The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (260 page)

But then the Italian producer let Lynch make
Blue Velvet
, which kept surrealism, hallucination, and “experiment” in perfect balance with Americana, a simple compelling storyline, and the huge, gravitational force of a voyeuristic setup. I believe
Blue Velvet
is also an allegory on sexual awakening, about innocence and peril, family ties and adulthood, such as no American film has achieved. The movie works: at the art-house level, it was a big hit. The performances are extraordinary: Dennis Hopper was savage yet lucid; Kyle McLachlan and Laura Dern were like Hansel and Gretel; Dean Stockwell was uncanny; and Isabella Rossellini seemed at last like a naked, forked actress. (She and Lynch were companions for years, and they acted together in
Zelly and Me
[88, Tina Rathbone].) Was
Twin Peaks
a cynical move, or as “authentic” as
Blue Velvet?
Was Lynch seeking to cash in, to bring Magritte to the masses? Was he satirizing the mass audience, or rebelling against the critical celebration of
Blue Velvet?
I have a hunch he is not quite sure himself. There were beautiful passages to be found in
Twin Peaks
(notably those directed by Lynch), but the whole thing seemed a dead end reaching as far as the longest northwestern view. The subsequent movie
—Fire Walk With Me
—is the worst thing Lynch has done—and, I trust, the least necessary or sincere.

What will happen to Lynch? Where will he go? Such questions may have more to say about the institution of the movies and the nature of the audience. But whatever happens, I believe
Blue Velvet
will grow larger over the years, along with films like
Vertigo, The Night of the Hunter
, and
Citizen Kane
. There is a genius in Lynch that may have been lucky to get its one moment.

That was written in 1994, when there was still
Lost Highway
to come. That film has its devout fans, but I am not one of them. Indeed, I felt the director was still striving for the natural air of dream—and Lynch seems pretentious when he is straining. Equally, while touched by
The Straight Story
, I was suspicious of its straightfaced dedication to simple, honest feelings. It’s not a film I want to see again—whereas
Blue Velvet
I review regularly. But
Mulholland Dr
. I want to see all the time. This seemed to me, emphatically, a second masterpiece, and the first film in which Lynch’s style was so sweet, so serene, that one went with the drive or the dream of the movie without ever feeling those old panicky questions—Where are we going? What is it about? It’s about itself and the dual process of dreaming and driving—it’s also one of the greatest films ever made about the cultural devastation caused by Hollywood.

Early in 2010, a group of American critics voted
Mulholland Dr
. the best American picture of the decade. It’s a fair decision—and a way of holding judgment on
Inland Empire
, as extraordinary as it was inscrutable. But in an age when most movies are crushingly scrutable, I would give Lynch the benefit of the doubt.

Adrian Lyne
, b. Peterborough, England, 1941
1980:
Foxes
. 1983:
Flashdance
. 1986:
9½ Weeks
. 1987:
Fatal Attraction
. 1990:
Jacob’s Ladder
. 1993:
Indecent Proposal
. 1997:
Lolita
. 2002:
Unfaithful
.

In the 1980s, there came into being a kind of movie that was, at the same time, sensational and dead. These films had a self-induced hysteria in look, feel, and tempo—they never let go of us. They did not dare to, for their content was so attitudinizing, so removed from experience or life. These were movies founded in, and inspired by, the atmosphere of advertising. Some were more compelling than others:
Fatal Attraction
has suspense, some character, and a believable starting situation. Yet the movie aspires only to be what a friend of mine called it—“Every man’s nightmare.” In other words, it is nothing but concept or setup; it is a hook, and we are the fish. Others are ridiculous—
Flashdance, 9½ Weeks
(the most indebted to advertising imagery), and
Indecent Proposal
(which takes a clever concept and makes nearly every imaginable mistake with it).

Adrian Lyne has made these films. He was once, in Britain, a director of commercials. Every article written on Lyne observes that he graduated from the short form to feature length. But the process was not exactly that. In fact, he dragged the full-length film down to the tense gestures of a commercial—and then allowed length to ruin the trick. Try this test: look at the trailers for Lyne films—they are unfailingly superior to the eventual product. He is still making commercials—and we are the fish.

Lolita
may sit in solitary splendor—the only film Lyne made in nearly ten years. Of course, it was dreadfully handled commercially, and so held up that it was almost bound to disappoint, whereas it was made with a care, taste, and elegance that Lyne had never shown before—so it might have worked, if Vladimir Nabokov’s
Lolita
had been so fixed on care, taste, and elegance (as opposed to self-destruction, passion, and words). Nevertheless, Lyne’s cover as a slick vulgarian has been blown for ever and in
Unfaithful
he was restored to glossy romance.

M

Jeanette MacDonald
(1901–65), b. Philadelphia
It is possible that, without so accomplished a soprano voice, Jeanette MacDonald would now be more highly regarded as a comedienne. Without a song, she would not have had to keep company with the egregious Nelson Eddy. But millions gazed fondly on that team no matter that it made MacDonald’s instinct for playfulness seem flighty and shrill. With less imperious male partners—Gable, or even Chevalier—MacDonald had looked like a lady used to greater politeness, but tickled by the glint of a lewd smile. “Your right eye says yes, and your left eye says no,” Chevalier tells her in
The Merry Widow
. Perhaps she always condescended (she
was
known as The Iron Butterfly), but she seemed to enjoy raciness and to be encouraged by it. In
Love Me Tonight
(32, Rouben Mamoulian), for instance, she seems well aware of the frivolity in rhymed trills and to be in no doubt about Chevalier’s saucy tailor. Especially in her Lubitsch period, she carried melodies lightly, rather like a duchess preferring to go incognito. But by the late 1930s, MGM had done so well with her and Eddy in strenuous, sentimental operetta that there was no alternative.

She sang and danced on stage during the 1920s and had been turned down once by Paramount before Lubitsch cast her with Chevalier in
The Love Parade
(29). She stayed there for
The Vagabond King
(30, Ludwig Berger),
Monte Carlo
(30, Lubitsch), and
Let’s Go Native
(30, Leo McCarey). But Lubitsch was her sole advocate at Paramount and the studio let her go elsewhere for some dull films:
The Lottery Bride
(30, Paul L. Stein);
Oh for a Man!
(30, Hamilton MacFadden);
Don’t Bet on Women
(31, William K. Howard); and
Annabelle’s Affairs
(31, Alfred Werker). Lubitsch called her back for
One Hour With You
(32, Lubitsch and George Cukor) and
Love Me Tonight
, but she then went to Britain at Herbert Wilcox’s invitation, only to be replaced by Anna Neagle.

On her return, she was signed up by MGM for
The Cat and the Fiddle
(34, Howard) and
The Merry Widow
(34), made with two more Paramount exiles, Lubitsch and Chevalier. MGM took her to their heart (Louis B. Mayer tried to go further), and found Nelson Eddy to sing with her in a series of films shared between Robert Z. Leonard and W. S. Van Dyke:
Naughty Marietta
(35, Van Dyke);
Rose-Marie
(36, Van Dyke);
San Francisco
(36, Van Dyke), with Gable and Spencer Tracy, herself singing with all the zeal of a social worker intent on rebuilding the spread-eagled city;
Maytime
(37, Leonard);
The Firefly
(37, Leonard);
The Girl of the Golden West
(38, Leonard);
Sweethearts
(38, Van Dyke);
Broadway Serenade
(39, Leonard);
New Moon
(40, Leonard); and
Bitter Sweet
(40, Van Dyke).

These films often involved MacDonald singing through the tears to recollect a lost Eddy: scenes undercut by the difficulty of knowing whether Eddy was dead or playing dead. (In
Bitter Sweet
he dies in a scrambled duel, but his emotions are so sluggish that the fatal thrust is not shown and he expires merely by closing his eyes.)
Smilin’ Through
(41, Frank Borzage) is a crazy variation on that backward look, with Gene Raymond—MacDonald’s husband—instead of Eddy. Her last film with Eddy was
I Married an Angel
(42, Van Dyke), and after
Cairo
(42, Van Dyke) she broke with MGM, reportedly over the dubbing of her voice in foreign language versions of her films. Subsequently, she tried opera, musicals, and cabaret, and made three more films, singing two songs in
Follow the Boys!
(44, Edward Sutherland); and her last leads in
Three Daring Daughters
(48, Fred M. Wilcox); and
The Sun Comes Up
(49, Richard Thorpe).

Gustav Machaty
(1901–63), b. Prague, Czechoslovakia
1919:
Teddy by Kouril/Teddy’d Like a Smoke
. 1926:
Kreutzerova Sonáta/The Kreutzer Sonata
. 1927:
Svejk v Civilu/The Good Soldier Schweik in Civilian Life
. 1929:
Erotikon
. 1931:
Naceradec, Král Kibicu/Naceradec, King of the Kibitzers; Ze Soboty na Nedeli/From Saturday to Sunday
. 1933:
Ecstasy
. 1934:
Nocturno
. 1936:
Ballerine
. 1937:
The Good Earth
(uncredited codirector). 1938:
The Wrong Way Out
(s). 1939:
Within the Law
. 1945:
Jealousy
. 1956:
Suchkind 312
.

Machaty’s is a career that resembles the nomadic life forced on Hungarian Paul Fejos. For Machaty left Czechoslovakia and went by way of Austria and Italy to Hollywood, where he is supposed to have worked on
The Good Earth
, among other things. He stayed there during the war, and
Jealousy
is a seventy-one-minute noir that stars John Loder, Nils Asther, and Jane Randolph. If only, in America, Machaty could have been reunited with his discovery Hedwig Kiesler—who had become Hedy Lamarr at MGM. Their film,
Ecstasy
, is actually worth all the hype attached to it. The story of a young woman married to an old man who finds a young lover lacks subtlety, but the nude bathing scenes are gorgeous and the orgasm that “Eva” experiences is still startling and touching.

But just as Fejos has his
Lonesome
, so Machaty should be known for
From Saturday to Sunday
, a romance that says a lot about urban life and isolation and does so with a camera style that ignores the limitations of early sound. It’s clear that Machaty was a man of real talent, and it is to be hoped that more of his films become available.

Alexander Mackendrick
(1912–93), b. Boston, Massachusetts
1949:
Whisky Galore/Tight Little Island
. 1951:
The Man in the White Suit
. 1952:
Mandy
. 1954:
The Maggie/High and Dry
. 1955:
The Ladykillers
. 1957:
Sweet Smell of Success
. 1963:
Sammy Going South
. 1965:
A High Wind in Jamaica
. 1967:
Don’t Make Waves
.

Mackendrick was brought up in Scotland, and after a period in advertising he entered the British industry and worked in documentary. During the war, he was in Rome in charge of the film unit of the Psychological Warfare Branch. In peacetime he returned to the industry as a scriptwriter:
Saraband for Dead Lovers
(48, Basil Dearden and Michael Relph);
The Blue Lamp
(49, Dearden); and
Dance Hall
(50, Charles Crichton). As a director, Mackendrick’s work flattered to deceive. After showing a sense of mordant fantasy quite beyond his beginnings in Ealing comedy, his work became more conventional and impersonal. After 1967, it stopped altogether.

There are recurring themes in his films: his interest in child psychology (
Mandy, Sammy
, and Richard Hughes’s
High Wind in Jamaica);
the unconscious betrayals of life; plus an instinct for the straightfaced account of pain and cruelty. But his major characteristic is unexpectedness. His comedies are funny, but
The Man in the White Suit
is touched by Kafka and
The Ladykillers
is rooted in George Orwell’s “English murder” and the Chamber of Horrors. Even
The Maggie
—a crucial film for an American Scot—has a sense of frustration that is genuinely tortured. The way in which native feyness conspires to sap the blustering Paul Douglas amounts to more than comedy. The ordeal is piled on until pain itself is dominant.

In other words, the creeping hysteria and acid disenchantment of
Sweet Smell of Success
have more background in his British films than seemed the case at the time. No other American director has come as close to the scathing clarity of Nathanael West or, at that time, had looked so straight at corruption. The accurate observer in Mackendrick was evident in the way both Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis were admitted to previously locked parts of themselves.

Of his three last films only
High Wind in Jamaica
seemed to belong to him and that was somehow choked off, as if Mackendrick could no longer face its meaning. He is a great loss, but he set up and directed an exceptional film program at the California Institute of the Arts from 1969 to 1978.