Tweleve Days of Christmas: Day Five

Have yourself a merry little suicide? For Frank Capra, the holidays were the perfect time for dejected men to find redemption after being snapped from the brink.  This occurs in two of his classic movies.  The obvious Capra film that falls into this category is the Christmas standby It's a Wonderful Life (1946), where Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey reconsiders suicide with some help from his guardian angel Clarence.  The second is Capra's 1941film, Meet John Doe, where the titular character (played by Gary Cooper) almost jumps form the top of City Hall on Christmas Eve, after being used by a scheming political magnate to be the spokesperson for the common man.  Instead of an angel, John Doe finds the will to live when common men everywhere come to his rescue to show that men can triumph over society's evils. In the end both men learn that there's something worthwhile in life, but the suicide angle seems a little extreme...

Xmas in Film: Bell, Book, and Candle

Witches, jazz clubs, drunken writers- not words traditionally associated with the holidays.  They do make for a unique take on the Christmas season, which is why today's film selection is such a Christmas treat.  Released in 1958, and starring the electrifying Kim Novak and her Vertigo leading man (and later day Christmas icon) James Stewart, Bell, Book, and Candle is an unusual film which sees that first act taking place on a very unusual Christmas Eve.

Directed by Novak paramour Richard Quine, Bell, Book, and Candle stars Novak as Gillian Holroyd, a bored, beautiful witch who owns a New York based African Art Store.  In the apartments above live her Aunt Queenie (famed character actress and former Bride of Frankenstein, Elsa Lanchester) and publisher Shep Henderson (Stewart).   Gil is fascinated by Shep, and when she discovers that Shep is engaged to a former college nemesis she decides to steal his heart for herself.  Using her magical Siamese cat, Pyewacket, she casts a spell on Shep to fall in love with her.  Shep is instantly smitten with her, dumps the evil fiance, and takes up with Gil.  The remainder of the film centres around Gil's brother, Nicky (played by the great Jack Lemmon) helping drunken writer Sidney Redlitch (played by comedy legend Ernie Kovacs) write a book about the New York witch community, Shep eventually discovering Gil's true identity, and Shep's attempt at breaking the spell that's Gil's put him under.  To be honest, none of these plots compare to the first forty minutes of the film.  I don't even bother with the final ten minutes which, like many films with a strong female lead, destroys everything about the character that makes her interesting.

Check out that awesome tree!

In spite of this film's shortcomings let's highlight what makes this film worth talking about - the Christmas scenes.  If you're looking for sleigh rides, people dancing the Reel, and turkey dinners look elsewhere.  If you're a witch you don't go in for that traditional Christmas stuff.  In the universe of this film, witches get dressed to the nines and go to the local jazz bar to hear songs about corpses at the bottom of the river.  I haven't even mentioned Gil's Christmas tree, yet.  Yes, witches have Christmas trees, and Gil's is a marvellous piece of modern art design.  Gil's wardrobe, designed by Jean Louis, is probably my favourite wardrobe in any film.  Seriously, the costume design of in this film is phenomenal.

As previously mentioned, this is not a great film.  It is a visual marvel with some creative details which make it something beyond the ordinary.  Here's a clip featuring the jazz club scene...

Xmas in Film: The Shop Around the Corner

It's hard to believe, but I've actually gone through the first four days of December without talking about anything film related (non-animated, that is).  Well, that ends here as does my moratorium on talking about romantic comedies (I did say that holiday themed ones didn't count) as we look at the first Christmas movie of the season.  It stars a man who is ubiquitous with the Christmas season, starring in one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time- Mr. James Stewart.  But, we're not talking about It's a Wonderful Life today- that would be way too obvious.  Instead, I wanted to highlight Jimmy's role in another great Christmas movie, 1940's The Shop Around The Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

The plot of The Shop Around The Corner is a very familiar (it was remade twice, as 1949's In The Good Old Summertime and 1998's You've Got Mail).  Two shop clerks who can't stand each other turn out to be each other's secret pen pals, with whom they are in each love with.  Stewart plays Alfred Kralik, a clerk at Matuschek & Company, a Budapest leather goods store and Margaret Sullivan plays Klara Novak, his fellow clerk/nemesis who turns out to be the woman of his dreams.  To be honest, their relationship doesn't really do much for me.  I find Margaret Sullivan's character to be incredibly histrionic and there are times when Stewart's character can be downright mean.  That been said, there are a couple scenes between the two that really shine - the scene where Stewart's character discovers that Sullavan's is his pen pal and toys with her while she nervously waits for her "pen pal" and the scene at the very end when Sullavan finally realizes that Stewart is her pen pal and they finally get together.  These scenes help make up for the rest of the film's lacklustre interactions between the two.

Now that I've taken care of the main plot of the film, I can focus on the reason that I really love this film- the subplots and the characters who inhabit them.  Like any retail establishment, this film is populated with an assortment of characters that give the film its life.  From the wise-ass delivery boy Peppy, to the kindhearted yet timid family-man Pirovitch, to the sleazy dandy Vadas - they all have their little backstories.  The biggest one involves the big man himself Mr. Matuschek (played by The Wizard of Oz himself Frank Morgan) who incorrectly suspects that Kralik is having an affair with his wife.  Prior to his suspicions he and Kralik had a relationship similar to that of a father and son, and this has a major effect on Stewart's employment and causes Matuschek to make an attempt suicide.  Not to worry though, this is a comedy and all turns out well in the end with everyone getting what's coming to him.

Everything culminates on Christmas Eve with one of my favourite Christmas scenes in any film.  Mr. Matuschek, who has just been released from the hospital has just given everyone their Christmas bonuses after a very successful Christmas Eve, looks to his staff (his one true family) for someone to spend Christmas with now that his marriage is over.  One by one they all tell them of their plans with friends and loved ones.  It looks like he's destined to be alone when he learns of the new delivery boy's situation (his family don't live in town) and he generously offers to take him for a wonderful Christmas dinner.  It's an unusually touching moment that makes the film for me.  Here it is...

A Bombshell for the Ages: Kim Novak

Marilyn Pauline Novak, more famously known as Kim Novak, has a rare indefinable beauty that enthralled audiences of the 1950s.  A combination of cool refinement and a sensuality that simmered just below the surface, she was known to many as the Lavender Blonde, mainly due to the studio mandated blue tone in her blond hair and her remote persona.  A persona that had never been seen in Hollywood and never been duplicated.  Unfortunately for Kim, her stunning beauty often obscured the fact that she was a very talented actress.

Born in Chicago, in 1933, to second generation Czech-immigrants, Ms. Novak began her career as a model, first modeling teen fashions and later touring the United States as Miss Deep Freeze, the spokesmodel for an appliance company.  She was discovered by Columbia Studios after moving to Los Angeles in 1953 and signed to a brief six-month contract, with hopes that she would become Columbia’s answer to Marilyn Monroe.  The studio’s first point of business was to change her name, so as not to be confused with Miss Monroe.  The studio’s original suggestion was Kit Marlowe, however Novak was adamant about keeping part of her name and they soon settled on the moniker Kim Novak. 

In her first couple of roles, Kim was cast as a sexpot femme fatale, which instantly caught audience’s attention and led to a remarkable amount of fan mail.  Columbia, then cast Kim in her breakthrough role as Madge Owens opposite William Holden and Rosalind Russell in 1955’s Picnic.  During the next couple of years Kim starred in several hits including The Man With The Golden Arm, Pal Joey (both opposite Frank Sinatra), and Jeanne Eagles.  Audiences couldn’t get enough of Kim’s enigmatic persona. 

Kim’s career would reach an apex in 1958, when she was cast in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo, giving a performance that was maligned when the film was released, but would later be reassessed and branded brilliant by critics and fans alike.  She also earned the ire of director Alfred Hitchcock, who considered her habit of not wearing a bra vulgar, and detested her constant questions and input into his film. That same year she was cast as a seductive witch opposite her Vertigo co-star, the great James Stewart, in Bell, Book, and Candle.  Both Vertigo and Bell, Book, and Candle had lackluster box-office returns, marking a decline for Kim that continued throughout the rest of the fifties and early sixties. 

By 1965, Kim had grown restless in her role as a movie star, and decided to take a break from acting and focus on some of her other interests.  She made intermittent returns to the screen between the late sixties and early nineties, but her love of art (she is an accomplished painter, sculptress, and poet) and animals (she lives on a ranch with her veterinarian husband) have since ruled her life.   

Now 77, she still maintains that indefinable quality that makes her so compelling.  Most recently she made an appearance at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles last August for a special screening of Bell, Book, and Candle and to promote The Kim Novak Collection on DVD.  It’s an awesome collection that I would recommend to any Kim Novak enthusiast.