DVD/150: BONNIE AND CLYDE (Arthur Penn, 1967)

Like most iconic films, the origins of BONNIE AND CLYDE are surprisingly unexpected.

Writers David Newman and Robert Benton had read the same book on 1930s gangsters and were intrigued by a footnote referencing Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker and their nomadic 2-year crimewave across the southern and central states.

Influenced by the French New Wave, they sent their script to Godard and Truffaut, but both declined; Truffaut however met Warren Beatty later and told him about them.  Beatty contacted them and, producing for the first time, got grudging support from Warner Brothers, ironic as they thrived with their 1930s gangster films.

Leading directors refused, potential Bonnie's came and went but eventually Arthur Penn said yes and he, in turn, had been impressed by a young stage actress who had just appeared in two recent supporting film roles, Faye Dunaway.  It remains an audacious piece of mythic film-making.

Shelf or charity shop?  BONNIE AND CLYDE are hiding out on the shelf.  A film that oddly plays both inside and outside of it's genre, these contrasts make it still vital. Beatty's usual blank performance against Dunaway's relentlessly modern one creates it's own tension. The original script had Clyde bi-sexual but producer Beatty had it changed thinking it was going to be hard enough keeping mainstream audiences 'sympathetic' to the couple.  The influence of Godard and Truffaut is palpable but the locations chosen are the dusty low-rise main street buildings and wide open plains that the real couple would have been familiar with. Beatty remembered Gene Hackman's supporting role with him in 1964's LILITH and offered him the role of Buck, Clyde's jovial older brother which essentially launched his career; it's strange that in retrospect, although Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman and Michael J Pollard's getaway driver CW were all nominated, it was Estelle Parsons' shrill, whining Blanche Barrow that won the film's only acting Academy Award.  This was also Gene Wilder's screen debut in a marvellous scene where he and his girlfriend are kidnapped for an afternoon and just as they are becoming friendly, his admission of being a funeral director changes the mood immediately - indeed the scene pivots the film's tone totally to one of approaching doom. The film's release was negligible as Jack Warner disliked it, pushing the Taylor/Brando flop REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE instead; after being challenged by Beatty it was given a different release and the audiences flocked in their droves, the film capturing the current anti-establishment mood.  Most reviewers panned it but Pauline Kael's glowing review/essay in The New Yorker made some critics revisit it and changed their minds over it, the NY Times reviewer Bosley Crowther keep panning it - and quickly lost his job!  Meanwhile Theodora Van Runkle's costume designs started a high street fashion outbreak of berets, jackets and mid-length skirts. The script of course plays fast and loose with the gangs real history but this was a prime example of filming the legend - and the ending has lost none of it's brutal impact.

 

DVD/150: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (Ronald Neame, 1972)

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is now fifty and holds a very special place for me - so don't expect criticizing.

What started with 1970's ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS, blew up with POSEIDON - it made me a Movie Buff: any magazine that featured it was bought, any film that starred any of the actors was watched, it played a week at Kensington Odeon and I went every night.

I know POSEIDON so well but seeing it always casts a delicious spell, so easy to lose myself in.  There is always the subliminal feeling that whatever has happened in the intervening years, the ten survivors of the New Year's Day sinking of the SS Poseidon are still there, battling upwards to escape.

20th Century Fox wouldn't finance all the $4 million budget after recent losses so producer Irwin Allen secured half ot it from private investors - it went on to earn $125 million!

Shelf or charity shop?  Sitting happily on an upside down shelf!  THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE won two Academy Awards, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and my unswerving devotion! I read the 1969 Paul Gallico novel at the time and disliked it's grubby, nasty characters. To this day I remain obsessed with Gene Hackman and his turtle-neck with the torn shoulder, Pamela Sue Martin's long skirt / hot pants ensemble and everything about the glorious Stella Stevens. especially in her wonderful blue negligee and white bias-cut evening dress with the plunging neckline - the height of 70s costume design!  And yes, I still blub when brave Shelley Winters takes her last dive.  I was surprised how often the actors had appeared together in other films leading up to POSEIDON but the most interesting was that director Ronald Neame, then a cinematographer, and a 10 year-old Roddy McDowall had worked together 34 years before on a George Formby film!  Ah Ronnie Neame, what a hero... the man who co-produced personal favourites like BRIEF ENCOUNTER and OLIVER TWIST and director of this, the film that lead me to Movie Buffdom. I owe him and the cast a debt of gratitude.

Dvd/150: LILITH (Robert Rossen, 1964)

Hugely under-rated, Robert Rossen's last film was also the peak in Jean Seberg's career.

Rossen's dream-like film was an unhappy experience for all due to Warren Beatty's antagonistic behaviour towards Rossen; ironically, his blank performance is the worst thing in it, Jean's is all the more exciting given his anonymity.

Vincent is an aimless ex-GI who becomes an occupational therapist at a private asylum for wealthy patients in Maryland.  While there, he becomes obsessed with Lilith, a young reclusive schizophrenic.

Lilith's sensuality disturbs both male and female patients and Vincent's jealousy has catastrophic effects for all...

Kim Hunter's head doctor and Peter Fonda as a besotted fellow-patient shine and a heartbreaking scene where Vincent visits ex-girlfriend Jessica Walter and her crass husband Gene Hackman is also wonderfully played.

But it's Jean's child-like yet destructive Lilith who haunts the mind in her finest screen performance.

Shelf or charity shop?  Jean's Golden Globe-nominated performance deserves a place on any shelf...