Rooting for Laughton: An online organum for Laughtonian agit-prop

The Case of the Lost Paradine scenes

2011-02-21T23:55:00.005+01:00

Ann Todd and Charles relax between takes

Many of you may have probably read Hitchcok being quoted (ad nauseam) about his work with Laughton in Jamaica Inn. Such quotes have been historically used to berate Laughton and his work. Many people seem to forget that Hitchcock worked again with the "difficult" actor in The Paradine Case: Have you come across any complaint by Hitchcock about his work with Laughton in that film? Well, neither have I (so far). In the light of this, I guess that Hitchcock wasn't after all, that uncomfortable with Charles. This time things between the two Englishmen seemed to go smooth enough. Laughton was, as a matter of fact, the least of Hitchcock's concerns during the filming of The Paradine Case.

Hitchcock had trouble enough with the producer: David O'Selznick was writing (and re-writing) the script and was responsible for the final cut of the film, much to the director's chagrin. Also, he didn't like the casting for the leading parts: for the roles played by Gregory Peck, Alida Valli and Louis Jourdan, he actually wanted (but couldn't have) Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo and Robert Newton... I, for one, think that we can only theorise about what a Garbo-Newton pairing could have been like, and believe that Jourdan suggested (better than Newton could have) the sexual ambiguity lurking under the valet's protestations of faithfulness to his deceased master. Peck is usually regarded by critics as a lesser counselor than the hypothetical performance by Olivier could have been, which reminds me of one critic's comment of how good Hellzapoppin could have been the Marx brothers starred in it (conveniently forgetting that Olsen and Johnson originated the show in Broadway).

The Paradine Case was the last film Hitchcock would do for Selznick, and not a fulfilling piece of work for him. It's no wonder that it wasn't among his favourites, and he would dismiss it on interviews. I personally think it's far from a bad film (a second rate Hitchcock is still more interesting than some other directors' first rate output) and can boast a handsome (and appropiately cold and somber) cinematography by Lee Garmes, an evocative score by Franz Waxman and engaging performances by the secondary players: Laughton in particular delineates a merciless portrait of stern justice with a touch of perversion (Lord Horfield's blunt flirtatiousness to Gay Keane -Ann Todd- seems to be a wink to the director's own obsessions)

Deleted scene: The defender and the judge in the art gallery

Hitchcock, and an unidentified crew member, prepare the scene with Gregory Peck and Laughton

The Barrymore nomination mystery
Since this post is meant to be part of a Blogathon devoted to film preservation, I'd like to to mention that some of the scenes deleted from the film's final cut have not been lost, the bad news being that there aren't any plans (to the best of my knowledge) for that footage to be used in a restoration or re-release of the film. Any discerning reader will have probably reached the conclusion that there was a lot of Laughton there (Yep, there is!)

These scenes also explain something that puzzled Calum Reed here: How Ethel Barrymore could have received an Oscar nomination for the film, having only a few scenes with little dialogue? Well, because she had originally more screen time.

Steven De Rosa sheds further light here, providing us with the script of those scenes, which deepen in the relationship and personality of Lord Horfield and his wife, and could have contributed to make a more rounded film. The fascinating thing about them is that the Horfields relationship seems to offer a dark mirror to the Keanes' marriage. Horfield dislikes Keane's passionate defence of his customers, maybe because that remembers him of a (long-gone) time when he still regarded criminals as human beings, and from his wife we gather that he used to be a more empathic man in the past (and one must assume a past in which poor Sophy's spirit had not been yet suffocated by years of marriage).

"Have you noticed how much the nuts resemble the human brain, Sophy? Which reminds me... What about comitting you to the nut house, darling?"

Horfield reveals to Anthony Keane that he fears his wife is losing her mind, even though it's obvious that Sophie's concerns about her husband's disquieting satisfaction after sending someone to the gallows hint that she thinks that "Tommy" is not very sane himself: Is she really loosing her mind, or is she just a meek wife who's frightened stiff of the heartless monster her husband has become? Judge Horfield's is possibly more insane than his wife, but his insanity serves the system, while poor Sophie's compassion may be regarded by everyone else as an undesirable sign of weakness.

Here's hoping that some day these scenes leave the vaults. Is there enough Paradine love for a new, restored DVD release?

A handful of Paradine Links
(all in English, unless otherwise stated):
:: David Cairns analyzes the Paradine syndrome
:: Voiceover’s Blog reviews the film (Spanish)
:: Two pieces ar Rouge.com: Douglas Pye writes In and Around The Paradine Case, while Mark Rappaport writes on the director's viewpoint
:: Olivier Eyquem writes on The Paradine Case here and here (French)
:: Atikus writes on two courtroom films with Charles (Spanish)
:: Jennythenipper has a case against The Paradine Case
:: William Martell gives us another review
:: Nick Zegarac reviews the last DVD release of the film

This post was written to support the For The Love Of Film Noir Blogathon.

Blogathon links
:: More information at Ferdy on Films
:: More information at The Self-Styled Siren
:: The blogaton's own home blog
:: The blogathon's facebook page
:: The website of the Film Noir foundation which will restore this year's film.
:: If you want to contribute with some money, here's the donation link

Isn't it romantic?

2011-02-13T20:58:00.005+01:00

Ah, Maurice, you lucky rascal! (and Charles seems to be enjoying every bit of it!)

Valentine day approaches, girls and boys, and we're not above lovebirds, so let's do something romantic, such as displaying our love... for film.

As last year, the For the Love of Film - Film Preservation Blogathon strives to raise awareness and funds for old movies in danger of being lost forever.

You can join by posting an entry related to film noir in your blog from february 14th to february 21st and/or giving a donation which will help rescue and restore an old film for future viewers.

For further information, I refer you to the following links:
:: More information at Ferdy on Films
:: More information at The Self-Styled Siren
:: The blogaton's own home blog
:: The blogathon's facebook page
:: The website of the Film Noir foundation which will restore this year's film.
:: If you want to contribute with some money, here's the donation link (Don't forget to include it in your own blogathon post!)
:: You can also check Greg's blog Cinema Styles, where you can find graphics you can use for the blogathon, and a terrific blogathon trailer:

Thy'n truly will try to post summat next week

A few Laughtonian tips for New Year celebrations

2010-12-31T19:58:00.005+01:00

Wishing you a happy New 2011 from the Cub Room, where -you know- the elite meet

I'd like to excuse myself with this blog's readership about the scarcity of posts and lateness of comment replies. Things have not been going well as far as work issues are concerned and I haven't been in the proper mood to update properly. I intended to make, at least, a big post saying how much I had liked the recent Criterion release of Night of the Hunter, but by (dis)courtesy of Barnes and Noble, I'm not expected to have my copy before I get my Valentines (By the way, If any of you has reviewed this release or knows of a dandy link about it, feel free to send it as I'll love to include it in the links section of that upcoming post).

Still, we'll be celebrating a new year tonight (which will be hopefully better that the year we're leaving behind), so let's drink and be merry for tomorrow we lie (with a hangover), and to this end we'll be giving some wise Laughtonian advice. Underage visitors are kindly discouraged to keep on reading: nothing for you here, kids, nothing for you...

We might start with Charles and Elsa's first trip to America, in which Charles played "Payment Deferred" in New York and Chicago. The couple had fond memories of his time by Lake Michigan, although Charles was surprised to find that local mobsters were not as colourful as he had portrayed them in Edgar Wallace's 1930 stage hit On The Spot: "I spent three weeks there without seeing a machine gun or hearing a gun shot" Charles would later reminisce.

Tony Perelli, or Capone according to Laughton

Elsa had some other anecdotes of the Prohibition era. On the occasion of a lone Transatlantic travel (Charles was left working in California), she entertained a couple of high society fellow travellers with stories such as the one about a little shop in Times Square which was...

(...) Just a hole in a wall with room for a narrow door. It sold only one thing –apparently reddish-purplish house bricks. Actually, they were dried pressed grapes, and round each brick was a label that read: "DO NOT put this in three quarts of water at a temperature of 76 degrees and leave uncovered for three weeks, then strain and over and leave for six more weeks, as it will become alcoholic AND THIS IS AGAINST THE LAW!"

She thought that New Yorkers had all "furry tongues and bad breath from drinking bathtub gin, which made plain tap water taste horrible", to which her rich acquaintance replied "Tap water, tap water, what does it taste like?

We have a useful tip by Charles' younger brother. When Charles, who was the elder son, relinquished his first-born right to direct the Pavilion Hotel of Scarborough in order to become an actor, his younger brother Tom was more than keen to take the post. As it turned, Tom may not been originally chosen by his parents for the job, but filled Charles' shoes quite efficiently, and possibly became a better (and more enthusiastic) hotelier than Charles would eventually have.

Tom left a book of memoirs in which he talks a bit about his famous brother, and mostly about his family's trade: his remarks on food and drink are quite worth reading, for he was as much a gourmet as his brother was, though of course he had by trade to oversee its quality on a daily basis to serve an important number of customers, so he was much more the pro in this regard.

Tom was keen on listening to the advice of those who worked for him, as in one occasion when he had to attend a party, and feared that the social obligation of drinking might obliterate his ability to attend the guests properly throughout the soirée (a situation in which many of us may find ourselves tonight). A butler gave him the advice of swallowing two desert spoonfuls of olive oil before drinking. This worked splendidly, though it must be said, much to Tom's regret:

(The party) was gay from the start, and still gayer as the party progressed, except for me. The butler's recipe was only too successful. For once in my life my capacity to take in alcohol was unlimited; it was passing through my stomach lined with with olive oil without getting into my blood stream. On the way home the roads were a sheet of ice, cars were skidding, and the car I was in did a double spin. What terrific fun for everyone, everyone except me –the only sobre one in the party. I have never taken precautions before going to a party since.

Anyway, whether your drinks are made from pressed grape bricks or not, and regardless of whether you take a spoonful of olive oil or none, celebrate and have fun tonight but drink wisely. And of course, don't drive drunk as the car might spin more than twice.

Be the soul of the party! Charles and Dean Martin on the sax, Dorothy Lamour plays the clarinet and Jerry Lewis slaps the bass

Notes on sources:
Charles is quoted from an interview in The Observer in 1932. Elsa's anecdotes are as told in her 1983 autobiography "Elsa Lanchester Herself", and Thomas Laughton memoirs Pavilions By The Sea

A Miracle Can Happen

2010-08-17T22:23:00.003+02:00

Today I was feeling like Félicie, the heroine of Eric Rohmer's Conte D'Hiver , because, you know, I found out that it's worth waiting for miracles to happen, even if the chances are seemingly infinitesimal.

What happened, then? Well, you may remember that a couple of years ago there was talk about a new DVD release of The Night of The Hunter. The project seemed shelved shortly after its announcement, and I crossed my fingers in case that cancellation was for the better.

And then today, Professional Tourist most kindly e-mailed me the news. Well, fasten your seatbelts!:

Night of the Hunter will be released in november in a two-disk DVD and Blu-Ray edition. By Criterion. With loads of extras.

I will confess that a NOTH edition by Criterion was the ultimate dream of many film-lovers. Personally, the actual release comes very near to my wildest cinephile dreams :

:: New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
:: Audio commentary featuring assistant director Terry Sanders, film critic F. X. Feeney, archivist Robert Gitt, and author Preston Neal Jones
:: Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter,” a two-and-a-half-hour archival treasure trove of outtakes from the film
:: New documentary featuring interviews with producer Paul Gregory, Sanders, Jones, and author Jeffrey Couchman
:: New video interview with Simon Callow, author of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
:: Clip from the The Ed Sullivan Show, in which cast members perform live a scene that was deleted from the film
F:: ifteen-minute episode of the BBC show Moving Pictures about the film
:: Archival interview with cinematographer Stanley Cortez
:: Gallery of sketches by author Davis Grubb
:: New video conversation between Gitt and film critic Leonard Maltin about Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter”
:: Original theatrical trailer
:: PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Terrence Rafferty and Michael Sragow

You see, the extras are substantial in amount and quality: One the most welcome features are Robert Gitt's documentary Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter, containing precious outtakes of the film, and the comments, interviews and contributions by first-rate Laughtonians and people who participated in the making of the film.

One still would have wished a few more items: I feel that Simon Callow's 1987 documentary about Charles Laughton would have been a fine addition to the luxuriant list of extras, and hopes that the interview can make up for it. I'd also liked that there was an extra disk containing the original soundtrack... Still, this upcoming release sounds like near perfection, and will certainly be welcomed by most.

I'd like to thank anyone who ever spread the love for this film, and particularly, those who joined this blog's campaign, which I hope helped at least to send the right vibes for the thing to happen, also to a few choice entities who have obviously been very thankful for their wax candles. And thanks indeed to the guys of Criterion, for taking the challenge and making a dream come true!

Of looks and millinery

2010-07-11T00:03:00.001+02:00

Elsa Lanchester:

Before any production, Charles would play with his new props–putting on a hat and taking it off, hanging it up, putting it down, at home, in his dressing room, or in the producer's office. This was a time of fun for Charles and any audience around him. He could look at you from under a hat brim like nobody else could. He knew he could captivate and mesmerize.

There's so much talk, and ink on paper, on the topic of "Charles not standing his face in the mirror", that I often wonder if this was really so, all of the time. Laughton may have been, in Simon Callow's deft definition "A disappointed narcissist", but, personally, I don't think he was as emo about his looks as Higham depicts him (often bordering the caricature), in fact, I'd go with Callow when he writes that "(Charles') ugliness, one might say, was a technique, rather than a condition". And Elsa's above quote underlines Charles' knowledge about his own power to charm people, in short, a Charles who was well aware of his attractiveness.

Charlie as a lad of twelve, in an early rehearsal of his under-the-brim bussiness, and not yet looking too bad, in his own opinion

So, he could look himself into a mirror (otherwise, the daily shaving would have been quite a chore). There's in fact, an interesting quote by Peter Bogdanovich:

When I was sixteen or seventeen, my parents used some connections they had to arrange for me to go backstage and meet Charles Laughton, who I believe was playing in Shaw's Don Juan In Hell (which he also directed). He was quite heavy and awfully nice in a slightly gruff yet self-deprecating way. When I told him I wanted to be an actor he said, "Well, you should have no trouble–you're a good-looking boy. I've looked like the hind end of an elephant since I was twenty-one."

So, at least, up to being 21 of age, Charles seemingly didn't consider himself ugly-looking. One ponders if it was merely a manner of speaking, or whether something happened to him around that age which made him look into the mirror in a different way for ever more...

Well... Happy belated 111th birthday, Charles! (because your birthday was on July 1st... Today, of course, is Tura Satana's birthday)

Sources:
Simon Callow's Charles Laughton, A Difficult Actor; Elsa Lanchester's Elsa Lanchester Herself; Peter Bogdavich's Who the Hell's in It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors

Buddy, buddy

2010-04-25T23:20:00.004+02:00

From left to right: Gary Cooper, Laughton, Jobyna Ralston, Jack Haley and Richard Arlen (circa 1933)

In the above picture, Gary Cooper smirks to the camera and leans over Charles in a chummy manner, and Charles looks quite happy. If you are interested in some background about this image, keep on reading.

1932. Charles and Elsa arrive to Hollywood after he's reached a suitable agreement with Paramount: A three year contract, two films a year, which will allow Laughton to combine film and stage work. Charles rightly expects that thanks to Paramount's money he will be able to afford non-commercial theatrical ventures (1), but is a bit surprised that, in spite of Paramount's pressing demands for him to hurry to the West Coast, he is left to wait in California with little to do.

While his friend Benn Levy works in the script of The Devil And The Deep (the film devised by Paramount to be his Hollywod debut), Charles and Elsa wander around Hollywood: it's a curious place, but both feel a bit homesick, specially her (2). Charles finds an occupation in snooping around and investigating about Hollywood studios' working systems, so different from his previous and fleeting film experience in Britain. And the difference between stage and screen acting! Charles realises that he must work hard in order to adapt his style to suit the camera, so he welcomes the opportunity of playing a small role in a film directed by his friend James Whale at Universal, The Old Dark House, which will be his first actual Hollywood film (if not officially).

Useful as his experience under Whale's direction is, he now faces the challenge of playing a lead role, pitted against one of Hollywood's more popular stars, Gary Cooper: a bit of tension would have been expected, all the more when the female lead was played by Tallullah Bankhead, who didn't precisely warm on Laughton (3). Miss Bankhead seemed to ignore the man who was to play her husband onscreen: her only declared interest in her Hollywood foray had been to meet Gary Cooper, with whom she expected to be able to strike up a friendship, if not, hum, more. However, if you think this is a landscape with a storm brewing, you're wrong.

Charles was, in fact, struck by a revelation when he saw Gary Cooper casually light a cigarette on the set:

I knew then that he’d got something I should never have, I went across the set and asked him to tell me how he did it. He looked shy and bewildered and said that I ought to know better than he did. I was from the stage and he was just a ham movie actor

... If you're reading between lines, it's evident that, well, Charles got a bit of a crush on Cooper, but his reasoning nevertheless contains a great truth: we might say that he realised what a film star's power was about, as opposed to character -or craft- acting. Some time later he would elaborate further his thoughts on the differences between Cooper's style and his own:

We act in opposite ways. His is presentational acting. Mine is representational. I get at a part from the outside. He gets at it from the inside, from his own clear way of looking at life. His is the right way, if you can do it. I could learn to do it, but it would take me a year to do what he can do instinctively, and I haven’t the time…

Laughton would in fact, take a stance in defending film acting such as Cooper's. Laughton's sincere praise wasn't an usual move at a time when it was fashionable among theatrical people to look down upon film actors, a practice that he would emphatically criticise in an interview in 1934:

Why must the so-called high-brows vilify them? For every popular screen personality there’s a sound, underlying reason… and a very good reason. Actors and actresses don’t just become stars because a producer puts them in a picture, or because they are beautiful. There’s a reason for their success. Each one has some unique something, important enough for the public, in large droves, to pay money to see. The public in general doesn’t analyse this appeal; they realise it subsconsciously

But back to 1932 and The Devil and The Deep: However bitter their enmity was onscreen, offscreen Charles and Coop became the best of pals. Richard Schickel describes the situation:

Worse than the silly (4) scenario were the working conditions. Cooper, in the midst of a salary squabble with the studio, was uncharactheristically sulky and, despite his reputation as one of Hollywood's leading studs, impervious to Bankhead's determined advances. She, in turn, took an intense dislike to laughton who, completing an unlikely triangle, was smitten by the gorgeous Cooper. Not that any overt homosexual advances were made, but laughton, envying him his easy naturalism, would go to his grave proclaiming Cooper one of the best actors he had ever worked with

It's fun to bear this in mind when you thing that in the film, Lieutenant Sempter (Cooper) is Diana Sturm's (Bankhead) lover, and that Mrs. Sturm still has a bit of love left for the overjealous husband who mistreats her, and Captain Sturm (Laughton) hates both intensely: In real life, is not unlikely that it was Tallullah the one that got crossed while Coop taught Charles how to smoke for the camera and, in spite of Charles' admission that he wouldn't have time to catch up with Coop's manner onscreen, he would soon prove his ability to incorporate into his own work some of what he admired in the Montanan's acting: just a few months later, in Island of Lost Souls, Laughton would show that he could have his way with cigarettes in front of a camera.

While discussing Laughton's early difficulties at working with Clark Gable a few years after in Mutiny On The Bounty, Simon Callow points at other factor that may have drawn Charles to admire Cooper:

(...)Gary Cooper's perhaps even greater beauty had not disturbed laughton in the least: he had frankly admired him, both as an actor and in physical terms. perhaps the key word, here, however, is 'beauty'. Cooper, with his ravishing androginy, full of lip, luxuriant of eyelash, gentle of manner, had -at least in his performing personality- found a perfect balance between his mascuine and feminine elements, which was no threat to Laughton. It was exactly the balance that he longed to achieve himself but which for most of his life resolved itself into a battle, rather than a blend

Unfortunately, Laughton and Cooper wouldn't work together in another film: while they both act in If I Had A Million, they do so in different episodes of this anthology film. A chance to do so came close when Charles considered Cooper to play Preacher Powell in The Night Of The Hunter, a role which was eventually -and memorably so- played by Robert Mitchum. Mitchum owned the role in such way that it is difficult to imagine any other actor playing Preacher... One still wonders, though, how Cooper would have fared in the same part.

Some links:
:: Girl Friday reviews the film
:: at Another review at Greenbriar Picture Show
:: Fictional Film Club makes an interesting -and entertaining speculation- about what a new collaboration between Laughton and Cooper could have been: The Trascendentalist

Sources:
Simon Callow's "Charles Laughton, A Difficult Actor", Elsa Lanchester's "Elsa Lanchester Herself", Preston Neal Jones' "Heaven and Hell To Play With", Richard Schickel's "Matinee Idylls" and a 1934 interview to laughton at PictureGoer

Notes:
1) In fact, this first stint at Paramount will help Charles afford to materialize an old dream: spend a season playing Shakespeare at the Old Vic (in 1933-34).
2) Elsa would recall, by the time they reached California "Charles was a nobody, and I was the wife of as nobody". Not long after she would return to London, leaving Charles alone: MGM shoot a film adaptation of "Payment Deferred", which Charles and Elsa had played on London and Broadway, but Maureen O'Sullivan was cast in the part Elsa had played in Broadway, which to the homesick Elsa proved to be the last straw: she swiftly returned to London, leaving Charles in California.
3) Curiously enough, for Miss bankhead was a good friend of Elsa... or maybe precisely because of that?
4) While the odd combination of a love triangle, mad jealousy, exotic settings and submarines may seem a bit contrived, the truth is that The Devil And The Deep mixes those elements with a certain charm... A contemporary film with the same ingredients (plus a few explosions to give the recipe a zeitgeisty zest), would probably give far more silly results.

The last of Ben Harper

2010-04-05T01:52:00.009+02:00

"I'm going now, children... Goodbye"

While most obituaries about the recently deceased Peter Graves remember his work in the TV series "mission impossible", many of you may also remember him as Ben Harper, the good man whose only day of dishonesty takes him to the gallows, a short but relevant role in The Night of the Hunter...

I was working with John Ford in a picture. One day I started to say: "About this scene. This part I'm playing. I think that–" Ford snapped me shut. "Don't think in my picture, " he growled. Moving from Ford to Charles was like moving from hell to heaven

So stated Graves when asked about his memories of The Night of the Hunter. Laughton is sometimes pointed as a "difficult" actor by some directors, but Peter Graves' comment makes evident that even actors without a feisty reputation on the sets resented being treated by directors as if they were objects. It should be no surprise that, when Laughton was behind the camera, wouldn't forget what it felt like to be in front, and in consequence, be considerate towards them, to the point that he wouldn't interrupt takes with a "Cut!", and keep the camera rolling, in order to preserve his actors' concentration (this curious proceeding, by the way, left a remarkable lengtht of precious celluloid).

Laughton directs Preacher trying to convince Ben Harper about making a substantial donation to his holy cause

I'll give you again a link to a recent interview with Peter Graves .

Plus a few homages in the blogosphere: Plumas de Caballo , Bright Lights after dark , Screensavers , Edward Copeland on Film.

...And in the online press: The Guardian , The New Yorker , The Times , The New York Times , Los Angeles Times , El Pais.

The senator was undermined

2010-02-17T01:47:00.004+01:00

This week is taking place across the blogosphere For The Love Of Film, The Film Preservation Blogathon, hosted by Campaspe at Self-Styled Siren and by Marilyn at Ferdy On Films. The event is meant to raise awareness (and funds) to help the National Film Preservation Foundation prevent the further disappearance of old celluloid (for those of you willing to contribute with a donation here's the link for donations).

I thought that would be a good occasion to finally finish a post on Charles Laughton's lost scenes from Spartacus whose draft I have kept in the fridge for months. So here it goes:

Gracchus and Caesar's walk through the streets of Rome: a scene deleted from the last edit of the film, but still present in some early lobby cards

The restoration of Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) a few years ago, which released a carefully reconstructed version of the film, received much publicity about recovered scenes such as as the "oysters and snails" one between Laurence Olivier/Crassus and Tony Curtis/Antoninus, yet the sad fact remains that, although a good deal of Spartacus' footage has been saved and reincorporated, there were many scenes which have been lost forever: we could say we have oysters without pearls. Among those vanished scenes (some surviving only as stills) there were a few featuring Gracchus, played by Charles Laughton, who didn't precisely have a lot of screen time in the film to start with.

The incredible shifting script
In Howard Fast's novel, the (third) Servile War is recalled by those who were involved, Romans and slaves alike. Spartacus is thus only present in their memories, haunting them. A main theme is the impact of war in Rome and its society and in the balance of power in the high spheres of the republic: Crassus' final victory over Spartacus triggers the transition from a Republican democracy to the dictatorship of the patrician elite, eventually to become the Roman Empire.

Leading the opposing political factions of Rome, Fast presents Sempronius Gracchus, a senator and leader of the plebs and Marcus Licinius Crassus, a wealthy patrician general. While Crassus revels in his victory, and the new order resulting from Spartacus' defeat, Gracchus ponders if the slaves weren't right, after all: the senator recalls a time when the citizens Roman republic were not as decadent as they are now, and stood for themselves the way Spartacus and the slaves stood to fight for their freedom. Both men become obsessed with Varinia, but to Crassus, Varinia is just a trophy: he just wants to possess her. Gracchus, on the other hand, wants to understand her, and Spartacus' cause, realising that the slaves lived for a set of worthy values which for Romans are a long-lost memoir. Empathizing with their cause, Gracchus will orchestrate Varinia's escape and sacrifice himself to honour the old Republican virtues after a lifetime of corruption... and also, of course, because he gets a kick out of screwing Crassus' plans.

Fast presents Gracchus and Crassus as political archetipes which have a continuity in our days. For him Gracchus resembles an old Irish politician like Tip O'Neill , and Crassus resembles those born with a silver spoon, like George Bush... I hope it is clear, by now, that in Howard Fast's original novel, Gracchus and Crassus are presented as two main characters in the plot, equal in importance: How come then, that in the final film, Crassus is one of the principals and Gracchus a secondary character? One reason might lie in the convoluted gestation of the script.

Once Kirk Douglas and producer Edward Lewis set their eyes on Fast's novel, they felt they had to secure the property, for there was talk of United Artists producing a film titled The Gladiators, starring Yul Brynner, and there were even promotional stills of Brynner dressed as a gladiator. They saw that getting big names for the production would be good way to beat the rival project: thus, a script needed to be produced without delay.

Howard Fast was initially asked to adapt his novel, but since the producers weren't enthusiastic about the script he was writing, they requested the services of one of Hollywood's most expert writers, Sam Jackson: actually a nom de plume of Dalton Trumbo, unable to sign scripts with his real name because he was in the blacklist (1). Trumbo wrote the script in three weeks, and later considered that the further changes brought over by the adventurous making of the film didn't significantly improve his first draft.

As soon as the script was ready, copies were sent to the chosen stars, who agreed to work in the film.

A promotional still from the same street scene: notice the grafitti here and in the previous image

Backstage manoeuvres in the dark
One of the challenges Trumbo faced in adapting the novel was that, since Spartacus was the protagonist and was played by the producer of the film, the use of the recollections and flashbacks in the novel had to be changed from past tense to present, and Spartacus' actions narrated in chronological order: if Spartacus now was no longer a ghost, the rest of the story (and subplots) had to be squeezed accordingly to leave space. Simon Callow wrote in his Laughton biography that Kirk Douglas, in order to secure his dream cast, sent different versions of the script as a bait to the actors he wanted to be in the film, in which their characters seemed to be the most interesting part of the movie. John Baxter, in his Kubrick biography, denies it.

I am of the opinion that Callow is nearer the truth... for one, it well might be that there could be early rewrites, considering that Trumbo claimed to have written over 1400 pages of rewrites of the script. On the other hand, Peter Ustinov also stated the tension when, during the first rehearsal, Charles Laughton realized that the script he had read wasn't apparently, quite the same Laurence Olivier and the others were working with. Ustinov also said that Olivier came a week before the rest of principals, and it seems that he didn't waste time in suggesting improvements on his character. It is alleged that Olivier was interested in playing Spartacus: if so, it's not unlikely that Douglas, in order to secure the interest of the knight, guaranteed the importance of his role as Crassus.

Another factor was that, while Trumbo was the main writer, he wasn't the only one involved: as he puts it, the final script was the result of a comitee's work. It is obvious that the star/producer and the director, whose own opinions over the story differed, would have their say, and besides, all the performers would ask their parts to be improved.

Now Laughton may have been in disadvantage for many reasons: one being the fact that his own working schedule only allowed him to work for three weeks in the film. Obviously, those who were available for a longer time were in better position to add scenes and phrases that improved the roles they were playing. Still, it may be not well known that when Laughton played Captain Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty (1936), he had a similarly tight schedule due to contractual obligations with Alexander Korda. But then producer Irving Thalberg and director Frank Lloyd were aware of the relevance of his character to the film, so Bligh's part wasn't cut or reduced while Laughton was away working in other films. Sadly, in Spartacus he wasn't in serious, contract-abiding company, so neither his character or himself received the respect he had got from Thalberg or Lloyd.

One of the characters which is the most benefited from the novel to film transition is Lentulus Batiatus, played by Peter Ustinov. In the novel, Batiatus is only relevant in the part of the story where Spartacus is trained at the gladiatorial school, disappearing once the slave revolt takes place. The scenes which Ustinov/Batiatus shares with Laughton/Gracchus in the film do not exist in the novel: Cracchus confidants and assistants are his political lackeys. Not that melting all this characters in one, as Trumbo did, is bad for the film: Batiatus is left as an entertaining, multilayered character capable of evolution in the course of action. The bad side is, this overshadows even more Gracchus' role. When Laughton felt crossed about the way his character had been diminished, Ustinov offered to rewrite his part, and Laughton was rather satisfied with that: there is, in fact, a great chemistry in their scenes together.

Dalton Trumbo was ambivalent about Ustinov's rewrites: on one side, he thought they bring considerable wit and humour to the script, thus balancing the tragedy and drama in the film. The bad side, Trumbo believed, was that Ustinov's rewrites belittled Gracchus, something Trumbo suspects Ustinov did on his own best interests to boost his part at the expense of Laughton's. Trumbo wrote that "Charles put himself into Peter's hands for certain rewrites in this scene. He could not have bee unluckier in his choice since Peter was determined to give Charles a screwing, and did so". Trumbo resented certain humoristic additions to the character, as Gracchus character "is far more important to the film as a whole than a few cheap laughs from the audience (...) The part of Gracchus can be amusing by reason of the character's wit and attitude, but it cannot be called truly comic" as Batiatus part is meant to be.

Still, I believe that Trumbo's complaints about the final script diminishing Gracchus' intelligence, for not feeling the change of tide (i.e. as when he is caught by surprise when his pupil Caesar defects him to join the cause of Crassus) should be somewhat mellowed by the fact that Laughton was perfectly capable to suggest what the written script had taken away from him. If you remember the scene in which Crassus leaves Rome to fight Spartacus you'll see that Laughton suggests, with just a glance, that Gracchus is perfectly aware that the winds no longer blow on his sails.

Laughton's Gracchus: far more perceptive than the final script allowed him to be

Lillian Gish, being interviewed about The Night of The Hunter, declared that in her view "an artist is like a six-moth kitten in business matters usually, and he needs someone he can trust, someone to manage the business for him". Preston Neal Jones believes that she must have had Laughton in mind when she said that... The truth is, Laughton was never apt at backstage manoeuvring and backstabbing: he was of the innocent opinion that, if one should strive to do the best possible work, one's efforts should receive recognition... But for this to be possible, one's efforts must reach the light, and what we can now see of his Gracchus is what survived a fierce behind-the-cameras war for the best lines and the greater screen presence.

The vestal and the strumpet
Ustinov liked to recall the events under a jocose light: he laughs at everyone and particularly seems to enjoy poking fun at Laughton. Mind me, not that this isn't fun to watch, but he often makes remarks about Charles which I find dangerously reductive. Ustinov states that Laughton would be in an intensely morose attitude throughout the shooting. These statements have been often isolated to highlight Laughton's "difficult temperament", as if, you know, he was pouting just because. In fact, Ustinov himself explains some reasons for Laughton's sulk which, curiously enough, are not highlighted half as often (2).

As opposed to a stereotyped image of a non-commital, whimsy prima donna, Laughton had done his homework: he was knowledgeable on classic history (at school he excelled in Latin) and had played two caesars earlier in his career. Laughton was always thorough in his preparation, and would usually read the original literary sources of a script (as well as any related books), so it is highly likely that he had read Howard Fast's novel. At any rate he was certainly aware of the importance of Gracchus in the original story, and according to Ustinov, "Laughton was very unhappy with what they had done to his part (...) it really didn't give him ammunition to deal with the other things. He had many ideas of his own which were incorporated vaguely into the mass of the thing: He felt he'd been taken advantage of and got to play this part which, to his mind was a really minor part by means which were not absolutely fair". In fact, Laughton would have agreed with Trumbo that the final script seriously downgraded Gracchus intelligence. Kirk Douglas used to tell with amusement, that Laughton would come and say he was going o sue him, pretending, in genuine "who? meee?" fashion that he would not know what Laughton was talking about.

There's another famous statement by Ustinov in which he compares Olivier and Laughton, seeing Olivier as a a pure vestale devoted to the art of Thespis, and Laughton as a Hollywood whore. It is true that one may share some disappointment about what could be felt as Laughton's waste of his talents in certain lesser films, but regardless of the quality of the film he might be working in, Laughton would generally toil to get the best possible performance. Besides, the comparison is hugely unfair considering what Laughton did in 1933, saying no to opulent Hollywood offers in order to be able to work for months at the Old Vic with much lesser wages. More examples? He would struggle to stage Brecht's Galileo (in 1947!), and making The Night of the Hunter isn't precisely the kind of film one does to get big bucks. After Spartacus, incidentally, Laughton would devote months to prepare for the part of King Lear... Honest, none of this makes me think of Laughton as the rent-by-the-hours type.

Whorish or not, Laughton's performance was certainly well appreciated by the writers: it certainly pleased Dalton Trumbo, and Howard Fast declared that Laughton "elevates whatever he's in, wherever he is"

Gracchus gives Caesar a few practical tips about buying votes at the public house: another scene lost forever

The film expands in Spain
Saul Bass said that "as the picture went along, it tended to expand". In fact, after the film was considered nearly finished, Dalton Trumbo issued a scene-by-scene memo analising the film and suggesting improvements. Trumbo complained that, while the life of the Romans was depicted in rich detail, the slaves were treated as a generic group of anonymous, undifferentiated people, and no clues as to their way of life and beliefs were given. To keep the balance, and strenghten Spartacus' reasons for revolt, he felt that the film needed extra scenes depicting the life of slaves.

So the crew and part of the cast went to Spain for further shooting (3). It is sadly ironic that the shooting of these scenes about slaves fighting for their freedom was done in a country living under a dictatorship not unlike the kind Crassus wanted for republican Rome. Edward Lewis recalls, not without compunction, that in order to be in the dictator's good graces, they donated money to the favourite charities of Franco's wife.

Spain became a popular location for big Hollywood productions during that period (4), mostly because of the weather and the benefits of monetary change, which helped to keep the budgets tight. The availability of trained Spanish conscripts for mass and/or battle scenes also came handy in the case of Spartacus. George Sanders, shooting Solomon and Sheba in Spain around the same period, was seriously concerned about the poor Spanish boy soldiers, often being used for dangerous stunts without proper protection and without getting any of the profits their generals got for hiring them (5).

Once the Battle scenes and the extra slave footage were added to the early edit, the film had swelled considerably and Kubrick was asked to reduce footage. Ironically enough, among the first scenes to be cut away were the depictions of Roman life Trumbo had praised to demand an equal treatment of slaves, and along with them, the scene where Gracchus/Laughton gives Caesar/Gavin practical lessons of how to earn votes (basically, by buying them). Kirk Douglas recalled that as a wonderful scene, whose cutting could only be explained for time reasons.

John Baxter writes that Kubrick didn't give much thought to cutting away Laughton's scenes, and maybe he relished that as well, not having found Laughton as a cooperative, or even worse, obedient performer. Peter Ustinov remembers how Laughton and him would rehearse the scene thoroughly at home, and on the following day, they would arrange the furniture of the set and perform the scene in such a perfectly finished way, that Kubrick had little option but film them as they had contrived. "It was difficult" said Ustinov "for even Kubrick to start from scratch and suggest we should do something different". Not that Kubrick would easily forget such breach of directorial authority: when the time came, Stanley grinded his ax and started to chop Gracchus footage mercilessly: "Here's Johnneeee!"

Any scene with Laughton that was cut is lost forever, except for a sound clip of Gracchus' suicide and last instructions to one of her liberated slaves. Nothing more.

Laughton would play a senator again in his last film, Advise and Consent: on that occasion, the director respected the actor's performance and the film certainly benefited from that. And certainly Spartacus could have be a better movie with a bit more of Gracchus in it. I certainly agree with Trumbo that the loss of importance of the senator's role is a great loss to the picture.

Notes
(1) But not for long, Trumbo was credited with as the author of the script of Otto Preminger's Exodus (1960), and Kirk Douglas would acknowledge him as well as the writer of Spartacus.
(2) There's something which is not mentioned by Ustinov and may explain further Charles' feeling annoyed... Remember I mentioned in the previous post someone didn't allow Don Juan in Hell to be played in London? Well, that someone was present in the shooting of Spartacus: The nimble reader will no doubt be able to deduce the identity of the culprit.
(3) Something rather evident for any Spanish viewer of Spartacus who recognizes in the background village houses as the ones in which their grandparents and parents dwelled, and many still live in: frankly, these rural buildings hardly look Roman.
(4) As many other producers did, as Stanley Kramer (i.e. The Pride And The Passion, 1957) or Samuel Bronston (i.e. El Cid, 1962).
(5) Sanders remembered when he accidentally ran over a young soldier with a chariot. Fortunately the soldier's injuries weren't too bad, but Sanders noticed that they wore no protection apart from their costumes, and were given no choice about wheter they wanted to be in a film or not, being under military orders. Incidentally, Yul Brynner (who wouldn't make The Gladiators, after all) was playing King Solomon susbtituting the recently deceased Tyrone Power.

Sources
:: Spartacus Special edition DVD (Criterion's version, released in Zone 2 by Universal), containing a Peter Ustinov interview; Track with comments by Kirk Douglas (actor and producer), Peter Ustinov (actor), Howard Fast (writer), Edward Lewis (producer), Saul Bass (designer) and Robert Harris (film restoration expert); Track with Dalton Trumbo's notes to the script read by actor Michael McConnohie.
:: "Spartacus" by Howard Fast
:: "Charles Laughton. A Difficult Actor" by Simon Callow
:: "Stanley Kubrick: A Biography" by John Baxter
:: "Dear Me" by Peter Ustinov
:: "Heaven and Hell to Play With" by Preston Neal Jones
:: "Memoirs of a professional Cad" By George Sanders

Some links
:: A review of the Criterion DVDA edition at Filmsondisc.com
:: Review by Roger Ebert
:: Review at Bear, Schmear!
:: Promotional illustrations by Tom Van Sant
:: Article by SuperSantiego in La realidad Estupefaciente (in Spanish)
:: Review by Jonathan Rosembaum
:: Review by CSE Cooney
:: Review at Dynamic 01
:: Review at American left History
:: Review at Cinema Debate (in Portuguese)
:: Review at aVoir-aLire.com (in French)
:: Mark Farnsworth reviews Spartacus at Global Comment
:: Review by Major Reisman (in Spanish)
:: Review by Pepe Gutierrez-Álvarez in Kaosenlared.net (in Spanish)
:: Review by Bob Aldrich in The Great Unmade Robert Aldrich Romantic Comedy

One hell of an mp3

2010-02-11T16:16:00.010+01:00

Well, I have good news Today! The 1952 Columbia recording of "Don Juan in Hell" has been re-released. Not in CD and not by the current owners of the rich Columbia catalogue who, I fear, are not particularly interested in re-releasing the many precious jewels in their vaults. Luckily, Saland Publishing considers that this recorded play will interest modern audiences, and has released the original two-vinyl set in two downloadable mp3 files, which are available at Amazon and iTunes at an irressistible price: let me tell you, these could be the best spent two dollars in your life.

"Don Juan in Hell" would deserve a real hugue post devoted to it, but today I'll just do a briefing.

The original Columbia cover of the recording

By the beginning of the fifties Laughton, through his association with Paul Gregory, was touring the States doing highly successful literary readings in whatever available space a stage could be improvised and an audience assembled. Laughton would mesmerize the public with words with just a bunch of books and a stool as props, declaring that "contrary to what I'd been told in the entertainment industry, people everywhere have a common shy hunger for literature", which was (and I fear, still is) a daring statement to make.

Gregory, seeing the box-office benefits of Laughton's literary crusade, wondered about the further possibilities of the act, and whether a play could be staged in such an economical (but effective) way with more performers. Discussing the matter with Laughton, they thought that the third act of George B. Shaw's Man and Superman, detached from the course of action of the rest of the play, would be a good choice for the experiment. This act presented a philosophical debate between Don Juan, The Devil, Doña Ana and the Statue (a.k.a. the Commander, Ana's father), and wasn't performed at all in most stagings of Man and Superman. Laughton and Gregory considered that the Don Juan in Hell act was long autonomous enough to be presented as a theatrical event on its own right.

They assembled three performers: suave Charles Boyer to perform the persuasive Burlador, the brilliant Agnes Moorehead to play Doña Ana, and Shaw veteran Cedric Hardwicke to play the Statue. Laughton would play the urbane Devil and direct the play. The four players would perform on a stage (bare save for the stools and microphones), wearing evening dress, apparently "reading" the play but under its minimal appearance there was a sophisticated dramatic work.

Hardwicke, Boyer, Moorehead and Laughton: The First Drama Quartette

George B. Shaw had clashed famously with a younger Charles Laughton when he performed professor Higgins while being a student at RADA: Shaw told Charles that he thought he was a dreadful Higgins, but predicted him a brilliant career "within the year". Shaw not only predicted Charles' quick ascent to lead parts, but also would, a few years later, consider him the best candidate to play Higgins of film (which sadly didn't materialise: I'd certainly would have liked to be able to compare such a performance with Leslie Howard's fine turn). When Charles asked Shaw for permission, the writer was still of the opinion that the third act was difficult to stage, but gave his blessings -and advice- to Laughton nonetheless. "Don Juan in Hell" is a compendium of Shavian themes, Hardwicke said it contained "the germs of virtually all his plays in one form or another", and Laughton considered it "a cathedral of ideas".

The play toured succesfully through many American cities and towns before its triumphant Broadway debut (a clever build-up characteristic of Gregory), and became a hit that revolutionized the American stage (1) and started Charles' -long delayed!- career as a stage director, a trade in which he would earn a remarkable and well deserved renown in the years to follow.

A few related links:
:: Terry Teachout reviews the mp3 and chronicles the First Drama Quartette's adventures in theaterland at Wall Street Journal
:: "The Happy Ham", an article about Laughton and the Don Juan In Hell tour (Time Magazine, March 1952)
:: A contemporary review of the play at "Time"
:: A post on Agnes Moorehead at Movie Morlocks, featuring an interview with Charles Tranberg, author of I Love The Illusion, a biography of the actress.

Sources:
My paper copy of the abovelinked Time magazine, Simon Callow's seminal Charles Laughton, A Difficult Actor, Cedric Hardwicke's autobiography A Victorian in Orbit and Charles Higham biography of Laughton.

Note:
(1) There was a British interval of the Don Juan In Hell Tour during the Festival of Britain, in wich the four actors briefly toured the United Kingdom, but didn't play in London: The apparent reason being that someone in the British scene decided that, since a staging of the complete "Man and Superman" was played at the city, the London public wouldn't be interested in an alternative staging of the third act of the play, and one done by, *harumph*, "film stars". That someone obviously had a low consideration of the London's love for theatre or the fact that the play directed by Laughton had been sanctioned by Shaw himself, and sadly denied the Londoners the chance to enjoy both stagings.

So this is the woman it took Crassus eight legions to conquer...

2010-01-23T14:50:00.003+01:00

Batiatus: Come with us. See to it that I don't misuse the money.

Gracchus: Don't be ridiculous, I'm a senator. Will you please go before the soldiers come in?

Gracchus: Oh, this would really make Crassus jealous.

So you see, Gracchus was second only to Spartacus as far as Varinia was concerned. Eat your heart out, Crassus!

I'd like to think that Charles and Jean Simmons are meeting right now for a cup of tea, after all this time. Not in Picenum but in the Elysian Fields.

That tingling feeling of freedom in the tip of your fingers (II)

2009-12-30T23:54:00.002+01:00

Warning: this post spoils a relevant part of the ending of the film This Land Is Mine (1943), so it is advised you see the film first. Feel free to watch the film anyway if you don't mind spoilers: its a darn good film!

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

"We have good fathers, you and I" (Painter Alfred Manessier to his friend the actor Charles Laughton. Chartres Cathedral, 1959)

Those who have good parents, or good teachers, are blessed.

I must say that I have been fairly lucky in this regard, not unlike Charles and Alfred were by having known Etienne Houvet , or Albert Lory by having been tutored by professor Sorel.

"I must go not because I am harmful to society, which is you, but harmful to tiranny"

"Goodbye... Citizens!"

I just love the way Albert Lory puts his hands in his pockets, don't you? Josep thinks that the film could have ended in this scene, which I think is not a bad idea, cinematically speaking. Raúl has written a beautiful text in which he deftly delineates Albert's character.

The Snowball Effect

2009-12-26T21:18:00.012+01:00

Homeless cat, hospitable busker (St. Martin's Lane, 1939)

Elsa recollects at 81:

We always had a cat but we didn't ever go out and get a cat. Somehow the cats found us. When we moved to our house in Brentwood (1), one day we drove in and we heard a meeping and rustling in the driveaway, and eventually we fished out five kittens from the ivy. In Hollywood at least, if a poor family had a cat and it had kittens and they couldn't afford to have the mother cat "fixed", and they couldn't bring themselves to kill the kittens, they would put them in a basket and drop them in the gardens of the people who were better off. So we had cats. We kept them for a few weeks, all five, and we had five kittens chasing one another around the house–a great entertainment. It was much, much better than going to a ballet. Eventually we found homes for them all, except one–a ginger one–so this one was called "Mister Pinky" and he was considered Charles' cat. After that we always had ginger cats. For some reason, ginger cats always turned up.

Two doors away from the Brentwood house lived Henry Hathaway. He had an aunt and, I believe, a mother living there, two apparently rather deaf elderly ladies. One day their gardener told our gardener that "the Laughtons barbecue cats." We were infuriated. Tracing the atrocious statement to its source, we found that one old girl had said to the other, "You know, the Laughtons harbor cats," and the other deaf old girl heard "harbor" as "barbecue"

Oh yes, there's some distance between "harbor" and "barbecue", but it is a distance many a writer on films has covered easily, even breaking planetary records. As Greg from Cinema Styles put it here, "Of course, I have discovered through years of film study that 'History of the Movies' books are often poorly researched and repeat the same legends they've heard elsewhere without any verification", which is a good reason I not only read bibliography on Laughton, but bibliography on people and subjects related to him.

Many urban myths about Charles start like a little snow flake going down a slope and end like a big snowball. I have even read comments of people around Charles who probably ignored certain things about Charles when he was alive, but having learned new things about him after his death, they just "incorporate" the new information to their reminiscences of the man... Mind me: when a person had a close personal or working relationship with Laughton, it is very likely that they chose to keep some things to themselves while Charles was alive... But every then and now I come across some people's statements, not close to him in any way, whose reminiscences, or so it seems to me, carry a whiff of disingenuousness.

You may say, and you'll be right up to a point, that this is the price to pay for fame, but then we are talking of the old-style type of fame, the one who came along with merits and skills (not the present-day Paris Heelton attention-craving, empty type of celebrity, so to say). And since along these myths there is some stuff which is not only damaging to our subject , but also rather untrue, I recommend to be cautious about what you learn about people, all the more if there is no alternate view... And don't get me started about I-emm-dee-bees and wikis: the snowball gets bigger and bigger as the stories start to circulate online without people bothering to check the sources!

Wife. Husband. Utterly guileless sofa

I could mention, for instance, the story of a discarded sofa. Of how a wife decided to get rid of it because the seat brought the wife painful reminiscences: the sofa, you see, was associated to a marital infidelity.

Such story was recounted by the wife, many years after the husband's demise, she being the only, noncontrasted source....And allow me to add, she didn't actually watch the scene but -so she referred- was just briefed about the events, afterwards, through the husband's tearful confession. This story has enjoyed a number of retellings by third parties, some quite imaginatively amusing, one actually saying that the guilty sofa was burnt in a bonfire as if the wife were a fierce Inquisitor, and the sofa a doomed heretic.

Oh boy! I cannot wait to read the version of the story in which the wife burns the sofa, its guilty occupants (who in this version will be caught, of course, in fraganti) and the whole building while she laughs maniacally.

Sources and Notes
Elsa is quoted from her 1983 autobiography.

(1) The house at Brentwood was Charles and Elsa's first regular house at Hollywood in the 1940s, after they had been staying temporarily at the Garden of Allah.

That tingling feeling of freedom in the tip of your fingers (I)

2009-12-18T14:05:00.003+01:00

The Cobblers at Tournai, 1919

2009-11-11T12:18:00.003+01:00

"The Cobblers" performing Aladdin at Tournai. (Photo published on March 1st, 1919) They are all memberst of the 7th Northamptonshire Battalion except those where it is indicated otherwise. From left to right. Standing: Emperor: Private Parkings, Abanazar: Dr. Felton, Vizier: Sergeant Dr. Kelby, Policeman: Lance Corporal Bayley (13th Batt., Middlesex Regt.), Ni-cee (maid to princess): Sergeant-Major F. Hitch, Prince Peko: Private Redmond (9th Batt. Royal Sussex Regt.), Wishee Washee: Private Potter, Widow Twankey: Second Lieutenant F. Judge. Sitting: Princess Balronbadour: Private Hutson, Aladdin: Lance Corporal Pickering (13th Batt. Middlesex Regt.), Santa Luna, Slave of the lamp: Lance Corporal Wright

In 1936, by the time he was promoting "Mutiny on the Bounty", an interviewer asked Charles Laughton what made possible that, having been working in hostelry until barely seven years before, he could have turned into a succesful actor, and, not only that, to have become in that short span of time one of the most respected and sought-for actors in the world at the time.

Laughton's answer was it was a matter of chance, and cryptically added "It took a World War and an act of God" to make him an actor.

Adding a bit of explanation, explained that the "act of God" was his younger brother Tom: "he decided to go into hotel bussiness one day, so I said 'here, take this, I`m going to the stage". Tom Laughton's own version is more detailed, and tells us that Charles didn't enjoy his responsability as hotel manager, a responsability that had befallen him due to the fact that he was the first-born of the family. As opposed to that, he utterly enjoyed every minute of his spare time devoted to amateur theatricals in Scarborough. Charles' family didn't approve his theatrical enthusiasm, and wanted him to keep his mind only in hostelry. Then came Tom to intercede for his parents' cause. Thinking that he had a winning argument, Tom told Charles that he was lucky being the eldest, for he, as the second son, had no chances of inheriting the family hotel and had had to make a living in something else. Tom's strategy failed, as Charles happily seized the occasion to offer Tom his place on the family bussiness, and left to become an actor.

But what about the war? He just says, without much further explanation, that "The war shook me into considering acting as a life work", and one is left pondering: what did he exactly mean by that? One wonders if, having been told cautionary and disencouraging tales by his family about the precariousness of an actor's work (i.e. as opposed to the safer living of hotel bussiness), Charles found that there were ways of life far more precarious and uncomfortable than a thespian's, verbi gratia, that of the soldiers fighting a war. One also considers, on the other hand, if war had on him a similar effect it had on another another Great War veteran, the American painter Horace Pippin, who would declare about his own war experience that "The war brought out all of the art in me, I came home with all of it in my mind, and I paint from it today" (1)

A further clue, however is given by Laughton himself, who, discussing very briefly his time as a soldier, went on to single one experience of which he evidently held a fond memoir : "I saw Leslie Henson play in a pantomime in Lille- it was 'Aladdin'. He was damned funny as usual" . In fact, he would recall in a 1933 interview that "the performance kept alive my latent ambition (to become an actor)". Maybe this was it: the realization that, no matter the bitter experiences, or the glum surroundings, the theatre had the powerful effect of lifting one's spirit. So possibly Laughton reached the same conclusion than the eponimous character played by Joel McCrea in Preston Sturges' masterful film Sullivan's Travels".

But Leslie Henson wasn't the only one performing Aladdin in France around this time. It was also performed by "The Cobblers" a troupe formed by soldiers of the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment... which was the unit where Charles served in France.

But before talking further about "The Cobblers", we might as welll give a smattering about entertainment in World War One.

How the British soldiers were entertained (1914-1918)
Early in the war, the military authorities realized the potential of entertainment for the troops: for the young men in training at home, it offered a more wholesome alternative to spend their spare time than other less reputable ones like alcohol, gambling or prostitution. For soldiers at the fighting fronts, it was also a temporary respite from the harsh realities of trench warfare. For those convalescing from wounds, it was a welcome balm.

The provision of entertainment was often due to the initiative of relevant individuals: many famous actors and actresses of the day would put a show for the benefit of troops, tour in training camps, or in certain cases, even in the vicinity of the front lines, which they would do with the acquiescence of the military commanders. Such were the cases of Lena Ashwell , Gladys Cooper , Harry Lauder, Frank Benson or George Robey , to give just a few names.

On the other hand, there were profesional and amateur performers who were serving in the forces. Among the professionals, we have cases like Leslie Henson, who formed a touring troupe called The Gaieties, or Basil Dean, who would efficiently organize theatres and shows for the Army canteens. Dean and Henson would be the men behind the creation, in the following war, of ENSA, an organization which pertained to the forces, and provided the servicemen with entertainment. However, those serving in ENSA during Second World War worked exclusively as entertainers, whereas those profesional and amateur entertainers in khaki during First World War were'nt usually spared from their regular duties as soldiers (2): those working in a show might be excused from some military routines while preparing a spectacle, but not from returning to their duties once the curtain was down. The casualties at the front meant that the formation of these troupes could be quite variable. Because of this, there was a great empathy among performers and spectators: they knew what made them tick, and a bit of irreverence for humour's sake was tolerated, which provided an extra relief as well.

One of the almost mandatory and usual formations were the Divisional troupes: owing to the large number of men available in a Division (3), there was a good staple of talent to choose from. While the output of these troupes could be variable in quality , depending of the unit, it was usually a well appreciated relief. Commanders were keen on encouraging these performances, and giving some help to make the stagings possible, but the shows weren't officially sponsored, and this was even truer in smaller units (like Battalions). Thus, more often than not the troupes didn't have proper stages to perform in, or costumes... But, quite undaunted by that, they would creatively work to improvise them, quite often with very remarkable results.

There were no girls in the army, so "some of the boys showed how attractively they could be made up as girls". Two female impersonators of "The Cobblers", on the Left, Sergeant-Major F. Hitch, on the right, Private D. Hutson, or "Ida, the Cobblers' Girl", as he was alternatively known.

Since no there were no women in the army at the time, some of these performers in uniform would transform themselves into lovely ladies, not unlike the female impersonators of the Elizabethan theatre, or the Onnagata in the Kabuki Theatre. The best among these female impersonators would be quite sought after to perform, and could be real stars among their comrades.

The Cobblers

The Cobblers, with some Battalion officers (Circa 1916?). From left to right. Lieutenant A.F.T. Bullock, Sergeant Hunting, Captain H. Grierson, Lieutenant Durrant Swan, Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Mobbs, Second Lieutenant Murray, Sergeant Wenn, Private Driver. Front Row Lieutenant Wharton, Corporal Chapman and Lieutenant Debenham.

Why was that troupe named "The Cobblers"? The 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment was one of the Kitchener formations of the early war period. This Battalion was mostly formed by citizens from Northampton, a city known for its shoemaker industry, hence the nickname "The Cobblers" .

According to the available reference, the troupe was first formed in 1916. The battalion had already suffered grievous losses during the Battle of Loos in the previous year. Edgard Mobbs, the international Rugby player who had a relevant role in the recruitment of the Battalion (and who was by then commanding it) encouraged its formation, and even contributed to the programme of the Concert Parties. This early formation of the Troupe would entertain the Battalion and its visitors up to the Battle of the Somme, where the 7th Norhamptonshires would again suffer many casualties.

Lacking other information, we jump to February 1919, a few months after the armistice, when we met a new formation of The Cobblers performing "Aladdin" in Tournai to the benefit of the children of Belgian Soldiers (The soldiers not only entertained the kids but also fed them, with money provided by the Battalion's canteen funds)

It is not unlikely that the choice of the pantomime was due to the fact that Leslie Henson's Gaieties troupe had sucessfully performed "Aladdin" at the reconstructed Lille Theatre earlier in the winter of 1918-1919. It is to be wondered if Henson lent any costumes to the 7th Northamptonshires, even though by what is written about the performance, it seems that the men created imaginatively their own costumes with what they had at hand.

None of the members appearing in the 1916 formation of The Cobblers can be seen in the 1919 photograph. In fact, there are members from other battalions of the 73rd Brigade (to which the 7th Northamptonshires belonged) among the members of the cast... This illustrates quite well the many changes undergone by the battalion due to casualties since the creation of the troupe.

And where was Charles? Well, we certainly don't see him among the members of the cast appearing in the photograph, even though the accompanying article states that those appearing are only part of the cast... Being the stagestruck kid he was, I'd say that it is not unlikely that Charles was very eager to help, and I wonder if he didn't assist the troupe as a chorus boy, as part of a stage horse (or camel?), or a stage hand. At any rate he must have been, without a doubt, a very keen spectator.

This performance by "The Cobblers" must have been one of the last activities of the Battalion with Charles still there. The article covering the "Aladdin" performance was eventually reported in the Northampton Independent in March 1st, 1919, and Laughton had been demobilized in February 14th 1919. It can be said that the effort in benefit of those Belgian children certainly wasn't lost on Charles: a few years later, he and his fellow amateur performers from Scarborough would also perform to aid the League of Help, an association which gathered donations to help with the reconstruction of devastated French and Belgian towns and villages.

Notes
(1) Incidentally, Laughton would have some of Pippin's work in his art collection, prompted by his friend the collector Albert C. Barnes

(2) Cases like Leslie Henson or Basil Dean were, at the time, more the exception than the rule.

(3) Infantry Divisions had an establishment of up to 20.000 men (at full capacity: this number, of course, could vary due to casualties, etc.)

Thanks, ackowledgements and sources
The information and documentation about the Cobblers was kindly supplied to me by Ms. Kate Wills, who is a dedicated researcher on the subject of First World War and Entertainment. Apart from Mrs. Wills information, and old news pages from the Northampton Independent provided by her, This post's sources include an interview to Laughton by Patrick Murphy published in segments at The Sunday Express from November to December, 1933; A 1936 interview with Laughton appearing in Picturegoer's Weekly Supplement; Elsa Lanchester's 1938 book Charles Laughton And I; Tom Laughton's Pavilions By The Sea; L. J. Collins's comprehensive Theatre at War 1914-18 and David Woodall's "The Mobbs Own. The 7th Battalion, The Northamptonshire Regiment. 1914-1918"

Some links of interest
:: Charles Laughton's known First World War experiences at the Huntingdonshire Cyclists website, plus a little update on the matter in this 'ere blog.
:: You might also be interested in checking Horace Pippin's memoirs.
:: A good link on First World War entertainment, at the comprehensive site Great War and Different.

Eating chesnuts, drinking muscat

2009-11-01T20:54:00.005+01:00

Here we don't celebrate Halloween as in other countries: we mostly drink muscat, eat chesnuts and panellets , clean the graves at cemeteries and swap scary stories. Still, for those of you keen on Halloween (anglo-saxon style) I will give you this link towards which fellow Laughtonian Edward Johnson kindly directed me to, which contains the cool screensaver which I'm reproducing above, and hopefuly some of you will like to use it on your computers during these days. Oh, and if you want pumpkinshere's something for you, too

Well, on with some bits of news, fellers and felleresses ;p

The Devil and the Deep, finally on DVD!
Many of you have probably grown weary about the film majors' constant blabbering about respect of the copyright of the items owned by them, and endless whining about piracy.

Most unfortunately (as I see it) all this talk has not, so far, been accompanied by, well, the release of this precious material they own, and which is mostly kept in the vaults far away from the prying eyes of the public, a public which so far couldn't enjoy a lot of classic films unless it was in a bootlegged copy, which usually meant they couldn't be viewed unless in a defective version, with a poor (if not distressingly gawdawful) image and sound quality, and of course, without the extras, subtitles and assorted goodies that many a film lover appreciates in a really swell DVD release.

However, there could be winds of change a-blowing in this matter. In my previous post here I mentioned that The Bribe would be finally available in a special "on-demand" release within Warner Bros Archive Collection (Zone 1). Apparently, this type of initiative has begun to get a following, as Turner Classic Movies, along with Universal, are also going to release old films in their stock, which hopefuly means that many an old Paramount film owned by Universal, so far inexplicably locked up and kept away, will be finally available, at least in Zone 1 (even some old Paramount pictures have already been released in Zone 2).

As you can read in the link above, in the earliest batch there is The Devil and the Deep. This early film work by Charles is not without interest: Apart from being a predecessor of the prolific genre of Submarine Films, it was Charles first "official" work in Hollywood (his actual debut was actually in James Whale's The Old Dark House). While his acting there may have still have the imprint of the stage, it is a performance worth re-evaluating, and he is well accompanied by a competent Gary Cooper, a sublime Tallulah Bankhead and a very young Cary Grant.

A whispering aside on DVD zones
You have probably noticed that whenever I talk about a new DVD release I mention the DVD zone to which they belong. I know that many film buffs, knowing that a DVD release they might be interested in may not fall in their "assigned" zone, have already a multizone DVD player. For those who don't, or are considering the purchase of such a contraption, I should mention that it would be worth asking the electronics store clerk about it.

Still, it might be interesting for you to know that, certainly for a good number of brands manufacturing DVD players, the zone setting can be changed/reset with the remote control. It seems that many a DVD player is originally manufactured to play in all zones, and then "set" to play only in one. Julien, a kind visitor of this blog, just sent me an e-mail giving me details about it, and told me that, for instance, you can find webplaces like this one, which tell you of the codes you need to reset your one-zone hardware. Since some of you may be considering the purchase of a Blu-Ray player, I might as well give you this other link(again, thanks to Julien for that), a site which reviews hardware and may be give good references to consider a possible purchase of DVD/Blu Ray players

Still, as I said, be sure to ask the store clerk when you purchase a model (and I hope that you go to a good and proper store, the type which cares about their customers and employs competent personnel)

This having been said, I have always wondered why on earth DVDs don't come in the all-compatible Zone 0, which can be enjoyed regardless of the corner of this planet where you live. This problem never existed for Compact Disks (which can be played on any corner of the world) so I wonder why DVDs should have such questionable frontiers, harumph!

Ben Harper talks about Night of the Hunter
Well, as you can imagine, not Ben Harper, but the actor who played the role, Peter "Mission Impossible" Graves. You can read an interview with him starting here in which Graves talks about his career, from Night of the Hunter to Airplane and beyond.

Peter Graves had already mentioned that he enjoyed working under Laughton's orders (specially if compared with his experience with John Ford as a director, in a film in which he was working at the same time he was acting in Night of the Hunter), and here he again praises Charles' work as a director. It is interesting to note his opinion on the reasons that made The Night of the Hunter to be Laughton's only film behind the camera: according to him, a directing career would have required a greater energy than Laughton's age would have permitted. This may contradict the image of the remarkable energetic Laughton we could still enjoy (three years after NotH) in Witness for the Prossecution, but Graves point is worth taking into consideration, specially if we bear in mind the chronicles of The Night of the Hunter's shooting, which reveal a very eager, involved, nearly 24-hour commited, film director... Basically, the Pep Guardiola way which, of course, can be quite wearying in the long run.

Paul Baker passes away
One of my usual complaints about how Charles is chronicled is that in some quarters he is regarded solely just as a "film actor". While today his screen work the one that counts -mostly because it is the one still surviving for evaluation-, there are items of his stage career which tend to be overlooked. There's in fact a stage experience which is absent from any biography written so far, and it is about his collaboration with Paul Baker.

Baker (whose obituary you can read here)) was known for his innovative teaching of drama in Baylor University and other places. It shouldn't be surprising that Charles Laughton (which was keen on teaching and had a similarly unorthodox approach to theatre) would eventually collaborate with him.

In his biography "So Far, So Good" Burgess Meredith recalled a very avant-garde staging of Hamlet by Baker, "in which Hamlet was surrounded by three oher Hanlets, playing different aspects of the melancholy Dane!". I wonder if, back then, Baker, Laughton and Meredith would have been given such free rein had they played in Stratford-upon-Avon.

You can read yet another obituary of Baker, with a picture of the aforementioned Hamlet version.

Two number ones (and a number of quick ones)

2009-10-18T00:12:00.007+02:00

As mentioned previously in another post, I'm not of the opinion that a position in a list is what makes a film great. Still, since there's people influenced by "umpteen best films" lists, I've got to say that they have its use... For one, they may attract the interest of filmgoers towards "oldies" and, well, help overcome their reluctance to watch films in Black & White, for instance.

In the particular case of Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter", this may also give a measure of the growing reputation of the film which all but seemed doomed to oblivion when it was first released. I'm well aware that high-ranking places also usually draw the attention of Phillistines and Iconoplastas who'll raise hell just for hell-raising's sake (... or because the poor things have nothing better to do, tsk!)

"Ah! Je souris de me voir si haut dans cette liste..."

Anyway, here it goes: the British magazine The Spectator put "The Night of the Hunter" in the number one of their Best Films list. This was brought to my attention by a couple of fellow Laughtonians, who sent me this link by Roger Ebert commenting on the issue (and Ebert is a great appreciator of Laughton's only full opus behind the camera)... Not only this, for Time Out, the British entertainment weekly guide, also lists the film as the number one among first films of a director's career, which is considerable kudos to give, considering that they've listed as remarkable film debuts as "Citizen Kane", "Les Quatre Cents Coups" , "The Great McGinty", "Targets" or "L'Age d'Or" below Laughton's film.

I must say I get an extra kick of this recognition coming from the British press. Over the years, I've got the overall impression that Laughton, while certainly apreciated by the British public, wasn't as recognized by the British powers-that-be. But never mind... Charles may have not got titles nor royal honours, but sure he still gets lots of love... Worldwide!

On the light of this, it might be interesting to watch this little snippet from an American TV program (dated around february 1960):

"Guess who's playing Falstaff"

The host's final comment to Charles about the American public's affection is worth noting: Laughton certainly seems to feel at home, willing to charm and full of energy and projects: it's sad to realize he had barely a couple of years left to live (By the way: It's funny to listen to the blindfolded pannelists assume that any British-born actor has a title). It is intriguing to learn that there was a broadcast of the Stratford 1959 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (with Charles playing Bottom) which was shown in America but not in the United Kingdom (hum... Why?!)

Pierre's Fablet "Night of the Hunter Project" has finally seen the light in a handsome CD distributed by Harmonia Mundi. This is just so you know, for, as you can imagine, the recording is truly worth of a post of his own, which I hope to do as soon as circs allow.

Those of you fortunate Laughtonians living in the vicinity of Chicago, Illinois, will be glad to learn that there's is a Laughton season going on there until December 3rd: here at evanevanevan.com you can read a nifty essay on Charles' career, as well as details about the screenings.

In the film releases front, I'm happy to announce that "The Bribe" is finally going to be on DVD, in the Warner Bros "Archive Collection", which, as some of you may know, is no regular DVD release, but one that works on customer's orders (you order it, and they make a digital copy for you). The bad side is... it's a Zone 1-only release which cannot be purchased by anyone living outside that geographical zone... In short, some genius at the top of the company think that, outside the north of America, nobody is interested in film classics.

(Note: if any kind American Laughtonian is willing to make an order for me, please send a message to this blog so we can make an arrangement, ahem)

Why must we resist, Mr. Lory?

2009-10-10T17:46:00.001+02:00

Prosecutor: Excuse me, Your Honor, I ask the courtroom be cleared.

Albert Lory: He's afraid, Your Honor. He's trying to deprive me of my last chance to speak. I know I am a condemned man. I know I will die. Are you going to let me speak, Your Honor, or are you afraid, too?

So, why must we resist, Mr. Lory?

Because though it increases our misery, it will shorten our slavery.

Thanks, Mr. Lory!

P.S.: Oh, by the way...Salutations to the guys of the Gestapo. Yes, I'm pretty aware you're reading this, too.

Sir Wilfrid, I need you!

2009-09-29T22:00:00.010+02:00

Sir Wilfrid, adressing my mastah

I hope my fellow Laughtonians excuse me for not giving any signs of life for weeks, but things in the non-virtual world have kept my mind busy. Gloomy things. Gloomy thoughts. You'll forgive me the Off-Topic.

After weeks of spreading rumours, the powers that be at my workplace have gracefully announced that they're gonna give the axe to an undetermined number of employees. Over the last year, the management has asked us to make sacrifices, and so we've done and, cor, we've be compliant and as flexible as jelly bamboo, goodness knows. But this seemingly isn't enough, and they are seizing the current recession as an excuse to chop heads, à la Henry VIII.

In front of us hapless, amateurs but wilful representatives of our small company's workers, we'll have one of the most expensive, and mightiest law firms of Spain. We've been told that they have a fondness for raw meat, and I'm afraid that they're starving for workers' tartare.

If only we had at our side Sir Wilfrid Robarts, champion of the hopeless causes... But as Albert Lory, we'll have to be our own defenders.

God Almighty help us.

(Wish us luck, we're effing going to need it)

Spring blades

2009-07-29T20:45:00.004+02:00

A knife cutting through a pocket. Fans of "The Night of the Hunter" are familiar with the image, arent they?

... Wait, I don't recall this frame from the film... What's wrong?

Quite simply, this hand isn't Robert Mitchum's but Lon Chaney's, and this frame doesn't belong to Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter" (1955), but to Wallace Worsley's "The Penalty" (1920), which David Cairns commented upon on a post at Shadowplay. It was Mr. Cairns who mentioned the scene in the comments, and I was duly intrigued.

When he posted me the screen capture seen above, I was truly awed, but let's recap and go back to "The Night of the Hunter"

Well, we have Preacher Powell attending a Burlesque show... Not that he likes it, in fact, he seems to find it rather disgusting.

So he clutches his left "Hate" fist, hides it inside the pocket and... "Snikt!"

Mr. Cairns believes that the scene in "The Penalty" might have inspired this one from "The Night of the Hunter", and it doesn't seem unlikely... Didn't the gardener tell Brecht "I steal from all places"?

Such a scene, by the way, is not in Davis Grubb's original novel, the most similar situation there being a scene prior to preacher's detention, in which he is ready to loosen the blade of his knife as a prostitute proposes to him in a brothel... One imagines that the whorehouse was transformed in the film into the -no less sleazy- Burlesque show to avoid censorship, but it is striking that the censor didn't object to the gleaming, phallic knife cutting through the clothes. The scene follows faithfully the definitive version of the script, and, from pictorial evidence, Laughton took great care in directing Mitchum's hands there.

Good direction is in the tiny details

Back to "The Penalty" , the knife cutting through Chaney's pocket is suggestively menacing, though it lacks the connection between Eros and Thanatos so strongly stated in Laughton's film. At any rate, this scenes reminds us of how "The Night of the Hunter" recovered the powerful storyteluing of silent movies, a power which was gone with the sound.

We could conclude that there might be a Worsley & Chaney connection with Laughton beyond "Notre-Dame de Paris"

Here's looking at you

2009-07-01T23:28:00.005+02:00

Charles Laughton is often referred to as an insecure fellow. I'd like that those thinking this way would take this image into consideration. He stares at you with a confident stance, it could be said, in fact, that he's challenging the viewer.

The image is from 1932, and quite likely (from the haircut) near the time he was working in "Island of Lost Souls". At this moment, he's the newbie who's holding Hollywood in awe. He doesn't hesitate to hold for his vision of the character he's playing, even if he has to hold it against a Hollywood big fish like Cecil B. de Mille, and he's only been in town for a few months.

He had arrived to California with an agreement with Paramount to work in a couple of films a year, so film work didn't keep him from working at the British stage. When he returned to London some months afterwards, he had shot six pictures. For Paramount, but also for Universal and Metro-Goldwin-Mayer. By the time he was about to work in his fourth film, his wife Elsa Lanchester (often referred as his bolder better half) had returned to London in a seizure of homesickness. Of course, she was also understatably frustrated about Hollywood's myopia, who back then perceived her just as the new employée's wife. Elsa had a protective attitude towards Charles, though it is evident that he did reasonably well when he was left alone in the Tinseltown wilderness for the months he was without her. He returned to London able to say he had made it.

You should know that, a mere seven years ago, one of 1932 Hollywood sensations had -finally- convinced with his family of hoteliers to allow him to give a try at becoming a professional actor. They, of course, believed that Charles would return from his foolish adventure soon enough, tail between legs, to assume his destiny as an hotel manager. But Charles would never again be an hotelier, and his mother and brothers would gape in disbelief when he not only eventually became a professional actor, but got to play leads in the West End.

What was he thinking when the photographer shot this image? Maybe "And tou thought I wouldn't make it, eh"?

I'd like to think he was thinking "Here's looking at you!"

Insecure you said?

...Right, this was again the Charlie Birthday Special, and I'd like to finish it with a few goodies for you all.

I generally bookmark CL-related links for when I have to deal with an specific film or play in the -near or far- future, but I have a couple of Laughton celebrations in the blogosphere which I'd like to bring to your attention: one is by Matthew Coniam at Movietone News , a celebration of the actor focusing in his pre-code films, and the other is by Joseph "Jon" Lanthier at Bright Lights After Dark, asking the oil painters of the world to unite. Both post will be treat to any Laughtonian.

Talking about treats, I'd like to mention Criterion's recent DVD release of David Lean's "Hobson's Choice" (Zone 1), coming, like every DVD release should, with appetizing extras. If that weren't enough, Criterion's website provides a number of very readable articles on Laughton and the film: Graham Fuller's "Charles Laughton: Size matters" , Armond's White"Hobson's Choice: Custom-Made" , and links to press notes.

Also, Criterion's kid sister company, Eclipse, has released a special boxset, "Alexander Korda's Private Lives" which includes "The Private Life of Henry VIII" and "Rembrandt". Again, a Zone 1 release, though, as usual in Eclipse's releases, without extras. Again, we have at their website an interesting article about this release as Michael Koreski's. There are nice external reviews, too, such as Jon Lanthier's here and here ("Korda cudgel"... XD), Dave Kehr's at the New York Times (these and some other comments on the subject can be found linked by David Hudson at IFC.com

And that's not all! In the last months, a couple of interesting books new books about "The Night of The Hunter", one is "La Nuit du chasseur - Une esthétique cinématographique" by Damien Ziegler, and the other "The Night of the Hunter: A Biography of a Film" by Jeffrey Couchman. I'll post about them in the near future, promise.

Now you may blow the candles.

¡¡Camarero, una de gambas...

2009-05-26T20:06:00.005+02:00

... con gabardina!!

Sorry for the lame pun, which probably will only be understood by Spanish speaking visitors anyway (and possibly just the Peninsular ones). See, gratuitous celebrity advertising existed long before the Beckhams were even born, the difference being that any member of this cast and director trench coated group actually had a talent beyond that of posing for an advert.

(I'm curious about the occasion: did they shot the picture on the set of Advise and Consent? Did they pose all together as a group or separately? Funny seeing Otto Preminger as a model there, too)

Anyway, I'm posting this wee bit just to comment that Matheww Coniam of Movietone News just gave me a friendly blogger award:

Huh... Thanks Mr. Coniam, Im so touched *sob*... All right, I'll spare you the three-hour long thankful speech in which I emote wildly and mention all my relatives -up to cousins in the seventh degree-. I have accepted the award mostly because I don't have to select/tag any particular number of fellow bloggers... (To those friendly bloggers who have given me an award in the past: believe it or not, I'm STILL making my mind as to which bloggers I should select to pass the award!).

That I don't have to pass the awardto anyone it doesn't mean that I won't: If you are in my blogroll feel free to claim the Friendly Blog Award from me ;D

White Rabbit

2009-05-13T17:38:00.013+02:00

We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one

Elsa, about 74:

The passage of time reaches a high speed as you get older. (...)You learn that life is not long enough to plant a tree. It will grow, but you will never see it become a great tree. You feel like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland–No time, no time.
(...)And at this point I realize what Charles must have felt from his childhood on. No time, no time.

Charles, about 61:

When I was in my early twenties, I was at our farm on the Yorkshire Moors in England. My Mother, my brother Tom, and my cousin Molly and I were looking at a sow with a litter of young pigs: I noticed that each of us was looking at the scene differently. My mother was thinking "What a nasty smell!" My brother Tom was thinking how much the piglets would market for when they were fattened up. My cousin Molly was thinking "How sweet! A mother and her babies."

And I was watching my family tick.

In the picture above, Charles and Elsa as seen in a 1944 domestic vignette. Elsa's dress makes her look slightly Peter Pan-ish. The inlaid wood clock from their Art & Antiques collection she's winding is 350 years old. Elsa looks -as the press release note puts it- quite industrious: for some reason, I can easily picture her building up a set of EEK!EA shelves, Allen key in hand (my guess is that she'd be more efficient at that than Charles would).

And Charles? Well, Charles is watching the clock tick.

In the background you can guess a piano, topped over by a pre-Columbian jar, and a branch in bloom by the window.

The place is the Laughtons much loved house at the Pacific Palisades in which they lived through the 1940s, that of the luxuriant garden on the cliff overlooking the Pacific, eulogized by Bertolt Brecht:

(...) Leider ist der schöne Garten, hoch über der Küste gelegen
Auf brüchiges Gestein gebaut. Erdrutsche
Nehmen ohne Warnung Teile plötzlich in die Tiefe. Anscheinend
Bleibt nicht viel mehr Zeit, ihn zu vollenden.

Edit: Andy most kindly posted me the English language version Bert Brecht's full poem (Thanks! ;D). Anyone of you out there have the full German Version?

GARDEN IN PROGRESS

High above the Pacific coast, below it
The waves' gentle thunder and the rumble of oil tankers
Lies the actor's garden.

Giant eucalyptus trees shade the white house
Dust relics of the former mission.
Nothing else recalls it, save perhaps the Indian
Granite snake's head that lies by the fountain
As if patiently waiting for
A number of civilizations to collapse.

And there was a Mexican sculpture of porous tufa
Set on a block of wood, portraying a child with malicious eyes
Which stood by the brick wall of the toolshed.

Lovely grey seat of Chinese design, facing
The toolshed. As you sit on it talking
You glance over your shoulder at the lemon hedge
With no effort.

The different parts repose or are suspended
In a secret equilibrium, yet never
Withdraw from the entranced gaze, nor does the masterly
hand
Of the ever-present gardener allow complete uniformity
To any of the units: thus among the fuchsias
There may be a cactus. The seasons too
Continually order the view: first in one place then in another
The clumps flower and fade. A lifetime
Was too little to think all this up in. But
As the garden grew with the plan
So does the plan with the garden.

The powerful oak trees on the lordly lawn
Are plainly creatures of the imagination. Each year
The lord of the garden takes a sharp saw and
Shapes the branches anew.

Untended beyond the hedge, however, the grass runs riot
Around the vast tangle of wild roses. Zinnias and bright
anemones
Hang over the slope. Ferns and scented broom
Shoot up around the chopped firewood.

In the corner under the fir trees
Against the wall you come on the fuchsias. Like immigrants
The lovely bushes stand unmindful of their origin
Amazing themselves with many a daring red
Their fuller blooms surrounding the small indigenous
Strong and delicate undergrowth of dwarf calycanthus.

There was also garden within the garden
Under a Scotch fir, hence in the shade
Ten feet wide and twelve feet long

Which was as big as a park
With some moss and cyclamens
And two camelia bushes.

Nor did the lord of the garden take in only
His own plants and trees but also
The plants and trees of his neighbors; when told this
Smiling he admitted: I steal from all sides.
(But the bad things he hid
With his own plants and trees.)

Scattered around
Stood small bushes, one-night thoughts
Wherever one went, if one looked
One found living projects hidden.

Leading up to the house is a cloister-like alley of hibiscus
Planted so close that the walker
Has to bend them back, thus releasing
The full scent of their blooms.

In the cloister-like alley by the house, close to the lamp
Is planted the Arizona cactus, height of a man, which each
year
Blooms for a single night, this year
To the thunder of guns from warships exercising
With white flowers as big as your fist and as delicate
As a Chinese actor.

Alas, the lovely garden, placed high above the coast
Is built on crumbling rock. Landslides
Drag parts of it into the depths without warning. Seemingly
There is not much time left in which to complete it.

Marie Magdalene, a remarkable woman

2009-03-31T23:37:00.005+02:00

Sir Wilfrid peeps at Christine Vole while she puts on some lipstick

Charles Laughton's concern and/dissapointment about his lack of conventional good looks has almost become a legendary common place about the man, even though, as I mentioned in another post, he coped with it better than it is generally assumed.

In fact, while he could despair at the fact that he might look into a mirror to find his reflection, instead of Gary Cooper's or Johnny Weissmuller's, he certainly appreciated when someone contradicted his views on his own apperance. Let Charles himself tell us one of such instance:

When I was rehearsing in "on The Spot" (1930), Edgar Wallace's play, in which I had to wear smart clothes and go around the stage kissing the women, I came home one night in a state of despair, sullen and nasty, and said to Elsa (Lanchester): 'I know they won't stand for this. I've got a face like an elephant's behind, and in this play I've got to do the big sex act'. She turned tround on me like the proverbial tiger-cat and whipped out: 'How dare you presume you're unattractive! Hold your shoulders back, keep your head up and smile, so I can keep my head up with other women'. Can you beat it? I owe her plenty.

Despite the fact that he was gay, Laughton wasn't unappreciative of women, and many women (that is, apart from Elsa) liked him in turn: I have come across many warm records of his friendship and appreciation of fellow performers and/or co-workers like Ruth Gordon, Bette Davis, Maureen O'Hara, Agnes Moorehead, Deanna Durbin, Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner, Belita, and Lillian Gish to mention a few. Merle Oberon or Myrna Loy would recall Laughton raising their own self-steem with gracious compliments. And, we have to say, Charles could be very perceptive describing women, but let's hear it from Night of the Hunter's author Davis Grubb :

I once remarked that Marlene Dietrich had always struck me as a strange and bewitched kind of genius. 'Yes,' Laughton sighed. 'There is a quality about Marlene that rather suggests jeweled whips'

Under such quizzical praise of the German star lies genuine admiration, and there's an extra element here, for beyond the professional appreciation, Laughton also owed a big one to Marlene. In Elsa's account:

"Knight Without Armour" was started at Denham (Studios) just before we finished "Rembrandt", and so we ran into Marlene Dietrich quite a lot. She is to me, and to Charles, I think, one of the few undisappointing film stars off– a pleasure to pass in a passage. One of the greatest moments in my life was when she said to a pressman that she would rather act a love scene with Charles than with any other actor in the world. This statement made headline news in an evening paper. When Charles read it he was wildly flattered, he threw the newspaper in the air and cheered himself. I was no lesss delighted by the indirect compliment to me. We had a drink on it.

I somewhat regret that Marlene didn't get her wish fulfilled. Back then, her only link with Charles' work, was a sadly star-crossed project: While working in England, Miss Dietrich suggested Alexander Korda to give work to her former mentor Joseph Sternberg, and Korda gave Sternberg the job of directing "I, Claudius". Yes, "I, Claudius". Ouch.

Years later, Laughton and Dietrich would finally work together, not in any romantic scene, but certainly in good spirits in "Witness for the Prossecution". Where Laughton's stubborn Sir Wilfrid memorably confronts Dietrich's enigmatic, ice-cool Christine Vole in order to save poor Tyrone Power from the hangman's noose. Dietrich, who was helped by Laughton in rehearsals (I don't go into detail as to not spoil certain elements of the plot), wrote fondly of Laughton in her memoirs.

And to end with this little account of the mutual admiration society of Charles and Marlene, I'll end with a further (and intriguing) comment by Miss Lanchester about Miss Dietrich:

After meeting her in a Denham corridor one morning, Charles told me that in private life she had the art of casually putting on a very little makeup that looked slightly smeared, as if she had just got out of bed after a night of it. Obviously, these two should have got together somehow.

Hum... I wonder if that would explain Laughton's sighing when talking about Dietrich to Davis Grubb.

Oh, well, maybe he just got the story from Sternberg.

Note on sources:
Quotes are sourced from Elsa Lanchester's autobiographies "Charles Laughton and I" (1938) and "Elsa Lanchester Herself" (1983) and Preston Neal Jones' most commendable "Heaven and Hell to Play With: The filming of the Night of the Hunter" (2002)

Thanks!:
This is one of the many posts I had half baked in the oven, so to say. I shouldn't have dared to give it the final push towards posting if the Self Styled Siren had not devoted a post on Marlene's lipstick and had started a MarleneFest on her own blog

Hunter Jazz, and a list of one hundred films

2008-12-07T01:13:00.006+01:00

Just a few posts before, I talked about a project by Mr. Pierre Fablet and a ensemble of jazz musicians: a jazz concert inspired by "The Night of The Hunter", and Walter Schumman's score for it.

The good news is that Mr. Fablet's project to record the concert is going ahead. To that end, he has opened a subscription: anyone who'd like to contribute to make the CD release possible can participate (For those of you interested click here for a subscription leafleet).

I hope the CD becomes a reality soon and I can make a post about it ;D

Second!
At the time of its release, one of the few appreciative reviews that "The Night Of The Hunter" received was one by Francois Truffaut. Truffaut sadly realized that Laughton's original parable was bound to be too conventional for Hollywood's staple: while praising Laughton's film-making as having the courage "to knock over a few red lights and some traffic cops in his unusual film. It makes us fall in love again with an experimental cinema that truly experiments and a cinema of discovery that, in fact, discovers" he also predicted that "screenplays such as this are not the way to launch your career as a Hollywood director. The film runs counter to the rules of commercialism: it will probably be Laughton's single experience as a director".

Recently, a group of 78 critics were asked by Cahiers du Cinema (the renowned French magazine to which Truffaut used to contribute) to vote for their favourite films: the result lists one hundred films, of which Laughton's "The Night Of The Hunter" ranks second, tied there with his good friend Jean Renoir's "La régle du jeu" (I just love that tie, particularly since Charles and Jean's joint 1943 effort is what made a Laughtonienne out of me).

I've read a number of online comments about that list which question the selection, and of course a list of just one hundred film, however remarkable, is bound to leave a good number of films outside, in fact a list of a thousand films would also undoubtedly leave out many films of worth. Maybe I'd add more films to a personal list, films by Mikio Naruse, Jose Luis Berlanga, Isao Takahata, Alexander Mckendrick, Norman MacLaren, Marco Ferreri, Albert Lewin, Hayao Miyazaki, Powell & Pressburger, Pedro Almodovar, Preston Sturges, Bertrand Tavernier or Mitchell Leisen, among many others, but then there is such a lot of films I still have to see that... well, I'd probably leaving out a lot of excellent films as well!

Anyway, I don't think that the list was meant to be an "absolute" one, those critics voted their their favourites, and wether you agree or not with their choices, I don't see bad films there. And... well, yours truly is awfully pleased that "The Night of the Hunter" made it number two ;p

Notes
(1) Truffaut's review for "The Night Of The Hunter" is published in an enjoyable anthology of his reviews "The Films In My Life" (Originally published in French as "Les films de ma vie". I might as well mention that you should be able read the english version of the review thanks to the "look inside" search facility).

La edición castellana de este libro, "Las películas de mi vida" se publicó en 1976 por Ediciones Mensajero (Bilbao). Por si no la pudiérais localizar ni de segunda mano ni en bibliotecas... click, click

Ackowledgements
My thanks to Olivier for first giving me the news.

George Swain, wounded ninety years ago

2008-11-11T20:30:00.007+01:00

Ninety years ago, on November 4th, a week before the armistice, Private George Swain was wounded in the head on the Western front, and repatriated to England to heal his wound. Some time later, his claim for a war pension was declined, as the examiners considered that he had fully recovered from his injury, and wasn't incapacitated by it. Even though George's claim didn't succeed, I'm glad he tried, because his case was filed among the War Pension files, and that file, unlike his service record (one of the many to dissapear during World War Two as a result of enemy bombing), has survived to our days.

And how relevant, you may wonder, is this for this blog? Well, quite so, for George Swain was a pal of Charles Laughton during the First World War.

By summer 1918, George Swain was serving, as Charles, with the 2/1st battalion of the Huntingdonshire Cyclists (both in D company). Along with Charles and many other boys in that Battalion, he was drafted to reinforce other units in France. By the earliest regimental number mentioned in his War Pension Record, it is quite likely that George, as Charles and John Agar (another boy in D company), received his early training at the 87th Training Reserve Battalion at Catterick. As at least Charles and another two men in that list, Swain was a Yorshireman, which gives you a picture of how manpower was dealt with at this late stages of the war: in its early stages, men were keen to enlist, and serve, in their "county" regiments, but by 1918 such sentimental choices just weren't available to the young conscripts, who were just posted to wherever reinforcements were needed... Thus you could have these Yorkshire boys, going from the (Conscription) Training Reserve Battalions right after being called up, then being posted to a Huntingdonshire regiment (Territorial) to guard the coast of Lincolnshire, and then again. posted (for the records) to the 4th Bedfordshires (a Regular battalion), and then serving at the front in France with the 7th Northamptonshires (a "Kitchener" or New Army battalion)... That's running the whole gamut, if you ask me.

A bit of background: Desperately Seeking Charles' War Record

Charles' Medal card...

...And Charles' entry in the Medal records, which fortunately mentioned the battalions of the regiments he was allocated to, except the Huntingdonshire Cyclists, sadly not mentioned

When, years ago, I went to London to -among other things- try to find Charles' war record, I found out that it wasn't among those which survived the World War Two bombings. While I knew that this was likely, I couldn't help feeling dissapointed. But along with disappointment came an idea... What would came if I checked medal records for people with numbers correlative to Charles'? As I checked some 100 numbers over and under Charles' in the two regiments mentioned in his Campaign Medals card, I found out there was a pattern... Could these men whose numbers and regiments were coincident with Charles' have served in the same battalions together?

The answer was yes. And this was confirmed when Mr. Martyn Smith (the Huntingdonshire Cyclists' dedicated historian, and keeper of the afore-linked -and excellent- website on them) most kindly sent me copies of some of the surviving Battalion Orders of the 2/1st Huntingdonshire Cyclists, where, among other things, Charles was mentioned, along with other boys, as part of a draft being sent to the front on August 9th, 1918 (that list is also afore-linked). This was quite the Rossetta Stone of our research, as it provided both the confirmation of Laughton having been at the Huntingdonshire Cyclists (so far we had only an old picture with his badge, plus vague mentions of it in biographies), and also the date when he was drafted to France. With this information on our hands, we proceeded to elaborate a webpage containing what we knew so far about Charles' Great War service (with some related links for context, etc.). There were, of course, many questions remanining... I later found mention by Charles, scattered in old interviews, about his serving with the 7th Northamptonshires during the war, which further confirmed the medal card data, along with a few excerpts from an exchange of letters with an old comrade from the battalion.

Still, many questions remained... When did Charles reach the frontline? What about the 4th Bedfordshires? When was he gassed? etc, etc...

Two relevant pages of George Swain's pension record.

At least one of these questions was answered when Mr. Stephen Beeby, a dedicated Great War researcher from Cambridgeshire, reached me with excellent news. He had found George Swain's Pension record, which mentioned George's itineraire through units during his war service... Of course there must be divergences with Charles' service, among them the fact that George's scalp wound caused him to be repatriated to England, while Charles, as a gas casualty, quite surely had to heal on a French hospital after receiving first aid. It is interesting that the War Diary of the 73rd Ambulance (WO 95/2202), caring for the wounded men of the 73rd Brigade (24th Division, Third Army), to which the 7th Northamptonshires belonged, contains a diagram of how to build a centre to deal with gas casualties, which helps to picture how Charles may have received his early treatment (You can see a better-resolution image, plus more related details here

How the 73rd ambulance organized a centre to deal with gas cases of every type (WO 95/2202. National Archives. Crown Copyright).

The Last Hundred days
Knowing already the date when Charles left England, Thanks to George Swain's War Pension record, we also know that the draft of Huntingdonshire Cyclists disembarked in France on August 10th, 1918, then was "posted to 4th battalion for records"... which clears the 4th Bedfordshire question, as this reveals that those boys were there just for administrative reasons, not even changing their regimental numbers in the process. In fact, on August 12th, they are definitely allocated -and given new regimental numbers- to the 7th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment. Thus Charles and Co. were 4th Bedfords for just a couple of days, and just for the records.

The draft seems to have spent little time in "transit" camps in the coast, like the well-known, and enormous, Etaples camp, instead, they were sorted quite quickly to the 24th Division's reinforcements' camp, just eight days after landing in France, where one imagines them getting an extra bit of training to prepare them for front-line action, and by the September 8th, the draft finally joins the 7th Northamptonshires. As you can see in the battalion's diary here, those days were spent in training and reorganization at Marqueffles Farm (not far from Lens), plus accomodating the newly arrived (sadly, the arrival of the new draft is not even mentioned in the diary: one regrets that the officer in charge of the diary was not too exhaustive in his recording of the facts).

Incidentally, all this is rather consistent with Elsa Lanchester's statement, in her 1938 biography "Charles Laughton and I" of Charles being sent "straight to the front", and therefore, it is likely that the mention of Charles being gassed "one week before the war" is accurate as well, and not just a foggy "family tradition". Among other things, because it was on the November 4th when George Swain was wounded, in the course of a battle in which the 7th Northants were involved, but we'll come back to that later.

Charles' draft reached the Battalion in time to take part in the campaign that has become known as The Last Hundred Days, in which, after the Battle of Amiens, the allies advanced steadily, at a pace which spectacularly outspeeded the gains of battles in previous years. The daily casualty rate of the British was higher than those of either the Battle of the Somme or Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), if not as high as that of the Battle of Arras.

During those days, the 7th Northamptonshires held the line and were involved in actions such as the battles of the Hindemburg Line (September 12th to October 9th, 1918), The Battle of Cambrai of 1918 (October 8th and 9th), the Pursuit to the Selle (October 9th to 12th), and then in the final advance through Picardy, in the Battle of the Sambre. It was in the course of this action that George Swain was wounded (and quite likely Charles, too).

November 4th, 1918: The Battle of the Sambre starts
The day when the Battle of the Sambre started there was a thick groud mist, which, according to J.P. Harris, in his book "Amiens To The Armistice" (1998) was a fact which "tended to reduce casualties from machine-gun and rifle fire", by dusk, the XVII Corps (to which the 7th northants belonged), had taken all the planned objectives for the day, making an advance of 3 to 4 miles. You can get a helpful bird's view of the action from the Diary (WO 95/2217) of the 73rd brigade, (which comprised the 7th Bn. Northamptonshire Regiment, the 9th Bn. Royal Sussex Regiment and the 13th Bn. Middlesex Regiment) by clicking here and see a map of the battle by clicking here.

As far as the the ground view of events is concerned, here we have the account of these days the from the 7th Northamptonshires' War Diary:

November 4th 1918. Bermerain
B and D Companies were detailed as support to the 9th Bn Royal Sussex Regiment (73rd Brigade, 24th Division) who were to attack along the whole Brigade front from a line which had been established West of the Enlain-Villers Pol Road. Capt. A. Elliman was in command of D Company and supported right flank and Capt. B. Wright the left flank. These two Companies moved off at 3 am, crossed the river Rhonelle by bridges which had been put into position by A Company the night previous, and took their position by early morning. A and C companies remained in the positions occupied the previous night until 6 am and then moved to the rear of the general line of advance. The barrage commenced at 6 am and the Companies moved forward. D Company was caught in the Hun counter-barrage and a number of casualties were caused. The remainder were led onward and in time formed part of the front line. By 8 am they were on the high ground in front of Wargniers-le-Petit. Capt A. Elliman and 2/Lieut J. W. Tetley had both become casualties (wounded). B Company successfully eluded the counter-barrage on the left (N) flank and succeeded in establishing themselves in a position which dominated the small bridge over the river Aunelle. This bridge carried the main Enlain-Bavay Road which separated Wargniers-le-Grand and Wargniers-le-Petit and by concentrated Lewis Gun and rifle fire and by forward patrols they managed to keep it whole. The enemy was shelling the sunken roads and were sweeping the ridge with machine gun fire. The position, having become stationary, it was decided to relieve the pressure by outflanking both villages from the north. The 13th Bn Middlesex Regiment (73rd Brigade, 24th Division) was allotted Wargniers-le-Grand and the 7th Northamptonshire Regiment, Wargniers-le-Petit.

14.30 hours- A and C Companies were detailed for this duty. They were to cross by keeping their left on the main road and push through the village and then onward to the high ground East of it. C Company formed the front line under 2/Lieut. C. Pike and A Company under Capt. G. A. Williamson were in support. Machine gun fire was met with but overcome by grenades and rifle fire and both Companies established themselves well forward of the village. B Company now became support and D Company having been withdrawn from the front line went into reserve. The enemy began to shell the outskirts and roads leading to the villages which were inhabited by a fair number of French civilians. 50 prisoners were taken during operations.

Again, we don't get here a comprehensive picture, apart from the officers (mentioned by name) the casualties from the ranks are just given as an anonymous "number of casualties" in D Company. Since we know that George Swain pertained to B Company, it is undoubted that D company was not the only part of the battalion to suffer "a number of casualties", in fact, if we peer at the 73rd Ambulance's diary, we see the casualties for the three battalions and other divisional units amounted to 360 cases, roughly a tenth of the men involved (and that in the case that the battalions were at full establishment, and they were most probably not so, due to prior casualties duirng days of sustained fighting)

73rd ambulance's entry for November 4th(WO 95/2202. National Archives. Crown Copyright)

So here we have one more piece in the puzzle of Charles' war whereabouts. As the song says, who knows what the future holds, so I don't discard further little details coming up, each one a little miracle. One may debate about whether the gods exist or not, but miracles do happen!

This post is respectfully dedicated to those soldiers who, like Charles, were serving on November 11th, 1918, Saint Martin's day.

Bibliography
Apart from the already mentioned diaries, plus the books mentioned in the pages containing the known information, J. P. Harris' "From Amiens To The Armistice" (Brassey's, London 1998) has been a most helpful information resource about late 1918 events in the Western Front.

Acknowledgements
I'm deeply grateful to Mr. Stephen Beeby, who recently brought to my attention George Swain's record, and also to Mr. Martyn Smith, for all the continued help through the years relating the Huntingdonshire Cyclists

Star of the month in November at TCM (2)

2008-10-26T02:52:00.010+02:00

Well, well... Here we have at last TCM's list of the films that lucky North Americans shall be able to watch in November, when our dear Charles shall be starring on that channel for a month.

Of these 18 films there are some unmissable by anyone who wants to know where Laughton's prestige comes from, some whose inclusion is questionable, and some which are inexplicably absent. Let's comment briefly on them.

Our lad Charles in a beautiful still taken during his early Hollywood days (Fellow Laughtonian Alceo has contributed with this wonderful 1932 picture from his collection)

Of these 18 features, we have two classics directed by Korda: his filmmaking may have become a bit dated, but Charles' performance as the Tudor king in The Private Life of Henry VIII is still the gold standard on the character (despite the recent "sexy Tudors on sweaty T-Shirt" trend), and his Rembrandt remains a sensible portrait of the struggles of a creator.

Despite recent historical revisionism depicting Captain Bligh as the hero of the story, Laughton's portrayal in Mutiny on the Bounty has connections with the real man: If the real Mr. Bligh was not the tyrant depicted in Nordhoff and Hall's novel, He was, as Laughton's Bligh, an excellent sailor (something quite forgotten in some later versions), a man isolated from his subordinates and crew, and a poor manager of human resources with an explosive temper. The real Bligh also had those bushy eyebrows ;p

Welcome are also the tyrannical Victorian father he plays in The Barrets of Wimpole Street, where he managed to manoeuvre past the Hays Code, by suggesting the more unwholesome aspects of father Barret's overprotectiveness of his daughter Elizabeth Barret, without the need of explicit dialogue. And his memorable Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which he makes trascend into a powerful metaphor of human suffering.

We also have his inimitable Sir Wilfrid Robarts Witness For The Prosecution, a man seriusly concerned with Law and justice, in spite of his unlawful penchant for smuggling forbidden pleasures. We'll also see him in a court in a minor Hitchcock, The Paradine Case as a corrupt, ruthless and concupiscent judge. We also have an earlier joint effort with the master of suspense, Jamaica Inn , again, it may not be a top-notch Hitchcock, but it has a suitably dark atmosphere, and an over-the-top, and fairly enjoyable, performance by film producer Laughton.

Lesser known movies and parts, but fairly worth of re-discovery, are given a chance. Among them we have the film version of the stage success that brought Charles to Hollywood, Payment Deferred, a film which certainly lets you know that it is based on a play, but Laughton's clerk which commits murder, in spite of being quite unsuited for crime, is a fairly strong composition. There is also his supporting role, and first Hollywood work, as a Northern tycoon in James Whale's riotously bizarre The Old Dark House, which is both the paragon and the parody of the "haunted house" genre. The tropical noir The Bribe, in which he plays a small-time briber with bad feet, is a film, and a performance, worth re-discovering. And Captain Kidd may lack the lavish production values of Mutiny on the Bounty, but certainly has a strong central performance.

Surprisingly in!
As for some others, I find the TCM selection to be a bit odd at points, particularly considering that this monthly homage lacks some legendary performances, I mean, there is fun and charm in The Canterville Ghost, but it still makes you think what a film could have resulted if MGM had not watered down the original story by Oscar Wilde with circumstancial war propaganda and coarsened it with squaddy jokes (Think, for instance, in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir).

Young Bess, is posh -but not terribly exciting- costume drama, which I bet has been included to compare Laughton's performance as Henry VIII with his Oscar-winning performance of 1933. And one wonders why Salome is there: it is one of those films of the Somniferous Bible Epic genre, and not even Laughton's Herod can shake it up... I wonder why they don't show Cecil B. De Mille's The Sign of the Cross, instead: It's full of saucy pre-code naughtiness, bizarre fights at the Roman circus, and Claudette Colbert's Poppaea and Laughton's "wild Wilde Nero" (as Elsa Lanchester fittingly put it) really nail their characters (As with Henry, Laughton's Nero is pretty much the Nero to end all Neros: Peter Ustinov in Quo Vadis was like an Ursuline nun in comparison)

But when one sees that turkeys like Stand By For Action and The Man From Down Under, films only suitable for a Laughton completist (and a very hardened one,) are included in a 18-film season (out of a filmography of more than 50), the reason is clear: TCM is programming what he's got in its stock, and The Canterville Ghost, Young Bess, Stand By For Action are all MGM productions... still, how far are these from The Barrets of Wimpole Street or Mutiny on the Bounty!! The reason for this is, in his thirties' films for MGM, Laughton worked for Irving Thalberg, an intelligent producer who had more appropiate ideas as to what to do with Laughton's talent than Louis B. Mayer. I have read that Mayer kept Laughton under contract at MGM out of respect for the late Thalberg, who was a friend of Charles. Yet Mayer was evidently at a loss of what to do with Laughton, otherwise, one can't understand how he miscast him in parts like the old Aussie warrior of The Man From Down Under (a part and film Laughton woefully -and adequately- described to a friend as "You Can't Keep The Wallace Beery Tradition Down"), or the old Admiral which becomes suddenly obsessed with obstetrics in Stand By For Action, which Laughton has left no option but to play in an avant-la-lettre Monty Pythonese fashion.

Honest, rather than including these last two, I'd rather go for the rarely screened Mayflower productions Vessel of Wrath/The Beachcomber and St. Martin's Lane/Sidewalks of London , or some rather good performances of Laughton in anthology films like If I Had a Million, Tales of Manhattan, O'Henry's Full House or, why not? recover the long-lost-in-some-vault The Blue Veil.

I won't extend my criticism, however, to Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd, Hey! it's an Abbot and Costello film... You won't expect something like The Seventh Seal, won't you?

Actually I think that it makes for a fun double bill with Captain Kidd, and Laughton admired Lou Costello and wanted to work with him. You may consider it a silly movie, but I don't think it's actually that harmful... If you ask me, as far as Laughton doing comedy goes, I'd rather see him in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd than in Hobson's Choice... Oh, I know this may sound blasphemous to some of you (so here I'm rushing to my artillery-proof concrete parapet), but I have to confess that my feelings about the David Lean film are quite similar to SImon Callow's, or to what Groggy Dundee says in his blog .

Surprisingly out!
Now, If I have complained about the inclusion of some films, it is because I feel they are stealing room to some really memorable performances which are let out... I suppose that the "films in stock" thing is the only explanation to that, but it still hurts that we have Stand By For Action, but lack This Land Is Mine , Island of Lost Souls , Les Miserables, Ruggles of Red Gap, The Big Clock or Advise and Consent... All I can say about that is.. ouch!.

Ouch, ouch, ouch!... And ouch!

Furthermore, Wouldn't it be a grand chance to broadcast the legendary BBC documentary The Epic That Never Was, containing tantalizing excerpts of Laughton as Emperor Claudius?

Lastly, and, understanding that the "Star of the Month" refers to actors, it wouldn't have been much of a stretch to include The Night of the Hunter? I mean, after all he could only direct that film... and then, Robert Gitt's Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter.

Oh well... It's good enough that Charles has a season of his films on TCM, but then... it could be even better!

Being a sport

2008-10-09T19:02:00.009+02:00

I just came across a few caricatures from Hollywood stars by Chilean artist Jorge Délano "Coke". You'll see a cartoon of Charles among them. It comes after caricatures of Bette Davis, Basil Rathbone and Ronald Colman, and I'd like to give you an approximate translation to English of the captions of those images.

"Coke" writes:

The great Bette Davis wasn't annoyed by this sketch.

Contrarely, Basil Rathbone was furious when he saw his. "I've never had such a nose!", he exclaimed indignant.

Ronald Colman was offended, too. "I'm not that old!", he grumbled. Both of them forced their drawings to be retired from the exhibition. "Where did the English sense of humour go?" I wondered.

Charles Laughton gave me the answer when he praised his caricature. He wrote the following in my album when he signed it "God forgive you! My wife says it's brilliant!"

This makes me think that much has been written about Charles dissatisfaction with his looks, and Oh, The Unhappiness About it, and blah, blah, blah...

Still, if you step down from commonplace bus, it's obvious, from this little anecdote, that Charles coped much better with a caricature of his looks, than either Ronald Colman or Basil Rathbone, who would be no doubt be regarded by the general public as more attractive, and from this story come as men rather insecure about his (better) looks.

So you see, while Charles was self-conscious about his looks, he could live with it... and he had real English sentido del humor.

It was thirty years ago today...

2008-09-30T22:19:00.006+02:00

Albert Lory (Charles Laughton) and Louise Martin about to face Nazi Tiranny in "This Land Is Mine" (1943). Miss O'Hara looks gorgeous as usual, and Charlie doesn't look 'arf bad, either

Well, it was thirty years ago, on a 30th of september. I think it was saturday. There was a film titled "Esta tierra es mía" (This land Is Mine") on TV. I saw it.

While it wasn't my first Laughton movie (a few months before that I had seen -and enjoyed- "Witness for the prosecution"), this was the one which hooked me to Charles. It also made me a Renoirian. And, definitely, a cinephile.

In short, had I not watched "This Land Is Mine" that evening of September 30th in 1978, this blog wouldn't exist.

Now You know what to blame ;D

Star of the month in November at TCM

2008-09-21T17:17:00.008+02:00

1935. Charles, about to work in "Mutiny On The Bounty", reaches the American shores: a blessed land where one can still enjoy a season of his films on TV

Well, a fellow Laughtonian, who is a subscriber of Turner Classic Movies just told me that Charles is going to be the Star of the month in November at TCM. I've browsed the web and I've seen further mentions of it, though not in TCM USA's site, where only the current Star of the Month is featured.

This is good news for all those of you who live in the USA, for in my little corner of the Mediterranean, it seems highly unlikely that TCM Spain will programme a season of Charles' films. I fear that the thinking minds of TCM Spain are planning to do an Ed Wood season instead.

You'll tell me how it goes.

Another Gish experience

2008-09-17T00:09:00.003+02:00

Miss Gish entertains a devoted fan

During his final illness, Charles Laughton was dictating to Bruce Zortman (1) what was meant to be an autobiography, but which remained unfinished due to Laughton's death. Elsa Lanchester reported how one day she entered in the room. Charles was asleep due to the medication, and Zortman showed the notes he had taken during that day. In Zortman's notebook there was just this one sentence: "I was in love with Lillian Gish".

The young Laughton was certainly impresed with Lillian Gish. He would say that, shortly after the 1918 armistice (2) he was struck by Miss Gish acting in "Broken Blossoms" , and would see the film "over and over again" (2). Years later, during the preparation of "The Night of the Hunter" he saw old silent films by David Wark Griffith, he would meet Miss Gish again, and he offered her the part of Rachel Cooper. Liking the script, she eventually agreed to play it, and the Silent film star and her fan would work together happily.

After the New York première, Laughton sent this affectionate letter to Lillian Gish (3):

Dear Little Iron Butterfly,

Even though I talked to you yesterday I feel compelled to write you a note to tell you further that I think you are the living end. The reviews in New York, as you have now discovered, were wonderful for you--
And from all over the country I keep getting wires and calls, and everyone is unanimous in their praise for you.

I am happy to have had another Gish experience, and as long as I shall live and be active I hope that my life, professionally as well as personally, shall have a lot of Gish in it.

So, you see, these are my roses and carnations -- and they are just as sweet as you are.

Love,

It is sad, in retrospect, not to feel sad when reading this letter, knowing what the future had in store for Charles' career as a director.

Shortly after the release of "The Night of the Hunter", Laughton and Gish would be briefly together in a TV programme produced by Paul Gregory, "The Day Lincoln Was Shot", in which some members of the cast and crew of "The Night of the Hunter" would be working as well. Laughton was the narrator of the story and Lillian Gish played Mary Todd (curiously, John Wilkes Booth was played by a young Jack Lemmon). This programme was an hiatus in the work which Laughton and the Sanders brothers were dpoing in the script of "The Naked And The Dead". This work was never resumed: in the meantime, "The Night of the Hunter" failed at the box-office. Laughton and Gregory split their partnership. Laughton would never directed again, would never have the chance of working again with Lillian Gish.

Dorothy and the Wolves

In between "Broken Blossoms" and "The Night of the Hunter", Charles was to have another Gish experience, more concretely, a Dorothy Gish experience! This was to be in "Wolves", a 1929 production (released in 1930), and one of the early British talkies. We know little of this film, apart from the fact that it was one of the "quota quickies", that is, one of the hastily produced films which were meant to cover the quota of British productions, established by the government as a protective measure for the local industry.

Lacking other sources, the picture below suggests that the young and upcoming actor must have been happy to work alongside Lillian's sister.

"Wolves": Charles Laughton, Dorothy Gish and director Albert de Courville, as seen in the Sunday Express (August 18th, 1929)

Short descriptions of the film coincide with the basic argument of the play "The Wolves", a French play by Georges G. Todouze, which was premiéred in an English version by John Protheroe in August 1929, so we imagine that the play was successful enough to suggest a near-simultaneous film version. Certainly most of the cast of the stage production is coincident with that of the film, with the exception of Sam Livesey and Olga Lindo, whose roles were played by Laughton and Dorothy Gish in the film.

The damsel in distress cleverly shields herself (Dorothy Gish, Charles Laughton)

The plot of the play goes as follows: in a settlement in the icy coast of Greenland, Job (Sam Livesey/Charles Laughton) is the leader of a gang of rough outlaws, a real group of human wolves, among them we have a Canadian, Pierre (Malcolm Green), who is also the only in the group to have a woman, an inuit girl named Naroutcha (Betty Bolton), who also acts as a servant of all the other men. Near the place a young girl, Kitty MacDonald ("Leila Macdonald" in the film. Olga Lindo/Dorothy Gish) is found, frozen and starving: her presence stirs the community, as they all want to possess her, and are ready to fight each other fiercely to accomplish so. Job organizes a lottery to see who will be Kitty's owner. He cheats and gets her, but not with the intention of having a woman himself, but with the aim of having the situation under control, which is not easy as, among other things, Kitty is the daughter of a Canadian fishery king, and Pierre says that it is because of Kitty that he commited the crimes for which he has looked for refuge in this distant place. Pierre not only wants revenge, he also has lusty intentions on poor Kitty, which makes Naroutchka jealous. Tension runs high and Job sees that the only way to ease it is help Kitty to flee from the place, but he will have to face his own men.

The magazine "Theatre World" (in its issue of October 1929) described "The Wolves" as a "vivid melodrama" which was "unusually good entertainment", and its critic referred to it in the following terms: "it is strong, crude stuff, and grips as much by the intensity of its passion as by the fitting fierceness of its language (...). Here primitive passions, fiery words and sinister actions are swiftly woven into a fabric which may be coarse in texture, but is surely more wholesome stuff than the fluffy frills and lascivious lingerie displayed ad nauseam elsewhere... This description of the play (the reviewer sure likes macho-macho stuff!) makes me imagine the film as a mixture of melodrama and early action movie. In fact, and according to the description of the imdb user reviewing the film, Job's hut is blown by an explosion at the end of the film. Since this doesn't happen in the play, where Kitty escapes while Job holds his men at bay and manages to subdue his men after killing the troublesome Pierre, I gather that "Wolves" might an early example of the recurrent solution when scriptwriters run short of ideas (you know, "if you don't know what to write in the next scene, put an explosion or two")

An anecdote of the film, told by Simon Callow (4), tells us that a young David Lean, who happened to see how Laughton was preparing himself for a fight scene, was quite impressed by both his thorough preparation of the scene andr his hability to fill the frame: many years later he would have his chance to direct Charles in "Hobson's Choice" (1954)

Also, of those who worked in the play but not in the film, two would have later connections with Laughton: Raymond Massey, the stage director of "The Wolves" would later in that year direct the first staging of Sean O'Casey's "The Silver Tassie", with Charles playing Harry Heegan (5), and Sam Livesey would appear with Charles in the successful production of Congreve's "Love for Love", staged during the 1933-34 Old Vic season.

The film would be released in the USA during the middle thirties, titled as "Wanted Men", when Charles had become one of the most successful film actors of the world, surely with the intention of milking some benefits out of Laughton's success. However, this version was heavily cut, and, if the original picture wasn't a hit, the edited version wasn't precisely an improvement.

The film seems to be lost, but I wonder if a copy was still around in existence. I'd be curious to see it: in the worst of cases it would be a toughening experience which would strenghten my character ;p

Some interesting links:
:: Lillian Gish's Official website
:: A Gish tribute by Dan Callahan at Bright Lights Film Journal
:: A lovely picture of the two collaborators at " If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats"

Notes:
1) Zortman had collaborated with Laughton in the literary research and ellaboration of Laughton's anthology "The Fabulous Country".

2) As mentioned by Simon Callow's BFI book on "The NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Gotta comment about it some day in this blog: recommended reading!). Incidentally, imdb.com gives May 13th, 1919 as the date of the American premiere of "Broken Blossoms". The European release dates given by imdb -although not mentioning dates for France or Great Britain-, range from 1922 to 1923. So I wonder if the film which Laughton saw shortly after the armistice was another one by Griffith and with Gish, and then a few years later he was impressed by "Broken Blossoms" and the two experiences were merged in his memories. Either this or maybe the allied troops were privileged to see that film before its European Official première?... Or maybe the film was released in France and/or the UK almost at the same time it was released in the USA?

3) From the photographic reproduction of this letter, reproduced in Charles Tatum Jr.'s "La Nuit du Chasseur de Charles Laughton", published by Editions Yellow Now

4) In the seminal "Charles Laughton. A Difficult Actor"

5) This would be the first of many occasions in which Massey and Laughton would work together: they were both in the cast of James Whale's "The Old Dark House", and Laughton would in turn direct Massey on the stage years later in "John Brown's Body"... Massey appeared also in the day The Day Lincoln Was Shot" playing (if you hadn't guessed it already) Abraham Lincoln

Jazzing up Schumann's score

2008-08-23T23:29:00.003+02:00

The film "The Night of the Hunter", in spite of not being a hit when it was first released, has increasingly become more and more admired as time passes. Not only that, it has become an inspiration for many people who has watched it.

Such is the case of Pierre Fablet, a jazz musician who, inspired both by the film and the beauty of Walter Schumann's score, has been working in an one hour concert, in which Schumann's score is revisited through a jazzy arrangement with an ensemble of six, playing piano and keyboards, bass, drums, guitar, saxophones and trumpet. You can know more about Mr. Fablet's interesting project at His page at La Station Service . We hope that Pierre Fablet's concert is available in a recording sometime in the near future.

Walter Schumann may be one of the most relevant collaborators of Laughton in the film. Through Preston Neal Jones' "Heaven and Hell to Play With", we know that he didn't limit himself to write a score in the solitude of his studio, but collaborated actively with Laughton, and kept making adittions and changes to the initial score when a new idea came through. For instance, when cinematographer Stanley Cortez told Laughton that he was thinking in Sibelius' "Valse Triste" to visualize the scene where Preacher Powell kills Willa Harper, Laughton not only directed the scene to suit Cortez's brilliant suggestion, but promptly called for Schumann to compose the adequate music for the scene, as it was now envisaged. In the final film, that scene has the sad waltz tempo Cortez had in mind. Laughton also suggested to Schumann a technique he called "long muscles", devised to establish the continuity between the scenes of the film, rather than meant just to accompany or stress what was happening on the screen.

Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder's hilarious comment about "Dragnet" (and Schumann's theme) in the pages of "Mad"

At the time "The Night of the Hunter" was released, Schumann was possibly better known for his theme for the "Dragnet" TV series. As Laughton's film remained obliterated for years, so was his beautiful score, and as Laughton, he died long before his score for the film gained the recognition it deserved.

In fact, there was an earlier Laughton-Schumann collaboration, prior to "The Night of the Hunter", which enjoyed a greater recognition it its time and I feel ought to be recovered. In 1953, after the success his innovative, stage prop-bare, a capella production of George Bernard Shaw's rarely staged third act of "Man and Superman" (titled "Don Juan in Hell"), Laughton embarqued in a similar project. Again produced by Paul Gregory, Laughton tackled Stephen Vincent Benét's poem"John Brown's body". In this production, Walter Schumann provided a prodigious background to the three main players (Tyrone Power, Raymond Massey and Judith Anderson -1-) declaiming the text: a chorus would sing and provide sound "effects". Schumann's grasped well Laughton's idea of a modern greek Chorus and produced a magnificent score for the play which fortunately, was recorded, but unfortunately, has known no re-releases for ages. We'll talk about John Brown's Body some other day with greater depth, but for the moment we suggest that it would be a good idea to release again this recording (2)

Notes:
1) Judith Anderson was to be substituted by Ann Baxter in later tours of this staging,.
2) it was originally released by Columbia Masterworks, so I guess this means we should be knocking at Sony's door.

He really was a groovy cat

2008-08-10T01:29:00.012+02:00

Talking about Charles and "This Land Is Mine" in the comments with fellow blogger Solaris, we ended talking about George Sanders and James Mason, and how these enjoyable performers (and feline film cads) almost set a construction company to make houses for rich widows... and from this to Mason's own love for cats (of which he would produce fine sketches).

All right, I have a lot of pending stuff to post, but, hey, it's summertime and ... hey! I feel right now like indulging in a bit of trivia... Today: Charles and cats!

Charles and Elsa with the household's cat (early 1940's)

It seems that Charles (and Elsa's) relationship with cats started when Charles first arrived in Hollywood: while he was doing films, Elsa was unoccupied. To ease her feelings of loneliness while he was at work, Charles bought Elsa a little black cat, whom they named Nero . Nero (who liked to plunge into the swimming-pool at The Garden of Allah) was only the first of many cats owned by the couple. Another cat named Louis followed Nero in the Laughton's household: he was named after Louis XVI , the role Irving Thalberg wanted Charles to play in Marie Antoinette (though when the film was finally shot, Charles had other commitments and the Capetian was finally played by Robert Morley , in his first film role). As it happens, Charles and Elsa would always keep cats from then on, and it earned the couple a reputation: people even left kittens at their home for adoption!

The first Laughton kittens: Nero (left) and Louis (right)

Elsa was there before!
You may not know it, but Elsa Lanchester considered, for a long time, to stage an act reading and performing excerpts from T.S. Elliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", eventually making a song version with her piano accompanist Ray Henderson. However, due to the author's denial to see his book staged as "a vaudeville act", the Lanchester-Henderson version was never performed. Most of you may be familiar with a later adaptation of this book... In the light of this, I think that Elsa and Henderson's version well deserved a chance.

Le gros chat
When director Jean Renoir came to the USA, he met in America another French exile who was very close to him: Gabrielle Renard, a cousin of her mother who, as a teenager, had come to the Renoirs' household to "help". Her help mainly consisted in taking care of little Jean (no small feat!). It was Gabrielle who introduced the future film director to guignol, films and melodrama. Gabrielle, besides her babysiting duties, would also model for Jean's father, the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Gabrielle was in California with her husband, the painter Conrad Slade, and her son Jean.

Now, in Hollywood, Jean also met a British actor named Charles Laughton, who happened to own a painting by his father. The Briton had been often in France, loved the country and spoke fluent French. They became close friends.

Since Jean saw Gabrielle frequently, Laughton also got to see her on quite a number of occasions. Gabrielle was, according to Renoir, a woman of great vitality, who, like the French people of her era, had a healthy interest in romantic liaisons (and loved to talk about them)... Had she been in the mood for frivolity, Renoir wrote, she would have gone for his friend Laughton, whom she affectionately called "the fat tomcat". Laughton was proud of that nickname, and he would purr to Gabrielle to honour the epithet.

Albert's courtship scheme

Albert feeds the kitty

And since we are talking about Renoir, let's remember "This Land Is Mine and Albert Lory's sly courting technique. Albert is shy as can be, but his master plan to conquer Louise Martin's attention is cunning. Louise has a cat. The cat escapes every night and enters Lory's home. Albert treats the feline with the best of his attentions, including a dish of hard-to-get milk (incidentally, Albert's mother positively hates the cat). When Albert meets Louise about to go to school, he lovingly tends the runaway to her beloved. Not that she notices. Hum, OK... It's a long-term plan. In the meantime, the four-legged cupid gets a daily dose of milk...Oh, wait! maybe it is the cat the one with the master plan!

Albert returns the fugitive to Louise: "What's new, pussycat? Woah, Woah"

While Renoir was developing the film's story, he would be often in touch with Laughton... In fact, film historian and Renoir expert Alexander Sesonske mentions that it was a conversation between actor and director about Alphonse Daudet's story "La Dernière Classe" which suggested to Renoir an ending -and the lead actor- for the film. I wonder if the feedback between both men also suggested the cat bussiness in the script... and maybe hinted at the animal's casting? Call it a speculation from my side, but the cat in the film looks quite like the cat which appears with Elsa and Charles in the first image of this post! Unfortunately, imdb doesn't credit the cat performer, so I cannot tell for certain, ha.

Endnote on sources
Well, that was quite an impromptu trivia post... and coming from someone who is allergic to cats' hair! Among the sources gleaned for its ellaboration, there's Jean Renoir's "My Life and My Films", Elsa Lanchester's 1938 and 1983 books "charles Laughton and I" and "Elsa Lanchester Herself", and Alexander Sesonske excellent vindication of "This Land Is Mine" as one of the most interesting American films of Renoir (published in the all-Renoir issues 12-13 of "Persistence of Vision")

"Witness" in AFI's Best Ten list

2008-07-10T23:27:00.006+02:00

Miss Plimsoll chastises her patient, Wilfrid the Fox, who is probably scheming about where to stash the cigars next

You may be interested to know that the American Film Institute has elaborated a list of what they consider the best ten courtroom drama films: Laughtonians will be pleased to know that "Witness For The Prosecution" is included in that list.

Well, I know, many of you would like the film even if it wasn't in that list, or any other... Still, as it is mentioned in one of the links below, it is good than news like this keep a good film like "Witness For The Prosecution" in the public's eye. And more when, for a few years from now, there has been talk about a new remake. But why a remake? Come to think, the film is already beyond its 50th birthday, and still giving enjoyment to many a new viewer, which is good as many young people today seems a bit averse to try Black and White films.

In fact, the memory of a 1982 remake, in colour, has almost faded: it had the same plot, a remarkable cast (which included Ralph Richardson, Deborah Kerr, Beau Bridges and Diana Rigg), it was shot in colour with the inter-war period craftily recreated in costumes and decors... But the made-for-TV perfunctoriness of the remake was no match for the spark of the Billy Wilder original, and the superb original cast shot the film in a state of grace. Also, the CBS remake subdued the comedy -the trump card of the 1957 version- in favour of the intrigue and the drama, which probably made for a more Christie-esque film, but not for a more engaging one. I suspect that a further remake just wouldn't live up to the expectations: how much you can improve the original? with CGI effects? With Janet McKenzie chasing Leonard Vole on a helicopter? With Sir Wilfrid saying, instead of "Liar!", "You *beep*ing *beep*! *beep* you!!"?

Honest, rather than make a new (and possibly, quite costly) remake, why don't the producers should rather release again the original film in theaters? Or give it a proper not-film-only DVD?

Check these links!
:: AFI's own page for "Witness For The Prosecution", including a trailer of the film and a brief comment by Sidney Lumet.
:: The news as featured in Charles' home town newspaper.
:: Also: Another film with Charles, Spartacus, is included in AFI's list of the ten best epic films. As already mentioned, good if it introduces Charles to new generations of film buffs.

"Come on baby, light my fire"

2008-07-01T16:34:00.013+02:00

"Anybody got a light?"

I love this picture! Charles is seductively looking at you while holding a cigarette, and, if you ask me, makes me feel like striking a match, or producing a lighter, or, as Bogey does in the cartoon "Bacall to Arms", a blow torch, if necessary!! (AND take this from a non-smoker!)

Anyway, what we can do today is to light the 109 candles in Charles' cake, and, as the cartoon Lauren Bacall says, just put our lips together and... blow these candles while we make a wish

Happy birthday, Charles Laughton, wherever you are!

Night of the Hunter Collector's edition DVD? Hmmm...

2008-06-17T21:13:00.007+02:00

Well, this might be interesting news: recently, Classicflix announced the release by MGM, of a two-disk Collector's edition of "The Night of the Hunter" in September. Apparently, this edition has been temporarily postponed.

I do hope, as Clark does in his blog, that this delay means that MGM is taking the necessary time to deliver us the DVD this truly great film deserves... the DVD we are all dreaming about!. You name it: comments by experts, the film taken from the very best possible copy, with the fascinating out-takes of the shooting, with Walt's Schummann's soundtrack (Soundtrack solo version plus Laughton reading alonside version would be cool!), etc... Many of us have already seen the film on screen, TV, VHS tape or MGM's own previous release, yes, we have this already: Now... now we want something better!

The buzz's all over!
Of course, such news have arisen quite a number of comments in other blogs and forums! Check them and spread the word! Send your own links! Keep your fingers crossed! Send your good vibrations! Keep on sending your petitions!

:: Filmbo's Chick Magnet
:: John Bowman in his blog Fin de cinema
:: Ken Jennings in his blog Confessions of a Trivial Mind
:: The Criterion Forum
:: The Home Theater Forum
:: Film Score Montly's forum

Una de maestros

2008-03-15T14:10:00.015+01:00

English Abstract: After a brief exchange with fellow bloggers about education, I thought it could be a good idea to showcase, from the film "This Land is Mine", Professor Sorel's pep talk to Albert Lory (and to all teachers of all ages who feel overwhelmed by their circumstances)

"Esta tierra es mía" (This Land is Mine, RKO films, 1943) de Jean Renoir es mi película favorita. No sólo por la interpretación de Laughton, sino por su historia que trasciende el circunstancial mensaje de propaganda bélica, el simple alegato antinazi, para convertirse en una parábola sobre la libertad y lo que realmente supone ser un héroe. Y creo que una película que es capaz de convertir la lectura de los derechos humanos en un momento altamente emotivo es una película que hay que ver, al menos, una vez en la vida.

Muchos profesores se inician en la profesión con ganas de cambiar el mundo, aunque las circunstancias del mundo educativo acaben convirtiendo a muchos en enseñantes acomodados en su rol de funcionarios de la educación, perdiendo la motivación que les hizo escoger su profesión.

En "Esta tierra es mía" Albert Lory (Charles Laughton) es un profesor de primaria de un pueblecito. Vive con su madre que lo mima como a un niño -luego teme su propia independencia-, está enamorado de su colega Louise Martin (Maureen O'Hara) pero no se atreve a declararle su afecto y, de hecho, se avergüenza cuando sus alumnos hacen broma de sus sentientos por ella -luego teme a la expresión de sus propios sentimientos-.... Y esa es otra: es incapaz de controlar a sus alumnos. Para complicar más las cosas, la Alemania nazi invade su país, y a sus muchos temores se añaden el que ese enemigo fuertemente armado que oprime su pais con puño de hierro se de cuenta de que existe.

A Albert Lory, en resumen, el mundo le viene grande.

Un día, los aviones aliados bombardean objetivos la villa. Acurrucado y tembloroso en el refugio antiaéreo de la escuela, es evidente que Lory teme sobretodo a aquellos que le pueden liberar del yugo nazi.

Hay, sin embargo, alguien que sabe que bajo ese fardo tembloroso hay una persona de valía: el profesor Sorel (Philip Merivale) director de la escuela, mentor y figura paterna para Lory, que sabe encontrar las palabras adecuadas para motivar a su miedoso subalterno y ayudarle a superar sus temores... y a ser mejor maestro.

Nota: He transcrito el texto del doblaje de esta escena, no es 100% fiel al texto original, pero se le acerca bastante

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Profesor Sorel: ¡Adelante!

Albert Lory: ¿Me mandó llamar, profesor Sorel?

Profesor Sorel: Si, señor Lory

Albert Lory: Se lo que va a decirme, que hice el ridículo. Soy un estúpido, débil, no puedo evitarlo, soy... un cobarde

Profesor Sorel: No, no...

Albert Lory: ¡Si, soy un cobarde! No soporto la violencia, me aterroriza, no sé lo que me pasa con el ruido y las explosiones... Soy un cobarde y no puedo disimularlo ante los chicos, no se les escapa nada. Esta mañana se dieron cuenta, y usted también, y la señorita.. Martin

Profesor Sorel: Siéntese, señor Lory

Albert Lory: No, no, gracias... ¡Ahora ella ya sabe que soy un cobarde!

Profesor Sorel: ¿Quiere que le traslade a una zona donde no haya bombardeos?

Albert Lory: No, no... no, señor

Profesor Sorel: ¿Por la señorita Martin?

Albert Lory: Er... si

Profesor Sorel: ¿Sabe ella lo que usted siente?

Albert Lory (sacude su cabeza negativamente): Tut, tut

Profesor Sorel: Creí que era usted un solterón empedernido como yo. Hace años también yo me enamoré. Cuando ella murió, yo busqué consuelo en mi trabajo... El nuestro. Mi familia fue esta escuela: mis libros, mis maestros, usted, la señorita Martin... Muchos de mis alumnos ya son hombres. Ser maestro es algo maravilloso. Es el mejor trabajo que existe. Se sacrifica uno, pero consigue grandes cosas. Y ahora nuestro cometido es mucho más importante que antes, ahora hemos de sacrificarnos más que nunca: nuestro trabajo exige la máxima entrega.

Vino el alcalde esta mañana a hablarme del deber, pero yo prefiero utilizar la palabra trabajo. hay que quemar estos libros y los quemaremos. No podemos luchar físicamente, pero moralmente sí podemos hacerlo. Hemos leido esos libros que nos enseñaron la verdad, y no se podrá destruir la verdad sin destruirnos antes a nosotros. Imbuiremos en los niños la verdad si confían en nosotros y ven nuestro ejemplo. Tendremos que ser fuertes, Lory, eso complicará las cosas: A nosotros, nos creen débiles, no tenemos armas, nadie lucha, corremos a los refugios, y a nuestros héroes los llaman criminales y los fusilan. Ellos son soldados con armas, banderas y uniformes,exaltan la violencia, el egoismo, la vanidad, cuanto deslumbra a las mentes aun no formadas, y sus criminales son presentados como heroes... es una desventaja enorme para nosotros: el amor a la libertad no impresiona a los niños, ni tampoco el respeto a los seres humanos.

Pero hay algo que no podrán quitarnos jamás: y es nuestra dignidad. Será una lucha muy dura y muy difícil, pero si los niños nos admiran, nos seguiran.

Venceremos, Lory. O tal vez nos fusilarán. Pero cada uno de nosotros que maten, ganará una batalla, porque morirá un héroe, y el heroismo sí que atrae a los niños.

No le pido que muera, amigo mío...al menos ahora, pero piense lo que le he dicho, creo que le servirá de ayuda cuando vuelvan nuestros amigos con más bombas ¿podrá ocuparse de los niños y estar menos nervioso la próxima vez?

Albert Lory: Si señor, lo intentaré

Philip Sorel: ¡Bien!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Por supuesto, hoy podemos sustituir "enemigo" por "concursantes de reality shows", "chulos y matones pandilleros", etc... y en general, todo orco que afrente a la dignidad humana. Que piensen los maestros que, al contrario que en el caso de Sorel o Lory, el defender unos ideales no implica jugarse el pellejo... tal vez sólo el cachondeíto de cenutrios y filisteos, pero eso es algo a lo que no hay que temer.

Por cierto, si no tuvierais ocasión de ver esta película en algún cine-club o cinemateca cercana, o en un pase televisivo, sabed que está disponible en un DVD editado por Manga Films, que ofrece tanto su versión doblada al castellano cómo la versión original subtitulada.

An interview with Terry Sanders

2008-03-07T20:48:00.006+01:00

Visitors of this humble weblog will surely be interested in reading an interview with Terry Sanders at Indiewire

Sanders is an independent filmmaker, and known to "Night of the Hunter" fans as the second unit director. He and his brother Denis were close collaborators of Laughton in both that film and in the aborted project of "The Naked and the Dead"(Their script with Norman Mailer would be the one eventually used in the film as directed later by Raoul Walsh). Sanders, as you can gather from the interview is a born cinematographer and a very commited one to boot. One would like to read more details about his work with Laughton.

Personal note: visitors and friends might well be utterly shocked at how unfrequently I update this blog, specially as I have a loads of stuff queueing to be posted. I guess, I'm poor at organizing my time (I sure would require a Brian Donlevy type of inner-sergeant to discipline my schedule!), plus being almost non-stop working in the night shift of a very demanding work ever since last September... Still I promise that I'll be posting here for a long time coming. Slow as molasses, sure, but posting nevertheless. Stay tuned ;D

Off-topic: I understand that visitors of this site are enamoured with good acting, hence let me remenber you that, in a day like today, the great Anna Magnani would turn 100, so it woud be a good occasion to celebrate it watching any of her great performances . Tanti auguri, Annarella!

Two items of the lost & found type

2007-12-30T22:54:00.000+01:00

One of the great things of the internet era is much more easier to come accross things which otherwise should have been missed.

As an instance of that, I'm bringing to the visitors of this blog two examples of rare Laughtonware of which I just came aware through Youtube.

Filmed Galileo, by Ruth Berlau
Laughton as Galileo, William Phipps as Andrea and Mickey Knox as the Little Monk, in a photo from the Los Angeles staging

"In describing Laughton's Galileo Galilei the playwright is setting out not so much to try and give a little more permanence to one of those fleeting works of art that actors create, as to pay tribute to the pains a great actor is prepared to take over a fleeting work of this sort". So wrote Bertolt Brecht in "Building up a part: Laughton's Galileo".

It is indeed a pity that great stage work is usually only enjoyed by contemporaries, leaving little, or no trace for the future. Nowadays many stage performances may occasionally be captured in video, but older events are lost forever. Still, one can try to figure, even if in a platonic way, an approximative idea, from testimonials, reviews and pictures, how a performance might have been.

In the case of the 1947 stagings of Galileo, we have Brecht's word, and also the photographs which Ruth Berlau took during rehearsals.

Time ago, I was lucky to see a documentary titled "My name is Bertolt Brecht, Exile in U.S.A." (produced in 1989), in a local film festival: and I was thrilled to see that it contained silent filmed excerpts of Laughton's performance as Galileo. The directors (Norbert Bunge and ChristineFisher-Defoy) were present, so I asked Mr. Bunge about the footage, and he told me that there were filmed bits of the stage production in the Brecht archives in East Berlin. Very interesting to know. however, i was led to think that those were just only a few short filmed bits.

But recently, I came across a one-minute bit from a documentary about Ruth Berlau in Youtube ( Click here to watch it), in which, apart from it showing bits which I had not seen in the other documentary, it is mentioned that Ruth Berlau's filmed record is more extensive than I believed: she shot the entire play. Albeit it was done with a domestic camera, in Black and White, and from a static position (in fact, as an spectator might have seen it in the theatre), well, the mere idea of it being available to be seen is mind-boggling.

Click here to learn more about the documentary containing these images, "Red Ruth: That Deadly Longing"

Stopover in Bombay

Another surprise foud in Youtube is a video from a TV programme hosted and starred by Laughton titled "Stopover in Bombay". According to the notes accompanying the video, the show was never aired! It seems that it was a pilot of a series to be hosted by Laughton, who would also play parts in some of the series' episodes.

The date seems to be 1958, which is interesting, as it shows that, even though Laughton didn't do much films after "The Night of The Hunter", he was certainly busy, albeit in other mediums.

Click here to watch the video.

A propos Jane Wyman: The Blue Veil

2007-12-25T10:47:00.001+01:00

Laughton, Jane Wyman, and director Curtis Bernhard resting between scenes

"The Blue Veil" (1951) is a rare film: one with a multi-stellar cast and two Oscar nominations which has almost dissapeared from sight. Of all the films from Laughton's filmography is one of the most difficult to locate. I must say that, while originally released in my country, I have yet to see a TV broadcast of it, let alone a video or DVD release. It was only through the kind help of an American Laughtonian (who sent me the tape which he had recorded, years ago, from a TV airing), that I was finally able to see it. Well, "see it" is here a figure of speech, as the image in the tape was somewhat faded, and the viewing was interrupted by commercial pauses here and there, so my comments on the film are bound to be somewhat incomplete: I can't, certainly, make a proper comment on the film's photography, such was the poor image quality of the tape.

Having watched it, I am of the opinion that the film is a good, watchable melodrama, well worth a DVD release. However, it seems that the same reason that has kept that film in the vaults, and unavailable for TV broadcasts or video releases so far, is a matter of rights' ownership. Honest, I don't think that it takes such an incredible amount of money to satisfy these copyright issues, so whoever the responsible, please, pay for thew rights so this film becomes available for view again.

The Blue Veil was based on a French wartime film "Le Voile Bleu" (1942). It was released in the United states after the war (1947) and it is likely that its American release impressed RKO's studio heads enough to consider an American adaptation. It certainly looked like a good vehicle for Jane Wyman to star in: The young actres had proved he could play substantial lead roles and character parts, and her ascending star through films like The Yearling, Johnny Belinda (for which she won an Oscar) , Stage Fright, made of her an ideal actress for a melodrama such as "The Blue Veil".

Spanish herald advertising the film

The film was indeed meant as a quality product, apart from a spectacular cast including
Jane Wyman, Charles Laughton, Joan Blondell (who would earn an Oscar nomination for her role in the picture), Agnes Moorehead, Cyril Cusack, Everett Sloane and Natalie Wood.Norman Corwin, the famed radio writer, was responsible for the adaptation of François Campaux's original story. You may remember Corwin as the author of the screenplay of "Lust for Life", but I'd like to point here that Laughton had worked in a number of remarkable radio programmes written by him: It is not a widely-known fact from Charles' career, and unfairly so, as these programmes are indeed worth listening and should be recovered... But then this is another story, to which I'll come back in another post sometime in the future.

Maybe the lower-profile element of the film is the director, whose name won't ring many bells, even to dedicated filmophiles, which may disregard him a priori as a journeyman. Curtis Bernhard had been working mainly in Germany, a country which he had to leave prior to the Second World War, as so many did, due to the fact that he was Jewish. He was therefore part of the exiled European contingent which enriched the former Hollywood with their talent and/or craftmanship. His directing in "The Blue Veil", while not spectacular, is competent enough.

The story
(you may skip the next few paragraphs if you don't want to be spoiled about the plot)

American first release poster

This is the story of Louise Mason, a woman who loses her husband in First World War, and then her child. Looking for a job, but not having any special training or skills, she is eventually offered the chance to work taking care of children.

Her first customer, a recently widowed corset-maker (Charles Laughton), is so satisfied about how she keeps his child, and so drawn to her good character, that he proposes her marriage: she kindly declines, as she rightly guesses that it's the man's uncapability to bear a lonely life, rather than genuine love, what motivates his otherwise well-meaning proposal. However, the corsetmaker's secretary has no such qualms and marries him, and with the child having a new mother, Louise looses the job.

Her next employers are a wealthy couple (Agnes Moorehead and Don Taylor). Louise takes care of the younger son, while his older brother is tutored by an idealistic young teacher who resents his steady, but far from exciting job, and yearns for far horizons. Louise and the teacher get friendly, and, when he takes an offer to work in a foreign land, he asks Louise to marry him, and she accepts. Her employer wishes them the best of luck, even though she tells them that she feels that the whole thing is a bit rushed. Louise has no doubts, but her suitor suddenly becomes hesitant. Feeling her fiancé is too doubtful about such their future relationship, Louise refuses to marry such a vacillant partner and returns to her work.

We next see Louise taking care of a teenage girl (Natalie Wood), the daughter of a singer (Joan Blondell). The singer is very devoted to her career, to the point that she neglects her daughter, who increasingly turns to Louise as a mother figure. When te singer doesn't attend the girl's confirmation due to an important audition, the girl introduces Louise to her friends as her mother. Considering that the whole thing has gone too far, Louise quits, not without telling the singer her reasons, which realizes that she should be more of a mother than she has been, and ready to turn down offers for future shows which might come between she and her daughter.

Later, Louise is employed by a young couple. The husband is British, and when a new war breaks out in Europe, he leaves the Sates to join the army. When the husband is wounded, his American wife leaves as well to take care of him, enthrusting her child to Louise. The husband dies and her widow marries someone else again, forgetting about her son. Years pass and Louise has become, to all efects, the child's mother. Sudenly, she gets a notice that his biological mother and her new husband have returned to claim the child, but Louise refuses to give them back the boy, who is like a son to her, to a mother that hasn't cared for him in years. The District Attorney (Everett Sloane), gives the kid back to her biological mother, even though he considers Louise to be the real mother. But he must stick to what the law says.

Louise is now an aged woman, and she is considered too old to nurse children. Having no other working experience, she ends as a cleaning woman in a school, where at least she's in contact with children, but otherwise leads a lonely life with no-one to take care of her in her old age... Will all the unreserved love she gave to so many children go unrewarded? Maybe, maybe not... Hey! I'm not spoiling the end :p

Comments
This is the kind of film which is usually described as "tearjerker", yet its efficacy in the Kleenex department doesn't mean it is an overwrought melodrama... In fact it is quite restrained. Examples of it might be the almost-silent scene when Louise realizes that something is going wrong with her child, or the scene where she quits her job at Joan Blondell's home, where, in a crucial moment, we only see her back when we could see her tear-stained face.

To many spectators of today, used to more cynical approaches, the character of Louise might strike them as outlandish in her unselfishness... Yes, this woman who becomes the surrogate mother to all children under her care, only to be left heartbroken when she has to leave the job, is nearly a saint. But then we've all known about people who is able to sacrifice themselves for others. Also, Louise is counterpointed by the misanthropic toy-store owner played by Cyril Cusack. Cusack seems to have the store, not because he likes children (he doesn't: he's inclined to scare them out of the place), but because he's an overgrown child himself: So maybe it's no wonder he becomes friendly with nanny Louise.

On the other hand, we also see Louise considering to have a life of her own: first, when she accepts the teacher's marriage offer, even though she's disappointed by the selfish love of grown men, and returns to the unconditional love that children give her. Second, when she raises her ward as if she were her actual mother, and resists the idea of giving him away.

As a Jane Wyman vehicle, she certainly makes the best of her performance, suggesting well the loving, sacrificial nature of the nanny-nurse in a quiet way. This gives more strength to the scene where she claims to the District Atorney the custody of the boy she has mothered for years: the frustration of her not being a biological mother is patent there. She also ages convincingly, even though the kindly, older Louise isn't quite like Angela Channing, the shrewish matriarch that an older Jane Wyman played many years later in the TV series "Falcon Crest"

Personally, I have one complaint. I know the film was done in other times, but I resent that the Joan Blondell character is presented as selfish for wanting to maintain her career as a singer, instead of being a full-time mother: she has to earn her keep, doesn't she? In contrast with this, we don't see, for instance, a criticism of the Charles Laughton character for directing his corset factory and leaving his son in the hands of a nurse (however competent)... Ah, forgive me, I'm just sensible about these issues..

On Charles' performance

Charles as Fred K. Begley

Oh, but of course we should be talking about Charles a bit... shouldn't we? ;D

"The Blue Veil" is one of those films which figures in his filmography, but is rarely reviewed or mentioned in books about him. The logical reason is that it is a hard-to-get item, or a "lost" one. This is not an unique case among his films, though maybe "On Our Merry Way/A Miracle Can Happen" (where Laughton's participation in the film was considered lost) would be more of a case in point. Laughton only appears in the first part of the film as Jane Wyman's first employer. Interestingly, Laughton has quite a number of episodic films in his career, in which he gave performances short in footage but grand in quality ("If I Had a Milion" could be the topping example).

Laughton's Fred K. Begley is a man devoted to his corset factory, he finds it hard to live alone, so Louise not only solves the child-care issues, but also becomes a confidante he can trust: they become a family of sorts. However, it is not actually a family, and Mr. Begley ends proposing to the nanny: Laughton uses a polite, but very matter-of-factly way to do it, quite becoming to a businessman. In fact, more than a marriage, he seems to be proposing a commercial partnership. And he accepts Wyman's refusal like a sport, even though, as soon as he leaves her room, he drops his façade and we see him walk sadly down the corridor. In this moment of bleak defeat, he gets a call from his secretary, and Laughton brightens so much during the conversation that it s obvious that it is not bussiness that he's talking about: it is the realization that he's not alone as he thought he was..

Back from the honeymoon, the new Mrs. Begley is ready toi take care of the child, and she believes that the Nanny is no longer needed. Laughton's sadness at the thought of loosing Louise reveals that he doesn't agree with the idea, revealing that the dominant boss at work is a bit of a henpecked guy at home.

In all, he gives a touching, competent character study.

"I don't want to set the world on fire..."

2007-11-15T20:23:00.002+01:00

I just love this photo: it is one of the favourites in my collection of Laughton stills. It is to me a metaphore of how Laughton's talent set the world on fire, particularly in his décade prodigieuse of the thirties, where he awed the world with a string of great performances.

He's got a charming air canaille in the picture... Not unbecoming, as Laughton was enamored with France, a country whose language he spoke fluently. Being a francophile is not an usual choice for an Englishman, but then Laughton was a citizen of the world avant la lettre.

There's a date in the copy: 1939. Whereas this date refers to the year the photo was made or just the one in which it was printed, it is significative, for the clouds in the background seem a symbol of the bonfire that had burned Spain and was about to spread to Europe and the rest of the world. Laughton's own prospects were burnt-out as well: the films produced by "Mayflower Pictures", the film company he had set up with the legendary German producer Erich Pommer, hadn't met with the required success on their original releases. And Laughton, with the savings made by years of hard work gone, and broke, was again an actor badly in need for a job, and had to accept a contract with RKO pictures to clear his debts and that of his British film company .

As it happens, this would result in one of his greatest performances, and a fitting way to top his extraordinary work of the thirties: Quasimodo in "The Hunchback of Notre-dame". He and Pommer had thoughts of re-starting their company, which were definitely shattered by the start of the hostilities in Europe and its effects on foreign film markets.

But I digress... The subjet of this post wasn't actually that. In fact, I wanted to reflect about how different are our times from 1930. Had Laughton lived today, no doubt he'd be able to live his personal life more freely. But if our times are more tolerant on some areas, have grown more narrow minded in other regards... If Charles Laughton, actor, lived today... would be allowed to set the world on fire? Probably he wouldn't even be allowed to light a match!

Consider me a pessimist, but recent talk about Leonardo DiCaprio playing emperor Claudius in a prospective film version of Robert Graves' novel "I Claudius", or Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing Henry VIII in the TV series "The Tudors" doesn't strike me as good news.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not meaning that these gentlemen can't do the job, but the thought of handsome, hunky guys playing historical characters that may have not been, precisely, the kind of people you'd see in a Hugo Boss advert, doesn't make me too happy.

And even less so, after reading a recent interview which I recently read in La Vanguardia's section "La Contra". On the October 22nd of the current year, Lluis Amiguet interviewed plastic surgeon Thomas Biggs. The doctor mentioned the case of a well-known character actor (1) who had to be operated urgently : seemingly, the actor was to play a romantic scene, and it turned out that he had a bit of double chin, which the director considered intolerable for the camera to capture...

In Laughton's times, an actor with talent could become a world-famous star even if he didn't look debonair. Nowadays, eugenics seem to rule, and soon non-hunky actors won't be even allowed to play bit character parts, however talented they might be.

Notes:
1) The victim of intolerance against normal looks, according to Dr. Biggs, was Ben Gazzara.

About Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead"

2007-11-11T17:26:00.000+01:00

Norman Mailer just passed away. I don't know how many of you know that, had "The Night of the Hunter" fared decently in the box office, Charles would have directed a second film, based on Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead".

In fact, Laughton was already working in the film's script with Mailer. As he had done with Davis Grubb, he considered that the writer's own contribution was vital to the final film (a certain sign of respect for literature). By the time his first directorial effort was on its way for release, Laughton was already working in his next film with Stanley Cortez and the Sanders brothers, who had collaborated with him in the making of "The Night of the Hunter". As a matter of fact, Cortez went to Hawaii to scout locations for that film.

This is covered in some extension in Preston Neal Jones' very commendable book . There's one priceless anecdote about Laughton and Mailer discussing the script which I don't want to reveal (read the book, punyeta!). It is also recorded there that names like James Stewart, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark and Robert Montgomery were being considered at this early stage to act in the film. Both Cortez and Terry Sanders recall very interesting visual narrative ideas that were being conceived to be in the film. As in "The Night of the Hunter", it seems that we would have had a film that was ahead of its time, with daring new cinematic devices that would still be influential today. Sanders also mentioned that the final script was "quite magnificent".

Charles Laughton in 1917, while undergoing early army training

I always wondered how Laughton would have approached the subject of war. Having himself experienced war first-hand as a foot soldier during First World War, and having never talked extensively about his time in the army, the film could have been revealing about his own insights about men and war. Unfortunately, the critical and box-office indifference to "The Night of the Hunter" meant that the prospects of a second film directed by Laughton got difficult. Laughton was himself disheartened an the failure of his first-born, and felt discouraged to keep on working in his second film. Alas.

The film was eventually produced by Paul Gregory, and directed by Hollywood veteran Raoul Walsh. Cortez later would say that, upon seeing the finished film, it was, as compared to what Laughton had envisaged "It was like day and night". Gregory himself, who split his association with Laughton after "The Night of the Hunter", admitted himself that Laughton would have made a better film, as he had the poetry that Walsh's approach lacked.

One wonders if the script is anywhere to be read. It wouldn't be like watching the actual film that Laughton had in mind, but one would at least get a smattering of what it could have been.

An interview with Paul Gregory

2007-10-04T17:20:00.000+02:00

Those of you with particular interest in "The Night of the Hunter", might like to read this online interview with the film producer Paul Gregory.

It seems that Gregory and Mitchum didn't, hum, precisely, get along together very well XD... I know this may be one of the better known items of Hunteriana, but it is interesting to read it from Gregory's perspective

Also, I admit I had never read about Gregory's youth in London....Attending school with embassy children? Hmm...

Note:
I found this interview linked in the blog "Dispatches from Zembla" , In a post where he discusses Laughton's film and Simon Callow's BFI booklet about it.

Wrong sailor in the boat

2007-09-08T23:11:00.000+02:00

One of the anecdotes about the shooting of "Mutiny on the Bounty" (The 1936 version, of course!) is that the scenes about Lieutenant Bligh's epic travel in the Bounty's launch to Timor were shot twice, which made the shooting of those scenes a little odissey by itself.

The reason was that one of the actors that were supposed to be among the mutineers, was mistakenly in the launch among with those remaining loyal to Bligh. Charles Higham's book on Laughton put the blame on young actor Eddie Quillan, who was playing the young mutineer Thomas Ellison, and should be in the "Bounty", not the boat.

But then I got these two old stills:

In this one we have Laughton with Franchot Tone, playing Midshipman Roger Byam, who was the fictional equivalent of Peter Heywood, one of those who remained loyal to Bligh in the Mutiny but remained in the Bounty for lack of room in the launch, so well... he shouldn't be there.

In the second one, we see Donald Crisp (second sailor right of Laughton), who played one of the most conspicuous mutineers, Thomas Burkitt, and wasn't supposed to be in the launch, either.

So maybe the blame shouldn't go just to poor Eddie Quillan.

One thing I can say for certain is that both Tone and Crisp are made up as they looked as prisoners in HMS Pandora, the ship the Royal Navy sent to capture the mutineers. I wonder if the make up experts responsible for the scruffy looks of the members of both the Bounty launch and the prisoners at Pandora's box were around for a limited time, and this prompted a bit of confusion at both the filming and the shooting of stills.

Curiously, the actor I don't recall at all in the launch was Herbert Mundin. who played Bligh servant in the Bounty, he is neither seen among the mutineers nor among Bligh's loyals after the mutiny... Maybe because he was there for comic relief, and the launch trip was very dramatic stuff indeed. Still, what a goof.

Incidentally, being based in a novel, not the actual facts, there's always been criticisms about its historical accuracy. One of the greatest ones, in that sense, is the presence of Bligh aboard the Pandora, there to find Christian and his mutineers and make them pay for their rebellion. Actually, Bligh was on a new breadfruit expedition, and the Pandora was commanded by Captain Edwards, who was far nastier than Bligh. I haste to say that, although not accurate, Bligh in the Pandora made for one of the most dramatic moments of the film.

The Pandora also shipwrecked, and Captain Edwards had to bring to safety both his crew and his prisoners in boats, in a trip not unlike Bligh's journey to Timor. If it weren't because the actors in the still are mostly those whom se see in the film as Bligh's loyals, I'd drop the crazy theory that the trip of the Pandora's boats wers filmed, too, but cut in the final editing, ;D

Whatever, whoever was the actor responsible of being the sailor in the wrong boat, the rest of cast and crew were obviously oblivious of the fact, too. The making of "Mutiny on the Bounty" took about two years, but Charles' work in it was during a few weeks, due to other film commitments, so the scenes with Bligh were filmed all together over a short period of time: this might be one of the reasons for that continuity mistake, and also gives the impression that having to film those scenes again must be an extra source of stress for those involved, specially Laughton, who had to return to England to work for Alexander Korda.

The irony is, that when he came back, Korda kept him idle for months while throwing prijects and ideas to Laughton: one gets the impression that Korda's aim was to keep Laughton from working with other people, as this strange period of inactivity in Britain contrasts sharply with Charles' busy schedule when in Hollywood... But that's another story.

All singing! All dancing! All busking!

2006-11-10T21:54:00.002+01:00

Charlie Staggers (Laughton) entertaining a queue

Pat Cronenberg recently brought to my attention this recent bit of news about the New York Première of "Busker Alley", a musical inspired by "St. Martin's Lane", a 1938 Mayflower picture starring Charles Laughton. A one-night only benefit performance featuring Glenn Close will be staged on November 13th.

I am a bit surprised, as "St. Martin's Lane" (released in the USA as "The Sidewalks of London") wasn't, shall we say, an spectacularly successful film. Though, as Edward Copeland pointed recently, nearly everyone has heard about the musical "Chicago" while most people is ignorant about the existence of the film "Roxie Hart".

behind the camera of "St. Martin's Lane", from left to right : photographer Jules Kruger, director Tim Whelan, producers Erich Pommer and Charles Laughton

While it is true that the films produced by Mayflower Pictures (the company set in 1937 by German Producer Erich Pommer and Laughton) failed to meet the high hopes that the union of such illustrious film personalities seemed to herald, they have their points of interest which, in my humble opinion, make the film well worth watching.

In the case of "St. Martin's Lane" , there's a touching performance by Laughton as a doomed-to-fail yet ultimately hopeful busker, a pre-"Gone With the Wind" Vivien Leigh as a volatile cockney girl, a very young Rex Harrison as a posh song composer, a filmed record of Harmonica Soloist Larry Adler's virtuosism , as well as a documentary record of the pre-WW2 London: many scenes were shot actually in West End streets and real street entertainers appear performing themselves.

Vivien Leigh (Libby) and Laughton

One of the usual criticisms of the film is that accomplished as it is the portrait of low-life London, the high-life and glamour musical scenes fall flat. While true, I feel that the key to this is that the musical scenes were, as those of the back alleys of the West End, seen through a realistic looking glass: used, as most of us are, to lavish film musicals (with numbers which can only exist as such on the screen), we may be deceived at watching how an actual musical show may have looked like in the 30s.

Incidentally, the premiére of "Busker Alley" almost coincides in time with a Zone 2 DVD release of the film (there's already a Zone 1 DVD published by Kino)

P.S.:
Don't think the "Night of the Hunter" campaign is over, further installments are queuing to be posted ASAP. Keep spreading the word, ye faithful keepers of the flame.

Linking, linking....

2006-10-18T23:08:00.000+02:00

Illustration: "The Night of the Hunter" © Rod Filbrandt

... and now for a few interesting links about "the Night of the Hunter"

The great illustration you see here is the work of Rod Filbrandt, you can see it here as originally posted in his graphic blog chowderheadbazoo

Some more links:
:: " Charles Laughton: Night of the Hunter " A review by Derek Malcolm in The Guardian
:: "Why I love Night Of The Hunter" by Margaret Atwood, originally published in The Guardian
:: Text and Texture: A comparative analysis of The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear (1962) and Cape Fear (1991) by Harvey O'Brien
:: "The Night of the Hunter" reviewed by Moviediva
:: A great page about "Night of the Hunter" photographer Stanley Cortez
:: "The Night of the Hunter", a film review by Pete Croatto

Ackowledgements:
I must thank William Turgeon for bringing to my attention many of the online articles and reviews here, also to Rod Filbrandt for kindly allowing to link to his illustration.

Documentary: "Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter"

2006-10-08T22:05:00.002+02:00

(Article updated:Friday October 1st 2008: more people has had the lucky chance of seeing this, so I've added the links with their comments)

One of the possible features for a Special Edition DVD of "The Night of the Hunter" would be the more than eight hours of surviving rushes of the film. UCLA Film Preservation Officer Robert Gitt recently assembled a good part of this material in a documentary titled "Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter", which as one reviewer in the links below has put it, is like if a master class of film direction given by Laughton. While I think this documentary would deserve a DVD release by itself, I also believe that it would make a terrific extra for a Special Edition DVD.

The story of how this footage has reached our days is a curious one: as mentioned in the previous post, Laughton wasn't keen on breaking the concentration of his actors, so instead of yelling "cut!" he would keep the camera rolling and try for another take, instructing the actors as if in a theatrical rehearsal. This meant that a large amount of filmed material of documentary value was generated.

Most of this, of course, was to be deleted in the editing room, and, had Laughton followed the then prevailing habits of film making, all this footage would have been thrown to the bin. Instead, and in spite of the commercial failure of the film, he opted to keep it, as if he had hopes that the future would meet with more appreciative audiences. His act of faith has preserved the process of the making of the film as in a time capsule: those who love "The Night of the Hunter" may experience the same emotion watching these rushes as Howard Carter did when he discovered Tutankhamun's tomb.

While working for the American Film Institute (AFI) in the 70's. Gitt visited Elsa Lanchester in order to collect material related to “The Night of the Hunter” and she told him that he had boxes of outtakes at home and he could take them with him, too. This material was stored first by AFI and later by UCLA Film and Television Archive. Over the years, Gitt worked to re-assemble this material and finally produced a documentary with it in 2002.

Those lucky ones who have been able to see the film in special screenings in cinematheques around the world describe this documentary as an unmissable event. As mentioned in the previous post, this film provides filmed evidence against the stablished myths about Laughton hating children and not directing the kids in the film, and give a first-hand impression about Laughton's thoroughness at work, as well as his relationship with members of cast and crew.

Some interesting links:
:: Interview by Kelly Graml with Robert Gitt
:: An article in "The Guardian""The Hidden Hunter" by Robert Gitt
:: A brief article about the documentary in "the Guardian"
:: Article by Leonard Maltin
:: Article by F.X. Feeney in "L A Weekly"
:: Review by Peter Merholz
:: "The making of a mighty pantomime" Nigel Andrews' views about the documentary published in the Financial Times
:: Comments at Filmjourney.org
:: Joe D'Augustine gives us a report at Film Forno
:: Vertigo's Psycho tells us about Hunting Down Laughton's Haunting Night at And Your Little Blog, Too

Thanks to:
Pat Cronenberg for one very interesting link, and all the people who has seen this documentary and given their views online!

"Night of the Hunter DVD" campaign Index

2006-10-08T19:32:00.000+02:00

There are a number of posts already queueing about this, so it's time to set an index:
:: Click here to find arguments to ask for a Spedial Edition DVD of the film.
:: Click here to e-mail your petition.
:: Click here to behold the list of the bold petitioners.

You can also find these other related posts:
:: Click here to read a review of Preston Neal Jones' " Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of Night of the Hunter "
:: Click here to see a series of interesting online reviews and goodies related to the film.

Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of Night of the Hunter

2006-10-01T19:48:00.001+02:00

(Article updated: March 2008)
Starting here, I'll be posting short reviews about items related to "The Night of the Hunter", and I will start with a book which is a treat for all lovers of the film. Stay tuned for updates and future posts!

Title: Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of Night of the Hunter
Author: Preston Neal Jones
Published by: Limelight Editions, 2002

Everything you ever wanted to know about "The Night of the Hunter", or nearly, can be found in the 400 pages of this book. It thoroughly covers the successive stages of the making of the film, from the preparatory work to its aftermath. The book presents a series of interviews -deftly weaved in chronological order- with members of cast and crew, among them: actors Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish and Don Beddoe, Producer Paul Gregory, film photographer Stanley Cortez, art director Hyliard Brown, second unit director Terry Sanders, editor Robert Golden and writer Davis Grubb.

Davis Grubb's brother Louis, composer Walter Schumman's widow Sonya, and actor William Phipps, a good friend of Laughton and Mitchum, share reminiscences which provide further insight. The author has also sourced himself well in previous bibliography and multitude of archival sources. Apart from that, we find there fascinating graphic material, such as stills from the film, on-the-set snapshots, layouts ad preparatory drawings, illustrations et alia...

From this Kaleidoscopic presentation, we are close to getting the whole picture. All testimonials are presented in a way which doesn't interfere with the reader's own judgement, and the information uncovered brings a number of interesting news about the film and, in some stances, helps debunk some false myths about it.

For instance, the script has been traditionally attributed to James Agee, but he just produced a first script, the final draft being by Laughton, who opted, nonetheless, to give credit to Agee, who sadly died before the film was finished. This is no speculation, as proved by the abundant communication (written, verbal, graphic) between writer Davis Grubb and director Laughton, which shows that the director didn't limit himself to visualize someone else's words, but strived to gain further understanding in order to be able to give his best to his own personal rendering of the novel.

Also, it has been so far commonly assumed that the notions spread by Laughton's widow Elsa Lanchester "Laughton hated kids" and "couldn't bear to direct the child actors in the movie" were true to fact, but this is solidly disproved in the pages of the book, not merely from the words of those who were present in the set (which describe a good entente between director and children), but also from the filmed evidence that Preston Neal Jones got from witnessing laughton's direction of the children in the surviving rushes of the film (more about this in an upcoming post about Robert Gitt's documentary).

We get also fascinating glimpses of Laughton's directing methods: he didn't have the habit of shouting "cut" and the camera was kept rolling between diferent takes, a measure that helped the actors' concentration not to be broken. The film was shot in the silent-movie manner: Laughton gave directions to the actors as the scene was being shot (in post-production, Laughton's voice was, of course, cleared). Being an actor himself, Laughton's manners' towards cast and crew were starkly different from those he had suffered himself while working at the orders of some directors-dictators, autocrats of the set.

While he had a well-defined idea of what he wanted to do in the film, he also fostered creative input coming from his collaborators. Stanley Cortez, for instance, graphically described his fruitful exchange of ideas with Laughton as "mental intercourse". We can also pay heed to actor Peter Graves, who stated that working for Laughton, as compared what he had experienced working for John Ford, was like going from hell to heaven.

In the aftermath of "The Night of the Hunter", a tantalising account is given by Cortez and Sanders about the preparatory work of what would have been Laughton's second film, "The Naked and the Dead" (after Norman Mailer's novel), which reveal that he wanted to make it as visually and narratively innovative as "The Night of the Hunter" was. And we are also revealed that, had not the commercial failure of "The Night of the Hunter" put an end to his career as a director, that he was keen on directing a film adaptation of Thomas Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again": Laughton was an admirer of Wolfe ever since he was introduced to his work in the radio programmes he did for Norman Corwin and included excerpts of Wolfe's novels his reading tours.

This post is only a brief hint of the riches contained in the book... The reader is welcome to discover the rest of the treasure.

Some external links with info and reviews about the book:
:: Details from the publisher, Limelight Editions.
:: Review by Matthew Plouffe at Film Comment.
:: Review by Kendahl Cruver at bookreview.com
:: Details and reader's comments at Amazon.com
:: Capsule info at Turner Classic Movieswebsite

Would you like to see a special edition DVD of "The Night of the Hunter"? Join the campaign!!

2006-09-18T21:24:00.000+02:00

I recently came across a thread in the IMDB message board: it was suggested there that a fine film such as Charles Laughton's only effort behind the camera, "The Night of the Hunter", would deserve to be published in DVD in a good special edition (a regular edition was already released some time ago by MGM/UA).

I think it is a very interesting idea... what about joining forces to present a huge list of petitions to a DVD publisher?

And what could that edition have? well, here's a little list for starters:
:: The film itself, from the recently restored print
:: UCLA Film Preservationist Robert Gitt's documentary "Charles Laughton Directs the Night of the Hunter"(made from deleted and filmed-on-the-set rushes)
:: Simon Callow's 1987 documentary about Laughton (a Yorkshire TV-ITV production)
:: Alternate soundtracks with comments about the film (by surviving members of Cast and Crew, or experts like Simon Callow, Preston Neal Jones or Robert Gitt)
:: Even though it has already been released in CD format maybe it would be a good idea to include the soundtrack with Laughton's narration as originally released.
::... And what about Walter Schumann's score by itself?
:: Other rushes not included in Robert Gitt's documentary
:: Stills from the film
:: Subtitles would also be appreciated (and make the DVD more marketable, ahem)
:: Etc, etc, etc... These are only but a few suggestions, but feel free to add other ideas.

Just imagine your dream DVD edition of "The Night of the Hunter"... Just imagine we can get it, if we ask for it: nobody else is going to do it for us, if we don't.

You can now, if you want to, send your petition

Gloria (playing Capità Enciam)

Post-Data
This is no idle petition... if we succeed, we can try and ask for more. Fellow Laughtonian Pierre Bellemare suggested that future campaigns could be aimed to ask for release of old recordings by Laughton, like "The Storyteller" or his adaptation of Shaw, "Don Juan in Hell" (the recent CD release by Deutsche Grammophon of a Charles Laughton/Ronald Colman Dickens recording suggests that such items have a public)... I would personally add to the list a re-masterized release of the old programmes Laughton did for Norman Corwin: a true delicatessen

E-mail your petition:

2006-09-18T20:30:00.000+02:00

Anyone interested in joining forces to ask for the release of a Special Edition DVD of "The Night of the Hunter" is welcome to e-mail a petition.

Please state the name with which you want to appear in the list. You may complement your name with your occupation, or with a geographical reference: alternatively, in the case of those who have a blog, it would be enough with the name of the blog (I will add a link to it if so wished).

You may now e-mail your petition if that is your wish.

E-mail update (Monday September 25th 2006)
If the link above doesn't work in your computer, cut and paste this address to e-mail your petition: campaign.rootingxlaughton@gmail.com

List of petitionaries:

2006-09-18T20:24:00.017+02:00

(Last update: Saturday October 10th 2009)

Alicia(La linterna mágica)
Awesome Girl(Austin, Texas, USA Antsy Pants)
Mykal Banta (Florida, USA)
Jean Bass (Cleveland, Ohio, USA)
Pattie Bauer
Ed Bayer & wife (Israel)
Phil Beard (Devon, UK)
Pierre Bellemare (Canada)
Martin Becker (Mainz, Germany)
Wouter van den Berg (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) (Believe the Best, Expect the Worst)
Even Bjerkelien (Lillehammer, Norway)
Laura Boyes, North Carolina Museum of Art Film Curator
Dan Britton (Silver Spring, Maryland, USA)
Mario Calandrella (Italia)
Stewart Chase (San Francisco, USA)
Gwen Christie (Australia)
Bill Coleman (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
Franco Costanzo (Italia)
Vasco Corisco (Lisboa, Portugal)
Pat Cronenberg (Belgium)
Carsten Czarnecki (Munich)
Mark Dawson (Jersey, Channel Islands)
Dev Donnelly
Linda Edwards, Webmistress of the Official Charles Laughton Website
Mary Engelhart (USA)
David Ehrenstein (Strange Twilight Urges )
Olivier Eyquem (waldolydecker.blog.lemonde.fr)
Pierre Fablet (France)
Alan Ferber (USA)
Laure Fernandez (France)
Rod Filbrandt (chowderheadbazoo.typepad.com)
Greg (No Stripes)
Claudio Goldini (Argentina)
William Gambell (Japan)
Eduardo Gavín (Portugal) (Café del artista)
Guely of Sweden (Sweden, Guelyland)
Víctor Guerrero Plumas de Caballo (Barcelona, Spain)
Chadd Harbold (New York, USA)
Ehud Havazelet (University of Oregon)
Ann L. Hemenway
Hunter's Niece
Scott Hurst (Canada)
Paul Kelly (Australia)
Jesse Laughton (Gilbert, AZ, USA)
Maverick (Blogger denizen)
marcbranches (La linterna mágica)
Rick Lucey
Mark Maynard (markmaynard.com)
Marty and Sally (Comcast)
Caspar Milquetoast (Scotland)
Rosalind Mitchell (Enitharmon’s Cave)
Mary Moretti (Warwick, RI)
Adil Ouazzani (Montreal, Canada)
Patrick (justshowstogoyou.blogspot.com)
Clark Perry (Los Angeles, CA, USA) (Clarkblog)
Gloria Porta (Rooting for Laughton)
Elisenda Roca (Barcelona)
Esteban Roldán (Málaga)
Sally Rushbrook (London, UK)
Josh Ryan (Embracing The Boogyman)
Michael Sweeney
Tiziana (Italy) Webmistress of the Robert Mitchum Italian Website
Messrob Torikian, digital artist (Los Angeles, California, USA)
Ola Torstensson (Malmo, Sweden)
Kevin Tosolini (Castroville, CA)
William Turgeon (Maryland, USA)
Janet Vaughn (Hollis, NH)
Chris West (California, USA)
Xavier (Australia)
Fred Zaidman (Los Angeles)

Young man in a three-cornered hat

2006-09-07T20:54:00.000+02:00

Update: a new text was added to this post in September 15th, 2006

I recently got this photograph, which has possibly spent ages in the depths of an archive vault, among other ignored treasures. This something more than a mere picture from an old play, it captures...

...A turning point
London, October 1927. The actors appear in "Paul I" a play by Dimitri Merejkowsky about the life the Mad Czar, son of Catherine the Great. George Hayes played the title role. The young man in the three-cornered hat who stands in the middle of the scene is Charles Laughton, whom Komisarjevsky has been rearing since he spotted the flair of his 26-year old student at RADA. Komisarjevsky was an intelligent director who valued talent above looks, and also regarded highly actors with imagination and creativity. He knew the potential of his protegé.

The character played by Laughton is Count Pahlen, one of the conspirators against the emperor, defined as Machiavelian by one reviewer. James Agate, who praised his performance, said that in his work "(...) there was suggestion of enough intellectual vigour to go round a dozen plays" which well describes Laughton's prodigal way of acting: he would never treat as unimportant a secondary character, he would make a living being even out the most humble of stage spear-carriers. Where others would assume a perfunctory attitude, Laughton went full speed ahead.

Front, from left to right: Laughton, Carl Harbord, Lydia Sherwood

So far he has been in secondary roles, from early short appearances, as those in the Russian plays staged at Barnes Theatre in 1926, to character roles capable of outshadowing a lead as in "Liliom". Pahlen will be the last of a row of secondary roles with which the young actor has awed public and critics: in his next play, "Mr. Prohack" he will play a lead. He would continue to play leads from then onwards for most of his life. For someone whose looks were not those of a matinée idol it was, and remains, a feat.

In the cast of "Mr. Prohack" he met Elsa Lanchester, who played the short role as Prohack's secretary. In a way, "Paul I" is the last stage before the beginning of his "public life": in biographies, and due to the fact that the main source about Laughton's life was his widow, his life and career up to "Mr. Prohack" is not as well recorded as one would like to, in fact, Charles (whether young or old) remains elusive, and what we know about his life is ultimately as seen (juggled?) through Lanchester's looking glass.

The shape of the things to come?
The knowledgeable Laughtonian May find in the photo something familiar: Doesn't Charles' Pahlen remind you of Bligh and Javert?

The Cast:
In the photo, I can only identify Laughton and, from other pictures of the production Carl Harbord and Lydia Sherwood... Maybe anyone could help in identifying the rest of the actors in the scene? The cast was as follows:
Grand Duke Alexander: Carl Harbord
Elizabeth, his wife: Lydia Sherwood
Paul I, Emperor of Russia: George Hayes
Grand Duke Constantin: Elliott Seabrooke
Lieutenant Marin: Arthur Macrae
General Count Pahlen, Governor of Petersburg: Charles Laughton
General Talyzin: Hugh Barnes
Colonel Prince Yashvil: Bramwell Fletcher
General Bennigsen: Vivian Beymon
Coronel Argamakov: Ian Davison
Doctor Rodgerson: Dan F. Roe
Empress Marie: Dorothy Green
Princess Anna Gagarine, Lady-in-waiting to the Empress: Dorothy Cheston
Colonel Baron Rosen: Dan F. Roe
Lieutenant Bibikov: W.E.C. Jenkins
Cornet Gardanov: G. Vernon
Prince Platon Zoubov: Scott Sunderland
Prince Nicolas Zoubov: Barry K. Barnes
Guards of the emperor:
Kirilov: W.E.C. Jenkins
Ropchinsky: Arthur Macrae

Direction of the Play and settings designed by Theodore Komisarjevsky

An curious caption
This is from the text behind the still:

This shows Laughton years ago in "The Patriot" which later served as a film vehicle for Emil Jannings with whom Laughton is constantly compared

This caption is partly inaccurate. Emil Jannings played the part of the Czar, while Laughton had been Count Pahlen (the role which in the film was played by Lewis Stone). "The Patriot" (1928) was directed by Ernst_Lubitsch and the script, albeit based in Merejovski's play, had been modified by three subsequent hands: so "The Patriot" was not exactly "Paul I".

As mentioned in the caption, when Laughton reached Hollywood in 1932, he was greeted by some as "The new Jannings". Jannings, who had preceded Laughton in Hollywood as a star character actor, left America with the advent of talkies, as his strong German accent was deemed not suitable for sound pictures. Laughton, though, would soon prove to be more than a mere English-speaking substitute of the great German actor.

"The Patriot" seems to be lost except from a few extant reels. I think it's sad that a film by Lubistch -and with Jannings!- is lost while cellulloid items such as "Plan 9 from outer space" are perfectly preserved and have special DVD edition

Acknowledgements:
I wouldn't have been able to tell the story behind the photograph without being properly sourced, so I must thank the Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection for kindly providing me with the required reference.

A double life

2006-08-19T13:12:00.000+02:00

Following with "The Masked Marvel": one of the interesting things about it is that it deals with the theme of a double life, something which Laughton could have portrayed well.

Laughton was always keen on giving a character a well-rounded, multi-layered self. Never an actor to conform himself with a flat, one dimensional delivery, he had successfully embodied respectable citizens with a skeleton in the closet, such as in "Payment Deferred" or "The Suspect". Those cases, though, deal more with people concerned with the cover-up of an accidental -or temporary- disruption (i.e. crime) in their routinely lifestyle than a fully fledged double life. "The Masked Marvel", in that sense, would have given him the chance of playing a man living a double life in a sustained way (Not that he would have had to gone too far to source himself, ha).

In this context I think that it would be appropiate to quote A.E. Wilson's (1) very perceptive description of Laughton's villains:
"Charles Laughton very often hands out a neat line in villainy of the subtle hand. He is not the bold and desperate villain who could as soon drown, poison or tie to the railway lines or mill-wheel the discarded victim of his cruel deceit as he would smoke or crush a cigarette. He is of the furtive and secret kind who would blush to let his bad deeds be known and who really has no stomach and relish for wickedness (2). This is not bold, black villainy as the good old Adelphi knew it; it is rather a wishy-washy sort of grey according to the old standards."

"(...) furtive and secret kind"... One wonders whether Mr. Wilson had an X-ray eyesight, or maybe Laughton did want to tell, in an oblique way, but tell, after all?

(1) From the book "Theatre Guyed. The Baedeker of Thespia" (1935) by A.E. Wilson. Introduction by Sidney Horler. Illustrations by Tom Titt. Published by Methuen
(2) Not that it was always that way: Laughton played well bold, black villainy in "A Man With Red Hair" or "White Woman" .

The Masked Marvel

2006-08-18T19:21:00.000+02:00

When I first came across an early promotion of the film "Nacho Libre", there was something familiar about the story... as this blogger , I had read in Cameron Crowe's interview book with Billy Wilder about a film script idea he had for Laughton. Billy & Charles finally settled for "Witness For The Prosecution"... Which leaves one wondering what kind of film this could have been.

What one can be reasonably sure is that "The Masked Marvel" would probably be as different from "Nacho Libre" as Billy Wilder is from Jared Hess or Charles Laughton is from Jack Black...

Ni mehó, ni peó... zolo diherente

Ens estimem tant en Charlie

2006-08-03T16:15:00.000+02:00

I've finished the main work in an article for the Catalan Wikipedia (with odds and bits to be added later).

The main point behind me doing it is that the red-blooded -and well-meaning- Laughtonian should not only enjoy his work indoors but, as much as possible, spread the good news to others. Proselitize gently, if you may, but proselitize... Don't leave your dear ones in the dark about what the real good thing is.

Manifesto

2006-07-11T23:56:00.002+02:00

Those of you who have seen Muhomatsu no issho (The Rickshaw man, 1958) may remember the scene in the summer festival. Matsugoro (Toshiro Mifune), the humble rickshaw man, volunteers to play the big drums (taiko). He seizes the drumsticks, as if to summon the God of Thunder himself, and starts beating. The audience is awed, carried away by the rythm... an old man rises, barely believing his ears: "that's the rythm of Gion... why, I thought there wasn't anybody who knew how to play it anymore!"

Well, when you watch Charles Laughton's work, it's like hearing again a long-forgotten rythm, like tasting once more a flavour you considered lost. He was unique in his acting. Through it he reached summits where nobody has dared to set a foot again. And the remarkable thing is, he did it against all odds: he didn't have stage parentage, he didn't have the looks, he was a late starter and, in less tolerant times, he wasn't straight to boot.

You have probably come across reductive views of his work: "he's Flamboyant", "he's a ham". Quite often these definitions are thrown by people who just follow what someone else said before: they replicate foreign opinions without daring to put them in question and see by themselves... Now, look with your own eyes and you'll find an actor who offers substance, imagination, subtleness. An actor who makes characters come alive. An actor engaging you and making you reflect. An actor considering his art as a means to teach you.

We can only try to imagine how was his work in the theatre, as Brecht put it, what an actor does on a stage is such "fleeting work". J.B. Priestley clinged to the belief that somewhere in a fourth dimension, theatre performances are still there, and wished time-travels were possible to enjoy memorable performances again. Then he wrote "Film needs no time travelling. Here on the screen - looking rather odd and old fashioned perhaps - is exactly what you wrote, what the actors performed, years ago".

Luckily for Laughton, he didn't despise the medium (sound film was then in its infancy), and was as committed to his film work as much as he was to the stage. So through the cellulloid time machine we can travel back in time, to the thirties, and watch Nero, Dr. Moreau, the clerk in "If I Had A Million", Henry VIII, papa Barrett, Ruggles, Inspector Javert, captain William Bligh, Rembrandt, surviving snippets of emperor Claudius, and, topping the decade, Quasimodo... You can follow forward into the forties and, never mind what you've have been told: you'll find that his performances in "This Land Is Mine", "The Suspect", "The Big Clock" and "The Bribe" are worth the ride. As you enter the fifties the time machine falters as studios seem to ostracise him and he's mostly seen in episodic roles and concentrating his energies on the stage, however, "The Night of The Hunter" suddenly flashes: you can't see him, but you feel he's there. Reaching the end, among his four last appearances he brings forth three unquestionable hits: Sir Wilfrid Robarts, Gracchus, Seab Cooley... and this -can't you beat that!- when he's old and ailing: his glory days are left behind, but he's still on the top.

... And for the top of these pyramyds he stands, still challenging many a living actor and director, Forty years after his death.

Well, you are welcome to join the gang: Laughtonians of the world, Unite!

Thanks to:

2006-06-24T17:03:00.000+02:00

Lisa Burks (Franchot Tone website), June Beck (Maureen O'Hara magazine),....