NFR Project: 'Adam's Rib' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “Adam’s Rib”

Dir: George Cukor

Scr: Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin

Pho: George J. Folsey

Ed: George Boemler

Premiere: Nov. 18, 1949

101 min.

When last we saw Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn on film together in this series, it was in their first collaboration, Woman of the Year (1942). Over the next eight years, they made seven more pictures together. Their chemistry was perfect – he, the wry average guy, her the rapid-fire overachiever.

This onscreen relationship was accompanied by an offscreen relationship, one that was deeply loving. Tracy, a Catholic, wouldn’t divorce his wife, so he and Hepburn lived a life together as much as they could, maintaining separate residences and keeping their relationship an ill-kept secret. Tracy also struggled with his mental health and with alcohol. It was not all peaches and cream.

Still, what made them compatible offscreen manifests itself in their films together. Each one had a characteristic persona, and these two types played off each other with grace and wit. Here in Adam’s Rib, their verbal exchanges chase one another across the room, and frequently dissolve into talking OVER each other, a comic dividend.

This is their second film together under the direction of George Cukor, and the first comedy essayed by the three of them. Cukor’s urbane, understated style lets the actors act their way through a philosophical debate crossed with a slapstick bedroom comedy. Cukor gazes on contentedly as a parade of distinctive character actors crowd the screen carrying on the nonsense in the background. Cukor and Hepburn wound up making 10 films together over a span of 50 years.

The extremely sharp script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin casts them as lawyers. He, Adam, an assistant district attorney; she, wife Amanda, an attorney for the defense. Their New York apartment is comfortably grand; they bought a farm upstate as well. They are both extremely good at what they do.

The crux of the plot is this: a daffy housewife (Judy Holliday in a career-making performance) trails her cheating husband (the great Tom Ewell) to the apartment of his girlfriend (a young Jean Hagen). She pulls out a revolver, emptying it blindly. She wounds her husband. She is arrested of course.

However, Amanda asserts that, if the sexual roles were reversed, the shooting would be seen as justified, a defense of the home. She represents the housewife. Unfortunately, Adam is the prosecutor assigned to the case. The two must negotiate their relationship away from the court, just as they indulge in heated debate within it. As the trial progresses, Amanda goes to extreme lengths to bolster her client’s case; Adam, riled up and outraged, chuffs along steadily.

In the end, Amanda wins the case – but Adam moves out. Beset romantically by their neighbor, songwriter Kip (David Wayne), Amanda nearly falters when Adam appears, gun in hand. Amanda shields the diminutive Kip. “You have no right!” she exclaims. His point is proven. Adam puts the gun in his mouth – and bites it. “Itth licowice,” he explains. The three then do battle.

A divorce seems inevitable. The two meet at their tax accountant’s office. They begin to reminisce, Adam cries. Amanda relents. They go up to the farm. Adam announces that he is the Republican candidate for County Court Judge and then demonstrates that he can cry on command. They are together again.

It’s lovely late screwball comedy, wherein everyone is intelligent and reasonable; their senses of honor and propriety are in opposition, not their feeling selves. So the personal and the professional get mixed up until the woman wins and the roles reverse themselves.

Tracy takes (almost) everything with a skeptical glint of humor. Hepburn dashes madly about him, dynamic and stunningly articulate. Like Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies, Adam and Amanda embody the ideal of two uniquely matched people filling a need in each other’s lives, beyond the concept of winning and losing. They communicated. They got along well. We felt we knew them. That’s a pretty stellar achievement.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: All the King’s Men.

NFR Project: 'On the Town' (1949)

NFR Project: “On the Town”

Dir: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen

Scr: Adolph Green, Betty Comden

Pho: Harold Rosson

Ed: Ralph E. Winters

Premiere: Dec. 8, 1949

98 min.

On the Town germinated from a stage project initiated by the talented composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. In 1944, he wrote, for choreographer Jerome Robbins, a short ballet titled Fancy Free, which highlighted three sailors on shore leave, mixing jazz and vernacular musical styles with classical.

The piece was a big success, and prompted Bernstein and the talented writing team of Adolph Green and Betty Comden to expand the selection and turn it into a musical that same year. The story of three sailors with only 24 hours’ leave in New York City was a novel idea. On the Town was a hit, and soon discussions about adapting into a film began.

Eventually, the film was made, starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin as the three sailors. The radical idea of filming on location made this the first musical to stage scenes on the streets of New York. 

At 6 a.m., the sailors run down the gangplank from their ship and sing about how excited they are to be in the city. We are offered a montage of them traveling to all the great tourist destinations in the Big Apple. Then one of them, Gabe (Kelly), sees a picture of a girl, Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen) on the subway (she is “Miss Turnstiles,” a monthly honor bestowed on an attractive subway rider) and falls in love. He vows to find her, and his buddies join with him. 

The three try to track her down by going to all of New York’s cultural institutions. They travel to the Museum of Natural History, where Ozzy (Munshin) grabs the attention of the brainy Claire (Ann Miller). The boys go next to Symphonic Hall. They grab a cab piloted by Hildy (Betty Garrett), who falls for Chip (Sinatra). Gabe finds Ivy and makes a date with her, believing her to be a member of high society.

The six go out night-clubbing. At 11:30 p.m., Ivy must go to Coney Island, where she works as a “cooch dancer”. Gabe finds her, and she confesses her humble origins and reveals that in fact she is from the same small Indiana town as him. Meanwhile, the police and the Shore Patrol are hot on the group’s heels, and apprehends them, sending the sailors back to their ship. The girls wave goodbye. And another batch of sailors springs out of the ship, ready to go on the town.

Oddly, the film tosses many of the musical’s original numbers, including the excellent “Carried Away” and “I Can Cook, Too,” and substitutes songs not written by Bernstein for them. Fortunately, they are decent and move the plot along. The production is in vivid Technicolor, with some bravura dancing and singing scenes. It’s a pleasant enough excursion, and continued the trend of location shooting in New York.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Adam’s Rib.

 

 

 

NFR Project: 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”

Dir: John Huston

Scr: John Huston

Pho: Ted D. McCord

Ed: Owen Marks

Premiere: Jan. 24, 1948

126 min.

It’s one of the best films ever made.

This remarkable project was just another great job done by director and screenwriter John Huston (1906-1987), and is perhaps the best of his 37 feature films.

Huston was inspired by B. Traven’s 1927 novel. Traven was a mysterious figure. Much speculation exists as to his true name and background, but he was definitely known as an anarchist in Germany under the name of Ret Marut in post-World War I Berlin. Forced into exile, he made his way to Mexico in 1928 and began writing novels about politics, greed, and social injustice.

For Traven, capitalism was the chief cause of suffering, poverty, and death in the world. Sierra Madre is his second novel; after that, he wrote the extraordinary The Death Ship, followed by a series of historical novels outlining the exploitation of indigenous peoples in Mexico. He jealously guarded his anonymity and remained an unseen factor in the creation of this film adaptation.

This was the first film project Huston made after his service in World War II, during which he made documentaries for the Army, two of which, The Battle of San Pietro and Let There Be Light were reviewed in this series. Huston wrote the screenplay and set to work. He gathered a solid trio of actors to play his leads – his own father, the venerable Walter Huston as Howard, a grizzled old prospector; Tim Holt as Curtin, a young man down on his luck; and the incomparable Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs, whose descent into madness takes up most of the film.

The movie opens in Tampico, Mexico. Dobbs is impoverished and stranded, reduced to begging for handouts from affluent American tourists. He meets Curtin, and the two sign on to work on an oil rig. They are cheated out of their pay, and later find the contractor who bilked them and beat him into submission, taking their pay from his wallet. Huston captures the desperation of the down and out.

However, the two rapidly run out of money. They go to sleep in a flophouse, and there discover Howard, who spins tales about prospecting for gold. Dobbs wins a small amount of money in a lottery, and the three use the money to equip themselves for an expedition.

Off they go into the wilderness, fighting off bandits on the train ride in (they see one bandit with a distinctive “gold hat,” but Dobbs fails to shoot him). They reach the wilderness and begin searching for a vein. Howard, unexpectedly much hardier than the other two, sets the pace. Huston went on location to get an unvarnished look at the harsh, dry landscape the trio finds themselves in. Eventually, Howard strikes paydirt and the three get to work mining the gold.

As the profits in gold dust accrue, Dobbs suggests that each man take care of his own share of the treasure. This leads to a change in the men – suddenly distrustful, they hide their shares from each other. Another American, Cody, (Bruce Bennett) finds out about their mine and asks to be included. The three determine to kill him, but they are interrupted by the bandits, led by Gold Hat, before they can execute their plan. Trapped by the bandits, the men appear to be out of luck, until federal troops come along and chase the bandits away. Cody is killed in the battle with the bandits.

Finally, the vein peters out and the men prepare to go home. On their way back, Howard is kidnapped by some indigenous people who seek his help in reviving an unconscious child. Trusting his goods to his partners, Howard goes with them. In an extraordinary and silent scene, he brings the child back to life. Now the people adopt him and treat him to a kingly existence.

Meanwhile, Dobbs and Curtin struggle on through the desert. Dobbs becomes more and more paranoid, accusing Curtin of planning his death. Eventually, Dobbs becomes so homicidal that Curtin covers him with a gun, refusing to sleep. Of course, Curtin falls asleep and Dobbs takes his gun away and shoots him. Curtin crawls off into the brush to die.

Dobbs continues alone, and is almost to the nearest town when the bandits, still led by Gold Hat, encounter him. They attack him for his mules, brutally cutting his head off. The bandits find the gold dust and, not knowing what it is, dump it out on the ground.

Curtin survives his wound and reconnects with Howard. The two race to the town to find their treasure, but find that it has all blown away in the wind. Crestfallen at first, the two finally laugh off their futile 10-month quest for gold, and part amicably.

Greed is the driving force in the movie. Dobbs without gold is simply grumpy and a bit caustic; once the stakes are high he transforms into an inhuman, murdering monster. Bogart’s performance is one of his best – his slow dehumanization is a portrait of the human soul distorted and ultimately destroyed by selfish desire.

Played out in an unforgiving landscape, Sierra Madre serves as a cautionary tale about wealth and what it does to people. Those who maintain their morality are largely untouched, but flawed characters such as Dobbs find their negative traits ballooning to deadly proportions. Huston relishes the labor of the prospecting trio, outlining it in detail. Dobbs’ march through the desert becomes an expedition through his personal Hell, Dobbs reduced to the status of demon.

The movie is compulsively watchable. We are invested in the miners’ struggle, and sit in appalled attention as the scheme unravels. In the end, we too must laugh off the whole affair and move on, humbled by the demonstration of man’s frailties.

When Oscar time rolled around, Huston won for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and his father won for Best Supporting Actor.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: On the Town.