The China Syndrome (1979) and Michael Douglas at #TCMFF

Michael Douglas and Ben Mankiewicz at the 2017 TCMFF. Publicity Photo courtesy of Getty & TCM

Timing is everything. Michael Douglas's nuclear thriller The China Syndrome (1979) debuted on March 16th, 1979 and twelve days later a nuclear meltdown occurred on 3 Mile Island. The fictional event and the real life one would forever be connected.

In the film Jane Fonda stars as Kimberly Wells, a TV news reporter relegated to covering fluff with dreams of breaking a big story. When her and her news crew, including cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas), are working on a report at a local nuclear power plant, a tremor signals an emergency with the plant's reactor. Shift supervisor Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) is the only who understands the severity of the situation. Jack faces a major fight against the head honchos and staff at the plant who don't believe him and will do anything to prevent a public scandal. With the help of Wells and her crew, Jack makes a valiant attempt to reveal the truth and save the plant and the community before it's too late.

I had the honor of being in attendance of a special screening of The China Syndrome (1979) at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival. The movie had me on the edge of my seat. It's a fantastic thriller with a timely message.  Following the movie, we were treated to Ben Mankiewicz interview of actor/producer Michael Douglas.

It all started with a packet in the mail. Douglas remembered, "this script came to me unsolicited by a guy name Mike Grey who was a documentary filmmaker out of Chicago who had done a movie called The Murder of Fred Hampton. That was a Black Panther leader who was murdered by Chicago Police. Mike's background was an engineer and he sent this script which really read as a brilliant horror movie. And I looked at it as a scary horror movie with this power plant being the monster. It was only then after we committed to the picture and got involved with the verisimilitude of nuclear power that I became more of an advocate of this was the really issue that's defined the rest of my life in terms of the elimination of nuclear weapons."

Mankiewicz joked with Douglas that opening unsolicited material might be something people got away with in the 1970s but not today. As Douglas then noted unsolicited scripts can't be accepted because of legalities involved. So if you're thinking you can take Mike Grey's lead and send Michael Douglas your movie script, think again!

Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome (1979)

It took a while to get The China Syndrome going. Jack Lemmon was on board pretty early but he had to wait for almost a year to start working. During that time he set aside other projects. Douglas shared a funny memory of Lemmon. On the set, Lemmon couldn't get started with out his morning cup of coffee. Once he had his cuppa joe he'd perk right up and exclaim "it's magic time!" A cup of coffee is also key to the plot of the film.

Richard Dreyfuss was also on board to play the lead role of a TV news reporter. Douglas joked that, "Richard Dreyfuss had a couple of hits come out and all of a sudden Richard was gone." Director James Bridges and producer Douglas were scrambling to figure out how to replace Dreyfuss. Douglas shared the following story: "A studio executive [told us] 'Jane Fonda is developing the Karen Silkwood story here and maybe you guys should talk.' [They were] competing projects. Jane and I, with our familial histories sort of sized each other up. She was initially going to try to persuade me in some way to kill The China Syndrome ... And I was going to tell her that we were further ahead on The China Syndrome that you should put a dagger in Karen. Eventually it worked that we were ready to go and we changed Richard Dreyfuss' role and had it re-written." Karen Silkwood, a nuclear power plant employee who was preparing to leak information to the press, died in a car accident under mysterious circumstances. Her story was incorporated into The China Syndrome.

Mankiewicz pointed out that Douglas took his role as camera man Richard Adams very seriously. Douglas had studied with NBC camera man Bob Brown, who was shot down by members of the Peoples Temple shortly before Jonestown's infamous mass suicide.

When you watch the film you'll notice the eerie silence of the end credits. Director James Bridges and producer Michael Douglas had hired a composer for the film. But when the ran the reels without the music they discovered it was better without any music.

Once the film was in the can, Douglas and Bridges were ready to release it to the world. Douglas said,  "It did very well actually for the kind of picture it was. However we did hold in there for the first week. [It was] heavily criticized. People said, 'how irresponsible of Hollywood to be doing a film on nuclear power!" Mankiewicz followed up by pointing out, "the campaign against this movie, Michael's underselling it I think a little bit, was very well organized. It was a corporate energy based organized protest to beat back this film."

Twelve days after the release, the 3 Mile Island nuclear power plant has a meltdown. Douglas said, 
I tried to explain it that it was a complete epiphany to me. I'm not a religious person but I thought somebody's telling me something." Douglas and Bridges hired former General Electric quality assurance experts to help with the movie. According to Douglas "they had lost faith and went to the other side." The China Syndrome depicts a process of 150 logical computer steps and when Harry Latham, a writer for Esquire magazine, analyzed the process it was discovered that over 90% of the steps depicted in the movie were accurate. Did the publicity of the real life nuclear disaster help the movie? Not so much. Most people saw enough clips of the movie on the news or were too frightened by the real event to endure a movie about it.

The China Syndrome marked a turning point in Douglas' career. Douglas said, "it became part of my history of doing movies that had sort of a zeitgeist speaking about what's going on at the time. It has stuck with me as the most incredible in my career in terms of tying it with what was going on in real time.

During their conversation, Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Douglas spoke at length about Douglas' TV show The Streets of San Francisco. Douglas left in the fifth year of the show to produce One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Being let out of a TV contract like that was virtually unheard of. The show's star Karl Malden and producer Quinn Martin knew about much Cuckoo's Nest meant to Douglas. Being released from the show helped him launch his successful movie career.


Transitioning from being a TV actor to film was virtually unheard of at the time. According to Douglas, "the argument was that if you're there for free who's going to pay for you. So before me it was really only Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood who had made the transition going from television to films."

Being on The Streets of San Francisco helped shape Douglas' methods and work ethic. In the interview he shared the following: "when you do a television series, we were in San Francisco and we were filming six days a week. In those days we did 26 hour shows in a season. Six days a week, 8 and a half months straight through. You're looking at these scripts that are coming in and you get pretty good about structure. You also get really good about working together as an ensemble and I take my hat off to Karl Malden. Who was such an extraordinary actor and such a team player that you learn that you are not the most important thing in the project. The material is the important. I'm an old-fashioned structuralist. I've learned from the prologue, three acts and epilogue. My first desire is to be moved if it's funny or sad. Secondly I analyze the material pretty carefully and see if it's structurally sound. Then my interests are all over the place depending where it may be."

Karl Malden took Douglas under his wing. According to Douglas, "in those days, the second banana was two feet back in soft focus" By season two, Karl Malden gave Douglas a more substantial role and let him lead some of the episodes. I love that Malden always called Douglas "buddy boy", a nickname that used to irk Douglas but now it's a name he fondly remembers.

My husband was especially excited to see Michael Douglas. Here he is watching his favorite actor in person.

 
I feel very privileged to have been able to attend this special screening and to hear the legendary Michael Douglas in conversation. It was fascinating and definitely a highlight of the festival for me. I couldn't help but hear Kirk Douglas in the voice of his son. This will be as close as I'll ever get to the other legend!

Related link: Carlos' review of the book Michael Douglas: A Biography by Marc Eliot.

The Big House (1930)

"They all want to throw people into prison but they don't want to provide for them after they are in. You mark my words Pop. Some day we're going to pay for this shortsightedness." - Warden (Lewis Stone)

MGM's The Big House (1930) came at a time when Hollywood was still transitioning to talking pictures and experimenting with cinematography, set design and storytelling. This was all in addition to tantalizing audiences with sound. It's one of the earliest prison films and set many precedents for future films in that genre. The Big House explored many facets of prison life: the alliances, betrayals, hierarchies and the deep animosity between prisoners and authority figures. It was one of the first films to depict a prison riot. It broke ground, pleased the critics, won awards and almost ninety years later still holds up as an enjoyable drama.

The film opens with Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) being escorted to prison. He's been convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years. The prison, run by warden James Adams (Lewis Stone), is overflowing with prisoners. Cells made to hold one person now need to accommodate three. Marlowe is placed with career forger Morgan (Chester Morris) and the prison's most notorious inmate, convicted murderer Butch (Wallace Beery). Marlowe is scared, Butch is greedy and Morgan must keep a level head throughout it all. There is a protest, time in solitary confinement, a prison escape, a riot and even a love story, with sole female lead Anne Marlowe (Leila Hyams), thrown in for good measure.

Cedric Gibbons set design - The Big House (1930)

This critically acclaimed and award winning movie brought audiences stunning visuals and crisp sound. I love to call this the "Art Deco Prison Movie" because of the beautiful and minimalist set design by Cedric Gibbons. Recording engineer Douglas Shearer brings the sounds of prison to life and won the Academy Award for Best Sound for his work. Screenwriter Frances Marion researched prison life at San Quentin and wrote the original screenplay for the film. She won the Academy Award for her script. Her husband George W. Hill expertly directed the film and some of the scenes with prisoners en masse are beautifully choreographed. I love how cinematographer Harold Wenstrom plays with light and shadow especially in the earlier part of the movie.

This film came at a time when Robert Montgomery and Chester Morris were launching their careers in Pre-Code era Hollywood. They had just made The Divorcee (1930) with Norma Shearer, a very different film from The Big House. Wallace Beery had been suffering a career slump. Frances Marion spotted Beery at the MGM commissary and thought he would be the perfect actor for the role of Butch. This part revitalized Beery's career just in time for the new wave of talking pictures.

I watched The Big House recently with my husband who usually shies away from films of this era. He loves the prison genre classic The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and I pitched The Big House as a precursor to that film. He enjoyed making connections between the two films and seeing how this early talkie film might have influenced others of its kind.

I wrote about this film back in 2010 around the time when Warner Archive had released it on DVD. They re-released the film several years later as a two-disc set with the French and Spanish versions of the film included. In the early days of talking films, MGM would produce foreign language versions of their big movies. This was the era before subtitles and after silent film title cards which could be swapped out for different text. MGM made El presidio in Spanish, directed by Ward Wing who also worked on the original version. It stars José Crespo as Morgan, Juan de Landa as Butch and Tito Davison as Marlowe. The French version, Révolte dans la prison , was directed by Pal Fejos, one of the most interesting figures from the early film era and director of one of my favorite films Lonesome (1928). Charles Boyer, who wasn't quite yet a household name in the states, has the title role of Morgan.

Chester Morris as Morgan in The Big House

Charles Boyer as Morgan in Revolte dans la prison

Jose Crespo as Morgan in El presidio

I watched the Spanish and French versions as was quite impressed by both. If you look closely you can see where MGM did recycle some of the scenes from the original and took some shortcuts to save money. The different actors added nuances to their performances that help distinguish those films from the original. I was so relieved that these films were shot with fluent actors and not with the original cast using phonetic Spanish or French. As a Spanish speaker I can tell you that watching a film with phonetic Spanish is a painful experience.

The Big House is not a perfect film. When Marlowe is stripped of his possessions and given a number I thought the movie would explore the loss of identity. It doesn't really happen. The numbers are not referenced much throughout the film. If you're new to early talkies, the lack of a soundtrack and the eerie quiet in the background might be a bit off putting. I'm used to this so it's no problem for me.

Robert Montgomery as Kent in The Big House

André Burgère as Kent in Revolte dans la Prison

Tito Davison as Kent in El presidio

The Big House is my favorite prison film. I love the era, the performances, the characters and the story. I adore Lewis Stone, Chester Morris and Robert Montgomery so having all three in the film didn't hurt. I also love how The Big House set the bar for films to follow. If you're interested in film history, it's a must see.

The Big House (1930) two-disc DVD-R set is available from Warner Archive.

Warner Archive Wednesday - On (random) Wednesdays, I review one title from the Warner Archive Collection. Thank you to the Warner Archive for sending me The Big House (1930) for review!

Panique (1946) with Pierre Simenon at #TCMFF

Pierre Simenon and Bruce Golstein at TCMFF

Based on Georges Simenon's novel Les Fiançailles de M. Hire, Panique (1946) is a thrilling French Noir directed by the great Julien Duvivier. This rarely seen film was screened at this year's TCM Classic Film Festival . Last year I had attended the screening of the Argentine Noir Los Tallos Amargos (1956) and followed it up this year with an equally dark film. One could say that Panique, like Los Tallos Amargos, puts the Noir in Film Noir.

Panique stars Michel Simon as Monsieur Hire, a lonely voyeur. When murder of a local woman rocks a small town community, Hire has a hunch who did it. He tries to warn Alice (Viviane Romance) about her boyfriend Alfred (Paul Bernard) whom he suspects as the killer. Hire doesn't know that Alfred has already confessed the crime to Alice and fully intends to get away with it. Smitten with her beau, she battles internal conflicts then decides to lure Hire into a trap. The film is relentlessly dark with an ending that is an emotional punch to the gut.

Rialto teamed up with TCM to host a rare screening of Panique, kicking off a tour of the newly restored print. Rialto's Bruce Goldstein was on hand to interview special guest Pierre Simenon, the youngest son of Georges Simenon. Goldstein made it a point that although the novel is in French, Simenon was Belgian. He went on to give the following intro to elder Simenon:

"Simenon is best known for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring detective Jules Maigret. But he wrote nearly five times as many books making him a towering figure in French language literature. Simenon was the most translated French language author of the 20th century. And the 17th most translated author of all time according to UNESCO. He died in 1989 at the age of 86."

Both Goldstein and Pierre Simenon shared some interesting facts about Georges Simenon's writing career. He was the most prolific French-language Belgian author of the 20th century. 70 film adaptations and 350 TV adaptations have been made from his novels. Estimates say that Simenon's books have sold 750 million copies, in 55 languages across 44 countries. He wrote his first book at the age of 16 and the last at age 80. It would only take him 7 days to finish one novel.

Georges Simenon

Simenon had a love-hate relationship with the movies, with an emphasis on hate. As Pierre Simenon explains, "at the time he was a young writer. [He said,] 'I'm going to write the screenplay, I'm going to give my insight.' He was full of ideas. But of course as we know in Hollywood that's the last thing a producer wants. He wants to do it his own way. So the results were mixed."

The early adaptations included Jean Tarride's The Yellow Dog (1932), Night at the Crossroads (1932) and La tête d'un homme (1933) directed by Julien Duvivier who was also the director for Panique. Pierre Simenon explained, "my father was not happy with the industry. He quickly discovered that there was a lot of meddlers in the project. When you're a writer, you are just alone with the page. When you dabble in movies, there are hundreds of people with something to say and my dad didn't like that."

At one point Simenon refused to sell film rights to his books and this embargo lasted six years. Pierre Simenon joked that his father was as prolific a writer as we was a spender. There were two things Simenon wanted: money and artistic control. During the 1930s, authors made quite a bit of money with newspaper serializations. Sometimes these papers would trim the novels so sections would fit perfectly on the last page. In essence they were editing down the book; something Simenon despised. He knew there was a lot of money to be made in film and he picked the lesser of two evils by abandoning serialization altogether.

Georges Simenon with son Pierre, circa 1980. Photo source: Film Forum

Simenon struck up friendships with many key film industry figures including Jean Renoir, Charlie Chaplin, Frederico Fellini and others. Pierre Simenon shared a potentially apocryphal story of when the great Alfred Hitchcock called up his father. The secretary told Hitchcock that Simenon was too busy to come to the phone because he had just started a new novel. Hitchcock's reply, "It's okay, I'll wait."

Then there was the time Georges Simenon was the president of the Cannes Film Festival jury. His buddy author Henry Miller was on the jury and according to Pierre Simenon pleaded with Georges, "I'm here to see you, to see friends, to see the ladies and to drink a lot. Just tell me who you want me to vote for." Frederico Fellini's La Dolce Vita was up against a lot of other amazing films including L'Avventura which was the favorite to win the Palme D'or. Simenon lobbied for La Dolce Vita and it won. According to Pierre, his father was met with many boos and whistles in opposition. Pierre Simenon reflected, "[my father] was trashed by the critics and he became friends with Fellini. And if you watch the movie now it hasn't aged a bit. It's a masterpiece." Simenon had a life long friendship with Jean Renoir and Pierre remembers sitting on Charlie Chaplin's lap. At this point in the conversation, Bruce Goldstein points out that Norman Lloyd, who worked with both Renoir and Chaplin, was in the audience.  Lloyd stood up for his usual standing ovation. I was so glad to see him again!

Goldstein called Panique one of the best adaptations of a Simenon novel and asked Pierre if his father ever saw it. Pierre's response, "nobody knows. And if he did nobody knows if he liked it or not." Panique opened on Thanksgiving day 1947 at the Rialto theatre in New York. According to Goldstein, it got rave reviews in the states but got trashed by French critics. Pierre Simenon noted that in post-WWII Europe, many artists were under serious scrutiny. You were either seen as a collaborator with the Nazis or if you fled you were considered a coward. There was some push back against both stars Michel Simon and Viviane Romance. I'm not sure if Pierre meant it was because of their possible connections to the Nazi regime or not.

The original novel, translated into English as Monsieur Hire's Engagement, is very different from the film. Pierre Simenon explained that in the book there is a lack of intense action and that the lead character was very ambiguous. His voyeuristic tendencies were more pathological. Duvivier and screenwriter Charles Spaak added "social commentary about mob justice and prejudice" according to Pierre. The book was published in 1933 but the film adaptation speaks more to the post-WWII era.

Rialto continues it's nation-wide tour of Panique starting next month. Check out the full schedule here. I hope a North American Blu-Ray/DVD release is in store for this title so a wider audience can have the pleasure of seeing the film.