Swanson Summer… Zaza (1923), Kino Lorber Blu-ray

The fastest, easiest, most enjoyable picture I ever made…

Gloria Swanson

 

There’s a buzz about Gloria Swanson what with a UK premier of a new restoration of Queen Kelly* and a cracking book about the film fresh on bookshelves** but, then again, there’s always been a buzz around Gloria. What strikes you so often about the primary stars of this enduring medium is the sheer kinetic energy displayed in service to the narrative, the action and the story. They had faces then of course but they had to radiate and then they had to mime: no portion of the screen was uncovered and no doubt was left in audience’s minds of the feelings on display.

Gloria was, of course, one of the golden generation of short actors, arching her back and standing on tippy toes to gain a fraction of an inch when measured against Mary, Mabel or Viola Dana. Lord knows what they were feeding them in Brooklyn, but the Talmadges were almost supernaturally tall at 5ft 5” and therefore probably unbeatable in the inter-studio netball league (if there was one).

But no matter how big they were, the harder they fell if they were playing alongside Gloria and this film features a couple of catty skirmishes with Mary Thurman (5ft 4”) who goes down just as quickly as Bebe Daniels (5ft 4”) in Why Change Your Wife? (1920). Gloria is too swift, has lightning combinations and goes in harder every time and, as Zaza, the talk of Parisian nightlife, she is peerless and fearless. Thurman plays Florianne, a singer just below Zaza on the bill and in the pecking order, who loathes her more popular rival as much as the men love her but she’s a tryer, we have to give her that.

Watch out for a swinging right hook Yvonne!

The film opens with a title card invoking the spirit of Zazas past on stage and on screen – Rajane, Duse, Leslie Carter, Farrar - before introducing another – “a modern and tempestuous Zaza – the Zaza of today – “, who is to be found in a small provincial theatre not far from the capital. The new sensation dominates the bill and backstage as well and we find Zaza in a dressing-room tizz as Gloria establishes her star’s quality by playfully bullying her loyal assistant Nathalie (Yvonne Hughes) when she can’t find the silk gown she’s actually wearing. She blames her anyway then smiles a crafty smile and drops a tip on the dresser. She’s somewhat less forgiving of the stage manager and crew, not to mention Florianne whose head-dress offends her as she peers through the safety curtain spyhole and so she plucks part of it out.

Director Alan Dwan sets a Fairbanks-frenetic pace as you’d expect and how else to establish the presence of Zaza who has to be a stage stunner even in silence and with her motivations only hinted at. Opening at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, in May 1898, Pierre Berton and Charles Simon’s play contains a backstory that is not present in Hollywood, not even implied, with Zaza having been a prostitute before escaping to success in the music hall. But don’t worry, things do get a little "French"… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Gloria abides

Zaza casts a spell on her audience and one of those enthralled is the rich gentleman Bernard Dufresne (H. B. Warner) who comes to the theatre every night to stare adoringly at the petit star as she swings high over the audience in a very literal attempt to make her jump out of the screen. Technically these are so well filmed with the camera above Gloria as her swing moves to and fro at alarming speed, the cinematographer must have been moving exactly in parallel motion probably on a cherry picker or some other device, not looking down and cranking with all of his might to capture the action below.

 

Zaza’s swing is very impressive but it’s also her biggest weakness as Florianne cuts one of the ropes which frays and snaps during a performance throwing the star to the ground below and breaking her leg. Besotted Bernard takes command and arranges for the best surgeons in all of France to make her well again but she must spend a long time convalescing in his rural retreat and one thing leads to another… as it was always likely to do!

Gloria and HB Warner in the press

Yet there’s more than one twist in this particular tail as Bernard’s full situation is revealed and heads may have to rule over hearts. You really have to watch it to find out as Gloria gets to show us her dramatic range – her true superpower – emoting in ways that few could accomplish. But it’s not just her face, she is physically expressive despite not being a dancer, and has a natural pep and swagger that fills the screen and draws the eye.

The film is also splendid vehicle for Swanson as a clothes horse with stunning designs from a young Norman Norell who, recently graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he studied fashion design, joined Paramount in 1922. He worked with Gloria and also with Valentino before the film business moved to Hollywood and he then would go on to have a huge career in fashion right the way into the early 1970s.

Gloria's glorious gowns!

His remarkable talents are well on display here and you couldn’t ask for a finer clothes horse than Swanson who wears his creations as extensions of her character’s personality. You don’t need to be tall to wear haute couture on screen, just natural grace, main character poise and Zaza-vroom energy!

This contributes to the film’s joys and, later on, acts as a counter point to the difficult choices Zaza must make as life moves from on stage and in stalls, to bucolic family settings. Love is love but there are many forms as she will discover…

The music is from Jeff Rapsis and is based on the original cue sheets from 1923 which takes us close to the original musical experience of audiences watching. It’s a 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix so hi-fidelity way beyond 1923 but all the better for filling your living room with Jeff’s expert extemporisation and practiced feel for the period and the musical sentiment of this joyful film. 

An excellent package all round from Kino-Lorber and apologies for only taking the nine years to watch and review it! NOW is the time though, now is Swanson Summertime!

*BFI 20^th September and tickets go onsale 6th August - there's also an introduction from Pamela Hutchinson author of…

**The Curse of Queen Kelly, (Sticking Place Books) – you can order from here or the BFI Shop and don’t forget to bring them along for signing on 20^th!

Gloria expects you on 20th... NO excuses!

Midnight at the oasis… On the Beach (1959), BFI Blu-ray out 27th July!

 

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river…

 

TS Eliot, The Hollow Man (1925)

 

In 1959 the Doomsday Clock, established in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to symbolize the threat of nuclear war, stood at seven minutes to midnight. In 2026 it is just 85 seconds… the closest ever. So, any attempt to review this film as a “period piece” is undermined by proliferation and the persistent threat of global conflict involving weapons of mass destruction.

 

 

I hadn't previously seen On the Beach, it sounds like an upbeat Cliff Richard musical with that title, but this is a Stanley Kramer film and it could well be one of the most sobering ever made as the remnants of humanity await the drift of the nuclear radiation down south to Australia. Yet, even in the face of almost certain doom, there are new tales to tell and moments of humanity, and warmth. It’s no longer that hard to place ourselves in the mindset of 1959 when the Cold War was in full freeze and nuclear stockpiles were already big enough for mutually assured destruction. Growing up through the end of the Cold War we had every expectation that The Bomb would slowly be defused… but there you go.

 

Directed by Kramer, sandwiched between The Defiant Ones (1958) and Inherit the Wind (1960) this is another in his string of films addressing topics Hollywood normally avoids. Adapted by John Paxton from the novel of the same name by Australian writer Nevil Shute, it is an unflinchingly clear view of what course human history could take just over a decade after the World war which followed on from the War to End All Wars two decades before. It wasn’t such an unreasoned expectation that conflicts were inevitable even if the costs were to be so great and so universally unavoidable. We never learn.

Gregory Peck

It begins on a submarine, an illusion of safety among the routine, under the auspices of Commander Dwight Lionel Towers played by Gregory Peck, whose Mount Rushmore visage of wisdom and pained humanity opens in concerned close up, scanning the seas for signs of life. They are heading south to Melbourne, the last survivors of the US Navy which, like most of the planet has fallen under a hail of nuclear weapons in a conflagration that is not explained but which is still ongoing. The radiation of the war is mostly in the Northern hemisphere but it is slowly being carried towards them… some months away.

 

The film gives us a scenario of slight hope with the submarine being sent north to investigate the distribution of the radiation cloud, which according to the theory, may be dispersing more quickly than at first thought leaving the possibility of inhabitable land. At the same time, a series of morse code signals are received from San Diego… is it possible that another group has managed to survive?

 

In Melbourne though, life continues almost as normal with the only real difference being the lack of gasoline and the city full of cyclists, electric trams and horses. One of the local naval officers, Lieutenant Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is assigned to the Americans. He’s a family man whose wife Mary (Donna Anderson) is in denial about their limited future and who can blame her with a small child to protect.

 

Melbourne after the fall

As Towers arrives he is met at the station by Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner) who instantly catches his eye – as Ava Gardner is apt to do… - although he is living as a man whose wife and children are somehow still alive back in America. There’s also a British scientist, Julian Osborn (Fred Astaire) who drinks too much mourning his involvement in the nuclear programme and knowing exactly what is coming. Both Gardner and Astaire are magnificent and give quite possibly some of their finest performances in the mid/late careers, freed of the lightness of much of the material they had to work with in this time. Both also have important roles to play in showing that there is new life and new love even in the direst of circumstances as Julian rebuilds a Ferrari racing car, winning a race that whilst it has a few too many crashes to be anything other than “a ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines…”, does allow him one last hurrah. Peck is excellent of course as convincing as ever as a man of duty and dignity who will follow his course no matter what the personal cost.

 

He and Ava get to bring new romance to the final laps of humanity as Moira and Towers get close as the reality of his situation finally sets him free. But, for how long. The local authorities have dispensed suicide pills to be used when the options are a slow death by radiation or nothing… Peter and Mary have the hardest journey to take with their child, once the future now requiring a desperate choice. Perkins is at his most sympathetic and young Donna Anderson acquits herself well.

 

As the congregation outside the church starts to dimmish with the coming of the summer winds, the banner reads that “there is still time Brother…”

 

Fred Astaire, Donna Anderson and Anthony Perkins watch a yacht race on the beach

Scott Harrison, in one of two new commentaries, points out the title is taken the verse at the top from TS Elliott’s poem The Hollow Man. These beach is terminal* which presents a desolate landscape and a state of moral destitution “it is not about hope or optimism but about when we chose to give in to the inevitable and how we chose to live under a death sentence. It may even – as the book – be about suicide. Most of all though, it is a warning and one that stands to this day.

 

We still have this capacity to destroy whilst at the same time are plunging the planet into a slow hot death with fossil fuels… this is the science fiction of probabilities, a warning we have still to head and the circumstances of which have only worsened over this new century. In this respect, we are all Mary…

 

 

Anthony and Donna

Special features:

 

Presented in High Definition

Audio commentary written by Dr Philip Davey, author of When Hollywood Came to Melbourne

Newly commissioned audio commentary by Scott Harrison

Making On the Beach (1959, 9 mins): rare 8mm footage shot by amateur filmmaker Richard Goslin

Interview with Donna Anderson (2015, 19 mins): the actor discusses her time working with the cast and crew of On the Beach

Kim Newman on Apocalypse Cinema (2022, 22 mins): the film critic deconstructs On the Beach and discusses the socio-political environment in which the film emerged

Clothes to Die For: The Costumes of Ava Gardner (2022, 16 mins): costume historian Elissa Rose explores Ava Gardner’s impressive wardrobe in the film

A Tribute to Stanley Kramer (2004, 14 mins): a celebration of Stanley Kramer’s life and career, featuring interviews with screenwriter Abby Mann and Karen Sharpe, Kramer’s widow

Operation Hurricane (1952, 33 mins): after the first Soviet atomic weapon was detonated in 1949, the British accelerated the development of their own nuclear deterrent. This haunting film documents the first atom bomb test on the Monte Bello Islands

Original theatrical trailer and galleries

 

Fred on form

For the first pressing only there’s also an illustrated booklet featuring new essays by Dr Christina Brennan and Barry Forshaw and a biography of Stanley Kramer by Jennifer Frost. Also includes writing on Operation Hurricane by the BFI’s Vic Pratt, notes on the special features and film credits

 

In his commentary Scott Harrison reads out the most pertinent and the most well-known closing section of Eliot’s poem, which aptly describes the fate of these last few survivors. At the time one of the reviews has noted that perhaps On the Beach could be the film that “saves the World” … well, it’s getting its second chance now thanks to this excellent release.

 

 

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

 

TS Eliot, The Hollow Man (1925)

 

You can order direct from the BFI Shop in person or online and from all good retailers of home cinema. Poignant, terrifying and sobering.

 

 

*JG Ballard’s Terminal Beach (1964), a short story based on a man’s physical and mental deterioration on a nuclear testing site, may or may not have been inspired by this film. There was something in the air and the World came very close with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962… ever closer to midnight.