The Americanization of Emily (1964)

Peter's Nite
Salad, Pizza, Brownie Bites (all CostCo meal)
Peter brittle and freaking out.

JB Bird on Paddy Chayefsky (via Museum of Broadcasting)

Sydney "Paddy" Chayefsky was one of the most renown dramatists to emerge from the "golden age" of American television. His intimate, realistic scripts helped shape the naturalistic style of television drama in the 1950s. After leaving television, Chayefsky succeeded as a playwright and novelist. He won greatest acclaim as a Hollywood screenwriter, receiving Academy Awards for three scripts, including Marty (1955), based on his own television drama, and Network (1976), his scathing satire of the television industry.

Chayefsky began his television career writing episodes for Danger and Manhunt in the early 1950s. His scripts caught the attention of Fred Coe, the dynamic producer of NBC's live anthology drama, the Philco-Goodyear Playhouse. Chayefsky's first script for Coe, Holiday Song, won immediate critical acclaim when it aired in 1952. Subsequently, Chayefsky bucked the trend of the anthology writers by insisting that he would write only original dramas, not adaptations. The result was a banner year in 1953. Coe produced six Chayefsky scripts, including Printer's Measure and The Reluctant Citizen. Chayefsky became one of television's best-known writers, along with such dramatists as Tad Mosel, Reginald Rose, and Rod Serling.

Chayefsky's stories were notable for their dialogue, their depiction of second-generation Americans, and their infusions of sentiment and humor. They frequently drew on the author's upbringing in the Bronx. The protagonists were generally middle-class tradesmen struggling with personal problems: loneliness, pressures to conform, blindness to their own emotions. The technical limitations of live broadcast suited these dramas. The stories took place in cramped interior settings and were advanced by dialogue, not action. Chayefsky said that he focused on "the people I understand; the $75 to $125 a week kind"; this subject matter struck a sympathetic chord with the mainly urban, middle-class audiences of the time.

Marty, a typical Chayefsky teleplay and one of the most acclaimed of all the live anthology dramas, aired in 1953. Rod Steiger played the lonely butcher who felt that whatever women wanted in a man, "I ain't got it." When Marty finally met a woman, his friends cruelly labeled her "a dog." Marty finally decided that he was a dog himself and had to seize his chance for love. The play ended happily, with Marty arranging a date. Critics compared Marty and other Chayefsky teleplays to the realistic dramas of Arthur Miller and Clifford Odets. In Chayefsky's plays, however, positive endings and celebrations of love tended to emerge from the naturalistic framework. The Chayefsky plays also steered clear of social issues, like most of the anthology dramas.

After Marty enjoyed phenomenal success as a Hollywood film, Chayefsky left television in 1956. His exit narrowly preceded the demise of the live dramas, as sponsors began to prefer pre-recorded shows. Even while the live dramas were declining, however, Chayefsky's teleplays found new life. Simon and Schuster published a volume of Chayefsky's television plays. And three of them, in addition to Marty, became Hollywood films: The Bachelor Party (1957) and Middle of the Night (1959), adapted by Chayefsky, and The Catered Affair (1957), adapted by Gore Vidal.

In the 1960s, Chayefsky abandoned the intimate, personal dramas on which he had built his reputation. His subsequent work was often dark and satiric, like the Academy-Award winning film, The Hospital (1971). Network, Chayefsky's send-up of television, marked the apex of his satiric mode. He depicted an institution that had sold its soul for ratings and become "a goddamned amusement park," in the words of news anchor Howard Beale, the movie's main character. Before Chayefsky's death in 1981, he wrote one more screenplay, Altered States (1980), based on his own novel. He refused a script credit, however, due to disagreements with the film's director, Ken Russell.

Chayefsky wrote only one television script after 1956, an adaptation of his 1961 play Gideon. His reputation as a television dramatist rests on the eleven scripts he completed for the Philco-Goodyear Playhouse. His influence on the live anthologies was considerable, but he is just as notable for the career he forged after television.

Glenn Erickson on Emily (via DVD Savant):
It's easy enough to just turn one's brain off and enjoy the great acting and funny lines - Chayefsky invents several clever euphemisms to substitute for rough language and at one point even has Charlie call Emily a bitch. She doesn't want to become Americanized, i.e., seduced by Yankee consumer riches and arrogance. He gets to rub her indignation back in her face, by telling her as they break up their relationship, "I want you to remember that when you last saw me, I was unregenerately eating a Hershey bar!" Emily uses these arguments in sophisticated context - Charlie is being ironic and just playing at arrogance - but the signals get mixed anyway.

Chayefsky is a brilliant writer and his stylized dialogues are great to listen to. Interestingly enough, this movie, Hospital and Network all resort to the same plot trick - a major character goes nuts and starts seeing visions that warp reality for the other characters.

The film is a career highpoint for most of its actors. Garner is all over Charlie Madison, the apex of his winning, smart-ass Maverick persona. James Coburn shapes up as star material with a snappy major supporting role, and Melvyn Douglas is spot-on as the Admiral fighting not for victory but for the betterment of his branch of the service. There's also good playing both farcical and straight from Edward Binns, William Windom, Liz Fraser and Keenan Wynn, who does a great drunk act with Dobie Gillis alumnus Steve Franken. Alan Sues and Judy Carne ( both of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) are a camera specialist and "Nameless Broad" respectively; the film may be progressive in some regards, but its females are mostly bimboes. Sharon Tate is said to be visible somewhere. She was or was soon to be Martin Ransohoff's girlfriend.

Ransohoff's production is splendid, with excellent B&W photography and clever short-cuts to make us think we're seeing a lot more production value than we are. This and Mary Poppins are Julie Andrews' first films, and she's so good in a mature role that we immediately understand why she felt stifled by her kiddie-nanny career. Emily admits to sleeping around and has no shame ... it's a challenging role and she carries it off with dignity.

The only gripe about the physical production are the women's hairstyles: Andrews, Fraser and all of Garner's good-time motor pool girls have poofy 1964 big-hair hairdos ... there's little or no period feeling.

The Americanization of Emily certainly has a different take on D-Day than Saving Private Ryan, even though they share the same attitude about survival on Normandy Beach. Its precocious but suspicious thesis is brilliantly written, and the movie is highly enjoyable. You know Marty, that Paddy Chayefsky can really write.

Director Arthur Hiller provides an interesting commentary with plenty of personal reminiscences. His take on the movie is that the script isn't anti-war, it's just against its glorification, which is fair enough. He does let us know that the U.S. military did not approve of the script and offered zero cooperation. It's interesting that the military will spend taxpayer money to promote itself through movies it feels are good PR for the services, while denying aid to others. I suppose it's no more twisted than spending defense money on recruiting propaganda - I've collected pamphlets sent to my college-age sons which portray the Army as a beer party on the beach with a lot of swimsuit models. That's just the attitude The Americanization of Emily deplores.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Stuart's Nite
Special guests: Tess & Fiona!

Via IndianaJones.com:
In May 1977, just after the premiere of George Lucas' Star Wars on a handful of screens around the country, the writer-director felt the need to take a break from Los Angeles and his intense work on the film. He journeyed to Hawaii for a vacation and met up with his longtime friend, director Steven Spielberg, who recalled: "George thought Star Wars would be a monumental disaster."

A week later, as Lucas learned more about the phenomenal success of his film, "George was suddenly laughing again," Spielberg said. And he was ready to begin thinking about new film projects.

As they sat on the beach one day, "Steven was telling me how he really wanted to do a James Bond film, and that he actually went to the people who owned James Bond and asked them if he could direct one ... and they turned him down," Lucas recalled.

"So I said, 'Well, look, Steven, I've got a James Bond film. It's great – it's just like James Bond but even better,'" Lucas said. "I told him the story about this archaeologist and said it was like a Saturday-matinee serial, that he just got into one mess after another. And Steven said, 'Fantastic, let's do this!'"

There was only one hitch: Lucas had named his character after his dog, Indiana. Indiana Smith. Spielberg hated the name, thinking it sounded too hokey. So, Lucas said, "Name him Indiana Jones or whatever you want – it's your movie now."

Just six months after their trip to Hawaii, Lucas and Spielberg officially agreed to collaborate on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Lucas drafted the story of a rogue archaeologist who finds himself up against no less a force than Nazi soldiers in a quest for a sacred artifact. Filmmaker Philip Kaufman, who received a story credit along with Lucas, suggested that the goal of Indy's quest be the legendary lost Ark of the Covenant. Lucas signed on as executive producer, while Spielberg committed to direct the throwback to movie serials of the '30s and '40s. The reason behind their enthusiasm for the film was simple, Lucas said. "We're making it because Steven and I love movies, and this is exactly the kind of movie we'd like to see."

To Have and Have Not (1944)

Pamela's Nite
Delicious Salad, Strip Steak cooked to perfection, Apple Pie & Ice Cream!
Stuart AWOL.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Peter's Nite

Vincent Malle (Louis's little brother) via movienet:

I was still in elementary shool when my brother Louis made Elevator to the Gallows. After all he was barely 24 years old himself. But I remember the buzz in the family and my new status at school when the first reviews came out. Suddenly everybody—including the parents of schoolmates—were my best friends and wanted cinema passes and autographed photos. That was my first brush with fame and it confirmed an already well established love for the cinema.

Over the years, many things have been written about the film, lots of anecdotes about the shoot, about Louis. For example the famous night when Miles Davis recorded the music with a quintet of French musicians in a few hours, improvising each number and sipping champagne with Jeanne Moreau and their jazz-crazy director. By the way, the particular sound he made on the freeway scene was not premeditated. It turns out he lost a bit of his lower lip into the mouthpiece and therefore “blew” differently.

Also the much talked-about scene of Jeanne walking down the Champs Elysées at night, with Henri Decae (the Director of Photography) in a wheelchair and electricians holding battery-activated lamps. Since it was Louis’s first film, the laboratory called the producer the next day saying it was completely black and had to be entirely reshot. Thank God they didn’t, and it remains one of the more significant minimalist night scenes ever. And other directors took notice: So you can shoot at night almost without lights!

This brings me to a question a lot of people ask me, especially in America: Was Louis part of the “nouvelle vague” or not? Well, yes and no.

No, because he never belonged to (and was very against) any “movement” or “school” and he certainly was not part of the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd like Truffaut, Godard, Rivette or Chabrol.

But yes, because he shared the same admiration for American cinema that he saw with them at the French Cinématheque of Henri Langlois (John Ford, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk) and also because he was out of the gate before any of them (Truffaut made his first feature nine months after Louis).

So to try to settle it, I would say he was the closest and the most obvious precursor of the New Wave.

Elevator was an enormous success both critically and commercially, won the Prix Louis Delluc (one of France’s most prestigious awards) and definitely launched Jeanne Moreau’s career as a star.

And the music…!

Terrence Rafferty via Criterion:

Malle later said of Elevator to the Gallows, “I showed a Paris not of the future but at least a modern city, a world already dehumanized,” a statement that, I think, serves as a useful description of the film itself: not of the future but at least modern. Some of that modernity is on the surface—in the “automated” paraphernalia of the office and the motel, in the glass-and-concrete boxiness of the Carala building, in the sleekness of Julien’s sports car and suit. What’s most deeply modern about the film, though, is an undertone of war weariness and general cynicism, which is most evident in the character of Julien, a veteran of France’s recent wars in Indochina and Algeria. Ronet, who doesn’t have much dialogue, is the very picture of postcolonial tristesse: all haunted eyes and uselessly correct bearing. (He would employ these same resources, and several more, in his indelible portrayal of a suicide in The Fire Within.) And it’s probably not an accident that Malle gave the role of the anomic punk Louis to Poujouly, a young actor best known for playing one of the death-obsessed children in René Clément’s great 1952 antiwar film Forbidden Games.

These characters are not, however, the sort of complex, rounded, infinitely surprising people that Malle would explore with such exhilarating curiosity in films like Murmur of the Heart (1971), Lacombe, Lucien (1974), Atlantic City (1980), and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). Florence and Julien and the rest are all essentially working parts of a thriller machine, and whatever nuance Malle gives them is just a little oil to keep them from clanking too loudly. The film’s beauty lies in its economy, in its formal rigor (Malle once said that he was torn between Robert Bresson and Alfred Hitchcock, and both influences are apparent here), and in the sly, nearly absurdist humor of the cascading coincidences that doom the homicidal protagonists.

And although nowhere close to all of Louis Malle is present in Elevator to the Gallows, the movie does supply a nice ironic metaphor for his unique, bravely eclectic career. This terrific thriller is about the horror of being stuck, trapped, unable to move: that is, about the stasis this filmmaker devoted the rest of his life, and the best of his art, to avoiding.