one ticket for two movies, please!
i love the idea of double features and constantly wish they were not a thing of the past. more than just a two-for-one deal to save a couple of bucks, the appeal of the double feature to me is seeing two different movies and — in scorsese's words — putting them in conversation with one another. it's a great way to see the same themes through different lenses. sometimes the beauty is in one picture being inspired by another; a sort of love letter or homage. sometimes it's in how two vastly different films will arrive at the same point. other times it's an inexplicable "just vibes" kind of thing.
in the spirit of bringing them back (albeit at home instead of the cinema), i have compiled a short list of movies that i personally think would make pretty neat double features and included a blurb about why i think so down below!
being annoying as a love language
bringing up baby (1938) dir. howard hawks & what's up, doc? (1972) dir. peter bogdanovich
i'm a huge fan of screwball comedies so i figured i'd start off the list with two that i find quite delightful. both movies have the same plot: a dopey, nerdy male lead is in an unhappy relationship with an overbearing woman and is relentlessly pursued by the also overbearing, but far more whimsical female lead who has fallen in love with him. as you can imagine by the theme i've used to tie these two into a double feature, this goal of mutual love is achieved by inconveniencing the male party. bringing up baby was a direct influence for what's up, doc? and bogdanovich was kind of a nostalgiapilled director during his working years, so his film was paying respects to hawks. despite having the same initial set-up, both films make the farcical situation it thrusts both its leads into their very own.
the long, silent heist
rififi (1955) dir. jules dassin & le cercle rouge (1970) dir. jean-pierre melville
as a lover of noirs and procedurals, both rififi and le cercle rouge couldn't be more up my alley. the two films tackle the nitty-gritty of heist planning and french criminal underworlds with an aesthetically subdued but incredibly tense atmosphere that never lets up, amplified by half hour long heist sequences done in total silence. interestingly, rififi was originally meant to be directed by melville who instead gave the directorial role to dassin, blacklisted by hollywood at the time and in desperate need of a gig after having relocated to europe. le cercle rouge, i think, is a great follow-up to see how rififi would have been handled had the project been in melville's hands.
satirizing the press with a screenplay that bites
his girl friday (1940) dir. howard hawks & sweet smell of success (1957) dir. alexander mackendrick
i mentioned earlier that one of the fun ways to tackle double features is through two movies with identical messaging but a dissimilar approach. i think a more standard companion for his girl friday would be the front page (1931) while sweet smell of success' would be ace in the hole (1951) — but the truth is that the compliments i have for sweet smell of success can be said just the same for his girl friday, making me think they might work as a jarring, tonally opposite pairing. together, the two movies dissect the immorality and corruption of the press and how reporters will do just about anything to spin a story the way they want it told; with both films being known mostly for their immaculate screenwriting. his girl friday features rapid-fire1, witty banter between grant and russell that often overlaps (you may want to watch this one with subtitles) while sweet smell of success has some of the sharpest and tightest dialogue work i've seen — seriously, not a single line is wasted. the key difference is in that the former is a screwball comedy, and the latter is a noir and thriller.
henry fonda is morally troubled
the ox-bow incident (1943) dir. william a. wellman & 12 angry men (1957) dir. sidney lumet
if there's a role that involves a man in the throes of a difficult situation that imposes on his desire to be a good person, henry fonda's going to have it. although 12 angry men has certainly received its flowers, the ox-bow incident remains largely unknown despite their similar themes. this pair of films feature fonda as a protagonist struggling to reason with a mob over an accused party's potential innocence. while both movies share a similar premise, it's in how they tackle the influence of fonda's character over the group that differs. the ox-bow incident is far more bleak in displaying the hopelessness of a single voice getting lost in a crowd, while 12 angry men shows how that single voice — if heard — might lead others to rationality. they're both great movies steeped in rich dialogue.
dudes setting awful examples
il sorpasso (1962) dir. dino risi & hud (1963) dir. martin ritt
although il sorpasso and hud share overall themes of societal critique, the sort of sameness i'm banking on is that of an upright, earnest, young man being corrupted by an older man with a passion for being a hedonistic asshole. just like one of the previous examples, they're tonally different in that il sorpasso is a comedy and hud is a drama. it's also interesting to me that both of our young protagonists recognize the inherent shittiness of the older ones, but find themselves charmed anyway. it makes the growth of these protégés all the more engaging as they're caught in between giving in to and resisting such influences.
that concludes my short list! if you give any of these a shot, let me know how they turn out. tell me if you liked them or not, if you think another film might have been a better pick for a double feature, or if you have any other suggestions for a double feature for me to try out. i'd love to hear from you!
typically, one page of a screenplay lasts about 1 minute. at 92 minutes, his girl friday's screenplay should have roughly 90 pages. instead, it has a whopping 191 pages meaning that its dialogue goes by twice as fast as the standard movie!↩