photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for TCM
One of the highlights of this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival was a tribute to the British Film Institute’s remarkable preservation program, now celebrating its 90th year. The tribute included 6 movies, all presented in pristine 35mm prints, and they represented an extraordinary range—from a 50th anniversary screening of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster, Jaws, to less frequently revived movies like David Lean’s Blithe Spirit and Martin Ritt’s Edge of the City.
Perhaps the crown jewel of these BFI restorations was Mildred Pierce from 1945, a sizzling melodrama that earned Joan Crawford her Oscar and joined the triumvirate of great film noir movies adapted from the work of James M. Cain, which also included Double Indemnity (1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Mildred Pierce was changed substantially from Cain’s novel—there was no murder in the book—but the film caught his dark-edged vision of human ambition and deception. No less than a Hollywoodized version of King Lear, the film is a devastating portrayal of filial ingratitude, as Ann Blyth’s spoiled, greedy Veda lusts after her mother’s money—and her husband as well.
Crawford sometimes demanded to be depicted in a sympathetic light, but she also delighted in portraying flawed characters, and Mildred Pierce represents her most nuanced portrait in black and white. Although Mildred is unselfishly devoted to her two daughters, she is also far too willing to indulge the mercenary whims of the duplicitous Veda. When Veda asks for Mildred’s help one last time—after murdering Mildred’s husband–Veda pleads shrewdly, “It’s your fault, too.” And Mildred acknowledges that coddling and forgiving an ungrateful child can abet the daughter’s crimes.
Flawed characters illuminate the other, lesser known films in the BFI program as well. Blithe Spirit, written by Noel Coward during a time when he was collaborating with David Lean, is based on Coward’s play and remains fairly true to the text, though Coward felt the picture was inferior to his play. Lean was already demonstrating a streak of independence. Filmed in Technicolor—still something of a novelty in 1945—the picture does justice to Coward’s whimsical concept. The story begins with a séance that gets out of hand when a dotty clairvoyant, Madame Arcati (superbly played by Margaret Rutherford), inadvertently summons the ghost of Charles’s (Rex Harrison’s) first wife Elvira, who had died five years earlier. Elvira, commandingly played by Kay Hammond, who had also interpreted the role on stage, is not exactly a benevolent ghost. She starts as mischievous and turns downright destructive, since she seems aggravated to see her husband in love with his new wife (Constance Cummings).
Stage actress Christine Ebersole introduced the TCM screening, apt since she had played the part of Elvira in the 2009 stage revival, in which Angela Lansbury played Madame Arcati and won her fifth Tony award. According to Ebersole, Lansbury, at the age of 85, never missed a single performance. The movie does have the advantage of two (subsequent) Oscar-winning performers—Harrison and Rutherford—while it showcases another side of David Lean’s talent.
The BFI demonstrated the breadth of its archive with the screening of Edge of the City, the 1957 movie that marked the directorial debut of Martin Ritt (Hud, Sounder, Norma Rae, The Front), one of the early American movies that tackled the subject of racism boldly and forthrightly. Sidney Poitier demonstrated his charisma portraying a New York dock worker who befriends a disturbed loner played by another rising actor, John Cassavetes. Poitier’s generosity is not exactly repaid, as the interracial friendship arouses the fury of another dock worker, played by another screen newcomer, Jack Warden, who also played one of the jurors in Sidney Lumet’s 1957 directorial debut, 12 Angry Men. That movie, like Edge of the City, was adapted from a TV drama, and if both seem slightly infected with the do-gooder mentality of the era, both make powerful statements against racism, and it is sobering to see these movies at a timewhen the theme has taken on new urgency. The chief power of Edge comes from the cast, which also includes a young Ruby Dee as Poitier’s wife. The rapport between Cassavetes and Poitier bolsters the movie, especially because their interracial friendship is treated without any underlining.
For me the greatest discovery of this BFI series was a rare screening of The Private Life of Henry VIII, which earned an Oscar for Charles Laughton in 1933, as well as a Best Picture nomination. Alexander Korda’s movie was the first British picture to score an Academy nod during a time when Hollywood was still very chauvinistic. It also scored a surprising box office success, opening at Radio City Music Hall to packed houses and spreading across the country from there.
The supporting cast tantalizes. Merle Oberon has a small part as Anne Boleyn, who is dispatched in the early scenes. Future Oscar winner Robert Donat plays the secret lover of Katherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, and according to this version, the love—or at least the lust—of his life. The saga of the six wives of Henry VIII has never lost its allure, forming the basis of an excellent miniseries starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as well as the hit musical Six, still playing on Broadway. Laughton’s wife, Elsa Lanchester, delights as Henry’s fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, demonstrating her talents a couple of years before her triumph as the Bride of Frankenstein and a couple of decades before reteaming with Laughton for an Oscar-nominated turn in Witness for the Prosecution.
Maybe the most engaging of the wives, however, is Binnie Barnes as Katherine Howard, the fifth wife and, in this version, Henry’s sexual favorite. Barnes went on to have a long career in Hollywood. She co-starred with Laurence Olivier in one of his early notable films, The Divorce of Lady X (along with Oberon and Ralph Richardson), and three decades later, she supported Rosalind Russell in the hit comedy, The Trouble with Angels. She achieved even more prominence as the wife of hotshot Hollywood producer and studio chief Mike Frankovich for more than 50 years, until his death. Barnes herself died in 1998, at age 95.
Even with all of this star power, Laughton easily carries the movie. Before the censorious Production Code became rigidly enforced in 1934, The Private Life of Henry VIII was able to do justice to all of Henry’s appetites, including his lust. Late in Billy Wilder’s life, I attended a tribute and Q&A with the master filmmaker at the Directors Guild. One of the questions he fielded was which actor of the ones he directed was his favorite. Most directors have too much tact to answer that question, but Wilder said without hesitation that Laughton was the best actor he ever directed. When they worked together on Witness for the Prosecution, Wilder said that Laughton was capable of giving him a variety of interpretations of every scene, and the challenge of choosing the best was that every one was completely different and completely brilliant. It was a pleasure to rediscover Laughton’s charisma in this rarely screened gem of early British cinema.
The sixth film in the BFI tribute was Ernst Lubitsch’s dark comic masterpiece, To Be or Not to Be, a rare 1942 movie (like Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 satire, The Great Dictator) to treat the Nazi threat with satiric bite while still acknowledging the gravity of the situation. Jeopardy champion and host Ken Jennings introduced the screening and spoke bitingly about the film’s continuing relevance during another time of rising fascism. In her final screen performance, Carole Lombard is radiant, and it was fun to see Jack Benny and Robert Stack early in their careers, along with delightful character actor Felix Bressart as a Jewish actor in Benny’s theatrical troupe who longs to play Shylock. All of these films reminded us of the crucial role of film preservation; the TCM sidebar paid deserving tribute to one of the worldwide partners in this urgent endeavor.
Stephen Farber was president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association from 2012-2016. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. He produces and hosts two film series with Laemmle Theatres: Reel Talk with Stephen Farber presents preview screenings of new movies, followed by discussions with actors and filmmakers. Anniversary Classics is a program of classic movies, also with stars and filmmakers in attendance.