To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) **1/2

Who doesn’t wish their father was a little bit (or maybe a lot) like Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck)? Kind, soft-spoken, principled, honorable, and patient are the words that spring to mind when I think of this iconic film and literary hero. If the stories are true that author Harper Lee based her 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird on her own father, then she was an extremely lucky child and woman. She was also blessed by the fact that producers Alan J. Pakula and Robert Mulligan (who also directed) brought her novel to the screen and created one of the most timely American films ever. 

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) was released at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had not yet given his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, nor had the nation descended into a fervent anti-war sentiment regarding the Vietnam War.  Still, racism and militarism were prevalent themes running wild in the American mindset.  In 1962 it was still an acceptable practice in the South (and parts of the North, too) to call African Americans ‘niggers’ and to refer to grown black men as ‘boys’. Miscarriages of justice and vigilante retributions ran rampant through Jim Crow and up to its bitter end with the passage of the various Civil Rights Acts (1957-1968).  This is why both the novel and the film To Kill a Mockingbird are such important testaments regarding  Southern Americana.

The story is a Southern Gothic tale told from the viewpoint of six/seven-year-old Jean Louise “Scout” Finch (Mary Badham).  She and her older brother Jem (Philip Alford) are seemingly the protagonists, but their father, Atticus, is clearly the moral center of the film.  While the children are enchanted and frightened by their mysterious neighbor Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his big screen debut), Atticus must prepare a defense for his client Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man who is accused of raping and beating a white woman (Collin Wilcox).  The Finch family must endure insults and, most alarmingly, physical threats by Bob Ewell (James K. Anderson), because of the case.  The plot culminates when the Boo mystery and the Ewell threat meet head on one dark Halloween night.

I’m sure everyone has their own particular favorite scene from To Kill a Mockingbird—there are so many wonderful ones to pick from—but I expect the most memorable one is when Atticus delivers his closing arguments to an all-white jury. This is probably the scene that won Peck the Best Actor Oscar. In it, he dares to tell the truth: all of the evidence clearly proves his client is innocent. While he is somewhat resigned to the fact that the jury will come back with a guilty verdict, he vehemently defends his client and discusses the unwritten codes of Southern culture. It is an awesome display of honesty, despair, and condemnation all at once.  Of course, the words that Peck spoke had the added weight of being heard in movie theatres across the country in 1962, too.  It was as though he were truly speaking to the nation about the disease of racism.

There are many things to like about To Kill a Mockingbird. The acting is natural and understated—something that doesn’t always happen when your principal leads are children.  Badham was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress nomination and, of course, Peck won his only Oscar for playing Atticus, but Alford and Anderson also do memorable work, too.  As a matter of fact, I think it was pretty shabby of the Academy to overlook Anderson’s compelling and powerful performance. 

Russell Harlan’s black-and-white cinematography is crisp and does an excellent job of setting the Gothic tone.  His effort was greatly aided by Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead, and Oliver Emert’s Oscar-winning art direction.  Their fictional creation of Maycomb, Alabama harkens back to the days of old Southern towns where everyone knew one another and children freely walked the streets after dark.  Still, Elmer Bernstein’s whimsical but somewhat eerie musical score suggests that perhaps children shouldn’t be roaming the dark Maycomb County streets.

What I think is most telling about To Kill a Mockingbird (both the film and the book) is how it has endured. While I don’t agree that we live in a post-racist society as some may suggest, I do believe that over the last fifty years America has made great strides in this area.  When I taught middle school, I always had my eighth graders read the book and then we would watch the movie, and they enjoyed doing both (at least as much as they could). Unlike the hysteria that sometimes surrounds teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with its constant use of the word ‘nigger’, To Kill a Mockingbird was (at least for me) easily accepted by my students and their families. I suppose having the story told through the eyes of a little girl helped, and the complete condemnation of racism is a plus, too, I’m sure.

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Sunset Boulevard (1950) ***

Before there was The Artist (2011) there was director Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950). Both movies shine a very bright light on the plight of a silent film star in the Hollywood Sound Era.  Of course, things end much better for George Valentin in The Artist than they do for Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Boulevard, but that’s probably why I prefer Norma’s story.  It also helps that the acting is insanely good, the script is dark and acidic, and the set design is ostentatiously divine. 

The story opens with out-of-work screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) floating in a pool—are spoiler alerts really needed after this?—and Joe narrating how he came to find himself there. Trying to evade the repo-man, Joe pulls his car into the driveway and subsequent garage of silent movie queen Norma Desmond.  His timing is both good and bad. It’s bad because Norma’s beloved chimp is soon to be interned, but good because she is planning a return (please don’t say ‘comeback’) to the screen via a screenplay she has penned herself that needs the deft hand of an abled-bodied writer.  Joe, of course, is the obvious choice—he’s broke and hiding from repo-men. 

Norma’s enormous gilded mansion is a decaying monument to herself—photographs and paintings of her line the walls and furniture tops. The house and Norma are attended by Max (Erich von Stroheim)—a quiet, unassuming former director and husband of Norma. I expect it was rather painful to watch Norma make Joe her gigolo, but Max was the sort of man who just wanted to keep his ‘star’ happy. Anyway, the movie takes on a sadistically ironic feel when someone from Paramount calls the house and Norma assumes Cecil B. DeMille wants to direct her in the Salome screenplay she and Joe have penned. Suffice to say this was not the case—they wanted to use her Isotta-Fraschini (see: big, expensive car)—but no one tells Norma and she sets off on a beauty-workout montage that would make Rocky proud.  All the while, Joe is getting cozy with a young female screenwriter (Nancy Olson) and thinking of a way to escape his situation.  Alas, no one ever leaves a star—at least that’s what Norma thinks—and Joe ends up floating face-down in the pool.

I never really liked Gloria Swanson’s silent films and her early forays into the Sound Era were nothing to write home about, either.  Yet, there is something mesmerizing about her campy performance as Norma.  Of course, Wilder and fellow screenwriters Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr., incorporated so much of the real Swanson into Norma that it’s hard to know where one woman begins and the other ends.  For example, in her heyday, Swanson was known to have received 10,000 fan letters in a single week and she lived in a gigantic Italianate palace on Sunset Blvd—just as Norma did.  Surely, Swanson knew how grotesquely Wilder was portraying Norma, which only adds to her overall performance. It’s as though she were saying, “You want a delusional megalomaniac past her prime, do you? Well, feast your eyes on these wild eyes, affected mannerisms, and predatory, stalking gait!” Swanson earned her third, and most deserved, Oscar nomination for a role that countless faded female stars turned down, but only she had the panache to play!

The other three principal actors (Holden, Stroheim, and Olson) were also nominated for Academy Awards, but none would have shined quite as bright without Swanson (and in Olson’s case you can only wonder how weak the Best Supporting Actress category was that year?). Holden is convincing as the cynical, world-weary Joe, who finds himself grudgingly accepting the position of gigolo to a lunatic.  Yet, it’s not his acting that I most remember when I think of him in this, but his wonderful physique when he emerges shirtless from the swimming pool (before he was dead, mind you).

In Stroheim’s case, he like Swanson, was playing a caricature of himself.  He hadn’t directed a film in nearly 15 years when Wilder asked him to play Max von Mayerling and screen a version of his Queen Kelly (1929) for Norma and Joe to watch (it starred Swanson).  When he “directs” the final scene in the movie, you know where Norma comes down the stairs and says, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up,” it must have stung just a bit—Stroheim was considered to be just as good as DeMille in the 1920s but their careers took dramatically different turns in the Sound Era. 

But there would have been no standout performances without Wilder’s brilliant script—it drips with acidic venom for the excesses of Hollywood.  No element is safe, but the Studio System is his biggest target.  When Norma says to Joe the writer, “We didn't need dialogue. We had faces” and “You'll make a rope of words and strangle this business! With a microphone there to catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor to photograph the red, swollen tongues!” Wilder was making a statement about what passed for artistry in (then) modern cinema.  Some, like Louis B. Mayer, were outraged by Wilder’s film and he took some heat for it, but in the end he had the last laugh as Sunset Boulevard endures as one of the best films ever about Hollywood.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hans Dreier, John Meehan, Sam Comer, and Moyer for their Oscar-winning art direction and set design.  They made good use of the Getty mansion (which was actually located on Wilshire Blvd. before they tore it down and built the beyond boring Harbor Building).  Massive in size, every inch was used to display Norma’s ostentatious personality.  From the swan-shaped bed to the overcrowded living room, everything screams: Look at me! 

Finally, I must commend Franz Waxman’s Oscar-winning film score.  It bookends the film perfectly, but plays exceptionally well in that infamous, unforgettable final scene as Norma glides down the staircase and approaches the camera for her final close-up—which ironically ends up being a long-shot.  What a way to end a movie! One of the best closing shots ever—right up there with The Third Man (1949), Modern Times (1936), and The Birds (1963).

 

 

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Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru No Haka) 1988 **

Suffice to say, Japanese animation would have made Walt Disney both proud and sad at the same time.  Aesthetically beautiful, but just so damn depressing is the best way to describe director Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru No Haka, 1988). More than forty years after Japan’s surrender in WWII, Takahata made one of the most influential war films about the plight of war orphans based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s 1967 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name.

After their village is fire bombed and their mother dies, Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi) and his little sister Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi) are left to fend for themselves in war-ravaged Japan. The children of a naval officer, they had been spared food rationing and lived in a nice middle class home until they became orphans. Once their mother dies all they have left is one another and a few personal possessions. Seita takes on the role of caregiver to Setsuko, who is far too young to find food. But as the bombing increases the food supply decreases, and we watch as the children steeply decline toward malnutrition.

From the beginning of the film you know things don’t end well, but that still doesn’t prepare you for the gut-wrenching final ten minutes. The overwhelming sense of dread and depression is only heighted by Yoshio Mamiya’s haunting score. Of course, hearing Amelita Galli-Curci sing “Home Sweet Home” as Seita remembers Setsuko in happier and healthier times is enough to bring tears to anyone’s eyes. Which is odd, because for most of the film I found Setsuko’s constant crying annoying, but by the end, I found myself moved by her misery.

By today’s standards Grave of the Fireflies is not what one would call a dazzling display of animation.  Still, it is artistically designed in such a way that it does create memorable images.  Of particular note is the scene where the children use fireflies to illuminate the dark cave they live in. It is interesting how Takahata blended fireflies and firebombs to develop a thematic atmosphere.  Fireflies are, of course, used metaphorically as well.  One of the most memorable lines from the movie comes when Setsuko asks, “Why do fireflies have to die so soon?”

Overall, Grave of the Fireflies is a heart-wrenching tale.  The story itself is moving, and the ending is powerful.  In addition, there are some compelling images that you won’t soon forget.

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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) **1/2

You’d think a film about a career British Army officer’s effort to make the Home Guard strong enough to withstand a German invasion during WWII would please the likes of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the War Office.  Yet, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s (AKA the Archers) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) was a mild annoyance to the British government, who worried that the film would send the wrong message to Britons. As such, they deprived the Archers access to military equipment and personnel.  Being the Archers, however, meant that they knew how to improvise with whatever they could get their hands on and design what they couldn’t. The end result was a comedy of manners that is both filled with a bit of British introspection and a lot of war-time propaganda.

Major General Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey) is the epitome of the honor bound British officer. To him even war must be conducted in a civilized manner.  We first meet him while he is on leave from the Boer War in South Africa. After reading a letter from a woman living in Berlin that a man he knows is spreading lies about British conduct in South Africa, Candy decides he must put an end to such deplorable behavior. In Berlin he meets the letter’s author, Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr), and insults what seems like the entire German Army.  This infraction leads to his being challenged to a duel, in which he and Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook) are forced to wield sabers against one another although they’ve never even met.  When both are injured they recuperate together in a nursing home and a lifelong friendship develops, despite the fact that Theo ends up marrying Edith, the love of Candy’s life. 

The second section of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp focuses on Candy’s time in WWI. By this time he has seen many uncivilized things, but sticks to his principles because the Germans, the perpetrators of all sorts of horrors like using mustard gas and torturing POWs, are losing the war.  At a convent he spies a British nurse who looks a lot like Edith. Once home, he finds Nurse Barbara (again Deborah Kerr) and marries her. They spend a few happy years together before she dies while they are stationed in Jamaica.

The last part of the movie looks at how alien the world seems to Candy amidst Nazism and WWII.  Once again he has found an Edith replacement in Angela (yet again, Deborah Kerr), his personal driver.  He and Theo are reunited when the retired German soldier flees the insidiousness that has taken over his nation. It is Theo’s unpleasant duty to inform Candy that WWII is not a gentleman’s war and that, “If you preach the Rules of the Game while they use every foul and filthy trick against you, they will laugh at you! They'll think you're weak, decadent!” Ah, the stiff British upper lip would never be the same—for either Candy or Britain.

Time is the most important theme that runs through The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Amidst sporadic German air raids, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was shot at Denham Film Studios and at various locations throughout London and Yorkshire. The end result is a film that spans four decades and vast amounts of land. The Archers use two particular methods to show the passage of time. Candy is an avid hunter, and so they chose to use mounted exotic animal heads from the various countries Candy was stationed in. The second method was through a scrapbook that he and Barbara used to document their excursions throughout the British Empire. This was an especially effective tool because once Barbara dies the Archer’s return to showing the passage of time with dead, mounted animal heads again.

The Archer’s also analyze time introspectively. Manners, decorum, honor, and warfare change immensely with the passage of time. How Edith behaves during the Boer War is markedly in contrast to Angela’s more liberated personality during WWII.  When you felt insulted in 1903 you challenged someone to a duel. By 1939, if you felt slighted you started a world war.  And, then there’s Candy.  Poisonous gas, torture, concentration camps, and a whole host of atrocities he didn’t even know about, like the Holocaust, were anathema to a man who believed there was a code that both a soldier and society should live by.  Colonel Blimp, our title character, by the way is Candy.  While the title might say ‘the life and death of’, Blimp does not actually die physically. No, he dies metaphysically as a result of the complete destruction of the civilized world by barbarism and Nazism. Most people don’t really consider anymore just how powerful Britain was before WWII, but they controlled a quarter of the globe via trade and colonialism. After the war the British Empire fell on hard times, and like Colonel Blimp, it died, too.

No discussion of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp would be complete without mentioning how propagandistic it was. No, Churchill and the War Office didn’t really like it, but it did a very good job of convincing viewers that to defeat the Nazis they would have to dispense with good old British honor. The most telling line in the entire film comes from Theo the German: “This is not a gentleman's war. This time you're fighting for your very existence against the most devilish idea ever created by a human brain - Nazism. And if you lose, there won't be a return match next year... perhaps not even for a hundred years.” With a message like this it is difficult to see why Churchill disliked the movie so much—but, of course, the rumors that Candy was actually a caricature of Churchill might have had something to do with that.

Overall, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an entertaining war film.  It’s not quite as funny today as it might have been in 1943, but the questions it raises in relation to personal and national conduct in times of war are just as relevant now as when the film was released.  One need only consider the United States’ War on Terror and the questions that Zero Dark Thirty (2013) raised about how far a nation should go to defend itself.

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Dodsworth (1936) **

(This is my contribution to the Mary Astor Blogathon, hosted by Tales of the Easily Distracted and Silver Screenings. Please follow this link to find other great contributing posts.)

“Love has got to stop some place short of suicide.” What a great line to walk out on your selfish, self-involved, two-timing wife.  I rank it right up there with, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Still, director William Wyler’s Dodsworth (1936) is not a particular favorite of mine, but I do admire the performances of Walter Huston and Mary Astor.

Based on the 1929 Sinclair Lewis novel of the same name, Dodsworth tells the the story of the disintegration of an American couple’s marriage as they take the Grande Tour of Europe. After selling his motor company Sam Dodsworth (Huston) decides he and his wife, Fran (Ruth Chatterton), should enjoy life and learn the meaning of the word leisure. For over twenty years they’d spent their lives in a provincial Midwestern town called Zenith, seeing the same people week after week and doing the same respectable thing over and over. On the surface they seem like a happily married couple, but once they set sail for the Old World it soon becomes obvious that they want totally different things out of life. For one, Fran is afraid of growing old. As such, she has a habit of becoming involved in flirtations with young, penniless playboys (in this order: David Niven, Paul Lukas, Gregory Gaye) and socializing with washed-up aristocrats (Maria Ouspenskaya).  All the while, Sam is off sightseeing and really immersing himself in learning about the cities he is visiting.  By the time Fran decides she wants to run off and marry one of the playboys, you can’t help but be happy for Sam—even though he is miserable.  To quote Francis Preston Blair: “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” 

Dodsworth is a drawing room melodrama about the perils of extramarital affairs amongst the rich and fabulous (although Chatterton, in my opinion, is far from fabulous). Hollywood films of the 1930s liked to showcase the goings on of the wealthy to deflect the public’s attention for an hour or two from the misery of the Great Depression.  I personally prefer the comedies to the melodramas—it’s easier to laugh at the rich than feel sorry for them.  I suppose this is one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of Dodsworth.

However, the biggest reason I am not especially fond of Dodsworth is Ruth Chatterton. In every film I’ve ever seen her in she grated on my nerves. She was an accomplished stage actress who never made the necessary transition to movie acting.  What I mean by this is she always came across as stilted and affected—there was no naturalism whatsoever.  I suspect had they got a Myrna Loy or Billie Burke to play Fran I would have enjoyed the film so much better.

What I did like about Dodsworth was Huston and Astor. While her part was a minor one, Astor’s Edith Cortright is the most likeable character in the entire movie. One of the standout scenes finds Edith and Fran discussing age.  When Fran comments about wanting to look as good as Edith does when she’s her age the look on Astor’s face is priceless. Of course this only highlighted how desperate Fran was to appear young—especially when you consider that Chatterton was fourteen years older than Astor.  Then, later in the scene when Edith notices than Fran is on the verge of engaging in an affair she says one small word that speaks volumes by the look on her face: “Don’t.” After her turn as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltest Falcon (1941) Astor was forever linked to playing an unsympathetic character, so it is always nice to see her in Dodsworth where she plays such an agreeable woman.

Whenever I see TCM host Robert Osborne introduce Dodsworth he always comments that people should give it a chance because Huston plays a completely different character than the one he is most known for in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). This, of course, is true.  Sam Dodsworth is a stand-up guy with money and good manners. Huston plays him as a complex figure, who starts the film off as a confident man. By the middle of the film he has become a broken cuckold who needs to regain his confidence.  As such, Huston gives one of the best performances of his career (although Oscar picked Paul Muni in The Story of Louis Pasteur over him that year).

Overall, Dodsworth is a mildly entertaining drawing room melodrama. Fine performances from Astor and Huston somewhat make up for the fact that Ruth Chatterton is so freaking annoying in it.

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The Graduate (1967) ***

And here’s to you, Mrs. Bancroft…I love you more than you will know. Only you could make me give director Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) three out of four stars.  Had it not been for your phenomenal performance as Mrs. Robinson I am quite certain that I, and countless others, would have been much less enthralled with this satirical look at 1960s suburbia.  I expect that had you played a more dominant role in the second-half of the movie it would have garnered four stars instead of three.  Yet, for some reason screenwriters Calder Willingham and Buck Henry gave you short shrift after you absolutely dominated the first hour of the film. 

Yes, the story is about Benjamin Braddock's (Dustin Hoffman) disillusionment with life following a very successful time at college. He stares into fish tanks as though he were drowning in suburbia and materialism. He listens as older men (Walter Brooke) extoll the virtues of plastic.  Yet, it is your Mrs. Robinson that breathes life into Benjamin and the movie. Had it not been for your sexy, cynical, and ferocious turn as one of the most iconic film personalities ever, The Graduate may have been nothing more than an exercise in post-war American male self-loathing. 

It took guts to play a 45-year-old woman when you were only 35 yourself.  Perhaps that’s why Mrs. Robinson always looks so decisively confident.  It is probably also why the audience believes that you are really seducing a man half your age when in fact Hoffman was only a mere six years younger than you. My goodness, Mrs. Bancroft, you sure did know how to rock the costumes Patricia Zipprodt put you in.  Nichols viewed your character as a jungle cat stalking her prey. Not everyone can wear animal prints, but tiger stripes looked great on you.  Oh, and those furs—especially that Somalian leopardskin wrap—just accentuated your femininity and brimming sexuality. 

Mrs. Bancroft, I must tell you how bitterly disappointed I was when the film turned away from your character and focused on Benjamin and that beyond-boring Katharine Ross, who played your daughter Elaine. When your complex and compelling character gets pushed out of the picture so Nichols can focus on what I view as Benjamin’s complete break with reality (he and Elaine were obviously riding that bus at the end of the film to an asylum) I get bored…so bored. I find myself asking, “When will she come back and rescue me from this idiotic exercise in youthful insanity?” When will I hear another perfectly delivered exchange like this:

Mrs. Robinson: Benjamin.

Benjamin: Yes?

Mrs. Robinson: Isn't there something you want to tell me?

Benjamin: Tell you?

Mrs. Robinson: Yes.

Benjamin: Well, I want you to know how much I appreciate this. Really.

Mrs. Robinson: The number.

Benjamin: What?

Mrs. Robinson: The room number, Benjamin. I think you ought to tell me that.

Benjamin: Oh, you're absolutely right. It's 568.

Mrs. Robinson: Thank you.

Now I know, Mrs., Bancroft, that you felt as though The Graduate defined the rest of your career. You had a habit of reminding people that you’d given other great performances in your career, but sometimes one role is just so spectacular that it must be owned forever. You do know you were the original “cougar”, right? And, that you forever destroyed the image of motherhood. The June Cleaver’s and Donna Reed’s of the world were completely scandalized and revolutionized by you revealing the truth that even married mothers of a certain age have sex drives. And, who can hear Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” and not immediately think of you putting on silk stockings or calmly asking Benjamin if he’s armed as you call the police to report a burglar. Quite simply, Mrs. Bancroft, if it hadn’t been for you The Graduate would not be considered one of the most iconic films of the 1960s.  Yes, you lost the Best Actress Oscar to Katharine Hepburn for her role in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), but think about it: who really remembers that film much anymore?  Ah, but people will always remember you, Mrs. Bancroft, in The Graduate.

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