Orpheus (Orphée) 1950 **

Writer/poet, and sometimes director, Jean Cocteau was a fan of surrealism and an opium addict—this explains a lot about his own unique retelling of the Orpheus myth, Orphée (1950). For those unfamiliar with the Greek myth, Orpheus is a musician who is compelled by his love for his wife, Eurydice, to descend into the underworld to reclaim her. He so enchants the gods with his lyre playing that they allow Eurydice to return to the upper world on the condition that Orpheus not look at her on the journey out of the underworld, but he does and she dies again.  Cocteau’s Orphée is most assuredly not a classic interpretation of this myth but, rather, a surrealistic reimagining of one of the most romantic tragic myths ever composed.  Simply put, it’s an art film with cool special effects and a bizarre storyline.

Set in modern day Paris, the story begins with famed poet Orpheus (Jean Marais) witnessing an accident involving a young poet named Cégeste (Edouard Dermithe) and being told by a princess” (Maria Casares) to escort her and the body to the hospital. However, the princess is not really a princess but actually Death, and she’s come to claim Cégeste as her servant—she brings Orpheus along for the ride because she wants to enchant him with her beautiful mystique. When he is escorted home by Death’s assistant Heurtebise (François Périer) in her Rolls Royce, he is consumed by his love for Death and the messages that she has transmitted to him via her car radio, totally ignoring his pregnant wife, Eurydice (Marie Déa).  Every night when the couple goes to sleep Death emerges from a mirror in their bedroom to watch Orpheus sleep.  Wanting Orpheus for herself, she arranges an accident to befall Eurydice, knowing that Heurtebise will convince Orpheus that he must reclaim his wife from the underworld.  In an underworld that looks like the blitzkrieg has hit it, Orpheus is reunited with Death and doesn’t seem too concerned with getting Eurydice back, although he told Heurtebise that he wanted to see both women.  The judges see that Eurydice was unjustly brought to the underworld and release her on the condition that Orpheus NEVER look at her again—anywhere. Eventually he does and she returns to the underworld, and then Cocteau rewrites the myth with his own strange ending, which I will not reveal because it’s stupid and, also, because I don’t want to “ruin” it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. 

The premise for Orphée is rather inspired but that doesn’t mean that the finished product is.  The story suffers from an idiotic ancillary plot device (the Bacchante’s dislike of Orpheus) and requires too much suspended common sense on the viewer’s part—even for watching a fantasy film. Although they are minutely necessary for Orpheus’ second journey to the underworld, the Bacchante’s distaste for Orpheus is never explained and at the end of the story they seem to have floated away into nothingness. Additionally, in the myth, Orpheus truly loved his wife and wanted her to return to him.  In the movie, Orpheus could care less about his wife and is totally consumed with passion for Death—it’s a ridiculous love triangle.  This would-be love triangle, in turn, makes the ending of the movie completely unpalatable. The ending will have you asking: really, that’s how it ends?  It’s surrealist art films like this that leave a bad taste in my mouth.

However, there are two saving graces to Orphée: the acting is good and the special effects are entertaining.  Regarding the acting, the four principal leads (Marais, Casares, Déa, and Périer) are all enchanting to watch.  In particular, Périer does a stellar job of portraying Heurtebise’s unease in carrying out Death’s orders while falling in love with Eurydice himself.  His resigned disgust of Orpheus’ behavior is the one thing that somehow holds the story together.  And, while I know many people found Casares to lack the screen presence to play Death, I rather enjoyed her interpretation of a nihilistic dominatrix. Quite frankly, if the story had been just about Death and Heurtebise I would have been quite pleased because Orpheus does nothing for me in this, even though I can’t really say that Marais plays the role poorly.  As a matter of fact, a love triangle between Death, Heurtebise, and Eurydice (who is played as a universally sweet woman by Déa) would have made a much more compelling story.

Still, it is the special effects that primarily saves this movie from my ultimate ire. Strangely, the funny thing is that Cocteau doesn’t really use any revolutionary special effects.  He relies heavily on reverse motion and back projection to dazzle his viewer—but he does it so cleverly that you have to admire it.  He uses reverse motion to make it appear that a pair of “magical” gloves put themselves on the hands that are to wear them and also to break mirrors, which are used to transport people to and from the underworld.  The best line of Orphée explains why: “Look at a mirror for a lifetime you will see death at work.” Although it appears as if the characters are walking through mirrors, Cocteau filmed still pools of water which reflected first the actors hands, which were in the pool of water, and then their faces which appeared in the water when the hands were removed.  Today such special effects may seem cheap, but in 1950 people had to be a little more creative than having a computer program do all the heavy lifting. 

Overall, Orphée’s bastardization of the Orpheus myth annoys me beyond comprehension. That said, Cocteau cleverly uses special effects to create a dreamlike atmosphere that is quite aesthetically pleasing and, thus, saves the film, somewhat, for me.

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Notorious (1946) ****

Without a doubt, Notorious (1946) is my all-time favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie. At its core, it’s a romantic spy thriller, but there is so much more to it than Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman sneaking three second kisses one after the other while engaging in espionage against the Nazis.  Yes, it’s filled with suspense and sexual tension, but the film, at least for me, is also a surprisingly sharp analysis of human frailty and morality. As if the story weren’t enough, Notorious also has the best cinematography of any of Hitchcock’s black and white films (and some might argue, his entire oeuvre).  

Ben Hecht’s intricately orchestrated Oscar nominated screenplay tells the story of an American espionage operation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , where escaped Nazis are planning their next move following the Third Reich’s defeat.  The Strategic Services Unit (SSU, which eventually morphed into, along with other clandestine groups formed after the dissolution of the OSS, into the CIA) recruits Alicia Huberman (Bergman), the daughter of a convicted Nazi spy (Fred Nurney), to infiltrate the Nazis in Rio. Alicia is a high-class notorious good-time girl—simply said, she’s a drunk and a tramp who comes from money. Yet, while awaiting her orders, Alicia falls in love with her SSU handler, Devlin (Grant), a man who does not have a very high opinion of her. Their budding relationship is compromised when she is asked to gain the confidence of her former friend (and perhaps lover) Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains), a leading figure in the Nazi group living in Rio, by whatever means necessary. This, of course, means that Alicia has to use her notorious behavior to seduce Alex. When Devlin raises no objections to this plan, Alicia believes Devlin does not love her and so she sets off on her mission. She obviously does an expert job of this, because before long she is married to Alex and living in a house where Nazis regularly meet and a lot of doors are locked. One door in particular is locked by a key that only Alex has access to: the wine cellar door. Devlin and his superior, Captain Prescott (Louis Calhern), are sure this is where the Nazis are hiding something. An elaborate plan, requiring a huge party be thrown at the Sebastian house, is hatched which calls for Alicia to steal the key from Alex and then pass it onto Devlin, an invited guest. When this betrayal is discovered by Alex, he and his mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) enact a poisonous plan of revenge on Alicia.

The most important theme in Notorious is the idea of trust, which makes sense because it’s about tradecraft (spying).  Still, the way the theme is developed and carried out throughout the story is quite clever. First, Alicia and Devlin’s first meeting is based on deception, as he pretends to be a party crasher at her home. Her notorious behavior as a first class tramp makes Devlin mistrust any changes that she attempts to make in her character. Has she stopped boozing it up and making conquests?  Does she love Devlin, or is he a passing fancy?  As such, he withholds his love and trust from her, even when she begs him to do otherwise, and raises no objections when she is asked to prostitute herself to get the goods on the Nazis.  In turn, Alicia feels betrayed by the man that she loves and sets about proving to Devlin that she’s an accomplished whore.  Her manipulation of Alex’s trust in her, which he gives ever so easily and freely, only exacerbates Devlin’s mistrust in her.  Hopefully, the irony is not lost on anyone that the most trusting person in Notorious is Alex, who is an unwitting pawn in Alicia and Devlin’s twisted game of Truth or Dare. This is why Alex Sebastian is Hitchcock’s most sympathetic villain.  When he learns the truth about Alicia his world is shattered, and you can’t really blame him for wanting to kill her after what she’s done to him. Still, his stupidity, as noted by his mother, was enormous. 

The love story between Alicia and Devlin is extremely complicated and comes off as an indictment on society’s rules on morality. There’s a reason why Alicia drinks and sleeps around—it’s how she learned to cope with her father being a Nazi spy.  There is a very small scene in the film where after Alicia has learned of her father’s suicide that she says, “When he told me a few years ago what he was, everything went to pot. I didn't care what happened to me. Now I remember how nice he once was, how nice we both were. It's a very curious feeling, a feeling as if something had happened to me, not to him. You see I don't have to hate him anymore or myself.”  It is not a coincidence that Alicia attempts to mend her “wicked” ways after his death and that she allows herself to fall in love with a decent man like Devlin.  The problem is that Devlin can’t forget her past, as evidenced by this exchange:

Alicia: The time has come when you must tell me you have a wife and two adorable children and this madness between us can't go on any longer.

Devlin: Bet you've heard that line often enough.

Alicia: Right below the belt every time. That isn't fair, Dev.

Of course, the worst part is that Alicia is recruited as a spy because of her notorious reputation.  The Government has no qualms about prostituting this woman for their political aims precisely because she is a known tramp, but, for some reason, those pimping her out seem to think that it’s okay to defame her in their private conversations with one another.  Worse yet, Devlin throws her past character flaws in her face every chance he gets.  Don’t he and his colleagues bear some responsibility for her behavior?  It is precisely Alicia’s emotional frailty that drives her to seduce and manipulate Alex.  She wouldn’t have taken the assignment in the first place if, as she says to Devlin, “If you only once had said that you loved me.”  In what world does Devlin have any right to be pissed off the entire time that Alicia is risking her life to spy on the Nazis? Surely someone willing to risk imminent danger deserves a little more respect than constant reminders that she’s a whore. And, really, hadn’t Devlin used his own charms on Alicia to get her to go to Rio?  Didn’t he engage in an affair with her and then have the audacity to ask her to seduce Alex?  He could have told his superiors that they were in love and that she was out of the spy business, but he didn’t.  How was his behavior any better than hers? Yet, because she is a fallen woman she is the one who is open to ridicule and judgment. Plus, Devlin’s refusal to believe that Alicia is capable of change is ultimately almost what gets her killed (and, who really knows what happened after that car pulled away from the Sebastian mansion at the end?), as he believes she’s back to boozing when she comes to a meeting gaunt, unsteady, and clearly unwell.

Cinematically, the most striking thing about Notorious is the camerawork. This was Ted Tetzlaff’s last picture as a director of photography, and while he was never as highly regarded as Gregg Toland, Jack Cardiff, Robert Krasker, John Alton, Stanley Cortez, or probably Hitchcock’s favorite cameraman, Robert Burks, he probably shot the best black and white film Hitchcock ever made.  While there are several scenes we could discuss, three in particular stand out for me.

The first scenario is what I like to refer to as the hangover scene. The scene opens with a close-up of a glass of Alka Seltzer, with Alicia in the background, lying on a bed. The camera then zooms out and switches to what Alicia sees. Hung over and seeing things cockeyed, she sees a man, at a titled angle, standing in the shadow of the doorway. As he comes closer, and she is lying on her back in obvious pain, the camera flips upside down and we see a fuzzy, backlit Devlin.  Without a doubt, this is probably the most creatively shot hangover scene ever.

I also find the tea cup scene (yes, they were drinking coffee, but it’s looks like a tea cup), or what I call “Tea is served”, near the end of Notorious to be exceptionally well done.  By this point in the story the tea cup has become it’s own Hitchcockian motif, and the audience is aware that Alex and his mother are well on their way to killing Alicia with poison. Again, drink of some sort seems to be Alicia’s undoing. Just as the fizzing Alka Seltzer is the starting focal point in the hangover scene, the tea cup is shot in the forefront of this scene, which opens with one of the Nazis commenting about how poorly Alicia, dressed in black, looks, and then the focus of the scene shifts from the conversation to a tea set sitting in front of Mrs. Sebastian and then to a particular cup that she brings to Alicia. After a slight shift back to the conversing people, the cup is shot from an ominously low angle with Alicia in the background. When there is a mix up with the cups and Alicia realizes what’s going on, a single, innocent shot of a tea cup moves directly to a bewildered Alicia to a sweeping close-up of first her mother-in-law and then Alex. As she gathers herself up to leave the room, her two poisoners dissolve into shadow figures and seem to be guarding her from the door. Once out in the foyer, her deteriorating health, not to mention her now-altered emotional state, is echoed through the use of distorted images. She then passes out on the checkered tile, which looks a lot like a chess board. Is it just me, or do tea cups and chess boards make you think of Alice in Wonderland?  Is this an overlooked theme by film critics… Or was Alicia a sacrificed pawn in the Government’s chess game with the Nazis?

Perhaps the most famous sequence in Notorious is the infamous wine cellar key swap. Once Alicia swipes the key from Alex it becomes the focal point of the next few minutes of the film. First, Alicia’s closed hands (one containing the key) must elude Alex’s kisses. Next, Tetzlaff uses a crane to do a sweeping shot from the top of the massive staircase to the bottom of the steps where Alex and Alicia are greeting guests and to Alicia’s nervously fidgeting left hand which is gripping the key, anxiously awaiting Devlin’s arrival. When he does finally arrive, the camera focuses in on Alicia’s hand as Devlin kisses it and she passes him the key. All of these elements are seamlessly completed but done in such a way that it heightens the viewer’s anxiety. 

I could go on and on about why I’m such a fan of Notorious.  Every character was expertly cast, with no one giving a false performance.  The story was well paced and quite believable (especially when you consider how many Nazis did end up hiding in Brazil and planning a resurgence of the Reich) and, like almost every Hitchcock picture, meticulously constructed into an edge of your seat thriller, and, in this case, right down to the very last minute on screen.  All of these elements, as well as the ones discussed above, are why I am such an admirer of Notorious. Oh, and the MacGuffin is a wine cellar full of wine bottles filled with uranium…thought I’d add that for all the hardcore Hitch fans out there.

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On the Waterfront (1954) ***

Many modern day viewers of director Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954) don’t really know what the film is truly about because they are unfamiliar with such things as the Red Scare and method acting.  Yet, for students of film history, there is no doubt that On the Waterfront is Kazan’s own personal defense of his naming of names at the HUAC hearings and his belief in the Method acting (although he’d probably not refer to it as such)technique.  Perhaps he and screenwriter Budd Schulberg deserved the derision they received for giving the HUAC Committee the names of their friends and colleagues, but that does not negate the fact that they created one of the best dramatic films of their generation.  The twelve Academy Award nominations that On the Waterfront received were not a reward for Kazan’s being a “loyal American”—they were earned by mesmerizing actors (Best Actor winner, Marlon Brando; nominated Best Supporting Actors, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger; and, Best Supporting Actress winner, Eva Marie Saint), a visionary cinematographer (Best Cinematography winner, Boris Kaufman), a gifted editor (Best Editing winner, Gene Milford), a creative art director (Best Art Direction winner, Richard Day), an innovative composer (Best Score nominee, Leonard Bernstein), a daring producer (Best Picture winner, Sam Spiegel), a brilliant screenwriter (Best Screenplay winner, Schulberg), and a revolutionary director (Best Director winner, Kazan). Deride and despise Kazan’s personal actions if you must,  but don’t hate the film because it’s an apologetic allegory of Kazan’s actions; instead, embrace it for the striking movie that it is.

The story, based on Malcolm Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Crime on the Waterfront article series that appeared in the New York Sun in 1949, confronts mob corruption in a longshoremen union.  Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) is a menacing union boss who will stop at nothing to keep control of his cash cow—the longshoremen whom he exploits, bullies, and terrorizes.  When one of the longshoremen, Joey Doyle (Ben Wagner), starts talking to the Crime Commission (Kazan’s stand-in for HUAC), Johnny enlists his lawyer and right-hand man, Charley “The Gent” Malloy (Rod Steiger), to get his brother, Terry (Marlon Brando) to lure Joey unto the rooftop of his building, unaware that Johnny’s goons intend to throw Joey off of it.  A former boxer who seems a bit dim-witted, Terry finds himself filled with remorse over Joey’s death. This remorse is only exacerbated after Joey’s sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint), becomes the object of Terry’s affection and the local priest, Father Barry (Karl Malden), encourages the men to speak out about the union’s corrupt and murderous practices.  Terry must decide if he should remain D&D (deaf and dumb) or take a stand against what he knows is wrong, even if some of his friends, and even his brother, are brought down by his “ratting”. 

So, obviously Terry’s dilemma is a stand-in for Kazan’s decision to give the names of “known” Communists to the HUAC Committee.  It does irk me a bit that he chose a union organization, be it a corrupt one, to represent Communism, but since unionism is synonymous to some to socialism/communism I suppose it made sense to Kazan and Schulberg (even though Arthur Miller did write the first screenplay, titled The Hook, so maybe this was just a coincidence). Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that both Terry and Kazan “ratted”, but, at least in Terry’s case, for a good reason—Kazan, of course, believed he was justified as well.  Perhaps it was in bad taste to make a film that attempted to justify ruining the lives of friends and colleagues, and I expect that is why Kazan’s name, who’s been dead for over ten years now, is still hissed at today by some.  Yet, there’s more to On the Waterfront than Kazan’s own personal allegory.

On the Waterfront is considered the masterpiece of Method acting.  Kazan, along with Cheryl Crawford and Robert Lewis, founded the Actors Studio is 1947, which followed the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski, a Russian dramatist. Method acting, as Stanislavski’s teachings later became known as, emphasizes that a performer stay in the moment and that the internal was more important than the external.  There is no room for over-the-top gestures and emoting in Method acting. Instead, actors/actresses draw on their subconscious memories of pain and pleasure to create a character, which they shape with precisely defined mannerisms, voice inflections/tones, and body language.  As such, the performer can develop characters that transcend labels, such as hero/heroine, damsel-in-distress, villain, or clown. While Kazan and two of his earliest students, Brandon and Malden, had already achieved success with A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) both on the stage and screen, it was On the Waterfront which cemented the “new” acting style and convinced many critics that there was a method to the madness—there was a reason why Brando sounded inarticulate and slouched about. 

Clearly, Brando is the star of the film.  No actor played inner turmoil better, and no character had as much as Terry Malloy.  Still, Malden’s turn as Father Barry is probably my favorite performance in the film.  The Jesus on Calvary speech he gives in the hull of the ship after Dugan (Pat Henning) is killed is filled with such indignant rage that it raises the hair on my arms each time I see it.  I also really enjoy the few scenes that we get to see Steiger in—at this point in his career he was still a nuanced actor and not a complete ham, as evidenced by his turn in The Specialist (1994).

My least favorite performances come from Saint and Cobb. For me, Saint’s Edie is just too hysterical in her quest to find out what happened to her brother.  I’ll admit that I have never been a fan of hers, but at least I could tolerate her in North by Northwest (1959).  In On the Waterfront I find her voice to be even more shrill than usual and her uncanny way of making you dislike an otherwise likable character almost criminal.  More surprisingly to me, at least, is that I was not completely enamored with Cobb’s turn as Johnny Friendly.  For me, there is a disconnect from his performance in the first two-thirds of the film and the last third of the movie.  Cobb was a character actor who specialized in playing menacing SOBs, so Johnny was the perfect role for him.  However, his last few scenes in On the Waterfront seem overacted and don’t come off as true to me.

As mentioned above, I thoroughly enjoyed the Christ on Calvary speech and it’s probably my favorite scene in the movie. Of course, the most quoted scene is the one between Terry and Charley in the back of the cab, where Terry says, “I could’a had class. I could’a been a contender. I could’a been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charley.”  The resignation that both Steiger and Brando display in this scene is thoroughly engrossing to watch. 

And, then there are the scenes which bear the hallmarks of a Kazan picture.  The wandering camera along the shoreline as Terry talks with Father Barry, a conversation which we are not privy to, and the confession scene between Terry and Edie probably bear the Kazan signature the most.  Throughout the story guilt has been building up inside of Terry to the point that he’s ready to explode, and so when he does come clean to Edie all the audience hears is a squealing steam whistle.  For me, although some may disagree, this squealing whistle can be construed in two ways: 1) it represent Edie’s rage at what the man she loves has done, or 2) it symbolizes the burden of truth being lifted from the core of Terry’s being. Kazan was a fan of ambiguity, so you read the scene however you want, but you do it without any dialogue, as no words could really express the emotions of the characters.

So, let’s get to the elephant in the room: why did I only give On the Waterfront three out of four stars?  Reason number one, I don’t like how Eva Marie Saint plays Edie.  Reason number two, and 95% of why I always leave the film with a bad taste in my mouth, is the ending.  There is a complete disconnect in the last ten minutes of the film. When Terry goes to the dock after testifying and then every last man shuns him, I get it. But, when he confronts Johnny Friendly and all the men seem to be standing around letting Johnny’s goons beat the crap out of Terry and THEN the men refuse to go into work without Terry leading them in makes absolutely no sense to me.  Perhaps this was Kazan’s own personal vindication scene—he spoke out against Communism, found himself ostracized by former friends and colleagues (although it got much worse after people started speaking out about the evils of the Red Scare in the late 1960s), but still had the personal fortitude and courage to continue to stand up for what he thought was right.  Whatever his intent may have been, the ending is sanctimonious and unpleasant to watch—especially after the first 98 minutes had been so terrific.

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Sleeper (1973) **

As if poor Woody Allen didn’t have enough problems, he now, unfortunately, reminds me of a most despised man I used to work for.  Same hair, same glasses, same neuroses, and the same condescending nature.  As such, Allen films in which he both stars and directs now have an irrational way of irritating me. It doesn’t help that the main character in Sleeper (1973), Miles Monroe (Allen), has many of the same foibles that my former boss has: health food fanatic, attracted to vapid blonde women, and an unrelenting desire to overcome his inferiority complex by attempting to project that his is the most superior intellect. Now, whenever I watch Sleeper I feel as if I am being forced into some sort of trauma therapy to deal with PTSD.  Still, somehow my irrational dislike of Allen and Miles can’t make me hate Sleeper because it is mildly entertaining in its homage to Buster Keaton, Bob Hope, and the Keystone Cops—and Diane Keaton’s impersonation of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) is hilarious.

The story, written by Allen and Marshall Brickman, finds Greenwich Village health food store owner and jazz musician Miles Monroe being defrosted by revolutionaries 200 years after being cryogenically frozen after a botched surgery for a peptic ulcer.  The revolutionaries, who have all been fingerprinted, imprinted, and given numbers, believe that they can use Miles, who has not been “Big Brothered”, to find out what the Aries project is.  Pursued by security forces who look a lot like Strumtruppen (SA Stormtroopers) but who act very much like Keystone Cops (I’m sure the irony was not lost on Nazis hiding in South America who saw this), Miles disguises himself as a domestic robot and does his best impression of what would happen if somehow life was created as the result of a threesome involving a mime, the Little Tramp, and Buster Keaton. “Robot” Miles ends up at  pseudo-intellectual and horrible poet Luna’s house where people get high from holding an orb and use a machine called the Orgasmatron to simulate sex.  After revealing his true self to Luna, Miles finds that she has alerted security forces to his whereabouts and they have to go on the run.  Once Luna realizes that the authorities want to reprogram her brain because she had been contaminated by the alien (Miles), she helps Miles with his plan to infiltrate the Aries project.  When he is captured and taken in for brainwashing, Luna joins a Maoist-esque group led by John Beck, who kidnap Miles and use him to destroy the Aries project.

Sleeper could be considered a futurist look at society, I suppose.  It would be a sad look at how little science could progress in 200 years, with cars that look like the eggship that Mork arrived in from Ork and a Sculpted House that looks like a clamshell which was actually built in the early 1960s. The only advance made in society appears to be that cryogenically frozen people can be revived and that cloning is a possibility—baa, baa says Dolly the sheep! Obviously Sleeper is a spoof on the sci-fi genre.  Miles awakens from an H.G. Wells novel (The Sleeper Awakes) in an Orwellian world (1984) where the Government controls everything. References are made to Dr. Spock and even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) are parodied—Alex DeLarge wishes he had Miles’ brainwashing experience, but the evil computer in Sleeper is voiced by Douglas Rain, the same man who did HAL’s voice in 2001, so it was just as creepy.

There is a lot of slapstick and attempts at physical comedy in Sleeper which is reminiscent of many Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin silent films.  Still, Woody Allen is no Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. He lacks the daredevil nature of those physical comedy juggernauts. Allen also channels the cowardly quipper Bob Hope throughout the movie.

The absolute best thing about Sleeper is Keaton’s spot-on impersonation of Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Personally, I could have done without Allen’s take on Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois, but it was obviously necessary in order to see Keaton mimic the man who was playing her father-in-law in The Godfather films. 

Overall, Sleeper makes me recall unrelated unhappy times working for a neuroses filled ego-maniac.  Still, there are a few laughs to be had with Allen’s parodying of the sci-fi genre while honoring the early pioneers of physical comedy. 

 

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Winchester ‘73 (1950) **

Director Anthony Mann and legendary actor James Stewart made eight films together, five of which were westerns. Their first collaboration was Winchester ‘73 (1950), which is credited as the first “modern western”.  Stewart was 42 years old and worried that he was seen as an actor without range when he was presented with the opportunity to make Winchester ‘73. Fritz Lang had originally been slated as the movie’s director, but Universal Pictures wasn’t interested in having Lang’s own production company, Diana Productions, produce the film. Plus, Universal studio head William Goetz was trying to nail down a deal with Stewart to make Harvey (1950), which Stewart wanted $200,000 for. A deal was brokered for Stewart to earn 50% of the profits for both Harvey and Winchester ‘73, which also allowed Stewart to pick each film’s cast and director—he chose Mann for Winchester ‘73, and his career and the western genre would never be the same again.

The Mann/Stewart western redefined the western by making the protagonist of the film an ambiguous anti-hero.  Gone was the traditional white-hatted cowboy whose intentions were pure and straightforward. The new western “hero” was often a violent, bitter, and vengeful man who was either seeking redemption or revenge—or maybe both. 

Lin McAdam (Stewart) is seeking revenge in Winchester ‘73.  He arrives in Dodge City with two aims: winning a shooting contest for a prized Winchester ‘73 rifle and killing the man who shot his father in the back.  An outlaw and no-good bastard by all accounts, Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally) is Lin’s sworn enemy and also ends up being his main competition at the shooting contest.  It’s hardly a surprise that Lin wins the rifle or that Dutch and his crew waylay him in his room and steal it.  From this point on, the Winchester becomes a character on its own—anyone who comes into possession of it, no matter under what circumstances, meets a bad end: Indian trader Lamont (Joe McIntire) gets scalped; Indian chief Young Bull (Rock Hudson) gets mowed down by the cavalry; would-be outlaw Steve Miller (Charles Drake) gets shot by crazy gunslinger, Waco Johnnie Dean (Dan Duryea); and, then there’s the epic battle between Lin and Dutch—one dies and then the other walks away with the rifle. Personally, I think the victor should have tried to sell that cursed rifle as soon as possible.

I’m sure many people will be unhappy that I only gave Winchester ‘73 two out of four stars.  Yes, it is a rather revolutionary film with its reimagining of the western.  However, for me, it doesn’t go far enough and holds onto some of the moralizing effects of the traditional western.  For example, Lin is supposed to be a man hell bent on revenge, but he still comes off as hero-esque.  Yes. he’s supposed to be a conflicted man—at his heart he’s a good, decent man but vengeance drives him to hunt down and kill a man. Yet, I don’t really ever see much confliction. I do see him standing with the cavalry against Rock Hudson’s Indians and behaving like a gallant gentleman to dance hall girl Lola Manners (Shelley Winters).  Only in small snippets of conversation with his friend and traveling companion High-Spade (Millard Mitchell) do I slightly sense that perhaps there is something evil brimming in Lin.  Still, the idea that a western would premise itself as a revenge tale with the “hero” acting as judge and executioner was something new.

For my money, I’ll take Stewart in The Man from Laramie (1955) and The Naked Spur (1953) over his turn in Winchester ‘73. Perhaps it took him a few films to hone the nuances needed for this new character type, but by the time he made The Man from Laramie he had perfected the part.  It may have also helped if Dutch had been played by the great Dan Duryea instead of Stephen McNally, as he would have probably pushed Stewart more, as Arthur Kennedy’s Vic Hansbro does in The Man from Laramie and Robert Ryan’s Ben Vandergroat does in The Naked Spur. 

I won’t complain about the fact that Rock Hudson plays an Indian—this is just a sad fact about older Hollywood films that I try to ignore.  And, I won’t say much about Shelley Winter’s Brooklyn accent in the middle of Kansas, either.  Perhaps Lola had made her way west and that was really how she spoke.  Plus, Winter’s rather unique way of portraying tough broads played well here.  Her interactions with Duryea are probably my favorite scenes in the film.

Overall, Winchester ‘73 is to be credited for modernizing and revitalizing the western genre.  It also reshaped Stewart’s career and probably helped him prepare for his later roles in Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958). Yet, for me, Winchester ‘73 lacks a legitimate villain and does not allow Lin to venture down a dark enough path to capitalize on the ambiguity of playing a man who is essentially good but driven by very bad intentions.

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How Green Was My Valley (1941) **1/2

Director John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley (1941) was nominated for ten Academy Awards—it won five (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Supporting Actor). By taking home the Oscar for Best Picture it beat out such films as Citizen Kane (1941), The Little Foxes (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Sergeant York (1941), and Suspicion (1941). While it definitely had one helluva cast and the massive Welsh mining town constructed at Fox Ranch in Malibu Canyon was impressive, I cannot agree that How Green Was My Valley was a better film than Citizen Kane, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, or Suspicion—though it was better than Sergeant York and the other four films that were nominated for Best Picture that year (Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, and One Foot in Heaven). You add this oversight to the fact that Gregg Toland’s cinematography in Citizen Kane lost to Arthur Miller for his camerawork in this, and you make one heck of a depressing film even more…disagreeable. 

Based on Richard Llewellyn’s 1939 novel of the same name, the film depicts the trials and tribulations of the Morgan family and their late 1800s Welsh coal-mining village.  Gwilym Sr. (Donald Crisp) and Beth (Sara Allgood) Morgan are the parents of six boys and one very pretty daughter, Angharad (Maureen O’Hara).  All of the Morgan men except the youngest son, Huw (Roddy McDowall), work in the coal mines, while the Morgan women tend to the house that they all live in.  At the start of the story they all seem content with their lives; though the work is hard, they have a nice home and plenty to eat. However, as the plot progresses and the mine starts to cut wages the family is divided over the possibility of a strike. This division not only drives three of the sons from the family home (the oldest son, Ivor [Patric Knowles], has married Bronwyn [Anna Lee] and lives next door), but also finds the village turning on Gwilym, a leading member of the community, because he is against the strike.  Tragedy abounds for the Morgans, as one son is killed in the mines and eventually the other three sons are discharged from the mine and must make a new start in America, and poor Huw also finds himself temporarily paralyzed for a time.  Oh, and I almost forgot Angharad’s sad fate—she is in love with the village preacher, Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon), but finds herself married off to the mine owner’s son (Marten Lamont).  There is nothing uplifting about How Green Was My Valley—a few parties, some singing and intermittent light moments cannot overcome what is a grim, unpleasant story.  And, even when there was one snippet of hope for one of the Morgans—Huw is a smart boy who could apprentice for a middle class job but decides he too should go down into the mines—that is even taken away. 

If it’s possible to ignore how completely depressing this movie is, I suppose you could marvel at the production design and appreciate the fine acting by most of the cast.  One of the strange things about How Green Was My Valley that not a lot of people know is that producer Darryl F. Zanuck planned on making it the next Gone with the Wind (1939), shot in Technicolor on location in Wales with a runtime of nearly four hours. He started pre-production with William Wyler as his director, but Zanuck’s ambition and Wyler’s notorious reputation for going over budget and taking forever to make a picture made Twentieth Century Fox place the film on hold. Eventually, Zanuck got the wheels of the production moving again by suggesting that John Ford was just the right director for the project.  While four of the most important parts had been cast by Zanuck and Wyler, Ma and Pa Morgan, Huw, and Mr. Gruffydd, it was Ford who cast Lee as Bronwyn and O’Hara as Angharad without screen tests. Lee invented an Irish grandfather and all O’Hara had to do was use her Irish accent and tell stories of her homeland—Ford was a sucker for anything and anyone from his beloved Ireland.

The expertly designed Welsh village is truly amazing. Zanuck had wanted to shoot on location in Wales, but World War II made that impossible and his budget had been drastically cut by Twentieth Century Fox anyway, and so he settled for Brent’s Crag in Malibu.  Zanuck’s Technicolor dream was also abandoned when he realized that Malibu would never match the green valleys of Wales.  The village cost approximately $110,000 to construct and tons upon tons of coal were brought in for the construction of the mines. Anyone who didn’t know better would really believe that How Green Was My Valley was actually filmed in a coal mining village in Wales. Even the coal slag looks real, although it was an illusion created by the hillsides being painted black.

While I hated the story, I loved the characters. Donald Crisp deservedly won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Gwilym Morgan.  He is the heart of the film and probably should have been nominated for Best Actor, because without him there would not have been a moral backbone to the story.  Sara Allgood, as his wife, earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her spirited performance as one-tough matriarch.  The doomed romance between Mr. Gruffydd and Angharad was bittersweet to watch.  Probably my favorite scene in the film is Angharad’s brazen attempt to get the man she loves to step in and claim her before she is married off to a man she doesn’t love.  Of course, O’Hara was much too fiery an actress for the always reserved Walter Pidgeon, so she, of course, dominates whenever they are on screen together. 

Overall, How Green Was My Valley is a depressingly nostalgic look at an idyllic Welsh mining community destroyed by greed and pollution.  Occasionally happy things occur, but mostly it’s a hard, bitter depiction of the destruction of the pastoral existence.  Oh, John Ford, thankfully you will later redeem yourself with The Quiet Man (1952), and for that I can forgive you for just about anything…even two hours of constant depression.

 

 

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Alien (1979) ***

When I was growing up a popular dream job of adolescents was that of astronaut.  In the 1970s and 1980s the U.S. space program was a big deal and, of course, we had grown up watching films like Star Wars (1977), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Alien (1979). Yet, unlike many of my peers I wanted nothing to do with the mysteries of space. To me, anyone crazy enough to want to take a chance with the great unknown of the cosmos could have it—they were the type of people who wound end up being killed by face-hugging and intestinal-destroying aliens.  That’s right, director Ridley Scott’s second feature film, Alien, freaked me out so much that had Neil Armstrong himself stopped by my house to offer me a trip to the moon I would have declined. 

Alien was the brainchild of Dan O’Bannon who combined two popular box office genres, horror and sci-fi, to create probably the best sci-fi horror film ever made. Using a story he’d written with Ronald Shusett, O’Bannon penned the screenplay, which incorporated elements from such sci-fi movies as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Thing from Another World (1951) with horror flicks like Halloween (1978) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Seven crew members aboard the space tugboat, Nostromo, are on their way back to Earth when they receive an unknown transmission from a nearby planet which awakens them from their space-pod slumber.  Regulations say they must investigate all transmissions and so off to LV-426 (not named in this film but in later sequels) they go. They have a bumpy landing and the ship is damaged, so three crew members, Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), and Officer Kane (John Hurt) go out to investigate LV-426 while Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) and Engineers Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) are left to fix the ship and monitor the expedition of the other crew members. The explorers find an underground alien egg farm and after Kane pokes one he suddenly finds his space helmet attached to an octopus-like creature.  Dallas and Lambert bring Kane and the creature back to the ship, which for some reason Ash opens after Ripley orders him not to.  The rest of the film is then a series of unfortunate events for the rest of the crew, as they attempt to get the alien off the ship.

Without a doubt the visuals are probably the most spectacular thing about Alien.  The film earned two Academy Award nominations, one for Art Direction and the other for Visual Effects, which it won.  The massive design of the various sections of the 3-deck spaceship and planet LV-426 are pretty awesome, especially when you consider there wasn’t CGI in 1979.  And, of course, the iconic creation of the alien, as well as the creepy android, were highly unique as well. Visual Effects Supervisor Brian Johnson and Bray Studios based many of their designs on Scott’s countless storyboards as well as drawings created by Ron Cobb. What I think sets the alien creatures in the movie apart from their earlier predecessors is just how real the face-hugger, chestburster, and eventually the full-grown alien look. 

While Tom Skerritt received top-billing, everyone knows that Weaver was the main character (countless sequels have more than validated this point).  Still, for more than half the movie it seems like this is an ensemble piece, with each crew member having their own fair share of screen time.  Yet, by the time the alien is almost done running amok on the Nostromo there are only two crew members left on the ship: Ripley and Mr. Jones.  Oh, did I forget to mention Mr. Jones?  Mr. Jones is a tabby cat who plays a pivotal role in why I like Alien so much, but he’s also the reason why I don’t absolutely love it.  Please let me explain.

First, Mr. Jones has the honor of being in my favorite shot in the entire film. After being scared away while Ripley, Parker, and Brett are searching for the alien, Mr. Jones has to be found so his motion doesn’t distract the crew from monitoring the motion of the alien.  And, so Brett is sent, alone, to find the cat. This search leads to a massive chain hanging decorated quadrant of the ship. Instead of jumping into Brett’s arms, Mr. Jones hides behind a door and hisses at what one can only assume is a hiding alien.  When the alien emerges from the entangled chains the scene shifts to and focuses on the cat’s face as Brett is killed by the alien.  It’s such a simple shot, but it’s probably the most memorable one for me.

And, then there’s the most inane, idiotic thing about Alien…who in their right mind would go looking for a cat when you are trying to get materials together for an emergency shuttle escape right before you blow up the ship, and consequently, the alien?  In no world does it make any sense that Ripley, who’s seen members of her crew killed by an alien, would scour the ship for Mr. Jones—especially when you consider that she later throws his cage down right in front of the alien when she comes face to face with it.  Personally, it sort of feels like an anti-feminist statement on the part of Scott and O’Bannon: accomplished single, female space officer would rather save cat than exercise common sense.  Thus, such idiocy takes some of the shine off on otherwise tense and gripping story.

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