The Mankiewicz Dispatches: NYFF52. GUYS AND DOLLS

Mankiewicz's lone musical was for the longest time one of only two that I could even tolerate, let alone love. The other being Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' WEST SIDE STORY. The fact that their narratives involve rumbling teen gang members and colorfully eloquent, cooly elegant gamblers, respectively, had done much to boost their stock with me, I've long surmised. Bronx boy here.

I've been making a concerted effect to conduct an expansive expedition of the genre, however, after finally watching SINGIN' IN THE RAIN for the first time. Three years ago. I know. I'm a terrible human being.

I'm learning to appreciate the movie musical, not just the later deconstructions like Bob Fosse’s ALL THAT JAZZ or Coppola’s ONE FROM THE HEART, but the classic Freed unit output, or Zinnemann’s SEVEN BRIDES or Lang’s THE KING AND I, key work from the genre's Golden Age. I’ve broadened my cinematic boundaries, I thank ye, embracing rather than shunning the novelty of film characters breaking out in song and dance in the middle of some crucial narrative beat. Nobody ever spoke like Shakespeare's best dialogue suggests we're capable of either, sometimes art is about the grace denied us in the real world, not its mirroring.

In the wake of this new exciting journey into musicological dramaturgy, I attended my first big-screen viewing of Mank’s song & dance adap, a peculiar turn perhaps in a career littered with literary if stagey think pieces, full of intellectual impress if not overt cinematic flourish. I remain an impassioned devotee of this film, in fact made more so by the DCP replication of its original Technicolor/Cinemascope brilliance.

I did make note of some personal observations, by which I means observations of my own person, a newer understanding of my predilections. Keep it clean, kiddos. As I gradually nurture an appreciation for the movie musical I see that what may have been Mank’s apprehension at fully embracing the unbridled id of the form, a restraint if not fully a repression, perhaps best symbolized by Jean Simmons’ neurotic popping and unpopping of a shirt button, may have been part of its attraction for yours truly, being not at all entranced once upon a time by the more showy, even outlandish aspects of the genre. There is a wry knowingness brought to the proceedings, a slight dampening of the movie musical’s usual foofaraw, expressed in the film’s stylized yet muted color scheme, and deadpan, sometimes cautious interaction and reaction between the principals. An extension of source author Damon Runyon’s acerbic verbal slapstick, a quality many have suggested the key selling point in Mank’s acceptance of this director’s bullhorn, one that separates the film from its peers in the genre. Dare I say Mank planted the seeds for the form’s eventual deconstruction and meta resurrection?

Or was it just the wonderful friction between Brando and Sinatra, the latter bruised over his perceived miscasting - which I personally believe unfounded - the former’s increased self-doubt over a singing role; the involvement of innovative choreographer Michael Kidd in the hoofery and its camera staging; the deft carrying-over of stage triumphs Vivian Blaine and Stubby Kaye in their jersey-retiring roles; ultimately the perfection of the original production, ruinable only, in the words of DEATHTRAP’s fictional playwright Sidney Bruhl, by “a gifted director”.

Not so, sez me. Not entirely anyway. The film has many great qualities, some carried over from the stage production. The songs, the music, some of its original key cast. Then there are the crucial decisions made in its translation to the screen. For those who think Mank a journeyman only I advise stay mindful of his contributions. He also penned the screen adaptation of the musical. He stirred the Runyonesque proceedings to their appropriate froth, and I’m not referring to the head on a cappuccino.

Most pivotal, I might argue, was the casting of Jean Simmons as Sister Sarah. Apocrypha might have it that Mank capped the first day of shooting by walking over to his female lead, kissing her on the cheek, and declaring “I’m so glad Grace Kelly was unavailable!” For me, Simmons not only owns the role, she makes the film. Simmons’ greatest asset as actor was her unbridled, effusive vulnerability, and she was always ready to open like an inviting book for her directors. As kicky and cool the film’s attitude might be, as astute the casting, whatever some might say about Brando, the story hinges on the perfect and unwinnable heart of Sister Sarah. Which makes the gamble by both Sky Masterson and the film’s director equally precarious. Brando won her onscreen. Mank won her for audiences worldwide, and for cinema eternity.

Next up, 1954's THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA and 1947's THE LATE GEORGE APLEY. Stay tuned to this site for complete coverage of the #Mankrospective at this year’s NYFF! See ya mañana!

- Joe Walsh