SITTING PRETTY: The Life and Times of CLIFTON WEBB

SITTING PRETTY: The Life and Times of CLIFTON WEBB. Clifton Webb with David L. Smith. University Press of Mississippi; 2011.

Clifton Webb wrote several chapters of his memoirs, but never completed the project. In this excellent book those chapters are published for the first time, with annotations by David L. Smith, who not only fleshes out [and occasionally corrects] Webb's memories but adds the biography that forms the bulk of the book [with comments from Webb's notes included]. Far from being an overnight sensation, Webb had a long career as a dancer and actor before he hit it big in motion pictures and became a most unlikely movie star in middle age after appearing in Laura. He created the character of Mr. Belvedere in Sitting Pretty and its two sequels, was Barbara Stanwyck's husband and gave one of his all-time best performances in Titanic, played an aging silent movie star turned professor in Dreamboat with Ginger Rogers, and did many other movies, some more memorable than others [but he was always excellent]. Whatever his private life [Smith doesn't make any revelations in that regard or uncover a single relationship the man might have had except with his mother, Mabelle], people have always assumed Webb was (stereotypically) gay, and Smith perhaps tries too hard to refute that -- and is, frankly, unconvincing. But for Pete's sake, this is the 21st century -- would Smith think less of Webb if he were gay?! That is the only real flaw in an otherwise noteworthy tome. Whether you're reading Webb's own words, or Smith's, the actor comes across as a combination of a charming, urbane, sophisticated and cultured man and a precious, occasionally snooty "old queen," but in any case makes a witty and welcome companion for a couple of hours of reading pleasure.

Verdict: Gives Webb his due as an actor and entertainer. ***1/2.

TITANIC (1953)

TITANIC (1953). Director: Jean Negulesco.

NOTE: This review reveals various plot turns in the film.

The original Titanic of 1953 has always been considered inferior to the British A Night to Remember, but a fresh look at videos of both features -- plus the new 1997 Hollywood version -- proves it actually to be the best and most emotionally wrenching of all three versions. The main characters are played -- and played superbly -- by Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb (in what has to be one of his finest performances). They are a married couple on the verge of divorcing, who rediscover their love for each other, unfortunately, when it's far too late. Stanwyck has revealed that Webb is not the biological father of his son, and he shuns the boy, until the moving conclusion reunites them on the deck of the ship. "I have been proud of you since the moment you were born," Webb tells the young man and holds him close just before the ship goes down. Devastated, Stanwyck watches the sinking from one of the lifeboats. The victims are allowed their dignity; it's left to the imagination what their final moments are like. Stanwyck's daughter (a lovely Audrey Dalton) is also in the lifeboat, but the boyfriend she's met on the ship (Robert Wagner) doesn't make it. (This secondary love story between an upper crust girl and more rough-hewn boy became the main story line of the 1997 remake.) Because we have come to know and like these people, their deaths -- and the crushing loss their survivors feel -- make the film's conclusion almost unbearably moving. The screenplay won a well-deserved Oscar, and Jean Negulesco's direction is assured and solid.

Verdict: Strong and poignant. ***1/2.

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (1958). Roy Ward Baker.

A Night to Remember takes a more detached, clinical view of the Titanic tragedy than other cinematic versions, and while there are vignettes of various characters, we never get to know any of them very well. There is much more detail concerning the final fates of the people left aboard the ship -- scrabbling frantically as the ship begins to tilt, jumping into the frigid water, and so on -- and we see the squabbling on some of the lifeboats as people argue as to whether or not they should go back to pick up survivors. Certain moments are unsparing, such as when a pair of newlyweds are apparently crushed by the falling smokestack. But while the final scenes in Remember are harrowing and horrifying -- and you can't help but be moved by them -- they lack the human drama, and therefore, the emotional intensity, of the Webb/Stanwyck Titanic. Furthermore, the actor who plays the ship's designer essays it in a stoic, completely unreal manner, and certain scenes, such as Isadore Strauss and his wife deciding to stay on the ship together, lack the impact of their counterparts in the original.

Verdict: Enough to make you take a plane. **1/2.

TITANIC (1997)

TITANIC (1997). Director: James Cameron.

James Cameron's Titanic sort of combines the first two films about the disaster (Titanic; A Night to Remember), but doesn't add a blessed thing to them except even more harrowing detail of the final moments, and eye-popping special effects work. There is little suspense or atmosphere and the long love story is never that compelling because these are not people whose relationship has a lengthy, interesting history (as is the case with Webb and Stanwyck in the original), and -- let's face it -- Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are not in the same talent league as the first picture's stars. (And, to be honest, Gloria Stuart is no Katharine Hepburn.) In the final moments they never register the kind of terror they would have been feeling, only the alarm they probably experienced being hung up on whatever wobbly device the FX department cobbled together for the sequence. The effects are marvelous, but a picture about the Titanic tragedy is not supposed to be The Poseidon Adventure -- "Wow! Watch The Ship Flip Over And People Die!" -- but a moving human document. The problem isn't just the screenplay, but that director Cameron, a very capable action/FX helmsman, is not the kind of filmic genius who could have turned this picture into a masterpiece. He muffs a lot of sequences, such as when the ship's officer shoots at the crowd and then commits suicide -- imagine what Jean Negulesco could have done with that! And why did he allow Winslet and other actors to wade around through supposedly frigid water without reacting to it (until DiCaprio finally says something about it in a later scene.) Titanic certainly isn't a bad film, and it does hold the attention for more than three hours, but considering that forty years have gone by since the last Titanic movie, you would think we'd have something that improves upon its predecessors in more than just special effects (which were actually perfectly good in the earlier pictures). On that horrible night in 1912, 1500 people died terrifying deaths in what must have seemed to them like Hell on Earth. It's doubly awful that they seem to have died just so James Cameron could declare himself "King of the World" and an utterly mediocre singer like Celine Dion could have herself a hit record.

Verdict: One can only imagine what the victims would think of all this "Titanic" exploitation. **1/2.