Historical Tales

The filmography of Morris Engel is brief : three films in about six years and that of Ruth Orkin is even briefer since she collaborated with Engel on only the first two of those films. Still, the husband-and-wife working partnership made an enduring and significant impact on international cinema, neo-realism, verite, new wave, with their brief projection into feature filmmaking during the 1950s. In effect, they were saying the Time Magazine, and overall corporate versions of reality were untrustworthy, and even dangerous and destructive in giving the masses a false sense of security that the world they live in is comprehensible and that this big business world view is an authentic and reasonable approximation of reality. Emphatically, they said pop culture reality only reveals the lack of appreciation of how profoundly ignorant we all are…

…There is, it appears, more sorrow than love between them; the woman is enveloped in a sourceless anxiety or sadness. In an empty new house that she and her young man have gone in a holiday mood to look over, the woman waits alone while her lover goes on a brief errand in a rented car, and for no apparent reason, her dread grows. She hears bells and sirens, and fears the worst, yielding to her habitual mood. Hardly anything she does is free from it, and we are afraid for her even when she is laughing, her substance is so meager and her happiness so fragile. To look at ordinary life like this-Morris Engel himself seems to feel, is rather depressing. One would have to believe fanatically in plain people to think that a formless realism could justify itself by the implicit merit or dignity of plainness. The plainness of plain people is not a thing that is simply thrust on them. They themselves help to achieve it.

—One of the earliest works in the American Independent film movement was “The Little Fugitive” a film made by Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Ray Abrashkin (aka Ray Asbury). Actually, at the time this film was made there was no movement, this was the beginning….When Engel made known his intent to make a movie, Orkin, thought he was crazy. At this time, the early 1950’s, Independent filmmaking was in its infancy. The technology was exceptionally expensive for the individual to pursue. The three filmmakers all ended up doing triple duty or more on the film as director, writer, editor, cinematographer and producer. Orkin also had a small part in the film.
Young Richie Andrusco (Joey) was an amazing find, a non-professional actor, moving among the crowds with an assurance and naturalness that is rare for such a young child. …
“The Little Fugitive” would go on to win the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1953 and was nominated as well for Best Screenplay Award from the Writer’s Guild and an Academy Award nomination for Best Story. Engel and Orin made one other film, “Lollipops and Lovers.” Two years later Engel made his final feature film, “Weddings and Babies.” Read More:http://twentyfourframes.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/little-fugitive-1953-morris-engel-ruth-orkin-ray-ashbury/

If Engel were nothing but an extraordinary cameraman, we would have to say that he had laid out some very sharp instruments but had as yet performed no operation. His The Little Fugitive ( 1953) , however, the story of a small boy straying in Coney island, curious, frightened, avid, sad, touching, is a charming film, and Weddings and Babies ( 1958) was even better. Engel was not bucking the system merely to be obstinate. He had his very own definite ideas of what a film should be, was capable of realizing them, and was able to make progress in each successive picture.

After seeing The Little Fugitive it seems clear that he held advanced theoretical notions or prejudices such as flourished in France in the “Nouveau Vague” high water years when novelists such as Robbe-Grillet dismissed narrative interest altogether and considered character and personality to be based on an obsolete psychology.

— The story gains its own sense of authenticity from a realistically meandering plotline, and while the acting is always engaging, it has a subtle awkwardness that makes it resemble real, awkward life more than polished movie acting. Peggy is played by Cathy Dunn in her only film appearance, and the adults are played by Lori March and Gerald O’Loughlin, who went on to long careers, if not major ones. The screenplay tosses in unexpected bits of business that further heighten the sense of lifelike spontaneity, such as Peggy’s modeling work for a professional photographer, and the way she and Larry lose track of each other when they’re only a few feet apart on a busy Chinatown street. The closeness of the characters and their environments is so concrete and genuine that an Italian neorealist could be proud of it.
Read More:http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/220887%7C0/Lovers-and-Lollipops.html

ADDENDUM:

(see link at end )…Though Engel & Orkin’s techniques would ultimately be more associated with the cinema verite movement of directors such as D.A. Pennybaker and Richard Leacock, Engel’s application of his handheld location techniques to credibly depicting the behavior of a child helped inspire Francois Truffaut to his debut masterpiece The 400 Blows. Truffaut later stated, “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie (Little Fugitive).”

Lovers and Lollipops is not merely a technical accomplishment. Morris Engel & Ruth Orkin have succeeded in applying their techniques to capture ordinary human behavior. Peggy is, for me, one of the great movie children she’s everything movie children we are used to are not. She’s not overly cute and precious, delivering one liners that make us laugh with or at her. She’s somewhat whiny and irritable, but bratty without being a brat. She’s not a good kid or a bad kid, not overly intelligent or incredibly articulate. She may technically be a lonely child who seems left out due to her lack of a father, but still, she’s just a regular child who demands attention and seeks to manipulate the situation to her benefit, without exactly realizing that.

The crux of the film is whether Peggy will accept or reject Larry as her new father, but, of course, this issue is never addressed directly. We simply feel that she’s testing Larry, and frankly herself, to see if the change would be for her benefit. Read More:http://www.rbmoviereviews.com/movies/loversandlollipops.html