The Paramount Theater planned a nice Father's Day for me, of and a couple hundred other lucky dads, by showing two films from the great John Huston. It was actually a Huston Family Weekend because Angelica Huston starred in yesterdays film, "The Royal Tenenbaums.
I have been lucky enough in my life to see "The Maltese Falcon" on the big screen a number of times. Almost certainly, the first time was a screening at the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena in the early seventies when that theater was a revival house. I'd bet a dollar that it was on a double bill with the same film from today. The one time that I have written about it was from a Fathom Event from 2016.
Humphrey Bogart is simply great as Sam Spade. There are so many wonderful moments where he gets to demonstrate what a formidable actor he was. The sly half smile he shows, every time he manages to one up another of the characters is just deviously perfect.. The momentary hand tremor when he feigns outrage as a way to get Gutman off balance was also a nice touch. All the interactions with Mary Astor as the duplicitous Bridget O'Shaughnessy, come off well, including the famous ending where he promises to wait for her.
Bogart's part in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is perhaps less subtle but it is certainly a tour de force. Fred C. Dobbs is a figure of pity, a man of action, a self centered loser and a good partner, and that's all before he starts to go made while he is out prospecting for gold. This is another film that I wrote about as a result of a Fathom Event in 2018. As great as he is in "Falcon", and even though I adore that movie slightly more than "Treasure", it is his character in this film that I think might be his best remembered role outside of "Casablanca". Dobbs is haggard and filthy at the start of the film, and he cleans up nicely a couple times during the story, but ultimately, he returns to the gutter in spite of the riches that come from working with two partners who teach him lessons of humanity that he just can't take to.
Tim Holt as Curtain, and Walter Huston as the grizzled Howard, hold up their ends incredibly well. Walter Huston , indulged by his son the director, steals the picture with his wise, tough and ultimately moral character. His ebullient laugh and dance when they do find gold was a perfect moment in the film before things start turning really dark. His whole "take it as it comes" philosophy is a nice counterpart to the driven intensity of his two partners. None of the men are Saints, they do choose at one point to murder the intruding Bruce Bennett, simply because they foresee accepting his offer of partnership as a power failure. They are saved from that moral lapse by the intervention of truly evil men. Still Hobb's paranoia gets the better of him, and the moral of the story is sealed.
As usual, my advice is to always see these movies in a theater with an audience. The collective atmosphere and the required focus on the films, will give you a greater appreciation of their talents of the artists than if you watch it on video.
Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.
The Man Who Would be King
One of the treasures of the year 1975, was a film I experienced in early 1976. "The Man Who Would be King" opened in late December 1975, but it was not until my birthday in February that my father took me down to Hollywood to see it. I knew Michael Caine thru a few films I'd seen on television, "Zulu", "The Ipcress File" and "The Wrong Box" to name a few. I'd seen "Sleuth" and "The Wilby Conspiracy" in theaters, but it was this film which cemented me as a lifelong fan. in part because he was so great but also in large part because he was playing opposite of one of my favorite actors, Sean Connery. This whole vibe of British adventurers in India and Afghanistan during the time period of colonial rule of the late 19th century just held a huge allure for me. I loved "Gunga Din" and this felt like an update of the kind of swashbuckling adventure story that made me a movie fan in the first place.
This highly praised film did get a little criticism for the performance of Michael Caine, in the Variety review in 1975, and on the "Lambcast", this past week. The suggestion was that Caine was exaggerating his working class accent and doing a bit of a caricature in his performance. As I said on the show and will say here now, I think Caine was channeling the character of Peachy Carnahan, particularly in those spots. Peachy is a bit of a con man, given an outsized personality to gain trust, or present an image to the world of someone more in command than he actually was. To me, it was all set up in that opening sequence where Peachy steals the watch, and then noticing it belonged to a fellow Mason, tries to return it without getting caught. When the Kipling character reveals that he had missed the watch earlier and that Peachy's mask has slipped, he smiles and becomes an even grander version of the larcenous character.
Sean Connery is clearly having the time of his life with his role as Caine's partner Danny Dravot. His wink and nod to Kipling when he reveals their blackmail plans is just the start. When his character is disguised as a mad priest, in the caravan they travel through Afghanistan with, he gets to mug with his facial expressions and dance joyously on a hilltop. The character moment between the two when they are trapped by a collapsed snow bridge is also a meaty slice of acting, and the fact that these two good pals were getting to act together in the scene is just gravy.
The theme of the film is hubris on the part of the two leads. The mendacity of the two characters leads us to doubt their true intent, but then it turns out they really do have an audacious plan to conquer a nation. Their colonial superiority seems justified at first because their military skills are far superior to those of the tribes that they are gathering as followers. We know as observers however, that they are imperfect men with an outsized appetite for adventure and that it will lead them to trouble. When they latch upon the ruse that Daniel is the long lost son of Alexander and the tribal people treat him as a deity, it is not had to see the fall coming. Danny gets so caught up in playing the role, he gets taken in by their own deception. Peachy gives good counsel but still did not see where the downfall would be coming. John Huston, the director of this film, also made "the Treasure of the Sierra Madre". That 1948 film , almost feels like it was the template for this movie. A trio of adventures, seeking wealth, battling natives and losing it all in the end from greed and exaggerated self importance.
The only other reservations I heard on the podcast had to do with the tone of the film. The light hearted adventure takes some dark turns and that seemed hard to accept. I'm not sure why anyone would have a hard time moving through those alternating tones, that has been a standard emotional wave from "The Adventures of Robin Hood' and "Gunga Din", all the way up to Indiana Jones. When you have monkeys giving a sieg heil in one scene and then implied torture in another scene, we know this is how adventure films work. Drama is interspersed with comedy throughout the adventure. Iron Man makes quips as worlds collapse and characters die. Maybe the fact that Peachy and Danny seem real, is the thing that made some people have a harder time with the tonal shifts.
Everywhere you look in this film, there are moments to relish. The incensed attitude of the two Brits when being offered the daughters and sons of their first manipulated tribal chief, is traded off by the two, each one getting a moment of indignity followed by a lesson from the other, the second one smugly mocking the first.
Billy Fish: Ootah say take your pick. He have twenty three daughters.
Danny: Those are his daughters? Why the dirty old beggar!
Peachy Carnehan: Now, now Danny. Different countries, different ways. He's only being hospitable according to his lights. Billy, tell him one's as pretty as the next and we cannot choose.
[Billy translates; Ootah replies in Kafiri]
Billy Fish: Ootah say he also have thirty-two sons if you are liking boys.
Peachy Carnehan: [angrily] Tell him he makes my gorge rise; tell him!
Danny: Now Peachy, different countries, different ways. Tell Ootah we have vowed not to take a woman until all his enemies are vanquished.
When they are holding up the gems in Alexander's treasure room, and Peachy one ups Danny with a bigger ruby, you want to laugh. The military demeanor they take with the commissioner is funny and reveals Peachy's character playing again. Connery tells Peachy and Billy to stay back, as they are mere mortals. Everywhere there are sly bits of humor.
To me, the key line that sets up the fact that this is an incredible story being told by one of the participants, who has learned a lesson the hard way,
Rudyard Kipling:
Carnehan.
Peachy Carnehan:
The same - and not the same, who sat besides you in the first class carriage, on the train to Marwar Junction, three summers and a thousand years ago.
That phrase, "Three summers and a thousand years ago" tells me I'm going to get a fantastic story. and we get just that.
So it's time again to celebrate an anniversary of a classic film. This week it is John Huston"s "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", starring Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and the director's father Walter Huston. It is a tale of desperation, paranoia, greed and ultimately madness. I've probably seen it a dozen times over the years but I don't think I've seen it on the big screen since the seventies. It would most likely have been at a revival theater in those days, but it was presented in a digital format this evening at a local AMC as part of the ongoing programming from TCM and Fathom events.
If any of you are unfamiliar with the film, let me provide a very brief synopsis. Bogart is Fred C. Dobbs, an American down on his luck and trapped in Mexico without the funds to get anywhere. He and another American become partners with a third, much older American in a prospecting venture that takes them far into the wilderness. There the search for and discovery of gold tests their mettle and the limits of their morality. The film is a cautionary tale on the subject of greed, but even more so on the issue of trust and character.
Dobbs is never a particularly nice guy but he seems decent enough and he has some reasonable limitations and goals when we first meet him. Curtin, the character played by Holt is similar in circumstances but maybe just slightly less jaded, at least until both of them are betrayed by a man who gives them jobs but refuses to come up with the money he owes them. This plants the seeds of distrust in both of them, but Dobbs seems to be the most vulnerable to suspicion after that incident. The third member of their partnership is Howard, an American who has found and lost riches as a prospector all over the world. After a couple of lucky breaks, they manage to put together a grub stake and travel into the mountains of Mexico in search of gold.
Walter Huston won an Academy Award as Howard, the old prospector with a ton of wisdom concerning both mining and human nature. The difficulty of the project takes its toll on the two younger men, but they struggle along, managing to overcome brief periods of suspicion but building greater and greater pressure as the film goes along. Huston is a joy to watch in his performance. He is wizened and gleeful and disparaging from scene to scene. His performance is memorable, and even though he admits to having some of the same faults as the other two, he is the most sympathetic character in the story.
If there are two characters that define Bogart as a cinema figure, the first would be Rick Blaine from Casablanca, but a close second would be Fred C. Dobbs. Here is a clip from a Bugs Bunny cartoon that first introduced me to this character.
The opening section shows a beaten man, but one who still has a sense of morality about him. Bogart tightens his belt from hunger, licks his lips from thirst and keeps his eyes downcast from shame as he begs for assistance from fellow Americans. Still he is generous enough to share a cigarette with another man down on his luck and to pick up a bigger share of the grub stake when the project starts. We can see in his manner however that he is becoming more paranoid by the minute once fortune smiles down on them. All three have a moment of morality failing when they choose what to do about an interloper on the trail, but they are spared having to live with the consequences by luck. Holt has a moment of weakness when he considers the idea of allowing Dobbs to stay buried in a mine collapse, but ultimately pulls himself out of it. Bogart just can't get out of those doubts. Two or three times he is shown how wrong he is to be suspicious but he never learns to get over those doubts and he succumbs to a failed moral choice. Huston's was the stand out performance but Bogart is no slouch. I suspect that the nature of his character prevented as much praise as the performance probably deserved.
The music by Max Steiner is another outstanding feature of the film. And let's not forget that the movie contains the frequently misquoted lines about badges. The film is playing two more times in theaters this week. For some reason those screenings are on Tuesday instead of the usual Fathom/TCM Wednesday schedule. So all you old movie weirdos out there, put on your stinking badges, travel back 70 years, and enjoy a classic on the big screen.
[ This essay was originally Published on the deleted site "Fogs Movie Reviews" in the Fall of 2013]
All
you film fans out there who were born after 1970 are about to eat your
hearts out. You may know that the 70s were the second golden age of
Hollywood, after all that's when "Star Wars", "The Godfather", and
"Alien" all started. You may even be aware that the greatest adventure
film ever made, "Jaws", was released in the Summer of 1975. It would be a
solid argument to make that 1975 was the apex of Hollywood film making
in that decade. Here is a partial list of the movies released that year:
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon,
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Rollerball, Three Days of the Condor,
Shampoo, Nashville, Seven Beauties, Cousin cousine,The Passenger as well
as the aforementioned fish story. " That is a list of essential films
for anyone who loves movies to partake of. Buried in the avalanche of
great films from that year, is the one film that stars Michael Caine and
Sean Connery together as the leading men (each had a small part in "A
Bridge Too Far") and as a bonus it was directed by John Huston.
"The
Man Who Would be King" was a dream project for John Huston. He had
tried to put together a version of the movie as far back as the 1950.
His original choices for leads were Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.
That was the royalty of the earlier film generation. When he finally did
get to put the story in front of the cameras it was to feature the
royalty of the next generation of movie stars. While other names had
been mentioned, someone (likely Paul Newman who turned down the film)
suggested that Huston stick to using British actors. That was the best
advise Huston could get because this movie is a quintessentially British
story focused on a time period when the English Empire was at it's
height and the ambitions of men who were it's subjects knew no bounds.
It is this condition that allows our lead characters to work so well in
the tale.
Peachy
Carnahan and Daniel Dravot are recently retired British non
commissioned soldiers who decide the world at home is not big enough for
the likes of them. They have developed a strategy to make themselves
Kings. In particular, rulers of Kafiristan, a remote region of
Afghanistan.
Daniel Dravot:"
In any place where they fight, a man who knows how to drill men can
always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find
- "D'you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill
men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will subvert
that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dynasty."
Before
they begin this quest, they make the acquaintance of an English
journalist working in India as well. This journalist turns out to be
Rudyard Kipling, who wrote the story on which the film is based. These
encounters with Kipling becomes the bookends for the film and give the
story an even greater sense of adventure and mystery. While the story
itself is fantastic, the characters are ground in reality and the
presence of Kipling as future narrator of the tale is all the more
needed to set the mood. If you have not seen this film, be assured that
when you get to the end you will empathize with the Kipling character
and stare in wonder at the proof of it all. The tie in to the story
concerns the masonic brotherhood that the English characters share in
common. There are some great curves that follow from this early
revelation. Christopher Plummer is unrecognizable in the role and he
strikes just the right tone of concerned bemusement in the first act and
utter astonishment in the conclusion.
After
assisting the two adventurers, Kipling fades from the story and the
focus is on the travel to Kafiristan. There are several exciting
incidents on the road but eventually the spine of the story begins when
they arrive and connect with the remnants of an earlier English
expedition. The lone survivor is a gurkha soldier named Billy Fish. He
becomes their interpreter and confidant. His part in the story reminds
us that the relationship of the British to their Empire was not always
hostile. These fierce hill people fought valiantly alongside their
English counterparts in many battles over the last two hundred years.
While the relationship is not one of equality, the two adventurers are
not condescending to their third partner, in fact they trust him
implicitly.
The second act of the film focuses on the battles and
strategy that the two employ to gain the power that brought them to the
remote land to begin with. There are several small incidents that test
their friendship and commitment. There is a great deal of humor involved
in the training sequences and in some of the moments of conquest. That
humor may be viewed as politically incorrect at times, but it is not so
much based on racism as ethnocentricity. The world is still a brutal
place, and while those of us living in Western cultures might view some
of the behaviors as relics of the past, it may not be as true as we
wish. Of course the intercultural conflicts go both directions since the
English soldiers are viewed just as differently by the tribesmen they
encounter as we might treat a alien from another world.
All
of this is offered up though through the performances of two of the
greatest screen personae of the last fifty years of film. Connery and
Caine are both Award winning performers from the generation of actors
that came out of England in the sixties. Along with Albert Finney, Peter
O'Toole and Richard Harris, they represent that moment in time when the
culture of Great Britain was the Beatles and James Bond. Here they are
in an adventure story that harkens to the glory days of the Empire
and much as the Western is a romanticism of American history, a film
like this served the same purpose for the English. Connery plays Daniel
Dravot as the more blustery of the two itinerant soldiers. He uses his
commanding voice and fierce expression to cow his enemies and establish a
position of power with others. He can however take on a warm quality as
he does with Kipling at one point and his subjects later on in the
film. The dividing point for the two characters comes when Danny becomes
infatuated with a local beauty that he sees as cementing the legacy of
Alexander he has come to see himself playing. The beautiful Mrs. Caine
was cast in the part at the last minute as soon as John Huston met her.
Peachy
Carnehan has the more subdued character. Caine is more sly and
cautious, except for the scene on the train in the opening of the film.
Peachy does get his dander up but almost always it is in response to his
partner and not the other characters. It is Michael Caine's delivery
of the opening framing story that gives the tale it's magical quality.
Rudyard Kipling:"Carnehan!." Peachy Carnehan:
"The same - and not the same, who sat besides you in the first class
carriage, on the train to Marwar Junction, three summers and a thousand
years ago."
It is that prologue that sucks us in and makes us want
to know what has transpired in the intervening three years. Caine has a
breathless line reading that is haunting and fits really well with the
coda of the story. It is his willingness to hold back his voice at times
that allows the ruse these two perpetuate on the populace to work. He
is the brains of the outfit but he has to stand back to let his partner
gain the power that both of them seek. You can also see it in his face
and posture when Danny gets full of himself and Peachy has to let some
of the air out of him.
Connery
has said that this is his favorite film that he appeared in. I heard
him say it in person at the Archlight Cinerama Dome Theater in Hollywood
three years ago. He did a short five to ten minute introduction of the
film at one of the AFI Night at the Movies events. It is easy to see why
he would feel this way. He and Michael Caine get to play larger than
life characters who are a little bit crazed. There is action, drama,
comedy and suspense throughout the story. While there are a number of
other elements of the film that make it memorable and worthy, all of
them would be for naught if the two actors at the heart of the story
were not perfect.
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards:
art direction, costume design,editing and screenplay. Amazingly it did
not win any of those categories. Even more amazing is that the two leads
and the fine supporting performance from Plummer were not recognized at
all. It is ideal to imagine that this was a result of the lushness of
the films of the period. It was clearly not the inadequacy of the work
done by the film makers. The score is by Maurice Jarre, the man
responsible for the music of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dr. Zhivago". So
you can expect the music to reflect the grandeur of the setting and the
heroics and faults of the two main characters. If you listen to the
opening track that accompanies the titles, you will hear echos of "Gunga
Din" and those 1960s classics as well.
As the story unfolds and
you witness the relationship between Danny and Peachy, you will see why
Huston thought of Bogart and Gable and later Redford and Newman. There
is great byplay with the two actors. At one point they had hoped to
share the screen again, this time with their pal Roger Moore, in a
version of James Clavell's Tai Pan. It is something to lament that this
coupling of actors could not be accommodated later on. That makes it
all the more important to treasure this match up of two great actors the
likes of which we may never see again.
Richard
Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While
embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write
about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the
glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as
well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.
If you have never seen this odd film from director John Huston and Star Humphrey Bogart, you are likely to be thrown for a loop when you do. It is not at all what you would expect. It started out as a serious project but some of the circumstances are odd and after Truman Capote signed on to work th script, it becomes an outright comedy.
Jennifer Jones is really interesting as a woman who is fickle in love and has a tenuous relationship with the truth. The oddball characters start stacking up and although there is murder in the air, the drama of the story never seems to be the focus. Instead we are anticipating the next outrageous turn of events or quip from Bogart.
The first half of the film takes place onshore as the cast of characters awaits repairs to the vessel they are supposed to sail on. We take in local ruins, and the cast mistakenly think that characters have died. When you have Gina Lollobrigda and Jennifer Jones as romantic interests, you are a lucky guy. At least in love, but the scheme seems to be going off the rails at times. Bogart's partners include Robert Morely and Peter Lorre and Italian actor Marco Tulli. Everyone is double crossing everyone else and you will have a hard time following the plot and scheme, but that is mostly not relevant to enjoying the picture.
The program featured a discussion of the filming by script supervisor Angela Allen, who told several amusing stories about working with the cast. Apparently, one day when they were shooting at sea, the captain misunderstood the directions and had the ship sailing off to North Africa for a couple of hours before anyone realized it. The cast and crew did not get back into port until many hours into the night and they were lucky they did not wake up in Tunisia.
