Avanti!

Avanti! (Billy Wilder, 1972) Based on a play by Samuel A. Taylor (who wrote Vertigo and Sabrina), Avanti! has been updated to the Nixon 70's by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, as a slightly smutty comedy of manners, where a business-stiff, Wendell Armbruster, Jr. (Wilder muse Jack Lemmon) travels to Ischia, Italy to identify and claim the body of his father (Wendell Armbruster, Sr.). Turns out the son is stiffer than the dead father. He is shocked...shocked!...to find that dear old Dad, who supposedly went to Ischia for the therapeutic baths, was carrying on an torrid affair with a British mistress. This produces a prolonged hissy-fit—Lemmon excelled at these—where everything and everyone seems to be in a conspiracy to make claiming his father's body an unpleasant experience. The idea!

It's a clever idea, actually: Armbruster is such a stifled, constipated American with such a large stick wedged that he can't think of any way but his way in which to do things. And he's in Italy...heck, he's in Europe...which operates on a different clock, and respects things that Americans dismiss nowadays. Like Sundays.
 

And people. 

 

What a "backwards" place.

Before long, if you're anything like me, you start to hate everything American, and want to take an extended vacation...anywhere but in this movie..with this guy! And there's only so much one can take. For gung-ho Americans, it's an extended dig at the Motherland, and for self-loathing liberals, it's preaching to the choir. Either way, it's not an awful lot of fun to watch.

There has always been this quality to the later Wilder films—even The Apartment has it to an extent—a superior attitude that hammers points home far beyond the level of the wood, a decidedly cruel streak given to the characters not yet clued in to their own cluelessness. No empathy. No affection for the character. There's a decided lack of charm imprinted on the Armbruster character (and this from Taylor and Wilder?*) And if I can carry the carpentry metaphor a little further, it makes what could have been an elegant finish look pretty banged up.

What saves the film—setting aside the forward progress of the story and the character of Armbruster—are the performances of Clive Revill as the flusterily accommodating concierge of The Grand Hotel Excelsior, and by Juliet Mills, who plays the mistress' daughter, who has also made the journey to claim her mother's body.

You probably already know what happens, even before you see the film. And that may be why audiences didn't go to see it. That, and it takes so long to get there.  You may have some spark of affection for a retch, but you may not give them too much time, either.

The reason Wilder did this one? Producer-agent Charles Feldman saw it as a play (it ran 28 performances) and bought it for Wilder to make. Feldman, who'd made the disastrous 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale, passed away soon after, and Wilder, perhaps out of loyalty and affection for the man who'd given him The Seven Year Itch years earlier, saw it through to the screen. If only more of that grace and affection could have made it into the movie it inspired.

 

* In retrospect, those same charm-less qualities are given to Linus Larabee in Sabrina and the distraught "Scottie" Ferguson in Vertigo.  At points, they are hateful characters, displaying attitudes that challenge an audience.  

Mister Roberts

Mister Roberts (John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, Joshua Logan, 1955) Hollywood wanted to make a movie of the hit Broadway play that was a sensation for Henry Fonda, and Fonda wanted to make it—a labor of love. But, the studios thought Fonda (just shy of 50 years of age) might be a little too old for the lead, like twice the age he should be (they were thinking of Marlon Brando or William Holden). And then, there was an issue with the property—it was a bit too critical of the Navy and cast it in a less than inspiring light. The Admiralty-that-be was reluctant to grant its cooperation or to lend any of its ships or facilities to lend the film any verisimilitude as long as the film was anything less than respectful.

Enter John Ford. Ford had served in the Navy during World War II. He was a "friend" in Hollywood to the military and his captaincy of the production reassured the Navy brass that attitudes wouldn't get out of hand (and the uniforms would be correct). Ford would take care of the Navy.

As for Warner Brothers, Ford insisted that Henry Fonda—and nobody but Henry Fonda—would star in Mister Roberts. This put Warners in a bind. They couldn't make Mister Roberts without John Ford and John Ford wouldn't make Mister Roberts with anybody else in the lead. To compensate for Fonda's age, Ford cast older actors in key roles—James Cagney and William Powell—as well as members of his "stock company"—Ward Bond, Harry Carey, Jr., Ken Curtis and Patrick Wayne. All was set in place for a good shoot of a stage classic.

And then, things got messy. When Ford met Cagney at the airport, he greeted him with a snarling threat that they would "tangle asses." Cagney showed up a bit late the first day of shooting and Ford was ready to lay into him. Cagney had worked with the director before—the remake of What Price Glory in 1953—and knew he could be a tyrant on-set, and told Ford he was ready to fight and make good on his threat at the airport. Ford backed down. He knew he would get a fight from Cagney, but he threw his way of belittling actors onto Powell, which infuriated Cagney. "I would have kicked his brains out." said Cagney to his biographer, Doug Warren. "He was so goddamned mean to everybody. He was truly a nasty old man."

Then, Ford began to drink on-set. His command of the production was being challenged and he didn't like it. When he'd had a little too much, he would let Ward Bond oversee a shot. Early on, Henry Fonda, who'd won a Tony Award for Best Actor in the stage version, was unhappy with the script, and started to feel that Ford was indulging in too much slap-stick into a project that was a personal mission. A "clearing-the-air" meeting between producer Leland Hayward, Fonda and Ford escalated to the point where the director punched his star in the face. There was an apology, but the relationship between the two (they'd made pictures together) was forever fractured.

The movie, set during the last days of the second world war, tells the story of Lt. Doug Roberts (Fonda), stationed aboard the U.S.S. Reluctant (nicknamed "The Bucket" by the crew). A Navy cargo ship, it sails between harbors shipping supplies on time and efficiently thanks to Roberts' efforts as executive officer/cargo chief, a fact not lost on the ship's commander Lt. Commander Morton (Cagney), a badgering weasel of a man who enjoys the perks and accolades that their record entitles him to. The ship's crew is not much, but are loyal to Roberts, who acts as a buffer between the men and Morton.

But, Roberts is dissatisfied—he didn't join the Navy to shuttle supplies between "backwater" stations and currying favor with port commanders—he joined to fight for his country and persistently puts in for transfers to other ships in action, attempts Morton constantly sabotages to keep Roberts under his command—so he can enjoy the rewards of Roberts good efforts. For Morton, there is an added bonus—after a lifetime of being looked down upon in menial jobs, he gets to "dish it out" to the "smart college boy" Roberts. In order to get the men a much-needed liberty, Roberts promises Morton that he won't request any more transfers—the repeated pleas are making Morton look bad. But, when the men's activities get Morton a reprimand, he doubles down on Roberts and the crew, implying that Roberts has turned against them for a promotion. It proves too much for Roberts, who takes decisive action.

One can see parallels between what was happening in front of the camera and behind-the-scenes. A frustrated star, who was never satisfied with the film as compared to the stage version. A director who kept control over his productions through abuse. A supporting cast that soldiered on, despite the turmoil on-set—it would be Powell's last film, Cagney's last for Warner Brothers, and the launching of Jack Lemmon's career with a performance that won him an Academy Award for his horny, puppy-dumb Ensign Pulver.

Ford eventually was shipped out to Hawaii to dry out, then came a gall-bladder attack, necessitating a replacement by LeRoy, who screened Ford's footage and tried to shoot it the way Ford had, but LeRoy's appreciation of light isn't there. Once LeRoy had finished, Hayward and Fonda got the play's director, Joshua Logan, to re-shoot many of the scenes (probably a lot of the interiors). The result is a mixed bag of some breath-taking images, flat attempts to reproduce them, and rather perfunctory interiors that play like they're from another movie—you can tell the Logan scenes because nobody's sweating in them.

Take a look at this sequence of shots—all from the penultimate scene of the film. I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to say that the top shot of Lemmon—an exterior shot—is by Ford, and the two below it, are by LeRoy—interiors intended to look like exteriors and with the same actors in the same positions, but not as natural and somewhat stiffly arranged.

And Logan—here are some interior shots, with their vast expanses of unused screen space, and everything just a little too neat and tidy, the decks recently swabbed, and just a little too orderly to be believed they'd been lived in. While not exactly a Frankenstein's monster of a movie, the shift in presentation does get under one's skin and undermines one's appreciation. Mister Roberts was not the sensation it was intended to be—not as realistic, not as salty, not as controversial, and a far cry from the initial intention of author Thomas Heggen in both book and play. Fonda basically disowned it.

And what of Ford? He would take a couple months away from features to do a couple television films, and returned to Warner Brothers with one of his best—and some would say his greatest film—1956's The Searchers.

The Apartment (1960)

The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) I went to a party the other night and a friend upbraided me, saying "Irony is so passé!"

Gosh, I hope not. That'd mean I can't enjoy Billy Wilder films anymore.

Wilder came to Hollywood as a writer* and had great success with his scripts for Ninotchka, Ball of Fire and graduated to directing with The Major and the Minor and Double Indemnity. Talk about a valedictorian. With the start of his directing career, Wilder concentrated on dramas with a biting humor (winning a Best Director Oscar in the process**), but with the failure of Ace in the Hole in 1951 shifted his course slightly to make more comedies with dramatic overtones, the most acclaimed being The Apartment, one of the many collaborations between Wilder and actor Jack Lemmon.*** 

The Apartment tells the story of C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Lemmon), working for a major insurance company as one of the many drones stranded behind desk and adding machine—the mammoth working pool set, a miracle of forced perspective looks like it covers several city blocks and feels like you should pack a lunch just to cross it. Crossing it is uppermost in Baxter's calculating skull. And to that end, he uses everything at his disposal, including lending his apartment as a love-nest for the married executives to pursue...outside interests. That apartment should have a revolving door on it, as Baxter must keep a scheduler as well as a well-stocked liquor cabinet. The arrangement helps him get ahead and the personal recommendations brings him to the peaked attention of the company's personnel director Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray****) who has need of the Apartment himself.

Baxter is climbing the ladder now, but it's one of the elevator operators, Miss Francine Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) that gets a rise out of him. They start a flirty relationship that Kubelik is a little cool to pursue, seeing as she is on a downward spiral in a relationship with Sheldrake. For Baxter, it will become a case of clashing ambitions.

The situation drips with irony: an insurance company, where the exec's juggle statistics and mistresses with no moral compasses. And the hierarchy of executive structure is paralleled to the status of folks in their private lives: the mistresses are treated with contempt if they begin to interfere with the home turf. And Baxter is literally left out in the cold every night, as the executives hedonistically burn through relationships that Baxter doesn't have the roots to start. It's only when a crisis occurs that Baxter begins to grow a conscience over the moral compromises he's making and providing.

The crisis sparks something Baxter's superiors (in everything but morals) never slow down enough to experience—a caring relationship, centered around (ironically) Kubelik in Baxter's bed. Schedules get shuffled, promises broken, and complications loom that the usually organized Baxter can barely manage all in an effort to create a recuperating stillness in a hectic personal life that comes crashing into his business-life. Conscientiousness ensues.

It seems like a fairy-tale today with current rubber-board rooms of the business-world filled with sociopaths. But, at the tail end of the 50's and the concerns of the world moving away from our boys in khaki to the boys in grey-flannel, it was a cautionary tale. Revolutions of all sorts in the '60's and plagues, both sexual and financial, in the 70's have made the film seem...one shudders at the word... "quaint."

But, that doesn't affect its wit, its insight, its charm, or high entertainment quotient. As a film it's a perfectly built comedic construction, a bon-bon exquisitely made and wrapped, with just a hint of bitterness at its core. And in the running gag that permeates the conversation of the film, it delivers its bellyful of laughs with no disconnect to the head, on its way to the heart, intellectually-wise. 

* Wilder liked to tell the story of escaping Nazi Germany and entering the United States through Mexico. When asked his occupation by the immigration official, Wilder tremulously answered, "I write movies." The Fed looked him up and down, then said "Write good ones" and stamped his papers.

** For the The Lost Weekend, Ray Milland won the Oscar for Best Actor for that film.

*** Those being Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), Irma la Douce (1963), The Fortune Cookie (1966), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1974), Buddy Buddy (1981).

**** I had MacMurray's daughter for a client once, and I had to tell her, "Ya know, your dad could play terrific bastards!" She fairly sparkled, and thanked me.