BLOOD ON THE MOON (1948: Dir. Robert Wise)
I once had the good fortune to talk with a filmmaker responsible for some of the 20th century's most indelible films. His name is Robert Wise and he had the rare privilege of claiming ownership to at least one seminal film in six different genres including: West Side Story, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Set-Up, Run Silent, Run Deep, The Haunting, and The Andromeda Strain, not to mention such other fan favourites as The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, The Hindenburg, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
It was on one of the hottest days of the year in July of 1995 when an 80 year-old Robert Wise kindly made room in his busy schedule for a book-signing of Robert Wise On His Films at TheatreBooks, where I ran the film department. Wise was actually in Toronto to film a cameo in the feature film The Stupids, joining such other auteur filmmakers as Costa-Gavras, Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, Norman Jewison and Gillo Pontecorvo, all doing their bit parts at the behest of the film's cineaste director John Landis. Mr Wise arrived by taxi right on time, and as I went out to greet him I was immediately struck by the dignity and strength of his character. Still sporting a tall and robust frame, despite his age and semi-retired status, his unpretentious yet courteous demeanor belied the reputation of the many legendary films in his oeuvre. As this public appearance had been rather hastily arranged with no advanced publicity available, there were unfortunately no customers awaiting his entrance, save for the few staff on duty. Sensing a lull, I quickly offered Mr. Wise a chair and right away began plying him for anecdotes about his storied career, with special emphasis on his early years as an editor working with Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons), and his first directing jobs making horror films for producer Val Lewton (Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher). I was especially eager for some reminiscences about his two projects with one of my favourite actors Robert Ryan, the brutal boxing picture The Set-Up, and the largely forgotten Film Noir Odds Against Tomorrow, featuring a full jazz score by musician and Modern Jazz Quartet co-founder John Lewis, one of the first Hollywood films to a use a Black film composer. Indulging my rabid curiosity, Wise generously stayed for a full hour without having sold a single copy of the book, all the while cheerfully answering any and all questions I put to him. I was also able to converse with him about a mutual friend of ours, TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies host Elwy Yost, a unquenchable film buff and historian of whom Wise spoke with genuine fondness. When the time was up, I walked him through the sweltering summer heat to his awaiting cab. Still in a daze from our voluminous conversation, I shook his hand, thanking him for his inspirational body of work, and his kindness in making a special effort to visit the store. Before he got into the cab, he turned to me and said with a twinkle in his eye, "Do me a favour?" "Sure", I said. "Turn down the goddamm heat!!" he chuckled, and was driven away in a flash, leaving me to ponder all of the films unmade and unmentioned in our conversation, yet still feeling pleasantly satisfied that I had sat down with one of cinema's great craftsmen.
One of the films I forgot to inquire about with Robert Wise was Blood on the Moon, a moody noir Western that he made during his RKO contract days. Much overlooked, its low profile has remained constant over the years perhaps due to its uniquely stylized look and relative unavailability. Providing one is prepared for the experience, the film yields many pleasures, especially with its chiaroscuro cinematography that bathes the celluloid image in high contrast black and white often obscuring faces and sets, almost to the point of audience frustration. Director of photography Nicholas Musuraca, was an artist who painted with light, and this, his third film with star Robert Mitchum, is a further refinement on the shadowed look he had already perfected for their previous pairing, the quintessential noir Out of the Past, directed by another Val Lewton protege, Jacques Tourneur. Wise utilizes Musuraca's daring lighting to heighten the existential reality of the characters, tightening the screws on Mitchum's taciturn drifter, a man who's loyalty and moral rectitude find him on both sides of a violent range war. As in all of his pictures, Wise directs his evocatively chosen cast with a steady hand, avoiding the pitfalls of overwrought melodrama, in favour of the lingering aura of doomed peril. Emotions are instead reflected in action, particularly in a bravura bar-room fight between Mitchum and his former partner Robert Preston. Intensely staged with a bloody savagery meant to illustrate the chasm between two men who were once trusted friends, it is one of the most disturbing scenes of violence in Wise's entire filmography. Itching to finish off his seven-year contract, Blood on the Moon would be Wise's penultimate film at RKO, followed by the audacious "real-time" drama of The Set-Up, before he began his celebrated film work at the major Hollywood studios of 20th Century Fox, United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer and finally Universal Pictures. All of these later films would exhibit the same artistry Robert Wise brought to Blood on the Moon, qualities that make his contribution to cinema an eternal gift to future generations. It was my most profound privilege to spend an enlightening afternoon in his company. DVD REGION 2
