Only Angels Have Wings

The exotic lands of South America provide the location for one of the big adventure films of Hollywood’s most famous year (1939). Cary Grant as an adventure-seeking enigmatic airline pilot running mail into dangerous regions of an unnamed town in the Andes established his Hollywood star status as a true leading man, game for comedy, romance and adventure. Howard Hawks’ recurring themes of male comraderie and his knack for wordy rhythmic dialogue elevate this straight-ahead actioner into something memorable and resonant.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy is a man-hunting classic featuring Marilyn Monroe as a shameless gold-digger on a cruise with her showgirl partner, Dorothy (Jane Russell), a horny brunette who prefers her men athletic and viral. As part of Fox’s Marilyn Collection on Blu-ray, Hawks’ superlative Technicolor production is an eye-popping musical delight.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Charles Coburn, Elliot Reid, Tommy Noonan

By Alan Bacchus

After getting engaged to Gus, a rich but meek and shy nave, Lorelei and Dorothy have to travel to Europe to meet and appease Gus's controlling father. Unbeknownst to them, Gus's father has hired Ernie Malone, a private detective, to spy on them. While on the cruise, Lorelei becomes distracted by an elderly but wealthy diamond tycoon, Piggy Beekman, which Malone catches on camera. Enter Dorothy, Lorelei’s watchful protector, who uses her sexual allure to retrieve the disparaging photos. Complicating matters is Dorothy actually falling for Malone, just one of the many complications in Charles Lederer’s delirious screwball plotting.

Marilyn Monroe is at her most luscious, desirable and awkwardly hilarious. As the ditzy blonde sexpot, she is in fine form. Her cutesy voice can break glass, but her voice occasionally falters into a regular woman’s voice, hinting at some vulnerability beneath her persona. Jane Russell is no slouch for sex appeal either. Though I didn’t keep track, both Monroe and Russell seem to change outfits in almost every scene. At the very least, from a fashion standpoint the film predates the Sex and the City effect of setting fashion trends.

Hawks’ musical sequences are crafted to perfection. The opening number, ‘The Wrong Side of the Tracks’, essentially establishes the backstory. Lorelei and Dorothy, who had their hearts broken by men, leave the small town for fame and fortune in New York only to discover that men are the same everywhere. Thus, we establish a pair of career gals. Over the course of the film they fall in and out of love, but they never relinquish their control and independence in their lives.

Russell offers strong support, but the film is clearly written around Monroe. Dorothy’s confident and authoritarian attitude is a terrific contrast to Lorelei’s wondering eyes. Russell gets one solo musical number featuring a dance around a couple dozen shirtless and vain men bathing in the swimming pool, a sequence which coyly speaks to Dorothy’s libidinous desires and empowers her with sexual control.

The most famous sequence comes in the third act. ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ is iconic in its imagery of Monroe dressed in bright pink against a red background being carried around by tuxedo-clad men and singing about her penchant for diamonds. Jack Cole’s choreography is expertly executed by Monroe, arguably solidifying her as the most desirable celebrity in the world at the time. It’s less of a traditional dance sequence, but something Busby Berkeley might have designed, a sequence masterfully designed and composed to worship Ms. Monroe.

***½

The glorious high definition transfer of the picture also deserves worship. The 20th Century Fox box set features other Monroe classics 'How to Marry a Millionaire', 'River of No Return', 'There’s No Business Like Show Business', 'The Misfits' and 'Some Like It Hot'.

Rio Lobo

Rio Lobo (1970) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum, Jennifer O’Neill, Sherry Lansing and Jack Elam

**1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

While I have fond memories of Rio Lobo from when I first saw it on the big screen as a kid with Dad, I should have guessed something was wrong when my memories were little more than assuming I’d enjoyed the picture. No other details were seared into my brain save for the opening train robbery sequence. After seeing this movie 41 years later on Blu-ray release, I can definitely vouch for the train robbery – it’s a genuinely kick-ass set piece.

Having the distinction of being the last movie directed by the great Howard Hawks, this might perhaps be the only reason not to completely dismiss it. That said, Rio Lobo is a reasonably pleasant 114-minute duster. In spite of the familiar territory of the plot, the screenplay, co-written by Leigh Brackett, is a loose re-telling of Hawks’s classic Rio Bravo and the entertaining but not-so-classic El Dorado (both of which were also written by Brackett). And gosh-darn-it, the picture is not without merit.

Beginning during the civil war, the story involves a Union Colonel (played by John Wayne) whose pay train is robbed by a couple of Confederates (played by Jorge Rivero and Christopher Mitchum). Wayne realizes they’re the two responsible for the hard, dirty work, but the robbery itself has been ordered by someone inside the Union army. When the war is over, Wayne becomes pals with Mitchum and Rivero (he views their pre-war actions as just that – an “act of war”) and the three of them team up to track down the Union traitor (whose actions Wayne views as an “act of treason”). This all converges when the trio helps out the settlers in and around the nearby Rio Lobo, who are beleaguered and bullied by a corrupt land baron. (I’ll let you guess whom the Union Army traitor turns out to be.) At one point, like the aforementioned Hawks westerns, a motley assortment of good guys hole up in a jail whilst the bad guys lay siege.

So in terms of plot, it’s mostly a case of been there done that, but there are worse crimes a western can commit. It’s all in the delivery.

On the plus side, the action set pieces are extremely thrilling. Hawks was wise to hire ace action and stunt genius Yakima Canutt (the man solely responsible for the legendary chariot race in Wyler’s Ben-Hur, among other great cinematic rollercoaster rides), and his second unit direction includes some truly masterful carnage and derring-do.

Another good move on Hawks’s part was re-enlisting screenwriter Brackett to his cause. Not only is the plotting reasonably solid, the movie is peppered with some really crisp dialogue. The problem is that so many of the actors in the film are completely at a loss as to how to deliver their lines.

John Wayne seems up to the challenge, but having to play opposite the sad likes of Jennifer O’Neill (her line-thudding monotone is especially egregious) and the handsome but stilted Jorge Rivero appears to visibly drive the Duke to distraction onscreen. On the other hand, Wayne is such a great actor and true star that one is still glued to him throughout and happy enough to amble along the familiar trail his character is on. Our first introduction to Wayne is especially terrific and sets the tone of his character perfectly. When a young officer approaches Wayne and apologizes for disturbing him, Wayne responds in his deadpan drawl, “You were told to disturb me. You’d have been a lot sorrier if you hadn’t.” Gotta love the Duke!

One also assumes Brackett had a hand in the many funny jokes involving Wayne’s paunchy physique. As the story goes, when Hawks was running into trouble with William Faulkner on the screenplay for The Big Sleep he demanded the immediate assistance of “that guy Brackett” to punch things up. Having written primarily science fiction to that point, Brackett also wrote an amazing hard-boiled detective novel, “No Good for a Corpse,” and the writing endeared itself to Hawks as just what he needed. Throughout many pictures, including those of Hawks, “that guy Brackett” handled HERSELF with the craft and aplomb of an old pro – that she most definitely was. My favourite John-Wayne-directed joke in Rio Lobo is when some strapping young men lift his dead weight after knocking him out cold and one of them quips, “He’s heavier than a baby whale”.

The banter delivered via the screenplay to O’Neill and Rivero is exceptionally well written, but neither actor can attack it with the ping-pong ferocity that was such a hallmark of Hawks’s great comedies and most certainly not to the level displayed by Bogie and Bacall in Hawks’s first teaming with Brackett in The Big Sleep. As the film proceeds, one can almost feel the frustration Hawks must have been fraught with as scene after scene involving these two drags the movie down to some considerable depths.

Much better in the supporting cast is future producer and studio head Sherry Lansing who proves to be a gorgeous and terrific actress. If only she’d had O’Neill’s role. There’s also able support from Robert Mitchum’s son Christopher, who is a lightweight compared to Dad but attractive and affable enough. He’d have been great in Rivero’s role. Thankfully, there are some wonderful old hands like Jack Elam (chewing the scenery like only he could) and a nice bit from Hank (Ole Mose) Worden.

If you’re a fan of Hawks, westerns, good writing (albeit butchered by some awful actors) and The Duke, Rio Lobo will prove to be worth seeing. How memorable it will be is another question, but I can assure you that my second helping after four decades was not without merit.

Rio Lobo is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Home Video. It has no extra features, but the movie looks just fine in high-definition, and thankfully some over-zealous flunky in the transfer suite hasn’t seen fit to remove the grain and given the film some quality colour balance. Should you buy it? I would. But that’s me.

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep (1946) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall

****

One Hollywood’s classic products, highly influential, a landmark film of the noir genre is still a beguiling and elusive picture.

Whether by design or not, part of the fun of "The Big Sleep" is attempting to follow along with the byzantine plotting. I admit, I can get about half way through following along clearly and at a certain point always get lost.

Cool and confident private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is called in by rich tycoon General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to investigate an extortion scheme against her daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) for her gambling debts by local bookie Arthur Gwynn Geiger. Marlowe is led to Geiger’s bookstore where he tails him to his home, only to discover he’s been killed. Carmen's (Lauren Bacall) sister joins the fray and attempts to secure her own ransom money further complicating the predicament. Nefarious figures pocket every corner of the seedy Los Angeles underworld Marlowe uncovers.

It’s fun to watch The Big Sleep as a template for Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential”, while the lude and nasty sexual elements were put into the subtext of the Faulkner/Brackett/Furthman screenplay, all the elements of the seedy Los Angeles milieu of porno, gambling, drugs, prostitution are there. Bogart’s discovery of Carmen confused and stammering in Geiger's house after the murder suggest influence of hallucinogenic drugs, and her oriental outfit as a sexual fetish for Geiger’s porno racket. None of this is told to us, but inferred through subtle clues which enhance the richness of multiple viewings.

Marlowe only scratches the surface of this grim underbelly. Many of the key characters are discussed but never seen or turn up dead before we ever get to meet them. The most famous is the Owen Taylor character who is killed in a car crash, a murder or perhaps suicide which is never solved in the film, nor, according to some sources, in the mind of it’s original author Raymond Chandler. Same goes with Sternwood’s former heavy Sean Regan who had disappeared prior to Marlowe entering the picture. Regan is discussed as the reason for Sternwood's hiring of Marlowe, but someone we never meet. Even Geiger himself, who is only glimpsed from afar yet remains key to the motivation and plotting.

Bogart and Bacall, a legendary Hollywood couple, sear the screen, not so much because of sexual chemistry or sparks, but as equally cunning adversaries. Bacall’s dialogue is line-for-line delivered with as much snarky conviction and confidence as Bogart’s - a female match for his swaggering cocky persona.

As a Jack Warner (Warner Bros) production, his stamp of tough hardboiled attitude is there, putting the film beside some of his toughest crime films with Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Max Steiner, Warner's #1 composer, delivers a glorious and grand score, as always, heightening all the melodramatic suspense and tension of the picture.

Like Bogey's "Casablanca", the experience of "The Big Sleep" improves on each successive viewing. The initial occasion will certainly cause much confusion and even frustration, and though the confusion remains time and again, frustration soon gives way to gleeful delight. Enjoy.

El Dorado

El Dorado (1967) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Ed Asner

**1/2

With hindsight, by 1967, with the onset of new liberal Hollywood a studio Western with John Wayne, directed by Hollywood legend Howard Hawks, seemed a little obsolete and out of date. Hawks was known in Hollywood as an adaptive director, a populist auteur with an invisible style who could work in any genre and lauded by many great directors: Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, John Carpenter and even Quentin Tarantino.

"El Dorado" was Hawks' second last film, and to no surprise it's a by-the-numbers Western featuring the swaggering John Wayne as a hired gun who enters into a war between local drunk sheriff (Robert Mitchum) and a band of bullies, headed by Ed Asner. Tagging along is a young James Caan, as Wayne's affable young protégé.

For 1967, it probably provided enough adequate genre entertainment for audiences. There's a distinct over familiarity to the picture though. After a meandering first hour I figured it out, the second half has the same rhythm and focus as Hawks' "Rio Bravo" (for reasons I could never understand, one of the most revered pictures by those mentioned above).  Hawks handles half-a-dozen key characters, confidently moving from comic relief to taut action and suspense. Although at 126 minutes it's 20 to 30 minutes too long.

In the annals of cinema history though, it's an average entry in the genre. For Western newbies or even casual fans, without the stylistic stamp of authorship, like the mythological majesty of John Ford, the minimalist humanism of Budd Boetticher or the revisionist hyper-styling of Sergio Leone, it's a picture for old Hollywood cinephiles only.

Paramount has packaged the film as a two-disc Centennial Collection, containing a wealth of extra material. Peter Bogdanovich, a marvellous anecdotal storyteller when it comes to film history, once again muses eloquently on one of the commentary tracks. Renowned critics Richard Schickel (Time) and Todd McCarthy (Variety) along with Ed Asner combine on the other running commentary. The seven-part "making of" on disc two is well produced and is more than just a recycling of older material.

This article was first published on Exclaim.ca