The Films of John Huston

[Fredric]

As you can see from my avatar, I'm really getting into this director. A while back, there was a discussion here on some of his films, mainly led by Jaime M., who seems to be a Hustonphile as well as a Wellesphile. He had seen the rarer films of his. I'm just a newbie to this, but there seem to be no other forums online to discuss.

Reading his filmography, everything he made sounds so interesting to me.

I've seen The Dead, Prizzi's Honor, Annie, Victory, The Man Who Would Be King, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Key Largo and The Maltese Falcon.

Film that I find intriguing include Under the Volcano, Wise Blood (I'm reading the O'Connor novel now), The Machintosh Man, Fat City, The Kremlin Letter (with Michael MacLiammor!), Reflections in a Golden Eye (sounds so strange!), Night of the Iguana, The List of Adrian Messenger, and the more "popular" films, like Asphalt Jungle, etc.

I purchased The Man Who Would Be King on DVD, and I was looking into Beat the Devil, because it was Public Domain and so cheap, but I found out that there are varying degrees of DVD transfers out there. Which PD DVD of BTD is the best quality? Also, in my research, I uncovered that there is a 100 minute original cut of BTD (one in which there's a spitting scene at the beginning instead of the four men in handcuffs).
Is this available on DVD? If so, which production company puts out this version?

I'm very interested in Jaime or someone repeating the story behind Red Badge of Courage being butchered by the studios (kind of fits in with Welles, too). Was there a pink-tinted version of this film, or was that another film. Has anyone yet viewed the new DVD release that came out this week?

So much to know. I haven't felt like this since I discovered Welles' 11 other films!

[jaime marzol]

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i noticed your avatar the other day, was going to complement it, but didn't finish posting.

The Dead, was cool. a documentary about the filming, JH and the dubliners.
Prizzi's Honor, loved it
Annie, didn't like
Victory, didn't like
The Man Who Would Be King, don't like yet
The Treasure of Sierra Madre, love it
Key Largo, love it
The Maltese Falcon, love it
African Queen, love it
Under the Volcano, great, available in lbx, documentary, notes from under the volcano
Wise Blood, saw it, don't know what to think
The Machintosh Man, ok.
Fat City, great
The Kremlin Letter, ok
Reflections in a Golden Eye, excellent, tremendous, but only watch it in lbx.
Night of the Iguana, it's out in lbx, excellent. on location promo film available
The List of Adrian Messenger, i don't know what to think about this one.
Asphalt Jungle, great
and the documentary, joh hustom, maker of films (or something to that effect) is also great. it's the one hosted by robert mitchum.

great books on huston
the hustons by lawrence grobal
picture by lillian ross
dangerous friends by peter viertel

reflections came out with a gold tint, african queen in pastel colors; i thought i had accidentally cooked the tape by leaving it in my car.

moulin rouge is also interesting. great filming and editing, but it proves that if there is a dwarf in the film, you have to use a real one. jose ferrer standing on his knees won't do.

[jaime marzol]

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the lilian ross book, picture is the one about red badge. it's a great book. it follows the film from the first day of writing the screenplay, through huston's hands, through the producer, through the studio head, through the scoring, editing, preview showings, till it got whittled down to nothing.

the book is out of print, but library can get it, or now and then it turns up at www.half.com for 3 bucks

[dmolson]

Have been unsuccessfully searching for Lillian Ross' book here in Canada, but did find a brilliant excerpt published in Ebert's Book of Film, which covered a sneak preview of Red Badge of Courage.

- The marquee of the Picwood said 'Harvey' as well as 'Major Studio Preview Tonight'.
"I hate previews," Reinhardt said to me as he and Huston and I got out of the car. "The smelly house. Popcorn. Babies crying. Ugh! I hate it."

Huston far surpasses Ford, in my view, as a compelling storyteller. He could tackle so many different tales, winding them up quick or slow, tragic or comedic.
-The Misfits is one of his best
-Moby Dick is a flawed masterpiece (and what is a masterpiece without a flaw!)
-All his Bogart films are terrific
-I am a fan of 'Roots of Heaven' tho rarely do I find anyone to share my enthusiasm... but what a cast, all broiling in the African equator, either plunked out or fuming over their situation...
Dr. Marzol, can you elaborate on your 'Under the Volcano', 'The Dead', 'Reflections in a Golden Eye' and other docs you mentioned? are they in dvd format, video or lazer disk...

[Jeff Wilson]

Picture is in print, having just been published in a 50th anniversary edition last year; you can order it at the link below...

Picture at Amazon

[Harvey Chartrand]

Huston, Hitchcock and Welles: The Pantheon of Great Directors.
I saw Roman Polanski's The Pianist a few nights ago and realized that he is the last great director still living. Among his many triumphs, Polanski drew out John Huston's best acting performance in Chinatown.
Huston was an eclectic genius. Why is The Barbarian and the Geisha so hard to find? It's never shown on TV up here. Yet it marks the only time that Huston worked with John Wayne. I LOVE The Roots of Heaven — years ahead of its time and featuring a once-in-a-lifetime cast (Welles, Herbert Lom, Paul Lukas, Juliette Greco, etc.).

[Welles Fan]

Maybe the pink-tinted film is Moby Dick? I remember reading about the "washed-out" effect Huston wanted with cinematographer Oswald Morris. I think something was also done to the film during the processing as well. I seem to remember Huston being amused when people thought something had gone wrong with the color, which looked exactly like he wanted it to. I love the film, BTW, though do not expect to see much of Melville's symbolism in it. BTW-I really liked the guy who played Queequeg. I think I remember reading that he was a friend of Huston's who rode in foxhunts with him. A non-actor named Count Frederic Ledebur.

I like all the early stuff with Bogart, and I believe Huston wrote the screenplay for Sergeant York, (one of the rare times I've liked Gary Cooper in a movie). I'm not hugely into late Huston, though I loved The Man Who Would Be King.

Reflections in a Golden Eye is so weird it's downright campy IMO, but Brando is terrific in it.

A couple of unusual ones I have not seen in a long time: Freud (1962) with Monty Clift as Sigmund. I remember it beaing rather dreary, and basically a sort of "Intro to Freud 101" course. He also made a strange medieval romance whose title was, I believe A Walk With Love and Death, or something to that effect, which I seem to remember as being little more than a vehicle for his aspiring daughter Anjelica. I'd like to see those movies again since I was in my teens when I saw them, and they may be better than I remember.

I'm also interested in the new release of Red Badge of Courage. I've never read what went wrong with it, but I always liked the film the way it is. Maybe the new release is some sort of special edition?

[Fredric]

What about Huston's own "An Open Book"? Is that any good? "Picture" sounds like a definite must-have. I'll acquire one immediately.

[Fredric]

Thanks for all the responses! Another topic on Huston I've heard kicked around seems to be this: Why is Hawks considered an Auteur by the French but not Huston?

What I find interesting is that for every film someone dislikes, somone eles adores it. I'm even intrigued to see his horror film "Phobia". I saw Annie as a young-un and liked it. I saw "Victory" as a teen and liked it, too. These three are considered to be his slump, but then afterward, we get Under the Volcano, Prizzi's Honor and The Dead. I watched his last film twice over two nights. It really is a tremendous film.

Anybody know anything about the original cut of Beat the Devil?

[Fredric]

Bought "Picture" through Jeff's Link to Amazon. Looking forward to reading this. "Wise Blood" is great, as is all Flannery O'Connor.

[jaime marzol]

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fredric, how could i forget AN OPEN BOOK. it's excellent.

jeff, great news about PICTURE being reprinted.

harvey, BARBARIAN AND THE GEISHA shows here often. showed a few weeks ago on TCM. huston said that after he put the film together it wasn't so bad. it was ok, then john wayne got his hands on it and had a lot of it recut. wayne didn't like the way he looked in some of the takes huston used. i'm not a fan of ROOTS OF HEAVEN.

the film wellesfan referes to is MOULIN ROUGE. o.morris, cinematographer, on the set was approached by the technicolor people who said that the production was desecrating their process, and they would not be responsible for the outcome. morris went to huston, repeated what he was told. huston said, "i think we are on the right track, what do you think, kid?" morris agreed with huston. huston said, "go tell the gentlemen to go fuck themselves."

in DANGEROUS FRIENDS there is great coverage on huston's odd relationship with hemingway.

fredric, the documentaries i come across here and there. if sometime you'd like to trade, i'm open to that. they are all excellent. huston is such an interesting guy, how could they not be. i've read maybe 30, or 40 screenplays of excellent films, by excellent writers. the most impressive, are TAXI DRIVER, then TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. the SIERRA MADRE screenplay is available in book form, from wisconsin university press. have been searching high and low for KEY LARGO screenplay. was also put out by wisconsin U press.

[jaime marzol]

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almost forgot, WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART. book is good, an interesting read. the movie is good if you are a huston fan. after the first 10, or 15 minutes, you begin to accept eastwood as huston.

the movie doesn't have much from the book.

viertel said after he wrote the book he met huston on the set of MOULIN ROUGE, in the club. there was huston sitting in his chair doing a crossword puzzle, while the club people were freaking out from the klieg dust flying all over the room. huston could care less, viertel said. huston hated big productions. they bored him. viertel said huston offered to read the manuscript for the book. viertel said, no, that huston was busy now. huston insisted it was no problem, he would read it over night. the next day viertel came to the set expecting to hear that huston didn't have time to get to it, but huston had read the entire book, and marked ideas, and thoughts on the margins.

[Welles Fan]

Jaime: I agree that the "standing on knees technique" in Moulin Rouge was pretty bogus. Too bad, because Ferrer bore a strong resemblance to Lautrec.

Maybe they should've used the technique they used on John Leguizamo's Toulouse in Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge!-he also walked on his knees, but he had some sort of ankle/shoe contraption on his knees, while his lower legs were either hidden by his coat tails or were digitally removed. I'm not sure how they hid them exactly, but he did appear to be a dwarfish guy (he's rather short anyway), and it looked as if his feet were attached to his legs.

My main problem with Huston's Moulin Rouge is that I don't like movies about self-pitying drunks. That's why I've never gotten through Under the Volcano, though maybe I should give it another chance.

[jaime marzol]

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i don't think i saw the guy in UNDER THE VOLCANO as a self pittying drunk. i don't know what i saw him as. he was funny though. that scene where he has a fit, runs down the street and falls flat on his face, i was laughing. next time you watch it, wellesfan, look for all the little signs huston inserts in the film letting you know that doom awaits the finney character.

UNDER THE VOLCANO also has a bitching credit sequence. i love the credits sequence. it was such a joy when i found the documentary, to find they covered the filming of that credit sequence. most directors don't direct the credit sequences of their films. when i saw the director credit over the learing, skull puppet, holding a beer bottle like it was his penis, ahh, i knew it was huston directing it.

have not seen the new MOULIN ROUGE, but jose ferrer just didn't quite pull it off for me. i didn't like the film a lot, but technically, it's great.

[Fredric]

I did read somewhere that Latrec's "dwarfism" was limited to his legs and that he did resemble a man standing on his knees, if that helps anyone appreciate the performance better. I haven't seen it yet, of course. I did, however, just order both "An Open Book" and "Beat the Devil" from Half.com. Both for 10 bucks, including shipping, wasn't a bad deal.