Arthur

Arthur was a big hit in 1981.  It was nominated for four Oscars and won two.  The Listener in February of 1982 carries a two star review of the film, and I’m with The Listener; two out of five seems about right.  The most astonishing thing about this movie for me is that John Gielgud won an Oscar for best supporting actor.

I think the film can best be summarised this way.

A well-dressed, hunky man,

who is sober and sensible,

and likes well-dressed, sophisticated women

almost marries a crazy weirdo

but eventually ends up with the woman of his dreams instead.

The Listener reviewer describes Liza in the scene above this way: “When Linda comes to Arthur’s engagement party… she’s wearing pink ruffled silk and her sleekly groomed black head sits above it like a bumble bee on a hibiscus.”

Maybe.

Personally I found it hard to decide which out of two cheeky little numbers was my favourite fashion masterstroke in this movie.  In the end I decided that the father of the bride’s party jacket comes in second,

to Liza’s splendid opening ensemble.

Hello the 1980s.  In the 80s we said YES to colour (unless we were an extra in a movie and then we said, “dress me in your drabbest grey”).

I didn’t like Arthur.  The first ten minutes were hard to watch because the lead character made bad jokes, laughed his head off, and was drunk.  It was a bit like being with a drunk who made bad jokes and laughed his head off.  Maybe this is a great movie to watch when you’re drunk.  Maybe it works like parties.  All the drunks enjoy it; all the sober people get tight smiles, and mentally judge people.

John Gielgud was fairly good.  I imagine he greeted his Oscar with bemusement.  The title song also won an Oscar and is pretty famous.

When you get caught between the moon and New York City
I know it’s crazy but it’s true
If you get caught between the moon and New York City
The best that you can do (the best that you can do)
The best that you can do is fall in love

When you get caught between the moon and New York City?  Isn’t that everyone in New York?  Why is this bad?  What’s the worst you could do?  A hate crime?  Probably.  Hate crimes are bad.  I’ll admit it doesn’t scan as well to sing:

If you get caught between the moon and New York City

The worst that you can do

The worst that you can do is assault a handicapped person.

Has impact though.

Arthur did have its moments.  Well, a moment.  I laughed out loud once, and it was a big laugh.

 

Well, not that big.

Tootsie

I remembered Tootsie being on TV a lot when I was a kid and loving it, so I was hesitant to get it out again for my 1982 research (it got an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1982, and was nominated for a ton of others).  Tootsie is the second movie we have watched that was around in 1981 and 1982.  The other was An Officer and a Gentleman. After two movies I have this sense that mainstream movies in 1982 were a lot better than they are now.  Much more interest in character and talk.  Currently we are in one of those periods where a lot of people get distracted by a technological advance, but hopefully Tintin and its ilk is seeing the tide turn against digital technology directing films.

Sorry, slipped into rhetoric there.

There is no need for me to explain the plot or admire the performances in Tootsie.  Probably everyone knows that stuff.  Still, it’s interesting to see Bill Murray and Geena Davis in supporting roles.  Bill is Bill.  He’s been hitting those deadpan notes for thirty years and I never get tired of them.  Dustin is great.  He really is an amazing comic actor.  He can also be deadpan as crazy happens around him, or he can babble out of control, or he nail a physical gesture.

Which is me talking about the performances in Tootsie.  Something I said I didn’t need to do.

Two thoughts about Tootsie then.

First off, it’s a very strange movie about feminism.  Actually quite an effective one, because when Tootsie responds to sexism we are able to laugh and get the point.  Which is way better than feeling like we’re being lectured.  I can sense, as I write this, that there are hundreds of academic essays and blog posts about the feminism of Tootsie most of which originated in an enjoyment of the film, but which endless close analysis spoilt.  This is me quickly moving away from such things.

Secondly, (and inevitably), there are some nice 80s touches in the movie.  Signals of things to come.  Because it is very early in the 80s there is a mix of late 70s fashion too, but three shots suffice to show you the 80s hidden in the background of Tootsie.

Pink and grey interiors.  Tootsie is an older woman so she is wearing brown.  Brown was pretty damn popular in the 70s, but pink and grey were 80s.  Jessica Lange likes the scheme so much she is wearing it.  Her apartment has glass shelves and funky knick-knacks.  Hard to say why interior designers suddenly decided glass table tops, and pink with grey defined modernity but they sure went for it.  My issue with glass top tables was that they were made of glass and that meant you could see through them which meant you kind of ended up feeling like you were all sitting around the top of an aquarium for crotches.  Men had to be on guard against awkward pant bagging around the crotch area, women had to keep their legs crossed even when dining, and there was no chance for a quick, discreet underpant adjustment while seated.

Please note the dude on the left.  He’s young, he’s cool, he wears colours that aren’t brown.  In this street scene we see a general fashion trend unfold behind the fantastic walking dialogue.  Middle-aged and old people walking around in lovely brown on brown ensembles with sensible hats, and young people busting out light pinks, and blues, and funky hats, and (frankly) looks that are pretty contemporary seeming in 2012 (check out the black dude on the far right) even down to the tight jeans and trainers or gym shoes.

The very final shot of the movie allows two 80s icons to appear before the screen freezes for the credit roll over.  I give you exhibit A: tight-pant roller skating guy, and exhibit B: ghetto-blaster dude.  Roller-skater guy is a transitional figure from the late 70s into the early 80s.  Ghetto-blaster dude is herald of break dancing, rap and hip hop (and black people in movies).  Also we can note the general all over move to tighter jeans and fitting T-shirts.  None of that floppy, flared crap for the 80s (well except for the peasant look that Jessica is working).

I remember you (2/2)

HOYTS is closing its Regent cinema in Manners Mall, making way for a new retail development.

The final reels will roll tomorrow and the site will be vacated by the end of the month.

Manager Kirsty Renwick has worked at the cinema for 12 years, “and I’m not even the longest”.

Ms Renwick said it had not quite sunk in that the cinema was closing yet, “but as I see it get stripped down it will probably get quite emotional”.

Dominion Post, 18 August 2009

I can’t really say why I have become fascinated with a building in Wellington that doesn’t even exist anymore.  Yesterday after school I raced down to the library for an hour to try and track down two old Evening Post articles about retiring usherettes who used to work in the Regent.  Looked at from any angle this is very odd behaviour.  Never mind.  They were a diverting read.

In 1987 the Evening Post carried a story about Diane Jones.

Ms Jones was retiring after 23 years as an usherette.  She had spent the last five years at the new Regent complex, and the previous 18 doing her job at the Majestic.

During 23 years as an usherette, Ms Diane Jones, of Kilbirnie, has seen standards slip.  There was too much bad language, sex and violence in today’s movies, she said on Saturday, her last day in the business.  “It astounds me what they can get away with,” she said the Censor was not doing his job well.

Ms Jones, let me assure you that we had a lot more slippage to come.

Ms Jones said she always enjoyed working at a good comedy when the theatre vibrated with laughter.  And the lovers in the back row of the movie theatres always provided a good laugh for the staff she said.  There were still young people who liked to cuddle up in the dark.

Curiously after 23 years Ms Jones was not retiring.

Ms Jones said she felt like a change.  She has taken a clerical job at Wellington Hospital.

It was the Regent that Ms Jones worked at that I remember.  In the 80s and early 90s I saw a few movies at Regent Cinemas.  It had three screens inside the space that the old cavernous Regent had previously filled with one, and it had a real 80s glamour to it.  Lots of red velvet curtains, and gold handrails, and mirrors.  Underneath the theatres was a shopping arcade.  As time went on this shopping arcade became totally deserted, and the street kids began tagging everything, and all the 80s glamour became run down and shabby.  I had a friend who was assaulted on the back stairs of this version of the Regent, and I had my brand new tape of Achtung Baby swiped from the spacies on the second floor.

I have two enduring memories from that Regent.  It was there that I learned that Kurt Cobain had killed himself.  A friend told me and I couldn’t believe it.  The news just seemed so ridiculous.  My other memory was of being totally blown away by the movie The Doors, and staggering out in a kind of daze and deciding I wanted to be Jim Morrison.  It took me a long, long time to recover from that movie.  Actually, I also remember that for an absolute age they had a poster up for Prince’s movie Graffiti Bridge and I don’t think they ever screened it.

Eventually things got so dire at the Regent that I think everyone stopped going.  I had a friend who worked at MindGames in the shopping arcade below.  They were about the last shop to flee the place after they were broken into and the robbers did a massive turd in the middle of the shop as a final insult.

When the theatres reopened as Hoyts 5 they were ghastly.

The Evening Post in 1979 carried an article on Alice Needham who was retiring after 43 years as an usherette.

Starting in Gisborne in the days “when we had tapestries on the walls and served coffee and biscuits at the interval,” Miss Needham looks back on nearly half a century of cinema as “a world of its own.  When I started out we were coming out of the Depression and about 200 girls queued up in Gisborne for a job as an usherette.  In those days Sir Robert [Kerridge] handpicked his usherettes – I was lucky to be one of the four chosen.”

Miss Needham declares Mutiny on the Bounty to be her all time favourite movie, and gives the prize for most popular to Hard Day’s Night.

She recalls Sir Bernard Fergusson as Governor General going to see a movie.  When he came in everyone in the theatre stood up.  When he popped out everyone stood up.  When he came back in everyone stood up.  Sir Fergusson was a little embarrassed and started running about flapping his arms and telling everyone to sit down.

“I never had any trouble in all those years – except with one man.  He was a very large, very drunk Norwegian seaman who had fallen asleep during the 5pm session.  I had to wake him up.  He apparently thought I was some other woman, and started to chase me all over the cinema yelling he was going to crucify me.”

Alice’s retirement coincided with the Regent Theatre’s last night.  When she left the job the Regent in its old form closed it’s doors for the last time and was demolished for the glam 80s Regent that I knew.

On the back page of the same edition of the Evening Post there is a picture of the theatre manager Bill Wander standing on the theatre steps with a small article below.

After the 8pm show a few words may be said and regular customers will be able to toast their goodbyes with a glass of wine.  Tomorrow people will begin removing the photographs, fittings and equipment which will go to other Kerridge Odeon theatres around the country.

After 43 years Alice was retiring to look after her mother.  She received a presentation clock and “substantial cheque” from Sir Robert.

“I started in the Regent in Gisborne and I finish in the Regent in Wellington,” she says, “and in between have had a life which I would gladly have over again.”

So, I am sad to see that what is being built on the site of the Regent now is not a theatre.  There has been a theatre of some kind or other on that piece of land since 1878.  Theatres are special places.  Like Ms Jones said, they could “vibrate with laughter” or be a place for lovers to meet.  130 years of laughter and tears has disappeared.  Of torches in the dark, and jaffas down the aisle, and Governor Generals, and standing for the anthem, and high wire acts, and orchestras, and Clara Bow.  All gone.

Here is the advertisement for the opening night of the first theatre on the site.  It comes  from the Evening Post, 20 May, 1878.  The first night of 130 years.

And what a night it was.

Clara Bow (2/2)

She was her own man.  She didn’t care what people thought of her, and she was resented for it.

Dorothy Mackaill on Clara Bow

 

It was originally a book by Elinor Glyn who was considered a writer of racy trash.  Here is a section from a 1907 novel by Glyn called Three Weeks:

They were on the tiger [rug] now and she undulated round and all over him, feeling his coat, and his face, and his hair as a blind person might, till at last it seemed as if she were twined about him like a serpent.

Undulated?

After running out of steam as a writer Elinor moved to Hollywood.  Gloria Swanson had this to say about her,

Her British dignity was devastating.  She took over Hollywood.  She went everywhere and passed her fearsome verdicts on everything.  ‘This is glamorous,’ she would say. ‘This is hideous,’ she would say, as she baby-stepped through this or that dining room or garden party.  People moved aside for her as she were a sorceress on fire or a giant sting ray.

Clara’s manager thought Glyn’s novel It might be a handy gimmick.  Would Elinor agree to designate Clara the “it” girl?  What does this uncontrived publicity shot tell you?

Clara Bow and Elinor Glyn

Here is the meeting as described in the Clara Bow biography by David Stenn, Runnin’ Wild:

[Clara] was greeted by the sight of a sixty-two year old redhead swathed in purple chiffon veils.  “So this is Clara Bow,” she said, approaching Clara with mincing steps.  Once she reached her, Elinor placed both hands upon Clara’s  head as if it were a crystal ball.  “You are my medium, child,” she informed Clara gravely.  “You are to portray the leading role in my story.” ….  Elinor explained the title to her. “‘It’ is an inner magic and animal magnetism,” she said.  “Valentino possessed this certain magic.  So do John Gilbert and Rex.”  Elinor’s second and third choices were, respectively, another actor and a stallion.  “I was awful confused about the horse,” recalled Clara, “but if she thought he had ‘It’, then I figured he must be quite an animal.”

ROFL.

Animal magnetism?  It feels a bit like cheating to say that an animal has animal magnetism.  A bit like saying a guy you met had real human qualities.

Nevermind.  By an amazing fluke the gimmick in this case actually was spot on, because Clara really was the “It” girl, and had astonishing fame for her few years at the top.  Unfortunately she was spectacularly badly equipped to deal with this, and also very, very young.  Stenn recounts an incredible interview Clara gave to a Photoplay reporter all through a night late in 1927.  The reporter, Adela, said:

Before me rolled a mind entirely untrained, grappling in its own way with the problems of a sophisticated and civilised world.  There is hammered into her soul a fear of life, and that is why she desires to live fast and furiously, why she must seek forgetfulness in mad gaiety.

Which led to all kinds of problems.  It was not “done” to talk frankly about poverty and mental illness in the family as Clara did in that interview, and it was also not done to be a lady with multiple lovers and fast-living life unconcerned with things like matrimony (“A girl who’s worked hard and earned her place ain’t gonna be satisfied as a wife”).  Of course in the 1920s and well beyond society considered a man who slept around a stud, but a woman who slept around a whore.

Clara’s frankness makes her appealing to us so-called moderns, but it was just going to lead to trouble and encourage sewer rats.  Probably the most extraordinary press slander of Clara Bow occurred in something called the Coast Reporter.  What they wrote about her is so extraordinary it is laughable.  Here are the “highlights”:

• She went on a drunken spree with a Mexican croupier in Tijuana where Clara initiated a three-way between herself and two whores while the Mexican watched.
• Clara seduced her chauffeur and then her cousin.
• When there were no men around she slept with her girlfriend Tui Lorraine, or her servant Dorothy Carlson.
• When there were no women around she liked to turn to her pet koala or to her Great Dane.
• She became addicted to morphine while in hospital getting cured of all her sexually transmitted diseases which doctors assured her would eventually cause disintegration of the brain cells.
• She had three highballs before breakfast every morning.

The Tui Lorraine mentioned above was Clara’s best friend for quite a few years and, curiously, was a New Zealander.

Tui Lorraine

Unfortunately when her visa status came under question Tui’s solution was to marry Clara’s extremely dodgy dad, Robert.  I think the best word to describe this new domestic situation (Robert lived at Clara’s house) would be “awkward”.  Needless to say the marriage and the relationship between Tui and Clara didn’t last long after Tui Lorraine became Tui Lorraine Bow.

Clara made choices that are hard to understand.  Her undying loyalty to her father is hard to understand and, even though loyalty is admirable, it is hard to admire in this case.  Robert Bow was a horrible man, who did horrible things to his daughter when she was very young, and freeloaded of her until he died.  She loved him I guess.  And whatever you can say about him, he did stick around.

Clara and Robert Bow

So Clara made poor choices, and was impulsive, and flew in the face of the mores of her time, but she also seems sort of wonderful, and fresh and vivid.  Which is what it seems the 1920s were partly about.  A flare shot up between the darkness of World War One, and the long night of the depression and World War Two.

Jeanine Bassinger has written a wonderful book called Silent Stars, and she has a chapter on Clara Bow and Colleen Moore called Flappers.

The movie flapper was an escapist creation.  The real thing may never have even existed.  Her role was to embody the evolution of the old-fashioned girl into the modern woman.  Picture the lovely young heroine of 1914 being transformed: her skirt goes up, and her neckline comes down.  Her long thick hair is cut short and bobbed.  Her layers of petticoats and corsets are stripped off and replaced with a simple loose dress.  Her legs, formerly hidden, are now… on display….  Freedom.  It all spelled freedom, and with fashion freedom came other, more daring freedoms – staying out late at night, driving fast in cars, drinking from whiskey flasks, and of course the big one, the freedom to have sex.

Except, of course, Clara Bow discovered that this freedom was an illusion, a bubble that could easily be burst.  We, none of us are free, and that is why we sometimes love to see freedom at the movies, and why the flapper, who probably didn’t even really exist in actuality, appealed so much to the crowds who jammed the theatres in the 1920s to see Clara Bow.

To see the wonderful Clara Bow.

Clara Bow (1/2)

Stories about 22 December, 1927

While the beauty of many “great beauties” of the past does not translate to our age, Clara Bow’s smolder definitely does.

On the days leading into Christmas in 1927 you could catch Clara Blow’s latest flick Rough House Rosie at the Regent Theatre on Manners Street.  1927 was Clara’s year.  She was the reigning silent screen star of 1927 in America having been the star of the movie It, and singled out (successfully) as the “it girl” in a shameless Paramount Studio’s publicity campaign.

In 1927 Clara was 22 years old.  Her story from birth to superstar is part dream to three parts nightmare.  She was born in a Brooklyn slum.  Her mother was mentally ill, and during her “episodes” would threaten to kill Clara, one night pinning her to her bed and holding a butcher’s knife to her throat.  Clara’s father was a drunk, womaniser who molested her.  To add to this horror story, Clara as a child also watched her best friend burn to death in a tenement fire.

In 1921 Clara won the Fame and Fortune contest.  First prize was a part in a movie.  She was 16 years old in 1921.  In the days when actors made dozens of movies a year, by the time Clara became a name in 1927 she had made more than 30 films.

Rough House Rosie is a lost film.  A preview has survived.

Earlier in the year you could’ve caught It in Wellington at the Deluxe (now the Embassy).  I watched It with Cathy last week thanks to Aro Street Video Store which has two Clara Bow movies.  The other is called Wings which was the first movie to win an Oscar (trivia alert).  I’m a big fan of silent movies, and I had already read the Clara Bow biography when I saw It, so I was expecting to like the movie.  Cathy on the other hand has no soft spot for silent films, and – like everyone else on the planet – had not read a biography of Clara Bow.  It turns out that it didn’t matter.  We both enjoyed the movie and Clara is certainly the star.  Even though the movie is silly, and the acting style looks overdone nowadays, Clara is the dynamo making the whole movie run.  There are other women in the movie, some of them quite pretty, but the petite, slightly manic, slightly ridiculous, and extremely likeable Clara turns all the other female competition into wallpaper.

Here she is with all her energy and charm.

When I watched Clara in It I enjoyed the movie and her performance, but to do so I had to make an effort to be sympathetic to the film conventions of a different era.  I enjoyed the experience but only by closing my eyes to certain things.  It is worth remembering though that when a movie like It came out it was not enjoyed in this way - indulgently or ironically – it was fully enjoyed by its audience and represented the glamour and dreams of an age.  The phenomenon of Clara Bow attracted serious commentary by serious commentators like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Clara Bow is the quintessence of what the term ‘flapper’ signifies as a definite description: pretty, impudent, superbly assured, as worldly-wise, briefly-clad and ‘hard-berled’ as possible.  There were hundreds of them, her prototypes.  Now, completing the circle, there are thousands more, patterning themselves after her….  It is rather futile to analyse flappers.  They are just girls, all sorts of girls, their one common trait being that they are young things with a splendid talent for living.

Dorothy Parker also had something to say about “it” that was less complimentary.  In fact quite a few people were uncomplimentary about Clara Bow, and one thing you must know when you are at the pinnacle of Mount Celebrity is that the descent will probably be rough.