Are you now or have you ever been a romantic?
THE RIVER.
One of my favourite books, or two of them, is Richard Roud’s two-volume Cinema: A Critical Dictionary – The Major Filmmakers, which has a nice piece on Borzage by Andrew Sarris, probably the first thing I ever read on F.B. I suspect I first turned to it after seeing those awesome clips from SEVENTH HEAVEN in A Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies, which blew my mind long before I was able to see MOONRISE.
Sarris quotes “David” (more usually Dave) Kehr as saying “MOONRISE [1948] is the last film Frank Borzage completed before the blacklist forced him into a ten-year period of inactivity.” (Borzage in fact directed some television in 1955 and 1956.) This remark, in the Spring 1973 issue of Focus! was apparently the first mention of Borzage in connection with blacklisting. It makes sense though, since Borzage was the embodiment of what HUAC called “premature anti-fascism”, having attacked the Nazi party in LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW?, THREE COMRADES and THE MORTAL STORM, an informal trilogy covering the history of Germany between the wars, and STAGE DOOR CANTEEN, an innocent-seeming morale-booster features an appearance by some, apparently real, Russian soldiers who are celebrated (by Sam Jaffe) for having “exterminated” the Germans at Stalingrad. (An incredibly glamorous fighting woman grimly intones that should she face another German, “My hand will not tremble.”) This is certainly the kind of thing that could cause a filmmaker career problems further down the line.
Annoyingly, confirmation of Kehr’s claim is thin on the ground — even Sarris seems unsure how seriously to take it, and the Disgustingly Expensive Borzage Book seems to dismiss the idea. It’s been suggested that Borzage may have been banned from the studios because of his drinking problem rather than his political affiliations — more blackballed than blacklisted. There’s also the possibility that illness, particularly depression, stopped Borzage working, and the blacklisting was a figment of Kehr’s imagination or a glitch in his research.
I hoped to confirm Kehr’s remark, using the excellent documentary series THE RKO STORY — I clearly recalled Borzage’s name appearing on an actual blacklist. A black list. A list that is positively black. Legal proof, I thought. A frame grab of a DVD-R of a 16mm film of a document — what could be more legally binding?
Strangely though, when I scanned the show to find the name, it wasn’t there. A hallucination. A figment. Odd!
Maybe somebody could ask Dave Kehr if he has further information?
November 22, 2008 at 1:38 pm
In an old copy Sequence from ‘48, where Gavin Lambert gives Moonrise a rave (of course) he talks about meeting Borzage in London . The man himself said that he didn’t expect the studios would let him make any more films after this. Even back then Lambert remarks that this is tragic
It’s indicated this is because of the film’s commerical failiure and critical indiffrence towards it
November 22, 2008 at 1:49 pm
My introduction to Borzage was also that documentary and also that some people were saying that ”7th Heaven” was better than ”Sunrise”. And that piqued me.
This is actually the first I heard of Borzage being possibly blacklisted. I can’t imagine Borzage being a communist or in any way affiliated with that. Not that there’s anything wrong but I think it’s unlikely and we would have heard about it if it did happen what with the wide documentation of the blacklist and the HUAC committee and the like. I think Borzage after the 30s struggled to find a niche in the studio system and maybe he didn’t have the connections or money or influence to go independent or something.
November 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Bear in mind that many people were blacklisted who were not communists. Either they knew the “wrong” people (guilt by association), had been part of left-wing causes in the past, or had been guilty of “premature anti-fascism” — campaigning against Nazism before it was fashionable. Borzage was possibly the first Hollywood filmmaker to attack the Nazis in his work. I don’t believe he was a communist, and I think that would be hard to fit in with freemasonry, although who knows? But he could still have been blacklisted.
That near-ten-year gap still seems unexplained, and I wonder if his remarks to Lambert might have concealed a deeper worry. One commercial flop didn’t necessarily ruin a long career, and Moonrise was by no means expensive…
November 22, 2008 at 2:43 pm
The studio system was collapsing. There was no place for the peotic likes of Borzage. And his opposition to Nazism made him a prime target for the post-WWII fascists.
You do the math.
November 22, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I tend to agree. The contradiction is that Borzage was able to stage a slight comeback at the end of the 50s, when the studio system was in far worse shape, and he made his last full feature for Walt Disney — one of the most far-right studio bosses (brother Roy was worse though).
So I’m undecided and would love to learn more.
November 22, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Still, that the HUAC were deranged enough to pick on a harmless lovable guy like Borzage. Bastards.
Borzage was in fact the first US film-maker to attack the Nazis and his ”The Mortal Storm”(produced by Louis B. Mayer, his one lone act of redemption in a lifetime of conformist recalcitrance) got US films banned. And this was 1940 well befoe America entered the war(it delayed because of conservative Republicans who supported Nazis).
Borzage’s personal life was in huge turmoil by the late 40s he went through two divorces and his drinking got the worse so maybe it took him a while to get his life back in order. He also married again(which I believe was happy) so maybe that occupied him.
November 22, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I don’t know the details but I’ve heard that HUAC contained a lot of former Bund members, German-Americans who had opposed America’s entry into WWII, so they would have hated Borzage’s German trilogy.
It seems from what I’ve seen that Borzage’s filmmaking remained strong through all this turmoil, with things reaching a peak of excellence with Moonrise, so whatever stopped him dead after that is to be deeply regretted. I’m about to look at one of his TV projects.
His comeback film, China Doll, is a little stiff, but the IMDb reviewers are full of praise for The Big Fisherman, his Disney biblical epic, conceived to rival Ben Hur… it would be nice if it’s genuinely good.
November 22, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Well epics have a bad rep and that huge scale would be hard for a director as intimate as Borzage. The only really successful epics were by Hawks(”Land of the Pharaohs”, revisited today, really something special) and Anthony Mann(”The Fall of the Roman Empire”). Hawks made the film work by making it about architecture and thereby carrying his ideal of professionalism back to the Ancient world where everyone’s dedicated to…making a good pyramid. Mann on the other hand takes to it at once, being at home in the big canvas and his admiration for classical tragedy helping the film immensely.
November 22, 2008 at 4:28 pm
For me Land of the Pharaohs is all about Joan Collins.
Plus Dewey Martin in a tea-towel.
November 22, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Joan Collins is fantastic as is Jack Hawkins. Dewey Martin…oh yeah the architect’s kid, he was okay. The music is also phenomenal by Dimitri Tiomkin. Many people talk of the film as a guilty pleasure but it worked straight for me. The reason it never caught on is that the film, unprecendented for a Hollywood epic, doesn’t allow the audience to identify with any of the characters, all kept at a distance from us.
November 22, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I like Ben Hur, as a big vulgar panto.
I agree Mann was good on the epic scale stuff, but I prefer his smaller, tighter films. Winchester 73 is better than El Cid. Raw Deal is better than ANYTHING.
The Big Fisherman sounds kinda fun, and the idea of Susan Kohner in biblical costume is mouth-watering. Maybe there are some intimate scenes where FB can show his true strengths — but maybe he’ll turn out to have a good grasp of large-scale aesthetics too? Certainly The River and the other films of that period exploited giant sets without becoming turgid.
November 22, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Hawks’ gloss on Pharaoh’s failure was that he couldn’t make the characters human and likeable (”I don’t know how a pharaoh talks,” and “He’s the most selfish man who ever lived,”) but looking at the thing it’s hard to see how he could really have been trying for sympathy. Feels like he made a cold film, it flopped, and he decided afterwards it had been a mistake. And he preferred to present it as a failure rather than a mistake.
November 22, 2008 at 6:39 pm
One reason why Hawks might have resented the film is that, according to Todd McCarthy’s research, Hawkins’ pharaoh was a self-portrait of Hawks’ own macho fixations and delusions. There’s a disturbing anecdote in the book where Sydney Chaplin walks into the treasury set after the day’s work done and sees Hawks staring at the golden trinkets in meditation. When he realized Sydney was there, he glared at him but then stopped. He then said, “Isn’t this all beautiful?” Sydney said, “You should see my old man’s basement!”
Hawks for his part said that he considered the Pharaoh an ancient embodiment of the modern business tycoon. The tycoon Hawks knew best was of course Howard Hughes and Hughes would have approved of the way the Pharaoh insisted on cutting out the tongues of those priests so that they can escort workers into the construction site and would be unable to say a word having being naturally sworn to secrecy. And Hughes himself arranged to make his tomb in a hotel in Las Vegas. That line in ”The Aviator” has him say, “I like the desert. It’s clean.”
”Land of the Pharaohs” is really about capitalism and the most naked embodiment of that obsession. Yet at the same time it’s also about human achievement and endurance, and also about an artist, the James Robertson Justice character, working for a megalomaniacal backer but is driven to do good work because of his own satisfaction. It can be a metaphor for Hollywood, the Pharaoh being the producer, the architect the director.
November 22, 2008 at 7:03 pm
As I recall, The Big Fisherman has some appeal for being oddly quiet and intimate, but couldn’t be called major Borzage.
November 22, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Quiet and intimate is such a wild departure for the biblical epic, at least we can say the director’s touch is visible. I’d be very curious to get a look at it sometime.
Just watched a Borzage TV play, also minor.
Dan, you’re certainly right about Mannequin, a terrific movie that starts well but keeps getting exponentially more powerful. It should be a Renowned Classic, in place of some of the guff on top 100 lists.
November 22, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Pharaoh as Howard Hughes is a very nice idea, which I shall keep in mind next time I watch. Pharaoh as Howard Hawks is equally compelling.
November 22, 2008 at 8:04 pm
> The only really successful epics were
> by Hawks [...] and Anthony Mann [...]
Where would that leave Walsh’s “Esther and the King” or Vidor’s “Solomon and Sheba” or Aldrich’s “Sodom and Gomorrah”? I haven’t seen the first two, but I do have a certain affection for Stanley Baker and Capucine looking debauched in the Aldrich.
My favorite line from a Charles Busch play:
[says one hunky Old World soldier to another] So, what brings *you* to Sodom?
November 22, 2008 at 8:08 pm
By the way, Vidor would be one of my nominations for a future Director’s Week.
November 22, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Esther and the King: am I splitting hairs, or do you have to have a bit more of a budget to qualify as an epic? I’d call this one a peplum of sorts. It doesn’t suffer from bloatedness because it’s really a B-movie, with some of the zip and panache that sometimes implies.
Vidor himself didn’t care for Solomon but it has its merits for sure. Sodom is quite good fun, I remember the opening being really nice (Leone?), but I’d like to see it in WS.
Intolerance?
November 22, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I love Vidor, and still have lots of his films left to see, so that’s a possibility…
November 22, 2008 at 9:08 pm
The Book of Esther is a fascinating chapter in the Torah. Amos Gitai, the Israeli film-maker made a version in the 80s that is supposed to be an avant-guarde take on it. It was shot by Henri Alekan. I have never seen the Walsh film nor the Gitai, just read the book.
King Vidor disowned ”Solomon and Sheba”, his ”War and Peace” on the other hand is a supreme film and Vidor loved that film very much. The reason I prefer ”The Fall of The Roman Empire” and ”Land of the Pharaohs” is that in the case of the former, it’s genuinely an epic film on a huge scale that arouses strong emotions while the others are just excercises in excess and tedium and campy kitsch. ”Land of the Pharaohs” is for one thing 15mns shorter than two hours, and it has more incidents happening in it and is better paced than say ”Quo Vadis”. It’s also a Hawksian auteur effort with references to ”Red River”, ”Only Angels Have Wings” and of all films ”20th Century” and it looks forward to ”Hatari!”.
—–
Intolerance?
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Still the best. The first and the best.
November 22, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Found this on “Big Fisherman”:
http://www.widescreenmovies.org/Highlights/epic.htm
November 22, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Susan Kohner disguised as a boy? Damnit, if she’s not passing for white she’s passing for male! What next?
Interesting that it stars atheist Howard Keel. I always liked him for his atheism.
I really really want to see this — despite the article promising a 2005 restored DVD, I see no trace of it anywhere.
Is Intolerance the first? Griffith had made epics before. And Cabiria is an epic of the ancient world, if that’s what we’re talking about. But maybe Cabiria is a proto-peplum.
I see Esther and the King as more a Bava film than a Walsh film. Apparently Walsh was so enthused by Bava’s use of colour he virtually handed the film to him.
November 23, 2008 at 2:02 am
Liking the desert because it’s “clean” comes form Lawrence of Arabia.
November 23, 2008 at 2:06 am
I likes Howard Keel for his voice. And his height.
He’s hilarious standing next to Jane Powell in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.
November 23, 2008 at 12:36 pm
More clean desert talk in How I Won the War: “The thing about fighting a desert war is that it is a clean war… clean-limbed, without dishonorable action on either side. And there are no civilians in the desert. Except me! I’m a civilian!”
The hugeness of Howard is indeed a source of pleasure: and his acting is suitably “heightened” too.
November 23, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Dear David,
I just came across your post that mentions my ancient article on “Moonrise.” The Borzage blacklisting story was something that was in the air when I wrote that piece (in 1973, if I remember); unfortunately, Andrew Sarris referred to it in a Voice column, and it has entered the Borzage mythology. In the many years since, I’ve come to believe that there is no evidence for Borzage having been blacklisted. The more common explanation for his long period of inactivity is that he had a drinking problem. As much as I would like to believe that John Wayne (it was his company, Batjac, that brought Borzage back for “China Doll”) was responsible for breaking the blacklist, the simpler explanation is that drinking was not seen as a debilitating problem in Wayne’s circles, and Wayne would certainly have been aware of Borzage’s stature from his days as a prop man and extra at Fox, which coincided with “Seventh Heaven” and “Street Angel.” I hope someone — yourself, perhaps? — undertakes a genuine Borzage biography one of these days, so these questions can finally be put to rest. In any case, I apologize on behalf of my 19-year-old self for having spread an unsubstantiated rumor.
November 23, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Thanks very much for stopping by and helping out with this question. I know how hard it can be to quash a rumour (I always wanted to START one, though — something harmless but mad). Your explanation certainly helps make sense of the situation and seems entirely believable.
I’d love to do a biography… if you know anyone who would publish such a venture, I’d be very interested in hearing about it. I do intend to write a book at some point, but as a jobbing filmmaker I’m limited in the amount of time I can spend pursuing opportunities in both fields.
December 6, 2008 at 2:49 pm
What an interesting post–and an illuminating reply from Dave Kehr! Having done a fair bit of archival work on Borzage and his German trilogy I’ve never come across any evidence of blacklisting. As far as I can tell, Borzage in the 1930s and 1940s was always perceived and represented in Hollywood as being apolitical or even politically conservative (though I was never able to come across anything that really indicated his political views clearly).
A more persistent Borzage political story, which was floating around long before the Kehr piece, was that Sidney Franklin had to replace Borzage with Victor Saville on The Mortal Storm because Borzage was simply incapable of understanding German politics and the seriousness of the threat of Nazism. Saville himself was largely responsible for spreading this one (a version of it appears in the Saville memoir/biography Evergreen). Anyone who’s ever seen Three Comrades or Little Man knows that Saville’s accusation that Borzage thought that German politics was just like Republicans and Democrats is absurd (I’m not sure anyone in the U.S. believed this by the time The Mortal Storm was in production in 1940).
Of course, Saville’s involvement in The Mortal Storm is a somewhat more complicated matter, as Borzage was both drinking and going through a divorce at the time the film was shooting. For whatever it’s worth, Hervé Dumont gathered testimony from many of the other people involved in the film to the effect that Borzage was responsible for everything in it, even reproducing a handwritten note from Jimmy Stewart that reads “Dear Dr. Dumont–Frank Borzage directed all of the picture ‘Mortal Storm.’ No one but Frank Borzage directed ‘Mortal Storm.’”
It’s also stunning how thoroughly the German trilogy itself has been dismissed over the years by critics as not really being political at all. The antifascism of Borzage’s films seems not to have been taken very seriously by either friends or foes of “premature antifascism.” I think this is largely because Borzage’s sentimental and melodramatic brand of antifascism is distinctly not Popular Front antifascism. In the Borzage trilogy fascism’s most dire consequence is its destruction of transcendent, romantic love.
December 6, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Beautifully put, and thanks for the info! I’d missed all the rumours about The Mortal Storm, so it’s good to find I hadn’t misattributed it to Borzage.
I can sort of see Borzage being conservative — there’s a very American belief expressed in his films that you make your own destiny and that you can choose happiness no matter what life throws at you, which is uplifting and noble in itself, but has a definite Republican appeal to it. But Borzage doesn’t get overtly political with that stuff, and it took the extreme case of Nazism to provoke a direct political response in his films.
I must look at Magnificent Doll sometime, which is overtly about political life, except that I gather it sort of isn’t.
December 6, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I don’t see any reason why Borzage can’t be conservative and still be anti-fascist. Conservatism doesn’t necessarily mean George Bush and his ilk(they are self-calling “neo-cons”). It used to stand for intelligence, reason and tact.
In any case I think looking at easy left-right in Borzage is silly. On the whole he is remarkable progressive, which is by no means the domain of the left, like Hawks is more progressive than Stanley Kramer even if he was right-wing and Stanley K. was nominally liberal.
Like in ”Moonrise”, yes the sheriff is a benign figure but he is totally human and three-dimensional and he doesn’t look like any Great White Father, Borzage makes him the voice of reason and more importantly compassion…like when he gives the anecdote about a man’s jealousy harrassing his wife into committing infidelity and saying he’s on the wife’s side. Can you imagine a neo-con saying that?
And his totally mature and ahead-of-it’s-time(both his and ours) look at sexuality is something that most conservatives and liberals to shame.
December 6, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Absolutely, re sexuality.
It’s tempting to embrace the views of conservative filmmakers from the 30s and 40s because, as you say, they’re not like the neo-cons of today. But I always approach with caution: there were so many issues then where the right wing were often so badly wrong, like civil rights. But Borzage is always fundamentally decent on issues of race. (I can never forgive Capra for Clarence Muse’s treatment in Broadway Bill). And then you have Chuck Heston marching with Martin Luther King, proving that there’s not always a clear left-right division.
December 6, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Heston essentially went from Detective Mike Vargas(”A Policeman’s job is only easy in a police state.”) to being Detective Hank Quinlan(The whole “cold dead hands” thing). Although Quinlan has a greater air of tragedy than late-period Charlton Heston. I, and Martin Scorsese, have huge issues with Capra’s colonialist hogwash view of Tibet in ”Lost Horizon” although ”The Bitter Tea of General Yen” is incredibly moving.
Peter Bogdanovich’s ”Who the Hell’s In It” includes fascinating observations into the mix-match of showbiz and politics. Especially in the introduction where he talks of attending gatherings for the benefits of both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. He didn’t see any difference between either experience. The former had John Wayne, the latter Warren Beatty.
My personal opinion is that the people of the classic period were more articulate about their personal political opinions in their films than in life and unlike today, they had the happy luxury of not having to explain their politics, just make the films and let the audience decide. In the Post-War period and since the 70’s almost all film directors are asked or demanded to be directly political and when that happens the results aren’t pretty. On one level I can understand the need for transparency but on the other hand I also feel that it kind of stops being about films and art and about the political issue du jour.
December 6, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I don’t remember anything Capra says about Tibet in Lost Horizon — all I recall is the fantasy aspect of Shangri La and Ronald Colman’s great close-up when he leaves.
For all the talk of politics, American films usually like to stay uncommitted — they may stir up issues, but even a political guy like Tim Robbins doesn’t actually come out and make an anti-death-penalty film when he has the chance. The bluntness of Michael Moore is a total relief compared to this kind of high-wire act.
December 7, 2008 at 8:13 am
Not to me. Moore is talented but his films are essentially covered with the same rhetoric as the right-wing media and that’s not going to work much. Good example, Bush still got re-elected despite that film’s box-office success, when Moore’s intent was to prevent that. And ”Dead Man Walking” is plainly anti-death penalty(it convinced the Vatican to go anti-D.P. which eventually led to reforms in the Catholic-majority countries of Europe). That it does so without being preachy and without giving up the character’s dimensions is entirely worthy. Robert Altman is openly liberal and his films are very complex and don’t make any easy left-right patterns unlike say, Ken Loach who’s a leftist activist.
December 7, 2008 at 11:53 am
Sounds like Dead Man Walking achieved something, which is great. But Robbins said he didn’t intend it as a statement. I guess that’s good — the job is to tell a story. But there is a Hollywood fashion to deliberately mix leftwing and rightwing appeal into stories, and it’s kind of dishonest.
In fairness to Loach, his TV film Cathy Come Home caused considerable debate and possibly a change in UK law. But I do find his stuff uninteresting as cinema.
I don’t think we can entirely blame Moore for failing to defeat the president: Bush’s ad budget was undoubtedly greater than Moore’s. And the arguments of Moore’s film were not being heard much in the mainstream US media, outside of The Daily Show.
January 11, 2009 at 6:35 am
Re. Dumont’s biography and Borzage as a subject for one. I did quite a bit of research on FB’s life and work back in 1977-78 toward two long chapters I fondly hoped would interest a publisher. A capable novelist could pull a fascinating book out of his life even if it didn’t go beyond 1927. Back in the late 1970s people who could have been interviewed about that period were dying off. And that was 30 years ago! What Dumont did was immense, however. He documented the nuts and bolts of every venture, and when or if someone with enough talent and determination and imagination comes along, Dumont’s work will save time and trouble as a solid source. The reference to the excessive expense refers to the U.S, edition, I assume. I don’t know what the original edition, from 1996, cost because my wife brought it back from Paris as a present, but it is the most beautifully illustrated film book you’ll ever see, and anyone who loves Borzage should own it just for the images. As glad as I was to see it translated, the relatively skimpy production was a real let-down.(But the U.S, edition must also have helped push Fox toward the big set just released) I wish someone would finance a book that would pull all the great stills and frame enlargements together in one volume with the same or even better production values. (Borzage was one of the only directors who “directed” his own stills). The visual impact is just amazing.
Re the blacklist. When Borzage was asked about the gap between Moonrise and China Doll, he said in effect that the environment for his kind of movie no longer existed, that violent films were the norm.This, after making the ultimate film nir romance!
January 11, 2009 at 6:36 am
Make that film NOIR romance!
January 11, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Thanks for the info. I’m now twitching to hold a copy of the French Dumont book in my hands…
Getting my hands on the Fox-Murnau-Borzage doc will be a start, since I imagine it includes a lot of these stills.
Maybe you should try pitching your biography idea now, the time might be right!