The Detective (1968)

The Detective (Gordon Douglas, 1968) You spend a lot of time looking into the wearily dead blue eyes of Frank Sinatra in this one, as he tries to come to grips with a world he no longer understands, driving in the rain, looking for the clue to where it all went wrong.

There are some notable behind-the-scenes things that merit a footnote in Sinatra's career and in movies. For one thing, the film rights to the novel were bought by a guy named Robert Evans, a former actor associated with the Evan-Picone fashion line, and he got the ball rolling on the film for 20th Century Fox. But, before any film started rolling, he was offered the title of head of production by Paramount Studios (where he would oversee Paramount's glory days shepherding such films as True Grit, Love Story, and The Godfather, among others). Once at Paramount, he concentrated on their planned film of Rosemary's Baby, which starred an actress who'd become popular on television, but was also the then-current wife of Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow. Sinatra was adamant that his wife appear with him in The Detective. She refused, convinced by Evans that she'd win an Oscar for her work in Rosemary (a tactic he used quite often, ironically, to persuade cast and crew to do his bidding). Farrow stuck with Rosemary's Baby and Sinatra served her divorce papers on its set. Jacqueline Bisset was cast, instead, sporting a wig of short hair that was reminiscent of Farrow's chopped hair-style.

The Detective hasn't aged well. What was daring and "adult" at the time of the film's release (the forced underground homosexual culture, along with nymphomania) now seems dated and "quaint," even. More compelling, and ground-breaking is the police procedural in the foreground—a murder investigation that has a ritual aspect to it. The victim's house-mate (Tony Musante) is noticeably absent, and Sinatra's Det. Joe Leland leads the investigation to track the man down, leading to his arrest, trial and execution. Textbook, it's thought. 

But, later, he's approached by Norma McIver (Jacqueline Bisset) the wife of a prominent suicide (William Windom), who committed the act very publicly, and Leland's investigation leads him to question his earlier actions and those of his authorities. All this, while reconciling his difficulties with his wife (Lee Remick). The fallibility of the cops to follow their prejudices, and pressure from corrupt superiors was something new to the genre. These cops had flat-feet of clay.

Director Douglas—not one for subtlety—overlays the execution

scene rather than just letting the character's grief tell the story.

The director, Gordon Douglas, was a favorite of star Sinatra, shooting quickly and efficiently, letting Sinatra do his set-up's in the minimal number of takes that he preferred. The cast also has prominent roles for Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, Al Freeman Jr. and Robert Duvall as other detectives in Leland's squad.

If the film has passed into the discount bin of film history, it does have one more tangential link to claim some significance beyond itself.

There were other novels in the "Leland" series by author Roderick Thorp, including one, "Nothing Lasts Forever," in which The Detective tries to save his family from terrorists in a high-rise professional building. 

 

That's right, it's the book on which Die Hard was based. Per his contract, Sinatra had first refusal reprising the character and as he would be the age of 73 at the time of filming, he passed. Now, just imagine if John McLaine had said "Dooby-dooby-doo" instead of "Yippie-Kye-yay..."

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974) There's a new version of Agatha Christie's "bottle mystery"* coming at the end of the year (directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh). I'm not sure why it's necessary as it was remade in an excellent version of the British television series featuring David Suchet in his long-running portrayal (24 years) of Christie's eccentric Belgian detective with the extremely effective "little grey cells." 

We'll discuss that very interesting version a little later. For now, we'll turn our attention to the all-star version produced by EMI and distributed in the U.S. by Paramount, with Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot. Producers John Brabourne and Richard B. Goodwin wanted to "pull out all the stops" on the production just to get the film rights from Dame Christie, who was still alive at the time and had expressed that, after the Miss Marple movies of the 1960's starring Margaret Rutherford, she was "allergic" to filmed adaptations and clutched her film-rights to her like a precious jade statue. The two producers enlisted Brabourne's father-in-law, Lord Mountbatten, to reassure Christie of the producers' elevated intentions and she gave her guarded approval.**

Sidney Lumet was hired to direct—he was acknowledged to be a "tasteful" director, one who could supervise good performances out of most actors, and he'd recently had success with Serpico—and he began the process of casting, first hiring Sean Connery (with whom he'd worked often and whom Connery had hand-picked for movies he had some creative control over) in order to attract other A-listers, who, with Connery's presence, flocked like seagulls. Lumet had fond memories of making Orient—he centers most of the anecdotes in his book "Making Movies" around that production and how smooth it was. Lumet focused on "elegance" hiring cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, production and costume designer Tony Walton, and to touch up Paul Dehn's script, playwright Anthony Schaffer—who went uncredited. 

There are some movies that can only be described as a "souffle" and Murder on the Orient Express is one of those. Hercule Poirot (Finney) must catch the Orient Express at the last minute, but his conductor-friend Bianchi (Martin Balsam) manages to find a room for him in coach when a Mr. Harris fails to appear. Because the Express is unusually crowded for the time of year, Poirot is grateful for the consideration and settles in for a pleasant trip. The passengers are a mix of the rich—the Princess Dragomiroff (Wendy Hiller), the Count and Countess Andrenyi (Michael York and Jacqueline Bisset)—the nouveu riche—actress Harriett Belinda Hubbard (Lauren Bacall) and Col. John Arbuthnot (Connery)—and the humble—missionary Greta Ohlsson (Ingrid Bergman), governess Mary Debenham (Vanessa Redgrave) and servants McQueen (Anthony Perkins) and Beddoes (John Gielgud),*** in the employ of an uncouth American businessman Samuel Rathcett (Richard Widmark).

Ratchett strong-arms Poirot into dinner to ask for his protection—he believes his life to be in danger and that he might be murdered on the train. As Poirot happenstantially is in the room next to his, the detective thinks it highly unlikely, and retires to his cabin, where he has a restless night punctuated by a scream, Mrs. Hubbard complaining about a stranger in her room, and a mysterious woman in a red kimono. Oh yeah, and the train has come to a stop due to an impassable snow-drift. 

It turns out Ratchett is not only uncouth, but rather psychic, as well. In the morning, he is discovered in his locked and chained compartment—the window open—dead from multiple stab-wounds, by his servant Beddoes and secretary McQueen. Now, I'm no detective, but I've seen lots of movies, so seeing as how the secretary is played by Anthony Perkins and the victim died of multiple stab-rooms, it makes him the most likely cinematic culprit—especially given the mysterious woman in the red kimono.

Clues start to appear that Poirot tracks like a pig hunting truffles. He interviews all the passengers on the train, who react in varying degrees between timidity and righteous indignation and the train's kitchen seems to be having a run of red herring. What's an Agatha Christie detective to do?

Why, pull everybody into the dining car and start a spirited game of musical murder motives that touches on every single passenger sweating in the dining car, intercut with highlights from the interviews that Lumet now has in one of his more obvious tropes—the flash-backs now occur in his trademark wide-angle lens close-up's distorting the faces into disturbing emphasis****—as if the cut-aways themselves weren't enough to make us pay attention to them. If you watch enough Lumet, you can tell when he wants you to really notice something—by bending the world into unfamiliarity. It's as subtle as being hit with a hammer.

Murder on the Orient Express is unique in the Christie mysteries—the detective comes up with two possible solutions to the murder and must decide which of the alternatives to present to the authorities. It is a case of literally choosing the lesser of two evils—now, that would have been a hell of a title—and Poirot must weigh the consequences of the morality of his choice—one of the few instances where Poirot feels himself morally compromised and must live with his conscience for his choices. The only other time that happened was his last case, "Curtain."

But, not so much here. Lumet and Dehn and Schaffer are having such a grand ol' time, such moral ambiguity never comes up, only a sense of self-satisfaction in an extended curtain call of sorts (Vanessa Redgrave even winks sassily!) all to a frothy, jaunty Richard Rodney Bennett score that sound like it would be a good accompaniment to a Victorian ferris wheel.

And that's the problem. Lumet's first choice as a composer was one of the great film-music masters, Bernard Herrmann. Lumet expressed interest in him creating something fun and opulent after Herrmann screened the film and Herrmann became apoplectic. "That train," he roared "is a train of DEATH!" 

And just so. It doesn't matter how much you gussy up a corpse, it's still rotten. Herrmann, who had scored many a murder—and much passion—in his career (and who would close out his career, and life, scoring Taxi Driver) could not and would not put music celebrating getting away with murder. But, Lumet, who excelled at details but could miscalculate spectacularly in The Big Picture, just didn't see it. He—and the producers—wanted an all-star romp. And that's just wrong. Evil, even under the guise of self-righteousness, even when practiced in the most opulent of board-rooms and Presidential Suites, is not a parlour game. It is what makes Christie's work—emanating from such a source as she—is so perverse.

I much prefer the 2010 ITV production starring David Suchet as Poirot, which is darker, grittier, and less concerned with glitz and star power—despite a meticulous production design and a cast that includes Eileen Atkins, Barbara Hershey, Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Chastain, David Morrissey and Toby Jones. In a darkened Orient Express—power has gone out on the snow-trapped train—the suspects huddle in the dark and tensions are high. It is also mentioned (with Christie's inherent class-prejudice) that such a polyglot of like-minded people could only emanate in the melting pot of America. Suchet's Poirot is far more conflicted, and the last shot is of the detective walking away from the scene of the crime, his eyes tearing from the cold, maybe, but probably for the same reason he clutches a rosary in the fervent hope of forgiveness.

So, again...Kenneth Branagh is doing a new version to be released in November of this year, and one can only speculate where it falls on the morality question, as it is written by Michael Green who's had a hand in the scripts for Green Lantern, Logan, Alien: Covenant and Blade Runner 2049. It's hard to say, but it will probably depend on whether it's written by one hand...or by committee.

* "Bottle mystery" because the setting is restricted to the train—the many suspects contained in a single space from which they cannot escape, the fabled Orient Express. Christie's story was published in the U.S. under the title "Murder in the Calais Coach" to avoid confusion with a Graham Greene book that, itself, had its title changed for the American market.

** She quite enjoyed the film with one caveat—as much as she enjoyed Finney as Poirot, she didn't like his mustache.

*** There are also character actors Colin Blakely, Rachel Roberts, Denis Quilley, and George Coulouris (of The Mercury Theater). As the jokes goes: "Any names?"

**** Examples of Lumet's technique—initial and flashback: Wendy Hiller and Sean Connery.

Airport (1970)

Airport (George Seaton, 1970) TV Guide film critic Judith Crist called the original Airport (it became a series for Universal Studios) "the best picture of 1944." Crist was usually more interested in comedy writing than providing any worthwhile analysis, but it's a good line and actually zeroes in on what's great and not-so-great with Ross Hunter's star-studded production about the trials, tribulations and turbulence (and pre-TSA terrors) associated with the modern (for the 1960's) aeronautical transportation hub.  

And it's quite the hub, with spokes constantly threatening to detach and fly hither and yon...without a ticket. It's a Grand Hotel with everybody either in transit or in a holding pattern, and nobody questioning why they're called "terminals" (and perhaps they should). Airport shows just how complicated the airplane industry is on a good day, and then complicates things by focusing on a bad one. Given the modern computer glitches that can ground hundreds of flights at a time, as well as the thousand shocks to the security system recent years have presented, a simple mad-bomber on a single flight may seem routine.

"A cast of thousands" (but few were paid)

Airport is an example of "old school" movie production, brimming with established actors and up-and-coming contract players, fussy with detail and the kind of production design that made everything look like a brushed and scrubbed set. The story feels like it could have come out of the '40's (or '50's), the type of thing Ernest K. Gann used to write, that literally was like Grand Hotel in the skies, accentuating all-walks-of-life characters (homo-gentically white), while displaying the author's knowledge and obvious love for the subject matter—in Gann's case, flying. But, this is Arthur Hailey.

"We've got to make room for the new SST's!"  Mm-hmm. No, you don't.

The fictional Lincoln International Airport (not located in Chicago) is socked in by bad weather, there's a jet stuck in the snow blocking a runway, a local neighborhood where a couple councilmen live (councilmen live in trailer parks—aren't those around airports?) are protesting being under the glide path, there's a serial stowaway (Helen Hayes, who won an Oscar for pixiness), a smuggler (Jessie Royce Landis), a gigolo pilot (Dean Martin) who's gotten a "stew" (Jacqueline Bissett) pregnant, and a mental patient (Van Heflin) who wants to commit suicide by blowing up a plane for the insurance money (Maureen Stapleton being the chief beneficiary). The axis at the center of the hub is Mel Bakersfeld (Burt Lancaster), trying to manage all this mess like he's herding cats, while also doing a balancing act between his wife (Dana Wynter) who wants a divorce and the pretty public relations officer for one of the airlines (Jean Seberg).

Wow! Working at an airport is fun!

"No! If the bomb goes off, this is NOT what the plane is going to look like..."

Well, maybe it isn't, but it sure isn't dull, not when there's a character actor around every corner (Hey! There's Whit Bissell sitting next to Helen Hayes!). It tends to make customer service (which along with office politics seemed to be the specialty of author Arthur Hailey, who also authored "Hotel," "Wheels," and "The Moneychangers"*) a bit more interesting.

"Roger, Roger...Over, Oveur"
Dean Martin, Gary Collins, and Barry Nelson

With Lancaster's Bakersfeld handling the politics, George Kennedy's Gus Patroni (who would show up in other Airport movies) handling the mechanics (and putting in plugs for Boeing planes), Dino playing it cool when he's not grousing, and everybody else fretting, the place can handle the bomb-threat and still keep everything grounded (except for the planes). 

"Ev-rybody bombs somebody some-time"

Screenwriter-director Seaton keeps everything in focus, and manages to give the '60's decor as much presentation as the stars (which is usually a trait of the Fox studio, but this was produced by Universal) and it's amusing to watch all the smoking (even on the planes), the helmet hair on the women, and playing "find the black man?" (a 60's movie variation of "Where's Waldo?") because the movie is filled predominantly with whites. However, there are a few black porters (with lines of dialog, even) and there's actually an African-American doctor on the plane. This was considered "progressive," back in the day. What is interesting is those porters are real porters. So, too, are the security guards and air-traffic controllers, lending a bit of verisimilitude to the proceedings. There's also a nice collection of cliché passengers—the grouser, the wisenheimer adolescent, nuns and vets (but not together), and "the ethnics" (in this case, greek). Only thing missing is the "child going to specialty medical treatment." The men are men and the women are grateful (if they're not cheating on them).

"Hey, look, this is a 60's movie—split-screen"

Airport ushered in the era of the all-star disaster films of the 1970's ("Who will live? Who will die?"), followed by Irwin Allen's ones for Fox, and Universal's series of rumbling "Sensurround" movies (usually starring Charlton Heston). Debris from those films still litter the current movie market-place—I've just seen a trailer for a movie called San Andreas. And whose fault is that?

Airport's, obviously.

The cast and a couple of the crew (although Wynter and Kennedy are cardboard cut-outs)
Of COURSE, they're sitting in First-Class

* Hailey also wrote the book the film Zero Hour was based on, which, in turn, inspired The Zucker Brothers to make Airplane! (which Airport resembles in all sorts of respects).