Loy Joy

She was the perfect movie wife: smart, snarky, long-suffering but rarely suffering foolishness.  She had an effortless upper-crust style but looked right at home slumming with the rabble.  She was sexy but not showy, playful but demure, usually one step ahead of her male counterpart but never feeling the need to prove it.  She was a great actress but never the one to carry a vehicle the way a Davis or Crawford or Stanwyck or Dietrich or Garbo or Garson did.  She was the perfect complement to her leading man, both the sizzle and the steak.  You could say that Myrna Loy, who died on this date 20 years ago, was pigeon-holed as the ideal partner, fiercely independent in spirit but never really alone, and maybe that kept her away from roles that brought attention to her chops.  She was never nominated for an Oscar or Golden Globe or received any award from a critics group until the Lifetime Achievement accolades finally came, decades after her best parts were behind her.

You could say that the pivot point was The Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1934).  Because before that, she was typecast as the jazz-age vamp, the sultry femme fatale or the “Asian” bad girl, but most of these films (many of them silent) are either lost or largely unknown.  In my favorite film of hers, Rouben Mamoulian’s brilliant Love Me Tonight (1932), she’s a sexually voracious debutante stealing every scene she’s in—lusty, hilarious and irresistible.  But Nora Charles would cement how we see her now.

Like most film series, The Thin Man movies suffer from the law of diminishing returns, with each subsequent installment priceless in the repartee she had with William Powell but fairly interchangeable when it came to the plots and culprits.  In fact, she made 8 other films with Powell and I prefer quite a few of them more than the other Nick & Nora adventures—testimony to how it wasn’t just the conceit of the mysteries that held those films together, but their boundless chemistry (along with Asta, the greatest dog comic in cinema history).

Perhaps my favorite two Thin Man films outside the original are also ones that have postage stamp references.  The Thin Man Goes Home (Thorpe, 1944) has Nick & Nora return to Nick’s hometown and disapproving father (a very funny Harry Davenport), only to get caught up in international intrigue.  In the climax, we learn that the villain is Lloyd Corrigan, who actually committed the murder in question instead of spending time with his stamp collection, which he had used as an alibi.  

 I’m guessing he probably does have a stamp collection (who would lie about that?) so chalk that up as another Evil Philatelist, a fun cinematic sub-genre I’ve mentioned before.  This is also the installment where Loy has the most to do, since Nick’s reluctance to take on the case means Nora’s intrepid nosiness proves critical in assembling some vital clues.  And legendary character actresses Anne Revere and Lucile Watson show up for good measure.

In Shadow of the Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1941), Nick looks into the death of a jockey at a racetrack.  In one scene, reporter (and friend of the Charles’) Barry Nelson is found rummaging through the office of a gambling boss and hood Alan Baxter confronts him by saying, “What were you looking for, a stamp?”  It doesn’t take long before Baxter is also dead and Nelson framed for his murder.   

I like this film because it takes place in the SF Bay Area—the racetrack scenes were shot at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley (which I pass every day going to work), and the film includes a scene where Nick is pulled over for speeding on the Oakland Bay Bridge, back when you could drive east-bound on the upper deck (long before The Graduate made such a commute a glaring continuity error).  And it has a priceless setpiece where Nick & Nora attend a pro wrestling match.  That, and Nick Jr. (their son, introduced in the prior Another Thin Man) is cute enough without suffering from Cousin Oliver syndrome.  

Neither Loy nor Powell have US postage stamps.  In fact, the only person to be honored with a stamp to appear in the series is Jimmy Stewart, who played a very atypical role in the second installment, After the Thin Man.  

Favorite Myrna Loy and/or William Powell films (all films cited feature both except * = Loy, + = Powell)

1. Love Me Tonight (Mamoulian, 1932) *
2. The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946) *
3. The Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1934)
4. One Way Passage (Garnett, 1932) +
5. Double Wedding (Thorpe, 1937)
6. Libeled Lady (Conway, 1936)
7. I Love You Again (Van Dyke, 1940)
8. Love Crazy (Conway, 1941)
9. Mister Roberts (Ford/LeRoy, 1955) +
10. A Girl in Every Port (Hawks, 1928) *

When we play our Charade

Charade (Donen, 1963) celebrates its 50^th Anniversary this week, and over the years, it has earned a reputation, oft-repeated, as “the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made.”  Now, I love Charade, and not just because it’s the best postage stamp film ever.  It’s an irresistibly entertaining comedy-thriller, with wonderful Paris locations, great lines of dialogue, and a fizzy, playful tone, all fueled by incredible chemistry between Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn (their only film together). 

But I’ve always hated that Hitchcock meme because it shows a fundamental failure to understand what the great Sir Alfred was all about.  For while Charade is enormous fun, it really isn’t about anything except thrills and laughs and clever reversals.  And while Hitch certainly employed all those things, he was far more reflective, and far more subversive.  His is the cinema of sex and psychology, of paranoia and pursuit, of fever dreams and salient nightmares.  His humor was darker, his action laced with malevolence.  He showed a real fear of institutions and a suspicion of normalcy, with his characters regularly haunted and hounded out of their routines.

Hitch lived with the moniker “The Master of Suspense”, which often served as a back-handed compliment, since it appreciated his technical craft while also relegating him to a genre hack, a niche and unserious talent.  He certainly made worse films than Charade, but I’m hard-pressed to think of many that were as lightweight.  Charade is a delicious soufflé.  But Hitch was filet mignon.  So “the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made” should reflect his artistry and pathology, not just his deceptive smoke & mirrors.  Something by Chabrol, perhaps.  Or Polanski or Suzuki.

But we’re here about stamps, and the statute of limitations on spoilers is why I can call this marvelous confection the greatest postage stamp movie in history—because the big twist of the film is the fact that postage stamps play an important role at all.  Throughout the film, the key characters, good and bad, are looking for a missing $250,000 and the only clues to its whereabouts are the contents of a travel bag, which are itemized several times in the film

Police inspector: “One wallet, containing four thousand francs; one agenda...; one ticket of passage to South America; one letter, stamped but unsealed...; one key, to your apartment; one comb; one fountain pen; one toothbrush; one tin of tooth powder.  That is all.”

Of course, we eventually learn that the envelope actually contains three incredibly rare and valuable stamps, a discreet and portable way to move the fortune.  I won’t discuss the specifics around the stamps in question (which were conceived especially for the movie), primarily because I couldn’t do it any better than this detailed and illuminating blog post about philatelic values and the real-life counterparts to this narrative McGuffin.  Definitely check it out.

But the movie is very clever about disguising what is ultimately a preposterous resolution.  Early in the film, our damsel in distress Reggie (Hepburn) has the following chat with Jean-Louis, the young son of her friend Sylvie:

JL: When you get your divorce, are you going back to America?

R: Well, don’t you want me to stay?

JL: Yes, of course, but if you went back and then wrote me a letter...

R: ...You could have the stamps!  I’ll get you some here, ok?

JL: OK

 

This is before she learns her husband is dead or about the money and the bag, and it’s a throwaway exchange but a nice way to seed the idea of stamps being important later on when Jean-Louis goes to the stamp mart (which is obliquely mentioned in the agenda).

Similarly, the film is coy about how it shows the envelope, mixing it in among the other assorted items and, when more closely inventoried by Reggie and her mysterious ally (Cary Grant), dismissed quickly out of hand.  More emphasis is placed on the contents of the envelope, an innocuous letter to her, than the envelope itself—a sly little head fake by screenwriter Peter Stone.   We only get two brief looks at the stamps before the big reveal, one when baddies James Coburn & Ned Glass examine the bag's contents, and another when Audrey & Cary revisit the clues.

"Everybody and his Aunt Lillian’s been through that bag, including me...I’ve been into it at least once a day.  Somebody would have seen it."

"It’s there, Reggie.  We’re looking at it right now.  Something on that bed is worth a quarter of a million dollars."

Of course, it defies credulity that the French police, a member of the US treasury department, and 3 criminals (not to mention our heroine) would not notice that something was unusual about 3 stamps on a single envelope for a domestic mailing, or that none of the stamps are French and all are from different countries!  But that’s the genius of a McGuffin, which is simply a vehicle to keep the plot moving.  And one of the beauties of Charade is that it has terrific pacing while also allowing lots of room to let the romance breathe.  It’s also a very funny movie without ever losing its sense of genuine menace, and Cary’s allegiances are always jumping back and forth (hero or villain?) believably.  And of course, the stamps are a great 11th-hour twist, but not the only one.

So approaching the climax, the final entry in her husband’s agenda brings Cary & Audrey to the Jardin des Champs Elysees.  They don’t know what they’re looking for so they split up and Cary tails the last remaining heavy, Tex (Coburn) as he wanders among a cluster of vending stalls.  Suddenly, both he and Tex have a wordless epiphany, punctuated by lots of quick close-ups of stamps.  

 

 

 

As they both return to grab the stamps from the travel bag, we return to Audrey still at the garden, who runs into Sylvie.

R: Sylvie! What are you doing here?

S: I’m waiting for Jean-Louis. 

R: Oh, what’s he up to?

S: He was so excited when he got the stamps you gave him this morning.  He said he’d never seen any like them.

R: I’m glad.  What’s all this?

S: The stamp market.  It’s there every Thursday afternoon.  That’s where Jean-Louis trades his stamps.

R: Good Lord, where is he?

S: What’s the matter, Cherie?

R: The stamps!  They’re worth a fortune!

Having gone to quite a number of philatelic conventions in my time, all the production design and displays in this sequence are very convincing, so I suspect the stamp mart is a real thing (though one I've never sought out in the 3 times I've traveled to Paris).

 When they finally find Jean-Louis, it’s too late:

R: (taking a bag of stamps from him): What’s this?

JL: A man gave me all those for only three.

The vendor has closed his stall, so they find him in what appears to be his home (with philatelic items scattered everywhere)

Stamp Vendor: I was expecting you.  I know you would come.  Look at them, madame.  Have you ever in your entire life seen anything so beautiful?

Reggie: I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about stamps.

SV: I know them as one knows his own face, though I had never seen them.  This one, a Swedish four shilling called Da Gula Fyraskillingen, printed in 1854.

R: What is it worth?

SV: Oh, the money is unimportant. 

R: I’m afraid it’s very important.

SV: Well, in your money, perhaps $85,000.

R: And the blue one?

SV: Oh, it’s called the Hawaiian Blue.  In 1894, the owner was murdered by a rival collector who was obsessed to own it.

R: And what is its value today?

SV: $65,000.

SV: Ah, the best for last.  Le chef d’oeuvre de la collection.  The masterpiece.  The most valuable stamp in the world.  It’s called the Gazette Maldave.  It was printed by hand on colored paper and marked with the initials of the printer.  Today, it has a value of $100,000.  I’m not a thief, madame.  I knew there was some mistake.

R:  You gave the boy a great many stamps in return.  Are they for sale now?

SV: Let me see, 350 European, 200 Asian, 175 American, 100 African and 12 Princess Grace commemorative.  Which comes to 10 Francs.  And don’t forget these. (hands her the stamps from the envelope)

R: Thank you.  I’m sorry.

SV: Oh, no.  For a few minutes they were mine.  That is enough.

I’ve always loved this exchange for a number of reasons.  It shows a stamp enthusiast who is passionate and learned, but also has enormous integrity.  It views stamp collecting as a portal into history, intrigue, and craftsmanship.  And the cheap bag of stamps is a very familiar fixture at stamp stores, showing that it’s a hobby that’s accessible to even the most modest amateur and not just a pastime for the effete and elite.  

One other thing about the value of the stamps (beyond what the link above breaks down): Nothing is said about how sticking the stamps on the envelope potentially devalued them.  $250K may be the cumulative sales price, but would the US be able to recoup the money now that the stamps are affixed to something?  Or will some intern have to soak the envelope in water to slide the stamps off and allow them to carefully dry separately again?

Some other details: The stamp vendor mentions a Princess Grace commemorative stamp, and in the stamp montage, you can actually see one (from Monaco).  Other stamps on display include pictures of Lincoln & FDR, Charles De Gaulle & Louis XIV, and the 1960 Winter Olympics (in Squaw Valley, CA).  No US stamps are depicted, but there are ones from France, the Congo, Madagascar, French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa.  Incredibly, on display is even one stamp I’ve used in my own hobbying, an Eiffel Tower stamp from 1939, which I used to supplement this one-sheet for The Lavender Hill Mob (which is also one of Audrey Hepburn’s earliest film appearances).

Another thing I love about Charade is that it’s a film that loves the City of Lights without indulging in the stereotypical Paris porn like so many American movies do (Exhibit A: Donen & Hepburn’s previous collaboration, the musical Funny Face).  There's some wonderful Parisian street scenes and plenty of atmosphere without relying on the cliche locations.  Even when it does feature a tourist spot like Notre Dame (also visible in that stamp screen shot), it’s as a self-referential joke.

Donen is one of my favorite directors and has always had a wonderful eye for movement in his legendary musicals, and that skillset serves him well here, in a thrilling rooftop fight between Cary and a hook-handed George Kennedy, and also in the climax under the stage of the Comédie-Française, a masterclass sequence of using sound and movement to enhance suspense.  All before that final surprise happy ending, and Cary's last line of the film: "Well, before we start that, may I have the stamps?"

Donen doesn’t have a stamp (yet), but Cary & Audrey both do.  They are Scott # 3692 and 3786 respectively.  The flavorful score is by Henry Mancini, whose stamp is Scott # 3839 (Charade is even mentioned on the stamp itself).  All 3 postmarks are on the reverse side of my one-sheet postcard that opened this article.  The Hitchcock stamp from the Legends of Hollywood series Is # 3226 and the one from the Golden Age of Television is # 4414o .  Obi-Wan Kenobi is Scott # 4143i from the Star Wars issue.

An Aloha State

I’ve been to Hawaii twice. 

The first time, my family took one of those island-hopping cruise ships—still the largest boat I’ve ever been on, but tiny compared to some of the mega-liners that exist now.  I was in the throes of puberty and its typical self-loathing, and there seemed to be plenty of things to do for adults or kids, but not much in that limbo range of early adolescence.  I don’t remember much about the boat except playing chess with my dad in one of the lounges, and spending a lot of time in the movie theater they had on board, in the bottom of the ship.

They would loop the same movie all day, a different movie each day.  Usually, it was a bad contemporary movie (City Heat with Burt & Clint, Oh God, You Devil with George Burns) but they also showed Blue Hawaii (1961), my first real exposure to Elvis, since we didn’t have any of his music in the house growing up.  Directed by Norman Taurog (the only Oscar-winner who would helm The King), it wasn’t very good but it was my first exposure to Angela Lansbury outside of Murder, She Wrote (a staple in our home) and the first time I ever heard “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, the only decent song in the film.

Love and Romance, back then, were just an abstraction—seemingly unattainable, completely alien to how I saw my life, myself.  But overflowing with hormones, I was still swept up with the longing of it, if not the hope.  That song, so simple, talks about Fate, the sheer inevitability of feeling that happens when your heart is affected.  There’s no reciprocation in the song, no relationship.  It is simply confessional, embracing the truth that at the right time, the heart knows what it wants.  Even if it keeps that truth to itself.  I had grown up along the Pacific, but it had never seemed so big than when I was on that boat.  And me, so small.

The second time I was in Hawaii, I was married.  A good friend was a pilot for the now-defunct Aloha airlines and we paid him and his girlfriend a visit.  My wife and I loved taking road trips so all we did in our free time there was circle Oahu by car, stopping every couple miles to visit one magnificent (and deserted) beach after another.  At one point along the drive, we encountered what looked like the remains of a terrible plane crash—except there were no emergency response vehicles, but a more sedate bustle and a road block that cut our excursion short.  It wouldn’t be until the following fall’s television season that this mysterious sight would be explained.  But mostly, the two of us just used paradise to escape, with the beauty of the island surrounding us.  Honolulu held little interest.  This was about exploring and getting Lost together.

I’m not married anymore, but no talk about my past travels is adequate without discussing my ex.  Like I’ve said before, we made a good team, and that was no truer than when we explored the world together.  We had different interests and tastes, but the pace at which we took things complemented each other perfectly, and the world seems, in a certain way, smaller without her.  Left to my own financial devices now, it’s certainly more inaccessible.  I’ve been to some truly amazing places, but there are many I’d still like to visit someday.  Perhaps I will.

When I first stepped foot on Kauai, it was literally the most beautiful place I’d ever been in my life.  But I’ve been to the islands twice now, and other places call to me far more.  But more than that, there is something unique about Hawaii for me.  Distinctive in its nature.  Whatever travels I see in my future, I foresee doing them alone.  And that’s ok—I love traveling, exploring, discovering by myself.  Which is why I probably will never go back to Hawaii. 

Because Hawaii is different.  Hawaii is for sharing.


Top 10 places I've been with her
1. Paris, France
2. The Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
3. Budapest, Hungary
4. Bryce Canyon, Utah
5. Kruger National Park & safari across South Africa
6. Venice, Italy
7. Tokyo, Japan
8. Coastline of Maine, north of Portland
9. Barcelona, Spain
10. Siena, Italy

Top 10 places I've been without her
1. Amazon rainforest, Ecuador
2. The Catacombs - Paris, France
3. The Library of Congress nitrate film vaults - Dayton, OH*
4. Edinburgh, Scotland
5. Savannah, Georgia
6. 80 corridor, Wyoming
7. Kauai, Hawaii
8. The Tate Modern - London
9. Arlington Cemetery, Virginia
10. The Cat Cabinet - Amsterdam

*since relocated

10 places I still hope to visit one day
1. Machu Picchu, Peru
2. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
3. Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
4. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
5. Musee d'Orsay - Paris, France
6. Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Italy
7. High Sierra Camps, Yosemite Nat'l Park, CA
8. Santorini, Greece
9. Antelope Canyon, AZ
10. MLB Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY

The Classic Elvis stamp (Scott #2721) is paired with a Hawaii statehood stamp (#4415).  The Steamboat Geyser stamp was part of the Wonders of America series (#4059), here paired with another Yellowstone geyser, Old Faithful (#1053) and one celebrating the park itself (#744).

Jesus Christ Superman

I’ll admit it.  Reflecting back on the big tentpole pictures of the summer, even the ones I found enjoyable seemed to evaporate from memory quickly.  But while it’s far from perfect, Man of Steel (Snyder) still lingers.

I think what I like about the film is that it addresses something that the other films have largely avoided, or only given lip service to: That Supes is genuinely super-human.  Not just extra-powerful, but almost godlike in his abilities (on a relative scale).  The devastation of Metropolis at the end is exhausting, given the overall film’s running time, but essential in conveying how humanity is mere cannon fodder if two true Super Men were to do battle.

But the irony is that despite the acknowledgment of this fact, the film is the least messianic about Superman than any we’ve ever seen.  In the Christopher Reeve incarnation, man is essentially powerless, and Superman must come and save the day for the planet time and time again.  At the end of Kill Bill, Part 2, Bill has a monologue on how the persona of Clark Kent is Kal-El’s commentary on (and veiled contempt for) mankind.  It’s a patronizing position, but apt because in those films, he’s all-powerful, but man is also hopelessly impotent.  This is even taken to the extent that Earth gains an entitlement complex by the time we reach Superman 3, where our hero is criticized for not always being able to save everyone, all the time.

However, despite being more powerful than any Superman we've seen thus far, Man of Steel's Superman is still less god, and more man.  His search for answers to his own identity make him more accessible, and his dedication to being an example for Earth, not an answer to all its troubles, is not mere lip service, as we see in the moving sacrifice of Col. Hardy and Dr. Hamilton (Chris Meloni & Richard Schiff, respectively) in the destruction of the Earth Builder.  Earth’s rescue is a collaboration; Supes may be the architect, but mankind has a real stake in its own salvation.  And that’s something we’ve never seen before.

I liked this film because it also (intentionally or not) harkened back to one of my favorite sci-fi films of the 70s, God Told Me To (Cohen, 1976).  In it, a supernatural being here on Earth assumes upon himself his own personal God complex.  And who can blame him?  A miraculous birth, powers far beyond his peers, in a society steeped in religion but agnostic when it comes to life on other planets—what else is he supposed to conclude other than that he represents a spiritual Second Coming?  And when you are dealing with someone who not only believes he’s God but has the power to back it up, what then?  It is director Larry Cohen’s finest film (Andy Kaufman’s too, incidentally), and it takes perverse pleasure in merging and melding these myths and cultural tropes that cinematic sci-fi usually keeps quite separate.

There were other things I liked about Man of Steel, too.  Krypton was a real place, with a real culture and history, not just a sound stage.  Zod is not just power mad; he’s a totalitarian on a genocidal mission, which makes him more believable and more horrifying.  True, Kevin Costner’s death is stupid and doesn’t have the poignancy of Glenn Ford's in the 1978 version, and the romance with Lois needed time to breathe.  It’s too fast, too sudden.  But Diane Lane, as Ma Kent, picks up the emotional slack and you see how the Kents would’ve raised their son with a stalwart code of values.  

But in the end, the film tries to explain Superman, not just accept him on faith.  In the original Superman, he just…shows up one day, out of the blue.  His appearance to humanity is completely arbitrary (unless it’s to save Lois’s life).  But here, Kal-El is forced to make a choice that redefines his purpose, and the planet’s own self-awareness, too.  His search for this purpose ends up bringing the Kryptonians to Earth.  His sense of responsibility is why he reveals himself, at long last.  Call it The Last Temptation of Clark.  Until now, the cinematic Superman was always one-dimensional, a goody-two shoes.  That’s what made him truly alien.  He isn’t even known by his superhero moniker here.  This is not just a reboot, but a new conception of the character altogether.  I’m curious to see where it goes.

Of course, my favorite silver screen Superman is still the one conceived by the Fleischer brothers in their marvelous cartoon shorts of the 40s.  Here's one gem from 1942.

The first card (a greeting card, actually) has a Superman stamp issued as part of the DC comic book series (Scott #4084k) and is paired up with the Superman stamp that was part of the Celebrate the Century series (#3185f).  And Canada had a Superman stamp too, from 1995.  The other Superman stamp (#4084a) and FDC from that DC comic series is on the other card (a postcard), along with Supergirl (#4084i) from the same series.  As a concession to possible comic collectors, I also added a Marvel stamp on each of these cards from a subsequent release, too--hence The Hulk (#4159l) and Captain America (#4159e).