 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Not as a Stranger
|
 |
|
Two Euro Movie
As the five-and-dime department store Woolworths –
Woolies, as my mother always used to refer to it – was a reassuringly familiar
fixture of my Australian childhood, I was a little taken aback to see a replica
of it on the streets of Frankfurt in 2013. Little did I realise that
Woolworth’s (note the apostrophe) was an American invention that persists in
Germany today, even though the original company itself dissolved in 1997 – and
that the Australian Woolworths (no apostrophe) had simply grabbed the un-trademarked
name.
Usually, the DVD section of Woolworth’s wasn’t too
enticing but, one fine day in 2015, close to my departure from Frankfurt, I
spied large tables set up on the pavement out front, containing hundreds of
cheap discs. I snapped up recognisable items by Claude Faraldo and Abel Ferrara,
but also could not go past a mysterious item titled … und nichts als ein Fremder, starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert
Mitchum, Gloria Grahame, Frank Sinatra, Broderick Crawford and Charles Bickford.
What a cast! Oh, and directed by Stanley Kramer.
Hang on! Doesn’t every precocious cinephile dutifully
teach herself or himself to hate Stanley Kramer, almost sight unseen? I
remember viewing Inherit the Wind (1960)
on TV when I was 15 and, with Sarris’ The
American Cinema open before me, scribbling with distaste in my Film Diary (which I still possess) about
how “uncinematic”, how “liberal” (in the bad sense), how unbearably boring it all
was! And that Bible of the Cool Dudes, Time
Out magazine, later told me that this two euro movie I purchased is a
“typical well-meaning slice of Kramerkitsch” (how Germanic!), oh dear …
But I did dare watch Not as a Stranger, Kramer’s directorial debut hiding under that
German translation (which adds three dots preceding the title!) – and what a
peculiar, remarkable film it is.
To begin with, it is absolutely nothing like the “film noir drama” promised by Wonkypedia.
Although it did, no doubt, help create a “young doctors in love” genre that subsequently
became wildly prevalent in both cinema and TV as both (melo)drama and comedy.
However, the uncomfortable tone of proceedings here is
closer to Eyes Wide Shut (1999) or The Knick (2014-2015) territory: the bodies of its heroes
and heroines, in neurosis, in lust, in addiction, even in death, mingle weirdly
with all those unconscious or writhing patients lying waiting on stretchers and
on operating tables …
Adapted from Morton Thompson’s popular (now forgotten)
novel of the previous year, the dramaturgy here is modern in its unusual
emphases and temps morts, much more
like Nicholas Ray or John Cassavetes (inner cinephile voice: hey, didn’t SK as
producer butcher A Child is Waiting in 1963?) than anything I would today consider Stodgy Old Hollywood Classicism
– whatever that really is, if it even exists.
Above all, the film boasts a sex scene that is out of
this world – and takes us right into a sublime confusion of human and animal
realms. It arrives almost 100 minutes in (it’s a long movie), as the good
doctor Mitchum observes two horses, safely inside their separate, gated barns
and fences, hurling out their mating cries of longing for each other. Sultry Gloria
Grahame (as Harriet Lang) emerges from her house, waiting for Bob (as Lucas
Marsh).
These human creatures exchange deep looks. Then Bob
walks over to open the gate for the eager
guy-horse (which immediately, appreciatively bolts) before grabbing Gloria and
pulling her into a delirious close-up frame that is shaky, a bit off-centre and
out-of-focus all at once! Dissolve. As the song says: wild horses couldn’t drag
me away from this two Euro DVD.
Self-critique: do I need to re-watch Inherit the Wind now, and explore the
entire, unsung oeuvre of Stanley Kramer? Maybe …
Note: An audiovisual essay incorporating the scene described above, “Sex Approaches” by Cristina Álvarez López & Adrian Martin, can be viewed here. © Adrian Martin June 2016 |
