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?

“Just a little sloppy – nothing serious.”

Everybody gets seasick in this next part of A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG. No evidence that Chaplin has paid to put his set on rockers, thus inviting comparison with the climax of THE GOLD RUSH or with the similar scenes in THE IMMIGRANT. He’s just having the camera rock to and from — the most extensive use of camera movement in a Chaplin film.

A reasonably well-choreographed bit where an ashtray with fuming cigar is pushed around, nauseating Sid, then Marlon, then Sophia. If the three actors were comedically in tune with each other, their roles, and the material, this might have been really good. Chaplin never had to worry much about chemistry, since he was always the lead, and everybody danced to his tune.

Weird grainy bit where the film has obviously been blown up, to reframe and hide a defect, or what? It certainly results in an odd composition.

It comes right before Chaplin’s cameo, where he says, of the stormy seas, “Just a little sloppy, nothing serious,” which they should have used as the movie’s slogan. Comparing the cameo with the matching one in A WOMAN OF PARIS, we can note that they both snap the film into sharper focus, but also make us want to abandon the main characters’ story and follow this little fellow. But Chaplin’s scene here is just a LINE — nothing visual. Obviously you could top the line by having Chaplin stagger or look bilious, but that doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone.

Film is, in most cases, a young man’s game. There’s a terrible danger in thinking you’ve figured this lark out, that your efforts are following the established rules, that they are good enough. The doubt felt by beginners is nearly always preferable to the comfortable certainty of the veteran — except with those rare veterans who have things figured out CORRECTLY (for them), or who have retained both the youthful terror and the what-the-hell bravado.

Ahah! Chaplin comes back, and now he’s feeling the mal-de-mer himself. So I was wrong, he does top the topper. And Brando was apparently moved and amused by his performance, so that his own behaviour improved and he started speaking to his director again.

For some reason we now learn that Ogden/Marlon has recurring bouts of malaria, and Sophia nurses him through this sickness — but we never see any of this. Odd, since this seems to have changed Ogden’s attitude to Natasha/Sophia. In other words, a critical character scene is missing. On the other hand, it doesn’t sound like a GOOD scene.

Suddenly Angela Scoular tears into the film, the only actor to date who seemingly knows she’s in a comedy. Scoular, an inventive, sexy and startling presence, shakes things up a bit. The movies never quite knew what to do with her, though her bit in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE is impressive. If only all Bond girls were like that. She’s decided, for the sake of something to do, to make her meaningless character here insanely posh, and this is fun. Did Chaplin not notice that she was in a different (but better!) register from everyone else around her? Maybe he did, because he cuts away from her talking to show Loren playing solitaire, and then cuts back — how much Scoular gold is on the cutting room floor?

Later, he cuts to a random trumpeter. Anything to escape this damned ENTERTAINMENT.

What’s funny about this character, in the way AS has decided to play her, is that she talks only for her own amusement and wonderment, and enjoys all her own amazing thoughts, with no interest whatever in who she’s speaking to. One would hope Brando, usually terrific at reacting in-the-moment to other players and situations, would come to life in response, but his work here continues to be flat and grudging, although there are hints that he’s realising he’s dancing in the arms of a madwoman…

I’m reminded of George Miller’s words to his cameraman on MAD MAX; FURY ROAD (it’s on my mind as I’m very much looking forward to seeing FURIOSA on Friday) — “Forget everything you know about widescreen cinematography. Always put the subject in the exact centre of the frame, because at the speed I will be cutting, the audience won’t have time to search the screen for the subject…” (paraphrasing)

Chaplin doesn’t need to forget about widescreen framing because he’s never learned it, so he puts his characters in the exact centre for their medium shots, making this a super-easy film for the pan-and-scanners to crop for TV. They wouldn’t need to touch a switch once. It accounts for some of the weird deadness — it might have been shot by Lars Von Trier’s robot cameraman.

Sidney Chaplin has a lot of screen time but a thankless, purposeless role. As Ogden’s friend and fixer, he might have productively been used as antagonist to Natasha, who after all could derail his friend/boss’s career. Or he could fall for her himself. Instead we see him trying to play Cupid, and express Ogden’s romantic feelings for Natasha, which seems a peculiarly useless way of filming romance. I guess if it were done brilliantly, it could be brilliant… Lubitschian indirection or something. Trouble is, it’s not that Ogden is unaware of his own emotions (which can be effective in a love story) — he’s just kind of indifferent to them.

Oh, adding to the deadness — Chaplin tends to cut between actors on their lines, as if this were a Jack Webb Dragnet-style procedural. Very little in the way of reaction shots or thinking. Again, a roboticism invades the process.

“I’ve been wondering about the immortality of the soul,” says Geraldine Chaplin, suddenly appearing for no reason as Marlon’s new dance partner. What is it with these spacey narcissistic women all at once running amuck in this ballroom? They’re very welcome, but they also make us realise what we’ve been missing during the first my God HOUR of this thing.

I guess their function is to make Ogden realise what he’s been missing — a woman who eats food and takes an interest in corporeal matters and understands what a conversation is. If the stars were able to suggest any real connection this would work better. And sadly Chaplin doesn’t think of making Sophia’s male dance partner’s equally bananas. This would be a perfect venue for Skye Dumont, the suave Hungarian loverboy from EYES WIDE SHUT.

Occasionally the film offers up a composition that feels like a comic situation. Loren eventually does dance with a character, a pushy fellow (impossible to work out who the actor is) who knows her as a dance hall hostess or bar girl. Everybody ends up at the bar. I wish the shot was held longer. It LOOKS like a fun scene from a sophisticated comedy, doesn’t it? God knows it isn’t.

Producer Jerry Epstein played his own cameo as a barman, but, though he enjoyed performing, didn’t like doing it on camera, so his stuff seems to have been cut.

This corridor does NOT look like a fun scene from a sophisticated comedy, though, does it? But it’s nice.

If you want to resurrect the ghost of screwball — which nobody has managed to do, alas — I think lots of white or cream would be useful. But then, there’s lots of cream in Ogden’s suite, and whenever I’m in there I get cabin fever. The gold trim doesn’t help, nor the hotel furniture and that chair the colour of zombie mustard.

At the exact one hour mark, we get the first clinch, which seems like a good time to say

TO BE CONTINUED

Sea Heir

Marlon Brando’s Ogden is the son of an oil baron, see, an heir, and he’s at sea, see?

After hanging around in Ogden’s suite for what feels like enough time to watch ANDREI RUBLEV in, apart from a quick trip to The Shop, Chaplin’s camera joins Chaplin’s son and Chaplin’s disgruntled leading man on deck, and some relief is felt. An actual view of the sea and sky might have relieved the cabin fever even more, but it would only have been a process shot, so maybe not.

I think it may have been Jacques Rivette who called Chaplin “cinema’s greatest editor” (I’m wrong, it was Straub) — I always thought that was crazy. But mostly the cutting in this film is fluid, we get to see what we need to see when we need to see it, and the film’s deficits are all to do with the material itself. But there’s a startling mismatch here, even though it’s very slight. Sidney Chaplin steps into a new position and takes hold of some kind of pole or railing. He’s only just attaining his final position when we cut to a single on him, now completely settled. It’s very disconcerting, and hard to work out how such a mistake occurred: why couldn’t we have held a few frames longer on the outgoing wide? Maybe Sid immediately moved out of position so the continuity error would have been even worse? It’s very odd. The two pics above show the frames either side of the cut — note the left hand, and the face.

When we then cut to Brando, he’s leaning against a wall, and it’s also a slight surprise as we never got to see him go there.

If Chaplin is not on top form as director — and let’s face it, this is his worst feature as director by aeons, and inferior to every one of his shorts — some blame may belong to Brando, who misbehaved early on, was brought into line by Chaplin, then took offense at the way Sid was being directed (“Get the lead out of your ass!”) and refused to be directed by Chaplin at all, forcing CC to convey notes via producer Jerry Epstein. Epstein writes that nothing could diminish Chaplin’s enthusiasm for the film, but this MUST have made things less enjoyable, and enjoyment is important in a comedy, I find. You have to be able to watch a scene played out with the innocent eyes of a first-time audience member, and assess whether it’s funny. This involves forgetting your worries about the schedule and budget and upcoming challenges and life in general. Chaplin had plenty of experience at this. I’ve also been told by pros that it’s not necessary for the director to like their actors. I always have, luckily, and if I didn’t I guess I could pretend… Chaplin usually worked with friends (and lovers). I wouldn’t blame him if he was thrown a bit by Brando’s behaviour. (It wouldn’t be the last time Brando pulled this kind of stunt: the last time he pulled it was THE SCORE, his last film.

Brando taking umbrage at Sid being mistreated is somewhat admirable: but everybody, including Sid, told him that Sid didn’t mind. Sid felt Charlie was just trying to help him be good in the movie. Chaplin was gentle to everyone else and rough on Sid, and that didn’t sit right with Brando. Epstein writes that at a certain point in the shoot, when Chaplin performed his cameo, suddenly Brando was all smiles and the rest of the movie was plain sailing. But in his memoir Brando still harps on Chaplin’s “sadism.”

…and, right on cue, here’s Charlie.

I haven’t even made it to ten minutes this time, more like three, but I’ve said some things.

TO BE CONTINUED