Mrs. Miniver (1942) ****

On most days I wouldn’t trade my parents for anyone, but if the stars aligned absolutely perfectly and I could pick my own I would choose Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) from Mrs. Miniver (1942). For me, they are the epitome of good parenting.  Thankfully, they both have now found their way into the 1001 Book—he was an original and she was just added in the Tenth Anniversary edition.  To say that I adore director William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver would be an understatement. I don’t care that it’s sentimental and propagandistic, or that I can’t in all good conscience rave about its cinematography or art direction (although they were good in their own right).  Besides the fact that Mrs. Miniver was one of  the most important war films made during WWII, it is also one of the best pieces of ensemble acting to come out of the studio system—starting with Garson’s spell-binding performance in the title role and ending with Henry Travers’ engrossing turn as Mr. Ballard.  Some may disagree, but in my opinion Mrs. Miniver is truly one film that deserves to be seen before one’s death.

Based on Jan Struther’s 1939 book of essays, which described a middle-class British woman’s concerns over Britain possibly going to war, Mrs. Miniver was William Wyler’s unapologetic answer to American isolationism. The Academy Award winning screenplay was written by Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton, and Claudine West over a period of more than one year. It was the product of constant rewrites which were dictated by America’s ever changing views on the war. Wyler, a German Jew, vehemently thought that Nazism was a scourge upon humanity and believed that the United States should join Britain in repelling the German menace.  Unfortunately, many Americans and their elected representatives believed that the country should stay out of a war that did not concern them.  As such, Wyler knew that no conventional war movie, with soldiers, tanks, and guns, would aid in changing the minds of ordinary Americans, and so he made a motion picture about a small British village ravaged by total war (more specifically the Blitz). 

People understood that bombs fell on battlefields and soldiers died in war, but seeing everyday, ordinary country Brits, women and children and the elderly, being tormented, and in some cases killed, by German aerial bombs was a whole other matter--this was how Wyler planned to present Mrs. Miniver to American audiences. Although the film premiered six months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entered the war, it still had a powerful message for all audiences, which was delivered by the village vicar (Henry Wilcoxon) in the somber but rousing final scene: “This is the people's war! It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it then! Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right.” Yes, this speech was pure propaganda, but in the words of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, it was “propaganda worth a hundred battleships." For his part, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that the vicar’s entire speech be printed on leaflets and dropped over Europe and he had the Voice of America broadcast it on several different occasions.

The reason Mrs. Miniver was so inspiring to Americans and Britons alike is that the Miniver family and their village were ordinary people attempting to survive in extraordinary circumstances. The story begins by demonstrating that the Minivers are everyday middle class people who want nice things for themselves and their children. Like most women, Kay (Garson) buys frivolous things that she doesn’t need just because she wants them and then attempts to hide the purchases from her husband, Clem (Walter Pidgeon), who also purchases things he doesn’t need. They have two young children at home (Christopher Severn and Clare Sandars) and a son, Vin (Richard Ney), who occasionally comes down from Oxford to enlighten them about how much he is learning about the world.  They have a cook (Brenda Forbes), a housekeeper (Marie De Becker), and a social club to go to on weekends. Quite simply, they are your typical middle class British family. Duty and responsibility mean something to people like this, and so when war does come they do as they are expected: they abide by blackout regulations; they build and stock a bomb shelter; Clem joins the Home Guard and risks his life to aid the evacuation at Dunkirk; and, Vin voluntarily enlists in the RAF.  Moreover, they do all of these things without complaint. Nothing is insufferable—not bombs falling on their home; not a shot down German soldier demanding food; and, not the death of a loved one. As long as they remain strong, resilient, indefatigable people who are willing to fight for their way of life there is nothing that can destroy them—as long as there is a will there is a way. And, of course, this turned out to be true, since it was the British stiff upper lip which resolved itself not to give in when German bombs reigned down on the nation for more than eight months.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone else other than Greer Garson playing Mrs. Miniver, but MGM first asked Norma Shearer and then Ann Harding to play the role.  Both women declined because they didn’t want to play a mother who had a grown son. Garson, who was younger than both of those women, also had concerns but Louis Mayer convinced her to take the part and the rest is, as they say, history.  Her soft but steely turn as one of cinema’s most courageous and determined mothers and wives not only earned her her only Academy Award, it also made her the biggest female star at MGM. Her stoic countenance, regal beauty, and effortless ability to convey her character’s thoughts with one look were perfect for the character of Kay Miniver.  For me, her performance is flawless, which as a Bette Davis fan is somewhat disheartening because I so love Ms. Davis as Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager (1942), but there is no doubt in my mind that Garson rightfully earned the 1942 Best Actress Oscar statute over Davis. 

Mrs. Miniver, of course, would not have been nearly as effective as it was without its stellar cast. Obviously Garson’s Oscar-winning performance is the star of the show, but Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, and Henry Travers are also standouts in the production.  Wright, who deservedly won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, portrays Mrs. Miniver’s daughter-in-law Carol not as a hysterical war bride but as a realistic young woman who wants to enjoy her happiness, no matter how brief it may be.  As for Whitty, her Lady Beldon required her to humorously represent the old guard while also demonstrating indignation at what the world had devolved into  due to war.  And, then there is Henry Travers, the renowned character actor.  Perhaps the most touching scene in the movie is when he first shows Mrs. Miniver the rose that he wants to name after her.  In this, he must display pride, nervousness, and affection for both his rose and Mrs. Miniver.  It’s such a quiet and nuanced scene and the perfect way to first introduce Mrs. Miniver’s many wonderful qualities to the audience. 

Although I know it’s pure propaganda and overly sentimental at times, for me Mrs. Miniver is one of the best wartime movies ever made.  I am exceptionally happy that the editors of the 1001 Book finally inducted it into its table of contents—now, if only they would remove some of the absolutely horrible films that they insist remain on the list.

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Henry V (1944) **

Obviously I have been spoiled by Kenneth Branagh’s cinematic Shakespearian vision, not to mention producer Sam Mendes’ absolutely phenomenal Shakespearian endeavor, The Hollow Crown, because, hard as I try, I can’t bring myself to enjoy Laurence Olivier’s Henry V (1946).  Yes, yes, I know that Branagh and Mendes owe a debt of gratitude to Olivier for being the first director to make one of Shakespeare’s plays into a film that was both artistically and commercially successful, but the artifice of Henry V, not to mention some hamminess on the part of the cast, rubs me the wrong way.  Additionally, I am a purist at heart, and if you are going to do Shakespeare then do Shakespeare—don’t cut scenes or pieces of dialogue because the Prime Minister wants you to make a morale boosting propaganda movie! 

When William Wyler declined an offer to direct Henry V (he didn’t want to tell Olivier how to do Shakespeare), the task fell to Olivier.  With the backing (at least partly) of the British government, Olivier and fellow screenwriters Dallas Bower and Alan Dent went about trimming the play into a “manageable” two hour and sixteen minute production. The nastier side of Henry’s (Olivier) personality was cut—no one gets hung (especially not his friend Bardolph!) and no French towns need worry about being raped and pillaged at the hands of the English, and, under no circumstance, is the real ending of the play mentioned: that less than three years after his victory at Rouen Henry was dead and that his son, Henry VI, would eventually lose France in what became known as the Hundred Years’ War.  As much as these omissions rankle me, I must confess that I was happy to hear Princess Katharine (Renee Asherson) and Alice (Ivy St. Helier) actually converse in French. I can only imagine how irritating this may have been to working class English viewers—and God forbid, American audiences! 

It’s a colorful film, that’s for certain. Shot in three-strip Technicolor, the sets and costumes absolutely and vibrantly pop off the screen.  Of course, this herein is one of the reasons why I take issue with Henry V.  The movie begins with a sweeping shot of London, circa 1600—which was accomplished not by CGI but by miniature models—and then the Globe Theatre, where a production of Henry V is about to take place.  For the next thirty minutes we see the play acted out in front of a rather boisterous audience, and occasionally we see the backstage happenings.  Perhaps it was intended as such, but the acting during this section of the film is almost inconceivably overacted by complete hams.  Thankfully, the acting does seem to get better when the production clearly transitions from “inside” the Globe Theatre to a soundstage (Denham Studios), but the film still looks and sounds like a stage play.  Paul Sheriff and Carmen Dillon’s sets were primarily based on manuscript illustrations from the Très Riches Heures (a French prayer book), and, while colorful, appear exceedingly fake.  Olivier, for his part, did have the good sense to realize that a cinematic version of the Battle of Agincourt should not be filmed on a soundstage. As such, this being a patriotic, morale boosting endeavor, the battle scenes were shot at the Powerscourt Estate in Wicklow, Ireland—which happened to be a neutral nation in WWII.  Needing more than 700 cheap extras and land that had yet to be touched by modernity, Olivier spent six weeks at the estate for ten minutes of actual footage.  Once the battle is concluded, we turn back to the artifice of the French court—probably fitting, but nonetheless irritating. 

Okay, so after reading the above, you’re probably thinking: what’s the big deal with three different set designs, I think it’s clever. No, what’s clever is what happens when Dorothy transitions from black-and-white tornadic Kansas into the Technicolor world of Oz in The Wizard of Oz (1939)—this makes sense.  What happens in Henry V makes absolutely no sense at all, other than as a somewhat plausible way for Olivier to somehow work in the Shakespearian narrator.  And, did he REALLY need to do this?  Moviegoers knew that they were going to see a cinematic version of a Shakespearian play, would it have really surprised them to see and/or hear a narrator pop up every so often to transition the story from scene to scene or act to act?  Probably not. It all looks so colorfully fake, fake, fake and then, for a brief moment, a touch of realism creeps in and then back to the fake, fake, fake! Oh, I must stop talking about this, as I can feel my agitation growing…

While it’s bizarrely interesting to look at, Laurence Olivier’s Henry V is probably one of my least favorite film adaptions of Shakespeare’s plays.  I’d rather watch Orson Welles’ MacBeth (1948), which was a hot mess itself, a hundred times before watching Olivier’s Henry V. Yes, Welles bastardized the play and made insane additions to it, but, my God, it was so more intriguing to watch! 

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Written on the Wind (1956) **

Of Douglas Sirk’s many heralded melodramas, Written on the Wind (1956) is probably my least favorite.  Yes, the Technicolor is as bright as ever and Sirk, generally, draws out  good performances from his cast, but the story and most of the characters fall flat for me.  If you take away Dorothy Malone’s scintillating performance, there is nothing compelling about the film.

Based on Robert Wilder’s 1945 novel of the same name, Written on the Wind opens with a bang—literally. A drunken man, who we later learn is Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack), tears across a Texas road toward his family’s estate and stumbles into the house. As leaves blow inside the open door, we see a woman, who we soon learn is Kyle’s sister Marylee (Malone), slam the door shut. A few moments later, we hear a shot ring out and we see Kyle stagger back outside with a gun in his hand, where he proceeds to crumble to the ground dead.  And, then the wind blows again and turns a calendar back more than a year—Sirk’s not so clever way of saying he’s going to show us the events that led up to Kyle’s last fateful night.  It all began when Kyle’s best friend Mitch (Rock Hudson) brought a pretty secretary to lunch who caught Kyle’s eye. The heir to an oil fortune and a world-class playboy, Kyle doesn’t care that Mitch saw Lucy (Lauren Bacall) first—what he wants he gets.  And, so he turns on the charm by flying her to Miami in his private plane and stocking a luxury suite with fine clothes for her. When she informs him that she’s not a tramp he marries her after knowing her for only one day.  This was undoubtedly a mistake on Lucy’s part, because she soon learns that her new husband not only suffers from anxiety, depression, and alcoholism, but that he also has an inferiority complex when it comes to Mitch—the man his father (Robert Keith) adores and calls his second son.  It also doesn’t help that her sister-in-law, Marylee (Malone), is a world-class bitch and whore who is obsessed with Mitch—who happens to only have eyes for Lucy. When Kyle learns that he has weak sperm and that he may never be able to father a child he goes into a tailspin, which is exacerbated by Marylee’s insinuations that Mitch and Lucy are having an affair.  Oh, it’s so soapy—even for Sirk!

Once again, Russell Metty was Sirk’s cinematographer of choice for Written on the Wind. Over a period of seven years, Metty and Sirk worked together on ten films. There’s a reason that of the more than 30 films that Sirk directed in his career that his most highly regarded ones had Metty as their cinematographer: Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Imitation of Life (1959), and Written on the Wind. Metty’s deft understanding of how to use light/shade and angles to superbly capture the mood of a scene was the perfect compliment to Sirk’s brilliance when it came to visual composition. Most of their films had a reoccurring visual motif (for example, their endless use of windows in All That Heaven Allows) which they employed throughout the picture. Written on the Wind was primarily about psychologically fractured people, so Sirk and Metty used several mirror shots to depict characterization.  Additionally, I suppose they wanted to make a statement about how empty and sterile the lives of the Hadleys were because they used a lot of glaringly bright lights and garish colors—gone was the matte world of All That Heaven Allows, replaced by full enamel, ala Magnificent Obsession.

My overall disregard for Written on the Wind stems from the fact that I could never bring myself to care about what happened to the characters. About twenty minutes into the film it becomes obvious that the most entertaining and engaging person in the movie, Marylee, is doomed to end up unhappy, so it’s irritating to watch Mitch politely pine for the beyond boring Lucy, who spends most of her time fretting over her overacting (on so many levels) husband.  Sure, Marylee’s a tramp and a manipulator, but her pathological desire to have Mitch love her is far more exciting to watch than both Bacall and Hudson’s mediocre performances.  Of course, they may have only appeared to be sleepwalking through this movie because Dorothy Malone was completely on fire throughout it.  Malone deservedly won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her turn as a bitter woman who vehemently and defiantly acts out as a result of being constantly rebuffed by the man that she loves. Her testimony scene at the inquest is nothing short of brilliant—full of rawness, honesty and vulnerability.  It irks me beyond measure that this most pivotal scene has absolutely no chance of changing the inevitable ending of the film—boring and boring ride off together while the most electrifying person is doomed to an empty life of unhappiness.

Overall, I’m not a big fan of Written on the Wind. It’s not a bad picture, per se, but it is irritatingly predictable and cursed by the fact that every character other than Maryann is beyond boring.  Thank you, Dorothy Malone, for making it somewhat palatable.

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Giant (1956) ***

Giant (1956)—was there ever a more appropriately named Hollywood production?  And, I’m not just referring to its three hour and twenty-one minute runtime, either. Director George Stevens rightly earned his second Academy Award for Best Director by capturing the vast landscape and racial complexity of Texas, while coaxing out tremendous performances from his cast. 

Edna Ferber wrote novels and plays that Hollywood liked to turn into movies: So Big (1924, 1932, and 1953), Show Boat (1932, 1936 and 1951), Cimarron (1931 and 1960), Saratoga Trunk (1945), Stage Door (1937), Dinner at Eight (1933), and The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)—to name a few, although there are others. Published in 1952, Giant was Ferber’s tenth novel. Her critique of Texas race relations in the book scandalized the Lone Star state and caused quite a stir in the literary world. As controversy was good for the box office, just about every studio in Hollywood wanted to buy the rights to it, but only George Stevens made her an offer she couldn’t refuse: he made her a producer and promised to make a faithful film adaption of her novel. As it turns out, he made as faithful an adaption as he and Warner Brothers were willing to make.  Specifically, sections of the novel that dealt with African Americans and Jim Crow were cut altogether or amalgamated into the film’s discussion of racism against Mexican Americas.  Still, Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat’s Oscar-nominated adapted screenplay was groundbreaking not only in its treatment of racism but also in its portrayal of class and gender issues.  The story, spanning the lives of Jordan (Rock Hudson) and Leslie Benedict (Elizabeth Taylor) over a period of twenty-five years, is the solid foundation on which Stevens’ greatest cinematic effort is based.  And, while it most assuredly could have been trimmed down a bit, as there are, admittedly, a few scenes that could have been cut without the film missing a beat, it is still a spectacularly told story.

When Texas rancher, Jordan “Bick” Benedict, travels to Maryland to buy a feisty horse named War Winds he not only takes home a horse but its ornery, free-thinking owner, Leslie, as his wife. Somehow her straightforward critique of Texas history—Texans stole the land from the Mexicans—is overlooked by Bick—I’m sure her stunning beauty was the culprit.  Anyway, Leslie’s comfortable and lush, green world of Maryland is replaced by an endless landscape of dirt and dust and overbearing heat. She also has to deal with Bick’s unmarried, hard-as-nails sister, Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), who is threatened by Leslie’s presence.  When Leslie asserts her authority as the woman of the house, Luz takes out her anger on War Winds, who, thankfully, throws her from the saddle, which results in her death—problem bitch solved.  With Luz out of the way, the only thing that stands in Leslie’s way is racism, classicism, and sexism—all of which her husband displays throughout their marriage. How dare she treat their Mexican servants with respect or think that Mexicans should have decent places to live and proper medical care?  Why on earth would you be friendly and polite to a no-account farmhand like Jett Rink (James Dean)?  And, how dare you attempt to discuss either business or politics with men?  To say the first few years of marriage are rocky for them would be an understatement. Yet, Leslie’s progressive ways, not to mention her red-hot sex appeal, have a way of tempering her husband’s moods.  So what if they fight a lot? As Leslie likes to say, the best thing about quarreling is the making up afterward—which yields a set of fraternal twins, Jordy (Dennis Hopper) and Judy (Fran Bennett), and a high-spirited daughter, Luz (Carroll Baker).  Of course, after awhile they start getting on each other’s nerves—especially after Bick is particularly traumatized by the fact that his son doesn’t like horses. As a result, Leslie returns to Maryland with children in tow, while Bick has time to reconsider home on the range—alone.  And, so he finally yields to his wife and goes after her and a certain understanding is agreed upon.  You’d think that’s where the story ends, but wait, that’s only the first third of the picture.

After Bick and Leslie’s reconciliation the film jumps ahead about fifteen years, where we find the couple fully engaged in the lives of their nearly grown children.  Obviously, Leslie’s free-thinking ways ruled the nursery, because all of their children do exactly the opposite of what their parents want them to.  Instead of taking over the ranch as his father demands, Jordy goes off to Harvard and then medical school, and eventually, God-forbid, marries a Mexican girl. Judy, for her part, disregards her mother’s desire that she go to a Swiss finishing school and attends Texas Tech, where she studies animal husbandry, and then elopes with a local ranch hand (Earl Holliman).  And, Luz…well, she becomes involved with the one absolute man that both her parents universally dislike: Jett Rink. By this time, Old Jett has struck it oil rich on the Benedict land that the first Luz left to him when War Winds snapped her neck. And while Jett and Uncle Sam might have convinced Bick to use his own ranch land for oil wells during World War II, Jett is still seen as a no-good son of a bitch by Bick and as a drunken manhandler by Leslie.  You see, Leslie knows that Jett wants Luz as a consolation for herself, but she can’t really say that to her daughter. With children like these, is it any wonder that both Leslie and Bick are fully gray after only twenty-five years of parenting?

Okay, so let’s get this out of the way right now: contrary to popular opinion, James Dean is NOT the best thing about Giant. In my opinion, judgment of his performance is colored by the fact that he died a few weeks after his scenes wrapped and months before the movie was released.  Don’t get me wrong, he does an admirable job of playing an anti-social, ill-mannered non-conformist—the same role he pretty much played in all three of his films (East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause being the other two)—but he is not what makes Giant tick. That responsibility rests solely on the delicate shoulders of Elizabeth Taylor, who finally was allowed to show that she was indeed a gifted, ADULT actress who deserved to be given substantial roles.  Stevens gave Hudson the choice of picking either Taylor or Grace Kelly as his leading lady in Giant.  For his part, Stevens didn’t think the 23-year-old Taylor had the emotional range required for Leslie and wanted Kelly for the role. Thankfully, Hudson chose Taylor—who, in my opinion, could act circles around Kelly.  It’s not easy playing a character who ages over twenty-five years during a movie, and especially when you are so highly regarded for your beauty, as Taylor was.  Yet, she expertly depicts the various periods of life her character encounters in the story. In the beginning, her Leslie is flirty and precocious but also a young woman who knows what she wants, namely Bick.  In the early stages of her marriage she comes off as caught between two worlds or selves—the woman Bick wants her to be and the woman she knows she is.  Leslie’s ability to stand up to her husband, and Texas for that matter, in a defiant but polite manner without appearing as a sort of Pollyanna or saint-like figure is a direct result of Taylor’s deft acting abilities. 

My two absolute favorite scenes in Giant take place in the Benedict’s bedroom. This is fitting, of course, because this is probably the one place that she always got her way.  The first scene follows the aftermath of her defiant speech to Bick and his friends about them being cavemen and that women have enough sense to discuss politics and business.  When he comes up to the bedroom she pretends to be asleep but when he purposefully throws his boots on the floor to wake her up, she serenely pretends like she has forgotten her daring scene.  But he hasn’t, and so to appease him she apologizes for being rude to his friends, but that’s not enough for Bick and he says, “I'm asking you right now when you are gonna settle down and behave like everybody else.” Her answer of “never” sends him toward the adjoining room, where he plans to sleep.  But Leslie knows how to control Bick and she simply says, “You knew what a dreadful girl I was when you married me. I did not deceive you, sir. From the first moment I couldn’t have been more unpleasant,” and then she just sits there staring at him smoldering with unbridled sexuality.  The next morning, having completely decimated all of her husband’s strength by her wanton ways, she casually mentions, oh by the way, that she’s pregnant. 

The second memorable bedroom scene isn’t based on sex, though. No, this one is all about a class that all successfully married people eventually graduate from: Spouse Psychology 101. Nope, by the time the Benedict’s are approaching middle age and sleeping in twin beds, Leslie can’t really rely on sex to impose her will on Bick anymore. Instead, when he believes he is manipulating her into agreeing to allow their daughter not to go to school in Switzerland but in Texas by saying, “I wonder if we love them enough to do what's really right for them,” Leslie knows what he’s doing and lets him have just enough rope to hang himself before dropping the hammer by informing him to brace himself because there’s another sacrifice to be made: Jordy wants to go to Harvard and then Columbia medical school. Priceless…and all done in the comfort of her twin bed.

For its time, the film’s straightforward look at racism against Mexicans was rather bold—not as bold as it was in the novel, but still bold nonetheless. However, Leslie’s insistence that Mexicans be treated with dignity isn’t necessarily the same as saying that they deserve to be treated as equals, either. Still, by the end of the movie, when Bick gets his ass kicked by a racist diner owner who makes comments about his daughter-in-law and grandson, it is clear that Stevens is making a statement about racism in general, when he has the diner owner toss a sign on Bick which reads: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”.  Was it an all-out attack on Jim Crow? No, but at least it was a start.

Overall, Giant is an entertaining film that dares to take on such things as racism, classism and sexism.  While it would have benefitted from a bit more editing, fine performances from Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean elevate the overall effectiveness of the movie.  In particular, Taylor is mesmerizing as Leslie—how on earth she wasn’t nominated for a Best Actress Oscar is beyond me.

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All That Heaven Allows (1955) **1/2

No one in classic Hollywood did melodrama better than director Douglas Sirk.  With films like All I Desire (1953), Magnificent Obsession (1954), There’s Always Tomorrow (1956), Written on the Wind (1956), Imitation of Life (1959), and today’s entry, All That Heaven Allows (1955), Sirk made movies that focused on domestic concerns, almost always centered around the emotional needs and desires of women. Over and over again certain themes would appear in his pictures: female alienation from social norms; motherly love tested by the selfishness of their children; and, criticism of conformity—although this particular theme was not always recognized by critics, at least not until the veil was lifted about how un-ideal the 1950s actually were for many American women.  Yes, the plots of many of his films played like a soap opera, but no soap opera was ever so well acted or sumptuously lensed. 

Such is the case with All That Heaven Allows, a melodrama which reteamed Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson following their hugely successful pairing in Magnificent Obsession. While Wyman was a star and an acclaimed actress (she had three Best Actress nominations and one Oscar statute) when she first worked with Sirk on Magnificent Obsession (for which she earned her fourth Best Actress nomination), Hudson was pretty much a second, third, or fourth banana in Hollywood and was regarded more for his looks than for his acting abilities.  Sirk must have seen something in Hudson that others did not, because between 1952-1958 he and Hudson made nine films together at Universal.  All That Heaven Allows was their fifth collaboration, and their second pairing with Wyman.  Clearly, Wyman was the star of the show, but by this point Sirk new how to get the most out of Hudson that he could.

Based on Edna and Harry Lee’s 1952 story of the same name, All That Heaven Allows is billed as a May/December romance between a well-to-do widow and a working-class gardener/arborist.  Mrs. Cary Scott (Wyman) is a lonely widow who feels isolated by the world she and her deceased husband used to occupy. Her two grown children, Kay (Gloria Talbott) and Ned (William Reynolds), are preoccupied with their lives at their Ivy League schools and assume that their mother will eventually marry a mature, and very passionless, man from their social set—or purchase a television set to spend her evenings with.  However, she strikes up a friendship with Ron Kirby (Hudson), the man who prunes her trees, and against her better judgment begins an affair with the handsome man who is both younger than herself and who is also of lower social standing.  She is attracted to more than his good looks, though.  She admires his individuality and his simplicity, and through interactions with he and his friends Cary finds a world where people care about other people—not about how much money they have or their social standing.  Yet, when Ron asks her to marry him, at first she says that it will never work because of their differences. Ah, but love is strong and she decides to take a chance—and that’s when the nastiness begins.  Her snobby friends (sans poor Agnes Moorehead’s Sara) find the relationship scandalous and her children think it’s humiliating—mostly to them.  Unable to “thine own self be true”, Cary breaks off the engagement to appease her beyond-selfish children and finds herself alone and miserable.  Finding herself at a personal crossroads (in front of a television nonetheless), Cary has to make up her mind about whether she’s going to live her life for others or for herself.

Personally, I don’t think this is a film about a May/December romance. Wyman was 38 years old and Hudson was 30 when they made All That Heaven Allows. While I know Cary is supposed to be in her early to mid forties and have two college-age children, she doesn’t look all that much older than Ron.  Perhaps that was a focal point in the Lees’ story (I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to be fifteen years older than Ron), but it really isn’t in the movie. Yes, there are a few barbs from the town gossip (Jacqueline De Wit) and a not so kind muscle reference from her son that insinuates that there is an age difference, but that’s not really what All That Heaven Allows is about.  Instead, I view it as an critique on American consumerism and conformity (there’s a reason Cary reads from Thoreau’s Walden).  The thing that seems to rankle Cary’s friends and children the most about Ron is that he’s not one of them—driven by money and having fine, expensive things.  He doesn’t belong, nor does he want to, to their worldview.  And the fact that someone from their social/economic group would want to shed the life that they so value and esteem to live a simple existence is almost anathema to them.  Cary doesn’t want to conform and so she is ostracized by her friends and shamed by her own children.  As a result of doing what others expect of her, she finds herself locked inside a world that holds no meaning for her.  It is only when she realizes that she needs to do what makes her happy that she can truly be free.  In 1955, women, in general, did not do this and I expect the ending of this film was shocking to some—hopefully, it was also enlightening to others.

While she may not be as well remembered as Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, or Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman was a very fine actress who could do comedy or drama, and was also a dancer and a singer.  Wyman, much like Stanwyck, had had a difficult childhood which she used to her advantage when playing characters who needed to draw upon their own internal fortitude to face difficult situations.  And although she was not what one would call a classic beauty, she had a certain personal grace and countenance that was admired by moviegoers.  These qualities, of course, allowed her to play Cary Scott as a gracefully polite woman stifled by the circumstances of her life.  It’s not easy to play a sacrificing woman and not be tinged by sanctimony, but Wyman does an excellent job of melding Cary’s two worlds and personalities into one overall character.  She must be refined, composed, and repressed at certain times, and at others she is free to display desire, unencumbered happiness, and hopefulness—but not too much, because there are voices of doubt that still rattle around in her mind that makes her happiness guarded and almost unrealistic. 

Other than Wyman’s performance, the thing that most stands out about All That Heaven Allows is its aesthetic appeal.  Sirk’s cinematographer of choice on this, and many of his most esteemed films, was Russell Metty.  Working in the wonderful, sumptuous world of Technicolor, they created a beautifully lensed picture.  Throughout the movie they use muted colors to heighten the personal alienation and torment of their characters.  Perhaps the most memorable scene in the film is when Cary goes to the mill to tell Ron that she’s breaking off their engagement. Set against a Monet-esque snowscape looming outside, Ron’s partly refurbished mill-home is conspicuously and overbearingly full of open space and made up of wood and stone.  Sirk and Metty will revisit this particular setting later in the film when they capture the most lasting image of the film: Cary standing in front of that same snowscape in a fully refurbished home staring at a stag standing right outside the massive window.

If I have one critique of All That Heaven Allows is its heavy-handed use of Franz Liszt’s Consolation No. 3.  Yes, we get it, it’s a melodrama, do we really need to have such overly dramatic music soaring in the background? 

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Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) **

Upon its release, director Sam Peckinpah’s last western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), was a box office and critical failure.  Peckinpah and then MGM president James Aubrey had a severe disagreement regarding the film’s original runtime of over two hours and Aubrey brought in outside editors to trim the film down to 106 minutes. It didn’t help that during filming Peckinpah believed he was being forced to work with substandard equipment and an inexperienced crew because Aubrey wanted to cut production costs.  Additionally, Peckinpah and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer didn’t see eye to eye about the movie’s narrative—Peckinpah rewrote sections of the script so that Garret and Billy interact with one another in a few scenes prior to their final showdown, which Wurlitzer had intended to be the only time the characters met on screen.  When Peckinpah saw what Aubrey’s editors had done to his film he sued to have his name removed from it.  He lost, of course, and for more than ten years his directing name was besmirched by the original hot mess theatrical release of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. However, like most directors, Peckinpah had his own private preview copy that he liked to show to his friends. This version was released by Turner Home Entertainment in 1988 and led to a critical rediscovery of what Peckinpah thought was his best film ever.  While I’ve not seen all of his films, I believe I can safely say that other than The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and perhaps Ride the High Country (1962), I’m not overly impressed with his body of work, and I certainly wasn’t overly impressed by his Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. For me, the best things about the movie are that Bob Dylan wrote “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” for it and James Coburn’s performance as Pat Garrett is riveting. You take these two things away from it and it’s just another drab, violent western.

The story follows Pat Garrett’s (Coburn) pursuit of Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) in 1881 New Mexico.  A former outlaw himself, Garrett has been made sheriff by Billy’s arch-nemesis John Chisum (Barry Sullivan) and is ordered by the New Mexico Territory Governor, Lew Wallace (Jason Robards), to bring the Kid to justice.  This task is hampered by the fact that Billy and Pat are friends and former outlaw colleagues. Having realized the West is changing and the days of the outlaw are slowing dying, Pat chooses to wear a badge and collect money for hunting down outlaws.  This act seems repulsive to him and turns him into a very bitter man, but he still carries out his mission, no matter how loathsome it is to him.

Most of the ancillary cast is comprised of a who’s who of the western genre: Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, Paul Fix, Jack Elam, Matt Clark, R.G, Armstrong, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, and Jason Robards.  They all play minor roles, but both Elam and Robards make the most of the limited screen time that they are given. I’m not exactly sure why Peckinpah chose to showcase Bob Dylan’s superfluous character, Alias, more than some of the western stalwarts in his cast, but he did—I have read that it was done as a favor to Kristofferson and because Peckinpah was impressed with the title song that Dylan wrote for the movie. Personally, I find his presence distracting—especially when I hear his songs being played while he’s onscreen.

I’d like to say that the two principal leads were evenly matched, but they weren’t.  To say that Kristofferson lacks range would be an understatement. Plus, in what world would he pass for a 21-year-old baby-faced killer? Whereas, James Coburn looks and acts like a grizzled Wild West lawman.  It also helps that he had the acting chops to play a complex character who was conflicted by his past and the future that he yearned for.  In some scenes he plays Garrett almost whimsically, while in others he must portray a man who is deeply tortured and repulsed by what he must do.  For me, Coburn’s performance is the only thing that makes Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid mildly entertaining.

While I’ve never been a fan of Bob Dylan’s music, I must say that if there was ever an appropriate song written for a bloody western, it was “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”.  Peckinpah’s use of it at the end of the film (and other sections as well) creates an atmosphere of foreboding and then unpleasant reality. Still, I could have done without the theme song that Dylan wrote for the movie.

Overall, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is somewhat enjoyable because of James' Coburn’s turn as Pat Garrett.  The movie probably would have been stronger if a more capable actor had played the Kid, but hindsight is 20/20.  The story itself is mildly entertaining, and much better than that of Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), but I somewhat agree with Aubrey that the film drags in certain places and would have benefitted from a few cut scenes—maybe not twenty minutes worth, but there is definitely unnecessary fat that could have been trimmed. Additionally, Dylan deserves credit for creating a highly memorable song, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, for the picture.

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The Wild Bunch (1969) **

(This post will include spoilers.)

Revisionist westerns aren’t really my thing.  Yes, they are more realistic and grittier than the classic westerns of John Ford, but, for the most part, they seem to have more style than substance.  If I’m going to watch an ultra-violent western it better darn well have a compelling storyline that makes me care if someone gets shredded by bullets.  For example, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) is a savage film, but at least it’s plot driven and makes you care about (or in Henry Fonda’s case, hate) its characters. Yet, in the case of director Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), I had no investment in either its plot or its characters.  Yes, the gunfights are superbly edited and there is no sugar-coating what being shot actually looks and feels like, but so what?  I felt absolutely nothing when all of the outlaws (the “Wild Bunch”) got slaughtered for being sentimental idiots. And, I don’t care if Peckinpah believed that he was making an allegory about the senseless violence taking place in the Vietnam War at the time he was making the movie. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters to me is that at no point in the story did I find myself caring one way or the other about what happened to any of the characters.  I was not entertained, educated, or enthralled by anything in The Wild Bunch other than the, then new, editing style that Peckinpah and editor Lou Lombardo employed to create an epically barbaric final gunfight.  For me, that’s just not enough.

Penned by Peckinpah and Walon Green, the story is set along the Texas-Mexico border in 1913—the last days of the wild west and its outlaws.  Pike Bishop (William Holden) is the leader of a group of outlaws pursued by bounty hunters hired by the railroad.  After surviving an ambush at a bank in Texas, the “Wild Bunch” flee into Mexico to regroup and plan their next move. The outlaws are at a disadvantage because the bounty hunters are led by Pike’s former partner, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), a man familiar with how the group operates. A short flashback shows us that Deke had been captured by the law due to Pike’s whoring and drinking ways. As such, Pike suffers from guilt, while Deke must deal with his own betrayal of the outlaw code: “When you side with a man, you stay with him! And if you can't do that, you're like some animal, you're finished!” Anyway, the outlaws are hired by a corrupt Mexican Federal Army general named Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) who is being advised by emissaries of the German government (quick history lesson: in 1914 the First World War started, but before that the Germans had made preemptive plans to engage the Mexican Army if America entered the war—there’s a whole saga that played out in 1917, please look up the Zimmermann telegram if you want to learn more) to steal Army guns off a train, which they do quite cleverly. However, one of the “Wild Bunch”, Angel (Jaime Sanchez), is a member of one of the villages that Mapache has raped and pillaged and demands he be paid with a case of guns. When Mapache finds out Angel took the guns he takes him prisoner and tortures him. At first the outlaws do nothing, as Pike remarks that “$10,000 cuts an awful lot of family ties”, but eventually they decide that four men should take on an entire army.  You do the math…

The “Wild Bunch” are scumbags.  They kill innocent people and steal things that don’t belong to them.  They like to drink, screw, and joke around.  This is not the type of behavior that elicits sympathy from me when their way of life is threatened by cars and Gatling guns. The ambiguous villain seems to be Deke, but he’s nothing more than a mild annoyance and he most assuredly does not come off as “bad” man.  I suppose Mapache is pretty much a bastard, but no more than the “Wild Bunch” themselves.  As such, I cannot bring myself to root for or against anyone—they’re all low-life bastards who deserve to die.  Plus, there is truly no logically explanation as to why they decide to go on a suicide mission.  They had $10,000! And, for those who are going to say there’s honor among thieves, please remember that Pike shot one of his fellow outlaws because he was injured and couldn’t ride his horse.  Yes, Pike was old and decrepit and the outlaw life was waning, but Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Lyle (Warren Oates), and Tector (Ben Johnson) still had a lot of years ahead of them, and $10,000 would have been a great way to start a new outlaw-free lifestyle. So, when that infamous last stand takes place I just sit and watch the revolutionary editing and think to myself: that’s sure a lot of blood and bullets.

The one thing that saves The Wild Bunch from my complete disdain is its technical elements.  Cinematographer Lucien Ballard had his hands full capturing Peckinpah’s wide-screen vision of the bloody shootouts, using up to six cameras at varying film rates all at once to capture the action.  Additionally, Ballard used telephoto lenses that brought the foreground and background into the same visual perspective.  All of Ballard’s camerawork, which was comprised of over 300,000 feet of film shot at varying speeds, was then spliced together by Lombardo and Peckinpah to create dazzling action sequences that could at one moment be a rapid-fire rampage and then the next a slow-motion symphony of destruction.  And, when you think about it, what do most people remember about The Wild Bunch—the famous Last Stand…and perhaps it’s theme song.

Overall, The Wild Bunch is a ferociously violent western that benefits from masterful editing and cinematography. However, the story is far from compelling and none of the characters are worth emotionally investing in.

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