I had never seen Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons and I'm still not sure whether it was a good idea. A 1942 black and white film that now seems quite dated. The scenes of the opening party were very well captured as various characters cut cross the camera. The lighting is exemplary, especially the shadows of the interiors. The camera work by the director is always interesting as it moves around the mansion. The dialogue is sharp and this is a solid period drama. Joseph Cotton is the best of the cast. But is this a case of style over substance? The adaptation of the book may have lost something in the script as it always felt awkward and strained. Maybe that is why it is one of Welles' least successful movies. David Thomson says "There is only one way to start - by saying this might have been the greatest of American pictures". But it was lost in the editing, Welles had disappeared and his version of 132 minutes ended at an 88 minute mess.
A Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder screenplay of Double Indemnity adapted from the book by James McCain. A stilted Fred MacMurray, a better Barbara Stanwyck and an absolutely marvellous Edward G Robinson. Partially narrated (poorly) by MacMurray's Walter Neff he is captivated by Stanwyck's femme fatale Phillis Dietrich. So much so he is drawn into her plan to bump off her husband for the insurance money. And what job does Neff have? An insurance salesman!!! So far so implausible. But Edward G, Walter's boss, works it out at the end, thank goodness. What holds the film together is the sharp dialogue, some of it so fast talking you have to concentrate to keep up. David Thomson in his book says "No-one any longer talks as fast as Stanwyck and MacMurray". Now the pay out is twice as much if the death is an accident. So the plot is fanciful if not stupid. What lets the film down for me is that you can feel absolutely zero sympathy for the two main characters. Phyliss is evil and Walter a fool. Here he is towards the end: "I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man."
Chinatown has been on my list from David Thomson's "Have You Seen....." for some time, so when it becomes the subject of the first chapter (The Gamble and the Lost Rights) in the same author's book "The Whole Equation", it had to be the next DVD I would watch. This chapter is all about the writer Robert Towne and the how, as was usual in those days, the screenplay became the property of Paramount Pictures when producer Robert Evans purchased it for 25,000 dollars. "Towne created it but Paramount owned it". Towne needed the money. But "the script for Chinatown .... perplexed it's best supporters." Then "scripts are not easily read, and possibly the richer the film, it is harder for outsiders to detect it's quality".
But along comes Roman Polanski, chosen to direct, and he and Towne convert it to a shooting script. But there is one huge difference of opinion, and that is the ending. Polanski wanted it changed to something much darker. "He believed that Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) should die". Towne was horrified and angry. But Evans backed Polanski and this is the crux about who owns the script. Evans and Paramount. David Thomson says "I suspect that Polanski's version is more effective and more successful as a movie". It was actually "an enormous success at the box office ...... nominated for eleven Oscars and won just one". For Robert Towne and the screenplay.
Now I have seen the ending, I have to side with Towne. It may have been fine for audiences in the 70's, but to my mind Evelyn should have got away and her shot at the bad Noah Cross would have him dead instead. But we will never see that. Paradoxically, Towne softened towards the ending when he won that Oscar. My guess (different to David Thomson's) is that his words were never really changed. Only the action at the end.
So what did I think of the movie? It was straight out of the seventies. Wise cracking Jack Nicholson as private eye Jake Gittes, and a beautiful femme fatale in Faye Dunaway's Evelyn. But it's all about Los Angeles and it's thirst for water that leads the wealthy business men (no, crooks) to set up a corrupt scheme to make millions. It's Evelyn's husband who end up dead in a reservoir that leads Gittes getting deeper and deeper into this conspiracy. LA has never looked so great, the light, the colour, the costumes, the sets, the cars, the mansions, it's all there. The story is fine, the dialogue typically of it's time. I'm sure it would have been fabulous to see on a big screen at the time. Now, not so much.
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