Mad Men's Ending, Movie Stars' Masculinity

How to End ‘Mad Men’? Matthew Weiner Gives Final Season Sneak Peek - One positive development during the writing process has been the presence of legendary Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne, who joined Weiner’s team as a “sage advisor” late last year. “It’s like running a baseball team and someone says Babe Ruth wants to come one day a week and show people how to hit,” Weiner said. “He makes me work harder because I’m always trying to impress him. All of us are. You also know that if Robert Towne likes what you’re doing, then it’s probably good.” Weiner couldn't help but sounding a little sad when discussing the end of a series he's spent the last seven years of his life obsessing over.

“It’s hard for me not to imagine these characters anymore,” he said. “The loss is something I can’t really think about.” Source: www.thedailybeast.com

On whether the late ‘60s era is more challenging to portray: A lot of reasons that I started the show in 1960 was because it was so much the height of the ‘50s. I felt that there was a sort of constricted social environment based on manners that we’ve watched disintegrate and erode throughout the decade. The weirdest thing about getting to the late ‘60s is that it feels more like today. Other than saying “groovy” once in a while… there is not, in either watching the movies, or reading books, or reading interviews, or watching the news, it does not feel even slightly anachronistic. There is nothing to laugh at by the time you’re in the late ‘60s. It is very similar to right now, with the exception of technology.

The very first season someone said, ‘What’s Don Draper gonna think about Woodstock?’ Don Draper grew up in rural poverty during the Great Depression. I don’t know that this is going to be a particularly impressive event for him. He’s going to be happy that the music’s good, maybe. Source: tv.blog.imdb.net

Sam Shepard has been cast as Kyle Chandler's father in an upcoming Netflix drama. The still-untitled show, from Damages creators Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman, and Glenn Kessler, is about a family of adult siblings whose secrets resurface when their black-sheep brother returns. Shepard will play the dad; Sissy Spacek will play the mom; and Chandler, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ben Mendelsohn will play the kids, with Mendelsohn as said black sheep. Source: www.vulture.com

"In A Lonely Place" (1950) directed by Nicholas Ray, points not only to the emerging culture of psychology but also the emerging dramatic structure of middlebrow teleplays and an increased fascination with Method acting in Broadway and in Hollywood. This juxtaposition between the social necessity of self-presentation and the theatricality of acting as illustrated by Bogart's various mirror performances of Dixon Steele, suggests the continuing psycho-dramatic power of noir to explore, as Jay P. Telotte notes: "how film's seeming depths link up only with a false surface and can deprive us of any real experience of depth." According to James Gilbert, the preoccupation with masculinity in the 1950s in the US was particularly intense "because the period followed wartime self-confidence based upon the sacrifice and heroism of ordinary men." -"Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture" (2013) by Stefan Horlacher and Kevin Floyd

If a movie actor, though, is someone who works in quick closeup detail, then a movie star is someone who creates a persona roomy enough to contain dozens of different roles. "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" had shown off Bogart the Actor; now "Casablanca" would confirm Bogart the Star.

Michael Curtiz' movie is first a metaphor for its age; set during the days before Pearl Harbor, it has Bogart representing a still uncommitted America, the desperate refugees in his club as symbols of every overrun country. "High Sierra" had given Bogie a stubborn sense of purpose; "The Maltese Falcon," a personal code. "Casablanca," though, added romantic self-sacrifice. It created a character who stuck his neck out "for nobody," who was "no good at being noble" — and yet who did risk, and was noble, when it counted. Who would eventually drop the cynical mask of indifference and do what was necessary, for the greater good. And it was that final heroic piece that turned Bogart into Bogie, and a true Hollywood icon. Source: www.nj.com

Kyle Chandler as Gary Hobson in "Everybody Goes To Rick's" episode from "Early Edition" (2000): Gary wakes up to get the newspaper and finds himself living in the past. It is 1929 and he is in an early business in the location of McGinty's. Gary tries to prevent the St Valentine's Day Massacre. "Everybody Comes to Rick's" was an American play written by Murray Burnett and Joan Allison in 1940, featuring the Cafe Americain in Casablanca owned by Rick Blaine. Eventually, Rick helps an idealistic Czech resistance fighter escape with the woman Rick loves. It was bought by Warner Brothers for $20,000. It was adapted for the movie "Casablanca" (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine.

Kyle Chandler: I don't place upon myself, "Oh, I'm going to be a movie star now." I don't even know what a movie star truly is, other than a movie star is someone in all the tabloids, and he's a great actor because he's a movie star!!! I don't know that I want to be a movie star in that sense. But if I can keep working with folks like this, and carry on in my career, and still have a family, and move on, I'll keep rolling along with the hits. There are some careers that I look at, but it's mostly for the longevity and the variety of work. I'm still learning. Each one of these is an acting class to me. I've got a long road to go. Source: www.aintitcool.com

Bogart and the Legacy of Cool

“Bogart was cool: no one used the word then, but it’s the term everyone reaches for now,” writes the literary scholar Joel Dinerstein in American Cool, which he co-authored with photographic scholar and curator Frank H. Goodyear. Besides Bogie, the reach of those who make cut in this sleek book of photographs interspersed with essays includes Johnny Depp, civil rights protestors, Miles Davis as he appeared on the cover of Ebony, Elvis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka, Bob Dylan, Anita O’Day, Madonna, Tupac Shakur, Susan Sontag, Selena, and sundry others.

“Cool figures are the successful rebels of American culture,” writes Dinerstein, the James H. Clark Endowed Chair in American Civilization at Tulane University. “To be cool is to have an original aesthetic approach or artistic vision—as an actor, musician, athlete, writer, activist or designer—that either becomes a permanent legacy or stands as a singular achievement.” That explains Brando, Duke Ellington, Greta Garbo, Muhammad Ali and of course James Dean.

Men far outnumber women in American Cool. “It is rare to find an article, website, or blog post declaring anyone ‘Ms. Cool,’” writes Dinerstein, “despite the plethora of cool women in this book, from Georgia O’Keefe, Bessie Smith, and Dorothy Parker to Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, and Missy Elliot.” The gender tilt lies in “the presumed association between cool and American masculinity,” he notes, and “the persistence of a double standard where independent, sexually confident women are concerned.”

But the scandal of this book and exhibition is that Marilyn Monroe is nowhere depicted. One of the sexiest movie stars of all time, the woman who married Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, is not cool? Hemingway is shown on p. 89, pensive with rifle at a pheasant shoot in Idaho. “He wrote in a terse, clipped style that featured stripped-down dialogue and characters unanchored from society. While he portrayed man as essentially alone, he admired ‘grace under pressure,’ a phrase often considered synonymous with cool,” writes Frank H. Goodyear III, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, who shows a wise hand and keen eye in arrangement of the images in book and exhibit.

“In the next generation it is likely that women will outnumber men for lasting iconic effect and innovative artistic impact,” Dinerstein writes. Those who make the potential list include Esperanza Spalding, Janelle Monáe, Pink, Jennifer Lawrence, Tina Fey, Ani DiFranco, Connie Britton... Source: www.thedailybeast.com

JD: Negotiating the dark side is a necessary condition of cool. I think [the idea of the cool] crosses over [into mainstream culture] quickly because of the Great Depression and World War Two. When it first shows up in that period, there is this mask of cool as a stylish stoicism, which is about that generation facing up globally to a set of challenges that are threatening. The reason that [Humphrey] Bogart ends up the cool figure is because he looks like he has navigated and negotiated some very dark periods in his life. The reason why “Casablanca” is still the number one or two films ever [as noted by the American Film Institute], and that is also true for an actress like Barbara Stanwyck. Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Cool, Dinerstein says, is a quintessentially American notion. "We're a country born in revolution, we've always valued rebellion more than any other country," he says. In the 60's and 70's, being cool was more important than being rich. And for adolescents all over the country, the elusive idea of coolness is still something to ambiguously strive for."

THE AMERICAN COOL LIST - The Roots of Cool: Fred Astaire, Bix Beiderbecke, Louise Brooks, James Cagney, Frederick Douglass, Greta Garbo, Ernest Hemingway, Zora Neale Hurston, Jack Johnson, Duke Kahanamoku, Buster Keaton, HL Mencken, Georgia O’Keeffe, Dorothy Parker, Bessie Smith, Mae West, Walt Whitman, Bert Williams

The Birth of Cool: Lauren Bacall, James Baldwin, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Lenny Bruce, William S Burroughs, Raymond Chandler, Gary Cooper, Miles Davis, James Dean, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Guthrie, Audrey Hepburn, Billie Holiday, Jack Kerouac, Gene Krupa, Robert Mitchum, Thelonius Monk, Anita O’Day, Charlie Parker, Jackson Pollock, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, Muddy Waters, John Wayne, Hank Williams, Lester Young

Cool and the Counterculture: Johnny Cash, Angela Davis, Joan Didion, Faye Dunaway, Bob Dylan, Clint Eastwood, Walt Frazier, Marvin Gaye, Deborah Harry, Jimi Hendrix, Steve McQueen, Bill Murray, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Susan Sontag, Hunter S Thompson, John Travolta, Andy Warhol, Frank Zappa

The Legacy of Cool: Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Byrne, Kurt Cobain, Johnny Depp, Missy Elliott, Tony Hawk, Chrissie Hynde, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, Madonna, Willie Nelson, Prince, Susan Sarandon, Selena, Sam Shepard, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Stewart, Quentin Tarantino, Benicio del Toro, Tom Waits, Neil Young

16th Festival of Film Noir, Baseball Legends

BORN TO BE BAD (22nd March, 7:30 p.m., Egyptian Theatre) 1950, Warner Bros., 94 min, USA, Dir: Nicholas Ray -Joan Fontaine looks sweet and innocent on the surface, but after she steals millionaire Zachary Scott away from another woman, she continues an illicit affair with novelist Robert Ryan. Things just get more complicated from there in this energetic, daring and slightly nasty little melodrama. One of Nicholas Ray's best early films, and certainly his most audacious until Johnny Guitar. With Mel Ferrer - and the original deleted ending!

ANGELS OVER BROADWAY (28th March, 7:30pm, Egyptian Theatre) 1940, Sony Repertory, 79 min, USA, Dir: Ben Hecht, Lee Garmes - An off-beat, mordant melodrama that was written, directed and produced by the great Ben Hecht. A con-man (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) lures a suicidal embezzler into a rigged poker game with an unemployed chanteuse (Rita Hayworth) only to have the tables turned by a boozing playwright (Thomas Mitchell in a superb performance). Hecht received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay with co-director Lee Garmes providing the shadowed cinematography.

Get paroled, whatever it takes - because we need you to be part of our racket on Saturday, April 5th. Instead of getting weepy when our travels in Noir City come to the end, we're celebrating the close of our 16th annual series of Film Noir (on the big screen) at the Egyptian Theatre! Pull the brim of your fedora down low over your face and jump on the Red Car to join a bevy of other shady characters for a celebration - Noir City style. Get in a noir mood with a screening of DETOUR, followed by a party in the Egyptian Theatre Courtyard! Source: www.amaericancinemathequecalendar.com

Today, the figure of the femme fatale is often seen as one of the distinctive features of film noir and as emerging at the end of World War II. As Pam Cook has claimed, the femme fatale was born out of "the historical need to re-construct an economy based on a division of labour by which men control the means of production and women remain within the family, in other words the need to reconstruct a failing patriarchal order." The femme fatale is therefore claimed to operate as a demonization of the independent working woman at a time when there was a concerted effort to persuade women to surrender the jobs that they had taken on during the war and to return to their roles as wives and mothers within the domestic sphere.

However, critics writing during the 1940s seem to have understood the women usually identified as femme fatales in ways that were remarkably different from current accounts of these figures. Certainly critics recognised that "vicious womanhood" was one of "Hollywood's hardest-worn current themes" but the films associated with this theme did not develop towards the end of the war but rather at its start. As many critics have noted, it is not simply that the name film noir did not exist within US culture during the 1940s, but that the films associated with this term today were not understood as constituting a distinct category at the time. As James Naremore puts it, film noir is "an idea we have projected onto the past" a retrospective category that may hinder rather than help an understanding of that past. -"Vicious Womanhood": Genre, the Femme Fatale and Postwar America" (2011) by Mark Jancovich

Of all the players in baseball history, none possessed as much talent and humility as Lou Gehrig. His accomplishments on the field made him an authentic American hero, and his tragic early death made him a legend. Gehrig's later glory came from humble beginnings. He was born on June 19, 1903 in New York City. The son of German immigrants, his endurance and strength earned him the nickname "Iron Horse." In 927 Babe Ruth hit 60 homers, breaking his old record of 59, and Gehrig clouted 47, more than anyone other than Ruth had ever hit. During his career, Gehrig averaged 147 RBIs a season. No other player was to reach the 147 mark in a single season until George Foster did it in 1977. And, as historian Bill Curran points out, Gehrig accomplished it "while batting immediately behind two of history's greatest base-cleaners, Ruth and DiMaggio." Doctors at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed Gehrig with a very rare form of degenerative disease: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is now called Lou Gehrig's disease. There was no chance he would ever play baseball again. Source: www.lougehrig.com

World War II had its effect on sports as all able-bodied men between 18 and 26 were expected to serve in the military. Rubber went to the war effort; consequently, balls were soggy and unresponsive. Wood was in short supply, leading to a shortage of baseball bats and bowling pins. Even so, professional sports were encouraged to continue, to improve the morale of the troops. President Roosevelt signed the Green Light letter, supporting baseball. Baseball games were considered so important to troop morale that the Japanese tried to jam radio broadcasts. By 1943, half the baseball players had enlisted.

In the All-American Girls Baseball League, players wore dresses and had to attend charm school. After the war, television and easier transportation changed the face of American sports. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black professional baseball player - in fact, the first black professional athlete outside of boxing. By 1950, the top earning player, Stan Musial, was making $50,000. Postwar baseball names included Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner and Joe DiMaggio. Source: kclibrary.lonestar.edu

Early Edition's executive producer Bob Brush: "Kyle Chandler should have played Lou Gehrig - that kind of quiet leader who performs and isn't flashy about it and yet has this sly sense of humor tucked underneath. He doesn't act like a star; he's a guy going through his life."

Kyle Chandler's mind is preoccupied with a time and place far, far away - a bygone era when folks were just folks and soda came in glass bottles. "I'd love to be able to buy Fanta in a bottle again, or grape Nehi," he says wistfully. "That was the best. That stuff was great. Holy Toledo!" No wonder Chandler was cast as Jeff Metcalf, Homefront's boyishly earnest brother-lover-baseball player. In person, he projects the same homespun warmth and old-fashioned idealism that the show captures. Chandler is a walking, talking slice of Americana. He turns the world around him into a Frank Capra movie. Later, for dessert, he requests apple cheesecake and "a glass of milk - a large one." He obviously has an affinity for the character he plays: "I like that Jeff could go to kiss a girl" -he reaches impetuously across the table- "and knock her glass over!" Like his 'Homefront' character, Chandler was cut from the cloth of middle America: "I liked Jimmy Stewart a lot."

Once, Chandler says he saw Jimmy Stewart give a lecture at the dinosaur museum where he was working. "He talked so slow," Chandler recalls. "People were sort of laughing. But at the very end, he pulled out a little quip, and you knew the whole time he was almost making fun of them." As he tells the story, Chandler's left eyebrow goes up a fraction of an inch, in an almost invisible wink. His eyes are smiling. Maybe this aw-shucks persona is an act; maybe it isn't. Either way, Jimmy Stewart would be proud. -Kyle Chandler Offscreen: 'The star of the retro-Americana series Homefront' by Karen Schoemer (US Weekly Magazine, November 1992)

Screen Feisty Heroines, Veronica Mars

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS: Many film scholars and critics have commented on the inadequacy of roles for women in American cinema in recent years, especially compared to the feisty, independent women seen in screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. This seems particularly true when we think of Preston Sturges's comic heroines.

Who can forget Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve or Claudette Colbert in The Palm Beach Story, whose blend of street smarts, flirtatious cunning, and solid inteligence puts them miles ahead of their men.

Then there's Jean Arthur's Mary in Easy Living, who exhibits that rare quality in American film comedy: a balance between complete innocence and a native intelligence that sees immediately to the heart of an issue, a moment, a person. -"Three More Screenplays by Preston Sturges: The Power and the Glory, Easy Living, and Remember the Night" (1998) by Andrew Horton

It Happened One Night (1934): -I asked you a simple question, do you love her?, -Yes, but don’t hold that against me, I’m a little screwy myself

"This seriocomical ritual of a feisty but vulnerable heroine didn't originate with the official masterminds at the big studios - this formula came from Frank Capra and other directors who, like him, started out on the margins of the movie industry: George Stevens, Gregory La Cava, Leo McCarey and Preston Sturges." -"The Runaway Bride: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1930s" (2002) by Elizabeth Kendall

The focused, purposeful Veronica has lost none of her sarcasm in the intervening years, though she claims to have mellowed out. "People say I'm a marshmallow," she says during the opening credits. Veronica's private eye days are seemingly beyond her. "I don't -- really do that anymore," she says with hesitation when ex-boyfriend, naval man and Neptune resident Logan (Jason Dohring), accused of murdering a singing sensation, requests her help.

"Veronica Mars" is a light, comedic drama that mixes the ingredients of mystery, photography, goofiness and noir for an entertaining experience on the big screen. Ms. Bell brings intelligence, smarts and a toughness to the title role, giving the character an appealing gloss and fearlessness. She possesses charm, quick-wittedness and easy-going charisma too. I found "Veronica Mars" to be a lovely, engaging surprise. "Veronica Mars" is a clever, pleasant and enjoyable film that does most things right (save for the appearance of the mega over-exposed James Franco.) Sadly, in this film year, it may be the only one with a female lead character that does. Source: www.popcornreel.com

Kristen Bell makes sure we maintain our attention, as she’s such a beguiling and charismatic lead. Veronica Mars is a feisty individual, with bags of charm and all of the zinger one-liners. It’s illusory and absurd at the best of times, and considering the entire case is one heavily scrutinised by the press and very much in the public eye, what the leading suspect gets up to is difficult to believe in to say the least. He’s convicted of murder and he’s going out to nightclubs with lookalikes of the deceased victim, and his ex-girlfriend. Source: www.heyuguys.co.uk

The Maltese Falcon, War Bond, Kyle Chandler

Some have tried to claim that the 1941 version The Maltese Falcon was the first film noir; but while Falcon certainly influenced subsequent films, it was influenced by earlier ones, several of which are now regularly called noir. Most of the famous early examples were adapted from novels, and during the 1940s and 1950s we can find noir radio drama, noir jazz (known to Hollywood as “crime jazz”), and noir comic books. None of this means that film noir is a figment of the critical imagination. It’s safe to say that before 1941 noir was an emergent, little-known cultural category accurately describing certain French films and French popular literature; between roughly 1945 and 1950, when the French began writing about American film noir, it was a dominant category, its characteristic moods and themes affecting many different kinds of movies and other media; after 1958 it became a residual category.

John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon is ostensibly a Bay area story, pure Dashiell Hammett, with its most lingering images centered in offices and apartment interiors that could exist anywhere since they are cloistered, withdrawn, and private; still outside somewhere there is always the presence of the forbidding city, and its stringent light and dark shadow that filter into these comfortably bounded interiors more as warnings than as actualities. What is also unmistakably urban is Sam Spade’s ennui, his knowingness, his flat-footed assurance – as well as the polish and façade shown by the femme fatale. -"A Companion to Film Noir" (2013) by Andrew Spicer & Helen Hanson

Local journalist and television producer, Terri Landry, will lead a crime fiction discussion of “The Maltese Falcon” on March 18 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Covington Branch Library, located at 310 W. 21st Avenue and on March 25 from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Slidell Branch Library’s temporary location, 610 Robert Blvd. Landry will lead a book and film discussion, along with a viewing of the 1941 film, “The Maltese Falcon,” at the Madisonville Branch Library on April 9 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. She will lead another film discussion at the Slidell Little Theatre, located at 2024 Nellie Drive, on April 12 from 10 a.m.-11:45 a.m., with the film being shown from noon-2 p.m. A Mystery Writers Gathering will be held in the theatre lobby with members of the community able to meet and greet the writers. A Film Noir Series at the Madisonville Branch Library will feature viewing “The Big Sleep” on April 16, “Double Indemnity” on April 23 and “Strangers on a Train” on April 30. Source: www.nola.com

Kyle Chandler's favorite film is "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). Kyle Chandler is the modern Ward Bond.

Ward Bond was a popular character actor who appeared in more movies than any other performer on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 U.S. films. He had roles in seven titles on the AFI list — “It Happened One Night,” “Bringing Up Baby,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Maltese Falcon,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Searchers.”

Jimmy Stewart is next on the list, appearing in six movies. Bond was never a leading man, but he was able to enjoy a long, flourishing Hollywood career by being a dependable presence in a number of films — from a screwball comedy like “Bringing Up Baby” to dramas (“Gone with the Wind,” “The Grapes of Wrath”) and John Ford’s searing Western classic, “The Searchers.” In all, he made 23 films with his longtime friend John Wayne and also starred in the TV series “Wagon Train” until his death at age 57 of a heart attack.

I hope Chandler — who is probably best known as high school football coach Eric Taylor on “Friday Night Lights,” for which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2011 — enjoys a long, Bond-like career.

He had roles in the big-screen films “King Kong” (Peter Jackon’s 2005 version) and 2011’s Steven Spielberg sci-fi romp “Super 8.” Chandler also had supporting roles in “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” which were both Academy Award Best Picture nominees (“Argo” won). That places him squarely in Ward Bond territory; Bond appeared in 11 Best Picture nominees. Source: www.kenoshanews.com

Easy Living with Jean Arthur, Veronica Mars

Jean Arthur as Mary Smith in "Easy Living" (1937) delivers her lines with aplomb — something quite amazing given how insecure she was as an actress. Like Cary Grant, her high level of insecurity is in contrast with the high degree of confidence that comes through in her on screen performances. Arthur was feisty, independent, insecure and had fragile physical and emotional health. She was a bundle of contradictions but perhaps it’s the conflict of all those contradictions that made her so good on screen.

Arthur’s timing is dead on in Easy Living and much of what is really funny and holds an audiences’ attention resides in that. There is, for example, the scene where she and an extraordinarily youthful Ray Milland go to sleep together then… one of Arthur’s eyes opens. Then, she sits up. As the short sequence plays, you see every thought cross her face as it is thought. Easy Living is a wonderful comedy, one that is founded on one of Jean Arthur’s best performances and the pervasive Preston Sturges influence.

It mixes slapstick, romance and even another subtle Sturges touch, social awareness — the vacuous, self-absorbed rich and the hard-working, decent poor. Source: piddleville.com


J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold), a rich financier, gets fed up with his free-spending family. He takes his wife's just-bought (very expensive) sable coat and throws it out the window, it lands on poor hard-working girl Mary Smith (Jean Arthur). Mary meets an automat busboy named Johnny (Ray Milland), the two who end up falling for each other. Mary does not know Johnny is John Ball Jr., the well-to-do son of the man who gave her the coat and hat, and Johnny does not know Mary's loose connection to his wealthy father.

"Veronica Mars" (2014) directed by Rob Thomas - Review: Kristen Bell is flat-out terrific, mixing spunk, smarts and sex in a way that brings to mind the leading ladies of Hollywood's golden age. There aren't a lot of people working today who merit comparison to the likes of Jean Arthur and Rosalind Russell, but Bell's working on that level here. The ensemble cast is generally fast and funny, zipping through the script's clever repartee, and even “Mars” newcomers will find themselves welcome in their company, even if we don't always know who's an ally and who's secretly a murderer. Source: www.thewrap.com