Citizen Kane in Color?

by David English Trivia

“It is widely believed that Ted Turner had plans to colorize Citizen Kane, but that wide public outcry led to his decision not to. The rumor came from a tongue-in-cheek comment from Turner that he would colorize the film in order to bait critics of the process.

“In actuality, Orson Welles had the rights to the film, and Turner couldn’t have colorized the film even if he had wanted to. Nonetheless, the controversy over the potential alteration of this film was one of the catalysts that eventually led to the film industry requirement that all future video and TV releases of films that have been altered in any way — including the standard conversion from widescreen to ‘pan and scan’ — must carry a disclaimer indicating the film has been ‘modified from its original version.’

“It is also widely believed that when he heard about it, Welles supposedly roared, ‘Tell Ted Turner to keep his crayons away from my movie!’ However, being that he owned the rights to the film, it is highly unlikely that he ever made any such statement.”

— Source: Internet Movie Database

We’re Off to Trim the Wizard

by David English Trivia

“The running time for The Wizard of Oz was originally 120 minutes. Producer Mervyn LeRoy realized that at least 20 minutes of the film needed to be deleted to get it down to a manageable running time. Three sneak previews aided LeRoy in his decision in what to cut. The original film in its entirety was seen only once by an audience in either San Bernadino or Santa Barbara, and it was the only time the famed Jitterbug number was seen by the public.

“After this preview, LeRoy cut the aforementioned Jitterbug number and the Scarecrow’s extended dance sequence to ‘If I Only Had a Brain.’ A second preview was held in Pomona, California, where the film ran 112 minutes. After the preview, LeRoy cut Dorothy’s ‘Over The Rainbow’ reprise and a scene in which the Tin Man turned into a human beehive, and the Emerald City reprise of ‘Ding Dong The Witch is Dead,’ as well as a few smaller scenes and dialogue, notably two Kansas scenes in which the Hickory character was building a machine to ward off tornadoes, as well as dozens of threatening lines by the Wicked Witch of the West.

“By the third preview, held in San Luis Obispo, the film finally was down to its 101-minute running time, where it has remained ever since.”

— Source: Internet Movie Database

No Formula

by David English Quotes
John Ford

“[John Ford was] the director I liked working with better than anybody in the industry. You’d talk, I think you might say, 50 words to him in a day; you had a communication with him so great you could sense what he wanted. He knew nothing of lighting; he never once looked in the camera when we worked together. You see, the man had bad eyes, as long as I knew him, but he was a man whose veins ran with the business. He had a tremendous memory; he could come up with an idea from some picture he had made 30 years before, and suggest you did that.

“I’ve had people offer me money to give them the formula that Jack Ford used to direct. But he had no formula. . . .”

— Arthur C. Miller, who started as a cinematographer in 1910, interviewed for Hollywood Cameramen (1970)

Chinese Name for Cinema

by David English Trivia

The traditional Chinese name for cinema is made up of the two characters dian and ying, which translate as “electric shadows.”

Dianying: Electric Shadows is the name of an excellent history of Chinese films from 1896 through 1967. The book was written by Jay Leyda, who worked with the Chinese film industry in Peking from 1959 to 1964. Leyda is best known for his books on Sergei Eisenstein and the Soviet cinema, though he also published studies of Herman Melville, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Emily Dickinson.

Unfortunately, Dianying: Electric Shadows is currently out of print. You can still find it in both hardback and paperback through used booksellers.

Creating One-Reelers

by David English Quotes
Hal Roach (1920)

“This is the way we made those one-reelers: Monday morning I would bring the group in and say, “You make up as a cop, you make up as a garbageman, you make up as a pedestrian.” We’d go out in the park, and we’d start to do something. By that time, I’d have an idea of what the sets were going to be. By noon, I would tell the set man what I wanted, and he would go back to the studio to get them ready.

“I don’t think we ever had anything on paper until we started making 2-reelers with lights. Nobody but me had any idea what the hell we were going to do. We’d try one thing, it wasn’t funny; we’d try something else.”

— Hal Roach, interviewed for The Real Tinsel (1970)

Longest Movie Titles Ever?

by David English Trivia

The longest-titled movie ever nominated for an Academy award is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Though it’s hardly the longest movie title ever. It’s only number 129 on a list of the longest movie titles.

What’s number one? That would be: Another Demonstration of the Cliff-Guibert Fire Horse Reel, Showing a Young Girl Coming from an Office, Detaching Hose, Running with It 60 Feet, and Playing a Stream, All Inside of 30 Seconds (1900). Apparently, the first demonstration didn’t go over so well.

If you’re interested in checking out the entire list, you can find it here.

Multilayered Realities

Multilayered Realities

by David English Reviews

Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967) is a film about sex, though there’s not much sex in it. That’s because the film is concerned with the effects of repressed sexuality. A rebel and a surrealist, Buñuel often targeted hypocrisy in bourgeoisie life — via class, religion, or politics — in order to expose its inconsistencies and logical fallacies. He also preferred to approach his subjects in an unorthodox fashion. As a result, his films often have one meaning on the surface, but an entirely different meaning just below the surface.

Buñuel isn’t an easy director to decipher. The structure of his later films challenge narrative conventions in the same way his characters challenge social conventions. Belle de Jour begins as a deceptively simple story but blossoms into a multilayered exploration of alternative realities. But are they really alternative realities? Séverine (played by Catherine Deneuve) is married to a kind and generous young doctor. Judging by appearances, she should be happy. Her daydreams suggest she isn’t. Her secret life at a brothel becomes the means through which she tries to reconcile her rational life with her fantasy life.

In his film Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Buñuel also moved between realities, though with a lighter touch. In that movie, he carefully builds a narrative reality only to suddenly shift to a surreal version of the same reality. With Belle de Jour, the shifts are more subtle, the plot is less whimsical, and the mood is more somber.

While the later Buñuel films have a puzzle-box construction, they’re quite enjoyable without your having to dig deep down. Buñuel’s best films can be read right-side up, upside down, or layer by layer. I don’t know of any other director who could craft films with such complex, even contradictory messages.

Belle de Jour
(1967; directed by Luis Buñuel)
Miramax (DVD)

Saturday, February 25 at 4:15 a.m. on The Movie Channel