Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
- Drucker
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
People On Sunday will likely squeeze in near the bottom of my list, given my bias towards silent films. I wish I could claim that the film shows early signs of Wilder's storytelling, but not really. The film is a little slow to get started, but I really do like the way the plot plays out, the carefree way the two people who make love form a relationship (ah, the other girl isn't ready for a kiss? No matter, on to the next one!) A pseudo-cityscape movie with a small focus on a few key characters, a lovely portrait of Germany at this time. Nothing truly spectacular, but enjoyable nonetheless.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: A rewatch from over 30 years ago, I remember elements of it and that I quite enjoyed it, but not the details. I'd forgotten just how funny it was (or maybe not appreciated it as a teenager) - the repartee between Holmes and Watson is glorious and Irene Handl makes for a hugely entertaining Mrs Hudson (almost every appearance of her was a laugh out loud moment - to the bemusement of Mrs Amicus). It perhaps runs out of steam a bit up in Scotland, before rallying when The ending is particularly well judged, a moving tribute to the friendship of our central duo.
It's unfortunate that this isn't the film that Wilder and Diamond wrote (and indeed shot), but even in its compromised state it's impressive - the sets (apparently large and expensive) look the part and the soundtrack is great (although at times I kept being reminded of the Life on Earth theme). Whilst watching it, I kept thinking it must have been an influence on Sherlock - and then was not surprised when I discovered Gatiss is a fan. I haven't got the MoC BluRay - and discussion seems to have stopped before the film came out - but it's definitely now on my to-get list. Incidentally, I watched this on Netflix UK - the only Wilder film up on it.
I also finished Charlotte Chandler's book, Nobody's Perfect. My earlier view still stands - a series of anecdotes loosely and often perfunctorily linked and expanded upon. Apparently, a unique sign of Wilder's genius is the skill in which he uses props to help tell the story... Anyway, at least there is a lot of Wilder in here - much of the book is taken from interviews with him over the years, and when they're allowed to breathe and be recounted at length it improves markedly, but it all seems a bit pointless on the whole.
SpoilerShow
Queen Victoria turns up and stops the boys playing with their toys.
It's unfortunate that this isn't the film that Wilder and Diamond wrote (and indeed shot), but even in its compromised state it's impressive - the sets (apparently large and expensive) look the part and the soundtrack is great (although at times I kept being reminded of the Life on Earth theme). Whilst watching it, I kept thinking it must have been an influence on Sherlock - and then was not surprised when I discovered Gatiss is a fan. I haven't got the MoC BluRay - and discussion seems to have stopped before the film came out - but it's definitely now on my to-get list. Incidentally, I watched this on Netflix UK - the only Wilder film up on it.
I also finished Charlotte Chandler's book, Nobody's Perfect. My earlier view still stands - a series of anecdotes loosely and often perfunctorily linked and expanded upon. Apparently, a unique sign of Wilder's genius is the skill in which he uses props to help tell the story... Anyway, at least there is a lot of Wilder in here - much of the book is taken from interviews with him over the years, and when they're allowed to breathe and be recounted at length it improves markedly, but it all seems a bit pointless on the whole.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Apparently Wilder & Brackett did uncredited rewrites for The Bishop's Wife. I take it that's not enough to be eligible though?
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
If it is, I will need to rescind my submitted list ASAP
- domino harvey
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Not eligible if he's not credited, as per the first post.
As for films he is credited with, I caught up with the Brackett and Wilder-scripted anomaly What a Life, a 1939 big screen radio program adaptation about a hapless high schooler who can't seem to stop screwing up. This always looked like such a "Wait, what?" detour in Wilder's filmography, and having seen it, yes, yes it is. It is awful in such a dull way, too-- obviously Wilder is not who anyone would turn to for insights, comic or otherwise, into the lives of American high schoolers, but I didn't think any gleaned would be this misguided. Jackie Cooper's Henry Aldrich is first shown to be the butt of bullying, so nothing is his fault. This isn't very interesting, but I was begging for it to come back into play after a few minutes because eventually he just starts screwing up on purpose and we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he looks sad? I'm not going to feel anything towards some lame who is given a pep talk by an oddly invested assistant principal who looks like he walked over from owning the Copacabana about how everyone cheats on tests, the real lesson is to admit you cheated when you get caught. Fucking vom. I hated every character in this, I don't care if they get into art school or rob the band or get their braces off or whatever, just go away. And I am probably the most sympathetic modern viewer imaginable for a Hollywood take on youth. This is my bread and butter and Henry Aldrich dropped it and then walked all over it and then tried to tell me it was someone else whodunnit, gosh, come on
As for films he is credited with, I caught up with the Brackett and Wilder-scripted anomaly What a Life, a 1939 big screen radio program adaptation about a hapless high schooler who can't seem to stop screwing up. This always looked like such a "Wait, what?" detour in Wilder's filmography, and having seen it, yes, yes it is. It is awful in such a dull way, too-- obviously Wilder is not who anyone would turn to for insights, comic or otherwise, into the lives of American high schoolers, but I didn't think any gleaned would be this misguided. Jackie Cooper's Henry Aldrich is first shown to be the butt of bullying, so nothing is his fault. This isn't very interesting, but I was begging for it to come back into play after a few minutes because eventually he just starts screwing up on purpose and we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he looks sad? I'm not going to feel anything towards some lame who is given a pep talk by an oddly invested assistant principal who looks like he walked over from owning the Copacabana about how everyone cheats on tests, the real lesson is to admit you cheated when you get caught. Fucking vom. I hated every character in this, I don't care if they get into art school or rob the band or get their braces off or whatever, just go away. And I am probably the most sympathetic modern viewer imaginable for a Hollywood take on youth. This is my bread and butter and Henry Aldrich dropped it and then walked all over it and then tried to tell me it was someone else whodunnit, gosh, come on
- senseabove
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Avanti —— I already had this on the edge of my top five, if not quite confidently; the second time around, it's fighting for a nudge upward. In contrast to One, Two Three, a screwball on uppers, this is the slowest screwball ever made, a wine-drunk screwball that somehow, in its languidity, maintains the bone-deep vivacity of—well, name your favorite Wilder-scripted straight-up screwball, but I'd say Midnight. The morgue sequence is one of the best, simplest scenes Wilder ever (co-)wrote, all the sorrow and irritation and pompousness and earnestness and absurdity and amusement in the breadth of his repertoire bound up in one scene. The fundamental sleight-of-hand here works for me, I think, through its use of the absent parents as proxies, serving self-discovery via incidental, unwitting emulation—and there's a gentle comedy in such rude, beneficent surprise. Wilder's trademark isn't just his cynicism; it's also his (c)rudeness, and his willingness to put his full weight, often riskily, behind it, in emotion and impetus, but also in character and script—elsewhere in Midnight's mercenary romance or Ace's dog-with-a-bone persistence or Fedora's sheer preposterousness, here, e.g, in Lemmon's stereotypically American presumptuousness or the script's weight jokes and the self-exculpatory "everyone's a little bit ethnocentric"-ism. But in the end, I guess the whole thing's earnest plodding just works for me. Somehow the rudeness just makes the warmth of this one a little warmer. It's a comedy for a stifling afternoon if there ever was one. (As a side-note, I had a giggle at as a sly wink to Bluebeard's 8th Wife, the other fancy hotel-set Wilder script...)
SpoilerShow
the inverted pajama split in the scene of Wendell Jr. and Pamela's mutually disjointed realization—him wearing the bottom and her wearing the top—
- senseabove
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Kiss Me, Stupid —— Speaking of crude! JFC. I was not expecting a 60s sex farce with a script's every sly wink turned into a full-on vaudeville mug, I guess? Dean Martin's strict necessity to get laid every day is the key plot pivot, Kim Novak insists "no, I'm basically a hooker so I'm gonna do this right," and, well, that Climax... Unfortunately a lot of this is Wilder being the provocateur, and that's my least-favorite Wilder by 2.75 country miles. So this only worked for me intermittently, and the first hour's worth of set-up was just about unbearable given that I did not find Orville or Barney even pity-laugh amusing. But it started clicking—some—once the set-up's done and the game is underway. One thing I was paying attention to this time, perhaps more noticeable because Wilder+Diamond's typical "inciting female" is split over two characters, is how they always create supporting female characters who are half a character, but nevertheless the most interesting character. They're utterly resigned to their misery, yet end up provoked into the most complex—if mostly implicit—emotional life on the screen. Here, for instance, Zelda has the least screen time, the least development, and makes all of the most interesting decisions in the movie. The men mostly take the long, if interesting road from one position to another (unsurprising) one, while the women have a much smaller but more momentous shift—the men, plotters that they are, end up changing what their desire is aimed at, while the women, as they are, change the world around them.
This was the last new-to-me Wilder that I expected, based on reputation, might have a spot in my top 10, but it decidedly does not, so now I'll be debating whether I want to revisit things to fine tune the ranking that matters or just go for full completist...
This was the last new-to-me Wilder that I expected, based on reputation, might have a spot in my top 10, but it decidedly does not, so now I'll be debating whether I want to revisit things to fine tune the ranking that matters or just go for full completist...
- Rayon Vert
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Good write-ups, senseabove. I'm curious, what are the Wilders you haven't seen yet?
- Drucker
- Your Future our Drucker
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
I don't have much to say about Sabrina except for that it is basically perfect and sublime from end to end. Hepburn is gorgeous and her transformation before/after France is superb. Bogart as a stiff is just right, and Holden's blonde playboy is probably the most enjoyable character of them all, a role the likes of which I've never seen him in. I've watched this film once before but I remember being distracted and out of it, and couldn't latch on. A simple rewatch changed everything. The jokes all land and don't overstay their welcome. There's just enough darkness and longing in the film. You ever have a terrible day, and you lie to convince yourself and your friends you're actually holding it together? Because you don't want to show how badly you are truly doing? That's what a lot of the best Wilders feel like, and never more than here (and The Apartment). This one shoots to #1 on my list, a very difficult top 5 to arrange for sure.
- senseabove
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Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Thanks!
I’ve yet to see:
The Seven Year Itch
The Front Page
The Spirit of St. Louis
Buddy Buddy
The Emperor Waltz
Mauvais Grain
Death Mills
I’m pretty sure I’ll get to Spirit and Buddy Buddy, at least.
Script-wise, I’m a little curious about The Lottery Lover and Rhythm of the River, but I think the last one I’ll try to catch for this list is Arise, My Love.
I’ve yet to see:
The Seven Year Itch
The Front Page
The Spirit of St. Louis
Buddy Buddy
The Emperor Waltz
Mauvais Grain
Death Mills
I’m pretty sure I’ll get to Spirit and Buddy Buddy, at least.
Script-wise, I’m a little curious about The Lottery Lover and Rhythm of the River, but I think the last one I’ll try to catch for this list is Arise, My Love.
Last edited by senseabove on Sat May 23, 2020 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Kiss Me, Stupid is a wildly contentious Wilder, but it def works for me for a few reasons: it completely abandons good taste and goes all-in on the worst negativity of Wilder’s tendencies, which gives it some verve; and most importantly, Dean Martin fearlessly subjects himself to an absolutely brutal parody of himself— we’ve seen stars play up their image in cameos and even main roles before and since, but I don’t think anyone has ever been as egoless as Martin is here (which is stunning for more than one reason!). I rarely see commentators giving him the credit he deserves for letting Wilder shit on him for two hours and playing it up, but can you imagine any other Hollywood A-Lister in this or any era signing up for a movie all about how awful they are?
- Rayon Vert
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
I think The Seven Year Itch is getting a worse rap here compared to how it's usually perceived, so it might be worth a look. (Of course given my write-up The Spirit of St. Louis is on my list.) I didn't rewatch Seven Year but it likely could have threatened to make the bottom of my list or near it.
An IMDB score of 7.0 often means a film generally thought of as good, I think it's fair to say. Wilder does extremely well on IMDB:
8.4
Sunset Boulevard
Witness for the Prosecution
8.3
The Apartment
Double Indemnity
8.2
Some Like It Hot
8.1
Ace in the Hole
8.0
Stalag 17
7.9
One Two Three
The Lost Weekend
7.7
Sabrina
7.4
Irma la Douce
The Major and the Minor
7.3
The Front Page
The Fortune Cookie
A Foreign Affair
Five Graves to Cairo
7.2
Avanti!
Love in the Afternoon
The Spirit of St. Louis
7.1
The Seven Year Itch
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
7.0
Kiss Me, Stupid
6.9
Fedora
6.6
Buddy Buddy
6.1
The Emperor Waltz
6.0
Mauvaise Graine
Compare allmovie.com (editors' rankings - user ratings a half-star difference at most unless noted)
5 STARS
Double Indemnity
The Lost Weekend
Sunset Boulevard
Sabrina
Some Like It Hot
The Apartment
4 1/2 STARS
A Foreign Affair
Ace in the Hole
Stalag 17
The Seven Year Itch
Witness for the Prosecution
4 STARS
The Major and the Minor
Love in the Afternoon
The Fortune Cookie
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
3 1/2 STARS
The Spirit of St. Louis
One Two Three
Irma La Douce
Kiss Me, Stupid
3 STARS
Five Graves to Cairo (user rating: 4)
Avanti!
The Front Page
Fedora
2 1/2 STARS
Mauvaise Graine
The Emperor Waltz
1 1/2 STARS
Buddy Buddy
An IMDB score of 7.0 often means a film generally thought of as good, I think it's fair to say. Wilder does extremely well on IMDB:
8.4
Sunset Boulevard
Witness for the Prosecution
8.3
The Apartment
Double Indemnity
8.2
Some Like It Hot
8.1
Ace in the Hole
8.0
Stalag 17
7.9
One Two Three
The Lost Weekend
7.7
Sabrina
7.4
Irma la Douce
The Major and the Minor
7.3
The Front Page
The Fortune Cookie
A Foreign Affair
Five Graves to Cairo
7.2
Avanti!
Love in the Afternoon
The Spirit of St. Louis
7.1
The Seven Year Itch
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
7.0
Kiss Me, Stupid
6.9
Fedora
6.6
Buddy Buddy
6.1
The Emperor Waltz
6.0
Mauvaise Graine
Compare allmovie.com (editors' rankings - user ratings a half-star difference at most unless noted)
5 STARS
Double Indemnity
The Lost Weekend
Sunset Boulevard
Sabrina
Some Like It Hot
The Apartment
4 1/2 STARS
A Foreign Affair
Ace in the Hole
Stalag 17
The Seven Year Itch
Witness for the Prosecution
4 STARS
The Major and the Minor
Love in the Afternoon
The Fortune Cookie
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
3 1/2 STARS
The Spirit of St. Louis
One Two Three
Irma La Douce
Kiss Me, Stupid
3 STARS
Five Graves to Cairo (user rating: 4)
Avanti!
The Front Page
Fedora
2 1/2 STARS
Mauvaise Graine
The Emperor Waltz
1 1/2 STARS
Buddy Buddy
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
I’d definitely prioritize Buddy Buddy considering your appreciation for some of his later works, but I’m probably the only one who will recommend it and it didn’t make my own list (though it almost did). However, we seem to have pretty much opposing tastes on Wilder save for Fedora and Avanti! so I’m probably the last person to listen to as you have your internal debatesenseabove wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 11:30 amI’ve yet to see:
The Seven Year Itch The Front Page The Spirit of St. Louis Buddy Buddy The Emperor Waltz Mauvais Grain Death Mills
I’m pretty sure I’ll get to Spirit and Buddy Buddy, at least.
- senseabove
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
And it really is just shockingly brutal, and very much at his expense, but also very much 'of its era' in a way that has no real pleasure for me. I'd say that maybe I haven't seen enough of 60s sex comedies to really appreciate it, but it doesn't strike me as movie where, uh, an appreciation of its subtlety is what would make it click, especially not when I've seen enough Wilder to know what aspects of his style it leans in to.domino harvey wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 12:08 pmKiss Me, Stupid is a wildly contentious Wilder, but it def works for me for a few reasons: it completely abandons good taste and goes all-in on the worst negativity of Wilder’s tendencies, which gives it some verve; and most importantly, Dean Martin fearlessly subjects himself to an absolutely brutal parody of himself— we’ve seen stars play up their image in cameos and even main roles before and since, but I don’t think anyone has ever been as egoless as Martin is here (which is stunning for more than one reason!). I rarely see commentators giving him the credit he deserves for letting Wilder shit on him for two hours and playing it up, but can you imagine any other Hollywood A-Lister in this or any era signing up for a movie all about how awful they are?
I'm definitely going to get to all of them eventually, if for no other reason than I'm too close to completing his filmography not to, but I'll bump it up and try to get to it before the weekend. Part of my writing it off is that I watched about 1/4 of it one hot, rainy summer afternoon in college and, for some reason, very memorably haaaaated it. Which really shouldn't be a factor, because it's not like I have anything near the same taste, and I have a slight fascination with Marilyn Monroe now. But alas, it already has that taste in my mouth.Rayon Vert wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 12:09 pmI think The Seven Year Itch is getting a worse rap here compared to how it's usually perceived, so it might be worth a look. (Of course given my write-up The Spirit of St. Louis is on my list.) I didn't rewatch Seven Year but it likely could have threatened to make the bottom of my list or near it.
I was looking over some Letterboxd Wilder lists and it really is just crazy how disparately his work is ranked. Aside from The Apartment and Sunset Blvd., it's an absolute jumble. In my admittedly completely unscientific survey, I couldn't even track tendencies like "well, if you rank Love in the Afternoon highly you'll probably rank..."therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 1:20 pmI’d definitely prioritize Buddy Buddy considering your appreciation for some of his later works, but I’m probably the only one who will recommend it and it didn’t make my own list (though it almost did). However, we seem to have pretty much opposing tastes on Wilder save for Fedora and Avanti! so I’m probably the last person to listen to as you have your internal debate
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
If nothing else, I remember liking the light, typically 1950s green and pink pastel look of the film (and the nifty Saul Bass titles). My original viewing notes say I thought the script was uneven but that the strong comedic performances by both Ewell and Monroe made for an ultimately entertaining, lightly subversive and sweet romp. (And of course it's got the famous Monroe subway blowing up the dress scene.)senseabove wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 2:51 pmI'm definitely going to get to all of them eventually, if for no other reason than I'm too close to completing his filmography not to, but I'll bump it up and try to get to it before the weekend. Part of my writing it off is that I watched about 1/4 of it one hot, rainy summer afternoon in college and, for some reason, very memorably haaaaated it. Which really shouldn't be a factor, because it's not like I have anything near the same taste, and I have a slight fascination with Marilyn Monroe now. But alas, it already has that taste in my mouth.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Our forum's results:senseabove wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 2:51 pmI was looking over some Letterboxd Wilder lists and it really is just crazy how disparately his work is ranked. Aside from The Apartment and Sunset Blvd., it's an absolute jumble. In my admittedly completely unscientific survey, I couldn't even track tendencies like "well, if you rank Love in the Afternoon highly you'll probably rank..."
01 The Apartment
02 Sunset Blvd
03 30-way tie between everything else
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
I wrote it up earlier in the thread but my view of Kiss Me, Stupid’s charms (if you can even use that word here) aren’t in an abandonment of taste or audacious brutality via Martin, but in using these details to outline the nightmare of a man trapped in the abyss of a culture shift. I suppose the sex comedies are a consequence of this movement away from rigid 50s myopia, but Walston’s paranoia highlights the vulnerability of a man losing his fixed, comfortable faux-safety net of conformity better than any other sex comedy I can think of. Martin adds fuel to the fire, and the entire narrative is so outrageous in beating Walston down as his initially delusional perceptions become increasingly reinforced with evidence of unmanageable deviance.senseabove wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 2:51 pmAnd it really is just shockingly brutal, and very much at his expense, but also very much 'of its era' in a way that has no real pleasure for me. I'd say that maybe I haven't seen enough of 60s sex comedies to really appreciate it, but it doesn't strike me as movie where, uh, an appreciation of its subtlety is what would make it click, especially not when I've seen enough Wilder to know what aspects of his style it leans in to.domino harvey wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 12:08 pmKiss Me, Stupid is a wildly contentious Wilder, but it def works for me for a few reasons: it completely abandons good taste and goes all-in on the worst negativity of Wilder’s tendencies, which gives it some verve; and most importantly, Dean Martin fearlessly subjects himself to an absolutely brutal parody of himself— we’ve seen stars play up their image in cameos and even main roles before and since, but I don’t think anyone has ever been as egoless as Martin is here (which is stunning for more than one reason!). I rarely see commentators giving him the credit he deserves for letting Wilder shit on him for two hours and playing it up, but can you imagine any other Hollywood A-Lister in this or any era signing up for a movie all about how awful they are?
The entire predicament is paradoxically absurd in the perfect way, and it’s a (in my opinion, rare) example of Wilder’s intelligent comic ideas executed with just as much sharply inventive humor as in conception. His comedies are extraordinarily subjective, and I’m sure someone could make a similar case for The Seven Year Itch, though I really tried to view that one through a creative lens even with the gags falling flat, and just couldn’t do it.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Stalag 17 doesn't rate as highly for me on a rewatch. Holden is excellent, and the main plot is incredibly suspenseful, but a lot of the comedy doesn't land. The funny duo of the barracks get annoying really quick, and goes on far longer than it should (right before we hit the climactic sequence an unfunny dance between the two that goes on too long). Also, a lot of the peripheral characters like the head of the bunker just don't feel fleshed out. It's Holden vs. everybody else, but each individual character doesn't quite get the character development I think would benefit the film. The climax is strong enough to keep it in my top 10 but definitely a little lower than I expected going into this.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Spirit of St. Louis is indeed a worthwhile slice of Americana that I doubt I'd've watched outside of this project, not usually having much taste for this kind of thing. (In fact it made me kinda wish I hadn't skipped The Glen Miller Story in a local Jimmy Stewart survey a while back...) I can't say I'd peg it as Wilder without the credits, but if you told me after, I'd believe it—there's just enough of his kind of joke in it ("You came all the way from Philadelphia?!" "I had to! [punchline]") and his kind of mundane matter-of-factness, even that 1950s bugaboo of Great Men, God, is treated with alacrity. I don't think it has a chance for my list—that 45-minute stretch from Boston to Ireland got a little proto-durational cinema, honestly, squeezing in all that biography amongst all those clouds, where the first half kept things brisk with a looming deadline. But I'd go see this in a heartbeat in a theater.
The Front Page —— Okay, um, I put this on late just because I was tired and figured I'd either knock it off the list or just fall asleep and say I tried, but... I'm just going to say this and then duck and run: the flagging last thirty minutes and the bizarrely persistent homophobia excepted, this movie is good? And if it weren't in the shadow of His Girl Friday, I don't think it would be so dismissed? (And I have a suspicion that the Coen Brothers saw this at an impressionable age?)
The Front Page —— Okay, um, I put this on late just because I was tired and figured I'd either knock it off the list or just fall asleep and say I tried, but... I'm just going to say this and then duck and run: the flagging last thirty minutes and the bizarrely persistent homophobia excepted, this movie is good? And if it weren't in the shadow of His Girl Friday, I don't think it would be so dismissed? (And I have a suspicion that the Coen Brothers saw this at an impressionable age?)
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
I rewatched the two wilders on amazon prime I don’t own, stalag 17 and Avanti. The former is wildly better than I remember a top five film from him, brilliant writing, pacing, and acting and sense I think the last time I saw this was in rep, I remembered well how hard the entire theatre laughed at animal and his handler, loved the pure sitcomish broad humor undercutting the bleak seriousness of the rest of the film (and locale) its an effective way of using gallows humor while keeping the core dramatic story unaffected by it.
And Avanti, supposedly I watched this when I once owned that massive wilder set (that for a long time was the only way to own “one two three”) but I have absolutely zero memory of it. It’s such a near miss though, just an overly intricate plot coupled with an underdeveloped lead female role and a really mean approach to her by an incredibly cruel main character. Wilder undermines some of the flaws in armbruster by continually mocking him but it’s not enough. But oh there are some great dialog scenes, lovely humor and eventually a quite sweet ending. But it’s a slog to enjoy the benefits.
And Avanti, supposedly I watched this when I once owned that massive wilder set (that for a long time was the only way to own “one two three”) but I have absolutely zero memory of it. It’s such a near miss though, just an overly intricate plot coupled with an underdeveloped lead female role and a really mean approach to her by an incredibly cruel main character. Wilder undermines some of the flaws in armbruster by continually mocking him but it’s not enough. But oh there are some great dialog scenes, lovely humor and eventually a quite sweet ending. But it’s a slog to enjoy the benefits.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
That's what struck me too in my rewatch of it for the 50s project:movielocke wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 7:48 pmI rewatched the two wilders on amazon prime I don’t own, stalag 17 and Avanti. The former is wildly better than I remember a top five film from him, brilliant writing, pacing, and acting and sense I think the last time I saw this was in rep, I remembered well how hard the entire theatre laughed at animal and his handler, loved the pure sitcomish broad humor undercutting the bleak seriousness of the rest of the film (and locale) its an effective way of using gallows humor while keeping the core dramatic story unaffected by it.
I'm probably the only one who'll rank it that high but it ended up no. 2 for me.Rayon Vert wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2019 12:50 am
Stalag 17 (Wilder 1952). Only seven years after the war, turning a Nazi prisoner camp into comedy feels a little bit in bad taste. But that doesn’t stop both the comedy and drama-suspense from working. The humor is largely funny (especially contrasted to what’s in the more popular Some Like It Hot), it’s really well-staged, and the acting on both the comedic and dramatic parts is really strong. It’s not easy to mix those extremes that well but the director does a good job here. I’ve seen this several times now and it never feels extraordinary but always very satisfying, surprisingly so, whereas as with other Wilders I’ve blown hot and cold over the years. So that I see it as belonging among his best, and for me a contender for best of this decade from him, depending on what my rewatch of Ace in the Hole will hold.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Rayon Vert wrote:I would be ranking it 3, but then I rewatched Sabrina and that is a perfect movie, so now it’s three. (Before that I rewatched sunset Blvd and it was 3, then I rewatched double indemnity and it was 3, then I rewatched stalag 17 and it was 3, but Avanti broke the pattern.movielocke wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 7:48 pmI'm probably the only one who'll rank it that high but it ended up no. 2 for me.
Curious where my old 3, one two three, will wind up once the KL Blu-ray makes its way to me and I can rewatch it.
I had planned to watch a bunch of new to me films for this, but the video rental stores in LA are closed, dvd Netflix doesn’t have most of them anymore, and few of them have streaming rental options (I got spoiled into thinking old Hollywood movies were widely available for streaming rental after discovering for the Ford list all the ultra rare john ford that can be rented), so unfortunately looks like five graves to Cairo and some of the others of that stature will go unseen by me still. :-/
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
As I posted earlier though, all of the 50s ones, and a few others, can be rented on YouTube
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
Witness For the Prosecution doesn't have many of the markings of a Wilder movie but it's going to rank highly on my list. A wonderful procedural, an excellent performance by Laughton, and works well end to end. Just an absolute delight, even if it doesn't bear too many of Wilder's hallmarks.
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Re: Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses
I had hoped to make room for Emil and the Detectives, which is a very cute movie, but I guess I can't fit in a Wilder-penned film whose charms aren't really in the writing. Everyone should watch it though, if only for the drugged-out Fritz Rasp carnival ride dream sequence