Orson Talks (and talks and talks and talks...)

I recently finished reading My Lunches with Orson, a book of conversations between the great Welles and Henry Jaglom, director of such films as "Queen of the Lot," (which I just added to my Netflix queue as it contains the endlessly adorable Noah Wyle). Welles was fond of recording himself for posterity, because there is a nearly identical book called This Is Orson Welles, which transcribes his conversations with Peter Bogdanovich. And while yes, this does make Welles seem incredibly vain, it's also entertaining as hell, because could that man tell a story! The anecdotes fall into one of three categories:

1. That can't possibly be true.
2. That might be true.
3. If that's not true, it should be.

You'll notice there is no "100% true" category, because I just can't get to that place when Welles is telling stories (especially about John Houseman -- meow!). Not that I am saying he's a big liar, although I think sometimes he was. But I think every story is embellished, whether a lot or a little.

I liked "My Lunches" a little bit more, in part because it takes us up to the very end of Welles' life; his last conversation with Jaglom was just a few days before Welles died. In reading them, I came away feeling like I learned something about Hollywood, a lot about film making, and not very much about Welles himself. Which is I'm sure just how he intended it to be.

"Life Between Takes"

Right now I'm reading a great book, Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes. I've long thought that she was an underrated and underappreciated star, and it's great to see a full-length book about her. It was written with the participation of her children, Ellen and Norman Powell, so it's full of all kinds of wonderful personal details. I highly recommend it.

Simpler times

Myrna Loy, in her autobiography Being and Becoming, wondered about the modern nostalgia for the war years, as evidenced in both movies, and things people had said to her over the years. Why would people look back fondly on such a time, she wondered, which was full of terrible fears and tragedies. I see her point; I suppose people who look back are seeing those years through rose colored glasses, thinking about (or imagining, if they weren’t there) the good things, and not the bad. Another thing that lends itself to happier memories is the fact that we know now how it turned out -- a happy ending. I love big band music, including WWII songs (and also movies), and one theme that I can see the appeal of is the unity; there were clear cut good guys and bad guys, and from what I can tell, not many people questioned that, especially after Pearl Harbor. Not that people shouldn’t question, but compare our country’s attitude towards that war with, say, Vietnam, or the current war in Iraq. I can’t imagine our country, or at least a good majority of it, throwing itself behind a war like they did in WWII ever again. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

My own nostalgia goes back a decade farther, so the 1930s, when most of my favorite movies were made. I won’t list them all here, because the list is too long, and if I haven’t talked about them already, I soon will. The atmosphere of those movies, besides being so beautiful and glamorous, is one of an age that was sometimes rich and easy, sometimes poor and difficult (but of course not too difficult), but always…simpler. At least that’s how it seems to me. And yes, of course I know that this is Hollywood, and everything is covered with a patina of happiness, whether it’s a slapstick comedy, or a tearjerker that doesn’t seem bright until the end. I do know that life is never so simple as a movie. Yet the innocence that the studios put into their movies must have existed to some extent out in the world, I choose to believe. After all, this was the era when no one locked their doors, or so my grandfather told me.

An example of that very thing is the beginning of the 1933 movie Hold Your Man, which I’ve talked about before. Ruby is in the bath when Eddie bursts into her apartment, on the run from the police (he is a penny ante con man, no one dangerous). Ruby shrieks when Eddie runs into the bathroom, and he immediately goes back out. She comes out in her (ostrich feather trimmed) robe and demands to know what’s going on. Eddie coaxes Ruby to help him, and he hides in her tub (under a layer of suds) eluding the police with her help. Flirtatious banter ensues, Ruby dries his pants in her oven (ha), and Eddie takes off when Ruby’s neighbor comes to call (for a cup of bathtub gin). After realizing he’s sneaked out the bathroom window, Ruby runs to her dresser and shakes her piggy bank, whistling in relief when she finds that Eddie didn’t steal the money.

Now imagine that scene today. Granted, we still have the "encounter a stranger who changes your life for the better" premise in movies, but more it’s more likely that Eddie would be some psycho featured on America’s Most Wanted, and Ruby would be a crack dealing hooker, or worse (rather than just the "good time gal" she is in the movie). Either Eddie would attack her and she’d end up as this week’s victim on Law & Order SVU, or she’d have a gun and blow the intruder’s brains out. Never in a million years would they fall for each other and get married for the sake of their baby and for love, which is how Ruby "holds her man." No, today she’d have to go on Maury to prove paternity, if she ever got the kid back from foster care, since he was born while she was in prison.

See what I mean about simpler times?

Let’s take another example: Mary Haines from The Women. Mary finds out her husband Stephen is having an affair (sex is somewhat implied but never addressed directly) with a girl at the perfume counter of a department store, Crystal. They have it out in the fitting room of a boutique after a fashion show. Mary’s pride is hurt, and she goes to Reno and divorces him, making some lovely new girlfriends in the process. Mary suffers no other hardships, presumably living quite well on her alimony. Two years pass, Mary find out her ex is unhappy in his new marriage and that Crystal has a new paramour. She exposes Crystal (with the help of her pals and the friendly neighborhood gossip columnist, played by Hedda Hopper), and ends the movie by rushing back into her husband’s arms. "Pride! That’s something a woman in love can’t afford," she says happily.

Again, set the movie today (and I’ve heard that Hollywood is remaking The Women, which is an appalling idea). Mary, Crystal and Stephen would all end up on Jerry Springer, taking off their clothes and throwing chairs at each other. Mary would be lucky to get child support from Stephen, would have to go back to work, and most likely suffer financial hardships. Or if they were celebrities, their divorce documents would be on The Smoking Gun and tabloid photographers would follow them everywhere. There would be an ugly custody battle, Mary’s friends would talk to the tabloids, and Little Mary would need years of therapy to recover.

I’m sure terrible and painful things like this did happen to people back then, but I don’t imagine them to be as bad as things can get today. Maybe that’s naïve of me, and maybe I am buying too much into the MGM version of the world at that time. Yet I hear stories about my grandparents and great-grandparents, and I think…no, it’s not entirely false. Things were not always hearts and flowers, but they also weren’t as ugly as some things get today, either.

This is not to say that I wish we could, or think we should, go back to those times. As the saying goes, it’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. If I had kidney failure like Jean Harlow did, I would want to live in a world where there are transplants and dialysis, not 1937 when my only option would be a slow, painful death. And I may love vintage phones, but I love the Internet more. Still, when the world around me becomes too ugly or scary or annoying to deal with, it’s lovely to know that I can put in a movie and go back to simpler times.

See how I wrapped up the essay with the title? Clever, eh? ;)

Essential? Hardly!

Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography by William Schoell and Lawrence Quirk

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

The main problem with this book can be summed up by quoting its own dust jacket: "Schoell and Quirk [the authors] move beyond the myths and misconceptions about Crawford by looking extensively at her film work, which in many respects -- as Crawford herself admitted -- was her life."

And that's it right there: as admirable an actress as Crawford may have been (and I am a huge fan of many her performances), her roles in films cannot provide much of a basis for a biography about her actual life. The line between fantasy and reality is, in this case, not only blurred, but erased almost completely.

I understand that Quirk was a fan and professed confidant of Crawford's (that fact is hard to miss, it's mentioned so many times) and his intentions seem to be to try his best to defend her honor and reveal his version of the truth about her. In doing so, however, Quirk makes several missteps, the most notable among them being his complete and utter of savaging of Christina Crawford because of her allegations of abuse against her mother. He says terrible things; for example, he expresses his opinion that Christina's near fatal stroke in 1981 was "Joan getting revenge beyond the grave." For someone who thinks Christina was wrong to say bad things about her mother, Quirk in turn says even worse things about Christina. In trying to dispute the charges she made in "Mommie Dearest," he protests way, way too much, and stoops even lower than the level he accuses her of sinking to.

Even other friends of Crawford's are criticized for not living up to his exacting standards. For example, in 1984 about 125 friends and family of Crawford took out a tribute ad in the "Daily Variety" to show their support in the wake of the Mommie book and movie. I thought it was a nice gesture, myself, but Quirk says that it was "put together for the wrong reasons by the wrong people." What really seems to be wrong is the fact that he wasn't included, and now he's pouting.

When I got to the "Notes" section at the end of the book, I thought, "okay, now we'll see where he got all this information." I was disappointed to discover that the majority of his sources are "Joan Crawford to Lawrence Quirk." Interviewing the subject of a biography is of course helpful when it's possible to do, but any writer worth his salt knows that it can't be your only, or even your primary, source. People have an impression of themselves they want to perpetuate; this needs to be balanced by opinions and information from others as well. In that regard, this book falls far short.

Tries to be avant garde, ends up just pretentious

Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles, by David Thomson

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I was so looking forward to reading it, but it turned out to be not at all what I expected. Perhaps I'm too used to a more conventional style of biography, but I found Rosebud hard to get through. As fascinating a person as Orson Welles was, parts of this book were still slow going. The author constantly interrupts the narrative with "dialogues" between himself and...himself? The publisher? An imaginary reader? It's hard to say, and seems to be used mostly to insert his own presence into the biography.

Other unnecessary bits include a whole chapter of this dialogue between the author and his imaginary friend as they watch the first few minutes of Citizen Kane, and another entire chapter about how the author became a fan of Welles. This is supposed to be a biography of Orson Welles, not a book about how David Thomson feels about Orson Welles, and how Thomson has taught Citizen Kane in his class for years, blah blah blah. Every time Welles' own story gets interesting, Thomson pops up to remind you he's there. Ideally, a reader shouldn't be bombarded with the presence of the author in a biography.

There is some interesting information, but the book as a whole is not put together well at all.