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.

NFR Project: 'The Story of Menstruation' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “The Story of Menstruation”

Produced by Walt Disney Productions

Premiere: 1946

10 min.

Sex education in America was rudimentary for a long time. Women and girls rarely got the kind of information and advice they would need to have a sense of ownership and mastery over their bodies and functions.

Some smart person at the Kotex company thought it appropriate to change this. They commissioned Disney to create a short animated film that would educate schoolgirls about periods and menstruation. This film was crafted, and then shown to millions of young women, demystifying the process and making it less scary.

The film is staunchly wholesome; only the bare clinical details necessary are indulged in, and the whole cartoon has a euphemistic relationship to its subject. In truth, it faced the challenge of being both straightforward and socially acceptable. It does so admirably.

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

NFR Project: 'Notorious' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “Notorious”

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock

Scr: Ben Hecht

Pho: Ted Tetzlaff

Ed: Theron Warth

Premiere: Sept. 6, 1946

101 min.

This is one of Hitchcock’s most mature and deeply felt films. Ostensibly about a spy ring, it’s really a scathing analysis of attraction, betrayal, regret, and sexual hypocrisy. It makes a male/female relationship into something transactional, a bargaining chip in the game of life.

It’s a romantic triangle. Cary Grant plays T.R. Devlin, a government agent who is trying to get the goods on a Nazi group centered in Rio de Janeiro. He recruits Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), a feckless young lady whose father happened to be a German spy. They happen to fall in love. Then Devlin must get her to seduce Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains), an older friend of her family who is behind the spy ring.

This she does with reluctance, then in anger, feeling that Devlin has been stringing her along. She leaps into bed with Sebastian, making him one of her “playmates,” as she contemptuously refers to it. The plot thickens – Sebastian falls in love with her, asks her to marry him – and she accepts! She continues to gather intelligence for Devlin, which culminates in Devlin attending a party at the Sebastian home.

In an echo of the legend of Bluebeard, there is only one door in Sebastian’s house that is always kept locked – the key to the wine cellar. Alicia steals the key, passes it to Devlin. They explore the cellar. They find wine bottles filled with black sand (later found to be uranium ore). Surprised by Sebastian, they kiss to infuriate and distract him.

Now Sebastian guesses the truth. He goes to his domineering German mother (Leopoldine Konstantin in a frightening portrayal) and they decide to poison Alicia to death, slowly. She sickens; she is trapped.

Devlin comes to Sebastian’s and finds her. He confesses his love to her, and pulls her to her feet. He begins to walk her out of Sebastian’s mansion. The spies want to know what is happening, but Devlin makes Sebastian play along to get them out the door. The two lovers escape, leaving Sebastian to his fate in the hands of the conspirators.

It’s a film of close-ups. Hitchcock peers relentlessly into the faces of the three principals, who all carry off their roles elegantly. There are some signature bravura camera moves, and Hitchcock is as always a master at using objects in isolation as signifiers (the phallic key, the endless little cups of poisoned coffee).

Jealousy, despair, cynicism, and barely suppressed rage all are harvested here. The director once again gets to express his extreme ambivalence about human relationships. Devlin’s pimping out his true love: how much more Hitchcockian can you get?

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

'The Empty Man' an undiscovered horror gem

 

I do a lot of research on film. I watch quite a few, and I've found that there are a lot of bad genre films out there. Every once in a while, I find a film that's unexpectedly good. Such is the case with The Empty Man. Here's a review, excerpted from a future book:

The Empty Man

Director: David Prior

Screenwriter: David Prior  

Cinematographer: Anastas Michos  

2020, 137 min.

Finally! An undiscovered gem. This film, the first feature by writer/director David Prior, is a top-notch horror extravaganza that rings the changes on the classic horror tropes and enlivens them with the bold and intelligent visual drive of the narrative.

The film knows its stuff. It’s a killer script. There’s the trapped in a cabin in a blizzard bit, the steamy sauna, the forbidden ritual, the darkened house, the skeptical observer drawn into another, insane world. It treats the typical horror-film situations, but finds a clever and original and engaging to do so. You are kept on your toes with the movie, as it gets weirder and weirder and weider.

After a mind-bending opening in 1995 Bhutan, the film moves to 2018 Missouri, where a former police officer, James Lasombra (meaning, ominously, “the shadow”), played by James Badge Dale, helps a widowed single mother (Marin Ireland) to find her teenaged daughter Amanda (a great Sasha Frolova), who has disappeared. She has left behind only a message, “The Empty Man made me do it”.

Lasombra investigates, and learns the backstory. A bunch of teenagers, hanging out on a rural bridge, recall the legend of the Empty Man, who will come if you stand on the a bridge, blow into an empty bottle, and think of him. The first night you hear him, the second night you see him, the third night he finds you.

Of course, the kids all do it – and then, of course, all hell breaks loose. James goes to the bridge, blows into a bottle himself . . . maybe not the wisest move. He investigates the Pontifex Institute, which proposes that humankind enter a unitary state that wipes out their problems and all their will. An extraordinary lecture given by Arthur Parsons (the great Stephen Root), outlines the beliefs of a sinister cult that denies distinction between right and wrong and preaches slavish devotion.

Root’s recitation of the mind-numbing philosophy he espouses is a brilliant little scene. It implies that there is a “noosphere” containing all consciousness and numerous realities, He urges submission to its domination. These are devils.

Lasombra pursues them, then they pursue him, terrifyingly. The barriers of reality break down in a Cronenberg-like way, and Lasombra finds himself being proposed as the new tulpa, the vessel for the sentience from another world. “We transmit, you receive” is the ominous chant. It’s all quite farfetched and highly enjoyable. It’s compelling. It has internal logic. It’s a darn good film.

NFR Project: 'My Darling Clementine' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “My Darling Clementine”

Dir: John Ford

Scr: Samuel G. Engel, Winston Miller, Sam Hellman

Pho: Joseph MacDonald

Ed: Dorothy Spencer

Premiere: Dec. 3, 1946

97 min.

This ranks as one of director John Ford’s greatest Westerns, right up there with Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers (1956).

It’s also his most beautiful movie, shot with loving tenderness by Joseph MacDonald. His cinematography conveys the immensity of the frontier sky, the beauty of Monument Valley, and travels into the smoky, dense atmosphere of barrooms and theaters. For a primer on how to turn simple “black and white” into a shimmering expanse of subtle silvers and grays, look no further.

Now, this is the story of the legendary 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but it does not reflect the facts of the incident. Instead, it weaves a mythical tale based on the highly edited and sanitized 1931 book by Stuart N. Lake, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, which formed the basis for two previous film adaptations in 1934 and 1939. Though this iconic gunfight has been filmed many times, no one would get it down accurately until Tombstone (1993).

Here the action is set in 1882, a year after the actual event took place. Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and his brothers Morgan (Ward Bond), Virgil (Tim Holt), and James (Don Garner) are driving cattle to California across the desert of Arizona. Wyatt meets with the suspicious cattle rancher, Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan at his most intimidating) and one of his many sons. The Clantons offer to buy the cattle; Wyatt turns them down.

Three of the brothers go into Tombstone, leaving the youngest behind to watch the cattle. The three find out that the town is pretty much lawless. People are intimidated when they find out who Earp is; he carries a fearsome reputation as a lawman. However, Wyatt is not interested in staying and becoming marshal.

They return from their visit in a driving rainstorm to find their brother dead and the cattle gone. Wyatt takes the marshal job.

It is pretty obvious that the Clantons were responsible for James’ death, but nothing can be proved. Taciturn Wyatt soon brings law and order to the town. He meets Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), a former physician who runs the gambling in Tombstone. They settle into a tense truce. Doc is dying of tuberculosis; his drinking and angry rants are punctuated with bouts of coughing.

Then Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs), Doc’s former love from Boston, comes to town. She had been searching for Doc and wants him to come home with her. He refuses, feeling he is doomed. She refuses to leave town, so he does. Meanwhile, Wyatt finds that Doc’s mistress Chihuahua (Linda Darnell) has a silver cross belonging to James. Wyatt blames Doc for James’ murder, but finds out that he is wrong. Chihuahua confesses that Billy Clanton gave the cross to her, at which Clanton shoots her and escapes. Virgil trails him to the Clantons’ ranch, where he finds Billy dead. Old Man Clanton kills Virgil with a shotgun blast to the back. They dump his body in front of the marshal’s office and let the Earps know they are ready for a showdown.

Wyatt, Morgan, and Doc head to the O.K. Corral at sunrise. They meet the Clantons and destroy them, but not before Doc is killed, his position betrayed by a coughing fit. The surviving Earps move on; Clementine decides to stay and become the town’s schoolmarm.

Throughout, the Earps represent the forces of law and order. Tombstone is a “wide-open” town when they arrive; gambling and prostitution thrive there (Jane Darwell plays a pleasant madam). Every man wears a gun, save for Wyatt. As his influence on the town grows, we see the God-fearing members of the place founding a church. In an iconic scene, Wyatt and Clementine attend the dedication of the house of worship and dance in its uncompleted structure, a potent metaphor for the sense of community taking root in this lawless location.

Doc is a figure torn between his respectable past and his criminal present. This is Victor Mature’s greatest role, one he plays with a melancholy haughtiness. He knows his way of doing things can’t last with Earp around, but he persists – just as he persists in drinking heavily though it makes his illness worse. He is tragic.

The Clantons represent everything Wyatt stands against, contempt for the law and murderous competitiveness. They are monsters that must be destroyed for the sake of the community.

Every scene is lovingly crafted. Whether or not the script is based on fact, it feels real, so detailing and convincing is its production design. Little touches deepen the film. A wandering actor, played to perfection by Alan Mowbray, becomes the focus of another Earp-Clanton confrontation. At one point, Wyatt asks the dependable bartender Mac, “Were you ever in love?” “No,” Mac replies, “I’ve been a bartender all me life.”

The final showdown is filmed almost silently, with no music track, making the scene all the more fraught with tension. Only killing will resolve the conflict. Law and order sweeps away the bad guys, but it sweeps away romantic figures such as Doc as well. The wild West is fated to pass into history . . . and into legendary imaginings such as My Darling Clementine.

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

NFR Project: 'Let There Be Light' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “Let There Be Light”

Dir: John Huston

Scr: John Huston, Charles Kaufman

Pho: Stanley Cortez, John Doran, Lloyd Fromm, Joseph Jackman, George Smith

Ed: William H. Reynolds, Gene Fowler Jr.

Premiere: Jan. 16, 1981

58 min.

Here’s a film that was kept out of sight until 35 years after it was made.

Director John Huston volunteered for military duty in World War II and was assigned the making of documentaries. His first two, Report from the Aleutians and The Battle of San Pietro, were successful. This, his third effort, would run into snags.

The Army thought it would be a good idea to profile the treatment and recuperation of soldiers with mental wounds from battle. Although not physically hurt, these men suffered cognitive and emotional distress from exposure to combat. Approximately 20 percent of wartime casualties were estimated to be mental in nature. The Army wanted to show that, given therapy and treatment, these men could reintegrate into society successfully.

Huston and his crew went to the Edgewood State Hospital in Long Island and embedded themselves with an incoming group of patients. Setting up cameras, they followed these men through their course of treatment. They filmed approximately 70 hours of interaction between the patients and staff. From this immense amount of footage, they pared the documentary down to an hour’s length.

Whether termed shell shock, battle fatigue, or psychoneurosis, the trauma these men suffered was real and lasting. Men are shown coming in with stutters, lapses in attention, hysterical paralysis, overwhelming sorrow and anxiety. Using the drugs available at the time, counseling, and group therapy sessions, the viewer is shown the gradual transition of these men from hopeless to functional, and eventually to their release.

However . . . when the brass saw the movie, they walked out. It turns out that no one in command structure wanted to show soldiers as vulnerable and mentally ill – they wanted to pretend that everyone came home happy and healthy. The film was suppressed. In fact, the Army went even further – they created a fictionalized copy of Let There Be Light called Shades of Gray. This film used actors to play the patients, speaking dialogue transcribed from the original film. In addition, all the black soldiers in Let There Be Light were replaced by white actors, and all the mental problems encountered were attributed to the patients’ civilian lives, not the horrors of war.

Finally, in 1981 the film was released. This portrait of men in crisis is still powerful, all these decades later.

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

NFR Project: 'The Killers' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “The Killers”

Dir: Robert Siodmak

Scr: Anthony Veiller

Pho: Woody Bredell

Ed: Arthur Hilton

Premiere: Aug. 30, 1946

103 min.

Who’s a better film noir director than Robert Siodmak (1900-1973) ? No one.

The premier practitioner of American noir was a German refugee. After film work in his native land, the Jewish Siodmak escaped first to Paris and then Hollywood. (His brother Curt invented the Wolf Man, and wrote Donovan’s Brain and I Walked With A Zombie.)

Siodmak was a jack of all trades, but beginning with Phantom Lady in 1944, he began to specialize in noirs, using deep shadows, harsh backlighting, and other effects in light of the German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s. This approach turned Siodmak’s landscapes into perilous and unsettling interiors and night shots, a twilight world in which morals are frayed at the edges. Siodmak directed at least nine noir films in his Hollywood days, setting standards for the genre.

The Killers is his masterpiece, sometimes and somewhat jokingly referred to as “the Citizen Kane of noir films,” in that it is primarily composed of flashbacks. It’s a free adaptation of a 1927 short story by Ernest Hemingway.  It’s the first film of a 33-year-old Burt Lancaster, and the first starring role for 24-year-old Ava Gardner.

Lancaster is the Swede, the mild-mannered garage mechanic who’s the victim when two killers (Charles McGraw and William Conrad, perfect) come to his small town to blow him away. “I did something wrong . . . once,” he says when his coworker Nick tries to warn him that the bad guys are coming. Swede does nothing. The men enter, fill him with lead, leave.

An insurance investigator, Riordan (Edmond O’Brien), is tasked with finding the beneficiary for Swede’s life insurance policy. Riordan finds that the Swede is really Ole Anderson, a former boxer turned petty crook. Working his way through the chain of witnesses, he reconstructs Swede’s downfall via flashback. It turns out that the Swede was part of a big payroll heist, $250,000 that he loses, snatches back, and loses again in short order.

Riordan rubs the criminal kingpin behind it all the wrong way, so he becomes a target for murder as well. The film is taut, fast-moving – Riordan races to solve the mystery before the dark forces overtake him.

Meanwhile, we get a look at the tragic Swede, played sensitively by Lancaster. He’s a big lummox, just the kind of guy to get in over his head due to a dame. Gardner plays a classic femme fatale, duplicitous yet smashingly beautiful. There are great supporting actors such as Jeff Corey as “Blinky” Franklin and Sam Levene as Lt. Lubinsky.

Justice is served, but Swede remains the classic noir protagonist – ill-fated, morally flawed, none too bright, easily swayed by a woman. It was a formula as close to classic tragedy as American film would get until the mythic Westerns of Anthony Mann (1950-1958).

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

NFR Project: 'John Henry and the Inky-Poo' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “John Henry and the Inky-Poo’

Dir: George Pal

Scr: Robert Monroe, Latham Ovens

Pho: John S. Abbott

Premiere: Sept. 6, 1946

7 min.

From 1942 to 1946, stop-motion animator George Pal crafted a series of cartoons featuring Jasper, a young Black boy. These creations were not welcomed by the African American community, as they were deemed to be racist.

Pal was appalled to be so designated, and he decided to do something about it. Using his stop-motion techniques, he told the story of the great Black folk hero John Henry, a steel-driver on the railroad who fought and beat a machine designed to replace him (here referred to as the Inky-Poo). The film is noticeably NOT racist – it tells John Henry’s story in an inspiring and balanced way, and does not stoop to any stereotyping.

The result was well-received, and nominated for an Oscar. It marked the continuing development of the battle against racism in America.

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

NFR Project: 'it's a Wonderful Life' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Dir: Frank Capra

Scr: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, Jo Swerling

Pho: Joseph Walker, Joseph Biroc

Ed: William Hornbeck

Premiere: Dec. 20, 1946

131 min.

This movie’s fate was much like that of its protagonist – it was initially thought a failure, but turned out to be a big success.

When director Frank Capra returned from military duty in World War II, he looked for an inspirational text to adapt. He found Philip Van Doren Stern’s 1939 story “The Greatest Gift,” and set teams of writers to work on it. The result is the most “Capraesque” of his film fables, and his most popular film.

It’s set in beautiful little Bedford Falls, NY, on Christmas Eve. Small-town banker George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) has lost $8,000 of the depositors’ finds and faces the arrival of the bank examiner. Convinced that he will be prosecuted and lose everything, George drives out to a nearby bridge and contemplates throwing himself into the river.

However – the angels have been debating what to do about his dilemma. They review his life – one in which he found his own dreams thwarted over and over as he consistently did the right thing for others. His nemesis, the mean old Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) also schemes to bring him down.

A junior angel, Clarence (Henry Travers) is sent down to Earth to intercede with George and give him hope. Frustrated to the point of despair, George wishes he had never been born. Clarence takes him at his word, and shows him what life would have been like if he had not. The results are terrible – Bedford Falls is now “Pottersville.” Poverty, crime, and corruption abide there; people whose lives George improved are unredeemed, miserable.

George decides he wants to live after all, despite the consequences. He returns home to find that the whole town has chipped in to make up for the lost money. Clarence gets his wings, and George learns that “no man is a failure who has friends.”

This paean to the impact of even an ordinary life is deeply moving, and its message of redemption still resonates.

The movie was unsuccessful initially. In 1974, its copyright lapsed and local stations began programming it. (It was a favorite at my regional public TV station.) Frequent showings led to increased popularity, until it finally became acclaimed as one of the greatest American films.

Its message is grounded in Capra’s populist sentiments, in which ordinary people have superior wisdom to the fat cats, in which democratic values are highly touted, and in which simple human kindness is elevated to saintly status.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: John Henry and the Inky-Poo.

NFR Project: 'Gilda' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “Gilda”

Dir: Charles Vidor

Scr: Marion Parsonnet, Ben Hecht

Pho: Rudolph Mate

Ed: Charles Nelson

Premiere: April 25, 1946

110 min.

A peculiar film. It’s best known for its showcasing of the glory that was Rita Hayworth.

Gilda is the story of Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), a gambler down and out in Buenos Aires, who is adopted as his casino/club boss by Ballin Mundson (George Macready), a stern and possibly insane figure. Mundson returns from a short trip with a new bride, Gilda (Hayworth), that he knew only a day before marrying.

Gilda and Johnny have history together, and both hate and desire each other passionately. Gilda seems to play around in order to drive Johnny crazy; he has her tailed. Mundson crosses some German businessmen, kills one of them. He departs in a plane which crashes into the ocean, faking his death.

Johnny immediately marries Gilda, then isolates her, driving her mad. The casino goes under. Mundson shows up, ready to kill Johnny and Gilda. Everyone is extremely wrought up by this time. The psychological games and withholding of affection dominate the narrative. The relationship between Johnny and Mundson has even been interpreted as gay, making it the most bizarre of love triangles. (Mundson wields a phallic sword-cane.)

During all this, Hayworth displays her aura of charm and excellent acting chops. She is incandescent. She sings a couple of numbers (actually it was Anita Ellis) and dances in the club; her performances are iconic. In particular, her rendition of “Put the Blame on Mame” in a strapless black evening gown captures her vitality and appeal.

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

NFR Project: 'The Big Sleep' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “The Big Sleep”

Dir: Howard Hawks

Scr: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman

Pho: Sidney Hickox

Ed: Christian Nyby

Premiere: Aug. 31, 1946

114 min.

It was the perfect combination of elements, crafting a textbook detective film together.

The literal stars were aligned. The great Howard Hawks had directed 45-year-old, married Humphrey Bogart and 19-year-old Lauren Bacall in her first film, the Hemingway adaptation To Have and Have Not (1944). Bogart and Bacall began an affair during filming.

Their chemistry onscreen was magical, truly magnetic. The movie was a hit and, being in the public eye, so was their off-screen relationship. It was scrutinized and made much of in the press.

This film was made by Hawks immediately after that, between Oct. 10, 1944 and Jan. 12, 1945. Warners held the film back to push out a bunch of war movies, seeing the end of World War II in sight. During this interval, Bogie got divorced and he and Bacall got married on May 21, 1945 – a marriage that would last until Bogart’s death in 1957.

The fact of their celebrity spurred Bacall’s agent to propose that they beef up her part. All parties consented, and in early January of 1946, additional shots of them interacting with playful cool were made and integrated into the film. (The 1945 release survives as a variant.) Finally, in August 1946, the film hit the theaters. They are testimony to the incandescence, the “tough” romanticism, of Bogart and Bacall’s pairing.

The movie is the adaptation of a classic Raymond Chandler novel . . .cleaned up a bit. Here Bogie’s detective, Philip Marlowe, goes to meet an aged millionaire, General Sternwood (played exactly right by Charles Waldron), who wants him to relieve a blackmailer of incriminating photos of his wayward daughter, the spoiled and disturbed Carmen (Martha Vickers) who triggers seven murders. On his way out, Marlowe meets Sternwood’s other daughter, Mrs. Vivian Sternwood Rutledge (Bacall). They banter insolently. She accuses him of being hired to find the General’s friend and companion Sean Regan, who disappeared a month before.

Then – well, to understand the film thoroughly you must first turn to Tim Dirks and his entry on it in his encyclopedic filmsite.org. He gives us a granular observation of all the pertinent details of the script, which are incredibly complicated and at times don’t make any sense. It seems not to matter. Marlowe careens smoothly from one tight spot to another, keeping just one jump ahead of everyone else.

And we are firmly wedded to our leading character throughout. Bogart is always a pleasure to watch, to see how he just seems to throw the role away. We see what he sees; we figure it out, if possible. I had to have it explained to me.  (I am again grateful to Dirks, who proves on his site – with a flow chart! – who killed who.) Marlowe combs through a rogues’ gallery of misfits, killers, and meets a mastermind tricked into a sham showdown.

He is canny and sarcastic, another classic Bogartian hero, much like his Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Hawks sets up a world in which everyone is suspicious, or has a motive for quashing the truth. Marlowe’s world is all darkness and shadowy interiors. Hawks presents everything though his grim and fatalistic perspective – danger is always lurking offscreen, nobody can be trusted. He is helped by Hickox’s cinematography, which is efficient, functional. It creates a subdued universe that serves as a backdrop to a twisted snarl of people.

Suffice it to say that Marlowe metes out justice roughly, and does nothing in respect of the law. But those are the breaks. Faced with the lawless, what else can a man do? the movie seems to conclude. Marlowe and Vivian, at least, have each other.

So, Bogart’s immortal cool is engraved here for all time. Bacall stands up to him onscreen; it would presage an honored career for her as an actress. They would make two more films together: Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948). Bogart would be lauded for his performances in films such The African Queen (1951) and The Caine Mutiny (1954).

Marlowe outsmarts everyone. He is our shadow self, wise to the world and slightly tired of it all. Our amiable and indefatigable friend. A good guy in a bad place.

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

NFR Project: 'The Best Years of Our Lives' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “The Best Years of Our Lives”

Dir: William Wyler

Scr: Robert E. Sherwood

Pho: Gregg Toland

Ed: Daniel Mandell

Premiere: Nov. 21, 1946

172 min.

This, the most affecting of Hollywood films in its decade, is remarkable for its depiction of the failures, foibles, and fears of a cross-section of ordinary men, specifically men who came back from fighting in World War II.

The film won seven Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Editor, Score, Screenplay), and was amazingly popular. It dealt with contemporary problems. The war and the reintegration of the soldier into civilian life was troublesome. Men found themselves squeezed out of the job market, unable to get loans to start businesses, in changed relationships with friends and family, and with horrible nightmares and PTSD, or battle fatigue, as they used to call it.

Kudos to director Wyler and producer Sam Goldwyn, who won the prestigious Thalberg award for public service for this effort. They were determined to really get to the heart of matter, and did. They selected the novella Glory for Me by journalist, writer, and screenwriter MacKinlay Kantor, which gives us a trio of storylines that cross each other in a mid-sized city after the war. Robert E. Sherwood shaped it into a screenplay.

The trauma, surprisingly for a Hollywood movie, sits front and center. Three servicemen hitch a ride home to their town in an inbound bomber. Fredric March plays Al, an affluent banker who wound up an Army sergeant. Dana Andrews is Fred, a former soda jerk who rose to the rank of Captain in the Air Force and was decorated for bravery. And the amazing Harold Russell, a real-life combat double amputee, playing Homer, a disabled sailor.

The tender depiction of the soldiers’ return is expertly played and heart-rending. The three stay in touch and intersect at Butch’s, the bar owned by Homer’s uncle (the great Hoagy Carmichael). Al goes on a bender, and Fred joins him at Butch’s. Fred spends the night at Al’s, where he suffers and cries out from a battle nightmare, triggering the compassion of Al’s daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright).

All three men are torn up. March won the Oscar for his warts-and-all portrayal of Al, who readjusts with difficulty. Dana Andrews deserved an award for his complex role as Fred, a guy who finds his G.I. bride (Virginia Mayo, unusually playing a heel here) doesn’t love him, and that he has to go back to his old job at the soda fountain. He and Peggy fall in love, but their chances don’t look good.

It’s Harold Russell who is the real revelation. An amateur actor, he lost his hands in combat, and is here supplied with a pair of metal hooks, which he handles adroitly. His Homer is confident on the outside, but inside he is sure that his fiancée, the literal girl next door (Cathy O’Donnell), won’t want him anymore due to his disability. Completely without the tricks of the trade, Russell conveys Homer’s torment and humiliation with a profoundly understated performance. Russell actually won two Oscars for this role, a feat unequalled in Academy history.

Al, Fred, and Homer handle their dilemmas and move on with their lives, one way or another. What's unique is the examination of male emotions and the emotional relationships men build with each other. Wyler is a reader of faces, a genius at getting actors to express themselves on film. Many times, he holds a scene a few beats longer than is normal, just to let us drink in actors’ reactions. Gregg Toland’s incredible deep-focus photography is here, and it’s beautiful. 

There is some awkwardness. Most of the women are savior types (Myrna Loy has the thankless task of playing loving wife to Al), and drinking heavily seems to be the prescription for those just out of the service. Still, it’s a trio of moving stories that anyone can identify with. By the time we get to the haunting scene of Fred in the airplane graveyard, we are hooked. What will happen to these men? Can they persist, and thrive?

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