TIFF BELL Lightbox - Nicholas Ray (Updated)

Part of the Hollywood Classics section, TIFF Bell Lightbox finally presents the long awaited retrospective of American director Nicholas Ray.

Click for capsule reviews for some of the films screened:

Ray’s dramas mostly dealt with outsiders stuck in rut, unable to live a normal life or a romance. His best and most memorable works REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, BITTER VICTORY and his first film THEY LIVE BY NIGHT will all be screened.

Jean-Luc Godard once declared that the cinema is Ray.  This is a chance to find out for oneself.

For a full listing of his films, showtimes, pricing and venue, please check the TIFF website at:

BIGGER THAN LIFE (USA 1956) ****
Directed by Nicholas Ray

It is no surprise to guess the reason James Mason produced and acted in BIGGER THAN LIFE, a larger than life drama of the psychotic transforming effects of cortisone.  The story is a moral one that also allows Mason to exhibit his acting skills while showcasing his eloquence as he expounds his theory of right and wrong.  Mason plays Ed Avery, a schoolteacher suffering from spasms and blackouts.  The doctors tell him he has a rare artery disease and will not live for long but the terminal illness can be cure by a miracle drug called cortisone.  But Ed gets addicted to the drug while undergoing mood swings and anger, terrorizing his wife (Barbara Bush) and his son.  Director Ray’s film is as real as it is a horror story that will leave you cringing at the edge of your seats.  Mason and Rush deliver outstanding performances.  Apart from the tacked on happy ending, BIGGER THAN LIFE is pretty much a very sad story.
(Screening at Bell Lightbox: Oct 9th and 11th)

BITTER VICTORY (France/USA 1953) ****
Directed by Nicholas Ray

Nicholas Ray’s famous black and white desert drama involves two Allied officers completing a dangerous mission in Libya while remaining bitter enemies to the very end.
Shot in stunning black and white, Ray’s desert adventure complete with a cinematic sandstorm is worthy of the best, if not better, of the spectacle of David Lean’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.  Though the story involves action and escape, the key issue at hand is the animosity between Major Brand (Curt Jurgens) and Captain Leith (a very youngish Richard Burton).  It is odd that Burton’s make up stands out just as much as Peter O’Toole’s in LWRENCE OF ARABIA.
Ray establishes with military efficiency the setting and atmosphere of the film.  The two complete their mission stealing important documents from the safe after their fortress siege.  The 30 men have to survive a treacherous journey through the desert to make it safely home.  But Brand discovers during a dinner that his wife, Jane (Ruth Roman) has had an affair previously with Brand.
To makes matters worse, during the mission, Leith finds Brand to be a coward.  Leith is ordered by him to look after the wounded, all of which he has to kill in order to prevent them from suffering and falling unto enemy’s hands.  The rest of the film plays like a chamber (and a very effective one) piece with the two going at each other’s throats.  Leith is the good guy here, but he torments Brand to not end.
BITTER VICTORY can be seen as a film that wastes no time on what matters second hand to the main story.  The mission is completed quickly with minimal distractions.  The Arabic spoken in the film is taken as unimportant, with no subtitles given.  But the drama, including the meeting of Leith’s and Roman’s wife stretched out.
Still, the difficult plight of the men through the desert is felt.  The German patrols, the bitter heat, the scorpions, bugs and flies all take a toll on the men.  Though Ray does not provide extended graphically violent scenes, his quick edits make the point. 
BITTER VICTORY is drama at its best, set in a welcome different setting, which though made in 1953 still affects audiences because of the universal themes of jealousy, heroism and cowardice.
(Screening: Bell Lightbox: Oct 30)

IN A LONLEY PLACE (1950) ***** Top 10
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Ray’s excellent film noir about a Hollywood writer, Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) works several genres such as romantic drama, murder mystery, melodrama and Hollywood commentary brilliantly.  Accused of murder, Steele is provided with an alibi (to the police) by his neighbour Laurel Grey (Gloria Grahame).  They fall madly in love with each other, enjoying the times of their lives.  When Steele’s unpredictable, violent behaviour surfaces once too often, Grey begins to have doubts of their love affair and even starts to believe that he could have been the murdered girl’s killer.  Ray works his characters extremely well allowing them to develop and reveal sinister behaviour.  When Grey suspects Steele, so does the audience and when she fears of his temper, the audience feels that as well.  The working of the Hollywood machinery is well woven into the film’s theme making the loneliness felt by Steele a real one.  Nothing is what it seems in this almost perfect film about love, despair and solitude.
(Screening: Bell Lightbox: Dec 11 and 13)

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (USA 1955) ****
Directed by Nicholas Ray

James Dean last film before dying in a car accident, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE will be best remembered for Dean’s last role as a troubled, misunderstood youth. When the film opens, he is taken in, again by the police for drunkenness.  His parents and grandmother show up to bring the boy home.  For the confrontation scenes, Jim Stark is upset with his father (Jim Backus) for not standing up to his mother and not being the man he wants his father to be.  But his first in his new school proves to be even more trouble when his picked on by dangerous bullies.  John Stark is portrayed as a good kid who helps friendless, Plato (Sal Mineo).  Ray executes the action car scenes with great finesse with the result of the film being one of the most exciting of Ray’s films.  The subject of troubled youth and school bullying is still as relevant 50 years ago as it is today.  James Dean delivers his best performance of the only 3 films he made but it is comedian Jim Backus (the voice of Mr. Magoo) who steals the show as Jim’s father.
(Screening at Bell Lightbox: Nov 6th and 8th)

ON DANGEROUS GROUND (USA 1952) ***
Directed by Nicholas Ray

The typical Nicholas Ray protagonist - the outsider who finally redeems himself into society takes the form in this film, of an over zealous cop, John Wilson (Robert Ryan).  Jim is actually a good guy who gets his work done, but after some trouble from a lawyer of a hood he has beaten up, his chief (Ed Begley) banishes him to north upstate he nicknames Siberia where Jim can do less harm.  The landscape is snow covered and Jim’s task is to investigate the murder of a young girl.  The girl’s father wishes to kill the suspect himself and Jim has to stop him, a kind of a reversal of his cop role.  As it turns out, the suspect is the brother of a blind girl (Ida Lupino) whom they both meet.  Jim promises her that nothing will happen to the brother.  ON DANGEROUS GROUND is Ray’s foray into film noire.  The first half of the film is mostly shot at night with most of the scenes dark with shadows.  In contrast when Jim works upstate, the scenes become all snowy and white, as if Jim is undergoing a cleansing transformation.  Bernard Herrmann’s score is marvellous but when the score is heard over the chase segments, it feels as if one is watching a Hitchcock movie (particularly NORTH BY NORTHWEST as the three climb a snow covered hill.  But Ray is a bit too preachy with this entry.
Screening: Bell Lightbox Dec 4th and 6th)

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (USA 1949) ***
Directed by Nicholas Ray

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, based on the novel THIEVES LIKE US and co-written by Ray, deals with lovers on the lam.  At the film’s start, Bowie (Farley Granger known from Hitchcock’s ROPE) escapes from prison with bank robbers Chicamaw (Howard Da Silva) and T-Dub (Jay C. Flippen). Bowie was unfairly convicted of murder. The three plan to rob a bank. Bowie needs the money to hire a lawyer to prove he’s innocent.  Bowie, injured in an auto accident, finds refuge with the daughter of the owner of a gas station, Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell).  The two escape together, remain in hiding while very, very much in love.  But as typical stores like this one goes, the bad guys return forcing Bowie to do another job.  Despite the predictable ending, Ray’s first film displays his cinematic innovation (long tracking shot of car travelling on country road; lighting and camera angles during the kissing segments; night scenes) as well as his ability to extract the raw emotions from his actors.  The danger of a couple on the run is fiercely maintained throughout the film.  Granger looking like a very young James Stewart and O’Donnell look the perfect couple.  With the black and white cinematography, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT is both stunning to look at and entertaining at the same time while showcasing Ray’s talent that would evolve to later accomplishments in his later films. (Screening at Bell Lightbox: Oct 2nd and 4th)