Mitchell Leisen

[Gregory]

I would also hesitate to suggest Death Takes a Holiday to anyone wanting to get a feel for (or reassess) the director. However, I think that in some key thematic respects it is Leisen's cup of tea, and he does some genuinely interesting things with it.

The comparison between the films Leisen and Sturges directed is an interesting one, although it naturally leads to questions of inferiority/superiority, which make me a little uneasy here. It does seem to me that people who are giving Sturges the upper hand are privileging writing and acting. Visually, Leisen's best films run rings around anything by Sturges, at least in my view. I do not mean this as a general insult to Sturges, some of whose work I treasure. David, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean about everything hinging on the actors in the Leisen comedies. Also, I don't want to be disagreeable but in my view tempo is not the end-all-be-all of screwball comedy, which to me has more fundamental generic qualities that one can observe in Hands Across and others.

[Revelator]

I forgot Leisen did Hands Across the Table. That one is wonderful, as is Midnight. I guess I was just shocked at how unimpressed I was by Remember the Night. I guess I was expecting a masterpiece on scale of the Lady Eve when I saw both names involved.

Midnight is wonderful. Remember the Night is less successful because the script was crap. I love Sturges, but he can't blame Leisen for a shitty script.

I guess that has to be it. It's just hard to believe Sturges could ever write a bad script.

He didn't--Remember the Night is one of the best scripts he ever wrote. But it's melodrama with comedic moments, not a comedy with dramatic parts, like his 40s films. Had Sturges directed the film it might have been his masterpiece. As it is Leisen did a very good job--the acting and lighting are superb and he trimmed the endless getting-lost scene, along with some of the racist gags with Snowflake. However, his small-scale cuts and revisions often dilute the dramatic impact, especially when Leisen snips lines meant to appear more than once (like the first instance of the one about making a mistake and paying for it).
I read the script before watching the film and was bowled over--it's the most nakedly emotional script Sturges ever wrote, and that harrowing intensity of emotion doesn't quite make it into the film (which is still a classic).

[Svevan]

On Wednesday there was a mini-Leisen fest on TCM (which I just got access to; what've I been missing, honestly). I was only able to catch two of the flicks, unfortunately, and I'm kicking myself as a few that I've missed aren't available on DVD.

So I saw Midnight and To Each His Own. Great counterparts to each other as they're wildly different in plot and tone, but similar in other ways: high/low class conflicts, finances play a huge role in both, and both have lead female characters who make the best of their male-dominated society. Since these were my first Leisens, I haven't yet noticed any stylistic or visual traits specific to him, but I'm planning to watch more soon. Turns out I have a couple on DVD already in box sets, like the Dietrich set.

A lot has been said about Midnight so far in this thread (and it's totally wonderful), but not a lot about To Each His Own. This movie knocked me out. Perhaps it's been a long week, or perhaps I drank too much, but I was surprised at how the melodramatic plot captivated me and tugged at me - though emotionally true, the plot is not totally believable in parts. Yet it works because of de Havilland's honest performance and the film's lack of pessimism even as events get dire. Someone earlier mentioned Leisen's genre-mixing, and here he's got a great British WWII film (opening scenes reminded me of P+P, esp. Canterbury Tale), a women's issue film, a piece of small-town Americana, a romance, plus some comedy mixed in. I was surprised to laugh at moments that were otherwise very serious, including the heartbreaking and redemptive ending (I wanted to remember more lines, but the only one I can remember now is "The more I hear about these cozy little towns the more I appreciate the Bronx."). It's a longer film, and it goes so many different places yet still feels of one piece. I don't know what else to say right now but that I loved it.

It's playing on TCM again a week from Sunday (Mother's day, appropriately); watch it with your mom if you can, but if she doesn't want to, watch it by yourself. I'm definitely going in for another taste.

[vivahawks]

Wanted to chime in with some extra praise for To Each His Own--Leisen really balances the comedy and tear-jerking expertly. There's a nice give-and-take between Brackett's sharp, sarcastic script ("What started as love might end as diabetes") and the gentle touches Leisen supplies--I really like what he does with a glass of milk. It's not perfect (there's some typically atrocious child acting and a somewhat rushed ending), but there's a lot to love here. It's been a while since I saw it but more bits and pieces here have stuck in my mind than most movies I've seen since. It might also make a nice companion/counterpoint to the more straightforwardly nostalgic but no less wonderful Margie, made the same year.

[Red Screamer]

Mark Rappaport's auteurist defence of Leisen on the occasion of his Cinémathèque française retrospective. I don't agree with all of what Rappaport says, but it's a good jumping off point for exploring Leisen's work (the Criterion Channel is a godsend for those of us in video rental wastelands, particularly for filmographies that are largely DVD-bound). Hat's off as well to David Hare's loving contributions in this very thread.

[Tim]

Has anyone found a decent edition of Swing High, Swing Low? I ordered what I thought was a TCM edition recently only to discover that it was from another label and even more dire than the one I already had, which was pretty well unwatchable.

[DeprongMori]

Has anyone found a decent edition of Swing High, Swing Low? I ordered what I thought was a TCM edition recently only to discover that it was from another label and even more dire than the one I already had, which was pretty well unwatchable.

I’m guessing that if the version of this Paramount film that’s being streamed on the Paramount+ service looks like it was dragged out of PD Hell that there’s probably nothing better out there.