John Huston: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

John Huston’s first film after World War II was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), re-teaming him with producer Henry Blanke and star Humphrey Bogart from The Maltese Falcon. Huston won Oscars for his screenplay and directing, and he directed his father, Walter, in an Oscar-winning performance. The film in on the AFI’s list of the top 100 films.

Huston returned to the theme of a failed quest, with three drifters prospecting for gold. The titular treasure lends the film its other key themes: gold can corrupt the best of men; the difference between honesty and trustworthiness; and money isn’t everything.

Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, a role that posed some risks for the actor, who had spent the last several years playing heroic characters to break his early bad-guy typecasting. Dobbs, however, was no mere two-dimensional villain. We meet him as a broke American expatriate in Tampico, Mexico, begging for change from an American tourist, played by John Huston. Dobbs and another American expatriate (Curtin, played by Tim Holt) are offered work, for which they are not paid. They meet up with aging prospector Howard (Walter Huston), who tells them about a deposit of gold in the Sierra Madre. Dobbs, Curtin, and Howard agree to mine the gold together, making promises about the treasure and each other. The wizened Howard warns of the pitfalls of such arrangements: “As long as there’s no find, the noble brotherhood will last. But when the piles of gold begin to grow, that’s when the trouble starts.”

The longer the three treasure hunters spend in the wilderness, the more Dobbs begins to lose his connection to reality. He starts talking to himself, and becomes convinced that Curtin and Howard are trying to cheat him out of his share of the gold. This descent into madness provides Bogart with one of his best opportunities to show what he can do as an actor.

Along the way, the characters must make decisions regarding the trustworthiness of one another and the other characters they meet. Dobbs, Curtin, and Howard are perfectly honest when they make their plans at the outset, but Howard, ever the voice of reason, says “I know what kind of ideas even supposedly decent people get when gold’s at stake.” Later, when the three of them cross paths with Cody, a prospector from Texas, they try to disguise their purpose in the jungle; Cody sees through their attempted subterfuge, and tries to ingratiate himself with the trio. He never fully gains Dobbs’ trust, and ends up paying dearly for it.

Dobbs’ and Curtin’s lack of money at the beginning of the story provides a powerful and understandable motivation for the pursuit of the gold in Sierra Madre. Howard tries to inform them of the dangers along the way, including priorities: “Water’s precious; sometimes it can be more precious than gold.” Dobbs’ obsession with the treasure blinds him to what he stands to lose, but Curtin learns from his losses, and the audience can see him following Howard like a surrogate son and learning everything the old man has to teach.

The use of music in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre deserves a special mention. As the three main characters make their way through the Mexican jungle, the music is bright and up-tempo to reflect Howard’s expertise and enthusiasm; the same theme is brought down-tempo to underscore how difficult the same journey is for the much younger Dobbs and Curtin. Later, as Dobbs goes more obviously mad, the string-heavy music starts to sound like bees (a musical idea that’s been used in similar ways in more recent films, including The Dark Knight).

Earlier in the film, during a fight in a bar, however, no music backs up the action. The fight looks less choreographed than much action in more recent films, and the film does not manipulate the audience’s reaction to the violence in the scene.

John Huston’s vision as a director was mature from the start, but The Treasure of the Sierra Madre established him as a major force in film.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston

Discovering Treasure: The Story of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

John Huston: The Maltese Falcon

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Maltese Falcon (1941).

John Huston’s adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which is one of the more important debut efforts by a director, followed the source material closely. Huston made changes to few scenes, and added only a new, slightly altered ending. Two previous adaptations of the novel did not perform well at the box office, and the studio did not expect much from Huston’s version. While Huston’s screenplay was faithful to the novel, his vision for the film included a deeper understanding of the themes of the novel than the earlier films had. Audiences and critics received Huston’s adaptation so enthusiastically that Huston went on to direct all of his subsequent screenplays except one, Three Strangers (1946).

Huston’s preparation with extensive storyboarding allowed the crew to work efficiently, which was important for the film’s tight budget. Because Huston was a trained artist, he was able to communicate camera angles and movement, composition, and lighting in his storyboards.

The casting of Bogart as Sam Spade proved to be important to both Huston and Bogart, who would work together several more times. Prior to The Maltese Falcon, Bogart had been typecast as a villain or a heavy; this flawed but heroic role allowed him to take on a variety of roles that had been denied him, such as romantic leads (Casablanca, Sabrina). Bogart would give better performances in other films, but he gave Spade more dimension and humanity than Hammett gave him in the novel.

Huston’s The Maltese Falcon became the model for future detective melodramas. The writing, direction, and production were clean and uncomplicated. By limiting the scenes of action, Huston created a sense of claustrophobia or paranoia that would characterize film noir. Elements of Huston’s work here certainly influenced other great noir films, including The Big Sleep and Double Indemnity.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fnf97n2.html

USPS Great Directors: John Huston

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon discusses the career and influence of John Huston.

John Huston began his career in film as a script editor, but soon began writing dialogue and then complete screenplays. His success as a writer led to Warner Brothers giving him a chance to direct, with his choice of material. His first directorial effort was The Maltese Falcon (1941). Because previous adaptations of the Dashiell Hammett novel had not done well at the box office, Warners had low expectations for it and gave it a small budget and B-movie level marketing, but it was a critical smash.

Like John Ford, Huston shot very few takes; unlike Ford, Huston relied on storyboards. Each sketch indicated the framing and lighting of a scene. This allowed him to shoot only what he wanted and minimize the editor’s work. His training as an artist allowed him to visualize scenes as he wanted them. He thought that whatever the human eyes can do, the camera should be able to do also. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Huston explained that blinking is like cutting.

While not a universal theme in Huston’s films, the heroic quest is probably the most consistent theme he explored during his career, and he seemed to prefer stories in which the quest, whether for material gain, power, or romantic love, fails. Huston was not much of a fan of happy endings, and this probably contributed to his films’ inconsistent performance at the box office.

Huston also worked as an actor, sometimes in his own films (e.g., Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Bible: In the Beginning), sometimes in the films of other directors (e.g., Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown).

Some of Huston’s best-known and best-loved films include: The Maltese Falcon (1941, to be reviewed), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, to be reviewed), The Asphalt Jungle (1950, to be reviewed), Key Largo (1948, to be reviewed), The African Queen (1951, to be reviewed), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Misfits (1961), The Man Who Would Be King (1975, to be reviewed), and Prizzi’s Honor (1985). He directed films for which his father (Walter Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and his daughter (Anjelica Huston, Prizzi's Honor) won Academy Awards.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston

Creativity with Bill Moyers: John Huston

Who Was Supposed to Play Forrest Gump?

We've all heard stories about the casting of iconic characters in film history and had daydreams or perhaps nightmares about other actors in those iconic roles. Do we really want to think about the possibility that Ronald Reagan might have played Rick in Casablanca?

 The Atlantic has a feature from its partner site Flavorpill about ten actors who almost did not play their iconic roles, including Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump).

John Ford: Just Pals

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews Just Pals.

Just Pals (1920), an early John Ford film, tells the story of a town bum, Bim (Buck Jones), and a runaway kid (Georgie Stone), both despised by the townsfolk, but who become each other’s salvation. Both the bum and the kid have character flaws that allow the audience to understand why the rest of the town would prefer to have nothing to do with them, but they also have enough redeeming qualities that the audience will follow them on their convoluted journey.

This silent feature shows how the silent era informed John Ford’s style of filmmaking. Not all of the dialogue is shown to the audience—people don’t go to the movies to read, after all. While there is more dialogue in Ford’s sound films, it’s still as minimal as possible.

The way Ford used the camera had been firmly established by the time of Just Pals. The camera rarely, if ever, moves, and there are few close-ups. The cinematography feels more pedestrian than that of Ford’s better-known films, but there are still some beautifully framed shots.

Unfortunately, the story invites comparison to Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, which is far and away the better film of the two. Ford's film is less sentimental, but because of hints at a possible romance between Bim and Mary Bruce (Helen Ferguson) and plot developments that jeopardize her life and reputation, the story is much more complicated, perhaps more so than it needs to be.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0011358/

John Ford: Mister Roberts

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews Mister Roberts.

Mister Roberts has the distinction of being a John Ford film that was not entirely directed by John Ford.

In 1955, Warner Bros. hired John Ford to direct Mister Roberts, a Naval comedy about a lieutenant junior grade on a supply ship with ambitions for battle. The film was based on the play of the same name, which had been playing on Broadway for years with Henry Fonda in the title role. Warners wanted William Holden or Marlon Brando for the role because they thought Fonda had spent too much time on stage to be a draw at the box office, but Ford insisted on Fonda.

Ford had conflicts with Fonda and James Cagney on the set. Attempts by producer Leland Hayward to settle the issues between Ford and Fonda had the result instead of creating a rift between them that lasted well beyond the production of Mister Roberts. After some time, Ford suffered a ruptured gallbladder and underwent surgery for it. The studio replaced Ford with Mervyn LeRoy and Joshua Logan (uncredited).

According to Jack Lemmon, LeRoy watched the scenes that Ford had already filmed and “decided to shoot (the rest) the way John Ford would have shot ‘em.” Fonda requested that Logan, who had directed the play, reshoot some of the scenes Ford had already done. It’s easy to think that too many cooks ruin the soup, but Mister Roberts holds together very well (even if some elements of dialogue or humor may feel dated). LeRoy did a good enough job mimicking Ford’s style that it can be challenging to determine which scenes were his and which Ford’s.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Roberts_%281955_film%29

John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Grapes of Wrath.

John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath, based on John Steinbeck’s novel, is a study in deliberate use of camera. Ford has a reputation for not moving the camera, to the point that any camera movement is quickly forgotten. Orson Welles has been quoted as saying that “Ford never moved the camera”—clearly an exaggeration. In The Grapes of Wrath, camera movement is minimal, but present. A few examples include: the second unit pans to follow Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) as he walks to a general store, and again as the truck in which he rides drives away; Ford mounted the camera to the front of the Joad family truck as they drove into a camp in California, efficiently showing the size of the camp and the extent of the squalor.

Throughout The Grapes of Wrath, Ford uses 2-shots to depict the relationships of the characters, while using close-ups only to emphasize the importance of what a character says. These techniques are on display in all of Ford’s films, of course, but their use seems particularly seamless here.

Ford also uses light deliberately. When Tom Joad and Casey (John Carradine) arrive at the old Joad home, candlelight creates tension and a sense of mystery and uncertainty. Later, when Tom and Casey are reunited in California, Casey moves in and out of shadow as he tells Tom what he’s learned about the way businesses treat their workers. Casey’s fidgeting and his moving in and out of light create another kind of tension—not just of uncertainty, but of danger.

In 1958, John Steinbeck wrote to Henry Fonda of his fondness of Ford’s adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath. “It’s a wonderful picture, just as good as it ever was,” he wrote. “It doesn’t look dated, and very few people have ever made a better one…” (p.603). While it might look dated now, compared to modern cinema’s apparent requirement of quick cuts and extensive camera movement, it still tells a difficult story clearly and well.

Watch the trailer here.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford

Steinbeck, John. 1975. A Life in Letters, Penguin Books, New York, NY.

http://stage.dga.org/news/v25_3/news_malaga.php3

John Ford: My Darling Clementine

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews My Darling Clementine (preview version).

The preview version of My Darling Clementine demonstrates the reason for John Ford’s mistrust of the studios. The final version of the film, which was the result of test audience comments and studio influence over production and post-production, was a success at the box office, but the preview gives the viewer a better idea of what Ford had in mind. The film tells a highly fictionalized version of the events leading Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) to become sheriff of Tombstone and the gunfight at the OK Corral.

In addition to this “in-progress” version of the film, the DVD with the preview features a documentary showing both the preview and final versions, with a narrator explaining who made which changes, and in some cases also why the changes were made. The viewer can compare the original scene introducing the fictional character “Chihuahua” (Linda Darnell) with the much-edited version from the final film. Another scene is shown with and without music. The final scene from the preview version is contrasted with the same scene from the final film and its added kiss.

Producer Darryl F. Zanuck made most of the changes to My Darling Clementine. No stranger to filmmaking, Zanuck understood Hollywood and the film business as well as anyone. Zanuck had produced several of Ford’s films for 20th Century Fox, including How Green Was My Valley, which Ford considered his favorite of his own films. Ford had already learned to edit in camera as much as possible by the time he made My Darling Clementine, so when the test audiences insisted on a kiss in the final scene, Zanuck had to call Fonda and Jane Darwell (Clementine) to shoot additional footage.

The contrast between the preview and final versions of My Darling Clementine provide film students an opportunity to see what can happen with a film once it leaves the director’s hands.

Watch the film's trailer here.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford
Commentary track, How Green Was My Valley

Ernest Borgnine, 1917-2012

Ernest Borgnine (Ermes Effron Borgnino, 1917-2012) was the son of Italian immigrants who grew up to become one of America’s most unconventional film and television stars. Early in his life, he showed no interest in acting, instead joining the US Navy in 1935. He was discharged in 1941, but after Pearl Harbor, he re-enlisted and served until 1945. It wasn’t until after WWII that he started to act, at his mother’s suggestion and to his father's chagrin.

He began his acting career on the stage in Virginia, eventually making his Broadway debut in 1949 in the role of a nurse in the play Harvey. Two years later, he moved to California, and in 1953 he got his break in From Here to Eternity, playing Sergeant “Fatso” Judson. He was typecast as a villain after that until 1955, when he played the romantic lead (and title role) in the film Marty, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (the other nominees were Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Spencer Tracy, and James Cagney).

At the same time that he was making movies, Borgnine made several television appearances, eventually leading to his playing the lead role in McHale’s Navy in 1963. The show lasted four seasons, until declining ratings and rehashed storylines resulted in the show’s cancellation. In 1983, he had a co-starring role in the television show, Airwolf. This show also lasted only a few seasons, going off the air in 1986.  He continued to make guest appearances on television shows, earning an Emmy nomination for his appearances in the final two episodes of ER.

Borgnine received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6324 Hollywood Blvd. In 1996, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City inducted him into the Western Performers Hall of Fame. On January 30, 2011, he received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

References

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000308/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_borgnine

John Ford: Young Mr. Lincoln

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews Young Mr. Lincoln (Criterion Collection).

Young Mr. Lincoln was the first collaboration between John Ford and Henry Fonda. The fictionalized story follows Lincoln as he establishes himself as a country lawyer and local politician. The main part of the story centers on a murder case, with Lincoln representing the defendants.

Ford had a special fascination with the forces that shaped America and its people, so it’s only fitting that he would explore the life of Lincoln, in a story that explores the themes of justice and compassion. We are introduced to Lincoln as he sets out on his political career. Few directors surpass Ford’s facility with the introduction of the hero, and his introduction of Lincoln is no exception—the camera emphasizes Lincoln’s height, then gives way to the young future President’s quiet eloquence.

After a political setback, Lincoln practices law in a small firm, eventually representing two men unjustly accused of murder. The film becomes a courtroom drama at this point, showing Lincoln’s dedication to truth and justice, using an Almanac to show that the conditions at the scene of the crime were not as described by the main witness for the prosecution. Throughout the trial, there are moments of real humor and wit, as well as challenges that don’t seem easy to overcome.

The only problem with the portrayal of Lincoln is that he seems to have no flaws (inability to dance well is not a character flaw)—any humanity he has is a direct result of Fonda’s performance. Most of the heroes in Ford’s films are unambiguously the “good guys,” but they’re rarely perfect. Ford probably had some hero worship of his own underpinning the portrayal of the young Lincoln, if the closing montage is any indication, but when a character begins in a state of perfection and remains there, it is left to the other characters to provide the film with an arc.

Young Mr. Lincoln is a beautifully shot film (a Ford hallmark), and a few scenes do provoke serious thought. While it is far from Ford’s best work, it is still a worthy effort.

References

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032155/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Mr._Lincoln