In the 1940s a term to describe a type of (sub) genre of film came to prominence in cinema- The ‘woman’s picture’. Though films of this nature had been in existence since the silent era, the term reached its zenith during World War II, coinciding with the absence of men in the home and in the cinema, films populated with female-centric narratives and protagonists came to fruition. The woman’s picture was a film that encompassed women’s concerns such as problems in the home and within the family, of motherhood and the notion of self sacrifice. Now we have the depressingly narrow term and prospect of the ‘chick flick’; films aimed at women which a lot of the time cannot even boast two women talking about something that isn’t a man. There’s something wrong with that picture, but then again whoever said that progress and the passage of time move in the same direction. So what is the reason for the backwards movement? One could say it was the growing fear of the unlikeable or ‘unreliable’ woman in cinema.

The films were made by male screenwriters and directors (as they, like today, dominated the industry) however they featured strong female characters and the screen was commanded by powerful actresses such as Bette Davis, who fought the studios for creative rights and produced a chameleon body of work. These films offered women a glimpse of a world outside the home, with depictions of characters who achieved successful careers and though there were still elements of romance and marriage, often this was portrayed without the surrender of independence.

One of the era’s definitive woman’s pics was Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) a sensationally vicious melodrama that also evoked the aesthetics of the film noir, with its opening scene of the mystery of a dead body, shrouded in low key lighting. Joan Crawford plays Mildred Pierce, a smart, ambitious and driven woman whose devotion to her eldest daughter Veda (a venomous Ann Blyth) becomes her undoing, the ideals of maternal instinct become pathological, turning Momma’s apple pie deliciously nasty. It is a film where the female protagonist is not motivated by the love of a man but, misguidedly, by her love for her daughter, she turns herself from housewife to waitress to a successful restaurateur to fulfil Veda’s demanding appetite for the finest things in life. The film is a dark study of the family home, one that turns the American suburban dream into chaos its depiction of women is one of neurotic and possessive but shows that they can come out of the kitchen and be multi-dimensional and inhibit the characteristics that are often reserved for the onscreen male. This tale and this hero are an enduring one, as Kate Winslet successfully reprised the role of Mildred Pierce for a mini-series in 2011.

Alongside Mildred Pierce there were many other women’s pictures that became classics of the genre such as Now Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942) where Bette Davis overcomes the repression of matriarchal dominance and All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1955) a sumptuous melodrama where self-sacrifice and repressed insecurities bubble under the surface of the suburban home. Although Hollywood continued to makes films characterised with some of these elements, the term ‘woman’s picture’ disappeared in the 1960s.

Now the idea of a woman’s film is firmly placed in a rom-com box, an ABBA infused sing-along akin to something that might happen at a hen party or most recently, a half-hearted film featuring BDSM. Even the advertising changes in these screenings, particularly in the case of Fifty Shades of Grey as it was a guaranteed mostly female audience, the adverts were changed to cosmetic products, suggesting that women are only interested in shampoo and perfume.

For every 15 plus male directors, there is just one female director, so the chick flicks are mostly made by men who are crediting us women with a certain (limited) degree of intelligence and unfortunately many of us are buying into it. While the chick flick is not the route of all cinematic evil, it is astonishing how many of these female centric films still revolve around the idea of men and reject the idea of female independence. Perhaps then, the problem is that this male-dominated industry exhausted all its imagination and gumption by the 1960s, instead plumping for the stereotypes as some sort of passive-aggressive backlash against the growth of feminism.

Contemporary cinema is jostling with its representations of women, we have a strong heroine in The Hunger Games but at the same time there is a plethora of fairytales being rebooted and a film about the Suffragettes is on the horizon at the same time a live action version of Barbie has been green-lit. As for the ‘unreliable’ female, well she may once more have her rightful place in the spotlight thanks to all the writers falling over themselves to create the next Gone Girl. There are many male directors who give the Davis’s and Crawford’s of our time great roles, such as Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett but we also have many whose only choice of role over a certain age is that of the downtrodden mother while the men of Hollywood are allowed to become aged action stars or still be the romantic lead to women half their age.

For a gender to be represented onscreen, there must be more gender equality in the industry itself, and hopefully one day we won’t need Patricia Arquette to have to make a rally cry upon receiving her Oscar. And perhaps one day we won’t need a term for a woman’s film at all, it will simply be called a film.

It is lamentable that the intricately choreographed joy of Jacques Tati’s cinematic directorial career only extended for a total of six features and a handful of shorts. It is equally unfortunate that many modern audience members are as likely to have heard of his onscreen persona, M. Hulot, than the towering genius behind him. In an attempt to redress the imbalance, a mammoth new blu-ray box set hits shelves this week that includes all of Tati’s surviving films and a wealth of supplementary material.

His comedy is gentler than some might expect if they’ve not seen it before – his is the humour found in the innate pettiness of the modern world – but is brimming with social commentary and stinging criticism. From his earlier shorts right through to crowning glory of the outstanding Playtime (1967) he lampoons French society; both the small-minded quibbles of rural folk to, more readily, the pretensions of the modernised urban middle classes. This is all accomplished through thematically linked series of vignettes with little regard for much narrative through line. Instead, the characters – in particular Tati’s own pipe-smoking alter-ego, the ever-anachronistic Hulot – provide the anchor.

An old-fashioned performer, he plays out his burlesque in near silence speaking through his wonderfully evocative frame and his increasingly exceptional framing. The gags are rife from Jour de Fête (1949) and Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) but the visuals are unrivalled in the likes of Mon Oncle (1958) and Playtime. Tati is a true master, one that you will delight in exploring anew or re-discovering.

Extras:

A truly a definitive UK release of Tati’s oeuvre, the collection features no less than ten incarnations of his six feature films. This includes multiple versions of Jour de Fête (including one colorised, as per the directors original vision), Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, and Mon Oncle. In addition, there are seven short films for which Tati was either a performer or director; these include L’Ecole des Facteurs (1946) which provides the basis of much of the second half of feature debut Jour de Fête.

Alongside the various editions of the movies themselves are a host of extra features including a series of analytical films by Stéphane Goudet, a French critic and certified Tati expert, to give further insight into this exception body of work. ABC Tempo-Tativille concerns the shooting of Playtime in the now famously constructed pseudo-Paris Tativille, while trailers and an interview with critic Jonathan Romney make up a fantastic package that is worth seeking out whether you are a Tati fan or not (yet).

Ben has awarded The Essential Jacques Tati Collection on Blu-ray five Torches of Truth

Suicide, adultery and murder with a straight razor? Preston Sturges was one of the brave few directors to take these subjects as suitable for schizoid slapstick comedy. Simply Media’s re-release of his delightfully weird 1948 film, Unfaithfully Yours, features all of the above. The story surrounds Rex Harrison’s Sir Alfred, a refined English composer with a beautiful young wife, Daphne (Linda Darnell). He becomes convinced of her infidelity, and over the course of one evening while he composes at a concert, entertains elaborate fantasies about his revenge.

Sturges moves into extreme close up as Sir Alfred imagines three separate scenarios – magnanimously forgiving his cheating wife, killing himself in a fit of nihilism, or framing her lover for her brutal murder, which he dreams of committing by cutting her throat.

Bizarrely, there is a dedicated element of slapstick that later unfolds into a hilarious setpiece, complete with Alfred pratfalling, plunging through broken chairs, and tangling himself in telephone wire. The tone, as such, shifts from the exceptionally dark to the clumsily amusing with great speed. What at first seems something of a slow starter develops into a strangely heartfelt black comedy, albeit not one of Sturges’ finest. Unfaithfully Yours floats freely without any one central thesis, and as a result, does seem unwieldy at times.

Nonetheless, Rex Harrison’s overly verbose indignance and dry wit are a highlight; no one in the world – past, present, or future – has ever spoken like people do in a Sturges movie [and more’s the pity]. With a characteristically clever turn-around in the final act, the last few moments are positively effervescent. Yet it’s difficult to shake the film’s essentially sinister conceit from the periphery; it is too unsettling not to determinedly chafe against the happy mood. It may not be a great movie, but Unfaithfully Yours is so unmistakably inventive that it’s hard not to admire it.

Extras: Simply Media only includes a Scene Selection among its features – it’s unfortunate, as it would be fascinating to learn more about the ideas and circumstances around such a unique movie.

Christina has awarded Unfaithfully Yours (1948) on DVD three Torches of Truth

Elia Kazan’s directorial debut A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) tells the story of an Irish-Russian family living in the tenements of turn-of-the-century New York. Based on the bestselling novel by Betty Smith, the Oscar-winning family drama surrounds a young girl, Francie (Peggy Ann Garner), and her little brother, who flit around the city streets trying to help their put-upon mother, Katie (Dorothy McGuire). Kazan, co-founder of the Actor’s Studio and consummate actor’s director, draws unsurprisingly poignant performances from Garner and James Dunn. Dunn, as Francie’s father, is an ineffable dreamer and helpless lush, forever promising the world to his impoverished family. His fanciful talk and inability to pay the bills earns him the adulation of his young daughter, but the frustration of his pragmatic wife. A genuinely tragic figure, his kindness cannot rescue him from the depths of alcoholism.

Although set in Brooklyn 1912, Kazan’s unfaltering attention to behavioral tics ring true. There’s a moment where a pernickety visitor pours a large ration of the family’s milk into his coffee, and the children silently lean over to watch in dismay. Or the way a brassy Joan Blondell, the children’s Aunt Sissy, draws the eyes of every man she passes in the street, as if their heads were all being pulled by an invisible cord. This nuance is pure Kazan; note mother Katie’s steely pride, the way her spine straightens like a rod when a helpful policeman brings her drunken husband home. She politely ensures him the matter is none of his business; and even heavily pregnant, she scrubs the stairwells of her tenement block on her hands and knees – these people may be poor, but they are proud and thoroughly decent.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, while not quite hinting at the dizzying heights the legendary director would later climb, is a deeply compassionate and honest film, made up of both sentiment and social realism. Kazan – the child of Greek immigrants himself – charts the ambitions of bettering oneself, and particularly improving the lot of one’s children. The heartbreaking scenes between father and daughter are written and performed in a way that earns one’s empathy rather than demanding it; the sweetly hopeful expression on 13-year-old Francie’s face is an image that will linger. This tearjerking ode to the promise of rising above one’s circumstances is a fine example of the psychologically complex and emotionally rich work Kazan would continue to master.

Extras: The disc from Simply Media is scant on extras, but the company specialises in distributing good, clean transfers of difficult-to-find classical Hollywood films, and for that one is always thankful.

Christina has awarded A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) on DVD four Torches of Truth

The BFI have released Thorold Dickinson’s Gaslight (1940) as part of their season, Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film. Gaslight begins with a murder and the ransacking of an elderly lady’s house in Victorian Pimlico Square and we learn that the murderer was looking for the lady’s rubies, which neither he or anyone else found.

The house consequently went up for sale and the shifty Paul Mallen (Anton Walbrook) and his wife Bella (Diana Wynyard) move in, but not before the upper floors of the house are boarded off. Mallen is conducting a ceaseless campaign to convince his wife that she’s going off her rocker and it’s not entirely clear why until she herself says that he first got angry when she found an envelope with a strange name on it. She is confused about so many things, as her husband would wish, but most of all she is scared about the gaslight suddenly going dim in the middle of the night and footsteps echoing above her head.

Anton Walbrook is a sinister protagonist, methodically speaking down to and provoking his wife but at times his accent lends a little too much drama and a kitsch-like feeling to proceedings, reducing the horror factor quite substantially. The horribly over-egged accent of the cockerney maid also lends a little too much of the Carry-On to it all. Diana Wynyard is suitably wan and desperate, giving the very definite feeling of a woman tested to her limits. Despite the kitsch factor, this tale still manages to retain enough stylish darkness to unsettle and provoke the viewer.

The film was thought lost for a fair few years due to a blanket suppression attempt by MGM to promote their own version, which starred the enigmatic Ingrid Bergman, however Dickinson had secretly retained a copy which is now restored. Whatever the plus or negative points of the two versions of Gaslight, this original version deserves to be seen.

Extras: The extras, and indeed the accompanying booklet, are extremely illuminating about the career of Thorold Dickinson, containing some significant public information films about Spain along with a couple of highly amusing, if very propaganda heavy, films about helping out with the war effort and how to spot a German spy in the English countryside. The booklet also contains interesting background information about the development of Gaslight from play to film and the original author Patrick Hamilton’s issues with the cast, specifically Anton Walbrook.

Maryann has awarded Gaslight (1940) on Blu-ray three Torches of Truth

Howard Hawks’ classic Western, Red River, focuses on world-weary cowboy Tom Dunson (John Wayne) and his young adopted son Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift). After 14 hard years, Dunson has built up a considerable cattle empire in southern Texas.
However, with the impoverished post-Civil War South not proving a suitable market for his beef, he is forced to lead his herd on an epic cattle drive over hundreds of miles to Missouri.

The film wonderfully captures a period in American history when the country and its vast expanses was still being shaped and men lived hard lives. Wayne has rarely been better and, for all his faults, its films like Red River where he shows that he can deliver an impressively haunted performance. Clift is equally compelling in his big screen debut and is never dwarfed by Wayne’s considerable presence. Theirs is a battle between two different styles, one rugged and tough, the other considerate and just, both representing wildly different concepts of what constitutes masculinity.

The scale of the film is still mightily impressive today. The scenes of the vast herd of cattle being driven onwards, through rivers and down canyons, remain a true feat in themselves. Hawks and cinematographer Russell Harlan perfectly capture the sheer vastness of the American wilderness and really hit home just how wild and untamed this land once was.
Red River is filmmaking on an epic scale and showcases two icons – Hawks and Wayne – at their very best.

Extras

There is an in-depth discussion of the film between filmmaker Dan Salitt and critic Jaime N. Christley, which is an interesting watch. There’s also a chance to hear the LUX Radio Theatre production of the film, recorded in 1949 with John Wayne and Walter Brennan reprising their roles. The 56-page booklet has extracts from an Andrew Sarris lecture on Hawks, Susan Liandat-Guignes BFI monograph, an interview from 1991 with the film’s editor, Christian Nyby, and an interview Borden Chase, taken from Film Comment, Vol. 6, Issue 3, 1970, and, incredibly, Hawks’ own response to Chase’s arguments. Rounding things off is a short note by Peter Labuza, which discusses the two different released versions of Red River.

Rob has awarded Red River four Torches of Truth

Issue 10 is now available to order.  As our magazines sell out within weeks of going on sale we recommend ordering to avoid disappointment. Our theme this issue is Time in Film and consequently you’ll be able to read up on how plausible film time travel techniques actually are, the role of stopped clocks in the movies, what Virginia Woolf thought of cinema in the 1920s and enjoy a special section that looks decade by decade at 20th Century Cinema – from its silent origins to its blockbusting finale.

Alongside our time-related features you’ll also find a smattering of topical articles including a 2-page preview outlining the must-watch films this summer, some musings on potential story lines for Jurassic Park IV, interviews with independent filmmakers, reports from special film events and our very own tribute to the seemingly untouchable Benedict Cumberbatch. All this and words from all our regular columnists that you know and love.

Issue 10 will be shipped to subscribers and buyers on 20th June 2013.

Click here to order issue 10

Click here to subscribe

Does the original cut of Orson Welles’ second feature, The Magnificent Ambersons, somewhere, somehow, exist? The movie is treated today as a lost treasure and model example of studio barbarism. The director, it could well be argued, is equally to blame for the tragic fate of his movie, as he seemed unwilling to put up a fight. The man was known to burn bridges as fast as he built them.

Firstly, let’s put the film by George Orson Welles in historical context. Citizen Kane (1941), despite an Oscar win (Best Writing), was not a hit and the best train set in the world, as he referred to Hollywood, would grow increasingly uncomfortable with the man labelled a creative genius. As we have seen countless times in American cinema, it doesn’t care or cater to the whims of talent when they do not produce the ‘right’ results. They’ll lavish praise whilst the going is good, but when the light of the projector fails to turn into money, things sour. The medium is as beguiling as the industry is savage.

The Magnificent Ambersons was based on the 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington and previously adapted by Welles’s stage outfit, the Mercury Theatre. The first cut, the director’s preferred edit, ran to 132 minutes. RKO, the film’s backers, considered the picture dour and too long. Poor test screenings panicked them into action. Executives described it as “long, dark and depressing”. Cuts were demanded, then re-writes and a new ending shot. Welles, away in Rio filming an eventually abandoned project, It’s All True, clearly decided the fight wasn’t worth the effort. RKO cut it down and released it and the film now runs to a mere 88 minutes. Needless to say the picture did virtually no business, and actually lost money. We might well say that for cinephiles and historians, The Magnificent Ambersons is our ‘Rosebud’ moment. As David Thomson has noted, the film was made following the “dismay that followed Kane”. A dark cloud already looming grew darker. Yet there are some who argue The Magnificent Ambersons is a superior motion picture to Citizen Kane, even in truncated, abused form.

Welles shot the film at the end of 1941 and into the first month of 1942 with Stanley Cortez acting as cinematographer. There were no great dramas on set and filming commenced without a hitch. It is said the director was a little impatient with the unadventurous but richly detailed eye of his DOP. Cortez’s deep-focus photography is exceptional, but is often eclipsed by the memory of Gregg Toland and Citizen Kane.

Another reason RKO was able to demand changes to the film were the amendments made to their contract with Welles. Citizen Kane was a disappointment to the studio, financially speaking, so they decided, for the next project, they would demand the right to final cut. Welles consented. There is talk of a power struggle, too. Studio president George Schaefer brought Welles to Hollywood under great fanfare and with a carte blanche contract. Schaefer was then locked in a power struggle with several rivals. Floyd Odlum took control of the studio with Charles Koerner as the new production chief and, according to Penelope Houston’s essay on Welles (Critical Dictionary of Cinema Vol 2, 1980), one industry rag’s headline ran: “Showmanship instead of genius: a new deal at RKO”.

On 4th February 1942 the director headed off to Rio de Janeiro to film a project concocted by the US government, along with with RKO, intended to improve relations between the two countries under the ‘Good Neighbor’ policy. Back in Los Angeles, Robert Wise edited Ambersons under studio supervision. Here’s where it gets interesting…

In David Thomson’s The Big Screen (2012), the historian and critic attests that: “The film existed as Welles wanted it, in a version that was flown down to Rio for him to look at and refine.”

The question is this: Was it ever sent back or does it remain somewhere in Rio? And here’s where it gets outrageous! Some years after its release and having a clearout, the studio decided to dump all the cut footage they had in their possession into the sea. If celluloid doesn’t turn into money it’s as good as garbage. Our dream of a freshly assembled cut drowned with the reels.

Thomson goes on to suggest that somewhere in an attic or archive down in Rio, the full 132 minutes Welles Cut is sat gathering dust. This is not as hopelessly romantic as it sounds as previously ‘lost’ pictures resurface from time to time. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the longest cut ever assembled for release, was found in a Bueno Aires film archive in 2008.

Why didn’t Welles go back and fight for his movie like any self-respecting artist would? Perhaps he knew fighting the studio was impossible and, after all, he’d consented to that contract amendment giving RKO final say.

The script for The Magnificent Ambersons survives along with production stills from now missing scenes. That’s all, quite sadly, we’ll ever have. Unless…

What would happen if King Kong went on a dating show? Now you know thanks to our talented cover artist Dan Havardi.

This issue is our Romance Edition. Inside you’ll find all sorts of quirky features on the theme of love and attraction as we explain why men hate romantic films, what you could expect from a real-life Jessica Rabbit and how to reenact your own real-life Tom Hanks rom-com. We’ve even got a special section devoted to classic couples where you’ll find our thoughts and analysis on the likes of King Kong and Ann Darrow, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert and Robot and Frank.

In addition to our themed entries we’ve also got interviews and articles on all the most important cinematic topics including the impact of hype, the digital revolution and the identity crisis in French horror.

Click here to order Issue 9
Click here to order a bi-monthly subscription

Subscription copies and orders will be shipped Monday 18th March.

What do Linnea Quigley, Bette Davis and killer telephones have in common? All three appear in our spooky horror special which is out at the very end of October. Other treats for readers include an exclusive interview with Richard Bates Jnr on his new psychological horror: Excision, an exposé on the role of distributors in the UK exhibition market and a flashback to cheeky horror Strip Nude for your Killer.

As if that’s not enough we also go on the hunt for a lost Oscar, mix up several vats of fake blood to find the ultimate recipe and lovingly remember the man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney. Find out what it’s really like to be an extra, how the multiplex came into being and learn about the origins of the occult horror sub-genre.*

Subscribers receive their issues first before shops, before cinemas. The last few issues have sold out very quickly so we recommend subscribing to guarantee you never miss an issue. To subscribe click here.

Many thanks once again to our talented cover artist, Dan Havardi.

To order an individual copy of issue 7 for delivery next week, click here.

Limited back issues of editions 1-4 are also available here.

*Due to our pledge to CAC (The Committee Against Cliché) our horror issue is strictly Christopher Lee free.

]]> http://newempressmagazine.com/2012/10/issue-7-our-horror-special-order-yours-today/feed/ 0