The Everlasting Imprint of Conrad Veidt

Berlin-born Conrad Veidt packed nearly 120 film roles into his all too brief lifetime, but it was the last film released before his death that guaranteed him a special brand of eternal life, the “filmmortality,” or film immortality, actors acquire when they’ve played a key role in a film that becomes a timeless classic. For Veidt the film was Casablanca (1942) and the role was cold-as-marble Major Heinrich Strasser, Nazi commanding officer. The film opened wide in the US on the day after Veidt’s 50^th birthday, and he lived long enough to see it achieve its early success. He was gone by the time Casablanca was nominated for eight Oscars and went on to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Veidt had enjoyed making the film but could not have imagined that the movie Warner Bros. had initially feared would fail would one day be universally beloved and frequently touted as the best studio film of Hollywood’s classic era.

Marcel Dalio: What a (French) Character!

50 YEARS OF CHARACTER ROLES IN AMERICAN AND FRENCH CLASSICS

I was watching Josef von Sternberg’s flamboyantly decadent noir The Shanghai Gesture (1941) a while ago. Taking in the dense and elaborate décor, sinister atmosphere and louche characters the maestro whipped together for this wickedly twisted cinematic excursion, I marveled that the censors had left so much intact. The setting is a palatial Shanghai gaming house, a den of iniquity if there ever was one, with vice of every kind lurking in its shadowy nooks.

Movie Music, the Communicating Link

Bernard Herrmann, likely the most celebrated of classic era film composers today, who wrote the scores  for Citizen Kane, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and Taxi Driver among countless others, once said of the function of the film score:

Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock

“I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety, or misery. It can propel narrative swiftly forward or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry.”

This is surely true of Herrmann’s own remarkable work for Welles, Hitchcock, Scorsese and others, as it is of the contributions of Max Steiner to films like Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, The Letter and Now, Voyager and David Raksin’s work on such films as Laura and The Bad and the Beautiful. Herrmann’s contention has been borne out over the decades through scores by the likes of Franz Waxman, Miklos Rozsa and all of Hollywood’s “big five” Golden Age composers. Beginning with Jaws and Star Wars, the prodigious work of John Williams continues to prove Herrmann’s point as do the scores of modern era film composers such as Alexandre Desplat for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

CASABLANCA at 75, Let the Celebrations Continue

Casablanca - winner of Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay (Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch) Oscars and possibly the film from Hollywood’s golden era that has aged better than any other “as time goes by” - turns 75 this year. Casablanca was honored at the 8^th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in April with a screening on the final night of the event at the TCL Chinese Theatre, that opulent icon of glamorous days gone by that is just now celebrating its 90th year.

Celebrating National Classic Movie Day: "5 Movies on an Island"

If by some bizarre quirk of fate I end up stranded on a deserted island that happens to have a reliable food source, lots of sunshine and balmy tropical breezes, I just might be blissed-out enough not to crave watching classic films. But probably not. A fundamental given for today's 5 Movies on an Island blogathon celebrating National Classic Movie Day is that some form of gizmo or gizmos capable of playing movies will be ready and waiting for me on my island and that I'll have access to five beloved films to watch until I'm rescued - hopefully, within a week or two.

Paris, je t'aime

Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963)

Thinking of Paris and all of France today, and of films that evoke my own deep affection for that great city and beautiful country.

 

"Bonjour, Paris," Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn and Kay Thompson in Funny Face (1957)

 

 

Margo Martindale in Alexander Payne's charming vignette from Paris, je t'aime (2006)

at Rick's Cafe Americain in Casablanca (1942)

...and closing with scenes of Paris and its people accompanied by Sidney Bechet's "Si Tu Vois Ma Mere," the the main theme from Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2010).

 

Coming to a Theater Near You: Turner Classic Movies Presents "Casablanca"

Turner Classic Movies, Warner Bros. and NCM Fathom have joined in celebration of Casablanca as it turns 70 with Turner Classic Movies Presents the Casablanca 70th Anniversary Event. On Wednesday, March 21, at 7:00 pm (local time), the film that topped the AFI's list of the "100 Greatest Love Stories of All Time," will screen at select theaters nationwide. 

Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony

Last Friday night I attended a very special screening of "Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony" at Davies Hall. Conductor Michael Francis led the orchestral accompaniment and a full house spent the evening in thrall to Warner Bros.' sublime 1942 film classic and composer Max Steiner's unforgettable score.

Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco

The sell-out audience of 2,800 or so was a mix of film and music lovers of every generation. Some of the young and old attended in full 1940's attire; most spent time sipping champagne and cocktails on the mezzanine before the program got underway...