The Fugitive (1947)

 The Fugitive (John Ford, 1947) Not the 1993 Harrison Ford movie based on the classic TV series (for that, go here) This John Ford-directed film is based on Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," adapted by Dudley Nichols (although when Ford got to Mexico to film, he basically threw out the script, and let his images do most of the talking) and starring Ford cast-stalwarts as Henry Fonda, Ward Bond, John Qualen, Jack Pennick, and Pedro Armendariz, and with a crew made of indigenous film-craftsmen. It took Ford out of his comfort zone, but also inspired him—finding what he had with cameraman Gabriel Figueroa—to make a film of shadows in a sun-blasted environment, more in line with the kind of film Ford was making when he was trying to make a statement.

One of the pervasive criticism's of Ford's body of work is its occasional moments of sentimentality, and for a tone inconsistency that interrupted drama for comedy (or "hi-jinks"). The Fugitive is one of those instances where Ford's tone is relentlessly consistent and low comedy is completely shorn from the narrative, and everything is played in deadly earnest. And, because their is no consistency in the world, especially the world of criticism, this one is often criticized for its consistent tone of religious fervor. You can't please everybody, no matter how hard you pray.

You know when someone is making an "art film" when they get a little hazy on the details, not wanting to nail down time and place, but planting it in some metaphorical zone that won't get anyone's back up, and The Fugitive begins with this narration:

"The following photoplay is timeless. The story is a true story. It's also a very old story that was first told in the Bible. It is timeless and topical, and is still being played in many parts of the world. This picture was entirely made in our neighboring Republic, Mexico, at the kind invitation of the Mexican government and of the Mexican motion picture industry. It's locale is fictional. It is merely a small state a thousand miles north or south of the Equator - who knows."

The film follows an unnamed Catholic priest (Fonda), who is trying to avoid arrest and execution in a Mexican State run by a tyrannical despot who has told his police to eradicate all religious practices in the state. Being the last priest left alive and dressed in peasant clothes and without the trappings of a priest, he is on the run, but is consistently called upon to practice his faith among the people surreptitiously. Discovered hiding in an abandoned church by a village woman (Dolores Del Rio), he makes a promise to baptize her illegitimate child and all the children who have not been baptized.

The Lieutenant of Police for the State (Armendariz)—who just so happens to be the father of that illegitimate child—lets it be known that he will take a hostage from every village to execute until the last remaining priest turns himself in. At the same time, a bank robber (Bond) has arrived in town but is able to avoid capture, due to attention being diverted to the priest. The two men run parallel paths to avoid being captured, but their fates become joined as the search intensifies.

The film differs quite a bit from Greene's book—the priest was originally the father of the child, but that wouldn't have passed the Hays Office—and Ford, once he got to Mexico, diverged so much from Nichols' script that the two—who had been a team for 30 years—decided to never work together again. To be fair to Nichols, there are a couple places where Fonda's priest could have easily been captured by the Lieutenant, but for the fact that he doesn't recognize him as the man in the wanted posters plastered around town. It seems a little far-fetched, considering that Fonda tends to stand out from the other peasants.

However one views the script or what Ford did with it, one aspect of The Fugitive makes it essential viewing—the miracles of cinematography that Ford pulled off with Figueroa. Evocative of Ford's work in The Grapes of Wrath, The Informer, and The Long Voyage Home, the images contain some of the blackest blacks in cinema history contrasting with the bleached exteriors of the Mexican landscapes. Ford's painterly eye was never so evident as here* as he photographically shows a Dark Age being pierced by enlightenment.

* And here's another couple images...

Warning Shot (1967)

Warning Shot (Buzz Kulik, 1967) Based on a novel by Whit Masterson (who also wrote the book that had become Touch of Evil), Warning Shot was considered a good vehicle for David Janssen, who was in the middle of his run on "The Fugitive" TV series. The script was by "Fugitive" veteran Mann Rubin* a prolific writer who wrote at least one script for most of the thriller/SCI-FI series of the 1960's and 1970's.

 

The story has a nice affiliation with Janssen's "Fugitive" persona in that he plays a discredited cop accused of killing an unarmed man—and nobody believes his story that the dead man was carrying a gun—a search of the scene has never turned up the weapon, and the prosecuting attorney (Sam Wannamaker) is more than happy to provide no reasonable doubt. It doesn't help that the L.A. police (in the form of Ed Begley's crusty superior and partner Keenan Wynn) have their own suspicions, whether to save face for the force or attain a promotion.

 

Plus, it doesn't help that Janssen has a face that always looks guilty.

It's true that during a drug stakeout, Sgt. Tom Valens (Janssen) has shot a man who was running away from him in the night, in the fog of a swimming pool, but Valens swears it was a "good" shoot; he didn't fire until the suspect drew a gun on him. But, in the light of day, the dead man turns out to be a respected doctor and no weapon can be found on the scene. Valens had been shot a year previously—so the whispers are that he might be a little trigger-happy. Facing manslaughter charges, Valens is forced to do a little investigating on his own.

The victim, Tom Ruston, was a respected doctor catering to diseases of the rich, but also well-regarded for his humanitarian work in Mexico. The doc's accountant (George Sanders) and his floozy wife (Eleanor Parker) are of no help, nor is the doc's assistant (Stephanie Powers). Nope, the only people who seem to have any sympathy for Valens' plight is his ex-wife (Joan Collins) and a pilot (George Grizzard) who lives at "the scene of the crime" and who offers to fly Valens down Mexico-way to see if the doctor's work in Mexico was legit.

Then, things start to get complicated; Valens acquires quite a few bruises after he's been beat up in an apparently random attack. Then, Ruston's nurse dies and the doctor's office is ransacked. Then, Valens is dosed with a mickey in his milk—this was the days of door-stop deliveries**—and nearly gassed by his own fireplace. It would have looked like an accident. But, Valens knows it's enemy action.

Now, it being the 1960's, there's a little bit of experimentation on director Kulik's part with camera angles that are a little too precious,*** and when Valens is beat up (not too convincingly and in sloooow motion) his POV is shown with vasellined and distorting lenses, which is groovy, baby, but didn't strike me as being very convincing. Frankly, when these sorts of shots appear I think less that the person is going unconscious and more that trends in film-making in the '60's were very fleeting.

Ultimately, the entire movie is not very convincing. The plot hinges on one of the most unbelievable and least likely MacGuffins**** in movie history (nope, I won't spoil it, but, once you know, you'll say "why would they use THAT?"). It's odd, but Warning Shot is one of those movies where the script is supposed to be deadly serious, but there are those moments—when Kulik is focusing on a bottle of milk at Janssen's feet, or a shot that shows just how convenient meeting in a graveyard can be—that you think they're trying to have as much fun with the material as they can, the results seeming half-hearted, like the film-makers realizing somewhere in filming they were making one of those Hitchcock "wrong-man" movies. The film is top-heavy with talent—Sanders, Parker, Walter Pidgeon and Lillian Gish—all playing characters they've played and excelled at in their careers—but, the film is far less entertaining than one would expect given all that. The film needs a little bit more absurdity to work. Especially given its ending.

 

* Yeah. No, he didn't write for "Star Trek" but for Irwin Allen and the "Bionic" people. Quite a few scripts for The Alfred Hitchcock show and most of the detective/mystery shows of the era.

 

** It's just a cautionary note in these pandemic times, but don't be like David Janssen and leave the delivered food on the stoop all day so bad guys can poison you...or the food gets so old it poisons you. 

 

*** Check this shot out—that's the heavy-hand of the prosecutor in the foreground during the manslaughter trial. Yup, the judge is Carroll O'Connor.

**** And just in case you don't know what a "MacGuffin" is, here is Alfred Hitchcock to explain...

Lions for Lambs

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Never engage the enemy for too long, or he will adapt to your tactics"

Carl Von Clausewitz

 

There are three arenas in play, and as the film begins the protagonists are checking their ledgers and statistics: Lt. Col. Falco (Peter Berg) is checking his strategy briefings; Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) is looking at dropping poll numbers; Professor Steven Malley (Robert Redford) is checking the quarter's attendance; Reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) is looking at her unopened note-book--an empty slate. Thus begins Lions for Lambs* a polemic about the current Middle-East War, the entities that package and sell it, and the public that may not like it, but won't do anything to oppose it. All the stories intersect a bit and the movie takes place over a few hours. The script is by Matthew Michael Carnehan, who also wrote The Kingdom. Its director, Peter Berg, who plays Falco here, said that film was "98% Action, 2% Message." Here, that ratio is reversed, and, man, is it tedious. 

First off, there is a heavy veneer of liberal self-satisfaction (though not as much as when conservatives put the hammer down). The senator is a Republican tyro, trying to bolster his party's (and his) poll numbers by setting up a new front in Afghanistan (Senator's can do that? I mean besides Charlie Wilson?) He's given Roth a solid hour (this is supposedly a big deal) to argue his case that this attack (no, really, this one!) will win the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, the hearts and minds of Afghans (he really says this) and presumably bring the troops back home for Christmas (he doesn't say this, but he might as well have). Cruise was bio-engineered for this role (and you just know this is the part Redford would have taken during his career in the cynical 1960's), an opportunistic-photo-op-ready politico, with flags on the desk, pants-press in the office, and flashing Chiclets in his mouth, while Meryl Streep is all shambling messiness, trying to counter the arguments (is that her job?) that Cruise spins on the head of a pin. Their section is the sort of "greased-pig" argument and obfuscation bull-session that keeps me from watching the "pundit" shows--nothing's less fun or informative than watching two used-policy salesmen, hectoring each other trying to get their feet stuck in the open door of your mind. Finally it gets down to my favorite argument when rats-on-their-hind-legs are cornered--The Multiple Choice Bottom-Liner: "Do you want to win the War on Terror: Yes or No?". ("Well, I don't know, Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?") At one point Streep asks, "When does the new offensive start?" Cruise looks at his (supposed) Rolex. "Ten minutes ago." So much for pre-selling.

And in that ten minutes, the mission is already SNAFU'd, when two grunts are bounced out of a helicopter taking heavy fire, turning the offensive thrust into a rescue mission. Not a good start to winning those hearts and minds.

And by a curious coincidence--or a heavy-handed ploy by the screenwriter--those very two soldiers were both students in Professor Malley's political science class, who, in a school project capped their volunteerism argument by enlisting. Now, Malley uses them to guilt a slacker-student who can't be bothered coming to class because he's "busy with stuff," into considering a more activist stance before the bigger challenges of jobs, mortgages, ball-games, and watching "American Idol" zombies away any chance of him doing any critical thinking for the rest of his life. That's a valid argument to make, whichever side of the aisle you take bribes on. But instead of making the arguments, Malley turns them into three-corner shots that kind of dance around the problem, rather than saying something, oh, like "I would suggest you start coming to class or I will flunk your lazy frat-ass: your call."

The trouble here is that the issues are so immediate that the arguments the film is making were too late four years ago. So, it's a bit like soft-ball preaching to the choir. The arguments are sound, but they have very little relevance to extricating us from the tar-pit of this conflict, and, yes, people are getting chewed up by it, but that's the business of war, and why you try to avoid it, rather than rush in like a damned fool. It's great to be able to say all this with 20-20 hind-smugness, but it's essentially useless. Now tell us something we don't know, and how we can avoid it the next time. "Is he failing you?" a fellow frat asks the student about his meeting. The movie certainly is.

* The title derives from a phrase from World War I, but, the exact nature of the quote is subject to debate, and its history, like the film, is a bit muddled.

Don't Make a Scene: Four Weddings and a Funeral

The Story: Hopefully, this will be the last word about grief for awhile. And a eulogy is always a good place for last words.

And one of the best eulogies I've seen in movies is the one from Four Weddings and a Funeral. The movie has been going along so chummily, that when this occurs, it's like a punch in the gut. And, for me, at least, it produced quite a few tears. It's so simple and such an expression of sorrow, that one is tempted to just leave it alone. It can't be embroidered.  

No other words are necessary, really. So, Ill just leave it alone.

The Set-Up: Gareth (Simon Callow) has been the life of every reception at the weddings among the small cluster of his friends...that is, until he died at the last one. Now, at his funeral, his lover Matthew (John Hannah) delivers the eulogy.

All rise....

PASTOR: Good morning, and a warm welcome to you all on this cold day. 

PASTOR: Our service will begin in a few minutes. But first we have asked...  

PASTOR: ...Matthew, Gareth's closest friend, 

PASTOR: ...to say a few words. 

MATTHEW: Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. 

MATTHEW: In order to prepare this speech, 

MATTHEW: I rang a few people to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him. 

MATTHEW: 'Fat' seems to have been a word people most connected with him.

MATTHEW:'Terribly rude' also rang a lot of bells. So 'very fat' and 'very rude' seems to have been the stranger's viewpoint. 

MATTHEW: On the other hand, some of you have rung me and let me know that you loved him.

MATTHEW: ...which I know he would have been thrilled to hear. 

MATTHEW: You remember his fabulous hospitality, his strange experimental cooking. The recipe for...

MATTHEW: ...duck á la banana fortunately goes with him to his grave. 

MATTHEW: Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. 

MATTHEW: And, when joyful, for highly... 

MATTHEW: ...vocal drunkenness.

MATTHEW: I hope joyful is how you will remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favourite of his waistcoats and remember him that way. 

MATTHEW: The most splendid, 

MATTHEW: replete, 

MATTHEW: big-hearted - 

MATTHEW: - weak-hearted, as it turned out - and jolly bugger 

MATTHEW: most of us ever met. 

MATTHEW: As for me, you may ask how I will remember him. What I thought of him. Unfortunately, there I run out of words. 

MATTHEW: Forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger, WH Auden. 

MATTHEW: This is actually what I want to say: 

MATTHEW: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, 

MATTHEW: Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 

MATTHEW: Let the aeroplanes circle moaning overhead 

MATTHEW: Scribbling on the sky the message 

MATTHEW: He ls Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, 

MATTHEW: Let traffic policemen wear 

MATTHEW: black cotton gloves. 

MATTHEW: He was my North, my South, my East and West. My working week and my Sunday rest, 

MATTHEW: My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: 

MATTHEW: I was wrong. 

MATTHEW: The stars are not wanted now: 

MATTHEW: Put out every one; Pack up the moon and  

MATTHEW: dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; 

MATTHEW: For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Words by Richard Curtis and W. H. Auden

Pictures by Michael Coulter and Mike Newell

Four Weddings and a Funeral is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M Home Video.