#harry brown

[iamyourwayout]

JACK O'CONNELL CHARACTERS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

39. Marky - Harry Brown (2009)

[jimmythecookiemonster]

Harry Brown (2009)

[lostgirl88]

Jack O’Connell as Marky

[scrprints]

Harry Brown (2009) - Starring Jack O'Connell as Marky

⚠️ THERE IS A SEVERE VIEWER DISCRETION FOR THESE SHOTS⚠️

[therealjimmycondommilwaukee]

#Welcome, #viewers, #listeners, and #sentientmoldpatches, to the first #installment of Jimmy Condom’s #Croakerverseinterviews! Today, I am joined by @marsha-landlord, also known as Marsha Brown!

Before we get into the #interview, would you like to #introduce yourself to the audience, Marsha?

M: No. If the viewers do not know who I am they will have to find out on their own. They can find my blog at @marsha-landlord.

Marsha, I have mentioned your #blog!

M: Okay.

Oh! Um… well! I suppose that that’s a #valid #response. But without further ado, let’s get into the meat of the #interview with our first #question!

Marsha, what was your childhood like?

M: I was born in 1969 to my mother Gertrude and father Delbert. I have got six siblings. It would be seven, had my sister not perished in the flood.

I attended Catholic Schools for most of my childhood. I admired the Nuns that taught there. I had my heart set on becoming a Nun, however once I turned 14 things took a drastic turn when my father was exposed to mass amounts of radiation and all of his skin melted off. As a result my mother became the sole breadwinner of our household, and as the eldest daughter it was only proper that I left school to take on the role of caring for my siblings.

That’s rough, Marsha. I’m sorry you had to go through #that. I have my own experiences with #familial and specifically #sibling-based #trauma, so I can empathize with you.

Now that we a have a good idea of where you started, Marsha, how did you get from there to where you are now? More specifically, what inspired you to pursue a career in #landlording?

M: I was born with the deeds to the apartment building in my hands. These were kept safe for me until I became of age, at which point I moved there. I lived there for decades, treating each apartment as if it were one room of my very large house.

Then when my husband and I had Harold Junior., it was nonsensical to remain in the apartment building. All of those stairs with a young child would prove dangerous. So we instead purchased a modest little property with seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, two dining rooms and three living rooms. It was not much but it was enough for us.

Harold thought that I gave up the apartment building, but instead I began to rent it out in order to make a little extra money because back in those days the wife was merely considered to be the homemaker and should not have a job. These days, I would not say that Landlordism is my true calling but I enjoy it nonetheless.

#Fascinating! I’m sure our audience will appreciate that window into your life #in-the-now!

Speaking of #in-the-now, as of late, you’ve made posts pertaining to a… #certain #someone. Your beloved #bestie-turned-boo, Ingrid (@ingrid-francis)! How have things been going with her?

M: Very well. We have got another date night coming up this weekend, for which I am taking her to the theater.. I am not sure if you will have heard of it but we will be seeing a local showing of "Hamilton". Ingrid is a history aficionado so I am sure she will enjoy it.

I’ve heard good things about that show! We at #WISNTVNews once received an offer from a #Hamilton fan who was an #AIDS #activist, though, on reply, we never heard back from them.

Shifting the spotlight back to you though, Marsha, how has this process of #discovery regarding your #sexuality been, at your advanced age?

M: I have been having complex feelings surrounding the topic. I married young, and for the majority of my life Harold was the only person I had been with. Upon meeting Ingrid at our book club, however, something shifted within me. It has been a challenge but with the help of my daughter, Amanda (@mandythegreat) , I have been able to accept this part of myself, at least somewhat.

…Somewhat, Marsha? Is there something you've been #struggling #with in regards to your #feelings? If you don't want to #go #into #it, you don't have to, and we can cut this part.

M: In a way. I have done some thinking and I have realised I feel a large amount of guilt surrounding my deceased husband, Harold (may he rest in peace). I feel as though I have betrayed him by moving on at all, let alone moving on with another woman. Deep down, I know that there is nothing wrong with being a woman who likes women, but my daughter says that it sounds as if I am struggling with what she calls “Internalized Homophobia” and that I have much work to do in order to fully accept myself as I am.

I’m glad you can display that sort of kindness to yourself, Marsha! Not everyone can manage that. I truly hope that, someday, you’ll be able to #vanquish your #internalized #homophobia. It’s a long process, but I believe in you!

On the topic of #lovers, though, you mentioned Harold Junior before—#Harry (@harry-the-worst). Our reporters in the interweb fields report that he and his girlfriend, #Danni (@gothiccdanni), have a bit of a… troubled relationship. Do you have anything to say on #that #matter, Marsha?

M: If I am being honest, I do not know a lot about their relationship. Amanda has confided in me about some things that she says have been going on with the two of them but I do not know how accurate that is. A lot of the time I do not trust Amanda's judgement.

That’s understandable. Children don’t always want to share details of their lives with their parents, and that’s okay! They’re deserving of #respect and #privacy just as much as their #parents, both in adulthood and in their earlier years. If only my own #parents could’ve imbibed that #lesson… but anyway! What does the average #day #in #your #life look like, Marsha?

M: I enjoy going to my book club and tending to my house plants. I also do yoga sometimes. It is a good way to release emotions. Sometimes I find myself screaming while I am in Downward Dog.

#Yoga? That’s very heartwarming! I hear that it is not only a good way to #vent emotions, as you have said here, but that it also comes with a variety of #health #benefits. For someone like you, who’s had such a drastic #diet shift in the last two months—from a life of #Veganism to a more carnivorous palate—I imagine that #yoga’s nothing but helpful. How has your health been, since that dietary change?

M: I am incredibly bloated.

“Bloated?” Not to #offend, Marsha, but that seems like a bit of a harsh word. Have you been experiencing any #dissatisfaction with your larger body?

M: Not at all. I am as happy with my body type as I have always been. Women are taught to dislike their bodies but I refuse to. This is the same body that has carried me through my 56 years of life and I hope it will last for a further 56.

Inspiring, Marsha! I hope that all of the young women watching can follow in your #body #positivity footsteps.

As we reach the end of this #interview, I’d like to return to your occupation, if that’s alright. What’re in the #penthouse and #asbestos #basement? Viewers have been #dying to know since the May 6 poll ended in a standstill.

M: The asbestos basement contains asbestos. I am not sure why this confuses people when it is explained in the name. The penthouse is private and I will not be discussing it as of right now.

That’s entirely understandable. We all have our #secrets!

For our final question, Marsha, we’ve got a bit of a #curveball for you. A hypothetical, if you’d be willing to entertain it.

If all of your present tenants were in a #Saw #trap and you could only #save #one, who would you save?

M: If I were forced to save someone, I would choose Kermit (@the-muppet-joker). We have had our differences in the past but he is now my "Homestuck Moirail" so I feel obliged. Plus Tenant Eight (@tenant-eight) is already a corpse so it would not matter if I were to save it and Scarlet (@scarlet-worms) is worms so she is able to regenerate on her own.

A strong #platonic friendship never fails to #move #the #soul! Furthermore, the resilience of this “Tenant Eight” and Scarlet is truly heartening, even if I don’t fully grasp the metaphors you’re using. That being said, I think this is a wonderful note to end this #interview on. Is there anything you’d like to say to our viewers before we conclude, Marsha?

M: No.

Oh! A-Alrighty, then! Have a wonderful rest of your day, Marsha! The spatial distortion portal is behind the door on your left.

M: Thank you, Mr. Condom.

And thank you, dear viewers, for tuning in for the first installment of my #croakerverseinterviews! My next interviewee is #to #be #announced, but if you would like to be the first to know, make sure to sign up for my #newsletter!

This has been Jimmy Condom, #WISNTVNews, signing off.

[highflyartist]

CONCEPT COMIC TIME BITCHES!!! ( ft @endomentendo as Mary Ann and @/the_cheesiest_weirdo on Insta)

TIME - MAY/JUNE 1954

Location - The White Rabbit Diner in England.

[bear-fangs]

Some of the cypranos in nitw style :P

( I’m coping over recent events.. Pleeeease make up marty and yuno </3 the petty-off was funny until lang got involved, now I’m scared lol )

[dweemeister]

El Dorado (1966)

Pulp science fiction writer Leigh Brackett was an anomaly in the genre. Not only was she a woman, but she also crossed over into Hollywood sporadically. Alongside her novellas and serialized stories, her film credits are enviable: The Big Sleep (1946; okay, this film’s story never made sense, but its romantic dialogue is legendary), Rio Bravo (1959), and, posthumously, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). To Brackett, she deemed her script to 1966’s El Dorado, a loose adaptation of Harry Brown’s novel The Stars in Their Courses, as “the best script [she] had done in [her] life.” High praise for oneself, especially as one could easily interpret El Dorado as a lighter, slightly more comic version of Rio Bravo. El Dorado was Brackett’s fourth of five collaborations with director Howard Hawks (1938’s Bringing Up Baby; the four other Brackett-Hawks collaborations include The Big Sleep, 1948’s Red River, Rio Bravo, and 1970’s Rio Lobo). Brackett’s inventiveness and spiky dialogue makes even the more clichéd elements of the story more entertaining than they should be. Other than Hawks and the ensemble cast, it is Brackett who is most responsible for the film’s success.

Somewhere in the American West, cowboy Cole Thornton (John Wayne) rides into the town of El Dorado for a job offer from local landowner Bart Jason (Ed Asner). His longtime friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) meets with him, quickly deduces the reason for Cole’s presence in town, and effortlessly persuades his friend to turn down the job (the mutual respect for each other – between the characters and between Mitchum and Wayne – is apparent from the moment they meet). Jason’s job for to Thornton included coercing, gently or otherwise, the MacDonald family to abandon their land and water rights. The MacDonalds are an honest family, Harrah says, and they have been the target of regular harassment from Bart Jason and his men. Over the rest of the film, Harrah, Thornton, elderly deputy Bull Harris (Arthur Hunnicutt), a youthful gunslinger named Mississippi (James Caan), and Dr. Miller (Paul Fix) find themselves further embroiled in Jason’s repeated attempts to violently force the MacDonalds out.

El Dorado’s large supporting cast also includes saloon owner Maudie (Charlene Holt, whose character has a hankering for Thornton); R.G. Armstrong, Christopher George, Johnny Crawford, and Adam Roarke as the MacDonald boys; and Michele Carey as the hot-tempered Josephine “Joey” MacDonald (Carey and Holt play two of the final examples of the “Hawksian woman”).

Comparisons to Rio Bravo are all but inevitable to cinephiles and fans of American Westerns. Where Rio Bravo is more of a movie where friends revel in each other’s’ vibes, El Dorado is squarely a story of aging cowboys whose foibles – Harrah’s alcoholism to drown his self-pity, Thornton’s first act spinal injury and free-roaming ways – may spell the difference between local tragedy and justice. Despite what she might say, Brackett’s script to Rio Bravo (co-written by Jules Furthman) is far tighter than El Dorado’s, which employs a momentum-killing six-month time skip just as its dramatic interest begins to pique (editor John Woodcock does not provide any assistance here). It takes just a tad too much time for El Dorado, which uses the time skip to introduce Mississippi and sideline Harrah due to his heavy drinking, to regain the dramatic interest it established in the opening third of the movie.

Both casts of Rio Bravo and El Dorado have advantages over the other. Rio Bravo boasts Walter Brennan and Ward Bond in supporting roles (yet I’ve never been too fond of Dean Martin’s performance). El Dorado has Mitchum (whose dynamic with Wayne is fantastic), Caan (miles better than a Ricky Nelson sticking out like a rock 'n' roll kid from the 1950s), and not enough Asner. The two films, to me, are similar in quality, and I vacillate between which is “better” (but, on a rewatch, I think I might prefer El Dorado)*.

The interplay between John Wayne and Robert Mitchum lies at the heart of El Dorado. In 2024, it remains fashionable to lambaste Wayne for not being able to act and “playing himself” – an accusation that has been around for decades. With more lightly comedic material than usual (I would not consider El Dorado a comedy, but there are good-hearted ribbings and wry situational observances that prevent this from being a pure dramatic Western), Wayne revives some of the comic timing from The Quiet Man (1952) to decent effect here, especially around Mitchum and Caan. But most compellingly, Howard Hawks directs Wayne in a way that acknowledges and plays against his on-screen persona as the accomplished Western hero. Thornton’s spinal injury in the film’s opening act sees him reckon with his mortality – in jest and in seriousness. Wayne’s delivery and his physical acting is striking to longtime viewers such as yours truly, as it is one of the first films in which Wayne must come to terms with aging and his growing fallibility, as well as his reputation for outgunning and outthinking his opponents. The seeds of what would be Wayne’s late career signature performances in The Cowboys (1972) and The Shootist (1976) begin to show themselves here.

Mitchum, perpetually sleepy-eyed and always my first choice to play a slovenly protagonist good with a revolver, is wonderful here as a sheriff with the romantic maturity of a teenager who unaccustomed to rejection. The duality of Mitchum’s Sheriff Harrah here – the fastest gun for miles around determined to uphold the law and the inebriated slob who retains a sense of humor that makes self-pitying and self-deprecation indistinguishable – is difficult to pull off, but Mitchum does exactly that. Mitchum and Wayne’s historical on-screen personas are not polar opposites, but there is nevertheless little overlap between the two aside for their marksmanship. In their only screen appearance together (the two both co-starred on 1962’s The Longest Day, but their scenes were filmed separately), it seems the two have known each other for ages. The subtle glances, the knowing facial expressions, and gentlemanly warmth in conversation bely the fact that this is their first film together. But for El Dorado, their rapport benefits the film magnificently.

Like his good friend Ernest Hemingway, Howard Hawks admired masculine competence, professionalism, and self-reliance. El Dorado rambles a little bit about duty, honor, and loyalty, but all of this surrounds the central tenants of male friendship found here and in Rio Bravo. It is the development of that friendship and simultaneous professional excellence, rather than any plot details, that concerns Hawks – and this is the frame through which he wants viewers to see this film. By his own self admission, Hawks stated that he was, “much more interested in the story of a friendship between two men” than anything else in El Dorado (including fidelity to the original novel). The range war between Jason and the MacDonald family lacks as much exposition as some might expect. Hawks and Brackett refuse to fully explain how the dispute started, as well as what the conflict has wrought during the film’s time skip.

Those who are not as competent or professional – in this film’s case, James Caan’s character of Mississippi – are simply comic relief until they can prove otherwise. For those aware of Hawks’ aversion to Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) – in which Gary Cooper’s Sheriff Will Kane spends almost ninety minutes going around town asking for help when he learns a few recently-released convicts are coming to murder him (Hawks, to my consternation, considered this cowardly and a disgrace to the Western genre) – El Dorado is yet another reaction against it.

Unlike Hemingway, Hawks (who was by no means a feminist) rejects Hemingway’s reductionist portrayals of women as “Dark” (submissive lovers) or “Light” (castrating man-killers). The female protagonists in Hawks’ films, too, demonstrate tremendous ability. The saloon keeper, Maudie, is perhaps the most keenly observant individual in the entire picture, and can pick out the psychology of a person whether she has known them for ages (such as our leads) or if they have just stumbled in for a drink. She may be the smartest person in town. Her fellow Hawksian Woman is the wild-haired Joey MacDonald (her hair feels at times like an anachronism airlifted from the 1960s, rather than a likelihood of the Old West), quick on a gun and with a quicker temper. There is not nearly enough attention on either character as previous Hawksian Women (nevertheless, we need to recall what Hawks wanted to concentrate on most here, and that’s male friendship), but what there is still improves El Dorado’s watchability aside from our two leads.

A worthy score from composer Nelson Riddle (1960’s Ocean’s 11, 1962’s Lolita) dials back the main theme more than one might expect from a midcentury Western, but it is still effective music for this film. Riddle is best known as an arranger and orchestrator for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Linda Ronstadt, not a composer. Nevertheless, arrangers and orchestrators can learn composition through osmosis if they have not already been trained in music composition. Riddle’s liberal use of harmonica perfectly captures the setting, although his use of electric guitar/bass and discernible lack of harmonic identity (especially in the strings) feels too much like television scoring from this era – Riddle was the principal composer for the 1960s Batman television series starring Adam West. Instead, the score highlights revolve around uses of the main title song and its variations.

And what about that title song? Sung by George Alexander and the Mellomen, with lyrics by John Gabriel (Dr. Seneca Beaulac on ABC’s soap opera Ryan’s Hope), “El Dorado” fits the film perfectly, and Alexander’s rich baritone musically exemplifies the masculine themes of El Dorado. Strings double underneath the vocals, with the occasional woodwind and brass section and peaking out from the melodic doubling (again, one wishes for more harmonic interest here aside from doubling the melody). A snippet of the song’s lyrics reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Eldorado”; the poem itself is recited by Mississippi. “El Dorado” is nothing but an earworm, and I just wish it (and its variations) made more appearances in the film itself.

Though Rio Bravo had elements of a changing of the guard, El Dorado cannot help but feel, by its conclusion, as a generational marker, a near-last hurrah – intentionally or otherwise. This is not, like The Wild Bunch (1969) or Unforgiven (1992), a eulogy of the Old American West. In 1966, El Dorado came at a time when the great figures of Old Hollywood and the height of the American Western’s popularity (Wayne and Mitchum) were no longer the dominant forces in American cinema. The film’s title song even opens with oil paintings from Western artist Olaf Weighorst, of evocatively overcast vistas of the West, as if in reflection.

El Dorado would be Leigh Brackett and Howard Hawks’ penultimate collaboration and penultimate Western, with Rio Lobo a few years away. Their professional partnership, so unlikely given Hawks’ status in Hollywood and Brackett’s supposedly disreputable day job as a pulp science fiction writer, is maybe one of the most underrated and undermentioned in Old Hollywood history – one that spanned the height of Golden Age Hollywood to its final years. For El Dorado, Brackett, despite a few structural missteps, once again shows her gifts for dialogue and a keen understanding of Hawks’ directorial intentions. Hawks arguably improves upon his depiction of male camaraderie from Rio Bravo, allowing our protagonists to intuit their aging (some might say obsolescence). This is a sterling Western, if slightly out of time.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

* As of this write-up’s publication, I have not seen Rio Lobo (1970), which forms an unofficial trilogy of Westerns with Rio Bravo and El Dorado.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.