Huston Develops Th Black Film
Aunt Edna and London Tb
A Report on New Plays in Great Brit
(Continued from Page 9)
fThen he rade three reputedly
fine -documentaries for. the War
Department-including Battle of
San Pietro, "perhaps the finest
film to come out of World War
H11 (to be shown by Gothic Film
Society next month).
After the war he returned to
the gangland milieu with two
screen plays for other directos-
Three Strangers, about fortune
seekers Greenstreet and Lorre
which ends, as usual, ironically,
and The Killers (recently remade
for television). The latter film, a-
cording to its director Robert Si-
odmak was adapted by Huston
anonymously-he was then under
contract to another studio-from
Hemingway's short story, and fur-
thermore, is the only film version
of that writer's works which Hem-
ingway himself likes.
Huston used the original story
only for the hard-boiled opening
sequences in the lunch stand, then
expanded the story via flashbacks
to explain the characters and the
situation. The milieu-mobsters.
an ex-boxer, and a payroll robbery
--was right in Huston's line,
ANOTHER crime film, this time
directed by Huston, wasMax-
well Anderson's Key Largo ('48).
It lacks the movement necessary
to make it a great picture, nor, in
spite of the talkiness of the filmed
stage play, does it provide, ade-
quate motivation for the ecynical
ex-G.I. Bogart or the deported
mobster E. G. Robinson.
It has some good moments, such
as Bogart losing his nerve in the
face of a gun duel proposed by the
snarling Robinson, later to re-
gain it in a tense final gun battle
on shipboard (borrowed from
Hemingway's To Have and Have
Not). This movie, like Across the
Pacific, was produced by Jerry
Wald for Warners, -and much of
the blame for its relative failure
can be laid at his doorstep. Hus-
ton was so angry after Wald had
"all the good speeches cut out of
it" that he quit Warners to work
independently and for other stu-
dios. (It might be noted here that
Wald is now turning out glossy
trash like No Down Payment and
Best of Everything).
Some years later Huston was to
have difficulty in working with an-
other major producer, David Selz-
nick, on the '57 remake of Fare-
well to Arms, and he finally walked
out just before the start of pro-
duction because of a clash of two
strong personalities.
ONE PRODUCER, on the other
hand, who has backed some of
Huston's best pictures is Henry
Blanke. He gave Huston his first
opportunity with the Falcon, then
produced another of his master-
pieces, Sierra Madre, in '47. Hus-
ton returned to the Mexico of his
youthful cavalry experience and to
mountainous terrain similar to
that of High Sierra to create a
rugged outdoor drama called by
Time Magazine one of the best
things Hollywood has done since
it learned to talk . . . the movie
can take a place, without blush-
ing, among "the best ever made."
their preparation for the jewel
robbery, is occupied by a long,
detailed portrayal of the robbery
itself, and this sequence "has fre-
quently been imitated but never
equalled." (Archer).
IN MANY respects Jungle is the
best of the black film cycle.
Its character painting is as bril-
liant as the Falcon's, but includes
several more excellent cameos,
even Marilyn Monroe in a small
role. Sam Jeffe's unforgettable de-
piction of the master brain, Erwin
"Doct' Reidenschneider, won him
the acting award at a European
festival. No less admirable are the
rest of the cast, including Jean
Htgen's gun moll, . Marc Law-
rence's nervous bookie, and James
Whitmore's sullen lookout.
A few critics have accused the
director of streotyping some of
the characters, but the overall l
beautiful execution, called by
Wellek and Warren "complexity
and coherence," redeems any,
possible minor faults in that line.
After this peak Huston's devel-
opment levelled off with an occa-
sional slip downhill. His next film,
Red Badge of Courage, was per-
hapes over-arty and difficult toa
follow, with the result that MGM
chopped it down to 70 minutes,.
and its collapse at the box office
saddled Huston with the reputa-
tion of bein'g a poor commercial
director.
By JOHN DIXON HUNT
IT TIS A long time since Kenneth
Tynan first took his Aunt Edna
to the London theatre. The occa-
sion was "Separate Tables" by
Terrence Rattigan and the fol-
lowing Sunday marked Mr.
Tynan's debut as dramatic critic
in The Observer, his review taking
the form of a dialogue between
his aunt and himself.
Auntie has now become a leg-
endary spectre, stalking the stalls
of West End theatres on opening
nights and the columns of the
critics in the next editions.
Edna is easily pleased and that
does not satisfy Mr. Tynan. After
the mad rush, of her congenially
dull day she likes to luxuriate in
her seventeen-and-sixpenny stall,
while over the footlights exces-
sively competent or even brilliant
actors waste their talents on plays
about people just like Aunt Edna.
Slightly unusual winds blow in
act one, by act two the com-
plaisant pond of daily incident
has ripples upon it, and after bar
sales boom in 'the second inter-
mission act three puts all to rights
as was to be expected.
Plots, however, offer wide va-
riety: teen-age girl burglar, play-
ed by Anna Massey, is found in
bachelor's apartment: American!
wife of Scottish laird refuses to3
cooperate over producing an heir
after six attempts which only re-
sulted in umanted daughters;
wife takes over husband's incom-
petently managed dried fruit busi-
ness and profits soar.
trap" rolls into its eighth year
and her other, "The Unexpected
Guest," is not doing so badly
either.
This insistent and ubiquitous
'round of conventional farce, com-
edy and drama is made palatable
by uniquely high standards of act-
ing. This can even at times en-
tirely disguise the aridity of script
and plot. "The Grass is Greener"
-a terribly stately home opened
to the public and along comes an
urbane American and tries to make
pff with the countess and would
have succeeded hadn't Earls been
born with counter-cunning and
stiff upper-lips-all that is made
bearable and admittedly funny by
the performances of Hugh Wil-
liams, Celia Johnson and Joan
Greenwood; the latter's kittenishly
sexy dive, head first, into an arm
chair is one of the few delights of
the season.
Whenever the casts of such
plays contain the talent and ex-
perience that we associate with
actors like Miss Greenwood, Sir
Ralph Richardson or Dame Sybil
Thorndike then an evening at the
theatre assumes some importance
and interest. And perhaps, as The
Observer said of Kay Hammond's
latest show, 'it wouldn't be fair to
expect a play as well.'
T HERE ARE, however, a few
theatres where it is possible
to expect both and to these Aunt
Edna rarely goes with comfortable
enjoyment They are not usually
Mob bYDick
"Heaven Knows Mr. Allison" is one of the more recent films that
John Huston directed.
Here Huston broke away fromt
the urban underworld settings of
his previous films while retaining
and even enriching the character-
ization of the same small motley
group of greedy adventurers (Bo-
gart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt,
Bruce Bennett, Alfonso Bedoya,
Barton Maclane) who operate
outside the law.
Sierra Madre, although unsuc-
cessful financially, took three Os-
cars (Huston's direction and adap-
tation of B. Traven's novel, and
his father Walter's supporting
acting). A recurring Huston theme,
final ironic failure after the prize
is gained, appears again as the
prospectors are cheated by fate
of their fortune in gold dust. The
closing device of the treasure
blowing away in the wind later
was utilized by Stanley Kubrick
in The Killing ('56).
The musical score for the film,
was another in the line of Max
Steiner's fine compositions dating
back to The Informer and Gone
with the Wind.
JOHN HUSTON followed with
one of least known works, We
Were Strangers ('49). Produced
independently,. it had a cast en-
tirely different from Warners' old
warhorses-John Garfield, Jenni-
fer Jones, Pedro Armendariz-and
dealt with what should be a very
contemporary topic, the Cuban
revolution of 1933.
In addition, its main theme
was the dispute over the moral
justification of armed revolution
and killing-a very Dostoyevsky-
like theme. Since it is too old to
be making the rounds of the
neighborhood theaters, and too
new for television, it remains for
some film society to bring back
what should be an intriguing mo-
tion picture.
In 1950 Huston took another
W. R. Burnett novel, The Asphalt
Jungle, and fashioned it into what
Eugene Archer considers his "most
distinguished achievement . .
an almost perfect example of a
minor genre . . . the work of a
director at his technical peak and
at the height of his-intellectual in-
volvement with contemporary so-
ciety and the conventions of his
modern environment."
This marked the climax of Hus-
ton's American period and also of
the genre of the crime film based
on a big theft. The central por-
tion of Jungle, after introduction
of the members of the gang and
HE THEN decided to follow his
own precedent of Sierra Mad-
re and left the U.S., since which
time ('51) he has become an "in-
ternational" director, making films;
in Africa (African Queen, Roots of
Heaven), France ( Moulin Rouge),!
Italy (Beat the Devil). even Japan
(Barbarian and the Geisha). The
last two are considered to be his
weakest productions since the war,
although some of his international
pictures have retained all the pic-
torial genius or the story-telling
mastery of his earlier period.
Unfortunately, however, these
have not ordinarily been reunited
in the same film-e.g., on the one
hand, the loosely plotted but
beautiful Moby Dick, or on the
other, the excellently directed and
acted African Queen.
The major defect of Huston's
international period has been the
loss of contact with the source of
his earlier inspiration, American
real life.
Huston is certainly not alone in
this tendency ,to make the BIG
expensive spectacle with interna-
tional casts and excessive length.
Probably the worst case of this
kind among veteran U.S. direc-
tors is that of the once great King
Vidor, who recently inflicted Solo-
mon and Sheba on film audierfees.
Huston has given up his old re-
liable actors and his concentration
on t he dramatically satisfying,
well-knit plots to make large
scale, multimillion dollar foreign
epics.
Nevertheless he has gained not
a little in the transition, including
the avoidance of "type-casting"
of himself in certain genres. He
has had an opportunity to work
with widely divergent performer'
(e.g., Robert Mitchum, Jose Fer-
rer), andhas enjoyed consider-
able independence in filming some
of his later works.
WHAT ABOUT the future? It
bears much promise, which
can be confirmed only after re-
lease of the two pictures on which
he is now working: The Unfor-
given,. shot in MexicQ again, for
Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, with Burt.
Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, and
Audie Murphy, and The Misfits
by Arthur Miller, starring that
playwright's wife and Clark Gable.
Huston, gained significance in
the American cinema during his
first decade. Either as screenwrit-
er or director (or both), John Hus-
ton worked on seven of the moreA
important pictures in the black1
genre, including what may be the1
first High Sierra, the most influ- i
ential Maltese Falcon, and the
cycls e's ulmination Asphalt
Jungle.
The influence of his probable
masterpiece, Jungle is detectable
in later films of carefully planned
land executed robberies like Das-
sin's Rififi, Kubrick's The Killing,
and Robert Wise's Odds ,Against
Tomorrow. The forthcoming Scv-
en Thieves (British) will most
Ilikely follow in the same line.
The concentrated characteriza -
tion in depth of the criminal band,
first exhibited in the Falcon, be-
came a cardinal trait of the black
any good picture should, they re-
flect life in all its various shades."
the basic elements of life and as
genre, and the ambiguous, hard-
boiled good badman, the Bogart.
typl, has become the inevitable
trademark of black films. Later
directors took up the series and
added something of their own to
it such as Dassin's refined violence
in Brute Force.
OF ALL the directors who fol-
lowed Huston in the cycle,
Howard Hawks (To Have and
Have Not, The Big Sleep) seems
closest to Huston's own tongue-in-
cheek approach of the Falcon,
never taking the characters and
involved plot too seriously.
For all its negative qualities,
the American black film has been
a substantial national contribu-
tion to world cinema art (so much
so that the French have written
a full-length book about it).
Siodmak states the case simply:
"These pictures contain big emo-
tions: love, hate, jealousy and
more often than not, cold-blood-
ed murder. In fact they contain
the basic elements of life and as
any good picture should. they re-
flect life in all its various shades."
IMusical Revues
Continued from Preceding Page
ville production partakes of the
qualities of the revue, is evidence
that the Amperican public still
craves the variety which the revue
off ers.
THE MIGHTY spectaculars of
Florenz Ziegfeld have vanished;
Radio City Music Hall is the last
surviving outpost of spectacle on
the American popular musical
stage. Television has absorbed the
revue into its format.
Television needs the review. And
so does the American public. Al-
though musical comedy provides
the unity and coherence it desires
in a musical production, the revue
provides the variety, spectacle, and
consequent sense of expectation
which it finds equally stimulatinig.
CHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE
John Dixon Hunt, an in-
structor in the English de-
partment, reports on recent
trends in the London theatre.
in ~ m
Anin the theatre-land of the West
UNT EDNA might find a more End, and if you wish to go you
serious theme in something need patience, fortitude, and a
like "Flowering Cherry," where Sir subway and bus map to get you
Ralph Richardson gave a superb there in time for the curtain.
performance as the insurance The Theatre Workshop performs
agent, one of life's failures who under Joan Littlewood's dynamic{
takes refuge in the dream of the direction at the Theatre Royal,
fruit farm he will one day acquire. Stratford, in East London. The
Thrillers can always be found for English Stage Company, John Os-
Auntie to take her elder nephews borne's Alma Mater, is to be found
and nieces to (except Mr. Tynan): at the Royal Court, Sloane Square.
Agatha Christie's "The Mouse- The Arts Theatre Club is nearer
though it was the Elizabethan
type of stage. But we first had a
musical adaptation of Fielding's K
"Rape, Rape, Rape" ("Lock Up
Your Daughters") for which it
was impossible to get seats and
now "Treasure Island" which, ru-
mour has it, is booked up until
1962.
BUT BERNARD MILE'S predica-
ment is symtomatic. An estab-
lished theatre, let alone an en-
tirely new venture like the Mer-
maid, ihust provide what the
majority of theatre-goers, the Aunt
Ednas, want, if it is to survive the
(Concluded on Page 12)
One-Way Pen
I ALBERT M
r~a
Paintings and .
Ceramics by Pot,
Forsythe (
. 201 NICKELs ARCADE -
'S ______________ _______________________
ORIGINAL JEWELRY
by LAKE
-RTS/RFTS
- IMPORTED
New Creativity Quest
- JADE
-- IVORY
- EBONY
-ONLY FOR
THOSE SEEKING
THE UNUSUAL
in. We all had high hopes of the
Mermaid Theatre, Bernard Miles's!
brainchild, away among the
cranes and warehouses of Puddle
Dock; here at last was a chancer
of theatre in the city again, the I
first time since Shakespeare, even
the
natural shoulder suit
with m atching. vest
for men who require the latest correct
Ivy styling. Ovr "Tulane" and "Authen-
tic" models area made to fit wide-shoul-
dered, narrow-hipped men without ex-
tensive altering.
Shown in neat herringbones
and hapsacking
$59.50 to $69.50
STATE STRE.ET AND L IBERTY
m
(Continued from Page 8)
cause of the free social climate.
One only can guess if anything
will' be left, after today's plays,
with which future dramatists will
be able to shock their audiences
or will there be an audience revolt.
Such a revolt occurred when the
restoration theatre became too
bawdy and didactic plays filled
with the sentimental became the
fashion.
SOPHOCLES' Oedipus with its
tasteful handling of incest,
suicide, and self mutilation should
serve for contemporary play-
wrights as the example of how
unpleasant things can be pre-
sented in an artistically accept-
able manner. Sophocle's secret was
his unerring use of good taste in
the tragedy.
Although every dramatist can't
reach the Greek tragedian's levell
of artistry, he can follow the mas-
ter's example of not using sensa-
tional elements in and for them-
selves, but rather for the sake of
story and mood.
The future of this trend is spec-
ulative. But fair warning should
come from remembrance of the
Roman destruction of the Greek
drama by over-concentration on
its sensational aspects. It took cen-
turies for drama to recover from
what Rome did to it.
- CONTEMPORARY
JEWELRY
LfIHG DGESJIfS
209 S. STATE ST.
(Below Marschall's Bookstore)
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1960