a poem by jameson fitzpatrick

Ode to Paul Newman as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof


Blue eyes bore me, baby, but not yours,
blue as your bathrobe, bluer even, blue as
your convertible’s long blue body, wet with rain.
The only pair pretty enough to stare into Liz Taylor’s
and refuse her.

What is it about a man with a glass of whiskey in his hand?
What is it about a crutch, silk pajamas, a broken ankle?
I’m not even into feet, really, but the toes peeking
out from the white mass of cast, if they aren’t
the most beautiful toes

in the whole history of film—the big toe,
especially. All through the movie, Poor Liz struggles
to pronounce your name: Brig, Brig! she keeps insisting,
as if a soft terminal consonant is the only trick
to sounding Southern.

Me, I’m from New England; I like the ck
hard in my mouth. Why do you wear your wedding ring
on your pinky, Brick? Are your fingers too fat from the booze?
I’d jump out a hotel window over you. Wouldn’t it be funny
if that was true.


Jameson Fitzpatrick is an editorial assistant at Barrow Street and a poetry editor for LambdaLiterary.org. He lives in New York.

torn curtain

In Torn Curtain, Paul Newman plays Michael Armstrong, an American physicist who pretends to defect, travelling to East Berlin in order to obtain a mathematical formula. He is pursued by his fiancée Sarah (Julie Andrews), a fellow scientist, who is concerned about him. In East Berlin, Newman meets up with a mysterious ringleader Hermann Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling) and a Professor Karl Manfred (Günter Strack). Once "the Gamma Five" discovers that Michael killed Gromek, him and Sarah risk their lives attempting to escape.

It's now well-known that Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were not Alfred Hitchcock's main choices for his thriller Torn Curtain and one can see why. Newman, ruggedly handsome and taciturn, known for his outstanding performances in Hud and Tennessee Williams-helmed productions like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, was too thespian for Hitchcock's prop-like handling of his actors. During the filming, friction arose between Newman and Hitchcock as Newman questioned character motivation and flaws within the script. Julie Andrews, at the peak of her career with two legendary roles as the sweet Mary Poppins and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music, seems too soft-hearted for her role. One wonders if Hitch had cast one of his icy blondes, how much edgier the film, and the tension between Newman and her character would have been. For movie buffs, it's still enjoyable to see the unlikely pairing of these two stars, miscast as they may be.

Torn Curtain also marks the unfortunate fallout between Bernard Herrmann and Hitchcock. Herrmann's treatment, still available on the DVD edition of the film, is dark, swirling, adventurous, akin to North By Northwest. The studio and Hitch wanted a lighter, bubblier score so they hired John Addison, fresh off of his Academy Award for Tom Jones. The score is largely uneven, dated in a way that Herrmann's scores aren't. Its highlight is during the rousing bus chase, otherwise it's pretty intrusive, especially in the beginning. Hitchcock, who has admitted he has no ear for music, tried to restrain the use of music often in this film, such as the quiet farm murder scene.

-Jeffery Berg

Despite its flaws, Torn Curtain is a slick, stylish and enjoyable ride with many memorable and exciting moments.

Here are a few:

The harrowing farm murder scene which Hitchcock intended to show just how difficult it is to kill a man.

The bus chase.

The climatic "crowded theatre ballet sequence." The production design was by Hein Heckworth who worked on The Red Shoes.

from paris with love

Martin Witt has delivered many low-key, social dramas. My favorites are Sounder and Norma Rae which deliver the emotional goods in a quiet, understated way. 1961's Paris Blues is a fascinating glimpse of a bygone era, brilliantly scored by Duke Ellington, where American expatriates in Paris survive by playing jazz. Supposedly the heyday for jazz was over by then but it's a lovely imagining nonetheless--a glamorous romance with extremely appealing stars.

Paul Newman plays Ram Bowen, a talented trombonist who seems dissatisfied with his career. His cohort, Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier), is another musician who moved to Paris to escape the violent racism of America. Their relationship is at times tense but otherwise knowing. They fall in love with two vacationing Americans, Lillian and Connie (Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll), who both challenge their life decisions.

The story is a bit flat and the pace is slow. But it's still an interesting watch for the great jazz, its frank discussions of racial identity and as a time capsule of the stylish, cool cat early '60s. The musical performances kick the film to life--including a brilliant cameo from Louis Armstrong.

-Jeffery Berg