Tuesday, April 19, 2016

A DBR (Drive-By Rambling): TCM'S UNDER THE INFLUENCE with ELVIS MITCHELL: Interview with Quentin Tarantino

Originally started this around May 9, 2014

Good morning! 

I have a bad habit of DVRing movies and then never getting around to watching them. Similar to my buying DVDs and never getting around to watching them. Similar to me writing down ideas for movie ideas and screenplays and comic books and never getting around to actually trying to write a first draft and develop them. Similar to...


Anyway, I was trying to watch one or two things this morning that I had DVRed while eating a delicious breakfast that my wife made, and I decided to watch an episode of TCM'S UNDER THE INFLUENCE with ELVIS MITCHELL, a half hour show where film critic Mitchell interviews someone from Hollywood (typically an actor or director from the few episodes I've seen) and asks them what their cinematic (or any creative discipline) influences are. I already have a bad habit of spontaneously, impulsively DVRing programs and then never watching them, instead letting them accumulate to my wife's irritation because I then start crowding out all the TV series she DVRs. So, I try to occasionally keep up and delete a few shows to keep the domestic peace and more importantly, keep my head from being completely severed from my neck via conjugal fu.

The guest of this episode of ELVIS MITCHELL was writer/director Quentin Tarantino, and if any filmmaker has influences on his work, it's this dude, so I was looking forward to checking this out.
Topics were all over the place, understandably, because Tarantino was talking film and a lot of his love is associative, so he'll talk about one film and or actor or director he loves (or doesn't) and that will usually lead to another topic. Which is great for film geeks talking, but I think Mitchell had to really work at times to keep QT focused-- it was only a half hour show.
But the one thing I really liked was Tarantino listing his top three comic performances in the history of cinema, or some hyperbole like that.
They were:

1. Rex Harrison in writer/director Preston Sturges' UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (1948);

Rex Harrison (r) suspects his wife, Linda Darnell (center) of having an affair with Kurt Krueger (l).
2. Cary Grant in director Howard Hawks' HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940); 
Cary Grant, Frank Jenks, Roscoe Karns, Gene Lockhart, Pat Flaherty, Porter Hall, Alma Kruger, and Rosalind Russell.
3. and Eli Wallach in director Sergio Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY (1966/1967, USA Release)
Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. 
Of course, the last choice is typical of Tarantino, appreciating a specific genre film for reasons atypical of that genre's attributes (in this case, a Leone spaghetti western).
[NOTE: I figure there's a distinction between a spaghetti western and a western, and a further distinction between a spaghetti western and a Leone spaghetti western, hence...]
Anyway, that's a pretty awesome triple feature I'm going to have to watch someday. I've seen them all before already, but it's been awhile.
My favorite Sturges' comedy is THE LADY EVE, with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda but UNFAITHFULLY YOURS is really very funny as well. In fact, I remember watching the Sturges film long ago with slowly dawning surprise, that I was familiar with the plot because I didn't realize the similarly titled 1984 comedy with Dudley Moore and Nastasja Kinski WAS a remake (and pretty damn funny). But the original is really excellent, and Rex Harrison is wonderfully ridiculous as Linda Darnell's jealous husband, imagining three ways to have the perfect revenge on his wife and "her lover": he imagines executing each scenario out perfectly (which we see) and then we witness his attempt to follow through on these plans and things just go terribly each time. His battle of wits with a type of phonograph player that will record your voice onto a record is a favorite moment.
Of the three films, I've seen HIS GIRL FRIDAY most recently, and that remains one of my favorite comedies. One of the best!
It's been a long damn time since I've seen the Leone film, so it's a good excuse to get re-acquainted.
Anyway, it was a good interview, and of course, now that I've seen it, I want to save it and not delete it...


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