R.I.P. John Vernon
The other night I caught a few minutes of CHARLEY VARRICK on TCM and thought about what great villains character actor John Vernon played. The sleazy criminal who sells out partner Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK. Clint Eastwood’s dogged pursuer in THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES. He also had a memorable turn opposite Clint as “the Mayor” in DIRTY HARRY.
Most obituaries are highlighting Vernon’s work in ANIMAL HOUSE, as well they should. A comedy of that stripe is only as good as its foil, and Vernon’s Dean Wormer set the bar high.
I’d like to remember Mr. Vernon with this exchange from his performance in AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL.
Prosecutor: Doctor, can you give the court your impression of Mr. Striker?
Dr. Stone: I’m sorry. I don’t do impressions. My training is in psychiatry.
TV Commercial: Revlon
Let me get this straight. We’ve got Halle Berry and Susan Sarandon and Julianne Moore all in one dressing room? This must be the starriest production of THE WOMEN ever. I shudder to think what the tickets must cost. And not only are they sharing the same room, they’re sharing the same mirror. CATWOMAN and THE FORGOTTEN are more believable than these ads are.
On the bright side, it’s great to see this much A-list talent in a commercial outside of Japan.
Classics I Somehow Missed: Day for Night (1973)
I’ve got an excuse. For years Francois Truffaut’s Oscar-winning film about filmmaking was only available in a dubbed edition. The 30th anniversary DVD remedies that and includes some terrific extras.
Now that I’ve seen it, I intend to buy my own copy. It’s a delight from start to finish, brimming with Truffaut’s characteristic warmth. No other movie captures the spirit of frenzied camaraderie that exists on a film set better. You can see its influence on subsequent films about the subject like IRMA VEP and Christopher Guest’s THE BIG PICTURE, which even employs similar music cues.
Miscellaneous: Link
Margo Jefferson takes a look at the contemporary state of noir in print and on screen.
It's About Time
1 hour ago
2 comments:
Re Day for Night: this remains to my memory a classic test case for dubbed versus the original (v.o. as they say in Paree). I saw the French lang. version in the big city and was knocked out by it, took my father to see it in the "nabes" where it was dubbed, and it had lost a good 25% of its charm. And bear in mind I'm speaking of the subtitles in the original since I didn't speak French, but these were far more nuanced , detailed, poetic than the bland English paraphrasing of the dub, which of course was forced to adapt to the lip movements in the original.
It's odd, considering that one of the great scenes in DAY FOR NIGHT involves Valentina Cortese blanking on her lines and offering to recite numbers "like I did with Fellini," thinking that the dialogue would be dubbed in later. What's astonishing is Cortese's demonstration of this technique. She's truly acting as she reels off a random series of numbers. John Boorman, for one, was always jealous of the visual freedom that this reliance on dubbing afforded Italian filmmakers. Fellini once told him, "If the Americans ever discover dubbing, we are finished." That may be true, but I still waited to watch this film with its original soundtrack.
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