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Cloverfield [BLU-RAY] (Paramount Home Entertainment, 6.3.2008) Disguised under deliberately goofy, yet deliciously edible-sounding, aliases such as Cheese and Slusho, Matt Reeves' Cloverfield was produced and rushed into theaters under an equally appetizing shroud of secrecy. From last year's incredibly elusive Super Bowl ad to the film's viral marketing campaign, Cloverfield had everybody scratching their heads and drooling in anticipation. Aside from the as-yet untitled title and the Blair Witch-ian visual style, the film's biggest appeal was the enigmatic creature who was last (un)seen hurling the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty onto the crowded streets of New York City. All we knew about the mysterious beast was that it was big and angry. Now that the highy-anticipated project has come and gone, one question has fortunately been answered: Cloverfield was a major success. (continued)

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Jules Dassin has passed

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As it must to all men, death came today to the great Jules Dassin at age 96. A Greek-descended, Hollywood-employed, highly-rated noir director, Dassin was blacklisted in 1949 only to bounce back with Rififi ('55), the greatest heist film ever made. (Rififi was actually released in France in '54.)

The Paris-based melodrama re-ignited Dassin's career and led to subsequent hits such as He Who Must Die ('57), the lightly comedic heist film Topkapi ('64), Phaedra ('62),and the legendary Never on Sunday ('60). He also directed Uptight ('68 -- a Harlem-based remake of John Ford's The Informer), Promise at Dawn ('70), The Rehearsal ('74) and Circle of Two ('80).

Dassin's noteworthy Hollywood-era films include Brute Force ('47), The Naked City ('48) and Night and the City ('50). Forget noteworthy -- these three are essential if you haven't yet seen them.

I'll forever be grateful for having attended Dassin's special visit to the L.A. County Museum of Art in 2004, during which he spoke on-stage for about 90 minutes before a screening of Rififi. A 40-minute video of that visit can be found on the Criterion Collection's 2007 DVD of The Naked City.

Jules Dassin

One of Dassin's more ardent admirers was Alexander Payne, who felt a kinship based on their common Greek heritage. Payne told me this afternoon that he recently lobbied for Dassin to be given a special honorary Oscar from the Academy, but it was no-go.

In view of the Academy having given a politically controversial honorary Oscar to Elia Kazan, who was despised in some corners for having named (or confirmed) names to HUAC, Payne feels "it would have been nice for the Academy to have acknowledged both sides of that very difficult coin -- a director who stayed, and another who was forced to leave."

Dassin was married to Greek actress Melina Mercouri until her death in 1994. He was a very wise, charming and elegant man, to judge from his comments during the LACMA interview. He deserves some kind of special posthumous tribute on next year's Oscar show, considering how the Hollywood community came close to ruining Dassin's life during his creative prime.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 31, 2008 at 1:49 PM

comment #1

Edward says ...

He lived a full life, almost two lifetimes coming back from being blackballed. A great cinema artist who will be missed.

Posted by Edward at March 31, 2008 3:49 PM

comment #2

Mark says ...

Jeffrey has related hundreds of obits over his blogging career. Yet anyone notice that he's never commented on the passing of the fairer sex. Given Hollywood's early history of behind-the-camera talent having mostly been born with penises, you'd expect a skewed number. But 100% of blogworthy deaths this decade have had balls?

Posted by Mark at March 31, 2008 4:48 PM

comment #3

Mgmax says ...

Wow, who knew he was still around? I saw He Who Must Die not too long ago on MGM HD-- great neorealist Christ parable based on a book by Kazantzakis, starring (inevitably) Mercouri and Jean Servais (the lead in Rififi). Catch it if you get the channel.

Posted by Mgmax at March 31, 2008 4:51 PM

comment #4

soap-and-water says ...

anyone watched topkapi recently? it's sublime, there's not a loose word in the script. watch it with the subtitles on (Max Schell and Melina have pretty heavy acctents) and you'll have a ball

His proper noirs are almost impossible to find in Australia, except for Rififi.

Posted by soap-and-water at March 31, 2008 5:18 PM

comment #5

Doug Pratt says ...

The opening 5 minutes or so of Never on Sunday are as perfect as anything in the movies, ever.

Posted by Doug Pratt at March 31, 2008 5:55 PM

comment #6

lipranzer says ...

If nothing else, Dassin deserves to be remembered for RIFFIFI. Yes, it's inspired as many ripoffs as PSYCHO and JAWS, but it's still a model of precision and tension.

Kind of eerie he died so soon after Widmark.

Posted by lipranzer at March 31, 2008 6:18 PM

comment #7

Mgmax says ...

So what significant females in film have died lately? I'm not disagreeing with Mark's point, but who actually got overlooked? He did cover Deborah Kerr:

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2007/10/deborah_kerr_ha.php

That's the only really top-rank female name coming to mind at the moment.

Posted by Mgmax at March 31, 2008 6:35 PM

comment #8

CinemaPhreek says ...

I went to the NAKED CITY screening at the Egyptian and he was great, his memories going back 50 some years were incredible.

I guess that's out three-some, all interconnected this time (Widmark - Mann - Dassin)

Posted by CinemaPhreek at March 31, 2008 6:53 PM

comment #9

p.Vice says ...

Mark -- If there's one subject Jeff is an expert on, it's balls.

Posted by p.Vice at March 31, 2008 8:00 PM

comment #10

CinemaPhreek says ...

Fuck - totally forget about Malvin Wald back on March 6th

THE NAKED CITY
Has this happened before?!

Writer, Director and Star of one film all passing within the same month

Posted by CinemaPhreek at March 31, 2008 8:13 PM

comment #11

frankbooth says ...

Anyone seen the French TV interview with Dassin that's on the Night and the City DVD? It starts out fairly interesting, then sort of trails off as if it's gone on too long.

Then the interviewer utters the name "Elia Kazan." Pow! Instant fireworks.

I didn't know Payne was Greek. Mother only, or Anglicized name?

Posted by frankbooth at March 31, 2008 8:39 PM

comment #12

Mark says ...

ok, he did cover Ms. Adrianne Shelley. well if by cover you mean needlessly
infer that Ms. Shelley was to blame for getting murdered.

Posted by Mark at March 31, 2008 9:03 PM

comment #13

K. Bowen says ...

i'm rather stunned to find out that he was still alive. THere's nothing more that can be said about Rififi.

Posted by K. Bowen at March 31, 2008 10:38 PM

comment #14

alan says ...

Is it just me or have an unusually large number of high-profile (at least to film lovers) actors/directors/writers died so far this year?

Ledger, Minghella, Mann, Scofield, Wald, Widmark, Dassin...

Posted by alan at April 1, 2008 7:55 AM

comment #15

christian says ...

I always loved the music for TOPKAPI and NEVER ON A SUNDAY...and UPTIGHT was the double bill with SKIDOO in their brief theatrical runs.

Posted by christian at April 1, 2008 10:03 AM

comment #16

lionsfan says ...

I believe that "Uptight" is actually set in, even was filmed in, the Hough section of Cleveland. In any case, it's an awful movie, on the level of, say. "The Spook Who Sat By The Door" or "Hell Up In Harlem." It certainly has very little to do in feel and impact with either John Ford's film version of "The Informer" or Liam O'Flaherty's original novel. Seeing it, one would take Dassin to be the worst sort of hack, churning out blaxpolitation movies. It may have suited his (way) leftist politics, but it's otherwise not very good, the sort of thing producer Sig Shore or Larry Cohen sent onto movie screens in the late 60's-early 70's while laughing all the way to the Caymans bank.

Posted by lionsfan at April 2, 2008 3:00 PM