Lukewarm Off Presses: James Dean, Christopher Guest, Bryan Cranston

Three stories we're late mentioning but so what? Always eager to hear your thoughts...

Trumbo
Still no trailer but there's now a poster for Trumbo, the Hollywood blacklist drama starring Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren (as gossip icon Hedda Hopper). Cranston could be looking at the Triple Crown if he's Best Actor nominated since he already has the Tony and the Emmy. Will Oscar go wild for this? A word of caution for those predicting at home: People were going on and on about how much Hollywood loves movies about itself when Birdman won the Oscar last season but it's not entirely true. They sometimes nominate movies about movies but they don't tend to be the big winners. And Hollywood blacklist dramas are an infrequent subcategory unto themselves: Career (1959) won a few tech nominations but nothing in the top categories;  The Way We Were (1973) only won for music and didn't even make the Best Picture lineup which it absolutely deserved to be in; Guilty by Suspicion (1991) with Robert De Niro and The Bening and The Majestic (2001) starring Jim Carrey were both entirely ignored;  Good Night and Good Luck (2005) was popular with voters for nominations but lost each of its categories. 

Mascots
It's been nine freaking years since Christopher Guest's last mockumentary For Your Consideration (2006) which was, unfortunately his weakest comedy. But he's finally making something new! The movie will be for Netflix and it's about what it sounds like it's about. No cast announced yet but I think we can safely guess at least a handful of players. I NEED to see Parker Posey and Catherine O'Hara in big furry costumes, okay? I need it like I need oxygen. 

<-- The "Life" of James Dean
Bring Your Own "Yes No Maybe So" in the comments. James Dean has had biopics before but this one comes from Anton Corbijn who I think we should allow made a very fine music biopic on Ian Curtis of Joy Division called Control (2007). This ground, however, is amply covered previously -- except for its macro focus on a photoshoot the moment before Dean was famous. The film, which looks depressingly actress free from the trailer, stars Robert Pattinson, Ben Kingsley, the ubiquitous Joel Edgerton and Dane DeHaan as James Dean.

Ready? Go...

Ingrid Bergman Centennial: The Film That Brought Her to Hollywood

August 29th marks the Centennial of Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), one of the greatest of all movie stars with a career that stretched from the early 30s through the late 70s, encompassing multiple classics, multiple countries, and multiple Oscars. We'll be proceeding mostly in chronological order. Here's Abstew to kick things off with "Intermezzo" - Editor

Had it not been for a Swedish elevator operator working in the building that housed the New York offices of Selznick International Pictures, the world might never have discovered the young actress that would become the Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman. It was 1936, and the soon-to-be star had just appeared in a Swedish film named Intermezzo about a famous concert violinist (played by Sweden's first stage star Gösta Ekman) that leaves his wife and family and has an affair with his much younger accompanist. There was clearly something special about the actress playing the love interest. The elevator operator wasn't the only one to see it, but he happened to have the ear of Hollywood producer David O. Selznick's talent scout Kay Brown (since she rode in his elevator everyday), telling her to seek out the film and to pay special attention to the girl in the picture. And in the early part of 1939, Brown flew to Stockholm and persuaded the young actress from Intermezzo to come to America and star in the Hollywood remake. Thus launched the international career of Ingrid Bergman and, as they say in the pictures, a star was born.

But her path to stardom in Hollywood wasn't without its hurdles...

Click to read more ...

200 Oldest Living Screen Stars of Note

The list is updated and now located here. 

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Please welcome Kyle Stevens to The Film Experience team. You've previously heard him on the podcast, you can pre-order his book on Mike Nichols, and you should follow him on twitter as he is delightful. - Editor

Adapted from the hit radio play by Lucille Fletcher (who also wrote the screenplay), Sorry, Wrong Number follows Leona Stevenson, a headstrong young heiress who aims to one day be the sharpest battleaxe in the armory. She is also an invalid, relegated to her bed. We discover Leona telephoning inquiries into her husband’s whereabouts when the line fatefully clicks. She overhears a conversation between two men plotting a murder that night. For me, the whole movie hangs on the image of her listening to this narrative catalyst. It hovers over the entire film. Its power lets us never forget that this is Leona’s story, even when we get elaborate flashbacks from others. We recall it later when we see Leona disheveled and shining from tears and anxious sweat. Its tightness contrasts with the way the camera later wanders in and around people, tracing the distances between them that the telephone extinguishes. 

The magic here is all down to Barbara Stanwyck, giving one her best performances (and receiving the last of her four Best Actress nominations). We see Leona’s selfishness ebb as she intelligently listens to the heavies on the line. That is, Stanwyck doesn’t play an inner monologue. Her bright brown eyes and horseshoe furrows do not propose “Oh no!” and “What should I do now?”, as though telling us what Leona wants to say. Rather, Leona, in this moment, and for a change, is not about herself at all. She just listens. This remains a thing of beauty, reminding us how much intelligence just listening can demand. I don’t know of a better demonstration of the cliché that listening is one of those feats accomplished by only the best actors.

Written by a woman and showcasing a female character who fights for what she wants, Sorry, Wrong Number would probably be received as a feminist statement were it released today. But in the moment in which Leona hears unheard, I am reminded that it is not just the film’s gender politics that remain relevant. Over the complex lines of a switchboard (where, according to Hollywood, women controlled the flow of information), the epigraph warns:

In the tangled networks of a great city, the telephone is the unseen link between a million lives… It is the servant of our common needs—the confidante of our inmost secrets…life and happiness wait upon its ring… and horror…and loneliness… and death.”

The technology behind our phones may have changed, but in an age where we’d rather text than talk, we seem to still fear verbal connections. We worry about who’s listening, and we know, deep down, that the voice can give too much away.

Previously
Vintage 1948 - Best of the Year 
Supporting Actress Smackdown - The Schedule 

Snack Break

My brain is not working today. I looked at this photo of Jimmy Stewart and Norma Shearer on tumblr and assumed Jimmy was checking his phone and Norma was trying to sneak a peek at what bitchy thing Lucille Fay LeSueur had just texted him from the set of Ice Follies of 1939 and th--- oh, uh, 1939. Right. D'Oh!

Time to step away from the computer perhaps? Snack break. See you late late tonight for the AMADEUS (1984) roundup and two barking mad composers.