The Patch Is On A Different Eye: The Remake of True Grit

I recently caught the remake of True Grit at my local theatre. This movie was made by the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, who are more adept at comedy than drama. Film comedies, as they should be, are shallow and that's the feeling I get from this film. It was rushed and mailed in.While the source book is not a heavy tome by any means, it is deserving of far more serious treatment than it receives here. The advertising for the film is that it is closer to the book than the original version. I'm not seeing it. Charles Portis wrote the book with John Wayne in mind and Wayne called Marguerite Roberts' screenplay the best he had ever worked with. In preparation for seeing the remake, I reread the book and rewatched the 1969 version. While there are differences and similarities between the two movies and each movie and the book, I think the biggest differences are found in the screenplays and minds of the directors. Each version has more than its share of scenes found in the book but neither is 100% true and its how they are presented on screen that makes a difference. I really can't pronounce either version as better than the other one, though. For instance, I thoroughly disliked Mattie Ross in the 1969 version and the rat killing scene (it's in the book) was absent in 2010. I was disappointed some because I was looking for a far superior film this time, but I did warn myself. When I heard that the Coens were doing the remake, I shook my head. They weren't right for this film and it shows. When this is released I'll get the Blu-Ray version and add it to my library. Maybe a rewatch will make a difference. But I don't think so. The dude ain't no duke. 

Is It Really True?

One of the attractive things about being a movie fan is that, on screen, our heroes never die and they do nothing wrong. After all, in Hollywood everything is make-believe. But offscreen, movie people are like us. But is everything we read about them true?

If you're like me, you love the history of Hollywood and the motion picture industry. But the more I read, the more things I read that seem to be, at best, unlikely or, at worst, that I know to be untrue and its pretty much always negative. It's one thing to write that an actor played a particular role seven times when it was actually twice or a certain movie was released a year later than it really was or an actress won an oscar when they were only nominated. That's just laziness on the part of the author. Repeating salacious stories is something else. If you believe everything you read, it seems that everybody who has ever worked in Hollywood is homosexual or bisexual, has a drug addiction, is a raging alcoholic or all of the above and more. Those things were never discussed during the golden age. The studios had publicity departments that made sure their stars had a positive reputation. They knew that damaged merchandise didn't sell tickets. Nowadays, that safeguard is gone but, paradoxically, it is no longer needed as there is no stigma for poor personal behavior on the part of celebrities. It's as if boorishness is expected and attractive.

For example, I recently read, for the first time ever, that Steve McQueen was a closeted homosexual whose death was due to AIDS. True or not? Personally, I choose not to believe, chiefly because that source is the only one I've seen to state that. I also don't believe that Clara Bow sexually serviced the entire USC football team or that Fatty Arbuckle sodomized Virginia Rappe with a bottle. While such stories make for sensational reading, buyer beware. Truth is in the mind of the beholder and lies become the truth only if you want them to be.
 

Meet The Baron (1933)

Meet The Baron was a feature-length comedy made by MGM in 1933 and was recently brought to us by my heroes at TCM. It's a laugh riot from beginning to end (with a couple of musical numbers from the "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Girls" thrown in). The lead actor was Jack Pearl, who popularized a character named Baron Munchausen (kind of a German version of Jimmy Durante) on radio. As the movie opens, Pearl and Durante are servants to adventurer Baron Munchausen and they are lost in the african jungle. The Baron abandons his servants in a dispute over a dwindling water supply, a search party finds the servants the next day, Durante tells them that Pearl is the Baron, and we're off to hilarity. Pearl has great scenes with radio interviewer Ben Bard, school headmistress Edna May Oliver, and maid Zasu Pitts. The movie also features Ted Healy and his Stooges in the second of their six movies made for MGM from 1933-34. An interesting side note is that the youngest Howard brother is billed as Jerry in the opening credits but is addressed as Curly in the movie. Within three years Healy would be dead and the Stooges would be well into their near quarter century run at Columbia. When he heard the news of Healy's death, Moe Howard cried. The movie concludes on a happy note with Pitts agreeing to marry Pearl. Once again, TCM has hit a home run by bringing us this classic.

In an unrelated event, today I picked up an interesting bit of memorabilia when I found an autographed copy of Garson Kanin's book Hollywood at a used bookstore. The inscription reads "Garson Kanin Pasadena 1974." The book looks like it will be interesting reading as well.

   

Happy Birthday Boris Karloff

Today is the 123rd anniversary of the birth of horror master Boris Karloff. As I sit typing this blog, I am watching 1940's You'll Find Out on TCM. Although this movie was made as a starring vehicle for bandleader Kay Kyser, it features a trio of horror heavyweights: Karloff, Peter Lorre, and the great Bela Lugosi. The three are in cahoots in a plot to kill a young heiress played by Anna Lee (she would later costar with Karloff again in 1946's Bedlam). Although his turns as the monster are legendary, my personal favorite is 1945's The Body Snatcher, one of Boris's favorites as well. His late in life roles in The Comedy of Terrors (with Lorre,Vincent Price, and Basil Rathbone), The Raven (also with Lorre and Price, plus a young Jack Nicholson) and of course Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas are unforgettable. Happy birthday, Boris.

Lois Weber

"I'll never be convinced that the general public does not want serious entertainment rather than frivolous."

Lois Weber (1882-1939) spoke those words nearly a century ago to explain why she made the films that she did. A writer, director, producer, and actress, she began her film career for Gaumont films in New Jersey in 1908 and later came to Hollywood in 1913 to work for Universal Films. Because "polite" society looked down on the movie business as immoral and fit only for second-class citizens, the fledgling industry was wide open to talented women, minorities, and immigrants.

While other studios were content to turn out one- or two-reel westerns and slapstick comedies, she was decades ahead of her time in making feature-length socially conscious films dealing with controversial subjects. This led to censorship and even outright bans of her movies in some localities. Her 1916 film Where Are My Children dealt with birth control and 1915's Hypocrites caused a sensation when it showed female nudity. She was also unafraid to tackle other sensitive subjects such as anti-semitism and abortion. But studio owner Carl Laemmle, Sr. didn't care. Because she always came in on time, under budget, and her movies made money, she enjoyed a certain cachet that allowed her to make what she wanted. Indeed, she was Universal's top director and drew a salary of $5,000 per week.

She joins Frances Marion, Mabel Normand, and Mary Pickford as female titans of early Hollywood.
Her last film was 1934's White Heat (not the James Cagney film) which she directed and co-wrote the screenplay. It was her only sound film and was one of the first films to be shown on television.

House On Haunted Hill

As another Halloween season is regrettably drawing to a close, I'd like to mention another of my favorite movies from my favorite time of year. This movie gave me the first scare I can remember from a horror flick. House On Haunted Hill was the second in a series of fright films made by Producer-Director William Castle from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. Twin opening monologues, one by Vincent Price and the other by Elisha Cook, Jr. (in a role very different from his turn in The Maltese Falcon) are excellent mood setters. Frederick Loren (Price) is a millionaire who promises five people (all of whom need the money) $10,000 each if they can survive a night of being locked inside a supposedly haunted mansion. He is married to his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), a gold digger who doesn't seem to be concerned that his three previous wives all died under mysterious circumstances. As it turns out, they both try to use the house as a cover to murder the other. In the process, they nearly frighten to death one of the guests, Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig). While this film probably works better in a theater than television, it is a good fright all the same. The highlight scene for me comes early on in the film when Nora is crouching down in a darkened storage room. As she rises, she shines her candle in the face of Mrs. Slydes, the old blind wife of the caretaker. Trust me, Mrs. Slydes is a lot scarier and uglier than Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz
could ever hope to be. Mrs. Slydes is played by Leona Anderson, the sister of the real-life Broncho Billy who, as Gilbert Anderson, appears in 1903's The Great Train Robbery, one of  the first commercially produced motion pictures in history. If you've never seen this great film by Willam Castle, you are missing out. Among his other notable films are Macabre, 13 Ghosts, and The Haunting. He was loosely portrayed by John Goodman in 1993's Matinee.

Coy Watson, Sr

Coy Watson, Sr was one of filmmaking's pioneers as an actor, stuntman, animal wrangler, director, and most notably, special effects technician for several studios, the majority of the time with Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. Born James Caughey Watson on April 14, 1890, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, he moved with his family to Edendale, a community in northwest Los Angeles in 1895. Edendale was the first movie colony on the west coast with four studios-Norberg, Bison, Keystone, and Selig (the first permanent movie studio in
California, established in 1909)-operated there in the early part of the 20th century in kind of a Hollywood before there was a Hollywood. Its heyday lasted less than a decade, however, due to a lack of real estate for a rapidly increasing industry. By the mid-teens, all but Mack Sennett and his Keystone Studios had relocated ten miles west to Hollywood. Coy Watson got his start in the movie business in an unexpected manner. In 1911, after spending most of a day breaking a horse, he was standing on the street talking with two other cowboys when a man approached them, told them he worked for Selig Studios and asked them if they wanted to appear in a movie. The offer was $1 per day per actor and $2 for horses. Watson hired out three of his own horses and himself. In those days, actors supplied their own horses and gear and some of the early cowboy stars he worked with included Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, and Tom Mix. Being a cowboy actor was dangerous work, as Watson would later find out. In 1913, while making Logan of the U.S.A., he was thrown from his horse and trampled. He suffered a broken arm and shoulder and was laid up for three weeks. Being a trouper, he went back in front of the camera as soon as he was able. However, he began to spend more time behind the scenes, learning the movie business and in the process, becoming one of the first prop men and special effects experts. His accomplishments included being the first to use piano wire to suspend actors and objects in mid-air and the first wrangler to work with exotic wild animals. For all of his accomplishments, he is best known for being the father of nine children, all of whom were child actors. The Watson family lived literally next door to Keystone so whenever a child was needed for a role, the studios would simply go to the Watson home and pick one out. Between Coy Sr and his children, the Watsons appeared in over a thousand movies. This led them to be dubbed "The First Family of Hollywood." Coy Watson, Sr passed away in 1968. On April 22, 1999, the Watson family received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6674 Hollywood Blvd, near the intersection of Las Palmas and Hollywood. There is an
excellent biography of Coy Watson, Jr on the market entitled "The Keystone Kid: Tales of Early Hollywood"
that makes for great reading.