Kent Film Club (Season 2023 Episode 5)
This week Chris Deacy is joined by Carla Morris to discuss the films; It Happen One Night, Only Angels Have Wings, Chinatown, and Witness.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15 I'm Chris Deasy, and each week I'll be joined
00:17 by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the impact
00:20 certain films have had on their life.
00:23 Each guest will reflect on the films
00:25 which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27 And every week there will be a Kent Film Trivia
00:30 where we quiz you at home about a film
00:33 that has a connection to the county.
00:35 And now, let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:39 Her background is in English language teaching,
00:41 although currently she is manager
00:43 of the Student Learning Advisory Service
00:45 at the University of Kent.
00:47 And as we shall see, she also loves going to the movies.
00:51 She is Carla Morris.
00:52 Great to have you, Carla,
00:54 for this episode of Kent Film Club.
00:56 - Hi, Chris, thanks, it's really nice to be here.
00:58 - And you've chosen for your first film,
01:01 "It Happened One Night."
01:02 Why did you choose "It Happened One Night?"
01:05 - Absolutely, well, there's something remarkable to me
01:10 about a movie that was made nearly 90 years ago
01:13 that you can watch today and is still as fresh
01:17 and as funny as it clearly was then.
01:19 And I think I've always been drawn to movies
01:22 with quite strong female characters.
01:24 Something also about it kind of resonates with me
01:28 about my mother.
01:29 I've often found that I've identified
01:33 with certain characters
01:34 that somehow make me think about her.
01:36 Colette Colbert was born in France.
01:39 Her mother's name was Jeanne, so was my mother.
01:41 And she just has this real independence about her,
01:43 particularly in this film,
01:44 which I just really, really love.
01:46 - Yeah, and it's also a film, isn't it?
01:47 It was the first to win the Best Picture, Best Director,
01:52 and it was the screenplay,
01:54 and won five of the main Oscars for that year.
01:57 - Absolutely. - Actor and actress.
01:58 - Absolutely, and when you watch it,
02:02 and this was the first time I saw it,
02:04 the chemistry between those two actors is incredible.
02:07 And I looked a little bit at the background
02:09 of how it came to be made.
02:10 Colette Colbert wanted to be on holiday,
02:12 so she demanded a fee of 50,000 pounds,
02:15 $50,000 even, for four weeks of filming.
02:19 But there's none of that in the film.
02:21 It just shows you the strength of their ability
02:23 to get over that and to act in such a fantastic way
02:27 with each other.
02:28 And of course, the script is funny
02:30 and really very, very sweet.
02:32 - And I always think of it in the context of censorship.
02:34 - Yes. - Because there's a scene,
02:35 isn't there, where they're in, is it,
02:37 because they're not married, and they're in a,
02:38 is it a hotel, and they're in separate beds?
02:41 - Well, that's right.
02:42 Well, the interesting thing is that
02:44 the Hays Code came in in the year,
02:47 well, it actually came in earlier in the 1930s,
02:49 but it wasn't really applied very strictly
02:53 until shortly after this film was made.
02:56 And in fact, the wall of Jericho,
02:58 which is what they call it, the curtain,
03:00 which is this quaint nod to the fact
03:03 that they're not married, but they're sharing a bedroom.
03:06 And the suggestion is that post-Hays Code,
03:07 even that wouldn't have been allowed,
03:09 because there is that sort of suggestion
03:10 of sexual tension there.
03:11 But they really play on it, and it's very funny,
03:14 because towards the end of the film,
03:16 when they do eventually get together,
03:17 spoiler alert, sorry about this,
03:19 there is talk about the walls of Jericho coming down,
03:22 and it's a really, really nice sort of indication
03:24 that they are finally getting together.
03:28 - Is this a film that you've watched many times?
03:30 Is it one of those films that you would watch
03:33 on a regular basis, maybe something
03:35 that you first watched in childhood?
03:38 - Well, funnily enough, I didn't see it in childhood.
03:41 I saw it a few years ago,
03:43 because I was delving into black and white films.
03:48 There's something I find very comforting about them,
03:50 even though they were largely filmed
03:53 long before I was born, even in my advanced years.
03:56 I saw it a few years ago and have watched it
03:59 at least half a dozen times since,
04:01 and I go back to it from time to time.
04:03 It's incredible how much it has influenced
04:05 all these movies that have come in more recent years
04:09 that have had Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Runaway Bride.
04:12 There's even a French film called Heartbreaker,
04:15 and there's elements of that about it.
04:17 But again, I say, when you think, this is 1934.
04:21 This is a young woman who is maintaining her independence.
04:25 She jumps ship, she gets away from her father.
04:28 She's on the road on her own, taking a Greyhound bus.
04:32 And you don't think of people in those times,
04:35 particularly women, taking that initiative and doing that.
04:38 And I just love to go back to it,
04:41 that great scene where she hoiks up her skirt
04:44 and shows this incredibly shapely leg.
04:46 She didn't want the stand-in actress
04:49 because she felt that her legs
04:51 weren't quite good enough to do it.
04:54 And I just like that gumption, I suppose, that feistiness.
04:58 - And it's certainly a film, as you say,
05:00 which has set the template for a lot of those rom-coms,
05:04 the Nora Ephron films from later years.
05:06 And I'm thinking, you mentioned the bus,
05:08 and I'm thinking of Sleeping with the Enemy, Julia Roberts.
05:10 So it's kind of a film that has really had an impact,
05:13 but is it a film that you have ever seen
05:16 on the big screen?
05:18 - You know, I haven't, and I would absolutely love to.
05:21 Many years ago, I suggested to a friend of mine
05:25 who was kind of involved in film
05:28 that we set up a cinema that simply shows
05:31 all the old classics, all the black and white classics.
05:34 And there are some astounding films.
05:36 And you've got to remember that this was long before CGI,
05:40 special effects, any of those kinds of tools.
05:44 And it was just the cameras, the actors,
05:47 and quite often very makeshift scenery.
05:49 And I just find that incredible.
05:51 I find what they did and what they were able to achieve
05:53 sometimes extraordinary, and I'd love to see it
05:55 on the big screen.
05:56 - Well, it's a fantastic choice for your first film.
05:58 And we're gonna move on to your second chosen film,
06:01 which is Only Angels Have Wings.
06:04 - Yes.
06:06 So in a very similar vein,
06:08 a good role for a lead actress,
06:12 a very strong role, and again,
06:15 a woman of real independence.
06:17 So she has a mysterious background.
06:20 You don't really quite know what she's running from,
06:22 but she's an entertainer.
06:24 She's single.
06:24 She gets onto a banana boat and ends up
06:27 in this fictitious place in South America called Baranca.
06:30 And she ends up at this station where they deliver mail.
06:35 And she meets Cary Grant,
06:36 who's the very charismatic manager of the airline company.
06:40 And again, it's really funny.
06:44 She has a real command of the screen.
06:47 Very unusual role for Cary Grant,
06:49 which I love, again, one of my favorite actors of all time.
06:53 Incredibly versatile.
06:55 Just that suave, sophisticated nature
06:57 kind of goes away in this movie,
07:00 where he's much more sort of hard-nosed and gruff,
07:04 but a real chemistry, again, between them.
07:09 And it's just such a fantastic movie.
07:12 And the special effects in it, again, like I say, no CGI.
07:16 For 1939, amazing.
07:19 - And when you consider a film like,
07:20 well, "North by Northwest" or various other Hitchcock films
07:23 that Cary Grant was involved with,
07:24 when it really brought out the thriller side,
07:27 the darker side, but he was a very versatile actor,
07:30 and of course, British-born.
07:32 But is this a film that you've watched many times?
07:35 - Absolutely.
07:36 And whenever I get the opportunity, I go back to it.
07:39 It has a whole variety of little stories in it
07:45 that interweave.
07:48 I love his relationship.
07:49 He comes across as being sort of quite tough
07:52 and not particularly emotionally intelligent,
07:56 but then you see his relationship with Kid,
07:59 who has failing eyesight,
08:01 and he doesn't want to take him flying with him.
08:03 Kid tries to pretend that he can see certain distances,
08:07 but then he is going to take him up with him,
08:09 and then through an accident, in the end, he doesn't.
08:11 But the tenderness with which he,
08:13 his affection for Kid,
08:15 and then, of course, a previous love of his life
08:18 comes into the picture, Rita Hayworth, her first film.
08:21 And you can see that there's a tension there,
08:25 and again, between her and the lead role,
08:31 which is just really nicely played.
08:34 And you can see that his softer side
08:39 is brought up through different ways.
08:42 - Because for a Howard Hawks film,
08:43 this is one that's been quite overlooked, I would say,
08:47 because I think of "To Have and Have Not,"
08:49 I think of "Rio Bravo,"
08:49 but I'm not sure that this film tends to appear
08:52 in a lot of people's lists of favourite films.
08:55 Why do you think it has been overlooked?
08:57 - Well, that's a really good question,
08:59 and I'm not sure about that.
09:01 The first time I came across Howard Hawks as a director,
09:03 I think, was "The Maltese Falcon."
09:05 And I remember watching it and thinking,
09:08 "The direction in this film is incredible.
09:10 "The way the actors are interacting,
09:13 "the scenes, the way they're set up."
09:14 And I looked up to see who had directed it,
09:17 and I saw it was Howard Hawks.
09:18 And you get the same sort of generosity to the actors,
09:21 I think, in this film.
09:22 They're really given what looks,
09:25 appears to be real freedom.
09:27 And again, I come back to this idea
09:32 that we tend to sort of look at older movies,
09:36 usually from the '40s and '50s, post-Hays Code,
09:40 and there's a stiffness about them.
09:42 There's a stiffness in the acting,
09:44 although there are a lot of great actors in these films.
09:47 But this one and the previous one, "It Happened One Night,"
09:50 don't have that.
09:51 There's a real freedom.
09:53 And I just think, clearly,
09:55 his interaction with the actors was fantastic
09:58 because he really gives them that freedom.
10:00 - Yeah, and do you think that this is a film
10:02 that you are able to sort of sell to other people?
10:05 Is it something that your family members have watched?
10:08 Is it the sort of film that people look and say,
10:10 "Oh, really, why this film?"
10:11 Because it isn't the sort of film
10:13 that appears on most people's lists.
10:14 - Yeah, and again, I think that's a really good question.
10:17 No, I suspect that it's a fairly obscure choice
10:22 in that sense.
10:24 And I don't know the kind of people
10:27 it would appeal to more generally.
10:30 It's certainly not a family film.
10:33 It is quite an adult film in the sense that I suppose
10:36 the theme really about it, the main plot,
10:41 is really about this airline company
10:45 that is trying to sort of secure
10:46 this really important contract.
10:49 And you get the sense that different people
10:53 have ended up in this rather obscure place
10:56 almost by accident.
10:58 Although there's a real professionalism
10:59 that is demonstrated in the way the pilots operate.
11:03 That's taken very seriously.
11:05 And clearly there was quite a lot of research
11:07 that went into that.
11:08 So I don't know because it's not an action film.
11:11 It's a sort of love story, but not a very obvious one.
11:17 So no, I mean, I'm not sure who it,
11:22 the broad appeal would be to.
11:25 - Well, that's about all the time we have
11:27 for this first half of the show.
11:29 However, before we go to the break,
11:31 we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:34 Which 2006 film shot in Whitstable earned Peter O'Toole
11:39 an Oscar nomination for best performance by an actor
11:42 in a leading role?
11:43 Was it A, Venus, B, Princess of Persia, or C, Stardust?
11:50 We'll reveal the answer right after this break.
11:53 Don't go away.
11:54 Hello, and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:08 Now, just before that ad break,
12:10 we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:14 Which 2006 film shot in Whitstable earned Peter O'Toole
12:18 an Oscar nomination for best performance by an actor
12:20 in a leading role?
12:22 I asked, was it A, Venus, B, Princess of Persia,
12:26 or C, Stardust?
12:29 And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact,
12:32 A, Venus.
12:34 The film is the tale of two aging thespians
12:37 who never quite hit the big time.
12:40 When not working, they spend their days bickering
12:42 until their lives are disrupted by Ian's grandniece, Jessie,
12:46 played by Jodie Whittaker, coming to stay.
12:50 Did you get the answer right?
12:52 Well, it is time now to move, Carla,
12:55 onto your next chosen film.
12:58 And it's Chinatown, isn't it?
13:00 It is, absolutely.
13:01 So we're now about 40 years on.
13:06 And this is a film that I first saw
13:10 when I was back in Dublin.
13:11 So I was born and brought up in Dublin
13:13 and lived in London for many years.
13:15 And I had met an old university colleague
13:19 and we hooked up for a bit.
13:22 And I was back in Dublin and I saw this,
13:26 we watched it on the TV.
13:28 And I was absolutely bowled over by it.
13:31 I was so stunned by so many aspects.
13:35 I'm a great fan of film noir.
13:38 And indeed this is film noir, although it's in colour.
13:41 So it is, you know, it's film noir,
13:42 but it's moved on a little bit.
13:43 But there is so much about this film that I loved.
13:46 I mean, the story is intriguing.
13:49 It's quite a complex plot, but it looks phenomenal.
13:53 And I'd never seen Jack Nicholson in a movie
13:56 when he was much younger.
13:58 And I was absolutely staggered by his beauty,
14:01 actually, as a man.
14:03 And I have always found, rather curiously,
14:09 murder mysteries strangely comforting.
14:12 And I don't know quite why that is,
14:14 but it does seem to be that we do,
14:17 as people, we like to watch murder mysteries
14:20 because they are oddly comforting.
14:22 It's not, of course, really about that.
14:25 It's much more interesting than that.
14:27 - And I've always thought Jack Nicholson
14:29 is a formidable actor.
14:31 The Witches of Eastwick was one of the first films
14:32 of his that I saw.
14:34 But Chinatown, of course, directed by Roman Polanski.
14:37 And without giving away what happens at the end,
14:40 of course, there's that famous scene
14:42 where Polanski has been asked about the whole tunnel
14:46 at the end of the light, or light at the end of the tunnel.
14:47 It's a very downbeat ending,
14:49 very much in keeping with film noir.
14:51 But I think that's what makes the film work so hard,
14:54 because you come away feeling quite distraught.
14:57 It doesn't go the way you feel it should.
14:59 Certainly not like the TV murder mysteries
15:01 of the Columbo ilk, for example.
15:03 So do you think that its very bleak ending
15:07 actually helps or hinders the way we appreciate Chinatown?
15:10 - I think it hugely helps,
15:13 because although I'm an escapist at heart
15:16 and I don't go to movies to have them depress me
15:20 or make me feel down,
15:21 curiously, it doesn't.
15:22 I mean, yeah, the ending is,
15:25 in sort of two thirds of the way through,
15:28 there is a reveal, there's a twist to that,
15:30 certainly I wasn't expecting.
15:31 And the ending, because of the title of the film,
15:35 when you begin to understand why it's called Chinatown,
15:38 it's hard because you don't expect that to happen.
15:41 But I think in a way, it kind of has to happen like that,
15:45 because I suppose it comes full circle.
15:50 To some extent, it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.
15:55 And the kind of character that Jack Nicholson plays,
16:01 it simply goes with that character,
16:04 that sort of, that, you know,
16:09 sort of that gumshoe, I think they were called,
16:11 these private detectives.
16:13 It goes with that whole perception
16:17 of the kind of people they were,
16:19 the sort of, the dark, dingy places that they hang out in.
16:22 And I think it worked,
16:23 and I think it does make the movie, in fact.
16:26 - And I've just been thinking that,
16:28 in the last few years,
16:29 I haven't seen this film,
16:30 I saw it at the BFI actually in 2017,
16:33 but we often talk about things like gaslighting.
16:35 And in a way, of course, that's what happens to him,
16:37 because he thinks he knows everything.
16:38 He's quite cocky.
16:39 He's kind of sure that, you know,
16:41 he doesn't necessarily follow the rules.
16:42 He's a very sort of typical noir hero,
16:45 or anti-hero in that sense.
16:47 But of course, he's taken on a ride,
16:48 and he then realises that this is personal.
16:52 And I think what starts out as this quest,
16:55 this detective, he thinks he's just gonna make some money
16:58 off Faye Dunaway,
16:59 and of course it isn't Faye Dunaway,
17:00 it's somebody claiming to be the character that she plays.
17:04 So there are many threads,
17:05 quite similar perhaps to the other films
17:08 that you've chosen so far.
17:09 Of course, there's the John Huston,
17:11 Howard Hawks angle as well.
17:13 - Absolutely.
17:15 Yes, and I should really say that
17:16 that Faye Dunaway in it is equally fantastic.
17:20 And their relationship is incredible.
17:24 Yeah, I mean,
17:26 like I said, I mean, everything about this film,
17:31 when I first saw it, just bowled me over.
17:35 And of course, the look of it as well,
17:37 it is so stylish.
17:38 At a time when there were lots of movies being made
17:42 that were capitalising on this,
17:44 I think the great Gatsby was made around
17:46 about the same time as Robert Redford.
17:48 So there's all this great,
17:49 and Bonnie and Clyde, and those kinds of movies
17:52 with that sort of look.
17:54 But yeah, he is,
17:58 he's blindsided.
18:01 He's not expecting to happen what happens.
18:05 And you're absolutely right.
18:07 It's so much more than your standard detective movie.
18:11 And of course, you feel desperately
18:13 sorry for various people within it towards the end.
18:19 But yes, he's taken an unawareness.
18:23 - Yeah, and very much told from his point of view as well.
18:25 - Absolutely.
18:26 - Well, it is time now to move on
18:28 to your final chosen film,
18:30 and you've chosen "Witness".
18:32 - Yeah, so now we're a decade or so further on.
18:37 And "Witness" was a big blockbuster movie.
18:41 And sometimes when you're sort of thinking
18:45 about the kind of movies that have had an impact,
18:47 it seems a bit easy to go for the big ones.
18:51 But I have to say, again,
18:53 I have watched this film
18:56 on probably more than a dozen occasions.
18:59 And any time that I get the opportunity to watch it,
19:01 I watch it.
19:03 And I think the reason I like it so much
19:07 is because it is the coming together
19:09 of two completely different worlds.
19:13 And the extraordinary generosity
19:17 that the Amish community show to this outsider.
19:21 And they go beyond their belief,
19:26 their life belief, their philosophy of life to help him,
19:30 while sort of encouraging him to be part of their community.
19:34 And of course, he does contribute to that.
19:38 And of course, that famous scene, the barn raising scene,
19:41 I think whenever I watch it, it makes me feel so elated.
19:46 It's phenomenal.
19:50 - Yeah, and I'm just thinking, because in Chinatown,
19:53 he's sort of an insider who realizes
19:55 that he doesn't know what's going on.
19:57 In "Witness", he's the outsider
19:59 who is also changed by his environment.
20:01 So it's a very different environment to the world
20:03 as the inner city cop.
20:05 And he changes, there's very much
20:07 a sort of conversion narrative in that.
20:09 But also the Kelly McGillis role
20:10 is also, I think, a really important one.
20:13 - Oh, absolutely.
20:15 And I mean, in a way, she's the sort of linchpin
20:18 because all of the little boys is the witness.
20:21 But Kelly McGillis, you really see the struggle within her.
20:27 She is a committed Amish,
20:29 and she's committed to the lifestyle.
20:32 But she's suddenly introduced to, I suppose,
20:37 a more exciting sexual love,
20:43 which doesn't mean to say that she doesn't sort of love
20:47 the Alexander Goodenough character,
20:49 but this is exciting, it's different.
20:53 She takes all sorts of risks,
20:56 and there's a sense that the grandfather is aware of it,
21:00 and he kind of deliberately turns a blind eye to it.
21:04 And I think that's incredibly tender, and you're right.
21:06 He comes, yeah, from the outside.
21:08 He's completely changed by it.
21:10 He knows that he can't be part of this community.
21:15 And he also, they both know
21:17 that she's never going to leave it.
21:19 - And also it's the sort of film as well
21:21 that people always think of in relation to the Amish.
21:25 And whether that's a fair representation,
21:28 whether for good or real,
21:29 it tends to put the Amish community on the map
21:31 and issues around pacifism.
21:33 And of course, what you have in this film
21:35 is that notion of counterpoint.
21:37 He's the city cop with a gun,
21:39 but he's now in an environment
21:40 whereby he's not able to play by the same rules,
21:42 but he has to find another way of achieving his objectives.
21:47 So do you think it succeeds in that sense?
21:50 - Oh, I think it succeeds in spades in that sense.
21:55 You know, the transition he goes through,
21:58 and of course, he ends up there really,
22:02 when he realizes the danger he's in.
22:07 And of course he's ill for all of that time
22:09 and they look after him.
22:10 So he goes through that period of time
22:12 when he really has absolutely no idea what's going on.
22:15 And it's almost like he's going through a time tunnel
22:17 because he's delirious, he's feverish,
22:20 and he suddenly wakes up in a completely different world.
22:24 And yes, and he has to find different ways, like you say.
22:29 The grandfather tells him that he's putting the gun
22:34 into the pot of flour,
22:36 and he's absolutely not going to have it available.
22:41 And then of course, in the end,
22:45 he's given back the guns because he has to use it.
22:47 There's that moment where there's all that unsaid dialogue,
22:51 where it's conflicting thoughts that go round and round.
22:56 And yet there's a coming together
23:00 and a real sort of understanding,
23:03 although those worlds are very separate.
23:05 - And I've got to ask you,
23:06 is this a film that you've ever seen on the big screen?
23:10 Or is it something that, as I did, you saw on TV?
23:13 - The very first time I saw it was on the big screen.
23:16 And I would say, if you haven't seen it on the big screen,
23:19 it's worth it, even if it's just for that barn raising scene,
23:23 which will make you feel so good.
23:26 It's such a great scene to watch.
23:29 - Yeah, brilliant. Thank you, Carla.
23:30 Well, I'm afraid that that is all the time we have for today.
23:33 So many thanks to Carla Morris for joining us
23:36 and being such a brilliant guest.
23:38 And many thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:40 Be sure to come back and join us again
23:43 at the same time next week.
23:44 Until then, that's all from us.
23:46 Goodbye.
23:48 (upbeat music)
23:51 (upbeat music)
23:53 (upbeat music)
23:56 (whooshing)
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