Baby, Baby

Adaptation
Great discussion last night about Bringing Up Baby -- the 1938 screwball-comedy film and the 1937 short story that inspired it. Some students clearly preferred the movie, with its lunacy and belief in love at first sight. Others were more partial to the story, with its more sophisticated humor and wised-up approach to romance. Love those disagreements! We also watched Stagecoach. To get everyone in the mood, I put on a CD of cowboy songs before class. Some students were amused, others just seemed puzzled. Wonder what they thought of the film.

High Noon: Not So High Anymore

Cinema Criticism Writing

High Noon hasn't held up as well as I thought it would. I used to call it my favorite western, but now it seems a bit dated and mannered. Yes, there are a lot of good things in it, but I'd put it behind Stagecoach, Rio Bravo, the recent remake of True Grit and a bunch of other oaters. I was never a huge Gary Cooper fan, but I used to like his performance in this one more than I do now. The b&w cinematography is still striking, though, and I can't fault the famous editing, with all those shots of clocks as the high-noon showdown approaches.

The Duke

John Wayne is a special case. In the Adaptation class this week, we saw Stagecoach, the movie that made Wayne a star after a considerable early career in which he had already appeared in something like 70 movies. Stagecoach, directed by the unassailable John Ford, is one of my very favorite westerns, along with The Wild Bunch and High Noon (but not Ford's influential The Searchers), and it contains one of Wayne's best, most sensitive performances. But it's hard for people who remember "the Duke's" heyday to really see his work for what it is. Wayne's legend was too large and his politics too conspicuous. Is he underrated, overrated or, somehow, both? Someday, someone will sort it all out. In the meantime, pilgrim, I'll be interested to hear what my students have to say next week.