I had planned to watch The Third Man last night. I had planned to watch the hockey game (Stanley Cup finals). I was undecided which way to go. Maybe I’d see how the first period went and, if not well, switch to the Carol Reed movie?
As it turns out, William Wyler took the decision out of my hands …
The 2011 version of the For the Love of Film blogathon has wrapped, this year with a focus on film noir. This post is slightly belated given that the last day was Monday.
This year, as last, it was carried out thanks to the efforts of Ferdy on Films and the Self-Styled Siren. Have a look at their blogs for their blogathon wrap-ups, oodles of links to wonderful posts on the subject of film noir from the Interent, and a thank you message from Eddie Muller, president of the Film Noir Foundation. It reads in part:
“Passion is sacred. Thanks to everyone for sharing their passion this past week. Let’s keep carrying the torch, not only for our favorite art form, but for all the things we cherish and refuse to relinquish.”
As for myself, in some ways I’ll be glad to move on to something other than noir while on the other hand I’m going to miss the enthusiasm the past week has been filled with. And maybe I won’t move on to another genre just yet because I’ve enjoyed this so much. I managed to scribble about seven film noirs movie during the blogathon:
Of those, in the interests of variety I posted about one I didn’t think was a particularly good movie (Dark Passage) and one that probably isn’t the first movie to pop into your head when the term noir is used (The Hot Spot).
But of them all the one I found myself thoroughly caught up with as far as thinking about it, Gilda is the easy winner. For two days after having watched it yet again (I’ve seen it many times over the years), I kept musing about it. Despite having seen it many times, it was the first time I had thought of it as a portrait of an abusive relationship, which is really what the movie is.
Anyway … though the blogathon is over, I’m pretty sure you can still . So please do so. You can use the link in the right hand column.
Now it’s time to backtrack and catch up on all the posts others have written on the subject of film noir that I have yet to get to!
Without intending to, I’ve found myself watching a lot of Barbara Stanwyck movies lately, including Double Indemnity (of which I’d like to scribble something one of these days). I believe IMDb shows she appeared in 101 movies and TV shows in her career. She really must have liked working.
I realized I have 18 Stanwyck movies on DVD (only a small number relative to her output). Of those, I’ve watched 15. There are three I’ve yet to see (but plan to): To Please a Lady, Jeopardy and Stella Dallas. Of the 15 watched, I’ve only written about a few, such as this one below. I watched it just last week.
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
It seems a strange thing to say but My Reputation suffers from an actor’s performance that is too good.
Barbara Stanwyck portrays Jessica Drummond so well, you almost fume with frustration with her in the movie’s first half.
That’s not actually the case, however.
The problem is the movie and using its first third to create a portrait of a conflicted woman – it’s really a lot of exposition. As the Variety review from 1945 points out, the movie’s other star, George Brent, doesn’t make an appearance for about a half hour or so.
My Reputation is a romantic melodrama and, once the first third is over and certain things are established, entertaining in an average kind of way. Actually, thanks to Stanwyck’s performance, it’s above average. While a romance, it is also about psychological conflict and it’s that element where Stanwyck really excels.
Jessica Drummond is a recent widow who suffers from a domineering mother and friends who are superficial at best. She wants to assert herself as an individual, having been lost for years as secondary to others, but she can’t bring herself to do so. She makes a number of false starts.
This is what I mean about frustration: Stanwyck portrays the conflict so well that, if you are me, while sympathetic you want to tear your hair out because she is so mousy. However, once a new love shows up in the form of George Brent as Major Scott Landis the movie picks up as Stanwyck’s character becomes increasingly stronger.
It’s true the movie is dated, as some have pointed out, but I didn’t find that a particularly difficult barrier to get past, no more so than a historical film or book would be. It’s not a movie for everyone – despite the psychological aspect, it’s essentially a love story, a romantic fantasy.
If you don’t like romances, you probably won’t like this movie. On the other hand, if you want to see yet another brilliant Barbara Stanwyck performance, you really shouldn’t miss this one.
Blogathon Update:
I’ve been reading the Marc Eliot biography of Cary Grant (titled, appropriately enough, Cary Grant) and it’s interesting to see how Cary (Archie Leach) was an odd fellow while at the same time, in his oddness, a lot like the rest of us.
There’s a great deal in the book about Grant’s sexuality – was he straight, gay, bisexual, what? Assuming the accuracy of the account, which appears based on inference (though justifiable, I think, given what evidence is available), bisexual would be the best description. And while accurate, in a strictly categorizing way, I think a better descriptive word would be confused. Which is why I think Cary Grant was like the rest of us (though considerably better looking).
He sounds emotionally defensive, probably due to his childhood – like his parents and their relationship (and being told his mother was dead then learning, years later, she was actually in a mental facility). So he sounds like a guy, Archie Leach, who was lonely, having difficulty connecting, who created a persona to present to the world, “Cary Grant.” Cary was the guy up on the screen.
But slowly, after a while, he wondered if perhaps he hadn’t become Cary Grant, the image. Which reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegut line about, “…we are what we pretend to be.”
It’s interesting how we become certain people without necessarily realizing it until, one day, we wonder how we ever became that guy staring back from the mirror.
