Finis, Fin, Fine, Finale, Finally

“There’s very little time and so much to tell you,” says Marlon Brando as Ogden, and he’s right — the film has ten minutes left on the clock. The thing is, he says this SLOWLY. Brando is rarely a rapid-fire kind of guy, it may be part of why he seemed so fresh when he burst on the scene, his speech is almost as hesitant as John Wayne’s. He wants you to see the wheels going round. We see them, Marlon.

Brando is confessing to Loren that he has to stay with his wife for appearances’ sake, owing to his big job as ambassador to Saudi Arabia. While we’ve been watching Marlon’s wheels go round for the past ninety-seven minutes, very few of these wheels have indicated a deep emotional attachment to Sophia, so this falls rather flat for me. I want her to end up with Syd.

“I love you very much,” says Brando, lighting a cigarette with indifference. Sidney Lumet reports (in Making Movies) that Brando was in the habit of testing his directors. he’d do two takes on the first day of shooting, outwardly similar but one fully committed and alive, the other just going through the motions. If the director printed the wrong take, Brando stopped trying for the rest of the shoot. It’s possible that Chaplin did NOT print the wrong take, because Brando fell out with him a little later over his treatment of Sydney. But I think for sure at some point Brando started phoning it in, which accounts for his passionless work here.

Also: never play a love scene against ochre walls.

I’ve mentioned before that Chaplin’s camera is, for him, unusually mobile, and there’s a striking fast camera move in on Brando as he ponders his situation back on the boat. A psychological movement! To make up for the lack of a performance, possibly. COUNTESS can be compared to Hitchcock’s FAMILY PLOT in that both films do show the director continuing to think, develop, try things out, but it’s not at a very exciting level and it doesn’t turn the films into riveting entertainments. FP is a lot more engaging than ACFHK though.

It’s looking more and more obvious that Tippi Hedren, introduced as romantic impediment and chief source of “suspense,” will actually play a combination of Cupid and deus ex machine — she has rumbled the various deceptions which have resulted in Sophia masquerading as both Patrick Cargill the butler’s wife and Sydney’s wife (I forgot to mention the latter deception, I think. The multiple aliases should lead to some amusing confusion, but really they don’t). All that’s needed is for her to give Marlon a gentle nudge and this whole thing could be, God willing, over.

Tippi discovering one of Loren’s massive bras is about as post-Code as things have gotten. She carries it about in front of her like a sail, which function it looks like it could perform pretty well. “It looks like a two-ring circus,” she says. Then she pronounces Loren to be “a prostitute” — which IS slightly startling. The film has followed pre-Code patterns of deniability up until now, as most of Loren’s sex worker roles seem to do.

The ship starts to pull out of harbour in a mass of grainy stock footage and to the strains of Auld Lang Syne. Slow dissolve to Loren watching it leave, and the special effect — a simple cut-out sliding across a painted backdrop, I think — is really effective. The reflections of dancers help disguise the artifice. Only the stock footage was broad daylight and this is deep blue day-for-night with all the lights on. The Edward D. Wood Jr. approach to diurnal continuity. It ought to have been possible to grade the stock footage a deep blue, but nothing would compensate for the ship’s lights not being on.

Most films accelerate as they get into the closing stretch — but have you noticed? — this one has the pep of a glacier, a patient etherised upon a table, a poleaxed heffer.

BUT — the cut to maybe the biggest closeup so far in the film is extremely effective. Brando, I think, might or might not have made it as a silent star, but La Loren would. She has one of those faces we had then, only more so.

It’s followed by — shoe leather. The emotional information that Brando got off the boat before it left and is willing to throw over loveless marriage and joyless ambassadorship is revealed in a throwaway conversation over the phone between Brando and Syd. How much more effective it could have been if he’d simply shown up behind Sophia’s closeup! Chaplin has, it seems, forgotten that films are a visual medium and story, especially emotional story, is best exposited via action.

The Waikiki Hotel has an extraordinarily intense head waiter — I believe the actor may be Francis Dux. he steals every moment he’s in, partly because he’s trying to but partly just because he has a startling Dr. Terwilliger kind of appearance. There are only three minutes left on the clock (God! how will I survive this?) but I seriously want the movie to forget its leads and follow Mr. Dux on his wacky adventures.

“You see, you can’t get rid of me,” says Brando. A student of mine, Jeff Johnson, once remarked that everything Brando says sounds like a threat, and that’s particularly true here. “May I have this dance?” is a bit gentler, but seems ironic rather than tender. Chaplin likes ironic line readings, as we know from watching him deliver ironic line readings.

They dance, becoming part of the crowd on the dance floor, with the hideous ochre walls. The slowly dancing throng of course echoes the opening titles, and makes the appearance or titles here seem natural — also a blessed relief, I can tell you.

Chaplin’s name appears for the last time in one of his films and then, rather oddly, we fade to BLUE for the last titles.

Whew. Some kind of summary would seem to be in order, but a days-long sigh of relief needs to come first. How do you sum up Chaplin anyway? I’ll think about this, maybe, while I’m in Bologna. I leave in the horribly early hours of Monday morning, after tomorrow’s intertitle. Maybe I’ll see you there?

FINIS

Waikiki Delivery Service

Tippi Hedren in A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG, not helped by the material, still has the quality that baffled critics in her two films for Hitchcock — it can be quite hard to tell if she’s a good actor. She is — her good moments prove it. But one doesn’t always feel confident of it. Maybe it’s the kind of acting — or kinds, rather — that throws me. She can do intensely real moments of strong emotion, quite unexpectedly. During quieter scenes she still has the air of the fashion model she once was — there’s a slight sense of assumed poise… and self-consciousness? this may be most effective, and least visible, in MARNIE, where she really is either constantly assuming a role or else experiencing strong emotion.

Anyhow, I like her, and I’m glad Hitch finally let her go to do this. Ageing London-born filmmakers should support one another.

Tippi’s first scene is mostly about how Mrs Hudson — Sophia/Natascha, now married to Cargill/Hudson in the very definition of a farcical aquatic ceremony — is missing. Tipp gets a couple of comic lines which don’t really land because we’re wondering, I think, why she’s being so flippant about a missing woman.

Here’s Sophia! Hitching a ride to Waikiki. Odd how Honolulu so strongly resembles Pinewood.

Syd, Marlon and Captain John Paul ponder the mysterious disappearance of Mrs Hudson. It’s like the Marie Celeste all over again, but with just one woman. Syd gets to do some mime! Nudging Brando, he makes a motion with his hands to indicate “dove overboard.” There has been lots of physical acting in this film, but this is possibly the first bit of true pantomime.

Left all alone in Brando’s stateroom, Tippi hasn’t moved. Even the camera hasn’t moved. At least she has a newspaper.

Here’s a terrible story, and I don’t know where else I can mention it. The film was shown to the British press. Chaplin and his producer chum Jerry Epstein were present. And the projection was terrible: the image was poor, the film kept jumping and jamming. Viewing was interrupted every five minutes. The cinema said it was something to do with the anamorphic lens having been left on, and the projectionist currently on duty was not qualified to remove it. (This sounds dodgy.)

Epstein blamed the horrible viewing conditions for the bad reviews. Some reviewers, he claims, blamed the poor projection on the film being badly made, which is appallingly ignorant. I think the film is a dog-turkey crossbreed, though of scholarly interest and with a few laughs, and the reviews would probably have been poor anyway, but Epstein was right to be furious.

Here’s what they could have done: Chaplin could have gone out and addressed the critics: “I’m very sorry about this, but obviously we can’t expect you to assess the film under these circumstances. We’ll have to reschedule.” And he could have gone on a bit, spoken to the critics individually, charmed them. I think even the most cynical hack would have been fairly pleased at getting to chat with Chaplin. Would this be so corrupt? Maybe, but critics and filmmakers do talk occasionally. It would have been the closest to a win achievable in that non-ideal situation. The alternative, running the film so badly that even a Frenchman couldn’t enjoy it (France being the one country where I believe Chaplin’s last movie got some really good reviews), is pointless. Things wouldn’t have been appreciably worse if they’d cut off the film halfway and NEVER rescheduled it. If the critics weren’t able to see the film at all, they couldn’t review it, and usually no reviews are better than lousy ones.

Back to this lousy review. It’s emerging that Tippi’s lighthearted attitude is due to her suspecting that Hudson’s whole marriage story is fishy. I think something’s missing in showing the development of her suspicion. Meanwhile, we get an actual camera angle: a fancy-schmancy mirror shot. A nod to Hitchcock?

It don’t develop too good, though. When Tippi turns, Brando’s position ought to be cheated so we can see his face fully in the reflection, rather than having him blocked by a bun. This counts as carelessness by the operator, who should have suggested it, or by Chaplin, who may have rejected such a suggestion, impatient as he was with technical fiddle-faddle.

Tippi’s big scene with Marlon is another passionless affair, very much like Chaplin’s business with the Queen in A KING IN NEW YORK — “Neither one of us is to blame.” Tippi’s character announces that her only interest is money, since she has no children, a fairly awful thing to say, and I would think starting to look a little outdated to a fair number of 1967 potential audience members (I have to say “potential” as it turned out there wasn’t really an audience for this).

“I was going to say ‘love,'” says Tippi, “But I don’t think either one of us knows what the word means.” At this point in the story, fifteen minutes from the end, Marlon should really have some kind of small, significant reaction to this statement — doesn’t he feel the beginnings, even, of a glimmer for Sophia. But, without pausing, he changes the subject flatly: “Well, in any case…”

Sydney Chaplin gets a brief scene with a Hawaiian cabbie played by Cecil Cheng, who appeared two years later in THE BED SITTING ROOM as, oh dear, “Chinaman.” He gets a big laugh (from me, anyway) in that film, with one befuddled reaction shot near the end. It really looks like a confused bit-player who hasn’t been told what’s going to happen. Which is possible — Richard Lester, a man in a hurry. Cheng has a substantial career in this kind of role — a henchman in GOLDFINGER, a Military Technician (AKA henchman) in THE FIFTH ELEMENT…

The lobby of the Waikiki Hotel is a nice big set — so big you’re surprised to see it in this strangely claustrophobic film. But the ballroom on the ship was big too. The main expense is the sound stage, the actual wood to build these very large flats wouldn’t be prohibitive, and then the furnishings, including the big faux-Gauguin, probably come from Pinewood’s art department. Or else some talented scenic artist knocked it up in a week.

Why does the film nevertheless feel so cramped? The next scene expresses it better than I could. Waikiki Beach is pure process shot, and the background plates look decidedly English Channel rather than Pacific Ocean. It’s also depopulated: the Marie Celeste transformed from ship to shore.

Syd sometimes seems to have more interaction with Sophia than Marlon does — and seems more genuinely fond of her.

Syd has bought Sophia new clothes. The wardrobe supplied by Marlon was too big — Chaplinesque baggy pants. These ones are too small — Chaplinesque tight waistcoat. Sophia and the costume department get a laugh by popping the top buttons off with a single inhalation.

Josephine and Victoria Chaplin enter, with an unnamed friend, and get a token line apiece. Vicky would have been the star of the tantalizing-sounding THE FREAK, Chaplin’s proposed next film, as a winged woman. Imagine Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus transposed through Chaplin’s Victorian mind. I imagine the flying effects would have been terrible, greatly inferior to those in Albert Lamorisse’s FIFI LA PLUME (which are remarkable, and wholly practical, but somehow still not quite convincing).

Still, there is no good reason other than paternal pride for this appearance. Tippi attempts to justify the wastage of film stock by sliding into frame immediately after them.

I wonder who was responsible for the decision to centre all the actors in frame for their closeups? I’m very used to people being offset to one side or the other, so this style of composition feels terribly awkward. Acceptable in the 1:1.33 aspect ratio, but too spacious here, and somehow makes everybody seem divorced from their environment, adrift in a world that’s trying to look like a process shot even when it isn’t one. I’m sure the pan-and-scan technician was very happy, though.

Ten minutes to go! I should really aim to get this one in the bag before leaving for Bologna on Monday morning…

TO BE CONCLUDED?

Hammett and Yeggs

As the year began I was reading all Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories, and so it made sense to me to finally watch CITY STREETS, the film he wrote the story for. It’s good, but it didn’t seem as dazzling as a film written by Hammett and directed by Mamoulian ought to be.

I formed a theory while I was watching it, or maybe more accurately just as it finished. Many of Hammett’s op stories play as exciting thrillers and then pull out a surprising plot twist at the end. Unlike in a whodunnit, the surprise isn’t anticipated, because Hammett carefully disguises his mystery element — we think we know exactly what’s going on. It seems like a method which could adapt readily to cinema, but CITY STREETS doesn’t do it.

I wondered if the original treatment by Hammett planted such a surprise, and I could see how it might be done. In the film, a gangster is murdered and we see Sylvia Sidney framed for it. By withholding this information and delivering it in a flashback right at the end — when Gary Cooper tells the gangsters who have been after Sidney who they ought to be blaming — the story could have pulled off a Hammett surprise.

Did Hammett write his outline that way…? Well, it turns out the outline has been published, in one of the last collections of Hammett stories, and it turns out that no, he didn’t. In fact, the flaws of the film are very apparent in the outline, and they’re very unHammettlike flaws. There’s no clear central character — it takes ages for Sylvia Sidney to even appear, Cooper is set up as a supporting character in her life, has nothing to do, her trip to prison triggers one of Mamoulian’s innovations, a striking internal monologue scene which emphasises her role as main character and POV figure for the audience, and then she becomes totally passive at the end, a damsel for Coop to suddenly rescue.

Hammett’s fiction NEVER struggles to find a central character, it’s totally obvious that the Op is the main man in the short stories and novels (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse), that Sam Spade is the central figure of The Maltese Falcon and the couple of short stories he’s in, and that Nick and Norah Charles lead the way in The Thin Man. So it’s baffling that he should have floundered here.

Outlines are wretched things, usually. I recall reading “a story written by a computer” — a ridiculously early computer, and it had been programmed with some names and possible actions. It was all like “John screws Mary. Steve fights Bill. Bill fights Mary. Jennifer screws Steve.” I’d love to get my hands on it. It was hilarious, then desperately depressing, like a Farrelly Bros movie.

Hammett’s outline isn’t as bad as that, of course, but it doesn’t read like a film, or a story, more like what Homer Simpson memorably called “Just a bunch of stuff that happened.” Hammett wasn’t wrong to think a film could centre on a couple, and that one could start off as the lead and the other could take over, though this is a far riskier stratagem. What stops this working, for me, anyway, if the fairly lengthy mob hit sequence that opens the film and which doesn’t centre on either Sydney or Coop.

The film is still an enjoyable, glossy and inventive thing — Mamoulian performs a few of his clever linking devices, such as a dissolve from a drum of beer to a slain mobster’s hat floating downriver —

A less direct link takes us from Guy Kibbee winking at Sydney to — after an intervening couple of shots and a quick fadeout — Sydney taking aim at the shooting gallery operated by Coop, in an elegant pull-back that starts with her big baby face and eyes —

Hats are almost as important in this film as in the Hammett-derived MILLER’S CROSSING. Cooper is introduced as a hat all by itself, before he turns and tilts, raising the brim like a curtain on his beautiful features —

Paramount was known as a studio that struggled with story structure, I believe. Maybe why putting Herr Lubitsch in charge of production a few years later seemed like a good idea. (It wasn’t, seemingly.)

It’s strange that Hollywood struggled with adapting Hammett, as he seems so cinematic — three attempts at THE MALTESE FALCON before they got it right, no really good direct adaptations of any of the Op stories, THE THIN MAN the one real first-time-out-the-box triumph. There’s a two-part TV movie of The Dain Curse with James Coburn which has an OK rep. I checked it out and it’s DREADFUL. A zealous screenwriter has taken it on himself to update all the cracking dialogue, deflavourizing it, while leaving the social attitudes unchanged, or in fact making things MORE racist. Avoid avoid avoid. Mamoulian’s film is at least diverting, and beautifully shot by the great Lee Garmes.