Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975)

“Alfred Hitchcock only finishes a picture 60 percent, I have to finish it for him.”  Bernard Herrmann

Although Bernard Herrmann will forever be most strongly associated with Alfred Hitchcock, he came to Hollywood when asked by Orson Welles.  He had worked with Welles in radio scoring a great many of CBS’s radio broadcasts of The Mercury Theater in the 1930’s, including the notorious War of the Worlds.  Herrmann composed the score for Citizen Kane (1941) which was his first film score and was nominated for an academy award.  He also scored The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) for which he was again nominated but this time won the Oscar.

Herrmann’s musical path was different from most other composers, which may be the reason he eventually became considered to be difficult, and why he had an eleven year collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock.  He had a bad temper, and he was insistent on doing things his way.  Hitchcock gave him the freedom he didn’t always find with other directors.  The films he worked on were eclectic and offered him the kind of challenges that enabled him develop his unique style.  In 1951, Herrmann wrote the score for The Day the Earth Stood Still.  The piece is brilliantly written for two theremins, piano, and a horn section, which created a hauntingly futuristic sound.  The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of those movies where the music lingers in memory long after the details of the film fade.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Hermann also did wonderful fantasy scores, and the combination of his music and the genius of Ray Harryhausen make The 7th Voyage of Sinbad a classic of the genre.  His score sweeps you back to the days of Jinn and Persian Nights.

Then, in 1963 he scored what is considered by many Ray Harryhausen’s best effort, Jason and the Argonauts.  Its booming and majestic score is the perfect sound for such an epic.  It not only gave the feel of the time and place, but foreshadowed events while building suspense as Harryhausen’s Dynamation  astonished audiences.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

Cape Fear (1962) based on the John D. McDonald novel, The Executioners was full tilt horror/suspense with the maniac more than convincingly portrayed by Robert Mitchum.  The film stars Gregory Peck, Polly Bergen, and Martin Balsam.  Mitchum is Max Cady, and ex-con that lawyer Peck put behind bars and is now out and looking for revenge.  This was a perfect assignment for a composer that had written so many scores for the Master of Suspense.

Robert Mitchum & Polly Bergen in Cape Fear (1962)

Even with the diversity of his career, it is true that many of the scores he did for Hitchcock are the best remembered due to their beauty, uniqueness and the popularity of the films.  The first film Herrmann scored for Hitchcock was the remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).  The next was the offbeat, The Trouble with Harry (1955).  The score is as lyrical as the scenic shots of the New England autumn.  Not one of Hitchcock’s most popular films, but certainly one of his best.  It is a subtle black comedy and Herrmann’s score accentuates both the suspense and playfully, the humor.   Herrmann’s next score for Hitchcock was The Wrong Man (1956), and is beautifully haunting.

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958)

In 1958 Hitchcock would release one of his most famous films, Vertigo.  Initially thought a failure, it is now considered Hitchcock’s and Herrmann’s masterpiece.  The score set the stage for the powerful collaboration that will follow.  The music conveyed the shattered heroes loss and underscored the desperation of Scotty (James Stewart) to re-create Madeleine (Kim Novak).

Stung by the poor reception of Vertigo, Hitchcock fell back on his strong suit with North by Northwest (1959) starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.  The script by Ernest Lehman and Music by Bernard Herrmann combined with the master’s touch that heralded back to his British films, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, was a huge success.  Herrmann’s score was as much a masterwork as the film that it accompanied.  What came next, not even Hitchcock could have foreseen.

Anthony Perkins & Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)

In 1960 Psycho was released.  No other film score has ever had such an impact on the audience.  It is impossible to imagine Psycho without Herrmann’s score.  The two are joined as with no other film.  The ‘all strings’ choice that Herrmann made was brilliant even though partly necessitated by budget limitations for what is a low budget black and white film.   Herrmann called it a ‘black and white’ score.   In this case, the freedom Hitchcock gave him did have a immense impact on the finished film.  Herrmann has said that director’s don’t know music and that Hitchcock wanted a ‘jazz score’ with no music in the famous shower scene, but Herrmann had written a piece for it anyway.  When Hitchcock finally admitted that the scene did need music, Herrmann had just what the director needed.  Hitchcock admitted the importance of this when he doubled Herrmann’s fee for the film.

On The Birds (1963), there is no music score and Herrmann worked as a sound consultant creating atonal electronic sound effects in place of music.  Once again making a remarkably important contribution to the finished film.

Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren & Jessica Tandy in The Birds (1963)

The next film that Herrmann scored for Hitchcock was Marnie (1964).  This would turn out to be the last film the composer would score for Hitchcock.  The studio blamed the failure of the film on Herrmann’s score, but that was nonsense.  The film had a number of problems and the cause may have been the firing of the screenwriter, Evan Hunter (who had also scripted The Birds) over a disagreement about the rape scene.  Hunter felt that it was out of character for Mark (Sean Connery) and he was probably right.  Hunter was an exceptional writer and there is little doubt that a better film would have resulted if he had been allowed to complete the screenplay.

Unfortunately, during the making of Topaz (1969), Herrmann had a falling out with Hitchcock and was dismissed.  The studio (in the form of Lew Wasserman) advised Hitchcock against using Herrmann’s score because it was too old fashioned.  Hitchcock attempted to get Herrmann to reconsider the scoring, but Herrmann would never agree to bend to trends.  The two were never to work together again.

Herrmann also wrote music for television.  Composing and conducting for a number of popular shows including, most notably:  Have Gun – Will Travel (1957-61 composer), The Twilight Zone (1959-63 as both composer & conductor),  Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1963-65), and Lost n Space (1965-68 composer).

Herrmann’s last films were Obsession and Taxi Driver both released in 1976.  He’d come into vouge again with young film-makers including Brian DePalma and Martin Scorsese.  Bernard Herrmann died just after completing the score for Taxi Driver in 1975.

The Shape of Water & Atomic Blonde

*****

The Shape of Water

(2017 Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Directed by Guillermo del Toro.

Story by Guillermo del Toro.  

Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor.

119 minutes.

Cast: Sally Hawkins (Elisa Esposito), Richard Jenkins (Giles), Michael Shannon (Richard Strickland), Octavia Spencer (Zelda Fuller), Doug Jones (Amphibian Man), David Hewlett (Fleming), Nick Searcy (General Hoyt).

This film is one that I had been looking forward to for some time.  When I read about Guillermo del Toro working on it my hope was that it would be as good as I knew it could be.  As you may be able to tell from some of the other content on F&TVReview, I was a fan of the Universal horror films.  The Creature from the Black Lagoon was always a favorite of mine.  I think it was because it was a step away from the more familiar gothic horror like Dracula and the Wolfman that we were more common then.  It was so different and the underwater photography was incredible.

In a year of offbeat films, this one was far and away the most unusual (Colossal was a close second in the offbeat category–but both of them are poignant, each in their own way).  The writer/director‘s love for the source material is evident in every frame of The Shape of Water.  The casting is astonishingly good.  In short, the film rocketed beyond my wildest hopes for it.  It earned every word of praise that it has received and every award.  It exceeded my expectations in ways that I didn’t even suspect were possible.  He visulized the creature in a way that is more realistic as well as more fantastic.  He imagined the unimaginable and made it work with dignity and grace.  The alien is not always so far away that the distance cannot be breached with love and understanding.

Sally Hawkins is perfect as the woman that falls in love with the creature.  Her empathy is apparent from the moment that she realizes how the creature is being treated.  Richard Jenkins’ Giles is a faithful friend who understands her plight.  They know that they have to free the poor creature and don’t care that the task is impossible.  They push beyond all reasonable odds.  It is good to see justice, even if it’s fantasy justice. The photography is lush and beautifully sea colored throughout this Valentine to a bygone Hollywood and an unfinished beauty and the beast story.   At a time when Universal is attempting to reboot it’s golden age of horror, maybe they should take a look at The Shape of Water to find the shape of things to come.

*****

Atomic Blonde (2017 Focus Features)

Directed by David Leitch.  Screenplay by Kurt Johnstad.  Based on Oni Press graphic novel series, The Coldest City.

Cast: Charlize Theron (Lorraine Broughton), James McAvoy (David Percival), Sofia Boutella (Delphine Lasalle), Eddie Marsan (Spyglass), John Goodman (Emmett Kurzfeld), Toby Jones (Eric Gray), James Faulkner (Chief ‘C’).

115 minutes.

You will not find an action film with more well executed action and mayhem anywhere.   Charlize Theron has topped Gina Carano in Haywire (2012), but that’s unfair because Carano had it in her but her director just wasn’t up to it.  David Leitch unleashes a typhoon of action in the form of Lorraine Broughton played with a fervor that will have you ducking in your seat by Charlize Theron.  This is a full tilt spy story that moves fast and brutally takes you down with it.  You feel every blow and even anticipate what’s coming.  In a particularly violent fight scene when Lorraine suddenly grabs a corkscrew you will be thinking, “Oh no–don–” but that’s as far as you will get.  Yes. It’s a long vicious ride through the dark of neon nights of spy vs counterspy backstabbing and gunfire.

Charlize is unstoppable as an actress and as a spy.  The supporting cast is deep under the cover of the parts they play.  The story unfolds in flashbacks as Lorraine is being debriefed.  This works well for Leitch because it adds to the suspense by adding an element of uncertainty.  Who’s telling the truth?  James McAvoy is an agent in Berlin in 1989 and an MI6 agent has been murdered.  The agent was carrying a list of agent identities when he was killed.  You know how that goes–everybody wants the list!  The McGuffin is typical spy stuff, but the opulent visuals, incredible action, and the sensual scenes between Lorraine (Theron) and Delphine (Sofia Boutella) keep you from thinking too hard about how you’ve seen this plot before.

What you focus on is up to you, as far as I’m concerned–they had me with the title.

 

In a Lonely Place (Santana Productions/Columbia Pictures 1950)

Criterion Collection #810   

Directed by Nicholas Ray.  Produced by Robert Lord. 

Screenplay by Andrew Solt.  Adaption by Edmund H. North. 

Based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes.

Cast: Humphry Bogart (Dixon Steele), Gloria Grahame (Laurel Gray), Frank Lovejoy (Brub Nicolai), Carl Benton Reid (Captain Lochner), Art Smith (Mel Lippman), Jeff Donnell (Sylvia Nicolai), Martha Stewart (Mildred Atkinson).

 

In a Lonely Place is a milestone of noir for a number of reasons, not the least of all is its having been produced by Bogart’s Santana Productions.  It holds not only what is arguably his best performance, but Gloria Grahame’s (Crossfire, Macao, The Big Heat) as well.  It boasts a taut screenplay by Andrew Solt loosely based on the popular Dorothy B. Hughes novel.  I also feel it is Nicholas Ray’s best effort.

It is the story of screenwriter Dixon Steele whose volatile personality leads to him becoming a murder suspect until he is given an alibi by his attractive neighbor, Laurel Gray.  Laurel is slowly drawn to him even though he is being investigated for the murder by the police.  They fall in love, but his personality gets worse and worse.  His behavior becomes more and more erratic until she begins to have her doubts about him.  Her changed behavior only serves to further agitate him.  He becomes unstable to the point that she fears him and tries to escape.

Bogart plays the screenwriter with his usual cool, but the anger breaks through to a frightening level that is all nervous energy and loss of control.  Graham’s ability to inject humor into the bleakness and Bogart’s Jekyll and Hyde performance combine to make this a dark gem.  Nicolas Ray’s direction is at its peak, which is a paradox because his marriage to Gloria Graham was falling apart while the film was in production.

With a beautiful score by the avant-garde composer, George Antheil (Knock on Any Door, Sirocco), and photography by Burnett Guffey (Mr. Sardonicus, Bird Man of Alcatraz, Bonnie and Clyde), Ray constructs a memorable noir while living through a personal lonely place that serves to enhance his performance as a director to a level most never achieve.

The extra features on this Criterion Blu-Ray include 2k Digital Restoration for  incredible picture and sound quality.   Commentary by film scholar Dana Polan.  An enlightening documentary from 1975: I’m a Stranger Here Myself about Nicolas Ray.  A new interview with biographer Vincent Curcio (author of Suicide Blonde: the Life of Gloria Grahame) about actor Gloria Grahame which gives insight into both the relationship between the director and his wife and how their relationship inspired Ray’s interpretation of the characters.

 *****

Ride the Pink Horse (1947 Universal International Pictures)

Criterion Collection #750

Directed by Robert Montgomery.  Produced by Joan Harrison.

Screenplay by Ben Hecht & Charles Lederer & Joan Harrison (uncredited). 

Based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes.

Cast: Robert Montgomery (Gagin), Thomas Gomez (Pancho), Wanda Hendrix (Pila), Art Smith (Bill Retz), Andrea King (Marjorie), Fred Clark (Hugo).

Ride the Pink Horse is one of those films that is so well done that you have to wonder why it isn’t better known.  In reviewing the film’s credits from the adapted original novel to the screen writers and producer it’s not difficult to understand how well made the film is, and Robert Montgomery’s portrayal of Gagin is only surpassed by his direction.  Dorothy B. Hughs also wrote the novel that In a Lonely Place was based upon.  Joan Harrison worked as an assistant to Alfred Hitchcock and was soon contributing to scripts.  She wrote the script for Rebecca with Robert E. Sherwood.  Ben Hecht wrote the scripts for Rear Window and Notorious.  The film is beautifully photographed by the incomparable Russell Metty (Touch of Evil, The Misfits).

Gagin is a tough guy that has come to Mexico to find Hugo.  Montgomery plays the part like as classic hard boiled character, mostly silence and short sentences.   He’s mean spirited, arrogant, and condescends to the Mexicans me meets including a teenage girl who gives him a charm to ward off danger.  The only thing he will say is that he’s there to see Hugo for his friend ‘Shorty’.  A man that claims to be an FBI agent whose name is Retz approaches Gagin and wants to know what he wants with Hugo.  Retz tells Gagin that he has been tailing Hugo for some time.  He does seem to know more than Gagin does about what is going on, but Gagin won’t talk.  Retz tries to appeal to him as an American citizen to do the right thing.  Gagin’s a disgruntled veteran who feels he owes nothing to anyone.   It is clear that Gagin is in trouble. The Mexican girl gives him the charm of protection for no reason, and now this man is warning him off of Hugo.  Things are adding up, buy Gagin doesn’t seem to be paying any attention.

The film holds a lot of surprises.  Wanda Hendrix’s wonderfully underplayed Pila as a very concerned and possibly psychic Mexican girl, Thomas Gomez’s over the top Pancho that keeps you guessing, and Fred Clark as a cold and ruthless mobster.  Art Smith has his moments of comic support as does Thomas Gomez, but all the humor is dead pan.  All in all this deserves all five stars and then some.  A great disc to add to any collection.

The extra features on this Criterion Blu-Ray include 2k Digital Restoration for  incredible picture and sound quality. Audio commentary featuring film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini.  A wonderful new interview with Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City.  Lux Radio Theater adaptation of the film from 1947, featuring Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, and Thomas Gomez.  An essay by filmmaker and writer Michael Almereyda.

  *****

VAL LEWTON at RKO

(Header: Robert Wise, Mark Robson, and Val Lewton)

Cat People (1942)

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

The Leopard Man (1943)

The Seventh Victim (1943)

The Ghost Ship (1943)

The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Youth Runs Wild (1944)

The Body Snatcher (1945)

Isle of the Dead (1945)

Bedlam (1946)

My Own True Love (1948)

Please Believe Me (1950)

Apache Drums (1951)

Cat People  * The 7th Victim *  I Walked with a Zombie

Val Lewton was born in Yalta in 1904.  He was brought to America in 1909 by his mother and was raised by his mother and his aunt, the famous actress/writer/producer Alla Nazimova.  He grew up to be a  writer of novels, radio scripts, and news articles.  One of his novels, No Bed of Her Own became a film called No Man of her Own in 1933 directed by Wesley Ruggles and staring Clark Gable and Carol Lombard.

He began working as a story editor for MGM through the influence of his famous aunt.  Working on David O. Selznick’s staff as a story editor (actually writing scenes for Gone with the Wind), he eventually left to work as a producer at RKO.   The first film he made there was Cat People (1942).  From 1942 to 1946 he was instrumental in saving the ailing studio in the wake of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.  Ironically two of his editor/directors had worked as editors on the two films that almost bankrupted the studio.  Robert Wise and Mark Robson found themselves on Lewton’s team when Orson Welles left the Studio.

While Cat People is said to be a title that was suggested to Lewton who suffered from ailurophobia,  because of his morbid fear of cats it is not surprising that he would choose it when he was put in charge of a B picture unit specializing in horror.   His job was to create films to compete with  the successful and popular Universal horror films.  His dread of cats is transferred to the screen in one of the most memorable horror films of the period.  A tremendous feat considering that he was limited to a budget of no more than $150,000.00 per film.

   

Cat People (1942) Produced by Val Lewton.  Directed by Jacques Tourneur.  Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen.

Cast:  Simone Simon, Tom Conway,  Kent Smith,  Jan Randolph,  Jack Holt and unbilled, Elizabeth Russel.

Jacques Tourneur was the director on the first three Lewton films at RKO.  Cat People remains one of the most enigmatic and atmospheric of horror films.  Due in part to the low budget, much is left to the viewer’s imagination.  The swimming pool scene remains one of the most terrifyingly chilling moments in horror.  The impact of the unseen is still evident even as we watch it from the distance and experience of more than half a century.

Lewton and Tourneur had worked together on the second unit at MGM on A Tale of Two Cities.  Tourneur went on to direct I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man for Lewton.  Later, Tourneur would direct Out of the Past (1947), an exceptional Film Noir in a career that would continue through the mid 1960’s. The Seventh Victim (1943) Produced by Val Lewton.  Directed by Mark Robson. Screenplay by Charles O’Neal and DeWitt Bodeen.

Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, Evelyn Brent, Erford Gage, Ben Bard, Hugh Beaumont.

In an interview for The Celluloid Muse, Mark Robson spoke of Lewton, “Val didn’t know much about film, physically speaking.  He knew stories very well; he had a great fondness for directors and writers.  But he was fundamentally a writer, a poet, a novelist poet, an historian.”  Robson went on, “He thought of his unit –and he had his own little horror unit—in terms of the producer, the writer, the director and the editor; a kind of team in which we all worked extremely closely together.”

Mark Robson was assigned to Lewton’s unit as an editor and by 1943 was promoted to direct The Seventh Victim. Prior to this, he had been editor with Robert Wise on Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons.  Also doing the final editing on Ambersons to restore it to Welles’ vision.  This was at a point when Welles all but abandoned the project.

Jean Brooks starred in  The Seventh Victim, a problematic film that purports to be about a group of devil worshipers but really feels like it is about something else.  What?  Well, that’s just it.  The evidence on the surface is minimal, but looking into Lewton’s development sheds some light on what is mostly conjecture.  In an interview for the book, Women in Horror: 1940’s, Val Lewton Jr. told writer, Gregory William Mank that he felt that the Jean Brooks character (Jacqueline) was based on his father’s  famous aunt, Alla Nazimova.

Nazimova was not only a star of the stage and silent screen, but also is credited with coining the term ‘sewing circle’ as a cover for the lesbian activities in Hollywood.  She claimed among her lovers, Dolly Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s niece.

I Walked with a Zombie (1943) Produced by Val Lewton.  Directed by Jacques Tourneur.  Screenplay by Curt Siodman and Ardel Wray.

Cast:  Frances Dee, Tom Conway, Edith Barrett, James Bell and Christine Gordon.

After Cat People, Jacques Tourneur‘s next project for Lewton was the uniquely atmospheric, I Walked with a Zombie.  Although its title and short running time of 69 minutes may put some off–it is a mistake to miss this classic.  This is a chilling and well produced entry in the horror genre that stars Frances Dee, Tom Conway, and Christine Gordon.  Like Lewton’s Cat People and The 7th Victim, it remains in a class by itself.

 

Once again, Lewton’s production has much more that the usual B movie in every facet of the film; the shadowy photography by J. Roy Hunt, inspired art direction by Albert S. D’Agostino and a solid script by Curt Siodman and Ardel Wray.

A Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson,  Alfred Knopf, 1995.

The Celluloid Muse, Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg, Henry Regnery Company, 1969.

Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, David Thomas, Alfred Knopf, 1992.

The Sewing Circle, Alex Madsen, Birch Lane/Carol Publishing Group, 1995.

Women in Horror, 1940’s, Gregory William Mank,  McFarland & Company, 1999.