MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Dial "A" for Arbogast

Dial "A" for Arbogast

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
28 replies | jump to latest

When I surf YouTube, I'm often amazed at what pops up, "unbidden."

Case in point: the other day, a thumbnail floated into view for an old 1940's industrial educational film called "The Dial Comes to Town."

I have no idea how/why it popped up. But I sampled it.

Again, likely an early 40's film. Well before my time. It opens with a "father knows best" father coming home from work to a home with mother, daughter...and grandfather (ah the good old days when our old folks could live with their grown kids.) To this Hitchcock buff, this opening scene has a suspicious "Shadow of a Doubt" vibe but then...ol' Hitch poisoned the well on a LOT of "normal, nice things." (Like motel showers.)

Anyway, it is soon established that "the phone company" will be having a community forum to introduce to customers the new "dial phone." Some family members(the women only?) go to this forum and look on the stage to see: a couple of men, a prim but attractive woman and -- a GIANT telephone finger dialing disc. (Shades of the one Hitchcock used for a giant finger to "Dial M for Murder.")

Though the men speak first from the stage, eventually the stage -- and the "dial demonstration" is given over to the woman, called "Miss White." Miss White is interesting casting. She is dressed professionally, leaning to "prim." But she IS attractive in the face and very commanding in the voice and line reading. It is her job to introduce the crowd to how the new "dial phone" will replace their crank phones and the operators who man them.

Its a pretty simple lesson really: folks are told how to stick their finger in the dial and how to dial. "Don't stop in the middle of a dial" Miss White cautions, "it might lead to a wrong number."

This was interesting. Miss White points out that with the new dial phone, the caller won't hear an operator say "Number, please." Rather, they will hear a DIAL TONE. And it is demonstrated. But it isn't the rather quiet, dull and monotonous dial tone of today -- it sounds more like a very loud ALARM BUZZ. I can only imagine how making a dial phone call was on the ears in 1942.

The film is dull in most ways of course, but Miss White is a brainy looker with a commanding speaking voice(the Psycho shrink could have learned a lesson or two here), and the movie IS great history of course. The crank phone is going away, as is an operator for every call. The dial phone is taking over -- but will eventually be repleaced by the touch tone phone. Which will eventually be replaced by the cell phone.

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When I finished watching "The Dial Comes to Town," I suddenly thought of Psycho.

Arbogast's great phone booth scene.

Could that scene be possibly the BEST "plot device functionality" scene of ALL TIME? Its hard to think of a better one.

For with a blinding, admirable clarity, Arbogast (Martin Balsam) steps into that phone booth, dials a number and moves the entire plot of the movie forward with ease. He tells an unseen Lila Crane EVERYTHING she needs to know to proceed. "Marion was up here -- she stayed at a place called the Bates Motel off the old highway." Without Arbogast's shoe leather determination and expert interrogation, it might have taken weeks (months) to turn up Norman and the Bates Motel on the radar. I do think it would have happened eventually because Marion did steal money and someone would have followed her trail. But Arbogast followed it first, and best, and FASTEST.

Arbogast in making this call not only advances the story(now Lila and Sam have the Bates Motel to investigate), he sets the stage for his own demise: he has played his role, he has given Lila and Sam the crucial information "just in time." So he can DIE now. And so he goes back to the motel, back to the house..and dies.

But back to the start of the phone booth scene. As a matter of modern nostalgia...we are getting TWO artifacts of another era here. One is the phone booth itself. Phone booths are still around on a very limited basis -- I think (can't think of the last time I saw one.) But for the most part, they are something from long ago and far away.

Indeed, there was a movie from TWENTY YEARS AGO (2022) CALLED Phone Booth, with Colin Farrell, about "the last phone booth in NYC" and how he is trapped in that booth by a controlling sniper on the phone with him; bystanders don't understand the hostage situation and sometimes die.

Phone Booth was written by a B-specialist named Larry Cohen, who swore that he actually pitched Phone Booth personally to none other than ALFRED HITCHCOCK in the 70's and there is some interview with Hitch circa Family Plot where Hitch alluded to it: "I could make a movie in a phone booth if I wanted to."

So there's a phone booth in Psycho -- but it has "double the nostalgia" because the phone inside the booth isn't touch tone -- its too early for that in 1960 -- but rather a dial phone.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And this brings up something I've always liked about the phone booth scene in Psycho(along with everything about it I like that I detailed above.)

The scene starts with Arbogast getting out of his car and entering the booth. (Near a gas station that is suggested merely by a PART of a sign that says "gas" -- Hitchcock gives us no view of the entire station at all, nor the road nearby. Pure minimalism.)

The pay phone has a very "real" and official looking small sign atop it that has the instructions on how to dial and how much to pay. I've always liked this detail.

Arbogast pulls a note from his pocket, studies it. Its clearly a phone number given what happens next: he puts the coin into the slot for the call. And then - and I LOVE this -- he dials the number. We HAVE to sit through the entire dialing, there is no way around it in this scene as staged. And we get this crisp, rather musical "effect" as Arbogast dials each of the 7 digits. Depending on where the 'dial" hole is, the sound of each digit dialing is "long" or "short" and it feels like Balsam is actually "having a little fun" but conducting the "7 dials" almost like syncopated jazz with his finger: short.short.long.short.long.short.short.

I've seen this scene enough times to always wonder: did Balsam actually HAVE 7 digits to look at on that note? Or did he just choose the 7 dial holes 'at random" to get that "dial music syncopation"? As a practical matter, Balsam looks at the note once, and then dials the 7 digits from memory. Arbogast is that smart -- and/or Balsam just made up the 7 digits.

Now, this may seem a bit anal retentive, but then Psycho itself is rather anal-retentive. Hitchcock himself decided that we should watch that phone call start to finish, with every detail (including the "musical" sound of the dialing) and to "study" Arbogast as he makes what is clearly a crucial phone call.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Famously, Hitchocck never cuts to Lila on the other end as Arbogast speaks -- which is the usual way of doing a phone call scene. But Hitchcock wasn't interested in such "extraneous" coverage. Later in the film, when Sheriff Chambers talks to Norman - we never see Norman, either.

And: just one movie AHEAD of Psycho -- in North by Northwest -- Cary Grant speaks in a Grand Central Station phone booth to his mother -- and Hitchcock never cuts to HER. A real pattern, I'd say.

For this post, I watched the Arbogast phone booth scene and then I watched the Cary Grant phone booth scene. Interesting: Hitchcock did NOT give us a minute or so of Cary Grant putting the coin in and dialing the phone in HIS scene. Rather, Hitchcock's camera moves across a corner of Grand Central and finds Cary in the booth ALREADY speaking to mother.

Interesting: whereas Arbogast is imparting very important information to Lila ("Marion was up here...I even know what room she stayed in...you'll be happy to know that I think our friend Sam Loomis Didn't know Marion was here); Grant in NXNW is imparting "catch-up exposition" to his mother. Cary Grant was famous for NOT doing exposition, but I guess it was unavoidable here: he had to catch the audience up on the plot as GRANT knows it(we just saw the CIA boss give us "bigger picture" exposition.) But this is all information for the AUDIENCE's benefit, not the characters. Grant's phone booth scene also allows him to justifiy why he's going to take the train ("Oh, you'd like me to jump out of a moving plane, mother?") and to bid a fond and final farewell to the woman who has been his only true(and unhelpful) friend.

But the Arbogast phone booth scene is more dramatic, and Hitchcock lingers on it heavily, giving us the coin drop and the dialing and building up the suspense as we realize that Arbogast is going BACK to the motel.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And I would say this: we can never discount the terror created in the audience's mind once the horrific shower murder has taken place.

When Arbogast is interrogating Norman at dusk and it slowly turns into the darkness of night...I think 1960 audiences felt immediate and continual fear: would mother appear behind Arbogast and kill him? (Hitch positions Arbogast with his back to the house area when he's on the porch with Norman.)

Here at the phone booth: it is so dark and isolated and quiet(no people around) that I'll bet that audiences worried: what if Mother FOLLOWED Arbogast to the phone booth? Maybe she can drive.

And this: the phone booth scene is really a brilliant change from Robert Bloch's novel of Psycho, with Hitchcock and screenwriter Joe Stefano working overtime to "make the story work for the screen and an audience."

In the book, Norman is unable to throw Arbogast off the property. Rather, Arbogast demands to go up the hill and meet Mother. Norman pleads: let me go up there first and let her know you are coming, then come up. So Arbogast allows Norman to go up in advance and Arbogast calls Lila FROM the motel office! ("I don't have much time to talk...")

Arbogast goes up to the house and mother slashes his throat with a strait razor as he enters the foyer...ostensibly with Norman in the same room, witnessing the murder.

There was no way to put THAT on screen and keep the secret so...Norman throws Arbogast off the property, Arbogast drives to the phone booth and reports in and...Norman can be "hidden off screen right" to allay suspicion when the detective returns to the motel.

So MANY reasons for that phone booth scene.

Funny: Joe Stefano was contracted to "polish and update" his 1960 screenplay for Psycho when Gus Van Sant remade the film in 1998. But Stefano wasn't only allowed to update so far. Said Stefano to an interviewer: (Van Sant) wouldn't let me give the detective a cell phone.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Well, cell phones weren't as prevalent in 1998 as today, I suppose , but also:

How would one HANDLE Arbogast calling Lila on a cell phone with this information?

Just show him driving away from the Bates Motel for a few miles, pulling over, and calling from his car?
'
It would seem that the phone booth scene was still the way to go in 1998, and Van Sant changed it, trading in the minimalist darkness of the gas station in the original to the neon bustle of what seems to be a rural honky tonk dance club on a Saturday night, with Arbogast calling from a phone booth as people walk all around him. (Removes some of the terror and isolation.)

---

Leaving where I entered: as with so much else in Psycho, the Arbogast phone booth scene is perfectly structured, staged, written, timed, and acted (by Martin Balsam, getting the screen all to himself.)

But there is potent nostalgia in both the booth and the dial phone, a record of time long gone.

I recommend watching "The Dial Comes to Town" and the Arbogast phone booth scene back to back. You see the history behind that call.

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

I’m nostalgic for the landline as the locus of inter-household communication. Because my daughters’ friends are not forced to exchange grudging pleasantries on the phone with me to gain access to them, I don’t think I know my children’s friends quite as well as my parents knew mine....For those of us who grew up with a shared family phone, calling friends usually meant first speaking with their parents, and answering calls meant speaking with any number of our parents’ acquaintances on a regular basis. With practice, I was capable of addressing everyone from a telemarketer to my mother’s boss to my older brother’s friend — not to mention any relative who happened to call. Beyond developing conversational skills, the family phone asked its users to be patient and participate in one another’s lives....many of our kids have an expectation of being able to reach anyone directly and immediately, and that pulls them out of the family bureaucracy in ways we can’t fully control or predict. Part of that is simply the process of growing up — as they get older, their socializing will take place independent of us more and more. But the landline really was a lovely household touch point that has become something of a relic.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Phone technology is very dating and in a deep way because whole ways of life can spring up or be foreclosed by a given generation of the technology. With current technology, for example, a completely standard form of social interacation is people hanging out but all have at least one eye and possibly both eyes on their phones.

---

Yep. I have a little trick I play at bars frequented by professional types.

I pull out my cell phone and start reading it, perhaps texting.

Within MOMENTS, I will see others at the bar pull out THEIR cell phones, and suddenly we are all doing this.

This was something I "just sort of noticed" in the beginning(I pulled out my cell phone, they pulled out theirs.) But then I started doing this as a "experiment." Never fails.

--

Thus if you want to represent in a film what's really going on in a current everyday scene of that kind you have to (at least) put the simultaneous text conversations up on the screen (this is done a lot in Euphoria for example)

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I've read your posts on Euphoria elsewhere here, and I haven't seen it(but will try it) but...I've seen that gimmick with the text conversations on screen quite a bit in other productions and...it fits our times.

There can be no doubt that we have all gotten a bit addicted to our technology. This summons up at once a "woe is me" aspect("We are DOOMED!") and a "what the hell" sense that this is the way it is. I LIKE being able to read moviechat posts while, say, waiting in a bank line. (Yes, I've done that...and read blogs and film essays -- "news" not so much.)

As I have joked to family and friends when I read from my phone in a restaurant --"Hey, if this was 30 years ago, I would have bought a newspaper from the rack and been reading it." And then they say "Hey, that's very astute. Now turn off your phone and talk to us." Hah.

In other words, this is at once very serious and yet somewhat amusing.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

As viewers we have to try to understand how the layers of conversation going on are relating to one another. This sort of divided attention makes (in real life but also in film and tv) for quite degraded, poorly digested interactions with lots of underlying micro-agressions and self-defensiveness as a result. It's horrible in my experience and my impression is that teenagers are almost literally driving each other mad with all the new ways to snub and be snubbed 24/7 probably 50-100 times a day on average per teen.

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"Literally driving each other mad." I may be a bit light-hearted in my post above, but I have no doubt that all this technology is literally changing the brains(physically) and the psyches(emotionally) of a whole generation.

On the movie side:

Think of how cell phones now play in dramas and thrillers...its becoming almost a cliché now: close-up on a lone cell phone on a table. It VIBRATES and bounces around on the table. Who IS it? Danger? "The Departed" with its double-moles in the police force and the Mob made the vibrating lone cell phone a practical motif. I'll let Scorsese off the hook -- he got their early.

On the psycho side:

I certainly believe that that internet has stoked our new generation of shooters. They read about one and then set out to "beat the numbers" or "join the cause." I have noticed that Big Tech and law enforcement try to cut down on publicizing these shootings for very long -- or the names of the shooters. They are TRYING to fight back. But its hard. "Satan's Machine."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

On the other hand, I have to say that one time I was watching TV and some minor, unknown stand-up was on there and he told a joke that wasn't much but STILL lingers with me:

"Oh, man those violent video games we have -- they cause a lot of death and destruction. I mean, if only Adolf Hitler hadn't played all those video games!"

A pretty basic joke, but a true one. Evil people, murderers and totalitarians have always been among us. They didn't just spring forth from video games. Hell, my unscientific alternate theory is that maybe bloody video games allow some of us to EXERCISE our primal bloodlust without hurting anyone.

But video games aren't phone technology. Heading back on point...

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Or, for another example, think of how "everyone having their own phone" has ended the former way in which teens would get to know the families of their friends (and vice versa). The NY Times had a whole column about this recently:
---

I’m nostalgic for the landline as the locus of inter-household communication. Because my daughters’ friends are not forced to exchange grudging pleasantries on the phone with me to gain access to them, I don’t think I know my children’s friends quite as well as my parents knew mine....For those of us who grew up with a shared family phone, calling friends usually meant first speaking with their parents, and answering calls meant speaking with any number of our parents’ acquaintances on a regular basis.

---

What's great about this discussion, swanstep is that it ties into that little movie I'm so enjoying in recent months:

Licorice Pizza.

A major nostalgic scene in the movie has our young hero, Gary, calling the house of the girl he loves(but can't have), named Alana, and saying that he is "Lance" -- the boy his girl is currently trying to date.

The phone at Alana's house rings in the kitchen, but her older sister (Este) answers first. Its all nostalgic watching how the older sister HAS to be somewhat polite in answering the phone ("Hello? Can I tell her who's calling?) and how the younger sister is SO excited that her potential new boyfriend is calling -- she races to the kitchen phone and takes it.

But the boy on the other end is NOT Lance. Its Gary. And he says nothing. Only silence. Thus begins a long and funny and poignant bit where Gary hangs up. And Alana hangs up. And Alana calls Gary(she knows it was HIM.) And Gary is still silent. And Gary ultimately hangs up first.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

This scene is sweet and funny and creative on its own terms. But it hinges on nostalgia. This could not HAPPEN today. Caller ID; "Star 69" (is that even a thing anymore?) Oh, sometimes one sees "Private Number" on the phone, but that wouldn't work with this "Lance" joke anyway.

But there is also the issue you discuss above , swanstep(as does the NYT), these shared household phones(indeed, often in the kitchen) were a way for people to meet all the people in their family's lives.

And yeah, this memory: calling the house of a girl I was dating, and getting her FATHER first! Yikes...the politeness on my end, the wariness on his end...I suppose its nice that that's all over.

The "Licorice Pizza" kitchen phone with silence scene avoids one other reality of that time: the other phone was usually in the parental bedroom, so you took "private calls" there. AND..if you really worked on it, you MIGHT get a phone in your own bedroom, though sometimes shared.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Back to phones and movies (Hitchcock and otherwise.)

I suppose that telephones of some nature existed before the first movies were shown. Are there phones in silent movies? I can't remember.

But there sure are phones in movies from the 30's on.

And phones have forever been a tool of the story telling trade in movies.

Particularly in thrillers.

"Sorry, Wrong Number" is from the 40s, before my time. But it taught me that an invalid woman with a party line could hear her OWN murder being plotted!

Dial M for Murder is perhaps the most famous "phone thriller" of the Golden Age, complete with such Hitchcock gimmicks as a giant dial being dialed by a giant prop finger; and a view of the "inside circuitry" of the phone kicking over as the call is made -- and murder comes closer to fruition.

Modernly:

Drew Barrymore gets the "movie trivia phone call from hell" at the beginning of Scream.

"Phone Booth" trapped Colin Farrell in that phone booth( after Jim Carrey and Will Smith passed on the role.)

A movie called "Cellular" focused on a kidnapped woman, her cell phone, the young man she calls at random..and a dying battery.

---

Hitchcock got that great frisson in "Rear Window" when James Stewart picks up the phone and tells everything to...someone who hangs up. Its not the cop Stewart THOUGHT he was talking to. Its the killer. The "click" is terror inducing.

Or how about that high angle over Stewart and Doris Day taking the phone call where they learn their child is still a hostage in The Man Who Knew Too Much.

And think of all the movies (Wait Until Dark comes to mind) where the bad guy cuts the phone lines so the good guy/gal can't call for help.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Back to the phone calls in NXNW(Cary Grant in Grand Central Station) and Psycho(Arbogast at the unseen gas station.)

--

Perhaps because of crowd control, Hitchcock just pans over to Grant in the phone booth at Grand Central. Then I think the actual dialogue scene is "on the soundstage" with Grand Central background footage.

Hitchcock knew he would be filming Arbogast and HIS phone booth in a quiet corner of a soundstage. No background footage of the location was necessary. It was just dark.

But still, Hitchcock seems to have made the decision -- in the scripting stage -- that while there was no need to show Grant putting the coin in and dialing the number , there WAS a need to show Balsam putting the coin in and dialing the number. Perhaps Htichcock wanted to make sure that the newer movie didn't fully copy the last one. The effect, I think, was to make Arbogast's call "more dramatic" and to emphasize how alone and isolated he was...softening us up for his imminent death.

Stray thought: with most of these "Hitchcock calls," we never see the person on the other end of the line, but we have met them, and we can PICTURE them: Grant's mother (Grant's call); Sam and then Lila(Arbogast's call); Norman (Sheriff Chambers' call).

But in The Birds, at a key point Tippi Hedren calls her rich newspaper owner father and -- we don't see him, and we don't know him, we NEVER saw him, so we can only IMAGINE him. This is "information withheld."

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

"Arbogast" really is one of the great, memorable, unique-sounding and -feeling supporting movie character surnames. I recently rewatched Heat (1995) a couple of times and was impressed by how "Waingrow" works similarly for a somewhat different supporting character. "Waingrow" sticks in the mind, is kind of unique-sounding and -feeling. Its first syllable rhymes with "pain" and "bane" so insofar as "Waingrow" sounds like it means something it maybe sounds like it's the name for a painful ingrown toenail or impacted tooth or something like that - suggestive of a character who's going to be trouble.

As a contrast case, compare "Carson Wells" the name of Woody Harrelson's *very* Arbogast-like investigator in No Country for Old Men. I always have to look up this name: it doesn't stick in my mind or occupy its own sonic space the way "Arbogast" and "Waingrow" do, and "Chigurhh" from No Country absolutely does.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

"Arbogast" really is one of the great, memorable, unique-sounding and -feeling supporting movie character surnames.

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Oh, yes. I think that several generations of Psycho buffs have come to take the names in that movie as "legend." Norman Bates above all(that character starred in movies in the 80s and 90s) Marion Crane in second place(heck the poster reads "And Janet Leigh as Marion Crane") -- then (surprise) Sam Loomis in third(because John Carpenter gave macho John Gavin's name to mousy Donald Pleasance in Halloween) ...but (and for a lot of us) "Arbogast" is one cool and rather profound monicker. (Sorry, Lila.)

As a kid hearing stories from other kids about Psycho, Arbogast was always told to me as "the private eye" or "the detective" -- especially when I was told about his murder. "When the detective gets killed in Psycho" was kind of an event (come to think of it, none of the Psycho sequels has a detective, only the classic original.)

But when I finally owned a copy of Hitchcock/Truffaut, I noticed the chapter heading for the chapter about Psycho had among the SEVERAL topics of the chapter: "How Arbogast Got Killed." The name hit on me that very first reading. Arbogast. Something about that name. How it SOUNDS. The hard T at the end. The way it get shorted to "Arbo" and sounds kind of cool that way, too.

Critic Raymond Durgnat in his book "A Long Hard Look at Psycho" writes; "On first meeting, Arbogast is slightly scary, like his name." Hah. A slightly scary name. I guess.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

In the movie, after Arbogast dies, his name gets mentioned by others on at least two occasions and the very saying of it is funny and/or powerful:

Sheriff Chambers to an unseen Norman on the phone: "This one wouldn't have been a customer, anyway. Fellah name of -- (Lila says Arbogast) -- "At-BO--GAST.!" (Funny reading.)

Later at the motel, Sam asks Lila why she is so sure vital clues can be found at the Bates Motel:

Sam: What makes you think that?
Lila: ARBOGAST

Just the man's name is a statement and reminder to us that he was horribly killed (or as Lila says, "stopped.")

A compression of what I've stated elsewhere: In TV Guide listings, the character is listed as "Milton Arbogast." And in some books with a Psycho character list. In Joseph Stefano's screenplay, he introduces himself as "Milt Arbogast," which just seems too mundane.

But in the movie, he is always and only Arbogast. One name, as he introduces himself to Sam and Lila, and to Norman, and then again to Sam on the phone later. That's better though knowing that he is Milton manages to humanize him in our imagination. (I always thought Hitchcock dropped "Mllton" because it sounded like Milton Berle -- a cross-dressing comedian. Bad for the character identification.)

I've done a little research on the name "Arbogast" over the years, and found these others with the name:

REAL MEN:

Roy Arbogast -- a movies special effects master.

Luc Arbogast -- a French musician.

MOVIE CHARACTER

Dr. Larry Arbogast -- played by Danny DeVito in the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy "Junior" of 1994.

Junior is a comedy about Arnold becoming "the first pregnant man." I never saw it, but I read the Arbogast billing for DeVito. I just looked up Roger Ebert's Junior review and all through it, he writes: "Arbogast tells the other doctor" or "Arbogast believes in his theory." And I felt: hey, that's NOT Arbogast! There's only ONE Arbogast.

And then I forgot about it. Hah.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I recently rewatched Heat (1995) a couple of times and was impressed by how "Waingrow" works similarly for a somewhat different supporting character. "Waingrow" sticks in the mind, is kind of unique-sounding and -feeling. Its first syllable rhymes with "pain" and "bane" so insofar as "Waingrow" sounds like it means something it maybe sounds like it's the name for a painful ingrown toenail or impacted tooth or something like that - suggestive of a character who's going to be trouble.

---

Interesting analysis. And I remember that name? Recall who played him? Was that the Jon Voight character? Or the character who REALLY gave DeNiro trouble and enraged him?

"Heat" is a fine movie from the 90s, which for some reason I preferred to the 80s, and I think that reason was: the 90's was FULL of great crime films(some "thrillers," some not) start to finish, all cool as hell. Take a look: GoodFellas, Misery, Cape Fear(again), Bugsy, Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, Se7en, Casino, Heat, Fargo, LA Confidential, Jackie Brown, Face/Off. Wow, and unlike the rather green blue neon 80s(in MY mind at least that how I see them) the 90s thrillers all seemed to have a kind of burnished brown and black look to them.

There's that great "one scene with the two stars together only" in Heat where cop Al Pacino and crook Robert DeNiro allow for a coffee shop truce to talk nice to each other -- and then threaten each other with death. Its a good scene but here is something sad to do: look at that clip and then look at the clip of Pacino and DeNiro having lunch in Miami with a "late" mobster in "The Irishman"(2019) and see how young and virile and sexy Pacino and DeNiro looked in 1995(Heat) versus the "old men" of 2019(The Irishmen) -- each of whom still has great charisma in old age but...they got old.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

As a contrast case, compare "Carson Wells" the name of Woody Harrelson's *very* Arbogast-like investigator in No Country for Old Men. I always have to look up this name: it doesn't stick in my mind or occupy its own sonic space the way "Arbogast" and "Waingrow" do,

---

Interesting. I guess it is too simple a name: Carson Wells. A name we might encounter in our day to day life.

Flash memory: I used to watch a "guilty pleasure show" called "Boston Legal" in the 2000s, mainly for the acting of James Spader(so movie star smooth in his voice as James Mason or George Sanders when line readings) and William Shatner(hammy as usual, but fun with Spader as pal.)

Anyway, I remember this exchange:

Young man: Hello. I am Garrett Wells.
Spader: Garrett Wells. Sounds like an old Western ghost town...

Lines all jammed in my head -- movies, TV shows. All up there for the pleasure.

CONT

and "Chigurhh" from No Country absolutely does.

--

Really? I can't pronounce that name on the page and I had trouble registering it in the movie. I know it was "on purpose" but the name seemed messy and unpronounceable (though Carson Wells COULD. That was FUNNY to me.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Recall who played him?

I believe it was Kevin Gage, who's had a career of only very small roles with his real life (being Kelly Preston's first husband, doing a couple of years in the 2000s in prison for Pot-growing (sounds like he had health problems and a permit to grow but he somehow got screwed anyway), 2nd wife dying of brain cancer) somewhat overshadowing everything outside of Heat on his IMDb resume.

BTW, to my slight horror, Gage's character name in Heat appears to be 'Waingro" rather than "Waingrow" despite the fact that I've seen the latter used a lot. What a pain.

Heat's caused me grief a few times! I thought for years that Famke Jannsen was Hanna's (Pacino's) wife in the movie but, no, it's Diane Venora who's perfect. Heat appears to be her biggest role too (although she has roles in Clint Eastwod's Bird, Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet, and a few other notable titles).

The following (somewhat slow-to-load) web-page:
https://cinephiliabeyond.org/heat/
is an amazing resource for Heat (1995), up to and including Mann's marked-up screenplay pages for the sit down between Vincent (Pacino) and Neil (De Niro).

Anyhow, my appreciation of Heat has gone up a lot since it's been on streaming services down under like Amazon Prime (now) and Netflix (last year and most of this year). It's really grown on me as I've watched it *a lot* roughly in the same way that Vertigo grew on me back in the late '90s when I saw it both n whole and on parts repeatedly/weekly on US cable on AMC (near the end of its movie-centric incarnation).

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Recall who played him?

I believe it was Kevin Gage, who's had a career of only very small roles with his real life (being Kelly Preston's first husband, doing a couple of years in the 2000s in prison for Pot-growing (sounds like he had health problems and a permit to grow but he somehow got screwed anyway), 2nd wife dying of brain cancer) somewhat overshadowing everything outside of Heat on his IMDb resume.

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Wow. I realize which character Waingrow/Waingro is now -- I was avoiding spoilers a bit but I'll stretch it to say that he's the bad crook among pros and DeNiro has an admirable, movie-long grudge against him that proves ...bad.

Hey, I didn't know Kelly Preston HAD that other husband. She had lots of famous boyfriends (George Clooney, Charlie Sheen) and ended up with Travolta but -- "objectively" from my POV, any man who had ANY time with Kelly Preston was a lucky man indeed. (I feel entitled to sometimes join with the younger male crowd around here go ga ga for female movie actresses, and to note that yes, some of them just make the heart go 'zing.' That's why they get into movies, why they are cast and how they entertain us. I was sorry to see Kelly Preston leave us, just on general principles.)

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BTW, to my slight horror, Gage's character name in Heat appears to be 'Waingro" rather than "Waingrow" despite the fact that I've seen the latter used a lot. What a pain.

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Don't you hate when that happens? There have been a number of movies where I assumed the spelling of a name and then read it in the credits and...its like a whole new character! I'm not kidding.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Heat's caused me grief a few times! I thought for years that Famke Jannsen was Hanna's (Pacino's) wife in the movie but, no, it's Diane Venora who's perfect. Heat appears to be her biggest role too (although she has roles in Clint Eastwod's Bird, Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet, and a few other notable titles).

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I remember Venora from Heat and a few more things. She wore her hair short a lot, yes? Famke Jannsen's over there with Kelly Preston(for different reasons) as a movie beauty. In the 90's at her peak, to my sig other and others, I always called her "Famke Famke Famke" and I don't know why. My own private joke, I think, about how fabulous she was. To repeat: any number of women who are beautiful get into movies, just like any number of men. And why NOT celebrate their effect on us?

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The following (somewhat slow-to-load) web-page:
https://cinephiliabeyond.org/heat/
is an amazing resource for Heat (1995), up to and including Mann's marked-up screenplay pages for the sit down between Vincent (Pacino) and Neil (De Niro).

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I'm on my way. That was a pretty great scene for those two guys. Some years later, to do something "together with more screen time together" then did the not-good Righteous Kill(I saw it; I know.) I think The Irishman is truly great for them, with Pesci and Keitel along for the ride. But, again, they don't look quite as great as they did in "Heat."

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Anyhow, my appreciation of Heat has gone up a lot since it's been on streaming services down under like Amazon Prime (now) and Netflix (last year and most of this year). I

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I really liked Heat - and its truly all-star cast (which is to say , the SUPPORT to Al and Bob -- each one having an all-star team of character guys as crooks and cops, plus some lovely ladies like Ashley Judd and Diane Venora for Al and Amy Brenneman for Bob.

And Ashley Judd(golden blonde and looking great) for Val Kilmer, two years after his big "Tombstone" turn as Doc Holliday and a solidifcation(for awhile) as a star.

I read Kilmer's (interesting) autobio last year, and he pointed out that while he really wanted to do Heat, the money wasn't there for him at his usual fee. So he took less and they put his picture in the poster with Pacino and DeNiro to "protect his stardom."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Anyhow, my appreciation of Heat has gone up a lot since it's been on streaming services down under like Amazon Prime (now) and Netflix (last year and most of this year). It's really grown on me as I've watched it *a lot* roughly in the same way that Vertigo grew on me back in the late '90s when I saw it both n whole and on parts repeatedly/weekly on US cable on AMC (near the end of its movie-centric incarnation).

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It remains a rather interesting and -- ultimately delightful -- aspect of my movie-going lifetime that Vertigo had to grow on me too. It did, and I'm totally "with it" now -- particularly as a Hitchcock/Herrmann/Bass match up with the two great Hitchcocks that followed it.

I am sometimes amused at how much weight on put on NXNW and Psycho , but that's just the way they hit WHEN they hit, and the older I got, the less movies could "get me" that way. But on the other hand, Die Hard has more action, but at the end, Bruce Willis and Bonnie Bedelia and Alan Rickman are hanging around and off...a mere skyscraper window. Hitchcock did HIS cliffhanger on Mount Rushmore. You can't beat that -- and you can only do it once. Even if Tim Burton tried to do it in a Vertigo bell tower one year later in Batman.

Anyway, Vertigo has made the grade, the story(however ridiculous around the edges) IS moving and it DOES have a lot to say about love and obsession and men and women...things I learned more about the older I got, too. Not to mention about "trying to recreate the past." Heh.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I'm of several minds about Heat.

Cut to the chase: that late -breaking robbery(armored car? bank? -- look how I can't remember) IS a lollapalooza of a shootout sequence. Not quite The Wild Bunch (in groundbreaking emotional effect) but certainly more modern and "technically accurate" -- the idea continuing in fact AND fiction that if the bad guys have better weapons than the good guys -- the bad guys just might win.

Here's a situation where I was a big Michael Mann fan, a HUGE Al Pacino fan(him and Jack were it for me back then), a DeNiro fan when the role was good for him(like Heat) and impressed with all those other major actors in it but...something was missing.

Particularly compared to some other 90s movies around it. For instance, DeNiro was in Casino in November right ahead of Heat in December and -- Casino edged Heat for me because of that Scorsese direction, that Vegas lore, the Mafia violence in it, the narratiion, etc. Heat ended up looking a little too "straightforward" to me, and ended with an airport runway stalk and shoot that at once felt too much like Bullitt and too "arbitrary" (one of our big stars must die -- which one? Or both?)

But the film had an epic sprawl and got into the down-and-dirty details of Pacino's home life(with Natalie Portman, another star aborning) and the Kilmer-Judd relationship and DeNiro's attempt to try to connect with a woman when his rule is "be ready to walk away from everything."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Two years later, LA Confidential wowed me, now and forever. Possibly the lack of big stars HELPED that. Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce could show dark edges to their good cops. Kevin Spacey was the star by default -- and got(IMHO) his best role and his best performance. But it was the overall flow of the plot and depth of teh socio-political observations that sold LA Confidential(which was also a 1953 period piece) for me. That final Pacino-DeNiro stalk and shoot just wasn't good enough.

Which was kind of a problem with Mann's Collateral 9 freakin years later. Tom Cruise was great (and LOOKED great) as a sociopathic hit man; Jamie Foxx was good as his captive cab driver and -- I'll bow to Roger Ebert's review here -- two great first acts of suspense and character boil down to a stalk and shoot (in a skyscraper, then on a light rail train) that was too much like ones we'd seen before. Are third acts Mann's issue?

I loved Mann's first theatrical -- Thief (1981)-- with James Caan as a Chicago crook of honor and seething rage -- I noticed the blue/green color scheme("Here come the 80's") and the Tangerine Dream score. Robert Prosky was evil personified as a grandfatherly crime boss with a sadist's psychopathy hiding within (and yet, he lived at home with his frumpy wife and read the newspaper while watching TV.)

I thought that Mann entirely botched Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon" (which introduced Hannibal Freakin' Lecter!). He cut the great ending, named it "Manhunter" cast no stars in it(oh they BECAME stars, sort of ) ...and made the world wait til 1991 to REALLY discover Hannibal with Silence of the Lambs.

Eh, that's how it is with the Mann man. Hit and miss. Loved Last of the Mohicans. Thought he screwed up the movie of Miami Vice by casting two movie stars who had none of the charisma of the original TV guys (Don Johnson -- gulity pleasure.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Heat's at the high end of Mann for me. Thief, too. And most of Collateral. Boy did Tom Cruise's intensity make sense as a cold psycho killer: gray hair, gray suit -- I believe Mann wanted Cruise to "look like a bullet." Whatever. He looked COOL.

I'd have to give Mann an imdb cruise to recall the rest of his stuff. Maybe there's one in there I forgot that I REALLY liked. But Collateral, Heat, and Thief are on my brain right now.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Phone technology is very dating and in a deep way because whole ways of life can spring up or be foreclosed by a given generation of the technology.

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I wanted to return to the lead of this (OT) thread because you mentioned that, swanstep, and I didn't really respond.

But...yeah.

Think of how many movies from "back then" simply wouldn't work in today's age of cell phones.

And think of how funny certain phones look on the screen today. I think the big "laffer" is from ...the nineties? ...the big hand held phone with an antenna on it. It just screams "old and out of date."

Joe Stefano wanting Arbogast to have a cell phone in 1998's remake of Psycho got me to thinking: what were cell phones LIKE in 1998? As I recall, they were just phones, and they "snapped open and shut like a shell." (Rather built along the lines of Star Trek communicator devices...us guys would spoof those by flipping our wallets open "back int the day."

Then along came the blackberry for texting and eventually "The Big Kahuna" -- phone, e-mails, internet -- movies on your phone.

What's next. Hitchcock always joked about simply implanting chips in people's brains to "feel the suspense."

He may not have been off the mark...

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

But, again, they don't look quite as great as they did in "Heat."

No they don't. The fact is that Mann captured Pacino and De Niro at the very last moment when each read as mature but still in their prime and not-old, as still sleek rather than tired or a bit haggard on screen. People try and argue that De Niro is still not-old in Jackie Brown and that Pacino's not-old in Devil's Advocate or SimOne or Insomnia, but those people are kidding themselves in my view. We all *know* what you're saying about P & DN is true: 25 years after their debuts Pacino and De Niro both look great in Heat, almost implausibly wrinkle-free for example, in a way they never would again. If Mann had been delayed in his production of Heat for even a year or two, both roles would probably have to have been recast.

Any great film is a piling up of lots of good decisions and good timing and lucky breaks and little miracles (e.g., you hit the jackpot with some of your casting, third or fourth choices turn out to be far better than your first choices would have been....). Heat is a text-book case of that for sure, and everyone connected with it gets immortalized and looks their best in it!