“Is it safe?” Mary Ellen Mark captures Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier in a playful moment before the tense final scene on the set of John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man. 

oinciding with renewed public interest in the Holocaust following the Cold War, and the race to bring WWII criminals to justice, 1970s Hollywood saw the reemergence of  the Nazi as the ultimate screen villain. Suddenly, many of moviedom’s pre-war male heartthrobs were donning the evil, masochistic mask of Hitler’s henchmen. Famous examples include Dirk Bogarde in The Night Porter (1974), Gregory Peck as real-life Joseph Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978) and, perhaps most famously, Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man (1976). I had the pleasure of viewing this last film at Screen on the Green in Angel, Islington a couple weekends ago as part of their Saturday late night flashback series.

Screen on the Green is part of an increasingly rare and dying breed of cinemas that still screen films in 35mm, and this is what my friend Anthony and I were treated to (along with wine, brownies and popcorn!) when we went to see John Schlesinger’s political thriller.

Babe Levy (Dustin Hoffman) is a Ph.D. student and marathon trainee who unwillingly becomes entangled in a complicated and violent web of government secrecy. The situation is triggered by a car accident in New York City that kills the brother of infamous Auschwitz dentist Christian Szell (Olivier), known to his Jewish victims as “The White Angel”. Szell’s brother had in his possession a Band-Aid box full of diamonds, and his death prompts Szell to leave South America, where he’d fled after the war, to safeguard the rest of his assets in New York.

Babe becomes involved with a secretive German student called Elsa (Marthe Keller) who seems to spell trouble from the get-go. They’re chased down and mugged by suspicious-looking goons in Central Park. Not long after, Babe’s brother Doc (Roy Scheider) is murdered by Szell, whose weapon of choice for literally cutting down anyone who he feels is a threat to his fortune is a metal fist-cuff containing a long switch blade. It turns out Doc was a CIA operative and Babe begins to realize that his brother was simultaneously hunting and helping Szell. Also, Elsa is in cahoots with the Nazis.

It gets worse. Much worse.

Doc’s death leads Szell and the other members of Doc’s special ops division to Babe, who they’re convinced is in on the diamond-smuggling plot. Szell wants to know whether his diamonds are “safe,” but instead of being diplomatic, Szell goes straight for what he did best: torture by dentistry. Babe knows nothing of Szell’s diamonds, but gets a good tooth-drilling anyway. He then outwits and outruns Szell’s men for a good couple of hours (hence the film’s title) before he comes face to face with his torturer; this time getting the upper hand.

Throughout his life, Laurence Olivier played a number of less-than-savoury characters, but Christian Szell remains one of the worst on the spectrum of good and evil. AFI included him on their list of 50 greatest movie villains in American cinema. Despite being seriously ill while making the film, Olivier’s performance won him a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and an Oscar nomination for the same category. Both well-deserved, considering it was by far one of the best screen performances he gave in the later part of his career. Hoffman cherished his experience working with Olivier, and still tells with fondness the famous anecdote about not sleeping for days in order to appear genuinely exhausted a la Lee Strasberg’s Method. When encountered by Olivier, the older thespian suggested he “try acting”.

I’d watched this film a couple times before on DVD and TV, but the 35mm print trumped any previous viewings by a long shot. It was as if the entire film had run through an orange-brown filter and it just screamed “1970s!” I love how cleaned-up digital prints are able to make old films seem as if they were made yesterday. But I think many film fans would agree that there’s something special about watching a film as it was originally meant to be seen.

Marathon Man is a bit long in running time, but definitely worth a watch for killer performances by Olivier (see what I did there?) and Hoffman. Beware, you may never want to step foot in the dentist’s office again.

Grade: A

The RMS Titanic sails into Queenstown, Ireland before heading out to sea

On April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on her ill-fated maiden voyage to New York.  Built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff, Titanic and her sister ships the RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic were the pride and joy of Liverpool’s White Star Line shipping company headed by J. Bruce Ismay and American financial tycoon J.P. Morgan. The ships were designed to be the last word in luxury transatlantic travel, and were in fierce competition with Cunard, based in Southampton (Cunard’s Lusitania was famously torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat during the First World War). Not only was Titanic the largest and fastest passenger liner at sea, she was hailed as “unsinkable” — a towering metaphor for power and optimism during the industrial age.

More famous than the ship itself was the sad fate that befell it. In the late hours of April 14, 1912, Titanic struck an iceberg off the freezing coast of Newfoundland and sank, killing over 1500 people in one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century.  Like the Hindenburg, the Titanic has remained a source of morbid fascination for the past century. I, myself, have been interested in the story of the ship since I was a child. I remember doing a school project and flipping through an old copy of the issue of National Geographic that detailed Robert Ballard’s expedition to the bottom of the Atlantic and his discovery of the wreckage. For my 23rd birthday, a few of my close friends and I went to Las Vegas, where an exhibition of Titanic artifacts had been raised from the seabed and put on display in at the Tropicana. It evoked similar feelings to experiencing an exhibit about the Holocaust, for example. The reason for divers plundering the ship’s remains and displaying what they’ve found is understandable. The Titanic is rapidly disintigrating and will soon be nothing but a pile of rust at the bottom of the sea.

Tucker McGuire as the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown

Over the past 100 years, Titanic has proven profitable source material for filmmakers. Just ask James Cameron, who basically took my entire life’s savings when I was 14. Although Cameron’s 1997 film has been the biggest moneymaker and is still fresh in everyone’s memories, especially now that it’s been re-released in cinemas in 3-D to mark Titanic’s centenary, Roy Ward Baker’s 1958 classic A Night to Remember is considered by many serious film folk to be the “best”. Drawing largely from Walter Lord’s book of the same title based on the official Titanic inquest, A Night to Remember has been praised for its historical accuracy, keeping the focus on the reality of the disaster rather than the mythology.

“I take it that you and I might be in the same boat later?” Robbie Lucas (John Merivale) and Thomas Andrews (Michael Goodliffe) stoically accept their fate

Baker’s film recalls the documentary realism movement that defined British cinema during the war years. It features wonderful performances by Kenneth More, John Merivale, Anthony Bushell, Honor Blackman and Michael Goodliffe, among others. The ship itself is the main character, and we see the human error that caused her demise from all angles. But what sets it apart from Hollywood renderings of the same story is its restraint.  It lacks the melodrama that permeates Cameron’s film and lets the horror of the tragedy speak for itself. No need for extra gimmickry to tug at audience’s heartstrings.

Full steam ahead

There are many similarities between Baker’s and Cameron’s films, aside from the obvious part about the sinking boat. The latter not only uses a good chunk of the dialog featured in A Night to Remember, but contains many very similar shots.  A minor but interesting difference worth noting is that A Night to Remember was filmed prior to Ballard’s discovery, so the ship is depicted sinking in-tact. Now we know it split in half while going down, as shown in Cameron’s film. In the end, however, comparing A Night to Remember and Cameron’s Titanic is as pointless as comparing Ken Burns’ The Civil War and Gone with the Wind. One presents historical facts as they were. The other is a fictional story set against a real historical backdrop. Which film floats your boat (pardon the pun) will depend on your keenness for realism vs romance. But A Night To Remember is an exceptional film, and a worthy one to watch to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Titanic’s tragic voyage.

Rating: A

Happy Easter, and happy 5th birthday to vivandlarry.com! This little site officially went live on April 8, 2007, and it’s come a long, long way since then. I owe a huge thanks to all of you who visit and have interacted over the years, but I’d rather tell you face-to-face…

I’ve never posted a video of myself on youtube before but I guess there’s a first time for everything! Thanks again to all of you who have continuously returned to the site, and welcome to those of you who are just discovering it. I hope you all stick around for more fun things here at vivandlarry.com, and I’ll be posting some new photos over on the facebook page later today.

Love,

Kendra

The announcement last week that Warner Brothers had acquired the Samuel Goldwyn film library gives us classic film fans good reason to cheer. Goldwyn, whose name made up one third of the famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer conglomerate before he decided to fly solo with The Samuel Goldwyn Company, produced some of the most revered films of Hollywood’s golden era: The Best Years of Our Lives, The Pride of the Yankees, Guys and Dolls, and a title pertinent to readers of vivandlarry.com, Wuthering Heights.

Warner Brothers has a stellar reputation for bringing classic films to home audiences. Some films are lucky enough to get several clean-ups and re-releases. Once getting the green light for a DVD/blu-ray release, there are two avenues a classic title can travel down before hitting the shelves in an entertainment store near you. The first is the full shebang; a special edition, sometimes multi-disc DVD that is beautifully restored and packed with extras. This is the treatment that has been bestowed on major titles such as Gone with the Wind, Casablanca and Singin’ in the Rain. The other avenue is through the Warner Archive, which releases lesser-known titles but seldom includes any special features.

When I first heard about the Goldwyn acquisition, the title that immediately sprang to mind was William Wyler’s 1939 gem Wuthering Heights. Starring Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon and David Niven, this heartbreakingly beautiful film has been mentioned as one of those at the top of Warner Bros.’ to-be-released-on-DVD list. Here are three reasons why Wuthering Heights deserves the same restoration and special edition treatment given to Gone with the Wind and the other major titles listed above.

1. It was the apple of Goldwyn’s eye

In 2009, I was lucky enough to see Wuthering Heights on the big screen in Beverly Hills during the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ ode to 1939. During this event, AMPAS screened all 10 of the best picture nominees of 1939 in homage to Hollywood’s most glittering year. Most of the screenings included a guest speaker that regaled the audience with tales from the set and the historical significance of the film in question. For the Wuthering Heights screening, that special guest was Sam Goldwyn Jr., the very same person who has teamed up with Warner Bros. to negotiate this deal. Goldwyn told us that of all the films he produced during his long career as an independent mogul, Wuthering Heights was the one his father was most proud of. And for good reason…

2. It’s no ordinary film

Don’t let the fact that you currently have to import Wuthering Heights from South Korea if you want to own a DVD copy fool you into thinking this film isn’t important. Because it is. Wuthering Heights may not be the epic Technicolor spectacle that was Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz, but it was highly acclaimed by critics and audiences. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Laurence Olivier), Best Original Score (Alfred Newman) and Best Picture. Gregg Toland, best known for his use of deep focus in Citizen Kane in 1941, snagged the Best Black and White Cinematography statue. It also beat out Gone with the Wind to receive the Best Picture of 1939 accolade from the New York Film Critics Circle.

And what of the film’s stars? Catherine Earnshaw was arguably the defining role of Merle Oberon’s career, and playing Heathcliff turned Laurence Olivier into the (talented) R-Patz of his day. When he went to New York after completing the film to star in No Time for Comedy on Broadway, he was literally mobbed by women who tore at his clothes. Vivien Leigh probably wasn’t too happy about that last bit. But aside from becoming the Idol of the Moment, Olivier learned to appreciate screen acting while working on this film. We can thank William Wyler for all of Olivier’s subsequent achievements in front of and behind the camera. The director had to bully a natural performance out of the reluctant and arrogant thespian, but the results are amazing. Many actors have since stepped into the role in various film and TV adaptations, but Olivier, with his dark, brooding vulnerability, remains the quintessential Heathcliff.

3. The vaults have secrets…

Before the 35mm reel started rolling that spring evening in 2009, we were treated to another surprise: colour home video footage taken on the set by Wyler himself. This footage, it was explained, is a small part of what is housed in the Wyler collection at AMPAS. That means there’s probably plenty more where that came from. AMPAS is one of the best institutions in the world for cataloguing cinematic artifacts–not just the films themselves, but the material generated around them–and they know the importance of preserving Hollywood film history. The amazing thing about LA is that all of these film institutions are located in the same general vicinity, so the people of Warner Bros. need not travel very far to find a chest of treasures to include on a DVD/blu-ray of Wuthering Heights.

The other day, I was talking with my good friend Mark in Hollywood via skype. We were discussing how, in the case of cinema (and history in general), absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It just makes things fade from memory. The subject of our discussion was Vivien Leigh, and how, despite a lot of new material becoming available in the 25 years since Hugo Vickers published his well-respected biography about the actress, her estate has been very reluctant to assist anyone wanting to lend a fresh perspective to Vivien’s story. Time has a habit of eroding and eventually erasing memory. If the discussion about Vivien Leigh isn’t kept up through various forms (respectful books, documentaries, etc.), she’ll be forgotten. Or, perhaps worse yet, the door will be left wide open for those who are out to make money through rumour and hearsay, until no one knows who Vivien really was or what she actually contributed to the history of cinema. Wuthering Heights is a lot like Vivien Leigh. It’s a genuine classic that’s been collecting dust in a studio vault for years. But Warner Bros. has a chance to bring it back into the spotlight for fans to really enjoy. Let’s hope they make the most of the opportunity.

I’m very excited to unveil a new look for vivandlarry.com! The header, based on a photo by James Abbe Jr, was designed by the amazingly talented Miss Laura Loveday, a designer and illustrator living in Cornwall, using a combination of hand-drawn and photoshop. I’ve known Laura for many years through the blogosphere and our mutual love for classic films and creative design. The new look was created for the anniversary of this website, which is happening on April 7. I can’t think of a better way to commemorate 5 years online than with this beautiful illustration. Thanks, Laura!

Also, just to remind everyone, if you had previously subscribed to receive an email update whenever a new blog post is made, you will have to re-subscribe to continue getting this service. When the site was recovered a couple days ago, this data was lost. I’ve re-subscribed a few people already but can’t remember everyone’s email addresses.

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