Tag: Joan Greenwood

Stage Struck (1958, Sidney Lumet)

Conservatively, Stage Struck has six endings. They start about fifty-eight minutes into the film, which runs ninety-five minutes. Actually, wait, there are probably—conservatively—seven. I forgot how many there are mid-third act before the actual (ending-laden) finale.

For a while, the false endings add to the film’s charm. Maybe if the third act hadn’t reduced lead Susan Strasberg to a glorified cameo… but by the end, Struck’s already had all its problems. It’s got a doozy—Strasberg’s in a love triangle with Broadway producer Henry Fonda and playwright Christopher Plummer. Strasberg was twenty at the time, Plummer twenty-nine, and Fonda was fifty-three. For context, Strasberg’s real-life dad was only three years older than Fonda. Strasberg’s character is eighteen-ish. They establish she left her hometown in Vermont, where she was in all her (now dead) uncle’s plays. Fonda presumably reminds her of her uncle (ick). She fawns over him, wanting him to Svengali her, and he can’t help but fall for her. It doesn’t hurt his regular girlfriend, younger but not “I’m only a few years shy of being old enough to be your grandpa” territory Joan Greenwood, likes to punish him for slights by withholding physical affections.

So, yeah. For a while, it seems like Struck’s going to be all about Fonda and Strasberg getting together. It’s not, thank goodness, and any threats to revisit the topic end up just being threats, which also get contextualized for Fonda’s character–rich white guys never have to grow up and think about things if they stay rich and white enough—it doesn’t ever stop being creepy (especially since Strasberg looks like a kid kid), but… I don’t know; it makes “sense.” And Fonda’s really good at playing this old creeper who does try to act responsibly. Somewhat.

Stage Struck is a remake of Morning Glory, which is based on an unproduced stage play. And Struck filmed entirely on location in New York City, as the opening title promises. Director Lumet and cinematographers Morris Hartzband and Franz Planer have some trouble with the location shooting, but Lumey’s instincts are all good, and when the shots look good, they look great. There’s an exterior location scene between Strasberg and Plummer—if it weren’t a late fifties studio remake of an early thirties studio picture—it’d be exceptional. Lumet and his photographers foreshadow seventies Hollywood New York movies by over a decade.

And there are some exceptional moments in the film. It’s all about Strasberg wanting to make it on Broadway but not wanting to go the regular route. She was in a play club in her hometown; she knows all the Shakespeare by heart, why should she go to the Actor’s Studio (did they consider having her real dad—Actors Studio coach Lee Strasberg—cameo); she wants to be a star now. It doesn’t work out for her in act one, but when she’s back in act two, she has this line about having to prove herself. Strasberg’s got to prove to the Broadway people in the movie she can be a major stage actor, which means she’s also got to prove it to Struck’s audience.

She does. It’s incredible. At first, it seems like Lumet doesn’t have the scene, then he does, while Strasberg keeps delivering great moment after the great moment, Lumet holding the shots. It echoes in the third act. It’s so good.

Sadly, it’s also when Fonda sees something he likes.

But it’s more Plummer’s movie than anyone else. He’s the new playwright who throws in with commercial success Fonda. The film starts with them going into production on one play and ends with their production on the next. Lumet and screenwriters Ruth and Augustus Gortz do a fine job opening the film up enough it never feels too stagy—Lumet loves the theater so much he bakes in acknowledging the stage—but none of these people exist outside their professions. Even when we see Fonda at home, it’s in the context of Broadway producer.

Lots of great acting. Strasberg has an unsteady first act, a knockout second then is missing from most of the third. Intentionally, which is a bad choice. Plummer’s great, and Fonda’s outstanding. Herbert Marshall is an older actor who thinks Strasberg’s swell, but since he’s in his sixties, he doesn’t have to be a pervert about it. Greenwood’s good, even though she’s reduced to foil. Nice small work from Daniel Ocko and John Fiedler. Struck’s got a lot of fine performances; given the subject, it’s got to have them.

The film’s a little too experimental for its own good (with the location shooting), and the third act’s a mess, but Stage Struck’s pretty darn good. A tad too pervy, even if muted, but it’s not a factually inaccurate representation of how Broadway producers behave… and the acting’s superb. Strasberg’s a marvel, and Plummer’s a great lead (in his first theatrical film).

Oh, the Alex North music.

It’s a tad much; chalk it in the experimental column, especially when it plays over the actors.

This post is part of the Charismatic Christopher Plummer Blogathon hosted by Gabriela of Pale Writer and Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949, Robert Hamer)

I don’t think I’ve ever referred to a performance as delicious before. I haven’t on The Stop Button (if Google is to be believed), but I’m also pretty sure I’ve never said that phrase before. Delicious performance.

Dennis Price gives a delicious performance in Kind Hearts and Coronets. He narrates almost the entire film; there’s a prologue to establish the setting and ground situation a little. It’s the late nineteenth century (which director Hamer and co-screenwriter John Dighton forget numerous times), and a British royal is due for the gallows in the morning. Price is that royal. He’s spending his last night on Earth writing his memoirs, which will eventually get to his conviction, but first, he’s got to cover all his other crimes.

Price’s narration starts with his childhood, which succeeds thanks to Audrey Fildes’s performance as his mother. She’s out of the film, tragically, in a dozen minutes or so, but her character’s incredibly complex in that time. Fildes ran off with an Italian singer (also Price, but in a mustache), who died upon hearing his son’s first cries. Fildes’s noble family cut her off, even in her tragedy. Thanks to the flashback device, we get to see Fildes and Price (as her husband) in the salad days, which carries her character development through into Fildes as a widow. By the time Price is playing the part, in his late teens, presumably, Fildes has become obsessed with reclaiming her position.

Along the way, Price’s character makes some friends who are important (and not) later on.

It’s a wonderfully done summary sequence, though it does delay Kind Hearts kicking off. Part of Price’s initial success is distracting from the inevitable—Alec Guinness playing eight different parts. It’s no secret, he’s credited with all of them in the opening titles, but the film takes its time before bringing him in. And the first time is just a walk-on, walk-off so Price can get a look.

Fildes can’t wait forever for her family to take her back; eventually, after one tragedy and slight too many, Price decides he’s going to commit to pruning his family tree until he and Fildes’s line is back in contention for the title.

Once Price starts hunting Guinness in his various parts, the film takes on a slightly absurdist tone, and it works. It’s having fun with Guinness doing different parts—including one woman—at various ages, though all snooty. Price is also snooty, which ingratiates him to a couple of his targets. One’s an old bank manager; the other’s a young layabout photographer with a beautiful wife, played by Valerie Hobson. Price is taken with her, but he’s been carrying on a long-time affair with childhood friend Joan Greenwood, who threw him over—marriage-wise—for a man with a career while Price just had a job.

The second act of Kind Hearts is Greenwood realizing she’d made a big mistake not latching on to Price’s star and Price realizing he lucked out Greenwood was as shallow as him because he’s got an idea on getting Hobson away from her Guinness.

Thanks to Price’s narration—which comments on his motivations, feelings, and thoughts throughout—he’s able to remain the star of the film, which Guinness otherwise ought to be walking away with. The film never addresses, other than the Italian patriarch, why Price doesn’t look like Guinness. It’s also unclear how Fildes fits into the family and who she would’ve been abandoning when she ran off.

Another missing piece is Greenwood’s brother, who apparently doesn’t survive to adulthood in any meaningful way for Price (or Greenwood).

Greenwood’s actually where Kind Hearts goes the most wrong. Well, she and Hobson. Hamer and Dighton write the Guinness roles as caricatures, which Guinness then inhabits and exudes pure brilliance, but the female characters aren’t even caricatures. They’re entirely one note. Sure, they’re from Price’s perspective because he’s narrating, only they’re not. Hamer’s direction manages to showcase Greenwood and Hobson, but never their performances. It’s too bad.

Great music from an uncredited Ernest Irving, Douglas Slocombe photography, Anthony Mendleson costumes—Kind Hearts is a fantastic production. Hamer’s direction is solid, other than the aforementioned problems, but never particularly impressive. The production and the performances drive the film’s success.

Nice little turns from Miles Malleson and Clive Morton in the prologue.

Kind Hearts and Coronets: plenty of Guinness to nibble on, but Price’s the feast.

This post is part of the 9th Annual Rule, Britannia Blogathon hosted by Terence Towles Canote of A Shroud Of Thoughts.

Moonfleet (1955, Fritz Lang)

Moonfleet is a very strange film. The protagonist is ten year-old Jon Whiteley; the film starts with him arriving in the coastal village, Moonfleet. It’s the mid-eighteenth century. Moonfleet is a dangerous, scary place. Sort of. Whiteley is in town on his own because his mother has died (Dad is a mystery, but nowhere near enough of one) and she’s sent him to look for an old friend. The old friend is Stewart Granger. He’s an old flame. Mom and Granger hooked up, then her rich family ran him out of town. The family fell on hard times, moving away from Moonfleet, so Granger moved back. Not because he’s nostalgic for Whiteley’s mom, but because it’s a good place to run a smuggling ring. He seems to have known the mom at least moved.

And Granger’s got zero interest in having a ward. He spends most of his time drinking and carousing. He lives in Whiteley’s family manor, but it’s closed down and janky. He has his friends over to get blasted and hook up with the various women who throw themselves at Granger. Granger does have a live-in girlfriend, Viveca Lindfors, whose credited role suggests he seduced her away from a husband but it’s not in the story proper. Granger’s introduction actually has him with a different woman, Liliane Montevecchi. She’s Romani. She’s not credited as Romani. Anywhere, she might not even have a line. She’s there to do a seductive dance with lots of leg and cleavage. Lindfors gets very jealous because she’s only showing cleavage and not leg.

Okay, remember when earlier I said the protagonist is a ten year-old? Yeah, the movie makes this quick shift for much of the first act to being ladies getting hot for Granger. It’s almost like it’s a kids’—well, boys’, there’s nothing for a ten year-old girl except learning hot dudes like Granger get to treat them terribly and they should go back begging for more—but it’s like Moonfleet is a kids’ movie with stud Granger in it for Mom and all his ladies for Dad. It’s weird. Especially since the sexual nature of Granger’s various relationships isn’t implied. It’s explicit. Granger’s best pal is George Sanders, a lord who slums it at Granger’s pad to get wasted, gamble, and hook up with loose poor women. It’s okay because his wife, Joan Greenwood, knows all about that behavior. She’s fine with it, because she and Granger are schtupping. Sanders suspects he’s being cuckolded but isn’t sure and isn’t really too worked out about it. Granger’s subplot—or the closest thing he gets to a subplot in the ninety minute picture—involves Greenwood wanting him to run off with her and Sanders. Sanders is keen to it because Granger is ostensibly a lower class scoundrel who climbed the social ladder. Greenwood just wants to keep schtupping Granger, just not in England.

Back to ten year-old Whiteley. Much of the first half of the film has Granger trying to get rid of him. Or Granger’s smuggler gang threatening to kill Whiteley. Granger’s got a tenuous hold on the leadership role. At least until he shows off his sword-fighting skills to convince to rabble to stay in line. So it’s one of those kids’ adventure movies where the kid is in constant threat of vicious murder and there’s wanton (1950s acceptable) sex. Moonfleet is weird.

Whiteley’s adventure has him trying to find his grandfather or great-grandfather’s hidden treasure. Everyone in the town has been trying to find it for years but they’re all really dumb because once Whiteley gets one clue, Granger is able to figure it out.

The other major reason Moonfleet is weird is it manages to work. Lang’s direction is never particularly good. He doesn’t do action well. Not just the sword-fighting, which has bad editing (from Albert Akst), but like stage direction. It’s sluggish, like Lang is making the actors move too slowly across the Cinemascope frame. Robert H. Planck’s photography is also… unimpressive. The day-for-night stuff is always wonky, but the various interiors are always a little off too. The film’s got some really nice sets. Planck just doesn’t seem to know how to light them effectively. It’s fine. Lang doesn’t know how to shoot them effectively either. Moonfleet would probably work a lot better, visually, in black and white and Academy Ratio. Lang and Planck utterly wasted the Cinemascope.

And the script is slight. Supporting characters aren’t memorably written or performed. None of the supporting performances are bad—though all the men’s makeup is bad and there’s a lot of it; it’s bad on all dudes but Granger—they just aren’t memorable. Even though the smuggler gang is a bunch of recognizable faces, none of them distinguish themselves.

But Granger and Whiteley are both really good. Whiteley gets through lots of bad dialogue and sells the earnestness right. He brings some depth to the part; like, we don’t know what this kid’s life has been like, even if he does sound like a proper little English boy. His accent is a little out of place occasionally, however. And then Granger sort of seems to know he ought to be in this kids’ adventure picture about maybe this scoundrel being the dad and maybe not being the dad but it doesn’t matter because deep down everyone knows he really wants to be the dad. Only Moonfleet isn’t that movie. But Granger pretends.

He’s never more comfortable in the film than with Whiteley and the smugglers and never less comfortable then when with Sanders and Greenwood.

Sanders is okay. It’s a small part with nothing to it and no reason for George Sanders. Other than putting him in a wig and making him as unrecognizable as George Sanders as possible.

Greenwood’s… better than Lindfors? Lindfors seems miserable being in the film. She and Granger have negative chemistry.

So… Moonfleet. It’s a weird fail. The worst part is the end, which—for most of the film—is all the picture’s got going for it, the possibility of a solid ending. And then there’s a misstep and then a stumble and then a face-plant.

Moonfleet doesn’t deserve Whiteley or Granger.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Fritz Lang; screenplay by Jan Lustig and Margaret Fitts, based on the novel by J. Meade Falkner; director of photography, Robert H. Planck; edited by Albert Akst; music by Miklós Rózsa; produced by John Houseman; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Jon Whiteley (John Mohune), Stewart Granger (Jeremy Fox), Joan Greenwood (Lady Ashwood), Viveca Lindfors (Mrs. Minton), Melville Cooper (Felix Ratsey), Sean McClory (Elzevir Block), Alan Napier (Parson Glennie), John Hoyt (Magistrate Maskew), Donna Corcoran (Grace), and George Sanders (Lord Ashwood).

THIS POST IS PART OF THE STEWART GRANGER BLOGATHON HOSTED BY MADDY OF MADDY LOVES HER CLASSIC FILMS.

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