Favorite Things: Shadow of a Doubt (Repost)

One of my favorite movies is Hitchcock's 1943 Shadow of a Doubt.


Apparently, it was one of Hitchcock's favorites, as well, although there are lots of people who have never seen it. It is not as famous as other of Hitch's films, like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, or To Catch a Thief. Each of those had bigger names or, in the case of Psycho, overtly more famous scenes (Janet Leigh's slashing murder in the shower, combining sex and blood, mmmm).

I have always found Shadow of a Doubt terrifying, creepy, and a fine mix of comedy and skin-crawling suspense.

The scriptwriters are worth noting. One was Alma Reville, Hitchock's wife. She was his editor and assistant director, but one of the writers not only on this film but on Secret Agent, Suspicion and The Paradine Case for Hitch. The other two are more intersting to me, personally. One was Sally Benson, the author of Junior Miss (a novel that became a successful play and radio program, one of my period favorites when I was a pre-teen, about the wholesome experiences of a young girl in high school....), as well as the filmscripts for Anna and the King of Siam, Little Women, The Singing Nun, Come to the Stable, and (hilariously!) Viva Las Vegas, yes--the Elvis film! If you know these films, you recognize them as generally wholesome, optimistic, upbeat films. Her most famous filmscript is undoubtedly Meet Me in St. Louis, the Judy Garland/Margaret O'Brien musical.

...and Shadow of a Doubt? Her first film credit.

Huh.

The other writer is Thornton Wilder--yes, the author of Our Town. Only five years after writing Our Town and winning the Pulitzer Prize for it, Wilder co-pens this disturbing view into the emotional corruption of a happy suburban girl.

The participation of Benson and Wilder in this film actually intrigues me and freaks me out.

Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright are marvelous as the central duo, young Charlotte, known as Charlie, and her maternal Uncle Charlie. This is one of Hitchcock's films based on visual/metaphorical duets, like Strangers on a Train or Vertigo, where two characters mirror each other's emotional, psychological, or physical acts. Charlie is a young woman from a nice middle-class family who lives in Santa Rosa, California; she has no job, seems to have graduated from high school, and appears to drift without direction or purpose--in the most pleasant and charming manner. Uncle Charlie, in his niece's eyes, is a sophisticated, handsome man-of-the-world for whom she has been named and in whom she seems to see a kind of shadow self (male, older, wealthy, unattached) who can do the things and go all the places she fantasizes about. In reality, however, Uncle Charlie is the Merry Widow Murderer who marries and strangles wealthy widows, using all that charm, all those good looks, all his focus to seduce and kill.

The script opens with a remarkable dual sequence showing, first, Uncle Charlie in ugly East Coast Philadelphia, living in a tenement, pursued by government agents, and apparently sick to death of life. The rooming house with its gossipy landlady, the slum streets, and the overhead angles make the city look as filled with exhausted, as broken down, and as empty as Uncle Charlie does. Then we fly to Santa Rosa, young Charlie's city, where everyone smiles, the town sparkles, and golly, there are trees and big houses with shady porches. But Charlie is bored, distracted, and irritable with her lovely, simple family.

The problem is that once young Charlie and Uncle Charlie get into the same house, something's got to give. Charlie sets out to learn her uncle's secret--not knowing there is one and how bad it is. She simply wants to know more about the man she admires and emulates.


The film follows both of them, young Charlie as she discovers the ugliness behind her uncle's handsome facade and Uncle Charlie as he tries to evade government agents and his niece's questions. He tries to kill her three times--unsuccessfully. He reveals the nastiness inside himself--but only to her. He takes her to a bar, where she has obviously never been; this is a great scene, a kind of spiritual initiation for young Charlie into Uncle Charlie's world.

I love this film for its creepiness, for its weird mix of the obliviously happy/normal Santa Rosa folks and the self-aware/transformed people (like young Charlie, the government agent who is our romantic hero, and Uncle Charlie himself) who have been infected by the negative stuff of the 20th century (serial killing, consumer envy, urban blight). There is a scene that suggests that Uncle Charlie's "disease" comes from a fall he took on a bicycle when he was six or so, smacking his head and nearly dying. As his sister, young Charlie's mother, notes, "After that there was no holding him." Before, Uncle Charlie had been a bookworm, a reader, a quiet, well-behaved boy; after, an adventurer, a rover, a physically active boy who detached himself from their household. I like that this is hinted at but not some easy Freudian explanation of where a serial killer comes from; the scary thing is that Charlie himself doesn't seem to have any kind of conscience or guilt about his murders, simply the desire to enjoy its fruits and to stay out of jail... which seems more about freedom and preserving his reputation than fear of authority, either civil or religious. Uncle Charlie is almost, nearly a prophet: he looks at the modern world and seems corruption rather than progress, disease rather than stout health, and self-absorption rather than optimism. But he is, of course, corrupt himself, and murdering silly, lazy women isn't actually justifiable because they're, well, silly and lazy.



Wilder's participation in this is most interesting to me, because this seems the flip side of the simple optimism and flag-waving patriotism most people see in Our Town, without looking more deeply into the playwright's message. I have always thought that Wilder used that play to send a message about complacency and knee-jerk self-satisfaction; I think he does the same here.

It is a brilliant, chilling film with many individually fine performances, including and especially Patricia Collinge as young Charlie's mum and Uncle Charlie's older sister. The sequence in which she bakes a cake for the government agents is marvelous, highlighting the character's obliviousness to what is happening in her house under her nose. Because it is so "normal" Uncle Charlie's performance is scarier, in many ways, than the one-off horror of Psycho.

Pearl

2015 and back again

Well, despite everything 2014 turned out to be BIZZY (busy+dizzy).

Much got done, but I definitely dropped out of this blog. The good news is that I discovered how much I missed writing every day, sharing with readers and receiving back news and commentary from them as well.

I want to continue sharing tips and ideas about Paris, but also London. I've spent the last two summers there, and am starting to get to know it now.



New project: Writing a short play about Josephine Baker. Such an interesting character!

And so very Parisian!

The Good Wife Style: Margulies, Baranski and Punjabi

I stopped watching THE GOOD WIFE a couple seasons ago, to be truthful. It was really because I saw the looming love affair between Alicia and Will becoming "real," and I just did not want to deal with the coming duplicity, conflict and all-too-familiar baggage that goes with a love triangle in such a series, where there is a lot of smoke, some heat and no real fire... or change.

That said, from the very beginning I loved the commitment of the producers to this show--centered around a smart, hard-working woman--and the fashion style that went along.

Of course, it must be horribly unpleasant to have the weekly task of dressing Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski and Archie Punjabi, three of the most unattractive and style-deprived women in modern America. I pity the costumers, wardrobe personnel and dressers... not.

One of the reasons I admire the style here is that, for once, the stylists and costume designers get it right for professional women. Baranski's Diane Lockhart is a woman who is intelligent, wealthy and stylish, able to use her personal style as a tool in her arsenal as a high-end lawyer, the senior partner leading a small but very successful firm. Margulies's character has moved a long distance in four seasons: she started as the SAHM who returns to the legal profession (as a litigator/associate) when her husband, a state's attorney, goes to jail, but in season 4 she becomes a partner in Baranski's firm. Punjabi plays Kalinda Sharma, an investigator who works solely for that same firm; she and Margulies are friends, but Sharma's character is not a lawyer.

Although all three women are attractive, there is no emphasis on sexy female bodies, no cleavage, no embarassingly tight skirts in court, no childish junior-girl fashion. Instead, all three women convincingly play "professionals."

I've always liked Margulies, ever since E.R., but here she is actually carrying the show (with superb support throughout). Her style is suits and separates, mostly skirts--with polish and class. The colors run from black and gray to wine, scarlet, royal blue and beige-y tones. Her accessories are nice but modest (almost no jewelry, for example), her hair is simply done, and her make-up adult.

Baranski of course has a dancer's body, a long and lean but curvy silhouette. Her character wears suits, too, obviously high-end designers, very luxe. Her accessories as "da bomb," ranging from pearls and Hermes bags to real stones set in gold and statement pieces. The best thing about Baranski is that she wears the clothes and accessories, not the other way around. Her hair, too, is simple and her make-up excellent. The colors run from charcoal to purples and blues, to beiges and creams.

Punjabi is shorter than the other two, probably petite. She wears leather--a lot of leather jackets, wide leather belts and a kick-ass pair of leather boots--contrasted with soft knits and wools, jeans, and very few accessories. Her clothes are edgier, sexier, tighter--but she still looks professional. Like a private eye, not a pole dancer. Her colors are darker, too.

The men in the show are equally well-tailored, wearing suits, ties and shirts. But it is the women who provide the real class and style for this show.

The great part is that this style is not out of reach, even when it is clear that the costumers aim at haute couture business wear. It is more about fabric, color and texture, plus the careful accessorizing, skirt lengths, excellent tailoring/fit and (frankly) superb support garments, hose and underwear.

On the red carpet, of course, they are all three enviably gorgeous.

My favorite character, of course, is Eli Gold, as played by Alan Cumming.

La vie en rose: Edith Piaf in Paris

Piaf is now known globally to an entire new generation thanks to the 2007 French film La vie en rose, for which Marion Cotillard received the Oscar and the Golden Globe. It is a tremendous film and Cotillard's performance is magnificent. I highly recommend it.

Piaf herself is also magnificent. And confusing, and mysterious, and compelling.

Born in 1915, Piaf lived the first part of her life in Paris in the 20th arrondissment -- Belleville.She died in 1963 at the age of 47 having lived a passionate and troubling life.

This is a clip of Piaf singing "La vie en rose," considered by many to be her signature song:

As an alternative, here is Mirielle Mathieu singing the same song nearly 50 years later. Matthieu is also a fine French singer, with a completely different style.

From 1929 to 1935 Piaf sang in the streets of Paris as a street performer, at first with her biological father, who was a street acrobat. After she parted ways with him, Piaf performed in the 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements as well as the suburbs of Paris. In 1935 she was discovered by the club owner and impresario Louis Leplee, who supposedly gave her the signature style of stage presence, costuming (the little black dress) and gestures she used for the rest of her life.

Piaf performed in clubs in Paris until World War II and began changing her street image. She met and made friends with influential people.

During the war, Piaf lived in Marseilles, but performed in Paris at Nazi-sponsored events. She also claimed to be a member of the Resistance and to have aided those targeted by the Nazis to escape in various ways.

After the war, Piaf was an international celebrity. She aided several actors and singers to fame, including Yves Montand and Charles Aznevour. Her love life was complicated: she had one child who died with an early lover, then later married after the war twice. The great love of her life was boxer Marcel Cerdan, who was killed in an airplane crash after little more than a year of their relationship.

Piaf is buried in Pere Lachaise cemetary.

One of the quirkiest museums in Paris is dedicated to her. This article in The Guardian reviews it clearly. This Time Out review gives another angle.

This article is a kind of virtual tour of Piaf's Paris. If one wanted to walk in the singer's shoes, these are great resources. The fact is, her voice was a treasure, and her life was the kind of messy, troubled voyage we've come to expect of great artists, espeically women artists perhaps... but it is also sad and ridiculous on some level.

From another direction, Piaf's story is the story of Paris in the first half of the 20th century. Her movement from abandoned child to street performer to singing star is also the story of Paris's own history and geography, even to her interment in the city's most famous cemetary, perhaps ironically located in the same arrondissement where she was born.

Her great legacy is the gorgeous recordings we have and, as in the clip, the sense of Piaf as a performer. It is clear that she loved performing and felt more alive while singing than at any other time.

Three times the reviews

... for books.

Delightfully, academics are often asked to review books for scholarly journals. I am currently reviewing three books for two different journals. "Delightfully" because reviews are a source of free books in the area of one's expertise--and scholarly books are expensive.

I am reviewing Women, Medicine and Theatre, 1500-1700 for a historical journal. The author links the appearance of women on the theatrical stage with their roles in medical mountebankery... if that's a word. I'm enjoying the book and will turn in the review this weekend.

My next two reviews are for a theatre history journal, both due separately in November. One is of the study Moliere, the French Revolution, and the Theatrical After-Life, and the other Women on the Stage in Early Modern France. Both are by scholars I respect. Which means, I hope, that I will enjoy those reads as well. One is by a retired expert in 17th-century French theatre, and one by an emerging scholar in 18th-century French theatre.

One of my mentors once said to me, do something for your career every day. I think that's mostly good advice (how about, "five days a week" instead of "every day"?), and try to remember that that means doing things not for your career, as well.

Yesterday's "something" was taking on a dramaturgy project by a local playwright (and friend) with a local theatre company, where the play's director is someone I've known for a long time, as well. This is pretty exciting, in fact, because I'll be working hands-on in a new theatre project with two people I really like: the playwright and director.

"Crone"

This weekend I had two different spirited conversations about some of the physical changes that have overtaken friends and myself because we have gracefully gained wisdom, perspective, and life experience. These are not changes as simple as lines or gray hair--which we knew were coming--this is about the part of aging physically that no one mentions, what I have come to call The Crone Factor.

Yes, "crone" has been a terrible perjorative used since medieval times to designate an old woman, which suggests in more than one definition not just "old" but "withered," "toothless," "cantakerous," and is synonymous with "hag" and "witch," both also transformed into perjorative words.

Some contemporary feminists are trying to redefine the word, give it a positive spin. Not working thus far, frankly, outside that small, hopeful community.

Here's the problem, as I see it. While 50 is the new 40 and all that, mostly we acknowledge that this is so because plastic surgeons and women in the media spotlight have used a combination of exercise, diet, airbrushing, and plastic surgery to make it all seem possible. Or in the case of some women, simply good genetic material.

Dame Mirren says it is all genes...

Make what possible? The denial of physical or outward aging. The suggestion that a woman can/should combine her depth of wisdom, life experience, and increased intellectual scope on producing a youthful exterior to package that aging intellect... to remain sexy, glamourous, and "vital" in a young-looking manner.

Here's what my friends and I--again, in two separate conversations--got talking about: support underwear, facial waxing, brown spots and warts and keratosis pilaris, and the changing quality of our hair (mine has suddenly decided to comes wavy, after four decades, and the few silver hairs are wiry, curly, and strong) and nails (thinner, thicker, ridges???). Decidely not glamourous... but real.

It feels at times as if the only alternative is the peeling, injections, dying, scraping, and sucking out and off the marks life leaves on us.

And then there's this:

I like this picture better: Dame Mirren

Dame Judi Densch

Maggie Smith

Maya Angelou

Meryl Streep: always smiling!

Shirley Chisholm

Isabel Allende

Madeleine Albright

The life in the eyes translates to life in the face, albeit not so pretty-pretty. Mature faces, mature bodies, mature minds. All of them sitting on bodies of work that amaze, delight, and impress.

Now I should tell you that Demi Moore and I are the same age. In my younger days I would have loved to have been able to rock this look so well --

 

But I am not a fan of her apparently relentless denial of the aging process.

Bette Davis

From the time I was 7 or 8 until I started college, one of my greatest pleasures was watching what are now called "classic" movies on TV. Where I grew up there were two channels devoted to them, one that showed movies everyday between 430 and 6, and on weekends, when not covering sports, other channels also ran old movies. Why not? They were cheap and no one had heard of reality TV, cable channels, 24-hour news, QVC, or the Food Network.

I watched everything possible, especially films made from the advent of talkies to about 1965. I had to be a lot older to appreciate the nuances of the gritty movies made after that.

Other than that, I wasn't very discriminating about my viewing: musical, comedy, drama, costume drama, great literature, b-movie, film noir, etc. No one was showing foreign classics, few showed silents, so it was 99.5% American studio industry films.

My suggestion for summer savings? Get these "old" movies from your library, Netflix, wherever, and enjoy.

Bette Davis.

 A career that spanned the early 30s to the late 80s (Wow!), Davis played everything from comedy to drama to costume pieces. Probably she is best known for the endless series of melodramas she appeared in during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, bounded by Jezebel (1937), her first Oscar win that went a long way to legitimize her and separate her from the herd of young, blonde actresses of the period, to All About Eve (1950), her amazing turn as an aging actress shadowed by a young wannabe. Of course, after that came The Virgin Queen, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, as well as a string of TV appearances (Bette Davis in Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Wagon Train and Gunsmoke!) and TV movies.

My personal picks from among her films:

Of Human Bondage (1934): in this filming of Maugham's novel, she plays a cheap tramp wiithout a heart of gold who tortures Leslie Howard (later Ashley Wilkes), who plays a sensitive med student/doctor infatuated with the girl. Davis is fabulous stealing this scene from Howard. Yes, over the top, but that is part of Bette's charm.



Petrified Forest (1936), again with Howard and also with Humphrey Bogart, pre-Casablanca.
Kid Galahad (1937) with Bogart and Edward G. Robinson.
Jezebel (1937) with Henry Fonda--Davis as the "headstrong Southern belle" who dares to wear red to the Cotillion! Great film, with Davis at her young peak.

Dark Victory (1939) Of course! Davis as the dying headstrong heiress, with Bogart and George Brent as the man she loves.
The Little Foxes (1941), based on Hellman's play. Fabulous! Especially, the scene on the stairs.
The Man who Came to Dinner (1942), one of her few comedies, but she is brilliant in the film version of the Kaufman-Hart stage play. Hilarious!
Now, Voyager (1942)--admittedly, one of my very favorites because despite being a melodrama, it is actually not over the top and Davis gives a controlled and layered performance as a spinster who falls for a married man, played by the ever-sexy Paul Henried. And yes, the clothes, hats, sets are all fantastic.



A Stolen Life (1946), in which she plays twins, one of whom dies in a tragic boating accident....
All About Eve (1950), which is the pinnacle of her career, in my opinion,because she never appears in a script as smart, funny, and perfect for her as this again.
The Star (1952), perhaps a little autobiographical.
Pocketful of Miracles (1961), the remake of a Damon Runyon-based story, with Glenn Ford and Hope Lange.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), brilliant, brilliant over-the-top film with Davis and Crawford trying to outact each other. A horror film, a mystery, a fantastic scary thing... with Davis doing her parody of Mary Pickford (ouch! Take that, Mary!).

My sister and I re-enact this scene. We worry which of us might end in the wheelchair: take note!

Davis was an incredible, enduring actress who adapted to new forms and genres, as well as "grew up" on screen, refusing to get stuck playing the ingenue (although she was a pretty one!).

We all know it is more fun to play the experienced, sophisticated grown-up girl.

Love this ad! Smoking, Jim Beam, that laser-sharp gaze, that amused smile.

Tomorrow, Claudette Colbert.

Men in Power, or Tonight's Opera Talk

Tonight I am one of three panelists taking part in the discussion "Sex, Guilt, and The Diva" in the Dallas Opera's summer subscriber series. We are focusing specifically on La Traviata and Katya Kabanova.

My role, as explained to me, is to be the theatre expert (both plays are based on 19th-century dramas) and to offer feminist insight. I was told we want our discussion to be informative but not academic, and fun. All of which is great, and right up my alley.

Facts: La Traviata, Giuseppi Verdi's 1859 opera, was based on Alexandre Dumas fils' novel/play La Dame aux Camellias (usually referred to as Camille,which was in turn the title of the 1936 film starring Greta Garbo base don Dumas's novel/play). All versions focus on a courtesan who falls in love with a young, middle-class man and leaves her demi-monde life behind. In turn, his father comes to her and begs Marguerite/Violetta/Camille to set the young man free for the sake of his family's honor; she agrees, and returns to her old life, just in time to die from consumption (tuberculosis).

Katya Kabanova, Leos Janacek's 1920 opera is based on Alexander Ostrovsky's 1860 play The Storm. One of Ostrovsky's social dramas, the play and opera tell the story of Katya, a young wife who is bullied by her mother-in-law and her husband. She loves a neighbor and, while her husband is away, is tempted to meet the lover at night, which her mother-in-law discovers. When her husband returns, Katya confesses in front of all the neighbors, and then drowns herself in the Volga.

Verdi's opera is much more "traditional" in its structure and the style of the music. It is the second most performed opera worldwide (The Magic Flute is #1, and also part of this year's season in the Big D). Both operas dervive from plays that are, surprisingly, critiques of middle-class values, even while the middle-class values triumph. Both women die--one from consumption (a wasting disease) and one from suicide (derived from the guilt of adultery). Both plays and operas openly depict the double standard about sexuality for men and women, as well as the reality of women's limited opportunities.

Both are about doomed love, as well, which is, of course, the central draw for many spectators, as well as the gorgeous music.

I'll tell more about this tomorrow... but it has made me think about our recent news items about "men in power," since both authority, sexuality, and middle-class values seem to be a common thread.

Eartha Kitt -- Aquarian

Eartha Kitt was a fascinating person. Most people know her as the sexy singer of "Santa Baby," but she was a dancer and actress as well.

According to sources, Kitt was born in South Carolina and her parents of mixed racial heritage, with her mother being Cherokee and African-American and her father German. She was raised by a woman she thought was her biologival mother, but it wasn't until she was 8 that she actually met her mother (or the woman she thought was her mother) in New York City. Prior to and after that, Kitt was abused; first by her South Carolina family for being "too white" and then by her mother. She ran away, began living off and on in subways, and finally--on a dare--auditioned for the Katharine Dunham Dance Company. She was accepted, and worked with the troupe for 5 years. In the 1940s, from about age 18 to 25 she appeared on Broadway and started her cabaret act, which she took to Paris.

Kitt sang in seven languages, although she is best known for her songs in French and English.

In the 1950s, she worked in films, especially for Orson Welles, who was reputedly her lover. In the 1960s, she added TV work to her career, most specifically as Catwoman in the third seaon of Batman. A different and sexier Catwoman.

In 1968 at a lunch at the White House, she clearly stated anti-war sentiments to Lady Bird Johnson, expressing sympathy for mothers who lost their sons and daughters in Viet Nam, as well as a definite statement that the protestors were onto something. Lady Bird burst into tears, and Kitt became persona non grata in the US for a while. She went on tour outside the country.

In the 1980s she returned to the US and nightclubs, finding popularity among gay male audiences. She also started to work for HIV/AIDS awareness and funding. In the last two decades of her life, she did voiceovers, TV roles, Broadway, cabarets, and film. She advocated gay marriage and gay rights.

As I said, Kitt was a remarkable and fascinating woman. Though most people only know her as a sex kitten-type who sang sultry songs, clearly she was a woman of character and intelligence, with a will of iron and a backbone of steel.