John Huston: C/D?

and anthony, you are right about the superiority of the films you mentioned over key largo. casino royale, however, is in a league of its own.

i made that part up.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
San Pietro (1945)
Key Largo (1948)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
The African Queen (1951)
The Red Badge of Courage (1951)
Moulin Rouge (1952)
Beat the Devil (1953)
Moby Dick (1956)
The Misfits (1961)
The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Fat City (1972)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Wise Blood (1979)
Prizzi's Honor (1985)
The Dead (1987)

These are all directing, btw. Definitely add Chinatown for acting props.

okay, this lil' rockist is going to bed. nighty-night.

OTOH, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Man Who Would Be King all rule. Insert quote about "stinkin' badges" here.

but yeah, huston is totally classic: i've never understood why the auteur crowd scorned him so much. "the maltese falcon" was one of the first old movies i ever saw, when i was about 12: i remember i was so excited about it i repeated the entire plot, scene by scene, to one of my friends at school the next day. he wasn't very interested.

John Huston, human being: a dud more often than not. At one time or another he was a pure rat bastard to every single person he knew, whether friend, family member or colleague. He had a selfish streak a mile wide and a cruel sense of humor.

Is there anyone in the classic studio period of Hollywood that this line doesn't describe?

Clint Eastwood's movie "White Hunter, Black Heart" is a movie based upon Huston's exploits while making "The African Queen".

I thought I felt some Beat The Devil shit in that.

I think Jimmy Stewart was a fairly decent human being, although I'm sure he was better some days than others.

Well yeah, but there's a difference between having an 'off day' and being a total bastard to everyone consistently. The former can be excused as occasional; to be always cruel has to be in your psyche to begin with.

I suppose this is true of any period of Hollywood, except insert drugs or oddball religious nut for drunk.

It seems that they point out that Audrey Hepburn was a pretty decent person, so with her and Jimmy Stewart, you have two. Everybody else was/is probably either drunk, psychotic, mean or all of the above.

Key Largo is great, considering the premise and setting, I'm suprised it hasn't been remade.

And Audrey Hepburn strangled kittens (figuratively speaking).

c.f. Gandolf in The Hobbit cartoon

the Criterion disc of Wise Blood reveals that Huston said near the end of shooting, "I believe I've been had!" He thought he was doing an atheist's lampoon of evangelicals, then Flannery O'Connor and Jesus take over the last reels of the film.

saw a video copy of this two years ago, kinda wanna see it again

also really dug The Dead.

C for Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, Sierra Madre, the Dead, Chinatown, his voiceover in the Hobbit, and Angelica. African Queen is crap though.

the only one i saw since this thread started that i really didn't feel was Night Of The Iguana, though I did enjoy Ava Gardner's surfside dance with the local boys. Reflections In A Golden Eye and The Misfits were half-if-not-more-ridiculous but still pretty awesome.

reflections in a golden eye is insane

not enough people have seen fat city either

I'll defend Prizzi's Honor too; it's got as many great lines as Goodfellas but never gets cited.

yeah I am picking up wise blood DVD on the way home from work today

kind of psyched for this extra:

Rare archival audio recording of author Flannery O’Connor reading her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

after years watching of fuzzy washed-out vhs, restoration looks incredible

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/wiseblood.jpg

yeah, taht FO'C recording is a corker.

Dourif looks really scary in shots like that.

from francine prose's essay on wise blood

In the preface to a second edition of Wise Blood, O’Connor made her novel’s stance toward the life-and-death nature of Christianity unmistakably clear, even for those readers who saw the story’s grotesqueness without quite catching its gravity. Huston himself seems to have been one such reader, persuaded throughout the filming of the unmediated comedy of Hazel’s obsession, until Dourif questioned him about the meaning of the last scenes. Without giving anything away, it seems safe to say that the dark plot turns considerably darker as Hazel, the prophet of the Church Without Christ—“where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way”—takes an exceedingly sharp turn toward Jesus. The Fitzgeralds had believed all along that they were making a film about redemption and salvation, but Huston had been under the impression that he was shooting a picture about the semi-ridiculous religious manias prevalent throughout the South. According to Huston biographer Lawrence Grobel, a hasty script conference about Hazel’s fate persuaded Huston that at “the end of the film, Jesus wins.”

it's true, in o'connor jesus always wins

wonder what huston's film would've been like if he realized this at the get-go

maybe less heavyhanded use of the Tennessee Waltz

nice William Hickey death scene in this

^ should be a sticker on the DVD cover ^

I remember having an argument with a college lit professor about whether the misfit in "a good man is hard to find" is a christ figure

"more like antichrist!" she said, but I thought she had missed the point

Somebody walking out was asking what was going on when SK had his Tony Soprano moment at the end and the camera froze and the sound died. I assumed it was the brain damage briefly kicking in, although maybe it was just a moment of philosophical contemplation.

susan tyrrell is awesome, i don't think the role of trainwreck barfly calls for understatement

I think it's a moment of clarity, SK realizing that he is the burnouts he's surrounded by, or will be before long. And agree 100% with velko on Susan Tyrell. She's fucking awesome, and not at all unrealistic.

She's TOO realistic!

I couldn't understand why either of even THOSE two guys would listen to her! She got the first Screech-Owl Oscar Nomination subsequently bestowed on Diane Ladd and Jennifer Tilly.

JR, I had totally forgotten about that non-freeze-frame moment, and apparently it was "a moment of philosophical contemplation" -- it was 2am on the set and Huston had a vision:

"Have you ever been at a party when for no reason everybody just stops? When all of a sudden it's all a tableau; you're alone in eternity for a moment? When Stacy turns around, I want everybody to just stop what they're doing." "Why, John?" Keach asked. "I have no idea," Huston answered. "Sometimes the devil just gets into me" "We can just freeze frame," Russ Saunders, the assistant director, suggested. "No, no, no," John said. "I want the cigarette smoke to continue going. I don't want it to look like a stock frame. I just want everybody to stop" (In Grobel, 1989: 638).

http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/article.php?id=167&feature

I think Keach saw his certain fate flash before him. Huston wanted Brando (at 47) for that role!
Nicholas "Coach" Colasanto is splendid in it.

Longish 1972 Roy Blount piece in SI:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2001/movies/reviews/fat_city/

Stacy Keach is a very charmless actor too. Kael said that Susan Tyrell's perf was a perfect example of one so awful that it deserves an Oscar nod (Tyrell got one).

the performance is very Cassavetes-ish, so her not liking it is very much in character

oh yeah, add Gena Rowlands to that Oscar Excess list for aWUtI.

Sit your rass down, Mabel!

"I want the cigarette smoke to continue going. I don't want it to look like a stock frame. I just want everybody to stop"

For Morbs, the Queen Killer.

Thought this was going to be about The Prowler, which he co-produced with Sam Spiegel and starred his ex-wife Evelyn Keyes.

Morbs was married?

You'll have to ask him yourself.

(I also can't sit still through the African Queen, nor Mogambo)

TAQ sposedly looks great now, so I'll probably look at it again eventually despite my indifference.

I anticipate seeing The Prowler tom'w.

TAQ is terrible

Wise Blood is tops tho

Totally cornball, and the opening scenes with Robert Morley are practically camp, but this is still massively entertaining -- maybe the only time I'll accept two great actors giving broad, self-parodic performances.

Has anyone present seen Let there Be Light? Quite something.

this treasure of the sierra madre bluray is BUTTER.

god the ending is so wonderfully bleak, almost existentialist... just them laughing at the meaningless and chaos as the wind howls...

I think Treasure is one of those movies you "have" to see that isn't really all that good when it comes down to it (it's all denoument, and weighed down by its racism).

Don't get this at all.

ya wtf

That it's glib in parts and weighed down by Tim Holt's blank performance and Max Steiner's music I can take; but Bogart's decline is beautifully done (he's genuinely scary; his eyes light up more intensely every time he says "Fred C. Dobbs"), and watching him hunt Holt down as Holt slips into exhaustion gets under my skin every time.

well what's great is that it barely even IS a decline... you realize that's kind of how he's been since the beginning, his mask of civility has just slipped. i also really like how he rationalizes it to the end, acting like he's the real victim. reminded me of some conservative mofos i could think of

also that bar fight is great eh... no music, just an awkward, uncomfortable, horrible fight

i also like how the town at the beginning feels like this purgatory, full of these shambling lost souls who can't escape

Pauline Kael said the town scenes represent the best twenty-minute sequence Huston ever directed.

they are really quite amazing. great great opening.

well what's great is that it barely even IS a decline... you realize that's kind of how he's been since the beginning, his mask of civility has just slipped. i also really like how he rationalizes it to the end, acting like he's the real victim.

Yeah, and the beauty of Bogart's performance is you can believe he was once a pretty honorable guy, and still remembers to be one when the occasion demands it.

love this movie. i only saw it a month ago. i thought the ending was pretty life affirming and inspiring fwiw. like laughing and howling w rage and crying are all the same noise in the end, but theyre still laughing.

"The Kremlin Letter" is A++. Also a fave of J-P Melville's.

haven't watched Treasure in years... good but overrated.

Saw The Misfits for the first time today--not sure why it's taken me forever. Except for the drunken 15-minute detour in the middle, the one time Gable was awful, I liked it. Everything before Clift's entrance was pretty good, and the mustanging stuff towards the end was excellent. Gable's never had much appeal for me, but he's okay; Clift is awkward at first, much better later on; Wallach and Ritter are good the whole way. I've always had (as odd as this may sound) more of a clinical appreciation of Monroe's beauty before seeing this--I never had any kind of a crush on her, like with Audrey Hepburn, say. But she really is astoundingly beautiful here.

I've always had (as odd as this may sound) more of a clinical appreciation of Monroe's beauty before seeing this--I never had any kind of a crush on her, like with Audrey Hepburn, say. But she really is astoundingly beautiful here.

there was some talk on another thread about this recently, i remember it p well but could watch it again for MM. it's kinda hard to separate her beauty, which is pronounced enough in a bunch of other films, from just her tragic 'aura' & associated magnetism in this.

Meant to say that there's some weirdly self-referential stuff going on that was interesting. Clift's character talks about some big calamity he's on the mend from, and when Wallach's in the car with Monroe going 90, you can't help thinking about Clift's accident. Monroe has all the pin-ups of herself on the inside of the door. And even though I know elegiac westerns are always about the Death of Some Vanishing Way of Life, it also felt a little like Gable and that era of Hollywood being laid to rest.

One of the weaker things about the film is that 100 minutes into it, you've still got men sitting around analyzing Monroe's character aloud.

The only time I saw it (years ago) I was struck by how unaffectedly the star trio (and Thelma Ritter) hung out in conversation scenes.

Yes, especially the long scene when they first arrive at Wallach's house. And Huston's camera really catches Monroe hanging out at times, but I won't get into that.

also in the weird self-referentiality, tho extra-

the poignancy of the last lines, their being the last lines spoken on film by both actors

won't post them for the annoying spoiler!-shouting types

Notable in the Mark Harris book is that some of the time Huston was in the army, risking his ass to shoot film for the War Dept, the guvmint was investigating whether he was a communist.

The Battle of San Pietro is gripping and notably pioneering in 'war-film' technique for the rest of the '40s and '50s, even tho nearly all of it is unacknowledged re-enactment.

NYC retro (some acting-only films included)

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/let-there-be-light-the-films-of-john-huston

http://www.wsj.com/articles/john-huston-a-look-at-his-influence-1418860047

J.Ro on The Bible:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-bible/Film?oid=1055495

and Kael:

John Huston is an infinitely more complex screen artist than David Lean. He can be far worse than Lean because he’s careless and sloppy and doesn’t have all those safety nets of solid craftsmanship spread under him. What makes a David Lean spectacle uninteresting finally is that it’s in such goddam good taste. It’s all so ploddingly intelligent and controlled, so “distinguished.” The hero may stick his arm in blood up to the elbow but you can be assured that the composition will be academically, impeccably composed. Lean plays the mad game of super-spectacles like a sane man. Huston (like Mailer) tests himself, plays the crazy game crazy—to beat it, to win.

The worst problem of recent movie epics is that they usually start with an epic in another form and so the director must try to make a masterpiece to compete with an already existing one. This is enough to petrify most directors but it probably delights Huston. What more perverse challenge than to test himself against the Book? It’s a flashy demonic gesture, like Nimrod shooting his arrow into God’s heaven.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/film/92939/tnr-film-classics-the-bible-october-22-1966

Print of The Bible was in real good shape but quite a bit of it looked lousy even tho Giuseppe Rotunno lensed it. The whole Eden segment had the lens smeared with Vaseline so they could get away with carefully framed nudity (and Eve had her cascading hair glued to her breasts it appeared). Richard Harris as Cain v close to Dave Thomas' version on SCTV.

Ava Gardner almost as good as Sarah as Geo C Scott is as Abraham in the second half. When Dino de Laurentiis was planning on it as a multidirector event, Orson Welles was supposed to do Abraham, and apparently he wrote most of it but either withdrew credit or didn't get it. Abraham takes Isaac through the ruins of Sodom on the way to almost getting sacrificed, and the boy sees tiny skulls and asks, "The children, were they wicked too?" Sounds Wellesian! Jehovah, what an asshole.

Huston as goofy slapstick Noah is somethin' ... seems he'd wanted Chaplin.

Last night at a film event Alec Baldwin relayed a Nicholson account of the Chinatown set where Polanski would "go on" at length between takes about what he wanted...

Huston would be staring at the table in front of him. He called Polanski RoMAHN, and said after several minutes, "RoMAHN, let's just do another one."

I'm haunted by that scene in Fat City when Stacey Keach is making some sad late supper for him and his gf which consists of shoe leather steak and some cold garden peas straight from the tin.

TIL that MGM put out a Blaxploitation remake of The Asphalt Jungle entitled Cool Breeze in 1972.

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhh-QTFyWuk

Film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWlOo3GKcTQ