It was four years ago today(-ish) on August 22, 2010 - that I began my blog post, Tales of the Easily Distracted, often with my witty and delightful hubby Vinnie Bartilucci as Team Bartilucci! We're still enjoying blogging about our favorite movies every couple of weeks, mostly films with suspense and tongue-in-cheek wry comedy. Most of all, we have been happy to get to know new fellow movie lovers as well as enjoying our longtime friends' awesome blogs I'm also getting back in the saddle to polishing my novel The Paranoia Club; but hey, one thing at a time! What the heck, wish me luck anyway, and Vinnie and I hope you'll all enjoy all the swell upcoming movie fun here and with other swell blogger pals! Now then, let's cut the cake, and watch our favorite movies, old and new, for many more movie delights!
There is Nothing Like a Dame! We mean Dame Agatha Christie, of course! Here in
our latest series of blog posts saluting the talented and prolific films based
on the novels of Mrs. Christie, this time we’re watching one of our favorites,
Ten Little Indians, the 1965
version (1966 in some posts). Our favorite brother act, The Popkin Brothers, (Impact; D.O.A.) again produced the film, along with co-producer Harry Alan
Towers (who deserves an article or even a book, but that, too, is another
story). We’ve watched and enjoyed the 1945 version,
And Then There WereNone, but
this time, Mrs. Christie’s chilling tale gets even more exciting, thanks to
screenwriters Peter Yeldham and Towers himself, under the nom de plume
“Peter Welbeck”; talk about a man of many faces!
George Pollock, who directed the delightful Miss
Marplefilms starring Margaret
Rutherford, blends suspense, action, humor and sexy romance with this swell
cast, produced by Harry Alan Towers, who also had the rights to Ten Little
Indians:
Leo Genn (Oscar-nominee for Quo Vadis; The Snake Pit
Daliah Lavi(Casino Royale; The Silencers)
Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets; I’m All Right, Jack
Fabian(The Longest Day; North to Alaska
Shirley
Eaton
(Goldfinger; The Girl Hunters
Wilfrid Hyde-White(The Third Man; My Fair Lady)
Hugh O’Brian(The Shootist; TV’s Wyatt Earp)
Stanley Holloway (The Lavender Hill Mob)
Marriane Hoppe (The Wrong Move; Romance in a Minor Key) And *Mario Adorf (The Tin Drum; The Bird with the Crystal
Plumage)
Similarities between the two film versions abound, like this "keyhole" shot!
This version has it all: violence, fisticuffs, hot hunks, and beautiful babes;
you’ve got Team Bartilucci’s attention, all right! This time, the beleaguered
house party guests with targets on their backs are jet-setters in the Swiss Alps
(played by Ireland; give our regards to Barry Fitzgerald!). Each guest
was lured by invitations, ranging from old friends (O’Brian), movie stars
networking, like film star Ilona Bergen (Lavi) and such, invitations
supposedly sent from old friends, or promises of hobnobbing with the promise of
more movie and/or TV/film roles roles, like film star Ilona Bergen here to
hobnob (Lavi); popular but obnoxious rock singer Mike Raven (Fabian);
and other devilish ruses to keep our party guests around in hope for more roles
and such. It’s the ultimate house-party gone lethally wrong! Malcolm
Lockyer’s gorgeously brassy musical scoreheats things up, which will come in handy when the lovely Shirley Eaton and the
ruggedly handsome Hugh O’Brian have a super-hot love scene! (I love that this
scene is truly sexy and genuinely loving!)
With all the Currier & Ives-style winter wonderland atmosphere, it’s beginning
to look a lot like Christmas — except that nobody knows each other, not even
hired secretary Ann Clyde (Eaton). Leave it to a movie star to break the
ice, namely renowned actress Ilona Bergen (Lavi):
“How utterly marvelous! You all came to a house party without knowing your
host!” Hugh: “Well, what about you, Miss Bergen?” Ilona:
“Darling, it happens to me all the time!”(Oh, those jaded jet-setters!
Our absent host U.N. Owen takes his sweet time showing up; what would Miss
Manners say? Luckily, Judge Cannon (Hyde-White) has a toast for the
occasion: “To absent friends, the ten little Indians, and of course, our
host.” Keep an eye on your guests, you guys and gals; they might not stay
very long, and not just because they’re jet-setters! Soon a chilling, unknown voice breaks the ice with a series of accusations about the guests and the murders in their pasts. The unknown "U.N. Owen (gotta hand it to the fiend, he (or she?) sure has a great sense of gallows humor!
"We've gotta have a romance, by George!"
Fun Fact: The mysterious U.N. Owen’s sinister voice was played by
the one and only Christopher Lee!
Our stranded guests finally let their fair down and admit their crimes: General
Mandrake sent five men to their deaths to in what turned out to be a tragic
blunder, but was decorated anyway; the Grohmanns were accused of a mercy
killing by their elderly charges. Ilona had been a British Army
Officer’s wife, bored but sticking with him until she finally got a chance to get a screen
test, then blowing that Popcicle stand and propelling herself to stardom—and when she dumped her sad hubby, he killed himself in despair, the poor
guy. She does seem to have some remorse, though my cynical side has me thinking
she was more sorry for herself than anything else. Mandrake knew all about her
because Ilona’s husband had been Mandrake’s superior! News travels fast in a
snowbound
Château! Judge Cannonhad
convicted a truly evil man, one Edward Seton, including other wicked things
he’d done to save time; there’s multitasking for you! And then there was Dr.
Armstrong, living (but not for long) while he was literally drinking and driving
while drunk, resulting in a killing a young couple.And the body count begins...
Hugh and Grohmann get ready to RUMBLE!
Ah, but Owen is far from infallible, at least when it comes to our budding
lovers Hugh and Ann! You see, Ann’s disturbed sister had killed her fiancée, and has
lived in a mental home ever since. Hugh had come to the
Châteaubecause his friend, one Charles Moreley (note the
initials “C.S”), had beenhad killed himself after in remorse after being
responsible for a young woman’s botched abortion. Oy! How will
Hugh and Ann get out of this fix?
I especially got a kick out of the Whodunit Break to give us viewers one
minute to see who the killer is: “The Whodunit Break: “…A First in Motion
Pictures! Just before the gripping climax of the film, you’ll be given sixty
seconds to decide to guess the who the murderer is…WE DARE YOU TO GUESS!”
Personally, I’d like to think the great William Castle is watching this in
Heaven and grinning from ear to ear!
Produced by brothers Leo C. Popkin and Harry H. Popkin, The Popkin Brothers
(Impact;
D.O.A.; The Well)
produced the film adaptation of Dame Agatha Christie’s 1945 film version
of her thriller
And Then There Were None,
with great success. And
Then There Were None
was produced by 20th Century-Fox and directed by the great
Rene Clair,
and based on
Agatha Christie’s
best-selling suspense novel, blending chilling suspense and wry humor.
However, Mrs. Christie’s original British version of the novel was
originally titled
Ten Little Niggers,
which didn’t go over well with us Yanks!
Just as well, as screenwriter
Dudley Nichols
(Stagecoach; Scarlet Street)
did a swell
job of of adapting Mrs. Christie’s worldwide smash, adding more wickedly
witty bits of wry dark humor!
Thank goodness we’re about to dock! I've still got the willies from that ordeal with the U-Boat and Connie Porter!
As the film begins, the all-star cast slowly thaws the ice as the
characters arrive in a boat, most of them being English.
The characters
don't talk much, at least at first; they just smile and nod politely, no
small feat when many of them are trying not to toss their cookies after
that boat ride! The crashing waves over the opening credits work perfectly; I was tempted to get my snorkel! Let’s meet our travelers, shall we?
Barry Fitzgerald from
Mark Hellinger’s
The Naked City; The Quiet Man)
as Judge Quincannon.
Walter Huston
(Oscar-winner for
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre;
Dodsworth;
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,
as Dr. Edward G. Armstrong). (Mind you, this was before his son John
Huston became a writer and director!)
Mischa Auer
(You Can’t Take it With You; My Man Godfrey)
as Prince Nikki Starloff.
June Duprez
(The Thief of Bagdad; None But the Lonely Heart)
asVera Claythorne.
Louis Hayward
(Ladies in Retirement; The Man in the Iron Mask)
as Phillip Lombard.
Roland Young (Topper; The Philadelphia Story) as Detective Blore.
Judith Anderson
from
Laura;
Alfred Hitchcock’s
Rebecca, as Emily Brent.
Sir C.Aubrey Smith(Tarzan
the Ape Man; Rebecca)
as General Mandrake.
And of course, the guests have to eat, don’t they? That’s where the
servants, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, come in: Mr.
Rogers is played by
Richard Haydn
from
Ball of Fire;
The Sound of Music;
Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.
Mrs.
Rogers is played by Queenie
Leonard
(from the original animated Disney version of
101 Dalmations,
as well as the
film noir
The Narrow Margin;
Queenie sure had range! Of course, we also fell in love with Haydn’s
comedic voice for various
Looney Tunes,
especially Team Bartilucci’s favorite,
Super-Rabbit
(1943)!
Mischa Auer's Prince Nikki chokes to death on a small piece of scenery.
Nikki’s macabre ditty seems about down to the final verse of the “last
little Indian" as per the 10 Little Indian rhyme-- but in fact, it’s only
the beginning when a male voice accuses them all of various killings! The
deaths involve elderly General Mandrake, who was accused of murdering his rival
for the woman he loved, and now seems to have Alzheimer's; Emily Brent’s
teenage nephew was put in jail because his heartless Auntie Emily thought he had it
coming, resulting in the desperate young man hanging himself in prison; Nikki’s hit-and-run killed a
young couple; Dr. Armstrong is accused of drunkenness that killed one
Mary Cleves; Judge Quincannon is accused of being a “hanging judge”
for his own selfish motives; Blore had been hired to watch the guests, though he's not exactly James Bond; Vera is accused of killing her
own sister’s fiancee -- jeepers, now
that’s
sibling rivalry! What’s more, how can we be sure at least
some
of the accused
might
be getting a raw deal? Curiouser and curiouser!
A dune to a kill!
Will there be a body
count in the guests’ futures, if not lawsuits? Where’s Kayak.com when
you really need it?
Rogers does what he can as the weekend slowly unravels in terror, what with the guests slowly but surely coming unglued, especially with the body count climbing as each guest is murdered by each new macabre killing, including poor Mrs. Rogers becoming one of the early casualties, supposedly from heart failure. The body count climbs as General Mandrake pushes up daisies; an accidental overdose of his medicine, or something more sinister? Time to face facts: the killer is one of the guests!
Janet! Dr. Scott! Janet! Brad! Rocky!
Emily Brent is the most cold-hearted, if you ask me, not giving a rat’s rectum about her young nephew killing himself; all she cares about is where her next jar of marmalade is coming from! I think it’s safe to say this inn won’t be giving out any five-star ratings anytime soon from Booking.com, even if the guests do even live that long! Suspense blends with deft wit. I especially enjoyed Richard Haydn and his delightful daffy delivery. Even when the body count rises, there’s plenty of comedy along with the dread and suspense. Who will survive? Watch
And Then There Were None on July 21 -- and the 1965 version, too, coming ever so soon!
This blog post is hosted by the Billy Wilder Blogathon, hostedby
the talented IrishJayhawk66 of
Outspoken & Freckledand Aurora of
@CitizenScreen
of
Once Upon a Screen.
(By the way, ladies, we loveyour description of you
two smart and lovely ladies describing your fabulous Blogathon:
“We’re girls gone Wilder!”)
Meet our protagonist, C.R. MacNamara, as played by James Cagney:
“On Sunday, August 1st, 1961, the eyes of America were on the
nation’s capital, where Roger Maris was hitting home runs 44 and 45 against the
Senators. On that same day, without any warning, the East German Communists
sealed the border between East and West Berlin. I only mention this to show the
kind of people we’re dealing with: real shifty!”
"A gift from my employees on the tenth anniversary of the Berlin Airlift."
Writer/Director/Producer Billy Wilder has long been among my favorite filmmakers
because he’s equally deft with both comedies (Ball of Fire; The Apartment; The Fortune Cookie; and drama (Double Indemnity; Stalag 17;Ace in the
Hole), and he’s always gleefully unapologetic about ruffling feathers— even if
they’re audiences! I especially got a kick out of the film’s sprinkling of its
playful references to our star James Cagney, even including co-star Red Buttons
doing a swell imitation of the man himself.
In Cameron Crowe’s book Conversations with Wilder (Alfred A.
Knopf),
it’s been said that Wilder and his co-writer I.A.L Diamond claimed that
One, Two, Threewasn't so much funny as it was fast: “We did just
did it, nine pages at a time, and he never fumbled.” Apparently another Cagney
bio claims that wasn't completely true, but I say the nit-pickers need to
lighten up! Our family fell in love with One, Two, Three and its
hilarious pace breakneck pace!
The rollicking cast includes:
James Cagney; Oscar-winner for Yankee Doodle Dandy, as well as
great performances in White Heat; *Love Me or Leave Me*
Howard St. John, who you may also remember from
Mister 880,
and his memorable dramatic turn as Captain Turley in
Alfred Hitchcock’sStrangers on a Train.
Pamela
Tiffin
(Harper; The
Pleasure Seekers)
Horst Buchholz
(The
Magnificent Seven; Nine Hours to Rama)
ArleneFrancis, actress and TV personality (The Thrill of it All)
Lilo Pulver
(A Time to Love and a Time to Die; a Global Affair)
C.R. MacNamara was tasked with getting "German business- men to have Coke with their knockwurst"
One, Two, Three takes place in Berlin, in what was
then present-day 1951. That’s where C.R. MacNamara (Cagney), nicknamed “Mac,”
is Coca-Cola’s head of bottling in Germany. Mac’s hopes and dreams of getting
back in the good graces of his boss Mr. Hazeltine (St. John) is on the line.
You see, Mac has still been smarting over the unfortunate Benny Goodman
incident, in which a sandstorm cancelled Goodman’s concert, resulting in irate
music-lovers burning down the American Embassy, leaving poor frustrated Mac in
the doghouse! But it's redemption time for Mac as he open negotiations to bring Coca-Cola behind the Iron Curtain. But Hazeltine informs Mac he's wasting his time -- Coke has no interest in giving the Reds the Pause That Refreshes (This was actually the case -- however, Pepsi had no such qualms, which is how they became the cola of choice - the ONLY choice -- in Russia). Instead, Mr. Hazeltine is sending his teenage daughter,
Scarlett Hazeltine (Tiffin) to hop a plane to Germany in hopes busting-up
Scarlett’s newest teenage sweetie, thus throwing the family’s vacation plans
going hither and tither! But that’s only the beginning of this daffy farce.
Meet Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin), hot-blooded teenage world-traveler. If Scarlett was up for an award, she’d be a shoo-in for “Girl Most Likely to Give Mac’s Family High Blood Pressure!”
Almost as soon as she arrives, it turns out she's been seeing the sights after the MacNamaras hit the hay, bribing the family chauffeur to sneak over to the Russian sector! Worse yet, she's married a scruffy-headed Party-member named Otto Ludwig Piffl (Buchholz)! Who needs Tiffany's for an engagement ring, when you can have rings "forged from the steel of a brave cannon that fought at Stalingrad"? Phyllis MacNamara (Arlene Francis), hearing from Mac about Scarlett’s new
Communist husband, says “She married a Communist? This is gonna be the biggest thing
to hit Atlanta since General Sherman threw that little barbecue!”
Poor Otto, he doesn't know that all his troubles are behind him.
No worries, Mac has a plan. Our naïve Otto is so busy thinking of love and rhetoric that he doesn't realize he's being framed! Mac plants a balloon on the tailpipe of Piffl's motorbike, reading "Russki Go Home", and gives him a wedding present -- a cuckoo clock with a little Uncle Sam that plays "Yankee Doodle" -- wrapped in the Wall Street Journal, yet! As Otto makes his way across the Brandenburg Gate, the East German guards stop him for the balloon, the Yankee Doodle time bomb goes off, and Otto is arrested and placed in "Enhanced Interrogation" for being a spy!
Waterboarding, eat your heart out!
Mac thinks all's well with the world...until it turns out that Otto and Scarlett have had time to consummate their wedded bliss -- she's "Schwanger", as they say in German. So now Mac has to make his way into the Eastern sector, liberate Piffl, and turn him into a good little Capitalist, all before the Hazeltines arrive on the Yankee (you should pardon the expression) Clipper in under 24 hours! Easy, right? As Mac puts it, "I wish I was in Hell with my back broken!"
True, some of the more topical gags may seem dated today, but with Wilder and his co-writer I.A. L. Diamond (based on a play by Ferenc Molnar) , the smart snappy cast, and the breakneck pace, there wasn't a single scene that didn't leave me laughing out loud! Can this howling hilarious satire save the day and the Free World? Would Billy Wilder let you down? Watch and laugh!
“How would you like a little fruit for desert?” (Cagney kids his Public Enemy grapefruit gag while arguing with Buchholz and Pamela Tiffin.
Vinnie returns the empties as he has his say:
As The Wife mentions, the topical jokes in this film may require some explanation, but much like the jokes in any Warner Brothers cartoon, once they're explained, a whole new level of irreverence stands revealed. The obvious physical gags like the Russian trade ministers all resembling various Russian leaders (including Leon Askin, best known to TV mavens as General Burkhalter from Hogan's Heroes) are easy to spot -- the minister taking his shoe off and banging it against the table to the rousing music and dancing of Lilo Pulver might miss a few heads as it sails over.
Otto: We will take over West Berlin. We will take over Western Europe. We will bury you! C.R. MacNamara: Do me a favor. Bury us, but don't marry us.
Topical jokes like this are missed by modern audiences, but cut deep at the issues of the day.
The ministers' joke about "sending Cuba rockets" would come true the next year, as the center of the Cuban Missle Crisis. And in what might be the most obscure in joke of them all, when Cagney tells Otto he must give the couple a wedding present, Scarlett claims that Otto's friends did not give them any gifts but instead sent the money to unemployed cotton pickers of Mississippi. Cagney was accused of being a communist sympathizer for sending money to striking cotton workers in the 1930's.
The climax of the film, as Mac and his cohorts must pull a Piffl pecuniary Pygmalion, is a masterpiece of comedic timing. The chiming of the Uncle Sam clock gets imperceptibly faster each time it goes off, subtly underlining the increasingly frenetic pace as merchants and tradesmen teem through the Coca-Cola offices to add some white and blue to the little Red. As legend has it, Cagney was having trouble with the machine-gun monologues as he rattles off orders to his underlings, so much so that he began to suspect he was, perhaps, not quite over the hill, but able to see the precipice without binoculars. He walked to a corner of the soundstage, gave himself a quiet pep-talk, came back and nailed the speech in one more take. The stress of the film caught up with him - this was his last film before his return in Ragtime.
Hard to believe Lilo Pulver was usually cast as a tomboy, ain't it?
This post has
been revised and republished as part of theSnoopathon: A Blogathon of
Spies, hosted by Fritzi Kramer! The Blogathon will run
fromJune 1stthrough June 3rd, 2014. (Quick,
what’s the password?)
The
ever-versatile choreographer-turned-director Stanley Donen began his
entertainment career with tuneful, urbane, inventive musicals including hits
like On the Town (1949); Singin’ in the Rain (1952); Seven
Brides for Seven Brothers (1954); Funny Face (1957).Like 1963’s
comedy-thriller Charade (Fun Fact:
that’s the year I was born!), Arabesque
is another fabulous Universal romantic thriller in the grand stylish
comedy-thriller tradition, including some of the same personnel!
After Stanley Donen’s Hitchcockian romantic comedy-thriller Charade(1963)became a smash hit,
Donen had a decision to make:
Should he play it safe and make another film just like Charade?
Keep in mind that this was in the days before filmmakers sequel’ed hit films to
death, often lazily giving them titles like, say, Hit Movie Part 2. Or…
Should Our Man Stan go boldly go where he hadn’t gone before in his film career?
Well, Donen finally opted for a little of both with
Arabesque (1966), and why not? Don’t we all deserve more of the
finer things in life, including entertaining suspense movies? But I digress!
Arabesque
has just about everything a moviegoer could want in a fun escapist
comedy-thriller: spine-tingling suspense; international intrigue; sexy romance
between Oscar-winning movie stars, albeit not both for Arabesque; yousee, star GregoryPeck won his Best Actor Oscar for To
Kill A Mockingbird,(1962), while Sophia Loren won
her Best Actress Oscar for the searing Italian drama Two
Women (1960).
Loren and Peck make a wonderful match with their delightful onscreen
chemistry, accompanied by the great
Henry Mancini(Charade;
Hatari; Breakfast at Tiffany’s;Two for the Road).
I love screenwriter Peter Stone (Charade; Who is
Killing the Great Chefs of Europe and
collaborators, including Peter Stone) smart and snappy dialogue
brimming with memorable lines; eye-catching English locations; jazzy Henry
Mancini music infused with such exotic Middle Eastern touches as zithers and
mandolas; inventive visuals with a pop art vibe; and the beguiling Sophia Loren
in glam shoes, courtesy of foot-fetishist sugar daddy Alan Badel (The Day of
the Jackal), and Christian Dior clothes! What’s not to love?
The eyes have it, and Prof. Ragheed's gonna
get it!
If Charade was Alfred Hitchcock Lite, then
Arabesque
is Hitchcock Lite after taking a few classes in James Bond 101, including an
opening title sequence by Maurice Binder, who also did the honors for Charade
and most of the James Bond movies. Gregory Peck plays David Pollack, a
hieroglyphics expert Yank professor at Oxford who finds himself embroiled in
Middle Eastern intrigue while decoding the cipher (which also happens to be the
title of the Gordon Cotler novel which inspired the film, adapted by
Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price and Pierre Marton. More
about Marton in a moment) which serves as Arabesque’s MacGuffin.
Our hero finds himself up against four Arabs who want to know what’s on the
hieroglyphic-like cipher:
Prime Minister Jena (pronounced “Yay-na” and played by
Carl Duering of A Clockwork Orange), who’s in England on a hush-hush
mission;
Nejim Beshraavi (Badel), the suave-bordering-on-unctuous shipping
magnate whose ships may be laid up for good if Jena signs a treaty promising to
use English and American tankers;
Yussef Kasim (Kieron Moore of
Crack in the World
fame, among others),whose penchant for then-hip lingo a la Edd “Kookie” Byrnes on
77 Sunset Strip
belies his ruthlessness; and...
In any language, nobody can resist Yasmin!
Beshraavi’s beautiful,
unpredictable lover Yasmin Azir, played by the dazzling, hazel-eyed Loren. She’s
sharp, witty, and alluring as all get out in her fabulous Dior wardrobe,
including a beaded golden burnoose, plus Sophia rides horses convincingly!
John
Merivale of The List of Adrian Messenger fame is memorable as Sloane,
Beshraavi’s put-upon henchman, who gets a memorably tense opening scene in a
doctor’s office, and is treated as a combination lackey and punching bag for the
rest of the film. I almost—only almost—felt sorry for the guy. Anyway,
some of David’s new associates have no qualms about stooping to murder, and soon
the chase is on, with suspenseful scenes at the Hyde Park Zoo and Ascot. Our man
David is subjected to truth serum and knockouts, and I’m not just talking about
Loren: “Every time I listen to you, someone either hits me over the head or
tries to vaccinate me.” Poor David doesn’t know where to turn, especially since
he can never be sure whether or not he can trust the mercurial Yasmin.
Kieron Moore attempts to kill Peck and Loren with a construction site.
Kieron Moore reads the Arabesque script: "I talk like Kookie and get knocked off how?!"
The usual ever-so-slightly wooden note in Gregory Peck’s delivery is oddly effective as he tries to loosen up and deliver witticisms in the breezy style of Cary Grant, Donen’s business partner and original choice to play David Pollack. Word has it that Grant and Loren had a steamy real-life romance while filming Houseboat, and things got complicated on account of Loren still being married to producer Carlo Ponti. In any case, it helps that those witticisms were written by none other than Charade alumnus Peter Stone under the nom de plume “Pierre Marton,” and Stanley Price as well as Julian Mitchell. Peck may not be Mr. Glib, but he’s so inherently likable (he won his Oscar for playing Atticus Finch, after all! (Ask my husband Vinnie to do his Gregory-Peck-Impersonating-Cary-Grant impersonation sometime; it’s delightful!).
If the shoe fits, Beshraavi will have Yasmin wear it!
Peck seems so delighted to get an opportunity to deliver bon mots after all his
serious roles that he’s downright endearing, like a child trying out new words
for the first time. Besides, the bewitching Loren can make any guy look suave
and sexy! Co-star Alan Badel (The Day of the Jackal) looks like a
swarthy, polished version of Peter Sellers wearing cool shades; he virtually
steals his scenes as the suave-bordering-on-unctuous villain with a
foot fetish.
Shoe lovers will swoon over the scene with Badel outfitting Loren with a roomful
of fancy
footwear and a comically/suggestively long shoehorn.
Speaking of things of beauty, Director of Photography Christopher Challis
(The Red Shoes; Sink the Bismarck)
is utterly dazzling and inventive; no wonder he won a BAFTA award (the British
equivalent of the Oscars), and Christian Dior got a BAFTA nomination for Loren’s
elegant costumes!
Giddy-up, giddy-up, let's go! Let's vanquish a foe!
The only thing that disappoints me about Arabesque is that director/producer Donen didn’t seem to like this sparkling, twist-filled adventure as much as our family and so many other movie lovers do. Specifically, he felt the script needed work. In Stephen M. Silverman’s book about Donen’s films, Dancing on the Ceiling, Donen is quoted as saying about Arabesque, “We have to make it so interesting visually that no one will think about it.” Boy, did they ever! In an article about Arabesque on the TCM Web site, Stone had said that Donen “shot it better than he ever shot any picture. Everything was shot as though it were a reflection in a Rolls-Royce headlamp.” I don’t think Donen gave himself or the movie enough credit, though. If you ask me, Arabesque is a perfect example of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best-known quotes:“Some films are slices of life; mine are slices of cake.”Now that Arabesque is finally available on DVD (my own copy is part of Universal’s Gregory Peck Film Collection, a seven-disc DVD set that Vin bought me for Christmas 2011), I wish someone would get Donen and Loren together to do the kind of entertaining, informative commentary Donen did with the late Stone for Criterion’s special-edition Charade DVD, while they’re both still alive and well enough to swap stories, or perhaps even put out a whole new deluxe edition of the film!
Our heroes saddle up for action! Nice horsies!
At Ascot, that's the ticket - to frame our man David Pollock for murder!
Reflections in two sexy spies! (Great F/X work!)
Odd, I don’t usually get hieroglyphics in my
fortune cookies!
Double-cross Beshraavi, and you’re in for a date
with the falcon— and we don’t mean George Sanders!
This blog post is hosted by the Fabulous Films of the 1950s Blogathon, hostedby the Classic Movie Blog Association (CMBA),
running from May 22 through May 26,2014.
We hope you’ll enjoy this blast from the past! Today’s parents are often accused of “Helicopter Parenting,” but after the
harrowing adventure the McKenna Family endures in Alfred
Hitchcock’s 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, who can
blame them for being a heck of a lot clingier than usual? As TCM’s Brian Cady notes, the original 1934
smash hit got Hitchcock started on a nearly unbroken string of wildly popular
suspense thrillers that made him “The Master of Suspense.”
Hitchcock's films were well known for their cymbalism...
But Hitchcock had
never been the type to rest on his laurels. Sure, the original Man Who Knew
Too Much (let’s just call it “Man,” we’re all pals here!) was
already a classic, but Hitchcock felt his original masterpiece would be even
better with Paramount’s glorious VistaVision and the other new technologies
available at the time, making the 1956 version even better.
The First
Romantic Comedy Blogathon is hosted by Backlots and Carole & Co. from May 1st through May 4th, 2014.
Thanks for letting us play in your garden!
I’ve always enjoyed screwball comedies that blend romance and comedy, and the
zanier, the better, especially when there’s mystery in the mix! Case in
point: Columbia Pictures’comedy-mysteryThere’s Always A
Woman
(1938). All the filmmakers had to say to make me love this movie were
three names
Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas(Hud; Being There; Ninotchka). (Fun Fact: Douglas was also the grandfather of actress Illeana Douglas (Dummy; Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear.
Mary Astor, Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winner for
The Great Lie;The Palm Beach Story).
Based on a story from American Magazine and directed by Alexander Hall
(My Sister Eileen; The Great Lover) and producedbyWilliam Perlberg (Miracle on 34th Street; The Song of Bernadette), There’s Always a Woman is kind of like the
wiseacre kid brother who’s really swell beneath it all. The cast includes
Frances Drake of Mad Love; Thurston Hall (The Secret Life of Walter Mittyand
Lady on a Train).
Sally helps Bill to root, root, root for the home team!
Wow! Two Reardons for the price of one! What a scoop! Eat your heart out, Miss Marple!
Lola Fraser wears widows' weeds well!
Big owie! That's what you get for hogging Sally's credit, Bill, you bad boy!
Bill and Sally get soused soused while looking for clues at the Skyline Club! Sally: "Why didn't you pick me up?" Bill: "I did it before, and look what happened."
What does detective Bill Reardon have that William Powell doesn't have, besides Myrna Loy? Clients, that's what!
"I see it all now! You and the upstairs maid. Do the old boy in, you said. Elderberry wine and old lace, you said! Then, the clean getaway, but you weren't smart enough, John, alias Johnny, alias Jack, alias Jackie!"
New York City private detective Bill Reardon (Douglas) went into
business for himself, but perhaps more successful detectives like The Thin Man's Nick Charles spoiled the broth
in the Big Apple for Bill’s agency, no doubt snapping up the pricey clients that
were just out of Bill’s reach. Luckily, Bill’s former boss, the D.A. himself
(Hall) is glad to have Bill back. But Sally (Blondell), Bill’s wife and
assistant, thinks she could cook up a clientele, being as loving as she is sassy
and determined; what a gal! Before Sally can start closing up shop for good, in
comes Lola Fraser (Astor), a rich society matron who wants to find out if Lola’s
husband is stepping out with lovely young Anne Calhoun (Frances Drake from
Mad Love;It’s A Wonderful World).
Sally puts The Reardon Detective Agency under new management! Then Lola’s
hubby get bumped off, and suspects galore pop up, like shifty nightclub
owner/gambler Nick Shane (Jerome Cowan from The Maltese Falcon; Miracle on 34th Street; quite a few
familiar faces here!).
Joan Blondell's third degree didn't go as well as the police would have hoped...
TCM’s
Lorraine LoBianco reports There’s Always a Woman set was a family
affair, with ex-sister-in-law Connie, who’d just divorced Blondell’s brother, and then her sister Gloria Blondell a contract! No wonder Joan was happy to be at Columbia, except for just one little thing: for some reason, Warner
Bros. (where she’d worked at the time) didn’t want Blondell to wear her hair in
her signature curly ringlets hair. Luckily, director Alexander Hall gallantly made sure
he had brunettes and redheads among the actors so that Blondell would attract
all eyes.
Fun Facts: There’s Always A Woman also had a 1939 sequel with Douglas, There’s That Woman Again. This time, Virginia Bruce played Sally Reardon.. Also, don’t blink or you’ll miss: •A young Rita Hayworth in a brief role as a secretary! •Whitey of the Dead End Kids, a.k.a. The Bowery Boys!
Sally knows a detective must keep track of their partners I bet they need more toilet paper, too!
*KLONG!* Big owie! That'll teach Bill to hog all of Sally's credit!
Those kooky lovebirds solve the case, though they'll need hairbrushes afterward!
