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A good man is hard to find...unless you're watching a Robert Aldrich film. This director's style combined equal parts John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and John Huston to create a virile, violent, twisted world. Into a late-1950s Hollywood of glamour and gloss, Aldrich introduced his dark, gritty vision. This was a man's man's man's world where tough guys like Lee Marvin and Jack Palance never flinched, even when the odds were stacked against them.
In 1941, Aldrich entered RKO Studios as a production clerk. Starting at the bottom, he worked his way up, first to script clerk and then assistant director. Watching masters like Chaplin and Jean Renoir, Aldrich learned to make movies on the sidelines of the set. When he became a director, the studio gave him tight deadlines and tiny budgets, so Aldrich made the most of these constraints. He crafted stylish noirs, thrillers and no-nonsense men's movies that pushed each character to his psychological limit.
Early in his career he skewered Hollywood, revealing the duplicity behind the silver screen. In The Big Knife (1955), Jack Palance plays a movie star who refuses to sign a $3000-a-week contract. He's supported in this by his wife (Ida Lupino) but they can't win against the studio system. The slimy studio boss blackmails the star and backs him into a corner. Reacting like a caged animal, Palance commits suicide rather than compromise his principles.
That same year, Aldrich made Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer into a swinging cinema stud. Kiss Me Deadly (1955) featured Ralph Meeker as the film noir private eye. He's closer to Bond than Bogie; in fact, seven years before 007 made his debut in Dr. No (1962), Aldrich's Hammer was clearly the special agent's prototype. Hammer was suave, cynical and audacious-plus he had the gadgets that guys love, like a reel-to-reel phone answering machine wall-mounted!
While driving down a lonely road late one evening in his hip hotrod, Hammer picks up a beautiful blonde hitchhiker, dressed in nothing but a raincoat. She has a strange story and drops the detective a clue before she's tortured and killed. Hammer is thus thrown into a world of conspiracy and secrecy. All clues lead to a mysterious black box that contains some sort of nuclear device. Building to its apocalyptic climax, Kiss Me Deadly is doubly devastating because Aldrich renounces the Hollywood happy ending; it's unclear whether or not Hammer survives. But dying in the line of duty or on the battlefield is an honor in Aldrich's uncompromising world.
Survival is beside the point. A real man has a job to do...and he does it. In The Dirty Dozen (1967), Major Reisman (Lee Marvin) is assigned to coordinate a suicide mission on a French chateau held by Nazi officers. Adding to the challenge, Reisman's troops are drawn from Death Row inmates. This 'dirty dozen' includes Maggott, a Born-Again sex pervert (Telly Savalas); Franko, a defiant psycho (John Cassavetes); Pinkley, a retarded killer (Donald Sutherland); and the equally malicious Charles Bronson and Jim Brown. With his steely hair cropped in a close crewcut and a steadfast stance, Marvin commences to whip his unruly crew into top shape. Basic training is as tough as you'll ever see, but the men make it through to embark on their mission. The Dirty Dozen took all the toughness of John Ford's war films and added an even higher degree of violence and psychological ordeal. This turned out to be the recipe for success--The Dirty Dozen went on became one of MGM's top moneymakers.
Even with a female cast, Aldrich could create an atmosphere of danger. In What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Bette Davis and Joan Crawford's off-screen animosity came across onscreen, and the director put the tension to brilliant use. As a child, 'Baby Jane' Hudson was the toast of vaudeville; but as an adult, she was overshadowed by sister Blanche. Then came the accident, which crippled Blanche and was blamed on the drunken, insanely jealous Jane. Flash-forward to 1962: the sisters still live together, torturing and tormenting each other. Blanche seems innocent enough but is an invalid forced to rely on her sister, who teeters on the brink of insanity. Baby Jane took Sunset Boulevard to a grotesque extreme. Upon release critics called the film 'sick,' but that didn't sway the box office. Audiences flocked to theaters to see once glamorous stars face off in a bizarre drama, a psychological passion play in the twisted realm of Robert Aldrich.
Aldrich's films created a strange alternate-reality in Hollywood. His heroes had major attitudes and little conscience. Bad guys didn't always get punished and the good guys suffered just like anyone else. Robert Aldrich placed his characters in intense conditions where their wit, wiles, ability and charm were their best--and often only--tools. From Kiss Me Deadly with its smooth sleuth to The Dirty Dozen and its rough-and-tumble recruits, these films are sure to make a man out of you. As Major Reisman said, "Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open, you're on guard duty, Maggott."
15 SATURDAY
8:00 PM Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962) A psychotic ex-child star is forced to take care of her invalid sister. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono. D: Robert Aldrich. BW 134m. LBX
10:30 PM Kiss Me Deadly (1955) Detective Mike Hammer fights to solve the murder of a beautiful hitchhiker with a mysterious connection to the Mob. Ralph Meeker, Cloris Leachman, Albert Dekker. D: Robert Aldrich. BW 107m.
12:30 AM The Dirty Dozen (1967) A renegade officer trains a group of misfits for a crucial mission behind enemy lines. Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes, Charles Bronson. D: Robert Aldrich. C 150m. LBX CC
3:30 AM The Big Knife (1955) An unscrupulous movie producer blackmails an unhappy star into signing a new contract. Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Rod Steiger. D: Robert Aldrich. BW 113m. CC
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