Joe's View

The prolific and brilliant film critic David Thomson has a new book-length study of “Psycho” in stores, but he also found the time to produce four wonderful small critical studies of Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper that have just been published by Faber and Faber.

The books launch a new series called “Great Stars.”

Thomson is the perfect writer for this assignment because he is a historian with a remarkably clear-eyed view of movies. The writer’s admiration for his four subjects is quite obvious, but he is also very aware of each star’s career mistakes.

The tight volumes are packed with sharp insights, such as this assessment of Bette Davis’s hold over female moviegoers during the star’s heyday:

“American women loved to love her, and to pretend they might be as brave or reckless as she was. But they got the same amount of satisfaction when they could disapprove of her. That simple fact says everything about the appeal of Bette Davis in the great age of movie dreaming.”

Here’s another Thomson gem on the star’s screen persona:

“Bette Davis made women’s pictures, to be sure, and some are gentler or more yielding than others, but to the point of stridency in the ’30s and ’40s she asserted this war cry — that women do not have to take it, or be seen crying. Neither our movies nor our society have yet lived up to this intimidating example.”

In the Cooper book, Thomson shows how the star created a template of the quiet man of action that has been followed by such contemporary stars as Clint Eastwood.

The four careers examined are very different and give Thomson the chance to write about Golden Age Hollywood from multiple vantage points. While Cooper became a star very quickly — based primarily on his extraordinary good looks — Bogart spent a decade at Warner Bros. playing far-from-memorable villains before John Huston figured out a way to make the actor a new sort of star in “The Maltese Falcon.”

Davis also served a fairly long apprenticeship at Warner Bros. before she hit her stride in the late 1930s and then spent the subsequent decade as queen of lot. Bergman was an import, brought to Hollywood from Sweden by producer David O.Selznick and packaged as a new “natural” star who could be beautiful and sexy in a very accessible, down-to-earth manner.

The books show how aging stalled Davis’s career after her “All About Eve” triumph — she was only 42! — while Cooper and Bogart would remain at the top of their profession despite the ravages of time.

Thomson explores the difference between the confidence of a star’s screen image and the insecurities that can lead to bad choices of roles.

After his early fame as a glamorous, rather remote leading man, Cooper decided to tone down his good looks and play Everyman roles that Thomson believes neutered the star’s potent sexuality.

“In many Hollywood careers there comes an awkward moment when a man or woman decides to be more likeable — and time and again it betrays the shallowness and insecurity of their thinking,” Thomson writes of Cooper after his success as the Vermont yokel in “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.”

Buried away in the new issue of GQ — the one with Johnny Depp on the cover — is the most frightening magazine article I’ve read in a long time, “Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to your Health.”

Christopher Ketcham’s piece on the mounting evidence that cell phones (and cell phone towers and WiFi) could be life-threatening isn’t promo’ed on the cover, but then again this is not the sort of story you can write a sexy tagline for.

The piece follows an item I read on the Publisher’s Lunch blog recently that a big book is coming next year that will be the “Silent Spring” of the cell phone industry (although more people are probably impacted by cell phone hazards than were touched by the pesticide run-offs that Rachel Carson wrote about in her early 1960s New Yorker piece and the subsequent best-selling book).

Ketcham combines anecdotal material — young Wall Streeters noticing that co-workers have been developing brain tumors adjacent to their phone ears — with studies from Europe that seem to leave little doubt that we might want to cut back on the number of hours we spend with cell phones and in places where WiFi is blasting microwaves at us all the time.

The piece offers no solutions and very little solace because we have all become so addicted to those little buggers that we don’t want to believe that they can be harming us.

Ketcham does suggest that we try to restrict our longer phone chats to land lines and that men should not keep phones in their pants pockets (or hooked on their belts) if they are planning to have children any time soon.

According to the article, European scientists have made such strong cases against WiFi radiation that many public facilities — such as libraries — are shutting that technology down.

GQ is not offering a link to this piece yet, but it is well worth the price of the magazine

Last week, I was pleased to be asked to speak at a screening of the 1937 Paul Muni film, “The Life of Emile Zola,” at Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport.

The movie was part of an ongoing Jewish film series at the synagogue.

Muni was one of the greatest stars of the 1930s — and he was a stage-trained Jew who managed to cross over to movies from the Yiddish theater in New York at a time when the Hollywood studios were nervous about “ethnic” actors.

Muni had to drop his real name, of course — imagine Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund on a movie theater marquee — but he not only became one of the most respected actors of the pre-World War II era, he was also a huge box-office attraction.

Based on his success in two early 1930s hits — “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang” and “Scarface” — Muni was able to have his Warner Bros. contract rewritten to give the actor what was then unprecedented control over his career.

He instigated projects for himself and proved to be a good judge of commerce and art — a 1936 Muni film that Warner Bros. thought was extremely risky, “The Story of Louis Pasteur,” became a major hit and won the star an Oscar.

“The Life of Emile Zola” was another popular bio-pic that won the best picture Oscar for 1937.

Muni’s reputation has dimmed over the years — some critics believe his film acting is too “stagey” and wish the star did not have such a love for hiding his face with elaborate make-up — but I was pleased to see how well “Emile Zola” has held up.

Zola was the French writer celebrated for his muckraking novels about the underclass — “Nana” was a tale of prostitution that launched his career with a scandalous success. When Zola was old and looking forward to resting on his laurels a bit, the writer was drawn into the notorious Dreyfus case in which a Jewish military officer was framed for spying for the Germans, convicted and sent to Devil’s Island.

Dreyfus’ wife begged Zola to become involved in the controversy. After doing enough research to see that the officer was framed – and targeted by anti-Semites – Zola wrote a tract that incensed most of his fellow Frenchmen and then had to stand trial for libeling the military.

“The Life of Emile Zola” doesn’t have much “cinematic” technique going for it, but the story is strong and it is wonderful to see Muni age from a bohemian youth (below, second from left) to an aged activist. The movie created a template that would be used with great success for the next half-century in man-against-the-system dramas such as the 1966 best picture Oscar winner, “A Man for All Seasons.”

Muni gives an exuberant, technique-driven performance that takes a little getting used-to — you have to throw considerations of “realism” aside just as you do at the opera — but the actor’s focus and power is still very impressive.

On a recent Amtrak trip to Philadelphia, when I wasn’t concerned about the terrible security on our national railroad (see item below), I was very happily engrossed in an Advance Readers’ Edition of “Think Twice” by Lisa Scottoline. The St. Martin’s Press novel won’t be in stores until March 16, but I don’t believe in waiting to share good news on this blog.

Scottoline has mixed new high velocity thriller elements with the warmth and humor we have come to expect from her to produce a book that has to rank in the writer’s top two or three (out of the 16 novels she’s given us since she debuted with “Everywhere That Mary Went” in 1993).

Scottoline has avoided the series trap that has foiled other book-a-year, best-selling writers (i.e. Patricia Cornwell), but readers have developed a personal stake in the novels through the use of a cast of recurring characters, starting with Philadelphia lawyer Mary DiNunzio.

After Mary’s frightening stalking experience in book one, DiNunzio went on to join an all female law firm run by the rather intimidating “Bennie” Rosato. Over the years, Scottoline has alternated “Bennie books” with “Mary books” and she also added two other lawyer characters, Anne Murphy and Judy Carrier, to the firm.

The first bit of good news about “Think Twice” is that Scottoline has returned to Rosato and company after her terriffic stand-alone thriller, “Look Again,” last year. And, the writer has found a way to keep Bennie front and center while giving us lots of important scenes with Mary and Judy as well. The real magic in the plotting here is the way that so many seemingly unrelated plot strands all come together at the end.

In “Dead Ringer,” Bennie found out she had an identical twin sister — with serious criminal tendencies — and in “Think Twice” Scottoline uses this fact for a genre-bending story about a truly nightmarish situation.

Bennie’s twin, Alice Connelly, is in deep trouble with a major Philly drug dealer and she decides to use the striking resemblance to her sister to leave town with a new identity (and Bennie’s life savings).

Alice drugs Bennie, buries her alive on a remote Pennsylvania farm, and then heads to Philadelphia to take over Bennie’s life long enough to clean out her bank accounts and avoid being iced by the dealer.

Yes, this set-up is as melodramatic as an old Bette Davis movie (specifically, the 1964 picture with the same title as the first Bennie-Alice story), but Scottoline succeeds in making us believe the opening chapters, and then using the premise for a very creepy tale of crime and paranoia.

There are moments in the story when the fake Bennie fools her sister’s friends and an ex-lover that reminded me of the classic sci-fi movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

This is a Lisa Scottoline novel — and not a Ruth Rendell skin-crawler — so we know going in that Bennie will probably survive her ordeal and figure out a way to thwart Alice. But, all along the way to a breathless finale, the novelist takes us into states of mind that are darker than anything she has explored in her other stories.

Bennie risks becoming as evil as her twin — and learns some very painful lessons about her own inadequacies — in a thriller that feels like an instant classic.

You might want to get your tickets now for the MCC Theater production of “The Pride” that starts performances off-Broadway next Wednesday.

The show will mark the U.S. stage debut of 29-year-old English actor Ben Whishaw whose career heat has steadily risen over the past few years.

Like so many Brits, Whishaw has been juggling stage, TV and film work in England and seems to be equally adept in all three media.

His 2004 “Hamlet” at the Young Vic (below) was widely praised and he received rave reviews in the fall for the Royal Court production of “Cock” in London.

Whishaw is one of those rare classically trained stage actors with the charisma of a movie star — he has that special ability to draw us close to angry, disturbed and confused characters who might not be sympathetic if played by a less compelling performer.

The actor reminds me of the young Tom Courtenay, who became an unlikely film star in the 1960s because he was able to redeem anti-social anti-heroes in films such as “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner,” “King Rat,” and “Doctor Zhivago.”

After a series of small roles in British TV and films, Whishaw got his big movie break when he landed the starring role in the 2006 “Perfume” — where he played a sympathetic madman with a genius for creating expensive scents.

The following year, Whishaw turned up as one of the multiple Bob Dylans in “I’m Not There” and held his own in a company that included Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett.

The prickly critic David Thomson wrote that Whishaw was “one of Britain’s great actors” after seeing his performance in “Brideshead Revisited.”

The actor also got good reviews for his performance as the poet John Keats in the Jane Campion bio-pic “Bright Star” last fall.

Whishaw is wisely taking a low-key approach to his New York stage debut, opting for a downtown off-Broadway show rather than a high profile Broadway production.

For ticket info on “The Pride” go to  www.mcctheater.org

There was a long line of people waiting to see Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 classic “The Hidden Fortress” at the Film Forum in Manhattan Saturday night.

I was there to see Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” — which was also playing to sold-out houses — but it was wonderful to see such intense interest in a 52-year-old Japanese film.

“The Hidden Fortress” was one of the inspirations for the George Lucas film “Star Wars” — so there were probably as many sci-fi fans as art house patrons on the long line — but one of the theater staffers told me the current Kurosawa retrospective has been packing them in.

The festival is being presented in association with the Japan Foundation through Feb. 18 and includes virtually the entire body of work of the genius filmmaker.

The final two weeks of the retrospective will be devoted to a restored version of Kurosawa’s stunning “Ran” (above), a 1985 re-telling of “King Lear” set in ancient Japan.

Although Kurosawa is most famous for period pieces, such as “Ran,” he also made excellent contemporary dramas, including the taut 1963 kidnapping thriller “High and Low” which will be screened Friday.

Kurosawa was heavily influenced by American cinema and he in turn inspired American directors who used several of the Japanese filmmaker’s samurai pictures as the starting point for “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Outrage,” among other Hollywood productions.

Kurosawa looked to American crime fiction for “High and Low,” which was loosely based on “King’s Ransom” one of the 87th Precinct police procedural novels by the late Fairfield County writer Ed McBain (the nom de plume of Evan Hunter).

For more information on the Kurosawa festival, go to www.filmforum.org

What do you do when a one-night-only annual fundraiser reaches its maximum earning potential?

Add more nights!

That’s what Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDs has decided to do with its amazingly successful strip-tease fundraiser, “Broadway Bares,” held on a Sunday night every June at Roseland in Manhattan.

The two shows are presented on the only weekend night Broadway dancers have off. Hundreds of dancers rehearse for weeks in advance and put on sexy numbers that are as good as anything on Broadway.

Stage stars often take part as well. Last year, Allison Janney did a terrific guest appearance and in 2008 “Glee” star Matthew Morrison stopped the show with a solo number (below).

“Broadway Bares” has raised millions for BC/EFA over the past 20 years, but founder Jerry Mitchell decided recently to expand the event with smaller shows — the first, “Broadway Bares: Solo Strips,” will be held Jan. 31 at the club, Splash, at 50 West 17th St.

A group of the best dancers from past “Broadway Bares” nights — including Joshua Buscher of “West Side Story” and Daniel Robinson (left) from “Hairspray” (and last year’s Roseland benefit) — will be doing two shows at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

The event at Splash will be a homecoming of sorts for Mitchell who did the first “Broadway Bares” benefit with a few of his dancer pals at the same nightspot 20 years ago.

Mitchell was a Broadway chorus dancer at the time. It was while he was doing a number as a scantily dressed American Indian in “The Will Rogers Follies” that the striptease fundraiser idea hit him.

The show dancer went to the Chelsea nightclub with his friends on their off-night and hauled in $9,000 for the charity.

Mitchell has gone on to become one of the most in-demand choreographers on Broadway — he told me in an interview several years ago that his best job training came from staging the numbers at the early “Broadway Bares” — but he has kept working to bolster the annual BC/EFA fundraiser. He is determined to raise $1 million this year between the small shows and the June event. 

Unlike the Roseland benefit, where the cheapest tickets are $55, admission to the Jan. 31 show is only $10 (patrons will be encouraged to tip the dancers, however!)

For more information, go to www.BroadwayCares.org