WCBE 90.5 FM: Films That Move Us - "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "Casablanca"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," "Casablanca"
Co-hosted, produced & directed by John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, January 5, 2007
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

Clay

"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" from 1971 is Robert Altman's moodiest and most haunting film . . .

John

The 1942 "Casablanca" has the best dialogue of any movie ever made . . .

HIT MUSIC, THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle"

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. . .

MUSIC UP THEN DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay (Intro: Films That Move the Heart - 258 words)

And I’m Clay Lowe.

HIT CD: LEORNARD COHEN: CUT 2 (THE SISTERS OF MERCY), ESTABLISH THEN UNDER FOR:

Folks, not only is a new year upon us, so is the arrival of our 300th show. So to celebrate the occasion John and I are going to finally respond to one of our most frequently asked questions: What is your favorite film? And, of course, the inevitable follow through: Why?

Fair enough, that's easy, for of all the films I've seen, Robert Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is the film that has most deeply touched my heart. And isn't that what we expect from our movies?

Featuring the visually seductive cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond (who most recently lensed "The Black Dahlia"), and the brooding music of Canadian folk balladeer, Leonard Cohen, Altman gets everything just right.  The turn of the century mining town in the Pacific Northwest.  The smoky interiors of the local pubs and whorehouse, with all of the oddball drifters, opportunists, and ladies of ill repute this new little town can support.

Warren Beatty, as McCabe, first comes mumbling his way into town from out the midst of a snow storm. Then he meets Julie Christie, as Mrs. Miller, a fetchingly beautiful and soulfully wise business woman who offers to help set up the town's most thriving enterprise, next to the mines.

So, while the snow continues to fall and Cohen's melancholy music quietly drones on, McCabe continues to find himself sinking his way deeper and deeper into the tragedy of his own making.

Loners and dreamers and losers, John, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" is the film that's been cut most closely to my size. (258)

CROSSFADE MUSIC TO "ROMANTIC MOVIE THEMES FOR THE LOVER IN YOU" (CUT 8: "AS TIME GOES BY"), THEN UNDER FOR:

John ("McCabe" response then leads into “Casablanca”)

I can’t believe you HEAR any of that mumbling, crisscrossing dialogue. Fortunately Altman didn’t use that technique in Prairie Home Companion, so I enjoyed its conversations and music.

Clay

John, when you get as old as I am, you'll begin to treasure more dearly the visual and non-verbal clues that are concealed within the text of a film.

John

It’s true true, you visual, me verbal.

Now here’s a favorite of mine where dialogue is never lost; in fact, I bet it's the American film with the most memorable lines.

When I recently read about the discovery of a homoerotic sub theme in Michael Curtiz’ Casablanca, I knew it was a classic that could hold up under the most bizarre interpretations from our slightly-crazed fellow critics.

Clay

Such as Kristin, Hope, and Johnny?

John

They’ll qualify.

The American Film Institute declared Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, the best romantic film of all time, so I offer it as a film that moves my heart.

The love is self sacrificing, not typically American; it requires the two lovers to support the resistance to Nazi Germany in WW II at the cost of their romance.

And its award-winning script has the most memorable lines, for example, “Here’s looking at you, Kid”; “Round up the usual suspects”; “I stick my neck out for nobody”; but, as students of trivia know, not “Play it again, Sam.”

Clay

Blame that on Woody Allen . . .

“Casablanca" IS a lovely, touching film, John, completely worthy of someone who is more adept than Karl Rove in coming up with good lines.

John (Wrap up)

Clay, I have to admit, Altman is a man for all our seasons, studying the changes in whole nations through characters little by comparison to their cultures, but big on a screen, magnifying our human nature.

McCabe and Casablanca let the dialogue carry the characters. Both films are centered on human beings, making these gifted directors true artists of the humanities-- and film the most influential modern art.

In the end, for me it’s words more than images. You and I are lovers of words, if only second to women, but that may be the point: Wherever the women go, there go our tongues.

I'm outta here.

Clay

Somehow I see your statement as being more strikingly visual than literal - and that is just another way we differ.
Three hundred shows and still counting, John, I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC (FRENCH NATIONAL ANTHEM), THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM,WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright 2007 John DeSando and Clay Lowe