Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: Autopromozione: "John Sturges"

 .
Buona lettura, Jack, e grazie. :-)
-- 
UFV:Ginger e Fred(DVD)/Cuori(DVD)/The Bourne Supremacy(DVD)/The 
Bourne Identity(DVD) - 
http://www.albertofarina.tk

 fatto storico che ispiro' il soggetto
Ecco.
Questo mi sembra davvero interessante.
Anche perche' la grande fuga mi sa che non l'ho mai visto.
Mi pare strano, ma non ricordo davvero di che film si tratti
temo percio' di essermelo inspiegabilmente perso.
E' l'occasione per rimediare
...e poi la mia biblioteca non sarebbe completa senza quest'ultimo
tuo, suvvia
B.
[lostileconta]

 tuo, suvvia
:-)


 spinato.
quella č una scena che, in nome del realismo, ha un po' ucciso il pathos del film...
SPOILER
McQueen a quel punto si doveva salvare, la scelta di sacrificarlo in nome appunto
del realismo č stata alquanto infelice (nell'economia del film).
La situazione cosě diventa quasi (tragicamente) ridicola, mi ha fatto sempre
pensare alla famosa barzelletta dei matti che evadono dal manicomio.

 Buona lettura, Jack, e grazie.
prego, e ho anche ordinato da un sito americano Bad Day at Black Rock.
conservo il post, appena letto scrivero le mie impressioni.
-- 
Jack Shephard
Lost s.r.l

 conservo il post, appena letto scrivero le mie impressioni.
Allora tanto vale che faccia subito outing e confessi un lapsus che mi
e' sfuggito clamorosamente sia in fase di scrittura che in revisione.
A pagina 51 cito un pezzetto di una dichiarazione di James Coburn tratta
da un'intervista fattagli da Roderick Mann del Los Angeles Times e
pubblicata il 18 febbraio 1979 (uno dei tantissimi articoli avuti dal
valoroso Coricelli) e gli faccio dire: "Avevamo un piano di lavorazione
di dieci giorni, ma sforammo a dodici". 
See, buonanotte. Coburn parlava, ovviamente, non di giorni bensi' di
settimane. Me ne dolgo e me ne pento, ma il danno e' fatto. Mi consola
solo pensare che chiunque capisca un poco di cinema capira'
immediatamente che si tratta di un lapsus tastierae.
Qualcosa sfugge sempre, purtroppo. Ma spero vivamente che di bllopers
non ce ne siano altri perche', altrimenti, del libro sono molto
soddisfatto. :-)


 pensare alla famosa barzelletta dei matti che evadono dal manicomio.
(snippato la parte spoilerosa, tanto ci capiamo)
Un po' vero... ma alla fin fine quel che mi piace del film e' anche
questo suo calare cosi' clamorosamente le braghe di fronte alle esigenze
dello spettacolo... anche se la storia narra che la scena fu inserita
essenzialmente per fare contento McQueen che voleva in tutti i modi
sfoggiare la sua abilita' sulle due ruote e stava gia' da qualche anno
cominciando a metter su quelle arie da divo che gli avrebbero alienato
pian piano tutti - incluso lo stesso Sturges.
Nel corso dell'inseguimento, McQueen guida realmente la moto in quasi
tutte le scene (tranne, se ricordo bene, quella del salto, che non gli
riusci' o che fu giudicata troppo pericolosa per uno dei protagonisti),
in qualche caso anche in un ruolo diverso dal suo. Ci sono almeno una o
due azioni in cui McQueen impersona anche uno dei suoi stessi
inseguitori tedeschi (ovviamente con costume diverso) perche' gli stunt
men non sapevano (o lui riteneva che non sapessero) farle meglio di lui.
Magia del montaggio, McQueen americano che insegue McQueen tedesco,
eheheh.


 a due dischi e pullulano di extra.
la grande fuga è due dischi, i magnifici mi sembra solo uno.


Jack Shephard <frances...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

Su Ibs in effetti conferma quello che dici tu, ma qui si direbbe invece
che sia a due dischi:
http://www.dvdplanet.it/detail.jsp?code=42847
Gli extra segnalati sono:
• 2 trailer de Imagnifici sette
• Trailer de Le pistole dei magnifici sette
• Galleria de I magnifici sette
• Opuscolo collezionabile
• Trailer de Il ritorno dei magnifici sette
• Trailer de I magnifici sette cavalcano ancora
• Opzione commento audio del cast e della troupe


 "La grande fuga" e "I magnifici sette".
Gli extra li conosco.
 Il libro mi piacerebbe leggerlo. Nel libro racconti qualche chicca sui
western?

 prima, "L'assedio delle sette frecce")
Interessante questo discorso. A quale scena particolare ti riferisci?
E' quella in cui Holden, di fronte a Eleonor Parker in partenza dal forte,
le dice che le mancherà per tutta la vita?
A me pare funzionale a tutto l'impianto narrativo.
Comunque c'è un'altra bella scena romantica quando Holden invita la Parker
nella sua abitazione la porta nel giardino sul retro. Mi ricordo a memoria
la tirata di Holden mentre ricorda il padre:" mio padre mi ha trasmesso il
suo sogno. Coltivo rose.
Mia padre era qualcuno: mi insegnò a cavalcare e a sparare; a vedere a
capire. Un uomo è molto più di ciò che fa o dovrebbe esserlo. E' come una
bibbia che è più di qualsiasi religione. E lui era la mia Bibbia".
Ho sempre pensato che ci fosse qualche errore di traduzione in quel dialogo
ma non l'ho mai appurato. Non credo comunque che sia la scena a cui ti
riferisci.

 su Anobii, 
mmm mmm...
Boris

 western?
Compatibilmente con lo spazio ristretto - e i tempi ridotti per fare le
ricerche e scrivere il tutto - un po' di cosette divertenti sono
riuscito a trovarle su parecchi dei suoi film. Se hai qualche curiosita'
specifica, ben lieto di copincollare qui qualche pezzo. :-)


 riferisci.
Non ne avevo una copia e per rivederlo ho dovuto rimediarne dal mulo una
copia in spagnolo, non saprei dirti... ma terro' presente il dubbio alla
prima occasione di verifica.
-- 
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Adolf Hitler/Stranger than Fiction(DVD) - 
http://www.albertofarina.tk

 previsto che lei avesse un personaggio cosi' presente...
Grazie per le informazioni che hai riportato più sotto.
Comunque a me tutta la parte nel forte non pesa affatto. E' strano pensare
che il progetto iniziale non prevedesse tutte quelle scene anche perché non
annoiano, lo spettore è attento al doppio gioco della donna e sono un ottimo
preludio all'assedio finale. Che, tra l'altro, è molto poco verosimile....

Ho ritrovato un po' di materiale che avevo raccattato in giro per
Internet, coi relativi link, e che poi credo di non aver usato.
Lo posto qui come corredo ulteriore alla lettura (o alla mancata
lettura) del libro).
http://www.grapeflix.com/Category/frmCategoryDisplay.aspx?CategoryID=251
http://movies.about.com/od/thenotebook/a/notebkj062004_3.htm
(intervista a James Garner)
How did you get along with Steve McQueen? "The Great Escape" DVD
mentions McQueen was obsessed with the fact his part wasn't important
enough.
Well, let me go back. When we did the film, a month or so into it, they
had an hour and a half of dailies and they said, "Anyone in the cast who
wants to come see them, come see them." Well, Steve went out of there so
angry and so mad or whatever, and he was going to leave the picture and
so forth. He wanted to re-shoot everything that we'd done. And hell, we
were hurting for money and time and everything. So a couple of days
later, John Sturges came to me and said, "Jim, you're the star of the
picture. Steve is out." His agents were in route. There were loads of
agents flying in to Germany.
I took Steve and Jim Coburn and we went over to my house in Munich and
we went through the script and I said, "Well, what's your problem,
Steve?" "Well, I don't like this. I don't like that." We went through a
lot of scenes. I said, "This is silly. You don't like anything, Steve."
So we looked at it and we finally figured out. "Steve, you want to be
the hero, but you don't want to do anything heroic." He didn't like the
thing of the little Irishman going up the wall and getting shot, and
then pulling him down. He didn't want to do anything physical that was
heroic. So what they did, if you'll notice, he's the hero because he
escaped, got captured, but when he came back, he had information of all
the area there. Oh boy, what a hero. And he didn't have to do a lot of
stuff. John Sturges called me one day when he was putting the film
together and he said, "Come have lunch." We did. He said, "Jim, I've got
to tell you, the two best acting scenes in the film are with you and
Donald Pleasence. They're on the cutting room floor." He says, "I've got
to stay with McQueen and the bike." Hey, it made the picture. Sturges
was absolutely correct, but as far as acting went, out the window.
http://www.americanlegends.com/actors/eili%20wallach/index.html
(intervista a Eli Wallach)
     The Magnificent Seven was produced by Walter Mirish and directed by
John Sturges. An independent production, the film was released in 1961.
Neither Sturges (1911-1992), nor his movie was the favorite of film
school scholars or tribute directors who worship at the camera of Howard
Hawks or Preston Sturges.
     Andrew Sarris wrote in The American Cinema: "Long before The
Magnificent Seven, John Sturges seemed to be striving, albeit
unconsciously, to become the American Kurosawa..."--the Japanese
director whose movie, The Seven Samurai, inspired The Magnificent Seven.
Sarris added: "Unfortunately, it is hard to remember why Sturges's
career was ever considered meaningful."
 
     Sturges's movie, however, was an immediate hit with filmgoers who
were stirred by the tale of the seven gunslingers and misfits who come
to the aid of a poor Mexican village threatened by local bandits.
     Sturges chose two Broadway actors to play opposite leads: Yul
Brynner was cast as Chris, the philosophical leader of the seven who at
one point in the movie says, "Once you begin killing, you can't stop,"
and at another comments: "The graveyards are full of young boys who were
very young and very proud." Eli Wallach, an Actors Studio veteran,
played the brutal bandit Calvera.                            
     For the rest of the cast, Sturges assembled a group of then
unknowns, some of whom had knocked about Hollywood for years playing
off-beat parts: James Coburn,  Brad Dexter, Charles Bronson. The
director also recruited a young actor named Steve McQueen, whom he had
spotted on television, and chose to play Vin, the boyish Tombstone
gunman.
     The film's musical score was composed by Elmer Bernstein whose
Coplandesque theme captured the bravery and idealism of the seven
American samurai who set aside their own self-interest in a noble cause.
     Here, in an exclusive interview with American Legends, conducted by
telephone from his home in New York, the noted actor Eli Wallach recalls
the making of The Magnificent Seven.
Q:      How did you get involved in the movie?
 
A:      
I wish I knew. One day I was called in by John Sturges. He said, "We
thought about you, and we want to cast you." I had seen The Seven
Samurai and would have loved to play the crazy samurai, the role Mifume
played in the Kurosawa film. It was brilliant.
 
Q:      Sturges chose Yul Brynner who was known for his Broadway roles
as the lead.
 
A:      
I knew Yul from New York when he was working in television as a
director. Sturges told me, "We're thinking of you as the head bandit." I
told Sturges that I had seen the Japanese film--and all I recalled was
that the bandit wore an eyepatch and that all you saw was his horse's
hoofs: he rides in, he rides out.
 
Q:      But you were cast as Calvera.
 
A:      
I almost turned it down. Then I read the script carefully and I thought,
Well, I'll play the part cause it's a terrific role. I went to Sturges
and said, "In movie Westerns, you never see what the bandits do with the
money. They hold up the trains, they steal the cattle, but you never see
what they do with the money. I want to show how they spend it. I want to
have silk shirts. I'm going to put in two gold teeth. I want a good
horse, a wonderful saddle." Sturges said, "Okay. You got it." So I went
to Mexico. We shot it on location there. I had no idea what the movie
would turn out to be, but I got to see some wonderful young actors who
were going to blossom into stars: Coburn, Bronson, McQueen.
 
Q:      Did the Mexican government cooperate?
 
A:      
The Mexicans were furious with the Americans. There had been a movie
called Vera Cruz with Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper that had angered
the Mexicans with the way they were depicted. They tore the seats out of
the theater and threw them at the screen. So the government had a censor
on the set. When he read the script, the censor asked Sturges, "Why do
you have to send to America to bring back gunmen We have plenty of our
own." Sturges said, "Fortunately, or unfortunately, the money is coming
from Hollywood studios, so we have to use Americans." There was also a
man on the set named Emilio Fernandez. He was a Mexican movie director
who had done a number of movies in the 1940s with Delores Del Rio,
including Maria Candelaria which celebrated Mexican folklore. He acted
as a kind of adviser to Sturges to see that nothing "non-Mexican"
happened. I got along very well with him.
 
Q:      John Sturges is dismissed by auteur critics as an
action-adventure director, someone who did Escape from Fort Bravo and
The Great Escape. What was it like to work with him?
 
A:      
There was a lot of respect for Sturges on the set. He had a wonderful
eye. I had about thirty or so bandits in my outfit. Sturges told me, "I
want you and your gang to go riding in the morning before you come on
the set." So we'd mount up early in the morning, at sunup, and ride for
an hour and then come in all wet and dirty and ready to shoot.
 
Q:      
Was there improvisation in shooting the film?
 
A:      
No, except Steve McQueen, who was a very skillful movie actor, said,
"Listen, I want to cut some of my dialogue. I don't want to talk too
much. Acting in movies is really reacting, so I want to react to
things." Sturges let him do it.
 
Q:      Did the actors compete with each other on camera?
 
A:      
I once stood alongside the camera and watched the seven ride across the
river. Each one did another little piece of business which they thought
would cause you to remember them more. McQueen reached out and scooped
up some water in his hat and put it on. Another turned and looked around
at the next man--at the one behind him. All of them had odd little
pieces of business. I thought it very interesting--wait till they meet
me.
 
Q:      Did you have much interaction with the rest of the cast?
 
A:      
Bronson was a loner. He kept to himself. I liked Robert Vaughn and James
Coburn very much. Vaughn is a very intelligent guy. He wrote a book on
blacklisting. Coburn was one of those quiet types which fit his
character very well: silent but a knife thrower of great skill. The one
I became quite friendly with was Brad Dexter. Of the seven no one can
remember his name. I was also adopted by my Mexican gang, one of whom,
Guillermo Kramer, was an architect and wonderful horseman.
 
Q:      Brad Dexter later acted with Sinatra and co-produced his movies.
Both he and Horst Buchholz died in 2004.
 
A:      
Buchholz played the romantic lead. That was a part I was interested in
when I read the script. But Sturges told me, "We're bringing over a
young German actor. He's going to play that." Buchholz was good. He rode
beautifully. He brought to the role his German training and background.
 
Q:      Was there any sense that The Magnificent Seven was going to be a
great movie?
 
A:      
You can never predict the outcome of a movie. I did The Misfits with a
great cast: Marilyn Monroe, Monty Clift, and Clark Gable. You'd think it
was going to be a great show. The critics were not that happy because
Monroe, Clift, and Gable were trying to destroy the mold the studio had
put them in over the years. As for The Magnificent Seven, it has become
a cult classic. I think it is one of the ten best Westerns ever made.
 
        (Background information for the interview was found in the
following: Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema, New York, Da Capo Press
ed., 1996; Neile McQueen Toffel, My Husband, My Friend, New York, Signet
ed., 1986)
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,808686,00.html
(intervista a Bernstein)
CM: So it is almost as if the music is the characters' thoughts?
EB: In the best of all possible worlds, yes. Another important
relationship was with John Sturges. John loved music. I think he would
have happily stripped all the dialogue out of all the movies he ever
made. John had a wonderful way of working. The first film I did with him
was The Magnificent Seven. We had never met before. My score scared the
producer a bit. He backed off a bit. But then John heard it and he loved
it. He wouldn't let me read the script for The Great Escape. He took me
into his office and he told me the story. He was a great storyteller.
When you waked out of that office, you knew exactly what to do. You knew
what to do because of the way he told the story. John loved what he did
and was very trusting. Very often he didn't even come to the recordings.
That was a great and inspiring relationship.
We did many films together. We did a film that I adore that wasn't
successful called The Hallelujah Trail. There was a performance by an
English actor called Donald Pleasance that was astonishing. Once again,
that was John taking me into his office, sitting me down and telling me
the story. The other long-term relationship I had was with George Roy
Hill. That relationship started in a very funny way. I did a picture
called The World of Henry Orient, which he had directed, with Peter
Sellers in it. George was always very funny. He was quite taciturn. He
was very quiet but you got the feeling that he could be quite dangerous.
He came to the recording and stayed through the entire first day. He was
fine. He wasn't over the moon but he was fine with it. During a break on
the second day he said to me, "I have a problem with that last cue." We
went back to the studio. All the players were out smoking and drinking,
whatever. He starts to edge me towards the piano, and I thought, "My
goodness, he's going to make me sit down at the piano and improvise
something." But no. He sits down at the piano and says, "I was thinking
of something like this."
I said, "Son of a gun! You're a musician!"
"Not really. I can play Bach preludes."
"That'll do!"
We had a great relationship because he was really knowledgeable about
music. We would talk about music a lot and did quite a lot of films
together. I did Thoroughly Modern Millie with him; Slap Shot, which is a
very funny film, and that was a relationship that went on and on and on.
He was very lucky that I did not do The Sting, because he had wanted me
to do it but I was working on another project, but if I had done The
Sting, that would not have been the score. And we would have all been
sorry, probably.
http://www.celticcafe.com/archive/artists/coburn/mmaker1.htm
(Coburn, ma poca roba)
https://secure.bfi.org.uk/features/interviews/wallach.html
(intervista a eli wallach)
 NM:  I guess it was around the same time as The Misfits that you made
your first Western.
EW: My first Western was called The Magnificent Seven and I said to the
director 'it's based on Seven Samurai [1954], the Japanese film...' and
I said 'I want to play the crazy samurai...' and he said 'no, that's the
love interest...' [laughter] I said 'who do you want me to play?' and he
said 'the head bandit.' [laughter] And I said 'I saw the Japanese
version, and in the movie, all you saw were the horses' hooves and a
rider with a patch over his eye.' He said 'no, no, I want you to be the
head bandit.' I said 'all right.' In all the movies - Westerns - I ever
saw, you never saw what the bandits did with the money. So I said
'listen, can I try something?' He said 'sure. What?' I said 'I want to
have red silk shirts. I want to have a gorgeous horse. I want a great
saddle and I'm going to put two gold caps in here, so when I smile the
screen lights up.' He said 'all right. Let's do that.
The first day I appeared with tights... chaps... tied tight, I had to
get on the horse. I lifted my leg and I couldn't get it in the stirrup.
[laughter] I said 'what am I going to do?' and John Sturges, the
director, said 'we've worked it out. Here's what you do: raise your leg
and put it toward the stirrup. I cut to a man who's standing next to
you, then cut back to you... and there you are! You're on your horse!
[applause] I got 35 bandits, 35 Mexican people, men, who rode with me.
We'd get there in the morning, no make-up, nothing, just with our
clothes, and we'd ride for an hour and then come back, perspired and
everything and then we'd start shooting. But they were wonderful,
wonderful horsemen, who guided me along. Anyway, you want to show that?
NM: Shall we show a bit from that? The Magnificent Seven.
[clip]
EW: Six of the seven are gone...
NM: I always thought the role of Calvera... maybe it's just me, but I
always found something quite endearing about him. He certainly wasn't a
caricature of evil. He was a... there was something endearing about
his... almost fatherly about his posse.
http://www.malafide.com/blog/?m=200210&paged=2
(articolo blog su DVD dei magnifici 7)
One thing that I found very telling was something that Mirisch brought
up early in the film. Before Sturges died, he was asked to write an
article about another film that he and Mirisch worked on, The Great
Escape. Sturges had a need to consult the film's script and found that
he didn't have a copy. Sturges called Mirisch to see if he had one. When
Mirisch told Sturges that he was surprised that Sturges didn't have a
copy, Sturges told him, "Why should I? I thought we were making movies,
not history." That probably explains why Sturges' work is so good.
http://www.americanlegends.com/actors/efrem%20zimbalist/index.html
(intervista con Efrem Zimbalist)
AL:     You finally got to do By Love Possessed, an independent
production at Columbia.
 
EZ:     
My agent, Marty Baum, put up a huge fight. I read the Cozzens novel and
loved it. It was the big novel that year But the screenplay turned out
to be unshootable. We sat down with John Sturges, the director, and
re-wrote it scene by scene as we went along. Lana Turner and Jason
Robards were in it. Jason played my law partner. We all got along very
friendly. John Sturges probably had the best cameraman in Hollywood,
Russell Metty. There was a golden bronze glow to the whole movie which
was the result of his lighting.
-- 
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La veramente vera verità su Adolf Hitler - 
http://www.albertofarina.tk

 Buona lettura, Jack, e grazie. :-)
ho letto il libro, finito in 2-3 giorni. la monografia è piccola (70 
pagine) e la filmografia e la carriera di j.s. è lunga, alberto secondo 
me è stato bravo e preciso nel sintetizzarla.
il libro ha il grande merito di far nascere la curiosità per molti film 
(underwater, bad day at black rock ecc) e questo credo sia importante.
consigliato.
adesso aspettiamo il castoro su s. raimi.
buon natale


 consigliato.
dimenticavo,
mi sono piaciute tantissimo gli anedotti di contorno/sfondo della 
hollywood di un tempo. storie, inciuci tra produttori registi e divi/e 
avrei letto volentieri altro ma sarebbe stato un'altro libro.


 avrei letto volentieri altro ma sarebbe stato un'altro libro.
Guarda, si trova pochissimo su Sturges... con altri due mesi sarebbe
forse saltato fuori qualcosina d'altro, ma sia pur per sommi capi non ho
lasciato fuori nulla di quello che ho ramazzato in giro...
Ci vorrebbe qualche anno per spulciare ben bene i periodici e i
quotidiani, ecco...
-- 
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degli uomini(DVD) - 
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