Live on Tape: Roger Corman and Me at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Talking with Roger Corman about Edgar Allan Poe, Jack Nicholson, Sylvester Stallone, taking "a nice trip," and missing the chance to direct Orson Welles. (Of course, I look so huge here, he must have thought his dream finally came true.) The last time I had so much fun, I was interviewing Corman at the Bahamas International Film Festival for Variety.

Roger Corman and Me

It will be my pleasure and privilege to conduct a Q&A with the legendary Roger Corman on Friday, Jan. 3, following the 7 pm screening of his classic Masque of the Red Death at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. And I’m even happier to report this will occur just one night after the Houston Film Critics Society — of which I am a founding member — honors Corman with a special lifetime achievement tribute during HFCA’s annual awards show at MFAH.

You can purchase tickets for both the awards show and the Masque of the Red Death screening at the MFAH website. Or you can opt not to attend either event, and spend the rest of your life tortured by gnawing regret. The choice is yours.

For the benefit of those who tuned in late…

(Cue the cut-and-pastings from the mini-bio I have prepared for my film studies students.)

Roger Corman has earned millions and entertained millions more throughout his decades-long career as a director, producer and/or distributor of over 300 highly successful small-budget, high-concept films, and continues to regale audiences with a steady output of similar fare for theatrical, home video, streaming and cable platforms. Indeed, just three weeks ago, the remarkably spry 93-year-old legend presented his latest effort as an executive producer, the sci-fi action-thriller Abduction, at the Bahamas International Film Festival — where, not incidentally, he and his wife, producer Julie Corman, conducted mentoring sessions with budding screenwriters.

The titles of many of Corman's 1950s films -- The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), It Conquered the World (1956), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), War of the Satellites (1958) and A Bucket of Blood (1959) -- indicate why he earned early on the nickname “King of the Drive-in.” (In 1960, he produced and directed the cult classic Little Shop of Horrors, which reportedly was shot in two days and one night on a leftover set).

During the 1960s, however, he began to attract serious critical attention, domestically as well as internationally, as the auteur of several stylishly gothic horror films based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, including House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), and, of course, The Masque of the Red Death (1964), featuring such established actors as Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Ray Milland, and Peter Lorre. (If you are of a certain age, these films are more likely than all the English classes in the world to have sparked any interest you’ve ever had in Poe’s literary output.) But Corman is equally proud of The Intruder (1962), his socially conscious indie drama about a charismatic demagogue (brilliantly played by a young William Shatner) who stokes racial tensions in a small Southern town. The movie was boldly progressive for its time, and remains, in the words of critic-historian  Wheeler Winston Dixon, “one of the most brutal, honest, and unflinching examinations of American racism in cinema history.”

In 1970, Corman formed New World Pictures, an independent mini-major that produced the work of such up-and-comers as John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, and Peter Bogdanovich. New World's first film, The Student Nurses (1970), was shot in three weeks for $150,000 and grossed more than $1 million. Other early New World releases included horror, biker, and women-in-prison films. The profits from these low-budget features allowed Corman to act as the American distributor for a number of prestigious foreign films. In a 10-year period, New World released three Academy Award winners in the Foreign Language Film category: Federico Fellini's Amarcord (1974), Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala (1975) and Volker Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum (1979). It should be noted that when Corman told Ingmar Bergman that he had attempted to expand the potential audience for the latter’s 1972 masterwork Cries and Whispers by releasing it in some drive-ins, Bergman approved.

Corman’s influence on American cinema has been incalculably enormous, both as a filmmaker — his Poe films continue to inspire many directors of gothic horror movies — and as a nurturer of up-and-coming, destined-for-prominence actors, screenwriters and directors. (In addition to those previously mentioned, Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Fonda, Sylvester Stallone, Pam Grier, Bruce Dern, Gale Ann Hurd, Ron Howard and Robert Towne are among the luminaries he gave significant early-career boosts.) In 2009, the Motion Picture Academy’s Board of Governors voted to give Corman an honorary Oscar “for his unparalleled ability to nurture aspiring filmmakers by providing an environment that no film school could match.”

In short: Roger Corman has made an immeasurable impact on American movies — on movies, period — as a maverick and a mentor. And I would venture to say the secret of his success has been his savvy as an entertainer. He has always known that audiences will respond to a wide variety of films — everything from low-budget horror flicks to socially conscious dramas to slam-bang B-movies to challenging art-house fare — if they have access to, and are encouraged to sample, the full scope of that variety. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, Roger Corman understands and appreciates that cinema is large — it contains multitudes.  

Remembering Akira Kurosawa's cinema -- and his laughter -- on his birthday

On this date in 1910, Akira Kurosawa was born in Tokyo. And I remain ridiculously proud of the fact that, during a Manhattan press conference tied to the 1985 New York Film Festival premiere of his masterwork Ran, I made the sensei of cinema smile.

I was asking a question, through a translator, about his reputation as a director of unforgivingly harsh and often brutally fatalistic dramas. And I wanted to know if he thought that was a bad rap, because there actually were some upbeat movies on his resume — like the sweetly romantic One Wonderful Sunday, a deeply affecting 1947 tale of life and love in post-WWII Japan that did not get wide US release until the early 1980s.

“Now, I’m not saying that you’re a party kind of guy…” I continued. But then I had to pause, because at that point, Kurosawa exploded into laughter. Which, of course, made me wonder how much he really needed that translator.

But seriously folks: Here is an appreciation of Akira Kurosawa and his work — tied to a 2010 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — that I wrote back in the day for CultureMap Houston. 

Coming soon to a theater or scratching post near you: Kedi

As I wrote in my Variety review just a few months ago, after the film played at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: 

"Early in Kedi, Ceyda Torun’s splendidly graceful and quietly magical documentary about the multifaceted feline population of Istanbul, a human inhabitant of the city notes: 'Dogs think people are God, but cats don’t. Cats know that people act as middlemen to God’s will. They’re not ungrateful. They just know better.' All of which might explain why so many of the movie’s four-legged subjects come across not as feral orphans who rely on the kindness of strangers, but rather as slumming royals who occasionally deign to interact with two-legged acolytes.

"Indeed, another interviewee here swears that, after his fishing boat was damaged during a storm, a beneficent cat led him to a lost wallet containing just enough money to pay for repairs. 'Whoever doesn’t believe this story,' the grateful beneficiary proclaims, 'is a heathen in my book.'

"Trust me: Kedi will make you a believer."

Thanks to Oscilloscope Laboratories, which proudly bills itself as the distributor "of the best in American independent, foreign, documentary, and cat films," Kedi is slated to start prowling in North American theaters February 10. Here is the trailer.

Tab Hunter returns to MFAH -- sort of -- in The Loved One

When Tab Hunter was in Houston last summer for the QFest screening of Tab Hunter Confidential at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, I was fortunate enough to be included among the invitees at a private brunch where the semi-retired '50s heartthrob was the guest of honor. We chatted about various aspects of his stage and screen career, including his co-starring stint apposite Tallulah Bankhead in the ill-starred 1964 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (a play eventually filmed in 1968 by director Joseph Losey as Boom!, an equally ill-starred Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor vehicle). The production was a resounding flop, but Hunter continues to speak highly, and respectfully, of its director, the late Tony Richardson.

Hunter credits Richardson -- who also directed Tom Jones, A Taste of Honey, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and several other notable films -- for tossing him a lifeline during a low point in his career during the early 1960s. As he notes in his autobiography:

"Just when it seemed I might never make another movie, Tony Richardson came to the rescue. He'd been hired to adapt Evelyn Waugh's black comedy [novel] about the mortuary business, The Loved One, He stocked the cast with stars in cameo roles. Mine was only two days' work, playing a cemetery tour guide.

"How oddly fitting, considering that my movie career was dead."

Unfortunately, Hunter had to wait a few years -- until 1981, when John Waters cast him opposite Divine in Polyester -- before he made anything resembling a movie comeback. The Loved One, aptly advertised as "The motion picture with something to offend everyone," was roasted by critics and ignored by moviegoers during its initial theatrical run in 1965, and did precious little for the careers of Robert Morse, Rod Steiger and everyone else involved. 

But when I first saw The Loved One, when I was around 13 years old, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. (Yeah, I was a weird kid.) Subsequent reviewings during my adulthood have only reinforced my original impression that it was a movie way ahead of its time. (Steiger, it should be noted, seemed genuinely amused years ago when I told him during an interview how much I enjoyed his performance as Mr. Joyboy, a flamboyant mortician with mother issues.) Indeed, I am pleased to see that The Loved One has gained an admiring cult following over the years, and is periodically screened in classy venues like... well, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where it will be presented at 7 pm. Monday, Oct. 26. 

Take a look at the trailer, and tell me, honestly: How could you possibly not want to see this one?

A sobering thought about A Hard Day's Night

After the 1 pm Thursday screening of A Hard Day's Night at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, I am going to host a brief dialogue with high school students (and anyone else who wants to stick around after the closing credits). And I can't help thinking: If someone had shown me a 50-year-old film when I was a high school student -- it would have been a silent movie.

Like this one, with Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle:


Or this one, with Mary Pickford:


Or this one, with Charlie Chaplin (and a musical score later added by Chaplin himself):

Flashback: Richard Lester on A Hard Day's Night

Note: Back in October 1985, director Richard Lester -- the bloke being poked by John Lennon in the above photo -- came to Houston for a retrospective of his films at the Rice University Media Center. I had the pleasure of interviewing him before he arrived in H-Town -- and the privilege of conducting a Q&A with him after the Media Center screening of A Hard Day's Night. We talked a lot about that seminal cinematic treat -- and its influence on a then-trendy phenomenon known as MTV. Starting July 4, several venues nationwide will celebrate the 50th anniversary of A Hard Day's Night by screening a newly spiffed-up version of Lester's merry masterwork. So I thought it might be a good time to recycle my 1985 feature story about the man behind the merriment.

If A Hard Day's Night didn't exist, someone at MTV might have tried to invent it by now. But it does exist, thank heaven, and it remains as vibrantly fresh as ever, more inventive and exhilarating than 99.9 percent of the music clips introduced by cable VJs. The larky musical-comedy showcasing The Beatles will be on view at the Rice Media Center as part of a two-week retrospective tribute to its director, Richard Lester. After the screening, Lester will be on hand to answer questions about his life, his films -- and his work with The Fab Four.

Earlier this week, Lester laughed politely at the suggestion he created the world's first, and longest, music video when he directed A Hard Day's Night.

''Fortunately,'' he said, ''I didn't know I was doing that. I plead total innocence. But I must say, it was very kind of the MTV people: Apparently, I was their first inaugural Hall of Fame member.

''Of course, I didn't really know there was a Hall of Fame for MTV.''

Lester, a Philadelphia native, had only two features to his credit when producer Walter Shenson tapped him to direct A Hard Day's Night in 1963. At that point, The Beatles were only slightly less obscure than Lester in the United States. By the time the film opened, however, the boys from Liverpool had already launched their first assault on America. Most film critics of the time expected the worst from A Hard Day's Night, which threatened to be just another quickie rock-music exploitation film. But the reviewers were pleasantly surprised. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the movie ''a whale of a comedy... much more sophisticated in theme and technique than its seemingly frivolous matter promises.''

Much of the credit for the film's success went to Lester, whom Crowther praised for directing the musical madness ''at such a brisk clip that it seems to come spontaneously.''

Almost overnight, Lester established himself as one of his generation's most innovative filmmakers, a wildly eclectic virtuoso who merged the gracefully zany farce of silent-movie comedy with state-of-the-art editing and cinematography techniques. Just as important, Lester -- who began his career as a director of live television programs, then worked his way into the quick-cut, hard-sell world of TV advertising -- somehow had devised the perfect visual style to accommodate the flashy, frantic ambiance of what was then being hyped as the era of Swinging England.

Modestly, Lester insists his stylistic approach to A Hard Day's Night sprang from necessity, not inspiration: ''Generally -- and I think this is true of almost everybody who tries to earn a crust of bread -- I was just trying to find solutions to problems. And the solutions came out of the set of circumstances given to me.''

In this case, Lester said, he was charged with making a film that would reflect the frenzy of Beatlemania, contrasted with the ironic calm of the four lads -- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr -- who were generating all the excitement. To get a first-hand glimpse at the phenomenon, Lester accompanied the Beatles on a tour of Paris. He didn't see much in the way of glitz and glamour -- but he did notice The Beatles had to barricade themselves in hotel rooms to hide from zealous fans.

''That weekend,'' Lester remembered, ''the film wrote itself. John mentioned that they'd just come back from Sweden, so I said, 'Well, how did you like Stockholm?' And he said, 'It was a car and a room, and a room and a car.' Well, that was the film. The means of making the music continue the mood of the piece -- all that seemed to grow out of that weekend. Because I saw their behavior was musical, and their music was behavioral. It was easy.''

It was also, in many scenes, improvised.

Essentially plotless, A Hard Day's Night follows The Beatles as they hide from fans, travel by train, hide from fans, rehearse for a concert, hide from fans, perform in concert, and hide from fans some more. One of the film's best production numbers, ''Can't Buy Me Love,'' serves as a liberating break from the rigorous routine.

''All that page of the script said was, 'The boys escape by playing in the field.' So we ad-libbed on three different locations, each two hours long. The circumstances of some shots were dictated by the fact that Paul got drunk one night, and was very hung over -- and didn't show up for filming. So I put on a pair of his boots -- I happened to be wearing black trousers, anyway -- and hand-held the camera, and used my feet as the fourth member of the group. Otherwise, I think the brighter members of the audience might have noticed that 25 percent of the group was missing.

''Expediency does count a lot in art. I think anytime you ask an artist, 'Why that yellow?' he'll probably say, 'I'd run out of blue that day.'''

Ironically, the ''Can't Buy Me Love'' sequence often is excerpted and shown nowadays as a music video -- much to Lester's chagrin.

''Until that point in the film, the boys were in very confined spaces, and being told to go here, do that. They were managed and organized, pushed into this and that, told they should rehearse, go into this hotel room. And, no, you can't get out of the car because the crowd's here.

"So I wanted that scene to be an explosion of absolute exuberance, as they escape into open air. That piece of film works best when you have four reels before it with low ceilings. I don't take offense, but, really, taken out of context and just put on as a rock video, it has less impact emotionally than it would have in the movie.''

With A Hard Day's Night, Help! (another Beatle comedy, and in many ways a much better film) and The Knack, Lester almost single-handedly created in the mid-1960s a new cinematic syntax that was quickly and widely emulated -- most notably, by the producers of The Monkees -- but rarely used with the same kinetic imagination and giddy effervescence. He later polarized audiences and critics when he brought this same flamboyant visual flair to How I Won the War, a scathing anti-war satire, and The Bed-Sitting Room, an episodic black comedy about life after a nuclear holocaust.

Lester matched style and content perfectly, even brilliantly, in Petulia, an unexpectedly moving romantic comedy about two rational adults seeking love in a totally irrational '60s San Francisco. And his romantic streak appeared even more pronounced in his glorious Robin and Marian. In recent years, Lester has toned down the visual pyrotechnics. But his better films -- The Three Musketeers, Juggernaut, The Ritz -- reveal him as a moviemaker blessed with impudent wit, an iconoclastic disdain for genre conventions, and a fondness for inspired offbeat casting.

And, no, he's not interested in offers to direct music videos.

Saturday at MFAH: Do the Right Thing -- still a hot topic

Believe it or not, there actually were intelligent people -- well, OK, reasonably intelligent people -- who feared back in the day that Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was so incendiary, it might spark riots during its theatrical release in the summer of 1989.

But wait, there's more: As early as May that year, when Do the Right Thing had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, some journalists actually were questioning whether Lee had acted irresponsibly by making a movie with such a such a "hopeless" view of then-contemporary race relations in America.

Not surprisingly, Lee begged to differ with that characterization of his masterwork.

''I don't think this is a pessimistic film,'' Lee said during a Cannes press conference. ''I think that, at the end, there is hope.

''But, look, I wouldn't go to any movie expecting it to have an answer to AIDS, to cancer -- or to racism. What makes you think that filmmakers are gods, or Jesus Christ? What makes you think I'm a savior, that I'm gonna have an answer to racism?

 ''What I feel I have to do as a filmmaker is present a problem, so that discussion can start. Because you still have a lot of people in America who say that racism ended when Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and black people have the vote . . . So black people have arrived, and everything is all right.

 ''But it's not. The black underclass in America now is larger than it's ever been. So you can't be lulled to sleep, into thinking that just because Eddie Murphy is huge, and Arsenio Hall has a great TV show, that we're living in a world where everything is right, and righteous and humane.''

Twenty-three years later, Do the Right Thing remains a powerful and provocative film. And part of the reason for that is, 23 years later, even after the re-election of our first African-American vice-president, we're still having heated discussions about the things that divide us -- and the things that unite us. I'll be introducing a retrospective screening of this remarkable "Spike Lee Joint" at 7 pm Saturday at the Museum of Fie Arts, Houston. Like Lee, I don't claim to have all the answers. But I do have one or two stories to tell about this movie and the man who made it.

Me & Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke was so witty, gracious and enthusiastically forthcoming Saturday night at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, he actually made me look like I knew what I was doing during the Q&A we did for Cinema Arts Festival Houston. We talked about everyone from the late River Phoenix to the indestructible Albert Finney, and everything from surviving early failure (Explorers, the first film for both Hawke and Phoenix, was a box-office flop) to muddling through an on-stage embarrassment (and laughing off a comparison to Rick Perry).

Among the highlights:

Take Three: Cinema Arts Festival

The Cinema Arts Festival of Houston has announced the full lineup for its 2011 edition, and H-Town audiences should be happy to know that one of the main attractions this year will be... well, me. Yes, that's right: I'll be at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Nov. 12 to interview some guy -- that's his picture up there -- about the books he's written, the movies he's directed, the performances he's given and, I dunno, maybe some other stuff. But I'll tell you this right now: He better not grab my ass.

MFAH revival screening: Shoah still amazes

After 9 ½ hours of Shoah, Claude Lanzmann's exhaustive and exhausting oral history of the Holocaust, we're left with unforgettable moments.

Like the moment when a farmer who tilled his fields near the Treblinka death camp recalls the screams of Jewish prisoners: ''At first, it was unbearable. Then we got used to it.''

Or the moment when Simon Srebnik, a survivor of the genocidal campaign at Chelmno, returns for a reunion with villagers who profess to be happy about his survival. ''Why do they think this all happened to the Jews?'' Lanzmann asks the villagers through an interpreter. ''Because they were the richest!'' a villager replies. Srebnik winces.

There's the moment when Abraham Bomba, a barber who cut the hair of women bound for the Treblinka gas chamber, breaks down during Lanzmann's inquiries. Lanzmann is persistent: He must know what happened when Bomba's friend, a fellow barber, realized his wife and sister were among the prisoners about to be gassed. ''Don't make me go on, please,'' Bomba implores Lanzmann. But Lanzmann is quietly, implacably firm: ''We must go on.'' So Bomba tries to describe a scene almost too agonizing for mere words.

Later, there's a moment when Franz Suchomal, former SS Unterscharfuhrer at Treblinka, vigorously sings a tune taught to Jewish prisoners at his death camp. He finishes the song, then tells Lanzmann: ''No Jew knows that song today.'' Suchomal smiles as he speaks.

Henrik Gawkowski doesn't smile as he remembers driving the train that brought whole boxcars of Jews to Treblinka. He talks of hearing the moans and shrieks over the sound of his locomotive. He talks of remaining almost constantly drunk to deaden his senses. He talks of trying to warn his disembarking passengers that they were not going to work details, that they were about to be processed by a killing machine. He traces a line across his neck with his index finger. The moment is terrifying.

Such moments are separated by many long minutes and hours during Shoah. (The title, a Hebrew word, means “annihilation.”) No doubt about it: This epic 1985 documentary, twelve years in the making, is punishingly long, rigorously demanding and deliberately repetitious. And yet it remains irresistibly mesmerizing from start to finish, a towering achievement with a cumulative impact that is nothing short of devastating. This week at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, you have the choice of viewing it all in a single day – starting at 10 am Thursday, with a lunch break at intermission – or in two parts at 2 pm Saturday and Sunday. Either way, expect to be enthralled and amazed.

Without resorting to documentary footage or period photographs, Lanzmann strives to re-create and re-examine the Holocaust by presenting it through the words of survivors, witnesses, perpetrators and not-so-innocent bystanders. His approach is remarkably effective, and his interviews -- some of them recorded with hidden video cameras -- are chillingly enlightening.

He juxtaposes the words with jarring images. The lush green fields we see once were the site of mass graves described by death camp survivors. The camera sweeps us down a long country road, forcing us to retrace the route taken by Jews on their way to destruction at Auschwitz. And repeatedly, insistently, there are the trains: belching steam, rattling along tracks, relentlessly moving toward the end of the line.

The device is poetic, but the interviews are prosaic. Lanzmann doesn't want to deal in euphemisms or generalizations. He has the patience to ask specific questions: How big were the crematoriums? How many people died each day in the Warsaw ghetto? Exactly how did the German government pay for the ''resettlement'' of Jews? (A low-level Nazi era bureaucrat recalls buying one-way tickets -- at excursion-rate prices -- with money confiscated from Jews when they were arrested. That's right: The victims paid for their own trips to the gas chamber.) What was the life expectancy of a Jew who arrived at Treblinka? (Usually, four hours.) How did SS commanders dispose of so many bodies?

And most important of all: Why? Why did the Polish underground refuse to give weapons to the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto? Why did the Allies ignore the pleas of Jewish leaders to launch a special campaign against the Holocaust? Why did people in Germany and Poland deliberately ignore the unmistakable evidence of the monstrous crimes being committed at the death camps?

Why did this all happen to the Jews?

It’s clear that, by the time Lanzmann started work on Shoah, four decades after the end of World War II, many of the Holocaust survivors he interviewed had moved beyond grief, had numbed themselves so they could live with the guilt of living while so many others died. (''If you could lick my heart,'' a survivor tells Lanzmann, ''it would poison you.'') It’s also obvious that other interviewees, for a variety of reasons, preferred not to remember what they had seen or experienced, what they had done or had done to them, and needed to be coaxed, if not coerced, into giving their eyewitness accounts.

Lanzmann would not let anyone forget. And his lasting legacy is an unforgettable film.

Big news about Tiny Furniture

Tiny Furniture -- the smartly observed, seriously funny indie dramedy I've been telling you about since I caught it last spring at SXSW -- will be screened Friday through Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. And I'll be on hand to introduce the opening night screening at 7 p.m. Friday. But wait, there's more: You can read my interview with Lena Dunham, the film's lovely and talented writer/director/star, here.

They like him! They really like him!

When the Houston Film Critics Society announced Saturday their choice of a tune from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World -- "We Are Sex Bob-Omb!" -- as Best Original Song, many folks attending the HFCS awards show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, were surprised and delighted. But the surprises didn't end there.

HFCS had already tipped off the film's director, Edgar Wright, about the upset victory. And Wright in turn graciously taped a thank-you speech (duly played for the MFAH audience) in which he praised the song's composer and lyricist (Beck), proclaimed HFCS members to be the coolest film critics in the known universe -- and, inexplicably, underscored his gratitude by brandishing a banana.

Of course, as Monty Python fans well know, it can be a tricky thing to defend yourself against a man brandishing a banana.

RIP: Blake Edwards (1922-2010)

At the time of his death Wednesday evening at age 88, Blake Edwards, the Tulsa-born filmmaker who shrewdly balanced slapstick and sophistication throughout a Hollywood career spanning five decades, had at least three legitimate claims to pop-culture immortality. You can read my CultureMap obit here. And if, after reading it, you're hankering to take another look at Edwards' Breakfast at Tiffany's, well, thanks to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, you are in luck.

MFA offers a free ticket for a Stagecoach ride

The disreputable doctor who cracks wise and drinks heavily, but sobers up when the chips are down. The golden-haired prostitute who brightens incandescently when a naive cowpoke calls her “a lady.” The shifty-eyed gambler with a gun at his side and, presumably, an ace up his sleeve.

And, of course: The square-jawed, slow-talking gunfighter who’s willing to hang up his shootin’ irons -- who’s even agreeable to mending his ways and settling down on a small farm with a good woman – but not before he settles some unfinished business with the varmints who terminated his loved ones. Why? Because, as the gunfighter tersely notes, “There are some things a man can’t run away from.”

These and other familiar figures had already established themselves as archetypes by 1939, that magical movie year in which Stagecoach premiered. Even so, director John Ford’s must-see masterwork -- which will have a free-admission screening at 2:30 pm Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston -- arguably is the first significant Western of the talking-pictures era, the paradigm that cast the mold, set the rules and firmly established the dramatis personae for all later movies of its kind. Indeed, it single-handedly revived the genre after a long period of box-office doldrums, elevating the Western to a new level of critical and popular acceptance.

And unlike, say, Raoul Walsh’s creaky and badly dated The Big Trail (1930) – John Wayne’s first starring vehicle, but a career-stalling flop in its time – Stagecoach remains a lot of fun to watch.

Ford’s film is a classically simple tale of strangers united in close quarters for a brief but intensely dramatic interlude. In this case, the characters are passengers aboard an Overland Stage Line coach during a dangerous trek through Indian Territory. The journey begins in the small town of Tonto -- no, really -- as two social outcasts – Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell), a gleefully roguish alcoholic, and Dallas (Claire Trevor), a tearfully vulnerable prostitute – are forcibly exiled by the good ladies of The Law and Order League.

These pariahs board the stage to Lordsburg along with Mrs. Mallory (Louise Platt), a very proper – and very pregnant – Army wife; Hartfield (John Carradine), a courtly gambler who appoints himself as Mrs. Mallory’s protector; Peacock (Donald Meek), a mild-mannered whiskey salesman whose sample case is progressively depleted by Doc Boone; and, at the last minute, Gatewood (Berton Churchill), a blustering banker who has absconded with the contents of his office safe. Buck (Andy Devine) is the driver, and Sheriff Wilcox (George Bancroft) rides shotgun.

Just outside of Tonto, the travelers are joined by The Ringo Kid, a boyishly handsome gunfighter who has broken out of prison to avenge his murdered father and brothers. As Ringo -- the role that saved him from the professional purgatory of B-movies – John Wayne makes one of the greatest entrances in movie history: While he spins a rifle like a six-gun, the camera rapidly tracks toward him, then frames him heroically, almost worshipfully, in a flattering close-up. Ringo is a friendly and forthcoming fellow, even when dealing with Sheriff Wilcox. But he leaves no room for doubt that he’s quite capable of minding his own bloody business at the end of the line.

If you’re familiar with Stagecoach only through its reputation, or if you’ve seen nothing more than cut-and-paste highlights from Ford’s classic, you may be surprised by the movie’s intimacy. To be sure, the majestic landscapes of Monument Valley – to which Ford returned for several subsequent Westerns – are grandly impressive. And the much-imitated Indian assault on the speeding stagecoach, replete with breath-taking stunt work choreographed by the legendary Yakima Canutt, is every bit as exciting as its reputation attests.

But what really makes Stagecoach so vital and memorable is the emotionally charged interaction among its vividly drawn characters.

Much of the movie consists of expressionistically lit interior scenes. (Orson Wells reportedly viewed Stagecoach several times as part of his preparations for making Citizen Kane.) And in many of its most memorable moments, the archetypes reveal unexpected depth and complexity. Even Carradine’s ostentatious gambler turns out to be truly chivalrous in his fashion, redeeming himself gracefully under fire. And Wayne demonstrates that, long before his speech patterns and body language ossified into self-parody, he could give as soulfully affecting a performance as any hero who ever rode hard and shot straight in the most American of movie genres.

And by the way: Has any film actor ever had a better year than Stagecoach co-star Thomas Mitchell did in 1939? Consider: In addition to earning an Oscar for his work in Ford's classic, he also contributed memorable performances to Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings, Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and (playing opposite Charles Laughton's Quasimodo) William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. And, not incidentally, he played the heroine's dad in a little movie called Gone With the Wind. Cowabunga.

Truffaut and Godard: Together again!

This weekend only at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Read all about it here.

Chainsaws, Slackers and Spy Kids -- Oh, my!

Alison Macor wrote the book on indie moviemakers and moviemaking in Austin – literally – and Tuesday she’s coming to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to tell us all about it. You can read my Houston Culture Map preview/interview here.

Gone are the days

While Googling research for my Ronald Neame obit today. I found this piece I did for the Houston Press back in 2000 as a curtain-raiser for an Alec Guinness retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. (One of the films in the series: Neame's The Horse's Mouth, in which Guinness played an aggressively iconoclastic and frequently insufferable artist modeled after poet Dylan Thomas.) And I found myself feeling more than a little melancholy. Because, really, can you imagine any newspaper, alternative weekly or mainstream daily, giving me, or any other critic, this much space today, just ten years later, for a story about a movie retrospective at a museum? 

I ♥ Tucker: The Man and His Dream at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

During the upcoming second weekend of We ♥ Jeff Bridges, the retrospective co-sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Houston Film Critics Society, it'll be my great pleasure and honor to introduce Francis Coppola's  Tucker: The Man and His Dream at 7 p.m. Friday at MFA. As I noted in my original 1988 review, Tucker is "a great American movie about great American dreamers." The movie "is not so much a biography as a celebration of Preston Tucker, the innovative automobile designer of the 1940s who dared challenge the supremacy of Detroit's Big Three with ''The car of tomorrow -- today!'' His car, in Coppola's view, was ''built too good,'' so, of course, Tucker had to be defeated. But he could not be destroyed...

"By all rights, Tucker should be a tragedy. But the movie, brimming with brash vigor and bursting with all-American pride, is bigger than one man's collision with the forces of greed. Coppola has borrowed a few well-selected pages from the handbook of director Frank Capra, another American visionary, who demonstrated in such classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life how to snatch a moral victory from the immoral overlords of The Establishment. Tucker is at heart an ode to American ingenuity, displaying a patriotism more unabashedly exhilarating than all the flag-waving at a dozen political conventions."

Not surprisingly, Coppola -- and producer George Lucas -- pretty much agreed with my take on the film when I interviewed them back in 1988.

BTW: You can see more of Jeff Bridges this weekend at MFA when my colleague Jared Counts of KUHF 88.7 FM Radio presents The Big Lebowski at 7 p.m. Saturday. And you can read my original 1998 review of that film here.

Critics' choices

I am a proud member of the Houston Film Critics Society -- but don't hold that against the organization, it's a classy outfit anyway. We're going to be handing out awards for 2009's best achievements in film this Saturday, Dec. 19, starting at 4 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium Theater of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. And unlike those snobby wankers over at the Hollywood Foreign Press or the Motion Picture Academy, we're open to having everyone join in the festivities. Well, OK, maybe not everyone -- but at least as many people as can fit into Brown Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public, followed by a reception in the museum galleries. I'll be on hand to intro a special HFCS tribute to the late, great Patrick Swayze. And actor G.W. Bailey will be honored with a well-deserved Humanitarian Award for his work with the Sunshine Kids Foundation.

BTW: Nominees for the HFCS Best Picture of 2009 award include (500) Days of Summer, Avatar, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Precious, Star Trek, The Hurt Locker, Up and Up in the Air. I'd tell you in advance which movie is the winner, but then HFCS president and co-founder Nick Nicholson would kill me. Suffice it to say that HFCS prides itself on surprising. Last year, for example, the Best Film prize went to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. So expect the unexpected.