The Cincinnati Kid

The Cincinnati Kid (Norman Jewison, 1965) One of the great poker movies, from a novel by Richard Jessup, written by Ring Lardner Jr. (the first studio film bearing his name after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era) and Terry Southern and directed by Norman Jewison.

That's the credits on the final film...and legitimately so. But, at the start of filming, everything was different. The film was originally bearing a screenplay by Paddy Chayevsky—who was warned by Steve McQueen (who had a lot of clout and would throw his weight around on-set) "I'm better at walking than talking"—re-written by Lardner and to be directed (in black and white) by Sam Peckinpah. The Hustler—a film about compulsive gambling (in that case, pool) to the detriment of life—had been a big hit and critical darling...and had picked up quite a few Oscar nominations. So, producer Martin Ransohoff must have had that in mind when this film was being cobbled together in pre-production.

Well, once filming started, Ronsohoff was shocked by the dailies Peckinpah was bringing in—there were scenes that didn't relate to the script—and fired him almost immediately (stories conflict on the details) and quickly hired Norman Jewison, who was most known for directing Doris Day movies, and the production was shut down, giving the new director time to re-assess and make changes. Charles Eastman and Terry Southern were hired to do some re-writing, and Jewison switched to color film—he thought filming red and black playing cards in black and white was counter-productive. 

Talk about gambling.

A New York Times story published Dec. 7th stated: "In trying to put “The Cincinnati Kid” before the cameras, Mr. Ransohoff and MetroGoldwyn ‐ Mayer have run through nearly every possible difficulty that can arise in contemporary Hollywood."

We meet "The Kid", Eric Stoner (McQueen) pitching pennies with a shoeshine boy (Ken Grant), who knows the Kid, knows his reputation and is in a hurry to beat him. Of course, he loses. And the Kid rubs it in: "You're just not ready for me yet." But, the youngster watches him saunter down the street with a lean and hungry look. Everybody will have that look at one point or another.

The Kid, you see, holds markers on everybody in New Orleans, which is fine except that he has to go across the river to dredge up a decent stud game, which—tonight—brought him $194 and the near-opportunity of a shiv between his ribs. But, there's a new game in town: Lancey Howard (Edward G. Robinson), "The Man", has stepped off a train in the city and is looking for action. The Shooter (Karl Malden), the best dealer in town and who's been bested by Howard in the past, knows The Kid wants to play against The Man, if only to prove he's the best in the game, and the Kid knows he can beat him. He knows it. Shooter had those dreams, too...once.

But, it's making him a bit preoccupied and more self-absorbed than he usually is. So much so that he's ignoring his girl Christian (Tuesday Weld) to the point where she's taking up with Shooter's bad-girl wife, Melba (Ann-Margret), who's so bad that she cheats at jigsaw puzzles. That's not Kitten with a Whip-bad...but it's bad as Chris is naive and Melba is anything but.

The Kid knows all about Melba's habits, but he's focused on the game and all-in. "Listen, Christian, after the game, I'll be The Man. I'll be the best there is. People will sit down at the table with you, just so they can say they played with The Man. And that's what I'm gonna be, Christian." She can't break through the wall of chips he's seeing, so she leaves town to go back to the folks'.

But, there's another game in town. Howard has an invitation to play stud with the very wealthy and very competitive William Jefferson Slade (Rip Torn) and the two go at it in a high-stakes 30 hour game that Slade ends up losing...to the tune of  six grand. And Slade doesn't like to lose...to anybody. Oh, he plays the Southern Gentleman just fine. But, he tells Shooter—who dealt the game—that he wants to "gut" the old man the way he feels gutted, and using Melba as a chip, coerces Shooter to slide the Kid the right cards in the inevitable match between them. This goes against everything Shooter believes in, but, with Melba in the mix...

It's gun-slingers meeting over green felt rather than the town square and Robinson is the fast-draw every twitchy trigger-finger kid wants to best. And just about everybody in the movie has skin in the game, if only to see The Man meet his match. With so much interest by outside parties, I come away (after a third viewing) convinced the game is rigged—the odds of the hand being dealt are very long—either 45,102,781 to 1 or 332,220,508,619 to 1, depending who you believe. But, it makes a good story, no matter the odds.

Steve McQueen's poker-face.

Jewison called it his "ugly duckling" film—given his short amount of pre-production time, how could it not?—and considered McQueen the most difficult actor he ever worked with (although he chose to work with him again!), but the film manages to hold up pretty well. There's just enough nodding to New Orleans to give it an exotic air, it's filled with with great actors—Dub Taylor, Ron Soble, Robert DoQui, Joan Blondell (!!), Jack Weston, Jeff Corey, Torn...and Cab Calloway (fer cryin' out loud!), how could it not be entertaining?

 

Yeah, there's issues. Script issues, mostly. But given the paper changing hands so often, and McQueen's way of up-ending tables for the sake of "image," it's surprising that it's as consistent as it is. The Kid zigs when he should zag a couple times—he's supposed to be savvy and be able to "read" people but he gets blind-sided too many times to believe it. 

Steve McQueen's poker-face, when he thinks he's winning.

And there's two endings—the one Jewison had in mind and one mandated by Ransohoff and the studio. The one I've seen the most I don't believe for a heart-beat. I'm out. But the one ending with the freeze-frame? That's aces.

One of the nicest thing about The Cincinatti Kid is the score by Lalo Schifrin, which includes

an End-Title song sung by the inimitable Ray Charles.

It's one of my favorite movie-songs, not only because of Charles

but because it uses the word "pyramid" as a verb.

Meteor (1979)

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash Day"...

Meteor (Ronald Neame, 1979) A co-production between Shaw Bothers Studios, Warner Brothers, Nippon Herald Films and American International Pictures, featuring a script by Edmund H. North (who wrote The Day the Earth Stood Still and co-wrote Patton) and Stanley Mann (who wrote a couple of Sean Connery's early films) and featuring a cast that probably ate up most of the movie-budget—Connery, Natalie Wood, Brian Keith, Karl Malden, Henry Fonda, Martin Landau, and Trevor Howard all under the direction of Ronald Neame, who directed The Poseidon Adventure. The story was the most high-profile of topics—an asteroid (called "Orpheus") is headed for Earth and American and Russian scientists must cooperate and use their own orbiting nuclear defense systems to destroy it before it hits Earth and creates a global catastrophe.

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Budgeting. That's what could go wrong.

 

Although a lot of the writing in Meteor is overwrought, the cast does alright with it, and Neame's direction isn't particularly flashy, but manages to keep things moving briskly.

But, by the time all of that was done, the movie's coffers had little room left for post-production and special effects. It didn't help that by the time attention was being paid to the post-production, the group assigned to do the effects of the large threatening asteroid and the missiles designed to destroy it was summarily fired for the work for being below expectations.*

Now, there's a lot of grousing these days that "special effects don't make good movies." Goodness knows there have been a lot of movies where the special effects were sub-par, even in the 1970's (Logan's Run, for instance), even after the water-shed moment of the Star Wars premiere. And one has merely to look at the output of AIP's post-Star Wars coat-tails films to see that their effects work was "made-in-the-garage" quality.

So, one is left with a Frankenstein-monster of a movie: An able cast with a somewhat shaky script (with some truly cringe-inducing dialogue), spliced with sub-par special effects sequences that—despite the many limitations—seem to go on forever, with no real editing scheme to create tension, but plopped into the film to fill the time with the shakiest of continuities.

There's no finesse to it at all—how could there be when the film was being pieced together so close to the premiere? One can only console oneself with a sequence where the all-star cast gets drenched in mud while trying to escape their command headquarters through the New York City subway system. The images call to mind so many derogatory descriptions for the movie. "Disaster" being the kindest one.

Hollywood wasn't quite done with the concept yet: 1998 saw the release of not one, but two "asteroid-threatening-the-Earth" movies: Armaggedon and Deep Impact. 

Apparently, there's a lot of "rockery" in neighborhood-space. And nothing new under the sun.

* Actually, two groups of special effects studios were let go, sucking up a lot of the "post" budget and pushing the time-line for the eventual team—they had a mere two months to complete the work before the premiere!

There was another major up-ending of expectations in the post-production: John Williams was given the job of writing the score for Meteor, but the production delays and the revolving door of special effects artists prevented any sort of semblance of "picture lock" for him to compose music for it before he had to go off and work on Steven Spielberg's 1941. Laurence Rosenthal was then hired to compose the score, which ended up being rather good—amazing, given his time-constraints.

13 Rue Madeleine

13 Rue Madeleine (Henry Hathaway, 1947) There are several good movies to be made based on the exploits of the American and British Secret Service during World War II. The OSS wasn't all encrypters and code-breakers listening over wirelesses in sterile little offices. There were field agents, double agents, and mis-information spreaders and they had at their disposal all sorts of spy legerdemain that has been cobbled for many of the traditional thrillers that came out after the war. No one that I know has ever made a movie about Camp X, where training was done, papers forged and weaponry created.

But 13 Rue Madeleine is, at least, a good start. Directed by Henry Hathaway in a slightly more flashy style than his true-life crime dramas earlier in the war, it still employed a lot of photography "in the field" as the movie explains, "often in the actual locations."

The story follows the training of Group 077 (the writers had to change the name over official script objections, particularly by the head of the O.S.S. William Donovan), each one in non-specific training until they're called upon for "a job" in whichever corner of the world they're dropped. Heading the training is Robert Sharkey (James Cagney), who has one complication—one of his agents-in-training is a Nazi agent, and during the course of training he has to find out who it is to exploit him for the purposes of sending out false information. 

The film is surprisingly cold-blooded, with many agents dying in the process of carrying out their missions, and there's one case of "burning the village in order to save it." There's also a lot of appearance by well-known actors in small roles at the beginning of their careers including Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, and Red Buttons. But, towering over all of them is Cagney, who still manages to show off a lot of grace in a role that's pretty rough. But he's also the perfect actor who you believe could kill with impunity and laugh at the enemy in the face of torture.

Patton

Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970) Patton was a different kind of war movie. Where most films of that genre would concentrate on the cinematic battles, or use the war as a back-drop for soap-stories, Patton chose to take the more quixotic route of Lawrence of Arabia (or more appropriately, The Desert Fox about Patton's "player on the other side" in Africa, Erwin Rommel) by making a personal story about war and how it shapes the human being. Of how the warrior makes the war, but war also makes the warrior. The world war is the most important story, of course. But the story of General George S. Patton, Jr. (played by George C. Scott, with all the eerie command he brought to every role, probably far more than the real Patton personified) is so intertwined with that war's European campaign, as a mover and shaker of it, and his fortunes so changed by it (and not for the good) that even as it revels in the eccentricities of the man, it also shows how out of touch a professional warrior and student of conflict can be in this day and age.

Or in any day and age.
"God, how I hate the twentieth century" is one of the laugh-lines of Patton. But it's one of the truest lines of the script (by Fox scribe Edmund H. North and a very young Francis Ford Coppola). Patton, the soldier, was from another time (he thought so, literally), and his romantic notions of war and warriors made him an "odd duck" of the military, and a "lame duck" when it came to the political strategies inside an Army at war. He held disdain for bureaucratic warriors on both sides of the conflict (including "that paper-hanging son-of-a-bitch" in Berlin and his British counterpart Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery—played with birdlike pompousness by Michael Bates), the exceptions being his West Point classmate Dwight Eisenhower, and Erwin Rommel, who had opposing tank battle scenarios to Patton's own. The movie has the Germans studying Patton and his techniques, more approving of Patton than his own fellow Allied Commanders.
Scott's position as the centerpiece of the film is critical, but director Franklin J. Schaffner,* who apprenticed in live television and whose previous film was the better-than-it-deserved-to-be Planet of the Apes, brought his customary expansiveness to the theater of war. With a wide-screen process dubbed "Dimension 150,"** Schaffner created vistas of carnage and blazing battles of ferocity that took a dirtier, grimier and bloodier view of battlefield action than had been seen previously in the "clean-kill" war movies preceding it.
Patton, the man (both in life and on film) romanticized war, reveled in it, but the film bearing his name went further than most in de-glamourizing the traditional heroics of the less thoughtful war films, carefully explaining the strategies, viewing the battles dispassionately, almost like a chess-master reviewing the board, and in the after-math, taking stock of the scattered, shattered pieces. However planned a battle may be, it ends in chaos. Chaos and death. And in Patton, you can almost smell the stench of a battle-field's carnage.
Death is omnipresent in Patton, with detailed shots of dead and wounded in the battlefields, and of the crude graveyards made in haste. Some of the eeriest parts of Patton take place in those moments, backed by the cascading trumpets and marching jig of Jerry Goldsmith's spare score when it is stilled to shimmering strings, and unresolved motifs.****
Schaffner used his locations well, taking a page from David Lean, cramming as much information into the frames as he could, or by presenting stark landscapes that seemed to go on forever, showing the regimentation of war, how vast numbers of human beings could crowd a frame, or how solitary individuals could be lost in a landscape, or for that matter, History. The scenarists and Schaffner choose to end the movie, leaving Patton alive, just days before having his neck broken in a jeep accident. They leave him contemplating the transience of Glory walking mythically (and quixotically) towards a solitary wind-mill.
It is also about showmanship. A lot of actors turned down the role (some, like Rod Steiger, to their regret), but it was a tour de force for George C. Scott, who buried himself in the role, studying biographies, running films of the general over and over, doing an extensive make-up transformation—shaving his head to sport a Patton buzz-cut, matching the moles on Patton's face, and even having his teeth capped to make his smile more like the general's. There were some things he wouldn't do, like try to match Patton's voice—Scott felt simulating Patton's high-pitched voice*** would undercut some of his authority in the role.

The effect was extraordinary. Patton's kids, who were never too keen on the idea of the film, were amazed at Scott's appearance, and the role (which won Scott a Best Performance Oscar—which he famously refused) replaced the real-life General in the imaginations of the Nation, despite ample archival evidence.
Partially, it is the opening. Written by Francis Ford Coppola in an early draft of the script, it is a combination of several of Patton's inspirational addresses to his troops, performed—as if a stage performance—by a solo Scott before an out-sized American flag. It is this section of the script that most intrigued Scott, the stage actor, but also intimidated him. It was the last section filmed, and director Schaffner promised that it would be placed after the Intermission, as the actor—rightly—felt that the address would overpower the rest of the performance.

Schaffner, having a showman's instinct, reneged. And that speech, setting the tone and tenor of the performance that dominated the film, went immediately into pop iconography. It has been parodied and propagated for decades, a radical introduction to one of the more colorful players in the second World War. A thesis, a preamble, if you will, a first movement...but, more appropriately, a shot across the audience's bow.

***

The image most people have of Patton is George C. Scott.'s portrayal, 
but the real Patton was not so theatrical or full-throated.

* Few men were as suited as Schaffner to film this story: during WWII, he was part of the contingent landing at Sicily...under the command of Patton.

** It was camera-maker Todd AO's challenge to Cinerama, and presented a viewing range, or scope, of 150. Only two movies were shot in "Dimension 150"—The Bible and Patton. George C. Scott appeared in both of them.

****

"For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a Triumph—a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Some times, his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot...or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning—that all glory...is fleeting."

Patton Don't Make a Scene's:

The Opening

The Battlefield

The War-prayer

Olde Review: One-Eyed Jacks

This was part of a series of reviews of the ASUW Film series back in the '70's. Except for some punctuation, I haven't changed anything from the way it was presented, giving the kid I was back in the '70's a bit of a break. Any stray thoughts and updates I've included with the inevitable asterisked post-scripts.

This Saturday's films in 130 Kane Are Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks and Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961) This one's something of an oddity--it's the only film directed by the greatest "method" actor, Marlon Brando. But what you will see on the screen is really not the film that Brando made. You see, it's one of those stories where nothing really works right. Brando and a number of script-writers worked on the screenplay for a couple of years. Stanley Kubrick was signed to direct and pulled out.* Then, Brando decided to direct it himself and shot a quarter of a million feet of film over a six month period at a cost of five million dollars. Supposedly, there was about 35 hours of film to edit down to a watchable size. Brando's cut was five hours long, but with some noticeable studio shooting, plot summaries were accomplished and got it down to its current two hours and twenty minutes. So it isn't totally Brando's concept.

What is there in those two hours and twenty minutes? A superbly acted film, based on a script that at times is intriguing and at times is dull cliche. It's a very weird movie. It's weird, but it does show that Brando certainly had an artistic eye for shots, camera angles, sequences that sometimes take the breath away. You'll also see excellent performances from a cast of Brando, Karl Malden (before TV neutered him),** Katy Jurado, Slim Pickens, Pina Pellicer, Elisha Cook, and Ben Johnson..especially Ben Johnson.

Johnson first worked for John Ford in his westerns and evolved into more than a great actor, but one of those genuine screen presences working in film today. When Johnson and another screen presence, Brando, play off each other in a scene, sparks fly across the screen. Those sparks were expected to fly between Brando and Jack Nicholson in The Missouri Breaks, and never appeared. To see these two greats square off is one of the joys I had watching this film, and also, this film contains my favorite epithet in all of cinema....

"Get up, you scum-suckin' pig!"

They just don't write 'em like they used to.


Broadcast on KCMU-FM on November 19th and 20th, 1975

Or over-write them. The parts that you can glean from the current cut of One Eyed Jacks (and no one is rushing to restore the full length version, certainly not Paramount Studios, although Criterion did do a restoration for Blu-Ray that was supervised by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg) suggest an idiosyncratic western with a gritty, grimy feel, which would have made it unique in the western-glut that was happening across theater and television screens across America. Brando's fights were inelegant, and people looked like they got hurt. But the film is a cliche about Authority Figures and Oedipal Conflicts--Karl Malden plays a once-friend-turned-lawman named..."Dad." At one point, Brando's character is whipped in the street before a crowd of on-lookers, and if that doesn't convince you he's a Christ-figure, his tied, outstretched arms just might.

Ulp! It starts to get so thick with things like that, you need hip-waders out in that desert.

* Kubrick says he quit because Brando was wasting a lot of time, and really wanted to direct it himself, so he moved on to a more worthwhile project.

** Malden was (at the time of writing this) appearing in an American cop series called "The Streets of San Francisco," with a young actor of good parentage named Michael Douglas. 

"Get up, you scum-sucking pig!" occurs at 3:55 in this video—he says it to Ben Johnson

The Gunfighter

The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950) Westerns started to take a slight bend in the trail with this one, an original story by Andre de Toth and William Bower* (it was offered to John Wayne, who wanted to play it, but was offered too little salary for it to accept, so the screenwriters shopped it to Darryl F. Zanuck, who snapped it up for 20th Century Fox). Instead of big skies and empty plains and Indian fights, The Gunfighter explored the concept of being the storied "fastest gun in the West." Being quick on the draw is good and all, but the downside is you have to keep proving it. That's the problem with being king of the hill—there's nowhere to go but down.

For gunfighter Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck), every shot that kills has to be justified, witnesses verified, and, unfortunately, every town has the opportunity for killing, as his reputation unfailingly precedes him through any swinging saloon door, and inside, there's some punk full of himself and whatever swill the barman serves who thinks he's tough because he can shoot a bottle off a fence. Every town has one...until Ringo comes to town. 

Jimmy Ringo has a way of ridding the town of morons. Whatever benefit to the town's gene pool Ringo provides doesn't settle with him, though. He has to remember the faces of the idiots he kills. He carries the stigma of being a man to avoid, as he does the reputation of being "the fastest gun..."

So he keeps riding, because if he stays in place too long, trouble will catch up to him, or challenge him, only to wind up dead on the floor. To the onlookers, it's self-defense and that's how Ringo has to play it, but it happens with such regularity, he knows even if he had no choice, he's the one to blame.

Any lawman doesn't like him in their town, even the ones like Marshall Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell, a favorite character actor) who have history with him, may even like him, but know that his very presence will invite trouble and upset the peaceful status quo they're trying to maintain. So, Ringo is just as likely to be greeted with "When ya leavin'?" as a "Hello," or a hand going for its holster, opposed to a handshake.

Ringo arrives at Strett's town of Cayenne, fresh from killing another dumb kid (Richard Jaeckel) who wouldn't let it be, and several lengths ahead of the kid's three brothers who want revenge for the idiot's death. Ringo disarms them and sends their horses fleeing, in the hopes they might be discouraged from following him the rest of the way, but they're so hell-bent, they follow him on foot, and he arrives at the Cayenne saloon, thirsty, hungry and bone-tired, while the bar-keep (Karl Malden) goes out of his way to make the celebrity comfortable, while a regular goes to get the Marshall. Their meeting is cordial but serious and Strett discourages Ringo from setting in place too long. But, Ringo won't leave until he takes one more chance that might end the running—he wants to see the town's teacher, Peggy Walsh (Helen Westcott), who's gone into hiding and changed her name to avoid being found out by the man from her past—him. And, most of all, she doesn't want Ringo to meet her son—his son—who has skipped school with the other boys to hang around downtown for a glimpse of the fastest gun in the west.

The Gunfighter is probably more influential than some might think—in two short years, High Noon would be released, another Western involving the enclosed fishbowl of a small Western town and the pressure of time. There were no cattle stampedes or Indian attacks or runaway stagecoaches, just a man at war with himself by being at war with others. It might be a great thing to be "the fastest gun" but that accomplishment has a quick shelf-life before things turn sour and the acclaim rings hollow, especially as time progresses—as far as one knows there's only one way to not be "the fastest gun" and that's by being the second fastest.  

And those men are usually dead.

But, if Ringo can convince his wife and kid that he's changed his ways and that he's ready to settle now...well, that just might be a way out of it, too. But, she's reluctant...and those three brothers are on the way.

It's not the wide open spaces that set the stage for The Gunfighter, it's the closed interiors of the psyche and the self. Instead of focusing on the spectacle of building a Nation, it's about the painful process of deconstructing, not about the road ahead, but the one already traveled. It ushered in a decade of films re-appraising the Western and how changing a country can change the ones doing the changing.

* Once it got to Fox and Zanuck, three other writers worked on the screenplay—William Sellers, Nunnally Johnson, and...Roger Corman (yeah, that Roger Corman).