She Asked for His Hat, Filled with Jumbled Names and Places

One of the problems following a war where a defeated army is disbanded is that it leaves resentful trained killers with nothing to do. So in 1945, Universal released Salome, Where She Danced in which Yvonne de Carlo as a German ballerina dances her way into America's hearts. Appearing at various points in the story are Robert E. Lee, Otto von Bismarck, and a mysterious Chinese wiseman. De Carlo is lovely and gives a starmaking performance and the colour is really pretty but rarely have I gotten so strong an impression the filmmakers had no idea what they were doing.

Jim Steed (Rod Cameron) is an American war correspondent who soon after his report on the surrender of Robert E. Lee is sent to Vienna where he sees on stage the beautiful Yvonne De Carlo as Anna Marie. De Carlo's a decent dancer but no ballerina. She jumps about the stage beautifully enough, though.

I'm not sure what the ballet is about--the music is "The Blue Danube" by Strauss--but De Carlo's dancing partner appears safe from Illuminati mind control.

It certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with Salome, in fact nothing in the film does, unless maybe Anna Marie seducing a Prussian general to get intel for Steed ended up with the general's head on a platter in an earlier version of the script. But Anna Marie is too nice a girl for that. Instead, after her true love, an Austrian prince, is killed in battle, she travels across the U.S. with Steed and "The Professor" (J. Edward Bromberg) until they end up at a frontier town. A third of the way through the film, Steed crosses paths with the actual star of the film, David Bruce as stage coach robber Cleve Blunt.

Someone at the studio must have said at this point, "Uh, okay, it's Western! Right?" Anna Marie performs her dance for hootin' and hollerin' cowpokes until Cleve and his gang show up and rob the till. They kidnap Anna Marie, Cleve looks exactly like the Austrian prince (same actor) and everyone goes to San Francisco.

We'd met Cleve before as a Confederate soldier who tearfully asks General Lee (John Litel) what's he supposed to now? To which Lee hands down some wisdom like only a Confederacy besotted 1940s Hollywood version of Lee could about the honour of winning peacetime battles. This starts the one and only character arc in the film where the post war years lead Cleve to become a western outlaw who talks like a 30s gangster ("It's a frame up!") and plunders Chinese ships on the high sea. This allows Anna Marie to appear in Chinese wardrobe and jewellery for absolutely no reason.

The mysterious Dr. Ling is behind it all! He's played by that jack of all stereotypical foreigners, Abner Biberman, whom you might remember as Louis Palutso in His Girl Friday and Charlie How-Come in The Leopard Man.

Lest you think none of this is adding up, the film climaxes with a terrific sword fight between Cleve and the Prussian general (Albert Dekker).

And I didn't even mention the Russian Colonel who controls San Francisco or "Madam Europe".

A Sinking Ship

A captain at sea wakes his senior officers at one in the morning to ask who ate the frozen strawberries. There were other signs, but this may be the last straw in confirming the madness (not really madness) of a U.S. Naval captain, provoking his crew to mutiny in the completely and absolutely fictional 1954 film The Caine Mutiny because, as a title at the beginning informs us, there has never been a mutiny on-board a U.S. Naval ship. This nervous tiptoeing in the film was to placate the Navy so the film could use actual Navy ships and locations. In spite of the starchy restraint evident throughout the film, it's still an interesting drama about how to deal with a madman in charge (who isn't mad, U.S. Navy captains are never mad, please remember that).

Humphrey Bogart plays Captain Queeg who takes over command of the Caine from a gentler, weirdly permissive captain. Queeg finds a crew accustomed to not shaving or tucking in their shirts or bothering to wear helmets when operating guns. A control freak, he demands harsh punishments for the smallest infractions, placing most of the responsibility in the officer of the deck, a young man named Keith (Robert Francis).

The story is told mainly from Keith's point of view and he's one of the weakest links in this film. Francis isn't much of an actor and his personal life is all dream logic, at best.

We meet him at a rendezvous with his girlfriend, May (May Wynn), who is a knockout and it would've been nice to have her on screen more often.

Though it would have meant dealing more with a subplot that barely makes sense due, I suspect, to huge chunks of story excised from the novel the film's based on. Keith is in love with May but is reluctant to introduce her to his devoted mother (Katherine Warren) because May is a singer. Keith and May go on vacation to Yosemite where Keith asks May to marry him but she refuses because he asks her even though they both suspect his mother might not approve. May then becomes frustrated because she thinks Keith doesn't want to marry her.

Well, at least it's not the standard story of the wife or girlfriend at home, angry about her military lover taking risks in the ordinary course of his duty.

Oh, this film is supposedly set during World War II but everyone dresses like it's 1954 and we only see one scene where the Caine is engaged in battle.

Mainly it's about Lieutenant Keefer (Fred MacMurray) and Lieutenant Maryk (Van Johnson) scrutinising Queeg's behaviour to see if it really is time to relieve him. Maryk is second in command and is more reluctant at first than Keefer who quickly seems sure Queeg is dangerously paranoid. Jose Ferrer appears later in the film as the Navy lawyer who has to sort things out after, as the title suggests, the mutiny finally occurs. I'd say it's primarily Bogart, Johnson, and MacMurray that make this film work. Bogart is so on edge and vulnerable, terrified of the slightest thing getting out of control.

It's the strain from his job because obviously he's not mad.

Barbarians and Hats

This is Gianna, my latest character for Fallout 4, wearing a fedora like I do with my corporeal avatar. The fedora is getting a bad rap lately, being associated with passive aggressively sexist guys or something, but I'd like to remind everyone that the fedora was originally a woman's hat. In fact, it's named after a female character in a play. Not that I guess that makes much difference in the tide of popular opinion. Anyway, it's made me feel a little more benevolent to "man buns" which I think are meant to emulate samurai top knots. When a Starbucks cashier with a man bun assumed like many that my fedora made me a cowboy and said, "Howdy," I nearly replied, "Konnichiha" but it probably would've been a joke only I would have gotten.

Here's a video I took of myself a few days ago reading from a bag of Starbucks coffee while wearing one of my fedoras:

The music is by Howard Shore from the Naked Lunch soundtrack.

Gianna is wearing the Silver Shroud Armour and Hat, the Silver Shroud being a character in the Fallout universe apparently based on The Shadow, complete with entire radio shows you can listen to on one of the in-game radio stations. There's a ruined comic book store in the game (the Fallout games are set after a nuclear apocalypse) where you can retrieve the hat and costume. They figure into a quest where the guy running the radio station wants you to go out and pretend to be the Silver Shroud and murder evil-doers. The Shroud doesn't appear to have any particular powers like the Shadow, he just goes out and kills people. I guess it's meant to be progressive that no-one asks, "Why's the Shroud a woman now?" but it ends up just kind of seemingly lazy on the game makers' part. But it's fun anyway, having dialogue options where your character talks like a patronising, moral 1930s superhero before slaughtering gangsters and a guy selling drugs to kids.

Mostly, though, Gianna wears the Grognak costume:

Grognak being the Fallout world equivalent of Conan, the costume enhances your character's strength and melee skill--the axe, "Grognak's axe", enhances the strength and skill further, this weapon and costume being natural choices for Gianna who doesn't use guns. The game is mostly built around gun combat but melee is an option. My original plan was to make Gianna a greaser girl wielding a switchblade but the switchblade is naturally rather weak compared to weapons like the machete or sledgehammer.

I've also made her a cannibal, using one of the games optional perks that allows you to replenish health by eating people. It works exactly like eating people as a werewolf in Skyrim--both Skyrim and Fallout 4 are Bethesda games--but I don't seem to get as much health from eating people as I do as a werewolf in Skyrim. Maybe I just need to level it up a bit. Anyway, it certainly helps establish a personality for the character.

Twitter Sonnet #879

The shape of hands extend through velvet cords.
A radiator grin departs through black.
Unknown a danger twists the toothpick swords.
A human drifts from war to Sherris sack.
With argonite the captain sold a zoo.
In crusts of plates, the pies were sold for light.
The solvent people dwelt in bunkers true.
And so the gnomish hats gave up the fight.
The willow hero dropped a single hat.
A fix recursed the data nub for pots.
Decayed, the halberd makes a bed of fat.
Too much spinach invokes the iron cots.
In key chains books reduce the price of pulp.
A digital tongue sped up worlds who gulp.

Plunder of the Dissociated Signifiers!

A movie can exist without any semblance of meaning. The patterns of an adventure film are so well established in the collective conscience that nearly everything the characters do and say can make no sense at all and still a movie will stagger into existence by sheer habit, a movie like 1962's The Pirates of Blood River. This pirate film by Hammer has an impressive performance from Christopher Lee, extraordinarily cheap production values, characters whose motivations seemingly come from nowhere and, to put it mildly, an inaccurate impression of history.

Jonathon (Kerwin Mathews) is discovered having an affair with another man's wife in the late 17th century Huguenot colony of Devon. What, you say, Devon in England? No, this is an island. What, you say (googling), the enormous uninhabited island north of Canada? No, this island has piranhas which quickly devour the Jonathon's lover, which is seen by the colony elders as evidence of god's judgement.

Well, that at least sounds like 17th century Protestants. The enormous statue of the colony's founder somewhat less so. An opening title card informs us that this colony has been corrupted by greed which is used to explain why Jonathon is banished to an unnamed penal colony, apparently elsewhere on the island, for adultery. You read that right, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

Jonathon keeps saying at his trial with a look of complete innocent sincerity, "I can explain!" They never let him finish which would have been great. I really would've liked to have known what he was going to say: "I can explain! Our people are mistaken in their belief that adultery is wrong because I'm in love!" Sorry, Jonathon, you did the crime, you're off to the quarry, at least until you escape and are rescued by pirates.

We see a ship in the opening credits (a mid-18th century merchantman) but during the film we're given one matte painting of a ship in the distance and then a jump cut to Jonathon meeting Christopher Lee as Captain LaRoche in his cabin.

LaRoche implies that he believes the Huguenot colony has great treasure. Jonathon says he's wrong. LaRoche asks Jonathon to lead him to the main colony. Jonathon says, "I'm talking to pirates," and asks what would pirates want at a colony where there's no treasure? LaRoche says something vague about how it would be a good place to regularly resupply basic needs and promises to help liberate the town from the tyranny of the greedy elders. This is all Jonathon needs and immediately agrees to lead the way and is shocked with the pirates assault the first women they see. Egad, Jonathon, you're dumb.

Glenn Corbett is in the film as another good citizen in the colony who uses his glimmering eyes of justice to explain that the secret treasure the town turns out to actually have means more than money. He gives a meaningless speech that's supposed to sound noble about an object embodying a spirit of something pure and wonderful. If an actual 17th century Protestant saw this movie, they'd say, "So you're a papist, then?"

Oliver Reed has a too small role as one of the pirates who has an entertaining blindfolded duel at one point. Lee has a really good sword fight at the end of the film though I won't spoil the completely ridiculous and illogical circumstances leading up to it.

Game of the Welcome Table

Despite a few big reveals, this felt like the most low key episode of Game of Thrones this season. I really liked a few things, a few other events kind of deflated the story for me.

Spoilers after the screenshot.

Arya has left behind her life as an incompetent assassin to be totally incompetent at taking precautions against an average contract killing, let alone the greatest assassin guild in the world. I really liked Arya when she was in Westeros but her complete resistance to learning anything the past couple years has been exasperating. It's clearer now how much the Hound contributed to their great double act. Speaking of whom . . .

Yes, he's back, raising a church with Ian McShane who guest stars as Ian McShane if Ian McShane were a priest, or septon. I wonder if a renegade septon is called a "deviated septon". With the community of folks trying to peacefully work the land without respect to traditional landowners, it seems like the show might be referencing the Diggers or one of the other radical groups from the 1650s who did pretty much the same thing. They're kind of Diggers crossed with Anabaptists. Hardcore Protestants, anyway. Knowing McShane agreed to appear in only one episode, I'm not sure if this plot felt lacklustre because it didn't have the planned time to breathe or if McShane agreed to only one episode because it was a lacklustre subplot. Either way, it's nice to see the Hound moving on quickly from it, hopefully he doesn't become just another popular character who was saved from death only to stand around somewhere.

McShane's character doesn't have the skill or perhaps taste for manipulation the High Sparrow has and Jonathan Pryce continues to be one of my favourite aspects of this season as he mixes genuine insight and warmth with subtle threats. I liked this: "The poor disgust us because they are us, shorn of our illusions. They show us what we'd look like without our fine clothes. How we'd smell without perfume." Exchange "poor" for "walkers" and you'd have my take on the subtext of The Walking Dead. In any case, he's quite right, it's only a shame the show can't or won't show us the poor he's talking about. I was watching Mad Max: Fury Road again a few days ago and I marvelled again how quickly and solidly George Miller establishes a fantasy community, from the miscellaneous people waiting for the water to flow out of the mountain to the warlust culture of the the warboys. That was brilliant filmmaking and maybe that's too much to expect from Game of Thrones but still it would be nice if they tried. We don't even get to know any of McShane's followers.

But I really love the subtle power play going on between the High Sparrow and Margaery and I loved Diana Rigg in this episode.

I had to pinch myself in the siege scene--I had this moment where I was just so happy to be watching a mediaeval fantasy television series with high production values. This is something I've wanted to see all my life. It's nice to see Bronn again, too, hopefully he'll have something interesting to do.

I thought the scene where Jon, Sansa, and Davos had to negotiate with the pint sized liege of the Mormonts was a bit silly. It's true this is the same world that has the Lannister kids continually on the throne but realistically a child ruler actually running things would be rare, the Starks would more likely have met with a steward like John of Gaunt. But once again, I find myself having to note this is becoming a much more conventional wish-fulfilment fantasy series this season. I guess women taking over all over the place isn't so amazing when there's a little girl in charge of an Earldom or whatever they call it on Game of Thrones.

But this is my favourite lady in charge now:

Have I mentioned I like Yara? I really like Yara.

The Filtered Impression of Hazard

Between the drugs, the anger, the unrequited needs, and above all the debt, it's a wonder anyone can think straight in 2004's Pusher II. Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, it's a sequel to his 1996 film Pusher and features many of the same characters while more solidly developing the previous film's themes. Both films are tragedies but there's an effective melancholy in the sequel that comes with the more stylistic lighting. Like the first film, it feels like an impressively authentic take on gangster culture in Copenhagen.

The star of this film is Mads Mikkelsen, reprising his role as Tonny in the first film. The first film's protagonist, Frank, is absent but the sequel continues to subtly imply Tonny's repressed homosexuality. Well, if you call two prostitutes laughing at him because he can't get an erection "subtle".

The Wikipedia entry mentions that Winding Refn intentionally made most scenes end with Tonny being humiliated. With the back of Tonny's head ridiculously tattooed with the word "Respect", he's a pathetic spectacle offset by Mikkelsen's stony performance. Tonny generally plays it cool, his insecurities just barely squeezing through most of the time until he now and then explodes with misdirected violence.

His father (Leif Sylvester) runs a gang of car thieves and reluctantly hires Tonny, whom he despises, to help with some well filmed heists. Called "The Duke", his speech about Ø (Øyvind Hagen-Traberg) at Ø's wedding reception, where he effectively calls Ø the son he never had while simultaneously taking the opportunity to dress down Tonny some more, is almost too over the top. A plot about a prostitute (Anne Sorensen) with a baby she claims is Tonny's would also be a bit cliche if it weren't for the performances and Winding Refn's careful crafting of this world of gangsters, from set design to procedural of the heists.

Like the first film, a lot of people talk about owing money or people who owe them money, though the protagonist isn't the centre of a whirlpool of debts like Frank in the first film. Tonny's friend "The Cunt" (Kurt Nielsen), blunders his way into the debt of Milo (Zlatko Buric), the drug lord from the first film, then he bullies Tonny into accepting partial responsibility. Debt starts to take on a symbolism, like some kind of phantom currency for unsatisfied emotion. One has the feeling it's only a matter of time before everyone comes to some gruesome end without ever having a clear perspective on life.

Twitter Sonnet #878

The straw withstood the paper bagel's toss.
No harder bread could earn the flame of Zeus.
A crowd of coats conferred to blame the boss.
The shadows brewed a draught to please the moose.
The afterthought intrudes on reddened words.
In glasses left on tables sunk in shade.
The butterflies have weaved the air in herds.
And brittle stings continue down the grade.
In hearts of coffee ice invades the grog.
A canvas popped to seal the artist fresh.
In falling mem'ry curses turn to bog.
Across the grains of graph, an inky mesh.
A climbing string anticipates the mist.
A number called "The Gen'ral" traced the fist.

Doctoring Towards War

The War Doctor (John Hurt) still hasn't earned his warrior cred in the second audio play in which he features, The Thousand Worlds. Written, like the first, by Nicholas Briggs, it's pretty much the default Dalek story ever since the First Doctor's Dalek Invasion of Earth--the Daleks occupy a planet, they've enslaved a people, some people are complicit, the Doctor is repeatedly captured and escapes and sabotages things, etc. It is fun having John Hurt going through these motions but a little less exciting than the first audio. Mostly I just want to get through these so I can hear what he's like with material not written by Briggs. They could at least make him as warlike as the Third Doctor--give him the martial arts and let him use a gun now and then. Yes, he's not even done as much as we've seen him do at the beginning of Day of the Doctor.

I wonder if John Hurt is up to doing audio martial arts. Hopefully it'd be more than "Hi-YAH!"

I do think Briggs is great as the voice of the Daleks. He gets their panicked peevishness perfect. Just like Mark Gatiss, I guess, I don't mind him as an actor, I just wish they'd stop letting him write. At least Briggs hasn't graduated to the television series.

I heard Muhammad Ali died yesterday. I never had any opinion about him one way or another but his death does contribute to the general feeling of this being a year of high profile death.

The Sword of Eve Climbs the Mountain

It's amazing how short the day is when you get up at noon. But I was up until 4am, rather aimlessly. I watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (Lost Continent ["Rock Climbing"]), an episode of The Walking Dead, and The Lady Eve for the first time in years. I was surprised how much I spontaneously laughed at a comedy I was so thoroughly familiar with. I knew Henry Fonda was going to hit his head on that tray of food, ruining his last tuxedo, but I laughed anyway. And what a work of just pure genius. Jean running away from Charles' snake, like a metaphor for her fear of his penis, yet she plays it up in the next moment, having him look under her bed and then caressing him on the couch: "You don't know what you've done to me!" But then she has a nightmare about the snake. She was, in a word, excited . . . Charles not believing Eve is Jean because Eve looks exactly like Jean; the horse butting in on Charles' line about having known Eve in some supernatural way all his life. Every time things start to get conventionally moral or sexual, Charles' clumsiness or Jean's libido subverts it all hopelessly. Such a fun movie.

I heard Joel Hodgson has gotten a former head writer for The Daily Show to be head writer for the new MST3k. So that might be good but it's still hard to imagine the show having the same flavour without the man who was head writer for almost the entire run of the series, Mike Nelson, who has a good riffing show now called RiffTrax. The new MST3k might be good but I have to imagine it'll be fundamentally different and I'm not really sure why Hodgson feels this is necessary.

I'm continuing to enjoy The Walking Dead--I'm about halfway through season three. I like Michonne but I wish she'd talk more. So many problems on the show wouldn't happen in the first place if Michonne didn't clam up every time someone asked her, "What's your name?" "Why are you here?" or "What's wrong?" I'm also tired of her getting her sword taken away every few minutes. It feels more like a preview of the character than actually having the character on the show.

Hamlet in Kashmir

It may seem easy to dismiss the motivations behind endless violent conflicts as petty but it's important remember how human, universal, and tortuously ambiguous issues related to revenge can be. 2014's Haider is a Bollywood film that adapts Shakespeare's Hamlet to set it in mid-90s Kashmir. Well shot, it uses the familiar, distinct cinematic language of Bollywood to make an insightful connexion between the great English poet and the modern troubles in the country torn apart by the influences of India, Pakistan, and independence.

The story begins well before the events of the play as we meet the father of Hamlet (Narendra Jha) when he's a doctor harbouring a militant fugitive despite the anxiety this causes his wife, Ghazala (Tabu), the film's version of Gertrude.

In the twentieth and twenty first century it's been increasingly common to interrupt Hamlet's relationship with his mother as having incestuous undertones. Haider decides to cast its lot with this interpretation and the relationship between Ghazala and her son, Haider (Shahid Kapoor), poises them in many scenes seemingly at the point of making out.

The film's version of Ophelia, Arshia (Shraddha Kapoor), can scarcely compete though one of the film's musical numbers is a very effectively shot romantic interlude between Haider and Arshia and it includes a nicely erotic hijab removal.

Like many Bollywood musical numbers, this sequence feels much like a western music video, switching between location and time without fidelity to linear progression. Shots of Haider and Arshia playing in the snow are mixed with dark, candlelit scenes of Haider and Arshia slowly exploring each other's bodies in a cabin. And yet, it is different from the traditional Bollywood musical number in that the characters don't seem to be singing. Instead, there's a disembodied voice on the soundtrack. This seems part of a sad trend in Bollywood to emulate Hollywood which has for the most part lost the taste and talent for musical numbers in live action film. Many Bollywood films seem to avoid proper musical numbers until at least an hour and a half in now, as though to gently ease an audience into the idea. Haider finally has a proper musical number around three quarters into the nearly three hour film when Claudius and Gertrude, Khurram (Kay Kay Menon) and Ghazala, finally marry.

This is Haider, Hamlet, delivering the famous play within a play and much like Shakespeare's version it presents the story of Khurram murdering Haider's father and seducing his mother. For much of the film, Haider's unsure if Khurram really is responsible for his father's death and there's some indication that the film's version of the ghost is misleading Haider.

The reconceptualising of the ghost is one of the more interesting adaptations in the film, essentially breaking down one character into several to serve and highlight several of the thematic functions of the ghost on Prince Hamlet's mind. Instead of the apparition of his father, Haider encounters Roohdaar (Irrfan Khan), who claims to be a former cellmate of his father's. Roohdaar is also part of the militant faction resisting Indian rule and tells Haider his father wanted him to join the militants and assassinate his uncle Kharram, whom Roohdaar says is responsible for his father's imprisonment and execution. So Hamlet's preoccupation with honour and revenge neatly translates to the revenge desired by the militant faction that claims to be fighting to retake a homeland.

In one scene that's definitely not in Hamlet, Haider's grandfather, a university professor (Kulbhushan), gently confronts the leader of Haider's militant cell when he mentions the motive of revenge. Haider's grandfather tells the man that India's freedom was won not by violence but by the passive resistance of Ghandi.

So the film takes a much clearer ideological stance than Hamlet, though considering the very real world troubles it's dealing with it's easy to see why the filmmakers would be reluctant to leave the audience with questions on that score. But enough ambiguity remains to make the viewer consider the conflicting points of view.

The film's not perfect--its version of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are two over the top buffoons who run a video store. Ophelia's story is short-changed considerably by having no "get thee to a nunnery" moments from Haider but there is a wonderful visual device of a bright red scarf Arshia knits for her father, the Polonius character (Lallit Parimoo), that winds up in Haider's hands, and then back in hers, in an interesting way. Ultimately the movie's heart seems to be more with Haider and his mother than Hamlet's was with the prince and Gertrude and Khurram is a bit more outright villainous than Claudius. But the movie is very well shot, the music is very good, and performances by Shahid Kapoor and Tabu are very effective.

Twitter Sonnet #877

With orange and pepper soda could not cope.
A roving voice has cut the gas and sulked.
A stripe was bent beyond the decade's scope.
The overused and eggy pattern bulked.
Unknown thus far for sewing bees take thread.
A scope abaft preserved the eye of bulge.
Extended guts will put the lens ahead.
More bark than trees can junk will soon divulge.
In amber pistons pound the coaster's drinks.
In rolling cars the rings of sweat imprint.
On oak and particle the damage sinks.
Embarrassed clouds from jungle gyms relent.
Vigour besets the yarn in growing clumps.
A sweater sealed the socking adult grumps.

Marilyn is Forever

Happy birthday, Marilyn Monroe, who was born ninety years ago to-day. Since I didn't have time to watch a movie last night I thought to-day I'd do a Marilyn Monroe list, not really a top ten list but sort of a primer using entries I've written about her over the years. Looking through my archive, I see I watched quite a few Marilyn Monroe films in 2011 for some reason. I have yet to write a proper entry about Monroe's best film, The Misfits, something I need to rectify one of these days. That's the trouble with a movie I first saw such a very long time ago and I've watched so many times.

One of Monroe's most famous films is The Seven Year Itch which I wrote about back in July, 2011. I don't recommend it, despite it being a Billy Wilder film, you're better off watching the famous clips of Monroe from the film than enduring its extraordinarily dated, ham-handed psychology. Of course, the best known collaboration between Billy Wilder and Marilyn Monroe is Some Like it Hot.

I haven't written a review for the film, another one that I'd seen several times before I started this blog in 2002, but in March, 2009 I visited the Hotel del Coronado, where much of the film's exteriors were shot, and managed to match up my photos with screenshots from the film. It's strange how things do change, like how this film was once seen as exceptionally progressive for sneaking in a pro-gay statement and now might be looked at as transphobic. It's one I think I'll have to revisit but having recently watched Alastair Sim play a woman in Belles of Saint Trinian I can say that I think comedies about men dressing as women can age better than one might expect. In the case of Saint Trinian, I think this is because, while the idea of a man dressed as a women may have been intended as funny when the film was shot, it still works to-day because the filmmakers, and crucially Sim, seem to buy into the reality of the character. She's foolish, like many of Sim's characters, but not because of anything about her that might be interpreted as masculine. Of course, Some Like It Hot has male characters in drag, so it might not age quite as well.

One film I can say definitely hasn't aged well is River of No Return. Starring alongside Monroe is Robert Mitchum and it's directed by Otto Preminger so I thought it couldn't miss. Yet it exemplifies some of the ugliest popular ideals of the 1950s about race, sex, and economics. It does have some magnificent visuals and I would like to revisit it at some point to see what I can find once I get past some of its uglier surface.

For films that have aged better, one might turn to the films Monroe made with Howard Hawks, seen above in the only movie she appeared in with Cary Grant, Monkey Business, which I wrote about on 11/11/11. The film is really about Grant's relationship with Ginger Rogers' character but Monroe has a fun minor role of the kind she was too often stuck with, the dumb blonde, in this very funny film.

Her better known film for Hawks, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, has her playing a similar character but in a more prominent role where she is allowed to have something of a philosophy, even if it is a shallow one. Her musical numbers are justifiably legendary.

Much more impressive, though, is her one film with Lawrence Olivier, The Prince and the Showgirl. The story is pretty bland but the real great thing about the film is its pairing of the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff with Marilyn Monroe. It's often said how perfect a subject Monroe was for photography and she likely could make a bad photographer look good but there's a great pleasure in seeing her paired with someone truly great: Cardiff's Rembrandt inspired chiaroscuro makes use of her beauty as no other cinematographer did.

But certainly cinematographer Joseph MacDonald was no slouch in his work with Monroe in Niagara. Using hard noir shadows and violent saturated colour, this was Monroe's breakout role as a star and she serves as a muse of destruction for the great self-destructive noir character Joseph Cotten plays in the film. The volatility of their relationship is beautifully grotesque.

Monroe starred in several great films noir as well as having minor roles in other great noirs like Clash by Night and The Asphalt Jungle. Pictured above is Monroe with Richard Widmark in Don't Bother to Knock where she gives us the dark side of that dumb blonde for which she was normally typecast. In a way, she turns it into a villain and yet her vulnerability and inevitable magnetism make the film a true noir with the moral complexity that couldn't be found in a more simplistic crime film.