The screen-grab above doesn’t do the shot justice. Too dark. But, still, you can (barely) see the shine on Harold’s shoes as he walks down the stairs (on film it’s all much clearer). The way Pablo Ferro arranges the title sequence below the shoes gives you a visual sense of the feet dangling above the words; which is perfect since that is exactly what the audience is walking into for this opening scene. Ferro’s no slouch, having done title sequences for the likes of Kubrick (on Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange)  and many others (ie: Beetle Juice, L.A. Confidential, Men in Black, Good Will Hunting, etc., etc., and still quite busy, with the pending Howl to add to the resume). I have often thought that you can tell within seconds when a film is going to be good or bad based on the very first impression, and Harold and Maude is one of those films that confirms said notion. It has an economy of style that engages you immediately and then zips by at a quick clip while somehow giving the  main characters exactly the right amount of time to breathe. Everyone else involved in the production put in work that is also in top form; and I can’t even begin to deduce how many Cat Stevens fans were made thanks to his soundtrack.  READ MORE

By complete serendipity I revisited Heathers on the same weekend I saw Bobcat Goldthwait’s latest film: World’s Greatest Dad. It was downright eerie, because while watching the latter I couldn’t help but wonder if Goldthwait had purposefully set out to make a film that followed the Heathers mold. Both are dark comedies that use high school as a backdrop for story threads involving mean kids who die and become martyrs. Both films also fall into that strange wormhole where art mirrors an aspect of reality but then gets trumped by headlines that strip the art of its seeming innocuousness. READ MORE

When was the last time you saw someone who could be described as debonair?

Chances are slim that the word could be aptly applied to anyone in the twenty-first century, but I hope I’m wrong about that. I think that the first time I saw a person that term might describe was as a kid. I saw a dazzling old guy on stage in a summer stock production of a frothy comedy with considerable style, The Pleasure of His Company.  The actor portraying “Pogo”, an engaged young woman’s long lost father, had a spark, verve and style that was compelling and completely unlike anything I’d then seen in reality or my brief movie-going life, (and even shorter theater-going one). That role, which the actor alternated for years in touring companies with another part that fit him like a glove, Prof. Higgins in My Fair Lady, was played by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

By the time I saw him, he’d long since relinquished any claim to motion picture stardom, preferring to pursue his interests in business, the arts and a kind of diplomacy, jetting between New York, London and Palm Beach. While he’d received several offers to take productions to Broadway, where his father had enchanted pre-World War One audiences, Doug Jr. preferred keeping his hand in the family business on the fringes of the spotlight. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of this under-appreciated actor’s birth, I thought it appropriate to give a nod to this man who gracefully swept through movies and life, until he left the scene ten years ago at the age of ninety. Understanding that less is so often more, he left us one last present that only the best performers seem to understand–a wish to see his like again.

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The nasal whine of Jerry Lewis is slowly screeching it’s way back into the American consciousness. He won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award at the last Oscar ceremony, and he’s returning to Broadway as the director of a musical version of The Nutty Professor, set for the 2010-11 season. And over the past few weeks, Anthology Film Archives held a retrospective of his directorial work, from The Bellboy through Cracking Up (aka Smorgasbord). The series was timed with the release of Chris Fujiwara’s concise study of his style published by the University of Illinois Press. It’s been a crash course in Lewis’ comedy, as I only have a passing knowledge of his movies, specifically the ones with Frank Tashlin (Artists and Models first and foremost). What became immediately clear is his astonishing technical command.

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I suppose to the eyes of the world, we were a motley looking crew as the capacity crowd flowed eagerly into George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre in Rochester, New York last month. Unlike the first Hollywood premiere of Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1923) at Sid Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre on October 18, 1922, there were no limos, no gowns, no red carpets, no klieg lights searching the sky, and certainly no hint of a “Day of the Locust” style mob scene. However, there were about five hundred not very glam but expectantly eager people gathered on an October evening for the “World Premiere” of this restored version of the tale in the 21st century starring Douglas Fairbanks in one of his classic roles.

So, who were these people who came out to see this 87 year old film version of the English bandit’s adventures?  Among the crowd at this movie were a few who might have been just old enough to have seen a later Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. film in a movie theater, a generous sprinkling of younger cinephiles, middle aged academics, and a delightful gaggle of children of about nine years of age in the audience that Saturday.  Once thought lost until it was rediscovered in the 1960s, this film’s “premiere” was a highlight of the seventh biennial conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies at the University of Rochester, where the historical and literary permutations of the appealing errant figure of lore were analyzed and, frankly, reveled in by the participants. Accredited scholars and hard core Robin buffs from around the world spent three days discussing the evergreen legend of this “Robin Hood: Media Creature”, trying to discern if the 700 year old hero of Sherwood Forest even existed, while enjoying an extravaganza of multi-media exhibits (including Douglas Fairbanks boots, seen below), early manuscripts, songs, and presentations discussing all aspects of the tale.

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Last weekend my film series was privileged to host the Colorado premiere of Stingray Sam – the latest creation by talented director/musician/writer/artist/actor Cory McAbee. Although it’s tempting to draw parallels between this film and Cory’s other sci-fi/western/musical, The American Astronaut (2001), they are two very different creatures. For one thing; Stingray Sam was designed “for screens of all sizes” and was meant to be distributed as six downloadable webisodes, with each episode being about ten minutes in length. Also; each episode has a song and cliffhanger. And although both feature planet-hopping around from a seedy interstellar space saloon to other planets with serious gender issues and onward, Stingray Sam has a different cast of characters, a different rhythm, a different style, and zips along at a nice clip with more material condensed into shorter bits. READ MORE

Melancholia! Sex! The New Deal! Alcoholism! Brooding Artists! Swedish Modern Furniture! Psychoanalysis! Contraception! Lesbians! The Abraham Lincoln Brigade! The La Leche League! Cocktail Parties! The Theatre with a capital “T”!

The Group (1966-Sidney Lumet) had it all, dear readers, in spades.

At this distance, the gulf between personal and public faces and the political skirmishes touched on in this movie between Trotskyites, Stalinists, socialists and the battle of the sexes seems even more long ago and far away than it must have appeared in the 1960s. Still, I couldn’t help being drawn into the story, thanks largely to the talented cast and the sometimes uneven but breezy, episodic nature of the movie.

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In 1944, Preston Sturges had his first flop for Paramount. After numerous battles with production executive (and storied songwriter) Buddy DeSylva, The Great Moment was released in a studio-mandated cut, which Sturges said

was a bitter story about the discovery of anesthesia which I intended to sweeten a little with some funny moments. The studio decided that the picture should be cut for comedy. As a result, the unpleasant part was cut to a minimum, the story was not told, and the balance of the picture was upset….  I was certain the picture would have a mediocre and shameful career in that form and with that title [he wanted it to be called Triumph Over Pain], a guaranteed gilt-edged disaster that would do neither me nor the studio any good.

He was right, of course, and Moment was the only film in his Paramount run to lose money. Negotiations over a new contract collapsed over Sturges’ request that he have a two-week period after each production to annul the deal. He wanted leverage in case of future studio meddling, but he was rejected outright. Thus ended one of the greatest Studio-Director runs in Hollywood history.

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Okay, so I’m again officially the last to know something.  This marvelous young actor/comedian named Andrew Goldenberg, a.k.a. Goldentusk, has been writing, producing, and starring in a series of imaginative original videos, taking movie theme songs and putting his own words to them, and playing all the characters.  Maybe you’ve seen them — I hadn’t until yesterday, actually — but I’m now officially in love. 

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