June, 2006
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Just days after getting home from the Jackson Hole Film Festival (see below), my wife and I took off again for a similar gathering in another beautiful spot: Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts. What a rarefied setting for a festival highlighting new shorts, features and documentaries. I was invited there to interview this year’s screenwriting honorees, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, whose work I so admire (they co-wrote and Payne directed Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways). Alexander is not only a fine filmmaker—and surprisingly self-critical, as I learned during our on-stage conversation—but a film buff of the first order. He and Jim are about to begin in earnest on a new screenplay, of which he will only say that it is taking them in a different direction than they’ve gone before.
Legendary documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker was there to act as proud papa (read: producer) of Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob’s new documentary about Al Franken, And God Spoke. At a private reception Franken made a stump speech to explain why he’s running for office in his native Minnesota.
NBC Universal is a major sponsor of the Nantucket Festival, in part because Robert and Suzanne Wright have a home on the island. I’m sure Mr. Wright’s clout had something to do with such actors as Jimmy Smits, Steven Weber, Heather Graham, and Mary Kay Place turning up to perform a staged reading of a prize-winning screenplay. Longtime islander Anne Meara co-hosted a now-traditional evening of storytelling with Bobby Farrelly in which I was asked to participate. NBC anchor Brian Williams, who also hosted the major Saturday night tribute, turns out to be a standup comic in disguise, so I’m glad I didn’t have to follow him, or actor Joe Pantoliano, whose story about his family dynamics would have been impossible to top.
And yes, I got to see some good movies, including Frieda Lee Mock’s terrific documentary about playwright and social activist Tony Kushner, Wrestling With Angels and Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s impressive debut feature Half Nelson, based on a short that played at Nantucket several years ago. Ryan Gosling and a remarkable little girl named Shareeka Epps star in this story of a man who tries to make the world a better place—as a schoolteacher—while fighting inner demons.
The island recently lost its one full-time movie theater, but an entrepreneurial fellow named Bill Gurley is filling the gap with his Starlight Theatre & Café. On the outside it’s a friendly restaurant and bar, with an enclosed sidewalk patio. Inside it’s a small but comfortable theater that actually projects 35mm prints. You can show up for dinner, save a seat, enjoy your meal and then watch a new movie! Not bad. Bill tells me he’s had great response from islanders and tries to alternate mainstream programming with art films. If you’re curious to see what the place is like, check out www.StarlightNantucket.com.
I could probably spend a good part of the year jetting around the globe attending film festivals, but the hard truth of having to make a living precludes that possibility. Still, I feel grateful to have gotten to take part in two small, highly enjoyable events this past month that, in the face of mainstream Hollywood torpor, celebrate the best that movies can be.
For some of my Nantucket snapshots, please click here.
A VISIT TO JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING
In early June, I attended the Jackson Hole Film Festival, a fairly young event (now in its third year) in one of the prettier parts of the country. Some people joke about the proliferation of festivals in every hamlet and burg, but each one serves a vital purpose: to give filmmakers a chance to get their work seen by audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity.
The Jackson Hole event is staffed by friendly, dedicated people who love film—and don’t mind partying, either. They have good facilities, including a local theater called The Teton built of granite (the first such building I’ve ever seen).
A number of filmmakers made the trek to Jackson Hole with their films—live-action and animated shorts, documentaries, and feature films. I served as a judge in several categories and saw some first-rate work, including two features I hope will have future lives in theatrical distribution, Believe In Me (which took a $10,000 prize granted by festival sponsor Rosemount Wines), written and directed by Robert Collector, and Aurora Borealis, written by Brent Boyd and directed by James Burke, with fine work from Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, and Juliette Lewis. Both are heart-tuggers.
Among the shorter films I saw some work so technically polished it was hard to believe there were students behind the camera. Their grasp of storytelling wasn’t always so firm. On the other hand, a twenty-minute film from Denmark, Little Lise, is so superior that it puts most feature films in the horror/occult genre to shame.
On an outing to Yellowstone National Park it was pointed out to me that the majestic Grand Tetons were the backdrop for George Stevens’ Shane. Of course! Later that weekend my wife and I stopped by the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum, where we found a good exhibit about Hollywood’s many trips to the area since the silent era. We were also handed a flyer prepared by Walt Farmer which lists every such film, from The Big Trail to Every Which Way But Loose. Farmer has prepared a massive history available on CD-ROM called Wyoming: A History of Film and Video in the 20 th Century. His web site is www.theastrocowboy.com.
Across the street at the Wort Hotel, built in 1941, we found more movie history on the walls. You can see some of my snapshots here on the Photos page.
As I watch DVD featurettes for older films I can’t help thinking about the people I’ve been lucky enough to interview over the past twenty-four years for Entertainment Tonight who are no longer here to tell their stories. For the fine new Lady and the Tramp DVD the disc’s producers sought out a variety of worthy on-camera guests, even though most of the people who worked on the film are gone now. One featurette about the music score includes the daughter of Peggy Lee and the son of her collaborator Sonny Burke.
Well, I had the great good fortune to interview Peggy Lee herself when the film had its last theatrical reissue (and before the video release that prompted Miss Lee to sue The Walt Disney Company). Her memories of working with Walt Disney and his team were warm and upbeat.
The newest repackaging of Guys and Dolls includes interviews with more sons and daughters of the original creators. The last living star of the picture, Jean Simmons, apparently declined to go on camera, but the disc benefits greatly from the presence of choreographer Michael Kidd, who has a lot to say about his experiences on this ambitious musical production.
Back in 1985, I beseeched my producer to let me fly to New York to interview one of my all-time favorite performers, Stubby Kaye, and he said yes. Kaye was living in England at the time (that’s how he was cast in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) but he’d been persuaded to come to New York to appear in a new Harold Prince Broadway musical called Grind. The show flopped, but during its preview period I had my moment with Stubby Kaye, an effervescent spirit who was just the way I hoped he might be. When I asked him how he kept his performance as Nicely-Nicely Johnson fresh after playing Guys and Dolls on stage for so many years he said, with great sincerity, “I figure the guy who paid his money to see the 1500 th performance deserves the same thing as the guy who saw it on opening night.” There’s a show-business work ethic you don’t encounter every day.
Perhaps the most frustrating omission from current DVDs is Keye Luke on the swell new Charlie Chan boxed set from 20 th Century Fox Home Entertainment. One can scarcely complain about anything else to do with this presentation; the featurettes on “the real Charlie Chan,” Honolulu detective Chang Apana, and the career of Chan’s creator Earl Derr Biggers, are exceptionally good, and the resurrection of a Spanish-language version of Charlie Chan Carries On is a real surprise. But Luke, who lived to be 86, was an eloquent and passionate spokesman for the series that made him famous—and, in later years, a fervent defender of Warner Oland when he came under attack from people who dismissed the notion of a Caucasian playing Chan. I spent several sessions with Luke on behalf of Entertainment Tonight and wish I could summon some of his more memorable “sound bites” for reuse today.
A few months ago the folks at Fantagraphics Books made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It had nothing to do with money; it was an opportunity to write an essay to appear in a volume of 1940s Our Gang comic book reprints.
I’m no authority on comics, so for background information and perspective I turned to Maggie Thompson, editor of Comics Buyers Guide and a world-class expert on Walt Kelly (who wrote and drew most of these Dell comics), and my pal Mark Evanier, who knows all and is generous with his knowledge. I folded in my knowledge of Hal Roach’s comedy creation and, voila! (Kelly expert Steve Thompson provides a more thorough examination of the comics themselves.)
Ironically, Dell introduced this comic book just as MGM was phasing out the Our Gang shorts—and given their handling of the series, not a moment too soon. Kelly breathed new life into the concept and eventually introduced his own characters to take the place of Spanky, Buckwheat and the other familiar faces who appeared in the earliest issues.
Fantagraphics’ handsome softcover book includes the first eight stories from the series as they appeared in 1942-43. Jeff Smith (of Bone fame) has drawn a beautiful cover, inspired by Walt Kelly’s original artwork. I’m proud to be associated with this project.
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A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM
It’s amazing to me how quickly thirty years can go by. I remember, clear as a bell, how I responded to the early advertisements for The Omen back in 1976. I was repelled.
I didn’t want to see a movie in which a man was decapitated; that was for certain. And I was shocked that Gregory Peck and Lee Remick would lend their talent to such an enterprise.
Needless to say, The Omen went on to become a smash hit; even the paperback novelization sold more than three million copies. (I know, because my editor at Signet Books told me so with astonishment in his voice.)
When I reluctantly went to see the remake I came to understand just how much things have changed since 1976. Fox felt that the original film’s name and reputation (along with the marketing gimmick of opening on 6/6/06) would be enough to carry it, so this time they didn’t hire A-list stars. They didn’t even hire people in the same age bracket! (An expository moment explains that Liev Schreiber is the youngest American ambassador ever named to his post, at age 34. They ignore the fact that Julia Stiles is much younger than he.)
The screenplay is essentially the original with a few touchups, which is both good and bad. It means that you know what’s going to happen even before you set foot inside the theater. If you’ve seen the commercial or the trailer, you’ve seen the film.
What’s more telling is that the moments that were shocking—even unthinkable—in 1976 are now almost ho-hum. I avoid gory horror films like Saw II and Hostel, but I suspect that kids who feast on such fare will find The Omen tame. Hey, if you’ve seen one beheading you’ve seen ‘em all.
But I don’t think Fox had the nerve to include key words of dialogue from its main evil character in TV commercials thirty years ago that didn’t appear in the film itself. I won’t cite them out of respect for those of you who intend to see the movie. Let’s just say that the ad campaign is a bit of a come-on for a film that’s a bit of a letdown.
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Film buff extraordinaire Ray Faiola (whose latest recording project is a two-CD set of Max Steiner’s score for Marjorie Morningstar, available at http://www.chelsearialtostudios.com), just caught up with my home page essay about Angela Lansbury and Frank Capra’s State of the Union.
He writes, “I have seen a standard Liberty Films print of the picture (though this one has excellent contrast, unlike most of them which are pretty washed out). However, several years ago I came across an MGM print. I was dumbstruck when I discovered that not included in that print (which was made up in the early 50's) was the scene where Kay Thorndyke has her knock-down drag-out with the newspaper editors (Dell Henderson et al). This scene was not cut from the print; it was not in the negative. And it was not a negative cut; it was very obviously a version of the film in which this sequence was never included to begin with.
“Now here's the big question: was this scene in the original MGM release at all? Or did the studio balk at its inclusion? Did Capra restore the scene when he reissued the picture (with Ms. Hepburn's name misspelled) under the Liberty banner? It would be interesting to see an original 1948 cutting continuity.”
"By the way, I still have the MGM end title from that print. It's a shot of the tolling bell with 'The End' and the MGM lion emblem superimposed; it then fades into the cast list as we know it."
“This is one of my very favorite pictures. I think Adolphe Menjou gives the performance of his career, commensurate with the one he gave in Paths of Glory.”
I agree... and I hope that someone out there may know more about the scene Ray describes.
Incidentally, I’m delighted to report that Universal is finally going to release State of the Union on DVD in August.
