Delmer Daves

[Ray Faiola]

A SUMMER PLACE is one of our most popular soundtracks:



It's available at:

http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm?ID=3678

There are some links there to listen to a couple of tracks.

Ray Faiola

[MissGoddess]

The New York Times has had something of interest to
say about the director behind three of the titles in the new "Romance
Classics" box set:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/movie ... 7dvds.html

[rudyfan]

Count me in as another fan of Dark Passage. The photo of Vincent Parry in the newspaper is Delmer Daves, correct? I remember reading that somewhere.

Being a resident of SF, I love all films set in the city. One of the California Street Cable Cars bears a legend on the inner roof, to the effect "in 1947 Humphrey Bogart rode this car (during filming of Dark Passage)".

[MissGoddess]

Hi Rudyfan,

Dark Passage keeps growing and growiong in my estimation. I do
love the unique flavor given to the film by its San Francisco setting.
I also think Lauren Bacall's apartment is really interesting looking. I
visited a website once that had pictures of the exterior of that apartement
building, as it looks today. Pretty cool!

[markfp]

I've been a big fan of Delmer Daves for years. I really feel he's much overlooked in this country.

Two of my favorites are THE RED HOUSE and THE HANGING TREE. I wish somebody would come up with restored versions of both. THE RED HOUSE is only available in poor public domain copies. I'll bet I've bought a dozen copies over the years and they've all been mastered from the same beat up 16mm tv print. I know every scratch and splice by heart.

[MissGoddess]

I've never seen The Red House, Mark---can you tell me what it's about?

[moira finnie]

Here is a link to a fascinating interview with Michael Daves, the son of the director, Delmer Daves and a longtime assistant director himself.

You can see The Red House (1947) online here on the internet archive. This movie has been dismissed by such commentators as "noir expert" Spencer Selby as the story of a "Middle-aged farmer [who] goes to extreme lengths to protect the dark secret associated with a deserted house on his property. Murky psychological thriller with resonant settings and an emotive Miklos Rozsa score."

I wouldn't say that it is all that murky, it just refuses to offer simple explanations. It might be especially appealing to anyone who enjoys dipping a toe in the swirling waters of most film noirs. It has Edward G. Robinson at his conflicted best, (despite the producer's desire to cast Charles Laughton in the part), and Judith Anderson as his knowing sister. Lon McAllister, Julie London and Rory Calhoun appear as the youngsters struggling with their Freudian desires, rebelling against their repressive upbringing, and a feeling that something is amiss in the woods. Betcha can guess which wins out: The Id or the Superego.

As a mood piece with an interesting edge to it, and a Rosza score, the film still has some impact. Interesting work from Daves as both a screenwriter and a director. You might like it, Miss G., though I'm sorry to hear about the state of the prints from Mark, it is still watchable.

[MissGoddess]

Thank you, Moira! It sounds fascinating. I personally find Daves was talented at depicting the interior lives of characters. I first noticed this in Kings Go Forth, in which I thought he capitalized on the abilities of the three principals to express deep and conflicting emotions. He also didn't give us a very "hard and fast" happy ending. It feels quite loose and somewhat ambiguous. I recommend it to folks curious about exploring more of Daves work.

I will check out The Red House.

[movieman1957]

I watched The Badlanders recently as well. I feel the same way in that it is worth watching and it had little more than a passing resemblance to The Asphalt Jungle. The ending was a bit over the top for my taste but I enjoyed the lead up to it. I thought the mining scenes at least looked pretty good. It seemed a bit of a stretch the miners couldn't notice our heroes close by but if they did you have a different movie.

The town looked like the same set that would be used later for Buchanan Rides Alone.

[MissGoddess]

What I like best about The Badlanders are the scenes and relationship between Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado.

I had no idea this was supposed to be a remake of The ASphalt Jungle. I never would have known had I not read it here.

[moira finnie]

To bring up the Delmer Daves thread again: THE BADLANDERS was recently shown on TCM. The first half of this western is especially good, with excellent shot selection and editing. Though it was billed on TCM as a western remake of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, it doesn't feel that way at all. THE BADLANDERS has a hero (Alan Ladd), whereas THE ASHPALT JUNGLE is very much about a group. No Sam Jaffe character. If the girl in the hotel is supposed to be the Marilyn Monroe character, she isn't. The endings of the two films are completely different in action and meaning. Alan Ladd isn't the most expressive actor, and it's a little odd that Ernest Borgnine is playing a good guy. THE BADLANDERS is worth seeing on its own terms.

On the sudsy guilty pleasure side: you'll never see the "Nice girls hold out for marriage" gambit more deftly executed than by Claudette Colbert in PARRISH.

Thanks for the recommendations for other Daves films. Anyone who could direct THE HANGING TREE and 3:10 TO YUMA obviously had talent.

What I like best about The Badlanders are the scenes and relationship between Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado.

I had no idea this was supposed to be a remake of The ASphalt Jungle. I never would have known had I not read it here.

That's an interesting revelation about the Asphalt-Badlanders connection to me, too. I hadn't made that W.R. Burnett connection before. But two wiseguy questions pop into my head: Aren't almost all heist movies a remake (they wish) of The Asphalt Jungle? And wouldn't the dead guy back in prison who told Ladd about the gold be the Sam Jaffe character (in highly edited form)?

Well, Katy Jurado definitely had a screenwriter on her side in this one, (maybe even former screenwriter Daves as well as Richard Collins?). The warmth between Ernie and Katy gave the movie some depth; something that an enervated Alan Ladd, sadly, never seemed to have the energy for in this story. I'm really not surprised to see Jurado's character given so much strength and emotional weight in this Delmer Daves movie. He had a great way of making women characters vital to almost all his stories on film. I first noticed this in A Summer Place, but now can see it starting with the superficial but heartfelt The Very Thought of You and his excellent Pride of the Marines, both made with an expressive Eleanor Parker. This thread in his career is also evident in his ability to elicit sensitive performances from a normally somnolent Debra Paget in Bird of Paradise to a luminous Natalie Wood in Kings Go Forth and Leora Dana in both Kings... and especially in 3:10 to Yuma. Even when working with very young and untrained actresses in his turgid (but entertaining!) teen pics of the early '60s, they are almost (but not really on the same level) as seasoned actresses as diverse as Dorothy McGuire, Beulah Bondi, Constance Ford or Claudette Colbert.

Btw, though I think John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle is a far superior movie, I have always wished for more of Jean Hagen's back story. Then again, given the eloquence of what is largely left unsaid by and about her character, especially when she listens to Sterling Hayden explaining his dreams, maybe that's a plus.

[moira finnie]

Moira, to me Jean Hagen's voice in THE ASPHALT JUNGLE is so grating that Sterling Hayden almost becomes a saint for not popping her one. Actually, the character irritates me: she hooks up with a hood and then constantly nags at him for being one. Those are the only scenes in THE ASPHALT JUNGLE I don't love.

Gee, I just thought she was too inarticulate and afraid of rejection to express herself. I honestly hadn't noticed her voice in that movie other than to note that she spoke like someone with no education. And poor self-esteem. And a boatload of adoration for Sterling. Of course, if you are a pushover for a beautiful loser like Hayden in this movie, you have bigger problems than the police being after him.

Getting back to Delmer: Is it my imagination, or does Daves get better performances from Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue in A SUMMER PLACE than Douglas Sirk does in IMITATION OF LIFE? I think the answer is 1) yes, but 2) it's hard to tell.

Ain't it the truth. I can't say that Delmer gets what would be described as a "better performance" out of them in A Summer Place, but he gets a less irritating one than Sirk did. Actually, in Imitation of Life each of Dee and Donahue's characters is so self-absorbed (a natural state for all teens), they have no clue about the problems of any of the people around them. Dee's teen never asks herself, why would John Gavin love a squirt like me? Or could he be using me to get close to Mom (Lana Turner)? Or why is Susan Kohner crying herself to sleep at night? Or maybe Mom should re-think this idea of being a great actress, 'cause, gosh, she stinks, doesn't she? Then again, the only character in Imitation of Life who shows an awareness of others is Juanita Moore, who goes a bit far on that sensitivity bit, since, well, she is a noble lady, but a martyr. My real sympathy in that movie is for Kohner. She deserved a freakin' break and could have done better than Troy the White Boy too.

In contrast to this often inadvertently funny, sly satire by Sirk on race, materialism and sex, in Daves' more earnest and heartfelt A Summer Place, he presents recognizable kids of flawed parents who are trying to appease, understand and avoid the wrath of their mercurial folks. It's not as funny as Imitation, (except when Constance Ford goes off the deep end in her repressed act and when Arthur Kennedy gets a lot of mileage out his wallowing in his dissolution alcoholic bit). The hormonally distracted kids do evoke more of this viewer's sympathy, I gotta admit. I find it interesting that A Summer Place was initially a big hit with teen audiences. The real heat in that movie belongs to the adults, (and the adulterers, who rise above the soapier material), especially Dorothy McGuire, Kennedy, Ford, and even Richard Egan, who was often a bit leaden on screen but was believable as a father and former lover.

I haven't seen A Summer Place in a couple of years, but I am surprised to find myself being quite touched by all of their predicaments the last two times I caught it.