I'm chipping away at my 2019 Cinema Shame challenge. This year I gave myself the goal to watch 10 movies from my birth year 1980 for the very first time. I'm hoping I can tackle a few reviews this summer so I can keep up!
Oh boy. I'm not even sure how Urban Cowboy (1980) made it onto my Cinema Shame list. I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that it met all of my criteria (film released in 1980 - check. film I haven't seen yet - check). But perhaps I should have skipped this one. It has NOT aged well and while I'm glad I watched it I'm not going to visit it again any time soon.
Urban Cowboy stars John Travolta as Bud, a small town cowboy who leaves for Houston to find a job in the oil business. He stays with his Uncle Bob (Barry Corbin) and Aunt Corene (Brooke Alderson) who take him out to the hottest club in town, Gilley's a hopping honky tonk bar where all the action happens. There he meets Sissy (Debra Winger), a bar regular with a spirited personality. They quickly fall in love and get married. Bud has his eye on mastering the mechanical bull at Gilley's and when former convict Wes (Scott Glenn) shows up at Gilley's Bud finds some competition for both the bull and Sissy. Bud and Sissy have a falling out driving Bud into the arms of the cowboy obsessed Pam (Madolyn Smith Osborne) and Sissy into the arms of Wes who teaches her how to ride a mechanical bull. As Bud trains for a mechanical bull riding competition, behind the scenes Wes is up to no good.
When Urban Cowboy hit theaters in the summer of 1980, critics called it the country western answer to Saturday Night Fever and they were not wrong. It definitely had that vibe even if the dancing wasn't as prominent. The film was directed by James Bridges and based on the real life story of Dew Westbrook and Betty Helmer, two Gilley regulars whose romance was profiled in an Esquire article. This movie just doesn't sit well in the 21st century and I found it off-putting. The domestic violence in particular is hard to swallow. Sissy, played by Debra Winger, has to endure a lot of emotional and physical abuse. Both Bud and Wes treat her like shit. Bud starts off as a total jerk and then comes around by the end. Wes seems okay but his criminal past and his flirtatious nature makes it apparent early on that he's not one to settle down with. Even so, both Bud and Wes' characters do a sudden about face that I didn't quite see coming and felt like a plot fix. In the end, I was only really invested in Sissy and everyone else (except for Bob and Corene!) could go to hell in a handbasket. I can see some of what people enjoy about this movie. It has a great cast, a great sense of place and time and plenty of dramatic tension throughout. The mechanical bull riding scenes were so much fun to watch. But for me the events in the story were either too predictable or came out of the blue. Overall the film left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Have you seen Urban Cowboy? What did you think? Did you like it more than I did?
"Here is a woman who helped invent cinema, and there is a silence around her. It's absolutely intolerable and even stupid that we can't see these films." - Nicole Lise Bernheim, circa 1975
I’ve heard it said many times that we must preserve Alice Guy-Blache’s legacy. I didn’t fully appreciate the weight of this statement until I saw Pamela B. Green’s documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache. This early filmmaking pioneer was present for the birth of cinema and helped shaped it at its very inception. She wrote, produced and directed and used filmmaking techniques such as close-ups, tinted color, synchronized sound, double exposure and various special effects that would become essential to filmmakers in the silent film era and beyond. She worked with various studios and in 1910 co-founded Solax Studios in Fort Lee, NJ with her husband Herbert Blache and business partner George A. Magie. After two decades of work and a thousand films, she disappeared from the industry and was mostly forgotten. In the years that followed and as film history was taken more seriously, Guy-Blache’s contributions were not recognized in the same way as her peers, including other women filmmakers like Lois Weber and Dorothy Arzner. Her legacy fell victim to deceit and the spread of misinformation. At the end of her life, she fought to set the record straight on many matters and her daughter Simone Blache even published her memoirs. But history still threatened to forget Guy-Blache forever. What needed to change? Her surviving films needed to be found, restored, viewed, studied and discussed. The more we learn about Alice Guy-Blache and her work, the better we can maintain an accurate depiction of the early days of cinema and the people who made it all happen.
Be Natural takes an investigative approach as it explores Alice Guy-Blache’s life and career, uncovers information, seeks out family members and interviews contemporary filmmakers in an effort to give Guy-Blache the recognition she deserves. The documentary employs mixed media visuals, archival photographs, interview footage with Guy-Blache from the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The film is narrated by Jodi Foster who also served as executive producer. While I was watching the film I thought to myself that this would be just the sort of project that Hugh Hefner would have invested in and I was right! He was also an executive producer along with Robert Redford and Regina K. Scully among others. There are so many talking heads in this documentary that it’s a bit overwhelming. Some discuss Guy-Blache at length and others appear for just a quick soundbite. Filmmakers featured include Peter Bogdanovich, Geena Davis, Agnes Varda, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Ava DuVernay, Kathleen Turner, Gillian Armstrong, Janeane Garofalo, etc. There are also interviews with family members, historians, professors, authors and archivists. Classic film enthusiasts will recognize some familiar faces including Kevin Brownlow, Anthony Slide, Cari Beauchamp and Jan-Christopher Horak. The documentary was inspired by Alison McMahan’s book Alice Guy Blache, Lost Visionary of the Cinema and director/producer Pamela B. Green established a Be Natural research team who did the investigative work on the film.
The documentary is choppy and jumps around a lot. Sometimes at a dizzying pace. I wish it could have slowed down and taken its time a bit. That doesn’t diminish the documentary’s importance which is profound. The film speaks to those of us who believe in the preservation of history and the acknowledgment of great works of those who have since passed on. Time and neglect can erase history and its up to us to speak Alice Guy-Blache’s name, to watch her films and to let future generations know about her story. Be Natural leads the charge in the name of Alice Guy-Blache.
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache is a profoundly important and enlightening documentary on an early filmmaking pioneer that time threatened to forget.
screens in select theaters this summer and fall. Visit the official website for more information. The film will be available on digital July 23rd and DVD August 20th from Kino Lorber.
"My mother had a pioneer resilience, a vulnerability, a need for admiration... she never expected life to magically take care of her." - Victoria Riskin
"[My father] was a private man who expressed his deeply held values and philosophy largely through his writing." - Victoria Riskin
In Victoria Riskin's new book Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir she paints a portrait of her two talented parents who were integral members of early Hollywood history in their own unique ways. Alternating chapters tell parallel stories of the actress and the screenwriter There were a few bumps in the road before they began their romance amidst the backdrop of WWII. Wray and Riskin raised three children together, Susan from Wray's previous marriage and two fathered by Riskin, Robert Riskin Jr. and the youngest Victoria, whose name was inspired by America's victory in the war. Their romance was cut short when Riskin suffered a series of debilitating strokes of which he would never fully recover. He passed away in 1955 and Wray would outlive him for nearly a half century.
"She was at ease, often sparkling and impish, or graceful and guileless, beautiful and confident." - Victoria Riskin
Fay Wray is best known for her iconic role as Ann Darrow in King Kong (1933). The legacy of that performance would overshadow all of her other work which was vast in range. She started off in Hollywood as a teenager making silent comedies and two-reel Westerns. Eventually she graduated to meatier parts and leading roles in films like Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March (1926). A successful transition into talking picture saw her a plethora of Pre-codes including Doctor X (1932) and The Most Dangerous Game (1932). Wray was a founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild and active in the community. She met and fell in love with John Monk Saunders, Hollywood screenwriter best known for his work on Wings (1927). The two had a tumultuous marriage that ended in a bitter divorce. Saunders' life had been spiraling out of control for years and he eventually committed suicide. They had one daughter Susan, later adopted by Wray's second husband Riskin. Wray stopped working during WWII to focus on her family and supporting the war effort. It wasn't until Riskin's stroke that she returned to work. In the 1950s her career saw her in films such as Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957). She worked in TV as well until she retired in 1965 only to return once in the 1980s.
"Writer and director each make a unique and invaluable contribution. One has the story to tell and the other a way to tell it. Each can make the other better." - Victoria Riskin
Robert Riskin arrived in Hollywood 1930 via Broadway where he brought his unique talents story development, character building and dialogue. According to Victoria Riskin, her father's films "reflected love for his characters, especially the ordinary people he cared about and the smart, independent women who were equal to- at least equal to-the men they were paired with." Under the helm of Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures, Riskin collaborated with director Frank Capra. The Riskin-Capra partnership gave birth to many successful projects including Lady for a Day (1933), It Happened One Night (1934) You Can't Take It with You (1938) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Meet John Doe (1941). During WWII, Riskin worked for the United States Office of War Information and wrote and produced many propaganda films to help American war efforts. Riskin was a founding member of the Writer's Guild of America West and worked up until his debilitating stroke in 1950.
Robert Riskin and Fay Wray
Wray and Riskin's paths crossed various times throughout their careers but it wasn't until they attended a Christmas party hosted by actor Richard Barthelmess that a romance sparked between the two. On their first date they saw The Grapes of Wrath (1939) together. Wray was involved with Clifford Odets at the time but once that ended and WWII began the two found each other again and married on August 23rd, 1942.
Their youngest daughter Victoria Riskin has worked as a psychiatrist and a human rights activist. She wrote and produced movies for television and following in her father's footsteps she joined the Writer's Guild of America West and later served as president. In her book, she writes about her parents in glowing terms but isn't afraid to take a step back to criticize actions she didn't agree with.
Books written by family members have a natural bias and should be taken with a grain of salt. Riskin backs up her claims with examples and facts. The author's familial connection with her subjects is also a bonus for the reader because it gives us access to information that might have been available otherwise including family stories, personal letters and archival photos.
I enjoyed reading Riskin's wartime love letters to Wray and the author's stories of growing up in the Wray-Riskin household. Plenty of behind-the-scenes stories add richness to the text. The book is a memoir but also a "life and times" type of book and the author provides lots of context of the different eras (silent, Pre-Code, Great Depression, WWII, blacklist, etc.) and of key figures who orbited Wray and Riskin's world including Frank Capra, Harry Cohn, Jo and Flo Swerling, Merian Cooper, Dolores del Rio, etc. There are insights into Wray's complicated relationship with King Kong and the author's own reaction to seeing the film for the first time which I found very illuminating. The alternating chapters switch from Wray to Riskin and back but follow their lives in chronological order.
Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir is an engrossing and informative book written by a more than capable storyteller. Readers will find much to enjoy within the pages of this memoir. It does require some level of interest in Hollywood history to full appreciate the book but chances are if you're visiting my blog you already fall into that category. Watch my book review video for some additional thoughts on the book and how it's structured.
Thank you to Pantheon Books for sending me an advanced reader's copy of the book for review.
