The Irishman: A Crushing Disappointment

[Joe Bauer]

Fortunately we have our own nonprofit, community group owned, independent theater here in Monterey, CA.

It is called "The Osio."

5 or 6 small theaters with seating from 30 to 100.

My wife thrives on her weekly fix seeing thoughtful films there you would never see in the big boom box multiplex movie theaters.

These threads about film and it's importance and value in our society are fascinating.

It's a much appreciated aspect of this forum.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Ecker]

On 11/11/2019 at 7:44 PM, David Andrews said:

They can credit the line to Marlon Brando, who at the time was loudly suffering through The Night of the Following Day.  

Since we're talking about films, I recall an anecdote I once read about the filming of that movie. Brando and co-star Richard Boone (playing his usual nasty villain) had nothing but contempt for the director, who I think was named Bernie Cornfield. For some reason the director had Boone do a scene that was written for the Brando character (gently consoling a kidnapped girl). Boone said that he would do it but that it made about as much sense as "a rat trying to (expletive deleted) a grapefruit." Brando died laughing.

 

 

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Since we're talking about films, I recall an anecdote I once read about the filming of that movie. Brando and co-star Richard Boone (playing his usual nasty villain) had nothing but contempt for the director, who I think was named Bernie Cornfield. For some reason the director had Boone do a scene that was written for the Brando character (gently consoling a kidnapped girl). Boone said that he would do it but that it made about as much sense as "a rat trying to (expletive deleted) a grapefruit." Brando died laughing.

 

 

Brando hated first-time director Cornfeld and taunted him mercilessly, hollering that he was going to go back to the hotel and do Cornfeld's wife while the director was busy rewriting scenes on-set.

Actually, The Night of the Following Day holds up in a "Don't-expect-much, folks" sort of way, despite the lack of confidence in the script visible in the performances.  It's on my list of hot messes, along with The Counselor (2013), another case of auteurisme gone bad, this time in the hands of pros.

In a fantasy world, Antonioni should have made this picture instead of Zabriskie Point, since Night looks a lot like a Blow-up knockoff, and Antonioni would have worked well with the confined interiors and the Euro exteriors.

Edited November 13, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Ecker]

11 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Actually, The Night of the Following Day holds up in a "Don't-expect-much, folks" sort of way,

I agree that Night was actually a pretty good movie (although the ending was lousy). I remember a review, either in Time or Newsweek, that said "it's good to have Brando back." Although that didn't last long, at least until Don Corleone.

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

51 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

I agree that Night was actually a pretty good movie (although the ending was lousy). I remember a review, either in Time or Newsweek, that said "it's good to have Brando back." Although that didn't last long, at least until Don Corleone.

 

 

Don who?  Would say my daughter.

[David Andrews]

My grandmother thought his first name was Don.

[David Andrews]

Delete, please

Edited November 15, 2019 by David Andrews

[W. Niederhut]

Speaking of Brando, I just bought a Blu-Ray of Viva Zapata! and had a number of questions for the (truly impressive) film historians and critics here.    (Apologies in advance for going off on a tangent about the semi-Irishman, Anthony Quinn.)

I should preface this by mentioning that I had recently watched Fellini's film La Strada, and started reading up on the long, strange history of Chihuahua native Anthony Quinn.

Curiously, when I did a search for "Anthony Quinn" (in DVDs & Blu-Ray) at Amazon.com, Viva Zapata! didn't show up on the list, even though Quinn won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Eufemio Zapata in the film.

1)  Was Viva Zapata! blacklisted to any extent in the U.S., for its sympathetic portrayal of the "socialist" revolutionary Emiliano Zapata?  (You'd think that a screenplay by John Steinbeck, and performances by Brando and Quinn would merit greater popularity and distribution.)

2)   Did William Goldman and George Roy Hill possibly base the final scene of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid on the final scene of Viva Zapata! ?

3)   I read somewhere that Viva Zapata! was Republican stalwart John McCain's favorite movie.  Is it also possible, in a truly bizarre twist of plutocratic fate, that George H.W. Bush named his CIA front company, Zapata Oil after the film?

[David Andrews]

Just to say, I've been know to burst into tears watching La Strada.

Steinbeck's name is on Zapata for its cachet, but there's no way that JS was the kind of movie-slick writer who could produce the draft we see on film.  There was more than one set of uncredited hands at work, including Elia Kazan's.  See this article for some background on Zapata,  though perhaps not answering your blacklisting question directly:

https://books.google.com/books?id=oyVBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=viva+zapata+blacklist&source=bl&ots=EWigm6EK9Q&sig=ACfU3U0NCJFIQlkyRT6BDVVlxSOQLhN74Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_uNeQ3uzlAhWSjFkKHU7JCDMQ6AEwCnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=viva zapata blacklist&f=false

I doubt there was any studio or theater blacklisting of Zapata, though it was during post-production on the film that Kazan was subpoenaed by HUAC.  Next, A Streetcar Named Desire won Oscars for Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden (plus Best Art Direction), but the lack of wins in the high categories made Kazan paranoid that the industry was shunning him. 

Kazan testified, naming names, and though Zapata lost money at the box office, it kicked around with regularity on TV-with-commercials throughout the 1960s and 1970s. (I didn't see it without commercials until it came out on VHS.)  Man on a Tightrope, Kazan's following film, lost money also, though Kazan came slamming back with On the Waterfront in 1954, and the next several films after.  You would have to do archival research to see if theater bookings for Zapata and Tightrope were limited or the length of run reduced - but it's possible that cold war xenophobia and isolationism made audiences cool toward films about politicized Mexican and Czech characters, respectively.

As I posted before, this documentary, pts. 1 and 2, is a good look at Elia Kazan's political troubles, and not incidentally fills in the political involvements of Marilyn Monroe under Arthur Miller's influence:

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by David Andrews

[David Andrews]

Let me throw something at our audience.  This is a great cold war spy drama, told entirely without words. 

If Stanley Kubrick had made this film (and at times it seems like he had), people would be falling all over themselves to praise and memorialize it. 

The Thief (1952), featuring swell period locations in DC, Georgetown, and NYC.  Also demonstrates the Minox spy camera:

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by David Andrews

[Douglas Caddy]

I saw The Irishman yesterday at one of the two theaters that is showing it in Houston. It is having only a limited release and for 20 days only at each theater nationwide before it soon reverts to Netflix .

I thoroughly enjoyed the film and recommend that it be seen on the large screen before being pulled.

Of course it is not historically accurate in some regards. After all who killed Hoffa and how his body was disposed of are still unknown after all these years. Still the film captures the accurately and dramatically the feeling of the times when the Mob was more visible and the Teamsters were most corrupt.

The actors are superb, especially DeNiro. The large scenes involving hundreds of actors are filmed realistically. The script is well done and the audience in the theater laughed aloud at least a dozen times.

The brief scene involving Howard Hunt failed miserably to portray him as I knew him. Putting everything aside that is publicly thought about him,  Howard was a charming person with perfect manners who continually made witting remarks when one conversed with him. Admittedly the movie scene is not one where he would be so.

The Dunes in Las Vegas is briefly shown and mentioned. Few persons know that The Dunes was built with Teamster Pension Fund money that originated when the Mob captured control of Galveston's Moody Foundation until Shearn Moody, Jr. brought a lawsuit that restored control of the foundation back to the Moody family. Shearn told me a number of times about how this went down.

Bottom line: see the film now if you get a chance. The memory of it will remain with you.

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by Douglas Caddy

[Joe Bauer]

26 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

I saw The Irishman yesterday at one of the two theaters that is showing it in Houston. It is having only a limited release and for 20 days only at each theater nationwide before it soon reverts to Netflix .

I thoroughly enjoyed the film and recommend that it be seen on the large screen before being pulled.

Of course it is not historically accurate in some regards. After all who killed Hoffa and how his body was disposed of are still unknown after all these years. Still the film captures the accurately and dramatically the feeling of the times when the Mob was more visible and the Teamsters were most corrupt.

The actors are superb, especially DeNiro. The large scenes involving hundreds of actors are filmed realistically. The script is well done and the audience in the theater laughed aloud at least a dozen times.

The brief scene involving Howard Hunt failed miserably to portray him as I knew him. Putting everything aside that is publicly thought about him,  Howard was a charming person with perfect manners who continually made witting remarks when one conversed with him. Admittedly the movie scene is not one where he would be so.

Bottom line: see the film now if you get a chance. The memory of it will remain with you.

 

My wife and I bought our theater tickets in advance last week for a 12:pm showing tomorrow.

Looks like the theater is now "sold out" for this showing.

Doug, you knew Howard Hunt personally and well. I am sure way, way more than the writer of the book " I Heard You Paint Houses" Charles Brandt or anyone involved with the script and film.

It must be frustrating to see a depiction of him that isn't close to his real character.

But still I find it disconcerting to read of Hunt's "charming, mannered and witty" personae in a positive and admiring light.

The underhanded, illegal and constitution violating things that Hunt did to undermine people like JFK ( and other good people ) along with other like minded law breaking characters such as G.Gordon Liddy makes his charming, mannered and witty public/or private demeanor disingenuously meaningless imo.

I say this however with the deepest admiration and respect for your own opinions and the extensive and valiant efforts and contributions you have made in so many important areas of truth searching and revealing concern in our American society lives.

I will of course report my "Irishman" take after I see the film.

S.F. Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle raves about it.

Review: Scorsese's 'Irishman' a masterpiece, end of an era for ...

 

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com › movies-tv › review-scorseses-irishman-i...

1.  

The Irishman” is as good a film as Martin Scorsese… ... Mick LaSalle November 3, 2019 Updated: November 7, 2019, 1:18 pm. Robert De Niro (left) and Joe ...

 

 

[David Andrews]

I feel the scene in Oliver Stone's Nixon, where John Dean (David Hyde-Pierce) meets Hunt (Ed Harris) on the Potomac bridge, rather misrepresents Hunt as well.  Hunt's TV interviews were available long before YouTube, and there's no reason for an actor to play him off-target.

Dean is misrepresented throughout Nixon as an innocent do-gooder. The more I listen to interviews with Len Colodny, Ray Locker and Geoff Shepard (on Midnight Writer News), the more Watergate as portrayed in Nixon looks skewed, like history in a D. W. Griffith film.  This doesn't stop me from liking Nixon and watching it, or parts of it, once a year, lately -- but other films have gotten a thrashing here for about as much distortion.

Edited November 23, 2019 by David Andrews

[Douglas Caddy]

15 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

I feel the scene in Oliver Stone's Nixon, where John Dean (David Hyde-Pierce) meets Hunt (Ed Harris) on the Potomac bridge, rather misrepresents Hunt as well.  Hunt's TV interviews were available long before YouTube, and there's no reason for an actor to play him off-target.

Dean is misrepresented throughout Nixon as an innocent do-gooder. The more I listen to interviews with Len Colodny, Ray Locker and Geoff Shepard (on Midnight Writer News), the more Watergate as portrayed in Nixon looks skewed, like history in a D. W. Griffith film.  This doesn't stop me from liking Nixon and watching it, or parts of it, once a year, lately -- but other films have gotten a thrashing here for about as much distortion.

I was surprised as was everyone else when John Dean said on Anderson Cooper's 360 on Thursday evening (11/21/2019) that Nixon could have saved his presidency had he known certain things. When David Gergen asked him why he had not revealed this before, Dean replied because "I was never asked." So why didn't Dean tell Nixon what he knew that would have saved the president instead of snitching on him?

Unfortunately on the CNN program none of the panelists quizzed Dean further to ascertain what Nixon should have known that would have saved his presidency.

I am reporting it here in the hope  that someone sometime will confront Dean as to what was withheld from Nixon.

[Douglas Caddy]

Joe: General Foods Corp., then the world's largest food manufacturer, retained the Mullen Company in Washington to be its eyes and ears. The CIA incorporated the Mullen Company in 1959 and General Foods itself was a CIA asset. Its office in Switzerland was used to debrief defectors from the Soviet Union. Richard Helms placed Howard Hunt in the Mullen Company. General Foods executives were charmed by Hunt's pleasant demeanor and manner as was I. I know it is difficult to reconcile Hunt's actions with who he was in person but I have described him accurately.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Douglas Caddy