If You're Craving 'Gone With the Wind,' Watch the Real Thing

---

---

"Greatness? Ha! If that great philosopher, Socrates, were living today, he'd be reduced to sitting on a cracker barrel, chewing tobacco. That's what America does for greatness."

Professor Stiles (Nigel Patrick)

---

When I first saw "Raintree County," which premiered on this day in 1957, my first reaction was that it must have been intended as a Northern version of "Gone With the Wind."

I had read nothing about the movie before I saw it, but after I did I read comments from film critics that showed I wasn't the only one who perceived it that way. I have no doubt that MGM saw it that way, too. But that isn't how things worked out.

It wasn't the award–winning blockbuster that had been envisioned. In fact the movie was a failure at the box office, and it was widely panned by critics. Elizabeth Taylor was nominated for Best Actress, and the movie was nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Original Score, but all those awards went to other nominees.

The funny thing is that I know some people who really like "Raintree County." I guess it is true what they say. There really is no accounting for taste (or the lack thereof).

People often forget that film critics merely express their opinions — and opinions are not statements of fact.

In this case, though, I tend to agree with most in their negative assessments.

---

---

I suppose if you were going to select a couple, you couldn't pick an odder one than Montgomery Clift and Taylor (who were actually pretty good friends in real life). Clift's character, a Yankee abolitionist, and Taylor's character, a self–absorbed Southerner, met before the Civil War broke out.

In its best opposites–attract mode, the story showed how Clift and Taylor were drawn together. Eva Marie Saint, who played a girl–next–door type, probably should have been Clift's bride — but that would be in an ideal world. And the pre–Civil War world they occupied was far from ideal.

The coupling was far from ideal as well. A friend of mine once observed, "Montgomery Clift went to bed with Scarlett O'Hara and woke up with Blanche DuBois." That should tell you everything you need to know about the volatile nature of the relationship.

The lead characters were really the only ones that were given any kind of in–depth examination. The supporting talents were mishandled. Lee Marvin wasn't suited for the kind of comedic role in which he was cast, and Agnes Moorehead was given very little with which to work. Rod Taylor was reasonably convincing albeit in a small part.

---

---

The odd thing about "Raintree County" was that, while it was set against the backdrop of the Civil War, more attention was given to Clift's character and his quest to find the meaning of life than to the far more significant events that were unfolding around him.

Clift, by the way, was nearly killed when he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed his car into a telephone pole after leaving a dinner party at Elizabeth Taylor's home. Summoned from the party Taylor rushed to Clift's side and removed a tooth that was lodged in his tongue. If Taylor had not done that, Clift might have choked to death.

As it was, Clift suffered several injuries, including a broken jaw and nose, that required reconstructive surgery. His matinee idol looks were never the same again. In fact, they weren't even the same from scene to scene. If you watch closely, you can see differences in his profile — and, in closer shots, his nose and chin.

The cinematographer tried to work around it and did a generally good job. But the damage was too extensive to cover completely.

Pursuing a Place in the Sun

---

---

"I love you. I've loved you since the first moment I saw you. I guess maybe I've even loved you before I saw you."

George (Montgomery Clift)

---

If you ever read Theodore Dreiser's novel "An American Tragedy," you know the plot — for the most part — of George Stevens' "A Place in the Sun," which premiered on this day in 1951.

The movie wasn't exactly a re–telling of the novel — in fact, there were several changes in the story in its translation from printed page to silver screen — but it was heavily influenced by it, and anyone who read the book and saw the movie knew that the protagonist in the movie (Montgomery Clift) was virtually a carbon copy of the protagonist in the book.

In both the book and the movie, he was poor but ambitious, the son of religious activists, street missionaries in the Midwest. He wasn't well educated, he lacked maturity, and he was naive. He took menial jobs to help support his family; while working at such a job he met his wealthy uncle who owned a successful factory on the coast and invited his nephew to visit him, suggesting that he could have a job in the business.

So he made his way to his uncle's factory — in the book, it was on the East Coast, but it was on the West Coast in the movie.

---

---

Other details and circumstances were different, too, but the story was essentially the same. The protagonist took his uncle up on the offer and was, indeed, given a job. It was an entry–level job at first, but the protagonist got rapid promotions. Things were looking up.

There was one problem, though. When he was first hired, the protagonist was told that most of the employees were females, and he should not have relationships with any of them outside the workplace.

So, of course, that is precisely what he did. Almost immediately he struck up a friendship with a young worker (Shelley Winters, who broke into movies in the early '40s as a blonde bombshell but found that label too limiting and claimed to have washed off her makeup to audition for the role in "A Place in the Sun"). In the story, it was probably a good match. Winters' character was almost as naive as Clift's, believing nearly to the end that his family ties brought him no privileges at all — all evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, they started seeing each other on the sly, and it wasn't long before they had sex. That, of course, was the kind of thing that simply was not seen in movies in the 1950s. It could only be suggested, hinted at, the kind of thing in which a couple kisses passionately, and the music swells, and the figures become silhouettes that fade into a morning scene in which both are seen at the breakfast table.

Everyone who saw the movie knew that something had happened, but no one saw it happen — rather like when one goes to bed and there is no snow on the ground, but there is snow on the ground when that person wakes up the next morning. You know something happened even if you didn't see it happen.

---

---

Nevertheless, the secret — if it ever was one to anyone watching the movie 65 years ago — was a secret no more when Winters' character sought advice from a minister, who believed she was overwhelmed by the stress of being pregnant until Winters confessed that she was not married and the father had "abandoned" her.

As self–absorbed as he was, Clift's character claimed he was going to do the honorable thing (by '50s standards) and marry the girl — but he was falling in love with an affluent and socially connected girl (Elizabeth Taylor), the kind who could do many wonderful things for his career.

And his allegiance was shifting rapidly from the working girl to the society girl.

At times, Clift's character reminded me of Hamlet, Shakespeare's famed Danish prince who couldn't make up his mind. But, once he met Liz, his devotion clearly belonged to her, even though he agreed to marry Winters after she phoned him at a weekend party with Taylor and the ritzy crowd and threatened to expose him. They went to get a marriage license — only to find the office was closed for the Labor Day weekend.

They decided to come back the next day and, in the meantime, enjoy some R&R. They were on a secluded lake and decided to rent a boat. Winters' character didn't know that Clift had been plotting to kill her and make it look like an accident, leaving him free to marry Taylor — but once they were on the lake, he had a change of heart and decided not to kill her after all.

But fate intervened, and Winters really did slip and fall — and drown.

The audience, of course, knew that it really had been an accident. But Clift's suspicious behavior before and after the accident led to his conviction — with none other than Raymond Burr, TV's future Perry Mason, leading the prosecution.

---

---

Waiting to walk that last mile to his execution, Clift told a priest that he didn't kill Winters, but he did nothing to help her when she fell in the water. The priest concluded that it was murder and Clift's execution would be justified.

In 2016, it seems a little melodramatic, but it must have seemed to be pushing boundaries in 1951. It remains only the second movie adaptation of Dreiser's novel. He didn't live to see it, but he saw the first one, which was made 20 years earlier. I've heard that he hated it.

Maybe he considered it too literal a translation. He might have preferred "A Place in the Sun," considering that it did differ in some ways from the original source (and in more than just the name). Perhaps, now that filmmakers have more freedom than they did 65 years ago, it is time for a fresh take on the story.

"A Place in the Sun" ranked #92 on the American Film Institute's original list of the Top 100 movies of the last 100 years, but it was left off the revised list that was released 10 years later.

It won six Oscars — Best Director (Stevens), Best Screenplay, Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, Best Black–and–White Cinematography, Best Black–and–White Costume Design and Best Film Editing. It received three other nominations — Best Picture, Best Actor (Clift) and Best Actress (Winters), losing to "An American in Paris," Humphrey Bogart and Vivien Leigh.

Living and Learning From Experience

---

---

Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland): Don't be kind to me, Father. It doesn't become you.

---

Try as I might, I just can't think of Olivia de Havilland as plain.

I say that having seen "The Heiress," which premiered 65 years ago today. She won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Catherine Sloper (the title character of an adaptation of a play based on a Henry James novella that supposedly was inspired by a true story) and that character was very plain and very shy.

But I would never call Olivia de Havilland plain. She considered herself a classical actress when she was appearing regularly in the movies, and she paid a professional price for refusing to play bimbo roles. A skilled makeup/hair person could make her look plain, I suppose, but she wasn't naturally plain.

Nor would I call her particularly shy, either. She sued Warner Bros. for extending her contract at a time when studios virtually enslaved their talent through unfair contract extensions. She paid a price for that, too, but, in the end, she won, and "the de Havilland Law," as it is known, shifted the balance of power in Hollywood from the studios to the performers.

I've never read James' novella, but if plain and shy is an accurate description of its heroine, I imagine that de Havilland really must have done a superb job of portraying her because she was clearly playing against type.

The only thing that her father (Ralph Richardson) thought she had going for her was her wealth, and he was determined that de Havilland's handsome, young suitor Morris (Montgomery Clift) wouldn't get his hands on it. Catherine saw her father as emotionally abusive. I think a pretty good case could be made for protective. I've known many fathers who didn't approve of their daughters' choices for husbands.

But as Lysander said in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"...

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

---

---

It wasn't really true love, though. Turned out Catherine's father was right. Her suitor was after her money, and he disappeared the minute it seemed her dowry would be cut off.

Richardson's relationship with de Havilland was devastating to watch. He was well–meaning and wanted to protect his daughter, but he also felt disdain for her. The scene where she realized that was painful to watch — and remains so even after several viewings.

Morris surfaced again several years later, after Catherine's father had died, and insisted he left because he wanted to spare her the "grief" of being disinherited. Her words told him he was back in her good graces, but the audience could see facial expressions he didn't see and body language he failed to pick up.

She told him to pick her up that night and they would be married, but she had no intention of going away with him.

"He's grown greedier over the years," she told her aunt. "Before he only wanted my money; now he wants my love as well. Well, he came to the wrong house — and he came twice. I shall see that he does not come a third time."

"Can you be so cruel?" her shocked aunt asked.

"Yes, I can be very cruel," replied Catherine. "I have been taught by masters."

And when he returned, the door was bolted. He kept knocking, but there was no answer.

---

---

One of the things I liked best about "The Heiress" — but I never hear it mentioned — was how director William Wyler made parts of the set silent characters.

Take, for example, the tall, narrow stairway in her father's home. When Catherine was anticipating Morris' arrival to take her away from her old life, one could imagine her bounding down the stairs in excitement. The audience didn't actually see that part, just the glowing Catherine with her bags all packed waiting by the front door.

But when she made the long, arduous climb back up those stairs after reaching the agonizing conclusion that Morris wasn't coming after all, each step was more painful than the last.

The acting in "The Heiress" was spellbinding, and de Havilland, as I mentioned, did win the Best Actress Oscar, but Richardson lost Best Supporting Actor to Dean Jagger ("Twelve O'Clock High"); "The Heiress" also won Oscars for Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, Best Black and White Art Direction and Best Black and White Costume Design.

It was recognized with Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Black and White Cinematography. The movie's eight Oscar nominations and four victories outperformed every other motion picture that year, even the Best Picture winner, "All the King's Men."

Generational Clash in the Old West

---

---

Simms Reeves (Hank Worden): Plantin' and readin', plantin' and readin'. Fill a man full o' lead, stick him in the ground an' then read words on him. Why, when you've killed a man, why try to read the Lord in as a partner on the job?

---

For the most part, John Wayne was an heroic figure.

But, occasionally, he lapsed into a darker character. He didn't explore that side of his movie persona too often, which is too bad, really, because it was an opportunity to see him as a flawed and imperfect man. Far too frequently, his movie roles portrayed him as some kind of western Superman.

He was far from that in the movie that premiered 65 years ago today — Howard Hawks' "Red River." Unlike the sort of character he was known for playing, Wayne's character in "Red River" was an unsympathetic one, clinging to old ways in spite of changing dynamics.

Set in the mid–19th century, Wayne played a frontiersman who craved the life of a Texas cattleman, and he abandoned a wagon train to pursue his dream, accompanied by Walter Brennan. His fiancee was part of the wagon train, which was targeted in an Indian raid shortly thereafter. The only survivor of the raid was a young boy who was informally adopted by Wayne.

---

---

Together, they built one of the wealthiest cattle ranches in Texas — only to see its value reduced to nothing following the Civil War.

His fiancee's death had left Wayne's character embittered and destroyed any hope that he could find happiness in his new life.

Most westerns up to this time — and, certainly, most of Wayne's movies — had an inspirational quality to them. "Red River" had a sharp edge, a gritty quality to it.

I've heard "Red River" described as a "Mutiny on the Bounty" set in Big Sky country, and that isn't a bad comparison.

Upon the return of his adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift, from the war, Wayne's character decided to move his cattle about 1,000 miles to the north, to Missouri where beef markets could be found, but en route to Missouri there were gangs and Indians.

Wayne was able to keep his men in line as long as Clift backed him up, but there came a time when Wayne stepped over the line and Clift challenged him.

It was the familiar clash between the old generation and the new. Clift represented a willingness to embrace change while Wayne resisted.

It's a conflict that has been played out countless times on the big screen and in real life.

Clift seized the herd and made for Kansas, where there was a new railroad to Missouri.

---

---

If it wasn't the first time Wayne played against type, it was one of the first times — and it wouldn't be the last. I'm sure it must have been a bit of a shock for moviegoers who weren't accustomed to seeing Wayne in that kind of role.

In many ways, though, the role Wayne played in "Red River" was the perfect preparation for the role he would play in John Ford's "The Searchers" eight years later.

The Not-So-Sunny Side of the Street

---

---

Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift): A man don't go his own way, he's nothing.

Sgt. Warden (Burt Lancaster): Maybe back in the days of the pioneers a man could go his own way, but today you got to play ball.

---

If you want to see a faithful re–creation of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I recommend seeing "Tora! Tora! Tora!"

But if you want to see a well–acted drama set against the backdrop of Pearl Harbor, "From Here to Eternity" — which premiered 60 years ago today — is the clear choice.

There was a lot of hype for this movie, I've been told, and I can believe it. It was based on one of the best–selling novels of the previous decade, which, I must confess, I haven't read. I'm sure that, as is usually the case, the movie wasn't as good as the book that inspired it, but I haven't a clue where the movie came up short unless there were parts of the story that, given the times, could not be mentioned.

When I saw it — and that was several decades after it was released — I felt it delivered on every level. The acting was brilliant in a story that was ostensibly about war but really was about life and how unfair it can be.

The movie followed three American soldiers — played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra — who were stationed at Pearl Harbor in the months leading up to the attack. Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed were the love interests.

Although separated by about 45 years, I thought "From Here to Eternity" was a lot like "Titanic" — the audience knew something big was going to happen, but it kind of got lost in the love story.

By the time the something big happened, it almost took the audience by surprise. That's an indication of superior filmmaking, I suppose.

Ironically, that was clearly the intention of 2001's "Pearl Harbor" — but it failed to get the audience to care about the love story.

"From Here to Eternity" didn't have that problem, especially with the principals, Lancaster and Kerr, who shared a passionate kiss on the beach in their iconic scene. Kerr's character was married, but audiences could forgive her that because she had been abused by her philandering husband, a thoroughly unlikeable sort played by Philip Ober (who may be best known for having been married to Vivian Vance at one time).

It was easy for audiences to not like him, and I have no doubt that was the plan. If the spouse is a reprehensible human being, it is easy to excuse the aggrieved spouse for behavior of which most people wouldn't approve. And most people probably would not approve of an extramarital affair.

Likewise, most people probably wouldn't condone prostitution, but Reed's character endeared herself to the audience with her selfless claim that she wanted to make enough money to go home to the mainland and buy a house for her mother.

---

---

Both Lancaster and Kerr were nominated for Oscars, but it was supporting performances by Sinatra as a soldier who is killed while in the stockade and Reed, whose performance as a prostitute can only be seen as completely against type, that earned Oscars for acting.

Sinatra, of course, was primarily a singer. While I haven't seen all of Reed's movie performances, her performance in "From Here to Eternity" may have been her most sincere and candid.

Director Fred Zinnemann won an Oscar as well, and the movie won Best Picture. Out of 13 nominations, "From Here to Eternity" took home eight awards.

Standing for Something

---

Spencer Tracy gave this memorable speech at the film's end.

---

Of the Nuremberg trials, many Germans were dismissive. It is simply a case of the victorious exacting their revenge on the vanquished, they said.

Perhaps there was an element of that. I have written in this blog about the dearth of films about the Nuremberg trials, and it's possible that thinking played a role.

I wrote about the absence of such films nearly a year and a half ago, and I still think it is appalling that so few attempts have been made to tell that story — the story of how the Allies brought the surviving Nazi leaders to justice after the war in Europe — when so many attempts have been made to tell the story of Hitler's life, his rise to power and his brutal application of that power.

There are some valuable things to learn from Nuremberg. Sure, there were some mistakes. There always are. If anything, the Allies probably overdid the tribunal thing, working their way down from the justified trials of the men who really were responsible for the Holocaust to the generally unjustified trials of those who really were following the orders of their superiors.

But the Allies' intentions were good. Their motivations were noble. And their verdicts were appropriate.

Am I wrong to feel that somehow we're glorifying the bad guys and de–emphasizing the accomplishments of the good guys?

Maybe I am. I wish more filmmakers would examine that period in history. Then, at least, we could have a debate about differing impressions.

But only a handful have even tried in the last 64 years — and, sad to say, some of the results have been abysmal.

---

---

The very best one — in my opinion, anyway — wasn't even a re–creation. It was a fictionalized account of the Nuremberg trials, in which the judges who enforced the anti–Semitic laws of Nazi Germany were charged with crimes against humanity.

The film was 1961's "Judgment at Nuremberg," and the story did a great job of discussing issues surrounding the war crimes trials in the years after the Nazi leaders were convicted and executed.

And you can see it at 7 p.m. (Central) tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies. Don't miss it. Record it if you must and watch it later. Or make a note to yourself to see it the next time it is on.

But, please, don't miss it.

The story worked, even though it was largely devoid of action, as courtroom movies are apt to be. And just about everything in the movie took place in the courtroom. That works if a screenplay has great dialogue, which "Judgment at Nuremberg" had. But the story might not have worked if it hadn't had Stanley Kramer directing and producing, and it certainly wouldn't have succeeded without its all–star cast.

---

---

In what was certainly one of the great performances of all time, Maximilian Schell won Best Actor for his portrayal of the shrewd defense attorney (he beat co–star Spencer Tracy, who was equally memorable as the American judge).

"It is easy," Schell's character declares, "to condemn the German people, to speak of the flaw in the German character that allowed Hitler to rise to power — and at the same time ignore the flaw that made the Russians sign pacts with him, Winston Churchill praise him, American businessmen profit by him!"

Counterbalancing Schell's impassioned defense is the judicious demeanor of Tracy.

"There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the 'protection' of the country," his character says before announcing the verdict. "Of 'survival.' The answer to that is: 'survival as what?' A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world, let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice, truth and the value of a single human being."

There were other big names in the film as well. Some, I have been told, believed so deeply in the project that they worked for only a small portion of their usual salaries.

---

---

Judy Garland was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in what was certainly a noteworthy performance, but so was Marlene Dietrich's portrayal of the widow of a German general.

And there have been few figures in American movies who were as tragic as Montgomery Clift, who was unforgettable as the victim of politically motivated sterilization. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

But, as Tracy's character says in his verdict speech, one of the defendants was a tragic figure as well — a German judge played by Burt Lancaster.

I've always felt that Lancaster's performance as the guilt–ridden judge was one of the best of his career. When he spoke of presiding over the "Feldenstein case," it was a fictional treatment of a real case, the Katzenberger Trial, in which an elderly Jewish businessman was convicted and sentenced to death for having an improper relationship with a young Aryan woman, even though no credible evidence of such a relationship was ever presented.

---

---

I guess the real greatness of the movie is that, while it was filmed in black and white, the characters were subtle shades of gray. No one was purely good. No one was purely bad. There was more than enough guilt to go around, a lesson the Allies learned a bit belatedly.

But the Nuremberg trials were necessary and important. Until more filmmakers give us re–creations of the actual Nuremberg trials, I recommend this fictional version if you want to learn more about the lengths to which the Nazis went to consolidate their power.

We must learn — and continue to learn — from that very dark chapter in human history if we wish to avoid repeating it.