"Smoking is an obsession with me. Maybe someday I'll become obsessed with something else and give up smoking."
Martha (Jane Fonda)
Norman Jewison's "Agnes of God," which premiered on this date in 1985, was a difficult movie to watch — especially in the last 30 minutes. In fact, I have only seen it once. I've never been able to watch it a second time.
It was painful to watch Meg Tilly's tortured performance as a simple young woman manipulated and abused by the people in her life, much as it was painful five years earlier to watch "The Elephant Man" — yet both were ultimately rewarding. The only problem was you had to experience all that misery for the payoff to really ... pay off.
And "Agnes of God" never really paid off as handsomely as it should have. There were, I suppose, many reasons for that.
"Agnes of God" began as a stage play, and the film adaptation made little allowance for the shift to the big screen. "But that's just the beginning of this film's problems," observed Roger Ebert. "It considers, or pretends to consider, some of the most basic questions of human morality and treats them on the level of 'Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Convent.'"
Meg Tilly played Sister Agnes, a young nun who gives birth and allegedly kills the child, then faces manslaughter charges, which draws Jane Fonda, as a court–appointed psychiatrist, to the convent to examine Sister Agnes and her surroundings. Sister Agnes, you see, had no idea who the father might have been. She even had doubts that there had ever been a baby.
"It is never made quite clear what specific problem Sister Agnes suffers from," Ebert wrote, "but she clearly has parts on order."
Still, it was Tilly's riveting performance enabled "Agnes of God" to rise above the mediocre in its pursuit of its objective — establishing that miracles do happen. The material may have produced, in Ebert's words, "a very badly confused movie. ..."
However, "(g)iven dialogue that sounds as if it were written to be read, given characters who consistently avoid asking the obvious questions, given a story that refuses to declare what it is about, [Anne] Bancroft, Fonda and Tilly use their craft to give the illusion that they know where they stand. It is service in a lost cause."
The acting really deserved to be recognized, and it was. It received three Oscar nominations. Two were for acting; the third was for Best Original Score.
Bancroft was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Geraldine Page. I thought Tilly really should have been nominated for Best Actress — not necessarily at the expense of Bancroft, who was great, as always — but she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress — and lost to Anjelica Huston.
Fonda turned in her usual workmanlike performance and received no nomination. She had already won two Oscars, anyway.
"They're trying to drive him off his ranch. They put manure in his well. They made him talk to lawyers ..."
Cat Ballou (Jane Fonda)
By 1965, the western genre had become stale and predictable. It needed something to spice it up.
Twenty–seven–year–old Jane Fonda provided it as Catherine "Cat" Ballou, a young woman from Wyoming who had been educated in the East and was returning to her father's ranch. All sorts of things happened from that point on, including the appearance of Lee Marvin, who stole the show with his dual role (which won an Oscar).
But it was Fonda who played the title character, and it was the kind of character that hadn't really been explored in the movies up to that time, particularly not in the context of the Old West — a strong, independent female.
Some people think Fonda's performance in "Cat Ballou" was her breakthrough performance; some people don't. I do, even though she got good reviews for her work in 1962's "Period of Adjustment."
I guess what made "Cat Ballou" special was the fact that Fonda succeeded almost in spite of herself. As I understand it, the folks who were making the movie wanted Ann–Margret to play the role of Cat Ballou, but apparently her manager declined on her behalf (she has since suggested that she would have taken the role) so it was offered to Fonda.
Fonda wasn't going to take it. She didn't want to do another comedy. She was looking for dramatic roles that would establish her as a legitimate actress, but her fiance, Roger Vadim, talked her into it. I guess he saw something in the script that Fonda didn't see.
The movie was based on a serious story; it was adapted to be a comedy, and that paid off handsomely. Walter Newman and Frank Pierson were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars but lost to Robert Bolt for "Doctor Zhivago."
The movie did win an Oscar for Best Actor — Marvin pulled off the relatively rare accomplishment of winning the award for a performance in a comedy.
Not that he didn't deserve it. He certainly did — although I am sure there were those who were shocked that he beat the likes of Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier and Rod Steiger by playing a gunfighter who had deteriorated into a drunk and his evil twin. (Steiger was regarded as the front–runner, and I am told that he was halfway out of his seat when Marvin's name was announced as the winner.)
"Cat Ballou," it is safe to say, was the inspiration for spoofs to come, like "Blazing Saddles." You could see it from the beginning, when Columbia Pictures' "torch lady" became a cartoon Cat Ballou with pistols in both hands that she fired into the air.
Oh, there was another nice touch that needs to be mentioned. Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye sang "The Ballad of Cat Ballou" like a couple of country troubadours regularly punctuating scenes in the movie to round out the tale.
Jack (Jack Lemmon):What makes you think they're looking for a scapegoat?
Ted (Wilford Brimley):Tradition.
To understand why "The China Syndrome," which hit the theaters 35 years ago today, was so unsettling for movie audiences, it is necessary to understand the times.
Well, not so much the times when the movie was first released. There was no real hoopla that I can recall accompanying the premiere of "The China Syndrome" — other than protests from nuclear companies that the movie amounted to industrial character assassination.
Such claims were not heard 12 days later, when there was a nuclear disaster at a place called Three Mile Island, Pa. It was purely coincidental, but the timing couldn't have been better for the movie. While the performances were great and the story was first rate in "The China Syndrome," Three Mile Island probably deserves a lot of the credit for the movie earning 10 times what it cost to make.
Three Mile Island put everyone on edge, it seemed, and it made "The China Syndrome" the hottest (pardon the pun) movie ticket in every city and town in America.
In that chicken–and–egg conversation, the two subjects became intertwined; over the years, one has hardly heard the movie mentioned without the nuclear accident and vice versa.
In the movie, a TV reporter (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman (Michael Douglas) witnessed a nuclear emergency while at a local nuclear plant to do a story on energy.
Thanks to the quick response by an engineer (played by Jack Lemmon), a worse disaster was prevented.
Fonda's character had her own agenda — she wanted to graduate from doing puff pieces to news with an edge to it, and reporting on a near–disaster was just the thing, but her supervisor refused to allow Fonda to report on it or to show footage that had been filmed on the sly by Douglas.
In the meantime, Lemmon did some research and discovered that all sorts of corners had been cut, leaving the plant vulnerable to a full–scale meltdown (dubbed the "China syndrome" in the movie, describing an incident that would blow the proverbial hole all the way through the earth to China).
Lemmon's character accumulated evidence supporting this and gave it to a soundman from the TV station, who promised to deliver it to Fonda and Douglas — but he was run off the road when trying to deliver it. Knowing that made me wonder if the movie wasn't based only, as advertised, on a 1975 nuclear power plant fire in Alabama — but also, perhaps, a bit on the case of Karen Silkwood, which was later dramatized in a movie starring Meryl Streep.
That event led Lemmon to conclude that his own life was in danger, and he took over the plant at gunpoint, demanding to tell his story on TV.
It was a first–rate thriller, as critic Roger Ebert said, "that incidentally raises the most unsettling questions about how safe nuclear power plants really are."
Those questions still haven't been answered satisfactorily. So often, it seems, the whistleblowers are demeaned and discredited. Why would anyone want to be exposed to that?
One wonders if the questions would have been raised at all had it not been for the coincidental nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.
I also wonder if the performances of Lemmon and Fonda would have been nominated for Oscars if it hadn't been for Three Mile Island. Their performances were good — especially Lemmon's — but I don't know if either was Oscar–worthy.
"A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming."
Barbarella (Jane Fonda)
"Barbarella" is an example of a movie that isn't particularly well received when it is at the theaters, but it gradually gains acceptance after it completes its theatrical rounds and emerges as a cult favorite.
Modern movie fans may only know Jane Fonda as the 75–year–old woman she is today. But 45 years ago, "Hanoi Jane," as she was known for her political activities, was young and beautiful — and her director/husband, Roger Vadim, cast her as the lead in his space–age, pseudo–science fiction (and relatively soft porn) movie.
Almost everything in "Barbarella" — which premiered on this day in 1968 — was said or done with one's tongue pressed tightly against one's cheek.
And, to be honest, it was an amusing little flick. I doubt that I would want or need to see it a second time — and, since I first saw it many years ago, I haven't wanted or needed to see it again. But I think it is worth seeing once — if only to catch a glimpse of what people in 1968 thought was funny (or, perhaps, what people in those days thought other people thought was funny).
That wasn't the only thing viewers could glimpse. "Barbarella" was also an excuse to see Fonda in various stages of undress floating in weightless environments.
There was actually a plot — kinda sorta. It was a flimsy one, really more of an intergalactic "Wizard of Oz" with Fonda playing a kind of 41st–century psychedelic version of Dorothy.
But instead of obsessing about yellow brick roads, ruby slippers and the Emerald City, Barbarella obsessed about sex.
Now, young people do tend to obsess about sex. But "Barbarella" threw in a new — and, in its way, prophetic — wrinkle. Barbarella was accustomed to a kind of virtual sex. Actual physical sex with another person was an experience she had never had.
Discerning viewers observed that an absence of physical sex would make it problematic to conceive — except that this was, of course, the 41st century. I don't think the issue of conception was ever addressed, but I suppose it could be assumed that science had found other ways to achieve that.
Barbarella:Make love? But no one's done that for hundreds of centuries!
I don't know if it was intended to be as farcical as it turned out to be. As I say, the plot was a bit contrived. Well, more than a bit. See, Barbarella was sent to find a missing scientist named Durand Durand. It was while she was on this mission that Barbarella discovered physical sex.
That was about it. The rest was filler.
The movie may be more noteworthy for inspiring the name of a popular 1980s band (after slightly changing the spelling of the scientist's name).
I'm pretty sure Vadim and the film's backers didn't expect it to tank at the box office the way it did — and it would have taken remarkable psychic abilities to foresee how "Barbarella" would become a cult classic.
When I was growing up, I couldn't imagine a world that didn't have Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart in it.
They were always two of my favorite actors, still are even today. In fact, they were both in the first movie I can remember seeing at the movie theater in my hometown — "How the West Was Won" — which wasn't a new release when it came to my then–tiny hometown (but nothing ever was).
I guess every year has its share of deaths of irreplaceable people.
It is often said that a recently deceased person will be missed. And often, I suppose, that is true.
But I guess it was never more relevant than it was to the movie industry — and, by extension, the world — in late 1982.
In September, Grace Kelly died when she suffered a stroke while driving on the winding, hilly roads of Monaco and crashed her car. She died without regaining consciousness.
And about a month earlier, on Aug. 12, 1982 — 30 years ago today — Fonda died. His death had been anticipated — he'd been ill for awhile — but it was no less devastating.
Audiences had come to take him for granted, I guess. I know I did. He was a steady, reliable performer. You knew what you would be getting when you saw a Henry Fonda movie — well, most of the time you did. When he played against type in "Once Upon a Time in the West," it was more than some moviegoers could fathom.
When he died in 1982, he had been in Hollywood for nearly half a century, and he had just been honored by the Academy Awards with the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in "On Golden Pond."
It was recognition that he had long deserved but had been denied to him. His career had been filled with exceptional performances, but only once before had he been nominated for Best Actor — in 1940, when he was nominated for "The Grapes of Wrath" (but lost to Stewart for "The Philadelphia Story").
His performances in movies like "The Lady Eve," "The Ox–Bow Incident," "Mister Roberts," "Fail–Safe" and "Once Upon a Time in the West" — and dozens of others — went unnoticed repeatedly at Oscar time.
Over the years, Oscar didn't treat Fonda so well. The American Film Institute included two of Fonda's movies on its list of the top 100 movies of all time, but the only time one of his movies was nominated for Best Picture — "12 Angry Men" in 1957 — it lost (to "The Bridge on the River Kwai").
At the time that he died, it occurred to me that the old adage about not knowing what you've got until you no longer have it may never have been more relevant than it was when applied to Fonda's life and career.
On countless occasions in my life, I have been guided by the memory of the words and actions of characters that Fonda played in his life.
In his personal life, as I understand it, Fonda was a flawed individual, perceived by many of those closest to him, especially his children, as aloof and distant. And perhaps he was.
But when he was in front of a camera, the words he was given to speak and the roles he was asked to play took on even greater meaning because Fonda brought so much strength of character to each.
I suppose that was also what made his performance in "Once Upon a Time in the West" so menacing. In the hands of another actor who didn't command the respect Fonda did, that role might have been almost laughable.
But Fonda, cast as a cold–blooded, indiscriminate killer, had a nearly immortal aura to him. He was kind of the Freddy Krueger of the spaghetti Western.
Fonda was truly a gifted actor. In most of his movies, his gift came across in an almost "aw, shucks" kind of way. On the night in 1982 when his daughter accepted his Best Actor Oscar for him because he was too ill to attend, she told the audience she was sure her father's reaction would be to praise those with whom he worked and, of his own recognition, to say, "Ain't I lucky?"
And that was how he looked at his accomplishments in his life, Jane Fonda said. He gave all the credit to those with whom he worked and paid little if any attention to his own skill.
We were the lucky ones — to have had him as long as we did.
Jane Fonda has always been something of an enigma for me.
For example, she has been an often passionate advocate and defender of women yet she has not hesitated to lend her name (if not more) to projects like "Barbarella" that brazenly exploited women — when she wasn't exploiting, for personal profit, the desire that most of them have to be young and beautiful even after they have ceased to be either.
Most of the time, I guess, I just never thought she was terribly original — unlike her father. Even when she made what were said to be groundbreaking films, I always seemed to have the sensation that I had seen it done before — and better — by someone else.
When I first saw "The Morning After" — which premiered 25 years ago today — my first thought was that I must have walked into the wrong viewing room, that I was seeing some sort of parody of "The Godfather."
Do you remember the scene in "The Godfather" in which the movie director woke up in bed with the head of his beloved horse — and in a pool of the animal's blood? That's how "The Morning After" began — with Fonda (playing an alcoholic actress) waking up in bed with a man — and no memory of how she got there or what had happened when she did.
Then, when she withdrew one of her hands from beneath the sheets, she found it was covered in blood. She then discovered that her bedmate was dead with a knife sticking in his back.
She couldn't be sure whether she was responsible for the death or not, but she set about to thoroughly clean the apartment and rid it of any trace that she had been there — quite a task considering that she could not remember what she may have touched the night before.
(It occurred to me many years later that the story would require a drastic rewriting after the development of DNA evidence gathering and analysis. It was a nascent technology in the mid–1980s, but its forensic application changed things.)
In spite of her best (and rather frenzied) efforts, the evidence incriminating her began to pile up. But she was determined to prove that she was not guilty, and she enlisted the help of Jeff Bridges (a bigoted ex–cop).
As I observed when Lumet died earlier this year, he wasn't given to relying on splashy special effects — and "The Morning After" was a good example. His style was more psychological than that — reminiscent of Hitchcock in the way that the camera sort of nonchalantly nudged the viewer's attention in the direction of things that the characters in the film didn't see.
But eventually everything — like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle — came together for all to see, even the characters in the movie.
It was clear that the characters of both Fonda and Bridges were deeply flawed. At times, Fonda reminded me of Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight," uncertain of what was true and what was fantasy, not sure if she could trust her own memories and observations.
Bridges' character was harder for me to pin down. In spite of his bigotry, he had a clear sense of right and wrong — and he would stand on the side he had concluded was right, even if that meant standing alone.
He wasn't so different from other characters I had admired in Lumet's movies — Henry Fonda in "12 Angry Men," Dan O'Herlihy in "Fail–Safe," Bill Holden in "Network." All were flawed in their own ways.
Bridges' tenacity contributed to a somewhat surprising conclusion — and less surprising (as far as I was concerned) complications with Fonda's character. And, to be fair, the movie did generate more suspense than I expected.
In the realm of her suspense thriller flicks, I prefer Fonda's Oscar–winning turn in "Klute" — but "The Morning After" came close to matching that. Fonda was nominated for an Oscar, but she lost to Marlee Matlin.
"Sometimes you have to look hard at a person and remember he's doing the best he can. He's just trying to find his way, just like you."
Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn)
I always admired Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn.
And it was a treat to see the two of them together, finally.
You know, when you consider their lengthy Hollywood careers and their many mutual acquaintances, it really is astonishing that they had never made a film together until "On Golden Pond."
When they did, though, they made movie magic.
I thought of this recently when I was watching "On Golden Pond" for what may be the 10th time in the last 30 years. I saw it when it was at the theaters, and I have seen it several times on TV. And I realized, as I watched it, that it is the kind of film that still speaks to people in all phases of life — even 30 years after it was released.
It even mirrored the relationship between Fonda and his own children.
I guess I was a little older than the actor who played Billy, the young boy whose character was left with Hepburn and Fonda for the summer while Fonda's real–life daughter Jane and her boyfriend in the movie (played by Dabney Coleman) went to Europe together. Consequently, I guess, I related more to his responses to things.
But, during more recent viewings, I have related more to Jane Fonda, who was probably in her 40s at the time, and her relationship with her father. And, I presume, if I live long enough, there will come a time when I will watch it and relate more to Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn than to the others.
I don't know if "On Golden Pond" was the best film either Hepburn or the elder Fonda ever made. They both won Oscars for it. That was not a new experience for Hepburn. She had been nominated 11 times before, and she had gone home with the statuette on three of those occasions. But it was the only time Fonda won, even though he had been nominated once before.
Really, Fonda should have been nominated more often. I don't think anyone could look at the body of his work and not conclude that he got short–changed by the Academy on several occasions.
That other nomination was in recognition of his work in "The Grapes of Wrath," which was a great movie, but what about "12 Angry Men?" Or "The Lady Eve?" Or "The Ox–Bow Incident?" Or "Mister Roberts?" Or "Fail–Safe?"
Or any of more than 100 brilliant performances over the years?
Perhaps the folks who voted for the Oscars in the early 1980s realized that Fonda had been overlooked, taken for granted. He had been a steady, reliable actor for decades — and he was dying. His health had been failing, and "On Golden Pond" seemed likely to be his final film — which it was.
Consequently, when he received the Oscar for his performance in the spring of 1982, it was seen by many as the Academy's way of rewarding him for a lifetime of brilliant performances — although some saw it as recognition for a singularly great performance.
Either way, it was well deserved. Unfortunately, Fonda was too ill to attend the ceremony, but Jane accepted his award for him — and later acknowledged that "it came just in the nick [of time]." Her father died a few months later.
But on that spring evening in 1982, I remember watching her accept that award and feeling deeply moved in a way that I have seldom felt.
Clearly astonished, Jane Fonda made her way to the stage, where Sissy Spacek gave her the statuette for her father, and Fonda looked directly into the camera and said, "Oh, Dad, I'm so happy and proud for you."
Fonda went on to say that she was sure her father's first reaction, upon hearing the news, had been " 'Ain't I lucky?' As if luck had anything to do with it. ... He has tremendous respect for the other actors who were nominated and has always felt a little strange about these things, these competitions, because it's like comparing apples and oranges. He feels very proud to have been among such a wonderful group."
As anyone who ever saw even one of his performances knows, Fonda was pretty special himself.
Roger Ebert said the experience of watching "On Golden Pond" was "something rare and valuable," and he attributed much of that to the acting. I can't argue with that.
What made the acting as great as it was? Its realistic portrayal of the stages of life.
Hepburn, of course, was her great self. Her character was the glue that held her family together, and that was something to which just about everyone could relate — because there is one of those in darn near every family.
Likewise, Henry Fonda's character tended to be a bit distant, a bit standoffish, perhaps a little rough, but you always suspected it was more a defense mechanism, intended to keep others from discovering the truth — which, in Fonda's case, was the realization that he was gradually losing his grip on his mental and physical health. Many families have at least one of those, too.
Jane Fonda played their adult daughter who had to confront issues that went back to her childhood. Those issues were complicated by the fact that Billy, in the space of a month, had forged the kind of relationship with her father that had eluded her for decades.
"Don't you think everyone looks back on their childhood with a certain amount of bitterness and regret about something?" Hepburn asked her at one point. "It doesn't have to ruin your life."
That's good, honest writing — but it takes good, honest acting to bring it to life and make it meaningful for the audience.
"On Golden Pond" had an abundance of talented actors, right down to young Doug McKeon, whose character felt abandoned by his father when he was left in the care of Hepburn and the elder Fonda and frequently spoke of "bullshit" — perhaps for the shock value, perhaps because it really expressed what he felt. I never felt the audience could be sure, and I wasn't really sure it mattered.
But I enjoyed an exchange he had with Henry Fonda after saying that fishing was "bullshit."
"You like that word, don't you?" Fonda asked. "Bullshit."
"Yeah," McKeon replied, almost defiantly.
Fonda nodded. "It's a good word."
Henry Fonda and McKeon bonded on the screen and may have had the best dialogue exchanges.
When they first met, McKeon observed that Fonda's character was marking his 80th birthday. "Man, that's really old," the teenager said.
"You should meet my father," Fonda said.
"Your father is still alive?" McKeon asked incredulously.
"No," Fonda said, "but you should meet him."
Ironically, Fonda didn't live to see his 80th birthday, but just about everyone who saw him in "On Golden Pond" must have felt that they knew him.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
