Sir Wilfrid, I need you!

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)

Marie Magdalene, a remarkable woman

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

"Witness" in AFI's Best Ten list

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.