Nice Beaver

I have caught a cold, so instead of getting snot all over my artwork I'm drinking hot chocolate and watching a Leslie Nielsen double feature. Naked Gun also stars George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and in smaller roles Tony Soprano's mom and Elaine Benes' dad. It's hard to choose favourite scenes. Maybe the one with the pen and the fish.... Or the one with Queen Elisabeth... For a European viewer the energy drops maybe a bit during the baseball game. It's difficult to get all the references. Airplane! also stars Julie Hagerty, Robert Hays and Lloyd Bridges. It's still funny. Maybe the scenes with Johnny a bit less.

Top Secret is probably my favourite, though. Maybe because it is the less known one. Kentucky Fried Movie is uneven, but the Martial Arts sequence is very good. The Zucker Abrahams Zucker films peaked at Naked Gun, I think. They were now established and less hungry. The ones they made after that it became just another film. For Nielsen also it only went downhill from there. In the parody films he made later the comedy was too broad and it was often just a collection of gags and no story.

Blood and Black Lace

A beautiful model is killed. The killer will strike again. And again... Directed by Mario Bava.

This is the film that started the whole giallo genre. It had deserved a better print than this. The colours are not as rich as they should have been and the light is flickering when the camera moves. The plots in giallo films can often be very mechanical. The characters are seldom very credible or have much personality. I saw the first half of the film one day and the second half the next, something that made me a bit confused about what was going on. It was a bit difficult to remember who the characters were and what they were talking about. I actually got a bit bored between the murder scenes. And why weren't the models taking showers? Very disappointing, I must say.

Born Yesterday

Got some dvds that don't really have that much in common except that I haven't watched them yet. First up is Born Yesterday. William Holden is a journalist hired by loud and vulgar tycoon Broderick Crawford to tutor his dumb girlfriend Judy Holliday so she can be presentable in Washington DC society. Directed by George Cukor.

I don't really understand why this film is considered a classic. It's not funny. Holden is looking a bit Rip Kirbyish here with glasses. Holliday does the squeaky voice that seemed to be expected at the time to portray dumb. It gets annoying pretty soon. Maybe it worked on stage where Holliday also played the part, but less so in a film if the goal is to create something more than a cliché. Of course it turns out that she is not that dumb, but it's still a mystery why Holden would fall for her.

Trolls and dragons

This is from a story done for a Norwegian newspaper sometime in the mid nineties. I did the drawings, script by Kaj Clausen.

It's A Wonderful Life

James Stewart wonders if he has wasted his life. An angel shows him otherwise. Also starring Donna Reed and Thomas Mitchell, directed by Frank Capra.

A lot of the Capra films have dated. This film also, but at the same time it has a timeless quality. It's like a fairytale or a fable. The bad guy, Potter, is taken right out of Dickens. The film famously flopped when it came out, only later to be rediscovered on tv. What can I say about it? It's an incredibly emotional experience. For some films it must be allowed for even a grown man to cry. This film tops that list. Other films on that list in my case is ET and The Searchers (the moment when John Wayne picks up Natalie Wood in his arms and says, Let's go home Debbie.) Hell, I've even cried during episodes of The Simpsons (the one where Bart is caught shoplifting and the one where he sells his soul.) It must be part of growing older, I guess. The twelve year old me would be so disgusted.

Anyway, even if there is a cynical part of you that says it's not that simple, there are no angels, and life in a small town can't possibly be that idyllic (just watch Twin Peaks for chrissake!), it's difficult not to be affected by the film. Try.

The Philadelphia Story

Katharine Hepburn is about to be remarried. Her first husband, Cary Grant, turns up the day before the wedding, bringing along reporters James Stewart and Ruth Hussey. Directed by George Cukor.

Can there be a more perfect film? Let's see - Casablanca, The Godfather, Days of Heaven, Paris Texas... well, I guess there can! But still... It's a pretty much flawless film. There was a moment in time when these people got in front of the camera, 70 years ago actually, it's on film, and we get to watch it in our livingrooms, today or five years from now. The actors, the script and the direction, everything came together for this little masterpiece. Even the girl playing the little sister is good, she's not as annoying as kid actors often can be. Stewart is especially funny in the scenes where he's drunk. It's he who has the most showy part of the male actors; Grant, bless him, doesn't try to steal the spot light, but rather delivers a low key but very appealing performance.

In the beginning of the film Hepburn has no tolerance for human weakness; she is referred to as a goddess to be admired, not a real human being. During the film she learns a lesson, not to put herself or others on a pedestal. It's a bit ironic that that's exactly what has happened with these actors - they have become immortal gods and goddesses. I think it's a bit too easy to have this nostalgic awe for the past and say, Ah, they don't make movies like this anymore. Well, mostly they don't, but I think, say, Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and George Clooney could have done the job just as well. I'm not talking about a remake, but if it had been an original film made today. And I don't really see any reason why the script couldn't have been written now. Teenagers would be bored out of their skulls watching this film, of course, sending text messages during most of it, but fuck them anyway.

Harvey

James Stewart has an invisible friend, a two meter long rabbit called Harvey. Directed by Henry Koster.

This must surely be one of the best performances by James Stewart. I can't really think of an other actor from that period that could have done the job as well. As with a lot of old comedies I find this film to be more appealing than actually funny. The times it IS funny it's always character based. You don't get the feeling the film makers tried to cram in as many jokes as possible, just to get the laughs. If there is something that separates this film from modern comedies I can't really think of an other word than CLASS. That works both ways, of course, since the opposite of class, rudeness and tastelessness, often is very funny.

It's made me think of what recent comedies I've liked, and I can only think of Liar Liar and Knocked Up. They're both sort of exceptions. I don't like most of the films of Jim Carrey or Judd Apatow. Two of their films, Fun With Dick And Jane and Funny People actually made me angry of having wasted my time after having watched them. That can't really be a good thing for comedies, I would think. A lot of these films seem to be based on improvisation. You take actors that are known to be funny, put them together and hope that at least one of them will say or do something funny. Sometimes it works. Most of the times you get unfunny drek like The Wedding Crashers or The Hangover. But to be fair, it might be a generation thing. Animal House and Stripes I still find funny and can watch over and over.

Oh, another thing, while I'm up on my soapbox - why are trailers for comedies so awful? It might be a good film, but based on the trailer, the last thing you want to do is go see it. Oh, well... Next up: Philadelphia Story!