Veronica Lake was born on 14 November 1922 as Constance Frances Marie Ockelman. I mention that only because I think it’s an awesome name.
She played notable femme fatales in a number of film noirs. I know her mostly for Sullivan’s Travels. She filmed it while being 7 months pregnant — something she originally hid from writer-director Preston Sturges. (Although generally considered Sturges’ masterpiece, it isn’t one of my favorites.)
But she was a leading lady of the Hollywood Golden Age. And like so many, Hollywood abandoned her by the late 1940s. People still tell stories of her being “difficult.” But I think she was smart and a great actor. And that is normally what got women in trouble in Hollywood of the time.
Don’t feel too bad for Veronica Lake. She was a strong woman. And she held her head high her entire life. She did die young due to the effects of heavy drinking during bad times in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But I think we should be angry at the treatment of her and not sad for her given that she did better than most of us would.
Late in life, she produced the only truly psychotronic film she was ever in: Flesh Feast. It came out in 1970 but it was made in 1967. And it is a wild film!
Sadly, much of the film doesn’t work that well. The direction by Brad F Grinter is a lot like the worst work of Doris Wishman. The sets are over-lit but still use too few lights. The script is almost unintelligible. It has a single (wonderful) idea, which the script very obviously hints at throughout the first two acts.
But the reveal that “the leader” is actualy a very old Adolf Hitler is pretty good. And everything after that is great too. The acting is also pretty good. And it has some good special effects — including a scene where a leg (of a dead person) is sawed off that made me squirm.
Overall, it’s better than They Saved Hitler’s Brain. I think all psychotronic fans should watch the whole thing. But for others, just check out the last 6 and a half minutes. Lake plays the doctor. A regional Florida actor, Douglas Kennedy, may have played Hitler. No one is credited. I think he’s rather good!
Here is the whole film to celebrate Veronica Lake’s birthday:
Veronica Lake via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.
Sullivan’s Travels isn’t one of my faves, either. It’s a good movie, there’s just other Sturges I like more.
Incidentally I recently stumbled onto a list of Tarantino’s favorite movies, and while there’s stuff you’d expect on there (Leone), there’s also some surprises. Pandora’s Box (a Pabst silent film) and Unfaithfully Yours! That’s a fine pick! That and Palm Beach Story are my favorites! (Lady Eve and McGinty are excellent, too.)
Per Wiki, both Eddie Bracken and Joel McRae hated Lake. Well, if those two dullards hate you, you must be interesting. You’re so right about how Hollywood regarded independent-minded women. Because, as much as I love some movies, the movie business sucks and always has.
I wonder what feminist academics have written about the Golden Age Hollywood women. I’d be interested in a book about that. It would be depressing. But I was just reading a feminist take on rape-revenge films, so I think I’m up for it!
My recent research into Lake made me appreciate her much more. They treated her badly but she was definitely a fighter. Sad that she died so young. She would have put Bette Davis to shame if she had made it to her 70s! (I love Davis though; no shade on her!)
If you find any really good feminist critics on this, let me know! That’s definitely something I’d love to read, and it’s a pain that most serious critics are still all guys. There’s Kael, who brought a feminist attitude to her writing (she punctured male egos really well), yet she recoiled from the feminist label, and never really wrote about the challenges women faced in Hollywood.
Some of my favorite Criterion essays have been by a woman writer, Farran Smith Nehme: https://www.criterion.com/current/author/480-farran-smith-nehme
But most are still guys, and most are saying stuff I’ve already read 100 times before.
Today, I quoted Alexandra Heller-Nicholas from her book, Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study. That’s a subject I feel I must follow women on. Even as it is, I find it a bit disturbing to like these films. I wanted to suggest that men be forced to watch I Spit on Your Grave to understand rape since it presents it as nothing more than violence. It doesn’t depict sex as I understand it. The problem is, I am afraid that some men would find it titillating. But I only say that because I have a very low opinion of men.
Online, I’ve generally found female film critics better. This is probably because men always have opinions they think are worthy of sharing. Women generally don’t go public with their opinions unless they have something to say. One example: Maggie Mae Fish.
That’s a good observation. Most men will have Opinions about anything/everything.
Orwell once pointed out that most people think that being a book critic is fun. But 90% of books are not worth writing about. About a third of the movies I watch are the same way — and I only watch stuff I’m curious about! If you have to write about every hyped new thing, it would turn your writing into mush.
This is why book criticism is better than film criticism. In general, people only publish book reviews if (1) the book is a big deal or (2) because the book is good. Film critics publish their thoughts on most films. But you have to wonder why so many film critics think they should comment on films they wouldn’t like regardless of how good they are. For example, I can see reviewing Saw, even though I don’t think much of it. But why review sequels if they don’t do anything new? It’s like listening to a theme and variation, hating the theme, but still writing reviews of every variation. This is especially terrible when you consider that big-budget banal films are reviewed when good low-budget films are ignored. Do people really need to hear that there is yet another Saw film? (FYI: People have told me that Saw X is pretty good. Maybe I’ll watch it at some point. But I’m a huge fan of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre but other than the direct sequel, I can’t be bothered to watch any of them. I just don’t care!)
I don’t watch as much super-independent film as you do, but I still get upset with critics all praising the same s**t. I think it’s just the economics of the internet. A terrific mainstream movie might get good reviews, but if it’s not something that draws clicks, it’ll quickly be forgotten — everyone will go back to writing about the chic stuff “everyone is talking about,” which is generally terrible.
Like, a few years back, Ron Howard directed a movie, 13 Lives, about those kids trapped in a cave in Indonesia. It’s the best thing Howard’s ever done, and while it’s got some “white saviour” issues it also shows how the kids’ coach (they were all on a sports team) used their shared Buddhist faith to help keep them calm as they hoped for help. It’s very conventionally-done, but it’s smart and compassionate and exciting. 40 years ago, it would have been widely-praised. But Howard isn’t a name director anymore, so it got good reviews and was quickly forgotten.
I could say the same about Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, or Emma Thompson in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. Terrific conventional movies. Well-reviewed. But not hot topics, not hot directors, so you won’t get any clicks by writing anything more about them.
And that’s when you do miss a Siskel & Ebert. They’d go to bat for movies like these, which could appeal to a wide audience. Nobody does, anymore, not the paid critics at any rate.
I don’t have much to add to that. Earlier tonight, I looked at the reviews of the recent Thor movies. I’ve only seen the first but I thought it was banal in the extreme. But it got great reviews. All four of them got good to great reviews. What are critics even for? I hate seeing them dismiss genre films, which they used to do rather a lot. But do they have no standards? As a guide for what to see, viewers should just look at opening weekend receipts and go see the film that made the most money. That’s the extent of the value they add to the enterprise.
Many years ago, I wrote a 3,000+-word response to Eric D Snider’s 800-word review of Krippendorf’s Tribe. I went almost word-by-word and pointed out his stream of errors. But I noted that the film isn’t that good. I wasn’t criticizing him for not liking the film but rather for clearly having made up his mind about the film before hand, such that he wasn’t even watching it. He did eventually notice what I wrote. He tweeted, “Someone who loves KRIPPENDORF’S TRIBE (?) took issue with my review, at length. I had no idea this movie had fans.” There was no engagement with my review. He didn’t consider that almost everything he wrote was wrong. No. It was just a fan of the film who didn’t like him criticizing it. Maybe he should have listened. Because now he just reviews films with his profile on Letterboxd. He might as well be commenting on my articles. (The sad thing is that outside of movie reviews, I suspect I’d really like him in real life!)
Quite right about the reciepts…
Too bad about Snider! If somebody pointed out that I got something wrong, I’d happily change it.
Modern critics really are useless. I see some jumped on the Wicked sequel because it’s such a naked cash grab. And the first wasn’t? If a modern movie is universally praised, that’s a big red flag for me.
Aside from internet clicks driving what writers write about, I think most modern critics haven’t seen anything before about 1972. So their frame of reference is limited. And they’re all children of the auteur theory (they’ll even use the word “auteur” to describe their worshipped directors — and I’ll bet most who use it don’t know who Bazin, Goddard, Truffaut were). They worship stuff that’s simple; they can’t appreciate a good script.
But there’s always the great Janne Waas at scifist.net!
In terms of raw filmmaking, I loved The Power of the Dog. Campion did a great job with it. But there is no way anyone gets $35 million to make a film without the expectation that it will make money. It’s very basic and the fact that most critics don’t get it is telling. The films that are truly made for the love of it are the low-budget films that critics dismiss because they don’t have good production values. It’s all so silly.
The one thing I’ve noticed more recently is the way that critics act as apologists for films. They may be doing apologetics for and against the film. But the fact remains that they make a decision about a film based on their gut feelings — often before they even enter the theater (see, for example, Ishtar). And then they find reasons to like or hate the film. I still find it odd that a review will be 100% negative and then the critic will give the film 2 out of 4 stars. Why not one star? If there is something that raises the review up from one star, why isn’t it mentioned?
If I had the money, I’d start a website that does nothing but review the reviewers. That might ultimately make most of them shut up!
I think the two-star thing you’re referring to is strictly about production values. If a movie is trash but professionally-made.
Well, that’s bunk! I could tell you that Dumb Money is professionally made — the director knows how to stage scenes, the cast is competent. But all the movie is is a promo piece for bitcoin, so it’s evil. Straight F! Zero stars!
Now, if a movie is evil, and really well done… well, that would be trickier. I can’t think of too many examples, though. I can think of movies that were misguided or foolish and really well done! There’s tons of those! But maybe it’s impossible to be truly a great artist and fully evil. You can be a competent hack and make competent evil for money. But not great. Hopefully.
(There have been some right-wing actors/writers/directors who did terrific work… but that work itself wasn’t Evil.)
The flipside of this is something done very badly by people with the best intentions. My solution for that is simple. I don’t write about those movies. I have a rule; you never shit on a low-budget movie nobody’s ever heard of. That’s kicking someone when they’re down. If it’s a recent critical darling, I MIGHT shit on it… but not if its heart is truly in the right place.
I have watched some low-budget older films considered good and socially important that I thought were terrible. Why write about those? People who’ve never heard of it aren’t likely to read the post. Those who do will likely be fans. You’d strictly be insulting those fans’ tastes. And that’s rude! I want to shit on the tastes of modern critics, not obscure film buffs.