High Spciety (1956)

Dir. Charles Walters

Starring: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm 
 

High Society is everything I could ever possibly want from a musical film. A plot which actually hangs together (not surprising as it is based on The Philadelphia Story which starred Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart). Characters whose motivations and quirks are believable (ditto). A big name star cast (including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong). And a series of fantastic Cole Porter numbers (such as True Love, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and Well, Did You Evah!). It is, in every respect, quite positively “yar”. I was tapping my toes from the very first moment when we are introduced to Louis Armstrong and his real-life band jamming away happily at the back of a coach en route to the mansion of Bing’ C.K. Dexter Haven. But as ol’ Satchmo says, “End of song; beginning of story!”

We gather in “Newport, Rhode I” for the wedding of blue-blooded Tracy Lord (the soon-to-be-blue-blooded Grace Kelly who, by the time the film was released, was Princess Grace of Monaco). The next day she will be marrying mining heir George Kittridge (John Lund). All of Newport society is invited. Well, not everyone. Dexter, millionaire music-composer, patron of the Newport Jazz Festival and Tracy’s ex-husband is off the list, certainly so since he still professes love for Tracy. Her philandering father is likewise off. So too are gossip reporters from Spy magazine – until the editor threatens to publish an article on said father. His price for silence is coverage of the wedding, and so journalist Macauley ‘Mike’ Connors (Frank Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) arrive. Throw in roguish Uncle Willy (Louis Calhern) who takes a shine to Liz, and of course Louis Armstrong, playing himself, and we have all the ingredients for a fine affair. 

Armstrong is actually key to the success of the mix. He and his band are outsiders to the high society scene he sings about. This gives him the liberty to be the audience’s eyes and ears, commenting on the goings-on (“There’s a dark horse in this here race and my boy’s running a slow third…”). Macauley and Liz should be outsiders too. They may be quite clear that they do not want to be a millionaire, but they still get seduced by their surroundings. Liz is better at warding off Uncle Willy’s roving eye. Mike falls for the beautiful Tracy, setting up a love diamond between her and Mike, Dexter and George. She is determined to show Mike the real Newport, and in the process she shows him the real Tracy. She is not the goddess on a pedestal that George wants; she wants to be loved, not adored. And when she does let her halo slip she realises that she expected perfection from Dexter in their marriage, and that perfection is a very hard standard to which to live up. 

Okay, there’s something worrying about 26-year-old Kelly being torn between the 40-year-old Sinatra (with his dyed black hair) and the 53-year-old Crosby (with his thinning hair). But she has a track record of marrying older men in the movies, as her wedding to Gary Cooper in High Noon showed. But she was a casting coup considering her relationship with Prince Ranier. She has a wonderful wardrobe, she swans around looking stunning and – even if some of her moves were slightly stagey – she has the skills to be, in turn, cold, angry, vulnerable and ecstatic. Crosby and Sinatra are the bigger stars, and their 1940s rivalry is even nicely sent up in ‘Well, Did You Evah!’ when Bing assays a few trademark “boo-boo-boo-boo”s, only to face Sinatra’s snappy “I don’t dig that kind of crooning, chum!” (“You must be one of the newer fellows” Bing responds). It was a good addition. The entire number was only added fairly late on in the game when it was realised that the two male leads did not have a duet; the last minute addition is one of the film’s stand-out scenes. Frank also duets with Celeste Holm’s Liz on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionnaire?’ and Bing doubled up with Louis Armstrong and his band on the joyous ‘Now You Has Jazz’. All the way through they seem to be having an absolute whale of a time!

"Any requests from the back? What's that? Ebony and Ivory?"

 

Some characterisation does suffer in the translation from The Philadelphia Story. Here Mike is not a frustrated novelist, something that I felt really added depth to Jimmy Stewart’s character in the original film. However, I suppose that makes his sacrifice when he and Liz resign their commission the greater. I could also make the point that, for a musical film, it doesn’t actually have that many songs in it. The modern stage show has many more. It does, however, have an overture. You can tell because you get five minutes of blank blue screen with the word ‘Overture’ written across it. I found that quite annoying. But on the whole High Society is probably the most fun musical I have seen this year. 

“End of story!”

What have I learnt about Rhode Island?

Rhode Island – and specifically Newport – is the playground of old money families. Dexter jokes about having a grandfather who was a robber baron. So these grandees of the Gilded Age invested their money in the sort of grand mansions seen in the opening number: grand villas with spacious gardens rolling down to the sea. By the ‘50s however money was running out. The members of the Newport high society could still generate headlines, but all across town mansions were being border up or sold in order to pay taxes. Tracy tells Mike that Uncle Willy was unable to find a buyer for his estate, so in the end it was cheaper for him to give it away to a school. 

Newport also has a jazz festival. Dexter is portrayed as a patron of the festival; the impression is that not many in his circle frequent it (Uncle Willy refers to “Lewis Armstrong”). 

Can we go there?

The original tale was The Philadelphia Story and it was – unsurprisingly – set in Philadelphia. High Society transplants the action to waterside Newport, Rhode Island. The opening shot gives us an aerial view of several of Newport’s estates along prestigious Bellevue Avenue. These include Rosecliff, where the ballroom film was shot, and Clarendon Court, later home to Klaus and Sunny von Bülow and which sold for $13m earlier this year. In general, however, the movie was filmed out west in Hollywood (oh the shame!). 

The Newport Jazz Festival still runs. The next dates are August 2013.

Overall Rating: 4/5

Me, Myself & Irene (2000)

Dir. Peter Farrelly, Robert Farrelly

Starring: Jim Carrey, Renee Zellwegger, Chris Cooper, Robert Forster 

I really enjoyed the Farrelly Brothers’ 1998 comedy There’s Something About Mary. I thought it was well-scripted, well-cast and – most importantly – funny. I had one one reservation about it: Mary’s brother with the learning problems. I thought it was a very cringeworthy depiction that did not need to be included. It just seemed gratuitously offensive to people with learning difficulties. 

So Imagine my joy when I turned to their 2000 offering Me, Myself & Irene. A comedy about a man suffering from a split personality starring Jim Carrey! Something immediately told me that this was not going to be a sensitive portrayal of mental illness. 

You know what? I was right. Carrey plays Charlie Baileygates, a State Trooper belonging to “the greatest police force in the land”: the Rhode Island Police Department. Having failed to effectively process the emotions created when his newlywed wife (Traylor Howard) absconds with their midget wedding chauffeur (Tony Cox) leaving him alone to raise their black triplets he has become so meek and unconfrontational that it is a wonder he still has a job. He cannot even get a little girl to stop skipping rope in the middle of the road. And then one day he cracks. He develops “advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage.” What this means in practice is that a new personality, calling himself Hank Evans, comes to the fore and starts confronting people left right and centre. Hank is a composite of all the negativity than Charlie has repressed all those years. And somehow the take-no-shit Hank is seen as more of a liability to the department. So Charlie is given one last easy job before he can be eased out of the police force. He is to escort a young woman named Irene (Renee Zellwegger) back to upstate New York to face a hit-and-run charge. 

Of course, Irene didn’t do it. She had however worked for (and dated) a country club owner who, somehow, was mixed up in some unspecified criminality. Whatever he did it must have been pretty bad because he now has a corrupt detective (Chris Cooper from The Horse Whisperer) and Environmental Protection Agent (Richard Jenkins who played newspaper editor Clyde in The Witches of Eastwick) out to silence her. She escapes their clutches and goes on the run with Charlie / Hank (without his pills his personality keeps flipping between the ineffectual but nice Charlie and the tough and maleveolent Hank). These forces pursue them from New York, down through Vermont and back to Rhode Island. 

Me, Myself & Irene is not a gross-out comedy. It’s just a stupid comedy. The plot (a cross-country chase pursued by corrupt cops) is derivative. Many of the scenes are fairly pointless - the injured cow in the road en route to Messina, for example, or the character of Whitey the albino (Michael Bowman). An example of the sample humour is the line “Will someone please get this chicken out of my ass?” You wouldn’t get that in a Martin Scorsese! For such a flimsy film I’m having trouble working out how the directors stretched it to 1hr 50mins. There is an annoying folksy homespun narrator and a really bizarre one-line cameo by Anna Kournakova. Renee Zellwegger is absolutely wasted. She can do comedy, but here all she can do is stand there and be upstaged by Jim Carrey. 

Despite Bart's advice Charlie did decide to have a cow (man)

Because this is Jim Carrey’s film. If you like his trademark ‘zany’ physical goofing you will love Me, Myself & Irene. He does lots of it. Basically, it is a rehash of The Mask: meek inoffensive nobody turns into a superhero. He does well at creating these two distinct personas, voices and mannerisms and all; so much so that he can actually have an argument / fight between Charlie and Hank towards the end of the film and make it comprehensible. It is a wonderful bit of physical comedy. A brave bit too – he throws himself out of a moving car. While disappointed with the movie I can state wholeheartedly that Carrey’s performance is breathtaking. No one else could have carried off the funny faces, silly voices and physicality of the role(s) to anything like so high a level. Other comedy is provided by his three squabbling and foul-mouthed genius kids (“Man, how the hell can they call Pluto a planet? No motherfuckin’ planet has an elliptical orbit. That shit don’t make no sense!” “Shit yeah man, look, you keep fuckin’ around you gonna get yo’ scholarship to Yale taken away from you. Be stuck up there at Stanford with all those sling-blade mutherfuckers.” “Shit mutherfucker, you be lucky to get accepted to Duke, getting’ a 1430 on yo’ SATs.”)

It’s one of those movies where I have the unmistakeable feeling that someone thought up the name, and then had to come up with a film to match it. It is a passable way to pass some time but certainly not one people should be clamouring to see. Unless you are one of those aforementioned Jim Carrey fans. 

What have I learnt about Rhode Island?

Rhode Island is small and it knows it. It seems to be proud of its status as ‘The Biggest Little State in the Country’. I get the feeling that it is seen as a bit of a joke to the rest of the US however. One of its state troopers is expected to escort someone suspected of a hit and run all the way over to upstate New York. I get the feeling that officials of other states look down somewhat on Rhode Island. The brown uniform and jodhpurs get-up of the state troopers (who look like Mounties) probably doesn’t help. 

However, it does look like prime holiday territory, with marinas and campervans dotted around its coast. There are seaside parks and views of the sunlight sparkling on the ocean. It doesn’t look bad as a destination at all! 

Can we go there?

The film – or at least the first thirty minutes or so – is set in southern Rhode Island. We see Charlie riding his motorbike across the Pell Bridge which connects Jamestown to Newport. He got married at St. John’s Episcopal Chuch in Newport. His house was located on Mollusk Drive in Galilee in the very south of the state. The barbershop, where Hank parks the car, is located on Main Street in Jamestown.

However, the bulk of the action actually takes place in north-west Vermont. The cow-shooting scene takes place near Johnson. Hank gets tasered outside the Addison Four Corners Store (which was supposed to be in Massena, New York). Charlie, Irene and Whitey take the car ferry across Lake Champlain. The Ben & Jerry’s ice cream farm is in Waterbury and can be toured – whoopee! The ‘Providence’ train station scene was filmed in Burlington and the ‘South County’ train station (which, likewise, was supposed to be in Rhode Island) was filmed in nearby Essex Junction; the train presumably just shuttled back and forth along this short stretch of line. Even the final scene on the bridge over the river was actually shot in Middlebury. The Farrellys may like to give their movies a Rhode Island twist, but it seems as though Vermont just gives better tax breaks to film-makers… 

Overall rating: 2/5

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Dir. George Miller

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer 

 

Adapted from a John Updike novel, The Witches of Eastwick focuses on the friendship of three women in a small New England town. Alex Medford (Cher) is a sculptress and widowed single mother. Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon of Dead Man Walking and Bull Durham) is an uptight divorcee music teacher. Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer, last seen in Scarface) is a fecund mother-of-six whose husband has left her. The three friends form a self-help society where they bond and bemonan their bad luck whilst getting thoroughly sloshed. One evening, over martinis, they express their fondest wishes for things to change and for a little excitement to come into their lives. They dream of the perfect man. 

The next morning Eastwick is abuzz with the news – the old Lenox Mansion has been bought by an out-of-towner. That out-of-towner is, apparently, a rich New Yorker by the name of Darryl van Horne. One by one the women meet him. One by one they are fascinated by him. And one by one they fall under his spell… 

Darryl injects some excitement into their lives alright. How could he not when he is played by Jack Nicholson? Nicholson doesn’t particularly do subtle acting I’ve always thought. He pours everything into his performances and radiates energy. That is just right for this role. He doesn’t need to be subtle in the character of Darryl van Horne. He needs to be ridiculous and seductive, charming and vengeful. He is, he admits, draping himself over a bed in a silk dressing gown, “just your average horny little devil”. And that is just what he is. As his three lovers take out their jealousy on each other in a comic game of tennis it becomes clear that he has access to powers they have never imagined. Thereafter it is time for a very different foursome… 

The three ladies try to give Jack Nicholson a run for his money – hard when he is convinced that the film is his own personal showcase. I personally think that Michelle Pfeiffer’s wishy-washy Sukie is the weakest of the bunch. She barely does anything. But then again it was Pfeiffer’s first real blockbuster role. Cher proves that she can handle movies just as well as music, thank you very much, as the unofficial leader of the bunch. However it is Susan Sarandon that must take the plaudits as Plain Jane who becomes a flame-haired superslut overnight after some of van Horne’s red-hot fiddling (not a metaphor). No really, he teaches her how to become empassioned through her music. The scene where he is crashing out notes on a piano while an orgasmic Jane furiously plays her cello (not a metaphor), smoke coiling from her bow and the instrument itself finally bursting into flames is a real highlight.  

 

The witches decided to show Casper who was really in charge

 

But they cannot compete with Jack. He is at once preposterous and fascinating. The townsfolk agree that he isn’t really handsome (“riveting” is the word used). Alex belittles him for exhibiting every loathsome characteristic of the male personality “and even discovered a few new ones”. He has a ridiculous ratty ponytail. But he exudes sex. There is something feral about him. When he turns to Alex and tells her, flat out, that “I always like a little pussy after lunch” we should laugh him into a corner. But it is Jack Goddammed Nicholson so we don’t. He talks about the power of women and how they can bestow the gift of life: “Nature, birth, rebirth. Cliché? Cliché, sure… but true…” It is unclear whether he really believes in the power of women, or whether he is only telling them what they want to hear to get them into bed. It is possible he is speaking the truth – after all, they brought him to Eastwick in the first place. He is a master of sardonic chuckles and eyebrow-arching glances. 

All things considered, the movie is… okay. It’s enjoyable. Everyone there seems to be having a whale of a time. The special effects are (mostly) good. It is very funny in places. But really, it is just a funny little tale about three women who accidentally conjure up a devil and then have to put him back down again when they realise what they have done. Despite the death of prissy town Selectwoman Felicia (Veronica Cartwright), despite the agonies that Sukie undergoes, it is hard to take van Horne’s evil seriously. This is not a horror story, it is a comedy, and I think the film found it hard to entirely reconcile the two notions. It is like Sex and the City spliced with Rosemary’s Baby. The ending is overly dramatic. Largely, your enjoyment of it will depend on quite how big a fan you are of Jack Nicholson’s gooning. For myself, I thought it got old, quickly. 

What have I learnt about Rhode Island?

Nowhere in the film does it point out – as far as I can see – that Eastwick is in Rhode Island. You can see that it is a New England town, but that is about it. Apparent the original source material – the novel by John Updike – made the Rhode Island setting more explicit. 

What we can see is an almost stereotypical New England town. It has a sea-front location, well-tended village greens and a collection of beautiful white-painted buildings, from the thin-steepled church on the common, to the wooden houses on piers over the sea and rivers, to the Federal-style school. Everyone turns out for school speech day, the most influential person in the community is a ‘Selectwoman’, and the city dates back to 1640. It has a suitably rich history, largely through the Lenoxes, whose mansion van Horne buys. 

Can we go there?

The movie was not shot in Rhode Island either. Updike based Eastwick on the town of Wickford. The 'Eastwick’ seen on screen, however, was really Cohasset, further north in Massachusetts. Cohasset is about an hour south east of Boston. The 1746 First Parish Meeting House was the pretty white church attended by the townsfolk. The Lenox Mansion, home of Darryl van Horne, was Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich. Interiors of his grand mansion were filmed elsewhere: the lobby was that of the Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston, for example, and the swimming pool was back on set in Burbank, California.

Overall Rating: 2/5

Week 40: Rhode Island

"You,
 You come from Rhode Island,
 And little old Rhode Island
 Is famous for you..."
 - 'Rhode Island is Famous for You',
 Blossom Dearie

Ooh. That's a lovely song to greet us upon arrival in Rhode Island. The whole point of it is that every state has something it is known for: copper from Arizona, peaches from Georgia, pencils from Pennsylvania etc etc. And then we have Rhode Island - little old Rhode Island. What can the smallest state in the Union possibly be famous for?

 

And I'm glad that Blossom Dearie decided that it was famous for "you". Because what else is there? Quite possibly only the Rhode Island Red chicken. The cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn was a Rhode Island Red. I say - I say - I say, Foghorn Leghorn was a Rhode Island Red. And speaking of cartoons, Family Guy is set in the Rhode Island town of Quahog. Obviously Quahog is fictional, as you might expect from a ridiculous name like that. Towns in Rhode Island have much more sensible names. Like Quidnick, or Quidnessett, or Quonochontaug.

 

 

I'm not overly expecting many chickens to make it onto screen this week. Rhode Island is, essentially, the city of Providence and a bit of spare land scattered to the west of the island-speckled Narragansett Bay. As I say, it is the smallest of America's fifty states. Which means that it is even smaller than Delaware, where I had all kinds of trouble getting hold of movies set in that state. So will I have the same issues with Rhode Island?

 

Seemingly not. Little old Rhode Island seems to have a bit more going for it than corporate tax-haven Delaware. I've managed to pull together a film list without too many problems. This week I shall mostly be watching:

• The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
• Me, Myself and Irene (2000)
• High Society (1956)