filmmaker NICHOLAS RAY, born August 7, 1911

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/for-nicholas-ray

voted bigger than life. have anyone here seen 'we can't go home again'?

Between In A Lonely Place and Bigger Than Life for me.

Among the rare stuff, I have seen Wind Across the Everglades, which is surpassingly weird and fascinating (Plummer, Ives, Falk).

From the vantage point of 50-something years, Johnny Guitar is probably better appreciated than enjoyed. Maybe I just need to watch it again.

Johnny Guitar seems very enjoyable to me.

i need to see more of these; neither 'johnny guitar' or 'in a lonely place' did much for me. the one i remember liking most is 'rebel.' i seem to recall that scorsese's a big fan of 'bigger than life.'

Does Ray actually get a directorial credit on 'Lightning Over Water' (I've never seen it)?

The Savage Innocents features lots of animal slaughter footage that wouldn't be out of place in an Italian cannibal movie. Saw Wind Across the Everglades many years ago at the NFT, my memory is that it was butchered by the studio at the time of its release, so feels very...incoherent.

Johnny Guitar, Bigger than Life and Rebel all have beautiful colour (Mercedes McCambridge in black; James Mason and the yellow taxi cabs' Jimmy Dean's red jacket) and an incredible energy in the way that all shots are framed/edited - utterly distinctive mise-en-scene, so obvious why the cahiers crew loved him so. But it's the black and white neo-noirs that I admire the most - In a Lonely Place (re-screen it J.D.!), They Live by Night, On Dangerous Ground - such powerful, ADULT films, even now.

Only found out recently that Ray and Gavin Lambert were lovers for a while - what a meeting of Hollywood auteurism and British cinephilia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZGDqPAvXg&feature=related

gonna shoot for they live by night, which lived up to all the things i heard about it - i don't know i even knew it was first, but within the confines of being a fairly straightforward of-its-time flick it's supremely romantic and exciting. in a lonely place i think is a worthy winner but i'm so fond of the former.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fKuQO5RXW_0/TIR8PdnOljI/AAAAAAAAAHI/ajWeRvaiiMQ/s1600/3425022420_18601a7399.jpg

would be interested to hear some opinions of his later but not final stuff, which i have the impression was v large scale + nuts, if anyone's seen it/would rep for it

On Dangerous Ground or In a Lonely Place: career-bests by both Ryan and Bogie.

In a Lonely Place. Everything else I've seen has dated rather badly, and Johnny Guitar is just atrocious.

I'm a terrible gay for not loving Johnny Guitar.

In a Lonely Place

I'm a terrible gay for not loving Johnny Guitar.

or...a Communist!

Lonely Place.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

anyone seen Born to Be Bad? showing in NY tom'w

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i love in a lonely place and i def would have considered voting for it but this is ridiculous

Knock on Any Door not on dvd wtf?

surprised by result

would have gone 'on dangerous ground' i think

I dunno TS, i like all the films that got votes but can you be surprised given that there's been a revived appec of IaLP in the last 20 years?

Born to Be Bad is quite watchable, given that Ryan has way less screen time than Joan Fontaine, and maybe Zachary Scott and Joan Leslie too. No lost classic.

Born to be Bad and A Woman's Secret are airing on TCM on Oct. 4th.

i voted for The Lusty Men because thats a great title for a movie (havent seen it obv)

Would have voted for that orImitation of Life

"Cinema is Nicholas Ray..." But since I learned that his wife had an affair with his 13 year old son it is now what I always think of when I think of Nicholas Ray. Gloria Grahame is one of my favorite actresses. That was pretty screwed up.

I have yet to watch a Nicholas Ray film that doesn't become a favorite. A Woman's Secret is probably my least favorite but I loved the look of that film and the story and of course Grahame.

what would you vote - or what would you vote if not in a lonely place, tera? sorta feel like i should watch some more having seen a few of those that placed.

Gloria Grahame later married the son, btw. (He wasn't hers!)

Yeah, to give the story an even creepier ending!

Johnny Guitar

Just got done with Party Girl, Ray's last proper studio effort. A retro-gangster film with noir undertones, ultra-lavish production values, and Cyd Charisse very nearly ruining the day with monotone line readings in "Sultry Schoolmarm" mode. However once the film locks in, you don't care as much (two Charisse dance solos, which push code standards for teh sexy, help).

Does Ray actually get a directorial credit on 'Lightning Over Water' (I've never seen it)?

wenders sez in the commentary that ray was 'directing' whenever wim was on screen (& vice versa) but idk

it's worth seeing tho ray is so frail & kinda hazy from painkillers in a lot of it; in a weird way it struck me as similar to synecdoche, ny

http://i46.tinypic.com/vhyd6t.jpg

August 7th, from Olive Films (also available in standard def)

Would have voted for that or/Imitation of Life/

Thanks for reminding me; film finally available on Criterion.

Knock on Any Door not on dvd wtf?

― Mucho! Macho! Honcho!: Turn Off The Dark (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 22 August 2011 00:25 (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is this good? i wanna watch bogart in something i haven't seen but no-one ever seems super enthusiastic about it.

we cant go home again is out via oscilloscope

http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Home-Again-Expect-Blu-ray/dp/B008X7IC70/ref=atv_dvd_twister

Just caught They Live By Night. Excellent, as expected.

^^^ yeah, me too. It's on a twofer disc with Side Street, so I've had a double dose of discovering Cathy O'Donnell.

have anyone here seen 'we can't go home again'?
Have not seen it, but just watched the documentary about the making of it, Don't Expect Too Much. None other than Victor Erice said in its defense that it was "exemplary in its failure." Did see Wind Across The Everglades which has really stayed with me.

Although there was a while when I was mentally confusing the latter with Elia Kazan's Wild RIver.

The melody is in the eyes, the words are just the left hand.

I saw "Bigger Than Life" for the first time today. Amazing film if excruciating to watch sometimes. That bit where James Mason bullies his kid while throwing the football at him got to me I have to say :(

The Criterion restoration of They Live By Night is so sparkling that it amounts to watching the film new.

I'd forgotten how Ray fills the screen with memorable bit parts, lets the film breathe. In its own way it's as excellent as Thieves Like Us.

rewatched the Mitchum-Hayward rodeo drama The Lusty Men last night. Fernando Croce otm:

http://www.cinepassion.org/Reviews/l/LustyMen.html

yeah, CC of They Live by Night is a must-watch. What a debut.

johnny guitar is such a fucking awesome movie

after seeing it again I think I maybe like Bigger Than Life as much as Johnny Guitar and In a Lonely Place

They Live By Night is an interesting first feature

Yeah Bigger Than Life seems to get overlooked

thought the use os widescreen to look at interior spaces was interesting

*of

the way an Eisenhower family is portrayed in this film is also fascinating, maybe even more than in Rebel Without a Cause

"You know what? You read too many comic books."

Without knowing it I watched Johnny Guitar again tonight, for his birthday - probably?

And noticed how conspicuous he is in his nearly wordless role as one of Crawford's employees.

huh is he really, i never noticed!

In fact, no, it is Robert Osterloh. But this resemblance!

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzRjOWYyMjAtYmMzZi00NWFiLTgxM2ItNDgxNGIxY2IzYWJlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTk2MzI2Ng@@._V1_.jpg

Far right:

https://dancinglady39.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/image305.jpg

He doesn't look much like Nicholas Ray to me!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7XMfRPwU2Sc/UJ0YGwtNaXI/AAAAAAAAYE0/Nq6oFkyMIVs/s1600/NicholasRay.jpg

"Bitter Victory" was on TV today. I'm surprised I'd never seen it before! I'm not sure I like as much as Godard did but it is good, and Richard Burton really is good in it.

Criterion has They Live By Night right now - never seen but looking forward to it

It's good.

It stood out for me because it seemed feral. It was like a shadow on the rest of his work.

I compared and contrasted the opening scenes of They Live By Night and Thieves Like Us once in a film class presentation (they're based on the same novel). A stark difference in pacing (and casting).
We Can't Go Home Again doesn't really work, but there's a scene where the young hippie characters are clad in rubber masks that strongly brought to mind the early Devo films; it showed the through line from psychedelic horror to post-punk abjection. I may be the only person to imagine Devo in a Nicholas Ray film.

the young hippie characters are clad in rubber masks that strongly brought to mind the early Devo films; it showed the through line from psychedelic horror to post-punk abjection

I can't find a still of it online, but there's a moment in Roger Corman's Gas-s-s (1970) that sounds very similar, tho I'm sure they're v different viewing experiences.

Happy revive for me - just reading Patrick McGilligan's Nicholas Ray bio, which is ... OK. Perhaps because I didn't know that much about it, but he's v good on Ray's pre-film involvement with left-wing theatre and especially his work with Alan Lomax; McGilligan is also very knowledgeable about HUAC and Hollywood screenwriting in general. Once he gets to Ray's films, he's perversely less interesting, and of course he can't resist the womanising, boozing, fucked up side of Ray's life - fine, but it's at the expense of accuracy and insight elsewhere. I've been annoyed by lots of the book's critical shorthand and one-line character judgements that often don't stand up to real scrutiny (eg claiming that Godard was the only 'political' member of the Cahiers crowd, ignoring Rivette, who both in print and as an editor was more stridently left than any of them).

Love this photo of Ray and Rip Torn on the set of King of Kings that's reproduced in the bio:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/american-film-director-nicholas-ray-and-american-actor-rip-torn-in-picture-id51871899?s=594x594

Bitter Victory's rhythms are so strange.

Rebel Without a Cause has been a favorite of mine for 20+ years.

Seeing it now older, it seems such a weird Freudian mess, yet I'm a sucker for it. Like the scene where Jim Backus is taking food up to his wife and drops it on the floor, while James Dean just wants some answers to adolescence, but all he gets is his ineffectual father cleaning up while wearing an apron!

There is a ton of repressed homosexual feeling between Sal Mineo and James Dean, no?

And the ending. Backus says, "I'll be as strong as you [Dean] want me to be." Then Dean walks by with Wood and the overbearing mother starts to chastise him, but the father stands up to the mother and, therefore, everything will be ok? WTF!

I'm not as much a film expert as ilx, so would love to read what others have to say.

I first saw the film at about 19 or 20, and I guess I had the erroneous assumption that Dean's character was some kind of tough guy. The way he started whining and wailing in the police station (probably less than 10 minutes into the film) was so much against my expectations that I don't think I ever recovered.
This film might be a prime example of excellent direction in the service of terrible ideas, inasmuch as a bad film can be well-directed. I'm thinking of scenes like the one in the planetarium, or the opening titles sequence.

Seeing it now older, it seems such a weird Freudian mess, yet I'm a sucker for it. Like the scene where Jim Backus is taking food up to his wife and drops it on the floor, while James Dean just wants some answers to adolescence, but all he gets is his ineffectual father cleaning up while wearing an apron!

Susan Bordo mentions this scene in a discussion of how there were fears about men becoming "domestified" in the 50's. You can still see this in the early 60's with Terry-Thomas needling Milton Berle in It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World with "you americans let your wives boss you around!" jibes. Basically if the internet had been around in the 50's there'd be tons of "MEN...WHAT HAPPENED?" memes.

LOL, yes, that Terry-Thomas/ Milton Berle exchange, well spotted! That also taps into a British (European?) prejudice about the US which I don't think exists anymore.

My film students laughed at the YER TEARIN' ME APAAHT scene last March as much for its overwroughtness (to which they were unaccustomed) as to distance themselves from how close it cut.

they might also have seen it first in The Room & related memes, at this point

Those scenes where Dean is angered not by his father's inattentiveness/squareness but by his father's lack of strength - I kept thinking that the father character probably fought in WW2 and stormed a beach somewhere and then has to listen to his punk son complain about how the father won't protect the son from the mother. It sorta presaged a bunch of generational/parenting stuff in the 60s.

Also, the scenes with just the kids in the planetarium are so gorgeous.

Because of this movie, the planetarium was my #1 sight to see the first time I went to LA (lol).

There is a ton of repressed homosexual feeling between Sal Mineo and James Dean, no?

"repressed"

Good point. It's almost explicit, but framed as Dean and Wood as ersatz parents of Mineo.

Or I should say that is another framing.

Because of this movie, the planetarium was my #1 sight to see the first time I went to LA (lol).

Me too! But it was closed for renovations (d'oh).

It sorta presaged a bunch of generational/parenting stuff in the 60s.

BACKUS: Don't I buy you everything you want, son?
DEAN (drunkenly agreeable): You buy me many things.

I do not get Rebel without a cause

Like many Ray films, it's closer to opera or ballet; it takes no place in no known world.

Ebert's "Great Movies" entry on the film makes a lot of the points that are being made in this thread ("Seen today, Rebel Without a Cause plays like a Todd Solondz movie, in which characters with bizarre problems perform a charade of normal behavior"), and is an overall great read: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-rebel-without-a-cause-1955

Some of you seem to be saying that some of these so-called flaws are bad things.

Like many Ray films, it's closer to opera or ballet; it takes no place in no known world.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, July 21, 2021

true

Screenwriter Stewart Stern and bit player Dennis Hopper would team up again 16 years later to make The Last Movie, where Hopper emulates Dean at one point.

Indeed, good point

Ebert's "Great Movies" entry on the film makes a lot of the points that are being made in this thread ("Seen today, Rebel Without a Cause plays like a Todd Solondz movie, in which characters with bizarre problems perform a charade of normal behavior"), and is an overall great read: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-rebel-without-a-cause-1955

― edited for dog profanity (cryptosicko), Wednesday, July 21, 2021 7:46 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for the link; review is great.

That was pretty good, yeah

I think what put me off the film so early was how completely it seemed to be on Jim's side, which I guess was a bold choice at the time, but came across as the filmmakers congratulating themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

you're tearin me APPAAAAHHHHT

Classic

I couldn't believe the fatherly advice in a frilly apron scene the first time I saw it. Rebel is more subversive and weird than Johnny Guitar imo

And that’s pretty damn weird, so yeah