Movie Blogs I Love, Part I

Professor Henry Hill Says: "Allow me to introduce to you the most fabulous of people and their most amazing blogs!"

I've had the pleasure of following several fine movie blogs in the months since I started Hollywood Dreamland, so I'd like to shamelessly gush over these fellow writers' efforts. They're all excellent writers from whom I've learned much. In no particular order of preference:

Princess Fire & Music- Hard to believe that Caitlin is only twenty. When I was her age, I was a total dope---in my case, some things never change. She, on the other hand, has great insight and appreciation of classic movies, even though she hasn't even been watching all that long. I just wish she'd post more!

Twenty-Four Frames- If I had more patience and analytical skills, Hollywood Dreamland would be more like John Greco's blog. We often have the same interests and coincidentally post them at the same time, like our recent Burt Lancaster entries.

Movie Viewing Girl- Some great discussions in her comments section. Yes, I'm envious...Wendymoon's blog has all-around great presentation and content.

The Movie Projector- I try not to read R.D. Finch's brilliant analyses of film because I feel daunted afterwards. Still, it's excellent reading and thought provoking.

Lolita's Classics- A new blog and it's catching on quickly. She's prolific, enthusiastic, and has a wide range of tastes.

Asleep in New York- Ginger Ingenue is a great writer and her love of Golden Age stalwarts is infectious! Dana Andrews, Cornel Wilde, Gene Tierney, etc. She also takes time to discuss the lesser-known actors of the era.

Classic Hollywood Nerd- Self-depracating title aside, Nicole's blog has made huge improvements, seemingly overnight. Her recent "How Does an Obsession begin?" caught on with many classic movie blogs.

Classic Film Oasis- An oasis, indeed! It's been a pleasure reading Genevieve's work. Classic movies are in good hands there.

Give me the Good old Days- El Brendel? Who's El Brendel? Check out Louie's blog and find out!

All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing!- I've learned more about the pre-Code era from Jonas Nordin's page than from anywhere else. Brilliant stuff.

Cinema Splendor- I like to think that every young person getting interested in classic movies will possess Sarah's love of the era. I know of no greater Natalie Wood fan!

Classic Montgomery- Carrie has a classy site dedicated to this distinguished and dapper 1930s leading man. Bob was overdue for such attention, now he's got it.

Hollywood Heyday- The early days of Hollywood. Day by day. Mesmerizing stuff.

Dear Old Hollywood- Robby Cress is the ghost who haunts old Hollywood's haunts...the lucky guy!

The Dino Lounge- aka Coolness is Timeless. Keith is a pally with a love for all things "Rat Pack", and he covers Dean Martin's movie career with expertise. Go check it out, swingers!

Silents and Talkies- Kate Gabrielle has touched on a novel idea, and is a smashing success! She does drawings of movie stars and they're really good! She's caught on like wildfire!

Dreaming in Black and White- Graciebird is another up and coming blogger with a great style and has a fine new blog, which I recommend without hesitation.

I'll no doubt discover more movie blogs by the time of the next "Movie Blogs I Love" entry, and if I left out anyone, you will be shamelessly plugged in Part II. If I don't, I'll have trouble:

"Trouble, oh we got trouble, Right here in River City! With a capital "T" that rhymes with "P" and that stands for Pool..."

In Memoriam: Maurice Jarre

Film composer Maurice Jarre died today. Best known for his Oscar-winning scores for the films Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and a Passage to India (1984). Jarre's compositions from those films became widely covered radio and Easy Listening standards. It's impossible to recall Doctor Zhivago without thinking of Jarre's Lara's Theme. His collaborations with director David Lean remain one of the great composer-director partnerships in movie history. Younger readers may remember his moving score for 1989's Dead Poet's Society, particularly the touching finale, with Keating's students paying tribute to their "fallen Captain", played by Robin Williams. Maurice Jarre was 84. Rest in peace, maestro.

Somewhere My Love: Jarre's 'Lara's Theme' is one of the great musical melodies of the 1960s.

Warner Brothers Archives

Just a reminder that Warner Brothers is opening its archives! Fans will be able to purchase DV-Rs of obscure, previously unavailable Warners' films (like 1934's Men in White) for $19.95 a title and directly from Warners. This is legit, not bootlegs. The movies are said to be remastered and in their correct aspect ratio. There are video samples for those who want to see if the quality is up to snuff. I haven't gone through the entire list, and more are being added, but it looks to be a good idea.

Philip Marlowe on Film: The Big Sleep (1978)

"What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on the top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was. But the old man didn't have to be. He could lie quiet in his canopied bed, with his bloodless hands folded on the sheet, waiting. His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur. His thoughts were as gray as ashes. And in a little while he too, like Rusty Regan, would be sleeping the big sleep."

~Philip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) in The Big Sleep~


In 1978, British director Michael Winner (Deathwish) filmed his version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel, The Big Sleep. Winner's take on the tale was set in the-then present day and had weary, smart-aleck private investigator Philip Marlowe based in England, the character having remained there after presumably serving in the U.S. army during World War II. Despite that, the film is largely faithful to the novel, but with typical 1970s gratuitous sex and violence to make it more palatable and less "old fashioned" to 1970s audiences. Though considering the censorship practices in the 1930s, those more unsavory elements probably would have been in the book had the times permitted it. I initially preferred this version over the much-lauded 1946 version (directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe) and found the change of location interesting. This was Mitchum's second crack at playing the knight in rumpled suit, having appeared in 1975's Farewell, My Lovely. The Big Sleep gets much criticism because A) It's directed by Michael Winner, who is largely reviled in Great Britain for being a Grade A Jerk and name-dropping snob, and sub-par filmmaker. and B) Chandler's romantic, ghostly, and morally decayed Los Angeles is replaced as the locale by soggy, scruddy-weather England.

The cast here is quite impressive, with James Stewart as invalid General Sternwood, and Sarah Miles and Candy Clark as his troubled daughters. The cast is rounded out by Richard Boone, Oliver Reed, and Joan Collins. Mitchum seems to be enjoying himself here, even if his weariness is less in evidence than is depicted in the novels. In fact, he's downright cheery, even when replicating sequences from the actual novel. Though I love Mitchum in about everything, even total dreck, his potrayal of Marlowe still isn't right for the character. He's in esteemed company, because no one has gotten the role down perfectly and the man who could play him to perfection never got the chance. Still, Winner's The Big Sleep touches most bases, with Mitchum's delightful voiceover, hardboiled delivery tempered with age and the typical labyrinth-style plotting that makes the detective genre so appealing. In fact, the script improves on one of Chandler's best lines:

"I met her [Carmen] in the hall, she tried to sit in my lap. I was standing up at the time."

Jerry Fielding's score is also right at home with its high-modernist, dissonant sound that fits this mystery so well. It punctuates and moves the action along quite nicely. It works particularly well in the film's opening, when Marlowe is driving up to the Sternwood estate with the camera positioned at the front of the detective's car.

But what works against this version is the decided lack of Golden Age glamour that made Film Noir so appealing. This is more of a gritty crime drama and while it succeeds on that level, the 1970s were definitely not the apex of glamour, and neither were its stars. The supporting cast tries gamely to measure up to the genre but even B-Stars like Audrey Totter and Marie Windsor could work wonders in the most trifling of material, whereas Sarah Miles, and Candy Clark are merely adequate in their respective roles. Maybe it's because I could accept an aging Mitchum as the lead, but have grown accustomed to the faces that populated so many Noir films in the 1940s and early fifties.

For a decade that was best-known for its attempts at realism, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep fails when it comes to that aspect of Chandler. The author's world has to be the sadly romantic Los Angeles circa 1940, just as Faulkner must be in the American South and McMurtry in the American West. I still like this take on the Chandler classic--a lot-- but the definitive version of any of the author's books has yet to be made.