It’s taken as long as the caravan journey in The Big Trail, but we finally have a collection of film criticism from Dave Kehr, who currently writes the essential DVD and Blu-Ray column at the NY Times.  When Movies Mattered (University of Chicago Press) gathers his work from his period at the Chicago Reader, from 1974 – 1986. For years I’ve consulted his capsule reviews to guide my viewing habits, still available at the Reader website, but his long-form pieces have long been out of circulation. So this is a cause for celebration, although the resulting party would drive other critics to drink out of jealousy rather than selflessness. His prose is patient and lucid, laying bare stylistic and thematic mechanisms with the graceful invisible style of one of his favored Hollywood auteurs.

I was able to sit down with Mr. Kehr to talk about some of his favorite directors, as well as those not given much critical attention. So we range from Raoul Walsh to Godard and from Eastwood to Paul W.S. Anderson. Something for everyone! And it should be noted that the University of Chicago Press is doing an incredible job, releasing not just Kehr’s book, but also the most recent writings of Jonathan Rosenbaum and David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson.

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Under siege. John Ford’s Fort Apache established one of the major Cold War film archetypes, as J. Hoberman explains in An Army of Phantoms, his breathless, careening cultural history of the period (which the New Press released today). Covering the initial years of the political frost, from the mid-1940s through 1956, it’s the prequel to his 2003 The Dream Life, which ranged from 1960 to the release of Blow Out in 1981. He is preparing a third volume, Found Illusions: The Romance of the Remake and the Triumph of Reaganocracy, that will cover the rest of the 80s and the end of the Cold War. His stated inspiration is Siegfried Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler, and Hoberman’s less deterministic project will likely cozy up to it on film reference shelves in the coming decades as an essential and idiosyncratic work of cultural studies.

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“For each man carries within his own memory a special golden age. Then, when he becomes old enough to seem secure against rebuttal, he tends to make a shining legend of that time. He feels ordained to go up and down like some tireless evangelist seeking to enforce the gospels and the virtues of his own mental treasure upon younger men properly occupied with enjoying their present youth, which in its own ripening will have become a golden age for them one palsied day. Perhaps old men should be denied their clocks and calendars, their mirrors, and their writing tools.”

This poetically insightful passage is from Gene Fowler’s biography of his friend John Barrymore, Good Night, Sweet Prince. A few months ago, I found a copy of this 1944 biography in a used bookstore, and it has become my new favorite celebrity bio. As indicated by the accompanying photo, this copy of Good Night, Sweet Prince has seen better days. The pages are yellowed, the jacket is in pieces, and it looks as though the previous owner’s pet chewed off the corner of the cover. You could say the book has a lot of charm and character—much like the author and the subject.

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“It’s a god-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling “No”
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she’s hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
‘Cause she’s lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?”
- From “Life On Mars” by David Bowie

In a 1997 interview David Bowie was asked what his song “Life On Mars” was about and he said, “A sensitive young girl’s reaction to the media. I think she finds herself disappointed with reality … although she’s living in the doldrums of reality, she’s being told that there’s a far greater life somewhere, and she’s bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t have access to it.”

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If you are worried about sugar shock over the next few weeks and think you could snap if one more person asks you to be merry, New York Confidential (1955) may be just the kind of movie that might save your sanity. There’s little sweetness or sentiment in this movie about an underworld organization called “The Syndicate,” (The Mafia and La Cosa Nostra are never mentioned, though characters drop everything when a call from Italy comes through). There is some humor and a story that influenced some memorable off-shoots, including the noteworthy television series, The Untouchables and the movie, The Godfather (1972), as well as a brief television series of the same name that was on display in the late ’50s. One of the blurbs for this 86 minute film, (a portion of which can be seen below in the trailer), opens with a shot of the New York skyline, followed by some Gershwinesque chords on the piano, and a stentorian narrator declares that “The syndicate still exists. The rules still hold. This is how the cartel works. This is New York Confidential!”

Writer-Director Russell Rouse (D.O.A., The Thief, Wicked Woman, The Fastest Gun Alive), made New York Confidential (1955), an admittedly seedy, but quite entertaining film, inspired by the Kefauver hearings in Congress on organized crime in 1950-51. This was a period when the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, was studiously ignoring the existence of a criminal network while eagerly looking under beds for Commie sympathizers. The movie, written by Rouse and Clarence Greene, was “suggested” by the best-selling book written by those truth-telling twins of tabloid journalism,  Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer. The pair made a cottage industry out of these books in the ’40s and ’50s, cranking out some hard facts, as well as lots of squirrelly, often right wing sensationalism in one hot seller after another, U.S.A.: Confidential, Chicago: Confidential, and Washington: Confidential–all of them promising to rip the veil of respectability from various civic cesspools. Not to make anyone on the planet feel left out, Around the World Confidential and Women: Confidential were penned by Mortimer after Jack Lait transferred to the big city room in the sky in 1954.*

Thanks to Kit Parker Films (a company that specializes in unearthing “orphan films”), this long out-of-circulation Edward Small production was restored and released earlier this year on DVD by VCI Entertainment. Two of the dark angels from the Film Noir Foundation, writer and film historian Alan K. Rode and author Kim Morgan provide an informative and lively commentary on the DVD of the movie, discussing the actors, story, filmmakers and quirks of this often slyly amusing film, which was clearly made on a shoestring–though the top drawer cast and acting never lets the viewer down. Visually it is not impressive, with flat, almost claustrophobic sets and no extended scenes set in the great outdoors, but the top notch cast, led by Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, J. Carrol Naish, Anne Bancroft and Marilyn Maxwell expands the film’s B movie soul beyond the limits of the sometimes uneven script.

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“Looking at [Ann] Harding,” wrote film historian Mick LaSalle in his book, Complicated Women (St. Martin’s, 2001), “is like looking into clear, deep water. Nothing stands in the way. No stylization, no attitude, no posing. In fact, little about her technique could date her as a thirties actress.”

These are some of the words that inspired Scott O’Brien, author of Ann Harding – Cinema’s Gallant Lady (BearManor) in his research into the career and life of actress Ann Harding (1902-1981). For those who met her during the height of her Hollywood career, she left starkly different impressions. Laurence Olivier called her “an angel.” Henry Hathaway said that she “was an absolute bitch.” Myrna Loy found her “a very private person, a wonderful actress completely without star temperament, but withdrawn.” Ann Harding may not be as well-remembered as actresses whose stellar careers extended well beyond the pre-code era, such as Norma Shearer or Barbara Stanwyck. Her natural reserve means that her name does not automatically come up when particularly saucy favorites of the period like Ruth Chatterton, Joan Blondell or Dorothy Mackail are discussed. Powerful icons whose last name conjures something singular, such as Garbo, Dietrich and West, are better remembered. In recent years, in large part because of the rediscovery of her early films on Turner Classic Movies, occasional revivals of her movies and the work done by film historians reassessing the pre-code period, Harding has begun to captivate audiences again. Her lustrous beauty and surprisingly modern style of acting are only part of her appeal.

With the publication earlier this year of Scott O’Brien’s beautifully illustrated and well written biography, a balanced portrait of a skilled actress emerges, as well as some sense of the publicly guarded but privately intense woman behind her fame. Recently, I had a chance to ask the author of this meticulously researched and long overdue biography of Ann Harding about his interest in this unique, transitional figure in American film. Perhaps after reading this post a few more people who have yet to discover her work will pause next time one of her rarely seen films, such as Devotion (1931), The Animal Kingdom (1932), Double Harness (1933), When Ladies Meet (1933), The Flame Within (1935) or Peter Ibbetson (1935) emerges from the movie vault. This often surprisingly modern actress may intrigue and touch you with her presence. You might find yourself unexpectedly enthralled.
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During the holiday months I like to browse the shelves at my local bookstore to see what film related books publishers have released in anticipation of the “season of sharing.” This year I spotted many of the usual suspects; a couple of oversized glamour photo books featuring glossy pictures of Hollywood legends from the ‘40s and ‘50s as well as biographies of some highly acclaimed directors and celebrities. What I didn’t expect to see was Marcus Hearn’s latest book, The Art of Hammer: The Official Poster Collection From the Archive of Hammer Films. Recently I’ve been mourning the loss of Hammer starlet Ingrid Pitt and director Roy Ward Baker who helmed some of the studios best productions including Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971). Coming across Hearn’s book was a much-welcomed surprise and an unexpected treat for this Hammer fan and movie poster admirer.

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I haven’t had the chance to do much reading this year and that’s been really frustrating. Like many people, I often enjoy catching up on my reading during the summer months when the hot weather makes it difficult to do much of anything except lounge around in a comfortable chair or on a sofa and thumb through a book. Last weekend I finally decided to set aside some reading time and found myself engrossed in Mike White’s Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection.

Mike White started writing about film in the 1990s while self-publishing his own small press movie magazine (or zine) devoted to cult films and Hollywood hits called Cashiers du Cinemart, which was a creative play on the title of the respected French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema. The book compiles many of the best articles from Cashiers du Cinemart, but it also contains some new material and updates for the book release. Contributors include Mike Thompson, Leon Chase, Chris Cummins, Skizz Cyzyk, Andrew Grant, Rich Osmond, and Mike White’s wife, Andrea White but a large portion of the book highlights Mike’s own writing and personal insights. The book also features a great forward written by film director Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast; 1963, Two Thousand Maniacs!; 1964, She-Devils on Wheels; 1967, The Wizard of Gore; 1970, etc.) and a funny introduction from author Chris Gore (Film Threat, The Ultimate Film Festival Guide, The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made, etc.)

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Though not as doggedly determined as Sam Spade or as quick with the quip as Philip Marlowe, hard-boiled private eye Toby Peters investigates the most entertaining cases because his beat is Hollywood during the Golden Age. While working for such legendary stars as Errol Flynn or Mae West, Toby rubs elbows with other real-life film actors or powerful film industry personnel, offering an inside look at Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. The hapless private detective was the creation of mystery novelist and screenwriter Stuart Kaminsky, who wrote 24 Toby Peters novels between 1977 and 2004.

Kaminsky was more than a mystery novelist. He was also a screenwriter and a professor of film.  I was fortunate enough to be one of his graduate students when he taught at Northwestern University.  During my first year in the program, my classmates and I were intrigued with our mystery-writing professor and eagerly devoured his first few Toby Peters novels. While I enjoyed the interaction of a fictional private eye with real-life movie stars, relishing the nostalgia, I didn’t realize just how clever they were.  Sadly, Stuart Kaminsky died in October 2009, and, though he was 75, I was shocked to hear the news, in part because it made me realize that my years at Northwestern had been so long ago and that time takes no prisoners.  His death prompted me to revisit the Toby Peters mysteries, and I discovered that no book series could be more irresistible to movie lovers of all types, from the film historian to the star-struck fan.

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