The Chills #4: “There was a pretty fly…”

 

Simon Kane nominates a sequence for our occasional series, “The Chills,” in which we catalogue the moments that make your BACK HAIR stand on end (or, if you have a hairless girl’s back, I dunno, nipples?). 

“The escape by boat in “Night of the Hunter”.

To my mind another pretty-much-perfect movie. Suddenly, finally, here with the image of Mitchum stuck in the water and the kids heading off into the top right hand corner we’re out of the spiky German shadows and into a children’s story. Everything is made to look as simultaneously fake and as life-like as possible. I can’t explain. I first saw this picture late at night when I was about seventeen and it was as the boat set off that I went from loving it to being in love. I can think of many examples in film of a violent mood-jolt from peace to horror, but no other example of this, a scream that lingers as a lullaby.

“…completely unconcerned with any tradition that I’m aware of. They just go: Hey we can do whatever we like. And then they do it.”

Beautifully phrased! I guess the only film tradition that applies would be one stemming from the silent cinema, from D.W. Griffith (via Lillian Gish) and from German Expressionism, maybe. Plus literary and theatrical influences. The key thing is that they merge together to create something that’s never been seen before or since.

EVERY FILM really should be this kind of hybrid, bringing together whatever disparate influences suit the needs of the makers. Instead we get the FASHION, which is fortunately adaptable and can lead to great work in the right hands — I can’t complain about the fashion for film noir in the ’40s or slapstick in the ’20s. But it should be part of the real film artist’s job to reinvent the medium with every movie. With every shot.

I dunno, am I asking too much?

One-Eyed Jacks

I also draw! Here’s one I did of André De Toth. I’ve made his head massively overlong, unlike any of his films. I think this looks like one of those pieces of fan art, pencil drawings of Marilyn or Elvis with their eyes too far apart. Not a problem one can have with André. Unlike most of the Hollywood eyepatch directors (Ford, Ray, Lang) who had two eyes, one impaired, De Toth was genuinely cyclopean, like Walsh.

Yes! I am writing something this week about each of the eyepatch directors. I take the view that old-time directors had much in common with pirates, and this accounts in part for the plethora of patchwork.

De Toth came to Edinburgh Film Festival for a retrospective of his work. He was greeted by a festival employee, herself wearing an eyepatch. She had to explain that she really needed it and was not just taking the piss.

Adding to his unique appearance, De Toth sometimes wore a neck brace, the result of his twice having broken his neck. In Fragments, his quirky autobio, De Toth reports that the second time he broke it was the lowest point of his life, somehow implying that the first time was a cakewalk.

As if that weren’t enough, upon arriving at Edinburgh Filmhouse, the Great Man expressed admiration for the punky close-shaved haircut of the man operating the box office. “Who did it?” “I did it myself.” Whereupon De Toth had the guy shave his own head. So now he was monocular, neck-braced and bullet-headed. And Hungarian. Fearsome.

Though in his late eighties, he had an incredibly vigorous, forceful manner. You assumed he was totally fit, but my friend Andy Gonzalez saw him attempting to descend the three steps to the Filmhouse bar, with the aid of a handrail, and reported, “It took him fookin’ ages.”

Somehow both severe and charming, De Toth made an impressive guest, and I was much taken with the few of his films I managed to see — PLAY DIRTY is a very considerable war film, with the most extraordinary ending. There was always the hint that De Toth could be a tough egg, which was confirmed when I read here how he conspired to have Paul Picerni, his leading man in HOUSE OF WAX decapitated. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

‘Andre says to Frank Lovejoy, “For the next shot, Frrrank, you come in with the other policemen. You see Buchinski! He’s got Paul in the guillotine! [...] You lift up the block of wood, you pull out Paul and, zoooom!, down come the blade! That’s the next shot! Light it!” I say, “Andre — excuse me. You’re gonna shoot this in separate cuts, aren’t you?” He says, “No, no, no! We do it in one take, one cut! Frrrank pulls you out, zoooom!, down come the blade!” Now, bear in mind I’m a young actor under contract.

‘I say, “Andre, I don’t wanna intercede on your job as director, but how do you propose to do it in one take?” He indicates Red Turner, the prop man. [...] Andre says, “Red Turner will sit on top of the guillotine; he will hold the block of wood between his legs; when Frank pull you out, Red will release the blade. And we see it all in one take!” I say, “Andre — supposing Red drops the blade prematurely?” He says, “Only hurt for a second. Now don’t t’ink about it, it’ll make you nervous.” And he walks away!’

Read the whole interview at The Astounding B Monster, it’s an eye-opener. As Wallace Beery said to Louise Brooks, when she asked why he never did his own stunts, “All directors want to kill actors.”

Miklos & Me

Miklós Jancsó poses with the author. Photo by Shu Moon Leung.

Man, I look OLD! I thought posing with a living legend filmmaker aged 86, I would maybe look younger by contrast, but I think maybe some of his senescence has RUBBED OFF on me.

Age, of course, is relative. I once cast the actress Julie Cox in something that then didn’t get made, but she told me about working on a TV version of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA directed by Michael Anderson. Anderson was an AD at the same time as Guy Hamilton and my old pal Lawrie Knight, so he must have been about 80 at this time, “and he was the youngest person on that set.” He apparently has a much younger wife, which is reckoned to help.

So my teaching job is a healthy activity, as well as keeping me just about above water financially. I am surrounded by enthusiastic young folks like Shu Moon.