Who else but Cary Grant could get away with playing an angel trying to steal another man’s wife  - and a Bishop’s Wife at that?

Tonally, this film – charming though it is – is a bit of a mixed bag. Too worthy to feel like a comedy, yet with the angel Dudley, (Cary Grant), so full of pious charm, Jedi mind tricks and ice-skating prowess straight out of Blades of Glory, it’s difficult to take it entirely seriously too. There are a few humorous moments, but not enough to convince you that the great Billy Wilder - who was brought in, (uncredited), for rewrites after poor test screenings -was doing much more than tweaking.

There are shades of It’s A Wonderful Life here, as the angel Dudley is sent to give guidance to a man – David Niven’s Bishop Brougham – so consumed by his work that he fails to see what’s truly important in life – namely his wife and family. But whereas in Capra’s masterpiece Jimmy Stewart realises the error of his ways by having all that he holds dear ripped away from him in one fell swoop, here David Niven sees it all slowly slipping away, courtesy of Cary Grant’s suspiciously devilish angel, who re-awakens a joie-de-vivre in Loretta Young as the eponymous wife. Incidentally, the keen-eyed amongst you may spot Bobby Anderson – who played young George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life – cropping up in a snowball fight mid-way through the film. Don’t tell me that casting wasn’t deliberate.

There are shades here also of Brief Encounter – and, arguably, a similar subtext to that British classic given the fact that both films were made within a couple of years of the end of WWII, when all those soldiers who had been away fighting for the cause returned home to reconnect with their wives and rebuild their lives, (perhaps against the backdrop of wartime romances).

There are moments where it feels like you’re being bashed over the head with the film’s Christmas message and it doesn’t quite ring true – notably when Grant and Young convince a taxi driver to go the scenic route and stop off for a spot of ice skating before finally getting dropped off home, presumably hours later. “How much do I owe you?“, asks Cary of the cabbie. “Not a cent, my friend,”, comes the reply, “My pockets are bulging with the coins of self-satisfaction … because you and your friend have restored my faith in human nature”. Capra was never this ham-fisted… and this would certainly never happen in an Edinburgh black cab, angel powers or not. (Try it! Prove me wrong!). But like all Christmas films, leave your cynicism at the door and you’ll be ding-donging merrily on high by the final reel.

Again, no soundtrack on Spotify, so today’s selection for the Christmas At The Movies playlist is Hark The Herald Angels sing – the first piece of music you hear in the film – courtesy of the peerless Ella Fitzgerald. Enjoy!

Billy Wilder was born in March 2002, and was an Austrian-American filmmaker, journalist, etc. Wilder grew up in Berlin and at one point of time worked for a local newspaper. It was here where he realize his interest in film, and soon began working as a screenwriter. Things were going well for him until Adolf Hitler step onto the scene. Being Jewish, he migrated to Paris which was where he kicked off his career with his first film “Mauvaise Graine”.  Not long after its release, he moved to Hollywood. After reaching America, he continued to work on his screen writing and developed successful script such as “Ninotchka”. Wilder continued his success by picking up film directing. He received Academy Awards for “Double Indemnity”. His style of film is film noir and his work was inspired by great works such as “Citizen Kane” and “The Maltese Falcon”. Other films by Wilder are “The Apartment”, “The Lost Weekend”, and “Sunset Boulevard”. 

“A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.” – Billy Wilder

Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder will never be mistaken as optimists.

In fact, their movies reflect the thoughts of famous crime writer
Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep author was a fan of writers that “gave murder back to the people who committed the crime.”

He respected writers like Dashiell Hammett because they created a
world without hope and without elements of synthetic uplift. He probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the screenplay to Freedom Writers. But an era of film grew out these ideas and began to represent a darker image of the great depression: film noir.

The genre lasted roughly from 1940 and 1960 and was synonymous with murder, passion, revenge, sex, cigars and fedoras (think Humphrey
Bogart and not Jason Mraz).

Here are my top 10 favorite film noir pictures.

1. Double Indemnity (1944) — This might be the best fast-paced screenplay ever written. Chandler and Wilder wrote the script together, and even though they hated working with each other, they created a timeless piece. Fred McMurray delivers his lines with sexual arrogance that wasn’t seen in his family pictures prior to the film, Barbara Stanwyck is the perfect femme fatale and Edward G. Robinson is phenomenal. The unsubtle sexuality in this film is awesome, and it’s surprising that Wilder got away with the shot of McMurry and Stanwyck ready to get busy.

2. Strangers On A Train (1951) — This is my favorite Hitchcock picture. Robert Walker is very creepy and awesome. The homosexual undertones of his character probably went over everyone’s head in 1951. Farley Granger is very good, but not as good as in Rope — and some might argue his adult films in the late 70s. I’d give to much away if I gave plot details. This is a must-see.

3. Sunset Boulevard (1950) — I know, it’s boring to have two Wilder films in the top three, but what other movie starts with William Holden floating in a swimming pool? Exactly.
Aging Gloria Swanson is perfect for the role of a psychotic movie star who is … well, aging.
Also, it’s a great film for one liners like “Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” and “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small.”

Raising Kane: Orson Welles is as bad as they come in the extremely underrated Touch Of Evil.

4. Touch Of Evil (1958) — Orson Welles at it again. This movie goes in about 20 different plot directions much like The Big Sleep, which makes it chaoticly cool. Janet Leigh is hot, which is somewhat awkward to say. Charlton Heston rocks a classic ’stache and plays a Mexican (I’m not making this up). Supposedly, there was a lot of tension between Heston and Welles behind the scenes.

5. The Maltese Falcon (1941) — This is just a movie where Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) walks around San Francisco and says cool things. It’s also a film where it’s as good as the book. Anyone who says otherwise is the type of person who wants Hooper to die at the end of Jaws. John Huston did a great job recreating Hammett’s novel.

6. Notorious (1946) — A classic Hitchock film where you see Cary Grant actually playing an unpleasant character. In fact, his character (T.R. Devlin) is kind of a dick. Personally, Ingrid Bergman has always annoyed me, but the movie is fantastic anyway. The Master of Suspense does is again.

7. The Big Sleep (1946) — This time Bogart walks around L.A. and says cool things. This is a great adaptation of Chandler’s novel by Howard Hawks. Bogart and Bacall have awesome chemistry here.

Here's Looking at You: Humphrey Bogart was a film noir icon

8. Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) — This is clichéd James Cagney here, but what else do you want from him? Don’t miss the ending of this one.

9. Out of the Past (1947) — This might be Robert Mitchum’s best role, and Jane Greer rivals Stanwyck for best noir femme fatale. The plot is Hitchcock, like where a gas-station owner has an extremely shady past. But if you think about it, isn’t that most gas-station workers?

10. The Killers (1946) — This classic noir flick is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway which is perfect for the genre’s bleak view — mainly because Hemmingway shot himself. This is the screen debut of Burt Lancaster, who is a personal fave.

By Geo Ong

Everyone in Los Angeles has a screenplay, just as I’m sure everyone in New York has a novel, everyone in high school has a band, and everyone in Paris has a baguette. I’m no different: the last time I was in Paris, I bought a baguette (because I could say ‘baguette’); I was part of a band in high school (bassist for No Clue – we had no clue what we were doing); when I move to New York in the next couple of years, I’m sure I will still be working on my novel, and though I am no longer a practising screenwriter, for I never had the knack for it (Margaret and I took classes together, and she can vouch for this fact: ‘It’s like you’re writing a novel. Why don’t you just write a novel?’), I too have a screenplay.

It’s really good. I am the main character (meta). I’m thinking 8 1/2 meets Manhattan meets King Kong (1976). There’s no real story to it – that’s what makes it so great! It’s episodic, a fish-out-of-water story – actually an urchin-out-of-whater story, and here the water represents sanity. I think I should play me. Or possibly Chris Cooper. I’d like to present proudly a scene from my screenplay-in-progress… The Urchin Gets Misunderstood!

INT. PARTY – NIGHT

GEO ONG sits by the raw vegetable tray. A GUY he does not know approaches him.

GUY: I hear you’re a writer.
GEO: Yeah.
GUY: What do you write about?
GEO: What?
GUY: That’s cool, man. What kind of stuff do you write?
GEO: What do you mean?
GUY: Screenplays?
GEO: No.
GUY: Short stories?
GEO: Not for a while. I’m working on a novel right now.
GUY: What’s it about?
GEO: It’s about a city I made up.
GUY: Cool, man. Let me know when it’s finished.
GEO: Oh, absolutely.

Geo turns to walk away.

GUY: So who’s…
GEO: Oh, we’re not done?
GUY: …your favourite writer?
GEO: Joyce.

GUY wrinkles brow.

GEO: He wrote Ulysses. He’s Irish.
GUY: Oh, that guy! Hey, wasn’t he gay?
GEO (drops a carrot): No.
GUY: Pretty sure he was.
GEO: Maybe you’re thinking of Wilde?
GUY: Wasn’t Wilde a director?
GEO: I think you’re thinking of Wilder.
GUY: That’s right. Old school. Didn’t he do Ben-Hur?
GEO: That was Wyler.
GUY: Wasn’t he on ER? I didn’t know he writes.
GEO: Fucking hell.

It begins in the gutter…but of course. A street name, Sunset Blvd., painted on the curb above the sewer drain is a convenient way to present the film’s title, but it also tells us where we’re going: down. Even the abbreviation gives it a kind of slangy, tabloid grit. The title refers to one of the most famous arteries in Los Angeles, but it also evokes the heavy depression of the end of the day—and the movie is about the “sunset years,” and how they can be disastrously handled.

Meet Joe Gillis.

Sunset Boulevard is also about Hollywood, and its corrosive view of Tinseltown might best be summed up with one of its opening images. As we see a corpse floating face down in the swimming pool of a Hollywood mansion, the narrator savors the irony of the moment: “The poor dope. He always wanted a pool.” Hollywood is the place people go, dreaming of their own swimming pools. Little do they know they’ll end up drowned in them.

There’s another level of irony here. The corpse and the narrator are one in the same person. Sunset Boulevard is famously told from the perspective of a dead man, the late Joe Gillis (William Holden), journeyman screenwriter, cynical burnout, self-loathing gigolo. One of the most intriguing pieces of Sunset Boulevard lore is that director Billy Wilder shot an even more outrageous opening to the film: the picture fades in on the Los Angeles County Morgue, where Joe’s dead body, on a slab, begins to converse with the other stiffs, and then to narrate his story. Wilder loved the sequence, but preview audiences got the giggles at the sheer outrageousness of the thing—and it was cut before release.

Gillis begins his flashback with his struggles to make ends meet. He pitches lousy concepts to middle-management studio flunkies, and he can’t bum any more money off his indifferent agent. Spotted by a couple of repo men looking to seize his car, Joe drives into the secluded garage of a Sunset Boulevard mansion, where he is mistaken for someone else and invited in.

The two people in the house are expecting an undertaker for a dead chimpanzee. Perhaps this should have been Joe’s warning that all is not well in the old, decaying house—he also notes the melodramatic wind wheezing through the organ pipes, and the rats in the pool. Still: any port in a storm. The owner of the house is none other than Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a silent film star. “You used to be big,” Gillis says with typical gallantry. Norma, who—for a silent star—has quite a knack for memorable phrases, replies with a memorable piece of self-justification: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” When Norma finds out Gillis is a writer, she hires him to edit her sprawling screenplay, which will be the vehicle for her great comeback.

Thus begins Joe’s doomed run as Norma’s housemate, lover, and errand boy. A new pet monkey. In one especially mortifying moment, during one of Norma’s bridge games, she orders Joe to empty the ash tray—and he does. (The weirdness of the moment is enhanced by the other players, a group of silent stars whose past glories must have struck the 1950 audience as rather ghoulishly invoked: Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, and the great Buster Keaton.) The entire film is infused with a sense of debasement and humiliation. Take, for instance, the casting of Erich von Stroheim as Norma’s butler, Max von Mayerling. Not only does Max attend to Norma’s daily needs, including the writing of bogus “fan mail” that Norma can reply to, he also happens to be her former husband and director.

The overlapping between art and life is all too unsavory here. Stroheim was indeed one of Hollywood’s most flamboyant directors in the 1920s, a career halted for a variety of reasons (including his own extravagance). He actually directed Gloria Swanson, in Queen Kelly, a film that is excerpted in Sunset Boulevard for the memorable scene of Joe and Norma watching her old movies at night. As magnetic a performer as Stroheim is, there is something uniquely uncomfortable about the similarity between actor and character.

Of course, this is magnified in the case of Swanson, who had been one of the biggest of silent movie queens—as well as the mistress of Joseph Kennedy. Sunset Boulevard was a considerable triumph for Swanson, a comeback after enduring the same sort of slow fade that Norma Desmond had suffered. She won rave reviews and an Oscar nomination as best actress, although her career did not take off in a significant way.

Swanson is very fine, throwing herself whole-heartedly into Norma’s creepiness and madness. She’s especially good during the trip to the Paramount studio lot, where an embarrassed Cecil B. DeMille (playing himself), who’s read her awful script, tries to treat her with a distanced respect. Although Wilder is clearly enjoying Swanson’s baroque performance, he can’t quite slip the essential cruelty of the casting. For instance, when Norma does her imitation of Charlie Chaplin for a bored Joe one afternoon at the house, the scene plays on a few different levels. There is distaste for Norma’s obsession with the past, and Joe’s face reflects his own sense of entrapment in this bizarre world. Once again Norma is revealed as pitiful.

Yet Gloria Swanson’s Chaplinesque mime is absolutely terrific, a wonderful impersonation by a sharp-eyed actor. This discomfiting interplay between fiction and reality may be one of the reasons Sunset Boulevard gets under people’s skins. (Wilder, incidentally, always intended the Pirandellian vibe between actor and role: he considered Mae West and Mary Pickford for Norma before settling on Swanson. Casting is such a matter of alchemy; what a different movie Sunset Boulevard would be if Mae West had taken the role and played opposite Montgomery Clift, who was cast as Joe Gillis but dropped out two weeks before shooting began.)

Billy Wilder is one of Hollywood’s greatest directors because of his genius for structure, characters, and dialogue, but also because of the rich mix of tones in his work. His comedies have a dark and sometimes morbid streak, his dramas are laced with razor-sharp humor, and his most disgusted surveys of the human animal have a tendency to blossom in sudden moments of lyricism. Much of the comedy of Sunset Boulevard, dripping with sarcasm, comes from Wilder’s love-hate relationship with Hollywood. In many ways, this is one of Wilder’s least balanced films; from the monkey funeral and the rats in the swimming pool onward, Sunset Boulevard reeks with nausea. I would offer such lesser-known Wilders as Five Graves to Cairo or A Foreign Affair or The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes as closer to the quintessential spirit of Wilder than Sunset Boulevard. The rising bile nearly overwhelms the film at times.

Could it have been Wilder’s own youthful experiences as a dancer-for-hire that caused the darker aspects of the story to take over? It has always been a somewhat murky part of Wilder’s biography as to just how much, or what kind, of gigolo he really was, but the dilemma of Joe Gillis clearly spurs Wilder to an startling intensity of feeling. Perhaps Wilder would reply that every screenwriter understands the reality of being a “kept man.” There’s a scene in which Norma takes Joe on a shopping trip for clothes (a sinister precursor to the Pretty Woman scene?), and Wilder’s camera dramatically dollies in as an insinuating salesman leans over to Joe to whisper, “As long as the lady’s paying….” That camera movement is uncharacteristic of Wilder, and points to the degree of torment poor Joe finds himself in.

This was all too much for some people, including mogul Louis B. Mayer, who suggested that Wilder should be tarred and feathered for having created such an unflattering portrait of Hollywood. The film permanently ruptured the profitable partnership of Wilder and his co-writer and producer, Charles Brackett, whose sophistication and taste had sometimes crashed against Wilder’s more savage tendencies. They did win an Oscar for their original screenplay, with a third collaborator, D.M. Marshman, Jr. The film was nominated in eleven categories, including nods for Swanson, Holden, Stroheim, and Nancy Olson (as a studio reader and oasis of sanity). Another acid portrait of the movie business, All About Eve, took the top prizes that year, with Sunset Boulevard winning for script, art direction, and Franz Waxman’s spooky music.

Norma Desmond, ready.

Sunset Boulevard has never lost its classic status (it is on the National Film Registry list of protected titles), and became enough of a cultural icon to inspire an Andrew Lloyd Webber mega-musical in the 1990s. There may be something in the poison-pen look at Hollywood that is deeply satisfying for audiences. The movie is an acknowledgment of the power of the dream factory, but also a cautionary tale of the rickety scaffolding behind the gleaming soundstages; it’s a movie that answers the question posed by the title of the original version of A Star is Born: what price Hollywood? For all those people in Joe Gillis’s Midwestern home town, who dream of going to the city of angels and drinking of the milk and honey, the movie reassures them that their own ordinary lives may not be so bad, after all. No one can miss the curdled tone of Norma’s final demented speech: “This is my life. It always will be. There’s nothing else. Just us and the cameras and those wonderful people out there in the dark….” It may be Norma’s mad delusion, but we’re implicated too: she’s looking right at us.

I put together a book-length collection of Billy Wilder interviews; check it at the publisher’s website. Sunset Boulevard is one of the ten best movies of 1950, listed here. – Robert Horton

Um dos rebentos mais geniais de Billy Wilder, Cupido Não Tem Bandeira, deveria ser introduzido com um aviso para que o espectador desse uma boa respirada e guardasse todo o fôlego possível para a sessão. São duas desenfreadas horas de um fino humor que não poupa ninguém.

Lançado em 1961, ano em que foi levantado o muro de Berlim, o filme de Wilder disserta sobre a guerra ideológica entre comunistas e capitalistas. E o cineasta buscou o mesmo palco que, treze anos antes, rendeu em A Mundana, a sátira aguda do encontro entre a Alemanha destruída e o “ombro amigo” dos Estados Unidos. Logo após a Segunda Guerra, Wilder já demonstrava uma leitura privilegiada da situação. O mesmo acontece em  Cupido Não Tem Bandeira, certamente um dos filmes mais inteligentes sobre a Guerra Fria.

Billy Wilder está ali rindo dos dois lados. Desfilando por todos os estereótipos possíveis, personagens capitalistas e comunistas se revezam no trono do mais patético. Na trama, Mr. MacNamara, um representante norte-americano da Coca-Cola na Alemanha, precisa cuidar da filha do chefe, enquanto ela se apaixona por um jovem politizado da Alemanha Oriental. Para a loucura do industrial, os dois se casam e pretendem ir para a União Soviética. Quando o pai da menina resolve viajar para Berlim, o caos está armado.

É nesse momento que o filme de Wilder garante o pulo da obra-prima. A sequência em que Mr. MacNamara precisa transformar o jovem comunista num nobre conde, desprovido de qualquer ranço ideológico soviético, não permite que o espectador não se entregue às gargalhadas. Por sinal, é preciso louvar a montagem de Daniel Mandell, também montador de importantes clássicos como Os Melhores Anos de Nossas Vidas, de William Wyler e Vive-se Uma Só Vez, primeiro filme americano de Fritz Lang. O timing de Cupido Não Tem Bandeira é arrebatador, a última meia hora parece durar cinco minutos.

A parceria entre Mandell e Wilder data da minha fase favorita do cineasta austríaco, a virada da década de 60. Depois da adaptação de Agatha Christie, Testemunha de Acusação (1957),  o diretor enfileirou um bom número de comédias preciosas. Curioso que o filme mais premiado dessa época, Se Meu Apartamento Falasse, de 1960, é o que menos gosto. No hall de obras-primas, coloco Cupido Não Tem Bandeira e Irma La Douce (1963), além do insuperável Quanto Mais Quente Melhor (1959) – esse montado por Arthur P. Schmidt, velho colaborador de Wilder.

Em todos esses filmes, uma impressão me é clara: mais do que provocar o riso, as cenas de Billy Wilder parecem gargalhar por conta própria.

Data
Title: The Apartment
Year: 1960
Length: 125 minutes
Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
Music: Adolph Deutsch
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (original), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (black-and-white), and Best Editing; currently #99 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a suck-up lets his married bosses use his apartment to entertain women
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Bad.
Story: Good.
Characters: Bad. Even an extremely charismatic cast could do nothing to make me sympathize with these people.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Bad. Much of the movie is amusing, but I was still pretty bored.
Cinematography: Good.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Great.
Music: Good.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). Not a bad movie, but all the awards it got are baffling to me. Maybe it has more depth and craftsmanship than your typical romantic comedy of the time, but best picture? Inherit the Wind, Psycho and Spartacus weren’t even nominated.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good).

Witness for the Prosecution

Pais: EU
Año: 1957
Género: Intriga
Duración: 114 min.
Dirección: Billy Wilder
Guion: Billy Wilder, Harry Kurnitz (Teatro: Agatha Christie).
Música: Matty Malneck
Producción: United Artists

Reparto:
Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton,Elsa Lanchester, John Williams, Una O’Connor, Henry Daniel, Norma Varden, Torin Thatcher, Philip Sonidoge, Ian Wolfe.

Descripción:
Un afable personaje, Leonard Vole, es acusado del asesinato de una rica dama, la señora French, con quien mantenía una relacion de carácter amistoso. El posible móvil del crimen es la herencia de todos los bienes de la difunta. A pesar de que las pruebas en su contra son demoledoras, el prestigioso abogado criminalista de Londres Sir Wilfrid Roberts acepta su defensa al creer en su inocencia.

Críticas:
“Excelente película, con la dosis de intriga de la obra de Christie, que crece en emoción hasta un final tan inesperado como sugestivo. El glamouroso reparto en el que destaca el impresionante trabajo de Laughton, hace el resto.” (Fernando Morales: Diario El País)
–
Tanto tiempo después sigue siendo ejemplar
Es “Testigo de cargo” una de esas películas que de tanto rizar el rizo en su final, se vuelve todo inverosímil pero que te quedas con una agradable sonrisa en la cara. Sonrisa al comprobar unos diálogos ingeniosos, con grandes toques de humor, con un sarcasmo tan sutil que pasa desapercibido.

Magistralmente interpretada por su trío protagonista: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton. Laughton lleva la interpretación en esta cinta hasta confundir su personaje con su propia persona. Cercano, bonachón y pícaro. Fantástico durante todo el metraje.
La película se hace corta. Ni el tiempo, ha podido borrar la brillante realización del director Billy Wilder.

Divierte, fascina, inquieta y sorprende. ¿Qué más se le puede pedir a una película?

La Dietrich siempre refinada, puesta para nuestro disfrute dice: “Nunca me desmayo porque no estoy segura de caer con elegancia“.

Y yo contesto: señora, con frases como esa y directores como el que le ronda la elegancia esta garantizada.
–
Orgía dialéctica
Permítanme unos segundos para recoger aire después de tan inmenso placer…

Gracias.
–
Divertimento criminal
Desde la primera vez que vi a Charles Laughton en una película, es la escala de medida que utilizo para valorar el trabajo de cualquier actor: me sorprende constatar que ningún Robert DeNiro, ningún Pacino, en fin, ninguna de esas supuestas luminarias del cine actual son dignos ni de besarle las suelas de los zapatos a este actor que fue pirata, abogado, capitán, contrabandista, rey, jorobado y sobre todo, inmenso director que con una única película se situó de golpe y porrazo en el especial Olimpo que reservamos para los muy grandes. Cuando un talento como este se junta con otra gran mente como la de Billy Wilder, obtenemos como resultado esa maravilla que es “Testigo de cargo”. Basada en un relato corto de Agatha Christie, mezcla soberbiamente el ritmo y los diálogos marca de la casa Wilder (aprende, Tarantino, esto sí que son diálogos) con la trama criminal de Christie, un juego de sospechosos, culpables e inocentes que cambian de signo. La película es en todo momento autoconsciente de su propia levedad: el relato de Christie, como muchas de sus novelas, nacen marcadas por un espíritu de divertimento, un juguete criminal para lectores y espectadores deseosos de convertirse en detectives.
“Testigo de cargo” no sólo rescata admirablemente las letras de Christie, además ofrece un recital de talento por parte de sus tres protagonistas, una encomiable agilidad narrativa que prohíbe el aburrimiento y uno de los finales más sorprendentes de la historia del cine (hay quienes consideran “previsibles” aquellos finales que pueden adivinar: cuando no lo consiguen, los llaman “engañosos”). Una película emblemática que sobrevive al transcurso de los años con la frescura intacta.
–
Gracias, Billy
Paradigma del género judicial, “Testigo de cargo” merece disfrutar indiscutiblemente de un puesto honorífico en el Olimpo de los grandes clásicos cinematográficos. Admitiendo de antemano la existencia de algún que otro gazapo o despropósito intrascendente en el clímax final, no estimo en ello motivo suficiente como para entablar polémicas bizantinas sobre si la película está sobrevalorada respecto a otros trabajos del director como “El apartamento”, “Perdición” o “El crepúsculo de los dioses”.
Wilder entremezcla sabiamente drama y comedia (las escaramuzas verbales entre Sir Wilfrid y su enfermera son antológicas ) hilvanando magistralmente, al mismo tiempo, un entramado argumental repleto de diálogos que no decae ni resulta tedioso en ningún momento.
Laughton está grandioso, Tyrone Power sobreactúa oportunamente y la hiératica Marlene borda su papel, sobretodo en la metamorfosis final de su personaje, contribuyendo a construir uno de los desenlaces más insólitos e inesperados de la historia del séptimo arte.
Gracias, Billy, allá donde estés, por seducirnos con tu cine sencillo, ingenioso y ameno. El público es soberano y no es casualidad el grado de devoción que te profesa.

Datos técnicos:
Tamaño:  1,66 Gb
Duracion: 01:51:33
Vídeo codec: Xvid (doble pasada)
Resolución: 640 x 384
Bitrate: 1671 Kbps.  Qf: 0.272
Audio codec: 0×2000(AC3, Dolby Laboratories, Inc) AC3
Bitrate Castellano/Inglés: 48000Hz  224 kb/s total (2 chnls)
Subtítulos : [(Castellano,gracias a ShooCat)-Inglés]

Capturas:

Película

Subs.es-en

done

Erich von Stroheim y Gloria Swanson, con la siempre acertada dirección de Billy Wilder, en este Sunset Boulevard.

Brilliant. Time to talk about our Ten lists once more, so settle in for the long haul and try and keep up. Much discussion ensues as Sam tries to extol the virtues of Ingmar Bergman, praise the magical realism of Billy Liar and attempt to make sense of All About Lily Chou-Chou. John continues the theme, causing slight, though understandable, consternation with his uncensored views on Raging Bull and confessions of multiple tears during Schindler’s List. Tom rounds the night off in business-like fashion with praise for The 400 Blows, controversial dislike for the second half of Stalker and man-crushed love for Le Samourai.

Download The Movie Overdose Episode 40.5

Remember to email us, sugarplums!

Lata czterdzieste XX wieku w amerykańskim kinie to dominacja filmów noir, wywodzących się m.in. z popularnych już w latach trzydziestych książkowych czarnych kryminałów. Ciekawe, że typowo amerykański gatunek otrzymał francuską nazwę.

Film noir na pewno nie we wszystkie gusta trafi. Zarzucać można temu gatunkowi różne rzeczy, ale uczciwie przyznać trzeba, że wśród tych filmów nie brak perełek, które wymykają się schematom gatunku.

 Do takich perełek, a w zasadzie pereł należy Podwójne ubezpieczenie Billy’ego Wildera. Film z 1944 roku, mający szczególne miejsce w historii kina i gatunku. Wilder będący jednocześnie reżyserem i współscenarzystą stworzył prawdziwe arcydzieło.

Dodatkowy wkład w stworzenie tego znakomitego filmu mieli dwaj znakomici autorzy czarnych kryminałów: James M. Cain (autor książkowego pierwowzoru) i Raymond Chandler (współautor scenariusza). Sama historia luźno oparta jest na prawdziwych faktach i zbrodni popełnionej w 1927 roku, w której pewna kobieta przy pomocy swego kochanka pozbyła się własnego męża.  Na pierwszy rzut oka fabuła filmu może wydać się błaha, chociażby dlatego, że od początku wiemy kto jest mordercą.

Rychło okazuje się jednak, że film wciąga, nie musimy skupiać się na intrydze kryminalnej, jest ona tylko punktem wyjścia dla soczystych dialogów, psychologicznych zagrywek i ostrych spięć. Główny bohater, agent ubezpieczeniowy  Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) miota się, wpada we własne jak i te zastawione przez cyniczną „femme fatale” Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) sidła. Wokół obu krąży podejrzliwy Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), współpracownik i przyjaciel Waltera prowadząc ubezpieczeniowe śledztwo.

W trakcie filmu obserwujemy Waltera i Phyllis – śledzimy przygotowanie do zbrodni, obserwujemy popełnienie morderstwa, dostrzegamy niedociągnięcia, a potem obserwujemy jak Barton Keyes próbuje odkryć to o czym my już wiemy od początku. To wszystko komentowane zza kadru przez samego Waltera.

Fred MacMurray często obsadzany w rolach pozytywnych bohaterów tutaj gra wbrew swojemu emploi i wychodzi mu to świetnie. Dzisiaj kojarzony jest przede wszystkim z tą właśnie rolą. Cała trójka głównych bohaterów zresztą prezentuje się znakomicie.

To co odróżnia ten film od większości filmów noir to właśnie bohaterowie. Żadni gangsterzy, ani choćby przestępcy, po prostu przeciętni ludzie. Film pokazuje  banalność zła podkreślając, że nie ma zbrodni doskonałej.

Znakomity scenariusz i wspaniałą grę aktorską dopełniają zdjęcia Johna Seitza i  muzyka Miklosa Rozsy potęgując mroczy klimat filmu.

Wśród tych zachwytów nie można jednak nie wspomnieć o tym, że ten znakomity film to jeden z największych przegranych w historii nagród Akademii Filmowej. Siedem nominacji do Oscara i ani jednej statuetki., a znakomite role MacMurraya i Robinsona nie zostały nawet uhonorowane nominacją.  Sama Barbara Stanwyck, która za swe aktorskie role uzyskała cztery nominacje, uważana  jest często za najlepszą aktorkę, która tej nagrody nie otrzymała (chociaż przyznano jej honorowego Oscara).

Fakt niedocenienia tego filmu może chyba tylko zdziwić dzisiejszego widza. Uważam, że sam film przetrwał próbę czasu. Polecam serdecznie.

A że Billy Wilder był wielkim reżyserem, to myślę, że do jego twórczości jeszcze na tym blogu powrócę.

Na deser muzyka Miklosa Rozsy i plakaty z filmu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4QlUh-axEE

oraz jeden ze znakomitych dialogów między Walterem a Phyllis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz-5wKegyOw

Informacje o filmie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036775/

http://www.filmweb.pl/f30696/Podw%C3%B3jne+ubezpieczenie,1944

Double Indemnity

Pais: EU
Año: 1944
Género: Cine negro. Intriga
Duración: 106 min.
Dirección: Raymond Chandler & Billy Wilder (Novela: James M. Cain)
Música: Miklós Rózsa
Producción: Paramount Pictures

Reparto:
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Tom Powers, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, John Philliber, Bess Flowers.

Descripción:
MacMurray es un vendedor de seguros que, junto a la “femme fatale” Barbara Stanwyck, realizan un plan para asesinar al marido de ésta y quedarse con el dinero de su seguro. Obra cumbre del género, uno de los ejercicios de suspense más fascinantes de todos los tiempos. (FILMAFFINITY)

Críticas:
“Obra absorbente y trágica que combina sordidez y pasión para mostrar a Barbara Stanwyck como una de las femmes fatales más fascinantes de la historia del cine. (…) Un derroche de maestría que marcó los códigos visuales del género” (Miguel Ángel Palomo: Diario El País)
–
El asesinato huele a madreselva
Es de noche, un coche circula a gran velocidad por las calles de la ciudad y de el se apea un hombre malherido…así comienza “Perdición”, un rotundo, demoledor y noqueante ejercicio de “film noir”, basado en una novela de James M. Cain, con uno de los guiones más extraordinarios jamás escritos para la pantalla del propio Billy Wilder y de Raymond Chandler. Con un ritmo trepidante y una gran tensión visual, la soberbia dirección del genio vienes trasciende y dinamita las convenciones del género y dibuja un perverso y audaz -para la época- relato de pasión, asesinato y muerte. Una de las cumbres indiscutidas del cine negro “Perdicion” es una joya que gira alrededor de la figura sensual, maquiavélica y pérfida de una de las “femmes fatales” más fascinantes del celuloide -una turbadora Barbara Stanwyck- que seduce a un cínico Fred McMurray desde ese plano sublime -de un erotismo de alto voltaje- de sus piernas bajando por las escaleras con una pulsera en su tobillo a modo de metáfora de la unión inseparable de unos personajes al borde del abismo, atrapados por la larga sombra del destino, donde un meticuloso plan de conspiración para asesinar se acabará convirtiendo en una imparable espiral de violencia, degradación moral y autodestrucción. Un larguísimo flashback, la voz en off de Fred McMurray y un casting milagrosamente bien escogido y en estado de gracia, con un trabajo excepcional de los tres protagonistas, son los instrumentos de que se sirve Billy Wilder para contarnos esta absorbente y tórrida historia bañada por las luces y las sombras de la fotografía en blanco y negro, de tintes expresionistas, de John Seitz y la sugerente y tensa música de Miklos Rozsa que potencian la atmósfera malsana y asfixiante del film a la perfección y que nos conducen de forma inexorable hacia un memorable doble final, de poderosa carga dramática y un lirismo arrebatador, donde las pasiones dejan paso a los sentimientos más ocultos, donde se cierra definitivamente el circulo mágico de un film estremecedor con ese inolvidable plano final en el que el protagonismo de un cigarrillo, una cerilla y el marco de una puerta que no podemos llegar a traspasar da el sentido postrero a esta obra maestra absoluta del CINE con mayúsculas de uno de los mas geniales guionistas y directores de todos los tiempos.
Un film inolvidable, para ser visionado con devoción y respeto en imprescindible VOS.

Magistral y arquetípica película de cine negro
Cuarto largo de Billy Wilder, tercero realizado en EEUU. Adapta al cine la novela “Three of Kind” (1935), de James M. Caine, basada en hechos reales. Se rodó en LA y en los Paramount Studios (California), con un presupuesto estimado de 1 M dólares. Producida por Joseph Sistrom, se estrenó el 6-IX-1944.

La acción tiene lugar en LA entre finales de mayo y el 16 de julio de 1938. Narra la historia de Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), vendedor de seguros, de 35 años, soltero, reservado y débil de crácter. Al visitar a un cliente, el Sr. Dietrichson, para renovar la póliza del seguro de sus coches, conoce a su esposa, Phyllis Nirdlinger (Barbara Stanwyck), sensual, atractiva y seductora, que despierta en él gran interés. Al amparo de este suceso, ella trata de seducirlo para convertirlo en cómplice de un plan que los conducirá a la perdición.

La película enfrenta a un hombre honrado, pero débil, con una mujer fuerte, sin escrúpulos, que aprovecha su atractivo personal para engañarlo, manipularlo y utilizarlo despiadadamente. Es destacable la sordidez de la historia, centrada en la ejecución de un crimen con premeditación, frialdad, desprecio por la vida humana, codicia y alevosía. Barbara Stanwyck interpreta la figura de una de las más pérfidas “mujeres fatales” del cine. Entre los dos personajes se establece una insana relación de amor y odio, dominio y sumisión, atracción y repulsión, que se ve corroída por las sospechas cruzadas de infidelidad, de Neff con Lola Dietrichson (Joan Hearther) y de Phyllis con Nino Zachetti (Byron Barr). Se añaden las sospechas de crímenes pasados, de planes de nuevos crímenes y la aparición de deseos mutuos de venganza. El investigador Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), mientras avanza en su investigación implacable, hace que salga a la superficie un mundo escalofriante de bajas pasiones. La obra está narrada en forma de confesión, que relata los hechos en “flashback”. El espectador queda con la sensación de que los verdaderos motivos que mueven el comportamiento perverso de los dos protagonistas no quedan explicados de modo justo y cabal. Posiblemente, de esta sensación se deriva uno de los atractivos más poderosos del film.

La música, de Miklós Rózsa, aporta intensidad, estridencias y disonancias, sumamente adecuadas. La fotografía, de John Seitz (“Días sin huella”, 1945) se inspira en obras del expresionismo alemán, como “M, el vampiro de Dusseldorf” (1931), de Lang. Crea ambientes oscuros y tenebrosos, de fuerza inmensa. La interpretación de Stanwyck es extraordinaria en el que posiblemente es el mejor papel de su carrera. Excelentes son las intervenciones de MacMurray y Edward G. Robinson. A destacar la intervención del español, afincado en Hollywood, Fortunio Bonanova en el papel de Sam Garlopis. La dirección crea una de las obras culminantes del género negro.

Datos técnicos:
Tamaño:  1,41 Gb
Duracion: 01:43:11
Vídeo codec: Xvid (doble pasada)
Resolución: 640 x 480
Bitrate: 1569 Kbps.  Qf: 0.204
Audio codec: 0×2000(AC3, Dolby Laboratories, Inc) AC3
Bitrate Castellano/Inglés: 48000Hz  192 kb/s total (2 chnls)
Subtítulos : [Castellano]

Capturas:

Película

Extra VOSE

Subs.castellano

USA 110m, B&W
Director: Billy Wilder; Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson

Sunset Boulevard is an intriguing murder mystery with dark comedic undertones told as a continuous narrated flashback which begins with the death of a struggling screenwriter played by William Holden. The film retraces the previous six months of his life which centers around his relationship with an aging silent screen star, played by Gloria Swanson, who is sheltered from the reality of her forgotten stardom by her first husband/director turned butler/chauffeur played by Erich von Stroheim. The parallels between the silent screen characters and their real-life counterparts in Gloria Swanson and von Stroheim are not lost on audiences familiar with the early years of cinema. While Swawnson’s portrayal as the aging silent film star may not have been much of a stretch for her considerable talent, her melodramatic portrayal of the delusional Norma Desmond is practically perfect (Klaus Ming November 2009).

Esta tarde, dentro del ciclo ‘Historias de cine. Los
grandes directores’ que están teniendo lugar en el civivox de Iturrama, le toca el turno a uno de mis directores favoritos…

…Billy Wilder…

Desde que ví “El Apartamento”, me quedé encantada. De hecho, como ya comenté en alguno de mis post hace ya tiempo, esa es la película que más me ha gustado.

Cada cuál tiene sus preferencias, claro está…, pero al menos, lo que es a mí, como que me parece una maravilla. Ya desde el comienzo…

Bueno, y no me enrollo más, que la conferencia es esta tarde… ja, ja

Aquí tenéis más info, por si alguien está interesado:

http://www.pamplona.net/verDocumento/verdocumento.aspx?idDoc=78113

“I don’t care how rich he is as long as he has a yacht, his own private railroad car and his own toothpaste.” ~~Sugar Kane

Wiseguys, lust, boozers, a massacre, elevator gropings, love, transvestitism — calling Billy Wilder’s nutty “Some Like It Hot” a movie with “something for everyone” is tantamount to describing Marilyn Monroe as “good-looking.” There’s nary a taboo topic left untackled in this darkly comic free-for-all. But what’s crazier than the script is the fact that Wilder pulls off everything he tries — and how. There’s not a single misstep here. “Some Like It Hot” is a real diamond, alright, and the kind Sugar Kane’s just panting to put on her finger.

And much like any glittery bauble, Wilder’s film is easy to appreciate, hard to describe. What seems simple becomes complex upon inspection. There are so many nuances hidden beneath the slapstick and the knee-slappers in “Some Like It Hot” that a magnifying glass couldn’t catch them. These complications begin with Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s screenplay, which thrusts us into 1929 Chicago and the lives of Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), two musicians scraping by on meager gigs. Then the two become the only living witnesses to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and escape, but not before mafioso Spats Colombo (George Raft) gets a gander at their faces. What to do, what to do? Why, dress in drag — Joe becomes “Josephine,” Jerry, “Daphne” – and join an all-girl jazz band headed to Florida!

Hilarity ensues. Wait, that’s another understatement. The cross-dressing signals the film’s turn into hard-core comedy, a winning combination of pratfalls and one-liners rendered perfect by crack timing. Enter Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), the band’s lead singer, and all unholy hell busts loose. Joe falls for her but he’s dressed in drag. Step careful, Josephine — or should I say “Junior”? Jerry catches the eye of millionaire Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), a revolving door of wives who has no idea his pearl’s hiding more than bloomers under that dress. Osgood’s a persistent little sucker, too, despite Daphne’s rebukes: “Pull in your reel, Mr. Fielding, you’re barking up the wrong fish!” And of course Spats and his minions are nipping at Joe and Jerry’s heels.

All these balls whipping through the air, all landing right where they should — this is the true wizardry of “Some Like It Hot,” a masterpiece masquerading as a haphazard mess. Perhaps the film is an exercise in madness, but it’s chaos on purpose. Out of control and random as things sometimes seem, Wilder’s behind the curtain grinning away, knowing his script will reveal all to us if we keep our ears perked and our eyes peeled. His eye for design, too, serves him well; he creates a vivid black-and-white portrait of 1929 America, where not even sexy jazz clubs and gin joints can obscure the harsh realities of life.

Wilder’s characters, however, have learned to turn their lemons into martinis. Curtis lights up the screen as Josephine/Junior, a man willing to be anyone but himself to get what he wants. Joe’s an escapist at heart, someone willing to “hock the paddle” when he’s up the creek financially, and Curtis lends him a debonair air of adventure and romance. Lemmon is the opposite; Jerry’s all manic exuberance. Lemmon’s timing is spot-on, and every movement feels juiced with total enthusiasm. (Note his hysterical reaction to Osgood’s proposal.) Together, these two are nothing less than sheer comedic perfection.

As for Monroe, well, before “Some Like It Hot” her much-lauded allure escaped me. Now all the hype makes perfect sense. Monroe projects a captivating mix of boldness and vulnerability. There’s something dented about Monroe that suggests she’s more than a pin-up queen who can carry a tune. Wilder captures this essence – Jerry’s bang-on when he calls Sugar “Jell-O on springs” – flawlessly; he trusts Monroe to find the character, and sure enough she makes Sugar Kane the kind of bruised bombshell who’s twice as intriguing as she is beautiful.

Yes, that’s the real kicker of Wilder’s creation, those layers of intrigue begging to be picked through. ”Spills, thrills, laughs and games. This may even turn out to be a surprise party,” Jerry tells Sugar. That’s “Some Like It Hot” to the letter.

En Chicago, Jerry y Joe, dos músicos fracasados, presencian una terrible masacre el día de San Valentín. Desde ese momento se ven obligados a huir del terrible mafioso Botines Columbo. Cargados con un saxofón y un contrabajo se disponen a marcharse de la ciudad. Perseguidos por la mafia de Chicago, cambian pantalones por faldas y, ya  como Josephine y Daphne, se colocan en un tren para formar parte de una orquesta femenina que se dirige a dar su espectáculo en Florida. Su verdadera perdición llega cuando conocen a Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), una jovencita que toca el ukelele y canta, y que por su manera de moverse debe tener un motorcito o algo así.

Esta maravillosa comedia de Billy Wilder mezcla de una manera sensacional la parodia del  mundo de los gangsters de la época con lo puramente femenino; una mezcla un tanto peligrosa que Wilder sabe sacar muy cuidadosamente adelante. El argumento es irresistible, dos hombres se adentrarán a lo loco en el complicado universo de la mujer, sufriendo todos sus inconvenientes y aprovechando sus ventajas. Tiroteos, música, confusiones, risas, farsas y romances componen este cóctel explosivo y alocado que nos mantendrá entretenidos con un sin fin de idas y venidas de aquí para allá. Josephine se hará pasar por un seductor millonario gafotas para conseguir el amor de Sugar, y Daphne será el dulce capricho de un anciano playboy. Todo esto para dar lugar a un, cómo no, inesperado final. Una de las mejores comedias de la historia del cine, inolvidable y escandalosa, con un punto amargo. Nominada, en su día, para seis Oscars.

Y una oportunidad también de contemplar a Marilyn Monroe, icono sexual del cine en su mejor interpretación.

Asunción Valera Ros. 2º AH

Brilliant. Time to talk about our Ten lists once more, so settle in for the long haul and try and keep up. Much discussion ensues as Sam tries to extol the virtues of Ingmar Bergman, praise the magical realism of Billy Liar and attempt to make sense of All About Lily Chou-Chou. John continues the theme, causing slight, though understandable, consternation with his uncensored views on Raging Bull and confessions of multiple tears during Schindler’s List. Tom rounds the night off in business-like fashion with praise for The 400 Blows, controversial dislike for the second half of Stalker and man-crushed love for Le Samourai.

Download The Movie Overdose Episode 40.5

Remember to email us, sugarplums!

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE SEVEN VOLTIERS – talvez se os produtores do filme tivessem escolhido este título A MONTANHA DOS SETE ABUTRES, título em português desta obra de Billy Wilder, tivesse tido melhor sorte nas bilheterias.

Década de 40. Os Estados Unidos vivem as décadas de chumbo do macarthismo, quando a imprensa democrática americana era também o reduto dos comunistas caçados pelo senador McCarthy.

Qual é o sentido – para o público americano – de ver as tramóias de um repórter manipulador de notícias, se a invenção da notícia era tudo o que o público americano mais desejava ? O sentido superior do filme é ver a manipulação da tragédia de um operário. Dentro da montanha dos abutres sagrados.

Assista o trailler:

Proximos filmes:
rambo
ultimatum bourne
inimigo meu
os intocáveis
cabo do medo – original
cidade dos amaldiçoados – original
alucinações do passado

C’est toujours un plaisir de replonger dans La Garçonnière tant ce film s’avère riche en émotion, en audace et en intelligence. Loin de moi l’envie de rabaisser d’autres oeuvres de Billy Wilder pour mettre celle-ci plus en avant. Assurance sur la mort, Sunset Boulevard, Certains l’aiment chaud : vous remarquerez que le Billy n’en est pas à sa première réussite. On retrouve ici en tête d’affiche l’acteur phare de Wilder, à savoir Jack Lemmon, petit employé dans une compagnie d’assurance qui, plus que toute autre chose rêve de devenir cadre. Motivation qui le pousse à transformer gracieusement son appartement en garçonnière que viennent squatter tour à tour ses supérieurs hiérarchiques. Seulement voila, le gentil Jack est amoureux, et pas de n’importe qui puisqu’il s’agit de la charmante fille de l’ascenseur, à savoir Shirley MacLaine qui soit dit en passant est aussi la maîtresse du big boss de la compagnie (Fred MacMurray). Et on n’y coupe pas, ce dernier cherchera lui aussi à profiter de la fameuse garçonnière, ce qui conduira notre gentil Jack Lemmon dans une situation des plus embarassantes.

Les intentions de mise en scène peuvent sembler curieuses tant Wilder s’applique à se débarrasser des étiquettes et des convenances. Concernant son genre tout d’abord, le film démarre comme une comédie sociale avant de se réfugier à mi-parcours dans le mélodrame. Techniquement ensuite, Wilder choisit de filmer en scope et en noir et blanc à l’heure où la tendance est à la couleur. De ces choix plutôt fantaisistes en apparence émerge un ton assez curieux, et souvent plus grave qu’on ne l’attendait. Nous sommes en 1960 et le cinéma de Billy Wilder s’écarte de la fiction pure telle que l’a toujours produite Hollywood pour porter un regard plus conscient sur la société contemporaine. De cette façon, le cinéaste montre que l’américain des années 60 est entré dans l’ère des médias, et de la télévision plus particulièrement : on renonce à voir Grand Hôtel à la télé tant la publicité envahit l’écran et on se met à parler politique (en l’occurence de Fidel Castro) quand on n’a rien d’autre à faire. Nul doute, on est bien dans un cinéma en passe de devenir moderne (de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique la Nouvelle vague fait des siennes, et dans le studio voisin, discrètement, Coppola pointe déjà le bout de son nez).

Conformément à l’élégance qu’on lui connaît, c’est avec un humour subtil que Wilder s’approche de ces hommes-fourmis qui s’agitent dans les bureaux. Si le personnage de Lemmon est comique, sa vie est loin de l’être : il est évident que sa profession à pris le pas sur sa vie privée. Sans oublier que pour réussir à grimper les échelons, la seule solution qu’il a trouvé est de recourir au pot-de-vin. Oui, dans ce monde sinistre où la spéculation bat son plein et où quasiment tous les hommes trompent leur femme, il y a peu de place pour les rêveurs. Par conséquent, les personnages de Jack Lemmon et Shirley MacLaine évoluent tous deux comme dans un labyrinthe, attendant de tomber l’un sur l’autre au coin d’un tournant.

De fait, si dans sa deuxième partie le film tourne au mélodrame, il n’est en aucun cas question de “coup de foudre” : MacLaine a bien conscience que le petit Lemmon est gentil, mais elle lui préfère pourtant le vilain MacMurray qui a auparavant pris soin de lui promettre la lune. Le personnage de Lemmon est à contre-temps, le seul à encore ôter son chapeau dans l’ascenseur, à parler de “dignité” et à accepter d’endosser les responsabilités des autres. Son côté ringard ne passe pas inaperçu et confère au film un aspect comique indéniable (il faut le voir parader fièrement avec son chapeau melon flambant neuf). C’est d’ailleurs ce qui lui fait défaut auprès des femmes. Ironie du sort : à la vue des poules qui défilent dans son appartement, ses voisins le prennent pour un tombeur. De ce contraste entre le héros classique et le monde moderne émerge une nostalgie douce-amère. Le divorce a été entamé entre le cinéma et l’illusion qu’il proférait jadis. Pourtant, la magie marche encore lorsque le temps s’arrête et que les personnages s’isolent : c’est lorsque nos deux héros sont seuls dans l’appartement que leur charme à tous deux éclatent aux grand jour, Shirley avec sa coupe à la garçonne concentrée sur Jack et sa raquette à spaghetti (qui n’aura d’ailleurs jamais autant fait penser à Charlot, le rêveur comique par excellence). Et l’on se dit qu’heureusement il existe encore des héros tels que celui-là, conférant à la réalité un éclat authentique, et promettant que par ci par là se cachent encore des gens biens…

v

THE APARTMENT (USA, 1960) R. : Billy Wilder ; Sc. : Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond ; Ph. : Joseph LaShelle ; M. : Adolph Deutsch ; Int. : Jack Lemmon (C.C. Baxter), Shirley MacLaine (Fran Kubelik), Fred MacMurray (Jeff D. Sheldrake), Jack Kruschen (Dr. Dreyfuss). Noir & blanc, 125mn.

Double Indemnity
d. Billy Wilder / 1944 / USA / 107 mins
Viewed at: A3.03 @ UEA (Norwich, UK)

I often wonder what contemporary audiences made of certain films, particularly ones that have long been considered to be undeniable classics. There is, of course, the famous case of Citizen Kane, currently getting yet another cinema reissue in the UK thanks to the BFI. These days, Orson Welles’ directorial and starring debut is viewed as an unparalleled slice of groundbreaking cinema, perennial topper of cinematic ‘best of’ lists and the closest we’ll ever get to a certified ‘Best Film Ever’. But in its day – despite Welles’ notoriety, fairly widespread critical approval and a bunch of Oscar nominations – Citizen Kane was anything but a commercial success, barely recouping its production budget and supposedly sparking a wave of adverse reactions from exhibitors and audiences, attracting regular cinema walkouts.

Thus, while attempting to understand the opinion of contemporary audiences is a valuable exercise, it can be rather fruitless. As a task, it is nearly impossible, and even if you can establish how long a particular film ran in key markets or provide a rough estimate of total box office, you will never know what contemporary audiences actually ‘thought’ of a film. Gaining any indication of ‘true’ contemporary audience reactions is difficult enough, but it goes without saying that to make an assumption as to how these audiences reacted is – as within any historical field – a largely pointless and foolhardy endeavour.

Amongst the contemporary reactions to Hollywood cinema, however, there is one segment of society of whose opinion we can be fairly certain: the humble, ever-dependable film critic. And with Double Indemnity undoubtedly existing as one of those rarefied Hollywood ‘classics’ – regularly held up as a pioneering example of the femme fatale driven film noir cycle – it is interesting to note what some contemporary critics made of it.

From an East Coast perspective, the Variety review of Double Indemnity in April 1944 was quick off the mark (and even quicker to pun) claiming that the film was ‘certain boxoffice insurance. And double indemnity with such marquee names as Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson.’ Making much of its relationship with the sensational Snyder-Gray murder of the 1920s, Variety praises Double Indemnity as ‘rapidly moving and consistently well developed’ and ‘a story replete with suspense’, a factor they largely attribute to Billy Wilder’s handling of the dual-role of Director and Co-writer.

Of course, Variety exists in very close proximity to the industry – both geographically and ideologically – and can therefore come across as more lenient on certain films depending on the levels of industry-wide investment. Whilst Variety praises Fred MacMurray, noting that he ‘has seldom given a better performance’, it tempers its plaudits for Stanwyck who – although ‘not as attractive as normally’ – is nonetheless ‘consistent though the character in the final reel would have been stronger had not the scripters sought to reflect some sense of human understanding for her.’

When the film begun its East Coast run at the Paramount Theatre, Times Square in September 1944, Bosley Crowther in the New York Times gave Double Indemnity a rather mixed review, making reference to its ‘long dose of calculated suspense’ and adding that ‘Such folks as delight in murder stories for their academic elegance alone should find this one steadily diverting, despite its monotonous pace and length.’ In fact, Crowther’s reaction to the film remains fairly ambiguous – if mildly displeased – until, having discussed Wilder’s direction, he points out that he has ‘No objection to the temper of this picture; it is as hard and inflexible as steel’ but that ‘the very toughness of the picture is also the weakness of its core, and the academic nature of its plotting limits its general appeal’. Providing a contrast to Variety’s boosting of MacMurray, Crowther singles out Edward G. Robinson for particular praise: ‘As a matter of fact, Mr. Robinson is the only one you care two hoots for in the film. The rest are just neatly carved pieces in a variably intriguing crime game.’ Crowther’s disapproval toward the low-lifers that populate these gritty crime pictures is fairly self-evident.

Similarly, the irrepressible James Agee – writing in Manhattan-based periodical, and champion of the liberal-left, The Nation – introduces his Double Indemnity review of October 1944 with an acerbic invocation of what he terms ‘bourgeois adultery’. Agee expands on this idea with an indictment of the film and what he sees as its invocation of America’s near-religious fervour for money, sex and violence: ‘The James Cain story, under Billy Wilder’s control, is to a fair extend soaked in and shot through with money and the cooly intricate amorality of money…among these somewhat representative Americans money and sex and a readiness to murder are as inseperably interdependent as the Holy Trinity’.

Having dispensed with the political/moral approach, Agee settles into a more traditional critical analysis of Double Indemnity, giving tempered praise to Wilder and his cast but complaining that ‘the picture never fully takes hold of its opportunities, such as they are, perhaps because those opportunities are appreciated chiefly as surfaces and atmospheres and as very tellable trash’. The reference to ‘very tellable trash’ might infer that, although somewhat loathe to admit it, Agee actually quite enjoyed Double Indemnity. In fact, he closes his review by essentially giving over to the pulpish persuasions of this ‘tellable trash’, and providing a rather astute encapulation of the critical consensus amongst many of his contemporaries:

‘In many ways Double Indemnity is really quite a gratifying and even a good movie, essentially cheap I will grant, but smart and crisp and cruel like a whole type of American film which developed softening of the brain after the early thirties. But if at the same time you are watching for all that could have been got out of it, you cannot help being disappointed as well as pleased.’

And yet, just two months after his review of Double Indemnity, Agee seems resigned to its significance in a review of Farewell, My Lovely – another classic ‘noir’, this time adapted from a novel by Wilder’s co-writer on Double Indemnity, Raymond Chandler. In spite of his preference for the ‘messiness and self-accomplishment’ of Farewell, My Lovely, Agee is forced to concede that Double Indemnity is ‘much better-finished, more nearly unimpeachable, but more academic and complacent’. It is Agee’s indication that the film is ‘nearly unimpeachable’ which clearly suggests that Double Indemnity had begun to exert its privileged status almost immediately.

From a historical perspective, James Naremore’s excellent article for Film Quarterly entitled ‘American Film Noir: The History of an Idea’ (a forerunner to his book on the subject) traces the troubled evolution of the ‘film noir’ label. Naremore notes that for the most part, contemporary American critics ‘made no attempt to invent a new term’ for this cycle of films, and this is certainly true of the reviews outlined above. Using Double Indemnity as an example, Naremore quotes critical references to it being everything from a ‘murder melodrama’ (in The New Yorker) to an ‘intellectual exercise in crime’ (in the Los Angeles Times). And so it remains that, whilst the notion of ‘film noir’ is little more than a historical label – a retrospective construct imposed on an otherwise disparate group of films, such terms can be as misleading as they are convenient. And with or without the ‘film noir’ label, Double Indemnity seemed destined to remain in the public consciousness for years to come.

“Suppose this is some of the best dialogue of all time”:

The Front Page.

Director: Billy Wilder.

Guión: I.A.L. Diamond y Billy Wilder, basado en una obra de Ben Hecht y Charles McArthur.

Intérpretes: Jack Lemon, Walter Matthau, Vincent Gardenia, Allen Garfield, Charles Durning, Carol Burnett, Susan Sarandon.

Dirección Artística: Henry Bumstead.

Fotografía: Jordan Cronenweth.

EEUU. 1972. 114 minutos.

Contemporáneo

 Si en la época dorada de los estudios de Hollywood Lewis Milestone (producido por Howard Hugues) realizó una primera versión (The Front Page, 1931) y, poco después Howard Hawks rubricó una obra maestra con Luna nueva (His girl Friday, 1940) con la adaptación de la obra de Ben Hecht, muchas décadas más tarde, en 1974, Billy Wilder rubricó esta igualmente genial nueva versión en la que a pesar de conservar la coyuntura histórica de la obra (la acción de The Front Page se sitúa en 1928) Wilder (y su inseparable coguionista IAL Diamond) extrajeron todo el jugo que la mordacidad de una mirada contemporánea permitía.

La ética periodística en la picota

Digna de recuerdo por mucho más que por el hecho de ser  una de las magníficas obras del tándem Lemon-Matthau a las órdenes de Wilder, el filme rezuma y resume la quintaesencia de la acerada visión que el guionista y realizador trazó durante tantas películas de su sociedad de acogida, la norteamericana, y más explícitamente de los mecanismos de poder y explotación que subyacen de las enseñas del capitalismo. Con más fiereza incluso que en Uno, dos, tres o En bandeja de plata, el filme que nos ocupa parte de una radiografía a la profesión periodística –donde la más elemental consigna que deja claro constante el metraje es que la verdad, en caso de existir, poco tiene que ver con los puntos de vista, de raigambre ideológica, política o directamente sensacionalista, con las que el periodismo afronta las noticias-, que rápidamente enrama con el auténtico crisol de circunstancias políticas que rodean a la ejecución de un penado en fechas de víspera electoral, panavisión retratada con hilaridad y un alto voltaje histriónico que no esconde su cinismo y una cruenta denuncia a la hipocresía e instrumentalización ideológica como moneda de cambio extendida y aceptada en el comportamiento de los poderes públicos.

Trasfondo sórdido

A pesar de contener algunos de los más desternillantes gags visuales o verbales de su autor, en The front page aletea tras las imágenes –o incluso en ellas- un trasfondo sórdido, una mirada doliente a las víctimas de un sistema, los parias sociales como lo son en este caso Earl Williams (el condenado a muerte que encarna Austin Pendleton), la prostituta de buen corazón (Carol Burnett) o incluso la provecta mujer que se dedica a la limpieza del centro penitenciario; casi todas las secuencias en las que estos personajes aparecen dejan en el espectador ese regusto agridulce entre la causticidad  narrada y el trasfondo humano que Wilder no obvia sacar a relucir en soluciones sutiles (el hecho de que Earl se pase media hora encerrado en un buró mientras los periodísticas y el sheriff, cada uno de ellos en estricta defensa de sus exclusivos intereses, se están rifando su destino) o en situaciones diría que incluso violentas, al borde de lo trágico, como los furibundos ataques verbales a los que Burnett es sometida por parte de los periodistas y el fatal desenlace de un intento de suicidio de la misma, por mucho que después se remede el desenlace para no dar al traste con el tono cómico que precisa la historia. En este sentido, es particularmente significativa una secuencia en la que los periodistas brindan con Hildy en la sala de prensa por su marcha a Pensylvannia, y entonan canciones que la cámara recoge como sonido diegético mientras vemos al condenado avanzar por los pasillos de la penitenciaría y la cámara le deja pasar y se detiene en plano medio frente a la mujer de la limpieza, que cierra aquel jolgorio de los periodistas persignándose por la inminente muerte del pobre desgraciado.

Señas wilderianas

En los últimos años de su prolija filmografía, Wilder agravó su mirada cínica planteando gadgets de auténtico slapstick, o situaciones de la irrealidad más campante (v.gr. los desenlaces de Irma la dulce o Aquí, un amigo), que en el fondo no hacían otra cosa que abundar en su furibunda mirada crítica; en The Front Page esas intenciones cristalizan en el retrato desternillante de la policía persiguiendo al fugado por toda la ciudad, mostrando a cámara rápida una desopilante flota de coches policiales surcando las calles de Chicago, o resolviendo a balazos el asalto a un local en el que se cree en falso que el fugitivo se ha escondido (y que curiosamente se llama “Oficina de la libertad americana”, tal como rezan los rótulos en los cristales que la policía destroza). Otra de las constantes de la sarcástica caligrafía de Wilder es su utilización de los objetos con singular carga de mofa en lo simbólico: en el filme que nos ocupa no tienen desperdicio momentos tan desternillantes como aquel en el que el alcalde extrae la estrella de la solapa del sheriff y la utiliza para perforar la punta del puro que va a fumarse, o la utilización de un liguero del personaje que encarna Carol Burnett para efectuar un torniquete en el brazo herido de Williams. Y también podríamos hablar de unos palillos chinos, los que el alcalde “le permite usar” al Delegado del Gobernador cuando le envía a un burdel chino para sacárselo de encima. Puro Wilder. Puro genio.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071524/

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9406E6D91E31EF34BC4152DFB467838F669EDE

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1037105-front_page/

http://www.lapetiteclaudine.com/archives/007116.html

http://www.miradas.net/0204/estudios/2002/06_bwilder/primera_plana.html

http://lapiraguacineclub.wordpress.com/2006/10/17/ciclo-billy-wilder-3/

Todas las imágenes pertenecen a sus autores