IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT - #959

Sometimes I just can’t find my way into a review.

It’s been five days since I watched In the Heat of the Night, and I’ve spent those days skulking past my computer, afraid to make eye contact with the screen, completely at a loss how to begin writing about Norman Jewison’s 1967 cop drama. A landmark of its time, and a template for many well-meaning race-related pictures to come, In the Heat of the Night is a crackling good film. It reminds me of Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder [review] in how engrossing it is, how easy to watch, how transcendent of its own genre.

But what perspective do I bring? I can acknowledge it’s a classic. I can graze up against the deeper issues of 1960s race relations and compare it to today, particularly the healthy distrust of law enforcement. I can talk about how Jewison avoids the folly of so many by neither making his black cop a saint nor his white cop a pure devil, how they are flawed men hampered by their own pride, and thus there is no real vindication or redemption for either, they just carry on. Surely all of this has already been said, though. Mayhap I am better served just cracking this process open and getting on with it.

Here’s the easy thing to explain: the plot. A man is found dead face down in the streets of Sparta, a small Mississippi town. The victim is a real estate developer from out of state looking to build a factory in the area. It would change the lives of the unemployed poor, but also disrupt the town’s established economy. In short, there are a few rich white folks that would rather not see the system altered.

Coincidentally, Homicide Detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier, A Raisin in the Sun [review]) gets stranded in Sparta on a layover waiting for his train to Pennsylvania. At first he is arrested by an overzealous cop (Warren Oates, Two-Lane Blacktop [review]) who finds an unknown African American with a wallet full of cash suspicious, but once his identity is revealed, Tibbs is asked to participate in solving the murder. Newly appointed Police Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger, Jubal [review]; On the Waterfront) would prefer not to take Tibbs’ help, fearing it will be more trouble than its worth, but once Tibbs takes the case between his teeth, Gillespie has little say. No one does, not even Sparta’s roving packs of violent racists or the brittle eccentric living in the big house on the outskirts of town. Tibbs won’t stop until the true culprit is in jail.

Poitier and Steiger make a great pair. The former is all forward intensity, and the latter reserved agitation. Gillespie is definitely a racist, but he’s also a pragmatist. One could argue he resents Tibbs as being an interloper from the big city as much as he does his being a black man. It’s a trope now, that the bigoted cop’s saving grace is his adherence to the law, but Steiger avoids caricature. He lives in Gillespie’s skin and isn’t afraid of his bad parts. Likewise, Poitier continues to evolve his own screen presence to keep Tibbs human and not a symbol. He’s the smartest man in the room, but too smart for his own good.

Indeed, the knotted personal drama of the small town is its own education for Tibbs. The murder is almost secondary to the struggles and gossip that informs Sparta’s day to day. Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool [review]) shoots the locales with a gritty vibrancy, never dressing up the shots, letting the people occupy the space. Even Oates’ shit-grinning cop and the petulant ingénue he peeps on (Quentin Dean) have the room to be people. Not very likeable people, but then really, how many of us are? The awesome Lee Grant (Shampoo [review]) also gets a pretty good turn as the dead man’s wife, a determined woman whose sense of personal justice cuts through the petty squabbles.

The only performance that moves close to parody is Larry Gates (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) as Endicott, the fat cat who runs Sparta from afar. Endicott is a riff on the mythological Confederate gentlemen, full of privilege and regretting progress. Jewison and writer Stirling Silliphant (The Poseidon Adventure) choose to stage his lone scene in a green house, symbolizing that he is a rare and wilting thing, no longer viable in the open air. This is a cliché we’ve seen before, most notably in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep [review]; here it seems an unnecessary and superfluous brush stroke.

The story of In the Heat of the Night remains every bit as challenging and incisive. The mystery is modern, even if some of the more “scandalous” aspects of it have lost their shock value. You might guess the real bad guy early, but you’ll forget you did amidst all the great character moments that follow. Add to this an ultra cool Quincy Jones score, complete with Ray Charles theme song, and you have a crime classic, its aesthetic perfectly bridging the gap from the squeaky clean studio system and the more grimy 1970s--an in between state that renders In the Heat of the Night truly timeless.

WRITTEN ON THE WIND - #96

Dorothy Malone died this past week. A repeat performer in Douglas Sirk films of the 1950s, she was probably best known for her Oscar-winning turn in Peyton Place, or for her memorable scene as a bookseller in The Big Sleep [review]. Lauren Bacall, her co-star in Howard Hawks’ Chandler adaptation, was also her castmate in one of those Sirk releases, 1956’s Written on theWind--a textbook case where the supporting role is much juicier than the lead. Malone runs away with the picture.

The melodrama, shot from a script by George Zuckerman, centers on a wealthy Texas oil family. The Hadley’s are so rich, the town they live in was named after them. The company is run by patriarch Jasper (Robert Keith), a widower whose two children have not turned out as expected. Spoiled by their wealth, both Kyle (Robert Stack, To Be Or Not To Be [review) and Marylee (Malone) have taken more of an interest in liquor than oil and prefer carousing to work. Their best friend since childhood, Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson, Magnificent Obsession [review]), provides the only steadiness. He grew up with the Hadleys as a favor between fathers: Mr. Hadley hoped having a poor friend would keep Kyle grounded, and old man Wayne (Harry Shannon) believed it would provide Mitch with opportunities he never had.

The film starts with an engrossing flash-forward before jumping back a year, to when Mitch met Lucy (Bacall), the secretary to the head of the advertising agency that promotes Hadley Oil. Mitch tries to use Lucy as a lure to rein in Kyle, who has flown to New York on a bender--literally piloting his private plane--in search of his favorite steak sandwich. The scheme works, but it backfires at the same time. Lucy does get Kyle to straighten up, but Mitch himself has also fallen in love with her. His own plot causes him to lose the bride to his much more outgoing friend. After a quick trip to Miami, Kyle and Lucy are wed.

Upon their return to Texas, Mitch must stifle his feelings for Lucy while also fending off the advances of Marylee. The Hadley girl has loved Mitch her whole life, but he sees her as only a sister. Much of Marylee’s acting out is to try to get Mitch to pay attention to her. As we see in a spectacular barroom brawl, Kyle is ineffective in defending the family honor, it requires a bit more muscle. Dorothy Malone gets to show range here, from explicit seduction to pouty outbursts to genuine romantic despair. While Stack is a bit more exaggerated, Kyle’s daddy issues are also a bit underwritten; not so with Marylee’s hang-ups. She makes direct moves for Mitch’s affections, some of which likely pushed the strictures of the production code, but she also lays her feelings bare as necessary.

Not that Kyle’s predicament is all that innocent, either. After a year of sobriety, he goes off the wagon when his doctor leads him to believe he is unable to have kids. Here Sirk and Zuckerman’s drama takes on Tennessee Williams-level depths. Kyle has always had his manhood threatened by Mitch, and now he believes it to have a literal/physical manifestation. On the night in question, the one we entered the film on, the whole world adopts Kyle’s anger and anxieties, the Texas wind whipping up to a frenzy.

As is Douglas Sirk’s signature, Written on the Wind is colorful and emotional. His exquisite staging and remarkable sense of framing creates room for the actors to perform, but also the space for the drama to explode. You can tell how the relationships are faring by where the actor appears within the shot, like when Hudson is visible in a mirror that separates the newlyweds, Stack and Bacall. The four lovers are in a dangerous tango where two of the dancers are moving faster than the others--as symbolized in their flashy red and yellow sports cars. The script often swerves and kicks up dirt in much the same way the speedsters do. Written on the Wind may be Sirk’s tightest, most efficient narrative, rivaled only by Tarnished Angels, released a year after Written on the Wind, and also starring Hudson, Stack, and Malone, its black-and-white aerial theatrics providing a more knuckle-dusted sibling to its predecessor.

If there is any flaw to Written on the Wind, it’s maybe that it’s a couple of scenes too long. Sirk should have ended where he came in. While the final sequences do offer Marylee redemption--and Malone, naturally, handles the moment well--it cools everything down a bit too much. But so it goes...a classic doesn’t need to be perfect, and Written on the Wind is definitely one.

HIS GIRL FRIDAY/THE FRONT PAGE - #849

I love Rosalind Russell. Her range as a spot-on comic performer is amazing. Compare two of her most famous roles, Mrs. Howard Fowler in George Cukor’s The Women and Hildy Johnston in Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday. Both are smart performances, invigorated by Russell’s sharp verbal delivery, but there is a great physical difference. Fowler is loud, gawky, a bit camp; Hildy is poised, assured, and direct. If you weren’t paying attention, you might not catch that they are the same actress. Yet, both performances are very, very funny.

In His Girl Friday, it helps that Russell gets to play off Cary Grant. As Walter Burns, Grant delivers one of his best performances, as well, playing the opportunistic newspaper editor as an arch trickster, stiff-backed but playful, and deep down hiding a true heart.

Because, you see, in this 1940 adaptation of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s play The Front Page, Charles Lederer (Ride the Pink Horse) has the ingenious idea of changing Hildy’s gender from a man to a woman and adding a marriage and divorce to Hildy and Walter’s relationship. Watch the more traditional rendering included in this set, Lewis Milestone’s 1931 version of The Front Page, and you’ll see what a difference this makes. In the original, Walter is working purely out of business concerns. He and Hildy have a professional friendship, but one man trying to stop another from getting married and quitting his job doesn’t quite have the weight of an ex-husband trying to do the same with his one-time wife. In His Girl Friday, Walter doesn’t just want Hildy to keep writing for the newspaper, he wants to reconcile their relationship. He’s losing her twice over.

Beyond that, the plot is essentially the same. Hildy Johnson, one of the best reporters in town, is looking to get married and get out, partially fed up with the slave-driving schemes of his/her no-good boss, Walter Burns. Just as Hildy is leaving, a big story is about to have a major development. Earl Williams (Joel Qualen, Anatomy of a Murder [review]) is due to be hung for murdering a policeman--a crime he can’t quite explain. The mayor and the sheriff (Clarence Kolb and Gene Lockhart) have cloaked Earl in a communist uniform and are using him for political gain; others think Earl is not necessarily in his right mind and deserves a reprieve. On the eve of his execution, Earl escapes, causing a madcap manhunt that Hildy can’t help but get tied up in--partially because Walter is pulling every puppet string, con, and bribe he can to keep her around.

His Girl Friday is famous for its impressive pace. Hawks reportedly set out to shoot two pages of script for each minute of film--double the rate of most movies. To do so he took out all the pauses, having one line of dialogue immediately follow another, sometimes letting his actors step on each other’s final words just to keep it moving. The result is a comedy that zips by. Words become akin to action, a good line packing as much of a wallop as a sock in the jaw. This gives the whole of His Girl Friday an unprecedented verve, and also invigorates the character interaction. Walter is fast-thinking and fast-talking, but Hildy is always faster, always a step ahead, unraveling his plots, even as he circles back around and draws her in.

Also noteworthy is the banter between the cynical journalists that hang out in the prison pressroom covering the execution for rival papers. This is one area where Milestone outshines Hawks. Not only was the earlier director more interested in the reporters’ verbal jousting, but the dialogue in his version had a more jagged edge, thanks to pre-Code freedoms. There is no sugarcoating of the issues in The Front Page: race, politics, and sex are referenced directly. Likewise, the older script shines a more satirical light on the reporters. Adapted by Bartlett Cormack (Fury), with additional dialogue by Lederer,  this The Front Page shows the reporters each putting their own spin on the story, a round-robin of false reporting and straight-up embellishment that is hilarious on its face, though also a bit scary if we consider the current distrust of the media. It’s our living nightmare--facts really don’t matter, it’s all about the point of view of each particular outlet.

In the 1931 movie, Walter is played by Adolphe Menjou (Paths of Glory [review]), playing off his sophisticated image, a low-society capitalist in a high-society suit. His sparring partner is Pat O’Brien (Knute Rockney All American). O’Brien plays Hildy as a man’s man who loves chasing a good story and can’t get enough of scooping everyone else. It makes him the best at what he does--a distinction they thankfully didn’t remove when handing the role to Rosalind Russell. It’s refreshing seeing a woman on the screen who is better than all the men in a field they are supposed to own. His Girl Friday also subverts the notion that a lady should give up such a life and settle down with a good man. In both films, Hildy doesn’t seem to really be chasing a suburban existence or even love; the most important factor in their decision is sticking it to Walter and proving him wrong when he says they can’t. (Though, I should note a discussion I had with a co-worker who thought Hildy in His Girl Friday was working against a certain sexism where all the men in her life, including her nice-guy fiancé, insisted she didn’t know what she really wanted.)

And Hawks doesn’t blow that in His Girl Friday by tacking on a romantic finish. If we see Grant and Russell as two peas in a pod, it’s just that: they are perfect for each other, and will carry on doing what they do best together. It’s funny that Milestone ends his film with an end title that implies we could see more from Menjou and O’Brien as Burns and Johnson, because if ever there was a duo ripe for a Thin Man-style string of sequels, it would have been Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell.

In addition to crisp restorations of both His Girl Friday and The Front Page, this double-disc set comes with two different radio performances of The Front Page, one of His Girl Friday, and a bunch of archival materials from different eras. It should also be noted that this restoration of The Front Page works from a print that maintains Lewis Milestone’s preferred cut, and not the international version that has circulated for many years.

All in all, these dueling adaptations make for a remarkably entertaining double feature. You could watch them back-to-back without tiring of the story. Both play on their own charms enough, you’ll be unable to resist playing along.

The images here are taken from an earlier standard-definition DVD and not the Blu-ray under consideration. This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS - #806

Why is it we always forget that Cary Grant could be rugged?

Sure, we remember that he’s funny and handsome and debonair, but even when he was playing the dandy, Grant was a man’s man. In movies when he wasn’t on the same continent as a tailored tuxedo, he was still suave and commanding, but in a way that was far different than the romantic playboy image that endures.

He was rugged.

Should you not believe me, then you need look no further than Howard Hawks’ 1939 aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings. In the film, written by Jules Furthman (The Docks of New York [review]), Grant plays Geoff Carter, the head of an airmail service flying out of South America. His crew is made up of guys who are mostly young and have the daredevil streak that is the stock-in-trade of motion picture pilots. They live for their time in the air, and when on the ground, they spend it getting high, indulging in booze, food, and women.

It’s one of those women, a tough Brooklyn gal, that serves as our entry point into their world, as well as the dramatic catalyst of much of what goes on in Only Angles Have Wings. Jean Arthur (The Devil and Miss Jones [review]) stars alongside Grant as Bonnie Lee, a traveling musician who runs into a couple of Geoff’s boys during a cruise layover. The two pilots (Allyn Joslyn, Heaven CanWait, and Noah Beery Jr., Red River) make a play for the beauty, but she’s more taken with the idea of conversing with her countrymen than she is being romanced. It would seem the American pilots have a similar homesickness, as they are all ready to have their heads turned by the visitor. This includes Geoff, who rearranges his team’s assignments to try to make sure he’s the one who can woo Bonnie before she has to return to the ship.

This proves disastrous, however; Bonnie has picked the wrong night to visit the airfield. Geoff’s people are responsible for shuttling the mail, and they must fly regardless of weather. One of Bonnie’s suitors has to go up in the terrible fog that has spread across the area, and he doesn’t make it back.

The scene in which Geoff and his right-hand man, Kid (Thomas Mitchell, Make Way for Tomorrow [review], Stagecoach [review]), try to guide the doomed flyer back to base is the first of many bravura sequences that Hawks delivers in Only Angels Have Wings. He plays the scene long, focusing on the ground team, cutting out ambient noise both for effect and because, storywise, it’s necessary for Geoff and Kid to ascertain where the plane is positioned. It’s a good trick. As they lean in to listen for the vessel’s location, we instinctively lean in, as well. Only Angels Have Wings has our attention.

It’s not the only time that Hawks lets a moment run long in the film. His narrative style was Tarantino-esque before Tarantino, drawing tension from delayed resolution (see, for instance, Death Proof [review] for Quentin’s employment of the same kind of withholding). Hawks is patient, taking his time with the scene, knowing that a quicker release would have far less impact. A year later, Hawks would make movie history with His Girl Friday, when he famously had his actors (including Cary Grant) perform the script at twice the accepted pace. Here, however, he is not concerned about getting through the material quickly. At times, Only Angels Have Wings appears shaggy. It is episodic rather than plot heavy. In the camaraderie amongst the pilots, Hawks achieves a surprising realism, letting the conversations follow a natural course and somehow capturing the performances in such a way that they appear, if not improvised, at least unrehearsed. Take for example a scene where Geoff and Kid try to settle a disagreement by flipping a coin. The action when the actors chase the money is clumsy, the way it would be were two fellows trying to one-up the other in real life. Maybe Grant and Mitchell had marks to hit, but the audience would never see them.

This stripe of convincing buddy-buddy behavior is essential to a film that is all about the relationships between men who have signed on to do a particular job. In many ways, Only Angels Have Wings prefigures the sense of duty that would permeate more patriotic films made in the years during World War II. What sets it apart from those films is its sense of isolationism. Geoff and his air force do what they do, and outside interference is not welcome, even when it’s a beautiful woman who is willing to accept that the untamable adventurer would be a fine lover just as he is. Only Angels Have Wings has story points in common with Casablanca. Both feature rogues who exile themselves to exotic, dangerous locales to escape a broken heart--but unlike Humphrey Bogart’s Rick, Cary Grant’s Geoff doesn’t do what he does because it would be good for others, he does it because it’s what is expected of him. It’s what he signed up for.

In this, Only Angels Have Wings also prefigures film noir, and even another famous Bogart picture, The Maltese Falcon [review]. There is an existential streak in Geoff that we would see in noir antiheroes. He has a code, and he must follow it. As a rake and a rapscallion, Geoff’s Achilles heel is his commitment to doing the right thing. Geoff’s fatal flaw is that if the mission is considered impossible, he’ll take flight himself rather than send one of his men. It’s the sort of soft and gooey character trait that makes audiences care for him and adds credibility to Bonnie’s unrequited love for the flyboy. We know he’s good despite his cynical protestations.

Also reminiscent of noir is the sense that the past will catch up with you, no matter how good your are at outrunning it. Fans of Gilda [review] take note, Only Angels Have Wings gives Rita Hayworth her breakout role, and in many ways, it sets the tone for her signature performance. Hayworth plays Judy, the wife of Geoff’s newest hire. She also happens to be the woman who broke Geoff’s heart, the mysterious phantom that Bonnie sees hovering over her would-be lover from the jump. Neither Geoff nor Bonnie reveal this fact, it would be too complicated and they both would rather deny their past. Yet, the added irony is that Judy’s husband (silent-era star Richard Barthelmess) is himself harboring a disgraceful history, one he has hidden from his bride. Geoff and the boys keep that secret to themselves, even though, for Geoff, exposing it might change everything. Move this plot to a casino, and it’s Gilda before Gilda.

The big difference between Only Angels Have Wings and noir, though, is that Only Angels Have Wings is more redemptive. Both men will get another shot to prove themselves, and even Judy will have a chance to get it right. The only one who doesn’t need redemption is Bonnie, but then if we know our noir, the down-to-earth blonde might have a chance to ground the aerial daredevil. Just maybe.

Furthman gives his script a kind of doubled structure, like a coin with the same face on either side (plot point!). The first flight will be echoed in the last flight, and though we might guess that hearts will melt, the writing stays true to its main character’s principles right to the end. That last scene is pure old Hollywood, and yet smarter than it has any right to be, holding fast to the manly ethos laid out in the rest of the movie. I feel simultaneously more sensitive and more macho for having seen it.

Criterion’s high-def presentation of Only Angels Have Wings is wonderful, offering a pristine picture and a soundtrack that lacks any snaps, crackles, hiss, or pops. Extras include a radio performance of the movie, condensed for the home listening audience, and a new documentary examining Howard Hawks’ other aviation-themed movies.

And for comic book fans, the cover and interior illustration is by Francesco Francavilla, artist on Zorro and Afterlife with Archie, as well as creator of the pulp-inspired The Black Beetle.

The screengrabs for this review were taken from an earlier DVD release. The Criterion disc under review was provided by the Criterion Collection.

L'AVVENTURA (Blu-ray) - #98

For me, I think what is most compelling about Michelangelo Antonioni’s challenging 1960 drama L’Avventura is how it so effectively upends the mystery genre to serve the director’s own thematic purpose.

More than fifty years before Gone Girl, Antonioni crafted an oblique narrative about a young woman bored to death with her future husband and the state of love in general who in some manner orchestrates her own disappearance. Anna (Lea Massari) is a rich man’s daughter, engaged to Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), and yet disconnected from her own privileged existence. She tells her father she has no intention of marrying the man, but then makes her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) wait outside while she has an afternoon quickie with him. The three of them then join other friends on an overnight boat trip to remote waters. While swimming, Anna lies about seeing a shark, presumably to see how everyone will react. She only confides this secret to Claudia. Thus, the other girl is understandably suspicious when Anna goes missing later that day. The travelers have docked at a desolate island. There is no one else on it with them, only an empty shack, and no other way off. Yet, when it’s time to go, Anna has disappeared without a trace. Someone thought maybe they heard another boat, but there is no real proof.

And so L’Avventura becomes a manhunt--at least, after a fashion. The police come to investigate, accusations are thrown, with the fiancé being the first suspect. Sandro and Claudia lead the charge--though separately whenever possible, Claudia does not trust him--and they remain the most dedicated, following whatever leads come up, pursuing a trail that may not be there. It’s along this search that they also derail their own efforts. Sandro kisses Claudia, she rebukes him...and yet, she is drawn to him. Eventually, their attraction takes over. The investigation becomes a romantic getaway. By the time the pair rejoin their other friends--who, bored and unaffected, have carried on with their perpetual holiday--they are behaving as a married couple, alternately bickering and being affectionate. Claudia hates herself just a little; Sandro, as ever, is nonplussed.

But ain’t that just like a man? At least in the way Antonioni depicts Italian society. The men are driven by lust, emerging in the streets as one predatory pack whenever a woman is left to walk unescorted. It happens first with the young American of questionable morals (Dorothy De Poliolo)--who herself claims to be lost and could be seen as a double for Anna--and then when Claudia decides to wait outside when Sandro goes into a shop where Anna had possibly been seen. It’s a reversal of the earlier scene, when Antonioni and cameraman Aldo Scavarda artfully framed Claudia through the crack in the curtains in the room where Sandro and Anna are having their tryst, the audience peering out at the girl peering in, as if perhaps she desires to be up there with them. She is isolated in both scenes, but in the later instance, she becomes the object of sexual craving rather than rebuked. And its Sandro who is now outside observing, witnessing the threat from inside a doorway. Of course, it’s significant that this is immediately after the two of them have made love; the wild animals sense the change.

It’s a split that runs through all the couples in L’Avventura. Anna is not the only one who finds the male/female relationship wanting. (It’s telling that she is reading both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, a novel about adultery and the disappointment of marriage, alongside the Bible when she disappears; it’s one of God’s few appearances in the movie, faith is as absent as true love.) The wealthy older woman Patrizia (Esmeralda Ruspoli) tells her would-be paramour Raimondo (Lelio Luttazzi) that she was not made for love, and she rebuffs and belittles his advances. He, in turn, proves he can’t handle delicate things, dropping the antique crockery found on the island, a symbol of a lost civilization that the bored socialites argue over. Who owns it? How would you use it? Even knowing where it comes from makes you the object of ridicule. Why be smart or concerned about things long since dead?

Maybe this is why the woman who is made fun of for allegedly wanting to take the pot and put flowers in it is the one to truly transgress. Giulia (Dominique Blanchar) at first seems like the sweetest of the crew, but when Claudia rejoins her friends, she finds Giulia carrying on with a young painter. She is defiant about it, challenging others to judge her, even rubbing it in her husband’s face. The sweet has been made to run sour. There are no happy endings in love stories, only prison sentences. Which is why Anna gets out before she is locked in. Ironically, by doing so, she dooms her best friend to that same fate. Claudia and Sandro are bound together more by their shared concern over Anna’s vanishing then they are any true affection. The final images of L’Avventura show them unable to separate, subject to their roles (he the philanderer, she the long-suffering devotee), and filled with despair. By all evidence, there is nothing else out there for them because nothing is all that modern man truly has.

It’s been several years since I last saw L’Avventura. I wrote about it the last time, too, in connection with a showing of The Big Sleep to promote my comic book You Have Killed Me. It’s funny how much more obtuse the movie becomes with distance. (Perhaps I am remembering L’eclisse more?) Watching it again, I was struck by how much of a standard mystery the movie really is. Except for the missing woman, there are no strange goings on, no tricky editing or confounding digressions. Sandro and Claudia follow a pretty strict path, going from one clue to the next, the narrative adopting somewhat of an episodic structure. This makes it no less intriguing, though; on the contrary, the simplicity only heightens the tension, leaving wider spaces for the viewer to ruminate on Antonioni’s existential commentary, which he doles out sparingly. Each incident is almost like a prompt, a short philosophical riddle for the monastic cinephile to meditate on.

Monica Vitti proves a marvelous vessel for delivering these messages. She appears innocent and empathetic, truly curious and caring, defying her glamorous image, more like the blonde girl next door to Lea Massari’s more calculating woman of the world. It fits noir conventions, they are analogues to Rhonda Fleming and Jane Greer in Out Of The Past, though they are sadly stuck without a reliable Robert Mitchum. Gabriele Ferzetti makes for interesting casting. He appears too old for both of them and physically unremarkable. Not exactly handsome, you wouldn’t notice him without a spotlight. Not the way you would Marcello Mastroianni or Alain Delon, the stars of Antonioni’s next two movies, which form a thematic trilogy (and which I will be revisiting next).

This might be over rationalizing, but it’s possible that my seeing L’Avventura more clearly has as much to do with the new restoration as it does time. The 4K digital upgrade used for this new Blu-ray presents the film in a way that far surpasses any prior release (my screengrabs, for the record, are from Criterion’s 2001 DVD). The clarity with which one can now view the black-and-white landscapes of Antonioni’s movie is quite something. The desolation felt when stranded out at sea, or how small Vitti and Ferzetti appear in the final moments, is illustrated not just by the widescreen framing, but also the depth of detail that is now evident in high definition. That ocean goes on for miles, and the cliffs and balconies give way to a bottomless view. By contrast, the interiors are confining, whether the hull of a boat or a hotel room. Antonioni’s sad figures are at once trapped by their surroundings and humbled by just how insignificant they appear within them.

As an audience, we are left to feel the same way. I can’t imagine the added effect of seeing it in a theater, of the images writ large. The vastness of Antonioni’s vision would blanket the auditorium. L’Avventura is a haunting motion picture, teasing out answerless riddles while making us feel all the more lost for the fact that the lack of any solution is somehow a fault of who we are.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review. The stills shown are taken from the standard-definition DVD release and not the Blu-ray under discussion.

THE ESSENTIAL JACQUES DEMY: THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT - #717

Jacques Demy’s take on the big American musical, 1967’s The Young Girls of Rochefort, is pure joy. From the first frame to the last, it’s packed with smiles and passion and a giddy sense of its own fun.

Set in a seaside town on a carnival weekend, The Young Girls of Rochefort puts aside the operatic stylings of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [review] in favor of something more akin to Stanley Donen, director of Singin' in the Rain and Funny Face [review]. In case there was any doubt, Demy even imports Gene Kelly, Donen’s former partner and one of the most accomplished hoofers in Hollywood, to participate in this ambitious lark. Real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac play Delphine and Solange, twins with big dreams. Delphine is a dancer, Solange a composer, and the two get by teaching the children of Rochefort their craft. The pair are planning to move to Paris, however, as soon as the celebrations are over. Solange already has a line on a possible job. The man who runs the local music store, Simon Dame (Michel Piccoli, Belle de jour [review]), has promised to arrange for an introduction to Andy Miller (Kelly), a famous American pianist whom Monsieur Dame went to school with.

Little does Dame know that Miller is in town, and the foreigner has already run into Solange without realizing it. Andy and Solange are instantly struck by Cupid’s arrow, only to be separated, unsure if they’ll ever meet again. Just about everyone in The Young Girls of Rochefort has a romantic double out there waiting for him or her to find. Dame imagines that Solange is his, but only because he doesn’t realize that the lover who jilted him a decade before, and whom he still pines for today, is her mother. Dame thinks Yvonne (Danielle Darrieux, Mayerling [review], The Earrings of Madame De.... [review]) is in Mexico and has no idea she is running a café nearby.

As for Delphine, she must extract herself from the affections of a skeezy gallery owner (Jacques Riberolles). By coincidence, he has a painting hanging in his salon that looks exactly like Delphine. It’s by a soldier (Jacques Perrin, Z [review]) whom she has never met, it’s his image of his romantic ideal. He goes to Yvonne’s for french fries, but he’s never met her daughters; the gallery owner refuses to introduce Delphine to the painter, precisely because he knows how it will end up. (The painter himself is a kind of symbol: a romantic dreamer whose visions are mostly in abstract, solidifying for this one portrait to capture something real. Demy works in much the same way, using dreamy and knowingly false backdrops to create something profoundly emotional.)

Meanwhile, a pair of carnies (George Charkiris and Grover Dale) appeal to the sisters to perform the sideshow for their traveling motorcycle dealership (yeah, I don’t know either) because their exotic dancers have skipped off with some sailors. And then there is also a little bit of business about...a sadistic killer who hacked up an old chorus dancer named Lola?!

If it sounds like a lot of plot, that’s because it is. But Demy choreographs all of these relationships with the same precision as he does the big dance numbers. In terms of story, The Young Girls of Rochefort is about how love is fated, and so it relies on coincidence and chance opportunities. Turn one corner, meet the man of your dreams; turn the other, miss him forever. For much of the movie, many of the characters go without ever meeting one another, and they are both deaf and blind to the stray mentions or cursory sights that would actually bring them to the one they seek. One character sees the painting of Delphine’s doppelganger but then can’t remember where he saw her face when he meets her for real; Dame hears Andy playing Solange’s music, but he can’t quite place the melody. Only the bad guy who would have Delphine for his own makes the right connection. It seems blind optimism causes literal blindness.

Not that we’re ever all that worried that true love won’t find anyone in the end. Even so, it’s pretty amazing watching Demy arrange the players for the final scenes, contriving for paths to cross and throwing in a few more near misses just to keep us guessing a little. The carnies and their jive have given us a little bit of that old “we’re going to put on a show!” hucksterism, and now that the sisters have had a taste of success, it’s time for their dreams to come true. Demy even outfits Deneuve and Dorléac in spangly red dresses reminiscent of Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe’s showgirl outfits in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Michel Legrand also pulls out his biggest show stopper for the scene. The other numbers are catchy but more notable for the composer’s swirling rhythms and melodic filigrees; in this one, he goes big.

Amusingly, it’s one of the less complicated performances in terms of dancing. Deneuve and Dorléac are confined to a small space, and though they work it with panache, their moves are geared more to the stage than the screen. Demy’s most complicated dance material is reserved for the street scenes, where tourists and shoppers move in unison around the different characters, serving as the chorus to their romantic travails. It’s all quite impressive. Demy isn’t messing around. And neither is Gene Kelly. His level of talent and expertise is evident every time he joins in the fun. His every tiny gesture is graceful, and Andy’s ubiquitous grin seems less a  character choice and more the performer being tickled by being part of this grand foreign production. (It must have seemed simultaneously ambitious and naïve to the cinema veteran.) The best dance sequence in the entire film is another twofer, when Andy and Solange are reunited. The dancers are transfixed on one another, making love with each step; Françoise Dorléac is quite literally swept off her feet.

The Young Girls of Rochefort has some of the same candy-coated pastels as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, particularly in the colorful dresses worn by Deneuve and Dorléac, and in the matching outfits you can spot on the various couples sashaying up and down the sidewalks. Demy has kept his art department intact for both films. Jacqueline Moreau is in charge of costumes, and Bernard Evein is the production designer. They are as essential to the Jacques Demy magic as the man himself. Likewise, Jean Rabier returns for his third time as Demy’s cinematographer. Though, Rochefort is a long way away from the Bay of Angels [review].

The sum total of all of these people working together is a substantially breezy entertainment that, despite basically coming at the end of the era of classic movie musicals, recalls the best of them. This is really Demy at his peak, the bliss of The Young Girls of Rochefort making a nice complement to the melancholy of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It’s these two movies that have cemented his legacy, and the ones that most often get revisited. All it takes is that initial spin of Rochefort to understand why: it’s impossible not to feel better after having watched it.

By the way, I reviewed The Young Girls of Rochefort once before in my write-up of a Catherine Deneuve festival for the Portland Mercury. You can read that here. While you're at it, I looked at five of the actress' lesser films that were released as a DVD set back in 2008.

This disc was provided by Criterion for purpose of review.