One, Two, Three - Seasoned Cagney Can Still Spice It Up

This is my entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association Screen Debuts and Last Hurrahs Blogathon. Click here for more memorable firsts and lasts.

Cagney and the grapefruit make one last joint appearance

Season is an interesting word. It can mean to add flavor to something, or it can define a period of time. In the case of James Cagney, from day one he always seasoned the screen with some invigorating cinematic spice. He was also a performer who, in over 30 years, presented himself to the audience in various seasons of his acting life. From the summer of "The Public Enemy" to the winter of "Ragtime," Cagney not only physically matured, but also matured in the depth and humanity he brought to his roles. All before our eyes. While those two winter roles - the aforementioned "Ragtime" and the final performance in the television movie "Terrible Joe Moran," gave us a final glimpse of a cherished star, it is the late autumn performance in Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three" (1961) that offers us the final major performance of a great star. At age 62 he was as dynamic as he was 30 years earlier.

Not as well known as many of Wilder's other great films, "One, Two, Three" is a sharp, sly and very funny look at the cold war and corporate moral flexibility (to put it kindly). A lot of the topical humor may be lost on those who didn't live through the cold war or are not familiar with it. Originally slated to be filmed in Berlin, the crew had to quickly relocate to Munich because those pesky Russians decided to build a wall. The dialogue is filled with topical references (do modern audiences know who Khrushchev was, or the significance of the shoe banging on the table?). Fortunately, I am old enough to remember (wow - that's the first time I ever had occasion to use that phrase!).

Proving the cold war could be fun

Thanks to Wilder's script (co-written with I.A.L. Diamond) and direction, this all results in fast and furious fun. The supporting cast of Horst Buchholz, Arlene Francis, Pamela Tiffin, Lilo Pulver, and especially Hanns Lothar as Schlemmer, is top-notch. Cagney proves to be a good sport, allowing  several jokes at the expense of his long career - the grapefruit, the gangster quote from "Little Caesar" (even though that was uttered by Edward G. Robinson, it still harkened back to those good old gangster days), and a Cagney impression by Red Buttons. While those references made gentle fun of Cagney's decades-long public reputation, in true double-edged-sword Wilder fashion, it also seems an homage to many well-loved movie memories; an acknowledgement that we are in the presence of a living cinematic legend. I was getting those Norma Desmond/Gloria Swanson conflicted vibes here, though not in such a tragic framework.

An executive's work is never done

The film is very early 1960s, and I admit it's a bit arresting to see this particular star as a man of the modern world. For some reason he always seemed to be a man who lived in a past era. Even when his character was current in the 1930s and 40s, he seemed a man who lived by an earlier code. Cagney wears the 1960s suits and ties well and proves that he was a real actor playing something he never tried before - a slimy, married Coca-Cola executive, always conniving while canoodling with his mercenary secretary on the side. Still, he manages to retain that special sympathetic star shine something. That was his super power. Even when he was a gangster he was never slimy. Come on, weren't we all rooting for Rocky Sullivan?

Love and Capitalism wins the day

Cagney's personal struggles during filming are well known. While he could wear the clothes of the modern man, he was privately uncomfortable. Besides butting heads with Wilder, a very strong-willed director, he came to actively dislike co-star Horst Buchholz. In his autobiography, Cagney, who rarely had a harsh word for any co-workers, openly complained about the scene-stealing ways of the younger actor. Add to that those wildly changing times and Cagney decided he had had enough. At the end of filming, there seemed no place for him to go but to his beloved farm and let the world go by for a few decades. 

Cheers to you!

For some reason this topical and breathless movie reminds me of a line in Checkhov's "Uncle Vanya" about "autumn roses, beautiful, sorrowful roses." I feel a twinge of sadness in between the laughter. There would be those two graceful appearances much later, but watching this now, knowing this would be the last time we would see him in full power, is truly like looking at the twilight of the gods.

New Movies Do Not Fill the Landscape of My Dreams

 

Why do I find going to the movies to see new films so unsatisfying? I want to keep an open mind and heart and want to support the theatergoing experience, but I rarely, if ever, find new films at the theaters truly, madly, deeply enjoyable. They might be truly enjoyable. They might be madly enjoyable, and they might even be deeply enjoyable. But rarely, almost never, are they meet the truly, madly, deeply threshold for me. Why?

The answer is in the title of this article and it came to me while watching Peter O'Toole in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." Objectively, the film is not great, although it has a lot going for it. It's very long, a little full of itself, and the score is forgettable. But, it has the captivating Mr. O'Toole, who always leaves nothing unfelt or unexpressed, and I saw it when I was a teenager when the landscape of all that I would love forever and always was being painted on my psyche.

I've read countless books about Charlie Chaplin and one of the things that touches me is how the trauma and longing associated with his childhood poverty and fractured family were embedded in all of his work. What scarred him, what inspired him, what frightened him and where he found beauty was imprinted on his soul at a tender age and there was no changing that no matter what life held. Fame and wealth and celebrity could not change it, nor could the reversal of professional fortune. Time revealed the public's changing tastes, but Chaplin could not change at his core.

And so I find it to be with me. The films that drew me to them were the ones I discovered early on. What is charming, what is beautiful, what is good and what is desirable all were found in the movies I saw in my youth. Films that moved me after I became an adult somehow were related to the same type of film. I probably should have gotten some of that stuff from family life, but clearly I needed to seek them elsewhere. While not at all a horror of a childhood like Chaplin's, I admit there might have been a few things lacking. Or maybe I just had a dreamer's imagination. Mercifully, there were movies. And I am so very grateful that I can access so many of my favorites upon demand these days and not wait until 3 a.m. to watch the Late Late Late show ( I did stay up until 3 once to watch a Bing Crosby film when I was about 12). They are like a comfortable blanket or a hug from a friend. At some point during those formative years, a private understanding between myself and Cary Grant, Crosby, Chaplin, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, both Hepburns, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Bob Hope, and especially Cagney was established that endures to this day. We truly, madly, deeply get one another. If this sounds weird to you, your landscape and mine are completely different.

So, today's films, for so many reasons, can not connect with a landscape of dreams and desires that has been built and fortified over time. It can not change and I don't want it to change. I like it. I only hope that young people who go to the movies are building their own internal landscape with images and feelings that will stay with them throughout their lifetime.