'Have You Seen...?'

by David Thomson

  It was always a film that asked its admirers, Well, where am I from? Its makers were Polish, if Poles in exile. The money came largely from West Germany. But the two leading players were English, and so for me the film felt English if only because of the lovely, guttersnipe voice of Jane Asher as the enigmatic female figure. I hasten to add that Ms. Asher was a classy bird in her own right. In putting on the south London voice, she was acting—and acting so well it’s a marvel and a disgrace that we don’t know her from other films.

  Mike (John Moulder-Brown) is sixteen or so and just out of school. He gets a job as attendant at a suburban swimming pool—indoors, Victorian, tiles, old-fashioned, but a strange meeting ground for sexy kids, fitness freaks, and those outsiders who live a life of municipal facilities. He has to avoid the lubricious advances of another attendant, the voluptuous towel lady (played with high comedy by Diana Dors)—and he falls for a schoolgirl, Susan (Asher), who comes to the pool to be seen, to wear a swimsuit, to flirt with her teacher (Karl Michael Vogler), and to act as the mysterious threshold to life for Mike.

  Jerzy Skolimowski (born in Warsaw, 1938) had made Identification Marks: None, Walkover, Barrier, and Le Départ. He was a dynamic and dangerous figure. There was something of Godard there, as well as Polanski. But could he function outside Poland? Deep End was a test of that, written in collaboration with two other Polish exiles, Jerzy Gruza and Boleslaw Sulik. The picture was photographed by Charly Steinberger and the important art direction was done by Max Ott, Jr., and Anthony Pratt.

  None of which necessarily prepares one for so lyrical or violent a parable about sexual awakening. From the seedy mood of the bathhouse to the electric potential of the two lead actors, Deep End is mundane and surreal together at every instant. Its ending is savage and comic. Its passage is erotic and deeply unsettling. Deep End is not too far from a major film, and its neglect is representative of the way Skolimowski has slipped into obscurity. There were later films—The Shout and Moonlighting—based in England. But Skolimowski has fallen silent (he acts in Eastern Promises). So it’s important to stress that Deep End is a film worthy of Vigo. There are images of Jane Asher—of her and her image (see the film)—that deserve a place in the history of erotic cinema.

  The Deer Hunter (1978)

  At the time of this controversial film’s release, there were complaints that the North Vietnamese had not employed Russian roulette. It was said that the scenes in Saigon were fanciful or imagined. And it was suggested that De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage were too old to have enlisted for Vietnam (Savage, the youngest of the three, was thirty). Three decades later, “imagination” seems to have stilled those worries. It is not necessarily a comfortable conclusion, for Michael Cimino has gone far away from making movies since the famous disaster of Heaven’s Gate. Never mind; you still need to see Heaven’s Gate and decide for yourself, and The Deer Hunter is one of the great American films.

  In Clairton, Pennsylvania, Michael (De Niro), Nick (Walken), and Steven (Savage) are soon to go to Vietnam. Before then, Steven is to marry Angela (Rutanya Alda). At their prolonged wedding, we meet other friends: John (George Dzundza), Stan (John Cazale), and Nick’s girlfriend, Linda (Meryl Streep).

  After the wedding, the guys go off on a deer hunt—in country impossibly far from Pennsylvania. It proves to be a rite of passage in which Mike declares his ideal of the one-shot kill.

  At this point, we are an hour into a picture after a first movement that is long, slow, and ominous, and a second that is short and electric. The structure might come direct from Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, for immediately we plunge into the close confines of horrible imprisonment by the Vietcong, of torture and Russian roulette. The three guys are involved, and they escape. Steven will lose his legs. Nick vanishes into the hinterland of Saigon.

  Michael returns to Pennsylvania. He becomes involved with Linda, though nothing really can happen between them. He decides to return to Saigon, and he finds Nick, who has made a tormented career out of Russian roulette. Michael tries to save Nick, but the urge to self-destruction is too great.

  You have to feel the musical structure, marked out by two songs—“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” at the wedding and “God Bless America” at the close. You have to respond to the brilliant visualization of every moment, the photography by Vilmos Zsigmond. And you have to understand the existentialism of acting. Within it all, this is a story in which the stupid male pride of America bows to stronger forces and more elastic philosophies. It is a picture in which a small survey of manhood reveals desperate, tragic, and inadequate characters; in which women hardly know how to make their presence felt. It is redneck America. Yes, it is a film about America’s Vietnam that will outlive the wounds and memories of that war. You have to see it, finally, as an aghast realization about the violence in America—and so it becomes the companion to Heaven’s Gate.

  The Deer Hunter is one of the few American films that work like a novel. It is unsettling, yet it is mysterious. It is as if the deer in the mountains and the steel furnaces are in possession of some inner knowledge that explains the Dostoyevskian gambling in Vietnam. Far more than Apocalypse Now, this film smells of Conrad.

  Deliverance (1972)

  If you go down to the woods today, you’d better not go alone… but how many friends will you need to keep you safe? America has not often used its cinema to explore the society of the hinterland—I mean the deep, rural places, off the highways or the air routes, where life goes on, determined to be undisturbed or dragged into the bright light of civilization. And that neglect has led to a widespread paranoia in the urban, educated places—that the country is a hideaway for barbarism of a kind that deters casual visiting.

  It’s a fascinating question for historical research how far this initial wariness prompted the hostilities with native Americans in the nineteenth century, and the view of the South that has grown up since the Civil War. So I think it’s worth saying that young, able Americans from all over the country do go exploring in Texas, hiking along the Blue Ridge of Tennessee, or kayaking on the great rivers of Appalachia without facing worse than the natural dangers and the endless hospitality of the locals.

  That is not what Deliverance was ever about. It comes from the novel by James Dickey, published in 1970, about four city guys who plan a river adventure. It turns out badly. They are held up by rednecks. There is a rape. There is murder. Only three of them come through, and they are shattered—as are we. In the hands of director John Boorman this is a terrifying, compulsive movie, as successful as it may be misleading.

  Boorman made friends with Dickey, who delivered a screenplay that is a solemn, not unpretentious work of literature in its own right. It begins: “Black screen. I would like this to be sustained for a while, perhaps even a bit longer than it is in most cases, so that the audience becomes very quiet, wondering if something might not possibly be wrong.”

  The only thing wrong was that directors—even those as smart as Boorman—don’t respond happily to such guidance. The two fell out, and Dickey had to leave the shooting—though he plays the sheriff very nicely. Boorman did not betray his cause, even if Vilmos Zsigmond’s outstanding photography does not fully catch Dickey’s troubled apprehension of nature.

  The film is not for the queasy. It is rough and scary as hell: The rednecks—Bill McKinney, Herbert Coward—are nightmare stuff, and the rape is not done discreetly (I don’t think it can be). But Boorman’s real quest is to see how the men shape up, how the macho Lewis (Burt Reynolds) cracks and how the more thoughtful Ed (Jon Voight) becomes the leader or the one left guilty. Ned Beatty is very good as the chief victim, and Ronny Cox is the one who dies. There is also the meeting with a boy (Hoyt Pollard) who plays such wild banjo that it is as awesome as the power of the river and the intractability of its natives. This is a film of frightening power—just like America. But is the power and its fear accurately imagined?

  Desire (1936)

  For a moment in the
mid 1930s, Paramount thought to put Ernst Lubitsch in charge of all production, as if he might touch and bring magic to everything. Second thoughts crowded in, and Lubitsch was quite quickly replaced with William LeBaron (the executive who did so much to get Preston Sturges his start as a director). Still, here—from 1936, with Frank Borzage directing—is one of Lubitsch’s productions. Almost certainly, it was a picture he had intended doing himself; the erotic suggestiveness of jewels (especially when slipped into a pocket) is not just his touch but nearly a trademark. Lubitsch had a way of looking at necklaces as if they were private parts—and I don’t think I need to spell out the place of the pocket in such transactions.

  Please notice Paramount’s cheerful indifference to Spain in 1936 (the studio had just done The Devil Is a Woman, which unsettled diplomatic relations). Tom Bradley (Gary Cooper) is a Detroit engineer who takes a vacation in one of the company’s top cars. He elects to drive from Paris to Spain, which, according to this film, is still available for blithe romance. But Madeleine de Beaupre (Marlene Dietrich) is on the road, too, with a pearl necklace that is not hers. At the customs post, going from France to Spain, she slips the pearls into Tom’s pocket, just in case. Well, romance is under way, and since theft has played cupid to this couple, there will be unusual problems in sorting out honesty.

  This pleasant nonsense came from a play, Die Schönen Tage von Aranjuez, by Hans Szekely and R. A. Stemmle, which had already been filmed in Germany, with Brigitte Helm in the Madeleine role. Lubitsch got a new script worked on by Edwin Justus Mayer, Waldemar Young, and Samuel Hoffenstein, and he reckoned to reunite Dietrich and Cooper; one suspects that he looked back over the Sternberg films and saw the Cooper-Dietrich chemistry as one of the few things worth pursuing commercially and creatively.

  Dietrich, one has to say, seems liberated after Sternberg, and there is no doubt that she had a terrific Berliner fondness for Lubitsch, not to mention a yen for Cooper. He is adroit at playing the simpleton who lets her run rings around him, until the rings have her tangled. Meanwhile, she gazes at him with the awe of simple lust—a quality too neglected in films. And it helps so much that they have a similar pace, with Dietrich’s amused gaze nestling in Coop’s elongated responses.

  What did Borzage do? Well, he shot it all, with Charles Lang and Victor Milner doing the photography. But in addition, he has the gravity to know how far to make “love” an ennobling little prison for a couple (as when Madeleine is pretending to sleep). Borzage did love, whereas Lubitsch was always looking over his shoulder. Borzage could concentrate, and that skill is very kind to the two stars and to the flimsy story.

  The film is justly famous for its luxe costumes (by Travis Banton), and its art direction (by Hans Dreier and Robert Usher) is definitely Spain before hostilities commenced. Frederick Hollander did the music, with a song, “You’re Here, I’m Here,” for Marlene.

  Destry Rides Again (1939)

  Don’t forget that, in advance of Stagecoach or Red River, someone had seen the possibility (or is it the need?) of spoofing the Western. Originally, Destry Rides Again had been a novel by Max Brand about a droll, yarn-spinning cowboy who brings law and order to a gunslinging town (named Bottleneck). As such, it had been a Tom Mix picture in 1932—but in that version, the hero’s true love was his horse. By 1939, enough people at Universal were convinced of the chance of a new version of the story, but this time the horse would be a woman. Better still, it would be Marlene Dietrich, in an attempt to revive her American career.

  Producer Joe Pasternak presided over the managerial confusion as many more people than those credited offered script pages. But there was a safety net: If they didn’t know what to do next, Destry the cowboy would tell one of his shaggy horse stories, or the saloon girl, Frenchy (Marlene), would sing a song. All of a sudden, Jimmy Stewart (Destry) found that quavering, drawling, make-it-up-as-you-go-along storytelling style that he traded on the rest of his life. His high voice became manageable and sleepy—and all at once charm oozed out of the spindly kid. No one needed a map, especially not Dietrich, who fell upon her costar in gratitude and respect. She gave no trouble to the cameraman (Hal Mohr) or the director (George Marshall), and she took sensible comfort in having Frederick Hollander to write a few songs for her—notably, “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have,” which she never abandoned.

  The chemistry between Stewart and Dietrich was classic Americana—homespun outwits Continental sophistication—but Marlene had the good sense not to contest it. And Stewart knew he was a lucky guy. So, along the way, the outlines of the Western were satirized, or spoofed (if you prefer that American word). Marshall deserves credit, too—throughout his career he exhibited the ability to make gentle fun of familiar genres. Dietrich hadn’t made a film in two years—not since Angel—but this got her a contract with Universal, where she was happy making eyes at big, rough American men like John Wayne and Randolph Scott.

  Other songs (lyrics by Frank Loesser as well as music by Hollander) were “Little Joe, the Wrangler” and “You’ve Got that Look.” The supporting cast included Charles Winninger, Mischa Auer, Brian Donlevy, Irene Hervey, and Una Merkel (with whom Dietrich has a drag-out catfight of the sort that men always appreciate).

  The picture began shooting days after Hitler invaded Poland and was in theaters by the end of November, thereby adding to the pleasing illusion that in 1939, amid such troubles and uncertainty, Hollywood could hardly put a foot wrong. A real flop in 1939 might have killed Dietrich as a star. Destry set her up again as an amused and amusing woman—one who could sing to the troops and deserve their affection.

  Detour (1945)

  People marvel that Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour was shot in six days, but six days can be an awful long time. Imagine six days with this film’s female protagonist, Vera (Ann Savage); it’s enough to bring on thoughts of doing away with yourself. How easily the ugly circumstances of Detour the story seem to supersede the film. It is a reality that travelers might tell warning tales about.

  Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is making his way west to be with his girl, Sue (Claudia Drake). In Reno, he recalls her in a brief flashback—it is all we will ever see of her—singing in a nightclub. She went west to make her name; he would follow when he was a success. But he can’t wait for that, and now he is nearly in California.

  A man, Haskell (Edmund MacDonald), says he will give him a lift to L.A. They drive through the night, and Haskell tells him about a woman he picked up—not a hitchhiker, but a waiting curse. Al drives, and while he’s doing so, Haskell dies. Al fears he will be blamed. So he dumps the body and takes Haskell’s car, his money, and his identity. He picks up a woman, Vera, and he realizes she is the woman Haskell talked about. She realizes that Haskell is dead and assumes Al has killed him. She dominates him. She gets her teeth into him.

  They go to L.A. and then San Bernardino. They are holed up in a motel. They read that Haskell had a wealthy father. Vera tells Al he will pretend to be Haskell to get the money. But before that can happen, Vera goes into another room to make a phone call. Hating her, Al pulls hard on the cord, then harder. He finds he has strangled her. He never has had any luck. A cop picks him up. “No matter what you do, no matter where you turn, fate sticks out its foot to trip you.” It’s a more persuasive refrain than the song Sue was singing at the start, “I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me.”

  Edgar G. Ulmer was Viennese. He had designed for Max Reinhardt and F. W. Murnau, and he came to America in 1930. He began directing in 1934 and worked for thirty years, usually on B pictures. He seems always to have been hanging on by his fingernails, yet he was plainly very smart and highly talented. Half a dozen of his pictures (Ruthless, The Naked Dawn, for instance) are still classics of the underground that existed before “independent” film came along. He was interviewed, and he talked like a pirate king. Yet how did he survive? And how is a film like Detour endurable? I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. The film is a portrait of hell, and brilliantly done. I
t was made for Producers Releasing Corporation, with Leon Fromkess as producer. The credits on the picture say that Martin Goldsmith wrote it from his own novel. Benjamin H. Kline did the photography. The film runs 67 minutes.

  Tom Neal ended up badly: he was involved in violence and did six years in prison. Ann Savage is alive still and sometimes appears at special showings of Detour, an old witch who hardly seems to grasp what she has done. Detour is preserved now, famous and taught, but it only shows that there may be plenty of films as good, as ugly, and as disreputable waiting to be found in the gutter.

  Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (1971)

  In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Parisian Claude Roc goes to stay with the Brown sisters. They are Anne and Muriel, and they live in a gray-stone house on a clifftop; it seems to be Wales, and it is idyllic, not just as the three parties slip in and out of love but simply in terms of place, the air, and the color of the light. The summer is a mix of shyness and impulse, set against the idea of a young French author staying with a pair of Bronte-esque sisters. Words are everywhere, in the narration (delivered by François Truffaut himself) and in the form of letters passed among the trio like nervous glances.

  My feeling that this is Truffaut’s essential film comes from several things. One of them is the fascinating, suspicious relationship of film and literature, for there is a steady uncertainty over whether this work will lean toward one or the other. Another is the friendship between English and French characters, as uncommon in film as it may be in life, but surely worth thinking of for constant neighbors. Then there is the absorbing study of sisterhood. I’m not sure if the intuitions and the rivalries of sisters have ever been caught better onscreen. And this is to say nothing of the love affairs themselves, the heady notion of passion and the characteristic resorting to and fear of a natural, unbreachable solitude in people.