Birth of a Notion: Jimmy Stewart

Showing posts with label Jimmy Stewart. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

A Rare Western With Fonda and Stewart

"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.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Blazing a Trail in the Sky

"Now, I don't propose to sit on a flagpole or swallow goldfish. I'm not a stuntman; I'm a flier."

Charles Lindbergh (Jimmy Stewart)

It was 60 years ago today that the story of Charles Lindbergh — "The Spirit of St. Louis" — premiered on the big screen.

I have often wondered why it premiered on April 20, 1957 — when, if the makers of the movie had waited 30 days, it could have debuted on the 30th anniversary of the historic flight it commemorated. That's right. Lindbergh's famous New York–to–Paris flight began on May 20, 1927.

I still don't know why it didn't premiere on May 20. It couldn't have hurt its earnings. It was a box office flop as it was.

But I do know a few other things about the movie. For example, I know that Jimmy Stewart was just about no one's choice to play Lindbergh.

As much as I admire Stewart's work in movies like "It's a Wonderful Life," "Harvey" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," I have always had a soft spot in my heart for "The Spirit of St. Louis." Maybe that is because it tried to tell a great story from history — and I have always loved history.

But, as far as I am concerned, Stewart was the wrong choice because he was nearly twice as old as the man he portrayed. Now, I don't feel that an actor or actress has to be precisely the same age as the person being portrayed, but Stewart was 47 trying to portray a 25–year–old. Maybe the movie can get away with that with modern viewers who have no memory of Lindbergh, but most of the people who saw that movie in 1957 must have had a memory of Lindbergh.

Producer Jack Warner favored a younger and less well known actor in the role. Warner called the finished product "the most disastrous failure we ever had."

And Lindbergh, I have been told, was not satisfied with Stewart's portrayal. I guess I can't argue with him there. When Stewart shrieked out the window of his airplane, he sounded like Lindbergh channeling his inner George Bailey. Some critics complained that Stewart's Lindbergh did not give viewers enough of a glimpse into his personal life, his motivations, that Lindbergh in Stewart's hands was a mechanical and routine character.

Perhaps those who complained that Stewart did not act so much as provide a character type that he did well were justified — to a degree.

But Lindbergh's flight was a rousing success, and it was a story that deserved to be told. It is sure to be lost on most living Americans that Lindbergh's feat required enormous courage, which makes it a valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn about the history of aviation. The movie, directed by the great Billy Wilder, was based on Lindbergh's own autobiography, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

I have always assumed that meant the film was mostly accurate in its facts, but I do know of at least one tidbit in the movie that was incorrect. In the movie, Lindbergh is shown as being in bed the night before his flight, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Later, during his 33–hour flight to Paris, he observed how tired he was and lamented not having taken advantage of a warm, soft bed the night before.

In reality, the 25–year–old Lindbergh was out partying most of the night. Well, you can get away with that kind of thing when you're 25.

(Those who may be inclined to criticize the reality and praise the fantasy ought to remember that several pilots had already died in their pursuit of the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 prize — that's more than one–third of a million dollars in modern currency — that was offered to the first to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. Lindbergh — and any other pilot who accepted the challenge — could be forgiven for taking the chance to live it up the night before departure.

(But the movie gave no hint of that.)

And the movie appears to have developed a following in recent years that it didn't have in the 1950s — it was judged a flop, primarily, it seems because the project went well over budget.

Stewart was nominated for Oscars five times in his career, and he even won it once for his work in "The Philadelphia Story," but "The Spirit of St. Louis" received only one Oscar nomination — for Best Visual Effects.

You would think its odds were pretty good. There was only one other nominee for that Oscar — but it lost.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

The Mother of Romantic Comedies

Tracy (Katharine Hepburn): If you just face the facts squarely as I did.

Margaret (Mary Nash): We both might face the fact that neither of us have proved to be a very great success as a wife.

Tracy: We just picked the wrong first husbands, that's all.

I suppose it is tempting to call "The Philadelphia Story," which premiered on this date in 1940, the best of Jimmy Stewart's career. After all, he received his only Best Actor Oscar for his performance in that movie — although he was nominated for "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Harvey" and "Anatomy of a Murder," all favorites of mine.

Frankly, if Stewart could only win Best Actor once, I would have preferred that he win it for any of those performances instead. Don't get me wrong. "The Philadelphia Story" was good, but it just wasn't unique, at least in the way those others were. Still, its influence was far reaching.

I suppose it can't really be said that "The Philadelphia Story" performance was the best by Katharine Hepburn, who was the star of the show and was nominated for Best Actress (she had a dozen Best Actress nominations in her career), but she didn't win (Ginger Rogers won for "Kitty Foyle").

Poor Cary Grant wasn't even nominated — and his performance in "The Philadelphia Story" is regarded as his best by many film critics.
In hindsight, I guess you could call "The Philadelphia Story" the mother of romantic comedies.

"The Philadelphia Story" certainly occupies an important place in the story of Hepburn's career. She won the Best Actress Oscar in 1934 and was nominated again in 1936, but her career had been on a downward spiral prior to this day in 1940. She had even been labeled "box office poison" so it could rightfully be said that "The Philadelphia Story" was what turned her career around — and made it possible for her to be nominated nine more times and to win three.

Without "The Philadelphia Story," which was the fifth–most popular movie of 1941 (earning more than $2.3 million in North America), it is quite possible that Hepburn's career would have vanished into oblivion.

So even though she didn't win the Oscar, she probably won something that she valued more.

It was the kind of romantic comedy that was most popular in the '30s and '40s — one in which a married couple get divorced, dally with others, make their exes jealous and then get back together. Well, that's probably oversimplified for most of the movies in that genre — but it pretty much sums up the plot of "The Philadelphia Story."

And there was probably no one better prepared for the role he played in it than Grant. What the earthy John Wayne was to the western the debonair Cary Grant was to the romantic comedy.

Hepburn and Grant played a couple who apparently had married on something of a whim, then got divorced. Two years later, Grant showed up at Hepburn's home just before she was to marry someone else. Hepburn's character was a member of a socially prominent family so, naturally, her wedding drew folks from the press, one of whom was Stewart.

The stage was set for some high–society conflicts. In fact, "the stage" is an appropriate noun to use because "The Philadelphia Story" began life as a stage play. Hepburn acquired the film rights to it with the intention of using it as her comeback springboard.

Mission accomplished.

Macaulay Connor (Jimmy Stewart): Doggone it, C.K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.

C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant): Shall we toss a coin?

If you've seen a documentary on the golden age of moviemaking, you have probably seen the memorable scene early in the movie when Grant's character, as he leaves Hepburn, puts his palm on her face and pushes her back inside the house. In conversations I have had with movie fans, that scene is probably second only to the one in which James Cagney grinds grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face in "Public Enemy" on the Most Memorable scale.

Kind of similar scenes. But not entirely.

"Public Enemy" wasn't a madcap romantic comedy, though, and "The Philadelphia Story" was. I'll leave all its quirky twists and turns for you to discover for yourself. That's the real fun of it.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

A Pooka's a Pooka ...

"Harvey and I have things to do ... we sit in the bars ... have a drink or two ... play the jukebox. Very soon the faces of all the other people turn towards me, and they smile. They say, 'We don't know your name, mister, but you're a very nice fellow.' Harvey and I warm ourselves in these golden moments. We came as strangers — soon we have friends. They come over. They sit with us. They drink with us. They talk to us. They tell us about the great big terrible things they've done and the great big wonderful things they're going to do. Their hopes, their regrets. Their loves, their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. Then I introduce them to Harvey, and he's bigger and grander than anything they can offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back, but that's — that's envy, my dear. There's a little bit of envy in the best of us."

Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart)

Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors, and he has been in some of my favorite movies, but my very favorite Jimmy Stewart performance of all was the one he gave in "Harvey," which premiered 65 years ago today.

As she so often did, my mother introduced me to that movie. She laughed at eventual Best Supporting Actress winner Josephine Hull, who played Stewart's sister, when she delivered lines like "Myrtle Mae, you have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it."

Myrtle Mae was her daughter (played by Victoria Horne), and Hull was always giving her advice about men, such as "Oh, Myrtle, don't be didactic. It's not becoming in a young girl. Besides, men loathe it."

I laughed, too, and I still do when I watch "Harvey." Josephine Hull reminded me then — and she still reminds me today — of the older women I knew when I was growing up.

Harvey was a pooka, a six–foot invisible rabbit — or, as Stewart (as Elwood P. Dowd) said in the movie, "Six feet 3½ inches. Now let's stick to the facts."

Speaking of the facts, Stewart was 6–foot–4 and wanted to change Harvey's height from what it had been in the original play. But the folks who made the movie wouldn't give in on that point.

Stewart played a mild–mannered tippler who was always embarrassing his family with his invisible rabbit — which led to some pretty delicious dialogue. With writing like that, it was no wonder the play on which the movie was based was such a hit.

For example, at an afternoon tea party, Hull and Horne had a delightful conversation with an elderly aunt, who noticed that Elwood wasn't around and wanted to know if "Elwood sees anyone these days."

"Oh, yes, Aunt Ethel," Myrtle Mae replied, "he does."

But no one else could see Harvey. Well, almost no one.

At one point, Hull confessed there were times when she thought she could see Harvey, too. And a doctor at the sanatorium where Hull tried to commit Stewart spoke of seeing Harvey as well.

But everyone else seemed to think Stewart was nuts — even though there was ample evidence that Harvey the pooka really did exist.

Anyway, whether Hull really did see Harvey or not, she conspired to have her brother committed to that sanatorium I mentioned earlier. When the head of the sanatorium told Stewart what his sister had done — "This sister of yours is at the bottom of a conspiracy against you. She's trying to persuade me to lock you up. Today she had commitment papers drawn up. She has your power of attorney and the key to your safety box, and she brought you here!" — Stewart's disarming reply was "She did all that in one afternoon. That Veta certainly is a whirlwind, isn't she?"

Stewart had several conversations with the head of the sanatorium (Cecil Kellaway), at one point getting the doctor to talk about his secret desires, the greatest of which seemed to be to spend two weeks in Akron, Ohio, with a woman whose name he didn't know. They would drink cold beer, and he would tell her of his life, and she would pat his hand and say, "You poor, poor thing."

"Wouldn't that get a little monotonous," Stewart wanted to know, "just Akron, cold beer and 'poor, poor thing' for two weeks?"

Wallace Ford was a character actor who probably was best known for his westerns, but he played a crucial role in "Harvey" as a taxi driver who drove Stewart to the sanatorium, where he was scheduled to be given an injection of a serum that would bring him back to the reality his sister wanted for him.

The cab driver tried to explain to Veta that it wouldn't be a good thing.

"I've been driving this route for 15 years," he said to her. "I've brought 'em out here to get that stuff, and I've drove 'em home after they had it. It changes them. On they way out here, they sit back and enjoy the ride. They talk to me. Sometimes we stop and watch the sunset and look at the birds fly. And sometimes we stop and watch the birds when there ain't no birds. And look at the sunset when it's raining. We have a swell time. And I always get a big tip."

"But afterwards, uh oh!"

Veta asked him to clarify, and the cabbie was only too happy to do so.

"They crab, crab, crab," he told her. "They yell at me. Watch the lights. Watch the brakes, Watch the intersection. They scream at me to hurry. They got no faith in me or my buggy. Yep, it's the same cab, the same driver. And we're going back over the very same road. It's no fun. And no tips."

Then Ford delivered what has always been the line of the movie for me.

"After this he'll be a perfectly normal human being — and you know what stinkers they are!"

That statement certainly resonated with Veta. She ran back inside the sanatorium demanding to stop the procedure.

And Harvey remained a part of the family.

In addition to Hull, Stewart was nominated for an Oscar, but he lost Best Actor to José Ferrer.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Spencer Tracy's Finest Hour?

"I would like to say a few words about weddings. I've just been through one. Not my own. My daughter's. Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence but not now. I always used to think that marriages were a simple affair. Boy meets girl. Fall in love. They get married. Have babies. Eventually the babies grow up and meet other babies. They fall in love. Get married. Have babies. And so on and on and on. Looked at that way, it's not only simple, it's downright monotonous. But I was wrong. I figured without the wedding."

Stanley Banks (Spencer Tracy)

I like Steve Martin and Diane Keaton, and I thought their remake of "Father of the Bride" in 1991 had some creative and imaginative elements that the original did not have, but, if given a choice, I would rather watch the original version, starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor, that made its debut on this date in 1950.

I'm not sure there is a logical reason for this preference. Martin is really a professional funny man. You'd think a professional funny man would be perfect for the male lead in a comedy. Tracy wasn't a professional funny man. He could do comedy, but he could do so many other things, too. That may be what worked in his favor. Being the butt of jokes was so out of character for him. As the father of the bride, he was playing against type.

Anyway, it worked well enough for him to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. It was one of three nominations "Father of the Bride"
received. Three nominations, no wins.

In fact, it worked well enough that I am almost tempted to call it his finest acting achievement. Almost.

It wasn't surprising that he lost, though. Tracy was facing some long odds. He was competing with Jimmy Stewart and Bill Holden — and the winner was José Ferrer. Actors in comedies don't usually win Oscars, anyway. It's pretty rare for them even to be nominated.

It wasn't rare for Tracy to be nominated for Oscars. He was nominated for Best Actor nine times in his career and won twice. But, even for him, it was rare to be nominated for his roles in comedies. He could do them — pretty well, in fact — but he was quite versatile. He could shine in any genre.

And I suppose labeling this movie a comedy would be a matter of perspective. For any man who has ever been the father of the bride, many of the scenes that were played out on the silver screen must have rung painfully true. Even if they can laugh about it now, those fathers must have found the experience, at some times and at the very least, awkward.

Of course, Tracy was confronted with just about every conceivable pitfall that can plague a father of the bride. Most only have to contend with one or two; Tracy got the whole ball of wax.

"You fathers will understand," Tracy's character told the fathers of the bride in the audience, past and potential. "You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic."

If "Father of the Bride" was an accurate reflection of a, more or less, typical wedding in 1950, then I suppose it must have been a lucrative business for anyone who contributed anything to a typical wedding — flowers, wedding cakes, bridal gowns, bridesmaids' dresses, groomsmen's attire — and there are lots of rituals that go into a traditional wedding.

By modern standards, though, this certainly wouldn't be a middle–class wedding. Only an upper–class family could afford all the trimmings, and it may not have been that typical after all. It was mostly done at the insistence of the mother of the bride, played by Joan Bennett, who wanted the kind of wedding she and Tracy didn't have. Tracy had to foot the bill for the lavish proceedings plus he had to meet the groom's parents, have a man–to–man conversation with the groom, host the engagement party — as well as put out any other fires he encountered along the way.

And, of course, then — as now — the father of the bride was really only a supporting player in a wedding. Just like the groom. They were there to perform certain functions, but a wedding is really about the bride — and, by extension, the bride's mother.

Tracy and the audience had to be certain that it would all be worth it when the big day arrived. But when the big day actually did arrive, Tracy barely got to see his daughter and appeared to have missed his chance when things began to wind down and he realized the couple had left on their honeymoon.

But just before they were to board their train, Liz Taylor called her parents — and it really was all worth it for the father of the bride.

Now Martin and Keaton did a reasonably good job in the remake, but Tracy and Bennett gave it all a very human touch that elevated this version far above the remake.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

'Mr. Smith' Was Capra-Corny

"It's a 40–foot dive into a tub of water, but I think you can do it."

Saunders (Jean Arthur)

(1939 is widely regarded as the greatest year ever for the motion picture. Ten movies were nominated for Best Picture that year, and today I take a look at the seventh of those 10 movies to hit the theaters.)

Back in February, Peggy Noonan wrote a column in which she mentioned the Netflix series "House of Cards." Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I have never seen an episode of this series, but, according to Noonan, the show "reinforces the idea that the capital has no room for clean people. The earnest, the diligent, the idealistic, they have no place there."

She could have been describing "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," which premiered 75 years ago today.

Jimmy Stewart gave a lot of great movie performances during his career, and, while it would be hard to pick out the very best, I'm usually inclined to pick the one he gave in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

In so many ways, it was a great civics lesson. It was a fictional story, of course, like The West Wing TV series of which I was so fond, and, like The West Wing, it dealt with real–life matters — like filling legislative vacancies and filibusters and things like that.

But it was also a Frank Capra story — which means it was made with a heaping helping of feel–good idealism. Because of that, Capra movies were often called "Capra–corn" — and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" certainly was corny.

Well, Stewart's role was, anyway. He played a fellow named Jefferson Smith, a leader of the Boy Rangers in his state, truly a babe in the woods when it came to the ways of the world and Washington, a starry–eyed idealist who quoted American heroes like Jefferson and Lincoln and idolized his state's corrupt and thoroughly undeserving senior senator (played by Claude Rains). He was appointed to fill a vacancy left by the death of one of his state's U.S. senators.

But this wasn't entirely your standard "Capra–corn" fare. Nearly everyone else in the movie seemed to have a healthy dose of cynicism. Just not Jeff Smith. You probably couldn't find a more naïve individual. That was what his legislative aide, Saunders (Jean Arthur), loved about him. Pretty Capra–corny, huh?

"Did you ever have so much to say about something you just couldn't say it?"

Jeff Smith (James Stewart)

As a journalist, I have to say that I appreciated the comeuppance Smith got from the Washington media. I didn't think the press in that movie behaved in the way real–life reporters would under similar circumstances. They were a little rough on Stewart's clearly guileless character.

But they reached a point where they asserted that they could afford to be honest because they didn't have to face the voters to keep their jobs.

That's really a throwback to a bygone era. Far too many members of the modern press have compromised their principles — even though they still don't have to face the voters.

In "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," many of the politicians were presented as being more virtuous than they almost certainly were in 1939. (It is beyond dispute that they were infinitely more virtuous than the politicians of today.)

Rains' character, caught up in the corruption Stewart was trying to defeat, confessed his sins on the Senate floor even though he had the upper hand against Stewart, whose voice was nearly gone from his filibuster.

"I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for, and he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of one plain simple rule: Love thy neighbor. And in this world today, full of hatred, a man who knows that one rule has a great trust."

Jeff Smith

And that is precisely the kind of corny–beyond–belief stuff that I'm talking about. For Capra–corn to work, there has to be a certain amount of plausibility there, however farfetched the story may be.

But the very notion that a politician, entrenched in a position of power, would behave so nobly is, well, hopelessly naïve. Perhaps it wasn't seen that way in 1939, but today, it is simply too farfetched.

Even if you tell yourself — if you stumble upon it while channel surfing — that "Mr. Smith" truly was Capra–corny, if you're like me, you'll watch it, anyway. It's entertaining, even if you've seen it several times before.

"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" received 11 Oscar nominations, second only to "Gone With the Wind." Lewis R. Foster took home the Oscar for Best Story.

Friday, August 01, 2014

Killing Time

"That's no ordinary look. That's the kind of a look a man gives when he's afraid somebody might be watching him."

L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart)

I have written here before of my fondness for Alfred Hitchcock's movies.

I've seen most of them on TV, but "Rear Window" was an exception. In 1984, it was re–released to theaters to celebrate its 30th anniversary, and I took advantage of that opportunity. In fact, I remember going to the theater to see it. I couldn't tell you the exact date, but I remember the experience of seeing that movie in a theater — and not one of today's multi–cubicle screens but a single–screen theater like the kind that existed when "Rear Window" was first released.

It has always made me regret not having seen more of Hitchcock's movies on the big screen — because that really is where they should be seen. Well, most of them, anyway. Hitchcock's work predated the wide–screen format; because of that, I'm not sure if his early works are more impressive on a big screen than they are on a television screen. Some might be; others might not.

All of Hitchcock's wide–screen films probably should be seen on the big screen — at least once.

Anyway, that was the conclusion I reached after I saw "Rear Window" at the theater. It premiered 60 years ago today, but it was fresh and new to me when I saw it in 1984. I thought I was in love with Grace Kelly before I saw "Rear Window," but she was breathtaking when I saw her on the big screen.

I felt there was an electric kind of attraction between Kelly and Jimmy Stewart. I really regret that their only movie together was "Rear Window." Don't get me wrong. It was a great movie, but it was a one–shot wonder. They could have been one of the great movie teams of all time.

The American Film Institute rated "Rear Window" 48th of all time. AFI also named it 14th among the thrillers. Besides, the movie matched the #3 actor and the #13 actress of all time, according to another AFI list.

Who could ask for anything more?

"Rear Window" had the benefit of Hitchcock (nominated for an Oscar for his direction) and screenwriter John Michael Hayes (also nominated for an Oscar). That combination produced possibly the best of Hitchcock's movies. Well, that is what I have heard some critics say; that isn't a conclusion I would reach because I tend to think that "North by Northwest" is Hitchcock's best. My second choice probably would be "Psycho" or "Vertigo" — and then "Rear Window."

They're all good, certainly worth seeing on a big screen. (If I have a cinematic bucket list, it would include seeing those other three Hitchcock movies on a big screen before I die. Actually, I'd like to see them all that way, but if I can only see three, those are the three I would choose.)

The movie dealt primarily with voyeurism. "It's wrong, we know, to spy on others," wrote critic Roger Ebert, "but after all, aren't we always voyeurs when we go to the movies?"

Stewart's character was stuck in his apartment while he recuperated from a broken leg. A successful photographer, he filled his days by spying on his neighbors through the lens of his camera. The audience saw everything he saw. When he dozed off and missed things, the audience did, too.

His only regular visitors were his nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend (Kelly). They were skeptical at first when he suggested that one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) had apparently killed his wife, but Stewart's character persuaded them.

It didn't require much persuasion. Kelly's character was already eager to get Stewart's character to commit to her. It seemed like she would do just about anything to score points with him. "How far does a girl have to go before you notice her?" she asked at one point.

"Well if she's pretty enough," Stewart replied, "she doesn't have to go anywhere. She just has to be."

He insisted that "I'm not exactly on the other side of the room." They were locked in a passionate embrace at the time, which made it difficult to dispute what he said, but, nevertheless, Kelly begged to differ.

"Your mind is," she said. "When I want a man, I want all of you."

And I had to give it to Stewart's character. He kept his mind on the mystery he was trying to solve. Most men probably wouldn't have that kind of will power. I wouldn't. Not with Grace Kelly in my arms.

A lot of things have changed since "Rear Window" was made, and, if someone found himself in Stewart's position in 2014, he might not be able to use the same camera tactics that Stewart did — like using the flash to blind Raymond Burr when he was lured from his apartment and confronted the wheelchair–bound Stewart.

I had never seen Burr in a bad–guy role before. When I was a child, my father used to like to watch reruns of Perry Mason and Ironsides on weekend afternoons, and I watched them with him. As a result, I had an image in my head of Burr as the kind of guy who investigated and/or prosecuted crimes. He wasn't the kind of guy who committed crimes.

But, in "Rear Window," he was. At least, he was the kind of guy who could murder his wife and then try to dispose of her body. Stewart had reached that conclusion on his own; his problem was that he didn't have the kind of evidence that courts like to have.

"Rear Window" received four Oscar nominations, including (as I said earlier) one for Best Director (one of five for Hitchcock).

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

A Flawless Dramatization of a Murder Trial

"Twelve people go off into a room: 12 different minds, 12 different hearts, from 12 different walks of life; 12 sets of eyes, ears, shapes and sizes. And these 12 people are asked to judge another human being as different from them as they are from each other. And in their judgment, they must become of one mind — unanimous. It's one of the miracles of man's disorganized soul that they can do it, and in most instances, do it right well. God bless juries."

Parnell (Arthur O'Connell)

Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors, and he gave many astonishing performances in his career.

One of my favorites was in Otto Preminger's "Anatomy of a Murder," which premiered on this date in 1959. My personal opinion is that it was flawless.

In the movie, Ben Gazzara played a young soldier who killed a man for allegedly raping and beating his wife (Lee Remick). One small problem, though. No evidence of a rape could be found. Stewart, a small–town lawyer, was retained to defend him in court, and Stewart discovered via interviews and his own observations that the defendant was jealous and possessive and his wife apparently had been promiscuous.

That would be a hard sell in court.

The alternative theory of what happened went something like this: Remick and the man were lovers. Gazzara found out about it, killed the man and beat up Remick, then coerced her into backing up his version of events. That would sound more logical to a small–town jury, especially given Gazzara's defense.

Gazzara said he was not guilty because he had been in the grip of an irresistible impulse, a rather complicated mostly legal concept that seemed to offer a plausible explanation for what happened — but was seen as hard for juries to get their minds around.

And I speak from experience.

At one time, I covered the police beat in a rather modestly sized county in Arkansas, which also meant covering local trials from time to time. In that capacity, I observed the usual courtroom procedures, from selecting a jury to examining and cross–examining witnesses.

I witnessed attempts to explain complicated legal concepts to largely rural juries, and I have a great deal of respect for any lawyer who tries to do it. It's a lot more difficult than a casual observer might think.

I also got to observe judicial sidebars, in which the attorneys for both sides would approach the bench and confer on issues, usually out of earshot of those in the courtroom.

Such a conference in "Anatomy of a Murder" never fails to amuse me. It concerned the alleged rape of the defendant's wife and the panties she had worn that night, which were unaccounted for.

The rape had been mentioned in a witness' testimony, and the judge felt it was necessary, at that point, to fully address the subject of rape, and that meant introducing the topic of the panties.

"There's a certain light connotation attached to the word 'panties,'" the judge said. "Can we find another name for them?"

"I never heard my wife call 'em anything else," the local prosecuting attorney said.

The judge looked at Stewart. "Mr. Biegler?"

"I'm a bachelor, your honor," Stewart replied.

"That's a great help," the judge said and turned to the prosecuting attorney from the state capitol (George C. Scott). "Mr. Dancer?"

"When I was overseas during the war," he said, "I learned a French word. I'm afraid that might be slightly suggestive."

"Most French words are," said the judge.

Always makes me laugh. Never fails.

Then the judge announced to the court, "For the benefit of the jury, but more especially for the spectators, the garment mentioned in the testimony was, to be exact, Mrs. Manion's panties."

As one might expect, hoots of laughter greeted this announcement, and the judge continued.

"I wanted to get your snickering over and done with. This pair of panties will be mentioned again over the course of this trial, and when it is, there will not be one laughter, one snicker, one giggle or even one smirk in my courtroom. There is nothing comic about a pair of panties that resulted in the violent death of one man and the possible incarceration of another."

That is precisely the sort of thing that the judges I covered would have said, too.

The conclusion of a courtroom drama, like that of a murder mystery, should never be revealed to someone who has not yet seen (or read) it — so, to be on the safe side, I won't tell you what happened.

I will tell you it was a very realistic depiction of a trial. It even took on some legal subjects about which I often wondered when I was covering the police beat.

In particular, I wondered the same thing that Gazzara's character wondered when the judge instructed the jury to disregard a certain piece of testimony.

Gazzara leaned over to Stewart and whispered, "How can a jury disregard what it's already heard?"

And, in perhaps the most honest line in the movie, Stewart replied, "They can't, lieutenant. They can't."

"Anatomy of a Murder" received seven Oscar nominations, including two for Best Supporting Actor (Scott and O'Connell), but not one for the Duke Ellington jazz music that gave the movie such a distinctive flavor.

It probably wouldn't have mattered if the music had been nominated, though. It was the year of "Ben–Hur," and "Anatomy of a Murder" lost four Oscars to that movie alone.

Monday, May 12, 2014

The Tribulations of a Real-Life Natural

"You told me once, 'A man has to know where he's goin'!' Where are you goin', Monty?"

Ethel (June Allyson)

Yesterday, I wrote about the debut of "The Natural" — a fictional story about a natural–born baseball player.

Today, my topic is a movie about a real natural — Monty Stratton — whose mostly true story was made into a movie starring James Stewart and June Allyson that made its debut 65 years ago today.

Don't feel bad if you never heard of Stratton. His was a very short career — only five years.

And I say the story was mostly true because there were some liberties taken with it. Of course, that tends to be the case with biographical movies, even those that appear to be meticulous about details.

See, the story of Monty Stratton was that he was a baseball player, a pitcher, during the Depression. Frank Morgan (who was the wizard of Oz 10 years earlier) played the baseball scout who discovered Stratton playing semipro ball when he wasn't working on his Texas farm and persuaded him to come to California for a tryout with the Chicago White Sox during spring training.

The tryout went so well that Stratton made the team, and the scout was hired to coach pitching prospects.

It wasn't a fairy–tale career, though. It certainly had its rocky moments.

One of them, Stratton's actual major–league debut, yielded one of the best lines in the movie — but the scene was manipulated, presumably for what would be an understandable reason.

Stratton made his first major–league appearance on June 2, 1934, coming in as the second and final relief pitcher of the day for the Sox, who lost, 12–0. He didn't pitch as poorly as the two pitchers who preceded him; he only gave up two of the runs. But he was sent down to the minors, anyway, and didn't pitch in the majors again until the following year.

In the movie, he told his wife (Allyson) that the game had been against the New York Yankees. In fact, it was against the Detroit Tigers.

I don't know why the identity of the opponent was changed like that, but my guess is that it had something to do with the facts that (a) the Yankees had been in four of the previous eight World Series (when Stratton made his debut), whereas the Tigers had not been in a World Series in a quarter of a century (although, ironically, the Tigers did go to the World Series in 1934 — and 1935), and (b) the Yankees had guys named Gehrig and Ruth in their lineup.

The Yankees simply were better known (although, in a noteworthy filmmaking mistake, Joe DiMaggio could be seen rounding the bases in the stock footage that was used for Stratton's debut. DiMaggio didn't make his major–league debut until 1936).

"Honey," Stewart said to Allyson, "do you know there's a tailor in Chicago that gives a suit of clothes away to any ballplayer that hits the scoreboard in center field? As of yesterday, the New York Yankees are the best–dressed team in baseball."

If Stratton really did say that to his wife, he was exaggerating. Detroit scored a lot of runs that day, but no home runs were hit. The Tigers had a bunch of singles and half a dozen hits for extra bases. Zero home runs.

Stratton's next four years were more successful than his debut. He did struggle in 1935 and 1936, but he won a total of 30 games in 1937 and 1938. He was an All–Star in 1937 and received votes for Most Valuable Player after the 1938 season.

The future looked bright.

But then Stratton was injured in a hunting accident. It was severe enough to cost him one of his legs, and his baseball career appeared to be over.

That much was true. But, in reality, Stratton shot himself with a revolver. In the movie, the wound was inflicted with a shotgun. I don't know why that change was made — unless it was to avoid having to answer questions about why he had a revolver with him on a hunting trip.

If a Supportive and Long–Suffering Movie Spouse Hall of Fame is ever created, June Allyson is sure to be a charter member. At times, it seems to me that she was the very definition of the label supportive movie spouse in her movies, especially (but not exclusively) the ones in which she was paired with Stewart because some sort of personal trial was sure to follow — and Allyson's spouse was equally certain to be in denial about the situation. Thus, it was up to Allyson to be the stronger of the two.

In "The Stratton Story," it fell to her to decide between her husband's leg and his life. She chose his life, realizing that losing his leg meant the end of his dreams of major–league success.

Then she had to deal with her husband's mood swings and his apparent tendency (though never spoken) to blame her for the loss of his leg. As she so often did, Allyson played the supportive, long–suffering wife, putting up with his peevishness in silence.

Of course, I know it wasn't always that way. Allyson once played Jose Ferrer's malicious and shrewish spouse — at Ferrer's request — and she had several separations from her real–life husband, Dick Powell.

In real life, Stratton did come back. He didn't make it all the way back to the major leagues, but he did pitch in the minor leagues from 1946 to 1953 wearing a prosthetic leg. It was a truly inspiring story that was worthy of inclusion in the American Film Institute's list of the most inspiring films — but was not.

There were times during the movie when I thought it was a little heavy–handed in its foreshadowing — of the loss of his leg especially. The hunting accident wasn't presented until about two–thirds into the movie, but there were allusions to it. Early in the movie, for example, the viewers learned that, on the days he pitched for the semipro team, Stratton walked five miles into town, pitched, then walked five miles home — and then worked on his farm.

Another time, he learned how to dance so he could dance with his wife. Unbeknownst to his wife, he had a membership at a dance studio, of which he could take advantage at studio outlets in every American League city. It was a big subject in the movie.

I have never lost a limb — and I hope I never do — so I can't know how the real Stratton must have felt, but it must be an unimaginable blow to be 26 years old and lose one of your legs, particularly if you are a professional athlete. Stewart's reactions rang true — and, as it was with so many of his performances, it was hard to imagine anyone else playing Monty Stratton once the movie was made.

In fact, though, Ronald Reagan tried to get the part, but he was under contract to Warner Bros., and Warner wouldn't let him do it, fearing the movie would be a flop (in fact, it turned a profit). At one point, Van Johnson was inaccurately reported to be playing the role of Monty Stratton.

In hindsight, Johnson would not have been believable in the role. Reagan might have, but his Stratton almost surely would have differed from Stewart's — and Stratton himself said Stewart "did a great job of playing me, in a picture which I figure was about as true to life as they could make it."

Based on that, I think Stratton was at peace with the liberties that were taken. If he was OK with them, who am I to disagree? It must be tremendously challenging to be asked to portray someone who is still living.

Agnew Moorehead played the role of Stratton's mother. It was the kind of role she played frequently in her career, sort of a semi–animated Whistler's mother, and she was usually quite believable in it, but she was an odd choice because of the difference between her age and Stewart's age (she was roughly 7½ years his senior).

Allyson and Stewart were paired in three movies; "The Stratton Story" was the first. In their second movie, they played Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Miller, and Allyson's ordeal was living through the loss of her husband's life. In the third, she played the spouse of another baseball player (fictional this time) who was injured flying a new aircraft for the Air Force Reserve.

"The Stratton Story" won the only Oscar for which it was nominated — Best Story.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Just Enough 'Rope' ...

There is an art to fine film making. Sadly, it seems to me, it is a rapidly disappearing art.

I teach in the local community college system. I teach writing in general, journalism in particular, not film appreciation or anything like that. But I speak with my students about things — and I overhear more of their conversations with each other than they think I do — and I have seen more interest in flash than substance among young people.

That may well change as they grow older — and I'm certainly not speaking about all young people, only of a tendency I have seen in a majority of them.

Perhaps it is always this way, to whatever extent technology has advanced. But it seems to have gone to a new extreme of late. There has been much angst in recent months about what connection, if any, there may be between violent video games and violent acts committed in public places.

If there is such a link, it may have existed all along. The only difference would be that the catalyst was not as high tech as it is today.

I have often heard it asked: Doesn't modern technology make it easier to encourage violent acts — by dehumanizing victims and virtually eliminating individual responsibility? And doesn't technology raise the bar when it comes to impressing and motivating the young?

If all that is true, how can one explain the thrill killing of a teenager by college students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb in the 1920s? Movies were decidedly less flashy then than they are today. In fact, movies at the time of the Leopold and Loeb murder case didn't even have sound, and they weren't in color. It's hard to imagine young people being inspired by that level of technology — and, in fact, I have seen no evidence that they were.

But, clearly, some young people were doing that sort of thing nearly a century ago, and I would argue that it has been going on longer than that. Indeed, if you speak to someone who believes in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that person will tell you that young people murdering others goes back to the dawn of recorded time.

I have mixed feelings about portions of the Bible, but I can't help but think such a trait has been with us all along. Until recently, though, it may have been harder to make a convincing case that technology was the prime culprit in violent crimes.

I'm sure it must have been even more difficult 65 years ago today, when Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" premiered. It was inspired by a play that had been inspired, in due course, by the Leopold and Loeb case, which was quite sensational in its day but was more than 20 years old when Hitchcock made his movie.

As a how–to for committing murder, "Rope" was practically worthless. The victim was seen for only a few seconds, and I do not recall hearing him speak any lines. In fact, I think the only time his voice was heard was in the trailer that you can see attached to this post.

The rest of "Rope" really was psychological. There was none of the blood and gore to which modern moviegoers are accustomed — although, to be honest, there rarely was anything of a graphic nature in Hitchcock's movies (not even in the infamous shower scene in "Psycho" — there were no lingering shots, and even if one freezes frames on a DVD, it still is not possible to see anything that is truly graphic).

Audiences heard more — much more — about the murder than saw it.

"Rope," as I say, was psychological. I saw "Rope" for the first time when I was a teenager. Maybe I was a weird kid, but I always liked it because it was such a psychological exercise. The partners in the crime, played by John Dall and Farley Granger (who is probably better remembered for his role in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" a few years later), were inspired to commit the "perfect murder" by the words of a mentor (Jimmy Stewart, who was already familiar to film audiences, in the first of four movies he made with Hitchcock).

One of the two was decidedly more enthusiastic about the murder and went to great pains to make it a "masterpiece" by hosting a dinner party to which the mentor and the victim's father, aunt and fiancee had been invited. The party was held in the murderers' apartment, and the victim's body was hidden in the same room where the guests would be eating.

With the exception of some initial excitement and, perhaps, nervousness, Dall's character was sailing along at the party, but Granger's character made no real attempt to hide the fact that he was upset (only Dall's character knew why). He drank too much and appeared to be experiencing remorse, but the guests, having no knowledge of what had happened, could not figure out why.

Stewart's character did put two and two together, but the rest of the guests were increasingly alarmed by the fact that the victim had not arrived and had not called. If this movie were to be remade today, that is something that would have to be addressed. The guests in the 1948 movie fretted that they did not know where to reach the victim because he had not called. In the 21st century, they all would have cell phones, and each probably would have made at least one attempt to call and/or text him.

But time probably would not alter the greater theme — that young people are easily influenced by their elders. Role models do wield considerable clout.

And that is something else that, as an adjunct professor, I try to keep in mind. I try not to be careless with my word choices. I try to be aware that whether I think that something I say or do is of significance isn't nearly as important as whether my students think it is.

I don't want to say anything that could be misinterpreted — especially if it could lead to someone's death.

Jimmy Stewart's character in "Rope" probably felt the same way — if somewhat belatedly.

(By the way, you can see "Rope" on Turner Classic Movies this Sunday at 11 a.m. [Central]).

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Hitchcock's Most Personal Work

It's my understanding that Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was mostly dismissed by critics when it premiered 55 years ago today.

But over the years, it has evolved and been elevated in the eyes of those critics and their successors — to the point that it is often mentioned as at least one of Hitchcock's best, if not his absolute best.

I'm not sure I would go to that extreme. There are two or three of Hitchcock's movies that I would pick over that one — but I certainly would concede that it is perhaps Hitchcock's most complex movie. It is certainly one of his most psychological movies — and that's saying something when you consider Hitch's body of work.

And it is "Vertigo," more than almost any other Hitchcock movie, that is cited as an influence for Hitch's directorial descendants in the genre.

As I say, it must rank as Hitchcock's most complex movie. It's got to be one of his most experimental.

Other movies were at least as psychologically complex as "Vertigo," but it was visually complex, too. It was the first noteworthy use of the dolly zoom technique that created the sensation of the condition that gave the film its name.

Stewart was the main attraction for moviegoers in 1958. He'd been a familiar star for more than 20 years, almost as long as his co–star, Kim Novak, had been alive. Moviegoers knew what they were getting when Stewart was in a movie, much as they knew what they were getting when the star was Humphrey Bogart or Spencer Tracy or Henry Fonda.

But Novak, who was 25 the day "Vertigo" premiered, was no newcomer. She had already been in 10 movies, including parts in "Picnic" and "The Man With the Golden Arm."

I get the feeling from having seen many of the movies Novak made before "Vertigo" that, rather than viewing her beauty as a blessing, she regarded it as a burden. That probably came in handy when she took on her role in "Vertigo." I've always felt that character was a bit shy, a little hesitant and, in some unexpected ways, vulnerable — and, yet, she was dangerous.

Novak was already conditioned to play a role that way. (Her simmering passion and cool intellectual quality served her well in "Bell, Book and Candle.")

Maybe Hitchcock knew that.

Funny thing, though. Novak wasn't Hitch's first choice; Vera Miles was. But a series of twists of fate allowed the role to practically fall into Novak's lap. First, Hitchcock had gall bladder problems, then Miles became pregnant. Hitchcock was not willing to postpone filming any further so he gave the role to Novak.

In hindsight, it's hard for me to imagine Miles in the role. Novak always seems ideal for it. Perhaps it is because I am conditioned to think of her as Judy — and my mind associates Miles with the roles she played in two other Hitchcock films, "The Wrong Man" and "Psycho."

Maybe Novak played the role so well I can't imagine anyone else playing it.

I know there was a great chemistry between Stewart and Novak, as there usually was between the male and female leads in a Hitchcock movie. Such chemistry was especially important in "Vertigo," which had a complex plot — even for a Hitchcock movie.

I guess the chemistry didn't help much when it was first released. I've been told "Vertigo" wasn't too successful at the box office.

But, as I say, in the years that have passed, "Vertigo" has come to be recognized as one of Hitchcock's best film achievements.

Hitchcock himself said it was his most personal film. I'm not sure what his reasoning was, but there is no questioning the quality of the movie.

The American Film Institute ranked it in the Top 10 of all time.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Tragedy of Grace Kelly

Friday was an odd kind of day for me.

I spent much of it working with journalism students, which isn't the odd part because I usually do that on Fridays during the school year, but my thoughts kept returning to that mid–September day in 1982, when I heard that Grace Kelly had suffered a stroke while driving in Monaco and died after crashing the vehicle.

She was perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and, at 52, she was much too young to be dead — even though she had been away from Hollywood for more than 20 years.

She gave up the life of a movie star to become a real–life princess — although I suppose just about anyone who saw her as a young woman would say that she always had a somewhat regal bearing.

But she retained the common touch.

"I just love Grace Kelly," Jimmy Stewart, her co–star in "Rear Window," said at her funeral. "Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met."

Everyone loved Grace Kelly. I never knew anyone who didn't.

I remember the first time I saw "Rear Window." It had been re–released to theaters to mark the 30th anniversary of its original theatrical release so I went to see it on one of my days off.

It was a glorious thing to behold on the big screen. I could see for myself what my parents had always told me — that Hitchcock was meant to be experienced on the really big screen. No TV screen, no matter how large, could really do justice to a Hitchcock movie.

The reviewer in the local paper had seen it in all its restored splendor, and he promised his readers that Grace Kelly was "as beautiful as you remember."

Since it was my first time to see the movie, of course, I had no memory of her in it, but I had seen other movies in which she appeared — "High Noon," "Dial M for Murder," "The Country Girl" — and I looked forward to seeing her in it.

I was not disappointed.

Kelly's role in that movie was much more complex than it may have seemed on the surface. For that matter, Kelly herself was more complex than she may have appeared to some.

There was a shyness to her that was often concealed by her smoldering beauty, and there was a mind–bending life–imitates–art quality (or should that be art imitates life?) to Grace Kelly. She played a princess on the screen, then became one in real life.

But she was always a princess in the hearts of her fans.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

What We Lost When We Lost Henry Fonda

When I was growing up, I couldn't imagine a world that didn't have Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart in it.

They were always two of my favorite actors, still are even today. In fact, they were both in the first movie I can remember seeing at the movie theater in my hometown — "How the West Was Won" — which wasn't a new release when it came to my then–tiny hometown (but nothing ever was).

I guess every year has its share of deaths of irreplaceable people.

It is often said that a recently deceased person will be missed. And often, I suppose, that is true.

But I guess it was never more relevant than it was to the movie industry — and, by extension, the world — in late 1982.

In September, Grace Kelly died when she suffered a stroke while driving on the winding, hilly roads of Monaco and crashed her car. She died without regaining consciousness.

And about a month earlier, on Aug. 12, 1982 — 30 years ago today — Fonda died. His death had been anticipated — he'd been ill for awhile — but it was no less devastating.

Audiences had come to take him for granted, I guess. I know I did. He was a steady, reliable performer. You knew what you would be getting when you saw a Henry Fonda movie — well, most of the time you did. When he played against type in "Once Upon a Time in the West," it was more than some moviegoers could fathom.

When he died in 1982, he had been in Hollywood for nearly half a century, and he had just been honored by the Academy Awards with the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in "On Golden Pond."

It was recognition that he had long deserved but had been denied to him. His career had been filled with exceptional performances, but only once before had he been nominated for Best Actor — in 1940, when he was nominated for "The Grapes of Wrath" (but lost to Stewart for "The Philadelphia Story").

His performances in movies like "The Lady Eve," "The Ox–Bow Incident," "Mister Roberts," "Fail–Safe" and "Once Upon a Time in the West" — and dozens of others — went unnoticed repeatedly at Oscar time.

Over the years, Oscar didn't treat Fonda so well. The American Film Institute included two of Fonda's movies on its list of the top 100 movies of all time, but the only time one of his movies was nominated for Best Picture — "12 Angry Men" in 1957 — it lost (to "The Bridge on the River Kwai").

At the time that he died, it occurred to me that the old adage about not knowing what you've got until you no longer have it may never have been more relevant than it was when applied to Fonda's life and career.

On countless occasions in my life, I have been guided by the memory of the words and actions of characters that Fonda played in his life.

In his personal life, as I understand it, Fonda was a flawed individual, perceived by many of those closest to him, especially his children, as aloof and distant. And perhaps he was.

But when he was in front of a camera, the words he was given to speak and the roles he was asked to play took on even greater meaning because Fonda brought so much strength of character to each.

I suppose that was also what made his performance in "Once Upon a Time in the West" so menacing. In the hands of another actor who didn't command the respect Fonda did, that role might have been almost laughable.

But Fonda, cast as a cold–blooded, indiscriminate killer, had a nearly immortal aura to him. He was kind of the Freddy Krueger of the spaghetti Western.

Fonda was truly a gifted actor. In most of his movies, his gift came across in an almost "aw, shucks" kind of way. On the night in 1982 when his daughter accepted his Best Actor Oscar for him because he was too ill to attend, she told the audience she was sure her father's reaction would be to praise those with whom he worked and, of his own recognition, to say, "Ain't I lucky?"

And that was how he looked at his accomplishments in his life, Jane Fonda said. He gave all the credit to those with whom he worked and paid little if any attention to his own skill.

We were the lucky ones — to have had him as long as we did.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Man Who Really Shot Liberty Valance

I've never really been a John Wayne fan.

While he was living, I suppose I could have been called a casual fan — if such a thing exists. I didn't watch many of his movies — as opposed to some of my friends, who saw them all.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call me a selective fan.

(On the other hand, maybe that is nothing more than semantic gymnastics.)

Anyway, today is the 50th anniversary of the theatrical release of one of my absolute favorite John Wayne movies — John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" — and the thing that I like about it is that, in the end, it turns out that John Wayne was not the man anyone thought.

Oh, he was a rancher named Tom Doniphon, of that there was no doubt, and, as the movie opened, there was also no doubt of something else. He was as dead as a doornail.

But it turned out that he hadn't really been the man people thought he was.

The movie paired Wayne with Jimmy Stewart for the first (but not the last) time. Stewart played an aging senator who returned to the western town where they had met as young men for Wayne's funeral.

While paying his respects, Stewart was asked to sit down for an interview with a local reporter, and he proceeded to tell the story of their friendship through a series of flashbacks.

In spite of being two very different personalities, Stewart and Wayne became friends. Stewart was the more cerebral of the two, a young lawyer with a commitment to justice and education. Wayne was the strong–and–mostly–silent type he often played, a man more given to action than words.

There was a third character without whom the stories of the other two would have had no real meaning — the character whose name appeared in the title, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). He was a bully who manipulated and terrorized the town's residents.

The moment of truth finally arrived. Stewart's character agreed to face Valance in a gun duel, even though he wasn't very handy with a firearm. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Stewart killed Valance with a single shot.

Or, at least, he seemed to.

It was the clear turning point for Stewart's character. Now known as "the man who shot Liberty Valance," he rode his new reputation to a successful political career. By the time Wayne's character died, Stewart's character had been a senator twice and an ambassador once and was the apparent favorite for his party's nomination for vice president.

Wayne, meanwhile, lived his life in relative obscurity. Stewart also married the woman Wayne wanted (Vera Miles) so it was also a life of solitude.

And it was a life spent concealing a secret — Wayne was the man who actually shot Liberty Valance, but he persuaded Stewart to accept the credit and pursue his career in public service. His motivation? The happiness of the girl he loved — but who did not love him.

Stewart chose to reveal the truth during the interview, but the reporter chose not to print it and burned his notes instead. The truth remained known only to a few people in the movie — and to the audience.

(By the way, if you're one of those people who likes to do an unofficial imitation of Wayne's speaking style, it may interest you to know this was the movie in which he spoke of a "pilgrim."

"Whoa, take 'er easy there, Pilgrim," he says at one point, inspiring a generation of John Wayne imitators.)

Thursday, July 28, 2011

A Dog Named Beau

Thirty years ago tonight, the world was anticipating the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in a matter of hours.

And, in fact, an estimated audience of three–quarters of a billion people the world over tuned in to watch Charles and Diana's wedding. Millions of those viewers were Americans who got up early — or stayed up very late, if they were on the West Coast or in Hawaii — to watch the ceremony.

I must admit now, I was one of those people who got up early to watch the proceedings from London. It was a memorable sight, a "fairytale wedding," said some, the "wedding of the century," said others.

Yes, sir, it was a memorable moment — but it wasn't the only one.

I was a bit more blurry–eyed that morning than I had expected to be, even with the alarm going off at around 4 a.m. I had had every intention of getting to bed earlier than usual the night before, but then I heard that actor Jimmy Stewart would be a guest on The Tonight Show the night before the wedding — and I decided I had to stay up long enough to see that.

American TV viewers had a different kind of memorable moment when Stewart, mostly retired by that point, recited a poem he had written in tribute to his deceased golden retriever, Beau.

When he finished, there couldn't have been a dry eye in the studio — or in America. Certainly, there wasn't a dry eye among those viewers who had ever loved a dog.

The poem probably was, as Carson's sidekick, Ed McMahon, later recalled, "forgettable." Stewart had a folksy style that was endearing in its way, but the words of his poems were far from profound, and it isn't likely that you would find any of them in an anthology of great literary works.

"[B]ut Johnny was moved by the way Jimmy Stewart delivered it," McMahon wrote. "Jimmy was a blend of great actor and great person. Both Johnny and I were in tears. Just a couple of maudlin mutt mourners."

They weren't alone.

I think the truth is that Stewart was just being himself, the same guy he had always been. He just didn't know any other way to be.

"I've always been skeptical of people who say they lose themselves in a part," Stewart said once. "Someone once came up to Spencer Tracy and asked, 'Aren't you tired of always playing Tracy?' Tracy replied, 'What am I supposed to do, play Bogart?' You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it, not just develop a bag of tricks."

What America saw on The Tonight Show 30 years ago tonight was no bag of tricks.

It was Jimmy Stewart being himself — the same guy who once threw tennis balls to Beau and stroked Beau's head when he climbed into Stewart's bed.

And that was a priceless gift.

So, too, is the memory of watching two of the truly gentle gentlemen — Stewart and Carson — together.