The Glass Slipper

One of my favorite Cinderella movies was The Glass Slipper from 1955 staring Leslie, Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn, Estelle Winwood, and Else Lanchester (with Walter Pigeon as the Narrator).

In this version, Ella is the way we would perceive a traumatized young woman who had grown up, as they say in the movie, “rejected”. She does not accept her lot in life with a sigh and a smile. Instead, she is constantly triggered by the feeling of being bullied and made-fun-of. She reacts with childish acts of destruction. She even pushes the prince into a pond at one point when he was staring at her. This version even touches (not very well) on the concepts of depression and thoughts of suicide. When asked about her short hair (which was Leslie Caron’s signature look), Ella states that she was angry enough to wish she was dead, but cut off her hair instead. This really should have been something other people should react to, but since this movie is made in the 1950s, other characters do not pry.

But she is also someone who dreams and responds to love the way a mentally abused person might. She boasts that a fortune teller told her mother that she would live in the palace of the duke one day and has imaginings of rather sparse royal room where she is a bored noble. While everyone else teases her, Prince Charles says “It’s nice to have something to hope for”. While her stepmother and beautiful, but cold stepsisters continue to keep her in a strange limbo between family member and servant, she befriends the eccentric Mrs. Toquet. The first person Ella says I love you in the movie to is Mrs. Toquet which is so much nicer than the story just being about her love for a prince that will “save her”. Ella was a person not expecting to love anyone in her life and Mrs. Toquet tells her that if you learn to love one person you can learn to love others. What Ella really needs is therapy, but having people who care about her actually listen is the closest you can get in the 18th century.

Mrs. Toquet is a fantastic “fairy godmother”. She was a former wealthy widow who lived on the grand hill, but “took to reading books and went from bad to worse”. She loves words that are fun to say (a trait I picked up as child because I realized she was right - some words are just fun to say! Say “Quetzalcoatl!") and likes to borrow items from the townspeople. She collects odds and ends for unknown purposes then returns them promptly. Although she is never shown doing magic, it is hinted then stated that she is indeed a fairy in disguise. Still, she adds a much needed liberated women’s element to the story, someone who encourages Ella that she doesn’t need to change who she is as a person, just learn to accept good things when they happen. This screenplay was written by Helen Deutch who also adapted National Velvet and The Unsinkable Molly Brown which leads me to think she was probably more feminist than her time period would give her credit for.

When Ella has to practice walking in the titular glass slippers and comments on how strange they feel, Mrs. Toquet says that all woman must endure fashion discomforts because it fascinates men because they secretly know they couldn’t handle it. I have some issues with this explanation, but it still makes for a nice semi-pro-women joke in the 1950s (take what we can get I guess).

In this, Prince Charles is the son of the Duke who has just come home with his best friend Kovin and is expected to settle down. However, he is automatically smitten with Ella, an attraction Kovin warns him against because Charles has weakness for women he wants to save. This is just a strange character element to throw in. It makes the prince so much more than someone who falls in love with beauty, but he’s still flawed. He does get to know Ella and falls in love with her (not just her sad eyes and clear need for a therapist), but tell her he’s the son of the cook in the palace of the dook (uh - duke).

The only part of these that doesn’t always appeal to all fairy tale or even old film aficionados are the lengthy ballet fantasy sequences to show off Leslie Caron’s dancing skills. Look, I love ballet, but even I get up and get a snack during these parts. The one where she imagines being the wife of a cook is especially lengthy and I don’t think I’ve sat through in entirely since I was seven.

One last thought is how the Ella character gets to “grow up” in this one. She goes from throwing tantrums to attempting to stay calm and polite to people who care about her.

Disney's Cinderella (1950)

Cinderella was my favorite Disney Princess from ages four to six (until the Little Mermaid came out). I also loved Snow White, but my friend, Erin, had already claimed her. Joke is on Erin, I was still Snow White for Halloween one year. I had a Cinderella birthday cake. My mom found me a Cinderella costume that was a real dress, not a plastic sack with a matching mask (80s store-bought costume options were the worst). I still have my Cinderella collector plates. I spent way too much of my toddler years trying to make a magic wand appear out of thin air. Most importantly, I named my dog Gus-Gus. He was technically the “family dog”, but Gus was my dog, damn it. He even had the same appetite as that portly, little mouse.

I could go into the entire history of Disney and this film. However, I’ll just sum up. In the 1940s, the company was struggling, barely surviving on government propaganda projects like World War II cartoons and Saludos Amigos. They tested for more ambitious styles of animation in their shorts like the Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad (Katrina van Tassel looks like Cinderella’s American cousin) and anthologies of shorts synced to music. Cinderella saved the studio, making it the most lucrative film in about a decade.

It’s interesting that Disney didn’t tell Cinderella before since it’s probably the most popular fairy tale. Maybe Walt didn’t want to look like was copying Fleischer pictures who put Betty Boop in the titular part. And for those of you who just giggled at the words “Betty Boop” and “titular” together, we could probably be friends.

Why did this Cinderella save Disney? First of all, this film is a work of art. The animation is glorious. The shadows of Lady Tremaine’s window moving along Cinderella as she walks into the room. The bubbles singing alongside Cinderella. And, of course, the dress transformation. All of it is beautiful.

Second, the music. Cinderella is not my favorite Disney soundtrack of all time. Still, no one can deny that Biddi Boddi Boo is a banger. The voice of Cinderella, Ilene Woods, gave the character a warm voice full of hope, a great contrast to Snow White’s ear splitting soprano.

Third, the mice. Despite not really knowing what they are saying, children have quoted Jaq and Gus for decades. Like so many Disney sidekicks meant to give the animators a break from drawing difficult human figures, the animals have more personality than some of the people. They are comic reliefs who also move the story along. Even if Jaq and Gus are terrible at crafts and almost cut another mouse’s tail off, they are heroes.

The one thing no gets right in their memory about this version is that Cinderella is just sweet and placid. Yes, she doesn’t fight or start anything with her step-family, but she is surviving. The movie is full of her being a normal teenage girl. She complains that she has to get up early. She calls out Lucifer the cat on his bullshit and was even going to swat him with a broom. She tries to stand up for herself with her stepmother. She throws a little shade on her step-sisters’ musical abilities. So what if the prince doesn’t get to have much of a personality. It’s not his story. And Cinderella is more rounded than lots of viewers give her credit for.

Finally - her dress isn’t blue. It’s a shimmery silver with blue reflections. Get it right, mass produced Disney princess merchandise!

In Defense of Cinderella (Copy)

I’m re-posting this because, due to current writing projects, I’m in a fairy tale mood. I’m going to focus on some different Cinderella adaptation in the next few months (off and on).

Here we go.

Brief History: This is literally the oldest, most retold fairy tale. Every time and culture has a version of a tale which begins by making you feel the unfairness of an abused young woman’s life. Then, there is an opportunity for her to have a break from her awful situation, but can’t get to said event without some help (whether be fairy godmother, birds, or fish). Finally, her suffering is halted with some violent end to her tormentors, the arrival of a wealthy male, or both.

Analysis: What I feel needs the most put into context is the constant belief that Cinderella was the victim of the story, a poor sap who could have rescued herself at any time and did not need a prince to do so. First of all, in the original versions of the tale, our heroine lives in times and societies which would not have given her opportunities to save herself without desperate measures. In the earliest versions, such as the Egyptian/Greek tale, she is slave or a captive. In the most popular versions, Grimm and Perrault, she lives in a world where a woman on her own would have had very few opportunities. If she had run away from her wicked family, she would have been at the mercy of expected roles for women of the time. And how nice would the ending of the story have been if she had joined a brothel or become a beggar? A true inspiration to little girls everywhere.

In most versions, she needs help, this is true. But again, this is because of the world she lives in. Women could not help themselves, especially a woman of middle or higher classes. She accepts the help because without it her life can never change. Of course, the child of abuse, she is also willing to only take that help for one night. Only one night to make her life just a little better. In hindsight, she really should have been asking for a job in a shop or a house of her own complete with inheritance.

Lastly, and men I apologize in advance for this last part, the prince is not the hero. He is the booby prize. He is what is given as a way out and reward in the midst of her hard life.

Blame it on the Victorians: The focus on Cinderella’s domesticity and lack of complaint are very much Victorian attributes. Women were to go through life with the hand they had been dealt and if men chose to the change their fate, then so be it. But Heaven forbid that a woman attempt to change her own position or try to better her own life. This can be seen in other literature of the time like Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Vanity Fair, where women who try to act in a way which was classified as “masculine” (as in they take charge and try to use whatever means necessary to better their lives) always meet horrible ends. Where as other women of these novels who are victims, innocents who are mistreated by society like Emily in David Copperfield or the sisters within Woman in White are conveniently rescued by circumstance.

Last thoughts: I confess, it’s all about the shoes.

*If you want know any of the places where some of my research comes from, just contact me.

Here We Woe Again (Wednesday): Movies about Writing

In case you’ve missed it, the Wednesday TV series follows the titular Addams character (Jenna Ortega) at school, usually solving murders and protecting her werewolf roommate, Enid (Emma Myers). However, I’m going to focus on the parts about Wednesday writing her novel.

In season one, Wednesday was working on a girl-detective novel. In season two, she’s trying to get it published. The first episode of season two starts (after a scuffle with a serial killer played by Haley Joel Osment) with Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) checking in on her daughter, asking where she’s been all summer.

Wednesday’s reply is, “Writers should always refill their creative cups before the begin again. So I indulged in my favorite passions, torment and humiliation.”

Morticia asks, “When do I get to read your novel?”

Inside of her head, Wednesday says, “When the sun explodes and the earth is consumed in a molten apocalypse.” Out loud, she of course says, “Soon, Mother, soon.”

This sums up a extrovert writer so well. She both wants to be published, but doesn’t want her parents to read it. I like how she doesn’t notice the contradiction.

When Enid asks about the publisher Wednesday reached out to, she confesses that they wanted to heavily edit her novel. “This novel was two years of my life. They’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands before I change a single word.”

The last twenty minutes of the episode take place at a school celebration where Wednesday’s stalker has stuffed her manuscript into a raven shaped pyre that will be lit as part of the festivities. I’ve mentioned many times how this is the most evil of crimes! Enid gets annoyed when she finds out that Wednesday only has one copy since “copy machines aren’t even 21st century technology”. And worst of all, the arsonist stalker says they found more typos!

Two on a Guillotine: Movies about Writing

Ruh oh, Raggy.

Two on a Guillotine is about Cassie Duquesne (Connie Stevens), the estranged daughter of a famous magician (Caesar Romero) who was famous for his dangerous and shocking tricks. When he dies, she inherits everything, despite him having given her to relatives after her mother (also Connie Stevens) disappeared twenty years earlier. Cassie has to stay in her father’s gothic mansion in order to get the money (wait, I know this story).

The press is fascinated with her which bring us to the writer character of this silly horror story. Val Henderson (Dean Jones) is a reporter pretending to be a real estate agent trying to get the inside scoop on her life. Cassie still finds his ethics questionable when he pushes to get close to her. Clearly, he works for a rag of a paper if his boss is insisting he write a story about her without her consent, essentially interviewing her off the record without her knowledge. However, Val sticks around because the house is full of tricks and booby traps that Cassie isn’t keen on investigating on her own. Despite this being a very cornball film, Cassie is a well done character. She is is innocent and empathetic without being naive or unrealistic. Val falls for her and becomes protective of her. When she starts to breakdown over the idea that her father might have actually wanted her, he realizes how people could use that to hurt her or take her money. This, naturally leads to Cassie finding out that Val is a reporter. Boy snoops on girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl . . . for snooping.

SPOILERS: There’s a horribly filmed nightmare sequence and Cassie decides that Val is still the only person she can trust. Of course, it turns out that her father is still alive (gasp), haunting his own house, and completely out of his mind. He accidentally murdered her mother twenty years earlier with a trick involving a guillotine. Believing Cassie to be her dead mom, he knocks her out, CHANGES HER INTO HER MOM’S STAGE COSTUME (that’s right, her father stripped and redressed his full grown daughter who he thought was his wife - gross), and sets her in the guillotine. Val runs in just in time to see the magician attempting the trick, convinced it will work this time. And it freaking does! Despite this, Cassie’s father is too far gone to realize that he almost murdered his daughter. Does Cassie get any money from her dad’s estate if he’s in the loony bin? Will she find a good therapist in the 1960s? Does Val actually put any of this into his article? Who knows. The film ends with a close up of a rabbit.

Footsteps in the Dark: Movies about Writing

Oh Errol Flynn, you charming rogue!

In this film he plays businessman Francis Warren, who lives in a tidy, expensive house with his wife Rita (Brenda Marshall) and mother-in-law Agatha (Lucile Watson). Rita and Agatha regale him with the latest gossip about the shocking mystery book by F.X. Pettijohn, an author as shady as his books according to the local tea. What neither knows is that Warren is secretly Pettijohn, enjoying the made-up lurid life his of alter-ego and how all of the local lady’s club is suing him. The only person in the know is his assistant/chauffeur Willard (Allen Jenkins). He does his research by constantly interviewing Inspector Mason (Alan Hale), who semi-dares Pettijohn to attempt to solve a real crime on live radio. A jewel smuggler, Fissue, played by Noel Madison, draws him into the city’s underworld after he is murdered.

Warren starts his own investigation coming into contact with a burlesque dancer (Lee Patrick), a gambler, and a dentist (Ralph Bellamy) while driving Mason’s top detective Hopkins (William Frawley) crazy. A friend of Rita’s see Warren out with the dancer and gives her the impression that he’s having an affair. Enter a seedy private detective hired by Agatha to follow Warren and Willard around. This gets Rita mixed up in the entire case.

For a writer, Warren is a massive extrovert. Besides being charming and overconfident, he’s puts on acts for his police work with over the top accents and verbose characters despite his gun being made of licorice. He is dedicated to his writing though. Everyday, he and Willard spend his lunch hour in a little cottage he rents. He gets several hours for lunch and he uses them to dictate his novels while Willard types them out. Still, when pressed by Rita about his “vile book”, he says it was a “hobby” like “collecting butterflies”. I feel weirdly defensive when a rich man says he only wrote a bestseller as a hobby.

Deadly Visitor (Wide World of Mystery/Classic Ghosts): Movies about Writing

This was part of an hour long anthology series that was recently release by Kino on bluray. The story is about Jamie (Perry King), a novelist who moves into a cheap boarding house where his friend Virgil (James Keach) already lives. Mrs. Moffat (Gwen Verdon) is their older landlady, not old, but about 16 years apart from her crush Jamie. She shows more interest in his novel than she shows in Virgil’s sculpture or the third tenant’s medical career (Stephen Macht). Jamie wants to write a story based on a girl he’d known who killed herself over an unrequited love and a young man like himself who has never known love.

Despite the house being quite large and rent being cheap, the house loses people based on a violent past and reputation for haunting. People believe that the 70 year old Mr. Petersen who built the house and his 17 year old bride still reside as ghosts after she was found with her throat slit and him strangled.

Soon after moving in Jamie is the obsession of a very corporeal ghost who keeps first wanting to touch him, then attack him. Instead of being frightened, Jamie and his two housemates are fascinated by the invisible being they manage to tie up in his bedroom. That’s right. They tie up a ghost. A breathing ghost, no less. Then Jamie feels the ghost up, determining that the body is female. Nope. Jamie just lost by vote for hero of the tale. If you had tried that with Claude Raines, he’d have taught you some manners . . . then murdered you. Jamie continues to philosophize and thinks of how this life experience will help his art. That’s right. He pretentious and a perv.

Since this isn’t readily available to watch, I’ll give away the ending for those of you who are curios.

SPOILERS!

Jamie and Mrs. Moffat have a night together and immediately following, Jamie sees a crying young woman in his room briefly. He’s convinced that the entity is Lucy, a girl he and Virgil knew who drowned (the subject of his novel), but the rest of the house thinks it must be the young bride with the cut throat. Jamie reveals in conversations with the tied up presence that he’d told Lucy he’d loved her because “he wanted her”, then admitted that he was incapable of actually loving anyone. He tells the ghost that if he’d been married, he could have never finished his novel and it was almost done.

Even though he says that Lucy was jealous of his writing, he wants to read parts to her, thinking she will be proud of him. Jamie sets her free when the others plan on trying to kill her (not sure how that works) thinking that she’ll forgive him and leave him alone. Instead, she burns his novel. Normally, when an author’s work is destroyed in a movie or book, I’m devastated. But not this time. Screw you, Jamie!

While Mrs. Moffat thinks she and Jamie are in love (which is even more tragic since her previous marriage was an unhappy one), he is missing his ghostly companion and attempting/failing to rewrite his novel. One night, Jamie senses that the presence has returned and Mrs. Moffat catches him talking to his invisible friend. She naturally freaks out and Jamie calms her down with a glass of wine. When he returns to procrastinating on his writing, Mrs. Moffat hears a man’s voice in her room repeatedly asking, “Where are you?”

Back in his room, Jamie calls out to Lucy and sees the ghost of Mr. Petersen followed by Mrs. Petersen (Ann Miles) with her slit throat. Shortly after that, the presence attacks Mrs. Moffat and almost chokes her to death. Jamie and Virgil decide that the presence might not be an actual ghost but some unnamed evil using the images of the ghosts to mess with them. A mirror is dropped on the entity and they hear a woman’s scream, then assume whatever it was is gone. Sadly, Jamie survives and appears to learn nothing. Boooooo! Hiss!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor: Movies about Writing

Hey, anyone remember that third Mummy movie that recast Evie? No? Okay, fine. I’ll make this semi-short then. I do have to say that I this movie a lot of fun despite it’s flaws. No one knows how too make a good adventure film these days.

It’s been a decade since a terrible CGI Dwayne Johnson attacked Rick (Brendan Fraser), Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), Jonathan (John Hannah), and little Alex (Freddie Boath - wonder what he’s doing with his adult life?). Now Rick spends his time fishing, Jonathan owns a casino that screams opening sequence of Temple of Doom, and Alex (Luke Ford) is on a dig halfway around the world sans his British accent. Meanwhile, Evie (Maria Bello) is -

Wait, wait, wait. Let’s address the elephant in the room. I really love Maria Bello as an actor and normally I’m excited to see her in a movie. I also am glad that they recast the character when Rachel Weisz wasn’t going to do it instead of writing the character out. But Bello was such a weird decision. She played the character in a completely different way and it pulled it me out of the story. Okay, I’ve said my peace. Back to the blog.

Meanwhile, Evie (Maria Bello) is using her downtime to write pulp novels based on their adventures. She’s doing a reading in a London bookstore where main characters Dash and Scarlet are reliving the end of the previous film. This scene did annoy me because she does voices for her characters that make them silly, like she’s making fun of her own life. Still, love the covers featured in the background. Her books are extremely popular with adult women who love the adventure and romance. They ask her questions about how exciting her life was before and during World War II, making her depressed. However, of course, Evie promised her publisher a third book and she’s completely blocked. Her and Rick’s new life of retirement is not helping as the pair of them struggle to pretend that they are happy.

They are sent to Shanghai on a goodwill mission for the British government where they discover that Alex left school to find the tomb of a lost Qin Dynasty emperor (loosely based on Qin Shi Huang and played by Jet Li). They receive help from Rick’s old friend Mad Dog Maguire (Liam Cunningham) and guardian Lin (Isabella Leong) who knows the only way the new Mummy can be defeated. Enter in adorable, yet fierce yetis (I want to be best friends with one), another army of the undead, and Michelle Yeoh as the woman who has lived an eternity in order to stop the emperor. That’s right. Michelle Yeoh. This movie should be highly rated just for her presence. Then again, I did see Crouching Tiger in theaters multiple times and she was my favorite Bond girl so not really sure I’m unbiased.

Anyway, this new adventure gives Evie her plot for the third book the publishers asked for, but yet another adventure gets in the way

Also, can I have a Yeti?

Affair with a Stranger: Movies about Writing

Ug. This film. Well, spoilers ahead.

Bill (Victor Mature) is a married playwright who allows temptation to constantly get in the way of his personal life. His wife Carolyn (Jean Simmons) is about to miss the opening run of his latest play when he wants her opinion and this moment of his own neediness causes him to seek comfort in an intimate dinner with his lead actress. The actress spreads rumors that Bill and Carolyn are about to divorce. The rest of the movie are a series of flashbacks about their life together and the reason why Carolyn doesn’t want to come to the play.

The flashbacks show many of the ups and downs of attempting to be a professional writer. Bill doesn’t want to return to working for newspapers as found he didn’t have the energy for the day job and the dream job. A friend of theirs, another newspaper man, agrees with him, confessing that he’s been trying to write a novel in his spare time for ten years. Because of this, Carolyn supported her and Bill with her modeling career at the start of their marriage, something Bill screws up with gambling habit. She also acts a little as his manager, cautioning him on reading contracts and getting paid what he’s worth, especially after his first play flops. And like all women in these films, she’s his cheerleader, helping him to create a schedule to keep him in the routine of writing and not giving up. I will give Bill some credit. Since he works from home, he pitches in with the housework. Way to stick it to 1950s stereotypes!

When Carolyn is pregnant, the couple have seen some success with Bill selling the rights of one of his plays to a Hollywood Studio. However, his gambling eats away at the money and he takes a job as a waiter in a swanky restaurant where he can slip copies of his plays into producers’ pockets. Interestingly, this strategy works and he has his first hit. Tragedy strikes the same night when they lose the baby and Carolyn struggles with depression for the next two years when they discover they’ll never have a child. Instead, they adopt a boy Carolyn used to babysit when his mother passes. Carolyn is still Bill’s biggest fan and goes to all of his openings until she has difficulty leaving their new son so soon after his birth-mother’s death.

Both Bill and Carolyn learn about their rumored divorce in the media. Both jump on trains to go running to the other one (Bill practicing in his head how he’s going to tell her that he technically hasn’t had an affair . . .yet). They find each other at the train station and everything will be peaches and cream for the rest of their married lives. The end.

I just feel like Bill got away with a lot of childishness in this film. Just because he’s an artist doesn’t mean he can’t be sympathetic to everything he put his wife through. I know it’s difficult to live with someone with depression, yet the film doesn’t show that. It only shows him giving up after their first big fight after the adoption. Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit. But why does the kid call Carolyn “Mom” after the adoption, but keeps calling Bill “Uncle Bill”?

June Bride: Movies about Writing

“I read everything you write.”

“Me too.”

Carey Jackson (Robert Montgomery) is a reporter with no assignment until he’s been transferred to magazine run by his ex-girlfriend Linda Gilman (Bette Davis). Together they are working on a feature story about a “June wedding”, an event being staged by the magazine team in wintertime. Carey, a former foreign correspondent, is already bored with the assignment and Linda, who is a no-nonsense editor, can’t understand why he refuses to just write the puff piece that won’t cause problems for the family involved. However, Carey finds out that there is an unrequited love quadrangle within the family and shenanigans ensue.

I don’t have a ton to say about this film and I won’t give away the ending. Like all 1940s movies about writers, Carey and Linda are quick witted. They ping-pong insults off one another without a thought and criticize each other’s work at a typewriter. Still, they both have skills of observation and understanding of people that is clearly a part of their writing.

Seven Keys to Baldpate: Movies about Writing

I was making a few early judgements when I found out that this 1935 movies was based on a book by Earl Derr Biggers, the mind behind Charlie Chan (wince). Still, this movie is very amusing and not just from a writer's point-of-view.

Our hero, Magee, is a novelist (a term his temporary landlord and landlady do not recognize) who is attempting to fulfill a betthat he can write a novel in 24 hours starting at midnight. He chooses a particular out-of-the-way mountain inn, thinking it will give him the peace and quiet he needs. He starts off rather superstitious, not placing his hat on the bed or crossing the path of a black cat. It turns out he is right to be superstitious as he no sooner open his typewriter case then a man enters the house with a key The author has been assured that he has the only key to the Baldpate Inn.

At first, the obvious criminal type amuses Magee because he has written it so many times. He remains calm as a gun is put in his back and hast to prove that he’s rented Baldplate for the purposes of writing. Then Magee outsmarts and locks up the criminal, just as a woman enters with her own key.

Magee’s next guest with a key is Mary, a woman who stops him from calling the police. He had seen her previously at the station, instantly taking a liking to her. She on the other hand is more suspicious of him, not believing his motives for being in the old inn. As the next person enters with his own key, Magee intends to prove his authorship by making up a character for the newbie. However, the man says that everything he makes up is true.

In case you haven’t figured it out, each key brings a new person and more intrigue, including a hermit writing his own book on the evils of women, a woman claiming to be a blackmail victim, and various crooks who keep calling Magee “Wise guy”. The whole affair continues to distract Magee, especially since he keeps coming in contact with his favorite cliches. All of the shenanigans revolve around thousands of dollars hidden in the Inn safe.

Spoiler alert: In the end, when everything is revealed, stolen money is returned to where it belongs, the crooks are arrested, and it turns out Mary is a reporter. Magee offers her his typewriter so she can write up her story, even though he will lose his bet. Apparently, he gives up his writing integrity at a chance of getting he girl.

Rewrite: Movies about Writing

The Rewrite is a fairly standard role for Hugh Grant who plays a befuddled and failing screenwriter who takes a teaching job at Binghamton University. Having only taken the position due to financial trouble and no other reason, Grant’s character maintains many of the disgruntled tropes - divorced, estranged from his son, rude to his co-workers, sleeping with a student, and still utterly lost in his own writing.

Keith Michaels (Grant) is at least happy to know that the town is where Rod Serling grew up. His agent has hounded him for year to write a sequel to the film that won him an Oscar. As he used to say it would be creative suicide, he is changing his mind as he no longer “believes” in himself. He meets a long list of characters played by a really good cast of character actors. J.K. Simmons plays the head of the English department, Allison Janney plays a Jane Austen loving professor (who has never seen Clueless which in my mind makes her a fraud), Chris Elliott plays a Shakespeare professor, and Marisa Tomei as Holly, woman back in college after a divorce. Everyone keeps saying, “I love your movie” reminding him that only one thing he wrote was a success.

As Keith doesn’t believe that writing can be taught, which Holly argues with him about, he blows off his class at first. However, through her badgering he finally reads some of the scripts from his students and finds talent. However, he can’t help taking advantage of their young minds to help with his sequel screenplay. Holly proves to have the insight needed to be a writer and her character is excellent at constructive criticism. He realizes that he needs to start with the basics of story structure and character development. His best advise is about creating a goal, an endgame for the story that you need to always keep in mind as the finishing line.

The movie is very much about how artists can be their own worst enemy and how their self-doubt can hinder or help those who look up to them.

Is My Face Red?: Movies about Writing

Pre-Code time! Spoilers ahead.

William Poster (Ricardo Cortez) is a successful and infamous gossip columnist constantly being sued for what the secrets he prints about the wealthy and the celebrities within the city. He feels they’ve lived scandalous lives without repercussions long enough. He also tries to get charities started for the forgotten famous, older women who are destitute and used to be the toast of the town. Poster’s fiancee Peggy (Helen Twelvetrees) acts as his inside man, using her status as a stage star to get the dirt on everyone else. She informs him of the beautiful heiress Mildred Huntington (Jill Esmond) is escaping from her recently broken engagement by taking a cruise to Europe.

Poster tracks down Mildred on the ship (after peeking lots of first class windows to see if there’s any other stories he can dig up) and they start an affair back in New York. Meanwhile, Poster and Peggy are witnesses to a murder in a speakeasy and threatened by the Italian bartender/murderer. Being the idiot he is, Poster prints the story of the murder. A terrified Peggy objects, saying that “something terrible might happen.” Poster tells her, “If it does, I’ll print it.” In her nervousness, Peggy’s engagement ring slips off. Poster takes it in order to have the stone reset.

In the midst of the death threats and giving his girl anxiety, Poster continues his affair with Mildred. Then she finds Peggy’s engagement ring and assumes it’s for her. Poster doesn’t argue and let’s her have the ring. WHAT A CAD! Peggy sees Mildred wearing her ring and reads in the paper that they are engaged. Also, Mildred realizes that he’s only with her to get secrets on all of her friends to print in his paper. Mildred breaks off the engagement and Peggy goes to Poster’s rival paper with the story of his two-timing.

While Poster and his rival newspaper man Maloney are getting drunk off bootleg liquor that Poster keeps in his water cooler, he talks about his regret over Peggy and how he doesn’t blame her for leaving. Maloney had once said to him that he never wanted to be as famous as Poster because he wanted to keep some integrity. As Maloney leaves, the Italian bartender shows up and shoots Poster. Peggy, who was in the building talking to the switchboard operator, gets him in time and his life is saved. Fittingly, Maloney scoops Poster on the story of his own shooting.

This is a movie about what is the ethical code of a writer. Writers can have sympathy and imagination, but not always empathy.

Only Murders in the Building (Adaptation): Movies about Writing

If you haven’t seen this show - Wait, why haven’t you watched this show?!

You disappoint me. Well, spoilers ahead.

Only Murders in the Building is a cozy murder mystery about three friends in a historic New York Apartment building attempting to solve crimes around while creating podcast content. The friends are made-up of Oliver (Martin Short), a former director of Broadway cheese, Charles (Steve Martin), an out-of-work actor who used to star in his own cop television series, and Mabel (Selena Gomez), a young woman with many talents who hasn’t really figured out her life yet. In season 4, the trio are simultaneously being observed by actors about to play them in a big-budget film and attempting to solve the murder of Charles’s oldest friend and stunt double Sazz (played by Jane Lynch). All caught up. Great.

In this episode, Hollywood writer Marshall P. Pope (Jin Ha) gets to narrate in an opening where we learn that his persona is a creation he think will bring him success. His monologue asks the question of “What make a writer a real writer?” while he adjusts a fake beard and mustache. Apparently, the first step to being a “real writer” is the look. If that’s the case, I suppose I should only write fiction where people are attacked by curly hair and can’t reach high shelves. Either way, I refuse to wear that tweed jacket he puts on. Marshall boasts that he can “quote David Foster Wallace and Ace Ventura”, which really to me is more of a question of whether he’s actually READ any David Foster Wallace . . . I haven’t, but I also don’t claim that I can quote him. Then he says something truthful. “It comes down to what’s on the page.” He worries that he’s a fraud. Fake facial hair probably doesn’t help.

Marshall keeps saying he wrote his screenplay based on how he envisioned the three main characters based on the podcast, yet his nervous speaking to them. He’s terrified of rewrites and is revealed when he’s named as a suspect. He’d rather be a murder suspect than be forced to rework dialogue. He is simultaneous praised by Charles for a “thumping brain” line and criticized by Oliver for a Tinkerbell metaphor. Still, he insists that imposter syndrome can be beaten through more work at your craft.

And for those of you who have seen this season I want to add more to this blog, shhh! Spoilers!

Isn't She Great: Movies about Writing

This isn’t the best movie, but it stars Bette Middler and Nathan Lane, therefore I’m in.

Middler plays Jacqueline Susann, a woman desperate for fame and constantly failing at it. She works in Broadway, radio, and even wrote her own play, but every attempt was a flop. Then she meets Irving Mansfield (Lane), an agent with a crush on her. In the movie they meet later in life, but in reality they married in the lat 1930s. He used his job to get her spots on television and help her write a series of humorous anecdotes about their dog. However, when their son is diagnosed as autistic, Jackie falls into depression after they are forced to put him in an institution (don’t judge people from the that time -there was no Americans with Disabilities Act yet).

Looking to give her a new opportunity for fame, Irving suggests Jackie write a novel. She and her friend, Flo (Stockard Channing as an amalgam of friends in Susann’s life) start listing all of their scandalous experiences and gossip. At first, no publishing house will touch what they consider to be a nearly “pornographic” and crude book. In case you are unaware, the Valley of the Dolls is about three women dealing with fame, love affairs, and drugs in the 1940s and 50s. It finally falls into the laps of a publishing house needing a big break, run by John Cleese, Amanda Peet, and David Hyde Pierce. Pierce as editor Michael Hastings tries to convince the hyperactive Jackie that her novel needs major rewrites. Instead, she wins him over with her personality and convinces him that the book needs to stay rough to keep the characters realistic. Meanwhile, Irving stars a word-of-mouth campaign to sell the book before it’s even published. All of this takes place while Jackie is secretly battling cancer.

After the book is out, the couple uses their natural talents to shmooze booksellers into carrying Valley of the Dolls on their shelves or even featuring it in windows. Jackie appears on talk shows and signings. She even gets insulted by Truman Capote on public TV. The novel becomes a bestseller (that’s not a spoiler, that’s really what happened) and changes their lives. Oh, also they go to the adaptation of the movie and, like all authors who get a movie, Jackie is not a fan.

I looked it up - pink typewriters were totally available back then!

Feud (part 2): Movies about Writing

“The secret of of immortality, for you, Truman, is to write. Keep writing.”

I feel like they honestly could’ve ended this series at episode four with Truman taking in Kate as a sort of pseudo daughter, Slim retracting her claws a little, and the last moments between Babe and Truman on the street. But that’s not enough drama. Still, the relationship between Kate and Truman was interesting. He gives her writing advice like “eavesdrop” and she tries to keep him on track/off the sauce. CZ continues to be one of the only Swans still friends with him as the 70s continue and she also tries to encourage his writing. Truman says that his career is now just being a personality, not a writer.

Meanwhile, the Swans deal with the changing times and the social stigma with being an aging woman. C.Z. and Babe have an interesting conversation about how much they owe to gay men for being their “walkers” and all I could think of was when I used to go to gay bars on Halloween so I wouldn’t get hit on. When Babe dies, the show does do a good job of showing how grief and loss can effect people in small ways.

Truman starts to hallucinate Babe after her death and remembers when he read Breakfast at Tiffany’s to her before publication. She guessed who Holly Golightly was based on and he promised never to write about her. He wanted to make the end of Answered Prayers just about her. The last few episodes are just about him trying to stay clean despite public scandals and his loneliness as Jack and the last of his friends go on to healthier relationships. Jack, who was a writer in his own right, stated that worried how everyone would bother him to put together the unfinished bits of Answered Prayers if Capote died without finishing it.

In the last year of his life, Feud shows Capote’s downward spiral through attempting to write out an ending to Answered Prayers where he attempts to apologize by giving each Swan a better ending than reality did.

The scene in which he dies in Joanne’s house is made to look like the end of this life revolved around what happened with the Swans, even given Truman some final words about Babe, even though I thought his final words were “It’s me, Buddy” suggesting that he was hallucinating his favorite aunt. Maybe he said both. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

This is not really about Capote’s full life. There’s really no mention of his aunts who raised him, his friendship with Harper Lee, or, other than the ghost of his mom, his actual time living in New York as a youth. I know this isn’t a biography, but I feel like it’s rather one-dimensional to say he was only the way he was because of his mother. Then again, maybe that was on purpose in order to reflect on how he made his own friends seem one-dimensional in the unfinished Answered Prayers.

Feud (The Secret Inner Lives of Swans): Movies about Writing

Episode five of the second season of Feud, Capote vs. The Swans, is getting it’s own short blog because . . . James Baldwin!

Following the printing of the article that released the first chapters of Answered Prayers and the start of Truman’s falling out with the Swans, fellow author James Baldwin (played by Chris Chalk who does a pretty good version of Baldwin’s voice) comes to talk to him. Did these two men hang out following Truman’s depression over what he had done? No. Baldwin was living in France by then. But I still like the depiction of Baldwin so I’m going to write about it, damn it!

When Truman asks why “Jimmy” has come to his rescue, Baldwin says, “I have noticed that most minorities, Blacks, thank God, Asians, women, Jewish folk, they all have a community to turn to in their time of need. The homo, not so much. Not yet. You, me, Gore, Tenn, we are the only Gay American Men of Letters pretty much. I'm not counting Frank O'Hara and Ginsburg because they are just poets.” Ha! Take that Alan Ginsburg! By the way, I copied and pasted that speech from IMDB.com because it was taking me too long to type out using the subtitles on my TV.

This is the first episode where we see the Swans with a little less indiscretion, explained through many metaphors by two award winning authors. Truman tells Jimmy about affairs the women had, ways they tortured their husbands, and, racism/classism they all try to hide. In return, Jimmy points out how aggressive swans in reality are and tells him to eff them. They discuss how the women’s love of the arts are superficial. That they are horrible mothers who do not understand children as human beings. How they were cruel to Ann Woodward, adding to the poor woman’s social pariah status. What drives them is vanity and small thinking. Baldwin tries to make Capote look at his actions from the artistic point of view and remember that the “worse has already happened”. The pair discuss their lives as writers and criticism, how they can bring each other down in order to educate and make each other better.

The episode concludes with Baldwin scolding Truman. He berates him for wasting himself after “In Cold Blood” and that he needs to continue using his life to be creative. James declares, “Goddamn it, Mr. Capote! Your work isn’t even half done. You have miles to go.” He encourages Truman to finish his book about the Swans since they have already given him up. James Baldwin is telling Truman Capote that losing the women as his friends is blessing in disguise. It’s a great speech about exposing the 1% as only writers like them can. The fictional vignette ends with Capote eating a swan without alcohol. No alcohol until he finishes the book.

Feud (part 1): Movies about Writing

“Never let a writer have the last word”. This line sums up the entire season of Feud: Capote vs The Swans. It is instantly made clear from just the opening credits (which are lovely by the way), that Capote is in the wrong.

Despite this being 8 episodes long, I’m going to keep this and following blog fairly short. The first four episodes of this season on Feud are about the falling out between Truman (Tom Hollander) and his Fifth Avenue Swans, the women who were his cattiest and closest friends (after Harper Lee who he rarely spoke to after she won accolades for To Kill a Mockingbird). The series also deals with Truman’s on-again off-again romance with Jack (Joe Mantello) abusive relationship with John O’Shea (Russell Tovey), his illness from alcoholism, and being haunted by his want-to-be socialite mother played by Jessica Lange.

Let’s talk about the Swans themselves (because this is a fantastic cast):

Naomi Watts plays Babe Paley, a strong woman whose TV producer husband constantly cheats until she’s diagnosed with cancer and her finally steps up. Treat Williams plays her husband. She and Truman were the closest before the group of women cut him out. She is portrayed as missing him the most.

Diane Lane plays Slim Kieth, a woman with more bite to her than Babe but is very loyal to the people she trusts. She is ruthless when it comes to protecting Babe from Truman.

Chloe Sevigny plays C.Z. Guest, a socialite with a talent for gardening and the most reluctant to cut Truman out of their lives.

Calista Flockhart plays Lee Radziwill, a Jackie Kennedy’s sister who is the epitome of “old money” in her views and reactions.

Molly Ringwald plays Joanne Carson, a model and wife of Johnny Carson who is not effected by Truman’s actions as she lives in California and is no longer part of the core group.

Demi Moore plays Ann Woodward, who was not really a friend of Capote’s but is portrayed as such in the show along with the betrayal she felt as his accusations that she purposely killed her husband.

This teleplay is not so much as a historical record as it is a dramatization of what the writers thought Truman and the Swans could have been thinking or feeling during their feud (they did the same thing with season 1 which about about the filming of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane). There are some cool history events thrown in like the famous documentary about Truman by the Maysles Brothers (which shows Truman in all of his pretentious glory) and the filming of his scenes on Murder by Death. By the way, the documentary is free on youtube and it’s only 30 minutes long. Of course, the version of the documentary in the TV show is nothing like the real documentary.

The first four episodes are about introducing the characters, their relationships, and Truman’s betrayal. He writes about their personal lives in his new book Answered Prayers and several chapters are printed in a magazine as a preview. Despite changing the names, the characters are clearly the Swans, confirming rumors about their lives. The article causes Ann Woodward to take her own life. Slim and Lee declare that they are cutting the two-faced Truman out of their lives. Babe agrees, but almost reluctantly as Truman was her rock every time something went wrong. Also, Jack keeps going to her, begging that she help him get Truman away from the abusive John O’Shea. C.Z. and Joanne are still hanging out with Truman despite Slim’s threats towards them.

The first four episodes really make the Swans the victims. Don’t get me wrong. Capote did a horrible thing writing about them without their permission and doing so in such an obvious way that feels like he was out to hurt them. And his own interactions with other men are not shown on screen as anything loving. Just harsh and slimy. I know homosexuality in this time was illegal, but I feels like the director is using it to make Truman seems like deviant. His relationship with Jack is somewhat loving so they never show the pair having sex which proves that they are only using the sex scenes further Truman in the villain role.

Meanwhile, Slim, Lee, C.Z., and Babe are meant to be seen as witty, pleasant, fashionable, and the rich people everyone should wan to be. Granted, you don’t see them mixing with anyone outside of their social circle besides waiters and servants who they are kind to because that is the way you are supposed to think of them. However, it isn’t until episode four that the audience gets to see how the women are not the loving group of friends they pretend to be. The show uses rumors are personal lives to show the cracks in the united front, which to me feels a little like what Truman did. Still, Ryan Murphy was never a best friend of these women so I guess he can do what he wants?

The other part of the first four episodes is how everyone except Slim attempts to convince her to leave Truman alone. Babe is dying, Joanne and C.Z. are worried about Truman as he tries to get sober, and Lee insists that the drama needs to end when Slim plans on suing the odd little man. I did like how after returning home from rehab and checks his book while sober, calling it “the demon” and groaning at how bad it is. I should probably remind everyone that he never finished this book. He also gets a protege in O’Shea’s daughter Kerry (played by Ella Beatty). She changes her name to Kate Harrington and she really did become a model as well as Capote’s assistant for several years.

Murder by Death: JUST BECAUSE!

This is written by Neil Simon NOT Truman Capote, but I love it and I’m writing about it because it’s my blog. Also, understand this is no where near as fantastic as Clue, but still fun.

Murder by Death is a parody of the popular detective genre of the 1920s. Six sleuths who each make-fun of a popular character are invited to a dinner and death at the house of Lionel Twain (played by Truman Capote). The cast is huge and the jokes are silly. Peter Sellers plays Sidney Wang, a version of Charlie Chan. Peter Falk practices his later Columbo character as Sam Diamond, not Spade. Nick and Nora Charles become Dick and Dora Charleston played by David Niven and Maggie Smith respectively. Milo Perrier takes Hercule Poirot’s place and portrayed by James Coco. Lastly, Ms. Marple . . . I mean, Jessica Marbles is acted out by one of my favorites, Elsa Lanchester. Eileen Brennan, Estelle Winwood, James Cromwell, and Richard Narita play the detectives’ various companions. The cast is rounded out by Alec Guinness and Nancy Walker as Twain’s unusual servants.

Twain promises a substantial sum to the detective who solves the evening’s murder first. I don’t want to give away the mystery or many of the jokes. Here are a few specifics I want to gush about.

1. Diamond’s “doll” creates a dossier on Twain before they arrive. He asks her where she got the information and she said, “I called him up and asked him.”

2. Wang (who is played by a white guy which I think was meant to be a joke at all the white guys who played Charlie Chan . . . But I really wish there had been more jokes about him not actually being Chinese) has an adopted son who he makes do everything including standing in the way of danger.

3. The Charlestons have a dog named Myron and Dora is always carrying a martini glass, even when she’s in a car.

4. Perrier has a chauffeur that appears to be his boyfriend, but he treats him terribly. Every time something happens to the chauffeur, Perrier says to ignore him. “He just wants attention.” There is also a running gag about Perrier’s relationship to food. For example, he spits out wine and the others think it was poisoned. “Bad year,” he explains.

5. Mrs. Marbles pushes around her nurse in a wheelchair and has a long standing friendship with Diamond. It’s funny to think of a world where the very English small town Miss Marple hung out with the quick tempered, fowl mouth Spade.

6. All of the detectives try to out-detect each other.

7. The screaming doorbell was a soundbite of Fay Wray.

8. Twain’s insistence that Wang use proper articles and pronouns. “It. IT is confusing!”

9. Twain’s monologue about mystery books: “You've tricked and fooled your readers for years. You've tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You've introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You've withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I've outsmarted you, they'll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.You've tricked and fooled your readers for years. You've tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You've introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You've withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I've outsmarted you, they'll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.”

54, Children on their Birthdays, The Innocents, and Beat the Devil: Movies about Writing

These are films that either feature Capote or were written by him. This will be fairly short, despite that it will be about 4 different movies.

54

Remember this movie? Don’t worry about it if you don’t. It’s just okay. I’ve heard that the director’s cut was a better film that gave a more realistic portrayal of the swinging 70s club (apparently Harvey Weinstein demanded the cuts). I regret that I couldn’t find the director’s cut streaming for free as it also has a gross cameo cut out. Ryan Phillippe plays Shane, a bartender with disco fever hired by the club’s owner Steve Rubell (a real person played by Mike Myers). The movie also includes Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer, Neve Campbell, and a brief scene of Mark Ruffalo as additional young people with celebrity status or trying to obtain celebrity status. The part I want to talk about is in the first ten minutes. Steve stops the music at Studio 54 and calls for Truman Capote (played by Louis Negin in an appropriately ham way). To celebrate Truman’s facelift, Steve has a boy dressed as a golden cupid descend from the ceiling and hand him a mirror. Capote jokingly reaches for the boy and then dances with a man not wearing a shirt. Capote is not the only older person at the disco trying to re-capture their youth through anonymous sexual encounters. The part that made me laugh was Shane confessing he had no clue who Truman was. Of course, Shane doesn’t know any media personalities (not Andy Warhol or Erroll Flynn or half of the people he meets), except Grace Kelly because his mother named his sisters after her.

Real Capote at the real Studio 54

Phillippe at the fake Studio 54

Children on their Birthdays

I’ve read this story by Capote which is yet another one based loosely on childhood experiences. It’s Billy Bob’s 13th Billy Bob (played by Joe Pichler who tragically went missing as an adult, this was his last film). He, his mother (hey, it’s Laura Palmer . . . I mean, Sheryl Lee), and best friend Preacher (look at baby Jesse Plemons) meet a precocious girl named Lily Jane Bobbit (Tania Raymonde). The girls in town hate Lily Jane and the boys all start to compete for her affections. Billy Bob is also upset that his mother is finding love with town mechanic and lawman Speedy (Christopher McDonald) even though his father has been dead for years. He also feels intense shame when he doesn’t stop Preacher from picking on a little Black girl named Rosalba Cat (Brazhal Brewer) and both his mom and Lily Jane see. Unlike the Lily Jane of the story, this Lily Jane comes down from her high horse for the sake of another girl in need of a hero. However, her longing for a life on the stage is the same as in the story. A con man (Tom Arnold) comes to town and convinces Lily Jane that he could make her a star.

I won’t give away the entire plot, but unlike Capote’s other stories of childhood, this one is less about him as a child and more about observations of people through a child’s eyes. However the movie is kinder all around. It makes Lily Jane kinder and more a of child. It makes the interactions between the children and adults more like a coming-of-a-story than a tragedy. And (spoiler alert) it completely changes the ending.

The Innocents

I used to hate this movie as a child because I was literally haunted by the novella The Turn of the Screw. Every time I’d find a Victorian ghost story on TV, it would turn out to be an adaptation of Turn of the Screw. After several years of escaping the story, I finally went back and reread it then re-watched some of those adaptations I was so dogged by. And this is the best version (not counting the Netflix min-series since it does combine a lot of stories). I’m not sure if it was Capote’s idea as the screenwriter or the director’s to make you wonder whether the ghosts were real just like in the original book, but this is the movie where it works the best.

Beat the Devil

This is an odd film that I feel like you need to watch multiple times to get the entire plot. Long story short, Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre star in this story about uranium, land deals, and taking advantage of naive British people (somebody had to). The reason I am including this is not that it’s about writing, but that, despite being based on a book, Capote had to work on the screenplay as they were filming. This probably accounts for plot holes and disjointed scenes. Still, Bogart and Lorre - I’m in. Capote was also all in because he got to hang out with the entire cast.