Building a Bridge in Wartime

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"Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket!"

Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa)

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Not all battles in a war are fought on a battlefield.

Set in World War II, director David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai," which made its American debut on this date in 1957, was about one of the smaller battles that was fought during that war. And while there are legitimate doubts about the historical accuracy of the story, the message was unmistakable.

Alec Guinness took home Best Actor for his performance as the senior British officer at a Japanese prison camp who kept insisting that the Geneva Conventions excused officers from manual labor. The commandant of the camp (Sessue Hayakawa) was under a great deal of pressure. He had to build a bridge across the Kwai River in Burma to expedite the movement of Japanese troops and matériel. What is more, this strategic structure had to be completed by a specific date.

Time was of the essence so the commandant pressed every able–bodied prisoner into service, even the officers. The British officer balked and was punished repeatedly but refused to yield.

Thus the two men were locked in another war — a war of wills.

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For the commandant it was literally a matter of life and death; failure to complete the bridge on time would force him to take his own life in keeping with his moral code. But the British officer absolutely would not compromise.

Meanwhile a Navy officer (William Holden) and two others attempted an escape from the prison camp. The others were killed, but Holden, although injured, managed to get away. As he was recuperating, he learned that he had been assigned to return and destroy the bridge before it was fully functional.

What Holden's character did not know was that Guinness and his men were now working toward the completion of the bridge, not its destruction — and not because of the benefits the Japanese would derive from it but for their own pride and morale.

How it all played out is something no movie lover should miss.

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I heard it said once that there are no "war" movies, only "anti–war" movies, and sometimes I think that is true (although other times I am not so sure). The essence of being anti–war is to expose war's brutality, and the intriguing thing about "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is that it does that — but not in the way you might think.

When one thinks of the brutality of war, one is inclined to think of physical brutality. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was more about psychological brutality.

It was a classic anti–war movie experience.

Adapting Thomas Hardy's Best Novel

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"A woman like you does more damage than she can conceivably imagine."

Francis (Terence Stamp)

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Nearly everyone I know would tell you that I always recommend reading a book before watching its movie version. It has always been an article of faith with me that a book is better than any movie that is based on it.

But there are exceptions to every rule, and "Far From the Madding Crowd," which premiered in Britain on this day in 1967 (and opened in theaters across the United States two days later), was an exception to that rule. At least, in my opinion.

It followed Thomas Hardy's 1874 novel pretty closely. Well, I thought so. In some ways, it may even have been better than the book (albeit somewhat condensed in places). I know others who feel that way.

But I also know others who think the movie is inferior to the book, which some people think was his best. There are plausible arguments to be made on both sides.

So I just want to make a couple of observations on this, the 50th anniversary of the movie's debut.

First, Julie Christie had been making movies for several years but was still in her 20s when she made "Far From the Madding Crowd." She played Bathsheba, a beautiful but vexing woman who inherited a prosperous farm and found herself the object of the affections of three very different men.

Christie's performance was splendid and deserving of an Oscar nomination, but it didn't receive one. Must have been hard to get one of the five Best Actress nominations that year with Katharine Hepburn ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), Audrey Hepburn ("Wait Until Dark"), Anne Bancroft ("The Graduate") and Faye Dunaway ("Bonnie and Clyde") turning in award–worthy performances that year.

(Katharine Hepburn was the winner, by the way.)

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In a talented cast, Christie stood out — and that's saying something when the three men who pursued her were played by Peter Finch, Alan Bates and Terence Stamp.

The other thing that stood out was the sweeping cinematography that so beautifully captured the countryside where the story took place. It was gorgeous, and each time I have watched this movie I have seen something new to admire. The cinematography deserved an Oscar nomination, too.

But the only Oscar nomination that "Far From the Madding Crowd" received was for Best Original Music Score, honoring the work of British composer Richard Rodney Bennett, but Elmer Bernstein took home the trophy for his work on "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

Oscar nominations are like inductions into halls of fame, though. Some are deserved; some are not. It's really a matter of personal preference and bias.

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And cinematography is not something I usually get worked up about.

But the cinematography in "Far From the Madding Crowd" truly was exceptional.

An Important History Lesson

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When I was in junior high, I was assigned to do a book report on Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day."

Looking back, I would have to say that the book was probably a bit beyond my years. I mean, I love history — I have always loved history — and I love a good story, but the book was a bit technical for me, at least at that time in my life.

I didn't know who most of the people in the book were. I guess I hadn't studied World War II or D–Day too much at that point, had no idea, really, of their significance in American history.

And in my mind, too, I suppose, that was my parents' war — but they had been children when it was fought. It was probably more my grandparents' war. Either way, I probably saw it as their history, not mine.

Perhaps that is how it is for everyone. Major events that have gone before belong to someone else. The current ones belong to whoever is coming of age, and generations to come will have their own. It depends on whose time it is, and even though it is technically true that a time belongs to all who live through it, it truly belongs to those who are coming of age, whose impressions are still being formed. For the most part the rest of us share ownership of that time.

But not always.

Remember Sally Field in "Forrest Gump" and what she told her son as she was dying?

"It's my time," she said. "It's just my time."

People tend to be more in tune to what happens in their times — and less so about what happens in other people's times.

But I guess I am slipping away from the point — which is that "The Longest Day" was a good history lesson, whether in print or on the big screen.

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"The Longest Day" had an all–star cast — so many stars I can't name 'em all.

In that sense it reminded me of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" the definitive dramatization of Pearl Harbor.

There were actors everyone should be able to recognize — Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Sean Connery and John Wayne, for example — and others whose faces are familiar but you've really got to be past a certain age (or of a certain time, to return to my earlier theme) to know their names — I suppose Eddie Albert, Peter Lawford and Robert Mitchum fall in that category.

It also reminded me of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" in the sense that it was faithful to the facts of the story, which were dramatic enough.

It was filmed in black and white in a documentary style at a cost of $10 million. For nearly 30 years it was the most expensive black–and–white film ever made — until "Schindler's List."

The movie brought to life the story in a way the book couldn't do for me when I was 14.

I don't know how much of that story young people are taught in school today, but the parts I found the most compelling were the accounts of the tricks the Allies used in the battle with the Germans.

Like dropping mannequins with parachutes to deceive the Nazis into thinking an expected invasion was happening in an unanticipated area.

Or using an attractive young female bicyclist as a diversion to slip a wagonload of resistance operatives past Nazi soldiers.

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The last time I watched it I couldn't help thinking that the invasion of Normandy as presented in "The Longest Day" was probably the most realistic depiction of modern warfare committed to film until "Saving Private Ryan."

"The Longest Day" received five Academy Award nominations and took home two Oscars — for Black–and–White Cinematography and Visual Effects.

The Space Race Comes to Gilligan's Island

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"There's space up there, there's space down here, and there's space between your ears!"

The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.)

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I hear people speak of "the '60s" as if the entire decade could be defined by a single word or a single movement — like Vietnam or civil rights. I suppose most previous decades were one–dimensional that way. Must have made things a whole lot simpler.

The '60s were about a lot of things — not the least of which was the space race, which had no obvious connection to Vietnam and could hardly be tied to civil rights. Perhaps not coincidentally, none of the decades since could be narrowed to a single word or phrase, either.

For American sitcoms in the 1960s, it took truly creative writing to make war or race relations into subjects for comedy. That was the kind of thing that TV's comedy writers did in the '70s with shows like All in the Family.

But the space race was different. It tapped into that American desire to explore the next frontier and pride in the courage of the first pioneers — which is why you really don't have to look far to find episodes of TV series from those days, sitcom or not, that focused on space. By its very nature, it was inspirational. It brought people together in a common cause. It wasn't a polarizing topic, like war and race.

As the episode of Gilligan's Island opened on this night in 1965, Gilligan (Bob Denver) had been hired by Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) to gather feathers to stuff a pillow for Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer), but it was strictly hush–hush. So when the Professor (Russell Johnson) and the Skipper (Alan Hale) came too close to Gilligan's hiding place for the feathers, he felt compelled to distract them so his stash wouldn't be discovered.

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Well, that's what was happening on Gilligan's Island. It was the same kind of rather innocuous existence that most humans probably led the world over. Gilligan's existence, of course, was dictated by his circumstances. He and his fellow castaways occupied a part of the world that was, apparently, unexplored, but as a frontier it couldn't possibly compare to space. So I suppose that contrast, unspoken though it was, was there for the viewers to see.

Back at Mission Control, a space probe had been sent to Mars and was about to land. The folks back at Mission Control were eager to see if there was any proof of life on Mars. When I first saw this episode, it didn't occur to me that it would take many months at least for a space vehicle, even an unmanned probe, to travel from Earth to Mars. The characters at Mission Control acted almost as if they had been following this mission for a few days, as they would for a trip to the much closer moon. I guess that time discrepancy didn't occur to the adults who wrote the episode or most of the adults who watched it, either.

Somehow the probe had been diverted from its course and had landed on Gilligan's Island instead; Gilligan stumbled onto it — literally — while looking for some feathers.

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The castaways, who had been keeping up with the news reports on the probe on their radio, knew when NASA would activate the camera so they were going to use that to get a message out to the world.

Unfortunately, the lens appeared to have been jostled loose when the probe landed or when Gilligan accidentally stumbled over it. Now it was missing, and the castaways had to find it before Mission Control activated the camera, which they did, but then the lens got broken — by guess who? — and had to be repaired. The castaways gathered the ingredients, and Gilligan cooked up some glue to repair the lens, and it worked — but, when he was summoned to join the others in front of the camera, he put a lid on the boiling pot of glue, and the pressure caused a glue explosion. The castaways, now covered with glue, chased Gilligan into the hut where he had been storing the feathers, and they all became unrecognizable with feathers covering their bodies.

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The folks at Mission Control thought they had proven that there was life on Mars — chicken people, half man and half bird. As they watched, the Skipper chastised Gilligan and pushed him down. The observers at Mission Control tried to evaluate what they had seen.

"What's that big bird man doing to that little bird man?" one of the Mission Control people asked the other.

"I can't be sure, but I think he's trying to get him to lay an egg," came the reply.

The buzzing of the camera alerted the castaways and they looked for the signs they had prepared for the occasion, but they were behind the camera. Gilligan went to get the signs, then tripped over the camera, knocking it to the ground — and out of commission. Another opportunity for rescue had been ruined by — who else? — Gilligan.

The Myth About Mozart and Salieri

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"All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn't want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?"

Salieri (F. Murray Abraham)

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All that Antonio Salieri, an 18th–century Italian composer, wanted to do was make music praising God.

But he wasn't a great composer. He was enough of a music lover to know how far off the mark he really was — and how close to that same mark his rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was. And Salieri resented Mozart for that.

At least, it was that way in Peter Shaffer's 1979 play. Whether it was that way in reality is anyone's guess two centuries after the fact.

Personally, I don't have to guess — at least when it comes to Mozart's talent. I am convinced that Mozart is the greatest composer who ever lived. He's been a favorite of mine since I was a boy, frankly. I guess it goes back to when I was taking piano lessons in elementary school. To encourage me, my grandmother gave me a music box in the shape of a bust of Beethoven. When you wound it up, it played Beethoven's Minuet — a nice enough piece, but it just has that marble–bust sound to it. Stiff, virtually lifeless, by the book.

When I was taking piano lessons, I was assigned to learn a couple of the easier pieces written by Mozart, and, for me, there was really no comparison. I liked Beethoven well enough, but Mozart became my favorite when I was about 7 or 8. My musical tastes have expanded a great deal since that time, but I still love Mozart's work, and I am constantly meeting people who feel the same way.

It has long been rumored that Salieri was responsible for Mozart's death at the age of 35. Mozart himself may have been the origin of these rumors via letters he wrote to his father complaining about obstacles being thrown in his path, obstructing his access to prestigious posts or commendations, and speculating that the Italians were to blame.

For centuries, there has been a rivalry between the music communities of Italy and Germany. Germans like Mozart and his father resented what they believed was special treatment that Italians received from European nobility; when Mozart struggled in Vienna, the Italians were the most appropriate scapegoats.

"You know those Italian gentlemen; they are very nice to your face!" Mozart wrote once to his father.

One of Mozart's biographers contended that the rivalry between the two (if there was one) could have begun when the two were candidates for a position teaching music to a princess, and Salieri was selected, apparently because he was known to teach singing as well as music.

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That episode was re–created in Miloš Forman's "Amadeus," which premiered on this day in 1984.

Apparently, Mozart did not take that setback well, and it added fuel to the stories of a rivalry between Mozart and Salieri.

There is no other evidence that I have found, though, that indicates Salieri was a threat to Mozart. In fact, there seems to have been little, if any, acrimony between them. They appear to have regarded each other as friends and colleagues and supported each other's professional efforts.

But, after Salieri died about 30 years after Mozart, some fictionalized accounts of their relationship that promoted the myth of rivalry were published. Then Shaffer revived the rumors with his play, which was the basis of the movie.

Now, as I say, I have always loved Mozart's music. I thoroughly enjoyed "Amadeus," and, after I saw it, I did something I rarely do. I bought the soundtrack — in cassette so I could listen to it in my car — then I replaced it with the CD version about 10 years later.

But what I found particularly amazing was that, although very few adult Americans listened to classical music, that soundtrack was, for a time, one of the best–selling albums in the country. It reached #56 on Billboard's charts, making it one of the most successful classical recordings of all time.

I gave a copy to my mother for Christmas that year. Of all the Christmas gifts I gave Mom in her life, that may have been the one she liked the best.

The movie itself wasn't quite a blockbuster. It made nearly $52 million, but it cost $18 million to produce.

"Amadeus" was intriguing in that it gave a different twist to the rivalry idea. In "Amadeus," Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) was the victim of the charmed Mozart (Tom Hulce), who, when he composed, seemed to be doing little more than "taking dictation" from God.

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That may have been the key to it. Instead of presenting Mozart as some kind of stuffy, marble–bust figure from the recesses of the past, he was portrayed in the movie as more of a contemporary sort, a freewheeling 18th–century flower child, you might say, to whom things just seemed to come too easily.

His wife (Elizabeth Berridge) was more practical about some things, but she was, in essence, a flower child, too.

When I saw Berridge on the big screen, I had one of those moments when I was convinced I had seen her somewhere before. I just didn't know where; consequently, it turned into an extended moment of brain wracking that made me miss a few things on the screen.

She was a new face to a lot of folks in those days. I've looked her up online, and it seems she was in two other movies and a soap opera before she was in "Amadeus." I don't think I ever saw the movies, and I have never been a fan of soap operas so I probably mistook her for someone else.

Berridge wasn't the first pick to play Constanze. The first choice was Meg Tilly, but she got hurt and had to pull out. Berridge and Diane Franklin were flown to Czechoslovakia, where filming was under way, to audition for the part. I have heard that Berridge was chosen because Franklin was considered too pretty to be an innkeeper's daughter. Well, that's what Berridge says on the Director's Cut DVD of "Amadeus."

Frankly, I liked Berridge in the part. I don't know if Franklin was prettier, but Berridge just seemed right for it.

A word of advice: If you haven't seen "Amadeus" but would like to — and I certainly encourage you to do so — I recommend watching that Director's Cut. There were several things about the movie that I never understood until I saw the Director's Cut.

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"In a film of grand gestures," wrote Roger Ebert, "some of the finest moments are very subtle."

Ebert was right about that, especially in the way he chose to illustrate his point — by observing shifts, some of them barely perceptible, in facial expressions.

Ebert focused primarily on Jeffrey Jones, who played the emperor, and I have to admit his moments really were superb.

Emperor Joseph is one of my favorite supporting characters of all time — even if Jones did not receive recognition in the form of an Oscar nomination.

But Ebert had some things to say about Abraham, too.

"[W]atch Abraham's face as he internalizes envy, resentment and rage," Ebert wrote. "What a smile he puts on the face of his misery! Then watch his face again at Mozart's deathbed as he takes the final dictation."

At the time of the Oscars, Hulce and Abraham were both nominated for Best Actor. Abraham won, which at the time I didn't think was right. The movie was about Mozart. Shouldn't the actor who played Mozart win?

I must confess that, at the time, I still hadn't seen the movie. I saw it after the Academy Awards. I don't recall now whether it had finished its run and was brought back to theaters after it won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, or if it was still showing in (or just getting around to) the Little Rock market. Either one certainly is possible.

Whichever it was, I went to see it some time after Abraham received the Best Actor Oscar.

When I had seen the movie, I had to admit that Abraham deserved it.

"Amadeus" won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Shaffer won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

And "Amadeus" picked up Oscars for costumes, makeup, art direction and sound mixing. In fact, Dick Smith, who died recently at the age of 92, won the Oscar for makeup.

It was recognition that was long overdue. A brilliant makeup artist, Smith did the makeup for such classics as "Little Big Man," "The Exorcist" and "Taxi Driver" as well the Oscar–winning makeup for "Amadeus."

Winning the West

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Narrator (Spencer Tracy): This land has a name today and is marked on maps. But the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.

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I don't remember if "How The West Was Won" was the first movie I ever saw at a movie theater.

It might have been. As I have mentioned in this blog before, I grew up in a small town in central Arkansas that had an old–fashioned single–screen movie theater downtown (and a drive–in on the outskirts of town). It wasn't unusual for it to take two or three years — or longer — for first–run movies to arrive in my town.

By that time, of course, they were no longer first–run movies. Many had probably already been shown on TV by the time they made it to my hometown theater.

I have vague memories of seeing "How The West Was Won" — which made its American debut on this date in 1963 (it premiered in the United Kingdom about four months earlier) — on the big screen.

In those days, the theater used to distribute cards that indicated which movies were showing on which days during whichever month it happened to be, accompanied by mini reproductions of the movie posters that were on display in the lobby and outside the theater. "How The West Was Won" had two dozen mug shots of the stars who were featured — and that caught my child's eye.

I was old enough, by the time I saw the movie, to read some, and I remember reading what I could of the card and pointing out the stars with whom I was familiar. My parents were both teachers, and my mother started teaching me the alphabet and how to read before I was in first grade.

I don't remember hearing the word "epic" before I saw "How The West Was Won," but that movie has always been my personal standard for what an epic should be — a big, sprawling movie so big it took three directors, two dozen Hollywood stars and thousands of extras to tell the story of Westward expansion in the 19th century.

And what a story it was.

Oh, sure, it was a sanitized version of American history, glossing over many of the more painful chapters, but it was still a good story. It was so sanitary that children could — and did — watch it without suffering any trauma. And, if the adults in the child's family didn't mind tap dancing around some sticky subjects.

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As many stars as "How the West Was Won" had, only one that I know of — Debbie Reynolds — was in it practically from start to finish.

Sometimes I think it should have been called "The Story of Lilith Prescott," but I guess that wouldn't have attracted viewers.

Also, I suppose it would have been hard to give that kind of billing to just about any actress — even one as popular as Reynolds — over stars like Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda or John Wayne, even though those three actors had relatively small roles when compared to Reynolds'.

(Another thing. It probably would have been hard to justify a $15 million budget in 1962 for a movie in which Reynolds was regarded as the major star. She was a popular star in her day, as I say, but she was never the kind of bankable star Stewart, Fonda and Wayne were.)

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Even though I was quite young when I saw it for the first time, I will always be glad I saw "How the West Was Won" on a big screen.

It was made for the wide screen. It was simply too big to be confined to a TV screen.