Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 29, 2017 15:17:33 GMT
For me, this was Bette's show, she shines all around, especially as the movie progresses. Hard for me to understand she had to make a "comeback" later on in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? What was wrong with movie audiences back then?
Peter Falk really stands out here, no wonder he went on to stardom, and nice to see lovely Ann-Margret in her film debut.
This movie has made me very curious to see Capra's original, Lady For a Day. I wonder why he wanted to remake his own movie, that's a rarity in films.
As uncommon as it is for a director to remake one of his own pictures, my feeling is that there can be only two worthy reasons for any director to undertake remaking any picture: the original can be improved upon (example: 1941's The Maltese Falcon); something fresh and original can be brought to the story (example: 1954's A Star Is Born or 1978's Invasion Of the Body Snatchers). New technologies like color and widescreen, or newer faces to appeal to contemporary audiences or even "new" for its own sake don't make the grade in my book.
In his autobiography, Capra quoted himself from a 1960 interview: "I had had such good luck putting my style of heart and humor into A Hole In the Head, a story of contemporary non-heroes, that I wanted to experiment with retelling Damon Runyon's fairy tale." Reflecting on the harder-edged candor he observed in films of the time, he described his mindset: "I'll be the maverick. A nonconformist. I'll make sentimental films until my audience cries, 'No more.'"
But that came with provisos in "the new Hollywood." As Capra wrote, "My 'one man, one film' Hollywood had ceased to exist. Actors had sliced it up into capital gains." And from both United Artists and Capra's own agent came an edict: "No way you can make a picture today except with a star as your partner," a proposition with which Glenn Ford himself approached the director, so Pocketful got the green light as a co-venture of Frank Capra Productions and Ford's Newton Productions.
This arrangement soon led to authoritarian and creative friction between them, as well as to personal resentment between the team of Ford and his hand-picked leading lady Hope Lange, and Bette Davis. To complicate matters, Capra's cluster headaches, which had abated for many years, recurred during production. Peter Falk emerged as Capra's saving grace both on and offscreen; his "anchor to reality," he wrote. "Introducing that remarkable talent to the techniques of comedy made me forget pains, tired blood and maniacal hankerings to murder Glenn Ford. Thank you, Peter Falk." Small wonder Falk was rewarded by Capra with such a showcase.
I give Capra credit for mixing the newer faces with old pros like Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton and Davis but, production problems aside, POF doesn't generate the charm and warmth of LFAD. While pleasant and entertaining enough, it's overlong and rather sluggishly-paced at times. To be fair, a film produced within the period it depicts generally has a built-in advantage over one attempting to recreate that period thirty years after the fact, but there's also a brisk snappiness to LFAD I find lacking in POF.
My biggest personal disappointment is in Glenn Ford himself. The progressively flustered comedic style he employed had served him well in 1959's The Gazebo, but it renders his Dave the Dude abrasive in place of Warren William's LFAD smoothie. All in all, I can recommend the earlier film as the more sincere of the two efforts.