"I have a taste for poison" : Quo Vadis (1951)

      Quo Vadis. Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Produced by Sam Zimbalist; screenplay by John Lee Mahin and S.N. Behrman, Sonya Levien; directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1951. Performers: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov, Patricia Laffan, Finlay Currie, Nora Swinburne, Buddy Baer, Marina Berti, Abraham Zofaer. Summary: the story of Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christians set against the canvas of the decadence and decay of the Roman Empire.

     In a separate post I wrote, favorably, of the of the movie Pompeii. It inspired me to investigate, among other things, volcano stories. But the theme of Ancient Rome led me elsewhere, specifically to those bloated late Forties and early Fifties epic movies, for which, guilty pleasure-esque, I confess a fondness. One of my favorites is Quo Vadis.

     To be sure, there are things about QV I’m not so fond of: the slow patches, Finlay Currie’s heavy-handed monologues, the overture, the romantic subplot with the Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr characters. But these quibbles can be overlooked in view of the pluses: the huge spectacle, costumes and sets; Strelsa Brown’s golden-voiced invocation of the gods; Peter Ustinov’s serious scenery chewing as Nero, as well as his more low keyed interactions with mentor and ‘critic’ Petronius (Leo Genn). Finally the Miklos Rosza score which set the template for historical epics.

     But for my money the best thing about QV is Patricia Laffan’s scrumptious turn as Empress Poppea. Everything about her – wardrobe, pet leopards, sideways glances, nibbling on a red tinted magnifying glass, munching grapes as she watches lions devour the Christians, and not least, her plummy, slithering enunciation – just screams glorious excess and depraved sexuality. But there’s nothing screaming or excessive about her performance, which can be described as a miraculous tightrope walk of understated nuance combined with touches of high camp.

     I’m not familiar with Miss Laffan’s theatre work but it’s no exaggeration to say she was criminally underutilized as a film actress [1]. To be sure there were a few minor roles, including nice cameos in Shoot First and 23 Steps to Baker Street. Alas she’s best remembered today as the man-hungry Nyah in the sci-fi cult classic Devil Girl From Mars. But we're the richer for her supreme cinematic moment, which occurs in a far more worthy vehicle, namely Quo Vadis, where she plays, well, a different kind of man-eater, one with greater appetites and literally much more color.

Slithering malice

     We first view her in QV, significantly, from the back, which gives us a pleasing peek at her topographic charms. Reclining resplendent in green dress and regal purple cape, leopards in tow, Poppea observes the ponderous goings on at Nero’s court. She appears to be both bored and suspiciously alert, but in any case her visage suggests she just can’t wait for all the pomp to be over so she can get back to her scheming. Miss Laffan must have enjoyed this role immensely as she chews over every line she speaks, suggestively projecting the character’s barely concealed sadism and perverse lust. In fact so serpentine is her Poppea that we have to wonder: was the historical Poppea as irredeemably evil and corrupt as the portrayals in pop culture make her out to be? Maybe so. This was Ancient Rome after all.

     In any case has an actress ever brought elegantly sinister depravity to the screen with such relish, and in such a sensually alluring package? [2] Most of all, we admire her pluck. Much as Poppea always seems to be pre-empting Nero in Quo Vadis, it’s only appropriate that Patricia Laffan, the actress who embodies Poppea, does the equally impossible: (almost) upstaging Peter Ustinov, in his signature role at that [3].

[1] Incredibly, aside from QV and the aforementioned 23 Steps, Patricia Laffan made no American films, and even these two films have dubious American bonafides, one shot in Italy with a largely British cast and the other shot in and around London. Maybe the filmmakers thought her screen persona was too Lady Macbeth-like and as a result she’d be hard to cast.

[2] For all her beauty and ability as an actress, Claudette Colbert, the Poppea from Sign of the Cross (1932), nude milk bath and all, simply can’t compare, at least in this writer’s humble opinion.

[3] Aside from Ustinov I've pretty much neglected the rest of the mostly splendid cast. Splendid indeed. The exception is Robert Taylor, whose bland presence and Midwestern twang seems singularly out of place amongst the other cast members' savoire faire and cultivated Brit accents.  

any dream was better than no dream ... The Day of the Locust (1975)

   The Day of the Locust [DVD]. Hollywood, Calif.: Paramount Pictures, 2004. John Schlesinger, director. Based on the novel by Nathanael West. Director of photography, Conrad Hall; music, John Barry; editor, Jim Clark. Summary: a naive young set designer seeks work in Tinseltown and falls in love with an aspiring actress who lives with her alcoholic father, a former vaudevillian entertainer turned snake oil salesman. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1975. Performers: Karen Black, Burgess Meredith, Donald Sutherland, William Atherton, Richard A. Dysart, Geraldine Page, Paul Stewart.


     John Schlesinger’s bitterly sardonic take on Nathanael West’s blistering novel hasn’t lost any of its bite even today, a half century later. Alas, like West’s novel, the film version languishes under the radar, and indeed a reconsideration of both is long overdue [1]. Day of the Locust is in the tradition of such gloves-off portrayals of the dark side of the movie business the likes of Sunset Boulevard and The Bad and the Beautiful, just more so. At 144 minutes Locust is a tad long with many weird detours, dead ends and lost weekends, but director Schlesinger keeps things moving apace so well that we don’t really notice.    

     First, a comment on the look of the movie. Locust is at heart a dark fairy tale – some would say a horror film – that takes place (nearly) nine decades ago. Yes, it’s still the Depression [2]. Thus it deserves a strange look, and gets it, filmed through a mist-like gauzy overlay that actually adds to the film’s mystique. Moreover, the story is rendered through a prism of mid 1970s cinéma vérité aesthetic, Seventies style slice-of-life chic if you will, but in this case a glamorous, if falsely so, slice.

     For me the centerpiece of the film, figuratively and literally – it takes place about half way through – is the visit to Big Sister’s revival. It breezes by much too quickly and ostensibly doesn’t have a lot to do with the Hollywood milieu, then again maybe it does. The revival meeting's schtick is really a massive production number that mirrors the hype and glitz of Hollywood productions. Entertainment and show business by any other name, while the ka-ching of cash registers and the counting of money provide a realpolitik if admittedly heavy-handed obbligato [3]. Moreover, the religious frenzy at the revival parallels the later, gaudy opening night extravaganza, complete with de rigueur searchlights, of DeMille’s The Buccaneer. In the latter the potential for violence releases itself in an orgy of destruction and rampant savagery that still shocks even today in our supposedly seen-and-heard-it-all world. Perhaps the gala opening is a metaphor for American society itself in the Thirties, but it actually comes too close for comfort in our supposedly more enlightened 21st Century: the fans who jostle, shove and gouge for a glimpse of the god- and goddess-like stars are selfish, materialistic sorts, obsessed with the glamor of the illusion, or is it the illusion of glamour? Either way, the various losers, hangers-on, and assorted white trash that do their best to crash the première mirror the locust-like little people that litter the film and which Tod keeps bumping into. In Nathanael West’s vision even those on the inside or the fringes will be pulled down into the Hadean cauldron with the rest of us ordinary mortals. And seemingly benign characters such as Hackett, Claude Estee and Helverston, because of their very casual cruelty and aloofness to the industry's savage indifference to the little guy, are more loathsome than the various abrasive grotesques that flit in and out.
    By the way, Geraldine Page is wonderful as the evangelist with pizazz, the aforementioned Big Sister, one of those offbeat characters she does so well. The role actually anticipates – by nearly a half century – similar characters in the television miniseries Penny Dreadful: City of Angels and Perry Mason (they just love including those Thirties-era spiritual leaders as secondary characters in Hollywood period pieces). As the fellow said, the end times may be upon us, but they can be very entertaining. 

     But in a movie of myriad disturbing images and scenes, for me the most brutal and heartless of the lot is the impromptu cockfight which looks all the world like the real thing. Truly a heartbreaking result as a bloodied animal lies on the floor, probably mortally wounded. Perhaps appropriately, after the cockfight the spectators enjoy a dinner party that transitions to a kind of PG-rated bacchanal, with Faye as the main attraction.

"magic is what I'm selling"

     But getting back to humans, the various losers, grotesques and other outsiders who populate Locust, waiting at the stop sign of life for their one big break, are actually depicted in one of Hackett’s tableau as three chalk faced folks wait on a bench at a bus stop. West himself had a love-hate relationship with the film industry that mirrored his own contradictory nature: he was both a romantic and cynic; a plagiarist who was also a gifted, original writer; a savage critic of the Hollywood dream who never quite gave up on the dream.

     In any case, West knew of what he spoke: he toiled as a writer of B scripts and like Locust’s hero Tod Hackett lived in dive hotels and run-down apartments. He knew all too well the labyrinthine mechanics of the movie business and the frustrations of the extras, bit players, assistant directors, and, lowest of all, writers. Tod Hackett, Locust’s hero and arguably a West self-portrait, is one of the few haves in a world of have-nots. A rather high-minded artiste just beginning his career as a set designer, he struggles to come to terms with going Hollywood, and appropriately his opus maximus, created on the sly, is a painterly tableau titled “The Burning of Los Angeles.”
     Along the way Hackett encounters various seedy and colorful characters, among them an actress neighbor who catches his eye. He also crosses paths with the actress’s father, a washed-up vaudevillian turned snake oil salesman, as well as a certain Homer Simpson, onetime accountant convalescing in California’s balmy climate. Monosyllabic cowboys, amorous Mexicans, and a curmudgeonly midget named Abe Kusich add to the mix. Not many of the characters who populate Locust are likable, not even the ostensible good guy Tod. But that was the idea: West wanted to portray the desperate low-lifes and perpetual wannabes existing under the façade of Hollywood glitz and glamour. Unpalatable the little people may be, we still feel sympathy for them and this is part of West’s genius.

     All these elements are beautifully realized by the film, especially the performances, which are generally over-the-top, and rightly so. This makes them so on the money because the exaggerated deliveries are in their way genuine, masking as they do the desperation and disappointment the characters feel. Meriting a singling out are Karen Black in the performance of a career as the vacuous Faye Greener, Burgess Meredith as Faye’s alcoholic father, Natalie Schafer as brothel madam Audrey (a long way from hoity-toity Mrs. Howell), and the great Billy Barty as the obstreperous dwarf Abe Kusich. More sedate are a bland William Atherton as our nominal hero Tod Hackett and Richard Dysart as a cold fish Hollywood executive with a taste for softcore porn and high class call girls. Good performances, true, by Atherton and Dysart but as haves in a world of have nots their characters can afford to be more guarded and reserved. Contrary to the critical and fan rave reviews for Donald Sutherland, I wasn’t taken with his zombie-like interpretation of the Homer Simpson.

     My only complaint is that the Paramount DVD has zero bonus features, a major oversight considering the film’s literary, historic and aesthetic connections. There seems to be a ‘limited edition’ blu-ray, which I understand has a generous sampling of supplements. And this is only just. Day of the Locust is a forgotten masterpiece that deserves a presentation and packaging worthy of its stature.   

   [1] To be technically correct, academics and cultists have long been familiar with West’s magnum opus, but among the general public West doesn’t have the high profile of the likes of Hammett, Chandler, and Cain.  

   [2] I may have missed it but I don’t recall any overt references to the year in which Locust is taking place. But from all the clues we’re given I place it to be ca. 1938.

   [3] The show biz connection couldn't be made plainer when Harry hallucinates that his on-stage 'cure' is another performance and the ecstatic faithful are his audience. 'I stole the show,' he later reminisces.