The Language of Love

Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) demonstrates the
definition of  "yum-yum" for Professor Bertram Potts
(Gary Cooper) in "Ball of Fire."

Ball of Fire (1941, Samuel Goldwyn)

Starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Dana Andrews,

Henry Travers, Dan Duryea, S.Z. Sakall,

Oskar Homolka, Richard Haydn

Screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder

Directed by Howard Hawks

“A little sun in my hair and you

had to water your neck.” — Sugarpuss O’Shea

With a story that resembles a modern (for 1941) reworking of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs fairy tale, Ball of Fire is a fine example of the screwball romantic comedies that were so popular in the 1930s and early ‘40s. It’s also a huge ball of fun.

Screwball comedies featured absurd tales of men and women from different worlds who meet, fall in love, are separated by a misunderstanding before reuniting for the big kiss at the fadeout. But no worlds are more dissimilar than the ones in this film. Professor Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) is one of eight academics who have been cloistered for eight years as they assemble a new encyclopedia. Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) is the gorgeous showgirl moll of gangster Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews).

Their worlds collide when Potts, out on the town doing field research for his article on slang, catches a show featuring Sugarpuss, who sings “Drum Boogie,” a song jam-packed with slang. Potts shyly goes to her dressing room and tries to interview her, but she gives him the bum’s rush — but not before he gives her his address. When Sugarpuss learns that the DA who’s working to bring down Lilac wants to subpoena her, guess where she goes to hide out.

She shakes up the dusty atmosphere of the academics’ house when the spends several days with them, but Potts is shaken the most, despite his vain attempts to resist Sugarpuss’ charms. Eventually, he can’t hold out any longer, especially when Sugarpuss demonstrates what “yum-yum” is (yum-yum = kisses). It all makes Potts’ fall much harder when he finds out about Joe Lilac. But his joy is boundless when he realizes Sugarpuss truly loves him.

What makes the tried-and-true formula work are wonderful performances and a great Brackett and Wilder script. Cooper is a treat as the man whose life had been focused entirely on study until he meets the woman who unlocks his hidden passion. Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss is sassy, sexy, and downright alluring, and one of her best roles. A marvelous conglomeration of veteran character actors ensures the other academics are more than caricatures and are a big part of the laughs the film generates in bushels.

The “modern” slang might be dated, but the laughs and good feelings produced by Ball of Fire still resonate several generations later.

Romance at the Road House

Jefty (Richard Widmark), center, makes a point with
Pete (Cornell Wilde) as Lily (Ida Lupino)
looks on in "Road House."

 Road House (1948, Twentieth Century-Fox)

Starring Ida Lupino, Cornell Wilde,

Richard Widmark, Celeste Holm
Screenplay Edward Chodorov

Directed by Jean Negulesco

“She reminds me of the first woman

that ever slapped my face.” — a patron of Jefty’s Road House 

When I took geometry so long ago that it must have been Pythagoras himself who instructed me, I learned about equilateral, isosceles, and scalene triangles. However, I’ve had no need for them since I left the class. The one I’m most familiar with is the eternal triangle, which powers Road House, an undeservingly obscure, but powerful movie from the height of the film noir period.

Longtime friends Pete (Cornell Wilde) and Jefty (Richard Widmark) make up two sides of the triangle, while Lily (Ida Lupino) beautifully fills out the third. Jefty owns the establishment of the title, an entertainment center near the Canadian border that features bowling, pool, a bar, and a rotating selection of chanteuses. Pete, the brains of the outfit, runs the popular and successful joint. All is well until Jefty returns from Chicago with Lily, a haughty, hard-boiled, smoky-voiced singer who is to be the main attraction.

Pete and Lily are at odds from start, as seeing Jefty bring a string of women to the place makes him cynical about her. The ice between them begins to thaw when Lily knocks everyone dead with her heartfelt torch songs. For Jefty’s part, he has delusions that Lily’s in love with him, despite her constant attempts to avoid his touch. Pete and Lily melt the rest of the ice and turn the heat up to 600 degrees while Jefty is on a hunting trip.

The trouble begins when Jefty returns with a moose and a marriage license with Lily listed as the bride. After Pete tells his friend of many years that Lily and he have fallen in love, and it is they who will be married, Jefty loses all reason and sets out to torture the lovers for their betrayal. A showdown between them in the last scene leaves no one untouched.

Road House features one of Wilde’s best performances, and Widmark proves he was no one-hit wonder after his debut in Kiss of Death in 1947. But this is Lupino’s show, and she grabs it with both hands. Her portrayal of a woman who has developed a hard shell because of the rough deal she’s gotten from life, but whose vulnerability isn’t completely hidden behind it, is marvelous and real. Lupino’s singing is just as effective and affecting as her acting. The sadness and longing Lupino as Lily puts into songs of unrequited love makes it clear Lily believes her personal fate always will mirror her tunes. It’s that much sweeter when Lily finds in Pete what she’s long sought, and that much more painful when Jefty tries to take it away.

For me, Road House offers double the pleasure. As a huge fan of film noir, I find it’s a fine representative of the genre. As an incurable romantic, I find the passion between Pete and Lily highly moving.

Seeing the World Through Marlowe's Eyes

Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) confronts Adrienne
Fromsette (Audrey Totter) in "Lady in the Lake."

Lady in the Lake (1947, MGM)

Starring Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan,
Tom Tully, Leon Ames, and Jayne Meadows
Screenplay by Steve Fisher; Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler

Directed by Robert Montgomery

“Do you fall in love with all of your clients?” — Adrienne Fromsette
“Only the ones in skirts.” — Philip Marlowe

Before the first minute of "Lady in the Lake" has elapsed, you know it’s going to be an unusual film noir/detective story. After the roar of the MGM lion, the titles appear on cards depicting Christmas and winter scenes, and they are paired with music of the season.

What really makes it stand out, however, is the use of the subjective view, which represents the point of view of private detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery). Except for his introduction of different sections of the story, the audience gets a glimpse of Marlowe only in mirrors. This technique was considered a gimmick upon the film’s initial release, but it works for me because we get to see the people, places and situations as Raymond Chandler’s detective sees them.

One of the first people we spy is the attractive Adrienne Fromsette (Audrey Totter), the tightly wound, seemingly straight-laced editor of crime magazines. Shortly before Christmas, she summons Marlowe to her office on the pretense of publishing a story he’d submitted, but Adrienne really wants him to find the wife of her boss. Marlowe takes the job and falls into a maze of deception, obsession and murder, where he meets a gigolo, a crooked cop named Lt. DeGarmot (Lloyd Nolan), and the object of DeGarmot’s fixation, Mildred Havelend (Jayne Meadows).

Not only does the audience view the proceedings through Marlowe’s eyes, such as when he watches Adrienne’s shapely blonde secretary stride across the room, but we take part in his experiences. The camera goes to the floor when Marlowe is assaulted, and the screen goes black when he becomes unconscious, as well as when he closes his eyes to kiss Adrienne.

The unusual technique does get in the way of the storytelling at times. Because I couldn’t see his face, sometimes I couldn’t tell when the often-sarcastic Marlowe was being sarcastic and when he wasn’t, especially when he spoke to Adrienne. But it was a small price to pay to see more of the lovely Audrey Totter’s fine performance and less of Montgomery’s usual wooden acting.

This is an imperfect rendering of a superb Chandler novel, and Montgomery is a mediocre Marlowe, but Lady in the Lake is a highly entertaining and unique film.

Frick's Monument to Himself

The Frick Building towers over Grant Street in Pittsburgh.

Henry Clay Frick was a colossus among titans during the Gilded Age and beyond. Frick initially made his mark by creating a firm that turned Southwestern Pennsylvania coal into coke, a prime ingredient in the steel-making process, which brought him to the attention of steel baron Andrew Carnegie.

Frick became a Carnegie partner and the two made plenty of tax-free profits until the violent Homestead Strike and other frictions ruptured their personal and business relationships permanently. (Years later, Carnegie reportedly requested a face-to-face meeting with Frick, who supposedly told a go-between, "Tell Mr. Carnegie I'll see him in hell.")

Befitting his stature, Frick commissioned Chicago architect Daniel Burnham to create what would become the tallest building in Pittsburgh when it opened in 1902. Frick wanted it to be so tall that it would put the neighboring Carnegie Building in a perpetual shadow.

When it opened, the building had 20 floors, including a basement. But when the level of Grant Street was lowered in 1912, a new entrance had to be created in the basement.

Burnham also designed an annex, seen here in the left of the photo, which opened three years later.

In the marble-clad lobby are two bronze lions sculpted by Alexander Proctor and a stained-glass window, "Fortune and Her Wheel," made by John LaFarge.

The Frick Building and Annex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Burnham was a skyscraper pioneer who created the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, and supervised the "White City" of Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

For more on Burnham's fascinating career, see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Burnham

Darkness on Sunset

Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) draws
Joe Gillis (William Holden) deeper into her web
in a film noir and cinema classic, Sunset Boulevard.

Sunset Boulevard (1950, Paramount)

Starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson,

Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson and Jack Webb.

Written by Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett. 

Directed by Billy Wilder

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

 — Norma Desmond

The above line is one of the most quoted — and misquoted — lines in movie history from a film that stands among the best ever produced. It’s delivered by an unforgettable character, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), whose slide into insanity is complete at the end of the story.

A film that opens the can of worms that is Hollywood, “Sunset Boulevard” tells the tale of what happened when Joe Gillis (William Holden), a hack screenwriter, became the boy toy of Desmond, a huge star in the silent era whose career crashed with the coming of sound.

The end of their sordid affair is revealed at the start, when Gillis’ body is fished out of the pool after he was shot several times by the deranged Desmond. The story then is told in a flashback narrated by the deceased!

What follows are real places and situations that aren’t disguised, such as the Paramount gate and studio, and Cecil B. DeMille, as well as how stories go in one end of the movie factory and come out the other changed completely.

The film also features real situations draped in fiction. Swanson was a major star before the talkies took hold, and DeMille directed her in some of her biggest hits. Desmond’s butler, Max von Mayerling (Eric von Stroheim), was her director and former husband. The film screened for Gillis by Desmond in reality was “Queen Kelly,” starring Swanson and directed by von Stroheim.

The jaded Gillis’ downfall came after he became disgusted with his role as a kept man. After he showed Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), the young woman who is engaged to his best friend (Jack Webb) but loved Gillis, his sleazy way of life, he decided to pack up and leave. He soon discovers nobody walks out on Norma Desmond.

I am big. It was the pictures that got small.

That is another Desmond line to remember. It also can describe the vast number of movies that followed and most of those that preceded this fascinating film noir.

With terrific performances by all — including DeMille — and the usual biting wit that was Wilder and Brackett’s trademark, “Sunset Boulevard” gets better with each viewing. 

Double the Treachery, Double the Fun

Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) draws Walter

Neff (Fred Mac Murray) deeper into her web of

murder and deceit in Double Indemnity.

Double Indemnity (1944, Paramount)

Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck,

Edward G. Robinson
Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler,
based on a novella by James M. Cain

Directed by Billy Wilder

“I killed him for the money and a woman.
I didn’t get the money, and I didn’t get the woman.” — Walter Neff

While many consider Double Indemnity to be the first in the series of bleak movies made in the 1940s and 1950s that became known as film noir, others insist that it’s The Maltese Falcon, which was released in 1941. (I lean toward the more-obscure Stranger on the Third Floor, which was released in 1940.) However, the argument matters little because Billy Wilder, who directed and wrote the screenplay with Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep, created one of the best in Double Indemnity.

The familiar storyline of a corruptible man drawn into nefarious activities by an alluring femme fatale and kept from escaping by his obsession with her rarely was executed as brilliantly. Despite their contentious relationship, Wilder and Chandler crafted a fascinating and taut script that dripped with the sharp dialogue, such as the line above, that was Chandler’s trademark.

A fine cast brought Wilder and Chandler’s vision to life. Fred MacMurray, well-known at the time as the star of light comedies and later to Baby Boomers as a TV dad on My Three Sons, wanted nothing to do with this sordid tale. Wilder wore him down until MacMurray finally signed on and turned in an excellent performance as Walter Neff, who records the tale of his downfall on a Dictaphone in his office at Pacific All-Risk Insurance and narrates the flashbacks that make up the bulk of the film. 

Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson, brandishing a cheap blond wig, an anklet that immediately mesmerized Walter and an irresistible urge to kill her husband for money, staked her claim as the queen of the femmes fatale. Few are as ruthless or have pulled the strings on their men as deftly as Phyllis does. Edward G. Robinson’s portrayal of wily insurance investigator Barton Keyes is a tour de force. Keyes’ hunches unnerve Walter and drive much of the action.

The role played by veteran cinematographer John Seitz can’t be overlooked. A mainstay at Paramount since the days of silent film legend Rudolph Valentino, Seitz was a master of the shadows and light that became a trademark of later films noir. He also employed “venetian blind” lighting, which throws shadows akin to prison bars on guilty characters and became a cliche through overuse. Seitz worked with Wilder on Sunset Boulevard and The Lost Weekend.

It might be going too far to call it a masterpiece, but few films depicting people brought to ruin by greed and lust can match Double Indemnity.

It's a Grand Old Flag

The Flag Monument, which was dedicated on the 150th

anniversary of the U.S. flag, was made possible by the pennies

of more than 180,000 Allegheny County school children.

While this is too late for Flag Day, it’s early for flag waving on the Fourth of July.

With the 150th anniversary of the American flag's creation approaching, the now-defunct Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph announced it would mark the occasion with the erection of a bronze tablet funded by the pennies of school children.

In four weeks, the students contributed 188,163 pennies and their names were inscribed on an honor roll buried in a monument built in Schenley Park, near the future site of the Westinghouse Memorial, and dedicated June 14, 1927, on Flag Day.

Here's an editorial that ran in the Chronicle Telegraph the following day:

Flag Day in Pittsburgh, 1941

Most significant of the many interesting features of Pittsburgh's Flag Day celebrations was the unveiling of the monument commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our national emblem, made possible by the contributions of Allegheny County's school children.

More than 188,000 boys and girls participated in this notable tribute to the flag and gift to the community by giving one penny each through The Chronicle Telegraph in cooperation with the American Flag Day Association. The names of all contributors were printed in this newspaper and have been placed in a niche of the memorial tablet for permanent preservation.

This monument, consisting of a giant granite base and bronze tablet suitably inscribed, is unique both in design and purpose. Our community is the first in the land thus to mark the sesquicentennial of the country's flag, and never before has there been such a practical expression of their patriotism by a host of school children, eager to prove their devotion to America's beautiful emblem.

The Chronicle Telegram is proud to have had the privilege of cooperating in this great work in which the boys and girls of Allegheny County have so loyally assisted. Thanks to their generous response, our city will possess a beautiful and enduring reminder of the origin and meaning of the Stars and Stripes, teaching its impressive lesson to all frequenters of Pittsburgh's principal pleasure ground.

A closer look at the flag monument