You're a Double Bromo Seltzer
Young Man with a Horn (1950)
directed by Michael Curtiz
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Hoagy Carmichael deserves an acting retrospective at Film Forum someday, and even a minor role like "Smoke," the piano player who narrates the rise and fall of Kirk Douglas' Rick Martin, demonstrates how much of a presence he was. Kirk, you can tell, is just waiting for that big meltdown scene to really let his acting chops fly, but Hoagy never drifts above an easy glide in delivery, posture, or style.
Rick's black mentor - and Rick's devotion to him - is the heart of the film even after Doris Day and Lauren Bacall emerge as competitors for their leading man's love. But Bacall looks better when she isn't a psychological wreck, and the second half of Young Man with a Horn shears too far away from the friendship that helps the first half play so well. Rick's defense of an aging black man (played by Juano Hernandez) seems pretty progressive for 1950, and Art Hazzard is presented as Rick himself, more or less, albeit more comfortable with his loneliness and better grounded with relation to the bigger picture.
Still, it's an A-list production from a studio at the top of its game, and the most beautiful scene shows Lauren Bacall as she leaves Rick's apartment angry. She takes the elevator downstairs and into the lobby while a bellhop watches her through a reflection on the door. She passes the front desk, then smiles as she's walking to the exit and turns around. The bellhop steps back, the elevator doors close behind her, and we watch as the lights indicate her return to Rick's floor.
Hazzard gets the best line in the film, and I wish we could base more movies about aging around it, instead of the usual On Golden Pond goodbyes to the so-called greatest generation. The line is this: "People get old, they see things wrong mostly." Now imagine it slow - almost as slow as that tracking shot that leads Lauren Bacall out of the elevator. Sometimes there's no music to say what words say better.
directed by Michael Curtiz
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
Hoagy Carmichael deserves an acting retrospective at Film Forum someday, and even a minor role like "Smoke," the piano player who narrates the rise and fall of Kirk Douglas' Rick Martin, demonstrates how much of a presence he was. Kirk, you can tell, is just waiting for that big meltdown scene to really let his acting chops fly, but Hoagy never drifts above an easy glide in delivery, posture, or style.
Rick's black mentor - and Rick's devotion to him - is the heart of the film even after Doris Day and Lauren Bacall emerge as competitors for their leading man's love. But Bacall looks better when she isn't a psychological wreck, and the second half of Young Man with a Horn shears too far away from the friendship that helps the first half play so well. Rick's defense of an aging black man (played by Juano Hernandez) seems pretty progressive for 1950, and Art Hazzard is presented as Rick himself, more or less, albeit more comfortable with his loneliness and better grounded with relation to the bigger picture.
Still, it's an A-list production from a studio at the top of its game, and the most beautiful scene shows Lauren Bacall as she leaves Rick's apartment angry. She takes the elevator downstairs and into the lobby while a bellhop watches her through a reflection on the door. She passes the front desk, then smiles as she's walking to the exit and turns around. The bellhop steps back, the elevator doors close behind her, and we watch as the lights indicate her return to Rick's floor.
Hazzard gets the best line in the film, and I wish we could base more movies about aging around it, instead of the usual On Golden Pond goodbyes to the so-called greatest generation. The line is this: "People get old, they see things wrong mostly." Now imagine it slow - almost as slow as that tracking shot that leads Lauren Bacall out of the elevator. Sometimes there's no music to say what words say better.
posted by NPK at 12:45 AM
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