with MGM again.

I think it is one of the most endearing McQueen performances. To watch him play a James Garner comedy role without James Garner levels of self-assurance is such a feat of sincere effort. He pulls it off too, because it is all McQueen. He may be playing a zany goofball, but the threat of violence feels ever-possible as he hops about manipulating everyone around him and talking about Nietzsche.

I love Steve McQueen’s on-screen work. 12-year-old me somewhat unconsciously attempted to model my stride on his after watching that long opening shot of him walking down the street in The Cincinnati Kid. His Vin in The Magnificent Seven is one of my favorite characters dear to my heart. His work as Sweater Detective in Bullitt is an aesthetic triumph. Wanted Dead or Alive fills my soul with joy (and I once wrote a piece about its fashion when I was 17). That episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where he bet Peter Lorre his finger is a lesson in building tension in 25 minutes (I also love that episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where he is a goofball Martian).

But, my understanding of Steve McQueen is not an image used to sell watches and vodka and cars. My Steve McQueen does sometimes crack under pressure. Sometimes, Steve McQueen was bold, violent, cold, angry, and harsh–causing pain that ripples. Sometimes, Steve McQueen was fractured, unsure, flailing, earnest–looking for a safe route to just be. Sincerity even in its tiniest measure is a hard-won human triumph! Long live the sincere goofball cinema of Steve McQueen! (Maybe don’t watch Soldier in the Rain though.)

originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 01/10/2022.

-Meg

Meg 6/25/23 Meg 6/25/23

Bikini Beach (1964) or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Joyful Nihilism

Bikini Beach // dir. William Asher // United States

Bikini Beach // dir. William Asher // United States

We have had more than one successive day of sunshine here in Seattle, so yes, I am calling it: SUMMER IS HERE! As with many things in life (I resisted adding a heavily sighing “these days”), summer is more of a vibe than an actual tangible construct. So, to celebrate that, I want to celebrate a film that truly understands why vibes are more important than tangible constructs.

Bikini Beach (1964), dir. William Asher, is basically the third in a nebulously numbered series of Beach Party films (whatever the true number of films in the collection is--I’ve seen them all), and it is also the best film of the entire series.

(Quick vibe-check: if you think the best Beach Party film is Beach Blanket Bingo, respectfully, please either keep that to yourself, or quietly exit today’s lecture--thank you!)

Its status as best is perhaps based entirely on the initial determination of my 14-year-old self, but I truly do trust that 14-year-old me remains the best judge of 1960s teen surfer comedies, so we are running with it.

14-year-old me is also where our story begins today, as that was my age upon first viewing this cinema treasure. It was 2008, and back then, Hulu used to have an entire library of ~underappreciated~ 1960s movies to watch for free without subscribing (reach out to discuss Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine at length anytime). I saw this, and quickly showed my childhood best friend and it entered the sleepover rotation, and the rest is history, and I am definitely going to text her “Oooh Bixby’s Bird Farm!” as soon as I am done typing this up--and she will immediately get it.

There is something to the fact that all these films were made by American International Pictures (all hail cinema) very quickly and very cheaply and intended to be direct-to-the-teens movies, and somehow that strategy was still holding up and working out forty-five years later.

The formula works, because it is basically all bright colors, sight gags, and occasional footage of stunt surfers wearing visibly fake Annette wigs. More to the point, the formula works, because Annette Funicello + Frankie Avalon really are fun and charming onscreen. Their performances are truly enjoyable, and they have sweet, friendly chemistry together (I am not the first to say this, obviously, but consider it very Doris Day + Rock Hudson in the best ways).

In this film (and others in the series), Annette Funicello has the often thankless role of trying to get Frankie to think about his future, but she does so with a mischievous twinkle and a strong presence. She also really knows how to sing softly+sweetly while walking on a rear-projection beach at night-time, and I am not being ironic by saying that. It is an actual skill to inject so much personality and professionalism into formulaic, low-budget films. Plus, I have never stopped thinking about these pants.

And, Frankie Avalon in Bikini Beach? Well, let’s just look at the first note I scratched out while considering what I wanted to write here: “Tour de force Frankie Avalon the only good teen boy 60s actor.”

Those who know me well, will know that while I do enjoy frequently saying the phrase tour de force out loud, I do tend to truly reserve it as a description for work like Paul Robeson in Body & Soul, or Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth, or Tom Hardy in Venom. So, when I say Frankie Avalon’s dual role (!!!) as Frankie and as The Potato Bug is tour de force, I truly mean tour DE force. On that note, what I am about to tell you is going to make you reconsider trusting 14-year-old me as a cinematic arbitrator, but actually it should just reinforce the objectively career-pinnacle work Frankie Avalon does here.

So, Frankie plays two parts here. He plays “Frankie,” the lead youth who lives each day as it comes and regularly breaks the fourth wall to chat to the audience, and he also plays The Potato Bug, a British pop singer ala The Beatles as interpreted by Terry-Thomas (the accent and the gap tooth really give away that inspiration). At one point, “Frankie” dresses up like The Potato Bug to fool Annette, and shenanigans ensue. Anyway, yes, 14-year-old me--an already sophisticated film fan with a wide-range of film interests and deep well of films watched--did, in fact, think that there was a different actor playing The Potato Bug and that when “Frankie” pretends to be The Potato Bug in-film that it was just Frankie Avalon doing a convincing but not perfect impression of the actor playing The Potato Bug. AND YES, when the end credits scroll said,

Frankie Avalon as Frankie

Frankie Avalon as Potato Bug

I GASPED.

I still cannot explain this absolute lapse to you except that it was a tour de force performance.

Also, this bit of trivia was included in my Beach Party boxset: "Frankie Avalon's make-up and heavy accent were so convincing, visitors to the set were not aware that he was playing the role of Potato Bug." Think kindly of 14-year-old me. I was not alone in this.

Now that proper deference has been given to this iconic ringer performance, consider the other members of the cast. These movies have a structure that, along with the regular youth crew, includes an antagonist (usually older familiar actor), a sparring partner for the antagonist (usually older familiar actress), a guy running a hangout (usually a Don Rickles or Morey Amsterdam), and a surprise cameo guest from a true legend.

The reason Bikini Beach is the best of the series is that each necessary ingredient is there, but also actually good. In the original Beach Party, Robert Cummings plays the older familiar face role as a professor “studying” youth culture, and comes off as such a creep that even Dorothy Malone sparring with him cannot save the cringe. Here, however, we have Keenan Wynn--an actor who can slot in anywhere in any film and elevate the whole thing. He plays an unscrupulous land developer who is trying to turn public opinion against the surfers, so he can buy up land for his assisted living empire. He does this by bringing along his pet ape Clyde everywhere to prove that the youth are no better than apes. He offers gravitas and wit to a role that requires him to be chauffeured around by a person in an ape suit on rear-projection.

Here his sparring partner is Martha Hyer, a local school teacher who is hip and wants to advocate on behalf of the youth. She is great, and gracefully dances the Watusi with the aforementioned person in the ape suit. Don Rickles owns the local drag strip and the hangout and paints on canvases all over the bar. A strange older man, who is only visible from the back, keeps looking at the paintings but never buying. When his identity is revealed in the finale--it is a delightful surprise. I won’t spoil, but other films include cameos from Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, and Buster Keaton.

There is also the regular crew including Donna Loren (and her headbands!), Jody McCrea (exact replica of father Joel), Candy Johnson (fringeeeee), Stevie Wonder (still Little Stevie Wonder here), and--in typical inexplicable, but oddly obvious fashion--Timothy Carey playing a pool-playing, growling South Dakota Slim. Never let it be said that there was no edge to Annette + Frankie’s beach.

In fact, there is a bit of unsettled anarchy to these films. Certainly, there is a peculiar kind of lawlessness present. They never once address any big contemporary social issues, and they are almost uniformly white (and sometimes have casually racist elements like Buster Keaton playing a “native witch doctor” in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini), and they cannot be considered any sort of radical or counterculture art. However, they do offer pure, ungraded joyful nihilism.

There is a utopian element to Bikini Beach, with the unsupervised young adults living communally on the beach: sharing resources and experiences. They take each day as it comes, learn new things, and spend a lot of time dancing in the sand. The youth are mostly kind, or at least benign, and tend to solve individual problems by coming together. There are always hints that they know the world does not work that way, and so they just choose to ignore the world. In the ecosystem of the Beach Party, that works out for them just fine. They live outside of general society, and have created a new one.

In this society, plot, logic, and physics mean nothing. It is all vibes. 100 minutes of colorful vibes. There is no sight-gag too disruptive, and no innuendo too obvious, and no pratfall too chaotic to be included. There are chase scenes, a breaking up the bar fight, a little surfing, some drag-racing, and multiple musical numbers. Physics means nothing, but commitment to the film is everything. And, everyone involved was professionally committed to the silliness. Many years later, William Asher (director, co-writer, and essentially architect of the series) said about the “sheer nonsense” of the films, “The whole thing was a dream, of course. But it was a nice dream.”

originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 05/05/2021.

-Meg

Meg 6/20/23 Meg 6/20/23

The World Ten Times Over (1963)

The World Ten Times Over // dir. Wolf Rilla // United Kingdom

Queer ladies living it up, loving each other, and surviving to the end of the film–IN 1963 BRITISH CINEMA?

The World Ten Times Over // dir. Wolf Rilla // United Kingdom

“People like us do what we want to do, not what people tell us to do.”

Queer ladies living it up, loving each other, and surviving to the end of the film–IN 1963 BRITISH CINEMA? Wolf Rilla’s film, The World Ten Times Over, is an unexpected and underseen delight. Shot on location on the streets of Soho in London, and anchored by beautifully tender and fun performances from Sylvia Syms and June Ritchie, this is a film that deserves to be seen and known.

Billa (Syms) and Ginnie (Ritchie) are long-time companions who share a flat and a bed, and both work as escorts in a local nightclub. The film follows a few days in their lives as Billa’s country-mouse father (William Hartnell) comes to town for a weekend visit and Ginnie navigates a sexual relationship with a wealthy businessman (Edward Judd).

Sylvia Syms, in particular, is extraordinary here. Two years after playing Dirk Bogarde’s wife in Victim--the first English-language film to use the word “homosexual”--she starred in this film, which the BFI considers to be the first implicitly lesbian relationship depicted in British cinema. (Syms remained a legend with her final role being in the 2019 queer television drama Gentleman Jack.) Syms has a screen presence full of that elusive star energy. When she is lively, she can be very lively. There is an organic joy to her work that is potent. And, when she is vulnerable, she can be very vulnerable. In this film, she plays the longing cynic Billa impossibly entangled with the effervescent and somewhat unreliable Ginnie.

They push and pull throughout the film, one or the other taking the lead in their relationship; both expressing a sense of fatalism, but Billa’s version is quietly resigned and Ginnie’s version is hedonistic. Ginnie wants to forget fate, and Billa can only remember it.

They are gentle with each other, and also cruel. There is a constant sense of external pressure looming and crushing. In their tiny studio flat, the shared bed prominently displayed throughout, they are free to exist without pretense or lies–except the ones they are telling each other to avoid vulnerability and rejection.

The film opens as it ends, and as much the film is spent: in their flat. Billa is returning from work late at night and calls out for Ginnie only to see their bed is empty and still made. The camera tracks around the apartment as she gets ready to sleep, catching all the little knick-knacks and photos, depicting a cozy shared home. The first shot post-credits is Billa gazing at a photo of Ginnie.

The film cuts to Ginnie in bed with the wealthy businessman. She jumps out impulsively refusing sex, because she doesn’t “feel sexy” tonight. They argue about his wife, she hops about playing piano and talking about his wealth. She smashes the piano keys with frustration and the film cuts to the next morning and Billa’s and Ginnie’s morning routine in the flat. Ginnie is in the bath reading newspapers and taking calls, and Billa is the housewife bringing her tea.

Their home is the location for many scenes of quiet intimacy throughout the film, and establishes their often-shifting relationship dynamics. Both characters have separate emotional breakdowns in their apartment, but in those moments the other rises to the moment to bolster and support and comfort. They are equals, sharing burdens and secrets and jokes and purpose.

They have lived and worked together for some time, but, as the film begins, the twin burdens of finances and their unsanctioned relationship are beginning to wedge them apart. As they argue over money and their relationship that first morning, Ginnie shouts impulsively, “I want out! OUT!” Billa, ever practical and resigned, replies firmly, “Out where?” There is no getting out or being out.

The film follows Ginnie as she flits in and out of considering a long-term relationship with the wealthy businessman. She extols her desire for wealth and the ability to have fun all the time–to run away and make a life a party–to run away and forget being trapped in a harsh society.

In a parallel track, we see Billa meet with her visiting father. She becomes increasingly frustrated that he refuses to see her for who she is in any way. His benign neglect and disinterest in her life pushes her to try to shock him with her work and her relationship with Ginnie. She blurts out, “She is going to leave. She’s going to, how do you say, live in sin.” His uncomfortable reply, “Of course, moral standards are changing–greatly. He follows this by asking his daughter, “I’ve always wondered if there was someone in your life, a nice boy?” The conversation and their relationship deteriorates quickly from there.

Interwoven are these scenes of Billa and Ginnie pursuing their relief from external pressures, and how they believe they will find relief: Billa through being known and loved unconditionally by her father, and Ginnie with wealth and the freedom from all societal constraints that it promises.

They keep returning to each other, shedding personas, and becoming vulnerable. Ginnie is unable to commit to a decision whether to join the man and his wealth or to stay. Billa is unable to bring herself to ask Ginnie to stay with her, but in Sylvia Syms’ hands, the open longing is tangible and ever-present. She is half agony, half hope (to borrow from Austen).

I am going to discuss the ending of this film, and specifically how it subverts tropes. If you do not want to have narrative plot points spoiled, I suggest we bid adieu for now. You can watch the film in its entirety for free here on Vimeo.

I also want to note content warning for a mention of attempted suicide.

Billa confesses to Ginnie that she is pregnant by one of her clients. Ginnie promises she won’t leave her, saying, “I may be a bitch, but not that kind of bitch.” Billa gleefully helps her evade the wealthy businessman who shows up planning to take Ginnie away to a tropical island. He is suspicious and antagonistic toward Billa, she responds breezily and they sneak out off to work and Billa stops to blow a kiss goodbye in his direction.

At their work, we see them at dinner with clients. They are playful and manic–in a scene reminiscent of Vera Chytilová’s Daisies (1966). Billa’s father shows up, but Ginnie gallantly defends her by trying to outrage and shock him.

While cackling on their way to the restroom, Billa suggests they raise the baby together. As she goes on happily, the camera follows a suddenly serious and terrified Ginnie. She abandons Billa to the clients and her father and goes to the wealthy businessman. Billa’s father ultimately leaves, but not before calling her “trash” in seeming final note to their relationship.

Ginnie finally makes her choice, and leaves the wealthy businessman, but returns home to Billa’s absence. She screams Billa’s name again and again. The film cuts and returns to Billa.

Billa stays at the club until the very end of the night, and brings another worker home with her. This woman has nowhere to sleep that night, and Billa offers her Ginnie’s side of the bed, because she believes Ginnie has left her forever. The woman goes into the bathroom, and discovers Ginnie bleeding from a suicide attempt. As the audience, we only see a limp hand, and the presumption is that Ginnie has died.

This outcome seems pre-ordained. Cinema is full of dead queer characters. The phenomena is perhaps best known as the trope Bury Your Gays. Even films sympathetic to queer people see a tragic death as the most logical or realistic conclusion due to “society.” Additionally, in films of this era, still somewhat bound by censorship boards and codes, any woman acting outside of true womanhood must either be returned to those constraints or be deeply punished. A tragic death is a fitting punishment.

Yet.

Ginnie has not died. Her attempt was unsuccessful. She has survived with minor injuries. The doctor bandages her hands, dismisses it as attention-seeking, and leaves. Ginnie is lying in their bed without expression or words. Billa freaks out, hurling her anguish at Ginnie, and screaming. The forgotten woman from the club breaks the tension, yelling, “She’s alright!” She then says that trains are probably running now and peaces out of being the unwanted third wheel.

What follows is a finale of incredible tenderness, as they both finally open their vulnerabilities completely. Ginnie wanted to die at that moment, she explains, because she came back to the empty flat and thought that Billa had left her. She had finally made her choice–life with Billa–but she thought it was too late. Billa holds her hand, touches her arm, finally they embrace fully. They face a life with obstacles no less surmountable than they had been days before, but they repeat together a single refrain directed at society, “Damn them all.”

Two promiscuous women, one pregnant and other shown having sex with a married man, well, they must be punished. The censor boards and the codes demand it. So, in a breathtakingly perfect punishment, the film delivers and subverts the most classic of cinematic punishments: the woman ending up alone and unmarried and unwanted by any man. The film says, here they are, fully punished. They have no man. They only have each other.

And, in a touch of grace and hope and fervent expectation of a future, the film ends with the sun rising, the neighborhood going about its daily routine, and one final shot: Ginnie stirring in their bed and turning to embrace Billa as they sleep on peacefully together.

The sun rises, they love each other, all will be well.

-Meg

originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 06/05/2022.

Meg 4/29/21 Meg 4/29/21

“I am not loveable”: Laurence Harvey and the performance of self-presentation

“Someone once asked me, ‘Why is it so many people hate you?’ and I said, ‘Do they? How super!’ I'm really quite pleased about it.”

“Someone once asked me, ‘Why is it so many people hate you?’ and I said, ‘Do they? How super! I’m really quite pleased about it.’”

— Laurence Harvey, quoted in The New York Times

Laurence Harvey fascinates me as an actor. As someone who had a relatively low-impact career (and certainly a short life, dying age 45), his acting continues to inspire a remarkable level of divisive responses among film people™. I have never quite been able to figure out exactly why, but it does seem rather instinctual. And, I am not usually one to wade into film people™ fights without a firm ground. (You can find teenage me timidly acknowledging, “people either love him or hate him,” in a review of The Ceremony.)

Nevertheless, my first instinctual response to Laurence Harvey was absolute delight. I was maybe 11 or 12, and I saw his episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It has stayed firmly planted in my memory from the pure audaciousness. It is quite gruesome and unrepentant. Harvey plays the titular chicken farmer named Arthur, a charming but basically anti-social figure. He opens by telling the audience, smiling, “I am a murderer,” and then narrates his story. He murders his fiancé, disposes of her body in the chicken feed, raises chickens on that feed, and eventually sends some gift chickens to an investigating cop. The cop is so enamored with the taste, he asks for a list of feed ingredients. Arthur obliges, turning to the camera to state smoothly, “All but one. I left out that one special ingredient that really made it.” There is no justice and there are no consequences. (Hitchcock does offer a cheeky closing statement about the chickens growing to an enormous size and then probably killing and eating Arthur.)

I was transfixed. His character, and the story, were certainly misogynistic (a common characteristic across many Harvey roles), but there was something that intrigued me: the utterly manufactured façade of a self-image he projected.

Around the same time, I unintentionally saw his episode of Columbo (released in 1973, just a few months before his death): he played an emotionless chess freak murderer. In this, his character is once again set apart from natural and expected human warmth and emotion. I said, “Well, well, well. Tell me more.” (Let us not delve into my childhood psyche nurtured on too much Hitchcock and Columbo, and the Beatrix Potter story in which Tom Kitten is almost turned into a roly-poly pudding by giant rats.)

From then on, I kept an eye out for Laurence Harvey (carefully learning, with a couple missteps, to differentiate his name in a cast list from that of the viscerally terrifying and despicable presence of Lawrence Tierney). What he had onscreen, I could never quite articulate in my blogging youth, but I understood it and was drawn to it.

His screen persona was always openly enigmatic. He never tried to hide the fact that he was hiding—hiding his true self; his true feelings.

I have always connected his depiction of masculinity with that of Steve McQueen actually. McQueen is held up in popular memory as some icon of masculinity in the same limiting and distorted fashion that Marilyn Monroe is held up as an icon of femininity. Of course, they were actually both much more—and infinitely more complex—than the shallow containment allows (more on the glorious Monroe another time).

McQueen’s depiction of masculinity is far more complicated (and interesting) than his popular legacy would suggest, and far more aligned with Harvey than immediately obvious. Just as Harvey’s characters were often steeped in misogyny, McQueen’s were often violent—uncomfortably so. But also fractured. As if the confidence to live and express himself only worked in a narrow, tightly-controlled sphere, and he better not say too much or change his ways too much—or everything might disintegrate.

McQueen’s characters distracted us from their internalized self-doubt with an erected façade of coolness. He looked cool, and did performatively cool things, and never said too much—so how could we say he was anything but supremely confident himself? The cracks showed through though. (And his own pal James Garner called him an “insecure poseur” in real life, which is blatant Aries v. Aries violence but I’ll allow it.)

Why have I taken a detour through McQueen to talk about Harvey? I think they both spent their short careers depicting unsafe men: men who correspondingly never felt safe themselves to just be. McQueen covered his characters’ fractures with uncannily good film choices and an ability to project coolness. Harvey never even tried to play his characters as anything but self-loathing.

in his directorial debut The Ceremony (1963) — in his directorial debut **The Ceremony** (1963)

Laurence Harvey played roles of disliked men; broken men; loathsome men. To them, he gave the brutal honesty of self-doubt and self-loathing, often coupled with the inability to articulate these feelings—or even to fully understand the feelings for themselves.

His most famously remembered role today is probably Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate, but it is both typical and atypical Harvey. Typical, in the sense that his character is pretty universally disliked by all the other characters for much of the film, and also his emotions are tightly controlled, cold, and hardened. But, atypically, Raymond Shaw can articulate what he feels and understands about himself. He just has to get a little drunk first to say, “I’m not lovable. Some people are lovable, and some people are not loveable. I am not lovable.”

In his characters, he captured the angsty longing of James Dean, but without the openness; without the bare emotions; without the yearning reach toward other humans. As a teen Dean devotee, my innate alignment with Harvey’s work makes perfect sense to me. It appeals to the unconfident child with plans to show themselves to the world within a carefully chosen and constructed presentation.

It is a tricky business transposing screen persona over a fully-formed human person—and I really try to steer away from that in the general sense (*everyone ever trapped in a text thread while I discuss my favorite performers is now laughing heartily at this statement*). I do not know enough about the short life of Laurence Harvey to exhaustibly essay on it, but all due consideration to the death of the author, I can tell you why his screen persona—which often slotted in with his projected public persona—compels despite its carefully structured coldness.

His Joe Lampton in Room At the Top is fully concerned with the work of self-presentation. How can he react to the trauma and pain of life in a way that gives him strict control and power over his image to others? Of course, in this film, his image control is primarily routed through destructive and deeply misogynistic interactions with women. The self-loathing is strong here, and so is the childhood trauma. (He even steals a beat from James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause writhing-in-turmoil-with-a-toy-in-the-street performance near the end of the film.) The story concerns itself with the catastrophic ills of classism, and wealth’s casual habit of ignoring, dismissing, and then crushing to dust any would-be rebels in the system. Truly, an evergreen subject.

I recently rewatched this for the first time since my own angsty teens, and I was struck pretty much the same: adoration for the resolute clarity Simone Signoret gives her Alice, and a resigned *yikes* floating in the general direction of Harvey’s messy, messy Joe.

Joe is truly so very unlikeable in his attempts to beat his oppressors by becoming them. Harvey’s performance here works as a sort of thesis for his entire career of characters: resolutely individualistic, powered by self-loathing, somewhat irredeemable, yet still lit with a spark of uncanny energy. In every film, he was never anything less than calmly chaotic.

(his characters can oscillate between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil—but rarely even begin to whisper at a hint of chaotic good)

This is true even if you watch his early cinema work in England when he was more than once cast as some sort of charming rapscallion, life-of-the-party (perhaps more in line with his public self: a jet-setting, stylish Elizabeth Taylor BFF who managed to clash with seemingly every single introverted/subdued/serious actor he ever worked opposite). It is wild to see him play characters like the scamming talent agent in 1959’s Expresso Bongo (a fever dream of a film co-starring my very lively personal fav Sylvia Syms): a character who is likely intended to be seen as a troublemaker, but a fun one—yet in Harvey’s hands comes across as a somewhat unhinged menace.

This character type is a menace! It’s the archetype selfish conman who is always making plans to make money and treats the woman who loves him like trash while he’s bouncing off to another probably illegal scheme. Cinema is rife with them. Often, they’re a lot of fun to watch. Other actors use their own reserves of personal charm to smooth the rough edges; to make these loathsome men appealing. Instead, Laurence Harvey barrels full-throttle into forcing a response like, “god, there is no way I could spend more than two minutes with this person without screaming aimlessly in rage and frustration.”

In Darling, he’s enigmatic and absolutely without empathy. Both he and Dirk Bogarde play the male foils to Julie Christie’s incorrigible Diana Scott, but Harvey’s openly shallow work contrasts with Dirk Bogarde’s deeply shaded performance. Harvey offers no depth of emotion or feeling. It is obvious that his character is merely a shadowy projection. He makes no effort to humanize. He has built a blank façade. Harvey plays him as a compelling snake with no plans to warm up. Christie and Bogarde play people who cause varying degrees of harm through selfish pursuits, but the hook is that they do want to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be loved. Harvey’s Miles Brand shows no such desire—only a twisted, lightly-smiling desire to have control and power.

What is self-presentation if not an external action of innermost power and control? To dissect our own self-presentations is to ask questions: How do we see ourselves? How do we want to be seen? Every performer deals extensively in self-presentation. It is quite literally in the job description (I have now written “self-presentation” so many times it has lost all meaning and I am unsure how to pronounce it out loud anymore). But, few performers have ever made as much a concerted effort in pointing out the façade as Laurence Harvey did in his work. Is it damning him with undeserved praise to say that your loathing is what he expected? Yeah, his performances of being human register as somewhat cold, bleak, and out-of-step with any semblance of communal feeling. god knows, the cruel and cold male anti-hero concept is so dull and predictable (and always has been). I am not here to gas up that.

I am interested in the idea of that façade—the tightly controlled self-presentation—as a concealing act of self-protection.

“I’m a flamboyant character, an extrovert who doesn’t want to reveal his feelings.”

— Laurence Harvey, quoted in The New York Times

What happens when a flamboyant character (just look at his signature hairstyle—out there looking like a dandy from an earlier century), an extrovert who doesn’t want to reveal his true feelings, directs his first film?

You get The Ceremony (1963), a deeply idiosyncratic, stylized film that reveals many, many feelings. It is structured madness; structured chaos. The staging and shots are both uncluttered and extreme: purposefully drawing attention to themselves. Emotions are kept close inside with delicate facial expressions—and then exploded with full-body, uncontrolled movement.

I may be outing myself as a pretentious weirdo, but this is truly a favorite moment in cinema for me. There is a discomfort that comes from watching people let their bodies feel in outrageous waves.

This is a scene between Harvey, who has just escaped prison, his girlfriend Sarah Miles and younger brother Robert Walker Jr.

There is a line near the end of this clip that hits at one of Harvey’s themes in the film. He is specifically referring to the brutality of prison on a person’s spirit (side-note: abolition now!), when he talks of being reduced to the shadow a man.

“In there, I had time to think. I had never really taken the time to think before. What was I trying to prove? Where did it go wrong? And then I realized that it was too late. I was going to die knowing that I hadn’t lived. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? They try and reduce you into a shadow of a man. Your body begins to feel as if it doesn’t belong to you. Eating and eliminating. Detached. Your arms and legs begin to feel as if, as if they’ve been sewn on. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Flesh. Nothing. And you begin to believe it.”

— The Ceremony (1963)

While specifically a reference to the prison experience, it is also representative of some of the overarching themes (it can get a bit opaque and metaphorical in this film: just the way I like my pretentious cinema yum yum delicious) of power and control: who has control? how is power used? what makes a person human? how is each person’s humanity to be protected or destroyed?

To feel, as a person, like nothing more than a shadow—nothing more than flesh—is a grievous pain. Loss of autonomy is a grievous pain.

How do we see ourselves? How do we want to be seen? … How do we protect ourselves? How do we construct an image that cannot be breached? If we project coldness and inhumanity, do we save ourselves like the weakest prey puffing up before a predator? If we are sure we’re unlovable, can we say that being loveable is not the point?

Laurence Harvey’s canon of performances is filled with characters certain of their unlovability, and just as quick to present as unlovable in turn. Quick to project a self-image that prizes control and individual autonomy over relationship and community.

I think feeling loveable or not loveable is a universal human concern. It certainly looms quite dominantly when we’re young figuring out how to be. It has always explained to me why Laurence Harvey’s work compelled me. It said, "Build up your barriers! You’ll never be broken! (also you’ll never be happy!)”

Fortunately, I was also compelled in my formative years by two other male figures on my TV (look, I was homeschooled in the woods—I didn’t really see other adults except from my media): John Cassavetes and Mr. Rogers (honest to god, someday look for my comparison post about these two that’s been sitting as a draft since December).

Cassavetes: “And I don’t think a person can live without philosophy. That is, where can you love? What’s the important place where you can put that thing—’cause you can’t put it everywhere, you’d walk around, you gotta be a minister or a priest saying, ‘Yes, my son,’ or ‘Yes, my daughter, bless you.’ But people don’t live that way. They live with anger and hostility and problems and lack of money—with tremendous disappointments in their life. So what they need is a philosophy, what I think everybody needs, in a way, is to say, Where and how can I love, can I be in love so that I can live—so that I can live with some degree of peace? You know?

And I guess every picture we’ve ever done has been, in a way, to try and find some kind of philosophy for the characters in the film. And so that’s why I have a need for the characters to really analyze love, discuss it, kill it, destroy it, hurt each other, do all that stuff—in that war, in that word-polemic and picture-polemic of what life is.

And the rest of the stuff doesn’t really interest me. It may interest other people, but I have a one-track mind. That’s all I’m interested in, is love. And the lack of it. When it stops. And the pain that’s caused by loss or things taken away from us that we really need.”

Mr. Rogers: "Love is at the root of everything, all learning, all relationships, love or the lack of it."

I did not start writing this post intending to end up with Mr. Rogers at the finish, but I cannot say I am too surprised either. I did start writing this wanting to articulate why Laurence Harvey’s work meant something to me at my most impressionable ages. Truly what does a performer dead more than twenty years before I was born have to say through their film roles to a youth in the mid- to late-2000s if not, “Here is one way to live. You’re not gonna like it. But you’re gonna understand it anyway. Deeply understand it.” An extrovert who doesn't want to reveal their feelings? COULDN’T RELATE. I’M UNKNOWABLE! I’M UNKNOWABLE! (I scream into the void while absolutely oversharing, hence this very post on my own blog).

It is hard being human. It is hard to be human with other humans. It is hard to know yourself. It is hard to express yourself. What Laurence Harvey did with his work was to show the excruciating effort it takes to master an “unbreakable” self-presentation, and the open wound of making yourself invulnerable. The call of the void whispers that invulnerability is power, but the truth is in relationship and community with each other. <3

Please clap for the tremendous amount of self-restraint it took to not embed this clip of Daniel Tiger singing about being a mistake at the end of my post and thereby completing the parody of myself that is all this. Disgusting!

Also, this post is dedicated to Emmy—whose recent discovery of Laurence Harvey set me off on this journey down the old memory lane.

And, also to Kate—whose dedicated refusal to appreciate Laurence Harvey inspired many teenage Blogger/Twitter/Tumblr feuds on Friday nights.

-Meg

Meg 11/25/20 Meg 11/25/20

Better a Widow (1968): don’t mess with the milk mafia (I think)

Meglio vedova (Better a Widow) // dir. Duccio Tessari // Italy

Meglio vedova (Better a Widow) // dir. Duccio Tessari // Italy

Settle in friends, I’m about to take you on a journey that began a decade ago and ended tonight with me watching an Italian movie with no subtitles that I think is about the Milk Mafia vs. the Wine Mafia, or is possibly a fever dream existing entirely inside Virna Lisi’s mind? Either way, I made a lot of chaotic gifs and we will be talking about them.

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The Backstory |

Take your mind back to the probably halcyon day of July 25, 2010. I have no idea what you’re doing, but 16-year-old Meg is smashing out a post on her teenage film blog written with a surprising number of winky-face emojis to ensure that you all get that it’s fun and funny. This post is a call-out literally begging anyone to find Kate and me a dang copy of Better a Widow:

If you have ANYTHING please contact Kate or I! I'd be willing to pay for it, or I'm sure Kate would be willing to trade you something (I love volunteering people for stuff without their knowledge! ;-D).

I wrote an update “still want it” post in 2011, and in 2012, I got an email from a man in Canada who said he had been searching for it for 30 years, and was currently looking through archives and cinema clubs in Italy. He asked to make a pact with me that if either of us found a copy—we’d share it with the other person. Myself, a 17-year-old living in the woods whose entire income went to pay for bills, happily entered this pact. My money was on the man scouring the archives in Italy over me searching the title on YouTube but changing the “E"s to “3”s.

He updated me on his search a couple of times, but I faded out a bit when I was in university. And then life. I thought about this movie now and then and gave it a hopeful Google, but otherwise let it simmer as always.

You know who did not fade out? Kate-Gabrielle, of course. And that brings us to today, and our triumphant screening from our respective homes on either side of the US. I had absolutely nothing to do with this, but I have reaped the rewards, and I actually forgot to ask Kate how she procured this film, but ya know trust the process.

(I did email that man in Canada. I hope he still uses that email address.)

With that all said, here we go…

The Film |

So, probably not but maybe possible spoilers ahead. I say possible only because the film is entirely in Italian, with no English subtitles, so the plot was really just there for the guessing on my end. You can skip this section if you’re worried. My suboptimal Spanish did give me about three words per minute which I happily shouted into the chat like I had uncovered an important clue in a whodunit.

A synopsis as far as I can tell: Peter McEnery is an English guy whose job is to buy some land in Italy for an oil refinery. Two antagonistic mafia families are involved: one, the Milk Mafia (they only are seen drinking milk) wants to sell; and two, the Wine Mafia (they drink wine) do not want to sell. Milk Mafia is run by Gabriele Ferzetti and his daughter is Virna Lisi who is fascinated with the concept of a man from England (or possibly already knows this man from England), but is engaged to marry the head of the Wine Mafia. Peter falls in love at first sight with Virna, or already knows Virna pre-film. He is an absolutely dummy and would die many, many times over if it weren’t for his Italian pal who works for the Milk Mafia. Wine Mafia wants him dead because they don’t want the oil refinery (fair!), and also they want Virna (understandable, but she’s not a possession). Anyway, a lot of stuff happens, but in the end Virna marries the Wine Mafia head and he is immediately assassinated, and Gabriele now controls Milk and Wine, so he’s made it. Virna moves to England with Peter, but is disappointed, and now wants an Italian man. Fine. (That means The End, ya know.)

The Actors |

Okay, so let’s get down to business. The trio of leads here was the tantalizing dream that led me on all these years, and they did not disappoint an iota.

Virna Lisi is literally intoxicating. I felt like there was a halo of light around her at all times. She is very compelling, because she spends the entire film having these wild visions of her and Peter in England and in each one she wears a different wig. poetic cinema. She could also be remembering an alternate timeline version of herself who lives in England. Or multiple alternate timeline versions of herself hence the wigs. ANYWAY. Every vision is proceeded by a camera zoom dead into her eyes, and I have gif’d them all, because it’s what 16-year-old Meg would have also done at 5:30AM.

I LOVE CINEMA.

Peter McEnery is the co-subject of Virna Lisi’s visions, and also ostensibly our lead character. He is a lot of fun here, and absolutely 100% fully dubbed by a random Italian man. Hilariously, he makes two phone calls to the British Embassy in which he speaks English. However, these conversations are also dubbed by an Italian man with a rather prominent Italian accent. He says, “Goodie-bye,” and I became convinced that it was a triple or quadruple (I lost count) scam, and he was actually an Italian pretending to be English. I genuinely don’t know at this point.

Peter is almost always with a pipe in his mouth, and I have decided that it is entirely to obscure the mouth movements for more seamless dubbing. It really rather works.

His character is also an absolute dummy who should have been killed at least 10 different times, but manages to trip his way away with great luck and a little silent help from buddies whom he never properly thanks. I love him.

Gabriele Ferzetti (the premiere mafia dad actor of the late 1960s), on the other hand, as the don of the Milk Mafia, is the portrait of calm and steadiness and non-stop scheming. :’)

The man loves milk and sitting in his chair and relaxing. That’s ease he is modeling for us all. Every time, he started rocking, I could only think of this but milk.

nothing you say will ever convince me that isn’t milk he’s drinking out of the tiny espresso cup

I loved the performances from these three and also everyone else in the film, and not knowing what they were saying 98% of the time took away nothing from their work.

The Style |

oh boy. Here’s where it’s a little worrying, because I realized the plot in this film made about as much sense as most 1960s style-films I love—even the ones in the English-language. Plot doesn’t matter. AESTHETICS MATTERS. (jot that down)

This film had style. The music was, quite frankly, jaunty. Everyone’s ‘fits were incredible. Virna Lisi’s headbands were iconic. The style of the ~visions~ were beyond reproach.

All that said, I was really disappointed this film opened with a shot of Gabriele wearing glasses, which he promptly took off AND NEVER PUT BACK ON. Were they worried it was too powerful a look? GIVE US BESPECTACLED FERZETTI, YOU COWARDS!

A Gallery of L👀ks

Finally, I just want to say that these tights make me want to cry because I love them so much and also—

Better A Widow GIF-downsized_large (12).gif

—I would wear this man’s garishly colored outfit tomorrow if I had it on hand.

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This film had a lot of style in other ways too that brought me pure delight: like a late-night secret rendezvous on a boat in the middle of the most echo-filled cave alive while literally 18 people sat around listening in. All those aforementioned visions with so much detail and depth of fun in 2-minute increments. I am also quite partial to the most lawful evil kidnapping I have ever seen on film.

They really did just scoop that car up with a whole tractor and stick it in the back of a truck and called it a day.

This woman cackling while mailing letters is my avatar in this film, and also my hero.

This

Or this moment.

Peter Mcenery GIF-downsized_large (2).gif

If you are wondering what the context is here, there is none. This happens and then it’s over. A beautiful metaphor for my experience watching this film without subtitles. Kate and I are Peter + pal and that man on a motorcycle is the film itself.

The Conclusions |

I hope you enjoyed the scattered, confused, mostly image-based content of this piece. It was mirroring the film itself. That’s right, this was intentional meandering chaos. Absolutely intentional, and not just me at 7AM having created too many gifs and now unwilling to not smush every single one into this post one way or another.

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Truly, though, I want to say that I enjoyed this film—perhaps not the way its original creators would have intended—but thoroughly enjoyed nonetheless. I sincerely and earnestly got a shot of cinematic serotonin, and I just hope that one day I can see this with subtitles (or more likely learn Italian at this rate), and I can finally understand the Milk Mafia and have it confirmed for real that that live cow that showed up and sinisterly mooed at the Wine Mafia compound was in fact intended to send a message of provocation.

Long live the cinema, and the images saved despite it all. A film meant to entertain a finite audience in 1968 that just couldn’t die and fade away before I could watch it and sink the visuals into my brain—and make a few gifs. <3 <3 <3

Thank you Peter McEnery for your stealth sweater, and Gabriele Ferzetti for restful rocking while plotting criminal takeovers, and Virna Lisi for your glowing essence which may inspire a few visions of my own.

Thank you Kate again for making this possible! <3

-Meg

Meg 10/10/20 Meg 10/10/20

“Now, if by so much as a raised eyebrow, you attempt to betray me…”

The Fiction-Makers (1968) // dir. Roy Ward Baker // United Kingdom

The Fiction-Makers (1968) // dir. Roy Ward Baker // United Kingdom

Ms. Klein: Well, why don't you die of shock?
Simon: Well, I just did.
Ms. Klein: So, what's holding you up?
Simon: Rigor mortis.
Ms. Klein: Try bending.

I adore the agent of pure chaos that is Roger Moore as Simon Templar. The man loves to cause trouble and stir things up and occasionally step in to right wrongs, but mainly his purpose is essentially to troll the powerful, rich, and ridiculous by uh, *checks notes* also being powerful, rich, and ridiculous.

It’s an inside job.

In The Fiction-Makers (a 2-part episode edited into a feature film), we get a delightful plot revolving around Simon Templar being mistaken as the writer of a series of spy novels and getting kidnapped (along with the actual writer, a woman who writes under a male pen name) by a group of criminal super-fans who have decided to create a criminal organization based on her fictional series villains.

ABSOLUTE CHAOS.

It’s very probably intended to be a gentle mockery of Man From U.N.C.LE. (at one point a character is reading a celeb magazine that features Robert Vaughan on the back cover), and it is truly delightful to see. It opens with typically-meta Saint moment with Simon watching a film version of a spy movie starring someone who suspiciously looks quite like him (Roger Moore’s body double???) going through the motions of a fight scene that Simon is calling out for being rote and obvious (he names each movement as it goes).

And let me tell you, Simon Templar snob movie critic talking DURING a movie is exactly why he so often veers into the chaotic evil side of the realm.

Sylvia Sims plays the author Amos Klein / Ms. Darling, and she does incredible work here. An absolute energy match for Roger Moore, and that does not often happen. Roger Moore’s Simon Templar is so perfect because he is such a ball of silly energy expressed in a cool and calm demeanor. (This is why Roger Moore’s early ‘70s fashion choice to strictly wear white button-ups with ruffles for a period of time is endlessly iconic: finally he could look formal and ridiculous at the same time!)

Sylvia Sims has that vibe down perfectly, and together they absolutely float through this playing two people who know they are so charming and clever beyond everyone else that they can just be erratic and fun and still end up on top.

Also, she looks real good—iconically hot—in her spectacles that she wears on a chain, and she, and I, and Simon Templar all know it.

Anyway.

This was quite a bit of fun fluff and joy, and there is something so very satisfying about watching absolute ridiculousness presented with such skill and competency. I highly recommend.

Here is a taste of the sublimely silly and somewhat surprising final 30 seconds that I still have questions about tbh and these few screencaps cannot do justice to the wild, but here ya go—

-Meg

Meg 10/9/20 Meg 10/9/20

Ride in the Whirlwind (1966): the people demand more Harry Dean Stanton!

Ride in the Whirlwind // dir. Monte Hellman // United States

Ride in the Whirlwind // dir. Monte Hellman // United States

ooh buddy. Continuing on with my 1966 series, I decided to check out this western (there is another 1966 western that lives inside my brain that will be subject to an extensive post at some point: Duel at Diablo).

I was not expecting

a) to be truly moved by it

b) to be actually impressed by my nemesis Jack Nicholson

c) to find my fall 2020 fashion inspo!

Yet, here we are and 2020 gives me one more shocker. Let’s start with point c.

Harry Dean Stanton’s look, minus the guns it must be said, are absolute goals: scuffed boots, striped trousers, white button up, slouchy vest, jaunty bandana on the neck, and—crucially—eyepatch! (the hat may be a step too far for me to pull off sadly)

Everyone looks cool in an eyepatch: Bret from Flight of the Conchords, Snake Plissken, Rosamund Pike in that biopic I have in my watchlist because Rosamund Pike has an eyepatch in it…

That is the kind of low upkeep/high impact look I am in the mood for this season. Harry Dean, we STANton! (I’d show myself out, but this is my blog. Sorry.)

For real, I love Harry Dean Stanton and the chaotic energy he brings to every piece. I love him in the same way I love the prince of the darting eyes and villainous 1960s tv guest spots—Bruce Dern. <3

Watching HDS brought back a fun memory of visiting the Velveteria in LA’s Chinatown last year with a pal. An entire “museum” dedicated to velvet paintings, and Harry Dean Stanton had his own little corner.

I would also like to give a style shout-out to Millie Perkins’ relatable eyebrows.

And, now for a short excursion to point B, I was genuinely fine with Jack Nicholson in this film he wrote and produced as well as starred in. That was entirely unexpected from me, and honestly, maybe he could have quit here while he was ahead? No need to disturb a generation with the injustice of Something’s Gotta Give (2003).

In this film, his Wes had little to say, but was still the character most invested in having a life and being human.

^a quiet moment of all-too-human grief that hit perfectly

Ride in the Whirlwind has a spare, austere, empty quality that works a charm at taking the absolute air out of western cowboy mythic cinema. It very nearly plays as a Twilight Zone-esque existential horror. Perhaps it is too slow, too inactive to get there, but it is certainly concerned with the existential.

The western cowboy myth relies on the denial of genocide. The refashioning of conquest as a noble fight. Destruction as romantic adventure.

Westerns are the American fairy tales: they have form, convention, and style that can reach the height of cinematic aesthetic pleasure. Westerns make up some of the most aesthetically satisfying films. The style can be so strong it holds back any questions about truth and reality.

Time and existence is narrowed to right and wrong / good and evil, and there is a purpose for each person in the myth (even if that purpose is just to die as third henchman bank robber).

What Ride in the Whirlwind does is pull us out of that that systematic and set convention, and ask the question, “What if there is no point?”

I was struck by how much pointless death there was in this film, and it’s honestly not a high body count western. Nor, are we in basically any way given reason to empathize or care about most of the characters who die. But the feeling of futility just hangs there the entire runtime.

The truth of this culture and society built on genocide is corrupted and listless humans.

Everyone in the film is going through the motions of life. Sure, everyone fights to survive and outlive their opponents, but it seems a fight just to continue existing—there is no actual desire or spark or purpose.

Wes and his two companions are mistaken as thieves and pursued, because of a citizens justice vigilante gang (chilling!!!)that only exists to find and kill methodically all who have wronged “society.” The actual thieves are thieves because it is how they exist and survive in society. There’s no grand plan here.

The settler cabin Wes and Vern (Cameron Mitchell) take refuge in is occupied by a man, a woman, and their teen daughter. None of them have a single spark of life between them. The man hacks endlessly away at a stump in the yard, stopping only when his daughter comes out to prepare his wash basin and call him into the meal his wife has prepared. All three living in endless patterns of motions.

Wes asks Abigail her age, and her response is devoid of anything.

They are just three more ghosts living in a world with no value for humans, or anything else. Humanity was lost when a world was built on active genocide and bloodshed and destruction, and then the denial—first that it was wrong, and then that it happened.

The one incongruous note in this all is Wes. He doesn’t have purpose or direction, but he is stubbornly connected to the tangible. He complains about being tired, he complains about blisters, he complains about being weak, he complains about being hungry, he complains about being bored, and he complains about being sad. It gets almost annoying, and the other characters react in as much bewilderment as they can muster in their apathy. Why does Wes care about blisters on his feet? Why does it matter?

Wes’ restlessness holed up in the cabin for mere hours is fascinating, and honestly all-too-familiar to those of us who have been primarily confined to our homes for months and months now.

I have been unemployed for a couple of months now, and Wes’ unease about inactivity hits real well. I am 26, and I had previously been actively employed since I was 13 years old. In our society, production is the point. And, being removed from productivity removes a sense of purpose—removes my pattern of motions.

To actually and fully break with the motions is to claim dignity and humanity and community. People over product. To acknowledge and remove the evil, corrupted foundations of society and radically build new ways. I hope we get there.

I also wanted to note for this film, that a Black man is lynched (alongside a white man), and that is a moment of historically, violent imagery that is included here somewhat perfunctorily in the same fashion as the rest of the inhumane, listless violence. The lynching has much higher levels of white supremacist/racist contexts that are not explored in this film at all (except through whatever the viewer brings to it). There should be purpose to including such a scene of particular violence, and I do not think this film hit that mark at all.

-Meg

Harry Dean Stanton and Rupert Crosse love to stay safe wearing their masks in public! <3

Meg 10/8/20 Meg 10/8/20

Daisies (1966): love to scam for food with my ladies

Sedmikrásky (Daisies) // dir. Věra Chytilová // Czechoslovakia

Sedmikrásky (Daisies) // dir. Věra Chytilová // Czechoslovakia

For a movie with such a critical reputation, instantly recognizable imagery, and a full eleven years sitting on my watchlist—I was still honestly surprised and overwhelmed with delight finally seeing Daisies for the first time. An absolute dream.

And, an absolutely perfect film to begin on this 1966 series—it bursts with everything I love about 1966 (and life in general): garish colors, INTENSE FASHION, chaos, a political spirit, and girls and women having a great time.

I want to focus on that last piece in particular here.

I do not feel able to competently address the political elements of this film in the context of the Soviet Union or critiquing government systems, so I am not going to even try. Instead, I want to talk to about women gorging themselves on food!

The anarchy of young women out to “spoil” themselves by indulging. It brings me pure delight. With her reckless two Maries, Chytilová taps into those deepest felt feelings of femme-socializing: the safety, weightlessness, and mutual joy. Those moments of feeling powerful together, and outside the constraints of this world. It is all too fleeting though. The world is there, and it does crush. Marie I and Marie II scam the broken system of patriarchal power to feed themselves, and have a wonderful time as long as they keep eating. The pressure remains though; the melancholy returns—especially in the few solitary moments they spend apart.

An unchanged system of power always reverts in the end. The world would explode if you just let young women live unconstrained! THE HORROR! THE TERROR! THE GLUTTONY! THEY ARE HAVING A GREAT TIME!

Every film that truly understands friendships between women has scenes of women eating food together. We love to snack! We love to feast! We love apples and giant jars of pickles (literal pickles). This deep into pandemic lockdown, I am 100% ready for a disgusting egg-milk bath with my best friend while we chow down on a loaf of bread. Please!

This was one of the most delicious looking food movies I have ever seen. I was famished almost instantly, and had to make a late night snack to survive the onslaught of the senses. I am already willing to put it as #2 to Tampopo’s undefeated food movie champ.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: 1) Friendship, 2) Food, 3) Scamming Rich Old Creepy Men, 4) Societal Chaos

I love to vicariously experience reckless abandon in these (troubled and) isolated times. I know it sounds indulgent, but a communal feast with my femmes is the cure for the symptoms of what ails my soul at most times (a brutal, inhumane, capitalist, white supremacist patriarchy).

All I really want right now is just canned pumpkin, so I can make decadent soft pumpkin cookies, but the pumpkin harvest is late and there is no canned pumpkin. I frantically searched the grocery store shelves before googling “CANNED PUMPKIN SHORTAGE” for my answer. They say the pumpkin is coming…

Joyful anarchy is never quite divorced from consequences, whether societal or communal, but it can be a delicious chaotic break.

-Meg

Meg 10/7/20 Meg 10/7/20

1966: cinema loud

1966 is my favorite year in film: across all genres, filmmakers, and languages. 1966 cinema is stylish, wild, inventive, thrilling, and anarchistic.

There are films going on pure vibes and bright colors (ahem Modesty Blaise) and significant cultural works like Ousmane Sembène’s ‘La Noire de...’ (Black Girl) with its anti-colonial perspective that still reverberates. 1966 is a year with films outside the US-Euro stronghold reaching both prominence and global audiences. For me, it’s a year that typifies, at their best, movies as entertainment spectacle, as an art medium, and as a carrier of empathy.

I have made a list of about sixty 1966 releases to watch and profile here (twenty being rewatches, and forty being new-to-me).

Looking forward to a year full of unconstrained films!

1) Daisies

2) Ride in the Whirlwind

-Meg

Meg 10/6/20 Meg 10/6/20

cinema’s hottest coupleTM

plus bonus cinema’s second hottest couple™

Machine Gun McCain (1969), dir Giuliano Montaldo. A forgettable film with absolutely bonkers dubbing (why are you dubbing Gabriele Ferzetti, you cowards!) and no Falk-Cassavetes onscreen fun, but it does give us 8 beautiful minutes of pure charisma and presence when Gena Rowlands strolled onscreen. Love to be dazzled by cinema’s hottest couple™.

The Drowning Pool (1975), dir Stuart Rosenberg. A meandering film, and not in a good way: boring. (also extremely queasy exploitation of Melanie Griffith). The actual drowning pool sequence is delightful. But, I digress, ad I am really here to talk about cinema’s second hottest couple™. Joanne Woodward showing up to give us the caftan-wearing, lounging about goods.

-Meg

GIVE US THE MACHINE GUN LOVERS PREQUEL WE DESERVE! GIVE US ROWLANDS + CASSAVETES BONNIE & CLYDE!