Reviews - Hollywood Authentic

May 16, 2024

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Debut writer-director Agathe Riedinger’s sharply observed and slyly feminist drama is a Cinderella story for the influencer generation – a tale of good girls and dreams dressed up in boob jobs, stripper heels and TikTok dances. It focuses on 19 year-old Liane (Malou Khebizi, luminous) from Frejus who is manifesting being ‘the French Kim Kardashian’ via an audition for a scripted reality show that could boost her from her hard-scrabble existence living with a callous mother and bankrolling her club trips and cosmetic surgery with shoplifting. A self-assured hot mess who can handle the lascivious advances of passing men and sprint miles in her vertiginous diamante heels, Liane is aware that her self image and reality do not marry up. Having treated herself to breast enlargements, her carefully curated look of hair-extensions, heavy brows, glossy lips and provocative clothing put her on the short list for joining a dating reality show as well as being slut-shamed on public transport. But though she seems as hard as a diamond, this vulnerable teen has been in foster care, regularly prays, is a virgin and has high self-worth.

It’s this dichotomy that fascinates Riedinger as her lens lingers on Liane’s body, her unwavering takes on the emotions fluttering across her lead’s face as Liane attends a clinical audition (and is made to strip to her underwear while being asked questions about standing up for herself), flirts with a local boy (who inevitably and disappointingly asks to see her breasts) and, in a seeming act of dangerous self-sabotage, crashes a wealthy party and offers to dance for a group of older men who literally stroke their thighs while watching her. As viewers we constantly worry for her as we watch her negotiate a world that is cruel and patriarchal, constantly waiting for the other (high heeled) shoe to drop.

That Riedinger keeps us guessing as to whether Liane will transform into an insta princess is one of the intrigues of the film, but so is Khebizi, a first-time screen actor who inhabits the role so thoroughly and messily it’s impossible to not want the best for her. It’s also an empowering experience that feels like a fresh take on the madonna/whore complex. As Liane says defiantly; “if girls want to wear mini skirts and twerk in clubs they don’t deserve your scorn.” This one certainly doesn’t.

An impressive debut from both director and star – Wild Diamond marks two fledgling careers worth watching

Screening Room

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

May 15, 2024

Words by JAMES MOTTRAM

For years, George Miller’s post-apocalyptic saga has been all about Max Rockatansky. The Road Warrior – first played by Mel Gibson and, in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, by Tom Hardy – has been the iconic lone wolf at the heart of these films. But his latest chapter Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga flips it, brilliantly, switching focus to the breakout character from Fury Road.

Played originally by Charlize Theron, Furiosa was every bit the equal to Max, as she led a posse of female escapees from The Citadel, the impregnable fortress ruled by the foul-looking Immortan Joe. Miller now backtracks fifteen years, giving us Furiosa’s origin story, in this thrilling blockbuster, packed to the rafters with insane action set-pieces perfectly tailored for the big screen.

Across five chapters, the film begins with Furiosa as a girl (Alyla Browne, who also featured in Miller’s Three Thousands Years of Longing). She falls into the hands of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, ditching his Thor persona for some villainous fun), the leader of a gang of marauders who has designs on The Citadel and finding the “place of abundance” where Furiosa comes from.

When Dementus tortures and kills her mother in front of her, Furiosa’s fury rises, inspiring a quest for revenge that will stay with her for years, even after she is taken by Immortan Joe for his baby-producing harem. As she grows into a young woman (The Northman’s Anya Taylor-Joy), she learns how to cultivate her warrior skills, thanks in part to Tom Burke’s Praetorian Jack, a highly skilled driver for Immortan Joe who has completed more runs on Fury Road than anyone else. This all leads to the film’s staggering central sequence, an aerial attack on the armoured War Rig that includes predators on flying motorbikes. In one jaw-on-the-floor moment, a car even flips up onto the bonnet on the War Rig as it’s in full motion. If The Fall Guy, the recent movie with Ryan Gosling, suggests stunt men deserve an Oscar, the stunt team – led by Guy Norris – deserve every award going.

Likewise, the sheer craft on Furiosa – the costumes, the sets, the cinematography – astounds. And whether it’s a moody Burke or a menacing Hemsworth, the performances ace it. At its heart, Browne and Taylor-Joy shoulder the burden of bringing Furiosa to the screen with aplomb and, in their hands, she’s one of the great modern heroines of Hollywood action cinema.

George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga staring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Alyla Browne is screening at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and will release in cinemas 24 May

Screening Room

THE SECOND ACT

May 15, 2024

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Archly meta and reflexive, Quentin Dupieux’s cheeky comedy is precisely the sort of movie to open a film festival – with its fourth wall breaks, mid-scene appeals to film buffs and discussion on the purpose of art. Audiences for Cannes’ opening night film ate up a self-described indie that has plenty to say as its scatty characters seem to say nothing at all.

The Second Act of the title is a remote restaurant where a trembling, anxious waiter opens up and nervously flicks on the lights. On their way to his eaterie are two sets of characters – besties Willy (Raphaël Quenard) and David (Louis Garrel) who discuss the annoying girlfriend that David is trying to jettison as they stride down the road. That girlfriend, Florence (Lea Seydoux), is driving to meet them at the titular rendezvous with her Papa (Vincent Lindon), convinced David is ‘the one’. But before any sort of narrative can form, David and Willy discuss trans women and bisexuality and address the camera directly as they worry about their opinions having the potential to cancel them. Meanwhile, in the car, Florence’s father quits the film production we are watching and argues that acting and filmmaker are ridiculous artifice, pointless in a violent world of war and poverty. That waiter at the restaurant awaits their arrival, his anxiety rising for his big break as a featured background artist, and the ‘director’ is an AI app…

Like a cinematic onion, The Second Act continually sheds its artistic layers, keeping audiences on their toes in questioning what’s ‘real’ and the value of the seventh art. Even if you don’t like this, Dupieux seems to be saying, cinema is vital; ‘movies are cool!’ Seydoux argues at one point and a dolly track is lensed with love. The device of constantly upending expectation with cast/characters spatting about semantics and talking in circles is simultaneously self-indulgent and self-aware but makes some spiky points about the disenfranchisement of artists, the rise of algorithms and the value of acting (Seydoux’s actress calls her mother at one point to blub about her day while her heart surgeon mum saves lives). And despite some dextrous physical comedy from Manuel Guillot as the waiter with serious pouring issues, the film ends with a violent, bleak act that is open to interpretation.

Brisk at under 90 minutes, The Second Act is a slight concoction that plays like a successor to Woody Allen and asks viewers to take nothing too seriously. Unless it’s a call from Paul Thomas Anderson…

Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act starring Lea Seydoux, Louis Garrel, Raphaël Quenard and Vincent Lindon is screening at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Release date TBC

The Favourite

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

May 11, 2024

Words by ALEX BILMES

Some films haunt us, obsess us, change our lives for having experienced them… This issue, the editor-in-chief of British Esquire extols the spellbinding virtues of Wong Kar-wai’s 2000 bittersweet modern classic.

Through the lens of a lesser director than the Hong Kong Chinese auteur Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love might have been somewhat slight, and more than a little contrived. A newspaper journalist, Mr Chow, and a travel agent’s secretary, Mrs Chan, take separate rooms on the same floor of a cramped apartment block. They move in on the same day. Coincidence! Or, coincidence? Both are married to people who are often absent: Mrs Chan’s husband travels frequently to Japan on business; Mr Chow’s wife does shift work, so they are rarely at home at the same time. (Everyone in the film is defined – though, crucially, not everyone is confined – by their marital status.) Both Mr and Mrs are reticent, contained, solitary. They’re also both off-the-charts attractive, but we’ll come to that later.

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Slowly, tentatively, first with glances and smiles, then halting, stiffly polite snatches of conversation, they come to know each other – and soon to discover something surprising. Mrs Chan’s husband is cheating on her, with Mr Chow’s wife.

‘By the way, haven’t seen your husband lately.’

‘Haven’t seen your wife lately, either.’

Not a terrible set-up for a movie. But hardly, you might think, the raw material for the most luscious unconsummated romance ever depicted on screen, a film as chaste as Brief Encounter, and yet also a gorgeous swoon of a work, one that has become regarded by critics and discerning audiences as perhaps the most hauntingly affecting love story ever made.

When Sight & Sound announced the results of its most recent poll, in 2022, asking movie insiders to nominate the greatest films of all time (the list, published once a decade, is not definitive, but it is highly influential and hotly debated – and has been since its debut in 1952), In the Mood for Love placed at number five. It came below Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) – and above every other film ever made anywhere or at any time. Quite good, then. Akerman’s victory was unexpected, but few cineastes were especially surprised that Wong’s masterpiece ranked so high. The film is by now an established classic, one of the wonders of world cinema.

I rewatch it every year and it loses none of its erotic charge. It is a film that takes nostalgia as one of its themes, and it is impossible to think of it without succumbing to an indulgent melancholy, a yearning for times past. When it ends, you want to go back to the start and relive it, like an old, unresolved love affair.

The film opens, mysteriously, with an epigraph:
He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

A second title card informs us we are in Hong Kong, in 1962. ‘A restless moment.’ Then we’re inside the cluttered apartment of Mrs Suen, a good-natured busybody, where a slender figure in a tight floral-print dress with a pinched waist and high cowl collar – which clashes appealingly with the floral-print curtains and the floral-print lamp shade – is being shown around, with a view to renting a room. This is Mrs Chan. It is evening. She has come straight from work. The building has seen better days. It is dimly lit, the walls are stained, the wallpaper is peeling. All this in stark contrast to the appearance of Mrs Chan herself.

Where to start? As embodied by the actress Maggie Cheung, she is dazzlingly, heart-meltingly beautiful. A delicate, willowy young woman with supremely expressive, intelligent eyes and a face that catches the light from any angle. And Wong knows how to shoot her: tight, close, his roving camera placed at knee-height, hip-height, the better to follow her as she moves, to appreciate the contours of her shape.

‘You notice things if you pay attention,’ Mrs Chan says at one point. Wong’s camera notices everything: steam from a kettle, a spoon stirring a cup of tea, a billowing red curtain, the way plumes of cigarette smoke hang in the air, rain-slicked streets, the fogged windows of a taxi cab at night, the particular shade of lime on a dress. He shoots interiors like a spy, lingering briefly on a detail, moving on. We in the audience feel ourselves to be inside the frame. Not merely voyeurs – although certainly that, too – but silent participants in the action. We, too, are falling in love.

in the mood for love, wong kar-wai, 2000, alex bilmes, hollywood authentic

Next shot: seen from behind, in shadow, a man climbs a shabby staircase. He arrives into a corridor and steps into the light. Get a load of this guy: matinee-idol handsome, hair slicked back, immaculate silk shantung suit, crisp white shirt, tie. But there’s something mournful about him, something wounded, a vulnerability. It’s intriguing, and it’s sexy. Mr Chow is played by the great Tony Leung, that most understated of leading men, and perhaps only he could have the magnetism to share a screen with the exquisite Maggie Cheung and not vaporise under her flashbulb glare.

OK, so now we’re sold. Spellbound. Who cares about the script or the plot when we can spend the next 90 minutes in the company of these two heavenly creatures? When we can stare at Tony Leung smoking in the rain, or Maggie Cheung sauntering in slow motion through the soupy humidity of a crumbling, crepuscular city. When we can listen to the composer Michael Galasso’s aching score for cello, and to the languorous, enveloping sound of Nat King Cole singing ‘Quizas, Quizas, Quizas’. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

But In the Mood for Love, for all the aesthetic bliss it offers, is more than a superficial exercise in atmospheric filmmaking. It is a study in longing and desire and a meditation on time, loss and regret. In its surface is its depth.

As the plot thickens, the film becomes more dreamlike, impressionistic. It gets stranger and stranger. Mrs Chan and Mr Chow begin to roleplay their spouses’ infidelity. At a restaurant, he orders what her husband might have had, she wonders what his wife would eat. He takes her hand and asks if they should stay out all night. But her husband would never say that, so they play the scene again. This time she makes the first move, simpering a little. It’s a dangerous game.

‘I didn’t think you’d fall in love with me.’

‘I didn’t either.’

He’s moving to Singapore. They rehearse a final farewell. She cries on his shoulder. Who knew it would hurt so much?

Will she go with him? Is it too late? Have they missed their chance? Will their affair, if that’s what this is, ever be consummated?

I won’t tell you that part in case you haven’t seen it. Enough to say that the film’s final, peripatetic, time-skipping sequences are gripping, tender and devastating.

In the Mood for Love is, loosely, the second part of a trilogy, beginning with Days of Being Wild (1990) and ending with 2046 (2004). Both those films have much to recommend them but neither comes close to the power and potency of Wong’s masterpiece. But then nothing does, and none of the cast or crew – cinematographers Christopher Doyle, Pun-Leung Kwan and Ping Bin Lee; production designer/costume designer/film editor William Chang; composer Galasso – for all their many decorations and achievements, would ever work again on a movie so enduring and beloved.

‘That era has passed,’ reads a title at the end. ‘Nothing that belonged to it exists anymore.’

Images courtesy of BLOCK 2 PICTURES/JET TONE CONTENTS
A special 20th anniversary 4K restoration is available exclusively on MUBI

Diner

METEORA

May 11, 2024

Photographs by ADAHLIA COLE & COLIN PECK
Words by ABBIE CORNISH

Jordan Kahn’s Meteora is nothing short of spectacular. There’s a reason why Kahn has two Michelin stars at such a young age, and Meteora is just one of them. Hailed by the late Jonathan Gold, the legendary LA Times food critic, Kahn is not a stop short of perfection. There is no real foodie, wine connoisseur, critic, ratings person, dog, cat, or alien that wouldn’t have a good time here. Leave it at the door, and relax into one of the best dining experiences you’ll have right now in Los Angeles.

First, about the space… 6703 Melrose Avenue has a past. And yep, I was around for it. I’ve lived in this neighbourhood for nearly 19 years. I’ve watched it change and grow, and I’ve had eyes on that address – both as a restaurant lover and a real estate junkie. Here’s the download. After the long-standing and popular Hatfields moved on, 6703 Melrose was never fully reinvented or realised – that is, until Kahn came along. In collaboration with Roth Architecture and OV&CO, the space was transformed. Meteora is warm, open, beautifully lit, botanical, comfortable, otherwordly yet earthly; most certainly unique. Kahn, along with his collaborators, has crafted an exceptional dining experience. He has a way of doing that. Kahn himself has described it as: ‘Looking to our ancient past as inspiration for our future. Primal live-fire cooking, ingredients of rich bio-diversity and creativity define our New California cuisine.’

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So get ready to nestle in. Whether you are with your bestie, your significant other, family or friends, you will be taken care of in every way by the kind-spirited staff, an exceptional kitchen, a one-of-a -kind director of service, Cody Nason, a knowledgeable and smooth sommelier, James Saidy, and by Khan himself.

At 16, Jordan Khan left Savannah for Charleston, wrote a nine-page letter to French Laundry’s Thomas Keller, and kickstarted his somewhat destined journey to Meteora. Kahn earned his stars at his progressive and interstellar restaurant, Verspertine, located in Culver City. I’ve been there a few times and it is something else. Talk about levels: Vespertine is all the way up. It temporarily paused in-house dining in 2020 but – so a little birdy told me – it may (off books) reopen later this year. But there is no doubt that Kahn’s style, work ethic, attention to detail, love of the craft, open mind and humble genius all fuelled his swift rise to the top. Gratitude and good energy emanates from him, his co-workers, the food and beverages themselves, and from the entire restaurant.

Let’s talk about the food. My bestie Jacqueline King Schiller and I went all out on the chef omakase menu… and added wine pairings. Gotta say, I was impressed. How do I even explain it? Perhaps I’ll let Kahn do so instead… ‘Our cuisine is centred around live-fire cooking. Guests can expect elemental and inventive compositions that highlight sustainably sourced wild and organic vegetables, grains, seafood and meats.’

This live-fire cooking transforms ingredients, especially produce, in unexpected ways: charred pineapple takes on a meaty flavour and texture, adding hits of smoke and acid to delicate slivers of scallops neatly arranged in their shells. Burnt yam, caramelised yet savoury, balances plump rounds of briny trout roe paired with hazelnuts. And one of the most unique dishes is a creamy smoked almond mousse, light as a feather – and wonderfully complex when served with luscious chunks of embered persimmon and crunchy grilled peanuts.

‘We work directly with farmers, fisherman, ranchers, and foragers to create hyper-seasonal menus of exceptional quality with a commitment to sustainability and environmental impact,’ say the show notes. This pays off in not only the quality of the ingredients, but the menu as a whole. This is a dining experience filled with flavour pairings that are creative yet cohesive; deeply evocative of the place and the season. Take something as simple as the fourth dish, avocado and caviar, for example. Only two ingredients, and yet so much more. The avocado, drizzled with pressed oil from the seed, imparted with the subtle flavour of the leaves, cradles a large spoon-full of top-notch caviar. Yummy. What surprised me about this is not only the dish itself, but the story behind it (another reason why I love Jordan Kahn, and I love Meteora). Check this: the avocado was farmed by a local osteopath who farms avocados on his land as a hobby. Wait. I just ate one of the best things in my life, made from only two ingredients, one of which was farmed by an osteopath?

Jordan Kahn loves a journey. A transformative space. Almost like a retreat or a teleportation. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can only transform from one form to another, then Kahn has found a way to transform it all into awesomeness. Moving on – because I could go on – this is truly an experience that I hope you will have someday soon.

Dinner is Wednesday to Sunday night. The bar is walk-ins or reservations. A la carte at the bar and surrounding nooks. One of the most underused bars in LA in my opinion! Beverages are extensive: cocktails are amazing, the non-alcoholic drinks are delightful and the wine list is impeccable. Peace. Til the next review…

Photographs by ADAHLIA COLE & COLIN PECK
Words by ABBIE CORNISH

Talking Pictures

TAYLOR & DEAN

May 11, 2024

Photograph by RICHARD C. MILLER
Courtesy of GETTY IMAGES
Words by GISELE SCHMIDT & GARY OLDMAN

When asked how we got together, we always answer: ‘Liz Taylor and James Dean.’ But we really owe it all to Richard Miller, the freelance entertainment and stills photographer, who captured the image of them relaxing on a sofa in Houston, Texas in 1955.

In truth, saying ‘Richard C. Miller’ doesn’t carry the weight and humour of saying ‘Taylor and Dean’, but it should. We have all heard the adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, and we don’t disagree – but what of the person who took it, or the people in it, what we take from it, or what happens because of it? We feel that those stories are equally as captivating, should be shared, and well… at times, they may take a thousand words to tell.

So, we thank Hollywood Authentic and our dear friend, Greg Williams, for indulging us with this opportunity in the forthcoming issues to share the stories of how some of the most iconic images were taken, pay homage to the extraordinary photographers behind them, and take you on the journey of how the love of photography changed our lives forever.

Over the course of his career, Miller took photographs of celebrities and stills on more than 70 movie sets, with his work appearing in The Saturday Evening Post, American Weekly, Colliers, Time and LIFE. He was one of the first photographers who took pictures of Norma Jean for the Blue Book Modeling Agency long before her transformation into Marilyn Monroe, and he covered the set photographs of what would be Dean’s third and final film, Giant. Which brings us to this photograph.

Miller studied to be a cinematographer and was an actor prior to establishing himself as a photographer. Dean aspired to be a film director and shared a passion for photography – among his closest friends were notable photographers Phil Stern, Dennis Stock and Roy Schatt (the latter being Dean’s photography instructor who had also given Dean his Rolleiflex). Hence why when Miller met Dean, they became fast friends who bonded over their love of Porsches, cameras and the filmmaking process, and Miller told his wife, ‘This is a guy who will be a best friend for life.’

A great image is typically generated by knowing when to click the shutter, but it also needs the right elements of composition. Between the photographer and the subject, cooperation and collaboration, magic can happen. Miller recounted that when Dean saw him about to take the photograph, he would do something to make it better; a look, a stance, a gesture, and in this case, simply grabbing the LOOK magazine featuring Taylor on the cover as Mother of the Year, while she napped beside him.

This very photograph is what brought Gary into the gallery where I worked and now hangs proudly in our home. It’s the image that we bonded over, and began our conversations on cameras, film and photography; it is what started us on the path to becoming best friends and partners for life. And come to think of it, Gary did drive over in his Porsche.

Photograph by RICHARD C. MILLER
Courtesy of GETTY IMAGES
Words by GISELE SCHMIDT & GARY OLDMAN

Space Odyssey

SILVER SCREEN DREAM

May 11, 2024

Photographs by MARK READ
Words by JANE CROWTHER

Standing on Broadway, between W Olympic and W 9th, the rosy-hued United Theater soars 13 floors over the historic Broadway Theater District of Downtown LA, a physical manifestation of the dream of independence by Hollywood artists. As dusk falls and the grand dame’s neon flickers on, the building seems like a time capsule – an opulent cathedral to movies from a bygone age and now one of the last remaining atmospheric auditoriums from an era pioneering the so-called ‘seventh art’. Though it was not the first picturehouse to stand in this neighbourhood, the United was a trailblazer in representing a new wave of indie movie stars in Chaplin and his fellow renegades – artists who wanted out of the studio system in order to control their own creative output. In 1919, the group broke away from the studios and formed United Artists, giving themselves agency over the creation, production and distribution of their work – a standard ambition for any actor working in Hollywood today, but an entirely maverick concept then. Eight years later, they formed the United Artists Theatre Circuit to showcase UA productions, and the United Artists Theatre was conceived as the flagship. Downtown LA was the growing hub for movie life, a mecca for film fans that evolved to become the world’s largest concentrated area of movie houses by 1931.

At the height of movie mania, Downtown could seat a staggering 15,000 audience members over 12 cinemas. Entertainment began in the district in 1870 when William Abbot started the first permanent theatre in the spot that is now El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic park, welcoming a merry-go-round of theatrical troupes as they travelled the show circuit through then-fledging towns. By the turn of the century Abbot’s business was joined by nickelodeons and vaudeville venues, with promoter Sid Grauman opening a theatre where the Million Dollar now sits on Broadway in 1918.

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united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith

On opening night, 100,000 fans crowded the streets to listen to the event via loudspeakers, the national guard called in to keep order

By 1922, Grauman had opened the ‘atmospheric’ Egyptian theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, following it in 1927 with the Chinese down the road. The United began construction in the same year, with crowds in their thousands jostling to see Mary Pickford break ground perched in a steam-driven shovel. Designed by architect C Howard Crane in a gothic design that was a departure from the in-vogue classic revival architecture of the day, the vibe of the venue was thought to have been inspired by Pickford and Fairbanks’ honeymoon to Spain, the soaring vaulted ceilings and intricate plasterwork recalling the lines of the cathedral in Segovia.

The interiors were decorated with cheeky Anthony Heinsbergen-created murals that showed Chaplin and gang as heroic deities fighting demonic oppressors painted to resemble their former bosses, the controlling studio heads

The bankrolling film stars built the place with wonder in mind – their aim being to transport 2,214 punters to another world the minute they stepped through the door. So the height of the building transcended the highest in the city at the time at 13 storeys (the tallest in LA until the 1950s) and the interiors were decorated with cheeky Anthony Heinsbergen-created murals that showed Chaplin and gang as heroic deities fighting demonic oppressors painted to resemble their former bosses, the controlling studio heads.

On the building’s exterior, the carved grotesques crouching at the top of terracotta columns and in window arches were cameramen and jazz musicians instead of gargoyles. And the proscenium around the silver screen was a riot of red filigree to match the extravagant ceilings gold painted to look like tapestries and the exotic Byzantine lanterns. The auditorium ceiling featured an oval dome tiled with dazzling mirrors and thousands of crystal drops that shimmered in a draught. Pickford had her own private screening room installed – only accessible via the gentlemen’s restrooms – and continuously running water fountains dotted the lobbies.

Throughout 1927, crews worked around the clock to get the building ready for the January 1928 premiere of Pickford’s My Best Girl. On opening night, 100,000 fans crowded the streets to listen to the event via loudspeakers, the national guard called in to keep order. The movie-star owners regularly appeared at the venue until the Depression forced a temporary closure. When it reopened, the United moved with the demands of the times, installing Todd-AO 70mm widescreen-format projectors, but its single-screen majesty fell out of favour in the 80s when crowds flocked to modern multiplexes.

On opening night, 100,000 fans crowded the streets to listen to the event via loudspeakers, the national guard called in to keep order

While many solo-screen cinemas were carved up for multi-screen use or razed entirely, the United survived thanks to a period during Downtown’s down-turn when it became a Spanish-language movie theatre and then a ministry for TV evangelist Gene Scott. The flamboyant Scott, who often wore two pairs of glasses and claimed to hang a Rembrandt in the lobby, bought the building in 1986, installing a neon ‘Jesus Saves’ sign on the roof and preaching to his congregation in the seats and via TV. His occupation helped the palace remain beautiful, his restoration works ensuring its longevity for future generations of wide-eyed audiences and, in 2013, hotel guests when The Ace Hotel took over. The theatre has gone full circle in its identity this year; having been called numerous names over the decades, it has now returned to The United Theater On Broadway after The Ace moved out in January.

Today, the 1,600-seat venue still retains its original features and such an aura of the roaring 20s that it made the perfect space to convey the hedonistic party atmosphere Damien Chazelle wanted for the opening 40 minutes of Babylon. During a two-week shoot, the The United returned to its heyday – with charlestoning revellers, rivers of fake champagne, mountains of stunt cocaine, chickens and a jazz band. Stepping through its doors now is like time travel – a picture palace stopped in its tracks, the creativity of its founders and the joy they brought audiences felt in its foundations. Perhaps that’s why the unique space still attracts singular performers such as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nick Cave, Johnny Marr and Ariana Grande to its stage, and film premieres continue to roll out the red carpet. Troubadours and artists still keeping the fierce spirit of independence reverberating through its walls… Just as Charlie and Mary intended.

Photographs and video by MARK READ
The United Theater On Broadway Los Angeles, CA 90015 Los Angeles. theunitedtheater.com/@theunitedtheater

On Location

RIVIERA CHIC

May 9, 2024

As Cannes’ Palais rolls out the red carpet, the grift begins for everyone from bellboys to producers trying to seal a deal over a glass of rosé and the roar of the crowds lining the Croisette. This gem of the French Riviera has become a hot spot for the jet-set and Hollywood since the first festival of 1938, when France wanted to create an answer to the longer-running Venice Film Festival. However, nestled south of Nice and above Monaco, Cannes is not the only glitzy Mediterranean spot with ties to cinema. Hollywood Authentic picks the movie vacation spots worth visiting on and off screen.

the carlton hotel, to catch a thief, cannes

1. TO CATCH A THIEF (1955)
THE CARLTON HOTEL, CANNES

By the 1950s, the Cote d’Azur was having a growth spurt, and into this post-war uptick came Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief, featuring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Grant plays villain John ‘The Cat’ Robie who, on the run, tries to clear his name. He meets heiress Frances Stevens (Kelly), who falls for the cravat-clad rat. The ensuing fun is a travelogue showing the Riviera at its finest. There’s much action in the Carlton Hotel, the classic 1913 pile designed by Nicoise architect Charles Dalmas (whose belle époque edifices pepper the coast), which is now home to much of the fest bustle during the month of May. Hitch’s film romps through the hotel, past the striped loungers at its Beach Club, along its jetty, and also takes in Nice, Cannes and Monaco – much of it in Stevens’ powder-blue convertible 1953 Sunbeam.

Grace Kelly’s links to the town and hotel are indelible – she met Prince Rainier there during the 1955 festival and married him a year later. Tragically, she died on a nearby corniche in 1982. Since 1989, the Carlton has been a historical monument and when it was refurbished last year for Regent Hotels, interior designer Tristan Auer referred to Hitch’s classic in his staff uniforms: pleated skirts for women, seersucker blazers for men.

A convenient stone’s throw from Le Palais, it offers peace from Croisette promotion in light and airy rooms (the suites are named for movie stars who have stayed), boasts the largest infinity pool in Cannes and the brioche lobster rolls at the Beach Club are justifiably famous. The perfect spot for people-watching – and when the show’s in town, what a promenade.

https://carltoncannes.com

hotel la ponche, saint-tropez, and god created woman

2. AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1956)
HÔTEL LA PONCHE, SAINT-TROPEZ

Few films have had such an impact on a place as Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman. The breakthrough for both starlet Brigitte Bardot and St Tropez itself, it charted the town’s Riviera trajectory from fishing village through demimonde hangout to pastel-splashed resort. Vadim’s zeitgeist film concentrated on both siren-like starlet and sexuality in the context of an awakening town. As a prurient New York Times review sniffed at the time: ‘This round and voluptuous little French miss is put on spectacular display…’ The same could be said of St Tropez’ roofs, cafes and Tahiti Beach.

During filming the cast and crew, including Bardot and her director beau Vadim, stayed at the Hôtel La Ponche, a block from the water since its opening in 1938. Anyone looking for their own work/play haven can now enjoy its refurbishment by designer Fabrizio Casiraghi as a 21-room Provencal townhouse that boasts A-list monikered suites (the ‘Jack Nicholson’ gazes over La Ponche beach) and the Prestige, that was favoured by Bardot back in the day – perhaps because it promises guests the ability to sunbathe on its hidden balcony ‘out of sight’. French novelist and playwright Françoise Sagan was so enamoured of the view she sped there in her Jaguar X/440 and wrote: ‘I got up from my bed, I opened the shutters, and the sea and the sky threw the same blue, the same pink, the same happiness in my face.’ If you drive, the hotel has a car park away from the sea, but guests are ferried to reception via the cute cream Petit Piaggio scooter, and you can swap your motor with a boat for a nautical day trip complete with a picnic created by the hotel’s celebrated chef. Run by Simone Duckstein (whose parents established the hotel), La Ponche has always lived up to the promise of Vadim’s trailer, which described Saint-Tropez as ‘the pagan paradise of the French Riviera’. Duckstein attests that at its most pagan the hideaway was host to ‘men only loyal to their room key’.

https://laponche.com

hotel du cap-eden-roc, antibes, under the cherry moon

3. UNDER THE CHERRY MOON (1986)
HOTEL DU CAP-EDEN-ROC, ANTIBES

F Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night describes a fondant of a hotel for his central couple to frolic in and the jewel in the crown of Riviera luxe hotels, the 1870 Hotel du Cap, was his inspiration. He’s not the only artist to have been bewitched by it: Marlene Deitrich conducted a love affair with Joseph Kennedy under its roof in 1938, the menu was sketched by Picasso in 1955, Ernest Hemingway sipped nightcaps looking at the sea, Rita Hayworth met Prince Aly Khan over dinner and most Hollywood players have sat in the famous restaurant or dived into the pool carved into the craggy basalt cliffs.

Discreet, chic and timeless (idio-syncratically, the ‘Cap’ only started taking credit cards in 2006), it’s little wonder it was the perfect location for Prince’s 1986 cinematic French fancy, Under The Cherry Moon – a monochrome doomy romance that saw the purple one as a gigolo out to seduce then-newcomer Kristen Scott Thomas out of her family cash. He teased her, wooed her and whisked her round the balcony at the Eden-Roc restaurant – the venue for many a Cannes Film Festival party, including the first in 1946 when a host of film stars (including Norma Shearer, Douglas Fairbanks and Gary Cooper) were brought from America on a liner that dropped anchor in the bay.

Part of its appeal is the approach to the hotel, a driveway through the lush gardens and a breathtaking descending path – la grande allée – to the sea (and hideaway cabanas) through the palms and wisteria. There’s also the privacy: the Cap has a private shoreline, hidden villas and is far enough away from the Cannes hubbub to feel like a retreat. Though behind its gates lies every amenity for tennis fans, gastro-geeks, wild swimmers and those who seek the recalibration of a wind-down. Order the house cocktail, the Eden-Roc Splash, and relax.

https://www.oetkercollection.com/hotels/hotel-du-cap-eden-roc

testament of orpheus, welcome hotel, villefranche-sur-mer

4. TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS (1960)
WELCOME HOTEL, VILLFRANCHE-SUR-MER

Polymath Jean Cocteau came from a difficult background in Paris and flew south to reinvent himself as the dandy of the Cote d’Azur. The town of Villefranche-sur-Mer was his favourite spot and it plays a part in his final film, Testament of Orpheus,starring his muse Jean Marais alongside cameos from Charles Aznavour, Brigitte Bardot, Yul Brynner, even Pablo Picasso.

When he stayed and subsequently lived in Villefranche, he holed up at the peach-coloured Hotel Welcome, writing that these were the ‘best moments of my life’. That quote is rendered in mosaic in reception and the auteur’s favourite room, number 22 (he smoked opium in another), is decorated with one of his murals and an armchair showing one of his signature profiles. Opposite the hotel is the Cocteau-decorated Saint-Pierre des Pêcheurs Chapel – for which he was given a gold sardine by the local fishermen – and a car trip away, the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton has a 1,000-strong Cocteau collection. But will you want to tear yourself away from walks to Cap Ferrat and tipples at the hotel’s wine pier? Dean Martin, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Warner, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor enjoyed its quiet charm – and Cary Grant and Debra Kerr filmed An Affair to Remember in town, while Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas blew up a yacht in the bay for scenes for The Jewel of the Nile. Both couples’ autographs are in the Welcome’s lobby.

https://www.welcomehotel.com

5. DAY FOR NIGHT (1973)
HOTEL BOSCOLO, NICE

Nice’s legendary Victorine Studios have been home to numerous films, including François Truffaut’s film-within-a-film classic dedicated to the Gish sisters. The auteur wanted to make the movie in ‘the spirit of friendship for all the people in the movie industry’, showing the tribulations of cast and crew in making a project (and starring as the director onscreen). Steven Speilberg loves it so much he programmed it during his TCM residency, saying it is ‘one of the most accurate portrayals of what it’s like to make one movie, telling one story, casting one film, where nothing goes right – which is so often the case’.

Though the interiors were filmed at Victorine, external shots travelled around the area: movie star Julie (Jacqueline Bisset) conducts a press conference at the entry point for most Cannes Film Festival visitors, the Côte d’Azur International Airport, and the cast of the fictional film stay at the Atlantic Hotel on boulevard Victor Hugo. Another Neoclassical wedding-cake by Charles Dalmas, it is now the Boscolo Nice and like Cannes’ Carlton, a listed national monument.

Julie and her cast would likely enjoy the loungers and view at the private Ruhl Beach, a ten-minute stroll from the hotel. Some of their mid-production angst might be tampered by the hydromassage tub and treatments in the 500-square-foot spa.

https://boscolocollection.com/nice/en

la piscine, villa ramatuelle, ramatuelle

6. LA PISCINE (1969)
VILLA RAMATUELLE, RAMATUELLE

The Cote d’Azur is one of the world’s finest backdrops for scenes of jealousy and lust, and this film steps up, making the swimming pool of a swanky villa the focus of a Gallic crime of passion starring Romy Schneider, Jane Birkin and Alain Delon. Capturing a fashion moment, with costumes and swimsuits by designer André Courrèges, it has been homaged by an ad campaign for Dior’s Eau Sauvage. The acting boasts a certain intensity, no doubt assisted by the fact that Delon and Schneider had been lovers – and that Delon’s infamous bodyguard Stevan Marković was found dead during the shoot. But part of the appeal of La Piscine is the role of the glamorous villa and pool as a setting for beautiful people misbehaving. A big hit, the film was so tantalising that Luca Guadagnino loosely based his A Bigger Splash on the project.

It was filmed almost entirely at a villa, Domaine de l’Oumède, in Ramatuelle, complete with covetable mid-century furniture and a view of the twinkling sea from beyond the ledge of the pool. The languid charm of toasting in the French sun wearing shades, a hand trailing the water like Delon, can be reenacted at various villas nestling on hills around the village. The Villa Ramatuelle has seven en-suite rooms and a large terrace and gardens, and the heated pool has a wine fridge in the pool house so lounging does not have to be disturbed.

https://www.akvillas.com/villa-ramatuelle

Words by OLIVER BENNETT and JANE CROWTHER
TO CATCH A THEIF
AND GOD CREATED WOMAN
UNDER THE CHERRY MOON
TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS
DAY FOR NIGHT
LA PISCINE

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