Hitchcock/Truffaut at the Music Box

Hitchcock/Truffaut is a new documentary, directed by Kent Jones, playing at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago, IL, through December 31, 2015.

In 1962, Francois Truffaut persuaded Alfred Hitchcock to sit with him for a week long interview in which the great British auteur would share with his young admirer the secrets of his cinema.

Based on the original recordings of this meeting—used to produce the seminal book “Hitchcock/Truffaut”—this film illustrates the greatest cinema lesson of all time and plunges us into the world of the creator of Psycho, The Birds and Vertigo. Hitchcock’s singular vision is elucidated and brought vividly to life by today’s leading filmmakers: Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich, and Paul Schrader.

For more information, including show times, click here.

Irene Dunne Comes of "Age" as Edith Wharton's Famous Heroine

The Queen Takes Her Throne
By the mid-1930s, Irene Dunne’s career was in an upward arch. She was one of RKO Studio’s biggest and most dependable players, starring in four pictures per year on average. After her breakout performance in Cimarron (1931), Dunne starred in the classic tearjerker, Back Street (1932), based on the popular best-selling novel by Fannie Hurst. The film was a critical and box office success. Dunne went on to star in a string of popular melodramas, earning the title “Queen of the Weepies” by the motion picture press.

Manhattan Manners
In 1934, Dunne replaced Katherine Hepburn as Countess Ellen Olenska in the first talking-picture adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence published in 1920. The period piece also starred John Boles, Dunne’s costar from Back Street. RKO borrowed Boles from Fox Studios, hoping lighting would strike twice by pairing him once again with Dunne. The film tackles the peculiar manners and mores of upper class New York Society during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It follows Wharton’s narrative fairly closely, but according to the film’s credits, it is also partially based on a play by Margaret Ayer Barnes.

Divorced Lives

First Edition of the novel

The plot concerns Ellen and her attempts to seek a divorce from her European husband with whom she has become estranged. On a visit to see her American relatives, news of her planned divorce is received as well as her unexpected arrival in New York. Ellen’s family will do just about anything to avoid even the hint of scandal so they enlist the aid of lawyer and old family friend, Newland Archer (Boles) to convince the Countess that divorce would be a terrible mistake. Newland sympathizes with Ellen, but gives in to social and family pressures to convince her not to go through with the divorce.

Disengaged Engagement
Newland is engaged to be married to Ellen’s cousin, May Welland (Julia Haydon). Newland knew Ellen growing up, but barely remembers her. At Newland and May’s engagement party, Ellen tells Newland a story from their childhood to jar his memory. Almost at once, Newland is smitten with Ellen and finds himself conflicted in his relationship with May.

Newland encourages May and her family to move up the date of the wedding rather than face his feelings and potential scandal. He marries May, but his love for Ellen grows stronger. Ellen loves Newland, but she too, understands the code of conduct that runs New York society. She also loves her cousin and wouldn’t do anything to purposely hurt her.

John Boles between takes

Wharton’s Ambivalence
Edith Wharton was born into New York society before World War I. When she was 23, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior. He was her equal in the society circles of the day, but they had little else in common. Wharton’s husband suffered from depression that eventually turned into mental illness that was considered incurable. When she divorced him in 1913, Wharton came under heavy criticism. Wharton understood the pressures put on both men and women during the 1870s. Although one may speculate the author’s true feelings about the sanctity of marriage and upper class propriety, Wharton never seems to agree with or condemn Newland or Ellen for their actions (or inaction). The film version does a good job interpreting Wharton’s ambivalence, which makes it rife for discussion.

Modest Success
Although not the blockbuster RKO had hoped for, The Age of Innocence did respectable business and garnered decent reviews. Once again, Dunne’s performance was praised and holds up well today. Film critic Leonard Malton in his review of the film said, “Dunne gives a luminous and touching performance.” Other members of the cast giving good performances are Haydon as May, Laura Hope Crews as May’s mother, Mrs. Welland, and Helen Westley as Granny Mignott.

Boles and Irene Dunne

In 1993, Martin Scorsese filmed a sumptuous interpretation of the Wharton classic starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland Archer, Michelle Pfeiffer As Ellen, and Winona Ryder as May.

Gone With the Wind Connection: It’s hard to compare the 1934 version of The Age of Innocence with the Civil War drama, GWTW, but if you take a look at the Age of Innocence’s film credits, you will see that they do share some remarkable things in common. First the cast: Laura Hope Crews would go on to screen immortality portraying Scarlett’s Aunt Pittypat. The gowns that Irene Dunne wore were designed by Walter Plunkett, the designer of all the costumes for GWTW. And last , but not least, the music was adapted by the legendary Max Steiner, who composed “Tara’s Theme.”

This post corresponds with the class Elegant and Madcap: The Incredible Versatility of Irene Dunne—Class starts November 16, 2011. Meets on Wednesdays from 7p.m. - 10 p.m. for six weeks. Classes are held at Facets Film School on Fullerton Ave. in Chicago, IL.

Looking for Some Halloween Chills? Watch a Classic Horror Movie Tonight

by Classic Movie Man

Producer Val Lewton is not a household name, but during the 1940s, he produced some of the best horror films to come out of Hollywood. Under tight studio budgetary constraints, Lewton thrilled and scared audiences without resorting to cheap shock or senseless gore. Instead he created interesting and realistic characters, developed literate scripts, and worked with some of the best developing talent at RKO studios. Some of the people Lewton employed included directors Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music) and Mark Robson (Bridges at Toko-Ri, Peyton Place). Lewton influenced such famous directors as Martin Scorsese and William Friedkin. The former even produced a documentary on Lewton in 2007 called Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows.

Below is a list of nine classic Lewton-produced horror films in order of their initial release dates. All of these classics are available via Netflix, Amazon, and your neighborhood video store.

1. Cat People (1942)—This is the first horror film Lewton produced and some consider it his best. A young artist, Irena Dubrovna, is convinced that she is the victim of an ancient curse that turns its women into panthers once they enter a romantic relationship. The film contains two classic scenes: One in New York’s Central Park, where one of the main characters finds herself being stalked and another in an indoor swimming pool. These atmospheric scenes made 1940s audiences scream in terror and they still work today in the sophisticated 21st century.

2. I Walked With A Zombie (1943)—This film was in production before Cat People was released and it set in motion a host of imitators. Borrowing its plot from Jane Eyre, Zombie is set on a remote plantation in the West Indies. White and native cultures clash and family secrets are revealed on the exotic and mysterious island of Saint Sebastian. Classic scenes: The heroine, a young nurse named Betsy, meets her patient in a most unusual manner and a night walk with her “zombie” patient through the sugar cane stalks, to visit a voodoo priest. Director Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past, Curse of the Demon) considered I Walked With A Zombie his best film.

3. The Leopard Man (1943)—Released on the heels of Zombie, the film starts out with two competitive women entertainers (Clo-Clo and Kiki) working side-by-side in a New Mexico club. Thinking she needs a little more pizzazz, Kiki introduces a beautiful black leopard to her act. Unfortunately, the leopard is frightened by the crowd and runs away. Shortly after, women end up dead, apparently killed by the escaped leopard. Is it really the leopard doing the killing or is something else going on? Classic scenes: Without giving too much away, one involves a train and the other a locked door. The latter gave us one of the screens most iconic horror scenes ever filmed.

4. The Seventh Victim (1943)—The RKO movie factory was working at full tilt, with Lewton releasing four films in 1943! The plot of The Seventh Victim surrounds a businesswoman named Jacqueline who aligns herself with a Satanic cult in order to gain success and power. Eventually, she decides that she wants out. The cultist will let her go—if she agrees to commit suicide. Jacqueline tries to escape, but finds the cultists mean business. Classic scenes: Jacqueline’s younger sister Mary discovers strange activity on a New York City subway and Jacqueline encounters a cultist on a deserted back alley.

5. The Ghost Ship (1943)—Concerns a demented and vindictive freight ship captain (Richard Dix) and his sinister attempts to dominate his crew. The onboard claustrophobia adds to the scary mood Lewton and director Robson established. Classic scenes: Without giving too much away, one involves an anchor and chain and the other an unsecured hook. Are you curious how this all turns out?

6. The Curse Of The Cat People (1944)—With the runaway success of Cat People, it was inevitable that the studio executives would demand a sequel. Lewton, ever the clever and creative man, produced this psychological masterpiece, which gave Wise his first directorial credit. The film concerns a shy young girl named Amy who imagines that her secret friend is the now deceased Irena from the original Cat People. Classic scenes: Amy lost in a snowstorm as she is “pursued” and an old woman’s scary storytelling.

7. Isle Of The Dead (1945)—Boris Karloff, fresh off his Broadway triumph in Arsenic and Old Lace, entered into a three-picture deal with RKO. Instead of playing monsters, which he had grown tired of at rival studio Universal, Karloff was thrilled to be able to play General Pherides quarantined on a Greek island during a suspected plague. Karloff starts off as a tough no-nonsense military man until he comes under the spell of an old caretaker woman who tells him tales of the evil Vorvolaka, an evil spirit who inhabits the corpses of the dead and whose presence brings death to those she touches. Classic scenes: Karloff slowly cracking under the pressure of the caretaker’s superstitions and menance and the premature burial of a woman who has this as her greatest fear.

8. The Body Snatcher (1945)—Karloff again is the star of this reworking of the classic Robert Lewis Stevenson story. The Body Snatcher is masterful in its creation of an absolutely creepy and mysterious mood throughout. Set in the 19th century, the plot surrounds a corrupt doctor and his complicated relationship with his grave-digging accomplice. Classic scenes: A nameless peasant woman singing sweetly in the night, her voice suddenly stopping mid-note and Karloff’s nemesis Toddy MacFarlane’s, brilliantly played by Henry Daniell, delirious carriage ride in the rain. To add to its horror movie credibility, it has Bela Lugosi (Dracula 1931), another horror film icon in a minor supporting role.

9. Bedlam (1946)—This film isn’t a horror film in the traditional sense (you could say that about all of Lewton’s films) because it is rooted in reality. During the 18th century in England, there was a notorious insane asylum: St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane near London. It was known as Bedlam. Karloff stars as the cruel Master Sims of Bedlam, treating patients with heartless cruelty. An outsider named Nell Bowen (Anna Lee) takes a dislike to Sims and in the process her employer who, with Sims’s help, has her confined to the asylum. There Nell, who before her confinement had led a self-centered life of ease, realizes how horrible Bedlam is and how poorly the “inmates” are treated. She develops compassion for the mentally ill inhabitants and gains their trust. Classic scenes: Nell locked in a cage with a giant of a man and Sims being carried away by the “loonies” and imprisoned behind a brick wall.

Boo!

Classic Movie Man, also known as Stephen Reginald, is the creator of the South Loop Connection and Classic Movie Man blogs. A writer, editor, adult education instructor and social media strategist, he loves writing about the South Loop and classic movies. He will be teaching a class on the films of Irene Dunne at Facets Film School, Chicago, for six weeks starting November 16, 2011. Classes meet on Wednesday evenings from 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. Click here for information on how to take classes at Facets.