Six decades of film Jameses

Yahoo! Today is  "National Classic Movie Day", and I'm celebrating virtually with my fellow classic film bloggers. This year, bloggers are writing about one favorite film from each of six decades of film history as part of a blogathon hosted by Rick of Classic Movie and TV Cafe. Check out all the posts by going to Rick's site here - there really is no better way to build up your watch list of great classics than through recommendations of this group of bloggers!

In addition to being "National Classic Movie Day", May 16th will always be a special day for me - my dad's birthday. So, for my entry in this year's blogathon, I'm taking a cue from Turner Classic Movies - during May their 'star' of the month is "Movie Roberts"-- and building my list of favorites around "Movie Jameses" in honor of my own favorite James. 

1920s: James Murray (1901-1936) The Crowd (1928)

Sadly, James Murray is known for the leading part in this movie and very little else. Originally from New York, Murray's big dream was to have a career in Hollywood, and his dream came true when famed director King Vidor found him in a casting office and, impressed with his skills, cast him in The Crowd. He did go on to make a few more films before falling victim to depression, substance abuse, and homelessness. He ultimately died at only 35 years old after drowning in what may have been a suicide. 

James Murray

Watch The Crowd because...it represents the best of the art of the silent film. It's at once visually stunning and biting in its social commentary ... a story of a young couple struggling to make it in the big city. Opposite James Murray was cast Eleanor Boardman, director Vidor's second wife. Ironically, it was made a couple of years before the stock market crash that launched the Great Depression. Director King Vidor was one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his career spanned the birth of pictures through to the early 1960s. 

1930s: James Cagney,  (1899-1986), Footlight Parade (1933)

Diminutive Irish-American actor James Cagney is, of course, a titan of Classic Hollywood cinema, and a personal favorite. His talents were made for the screen, whether he's singing and dancing (for example, Yankee Doodle Dandy), or rubbing out foes that ran afoul of any number of gangster characters he portrayed (The Public Enemy). Cagney's career really took off in the 1930s, and even though he had many terrific parts in later decades, his pre-Code films are my favorites.

James Cagney (from Wikipedia)

I chose to highlight Footlight Parade, first because Cagney isn't a gangster here, he's an eternally optimistic theatrical producer who can (shock!) sing and dance. And who doesn't like watching him dance? The backstage plot revolves around Cagney's efforts to corral assorted players and sell theatrical "prologues", live showpieces that precede feature films at big-city movie houses. Almost everyone in the Warner Bros. stable is there, with Joan Blondell toning it down a bit but making a wonderful partner for Cagney, Dick Powell, Rudy Keeler (the two of them reprising their romance from 42nd Street), Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh, and more. And then there are the fabulous musical extravaganza numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Be aware of some unfortunate dated elements; otherwise, this is a fabulous romp. Directed by Lloyd Bacon.

1940s: James Stewart, (1908-1997), The Philadelphia Story (1940)

James Stewart has little in common with Cagney, but he shares the versatility and screen legend status. Just a bit younger than Cagney, his career really took off starting in the 1940s, and The Philadelphia Story was one of his first major leading man breaks (would you believe he played the villain in the second 'Thin Man' film in 1936?) Stewart was a WWII hero, and upon returning home after the war, found he could channel some of the darkness in his personality into his later roles. He became, like one of his Philadelphia Story co-stars Cary Grant, a favorite of Alfred Hitchcock. 

James Stewart (Wikipedia)

The first time I saw The Philadephia Story I didn't like it. It seemed overly stagy and contrived. Then I had the opportunity to watch a special screening at my local cinema and was completely entranced as the subtleties that make the movie were so much more apparent. Stewart and Cary Grant orbit around society damsel Katharine Hepburn on the eve of her marriage to staid bachelor George Kittridge. All kinds of shenanigans ensue. The witty script and pitch-perfect portrayals by the leads and supporting players alike make this one a must-see. I especially love British actor Roland Young as Uncle Willie. Directed by George Cukor, this was just one of four films Stewart made in 1940. 

1950s:  James Dean (1931-1955), East of Eden (1955)
Here is another titan of film. But unlike Cagney & Stewart, his titan status is based on his potential, as seen in a total of three films he made in 1955, and that wasn't fully realized as he tragically died later that year in a car accident at age 24. (It's really hard to imagine that Dean would be 90 this year). But Dean in many ways emblemizes the 1950s, not least because of the teenage rebellion issue that seemed to capture the public imagination then, so this actor of eternal youth is my choice for this decade.

James Dean (Wikipedia)

East of Eden was actually Dean's first of his three feature films - and it's a meaty role in the film version of Steinbeck's novel which had come out only three years before. And it's not set in the 1950s, but right after WWI, focusing on the generational struggles of a family in the Salinas Valley of California, and the uncovering of secrets. Directed by Elia Kazan, it has an epic feel. Dean was able to showcase the range of attitudes he brought to a character: defiance, vulnerability, sweetness, and roughness. Julie Harris is wonderful as the love interest of both brothers in the Trask family, and Raymond Massey brings life to the difficult character of the father, a role he said was the best in his career.

1960s: James Coburn (1928-2002), The Magnificent Seven (1960)
The Magnificent Seven was a career-launching film for James Coburn, an actor who had toiled in minor parts. Here, director John Sturges cast him as Britt, a knife-thrower and sharpshooter who talks only with his weapons. Coburn has a classic scene in this film in which his wiry body and taciturn nature belies his deadliness when provoked. Coburn went on to a long career in film and television, playing rough-and-tumble types in action or Western flicks. 

James Coburn (IMDb)

I watched The Magnificent Seven for the first time last year. I was afraid that it might be one of those films that didn't live up to its classic reputation. Thankfully, I was wrong. In the hands of director John Sturges, who loved the source material, Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, it is a compact, beautifully shot piece of Western entertainment. And I readily bought Russian-born Yul Brynner as the mercurial but tough leader of the gang who tries to protect a Mexican village from a group of marauders led by the great Eli Wallach. Steve McQueen is a second lead here and almost succeeds in taking the picture from Brynner. The film is also known for its evocative score by Elmer Bernstein. 

1970s: James Caan (1940-), The Godfather (1972)

And now for the young-un in the bunch: James Caan, who is still with us. A New York native who got his start on the stage, Caan cemented his star status as the lead in the TV movie Brian's Song in 1971. He then won the role of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather over Robert De Niro. His manic, explosive energy was put to good use -- he even had one of the most memorable death scenes in the movies. He garnered a nod for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar along with co-stars Robert Duvall and Al Pacino. He continued as a leading man and supporting actor over the subsequent decades, overcoming substance abuse issues and a rocky personal life. He also dabbled in directing and lived out his tough-guy persona as a Master of Gosoku Ryu Karate.

James Caan (IMDb)

The Godfather ranks as #3 in the American Film Institute of best films, and it set the standard for modern mob dramas. It's character-driven, and epic, running nearly three hours. There are several storylines that criss-cross in mostly tragic ways. In the end, The Godfather is dead, from natural causes, and the reluctant son is stepping into those shoes, poised to become even more of a monster. Despite that, you rather root for these Corleone mobsters, while despising them more for the way they treat the women in their lives than the way they dispatch their enemies. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and followed up by a sequel many consider the original's superior.

For more recommendations of classics through the decades, head over to Rick's Classic Film and TV Cafe for the master list of bloggers sharing their favorites.

Getting to know Busby Berkeley - thanks to the Harvard Film Archive

As a new classic film fan, after I heard the name just once or twice, the first image my mind conjured of Busby Berkeley came directly from the improbable sing-song throwback-style name.  It was an image of a simpler time, but also one of extravagance and fun, decadence and flamboyance. In a vague sort of way I'd picked up that this man was responsible for a number of spectacles in the early years of Hollywood. And that much was true.  He was a musical-number choreographer responsible for kaleidoscopic, dazzling, often surreal visual images of human bodies, mostly leggy women, punctuating depression-era tales such as 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933 or 1935, or 1937, into the MGM musical heyday of For Me and My Gal, and Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

Berkeley (1895-1976) as a young man

Thanks to the retrospective at the Harvard Film Archive over the past several weeks, Mr. Berkeley's image has come into much clearer focus for me.  Here's a collection of some of my observations thanks to the several films (all from the 1930s) that I treated myself to there, as well as a rare screening of a French television interview (Cineastes de notre temps) with Mr. Berkeley in the 1970s.

A typical image of chorus girls in formation as shot from above.  

Interesting Facts from Berkeley's Biography and Career 

• While born in LA, he actually spent a few of his early years in my adopted state of Massachusetts, and toiled away in the legitimate theater locally, before moving to Broadway, and then Hollywood.
• The inspiration for his complex, timed dance maneuvers was stated to have emerged from his days during WWI in the army setting up marching companies of soldiers.  Interestingly, in the French TV interview, he dramatically plays down this influence.  Read more here in this New Yorker piece by Richard Brody.
• By using the camera, through its placement and movement capability to show performances that could *only* be done by the new medium of the moving picture.  In fact, many of his early movies had 'backstage' narratives, allowing multiple moments of stage performances, which would morph, right before your eyes, from rather static two dimensional views to brilliant, ethereal, multi-dimensional moving images disconnected from time, or even gravity  A good example of this can be seen here in this scene from Gold Diggers of 1933.
• He advanced from choreographer to director, but the later films in which he directs aren't quite as visually spectacular.
• He struggled with alcoholism, was married six times, and was responsible for the death of three people from a car accident, which haunted him for many years, and was said to have cost him at least two Academy Awards.
• His work underwent a rediscovery of sorts in the 1970s.  

The Films (those designated with * are new to me from this retrospective)

*Night World (1932) Directed by Hobart Henley for Universal, this one is a dark, *very* pre-code tale of love and loss in a seedy speakeasy.  It stars Lew Ayres, fresh off his lauded performance in All Quiet on the Western Front, Mae Clarke as the showgirl with the heart of gold, and Boris Karloff as the unpleasant owner of the speakeasy.  George Raft also appears in a small role.  There is a staged number in the middle of the film in which a small group of young chorus girls perform a musical number as the nightclub's entertainment, and some of the usual Berkeley touches, ceiling camera, camera through the parallel legs of the girls, etc., are featured.  While not a spectacular film, it's entertaining for it's 58 minute run time.  Lew Ayres was a terrific drunk, and Clarence Muse, an African-American actor, played the club's doorman dealing with a personal problem.  Muse's character was sympathetic and well-drawn, significantly more so than the typical minority character of that era.

Alice Brady & Adolphe Menjou

*Gold Diggers of 1935 No doubt the best in this series is the first Gold Diggers of 1933, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one, Berkeley's first sole directorial feature.  Now that the Production Code was being enforced, much of the pre-code charm of the earlier film was off limits, and a new kind of charm had to be found.  In this case, the film played much more as a screwball comedy, a genre that was on the rise at this time in the mid-1930s.  However, the pacing, musical numbers, and comedy all are in harmony for good time.  Dick Powell is back, but this time his leading lady is Gloria Stuart, a gifted actress but without the infectious personality of a Joan Blondell.  I loved Alice Brady, who'd won me over with her portrayal of Carole Lombard's zany mother in My Man Godfrey.  Here she is...wait for it...a zany mother...who is frugal to the extreme, but wants to see her daughter (Stuart) married off to a wealthy but hopelessly clueless snuff-box historian, of all things.  The family is vacationing in an up-state resort hotel, with Adolphe Menjou as the hired producer to put on a show, and Powell is a hotel employee who has greater ambitions.  Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell, and Grant Mitchell all shine in memorable secondary roles.  

Footlight Parade I saw this one during last year's "Members' Weekend" at the HFA.  In addition to the fabulous choreographed numbers, most near the end of this spectacle, I recommend this one for a young James Cagney in a pre-code in which he was NOT playing a gangster.  As a theater impresario he was a blast to watch. 

*Fast and Furious  This was a relatively minor offering, not to be confused with a series of films from earlier this century starring Vin Diesel, that I saw as the second of a double feature with Night World.  Berkeley directs, ably, but there are no major musical numbers.  It's a cut rate "Thin Man" style murder mystery with sparring husband-and-wife detectives, here played by Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern.  There was a fair amount of slapstick humor with a lion loose in a hotel (the MGM lion??).

*Whoopee (1933)The last film I saw in the retrospective was Berkeley's first.  The HFA located a digital version of a restored print, which looked pretty good, with its two-strip technicolor.   This is a decidedly racist Eddie Cantor vehicle, with a relative mild blackface scene, but outside of those parts I found it hilarious and highly entertaining nonetheless.  A comic/western/romance, this was a big hit on Broadway and the film version was also a winner with the public.

Eddie Cantor as a rich hypochondriac with his smitten nurse,
Ethel Shutta (photo from IMDb)

The other Berkeley films I've seen are:   *42nd Street (1933);  Gold Diggers of 1933, Roman Scandals (1933).