TCM fest’s comic theme provides needed tonic in the wake of Robert Osborne’s passing

By Michael Wilmington and Film Noir Blonde

It’s glorious and exciting, but it’s also sad.

Once again, the TCM Classic Film Festival – running April 6-9 in Hollywood – presents a wondrous bill of fare of great films, unique cinema rarities and restorations, along with lively conversations with critics, scholars and some of the people who made the movies of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

It’s a time for celebration. But it’s also a time of melancholy and reverie. This year a vital link has been broken. The passing of critic/columnist/interviewer supreme Robert Osborne, whom many saw as the face and voice of Turner Classic Movies, marks the loss of a movie buff and guide who was (just like one of the programs he hosted so entertainingly) one of the “Essentials.” We will all miss him.

Fittingly in a way, the TCM Festival has chosen to celebrate Robert and the love of movies he exemplified, by choosing as its special theme this year that immortal slogan from “Singin’ in the Rain,” Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s rib-tickling masterpiece: “Make ’em Laugh” (Comedy in the Movies). The beloved musical will screen on Sunday.

Comic relief is much needed tonic – even for noiristas – RO’s passing is a huge loss. What else can you see this year? How about the movie lots of folks think is Hollywood’s greatest comedy – 1959’s “Some Like It Hot,” a funny film with a film-noir pedigree.

Curtis, MM and Lemmon star in a classic, enduring comedy.

Written and directed by the great noir auteur Billy Wilder, the risqué flick stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in drag, as “Josephine” and “Daphne,” pursued by Chicago gangsters (Including George Raft as the dour, murderous Spats Colombo).

The “girls” hide out in a female jazz band, tumbling into priceless erotic escapades with the nonpareil Marilyn Monroe as the slightly boozy doozy of a chanteuse Sugar Kane. Joe E. Brown also makes the most of every second of his screen time.

Another top choice is Stanley Kubrick’s and writer Terry Southern’s murderously funny, magnificently screwy masterful satire that’s drenched in noir mood, style and cynicism: “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” You might die laughing here and watch the planet blow up along with you.

Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden star in “Dr. Strangelove.”

Sterling Hayden shines as the psychotic Air Force general, Jack D. Ripper, who illegally sends off the bombing raid that will trigger World War 3. George C. Scott is the bellicose hawk-and-a-half Gen. Buck Turgidson, who wants to blast the world too, but judiciously.

And the inimitable imitator Peter Sellers in three terrific roles: the mild-mannered Stevensonian U.S. President Merkin Muffley, the stiff upper lip British officer, Mandrake, trying to stay sane in a world of madmen, and the Kissingeresque Doomsday adviser himself, Dr. Strangelove.

Sellers was also slated to play the cornpone captain of the top plane on the bombing raid, “King” Kong, but dropped out for medical reasons (or, perhaps, as some say, because he was having trouble getting the accent). He was replaced by the amazing Western character actor and ex-rodeo clown Slim Pickens. Slim turned out to be practically perfect casting.

Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon are an unlikely pair in 1971’s “Harold and Maude.”

There you have three of the finest, funniest, most unforgettable movie comedies ever made. What else? How about the cult April-December romantic hit Hal Ashby’s and writer’s Colin Higgins’ 1971 “Harold and Maude,” starring Bud Cort as the boy who keeps trying to kill himself, and the amazing Ruth Gordon as the ebullient old lady who gives him back his life?

How about the super train comedy “Twentieth Century”? Here, Carole Lombard is the crazy glam-goddess Hollywood superstar and John Barrymore hams it up as her crazier stage director and Svengali. Directed by Howard Hawks (at his peak) with a script by Ben Hecht and Charlie MacArthur (at their peaks).

How about Stanley Kramer’s (underrated) all-star epic “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”? Or the Marx Brothers in “Monkey Business” and W.C. Fields in “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break,” which pretty much speaks for itself, and the great Charlie Chaplin, tweaking Hitler in “The Great Dictator.” How about Preston Sturges’ “Unfaithfully Yours” and “The Palm Beach Story”?

Oh, and don’t forget Frank Capra’s “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Leo McCarey’s “The Awful Truth,” Harold Lloyd in “Speedy,” plus Laurel and Hardy in “Way Out West.”

How about it? We’re in!

God bless the clowns. And Robert Osborne too.

The Film Noir File: The verdict on Otto Preminger and James Stewart’s classic trial drama? Great

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

Pick of the Week

"Anatomy" got seven Oscar noms, (including James Stewart, Arthur O'Connell and George C. Scott for acting) though Lee Remick was not one of the contenders. Hmmpf!

“Anatomy” garnered seven Oscar nominations (including James Stewart, Arthur O’Connell and George C. Scott for acting), though Lee Remick was not one of the contenders. Hmmpf! Remick took the controversial part after Lana Turner and Jayne Mansfield turned it down.

Anatomy of a Murder
(1959, Otto Preminger). Tuesday, Feb. 18: 2:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m.). With James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara and George C. Scott. Read the full review here.

Friday, Feb. 14

2:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m.): “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955, 0tto Preminger). With Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak and Eleanor Parker. Reviewed in FNB on November 10, 2012.

5 a.m. (2 a.m.): “Bad Day at Black Rock” (1955, John Sturges). With Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin and Walter Brennan. Reviewed in FNB on April 7, 2012.

James Stewart's father was so offended by the film that he reportedly took out an ad in his local newspaper telling people not to see it.

James Stewart’s father was so offended by “Anatomy” that he reportedly took out an ad in his local newspaper telling people not to see it.

Sunday, Feb. 16

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “The Thin Man” (1934, W. S. Van Dyke). With William Powell, Myrna Loy and Maureen O’Sullivan. Reviewed in FNB on July 28, 2012.

Tuesday, Feb. 19

12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “North by Northwest” (1959, Alfred Hitchcock). With Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. Reviewed in FNB on November 17, 2012.

2:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m.): “Anatomy of a Murder” (See Pick of the Week.)

‘Anatomy of a Murder:’ Preminger’s crowning achievement

Anatomy of a Murder/1959/Columbia Pictures/160 min.

Criterion’s DVD rerelease of “Anatomy of a Murder” is this month’s giveaway prize. To be entered in the draw to win, just make a comment on any post this month.

By Michael Wilmington

Lee Remick is sexy and flirtatious Laura Manion, a part originally intended for Lana Turner. Laura's dog Muff is frequently at her side.

One of the best and most true-to-life of all courtroom dramas, “Anatomy of a Murder” is also the best film producer-director Otto Preminger ever made. And he was a master – of film noir (“Laura,” “Fallen Angel,” “Whirlpool,” “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” “Angel Face”), of urban drama (“The Man with the Golden Arm”), of romance (“Bonjour Tristesse,” “Daisy Kenyon”), of historical epics (“Exodus”), of spy dramas (“The Human Factor”), of musicals (“Carmen Jones”) and, most characteristically, of dramas that examine big, complex institutions: “Advise and Consent,” “The Cardinal,” “In Harm’s Way.”

“Anatomy” is a great, realistic film on a great subject, with writing that cuts to the bone. It also has one of the most famous title sequences (by Saul Bass) in movie history. And one of the most influential scores, original jazz, composed and played by Duke Ellington.

The film’s source material was a best-selling book by John D. Voelker, a Michigan State Supreme Court Justice, using the pen name Robert Traver. He based the book on an actual murder case in which he’d been the prosecuting attorney. In that trial, an Army man shot and killed a popular small-town bar-owner who, he said, had raped his wife.

From left: James Stewart plays a lawyer defending an Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara) with help from his old friend and fellow lawyer (Arthur O'Connell).

Voelker/Traver and Wendell Mayes adapted the book and a phenomenal cast brought the story to the screen. We see Jimmy Stewart at his best as the wily and ingenious old-school defense lawyer Paul Biegler, Ben Gazzara as his cocky murder-trial defendant/client Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion, Lee Remick as Manion’s sexy wife Laura, George C. Scott as the icily astute prosecutor Claude Dancer, Eve Arden and Arthur O’Connell as Paul’s sharp-tongued secretary Maida Rutledge and Paul’s amiably soused fellow counsel Parnell McCarthy. The trial’s owlish, chatty but punctiliously fair Judge Weaver is played unforgettably by famed attorney Joseph Welch. Kathryn Grant is also memorable as the sweet but mysterious Mary Pilant.

If Paul is going to get Manion off, the only defense that is likely to work is Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity – an “irresistible impulse” that drove Manion to kill his wife’s rapist. The movie makes clear that Paul is not necessarily seeking the truth, but a victory for his client. So the trial becomes, in some sense, a piece of theater. Paul is creating a dramatic scenario that we know is a slanted one. Judge Weaver is there to mediate, but also to be a kind of commentator and chorus.

At the same time, Preminger (the son of a Viennese trial lawyer and a law school graduate who never practiced law himself) gives us a course in what happens during a trial and why the American legal system, for all its seeming flaws, is a model of both legal science and human compassion.

We want Paul Biegler to win, but mostly because he’s played by Jimmy Stewart – who brilliantly manipulates his movie persona as the stammering, sincere, dryly funny hero, while also showing us a somewhat devious side beneath the mask. It’s an incredibly adroit performance, as good as Stewart’s signature roles as George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Scottie Ferguson in “Vertigo,” and Jeff Smith in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

And Stewart anchors an eminently satisfying cast. Remick is wonderful as Manion’s flirtatious, cheerfully brazen and narcissistic wife Laura, a part originally intended for Lana Turner. The prosecution’s arrogant head lawyer Claude Dancer is played with nerveless intensity by Scott. Stewart, O’Connell and Scott got Oscar noms for their work.

Preminger shot the movie in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (Marquette, Ishpeming, Big Bay and Michigamme). The streets, the bar and the courthouse are real. And the scenes in Paul’s home (with its books, fishing gear and record collection) were shot in Voelker’s own house. “Anatomy” has the flavor of a semi-documentary, or of one of those Henry Hathaway crime dramas/noirs of the ’40s: “The House on 92nd Street,” “Call Northside 777” (with Stewart as a crusading Chicago reporter) and “Kiss of Death.”

Laura (Lee Remick) and her husband share pathology as well as passion.

Preminger’s filmmaking style is often called “objective.” He doesn’t try to force reactions on us, instead leaving us free to observe and judge. “Anatomy of a Murder” is especially ripe for such analysis, since the audience is essentially the jury.

But there’s a catch. Does anyone really watch a Preminger movie without knowing who the good guys and bad guys are? Even in “Anatomy of a Murder” we sense Paul might be defending a guilty client, but we also know he’s upholding the law, and his vision of it: the depth, mercy and grandeur of the law in which he deeply believes.

The fact is that Preminger is never completely objective. A lawyer as well as a man of the theater, he is always arguing a viewpoint, letting us know whom he likes and whom he doesn’t. He just does it in a subtler, more stylish, less forced manner than most other directors.

What’s special about Preminger’s cinematic style is his propensity for long takes and single shots with an unobtrusively moving camera. Preminger once said that, ideally, every scene should be done in a single shot. And that’s often what he often tries to do, for the sake of the actors (who don’t get their performances chopped up) and to preserve the feel of realism.

Lee Remick, Eve Arden and James Stewart appear in a courtroom scene.

To some in 1959, “Anatomy” looked like an opportunistic and deliberately sensational shocker, with a script that contained words such as “rape,” “bitch” and panties.” The film was even banned temporarily in Chicago. But Preminger played anti-censorship battles with such shrewd facility that it sometimes seemed he had gulled the censors into being his unofficial P.R. team.

“Anatomy of a Murder” may have raised hackles in its day, but it’s survived as a movie treasure and is one of the top films from 1959 – a year that also saw the release of classics like Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” William Wyler’s “Ben-Hur,” Howard Hawks’ “Rio Bravo,” George Stevens’ “The Diary of Anne Frank” and Vincente Minnelli’s “Some Came Running.”

Preminger’s trial drama can stand with any of them.

“Anatomy” will play Friday and Saturday at the New Beverly in LA.

Free stuff from FNB: Win ‘Anatomy of a Murder’

Lee Remick plays Laura Manion. Remick’s co-stars (Stewart, Scott and O’Connell) earned Oscars noms for their performances.

This month, I am giving away a copy of Criterion’s rerelease of the Otto Preminger classic “Anatomy of a Murder” from 1959. Nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture, the film features a Duke Ellington score and an all-star cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O’Connell, Eve Arden and George C. Scott.

In what is arguably the best role of his career, Stewart plays a small-town Michigan lawyer defending an army lieutenant (Gazzara) accused of murdering a tavern owner, who he believes raped his wife (Remick).

As Criterion puts it: “This gripping envelope-pusher, the most popular film by Hollywood provocateur Otto Preminger, was groundbreaking for the frankness of its discussion of sex – but more than anything else it is a striking depiction of the power of words.” This two-DVD special edition is packed with special features.

(Syd is the winner of the February reader giveaway, a DVD copy of “Notorious.” Congrats to Syd and thanks to all who entered!)

To enter the March giveaway, just leave a comment on any FNB post from March 1-31. We welcome comments, but please remember that, for the purposes of the giveaway, there is one entry per person, not per comment.

The winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month and announced in early April. Include your email address in your comment so that I can notify you if you win. Your email will not be shared. Good luck!