Vanishing Cinematic Genres

Vanishing Cinematic Genres

PART I: THE SPECTACLE

Remember the old ads: SEE The Sacrifice of a Hundred Virgins! The Fall of Babylon! Mighty Armies Clash in the Fiercest Battle Ever!

You don’t see ads like that any more. For one simple reason: they don’t make movies like that any more. Hollywood spectacles were, at their worst, at least entertaining. At their best, they were often prime examples of the cinematic film, dealing with classic themes: man’s attempt to cope with or change his environment; a society’s, resistance to social change; the age-old question on the nature of the Universe-is it chaos or cosmos?

A spectacle may be defined as a film designed to overwhelm the viewer through massive visual images. A true spectacle is set in some exotic or strange landscape peopled with unique, often heroic, characters Who must come to grips with their massive environment, to conquer/it or be conquered. The spectacle creates in the viewer ambivalent feelings: he is at once swept up in the scope of the landscape and action, and yet, because he knows it is only a movie, is detached from that very, landscape and action.

The spectacle genre has been around almost as long as the movie camera itself. An Italian production of QUO VADIS, circa 1913, is considered both the first spectacle and the first “feature length” film. To the general public, however, D. W. Griffith’s BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE are the first spectacles.

For such early films (1915 and 1917), BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE are suprisingly well-done, technically, with some exquisite camera work by Billy Bitzer. Not content to merely dazzle the eye, Griffith took great pains to stimulate the brain as well with meaningful stories. Indeed, INTOLERANCE told four at once, all dealing with the common theme of man’s intolerance of those who have different beliefs. The four stories, interwoven in what has been termed “the only film fugue,” progressed toward a common and tragic climax.

To his dismay, Griffith discovered that audiences couldn’t follow the four simultaneous plots, and reluctantly re-edited the film into two, THE FALL OF BABYLON and THE LAW. Both did well. Fortunately, prints of Griffith’s original fugue are still available for study. INTOLERANCE is a cinematic tour de force never duplicated.

In the early Twenties, there .appeared a ditector who was to dominate the spectacle field until his death almost forty years later. Cecil B. DeMille had made some films in the Teens, most of them forgettable. His work in the Twenties was characterized by three recurring sequences: the heroine (invariably very young, very rich, and very bored) would disrobe before the camera to bathe in some grotesquely designed bathroom; suitably cleansed, she would attend some fantastic party (in one film it was a “Candy Ball” complete with “Marshmallow Girl” and bandstand made of candy canes) which always degenerated into an orgy; whereupon DeMille would flashback to Ancient Rome or Babylon to comment, in dubious analogy, that moral decay leads to societal death. It is doubtful that anyone else took DeMille’s often tasteless moralizing seriously, but there are indications he himself did.

In the late Twenties, after the rise of the Hays office, DeMille began a one-man crusade for decency in films. Forgoing contemporary morality, or lack of it, DeMille struck gold with spectacular religious epics, which more often than not included a scene in which Mary Magdalene would disrobe to bathe before attending an orgy at Herod’s place.

Cinematically, DeMille was more successful with his non-religious spectacles like UNION PACIFIC, REAP THE WILD WIND (one of the few films to feature John Wayne as a villain), and UNCONQUERED. UNION PACIFIC, the story of the Transcontinental Railroad, featured brutal Indian attacks and two spectacularly beautiful train wrecks. REAP THE WILD WIND dealt with privateers who would sabotage cargo-laden vessels off the Florida Keys and then claim salvage rights. These two films, in particular, featured miniature photography of the highest quality. Excellent special effects were a hallmark of DeMille spectacles, culminating in the fantastic THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in 1956. It is said DeMille spent $1 million for the special effects in the Red Sea sequence alone.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS was DeMille’s last film, and one of his better religious epics. A literate, well-written script, coupled with fantastic authenticity in settings and costumes, as well as the miraculous special effects (I have counted as many as seven pieces of film blended into one frame in portions of the Red Sea scene) make it one of the most entertaining, if somewhat overlong, movies ever made.

DeMille died in early 1959. Later that year, Joe Levine foisted HERCULES upon an unsuspecting public. The two events, seemingly unrelated, marked the beginning of the end for the spectacular genre.

HERCULES was a hype. Costing a mere $800,000 to produce, nearly three times that amount was spent to promote it in the United States. HERCULES cleaned up at the box office. Levine and his Italian cohorts, quick to spot the gap in the market left by DeMille’s death, gave us HERCULES UNCHAINED.

The flood of Italian “sword and sandal” epics deluged us.

Literally every legendary hero from A (Ali Baba) to Z (Zorro) was reincarnated in Italian spectacles. Usually portrayed by some lifeguard-type with maxi-muscles and mini-talent, the heroes were, all too often, of dubious sexual persuasion. Soon the relatively well-designed settings and costumes of the original HERCULES degenerated into shoddy tent cities and tacky rags and uniforms. Mythological themes rapidly disappeared, to be replaced by sado-masochistic plots. Spectacle became synonymous with trash.

While the Italian spectacles were killing the genre, a Spanish group was trying to revive it. Backed by the Spanish government, Samuel Bronston tried in the mid-Sixties to

make quality spectacles. KING OF KINGS ( a remake of the DeMille classic), EL CID, 55DAYS AT PEKING, and THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE featured stellar casts, excellent production values, /Competent directors, and low cost office appeal. After the failure of Bronston’s CIRCUS WORLD, both critically and financially,' Franco decided to put his money elsewhere. Bronston, who had figured to be DeMille’s replacement faded.

If the Italians dealt the genre a fatal blow, an American production administered the coup de grace.

Cant. Next Page

CLEOPATRA was a $40 million mistake. But 20th Century Fox’s PR department had done its job well--The public couldn’t wait to see CLEOPATRA. Almost everybody was disappointed. And the studios wouldn’t dare to finance another spectacle, lest the production turn out to be another CLEOPATRA. The genre gasped, rolled over, and died.

In its place, we have the pseudo-spectacle; the multi-million dollar “action” film and the “blockbuster” musical.

ICE STATION ZEBRA ia a multi-million dollar action film masquerading as a spectacle. The plot, a standard “how-the-World-was-saved-from-World War III” format, complete with, saboteurs and unknown agents, follows Rock Hudson and his nuclear submarine to the North Pole, where they will obstensibly rescue survivors of a British weather station ravaged by fire. The first part of .the film is boring. Not much dramatic headway can be made with standard submarine dialogue like, “Take ’er down three hundred feet” and “Dive! Dive!” Once the sub surfaces at the North Pole, things pick up a little, but the climax, in which the identity of the saboteur is revealed and the world saved from holocaust, is suprisingly predictable.

The all-male cast is comprised of uninspiring actors. Will Rock Hudson ever learn to act? Will Ernest Borgnine ever stop playing ethnic roles (in this one, he’s a Russian defector)? Will Jim Brown ever have a chance to act? In the midst of these non-actors, television’s Patrick McGoohan (“Secret Agent,” “The Prisoner”) stands out, simply because there’s no one with whom to compare his performance.

John Sturges, the director, has made better films, notably BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, GUNFIGHT AT OK CORRAL, and THE GREAT ESCAPE. His direction of ICE STATION ZEBRA is uninspired, and the picture never really “grabs” you like it should. To be successful, a movie has to be suspenseful. ICE STATION ZEBRA isn’t either.

On the other hand, SWEET CHARITY, latest in a long-line of “blockbusting” musicals, is fairly successful in its intentions, which is mainly to entertain you, the viewer.

In the title role, Shirley MacLaine gives her best performance since her first movie, Hitchcock’s THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. She is primarily a dancer, which is how she started her career, and in this movie she really gets a chance to cut loose. She is less successful, though, in the dramatic portions of the film, depending on a flood _of tears to get you to sympathize with her character. To be sure, Charity Hope Valentine has a lot to cry about, but after a while you begin to wish she’d stop feeling so damned sorry for herself and try to straighten out her life.

On siage, Gwen Verdon didn’t let any of Charity’s misfortunes (shoved into a lake, thrust into a movie star’s closet while he makes love to his girl friend, left at the altar) phase her Charity. Shirley McLaine cries. I thought Miss Verdon’s characterization to be more truthful to Giullieta Massipa’s, who created the role in Fellini’s NIGHTS OF CAB1R1A, on which SWEET CHARITY is based.

Without a doubt, SWEET CHARITY’S redeeming values are a tuneful score and director Bob Fosse’s choreography. Fosse’s dances are vibrant, alive, and often satirical. The musical numbers areall staged with an originality sadly missing from most other cinematized musicals. “Big Spender,” “Rich Man’s Frug,” and “I’m a Brass Band” numbers are especially outstanding.

It is unfortunate that screenwriter Peter Stone decided to change playwright Neil Simon’s ending to the story. The play ended on a note so absurd as to render all that had gone before as fantasy, not to be taken seriously. Stone has chosen to inject an encounter with flower children who inspire Charity to continue her search for love. In so doing, Stone has changed the entire tone of the story, making it just disquieting enough to be depressing.

Both ICE STATION ZEBRA and SWEET CHARITY pretend to be spectacles. Neither is. SWEET CHARITY lacks the landscape, characters, and action to qualify. ICE STATION ZEBRA has the landscape, but not the requisite characters and action. Yet both are being passed off as “something special” (and, therefore, spectacles) upon the public. Both are filmed in unnecessary ultra-wide screen processes. Both are being “road-shown” (i.e., a limited number of screenings per week at advanced prices). Both suffer from an over-inflated sense of importance. Both are teetering dangerously on the brink of ultimate oblivion, although SWEET CHARITY to a lesser degree than ICE STATION ZEBRA,

With a little more care, and more modest production values, ICE STATION ZEBRA would have made a nice little action film, a la WHERE EAGLES DARE. With more care, and someone to burst the* bubbles of self-importance which surrounds it, SWEET CHARITY would have been a nice little musical film. Moderation would have aided both immeasurably. As it is, hyped production values, in a vain effort to make both spectacles, will be the ultimate downfall of both. Pity.

James L. Jones