BUS STOP

Monroe and Don Murray

BUS STOP (1956). Director: Joshua Logan. Based on the play by William Inge.

"Ain't it wonderful when somebody so terrible turns out to be so nice." -- Cherie.

Bo Decker is a young rancher who has a lot of energy but little experience with life or women. With his foreman and best friend, Virgil (Arthur O'Connell), he travels to Phoenix, Arizona to compete in a rodeo. He is certain that he will meet the right gal for him, and is convinced that that is just what's happened when he runs into nightclub entertainer Cherie (Marilyn Monroe). The trouble is that while Cherie may think Bo is handsome, she has no intention of marrying a complete stranger that she has just met. Bo, unfortunately, simply won't take no for an answer ...

Don Murray as Bo

Bus Stop was based on a stage play by William Inge, and it was opened up by screenwriter George Axelrod. Joshua Logan also directed the film version of Inge's Picnic the same year, although he had not directed the stage version of Bus Stop as he did Picnic. The movie benefits from inspired casting. Marilyn Monroe is simply outstanding as Cherie -- possibly the best performance of her career -- and is able to bring out the pathos and confusion in her character as well as her more comical aspects. Her interpretation of "That Old Black Magic" which she deliberately sings off-key in the saloon is very funny. Don Murray [Advise and Consent], whose first theatrical film this was, is also excellent, just perfect in fact, as Bo, managing to make a man who seems nearly psychotic at times a bit vulnerable and greatly appealing in some instances.

Arthur O'Connell and Monroe

As for the rest of the cast, Arthur O'Connell offers another of his spot-on performances as father surrogate Virgil. Betty Field [Seventeen] makes an impression, and seems to be channeling Mae West a bit, as the coffee shop owner, Grace. Robert Bray [Never Love a Stranger] has possibly his best role as the bus driver, Carl, who has a yen for Grace, and who has a fateful encounter with Bo. Eileen Heckart and Hope Lange are also effective in smaller roles as, respectively, Cherie's friend and co-worker and a young woman on the bus who befriends Cherie. Like Picnic, this romance has a bittersweet conclusion. Murray was nominated for an Oscar (supporting); Monroe should have been. The TV series Bus Stop was very loosely based on this movie.

Verdict: Very entertaining and well-acted comedy drama. ***. 

PICNIC

An iconic image from Picnic by James Wong Howe

PICNIC (1956). Director: Joshua Logan. NOTE: Logan also directed the stage play. This review gives away some important plot points.

Hal Carter (William Holden) is a drifter and failed, wannabee actor who winds up in Kansas where he looks up an old buddy named Alan (Cliff Robertson), hoping to find work. Alan's father gives Hal a job, but things are complicated at the Labor Day picnic when Hal and Alan's fiancee, Madge (Kim Novak), find themselves attracted to one another. Alan is furious, but Madge's mother (Betty Field) is horrified at the fate in store for her daughter if she runs off with Hal. Meanwhile Madge's younger sister, Millie (Susan Strasberg), is suffering growing pains, and their border, spinster schoolteacher Rosemary (Rosalind Russell), is having a crisis of her own.

William Holden and Kim Novak

Picnic is based on the Pulitzer prize-winning stage play by William Inge, and screenwriter Daniel Taradash has intelligently opened up the drama without apparently losing much of the original's meat. Both of the two leads, Holden and Novak, are too old for their roles -- Novak was twenty-three and Holden thirty-eight looking older -- and Holden is really not the right type for Hal at all, but he still manages to give quite a good performance, as does Novak, whom I've always believed could be quite accomplished with the right role and director. Betty Field and Susan Strasberg score as mother and younger daughter, and Rosalind Russell, while she tends to overplay in some sequences, has a terrific moment when she's begging her steady beau, Howard (Arthur O'Connell, carried over from the stage version), to marry her. Cliff Robertson gives one of his best performances as Alan, a nice guy who is treated badly even as he treats Hal badly out of jealousy. There are also nice turns by Verna Felton (the tough maid on I Love Lucy) as a very sympathetic neighbor who takes to Hal right off the bat, and Reta Shaw and Phyllis Newman in smaller roles.

William Holden

Just as straight writers composed stories that revolved around female objects of desire, some gay writers did the same thing with male figures as the centerpiece. Tennessee Williams comes to mind with his "Orpheus Descending," which debuted on the stage four years after Picnic (although Williams' first version, "Band of Angels," dates back to 1940. Meanwhile "Orpheus" was filmed as The Fugitive Kind with Marlon Brando three years after Picnic hit screens.) Both Picnic and Fugitive Kind deal with sexy bad boys and drifters who burst into town and inflame passions among women; the plays and movies were too soon before Stonewall to deal upfront with any gay influences. This is not to say that the characters were all meant to be male.

Rosalind Russell and William Holden

However, both plays have more on their minds than just virile rough trade. Picnic is basically a study of small-town desperation and loneliness; the film has persistent undercurrents of both. It is made clear that Hal is just as lonely in his own way as Rosemary is, culminating in a painful sequence when Rosemary humiliates Hal after he, in her mind, rejects her advances. The film also looks at the pain of growing older and the anguished jealousy it can engender when a middle-aged person is confronted by someone with youth and promise and more overt attractiveness and sensuality.

Cliff Robertson and William Holden

Picnic has many memorable sequences. There is the amusing montage of scenes at the picnic, with crying babies, cute dogs, and silly games, and -- in contrast -- the sort of sexy slow dance that Hal and Madge do together on the bandstand. James Wong Howe's cinematography is outstanding, and George Duning has contributed a sensitive score. Picnic has to be considered an anti-romantic film. Playwright Inge probably meant the ending to indicate that Madge is giving full range to her feelings and taking a chance on life and love and perhaps getting away from a stifling small-town environment, but in the bittersweet conclusion she's also going off with a man she has known for only one day. (Paging Dr. Phil!) And does anyone really think the relationship between Rosemary and Howard will work?

The play starred Ralph Meeker as Hal, Paul Newman as Alan, Janice Rule as Madge, Eileen Heckart as Rosemary, and Arthur O'Connell as Howard. Aron Copeland's beautiful opera The Tender Land, which debuted around the same time as the stage version of Picnic, also dealt with a young woman who falls in love overnight with a drifter and wants to run away with him.

Verdict: Despite some problems, this is an excellent picture. ***1/2. 

CAMELOT

Richard Harris as King Arthur

CAMELOT (1967). Director: Joshua Logan.

"Perhaps one day I will see forgiveness in your eyes. But I won't be there. I won't see it." -- a tearful Guenevere

Noble King Arthur (Richard Harris) of Camelot is trying to bring civilization and order to a barbaric society. Despite some opposition, things are going swimmingly until two major factors interfere. One is Arthur's reptile of a son, Modred (David Hemmings of Deep Red), who conspires against his father behind the scenes. The other is the triangle that develops between Arthur,  Queen Guenevere (Vanessa Redgrave), and the proud, handsome knight, Lancelot (Franco Nero), which causes tremendous complications. The sad thing about this film adaptation of the hit Broadway Lerner and Loewe musical is that much of it is excellent. In fact, one might think that it's a pity that the movie didn't end at the intermission. The first half, showing the meeting and growing love of Arthur and Guenevere, as well as the creation of the Round Table, and ending with Arthur's sad realization of the feelings between his queen and Lancelot, plays very well for the most part. Things go awry in the second half however, with too many scenes that would have played perfectly well in the theater but don't go over at all on the big screen. Like most of the roadshow musicals of the period, Camelot goes on too long, with unnecessary sequences that add nothing to the movie.

The performances are problematic as well. Harris [Mutiny on the Bounty] has some excellent moments, but seems to be playing Arthur as a kind of "camp" through much of the movie. It is possible he was inspired by Richard Burton's performance in the stage play, but whereas Burton can get away with being "cute," the more serious Harris can not. While Arthur is an admirable character in many ways, one does get annoyed that, despite his internal anguish, he never displays some simple rage over being cuckolded by the two people he cares for the most, making him seem rather weak. One doesn't expect Arthur to chop off their heads as other kings might have done, but some expression of anger might have been appropriate. Vanessa Redgrave [Mary Queen of Scots] is simply lovely and excellent as Guenevere while Franco Nero manages to get by without being much of an actor, at least in this. although he does have one very fine moment. Harris did his own singing, which isn't any better than Burton's, Redgrave's own voice is just passable, and Nero is dubbed.

Whatever its flaws, Camelot boasts a fascinating and moving story -- one man's dream destroyed by others' passions -- and music and lyrics by Lerner and Loewe, including "Camelot" [the orchestrations for the chorus of this song are especially wonderful]; "If Ever I Would Leave You;" and others. And there are some splendidly touching moments, such as Lancelot sobbing over the corpse of Sir Dinadan (Anthony Rogers); Arthur's soliloquy about the love between the queen and Lancelot; and the final good-bye between Arthur and Guenevere, one of the best scenes in the movie.

Lionel Jeffries is his usual bumbling self as Arthur's adviser, Pellinore, and Laurence Naismith is fine as the magician Merlyn. Estelle Winwood shows up briefly as Lady Clarinda, who accompanies Guenevere to Camelot. (The latter wonders "Was there ever a more inconvenient marriage of convenience?") Gary Marsh has a nice turn as the young Tom of Warwick, who gives Arthur hope at the end.

Verdict: Half a good movie. ***.

ROADSHOW: The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s

ROADSHOW: The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s. Matthew Kennedy. Oxford University Press; 2014.

If you've reached a certain age you may remember going with your parents to see big, splashy, over-produced versions of Broadway musicals such as The Sound of Music, which I saw at the Rivoli in New York when I was a kid. You may not remember that many of these films were released as "roadshows" -- you got tickets and reserved seats in advance -- and while most of these roadshows were musicals, a few were not. They were long, often had intermissions, and, of course, higher ticket prices. [The last roadshow I remember seeing was, of all things, Last Tango in Paris.] In any case, with wit, solid research, and large doses of amiability, Matthew Kennedy traces the birth and death of the roadshow musical in this marvelously entertaining and very well-written volume. Once upon a time Julie Andrews [Darling Lili] was seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but that was before she appeared in Star! and others and soon her "mega-star" days were over. Then we have all the musical adaptations -- Paint Your Wagon, Camelot, Goodbye Mr. Chips -- in which most of the lead performers could not sing.  When producers ran out of Broadway shows to adapt (Funny Girl, Hello Dolly) they made musicals out of films that originally had no music in them  (the aforementioned Mr. Chips) or adapted films, such as Dr. Dolittle and The Happiest Millionaire, from other medium. And we mustn't forget the hilarious "feud" between Barbra Streisand [A Star is Born] and Carol Channing [The First Traveling Saleslady] when the former got the coveted part in Hello Dolly which Channing felt should have been hers. Roadshow dissects what went wrong with most of these over-bloated pictures, whose musical values were often lost behind inappropriate actors and overblown budgets, as well as producers and directors who often had no idea what they were doing, such as Joshua Logan of Paint Your Wagon. Broadway adaptations of the previous decade may have been more effective (Carousel, The King and I etc.), but  in the sixties for every Sound of Music there were half a dozen or more critical and financial mega-turkeys.

Verdict: Compulsorily readable! ****.