When Cliff leaves the ranch, and then goes to pick up Rick after his day on “Lancer,” and Sharon leaves the Bruin after watching “The Wrecking Crew” – we hear Jose Feliciano’s poignant version of “California Dreamin’” and we feel something so bittersweet and almost indefinable – a day winding down. I believed that the rich were not that bad and that the poor had a gripe, but that people could come together and that made America a better place for me to live in and be proud of. Her personality is a completely different story though. The foundational movie is, quite appropriately, Lola, Demy’s sublime first picture released in 1961, starring Aimée as Lola, in which Lola worked singing and dancing at a cabaret in Nantes, France, hoping for her great love (and father to her seven-year-old son) to return. Elk met hun eigen stijl, voorkeur en soms zelfs met wat exclusieve, interactieve content. And are they even friends? Posted at 05:06 PM in Movies | Permalink You also see his clear filmic talent and his staging skills, which he acquired in the theater – the place he started from (Suddenly feels adapted from a play even if it wasn’t). You don’t get the sense that he agrees she had it coming; that she should have merely respected her twitching, angry out of control husband. And those reservoirs of rage under that beautiful blonde face and body is why she is brilliant in the movie. People think it’s outmoded and, frankly, silly. One of those powerful men was the fearsome (and hated by many) Columbia studio head, Harry Cohn. What’s going on in here? He nervously settles into this new town (his boss is an asshole), and he thinks he’s too smart for his job. Listen to Goldie and Phoenix for gods sake, then you will realize how good he is. We can’t. He might as well keep the Lufthansa bounty all to himself. Or, any grandkids or kids that he’s ever kept in contact with, anyway. And he’s playing a real sadistic bad guy. But back to Mitchum and that mean moo – it’s nothing like Noël Coward’s Witch of Capri in Boom! It’s a face-off with Cliff and all that divides them is a flimsy door with a mosquito screen and a flimsy hook-lock. Richard Burton wrote in his diaries: “E [Elizabeth Taylor] and N. [Noël] Coward are madly in love with each other, particularly he with her. | Walter, rather, murders that vase, leaves the broken pieces for Harriet to see, and then escapes the home and her, in hopes to find, one day, presumably, love. In something like chance, George spies Lola at, of all perfect places within this movie, a parking lot. This is a film questioning authority; looking at how we blindly believe in institutions – one of them being “manhood,” domination, the way one moves through the world (do you walk with a gun?). Something very, very strange in these old woods. He leans over her, looking all sweaty and desperate, as she primps in the mirror (Arzner uses mirror shots many times in this picture to great effect) – pleading for her to stick around. He does. The music? As with many Naked City stories, this one (from 1962) dared to not only shock early TV viewers with its outburst of violence, but offer little relief or explanation about such real-life occurrences inspired from the outside world (this one, by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate who had rampaged only a few years earlier and who are mentioned in this episode specifically.) | He also leaves Harriet with what she seems to love most – the house. There are no “let’s be noir” saxophone or saxophone-like moments and instead the music, by Carter Burwell (his first, marking a long future collaboration with the Coen’s), is melancholic and haunting. QT: Well, actually, of that whole group that I call the post-60s anti-authority auteurs, a lot of them came from television. As some 1980s and 1990s neo-noirs show their age, or feel too soaked in their own style for the sake of style, Blood Simple remains timeless. Aren't we? The nostalgia of Fast Eddie is cagier, there really, no nostalgia to it, and Newman, brilliantly, never plays his character that way. That is not going to happen to her. With that, Davy weakly shoots some bottles his dad sets up to see how rusty his son has gotten, and we wonder if the son is missing on purpose – if he’s just so sick of this gun business. Not for a man. Things deeply embedded – what you grew up with – songs you listened to and fell for after digging through your parent’s LPs. No, to me, right now, it is the most moving scene he’s ever filmed – and his most poignant, personal movie. And he will never meet William Witney!” (laughs) I met William Witney’s son…, KM: William Witney lived a long time – he died in 2002 if I’m not mistaken…, QT: When I first did my piece on him… he was still alive. Here, Aimée is absolutely lovely and heart-rending, showing George pictures of her past (pictures straight out of the movie Lola) – of her ex-husband, Michel, of her former lover, a sailor (also from Lola) whom she intended to catch up with in Chicago, but found out he died in Vietnam. QT: In that chapter I wrote on [the book about] Rick’s career, “The Man Who Would Be McQueen”, I actually have that in that version, and I did it in a scene with Marvin. It all starts rolling down and down and down after that. But the first thing McQueen does is he picks her up and spin her around … so that’s the kind of dynamic they have. It should be appreciated. Kim Morgan: In your film, there’s the myth-like idea of LA and the geographical idea of LA, and you’ve merged them together beautifully: all of those gorgeous shots of Cliff driving – everyone drives a lot, of course, this is Los Angeles, except for Rick Dalton [who has too many drunk driving incidents]. One of the things about the actors of that era [and Rick Dalton], like I said, they were status-conscious, so they would love to be in a Burt Kennedy western. And he’s a loving young man – he’s not going to poison his dad with too much resentment – nor his older brother. But as Karaszewski says: “… And, bam! He drives to another friend’s place – the house where the band Spirit practice and live (another imprint of the real invading movie life – this is the actual band who also provide the atmospheric soundtrack for the movie – the gorgeous, melancholic opening tune “Fog” will really stick with you). They set you up and no matter how bright you are, you believe it. She needed to get fake boobs and butt because she knew that naturally she wasn't anything any man would want. That’s just how things were done back then and the boys are tough and grown up now and why would they question any such thing? He says this even before really seeing the kid. I’d like them to be sort of a personal testimony: the insanity of this world. Craig’s Wife was adapted (by Mary McCall Jr.) from the 1925 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by George Kelly (Grace Kelly’s uncle) and, according to what I’ve read (chiefly, Judith Mayne’s indispensable biography/critical study, “Directed by Dorothy Arzner” which helped me greatly while researching this piece), Mayne felt that Arzner and Mcall Jr.’s version tweaked the play’s tone towards a more critical take on society rather than just a damnation of Harriet. A brief look at Phil Karlson's Gunman's Walk... “Look, times don’t change in this country where you breed a man soft… without any spirit in him. Can I play that guy?” [I say,] Well, it’s not exactly the right idea but I love Ralph Meeker, so feel free. The men discuss the draft, their status within it, and the Vietnam War, and you think anything “heavy” that is said in this picture, well, it’s understandable with this kind of worry darkening these young men, who are trying to smile and laugh it off as much as they can. It was just a masterful moment. And like Lockwood’s George, they would drive.