Thursday, 15 October 2009 09:28 am
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deckardcanineI usually try not to see similar movies in close succession, the glaring exception being a second viewing of Batman the night before The Dark Knight. This week, on a strong movie binge even for me, I unintentionally saw three Howard Hawks movies in a row. It surprised me especially because they're all from different decades in different genres with different lead actors.
First was Ball of Fire, a 1941 romantic comedy co-written by Billy Wilder featuring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and some distinctive smaller-name actors like Richard Haydn. It's the least known of the three but my personal favorite. Perhaps I'm biased by having seen it with my dad, which is especially a plus with comedies. And perhaps it speaks to grammarians in particular, seeing as Cooper's Bertram "Pottsie" Potts (eesh, makes me think of "Happy Days") is a punctilious English professor working on the slang section of an encyclopedia, collaborating with seven older and equally geeky men. More than half the slang he encounters in public was unfamiliar to my dad and me. I don't think you could get away with calling a woman a "mouse" today unless she had a fursona. Anyway, Stanwyck enters the picture as a mobster's girlfriend who feigns interest in Potts's project, and then Potts himself, just for a place to hide, against the stuffy maid's objections. You can imagine where it may go from there, but that doesn't stop it from being fun.
Next was Rio Bravo, a 1959 western featuring John Wayne, my first taste of Dean Martin (who does get to sing), a James Dean-like Ricky Nelson, a rather hot Angie Dickinson, and a comical Walter Brennan. It's hard for me to say what makes it stand out from other "reinventive" westerns (as most classic ones are), but it does get enjoyable after the somewhat hackneyed opening. The dialog and casting are its strong points.
Last was Scarface, a 1932... oh, you know, gangster flick. Thought it was best to see this before the reputedly violent remake. It could have run together in my mind with the previous year's The Public Enemy and Little Caesar, except that Tony Camonte is even nastier. Definitely the most dramatic of these Hawks films, tho I did catch an amusingly awkward turn of phrase from a newspaperman: "shooting each other like rabbits."
First was Ball of Fire, a 1941 romantic comedy co-written by Billy Wilder featuring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and some distinctive smaller-name actors like Richard Haydn. It's the least known of the three but my personal favorite. Perhaps I'm biased by having seen it with my dad, which is especially a plus with comedies. And perhaps it speaks to grammarians in particular, seeing as Cooper's Bertram "Pottsie" Potts (eesh, makes me think of "Happy Days") is a punctilious English professor working on the slang section of an encyclopedia, collaborating with seven older and equally geeky men. More than half the slang he encounters in public was unfamiliar to my dad and me. I don't think you could get away with calling a woman a "mouse" today unless she had a fursona. Anyway, Stanwyck enters the picture as a mobster's girlfriend who feigns interest in Potts's project, and then Potts himself, just for a place to hide, against the stuffy maid's objections. You can imagine where it may go from there, but that doesn't stop it from being fun.
Next was Rio Bravo, a 1959 western featuring John Wayne, my first taste of Dean Martin (who does get to sing), a James Dean-like Ricky Nelson, a rather hot Angie Dickinson, and a comical Walter Brennan. It's hard for me to say what makes it stand out from other "reinventive" westerns (as most classic ones are), but it does get enjoyable after the somewhat hackneyed opening. The dialog and casting are its strong points.
Last was Scarface, a 1932... oh, you know, gangster flick. Thought it was best to see this before the reputedly violent remake. It could have run together in my mind with the previous year's The Public Enemy and Little Caesar, except that Tony Camonte is even nastier. Definitely the most dramatic of these Hawks films, tho I did catch an amusingly awkward turn of phrase from a newspaperman: "shooting each other like rabbits."
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