In The Company Of Glenn

This is a thing I've never known before...

...it's called Easy Living.

Sorry. I've been holed up all day, watching Blu-Ray discs for May's High-Definition DVD Consumer Guide, and this is the best I've got.

And by "best I've got," I mean the facile linking of a classic Mitchell Leisen film, scripted by Preston Sturges and starring Jean Arthur and Edward Arnold, to one of the most lumpen dumbfuck (and incidentally, when I say "dumbfuck" I really mean, um, "dumbfuck"—seriously, these yoyos made Deep Purple look like the Arditti String Quartet) hair-rock combos of the early 1970s, to wit:

Like I said. Best I've got. The Leisen film is one of Universal's latest four (the other three are Leisen's Brackett-and-Wilder-scripted Midnight, She Done Him Wrong, and Wilder's directorial debut The Major and the Minor) in its one-time "Studio Classics," now "Cinema Classics" editions, and it looks great, and you should get it.

On the religious diversity of Ernest Borgnine.

Has any American actor other than the great Ernest Borgnine portrayed both a breakaway Hittite and a full-fledged just-plain-Amish dude in film? I don't think so.

Here he is, getting between Jeff East and city gal Susan Buckner, as sinister Hittite Isaiah Schmidt in Wes Craven's 1981 Deadly Blessing. It's not widely known that two decades and change prior to that, he played Amish farmer Stadt in Richard Fleischer's 1957 Violent Saturday. A picture—which I warn you, contains a plot spoiler—is below the fold.

Three Faces of Larry Tucker

Between 1961 and 1963, one Larry Tucker racked up a cinematic trifecta not to be sneezed at, essaying three unforgettable portraits of three deeply creepy characters in three exceptional films.

Scepticism on Scofield...

My esteemed pal A. DeWitt does not bask in what I will admit is the conventional wisdom concerning the Brooks/Scofield King Lear, or maybe I should say the Brooks Lear and everything Brooks brings with it, including Scofield's performance in the title role, pronouncing it "dreadful." (See commetns, below.) I don't want to dismiss my friend's verdict, but by the same token I'm not sure that calling him out to debate it will do me, him, or this blog much of a favor. I could suggest that DeWitt, myself, and, if we can corral him, Ron Rosenbaum all move this over to a Shakespeare message board. Knowing that it'll never happen. Problem solved.

Still. Isn't there a Scofield performance we can all agree on? My good friend Joseph Failla knows there is.

Joe writes, via e-mail: "Let's make sure we mention Frankenheimer's The Train, possibly the most exciting film ever shot in black and white. I remember Scofield's despicable, art appreciating Nazi transcending conventional WWII German villians to become the polar opposite of his noble Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons. For years I had difficulty connecting them as being played by the same actor. An excellent action film grounded in reality by the moral questions it raises, it's criminal a remastered DVD of The Train does not yet exist (the current one is from the format's earliest days and hardly improves on my laserdisc of the 90's). It's a key film that needs to be presented in a form which does it justice."

To which I can only say amen, and amen, and amen again. But Joe, as is his wont, takes it up a notch:

"By the way, I also enjoy Scofield in the far less famous Scorpio, an early 70's spy thriller (by Michael Winner) in which he costars with Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon. It's a supporting role to be sure, but for a long time it was the only other film I had seen him performing in at all."

I declined from bringing up Scorpio in my initial remembrance of Scofield, as I thought it was too cultish, for, like, my own audience. Or rather the audience I'm supposed to be trying to cultivate. (Not that I underestimate you, my actual readers. It's complicated. More to do with corporate pressure than my own ideas and such. Forgive me.) [Anyway...] Leave it to Joe. I think he, and Tim Lucas, and Michael Weldon, are among the few who would ever cite that film as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do. We need more of these guys, and Joe is contempating starting his own blog. I offer him unequivocal encouragement.

Ivan Dixon, 1931-2008

Yes, the late, assured Dixon did participate in the moral and aesthetic debacle that was Hogan's Heroes. After which he went on to direct this 1973 film. which makes an odd but nonetheless ideal double-feature partner with both Three the Hard Way AND Chameleon Street:

I remember seeing this trailer as a 14-year-old and it blowing my mind. I also remember United Artist subsequently opening the picture in about one-and-a-half theaters, none of which were in my immediate vicinity. Pussies. Now, of course, we can buy the DVD.

Yeesh, what a week. When are people gonna stop dying?

Hmm. Not any time soon.

More Max.

I recently had the great privilege of interviewing Max von Sydow, one of the true legends and finest performers of the cinema, mainly about his memorable supporting role in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. The "proper" interview is on the "proper" Premiere website, here. As I allude to in the intro, I did indeed ask him about one of my personal favorite roles of his, this one:

...in Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis' criminally underrated (as far as I'm concerned) 1983 comedy Strange Brew. It's a film von Sydow remembers well.

The Only One

So my lovely wife was watching North by Northwest last night—she's like that—and I was passing through the living room during the scene pictured above, and, and my wife said, "He really is an amzing comic actor, isn't he?"

"Well sure," I said. "He's Cary Grant."

And then it hit me. Well, yes. Of course. He is/was Cary Grant. The people who whine about the dweebiness of the male leads in this summer's romantic comedies and cry "Where is this generation's Cary Grant?"—the answer to their question is very simple. It's got nothing to do with whether they make 'em like they used to anymore or not. It's got everything to do with Cary Grant's singularity. No generation is going to produce another to call its own. So you're never going to get "yours." Except he is yours. You just have to watch the movies. (Except maybe The Pride and the Passion.)

I understand that insisting on a player's historical uniqueness is very philosophically reactionary of me, but that's just too bad.

Legend at lunch.

As this picture implies, I sat across a restaurant table from Catherine Deneuve today. That I did not spend the entire time saying "homina homina homina" is, I think, a testimony to my professional demeanor. It was at a roundtable for the terrif Persepolis and I will get some quotes for y'all soon.

Julie Christie's brief art-rock career (UPDATED)

Christie

The divine Julie Christie's career is currently being rehashed in all manner of media as a consequence of her first major work in some time, the lead role in Sarah Polley's intelligent, affecting Away From Her. Hence, I thought it would be a good time to bring up a small kernel of her oeuvre that you won't likely read about anywhere else. (It's what I'm here for, really.)

The Mole

I fought Jude Law

Commenter NeilFC, weighing in on my Cannes musings, makes a confession that touches my heart: "Can't wait for the new Wong Kar-Wai BUT it stars one of my least favourite actors (Jude Law, in case you were wondering.) I find it kinda depressing when an actor that i just can't stand is in a movie by a director i really dig. And Law has been in movies by Spielberg, Scorsese and Cronenberg!"