gullyfoyle

The biographical portion of the book is only 184 pages, and much of that is basically “and then he was in this play and then he was in that play,” so it’s a quick read. There’s a good selection of photographs. The 75-page appendix lists pretty much every play, film, and television or radio show that he ever did, and there are non-extensive bibliographic notes and an index. If you want to know about his work, what he did and with whom and where they did it and how much he was paid, this book has that covered. If you want to know why he did it, you may be disappointed.

Rains never published any in-depth memoirs, although he attempted them at least twice. He intended to call them Lost and Found because, he said, “I was lost for many years. I was a wretched little boy, you know, with no education, and for the most part, still am.” But late in life Rains sat with journalist Jonathan Root for many hours of recorded interviews that Root intended to turn into a biography. Unfortunately, Root died unexpectedly with very little written, and Rains died not long thereafter. It is these recordings, provided by Rains’ estate, along with contributions and guidance from Jessica Rains, that Skal uses to explore Rains’ career and character.

Skal admirably captures the career, and he certainly gives us the flavor of Rains’ personality. But Rains was too skilled and too constant an actor for this approach to get to the heart of who he was. To give Skal credit, I think he realized this and wasn’t interested in trying to illuminate Rains through a particular psychoanalytical or sociological lens. Perhaps there is more along those lines in the longer Claude Rains – An Invisible Man from 2022 by Toby I. Cohen. Surprisingly, that and Skal’s book appear to be the only book-length general biographies of Rains to date. Here are some tidbits from the book:

• Rains married six times and divorced five, and was apparently irresistible to women. His frequent co-star and good friend Bette Davis lusted for him, but he rebuked her, and managed to do it without inciting her wrath, as they were lifelong friends. While apparently many other women were much more successful in their pursuit of Rains, none of them were, like Davis, world-famous Hollywood stars. While Rains’ third wife was the moderately well-known actress Beatrix Thomson, he did not appear to be interested in women who might also be competitors.

• As a young stagehand he developed the habit of memorizing entire scripts so he could feed lines to any actor who needed one. During the filming of Casablanca, Peter Lorre and other cast members, bemused at Rains’ perfectionism and wanting to lighten the mood on set, wrote a fake scene and contrived to be rehearsing it one day when Rains arrived on set. Lorre: “When he…saw us rehearing the [fake] scene, he was frantic. He called me aside and said, ‘Peter, something terrible has happened to me. I can’t remember a single line.’ We all broke up and he wasn’t even mad – just relieved that his memory wasn’t failing.”

• Rains could lighten the mood himself. After director Michael Curtiz kept asking him to make an entrance with “more energy,” Rains burst through the door, energetically, on a bicycle. It’s unclear if this happened during the making of Casablanca or of another of the several other movies that Rains made with Curtiz. • Rains last appearance on Broadway, in 1956, was in “The Night of the Auk,” a science fiction play in blank verse by Arch Oboler, creator of “Chicken Heart” – yes, the one that Bill Cosby riffed on – and many other creepy stories in the seminal radio series Lights Out, as well as one of the earlier post-atomic war movies, the well-regarded Five, and the less well-regarded The Twonky, adapted from the Lewis Padgett (Catherine Moore and Henry Kuttner) story of the same name. Rains’ castmates in this oddity were Wendell Corey, Christopher Plummer, Dick York, and Martin Brooks. It closed after eight performances. Probably too cerebral, right?

At the center of the movie is the Brass family, and at the center of the family is patriarch Bill, played by the always excellent David Strathairn. Bill owns a small business where his son David (Will Pullen) is the accountant, and Bill is beginning to suspect that David’s books – his own personal moral books, not the company’s – are not in order. David and his wife Tammy (Jane Levy) live in the guest house adjacent to the home of Bill and his wife, Venida (Celia Weston, the marvelous Southern character actress who provides most of the humor in the movie). Bill adores his daughter-in-law Tammy, and he fears that his son is cheating on her. The movie is not a mystery where David doggedly unravels the unpleasant truth. No, the movie is about David and his family simply trying to figure out what’s going on and what they should do, just as we all try to do, every day.

A Little Prayer begins with singing, a gorgeous hymn we hear as the camera tracks down a suburban street and comes to the Brass’s house. Someone in the neighborhood sings, soulfully, early in the morning. The characters never see her, nor do we. Like so much in the movie and in the lives of these characters, the singer remains offscreen, and it’s up to us to imagine who she might be and why she’s singing and for whom. Some in the Brass family love the singing and the mystery it presents and represents; for others in the family, it’s a nuisance approaching a public disturbance. Likewise, for the Brasses, events have a way of being both happy and sad. Bill and Venida are happy to see their daughter Patti and granddaughter Hadley arrive unexpectedly, but it’s because Patti’s fleeing a dubious domestic situation. Are the flighty Patti’s reports of the dire situation back home accurate, or does she just need money (again)? The Brasses dote over granddaughter Hadley, but why doesn’t she talk? What’s really going on?

The characters may not really know. We may not really know. Such is life. Such is this movie. It feels like the most realistic movie I’ve seen in years. The characters, the situations, the events, and the locations all combine to produce a cinematic reality that comes damn close to what’s generally acknowledged, at least in some quarters, as the real reality. As I watched, I kept thinking yes, that makes sense, that’s how people actually act, how they live, how they celebrate and how they suffer. Director MacLachlan and cinematographer Scott Miller make excellent use of locations in and around Winston-Salem; I wouldn’t be surprised if the low-budget movie was shot entirely on location and without studio sets. That of course adds to the realism.

A Little Prayer obviously can be compared to MacLachlan’s 2004 indie hit Junebug since both deal with contemporary North Carolina families under stress. But the movie I kept thinking of as I watched A Little Prayer was another movie about an aging man trying to hold himself and his family, such as it is, together: David Lynch’s sublime The Straight Story. In the latter, the old man is physically – and so of course also metaphorically – trying to reach his ailing brother. Here, Strathairn’s character isn’t being physically challenged, since he sees his son every day, but he is metaphorically foundering on the rocks of the younger man’s guilt, fear, lies, and anger. Another point of comparison is that both movies are informed by the effects of war and military service. Like Alvin Straight, both Bill and David Brass are combat veterans, Bill in Vietnam and David in Afghanistan or possibly Iraq. Several scenes in A Little Prayer are set in the local VFW hall, and one outside a funeral for another vet. Finally, both movies exude the feel of the real world, perhaps incongruously due to The Straight Story being a David Lynch film, but more acutely for the same reason. [Side note: I looked up the details on The Straight Story to make sure I had remembered the character’s name correctly, and I had. It’s been twenty-five years since I’ve seen it, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. Take that as an indication of how powerfully the movie affected me and how much I enjoyed it.]

So is there a happy ending? Yes and no. Is it a tragedy? Yes and no. It’s like real life. The characters adapt, sometimes they only endure, sometimes they return to the place from whence they came, but their stories go on. A Little Prayer reminds us that things can be happy and sad, hard and easy, rewarding and torturing. While speaking with a mother-to-be, a stunned and stricken Bill, having just had his worst fears about his son confirmed, says (and I paraphrase, not having written it down or with access to check the script) “You have children thinking they belong to you, but they don’t. They are their own persons. And they’ll grow up to break your heart.” Then he goes and gets drunk, and then the next morning life continues and he keeps doing what he hopes is right and best for his family. Maybe he’ll succeed, maybe he won’t, but it feels real. That’s reason enough to see this movie.

New resident at Chez Reid: Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller Reid. We had the Embark DNA test done and the results broke all the betting brackets. In fact, the results are the doggie DNA equivalent of that old country song "I've Been Everywhere." Repeat after Bucky: I've got Beagle, Chow Chow, Russel terrier, Pekingese, American Pit Bull, German Shepherd, Labrador Retriever, Shih Tzu, Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, Australian Shepherd, I've got everything, man!" There's been some bodacious doggie doings going on in southwestern Virginia, let me tell ya! So welcome Bucky. He's smart, active, and doesn't appear to have a mean bone in his body. Cece dog was not happy in the beginning with the newcomer's constant playful attention, but she's coming around and Bucky's learned to dial it back, and while they may not yet be best buds, they are spending more and more time playing.

Okay, I'd add pictures, but all I get are tiny icon placeholders and the picture description. Can anyone advise why the embedding links aren't working?

[edit] See comments for pics. For some reason I can put pics in comments but not in main posts. WTF and good night.