Here’s the big piece I’ve been working on: to accompany the current Elvis-movie programming on the Criterion Channel, I wrote about Elvis’ movie career for Criterion.
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On This Day: August 7, 1934: “It must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.”
On December 6, 1933, the US Court of Appeals (Judge John Woolsey) judged Ulysses by James Joyce to be NOT obscene and declared that the book could be admitted into the United States. There were then appeals to this decision.
On August 7, 1934, Woolsey’s decision was upheld by the US Court of Appeals. Random House raced to get the book into print, available in America for the first time.
Here’s the first American edition of the book:
The book was initially published by Sylvia Beach and Shakespeare & Co. in 1922. (Post about Sylvia Beach here.) It was controversial even before it was published, but once it was published it was promptly banned. The only way to get it was to order it directly from Shakespeare & Co., and then smuggle it into your country in a box of sweaters or whatever, or you had to visit Paris and buy a copy at the actual bookstore. Shipments of books were seized by U.S. Customs. The legal battles dragged on for a decade. It was already the most talked-about book of the young century, and very few people had an opportunity to actually read it. Worse for Joyce, he couldn’t make any money off it. There were black market editions but they did him no good. A bowdlerized edition appeared which was then suppressed. Joyce was already working on Finnegans Wake, of course, but imagine what those 11, 12 years were like: He wrote Ulysses – ULYSSES – and nobody could GET it.
Finally, after all the appeals in the U.S. courts, the case made its way to federal Judge John M. Woolsey.
Woolsey hailed from South Carolina and was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge for his seat on the U.S. District Court of Southern New York in 1929. The case against Ulysses was not the first time Woolsey weighed in on freedom of expression vs. censorship. There had been a couple of cases leading up to the Ulysses case:
A book on “married love” had been labeled obscene, and a book on contraception had been labeled obscene, and the controversy made its way into the court system. Woolsey’s decisions on these cases were thoughtful and beautifully articulate (he was an amazing writer). He judged in both of those cases that the books (as well as the subject matter – even more radical) were NOT obscene.
It’s worth it to take a look at his decision in 1931 about the book “Married Love.”. He builds his case, meticulously:
“Married Love” is a considered attempt to explain to married people how their mutual sex life may be made happier.
To one who had read Havelock Ellis, as I have, the subject-matter of Dr. Stope’s book is not wholly new, but it emphasizes the woman’s side of sex questions. It makes also some apparently justified criticisms of the inopportune exercise by the man in the marriage relation of what are often referred to as his conjugal or marital rights, and it pleads with seriousness, and not without some eloquence, for a better understanding by husbands of the physical and emotional side of the sex life of their wives.
I do not find anything exceptionable anywhere in the book, and I cannot imagine a normal mind to which this book would seem to be obscene or immoral within the proper definition of these words or whose sex impulses would be stirred by reading it.
Whether or not the book is scientific in some of its theses is unimportant. It is informative and instructive, and I think that any married folk who read it cannot fail to be benefited by its counsels of perfection and its frank discussion of the frequent difficulties which necessarily arise in the more intimate aspects of married life, for as Professor William G. Sumner used aptly to say in his lectures on the Science of Society at Yale, marriage, in its essence, is a status of antagonistic co-operation.
In such a status, necessarily, centripetal and centrifugal forces are continuously at work, and the measure of its success obviously depends on the extent to which the centripetal forces are predominant.
The book before me here has as its whole thesis the strengthening of the centripetal forces in marriage, and instead of being inhospitably received, it should, I think, be welcomed within our borders.
That is rather beautiful, I think.
Let’s also check out Woolsey’s conclusion in his 1931 decision about the book “Contraception:”
I have read “Contraception,” and I find that it does not fall, in any respect, within these definitions of the words “obscene” or “immoral.”…
Such a book, although it may run counter to the views of many persons who disagree entirely with the theory underlying birth control, certainly does not fall within the test of obscenity or immorality laid down by me in the case of United States v. One Obscene Book, Entitled “Married Love,” 48 F. (2d) 821, at page 824, for the reading of it would not stir the sex impulses of any person with a normal mind.
Actually the emotions aroused by the book are merely feelings of sympathy and pity, evoked by the many cases instanced in it of the sufferings of married women due to ignorance of its teachings. This, I believe, will be the inevitable effect of reading it on all persons of sensibility unless by their prejudices the information it contains is tabooed.
It follows that as “Contraception” is not an obscene or immoral book, and, obviously, is not a drug, medicine, or an article for the prevention of conception within the meaning of title 19, U. S. C., § 1305, it may be imported into the United States and the libel brought in this case to test that question must be dismissed.
After these landmark decisions, Woolsey was “the one” to weigh in on the case known as: United States v. One Book Called Ulysses. He read the book. He read opinions on the book. He then came forth with his judgment that the book was not obscene and therefore could be published in the United States. A great triumph for freedom of speech (as well as freedom of thought.)
My Bloomsday pal Jonathan Goldman edited a book about Joyce and the law. You can order it here.
Bennett Cerf, influential American publisher, was a champion of the cause; he understood the situation’s urgency. When Ulysses was finally brought out in America in 1934, Judge Woolsey’s decision was included in the edition its entirety, making it the most widely distributed judicial decision in history.
Morris L. Ernst, counsel for Random House, successfully defended the book against obscenity charges in 1933-34, and wrote in his foreward to the 1934 edition:
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Judge Woolsey’s decision. For decades the censors have fought to emasculate literature. They have tried to set up the sensibilities of the prudery-ridden as a criterion for society, have sought to reduce the reading matter of adults to the level of adolescents and subnormal persons, and have nurtured evasions and sanctimonies.
Here is Judge Woolsey’s decision in its entirety. It is a masterpiece: an important legal decision, but also a sensitive analysis of the book itself:
United States Discrict Court, Southern District of New York, Opinion A. 110-59
December 6, 1933
On cross motions for a decree in a libel of confiscation, supplemented by a stipulation — hereinafter described — brought by the United States against the book “Ulysses” by James Joyce, under Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305, on the ground that the book is obscene within the meaning of that Section, and, hence, is not importable into the United States, but is subject to seizure, forfeiture and confiscation and destruction.
United States Attorney — by Samuel C. Coleman, Esq., and Nicholas Atlas, Esq., of counsel — for the United States, in support of motion for a decree of forfeiture, and in opposition to motion for a decree dismissing the libel.
Messrs. Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, — by Morris L. Ernst, Esq., and Alexander Lindey, Esq., of counsel — attorneys for claimant Random House, Inc., in support of motion for a decree dismissing the libel, and in opposition to a motion for a decree of forfeiture.
WOOLSEY, J:
The motion for a decree dismissing the libel herein is granted, and, consequently, of course, the Government’s motion for a decree of forfeiture and destruction is denied.
Accordingly a decree dismissing the libel without costs may be entered herein.
1. The practice followed in this case is in accordance with the suggestion made by me in the case of United States v. One Book Entitled “Contraception”, 51 F. (2d) 525, and is as follows:
After issue was joined by the filing of the claimant’s answer to the libel for forfeiture against “Ulysses”, a stipulation was made between the United States Attorney’s office and the attorneys for the claimant providing:
1. That the book “Ulysses” should be deemed to have been annexed to and to have become part of the libel just as if it had been incorporated in its entirety therein.
2. That the parties waived their right to a trial by jury.
3. That each party agreed to move for decree in its favor.
4. That on such cross motions the Court might decide all the questions of law and fact involved and render a general finding thereon.
5. That on the decision of such motions the decree of the Court might be entered as if it were a decree after trial.
It seems to me that a procedure of this kind is highly appropriate in libels for the confiscation of books such as this. It is an especially advantageous procedure in the instant case because on account of the length of “Ulysses” and the difficulty of reading it, a jury trial would have been an extremely unsatisfactory, if not an almost impossible, method of dealing with it.
2. I have read “Ulysses” once in its entirety and I have read those passages of which the Government particularly complains several times. In fact, for many weeks, my spare time has been devoted to the consideration of the decision which my duty would require me to make in this matter.
“Ulysses” is not an easy book to read or to understand. But there has been much written about it, and in order properly to approach the consideration of it it is advisable to read a number of other books which have now become its satellites. The study of “Ulysses” is, therefore, a heavy task.
3. The reputation of “Ulysses” in the literary world, however, warranted my taking such time as was necessary to enable me to satisfy myself as to the intent with which the book was written, for, of course, in any case where a book is claimed to be obscene it must first be determined, whether the intent with which it was written was what is called, according to the usual phrase, pornographic, — that is, written for the purpose of exploiting obscenity.
If the conclusion is that the book is pornographic that is the end of the inquiry and forfeiture must follow.
But in “Ulysses”, in spite of its unusual frankness, I do not detect anywhere the leer of the sensualist. I hold, therefore, that it is not pornographic.
4. In writing “Ulysses”, Joyce sought to make a serious experiment in a new, if not wholly novel, literary genre. He takes persons of the lower middle class living in Dublin in 1904 and seeks not only to describe what they did on a certain day early in June of that year as they went about the City bent on their usual occupations, but also to tell what many of them thought about the while.
Joyce has attempted — it seems to me, with astonishing success — to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man’s observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious. He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which he is describing.
What he seeks to get is not unlike the result of a double or, if that is possible, a multiple exposure on a cinema film which would give a clear foreground with a background visible but somewhat blurred and out of focus in varying degrees.
To convey by words an effect which obviously lends itself more appropriately to a graphic technique, accounts, it seems to me, for much of the obscurity which meets a reader of “Ulysses”. And it also explains another aspect of the book, which I have further to consider, namely, Joyce’s sincerity and his honest effort to show exactly how the minds of his characters operate.
If Joyce did not attempt to be honest in developing the technique which he has adopted in “Ulysses” the result would be psychologically misleading and thus unfaithful to his chosen technique. Such an attitude would be artistically inexcusable.
It is because Joyce has been loyal to his technique and has not funked its necessary implications, but has honestly attempted to tell fully what his characters think about, that he has been the subject of so many attacks and that his purpose has been so often misunderstood and misrepresented. For his attempt sincerely and honestly to realize his objective has required him incidentally to use certain words which are generally considered dirty words and has led at times to what many think is a too poignant preoccupation with sex in the thoughts of his characters.
The words which are criticized as dirty are old Saxon words known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.
Whether or not one enjoys such a technique as Joyce uses is a matter of taste on which disagreement or argument is futile, but to subject that technique to the standards of some other technique seems to me to be little short of absurd.
Accordingly, I hold that “Ulysses” is a sincere and honest book and I think that the criticisms of it are entirely disposed of by its rationale.
5. Furthermore, “Ulysses” is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, “Ulysses” is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt’s sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.
If one does not wish to associate with such folk as Joyce describes, that is one’s own choice. In order to avoid indirect contact with them one may not wish to read “Ulysses”; that is quite understandable. But when such a real artist in words, as Joyce undoubtedly is, seeks to draw a true picture of the lower middle class in a European city, ought it to be impossible for the American public legally to see that picture?
To answer this question it is not sufficient merely to find, as I have found above, that Joyce did not write “Ulysses” with what is commonly called pornographic intent, I must endeavor to apply a more objective standard to his book in order to determine its effect in the result, irrespective of the intent with which it was written.
6. The statute under which the libel is filed only denounces, in so far as we are here concerned, the importation into the United States from any foreign country of “any obscene book”. Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305. It does not marshal against books the spectrum of condemnatory adjectives found, commonly, in laws dealing with matters of this kind. I am, therefore, only required to determine whether “Ulysses” is obscene within the legal definition of that word.
The meaning of the word “obscene” as legally defined by the Courts is: tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts. Dunlop v. United States, 165 U.S. 486, 501; United States v. One Book Entitled “Contraception”, 51 F. (2d) 525, 528; and compare Dysart v. United States, 272 U.S. 655, 657; Swearingen v. United States 151 U.S. 446, 450; United States v. Dennett, 39 F. (2d) 564, 568 (C.C.A. 2); People v. Wendling, 258 N.Y. 451, 453.
Whether a particular book would tend to excite such impulses and thoughts must be tested by the Court’s opinion as to its effect on a person with average sex instincts — what the French would call l’homme moyen sensuel — who plays, in this branch of legal inquiry, the same role of hypothetical reagent as does the “reasonable man” in the law of torts and “the man learned in the art” on questions of invention in patent law.
The risk involved in the use of such a reagent arises from the inherent tendency of the trier of facts, however fair he may intend to be, to make his reagent too much subservient to his own idiosyncrasies. Here, I have attempted to avoid this, if possible, and to make my reagent herein more objective than he might otherwise be, by adopting the following course:
After I had made my decision in regard to the aspect of “Ulysses”, now under consideration, I checked my impressions with two friends of mine who in my opinion answered to the above stated requirement for my reagent.
These literary assessors — as I might properly describe them — were called on separately, and neither knew that I was consulting the other. They are men whose opinion on literature and on life I value most highly. They had both read “Ulysses”, and, of course, were wholly unconnected with this cause.
Without letting either of my assessors know what my decision was, I gave to each of them the legal definition of obscene and asked each whether in his opinion “Ulysses” was obscene within that definition.
I was interested to find that they both agreed with my opinion: that reading “Ulysses” in its entirety, as a book must be read on such a test as this, did not tend to excite sexual impulses or lustful thoughts but that its net effect on them was only that of a somewhat tragic and very powerful commentary on the inner lives of men and women.
It is only with the normal person that the law is concerned. Such a test as I have described, therefore, is the only proper test of obscenity in the case of a book like “Ulysses” which is a sincere and serious attempt to devise a new literary method for the observation and description of mankind.
I am quite aware that owing to some of its scenes “Ulysses” is a rather strong draught to ask some sensitive, though normal, persons to take. But my considered opinion, after long reflection, is that whilst in many places the effect of “Ulysses” on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.
“Ulysses” may, therefore, be admitted into the United States.
JOHN M. WOOLSEY
United States District Judge
Woolsey’s decision was affirmed by the Second District Court of Appeals in 1934. It’s well worth remembering that America was the first English-speaking country where Ulysses became available to all, sold in bookstores, free to be read by all.
When Joyce heard of Woolsey’s decision, he commented:
Thus one half of the English speaking world surrenders. The other half will follow … And Ireland 1,000 years hence.
He exaggerated, of course, but he was pretty near right.
Woolsey’s decision is still a triumph, and his conclusions are ones we would do well to remember – not just when it’s thoughts/expressions we agree with, but more importantly when we disagree. Freedom of speech is tough, it requires vigilance, but the concept is as important as it gets in any so-called free society.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
July 2023 Viewing Diary
July was busy. I bought a new car. My old one basically disintegrated around me, so much so that the mechanic didn;t even want me to drive it home from his shop. I found a new apartment, and the market where I am is horrific (thanks Airbnb). But I found a unicorn of a place. I’m still pinching myself. Walking distance to the beach. Within my price range. I have a YARD. and a PORCH. I’m still afraid to talk about it out loud. I move end of this month). I went on vacation. I worked on a huge piece that will be coming out next week. So the viewing diary reflects the busy-ness. Also in my spare time I’ve been so wiped out that I prefer to watch hour-long “documentaries” on YouTube about how Bam Margera ruined his life (just one example), as opposed to digging into a movie. Not much brain space right now for anything else (oh, and I’m almost done with volume 3 of Proust’s magnum opus: It is 810 pages long and the majority of the entire book – not even an exaggeration – 600, 700 pages of it – are made up of the descriptions of two parties. It’s ridiculous! And amazing! So here’s what I watched in July.
La Ricotta (1963; d. Pier Paolo Pasolini)
This short film was part of a larger work, with multiple directors. “Subversive” doesn’t even really cover what’s going on here. Pasolini was hip and “criminal” and a trickster – Jean Genet-style, from the underworld with Catholic iconography in almost every frame. I love Orson Welles as the director of the movie-within-a-movie.
The Bear
WOW. I inhaled it. I basically forced Allison to watch it. I am in love with those characters, especially how the arc played out in Season 2. Season 1 established the context for each one, you get to know each member of that kitchen. Season 2 was a totally different format, with each character getting his/her own episode. I was almost surprised by how wholesome – in the best sense – Season 2 was. Redemptive. Second chances: we all should be allowed them. Excellence: some people don’t even know they had it in them until they were encouraged (Marcus! oh my God!) I’ve watched Season 2 twice in a row. I am hoping there will be a Season 3, although now with the strike I’m not sure what will happen. SAG/AFTRA/WGA strong! I support the strike, it shouldn’t have to be said.
The Miracle Club (2023; d. Thaddeus O’Sullivan)
I reviewed for Ebert. Sentimental.
Clash by Night (1952; d. Fritz Lang)
Always love re-visiting this one. Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan – as two hard-boiled hot-headed outsiders with outlaw emotional makeups – and Marilyn Monroe, who is adorable and natural and totally believable. A serious role. I also love the atmosphere established: this working-class fisherman’s beach town: the rickety bars, the rickety houses where tenants are on top of each other, no privacy, the beauty of the ocean and the squalor on land … Lang has a reporter’s eye.
The YouTube Effect (2023; d. Alex Winter)
I reviewed for Ebert. Not sure why we needed this doc. There are exposes on YouTube itself that are far more in-depth but I suppose if you’re not in that world this new doc is a good way to get familiar with the algorithm (which we all should know about ANYway since it is running our damn lives.)
The Deepest Breath (2023; d. Laura McGann)
I still can’t get some of the footage in this out of my mind. Terrifying. I reviewed for Ebert.
The Unknown Woman (2023; d. Morrisa Maltz)
I loved this film. I reviewed for Ebert.
Barbie (2023; d. Greta Gerwig)
Went with my sister, sister-in-law and niece during our vacation. We listened to Sinead O’Connor the entire 37-minute drive to the nearest movie theatre. It was the day poor Sinead died. We made a spectacle of ourselves, laughing at every single thing Ryan Gosling did. What’s amazing about it is he played it earnestly. He’s on the level. He MEANS it. That’s why it’s so hilarious. I have some pretty major qualms with it – and with what is going on with it – the advertising, my God – but I can see why it’s a hit. I think back on Lady Bird, which I did like … but my main take-away was: “The movie ends with a girl 1. going to church and 2. calling her mother. How old is the filmmaker again??” It’s an amazingly square ending coming from such a young filmmaker. I don’t mean to get generational-essentialist but … Gen X would laugh you off the block for this much status-quo-propping-up. I grew up with the kids in The Breakfast Club who realized their parents were frauds and hypocrites and making their own rules, lol. Gerwig’s next two movies just perpetuate the sense of overall square-ness. Little Women?? Okay. In the immortal words of Huey Lewis, it’s hip to be square, but I guess I just have a different sensibility. I like outlaw spirits, always have. I like Greta Gerwig and I am happy for her success. I’ve been interested in her since her mumblecore days. But I’ve got qualms. However: the movie is a blast. I don’t find it subversive at all, though. Mattel branding is everywhere, how subversive can it be? So. That’s where we’re at with it! Cue: Dance number!
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Barbara Stanwyck, Clifford Odets, comedy, documentary, drama, Fritz Lang, Italy, Marilyn Monroe, noir, Orson Welles, women directors
22 Comments
Happy Birthday, Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum, Cannes 1954, photograph by Leo Mirkine
Excerpt from Are You Anybody? An Actor’s Life, by Bradford Dillman
For the past fifty years Robert Mitchum has been captivating filmgoers with his sleepy demeanor. He was the first actor to be jailed for marijuana, and it’s no state secret he’s enjoyed a cocktail or two in his time. But his toughness is no pose.
Before beginning a film with him, Henry Hathaway, a director acknowledged as a card-carrying sadist, felt impelled to explain himself.
“Listen, Mitch,” he said. “I got this thing. Sometimes I get a little excited, call actors names and cuss them, but I want you to know it’s nothing personal. It’s just me.”
“I hear you, Henry,” Mitchum replied. “I know how it is. I’ve got this thing, too. See, whenever somebody calls me names or cusses me out, I haul off and bust him in the mouth. Nothing personal. It’s just me.”
Mitchum in prison for marijuana possession, 1949
Dillman shares another anecdote:
Yet few know what an intelligent, articulate man Mitchum is, how charming he can be. He’s also a prankster. When I worked with him on location in Hong Kong, our director was hearing-impaired. In the briefcase used for transporting his script he carried several hearing aid battery replacements. We’d rehearsed a scene in an office, we were doing Take One, I’d fed Mitch his cue, when he mouthed his response. No sound.
“Cut.” The director was pounding his ear. “Damn,” he said, removing the device, opening his briefcase to install a fresh battery. “Okay, let’s go again.”
Take Two. I give the cue, Mitch mouths his line.
“Cut.” The director pounding his ear anew. “Who makes these things, anyway?”
It took four takes for him to realize he’d been victimized by an imp.
The imp struck again during a scene in the lobby of the Hotel Peninsula, he and I seated at a table. Normally spectators keep a respectful distance as they observe the moviemaking process, but a blonde plumper spilling out of her pink pants suit couldn’t restrain herself. Between takes she rushed over and did a five-minute number on how Robert Mitchum ruled her life, how jealous he made her husband, how her friends teased her about her crush. It went on and on, the actor grunting occasionally before pretending to nod off.
The lady’s moving lips were right in his ear when Mitch jolted awake. Feigning shock, he thundered, “Suck what?”
Excerpt from Lee Server’s Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don’t Care
Director and star proved to be ideally matched. In [Robert] Mitchum, [Jacques] Tourneur had found the most expressive embodiment of his own cinematic aesthetic of eloquent, subversive resistance and oneiric sensuality. Tourneur loved Mitchum’s physical grace, the gliding, pantherlike movements, and his underplaying and powerful silences, his expressive quiescence thrilled the director whose films were among the quietest in the history of talking pictures. He savored Mitchum’s ability to listen in a scene. “There are a large number of players who don’t know how to listen,” said Tourneur. “While one of their partners speaks to them, they simply think, I don’t have anything to do during this; let’s try not to let the scene get stolen from me. Mitchum can be silent and listen to a five-minute speech. You’ll never lose sight of him and you’ll understand that he takes in what is said to him, even if he doesn’t do anything. That’s how one judges good actors.”
In Mitchum’s opposite, the sort who tried “not to let the scene get stolen”, Tourneur might possibly have been thinking of Kirk Douglas. With his explosive starring roles – Champion, Ace in the Hole, Detective Story – still a few years off, Douglas was becoming typed for intelligent, urbane characters, supporting parts. As Whit Sterling, certainly among the most well-spoken and civilized of ruthless racketeers, Douglas gave a brilliantly controlled and charismatic performance, but he could not have been thrilled by another second fiddle part – especially second fiddle to Mitchum, who had already taken from him the lead in Pursued. The two got along well enough off the set, but the rivalry would flare as soon as the cameras began to turn. Since Tourneur was not about to accept any obvious histrionics in his diminuendo world, Douglas was left to try and out-underact Mitchum, an exercise in futility, he discovered. He tried adding distracting bits of business during Mitchum’s lines and came up with a coin trick, running it quickly between the tops of his fingers. Bob started staring at the fingers until Kirk started staring at the fingers and dropped the coin on the rug. He put the coin away. In another scene, Douglas brought a gold watch fob out of his coat pocket and twirled it around like a propeller. This time everybody stared.
“It was a hoot to watch them go at it,” said Jane Greer. “They were two such different types. Kirk was something of a method actor. And Bob was Bob. You weren’t going to catch him acting. But they both tried to get the advantage. At one point they were actually trying to upstage each other by who could sit the lowest. The one sitting the lowest had the best camera angle, I guess – I don’t know what they were thinking. Bob sat on the couch, so Kirk sat on the table, then one sat on the footstool, and by the end I think they were both on the floor.”
Tourneur, no martinet, liked to give his performers a lot of freedom and waited out the one-upmanship antics with a weary grace. “Quoi qu’il arrive, restez calme,” he liked to say.
Actors were actors. One night he was screening the rushes of a scene with Mitchum and Douglas talking to each other on either side of the frame, and he was startled to see how Paul Valentine – placed in the background and without a line of dialogue – had craftily picked up a magazine and was flipping the pages with an altogether distracting intensity, hijacking the scene.
“Oh, Paul,” he said to the actor, “now I have to keep an eye on you, too?”
Robert Mitchum in 1958’s “Thunder Road,” a Gearhead Heaven type of movie
The duet in The Night of the Hunter is one of the most memorable and frightening scenes in cinema. A standoff between two dueling brands of Christianity, one that’s about compassion and one that’s about judgment. The sides cannot coexist. One side has to win. It is a battle still raging in our culture today, and the duet in Night of the Hunter is a chilling evocation of it. Whistler’s Mother with a shotgun vs. The Man Out There In the Dark.
Believers, both of them. Both are ready to break a Commandment, one of the most important Commandments of all. Until then, they sing.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up just thinking about this scene.
Mitchum made a big point of never seeming to work. He strolls through movies, smoking, looking around with heavy-lidded eyes, easy, natural, and can be ominous or sexy, sometimes at the same time. He was the ultimate Alpha Male. He could be terrifying (as in Night of the Hunter), or sexy and romantic. He could be a resourceful hero. He could be a sad-sack low-life. He could conduct his own “instrument”, like a Maestro, bringing this or that quality forward, but my analogy makes his work sound deliberate or studied. Nothing he did was ever studied. He was a valid leading man for decades. This cannot be explained. Some things just are.
Mitchum in “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” (1957)
I also love him for personally reaching out to Elvis to co-star with him in a movie he was developing (which ended up being Thunder Road). Elvis was so flattered that Mitchum came to see him personally, and also that Mitchum would have thought of him at all. The Colonel was furious and made it clear to his 21-year-old client that any and all offers had to come to the Colonel FIRST, and Elvis had no business making any deals without the Colonel’s say-so. The image, though, of Elvis and Mitchum, two crazy hep-cats, sitting around in Elvis’ suite in The Knickerbocker, Mitchum “pitching” his project to the young King of Rock ‘n’ Roll …
Well, I guess I just wish I had been there.
David Thomson wrote in his The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Sixth Edition
How can I offer this hunk as one of the best actors in the movies? Start by referring back to that dialogue [in Out of the Past]: it touches the intriguing ambiguity in Mitchum’s work, the idea of a man thinking and feeling beneath a calm exterior that there is no need to put “acting” on the surface. And for a big man, he is immensely agile, capable of unsmiling humor, menace, stoicism, and, above all, of watching other people as though he were waiting to make up his mind. Of course, Mitchum has been in bad films, when he slips into the weariness of someone who has read the script, but hopes it may be rewritten. But since the war, no American actor has made more first-class films, in so many different moods.
Mitchum’s monologue in the bowling alley in the wonderful gritty Friends of Eddie Coyle is a pure example of why Mitchum is so great. Done mainly in one shot, with only a couple of reaction shots.
Watch how Eddie Coyle (Mitchum) puts the arrogant yet stupid gun-runner (Steven Keats) in his place. You can almost see (or at least I can imagine I can see), Keats the actor watching Mitchum the actor, right in his face, thinking, “Holy shit, he is so good.” Or: he’s not thinking at all. Mitchum is so connected to himself and what he’s saying that Keats is drawn into that reality without having to work at it. You see that’s also the thing with genius actors. Not only do they make it look easy but they HELP everyone else around them to be as good as they are. That’s how much authority they have.
The monologue I’m talking about starts at around the 1 minute mark. It is rare today to let a scene go that long without a million cuts. To let someone just talk in that way. Movies today are poorer for it.
This is acting, in its purest most beautiful form.
To quote David Thomson again on Mitchum:
Untouchable.
And finally, just because it’s riveting:
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“Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much.” — Oscar Wilde
“He was not only a minor Virgil, he is also with Virgil as Dante saw him, a Virgil among the Shades, the saddest of all English poets.” – T.S. Eliot
It’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday, born on August 6, 1809.
Before we get started, here’s a short poem from the man who wrote super long poems. I think it’s perfection. Every. Single. Word.
The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, Ellen Terry, Emerson, England, Ezra Pound, George Orwell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Harold Bloom, Ireland, Jeanette Winterson, L.M. Montgomery, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Oscar Wilde, Philip Larkin, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, T.S. Eliot, Thomas Hardy, W.H. Auden
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Review: A Compassionate Spy (2023)
Steve James’ latest, about the Manhattan Project physicist Ted hall who passed on information about the implosion bomb to Soviet agents: my review of A Compassionate Spy.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “Ode to the West Wind”
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Camille Paglia, Dorothy Parker, England, Ernest Hemingway, Gerard Manley Hopkins, H.L. Mencken, Harold Bloom, John Keats, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Michael Schmidt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, poetry, Robert Graves, T.S. Eliot, Tennessee Williams, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, William Carlos Williams
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Marilyn Monroe and Method Acting
Nobody writes about Marilyn Monroe like my friend Kim Morgan. Nobody. That’s why I am so excited she wrote about Marilyn for Criterion – and not only Marilyn, but Marilyn’s connection to Method acting, and how important that technique was for her. I especially appreciated the details about Michael Chekhov’s work (and “psychological gesture” – every actor knows about this!). Kim really knows her stuff – about acting, about Lee Strasberg, and about the dazzling Marilyn. Enjoy: Marilyn’s Method.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
Happy Birthday, James Hetfield
Here’s my review of Through the Never, the 3-D concert film – plus concept film – starring Metallica. I’m really proud of that review.
This clips haunts me. It looks like the world is ending, or a new world is being born with great chaos and violence. Something being unleashed into the world. The bottle smashed.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
“The trouble with Hollywood is everybody is crazy for money.” — Ann Dvorak
Anna McKim chose “Ann Dvorak” as her stage name. She chose a challenging name to pronounce (for American audiences, that is) over her easily-pronounceable real name. Who does that?? Well, she does. It says a lot. It’s mischievous. I love it.
Jen Johans and I delved into the extremely satisfying subject of pre-Code actress Ann Dvorak when I appeared on Jen’s podcast to discuss Pre-Code films. Ann Dvorak should be WAY more remembered than she is. Her career has suffered eclipse for many years basically because so many of her films weren’t seen for decades – in the years before television and VHS and etc. That has since been rectified, with the Forbidden Hollywood box sets – where she reigns supreme – and also streaming platforms. If you have Amazon Prime, put her name in, and some of these old and almost completely forgotten films will come up. Ann Dvorak’s work does not date. It is so unbelievably contemporary: ALWAYS.
Heat Lightning is a relatively recent discovery. Aline MacMahon, known mostly as a sidekick character actress in pre-Codes, and always good, takes center stage, and is heartbreaking and tough-minded and funny. The whole film is great and so worth discovering. It’s streaming on Amazon! In Heat Lightning, Dvorak’s character looks forward to the youth-quake of the 1950s, with films like Splendour in the Grass or Rebel Without a Cause, a restless teenager in a hurry to grow up, bucking up against adult control, flirting with danger, anything to get OUT.
Heat Lightning
Dvorak is probably most well known for her performance in Howard Hawks’ Scarface, one of her films to have been played consistently over the years (and associated with Brian De Palma’s remake). Dvorak is hot-to-trot in it, as the gangster’s sister, busting out of the confines of her family – and her clearly incestuous relationship with her brother (it’s barely euphemistic). She’s wild and “carefree”, wearing a backless dress with straps making an X across her creamy skin. (Scarface is filled with ominous symbolic X-es.)
She’s such a disturbing and deeply connected screen presence.
Her best performance by a long shot is in Three on a Match, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. She is almost spookily ahead of her time. It’s a fearless performance, even for a Pre-Code. The performance doesn’t date at all. Throw her into a 1986 Brian De Palma film, she’d fit right in. The character’s arc is bleak and tragic. She is a rich girl, a rich woman, and … bored. Her boredom is existential in nature. There’s something missing. There’s a blank at the center of all of it, and she can’t really explain it. She just knows it’s there.
And so she runs away. And she takes her child with her. She vanishes into the underworld. And she feels no remorse about the husband who is devastated at his child being missing, who has no idea where she has gone. She is DONE playing by the world’s rules, she is DONE being a “good girl”.
This is not a happy story. She RACES to the bottom. She consorts with gangsters, she becomes addicted to heroin almost overnight, and most probably sells her body to support her habit – all as her little son, a baby, sits across the room looking on, filthy, neglected, traumatized. This is bleak shit, even by Pre-Code standards. And it gets even worse. Dvorak’s performance is unblinkingly realistic.
Three On a Match has not been available until relatively recently, a real loss. But it’s now “out there”, it plays at festivals, it plays on TCM, it’s in a box set. There’s no reason at this point that Dvorak’s performance – or Dvorak – should “sink into obscurity.” Her final scene in Three on a Match is difficult to watch. When you want to swoop in and save a character, when you want to leap through the screen to stop the horror unfolding – you know you’re in the presence of the Tragic.
Dvorak always had a tough side, a sharp edge, but these performances make me think she would have been a phenomenal Blanche Dubois (whose core is quite tough beneath the Southern belle persona). Dvorak lived in the dichotomy: ladylike, tough, romantic, streetsmart … Not a lot of people understand that fluid in-between state, but she did.
My friend Imogen Smith has written a lot about Three on a Match (and pre-Code movies in general), as well as a great piece on Dvorak – which unfortunately seems to have disappeared from the Internet. I did save some quotes from the piece, though: This is on Dvorak in Three on a Match:
You would never guess from this film that Bette Davis would wind up the best known of the three actresses, or that Humphrey Bogart would become a beloved icon, while Ann Dvorak would sink into obscurity.
Cosign.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Aline MacMahon, Ann Dvorak, Howard Hawks, Mervyn LeRoy, Pre-Code
4 Comments
