Slap Happy: How Hollywood Handled the Art of Face Clap
‘Two hands clap and there is a sound, but what is the sound of one hand?’
....... Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769)
“That slap was real.” Words of Ann Blyth recalling her big movie moment on Turner Classic Movies (98) (pre-ATT), the petite, pretty 16-year old co-starring in her major film debut in play of the vicious Veda who fells film giant and Mildred-Pierce star Joan Crawford with a surprise slap that must’ve sent tremors throughout the set. And Joan wouldn’t have had it any other way, a face-clap as real a deal as one could feel, she and director Mike Curtiz the consumate film professionals who believed going all-in produced the best result and with track records to prove it. Most movie slaps were simulated, made to appear real, an artistic achievement that fooled fine and spared receivers the callomine. But when flesh-met-flesh with force, the result could be shocking. Courage wasn’t written into the players contracts but better implied if you wanted work, whether a big star like Joan, or new kid on the block from the land of Lafayette & Le-Mans. Mademoiselle Isabelle Corey (Annē) shows that same wherewithal when she comes clean to Bob-Le-Flambeur (56) (Duchesne) after spilling the beans on an upcoming heist and receives the inverted “spanking” the Pope of Montmartre had promised her, yet, “hardly blinked an eye (The-Haves).” Magnifique!
The Veda-Mildred slap may be the most famous in movie annals, fixed atop, now that the face-clap has been replaced by the fist-punch as later Classic and contemporary producers, portending advocacy, opt for overkill in mistaken belief that brazen behavior, extreme pain and humiliation will win the argument. In other words, stick it to the man and nuance be damned. But early movie makers knew better, that in verbal confrontations, a finessed physical expression (slap), one properly torqued & timed, is a better persuader, working a balance between anger & sound judgment that in real life is less likely to trigger the same or greater response, i.e., fistacuffs. A perception put to the test at the 2022 Oscars.
Slaps, of course, have landed when the cameras weren’t rolling (Mitchum on Preminger in Angel-Face) or at Hollywood haunts and homes, most taken in stride, but when it happens on a televised award gala it makes waves. That it did at the now infamous 94th Academy Awards when a petulant aggressor (Smith), lacking the most basic judgment capabiity, heard his name mentioned and handled it badly, acting with impunity in strut on stage and slapping the presenter (Rock) who’d made light of a perceived familial rivalry for that nite’s Oscar but who, rather than retaliate, took one for the team (AMPAS) so that aforementioned hell didn’t break loose. And what did the team do? They sat on their hands, of course (oy).
On social impact, it’s the Endicott-Tibbs exchange In-the-Heat-of-the-Night (67) which still stings. Character actor Larry Gates plays the paternalistic plantation owner taking great offense at being questioned by a black Philadelphia homicide detective (Poitier), and skilled medical-examiner, who’s been asked to assist in a local murder case, back-handing Tibbs in gesture, the cop quickly returning serve but, like Frazier in Fight-of-the-Century (71), Mister goes “back to the country," a slap so enraged it seems to bear the pain of 300 years in slavery & servitude. All the while, the Chief (Steiger) looks on amazed and confused.
In the funny department (yes, hand-hellos could be funny in the Classics), it is in director Sergio Leone’s My-Name-Is-Nobody (73) where his dry sense of humor is put on display when leading man Terence Hill, terrific with a gun, keeps it holstered and instead uses the fastest hands in the West to slap some manners into seriously befuddled bad guy Marc Mazza. But then you can’t go wrong with any of The-Three-Stooges film shorts, each replete with nose-twisting (Ouch), eye-poking (Ouch) and head-clonk (Ouch!).
The saddest slap, and the contenders are many, is a series of blows suffered by Faye Dunaway in Polanski’s masterpiece, Chinatown (74). Evelyn Cross Mulwray has the twisted family tree, her attacker, the well-meaning but snake-bit ex-cop-turned-PI, Jake Gittes (Nicholson) who goes out-on-a-limb yet can’t figure from where the trouble grows or will lead: “She’s my daughter (slap), she’s my sister (slap) (again).”
There are slaps that never land at all, but impactful, nonetheless. Lara Antipova (Christie) is a little bit in love and alot defensive of the just discharged Dr Yuri Zhivago (Shariff), his memory getting stabbed in the back by a big-mouth bolshevik (Kay), the nurse throwing him an angry glare with the unexpected ferocity of the fiercest face-clap.
And then there’s the slap “heard (and seen) round the world,” a planet that, at the time, hadn’t suffered this much trouble (WW2) since that meteor slammed into the Yucatan (RIP dinosaurs), thrown by another little pretty, a redhead this time (Garson), Mrs-Miniver. The British wife, mother and all-around good egg has just had her brain scrambled by a downed Nazi fly-boy (Dantine) who‘s invaded her home (Mr Pidgeon is on rescue boat for Dunkirk duty), her face-clap landing with the meta-physical force of “6 military divisions,” recalling what Winston Churchill said of the War contribution made by the MGM gem. It would take Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor (12.7.41) to bring America into the fight, FDR’s Lend-Lease and Mrs’ passionate response playing pivtol parts to put the Yanks on the launching-pad, emotionally prepared for lift-off when the call to arms could no longer be staved-off by isolationists. One high-profile slap inspires the free world in their fight against fascism, another only spurs celebrity chatter to expose a security lapse. Different days, indeed.
You probably won’t watch a movie solely for a slap, but if you happen upon these features, keep your eyes peeled as each face-clap will leave its mark, on your mind. And except for Mrs-Miniver in the top spot, the remaining order is random, not a ranking.
....... Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769)
“That slap was real.” Words of Ann Blyth recalling her big movie moment on Turner Classic Movies (98) (pre-ATT), the petite, pretty 16-year old co-starring in her major film debut in play of the vicious Veda who fells film giant and Mildred-Pierce star Joan Crawford with a surprise slap that must’ve sent tremors throughout the set. And Joan wouldn’t have had it any other way, a face-clap as real a deal as one could feel, she and director Mike Curtiz the consumate film professionals who believed going all-in produced the best result and with track records to prove it. Most movie slaps were simulated, made to appear real, an artistic achievement that fooled fine and spared receivers the callomine. But when flesh-met-flesh with force, the result could be shocking. Courage wasn’t written into the players contracts but better implied if you wanted work, whether a big star like Joan, or new kid on the block from the land of Lafayette & Le-Mans. Mademoiselle Isabelle Corey (Annē) shows that same wherewithal when she comes clean to Bob-Le-Flambeur (56) (Duchesne) after spilling the beans on an upcoming heist and receives the inverted “spanking” the Pope of Montmartre had promised her, yet, “hardly blinked an eye (The-Haves).” Magnifique!
The Veda-Mildred slap may be the most famous in movie annals, fixed atop, now that the face-clap has been replaced by the fist-punch as later Classic and contemporary producers, portending advocacy, opt for overkill in mistaken belief that brazen behavior, extreme pain and humiliation will win the argument. In other words, stick it to the man and nuance be damned. But early movie makers knew better, that in verbal confrontations, a finessed physical expression (slap), one properly torqued & timed, is a better persuader, working a balance between anger & sound judgment that in real life is less likely to trigger the same or greater response, i.e., fistacuffs. A perception put to the test at the 2022 Oscars.
Slaps, of course, have landed when the cameras weren’t rolling (Mitchum on Preminger in Angel-Face) or at Hollywood haunts and homes, most taken in stride, but when it happens on a televised award gala it makes waves. That it did at the now infamous 94th Academy Awards when a petulant aggressor (Smith), lacking the most basic judgment capabiity, heard his name mentioned and handled it badly, acting with impunity in strut on stage and slapping the presenter (Rock) who’d made light of a perceived familial rivalry for that nite’s Oscar but who, rather than retaliate, took one for the team (AMPAS) so that aforementioned hell didn’t break loose. And what did the team do? They sat on their hands, of course (oy).
On social impact, it’s the Endicott-Tibbs exchange In-the-Heat-of-the-Night (67) which still stings. Character actor Larry Gates plays the paternalistic plantation owner taking great offense at being questioned by a black Philadelphia homicide detective (Poitier), and skilled medical-examiner, who’s been asked to assist in a local murder case, back-handing Tibbs in gesture, the cop quickly returning serve but, like Frazier in Fight-of-the-Century (71), Mister goes “back to the country," a slap so enraged it seems to bear the pain of 300 years in slavery & servitude. All the while, the Chief (Steiger) looks on amazed and confused.
In the funny department (yes, hand-hellos could be funny in the Classics), it is in director Sergio Leone’s My-Name-Is-Nobody (73) where his dry sense of humor is put on display when leading man Terence Hill, terrific with a gun, keeps it holstered and instead uses the fastest hands in the West to slap some manners into seriously befuddled bad guy Marc Mazza. But then you can’t go wrong with any of The-Three-Stooges film shorts, each replete with nose-twisting (Ouch), eye-poking (Ouch) and head-clonk (Ouch!).
The saddest slap, and the contenders are many, is a series of blows suffered by Faye Dunaway in Polanski’s masterpiece, Chinatown (74). Evelyn Cross Mulwray has the twisted family tree, her attacker, the well-meaning but snake-bit ex-cop-turned-PI, Jake Gittes (Nicholson) who goes out-on-a-limb yet can’t figure from where the trouble grows or will lead: “She’s my daughter (slap), she’s my sister (slap) (again).”
There are slaps that never land at all, but impactful, nonetheless. Lara Antipova (Christie) is a little bit in love and alot defensive of the just discharged Dr Yuri Zhivago (Shariff), his memory getting stabbed in the back by a big-mouth bolshevik (Kay), the nurse throwing him an angry glare with the unexpected ferocity of the fiercest face-clap.
And then there’s the slap “heard (and seen) round the world,” a planet that, at the time, hadn’t suffered this much trouble (WW2) since that meteor slammed into the Yucatan (RIP dinosaurs), thrown by another little pretty, a redhead this time (Garson), Mrs-Miniver. The British wife, mother and all-around good egg has just had her brain scrambled by a downed Nazi fly-boy (Dantine) who‘s invaded her home (Mr Pidgeon is on rescue boat for Dunkirk duty), her face-clap landing with the meta-physical force of “6 military divisions,” recalling what Winston Churchill said of the War contribution made by the MGM gem. It would take Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor (12.7.41) to bring America into the fight, FDR’s Lend-Lease and Mrs’ passionate response playing pivtol parts to put the Yanks on the launching-pad, emotionally prepared for lift-off when the call to arms could no longer be staved-off by isolationists. One high-profile slap inspires the free world in their fight against fascism, another only spurs celebrity chatter to expose a security lapse. Different days, indeed.
You probably won’t watch a movie solely for a slap, but if you happen upon these features, keep your eyes peeled as each face-clap will leave its mark, on your mind. And except for Mrs-Miniver in the top spot, the remaining order is random, not a ranking.
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