The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (93 page)

When sound hit the movies, Cromwell was nearly forty, and he had a fine career as actor and director onstage. But then, for over twenty years (until he came under suspicion for leftist sympathies), he had a successful Hollywood career as a deft, self-effacing director who was especially sensitive to women and respectful of novels and plays. Was there more than that? I find it hard to detect theme or personality, and nothing Cromwell ever offered in interviews encouraged such hopes. It was his intent to “realize” scripts and do the best job possible. It may be telling that he was one of the favorite directors of David O. Selznick, who appreciated men prepared to be the humble and tireless enablers of his dreams and second thoughts. Thus, Cromwell did Selznick International’s first film, the Freddie Bartholomew
Little Lord Fauntleroy
, without a tremor of shame over the old-fashioned material and attitudes. He did a good job with the plot and the action of
The Prisoner of Zenda
, though Selznick was driven to bringing Cukor and Woody Van Dyke in for scenes that needed more than routine work. Above all, Cromwell directed Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, and Shirley Temple in
Since You Went Away
, a picture that bled from Selznick’s soft heart.

But there is much more that is interesting: Kim Stanley, otherwise a nonentity in the American cinema, is very striking in
The Goddess
and even occasionally persuades us that she is beautiful enough to be a great movie star; Bette Davis gloated over Mildred’s acidity in
Of Human Bondage;
Laura Hope Crews is one of film’s most disastrous, smothering mothers in
The Silver Cord;
Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr made a broody couple in
Algiers;
Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison did
Anna and the King of Siam
with all talk and no songs;
Sweepings
is a kind of weepie with Lionel Barrymore as the businessman head of the family;
The Fountain
is an exceptional rendering of a Charles Morgan novel, with a fine performance from Ann Harding; Raymond Massey is a very subtle Lincoln in
Abe Lincoln in Illinois; Caged
is a remorseless account of prison turning Eleanor Parker into a hardened criminal, and a shrewd estimate of fascism as personified by Hope Emerson’s monstrous matron; while
Dead Reckoning
is an overly complex flashback thriller with Bogart being double-crossed by Lizabeth Scott. Years later, Bogart’s “Geronimo” in
Dead Reckoning
is memorable for its self-pastiche, quivering but droll.

There are several failures
—The Enchanted Cottage
does not wear well;
The Racket
is listless, no matter that Nicholas Ray came in to direct some of it after an ailing Cromwell quit;
In Name Only
manages to waste Cary Grant and Carole Lombard in lengthy tearjerker passages.

The idiosyncratic casting eye of Robert Altman recalled Cromwell to the screen in a small part in
3 Women
(77), playing with his last wife, Ruth Nelson, and a classic scene-stealer as a fuddled bishop in
A Wedding
(78).

David Cronenberg
, b. Toronto, Canada, 1943
1966:
Transfer
(s). 1967:
From the Drain
(s). 1969:
Stereo
(s). 1970:
Crimes of the Future
(s). 1975:
The Parasite Murders/They Came from Within/Shivers
. 1977:
Rabid
. 1979:
The Brood; Fast Company
. 1981:
Scanners
. 1983:
The Dead Zone; Videodrome
. 1986:
The Fly
. 1988:
Dead Ringers
. 1991:
Naked Lunch
. 1993:
M. Butterfly
. 1996:
Crash
. 1999:
eXistenZ
. 2000:
Camera
(s). 2002:
Spider
. 2005:
A History of Violence
. 2007:
Eastern Promises
.

If one entertains suspicions that the post
-Psycho
vogue for horror pictures by new directors is far too much of a bad thing—slick, overeffectsy, heartless, spectacular, adolescent, exploitative—then Cronenberg is perhaps the most valuable item in the argument. Horror for Cronenberg is not a game or a meal ticket; it is, rather, the natural expression for one of the best directors working today. For Cronenberg’s subject is the intensity of human frailty and decay: in short, the body and its many accelerated mutations, whether out of disease, anger, dread, or hope. These are not easy films to take. But how can horror be easy? Anyone born and reckoning on dying needs to confront Cronenberg.

His father was a pulp-fiction writer, his mother a musician. Cronenberg was an outstanding student, and at the University of Toronto he switched honors courses, from science to English language and literature—thus his fearsome poetics of machinery?

From experimental, art-school-like shorts at university, Cronenberg plunged into what looked like low-budget exploitation movies.
They Came from Within
(the most Cronenbergian title for his first feature) was a metaphor for syphilis, as if from the point of view of the disease. For usually in Cronenberg the malady or the great warping of life is itself a new life force, as innocent as King Kong. He has the mindset that could make cancer a hero.

Rabid
cast porn actress Marilyn Chambers as a vampire who grows a secret impaling prong in her armpit. Here was the debut of Cronenberg’s urge to examine the body as a remarkable glory: in truth, his freaks are no stranger than our wholesome selves.
The Brood
used Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar in its brilliant metaphor for the distortions of anger.

By the 1980s, Cronenberg had become a controversial artist, especially in Canada. Many viewers and critics were repulsed by the shocking bodily flowerings he showed us. And not enough people had the stomach to see either the beauty, or the dismayed respect for life in Cronenberg’s films.
The Dead Zone
and
Videodrome
demonstrated not only his intelligence, but his response to all the controversy. They are films in which he seems ready to educate us in how to watch him.

The Dead Zone
was not “his”; it came from a Stephen King story, and cast Christopher Walken as an archetypically pale, wasted Cronenberg hero, a man afflicted with being able to see the end of life in anyone he touches. There was less blood, less bodily malfunction, and every effort made to show the Walken character as a cursed intelligence.
Videodrome
, on the other hand, is a commentary on how films and television have altered our notions of reality and fantasy. It contains the superbly witty invention of an outlet in the human body where image may be plugged in.

Cronenberg’s development was now momentous.
The Fly
was a genuine Hollywood film, a love story, rich in morbid humor, and a metaphor for genius and for any and every disease mankind has faced. As never before, in the relationship between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, Cronenberg’s compassion was revealed. Indeed,
The Fly
is only incidentally a horror film; it is primarily a screwball romance, one of the great movies about the kinship of freaks and … the rest of us.

As if that were not enough,
Dead Ringers
was a masterpiece—one of the few such achievements in the 1980s. It is about twins, about sadomasochism, surgery, dread of sexuality, the juxtaposition of warm flesh and bright steel, and it is about Jeremy Irons. For here, at last, Cronenberg was revealed as a director who cherished actors and could see their capacities.
Dead Ringers
is also a masterly exploration of decor, editing, and narrative structure; it has some of the austerity of Fritz Lang, or Ernst Lubitsch.

Naked Lunch
seemed casual by comparison, and it may show some problem for Cronenberg in finding new material. The use of Burroughs was dry and inventive, and the film as a whole took drugs for granted in a way movies still find hard. But it had less kick than any other Cronenberg film. He seemed a little tamed, or perhaps to be marking time. The dilemma is a measure of where the medium stands. Cronenberg might be thought of as the proper director for a film about AIDS, except that he has done it several times already. He requires great challenges, and it may be that telepathic communication is the subject that really beckons him.
M. Butterfly
was a misguided choice and a difficult film to take seriously.

It seems to me that, in recent years, Cronenberg has come close to self-parody:
Crash
never seemed to realize how inadvertently comic it had become—and it missed the real shock of J. G. Ballard’s literary original. As for
eXistenZ
, it seemed to indicate Cronenberg’s increased difficulty in finding fruitful metaphors for his obsessions.

Then it happened. Was it meeting Viggo Mortensen, coming to terms with the generic force of noir, or was Mrs. Cronenberg urging some thought to the future? The gap between the bleak asceticism of
Spider
and the sizzle of
A History of Violence
is remarkable, as the latter film is close to a masterpiece.
Eastern Promises
is looser as it involves London, instead of Philly. But the change is compelling, and Cronenberg is one of our very best now.

Bing Crosby
(Harry Lillis Crosby) (1903–77), b. Tacoma, Washington
Crosby excelled in that area where film meets advertising. He was the proof that unexceptional, lazy pleasantry was more desirable than prickly, difficult originality. All of Crosby’s assertions that he was plain-looking, sang casually, and acted hopefully only demonstrated his unerring nearness to American hearts. No one could argue that his contribution to cinema has been significant. Still, he has a good case as the most popular American to appear in movies. He was the most successful entertainer of the 1930s; he made movies as Elvis did thirty years later. His singing had all the charming naturalness that every amateur crooner believed lay within his grasp. He moved smoothly from college glee singer to the lead in light musicals to an unstuffy young priest and on to the relaxed veteran status. He existed, pipe in mouth, straw hat perched on his ears, beneath which the widow’s peak toupee stood as firm as the faces on Mount Rushmore. It would be unjust to call him dull. More accurate to say that for forty years he skirted risk. His ease is that of the soft option. It is barely noticeable that he is interested in nothing, for interest dies away on his soft voice and drowsy smile.

He went from college to sing with Paul White-man and, after a series of shorts for Mack Sennett, he appeared with the band in
King of Jazz
(30, John Anderson). After
Reaching for the Moon
(31, Edmund Goulding) and a successful radio show, he was contracted by Paramount and began a long series of musicals:
The Big Broadcast
(32, Frank Tuttle);
Too Much Harmony
(33, Edward Sutherland);
Going Hollywood
(33, Raoul Walsh);
She Loves Me Not
(34, Elliott Nugent); with W. C. Fields in
Mississippi
(35, Sutherland);
Two for Tonight
(35, Tuttle);
The Big Broadcast of 1936
(36, Norman Taurog);
Anything Goes
(36, Lewis Milestone);
Pennies from Heaven
(36, Norman Z. McLeod);
Waikiki Wedding
(37, Tuttle);
Dr. Rhythm
(38, Tuttle);
Paris Honeymoon
(39, Tuttle);
East Side of Heaven
(39, David Butler); and
The Star Maker
(39, Roy del Ruth).

In 1940, he was teamed with Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in
The Road to Singapore
(40, Victor Schertzinger), still an alumnus, even if sometimes driven to trickery to confound the craven Hope. His easy tidiness bound the trio and his singing papered the tattered plots together. War only boosted his reassuring appeal:
If I Had My Way
(40, Butler);
Rhythm on the River
(40, Schertzinger);
The Road to Zanzibar
(41, Schertzinger);
Birth of the Blues
(41, Schertzinger); a good deal enlivened by Astaire in
Holiday Inn
(42, Mark Sandrich), where he sang “White Christmas”—another ingredient of the advertising dream;
The Road to Morocco
(42, Butler); and
Dixie
(43, Sutherland).

Then came the part of Father O’Malley, opposite Barry Fitzgerald, in
Going My Way
(44, Leo McCarey), a feast of righteous sentimentality that won an Oscar for Crosby. The follow-up was
The Bells of St. Mary’s
(45, McCarey), with Ingrid Bergman in the Barry Fitzgerald role. Crosby was unaltered in
Blue Skies
(46, Stuart Heisler) and
The Road to Utopia
(46, Hal Walker), but he was gradually made to look pale by the style of the MGM musicals and by the abrasiveness of Sinatra in the early 1950s. Crosby still seemed to belong to college:
Welcome Stranger
(47, Elliott Nugent);
The Road to Rio
(47, McLeod);
The Emperor Waltz
(48, Billy Wilder);
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
(49, Tay Garnett);
Top o’ the Morning
(49, David Miller);
Riding High
(50, Frank Capra);
Here Comes the Groom
(51, Capra);
Just for You
(52, Nugent); and
The Road to Bali
(52, Walker).

He had a great success in
White Christmas
(54, Michael Curtiz) and then took on the role of a failed star in
The Country Girl
(54, George Seaton), opposite Grace Kelly. It was mournful rather than touching but as assured as everything he had ever done. In 1956 he rehashed
Anything Goes
(Robert Lewis) and had the luck to appear in
High Society
(56, Charles Walters), a measured application of gloss that exactly suited him. After that, his family life (with Kathryn Grant) and the pursuit of golf were interrupted only by
Man on Fire
(57, Ranald MacDougall); as a priest again in
Say One for Me
(59, Frank Tashlin);
High Time
(60, Blake Edwards);
The Road to Hong Kong
(62, Norman Panama);
Robin and the Seven Hoods
(64, Gordon Douglas); and
Stagecoach
(66, Douglas). He drifts on straight down the middle, goes fishing to where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day—it’s all on the map for the treasure hunt on the back of the cereal box. That he was, in fact, a rather bitter man, a fierce parent, and a cold companion only adds to the marvel.