The Unseen #35:The Young Philadelphians

Why’d I Buy It?: Came in the Paul Newman Box set I ordered (Last One!)

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: I thought It might be a little dry. When you read the below section you will realize how ridiculous that is.

How Was It?: AWESOME. There are panting Melodramas. And then there are melodramas which come with a coat and an extra pair. The Young Philadelphians is a hot tranny mess of a film (Dignity here at TTDS. Always Dignity). Supposedly about the young Paul Newman as a bright young lawyer continuously pushed into the upper crust of Philadelphia (and really isn’t being a part of Philadelphia’s aristocracy like being the smartest man in Turlock?), by his well meaning but social climbing mother. The Young Philadelphians gloriously revels itself to be one of those uber melodramas where in everything is happening all the time. Its not about anything as much as it is about packing in as much smut into a fifties picture as a mainstream audience could stand and still bare to call itself respectable.

Why the first five minutes alone feature Alcoholism, Closeted Homosexuality, or this being the fifties a rather euphemisimtastic light in the loafers lavender fellow (Portrayed by Adam West!!!!), Suicide, Sweaty Passionate out of wedlock Irish sex, illegitimate birth and other assorted awesome. And this is before a shirtless sweaty Paul Newman shows up to beat the tar out of a brute in his very first scene.

Now even Tenessee Williams would agree that’s a little overstuffed.

But the movie is, like Al Pacino before he gets the Hoo Hahs going, just getting warmed up. Before the runtime is over it will feature, murder most foul, lovers kept apart by dread circumstance, the Korean War, more suicide, adultery, more alcoholism, cougar fucking, more controlling dowagers, trials before a jury in defense of an innocent man’s life, black mail, more implied repressed homosexuality, Brain Tumors, and a little dog named Carlos.

It’s the type of movie where when the idyllic interludes do come you look greedily at your watch knowing something truly dreadful can’t be more then five minutes out.

Paul Newman is magnetic and hot enough to fry several eggs on. He’s matched by a game cast and Vincent Sherman, who is some how manages to keep this overheated mess from boiling over.

The Young Philadelphians, is one of those films like Picnic, or the films of Douglass Sirk that is as much fun to watch for the way it subliminates its subject matter as much as anything that makes it onto the screen. Not since I saw Dorthey Malone jack off an oil derrick in Written On The Wind have I seen the strength of trashiness strain so valiantly against the bonds of respectability. Repression might not be healthy, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

Something like The Young Philedelphians carries a whiff of the forbidden that’s all the stronger because the people who made it actually did believe that some things where better left unsaid. That’s something in rather short supply these days. “They don’t make them like this anymore.” Is a phrase that’s tossed around an awful lot. And I’m as guilty of it as anyone. But in The Young Philadelphian’s the phrase is depressingly literal. No one outside of this time period, circumstances and mores could make this film. And I can’t help but feel it’s a little bit of a shame.

The Unseen #33: Pocket Money

(Seldom have I so wished the poster was actually an accurate representation of the movie.)

Why’d I Buy It?: Came in The Paul Newman Boxset I bought.

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: A movie staring Paul Newman and Lee Marvin. With a script by the legendary by Sasquatch measure, Terrence Malick? I don’t know. Why haven’t I watched it?

How Was It?: Oh. That’s why I haven’t watched it.

There’s really no pussy footing around this one, Pocket Money is a fairly dreadful film. Now I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking it to. No movie starring Paul Newman and Lee Marvin can be completely devoid of entertainment value. And no movie involving Terrence Malick can be completely devoid of artistic value. And this is true, but they’re both able to get a lot closer to that vanishing point then I would have cared to guess.

Newman plays a dimwitted cowboy, conned into taking charge of a cattle drive down in Mexico, by Strother Martin, the man who Newman once had a failure to communicate with during much happier Rosenberg directed days. He enlists his partner Lee Marvin, to help him with said drive, and the rest of the movie is spent waiting patiently for something, anything to happen.

It might be philistine of me to say it, but Pocket Money is just an aggressively dull movie. The kind of dullness that arrives not merely from a lack of narrative events, or rooting interest, but kind that arises from lack of any sort of investment either onscreen or off.

Part of the problem is Newman had fantastic range, but one thing he never was dumb. His character is such a dim bulb, that he isn’t likable. And as he’s played by Newman he inspires no pity, the way a more convincingly idiotic leading man might have done (Say Victor McLaughlin in The Informer. Who did seem dumb enough to genuinely try to get away with something like that.). Try as he may Newman can’t extinguish the thought behind those blue eyes. Marvin on the other hand simply never commits to the role. I’ve never seen old Lee phone it in, in quite the same way before. Powerful waves of apathy radiate from the screen whenever he appears.

The film meanders around from one non event to the next. Failing to strike sparks with each new non incident. Everytime something fails to happen, the movie cuts to long shots of Newman and Marvin shot at magic hour with great billowing clouds in the background.

With Malick at the helm such imagery might have been poetic, with Rosenberg it is merely perfunctory. Now yes to a certain extent it is unfair to say a journeyman like Rosenberg was not Terrence Malick. A genuine transcendentalist like Malick breathes a very rarified air indeed. Indeed I, and most likely you, are not Terrence Malick either (should this in a series of very unlikely events prove false, it’s an honor sir). But while Malick makes films on the level of Bresson and Ozu, and arguably even surpasses them, Rosenberg, Cool Hand Luke notwithstanding rarely rose to above the level of competent.

This does lead to the interesting question of just how much of Malick’s ineffableness does Malick make effable in his scripts. For all the films tremendous flaws, there’s no doubt that it feels something like a Malick film. A botched malformed Malick film to be sure, but one none the less. For the true zealots of Malick, it must feel a little something like beholding an inverted cross.

Like I said, it’s an interesting question. And you had best enjoy it as it’s the only one the film deigns to raise.

The Unseen #32: The Drowning Pool

Why’d I Buy It?: Came with the Paul Newman Boxset I purchased.

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: Has a reputation of being a lack luster sequel. Also it inspired the name of one of the worst Nu Metal bands, thus by extentsion worst bands ever, which is a tough stigma for any film to overcome.

How Was It?: Pretty much as its reputation has it. The belated (by nine years) sequel to Harper, finds its protagonist older, but not much wiser exploring shenanigans in the deep south. Harper is a pretty great little movie. Its one of the few great color noirs, with a cast to die for, including Janet Leigh in one of her best performances, Shelley Winters in one of the few roles I can stand her in, and a glorious Lauren Bacall playing an utter bitch Godess.

The problem is that its appeal is so tied into its location. Like similar great color noir Point Blank, Harper is a fantastic LA film, capturing the seductive tone of the city, shot by the great Conrad Hall in dusky sinuous palate. So when you remove the setting, which gave the movie its uniqueness, and Janet Leigh who gave the film its heart, and Conrad Hall, who gave the movie its look (he’s replaced by Gordon Willis, which isn’t exactly trading down, but who gets little opportunity to exercise his signature “Prince Of Darkness” aside from a few scenes) what are you left with? Not much.

Now don’t get me wrong, The Drowning Pool is a movie that is devoted entirely to Paul Newman fucking with crackers, there’s no way that doesn’t have some intrinsic entertainment value. Newman himself is charming as hell as always, even if he does seem to be coasting a bit in this one. And in all fairness the movie has a handful of great scenes. Including a bit where Newman interrogates a local gangster at his kennel, where said gangster happens to be training a pack of vicious pitbulls for dog fighting. Rosenberg keeps them and their sometimes bizarre training techniques in the background of nearly ever shot, which livens up the mise en scene considerably and adds a fair amount of tension to an otherwise standard bit of exposition. Then there’s an eerie roadside execution shot at night, with the assassins wearing creepy non descript party store masks, and Gordon Willis getting to cut loose for his one time in the film. But the film on the whole doesn’t hold together.

The cast has some bright spots, including Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward, with whom Newman always had chemistry, and Melanie Griffith in her slutty tomcat days, basically reprising her role in Night Moves to much lesser effect. Stuart Rosenberg, who Newman always had a report directs ably if not well. Drowning Pool isn’t a bad movie per se. I wouldn’t call it a waste of time or discourage anyone else from seeing it. Its just with so much better work from all involved so readily available, its kind of hard to see the point. It’s the very definition of a cinematic B side.

The Unseen #31: Somebody Up There Likes Me

Why’d I Buy It?: Came In Paul Newman Boxset

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: No real reason.

How Was It?: Pretty damn good. Somebody Up There Likes Me is one of those films you get pissed about not seeing sooner, and a prime example of the kind of film I love doing this column for. One second it’s a film I only knew about in sketchy historical terms, the next it’s an essential. A film I would easily rank among my favorite Biopics, Sports movies, and New York Films. A fast paced, well written and acted, stylish, and vastly entertaining bit of old school studio craftsmanship.

Robert Wise never gets as much credit as he deserves, but he’s always been one of my favorite of the old studio directors, out of the unabashed hired hands. Sure he made some fairly dreadful films like The Hindenberg, and Star Trek The Motionless Picture. But When given the right material Wise knew how to make a picture work. And he made some truly great ones.

If nothing else he was a fantastic adapter. Capitalizing and improvising with the freedom’s that other filmmakers pioneered. And here, especially in the first third of the film he apes Jules Dassin to fantastic effect, using the then new style of location based shoots for shots that have a depth and life to them that are just startling. Wise was of course one of Welles’ first disciples, and he shoots the city sequences with a startling depth of field. It’s a film with the kind of detail that only life can provide, and so many of the frames are so rich with it that its difficult not to use your freeze frame with every long shot. (DOP Joseph Ruttenberg won an Oscar)



The film tells the true story of “Rocky Graciano” a small time hoodlum, who after stints in prison and the brig, builds himself up to a respectable fighter. Only to have his past come back to haunt him, when he really makes it big.

Wise directs the boxing sequences with a startling realism (though not quite the brutality he used in The Set Up). He strings the film together with sequences that are just perfect. Such as the ending title fight, (a bruiser in itself) which Wise intercuts between the fight, the crowds listening to it in the neighborhood, and the sounds of the radios echoing in the empty tenement street, in a perfectly crafted montage. There are other little touches that make the film feel different. The film is gritty beyond the usual studio style "realism" actually feeling like the inner city. Then there's the fact that watching it you actually know that there are black people in New York, and two of the main characters (Including Graciano’s wife) are Jewish. It might not be much now, but in the era of Gentleman’s Agreement, it still was a big deal.

Newman famously ended up subbing for James Dean in this his first starring role, and as a result that Newman cool isn’t a hundred percent there yet. Its not just the fact that he’s about as Italian as Charlton Heston is Mexican. He’s as much playing James Dean as he is Rocky Garcianno (as he would again, to a much lesser extent in The Left Handed Gun). There are times where he fidgets and mumbles in a way that you can actually SEE Dean coming out in the role. Its frankly pretty eerie. (Especially the scenes where Newman plays against Dean foil Mineo)

And yet, his performance is not Dean, and Dean would have probably been horribly miscast in the role. Oh sure, he could have done the tortured, brooding scenes. Fighting with fathers was Dean's raison d tere. Dean could play persecuted better then just about anyone who ever lived. But Newman has a capacity for pleasure that Dean never seemed to have. Try imagining a scene like the one where Newman strolls around his old neighborhood with his new family, surrounded by adoring fans, sporting a fur coat, cigar the size of a baby’s arm, and a shit eating grin the size of Tulsa with Dean in it. Its impossible.



And while the classic Newman character would be a lot more humble then Graciano, and a lot smarter for that matter, he would always walk with that same swagger. This movie could be subtitled, “Birth Of The Cool.”