BLACK NARCISSUS 1947

No I won’t be a nun

No I cannot be a nun

For I am so fond of pleasure that I cannot be a nun.

                                                                                    19^th century British Music Hall song

It’s impossible for me to imagine what affect Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's astonishing film Black Narcissus would have had on me had I been aware of it back when I was still a kid in Catholic school. Back when I still found solace in religious dogma, when elaborate church ritual held me in a sense of wonder, and when nuns were still these mysterious, almost mythic, beings. But on the occasion of seeing this breathtaking, sensually overwhelming film for the very first time just last month (!), my adult self was captivated by how lyrically evocative this dramatization of the age-old conflict of sensual passion vs. pious repression turned out to be (decades before Ken Russell’s The Devils).
Coming to this now-classic movie with considerable maturity, a hefty dose of Catholic disillusion, yet little to no foreknowledge of even the film's storyline and theme, I was left awestruck by the operatic scope of its opulent visuals and delighted by the brashness of its over-emphatic emotionalism.

British director Michael Powell (Peeping Tom - 1960) and longtime collaborator Eric Pressburger apply a rapturously lush gloss and striking visual distinction to his Oscar-nominated 1947 screen adaptation of Rumer Godden’s 1939 novel. There seems to be something overheated and audacious about the entire enterprise, which, like the harem-house turned convent perched atop the Himalayan mountainscape that serves as the film’s primary locale and chief metaphor, allows Black Narcissus to recklessly skirt along the edges of high melodrama, camp overstatement, and visual poetry. If it was Powell & Pressburger's goal to submerge the audience in a barrage of sensual excess parallel to that experienced by the white-clad nuns in the film—to indeed create a film as visually heady as the fragrance of the Black Narcissus flower—then they succeeded beyond all reasonable expectation.

Deborah Kerr as Sister Clodagh

Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth

David Farrar as Mr. Dean

Jean Simmons as  Kanchi

Sabu as Dilip Rai, The Young General

Flora Robson as Sister Philippa

Five Anglican nuns in British-occupied India are sent by their somewhat dubious Mother Superior (Nancy Roberts) to establish a mission school and dispensary in a remote area high in the Kanchenjunga Mountains. The designated site, donated to the convent by a philanthropic peacock of a General named Toda Rai (Esmond Knight) in the interest of serving his subjects in nearby Darjeeling, is a desolate edifice perched dizzyingly atop a mountain shelf and known as The Palace of Mopu. The deserted palace, which overlooks a vast mountainscape the locals call “The Bare Goddess,” was previously known as “The House of Women” and stood as a harem residence for the General’s father to house his many concubines.

May Hallat as Angu Aya

Angu Aya, the estate’s longtime caretaker, is correct in citing that the arrival of the nuns preserves the palace’s status as a house of women, the difference in the main being that these particular women “…won’t be any fun.” 

Sister Clodagh (Kerr), a young nun of rather severe and inflexible nature with a killer side-eye, is assigned as head of the convent which is to be rechristened “The House of Saint Faith.” She’s given reluctant, cynical assist from the General’s agent, Mr. Dean (Farrar), an Englishman gone conspicuously “native” yet still capable of wielding colonist superciliousness like a champ. 

The nuns’ external struggles in adapting to the people of the village—whose exotic “otherness” they find challenging; and coping with the elements—the incessantly blowing winds, too pure water, and rarefied air produce negative health effects; are compounded (if not dwarfed) by the intensity of their inner conflicts. Mopu’s color-saturated vistas and perfumed splendors of flora and fauna conspire to distract the nuns from their sense of practical and spiritual purpose, inflaming hidden passions and bringing about the recollection of the very things a life of devout asceticism was intended to blot out.

As Mr. Dean observes: "There's something in the atmosphere that makes everything seem exaggerated." 

Sister Ruth is a little thirsty 

The natural elements of Mopu are at perpetual odds with the nuns’ emotional self-regulation and the control they attempt to exert over themselves, the land, and its people; resulting in the environment itself proving to have a progressively detrimental and disruptive effect on the convent as a whole. This conflict plays out in the escalating infatuation the already agitated and unstable Sister Ruth (Byron) develops on Mr. Dean. Too, in the distracting effect the introduction of the flamboyantly-attired Young General (Sabu) has on the all-girls school, specifically Hindu hotbox Kanchi (Simmons), an orphan girl who’s as serene in her sexuality as the nuns are restrained in theirs. 

The Prince and the Beggar-maid
The intoxicating perfume the Young General wears gives the film its name 

As repressed passions and jealousies intensify, Black Narcissus’s fevered melodramatic structure by turns takes on the shape of: a love story, a humanity vs. ecology war film, an imperialist allegory, and an ecclesiastical horror movie. Sometimes all at once.

My oft-stated fondness for Le Cinema Baroque (where nothing exceeds like excess) instantly brands Black Narcissus a lifelong favorite; but I’m equally fond of any film which attempts to explore that curious need we humans have to suppress that which is most natural in us, and to so often do so by hiding behind religious dogma.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Having grown up attending Catholic schools, I have to say that the pomp and circumstance of church ritual superbly primed me for the extravagant visual onslaught that is Black Narcissus. It’s a thing of beauty the way Jack Cardiff’s (Death on the Nile) Oscar-winning, deeply-saturated, old-school Technicolor cinematography so sublimely conveys the vastly shifting moods and sensations at the center of Black Narcissus; a strikingly stylized look at sexual repression and madness amongst a group of passion-seized nuns.

There are moments when the screen bursts with the jubilant colorfulness of a musical (these hills are alive and virtually crawling with nuns, but here Julie Andrews would be in way over her head); other times, the film is gripped by the melancholy high-contrast shadows of German Expressionism and film noir (reinforced tremendously by the sweep of Brian Easdale’s goosebump-inducing musical score). 

Sister Philippa worries that the exotic beauty of  the mountain
distracts her from her sense of religious purpose

Perhaps because the nuns I encountered during grade school bore so little resemblance to the serene, well-meaning nuns portrayed by Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn on The Late Show (mine were strictly of the stern, prison warden variety), I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from Black Narcissus’ then-controversial depiction of nuns as beings susceptible (perhaps more than most) to the character flaws of pride and ego, basic human desires, and crisis of faith.

In fact, the demystification of the whole nun mystique is one of my favorite things about the film. The scenes depicting Sister Clodagh lost in memory of her earlier life as a girl in Ireland are poignant and very moving. I can’t often relate to the idea of nuns “hearing the call” of religious service, but in this instance (and as played so winsomely by Deborah Kerr), it touches me to contemplate how a young woman’s heart can be so broken and pride so wounded that she would seek to bury her pain behind the emotional shelter of a cloistered existence. Hoping to lose her memory of herself in a life of devout service.

Sister Clodagh was once no stranger to vanity and allure of jewels and self-adornment

PERFORMANCES

Very much late to the party in regard to my recognition of this film, but much like my late-in-life appreciation of Joan Crawford, I’ve really turned a major corner when it comes to Deborah Kerr, who is fast becoming one of my favorite classic film actresses. I had the grave misfortune of having my earliest exposure to the actress in some of what must arguably be her worst films: Marriage on the Rocks (1965) and Prudence & the Pill (1968). I’m no big fan of The King and I, either, so for the larger part of my life, Kerr fell into that limbo of actresses whose work I largely avoided.

It took the enthusiastic recommendation of a reader of this blog to get me to check out Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961), a film that really turned the tide for me in my assessment of Deborah Kerr. Her performance in that film is tremendous. Seriously one of the very finest examples of screen acting I’ve ever seen. Ever. She is absolutely brilliant, and on the strength of that movie alone I’ve come to reevaluate the work of this woefully underappreciated actress (by me, certainly, but her outstanding work in The Innocents got nary a nod from The Academy).  

There’s not a moment when Deborah Kerr’s Sister Clodagh is on the screen that she doesn’t command. The dramatic arc of her character is sharply and heartbreakingly delineated, and Kerr's is precisely the kind of performance of which I’m most fond; the inner life of a character is read easily through the eyes. You can actually see what her character is thinking, just as you can plainly read the emotions subtly playing across Kerr's face. I’ve said it before, but playing repressed, emotionally inhibited characters must be as challenging for an actor as comedy; for with no big, showy displays of technique, an actor must credibly fashion a dimensional, complex character of sympathy and depth.

Kerr, while embodying the “stiff-necked, obstinate” characteristics attributed to her character, also shows Sister Clodagh to be a woman who is also imperious, sensitive, funny, wise, over-proud, kind, petty, overwhelmed, and in the end…so very human. For me, nothing I have so far seen of Deborah Kerr’s work can touch her performance in The Innocents, but her movingly unforgettable and finely-realized Sister Clodagh is right up there in being one of my favorites.

Kathleen Byron is mesmerizing as the neurotic and passion-inflamed Sister Ruth. As the unfettered sexual Id to Sister Clodagh's circumspect Ego, Byron's physical resemblance to Deborah Kerr informs the film's themes dramatizing the environment's ability to affect the dual natures of the nuns.
The naked ferocity of Byron's emotionalism suits Black Narcissus' grandiloquent visual style. Plus, once she really starts to lose it, she's absolutely terrifying!

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

I cite Black Narcissus as one of the most sumptuously beautiful films ever made, betraying nary a single note of overstatement. In its current digitally restored form, it’s truly something to behold. Breathtaking doesn’t even cover it.

But to a large extent, the effectiveness of the film’s visual style (production designer Alfred Junge won the film’s only other Oscar) is that it isn’t pretty for the sake of being pretty; its extravagant look is in direct service to the plot.

I was struck by how, in much the same way the vistas distract the nuns from their work, Black Narcissus’s Technicolor gorgeousness helped to shroud the film’s indulgence in racial stereotypes and soften the narrative’s colonialist fantasy elements (the Western infantilization and fetishizing of the exotic “other”).

Eddie Whaley Jr as Joseph Anthony
The nuns are forced to rely on the interpreting skills of a youngster
in order to communicate with the "childlike" natives

One of the more astounding things about Black Narcissus is that, while set in India, it was filmed entirely in England. Sabu is the only cast member of actual Indian descent, meanwhile, brownface and quaint cultural stereotyping abounds. The film was released the very year India won its freedom from British imperialist rule, a historical fact that goes a long way toward making the film’s, shall I say, archaic attitude towards the childlike “natives” feel more like an indictment rather than an endorsement.

As the convent’s plans to westernize the people of Mopu collapses under the inability of the nuns to either understand or adapt to the land they inhabit, it’s not difficult to project a subtheme of anti-imperialism running below Black Narcissus’ surface. 

A critic keenly noted that the peaked cowls of the nuns' gleaming white habits
echo the steep mountain peaks overlooking The House of St. Faith

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

While I'll always wonder what my younger, far more impressionable, film-besotted self would have made of Black Narcissus, I'm glad my first exposure to this film wasn't in grainy black and white on a tiny TV set with commercial interruptions; nor was it by way of a scratchy, faded copy at a revival theater. It's fortuitous that when I finally got around to seeing Black Narcissus, it was by way of a pristine, full-length, digitally restored version.

I'm aware that I'm still very much caught up in the first-blush daze of new discovery (I've only seen Black Narcissus twice); but even so, I don't hesitate in labeling it a genuine masterpiece. Not perfect, which art has no obligation to be, anyway, but an authentic work of stylized aesthetic beauty.  I know in my heart that this particular cinema gemstone would have fueled a million dreams and fantasies for me as a boy, but I guess we all discover the right things at the right time.

BONUS MATERIAL

I recommend checking out Painting with Light (2007) - A fascinating documentary on the making of Black Narcissus featuring interviews with cinematographer Jack Cardiff and actress Kathleen Byron.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2016

SHOOT 'EM UP BANG BANG: 15 TOP FAVORITE JAMES BOND THEME SONGS

It’s complicated. That would be my description of my relationship with James Bond movies. I was born during the Cold War and was but a mere babe of five when the first Bond film, Dr. No (1962) was released, so I grew up during the whole “spy mania” craze of the ‘60s with nary a recollection of a world without spies, espionage, and James Bond. Although Boris Badenov and Don Adams’ Agent 86 were more my speed, spy culture was everywhere during my formative years; from movies, TV shows, pop songs (Johnny Rivers’ Secret Agent Man was a personal favorite), fashions, magazines, novels, and, of course, the real-life nightly news. If you think John Travolta's white 3-piece-suit was omnipresent in the '70s...well, that's nothing compared with how many wannabe 007s sought out the instant cool of a white dinner jacket.

Bond movies were intended for adults, but that didn’t prevent them from being marketed to kids during Saturday morning cartoons and in comic books. I had a James Bond doll (excuse me, action figure) and one of those very cool, arsenal-laden Bond attaché cases before I’d ever seen a Jams Bond film. In fact, the first James Bond film I ever saw in its entirety was Live and Let Die (1973) when I was 15-years-old. (I saw and fell head-over-heels in love with the much-reviled, psychedelic Bond spoof Casino Royale when I was 10, so perhaps my ultimately warped perception of James Bond got off to a particularly twisted start.) 

So why did it take me so long to see a Bond film? Well, this is where things start to get complicated. You see, I don’t exactly like James Bond movies. See, even as a kid, I found all those spy shows: The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, Secret Agent, I Spy, Mission: Impossible, The Saint, etc. – to be dull as dishwater. The same “shoot ‘em up, bang bang” with different faces was all it was to me. 

When I tried watching the Bond films when they aired on TV, if I didn’t fall asleep, they simply failed to hold my attention. As I've said in previous posts on the topic of action films, I've never found stoic heroism and macho aggression to be in and of itself very compelling. In fact, it just feels redundant and done-to-death.
To this day, the only Sean Connery Bond film I’ve ever watched all the way through is the lamentable Thunderball remake and “rogue” Bond production, Never Say Never Again (1983); a film that marked Connery’s return to the role after a 12-year absence and saw the then-53-old agent succumbing to frequent naps in between saving the free world.

Given what appears to be my indifference to (if not downright antipathy for) the genre, you'd figure I’d just leave 007 alone. But once, again, this is where things get complicated. Spy movies were the westerns of my generation, and James Bond is this mythic figure that looms as a pop-culture staple in my psyche, like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny. Bond was such a pre-consciousness presence in my formative years that it feels like he’s in my blood, if not exactly my DNA. And while I have no problem ignoring the current craze in superhero films, James Bond isn't exactly the same. He's MY era's Star Wars and feels like an indelible fixture in a distant corner of my moviegoing life.

So, of the 24 “official” James Bond films made to date, I’ve seen 13. Can I remember the plots to any of them? No. Do I enjoy them? Yes. Do I like them? No. Funny, that.

And so it goes. It’s like a knee-jerk, spontaneous response. I haven’t missed a Bond film since 1985s A View To a Kill – which featured my favorite Bond villain, the exquisite Grace Jones as May Day, but I do so almost out of tradition and a vague connection to something I’ve never been able to put my finger on. Whatever it is, it’s the same willful surrender to mindless spectacle and purposeless action that drove my interest in disaster movies during the ‘70s.

Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond of all, and Judi Dench was so good she made me forget that I never knew what the hell was going on from one movie to the next. I watch Bond movies for the scope, the explosions, the stunts, the special effects, and the retro “cool” of handsome guys going about in suits and beautiful women kicking ass in high heels and gowns. I seem to like that "idea" of James Bond more than I like the real thing.

And then, there are the title sequences. Even as a kid I was entranced by the dreamlike (now iconic) title sequences of Bond films, often finding them more rewarding than the films they introduced. And the music…the influential James Bond theme and intro music is as identifiable a trademark as the Coca-Cola logo. The individual theme songs...because of their need to reflect the taste of the times and due to their heavy radio play, I easily associate with specific moments in my life.

Since it’s highly inconceivable that I’ll ever devote any energy to reviewing a Bond film on this site (never say never, I suppose),  I do love James Bond theme songs, so here is a list of my favorites. Not the best crafted, well-written, best-sung, or most iconic; simply the ones, in order of personal preference, I absolutely and subjectively adore. And, not being a Bond fan frees me from having to be a Bond purist, so some of my choices fit in the “unofficial” category: songs commissioned and rejected, or end-credits songs that should have been used for the title.

MY TOP 15 FAVORITE BOND THEME SONGS:

1. Casino Royale (1967)

Not officially a James Bond film, but Burt Bacharach's theme music (played to a fare-the-well by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass) is for me the all and end-all of Bond themes ever. Timeless while being oh-so-Sixties, it ranks at the very top of my Bond chart. Since most everyone is familiar with the instrumental version played over the film's animated title sequence, I've posted a single of the rarely-heard complete lyric version by Mike Redway (its abbreviated version is heard over the closing credits). Alpert's horns are sorely missed, but the comic lyrics - and Mr, Redway's voice - soar.

2. Goldfinger (1964)

For my money, everything about this track is practically perfect- from the dramatic arrangement to its slithery lyrics; but, to coin an overused cliché, Shirley Bassey’s forceful and sexy vocals make this the gold standard of Bond theme songs. Anthony Newley (Leslie Bricusse's co-lyricist on this Dave Barry composed tune) does a wonderful version of this song that’s definitely worth a listen.

3. Skyfall (2012)

If Shirley Bassey and Goldfinger didn’t exist, this would be my top favorite “official” James Bond theme. Composer/vocalist Adele (with Paul Epworth)channeled the feel and sound of all the classic Bond songs to come up with the most hauntingly beautiful (and dark) theme of them all. It’s a gorgeous song that has the feel of a dirge, an anthem, and a melancholy love song, all at once. And god, what a voice!

4. Goldeneye (1995)

Tina Turner has a voice tailor-made for a Bond theme, and this sensuous and smoky song (composed by Bono and The Edge) fits her husky vocals to a T. The musical arrangement is marvelously slick and dramatic, but the danger and lurking in Turner’s delivery is what makes this song work. It’s hot!

5. The World Is Not Enough (1999)

This lushly-orchestrated theme performed so seductively by alternative band Garbage (vocalist Shirley Manson) reminds me that, at least in part, some of the unbreakable connection I have to James Bond is due to the films being so outrageously flamboyant. James Bond movies are to the action film genre what Busby Berkeley movies were to the musical. The sheer high-flown theatricality of this song is seductive as hell. This credits sequence is great, but the music video for this song is really something.

6. Casino Royale (2006) - "You Know My Name"

Chris Cornell’s powerful, veins-bulging vocals back up the vivid lyrics in this intense self-penned Bond theme (with five-time Bond composer David Arnold) that gives me goosebumps each time I hear it. The feeling I look forward to experiencing at least once in every Bond film is the adrenaline rush this song gives me. Also, aren't the graphics in this title sequence simply amazing? 

7. Quantum of Solace (2008): "Another Way To Die"

This is a really big favorite of mine. The pairing of singers Jack White and Alicia Keyes in an alternating duet combines several of my favorite things. First, from the time I discovered Cole Porter as a kid, I’ve always had a thing for “list” songs. Here, the cataloging of danger signals that a spy need be wary of (a door left open, a woman walking by, etc.) is just too cool to talk about.  Second, I love when discordant voices blend into something unexpected and perfect. Keyes’ velvet-smooth vs. White’s rasp is like badass dramatic counterpoint in this effectively tense tune. This is the song that has the “Shoot ‘em up, bang bang” riff I used for this post’s title (Alicia Keyes slays on this song). And can we take a minute to appreciate that Daniel Craig has the sexiest walk of any Bond?

7. The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)

This one is a sentimental favorite. part for its very '70 arrangement which I find to be thoroughly infectious, but mostly because I have always loved the voice of '60s pop star Lulu (To Sir, With Love). The song itself doesn't have much to recommend it, even by my fondness for bubble-gum tunes standards, but Lulu's energetic performance makes a strong case for the power of interpretation. Even managing to put over the singularly crass lyric: "His eye may be on you or me. Who will he bang? We shall see!" with cheeky charm.

8. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997): "Surrender"

The official title song by Sheryl Crow is actually quite good, but I really prefer this k.d. lang alternate song, played over the film's end credits. Lang's vocals have the retro sound of Keely Smith or Nancy Sinatra, so that hooks me from the start. But I love the traditional arrangement and classic Bond sound. Crow's song is more melodramatic (always a good thing), but the coffeehouse smoothness of k.d. lang wins out in the end.

9. Diamonds Are Forever (1971) 

The inimitable Shirley Bassey is back, but in place of Goldfinger bombast is a mellow (some would say middle-of-the-road) ballad that soars exclusively due to Bassey's vocals. I can honestly say that had someone else recorded the song, it likely wouldn't have made my list at all. But, c'mon it's Dame Shirley Bassey!

10. Live & Let Die (1973 )

This Paul McCartney & Wings song was all over the radio in 1973 (I was surprised to discover it was the first Bond song to be nominated for a Best Song Oscar) and its '70s sound is one of its most enduring charms. I have always liked McCartney's voice, but my favorite thing about this theme is its elaborate/erratic shifts in tone and tempo. I remember at the time being impressed the old Beatle (he was all of 30 at the time) still had it in him!

11. For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Blondie version 

Although I adored it at the time and it made me a short-lived fan of singer Sheena Easton, the official For Your Eyes Only theme hasn't aged particularly well for me, evoking as it does, unfortunate memories of '80s radio and that era's preponderance of sound-alike romantic ballads. This rejected song submitted by Blondie is more my speed. The song is tres-'80s (but in the best Debbie Harry "Call Me" kind of way) and the guitar riffs sound very '60s spy-mania retro.

12. Thunderball (1965): "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"

I've no problem with Tom Jones' memorably testosterone-pitched theme song, but this rejected tune sung by Ann-Margret is more to my liking. Making up for in Rat-Pack-era sultriness what she lacks in seductive menace, Ann-Margret IS a Bond girl even if in real life she had to settle for one of those dreary Dean Martin Matt Helm spy spoofs (Murderers' Row) rather than the real thing. This song has been sung perhaps more effectively by Shirley Bassey and Dionne Warwick (you can find them on YouTube) but when it comes to sex-kitten slink, Ann-Margret has a lock on it, and nobody does it better.

13. The Living Daylights (1987) "If There Was A Man"

The A-ha theme song gets my vote for most forgettable, nondescript Bond theme ever. I had to listen to it again before writing this because it's a song that refuses to remain in my memory. However, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders contributed a longingly plaintive, waltz-time ballad that is really lovely. Hynde's low-register voice is ideal for a song like this, which could have come off as too tamely lyrical.

14. Moonraker (1979)

Hmmm, looks like dreamy slow songs are dominating the end of my list. Ms. Bassey again, this time keeping her bombast in check (a little) and giving a gentle caress to this floating romantic ballad. I have a thing for the more melodramatic Bond themes, but quiet ones like this...ones that showcase just how velvety-soft Bassey's voice can be, are a delight of a different sort.

15. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) "Nobody Does It Better"

Closing out this Top Fifteen list is Carly Simon's rather quintessentially Simon-esque Bond theme. This one is a nostalgic favorite likely to be someday bumped to a lower ranking, but stays firm at #15 because I have always been so crazy about Simon's voice. I played this to death in 1977, so perhaps my waning fondness for it now is a result of prolonged exposure to one too many repeated "Baby, you're the best!" refrains.


BEST JAMES BOND THEME MUSIC THAT ISN'T BUT SHOULD BE

"So Hard"  Pet Shop Boys

From the instant I heard this song on the Pet Shop Boys' 1990 Behavior album, I thought it sounded like it came from a James Bond movie. It has "spy movie" written all over it - not the lyrics, but that absolutely amazing arrangement and tempo. I'd read online that Pet Shop Boys had been approached for contributing a song for The Living Daylights, and there's an odd, unsubstantiated tune that's up on YouTube said to be the result of that aborted collaboration (later reconfigured into their This Must Be The Place I've Waited Years To Leave), but I have my doubts. However, I can visualize a '90s James Bond title sequence accompanying this song with ease.

On a final note, you can't write anything about the music of the James Bond films without crediting composer John Barry (12 Bond films). Along with: Monty Norman, David Arnold, Thomas Newman, and no doubt many others I'm forgetting.  YouTube has a wealth of rejected Bond songs- one the more curious, Johnny Cash's Thunderball.

1965 LP

Do you have a song from a James Bond film that's your particular favorite? Perhaps, one that drives you to distraction? Either way, I'd love to hear about it!

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2016

THE OSCAR 1966

"You finally made it, Frankie. Oscar Night!. And here you sit, on top of a glass mountain called 'success.' You're one of the chosen five, and the whole town's holding its breath to see who won it. It's been quite a climb, hasn't it, Frankie? Down at the bottom, scuffling for dimes in those smokers, all the way to the top. Magic Hollywood! Ever think about it? I do, friend Frankie, I do…."

And thus begins one of the most sublimely terrible movies ever to grace the screen. A speech rife with overelaborate hyperbole (it's hard to imagine anyone taking the Oscars this seriously, even in the '60s), clumsy metaphors, labored clichés, and the name "Frankie" repeated no less than three times in a single breathless paragraph. Remarkably, three (count 'em, three) screenwriters are responsible for the dialogue in this gilt-edged burlesque, which, given how the characters are prone to repeat the name of the very person to whom they're speaking, sounds as though it were written for the radio.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Stephen Boyd with Johnny Grant, the real-life honorary Mayor of Hollywood

With nary an ironic or self-aware bone in its bathetic, threadbare body, The Oscar is the kind of pandering-yet-earnest, self-serious Hollywood trash no one has the old-school, out-of-touch naiveté to know how to make anymore. A 1966 film that would have felt warmed-over in 1960 (the year Ocean's Eleven and Sinatra's Rat Pack made this kind of clean-cut, pomaded, sharkskin-suited, ring-a-ding-ding brand of cool into a veritable brand), The Oscar is from the Joseph E. Levine (The Carpetbaggers, Harlow) school of overlit, elephantine artifice. Every interior looks like a soundstage, everyone's clothes look as though they've never been worn before, and the characters are so lacquered and buffed they resemble department store mannequins.
As though encouraged to get into the spirit of things, The Oscars' flirting-with-obsolescence "all-star cast" (eight Oscar winners in all) contribute performances that somehow manage to be mannequin stiff and over-the-top at the same time. Performances wholly unacquainted with human psychology, normal speech patterns, or recognizable human behavior.
With each viewing of this unrelentingly unconvincing take on what I assume was intended to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of unbridled ambition, I grow less and less surprised that one of its screenwriters (Harlan Ellison) is known principally for his work in science fiction.

Stephen Boyd as Frankie Fane
"I'm fighting for my life! And there's a spiked boot for anyone who gets in my way."

Elke Sommer as Kay Bergdahl
"It's that seed of rot inside of you that makes you what you are
that you can't change. You just dress it better!"

Tony Bennett as Hymie Kelly
"You lie down with pigs, you come up smelling like garbage!"

Eleanor Parker as Sophie Cantaro
"You go after what you want. In some men, it's admirable. In you, it's...unclean!"

Milton Berle as Arthur "Kappy" Kapstetter
"You never know you're on your way out until
suddenly you realize it would take a ticket to get back in."

The Oscar, subtitled: Memoirs of a Hollywood Louse, is an unabashed laundry list of every show biz/Hollywood cliché handed down since What Price Hollywood? (1932). A beyond-camp, glossy soap opera whose overripe performance and purple prose present the first male-centric challenge to the women of Valley of the Dolls (and Beyond).

Stephen Boyd, he of the narrow frame and chiseled, Tom of Finland profile, is Frankie Fane; your garden-variety ruthless user with a suitable-for-movie-marquees alliterative name. Side note* I don't recommend anyone try playing a drinking game in which you take a shot every time someone in the film says Frankie's name; you'll be rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning by the 20-minute mark.

As this told-in-flashback opus begins, Frankie and longtime buddy Hymie Kelly (Tony Bennett, making his film debut/swansong and looking like he wished he were back in San Francisco with his heart) are eking out a living, largely thanks to the bump-and-grind efforts of Frankie's stripper girlfriend, Laurel Scott (Jill St. John).

Jill St. John as Laurel Scott
"What does he think I am, dirt? Every morning I'd get the feeling
he was gonna leave two dollars on the dresser for me!"

After a nasty run-in with a crooked sheriff—a bulldoggish Broderick Crawford playing the flip side of his Highway Patrol TV character—the vagabond trio thumb a ride to NYC where breadwinner Laurel (who's, of course, basically a nice, decent girl who just wants "a kid") soon tires of Frankie's freeloading. This is in spite of the fact that Hymie, the perennial 3^rd wheel and clearly healthy as an ox, also appears to be living with the couple, yet shows no signs of being any more gainfully employed than his pal.

As audiences wait in vain for Hymie to happen upon a microphone and solve everyone's problems by discovering a latent talent for singing (and, in the bargain, providing a much-needed respite from the film's ceaseless stream of risible dialog and '60s slang); Frankie the hound dog decides to accompany Hymie to "a swingin' party in the village…lots of chicks" where he meets aspiring costume designer Kay Bergdahl (Sommer). In no time, Frankie makes his move:

Frankie- "You a tourist or a native?"

Kay- "Take one from column A and two from column B and get an egg roll either way."

On the strength of that nonsensical rejoinder, one would be forgiven for leaping to the assumption that Kay was suffering a stroke-related episode and in need of immediate medical attention, but not our Frankie. Clearly smitten by Kay's pouting accent, silk-awning bangs, and mink eyelashes, our smarmy antihero instead continues to engage the comely blond in more Haiku-inspired small talk. Kay, perhaps as a nod to the film's title, has a way of making everything she says sound like excerpts from an Academy Award acceptance speech:

"I am the end result of everything I've ever learned...all I ever hope to be,
and all the experiences I've ever had."

Uhmm...O.K.

We return now to Laurel—that hip-switchin', nice-walkin', bundle of loveliness—who, in a late-in-coming display of backbone, lays down the law to Frankie when he returns home:

"If you think I'm gonna work my tail off so you can run around with the village chicks…oh, stop spreadin' the pollen around, Frankie...or else!"

Unfortunately for Laurel, her ultimatum doesn't have the desired effect on Frankie as she'd hoped. After spending the evening with hard-to-get Bergdahl, round-heeled Laurel starts to look like used goods to him, and in record time, Frankie, the village pollen-spreader, beats a hasty retreat. So hasty that he misses out on hearing the joyous news that Laurel is pregnant with his child. 

In much the same way Willy Wonka's shiftless Grandpa Joe miraculously finds the energy to haul his wrinkled carcass out of bed once the prospect of a candy factory tour looms; the heretofore serially unemployed Frankie promptly lands a job in the garment district when it affords the opportunity to see more of the glacial Miss Bergdahl. But it isn't long before Kay's middle-European cool proves no match for Frankie's hotheaded, borderline sociopathic personality.

Koo Koo Frankie shows a wise guy actor (Jan Merlin) what it's
like to be on "the business end of a knife."

Frankie expends so much abusive energy exorcising his inner demons ("The way he sees it, no woman's any better than his mother," intones Hymie, deep-thinker) that Kay scarcely has time to examine her own Bad Boy attraction issues ("Sometimes I get the feeling, Frankie, that you ought to be chained up with a ring in your nose!") before their relationship begins to go south and take on all the dysfunctional sparring rhythms of Robert De Niro & Liza Minnelli in NewYork, New York…minus the warmth & mutual respect.

One particularly theatrical outburst of Frankie's captures the rapacious eye of roving talent scout Sophie Cantaro (Parker), who sees in Frankie's mercurial mood swings the makings of a star (Charlie Sheen, no doubt). Faster than you can say, "Bye-bye, Bergdahl! Hello, Cougar Town!" Frankie is whisked off to Hollywood and becomes exactly the kind of noxious nightmare of a movie star you'd expect. Think Neely O'Hara crossed with Helen Lawson combined with every ego-out-of-control rumor you've ever heard about Jerry Lewis, and you get the idea.

Joseph Cotten as Kenneth Regan, head of Galaxy Pictures
"I find myself repelled and repulsed by you."

Of course, this is precisely when the already dizzying lunacy of The Oscar really swings into high gear. Cue the laughably garish sets meant to signify high-style opulence, the tired visual short-cuts (EVERY scene in a studio backlot features strolling cowboys, gladiators, and showgirls in headdresses), and the standard-issue What Makes Sammy Run? rise and fall of our unscrupulous schnook scenario.

Yes, whether it be the simile-laden narration ("Man, he wanted to swallow Hollywood like a cat with a canary."); the rote, claws-his-way-to-the-top conflicts ("The fact is my 10% before taxes is paying your office overhead. And you stop earning it when you stop giving me what I want!"); or clumsy, tin-eared metaphors ("Have you ever seen a moth smashed against a window? It leaves the dust of its wings. You're like that Frankie, you leave a powder of dirt everywhere you touch."), The Oscar leaves nary a cliché unturned and untouched. And for that, we should all give thanks.

Ernest Borgnine and Edie Adams as lowbrow couple Barney & Trina Yale

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

The Oscar is artificiality as motif. Without actually intending to do so, director Russell Rouse (who made the must-see Wicked Woman -1953) has crafted a film so phony and plastic, it winds up saying a great deal more about the real Hollywood than this contrived, self-serving fairy tale. A fairy tale that would have us believe that Hollywood is comprised of basically decent, principled, hard-working folks, and that unscrupulous bad apples like Frankie are the rotten exception.

When I watch The Oscar, I always wonder: was this movie pandering to star-struck yokels and hicks from the sticks? Was this fable of Tinseltown-as-Toilet designed to make Nathanael West's "locusts" feel less-resentful of the rich, famous, and privileged? To feed us the comforting fantasy that those beautiful, glamorous people on the screen have it far worse? 

Or had years of lying to itself deluded "The Industry" into believing its own publicity? This can't be how '60s Hollywood actually saw itself, can it? 

In the film's most blatantly parodic role, Jean Hale is hilariously spot-on as the self-absorbed actress Cheryl Barker. The role is an obvious and mean-spirited swipe at Carroll Baker that was likely included at the behest of producer Joseph E. Levine. (Baker and Levine clashed during the filming of Harlow, leading to her suing to get out of her three-picture contract. Baker won, but was blacklisted.)

It's not as though no one knew what a good film about Hollywood looked like: Sunset Boulevard -1950, The Bad & the Beautiful -1952, A Lonely Place -1950, Stand-In -1937. So, I tend to think everyone involved in The Oscar knew precisely what kind of trash they were making (Bennett doesn't recall the experience fondly in his memoirs) and just cashed their paychecks and moved on. But given the expense, effort, and the fact that many equally overstuffed, fake-looking, questionably-acted, and poorly-written films that came before it had somehow managed to find boxoffice success (The Carpetbaggers comes to mind); I can only imagine that the eventual awfulness of The Oscar wasn't as much of a surprise to those involved as was the public's total indifference to it.

Exterior shots of the Oscar ceremony were shot at the 37th Academy Awards in 1965. Bob Hope was indeed the host that year, but as the stage design was different, I suspect these scenes were shot on a sound stage. The Oscar actually did garner two Academy Award nominations in 1967: art direction (remarkably, given how ugly the sets are) and costume design. 

PERFORMANCES

It's a crowded, competitive field, but Stephen Boyd walks away with the honors for The Oscar's most exaggerated, indicating performance. In a film of parody-worthy performances, Boyd's bellowing, bombastic over-emoting (much like Faye Dunaway's in Mommie Dearest) sets the bar. It serves as the tonal rudder for this Titanic testament to overstatement. It's a performance that towers over the rest. And while one might argue he's no worse than anyone else (certainly not Bennett) and only as good as the knuckleheaded screenplay allows; when there's this much collateral damage, every offender has to be held accountable for their fair share of the carnage. 

Frankie's cutthroat efforts to win an Oscar make up the bulk of the 1963 Richard Sale novel
upon which the film is based, but comprise only the last half hour of the movie 

Indeed, in a reversal of my usual standard in camp movies I adore, the women don't really dominate in The Oscar. Despite their towering hairdos and colorful wardrobes, Elke Sommer, Eleanor Parker, Jill St. John, and a woefully over-rehearsed Edie Adams have their work cut out for them in trying to keep pace with the hambone scenery-chewing of Boyd on one side, and the Boo Boo Bear blandness of mono-expression crooner Tony Bennett on the other.

Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci They're Not
Hope you like Tony Bennett's expression here, 'cause that's it...for two whole hours

Add to this, schticky comedian Milton Berle as another one of those saintly talent agents that only seem to exist in Joseph E. Levine films (Red Buttons, another face-pulling comic, played a similar role in Levine's Harlow). Berle's approach to serious drama is something out of an SCTV Bobby Bittman sketch: go so low-wattage as to barely register any vitality at all.

Not sure, but I think knuckle-biting to convey distress went out with silent movies.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
As hard as it is to believe that the Motion Picture Academy actually endorsed this sordid melodrama (although it is thought that the embarrassing flop of this film is responsible for the copyright stranglehold the Academy has had on the use and depiction of the Oscar Award in movies ever since). But one has to wonder about the many drop-in guest appearances of so many "stars" adding verisimilitude and unintentional comic relief. Were they contractual, were favors owed, or were they simply prohibited from reading the entire script?

Edith Head (or an animatronic copy) as Herself

Jack Soo as Sam, Frankie's live-in valet

Famed Hollywood columnist, commie-finger-pointer,
and homophobic blabbermouth, Hedda Hopper 

A puffy Peter Lawford is a little too convincing as Hollywood has-been Steve Marks

Ed Begley as Grobard, the scowling strip club owner

A beaming Frank Sinatra and daughter Nancy, in her brunette phase

Waler Brennan (right) as network sponsor Orrin C. Quentin of Quentiplak Products, Inc.
On the left, one of my favorite character actors, John Holland, as Stevens, his associate 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

The bad film delights of The Oscar are so myriad, I can only speculate that its relative unavailability is to blame for its not having risen in camp stature equal to Valley of the Dolls or Mommie Dearest over the years (it's not on DVD and pops up on TV only sporadically). That, and its lack of an ostentatious drag queen aesthetic or even compelling roles for women. I'm not sure why, but a lot of the best camp is rooted in seeing women presented in the traditional, male-gaze "drag" of ornamental allure (big hair, theatrical makeup, elaborate costumes) but behaving in non-traditional ways--i.e., assertive, aggressive, and with a plot-propelling agency (Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!). 

The gender-role incongruity of seeing ornamentally decked-out women behaving in the aggressive, toxic ways movies have traditionally ascribed to male anti-hero types, comes as a pleasant surprise and welcome change of pace. It also probably accounts for why a nasty piece of work like Neely O'Hara in Valley of the Dolls tends to remain in one's memory longer than the passive Jennifer North.

Despite giving lip service to the contrary, the women in The Oscar are a pretty passive bunch and more or less serve a traditional, reactive function in the plot. Pointedly, the poised and elegant Sophie Cantaro, as one of the film's two exceptions (the other being the blowsy but street-smart Trina Yale), is presented as both sexually desperate ("You, you're 42. There are many good minutes left for you," a well-meaning, tactless friend tells her) and unable to prevent her so-called "feminine" emotions from playing havoc with professional decision-making.

It's not difficult to imagine that The Oscar's preponderance of masochistic females is due to its three male screenwriters. This leads me to wonder if one of the reasons The Oscar never became the midnight screening hoot-fest its entertaining awfulness might otherwise guarantee is because the women's roles are so toothless. 

But such wrong-headed thinking prevails throughout The Oscar. Making it one of the best of the worst, the apex of the nadir, and unequivocally one for the books. A book no doubt titled: "What The Hell Were They Thinking?"

BONUS MATERIAL

Update: After being unavailable for decades, a Blu-ray edition of The Oscar was released on February 2, 2020.

Elke Sommer wore the same Edith Head gown to the actual 1966 Academy Awards she donned in the fake ceremony that bookends The Oscar (top photo). Here's a clip of a somewhat botched dual acceptance speech with Connie Stevens for Doctor Zhivago's absent costume designer, Julie Harris. Watch HERE

Although only an instrumental version plays in the film, Tony Bennett sang the Muzak-ready theme song from The Oscar ("Come September") on the soundtrack album. This 45rpm single was an opening day giveaway at many first-run theaters. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2016