Film School Rejects » Old Ass Movies

Old Ass Movies: White Christmas

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:03:59 +0000

Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

White Christmas (1954)

While walking through a major store the other day, I noticed that all of their Christmas gear had already been broken out, and I felt that that sent a central message to shoppers that Thanksgiving is easily overlooked. The hell with Thanksgiving. Bring on Christmas.

I’ve decided to join in the exclusionary spirit, completely bypassing Thanksgiving (as if my entries seem themed in the first place), and go straight to the source of holiday cheer that is the only holiday that can leave the streets and highways of Los Angeles empty.

And what better way than to spotlight White Christmas?

I recognize that for some modern audiences, this film will seem completely dated. It’s one of those films that was birthed from the stage show, from Vaudeville, and stands halfway between the musical genre (where people just burst out into song randomly) and a film genre where entertainers use real stages and real performances within the narrative to deliver musical numbers aside the usual plot progression.

Bing Crosby teams with Danny Kaye as Bob Wallace and Phil Davis – two Army veterans and entertainers who decide they want to put on a huge show for their former mentor and CO, Major General Thomas Waverly (Dean Jagger). Of course, this is only after their main plan to sneak away from work responsibilities with the gorgeous Haynes Sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen as Betty and Judy) turns sour due to a noticeable lack of snow in scenic Vermont. That lack has kept away the tourism trade that Waverly now depends on as an inn owner, so the huge show turns into a benefit not only for old time’s sake but for the future of the business as well.

Like I said, I can understand why it would seem dated, but the chemistry between Crosby and Kaye should resonate with any audience. Over fifty years later, we still have a huge number of films released every year that attempt to capture the buddy comedy spirit that these two men embodied here (and where Crosby and Hope helped pioneer in their Road To movies). You can see the roots of films like I Love You, Man and The Hangover buried deep in a movie like this. Crosby and Kaye are an odd couple, one free-spirited and reckless, the other refined and serious with a good sense of humor. Both are trying pretty hard to make romance work with two beautiful ladies. Both wear comically large santa hats in the finale.

And that’s really the entire point and an argument that modern audiences are already used to hearing. There are some serious issues with the movie – no depth, random placement of musical numbers, a nearly non-existent plot that gets stretched out. However, the movie is still wildly entertaining. To quote half of the commenters for Neil’s Transformers 2 review, “They weren’t trying to make Hamlet here.” [Spelling corrected]

It’s a fun movie that will probably wash right out of your memory as quickly as new fallen snow, but with some attractive people oozing charisma and performing some great Irving Berlin music while carrying out a funny, heartfelt task, the movie remains a fantastic entry into the holiday library.

And for film buffs who care about this sort of thing, White Christmas is the first film to ever use VistaVision – one of the original Hi-Def 35mm variants. I know, I know. It’s no Cinerama. But it was still game changing.

I grew up watching this movie with my mother, and it became a sort of tradition during the holidays. Although, I admit that I had trouble relating to it considering it had never snowed growing up on the beaches of sunny Texas. Still, White Christmas lies in that realm of filmmaking that won’t challenge the audience at all, won’t make them think, won’t display any greater human truths, but is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. It’s better than Thanksgiving, and if you really want an interesting afternoon, double feature it with the original Black Christmas.

Old Ass Movies: Duck Soup

Dr. Cole Abaius — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:14:30 +0000

Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Duck Soup (1933)

Duck Soup may be the funniest movie of all time. It deals with war, politics, fear, corruption – and it does so without taking any of it seriously. Not in the slightest.

But unfortunately, I really won’t be able to talk about it.

The reason for this is because the comedy is incredible experiential. Like a comic strip, the value of it can’t simply be read to a person and be expected to translate at all. I wish I could share with you each scene, but it’s something that stumbles off the screen and lands flat on its face right into a cream pie. Something you just have to see and laugh at yourself.

It is, in my humble opinion, the funniest offering from the Marx Brothers ever to be filmed. It’s also the last film they did for Paramount and the last film they did with all four of them being featured. Groucho takes top billing as usual as Rufus T. Firefly, the over-eager ruler of a failing nation called Freedonia (financed by the wealthy, easily romanced Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont). The neighboring ruler sends over the hapless spies Pinky (Harpo) and Chicolini (Chico) while Zeppo plays a dashing Lieutenant in the military.

None of this movie makes any sense at all. It pivots from scene to scene with little concern with how anything in the real world works. Ultimately, most set ups are built just to have a butt of the joke be hammered home by the outlandish absurdity of Groucho. These scenes are usually immediately followed by Harpo annoying Groucho by cutting his tie in half, answering his phone (despite never speaking) and generally running amok. It’s controlled chaos, and it works brilliantly. In the hands of lesser comedians, it would all seem random, but they infuse a preternatural likability into each character so that instead of ending up with your eyebrow raised, you end up rolling on the floor with laughter with your eyebrow raised.

First of all, Groucho gets away with saying the most offensive things to people because he’s slick, and they usually can’t understand half the words that are coming out of that rapid-fire mouth. Second of all, Harpo and Chico make a phenomenal comic duo and go through the ropes stealing a competing street vendor’s hat repeatedly (until the light it on fire) until they are tapped by the government to be top notch spies. Some would call this a satire on war and politics (especially since it’s huge fight at the end predates the great, missing pie fight scene that should have been in Dr. Strangelove) but I’m pretty sure it’s just anarchy that happens in the governmental halls. They really could have set this anywhere, but sending up the self-importance of politicians is too much a draw to refuse it.

Of course, Zeppo – the most talented of the group who could do everyone else’s parts at a moment’s notice – relegates himself to playing a dashing figure that never gets to make a joke.

Beyond the humor, Chico proves his incredible piano talent and Harpo displays some killer harp strumming. This sort of thing sounds completely foreign to a modern audience, but they work perfectly for a group that came straight out of Vaudeville. They wanted to display their comic chops, their slapstick, and their high art of music. If that doesn’t make sense to you, great. Because the whole damned film won’t make any anyway.

However, you will recognize at least one comic bit that made its way into a lot of other shows and movies – a bit where Chico pretends to be Groucho, using the doorway as a mirror and moving exactly how Groucho moves until the punch line of the site gag. It’s something that has been copied over and over again, and it all started here.

Beyond innovation, the “war” at the end of the film might be the funniest thing ever committed to celluloid. Groucho ends up in no fewer than 7 different costumes that seem to materialize at random (from the Civil War era to Boy Scout uniforms to Coonskin caps). In college, I watched this film maybe 100 times or so, and for some reason, my friends James and Aaron and I could never finish it because we would lose our minds during a portion of the fight where Groucho gets his head stuck in a large jar. He screams out, they try to pry it off of him, and the scene cuts away to more fighting. When the shot jumps back, someone’s drawn Groucho’s face on the outside of the jar as a quick, easy solution.

For some reason, this makes me lose it every time.

But like I said, I can’t explain it to you. It’s just something you have to see for yourself.

Old Ass Movies: North By Northwest

Dr. Cole Abaius — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:59:22 +0000

Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

North By Northwest (1959)

I swore when I started this column that I would do my best to protect you, the dear reader, from my incessant love of Alfred Hitchcock and his films. I’ve probably failed at this considering that I’ve still covered a lot of his movies, but with the release of North By Northwest on Blu-ray and the fact that it’s my favorite Hitchcock film, I can’t avoid it any longer.

Everything about this movie is beyond perfection.

Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken by a group of spies for a CIA agent who may have committed murder. While searching for the real agent, Thornhill meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who both protects him and gets him deeper into trouble.

For starter’s, the script by Ernest Lehman about a tragic case of mistaken identity is top notch, a tight thriller that’s rooted in humor and the sexual tension between a man and a woman. It’s got the rapid-fire dialog that was a trademark of classic Hollywood, that back and forth of metaphors and lines that mean two or three things at once. It’s the kind of writing that allows for Eve Kendall to let Thornhill know she wants sex by telling him she doesn’t talk about love on his empty stomach. It’s the kind of writing that shows up decades later and makes it ten times cooler when Han Solo says, “I know,” in response to Leia’s declaration of love.

But the words are given life on the screen by some phenomenal actors. Not only are Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau and James Mason fantastic in their roles, they are fantastic together. That’s the difference between a great film and a brilliant one. Placing talent in a movie with a great script is a no-brainer, but if those actors don’t have the right chemistry, the recipe doesn’t quite work and the movie comes out flat – working against serious expectations. North By Northwest leaps far beyond any expectations that could have been built by the names on the screen – delivering a fascinating, riveting story from ultra-well known entities who disappear into their roles.

The visuals are breathtaking. That goes without saying. Whether it’s the heights of Mount Rushmore, shots from directly above the earth that look like moving art deco, the iconic crop-dusting sequence, or the intimate body shots of Grant and Saint – it’s all done so carefully, so respectfully. Hitch and frequent collaborator Robert Burks as cinematographer build 24 pieces of high art per second.

For your ear drums, Bernard Herrmann makes what might be the greatest film score of all time. At points it seems to be swirling a martini and in others it represents the dark fear only seen in the pupils of a woman about to be thrown off a cliff. Sweeping and dark, constantly elevating every scene and nuance, the music here works on its own in your living room (or for a very strange dinner party) as well as it does on screen.

And, of course, the hand that ties it all together is Hitchcock – unabashedly my favorite director of all time. The man is unmatched in his ability to tell the audience everything they need (as beautifully as possible) without letting any of the main characters know. He tells us about the bomb while the characters talk baseball. It’s filmmaking as an art that has somehow died in modern times – the ability to give everything away and still keep an audience on the edge of the seat. The gun is loaded. It’s in the hands of the villain. It’s ours to watch until it goes off.

Over all, a genius filmmaker working with the best source material, the best talent, and the best visual and sonic storytellers of the time turns out to create one of the most memorable movies of all time. If you haven’t seen it, go see it immediately.

OAM + 31 Days of Horror: Dead of Night

Jim Rohner — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:00:41 +0000

Dead of Night (1945)

Synopsis: A group of six friends gathers together one afternoon in a cottage in the English country side. Walter Craig (Mervyn Jones) shows up to consult with the owner about restoring the aging abode, but is taken about when he realizes he’s met all the guests before – in a recurring dream. He can’t recall details of the dream, but he feels a terrible foreboding that it ends in horror. His claims of clairvoyance spur a discussion amongst the group about the probability of the paranormal, with everyone, including the skeptical Dr. Van Straaten (Frederick Valk), recalling their own personal experiences with things they can’t explain.

Killer Scene: Seeing as Dead of Night is an anthology film made up of five separate stories within one larger framework, there are many memorable and sufficiently frightening images worth mentioning. However, the sequence that stands head and shoulders above the rest has to be the film’s climax in which Walter Craig, experiencing a pastiche nightmare involving images from all the previously told tales, finds himself face-to-face with Hugo, a ventriloquist dummy that opens its eyes, addresses Walter then rises to walk over and strangle Walter as a group of evil-looking onlookers cackle evilly.

KillSheet

Violence: The body count for the film tops out at two – one by strangulation and one by suicide by drowning – and there are a grand total of three physical blows, though one is a slap across the face of a dummy. None of them are gory – it was the 1940’s after all.

Sex: Though the young Sally O’Hara (Sally Ann Howes) is attractive in a girl nextdoor sort of way, this film is about as sexy as a Quaker meeting.

Scares: Completely devoid of jump scares, Dead of Night provides sufficiently creepiness through its ominous atmosphere and some truly frightening images.

Final Thoughts: Before Trick ‘r Treat, before Creepshow, before any other horror anthology you’ve probably ever seen, Dead of Night set the standard for how horror anthologies should properly play out. What allows it to work despite no blood, no sex and no jump scares is the skillful writing that builds the foreboding dread with its intelligent structure. The first tale, about a race car driver’s vision that allows him to avoid his own demise in bus accident, is a benevolent paranormal occurrence. But as they go along, the tales get more and more ill-fated and evil until the film’s self-prophecying and borderline nihilistic conclusion. Also, no matter how many times I see it, stories involving talking dummies never ceases to give me the heebie jeebies.

OAM + 31 Days of Horror: Blood of the Vampire

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:17:07 +0000

Every Sunday in October, Film School Rejects presents a horror film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies and 31 Days of Horror team up to present:

Blood of the Vampire (1958)

Synopsis: In what totally isn’t a vampire movie, Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball) is sent to prison for doing a blood transfusion (an illegal practice in the 19th century) where he starts working for the mad scientist Callistratus (Donald Wolfit). Callistratus has his own sorted past with blood – notably that he was actually staked through the heart as a vampire and only remains alive through the blood experiments he’s done and a sweet new heart. Luckily, he’s got a ton of prisoners to kill and steal the red stuff from.

Killer Scene: Although there are several great scenes, the opening is probably the best at creating the tone for the rest of the movie. In a suggestively shot ritual, an older man and an executioner (complete with sledge hammer and black death mask) ram a stake into a motionless body. It all happens off camera until the title scene pops up amidst the blood-covered stake and chest cavity. Cue the dramatic music, we’re ready to get this damned thing on its way.

KillSheet

Violence: There isn’t all that much violence, although Callistratus does take several prisoners in to experiment on, and there’s a decent amount of technicolor blood. Oh, and a guy slaps another guy. That totally counts.

Sex: Unfortunately for fans, Karl The One-eyed Hunchback does not get naked. But Barbara Shelley (who appears later in Village of the Damned) is gorgeously buxom.

Scares: The scares present here are almost all atmospheric and sadly dated, but Karl is sufficiently creepy, and the situation demands a daring escape complete with great dramatic tension.

Final Thoughts: I have a feeling that a movie like this will please everyone. Some people will laugh at how easily they can mock it, and the others will enjoy it on its own merit. It’s essentially a non-Hammer-made Hammer film that has about the same production value and a similar storyline. A familiar storyline for classic horror fans that seems to work every single time. It’s grotesque at times, but it’s more like an action adventure that just happens to feature the classic Mad Scientist figure (with the vampiric need for blood thrown in as a clever twist of the phrase). For hunchback fans and blood-spilling enthusiasts, it’s definitely a fun detour back in time to see what was scaring people in the late 50s.

Old Ass Movies: The Delightful Racism of ‘Song of the South’

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:07:10 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Walt Disney’s Song of the South (1946)

Last night I got into a discussion with fellow Reject Brian Salisbury about how having a character with a southern accent in a movie puts you at an inherent disadvantage. Even if the accent is done well, it still seems cartoonish and silly. For the record, Brian disagrees, which should lead to a duel of epic proportions or at least a discussion in cultural sensitivity, but ultimately the Makers Mark-fueled verbal fisticuffs made me think about a classic film that gets almost no recognition.

That’s because Song of the South isn’t a great movie.

Normally I’d be selling you on how an ancient movie is still enjoyable today or that a modern audience can still be moved by pictures made over half a century ago, but I’m not so sure Song of the South really deserves all that much praise for its own artistic merit. Sure, it’s become a cultural touchstone. It was the first true live-action film created by Disney, it shared a group of stories with a new generation, it launched an amusement park ride where you sit in a plastic log and splash water over people standing on a nearby bridge. This triumph cannot be ignored.

But still, the movie itself isn’t all that moving or impressive. It’s not bad by any means – it’s a strange sort of yarn about a young boy named Johnny who is visiting his grandmother’s plantation during a period of marital strife between his parents. After running away, he meets Uncle Remus, the kindly old storyteller that can weave a morality tale out of any situation. Those stories involve the cunning Br’er (Brother) Rabbit, the ruthlessly hungry Br’er Fox, and the functionally retarded Br’er Bear. The latter villains continually try to eat the former, but he has to use his brain to get out of trouble.

Remus is basically a slave incarnation of Aesop with his fables or Jean de La Fontaine with his poems written in that impossible gibberish language that some call “French.” The most famous of those stories is one of Br’er Fox’s ingenious use of a human-shaped bit of tar to trap Br’er Rabbit in a literal sticky situation. Br’er Rabbit uses reverse psychology to get out of it, and the little children learn that lying to bullies is totally fine. Strangely, there’s no story about Br’er Rabbit’s parents getting a divorce and him having to deal with it.

However, there are only three true morality stories in the entire film. The bulk of the movie involves Johnny’s friendships on the farm, his run-ins with the two bullies down the road and his mother’s growing frustration with Uncle Remus and his nonsense tales.

The film is set shortly after the end of the Civil War, but the stereotypes are still alive and well in the Deep South that we’re singing about. Perhaps the main problem is that the source material comes from Joel Chandler Harris – a well-known apologist for slavery and a controversial figure that either shared black culture with the world or stole it to gain his own fame depending on how you look at it. Perhaps that’s the issue, but the far more obvious one is that the view of black relations during the time is a fantasy land which displays the former slaves happily singing and laughing and smiling their days on the farm away. It gives a ridiculously idyllic look at servitude-post-slavery while saddling all of the black characters with laughable dialects. Uncle Remus himself is a patronizing portrayal of an Uncle Tom figure that would make Michael Bay’s Skids and Mudflap blush, and once you hear the accents of Br’er Rabbit and his animated pals, you’ll probably be left wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Coincidentally, it’s difficult to sing “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” when you’re slack-jawed. Trust me. I’ve tried.

So why watch it? Because it’s not without elements to celebrate and because it holds a special place in history. It’s a lens into the past of race relations that we’d do well not to forget. Plus, it’s controversial because it creates differing opinions – there are many who feel that the cartoon is harmless and not at all racist. Still others feel that the stereotypes used within it aren’t necessarily harmless. As a cultural landmark, it’s important to see for yourself which side you fall on.

You also might simply want to be aware of the context of singing the Academy Award-winning “Plenty of sunshine coming my way!/Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Zip-a-dee-yay!” while riding Splash Mountain at Disneyland.

Song of the South is an average film that Walt Disney seemed obsessed with creating. The technological advance with blending animation and live-action was a turning point, and Disney was finally able to bring the Uncle Remus character to life in the only way he saw fit: as a real life actor, not as a drawing. If you’re looking for a Disney film from before 1960, there are many superior choices, but none that have the outer cultural importance or impact of this film. In fact, Disney has never released the full movie on video for the United States although several other countries have their PAL encoded versions ready to be purchased for your all-region DVD player. You can also see the entire film on Youtube if you don’t mind seeing it in ten minute segments.

There may be more manifest reason to watch the film (instead of just enjoying it as a movie), but it still stands as a strange entry into a gray area in our country’s history, a time when we were still struggling to understand each other on the most basic of levels, a time almost a century beyond slavery but still decades before the Civil Rights movement. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see what one of the most beloved film companies of all time considered completely acceptable entertainment for the time while questioning whether we can find it actual or satisfactual.

My, oh my, what a wonderful day.

Check out more Old Ass Movies.

Old Ass Movies: Escape ‘Stalag 17′

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:17:47 +0000

Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Stalag 17 (1953)

Stalag 17 begins with an escape from the tightly controlled Luftwaffe prison camp during the last year of WWII. As the two men snake their way through a tunnel, it’s a little too easy for the Germans to find them and fill them full of bullets. The meaning is clear. There’s a rat amongst our heroes.

The members of Barracks 17 live out a day-to-day life in the Nazi prisoner camp while attempting to discover an informant in their midst and plan for their next escape attempt. There’s Price (Peter Graves), the dashing security officer; Sefton (William Holden), the standoffish asshole who openly barters with the enemy for goods; Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) and Animal (Robert Strauss), the comedic pair that plot entrance to the women’s camp and never seem to take anything seriously; Dunbar (Don Taylor), the infinitely likable Lieutenant who continually gives the Nazis hell; and a host of other figures that inject their own personalities into the crew.

I’m not going to deny the fact that The Great Escape may be a better movie. I don’t know – I tend not to worry about those types of qualifications when we’re talking about this level of filmmaking. Questioning whether one is more perfect than the other is a difficult game, but I can say for certain that if you loved The Great Escape, you’ll fall equally in love with Stalag 17. In fact, there’s a decent chance that the production behind Escape may have learned a few things from Stalag considering it came out a decade before.

The most notable difference is a lack of known faces – but therein lies the brilliance of a film more populated by characters than personalities. Without the burden of stardom (except for William Holden), the actors sink down deep into the roles and prove to be an incredible mixture of cheerfulness in the face of destitution and anger in the face of corruption and betrayal. What could have easily become a dark drama about prisoners of war is infused with humor and humanity (alongside the urgency of escape).

There’s obviously a Men on a Mission situation here, and it’s presented flawlessly with the sort of intrigue and complexity you’d expect from the death trap of a Nazi POW camp. No one is ever really safe. Still, there is just enough wiggle room between the rules (and enough wiggle room in all the rules they seek to undermine outright) that the characters can really have fun with each other in the face of terrible food, awful conditions and no sign of rescue.

In fact, it’s the lack of rescue that drives the plot – most of the men see it as their patriotic, military duty to try to escape so that the Nazi resources are wasted on them.

But more than that, every scene is memorable and either serves to build the story or to reveal more about characters that you’re quickly falling in love with. This is due almost entirely to the brilliant understanding of the human condition and direction of Billy Wilder (who we happen to be shining a spotlight on for the second week in a row). He’s masterful enough to build sequences where Animal daydreams about Betty Grable while admiring a pin-up hung over his bed, continue the gag by having Animal mistake his best friend Shapiro for Betty Grable in a hilarious, delusional misunderstanding, and play on all of that comedy to show how devastatingly depressed Animal really is. Wilder’s scenes can turn on a dime from intense celebration to the depths of despair – especially when dealing with characters who are, for the most part, putting on a brave face and laughing through hell.

In the same way, beyond the veil of displaying these men on camera, a mystery lurks in the background of who the informant is and how he’s passing information. Sefton, being the obvious suspect since he’s antisocial (and it’s believed he earns a few hours in the women’s barracks for snitching), is beaten badly by his fellow prisoners. Determined to find the real snitch and clear his name, Sefton begins seeking out the minor clues that lead him to discovering and outing the rat. In an inspired storytelling turn, even with the informant identified, it’s not certain whether the latest escape attempt will work or not. In fact, the odds are still against them in the form of attack dogs, razor wire and guards with guns.

As for the details, the score elevates the atmosphere and haunts the movie with that rousing rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again.” The song is used in multiple ways, either to display the likelihood that the men won’t be marching home, the joy of a triumph within the camp, and most ingeniously when Sefton clandestinely spots the real snitch passing information. It’s an intense song of loyalty set behind a scene of the utmost betrayal.

The other two small points that round of the perfection of this movie are 1) the casting of director Otto Preminger as the camp’s commandant Oberst von Scherbach and 2) the inclusion of German dialog without subtitles. In two moves that came long before Tarantino used them in Inglourious Basterds – Wilder decided to cast a known director in a co-starring role and to trust American audiences to catch the body language and context clues enough to allow German characters to speak their native tongue. Plus, the casting of Preminger (an Austrian Jew) as the evil Nazi commandant is an added bonus joke against the Nazis.

Over all, it’s not hyperbole to call this movie a masterpiece. It’s not only one of the best WWII movies out there, it’s also an enduring film in its own right that blends comedy, stark drama, light-heartedness and suspense together flawlessly with the utter cool of watching American prisoners get the best of the Nazis.

Old Ass Movies: Kill For the Money with ‘Double Indemnity’

Jim Rohner — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:00:28 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Double Indemnity (1944)

Where’s the love for Billy Wilder? In discussions about the greatest film directors of all time, you’ll hear all the usual suspects – Coppola, Godard, Scorsese, Kurosawa, Spielberg – but I bet you most people will neglect to mention Wilder in their first ten responses, if they even mention him at all. That’s a damn shame. If ever there was an underrated director who deserved lavish praise, it’s Wilder. Spanning a career in which he was active as a writer for five decades and a director for almost four, the Polish-born filmmaker accumulated 6 Oscar wins and 21 nominations. That’s more wins than Coppola (5), Spielberg (3), and Clint Eastwood (4) and more nominations than Coppola (14), Stanley Kubrick (13), Scorsese (8) and both Joel and Ethan Coen combined (16).

But maybe accolades aren’t your cup of tea. Maybe you’re more interested in a film’s staying power. Well, maybe you realize it, maybe you don’t, but some of Wilder’s creations are still being referenced in films and pop culture today. Where do you think the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe futilely trying to hold down her white dress over a steam vent originated? (The Seven Year Itch, 1955). Who do you think wrote the oft-quoted line, “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille?” (Sunset Boulevard, 1950). Personally, I love Billy Wilder because he did whatever the hell he wanted to do, did it well, and did it all while working inside an often oppressive Hollywood system. Wilder utilized both his position in the industry and his skillful craft to hold a mirror up to society and reveal its ills and it was Double Indemnity, his first flirtation with Oscar gold as a director, in which he showed how observant and scathing a social critic he could be.

Double Indemnity follows Walter Neff (Fred McMurray), an insurance salesman at Pacific All Risk, as he falls for disgruntled housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). What begins as a standard sales visit about car insurance renewal, slowly builds piece by piece into a tale of infatuation, intrigue and murder. The consummate expert, Neff devises a scheme in which he can connive Mr. Dietrichson to unknowingly sign a life insurance policy with a double indemnity clause that will guarantee $100,000 to his wife upon his death. And at Neff’s hands, die he does. However, no murder is a perfect murder and the fumbles that both conspirators commit don’t escape the attention of Neff’s colleague, Walter Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of insurance claims and a flawless talent at sniffing out fraud. As carefully as the scheme was built, piece by piece it begins to come apart until, as Neff confesses, “I killed him for money – and a woman – and I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty isn’t it?”

Though Double Indemnity was his first foray into film noir, Wilder nailed every essential element of the distinctive genre. The plot, based on a novel by James M. Cain, is a hard-boiled thriller that weaves an engaging story with each passing scene. The film boasts the strongest performance of Fred MacMurray’s career, who emotes lust, treachery, conflict and remorse better with his eyes than most actors do today with their entire bodies. Keep in mind, this is the actor who would later go on to star in such family-friendly films as The Shaggy Dog and The Absent Minded Professor. This casting off type is yet another example of Wilder playing by his own rules; a tactic doubly successful with hot-headed gangster type Robinson (Little Rico) playing the voice of emotionless logic. The film has the stark, contrast lighting (courtesy of 7-time Oscar nominee John F. Seitz) and razor sharp dialog (”She was a tramp from a long line of tramps”) one would expect from noir and, perhaps most importantly, an intoxicating and sadistic femme fetale. Show me a man who doesn’t think Barbara Stanwyck is sexy in every frame of this film and I’ll show you a liar.

It’s apropos that Wilder pulled off a genre with such a socially pessimistic worldview as it’s the perfect vehicle for his commentary on the dehumanizing world he saw around him – specifically, the world of Hollywood, California. To begin with, what better profession could our protagonist work in then insurance where the individuality of people is stripped away and categorized into facts and figures? (Interestingly, it’s rumored that the bland, hive-like look of the Pacific All Risk office was modeled after the interior of Paramount Pictures, the studio that produced the film). The walls of Keyes’s office are covered with charts and graphs and facts and figures and in one revealing scene he goes off on a long rant about the mind-boggling plethora of suicide categories Pacific All Risk has on file: “…Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poison, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps…” Further still, while we’re given enough information to know that Mr. Dietrichson was not an admirable fellow, we never even learn his first name. What we do know, and what’s repeated multiple times, is the amount of money his wife will receive upon his death. Dietrichson’s identity, further still, his worth, becomes completely determined by a dollar value.

There’s a lot of talk about anonymity and a removed approach to events within the film. Neff likens his inciting the events to a machine, saying “there was no stopping it now” and “the gears had meshed” and the way Keyes describes murder is as a train that two people take all the way to the end of the line. This implies there are not unique individuals involved, but just pieces of a larger, colder institution. When Dietrichson is killed, the act occurs off camera, with a stationery shot on Phyllis’s face as she stares ahead with a blank, almost robotic expression. Elaborating on this point, there are multiple scenes in the film in which characters go into public places in order to be alone. To collect his thoughts, Neff goes to a bowling alley, probably one of the louder environments one could find oneself in, and when he and Phyllis want to discuss the details of their scheme, they meet in a grocery store – the one place where every citizen of every race, color and creed NEEDS to go to consume. While Neff and Phyllis are concerned about murder and insurance claims, the customers around them are concerned with how high baby food is on the shelf. No people. Just products. Humorous, though, that within that one locale, everyone is concerned about money and what it will get them.

In many ways, it would seem as though the California environment has dehumanized Neff, Phyllis and those around them. As a machine performs one continuous task, Double Indemnity leads us to believe that if it wasn’t Neff, it would be another man, then possibly another and another and on and on for Phyllis Dietrichson. Maybe Neff was just a cog in a machine, a tool, a means to an end. Maybe in Hollywood, that’s what everybody is. Wilder certainly seemed to think so.

Old Ass Movies: Know the Horror of ‘I Walked with a Zombie’

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:18:50 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

I realize it’s been a few weeks since OAM has been in hiding, waiting around the corner to pounce on its latest victim, so I figured it was a great idea to come back from the break by taking a look at a fantastic example of 40s era suspense while Halloween 2: The Second 2 and The Final Destination are in theaters.

If anything, it should give you a solid alternative.

In 1942, the team of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur released the horror film Cat People – one of the most famous horror films to date. The next year they would deliver I Walked with a Zombie, a gripping tale told in the similar trademark suspenseful style which used light and shadow instead of a lot of special effects. The story itself – which borrows a bit from the scary-in-its-own-right “Jane Eyre” – is about young nurse Betsy (Frances Dee) who heads to the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian to look after the comatose wife (Christine Gordon) of a major plantation owner named Holland (Tom Conway). In trying to cure her, Betsy becomes convinced that she’s under a voodoo spell set upon her by the slaves of the island.

While not a horror film in any strict sense of the term, I Walked with a Zombie is scary as hell. Tourneur gets away with murder by placing his audiences on the edge of their seats by barely doing anything at all on screen. A certain look from an actor, a suggestive small bit of dialog, and the right setting and all of the sudden you realize that your heart is racing.

At the beginning of the film, Betsy admires the beauty and splendor of the Caribbean as she sails for her new home, but Holland assures her (and the audience) that everything she sees is truly ghastly. The majestic flying fish that soar through the air and back down into the water? They are jumping in terror for their lives. The bright luminescence of the ocean in the late afternoon? It’s sparkle comes from thousands of dead bodies. What was once an idyllic land of beauty and sun-drenched days lounging on the sand is made to be what it really is – a brutal sweat lodge where the nightmarish visions are all real.

Be warned, though. To dive deep into this movie, you’ll have to throw out your preconceived notions about what makes a horror film and particularly what makes a zombie movie. This flick was made long before Romero called “Action!” so it doesn’t involve the brain-starved masses of former-humans endlessly lumbering toward you. What it does involve is a dark, haunting story punctuated by fevered scenes of action and some frightening voodoo-style zombies.

The most famous of all scenes is perhaps one where the afflicted Jessica and nurse Betsy make their way through the cane field amidst a host of animal sacrifices and other stomach-turning rituals being performed in the secret of the night. The tension builds until both women emerge from the cane below the intense visage of the slave zombie Carre-Four (Darby Jones) who does more to make you lose sleep at night by standing still and staring than most horror flick villains do with a bloodied knife or a witty bit of threatening dialog (think The Tall Man from Phantasm if he was huge, black, and had the empty eyes of a zombie).

Of course the true brilliance of the film is the number of sides and alliances being made, the things left unsaid, and the stories behind the main story. Their are surprises around every corner – who the head witch doctor on the island really is, the true nature of why Jessica fell ill in the first place, and of course there’s the racial tension that builds between the slaves of the island and the plantation owners. All of it is scary, but it’s scary because its born from human failings. Greed, lust, envy. The movie focuses on the very real, very wicked reality of human nature and somehow manages to make you believe in witchcraft and voodoo along the way. Stabbing a knife into a young woman to find out if she’ll bleed is a hell of a way to get the audience believing in spirits.

Along the way, Betsy begins to fall in love with Holland and faces the conflict of genuinely wanting to cure his wife which means working against her own interests no matter what she does. If she fails to cure her patient, she’ll be free to love Holland, but she won’t be able to live with herself. But would she be able to live without the man she loves? Luckily for her, and the audience, the twists and turns of the story mean that no one is safe from these sorts of moral dilemmas looming large over their head and keeping them as slaves to the darker sides of their humanity.

I Walked with a Zombie is a movie that will form beads of sweat on your forehead without you realizing it. It’s atmospheric, and Tourneur is a master of making you fill in the gaps with your own vivid, blood-curdling imagination. By five minutes in you’ll start to feel something creepy is going on in the heat of the Caribbean. Within ten, it’ll become dark and sinister, and soon you’ll be overcome with a feeling of dread as you realize that the lives of the people on screen are doomed – whether they live, die, or live again.

Forgive the corny factor going on here in the true style of the 1940s Chills, Spills, Thrills trailer and check out the advertisement that had audiences flocking to theaters in 1943:

Acquaint Yourself With ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’

Loukas Tsouknidas — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:42:49 +0000

Back in the day, I remember watching a very funny play brought on stage by an amateur theater workshop during a University students’ festival. For years I couldn’t recall the title or any particular detail other than the fun I had as part of the audience. Then I kind of stumbled upon a movie called The Man Who Came to Dinner. It was based on the play I was looking for and I had as much fun watching it as that time in the theater.

Radio celebrity Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Wooley) arrives in a small town in Ohio called Messalia, where he’s invited to dinner by the Stanleys, a local wealthy family. As he goes up the icy stairs, he slips and falls on his hip. After he’s treated by a doctor that advises him to stay on a wheelchair for at least ten days, Mr. Whiteside lets Mr Stanley know that he’s being sued for a good amount of money and his house is being occupated. He then goes on applying his own rules to the household, getting hold of the phone, the living room, the dining room, the library and the stuff. Along the way he receives a bunch of weird guests, gifts and packages and messes with the family’s business running everybody crazy. Meanwhile his trustful secretary Maggie Cutler (Bette Davies), falls in love with the local newspaperman Burt Jefferson. Sheridan can’t afford to lose Maggie so he brings in actress Lorraine Sheldon (Ann Sheridan) to seduce Burt away. But after a couple of other colorful celebrity friends step in, his plan results to even more mix-up…

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s broadway play, inspired by the real-life critic Alexander Woollcott’s temperamental personality, is brought to the big screen by William Keighley in a very uncolorful way. It never draws away from its stage origins and it always feels like a play, especially when people frenetically come in and out of the multiple entrances to the house’s main hall. It’s filled up with punch-line dialogue and brief gag-like action, relying mostly on its actors’ skills and its sarcasm to keep us amused. Other than a few moments of outdoors action, most of the film takes place in that hall which at times feels too crowded and others too empty. And like in a play there’s no sense of real time as people and packages fly in from all parts of the US in an absurd pace or characters barge in the house anytime they like, as if they’re all living next door. So, it comes off as a mediocre, timid attempt to make a movie out of a successful stage play, one that compromises the new medium and adds nothing more visually to an already amusing script. Except maybe Jimmy Durante.

Durante plays Banjo -a character based on Harpo Marx- the comedian friend of Sheridan and Maggie’s who busts in the Stanleys’ house with his extroverted personality and his rambunctious sense of humor to give an important relief to the tragedy that’s been building before his arrival. It’s a memorable appearance that shakes things up just when they become a bit melodramatic and Sheridan’s sarcasm ceases to be amusing.

As i said before, this is an actors’ movie. Monty Wooley is excellent as Sheridan Whiteside, a part he knew very well since he also played it on stage. He commands attention every time he talks and he manages to stay likable besides his bloated ego and his misanthropic treating of his less than charismatic hosts. On the other hand, Maggie is romantic, a secretary who’s a guest to the celebrity world and she clearly understands it. Her love for Burt is the bail-out she was waiting for, but she has to fight for it. Bette Davies portrays her in a low-key manner, turning from a known star to a character-actress with no strain at all. As opposed of course, to the glowing Ann Sheridan whose portrayal of Lorraine Sheldon demands that she looks and acts like a wanna-be star: empty, pompous and extremely self-involved. As for the others, Grant Mitchell is great as the pissed-off host-by-force Ernest Stanley, Reginald Gardiner throws in a nice caricature of a star playwright and Richard Travis is charming, though he seems a bit too overwhelmed in the part of local reporter Burt Jefferson.

Celebrity as a concept that’s unavoidably bloated is also timeless and Sheridan Whiteside with his friends never cease to remind us that they come from another world where a bloated ego is the norm whether you believe in it or you make a cartoon out of it. Hart and Kaufman exploit their personal knowledge of such a pompous celebrity’s antics and create an absurd and extreme comedy based on a relatively implausible setting. The outcome is funny, amusing and keeps a pace high enough to avoid getting boring while the witty dialogues make the talky script extremely entertaining.

The Man Who Came to Dinner is not a great movie, but it’s an adequate film version of a great play and the best way to enjoy it instead of waiting for it to come to a stage near you. Plus, it features Wooley, the original Sheridan Whiteside of the Broadway hit.

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Mourn Your Doomed Existence at the ‘Port of Shadows’

Loukas Tsouknidas — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:01:09 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Port of Shadows (1938)

Pre-war French cinema gave us, among other things, the poetic-realism school of aesthetics. The team of Jacques Prévert and Marcel Carné was the steady duo of that school, the poet and the director who made a bunch of memorable films together. One of those is Port of Shadows and it begins like this…

After a shot of a ship laying still in a foggy harbor, we see the headlights of a truck before zooming to the driver. Then, from the opposing view, a silhouette of a man appears in the dark. He turns around and facing the lights he demands for the truck to stop. He is Jean (Jean Gabin), a soldier who just got back from fighting in Tonkin, Indochina and is heading to the port of Le Havre. As they arrive Jean notices a dog passing in the truck’s way. He grabs the wheel and turns suddenly, saving the dog but pulling the truck off the main road, having the angry driver demand an explanation. They go outside to pick a fight but Jean calms down and asks for a cigarette. When the driver says he thought he’d pull out a gun, the shot closes up on Gabin’s weary face as he gives a short speech, butt in mouth, over how weird it feels to draw and shoot a living person. He then shakes hands with the man and marches to the port. After a few steps in the damp night he notices a dog following him, the same dog he saved from the truck. He ignores him at first but soon, he drives him off with a stone. Later in the film someone asks him if he doesn’t like dogs. “I don’t like anyone looking for a master,” he declares.

What happens in this movie in terms of plot isn’t nearly as important as the main character and his doomed fate. Jean is an army-deserter, as we understand, trying to find a way out. Where better than a port. On the way, the more he tries to avoid people, the more they bump into him – making their stories a part of his. He meets a kind drunk who takes him to a hospitable shack by the sea where he finds some rest and food. There, he meets the host, a man blabbering about the days he spent in Panama, a suicidal painter blabbering about the futility in life and a beautiful teenage girl, Nelly (Michèle Morgan) to whom he blabbers about love. He almost encounters the other two significant characters, a local storekeeper named Zabel (Michel Simon) and a local gangster named Lucien (Pierre Brasseur) as they are both driven off the shack by Panama and his gun. We learn about a crime that has probably taken place, a guy named Maurice is missing, Lucien is after Zabel for some papers and Nelly is hiding from someone.

But all this implied drama is just the background for Jean’s rise and fall, his finding a moment of happiness only to lose it in a shocking way. “Do you love life?” the painter asks him. “It has its moments,” the soldier replies while looking at Nelly. “Does life love you?” the man comes back. “It’s been rotten to me so far, but maybe she’ll change, since I love her,” Jean says with his signature hardheadedness and his reflexive optimism.

Jacques Prévert, the surrealist poet and steady collaborator of Marcel Carné’s, wrote this script based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan. He builds every character as a reflection on Jean’s stranger, the mysterious but likable, the self-confident but withdrawn, the misanthrope but capable of great love. Each one of them has his own moments to throw a short speech or a quotation. The dialogue is full of such memorable exchanges of words, like the ones I cited above. Since people don’t really talk that way, it feels crafted, but it’s pleasurable. Jean walks around, hands in pockets, trying to mind his own business but his path is constantly blocked by trouble. It’s as if, while he knows nobody in this forsaken port-town, they all have been expecting him in a way, to help him fulfill his fate. Totally ignorant of the greater trap and as the dog becomes his shadow, Jean follows his gut and tries his doomed escape while we root for him, sucked in by his personality and appalled by the possibility of an unhappy ending.

Jean Gabin is remarkable and hauntingly familiar as Jean, and his romance with the beautiful Michèle Morgan works like a charm. Pierre Brasseur is a bit over the top in the role of the cowardly small-town gangster but Michel Simon paints a very low-profile, inconveniently slimy villain. Along with the rest, they all feel like a group of caricatures, surrounding the main character preventing him from being invisible.

Marcel Carné’s narration of Prévert’s story is very clear and never lets Jean out of its attention. Nevertheless, he introduces the secondary characters one by one in a careful manner, never failing to accentuate their significance in moving the plot forward. His image of Le Havre, is that of a very limited town where a stranger can’t visit but a few places, and only the footage of the large cargo ships provide some hope towards something greater. The atmosphere looks dumpy and artificially lit, as the photography doesn’t rely on heavy contrast but blends all shades of gray leading to a dull result, while some backgrounds look like they could have been painted.

Port of Shadows is one of those films that had a great influence on the film-noir genre which became so popular for a couple of decades later. Even if it’s a lot more romantic, which makes it feel kind of dated, Port of Shadows plays like a song to which you know the words and the ending, but find yourself humming it over and over again.

Discover the Classic Adventure of ‘Beau Geste’

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:18:35 +0000

Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Beau Geste (1939)

I can’t imagine that when P.C. Wren wrote his adventure novel way back in 1924 that he could imagine the war movies of today. In fact, I’m guessing people of the day couldn’t even imagine the sort of fire power that would go into modern wars themselves. The high tech bombs, the type of precision fighting that takes place, the almost complete lack of horses. Still, the allure of the wars of older times is still strong. There’s a romanticism there applied to looking at a world where men on horseback fire pistols and rifles up at garrison walls.

For that, Beau Geste has the attributes of a pure adventure story. Directed by William A. Wellman (who has one of the more difficult names to say in classic Hollywood), it tells the story of three brothers who are all separately accused of stealing their Aunt’s prized sapphire before heading off to join the French Foreign Legion. Of course, joining the Foreign Legion means seeing a lot of your brothers die and getting shot at a ton by Arabs while attempting to hold down a fort. For some reason in this story, it also involves being under the command of a complete sadist that seems not to care about the lives of his men. He does seem to care about the stolen sapphire, though.

Oscar Award-winner Gary Cooper plays the title role as the brother with the most leadership qualities. Also-Oscar-winner Ray Milland plays the love-sick John with Robert Preston acting as Digby – a brother who seems simply happy to win the respect and inclusion from the other Geste boys.

Although the opening scenes are the height of cheesy when watched today (shots of the brothers as children lovingly playing together, growing up to speak like rich people who have never left their own estate), there’s still a sort of carefree attitude that’s appealing within all the characters, despite the fact that money is getting tighter and tighter every day. With that strife on the home front, the rest of the film makes up by creating an intense feeling of dread and action throughout the rest of the movie. The boys joining up with the fighting forces is a risk and a bit of dream fulfillment, but there’s very real danger, and their commanding officer Sgt. Markoff is as unforgiving as the desert itself.

The outfit encounters a harsh reality of defending an outpost in the Sahara, but the group can’t resist the temptation of mutiny for a man leading them that treats them so poorly. Thus, the Geste brothers have to deal with deadly threats from outside and within the walls of Fort Zinderneuf.

As an adventure, the movie delivers throughout, pausing the internal strife of the outfit with the screamingly loud attacks on the outpost. It’s also got a bit of a macabre feeling to it – especially two scenes. In one, Sgt. Markoff (played really callously by Brian Donlevy) tells the men to prop up their fallen brethren’s dead bodies in order to make it look like the fort has more defending her. In the second, Markoff makes all the men laugh one by one in order to make it appear as if seven are actually seventy. These sound like smart tactics for a tiny group of soldiers being constantly attacked, but the way Markoff goes about it is really, excruciatingly creepy for some reason. What might be a genius tactic in another movie because cruel and unusual punishment for his men.

In addition to the tense feeling of the film, the score is booming and severe during the fighting scenes followed classically by sweeping violins to signal the somber mood afterward. Plus, this is accompanied by the rapid-fire sound of gun shots in scenes where director Wellman wasn’t afraid to let bodies hit the floor.

Of course, on top of the war story is the mystery of what happened to the sapphire – another fantastic subplot that adds the film just slightly into the mystery genre while also being an Adventure, a War Movie, an Action Film, and a Drama. Balancing all of those factors is what gives this movie it’s epic feel – especially with the added benefit of being a story about courage and honor. The title (and the name of the main character) is actually the French phrase for “A good gesture,” and the Geste boys continually prove their honor even under the harshest of circumstances.

Over all, the movie is basically two fantastic actors delivering worthy performances in a story that has both beautiful character development and a ton of action. Some may have trouble with black and white, but those kind of people don’t deserve a great film like this. It seems like it might be difficult for people of the 1930s to wrap their minds around what modern war looks like, but it shouldn’t be hard for anyone of this age to connect with this flick – especially if they love action, adventure, and tales of honor.

Old Ass Movies: Go West With ‘The Ox-Bow Incident’

Loukas Tsouknidas — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:45:54 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

The Ox-Bow Incident is the story of a lynching that went right, but in the wrong way. Simple as an old man’s morality tale and painfully to the point, it covers a timeless debate concerning law, justice and the misconceptions they suffer in our hands and minds. William Wellman and Lamar Trotti’s film is frighteningly relevant and downright haunting at first sight.

Two regular cowboys, Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan) enter a shabby town somewhere in the wild west. Looking for a certain girl, whiskey and any kind of action they go to the only saloon around where they run into a couple of local ranchers and a general bad mood over the cattle-rustling raids that’s been plaguing the business lately. Carter and Croft are rare visitors therefore they amount to strangers when it comes to defending the community from outsiders. A man named Farnley makes it clear to them before engaging in a fight with Carter. Moments after that a hasty rider arrives with news of a rancher named Kinkaid having been killed by strangers, probably the same rustlers they all have been looking for. Despite the absence of the regular sheriff, the storekeeper’s plead to wait and do things by the name of the law and the judge’s demand to bring the suspects back for a fair trial, a triggerhappy posse is formed with a devious ex-military, Major Tetley, as the makeshift leader. As the peaceful-turned-vigilant townspeople ride into the night, Davies, the storekeeper, rides along while his assistant leaves to find the sheriff. Carter and Croft also follow, so that suspicion won’t fall on them. When the riders discover three men sleeping in the woods and a few of their pal’s livestock near them, a tragic farce begins in the name of justice…

Lamar Trotti’s script, based on the Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s novel by the same name, is extremely concise and never, but a few times, does it stray away from the point it wants to make. A point over the concept of law and justice, and the common man who hides personal responsibility behind that one of the mob or even the collective. When the three men, a young farmer named Donald Martin (Dana Andrews) and his hired hands, a cocky Mexican (Anthony Quinn) and a frightened old man, are captured and “properly” interrogated by Major Tetley the following conversation takes place: “You don’t believe me”, Martin concludes, making Tetley respond with a question, “Would you in my place?” “Well, i’d find out. I’d do a lot of finding out before hanging men who might be innocent.”, the soon to be executed replies in a raised, righteous voice. But the Major is rigid and pretty certain of his argument, “If it were only rustling maybe, but… but murder? No!” That’s exactly where the whole fault of the mob’s excuse and it’s misuse of the concept of justice lies. The law would do a lot more finding out for the same reason that these people don’t, and that’s the gravity of the accusation and the fatality of the consequent punishment.

But Major Tetley, despite of what happens in the end and the fact that he’s a figure despised by all his sudden peers alike, does not stand alone in misrepresenting justice for his own reasons. This is a mob and each and every one of its members has given consent to whatever happens and took refuge in the shadow of the collective responsibility. Farnley has probably the strongest reason to be angry as Kinkaid was his lifelong buddy, but the others either want action, to be part of a heroic justice keeping adventure the western fables rant about pompously or they have their own scores to settle. The Major for instance, who lends this lawless posse his big mouth and ambiguous military credentials, openly declares this as an opportunity to make a “man” out of his wimpy son which probably hides his eagerness to prove himself to a crowd that never thougth much of him or his blurred wartime background. Anyway, it’s more than clear in their selfishness and their self-assured swagger that these people don’t want justice, they want the taste of pure revenge, and never even having seen the dead body of the one they are getting it for, it makes their spine tickle even more.

In the middle of all this, a pretty unheroic hero is put, a man who’s as frustrated as the next, having lost his girlfriend to a slick big-city fellow but keeps that anger to himself or channels it through an honest fistfight now and then. Gil Carter, as he enters the saloon with his pal Art in the opening scene, sits at the bar and stares at the overhead painting. It features a woman lying on a bed while a man comes out of the shadow behind her, with eager eyes and his hand stretching out to her body. “Well..”, the bartender prompts for an order. “That guy’s awful slow getting there”, Gil remarks about the picture. Without looking up the barman adds, “I feel sorry for him. Always in reach, and never able to do anything about it.” “I got a feeling she could do better”, Gil replies with certainty only to get his claim rejected by the host, “You’re boastin’”. In this scene Trotti and Wellman introduce us to a character by the way he sees himself in a painting. The man emerging from the shadow is Carter himself, since as he, along with us, learns later in the film, lost the girl he was reaching out for and he lost her to someone better, in social terms. The reluctance that cost him his only love is the one that makes him numb, unable to reverse the outcome, in the farce-trial that follows. Henry Fonda is superb in this part, his eyes don’t just follow the action, they narrate it since he doesn’t talk much or even do what his swagger promises. It’s these eyes, that William Wellman hides in a much talked about last scene where Carter reads Martin’s letter to his wife aloud for the ashamed town’s people to hear, in the film’s only didactic moment –which nevertheless feels totally necessary.

There are a lot more things in the movie that one can recall, like a seemingly useless scene in the middle, where a carriage passes and misunderstands the posse for raiders. The driver shoots at them, almost killing Art before stopping and apologizing by throwing the fault at the night and their attacking stance. Or when Carter finds out about his girl and takes it out at Farnley, kicking him in the face with unprovoked strength. They all underline the main theme of misconceptions, rage and self-appointed righteousness conquering over the essence of justice. Besides Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, who has the most dramatic role, all the other cast members are equally great in their characterizations, and typical as they maybe, they still are people we know and understand their part in the farce we’re watching. Wellman’s direction is firm and low-key, with a few added moments of great camera movement and ironic mise-en-scene. Having a small budget to work with, his sets are all constructed, but the lighting never lets that become a nuisance and even adds to the stark atmosphere that is required.

This western movie begins with two guys entering a town on horseback and ends with two guys riding away. Still it’s nothing like any cowboy you’ve ever seen, it transcends the genre using it to tell a tale that’s relevant to all genres, times and places. The Ox-Bow Incident is a hell of an old ass movie.

Trip Out on ‘Fantasia’

Dr. Cole Abaius — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:22:28 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a film that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Fantasia (1940)

In 1938, Walt Disney made the incredibly foolish decision to try to increase the waning popularity of Mickey Mouse instead of making a commercial viable short cartoon. Of course, I’m sure at the time like the two would go hand in hand, but ultimately Disney and his team created a short called “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” that ran two minutes longer than the average cartoon and cost $125,000 to produce (Disney had only ever made as much as $60,000 from a short). Realizing that there was no way to turn a profit on the endeavor, a very clever solution was set into motion.

They would make “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” part of a much larger feature film, releasing it on the heels of the massive Snow White success.

That gamble paid off by sending Walt Disney to the edge of bankruptcy. But since, it’s become a classic film known the world over and banking a massive amount of money through its sheer longevity. That longevity comes from the depth behind the film, its epic nature, and its perpetually re-discovery by college students who enjoy the recreational smoking of anything they can get their hands on.

The word ‘Fantasia’ itself means a medley of themes, although the sequences in Fantasia the movie are so varied that they almost don’t flow together at all. Beginning with a live-action introduction by the seated orchestra and blending into an abstract piece of animation, the movie proves to be much more than a cartoon from the very first frames. In fact, a short glance at the sequences shows just how non-cartoonish the whole endeavor is.

A live-action, abstract animation blend set to Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”
A version of “The Nutcracker Suite” that displays the yearly changing of the seasons with dancing fish, mushrooms and flowers
Mickey desperately trying to stop an army of brooms from drowning him to death before the Sorcerer returns
A brilliant flow of evolutionary history on earth set to “The Rite of Spring”
Zeus throwing lightning bolts at a sensual, Bacchanalian party in ancient Greece set to Beethoven’s “6th Symphony in F, Op. 68 ‘Pastorale’”
A speed-induced ballet performed by hippos, elephants, alligators, and ostriches
A demon awaking to rise the witches, goblins and the undead set to “Night on Bald Mountain” before being vanquished by townsfolk to the tune of “Ave Maria”

What animator in their right mind creates a cartoon that’s inspired by German abstract? That includes sequences of violence and fear? That showcases famous works of Baroque and Neoclassicist orchestral pieces?

These may have the thoughts of the audiences that didn’t flock to see the film when it had its first theatrical run. But today, the movie is recognized as a major triumph both creatively and technically. And, in a development that probably pleased Walt Disney, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is still the most well known segment from the film (as well as probably the most well known Mickey Mouse cartoon in existence).

Still, it takes a lot of courage to release Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and follow it up with a film that contains the horrifying apparition of skeletons rising poetically from a graveyard and a gargoyle-like demon spreading his wings wide to wreak havoc from a mountain top. Hell, it was probably a little jarring to see Mickey Mouse aggressively taking an ax to an anthropomorphic broom. Even though it happens only in shadow, the images are pretty visceral – especially considering the odd sort of innocent nature to the broom just doing Mickey’s job for him.

Aside from the frightening shorts, there’s also the confusing nature of the abstract, the overtly sexual display during the pastoral, ancient Greek party, and the plain-old trippy delight of the frantic hippos dancing. Which is what makes it more adult than most other animated pieces at the time (or even now). This is also what makes it incredibly brilliant. It engages a full range of emotions while displaying some fantastic artwork that’s set to some of the best music ever written.

It’s obviously somewhat of a black sheep in the Disney universe when the entire body of work is considered. Although, in an odd way it’s just the extrapolation of a lot of the elements that the studio has put into its work over the years. Despite creating films for the younger crowds (while balancing the attention of their parents), Disney films have almost always included parts that would scare children or illicit strange laughter or get them accused of being complete perverts. Who wasn’t frightened by the witch in Sleeping Beauty? Who didn’t catch the sexually flirtatious nature of Aladdin or The Little Mermaid? All that Fantasia really exists as is a display of all the adult themes that get only a few moments screen time in other films.

Luckily, it’s found success over the years by resonating with audiences for that very reason, for the reason that it’s a display of incredible talent that’s not necessarily meant for children. Plus, it also helps if you go through the emotional rollercoaster on some sort of mind-altering drug. I hear.

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Discover the Class Struggle of ‘Room at the Top’

Loukas Tsouknidas — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:53:39 +0000

Every week, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents:

Room at the Top (1959)

The class wars concept has always been handled in a not-so-subtle way by manipulative and creative minds alike. In the latters’ case there are probably two ways to do it. You either use your characters as toy soldiers to pinpoint some didactic pre-determined class-conscious moral or use the stereotypes that go with that to establish your characters’ starting position and let them develop from there. Just like Jack Clayton did back in 1959 in his first feature film, Room at the Top, based on a novel by John Braine.

It’s the rags-to-riches story of Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey), a working class bloke and WWII vet who gets a chance to escape his miserable hometown of Dufton and work as a civil servant in a richer, classier place called Warnley. As he arrives at his new work he meets the boss and from their brief talk, we are left with no doubts about whether or not this is an upgrade for our protagonist. “I’m not surprised that you wanted to leave Dufton as soon as possible. You’ll find big differences here you know,” the head of the office points, “You’ll meet a different class of people. We pride ourselves in being civilized here in Warnley.” Joe makes one last try to keep his inferiority complex in check, “Dufton is not much of a place, but we’re not exactly savages there, you know Mr Hoylake,” only to get a patronizing grin and a punchline, “You think not?” He has no answer to that. He shares a similar disgust for Dufton.

He then meets his future flatmate, the likable Charles Soames (Donald Houston) and the other co-workers. Outside the boss’s office Joe gets cocky again, and as he looks out the window a pretty, delicate girl catches his eye, while stepping into a convertible. “Is that what you really want?” Charles asks. “That’s what I’m going to have,” Joe responds with certainty.

A few days later, at the amateur dramatic club’s premiere Joe watches as two women are juxtaposed on stage, the girl from the street, and an older one, who has a much more impressive presence. As he finds out they’re Suzan Brown (Heather Sears), heiress to the local millionaire and Alice (Simone Signoret), a french woman, married to an obnoxious local guy named George Aisgill. After the play is over Joe goes backstage along with Charles to get introduced to the rest of the company. In this brilliant sequence we get all the hints about the characters and their present or future association. Joe finds Suzan alone and throws his best complement at her, moments before he gets acquainted with his upper class rival, Jack Wales, a respectively cocky fellow and a war veteran himself. In another corner Alice asks about Joe and Teddy, half-joking, tells her he’s in love with Suzan. As he leaves the theater, she stares at him tellingly in a mirror.

From that moment on Joe Lampton puts his scheme to win Suzan Brown at work. He enrolls at the dramatic club to get warmer but instead of her, his co-star in the new play is Alice. They become close and though she gives him advice on how to seduce Suzan, he ends up falling for her. Meanwhile Suzan becomes very fond of him and that makes her parents worried. She’s sent to Europe for a trip while Joe receives a sudden job offer from his hometown. He decides to stay in Warnley and keep juggling two very different passions, Suzan and Alice, and two very dangerous men, Mr. Brown and George Aisgill…

Class differences aren’t just a matter of structure but also, a matter of perception. Joe Lampton is undoubtedly young, handsome and able. He also poses as pompously sure of himself, amoral and cunning, but only in a certain context: that of the lower class person who is denied by right the chance to reach the top. For him that’s a case where different rules apply, even if he masquerades his hunt for Suzan as a romantic thing. In his scheme though, there is no typecast for the foreign lady, an outsider who’s unintentionally stuck in the same structure that Joe wants to infiltrate. He wants in while she wants out, so they meet in that gap in the middle, where nobody cares about the other person’s class origins. That’s liberating for Joe as a man, but there is also Joe the social entity who has to fight back at his demons: the very legitimate feeling of his potential being limited by forces he can’t control and a strong inferiority complex feeding from his working class roots and his shabby old hometown.

Jack Clayton and his writers — probably because they have some great literary material to begin with – weave greatly the story of that conflict, between the real person and the perception of himself in the social structure he always fancied. By putting all the characters in the mix they create a plausible world around Joe, a world which he also has to infiltrate as a character himself. The dialogue is very well written, with all the melodramatic cliches used to the story’s benefit while for a seemingly simple set-up, a lot of interaction takes place, giving the film a great pace and a relative suspense. The creators give us a lot of scenes to establish Joe’s position in his new environment and his secession from the old one, the reason he’s trapped in the struggle to prove himself and get that room at the top up to the point he has lost all contact with his previous identity – it’s made totally clear at a working class bar scene where Joe makes a desperate attempt to find some familiarity somewhere. It all contrasts with the scenes along Alice where he loses himself in a newfound escape, where he still has no control but his master is not an aristocrat bunch from Warnley.

The movie is very well cast, all the actors are precise and convincing in their small but important parts. Laurence Harvey is tailor-made for the role of Joe Lampton, a well-built good looking man, bearing a distinct roughness when expressing his words, and a warm uneasiness when expressing his feelings. But the star here is Simone Signoret, in the – quite familiar I guess — role of the sensual mature Frenchwoman, who totally overwhelms Joe with her combination of dominating sex-appeal and subliminal vulnerability. She owns the screen every time she appears – background or foreground — which was enough for getting her the Oscar that year.

Room at the Top is one of the first “kitchen sink” dramas that altered the British cinema’s status in cinematic history. But historical context aside, it’s a compelling drama, with a timeless premise, crafty screenwriting and precise directing.

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