Barb Lien-Cooper
Movie Reviews: The Heiress/Arthur
Barb Lien-Cooper
The Heiress (1949)
Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift
I'm really fortunate to have a husband who will watch classic Hollywood "women's pictures" with me.
Understand, I'm not talking about your standard romances, here. Your Sleepless in Seattle type films, not to mention, most Merchant/Ivory, your Jane Austin adaptations are not my cup of tea in the least. Instead, the type of "women's films" I'm talking about are the angst-y ones filled with human psychology---The Letter, Now Voyager, Dark Victory, Clash By Night, The Damned Don't Cry, All This and Heaven Too, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Sudden Fear, and so forth. You know, the type of pictures that are actually the female second cousin twice removed from the more traditionally male genre of film noir. It's not coincidental that some of the best female stars of these angst-fests are also associated with some of the best film noirs. Nor is it one that some of the more hardboiled directors of our better noir films (Billy Wilder, William Wyler) also directed some of the better Hollywood women's pictures. Both genres have that absolute need to act as if the most basic and natural of human emotions (love, lust, fear, anger, shame) are matters worth dying for, killing for, and otherwise destroying your life for. Hyping up feelings to a point of almost operatic tragedy compels the action in both noir and women's pictures of the classic Hollywood era.
I don't show my husband these Hollywood "weepies" because I'm somehow just big on crying my eyes out for no good reason. Instead, I show them to him because we're both writers. These films have craft, which is something that a writer can only really learn by watching, reading, and experiencing good craft at every possible opportunity. These films have pacing, dialog that cuts to the heart of the matter with every line, great plots, and characterization.
The characterization part of matters is especially important for wanna-be writers to experience. A lot of geek culture fans just can't get into these films because they're not exactly action-adventure oriented. The action in such films, such as it is, comes from back stories of the characters, the competing desires and feelings of the protagonists, the clash of one person's needs smashing against those of another. Characterization propels and compels action in many of the best crafted works of art, not vice versa. When you really analyze, say, comic book movies, you can see how this statement is true.
With our best comic book movies, action proceeds from the characters' needs and wants. Peter Parker is a nerd who'd like not to be one. Logan (Wolverine) is a loner who really doesn't want to be a loner any more. Rogue is a character who just wants to share a bit of fun with a guy she loves, only to find that a glitch in her DNA means no touching, no how. We don't get the big action in these films until the characterization is firmly set up. With lesser comic book movies, action comes first, then we either get a perfunctory attempt at back story and characterization or none at all.
As an interesting side note, a friend once told me that creator of the version of X-Men that still sticks with us today---Chris Claremont---actually got his start working for soap operas. While some of Clairemont's dialog hasn't aged well, I might venture that one of the reasons that X-Men is so welled loved is that a lot of the action honestly came from characters' wants and needs bumping heads against each other. Chracterization often dictates action, even in the most mainstream of comic books. Xavier's ruined friendship with Magneto, just to take an example, has partly fueled the action of that book for years.
In short, showing my husband stories based on human psychology is a good primer for helping him think about how what's inside a character makes action happen.
Which, after a ton of preliminary talk, leads us to The Heiress. Now, at first glance, The Heiress isn't my type of animal. Costume dramas based on Henry James novels leave me ice cold (except, of course, for those based on The Turn of the Screw) usually leave me cold. I've even read Washington Square, the novel The Heiress is based on, and it did nothing for me. It was just a low-key little novel about a plain girl who loved and lost a bit of a con man boyfriend. No comeuppance at the end of any sort, except to realize that the handsome young con man had grown into a less than compelling middle aged guy. Just a little parable about life going on.
The Heiress is not like that at all. Instead, the Heiress is all about the emotional s and m that some of the more desperate people in the world put themselves through just to be loved. It is almost a form of the theatre of cruelty. In the end, no one is saved, no one is loved, and everyone sort of ends up alone and somewhat miserable. And yet, in the end, rather than feeling sorry for the characters' lack of connection, you feel a rather sick sense of triumph for a title character who finally settled accounts as thoroughly as a cleaner with a gun going up against the Yakusa. There is almost that same feeling of "Take that, you mofo" as the last scene unfolds.
The set up: the usually lovely Olivia de Havilland (under a hunk of make up to plainify her features) plays Catherine, a clumsy, homely spinster living in the household of a tyrannical father (an excellently understated Ralph Richardson). The father hates Catherine because she isn't as lovely or accomplished as Catherine's mother, who died in childbirth. Into this almost Barretts of Wimpole Street situation comes young Morris Townsend (a young but still experienced Montgomery Clift). Love blooms, supposedly. Behind beauty and a voice over ripe with sincerity sensitivity is a worm of a man, most likely out for her fortune.
Without giving away too much, let's say by the end of this film, the worm turns. Or, more like, the worm returns to the fisher, only to get caught on the hook it avoided before.
In short, this is a movie about betrayal. In fact, it's probably the best movie about betrayal you're ever going to see.
The actors, in a way, are lucky, as the script for the film gives them a lot of emotional scenery to work with. In the hands of lesser actors, said scenery wouldn't be worked with. Instead, it would be chewed like a stick of Juicy Fruit. The sheer restraint of the actors leads to a just boiling under the surface subtly that feels a solder holding the pin of a hand grenade, just waiting for the time to pull the darned thing and rattle the world around him.
The acting is also interesting to note because the three principles all come from distinct acting backgrounds. Olivia de Havilland is as fine and as gracious an actress as Hollywood ever produced. She's one of those actors who makes it all look effortless. Yet, with her role as Catherine in The Heiress, you can just see the intelligence of the reading of the lines. From the eyes to the voice to the body postures, it's a very reasoned performance. Sir Ralph Richardson as Catherine's father shows us why he was, along with Lawrence Olivier, considered to be one of the brightest lights of the British stage. His performance is a classical one, in its way. But, it's the moments he lets the mask down and lets the character's fears of abandonment really show through that you understand why the performance was so measured to begin with. You'd almost feel sorry for the old man, if he hadn't been a bastard up to that point. Montgomery Clift was one of the first of what was then thought of as the "new Hollywood actor" or the "method" actor. For awhile it was a tie between Clift and Brando as to who could really bare their soul more onscreen. Because Clift is an actor who holds so little back, he makes for a piss-poor con man. Then again, one of the things that makes us not entirely despise Morris's words and actions is how much of a con man he even is to himself. Only when he can actually believe his lies can he sell them to other people. Unfortunately for him, the last desperate lie he tells himself---that Catherine can forgive him and love him for his misdeeds---only works on those with romantic hearts. Suffice to say, Catherine, after being hurt and humiliated by him in the past, no longer has what anyone would think of as a romantic heart.
Now, you'd think that three actors coming from different acting traditions couldn't meld. Yet, they do. The reason why they do, I think, has to do with how thoroughly they understand the characters' motivations. The sheer mental and emotional intelligence these actors give their performances must, in great part, have happened because William Wyler's a director who gets his characters and his actors. While not a fancy auteur like a Hitchcock or a Welles, Wyler knows his way around a camera and the myriad ways to get a-one performances out of his actors.
That's a lot of words to say something very simple: I love this film.
I asked my husband what he thought of The Heiress and Park said, "She'd make a great super-villain."
Yeah, Catherine really would, I thought. We could use more super-villains who had motivations so emotionally comprehensible that when they turn evil, the audience fully understands.
That's one of the reasons I love my guy so much---he gets why I show him these darned movies in the first place.
Arthur (1981)
Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli, Sir John Gielgud
Arthur is one of those films that you usually see on television in your college dorm on late afternoons. You're tired and feeling lazy and eating something that's terrible for you, lying in bed, and can't be bothered to change the channel. It's the type of film that's shown way, way too often on cable, true, but it's also one that's hard to turn away from, even you've seen it so often, you can quote the lines. As to why, I guess it's just because it's a comfortable, companionable old thing, like a pet hound dog chewing at an old shoe (to mix metaphors). Even after you've seen the film more times than this small treasure deserves to be seen, there's still an affection for it that can't be denied.
Since we've probably all seen it already, I feel funny about talking about the plot. But, here goes nothing. Dudley Moore, in the sweetest chewing up furniture, over the top performance on record plays Arthur Bach, a drunken, millionaire playboy. His only friend is his butler/father figure, played to perfection by John Gielgud. Arthur intends to be a man-child all of his days. But then he falls in love with a working class girl, played in a strictly business if your business is being spritely manner by Liza Minnelli. The power of love and the potential of loss force Arthur to grow up before the cute drunk act gets on our collective nerves, just in time for the perfunctory happy ending. Blue skies shining on us, roll the credits.
As you can tell, the plot of this film is not its strongest point. It's just your watered down Frank Capra screwball comedy plot transported from 1935 to 1981 or so. As such, the pace is more like a sheep gamboling through a field than the breakneck pace of a true screwball. And yet, and yet...
Three things are what make Arthur so darned likeable. First, the dialog sparkles as much as the actual plot lumbers about. Even after you've heard them too many times to laugh, the lines are still clever and witty enough to raise a smile. Secondly, like Tootsie, its second cousin under the skin, Arthur is funny, touching, romantic---and totally commercial. Yes, they're both mainstream, they're both hits, but they're also movies that just make you feel like you've actually been to a movie at the end. Yes, in a way, they're both just "product", but at least its product that you feel satisfied with when all is said and done. You honestly feel you got as much out of these insubstantial but still filling little flights of fancy as you put into watching them.
Finally, Arthur wears well because the actors have such chemistry. They're all eager to please, as well as eager to make sure we the audience are included in on the fun. With the exception of the original Bedazzled (a truly great film, especially compared with the still-okay Brendan Fraser version), Arthur is the only film Dudley Moore made that really has an ounce of charm in it. Usually, in Dudley Moore films, he has this almost neurotic need to "sell" the movie, as if he doesn't believe in the films' worth (and, granted, most of Dudley's films were pretty worthless). He's usually just screaming out for us to love him and laugh with him. Instead, we usually just feel uncomfortable with a man who wants our attention too much. But, with Arthur, there is an ease in the performance that really does show what a really good comedic actor Moore was, given good material. Moore doesn't have to sell us on Arthur's lovability because it shows through in every frame.
Of course, it helps to have Sir John Gielgud underplaying his role as butler with such dignity and grace. Then again, he is the type who could practically read the phone book and get nominated for some award or another. Those crisp, round tones, you know. Sadly, he passed away several years back. Thinking on that voice right now, I have to say, I really miss it.
Rounding out this trio is Liza Minnelli. Now, I'm not totally sure what to say about her performance. It's harder to separate Liza the star from Liza the actress than with the other two players. She has her own sort of bigger than life quality that makes it difficult to judge whether she has acting talent or not. And, honestly, if Arthur himself weren't middle-aged, I'd say that Liza's part might have been better with a younger woman playing it. Then again, the role desperately needed a wisecracker of the old Hollywood school, so I can honestly say that I can't think of another actress of her era who could get that sort of lower class constantly chewing gum and smarting off quality to her voice. And she can hold her own against Gielgud (no mean task) and radiate a sense of fun, goofy romance with Moore himself. So, I guess it's okay to say Liza acquits herself quite nicely.
In a way, I don't know why I'm reviewing an old film that was a big hit and has been on television a lot and a lot of people have seen. I guess it's just because, as long as there's cable television and college kids who like to sleep in on weekends when they can, there's going to be a play in the world for Arthur.
