Category: Nominees – 1960s

Doctor Dolittle – 1967

To paraphrase a line from the Simpsons episode entitled, “Cue Detective”, when the students of Springfield Elementary are forced to watch Doctor Dolittle, one of them says, “The movie’s run time is 152 minutes.  No!  The run time is NOW!”  They try to make a break for it but are forced back into their seats with water from a fire-hose.  I couldn’t agree more.

I’m sorry to say it, but this was a terrible movie musical.  The acting was bad, the plot was predictable, the special effects were poorly done, the songs were monotonous and unmemorable, the pacing was slow and plodding, the overall message was ridiculous, and on top of all that, they broke the cardinal rule of movie-making.  Cute for the sake of cute is never cute… never!

Where do I start?  Well, for one thing, the film would have been just fine if I had been between the ages of 3 and 6.  But as an adult, I found it to be bizarrely farcical and ridiculous.  The plot is so strange, at times downright stupid, that it was almost embarrassing to watch.  Again, a 4 year old child would probably enjoy all the flights of fancy and fantastical imagery.

The movie starred Rex Harrison as the title character, Doctor Dolittle, an eccentric man who loves animals so much, he has no problem romantically kissing a seal.  Yes, that actually happened.  He sang it a love song, and kissed it.  His supporting cast included Anthony Newley as Matthew Mugg, a shiftless Irish stereotype, and Tommy Stubbins, played by child actor William Dix, an annoying little boy whose main purpose in the film was to look cute. And lest I forget, Samantha Eggar, playing Emma Fairfax, the overly-independent young woman who is cross with everyone.  She allows everyone, especially the Doctor, to treat her horribly, and then inexplicably falls in love with him anyway.

The film begins by telling the story of the good Doctor.  Apparently he was a terrible physician who grew fed-up with stupid people.  So when a sentient parrot introduces herself to him, he decides to treat animals instead.  He spends years learning to speak their languages, revealing that all animals possess human level intelligence, and are all more polite than most humans.

The big goal of the plot?  Why, to find the mythical Great Pink Sea Snail, of course.  Unfortunately, when they finally do, it was a huge anticlimactic disappointment.  The sorry-looking animatronic creature appeared extremely fake and poorly made for a movie with such a big budget.  Along the way to achieving this goal, Dolittle and his companions meet several mythological animals like the Pushmi-pullyu: a llama with front halves of two llamas connected to each other like Siamese twins.  It was just the kind of creature that would spark the imagination of a toddler.  Of course, there was the Giant Pink Sea Snail, and lastly, the Giant Lunar Moth, large enough for Doctor Dolittle to ride it all the way from the magical floating island somewhere off the coast of Africa, back to his native England.

So if it was such a ridiculous, terrible movie, why was it nominated for Best Picture?  To answer that question, I’m going to quote excerpts from the Wikipedia article that explained it all.  “The film was originally budgeted at $6 million, but the final cost was triple that.  The film’s first sneak preview in September, 1967 in Minneapolis was a failure. The audience consisted largely of adults, who were not the primary target audience. The general audience response rated it poorly, with frequent complaints about the film’s length. A shorter edit of the film, previewed in San Francisco, was no more successful; a still shorter edit, previewed in San Jose, was well enough received to be approved as the final cut.  According to the book Behind the Oscar, Fox mounted an unparalleled nomination campaign in which Academy members were wined and dined. As a result, the film was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture”

So, an aggressive nomination campaign ensured that this flop has gone down in history as good enough to be nominated for Best Picture.  How very disappointing.  I’m sorry to say it, but so far, this is one of the worst films to be nominated for Best Picture, beat out, in my humble opinion, only by the 1930/31 nominee, Skippy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonnie and Clyde – 1967

Notorious bank robbers and killers, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are the leads in this semi-comedic, and somewhat fictitious telling of the pair’s murderous partnership, beginning with their meeting and ending with their deaths.  Many of the film’s bullet points actually happened in real life.  Most of them did not.  But there was just enough truth in the film to get away with using their infamous names.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway starred as the trigger happy duo, and to be sure, this film had plenty of violence and blood.  Michael J. Pollard played their slow-witted accomplice, C. W. Moss, and Gene Hackman also had a part as Clyde’s older brother Buck.  Buck’s dowdy wife Blanch was played by Estelle Parsons.

The movie was fun to watch, and had the feel of a crazy, playful, red-neck romp through the south, but the subject matter was anything but light hearted, except that you’d never know it based on the music.  Whenever a law enforcement officer was murdered, and Bonnie and Clyde were making their escape, crazy, banjo-heavy music would start to play like it was an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard.

But it was black comedy, so there was a certain kind of humor, though it was never intended to make you laugh.  For example, Clyde held up a bank at gunpoint, but is told by the single teller that there is no money.  Apparently, the bank had been closed for two weeks.  So, Clyde pulls the teller out to the getaway car so he won’t have to be the one to tell Bonnie that they held up the bank for nothing.

As usual with a film based on true events or characters, I did a little research into the real Bonnie and Clyde.  One of the things that the film got right was that they weren’t very good bank robbers.  Jobs would get bungled on a regular basis.  Sometimes they would rob shops or stores instead of banks because they were always short on cash, but the places they robbed were often short on cash as well, so they would get away with only a few dollars.

The character of C. W. Moss was a combination of several real life people.  He was a mechanic, and was brought on board as a getaway driver.  Small and dopey-looking Pollard played him almost as a bit of comic relief.  He played the part well, and I actually ended up liking his character.  And I also liked how he was loyal to Bonnie and Clyde, but only to a point.  He saw their downfall and did nothing to warn them.

But I learned that in the original draft of the script, he had a very different role.  He was supposed to have been two things.  He was supposed to be big and brawny, and he was supposed to be Clyde’s bisexual lover.  This would help put a dramatic strain on the relationship between Clyde and Bonnie.  But the producers decided that audiences weren’t ready for something that controversial, so they achieved the desired effect by making Clyde impotent.  Not that it mattered.  The real-life Clyde Barrow was neither bisexual nor impotent.  But OK, Hollywood – whatever.

Both Beatty and Dunaway did their parts well, but for me, Dunaway was a bit of a scene-stealer.  Apparently this was the role that propelled her into super-stardom, and it was well deserved.  From start to finish she created a complex character with intriguing motivations.  Sure, Clyde was just a bad man, but Bonnie followed him.  Why?  What was it about him that made her love him so much?  And the notion of a female gangster has its own attractiveness.

I also have to give a special thumbs up to Hackman and Parsons for some good performances as well.  Hackman always has a certain confidence about him that is clear and strong.  He seems like he feels at ease in front of the camera.  And Parsons played the part of an annoying woman well, almost too well.

My one disappointment?  A small supporting role played by Gene Wilder.  He played Eugene Grizzard, a man whose car is stolen by the Barrow Gang, but when he chases them down, he and his girlfriend are taken hostage.  It seemed like Wilder was trying hard to be serious and dramatic, but his strange, dead-pan delivery bordered on pure comedy.  It was just a costume away from Willy Wonka.  Listen to him say “Faster!  Faster!” during the chase scene, and you’ll see what I mean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – 1966

OK, this was one seriously messed up movie.  My jaw was practically on the floor.  The performances of all four of the actors were incredible and need to be commended.  But it was the biting and razor sharp script that was really the film’s star.  The film is based on the popular play of the same name that was written by Edward Albee.  The movie was really pushing boundaries when it premiered in 1966.

So what was so daring about it?  Well, its use of profanity, for one thing.  It was crass and incredibly unrepentant about it.  The director, Mike Nichols, had to fight to have all the original language from the play kept in the film.  He, and other people involved in the movie, made sure that the incendiary language of the script was not watered down by the Hayes Code.  In fact, this film was one of the forerunners of a more modern kind of film that was able to break free from the shackles of that prohibitive code.  And believe it or not, the world didn’t come to an end.  Audiences were mature enough to handle it.

The two lead characters, George and Martha, played by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, were vulgar, spiteful, hateful, and vicious, for starters.  Add to that the fact that they were both severely emotionally damaged, and you have the makings for some pretty good drama.  Add to that the phenomenal quantities of alcohol they each consumed over the course of the film, and you have one of the most intense dramatic films I’ve seen in a long time.  The movie is called a black comedy, but I saw no comedy at all.  Every line seemed to be laced with poison.

George and Martha are a middle-aged married couple who, on the surface, hate each other with a passion.  They are both so mean to each other that it seems ridiculous that they should be together.  But underneath all the harsh words and insults, they really do love each other, though it is a side of their relationship that they very rarely show.  But when they do, their affection for each other is painfully clear and surprisingly deep.

The two actors playing the supporting characters of Nick and Honey, were George Segal and Sandy Dennis.  You might think that it would be difficult for them to keep up with such big names as Taylor and Burton, but Segal and Dennis both stepped up to the challenge.  They were just as competent and really showed off their acting chops.  They complimented the more experienced actors and helped to develop the film’s hyper-dysfunctional feel.

The plot is intricate and complex, too much to go into in a review this short, but I’ll give a quick, bare-bones synopsis.  George is a history professor at a small New England College.  Martha, his wife, is the daughter of the school’s president.  She is a vulgar harridan who views her husband as a weak-willed man who is a failure in his career because he will never be qualified to take over her father’s position.  George sees Martha as a wild and overbearing harpy who is bitter and domineering.  Nick is a new Biology Professor who has plans on some day being president of the college, himself.  Honey is a frail woman who is afraid of having children.

Every now and then, the subject of George and Martha’s son would come up, but it was treated as a taboo subject.  Something wasn’t quite right, and it soon became apparent that it was the big mystery of the plot.  What was true and what wasn’t?  Of course the climax of the movie revealed the real answer, and it was strange, to be sure.  But the dark truth was enough to take me completely by surprise.

Each of the four actors turned in a spectacular performance, and each was nominated for an Oscar for their efforts.  However, only Taylor and Dennis won.  That’s too bad, because I thought that though they were all good, Burton stood out to me as a cut above the rest.  His portrayal of the weak-willed George was inspired.  First of all, it was against type.  I’ve never seen him in such a role.  He usually plays the strong confident characters, but here, he was the exact opposite.  It was unexpected and his performance was brilliant.

I would recommend this movie, only to those with a thick skin.  But if you can handle it, the intense drama is well worth the effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sand Pebbles – 1966

This was a very well-made film which, on the surface, appeared to be a war movie, except that it really wasn’t.  The story took place in 1926 during the Chinese Revolution, but the revolution was not the focus of the plot.  The focus was on the crew and captain of a U.S. Gunboat, the San Pablo.  The film begins as a new Machinist’s Mate 1^st Class, Jake Holman, is assigned to the vessel.  He is wonderfully played by Steve McQueen.

Jake is a simple man who is generally good at following orders, unless they go against his conscience.  The first half of the 3 hour movie follows him as he tries to learn his place as part of the San Pablo’s crew.  Most of the ship’s duties are actually run by ‘coolies’ or local civilians, leaving the crew to easier tasks.  But Jake wants to do his own work, run and maintain his own engines.  This not only offends the Chinese laborers, but upsets the ship’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Collins, played by Richard Crenna.

One of my favorite members of the crew was Frenchy, played by Richard Attenborough, a sensitive young officer who befriends Jake, despite the fact that most of the men consider him to be a ‘Jonah.’  The sailors frequent a local bar that provides alcohol and prostitutes.  Frenchy meets an educated Chinese girl named Maily, played by Marayat Andriane.  Meanwhile, Jake meets an American missionary named Shirley Eckert, played by Candice Bergen.  Love blooms on both fronts.

In the second half of the movie, the revolution begins and through a series of events, Frenchy marries Maily, who is killed by Chinese Nationalists after Frenchy dies of pneumonia.  Jake is accused of the pregnant woman’s murder as an excuse to blockade the gunboat.  After that, word of the Nanking Incident arrives and the San Pablo is ordered to return to the Yangtze River, an order which Lieutenant Collins disobeys so that he can save the missionaries still on Chinese soil, including Shirley. The final sequence is the ill-fated rescue attempt in which Collins and Jake are both killed.

The film’s plot was engaging and the characters were well fleshed out.  I particularly liked both Jake and Frenchy.  Both McQueen and Attenborough did a great job.  The cinematography was, at times pretty spectacular, as the film was shot in Taiwan and Hong Kong.  The atmosphere was exotic, and yet still grounded in an American feel, since most of the action took place on a U.S. vessel.

The music must also be mentioned as especially memorable. The powerful score, written by Jerry Goldsmith, was exciting and stirring, and really colored the entire film with a distinctly Chinese feel.  Goldsmith, who is famous for writing numerous iconic and recognizable film and TV scores from 1954 to 2003, wrote an exciting score that really helped tell the story.

It is hard to find too much fault with the film.  Director, Robert Wise did a great job with the pacing and the character development.  The sets and costumes were spot on.  The filming locations were marvelous and they even went so far as to build a working replica of a gunboat which was based on a Spanish Navy gunboat that had been seized by the U.S. Navy during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Other actors in the film who did a good job were Jake’s coolie assistant and friend, Po-han, played by Mako.  Simon Oakland played Machinist’s Mate Stawski.  Sure, his character was an ass, but he played the part well.  There was a boxing scene between Po-han and Stawksi that was a bit intense and cool to watch, even if it stretched believability a bit, its only saving grace being that they made the point of showing that Stawski was slightly drunk.  Po-han should not have won.  But this was such a minor infraction that it is hardly worth mentioning.  The film was a good one and it was engaging enough that I didn’t feel the 3 hours it took to watch.

And just as a side note, I have to mention something that I am particularly happy about.  1966 seems to mark the official end of the black and white era.  As I am looking at the movies that are coming up in the list of Academy Award nominees, most of them appear to be in glorious color!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Russians Are Coming,  The Russians are Coming – 1966

I knew I was in for a zany ride when the poster for the movie was drawn by the same artist who draws for Mad Magazine.  The style is unmistakable.  The film was, obviously, a screwball comedy, at least by today’s standards.  But back in 1966 it was incredibly poignant political satire, though I think it bordered on farce.

The movie started out as a Russian submarine gets stuck on a sandbar off the coast of a fictional New England town.  The inept Captain, played by Theodore Bickel, just wanted to get a better look at America.  A half-witted plan is concocted to free the sub.  He sends his political officer, Lieutenant Yuri Rozanov, played by Alan Arkin, along with 8 other officers ashore so they can hijack a motorboat, which they will use to pull their vessel free.

The first people they encounter is the Whittaker family who are on vacation.  Carl Reiner plays the father, Walt, an over-stressed musical comedy writer who behaves like a typical American.  He complains a lot, talks before thinking, and ignores his family.  The Russians hold the Whittakers at gunpoint and steal their car, which they drive to the nearest harbor with the right kind of boats.

Along the way, they cut phone lines, and leave just enough evidence of their presence to cause a panic in the locals.  Through miscommunication and paranoia, the people of the town soon believe that a full scale Russian attack is under way.  Red-neck Americans like Paul Ford, playing Fendall Hawkins, Brian Keith, playing Police Chief Link Mattocks, and Jonathan Winters, playing Officer Norman Jonas, go for their weapons and make ready to defend the United States.  The situation is quickly blown way out of proportion.  Fast-paced hijinks ensues.

When the film began, I understood that I was in for crazy, clownish behavior.  So when the Russians in the Submarine began acting like idiots, I was not surprised.  But my first thought was that the Russians were going to be shown as the dummies, and that the Americans would be shown as the intelligent heroes.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Americans were just as silly and moronic as the Russians, even more so, at times.

Like I said, to our modern ears this just sounds like a silly farce, but to audiences of 1966, it was an important film.  It was the height of the Cold War and scared Americans were seeing evil Russians around every corner.  But what we sometimes tend to forget was the fact that scared Russians were seeing evil Americans around every corner as well.

The film’s climax was a wonderfully literal interpretation of the Cold War attitudes of both nations.  The Russians on the submarine were pointing all their guns at the Americans.  The Americans were all pointing their guns at the Russians.  There they stood, facing each other down the barrels of their shotguns and machineguns is a tense Mexican Standoff.

But all is resolved when a young child puts himself in danger and the Russians and Americans must work together to save him.  Suddenly, the Americans and Russians are instant comrades.  And when the U.S. Military finally arrives, the American townsfolk rush to their aid.

The movie had a great message that was well received.  There was even a love story between a Russian officer, played by John Phillip Law, and a young American girl, played by Andrea Dromm, in which the two of them are seen running along the beach, hand in hand.  See?  Americans and Russians can get along.  All you need is love.  How very 60s of them.

And according to some of the research I did, (reading the Wikipedia article) I found that the Soviet film director, Sergei Bondarchuck, was moved to tears by the film when it was screened in the Kremlin.  The film’s director, Norman Jewison, claims that it was because it was an American made film that showed the Russian people in a positive light, and the fact that free Americans were allowed by their government to make such a film was a remarkable thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alfie – 1966

Alfie was a quirky little movie which starred Michael Caine as the title character, Alfie.  The movie’s message can be summed up pretty quickly.  Don’t be a playboy or a womanizer, or you will end up like Alfie: lonely, sad, and emotionally unfulfilled.  That’s it in a nutshell.  Alfie was a narcissistic jerk who treated women cruelly and ruined their lives.  But he was apparently so charming that no woman could resist him.  I would scoff, but I know that there are actually people like that in the world.

First of all, it is important to note a story telling device that was employed by the director of the film, Lewis Gilbert, which was to allow Alfie to break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience, which I am perfectly OK with for several reasons.  First, he did it consistently throughout the entire film.  Second, Alfie was the only character who did it.  And third, it never interfered with the other characters in any way.  In fact, others would often interrupt his inner monologues and he would pause to respond to them before continuing.

It was really a great part of the film’s charm, allowing you to see inside Alfie’s head and hear his thoughts.  And Michael Caine did a great job with the unusual format.  In fact, he actually was charming, despite his insensitive treatment of women.  I don’t think I would have had any reason to like his character if the movie hadn’t been presented him that way.

Alfie was a cheeky British man with a strong Cockney accent.  He had a habit of calling women ‘birds’, saying “With a bird, you can never tell where it’s been or what it’s done,” to which the man he was talking with, Harry Clamcraft, played by Alfie Bass, replied, “Would you mind saying ‘she’?  You’re talking about my wife.”  Then Alfie quipped, “She or it, they’re all birds.”

But then, during that same conversation, something was said which seemed to encapsulate one of the biggest themes of the movie.  Alfie said, “I never wanted to hurt you, Harry.  I never want to hurt anybody.”  Harry responds by saying, “No, I suppose not.  But you do, Alfie.  You do.”  But even then, the fact fails to sink in, and before you know it, he is back to his old tricks.

Alfie then proceeds to seduce Harry’s wife and get her pregnant, which leads to an abortion and Alfie’s cathartic event.  The illegal abortion is carried out by a shady man in Alfie’s flat.  He induces a miscarriage and leaves before the dead child is birthed.  Alfie walks in and sees the aborted fetus and breaks down in tears.  Only then does he begin to realize that his selfish ways are hurting people.  Bud does he cry for them?  For the baby?  No, he cries for himself out of shame.

There was a long line of women in this film that made up Alfie’s lovers which included Shelly Winters as Ruby, Millicent Martin as Siddie, Vivien Martin as Harry’s wife, Lily Clamcraft, Jane Asher as Annie, Julia Foster as Gilda, and Shirley Ann Field as Carla, among others.

Most of the time the movie had an easy going kind of feel, though at times it took some serious turns.  At one point Alfie has a tuberculosis scare and is made aware of his own mortality.  At another point, after Gilda bears him a son, then marries someone else, Alfie is heartbroken about having his son taken away from him and being replaced by another father.  But when these things happen to him, it is a little hard to feel really sorry for him.  He is the kind of irresponsible and egotistical man who brings most of his woes upon himself.

It was an interesting film, but should it have been nominated for Best Picture?  Well, it had a cohesive point of view about an issue of social importance.  It also took a stance on the practice of abortion, another social issue that is still a hot topic to this day.  It had some pretty good acting both from Caine and Vivien Martin.  It was well-filmed and had a light and contemporary jazz score to help things along.  But did it compare with that year’s winner, A Man for All Seasons?  Maybe, but the Academy picked the right winner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Thousand Clowns – 1965

I didn’t particularly like this film.  It wasn’t a bad movie.  It wasn’t poorly made.  It wasn’t slow or boring.  The acting was just fine.  So what was it that turned me off?  It was the general message that the film was trying to portray, which was that being an irresponsible person is a goal everyone should have, and that being a responsible person is nothing more than a necessary evil.

I know that I’m oversimplifying the message, but I think that’s what it boils down to.  The movie glorified having the attitude that people who work hard for a living are soulless conformists who have lost touch with their inner child.  Jason Robards played the film’s lead, Murray Burns, guardian to his young nephew, Nick, played by Barry Gordon.  One of the first things he says, when the boy asks him to get a job, is “Nick, in a moment you’re going to see a horrible thing.  People going to work.”

We are then treated to the opening credits which is made up of 2 and a half minutes of images of large crowds of people walking the streets of New York as they hurry to get to their jobs while loud marching band music that belongs in a three-ring circus beats you over the head.  I was very nearly offended.  I’m a responsible, hard-working adult, and I was just told that I am a fool for being so.

The film’s drama comes when the Child Welfare Board begins to question Murray’s ability to be a fit parent for young Nick.  I have to say, I was on their side, and I don’t think I was supposed to be.  Murray had been unemployed for the past 5 months, living on unemployment insurance, all because he grew fed up with the banality of working at a job he hated, and quit.  Never-mind that if you quit your job, you are not eligible for unemployment insurance.  And never-mind that unemployment insurance only last for a certain amount of time.  Once it runs out, you get nothing.

Anyway, the Board sends two representatives to investigate the situation.  Albert Amundson and Sandra Markowitz, played by William Daniels and Barbara Harris, arrive and attempt to question Murray.  He ignores anything they have to say, talks over them, and changes the subject as often as he can.  The meeting would have been completely unproductive except that Sandra is utterly unfit to be working for the Child Welfare Board, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

And for that matter, this is a good place to mention how unimpressed I was with Barbara Harris’ performance.  She had what I’d like to call the ‘please don’t hurt me’ look.  It was a look that stayed with her throughout the entire movie.  She always looked like she was on the verge of tears, afraid that her costars were going to start strangling her.  Even when her character was supposed to be happy, she had the perpetual countenance of a victim.

The film’s score was made up of more circus music.  The director made use of it in a unique, but obnoxious way that was very jarring.  It was done on purpose, I’m sure, but I found it upsetting.  A lot of the humor used the set-up/punchline format.  As soon as a punchline was delivered, the blaring horns and snare-drums would startle me and then abruptly stop as the set-up for the next joke started.

To make a long story short, Sandra blows off her job and gets fired, stays with Murray, and the two instantly fall in love, at which I had to roll my eyes.  When Murray realizes that Nick will be taken away from him, he resolves to get a job.  He goes to his brother Arnold, brilliantly played by Martin Balsam, who lines up several interviews for him, but the thought of becoming a mindless laborer is so abhorrent to him that he walks out on every one of them.

The “tragic” end of the movie shows Murray taking back his old job as a joke writer for a children’s television show.  He sells his soul to the devil and it is implied that both Nick, who ultimately loves him, and Sandra, who has fallen in love with his child-like spirit, will now be living with him.

But I’ll be honest.  If it were not for Balsam’s character saying that by responsibly conforming to the demands of society, he has become the “best possible Albert Burns,” the movie would have had very few redeeming qualities.

Ship of Fools – 1965

This was a very well put together slice-of-life film.  As such, there wasn’t much real plot, but there were a cast of characters, each of whom had his or her own interesting story to tell.  The film had a few stars with big enough names, the biggest being Vivian Leigh, who turned in an exceptional performance.  But other actors like Jose Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Simone Signoret, and Oskar Werner showed some equally praiseworthy talents.

The premise of the movie was about a group of passengers on a German cruise ship as it sailed from Veracruz, Mexico to Bremerhaven Germany in 1933.  The main characters are all in first class, but the ship picks up 600 displaced workers in steerage who are being deported from Cuba to Spain, along with a woman who is being taken to a German prison.  Even the ship’s crew have their own stories, each of which are interesting in their own right.

I really liked the way each of the stories were told.  They weren’t lined up and displayed like animals in a zoo.  They were told all at the same time as the various characters interacted with each other.  This had the wonderful effect of making sure that no story really took dominance over any other, and I think the director, Stanley Kramer, did a fantastic job of giving each of them pretty equal screen time.

In her final screen appearance, Vivian Leigh played Mrs. Treadwell, a wealthy, bitter alcoholic who is on a mission to recapture her lost youth.  Lee Marvin played Bill Tenny, an ex-baseball player who is disappointed that his career never really took off.  David and Jenny are a young couple played by George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley.  They are very much in love with each other, but have very different views about what roles they should play in their relationship.  Michael Dunn plays Carl Glocken, a dwarf whose parents give him money to travel because they are embarrassed by him and want him to be away from them.  Heinz Ruhmann played Julius Lowenthall, a German, Jewish salesman who was a good man, though he seemed oblivious to the impending doom of the imminent rise of the Nazi party.

All the actors did a fine job and created some pretty unique personalities.  None of them were simple stereotypes.  They each had their good points and bad, making them realistic and believable.  Even Jose Ferrer, playing the part of Seigfried Reiber, did a great job, though he played the despicable character of a German businessman who was clearly a Nazi at heart.

But there was one story that caught my attention more than the others, not because the script favored them, but because the actors playing them did such an incredible job.  Werner played the ship’s doctor, Wilhelm Schumann, a man who is disillusioned with the banality of life and is searching for something to make him feel alive.  Signoret played La Condesa, a drug addict who is being transported to a German prison.  The two meet and a wonderful romance begins.  Their stories, as they intertwined, were beautiful and tragic.  They were dramatic without being schmaltzy, and the two actors turned in some extremely powerful performances.

But there were two things about the film that I didn’t care for.  One was the music.  The score didn’t always seem to fit the movie.  It was like it was trying too hard to be dramatic, and it just made it seem unnecessarily jarring and incongruous.  At times, the music seemed like it belonged in an action film or a suspense thriller.  But this was a drama.  The loud, and in-your-face orchestra hits as the passengers were departing the ship at the end made no sense, and took me out of the moment.

The other thing was the fact that twice in the film, the fourth wall was broken.  Once at the beginning and once at the end, the character of Glocken turned to the camera and spoke directly to the audience, saying inane things that explained that everyone in life is a fool in his own way.  Watch the movie and maybe you’ll see yourself.  It felt awkward and separated me from the drama.

But all-in-all, I would say that I liked the movie.  The drama was deep and insightful into the human condition.  The actors all did a superb job and I actually did see myself in more than one of the characters.  Good job everybody!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darling – 1965

I’m honestly having trouble figuring this movie out.  What was the point?  What was its message?  What theme was it trying to explore or what story was it trying to tell?  It isn’t clearly apparent.  But I think I have figured it out.  It was trying to encapsulate the essence of the 1960s through the character of Diana Scott, a young British girl played by Julie Christie.  She is mod and hip.  She is completely ruled by her emotions and her flights of fancy.  She tries new things, whatever catcher her attention, and then gets bored with them easily, always looking for what is around the next corner.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in her choices of lovers.  She moves from one man to another in fits of restlessness, regardless of the consequences.  The concept of free love was obvious and I have to give this film credit for being daring in its portrayal of both women and homosexuals as overtly sexual beings.  This is the first Best Picture nominee that has done so in a serious and realistic way.

The character of Diana Scott is an actress who meets many men in her profession.  Some of them are ordinary, but some of them are powerful.  She starts off as an innocent and faithful young wife of a man who she considers to be an immature child.  But as she begins to explore her own sexuality, she finds herself attracted to men who have position and status.  She is a serial social climber.

While still married, she starts an affair with Robert Gold, played by Dirk Bogarde, a journalist.  He teaches her about real love, though she is too immature to realize its significance.  She is a jealous lover, though she claims to be anything but.  Eventually she becomes bored with him and moves on to Miles Brand, played by Laurence Harvey, a powerful advertising executive.  Unfortunately, Miles is only able to love himself, but he does introduce Diana to sexual liberation.  He takes her to live sex shows and orgies, which she finds vaguely disgusting, but she proves that she can keep up with the experience.  Robert learns of her unfaithfulness and leaves her.

Each lover strips away more and more of her innocence by introducing her to new ideas and experiences.  Eventually, she climbs to the top of the social ladder.  She lands an Italian prince named Cesar, played by Jose Luis de Vilallonga who adores her and she becomes a princess.  But as I think about it, I find that in the end, she doesn’t like where she ends up.  She discovers that the relationship she truly wants is the one in which there was real love.  She wants Robert.

The film also touched on issues of social classes, which has always been incredibly important to the British.  It is there, but it is overshadowed by the more prominent story of Diana and her rise to the top.  There were scenes and images that were shown in passing that displayed the hypocrisy and decadence of the upper class, but they didn’t seem to have that much significance to Diana and her story, which was, after all, the main story.

Christie did a good enough job.  She certainly had the right look for the role.  She was beautiful, and she is a competent actress.  But something I can’t exactly put my finger on gives me pause.  Sure, she won the Academy award for Best Actress for her performance, but I can’t help thinking that something was missing.  For the life of me, I can’t figure out what it was.

I also thought that Dirk Bogarde did a fantastic job as the tragic character of Robert.  His character was mistreated and emotionally thrashed, sad, lonely, jealous, angry, and everything in between, and Bogarde made it all look believable.  He was particularly good at the end when he drives Diana to the airport to callously send her back to her gilded but unhappy cage in Italy.

And one last thing I’d like to mention is that I thought the film would have been so much better in color.  One of the things that the film tried so hard to display was the trendy fashions of the 60s.  The 60s was a time of innovation and experimentation in fashion and bright colors were an important part of that.  That wonderful visual aspect was completely lost because the movie was filmed in black and white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doctor Zhivago – 1965

This was a true epic.  It was a star-crossed romance set against the backdrop of the Russian Civil War that took place between 1917 and 1922.  It starred Omar Sharif, Julie Christi, Rod Steiger, Alec Guinness, Geraldine Chaplin, and Tom Courtenay.  The cinematography and the directing were top-notch, and the score was memorable.  The acting was a little understated, but not enough to make it unbelievable.  The sets and costumes were superb, and the plot was grand and exciting.

Sharif played the title character, Doctor Yuri Zhivago, a young medical student engaged to Tonya, played by Chaplin.  Christi played Lara, a young lady from a wealthy family who is the mistress of a well-connected older gentleman, played by Steiger.  At the same time, Lara is engaged to Pasha, a young man with idealistic ideas of political reform.

The film actually starts out in the early 50s with Guiness playing a KGB agent searching for the long lost daughter of the famous Russian poet, Yuri Zhivago.  He believes he has found her and questions the girl, played by Rita Tushingham, about her past.  She knows very little and so he tells her the story of who he believes to be her parents.  Then the heart of the film plays out in flashback, though from beginning to end, almost no reference is made to that fact.  By the end of the movie, I nearly forgot that we needed to return to the 50s.

The plot follows all of the lead characters between the years of 1913 and 1936 or so, when Yuri dies of a heart attack.  The characters float in and out of each other’s lives, seemingly by coincidence.  Each time they meet, their relationships differ slightly with the passing years.  Sometimes characters are friends while other times they are lovers or enemies.  But the one thing that remains constant is the romance between Lara and Yuri.  The two cannot always act out their love, but it is always there, relentlessly pulling at their hearts.

And that’s about it.  The film, being a product of Hollywood, concentrated most of its attention on the romance, but I, and many critics of the time, would have liked it a little more if greater significance had been given to the revolution.  It was a time of great upheaval in Russia, a time of enormous political turmoil.  Many people died in the Civil War, the events of which had profound and far-reaching consequences for the entire world.

I understand that the film was about the romance and not the war, but maybe the romance could have been more poignant if the reasons behind the war had been more prominent.  Maybe.  I’m not saying that I didn’t like the movie.  I did.  But the original novel upon which the film was based gave the war a bigger role to play, which in turn gave the characters more solid motivations.

Sharif and Christi played their parts well, though at times they seemed a little dispassionate, even in their romance.  But it was really Steiger and Courtenay that stood out to me as the better actors.  True, their parts were smaller, but they both brought a higher level of skill to their performances.  Steiger, in particular did a fantastic job.  He was, without a doubt, a villain, but in the second half of the film, he goes out of his way to save Yuri and Lara’s lives.  Steiger was able to retain the character’s arrogance even as he tried to do something good in a selfish attempt to achieve a kind of personal atonement for having raped Lara earlier in the film.

And as an interesting note, I learned that of all places, Russia banned not only the film, but also Boris Pasternak’s book upon which it was based.  To quote Wikipedia: “A great lyric poet, Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. While the citation noted his poetry, it was understood that the prize was mainly for Doctor Zhivago, which the Soviet government saw as an anti-Soviet work, thus interpreting the award of the Nobel Prize as a gesture hostile to the Soviet Union. A target of the Soviet government’s fervent campaign to label him a traitor, Pasternak felt compelled to refuse the Prize. The situation became an international cause célèbre and made Pasternak a Cold War symbol of resistance to Soviet communism.”