Lee Remick

  • Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2022) Sometimes a great scene sneaks into an otherwise humdrum movie, and you won’t find many better cases of this than Sometimes a Great Notion. This rough-and-tough drama about a union-busting logging family is a generally middle-of-the-road affair for most of its running time. Paul Newman (who also directs) and Henry Fonda occasionally raise the level of the production through their charm, along with credible cinematography to portray the reality of circa-1970 logging in the Pacific Northwest. (I was reminded of Howard Hawks’s Come and Get it.)  Adapted from a novel by Ken Kesey, the story is often episodic—the lives and loves of a tight-knit family up against the work. I still can’t square how Newman and Fonda, both of them known for left-leaning politics, would go along with anti-union protagonists, but never mind—the showcase sequence in the film is a nightmarish drawn-out death sequence that is engineered to make you believe that it will end well in extremis, but merely prolongs the agony of a character stuck in a horrifyingly deadly predicament. The scene doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the film, but it’s easily the one reason (along with another earlier sequence showing the lumberjacks at work) that the film is worth a watch… if you can handle the intensity of the material. Otherwise, the film often finds refuge in facile “rugged heroes against incompetent enemies” shtick, with the film’s last moments being a crude and macabre illustration of that credo. Classic Hollywood fans will appreciate two late-career turns for Fonda and Lee Remick, even if the rest of the film is pure audience-alienating New Hollywood. I’m not that impressed by Sometimes a Great Notion, but it’s not often that I watch a scene and go” Yeah, this is going to stick in mind longer than I’d want.”

  • Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

    Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2021) Considering the gallons of alcohol apparently drunk on-screen during the Hollywood movies of the 1960s and the industry’s tolerance of the habit, it’s almost refreshing to see a film of the era squarely tackle the problems of alcoholism in a non-glamorous, often unsettling way. It all begins as our protagonist (Jack Lemmon, quite unlike other roles in his filmography) argues about the ethics of alcohol-fuelled schmoozing events with a likable secretary (Lee Remick, often quite good). One thing leads to another, and soon they’re not only married with a daughter, but chugging back heroic quantities of booze under the pretence of social drinking. He loses his job; she sets a fire to their apartment that almost kills her and their daughter. He realizes that he’s got no choice than to go sober — but she doesn’t see it that way. The initial breezy romantic comedy of the first few minutes eventually gives way to dramatic thunder-and-lightning dramatic scenes, glasshouse trashing and a runaway wife. This isn’t meant to be a comedy, and the haunting final shot suggests that the troubles are never going away. Lemmon is particularly interesting here, as his gift for comedy is used to get our sympathy, and then turn it inside out as his dramatic outbursts end up being even more striking because they feel out of character. Still, despite slightly misogynist notes in the screenplay, I think that Remick gets the best role as the teetotaller with addictive tendencies who gets overwhelmed by the overwhelming appeal of alcoholism — she goes from picture-perfect secretary to a wild-haired floozy in less than 90 minutes. (Both of them got Oscar nominations out of the film.) There’s some irony in seeing that the film is an early entry in director Blake Edwards’s filmography — alcohol fuels much of the comedy of his later films, but he himself became sober a year after wrapping up production on Days of Wine and Roses (there was apparently a lot of drinking going on during filming for him and Lemmon, who also went sober years later). While the film can’t resist exploitation and melodrama, it is unflinching about the cumulative damage of heavy drinking. The result is something that still has quite a bit of resonance today, and a welcome demonstration of what Lemmon and Remick could do with the right material.