Sunday, May 23, 2010

Book: "The Private Lives of Somerset Maugham"


An excellent bio, and there's a fine, concise review by a writer I know well and trust. Here's the url:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2010/05/
secret_lives_of_somerset_maugh.html

Saturday, May 15, 2010

“The Maltese Falcon” (No, not that one)


It’s hard to imagine anyone but Bogart as Sam Spade, or Mary Astor as Brigid O’Shaughnessy, or Sydney Greenstreet as Casper Gutman, or Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo. But the folks at Warner Brothers could, producing two earlier versions of Dashiell Hammett’s great crime story before John Huston got his hands on the book and made a classic movie in 1941.
The first version was made ten years earlier, directed by Roy Del Ruth (“Broadway Melody of 1936,” “Topper Returns”) and starring Ricardo Cortez as Spade, Bebe Daniels as Brigid (called Ruth Wonderly here) Dudley Digges as Gutman, and Otto Matieson as Cairo.
Talking movies were relatively new in ’31, and Cortez, a silent film star, doesn’t quite have a handle on Spade, playing the private eye in early scenes like a frat boy who can’t keep his hands or leering eyes off any good-looking woman who passes by. But he settles down, thanks to the strength of Hammett’s yarn, which the movie hews to closely. There’s a static quality to the film, probably due to limitations imposed by bulky sound recording equipment.
But what’s great is that this is a pre-code production, and quite sexy for its day. Daniels is seen taking a bath, and the scene from the novel where Spade orders Brigid to strip (so he can make sure she hasn’t hidden a $1,000 bill on her person) remains. You don’t see Daniels naked, but you know that Spade has. Digges is solid as Gutman, and his affection for Wilmer, the gunsel, is apparent. Wilmer, by the way, is well-played by Dwight Frye, who only a year earlier had made his mark as Renfield, the fly-eating madman in the Lugosi version of “Dracula.”
The Brothers Warner were nothing if not frugal, and in 1934 they ordered up a remake called “Satan Met a Lady” (Hammett describes Spade as resembling a “blond satan”). This time, undoubtedly encouraged by the success of MGM’s “Thin Man” series (based on another terrific Hammett novel), the approach is lighter. The falcon has been replaced by a medieval ram’s horn packed with gems. Warren William plays Ted Shane. Gutman has had a sex change. And even a blond Bette Davis as Brigid can’t save this wayward endeavor.
But check out the ’31 version for a pleasant surprise. It’s not a classic, but it’s decent.
And speaking of Spade, Joe Gores recently wrote a prequel to “The Maltese Falcon” called “Spade&Archer.” I could go on about this, but I suggest you check out this link: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2009/04/
books_the_story_of_sam_spades.html
to see what a reviewer I know well and respect had to say about Gores’s excellent novel.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Book: “Lonleyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney” by Marion Meade 2010


Quick quiz, gang: Who were Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney? And no Googling, please.
If you id’ed West as the author of two minor classics of American literature (“Miss Lonleyhearts” and “The Day of the Locust”), slap a gold star on your forehead. If you knew that Eileen McKenney had inspired her sister Ruth to write a series of folksy short stories that appeared in The New Yorker in the late ‘30s, and that said stories inspired the hit play “My Sister Eileen,” which later led to the great musical “Wonderful Town” (Bernstein-Comden-Green), well--go straight to grad work at the Jonathan Schwartz College of the Great American Songbook.
Marion Meade has made a valiant effort to make these two people and their world interesting, but in the end her subjects fail her. Both West and McKenney died young in a car crash, shortly after their wedding in 1940 (West was 37, McKenney 27--and West, a rotten driver, caused the accident).
Yes, their paths crossed some of the famous literati of the era: Scott Fitzgerald, S.J. Perleman, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, others. But few memorable encounters ensued, although I’d love to have been at the dinner when Eileen, a half-baked Communist, berated Fitzgerald for writing about frivolous people (take that Nicole and Dick Diver). Sister Ruth, who was fully baked, had conscripted Eileen into the cause.
But let’s get back to Nathanael West. His real name was Nathan Weinstein, and his immigrant family was relatively well off when West was born in New York in 1903 (that would change, of course, thanks to the Crash of ’29). At DeWitt Clinton High School, then one of the top public schools in NYC, West chose to study whatever interested him in the reading room of the main branch of the public library, many blocks from his high school, which explains why West failed to graduate.
His family, determined that West should get a college education, acquired a diploma for West, probably by bribing someone at the Board of Ed (a not uncommon practice back then, apparently). West got into Tufts, but spent his freshman year screwing around and doing no work. Tufts asked him to take a hike.
But wait, West’s parents would not be deterred. Turns out there had been another Nathan Weinstein at Tufts, four years older, who had recently transferred to Tuft’s medical school. West somehow got hold of Weinstein’s transcript and submitted it as a would-be transfer student to . . . Brown! And got in! And somehow managed to graduate!
Does this tell you something about Nathanael West’s character?
Now none of this means a damn in terms of his fiction (although he could be a bit loose in the plagiarism department, and that can be troubling). But it does make the bio a bit of a slog; who wants to spend time with this guy?
As for Eileen, she’s not as interesting as sister Ruth, who made her famous. But even Ruth’s bit of a bore, talking about the cause, and plunging into deep depressions. There’s nothing “screwball” about these folks.
The bio also suffers from Meade’s pedestrian style, and she depends on far too many clichés (stars twinkle, something fits something to a T; editor, where art thou on this book?).
As for “Miss Lonelyhearts” and “The Day of the Locust,” strap yourself into a chair, drop a Zoloft or two and enter a world of bitter, freakish, lost, disturbing people leading dead-end lives who slowly awaken to the dreadful reality that for them it’s basically game-over time. Not exactly material ripe for a Bernstein, Comden and Green musical.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

"Inglourious Basterds"


Director: Quentin Tarantino 2009
Gimme a break.