Touch of Evil (1958) became a great film because of a misunderstanding. Charlton Heston had agreed to appear in a police drama for Universal Pictures, but only because he thought Welles was signed to direct it. Welles, in fact, had agreed only to act in the film.

In a 1965 interview with the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, Welles explained:

Universal did not clear up his misunderstanding; they hung up and automatically telephoned me and asked me to direct it. . . I set only one condition: to write my own scenario! And I directed and wrote the film without getting a penny for it, since I was being paid as an actor.

Welles hated Universal’s scenario for the movie. He changed the locale from San Diego to the Mexican border. He also chose a supporting cast that Pauline Kael described as “assembled as perversely as in a nightmare.” It included Akim Tamiroff as a smalltime thug, Dennis Weaver as an outrageously inhibited motel clerk, Zsa Zsa Gabor as a strip club owner, and Marlene Dietrich as a madam. Heston plays an incorruptible Mexican narcotics agent, and Janet Leigh portrays his new bride. Welles turns in a towering performance as Hank Quinlan, a no-nonsense police captain whose hunches and leg twinges have helped put away hundreds of criminals.

Universal re-edited the film against Welles’ wishes before it was released in 1958. It received no previews and little fanfare. In 1998, Rick Schmidlin supervised a second re-edit of the film, following the suggestions from a 58-page memo Welles had prepared after learning he wouldn’t have the final cut. Schmidin restored much of the material that was originally cut out.

This newer version is the film that’s currently available on disc and shown occasionally on cable. It’s a big improvement over the theatrical release, both in the clarity of the storyline and the power of the imagery. Most famously, Welles had created a long, carefully timed tracking shot at the beginning of the film that ends with a dramatic surprise. Universal had cut the shot and placed the opening titles over what was left, greatly diminishing its effect. The latest edit restores this critical shot and places the credits at the conclusion of the story, as intended.

If any film can be referred to as baroque in its visual style, that film would be Touch of Evil. Even after more than 50 years, it continues to fascinate. Perhaps the most innovative film of the 1950s, it was decades ahead of its time. This is Welles’ third best film (after Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons) and the most daring of his Hollywood films.

Touch of Evil
(1958; directed by Orson Welles)
Universal Studios (Blu-ray and DVD)

Sunday, November 3 at 6:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

A rare instance where the sequel is even better than the original, Bride of Frankenstein picks up where Frankenstein left off. It’s one of the best classic horror movies ever made. There were two problems for director James Whale in filming the sequel. The angry peasants had killed the monster in the previous film, and the public had begun to identify the monster as Frankenstein, rather than as Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.

This time, the film begins with a historical conceit. Dainty and demure Mary Shelley has surprised her husband Percy Shelley and friend Lord Byron — two of the great Romantic-era poets — with the horror and violence of her story:

Elsa Lanchester portrays Mary Shelley (credited), as well as the Bride (uncredited). Boris Karloff returns as the Monster and is billed simply as KARLOFF above the film’s title. The cast includes a spirited performance by Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, a mad scientist who miniaturizes people and imprisons them in glass jars. The script, sets, and movements of the characters were heavily influenced by the German Expressionist films of the 1920s. The Bride’s first robot-like gestures recall Maria’s gestures when she was brought to life as a robot in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Bride of Frankenstein
(1935; directed by James Whale)
Universal Studios (Blu-ray and DVD)

Thursday, October 31 at 6:30 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

One of the more unusual Hollywood studio films from the 1930s is Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932). It’s often dismissed as an exploitation film or a cheap attempt at sensationalism. In fact, it’s neither. Browning, best known for having directed Dracula the year before, had run away to join the circus when he was 16 years old. He worked as a talker (popularly, though incorrectly, known as a circus “barker”). He also worked as “The Living Corpse” and performed as a clown with Ringling Brothers.

Browning chose real-life circus freaks for many of the roles in the film, not so much to exploit or sensationalize their presence, but to portray them as he had experienced them — as ordinary people with mostly ordinary lives. By contrast, the other characters in the film are portrayed as greedy, arrogant, and intolerant. They’re the real freaks. From this point of view, Freaks is the opposite of an exploitation film. Andrew Sarris has argued it’s “one of the most compassionate films ever made.”

As entertainment, Freaks has its ups and downs. The circus freaks aren’t always convincing. They’re amateur actors, after all. Unfortunately, some of the professional actors aren’t much better. Former silent star Olga Baclanova has a heavy Russian accent that tends to get in the way.

On the plus side is Browning’s skill in weaving suspense and horror elements into the narrative. He does this without undercutting his central thesis that the freaks are better adjusted and more tightly bonded in friendship than the outsiders. As a former circus talker, Browning knows audiences want to stare at the freaks, even as they want to turn away in disgust. He uses these contradictory emotions to build to an exciting finish. A scene where the freaks sincerely accept an outsider as “one of us” evokes similar mixed emotions, both for the character in the film and vicariously for the audience.

This film isn’t for everyone. If you can move beyond the sub-par acting and shock-horror overlay, you’ll find a serious exploration of what it means to be a kind and generous person, no matter which cards life has dealt for you.

Freaks
(1932; directed by Tod Browning)
Warner Home Video (DVD)

Thursday, October 31 at 10:15 a.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Just who was responsible for The Thing from Another World (1951)? If you look at the credits, you can see it was directed by Christian Nyby. But if you ask any Howard Hawks fan, you’ll probably be told it’s pure Hawks. The promotional materials of the time have Hawks’ name in big letters above the title and Nyby’s name below in small print. This ambiguity poses a problem for anyone compiling a Hawks filmography. Some writers include The Thing along with the films Hawks directed, while others — playing it safe — leave it out.

In a discussion with the audience at the 1970 Chicago Film Festival, Hawks was asked if he had directed parts of The Thing. This was his response:

Christian Nyby was my cutter, one of the finest cutters in the business, and I thought he deserved a chance to direct. After he directed a few days, he said, ‘Look, it’s an awful lot different cutting a film somebody gives you and making a film to cut. Will you come down and give me some help?’ I helped him some, but I didn’t come in and direct part of it. I just would say, ‘I think you’re attacking this scene wrong.’

Why are we so sure this is a Hawks film? After all, he didn’t direct or produce any other science fiction films. For Hawks, one-of-a-kind projects were not unusual. Gentleman Prefer Blondes was his only musical, and Scarface was his only gangster film. Hawks liked to work in a wide range of genres, yet his films are remarkably similar in theme and structure. In this case, the isolated group is a collection of military men and scientists stationed in the Arctic region. The external threat is an alien. And the Hawksian woman, who can hold her own with the men without losing her femininity, is a secretary to one of the scientists. There’s also the usual camaraderie, group banter, and overlapping dialogue that make a Hawks film so enjoyable.

While it may be a minor Hawks film, The Thing is one of the better science fiction films of the 1950s. Like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Forbidden Planet (1956), and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), it deals with larger issues than whether we can survive an alien invasion. Each of these films also explores what it means to be a human being.

The Thing from Another World
(1951; directed by Christian Nyby; produced by Howard Hawks)
Turner Home Entertainment (Blu-ray and DVD)

Friday, October 25 at 6:45 a.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

What if someone created a murder mystery so entertaining you didn’t care who did the murder? That’s the case with The Big Sleep (1946). Based on Raymond Chandler’s first novel, the story draws private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) into an ever expanding circle of corruption and conspiracy. Eight deaths are woven throughout the book and film, making it unusually hard to keep up with the various murderers and victims. Director Howard Hawks phoned Chandler long distance during the film’s production because he couldn’t figure out who murdered the man who was dumped in the ocean along with his car. According to Hawks, Chandler was unable to provide an adequate solution.

William Faulkner worked on the script, along with Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett. Faulkner had teamed with Hawks, Bogart, and Lauren Bacall the previous year on To Have and Have Not (1944). If you’re familiar with Faulkner’s novels, it’s an interesting game to try to spot the Faulkner dialogue throughout the two films.

Here are a few examples from The Big Sleep that Faulkner may have had a hand in crafting:

Vivian: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they’re front runners or come from behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
Marlowe: Find out mine?
Vivian: I think so.
Marlowe: Go ahead.
Vivian: I’d say you don’t like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
Marlowe: You don’t like to be rated yourself.
Vivian: I haven’t met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
Marlowe: Well, I can’t tell till I’ve seen you over a distance of ground. You’ve got a touch of class, but I don’t know how, how far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who’s in the saddle.

Mars: Convenient, the door being open when you didn’t have a key, eh?
Marlowe: Yeah, wasn’t it. By the way, how’d you happen to have one?
Mars: Is that any of your business?
Marlowe: I could make it my business.
Mars: I could make your business mine.
Marlowe: Oh, you wouldn’t like it. The pay’s too small.

Marlowe: Hmm.
Sternwood: What does that mean?
Marlowe: It means, hmm.

Based on the running time of 114 minutes, it looks like TCM will be showing the 1946 theatrical release of The Big Sleep. The Blu-ray and DVD include the theatrical release, as well as the less-familiar 116-minute prerelease version from 1945. The earlier version has an easier-to-follow, more linear plot. The release version moves along faster, sustains the film noir mood better, and is an overall superior film.

The Big Sleep
(1946; directed by Howard Hawks)
Warner Archive Collection (Blu-ray)
Warner Home Video (DVD)

Sunday, October 20 at 2:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

The Birth of a Nation (1915) is a difficult film to wrap your mind around. Clearly racist in its intent, it’s also a perceptive and ground-breaking film. You may not be accustomed to dealing with propaganda and art in the same package, though there are other examples, mostly notably Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (it praises the rise of Hitler’s Nazi party) and the operas of Richard Wagner (he was anti-Semitic and, by all accounts, a generally odious man). Can we somehow detach the good from the bad? Or should we discard the whole as unredeemably tainted?

In D.W. Griffith’s case, I think we can — and should — separate the racism from the art. I prefer to think his views on race were more naive than diabolical. Because his other work is central to the development of film as an art form, it would seem strange to ignore this film as though it never existed. One of my fondest memories of NYU was watching a single year of Griffith’s films each semester. Jay Leyda, my doctoral advisor, taught the courses. We watched Griffith try out new techniques, set them aside for a time, and then reapply the techniques as he refined his new cinematic tools.

In a 1949 article in The Sewanee Review, Leyda addressed the contradictory nature of The Birth of a Nation:

This film is a constant anxiety to honest critics: “How can I admit artistic or even technical greatness in a film that has written such a history of injury and misuse?” Evasion of this contradiction usually transfers the laurels and emphasis to the “less harmful” Intolerance. Another evasion of this critical hazard is to reject totally the injurious film. This does justice neither to an important film nor to truth, in whose name the rejection is usually made. This film-goer has learned to look at The Birth of a Nation as at two distinct films — and it is the second of these that contains not only the racist melodrama and raw historical distortion of Thomas Dixon’s pennydreadfuls, but also the most dazzling and least useful of Griffith’s innovations . . . One could suspect that, unconsciously, the dynamics of this part of the film were intended to drive from the spectator’s mind those thoughts and questions roused by the film’s first half. For me this first part is self-contained, ending on one of the greatest and most tragically final images of all film-time — the open arms that welcome the returning colonel, stumbling across the pillared porch to his unseen but not unaltered family. This is a film that repays the most minute and repeated examination.

Perhaps the best strategy for understanding this dual-sided film is to watch it simultaneously with two minds. One mind should be skeptical of the historical facts in the movie, especially as they relate to race relations. The other mind should remain receptive to the narrative and technical skills of one of our finest directors. Can sensitive cinematic storytelling coexist with hateful propaganda? Obviously, they can coexist, though there’s still a question as to how much weight to give to the morally despicable elements when evaluating the work as a whole.

The Birth of a Nation
(1915; directed by D.W. Griffith)
Kino International (Blu-ray and DVD)

Friday, October 18 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Ask any film archivist what would be a great find, and you’ll probably hear the words, “the complete Greed.” Greed (1924) was voted one of the twelve best films of all time by an international jury at the 1958 Brussels Exposition. Yet the release version, which runs about two hours, is only a quarter the length of the original rough cut and about half the length of the edited version that director Erich von Stroheim was willing to accept. It prompts the question: If the two-hour butchered version is so good, how much better might the original four-hour or eight-hour versions be? Unfortunately, those versions no longer exist. Whether they were in fact better or not, we may never know.

The first three films Stroheim directed were big financial successes: Blind Husbands (1919), The Devil’s Passkey (1920), and Foolish Wives (1922). His realistic style, obsessive attention to detail, and unflinching character portrayals inspired Jean Renoir to become a film director. Renoir’s realistic style — in turn — inspired the Italian Neo-Realist movement of the late 1940s and early 1950s. By 1922, Stroheim had attained the kind of clout in Hollywood held only by Chaplin and Griffith. When the Goldwyn Company agreed to back his next project, a film based on Frank Norris’ naturalistic novel McTeague, the studio had no idea Stroheim would adapt the entire book and make no effort to sugarcoat the story’s grittiness and stark pessimism.

In his book Saint Cinema, Herman G. Weinberg wrote of Stroheim and Greed:

His fanatical quest for more realistic portrayals sometimes led him to extremes, and Jean Hersholt tells the story of the filming at Death Valley, where Stroheim actually drove his actors frantic until they were in such a state of wrath that they had no difficulty in playing the scenes of the fight at the end of the picture. Stroheim is said to have told them to look at each other with hatred, as if they were looking at him.

Based on the production stills and continuity script, we can piece together what the complete film might have looked like. Weinberg published a book in 1972 titled The Complete “Greed,” where he reconstructed the original cut using 400 stills. In 1999, Rick Schmidlin took the effort even further by combining the existing footage with 650 stills. Through optical pans, zooms, and iris effects, Schmidlin was able to bring a cinematic touch to the stills and successfully fill in many of the gaps in the narrative. This version runs 242 minutes.

Neither the theatrical release or Schmidlin’s reconstruction are currently available on DVD. Turner Classic Movies shows both versions from time to time. All things being equal, it would probably be best to see the theatrical version first, but because they turn up only occasionally, you may want to dive right into the reconstructed version. Either way, you’ll be amazed at the emotional power and visual subtlety that could be achieved with silent film.

Based on the 239 minute running time, it appears that TCM will be running Rick Schmidlin’s reconstructed version of Greed.

Greed
(1924; directed by Erich von Stroheim)

Sunday, September 29 at 8:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

If the historical figure at the center of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) could be said to embody uncompromised dedication, the same could be said of the film’s director, Carl Theodore Dreyer. Consisting entirely of close-ups and medium shots, with only the sparest of backgrounds, Dreyer relentlessly focuses in on the characters and conflicts. It may be the closest we’ve ever come to a pure narrative cinema. As you might expect, reactions to this pared-down style vary. Most film historians view this as one of the greatest silent films ever made. I wholeheartedly agree. Others see it as too extreme. You’ll have decide for yourself.

Much of the emotional appeal of this film can be attributed to the remarkable performance by Maria Falconetti as Jeanne d’Arc. It is often cited as the finest performance ever committed to celluloid. In a 1965 interview with Cahiers du Cinéma, Dreyer explains how he chose Falconetti for the part:

I went to see her one afternoon and we spoke together for an hour or two. I had seen her at the theatre. A little boulevard theatre whose name I have forgotten. She was playing there in a light, modern comedy and she was very elegant in it, a bit giddy, but charming. She didn’t conquer me at once and I didn’t have confidence in her immediately. I simply asked her if I could come to see her the next day. And during that visit, we talked. That is when I sensed that there was something in her to which one could make an appeal. Something that she could give; something, therefore that I could take. For, behind the make-up, the pose, behind that modern and ravishing appearance, there was something. There was a soul behind that facade. If I could see her remove the facade it would suffice me. So I told her that I would very much like, starting the next day, to do a screen test with her. ‘But without make-up,’ I added, ‘with your face completely naked.’ She came, therefore, the next day ready and willing. She had taken off her make-up, we made the tests, and I found on her face exactly what I had been seeking for Joan of Arc: a rustic woman, very sincere, who was also a woman who had suffered. But even so, this discovery did not represent a total surprise for me, for, from our first meeting, this woman was very frank and, always, very surprising.

Dreyer based the script on the original trial transcripts from the year 1431, as well as a novel by Joseph Delteil. The film took a year and a half to complete, in part because Dreyer insisted that the costumes, church, courtyard, gestures, and other aspects of the production were as authentic as possible. The whole construction was painted pink, rather than white, to give it a gray tint against the sky.

According to Ebbe Neergaard’s book Carl Dreyer: A Film Director’s Work, Dreyer demanded absolute silence and banished anyone who wasn’t needed whenever Falconetti had an important scene. Neergaard writes, “She was, as it were, activated into expressing what Dreyer could not show her, for it was something that could only be expressed in action, not speech, and she alone could do it, so she had to help him. And she realized that this could only be done if she dropped all intellectual inhibitions and let her feelings have free access from her subconscious to her facial expression.”

The Passion of Joan of Arc
(1928; directed by Carl Theodore Dreyer)
Criterion Collection (Blu-ray and DVD)

Saturday, September 28 at 12:00 a.m. eastern (late Fri. night) on Turner Classic Movies

Don’t be put off by the title. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is one of the finest British films ever made.

Based on the popular Colonel Blimp political cartoon that satirized Britain’s military establishment, Winston Churchill was so worried the film would send the wrong wartime message to British and American audiences he tried to stop it in mid-production.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the film’s co-directors, had hoped to use Laurence Olivier in the title role of Clive Candy, but the Ministry of War refused to release Olivier from military duty. In his place, Powell and Pressburger chose Roger Livesey, who gives a remarkable performance that convincingly portrays Candy over a 40-year period encompassing three wars.

Churchill allowed the film to be released in Britain in July 1943, but held up its release to the U.S. until 1945. That version was 10 minutes shorter than the British version (153 minutes versus 163 minutes). After an unsuccessful run, the U.S. print was trimmed to 93 minutes and wasn’t seen uncut in either England or the United States until the 1970s.

While the controversy over the Blimp character is important for understanding the context of the movie, it’s the excellent performances, as well as the subtle direction and intelligent script by Powell and Pressburger, that make this a real standout. Here are some examples of the dialogue:

Hoppy: I was awfully sorry to hear about your leg. [Looks down] Jumping Jehosaphat! They’re both there!
Clive Candy: What the hell did you think I was standing on?
Hoppy: They told me in Bloemfontein that they cut off your left leg.
Clive Candy: [Examines leg] Can’t have, old boy. I’d have known about it.

Clive Candy: The Kaiser spoke — and the Prince of Wales spoke . . .
Edith Hunter: Spoke about what?
Clive Candy: Nobody could remember.

Clive Candy: Well sir, I have a friend . . .
Colonel Betteridge: Good. Not everybody can say that. Continue!

Clive Candy: I heard all that in the last war! They fought foul then — and who won it?
Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff: I don’t think you won it. We lost it — but you lost something, too. You forgot to learn the moral. Because victory was yours, you failed to learn your lesson twenty years ago and now you have to pay the school fees again. Some of you will learn quicker than the others, some of you will never learn it — because you’ve been educated to be a gentleman and a sportsman, in peace and in war. But Clive! [tenderly] Dear old Clive — this is not a gentleman’s war. This time you’re fighting for your very existence against the most devilish idea ever created by a human brain — Nazism. And if you lose, there won’t be a return match next year. . . perhaps not even for a hundred years.

Clive Candy: War starts at midnight!

Filmed in London and the surrounding countryside during the Blitz, this is an epic film. It’s epic not just in its physical and temporal scale, but also in its ambitious themes. The story is an elegy on friendship and divided loyalties, on lost opportunities and an unwillingness to adapt.

Unlike the blustery and bullheaded Blimp of the political cartoon, this Blimp is sympathetic. At heart, he’s a good man who can admit his mistakes. Because he’s entirely human, and not a cardboard figure, the criticism of Churchill’s military rings truer that it might have otherwise.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
(1943; directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
The Criterion Collection (DVD)

Monday, September 16 at 9:00 a.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies

Winchester ’73 (1950) is an important film for many reasons. It’s the first in a string of five top-notch westerns made over a five-year period that were directed by Anthony Mann and star James Stewart. The other four are Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1955), and The Man from Laramie (1955).

You could argue that Winchester ’73 is the first modern western. It brings the flawed protagonist from the film noirs over to the westerns. Mann had already made a name for himself with his skillful direction of tough-guy psychological dramas, including T-Men (1947), Raw Deal (1948), and Side Street (1949). By 1950, he was well prepared to reinvigorate the western genre by giving it a darker, more anguished hero.

The success of Winchester ’73 is largely responsible for the rebirth of the genre in the 1950s, and its tone would lead to other revisionist westerns, such as John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969). It isn’t fair, however, to say there were no dark westerns prior to 1950. Howard Hawks’ Red River (1948) points in this direction, though the John Wayne character isn’t the protagonist of that film.

Winchester ’73 is also notable for its contribution to the break up of the studio system. Mann couldn’t afford to pay Stewart his usual salary, so Stewart agreed to take a percentage of the profits. That turned out to be a smart move, because Winchester ’73 went on to gross $4.5 million in the U.S. That encouraged similar deals between other actors and production companies, and this alternative method of compensation broke the studios’ control in determining which movies actors would appear in and how much they would be paid.

Stewart was a big star at the time (Harvey was released that same year), though he hadn’t appeared in a western since Destry Rides Again (1939). He was taking a risk, as was Mann, in making a moody western. The public may not have accepted the usually upbeat Stewart as having deep unresolved psychological issues. Obviously, the public was able to handle the complexity, and this type of role proved to be a creative shot in the arm for Stewart, who would go on to play brooding roles in the other Mann-Stewart westerns, as well as Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958).

Winchester ’73
(1950; directed by Anthony Mann)
Universal Studios (DVD)

Saturday, September 14 at 10:00 p.m. eastern on Turner Classic Movies