The Devil Made Him Do It

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"Well, I suppose Lust and Gluttony really have to be rather near the bathroom."

Stanley (Dudley Moore)

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Every generation has its sex symbol, and Raquel Welch was the sex symbol for mine — at least when I was a boy.

Her appeal had long been eclipsed by others when I got older — but she was 27 and still in her peak years when she appeared in a British Faustian comedy, "Bedazzled," that premiered on this day in 1967.

Well, she played a character named Lust. That should tell you everything you really need to know.

(Side note here: "Bedazzled" combined elements that could be seen in past and future projects. It reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode that first aired seven years earlier and a movie that was in theaters more than 30 years later.)

But she wasn't the object of Dudley Moore's affections when the movie began. Moore's character, a short–order cook, was smitten with a waitress (Eleanor Bron) with whom he worked. And he earnestly prayed for the courage to approach her.

Observing all this was the Devil (Peter Cook), who struck a deal with Moore for his soul. In exchange, Moore received seven wishes.

There were some inside jokes that mostly Britons would get. For example, after acquiring Moore's soul, Cook asked him what his first wish would be. Did he want to be prime minister? Then Cook corrected himself: "No, I've made that deal already."

Actually, Moore's wishes all involved winning the waitress, but the Devil kept manipulating things to make the wishes fail.

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Well, the waitress might not have been terribly responsive, but Lust certainly was, visiting Moore in his bedroom and shucking her dress, revealing red bra and panties she wore underneath. Raquel often wore revealing clothes and underclothes — but I don't think she ever revealed much beyond that — in her movies.

If she had been the sex symbol for a later generation, she might have. But not at that time.

That tricky Devil really had it in for Moore, though. He made him squander his wishes, then cheated him out of the last one by claiming that the first "wish" had been one Moore made at the Devil's urging — to prove he really was the Devil.

That left Moore having to spend the rest of his existence in the form of his last wish — in Moore's case, that was as a nun.

And at a farewell party for Moore, Raquel was a go–go dancer.

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Actually, it was a rather small part for Raquel. Not many lines. Not much screen time. I guess she was mostly eye candy.

As the story required personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins, someone had to play Lust. And who better than the sex symbol of the day? But I really thought that Lust would figure more prominently in this kind of story.

Anyway, Moore had the last laugh, reacquiring his soul and returning to his old life as a short–order cook with the same crush on the waitress — but determined to get no more help from the Devil.

"Bedazzled" was underrated by the critics of the day, but it had a wry sense of humor that seems to gain admirers with the passage of time.

On the Road Again

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One of my colleagues at work is a member of the Millennial generation.

She is also a big fan of Audrey Hepburn, who died before my co–worker was born. I learned of her fondness for Hepburn last year when she told me how she dressed like Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" for a costume party given by the youth group at her church.

I asked a perfectly reasonable question: Did anyone know who she was pretending to be?

Her answer surprised me: Yes!

In fact, she said, just about everyone knew who she was.

I have always admired Hepburn, too, and I think one of the primary reasons for her appeal is that it wasn't really possible to pigeonhole her. She was an extraordinarily versatile actress who could do many things well. Even so she never seemed like the sort of star who would appeal to the Millennials.

At least that was my take on it. I stand corrected.

One of the best examples of her versatility was the British movie that made its debut on this day in 1967 — "Two for the Road" — which starred another versatile thespian, Albert Finney. They made an appealing on–screen couple.

Just one problem. That seemingly picture–perfect marriage was imploding.

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As Roger Ebert observed in his review of the movie, "Love is ever so much more satisfactory in the movies where every other kiss is framed by a sunset, and people are always running toward each other in slow motion, their arms outstretched, while in the background the tide comes in, or goes out, or keeps busy, anyway."

Just about every married couple I know would tell you that isn't what marriage is really like.

That is what courtship is like. That's what going together (or whatever they call it these days) is like.

But when you say "I do," you're saying "I do" to a whole lot of stuff that is not mentioned directly in your vows — like the fact that you will have to work on keeping that spark of romance alive more often and in more ways than you think.

Some marriages can overcome that. Some can't.

That was the subtext of the story, and it was far from certain which way this couple would go. They had their two–seater transported to Northwestern France, and they took off on a road trip to the southeastern corner of the country. Finney played a successful architect, and they planned to participate in a celebration of the completion of a client's project.

The road through France was one they had traveled before, and the current road trip gave them the opportunity to reflect on events in their lives and examine where life had taken them since they met.

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It was an intriguing story–telling technique, but the memories weren't always pleasant. There were moments of infidelity on both sides.

If you happen to catch this one on TV, look for Jacqueline Bisset in one of her early roles.

And listen for the title song, "Two for the Road," which was written by Henry Mancini. It wasn't nominated for an Oscar, unlike many of his other songs, but Mancini said it was his personal favorite.

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In fact, the movie was all but ignored by the Oscars, receiving only one nomination, even though Ebert was adamant that "Two for the Road" was one of the best movies of 1967.

I thought it was a well–told story, balancing comedy and drama in that poignant way that real life does. To some viewers, the end may seem to be an unrealistic compromise in which the two remain together in spite of all that has passed before.

And there may be something to that.

But director Stanley Donen treated it differently than your typical Hollywood happy ending. He had Hepburn and Finney cross the French border into Italy, something they had never done before.

They symbolically turned the page and began a new chapter, traveling into unexplored territory.

Rewriting a Wrong

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"How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? Do you have to be 18 before you can own up to a lie?"

Robbie (James McAvoy)

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Sometimes people pay for mistakes all their lives — and sometimes people pay for mistakes with their lives.

"Atonement," which premiered on this day in 2007, was about both.

It was a rather complex plot, centering around Saoirse Ronan, who played a precocious 13–year–old aspiring writer from an upper–crust British family in the years before the outbreak of World War II. As the movie began, she had just finished writing a play and planned to put on something of a backyard production of the play starring her visiting cousins.

Mind you, when I say backyard, her family had quite a backyard. You could accommodate a sizable stage and a considerable audience there.

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Briony (Ronan's character's name) was, as people that age so often are, given to flights of fancy.

She also had a bit of a schoolgirl crush on the son of the family's housekeeper (James McAvoy), who was bound for Cambridge thanks to his mother's employer. But Robbie was attracted to Briony's older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightley).

And one day Briony observed interaction between Robbie and Cecilia — from afar. Cecilia stripped to her underclothes, then plunged into a fountain pond, then re–emerged a short time later, all while Robbie watched. The audience later learned that it had been an entirely innocent act that, having been misinterpreted, went on to form the nucleus of other false assumptions and accusations that ultimately sent Robbie to prison.

Four years later Robbie was serving in World War II, having agreed to serve in the military in exchange for his release from prison. An older and somewhat wiser Briony was regretting what she had said and sought the forgiveness of her sister, discovering that she and Robbie had reunited and Robbie was on leave from the war.

They had a confrontation, and Briony agreed to have her testimony changed and the official record altered. But there was a problem. One of the cousins who had been visiting the house that summer had been sexually assaulted by a man she had not seen. Briony had initially claimed it was Robbie, having seen the episode by the fountain and read an explicit note Robbie had written while working on drafts of apologies to Cecilia for his behavior, but the assailant turned out to be a friend of Briony's brother. She had realized that when she saw the cousin marrying this man — which meant that she could not be used as a supporting witness for Briony's revised account of events.

And if Briony went to the authorities to change her story, she would be regarded as an unreliable witness. Robbie's name could not be cleared in the public record.

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But then the audience was thrown a curve.

And, with the noteworthy exceptions of the finales of "The Sixth Sense" or "Psycho," it just might be the best twist ending I have ever seen.

Briony, now in her 70s (played by Vanessa Redgrave), was being interviewed on TV. Apparently she had grown into a professional writer and was speaking about her latest book. It would also be her final book, she told the interviewer, because she was dying of vascular dementia, "which is essentially a continuous series of tiny strokes. Your brain gradually closes down. You lose words, you lose your memory: which, for a writer, is pretty much the point. That's why I could finally write this book; and why, of course, it's my last novel. Strangely enough, it would be just as accurate to call it my first novel. I wrote several drafts as far back as my time at St. Thomas's Hospital during the war. I just couldn't ever find the way to do it."

Briony explained that Robbie and Cecilia never reconciled. Robbie had died of an infection at Dunkirk and Cecilia died a few months later during an air raid.

Briony, who apparently never changed her hairstyle in the 60–plus years covered in the movie, had written the book — including that confrontation that never happened — to give them the happy ending they were deprived in life.

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It was an interesting twist on the traditional coming–of–age movies I have seen. The problem with coming–of–age movies is that too many of them treat that time of life as a magical mystery tour that sometimes features lapses in judgment. This story spanned a lifetime and addressed the kind of real mistakes that the young often make — and sometimes must live with for the rest of their lives.

And it contained a touch that, as a writer, I can appreciate.

It used the staccato pounding of typewriter keys as part of the score — largely because of Briony's determined development as a writer but also Robbie's hesitant typing of the drafts of his apology to Cecilia.

It was a very effective touch and probably deserved a special Academy Award nomination.

As it was, though, "Atonement" received seven Oscar nominations — and won for Best Original Score so I suppose it was rewarded for that.

Ronan received the movie's only acting nomination but lost Best Supporting Actress to Tilda Swinton.

The Influence of a Great Teacher

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"I don't know how to answer you except to say that I teach you truths. My truths. Yeah, and it is kinda scary, dealing with the truth. Scary and dangerous."

Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier)

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Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a truly great teacher.

"To Sir With Love," which premiered on this day in 1967, was the story of a truly great teacher — who, in the mold of many truly great teachers, did not start out to become a teacher at all. Sidney Poitier played the teacher who was sidetracked — temporarily — from his goal of becoming an engineer. He had applied for an engineering position but had heard nothing; acting on the conviction that one must have a job, he applied for work as a teacher in the slums of East London — and got the job.

And he encountered a classroom of the most sullen, rebellious students imaginable.

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It took awhile, but they finally warmed up to each other — enough that Poitier's character rightly concluded that the education his students required couldn't be found in books. They needed discipline and survival skills they weren't learning at home.

So he implemented a new method for education in his classroom. He and the students would treat each other as adults with the proper respect.

He realized that his students also needed self–respect when he came to school one day and found that a used sanitary napkin had been burned in the fireplace. That was when he did something he had pledged not to do. He lost his temper.

"I am sick of your foul language, your crude behavior and your sluttish manner," he told the girls in his class. "There are certain things a decent woman keeps private, and only a filthy slut would have done this and those who stood by and encouraged her are just as bad. I don't care who's responsible — you're all to blame. Now, I am going to leave this room for five minutes by which time that disgusting object had better be removed and the windows opened to clear away the stench. If you must play these filthy games, do them in your homes, and not in my classroom!"

That was the inspiration for his new system. It was successful at first as Poitier shared his wisdom about, as he put it, "life, survival, love, death, sex, marriage, rebellion."

If you have never seen the movie, there are several noteworthy quotes from this section that you might want to post in your office or wherever they can be most inspirational to you. One of my favorites is this one: "I believe one should fight for what one believes. Provided one is absolutely sure one is absolutely right."

But Poitier lost the support of many of his students over his handling of a confrontation between a student and a gym teacher.

In retaliation, they did not invite him to the class dance — nor would they accept his contribution toward the purchase of a wreath for the funeral of the mother of one of the students.

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As the school year drew to a close, Poitier's character received an engineering job offer. He had applied for the job before taking the teaching position so he had been waiting for nearly a year.

And he won back his students' admiration when he beat the class ringleader in a boxing match, then recommended that the student teach the younger pupils how to box when school resumed. He was invited to the dance, where the students presented him with a gift. Poitier got choked up and left the room without telling the students that he was planning to take the engineering job he had craved all year.

While he was away from the group, he realized that he had unfinished work as a teacher and tore up the job offer letter.

It was a good movie and, coming from a family of educators, I like movies that tell about influential teachers. They get little enough credit for all the things they do.

But every time I watch "To Sir With Love," it seems strange to me that, given the time when the movie was made, race was virtually a nonissue in it. Perhaps things were different in England in 1967, but America was seeing race riots from coast to coast. It got worse less than a year later when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

Racial conflict was really percolating in America in the '60s, but, as I say, maybe it was different in England.

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There have been many movies about influential teachers, but few, if any, others have had their theme songs reach No. 1 on the pop charts. Scottish singer Lulu made her movie debut as one of Poitier's students and reached the top of the charts with "To Sir, With Love" in the fall of 1967.

Additional music for the movie was provided by The Mindbenders, a popular British group of the time. Ironically, considering the fact that the Beatles had released "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" about two weeks earlier, an album that contained the song "Getting Better" with the refrain "It's getting better all the time," a Mindbenders' song from "To Sir With Love" told audiences that things were getting harder.

I doubt that there was any collaboration between the two. If there had been, I'm sure we would have heard something about it in the last half century. I'm sure it was a coincidence that two songs that were so similar and yet so contradictory were unveiled at nearly the same time.

The movie was directed by James Clavell, whose real claim to fame was as a novelist, but he had a flair for directing, too. He just didn't do it too often.

'The Third Man' Was One of the Best Film Noirs Ever Made

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"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Harry Lime (Orson Welles)
American Film Institute's #37 movie villain

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All my life, I have heard that "Citizen Kane" is the greatest movie ever made.

But, apparently, some people think "The Third Man," which premiered on Sept. 2, 1949, is the greatest movie ever made. Well, one of them, anyway. And Orson Welles starred in both.

While there was no mistaking Welles' role in "Citizen Kane," it was kind of hard to figure out the part he played in "Third Man" until more than halfway through. See, up to that point in the movie, the assumption everyone made was that Welles' character, Harry Lime, had recently died. There had been a funeral and everything.

The guy with the most screen time was Welles' friend, a writer played by Joseph Cotten (who also appeared in "Citizen Kane"). He showed up in postwar Vienna planning to work for Welles — only to learn Welles' character recently died after being struck by a car while crossing the street.

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But was that really what happened? That, as film critic Roger Ebert observed, is "the engine that drives the plot."

Cotten was told that a mysterious third man helped two other men (whose identities were known) carry Welles from the scene. He was also told by a British officer (Trevor Howard) that Welles had been a thief and a murderer, accusations Cotten refused to believe. But, as the movie progressed, he learned that what he had been told was true — and he found out that Welles was very much alive.

"By the time Lime finally appears," Ebert wrote, "we have almost forgotten Welles is even *in* the movie."

And, thus, the stage was set for the final scene — a chase through the sewers of Vienna.

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It was in that final scene that the movie's distinctive cinematography was most in evidence, with its severe lighting and unusual camera angles.

"The chase sequence ... is another joining of the right action with the right location," Ebert wrote. "Harry escapes into the sewer system like a cornered rat, and [director Carol] Reed edits the pursuit into long, echoing, empty sewer vistas, and closeups of Lime's sweaty face, his eyes darting for a way out."

And the music. Its influence on the mood of the movie was unmistakable.

"Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited the action?" Ebert wrote, referring to the nearly constant zither music. Reed came across the musician who performed it one night in a Viennese beer house where the musician was playing. The movie's theme was one of the biggest hits of 1950.

My answer to Ebert's question would be "Probably not."

I don't think "The Third Man" was the greatest movie ever made — I'm still inclined to give that designation to "Citizen Kane" — but I definitely think it was one of the great film noirs ever made.

The Free Spirit of Miss Jean Brodie

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"For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like."

Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith)

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Was there a Miss Jean Brodie on the faculty when you were in school?

There were teachers in my schools who had some of her qualities — but I can't think of anyone who was quite like the very liberated Miss Jean Brodie.

(And when I say "liberated," that was kind of a scandalous thing all by itself in the period between the two world wars.)

She was a spitfire.

A teacher at a girls school in Scotland in the 1930s, Miss Jean Brodie had a reputation for wandering from the prescribed course of study in promoting art, music, drama and seeking, in general, to influence her girls (or "gulls," as she pronounced it). She believed she was in the prime of her life, and she intended for her students — in particular, four 12–year–olds (Pamela Franklin, Shirley Steedman, Diane Grayson, Jane Carr) — to be the beneficiaries of her knowledge.

Brodie and the four often went to plays, concerts, museums — which provoked the headmistress and others on the faculty, especially since Brodie was involved with a male music teacher and had been involved with a male art teacher.

The music teacher, who was also church choirmaster, was asked to resign by the church because of his relationship with Brodie, and she lost the allegiance of the art teacher, who had been more prone to be supportive of Brodie's unorthodox classroom approach than just about anyone else on the faculty.

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"I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the creme de la creme. Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life."

Miss Jean Brodie

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The art teacher, as it turned out, had begun a relationship with one of Brodie's girls (Franklin). It was the subject of some conversation. But the art teacher was still obsessed with Brodie, and Franklin's character broke things off with him.

"Miss Brodie never got married like our mothers and fathers," observed Grayson's character at one point.

"They don't have primes," Franklin's character said.

"They have sexual intercourse," replied Grayson.

The script crackled, especially when Franklin's character figured out Brodie and confronted her. There was no such confrontation in the book upon which the Tony Award–winning play and, ultimately, the movie were based.

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Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, but, otherwise, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" was largely ignored by the Oscars. Rod McKuen's song "Jean" was nominated for Best Song but lost to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head."

Franklin wasn't nominated for an Oscar, but she did win the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress.

Turner Classic Movies will be showing "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" at 5 p.m. (Central) this Thursday.