Lemmon and Dennis: An Unlikely Screen Dream Team

When I think of iconic screen couples, so many come to mind. Gable and Harlow. Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. Tracy and Hepburn. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (now that was chemistry!).

Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis are not among them. (Lemmon and Matthau, yes.) But maybe they should be. 

I tend to think of Lemmon chiefly as a light comedic actor in films like Bell, Book and Candle, Some Like It Hot and The Fortune Cookie. (Though, on the other hand, he did break my heart in Days of Wine and Roses.) Dennis brings to mind heavy drama, stürm and drang, with the anxious, neurotic and damaged characters she created for movies like The Fox, Come Back To The Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and of course, her Oscar-winning turn as that very high-strung young housewife in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Jack Lemmon as George Kellerman

Sandy Dennis as Gwen Kellerman

In Neil Simon’s The Out-of-Towners (1970), both play against type to enact the misadventures of George and Gwen Kellerman, a pair of hapless and harried travelers from Twin Oaks, Ohio, on an unfortunate trip the New York City. Here, Lemmon is intense and complicated as the uptight, controlling (and occasionally explosively angry) husband, while Dennis ironically gives one of her most engaging performances as his dutiful, ‘go with the flow’ spouse who wants nothing more than to make her husband happy and support his choices. (Though she loses her cool once or twice as well!)

A New York story that depicts The Big Apple as sprawling, tough and hard-as-nails, The Out-of-Towners lampoons every negative stereotype about the city that never sleeps, and about the rigors of travel in general. (Writer Neil Simon was, of course, a lifelong New Yorker himself.)

The film’s other main character: “Is that a beautiful city?” “That is a beautiful city.”

Famous for his witty, lightning-fast dialogue that’s funny and human and honest and relatable all at the same time, Simon treads into more serious territory here than many of the comedic plays that made him famous. This is an edgier, darker story than the feather-light Come Blow Your Horn or Barefoot in the Park, or even his hilarious mismatched buddy comedy The Odd Couple.

Here, Simon crafts a hilarious and often terrifying comedy of errors, using Murphy’s law to plot an unbelievably bad trip for the Kellermans. Anything that can go wrong, does. First there’s a delay in landing the plane, then the flight is diverted to Boston due to bad weather. A crowded claustrophobic train from Boston to New York becomes a cattle car. When they arrive in the city there’s a garbage strike, a transit strike, a heavy rainstorm; the hotel did not hold their reservation. Gwen steps on a bottle and breaks the heel of her shoe; the couple is robbed at gunpoint. And so on.

Comedy is not the wheelhouse of Method actress Sandy Dennis, but as Gwen Kellerman she has impeccable instinctive timing, and many moments, mostly priceless reaction shots, that make you laugh out loud. Harvard-educated Lemmon, who won his first Oscar as the insecure but lovable Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts, depicts what is his darkest character to date in George Kellerman, a seemingly mild-mannered salesman who is triggered by circumstances into rage and utter despair. (Later, Lemmon will a second Academy Award playing an even darker character in Save the Tiger.) Interestingly, both Dennis and Jack Lemmon studied under Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen (Respect for Acting) at the HB Studio in New York and even appeared together in an Off-Broadway play years before teaming for this film.

“Two wet, insignificant out-of-town travelers.”

“Oh my God, I think I lost an eyelash.”

“George?? Can you hear me?”

“We could ask Traveler’s Aid...”

“I think I broke a tooth. Yep, there goes my smile.”

At first, it seems that the couple are mismatched to their environment—a classic fish-out-of-water theme, two Midwesterners vs. the Big City. But the travails of George and Gwen point out their mismatched personalities in the way that they deal with the vicissitudes that await them around every corner. Here, Lemmon overplays and Dennis underplays; he rages like King Lear while she assumes inscrutable blank expressions that try to hide her feelings. Their interplay is a joy to watch, though; together, they create a real chemistry and are totally believable as a married couple from Ohio.

Bringing the Kellermans’ urban nightmare to vivid life are a bevy of consummate character actors to lend support and expertly spout Simon’s acerbic dialogue at a rapid-fire pace. Most portray service people trying in vain to calm irate customers; all give unforgettable cameo performances: Ann Prentiss (sister of Paula) as a deadpan stewardess; Billy Dee Williams (Lady Sings the Blues)  from the airline Lost & Found; Johnny Brown as the smiling dining car waiter with nothing but bad news for the hungry travelers; Anthony Holland at the Waldorf Astoria front desk;  Ron Carey (High Anxiety) as a Boston cab driver; Graham Jarvis as a Good Samaritan with an ulterior motive; Anne Meara (mom of Ben Stiller) as a nonplussed purse-snatching victim.

Anne Meara: “You carry a pocketbook in this city, you’re a marked woman.”

Billy Dee Williams as Clifford: “I see no reason to assume it won’t show up.”

Graham Jarvis: “Just tell them that Murray sent you.”

Dolph Sweet, Johnny Brown, Anthony Holland and Ron Carey

Director Arthur Hiller paces the film as a frantic run that keeps you on the edge of your seat and as breathless as our protagonists. (Hiller’s masterful direction provided the engine that also made Silver Streak and The In-Laws such memorably fast-moving comedic sprints.) With his bold and original scoring, Quincy Jones skillfully underlines the urban tension and frantic urgency, and displays a sense of humor, too, adding comic musical counterpoint to the proceedings.

But it’s the Sandy Dennis and Jack Lemmon who hold the entire film together with their outstanding performances and palpable screen chemistry, a seemingly mismatched couple but actually a Classic Movie Dream Team. They are the reason I return to this movie again and again.

 (The less said about the execrable 1990s remake, the better, despite the presence of Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin, whom I love in other films.)

This is an entry in the Mismatched Couples Blogathon hosted by Realweegiemidget Reviews and Cinematic Catharsis. What fun we’ll all have this weekend!

The Force is Still With Us

I was 11 years old when the original Star Wars came out in 1977, and I found myself going back week after week to see it again and again…I think a total of 14 times that summer and fall. (Remember, this was before the advent of home video…when a movie left the theaters, it was possibly gone forever, unless it appeared on television many years later, interrupted by commercials and viewed on the very small screens of the ’70s.)

Star Wars was more than just a movie, or a trilogy, or a film series. It became part of the fabric of our collective consciousness, where it remains to this day. For kids of the 1970s and the ’80s, the first three films (Episodes IV, V and VI) of the series are especially dear.

It was the brainchild of an ambitious young filmmaker. George Lucas (American Graffiti) was close friends with Spielberg, Brian de Palma, Francis Ford Coppola—some of the masters of 1970s cinema—and there was a definite rivalry and competition among them about who would “make it” and get ahead first. (Coppola hit it big first with The Godfather.) 

Archetypal: The Hero's Journey and epic struggle between Good & Evil

Star Wars would solidify Lucas as a Force to be reckoned with. For his magnum opus, Lucas was working on a modern version of the old 1930s-40s B-movie sci-fi serials like the popular Flash Gordon programmers that starred handsome Buster Crabbe in a sequin-studded space suit.

So much more than an entertaining space opera, Star Wars created a worldwide, generation-spanning phenomenon. Lucas’s vision spawned not only beloved unforgettable characters but an entire imaginary universe, an entire human-extraterrestrial history and cosmology, and a philosophy that is literally practiced as a religion by a small percentage of earth’s population. 

With Star Wars, George Lucas continued the establishment of a sci-fi multiverse envisioned by 20th century sci-fi writers and futurists including writer Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey) and producer Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek).

The Star Wars saga touches upon and recalls so many elements of philosopher and teacher Joseph Campbell’s work on the The Power of Myth, exemplifying his Hero’s Journey narrative and archetypes—the storytelling elements that create “universal appeal”

Indeed, when first released, Star Wars was likened to a futuristic Wizard of Oz—on some of the 1977 movie posters you can even find find homages to a a space-age Dorothy, Cowardly Lion and Tin Man. 

Multidimensional aspects of the storytelling point to a time-bending multiverse by associating sci-fi themes with the traditional “once upon a time” fairy tale preamble: “A long, long, time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Artoo and Threepio: As emotional and flawed as their human counterparts

Technology and robotics figure prominently in the George Lucas galactic weltenschaung.  What makes the treatment different here are that the robots—called ’droids in Lucas’s world— are even more emotional than the humans….C3P0 in particular frets and worries and bemoans the fate of their unending servitude and the vicissitudes of life in general. “We seem to be made to suffer; it’s our lot in life,” he wails, even as he and R2 faithfully and loyally serve their human masters.  The fiercely loyal, cagey and versatile R2D2 (who plugs into any system) has a one-track mind to fulfill whatever mission he is programmed with, but he does have a total devotion to his masters, particularly Luke Skywalker. 

The ‘droids also serve an important role in the unfolding of the saga, serving as a Greek chorus by commentating on the action as well as giving background exposition when necessary. 

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker

Despite their endless scientific and empirical knowledge and AI, Lucas’s ’droids prove statistics are not the keys to peace and serenity. Indeed, these robot characters display fears, issues and imperfect personality traits as pronounced as those of the humanoid heroes. 

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa

Of course, in addition to the pyrotechnics, pioneering special effects that heralded the birth of CGI (Lucas also fathered Industrial Light & Magic), were iconic performances by an ensemble of actors whose characterizations brought those old archetypes to life in a new and unique way. (And of course, we may forget, even the robots and space creatures are enacted by talented humans as well.)

Mark Hamill (Corvette Summer, The Last Jedi) is Luke Skywalker, the young protagonist with whom we embark on this epic hero’s journey. Lovers of the original trilogy will notice that Hamill’s physical appearance changes markedly after the first film. A serious car accident between filming of the first and second films required extensive reconstructive surgery. So, for Empire Strikes Back, Lucas wrote in an attack from a wampa (that looked much like the abominable snowman in the Rankin-Bass claymation Christmas classics) in which Luke was uncharacteristically bloodied. 

Harrison Ford as Han Solo

Harrison Ford is the laconic mercenary Han Solo, desperately trying to hide his sensitivity and heart of gold under a layer of machismo. Throughout the 1980s, Harrison Ford played a number of heroic characters, most notably the title role in Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones series. Later in the decade, director Mike Nichols would bring out Ford’s vulnerable and romantic and human sides as the actor gave unforgettable performances in films like Working Girl and Regarding Henry. But Ford’s bread-and-butter roles would always be as action hero. 

Darth Vader, portrayed by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones

Carrie Fisher (Shampoo, Hannah and Her Sisters) is the fearless and canny Princess Leia, one of the architects of the rebel alliance against the evil Empire.  Not content to rest on her laurels as an iconic sex symbol and action figure, Fisher, daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, was a true artistic renaissance woman—a brilliant novelist and Hollywood screenwriter and script doctor, who parlayed her unusual upbringing (a Hollywood soap opera in itself) into acerbic comic gold in the book and film of her autobiographical roman a clef Postcards from the Edge. Fisher’s untimely death at age 60 cut short her later missions as General Leia in the continuation of the saga, though of course she did appear in both The Force Awakens and Last Jedi.

Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian

Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi

Sir Alec Guinness (Bridge on the River Kwai, Murder By Death) lends acting gravitasse as the wise old Jedi Master Obi Wan “Ben” Kenobi. Peter Mayhew, without a single line of dialogue but an expressive and emotive animal-instinct style of communication, is the brave, skilled and loving wookie Chewbacca. 

Peter Cushing (Dracula AD 1972, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed), American International horror star of the 1960s beside cohort Christopher Lee (who would join the Star Wars franchise in the 1990s-2000s with parts I, II and III), is the deliciously diabolical Grand Moff Tarkin with his clipped posh British delivery (so powerful that newcomer Fisher found herself falling into a faux British accent herself in her scenes with Cushing, which she ruefully and humorously admits on the video commentary.)  

James Earl Jones (Sounder, The Great White Hope) provides the sonorous voice that gave life to one of the cinema’s most elegant villains (as well as the tagline of global cable news network CNN!), the dark Jedi Knight Darth Vader— a wounded human bolstered by AI and robotics, the labored breath of the human still heard within his bionic, computer-aided mobility…the mind of a Jedi Master in sinister service to the Dark Side.

Peter Mayhew as Chewy

Frank Oz gives life to Yoda

A golden, electronic version of  the Tin Man of Oz, Anthony Daniels frets and worries as the neurotic Cyborg Relations ’droid—with adventures ranging from having his golden casings blown to bits by storm troopers and put back together by Chewbacca, to being worshipped by the Ewoks on the forest moon of Endor, by virtue of his shiny gold visage, bright flashing eyes and ability to communicate in their language.

Frank Oz, the brilliant puppeteer behind Muppet superstars Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, brings to life the character of the wise, deep and wizened Jedi teacher Yoda, who speaks in with Socratic solemnity in a cute purring baby-voice. 

The costume that ignited many an adolescent hormone

Empire introduced the debonair Billy Dee Williams (Brian’s Song, Lady Sings the Blues) in the character of Lando Calrissian (played by Donald Glover in the recent prequel Solo), who joins the existing ensemble, continuing through Return of the Jedi.

In 1977 the original Star Wars film broke all attendance records and became the highest grossing film of all time. Today, it is #2 on filmsite.org’s list of Top 100 All-Time Films (domestic gross, adjusted for inflation, as of January 2019) between Gone with the Wind and The Sound of Music. (Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi also made the Top 20, along with 1999’s Phantom Menace and 2015’s Force Awakens.)

The rousing score by John Williams (The Poseidon Adventure, Schindler’s List), with a theme even more recognizable than the ones for The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia, adds immeasurably to the Star Wars iconography. 

Luke, Ben, R2D2 and C3P0

In the 1990s, as the home video market boomed and Lucas planned the next three chapters of the story to unfold on the big screen, (actually the prequel to parts IV, V and VI), he revamped and remastered and reworked entire sequences to the original trilogy of films, adding CGI effects as well as actors and characters and creatures from the upcoming parts I, II and III, in order to tie the series together and create continuity. Most millennial viewers are unaware of the renovation of these first three films, and indeed, copies of those original cuts are exceedingly rare. 

It is quite an amazing feat to give birth to a new version of reality...a story to which practically everyone on the planet can relate. For me, the original Star Wars trilogy is epic storytelling at its creative zenith. May the Force continue to be with us!

This is an entry in the Robots in Film Blogathon hosted by The Midnight Drive-In and Hamlette’s Soliloquy. I look forward to reading the other entries and exploring new blog worlds and galaxies! 

Lady Diana: A Supreme Movie Debut

In November 2017 the American Music Awards bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on Miss Diana Ross, and it was a triumphant moment—dazzlingly attired, with a voluminous cape resembling a rare bird’s plumage, Ross commanded the stage for a brief medley of her greatest hits, and it was almost like the old days. We had not seen The Boss sparkle like that for a long time.

Miss Ross has been a star for more than half a century—first as the incandescent apex of an iconic girl group and later as a spectacular solo act and legendary diva. But it was her startling film debut, playing another celebrated singer of yesteryear, that cemented her position as the enduring superstar she remains to this day.

Not all singers are meant to be movie stars, too. (Just ask Madonna and Mariah.) But Diana is, and basically on the strength of just one very successful film performance. In Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Diana Ross proved herself an actress and a force to be reckoned with. It took drive, guts and real talent to portray the troubled jazz singer Billie Holliday, as Ross did to universal acclaim.

It was Motown Records and a singing trio called the Supremes that launched Detroit native Diana Ross on the road to stardom. Before they were Supremes, they had been called the Primettes. As a Primette, young Diana sang backup with her friend Mary Wilson while big boned, trumpet-voiced Florence Ballard dominated as lead singer.

Of course, as soon as they were signed by Motown and Berry Gordy and renamed the Supremes, it was decided that pretty, waiflike Diana was the one whose star power shone brightest, and she was made lead singer and central focus of the group. Florence Ballard never recovered from that demotion; she eventually left the group and was replaced by Cindy Birdsong; Ballard died at age 32 in 1976.

Florence, Mary, Diana

Mary, Diana, Cindy

The story of the fabled 1960s girl group was dramatized in the fictionalized Broadway musical Dreamgirls, made into a 2006 film starring Beyonce, Jennifer Hudson and Jamie Foxx. (Sometimes fiction and myth can tell a story even more effectively than the facts.)

Diana left the Supremes in 1970 (replaced by Jean Terrell and plunging the remaining group members into relative obscurity) and producer Berry Gordy focused all his promotional—and personal—energies on Diana and her career. Though Gordy and Diana did carry carry on an on-again, off-again affair (Gordy is now acknowledged as the father of Diana’s daughter Rhonda, born in 1971), their prime focus was always on the Diana Ross brand—and their collaboration on their dream film project, the Billie Holliday musical biography.

Diana Ross and Berry Gordy

Helmed by director Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File) but closely supervised by Gordy, Lady Sings the Blues is a multilayered and satisfying film on so many levels. It is at once a timeless romance, an epic period musical spanning the age of Tin Pan Alley to the Big Band era, a frank exploration of 20th century racism, and a harrowing look at crippling drug addiction.

As the talented and tragic Lady Day, Diana Ross is mesmerizing. Not only does she sing more than a dozen of Holliday’s iconic hits and classic standards, Ross imbues those songs with deeper meaning, relating them to Holliday’s personal troubles and addictions, appearing to perform under the influence of heroin and alcohol, as Holliday too often did—indeed, that may have been a part of her magic. (Interestingly, throughout her career, Billie Holliday had been criticized for her thin, reedy voice; the same charge had often been leveled at Diana Ross herself.)

Diana Ross as Billie Holliday

Obviously a natural Method actor, Ross is equally raw and real in the dramatic scenes, as she believably portrays the performer from her young teenage years to adulthood and struggles with a growing dependence on heroin and the rigors of life on the road.

The film is absorbing and entertaining, with surprisingly poignant moments that use Holliday’s music to illustrate evocative and disturbing scenes (the “Strange Fruit” montage brings to life the horror of the lynchings in the South), yet leavening its sober subject matter with occasional lightness and humor, as in the comedic bordello sequence with veteran character actor Scatman Crothers as Big Ben.

The film also features a memorable supporting turn by Richard Pryor as the kindhearted and humorous Piano Man, who  befriends and helps Billie get her career started but finds himself as hopelessly addicted to the White Lady as Lady Day herself.

Richard Pryor as Piano Man

Billy Dee Williams as Louis Mackay

As a silver screen couple, Diana Ross met her romantic match in suave, dreamy Billy Dee Williams, playing Holliday’s longtime love Louis Mackay, who drifts in and out of the singer’s life, unable to help her kick the drug habit and settle down to a healthier, happier, normal life. (I always thought of Williams as the black Omar Sharif, because his character reminded me of Nicky Arnstein in a musical biopic set in the same era, Funny Girl).

Ross’s bravura performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, putting her in that very small group of African American actors to be so honored. In 1955, Dorothy Dandridge had been the first African American Best Actress Oscar nominee, making Ross and fellow 1972 nominee Cicely Tyson (for Sounder) the second and third, respectively. (Halle Berry would become the first African American Best Actress Oscar winner, three decades later.)

The film’s screenplay was also honored by the Academy. (And Motown’s Suzanne de Passe was the first African American woman to be nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar for Lady Sings the Blues.)

The night of the Oscars, Liza Minnelli won the gold as the iconic Sally Bowles in the innovative, groundbreaking Bob Fosse musical Cabaret. If Liza had not been nominated, Diana would surely have won that Best Actress Academy Award; polls had the two women neck-in-neck in the Oscar horse race. (Liza has said that she was certain that Diana would win that night.)

Lady Sings the Blues was the peak of the Ross film career, but would an Oscar win have changed its trajectory? Mahogany (costarring Billy Dee again) would prove a critical disaster and The Wiz (with Michael Jackson) a box office bomb. (But then again, Ms. Minnelli endured flop after flop after winning that Oscar as well—A Matter of Time, Lucky Lady and New York, New York were all ignominious failures.)

Over the years, Ross was announced for a number of interesting projects, most notably The Bodyguard opposite Ryan O’Neal (made years later with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner), but ended up, to date, never making another feature film after The Wiz.

It’s a shame that Miss Ross has appeared in so few films after such an auspicious debut, but the strength of that one performance is undeniable, and the film holds up well more than 45 years later.