blake edwards s/d, rfi

Never cared for him but for a handful of movies but RIP.

Everyone forgets it because it's not a comedy, but The Tamarind Seed is my fave movie of his.

I think I remember when that played Radio City Music Hall. never saw it, reviews were withering.

I think I remember when that played Radio City Music Hall. never saw it, reviews were withering.

Which probably derives more from reviewer expectations. It's a spy movie with little action and a serious Julie Andrews.

I'm deeply saddened by his passing because you can really feel the classical Hollywood cinema passing into antiquity and glimpse its future as an object of inquiry whose relevance will have to be perpetually justified. He extended more poignantly than any director post-1960 the Ford/Hawks/Walsh communities with all their discursive narratives and contextual density. I miss those qualities in today's Hollywood but look forward to the critical reappraisals soon to come. Ramble through his filmography, y'all - there's a lot of great ones there.

RIP

And, yes, The Tamarind Seed is very much one of them. Lovely, lovely film.

Hmm. You'll have to convince me, Kev. I've seen a third of his filmography by my estimate, and with a couple of obvious exceptions I don't see any particular talent for the staging of jokes; the dude had a consistently heavy hand.

Any recommendations?

He's hard to recommend because storytelling, satire, sometimes even a reason for existing are not his strong points. I love the rich, detailed worlds he creates for his main characters. They're still Hollywood films which means they're driven by individual psychology/desire. But at his best, he always gives you a sense of a larger milieu which then has the attractive effect of knocking the self-absorption out of the stories, such as they are.

I'd recommend:

Wild Rovers
The Great Race
The Party
The Tamarind Seed
S.O.B.
That's Life!

And, what the hell, Darling Lili. They all require patience, esp. the latter, and occasionally you'll never again want to ask me for recommendations. But they're all worth it in the end.

And if he doesn't work for you, then check out George Axelrod's (screenwriter of Breakfast at Tiffany's) Lord Love a Duck which contains the funniest scene in cinema history.

I like the quasi-Brokeback chemistry btwn William Holden and Ryan O'Neal, of all people, in Wild Rovers.

I hope his funeral is half as good as the one in SOB.

I've seen Lord Love a Duck (thumbs up) and S.O.B. (last summer...thumbs down). I'll try Wild Rovers.

Also have to shout out for the Peter Gunn TV series. Everyone remembers the theme, but the show itself was quite good.

Are there any directors from the TV anthology days left? Frankenheimer, Lumet, Hill, Schaffner, now Edwards...

"whistling in the dark" sequence in darling lili probably the best thing ive seen of his.

as far as I know, Lumet is still breathing.

George Axelrod's (screenwriter of Breakfast at Tiffany's) Lord Love a Duck which contains the funniest scene in cinema history.

The whole damn movie is a scream -- which scene in particular?

I just threw Switch into the queue, solely on the nostalgia of the strange new feelings 8 year old me felt seeing Ellen Barkin getting used to her boobs in the tv ads.

On a related late-Edwards note, here's a nice capsule review of Skin Deep published shortly after Ritter died.

He wrote and directed a string of "mature" comedies in the eighties that I used to watch on TV.

xpost to Ned

Where Daddy takes Tuesday Weld clothes shopping. It might contain the greatest dissolve in cinema history too. I'm sooooo glad I didn't see it in a theater first because I would have been ejected for overly disruptive laughter.

"Grape Yum-Yum" just narrowly beats The Party's "Birdie Nums-Nums" in the hilarious wars.

"Pink Put-On! Papaya Surprise! Periwinkle Pussycat!"

Where Daddy takes Tuesday Weld clothes shopping. It might contain the greatest dissolve in cinema history too.

Elvis T. was in the room when I saw the film for the first time and he can confirm I was alternately baffled and amazed by that moment.

arrgh... mixed up Lumet and Pollack

No one seems to like Breakfast; always loved it. I know you've gotta deal with Rooney, and I know how much the book was cleaned up. But for me, the party and Hepburn and the song and John McGyver more than make up for any of that. Martin Balsam, too, plus the great scenes between Peppard and Ebsen. And the train pulling away with Ebsen on it...there's just so much that's good about it.

The book wasn't just cleaned up; the whole plot is entirely different.

I think Ebsen was on a bus.

I've never read the book, but I know that they turned it upside down: gay man becomes kept man, hooker becomes..."wild flower," etc. But, same old story, I can only judge it on the film I've seen, not the book I haven't read.

Bus, yes. Doesn't get off the bus, doesn't get thrown under the bus, just sits inside looking sad as it pulls away.

The MSM and fans would howl, but they should film the book someday.

(of course it's set in the late '40s, so too expensive)

(maybe Haynes could do it after Mildred Pierce!)

If they were to give it a try, any thoughts as to who could play Holly? The character is now so completely subsumed into Hepburn's persona, I don't know that it would be possible for anyone else to play her...Like when Frank Langella tried Quilty in the Lolita remake. He never had a chance.

I liked the Adrian Lyne Lolita.

Capote said about 30 years ago he thought Jodie Foster wd be an ideal Holly.

anyway:

TCM will alter its programming on Monday, December 27 to pay tribute to the late Blake Edwards.The new Blake Edwards memorial lineup will be:

8:00 PM Breakfast at Tiffany's
10:00 PM Days of Wine and Roses
12:00 AM The Pink Panther
2:00 AM Victor/Victoria
4:30 AM Operation Petticoat

Haha I was JUST coming here to post that! They replaced Solaris and 2001! Hahahahah!

as much as I like Vic/Vic, that's quite a rote lineup.

Anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTP-cSaYbrE&feature=related

and one of my fave lines ever in S.O.B. in the scene beginning around 0:45: "LIV ULLMANN!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nfNitcjGJQ&feature=related

These stories in the NYT obit have the touch of Clouseau:

A lifelong depressive, Mr. Edwards told The New York Times in 2001 that at one point his depression was so bad that he became “seriously suicidal.” After deciding that shooting himself would be too messy and drowning too uncertain, he decided to slit his wrists on the beach at Malibu while looking at the ocean. But while he was holding a two-sided razor, his Great Dane started licking his ear, and his retriever, eager for a game of fetch, dropped a ball in his lap. Trying to get the dog to go away, Mr. Edwards threw the ball, dropped the razor and dislocated his shoulder. “So I think to myself,” he said, “this just isn’t a day to commit suicide.” Trying to retrieve the razor, he stepped on it and ended up in the emergency room.

...Having joined the Coast Guard after high school, Mr. Edwards was seriously injured when, after a night of alcohol-fueled partying, he drunkenly dived into a shallow swimming pool. He spent five months in traction at the Long Beach Naval Hospital.

“That particular mix of pain and pratfall is the trademark of all the great Blake Edwards comedies,” Vanity Fair wrote of his accident and of the comic consequence that Eleanor Roosevelt, who was visiting the hospital, solicitously asked how he had been wounded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/movies/17edwards.html?ref=obituaries&pagewanted=print

Switch is BAD.

I really LOL'd this time at S.O.B. when a soused Robert Webber asks Robert Preston how they're gonna break into the funeral home, and Preston says "Knock on the door and tell them you're dead."

Mulligan's remake within the film needed to be dirtier, though.

as you can see on Dave Kehr's site (and his linked NYT column), you can order an archive burn of Wild Rovers:

http://www.davekehr.com/?p=943

'a shot in the dark' is perfect from beginning to end. i espec love this bit:

guy: would you care to examine the body?
clouseau: (smiling) i would be DELIGHTED!

Micki & Maude the best of the eighties films, and while I can't find anything terribly wrong with it (Ann Reinking and Amy Irving are ideal foils for Dudley Moore) it doesn't impress either. There's a TV pace to the thing that flattens the okay jokes.

He always had more misfires than hits. (haven't seen Micki & Maude since it was released, but c'mon, V/V is much funnier just for Robert Preston)

I haven't seen That's Life!.

I just saw this, which James Coburn ALMOST saves. It's the movie then sent Edwards into exile in the UK for about 6-7 years.

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/the-carey-treatment-blake-edwards

yeah, it's an interesting failure--same goes for a whole bunch of his movies in the 60s, i think.

do you know wild rovers? that's a great one IMO. he was a protean talent; hard to get a handle on him as an "auteur" (favored themes and all that).

the party is all-time.

oh hai i don't even remember starting this thread

one of the figure skaters in this year's olympics danced to ravel's bolero and stupid me i kept thinking of the bo derek bedroom scene in "10" and couldn't stop laughing

I saw Wild Rovers in the '90s, and currently have had the DVD out of the library for about 6-9 months.

Is it true that the DVDs of Wild Rovers and Darling Lilli are director's cuts that restore the movies to Edwards' original intentions? That's what wikipedia suggests, but it's not entirely clear.

I think for Wild Rovers, it's "somewhat." Runs 2+ hours anyway.

it is definitely a cut that edwards approved, but it doesn't have every scene he shot/in the script/he intended to include.

very strange and powerful mix of tones in that film.

I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's so many times in my 20s, I stayed away from it for a long time. Saw it at a theatre for the first time in years last night.

Some points I made above, expanded a little...The many and sometimes drastic changes from the book came up in the post-film discussion. (Part of a book-into-film series.) I still haven't read it. It was mentioned that George Axelrod knew he couldn't adapt it as is, until he woke up one night thinking he finally figured out how to change it. Also that Capote hated the film. Which doesn't really bother me. I only know the film.

Rooney and Edwards regretted Yunioshi for years afterwards. He doesn't have much bearing on how I feel about the film either. I mean, I wish the character weren't there, but he gets maybe five minutes of screen time.

The four scenes I consider brilliant, in order:

1) The party. Even Kael wrote that it "ranks with the best screen parties of the era," and she's otherwise lukewarm on the film. I'd say that whole sequence is perfect from start to finish.

2) Buddy Ebsen leaving on the bus. Peppard's obvious empathy for Ebsen comes through nicely.

3) Getting the ring engraved at Tiffany's. I quote John McGiver from that scene all the time.

4) The ending--everything after Peppard's big speech, which is okay but overly clever. The rain, the cat, and the song are great.

Roman Holiday's my favourite romantic-comedy of the '50s, Tiffany's would be my pick for the '60s. It was a bit depressing watching it last night, though--a film for your 20s, not your 50s.

Nice revive, clemenza, and I just rewatched the ring engraving scene inspired by yr choice of it; so great, and a beautiful performance from JM.

It's an obvious choice, but I've always loved the opening credits: the gorgeous orchestral arrangement of the theme, the flup-flup of Holly's dress when she walks, and more than anything the magic hour location shots of empty streets in early '60s New York. Also, the fade to Holly's street and four note musical motif gets me every time.

isn't twilight the Magic Hour? that was clearly shot at 6am.

Read the book.

I've always understood the magic/golden hour to be at each end of the day i.e. dawn AND dusk. But yeah, obviously shot in the morning rather than evening given the emptiness.

(Cliff Robertson, Piper Laurie, John Frankenheimer)

Did watch it.

It's one of the films in David Thomson's 'Have You Seen...?' book. Thomson says that Frankenheimer was too busy to make the movie version, and that Lemmon pushed hard for the lead role, and also suggested Lee Remick as his co-star (tho Edwards had recently worked w/ her on Experiment in Terror, so not sure about that - anyway, she's fantastic in it). First half hour plays like a semi-sequel to The Apartment - Lemmon is a hard-drinking Public Relations man, essentially acting like a pimp for wealthy clients, who introduces secretary Remick to the pleasures of a Brandy Alexander (she likes chocolate not booze when they first hook up.) Film then charts the different stages of their mutual descent into alcoholism, naturally getting progressively darker (literally so - early scenes are all bright West Coast exteriors, later scenes dark, shabby apartments and motels). Some of the writing is a bit too on-the-nose (Remick's father literally grows roses, which at one point are destroyed by Lemmon in drunken desperation) and you need to be fairly pro-Lemmon (I am) to stomach the full-on scenes of him in a strait-jacket, detoxing (def shades of Lost Weekend there). You might also say that the film is unfairly harsh on the Remick character - she turns out to have less willpower than Lemmon - but it provides the film with a pretty bleak ending that still seems desperately sad, and is true to the larger theme of the way that you can corrupt even someone you love. The black and white photography is beautiful and crisp (by Philip H. Lathrop) and the Mancini score is suitably restrained, aside from the rather corny theme song.

So, good movie, well worth watching.

Experiment In Terror was before Days, yes. It's also very much worth seeing.

Thanks, have added it to my Amazon rental list.

Days theme song won an Oscar and sold well (esp for Andy Williams), probly sold a lot of tickets

Watched some baseball tonight: Experiment in Terror, first time. Great opening credits, a couple of very modern jump-scares, '70s-like ending (Two-Minute Warning, Black Sunday) in Candlestick. You get to see Harvey Kuenn leg out a double, Mike McCormick on the mound, and the back of Mays in one shot. Names over the loudspeaker: McCovey, Felipe Alou, Jose Pagan, Wally Moon. I wasn't sure if it was Drysdale or not on the mound--younger than my image of him--but checking the number it was.

Robert Preston would've been 100 last Friday. I've never attempted to survive The Music Man, but he's certainly a live wire of joie de vivre in Victor/Victoria and S.O.B., not to mention Junior Bonner, The Last Starfighter, etc.

The Last Starfighter was my first exposure. I use to confuse him with Karl Malden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0NcH_XIzKY

Watched Micki & Maude for the first time in 35 years -- a Kael favorite (she compared Dudley Moore favorably with Cary Grant). Definitely doesn't all work, but it doesn't shrink from judging the wacky bigamist ("when it comes to value judgments, he's up there with Nixon and Custer"). Also has a great gag in the last reel, when Ann Reinking is beating up a disguised housebreaking Moore; he takes his beard off, and she starts hitting him harder.

also Amy Irving's dad being a pro wrestler was sort of a genius touch

I thought Micki And Maude was hilarious back in the day, Victor/Victoria is a straight up masterpiece. How come he's not better respected i wonder? I mean.. Tiffany's, A Shot In The Dark.. guy deserves to be better remembered IMO.

He's mostly remembered for the Sellers connection, esp Clouseau, and Tiffany's as well

then for being married to Julie, then maybe "10"

I can see why Operation Petticoat was his breakthrough. Grant and Curtis are ideally cast, and it plays funnier than M*A*SH now. A submarine is really a fine setting for a delirious wartime sex comedy...

supporting cast features three future smash-sitcom second bananas -- Gavin MacLeod is very funny, Dick Sargent too; alas Marion Ross is the least visible of the nuses.

It was written by the same guys who did Pillow Talk that same year, but while nearly as 'dirty' it's a bit less smarmy.

watched "10" over the weekend, probably first time in 20+ years

gen very good slapstick, and maybe best Julie Andrews perf in one of his films

i rewatched a shot in the dark a while back and it is really very good, the wordless intro before the credits is particularly marvelous

also the Dudley-Julie argument about his use of the noun "broad" would pass all but the most rigid language police standards (she wins)

The Tamarind Seed is by no means a total dud, but Julie Andrews is so bloodless when she doesn't sing or clown, and despite the Hitchcock references, Blake was no Hitch. Kind of amazing to see a Maurice Binder title sequence in a non-Bond film too.

Julie IS James Bond

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4-PADx-V0

The Tamarind Seed on Amazon Prime. I should stream it then, aye?

it's OKKKKKKKK

I saw our KJB's extravagant praise a decade ago and figured I could play you two off each other.

not takin' the bait

Great score. John Barry?

That's Life! is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Jack Lemmon should've been frogmarched to The Hague.

Experiment in Terror bangs so hard

I was at my mother's house the other day and it's quite a clutter zone. One thing that stood out was a dvd of Darling Lili on a table. It's a garbage movie but she has an attachment to it because her fave little brother who drank himself to death two decades ago is an extra in it. I'm keen to find the scene he's in it to get a grab but even she doesn't know. She doesn't even own a dvd player.. lol