old movies part 12 or I love L.A.
And I' ve been watching a bunch lately. Casablanca and Maltese Falcon are two, and I know I've written about them before, but they are such great films, I almost never tire of seeing them. It's a little like listening to Beatles albums; I only have to let a few months pass, and it's like they're new again.
There are three others though that I've watched recently, and they all share something in common. They were all made in the late 40's/early 50's and they all take place in Los Angeles and southern California at some point. To digress for a moment, it's a period and place in time that seems really fascinating. One of my favorite authors, James Ellroy, uses that setting for, I think, all his novels. The post-war boom in both population and housing, the innovations in transportation, communications (which of course seem primitive today) along with political corruption, all make for great backdrops to stories, and even the movies of the time seem to have taken note of it.
The three movies are Them!, White Heat, and Hometown Story. They really don't have much in common except the aforementioned setting and, I suppose, a general approach to storytelling.
Them! is one of the earliest giant bug science-fiction films of the 50's, and probably the best. The pacing and script are very understated for the genre, and though the special effects are cheesy by today's standards, it manages to be scary, funny, and believable. Edmund Gwenn as the old scientist is more or less the star, and he is great. There is the usual paranoia about what the nuclear age has wrought, in this case really big ants. An amusing anecdote about the film is that director Gordon Douglas asked the film's editor, "How does it look?" The editor responded, "Fine." "But is it believable?" Douglas said. "As believable as 12-foot ants can be," came the answer. It starts in New Mexico but ends in the Los Angeles sewers and we have all the requisite, heated radio contact back and forth between police cars and then army units.
White Heat takes the James Cagney gangster films of the 30's and places them in a post-war, more realistic context. Cagney has never been better, in the role of Cody Jarrett, a real psycho. All the elements of those earlier films are incorporated, along with amazing new technology, like police scanners that can trace a vehicle's movement by placing an osculator (I think?) on the vehicle and tracking it. And of course we get all those great black and white shots of Southern California, the cars and buildings, that are so intriguing.
Hometown Story is the least of the three, a B-movie that would have no interest today if it wasn't one of Marilyn Monroe's early roles. It's only about an hour long (remember when movies didn't have to be two and half hours long?) but it seems drawn-out even at that. It seems more like an early television program than a proper film, and Marilyn does little other than shun the advances of Alan Hale, Jr. (the Skipper on Gilligan's Island). Perhaps that's enough. We still get a lot of great shots of police cars and those 'Highway Patrol' type radio communications.
All three films inhabit the same time and place and mindset, black and white and a bit pretentious and windy in their storytelling; the first two though seem more aware that they might be seen outside of that time and place.
I love watching films from that period. They are like windows to another world and I have to confess that sometimes I wish I could go back and live there.
There are three others though that I've watched recently, and they all share something in common. They were all made in the late 40's/early 50's and they all take place in Los Angeles and southern California at some point. To digress for a moment, it's a period and place in time that seems really fascinating. One of my favorite authors, James Ellroy, uses that setting for, I think, all his novels. The post-war boom in both population and housing, the innovations in transportation, communications (which of course seem primitive today) along with political corruption, all make for great backdrops to stories, and even the movies of the time seem to have taken note of it.
The three movies are Them!, White Heat, and Hometown Story. They really don't have much in common except the aforementioned setting and, I suppose, a general approach to storytelling.
Them! is one of the earliest giant bug science-fiction films of the 50's, and probably the best. The pacing and script are very understated for the genre, and though the special effects are cheesy by today's standards, it manages to be scary, funny, and believable. Edmund Gwenn as the old scientist is more or less the star, and he is great. There is the usual paranoia about what the nuclear age has wrought, in this case really big ants. An amusing anecdote about the film is that director Gordon Douglas asked the film's editor, "How does it look?" The editor responded, "Fine." "But is it believable?" Douglas said. "As believable as 12-foot ants can be," came the answer. It starts in New Mexico but ends in the Los Angeles sewers and we have all the requisite, heated radio contact back and forth between police cars and then army units.
White Heat takes the James Cagney gangster films of the 30's and places them in a post-war, more realistic context. Cagney has never been better, in the role of Cody Jarrett, a real psycho. All the elements of those earlier films are incorporated, along with amazing new technology, like police scanners that can trace a vehicle's movement by placing an osculator (I think?) on the vehicle and tracking it. And of course we get all those great black and white shots of Southern California, the cars and buildings, that are so intriguing.
Hometown Story is the least of the three, a B-movie that would have no interest today if it wasn't one of Marilyn Monroe's early roles. It's only about an hour long (remember when movies didn't have to be two and half hours long?) but it seems drawn-out even at that. It seems more like an early television program than a proper film, and Marilyn does little other than shun the advances of Alan Hale, Jr. (the Skipper on Gilligan's Island). Perhaps that's enough. We still get a lot of great shots of police cars and those 'Highway Patrol' type radio communications.
All three films inhabit the same time and place and mindset, black and white and a bit pretentious and windy in their storytelling; the first two though seem more aware that they might be seen outside of that time and place.
I love watching films from that period. They are like windows to another world and I have to confess that sometimes I wish I could go back and live there.
posted by gbj at 7:08 PM
2 Comments:
I remember "Them" well, but haven't seen the other two. My students are usually fascinated by films from this time period for the same reason -- a glimpse back into a past that is not really that distant, but seems like an age. They are fascinated to see the cars, the uniformed guy running out to pump gas and clean the windshield, the appliances and clothes and furniture. And when I tell them I remember those things -- well, it dates me, for sure!
I guess my earliest memories are from about 1960 so the time period described shouldn't be all THAT different, but it sure seems that way today. In fact, when I watch a movie like "Psycho", it never occurs to me that I was alive at the time. It seems lightyears ago.
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