Screen Savers Movies » Love Stories

Mamma Meryl

John DiLeo — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:10:58 +0000

Remember when movie musicals were vehicles for artists who could wow you with their singing and/or dancing skills? That would have been the age of Astaire and Garland and Kelly. Or remember the age of vocal dubbing, when non-musical stars got leads in adaptations of Broadway musicals? This was often an unfortunate era but it did result in some wonderful performances, such as Deborah Kerr in THE KING AND I (1956). Well, MAMMA MIA! brings us a new era in movie musicals, one so appalling that no one could ever have predicted it. This travesty of a musical is an actual celebration of the inability to sing and dance, a proud display of flaunting it even when you ain’t got it! It’s the karaoke of musicals. Where once Fred Astaire elevated audiences with his ability to make us believe that such perfection was possible, MAMMA MIA! demeans the genre, attempting to sell us on the idea that even you at home can be FABULOUS just by putting on platform shoes, wearing a boa, and “empowering” yourself! Talent be damned!

I’ve had several discussions with highly intelligent and accomplished women who found this drek inspiring. I believe them, though it’s impossible for me to see what possible inspiration can come from such all-around incompetence. Is enthusiasm really enough? How can anyone who respects the movie musical as an art form not be offended by this horror show? And what does Meryl Streep think, knowing that her biggest box-office smash is actually the worst thing she’s ever done?

The script is inanely plotted, the filmmaking is amateurish, and the songs are lamely “integrated” into the action. All you get is a bad-taste spectacle that ceaselessly panders. It’s the you-can-do-it-too musical, except that almost no one in the darn thing CAN! Streep, who CAN sing, laughs her way through the “book” scenes, half out of embarrassment it would appear.

It’s hard to pick out the worst moments because the film is so consistently awful. The only aspect of it that comes off well is Greece. And when we get to the “curtain call” encores and the cast asks us if we want more, it’s a terrifying, surreal moment. No one shouted out “Yes” when I saw it but that didn’t stop them!

Doesn’t anyone remember that the plot is the same as in the old Gina Lollobrigida comedy BUONA SERA, MRS. CAMPBELL (1968)? Compared to MAMMA MIA!, Gina’s picture looks like SOME LIKE IT HOT.

I guess when a picture celebrates badness it’s only fitting that it be bad itself. The recent DVD release warns us that it contains musical numbers “not shown in theaters.” One can only wonder what was deemed not good enough to make the final cut. If Pierce Brosnan’s vocals made it in, and Christine Baranski’s hideous number on the beach, and the grotesque duet between Julie Walters and Stellan Skarsgard, what could possibly be deemed unworthy?

At the Golden Globes this Sunday, MAMMA MIA! is nominated for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy). Bravo, Hollywood Foreign Press!

John DiLeo and TCM

John DiLeo — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:36:57 +0000

After months of anticipation, this Monday, September 22nd, is the night that Turner Classic Movies pays tribute to John DiLeo’s latest film book SCREEN SAVERS: 40 REMARKABLE MOVIES AWAITING REDISCOVERY. Host Robert Osborne selected the five films to be shown, and he will be introducing them on the air. The evening begins with PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948) at 8pm, followed by STARS IN MY CROWN (1950) at 9:30pm, ONE WAY PASSAGE (1932) at 11:15pm, DEVIL’S DOORWAY (1950) at 12:30am, and THE TALL TARGET (1951) at 2am.

One Way Passage (1932)

Jennifer Kurdyla, Editor — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:01:17 +0000

The film for which Kay Francis is best remembered is Paramount’s Trouble in Paradise (1932), a supreme sophisticated comedy and one of director Ernst Lubitsch’s key works. Alongside skilled pros Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins, Francis needed only to be lovely and captivating (result: she’s flawless). Another standout Francis picture is Confession (1937), an exceptional you-don’t-know-I’m-your-mother saga, marked by Joe May’s visually striking direction. But the quintessential Kay Francis movie has to be One Way Passage, released the same year as the Lubitsch film, making 1932 the peak of her career. The best product of Francis’s time at Warner Brothers (1932-39), One Way Passage is one of the great old-fashioned romantic movies of the 1930s. To some it may play as a virtual checklist of its genre’s clichés, yet the film transcends convention. When melodrama is served as expertly as it is here, the outcome is both memorable and moving. Directed by Tay Garnett, One Way Passage is a model of compact pacing; it adroitly balances dramatic and comedic material; it features fluid camerawork that enhances the stylishness of its storytelling. Movies were just emerging from the static nature of most early talkies, and One Way Passage’s cinematography has a liberating mobility that enlivens the picture. With five extremely likeable main characters, a compulsively absorbing plot, and shimmering production values, One Way Passage is a film whose heightened reality is always anchored by honest emotion.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
© 2008 Hansen Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.

Learn more about One Way Passage

Rachel and the Stranger (1948)

Jennifer Kurdyla, Editor — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:01:01 +0000

The love triangle between widower, David Harvey (William Holden), his indentured servant, Rachel (Loretta Young), and David’s friend, Jim (Robert Mitchum), would cause Rachel and the Stranger to easily fit into the category “romance.” However, as John DiLeo suggests in Screen Savers, the movie’s integration of many genres makes it a cornucopia of styles, the effect of which draws the viewer into its genuine, relatable world. Its cohesive cast makes the characters’ relationship endearing, and the film drives towards its conclusion with the passion and determination to please any movie-goer.

Learn more about Rachel and the Stranger

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)

John DiLeo — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:01:26 +0000

In the hands of the esteemed German-born Ernst Lubitsch, who had been a Hollywood director since 1923, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, based on Sigmund Romberg’s 1924 operetta The Student Prince (whose source material was Wilhelm Meyer-Förster’s novel Karl Heinrich and the subsequent play version), was another hit for MGM and the best of their silent opera/operettas. It’s a glorious piece of work that manages to bring substantial emotion and visual radiance to what is, admittedly, a slight story. In fact, it’s hard to imagine any live performance of the operetta carrying the heartfelt simplicity and rhapsodic sweep of Lubitsch’s production. In not trying to inflate the film with any “importance,” Lubitsch made a movie whose rather considerable importance is conveyed through its vibrant spontaneity and its carefully constructed investment in its main character, played by Ramon Novarro at the peak of his stardom, soon after his phenomenal success in another title role, Ben-Hur (1926). Playing opposite him is Norma Shearer, an up-and-comer of the silent era who was about to reach her zenith with early talkies, just as Novarro was sliding into obscurity.

Learn more about The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

Two for the Road (1967)

Jennifer Kurdyla, Editor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:01:52 +0000

Not afraid of obvious symbolism, Stanley Donen cast Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in this flashback of a ten-year romance that began, coincidentally, on a European road. The struggling confessions of the film’s main characters gives both actors, especially Hepburn, dimension to their careers. As John DiLeo claims in Screen Savers, Hepburn’s character, Joanna, in Two for the Road “makes the transition from the 1950s Audrey Hepburn, the winsome ugly-duckling beauty, to the 1960s model, who’s more complex by virtue of having lived and loved. That she is convincing as both, within the same film, is a tribute to her underappreciated capabilities.”

Learn more about Two for the Road

Beautiful Thing (1996)

John DiLeo — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:01:12 +0000

While Brokeback Mountain breaks your heart, Beautiful Thing, a tiny English movie without stars, is the most feel-good gay love story ever filmed. It may be one in a long line of coming-out stories, but the romance that unfolds between the central characters is the cure for their unhappiness rather than its cause. The movie acknowledges the difficulties that lie ahead, but it accentuates the positive, and that’s historically unusual and refreshing for gay-themed films. Beautiful Thing finds a powerful voice merely by celebrating the love between two young men. Who can resist becoming absorbed in seeing these two lads land in each other’s arms?

Learn more about Beautiful Thing

Beautiful Thing (1996): Celebrating Gay Love

John DiLeo — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:20:34 +0000

While Brokeback Mountain breaks your heart, Beautiful Thing, a tiny English movie without stars, is the most feel-good gay love story ever filmed. It may be one in a long line of coming-out stories, but the romance that unfolds between the central characters is the cure for their unhappiness rather than its cause. The movie acknowledges the difficulties that lie ahead, but it accentuates the positive, and that’s historically unusual and refreshing for gay-themed films. Beautiful Thing finds a powerful voice merely by celebrating the love between two young men. Who can resist becoming absorbed in seeing these two lads land in each other’s arms?

In addition to its delicacy as a gay love story, the film is also an outstanding depiction of first-love. The yearning, the tentativeness, and the delirium are all there. It’s as innocent and instinctive as anything Andy Hardy ever got himself into…just with two Andy Hardys. Beautiful Thing is about two teenage boys in Thamesmead (southeast London): Jamie Gangel (Glen Berry), who’s being raised by his single mother, Sandra (Linda Henry); and Ste Pearce (Scott Neal), in the flat next door, who lives with his abusive father and drug-dealing older brother. Nonathletic Jamie is picked on at high school; athletic Ste is brutalized at home. When the boys come together, and accept that they’re in love, they keep it quiet. After all, they’re young, scared, and inexperienced. But not everyone is against them.

Two for the Road (1967): The Maturing of Audrey Hepburn

John DiLeo — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:09:04 +0000

Fox’s Two for the Road, the most ambitious of the Hepburn-Donen pictures, is a smart, humorous, and touching examination of a marriage. For her love interest, Albert Finney, an age-appropriate actor (actually seven years Hepburn’s junior), was cast. Finney may have caused a sensation as the adorably roguish title character in Tom Jones (1963), but he was also one of the key “angry young men” of 1960s British films. The opposites-attract spark in his teaming with Hepburn is a product of their antithetical styles. She was a movie star who could act; he has never been a personality performer. I’ve always contended that Hepburn’s finest performance is in Fred Zinnemann’s extraordinary drama The Nun’s Story (1959), so I’d like to claim her work in Two for the Road as her next best. These two performances make intriguing companion pieces since, in the former, her acting strength comes from her containment—the tensions in her internal conflicts—whereas in the later film her effectiveness derives from her looseness and spontaneity. In Two for the Road, her character makes the transition from the 1950s Audrey Hepburn, the winsome ugly-duckling beauty, to the 1960s model, who’s more complex by virtue of having lived and loved. That she is convincing as both, within the same film, is a tribute to her underappreciated capabilities.

Rachel and the Stranger (1948): The Love Triangle

John DiLeo — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:00:37 +0000

One of the many lovely things about RKO’s Rachel and the Stranger is its confident refusal to pin itself to one particular genre. It’s a comedy, no doubt, yet it’s more of a smile-inducer than a laugh riot. Though it’s set in the backwoods of the early nineteenth century, it’s some kind of western, since it features a fiery Indian attack on a homestead. It certainly contains scenes of tender drama that deal with the paralyzing effect of grief on a family after the death of a loved one. It’s very definitely a piece of Americana, a hearty tribute to the backbreaking lives of our forebears. And it almost has enough musical interludes to qualify as a hybrid musical. But, first and foremost, Rachel and the Stranger is a love story because that’s the way in which its story builds and blooms, the way in which a viewer becomes invested in its characters, and the way in which its plot must find resolution. And within its love story, the film offers one of the more satisfying—both funny and sexy—love triangles of the screen. There are no scenes of physical love, but the romantic and erotic tensions stimulate in their suggestiveness. The reason it all works so beautifully is the casting. Loretta Young, at the apex of her film career, stars as Rachel, and her leading men are two up-and-comers, William Holden and Robert Mitchum, each as talented as he is good-looking, and both about to become superstars of the next decade. This trio works together astoundingly well, each very different from each other yet perfectly in tune. (This was the only time that any of the three appeared together.) As with other blessed Hollywood match-ups of one female alongside two males—Test Pilot, The Philadelphia Story, The Talk of the Town, Bull Durham—spending time in their company is exceedingly pleasurable.