Front Page Human
The new issue of The Believer also features, asides from my own windy mumblings, a piece by my chum B. Kite (a sort of astral colossus made visible by special lenses) about Michael Curtiz. This is another good reason for everybody to rush to their local vending robot and buy a copy, since Curtiz doesn’t always get the credit or consideration he deserves, and B. Kite can consider like nobody’s business. In particular, he’s respectful of the Great Hungarian’s formal qualities, and since it was B. Kite who first taught me the value of swinging a wrecking ball through that imaginary and egregious divide between form and content, he is the very man to raise our awareness of Curtiz, a fellow who is concerned less with thematic ideas than with visceral and visual ones — and is none the worse for it.
shadowplay 
March 18, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Mr. Hollywood..Mr. Versatility..Is there anything he couldn’t direct and still satisfy the critics and the public?..
March 18, 2009 at 11:37 pm
As long as it was a decent story, Curtiz was at the very least a safe pair of hands, but really much more than that. He seems to have an ability to emphasise the necessary dramatic values without seeming to do so — his style is exerted on glossy visuals and dynamic movement, but somehow the story gets told.
March 19, 2009 at 2:05 am
Fassbinder was a great Curtiz fan. His influence can be seen in the late films, particularly Lola and Veronika Voss.
Kite has written quite interesting on Out 1.
March 19, 2009 at 9:48 am
Oh yeah, the Out 1 piece is fascinating. I keeping telling him to write more, and I think he’s ready to do so. In particular he’s doing some work for Eureka! Masters of Cinema. Watch this space!
March 19, 2009 at 12:06 pm
March 19, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Doing some Spring cleaning I found a box of VHS cassettes I’d been looking for, and dragged out some films I was eager to rewatch. Among them: Curtiz’s The Sea Wolf. Hard to believe this one’s not available on DVD, when so much dreck is. Great ensemble cast, Robinson, Garfield, Lupino, Barry Fitzgerald, Howard DaSilva… All are at the top of their game in this one, aided by London’s source material and Curtiz’s direction, a film with gravity, bite and substance.
March 19, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Julius and Philip Epstein, who wrote the screenplay for Curtiz’s Casablance and Four Wives also scripted other fine films such as Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace and Vincent Sherman’s Mr. Skeffington. Some people reckon that Claude Rains’ finest performance is in Mr.Skeffington.
March 19, 2009 at 3:10 pm
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Curtiz, a fellow who is concerned less with thematic ideas than with visceral and visual ones — and is none the worse for it.
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I very much agree. The wonderful thing about a film like Casablanca is the way it can be enjoyed by all and for different reasons.
March 19, 2009 at 4:48 pm
The Epstein Brothers also wrote Raoul Walsh’s THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE, one of the best films Walsh ever made and one of Cagney’s most beautiful performances.
For me CASABLANCA is a terrific accident. It’s script is incoherent, the dialogues on page register as corny but on screen everything just clicks with that cast and the associations they have.
March 19, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Sea Wolf is amazing! (so much better than the book)
so are things like Mountain Justice, Daughters Courageous, The Case of the Curious Bride and The Unsuspected… I’ll have to check out that article–thanks!
March 19, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I like Casablanca’s script — except I haven’t read it. But there are some glorious lines and the plot is unusually busy. The “letters of transit” MacGuffin makes no sense, but MacGuffins don’t have to. I think there’s more skill than accident involved in its success, although to have that kind of glory you do need a following wind.
March 20, 2009 at 1:03 am
My residual impression of the “Casablanca” script, after having read Aljean Harmetz’s book on the making of the film, is that the politics tended to come from Howard Koch, the romantic melodrama from Casey Robinson, and the badinage from the Epstein brothers.
Or is that simply what the individuals involved *wished* to claim?
March 20, 2009 at 1:11 am
Well, it totally makes sense given their personalities and tendencies. And that’s not a bad combination of qualities to get into a script.
There’s no denying the cast is amazing and would make anything interesting, but it seems to me they’re all enjoying the material and finding plenty to chew on in it.