BORN AGAIN |
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| It’s Hollywood's favourite story about Hollywood … That’s why they keep telling it, about every 20 years. Except it’s 41 years this time. Although the fourth A Star Is Born has been on/off since 2011. And the mighty Brando was chased for it twice - 23 years apart! Born was born as What Price Hollywood? in 1931. Hollywood journo Adele Rogers St John’s tale was based upon real LA folk. The matrix was simple. Alcoholic star on the skids discovers a radiant raw talent. She’s soon bigger than he ever was, and he kills himself rather than rain on her parade. That was Fredric March and Janet Gaynor (beating Elizabeth Bergner, Margaret Sullavan) in the first actual Star Is Born in 1936. They had the same names (Norman Maine and Esther Blodgett) in the 1953 re-make, with James Mason stealing what was, essentially, The Judy Garland Show. By 1976, the star had become a wrecked rocker finding a new chick singer, John Newton Howard and Esther Hoffman, aka Cher, Liza Minnelli, Helen Reddy, Diana Ross and, finally, The Barbra Streisand Show, crushing poor Kris Kristofferson - "If I can't play a self-destructive musician - what can I play?" Except it was penned for “Sweet Baby James” Taylor. Or Neil Diamond, Mick Jagger, Kenny Loggins ... La Barb demanded: Elvis. He was flattered, not having made a movie since 1969 and nothing great since ’58. His manager, the dumb “Colonel” Parker, was horrified: Mah boy playing a loser ..! |
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| Born 5 began with Clint Eastwood aiming for Beyoncé and his J Edgar, Leonardo DiCaprio. Or Christian Bale, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Robert Downey Jr, Eminem. Jon Hamm. Clint then mused over a black Born: Will Smith and Beyoncé (or Lauryn Hill), Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston. Clint also keen on jazz singer Esperanza Spalding. Next, he decided his American Sniper Bradley Cooper should direct himself opposite … who? Lady Gaga, said Brad. A deal was born. Getting the right guy for Judy Garland was not so easy … Moved to tears by the original, Humphrey Bogart always talked about re-making it. Warner Bros refused, so Bogie quit the studio after 20 years! Richard Burton or Laurence Olivier were mentioned. Judy suggested Glenn Ford, Stewart Granger. Most guys fled the project for two reasons. They had no death wish to be seen as - or with - a Hollywood has-been. Cary Grant was always George Cukor's choice. He had him read the script aloud at his pool - where Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn were swimming naked. The veteran director never forgot the Grant experience. "Absolutely magnificent, dramatic and vulnerable, beyond anything I'd ever seen him do. I was filled with great, great sadness … Cary could never expose himself like that in public." Cukor told Grant: "This is the part you were born to play." And Grant told Cukor: "That's why I won't." Pity, it would have won him an Academy Awards instead of having to wait for his 1970 honorary Oscar - presented by Frank Sinatra, who also nixed Judy. |
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HITTING THE MARK |
THAT'S SHOWBIZ |
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Marie Windsor said Robert Cummings was known for having a mark on his dressing room door. "If a woman was taller than that, she couldn't get a job. Alan Ladd was the same way." |
Imagine jazz singer Bill Henderson telling the family how his 74th film is Lethal Weapon 4. Wow! So you're Mel Gibson's new partner? Er, no, I'm … well, I'm … Angry Patient with Urine Sample. |
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ORSON AROUND |
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| The other side of John Huston, Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Move over, Gilliam … This one took 48 years to complete! Cannes chickened out, so the Venice festival unveiled the film many of us never thought we'd see - the long since finished but financially imprisoned final film of director Orson Welles, The Other Side of the Wind. Two movies in one (sexy drama and Euro auteur send up), it was shot during 1970-1977, as his budget came and went. Deadline Hollywood's Peter Bart says Welles shot a seven-minute sex scene … over two years … in three different locations! Following numerous attempts by Orson's family and fans - and general indifference from Hollywood - Netflix has salvaged the lost picture into 122 minutes edited by Bob Murawski from 100 hours of rushes! Good, bad or otherwise, Orson's "thematic bookend" to Citizen Kane should be #1 on everyone's Must See List. John Huston plays John Huston (and a whole lot of Welles) - a volcanic iconic director with all the problems that Welles always attracted. "It plays like a contemporary film, not like a period piece." says ex-Spielberg producer Frank Marshall. He was location manager during the shoot, and now among the 17 producers, including Welles' daughter, Beatrice, and Peter Bogdanovich. Orson's then-lady and co-writer, Oja Kodar, is in the cast with Susan Strasberg, Welles' regulars Mercedes McCambridge and Paul Stewart (Citizen Kane's valet, Raymond) plus directors from Claude Chabrol to a stoned (what else?) Dennis Hopper. He has a right to be there ... The Welles film and Terry Gilliam's (below) are clearly under the influence of Hopper's (in)famous Last Movie. |
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SUPERCALIFRAGILISTIC AWFUL |
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| Heard some odd ideas in my time, but nothing quite as mad as Walt Disney, himself, considering Laurence Olivier, no less, to be Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, 1963. (To sweep, or not to sweep). Next? Alec Guinness, Rex Harrison, Richards Burton and Harris, Peters O’Toole and Sellers. Only Sellers made sense. Dick Van Dyke felt Bert was not for him and suggested Jim Dale. He wuz right. Hands up those who remember Jim Dale. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
GILLIAM THE CONQUEROR |
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| "I'm going to try again. I think this is the seventh time. I actually just want to… get rid of it" - Terry Gilliam when finally able to kick-start his passion project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote … history's most accursed film. It began - you've seen the two doumentaries, right? - on September 25, 2000, with French veteran Jean Rochefort as the whacky knight and Johnny Depp as a Mad man and was abandoned after 15 days due to torrential rain, NATO jets, money and health issues. Rochefort, 83, a supreme horseman, could no longer stay on his horse due to a double spinal disc hernia, (his pain was visible on film). After stumping up $15m in claims, the insurance company kept a tight rein on the script until 2008 plans for Depp and Gilliam's fellow-Python, Michael Palin. "This time," said Terry, "we'll make a better film." Er, which this time? 1988: Euro money men suggested Sean Connery. Terry preferred Nigel Hawthorne with Danny De Vito as the Sancha Panza figure. 2005: Unbelievably - desperately? - overweight Gérard Depardieu was announced as the thin white Don. "We're gonna need a bigger horse." 2010: Robert Duvall and Ewan McGregor. 2012: Duvall, Owen Wilson. 2014: John Hurt, Jack O'Connell (or Josh Brolin, DanielCraig, Colin Farrell, Robert Downey Jr, Sam Worthington). 2016: Palin again opposite Adam Driver. And, finally, 2017: Jonathan Pryce (in his fourth Gilliam film; he was actually in the 2000 cast) and Driver. The result is what we have too little of these days. A film by Terry Gilliam. And another (and he made his own Quixote movie) by Orson Welles. Bliss! |
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