Comments on: Eating (and Drinking and Sleeping) Raoul

By: mercadeo en linea

mercadeo en linea — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Walsh films regularly include models: not women modeling clothes, but scale models. Artists and Models has one of the best: a huge scale model of an Art Deco skyscraper complex. The skyscraper is incredibly futuristic looking. In fact, it looks like the buildings comic book artist Carmine Infantino would later draw for the planet Rann in Adam Strange (1959-1964). The skyscraper has many circular and rounded features. A spiral light seems to rotate in one of the towers. Judy Canova and Ben Blue have a big duet in a flowered arbor, making Canova one of many Walsh heroines associated with flowers. A similar arbor will have love scenes in College Swing. Towards the end, Blue climbs the arbor, then back down. It is a charming scene involving that Walsh favorite, heights.

By: michaelgloversmith

michaelgloversmith — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:39:57 +0000

Thanks for stopping by, Jake. I too used to think of Walsh as someone who had an “invisible” style in the best Hollywood tradition. However, the more I looked at his films, the more I started to discern a highly distinctive style. Believe it or not, it was the comedies (especially Sailor’s Luck, The Bowery and Me and My Gal) that really made me feel like I understood what Walsh was all about. I highly recommend the Moss book.

By: Jake Cole

Jake Cole — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:05:09 +0000

Fantastic post. I’ve only seen a handful of Walsh pictures, but I’d rate all of them as fantastic. And though I completely agree that he has a definable style not often championed, part of what drew me to him was that old Hollywood workman quality; I didn’t even realize that so many classic movies that I loved were all by the same person until I started actually looking into Walsh’s filmography and realized I’d already seen some and not realized it. I want to get that recent Marilyn Ann Moss book on Walsh. I’ve heard good things.

By: michaelgloversmith

michaelgloversmith — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 02:51:26 +0000

Thanks for the reply. I really like your comments on the “explosive” qualities of Walsh’s “instinctual” performers. I recently read Marilyn Moss’ Walsh bio and was not surprised to learn that Walsh frequently allowed his actors to improvise (the most famous example of which is probably Cagney’s prison cafeteria freak-out in White Heat). I think this is often what gives Walsh’s movies their distinctive energy. You might be interested to know that I’m writing another post soon comparing Walsh and Kathryn Bigelow.

I also like Objective Burma but not as much as the other Flynns on the list.

By: Grand Old Moviesg

Grand Old Moviesg — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 02:10:57 +0000

Great post on an overseen director. One of my favorite Walsh films is ‘Objective Burma,’ with a fluid use of both action and space, and also stillness – probably a quality we don’t associate with Walsh, but he could create tension in a frame by holding the camera still for long moments, only to have action erupt – I think of near the ending of ‘Objective Burma,’ when the tanks come roaring over the hill, almost seemingly out of nowhere. Walsh could also get this same quality from his actors; note how he uses both Lupino and Bogart in ‘They Drive By Night’ I(which they made before ‘High Sierra’). Lupino’s performance is often commented on in this film as her star-making moment (especially her courtroom scene), but also note how suddenly explosive Bogey can be in his scenes. Walsh seemed to like to work with more instinctual actors (such as Lupino or Cagney), probably because he could get such moments from them.

By: chrisfilm

chrisfilm — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:50:01 +0000

Nice writeup. Glad to see Colorado Territory towards the top of your list. That’s been the only Walsh I’ve liked so far, but I’m eager to try more after reading this.

By: david

david — Tue, 29 May 2012 06:32:53 +0000

Wonderful essay,this is exactly what I need from a director I know nothing about before reading this. I need to return to it over and over again after I started watching his films.

By: silver price

silver price — Tue, 29 May 2012 03:27:39 +0000

By: michaelgloversmith

michaelgloversmith — Tue, 29 May 2012 00:46:38 +0000

Thanks for the detailed response, Fredrik. You make a good point about Walsh’s “journalistic” side. I think this comes through especially strongly in period films like The Bowery, The Strawberry Blonde and Gentleman Jim. The period details are so lovingly done, especially because of what’s happening in the background.

While I wouldn’t rate Walsh quite as highly as Ford, Hitchcock or Welles, I actually would rank him above Hawks. I love Hawks but Walsh is more of a visual poet and therefore his style speaks to me more.

By: Fredrik Gustafsson

Fredrik Gustafsson — Mon, 28 May 2012 23:00:28 +0000

This is an excellent post! For the last two years I’ve been re-watching all the Walsh films I’ve already seen and I’m constantly looking out for all those that I’ve missed so far. At the moment I’m reading Marilyn Ann Moss’s study of him, for the purpose of writing a review.

The point you make about Walsh use of depth is particularly important I feel, because there is a key to his artistry there. I’ve always felt that there was a journalistic side to Walsh, that he always wanted to put his characters in the real world, in this world, and was going to great lengths to show what was happening in the back or on the far ends of the frame. Even when we are in-doors we can always see what is going on outside, through the windows. This is true from his early work in the 1910s, right up until the very last films.

In the beginning of They Drive By Night (1940) Raft and Bogart makes a stop at a diner. In a shot we see some truck drivers very close to the camera. in the middle we see the counter where Ann Sheridan is taking orders, and in the far back we see an opening to the kitchen, where the chef is going about his business. There is absolutely no need for us to see that chef, and many might not even notice him, since our attention is with the people in the foreground. Yet he’s still there, and Walsh wanted him to be there, and his presence enlarges the film and the story, showing that there is a world outside the particular story that the film happens to tell.

Even though Bazin wrote mainly about Wyler, Welles and Renoir, I think a case can be made that Walsh was more Bazinian then either of them…

I wouldn’t put Walsh up there with the very greatest of American filmmakers, he’s behind Ford, Hawks, Welles, Lubitsch and a few others, but he’s definitely on the far side of paradise.

you had a great list there. Two I would add to my own list would be Objective Burma! and Dark Command.