Douglas Sirk Week: Imitation of Life

Welcome back boys and girls to Day 3 of Douglas Sirk week as we continue sensitive matters of life, the struggles that can occur during and how to better one’s life the pursuit of dreams.  So grab for the stars, stop at nothing and push for the gold.   This is Imitation of Life.

Oh and raise my child whilst I chase my dreams, deary.

I’m somebody else. I’m spoiler…spoiler…SPOILER!  

Lora Meredith (Lana Turner of The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful, Latin Lover, Betrayed and Madame X) a struggling widow with the want and desire of becoming a Broadway actress manages to lose track of her daughter Susie at the beach.  Needing help to finding her daughter she asks a fellow Steve Archer (John Gavin of Raw Edge, Four Girls in Town, A Breath of Scandal, Spartacus and Midnight Lace) to go looking for her.  Susie is found by a lady name of Annie Johnson (Juanita Moore of Skirts Ahoy!, The Royal African Rifles, Women’s Prison,  Queen Bee, Ransom!, The Opposite Sex and The Girl Can’t Help It) an African American divorcee with her own little girl Sarah Jane and unlike her mother, her skin is so light she could pass for white of which she does appreciate the option.  Lora takes Annie in as a nanny to allow her to pursue an acting career and have care for Susie. 

Sorry sweetie but it is a rectal thermometer. 

In spite of the struggles along the way Lora becomes a fairly successful star in comedy with Alan Loomis (Robert Alda of Rhapsody in Blue, The Beast with Five Fingers, Cloak and Dagger, The Girl Who Knew Too Much and The Serpent) as her agent and David Edwards (Dan O’ Herlihy of The Long, Hot Summer, Man From UNCLE, Death Ray 2000, Robocop, Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Robocop 2) as her playwright.  As she attempts a romantic relationship with Steve Archer, their relationship begins to fall apart as Steve feels Lora is too ambitious to be a star and how her focus seems to be heavily on her career instead of spending time with her daughter.  Susie and Sarah Jane seem to be establishing a rapport to the levels like sisters and Annie almost like a mother to them.

 11 Years Later… Lora is considered the cream of the crop Broadway star living in this gorgeous brownstone in Upstate New York and Annie remains with her as nanny, housekeeper and best friend.  After shooting down both David’s screenplay and marriage proposal, Lora meets Steve a decade later and the duo rekindle their relationship.  Teenagers Susie (Sandra Dee of Gidget, If a Man Answers, I’d Rather Be Rich, That Funny Feeling and Rosie!) and Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner of To Hell and Back, The Gene Krupa Story, The Big Fisherman, Going My Way and Route 66) are re-introduced to Steve.  Susie feels all tingly around Steve and Sarah Jane is still passing for white. 

White people do be different.

A few notes about this film.  This shows a level of racism and skin color is a crutch or a benefit.  The issues of mixed relationships are in many perspectives a thing of the past but set the tone for back in the day.   Sarah Jane could not be honest enough with her boy Frankie because she is afraid of his narrowed mindedness and frankly I found it to be sad and no foundation for a relationship.   All emotions are taxed throughout this movie and you will feel the twists and turns but this is also a good thing.

Western Week: Invitation to a Gunfighter

Hey Y’all!  Welcome back for Day 4 of the Western Week. Well we have tackled revenge, bank heists, train heists and even some good old fashioned land grabbing… so why not some more of that?   So tighten up your spurs and make that jingle jangle jingle.   This is Invitation to a Gunfighter.

Scruffy fella, ain't he?

Spoiler’s deceitful and downright no good!!

Our story following disgraced Southern man, Matt Weaver (George Segal of Ship of Fools, King Rat, Death of a Salesman, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Southern Star, Fun with Dick and Jane, Murphy’s Law and Just Shoot Me) who had the audacity to sign for the Union cause that after the war he returns home on foot to find his house has been ceased, bought and sold and his fiancée has married another man.  After a heated argument with John Medford, the now new owner of his home he finds out that town official Sam Brewster (Pat Hingle from Hang ‘Em High, Bloody Mama, If Tomorrow Comes, Gunsmoke, The Super Cops, Elvis, Batman and the The Quick and the Dead) stole his family land and home, grabs his shooting iron and proceeds to raise holy hell at Brewster’s.   Gets winged by the man that stole his girl and slapped in the pokey and the sawbones of the town fixes his arm and heck even the sheriff cuts him some slack and tells him to just leave town.  Off camera Weaver drops John Medford and the town is in uproar.  

I tells ya the Batman ain't to be trusted!!

But enough of all that saddening history and worldly nonsense, let’s talk about Yul Brynner’s character. Jules Gaspard d’Estaing(Yul Brynner of The King and I, The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Westworld, The Ultimate Warrior and Death Rage), a well-mannered, cultured dandy that also happens to be have the reflexes of a rattler and willingness to blow a man’s head off.  The town’s “savior” gunfighter bails after seeing d’Estaing, jumps on the very coach he came it to town and hightails it.  Hope they didn’t agree on half up front. 

Ruth now Ruth Adams (Janice Rule of Starlift, Gun for a Coward, Bell Book and Candle, The Subterraneans and The Chase) conflicted on her former feelings of Weaver but her convictions to her husband Crane Adams (Clifford David of The Last Mile, Hamlet, The Party’s Over, A Woman Called Moses, Blind Ambition and Ebony, Ivory and Jade), a one armed man that is a drunk and apparently lousy shot makes for a difficult path for Ruth.  

Brewster is typically the wrong man in at the right time.  A coward and a rabble rouser that keeps his town in check by pointing out the horrors of the Civil War and how they must remain united in their upstanding ways.  He calls out for blood and demands the town put cash together for a gunfighter.  God forbid they take pity on another battered soldier even if he was on the other side.  So poor Matt Weaver is truly on his own, scared and armed. 

Face it, this is a cool cat.

I would like to take this time to point out a few things about the film.  One thing I noticed was Sam Brewster’s house is unmistakably the Bates house above the Bates Motel via Psycho. Producer Stanley Kramer (High Noon, Judgment at Nuremberg, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Defiant Ones) apparently loves films of a message of racism, sexism and realism if you will.  The fiction is better represented with a touch of reality.  Frankly this has to be the filthiest town on the US soil. Gritty living conditions, battered and beaten men from the war and the war widows, this town wouldn’t know hope if it bit them in the keister.  Love the crane work, low pans and killer dolly track work.   This is a much underrated film and deserves much more credit than it got, the characters are complex and could go any direction.  A forgotten gem of a movie.