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| Joe Vitus |
 Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:43 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Is anyone here a fan of Ernest Lubitsch's film version of Design For Living? It got mixed reviews and movie books tend to be very unkind to it, since it basically retains nothing from Noel Coward's original play (I think two inconsequential lines are all that remained). But it's a hilarious movie, and I don't think Miriam Hopkins has ever been sexier. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:48 am |
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billyweeds wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: I get what you're saying, but most of his pre-60's movies can be laid equally at the feet of Arthur Freed and Gene Kelley. It was a factory system that produced those movies, not a auteur. Nor do I know, after the breakup of the studios, to what extent he was still part of a strong enough team that essentially the factory system was still working for him. I like a lot of his movies, and I'm really just hazarding a thought here, not dissing him. Hope my comments don't read otherwise. was MGM but I don't think Arthur Freed was involved. SITR was Freed all the way, but Charade, Funny Face, and Two for the Road were done for other studios. The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees (the latter not so hot) were done in collaboration with George Abbott, but the cinematic quality of TPG was, it's safe to say, all Donen. He was a great director.
Billy, come on. Funny Face may have been made at Paramount, but Paramount essentially brought the MGM team (Donen, Roger Edens, Astaire, etc.) over to their studio for Audrey Hepburn. Seven Brides was a factory production of MGM, whoever was the credited producer. Charade is imitation Hitchcock, and not bad but also not all that great.
Can't you even consider that for all your enthusiasm for the guy, and the pleasure of the movies he was associated with, he may not be primarily responsible for what you like in them? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:11 am |
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Caught the last half of Buckaroo Banzai on the tube yesterday -- not as funny a spoof as I remembered it. Maybe the B-movie pastiche was funnier when it was fresher to me. It is sort of fun to watch the likes of John Lithgow and Chris Lloyd and Vince Schiavelli and Jeff Goldblum strive to act badly (as in, do ghastly performances, not behave unethically). Peter Weller doesn't really have to strive. I will never know what the watermelon is doing there.
Sorry I haven't seen more Lubitsch. Will look for DFL. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:28 am |
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Joe--I wouldn't argue that Donen is an auteur on the level of, say, Hitchcock or Wilder, but no one worked better with Audrey Hepburn--including Wilder--or with Doris Day (except Hitchcock). Day's performance in The Pajama Game is probably her best in a musical.
Charade may be sort of Hitchcockian, but it's far, far better than the Hitchcock movie it most resembles, To Catch a Thief.
This year's The Adjustment Bureau reminds me of Charade, btw, and it's not the least bit Hithcockian. For whatever that's worth.  |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:57 am |
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| I really, really need to see Two for the Road But not having done so yet, I think William Wyler and Blake Edwards served Hepburn best. Though to be honest, I can't think of a single bad Hepburn performance. Even in the atrocious My Fair Lady, terribly filmed by George Cukor, and Hepburn totally miscast, she pulls off the dramatic scenes of the second half surprisingly well. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 12:37 pm |
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| I've said it before and I'll say it again: Audrey Hepburn IMO was not a particularly good actress. She was a great movie star, but her range was extraordinarily limited. She was fantastic in many movies and just all right in almost as many. But she was never terrible because she had incredible charisma. My Fair Lady was perhaps her worst outing, but she was okay in that, as well as in other lesser performances like Sabrina, Love in the Afternoon, Paris When It Sizzles, etc. Her appearance in Breakfast at Tiffany's was not great acting: it was amazing presence. I could go on. But in Two for the Road, she actually acted, and it's great. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 12:50 pm |
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My favorite Audrey Hepburn performance is the one she won the Oscar for, Roman Holiday. She's not one of my favorite actresses, but I'll watch that film any time. I've only seen part of Funny Face, but I liked what I saw.
My main problems with My Fair Lady are the look of the film and the directorial style, which have not aged well for me. To tell the truth, they didn't even age well by the end of the sixties. I agree that Hepburn is miscast. The triumphs are the script, the Professor, the Colonel, Mr. Doolittle and possibly the greatest song score of all time. Which is best sung by Julie Andrews. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:50 pm |
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Audrey Hepburn was memorable and amazing in Roman Holiday, Funny Face, Charade, Two for the Road, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and at least charismatic in everything else from Wait Until Dark to Green Mansions to War and Peace.
Well, everything except Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline, which rumor has it she made only to be near her b.f. of the time, Ben Gazzara. That's only a rumor, but at least an interesting explanation of why she would appear in such a horrific piece of schlock. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 3:11 am |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| Buckaroo Banzai seemed tired to me from the day it was released. Faux cult film trying desperately to be hip. Real cult films aren't self-consciously manufactured, they're accidents. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:29 am |
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Marc wrote: Buckaroo Banzai seemed tired to me from the day it was released. Faux cult film trying desperately to be hip. Real cult films aren't self-consciously manufactured, they're accidents.
Agree completely. BB is a snooze and cult films are not made; they just occur. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:39 am |
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Marc wrote: Buckaroo Banzai seemed tired to me from the day it was released. Faux cult film trying desperately to be hip. Real cult films aren't self-consciously manufactured, they're accidents.
Yeah, I think that's the problem. Hadn't really seen many films (was a voracious reader, sans VCR, back in those days) at that time, so couldn't see the faux so readily. You've articulated what has rubbed me wrong with many "cult" films I've seen in recent years, which roll out of factory with "destined to be a cult classic" stamped on them. The films that deserved a cult following were unassuming little films like "Cube" or "Primer," that just went and tried something different, with unknown actors, and no aspirations beyond the characters finding their way out of some shit. |
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| grace |
| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:02 am |
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| Maybe I looked at BB.... incorrectly from the start, but I thought it was campy and enjoyed it well enough without asking too much of it. I took the artifice as, while maybe not intentional, an integral piece of the puzzle and never looked at the film remotely seriously. (There's actually no puzzle of any kind involved in BB... , the flick is pretty much laid out for you, but it's early and I'm missing the word/phrase I want.) I still chuckle at Ellen Barkin selling her part so earnestly. If only the movie could have held up like Peter Weller's cheekbones (if one is of the school of thought that it had anything to hold up in the first place). |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 8:00 pm |
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billyweeds wrote: Marc wrote: Buckaroo Banzai seemed tired to me from the day it was released. Faux cult film trying desperately to be hip. Real cult films aren't self-consciously manufactured, they're accidents.
Agree completely. BB is a snooze and cult films are not made; they just occur.
Me, too! |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:57 am |
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billyweeds wrote: Audrey Hepburn was memorable and amazing in Roman Holiday, Funny Face, Charade, Two for the Road, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and at least charismatic in everything else from Wait Until Dark to Green Mansions to War and Peace.
Well, everything except Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline, which rumor has it she made only to be near her b.f. of the time, Ben Gazzara. That's only a rumor, but at least an interesting explanation of why she would appear in such a horrific piece of schlock.
I finally watched Breakfast at Tiffany's. I liked it quite a bit, including her performance, even when I didn't always like Holly all that much.
I thought Buddy Ebsen was very good as well. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 1:53 am |
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| "Son, I need a friend." Terrific first line. |
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