Oh, just go and see a cinema show in the first row
So I did not make it to tonight's screening of The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) after all, but that's all right because this afternoon ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch met me after my doctor's appointment and there were cut-paper clouds moving fast behind the skyscrapers in a deep autumn sky and I had earned enough points with the Boston Smoked Fish Co. for a free bagel with hot smoked salmon and when I asked Rob to find me a bookstore, he took me to the Brattle Book Shop. I must have been there before, but not for years. We didn't even make it past the first floor and I still had to put books back. They did not have a copy of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's Sawdust in His Shoes (1950), a childhood favorite of my mother's which I have been trying to locate for her—for non-exorbitant prices, which is the sticky part—for years now, but they did have Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (1983), which she has been trying to replace ever since significant portions of her mystery collection drowned. I intend this volume of Richard Matheson's Twilight Zone scripts for my father, which I consider a noble gesture since it contains the shooting script for "The Last Flight" (1960). I could not afford the coffee-table hardcover of Peter Boyle's City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912–1948 (2007). But nothing short of total poverty was going to keep me from taking home Richard Barrios' Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall (2003). It has been obviously relevant to my interests for some time now. The inside jacket flap features my favorite photograph of Lee Patrick and Hope Emerson in Caged (1950)—
—and the text, as I paged through it on public transit home, appears both exhaustively and wittily written. Here's Barrios on one of my longest-loved character actors:
A great character actor's prime asset is his unique voice. It's fitting, then, that millions of baby boomers first experienced Edward Everett Horton through his voice alone—as the mordantly decorous narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales" on the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV series. Even without his elegantly gangling figure and spooked countenance, EEH had no trouble establishing his presence.
For years, Mr. Horton was Hollywood's highest-paid character actor, a dependable and welcome and unchanging presence. In leads and more frequently in scores of supporting roles, he embodied aristocratic befuddlement and bungled composure. He existed, it seemed, in order to be startled, a Sisyphus for the world's irregularities. It took almost nothing to rattle him, after which the skinny 6'2" frame would cringe and the rubber face would assume its perennially contorted affect: even more than [Edgar] Pangborn or Johnny Arthur, EEH was most compelling when flustered.
He also embodied the complete inverse of sex appeal. Although he played some romantic roles early on and was frequently cast as husband or father, one could hardly think of him in terms of sex. Consequently, he was in many ways the ideal gay persona for a post-Code age, as duly demonstrated in late 1934 in The Gay Divorcée. In films such as In Caliente (1935) and The Gang's All Here (1943), he would find himself dancing with another man, and as he registered shock with his standard cry of "My word!," you could tell that this would indeed be his preference, were sexuality his lot. Like all great character actors, he had decades of stage experience, coming to film in 1923 as a quirky leading man and easily settling into the supporting niche he maintained for over forty years. His defining moment came with the play Springtime for Henry—even the title evokes him—in which he starred as a Milquetoast who learns about love. Oddly, he did not appear in the film version; if he had, the pantywaist portions would have been, as always, far more convincing than the romantic aspects. But then, Mr. Horton knew his audience well enough to know that it loved and remained faithful to him for one thing above all: his sheer, and eternally enduring, improbability.
He quotes Boyd McDonald when discussing Edgar Pangborn. He's not as impressed by Way Out West (1930) as I was (which may explain why he misquotes its best line), but he does associate it with the pansy craze, along with something called The Dude Wrangler (1930) which was marketed with the honest-to-God tagline "The Story of a 'Pansy' Cowboy—Oh Dear!" He makes a surprisingly cogent case that I should rewatch Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris (1951) for a reason other than Oscar Levant, namely Gene Kelly's "one moment in the ballet when he impersonates the Toulouse-Lautrec jockey: one of the great butt-watching moments in American cinema." And he writes sympathetically about Doris Day, whom he sees as an enormously talented and genuine actress whose famous sex comedies with Rock Hudson, in addition to being pernicious miscasting on both sides, serve now as epitomes of everything that was wrong with mainstream Hollywood portrayals of sexuality in the late '50's and early '60's: "Their artifice was stultifying and total: they were phony films about phony people, telling lies about sex, both straight and gay. Their efforts would be suitably rewarded with laughs that were equally phony."
—At this juncture Rob screamed a string of expletives from the kitchen and that turned out to be the news about Kevin Spacey, which derailed me badly enough that I really don't want to end a post about queerness in the movies with it, so here's one of my favorite photographs of Dorothy Arzner instead:
and one last note from Barrios:
The following year, Singin' in the Rain ran afoul of Breen for one innocuous innuendo: Donald O'Connor demonstrates voice-dubbing to Gene Kelly by moving his lips to Debbie Reynolds' voice. Kelly responded: "What are you doing later?" At least he did until the line was ordered dropped from the script.
I am comforted by the idea that even Comden and Green OT3'd Cosmo/Don/Kathy.
spatch met me after my doctor's appointment and there were cut-paper clouds moving fast behind the skyscrapers in a deep autumn sky and I had earned enough points with the Boston Smoked Fish Co. for a free bagel with hot smoked salmon and when I asked Rob to find me a bookstore, he took me to the Brattle Book Shop. I must have been there before, but not for years. We didn't even make it past the first floor and I still had to put books back. They did not have a copy of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's Sawdust in His Shoes (1950), a childhood favorite of my mother's which I have been trying to locate for her—for non-exorbitant prices, which is the sticky part—for years now, but they did have Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station (1983), which she has been trying to replace ever since significant portions of her mystery collection drowned. I intend this volume of Richard Matheson's Twilight Zone scripts for my father, which I consider a noble gesture since it contains the shooting script for "The Last Flight" (1960). I could not afford the coffee-table hardcover of Peter Boyle's City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912–1948 (2007). But nothing short of total poverty was going to keep me from taking home Richard Barrios' Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall (2003). It has been obviously relevant to my interests for some time now. The inside jacket flap features my favorite photograph of Lee Patrick and Hope Emerson in Caged (1950)——and the text, as I paged through it on public transit home, appears both exhaustively and wittily written. Here's Barrios on one of my longest-loved character actors:
A great character actor's prime asset is his unique voice. It's fitting, then, that millions of baby boomers first experienced Edward Everett Horton through his voice alone—as the mordantly decorous narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales" on the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV series. Even without his elegantly gangling figure and spooked countenance, EEH had no trouble establishing his presence.
For years, Mr. Horton was Hollywood's highest-paid character actor, a dependable and welcome and unchanging presence. In leads and more frequently in scores of supporting roles, he embodied aristocratic befuddlement and bungled composure. He existed, it seemed, in order to be startled, a Sisyphus for the world's irregularities. It took almost nothing to rattle him, after which the skinny 6'2" frame would cringe and the rubber face would assume its perennially contorted affect: even more than [Edgar] Pangborn or Johnny Arthur, EEH was most compelling when flustered.
He also embodied the complete inverse of sex appeal. Although he played some romantic roles early on and was frequently cast as husband or father, one could hardly think of him in terms of sex. Consequently, he was in many ways the ideal gay persona for a post-Code age, as duly demonstrated in late 1934 in The Gay Divorcée. In films such as In Caliente (1935) and The Gang's All Here (1943), he would find himself dancing with another man, and as he registered shock with his standard cry of "My word!," you could tell that this would indeed be his preference, were sexuality his lot. Like all great character actors, he had decades of stage experience, coming to film in 1923 as a quirky leading man and easily settling into the supporting niche he maintained for over forty years. His defining moment came with the play Springtime for Henry—even the title evokes him—in which he starred as a Milquetoast who learns about love. Oddly, he did not appear in the film version; if he had, the pantywaist portions would have been, as always, far more convincing than the romantic aspects. But then, Mr. Horton knew his audience well enough to know that it loved and remained faithful to him for one thing above all: his sheer, and eternally enduring, improbability.
He quotes Boyd McDonald when discussing Edgar Pangborn. He's not as impressed by Way Out West (1930) as I was (which may explain why he misquotes its best line), but he does associate it with the pansy craze, along with something called The Dude Wrangler (1930) which was marketed with the honest-to-God tagline "The Story of a 'Pansy' Cowboy—Oh Dear!" He makes a surprisingly cogent case that I should rewatch Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris (1951) for a reason other than Oscar Levant, namely Gene Kelly's "one moment in the ballet when he impersonates the Toulouse-Lautrec jockey: one of the great butt-watching moments in American cinema." And he writes sympathetically about Doris Day, whom he sees as an enormously talented and genuine actress whose famous sex comedies with Rock Hudson, in addition to being pernicious miscasting on both sides, serve now as epitomes of everything that was wrong with mainstream Hollywood portrayals of sexuality in the late '50's and early '60's: "Their artifice was stultifying and total: they were phony films about phony people, telling lies about sex, both straight and gay. Their efforts would be suitably rewarded with laughs that were equally phony."
—At this juncture Rob screamed a string of expletives from the kitchen and that turned out to be the news about Kevin Spacey, which derailed me badly enough that I really don't want to end a post about queerness in the movies with it, so here's one of my favorite photographs of Dorothy Arzner instead:
and one last note from Barrios:
The following year, Singin' in the Rain ran afoul of Breen for one innocuous innuendo: Donald O'Connor demonstrates voice-dubbing to Gene Kelly by moving his lips to Debbie Reynolds' voice. Kelly responded: "What are you doing later?" At least he did until the line was ordered dropped from the script.
I am comforted by the idea that even Comden and Green OT3'd Cosmo/Don/Kathy.
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Oh, God, that would have been beautiful.
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He has these little sketches of prominent queer actors scattered throughout chapters—Horton, Pangborn, Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, as well as people I don't think I've ever seen, like Johnny Arthur, Bobby Watson, and Cecil Cunningham. Also Bugs Bunny:
The magnificent androgyne, the chameleon survivor of cinema, the distillation of profound self-awareness—call him what you will, and Bugs will transcend it. Neither pen nor paper can hold him, this auteur and star, who by 1950 had already assumed his full, indeed all-enveloping powers. Not even his best directors (Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett) can totally encompass him; only Mel Blanc, who gave him voice for millions of years, can truly know him. Sexuality is only one of Bugs's many parts, but it s a prominent one. Julian Eltinge? Forget about him: here is the screen's premier male actress. With an inexhaustible wardrobe awaiting him just offscreen, as well as wigs and makeup and accessories (supplied, most likely, by the Acme Corp.), Bugs is ever willing to don drag in the service of art and survival. With less than a wave of a hand (or paw), he becomes a voluptuous Daisy Mae in Hillbilly Hare, a geisha vamp in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nip, the epitome of Empire esprit in Napoleon Bunny-part, and a busty ballerina in A Corny Concerto. His Tasmanian She-Devil in Bedeviled Rabbit puts the exoticism of Maria Montez to shame, and his Brunnhilde in Jones's What's Opera, Doc? defines Wagnerian glamour more vividly than a dozen Ring cycles. Invariably, an ear or a tail will pop out from beneath a skirt or hat, clueing Elmer Fudd that the temptress is a sham. Yet the disguise has served, and we never fail to marvel at the achievements of Bugs and Blanc and all the artists who made these Warner Bros. shorts. Female impersonation can get no richer than to encompass the whole of womanhood while yet retaining one's own masculine personality. Yet on a few occasions Bugs went further, projecting sexual ambiguity without external trappings. He finishes What's Cookin', Doc? (1943) in a double role as himself (briefly wearing a Carmen Miranda fruit medley) and a booby-prize Oscar that strikes a glamour-girl pose. (In profoundly justifiable narcissism, one Bugs kisses the other.) And in two mad scientist epics, Hair-Raising Hare (1946) and Water, Water Every Hare (1949), he finds the most resourceful way to handle a huge furry orange monster with tennis shoes. He poses as a prattling, fawning beautician out of The Women: "My stars! Such an iinnn-teresting monster!" In the first film, the creature ends up with a mousetrap manicure; the second subjects him to a permanent that is literally dynamite. And in all of this, Bugs goes about his frilly business sans benefit of drag. Not even a pink uniform—this is Bugs unadorned. Is Bugs-as-manicurist supposed to be male? Female? Straight? Gay? Most likely, all of the above. Bugs is Bugs, a drag queen hero and a tough guy heroine, a rabbity satyr and a chased saint, a truly self-actualized screen presence . . . an eternally, infinitely, unceasingly iinnn-teresting role-player.
I was not expecting this book to include the definite essay on rabbit as trickster in American film, but I'm not complaining.
And what a wonderful photo from Caged!
I found it in May when I watched (and never wrote about, which I should fix one of these days) the movie. I know it's vice queen Elvira Powell and corrupt matron Harper, but I like
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I didn't watch a lot of cartoons: I have seen only Hair-Raising Hare and What's Opera, Doc? and now I'm curious about several of the rest!
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The word play in Rabbit Seasoning is utterly wonderful---that one and the other Daffy Duck hunting ones are very funny. It used to be available on YouTube, I do not find it there now, but possibly on a library DVD?
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You should also watch Duck Amuck if you never have.
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That sounds cute. I'll look for it.
You should also watch Duck Amuck if you never have.
If that's the meta-surrealist one with Daffy fighting with his animator, I have and it's great.
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ETA: Never mind, I see you've seen it.
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That doesn't mean I mind the link!
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I may have seen that one, if it involves Bugs messing around with Elmer's nightmares. (If it's some kind of noir parody, I have not seen it but clearly should.)
The word play in Rabbit Seasoning is utterly wonderful---that one and the other Daffy Duck hunting ones are very funny. It used to be available on YouTube, I do not find it there now, but possibly on a library DVD?
I have seen whichever one of those is "DUCK SEASON!"/"RABBIT SEASON!" (and eventually "ELMER SEASON!") but I don't believe any of the others.
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Yes, that's the one.
I have seen whichever one of those is "DUCK SEASON!"/"RABBIT SEASON!" (and eventually "ELMER SEASON!")...
Wikipedia tells me that's "Rabbit Fire;" "Rabbit Seasoning" and "Duck! Rabbit, Duck" are its complements, so to speak. The three of them are a farrago of signs, semantics, and shotgun fire.
...Ooh! Found "Rabbit Seasoning"! They also have "Rabbit Fire" and "Duck! Rabbit, Duck."
(As splendid as these are, my fave line from any Chuck Jones is in "Ali Baba Bunny"---Daffy's disgusted grumble of "What a way for a duck to travel. Underground.")
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Sounds good to me. Warner Bros. cartoons are one of the art forms it was almost impossible for me to appreciate as a child. I wasn't exposed to a lot of them, but most of the ones I did see registered as mean and violent rather than entertaining; when I re-encountered them as an adult who understod parody and sight gags and the point of breaking the fourth wall, I had a better time. A lot of things that were meant to be funny either made no sense or upset me when I was small.
...Ooh! Found "Rabbit Seasoning"! They also have "Rabbit Fire" and "Duck! Rabbit, Duck."
Thank you!
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It's only reasonable.
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Oh, the very best kind of bookshop! :-D
The book sounds fascinating, too.
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I feel I should start with the second floor next time, but I know I'll have to re-check the children's section on my mother's behalf and I didn't even look at poetry on the first floor . . .
The book sounds fascinating, too.
I am really enjoying it. I don't agree with everything Barrios says, but I am interested to read his thoughts on movies I know and I feel I can use him as a pointer to movies I don't. He has already convinced me, for example, that I should really check out Universal's House of Horrors (1946), which would never have occurred to me independently, and that I should pay attention to Martin Kosleck in general:
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I don't agree with everything Barrios says, but I am interested to read his thoughts on movies I know and I feel I can use him as a pointer to movies I don't.
Oh, yes. *nods* A useful (and interesting) yardstick. (I'm a little wary of his comment about 'artifice' above, but I don't know the films; it's only because it seems to me that the 21st C worships what it calls realism a lot too much, whereas artifice is often very hard to pull off, and it can work very well, depending on what you're trying to do. But that is because I watch way too much old theatrical telly. Which sometimes decides that not only is going to be old and theatrical but it's going to damn well be experimental theatre on tuppence an episode. And also because writing farce and particularly artificial kinds of comedy, or just heightened reality is hard; I've tried more than once!)
That actor looks weirdly like one of those US actors who's in a lot and whose name I am blanking on. (Is it Mark Harmon or something?) But an interesting face, yes.
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It's a three-story building! I think multiple trips are going to be the only way to cope.
I'm a little wary of his comment about 'artifice' above, but I don't know the films
Based on remarks elsewhere, I don't think the kind of artifice for which he faults '60's sex comedies is the kind you're worried doesn't get enough love. You can't appreciate Technicolor musicals if strict realism is your thing. But you can object to the deliberate and programmatic falsification of the ways in which people think, love, and behave, and I'm with him on that one.
(Is it Mark Harmon or something?)
I had to look up what Mark Harmon looks like!
Warners thought Kosleck looked like Goebbels, so that's how he came to American fame in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939). Which I have been meaning to see for years on grounds of historical importance, but right now mad sculptors feel like a lot more fun.
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I'm sure! I just get a bit wary of it these days, but as I said, I keep watching things that get dismissed as 'fake' and 'artificial' in itself seems to be a bad word, as does comedy itself some days. But I don't know the films - I'm sure he has a very good point!
I had to look up what Mark Harmon looks like!
Even I have somehow watched enough US TV to recognise him, so that is quite impressive!
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I understand being jumpy about something like that. My point about the Technicolor musicals, which may not have been clear, is that I don't think "artifice" is inherently a bad thing for Barrios—his complaint about An American in Paris is that (except for the Toulouse-Lautrec jockey moment, apparently) it doesn't go far enough over the top of which Vincente Minnelli was capable, as anyone who has ever seen The Pirate (1948) can attest. But I don't think he's using the word as a critique of the production values of the Day/Hudson sex comedies so much as he's indicting the attitudes behind them. I'm fine with that. The Production Code is the kind of fakery I mind.
But I don't know the films - I'm sure he has a very good point!
I've seen Lover Come Back (1961) and I wouldn't have called it the worst thing ever, but I remember almost nothing of the A-plot, having been distracted by the sight of a formerly repressed, magnificently hammered Tony Randall solemnly declaring himself the King of the Elevator. Barrios doesn't hate it as much as Pillow Talk (1959), but he does point out a mean-spirited running joke with a lavender-coded art director; he makes Pillow Talk and its close relative That Touch of Mink (1962) sound clobberingly heteronormative and queer-panicky and not at all out of the ordinary for the time, which is the depressing if believable part. The good news is that forty years later we got Down with Love (2003), a gloriously implausible pastiche-homage-subversion of that whole genre of comedy which treasures all the best bits and doesn't bother with the hurtful ones. If you want artifice as celebration, that film does it to the nines.
Even I have somehow watched enough US TV to recognise him, so that is quite impressive!
My primary takeaway from the few NCIS episodes I've watched was David McCallum.
(I really don't watch a lot of TV.)
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My primary takeaway from the few NCIS episodes I've watched was David McCallum.
I've never seen NCIS, or Law & Order or any of those things. He just must have guested enough in the things I have seen - definitely he had a significant guest part in The West Wing, but he was already a familiar face. And most of my TV is British! (I haven't seen him there.)
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No, but I've seen stills and I'm familiar with the concept. I understand if this no more conveys the experience of watching it than a review does of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953).
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(I feel sure the stills will have included the Kandyman.)
I mean, it is a fair point, but it works for what it is. There are some flaws, but mostly general production issues, and the script is gleeful and angry.
Ironically, though, The Happiness Patrol is definitely against fakeness of the wrong sort, very definitely including things like the Hays Code, so I should watch where I'm invoking it. (It tends to get explained as being anti-Thatcherite, which is true as far as it goes, but it was always a lot wider than that.)
It also includes this scene, which is one of the defining Seven moments; indeed one of the defining moments of the show.
I don't know The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, though. Should I? And is he a relative of Mr T? ;-p
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It is one of my favorite movies and a showcase for Hans Conried, one of my favorite character actors. It also tends to be divisive; people either think it is a brilliant cult artifact or they never want to see or hear of it again. I fell strongly and immediately into the first camp. I feel there's a decent chance you will enjoy it if you can find a copy, but honestly it's unpredictable. Watching clips on YouTube will give you some of the feel, but not what it's like to spend an hour and a half inside it.
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Kelly and Toulouse-L
Re: Kelly and Toulouse-L
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Sigh :o(
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I'm sure he could have picked a worse one, but it might have taken work.