Farewell, Cinemarati

The Siren bids farewell to the Cinemarati site, which is closing forever after a long and happy run. She was happy and proud to be a part of this site and its roster of dedicated, smart critics. The member sites have shifted to other parts of her blogroll, and the Cinemarati themselves will be around at a new Yahoo group. You can read the goodbye posts until June 12.

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, from 1951, marks the final gasp of an odd 1940s micro-vogue for romantic movies about the afterlife. Hollywood, that most doggedly carnal of places, has produced these little fantasies from the early days (Smilin' Through from 1922 and 1932, Outward Bound from 1930, 1934's Death Takes a Holiday) to our time (Martin Brest's 1998 remake of Death Takes a Holiday, Meet Joe Black, which should have been called Death Now Takes Three Hours).

The 1940s, however, were the years when the theme reached its zenith. There's A Guy Named Joe, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, A Matter of Life and Death, Cabin in the Sky, Between Two Worlds, Heaven Can Wait (the Lubitsch one), Portrait of Jennie, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ... the Siren may be forgetting a few, feel free to jog her memory. There are obvious reasons why supernatural themes might appeal during a decade when the world was first an abbatoir and later struggling for a way to cleanse. And the films range from pretty good, to highly entertaining, to at least one (admittedly English) masterpiece. The idea of love that vaults time and even death seems to have drawn good work from the decade's directors and screenwriters.

These are movies for specialized tastes, but if you happen to have those tastes, Pandora is a doozy. If you are an ardent admirer of more than one of the following, then by all means, rent it:

1. Directors With Highly Eccentric Visions. Albert Lewin had already made an unforgettable film from a delicate supernatural theme when he directed The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1945. (The final scene in that one never fails to terrify the Siren.) Pandora, however, was what he had waited for, the one he was determined to pour heart and soul into. Lewin wrote, directed and produced in an effort to craft a different kind of movie, one that would take the surrealist art he collected and fuse it with the cinema. He wanted a movie that was not merely romantic, but mythic. For that reason one wishes this were a truly great film, instead of a mesmerizing collection of the great, the singular and the ludicrous.

2. Love That Transcends Our Earthbound State. Pandora opens with a simple scene of fishermen hauling their nets and joking around in Catalan, until one of them looks down at his catch and blanches. Cut to a majestic shot from the top of a bell tower. In the foreground, the bell tolling grim news; far below on the beach, the tiny figures of people gathering, slowly then faster and faster, to see what has been hauled from the sea.We cut to the scene on the beach, where Nigel Patrick (playing a narrative device named Stephen Cameron) has stopped his car to look. The camera shows a tangle of fishnet, and two entwined hands, one male and one female.

So we know from the beginning that our main characters will love unto death. This is not a movie where suspense is important--you are watching a great love unfold, and that is supposed to suffice.

2. Plots Which Jettison All Pretense of Realism. The Siren is a skeptical mortal who believes in neither ghosts, nor psychics, nor ancient curses, nor Flying Dutchmen. Paradoxically, however, she loves a good ghostly plot. Pandora Reynolds, nightclub singer, has a bad case of anhedonia. So she runs around Spain ensnaring men, then breaking their hearts. One night she sees a tall-masted ship anchored in the bay, and she skinny-dips out to see who's on board. Lo, it is Hendrik van der Zee (James Mason), painting a picture, utterly nonchalant as Ava walks in wrapped in nothing but insouciance and a sail. That's because he already knows Ava's face--it is the one he is painting. Hendrik has been waiting for her, alone of all women, down through the lonely centuries. He is, of course, the Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas of the world until he can find a woman who will love him enough to die for him. Pandora and Hendrik do fall in love, but will it be enough to save Hendrik?

3. The Beauty of Ava Gardner.


In case you still care after drinking in that screen shot, she doesn't give a good performance, which was typical of Gardner until relatively late in her career. In her daily life she was a Siren's siren, a woman who could take a bounder like Frank Sinatra and reduce him to warbling "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." The part of Pandora Reynolds, for whom a man (Marius Goring from The Red Shoes, in a nice bit of cross-movie irony) kills himself only minutes after the movie starts, was practically autobiography. But just because you are something doesn't mean you can act it. Gardner was never very confident about her acting ability, and it shows. She doesn't suggest the banked-up fires of a passionate woman searching for love and meaning. Instead, Gardner seems apathetic, a risky acting choice even for a great talent. During a scene in which a man pushes his beloved racecar over a cliff for her, Ava recites her lines like she's playing Trilby instead of an all-gifted woman.

Later, when Pandora falls in love, Gardner is somewhat better, but still has an oddly girlish and tentative quality to her lines. Mason, unable to get any real chemistry going with his leading lady, retreats into conveying inner torment at every turn. This was his signature ability as an actor (see Lolita, A Star is Born, Odd Man Out, and probably Bigger Than Life if Fox would ever release the damn DVD), so Mason is quite effective, but the central love affair never soars as it should.

4. Spain's Costa Brava (in a Less Crowded and Touristy Era). Oh my, how the cast and crew must have loved filming this one. The beach, the mountains, the waters, the villas. The Siren is sure the area must be long since built up and despoiled, but seeing it here is pure pleasure.

5. Technicolor. Used by cinematographer Jack Cardiff (another Red Shoes connection) to film nos. 3 and 4 to spectacular effect. There are lots of day-for-night scenes, which can be even worse than lousy rear projection for breaking the mood of a picture. Here, the "night" shots glitter silver and blue, adding to the otherworldly aura instead of killing the viewer's belief in the story. Many compositions are as striking as a Man Ray photograph, as the shot at left demonstrates. Lewin and Cardiff use their location for everything it is worth, skimming over the water, putting you in the lap of a racecar trying to set a speed record on a beach, soaring up into the mountains behind the coast. For beauty and visual originality, Pandora can compare with any other landmark of Technicolor. If you love the process, the Siren would go so far as to say this film is indispensable.

6. Bullfighting. The Siren hates bullfighting. She always cheers for the bull. Despite this very American attitude, she was wowed by the bullfighting scenes, which are filmed with a grace and rhythm that at last gave her a glimpse of what others see in this spectacle. Mario Cabré, a bullfighter in real life, plays one here, his noisy, narcissistic love for Pandora acting as the catalyst for the final pact between her and Hendrik. Cabré can't act worth a damn, but he looks great, his character has a mother fixation that is the funniest thing in the movie, and somehow he strikes more sparks off Mason than does the lovely Ava.

7. Movies That the French Love More Than We Do.
If Pandora reminded the Siren of anything else, it was The Barefoot Contessa, another gorgeously shot movie where the characters talk incessantly and behave in self-destructive ways. (I thought so even before I realized Cardiff also was the DP on Contessa.) Mankiewicz's movie was beloved of the Cahiers crowd even as it was judged lacking by American critics. Pandora, as it happens, had the same fate. Mr. C. entered toward the end of Lewin's movie and recognized it immediately as a film he had seen in childhood on French TV's weekly screenings, complete with a lovingly detailed introduction explaining its importance as a pinnacle of "le surréalisme." The Siren thinks the French are onto something with both movies. Neither is a true masterpiece, but the Contessa and Pandora are both highly worthwhile films, as beautiful, individual and as slightly insane as their heroines.

The Siren Scrutinizes Security

Let us review, shall we?


This guy




was denied a visa altogether in 2002, and this year was detained for questioning for two and a half hours while U.S. officials made sure he gave just the right answers about the health of his 105-year-old mother.

This guy


shows up in a border guard's computer as a strict no-fly risk, complete with a warning to isolate him and don protective gear. The guard waves him through after two minutes.

Heckuva job there. The Siren feels safe tonight.

Elia Kazan: Enough Already

Not content with his career as a political prognosticator and analyst, Mark Steyn makes occasional forays into film criticism. The death of Bernard Gordon, a blacklisted screenwriter of the 1950s, reminded Steyn of an old grievance, and led to his reprinting a 2003 Atlantic Monthly defense of Elia Kazan. "The arts have little time for anti-communists," declares Steyn.

The mechanism by which Elia Kazan became a pitiable victim of Hollywood liberalism puzzles the Siren no end. Here is a list of the films Kazan managed to complete after testifying before HUAC.

The Last Tycoon (1976)
The Visitors (1972)
The Arrangement (1969)
America, America (1963)
Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Wild River (1960)
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Baby Doll (1956)
East of Eden (1955)
On the Waterfront (1954)

Here is an abridged list of awards that Kazan was either nominated for or won subsequent to his HUAC testimony.

Academy Awards
1964 Nominated, Best Director, for America, America (1963); Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, for America, America (1963)
1956 Nominated, Best Director, East of Eden (1955)
1955 Won, Best Director, for On the Waterfront (1954)

Berlin International Film Festival
1996 Honorary Golden Berlin Bear
1960 Nominated, Golden Berlin Bear, for Wild River (1960)

Cannes Film Festival
1972 Nominated, Golden Palm, for The Visitors (1972)
1955 Won, Best Dramatic Film, East of Eden (1955); Nominated, Golden Palm, for East of Eden (1955)


Directors Guild of America, USA
1987 Lifetime Achievement Award
1983 DGA Honorary Life Member Award
1964 Nominated, DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, for America, America (1963)
1962 Nominated, DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, for Splendor in the Grass (1961) 1958 Nominated, DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, for A Face in the Crowd (1957)
1956 Nominated, DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, for East of Eden (1955)
1955 Won, DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, for On the Waterfront (1954)

Golden Globes, USA
1964 Won, Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Director, for America, America (1963)
1957 Won, Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Director, for Baby Doll (1956)
1955 Won, Golden Globe Best Director, for On the Waterfront (1954)

National Board of Review, USA
1996 Won, Special Citation for lifetime achievement in direction.

Venice Film Festival
1955 Won, OCIC Award, for On the Waterfront (1954)
1954 Won, Italian Film Critics Award, for On the Waterfront (1954); Silver Lion, for On the Waterfront (1954); Nominated, Golden Lion, for On the Waterfront (1954)

Writers Guild of America, USA
1964 Nominated, WGA Award (Screen) Best Written American Drama, for America, America (1963)

What an odd parallel universe is inhabited by Mr. Steyn and those like him, one where Kazan's accomplishments are considered incomplete because Hollywood failed to grant him a 10-minute standing ovation, and didn't get rid of those pesky protesters outside the theater. The honorary Oscar was voted unanimously. The Siren watched the Oscar ceremony and saw Kazan accept his award. The television cameras showed her at least half in the auditorium were on their feet and applauding. She heard no boos. But the presence of Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro onstage, Warren Beatty on his feet applauding, that means nothing to Steyn if Ed Harris and Nick Nolte and some other weenie libs are sitting quietly in their seats.

For Mr. Steyn and the professional indignation specialists over at Libertas, it will never be enough that Kazan went on to have a distinguished, artistically fulfilling and lucrative career after his testimony. He must be loved, not despite, but because of his having named names.



Well, to quote something Samuel Goldwyn probably never said, include me out. The Siren loves Kazan's films. As a man? Let us hear Irene Mayer Selznick on that matter. She produced A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. At the time Kazan was called before the committee she was his close friend, and they were working to produce a play that later flopped. She thought her left-leaning Hollywood friends were exaggerating the danger; Kazan in turn told her to read I.F. Stone and the Daily Compass, showing her a picture of a camp allegedly being readied for dissidents. He told Selznick that he would never testify, that he was prepared to work in Europe if necessary.

That was brave talk, and I admired him for it. To those in comparable trouble, some bigshots included, he gave advice and strength. ...

One evening during our brief run I was approached in a restaurant by Gadge's movie agent, who told me that Gadge was a hero and I would be proud of him; all I had to do was pick up the bulldog edition of the Times.

I read the paper with total disbelief. My head reeled. The unimaginable was there in print: Gadge had done an about-face politically. He had caved in and named names. He also had bought a quarter-page for an ad, defending what he had done and exhorting others to follow his lead. ...

However much he had wanted to stick to his principles, he simply didn't. He let down those who believed in him. I was the least of his victims, I only lost some illusions.

I made no effort to get in touch. From then on, when we met, [Kazan's wife] Molly cut me dead. Gadge was tentative. For years his action estranged him from a lot of people he cared about, and I include myself among them. Some never forgave him. He was, on the whole, the man who was least forgiven, because he had been the epitome of courage and strength. After Molly died, he and I drifted back together and we're friends today--I think.

As Jacob Weisberg pointed out in Slate, no recent revelations, including the Venona transcripts, improve "the case that Hollywood Communism was a significant threat to democracy." Steyn may or may not realize that he would look ridiculous arguing that the crowds yelling "Tovarich! Tovarich!" at the end of Action in the North Atlantic were a danger to our American way of life. Perhaps that is why, despite asserting that aiding the blacklist was no sin, he works so hard to absolve Congress (and, far from coincidentally, the party running it at the time) from blame:

Nor is the fact that Hollywood’s belief in its own heroism derives from a moment of colossal Hollywood cowardice any obstacle. The blacklist “victims” weren’t blacklisted by the government but by the studios–Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney–the same folks who run Hollywood today.

This rather elides the fact that the first blacklist was established the day after the Hollywood Ten were cited for contempt of Congress. Implying the government had nothing to do with it is disingenuous at best. “Placement of primary political and moral blame on HUAC for what happened to people during the blacklist is obviously correct," wrote Art Eckstein at that bastion of Bolshevism, Front Page Magazine. And whence this alleged Hollywood "belief in its own heroism" that Steyn condemns? As Selznick makes clear above, the hell of the era was the spectacle of friends and colleagues turning upon one another like rats in a trap.

The blacklist ultimately did no one any good--neither those who testified, nor those who refused, nor those who avoided all involvement, nor those who were just out in the hinterlands buying tickets. Certainly if Steyn were a real cinephile, as opposed to an ideologue, he would realize that the sadly truncated filmographies of people like Marsha Hunt, Dorothy Comingore and Zero Mostel are the real blot on the film world, not a tepid ovation. Kazan went on to flourish. By testifying he was, quite obviously, trying to save his own career. As Weisberg says, that doesn't make him a villain.

It doesn't make him a martyr, either.

Kiss Me, Kate (1953)

Well, I am disgracefully late for my contribution to the Shakespeare Blog-a-Thon sponsored by Peter Nelhaus of Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee. Please check out the links:

The Shamus investigates Branagh's Henry V

Flickhead - The Bard vs. The Shatner

Odienator discusses actors who should not do Shakespeare

Edward Copeland covers the book The Shakespeare Riots

Daniel Eisenberg on Olivier's Henry V

Noel Vera on Chimes at Midnight

Several reasons for this tardiness, including a full schedule and a six-month-old who just doesn't seem to have the proper appreciation for cinema as an art. But the Siren thinks the real problem was the subject she chose.

Now understand, I love Kiss Me Kate. Its score is a thing of beauty, ever witty and gorgeous, rewarding me each time I listen to it. And George Sidney's film of it is wonderful too, despite the Bowdlerization of a lot of the original lyrics. (And yet, they kept a gleeful and fully choreographed chorus of "Tom, Dick or Harry" that has Ann Miller and the boys kicking up their heels and singing, "a dick a dick, a dick a dick ..." Censors. Is surgical brain-cell removal a requirement of the job, or what?)

Anyway, so what's the problem? Shakespeare. That's what. The Taming of the Shrew.

The two most famous couples in screen history, Pickford-Fairbanks and Taylor-Burton, both chose this decidedly unpleasant and (go ahead, tell me I'm wrong, I won't believe you) minor Shakespeare as a co-starring vehicle. After the 1967 Zeffirelli version, which the Siren has seen only in part, the Burtons survived another seven years as husband and wife. That's not counting their bizarre remarriage, which the Siren has never had the energy to analyze. Pickford and Fairbanks were on the train to Reno, so to speak, when they made their 1929 version. The Siren did see that one, eons ago, but it isn't particularly memorable and has an odd combination of silent style and sound dialogue. (I don't remember the legendary credit, "With Additional Dialogue by Sam Taylor," and at least one source claims it isn't there.) Mary and Doug seem so played out that they don't even appear to enjoy throwing things at one another.

It's tempting to psychoanalyze these two couples and their choice of material, but it was probably no more than that Taming is a comedy with two strong, memorable leads who get just about equal screen time. Some of the poetry is lovely, although it is far, far from his most beautiful play in that respect, and has a great deal of prose dialogue anyway. But it's basically a long celebration of spousal abuse. Maybe you believe that Shakespeare was actually sending up contemporary attitudes--I don't. I think we are really supposed to believe in the "taming." And while the Siren is pretty darned good at laying aside her modern political sensibilities when watching old stuff, she can't get past that. There's nowhere to go, nothing else to watch. The other characters are barely present. It's Petruchio and Kate, all the way.

Kiss Me Kate is a lot easier to stomach. The backstage "taming" goes back and forth, with Fred Graham (Howard Keel) initially having the upper hand, then Lilli Vanessi (Kathryn Grayson) gets control, then Fred, then Lilli again. And in the end, when Lilli comes back onstage, it's a free choice. She could get on that train with her dimwitted Texas beau if she wanted--but instead she returns not only to Fred, but to their shared careers. In Shakespeare's world, however shrewish Kate may be, she has to submit. She has no other option and no way out.

So, without further ado, the Siren leaves The Taming of the Shrew in the dust, and goes on to pick out some additional details she loves in Kiss Me Kate. In no particular order:

1. Some of the best lyrics Cole Porter ever wrote, even if they did over-sanitize them for the censors. (I do miss my favorite "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" line from the Broadway version: "If she says your behavior is heinous/Kick her right in the Coriolanus!" Yes, I realize that bit is not PC either, but it's one hell of a rhyme.)

2. Ann Miller's tap-dancing, always a treat, is spectacular--in "Too Darn Hot" she makes you forget the missing verses.

3. Bob Fosse and Carol Haney, dancing to his choreography in "From This Moment On" (a song that was not in the show). There are no words for the coolness of that minute and a half. The whole movie screeches to a halt, as you think, where did that come from? My god, who are those dancers? How do I get to see more of them? You feel like you just watched something revolutionary, and indeed you did.

4. Kathryn Grayson's eyeshadow during the stage sequences. Don't try this at home. (Alas, I could not find a good picture. But think Divine, if Divine were a pretty soprano.)

5. Howard Keel's eyeliner.


6. Cole Porter, magically straightened out. I have seen footage of Porter and have recordings of him singing, and Ron Randell is so far from real life they might as well have cast John Wayne. Or Cary Grant, who did play Cole Porter in the biopic Night and Day. (Legend has it that Porter suggested casting Grant as a joke, only to have the studio take him seriously. Which is why the Siren frequently jokes that she wants Monica Belluci to star in her future biopic.)

The movie was originally released in 3-D. The Siren didn't know that the first couple of times she saw Kiss Me Kate, and she spent a great deal of time trying to figure out bizarre shots like Miller smacking her scarf at the camera, or Grayson throwing a goblet at it. Maybe someday I will have a chance to see this one in its full 3-D glory.

P.S. There is plenty of nice Web writing about Kiss Me Kate as a musical. The Siren especially likes Alan Vanneman's piece, from Bright Lights Film Journal.

Les Misérables, Anna Karenina and Welles: A Dissent

The Siren registers polite disagreement with Dave Kehr of the New York Times, and his review yesterday of new DVDs. I hope he didn't mean it when he said that the 1948 Anna Karenina and the double DVD set of the 1935 and 1952 Les Misérables were destined to sit "somewhere on a back shelf in high school libraries, to be shown whenever an English teacher feels like taking an afternoon off." Both releases have a great deal to offer film lovers.

The Siren saw that version of Tolstoy quite some time ago, and while Vivien Leigh could not compete with memories of Garbo in the same role thirteen years earlier, Ralph Richardson was a superb Karenin. It was also directed by Julien Duvivier, a fine talent who achieved greatness more than once with films such as Un Carnet de Bal and Pepe le Moko. As for Les Misérables, the Siren hasn't seen the 1952 version, though Robert Newton supposedly does a good job as Javert, and Lewis Milestone was no slouch. But releasing the 1935 version is a genuine event, for it contains Charles Laughton as Javert, a role recorded at the pinnacle of his artistry. It's been darned hard to find for lo these many years, despite virtues such as cinematography by the great Gregg Toland. The director was Richard Boleslawski, a veteran of the Moscow Art Theatre whose role in bringing the Method to America led Simon Callow to call him "Moses, or perhaps John the Baptist." Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchester (Madame Magloire in the 1952 version), thought it Laughton's finest performance. And Gloria, if you are reading this and you have a multi-region DVD player, Amazon has it for $13.99, and they ship to Spain. The Siren's copy is on its way.

Finally, a word about Orson Welles as Rochester in Jane Eyre (1944), also released this week. The Siren cheerfully acknowledges her own Welles worship, but she still thinks his performance has been short-changed. Rochester in the novel is a frequently menacing figure, who at first frightens Jane as much as he fascinates her. The Siren sees little similarity between Welles's Rochester, with his air of privilege and his acid sarcasm at Jane's expense, and Heathcliff, the half-wild, uncouth orphan, desperately in love with a woman he cannot have. (Perhaps the association comes from Laurence Olivier. He was mesmerizing, but he played Heathcliff throughout with an accent more redolent of the Old Vic than the stable.)

Joan Fontaine did indeed play the spirited Jane a mite too close to Mrs. de Winter territory. But I would not call the novel's Rochester downtrodden, as Mr. Kehr does, not even at the end when, as Joyce Carol Oates wrote, "the blind and crippled Rochester is no less masculine than before." Rather than playing it safe, as a straight figure of romance, Welles brought out the neurosis in Rochester to a marked degree while retaining the arrogance of the aristocrat. That was a definite risk. As David Shipman put it, Welles "moved and looked the part, darkly romantic, but it was hard to believe that he wasn't as insane as his wife."

Macao (1952)

It's a shame the Siren didn't see Macao when she was about 16 years old. It has every ingredient her teenage self ever looked for in an old movie. Gorgeous leads, fabulous dresses, exotic locale, some musical numbers, a nice romance. I probably wouldn't have cared as much as about things that bother me now, like a so-what villain, a plot that telegraphs its every twist and a visual style that just doesn't know what it wants to be.

This is often classified as noir on DVD and rental sites, which must cause the occasional truth-in-packaging dispute. It is many things, but thematically it ain't really noir, more straight-up adventure story. There are no tormented loners or soul-sucking character flaws, no depredations of pitiless fate. Institutional corruption is played for laughs. Director Josef von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture is more noir than Macao. Then again, The Shanghai Gesture is more Sternberg than Macao. Like Come and Get It, this is a movie that was taken away from one celebrated director and finished by another, Nicholas Ray. Unlike the logging epic, with this one you don't get a clear stylistic delineation. There are Sternberg moments, and Not Sternberg moments. Little or nothing suggests Ray's innovative framing, his characters' intense sexuality or his interest in the psychology of violence. The younger director appears to have phoned in Macao from a very, very long-distance connection.

Macao's plot and setting had a lot for Sternberg to relate to, little to interest Ray. A hard-bitten beauty with a taste for high rolling and low company (Jane Russell) escapes to an exotic locale, battling and then teaming with a stranger escaping his past (Robert Mitchum). There they meet a traveling stocking salesman who dabbles in smuggling (William Bendix, in the movie's most enjoyable performance). Then they run afoul of a mysterious crime kingpin (Brad Dexter, not nearly mysterious or menacing enough, which really hurts the movie). The beauty goes to work in the kingpin's cabaret. Occasionally we encounter the kingpin's moll, Gloria Grahame--given nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, to do aside from wearing a spectacular bolero jacket, the sleeves of which terminate in a glittering pair of gloves. Otherwise Grahame mostly glares from doorways. Songs are sung, wisecracks are traded, wallets are lifted, a negligee is tossed over a dressing-room screen. (That last is one of the Siren's favorite old-movie cliches. It's even better if the heroine gets to pop her head and bare shoulders over the top, or if she sends a filmy something sailing over the top to hit the hero in the head.) Anyway, I ask you, does this sound noir? Macao has some crime, some moody lighting and some night shots. Otherwise it is a heck of a lot closer to something like Morocco.

The story of the filming is more dramatic than Macao itself, but that doesn't mean the movie is without interest. Any fan of The Shanghai Gesture (Siren pal Girish is one) should see Macao to compare its casino, full of railed landings going further and further up, with Mother Gin Sling's Dante-like gambling hell, a series of circles leading inexorably down. Again and again in Macao we see light coming through Venetian blinds, casting vertical bands on the characters. In noir this effect is usually suggestive of prison, either literal or figurative. In Macao the light-through-blinds seems more like a cobweb--beautiful, hemming in the characters, but nothing a determined adult can't break through. The most striking sequence, one that truly screams Sternberg, is a dockside chase that closes the movie. In the opening sequence (maybe Ray, maybe not) the actors race over floating docks, bobbing and weaving on the unstable piers. The end has the characters running around the same docks, but now the sets are strung with close-knit fishing nets. Sternberg's camera glides around this new obstacle, no more trapped by it than the characters are.

This was made at RKO and Howard Hughes' fingerprints are all over Russell's wolf-whistle costumes. One gold lamé dress was the subject of a memo from Hughes so schoolboyishly detailed the Siren is embarrassed to quote it. Russell's breasts somehow stay in frame no matter what else is going on. Still, Sternberg's most famous collaboration had been with Marlene Dietrich, and together they paid obsessive attention to her lighting and costumes. Russell was nowhere near the screen presence of a Dietrich--her chief asset was likability, her persona a Buddy with Boobs--but having the camera dawdle over a gorgeous woman was second nature to Sternberg.

What a pity, then, that according to film historians Russell disliked Sternberg, and Mitchum positively hated him. Sternberg's precision, his fastidious and haughty demeanor struck them as ridiculous. His career was in fadeout, his celebrated movies more than a decade in the past, and the rising young stars saw no reason to take orders from the ceremonious old has-been. Together with Bendix they made Sternberg's set a torment to him. The Bad and the Beautiful, a book on Hollywood in the 1950s, tells of the trio toppling von Sternberg's tent when he was changing clothes and rubbing Limburger cheese on his car engine. In his Mitchum biography, Lee Server describes how Mitchum mocked Sternberg's speaking manner: "Where did you get that accent, Joe? You're from Weehawken, N.J." (Sternberg grew up in Vienna and New York.)

Jane Russell remembered, 'According to Sternberg, we were not supposed to eat or drink on the set. No grip was allowed to have a Coke in the corner. Nobody.' Mitchum began bringing in bags of food and coffeee, and handing them out to one and all. Sternberg was enraged, told MItchum he was going to be fired. Mitchum said, 'If anyone gets fired, it'll be you' ... Mitchum began having his lunch [at Sternberg's lecturn], leaving half-eaten pickles and greasy wax paper all over the director's pages.

Server says Sternberg chose the wrong way to develop a rapport with Mitchum, trying to make chitchat by remarking that the warmed-over script was a "piece of shit" and comparing Russell's talent to that of his cigarette case. Mitchum responded tartly, "She must have something. Lots of ladies have big tits." Actually, at the time what Russell had was Hughes and his breast monomania, but Mitchum's on-and-off sense of gallantry had been offended.

Throughout his book Server makes his relish of Mitchum's bad-boy attitude very clear, but the Siren is resolutely uncharmed. Sternberg was obviously a difficult person, but he was also a great talent, and when the Siren reads about the stars' juvenile behavior she wants to go back in time and ground them. Mitchum never did have enough respect for himself or his profession, which is why for every great performance (and he was often superb) there is another where he's a shambling bore, drifting by on his looks and sexual magnetism. The actor has developed a cult in recent years, but the Siren subscribes only to the acting part of the fan club (well, okay, the eye-candy part too). "It was just a crummy melodrama," Mitchum carped in later years. Well, the atmosphere on the set undoubtedly helped ensure that.

The film tested poorly in previews, Sternberg either pushed off or was pushed, and Hughes, the perpetual tinkerer, brought Nicholas Ray on board for retakes. Server estimates that about one-third of the finished movie was directed by Ray. At the time Ray was married to Grahame, but the couple was divorcing. Grahame, thoroughly sick of her insipid part, told Ray she'd forego alimony if he would cut her out of the movie. Scenes went in, scenes went out, Mel Ferrer (!) directed a few more scenes, Mitchum started to complain that "his character would come through a door and run into himself on the other side." (Server) The script, already worked on by George Bricker, Edward Chodorov, Norman Katkov, Frank L. Moss, Walter Newman, Stanley Rubin, Bernard C. Schoenfeld and Bob Williams, got additional dialogue from Mitchum. No wonder the movie feels aimless, even though the action stays in Macao.