High Society

Resensi Film: High Society (7.8/10)

Tahun Keluar: 1956
Negara Asal: USA
Sutradara: Charles Walters
Cast: Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra

Plot: Remake dari The Philadelphia Story (1940) -- ketika reporter majalah gosip muncul sehari sebelum hari perkawinan (kedua)-nya, Tracy Samantha Lord terpaksa menjalani "crash course" tentang masa lalu dengan bekas suaminya, ketidakharmonisan hubungan dengan ayahnya, dan ... menemukan siapa dirinya, the truth about herself! -- tetapi digarap dengan memasukkan musik dan lirik (IMDb).

Melihat rating High Society di IMDb, penulis termasuk salah satu dari sedikit film critic yang memberi review positif untuk film ini. Mengapa? Berganti setting dari Philadephia ke Newport, Rhode Island, High Society mempunyai detil plot dan karakter-2 yang sama dengan film pendahulunya -- sebagian dari dialognya, walaupun tidak sama persis, verbatim, juga sama dengan dialog dalam film pendahulunya. Satu perbedaan critical di antara keduanya adalah High Society menggantikan sebagian (besar) dialog yang tajam dan sarkastik dari Donald Ogden Stewart dengan sembilan musik dan lirik yang top-notch dari Cole Porter -- membuat High Society menjadi film yang energetic dan entertaining. Memang betul, gara-2 penggantian tersebut High Society menjadi kekurangan satire yang tajam, sarkasme yang lucu, dan karakterisasi yang kompleks (tiga hal yang membuat The Philadelphia Story unggul), tetapi ... untuk penulis, musik dan lirik dari Cole Porter berhasil dengan sangat baik 'make up' (bahasa Jawa-nya, 'nempuhi') kekurangan-2 tersebut. Ini adalah alasan atau excuse dari penulis :-)

Betul, penulis dapat membuktikan mengapa High Society patut menerima review positif. High Society memiliki 4 elemen yang menarik:

1) Romans; lebih romantik, tetapi tidak pernah sentimental atau berlebihan.

2) Dialog; walaupun kekurangan "pukulan telak" (seperti telah dijelaskan di atas), tetapi tetap menarik. Sebagai contoh: dialog paling menarik, without a doubt, adalah antara Tracy Samantha Lord (Grace Kelly) dan Macaulay "Mike" Connor (Frank Sinatra) ketika mereka berkendara di seputar Newport: mula-2 bercanda, tetapi kemudian berubah menjadi sarkastik tentang topik kekayaan, orang kaya, dan perbedaan kelas sosial. Aha ! ... ini yang penulis tunggu-2, yang terasa kurang digali di film pendahulunya. Dalam beberapa scene sebelumnya, dialog antara Mike dan rekan fotografer-nya, Elizabeth Imbrie (Celeste Holm), ketika mereka 'ngrasani' habis-2an orang kaya juga witty (orisinil, tajam, dan sekaligus humorous) dan tentu saja dengan dosis prejudice yang cukup tinggi. Dialog witty tersebut kemudian diakhiri dengan mereka berduet menyanyikan lagu yang juga witty, liriknya satiris dan menggelitik, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" -- siapa yang nyangka lebih dari 40 tahun kemudian ada acara Game Show di TV yang memperoleh namanya dari judul lagu tersebut?! Dan mereka yang menghayati lirik lagu tersebut pasti tidak akan ikut acara permainan berhadiah tersebut :-)

3) Superstar cast; penyanyi bersuara bass-baritone, sekaligus aktor, Bing Crosby berperan sebagai bekas suami Tracy, C.K. Dexter Haven, screen goddess Grace Kelly sebagai Tracy, dan penyanyi swing, juga sekaligus aktor, Frank Sinatra sebagai reporter, Mike -- ketiganya mempunyai chemistry yang klop! Well, saat itu Crosby sesungguhnya sudah agak "has been", maksudnya ketenarannya sudah mulai turun; Sinatra sedang memerlukan publisitas baru setelah beberapa tahun absen dari menyanyi; tetapi Kelly sedang berada di puncak popularitasnya. Tetapi sekarang, melihat film ini sebagai film klasik, ketiganya adalah superstar pada jamannya. Semuanya, termasuk Kelly, mendapat kesempatan untuk menyanyi, dan wow ... mereka tampil prima dan mempesona. Cast pendukung, Louis Calhern berperan sebagai Uncle Willie tampil komik sebagai sasaran konspirasi Tracy, Lydia Reed sebagai adik Tracy tampil cheeky untuk mengimbangi sarkasme kakaknya, dan terutama Celeste Holm sebagai Elizabeth Imbrie menjadi sidekick yang berhasil mengimbangi kharisma para pemeran utamanya. Dan satu lagi ... penyanyi jazz legendaris, Louis Armstrong (!), tampil sebagai dirinya sendiri.

4) Musik dan lirik yang super indah dari Cole Porter (seperti telah disebutkan di atas); musiknya melantunkan melodi yang lembut dan intim, yang menitikberatkan pada lirik dan gaya yang cantik. Armstrong membuka film dengan lagu berirama calypso "High Society" yang ringan dan mudah, liriknya menceritakan latar belakang cerita yang bakal disampaikan. Sinatra dan Holm berduet menyanyikan "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" yang satiris dan menggelitik. Crosby dan Kelly berduet menyanyikan "True Love" yang romantik dan timeless. Crosby dan Armstrong berduet menyanyikan "Now You Has Jazz" yang smooth dan energetic, yang merupakan puncak performance dalam film ini (this is a must-see-performance!) Crosby dan Sinatra berduet menyanyikan "Well, Did You Evah?" yang catchy dan classy. Crosby dan Sinatra masing-2 tampil mempesona membawakan lagu-2 solonya: "I Love You, Samantha" (Crosby) -- instrumental dari Armstrong betul-2 romantic dan dreamy, "You're Sensational" dan lagu berirama rumba "Mind If I Make Love To You" (Sinatra). Hasil akhirnya, High Society adalah salah satu dari musical-2 terbesar produksi studio MGM. Tidak seperti musical-2 jaman sekarang yang sering-2 merupakan sekedar usaha untuk menjual soundtracks, High Society tidak hanya mempunyai bunyi dan suara, tetapi juga mempunyai hati dan jiwa!

Soundtracks selengkapnya dari High Society adalah sebagai berikut:

• "High Society" (calypso) - Louis Armstrong
• "Little One" - Bing Crosby
• "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" - Frank Sinatra & Celeste Holm
• "True Love" - Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly
• "You're Sensational" - Frank Sinatra
• "I Love You, Samantha" - Bing Crosby
• "Now You Has Jazz" - Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong
• "Well, Did You Evah?" - Bing Crosby & Frank Sinatra
• "Mind If I Make Love To You" (rumba) - Frank Sinatra

Performance dalam film ini memberi hidup dan vitalitas kepada karakter-2nya, dan musiknya membuat film ini tidak pernah kehilangan pesonanya.

Dari segi akting, walaupun Crosby yang berperan sebagai C.K. Dexter Haven tidak sebaik Cary Grant dalam film pendahulunya, Crosby berhasil menampilkan karakter yang simpatik, yang membuat penonton secara instinctive menyukai dirinya -- penonton ingin dia "menjinakkan" Tracy (ingat "The Taming of the Shrew"-nya Shakespeare?) dan "menjatuhkan Tracy dari pedestal-nya" (to knock the goddess off her pedestal) :-) Sedang Sinatra, lebih daripada James Stewart dalam film pendahulunya, menambahkan kualitas masculinity untuk perannya sebagai Macaulay Connor. Dan tidak dapat dipungkiri, the real scene-stealer dalam film ini adalah Kelly! Kelly, yang karier aktingnya pendek tetapi spektakuler, menunjukkan bagaimana pesona dirinya dapat menaklukkan hati penonton di seluruh dunia. Walaupun interpretasi Kelly terhadap karakter Tracy Samantha Lord tidak dapat mengalahkan interpretasi Katharine Hepburn terhadap karakter tersebut, Kelly nonetheless berhasil memerankan Tracy dengan meyakinkan (tampil lovely, sekaligus icy). High Society adalah film terakhir Kelly sebelum dia menikah dengan Pangeran Rainier dari Monaco dan mengundurkan diri dari dunia perfilman.

Dari segi arahan, sutradara Charles Walters menjaga semuanya "low-key". Dan dengan musik dan lirik yang super indah dan para aktor/penyanyi yang super prima, mereke justru tampil bersinar dan cemerlang, sedemikian rupa sehingga tidak ada sesuatupun yang terasa kurang. Well done.

Untuk penulis, nonton High Society adalah seperti minum susu coklat panas di malam yang dingin.

Ketika filmnya berakhir, tiba-2 hati menjadi sedih, karena tidak ingin berpisah ... please, don't end ...

* 7.8/10

High Society dapat anda temukan di eBay.com

Mogambo

Movie Review: Mogambo

Year of Release: 1953
Country of Origin: USA
Director: John Ford
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly

Plot outline: Victor Marswell, the owner of a big game trapping company in Kenya, becomes involved with the new wife of his guest (IMDb).

All your favorite African animals make cameo appearances. Lions, elephants, leopards, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos, crocodiles, impalas. Even the secretary bird is a bit player, so Gardner can crack a joke about a female secretary ducking the advances of a male executive. Clark Gable is too old for the role, Victor Marswell, even though he was the lead in the successful original version, Red Dust (1932). But they say that power attracts, and certainly Gable is the big man on campus. For the crime of letting a panther escape, rather than tear off his limbs, Gable punches his less reliable white assistant, who naturally goes down for the count. Assault is less likely to solve his greater problem, whether to go blonde or brunette. In this case, the brunette is more fun, but the blonde burns with an intense heat. Through it all, the odd man out isn't really Gardner, who gets to spar with all concerned while playing the role of heartbroken but chin up second choice lover. The sap is Kelly's husband, Nordley, who chalks up her refusal to sleep with him as a disinclination for African camp life. When he's out of the way, Kelly exchanges torrid glances with Gable, but doesn't go much further because she's a good girl at heart, and there were no "R" rated movies in 1953. Even in Africa, it's a white man's world. Blacks are servants, scouts, laborers, hunters, and warriors. But they certainly aren't equals, and none appear to speak even broken English. However, Gable and his two fellow white trappers speak any native language fluently, regardless of which tribe they are obliged to exploit. A good script, a famous cast, a legendary director. All the ingredients are there, but the recipe for greatness proves elusive once again. It's not just the use of animals as props and atmosphere, or Gardner's ceaseless badgering of whatever living being is closest to her (she needs a dog!) The problem comes back to the premise. This 1953 version of Clark Gable isn't such a great catch. Couldn't Ford have cast his buddy John Wayne instead? (BK)

My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

Movie Review: The Bridges at Toko-Ri

Year of Release: 1954
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Mark Robson
Cast: William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March, Mickey Rooney

Plot outline: Set during the Korean War, a Navy fighter pilot must come to terms with with his own ambivalence towards the war and the fear of having to bomb a set of highly defended bridges (IMDb).

This movie representation of the part of Navy fliers in the Korean war - and especially of one jet pilot who commits himself to his duty gallantly -not only is true to the original, but also succeeds in bringing the whole thing excitingly alive. The best stuff in this picture are the accounts of aircraft carrier operations and of Navy men afloat and ashore. They are the details of ready-room briefings, of shooting jet planes off cold flight decks, of crackling communications among the planes in the air, of bombing runs on Korean targets, of nerve-racking landings back on the deck and of hasty, heroic maneuvers by the helicopter fellows to fish downed pilots out of the sea. Respect for the heroic effort is immediately inspired. But, of course, there is more to this picture than the mere documenting of ships and planes. There is a poignant story of naval personnel - of a "retread" jet-plane pilot who resents having been called back for this war, of his crisply efficient group commander, his task force admiral and several more. And there is, in a brief but pregnant passage, an indication of the jet pilot's wife and of the pull of his love for his family, from which he has been torn away. In putting forth their stories, the producers and director Mark Robson have been as meticulous and authentic as they have been with Navy details. They have cast the movie to perfection and seen that it is played with rare restraint. William Holden, who plays the pilot, shows a man of mature intelligence, collecting himself for a perilous effort, from which he sees there is no backing down. Fredric March as the paternalistic admiral fairly cracks with the tension of concern, and Charles McGraw as the air group commander carries grave responsibilities with grim resolve. Grace Kelly is briefly bewitching as the pilot's wife, who visits him in Japan, and Mickey Rooney is a pint-sized tornado as a helicopter pilot who loves to clown and fight. Robert Strauss, Earl Holliman and Richard Shannon are solid as other personnel. The questions put in this picture as to the point of the Korean war and the great personal sacrifices in it are not answered, nor are the answers sought. Its purpose is not to answer questions. Its purpose simply is to show the human and professional resolution, organization and sacrifice that prosecution of the war required. And it has fulfilled this purpose in a truly efficient and moving way. (NYT)

My judgement: *** out of 4 stars

Dial M for Murder

Movie Review: Dial M for Murder

Year of Release: 1954
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson

Plot outline: An ex-tennis pro carries out a plot to murder his wife. When things go wrong, he improvises a brilliant plan B (IMDb).

Faithfully adapted from Frederick Knott's stage play of the same title, Dial M for Murder is one of Hitchcock’s most confined works - the story virtually takes place in just one set - yet it is also one of his most compelling thrillers, and a practically flawless piece of direction. The casting is possibly the most inspired; the choice of camera shots could hardly be improved upon; and the pace is relentless. It may not be the most ambitious, glitzy or cinematic of Hitchcock’s movies, but it is certainly one of his most perfectly constructed and absorbing movies. Dial M for Murder was the movie that established Grace Kelly as a major actress in Hollywood - and many would argue that it was here that she gave her best performance in her all too short career. A favourite of Hitchcock, she would appear in two of his subsequent movies: Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. Opposite Grace Kelly is another highly regarded actor, Ray Milland, whose portrayal of the movie's villain achieves that perfect union of seductive charm and calculating evil which is found only in career politicians and double glazing salesmen. Like so many other classic Hitchcock villains, it is Milland’s character that the audience identifies with and, perversely, wants to see succeed - although this is partly because his opponent, Robert Cummings's good guy, is such an unlikeably bland blob of nothingness. The movie’s other notable performance is from the charmingly avuncular John Williams, who plays just about the only sympathetic (and intelligent) police chief in any Hitchcock movies. Williams was the actor whom Hitchcock employed most often; he appeared in two other movies: The Paradine Case and To Catch a Thief, and also ten episodes of the hit TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Not only is Dial M for Murder a great movie, it's also a veritable gold mine for fans of movie trivia. (JT)

My judgement: ***1/2 out of 4 stars

Rear Window

Movie Review: Rear Window

Year of Release: 1954
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr

Plot outline: A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment's rear window and becomes convinced that one of them has committed murder (IMDb).

Based on the short story It Had to Be Murder by Cornell Woolrich, Rear Window is Hitchcock's most sophisticated masterpiece and one of his best works. The first time I watched this movie, I was dumbfounded finding myself glued to the screen, from start to finish, watching out of L. B. Jefferies' apartment's rear window, across the courtyard and into his neighbours' apartments to see their goings on. It seemed so boring but yet I found it incredibly captivating. I didn't understand why. Later on, when I watched the making of this movie, I found the explanation to that "mystery". It is our obsession with voyeurism that keep our attention on what's happening inside those apartments. The effect of being able to see without being seen is spellbinding. L.B. Jefferies passes his time looking into his neighbours' apartments in an orgy of voyeurism. The camera tracks in through the windows, but never goes inside those apartments. We never see close-ups of the characters. We only see what he sees. We feel like we watch people through a window instead of in a movie. The main story takes place in his apartment (where the camera is), it includes he himself (James Stewart); his girlfriend, Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly); his friend, Det. Lt. Thomas J. Doyle (Wendell Corey); and his nurse, Stella (Thelma Ritter). Looking out through his apartment's rear window he finds voyeuristic adventures (substories with their own plots and resolutions) of the ballerina, Miss Torso; the spinster, Miss Lonelyheart; the bachelor/the songwriter; the sculptor with hearing aid; the newlywed couple; the doting couple and their dog; and the salesman and his nagging wife. These substories are as equally important as the main story. Without realizing it L. B. Jefferies looks at different aspects of either himself or his relationship with his girlfriend. These people and their predicaments represent different sides of his (and to a lesser extent his girlfriend's) personality, offering glimpses of potential past, present and future selves; and it is not always a flattering picture. No wonder Stewart's character is reluctant to commit to his irresistible girlfriend! I love this movie - every frame and every dialogue is perfect. It rewards both careful attention and repeat viewings. I've seen this movie many times and every time I see it I always find something different. The fact that Hitchcock doesn't use any kind of music - we only hear the sounds of mere realism, e.g. natural sounds or live music played in the surrounding apartments - makes the movie even more realistic. Grace Kelly mesmerizes the audience with her utter elegance. Thelma Ritter almost steals the show with her wise-cracking dialogue. Wendell Corey is believable with his dismissive attitude. While Raymond Burr is great in one of his last villainous roles before Perry Mason. Three memorable scenes that etch into my mind: 1) Miss Lonelyheart, in her romantic dinner for two, raises her glass to her imaginary lover and Stewart from afar raises his glass too (with beautiful background song of "To See You is to Love You" performed by Bing Crosby), 2) Stewart and Kelly's smoldering kisses, 3) Stewart's fighting off his attacker with flashbulbs. Rear Window is a classic that will be enjoyed not only by thriller fans, but also anyone who appreciates carefully crafted movies with a lot of depth. It received four Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Writing, Best Cinematography and Best Sound. For me, it is Hitchcock's best movie and number 1 in my favourite list.

My judgement: **** out of 4 stars

To Catch a Thief

Movie Review: To Catch a Thief

Year of Release: 1955
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly

Plot outline: When a reformed jewel thief is suspected of returning to his former occupation, he must ferret out the real thief in order to prove his innocence (IMDb).

Compared to other Hitchcock's masterpiece, this movie is ligther and has less suspense. Nevertheless, several things undoubtedly mesmerize audience. Here working with Cary Grant - his favourite leading man, and Grace Kelly - his favourite leading woman, Hitchcock creates delightful escapism. A retired (reformed?) thief living in a beautiful villa overlooking magnificent French Riviera ... it makes me really want to be (and this is the only time I really want to be) a retired thief! A rarefied atmosphere and panoramic breathtaking view of southern France in the 50s - the people and the place: wealthy people with expensive jewelry, haute couture, nights at the casinos, ever-flowing Champagne, the sun and the beaches, the mountains and the winding roads. After all that, Hitchcock completes this fantasy with an intriguing copycat case of a mysterious cat burglar and snappy dialogue that hightens sexual innuendo between already got great chemistry Grant and Kelly. The scene of Kelly speeding, swerving along the cliffside roads is eerie (considering what happened to her later). This is the movie people would love to watch over and over again.

My judgement: *** out of 4 stars