MovieChat Forums > The Heartbreak Kid (1972) Discussion > PART TWO: The Scene In the Miami Restau...

PART TWO: The Scene In the Miami Restaurant...

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
23 replies | jump to latest

(The original thread was getting both a little long, and for me -- too hard to squeeze a response into an ever-narrowing thread:)

Ace_Spade wrote:

I tried saying wordplay is sophisticated and slapstick is fun, and every time I did, I'd recall something physical, funny, and moving, and I changed my position.

Chaplin's just an example. I'm sure there's somebody that you resonate with more, even if that's not a movie. Maybe you've seen a physical clown performer live or something.

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ecarle responds:

I'm not sure if I have a "physical comedy" favorite. It seems like a lot of movie comedians mixed both. Woody Allen for instance, in his movies from Take the Money and Run through Love and Death, did a LOT of physical humor, pratfalls, and slapstick.

In "Play It Again, Sam," Woody got mileage out of two visual gags : (1) Trying to dry his hair with a dryer that practically blew him out of his bathroom and (2) Pulling out an LP album cover(remember those?) to impress a date and the record flies out of the cover and across the room.

Jonathan Winters -- specifically in Mad Mad World -- has a LOT of funny lines(made funnier still by his angry dumb-guy/smart-guy twang) but does a LOT of physical comedy.

I'm not a big Jerry Lewis fan, but there can be no doubt that he was very adroit at certain types of physical comedy. There's one scene in some black and white 60's comedy where he sits at an empty conference table and "silently imagines" a boss ordering his underlings around, all to instrumental jazz music. Pointing and silently yelling and "smoking a cigar". Its very good.

Lewis was also very funny -- and very MEAN -- in his "Buddy Love" persona in "The Nutty Professor," mocking his own off-screen egotism. (He's too MEAN to be playing Sweet Dean Martin, closer to Sinatra, but really closest to himself.)

My confession is that I haven't seen a tonne of Keaton.

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Nor I. Back in the 70's I saw a fair amount of Keaton and Chaplin at film classes(to learn the history.) I had a friend who was a Chaplin buff and he taught me about Chaplin. .(I was a Hitchcock buff and taught HIM about Hitchcock.) It was a good time, but I've left the memories behind.

I'll tell you this: that "Chaplin friend" also introduced me to a Harold Lloyd comedy called "Kid Brother" which has one of the funniest (silent) scenes I've ever seen. It involves a very small monkey walking in a very big pair of high heel shoes. Recommended for BIG laughs.

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I'll also confess that, although it's on my List, I haven't seen It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

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Well, its a "you had to have been there" movie. It was famously HUGE (Panavision as big as Cinerama) with a famously HUGE cast of comedians(plus Spencer Tracy, white haired and two films away from death.) Phil Silvers(the early Don Rickles) , Dick Shawn, and Ethel Merman have their moments, but Jonathan Winters pretty much owns the movie -- and never really got as good a movie role again. Not only did the movies "not know what to do" with Jonathan Winters, they used him HORRIBLY after Mad Mad World. (He does a "comedy cameo" in 1966's Penelope where he basically chases Natalie Wood -- who is in a bikini -- around a room and tries to rape her. But she knocks him out. Ha ha.)

Mad Mad World is a movie that I shared with family and friends through the sixties(various theatrical releases) and into the 70's and beyond on TV, VHS, DVD.

Its from another time.

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I'm a huge fan of Jonathan Winters, though. Just because something's more important to "film history" doesn't mean it's better.

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Well, I've read plenty of reviews by 1960's critics who felt Mad Mad World didn't come close to Chaplin and Keaton. And(of course) it was dinged for overlength and "too bigness." (That title.) Hey, that overlength and bigness was its claim to fame.

Attempts to match Mad Mad World have rather failed over the years: Spielberg's 1941. Burton's Mars Attacks. Mad Mad World ends up looking like "that classic you can't copy."

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Sometimes obscure stuff is better than what's remembered. I think I'm one of the only people on this planet who will remember the novel Puckoon by Spike Milligan. But darned if that book didn't make me laugh so hard I nearly peed.

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I've heard of(and seen) Spike Milligan, but never of that book. I'll look into it.

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I respect the Stooges. They're great at doing their thing, but they weren't going for "deep".

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Nope. They didn't. They "worked" for me with other guys, in our teens and college years, and ONLY with a grain of salt -- sort of looking down on them, though Curly WAS great.

BTW, I once saw a "3 D" Three Stooges short(shown with a 3-D version of Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder at a theater) that was the GREATEST 3-D movie I've ever seen. Bad guys throw EVERYTHING at the Stooges -- and us -- in 3-D: knives, spears, meat cleavers, pies...its like a lollapalooza of 3-D effects.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Sellers and he did a great job with Bakshi.
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Yes he did. Again..the character is SO sweet, and SO nice and yet...he DOES destroy just about everything he comes into contact with. First he ruins the expensive movie upon which he is an extra; then he ruins a party he wasn't REALLY invited to.

The "hidden message" seems to be that these pompous, phony, sometimes snobbish and occasionally bullying Hollywood people DESERVE to get everything wrecked. And yet, from their perspective, they are simply well-paid professionals who are only doing their jobs.

I always felt that Peter Seller coulda/shoulda have a bunch of Bakshi movies to go with his Closeau movies, but it didn't happen.

Recall that "Inspector Clouseau" was only a two-moive proposition in the 60s (The Pink Panther and A Shot in the Dark) that was REVIVED in the 70's when both Sellers and director Blake Edwards had failing careers. The two men didn't much like working together, but "survival is survival" and they made three more Closeaus(a fourth was planned but Sellers died.)

The 70s Pink Panthers lacked the sophistication and style of the 60's versions. Sometimes the gritty, realistic 70's were WORSE for movies.

That said, this personal anecdote:

I saw "Return of the Pink Panther" with a girl friend. We were young, very much in love, I saw her through the eyes of young love AND young lust. But we saw this movie and during one scene -- Sellers and a bellhop going through about 10 minutes of slapstick comedy -- this love of my life woman was LAUGHING hysterically, louder and louder and louder. I'd never seen her laugh, period, let alone like that. Ten minutes or so. I found it moving AND shocking: who WAS this woman? I'll never forget that movie because I will never forget her laughing.

So the slapstick must have been pretty good? Blake Edwards. Accept no substitutes.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

One thing I never understood with the #metoo stuff was the "How could this be happening!?" sentiment. Casting couch jokes for decades, and nobody figured out that Hollywood execs were abusing their power to engage in sexual abuse? Come on.

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Well, I think they DID know these things were going on, but not much was ever done about it until recent years. Why is the question. And the answers are complex.

For one thing, as opposed to "normal civilian workplaces" Hollywood has ALWAYS had a sexual undercurrent. Its why a lot of men got into the business on the one side, and why a lot of sexy women sought work there and were WILLING to trade favors for it.

The "casting couch" worked both ways. Male predators seduced (or tried to seduce) women on the couch, but certain women USED the couch -- and their favors -- to win roles. Casting couch roles were given to women in B or worse movies, or small roles in As. Even the predatory men didn't want to wreck their jobs by wrecking their movies with bad actresses.)

Add in the elements of gay casting couches(whether male or female) or women in power using couches on MEN, and the whole Hollywood sexual scene has to be carefully studied to find out who the REAL predators are. They seem to have found one in Harvey Weinstein. The uglier the man, the more likely he is a predator.

There was a VERY ugly producer in the 50's and 60's(and a little bit in the 70s) named Sam Spiegel, who (photographs prove) was often surrounded by young beautiful women. For the most part, these gals took money and cars and clothes just to HANG AROUND this guy. That was their only job. Pretty easy, really. But evidently hookers "did their jobs." And Spiegel WAS connected to some big movies -- Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia. In the 70's big star Jack Nicholson did a cameo in Spiegel's final film (directed by Elia Kazan)..The Last Tycoon. Why? Evidently Nicholson had been a guest on Spiegel's "girl yachts."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It's weird to think that our entire culture might be jaded. Can that be true? We scream less, but every Pixar film that comes out, seems like there's somebody crying at how moving it was.

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Well, I would suspect we are jaded about fake blood and fake gore -- but REAL emotion still gets us. We may not scream anymore, but we can and do cry. These are emotional times.

I was thinking back about how when I was a younger man, movies like The Exorcist, Jaws and Halloween didn't really scare me at all. I saw the trickery. What they DID do -- Jaws especially -- was to excite me. Keep me in suspense. Impress me with their scripts and acting(well, The Exorcist and Halloween, not so much.) Leave me intrigued by a particularly fancy "kill." But I didn't have nightmares. These movies didn't haunt me. I was jaded at a pretty young age. I guess millions of others were, too.

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I wonder if it's just with how much media we consume. Time once was, theatres were it for entertainment. Then radio, TV, cable. VCRs and DVDs let us watch our favourites ad-nauseum. Now we've got instant access to whatever we want in HD and content pours from youtube and the rest. Maybe we're just deadened to it all.

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Totally agree. Its "good news, bad news" -- I can order up any movie from my past in a minute or two -- or I own the DVD. "Back in the day," movies went away for YEARS -- they were only memories, and when they came back (for a yearly TV showing, or to a college theater) ...it was an event.

Now, we are flooded. And because we are flooded with RECENT films, the movie stars and movies of years past seem to be being forgotten by a younger generation at a faster rate.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

That's another reason I miss live arts. It's less passive, more powerful, and there's something so magical about knowing, "This is it; this happens tonight and never again."

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Well, the COVID pandemic knocked THAT out for a year or so, but live events are returning. I have already been to a major concert in the past 6 months -- Jimmy Buffett -- and the crowd was almost hysterical in its desire to "get together and have fun." Precautions were taken (and required) but...man is a social animal and we want to socialize.

There will be more of this.

And yes, live events are a bigger deal than watching something on TV with only a few people. Movie theaters should come back eventually, too.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

A "Heartbreak Kid" moment:

Yes, this two part thread is at the "Heartbreak Kid" page, but one movie can lead to a discussion of other movies, and other eras, and comedy and ...whatever one wants.

PART ONE certainly covers The Heartbreak Kid and leads to where we are here...

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Ace Spade wrote:

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Big name comedy? Yeah, you're right. Not so much anymore. We have a lot of action-comedy hybrid stars - another bi-product of the MCU's formula. We don't have Jack Lemmon, we get Robert Downey Jr. or The Rock. That kind of thing.

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Back in the 80s when he was a major, non-controversial star, Mel Gibson noted that the real superstars of his era were the funny guys. He didn't name them, but I suppose he meant Eddie Murphy and Bill Murray..and WOULD mean Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler. Gibson dealt with this by adding humor to SOME of his work -- he did some Three Stooges impressions in the Lethal Weapons films, for instance.

But yes, its true, our action guys and our comic book guys(and gals) do double duty with comedy now. RDJ is very funny with the line readings. And they got mileage out of a "wussified Hulk" in Endgame.

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I did a quick search for best comedies of the 2010s, 2000s, and 1990s. The results were very interesting,

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I'll bet they were!

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and require a LOT more analysis than I can sum up here.

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Still, interesting to read what you've got.

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I noticed that there were indie films across the board (low-budget works with puns, I guess), and there were action-comedy hybrids in all three as well. But in the 90s, there were a LOT more "big" comedy movies, heavily promoted. There also seemed to be a lot more iconic films, like The Cable Guy and The Big Lebowski. 2020s lists didn't have as much agreement, either, like critics and list-voters can't figure out what the big comedy films of the last decade even were.

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Interesting indeed. I'd have to check the charts for "accuracy" but it seems that SNL generated a few stars in those decades -- Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell for two-- but not as many as in the 70's and 80's. Plus, Sandler and Ferrell(and Jim Carrey) hit bigger , I think, with 11 year old boys(I know them) than adults.
CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Blake Edwards rather ruled the slapstick world in the 60's -- 2 Pink Panthers, the megabudget Great Race, The Party -- faded out in the 70s for awhile, and then came back with more Pink Panthers and an "80's comeback launched by "10" in 1979.

Still Edwards was passed up in the 70's by Woody and Mel and "The Heartbreak Kid" and then -- as everybody else was -- the SNL crowd.

I mention all of this because its rather like ALL of those influences were thrown aside in the 21st Century. Slapstick was too innocent; R-rated SNL stuff runs into "woke" problems, Mel and Woody faded out and weren't really replaced. And I think the rather short-lived reigns of Carrey, Sandler, and Ferrell demonstrate the danger of "kid based comedy heroes."

I read something rather demoralizing from current movie comedian Seth Rogan the other day. He said that a lot of "Animal House" is "appalling" today. Hoo boy. I've seen Rogan's comedy chops in The Green Hornet -- and THAT was appalling. But his point is taken. Animal House would not be made today(that's the cliché of our time in comedy but its true.) Still, that movie was very funny, very well written, very well performed and indeed took up matters of sex (of age and underage) and race and any number of other elements in now-verboten ways.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Comedy is in the cracks. Because of the "we're offended" crowd, a bit; I've read articles about how China is a huge movie market and comedy doesn't translate.

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The "world cinema" -- particularly with the China market -- probably means the end of esoteric AMERICAN comedies. There has always been the issue of things "not translating" around the world. Though once upon a time, SILENT comedy was funny everywhere.

Both Woody Allen and Mel Brooks in their heyday took an almost burleseque stage approach to matters of heterosexual sex. Recall "Governor Brooks" with his extremely buxom "assistant" in Blazing Saddles. And Woody's whole humor thing was about "getting girls." (Which his character managed to do, but only after a lot of work and some humiliations.) That's kind of gone now.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The other important thing is proximity: maybe it's just that we don't remember what the brilliant films of a decade truly were until time passes.

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You mean in terms of judging "the best comedies" of the past couple of decades. I can see that as an issue. Perhaps its more a matter of some individual MOVIES being comedy classics(Fargo andThe Big Lebowski for the Coen Brothers, but not much else -- though I liked The Ladykillers), rather than having consistent comedy stars (Adam Sandler , weirdly enough, has some dramatic movies and art movies on his resume that are better remembered than any of his dumb guy comedies -- except I give Happy Gilmore a pass for big laughs, personally.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I can't think of any actors who are mostly known for laughs. A lot of the comedy guys are getting out. Todd Phillips talked about that in a Joker interview.

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Hmm. I had problems with his movie and with Joaquin's Joker (though a billion dollar world box office says I'm wrong.) Still, the movie took up the fading world of "talk show stand up" and perhaps that was what Phillips was talking about.

Look, "woke" is enough of a thing that comics like Jerry Seinfeld say they won't play colleges anymore. This could start to get scary. Nothing is more dangerous in this world than someone without a sense of humor. Especially if they have guns and/or powers over incarceration..

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I do think we have a lot of comedians, though. And they've got BOLD work coming out. Dave Chappelle is maybe the biggest. That dude swings for the fences. I know he's kinda from a past era, but he's still doing exciting work. Other comedians on Netflix do impressive stuff - Bo Burnham, for instance. That's where a lot of the funny is these days: as I said, in the cracks.

In some ways, I think this is almost where Comedy belongs. It's subversive. It's punk rock with a bulbous, red nose.

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Well, I hope so. I'd say that there are more people WITH senses of humor than without. We just have to be careful to keep the humorless ones powerless and at a distance.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

There's a great Mel Brooks/Woody Allen debate on Siskel and Ebert show. They represent the two branches of comedy we've been talking about, the "basic" yuks (Brooks) and the stuff that seeks depth with its laughs (Allen).

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I'll take a look at that. It was interesting how "Mel and Woody" got linked back then. I think they BOTH wrote jokes for Sid Caesar in the fifties. They were from the same time and place. They shared their Jewishness and their NYC flavor...and little else. And then the SNL kids came along. I recall that Lorne Michaels - with a touch of countercultural snobbery -- rather rejected the whole comedy era that came before him, Bob Hope and the like. He had Milton Berle on SNL, but evidently that was a disaster from both sides(Berle hated SNL; SNL hated Berle.) I'm reminded that BOTH Sid Caesar AND Milton Berle -- the two TV comedy titans of the 50's -- were in "Mad Mad World" but got upstaged by new guys Jonathan Winters and Dick Shawn and Buddy Hackett.

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I'm looking up Used Cars on your recommendation; you've got good taste.

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Ha. Thanks. I always come with a warning and a grain of salt, though. I liked it, you may not.

"You had to be there." Summer of 1980, all these "big" SNL comedies(The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack) and Airplane..and this little movie with comedy greats...Kurt Russell? Gerritt Graham? Frank MacRae? Well, they were all funny and the movie was , too. I laughed with friends in the theater in 1980 and then hosted an "HBO watching party" a year later with MORE friends. Big laughs. Its a bit sitcommy and contrived around the edges (with a big chase climax courtesy of producer Steven Spielberg), but at heart its mean and subversive and un-PC.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

M*A*S*H* is mean, but not unconscionably so. I'm with you: it's about war. You think Hawkeye's mean? Try the Viet Kong. Try invading a country. And, of course, that's the whole point, are these people responding to the nihilistic realities around them. He's mean, and the paradox is that he's funny.

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Well, though the movie was meant to be "about Vietnam without mentioning Vietnam" -- ie using Korea instead, it was a book BASED on Korean war memories, I think. Bottom line: war IS mean, whether Korea or Vietnam or any war, but by 1970, people had had enough of this one. So the movie got right into it: blood, and lots of it. Men torn apart by bullets, patched up(how good? even by expert surgeons? Not very.) Men sent BACK to the battlefield after being patched up(sometimes.)

And its a comedy.

The men may objectify the women in MASH, but pretty clearly some of the women(nurses) dig on the men. A sly point is made that these men and women are often married -- with spouses "on the home front" -- but a little tension-relieving sex near the battlefield ain't a problem. X number of the nurses WANT IT. One even shifts -- at Hawkeye's request -- from doing HIM(her desire before shipping home to her husband) to doing Painless the Dentist(on Hawkye's "sacrificial" request, to "cure" the dentist of his belief that because he had short term impotence, he must be gay.) Talk about a movie that would not be made today!
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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I did think Hotlips' transition to the cheerleading bimbo was done rather quickly. Maybe a flaw in that gem.

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MASH the movie IS a gem that IS "flawed" insofar as today one can't imagine it being made BECAUSE of things like how quickly Hot Lips "goes bimbo." She does so, BTW, soon after she his publically humiliated (by her fellow man AND women) with a public reveal of her during a shower. Mean? Yes. Sexist? Not necessarily. MASH posits sex as part of the "us versus them" battle among the cool ones and the not-cool ones at the camp.

Fox put one critic's rave front and center on MASH posters: "MASH is what the new freedom of the screen is all about." Yes -- it truly was Exhibit A in that regard. The R rating here bloomed into gore AND sex AND profanity AND (a little) nudity AND an overall "rejection of established mores" that helped launch the 70's for better or worse.

"On topic" -- The Heartbreak Kid followed MASH the movie by two years, and you can feel some of the heartlessness of MASH replicated in the later movie.

---Liberal guys are just as sexist as conservative ones: yes. Jerks are everywhere.

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I brought this up because it seems to me that "left wing/right wing" sort of mixes together or disappears entirely when overriding tastes trump everything. Sutherland, Gould, and Altman were "liberal" in their politics, but MASH treats its women pretty badly (or perhaps HONESTLY, as when Trapper John tells a nurse to keep her t''ts out of the way while he operates, or tells another she's lucky she's good looking because she's not a GOOD enough operating room nurse!) The film is a little better on race -- there are a couple of black characters including the charismatic "Spearchucker" played by Fred Williamson (but on second thought?)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

And we must keep in mind that MASH (the movie) makes sure to keep Hawkeye and Trapper John as "good men beneath the meanness." Hawkeye DOES try to help Painless with understanding about short term impotency; Hawkeye and Trapper John DO help operate on the Korean child when the bureaucracy won't help him; Frank Burns IS cruel to an older Korean youth and suffers vengeance accordingly, etc.

MASH the movie was at once a lot of fun and something "forbidden" back in 1970. It reminds me of that Dylan lyric "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." Back THEN, the movie were older, more mature, more shocking at the time. Now...comics.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

Lenny gets his biggest pushback from Corcoran, yes. So they are the most adversarial. I'll agree with that.

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Maybe its a "guy thing" in my case(enjoying scenes of camaraderie OR conflict between men in movies) but Lenny and Mr. Corcoran together to me are where the big laughs are in the movie. Like when Lenny literally appears at Mr. Corcoran's doorstep and Corcoran coldly says something like "This is my house. I don't want you in my house. This is my CITY. I don't want you in my city." Lenny has literally chased Kelly back to snowy Minnesota from sunny Florida, and her dad is aghast to find THAT schmuck on HIS turf. Its a quiet, deadpan..hilarious scene.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I think we're in total agreement on The Heartbreak Kid.

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Seems like it. I have found that, for some reason, a lot of movies from the 70's seemed to be big THEN, and then sort of disappeared from the scene. Perhaps they are "caught in the middle" between Turner Classic Movies and modern movies of the 21s Century.

The Heartbreak Kid was a big deal in its time. Maybe not The Graduate -- which was at once more shocking(sex with Mrs. Robinson) and more sweet("Hoffman MUST win Katherine Ross) but important enough. Just sort of gone from memory now.

The Godfather seems to have "sucked all the air" out of 1972. Other, smaller movies I liked that year include Junior Bonner(a "nice" Peckinpah movie with Steve McQueen), The Hot Rock(Redford and George Segal in a funny caper film), The Candidate(Redford again in a movie about political campaigns; still relevant today); What's Up Doc(a big hit that doesn't seem to be remembered) and HItchocck's Frenzy(a stylish but brutal comeback movie for The Master of Suspense.) And: The Heartbreak Kid. All little remembered now.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I've got no problem with giving a family member a role; it's only nepotism when the family member didn't deserve it. Berlin 100% did.

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Yes, she did. She was a "new face" with memories of her mother, a "two-fer."
The bad nepotism performance of all time will be Sofia Coppola in Godfather III -- nice that she made good as a director and writer.

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I don't think there's a father in the remake. I'm just going off the trailer.

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As I recall, I tried to watch the new Heartbreak Kid on cable and barely made it a half hour. It just didn't work for "today" with that cast...so I never got to see if there WAS a father.

And if there was NOT a father...what kind of remake is THAT?

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That whole plotline wouldn’t work as well these days, anyway. I saw a production of The Importance of Being Earnest once, and the bums had set it in the modern era. Suddenly Cecily needing Jack's permission to wed, because she's his "ward", doesn't make a lick of sense. A large thread of the plot just unravelled from sweater back to skein.

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"unraveled from sweater back to skein." I like that phrase. New to me. Yes, "modernizing" a story doesn't always work. Even the shorter distance from 1960 to 1998 hurt the Psycho remake because suddenly a movie about a women DESPERATELY wanting to marry her impoverished man (desperately enough to steal money) seemed...old hat.

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It's a good fantasy. Us averages can get perfect 10s…

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Oh, that's a whole LOT of movies. Revenge of the Nerd movies. Woody Allen movies. SOME John Candy movies(though Melissa McCarthy has taken that job on the female side.)

This new film Licorice Pizza is a very smart, rather arty take on the same theme, except the woman isn't QUITE the beauty of other movies. But the idea is the same: she has more handsome or powerful suitors, but its the nerdly guy who may be the right one...(no spoilers here...MAY BE.)

I suppose Grodin in The Heartbreak Kid isn't quite a nerd -- he's certainly handsome enough -- but he's not supposed to be the one to get Cybill. I assume her parents assumed their girl would marry wealth.

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Yeah, it might be the case that the studio approved of A New Leaf always intending to wipe out that final murder…

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That's my guess. I figure that May figured she could "leverage them" in some way. Make them see it her way. Nope.

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I don't know if May is retired now. A Crisis in Six Scenes was the last thing I've seen her in. That was six years ago or thereabouts. Maybe seven.

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I'll go imdb looking. She's pretty old now, but one can write forever.---

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I'll probably see if I can track down that bit from California Suite. Sounds like a ten minute hoot.

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Its funny. Back in 1970, Walter Matthau was a big enough star to anchor "Plaza Suite" in all three episodes, playing a different man in each one. By 1978 in California Suite, Matthau was granted ONE role, in ONE episode...but with his great co-star Elaine May; its slight, but its funny. The other stories had all -stars, too(Jane Fonda/Alan Alda; Michael Caine/Maggie Smith; Bill Cosby/ Richard Pryor.) The stars are generally better than the stories, but Smith won an Oscar, I think.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I'm meaning to check out Licorice Pizza, too. I have yet to see a Paul Thomas Anderson movie that didn't deliver the goods.

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Its a good one. Smaller scale and definitely "sweeter" than his other San Fernando Valley films (I mean, the second hour of Boogie NIghts has a lot of bloodshed, some of it lethal.)

I don't see many movies each year, but I try to pick a favorite and for 2021, Licorice Pizza is it.

I posted a little on it on its board. I posted a lot on it ("OT") at my usual perch(the Psycho board, where older folks gather)

The real reward of Licorice Pizza to me was that it introduced this older fellow to a very tuneful female rock band called Haim. They are all sisters, the youngest (Alana Haim) is the star of Licorice Pizza(PTA knows all the Haims personally) and to me its a "two-fer": great movie, great band with great music. A real lift.

Others may disagree.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The Godfather hopping Pacino to Best Supporting was a bit of bet-hedging shenanigans because they didn't want him competing with Brando. They should've been reversed; Pacino's clearly the lead.

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Oh, dear -- our first disagreement. But not a BIG one, and I know others who take Pacino's side(ijncluding, evidently, Pacino himself.)

I think the nominations were properly done for the Oscars. Perhaps Pacino should have been placed in the Best Actor category with Brando -- but Brando still should have won. And its better that Pacino was placed in Supporting, anyway.

Here's why:

For most of the movie, Brando IS The Godfather. Michael gets the job near the end. I don't think that Brando even has fewer scenes that Pacino. Pacino isn't in the scenes where Vito meets with the Turk, or where Vito convenes the other bosses for a summit meeting.

All of the other characters revolve around Brando's Don Vito. ALL three sons...four counting Hagen. The daughter. Everybody who meets with Don Vito in the dark room during the wedding(as Pacino does exposition out in the garden with Kay.)

And even when Vito dies, his legacy hangs over everybody. The OTHER bosses figure the Corleones are over.

The Godfather was a great comeback for a great star(Brando.) And to top it off: EVERYBODY was doing that "Don Vito" voice. The novel gave us no preparation for Brando's choice there. He created a character for the ages.

So I think Brando was properly nominated and properly won. Pacino got other chances later (and only one -- Scent of a Woman -- paid off.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

It's funny which classic films sell out the house, isn't it? Sometimes I go to classic film screenings and it's almost empty, and I'm a little sad because people aren't interested in this brilliant movie, but I also like that I kinda feel like I'm in on a secret.

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Well, I suppose the movies do best in "movie towns" -- like Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco(in the states.)

I was surprised to get a full house for "To Catch a Thief." Its not all THAT great a thriller, but its probably the most gorgeous Hitchcock movie(won an Oscar for Best Color Cinemtography) with his two most gorgeous stars at their most gorgeous(Grant and Kelly.) A paeon to a time and place and a people long gone...

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

The auteur director as god also feeds into our psyches' need for simplicity. It's too much information to go, "Who made this brilliant film?" and hear a list of thirty names. If you can just go, "Steven Spielberg," it's easier.

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Agreed. As I understand it, "in the beginning" with studios, the true power was with producers -- directors were "hired hands" or "somebody's brother in law" and could not make changes without the producer or studio's approval.

But clearly an early bunch of directors burst through those chains. Hitchcock's movies had a strong visual pattern and great creativity "in the camera"; Ford had his painterly compositions and his Monument Valley films. Hawks had the "men in groups," guy-like women and overlapping dialogue, etc.

I still give a lot of power to the directors because ultimately THEY approve all the ideas that others bring to them. Writers say "the crop duster idea in North by Northwest was mine" or "the staircase scene in Frenzy was my idea(with no murder shown)" but Hitchcock had to approve those changes and his name went on the movie.

On Psycho, Hitchcock approved Tony Perkins idea of having Norman chew on Kandy Korn and another idea about knocking the bird picture off the wall. He even approved Herrmann's "screeching violins" for the mufders after originally wanting NO music. Herrmann was the genius, but Hitchcock was the boss.

I have read of any number of directors (Billy Wilder, Joe Mankewicz) who pretty much deferred to their cinematographers on what lenses to use or lighting. Those directors were writers, "word men," directors of acting or gags -- they left the technical beauty of their films to other experts.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

I've watched a few videos about Marcia Lucas and her editing team on Star Wars making that picture work. I think that's probably true a LOT. The editors make the movie work. Not to diminish the director, but the way films are made means, intrinsically, that editors will be key players.

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A FEW directors STARTED as film editors; Hal Ashby comes to mind. Meanwhile, director William Friedkin said that a couple of his movies(The French Connection and Crusing) were CHANGED in the editing room so as to have different endings than originally intended. (Al Pacino, the star of Cruising was very upset - he said he had not signed to do the movie that Friedkin made in the editing room.)

Its hard to recognize "great film editing," but there are some showoff turns: The Wild Bunch(especially its incredible gunbattle climax); Psycho(the shower scene , of course, but also the other murder). As I recall, The Wild Bunch WAS nominated for Best Film Editing(and didn't win!) and Psycho wasn't nominated at ALL. (insanity.)

I suppose "pro" film editors would say that you are not supposed to NOTICE film editing -- so Psycho was "bad."

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Sally Menke's early death explains a lot, actually. Django Unchained was the first movie of QT's that I watched and thought, "I think he's at his most self-indulgent here." So, maybe it was Menke all along… I still love Django and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, but those films are cut differently.

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I suppose so...the films run longer and longer over time, yes?
A film editor like Sally Menke may have been persuasive to QT saying "you should cut five minutes here" or "cut this scene."

Charming: QT has shown off a bunch of clips of raw footage of his actors saying "Hi, Sally!" right after QT yells "cut." So Sally could see them talking to her in the editing room.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 3 years ago

In the 70's, Verna Fields was called "Mother Cutter" for her influence over a lot of young filmmakers -- I suppose telling a director WHEN to cut a scene, and how to organize the cuts, is "directorial in nature."

Still, it seems to me that the director is the person who has advanced to the level of "handling all of it" -- the various inputs, the pressures from studio brass, the temperments of actors(many film directors are really psychiatrists handling patients.) Its an important job.

From what I've read, modernly, right after casting a name actor in a movie, producers are most careful about finding a director for the movie. Who will be "the boss"? Once that director is "locked in" everybody else has someone to follow. And if the director QUITS before production...everything has to start all over.