Out of the Past

Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) A stranger comes into town looking for a guy. He's not from around here. The fancy suit gives it away at a glance—city-clothes, where the jacket doesn't zip up. And the manner. Tough, not friendly. Not altogether polite. In a hurry. Plus, everybody knows everybody else in a small town like Bridgeport. And everybody knows everybody's business. Nobody asks questions because everybody already knows the answers.

But, this guy's asking for Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). You know, Jeff, "the mysterious Jeff Bailey" who owns the local gas station. What does he want with Jeff?—he's a guy on the level. Treats people decent, even the local deaf kid (Dickie Moore). Plus, Jeff is gone for the day, out fishing with Ann Miller (Virginia Huston), who's sweet on him. Her folks don't approve, though. Neither does Jim (Richard Webb)—you know Jim, he's been trying forever. Then, Jeff came into town and Jim's been playing second fiddle ever since. And this guy's asking for Jeff.

The Kid finds him while the city-guy pokes around the diner, and even though The Kid can't hear/can't speak, Jeff merely has to see him to know that something's up and the fishing has to be curtailed. The fishing in the lake, anyway. Jeff can relate. To the fish, I mean.

Turns out the guy is an "old chum from old times." And he has a message for him. Whit wants to see him. In Tahoe. Jeff's not a guy to telegraph what he's thinking or say what he's thinking. "I never found out much listening to myself," he says once. But, this...this is something he left miles out of the way. And Out of the Past.

Out of the Past came from a novel by Daniel Mainwaring, who used to be a private eye and a reporter before getting into pictures. He was a prolific writer of books and pictures and he was the natural go-to to adapt his novel "Build My Gallows High" (written under his pseudonym Geoffrey Homes). Humphrey Bogart read the script and liked it, but his bosses at Warner Bros. didn't. RKO bought it and were pleased enough with it to attach a good budget and a guy who knew his way around noir, Edward Dmytryk, to direct. But, there were conflicts with his schedule and so Jacques Tourneur (late of the Val Lewton horror unit) was brought in. Robert Mitchum was set to top-line and the script was punched up for him by Frank Fenton—who'd put words in Mitchum's mouth before—and James M. Cain, the godfather of noir, who'd written the novels of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity," and "Mildred Pierce." Together, these writers would craft dialog of a quality that was top-notch noir, that at its best is verbal shadow-boxing with its metaphors, its feints and jabs and dead-ends (but no knock-outs), a kind of gutter-poetry that evokes gruff chuckles or haunted thoughts.

So, Jeff has an appointment in Tahoe with a thing of his past. Best to take care of the present, so he goes to see Ann, maybe for the last time, and square up accounts and speak the truth, not avoiding it, even though "some of it's going to hurt". First, she tells him that the man she knows isn't him. He's Jeff Markham, and he was a private detective at one time, who had a reputation for being smart and honest, and a partner (Steve Brodie) who was neither. He'd been brought in by a "big op"—"an operator, a gambler" named Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas, in only his third film) about "some dame (who) took four shots at him with his own .38. Made one of 'em good." Whit's only slightly wounded, but what really smarts is she took $40 G's with her when she beat feet. Her name is Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), and he wants the money back, the girl is just interest.

After some digging and some hoofing, Jeff found her in Acapulco...and found her fascinating. Maybe it's the heat, or the waiting, or the anticipation, but when she walked into a bar, she walked away telling him were he might find her again...and walked away with his heart. He knew he was being a sucker, taking her side just because it was a nice place to be. And, as the waitress who works across from his future garage is given to say: "Seems like everything people ought to know, they just don't want to hear. I guess that's the big problem with the world." Jeff puts it more succinctly to Kathie: "Baby, I don't care."

"Baby, I don't care"

Famous last words. Jeff stops being smart, and he stops being honest...at least with his employer, Whit, who comes down to Acapulco to check on his progress. He doesn't tell him that he's found Kathie and that he's planning on leaving town with her that very day. They run to San Francisco, but the ends of the Earth wouldn't be far enough. He and Kathie are found by Jeff's old partner, Fisher, who tries to blackmail them for keeping quiet. Kathie shoots him, then runs out, leaving Jeff to dispose of the body. He never sees her again, and that's when he made his way to Bridgeport, to Ann, thinking he'd left his past behind.

Later, he'll say "You know, sometimes a bad memory is like what they call an ill wind. It can blow somebody luck." He doesn't specify whether it's good or bad. But, he leaves Ann to drive back to Bridgeport while he walks in to confront his past, too much of it, it turns out, knowing full well that it may doom his future. His talk starts to turn fatalistic, as he's led through a series of traps, trying to get ahead of it, but, seemingly, with his back always against something, hiding in the shadows trying to see his way to the light. But, he knows that this journey began with a bad step and like he told Kathie once "You're going to find it easy to take me anywhere." Even against his better judgment.

Out of the Past is one of the definitive film noir films, if not the epitome of the genre. But, it's not the world, or the machinations of the Universe, that's bad here, it's people, and how their influences on the world can drag you down, throw you off-course, even if you're smart, even if you're honest, even if you want a better life. It's your choices under their influence that make the difference and once you've made them, you can't escape them, whether physically or mentally. Past is prologue goes the saying, attached like a chain that binds you to it, and from which there is no escape, despite your best intentions. And no matter how nostalgic you may feel about them, it's best to not revisit old haunts.

That's why the ending to the film is so good. A lot of would-be film noirs will "cop out" the ending, tacking on the glimmer of hope, a way to redemption, and a warm hug. Out of the Past does that, but stays true to its cautionary theme, providing a moment of wisdom and of grace, a gift that jettisons the past and makes a clean start, free of regret. It deliberately brings hope and the good luck that an ill wind could toss. Mourning the past never did anybody any good. Leaving it behind and running towards the future is always the best path.

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (Craig McCall, 2010) I love films about cinematography and there are damned few of them; I tend to come away with a new appreciation of light and vision, and the world looks fresh and new, bright and awash with color. It happens so rarely when I watch films where the world seems different post-movie—the films of Orson Welles or Nicholas Roeg do that to me...and films about cinematography.*

When I saw Cameraman... pop up on the Netflix queue, I jabbed the Play button immediately. The work of Jack Cardiff (the subject of the film) spanned a career of 70 years and the palettes of black and white through to color and technicolor—there's a difference—(and from the silver screen to the painter's canvas, sometimes employing both). A cinematographer for much of his career, he also directed in the 60's and 70's and returned to cinematography later. But he worked with the camera from the era of Things to Come to photographing Rambo: First Blood Part II, and worked with directors as diverse as Michael Powell, Laurence Olivier, Alfred Hitchcock, Henry Hathaway, John Houston, the Boulting Brothers, William Knightley, Richard Fleischer, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, King Vidor, Mike Newell, John Irvin and Joshua Logan. Cardiff raised the level of everything he worked on and directors knew he had the eye of a painter and the craftsmanship of an engineer.  He was truly a renaissance man. 

Documentarian Craig McCall shows it all and knows how to get great quotes from the man and anecdotes about the various personalities he worked with, the directors he worked for and the subjects he photographed, literally a man in the middle who knew how to make both sides look their best. Some of the surviving directors give testimony, as well as Martin Scorsese, Powell's editor-wife Thelma Schoonmaker, Lauren Bacall, Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas (a rare post-stroke interview), John Mills, as well as Moira Shearer, Kim Hunter and Kathleen Byron.

In showing the history of this one man, it is also a fascinating overview of the entire art and history of the cinema as well, and how the well-composed image is as timeless as beauty itself. This is gorgeous to look at, and very educational and highly, highly recommended.

* One of my favorites is Visions of Light, which was produced with the ASC Union and has a broad spectrum of subject matter and timeline, as does Camerman.  You can't do a film about lighting movies without mentioning Dietrich, and I'll always remember that 45 degree angle trick.

So, there's a link to buy Visions of Light, but YouTube has two versions of it: one in its original format with cut-away's to interviews and some disturbing format transitions, and a remastered meticulously recreated version that gives prominence to the cinematography

Visions of Light [HD Remaster] (1992–2020) from Mulberry St Studios on Vimeo.

Lonely Are The Brave

Lonely are the Brave (David Miller, 1960) A shot of a sand-blasted scrubby desert landscape—nothing but a clean horizon and no obstacles in sight—begins Lonely are the Brave. The camera heaves from that unbroken horizon to examine the ground and the first indication of interference—a small camp-fire and the toe of a boot belonging to the soul that started it. He's enjoying the last drag of a cigarette before we hear a sound. The man cocks his hat back and squints into the sun. Jets. Military. Three of them, leaving contrails in the sky. A horse snorts. The man looks over at his horse (in the next couple of sentences we'll know its name is "Whiskey") and the man responds, "Time we took off, too."

There's enough time for a last slug of coffee, then he throws the rest on the ground, dousing the fire, and he gets up to saddle his horse. Blanket goes on first. But, as he turns to heft the saddle, the horse reaches over and pulls the blanket off its back. There's a little back and forth of mutual protesting, but eventually the saddle goes on and is cinched. He mounts and the horse rears in protest, but a little useless galloping will burn some of the energy, so man and horse prance around aimlessly for a bit, but they have places to go. Time to take off.

There is some travel time but eventually, they come across a fence. An arbitrary wire thing put on some chart by somebody from the Water and Power Company. But it's in the way. So, he dismounts, takes some clippers out of his saddle-bag and cuts—one, two, three—three violations of an authority he doesn't recognize, nor have use for. And they ride on.

John W.(call him "Jack") Burns (Kirk Douglas) is a cowboy out of time in the 1960's...or just ahead of his time given the era. 

He's a rider on the range. A tumbling tumbleweed. His home is the prairie and his roof is the open sky. He hasn't bought a house, or even bought into the Suburban American Dream. His Dream is older, less expensive, and offers far more freedom. In today's terms, you could call him homeless, but he wouldn't self-identify with that (he'd look at you, amused, with the term "self-identified"—"What's the point of that?") He doesn't want a house—too restrictive. Hell, a fence is too restrictive. 

He rambles...between jobs (he's been herding sheep lately, a bit of a come-down for him), friends, towns. He doesn't use banks. He carries his money. Has no driver's license—he doesn't drive—and no I.D. 

"I don't need a card to tell me who I am. I already know."

But, he has a mission...and a destination. Awhile back, he got 'hold of a newspaper and saw the name of a friend heading for two years in the penitentiary for helping immigrants after they came over the border, giving them food, water, opportunity. He didn't help 'em over, mind you, just helped 'em once they got over. Fences again. Borders.

He and Whiskey cross the freeway into town, past the junkyard with the graveyard on the other side of the path—relics of the past—to pay a call on Jerry Bondi (Gena Rowlands), his pal's wife and it's clear that she and Burns have a past, but how deep a one is never made too clear. But she's another man's wife now and that other man is his friend, so...there's a boundary there, but a mutually agreed upon one. Jerry is frustrated with husband Paul because he's decided to go to the penitentiary than cooperating, choosing prison life over his family. Jack tries to explain that she's an Easterner, not a Westerner, so she puts up with borders as a fact of life, but for him and Jerry that's just not reality, and he implies that she's jealous of "the other woman" whose name is "Do-What-You-Want-And-Hang-'Em-All." She's not amused.

She's glad to see Jack and all, but it's been a long time and why visit now. Jack's a little circumspect, but the implication is he wants to go into town and have a good drunk. Maybe get into some trouble. Maybe get arrested. Maybe see Paul...in prison. "Visiting days are Wednesday," she reminds him. He takes a little bit of his money, gives the rest to her and he skips off into town.

Doesn't take much to get into trouble in a bar there.  First, place he goes there's a belligerent patron (Bill Raisch, a couple years before he played the murderer of Mrs. Richard Kimble on "The Fugitive") who throws a beer stein at him and a fight breaks out. The police come and arrest him, and when he's being booked, he finds out that they'll let him out of the lock-up for 30 days. Not good enough. Jack hauls off and belts a deputy and gets a year in the penitentiary. Good enough.

He eventually gets to Paul (Michael Kane), a writer and activist, and they share old times, but it becomes quite clear to Jack that Paul is going to do his time and not join him in a break-out that Jack has already planned for himself (he's smuggled in hacksaws in his boots—nice search procedures, coppers). Just the thought of being cooped up for a year gives Jack the willies—"my guts get all tied up in knots just thinkin' 'bout it."

But  once they've sawed through one bar of the jail-cell and Jack has shimmied through, Paul tells him why he'll stay: his wife and his son. "I don't want him growing up like we did. I don't want them running away from anything." "Ya grew up on me, didn't ya?" Jack smiles broadly at Paul. "I just changed," he says simply. "That's all." And Jack is gone. He's got 'til sun-up to make it across the mountains and maybe into Mexico. And he stops back at the Bondi's to grab his mare and say good-bye. And leave a gift and a summation of himself and why he can't stay: "'Cause I'm a loner clear down deep to my guts. Know what a loner is? He's a born cripple. He's a cripple because the only person he can live with is himself. It's his life, the way he wants to live. It's all for him. A guy like that, he'd kill a woman like you. Because he couldn't love you, not the way you are loved."

He has one other advantage—the police pursuing him. The local sheriff, Morey Johnson (Walter Matthau) is a good man, but he's a bit ham-strung—his deputy (the immortal William Schallert) is a little slow, and Burns has gone into the mountains, where police cars, stake-outs and search helicopters are at a disadvantage. Even a sadistic deputy (George Kennedy in his first film role) who beat up Burns in prison can't seem to outmaneuver him in the high country, even when Burns is difficulty maneuvering in the terrain with a skittish horse.

The project was the fallow-up project from Spartacus from Douglas' Bryna Productions and the star had fallen in love with the novel "The Brave Cowboy" by ranger and environmental activist Edward Abbey, and went to his Spartacus screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (who had beat the Hollywood black list by receiving an out-in-the-open credit for his Spartacus script) to adapt the novel, taking it out of its 1950's setting and cracking the issue of Paul Bondi's incarceration—substituting his actions in sympathy for Mexican immigrants instead of the novel's draft evasion. Trumbo also did the adaptation one better by planning out Birns trip on a map of the Sandia Mountains. Douglas hired director David Miller, who had a spotty record in Hollywood—directing one Marx Brothers comedy and several thrillers—but an ability to bring films in on budget, something needed with all the location work necessary on this film. 

The film is a classic, and if it has one flaw it might be setting up a parallel, seemingly unimportant story about a truck driver (Carol O'Connor, his film debut) driving "privies" cross-country, which has a tendency to take one abruptly out of Burns' story for one that really doesn't have an pay-off until the climax. It certainly doesn't lend the movie any added suspense to cut away to a truck-driver, when Burns story is compelling, and suspenseful, enough.

It also benefits from one of the breakout scores of composer Jerry Goldsmith, then a contract-writer for Universal pictures, after doing a few B-pictures and some episodic television, including for the series "Thriller" and "The Twilight Zone." Goldsmith was a friend and colleague of composer Alex North, who had composed the music for Spartacus, and it might have been North who passed along Goldsmith's name. What Douglas got was a score of many moods that retained a central theme, but tailored towards introspection and action, with a nice mariachi influence that kept the film rooted to its location (and goal) of the Mexican border. It was the first of Goldsmith's major works, and would be followed quickly by music for John Huston, John Frankenheimer, and Ralph Nelson.

Part of Jerry Goldsmith's classic score for Lonely are the Brave:

Seven Days in May (1964)

Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964)  May 18th.

Mark it in your calendars (or in notes for future trivia contests). That is the day the government of the United States was scheduled to be overthrown by a military coup organized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over a nuclear treaty signed by the United States and Russia and ratified by the Senate.

 
But it never happened. Not even in the movies.

Still, May 18th was the day. The year was never mentioned...almost as a caution.

The early 60's were a great time for filmed political thrillers in the States. Kennedy was president, the world was at war (coldly) and the fictional machinations were filmed in a very appropriate black-and-white, just like the television sets that brought the news into our homes. It was a time distant from the years of World War II when the words of politicians and leaders were taken at face value, even if the individuals were two-faced. Cynicism about the government and political overreach began to settle over the populace with the threat of nuclear weapons, the McCarthy hearings, Ike lying about the U-2 incident, each in their own way chiseling at the foundations of the monuments we had in place in DC. 

Books and movies started to reflect that cynicism like The Best Man, The Manchurian Candidate, Advise and Consent, maybe Fail-Safe. And this one, Seven Days in May, from the the team that wrote "Fail-Safe," for this movie adapted by Rod Serling and directed by Manchurian director Frankenheimer, with an eye towards reflecting the world as it is...or as we would see them playing out on TV. Serling was overseeing "The Twilight Zone" series at the time, but this one was not too off his comfort "zone" by being equal parts suspense, intrigue, and character study, in words, terse, circumspect, and dripping with irony. Serling's writing could be a little ripe and on the nose, even spoken through gritted teeth and tight lips, as when Ava Gardner tells Kirk Douglas: "I'll make you two promises: a very good steak, medium rare. And the truth, which is very rare."

Douglas plays Colonel Martin "Jiggs" Casey, adjutant to the fifth most powerful man in the world, but maybe the most charismatic, General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March). The nuclear arms treaty is extremely controversial, causing violent protests outside the White House.

Briggs is a good soldier, snap-to and does his job, he's loyal to his boss and doesn't make waves (important for a Marine). But, odd things are starting to add up. There's the office pool on the Preakness that's passing between official channels between the Joint Chiefs, which is odd. But, what's odder is the reaction of Scott's "body-man" Colonel Murdock (Richard Anderson) who gets hot under the collar-buttons when Briggs mentions that betting pool. It isn't casual water cooler talk, it's treated like an international incident with the grunt who mentioned getting stationed out of the way to Hawaii. Odd.

Then, Briggs gets a visit from an old pal, Colonel "Mutt" Henderson (Andrew Duggan) who tells him about his current assignment at a secret base in Texas designed for interrupting television signals and designed for "seizure," "like the Commies already had the stuff, and we had to get it back.." That and Scott's accelerating role on the political stage, aiming for a run for the White House.  A somewhat heated conversation with a saber-rattling Senator (Whit Bissell) at a Washington function is the final worry. Briggs follows the Senator back from the party to a clandestine meeting at General Scott's house...when the Senator has already mentioned he'd be out of town.

It's just enough incongruous parts and shady behavior for Briggs to go to the White House to vent his suspicions to the President—there's going to be a coup by the military to take over the government. The President is concerned but cautious. Briggs is sent out to get details on the wisps of evidence that he has, while the President's Aide (Martin Balsam) is sent to make a call on the one military chief, Vice-admiral Farley Barnswell (John Houseman-his first screen debut, although uncredited) who has not opted into the "pool" to provide written evidence of the conspiracy. One of Lyman's closest associates in the Senate, Senator (Edmond O'Brien) heads to Texas to see what he can find out about the hidden base, while Briggs starts to gather evidence, including from Scott's discarded mistress (Ava Gardner).

It soon becomes clear that there is, indeed, a coordinated effort from a particularly dedicated cabal to take over the government, either during a nuclear training exercise or the President's upcoming trip to his weekend retreat—the President maneuvers his schedule, making Scott adjust his plans, which are then monitored by government agencies. But, how will it play out? It's an elaborate chess game with many moving parts with the final component being the medium of television, the direct link to the populace on whom the ultimate decisions of governing rests.

There's a lot of talk, as Serling goes overtime with terse conversations behind locked doors. It's drama, but Serling disliked raised voices, just like Washington does (or used to). There was never a time when the theatrics of the circus didn't invade governance, but before entertainers and the pulpit entered the fray, the popular conception of government conversation was discourse and debate, not some hard-balling cross-fire competition to be the loudest voice that doesn't pause for breath as is the impression made by the info-tainment of today's television. Why, General Scott's braying passion sounds downright reasonable in today's age of clowns. "You got something against the English language, Colonel?" barks the President when Briggs tippy-toes around his suspicions. Now, everyone does. Today's government speaks the language or lawyers and liars. Snake-oil salesmen.

Frankenheimer films in high-contrast black-and-white, with the high light-levels of television lights and offices and the deep shadows of parking lots and other holes of skullduggery. It's like he wants to show pictorially that the best governance is the one in the light and not the ones that scurries away from it. And for all the surveillance gear on display, conspiracy can still hide in plain sight. Especially if no one is really looking.

Seven Days in May is a classic movie and a repudiation to the old saw that looks to a savior or "a man on a white horse." Those who engage in hero-worship or ignore the media of manipulation are just bound to be disappointed, if only they were smart enough to admit it. It is also a great movie that should play in the Church of the Eternally Naïve as they endlessly chant "It can't happen here."

March 18th.

Remember, the year isn't given.

The Big Sky

The Big Sky (Howard Hawks, 1952) A.B. Guthrie's novel about the exploration (and decimation) of the West by Eastern immigre's is considerably shortened by Hawks and Dudley Nichols, who start at the meeting of Jim Deakins (Kirk Douglas) and Boone Caudill (Dewey Martin) and their adventures of a keelboat going up the Missouri and leave it at that. Nothing about how Boone's a little savage who ran away from home after nearly killing his father, nothing about the unpleasantness that would follow, or the results of Boone's bad temper. No, this one's pretty much good times with some rough waters and bad rivals, and everybody gets along famously. It's vintage Hawks, but it ain't Guthrie. In fact, Hawks eliminates the one character in Guthrie's trilogy ("The Big Sky", "The Way West", "Fair Land, Fair Land") who endure throughout—trapper and guide Dick Summers.

Re-writing is nothing new to Hawks (as a work habit, he'd re-write the next day's script the night before just to keep things fresh, sometimes abandoning the plot altogether if he thought it wasn't going in the right direction).  His great western, Red River, was completed four years previously, he followed it up with a musical remake of his own Ball of Fire with Danny Kaye, gone overseas with Cary Grant to make I Was a Male War Bride, then made his first foray into science fiction (but very much in the Hawks tradition of team-building) with The Thing (From Another World).  The Big Sky is different—the 50's would be something of an experimental phase for Hawks, going deeper into his subjects and philosophies than previously—in that cowboys and cattle aren't the prime motivation. Fur trading is. And to do that, you don't go by horse, you go by boat and the challenges there are far different and maybe a bit more challenging than crossing the plains.  You go where the water goes and it's never a straight line and there are obstacles around every turn.

Guthrie's story is a bit like the Lewis and Clarke expedition (without the government funding), and both versions for page and film borrow the story of Sacagawea from the Corps of Discovery, whose presence (by coincidence) made acquiring ponies for the rugged trek across the Rocky Mountains from the Shoshones a foregone conclusion. This came about as, unbeknownst to the Corps, Sacagawea had been stolen from the Shoshones as a child and her translating skills brought her face to face with the standing chief...who happened to be her brother. In the same way, the character of "Teal Eye" (played by Elizabeth Threatt, in her only film) is brought back to her tribe to help in the fur negotiations. She also serves as a point of rivalry between Dawkins and Caudill, but it all gets resolved to everybody's satisfaction.  

It fits into the Hawks template of disparate groups coming together for a single purpose: Hawkins finds Caudill, they're looking for Zeb Calloway (Arthur Hunnicutt, nominated for an Oscar for this performance, and he'd be playing, basically, the same role in Hawks' 67' Western El Dorado), who they meet in jail (problem solved, efficiently), then once Zeb is bailed out by the keel-boat Captain "Frenchy" (Steven Geray, and we don't know if he's related to "Frenchy" in To Have and Have Not), and the adventure meanders, like a river, with some tributaries involving a rival fur trading company, Deakins' ability to get hurt (and heal rapidly, apparently, and at one point, Hawks makes a comic episode out of amputating one of the character's fingers!). He isn't nearly as concerned with ethnic authenticity as John Ford—he does use Ford's Hank Worden as a Shoshone guide as comic relief, but at least he's competent comic relief.

There have been a couple versions of this one floating around, and because it was done for RKO late in its life, and been passed from studio to studio, it's in fairly ragged shape. Russell Harlan's black-and-white cinematography was nominated for an Oscar, but it's a little dim to see why, given the shape the film is in, even the "complete" version that TCM is running on. It needs a major restoration, which is hard to come by if the film is in the second row seating of a director's Hall of Fame.
  
Perhaps one day, maybe, when someone mounts a Kirk Douglas retrospective, or decides to a DVD release of it, at all.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Richard Fleischer, 1954) One of those movies so popular and so much of "the culture" when I was growing up, that I'm surprised I've never watched it before except in clips and bits and pieces through the years.

This steam-punk version of the classic Jules Verne novel was a "big" film for Walt Disney Studios, its most expensive live action film to date, boasting "A"-list stars and wide screen(Techniscope, borrowed from 20th Century Fox) Technicolor. It had to be spectacular; Disney was moving into television, and if Uncle Walt was going to compete with himself for an audience's attention, he had to put into theaters something bigger and grander than what could glow in grays on convenient living room sets. It was also the first Disney film not to be released by RKO, but by Disney's own distribution arm, Buena Vista.

And Jules Verne's fantastical stories were just the fodder for Disney's live-action fare—at least until he could figure out how to let P.L.Travers let him make "Mary Poppins" (Verne's work, being in the public domain, allowed Disney to do what he wanted with the property).

It is 1868 and the world is in fear of rumors of a sea monster sinking trading ships in the Pacific. In San Francisco, the U.S. government entreats a recently stranded Professor Louis Arronax (Paul Lukas) and his assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre) to join an expedition to track down the monster. Along with them, is harpoonist Ned Land (Kirk Douglas), who's more interested in stopping the beast than studying it, but after months of fruitless search, even Ned is starting to tire of the hunt.

He needn't have worried; he's in a movie, after all. The point being made that the monster is elusive and challenging, the scientists find the monster and an attempt is made to kill it, but before firing the killing shot, the monster turns tail and rams the ship, scuttling it, and sending Arronax, Land and Conseil into a lifeboat to drift in a mysterious fog. In that fog, they see a strange vessel and, boarding it, they find it's a submersible craft, and through a window, they notice a strange ritual—an undersea funeral.

That is never good, and rather than being the next ones so honored, they try to make their escape, but are apprehended by the crew and their strange captain, Nemo (James Mason), who would just as soon drown them, except for his interest in Arronax, whose scientific research he respects. For the sake of Arronax, the three cast-offs are allowed to stay.

Mason is such a good actor that he can provide the inevitable
"You just don't get it, do you?" with just a look.

But Nemo doesn't make it easy. He uses the opportunity of his colleagues presence to explain: a tour of the ship shows off the Nautillus' unique propulsion system, which from its glow must be nuclear—no coal-fueled furnace ever glowed so hot; dinner is a culinary sampling of the sea, even the after-dinner cigars are stuffed with dried seaweed; a visit to the Rura Penthe penal colony explains Nemo's history and his hatred for the British trading ships he regularly attacks. Of most interest to Ned is the huge treasure of recovered riches from the oceans' floors, obtained from explorations of sunken vessels throughout time; Nemo he doesn't trust, perhaps in sympathy with the dead sailors that Nemo has left in his wake, maybe due to his antipathy to Nemo's crusade for vengeance. The two are mutually distrustful. And Ned is looking for any opportunity to leave Nemo's gilded prison.

But life on a submarine is life under pressure. For all the wonders the windows of the Nautilus offers, there are also dangers that Nemo is determined to power through unafraid. But, the addition of the men of science (and Ned) creates a dynamic of tension; his authoritarian genius was good enough for his crew of fellow prisoners, but Arronax is a man of pure science, who may admire Nemo's achievements, but not the manner with which he uses them. Between the military hunting him, his passengers questioning him, and his conflicts with his own demons, Nemo begins to become erratic.

One of matte artist Peter Ellenshaw's amazing blends of live action and artwork.

Nemo's goals are undefined; he has all this amazing technology and the power it can yield, and he has already suffered mightily with the death of his family and his imprisonment to keep it out of the hands of world governments. His solution is to isolate himself from the world's powers, taking his revenge where he can, and living below the waves, out of their clutches. Ned's goals are more myopic—his freedom at all costs, despite the plans and schemes of more far-thinking men. They're id and ego and they're warring in the Nautillus-brain. And as we all know, there are never enough couches on submarines.

Something's got to give. Maybe, deep in our sub-consciousness, that's why the most memorable sequence in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is the primeval battle with the giant squid in the midst of a storm-tossed nighttime sea. Nemo's electrified craft can't kill it (and electricity has fried all sorts of movie monsters). So Nemo (being Nemo) decides to be the point-man and take on the thing with his crew. The battle does not go well,* and it is only the intervention of the least likely person who saves the day and the good/bad ship Neurotic...er.. Nautillus.

We'll leave Freud behind for awhile (or this will get really creepy...besides, sometimes a squid is just a squid), but the conflict between Ned and Nemo creates real disquiet in a viewer. Nemo may be murderous; but Ned is a man-child with impulse issues, greedy, a quisling—it's his actions that ultimately cause an organized attack that leads to the destruction of Nemo's island, Volcanis, and his life's work—and a streak of undependability. He is Peck's Bad Boy, Huckleberry Finn without the charm, a dimpled exemplar of America's rebellious streak...at its worst. It's hard to peg Disney on how they feel about the military, too. Are they the Cavalry come to the rescue or the bushwhackers setting a trap. One is given the impression that their invasion lays waste to a dream, the result of the actions of the one character kids might relate to in a film filled with "old guys." Old guys who do a lot of talking. At least, Ned gets to play with a seal.

So, 20,000 Leagues ends on a decidedly melancholy note, an interesting end to what most folks consider the usual Disney happy ending (Mary Poppins ends in much the same way, actually). What is the film actually saying: "Dreams die and we should mourn the loss of vision?" "Beware of those with short-term selfish goals?" Given the photo-evidence of natural splendor over riches, 20,000 Leagues might, in some way, be a poetic environmental film disguised as a "Boys' Own" adventure story. Maybe that's what Uncle Walt envisioned all along.

Visionary, maybe. Poetic and entertaining, absolutely. Cautionary in the way the best science-fiction films can be, certainly. But, political? I would hazard a guess "yes." In which case, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea may be the most complex and greatest film the studio has ever produced.

* It didn't go well on-set, either. The film version is the second version of the squid attack. The first one, filmed simulating daylight, looked bad, the squid "fake" and just was deemed an unconvincing sequence. Director Fleischer and Disney screened the sequence that they'd put so much time and money in, and Fleischer said "I hate to say it, Walt, but it doesn't work." "You're right," agreed Disney and ordered re-shoots for a stormy night-time sequence that drove the film wildly over-budget, but made a scene that everyone remembers the movie for.