“BIGGER THAN LIFE”: STELLAR PERFORMANCES BY THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE'S TOP ACTORS AND ACTRESSES
Bette Davis once said, “Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.” In 1999 The American Film Institute selected the top 50 actors and actresses of all time. Our series is a look back at the best performances by some of these winners, all of whom created roles and cinematic memories bigger than life, more enduring than even their own stardom.
January 13
Network
(Sidney Lumet, 1976, 121 minutes)
“This groundbreaking film is a rare example of a really good
satire that was popular with film critics and the public -- and even
with entertainment industry insiders, who might not be expected to
get the joke or appreciate the abuse. …One evening, Howard Beale
(Peter Finch), a network news anchor, becomes fed up with the pabulum
of network news, decides he’s mad as hell, he can’t take
it any more, and he’s going to start telling the truth (or kill
himself). Panicked producers fire him, but not before his ratings soar;
so he’s brought back as a commentator. Over the next few weeks,
Beale becomes increasingly unstable and even delusional, but continues
to tell the truth. The network’s ratings soar, driving events
forward to a tragic conclusion. Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay attacks
television from more angles than anyone else ever thought of. Chayefsky’s
maniacal, ruthless TV producers, led by Faye Dunaway (whose character
seems to be modeled after Lady Macbeth), stage fake political revolutions
for ratings and brainwash the public with psychics, televangelists,
etc. Even TV's psychological effects are explored (e.g. Dunaway's character
is unable to make a relationship last longer than soap-opera duration,
and climaxes too soon during sex because TV has shortened her attention
span to one minute). Of course, the movie’s nightmare vision
of a TV network pandering to the lowest common denominator with lesbian
cops, psychics, and psychotic news commentators does not seem like
fiction now. It has become reality. But give the filmmakers credit
for being ahead of their time. Having already made a great film, Chayefsky
sends the last part of the film in an unexpected direction as Finch’s
mad newscaster starts proselytizing for a vision of holistic, global
capitalism that is uncannily similar to today’s Internet and “New
Economy” hype. But Americans aren’t ready to become atoms
in a vast network of global consumption and they start tuning out,
leading the show's producers to the logical, inevitable conclusion.
Given the media's chokehold on public opinion today, this movie begs
to be remade and updated. But don't expect Hollywood to do that anytime
soon -- or to release another political satire this penetrating and
subversive, either”-- David Bezanson. William Holden also stars
and he is the AFI # 24 best actor of all time. The film received 10
Oscar nominations and won three.
January 20
Night of the Iguana (John Huston, 1964, 125 minutes)
“The story centers on Shannon (Richard Burton), a life-long preacher
caught in a philosophical crisis. His humanity clashes with his theology
and leaves havoc in its wake. Removed from his position in a quiet
Texas community after an affair with an underage girl, he takes a job
in Puerto Vallarta as the tour guide for a rickety bus full of pious
old women and one manipulative nymph. Shannon is tortured by the girl's
advances and finally gives in--only to be found out by her bullish
chaperone. To save his job, Shannon hijacks the bus and takes the ladies
to a remote motel high on the mountain, run by his ex-flame, Maxine
(Ava Gardner). Max is a bawdy, hard-drinking, hard-loving gal, not
too keen on the new arrivals. She harbors an unrequited love for Shannon,
however, so relents. Within moments of the troop's arrival, two stragglers
also enter: Hannah (Deborah Kerr) is a penniless watercolor painter
who, with her aged grandfather, Nonno--a supposedly renowned oral poet--travels
from place to place selling their wares. They wearily hike up the mountain
and plead for board, offering to paint or recite poetry to earn their
keep. As the characters struggle with their passions, their pride,
and their self-definition, egos break and walls come down, exposing
the underbelly of the human situation. They grapple with the questions
and desires that plague us all. Who am I? Do my actions define me or
do my thoughts? Why am I here? The answers come in ten-fold, and in
a poignant moment, Kerr reveals our purpose on Earth: “To connect
with each other. To help each other through each day. To meet, to see,
hear, and feel, and share what we have experienced. This is the meaning
of life.” Totally riveting”-- Mercy Croft. Ava Gardner
is the AFI # 25 Best Actress of all time. The film was nominated for
four Oscars and won one.
January 27
Lilies of the Field
(Ralph Nelson, 1963, 94 minutes)
“I can just imagine the questions studios had in the early sixties when
the idea for Lilies of the Field was shopped around. "You want to do a
movie about a black man and a group of nuns? And they don't even fly? And there's
no violence? Or sex? Or profanity? Or racism? So, where's the fun in that?" Fortunately,
this little film did get made, it was highly successful, and it earned its
star, Sidney Poitier, an Academy Award. Sometimes, the good guys win. Homer
Smith (Poitier) is an itinerant handyman who stops for water along a dusty
desert road and winds up building a church. The trouble is the nuns. They are
five nuns who have come all the way to America from East Germany, daring to
breach the Berlin Wall in order to do their duty to the Lord. The nuns' leader,
Mother Maria (Lilia Skala), is convinced that Homer has been sent to them from
God to build them a chapel in the wilderness. Homer just wants water. At first,
Homer agrees only to fix their roof--and for pay. But he soon learns the nuns
have not a cent to their name. Still and all, he stays for dinner, and since
only Mother Maria can speak English, he teaches the others a little of the
language in the evening. Then he stays the night. The next morning he drives
them all to Mass, where the local Catholics hold their meeting in the open
from the back of a station wagon owned by Father Murphy (Dan Frazer), the district's
traveling padre. Homer finds Mother Maria a hard woman to refuse. He keeps
trying to leave, but he keeps getting suckered into staying for just one more
tiny job. Still and all, he puts his foot down when it comes to building a
chapel! Until his pride interferes. When a local building contractor tells
him he'd be mad to try anything so foolish as single-handedly building a church,
Homer makes up his mind to do it. And as he tells them, he's not even a Catholic,
he's a Baptist! Working two days a week operating a bulldozer for the contractor
and five days a week working on the chapel, Homer becomes determined to accomplish
the task. The nuns, though, can't even afford building materials, but through
prayer and the help of the community, the materials somehow arrive. Mother
Maria thanks God but never thanks Homer. She's a hard woman, filled with as
much pride or more as Homer, and she treats him as a teacher would treat a
grade-school pupil. He hits back pretty low himself when he calls her "a
regular Hitler." Well, she is demanding. Speaking of pride, after the
community begin finally to pitch in, Homer feels left out. He had resolutely
decided to do the job entirely by himself. Yet, like the others, he soon finds
joy in working together, acting all the while as foreman. Produced and directed
by Ralph Nelson (Requiem for a Heavyweight, Soldier in the Rain, Charly, Duel
at Diablo), based on a novel by William E. Barrett, with a screenplay by James
Poe and music by Jerry Goldsmith, this is a feel-good feature entirely, with
absolutely nothing to embarrass any member of the family, young or old. Yet,
surprisingly, it isn't mushy, ingratiating, or sickly sentimental in any way.
It does its job honestly, a sweet character study that continually makes one
smile. And when it ends, Homer merely goes on his way without any undue fuss
or bother”—John Puccio. Sidney Poitier is the AFI # 22 Actor of
all time. The film was nominated for five Oscars and Poitier won for Best Actor.
February 3
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957, 87 minutes)
“The oft-cited genius of Stanley Kubrick is sometimes decried
as cold perfectionism - every tracking shot, every stitch of costume
linked in a chain of artistic control. But nowhere does this ruthless
manner seem more appropriate than in his unyielding 1957 World War
I film Paths of Glory ….When a futile advance into enemy territory
fails the cowardly commanding general court-martials three subordinates
for dereliction of duty. As so often in 1950s Hollywood, it falls to
Kirk Douglas to persuade the unbelievers otherwise. His Colonel Dax
bravely led the maligned regiment into enemy fire, but even he, a lawyer
in civilian life, gets no quarter from the army hierarchy, engineered
to eat its own. Paths of Glory is the sort of movie in which half the
runtime goes to officer machinations, kangaroo court proceedings, and
the excruciating wait for a head-clutchingly unjust sentence. And before
that? They don't call it the wasteland for nothing: Kubrick's black-and-white
compositions strand Dax and company in a ravaged moonscape of trenches
and no man's land. Outside, the sunless white sky is exposure itself,
wan witness to the slaughter. The trenchmen in their muddied uniforms
are city-rat gray, the color of vanishing. Inside, the casket-dark
night in the bunkers envelopes Mr. Douglas and company. The dance of
death on the battlefield gets choreographed with an early, brutal example
of the director's beloved tracking shots. For the futile attack, Kubrick
tracks alongside the troop's progress across no man's land in long
shot. Yet even when men begin to fall, the camera rolls ever onward,
past the dead, a juggernaut grinding skulls beneath. Mr. Douglas is
the ostensible focus, but then the master shot frags into unplaceable
smaller shots from across the great nowhere. Homer's Iliad is striking
for its emphasis on the sheer noise of war, the clangor of arms. The
28-year-old Kubrick knew enough to pay attention. Blasts, screams,
and otherworldly air-sucking crackles scrape our ears throughout the
battle scenes, the cacophony pierced only by Dax pathetically peeping
his whistle to orient his men. What we hear from the mouths of the
men in the picture isn't that much more soothing, or meaningful. General
Mireau (George Macready), the ambitious opportunist who ordered the
fatal attack, and his sly twinkly superior, General Broulard (Adolphe
Menjou), execute diplomatic webs of passive-aggression, their language
a tool of insincerity, cynicism, and manipulation. Nothing is more
important to Mireau than the safety of his men, he says, right up until
Broulard, with an agenda of his own, dangles a promotion. It's one
war early for catch-22, but you know it when you see it; the sacrifices
of the rank and file are reduced to that one word, cowardice, despite
their lack of real choice. Men, much less glory or honor, can't survive
such perverse conditions. Paths of Glory might give us some solace
in the indefatigable Mr. Douglas, that famous dimple being where God
left his fingerprint on his noble creation. But the true emotional
center of this movie is a sobbing, squirming Timothy Carey, as one
of the soldiers led to execution. Clutching at the priest who escorts
him, almost breaking the guarded naturalism with his terror, his character
is living, to paraphrase the poet, a waking dream that drips with murder”—Nicolas
Rapold. Kirk Douglas is the AFI # 17 actor of all time. Director Kubrick
won the Silver medal from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Critics.
February 10
The Gay Divorcee
(Mark Sandrich, 1934, 107 minutes)
“The plot revolves around a trivial French farce for this outdated
feel-good musical romantic-comedy, which was aimed at cheering up a
Depression audience--which it does do with animated song and dance
numbers. It's based on Dwight Taylor and Cole Porter's hit Broadway
play. Censors changed the title of the play from The Gay Divorce. The
film offers a mild satire on what it takes sometimes to get a divorce,
especially if one party doesn't want one. London lawyer Egbert Fitzgerald
(Edward Everett Horton) and American dancer Guy Holden (Fred Astaire)
arrive in London from a stopover in Paris. Wealthy American Mimi Glossop
(Ginger Rogers) gets her dress caught in her trunk when she greets
her much-married Aunt Hortense (Alice Brady). Guy accidently rips Mimi's
dress and gives her his coat, falling in love at first sight. But Mimi
won't give him her address, which encourages him to belt out a song "It's
Like Looking for a Needle in a Haystack." He spends two weeks
looking for her all over London and then spots her driving, but she
drives away and he overtakes her on a country road when he trickily
posts a "Road Closed" sign. But she won't give him her phone
number, so he gives her his. Guy also finds out her name. Two weeks
go by without him hearing from her, so he lets Egbert talk him into
going to the seaside resort in Brighton. Egbert is at the resort on
business, as he's there to help Mimi get a divorce from her geologist
professor husband (William Austin) who won't grant her one. The lawyer
arranges for a professional co-respondent, Rodolfo Tonetti (Erik Rhodes),
to be in her hotel room and have the husband arrive in the morning
to find them together. During his first night in Brighton, Egbert sings
and dances at the nightclub with the leggy 18-year-old (Betty Grable) "Let's
K-nock K-neez." When Guy later on tells Egbert a line from his
last show, "Chance is the fool's name for fate," Egbert makes
this the password for the adultery co-respondent to know the woman
he's to spend the night with. Of course, Guy spots Mimi and when he
unwittingly uses the password as part of his pickup routine, she mistakenly
thinks he's the co-respondent and invites him to her hotel room for
the night. The Cole Porter songs include "Night and Day," the
only song to survive from the stage, and the show's big production
number, "The Continental," which won the first ever Academy
Award for Best Song”—Dennis Schwartz. Fred Astaire is the
AFI # 5 actor of all time and Ginger Rogers the # 14 Actress. The film
was nominated for five Oscars and won one.
February 17
The Country Girl (George Seaton, 1954, 104 minutes)
“Personal loyalty and romantic love collide in The Country Girl,
starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and William Holden. No matter how
much Hollywood traded on female glamour in the good old days, solid
acting roles for women were few and far between. You might say they
still are. So when Paramount announced that they were making The Country
Girl, a screen version of Clifford Odets's hit Broadway play Winter
Journey, the competition for the leading role of Georgie was intense.
On stage, she had been played by the legendary Uta Hagen. Jennifer
Jones was cast in the film but early in 1954, she announced she was
pregnant. So producer William Perlberg and director George Seaton got
who they really wanted, Grace Kelly. Already celebrated in the early
1950s as one of America's great beauties, and known to cinema audiences
through the recent success of High Noon, Mogambo and Rear Window, Grace
Kelly was nevertheless still considered a rising star. But two things
propelled her into The Country Girl. She had just worked for Perlberg
and Seaton in The Bridges Of Toko-Ri. And, Georgie was her chance to
be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. The role required her to
look older and considerably less attractive than her 24-year-old self.
But the film was an even bigger challenge for Bing Crosby. The story
of fading star Frank Elgin had disturbing parallels to Crosby's own
life. Just as Frank presents an easygoing, smiling face to the world,
so Crosby's public persona hid years of unhappy marriage and heavy
drinking. Crosby was recently widowed and, like most of her co-stars,
he quickly fell for the ravishing Grace. William Holden, too, who decently
took third billing after Crosby and Kelly, had been touched by her
magic when they were making The Bridges Of Toko-Ri. Whether or not
all this added to the emotional intensity of The Country Girl is hard
to say. But what makes the film so outstanding is the depth and complexity
of the relationships in the story. It's a genuinely adult tale. Writer-director
George Seaton worked hard to bring Clifford Odets's play down to earth.
Whatever he did, he gave Crosby the room to deliver arguably his greatest
screen performance. Similarly for Grace Kelly, The Country Girl would
be a high point in her short career. Some critics sniffed at the fact
that Crosby sings in the film but it works for me. I think it's important
that we believe Frank Elgin has what it takes to be a popular star
and if that gets mixed up with the Crosby persona, all well and good.
There's a coda to the story, of course. Grace Kelly won the 1954 Academy
Award for Best Actress. While her performance certainly deserved recognition,
most people believed then and still do that the Oscar should have gone
to Judy Garland for A Star Is Born. But with Dial M For Murder and
Rear Window released the same year, Grace Kelly was riding an unstoppable
wave of popularity. As Bob Hope joked at the Oscar ceremony, there
should have been an award for bravery for any producer who made a film
without Grace Kelly. And within two years, of course, that's exactly
what they would all have to do”—Peter Thompson. Grace Kelly
is the AFI # 13 Actress of all time. The film was nominated for seven
Oscars, and one two, including best Actress for Kelly.
February 24
The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit
(Nunnally Johnson, 1956, 153 minutes)
“This is the kind of classic American drama perfectly suited
to Gregory Peck's strengths as an actor. It also demonstrates the power
of good screenwriting. The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit was adapted
from Sloan Wilson's novel by one of Hollywood's most respected craftsman,
Nunnally Johnson; responsible over his working life for the scripts
of many of the best films of the 30s, 40s and 50s: Jesse James, The
Grapes Of Wrath, The Gunfighter and many more. But he didn't stay within
the writing role. He produced and he also got to direct some of his
own projects, including The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit. Perhaps Gregory
Peck's greatest strength is his capacity for being decent, even noble,
on screen without losing the humanity of his characters. Tom Rath is
just one of the commuters, seesawing between work and the family home.
But Nunnally Johnson wants to show us how seemingly ordinary lives
can demand extraordinary courage. Tom Rath has been a soldier but it's
the challenges he faces readjusting to civilian life which really test
him. His wife Betsy (Jennifer Jones) is unhappy with the way they're
living so Tom starts climbing the ladder, taking a job with hard-driving
tycoon Ralph Hopkins, played with great authority by Fredric March.
The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit unfolds in a very leisurely fashion;
the film is 2 and a half hours long; and many of the conflicts and
dilemmas are familiar ones. But Nunnally Johnson and his actors give
real emotional substance to the story, especially to the inner life
of Tom Rath. Extended flashbacks take us back to his wartime experiences
which weigh heavily on him. And to the brief affair he had with a girl
in Rome at a time when he doubted he would survive. Marisa Pavan, the
sister of Pier Angeli, is Maria. This is by no means the first film
to examine the emotional price of combat and the difficulties for men
and women adjusting to peacetime. But it's unusually forthright for
the Hollywood of the 50s in confronting the awkward realities of marriage
and the flipside of the American Dream. Tame by today's standards,
perhaps, but ask yourself how many contemporary movies deal so confidently
with material like this? It all comes down to good writing and that's
rare enough in any decade” –Showtime Australia. Gregory
Peck is the AFI # 12 Best Actor of All Time. Director Johnson won a
special mention and was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes.
March 3
Judgment at Nuremberg
(Stanley Kramer, 1961, 186 minutes)
“The details of the military campaigns of World War II and the
horrors of the Holocaust have been recounted in countless films. Stanley
Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg is a rare cinematic exploration
of the messy, difficult aftermath of evaluating culpability, not only
for the Nazi masterminds, but also for innumerable officials and functionaries
whose complicity made the Holocaust possible. Downbeat, intelligent,
and compelling, the film is brilliantly constructed and acted, bringing
lucid, forceful moral argumentation as well as emotional sympathy to
both sides without tipping its hand until the powerful climax. Tribunal
justice Dan Hayward (Spencer Tracy) is the ideal foil for the film’s
rhetoric: a self-deprecating, folksy American circuit court judge with
no ax to grind and a winsome appreciation for his own obscurity, knowing
he’s sitting in judgment of defendants no one else wanted to
judge. The attorneys are perfectly matched: fiery Richard Widmark as
the somewhat overzealous prosecuting attorney, arguing that those who
collaborated in Nazi atrocities must be held accountable; fiercely
controlled Maximilian Schell for the defense, arguing that the accused
are no more guilty than other Germans and even implicating Americans
like Oliver Wendell Holmes. Added to the mix is Burt Lancaster as a
dignified German judge on trial for crimes against humanity and Marlene
Dietrich as a German widow determined to persuade Hayward that Germany
is not a nation of monsters, and that most who cooperated with the
Nazi effort had no idea about the death camps and believed they were
doing the right thing. The film’s moral nuance is formidable — which
only makes the moral conviction of the climax more stunning”—Steven
Greydanus. This all-star cast includes AFI “best” award
winners # 8 Actress, Judy Garland, # 9 Actor, Spencer Tracy, # 9 Actress,
Marlene Dietrich, and #19 actor, Burt Lancaster. The film was nominated
for 11 Oscars, winning two.
March 10
White Heat
(Raoul Walsh, 1949, 114 minutes)
“In 1949, James Cagney revitalized his career by returning to
the stereotype that first made him a star. Cagney's pugnacious, tough-guy
onscreen persona was ideally suited for playing gangsters. In White
Heat, pathos is added to his character, giving him even more opportunity
to dominate scenes and demonstrate his talents. It also helps that
the direction is tight, the story is filled with action, the script
has the right mix of colorful slang and one-liners, and the supporting
cast is excellent. Cody Jarrett (Cagney) is the unstable, murderous
leader of a gang that specializes in robberies. Verna (Virginia Mayo)
is his selfish, unfaithful wife. Big Ed (Steve Cochran) harbors schemes
to kill Cody, steal his wife, and take over the gang. Cody is devoted
to his mother (Margaret Wycherley), a no-nonsense elderly woman who
is part of the gang and lends Cody needed emotional support. To avoid
'taking the fall' for a 'train job', Cody 'cops a rap' in another state.
The 'Feds' plant 'copper' Hank Fallon (O'Brien) as Cody's cellmate.
Fallon works his way into Cody's gang, which busts out of prison. Cody
deals with Big Ed, but soon the police are on the trail, leading to
a finale shootout. White Heat has two Cagney scenes which have become
famous in film circles. He has a nervous breakdown in the prison cafeteria,
complete with kicking, screaming, crawling on tables, and punching
multiple guards. The film's ending involves an industrial plant that
suffers massive explosions, and has Cagney shouting 'Top of the World,
Ma!' as the fireballs swell. Cagney, Mayo and Wycherly are particularly
good” –Brian Koller. Jimmy Cagney is the AFI # 8 actor
of all time.
March 24
It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934, 105 minutes)
“When the film begins you think you are about to watch a screwball comedy
along the lines of Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday (both made years after
It Happened One Night). It starts out manic and silly and then evolves into
something different. There are still manic and screwball scenes in it, but
there are also quiet moments of tenderness. On one level the film is fun to
watch today almost from a historical standpoint, to see locations from the
early 30's, to see the mannered behavior of everyone, and to watch legendary
movie stars, the likes of which we'll never see again. But on a more emotional
level the film is great because you actually buy into the relationship between
Gable and Colbert. They are not only interesting opposites but their transformations
are plausible. You believe they actually begin to feel for each other and Colbert's
character can see a bit past her limited perspective. She's been coddled her
whole life, everything arranged perfectly for her, and then on her own doing
she's set free on an adventure that's highly unpredictable. There are so many
unique scenes from the construction of the "walls of Jericho" in
a small motel room to a late night bus ride with a big band. And the cinematography
is amazing. Claudette Colbert lying beneath a window on a rainy night is both
striking and moving. The character's vulnerability and uncertainty hits you
on a gut level and the framing of the scene is as remarkable today as it must
have been in 1934. The dialog is both sophisticated and funny, and the film
doesn't feel like the sappy formulaic romantic comedies we get today. Today
the words “romantic comedy” evokes snickering and smirks (mostly
among guys) because of what the genre has descended to and to merely label
it as a romantic comedy is kind of like labeling 2001 as a sci-fi movie, they
are both much more than that. There's an energy to this film and a charm that
makes it unforgettable”—Paul Logan. Clark Gable is the AFI # 7
Best Actor and Claudette Colbert is the # 12 Actress. The film won five Oscars,
including those for the leads.
March 31
The Wild One
(Laslo Benedek, 1953, 79 minutes)
“The Wild One… Essentially a B-picture with a faint whiff
of a social conscience, The Wild One is still good for some cheap thrills,
thanks almost entirely to the swaggering performance by Marlon Brando.
Playing the self-possessed, laconic leader of a rowdy motorcycle gang,
Brando's visceral acting style still electrifies the screen. Also a
hoot-and-a-half is Lee Marvin as the head of a rival gang. If Brando
is a prowling jungle cat, Marvin is the laughing hyena. It's the king
vs. the clown. The story of The Wild One is a competent genre screenplay,
in some ways a Western on two-wheels. The gang rolls into a quiet town,
runs afoul of the locals, and then terrorizes them until things go
too far. Pushing the movie a little closer to the edge is the sexual
threat inherent in Brando's performance. He has not only come to destroy
America's way of life, but to take its favorite daughter--in this case
played by Mary Murphy--away from the safe confines that she secretly
yearns to break free of”—Jaime Rich. Marlon Brando is the
AFI # 4 actor of all time.
April 7
Two for the Road
(Stanley Donen, 1967, 111 minutes)
"’What kind of people just sit in a restaurant and don't
say one word to each other?’ Albert Finney asks Audrey Hepburn
as they head upstairs to consummate a relationship formed on a carefree
European hitchhiking venture. A beat passes, then comes Hepburn's reply: "Married
people." The same question surfaces throughout 1967's Two For
The Road, a clear-eyed, openhearted, and ultimately open-ended portrait
of a marriage. The answer remains the same. But even after spending
years sharing, at least occasionally, a marital table of uncomfortable
silence, Hepburn and Finney don't really understand why it has to be
that way. Is it just them, or does the institution eat couples alive?
A product of the same remarkable moment in '60s cinema that brought
editing to the fore and produced John Boorman's Point Blank and Richard
Lester's Petulia, Two For The Road unfolds from many points at once,
following Hepburn and Finney at several moments in their relationship
as they make their way across Europe. In one scene they ask, "What
do people have rows about?" In another, "When did it all
go wrong?" But Singin' In The Rain director Stanley Donen and
screenwriter Frederic Raphael are after more than simple irony here.
The film's surface is made up of familiar '60s romantic-comedy elements,
from Hepburn's haute wardrobe to the Henry Mancini score to the breezy
interaction between the stars. They banter, bicker, and make up with
witty repartee. It's what movie love is supposed to look like, which
makes it all the more heartbreaking to know that it's destined to sour. "I'll
never let you down," Hepburn tells Finney as they get engaged. "I
will," he replies, but we already know this. It's heartbreaking.
But it isn't hopeless. Even in the scenes of their late-marriage crisis,
when youthful exuberance has given way to arch discomfort and the teasing
has developed a dry, mean undertone, the couple remains recognizably
a couple. It's impossible to imagine them apart from each other, if
only because memories and habit bind them together, as the film's mix-and-match
chronology brilliantly illustrates. The seeds of their pleasant unhappiness
can be seen in the past, but so can their potential salvation. Put
together, the pieces make up a shared life. They might even make up
love”—Keith Phipps. Audrey Hepburn is the AFI # 3 Actress
of All Time.
April 14
Destry Rides Again
(George Marshall, 1939, 94 minutes)
“This highly entertaining movie is from 1939, the year so many
golden classics were released. Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, The Wizard
of Oz, and Gone With the Wind were its competition, so it's probably
not surprising that a western spoof did not receive any Academy Awards.
Nevertheless, Destry Rides Again is a delightfully offbeat oater that
satirizes the genre in a manner that would be nice to see more often.
Destry Rides Again is one of the movies that should be better known.
It benefits from a tautly directed script put on by a first rate cast,
beginning with the sensational Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart and
backed up by a supporting cast consisting of Brian Donlevy, Una Merkel,
Charles Winninger, Samuel S. Hinds, and Mischa Auer. These characters
all have specific roles that bring the screenplay to life, making the
movie a memorable viewing experience. In the town of Bottleneck, Kent,
a slick, ambitious, and ruthless man (Brian Donlevy - Beau Geste) wants
to take charge of the whole valley to control the water rights and
then charge everybody else for access. With this in mind slickster
Kent runs a rigged card game at the local saloon with dance hall songstress Frenchie (Marlene Dietrich - Morocco) as the bait. We see his plan put into action when he does away with one sheriff and steals the land of another citizen with the help of the crooked mayor (Samuel S. Hinds) and Dietrich, who distracts the player so Donlevy can switch cards. But Kent misses his guess when he gets town drunk Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger) appointed new sheriff. Winninger takes his new job seriously and sends for Tom Destry (James Stewart) son of the illustrious sheriff he once had the privilege to serve under. To his horror, Destry is anything but a hairy-chested hero; Destry carries no gun and spends his free time carving napkin rings. Just how the apparently milquetoast Destry manages to uncover the plan and thwart the bad guys without resorting to too much gunplay results in plenty of entertainment for the delighted viewer. Under the practiced hand of director George Marshall, Destry combines action, humor, romance, and drama, all in a tautly constructed 94-minute running time. The gags and humor are well timed and well executed. James Stewart’s tremendous comic and dramatic performance shows why he was such a well-loved actor. It goes without saying that Marlene Dietrich was a hit also - just wait until you see her cat fight with Una Merkel - and the supporting cast is one of the very best imaginable. Finally, the plot resolves itself in a way that will pleasantly surprise you”—George Chabot . Jimmy Stewart is the AFI # 3 Actor and Marlene Dietrich is the # 9 Actress.
April 21
The Letter
(William Wyler, 1940, 95 minutes)
“William Wyler with great technical skill helms this classic
melodramatic film noir of a murder and a cover-up that succinctly puts
its finger on the hypocrisies of colonial justice. The film is based
on W. Somerset Maugham's mid-1920s London stage play and the screenplay
is by Howard Koch. It was a Broadway play that opened in 1927 and was
then followed by Paramount Studios' talkie in 1929 with Academy-Award
nominated Jeanne Eagels playing the female lead. It was nominated for
a total of seven nominations (but showed no wins): Best Picture, Best
Actress (Bette Davis), Best Supporting Actor (James Stephenson), Best
Director, Best B/W Cinematography (Tony Gaudio), Best Original Score
(Max Steiner), and Best Film Editing. The film opens with one of the
all-time great tracking shots of the moon peaking out from the clouds
on a tropical Malayan rubber plantation, as the camera moves down a
rubber tree where the rubber juice drips into containers and then across
a compound's thatched hut where coolies are relaxing after their day's
work. The camera moves past a white cockatoo that becomes startled
and flies away as a shot rings out from inside the main bungalow disturbing
the peaceful setting. A well-dressed Caucasian man staggers onto the
veranda and is followed by an expressionless woman in a cold rage,
Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis), who pumps more lead into the dead body
until she empties her revolver. Leslie later tells her husband Robert
(Herbert Marshall), the manager of the Singapore plantation run by
a British company with a home office in Liverpool, that she shot Geoffrey,
someone hubby never met but was a close friend of hers, because he
was drunk and tried to make love to her after coming over unexpectedly.
Their mutual friend Howard Joyce (James Stephenson) takes the case
and is sure of an acquittal based on her version of the incident, as
he advises her to turn herself over to the Attorney General in Singapore
and remain in prison until the trial only because she fessed up to
killing a man. Things take a turn for the worse when Howard's cunning
native law clerk Ong Chi Seng (Sen Yung) mentions that a friend presented
him with a copy of a letter that Leslie wrote Geoffrey on the day of
the murder, where she asked him to come over and spend the night because
her hubby was away. The letter is in possession of Geoffrey's Eurasian
wife (Gale Sondergaard), and she's willing to accept a payment of $10,000
to part with the original letter. We soon discover the dead man was
Leslie's lover for some time but recently married the native woman
and abandoned the married woman of ten years, who was so obsessively
in love that she couldn't let him ago. The moral dilemma falls on the
honest lawyer's shoulders, someone who despises his client but has
a sympathy for her kind-hearted hubby. After some deliberation, the
lawyer risks being disbarred by securing the letter without notifying
the court. Censors forced a melodramatic ending to show Bette Davis
get her comeuppance for her adultery, deceit and murder from the hands
of the dagger carrying aggrieved party with the help of her servant.
It made things too neatly concluded, as it took away a lot of the starch
from Maugham's emphasis on his cynical viewpoint of colonial rule.
Nevertheless this is first-class cinema that offers a superb performance
by the thoughtful James Stephenson, who wrestles with his conscience
to do something that goes against his professional standards because
it's expedient, not right. Bette Davis gives a marvelous performance
as the woman who can't help the way she is, and in an unforgettable
scene gets to emotionally tell her hubby who is willing to forgive
her discretion: ‘With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!’" –Dennis
Schwartz. Bette Davis is the # 2 Actress of All Time. The film was
nominated for seven Oscars.
April 28
The Caine Mutiny
(Edward Dmytryk, 1954, 124 minutes)
“When erratic Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) tells his officers, "There's
the right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way—and if
you do things my way, we'll get along!" you get the picture. Cutting
away to officers Van Johnson (blue collar sensible) and Fred MacMurray
(smarmy cynic) looking at each other and their fellow crew members,
we immediately sense that Queeg might not be the right man for the
job. As the captain obsesses over a missing quart of strawberries and
tears the entire ship upside down in search of an imaginary key to
the freezer, their doubts increase; and by the time he is heading their
boat straight into a typhoon, they've had enough. The second half of
the picture follows the subsequent trial, where the so-called mutineers
defend their actions as the viewer wonders if Queeg will crack up on
the witness stand. It's all put together in what we might call "solid" fashion.
It's old-fashioned storytelling with a slight psychological twist,
and standard three-act drama. But as Queeg tells his men in a laundry
list of professional conduct: "Excellent performance is standard,
standard performance is substandard." …Bogart started out
his career playing nervous villains sweating their way through packs
of cigarettes as they waited for their bad karma to catch up with them.
Nearing the end of his career (and his life), Bogart finds a little
of that cowardly rat in Queeg. Yet he also finds a militant forcefulness
in this role, bringing to it some of the world-weariness of Rick from
Casablanca, minus the ideological code and veiled idealism. And, on
top of that, he layers on some exhausted sense of pathos: "The
captain's job is a lonely one," he sighs during a more paternal
moment with the new ensign (young would-be star Robert Francis). Bogart
was not just one of the great movie stars, but also one of the great
actors. The Caine Mutiny surrounds him with other compelling players,
such as the effortlessly authentic Johnson—every bit as good
a character actor as Bogart, minus the charisma of a star. MacMurray,
so dull when playing good guys, really comes to life when playing a
fast-talking sneak. Rounding out the respectable cast is Jose Ferrer's
efficient, sardonic defense attorney. The main reason the film still
excites today is because it offers the chance to see some of the finest
studio actors working at the top of their game. The entire subgenre
of WWII-era studio pictures at sea were never really about the boats,
or even about the seafaring way of life. They were about the stars,
and The Caine Mutiny is, as Queeg suggests, carried above the level
of "standard" by its excellent performances”—Jerimiah
Kipp. Humphrey Bogart is the AFI # 1 actor of all time. The film was
nominated for seven Oscars.
May 5
Holiday (George Cukor, 1938, 95 minutes)
“Holiday is the kind of fun, witty, vibrant, and intelligent
Hollywood comedy that, unfortunately, modern Hollywood no longer shows
the least interest in making. This film is a sheer joy to watch, the
kind of film where you can simply get lost in its characters and milieu
while they're on screen, only to find that they're still lingering
with you long after the film is over. Director George Cukor has a light
touch for comedy, deftly balancing the witty banter and comedic scenes
with a real sense of drama. This drama arises from the fact that one
senses, from the very beginning of the film, that Cary Grant's Johnny
is a much better match for the free-spirited Linda (Katharine Hepburn)
than he is for her more straitlaced sister Julia (Doris Nolan). Part
of this is sheer Hollywood gamesmanship — when Katherine Hepburn
shows up in what seems at first to be a supporting role, it's instantly
clear that she's going to have to take control of the film and end
up with the leading man somehow. But Cukor is also wise to let the
romance between Grant and Hepburn develop naturally, subtly, so that
their growing love is clear to the audience well before it's clear
to either of them.
When the film opens, Johnny and Julia have just gotten engaged after
a whirlwind romance when they met on vacation. Johnny's a rough-and-ready
fellow who's pulled himself up from very humble origins to become a
moderately successful businessman, but he's stunned when he discovers
that Julia is a fabulously wealthy heiress from the old-money Seton
family. The fit proves to be poor, especially since Johnny has dreams
of striking it rich in business early in life so he can then take a
few years off to explore the world. He's therefore not too eager to
settle down into the kind of staid life in finance that Julia's father
envisions for him, and as the engagement announcement looms closer,
it becomes increasingly clear that Julia is carved from the same mold
as her father. In contrast, the iconoclastic Linda is a true breath
of fresh air. Of the three Seton children, only Julia seems comfortable
in their sheltered, money-über-alles existence. Linda retreats
into childhood memories of their mother and the "play room" that
she set up as an alternative to the marble pillar glamour of their
mansion. Their brother Ned (Lew Ayres), meanwhile, retreats into alcoholism,
and his bleary-eyed performance provides a kind of foreshadowing of
what might become of Johnny if he follows through on marrying Julia — smashed
dreams and chronic depression. At the heart of this film is a magical
New Year's Eve party that locates a small core of fun-loving vibrancy
amidst a sea of pretension and empty riches. Linda is distraught that
her father has not allowed her to throw the intimate party she envisioned
for Julia's engagement, instead turning it into yet another dull society
ball. Linda retreats once again into her play room, and over the course
of the party her inner sanctum becomes a similar retreat for all the
party's genuine souls. Johnny's whimsical friends (Edward Everett Horton
and Jean Dixon, in great bit turns) are drawn there before long, as
is Ned, and finally Johnny himself. The quintet find themselves throwing
an impromptu party of their own, with a puppet show, Ned playing the
piano, and Johnny and Linda attempting back flips and acrobatic feats.
It's a magical interlude, a small holiday from the dullness of the
society party happening a few floors below, and the intrusion of Julia
and her father at the end is a rude awakening, the destruction of something
beautiful and pristine that was developing among those free-wheeling
spirits. The film never actually gives poor Julia much of a chance.
Jean Dixon isn't much of a challenge for the wise-cracking, earnest
Hepburn, and the audience is rooting for the proper match between Grant
and Hepburn from the very first moment they appear on screen together.
What's special about the film is the urgency with which it imbues this
budding romance, the sense that this is a crucial decision for Johnny.
In the climactic scene where Julia's father begins laying out the road
ahead for them if he marries Julia, the tension begins mounting to
tremendous levels as it becomes clear just how bad a fit for Johnny
this constricted life would be. The film certainly parodies the old
money lifestyle; when Julia earnestly tells Johnny how much fun business
can be, one can't help but laugh, especially in light of Grant's shell-shocked
expression. But more importantly, the film stresses that different
lifestyles suit different people, and that the choices we make in life
define the paths that are open to us. Johnny and Linda, ultimately,
realize this, and realize the importance of going off on their own
holiday together, making choices for themselves” --Ed Howard.
Katharine Hepburn is the # 1 Actress of all time and Cary Grant is
the # 2 Actor.