Under Warners contract (‘35 thru early ‘40s), Olivia de Havilland often felt little more than ornamental prop to Errol Flynn and others. (But what an ornament!) But this Paramount gig really gives her something to chew on*, resulting in her first Leading Actress noms: Oscar & NY Film Critics. Suggested by the real coming-to-America romance of Kurt & Ketti Frings, the Billy Wilder/Charles Brackett script, largely original in character & plot, picks up Roumanian gigolo/club dancer Charles Boyer (from Wilder’s own backstory?), as he tries to get out of a Mexican border town and permanently into the U.S.; something his fellow Euro-guests at a not-so-Grand Hotel are also aiming at. Enter a pair of lovely possibilities, Paulette Goddard, former dance partner who wedded (briefly) for better/for worse/mostly for a visa; and de Havilland’s marriagable schoolmarm, easy pickin’s for Continental wooing by a master with a cashmere voice & moist brown eyes you could dive into. With its exceptionally well constructed storyline and far less cynicism than the norm from this writing team, it’s also strongly directed by Wilder nemesis Mitchell Leisen, unafraid of its emotional content. (Leisen rarely gets the credit he occasionally deserved, especially from Wilder & Preston Sturges, who wrote his best stuff.) The film may be less sensational than some of Wilder’s tougher, better known titles, but it’s satisfying as any. A gem.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *At a low point, before he figures out a plan of action, Wilder had written a soliloquy for Boyer comparing his hopeless position to that of a cockroach he watches crawling up his hotel room wall. But Boyer ix-nayed the speech (‘Me, talk to a cockroach?’), and a furious Wilder supposedly tilted the rest of the pic toward de Havilland. (BTW, the speech never would have stayed in as Paramount was already having trouble getting grungy border town elements past Mexican authorities. (That’s why the excitable car mechanic is ‘mad’ Russian rather than excitable Mexican. A cockroach in a border hotel would never have made the cut.)
DOUBLE-BILL: Frustrated with Leisen’s handling of this film, and the previous Brackett/Wilder (ARISE, MY LOVE/’40), Wilder vowed to start directing his own work. (Brackett would produce.) But first they wrote BALL OF FIRE/’41 for Howard Hawks, with Wilder contractually insisting on set visitation rights to give himself a directing tutorial by watching Hawks work up close.
No comments:
Post a Comment