By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: James Franco
Starring: James Franco | Jim Parrack | Raymond T. Williams | Trevor Neuhoff | Val Lauren | Vince Jolivette
Country: united_states
Year: 2013
Running time: 85
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1794943/combined
Kyle says: “Oscar-nominated actor, director, painter, sculptor, poet, essayist, novelist, installation artist, famous college student and occasional professor, currently Gucci men’s perfume spokesperson, and soon-to-be Broadway play director James Franco is steadily amassing an intriguing body of work as cinema auteur. His credits include the recent NYFF selection CHILD OF GOD, based on a Cormac McCarthy novel; AS I LAY DYING, based on a William Faulkner novel; INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR., an imaginative reconstruction of the missing footage from William Friedkin’s laughably despicable CRUISING (1981); THE BROKEN TOWER, a biography of suicidal poet Hart Crane; and SAL, a contemplation of events both real and imagined on the last day in the life of movie star Sal Mineo.
“Sal Mineo achieved stardom at the age of 16 in Nicholas Ray’s classic REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, for which he received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. Today the film is sadly remembered more for James Dean’s death in a car crash one month before the premiere (as well as the tragic deaths of all three leads, Natalie Wood being the third), but its real significance is Mineo’s exquisitely modulated performance as the first major gay teenager in Hollywood history, without the slightest hint in the screenplay. Supporting roles followed in Robert Wise’s SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME with Paul Newman, and George Stevens’s GIANT with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, and impressive leads in titles such as Don Weis’s THE GENE KRUPA STORY, suggesting a brilliant career in formation. His finest work came in Otto Preminger’s bloated EXODUS (1960) as Dov Landau, in his second Oscar-nominated performance. Much of Mineo’s best work as an actor can be seen on television programs such as ‘Omnibus’ and ‘Studio One.’
“The soubriquet ‘The Switchblade Kid’ increasingly limited the roles offered and career opportunities available. On February 12, 1976, Mineo was murdered during an attempted robbery after a rehearsal for a production of James Kirkwood’s ‘P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD’ at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles. Even the subsequent revelation and conviction of the actual murderer did not dispel rumors that a gay hustler or a violent ex-boyfriend murdered Mineo. It took publication of Michael Gregg Michaud’s exemplary biography Sal in 2010 to prompt a critical reappraisal of Mineo’s career, his proper place in Hollywood and gay history, and another chapter in the all-too-frequent tragic trajectory of careers that blossom early and shatter prematurely. The book did not, however, do away with repetitions of stories about an unofficial ‘blacklisting’ of Mineo because he was gay — which can be seen in an insufferably misguided interview with actor Val Lauren by Jeremy Kinser on November 1 for www.queerty.com.
“James Franco’s Golden Globe Award-winning performance as JAMES DEAN (2001), his friendship with actor Val Lauren, and his evident taste for off-center, even violent, stories may have made inevitable a movie based on Michaud’s Sal. Reportedly shot in nine days, a version running about 103 minutes was premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2011; praise for Val Lauren’s performance as Mineo was tempered by lack of enthusiasm for the narrative structure of the film. The version released on November 1 in selected U.S. markets and Video On Demand has been edited down to 85 minutes. Followers of Franco’s directorial career will recognize many of his stylistic trademarks: handheld camera, high contrast even garish lighting, sudden changes in film speed, moments lingering on actors for flashes of emotional revelation, frequent reliance on seemingly innocuous domestic details such as brushing teeth and collecting mail, and an offhand even improvisatory delivery of dialogue.
”SAL commences with a lingering shot of the title character sitting forlornly on the bench, followed by a decidedly homoerotic scene of Val Lauren lifting weights at the gym, Franco’s camera focusing on Lauren’s muscular chest and arms, followed by a dinner with Sal’s agent Billy Belasco (Vince Jolivette) to discuss a film project that never happens called McCAFFREY, the main problem being studio aversion to the homosexual content of the story, followed by a quick scene of Sal dancing at a local gay club in West Hollywood. We then read a card with the caption ‘February 12, 1976’ and transition into Sal lying in bed awakening, as we read ‘The last day of Sal’s life.’ There is no suspense about what will happen; only when, bestowing a weird existential sense of the passage of suspended time through the day’s activities. Sal pulls out the shooting script for McCAFFREY and makes notes. He putters about the apartment, drinking milk from the bottle and making coffee, before telephoning his lover, actor Courtney Burr, his throat catching as he joyfully announces that McCAFFREY will in fact go ahead, that Keir Dullea, despite starring in his production of ‘P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD’, cannot remember four lines of dialogue in a row, that the production will be fabulous anyway, and that he regrets they cannot be together that night. Sal gets in his car and drives to the home of his friend Michael Mason (Trevor Neuhoff) to meet for an appointment to get vitamin injections and go swimming afterward. Occasionally Lauren smiles, looking very much like the actual Sal.
“There is a scene of Sal telephoning various friends and showbiz types to invite them to the play’s opening night at the Westwood Playhouse. My favorite scene is a lengthy telephone conversation with actress Jill Haworth, his former lover and EXODUS co-star (a framed ‘Life Magazine’ cover of the two in EXODUS is seen on his apartment wall), whom he telephones to ask about a cocaine connection but segues into concern for Jill’s having a bad reaction to birth control pills, and his suggestion that she get an I.U.D. and consult a gynecologist Sal knows, prior to a minor tantrum over the news that Jill’s mother has given money to Sal’s mother, and a crack about how money-grubbing she is, and how he has been supporting his family for virtually his entire life. That evening there is a rehearsal of the play, with a hilarious imitation of Sal Mineo by Val Lauren in the part of the would-be burglar who is caught and tied up by Keir Dullea (Jim Parrack), who of course cannot remember his lines. Franco chooses to concentrate on the homosexual double entendre of the scene a bit obviously. After the rehearsal, Sal reassures Keir, stops to buy a pack of cigarettes, and after parking his car, is stabbed to death in a botched burglary attempt. There is a brief follow-up two years later when the actual murderer is arraigned, and a postlude of the real Sal Mineo describing his friendship with James Dean to Natalie Wood in in a famous scene from REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.
”The appearance of the real Mineo at the film’s conclusion may highlight the fact that Val Lauren lacks his fire and charisma, and may alienate potential enthusiasts. Those who have no idea who Sal Mineo was may wonder what the fuss is all about. In this regard, James Franco has not been totally successful in telling this particular story. Having read Michael Michaud’s biography numerous times and seen most of Sal Mineo’s performances, I knew every character and reference in the film’s brief running time and found much to savor in both Franco’s direction and Lauren’s performance. But the fact remains that potential fans should rent REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and EXODUS, and maybe also THE GENE KRUPA STORY, THE LONGEST DAY and GIANT, the latter for clear evidence of Sal Mineo’s contribution to George Stevens’s Academy Award for Best Director.
”There are many reasons Sal Mineo never became the major star for which he seemed to be on track, among which is the studio system of the 1950s not caring or investing in the careers of pretty boys who begin to age. Some of the difficulties can clearly be traced to Sal’s own choices, such as projects with bad scripts. He was bitterly disappointed to lose the Academy Award for EXODUS to Peter Ustinov for SPARTACUS, and never entirely recovered from the perceived slight. But Sal Mineo has had the proverbial last laugh, even if it is many decades posthumous: James Dean mumbles, acts up a storm, and calls attention to every moment he is onscreen in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and Natalie Wood comes off shallow and forced, her voice as irritating as Dean’s mumbling — both of them dating the movie in many ways. Sal Mineo’s landmark performance as Plato is simple, direct, honest in a life-defining way, and immensely moving, both then and now, to fans that saw it in 1955 and those who discover the DVD restoration in 2013. The idea permeating Val Lauren’s interviews about Mineo sandbagging his career through making studio executives nervous about homosexuality in Hollywood movies is idiotic. Sal Mineo had a fragility that both boys and girls embraced, but he could also find hidden sources for his own strength when something terribly important had to happen. The most memorable people are always the cast-offs, the runaways, the refuseniks, and occasionally the lunatics. The artists for whom a clear path is unavailable or undesirable will invariably find a way to do something spectacular. Sal Mineo was potentially one of the great actors of his time, for about 10 years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. It did not happen, but the reasons are far more complex and interesting than the nonsense being spread in current interviews and publicity items about SAL, which will ultimately be forgotten along with most movies. 3.5 cats
“Seen Saturday, November 2, 2013, Time Warner Video On Demand, New York.”