Reeling Backward: "The Outlaw" (1943)

As my friend and colleague Bob Bloom best put it, "The Outlaw" is a movie famous for two things -- and neither one of them has to do with the film's inherent attributes.

Literally the entire iconography of the movie lies with Jane Russell's ample bosom. The film was actually shot in 1941 but didn't get a released until 1943 after director/producer Howard Hughes tangled with the production code stewards. And even that theatrical run was only for one week, after Hughes ginned up a controversy to create demand for the movie, which the censors quickly shut down. It didn't actually see wide release until 1946, and became a box office smash.

I've always wondered how Russell felt about the hullabaloo from her first movie role. "The Outlaw" made her an overnight star and national sex symbol. Imagine having everyone in America looking at and thinking about your boobs. 

If you remember "The Aviator," you know that Hughes became obsessed with displaying Russell's breasts in the movie, even going so far as to invent a cantilevered bra with steel rods to push up her cleavage. Splashy posters showing her lying in hay with her shirt spread wide open -- and, in friskier versions, ripped into see-through holes -- instantly became part of the national popular culture.

That's why I was surprised to watch the film for the first time, and realize that moment never actually occurs in the movie. There is a scene in a barn, but she's never just lying there with a heaving chest. In fact, Russell's bust is actually fairly demure through most of the film's run time, though it gets a little more display toward the end.

What gives? How can a movie famous for one thing -- OK, two things -- not actually contain that which made it such a spectacle?

The answer is simpler than you'd think. Hughes' brassiere contraption was horribly uncomfortable, so Russell took it off a few minutes after first trying it on. She simply stuffed her own bra with tissue and told Hughes she was wearing his invention.

The garment now lies in a museum somewhere, a testament to Hughes' penchant for showmanship and flimflam. How delicious that the ultimate con man was conned by a stubborn starlet... and never even knew it.

Putting aside all the boobage lore, what we're left with is an incredibly trashy B-movie Western with solid production values. It's a complete mishmash of the historical record, less mythology than flight of fantasy.

In this story (screenplay by Jules Furthman), Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday are old rapscallion friends who become enemies after the intrusion of Billy the Kid. Now a sheriff, Garrett chases the pair around for awhile, as the old outlaw and the young one are constantly on the verge of drawing guns on each other. Garrett kills Doc after the latter refuses to draw on him, and then lets Billy go so he can ride off into the sunset with Russell's character, a tart named Rio.

Of course, in real life it was Garrett who pursued and killed Billy the Kid, notoriously shooting him dead while hiding in the shadows. And he and Holliday never even met, the movie witlessly transposing his famous friendship with Wyatt Earp for an invented one with Garrett.

"The Outlaw" was only the second of two movies Hughes ever directed, the first being the silent film about WWI pilots, "Hell's Angels." Whatever his gifts as an inventor and showman, the man had a pretty thumbless grasp for crafting scenes or getting halfway competent performances out of his cast.

According to Jane Russell's autobiography, Hughes never personally directed any of her scenes, leaving most of the on-set work to subordinates. Howard Hawks also reputedly lent a hand behind the camera.

Most of the movie was actually already in the can when Hughes brought in famed cinematographer Gregg Toland ("Citizen Kane") to replace the first DP, and it was reshot entirely. In between the film's initial production in 1941 and eventual wide release five years later, the actors were dragged back several times to reshoot scenes or add new ones, often to amp up the film's sexual overtones.

There are two implied rapes of Rio by Billy, played with comic ineptitude by Jack Beutel, who was also making his film debut. The barn scene where Russell supposedly splayed her chest is actually one where Rio attacks Billy for killing her brother. After overpowering her -- in a not entirely convincing fight scene, as the boyishly narrow-hipped Beutel was about the same size as Russell -- Billy lies on top of her as the scene fades to black.

The second instance is even more troublesome. After Rio nurses Billy back to health and they begin a tepid romance, the relationship turns sour after he believes she has betrayed him to Garrett. Contemptuously calling her "darling," they have this exchange in her bedroom:

Rio: "What are you waiting for? Go ahead."
Billy: "Say, that sounds real nice. I like to hear you ask for it. Keep it up. Beg some more."
Rio: "What would you like me to say?"
Billy: "Well, you might say, 'Please,' very sweetly."
Rio: (Scornfully) "Please."
Billy: (Approaching her menacingly) "Will you keep your eyes open?"
Rio: "Yes."
Billy: "Will you look right at me while I do it?"
(The pair trades intense looks as the music swells.)

In the parlance of Hollywood in that day, this would be read as Rio giving into Billy's smoldering manly manliness, rather than coerced sexual assault. In today's #MeToo lights, though, their up-and-down affair looks much less egalitarian.

 No matter how you want to read it, though, one has to admit it's one of the most overt references to the sex act you'll find in a Golden Age flick.

The film is almost saved by the presence of a pair of crafty veteran character actors for the other  main roles, Thomas Mitchell as Pat Garrett and Walter Huston as Doc Holliday. It seems clear the two were left to wing their own characterizations, and operate somewhat on autopilot.

Mitchell, best known as the bumbling Uncle Billy from "It's a Wonderful Life" and the drunken doctor from "Stagecoach," plays Garrett as a somewhat ridiculous figure, an outlaw-turned-lawman who pursues his new vocation with a cantankerous intensity underlining his desire to redeem his former life. A merely competent gunman, he knows he's outmatched on the draw by either Billy or Doc, and is left to use his wiles and subterfuge to gain the upper hand.

Huston, an engineer who turned to the stage and begat an entire filmmaking dynasty -- son John, grandkids Anjelica and Danny, great-grandson Jack -- is a mix of coyness and bombast as Doc. He has a favorite horse, a little roan named Red, that he and Billy are fighting over possession of for most of the movie.

There's clearly a part of him that sees himself in that young braggart, and wants to shape that. At the same time, Doc is a famous gunman facing the twilight of his career -- Huston was about 60 when the film was shot, his ample abdomen straining against twin holsters -- and isn't about to accept guff from any man.

The story is a confused litany of generic Western elements: faceless marauding Indians, subservient Mexicans, whipped-together posses and, of course, face-offs with pistols. I will say that the camera work is among the most convincing I've seen at depicting the speed at which gunslingers could clear their holsters.

"The Outlaw" has the rare distinction of being a film that's more exalted than it is remembered. People recall the controversy and nascent eroticism that made it famous. But they forget the squalid, grimy Western that lies beneath the timeless façade.

Reeling Backward: "The Long Voyage Home" (1940)

"The Long Voyage Home" is a curious animal. It stars John Wayne, already a major star in 1940, who gets top billing in this adaptation of a Eugene O'Neill play about the salty, often cruel life of sailors aboard a merchant marine ship.

And yet Wayne's character is not one of the most important in the story -- in fact, he's essentially a bit player.

Wayne barely speaks more than a few lines of dialogue throughout most of the movie, finally getting to string a couple sentences together in a scene near the end. But for the most part, other members of the ensemble cast rotate in and out of the limelight, with Wayne off to the side and in the background.

Imagine "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with Jack Nicholson in the Martini role (played by Danny DeVito) and no McMurphy in the ward. That'll give you an idea how strange it is to see John Wayne in the margins of his own movie.

True, John Wayne was not quite yet JOHN WAYNE -- having just had his big breakout role a year earlier in "Stagecoach," also directed by longtime collaborator John Ford. But still, it's one thing to see the star of a picture relegated to a secondary role, and quite another when they have barely any screen time and hardly say a word.

It's a good film, a less plot-driven movie than a meandering look at the nomadic men who make their life on the high seas for various reasons. The cinematography by the great Gregg Toland -- his next film was "Citizen Kane" -- is a gorgeously bleak swath of shadows and light that makes the ship seem like its own world rather than just a dingy old merchant vessel.

The S.S. Glencairn is a slow, decrepit, rusty ship making one more long trip across the Atlantic. "An old hooker" is just one of the many colorful epithets the captain and crew lovingly (we think) use to describe the ancient bucket.

As the story opens, the Glencairn is docked in the West Indies, but most of the crew has been forbidden shore leave due to the secrecy of their next voyage. In an arresting opening shot, the men stand on the deck casting yearning glances at the beach, where native women writhe half-dressed. The gal in the foreground wears a blouse that barely clings to her shoulders as she runs a hand over her considerable cleavage -- pretty hubba-hubba stuff for 1940.

It's a typically motley crew. Aside from the stern captain (Wilfrid Lawson), the man who seems most in charge is Driscoll, an Irishman with a fondness for drink and trouble. Having gotten into a scrape with the law on shore, Drisc barely makes it back on board, scrambling up the anchor chain, to make roll call.

There's also Cocky, the acerbic ship's steward; and Yank (Ford mainstay Ward Bond), a lusty brawler and Drisc's right-hand man; John Qualen as Axel, a Swede who's small but feisty; and Donkeyman (Arthur Shields), who's given up on the land and is always ready to sign on for another voyage, no matter how bad the last one was.

Wayne plays Ole Olsen, a big Swedish farmer who's been promising his mother for the past 10 years he'll come home after the next voyage. Invariably, he and the boys go ashore for "one last drink" to celebrate his departure, and the next thing he knows he's signed on for another.

When he does talk, Wayne does so in what must be the worst Swedish accent in the history of cinema. Coupled with the fact that he looks about as Swedish as Sammy Davis Jr., and you've got a strong nominee for Wayne's worst screen performance.

Wayne, as has often been said, was not an actor but a movie star. He was good at playing one character: Himself ... or, at least, what the public believed to be his star persona. When Wayne tried to stretch himself into more exotic roles, he usually crashed and burned. I've never seen 1956's "The Conqueror," in which Wayne plays Genghis Khan -- yes, really -- but I hear it's howlingly bad.

The Glencairn crew nearly jumps ship when they learn their next job is a hold full of ammunition for the British. That means going through the War Zone patrolled by German U-boats hunting for ships bringing supplies for the war effort, and a huge target on the ol' Glencairn.

"The Long Voyage Home" was actually based on three different plays written by O'Neill, one of which bore that title, that were set during World War I. It's not much of a stretch to change the setting to WWII, since the life of a seaman wasn't very much different in the intervening quarter-century or so.

Much of the first half of the film is devoted to piercing the mystery of Smitty (Ian Hunter), a crew member with a mysterious, haunted past. He speaks the King's English like an aristocrat, and tries to jump ship after picking up their explosive cargo but is arrested and brought back.

Driscoll and the others come to believe Smitty is a German spy, but after opening the mysterious black box he hides under his pillow, they discover he's a disgraced officer who has run away from his family. It's quite a poignant moment  where Drisc reads a letter out loud from Smittie's wife in which she refuses his request to tell their two children he is dead.

The last third or so of the movie is one long bar crawl, as the men from the Glencairn are set up by some unscrupulous club owners. Ole, his ticket for Stockholm and last two years' wages sewn inside his coat, is drugged and shanghaied aboard another ship. His drunken crewmates stage a daring rescue, but Drisc is knocked unconscious and captured, replacing Ole as a conscript. The next day, newspapers reveal the ship was sunk in the Channel.

What does it all really add up to? "The Long Voyage Home" is long on character and atmosphere, and not really concerned with telling a story. It's a worthwhile film, especially for those wanting to explore John Ford's non-Western oeuvre. Even if John Wayne, the ostensible star, is woefully misused.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

I was actually slightly disappointed by "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Yes, it features Charles Laughton in the title role of Quasimodo, and he's an actor I knew only through his later roles and am relishing discovering his vibrant work as a young man. And yes, the production values, particularly for 1939, are simply astonishing. The crowd scenes in the square involve hundreds of extras, costumes, stunts and huge, intricate sets. It also features Maureen O'Hara as Esmeralda in her first starring role, absolutely ravishing even at age 19.

Still, the movie contains too much of the stilted, overly theatrical style of acting that dominated many early films. The majority of thespians still got their start on the stage in those days, and the tendency to over-emote and over-enunciate dialogue makes you feel like you're sitting in the back row, and the actor is straining to make himself heard by you.

In particular, the performance of Edmond O'Brien as the poet Gringoire irked me whenever he came on the screen. Alan Marshal as Phoebus, the captain of the guard, also falls into this trap, although with much less screen time, he has fewer opportunities to annoy.

Cedric Hardwicke also makes for a less-than-daunting Frollo, the twisted chief justice who is the hunchback's protector as well as tormentor. When Frollo falls for the gypsy girl Esmeralda, despite the fact that she represents everything he hates about freedom and tolerance, it should burn him from the inside out. But I found Hardwicke rather passive and dour, and certainly not frightening.

Of course, Laughton is a revelation as the hunchback. The special make-up is passable even by modern standards, and must've looked quite convincing 70 years ago. There's a short bit where Quasimodo, perhaps unintentionally, covers up the deformed parts of his face with his hands, and we see the handsome and gregarious man he could have been.

Interesting aside -- I've always heard the character's name pronounced as "quah-zee-mo-do," but in this movie the call him "kaz-ee-modo," with the first syllable rhyming with "spaz." Curious to know what is correct.

Victor Hugo's novel has seen many film versions. Laughton was reportedly daunted at the task of playing the character Lon Chaney made famous in the 1923 silent version. Anthony Quinn also tackled the role in a 1956 Italian version, Anthony Hopkins did so in a 1982 TV special, and of course Disney made an animated musical in 1996 with a terrific Frollo voiced by Tony Jay. And there have been numerous other versions here and there.

When one steps back and examines the story from a post-feminist perspective, it begins to look rather discomfiting. Basically, every major male character in the movie falls in love with Esmeralda, and is in some way changed and even damaged by his ardor.

Phoebus sees her as a figure of conquest, and pays for it with his life. Gringoire the poet sees her as the literary counterpart to complete his own romanticized image of himself, and is crushed when she rejects him as a lover. Frollo, of course, hates her for dredging up feelings of desire he thought did not exist in him. He ends up at the conclusion of many a cinematic villain, "If I can't have her, then no man shall!"

Even Quasimodo's affection for Esmeralda is not pure. Although he clearly believes that there can be no romance between them, he still dotes on her like a friendly puppy. The man has hope.

At one point, Quasimodo kills scores of rogues attacking the Cathedral of Notre Dame by pitching stones and pouring molten metal from the high spires. He does so not out of any ideal about the right of sanctuary, one suspects, but simply to prevent others from taking the girl away from him. In his rage he also slays Clopin, the beggar king played by Thomas Mitchell, one of the great character actors of mid-20th century film.

I'd been meaning to see "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" for years, which perhaps raised my expectations to an unachievable level. It's a fine film, of course, completely worthy of a rental or catching on TV. Alas, for great expectations that fall short.

3 stars