Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

For the second time I’ve now seen this personal favourite at the BFI, the first time being way back in the days of the National Film Theatre.   And even though this is a film I know intimately there’s nothing like seeing it on the big screen with a live audience. It’s the best way  to appreciate both the crispness of the black-and-white photography and the crackling dialogue, especially in the early scenes where fun is being poked at Hollywood's expense.   The BFI programme notes included a contemporary review by James Agee, in which he rightly admired its courage in portraying a sexual relationship between a rich woman of fifty and a kept man of half her age.     In addressing some criticisms of the film, Agee defends Billy Wilder the director and Charles Brackett (the producer and Wilder's co-writer), by saying that "they are evidently much more concerned to make a character interesting, than sympathetic, and the interest itself is limited by the quality ...

Despite it being a long time since I first saw this 1964 Billy Wilder sex comedy/satire I had a clear recollection of the story, proving that it's a memorable film if nothing else, even if not necessarily for the right reasons. The basic plot, taken from an Italian play, is a doozy.  A guy appears to offer his wife to a lecher who might advance his career, except that he has substituted a prostitute for his wife, but unbeknownst to him his wife takes the role of the prostitute.  Complications ensue, leading to the protagonist spending the night with his 'wife' whilst his wife spends the night with the lecher. It's pretty daring stuff for a mainstream film of the period.   In 'The Apartment', Wilder's film from four years earlier, the protagonist CC Baxter lends his apartment to his superiors so that they can conduct affairs.  That seems no better behaviour than that of the protagonist here (Orville Spooner) so why was that film an outstanding success whilst ...

What more is there to say about this comic masterpiece? Well, I guess if 'nobody's perfect' then maybe it's also true that no film is perfect (except 'Citizen Kane' of course), and if I try hard enough I can come up with a couple of minor failings here. Firstly, the comedy does flag a little in the third act i.e. once the gangsters turn up at the hotel. Although maybe it's not so much of a third act as a coda, which means it's allowed to be a little subdued. Secondly, the whole 'dumb blonde' thing with Marilyn Monroe, and the dynamic between her character and that of Tony Curtis, does make for slightly uncomfortable viewing.  So although I shall never not find funny Tony Curtis' imitation of Cary Grant, the scene on the yacht doesn't amuse me quite as much as it once did. Every time I see this film it strikes me more and more that the real star is the fourth lead Joe E. Brown, who as Osgood Fielding III steals every scene he is in.  His i...

This is one of Billy Wilder's last films, made in 1972, from a play by Samuel Taylor, and as such it was with some trepidation that I finally got around to seeing it, given that his films towards the end of his illustrious career are variable in quality, to say the least. Regrettably even a Wilder-completist like me wasn't able to make it to the midpoint let alone the end of this 140-minute 'comedy'. So my thoughts are necessarily subject to the caveat that the film might pick up in the second half, but I doubt it.  In fact, from the plot synopsis, it seems I gave up at just the right time thereby avoiding some subplots that don't sound essential. The basic setup has some promise: Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills play two strangers who meet in Italy when they go there to arrange the funerals of his father and her mother, who have died in a car accident, only to discover that they (the parents) have been conducting a love affair at the same hotel each summer for the last...

This 1954 romantic comedy directed by Billy Wilder was adapted from a successful play ‘Sabrina Fair’ by Samuel Taylor.  It features a romance between Sabrina, the daughter of a chauffeur, and Linus Larrabee, a wealthy individual whose family employs Sabrina's father. Although Taylor was initially involved in the adaptation he departed the scene because he didn’t like the changes Wilder was making.  Comparing the film with the plot synopsis of the play my  guess is that the changes Taylor objected to relate to the central relationship between Sabrina and Linus. Sabrina and Linus in the play  are financial and intellectual equals, and committed idealists.  Sabrina spends a couple of years in Paris as a private secretary, before returning to the US transformed into a sophisticated, beautiful and self-confident woman. And a s a bonus it turns out that her father has been amassing a fortune on the stock market. Whereas in the film Sabrina goes to Paris to attend a m...

That this courtroom drama based on a play by Agatha Christie is directed by Billy Wilder is perhaps more of a surprise than is the denouement itself. The main pleasures are Charles Laughton’s performance as the self-regarding QC Sir Wilfrid Robarts and that of Elsa Lanchester (Laughton’s wife in real life) as his private nurse Miss Plimsoll (great name) who has the unenviable task of looking after Sir Wilfrid.   Wilder of course can be relied upon to bring out the comedic elements of their relationship. Where the director struggles perhaps is to make an effective drama out of a story which is more interested in plot than character.  The fact that Marlene Dietrich at one point shows up in some unconvincing makeup and trying out a Cockney accent (ouch) only serves to emphasise the stagey nature of the material.  That scene aside Dietrich does a good enough job of bringing her character, Christine Vole, to life.   Her relationship with Leonard Vole, who is accused ...

We can all agree that this is a great film (one of four masterpieces directed by Billy Wilder) but if it was made today how on earth would it be marketed? Is it for example a romcom?  For sure, the plot does have a feel good romantic ending, and features two protagonists having to overcome obstacles before they can be together.  In this case the main obstacle is Fran’s relationship with the married Mr Sheldrake.  For some reason  I’ve never bought the idea that Fran (an early role for Shirley MacLaine) would be so gullible as to believe his lies about leaving his wife, she seems too savvy for that. That being said, Fred MacMurray gives a memorable performance as a manipulative and emotionally detached senior manager. That feel good ending is a long time coming, but when it does, when Fran abandons Sheldrake at the restaurant on New Year's Eve, it's mightily cathartic and worth waiting for, given that up to that point the film is a pretty bleak depiction of loneliness...