I suppose it is a big part of the American dream to build one's dream house, and Cary Grant was no exception in "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House," which premiered on this day in 1948.
But the American dream can come at a pretty steep price, even in 1948.
Which raises an important point. It is critical to keep in mind the difference between financial amounts in 1948 and comparable amounts seven decades later. Those amounts in 1948 were roughly one–tenth what they are today. For example, in the movie Grant's job paid him $15,000 a year, which sounds like poverty wages, but it was enough to support a family of four. In 2018, the same job probably would pay $150,000.
But be it 1948 or 2018, it is easy to become overwhelmed by that money thing, and Mr. Blandings soon learned how expensive renovating a home can be. To renovate the home he and his wife (Myrna Loy) had chosen easily exceeded a year's income when all the family's needs were addressed.
And that didn't include issues with his best friend, played by Melvyn Douglas.
In all, it was an entertaining movie in that "Holiday Inn" mold.
"We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We are tired of pyrotechnics and special effects. While the world he inhabits is, in some respects, counterfeit, there's nothing fake about Truman himself. No scripts, no cue cards. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life."
Christof (Ed Harris)
Imagine, if you will, that your life is actually a television show — a hit show, at that — and everyone knows it except you.
At least at first.
But slowly it dawned on Truman (Jim Carrey) that he was denied the free will that others enjoyed, that everything about his life was being manipulated beyond his control. He couldn't marry the girl he wanted to marry (Natascha McElhone). Instead he was paired with Laura Linney, a cast member on the show who, like everyone but Truman, was in on the story.
The show was created by a fellow named Christof (Ed Harris), who also had to create the circumstances that inevitably kept Truman, an insurance sales executive, in a place called Seaside. It had millions of viewers, some of whom kept their televisions on all night to watch Truman as he slept.
"It's clever the way he's kept on his island by implanted traumas about travel and water," film critic Roger Ebert observed. That is certainly true, especially in the fact that Truman's true love was spirited away to Fiji — and he had been conditioned to fear water because Christof had manipulated the early scripts so Truman's father would drown in a storm.
In many ways, I believe no one but Carrey could plausibly portray Truman, especially since so many of us have become voyeurs in our viewing habits.
But the more one watches "The Truman Show," which premiered 20 years ago today, the less one can avoid the obvious question — how much of it is real?
The answer, I think, is all of it — but not in a way that viewers expect.
"The Truman Show" was an unassuming flick, thought provoking on many levels, well done and creative. Two decades later it is still worth seeing.
A dear friend of mine (now deceased) was a big fan of Clark Gable, and I am sure she saw most of the movies he made — especially "Gone With the Wind," which was one of her favorite books as well. In fact, she spoke so highly of it that I purchased a paperback copy of the book when we were in high school. That book still has a spot on my bookshelf. I expect it to still be in my possession when I die.
I have no idea, though, whether my friend ever saw Mervyn LeRoy's "Homecoming," which premiered in May 1948.
If she didn't, she probably saw movies that were similar. There has never been a shortage of soap operaesque movies coming from Hollywood, and "Homecoming" really went the extra mile in that regard. Seldom did "Homecoming" fail to apply a cliché to its storyline.
The acting was good in spite of the material.
Gable played a surgeon returning to America from World War II. Ordinarily, he was a tough guy in his movies, but he was unusually sensitive in this one. Perhaps that was a result of Gable losing his own wife, Carole Lombard, in a plane crash six years earlier. Maybe that sensitized his performances in the years after Lombard's death, especially his performance in "Homecoming."
In "Homecoming," he played a surgeon who went to war not so much out of a sense of patriotism but a sense of duty. His real loyalty was to his wife (Anne Baxter) at home, but that loyalty was severely tested when he experienced a growing passion for his nurse (Lana Turner).
It was long rumored that Gable had been having an affair with Turner at the time of Lombard's death. I don't know if there was any truth to that rumor. I do know that, while Turner was regarded as a great beauty, she played a decidedly unglamorous role in "Homecoming."
Of course, that may just be my personal opinion in the context of the film. Turner was always beautiful, but she seemed ignorant of that fact in "Homecoming."
Turner's character was the tough one, the one who knew what was best for all concerned. Gable was obsessed with himself.
"Homecoming" was worth seeing because of Turner's performance. She didn't always play the tough one, but in this movie she did, and it benefited from that performance.
"First loves are always the same and always different,"Roger Ebert wrote after French film "Blue Is the Warmest Color" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival five years ago on May 23. That may be the most truthful statement Ebert ever wrote.
I experienced my first real love when I was 17, which is roughly the age of Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), but it was not as confusing as Adèle's experience. I knew I was attracted to the opposite sex. Adèle did not, and she experimented with a young man from her school but found that unsatisfying.
Then, after sharing a kiss with a female student and fantasizing about an older girl with blue hair whose name, the audience would learn, was Emma (Léa Seydoux), she began to question her sexuality. The movie was about the relationship between Adèle and Emma — told, as Ebert wrote, in "epic detail."
It had to be told that way, I suppose, because, by their very nature, same–sex relationships are learn–as–you–go types of things. There is no shortage of advice books about heterosexual relationships because the vast majority of relationships are heterosexual. When I was a teenager — and I presume it is still that way — there were few if any books on same–sex relationships that could answer the myriad of questions that accompany them.
Emma was more experienced than Adèle and had already found answers to her questions. In fact, when Adèle first encountered Emma, Emma was with another female and, the audience would learn, had had previous same–sex relationships.
As Ebert said, first loves are always the same and always different. In the unlikely event that the viewer had not experienced a first love, there is much truth in that. To tell the story of a first love, it is necessary, as Ebert observed, to do so in "epic detail."
That includes all the awkward moments and the sexual exploration, which are the same for all and yet different. Awkward moments will always be awkward, and — considering how much of the population is estimated to be heterosexual — it must be a real challenge for homosexuals when it comes to those initial sexual experiences.
I remember when I was a teenager, and all the males in my junior high were herded into the auditorium for a lecture on sex. The emphasis was entirely on heterosexual sex. I presume it was the same for the girls. Those students who were homosexuals — or, at least, had concluded that they had homosexual tendencies — probably found those assemblies boring — as, I am sure, any heterosexually active students, did.
The assemblies really only addressed the physical aspects of sexual relationships, not the emotional ones.
I was one of the rare ones, I guess. When I was in junior high, my sexual activity was, at best, flirtation with girls I found attractive. Even through my high school years, it never went any further than that.
Which proves Ebert's point. Many of my classmates — I didn't know which ones then, and I don't know today, either — had already engaged in some sexual experimentation, even if they hadn't yet experienced their first loves.
I was very naive as a boy. I tended to believe just about anything my classmates told me, assuming they had more experience than I did, and teenage boys are always eager to take credit for sexual exploits whether they happened or not. Looking back, I would have to say that my faith was misplaced. Most probably had the same experience level I did — although everyone's experiences are different.
Anyway, to a certain extent, I suppose some critics' complaints that "Blue Is the Warmest Color" was a pornographic film were justified. There was considerable nudity in the movie. And some critics complained that it was pedophilic, given the fact that Adèle was under 18.
But it had to be that way because most people, it seems to me, have their first sexual experiences in their teen years. Sometimes they are 18 or older, but often they are not. I wasn't.
I knew a girl in college who suspected, back in high school, that she was homosexual, but she didn't have her first physical homosexual experience until she was over 18.
Like Ebert said: "First loves are always the same and always different."
"Let me tell you something about my iron nerve, son. It's made of rubber, just like everybody else's, so it'll stretch when you need it. You know, people got a funny idea that being brave is not being scared. But I don't know. I always figured that if you weren't scared, there was nothing to be brave about. The trick is how much scaring you can take."
Humphrey Bogart
When one hears the word propaganda, the initial response tends to be negative, I suppose. But that really depends on which side of the fence you occupy.
In the case of "Action in the North Atlantic," which premiered on this day in 1943, it is a positive thing, telling the story of the Merchant Marines and their contribution to the Allied war effort during World War II.
In 1943, of course, the war was raging, and the outcome was far from inevitable.
First–time viewers may be startled by the realism of the movie, given the fact that it was made long before computer–generated graphics came along. The black–and–white photography is a giveaway, though.
The title was certainly no exaggeration with Humphrey Bogart's tanker being hit by a torpedo from an enemy sub in the first 15 minutes — and the action kept on coming.
Well, actually, it wasn't just Bogart's tanker. Bogie was the ship's first mate. Raymond Massey played its captain. Bogart, Massey and the other survivors bobbed around in the sea for 11 days before being rescued.
But the lure of the sea was too strong. The only home the seamen knew was their ship; when their ship was sunk, they felt compelled to find a new one, and before long they were on their way back to the North Atlantic.
Their ship was part of a convoy taking supplies to Russian allies. After it was attacked and essentially crushed by German submarines, Bogart played an important leadership role.
There were many movies made about World War II — and many were made while the war was still being fought.
As far as I am concerned, the best part of "Action in the North Atlantic" was that it premiered less than 1½ years after the U.S. entered the war — so its makers felt obliged to remind viewers why America was involved. It's a good history lesson — and a reminder of what America has fought for over the years.
At the Academy Awards, Guy Gilpatric, on whose novel the movie was based, was nominated for Best Original Motion Picture Story — but William Saroyan won the Oscar for "The Human Comedy."
Around the time of the Three–Mile Island nuclear accident, Saturday Night Live did a skit called "The Pepsi Syndrome."
It was a takeoff on the movie "The China Syndrome," which had been in theaters for about two weeks when the accident occurred and was said to have foretold the events at Three–Mile Island, but when I saw the original "Attack of the 50–Foot Woman," which debuted on this day in 1958, I concluded that the skit must have been partially inspired by that movie.
(I suppose you could also make a case for "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" as an inspiration for the skit — except it wouldn't be in theaters for nearly 10 years. A remake of "Attack of the 50–Foot Woman," starring Daryl Hannah, arrived in theaters in December 1993.)
Anyway, in the skit, Dan Aykroyd played President Carter, who was visiting the site, and Garrett Morris played a female maintenance worker at the facility. Both were exposed to radioactivity and grew to about 100 feet tall.
The independently made "Attack of the 50–Foot Woman" was similar in the sense that it was about a normal–sized woman who grew to 50 feet — after an encounter with an alien, not a nuclear accident. That wasn't an entirely new concept — except that all the previous films about gargantuan people that I can recall starred men. As far as I know, this was the first time a woman starred in such a story.
Nuclear power was still rather new in 1958, and it was probably still considered too futuristic to plausibly use even as the cause of such a bizarre growth spurt. Nevertheless radiation was introduced as a possible culprit in the story.
Alien encounters were pretty futuristic in those days, too, I suppose, but they were probably easier for audiences to understand.
Anyway, Allison Hayes played the title role in the 1958 version, but she didn't begin the movie as a 50–foot woman. She was an affluent alcoholic trapped in a bad marriage with a philandering husband who was only with her for her money. Nothing new about that plot angle.
She was out driving in the desert one night — which would also be implausible if the story were not set in the California desert (presumably not far from the infamous Area 51, which has figured prominently for years in tales of UFO activity) — when she encountered a glowing sphere and drove her car off the road.
Well, thanks to her alien encounter, Hayes' character grew to an enormous height, and she set out on a mission to avenge herself.
Ed Wood had a well–deserved reputation for making bad sci–fi movies, but "Attack of the 50–Foot Woman" may have been the worst of the non–Ed Wood projects. The title was cheesy enough to be from Wood's portfolio, and the special effects weren't even up to his standards.
But it was one of those movies that was so bad it was good, you know? Sometimes kitschy is all right.
Nevertheless, I preferred the remake — which is something I almost never say. The '93 version had a script that had more of a feminist slant (I suppose feminism wasn't a factor in the '50s), and it was more clever besides.
Based on what I knew about hitman Richard Kuklinski before I saw the movie based on his life story, "The Iceman," which premiered in Lebanon on this day in 2013, I assumed his nickname was due to his demeanor.
That was a reasonable assumption, given that Kuklinski seemed to have ice water running through his veins. He was said to have killed more than 100 people — and showed no emotion when doing so — before he was taken into custody.
In truth, though, Kuklinski earned that nickname because of his proclivity for freezing victims to obscure the times of their deaths. But he did have his standards. He wouldn't kill women and children.
Michael Shannon, who played Kuklinski, is a large man, but he isn't as imposing as the character he portrayed. Kuklinski stood 6'5" and weighed in at 270 pounds — and, while technically regarded as a contract killer, he was also considered a serial killer because many of his murders were carried out on his own initiative with little or no input from anyone else.
Kuklinski was also a secretive sort whose double life was never suspected by his family. His wife (Winona Ryder) never seemed to suspect a thing, even when his behavior at home became erratic. In fact, his job was dubbing movies, and his wife and family believed he dubbed Disney movies when, in fact, he dubbed porn movies.
He claimed that his first murder occurred when he was little more than a boy himself, about 12 or 13. His first victim was alleged to have been a neighborhood boy who had taunted him.
The movie never mentioned that — or any of the killings Kuklinski was said to have carried out on his own. It suggested that his first murder was of a random homeless man at the insistence of a crime boss played by Ray Liotta.
Whether that was true or not, I don't know.
There were certainly times when the violence in "The Iceman" seemed gratuitous, over the top. But that was how he lived his life, how he conducted his business.
Most of us have had the painful experience being dumped, and that is what "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which premiered on this day in 2008, was about.
Jason Segel, who will probably always be remembered for the role he played in How I Met Your Mother, played a composer who worked on the same TV detective show in which Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) was a co–star. They had been lovers for quite some time, too — until Sarah rather unceremoniously dumped him early in the movie for a British rock star (Russell Brand).
Granted, that's a higher altitude than most of us reach in our relationships, but it is still possible to empathize with Segel's devastation — especially considering that he was naked when she told him it was over. Film critic Roger Ebert referred to it as "a humiliating, emotionally naked break–up and breakdown."
And it was. I felt it was one of those movie moments that you only want to see once — if at all. It almost felt like intruding on what was a very personal and very private experience.
Segel did everything he could to get over Sarah, but nothing worked. So he decided a change of scenery might help, and he went to Hawaii. Turned out Sarah and her rock star boyfriend were staying at the same resort.
It was at that resort that Segel's character encountered a hospitality clerk (Mila Kunis), and she became his new love interest. In the process, he learned more than he probably wanted to know about Sarah Marshall — like the fact that Sarah and the rock star boyfriend had been having sex for a year before she dropped Segel.
Eventually, Sarah came to realize she had made a mistake, but it was too late.
Ebert thought the story was told well, but I disagreed. Far too many of the lines were about sex, either directly or indirectly. And while that is an important element of relationships, it is hardly the only one. Trust plays a big role, too, and the messages about trust were mostly implied — whereas the jokes about sex were, if anything, a bit too much in your face.
"We all do stupid, destructive and self–destructive things for which we're probably not going to forgive ourselves," Ebert wrote, "so the best thing in the world is when somebody else forgives us. In the movie's moral universe, there are no irredeemably bad people — just those afflicted to various degrees with shallowness, immaturity, selfishness, obliviousness, ambition."
I can't argue with that — but I also can't deny that the humor was often sophomorish. I didn't agree with Ebert's glowing assessment of it.
Three days before the 66th anniversary, on this day in 2013, the movie "42" premiered in American theaters. It told the story of that event with Chadwick Boseman starring as Robinson and Andre Holland playing black sportswriter Wendell Smith, who played a significant role in encouraging Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to choose Robinson to be the first black ballplayer in the majors.
Blacks had already served with distinction in World War II yet the armed forces were still segregated. Robinson broke baseball's color barrier more than a year before Harry Truman desegregated the troops.
Last week, we marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is widely regarded as the father of the civil rights movement. But King was a teenager when Jackie Robinson first played in the major leagues.
When Rickey presented the idea to Robinson, the future barrier buster asked if Rickey wanted someone who didn't have the guts to fight back.
Rickey replied that he wanted someone who had the guts not to fight back.
It was a different country in the 1940s, and Rickey knew that there would be obstacles every day in every city. He knew that whoever that first black ballplayer in the majors turned out to be, he would be subjected to all kinds of abuse — almost all of it sanctioned by the laws and attitudes of the time.
That is probably difficult for many people to comprehend in the 21st century.
But, as I say, it was a different country. And Jackie Robinson was one of those who helped change it.
The movie repeatedly made that point — as it should. To the black community, Robinson was a hero. It is fair to say he was considerably less than that in the eyes of the white community.
But he persevered.
And he inspired the many black ballplayers who followed — one of whom, Ed Charles, was depicted as a child in the movie. Charles, who died last month at the age of 84, was a member of the 1969 Amazin' New York Mets.
As miraculous as the Mets were, they weren't as miraculous as Jackie Robinson's barrier–breaking season.
While Charles was presented as a child of perhaps 9 or 10 in the movie, he was actually a teenager in 1947.
One more thing. Ford, who was 70 when "42" premiered, was better suited for the role of Branch Rickey than he was to play Indiana Jones again (as he had five years earlier) or Han Solo again (as he did two years later). In fact, Ford was five years older than Rickey was in Robinson's historic season.
Horror/monster movies have certainly changed since this day in 1933 when the original "King Kong" made its U.S. debut.
If 21st–century moviegoers could be magically transported back to that time, they would probably find the horror/monster movies of that time to be laughable.
But I suppose things haven't changed that much. I mean, the concept of a large beast on the loose in a populated area still sends chills down spines — witness "Jurassic Park," which continues to spawn sequels a quarter of a century after its release. Of course, it helps to have splashy special effects, but "King Kong" didn't need them. That man–vs.–nature theme is pretty effective by itself.
By comparison, it took more than 40 years for Hollywood to get around to remaking "King Kong."
That was partially due, I suppose, to the fact that moviemaking technology needed to advance beyond the rather primitive state that existed in 1933.
There were sequels to the original. Even in 1933, Hollywood knew a good thing when it saw one, and "King Kong" was a good thing, making nearly $3 million (more than four times its production budget) in Depression–era America.
Big uncontrolled beasts on the loose is always a scary concept, I guess — and audiences in 1933 apparently relished the chill that "King Kong" produced.
But I wouldn't underestimate the influence of the 1933 version of "King Kong." It broke the ground for its genre, established the rules by which such monster movies were made for decades to come.
Consequently, "King Kong" belongs to that rare class of film — a movie that defined its genre. There had already been horror movies, of course — most notably "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" — but "King Kong" provided a first–of–its–kind plot.
To make it work, of course, a vulnerable victim was necessary, someone with whom audiences could identify. The choice was Fay Wray, a heroine of silent westerns who made the transition to talkies, one of 13 starlets promoted in 1926 by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers as the most likely to be a success in movies (along with the likes of Mary Astor and Janet Gaynor).
Wray appeared in more than 100 big–screen and TV productions in her career — but she will always be remembered for "King Kong."
Really, I suppose, the plot isn't important — although it was important enough to Wray, who turned down an opportunity to make a cameo appearance in the 1976 remake because she didn't care for the script.
You know what happens, don't you? This giant ape carries Fay Wray away and is pursued through the jungle. He was captured and taken to New York, where he was to be presented to Broadway audiences as the Eighth Wonder of the World. He escaped, though, and scaled the Empire State Building with Wray in his massive hand. Kong is brought down by a fleet of World War I fighter planes.
To seal the deal with Wray, she was told she would "have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood." Initially, she believed her leading man would be Cary Grant. Instead, it was an 18–foot ape.
In reality, Kong wasn't so tall. He was an 18–inch model (built to scale with an inch equal to a foot) that was used for filming purposes.
"Fate is not a straight road. There are many forks in it. You have the free will to choose which one you take, but sometimes it will bend around and bring you straight back to that same stubborn fate."
Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin)
The first time I ever saw Anton Yelchin in a movie was when he appeared in "Hearts in Atlantis," which was based on a Stephen King story.
He was still rather new to the acting profession, but I was impressed with his talent. Sadly, though, I have only seen him in one other movie — "Odd Thomas," which made its debut at the River Bend Film Festival on this day in 2013 — and I will get no opportunities to see him in a new release. He died in a freak accident nearly two years ago.
"Hearts in Atlantis" was one of his first movies. He made many movies in his all–too–short career, but, considering how he died, "Odd Thomas," in which he played a clairvoyant short–order cook, would have been a good finale for his career — which, by the way, was far from what we have come to expect from child stars. Other child stars seem to hit the wall when they try to transition from children's roles to adult roles, but Yelchin was an exception to that rule.
"Odd Thomas" was based on a novel by Dean Koontz.
Like the youngster in "The Sixth Sense," Odd Thomas could see dead people, and they never spoke to him, either, but, in his own words, "I do something about it." His tipoff that something big was going to happen was when he saw the shadowy bodachs who thrived on pain and carnage — and, as the movie began, he started seeing the bodachs more and more.
They seemed drawn by a stranger in town, and Odd (that was really his given name — an explanation was given early in the movie) said there were more bodachs around him than he had ever seen before. But they seemed to lose interest, which was puzzling — until Odd Thomas did some further investigating.
Odd Thomas, I should mention, had a working relationship with the chief of police (Willem Dafoe), who knew of his talent — but Odd Thomas was at the center of things.
At this point, I ought to remind you that this is a movie about supernatural talent — and it is probably best to avoid giving away any other details.
But "Odd Thomas" had a few other things in common with "The Sixth Sense" — including an unexpected ending for which viewers should have been prepared by all that had come before.
Of course, that's the way it was in "The Sixth Sense," and the finale of "Odd Thomas" probably lost much of its impact because of its similarity to that earlier movie.
But that didn't mean "Odd Thomas" wasn't worth seeing.
Father Malone (Tom Tully):We showed up for every game.
Steve:I'd say that was raw courage.
Most people probably think of westerns when they think of John Wayne. Or maybe war movies.
But "Trouble Along the Way," which premiered on this day in 1953, was neither.
I suppose you have to give credit for that to John Ford's "The Quiet Man," which premiered in 1952. That, I believe, was the first John Wayne movie that did not cast the Duke as a cowboy or a serviceman, and it opened up a whole new world for him, one on which movie production companies were only too happy to capitalize.
Ford didn't direct "Trouble Along the Way." Michael Curtiz (who directed "Casablanca") did. I don't often use the word heartwarming to describe a movie, but I could apply it to this one. I could also apply other words that are not as complimentary, but I think the writers may have realized that. To compensate, they loaded the script with dialogue that, in my opinion, was far wittier than most movies that were made in the late '40s and early '50s.
For example, when Wayne and Father Burke (Charles Coburn) were talking about the football program at St. Anthony's College, Wayne asked, "What system do you use?"
"'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,'" Burke replied. "But, usually, the others do it to us first."
In "Trouble Along the Way," Wayne played a recently divorced football coach (actually a college athletics instructor who was chronically unemployed because he was apparently incapable of getting along with the folks in charge). He needed to find a job to retain custody of his daughter.
Meanwhile the folks at St. Anthony's faced the prospect of having to shut down due to heavy debt, but Father Burke theorized that the school could get out of debt if it fielded a winning football team because that would attract the financial support of well–to‐do alumni.
To accomplish this, Wayne was hired to coach St. Anthony's football team.
(By the way, if you're a football fan, you probably believe the myth that Vince Lombardi was the first to say, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." Lombardi did say it, but he wasn't the first; in fact, it was John Wayne in "Trouble Along the Way.")
I suppose it goes without saying that Wayne's character had some rough edges. Thus, to smooth out those edges, Donna Reed entered the picture as a social worker.
By the way, film buffs should look for James Dean in an uncredited appearance as a football spectator.
I remember watching reruns of Lost in Space on TV in the afternoons when I was a child. For a time, it was second only to I Love Lucy in syndicated viewership.
It was light and campy for a science fiction series, not nearly as cerebral as Star Trek — but it never really tried to be. It was the adventures of the Robinsons, a family of space colonists whose mission had been sabotaged and thrown off course.
Original concepts — and apparently there were at least two — called for them to be called the Space Family Robinson — a 20th–century spin on "The Swiss Family Robinson," the 19th–century novel about a family shipwrecked far from home. I thoroughly enjoyed that book when I was a boy, and I long since concluded that the TV series would have benefited from putting more emphasis on the family's ingenuity in conquering its obstacles. That may have been what I found so appealing about the novel.
By the time the series made it to TV, it was called Lost in Space.
When I saw the movie that premiered on this day in 1998, it had been quite awhile since I had seen any episodes of the series — a lot of it came back to me as I watched the movie — but the story was darker and more ominous than anything I ever remember seeing on the small screen.
While Lost in Space was fun to watch on TV, "Lost in Space" was not much fun on the big screen.
Part of the problem — for me, anyway — was the fact that there didn't seem to be anything terribly original about "Lost in Space." As one would expect from a movie made in the last 25 years or so, the special effects were flashy, but most appeared to have been lifted from previous successful films — like "Star Wars," "E.T." and "Close Encounters."
Maybe part of that was the casting, much of which was at odds with the casting of the TV series — and that was distracting, to put it mildly.
Take Gary Oldman, for example. I have long been impressed with his skill as an actor and the variety of the roles he has played. But Dr. Smith was just too much of a reach. I sort of feel that role will always be defined as Jonathan Harris' role, and Oldman just isn't the Jonathan Harris type. Of course, the beard didn't help, but that was a minor point.
In the TV series Dr. Smith was frequently the source of comic relief. I never got that sense from Oldman's Dr. Smith. He was more sinister and conniving. Any laughter his character provoked was nervous laughter.
Matt LeBlanc probably worked a little better as the pilot, Major West, but his problem is that he is probably defined (or was when "Lost in Space" premiered) as Joey on TV's Friends. That was his breakthrough role, and it made a lot of things possible for him, but sometimes that can be a double–edged sword.
The actors and actresses who played the Robinsons were all right, but not quite as charismatic, shall we say, as their predecessors.
Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark):I'm in love with Julia.
Jonesy (Sheree North):Who's asking for love?
The book on which "Madigan," which premiered on this day in 1968, was based primarily focused on the character of the police commissioner (played by Henry Fonda) — but the decision was made to emphasize a detective on the street (Richard Widmark).
Thus, the movie began with a small–timer getting the drop on Widmark and his partner, relieving them of their weapons when they became momentarily distracted by the small–timer's naked girlfriend and escaping after trapping them on the roof of his building. That small–timer became the chief suspect in a homicide.
That kicked off a 72–hour odyssey for Widmark and his partner, and catching this small–timer was only part of it. The commissioner gave them 72 hours to round up the small–timer, but Widmark had other things to deal with during that time frame as well.
The cinematography of the movie is important. While some portions were filmed in Hollywood backlots, many were filmed with the New York City of 1967 as its backdrop — which was appropriate, since most of the action took place in Spanish Harlem. Consequently the movie absorbed much of the look and feel of New York in the '60s, which became, as backdrops often do, a character in the story.
Madigan had problems with the commissioner, who didn't trust him, and his wife (Inger Stevens). The commissioner had his own problems. He had been looking forward to delivering a commencement address to graduates of the police academy, but this matter with Madigan demanded his attention, as did the case of an inspector (James Whitmore) shaking down a bar owner and complaints from a black minister that his son had been harassed by police when he was picked up for questioning in a rape case. On top of that, the commissioner's married mistress had made the decision to end their relationship.
It was a gritty movie with a lot of twists and turns. I'm not usually a fan of police movies, and this one is a little dated, but it has a first-rate cast — including a rather brief appearance by Sheree North as a sexually frustrated nightclub singer with whom Madigan had once been involved. She didn't try to conceal her continuing attraction to Madigan. Madigan, though, was direct with her, saying that he was in love with Stevens — whose character was also sexually frustrated by Madigan's job and his frequent absences.
But North wasn't interested in love.
A pivotal absence occurred when Madigan took his wife to a dress ball that included a night in a fancy hotel. That appeased her until she realized that he was going to skip out early to go back to work on bringing in the small–timer. He left her in the care of a colleague, who tried to get her drunk and seduce her. He nearly succeeded, too.
That's the kind of thing that you don't have to be in law enforcement to see — although I have no doubt that being the spouse of a detective is a lonely and stressful way of life — and Stevens portrayed it well, especially in her final scene. That was in the hospital where Widmark had been taken after being shot and where he ultimately died.
In my newspaper career, I saw many people who either never married or had their marriages destroyed by their work. Spouses make sacrifices that others don't see — and sometimes those sacrifices are simply too great.
With that in mind, I thought it may have been Stevens' best performance — even if it was in a supporting role.
In the end, Stevens grieved Widmark's death in the execution (so to speak) of his job, but I got the feeling that the others, while sorry that Widmark was gone, didn't feel the loss as deeply as she did. They knew it was the risk they all took.
I've heard some people say they were bored by the story. Perhaps it was too tame for audiences accustomed to more modern treatments of crime and punishment.
I've heard others say the story is engaging, even after half a century.
I'm somewhere in the middle, I suppose. The movie could benefit from what they call reimagining these days. If that doesn't happen, though, "Madigan" stands the test of time — provided you keep it in the context of when it was made.
Even when I first saw "The Human Comedy" as a child, I remember being struck by the many mythological references. My parents were educators so I got more exposure to that kind of thing when I was growing up than most of my contemporaries — even before I saw "The Human Comedy."
I didn't know all the myths, but I knew the references. I also didn't know that, while comedy in the modern sense refers to humor, the ancient Greeks knew comedy to be more dramatic, ironic in its nature — and that was how this story was told. It had its funny moments, but it was almost entirely a drama despite the apparently contradictory nature of its name.
The main character in "The Human Comedy" — which premiered 75 years ago today — was named Homer, which was also the name of the author of two epic books from ancient Greek literature, "Iliad" and "Odyssey." The story was set in the fictional town of Ithaca, California, which was based on the hometown of the author of "The Human Comedy," but the town's name was inspired by the books. Ithaca was also the name of the home of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's writing.
(There are some real Ithacas — most notably in New York — but the one in California was entirely fictional.)
Also, Homer's love interest in "The Human Comedy" was named Helen. In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world — and the cause of the Trojan War. It was Helen's face that was said to have "launched a thousand ships."
Well, there is more, but I don't want to keep anyone from making those discoveries for themselves. Suffice to say there were many parallels between William Saroyan's novel and the stories from ancient Greece.
It would have been surprising if there weren't.
The book actually began as a screenplay that Saroyan wrote. Then Saroyan was fired from the film production and rushed to finish the book and get it published before the movie hit the theaters.
As I said, the story revolved around Homer (Mickey Rooney), a high school student who worked part time as a telegram delivery boy during World War II (his boss was played by Frank Morgan, who is remembered for playing Professor Marvel, the Wizard and the Gatekeeper in "The Wizard of Oz"). In that capacity, he often had to deliver news from the war to residents of the town. The narrator of the story was Homer's deceased father, played by Ray Collins.
The news was often sad — notices that people had been killed on the battlefields of Europe or in the Pacific — and it took its toll on Homer's sensitive soul.
"The Human Comedy" was a sentimental flick about the effects of war on the home front. In many ways, it was a precursor to The Waltons — if not in its setting, certainly in its affirmation of basic human values — worthy of Frank Capra.
Capra didn't direct it, though. Clarence Brown did — and he was nominated for the Best Director Oscar but didn't win.
The movie was nominated for Best Picture and Best Black–and–White Cinematography, and Rooney was nominated for Best Actor; all lost.
Saroyan won the Oscar for Best Original Motion Picture Story. How's that for irony?
Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris," a French–Italian movie that premiered across the United States on this day in 1973, caused quite a stir — such a stir that Premiere Magazine included it in its "100 Movies That Shook the World" list.
It received an X rating, which has come to be associated with pornography but was initially given to legitimate feature films (1969's "Midnight Cowboy," for example) that had content deemed too extreme for children. That applied not only to sexual content but to violent content as well.
Film critic Roger Ebert gushed about "Last Tango in Paris" after its New York premiere in late 1972: It was "one of the great emotional experiences of our time," he wrote. "It's a movie that exists so resolutely on the level of emotion, indeed, that possibly only Marlon Brando, of all living actors, could have played its lead. Who else can act so brutally and imply such vulnerability and need?"
And need, Ebert wrote, was what the movie was really about. It had some explicit nudity and not–quite–as–explicit sex, which got all the headlines — and that was used as the promotional hook to lure audiences to theaters — but I think Ebert was on to something when he said the movie was about need.
"There is a lot of sex in this film," Ebert wrote, "more, probably, than in any other legitimate feature film ever made — but the sex isn't the point, it's only the medium of exchange."
Brando's character, a middle–aged American widower living in Paris, certainly had needs. And Ebert was right about his vulnerability. When the movie began, Brando's wife was already dead, a suicide victim, so the viewers never saw anything of the marriage other than what was said about it on the screen, and the reason for the suicide was never revealed so the viewers never really knew why she did it. Still there were some ominous clues scattered about the story.
That isn't the best way to judge a marriage, obviously, but the union clearly left a lot to be desired — and the vulnerability of Brando's character had deep roots in that. That was clear when Brando ranted while standing at his wife's coffin at her wake.
Brando's character had been abused, and it had been a lifelong story of abuse. It started with his alcoholic parents, and it continued from there into a marriage that was abusive, if not physically then certainly emotionally.
The role had its flaws, but I thought the character suffered from arrested development from his youth that carried into his adult years. That was why Ebert observed that Brando's character was "a man whose whole existence has been reduced to a cry for help — and who has been so damaged by life that he can only express that cry in acts of crude sexuality."
The nudity and the sexuality amounted to no more than stage props for the story. "Last Tango in Paris" wasn't about those things.
Well, let me amend that.
It was about sex in the sense that some people use sex as a haven and a weapon, not as an expression of love for another person, and the lovers in "Last Tango in Paris" were like that.
The relationship between Brando and a young French woman (Maria Schneider), though, was mostly physical. At Brando's character's insistence, they knew nothing of each other, not even each other's names. But that didn't mean they didn't use sex as a haven and a weapon as well, even as a physical release — but never as an expression of genuine affection.
I have heard people call it Brando's greatest performance, and I have my issues with that. It was a nuanced performance, I will concede that, but I am far more likely to align myself with Ebert, who wrote that he didn't know if it was Brando's greatest performance, but the movie "certainly contains his most emotionally overwhelming scene" — his rant next to his wife's coffin. Ebert wrote that Brando delivered "one of the most moving speeches of love I can imagine."
In that scene, Ebert wrote, Brando "makes it absolutely clear why he is the best film actor of all time. He may be a bore, he may be a creep, he may act childish about the Academy Awards — but there is no one else who could have played that scene flat–out, no holds barred, the way he did, and make it work triumphantly."
Brando was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for Best Actor (which he lost to Jack Lemmon). Bertolucci was nominated for Best Director (and lost to George Roy Hill).
"The key to this game is being able to read people."
Ben (Matthew McConaughey)
When I was a boy, I had a big crush on Goldie Hawn. She was still young and beautiful in those days, had moved on from television work and had already won an Oscar in a still–nascent acting career.
Her daughter, Kate Hudson, co–starred with Matthew McConaughey in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," which premiered on this day in 2003. I would have regarded that title as an oxymoron if Goldie Hawn had starred in such a movie when I was a boy. I couldn't possibly understand why anyone wouldn't want to be with Goldie Hawn. I just thought she was so dang cute.
And, before I saw the movie, I found it pretty hard to comprehend about Goldie's daughter, too. Hudson looks a lot like her mother. She probably looked more like her mother a few years earlier when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (for "Almost Famous"). Unlike her mother, though, she did not win the Oscar — and she hasn't been nominated for one since.
It was hardly surprising that neither she nor McConaughey was nominated for "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," considering that it had all the elements of a screwball comedy, which are audience pleasers but seldom regarded as Oscar material.
Except it couldn't pull it off.
Hudson was a how–to writer for a women's magazine. McConaughey worked for an ad agency. They were thrown together by work–related wagers. Hudson was doing research for a how–to in reverse — all about the things that women do to drive men away. McConaughey's wager, to make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days, was tied to his pitch for a multimillion–dollar account.
Egged on by their respective bosses (Bebe Neuwirth and Robert Klein) Hudson and McConaughey pursued their hidden agendas, feeding off each other with reckless abandon — until that inevitable moment when they learned the truth — you know, the just desserts payoff that defines the screwball or romantic comedy and essentially justifies all that has come before.
From this premise, I will admit, the writers came up with some clever angles, and I do know a few young women who consider "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" the greatest romantic comedy of all time — but that's really a stretch when you consider the truly great romantic comedies of the past.
Perhaps in the realm of the modern romantic comedy (roughly, the last two decades), it might be considered the best, but that is because romantic comedies themselves have changed in that time — and not for the better, in the eyes of some. Modern romantic comedies tilt rather heavily toward stereotypes that, by their definition, exclude chunks of the audience. Classic screwball/romantic comedies relied on truly bizarre circumstances that were not exclusive.
Weird things happen. Really weird things happen in rom–coms and screwball comedies.
For instance, more people could relate to Cary Grant's conundrum in "My Favorite Wife," in which his wife, who had been missing for seven years and was presumed dead, showed up just as he was about to remarry, than to Hudson and McConaughey, two upper–class, well–paid and well–educated young people playing mind games with each other.
And when they weren't playing with each other, they were watching the NBA Finals from practically courtside seats. Sometimes they killed two birds with one stone. Pretty unrealistic.
Of course, rom–coms have always been unrealistic. It is their exaggerated circumstances that usually make them work. But there are those who believe they have taken a darker turn of late.
Frankly, though, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" wasn't good enough, by those standards, to have that kind of influence on people.
I thought it was mostly silly — and, seen in that light, it may have been a worthy successor to the Rock Hudson–Doris Day flicks. Rom–coms are nothing if not silly.
But I really didn't feel that Hudson and McConaughey had that kind of chemistry.
Consequently, when their moments of comeuppance came, I found it hard to care. Their behavior may have justified those moments but not the two hours I invested in watching the movie.
(By the way award–winning composer Marvin Hamlisch made a cameo appearance during the comeuppance. I liked Hamlisch, and I suppose someone had to play such a role, but I lost a little of my regard for him when I saw him in this movie.)
Sometimes I wonder if that isn't expecting too much from a rom–com. The romantic/screwball comedy genre is and always has been escapism, and "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" delivered in that regard.
Mostly.
It had that light–hearted wink wink nudge nudge kind of humor that is so characteristic of such a movie, but, in this case, it struck me as almost sad the way these characters reeked of insincerity.
I guess the joke was that neither was sincere to begin with.
"To me, to kill is not the worst thing you can imagine. There is more."
Barney (Jeff Bridges)
I have never seen the original version of "The Vanishing" that premiered in 1988. I have only seen the remake that was released on this day five years later — and when I saw it, I had no idea it was a remake.
I have heard the remake was thoroughly inferior to the original — which doesn't surprise me since I have yet to see a remake of any movie that I thought was an improvement on the original.
(Speaking of the original, film critic Roger Ebert wrote that it was "one of the most intelligent thrillers I've seen.")
Nothing that I have read suggests that the '93 remake of "The Vanishing" was an exception to that rule — but since I had nothing to compare, I thought it was OK. Not the best thriller I have ever seen but certainly not the worst.
It isn't uncommon for movies to be remade, of course, but "The Vanishing" was an odd exception to the rule. Normally, a remake is done by a different director, but the same man — George Sluizer — directed both.
Weird, huh?
Apparently, the primary sticking point between the two is that the original, which was primarily shown in Europe, was uncompromising in its conclusion whereas the remake seems to have been watered down to suit American audiences' preference for happy endings.
I still haven't seen the original, although I would like to, but I have read comparisons of the movies, and I have concluded that, while I liked the acting in the version I saw, I almost certainly would prefer the original movie. That isn't surprising, either, given that the remake starred Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland, two actors whose work I admire. It co–starred Sandra Bullock and Nancy Travis. To be candid, I have long believed that Bullock is overrated, but I do like Travis' work.
Bridges played Barney, a chemistry teacher who was obsessed with the concept of free will. He was endlessly plotting to abduct and kill someone, and he conducted numerous trial runs, which always failed.
More than anything it was an intellectual pursuit, a kind of mind game. His character was driven by a memory from his childhood — when he had leaped from a balcony and injured himself. At the time, he knew that most people do not do certain things because that is how they have been conditioned, but he reasoned that there was nothing more than that to keep them from doing those things.
In other words, it was still a matter of free will, even if choosing to do something was sure to lead to an unpleasant outcome like injury or death.
The act of killing another human being, therefore, was also a matter of free will.
Then one day an opportunity just fell into his lap. Jeff (Sutherland) and Diane (Bullock), a young couple on vacation, stopped at an all–purpose roadside convenience store/gas station. Diane went in to get some cold drinks — and was never seen again.
The audience knew what had happened, of course, but Sutherland did not, and that began his personal quest to find out. It grew into an obsession that Bridges' character would one day use against him.
The audience knew that Bridges had seen the "missing" posters that Sutherland's character kept putting up around town and even expressed his admiration for Sutherland's persistence.
Ultimately he was moved to seek out Sutherland and confess that "I am the man you're looking for." He said Sutherland could learn what had happened to his girlfriend, but Bridges warned Sutherland that he would have to be willing to go through precisely what his girlfriend had gone through in order to learn what he sought.
Jeff balked at that.
"You don't care if she is alive or dead anymore," Barney asserted.
"Yes, I do," Jeff insisted.
"No, you don't," Barney replied. "You're just scared that without the search you won't know who you are. Who is Jeff Harriman if he's not the guy looking for Diane? Can you really walk away from finally knowing the answer?"
After serious deliberation, Sutherland decided he had to know what had happened — which proved the truth of what Bridges' character had told him. "Your obsession is my weapon."
I'll leave it at that — except to note a few other things.
Travis' role was an interesting one — and a big part of the reason why I would like to see the original version of the movie. Travis played Sutherland's new girlfriend.
"In the earlier film, he takes a new girlfriend, who finally leaves him because she cannot compete with the memory of the vanished woman," Ebert wrote. "In this version, his new girlfriend sticks around because she'll be needed for the ending."
Ebert's position was that the first movie made sense because it remained true to its original premise however ugly it became. The compromised conclusion made a lot of changes necessary in the remake that veered from that premise, resulting in a movie that was, in Ebert's eyes, "laughable, stupid and crude."
"The first movie was existential in its merciless unfolding," Ebert wrote. "This one turns into a slasher movie with a cheap joke at the end."
Now I am willing to concede — without even having seen both movies — that the first version was probably superior to the remake. That isn't much of a stretch for me, really. If you read back over this blog, you will find many times when I have spoken disparagingly of remakes, and I am sure this remake is no exception — although to make such a judgment it really is necessary to see both movies, isn't it?
No, I do not doubt that the original was better — and I hope to see the original someday — but I really don't see how the role of the villain could be played better than it was by Jeff Bridges, who sent a series of chills down my spine simply because he was so clinical in his approach to taking another life. It was the same to him as an experiment in one of his chemistry classes.
Bridges was very effective, even managing to be sympathetic at first. For awhile I kind of liked the guy — even though I knew that, ultimately, he would be the bad guy, which he was.
A creepier villain has seldom been seen in the movies.
"It's a lesson I learned a long time ago. A man worth shootin' is a man worth killin'."
Bob Larkin (Henry Fonda)
Franklin D. Roosevelt is remembered for, among many other things, saying, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
And there is much truth in that. In fact, I believe that was the great theme of "Firecreek," a western that premiered on this day in 1968. People can become trapped by fear and can only be free by confronting their fears. That takes courage, and sometimes courage is hard to find. Perhaps no two actors could illustrate that better than Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda.
Stewart and Fonda were such great actors — and great friends — that you would think they would have made several movies together. But they didn't. They did, however, appear in "Firecreek" together.
If you ever saw "High Noon," then you essentially saw "Firecreek."
Well, that isn't entirely true. I mean, "Firecreek" wasn't a scene–for–scene remake of "High Noon," but there were plenty of similarities.
Stewart played the part–time sheriff of a small western town who became its full–time defender when an outlaw gang terrorized it.
That would be the first of many differences between "Firecreek" and "High Noon." The town in "Firecreek" was really tiny next to the town in "High Noon" (Hadleyville looked like a thriving metropolis compared to Firecreek). But being the sheriff in Firecreek was not for the faint of heart.
Another difference was that in "High Noon," the movie was mostly about the anticipation of the outlaws' arrival. In "Firecreek," they were there from the start, raising hell even though their leader, played by Fonda, cautioned them to stay out of trouble.
That being said, "Firecreek" was one of the best westerns of its day. At its core it was a classic hero–villain confrontation, and there could be no two actors better suited for that than Fonda and Stewart. I suppose you could call their characters reluctant heroes and villains. In the end, circumstances forced Stewart to be a real sheriff and Fonda to be a real villain.
In a way, Fonda's character reminded me of Gregory Peck in "The Gunfighter," but Peck's character was a loner and Fonda's was the leader of a gang and not a sole outlaw. That probably helped Fonda make the transition that was necessary in the public's mind for him to play a really bad man later. It was an against–type role for Fonda, playing bad guys when he spent most of his career playing more respectable types.
1968 was that kind of year for Fonda. Later that year he played a really bad guy in "Once Upon a Time in the West." It could be fairly said that he prepared for that role with his performance in "Firecreek."
On the other side of the tracks ...
In addition to his obligation to the town, Stewart's character had other things on his mind — like a pregnant wife who was due to give birth at any time.
I thought the acting in general was good. Fonda's gang was well cast if a bit rowdy — but anything less wouldn't have seemed as authentic. They had a relaxed relationship that worked well in the story.
Speaking of relationships, Fonda's character found some romantic diversion with Inger Stevens in the movie, but it was a bit too much of a May–December thing for me (even if you didn't know there was nearly 30 years' difference between their ages in real life).
In an interesting twist at the end, Fonda took a bullet from Stevens in a scene that must have been lifted straight from "High Noon." It wasn't quite the same. While Fonda could be said to be in Gary Cooper's league, Stevens wasn't on Grace Kelly's level.
The movie was dark and gritty, but it was well worth watching.
And it made me wonder why Stewart and Fonda, lifelong friends, seldom appeared in movies together. They occupied opposite ends of the political spectrum and once came to blows over politics, then agreed to never discuss politics again and enjoyed a warm friendship.
Perhaps they believed working together might threaten that friendship — although they would appear together again in "The Cheyenne Social Club" a couple of years later.
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!
