The latest 25 films selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for The National Film Registry (which, with The National Film Preservation Board ensures that these film be maintained in the most pristine condition possible) are, as usual, a mixed bag. Films are selected for their "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance," but that is always a very broad definition—films can be Big Studio releases or home movies, recently unearthed nitrates and cartoons, social statements and popcorn-movies.
One looks for similarities in these things—of why these particular films are chosen at this particular time, and one is usually hard-pressed to find anything similar from such collections. But, this year there seem to be a lot of films about unscrupulous people doing whatever it takes without regard to morals or the law or anything else to get what they want for their own selfish needs—Bad Day at Block Rock, The Girl Without a Soul, Hud, The Informer, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Pickup on South Street, The Shining—all have a streak of viciousness and unscrupulousness to them, that show the dark, sour side of The American Dream. Makes one wonder what—or who—they might be referring to.
Every year, I do any overview, and this year I've culled a bunch of them from some not-yet-completed "Now, I've Seen Everything Dept" drafts of posts. My stuff is in the usual grayish Verdana font. The essays by the Registry are in white and Arial font.
Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges, 1955) John Sturges goes wide-screen for a tale about narrow-mindedness. WWII vet John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) steps off the train at Black Rock—the first time the train has stopped there in four years. He's looking for a man named Komoko, and he is treated with an inexplicable hostility that he can't fathom and no one will explain. Macreedy, stoically—though increasingly crankily— sets out to find the man he's looking for, and has his life threatened several times by the town toughs (Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and the town "boss" Robert Ryan). Though Macreedy may only have one hand, he's quite capable of using it to defend himself, and, while playing defense, discover the town's secret that would force the tiny town's residents to kill. It's hard to believe that Bad Day at Black Rock was considered "subversive" by its studio M-G-M when it was being made but, ten years after the end of World War II, it was considered a hot potato, especially while its production was going on in the waning days of the McCarthy hearings. One couldn't mistake the metaphor of a town cowed by a single man who bends rules to his favor, and harasses outsiders who question. Right off the bat, one is struck by an over-earnestness that feels false. The wide-screen titles of a train careening through the Southwest desert is backed by a semi-hysterical Andre Previn score--full of sound and fury and signifying...a train—feels overdone and pointlessly busy. Tracy is reliably lived in as the maimed vet who comes to town, but he's a shade long-in-the-tooth for the role. Ryan starts subtle and ends up chewing the cactus in much the same way that Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine do their dirty work. Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger and Anne Francis (the only female in town, it seems) round out the cast as sycophants and victims, weak in one way or another. There are bursts of action including Tracy taking on Borgnine ("I'm part mule, part alligator") with one mutilated hand in his pocket and accomplishing some fancy karate and judo moves, something not often seen in '50's films. But one acknowledges that though the film's heart is in the right place, too much of it has spilled out onto its sleeve.Though only 81 minutes in length, "Bad Day" packs a punch. Spencer Tracy stars as Macreedy, a one-armed man who arrives unexpectedly one day at the sleepy desert town of Black Rock. He is just as tight-lipped at first about the reason for his visit as the residents of Black Rock are about the details of their town. However, when Macreedy announces that he is looking for a former Japanese-American Black Rock resident named Komoko, town skeletons suddenly burst into the open. In addition to Tracy, the standout cast includes Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Dean Jagger. Director John Sturges displays the western landscape to great advantage in this CinemaScope production.
Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1986) James L. Brooks followed up his Best Picture Oscar winner Terms of Endearment with this look at the "new" TV journalism that was starting to tip into flash over substance and heat over illumination with this rom-dram-com about a triangle of news people with different styles. Everybody loves perky news producer Jane Craig (Holly Hunter), but who'll get her: Aaron (Albert Brooks) the smartly acerbic reporter with substance who Jane respects (even though he's something of a schlemazzle, or Tom (William Hurt), the dimly hunky anchor who skates on his looks and provokes lust in Jane? The answer is that one must follow one's heart, however painful that may be. That Brooks ties the fates of Jane and The Truth together is risky but brilliant, and Broadcast News has both food for thought and the soul. It also catapulted Holly Hunter (in a brilliant performance) into the A-list after Raising Arizona, but everybody does a great job in this one—it certainly showcases how great Albert Brooks can be given proper material. Jack Nicholson has a cameo as a national news icon. The script is full of smart clever dialogue that is eminently quotable.
James L. Brooks wrote, produced and directed this comedy set in the fast-paced, tumultuous world of television news. Shot mostly in dozens of locations around the Washington, D.C. area, the film stars Holly Hunter, William Hurt and Albert Brooks. Brooks makes the most of his everyman persona serving as Holly Hunter's romantic back-up plan while she pursues the handsome but vacuous Hurt. Against the backdrop of broadcast journalism (and various debates about journalist ethics), a grown-up romantic comedy plays out in a smart, savvy and fluff-free story whose humor is matched only by its honesty.
I should have liked Brokeback Mountain more than I did: Ang Lee is a gifted director with fewer mis-steps than most; it boasts a screenplay co-written by one of my favorite writers, Larry McMurtry; the scenic photography—by Rodrigo Prieto—is breath-taking; and it boasts an amazing performance by Heath Ledger, who, up until that time, didn't seem to have that much acting skill other than good cheek-bones, but has the drawling rural in-expressiveness down cold.
But the movie is pure schmaltz, like a bad Douglas Sirk movie from the 1950's. I don't get weak in the knees about the love story between Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and Jake Twist (Jake Gyllenhall at his mooniest) as it wreaks a lot of destruction among the rest of the cast, most not by choice. It's the point of the movie that they have to hide their forbidden love for fear of being lynched at the hands of "good ol' boys" in their community, but, on the other hand, they don't have to play so straight with wives, children and girl-friends as "beards." From my vantage point, they're selfish, and a little hollow inside, and more than a bit cowardly. Human, certainly, and flawed, but not in any way I could comfortably respect.
But, then, I'm not as ardent and forgiving in my perception that I don't lose perspective. For example, the NSF says it was the first gay-themed film with A-list actors. It wasn't. But, it sure reads nice, and makes the film seem more significant than it is. Love will do that to you.
The story's original author, Anne Proulx is reportedly fed up with the movie, too. And the unsolicited fan-fiction it generates.
"Brokeback Mountain," a contemporary Western drama that won the Academy Award for best screenplay (by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana) and Golden Globe awards for best drama, director (Ang Lee) and screenplay, depicts a secret and tragic love affair between two closeted gay ranch hands. They furtively pursue a 20-year relationship despite marriages and parenthood until one of them dies violently, reportedly by accident, but possibly, as the surviving lover fears, in a brutal attack. Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the short story upon which the film was based, described it as "a story of destructive rural homophobia." Haunting in its unsentimental depiction of longing, lonesomeness, pretense, sexual repression and ultimately love, "Brokeback Mountain" features Heath Ledger's remarkable performance that conveys a lifetime of self-torment through a pained demeanor, near inarticulate speech and constricted, lugubrious movements. In his review, Newsweek's David Ansen wrotes that the film was "a watershed in mainstream movies, the first gay love story with A-list Hollywood stars." "Brokeback Mountain" has become an enduring classic.
Cinderella (Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson, 1950) Walt Disney's first animated feature since Bambi, (released by RKO Studio's, which may come as a surprise to those who've lived their life with a Disney Dynasty) and the first to feature all nine of the "Nine Old Men," who were the back-bone and creative geniuses behind Disney's cartoon output. Disney was in the hole, financially, and he shored up his studio-work with live-action features and shorts to cut costs, but knew that if he really wanted to make money, he'd have to gamble—again—on an animated feature. Cinderella was done for as cheap as possible (and it shows, even if it amounted to three million dollars)—the human figures were shot on sound-stages and roto-scoped by the Disney animators, who combined the anthropomorphic animals and fairy godmothers to create an interesting pastiche of the tale by Charles Perrault. Add some fun songs by Mack David, Jerry Livingston and Al Hoffman (including the Oscar-nominated "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo") and you've got something very confectionary, somewhat reminiscent of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but with a simpler aesthetic that would replace the detailed work of the Disney animators of the 1930's and 1940's, but still keep Disney as the gold standard for another couple decades.It would take the enchanted magic of Walt Disney and his extraordinary team to revitalize a story as old as Cinderella. Yet, in 1950, Disney and his animators did just that with this version of the classic tale. Sparkling songs, high-production value and bright voice performances have made this film a classic from its premiere. Though often told and repeated across all types of media, Disney's lovely take has become the definitive version of this classic story about a girl, a prince and a single glass slipper. Breathtaking animation fills every scene, including what was reportedly Walt Disney's favorite of all Disney animation sequences: the fairy godmother transforming Cinderella's "rags" into an exquisite gown and glass slippers.
It's a tragic story, with elements of horror writ large by Edwards. But, the production of it has a tonal shift that betrays the intent. It doesn't help the message that the movie ladles on Henry Mancini's and Johnny Mercer's Oscar-winning song, which should make the film seem more tragic, but, instead, evokes nostalgia for a toxic relationship that would, ultimately, given its inevitable end-game, kill three people. Sentimentality isn't called for. Empathy is. And the song, unfortunately, drowns the sorrow.
"Days of Wine and Roses" marked another in a series of Hollywood classics on the touchy subject of alcoholism. Previous examples on the theme include "The Lost Weekend" and "Come Back, Little Sheba." Though his career prior to "Days" had been noted for a deft touch in light comedy, in this Academy Award-nominated performance, Jack Lemmon plays a hard-drinking San Francisco public-relations man who drags his wife Lee Remick into the horrific descent into alcoholism. Director Blake Edwards pulls no punches in this uncompromisingly bleak film. Henry Mancini composed the moving score, best remembered for the title song he and Johnny Mercer wrote, which won an Academy Award for best original song.
Dixon-Wanamaker Expedition to Crow Agency (Joseph K. Dixon, 1908)
The original nitrate footage that comprises the 1908 "Dixon-Wanamaker Expedition to Crow Agency" was discovered in a Montana antique store in 1982 and subsequently donated to the Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution. It is the only known surviving film footage from the 1908 Rodman Wanamaker-sponsored expedition to record American Indian life in the west, filmed and produced both for an educational screening at Wanamaker's department store in Philadelphia and to document what Wanamaker and photographer Joseph K. Dixon considered a "vanishing race." Dixon and his son Roland shot motion picture film as well as thousands of photographs (most of the photographs are archived at Indiana University). This film captures life on Crow Agency, Crow Fair and a recreation of the Battle of Little Big Horn featuring four of Custer's Crow scouts. Films from later Wanamaker expeditions are archived at the National Archives and the American Museum of Natural History. The original film was photochemically preserved at Cinema Arts in 1983.
Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997) One of the great things about the film preservation board is it gives a second life to neglected films that never achieved the acclaim or notoriety they deserved. Eve's Bayou is one of those films. The story of Batiste family in 1962 Louisiana, it tells of the one Summer when secrets came to a boil, culminating in the death of one of the family members. Beautifully shot by Amy Vincent, it centers around the struggles of 10 year old Eve (Jurnee Smollett) to understand the compromised dynamics of her family: the estrangement between her mother (Lynn Whitfield) and her philandering father (Samuel L. Jackson, who also produced), a prominent doctor in town, and the effects it has on her kin and the community. Lemmons, who wrote and directed, weaves a complex story out of simple material with telling details and an imaginative combination of gritty realism and mysticism. It's like they took To Kill a Mockingbird, dropped the paternalism and added a voodoo element to it. It has that kind of feel to it.Written and directed by Kasi Lemmons and co-produced by co-star Samuel L. Jackson, "Eve's Bayou" proved one of the indie surprises of the 1990s. The film tells a Southern gothic tale about a 10-year-old African-American girl who, during one long, hot Louisiana summer in 1962, discovers some harsh truths beneath her genteel family's fragile façade. The film's standout cast includes Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Diahann Carroll, Lisa Nicole Carson, Branford Marsalis and the remarkable Jurnee Smolett, who plays the lead. The tag line of this film was very apropos: "The secrets that hold us together can also tear us apart."
George Eastman Museum founding film curator James Card was a passionate devotee of silent film director John H. Collins' work. It is through his influence that the museum is the principal repository of the director's few extant films. As the expert on Collins' legacy, the museum said he is "one of the great 'What if…?' figures of American cinema—a brilliantly creative filmmaker who went from being a costume department assistant to a major director within four short years, before dying at the age of 31 in the 1918 influenza pandemic. Collins' films show both a subtle understanding of human nature and often breathtakingly daring cinematography and editing. The 'Girl Without a Soul' stars Viola Dana (to whom Collins was married) in a dual role as twin sisters, one of whom is a gifted violinist, and the other, a deeply troubled girl jealous of her sister's abilities and the love bestowed upon her by their violinmaker father. This jealousy and the violinist sister's unworldliness lead both into turbulent moral conflict, which takes considerable fortitude from both to overcome." "The Girl Without a Soul" has been preserved by George Eastman Museum.
Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People (Ayoka Chenzira, 1984)
"Hair Piece" is an insightful and funny short animated film examining the problems that African-American women have with their hair. Generally considered the first black woman animator, director Ayoka Chenzira was a key figure in the development of African-American filmmakers in the 1980s through her own films and work to expand opportunities for others. Writing in the New York Times, critic Janet Maslin lauded this eccentric yet jubilant film. She notes the narrator "tells of everything from the difficulty of keeping a wig on straight to the way in which Vaseline could make a woman's hair ''sound like the man in 'The Fly' saying 'Help me!'
"Hair-Piece" begins at 05:30.
Director Peter Davis describes his Academy Award-winning documentary "Hearts and Minds" (1974) as "an attempt to examine why we went to Vietnam, what we did there and what the experience did to us." Compared by critics at the time to Marcel Ophuls' acclaimed documentary "The Sorrow and the Pity" (1971), "Hearts and Minds," similarly addressed the wartime effects of national myths and prejudices by juxtaposing interviews of government officials, soldiers, peasants and parents, cinéma vérité scenes shot on the home front and in South Vietnam, clips from ideological Cold War movies, and horrific archival footage. Author Frances FitzGerald praised the documentary as "the most moving film I've ever seen on Vietnam, because, for the first time, the camera lingers on the faces of Vietnamese and one hears their voices." Author David Halberstam said it "brilliantly catches … the hidden, unconscious racism of the war." Others from both ends of the political spectrum chided it as manipulative propaganda that oversimplified complexities.
Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963) Hud was a significant film: it ushered in the era of the anti-hero, portrayed by an A-list actor (Paul Newman) who wasn't afraid to play a selfish son-of-a-bitch, with no audience-appeasing soft side. Based on the book "Horseman, Pass By" by (once again) Larry McMurtry (the script is by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.), Hud is the surviving son of rancher Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas) and a classic narcissist with delusions of grandeur, who treats every woman as a plaything and all responsibility as a burden to be avoided. Also, he knows no rules. When his father's cows are discovered to have hoof and mouth disease, first Hud doesn't want them examined, then he wants to sell the herd before the others can be tested. When it's pointed out that he'll be selling dangerous stock to his neighbors, Hud's answer is simple—sell 'em out of state. When it's pointed out it might cause a nationwide epidemic, this is his answer: "This whole country is run on epidemics, where you been? Epidemics are big business, price fixing, crooked TV shows, income tax finagling, souped up expense accounts. How many honest men you know? You take the sinners away from the saints, you're lucky to end up with Abraham Lincoln. Now I say let us put our bread into some of that gravy while it is still hot.""Hud" is just King Shit, a big fish in a pond dried up in the Texas sun. He's so self-involved he'll run over anybody to attain his goals, even family. But, he's looked up to by Lon (Brandon De Wilde) his nephew, the son of Hud's long-passed brother. It's probably no coincidence that that character is played by the same actor who played the hero-worshiping child in Shane. Only this time, the icon is a louse. That may be the point as director Martin Ritt envisioned it, to draw a contrast between the Old West and the new, where pioneer values of right and wrong, sacrifice and strength amid hardship are replaced by naked greed and sloth. Hud ushered in the era of anti-heroes who don't get any comeuppance as the Hays Office would insist, but allowed to live in their own filth without punishment. The unsettling this is, many Americans now look up to those anti-heroes as something to be emulated. Who knows? One day, they might elect one President.
Paul Newman received his third Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the title character, the handsome, surly and unscrupulous bad-boy son of a Texas rancher who locks horns with his father over business and family matters. Loosely based on Larry McMurtry's debut novel, "Horseman, Pass By," the film received seven Academy Award nominations, winning three: Patricia Neal (best actress), Melvyn Douglas (best supporting actor) and James Wong Howe (black-and-white cinematography). Motion Picture Academy President John Bailey in 2017 chronicled the production of the film and summed up some of his impressions of the film's relevance 55 years after its release: "Naked and narcissistic self-interest have always been a dark undercurrent to the limpid surface stream of American optimism and justice, but it is not a reach to see the character of Hud as an avatar of the troubling cynicism of that other side of American Populism — the side that espouses a fake concern for one's fellow man while lining one's own pockets. Hud, a lothario at the wheel of his crashed convertible, raising a shroud of dust clouds in its trail, is nothing more than a flimflam 19th century snake-oil salesman and carnival barker. His type erupts over and over onto America's psyche like a painful pustule."
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| "Nobody gets out of life alive..." |
John Ford won his first Academy Award (of four) for directing The Informer, a low budget movie for RKO (he was usually working at Fox) that was only given financing after Ford's previous film for the studio, The Lost Patrol, became a box-office hit. Ford took no money for directing to keep the budget down and the film did not do well at the box-office, but did after a re-release following the film winning four Oscars—Directing for Ford, Best Acting for McLaglen, Dudley Nichols' script (written in six days) and for Max Steiner's score—although it did not win an award for Joseph August's noirish lighting (before there was such a thing as noir), which Ford used to create a bleak atmosphere, which is still striking to see even to this day.
This marks the 11th film directed by John Ford to be named to the National Film Registry, the most of any director. "The Informer" depicts with brutal realism the life of an informant during the Irish Rebellion of 1922, who turns in his best friend and then sees the walls closing in on him in return. Critic Andre Sennwald, writing in the New York Times, praised Ford's direction: "In his hands 'The Informer' becomes at the same time a striking psychological study of a gutter Judas and a raw impressive picture of the Dublin underworld during the Black and Tan terror." Ford and cinematographer Joseph August borrowed from German expressionism to convey the Dublin atmosphere. To this point, Ford had compiled a solid workmanlike career as he learned his craft. "The Informer" placed him in the top echelon of American film directors and over the next 20 years he crafted numerous other classics, from the 1939 "Stagecoach" through the 1962 "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."
Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) Here's the deal: Spielberg, after years of owning the rights to, and nurturing the script for Schindler's List finally bit the bullet and decided to direct it himself (he'd been trying to get Scorsese to make it). Universal, his studio of choice, wasn't convinced of the box office potential of a black-and-white movie about the holocaust (Go figure!), so they coerced Spielberg to first make Jurassic Park, which had far greater box office potential, in order to off-set the anticipated Schindler loss. One can quibble about how craven a movie Jurassic Park is (like Spielberg's Hook isn't?) but one has to admire the pedigree and brio that Spielberg brought to the project. The casting is superb: Sam Neill, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Peck all bring spark to the interchangeable cyphers of Michael Crichton's novel. And it's Spielberg in full "eating machine" mode. It's his most devilishly-intended thrill ride since Jaws. One particular scene stands out: Neil and the kids—there are kids, but they're good this time—have to scale an out-of-commission high-voltage electric fence, while elsewhere in the Park, Laura Dern is trying to restore power to the Island. Spielberg hangs on the sequence putting the lagging-behind boy-child in mortal danger of frying...and he stages it in an almost gleeful way (maybe it was those irritating "Lost Boys" from Hook...). The other thing about Jurassic Park is that it was aided immeasurably by Lucasfilm's post-production efforts to seamlessly integrate CGI dinosaurs into the frame. The results are spectacular, and changed the way movies have been made ever since. For some reason, Spielberg seems to be the master of integrating CGI and live-action than most directors...save for James Cameron.The concept of people somehow existing in the age of dinosaurs (or dinosaurs somehow existing in the age of people) has been explored in film and on television numerous times. No treatment, however, has ever been done with more skill, flair or popcorn-chomping excitement than this 1993 blockbuster. Set on a remote island where a man's toying with evolution has run amok, this Steven Spielberg classic ranks as the epitome of the summer blockbuster. "Jurassic Park" was the top public vote-getter this year.
The dark tale is about an almost Shakespearean fool, Michael O'Hara ("Black Irish" they call him, played by Welles)—"a notorious waterfront agitator"—who is intelligent and self-aware but that doesn't stop him walking, eyes wide shut, into a hornet's nest over a woman. He first sees Elsa (Rita Hayworth) in a hansom cab and he offers her a cigarette which she takes anyway, even though she doesn't smoke. He ends up keeping her from being mugged and she offers him a job on her husband's yacht. That tears it. He won't seek the job or the woman. But, imagine his surprise when that husband, the legendary defense attorney Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane) seeks him out at the wharf to offer him the job. O'Hara has a lot of questions and a lot of suspicions but he takes it, anyway.
The camera is the star in this stylish film noir. "Lady From Shanghai" is renowned for its stunning set pieces, the "Aquarium" scene, "Hall of Mirrors" climax, baroque cinematography and convoluted plot. Director Orson Welles had burst on the scene with "Citizen Kane" in 1941 and "The Magnificent Ambersons" in 1942, but had increasingly become seen as difficult to work with by the studios. As a result, Welles spent most of his career outside the studio sphere. "The Lady From Shanghai" marked one of his last films under a major studio (Columbia) with Welles and the executives frequently clashing over the budget, final editing of the film and the release date.
Yes, she does, and nothing will stand in her way—especially someone like Danny, Dick's disabled brother, who always seems to come between her and her bliss with her new husband. When all three move to his remote writer's retreat, she starts scheming how to make it just the two of them—"I love you so I can't bear to share you with anybody." It becomes clear that Tierney's Ellen is more than a bubble-off-plumb in her compulsions and her fixations, leading to murderously torturous ways to keep Richard for herself. But, Tierney underplays the more demented aspects of her character's neurosis, while keeping the more ardent aspects of her character consistent with Fox melodrama. She's fascinating to watch—a somewhat less mercurial, believable version of the most manic Joan Crawford roles. Jeanne Crain—who was becoming known for also playing difficult parts—makes a good impression as Ellen's sister who has a better perspective on things. Stahl started his career in silents (and you can tell) and it's an odd little noir as it boasts eye-popping Technicolor photography by Leon Shamroy.
Darkness and claustrophobia mark the visual style of many film noirs: the use of black-and-white or gloomy grays, low-key lighting, striking contrasts between light and dark, shadows, nighttime or interior settings and rain-soaked streets. "Leave Her to Heaven" proves the magnificent exception. Filmed in vibrant, three-strip Technicolor, many pivotal scenes occur in spectacular outdoor locations, shot by famed cinematographer Leon Shamroy in Arizona and California. A classic femme fatale, Gene Tierney stars as Ellen, whose charisma and stunning visage mask a possessive, sociopathic soul triggered by "loving too much." Anyone who stands between her and those she obsessively loves tend to meet "accidental" deaths, most famously a teen boy who drowns in a chilling scene. Martin Scorsese has labeled "Heaven" as among his all-time favorite films and Tierney one of film's most underrated actresses. "Leave Her to Heaven" makes a supremely compelling case for these sentiments.
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| Alas, poor Danny... |
This seminal music-festival film captures the culture of the time and performances from iconic musical talent. "Monterey Pop" also established the template for multi-camera documentary productions of this kind, predating both "Woodstock" and "Gimme Shelter." In addition to director D. A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles and others provided the superb camerawork. Performers include Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Hugh Masekela, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Simon and Garfunkel, and Ravi Shankar. As he recalled in a 2006 Washington Post article, Pennebaker decided to shoot and record the film using five portable 16mm cameras equipped with synchronized sound recording devices, while producers Lou Adler and John Phillips (Mamas and Papas) sagely had the whole concert filmed and recorded, and further enhanced the sound by hiring Wally Heider and his state-of-the-art mobile recording studio.
The result was a long, somewhat unwieldy extravaganza with some production numbers running a bit long—the "Get Me to the Church On Time" segment is a bit interminable—(and Beaton's costumes seem to require extra shots to display them which stops the movie cold) that it threatens to swamp Shaw's intentions of skewering Britain's class system. Around the 3/4 mark, one starts dreading the first notes introducing a song wondering if the thing is ever going to end.
The cast is special, though, with Hepburn making a winsome choice for Eliza (ironically, she lost the Best Actress Oscar to...Julie Andrews) and Rex Harrison makes no concessions in transferring his performance from stage to screen. It is particularly amusing to see future Sherlock Holmes Jeremy Brett as the besotted love interest Freddy Eynsford-Hill, especially when Brett's reedy voice is replaced by a bass for the songs.
In the 1950s and 1960s, besieged by shifts in demographics and having much of its audience syphoned off by television, film studios knew they had to go big in their entertainment in order to lure people back to the theater. This film version of the musical "My Fair Lady" epitomized this approach with use of wide-screen technologies. Based on the sparkling stage musical (inspired by George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion"), "My Fair Lady" came to the big screen via the expert handling of director George Cukor. Cecil Beaton's costume designs provided further panache, along with his, Gene Allen's and George James Hopkins' art and set direction. The film starred Rex Harrison, repeating his career-defining stage role as Professor Henry Higgins, and Audrey Hepburn (whose singing voice was dubbed by frequent "ghoster" Marni Nixon), as the Cockney girl, Eliza Doolittle. Though opulent in the extreme, all these elements blend perfectly to make "My Fair Lady" the enchanting entertainment that it remains today.
Co-directed by actor Donald Crisp (who has a brief cameo as the portrait of the ship's captain—and, yes, it was used as a "bit"), who, it seemed, was determined to make the film dramatic, it's the story of an awkward young man, the well-to-do Rollo Treadway (Keaton, of course), who is determined to marry the girl of his dreams, the equally inept Betsy O'Brien (Kathryn McGuire), if only she wouldn't reject him as a bad prospect.
Of course, she does.
To mend his broken heart, Rollo decides to go, by himself, on the honeymoon cruise to Hawaii he'd intended to take his bride. Complications (as they are wont to do) arise and as Fate and luck would have it, both Betsy and Rollo are stranded on the same ship as it is set adrift by spies out to sea in the Pacific Ocean, carrying (what co-screenwriter Jean Havez called) "the most helpless people in the world" on a pilot-less ocean-going vessel.
It is always a personal joy to watch Buster Keaton and his films, especially when he is the captain of his fate (that is, behind the camera—his characters are usually victims of fate, despite their abilities, however clumsy or clever, to deal with it). With an entire ship as his stage, he can be depended to find a wealth of comedic possibilities throughout, whether it's set in the ship's galley, cockpit, fo'csle or funnel. Everything is fair game. Everything is a potential prop, and Keaton's ability to make the most of it...and display his amazing body of stunt-work...infuses his films with fun and not a little awe at what he can do, seemingly effortlessly.
Buster Keaton burst onto the scene in 1920 with the dazzling two-reeler "One Week." His feature "The Navigator" proved a huge commercial success and put Keaton in the company of Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin in terms of audience popularity and films eagerly awaited by critics. Decades after release, Pauline Kael reviewed the film: "Arguably, Buster Keaton's finest — but amongst the Keaton riches can one be sure?" Keaton plays an inept, foppish millionaire whose idea of a marriage proposal involves crossing the street in a chauffeured car, handing flowers to his girlfriend and popping the question. Later the two accidentally become stranded at sea on an abandoned boat and Keaton proves his worth by conceiving ingenious work-arounds to ensure they survive. The silent era rarely saw films rife with more creativity and imaginative gags.
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| Magic lantern presentation of secret desire— a poignant visual joke that lasts all of two seconds |
Three squabs, Gabey (Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra), and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) have a 24 hour leave in The Big Apple and are determined to make the most of it, mostly by seeing the sights and trying to find the woman Gabey falls in love with, seeing her picture in the subway as "Miss Turnstiles" (Vera-Ellen). With the help of Ozzie's date Claire (Ann Miller) and Chip's squeeze "Hildy" (Betty Garrett), they do the town up (the Bronx) and down (the Battery). It's one of those M-G-M musicals that breathes a little easier because it's scope explodes beyongd its limitations.
Three sailors with 24 hours of shore leave in New York doesn't sound like much to build a film around, but when Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin portray them under the sparkling direction of Stanley Donen (and Kelly), movie magic occurs. "On the Town" was based upon the Comden and Green Broadway musical of the same name. Shot on location all over New York City, the film carries over such splendid songs as "New York, New York," the close-to-opening iconic scene with the sailor trio performing while still in their navy togs. Female song-and-dance pros Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett and Ann Miller match the guys step for step in the numerous musical numbers. "On the Town" represents the upbeat, post war musicals of the era, which summed up the national optimism of the period.
What is there in those two hours and twenty minutes? A superbly acted film, based on a script that at times is intriguing and at times is dull cliche. It's a very weird movie. It's weird, but it does show that Brando certainly had an artistic eye for shots, camera angles, sequences that sometimes take the breath away. You'll also see excellent performances from a cast of Brando, Karl Malden (before TV neutered him), Katy Jurado, Slim Pickens, Pina Pellicer, Elisha Cook, and Ben Johnson..especially Ben Johnson.
They just don't write 'em like they used to."Get up, you scum-suckin' pig!"
Or over-write them. The parts that you can glean from the current cut of One Eyed Jacks (and no one is rushing to restore the full length version, certainly not Paramount Studios, although Criterion did do a restoration for Blu-Ray that was supervised by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg) suggest an idiosyncratic western with a gritty, grimy feel, which would have made it unique in the western-glut that was happening across theater and television screens across America. Brando's fights were inelegant, and people looked like they got hurt. But the film is a cliche about Authority Figures and Oedipal Conflicts--Karl Malden plays a once-friend-turned-lawman named..."Dad." At one point, Brando's character is whipped in the street before a crowd of on-lookers, and if that doesn't convince you he's a Christ-figure, his tied, outstretched arms just might.
Ulp! It starts to get so thick with things like that, you need hip-waders out in that desert.
Based on the 1956 Charles Neider novel, "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones" (a loose retelling of the story of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), this Western marks Marlon Brando's sole directorial effort. "One-Eyed Jacks" displays his trademark introspection and offbeat quirkiness. Brando's novel approach to updating the Western film genre marks it as a key work in the transition period from Classic Hollywood (1930s through 1950s) to the new era that began in the 1960s and continues to the present day. As director Martin Scorsese and others have said, this evolution from "Old Hollywood" to "New Hollywood" involved a change from filmmaking primarily being about profit-making to a period when many directors create motion pictures as personal artistic expression.
Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953) By the time Samuel Michael Fuller wrote and directed Pickup on South Street for Darryl F. Zanuck in 1953, he'd already had three tough careers, as an infantryman in WWII, as a street-wise journalist for a New York daily (he was the New York Evening Graphic's crime reporter at the tender age of 17!) and a pulp-fiction novelist and ghost-writer. Fuller knew the seamy side of life, knew how to portray it suggestively to avoid the censors, but still punch it up to make sure audiences picked up on it. Fuller's movies had a crusty vitality that few directors have successfully emulated (although many have tried). That sort of lesson you learn on the street, not in the video store.He'd already made five very eclectic pictures for 20th Century Fox starting with I Shot Jesse James, two Korean War films—the low-budgeted The Steel Helmet and Fixed Bayonets!—The Baron of Arizona, and an historical newspaper picture, Park Row. When Darrel Zanuck suggested a trial movie, Fuller pitched him another idea about grifters and spies working against each other in the bowels of New York.
Pickup on South Street has some amazing sequences, starting with the opening gambit: a couple of fed's are tailing a call-girl, Candy (the soon-to-be-Mrs. Howard Hughes, Jean Peters), who's found some temporary legitimacy as a courier for her ex-boyfriend, Joey (Richard Kiley), when who should sidle up to her but a professional pick-pocket named Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark). He gets in close, uses a newspaper as a blind, then deftly violates her purse (no, there is no ambiguity here—Fuller edits it like it's a sexual act, cutting from the purse to a flushed-looking Candy). He intercepts something he doesn't expect—micro-film with government secrets. This Joey-guy seems to be a communist spy.
Of all the people in the world for the safety of United States to depend on! Skip's no hero and has no loyalties to anybody but himself. Pretty soon he's being hounded in his squalid little bait-shack domicile by the city cops, the fed's ("You wavin' the flag at ME?!" he asks, mystified), the moll he buzzed, and the U.S.-based communist cell that Joey's working for. What's a "dipper" to do? The patter is wise and rapid, the love scenes smoldering and intimate, and the fight scenes look like they hurt!
It's hard to believe that Zanuck would approve this film (and he got some complaints about it from J. Edgar Hoover), but he liked his B-roster rough and down in the dirt, and Fuller wouldn't have it any other way. However, just because his protagonists are all grifters (the cops, however, are all nasty creeps) they're all Good Americans, as opposed to the well-tailored, polite communists, and that's Fuller's punch-line to the whole magilla.
You can practically hear his wheezing cackle.
Samuel Fuller's films are sometimes compared to the pulp novels of Mickey Spillane, though Fuller's dynamic style dwarfs Spillane. With films often crass but always provocative, Fuller described his mantra of filmmaking: "Film is like a battleground, with love, hate, action, violence, death … in one word, emotion." Considered by some as the archetypal Sam Fuller film and a nice summary of the main themes in his work, "Pickup on South Street" is a taut, Cold War thriller. The fast-paced plot follows a professional pickpocket who accidently lifts some secret microfilm from his mark. Patriotism or profit? Soon, the thief is being pursued not only by the woman he stole from, but also by Communist spies and U.S. government agents. The film culminates in a landmark brutal subway-based fight scene. It is arguably the classic anti-Communist film of the 1950s and a dazzling display of the seedy New York underlife. In particular, Thelma Ritter's excellent tough-yet-nuanced performance as Moe Williams stands out and earned her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress, which was highly unusual for what was considered at the time a lurid and violent B-movie.
Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) Hitchcock's first film in America, under contract to Über-producer David O. Selznick. Hitchcock wanted to film this himself, but couldn't afford the screen-rights and, originally, he was supposed to make a film about the Titanic for Selznick, but when that fell through (or the plans sunk) Selznick suggested the Daphne DuMaurier story, a sort of modern take on a Brontë novel, instead (she also wrote the original story for Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn and The Birds). Despite being his first film in America, the film is as British as British can be--the story takes place in England, the three leads are British, but because Hitchcock had no access to real locations, Rebecca has a remote, fairy-tale quality to it—almost Disney-esque. Joan Fontaine is the unsophisticated girl who happens to fall under the charms of the rather frosty Maxim DeWinter (played with a certain lack of commitment by Laurence Olivier). Following their hasty marriage, he brings her back to the Manderley Estate, where if she isn't her own worst enemy, the staff, especially the creepily engaged Mrs. Danvers, is. Danvers (Judith Anderson) makes no secret of her preference for the deceased former Mrs. DeWinter (the Rebecca of the title--Fontaine's character, significantly, isn't named at all) and it becomes a psychological battle of wills between the idealized past and the haunted present. Hitchcock's first film in America won the Best Picture Oscar for 1941. The award went to Selznick. The award for Best Directing that year went to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath, his second Oscar of the four he would win in total.Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar for Best Directing.
"Rebecca," Daphne du Maurier's most famous book ("Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…"), found its perfect cinematic interpreter in Alfred Hitchcock, here directing his first American motion picture. Powerhouse producer David O. Selznick had just imported the "master of suspense" from his native England. Laurence Olivier stars as Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine in her breakthrough role co-stars as Maxim's new (and never given a first name) wife. However, it is two other women who dominate the film—the intimidating housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (played by Judith Anderson) and the film's title woman, the deceased first Mrs. de Winter whose powerful shadow still hangs heavily over this great estate and all its inhabitants. Winner of the Oscar for best picture that year, "Rebecca" is stylish, suspenseful and a classic.
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) Desperate for a "hit" after the box office failure of Barry Lyndon, Kubrick looked long and hard for a vehicle that would attract audiences...and one he could use Jack Nicholson for the lead—Kubrick had wanted him to play "his" Napoleon. Kubrick seemed an odd choice for any horror-film let alone one written by Stephen King--the only previous King adaptation was Brian DePalma's hyper-version of Carrie, but Kubrick was drawn to another story of an intelligent man unable to fight off his demons, in this case the ones inhabiting your proverbial haunted house. Nicholson's spit-spewing performance is straight out of EC comics, and Shelley Duvall had the thankless task of maintaining hysteria for the last half of the movie, but The Shining succeeds in provoking dread throughout its entire length. King and King-fans hate it, especially for one death-deviation from the book, but when King produced a TV-version years later that stuck scrupulously to his vision, it was a sappy mess that dragged and dragged. Kubrick boiled it down to essentials, and made the better film.
And let's add something else. Despite Wendy's total fear and desperation (Duvall's performance may seem annoying—I'd say exhausting) but bear in mind that Wendy is the one female in all of Kubrick's films who manages to "save the day" and triumph (that's unusual in any of Kubrick's films)...and she does it alone, despite supernatural resistance, making her the strongest of any of the Kubrick women, stronger than even the character in King's lauded book, because of the changes Kubrick made to the story. She is Kubrick's feminist hero (and it had only been a couple years since Jamie Lee Curtis' active attacker in John Carpenter's Hallowe'en), defending her family from attacks from without...and within.
Director Stanley Kubrick's take on Stephen King's terrifying novel has only grown in esteem through the years. The film is inventive in visual style, symbolism and narrative as only a Kubrick film can be. Long but multi-layered, "The Shining" contains stunning visuals — rivers of blood cascading down deserted hotel hallways, disturbing snowy mazes and a mysterious set of appearing and disappearing twins — with iconic performances by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.
Smoke Signals was unique at the time for having a completely Native production and acting staff, and the results were impressive enough for indie studio Miramax to pick up the distribution rights, where it enjoyed a moderate success at the box-office.
Native American directors are a rarity in Hollywood. After the early silent film pioneers James Young Deer and Edwin Carewe, the portrayal of Native Americans in cinema turned dark and stereotypical. These social trends started changing with motion pictures like the groundbreaking "Smoke Signals," generally considered to be the first feature film written, directed and produced by Native Americans. Director Chris Eyre uses the relaxed road-movie concept to create a funny and unpretentious look at Native Americans in the nation's cinema and culture. The mostly Native American cast features Adam Beach and Evan Adams as the two road warriors who find themselves on a hilarious adventure. Beneath the highly entertaining façade, the film acquainted non-Native American audiences with real insights into the indigenous Americans' culture. Sherman Alexie penned the witty, droll script based on his book "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." This Miramax release was a big hit on the independent film circuit and won numerous awards, including a Sundance award.
Something Good – Negro Kiss (Thomas Edison, 1898)
According to scholars and archivists, this recently discovered 29-second film may represent the earliest example of African-American intimacy on-screen. American cinema was a few years old by 1898 and distributors struggled to entice audiences to this new medium. Among their gambits to find acceptable "risqué" fare, the era had a brief run of "kissing" films. Most famous is the 1896 Edison film "The Kiss," which spawned a rash of mostly inferior imitators. However, in "Something Good," the chemistry between vaudeville actors Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown was palpable. Also noteworthy is this film's status as the earliest known surviving Selig Polyscope Company film. The Selig Company had a good run as a major American film producer from its founding in 1896 until its ending around 1918. "Something Good" exists in a 19th-century nitrate print from the University of Southern California Hugh Hefner Moving Image Archive. USC Archivist Dino Everett and Dr. Allyson Nadia Field of the University of Chicago discovered and brought this important film to the attention of scholars and the public. Field notes, "What makes this film so remarkable is the non-caricatured representation and naturalistic performance of the couple. As they playfully and repeatedly kiss, in a seemingly improvised performance, Suttle and Brown constitute a significant counter to the racist portrayal of African Americans otherwise seen in the cinema of its time. This film stands as a moving and powerful image of genuine affection, and is a landmark of early film history."
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