Leslie Caron the Frenchiest American girl

The Artist is the first French film to win an Academy award. Jean Dujardin is now world-famous thanks to this film.  But he is not the first French star to cross the Atlantic.

A good deal of names represent the epitome of French chic throughout the world and especially in Hollywood : Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdan, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Capucine, David Charvet, Claudette Colbert, Jean Renoir, Marion Cotillard, Maurice Tourneur, Annabella...

Did you know, though, that most of these people have one thing in common ? They are virtually unknown to today's French audiences. Their popularity never reached France in quite the same way it hit Hollywood. Their busy schedule in the USA did not even allow them to dub their own films in France and the French moviegoers do not even know the sound of their actual voices.

Dancer Leslie Caron is a perfect example: she recently published her autobiography "Thank Heaven", in which her impressive career (during which she crossed the paths of some of the above-mentioned people, but also other great stars) is effectively told.

Her early life is that of a wealthy young girl in a wealthy family. Yet she also is a hard-working girl and owes her career mostly to herself. When Robert Osborne asked her to describe her life in Hollywood in one word, she replied : "work". Even before she moved to the United States, she met Roland Petit, and a young Brigitte Bardot.

The interesting part to most will come with An American in Paris and her film career with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire (Daddy Long Legs), and others she worked, had affairs with, or just met (Warren Beatty, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Fonda, Edith Piaf, )...

Her other big hit, Gigi, is definitely another film I would recommend on Blu-ray.  As often with an American production of a French novel, every contemporary French star in Hollywood is there. Incidentally, in keeping with the topic of my blog, there is a major lost element to that film : Leslie Caron discusses in her autobiography how André Prévin warned her that her singing voice had been dubbed by singer Betty Wand (the voice of Esther Williams in Easy To Love and Rita Moreno in West Side Story) although she had filmed the sequences to her own playback. These recording are now available on the awesome Rhino soundtrack.

Ms. Caron's personality shines through her writing and she reveals her true feelings about people she thought were bad actors (George Peppard), or vain (gay actor Dirk Bogarde), or arrogant (Esther Williams)...

But she recalls those she appreciated and loved like Judy Garland (whom she reveals committed suicide when she filmed Annie Get Your Gun which I already covered here), Gene Kelly (did you know that the cap he wore on most behind the scene photos hid a bold scalp ?),...

A curious event following James Dean's death happened to her too...

Read this and more in "Thank Heaven".

That's all for today folks!

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Sodom & Gomorrah (3) Off-screen curse

Here's yet another entry about Sodom & Gomorrah. This is a favorite of mine as you may know if you've read my previous posts (here and here).
On the left is the cover of the French press kit. I love the design.

Today, I will focus on the various behind-the-scene problems faced by the cast and crew during the making  of the film. I will draw the bulk of my information from an article of the time by Geneviève Gérald.

According to it, director Robert Aldrich apparently had some trouble with the Italian crew, unaccustomed to be directed by a strict man, promptly on the set at 8 o'clock sharp, with a precise idea of what he wants and how he wants it.

And his idea was apparently to represent the threat of nuclear power through the power of God over the Twin Cities, because it is still unknown if they were destroyed by an ancient atomic explosion or the eruption of some underwater volcano.

Sodom and Gomorrah was filmed in one year in Roman studios and in Ait-Benhaddou, a 4000 year-old Moroccan village lost among the mountains of the Atlas.


With no water or electricity, the cast and crew had to bring their own supply and the 100 days of exterior shooting were a nightmare for many. Stewart Granger displaced a vertebra during one of the duels rendering him unable to shoot for several days, after-which he stung his finger on a poisonous plant. Everyone suffered stomach aches and Rossana Podesta had to be flown back to Rome for a severe case of the mumps. Cameraman Cyril Knownles even died of a heart attack during filming and director of photography Mario Montuori was attacked by a buffalo which fractured his knee and elbow.

 
 On this set of pictures, Scilla Gabel seems to be having a dizzy spell while filming the opening scene in the desert where she meets the sodomite patrol. The cast and crew had to protect themselves from the sun with glasses and hats and also covered their mouth to avoid sand storms.

The temperature varied from ice cold at night up to 140°F in the daylight. 3,000 local extras were hired, which caused a problem depending on what religion they were : the Arabs would stop working on Fridays, Saturdays were the Hebrews's day off and on Sundays Christians wouldn't work.

Pier Angeli

The difficult production wrapped in a heat wave that broke all records at the time in Rome for the interior shooting.

The director's worst problem apparently turned out to be the producer. They went on trial because they couldn't agree on the final cut and Robert Aldrich apparently conceded a 15 minute cut eventually. I doubt that these scenes will ever be back.

Writer Bill Krohn (who wrote the excellent Hitchcock at Work) discusses this and more in this excellent essay about the film. (Among many other things, he tells of a scene in the script where the Queen seduces Ildith again after she moves back to the palace. According to Krohn, this was probably never filmed.

Here's the original trailer for the film :

There will be more about the film...
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Cruel Intentions

 Les liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel published soon before the French Revolution. Although it has been enjoying a status of classic literature in France for a very long time, the novel hasn't been published in English before the twentieth century. Christopher Hampton's play helped to popularized it and there are now many films more or less directly adapted from the story.

Dangerous Liaisons, of course, draws its inspiration from that play. The cast is brilliant and the story perfectly rendered. The audio commentary on the Blu-ray from the director and screenwriter gives the impression that little change was made during filming and post production and there are no missing scenes to find on the disc either.

A rare deleted scene from Dangerous Liaisons

Look for Mildred Natwick as Madame de Rosemonde in her last role. Apparently overwhelmed at the idea of meeting one of the stars of Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry, Stephen Frears and Christopher Hampton forgot to offer her the part and had to run after her to do so when the meeting was over.

At the same period, Milos Forman developed his version of the novel focusing on Colin Firth's character as the title suggests: Valmont. The film has many qualities and although less popular than Frears's version, I very much advise it. It seems a scene from the version I own is missing from Region 1 DVDs an hour and 45 minutes into the film: Valmont wants to offer flowers to her lover and finds that her husband came back home.

Some filmmakers attempted to modernize the story. I must say these are usually the most dated versions. The French film Dangerous Love Affairs from 1959 starring Jeanne Moreau and Gérard Philipe was among them. With a jazzy score and a nouvelle vague style, it is very much set in the 1960s.

A more recent French version stars Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett.

The version I wish to discuss more particularly is also a modernized version called Cruel Intentions (Originally Cruel Inventions). I was very surprised how good the film actually was. Transforming French 18th century nobility into 1999 New York over-spoiled college brats is not exactly a move that I would usually like. But it turns out that clever casting and a surprisingly good script made this film quite enjoyable.

The film reunites Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar and hunk Ryan Phillippe from I know what you did last summer. Gellar got her original hair color back for that part to enhance the contrast with co-star Reese Witherspoon.

The reason I want to focus on this version is not necessarily because it is my favorite (it isn't) but because, unlike Frears's version which obviously inspired this one, the result was apparently not achieved as easily and directly as Dangerous Liaisons. The Blu-ray is perfect proof : there are many deleted scenes included in the extra section.

As a matter of fact, many scenes seem to have been cut partly because there were too obviously drawn from Dangerous Liaisons. The "war is declared" scene is a good example. Other scenes were cut or altered to tone down the sex and make Sebastian's character more sympathetic (two prostitutes from a scene where he is on the phone with Annette were cut and he dies wanting to save Annette when he originally was just crossing the road). Speaking of toning down the sex, in the pool scene, Sebastian asks Annette to turn around so he can put on his swimsuit. You'd assume that means he has it on throughout the scene. Look at this outtake and find out otherwise :

The death scene was replaced after a preview which also caused a very important part of the film to change : the score. John Ottman's original soundtrack is now partly available on CD (check out what he has to say on his website) but it was completely replaced in the film by Edward Shearmur's. Ironically, his score has never been issued on CD and the popular soundtrack album only contains the pop songs heard in the film.

In this final scene from the workprint, you will see the difference in editing and you can hear John Ottman's original score.

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These Amazing Shadows: The Movies That Make America

Today, I want to draw attention to the release of the film These Amazing Shadows on Blu-ray.
It explains what the National Film Registry is and how films get on their lists. If you're interested in Film preservation and would like to know more, treat yourself. The film shows how important restoration really is : the negative of the well-loved movie The Godfather is shown in such a poor state in this film that you may not believe your eyes.

Broader subjects are also discussed such as women in Cinema History. The very unique golden age director Dorothy Arzner for instance, who worked with Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Maureen O'Hara, Merle Oberon, etc. and the first woman to direct a full length feature Lois Weber.




 The film also focuses on rediscovered outtakes such as the original cut of Baby Face starring Barbara Stanwyck before the censors decided to remove the most disturbing parts of an already racy film. There is a great blog associated with the documentary where this particular issue is addressed.

That's all or today folks!

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The Lodger (1932)

Have you ever wondered what actors sound like in famous silent films ? What does Ivor Novello sound like in The Lodger? Well, producers thought of that, too. You may not know this, but even though The Lodger was made in the last years of the silent era, a "talkie" remake was made soon afterwards.
You may have heard about the 1944 20th Century Fox film starring Merle Oberon, Georges Sanders and Laird Cregar, or the 2009 film where Simon Baker plays the title role. Marie Belloc Lowndes's novel was also adapted with other titles such as Man in the Attic.

The film I mean is a little known adaptation though it stars the original lodger Ivor Novello only five years after the release of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece. It is also called The Lodger, but it was released in a cut version under the title The Phantom Fiend in the USA, a title shared with the 1961 German film Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse. To add to the confusion, the film was apparently called Meurtre in France (among other titles) which is also the French title of Alfred Hitchcock's Murder!.

Maurice Elvey directed the sound version. Although it is nowhere near as brilliant as the silent version, a few shots are reminiscent of the Hitchcock style. Among them are the numerous ones focusing on the ever-present stairs. The use of shadows is particularly interesting. The removal of the portraits, the sinister entrance of the lodger (although not as hyperbolic) are all elements carried over from the old film to the new one.

But there are new ideas : the escape of the lodger is arguably more realistic (no angry mob here) and this film adds a scene with handcuffs that Hitchcock may have liked. The boyfriend role was changed from policeman to journalist which adds a new (if not necessarily better) dimension. More importantly, it is played by Jack Hawkins (Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.) in one of his first roles.

Sound does add value to the film which took advantage of its assets with the multi-talented star. Ivor Novello was a composer and sang (he also wrote the famous "Tarzan, Jane, Tarzan, Jane..." dialogue from Tarzan the ape man). So the lodger is now a musician and plays various instruments that convey his feelings better than words (a common mistake in early talkies is to make characters talk forever), and sweeten the love scenes, making it easier for the viewer to understand how the girl can fall in love with this otherwise perfect stranger.

Hearing Ivor Novello's voice makes all the difference in the perception of the character. The man still retained mannerism that was already very apparent in the silent version. But Hitchcock's interest in homosexuality (and since Novello was so obviously gay) made him accentuate that by staging shots with flowers around the actor as an in-joke. Novello came off as an effeminate young matinée idol, whereas in the sound version, he was pushing forty and spoke in a baritone voice with a thick eastern accent (not the best idea of the film) which toughened the character.

In spite of that, the first approach still made the character look more mysterious and the attempt to "open up" the script in the remake beyond just the house is a poor choice considering the atmosphere. In that respect, the park scene, filmed in broad daylight, where the supposedly menacing character makes idle conversation with the girls is clearly a mistake.

Still, the film is quite enjoyable overall and the end is very different from Hitchcock's version (even though none are faithful to the novel). The film is available in its American version on youtube:

That's all for today folks!

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Singin' In The Rain

Singin’ in the Rain came from a rotten assignment from songwriter and MGM producer Arthur Freed: to use his catalog of songs for a movie named after one of them.

Betty Comden & Adolph Green came up with the brilliant idea of setting the action at the time when these songs were written: when Hollywood made the transition from silent to sound films. It opened the way for a series of gags and plot twists that actors and crew members who had worked then were only too glad to contribute.

The scene where Jean Hagen and Gene Kelly are being “wired for sound” is a classic example of how sound technicians of the era had to devise news ways of hiding huge microphones on the set out of view of the camera.

Many elements from this awesome film did not make it to the final cut though: scenes, recordings, songs, etc.

A different musical arrangement was composed for the main title. It is available on the soundtrack album and was used in various documentaries about the film.

Gene Kelly originally sang a reprise of “All I Do Is Dream Of You” after Debbie Reynolds’s version. There was a scene where he went back home and sang himself to sleep with this tune. The scene was cut and all that is left now are a few stills of the set and the soundtrack.

Apparently there was an attempt to limit the number of performances for each song. The first instance where “You Are My Lucky Star” was heard in the film was originally right after the “You Were Meant For Me” number. Debbie Reynolds sang the song to a poster of Gene Kelly. This scene is still extant and has been featured in the extra section of many home video editions.

Jean Hagen parodying Norma Talmadge

It was one of the few instances where Debbie Reynolds was intended to sing with her own voice. Ironically, when she is supposed to dub Jean Hagen’s voice in the film, and although the actress worked hard at her singing before recording, most of her songs were either cut or dubbed.

When Jean Hagen’s character briefly speaks (supposedly dubbed by Debbie) in “The singing Cavalier”, she is actually speaking for herself. It is the only time you can hear her normal voice without the high-pitched accent she affects throughout the picture.

When Debbie sings for Jean Hagen, she is sometimes dubbed by singer Betty Noyes. And if her voice sounds familiar then, it is probably because Betty sang the heartbreaking ballad “Baby Mine” in Walt Disney’s Dumbo.

But Debbie’s versions are still available on the soundtrack. Here is her take on “Would You?”:

Finally, there is a snippet of an outtake from this film that can be glimpsed in the main title of “The Fall Guy” (of all places!). Watch out for an alternate take of Gene Kelly’s stunt double falling flat on his behind instead of Kathy Selden’s car seat.

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That’s all for today folks!

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Hammer restoration

The famous horror movies from Hammer were made in the fifties and sixties and are getting a full restoration which they badly needed. Look at this French trailer for Dracula to see what happens when a film isn't restored :

Now compare it with this BFI trailer:

Find out more on this blog:

It is now available in the UK on Blu-ray.
Look out for more titles!
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