"It Was Bound to Happen"

Seems the marketing folks at the 8th Street Playhouse got a little creative for this second-run engagement of Bad Boys.  I'm sure it helped get in some more of the desired audience, but a number of them surely left disappointed.

Driven to Tears: September 30, 1955

It's not very often that a film has me and has me with moist eyes not two minutes into its running time--on first viewing.  But, that was the case with James Bridges' September 30, 1955 (aka 9/30/55), an autobiographical tale that might be one of the most authentic and most perceptive portrayals of cinema obsession that I've seen captured in a narrative film, particularly one produced by a major studio.  Bridges' surrogate, Jimmy J. (Richard Thomas), a young college student in Arkansas is crazy about James Dean and his starring debut, East of Eden.  His friends, including his girlfriend, humor him, but don't really understand the connection he feels to Dean, how important his acting and persona are to the fatherless Jimmy J., and how losing one's personal hero can cut so deeply, even if one didn't really know him in the traditional sense.  When Dean is killed, Jimmy J. is devastated.  He and his former girlfriend Billie Jean (the late Lisa Blount), who feels the same way about Dean, lead the other kids in a night of seances and tributes in an effort to communicate with the spirit of Dean...with tragic results.

Bridges is the author of one my other favorite unsung films, Mike's Murder, and on the strength of these two pictures, along with his most popular titles (Urban Cowboy, The China Syndrome, The Paper Chase), the filmmaker who died prematurely at 57, possesses one of the more impressive, albeit small, directorial oeuvres that seemingly no one talks about.  Almost no one...Peter Tonguette did recently write a book on Bridges, and he and I agree that Mike's Murder and September 30, 1955, Bridges' most personal films, "are among the best movies of their era."  I read a comment on a Netflix customer review that aptly describes this film as "nailing the '50s like Dazed and Confused nailed the '70s" and I think that's a pretty good, accurate compliment.

I'm a little sorry it took me so long to get to September 30, 1955, as it spoke to me in a way that few films do and it most certainly would have had particularly strong meaning to me had I seen it when I was Jimmy J.'s age.  Having said that, I suspect this is a film that is very much one that will either be a revelation, as it was for me, or extremely tedious.  Jimmy J. watches and connects with movies and movie people in the way that cinephiles do and can identify in fellow cinephiles, but which normal folks shrug their shoulders at, or, worse, call "sick," as one character labels Jimmy J.  He's a dreamer, an obsessive, and borderline delusional, but I'm drawn to him in a way that I've been to other characters of similar ill repute such as The Swimmer's Ned Merrill.  Having grown up in a place where I had a very difficult time connecting with peers who shared my movie love and then dealing with the ensuing isolation, which was exacerbated by the premature loss of my father, I felt for Jimmy J. in a way that doesn't happen all the time and this rarity, in part, makes such instances all the more satisfying and powerful.

Bridges has made a picture, which might deceptively be labeled a "small film," but which portrays the pleasures of cinephilia, the fragility of youth, and loss with a sensitivity and certain kind of grandeur that is difficult to achieve.  Its evocation of '50s small town Americana is haunting and dreamlike, but not in a way that distracts or calls attention to itself.  Even with the use of certain dramatic devices and qualities that might seem counter to it, the film retains a subtlety and ambiguity that aligns it with the best films of its era.

September 30, 1955 opens with a glorious night shot of the marquee of the Conway Theater in downtown Conway, Arkansas, where the featured show is Kazan's East of Eden.  The Universal film than cuts to actual footage of the finale of Warner Bros.' East of Eden (although September 30, 1955 gives no credit or thanks to WB for the use of its footage).

Bridges' main character Jimmy J. (played magnificently by Thomas) watches the film by himself (for, what we later find out, is the 4th time) and Bridges and Gordon Willis' camera lingers on Jimmy as he intently watches the film, transfixed, sometimes smiling and laughing, and ultimately crying.  It's a beautiful opening to the film--and maybe its high point.  Perhaps because of my own, many, experiences alone in a movie house transported away from my real life by the world inside the screen, having that special experience of being one with the film, I found myself misty as I watched Jimmy getting choked up while watching his onscreen hero break down in the film within the film.

After the film, while the other patrons (mostly young couples) exit the theater, Jimmy, whose tears have dried, stops to admire and study the one-sheet for the film before he leaves the theater area entirely.  It's a very true, lovely little moment, which I can certainly relate to, and which I'm glad Bridges thought to include.  The one-sheet is a reminder, a representation, and a record of the film, particularly at a time (1955) when there would be no home video or downloadable iteration of the film to hold onto and collect, nor a mechanism to record a television broadcast, a broadcast which probably wouldn't happen for several more years.

Following a credits sequence that introduces the basic visuals of the small town Arkansas community where the film is set, the action moves to the campus of Arkansas State Teachers College (Bridges' real-life alma mater) where Jimmy J., in football uniform hears of the tragic death of his hero via radio broadcast.  From there, Jimmy is almost literally on the run, in his quest to not only memorialize his hero through ritual seances, but also through becoming more like him.  As Jimmy tells several people, he may not have known Dean personally, but the star's death has changed his life irrevocably.  Thomas,  again, as in the first scene in the movie theater, brilliantly conveys Jimmy J.'s sense of loss, confusion, and disbelief upon hearing of Dean's death.  Thomas really impresses with his ability to make you feel his character's inner tumult through facial expressions and body language.

Going to a liquor shop to attempt to pick up some drinks for his friends gives Jimmy a free moment to pore over the scant initial details of Dean's car accident in the local paper.  When he's refused service because he's underage, Jimmy J. steals the liquor, an act meant as much to benefit and impress his friends as it is for him to be more like his "rebel" hero.  While the script gives indications that Jimmy is sensitive and prone to unpredictable behavior prior to Dean's death, it isn't explicit about whether he previously engaged in criminal or rebellious behavior such as the theft of the liquor. In the course of the film Jimmy J. will tell both his girlfriends (Deborah Benson and Lisa Blount) of how similar he and Dean were, in terms of both Dean's actual biographical details, as well as those of the characters he played.

Proto-goth girl Billie Jean (Lisa Blount) is the only other person in their small town who understands Jimmy J.'s deep-seated connection to Dean and the only one who goes further than him in her devotion to the star, something that makes the rest of his friends dislike and feel threatened by her.  She helps push Jimmy J. to act out his obsession to her eventual, tragic detriment and possibly his own future tragedy.

"If only I felt like I belonged someplace."  Visiting the bedridden, burned Billie Jean, Jimmy J. has completed his transformation and is caught up in his story of seeing Rebel Without a Cause three times in Memphis so that he could properly remember all the details when the time came to tell her about it, stealing a lobby card for her,  and obtaining a new motorcycle and Dean wardrobe, complete with Rebel red jacket.

At the homecoming game, Jimmy J. finds himself on the other side of the fence in a different uniform than he had on at the start of the film.  Bridges and Jimmy J. seem ambiguous as to whether Jimmy J.'s self-imposed exile from his hometown and journey to Hollywood is a good thing.

We return to where it all started.  Dean has been squeezed out of the Conway marquee by Monroe and he's leaving Conway.  Is this how Bridges made his journey to Hollywood?

Bridges wisely hired Leonard Rosenman to score his film and the composer masterfully incorporated his still beautiful themes from East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause to fit Jimmy J.'s narrative and character arc.  It's a great device because I assume I am probably not the only one who has found myself, at times, subconsciously scoring my life with the music of those films that live deep within my psyche.

More Film Bulletin: Coscarelli's First

AKA Jim, the World's Greatest.

Films Within Films...or, Jurgensen x2

In the 1977 telefilm Contract on Cherry Street, cop Michael Nouri awaits c.i. Steve Inwood at the Queensboro Plaza subway station.  Note the tattered subway poster for William Friedkin's Sorcerer, also released in '77, to the right of Nouri. 

Yes, it's yet another example of this most exciting kind of synergy, this time Friedkin's Sorcerer turns up, in a way, in "dirty old New York" cop telefilm Contract on Cherry Street.  Interestingly, NYPD detective turned actor / consultant / producer Randy Jurgensen appears in both Contract on Cherry Street and Sorcerer.  Jurgensen broke into the movie game as a consultant on The French Connection...he was one of the cops who broke the case, along with Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso.

He also appeared on screen, for the first time, in French Connection in a humorous role as the sergeant in the police garage.  In that film, Gene Hackman would win an Academy Award for playing Egan surrogate Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle.  Two years later, Robert Duvall would essay another Egan-inspired character, Eddie Ryan, in Badge 373.  Logically, Jurgensen appears in the latter film, as well, as a cop alongside Duvall, in the finale at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Jurgensen's connection with Sorcerer and French Connection star Roy Scheider would carry over to The Seven-Ups and Still of the Night.  With Friedkin, he would collaborate on French Connection, Sorcerer, The Brink's Job, and Cruising.  Jurgensen's undercover work in the '60s in the gay community of Greenwich Village, and the cases related to those assignments, directly inspired the narrative of Cruising.

Essentially, if you've seen a New York City-set, '70s policier or two, you've almost certainly seen some of Jurgensen's work, whether it be in front of or behind the camera.

Sorcerer remains at the center of a lawsuit put forth by Friedkin, charging the two studios who financed the picture, Universal and Paramount, with withholding profits owed to him and mismanaging the distribution and stewardship of the film...in short: both studios plead ignorance as to who controls Sorcerer, which has kept it out of circulation on home video and the repertory circuit as of late.  Friedkin tweets that an end is in sight to the litigation.

Jurgensen plays movie trivia games with his partners, which include Frank Sinatra, over the airwaves in Contract on Cherry Street.

Jurgensen counsels Roy Scheider in Sorcerer.  Note the very pronounced collar Jurgensen sports in each screen shot.

Surrender to Suburbia '79 / '82 (Or, "In My Room")

On the audio commentary track recorded with novelist / screenwriter Cameron Crowe and director Amy Heckerling for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Crowe take a couple minutes to praise Jonathan Kaplan's Over the Edge and its influence on him when conceiving Fast Times.

Indeed, there are some visual, aural, and thematic similarities shared by these two classic portrayals of suburban youth of the late '70s.  Although filmed in late 1981 and released the following Summer, Fast Times still seems to belong more to the '70s, which is appropriate given its roots go back to 1979, the year Crowe went undercover at Claremont High School, outside San Diego.

This video marries Crowe's comments to some of those elements present in both films.  Robert Romanus and Michael Kramer, who feature prominently in this video, share a rememblance:

Movies in Books: Phantasm -> Fast Times

"Whenever possible play Side One of Led Zeppelin IV...and take her to Phantasm."

Of course, Mike Damone famously championed Zeppelin in Fast Times at Ridgemont High the film and novel, both by Cameron Crowe.  In the book, Mark Ratner plays Zeppelin IV and takes Stacy to see the new film Phantasm.  In the film, probably due to licensing issues, "The Rat" plays "Kashmir" from Physical Graffiti and there is no mention of Phantasm or any other movie.  I had the pleasure of speaking with Don Coscarelli the other night in between a screening of his new film John Dies at the End and his third, perhaps most beloved, film Phantasm.  I was surprised to learn that he did not know of Crowe's mentioning of Phantasm in Fast Times, the novel.  He wanted to know why Crowe and / or director Amy Heckerling chopped this reference from the film version.  That, I said, he'd have to take up with them.

As I understand it, Crowe now controls the rights to the novel, which was last in print in '82 in conjunction with the release of the film.  I hope he reprints it, as my copy has a broken spine as well as cover fading, and prices on the secondary market are quite prohibitive.  I was lucky enough to find a used copy over twenty years ago in a shop for $8.  The book may be out of print due to the fact that some of Crowe's "classmates," chiefly Mark Ratner inspiration Andy Rathbone, during his undercover time at Claremont High weren't so keen on his portrayal of them in the novel.

12 For 12

Another year, another year-end list for Rupe.

Now, I hope that the Warner Archive delivers on that DVD of Lolly-Madonna XXX (aka The Lolly-Madonna War) they told me they are "working on."

Previous lists here and here.

Stallone-isms

With 6 Rocky installments and 4 iterations of Rambo it's no secret that Sly Stallone will return to the same couple of wells multiple times.  For me, a Stallone fan for as long as I can remember, it's interesting to see where some of the dialogue, narrative devices, and visuals of those films creep into other, less-celebrated Stallone vehicles.  Since the star so often writes and / or directs his own projects--whether in official or unofficial capacities--it's not surprising to have some overlap in terms of dialogue and scenarios across different films. 

I haven't seen every Stallone picture nor do I have access to all of them so this project reflects the titles I'm more familiar with and have an affinity for.  I'd certainly be interested to hear about more examples of these "Stallone-isms."

Films Within Films: Roy Scheider

Jaws, co-starring Roy Scheider, appears in Marathon Man, co-starring Roy Scheider, by way of a movie marquee.  The theater is the long-gone Rivoli.

Scum / Bad Boys

I think anyone familiar with Alan Clarke's Scum who then watches Rick Rosenthal's Bad Boys will notice some striking similarities between the two films, in narrative, thematic, and visual terms.  To me, there are enough parallels that Rosenthal and Bad Boys screenwriter Richard Di Lello (author of The Longest Cocktail Party) probably should have given some direct acknowledgment to Clarke and writer Roy Minton's film (as well as the earlier Scum teleplay that proved to be too much for the BBC).   

Bad Boys is a pretty rough film, particularly for a mainstream American product intended largely for teen audiences.  Scum, however, makes its American cousin look like a preschool picnic and is a much stronger film for it.  Where Bad Boys injects a love story into its narrative, an inspiring, incessant Bill Conti score, a Rocky-like final fight, and a theme of redemption, Scum doesn't attempt any of these softening, conventional touches.

What the American film hints at or suggests, such as male-on-male rape, Scum pulls no punches with and rubs the viewer's nose in.  There are mostly sympathetic guards and administrators in the juvenile prison where Bad Boys star Sean Penn does time; the men who run the borstal in Scum range from cold and unfeeling to unrepentant sadists.

In Bad Boys, the prison is shown to be flawed, but the film still makes it a force which turns bad boy Penn into a better man.  The borstal in Scum is a brutal, inhumane place and the film offers no hope for those inside or for some kind of reform to the system.  A few years after Scum was released, the borstal system was abandoned in the U.K.  Whether the film influenced this in any way and how truthful the film is to the actual borstal experience, I'm not certain.

I illustrate some of the parallels and contrasts of the two films in this video essay.

EDIT: I just found out about a French-Canadian remake of Scum, entitled Dog Pound, via this most informative Scum Wiki page.

Not So Obscure TV Spot, But Still MIA on DVD: King of the Mountain (1981, Noel Nosseck)

This is one of those quintessential late-night films...by that, I mean the kind one would discover on television back in the days when the network affiliates would play movies in overnight time-slots rather than informercials and reruns of Friends, Seinfeld, or That '70s Show.  It's an odd little film that faded from public consciousness soon after its middling theatrical run, takes place mostly at night in the hills above L.A., is set in a cool milieu (illegal drag racing), and has a cast of interesting, though second-tier stars.  Since its leading man, the titular "King," Harry Hamlin found fame in the '80s on L.A. Law, even "winning" People's "Sexiest Man Alive" crown in '87, I'm sure this one found plenty of "late show" airplay in the '80s.  Later, in college, Rupe and I would watch this sort of thing via ex-rental VHS tapes, but still Noel Nosseck's King of the Mountain eluded me until now.

I caught a VHS rip of the film, which has been completely absent from DVD, possibly due to the inclusion of some popular source tracks by artists such as the Police, Styx, and Robert Palmer, and watched it late at night, thereby somewhat replicating the experience I might have had seeing it on the CBS Late Movie, ABC Late Night, WPIX 11, or WWOR 9.  In my head, I can the hear that authoritative network v.o. saying something like, "We now return to King of the Mountain starring Harry Hamlin."  Made in 1981, this is a hard PG, reminiscent of the many '70s films that packed in much rough stuff, but still maintained that kid-friendly PG rating.  There is plenty of smoking, drinking (including some slugs of Jack Daniels while behind the wheel), some sex (though no nudity), violence, and some nasty language.  In short, another film mostly made for adults, but without the requisite amount of "fucks" and nipples to earn an R.  The film was produced by mini-major Polygram and distributed by Universal; I believe Universal still retains distribution rights.  Its home video in the U.S., in the '80s, was handled by Embassy.

Taking a page from the Saturday Night Fever school of development, H.R. Christian and Leigh Chapman's script is based on a magazine article about a real emerging, local subculture.  In the case of King of the Mountain, the article was "Thunder Road" and the magazine was New West (the West Coast sister magazine to New York, where "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night" was published).  The article told of the exploits of a couple of racers in the illicit car racing scene that developed along Mulholland Drive in the '60s and '70s.  Harry Hamlin's Steve seems to be an amalgamation of two young drivers profiled in the article (Chris Banning and John Hall) and is the "Tony Manero" of the film.  He's the baddest driver on the scene--"the King"--appropriately handsome and cocky, who boasts of being able to drive the 1.8 mile course "blind-folded."  Hamlin just isn't as dynamic as Travolta and his inner struggle isn't fully explored enough to make his character arc / transformation all that moving or dramatic, as I'm sure the filmmakers intended.  Dennis Hopper is the grizzled vet and former "King," who was driven mad after nearly killing himself on the course 15 years earlier.  This is Hopper several years before his career revival (Blue Velvet and Hoosiers) so the story that he took a six-pack and finished it while doing some dangerous driving for pick-up shots is not surprising.  In spite of the tolerance of the shaky Hopper's presence on the production, original lead Brad Davis was reportedly fired for his drug problem.

The filmmakers apparently felt the need to flesh out the script by adding in a secondary plot about Steve's roommates and former racing compadres (Joseph Bottoms and Richard Cox) who are now trying to break into the music scene, writing and producing songs for singer Deborah Van Valkenburgh (who sings her own songs in the film, which are produced by Jack Nitzsche!).  Seymour Cassel is a high-powered producer angling to buy Bottoms' songs and get Van Valkenburgh into his stable of talent, without the participation of Bottoms and Cox.  There is tension between the artistic and idealistic Bottoms and the more business-minded Cox (who casually tickles the ivories at one point, just as he did a year earlier in Cruising).  The music is reminiscent of a lot of the '70s California soft rock popularized by the likes of Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and many others, and I like to imagine that the recording scenes (which I like) are a somewhat authentic re-creation of that milieu and its creative process.  The rock-based score is by the late Mike Melvoin a composer and studio musician with a very impressive list of credits going back to the '60s.  I don't know L.A. topography and geography enough to say for sure, but I assume the boys' pad is somewhere in Laurel Canyon, where much of the aforementioned music and artists were based.

So, the film becomes a sort of fusion of Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky, Spetters, Breaking Away, The Idolmaker, Dreamer (also directed by Nosseck), and surely others that I'm not thinking of right now.  It's not entirely successful, by any means, but it's an entertaining diversion and certainly not deserving of its current no-DVD obscurity / limbo status.  However, reading the New West article, it's clear that the film would have been much better off following its streamlined approach: that is, focusing solely on the racers and their obsessions...their cars, speed, and the road...their environment, and the cops trying to take them down.

"I'll never stop for the police in my car," Chris says. "Not if they're after me with the militia. There are people out there who work for the city who want to get me, but there's no way anybody can catch me in this car. I wouldn't stop if they set up a barricade. If they caught me, they'd impound the car and mess it up. I'd kill myself if anything happened to this car. I love it more than anything."

Lana & Phil

After all the times I watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High growing up, the first thing I thought of when I heard that Phil Spector had shot a woman named Lana Clarkson was, "Mrs. Vargas."  Clarkson was a struggling actress and comedienne on the wrong side of 40, when she made an ill-fated late night trip to Spector's mansion.  In the '80s, however she made a string of appearances in small roles in A-pictures such as Scarface and guest spots on sitcoms while also starring in second tier genre films such as Deathstalker, Barbarian Queen, and its sequel.  Her first credited role was a small, but memorable one as the improbably gorgeous wife of science teacher Mr. Vargas (Vincent Schiavelli) in Fast Times.

I know the soundtrack of the film quite well and knew that the Spector-produced "Winter Wonderland" appeared on it, but it wasn't until a 35mm screening of Fast Times last night that it hit me that Phil Spector and Lana Clarkson appeared together in a way, just over 20 years prior to their most tragic final encounter.

1983 / 2006

Her,Suzanne76 pointed this connection out to me at a recent screening of The Keep so she gets full credit for this, whatever that's worth.  Obviously the stills aren't quiet as effective as seeing the scenes play out in motion, but there is certainly something familiar about the Miami Vice scene that feels like it may be some kind of an acknowledgement of the earlier film.  Whether this is an intentional nod to The Keep on Mann's part or not, it's worth pondering.  It should, of course, also be noted that Mann has not kept his negative feelings about The Keep secret and has "disowned" it to a degree.  To date, The Keep remains unavailable on DVD or Blu-ray, no doubt due to Mann's antipathy towards the finished film, though it can be found streaming, in widescreen, on Netflix Instant.

Scott Glenn's Glaeken Trismegestus travels by fishing boat from Greece to Romania in Michael Mann's The Keep (1983).

Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) pilots a speedboat with Isabella (Gong Li) from Miami to her Cuban home in Mann's Miami Vice (2006).

Addendum: it seems I had a different scene in mind than Her,Suzanne76 when she whispered to me during the "boat scene" in The Keep, "Like Miami Vice."  We have a pretty good shorthand going, but sometimes even our signals can get crossed.

More nautical stuff from Mann's Miami Vice, most of it at night, the sky taking on some of the same purple and orange hues as in the scene in The Keep.