In Defense of Citizen Kane

The following is my brief contribution to True Classics' The Great Citizen Kane Debate.

In 1952 Sight & Sound polled the world’s leading film critics to compile a list of the best films of all time. The magazine has repeated this poll every ten years, to show which films stand the test of time in the face of shifting critical opinion.  Orson Welles' debut masterpiece did not appear on the initial 1952 list, but Citizen Kane did claim the top spot in 1962, and has held its position every decade ever since.   And of course, this seemingly universal adoration for the film does not stop there.   Topping poll after poll after poll over the past sixty years or so, the formidable Kane (a film as brazen as its director and its subject) is today considered by many to be a film without peers - the greatest film ever made.  A bold statement indeed.  Now the question we must ask ourselves here and now is, "Is Citizen Kane truly the greatest film ever made?"  

I still remember when I first saw the great Kane.   I was a seventeen year old high school senior and I had decided to sign up for a new elective our school was offering.  It was a film class and among the films I got to see for the first time here (Psycho, Bonnie and Clyde, Lifeboat, Wait Until Dark) was Citizen Kane.  The class was a full semester, and half of that time was spent on this one film alone.  I remember when we first watched it - before any discussion on it - and how blown away I was by it.  I was still just a novice, budding cinephile at the time, and had no real idea of film theory or the art of cinematography, so I was no expert, but damn did I love that movie.  Once we began discussing the film, breaking it down scene by scene, going over the films that influenced it and those films influenced by it, it grew even greater in my esteem.

Now many critics and cinephiles over the years have placed Kane at the top of their list out of mere rote.  Everyone says it is the greatest, so it must be.  I have a good friend who says "Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made - no other answer is allowed."  Of course this is all a bit ridiculous.  First of all, to name the greatest film(s) is just an impossible thing to do.  Everyone has different opinions of greatness.  But at the same time, if you turn it around and name your favourite films, which is more personal and less canonical than naming the greatest, there are still those who would disagree with you.  If we all had the same tastes this would be an awfully boring place to live.  There are also those who, though they make sure to claim respect for the film itself, cannot claim to enjoying Kane at all.  If a favourite film is one that you can watch over and over again, then yes, Citizen Kane is one of this critic's favourite films, even without taking into account its myriad of cinematic flourishes that could very well make the film then greatest ever made.

As far as its greatness goes, perhaps the idea of it being listed pretty much everywhere as the greatest film ever is a bit of an overkill, but there is really no denying its greatness - even for those who claim not to like it.  Yes, the idea of it making groundbreaking strides in cinematography and art direction, his work in deep focus, is a bit of a misnomer.  Welles, along with his DP Gregg Toland, were greatly influenced by the German Expressionism filmmaking going on throughout the 1920's and early 1930's.  In fact Toland had worked on several of these films himself.  But even if Welles was only doing what was already being done in European cinema and early American sound cinema, he was changing it and making it work in his own unique way.  Creating his own Wellesian cinema that would in turn influence so many after him, like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Joel and Ethan Coen, Paul Thomas Anderson to name just a few.  Welles would go on to make other great films, from The Magnificent Ambersons to The Lady From Shanghai, to Othello and Macbeth, Touch of Evil, The Trial and Chimes at Midnight - all of which also have that Wellesian style that was gleaned from past film history and transformed into his own bravura style.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that Citizen Kane is a great film.  Personally I do not list it as the greatest, instead placing it in the number five spot of my all-time favourite list (behind just The Red Shoes, 2001, The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Psycho).  But considering that among the thousands of different films I have seen, from the nearly 120 year history of cinema, to place at number five is a pretty big deal.  And my love is not just a nostalgic look at the film - seen at the start of my obsession with the art of cinema - but just because it is a great film overall - no other answer is allowed.  It was the first film I ever bought (on VHS - remember those!? and eventually on DVD and now the gorgeous new Bluray boxset) and will always be one that I can and will watch over and over and over again.  For those who do not like the film, one can only blame a lack of taste.  I am half kidding with that last line, for everyone has different tastes (as I state above), but in the case of Citizen Kane, perhaps those different tastes should be reevaluated.  So that is my case.  It is more of a love letter to Kane than an actual appraisal of the technical and artistic brilliance of the film (a gushing school girl love letter, not the critique of the knowledgeable film historian I usually try to portray), but it is my case. and I am sticking to it.  It is my defense of Citizen Kane.  End of story.  Rosebud.

The Great Citizen Kane Debate, Coming Soon to a Blog Near You.

Citizen Kane.  Greatest film ever made or the most overrated?  One can find rabid advocates on both sides of this debate.   Now the fine folks over at True Classics have decided to help bring those rabid advocates out of the cyber-woodwork they have been hiding in (not that any cinephile needs a reason to talk incessantly about film).  How will they do this, you ask?  Well, with The Great Citizen Kane Debate, that's how.  The object is simple as can be.  Somewhere, or somewhen between now and November 13, simply post a piece, either defending the classic film or decrying it, at whichever website/blog you happen to be associated with.  Send a link to said piece/post to those aforementioned fine folks over at True Classics before November 13.  And you can even win a prize!  Each entry will be judged on their individual merits and a winner will be announced at the end of the month.  All the details and various sundry items can be found over at True Classics (in the links above).  Hopefully this event will get some heated debating going on.  As a grand defender of the greatness of this Wellesian Masterpiece (and yes, that did need to be capitalized!) I too plan to toss my hat in the ole ring.  Hope to see you there.

Another Contest, Another Good Time

Well, here's how the story goes.  Earlier this Summer I came across a website called FilmClassics, and saw that they hosted a regular series of contests.  So, I went and entered said contest.  My mission (should I decide to accept it - and I did) was to write a review on any classic screwball comedy.  My choice was the little known Barbara Stanwyck vehicle, The Mad Miss Manton.  The piece I wrote really wasn't one of the best things I have ever written, but enter it I did.  To make a long story short, I won said contest and received a snazzy, shiny gold cyber-ribbon which I have placed on the sidebar of this very site.

Cut to earlier today.  My contribution to FilmClassics new review contest, this time on classic film noir (my choice was Detour, and I am much happier with this entry than the last aforementioned screwball entry) was named the winner.  A close race indeed (102 votes to 98 were the top two totals - and let's face it, the voting of course, sadly enough, just comes down to who has the most friends willing to click on the vote button) but squeak it out I did. Of course winning is not the important thing as they say.  Watching and writing about the films is what it is all about.  Winning is just incidental I suppose.  And speaking of writing about films, my entry can be read HERE.  As for my stalwart close competition, it was from a young woman (seventeen I think) named Rianna over at Frankly, My Dear (her piece can be read HERE). From what I read - she does a very nice piece on the genre as a whole - she definitely has a thirst for learning about film history (how many teenagers are into movies from the 1930's and 1940's? Bravo for her!) and will probably grow into quite the film nerd as she ages - and take it from this 44 year old film nerd, there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

Anyway, my new snazzy cyber-ribbon has been placed in the sidebar (a larger version placed at the end of this post) and I await the next review contest at FilmClassics.  For this next contest I will probably write a piece, but enter it "out of competition" (in other words, post it at my site with a mention and link to the contest) in an attempt to give the growing film knowledge of others a chance to bloom.  This may seem a somewhat arrogant and/or egotistical thing to do (and knowing me, it probably is on some level) but is truly meant as a benevolent gesture on my part, as I want those still just getting into cinema (and the love thereof) to be able to compete without some old fuddy-duddy who has spent the majority of his adult life watching and studying film mucking up the works.  Anyway, I wish great luck and good fortune (and all that proverbial jazz) to all those who enter the future contests at FilmClassics.  And to Rianna - keep up the classic film watching no matter how much it perplexes your less enthusiastic peers.  That's it for now.

Looks Like I'm in Another Damn Contest -- How About That?

It would seem the fine folks over at FilmClassics are holding another review writing contest.  FilmClassics held a contest earlier in the Summer, with the subject of classic screwball comedy.  I wrote a piece on the relatively little-known Stanwyck/Fonda film The Mad Miss Manton.  Well guess what?  In a battle to the finish I came up victorious and received a snazzy, shiny banner to post on my blog (it hangs proudly in the sidebar as we speak).  

The subject this time around is classic film noir, so hearing this, loving the noir genre and being a rather competitive person in nature (and wanting another snazzy gold ribbon for my blog), yours truly has decided to enter said contest.  My piece this time around is on that most classic of B-pictures, Detour, directed by the indomitable Edgar G. Ulmer and starring the sultry Ann Savage and her dumb-luck patsy Tom Neal.  I have three competitors this time around and in the fairness of disclosure (or whatever you want to call it) I would like to give the links for these other three.  They are (in no particular order): Anatomy of a Film Noir at Frankly, My Dear; Ministry of Fear at In the Mood; Sunset Blvd. at Forever Classics.  Who says I am not fair?

Anyway, you can read my Review Contest Entry Post and let me know what you think by clicking on the button at the end of said post, which will take you to the contest site where one can then vote.  You can also jump to FilmClassics right now (where you will find links to both mine and my adversary's reviews - and to be fair, please do read all four) and vote as well.  I suppose the main point one should take away from this is to vote vote vote.  Vote early and vote often.  Actually you can only vote once per IP address, but you get the idea. 
 

The Dark and Sinister Goings-on Inside Edgar G. Ulmer's Radically Cheap B-Movie Cult Classic Film Noir Detour

The following is my humble contribution to Film Classics Film Noir Review Contest.  And as fair warning, there may be spoilers ahead, for those who care about such things - ye have been warned.

Made in 1945, on the most extreme of low budgets by B-master Edgar G. Ulmer and released by the Producers Releasing Company (PRC), a member of what in Hollywood was called the "Poverty Row" group of B-studios (these studios were often only in business for a few years and were mainly known for making cheap westerns, gangster films and serials), Detour may have been a tiny tiny film (and short, as was usually the case with "Poverty Row" films, at just 68 minutes) but to this day, 66 years later, it is still considered one of the greatest film noirs ever made.  Roger Ebert has said of the film, "This movie from Hollywood's Poverty Row, shot in six days, filled with technical errors and ham-handed narrative, starring a man who can only pout and a woman who can only sneer, should have faded from sight soon after it was released in 1945. And yet it lives on, haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it."  The film has truly become one of the most classic of B-pictures.

The film is the story of Al Roberts, a jaded beer hall piano player (he has unfulfilled dreams of being a concert pianist) played by Tom Neal in his only role worthy of remembrance, who decides to hitchhike cross-country to California to be reunited with his semi-estranged girlfriend.  Along the way Al is picked up by a cocksure and obviously wealthy man by the name of Haskell.  A bit later Haskell dies (we never do find out how or why but we do know it was not foul play) and Al, in an act of desperation and knowing he could never explain such a thing to the police, ditches the body, steals Haskell's clothes, money and I.D. and speeds off in the dead man's car.  Now on the run, this will of course lead to Al's downfall, and this inevitable downfall (it is a film noir after all) is helped along when he picks up a disheveled young woman while posing as Haskell.   This disheveled (and obviously bad news) young woman is Vera, played by the sultry and quite psychotic Ann Savage.  Vera knows Haskell and therefore knows that Al is not Haskell and blackmails him into doing what she wants - and of course that can only spell trouble.

Vera tells Al that is to impersonate Haskell in order to get the inheritance the dead man is about to receive from his soon-to-be dead father.  Despite Vera's blackmail attempt Al refuses to along with her plan and the two fight in the Hollywood apartment they are now renting.  In the most infamous scene in the film, Al accidentally strangles Vera with a telephone cord and once again will go on the run.  Since the production code was still fully in force in Hollywood in 1945, Ulmer was not allowed to let his murderer - even an accidental one like Al - get away with his crime, so the film's not-so-intrepid protagonist is arrested in the final scene.  This ending, with its moody atmospheric sense of doom, is one of the things that make an otherwise cheaply made motion picture a classic of film noir cinema.  In their book, "The Devil Thumbs a Ride & Other Unforgettable Films", authors Edward Gorman and Dow Mossman say of the film, "...Detour remains a masterpiece of its kind. There have been hundreds of better movies, but none with the feel for doom portrayed by ... Ulmer. The random universe Stephen Crane warned us about—the berserk cosmic impulse that causes earthquakes and famine and AIDS—is nowhere better depicted than in the scene where Tom Neal stands by the roadside, soaking in the midnight rain, feeling for the first time the noose drawing tighter and tighter around his neck."  And this is what makes the film last.

Now the film does have a certain reputation that perhaps it does not deserve.  The famous, and quite apocryphal story of the film's production (propagated by Ulmer's own late-life assertions) claims that Detour was made with just $20,000 and in a mere six days (even the above Ebert quote says as much on the latter).  Truth be told it was probably closer to $100,000 with a shooting schedule of 28 days, but that would have been the norm for the day on "Poverty Row", so that isn't a very interesting hard luck tale to tell - and if Ulmer was anything it was an eccentric character who would build up his life and career further than it actually ever went.  Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (in a part that is now the modern day Czech Republic) and making a bit of a splash in 1934 with The Black Cat for Universal (the first of eight films that would team horror icons Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff), Ulmer's career never really took off as many of his fellow European ex-pats careers did when they too fled their warring countries to make it in Hollywood.

Ulmer had previously worked as assistants to many of these same great directors - Murnau, Siodmak, Wilder and Zinnemann among them - before hitting it (temporarily) big in the U.S.  He claims to have worked with Fritz Lang on both Metropolis and M, but this is most likely just more tall-tale telling on an aging Ulmer's behalf.  When the director made The Black Cat for Universal (an actual big-name studio at the time - and that studio's biggest box office hit of the year) and showed the striking visual style he had obviously learned from the German Expressionist cinema of 1920's Germany, he was surely on his way to bigger and better things - much like the aforementioned contemporary ex-pats like Wilder and Siodmak.  Ulmer, however, had begun an affair with the wife of independent producer Max Alexander, nephew of Universal studio head Carl Laemmle. Shirley Alexander's divorce and subsequent marriage to Ulmer led to his being exiled from the major Hollywood studios. Ulmer would spend most of his directorial career making B movies at Poverty Row production houses.  Ulmer's only film of note after this would be of course, Detour. 

As for the stars of Detour, neither Tom Neal nor Ann Savage would ever become big names in the business.  Savage's Vera in the film would be described as "vicious and predatory" and "very sexually aggressive."  Savage herself would be described, by critic Barry Norman, as "sultry and sexy... a feline film noir star at its finest."  Director Wim Wenders called Savage's performance "30 years ahead of it's time."  Savage would play other roles, many of them femme fatales like in Detour, but she would never reach the stars as they say.  Neal's career would be even less than Savage's.  The most interesting anecdote one can muster up about Neal is that he shot his wife in the back of the head and was in jail for six years before being released less than a year before his eventual death in 1972.  Ulmer also died in 1972 and would never see the revival of his film noir that took place in the late 1970's.  Savage would actually tour with the film, helping both the film's reputation and her own.  Savage would later make a guest appearance on the TV show Saved by the Bell, and her final performance would come in 2007, when she was cast in Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg as the director's mother.

Listed among the first group of films to be historically preserved in the National Film Registry (the only B-picture among these first films) Detour may have been a cheaply made toss-off by a fly-by-night studio, and directed by a persona non grata director (though a director with great visual talent who was unfairly blackballed), and the film may be full of flaws (at least flaws from a strictly technical filmmaking standpoint), but that doesn't mean it isn't a great and tragic film noir indeed.  Documentarian Erol Morris claims it as his favourite film and says of it, "It has an unparalleled quality of despair, totally unrelieved by hope."  A hot, lurid, cheap (and I mean that as an attribute not a hindrance) film noir that rises above its supposed Poverty Row station to be (and I said it before and I will say it again) one of the best damn film noirs in the history of cinema.

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Voting takes place between 08/26 and 09/10, so if you wish to vote for this post please click on the below banner which will take you to the voting page of FilmClassics, whereupon you can vote for said post. Vote early and vote often.  Actually you can only vote once per server, but you get the picture.

My Mom Was Right - I'm A Winner!!

As many of you may already know (those of you paying enough attention to my cinematic ramblings) I had entered a classic film review contest last month - and a screwball one at that.  Our job was to write a review on a classic screwball comedy.  Easy enough.  Not wishing to be part of the popular vote, the piece I wrote for said contest was on the rather obscure screwball/mystery hybrid The Mad Miss Manton, starring the world's finest actress, Miss Barbara Stanwyck, and it was written for the fine folks over at FilmClassics.  In actuality there were just two entries in this contest (and strangely enough, both on the same rather obscure Barbara Stanwyck classic) and it was neck-and-neck during the voting process (readers voted for their favourite entry, which I believe probably came down to my friends voting against my opponent's friends).  The final results though were a 53% to 47% victory for your humble narrator.  My first place finish not only puts me in the running for the Best Review of the Year (which I assume is awarded around year's end) but also gets me the snazzy ribbon below (which will become a permanent fixture on the sidebar of this here blog).  I do want to take this time to thank the fine folks over at FilmClassics, as well as offer a hearty handshake to my aforementioned opponent, Natalie over at In The Mood.  There is another contest coming up tomorrow at FilmClassics - perhaps I will try my hand at that one too (or would that be considered greedy?).

Well Well...Looks Like I'm in a Contest, & a Screwball One at That

It would seem the fine folks over at FilmClassics are holding a review writing contest.  The subject is classic screwball comedy and the prizes are sure to be galore.  Hearing this, loving the screwball genre and being a rather competitive person in nature, yours truly here decided to enter said contest.  Opting to go with a lesser known work of screwball madness (everyone and their brother, sister and second cousin has written on Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday and The Lady Eve and so forth) I chose the little-seen 1938 classic The Mad Miss Manton - starring the best damn actress ever, the great Barbara Stanwyck.

Now lo and behold, it seems as if there are only two of us in this contest (c'mon people where are all those classic fans with there classic entries!?) and even stranger than that, we both decided to write on The Mad Miss Manton (apparently my competition is a huge Miss Stanwyck fan as well - as well we all should be!).  I suppose our writing on the same subject makes this particular contest a true blue contest indeed - a stone cold stand-off if you will.  Yeah yeah, I know, it's all in fun, but winning is always the most fun.

Anyway, you can read my Review Contest Entry Post and let me know what you think by clicking on the button at the end of said post, which will take you to the contest site where one can then vote.  You can also jump to FilmClassics right now (where you will find links to both mine and my adversary's reviews - and to be fair, please do read both) and vote as well.  I suppose the main point one should take away from this is to vote vote vote.  Vote early and vote often.  Actually you can only vote once per IP address, but you get the idea.

The Great Barbara Stanwyck & the Screwball Comedy/Murder Mystery Hybrid The Mad Miss Manton

The following is my humble contribution to Film Classics Screwball Comedy Review Contest.  And as fair warning, there may be spoilers ahead, for those who care about such things - ye have been warned.

Oblivious yet just a bit-too-clever-for-her-own-good society dame who is insufferable to the male lead only to have herself fallen in love with by the end?  Check.  Hapless average Joe who stumbles into path of stubborn heiress only to find himself falling in love despite being walked all over?  Check.   Somewhat incomprehensible and quite madcap hilarity full of trickery and implausible happenstance?  Check.  Bumbling secondary characters who are really only there to make the heiress look even more of a lunatic than she really is?  Check.  Fast talking dialogue full of innuendos and half-truths?  Check.  At least one character (maybe more) who regularly smack their head in frustrated disbelief at what they have gotten themselves into?  Check.

Well that does it.  It looks like we have all the makings for a classic screwball comedy.  But wait, there are some more checks to make.  One can also check check check to this being a tale full of foul play and murder as well as a sometimes dark and dangerous mystery and also a film with several dramatically daring moments at gun point for the aforementioned heroine/heiress.  So I suppose what we have here is not strictly a screwball comedy but also a murder mystery.  What we have is a genre hybrid that manages to keep the comic antics rolling while putting our protagonists in a bit of mortal danger.  What we have here is Leigh Jason's 1938 screwball comedy-cum-murder mystery The Mad Miss Manton.  But still, above all else, gun play or not, multiple murders or not, this is screwball.

Granted, this film cannot hold up to the example given by the top dogs of the screwball genre - films such as Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story, The Awful Truth, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Lady Eve, Trouble in Paradise or many of the Marx Brothers' movies - nor does its director (ironically this little known film is probably Jason's best known work) play in the same league as some of the genre's best and brightest - auteurs such as Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges and Leo McCarey - but as one of the (much) lesser known commodities of this once popular genre, it is still a fun ride to watch.  What the film does have going for it more than anything else is its leading couple.

In the first of three romantic comedies the duo would do together, the film stars Barbara Stanwyck (the best damn actress ever!) and Henry Fonda (the man who can do no wrong!) as the oblivious yet just a bit-too-clever-for-her-own-good society dame who is insufferable to the male lead only to have herself fallen in love with by the end and the hapless average Joe who stumbles into path of stubborn heiress only to find himself falling in love despite being walked all over, respectively.  It is the seemingly natural chemistry of these two stars (Missy and Hank were one of the cutest couples in Hollywood at the time) that make this otherwise rather thin film work as well as it does.

As far as the story goes (which I seem to have evaded talking about until now): At 3:00 am, upon returning from a society event, Melsa Manton (not yet deemed mad) takes her three little dogs for a walk. Near a subway construction site, she sees a fellow socialite, playboy Ronnie Belden run out of a house and quickly drive away. The house is for sale by yet another of Miss Manton's circle, Sheila Lane, the wife of George Lane, a wealthy banker.  Inside, Melsa finds a diamond brooch and Mr. Lane's dead body. As she runs for help, her cloak falls off with the brooch inside it. When the police arrive, the body, cloak, and brooch are gone. Melsa and her friends are notorious pranksters, so the detective, Lieutenant Mike Brent, played by the ever exasperated Sam Levene, does nothing to investigate the murder.  

This brings about newspaperman Peter Ames (Fonda) who writes an editorial decrying Melsa's so-called prank, after which she has him served with papers.  Of course, in typical screwball fashion, Peter instantly falls for Melsa (she's a terrible person he tells her but he loves her and is going to marry her) and grows more and more fond of her as each new conniving piece of the puzzle comes about.  Meanwhile, Melsa and her friends decide they must find the murderer in order to defend their reputation - and perhaps just have some fun.  The resulting madcap manhunt includes searches of the Lane house, Belden's apartment, Lane's business office, and all of the local beauty shops; two attempts to intimidate Melsa; two shooting attempts on her life; a charity ball; and a trap set for the murderer using Melsa as bait. Of course this is all par for the course in the genre known as screwball.

In the end, as I more than alluded to earlier, The Mad Miss Manton may not be the creme de la creme of the genre, but thanks to the great Stanwyck and the Fonda and thanks to Leigh Jason's almost film noir look to much of the film (cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca worked on many darker films from the original Cat People to Out of the Past) it is a film that more than holds its own.  I mean really, how can one not have fun watching the knockout Stanwyck flit and flutter about on madcap feet and the charming Fonda fall more and more in love with each new trick his wouldbe lover plays on him?  Screwball?  Mystery?  Who cares, let's just call it fun. 

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Voting has now ended for this contest.  I would like to thank all those who voted for me and my review of The Mad Miss Manton, and helped me come in first place in the contest.  Woo hoo.