Director Stanley Donen behind the camera on location.
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How does an artist once perceived to be ahead of his time fall behind the times? The choreographer/director of Golden Age classics like Singin’ the Rain and Funny Face left Hollywood for all the 60s and the first half of the 70s, perfecting a certain brand of sophisticated comedy/romance abroad with films like Charade, Bedazzled and Two for the Road. His rough Hollywood re-entry was marked by exercises in nostalgia for eras gone by (Lucky Lady, a movie about Prohibition Era gangsters starring Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli; the 1930s spoof Movie Movie) and attempts to give audiences of the 80s what it was assumed they wanted (the sci-fi debacle Saturn 3, the sex comedy Blame it on Rio).
Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli, and Burt Reynolds in Lucky Lady, 1975, 20th Century Studios
SHOW NOTES:
Sources:
Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies by Stephen M. Silverman
The Richard Burton Diaries by Richard Burton and Chris Williams
Inside Out: A Memoir by Demi Moore
But Enough About Me: A Memoir by Burt Reynolds and Jon Winokur
“Stanley Donen interviewed by Stephen Harvey,” Film Comment Vol. 9 No. 4, July-August 1973
“Graffiti Reads as Big Dollars for Katz Pair,” Variety, August 29, 1973
“Lucky Lady Turning Into Disaster Film,” James Bacon, LA Herald Examiner, June 13, 1975
“On Location in Mexico With Liza and Friends,” Joseph N. Bell, New York Times, June 29, 1975
“‘Lucky Lady’ Filming Just Plain Unlucky,” Mary Murphy, Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1975
“Lucky Lady Affair, Minus Liza Minelli [sic],” James Bacon, LA Herald Examiner, December 16, 1975
“All’s Not Quiet on the Lucky Lady Front,” Dorothy Manners, LA Herald Examiner, December 26, 1975
“The Final Cut,” TIME, December 29, 1975
“Kubrick’s Gilded Age,” Pauline Kael, New Yorker, December 29, 1975
“Unlucky with a ‘U’,” Joyce Haber, Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1976
“‘Double Feature’: Revisiting the ‘30s,” Wayne Warga, Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1978
“'The End' is just the beginning” Film Comment, May-June 1978
“Movie Movie – Why? Why?,” Larry Gelbart, New York Times, November 19, 1978
“Nostalgia Takes a Holiday,” Andrew Sarris, Village Voice, November 27, 1978
“The Current Cinema: Taming the Movies,” Pauline Kael, New Yorker, December 4, 1978
“Hollywood’s Heart of Lightness,” Richard Corliss, New Times, January 18, 1979
“Barry Exits As ‘Saturn’ Director” Variety, February 7, 1979
“Is Fawcett Running Cold?,” Roderick Mann, Los Angeles Times, October 28, 1979
“Saturn 3 Makes its Mach in Space Race” Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1980
“Stanley Donen,” John Tibbetts, American Classic Screen, March-April 1984
“He’s the Rain Man,” People, May 18, 1998
Marilyn Beck, “Oscar Winner Confronts ‘A Tough World’,” Marilyn Beck, syndicated column, March 10, 1999
“Jean-Luc Godard 10 best films Cahiers du Cinéma 1956-1966,” jdcopp.blogspot.com, December 28, 2006
“Saturn 3: The 1980s’ Weirdest Sci-Fi Movie,” Ryan Lambie, Den of Geek, February 3, 2016
“Stanley Donen: What Audrey Hepburn Had, You Couldn’t Even Learn It,” Film Talk, October 5, 2016
“Cinema ’67 Revisited: Two for the Road,” Mark Harris, Film Comment, April 26, 2017
“Stanley Donen: 1924-2019,” Carrie Rickey, rogerebert.com, February 23, 2019
“Stanley Donen: An Appreciation,” Frederic Raphael, Commentary, April 2019
“Seamless Transitions: Remembering Stanley Donen,” Filmmaker, June 19, 2019
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Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade, 1963, Universal Pictures
Music:
The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca.
Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode:
Magenta - Coquelicot
Macrame - Waltz and Fury
Vermouth - Lowball
TinyTiny Trio - Laser Focus
Pglet - Still Nite
Migration - Gale
Kajubaa - The KIshner Method
Tres Leches - Orejitas
Capocollo - Capocollo Theme
Blue Nocturnal - Variation Waldheim
Vermouth - Chaunce Libertine
Sketchbook 2 - Thumbscrew
Architect - Palladian
Architect - Crosswire
Architect - Kirkus
Orange Cat - JoDon
Fornax - Lacaille
This episode was written, narrated, edited and produced by Karina Longworth.
Our editor this season is Evan Viola.
Research, production, and social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.
Logo design: Teddy Blanks.
Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett in Stanley Donen’s Saturn 3, 1980, ITC Film Distribution