NFR Project: 'Twelve O'Clock High' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “Twelve O’Clock High”

Dir: Henry King

Scr: Henry King, Sy Bartlett, Beirne Lay Jr.

Pho: Leon Shamroy

Ed: Barbara McLean

Premiere: Dec. 21, 1949

132 min.

American war movies made during World War II were pure propaganda – gung-ho adventure stories in which the bad guys, the Nazis and the “Japs,” always lost. There was no shading, no questioning of the effort. It took a few years for more nuanced examinations of the conflict to appear on film.

One of the best is Twelve O’Clock High. It’s the fact-based story of an American bomber group in England in 1942. At that time, they were the only part of the American fighting forces to do battle with Nazi Germany. In order to blunt the German war effort, they engaged in daylight bombing of enemy targets. The difficulty and danger of these sorties were magnified by the fact that Allied fighter planes at the time did not have the range that would allow them to protect the bombers. B-17s flew into enemy airspace guarded only by their own guns.

The pressure was intense, as the higher-ups called for “maximum effort” – an unrelenting schedule of bombing raids, day after day, despite losses and despite the fatigue of its crews. Twelve O’Clock High takes on the story of the imaginary 918^th Bomber Group. Its efficiency is questioned, and complaints center on the attitude of its commander, Col. Davenport (Gary Merrill). Major Gen. Pritchard (Millard Mitchell) decides to replace him with Brigadier Gen. Savage (Gregory Peck), a by-the-book man who takes the tough-love approach with his fliers.

He is assisted by the capable and thoughtful Group Adjutant, Major Stovall (Dean Jagger) and the group doctor, Major Kaiser (Paul Stewart). Savage reads the riot act to his men, demoting some and disciplining others. All the pilots request transfers.

Savage delays their requests while he struggles to earn their confidence. He finds himself moved by the efforts and attitudes of his airmen, and begins to unbend. The transfer requests are withdrawn.

Gradually, he begins to identify with his men. He becomes more and more concerned with their survival, as the missions become longer and more devastating to the attackers. Finally, Savage finds himself incapable of entering his airplane for a mission. Catatonic, he is returned to base while his men fly off without him. It’s only when they return safely that he snaps out of it and goes to sleep.

All this is bracketed by the post-war visit of Stovall to the old field – this is a memory play, his memory. We never learn what happened to Savage.

The movie is a textbook study of the management of men – in this case, men in battle. Despite the formalities and conventions of military life, the human factor bleeds through and engulfs even the hardest-hearted general. Peck is solid as Savage, and Jagger delivers a Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winning performance as Stovall. Gary Merrill and Millard Mitchell, usually not seen in centra roles, do a great job in their performances. Hugh Marlow, in particular, makes am memorable impression as disgraced pilot Gately.

Vulnerable men try to do the impossible, and they largely succeed. But at what cost?

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: White Heat.

NFR Project: 'The Lead Shoes' (1949)

NFR Project: “The Lead Shoes”

Dir: Sidney Peterson

Premiere: 1949

17 min.

Uh, OK. An experimental film, shot in surrealist style. A young woman drags an empty diving suit around. Hopscotch is played in slow motion. Blood splatters from a loaf of bread. There is no attempt to make sense of things. This film is an exercise in non-narrative cinema. As such, I guess that it is successful – on its terms. For me, it is merely a self-indulgent curio.

 

 

 

 

 

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Twelve O’Clock High.

 

 

NFR Project: 'The Heiress' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “The Heiress”

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Augustus Goetz, Ruth Goetz

Pho: Leo Tover

Ed: William Hornbeck

Premiere: Oct. 6, 1949

115 min.

If ever you want to take a master class in acting, look no further than The Heiress. Although it won Oscars for Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Art Direction, it is the performances of the three principals – Ralph Richardson, Olivia de Havilland, and Montgomery Clift – that make it an extraordinary film. Let me explain.

First, the source material for the film was the hit 1947 play of the same name, by Augustus and Ruth Goetz, based in turn on the Henry James’ 1880 novel, Washington Square. It’s the story of a rather plain-looking, uncurious, and sheltered young woman, Catherine Sloper (de Havilland) who lives with her wealthy doctor father (Richardson) in luxury. They do not revel in it, they take it as their due. Dr. Sloper resents his daughter, as her birth caused the death of his beloved, beautiful, intelligent, and talented wife.

Catherine is prodded into attending a dance. She is approached by a young and handsome destitute upper-class fortune hunter, Morris Townsend (Clift), who tells her sweet lies and manipulates her into wanting to marry him. Dr. Sloper is onto Morris from the outset, and comments acidly on him, the proposed marriage, and on Catherine’s despised existence in general. Sloper’s barely concealed hostility and contempt for Catherine poison his words of warning about Morris. She ignores them. In fact, she touts her independence, insisting she will live on the $10,000 she has outright rather than on her father’s $30,000.

Finally, the two young lovers agree to elope. Morris finds out that Sloper has changed his will, and that if she marries him, she will not get the $30,000. He makes tender declarations of love, and vanishes. Catherine sits in the parlor, packed, ready to be whisked away. Eventually the truth becomes obvious. He’s not coming.

Fast forward a few years. Sloper is presumably dead. Catherine is still needlepointing, alone in her fabulous Washington Square home. Guess who comes to visit? I won’t spoil the ending, but it is extremely satisfying.

Wyler adapted no fewer than 12 stage plays into movies in his directing career. He was an expert at filming unobtrusively, giving his actors space to work, capturing that pleasure one gets when one sees a superior live performance.

He lets Richardson, de Havilland, and Clift inhabit a scene, really playing it instead of skating over it. The characters seem lived-in. Wyler keeps a respectable distance from the actors, lets them work through a scene slowly if they need to, giving them time to react, to indicate. He creates a superior motion picture by letting his actors work.

The dialogue is highly mannered, in the style of the repressed upper class in mid-to-late 19^th century American society, which was the landscape Henry James painted, again and again. Everyone speaks a carefully coded, polite, formal language – you must discern the emotions from other, visual, cues. (Until Morris appears, there is no display of emotion in the film. How liberating his faux endearments must have felt!) The formal language, the buried emotion of James: similar to the classic samurai film, oddly. A similar hierarchy.

Richardson is best at this: he can steal a scene just standing and staring . . . just a little too hard. De Havilland has the time of her life morphing from a mindless innocent into a wiser, sadder woman, one infinitely more intelligent than the men around her. Clift has to play a heel. He is an inspired con artist, one who lies glibly and convincingly, so much so that you feel he is amazed by his own ability to deceive and manipulate others. He is a very devil. The three clash together in quiet rooms.

The settings are sumptuous and solid, a naturalistic replication of the look of the period. Everyone is dressed to the nines (in fact they never reveal anything of the body), stiffly, at attention. The cinematography is tight, precise. Displays of passion are almost unknown, and the most intense emotions are enunciated on transits up and town the tasteful stairs of their home. An immense amount of emotion comes cascading down through a trio who would never utter a loud word, but who would negotiate the emotional shifts James and the Goetzs put them through.

Miriam Hopkins, a starlet of the 1930s, here plays a dotty, romance-besotted aunt. And Betty Linley, who I've never heard of, has a great scene as Morris' sister, Mrs. Montgomery.

Aaron Copland’s score is instantly identifiable as in his style, but for all that it is as subdued and complex as the story itself. He won the Oscar. And by the way, de Havilland won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance here. She clearly conveys Catherine’s heady trip into the world of feeling.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Lead Shoes.

NFR Project: 'Gun Crazy' (1950)

 

NFR Project: “Gun Crazy”

Dir: Joseph H. Lewis

Scr: Dalton Trumbo, MacKinlay Kantor

Pho: Russell Harlan

Ed: Harry Gerstad

Premiere: Jan. 20, 1950

87 min.

Joseph H. Lewis was a talented director who came up the hard way. He made “B” pictures – those films that were cheap and created to fill out a double bill at a theater with a more prestigious “A” picture. He worked in practically every genre – Westerns (he was known as “Wagon Wheel Joe” for shooting scenes through that object to vary up the look of things), comedies, horror movies, costume dramas, and musicals.

It wasn’t until 1945 that he really hit on his strength, when he made the excellent film noir My Name is Julia Ross. Other fine examples of his work in this genre are So Dark the Night (1946), The Big Combo (1950), and this film, largely regarded as his masterpiece.

This screenplay was written by MacKinlay Kantor and the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, working under a pseudonym. It’s the story of the love between two disturbed people. Bart (John Dall) grows up obsessed with guns – although he is averse to killing. He gets in trouble with the law, serves in the Army, and comes back after his service to his hometown.

At a carnival he meets sharpshooter Laurie (Peggy Cummins), whom he beats in a shooting contest. They fall for each other, and run off together. Laurie wants to get money the quick and easy way, and she handily gets Bart to join her in armed robberies. Their crime spree gets them in the sights of the law. Laurie advocates one more big heist to set themselves up. They pull it off, but Laurie kills two people in the commission of the crime.

Laurie is trigger-happy, and unconcerned about committing murder. Pursued by the police, the two run into the mountains. Lost in the fog, surrounded by police, Laurie intends to kill in order to escape, but Bart balks at this and kills her, only to be killed himself shortly after.

The movie is enlivened by unique and innovative filming techniques. Lewis places close-ups off-center, to disorient and throw off the viewer, perhaps echoing the skewed perspective of the criminals. Notably, he directs the commission of a robbery from the back seat of a car in a continuous, 10-minute take (he repeats this back-seat filming a few more times in the film).

At the end, the two are lost in the (moral) fog they find themselves in. Bart is lured to his death by a femme fatale; he does the right thing in the end, but too late to change his fate.

Lewis makes a mean, lean picture that’s entertaining and thoughtful.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Heiress.

NFR Project: 'All the King's Men' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “All the King’s Men”

Dir: Robert Rossen

Scr: Robert Rossen

Pho: Burnett Guffey

Ed: Al Clark, Robert Parrish

Premiere: Nov. 8, 1949

110 min.

This adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Proze-winning novel is a story of corruption, based on the sketchy career of Louisiana politician Huey Long (1893-1935). Long was governor of the state, and was a powerful demagogue who was assassinated.

Such is the case with the film’s fictional Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), an idealist who gets involved with the political process and who starts to make back-room deals and gathers damaging information on his opponents. He wins the governorship, and continues with his corrupt ways.

He is aided and abetted by the film’s narrator, the journalist Jack Burden (John Ireland). Burden begins by covering the failures of the idealistic Stark, but soon grows into the position of being his campaign advisor (and the keeper of his opponents’ dirty secrets). As Stark becomes more and more powerful, principled others start impeachment proceedings against him. Stark survives impeachment, but is shot to death by a doctor who’s outraged that Stark is having an affair with his sister.

The film won Best Picture. Broderick Crawford won Best Actor, and Mercedes McCambridge won Best Supporting Actress. The axiom that power corrupts is thoroughly explored here.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Gun Crazy.

NFR Project: 'Adam's Rib' (1949)

 

NFR Project: “Adam’s Rib”

Dir: George Cukor

Scr: Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin

Pho: George J. Folsey

Ed: George Boemler

Premiere: Nov. 18, 1949

101 min.

When last we saw Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn on film together in this series, it was in their first collaboration, Woman of the Year (1942). Over the next eight years, they made seven more pictures together. Their chemistry was perfect – he, the wry average guy, her the rapid-fire overachiever.

This onscreen relationship was accompanied by an offscreen relationship, one that was deeply loving. Tracy, a Catholic, wouldn’t divorce his wife, so he and Hepburn lived a life together as much as they could, maintaining separate residences and keeping their relationship an ill-kept secret. Tracy also struggled with his mental health and with alcohol. It was not all peaches and cream.

Still, what made them compatible offscreen manifests itself in their films together. Each one had a characteristic persona, and these two types played off each other with grace and wit. Here in Adam’s Rib, their verbal exchanges chase one another across the room, and frequently dissolve into talking OVER each other, a comic dividend.

This is their second film together under the direction of George Cukor, and the first comedy essayed by the three of them. Cukor’s urbane, understated style lets the actors act their way through a philosophical debate crossed with a slapstick bedroom comedy. Cukor gazes on contentedly as a parade of distinctive character actors crowd the screen carrying on the nonsense in the background. Cukor and Hepburn wound up making 10 films together over a span of 50 years.

The extremely sharp script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin casts them as lawyers. He, Adam, an assistant district attorney; she, wife Amanda, an attorney for the defense. Their New York apartment is comfortably grand; they bought a farm upstate as well. They are both extremely good at what they do.

The crux of the plot is this: a daffy housewife (Judy Holliday in a career-making performance) trails her cheating husband (the great Tom Ewell) to the apartment of his girlfriend (a young Jean Hagen). She pulls out a revolver, emptying it blindly. She wounds her husband. She is arrested of course.

However, Amanda asserts that, if the sexual roles were reversed, the shooting would be seen as justified, a defense of the home. She represents the housewife. Unfortunately, Adam is the prosecutor assigned to the case. The two must negotiate their relationship away from the court, just as they indulge in heated debate within it. As the trial progresses, Amanda goes to extreme lengths to bolster her client’s case; Adam, riled up and outraged, chuffs along steadily.

In the end, Amanda wins the case – but Adam moves out. Beset romantically by their neighbor, songwriter Kip (David Wayne), Amanda nearly falters when Adam appears, gun in hand. Amanda shields the diminutive Kip. “You have no right!” she exclaims. His point is proven. Adam puts the gun in his mouth – and bites it. “Itth licowice,” he explains. The three then do battle.

A divorce seems inevitable. The two meet at their tax accountant’s office. They begin to reminisce, Adam cries. Amanda relents. They go up to the farm. Adam announces that he is the Republican candidate for County Court Judge and then demonstrates that he can cry on command. They are together again.

It’s lovely late screwball comedy, wherein everyone is intelligent and reasonable; their senses of honor and propriety are in opposition, not their feeling selves. So the personal and the professional get mixed up until the woman wins and the roles reverse themselves.

Tracy takes (almost) everything with a skeptical glint of humor. Hepburn dashes madly about him, dynamic and stunningly articulate. Like Nick and Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies, Adam and Amanda embody the ideal of two uniquely matched people filling a need in each other’s lives, beyond the concept of winning and losing. They communicated. They got along well. We felt we knew them. That’s a pretty stellar achievement.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: All the King’s Men.

NFR Project: 'On the Town' (1949)

NFR Project: “On the Town”

Dir: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen

Scr: Adolph Green, Betty Comden

Pho: Harold Rosson

Ed: Ralph E. Winters

Premiere: Dec. 8, 1949

98 min.

On the Town germinated from a stage project initiated by the talented composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. In 1944, he wrote, for choreographer Jerome Robbins, a short ballet titled Fancy Free, which highlighted three sailors on shore leave, mixing jazz and vernacular musical styles with classical.

The piece was a big success, and prompted Bernstein and the talented writing team of Adolph Green and Betty Comden to expand the selection and turn it into a musical that same year. The story of three sailors with only 24 hours’ leave in New York City was a novel idea. On the Town was a hit, and soon discussions about adapting into a film began.

Eventually, the film was made, starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin as the three sailors. The radical idea of filming on location made this the first musical to stage scenes on the streets of New York. 

At 6 a.m., the sailors run down the gangplank from their ship and sing about how excited they are to be in the city. We are offered a montage of them traveling to all the great tourist destinations in the Big Apple. Then one of them, Gabe (Kelly), sees a picture of a girl, Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen) on the subway (she is “Miss Turnstiles,” a monthly honor bestowed on an attractive subway rider) and falls in love. He vows to find her, and his buddies join with him. 

The three try to track her down by going to all of New York’s cultural institutions. They travel to the Museum of Natural History, where Ozzy (Munshin) grabs the attention of the brainy Claire (Ann Miller). The boys go next to Symphonic Hall. They grab a cab piloted by Hildy (Betty Garrett), who falls for Chip (Sinatra). Gabe finds Ivy and makes a date with her, believing her to be a member of high society.

The six go out night-clubbing. At 11:30 p.m., Ivy must go to Coney Island, where she works as a “cooch dancer”. Gabe finds her, and she confesses her humble origins and reveals that in fact she is from the same small Indiana town as him. Meanwhile, the police and the Shore Patrol are hot on the group’s heels, and apprehends them, sending the sailors back to their ship. The girls wave goodbye. And another batch of sailors springs out of the ship, ready to go on the town.

Oddly, the film tosses many of the musical’s original numbers, including the excellent “Carried Away” and “I Can Cook, Too,” and substitutes songs not written by Bernstein for them. Fortunately, they are decent and move the plot along. The production is in vivid Technicolor, with some bravura dancing and singing scenes. It’s a pleasant enough excursion, and continued the trend of location shooting in New York.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Adam’s Rib.

 

 

 

NFR Project: 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”

Dir: John Huston

Scr: John Huston

Pho: Ted D. McCord

Ed: Owen Marks

Premiere: Jan. 24, 1948

126 min.

It’s one of the best films ever made.

This remarkable project was just another great job done by director and screenwriter John Huston (1906-1987), and is perhaps the best of his 37 feature films.

Huston was inspired by B. Traven’s 1927 novel. Traven was a mysterious figure. Much speculation exists as to his true name and background, but he was definitely known as an anarchist in Germany under the name of Ret Marut in post-World War I Berlin. Forced into exile, he made his way to Mexico in 1928 and began writing novels about politics, greed, and social injustice.

For Traven, capitalism was the chief cause of suffering, poverty, and death in the world. Sierra Madre is his second novel; after that, he wrote the extraordinary The Death Ship, followed by a series of historical novels outlining the exploitation of indigenous peoples in Mexico. He jealously guarded his anonymity and remained an unseen factor in the creation of this film adaptation.

This was the first film project Huston made after his service in World War II, during which he made documentaries for the Army, two of which, The Battle of San Pietro and Let There Be Light were reviewed in this series. Huston wrote the screenplay and set to work. He gathered a solid trio of actors to play his leads – his own father, the venerable Walter Huston as Howard, a grizzled old prospector; Tim Holt as Curtin, a young man down on his luck; and the incomparable Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs, whose descent into madness takes up most of the film.

The movie opens in Tampico, Mexico. Dobbs is impoverished and stranded, reduced to begging for handouts from affluent American tourists. He meets Curtin, and the two sign on to work on an oil rig. They are cheated out of their pay, and later find the contractor who bilked them and beat him into submission, taking their pay from his wallet. Huston captures the desperation of the down and out.

However, the two rapidly run out of money. They go to sleep in a flophouse, and there discover Howard, who spins tales about prospecting for gold. Dobbs wins a small amount of money in a lottery, and the three use the money to equip themselves for an expedition.

Off they go into the wilderness, fighting off bandits on the train ride in (they see one bandit with a distinctive “gold hat,” but Dobbs fails to shoot him). They reach the wilderness and begin searching for a vein. Howard, unexpectedly much hardier than the other two, sets the pace. Huston went on location to get an unvarnished look at the harsh, dry landscape the trio finds themselves in. Eventually, Howard strikes paydirt and the three get to work mining the gold.

As the profits in gold dust accrue, Dobbs suggests that each man take care of his own share of the treasure. This leads to a change in the men – suddenly distrustful, they hide their shares from each other. Another American, Cody, (Bruce Bennett) finds out about their mine and asks to be included. The three determine to kill him, but they are interrupted by the bandits, led by Gold Hat, before they can execute their plan. Trapped by the bandits, the men appear to be out of luck, until federal troops come along and chase the bandits away. Cody is killed in the battle with the bandits.

Finally, the vein peters out and the men prepare to go home. On their way back, Howard is kidnapped by some indigenous people who seek his help in reviving an unconscious child. Trusting his goods to his partners, Howard goes with them. In an extraordinary and silent scene, he brings the child back to life. Now the people adopt him and treat him to a kingly existence.

Meanwhile, Dobbs and Curtin struggle on through the desert. Dobbs becomes more and more paranoid, accusing Curtin of planning his death. Eventually, Dobbs becomes so homicidal that Curtin covers him with a gun, refusing to sleep. Of course, Curtin falls asleep and Dobbs takes his gun away and shoots him. Curtin crawls off into the brush to die.

Dobbs continues alone, and is almost to the nearest town when the bandits, still led by Gold Hat, encounter him. They attack him for his mules, brutally cutting his head off. The bandits find the gold dust and, not knowing what it is, dump it out on the ground.

Curtin survives his wound and reconnects with Howard. The two race to the town to find their treasure, but find that it has all blown away in the wind. Crestfallen at first, the two finally laugh off their futile 10-month quest for gold, and part amicably.

Greed is the driving force in the movie. Dobbs without gold is simply grumpy and a bit caustic; once the stakes are high he transforms into an inhuman, murdering monster. Bogart’s performance is one of his best – his slow dehumanization is a portrait of the human soul distorted and ultimately destroyed by selfish desire.

Played out in an unforgiving landscape, Sierra Madre serves as a cautionary tale about wealth and what it does to people. Those who maintain their morality are largely untouched, but flawed characters such as Dobbs find their negative traits ballooning to deadly proportions. Huston relishes the labor of the prospecting trio, outlining it in detail. Dobbs’ march through the desert becomes an expedition through his personal Hell, Dobbs reduced to the status of demon.

The movie is compulsively watchable. We are invested in the miners’ struggle, and sit in appalled attention as the scheme unravels. In the end, we too must laugh off the whole affair and move on, humbled by the demonstration of man’s frailties.

When Oscar time rolled around, Huston won for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and his father won for Best Supporting Actor.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: On the Town.

NFR Project: 'Red River' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Red River”

Dir: Howard Hawks

Scr: Borden Chase, Charles Schnee

Pho: Russell Harlan

Ed: Christian Nyby

Premiere: Aug. 26, 1948

127 min.

Leave it to Howard Hawks to make an almost perfect Western on his second try (if you count Barbary Coast as a Western). Red River is simply remarkable, until its damp squib of an ending.

Hawks mastered every genre he ever attempted. This film is no exception. Using the basic plot as that of Mutiny on the Bounty out West, the movie marries two very different actors – tough John Wayne and sensitive Montgomery Clift, making them father and adopted son in conflict. With a strong script by Borden Chase, the valuable second-unit direction of Arthur Rosson, and a spectacular cast combine to create a landmark mature Western.

Wayne is Tom Dunson, a stubborn and ornery cattleman who doesn’t let a woman get in the way of his plans. When he separates from his beloved, her wagon train is beset by Indians and she is killed. The only survivor of the massacre is a young boy, Matthew Garth, who brings his cow along. He joins up with Wayne and his sidekick Groot (Walter Brennan) and together they forge a huge cattle empire.

Years later, Matthew (now Montgomery Clift) and Dunston plan to take the herd of 10,000 cattle north 1,000 miles to the railroad, for sale. Dunston aims to wind up at Sedalia, Missouri, but it appears that railroad has penetrated further west and can be met at Abilene, Kansas. The men are conflicted over which way to go, but Dunson stubbornly insists on going to Missouri.

Dunson aims to kill a cowboy for causing a stampede, but Matt wounds the man instead. Three other men state they want to quit; Dunson and Matt kill them. Three more men escape in the night; Dunson sends Cherry Valance (John Ireland) to capture them. He returns with two, having killed one. Dunson states his intention to hang the deserters. Matt says no. He disarms Dunson and abandons him, taking the herd to Abilene. Dunston swears he’ll find him and kill him.

Matt and his followers come upon a wagon train under Indian attack; they fight them off. Matt meets a spunky gal, Tess (Joanne Dru). They form a bond, but the cattle drive moves on. Eight days later, Dunson meets Tess, still bent on revenge. He offers her half the ranch if she will bear him a son. She agrees if Dunston will stop chasing Matt, but he refuses.

In the end, Dunson finds Matt and tries to goad him into gunplay. Matt refuses. Dunson and Matt then beat the stuffing out of each other.

This is where is movie goes south. Tess shows up, wielding a gun, and yells at them to stop fighting, stating that they know that they love each other. They stop fighting and reconcile. The end.

This unconvincing wrap-up solves the dilemma of the plot – who will die? It turns out, no one.

Up until then, everything was great. The story unfolds with epic sweep. There is a who’s who of great Western character actors on hand – Hank Worden, Paul Fix, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey and Harry Carey Jr., Tom Tyler, and Glenn Strange. Together they create a classic.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

NFR Project: 'The Pearl' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “The Pearl”

Dir: Emilio Fernandez

Scr: John Steinbeck, Emilio Fernandez, Jack Wagner

Pho: Gabriel Figueroa

Ed: Gloria Schoemann

Premiere: Feb. 17, 1948 (U.S.) / Sept. 12, 1947 (Mexico)

77 min.

There are two great film figures at work here that you’ve probably not heard of.

Emilio Fernandez was one of the premier directors, screenwriters, and actors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema (1936-1956). He made more than 100 films; he garnered international acclaim. But because Mexican culture didn’t by and large make it north of the border, he remains an unknown quantity to American eyes. The same is true for cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, who was similarly honored for his efforts, and who worked on more than 200 films.

The two of them combine forces to film an epic fable or parable about the dangers of greed, the oppression of colonialism, and basic questions of good and evil, penned by that master John Steinbeck. The simplicity of the story is like that of a fairy tale; but the story is dotted with blood.

A pearl fisherman, Kino (Pedro Armendariz, best known in America for his John Ford roles), finds an enormous pearl, which he shows his wife Juana (Mari Elena Marquez). The village celebrates the find. The doctor who previously refused to treat his infant son now hurries to their bedside, eager to exchange his expertise for the pearl.

The dealers in town agree to keep their estimation of the pearl’s value low. Kino refuses to sell to them, and he and his family seek to escape the village, to make it to the capital to sell the pearl. He kills an assailant. They try to flee by water, but fail. They begin an arduous overland journey, pursued by two native trackers and a man with a gun.

The men trap them, and Kino slithers down the mountainside, knife in hand. He ambushes the man with the gun and kills him. However, the man gets a shot off. It kills the baby.

Kino and Juana return to their village, hand in hand. They go up a high cliff looking over the sea – and cast the pearl into it.

A simple story, but resonant. Wealth is evil. The pearl is a curse, revealing the worst in every man. It nearly destroys those who possess it. And the world of men is not fair, nor even-handed. It is on one level another Steinbeck indictment of man’s behavior.

The images in the film progress from one beautiful composition to another. Figueroa is at his best when he’s close in to actor’s faces, lovingly recording their responses to the tragedy around them. Armendariz is masterful as Kino.

The film was made twice; once in English and once in Spanish. I could not find the English version, but I broke into my high-school Spanish to follow a screening along as best I could. Fortunately, Fernandez tells the story purely through visuals – it is possible to understand the story without understanding the language. This grasp of materials in service of telling the story is exemplary.

No matter what language you see it in, the strong visuals propel the fable along. It’s a gateway to the underappreciated Golden Age of Mexican cinema, which deserves wider viewing.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Red River.

NFR Project: 'The Naked City' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “The Naked City”

Dir: Jules Dassin

Scr: Albert Maltz, Malvin Wald

Pho: William H. Daniels

Ed: Paul Weatherwax

Premiere: March 4, 1948

96 min.

“There are eight million stories in the naked city. This was one of them.”

So intones the voice of Mark Hellinger, New York journalist and this film’s producer, who died weeks before this film opened. Hellinger’s voice is the first you hear in the preamble to this story of a crime and its solution, as a sometimes-sardonic offscreen chronicler of New York City’s bigness and complex functions, faithfully telling a police procedural story as a documentary-style “location” film, before anyone else and most successfully.

For a lot of this was shot on New York streets, starting a trend that would accelerate as the years passed. The movie is a classic policier – the story of a given case from the perspective of law enforcement, from beginning to end. Here, a murder sporting two suspects branches off into all manner of scenes with a cross-section of New York’s vibrant culture.

The leader of the investigation is Dt. Lt. Muldoon, played by Barry Fitzgerald. You finally get a good look at Fitzgerald as a legit character actor, and not as his typical comic Irish stereotype. He wisely prods witnesses, focuses his team’s attention, and delegates the legwork to an eager young Detective, Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor).

The trouble comes down to a shifty suspect (Howard Duff, in a truly villainous role) and his relation to several women. There is jewel theft, and a wrester that plays the harmonica (Ted de Corsia, sweaty and desperate). Somehow Muldoon and Company take down the bad guys, the last of which is vanquished at the summit of the Williamsburg Bridge (William H. Daniels won Best Cinematography at the Oscars that year for it).

One of its more trivia-minded aspects is the onslaught of New York acting talent that surfaced in this film. If you pluck out in your memory the now-familiar faces of character actors Kathleen Freeman, James Gregory, Nehemiah Persoff, John Randolph, Paul Ford, John Marley, and/or Arthur O’Connell, you would be seeing for the first time in years a “real” East Coast film.

It is by today’s standards sedate, but it was revolutionary for its time. It was wildly successful. You did not have to go to Hollywood to make a movie, once again. People liked seeing “the real thing,” and naturalism became the name of the game in film, at least in black-and-white. (Note: there was a string of “Technicolor noirs” concurrently, some of which were such sterling examples as Vertigo, House of Bamboo, and Leave Her to Heaven.) There was a big pool of cheap talent in New York. In future, views of the city would increase appreciably on nation-wide screens.

The director, Jules Dassin, was not a Frenchman, but a kid from Harlem. He knew his way around the city. He had just made the hit Brute Force; after Naked City, he would make, in a row, Thieves’ Highway, Night and the City, and Rififi. A true noir master. Saying that, it is interesting how Dassin presents the story in pseudo-documentary style, with Hellinger’s narrative voice continuing, moving the story along.

Dassin doesn’t exercise any style. His directing is strictly functional. They want it to look like the real thing? We get the drudgery of daily police work, see its odd chances at grasping the truth, trace the track-down of a criminal on an iconic NYC bridge. It is proud of its pedestrianism. It was all done surreptitiously; no one gave their permission to use their image to the filmmakers. They just went out into the streets and got it.

The blacklist got Dassin shortly after. He got off Thieves’ Highway, but he had to scamper to England to make Night and the City, away from the bad press that labeled him as a Communist. He then stuck to working in Europe, still producing popular and visually adroit films such as Rififi, Never on Sunday and Topkapi.

The Naked City epitomizes the tough urban thriller. Shot on location willy-nilly, it’s gritty and tough, delivers a New York sensibility that would soon revitalize the industry. It’s NYC neorealism.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Pearl.

NFR Project: 'Louisiana Story' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Louisiana Story”

Dir: Robert J. Flaherty

Scr: Robert J. Flaherty, Frances H. Flaherty

Pho: Richard Leacock

Ed: Helen van Dongen

Premiere: Sept. 28, 1948

78 min.

A slightly interesting artifact. This is a promotional film, commissioned by the Standard Oil Company. They wanted to show rural audiences that letting them drill for oil on their property was a lovely, interesting way to make them some money.

They hired the great documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North, Moana, Man of Aran) to direct it. He and his wife wrote the scenario. In it, a young boy and his parents live in a shack out in the Louisiana swamp. The oil company comes through and gets the old man to sign a contract. Soon an oil rig is towed to the portion of the river nearest their home.

The boy watches the goings-on at the rig with curiosity, slightly intimidated by the huge pieces of machinery and the loud clankings of its operation. However, the drillers are nice guys, and soon make the boy feel at home.

The progress of the well is deterred briefly by a blowout (the pressurized emission of a pocket of gas and salt water). However, things soon get back on track and finally, they strike oil.

Meanwhile, the boy has some adventures in the swamp. He loses his pet racoon to an alligator, then captures and kills and skins the gator in consequence. The cinematography by Richard Leacock is beautiful; the boy grows up in an enchanted world.

The movie ends when the family gets paid off. Mother gets a new cooking pot; the boy gets a new gun!

The film also contains an exquisite score by Virgil Thomson, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Composition.

The fable-like falsity of the narrative sells the viewpoint of the entity commissioning the product. Drilling is good, the end. The rest is just wondow-dressing. It is quite a comedown for Flaherty, who get points for crafting a visually interesting film – but turns over control of its meaning to its owners. It is a work-for-hire.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Naked City.

NFR Project 'Letter from an Unknown Woman' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Letter from an Unknown Woman”

Dir: Max Ophuls

Scr: Howard Koch

Pho: Franz Planer

Ed: Ted J. Kent

Premiere: April 28, 1948

86 min.

This is a very uncharacteristic Hollywood movie. This is due to three men – writer Stefan Zweig, producer John Houseman, and director Max Ophuls.

Zweig (1881-1942) was one of the world’s most popular writers. An Austrian, he wrote histories, biographies, and fiction, and was translated into many languages. When Hitler came to power, he escaped his homeland and came first to England and then America. He wrote of life and love in turn-of-the-century Vienna quite eloquently, and with a nostalgia for the pre-World War I culture of the capital. Tragically, his despair over the loss of that culture led to his eventual suicide.

John Houseman (1902-1988), known today for his acting work late in his life, was in fact a Hungarian who was educated in England, and who moved to America in 1925. After a successful career as a grain merchant, he turned to the theater and became a highly regarded writer and producer, best known for his collaborations with a young Orson Welles. When he moved into producing films, he was noted for his meticulous work on prestigious projects. Letter from an Unknown Woman is an example of his superior attention to period detail.

Max Ophuls (1902-1957) was the third Jewish man of this triumvirate of talent. An acclaimed and experienced film director, he also escaped the Nazis and came first to France, and then to America in 1941. Here he continued his career. Letter from an Unknown Woman is his most honored film from this period; he returned to Europe after World War II and made his masterpieces – La Ronde, Lola Montes, Le Plaisir, and The Earrings of Madame de . . . .

Letter is an urbane and mature work, adapted from Zweig's 1922 novella, which examines a curse of unrequited love. A young woman (Joan Fontaine) falls in love with a promising – and womanizing – pianist (Louis Jordan). After years, she finally engineers an evening with him, which he promptly forgets. However, she becomes pregnant, gives birth, and raises their son alone, unknown to him.

Years later, the woman has married an officer, who adopts her son. By chance, she sees the pianist at a concert and determines to see him again. Her husband notes this and promises that he will act with decisiveness if she pursues her passion. Ignoring him, she attempts to reunite with the pianist but finds him a shallow individual who has wasted his talent. Unfortunately, she and her son contract typhus shortly after this and die, but not before she writes a letter to the pianist explaining all. At film’s end, the pianist finds that he has been challenged to a duel by the woman’s husband, and he sets off to an uncertain fate.

The film is told primarily in flashback, and we are given a vision of fin-de-siecle Vienna, gorgeously recreated for the cameras. The subjects of sex outside of wedlock and illegitimate birth was unheard of in Hollywood at the time, but Zweig, Houseman, and Ophus together craft an adult and sophisticated story that accepts the fact that these things happen, and that morality is not entirely black and white.

Ophuls’ patented swooping camera moves are here, and his delicate touch renders this most unconventional story realistic and comprehensible. Its maturity was far beyond the American standards of the time – Ophuls would have to return to Europe to craft more films in this vein.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Louisiana Story.

NFR Project: 'In the Street' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “In the Street”

Pho: Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb, James Agee

Ed: Helen Levitt

Premiere: 1948/1952

14/18 min.

Slice of life.

That’s the best way to describe this short film. Taken in Spanish Harlem on the island of Manhattan, it’s the work of three filmmakers who wanted to preserve the look and feel of everyday life in the New York City of their day.

The trio hit the streets, focusing on children at play, passersby, older women maintaining storefronts. The movie is black-and-white and silent; there is no narration to contextualize what we are seeing, no explanation, just plain witnessing.

This agenda-less exercise is of interest to the quiet observer, the unassuming audience member.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Letter from an Unknown Woman.

NFR Project: 'Force of Evil' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Force of Evil”

Dir: Abraham Polonsky

Scr: Abraham Polonsky, Ira Wolfert

Pho: George Barnes

Ed: Art Seid

Premiere: Dec. 25, 1947

76 min.

It turns out the film noir could bear the weight of social commentary. Abraham Polonsky (1910-1999) wrote the screenplay for Body and Soul (1947), a popular prize-fighting picture starring John Garfield. He was then given the chance to direct as well as write. The result was Force of Evil, a thinly disguised critique of capitalism that later got its director and star in hot water with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

The story is simple: Garfield plays a crooked lawyer, Joe Morse, who protects a crime combine that runs the numbers racket in New York City. One of the smaller “banks” that run the numbers is owned by his older brother Leo (Thomas Gomez in his greatest role).

Joe and his gangster boss Tucker (Roy Roberts) come up with a scheme to bankrupt the smaller betting parlors so that everyone has to do their gambling through them. This ruthless corporate consolidation means that all the little players squeezed out, including Leo. Joe tries to get Leo to take a position in Tucker’s organization, but Leo refuses.

The scheme works, and soon the police and a rival gang come down hard on Leo. Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that Joe is being surveilled by the government. Joe packs up some cash and a gun and prepares to leave town. Meanwhile, Leo is tricked into meeting an informant at a restaurant, where a rival gang swoops in and kidnaps him, killing his bookkeeper at the same time.

Joe finds out, and rushes to Tucker’s, where he finds Tucker making a deal with the gangster that kidnapped Leo. The rival gangster Ficco reveals that Leo has been murdered and dumped under the George Washington Bridge. Joe lifts the receiver on a tapped phone, allowing the law to hear Ficco confess that his men killed Leo and the bookkeeper. A gun battle breaks out; Tucker and Ficco are killed. Joe leaves and goes to find his brother’s body, then turns himself in to the police.

There is a slight romantic plot between Joe and a young secretary, Doris, but the film is concerned with the mechanics of what is basically a hostile corporate takeover. Crooks will fix the numbers game to get their way; nothing matters but the expansion and domination of the primary criminal enterprise in the city.

Garfield is stellar as Joe, as the film tracks his disillusionment to the bitter end. Joe’s world is nasty, dark, and bristling with hidden weapons that come into play at the end of the film. Crooks are merely shadows of the ruthlessness and disregard for human feeling of the stock market. Money and the system of its distribution inherently corrupt anyone involved with it.

There is a lot of location shooting in New York; Joe’s office is close to Wall Street and the parallels between legitimate banks and numbers banks is made clear. The gangsters are after the cash flow and nothing human is factored into their machinations. Joe gets wise to himself – but too late to save his brother.

In 1951, Polonsky and Garfield were summoned before HUAC but refused to “name names” of American Communists; both were blacklisted. Garfield died of a heart attack at the age f 39 in 1952. Polonsky wrote under pseudonyms until 1959. Never again would Hollywood let someone with anti-capitalist sentiments get behind a movie camera.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: In the Street.

NFR Project: 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein' (1948)

 

NFR Project: “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”

Dir: Charles Barton

Scr: Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, John Grant

Pho: Charles Van Enge

Ed: Frank Gross

Premiere: June 1948

82 min.

It’s not their best film, but it’s their most memorable. It contains none of the wordplay routines for which they were famous. The duo was hostile to the whole concept of the film. They had just completed their 17^th film in six years; the country was seemingly tired of them.

But this film made an enormous amount of money for Universal; supposedly it “saved” the studio. The combination of horror and comedy proved to be a potent concoction. People went nuts about Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were the best-known comedy duo between the reigns of Laurel and Hardy and Martin and Lewis. Lou was the roly-poly, mischievous little comedian; Bud was the tall, thin straight man. They had impeccable timing together, and rose to fame in 1938, when they did their famous “Who’s on First?” routine on the radio. Soon they had their own radio show, and a lucrative film contract.

By 1948, their humor was wearing thin. Their radio show was canceled and it looked like they were going to stop making movies. Then this film came along and revived their fortunes, leading to more movies, a TV show, and general renown.

In the film, Lou and Bud are Wilbur and Chick, two baggage clerks in Florida. A museum owner ships two crates through them – crates that contain Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange). Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) tries to persuade the duo that Dracula plans to control Frankenstein a take over the world, and that he must be stopped.

Chick is skeptical, but Wilbur is exposed to the monsters and reacts in humorous panic. “Ch-Ch-Ch-CHIIIIIIIICK!” he exclaims frequently. By the time Chick shows up, the monsters are gone. This continues throughout the film. Meanwhile, a sexy surgeon (Lenore Aubert) plans to take Wilbur’s brain and put it into the Monster to make him more docile. Wilbur, being a moron, has a perfectly susceptible brain.

What follows is an up-and-down story of chases and close calls. Chick and Larry set out to save Wilbur. The good guys go up against the bad guys and defeat them – Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein are all destroyed. A final gag featuring the Invisible Man (voiced by Vincent Price) closes things out. It is rather sad to see the Universal monsters used as punch lines.

If you are an Abbott and Costello fan, this film’s for you. If not . . . this film will not change your mind about them. The duo would go on to create many more “Meets” films; Lou’s stammering cowardice and Bud’s cynical pragmatism would carry them through these increasingly poor films.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Force of Evil.

NFR Project: Cab Calloway's home movies (1948-1951)

 

NFR Project: Cab Calloway’s home movies

1948-1951

Once again, an entry for which I have practically no data, and no footage I can find to review. Evidently the famous bandleader took both black-and-white and color home movies of his home in Long Beach, New York and of his travels around the Western hemisphere during the 1948-1951 period. These film undoubtedly shed light on the life of a Black performer in the mid-20^th Century.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

NFR Project: 'The Way of Peace' (1947)

 

NFR Project: “The Way of Peace”

Dir: Frank Tashlin

Scr: Frank Tashlin

Pho: Wah Ming Chang

Ed: Stuart O’Brien

Premiere: April 23, 1947

18 min.

This short puppet animation was commissioned by the American Lutheran Church. It sought to inculcate Christian values in its viewers. Frank Tashlin, its director, started out as an animator; he would shortly move into making live-action comedy features, many starring Jerry Lewis.

The movie tells a theological pocket story of mankind – how man was once one with God, and how that relationship has been destroyed by people putting up walls between themselves and Godlike attributes such as justice and mercy. It retails the story of man exploiting and mistreating his fellow man.

The movie ends with a prolonged sequence showing the world destroyed by atomic missiles. This pessimistic conclusion is meant to serve as a warning. The dangers of atomic combat were just beginning to sink into the collective consciousness, and the anxiety-provoking spectacle of cities destroyed forms an unsettling coda to the project.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Cab Calloway’s home movies.

NFR Project: 'Out of the Past' (1947)

 

NFR Project: “Out of the Past”

Dir: Jacques Tourneur

Scr: “Geoffrey Holmes” (Daniel Mainwaring), James M. Cain, Frank Fenton

Pho: Nicholas Musuraca

Ed: Samuel E. Beetley

Premiere: Nov. 25, 1947

97 min.

This is the hardest of all hard-boiled film noirs, with crackling dialogue, plenty of angst, and the most impassive hero of the genre – the great Robert Mitchum.

The incredibly strong script, combined with the talent of director Jacques Tourneur, son of the great silent director Maurice Tourneur, makes this movie a stark meditation on greed and fear and delusion. Add to this Nicholas Musuraca’s exquisite cinematography, and you have a movie that still shines and compels, decades after its creation.

Here Mitchum plays the taciturn Jeff Bailey, a small-town gas station owner who is recognized by a passing thug and ordered to report to a crime boss, Whit Sterling (a delightfully frightening Kirk Douglas in a breakout role), we know not why. Jeff is attracted to a nice girl in town, and on their way to see Sterling he confesses to her his past.

We are swept into an extended flashback. Jeff was a private eye, hired by Sterling to track down a young woman who shot him and stole $40,000 from him. This Jeff does, traveling down to Mexico. There he finds who he is looking for – Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer). Unfortunately, he almost immediately falls in love with her. Ignoring his mission, he plans to get away with her.

Sterling surprises him in Mexico, and he barely gets free of him without revealing his alliance with Kathie. He and Kathie move to San Francisco . . . where he is spotted by his former partner, now working for Sterling. He follows them and tries to shake them down. Kathie shoots him dead. Jeff and Kathie split up and flee.

Back in the present, Jeff arrives at Sterling’s place and finds Kathie there. She claims that she had no choice but to return to Sterling, and that she couldn’t help murdering Jeff’s old partner. (She smokes; he smokes; everybody smokes in this movie, all the time. The characters are always seen through a fog of cigarette smoke.)

Scornful and bitter, Jeff takes on a job for Sterling involving stopping a blackmailer. Jeff suspects that he is being set up to take the rap for the blackmailer’s murder; he is correct. Kathie is out to eliminate him and save herself. He outfoxes Sterling and Kathie, staying one jump ahead of them, but not before Kathie guns Sterling down and blackmails Jeff into leaving with her. Jeff agrees, but maeks a phone call we are not privy to.

Jeff and Kathie are stopped by a police roadblock. Kathie realizes Jeff has called the cops on her and shoots him to death. The cops kill Kathie. The “good girl” Jeff was enamored of asks his deaf-mute employee, the Kid, if Jeff was really planning on fleeing with Kathie. The Kid lies and indicates yes, sparing her feelings.

It’s not so much the twisting of the plot that is remarkable about this film – it’s the characters. Sterling is a genial, relaxed maniac who compliments his guests in one sentence and promises them a slow, painful death with the next. Jane Greer’s Kathie is a ravishing monster – incredibly beautiful, she lies with every breath she takes, making every move only to protect herself and advance her own interests. She is the perfect femme fatale.

It’s Mitchum who anchors the film, though. His droll indifference to the lies, the schemes, the twists and turns of the other players at first seems too monotone to be believed. However, watch Mitchum’s face closely. It reveals his subtle and complex feelings and state of mind at every instant, disguised under a sleepy-eyed, sarcastic demeanor. Jeff has a sense of honor, but he is also wise to himself. In the end, he delivers himself and Kathie to the fate they deserve. He is doomed, but he is resigned to his fate.

And the dialogue! “I don’t want to die.” “Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I’m going to die last.”

“She can’t be all bad. No one is.” “Well, she comes the closest.”

“You can never help anything, can you? You're like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another.”

Jeff is so self-aware that his observations border on parody. He is bemused by everything, and makes light of all going on around him. His death is a tragedy, inevitable. All the plans the characters make come to nothing, and we are only slightly mollified by the film’s ending. Only we the audience know that at heart, Jeff was a good guy.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Way of Peace.

NFR Project: 'Motion Painting No. 1' (1947)

 

NFR Project: “Motion Painting No. 1”

Created by Oskar Fischinger

Premiere: 1947

This is a difficult film to tackle, as no copy exists of it to watch and analyze – at least, not online.

Fischinger was a pioneering German animator, who began to create a series of color-filled abstract pictures synchronized to classical music excerpts. He was summoned to Hollywood in 1936, and continued to create his unique offerings . . . but eventually found little support for these activities. (He worked on Disney’s Fantasia [1940], but quit due to artistic differences.) Eventually, he turned to oil painting, giving up on filmmaking except for commercial projects.

Motion Painting No. 1 was his last great independent project. He created the film by applying oil paint to Plexiglass, carefully shooting frame by frame to create a breathtakingly beautiful concoction of swirling, darting images that pulsed with the musical soundtrack, here Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Fischinger’s obscure efforts would survive, and wound up influencing future generations of animators.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Out of the Past.

NFR Project: 'Miracle on 34th Street' (1947)

 

NFR Project: “Miracle on 34^th Street”

Dir: George Seaton

Scr: George Seaton, Valentine Davies

Pho: Lloyd Ahern Sr., Charles G. Clarke

Ed: Robert L. Simpson

Premiere: June 11, 1947

96 min.

It’s an enduring little fantasy picture, penned by one of Hollywood’s better screenwriters and lovingly crafted by one of its most dependable directors. It imagines what would happen if there really was a Santa Claus.

Valentine Davies was just starting out when he wrote this story, and it’s a winner. It’s Thanksgiving Day in New York City, and the Macy’s parade is about to start. The man playing Santa for the end of the parade is drunk. Macy’s employee Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara) desperately needs someone to replace him. A jolly old stranger (Edmund Gwenn) shows up and fits the bill perfectly. Doris hires him to be Macy’s Santa in the mammoth department store.

Unfortunately this “Kris Kringle” asserts that is he really is Santa Claus. This perturbs Doris, as well as her child Susan (Natalie Wood), who has been brought up not to indulge in make-believe. Kris wins them over, even as he gets Macy’s to refer customers to other stores for presents if they don’t have what they’re looking for. It is only when Kris assaults a very un-Christmasy store psychologist that he is committed as a loony.

Lawyer Fred Gailey (John Payne) is sweet on Doris and Susan, and he decides to let Kris go to trial to prove that he is Santa Claus and that therefore he cannot be committed. Despite lots of testimony, the judge demands that an authority certify that he is the real thing.

That night, the post office sends all the letters to Santa to the courthouse. The next day, Fred has mailmen deliver sacks and sacks of mail to the judge’s desk. The judge interprets that this means that the federal government recognizes Kris as Santa Claus and sets him free. Doris and Fred get together; with Susan they find a house for sale that’s curiously close to Susan’s seemingly impossible wish for Christmas. The find Kris’ case tucked behind the front door.

The perfect little story chugs along, playing out all its premises with cheerful efficiency. Kris convinces Susan to take up make-believe and have a more childlike attitude toward life. Fred falls in love with Doris, and saves Kris. Doris finally breaks down and believes in Kris as well. By film’s end, it’s obvious that Doris, Fred, and Susan will be creating a new family together.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Motion Painting No. 1.

NFR Project: 'Gentleman's Agreement' (1947)

 

NFR Project: “Gentleman’s Agreement”

Dir: Elia Kazan

Scr: Moss Hart, Elia Kazan

Pho: Arthur C. Miller

Ed: Harmon Jones

Premiere: Nov. 11, 1947

118 min.

In the wake of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism was suddenly in the spotlight. Western civilization was appalled by the destruction of millions of Jewish lives in World War II – but it turns out that prejudice against Jews was still broad and pervasive, even in highly educated and affluent parts of society.

Such is the premise of Gentleman’s Agreement, a message film that wound up unexpectedly popular, and won the Oscar for Best Picture to boot. In it, Gregory Peck plays Phil Green, a writer for a New York magazine who comes up with an angle for a series of articles about anti-Semitism. He is to claim that he is Jewish – and he records the reactions of those around him to this news.

Green is a widower with a young son (Dean Stockwell), who lives with him and his mother (Anne Revere). He falls for a teacher, Kathy (Dorothy McGuire), but their upcoming wedding is derailed by the revelation that she is prejudiced as well. It turns out that even in high society, Jews are not welcome. Neighbors shun him, clubs ignore him, hotels refuse to serve him. His son is bullied by other kids, called a “kike.” Phil’s friend, returning veteran Dave Goldman (John Garfield), long accustomed to such treatment, commiserates with him over the state of affairs – and fights his own battle to find a house and get a job despite his Jewishness.

Moss Hart’s dialogue is pungent and to the point, and the film is studded with excellent performances, under the command of director Elia Kazan. Kazan won Best Director for his work here; Celeste Holm won Best Supporting Actress for her sensitive portrayal of Green’s supportive fellow worker.

The movie ends happily for all the characters involved, but it created terrible problems for some of its participants. After this film, Kazan, Revere, and Garfield were summoned to testify by the House Un-American Activities Committee, accused of being Communists. Kazan testified against his fellow filmmakers, earning the scorn of many for decades. Revere and Garfield refused to name names, and were blacklisted. The prejudice was still strong.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Miracle on 34^th Street.

NFR Project: 'The Lady from Shanghai' (1947)

 

NFR Project: “The Lady from Shanghai”

Dir: Orson Welles

Scr: Orson Welles, William Castle, Charles Lederer, Fletcher Markle

Pho: Charles Lawton Jr., Rudolph Mate, Joseph Walker

Ed: Viola Lawrence

Premiere: Dec. 24, 1947

88 min.

This, Welles’ fascinating take on film noir, was another troubled production.

After the debacle that was the studio-botched end of his The Magnificent Ambersons (1943), Welles made two “normal” pictures – Journey into Fear (1943) and The Stranger (1946). It is said that he agreed to make this picture without looking at the book (If I Die Before I Wake) from which it was taken. Welles needed money for his extravagant stage production of Around the World in 80 Days, so he made a deal with the head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn. Cohn would cover Welles’ expenses, and Welles would write, produce, and direct a feature film for him for free.

The story is complex and confusing. A sailor named Michael “Black Irish” O’Hara (Welles) meets a mysterious woman in Central Park, Elsa (Rita Hayworth), saving her from some thugs. From this brief contact comes a proposal from Elsa’s rich and crippled husband, the top-notch attorney Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane). Will he work for them, sail with them on their yacht from New York to San Francisco?

Michael thinks he knows better than to accept, especially because of his obsessive attraction to Elsa. However, he takes the job and soon finds himself in uncomfortable close quarters with Elsa, Bannister, and Bannister’ partner, the slimy and disturbing George Grisby (Glenn Anders). The atmosphere is claustrophobic, even in the midst of tropical paradise. Michael tells them a story of how he once watched a wounded shark being devoured by other sharks, creating a frenzy that ended in the all the sharks eating each other.

Then Grisby makes an unusual proposition. He offers $5,000 to Michael to confess to murdering him. Grisby states he wants to disappear, faking his own death and escaping what he perceives to be the upcoming nuclear holocaust. Michael agrees. However, it turns out that Grisby wants to murder Bannister, frame Michael for it, and escape. Unfortunately, Grisby ends up being killed – and Michael’s signed confession means that he is indicted for his murder.

Bannister represents Michael at this trial. Elsa and Bannister himself testify, and the truth comes out – that Michael and Elsa have a romance. Bannister seeks revenge and plans to lose the case in order to put Michael in the death house.

Just before the verdict is pronounced, Michael escapes and runs into Chinatown, hiding out in an Asian theater. Elsa finds him – and he realizes that Elsa killed Grisby. Elsa and Grisby were both in on the plot to kill Bannister, but a private detective for Bannister discovers their scheme. He is killed by Grisby, who is shot in turn by Elsa.

Michael has swallowed sleeping pills during his escape, and he passes out. He wakes up in an abandoned amusement park, where Elsa has stashed him. Elsa shows up, then Bannister shows up, and Michael learns that Bannister has left a letter exonerating him. Bannister and Elsa have a shootout in the Hall of Mirrors. Both are killed. Michael walks away into the new morning.

Welles went the extra mile to make this film distinctive. He shot on location, a rare practice at the time. He creates a film that is very much like a puzzle, withholding key information from the viewer until the last possible moment. His distinctive camerawork is here – odd, disorienting angles, complicated dolly shots, and grotesque close-ups (save for the ravishing shots of Elsa – Welles made Hayworth into a blonde for this film). Hayworth here is ravishing and inscrutable – the typical femme fatale of noir fiction. This film marked the end of Welles’ and Hayworth’s brief marriage and stands as their only film collaboration.

Welles is not unhappy to vex the viewer. A scene in a darkened aquarium is iconic, as is the entire amusement park sequence, in which Welles can really indulge his Expressionist proclivities. This bravura sequence, including the final shoot out, has been copied many times by others. Multiples of Bannister and Elsa crowd the screen, and as the bullets fly, the glass smashes and crashes, fragmenting their faces as they gun each other down.

Cohn was reportedly very unhappy with Welles’ final product. He mandated some more closeups, and handed the film over to editor Viola Lawrence, who cut over an hour of footage from Welles’ version, rendering an already complex plot incomprehensible. (The “fun house” sequence, now only three minutes long, was originally 20 minutes in length!) After the delay of a year, the film was released, to mixed appraisal.

Today the film is honored for its heady atmosphere and virtuoso filming techniques. It is not Welles’ greatest film, but it is a distinctive artifact. After this, Welles would turn to Shakespeare for inspiration, making Macbeth (1948) and Othello (1951).

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Gentleman’s Agreement.