The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (248 page)

The uncomfortable mixture of nostalgia for silent comedy and high-pressure cutting never abated in Lester’s supposedly humorous films. Not only history makes one suspicious of American filmmakers who come to Britain; Lester’s example is a horrid warning, especially since
Petulia
, his one American and most viewable movie, suggests that there may be a real person within the demented dull gimmickry of his English films. It would serve Lester right if he is tied down by the swinging London image he cultivated. He failed to see how sentimental and donnish Goon humor was, and remained attached to that undisciplined prophet of pathetic revelation, Spike Milligan, in 1969, ten years after the
Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film
had exposed a joke that only cheered English complacency. Between those two films, Lester managed to make the Beatles at the time of their randy, aggressive best seem antiseptic and fey: the miles of newsreel and interviews of the Beatles are infinitely more funny and surreal than their two movies, while the TV show
Ready, Steady, Go
always did their songs better. Lester worked a good deal on TV commercials, and the modish, close-packed frenzy of that visual style marked him forever.

Even so,
Three Musketeers
is a merry, sunlit romance, still uncertain at storytelling, but based on very rich clothes, the palaces of Madrid, and a quirky, droll period authenticity.
Robin and Marian
was another revisiting of legend, done with humor and a wistful feeling of having grown older—the calmest film Lester ever made.

Lester went out of fashion with a bang. His
Superman
pictures were awful, and by 1991 he had been reduced to filming a Paul McCartney concert.

Then he stopped, not quite sixty. There was a conversational book, with Steven Soderbergh, but no more.

Oscar Levant
(1906–72), b. Pittsburgh
Oscar Levant is one of the great sour saving graces in the blinding panorama of happiness and success offered by American film. And there is a moment, I feel, when Oscar became irretrievably Levant. In 1944, Warner Bros. decided that it was high time to make a biopic of George Gershwin, the unstoppable genius of American music who had died, suddenly, in 1937 of a brain tumor. They would call it
Rhapsody in Blue
. Ira Gershwin, George’s brother, was quite content to have the film’s scenario “entirely fictional as is the love story.” The only things that would come from fact were the names, the basic family setup, the music (of course), “and an occasional character like Oscar Levant.”

The son of a watch mender, Oscar Levant was a virtuoso piano player whose dream of being a concert artist was diverted by Broadway and Hollywood. From the late 1920s onwards, Levant was a Hollywood figure, writing songs and scores for films, and sometimes appearing on screen in small parts. His songs were not remarkable, but he had a steady enough career:
My Man
(28, Archie Mayo);
Side Street
(29, Malcolm St. Clair);
Tanned Legs
(29, Marshall Neilan);
Love Comes Along
(30, Allan Dwan);
Leathernecking
(30, Edward Cline);
Crime Without Passion
(34, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur); the title song for
Steamboat ’Round the Bend
(35, John Ford);
Music Is Magic
(35, George Marshall);
In Person
(35, William Seiter);
Charlie Chan at the Opera
(36, H. Bruce Humberstone); the score for
Nothing
Sacred
(37, William Wellman);
Made for Each Other
(39, John Cromwell).

It was in those years that he became not just the friend and admirer of George Gershwin, but the leading exponent of his work—in concert, on the radio, and on records. More than that, Levant appeared regularly on the radio show
Information, Please!
, starting in 1939, and then carried further in a series of one-reel movies. This show required unusual knowledge, as well as a radio personality—Levant was caustic, very funny, aggressively depressive, and a famous wit.

So it was natural enough that he should “ground”
Rhapsody in Blue
(45, Irving Rapper) in “reality.” As is made clear in Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger’s excellent Levant biography,
A Talent for Genius
, the making of
Rhapsody in Blue
was not just farcical but a special humiliation to Levant. Initially, Clifford Odets had been assigned to do the script: his 800-page draft startled all readers in that it seemed to be the life of a fierce, radical artist (with music)—in short, the life of Clifford Odets. Other writers faltered. Gershwin’s life had had no downs to help shape an arc. “Use my life instead,” wailed Levant.

Not that Hollywood knew defeat in 1944–45. Levant was hired to be himself, for $25,000, in a film that was otherwise a dawdling travesty. He advised on decor, costumes, and facts—all ignored—and he volunteered sarcastic dialogue (mostly cut). “It got to be very Pirandelloish,” said Levant, as he was filmed in the audience, standing and applauding, as actor Robert Alda (as George) went through the motions of playing the Concerto in F (actually played by Levant on the soundtrack).

But there’s the rub: the true Hollywood person sees that plight as show business; he dines out on the joke; and his own career surges. Of course, that guy—handsome, smiling, charming—might have been asked to play Gershwin in the first place. But Levant had a face like a squeezed lemon, and he could hardly read a line without making it sour, snarly, or self-destructive. So he thought of Pirandello.

In life, Levant sank into melancholy, hypochondria, real illness, paranoia, and any other problem he could find in the textbooks. He became a sad joke—and thus in
An American in Paris
(51, Vincente Minnelli), where he has a real part as Gene Kelly’s chum, he does the Concerto in F, and he is himself, the conductor, and everyone in the audience.

Never mind, he is a figure for connoisseurs: he is hilarious as the piano player and universal deprecator in
Humoresque
(46, Jean Negulesco);
You Were Meant for Me
(48, Lloyd Bacon); seeing if he can turn the cream of Doris Day sour in
Romance on the High Seas
(48, Michael Curtiz); playing Tchaikovsky and Khatchaturian in
The Barkleys of Broadway
(48, Charles Walters); a kidnapper with Fred Allen in the “Ransom of Red Chief” episode from
Full House
(52, Howard Hawks);
The I Don’t Care Girl
(53, Bacon);
The Band Wagon
(53, Minnelli); and as a psychiatric patient in
The Cobweb
(56, Minnelli).

Anyone liking Levant should search out his unique books of memoirs
—A Smattering of Ignorance
(1940),
The Memoir of an Amnesiac
(1965),
The Unimportance of Being Oscar
(1968). Just consider the wit and gloom of a man holding that title back for twenty-eight years! Then dream of a Levant biopic—with Steve Buscemi.

Barry Levinson
, b. Baltimore, Maryland, 1942
1982:
Diner
. 1984:
The Natural
. 1985:
Young Sherlock Holmes
. 1987:
Good Morning, Vietnam
. 1987:
Tin Men
. 1988:
Rain Man
. 1990:
Avalon
. 1991:
Bugsy
. 1992:
Toys
. 1994:
Jimmy Hollywood; Disclosure
. 1996:
Sleepers
. 1997:
Wag the Dog
. 1998:
Sphere
. 1999:
Liberty Heights
. 2000:
An Everlasting Piece
. 2001:
Bandits
. 2004:
Envy
. 2006:
Man of the Year
. 2008:
What Just Happened
. 2009:
PoliWood
(d);
The Band That Wouldn’t Die
(d). 2010:
You Don’t Know Jack
.

Not many American moviemakers have a significant relationship with the place where they were born and raised. To be in pictures, very often, involves living on location or in hotels. Los Angeles can be viewed as a place for glorified hotel-living: the houses are like theme bungalows on the grounds, and in no other American city can so full a range of services be called in. More than that, the difficulties of getting work urge new directors to that vague, plastic setting for stories that often end up as L.A., or southern California. But three of Levinson’s films—arguably the best—depend upon the dowdy glories of Baltimore and the atmosphere of great provincial cities.

He attended American University in Washington, D.C., and became a writer for television. But after some time working for Carol Burnett, he went into screenwriting, often in partnership with his then-wife, Valerie Curtin:
The Internecine Project
(74, Ken Hughes);
Silent Movie
(76, Mel Brooks);
High Anxiety
(77, Brooks), in which he also has a funny cameo performance as a bellhop;
And Justice For All
(79, Norman Jewison);
Inside Moves
(80, Richard Donner);
History of the World, Part I
(81, Brooks);
Best Friends
(82, Jewison); and
Unfaithfully Yours
(84, Howard Zieff).

None of those pictures was much to boast about, and Levinson was forty already in the year that his first directing job opened. But
Diner
was in a different category, a slice of life, naturalistic but piquant, and full of characters. It only showed how meekly serviceable Levinson had been as a writer. Moreover, in its discovery and use of Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Daniel Stern, Steve Guttenberg, and Ellen Barkin,
Diner
gave us a director with a true fondness for players. Amid all its virtues, it was less evident that
Diner
lacked a pressing reason for being. It was about life, passing time, and plain, friendly places—none of which gets overdone in Hollywood—but it was short of drama.

The Natural
was poor baseball and worse Malamud, and its very romantic look was at war with the humdrum setting, just as the movie ducked the novel’s somber conclusion. Its acting was starry in the worst sense: the casting seemed to have settled all other approaches. And Levinson was uneasy with the sweeping epic reach of the fable. He seemed like a lifelong Orioles fan, used to dull games, having to gape at baseball according to the field of dreams.

Young Sherlock Holmes
was written by Chris Columbus and it had Steven Spielberg as executive producer. It had charm, but Levinson seemed under the influence of others. Equally,
Good Morning, Vietnam
was not just a vehicle for Robin Williams, it was a road made for the occasion that had no purpose except his grinding drive. But
Tin Men
was Baltimore, with the smell of hard-earned experience and a gritty, unsentimental attitude. It was funny and tough. Yet curiously, the writer Levinson seemed happier watching life pass by than shaping it into story.

Rain Man
was a test of managerial skills. The project had had previous writers and directors, and it had Dustin Hoffman in a self-induced creative coma of autism. It was a hit and Levinson got the Oscar for best director. His reputation soared in the business, for insiders knew that
Rain Man
could have been a calamity. So Levinson was allowed to make
Avalon
, a gentle, wry portrait of an immigrant family’s early life, and softer than
Diner
’s guys could have tolerated.

Bugsy
was one more occasion for Levinson to serve powerful personalities who had been arguing about a picture long before he came along: Warren Beatty and writer James Toback. In any event, they might have been wise to hire him earlier and let him urge some greater grounding in the showy, fake story. Still, Levinson discovered the sweet chump in Beatty, and he seemed intrigued by the neon dream of Las Vegas—the kind of risky escape that has long appealed to hard-earned money in Baltimore.

Barry Levinson is past sixty now, and it’s clear that he has a young man’s urge to try anything (which includes his affectionate involvement with the TV series
Homicide
). But the movies accumulate without really adding up. For example, the aside,
Wag the Dog
, was so much better than the major effort,
Sphere. Liberty Heights
was a delight, while
Disclosure
was heavy-handed. Levinson has rare skills and ease, and he’s in a position now to do whatever he wants (near enough). Yet the question remains—what does he want? Where is the creative nervous system? Where is the film that might break, or reveal, his heart? Where is the last great work?

Albert Lewin
(1894–1968), b. Newark, New Jersey
1942:
The Moon and Sixpence
. 1945:
The Picture of Dorian Gray
. 1947:
The Private Affairs of Bel Ami
. 1951:
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
. 1953:
Saadia
. 1957:
The Living Idol
.

A graduate of New York University and Harvard (where he got his master’s degree), Lewin joined MGM in 1924 as a writer:
Bread
(24, Victor Schertzinger);
The Fate of a Flirt
(25, Frank Strayer);
Blarney
(26, Marcel De Sano);
Ladies of Leisure
(26, Thomas Buckingham);
Tin Hats
(26, Edward Sedgwick);
A Little Journey
(27, Robert Z. Leonard);
Quality Street
(27, Sidney Franklin);
Spring Fever
(27, Sedgwick); and
The Actress
(28, Franklin), in which Norma Shearer played Rose Trelawney.

Lewin was a close associate of Irving Thalberg, who made him head of the story department and then the producer of most of his important projects. At MGM, and latterly at Paramount after Thalberg’s death, he produced
The Kiss
(29, Jacques Feyder);
Cuban Love Song
(31, W. S. Van Dyke);
The Guardsman
(31, Franklin);
RedHeaded Woman
(32, Jack Conway);
What Every Woman Knows
(34, Gregory La Cava);
China Seas
(35, Tay Garnett);
Mutiny on the Bounty
(35, Frank Lloyd);
The Good Earth
(37, Franklin et al.);
True Confession
(37, Wesley Ruggles);
Spawn of the North
(38, Henry Hathaway);
Zaza
(39, George Cukor); and
So Ends Our Night
(41, John Cromwell).