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."
I've been a Beatles fan as long as I can remember.
So I have to ask myself something: How did I possibly miss the premiere of "Across the Universe" on this day in 2007?
OK, today is actually the 10th anniversary of its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. It started showing in the United States about a month later.
All the same, though, I do not remember hearing anything about it at the time — and that really is a shame.
And difficult for me to comprehend because "Across the Universe" actually is my favorite Beatles song. You'd think the movie's title would have left an impression on me.
Now, I have mentioned before that I am not a fan of movie musicals — but this is Beatles music. It isn't the Beatles singing — I have heard that it is quite costly to obtain the rights to use actual Beatles recordings in movies, which is why 2001's "I Am Sam" used cover versions of Beatles songs — and it may be why "Across the Universe" used covers, too, although it seems to me that it really worked better for the movie's plot — such as it was — to have the characters sing the songs.
I liked it better in "Across the Universe," though. "I Am Sam" was shot in sync with the original Beatles songs so even though the versions that were used were covers, they couldn't stray far from the pace of the originals. In "Across the Universe," there were no such constraints, and the musicians had more freedom in their interpretations.
Consequently, if you were a Beatles fan, you would recognize variations, both subtle and not so subtle, in the songs.
(One example that stood out for me was the rendition of "With a Little Help From My Friends," which was like a cross between the original version and Joe Cocker's — with a generous helping of the musicians' own spins. The music was very enjoyable — and occasionally surprising.
(Speaking of Cocker, he actually was in "Across the Universe," but he didn't sing "With a Little Help From My Friends." He sang "Come Together.")
I wasn't wowed by the story — it was dialogue loosely connected by the songs, and the names of the characters — Jude, Lucy, Max, Sadie, Prudence, Jojo, etc. — came directly from song titles or lyrics that Beatles fans were sure to recognize.
The power of "Across the Universe" was the merging of roughly three dozen Beatles songs with strong images — like the part where "Let It Be" was incorporated into juxtaposing scenes of two groups of mourners, one white and one black, burying young people. The black casualty came during a protest; the white casualty was the result of warfare.
It produced a stark contrast, to be sure.
Any Beatles imagery — direct or implied — evoked by the group's brilliant lyrics was brought to the screen.
Dana Fuchs, as Sexy Sadie, added a Janis Joplin touch to the story with her Pearl–like performances.
Evan Rachel Wood was the female lead as Lucy. She only recently turned 30 and almost certainly has many film roles ahead of her, but Wood, who performed Beatles songs admirably, has said the role of Lucy is her favorite. That isn't surprising, given that she has said that the music of the Beatles has played a significant role in her life.
I have been working as a journalism professor for several years now, and it never ceases to amaze me when I hear that people — who I know could not have been born yet when the Beatles broke up — say that the Beatles' music influenced them when they were growing up. Nearly all the Beatles songs ever recorded had been on record store shelves for years when those folks were born. The Beatles, of course, continued to record as solo performers, but they were not a contemporary band for recent generations.
Wood is one of those people. The fact that she and so many others are inspired today by the music of the Beatles gives me hope.
And despite the absence of much of a plausible plot, "Across the Universe" was a pleasurable experience.
By the way it did receive an Academy Award nomination — for costume design. It lost.
While I didn't think it deserved nominations for much of anything else, I can't help but wish there was some way to recognize the imagery in the movie. At times it could be quite impressive.
Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart):I never saw anybody like you; you never have any clothes on.
Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor):Well if anyone heard you complaining about it they would put you in a psychopathic ward.
Did you ever hear of a novel that was written about 14 years before the catastrophic sinking of the Titanic that, in hindsight, seemed to foretell the disaster with eerie detail?
"Across the Pacific," which made its debut on this day in 1942, was kind of like that. Let me explain.
Originally "Across the Pacific" was intended to be about an attempt to thwart a Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was a work of fiction.
Then when the Japanese actually did bomb Pearl Harbor, the script was rewritten to make the location Panama instead. Now that wasn't as implausible as it might seem on the surface. Several years before the U.S. entered World War II, military exercises were focused on defending the Panama Canal, and those activities received considerable attention in the press.
But the first two–thirds of the movie emphasized the hot–and–cold romance between Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, fellow passengers aboard a Japanese ship.
And the script revision actually put all the action in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Never really got close to the Pacific.
I guess "Across the Pacific" was the original title — and, in spite of all the meticulous changes being made to the script, no one thought to change the title.
The script revision wasn't that meticulous, though. Director John Huston apparently had worked out an ending for the movie, but he was called up for military service, leaving it to his replacement, Vincent Sherman, to come up with an ending on his own.
Huston, by the way, thought Sherman's finish "lacked credibility," according to his 1980 autobiography "An Open Book." Maybe he should have shared his vision for the conclusion with Sherman before he shipped out.
At the very least he should have told Sherman how to resolve the predicament in which his filmmaking had left Bogart. If you watch the movie, I think you will agree that Bogart would have had to be Harry Houdini — or Indiana Jones — to get out of that one.
Yet somehow he did.
There were other problems with "Across the Pacific." For one, I have always had an issue with the casting of Astor as the female lead. Now, she was talented. I don't mean to imply that she wasn't. But I thought the role called for more of a beauty. Ingrid Bergman comes to mind. She combined great talent with great beauty.
Would that have invited comparison to Bogart and Bergman's classic "Casablanca"?
Perhaps in hindsight. But "Casablanca" wouldn't have been on the minds of audiences in September 1942 because it wasn't showing on U.S. movie screens until two months later.
The actual cast did invite comparisons to "The Maltese Falcon," especially with Sydney Greenstreet reunited with Bogart and Astor. Greenstreet played an even more villainous character than he played in "The Maltese Falcon."
He showed up in "Casablanca," too.
By the way, Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet reprised their roles in a radio version of the story that was aired a few months later.
"He'll regret it 'til his dying day if ever he lives that long."
"Red Will" Danaher (Victor McLaglen)
When most people think of John Wayne, they probably think of cowboy movies or war movies — or, in the case of "The Alamo," I suppose, both, even though I guess the cowboys in "The Alamo" were really frontiersmen.
And I will admit that, if someone mentions John Wayne to me, my first thought will be of "The Searchers," which is my favorite John Wayne movie.
I wrote a year ago that I thought his performance in John Ford's "The Searchers" was his defining role, and I still feel that way. But a close second would have to be a movie in which he played neither a cowboy nor a soldier — another Ford–directed movie called "The Quiet Man," which premiered on this day in 1952.
Ford won his fourth and final Best Director Oscar for "The Quiet Man." His previous Oscar was for "How Green Was My Valley," which took place in Wales and also starred Maureen O'Hara (Wayne's love interest in "The Quiet Man"). Among movie fans "How Green Was My Valley" is remembered for being the movie that beat "Citizen Kane" for Best Picture. (Perhaps it was compensation for that injustice that "The Quiet Man," clearly the superior movie, was beaten for Best Picture by "The Greatest Show on Earth" — although "High Noon" was the betting favorite in that category.)
("Of all my films," O'Hara said, "'The Quiet Man' is my favorite, and John Wayne, who became a dear friend, was my favorite leading man.")
Wayne played an American boxer returning to the village in Ireland where he had been born. He had been traumatized by having killed a man in the ring so he had returned to reclaim the family farm and start a new life.
When he met O'Hara, she became part of his plan for that new life.
But there was one big obstacle — O'Hara's bullying brother played by Victor McLaglen. He had wanted that farm for himself. When the owner, a wealthy widow played by Mildred Natwick, didn't sell it to him, he declined to give his sister his consent. Then, on their wedding day, he refused to give her her dowry. Wayne's character cared nothing about the dowry, not realizing what it meant in Irish culture — and simultaneously creating a rift between them.
In those cowboy and soldier movies, the climactic moment typically had Wayne in some sort of gunfight; in "The Quiet Man," it was a fistfight as Wayne, the supposedly reformed boxer, took on McLaglen in a memorable fistfight that ended with the two of them expressing grudging admiration for each other.
Barry Fitzgerald played a curmudgeonly sort of character, the kind of part he was born to play. I doubt he ever did it better than he did in "The Quiet Man."
"The Quiet Man" received seven Oscar nominations and won two awards. Ford took home Best Director, and Winton Hoch and Archie Stout won the Oscar for Best Color Cinematography.
Really, with all that gorgeous Irish countryside to work with (Ford, certainly one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, was known for his frequent use of on–location filming), how could they miss?
On the eve of any armed conflict, there is that almost surreal will–they–or–won't–they kind of period when the people whose lives (most of them, anyway) will be shattered by decisions they do not make and actions they do not take are cast into limbo. And they wait to see if, well, they will or they won't.
Then the inevitable happens, and they must adapt to the new situation. Sometimes it requires them to shift their attitudes and their beliefs.
"One Minute to Zero," which made its debut on this day in 1952, was about such a time in the early days of the Korean War.
Ann Blyth, who was 23 at the time, played an idealistic United Nations worker in Korea just before the outbreak of the war — a pacifist who rejected all the evidence around her that a war was imminent. Like all of us, her character was shaped by its experiences, and she had lost her husband in World War II. Like many others she believed the U.N. was the legacy of the Allies' victory in World War II and that its mission was to prevent violent conflict around the world. She mistakenly believed it would do so in Korea.
I don't recall if her character's age was mentioned in the movie, but it is likely that Blyth was playing a character at least a few years older. Blyth was about 16 when World War II ended.
Robert Mitchum played a career military man who had risen to the rank of colonel. Experience had made him more pragmatic about the situation, and Blyth's character ultimately acquiesced.
Not to take a position in this, but it seemed to me that Blyth's character was eager to switch sides, perhaps a bit too eager. But that was in keeping with the rest of the movie, I thought. And it was in keeping with the times and the perceived woman's role in relationships, I suppose.
While I can think of several movies that managed to combine a good war story with a good love story in which characters didn't have to sacrifice principle, "One Minute to Zero" seemed to do little more than string together cliches from the better movies of its type — and the relationship between Blyth's character and Mitchum's character was a little too formulaic for my taste.
By and large, the females in the movies of that time yielded to the men in their lives on most things. I'm not suggesting that female leads in movies should arbitrarily take positions that are opposite of their significant others' simply to establish their independence. But neither should they go so far to the other extreme.
Perhaps that is something that was learned in that era — but is not always practiced today.
Early in the movie Blyth's character clearly had principles, but it didn't take much for her to shift to Mitchum's more pragmatic position that one had to fight fire with fire.
I learned long ago that you really can't reach a conclusion based strictly on Academy Award nominations — and the class of 1952 is a good example of that — but they can provide some insight into the quality of a movie.
And "One Minute to Zero" received no Oscar nominations.
"There must be something between us, even if it's only an ocean."
Nickie (Cary Grant)
I'm not the kind of person who is interested in romantic movies.
But, as a writer, I do appreciate a good story, even if it is a romance — and "An Affair to Remember," which made its debut on this day in 1957, was both.
It was such a good story that more than 35 years after it was playing in theaters, it was mentioned frequently in "Sleepless in Seattle," sparking something of a revival. How much of a revival? Well, sales of the video tape went up by some 2 million copies.
Make no mistake, though. "An Affair to Remember" was melodramatic, and the story might not seem as good if someone remade the movie, scene for scene, today. You would certainly have to make some concessions. The world of 1957, after all, was quite different in many ways from the world of 2017, but I think it could be done.
In some ways, it might even be better.
Take, for example, the addiction so many people have to smartphones. Every day I see people walking along on sidewalks with their eyes glued to their smartphone screens, completely oblivious to what is going on around them. Late in the movie when Deborah Kerr's character was struck by an automobile while she was crossing the street, the reason that was given was that she was in a hurry to her meeting with Cary Grant at the Empire State Building and simply wasn't paying attention. It would certainly be plausible for her character to be so engrossed in her smartphone that she walked into oncoming traffic — but it might imply that the woman was more interested in her smartphone than the rendezvous she was on her way to keep.
(Actually, "An Affair to Remember" was a remake of a 1939 movie starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, "Love Affair.")
Yes, an updated story could be an improvement, but how could you top the casting of Grant and Kerr? Actually, Grant might have been paired with Ingrid Bergman or Doris Day. Both were considered for the role — and both would have been good, although their interpretations of the role would have been different. And "An Affair to Remember" would have been a different movie.
Based on that, you would have to conclude that the right casting choices were made (Bergman, of course, was the female lead in "Casablanca").
To modern audiences, the story must seem almost laughable. Grant and Kerr met on an ocean liner. Although each was involved with someone else, they developed a friendship that quickly evolved into something deeper.
Upon their arrival in New York, they agreed to meet at the top of the Empire State Building in six months — if they had split up with their significant others and embarked on new careers.
On the appointed day Kerr's character was struck down by a car and taken to a hospital. In the meantime, Grant's character waited at the top of the Empire State Building for hours, finally conceding that Kerr wasn't coming.
Eventually, I suppose, the moral of the story was that love will find a way. Grant and Kerr were reunited at the end, pursuing professional interests both had suppressed for years.
"An Affair to Remember" was nominated for four Academy Awards — Best Original Score, Best Original Song (sung by Kerr's character in the movie but actually dubbed by renowned singer Marni Nixon — who also dubbed for Natalie Wood in "West Side Story"), Best Costume Design and Best Cinematography — and lost all four.
"I know how comfortable it is to curl up with a nice, fat book full of big words and think you're going to solve all the problems in the universe. But you're not, you know. A bit of action is required every now and then."
Carol (Teresa Wright)
William Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver," which arrived in theaters on this day 75 years ago, occupies an elevated position in the history of World War II movies.
And it contains what was long the most intense battle scene I personally had ever seen in motion pictures (until "Saving Private Ryan" and its graphic depiction of D–Day). But its intensity was on a psychological more than visual level — which may still make it the most intense of its kind.
There may be no more powerful battle scene — and excruciating in its length and growing sense of claustrophobia — than the one in which the Minivers (Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson) and their children huddled in a crude bomb shelter waiting out a German air raid. In the grand British tradition of keeping a stiff upper lip, they tried to pass the time with conversation about mundane topics — like knitting — while the tension from the hellish cacophony of bombs and bullets from outside built to an unbearable level.
It was all the more powerful as an illustration of how war can touch anyone; it has no regard for age, race, gender or social status. The Minivers lived in the comfortable world of the upper class, a world where Mrs. Miniver could calmly go about her daily routine while her husband participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk, but they were brought to their knees by World War II the same as their cook and maid.
As the vicar observed in a pivotal sermon near the end of the movie, "There's scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart.
"And why?" he went on to ask. "Surely you must have asked yourselves this question? Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness? Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed?"
Aren't these the questions many ask today when people are dying in airports, at concerts and in restaurants and nightclubs rather than battlefields?
The movie hasn't aged particularly well, but the message is still a good one: War truly is hell and is not made less so by the knowledge that it was started by someone else. If there were plans to remake "Mrs. Miniver" today, the characters probably could use some work — Garson's character particularly seemed a bit naive, especially when she confronted the downed German paratrooper in her kitchen, but perhaps that illustrated how off guard many people were caught by the Nazi threat and the reality of war.
Her daughter–in–law in the movie, played by Teresa Wright, seemed far more grounded in reality than Garson's character (who, for example, refused to permit Nazi bombing raids to ruin her roses — later in a climactic bombing raid that set up the vicar's sermon, a rose that had been nominated in a local flower show competition was named for Mrs. Miniver).
Garson did her part for the war effort propaganda that "Mrs. Miniver" really was. Her character was brave and noble — and in real life she did her part for the war effort at home, too, but Winston Churchill said "Mrs. Miniver" did more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers.
"Mrs. Miniver" received a dozen Oscar nominations and won half of them. The movie won Best Picture. Wyler won Best Director. Garson won Best Actress (and delivered a record–long acceptance speech). Wright won Best Supporting Actress (beating co–star Dame May Whitty). The movie also won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Black–and–White Cinematography.
Pidgeon was nominated for Best Actor but lost to James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy." Richard Ney, who played Garson's son in the movie, became her husband the following year. The union lasted until 1947.
Judy (Barbra Streisand):I know I'm different, but from now on I'm going to try and be the same.
Howard (Ryan O'Neal):The same as what?
Judy:The same as people who aren't different.
Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up, Doc?" which premiered on this day in 1972, was inspired lunacy. It was a screwball comedy in the proud tradition of screwball comedies.
I will always remember the first time I saw it. I saw it on the big screen with my parents and my brother.
When I was growing up, I could always tell when something truly amused my father. If he was only mildly amused — or if he wasn't really amused but wanted to be polite — he would chuckle lightly. But if something really struck him as funny, he would laugh a full–throated, no–holds–barred laugh.
The latter was the way he laughed when we saw "What's Up, Doc?"
Oh, sure, it was pure silliness. But it was the kind of silliness that is seen less and less these days.
At some point along film's evolution, the humor in slapstick grew to rely on bathroom jokes and what used to be called four–letter words; obviously there is some overlap of the two. Not so with "What's Up, Doc?"
Granted, I think most, if not all, of this shift came along after "What's Up, Doc?" was showing in movie theaters, and that might have been why there was so little of either in that movie.
I recall few four–letter words in the dialogue, and the only bathroom humor occurred when Streisand was caught taking a bath in O'Neal's bathroom.
It had a rapid–fire script with one–liners that you could easily miss if you were laughing. That meant that you had to see it a second time — and perhaps a third or fourth time and keep the urge to laugh in check — to get the full benefit of the writing.
I have seen it many times since that first viewing. I never get tired of the snappy dialogue or the acting. The last time I saw it, it seemed to me that the dialogue was still as fresh and funny as it was 45 years ago.
As it always is in truly good screwball comedies, the premise was simple. A musicologist (Ryan O'Neal) and his fiancee (Madeline Kahn) were in San Francisco where O'Neal's character was to receive a grant. This grant was intended to help him study his theory of ancient man's use of rocks in making music.
O'Neal had a plaid overnight bag in which he carried his collection of prehistoric rocks that he used in his studies. The story centered around that bag and three others that looked just like it. One belonged to Barbra Streisand, who played what appeared to be a bit of a drifter. Her bag seemed to contain nothing but underwear. One belonged to a wealthy hotel guest who carried her jewels in it — and, consequently, had attracted the attention of a thief — and the fourth belonged to an apparent whistle blower who had top–secret documents in his bag — and someone was trying to take the papers from him.
All four wound up at the same hotel in San Francisco.
From there, it was probably best for the viewer to simply watch things unfold and not dwell on the details. Things moved too fast to ponder details for too long.
It's that rapid pace that made "What's Up, Doc?" such a pleasure to watch. As critic Roger Ebert observed, "[Y]ou can't direct comedy at a snail's pace. It has to move and crackle."
And Bogdanovich certainly didn't direct at a snail's pace. Ostensibly his intent was to pay homage to Howard Hawks and the screwball comedies of his day. In that regard, he certainly succeeded. But Bogdanovich had studied the form well and had his own ideas so the movie was a delightful blend of familiar screwball devices and new ones.
My favorite scene has always been when O'Neal's hotel room had been destroyed in screwball comedyesque fashion, and he was visited the next morning by the manager of the hotel (the always droll John Hillerman), who introduced himself to O'Neal as "the manager of what's left of the hotel."
He told O'Neal he had a message for him from the staff of the hotel. What is it? O'Neal wanted to know.
"Goodbye," the manager replied.
"That's the entire message?" O'Neal asked.
"Yes," Hillerman replied. "We would appreciate it if you would check out."
"When?" O'Neal asked.
"Yesterday."
Kahn made her first feature–film appearance in "What's Up, Doc?" and gave audiences a taste of her considerable talent and the many great performances to come. Sadly her life and career were cut short by ovarian cancer in 1999.
Kahn's character was, in Ebert's word, "spinsterish," and she played it very well, considering she was only about 30 at the time. And she really stood out when she was on the screen, but I don't recall her being much of a factor in the climactic sequence of the film.
I guess no screwball comedy would be complete without some kind of chase (typically car, I suppose), and "What's Up, Doc?" had one with all the characters from the various subplots racing in various types of automobiles through the streets of San Francisco and nearly all ending up in San Francisco Bay.
Car chases are fairly traditional movie elements, but again, Bogdanovich put his own spin on things. For awhile, Streisand and O'Neal were on a delivery boy's bicycle that wound up, somehow, inside a Chinese dragon. You need to watch the movie to see how that was accomplished.
Some of the more delightful elements of "What's Up, Doc?" do require some explanation because only a select group of people will get them otherwise.
Most of these elements were musical. "What's Up, Doc?" was not a musical, but it had a lot of musical references — which was appropriate since it was centered on a musicologists' convention.
The most obvious was the use of the Cole Porter song "You're the Top" in the opening and closing sequences. Less obvious to most would be the other Porter songs that could be heard in the hotel lobby.
In the chase scene, remember when I mentioned the Chinese dragon? Well, in that scene, the Chinese marching band played "La Cucaracha" on German glockenspiels.
Screwy, huh?
And then there were Bogdanovich's nods to the movie industry. The best ones came at the end. While looking for Streisand (whose name in the movie was Judy), O'Neal said, "Judy? Judy? Judy?" a nod to a phrase that is often associated with Cary Grant, the star of "Bringing Up Baby," a classic screwball comedy.
Grant never said the line. But Humphrey Bogart did say, "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." In "What's Up, Doc?" Streisand did, too, substituting "he" for "she" but using an acceptable Bogart voice.
And in the best movie homage, Streisand told O'Neal, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." That, of course, was Ali MacGraw's famous line in "Love Story," the movie that made O'Neal a star. In "What's Up, Doc?" his response was, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
"Well, well. You're the first woman I've ever met who said yes when she meant yes."
Johnny (Cary Grant)
I am a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's movies — something, as I have written before, that I picked up from my parents — but nearly all of his movies were before my time, and I have often wondered why his movies didn't win more Oscars. After all, many of his movies are considered classics today. You will always find them on "best of" lists. The American Film Institute included four Hitchcock movies in its list of the top 100 movies of all time. AFI included nine of Hitchcock's films in its list of the top 100 thrilling movies of all time.
Hitchcock himself was nominated for Best Director five times, but he never won. In spite of directing many of Hollywood's brightest stars in the 1940s and 1950s — some, like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, in multiple films — only one received an Oscar.
That was Joan Fontaine for her performance in "Suspicion," which was in American movie theaters on this day in 1941.
Hitchcock wasn't nominated for his directorial work in "Suspicion," but the movie was nominated for Best Picture and Best Score of a Dramatic Picture in addition to Fontaine's Oscar for her acting.
Fontaine played an introverted, rather frumpy heiress who married a rogue/charmer (Grant) she met on a train. After their honeymoon, Fontaine's character began to discover her new husband's shadowy past. He was a rather reckless gambler who sold two of her antique chairs to pay off a gambling debt, and she became suspicious of his motives when one of his friends turned up dead under mysterious circumstances.
Fontaine's character wondered if he planned to kill her for her money, especially after he questioned a friend of hers, who happened to be a mystery writer, about poisons that could not be traced, and you had all the pieces in place for a classic Hitchcock psychological thriller.
In the end, though, Grant's character was vindicated, and, in truly Hitchcockian fashion, the movie shifted in the final minutes from a tale that cautioned wariness when facing the unknown to a cautionary tale about making assumptions based on incomplete and inaccurate information.
It was Fontaine's movie, and she was rewarded with the Oscar, but Grant was the one who really stole the show with his magnetism.
The story I have always heard is that Grant was frustrated by what he perceived as Hitchcock's preferential treatment of his leading lady. That shouldn't surprise any student of movies. Hitchcock always had an eye for lovely ladies, and he featured them prominently in his movies. Fontaine was merely one in a rather long line that included the likes of Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, Janet Leigh and Tippi Hedren.
I guess Grant found this particularly egregious, though, perhaps because it was pretty well known that he thought Fontaine was unprofessional and temperamental, and he pledged never to work with Hitchcock again.
They must have patched things up because they made three more movies together, including perhaps my favorite Hitchcock movie of all, "North by Northwest."
Olivia de Havilland, who marked her 100th birthday about three weeks ago, was an astonishingly fortunate woman in her youth.
She was one of those women who always looks younger than she is. Now, that is one of those things that most people attempt but few achieve. The ones who manage it seem to do so effortlessly. Perhaps some do. Perhaps others achieve it only after spending several hours working on it every day.
From what I have heard, de Havilland was one of those people who achieved it with no special effort. As a youth, I guess she was a natural beauty. It isn't necessary to guess, though. You can see it for yourself. She was in her early 20s when she made "Gone With the Wind."
She put that trait to good use in "The Ambassador's Daughter," which premiered on this day in 1956. In reality, de Havilland was 39 when the movie was being made — and turned 40 just before its theatrical premiere — but her character was probably in her 20s and, as the title suggested, the daughter of an ambassador (played by Edward Arnold), the ambassador to France to be specific.
A senator from America (Adolphe Menjou) declared Paris off limits to servicemen due to their misbehavior, and de Havilland's character took it upon herself to prove that U.S. servicemen could be gentlemen. She decided to do this by dating a serviceman who would not know her true identity. The serviceman (John Forsythe) was under the impression that she was a model, and he took her to nightclubs and on a humorous excursion to the Eiffel Tower.
There were some moments of deception on both sides.
Forsythe's character offered to buy de Havilland's character an airplane ticket to America when news of an emergency back in the States reached her, and she was suitably impressed — until she learned that counterfeit airplane tickets were a commonplace scam used by U.S. servicemen to score points with girls.
Forsythe, on the other hand, had been told that de Havilland was a Christian Dior fashion model, but when he went looking for her at a Dior fashion show, he discovered that Dior's staff had never heard of her. Then he saw de Havilland watching the show with the senator — and assumed they had some kind of relationship.
Everything got cleared up at the end when the two attended a performance of "Swan Lake."
Myrna Loy as the senator's wife, in a rather understated role for her, joined forces with de Havilland to persuade the senator to lift his ban. Thus, all was well that ended well.
Director Norman Krasna built his reputation in screwball comedies — which would, understandably, make potential viewers think they would be in for an off–the–wall experience with "The Ambassador's Daughter." But they would be wrong. It was a romantic comedy, but that really isn't the same thing. The dynamics of a romantic comedy and a screwball comedy are different — in often subtle ways but still different.
The cast seemed to have a good time, but as for the audience ... I can only guess.
Well, it would be hard not to have a good time watching de Havilland have a good time.
"It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It's a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known."
Sydney (Ronald Colman)
"A Tale of Two Cities," Charles Dickens' classic tale, has been brought to the big screen many times, including a few silent versions — but it is the first sound version, which premiered on this day in 1935, to which all subsequent efforts have been compared and found, to an extent, to be lacking.
Dickens' story about the French Revolution was published 156 years ago, and it still has relevance today. Plus, in all those years, it has gained a reputation for being Dickens' most loved novel — although, personally, I prefer "A Christmas Carol."
There is no denying, though, that it may have one of the best openings any book ever had.
"It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light,
it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair."
Charles Dickens 'A Tale of Two Cities' (1859)
Guess that pretty much covers it.
Of course, there are details, and "A Tale of Two Cities," both the movie and the book, tried to fill in the gaps with those details.
From the perspective of 80 years later, it is remarkable that Ronald Colman was cast in the role of Sydney Carton. It was reported that such motion picture luminaries as Clark Gable, Robert Montgomery and Leslie Howard were being considered for it.
Playing the role was the fulfillment of a long–held wish for Colman, who was willing to shave off his trademark mustache for the part. It was a sacrifice he was never willing to make again.
But Colman took the part with the understanding that he would not be expected to play the role of Charles Darnay as well. Because the resemblance between the characters of Sydney and Charles plays such an important role in the plot, the same actor has played both parts, whether on the stage or the big screen. But Colman was only interested in playing Sydney so Canadian–born actor Donald Woods was cast as Charles.
I have to admit that I wasn't sure about that part of the casting when I first saw the movie — and I still have my doubts. After all, the similarities between Sydney and Charles were not confined to their physical resemblance. It also included their shared passion for the same woman, Lucie (Elizabeth Allan).
Than, at the end, in the dramatic scene with the guillotine, Colman was able to deliver that famous line: "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done."
It isn't quite at the same level as the famous speech from "Macbeth" — "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ..." — but it's close.
Colman wasn't the only first–rate actor in the production, but his name is remembered while the others are not — for the most part. From time to time, you encounter someone who does know the names of Reginald Owen or Edna May Oliver — and I suppose most folks will remember the name of Basil Rathbone, if only because it is such a memorable name and not because they actually remember one of his performances.
But many in the cast were among the most respected actors and actresses of their day.
None, however, and that includes Colman, received an Oscar nomination. In fact, the movie received only two nominations — for Best Picture and Best Film Editing. It lost both.
"It's an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness."
Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep)
Long ago, it became a cliche to speak of Meryl Streep as a perennial Oscar nominee. She has been nominated 17 times for her acting. The first two were for Best Supporting Actress (she won for "Kramer vs. Kramer"), and she got a third Best Supporting Actress nomination in 2002 for "Adaptation." The remaining 14 were for Best Actress (she has won twice).
Many actresses have been nominated for Oscars multiple times. Streep's nomination for "Out of Africa," which premiered on this day in 1985, was her fourth for Best Actress. That seems like a lot of times, but it really isn't so unusual. Thirteen actresses have been nominated for Best Actress four times. Another 11 have been nominated five times each. It isn't until you get to a half dozen Best Actress nominations that you start getting into the rarefied air of Ingrid Bergman, Greer Garson, Katharine Hepburn ... and Meryl Streep.
Nevertheless, I want to say it was her performance in "Out of Africa" that was her breakthrough into that rarefied category of the truly great, legendary actresses whose bodies of work were supported by an appropriate number of Oscar nominations. Some people will tell you her breakthrough was her Oscar–winning performance in "Sophie's Choice," but that was only her second Best Actress nomination. So many actresses have been nominated twice that it really isn't a noteworthy achievement. Others will say it was her Oscar–nominated performance in "Silkwood," and I can understand that. It was very serious subject matter. I could go along with that as the turning point in Streep's career even though she didn't win.
But it almost seems preordained. The movies she has picked always seem to have Oscar Nomination scrawled on the script.
The truth about Meryl Streep, it seems to me, is that she is so versatile. The reason why she has been nominated so many times is because she immerses herself in her roles. I guess that leads to a variation on the chicken–or–the–egg questions: Is it because she selects the best movies that she is perceived to be so good, or are the movies great because she is in them?
Not all the movies in which she has participated and been nominated for her work have been nominated for Best Picture so you have to conclude from that that her success is her own, that she did not ride the success of obvious winners. After all, she won Best Actress for "The Iron Lady," turning in a great performance in a movie that was otherwise sleep inducing. Some of her movies have been nominated for Best Picture — and "Out of Africa" won — even though Streep did not. It is hard to make the argument that the movie did not deserve the recognition. Film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the great recent epic romances."
So did "Out of Africa" make Streep better? Or did Streep make "Out of Africa" better? In the words of Forrest Gump, maybe it has been a little of both.
I think it was the chemistry between Streep and her co–star Robert Redford, who wasn't even nominated. I think the chemistry between the stars of any love story has to be natural and believable. It isn't always, but when it's good, there is virtually no limit to how successful that movie can be.
In this case, it won the Oscar for Best Picture (and half a dozen other Oscars as well) and earned more than $128 million at the box office. That's pretty darn successful.
Redford is another one of those actors who frequently seemed to be in movies that really were among the best of a given year before his career began leaning more toward directing — but you can't really apply the same question to him that is applied to Streep. Although he's given several performances that were worthy of Oscar nominations, only one — his performance in "The Sting" — was rewarded with one. His only Oscar was for directing "Ordinary People."
I'm not a fan of romance movies, but I do like good stories, and "Out of Africa" was a good story with Oscar–winning direction from Sydney Pollack, screenplay by Kurt Luedtke that was adapted from an autobiography by Streep's character, John Barry's soaring score, David Watkin's sweeping cinematography and brilliant art direction and sound mixing.
Arthur Hiller's "Love Story," which made its debut on this day in 1970, was phenomenally popular. Even after 45 years, it is still one of the highest–grossing movies in American history.
Of course, there is always a market for sappy love stories, and it doesn't get much sappier than blatantly advertising what it is in the title. Most love stories have the decency to try (or appear to try) to conceal the truth until the reader or viewer has made his/her commitment. Not "Love Story."
It was a tearjerker, all right, and proud of it. Ryan O'Neal played a well–to–do law student who fell in love with a free–spirited, even rebellious daughter of a blue–collar working man (Ali MacGraw). She called him "preppy" and "jock." He found her charming, her honesty refreshing. They fell in love. Then she got sick with what has been described as a "movie disease." The disease itself is undefined — although the implication in "Love Story" was that it was some kind of cancer — but it has shown up in many movies since — and whoever gets it is going to die. Of that, you can be sure.
And MacGraw died. There was no physical decline. She was just as beautiful when her character died as she had been when she was healthy.
"What can you say about a 25–year–old girl who died?" asked O'Neal's character in the second–most quoted piece of dialogue from the movie. "That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach? The Beatles? And me?"
In between, there were other issues. O'Neal's father (Ray Milland) threatened to cut off his son financially if he married MacGraw. Of course, O'Neal and MacGraw married, anyway, and then had to struggle to make ends meet. Especially after MacGraw got sick. That development forced O'Neal's character to swallow his pride and approach his father for some financial relief.
Erich Segal wrote the screenplay, then was encouraged by Paramount Pictures to write a novel from the screenplay. The novel was published on Valentine's Day 1970 and became a bestseller well in advance of the movie's release.
Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that he read the novel "in about 14 minutes flat, out of simple curiosity. I wanted to discover why 5.5 million people had actually bought it. I wasn't successful. I was so put off by Erich Segal's writing style, in fact, that I hardly wanted to see the movie at all. Segal's prose style is so revoltingly coy — sort of a cross between a parody of Hemingway and the instructions on a soup can — that his story is fatally infected."
But Ebert conceded that he felt the movie was better than the book.
Based on his assessment of the book, I would have to say that it would just about have to be better.
I never read the book, but I saw the movie once. I was unmoved. But lots of people clearly were. MacGraw's character's pearl of wisdom — "Love means never having to say you're sorry" — took on iconic qualities, and the movie's theme song, sung by Andy Williams, was a huge hit. "Love Story" captured the culture's imagination.
Addressing the point that the makers of the movie obviously wanted to move the audience to tears, Ebert wrote, "Is this an unworthy purpose? Does the movie become unworthy, as Newsweek thought it did, simply because it has been mechanically contrived to tell us a beautiful, tragic tale? I don't think so. There's nothing contemptible about being moved to joy by a musical, to terror by a thriller, to excitement by a Western. Why shouldn't we get a little misty during a story about young lovers separated by death?"
Whether it was beautiful is a matter of opinion. That it was tragic was undeniable.
It went on to inspire many other movies, which gave viewers basically the same plot but with a few modest alterations, and most were successful, although none was as successful as "Love Story," the biggest moneymaker Paramount Pictures had ever had.
Today I suppose I find "Love Story" more noteworthy as the movie debut of actor Tommy Lee Jones. He's had better roles since then, but, heck, we all have to start somewhere, right?
The thing that I find really remarkable about "Love Story" is that it was actually nominated for seven Oscars — and won one. It was for Best Music, which I have always thought was more a response to the impressive sales the soundtrack generated than the quality of the score.
But "Love Story" was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, and both O'Neal and MacGraw were nominated for their acting.
Huh?
O'Neal lost to George C. Scott, who famously refused the award, and MacGraw lost to Glenda Jackson.
"There's so many things I don't understand, like why do the fish stop swimming and lie on top of the tide pools after a heavy rain? Why do you hear the waves inside the big shells? Why are all these funny hairs growing on me?"
Richard (Christopher Atkins)
In the weeks leading up to the premiere 35 years ago today of "The Blue Lagoon," I remember seeing many tantalizing and provocative movie trailers and TV commercials that emphasized the forbidden love aspect of two young cousins, a boy and a girl, being marooned alone on an island and surviving there for years, ultimately succumbing to sexual curiosity and the urgings of nature. I guess it wasn't quite as forbidden for cousins as it would have been for a brother and a sister. (They were cousins in the turn–of–the–century novel upon which the movie was based, too. The makers of this movie, as I shall discuss shortly, apparently had no interest in altering the original story in any way.)
Incidentally, film critic Roger Ebert said it was "the dumbest movie of the year," and that really is a difficult conclusion to contradict — especially when you read his summary of the story:
"It could conceivably have been made interesting, if any serious attempt had been made to explore what might really happen if two 7–year–old kids were shipwrecked on an island. But this isn't a realistic movie. It's a wildly idealized romance, in which the kids live in a hut that looks like a Club Med honeymoon cottage, while restless natives commit human sacrifice on the other side of the island. (It is a measure of the filmmakers' desperation that the kids and the natives never meet one another and the kids leave the island without even one obligatory scene of being tied to a stake.)"
Ebert's conclusion is rather remarkable, considering that, while 1980 produced some of the finest movies in recent memory, it also saw such bombs as "Can't Stop the Music," "Herbie Goes Bananas," "Little Darlings," "Motel Hell" and "Wholly Moses!" Competition for designation as the year's dumbest movie was pretty steep.
The girl was played by Brooke Shields, who was just barely 15 when the movie hit the theaters but was already an old pro in front of the camera. She wasn't even a week old when her mother declared that she wanted her daughter to be in show business. She was a child model before her first birthday and continued modeling even after she started appearing in movies.
In fact, it was around the time of the premiere of "The Blue Lagoon" that Shields appeared in a suggestive advertising campaign for Calvin Klein jeans. "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins?" she purred. "Nothing."
In addition to sending Calvin Klein's sales into orbit, I'm sure the publicity didn't hurt the movie. It earned nearly $59 million in the United States and Canada after being made for less than $5 million. It was the ninth–most successful movie of 1980. It even received an Oscar nomination (Best Cinematography) — and, from what I could see of it when I watched it on TV several months later, it deserved it. How could it miss with all that great scenery?
Of course, there was the matter of nudity — as there had been a few years earlier when Shields, then 12 years old, played a prostitute in "Pretty Baby," in which she allegedly did some scenes in the nude. I've only seen that movie once — like "The Blue Lagoon," it was on TV — and my memory is that the scenes involving Shields were dimly lit, but that did not keep people from complaining about the implications of child pornography. At the time, I heard that Shields actually did her nude scenes wearing a flesh–colored body suit.
I guess Shields and her mother learned from that experience. Or maybe the makers of "The Blue Lagoon" learned from it. Perhaps both. There was nudity in "The Blue Lagoon," but it was indistinct and fleeting, like underwater views of the young couple swimming, or otherwise obscured, as in a scene showing them beneath a waterfall. Shields herself tried to put to rest the allegations by saying that older body doubles were used for the nude scenes of her and co–star Christopher Atkins.
I don't know if that is true or not, but it made a satisfactory story for those who desperately wanted to believe that no one would abuse underage people like that. That was kind of a strange mindset, given what was driving people to the theaters to see "The Blue Lagoon."
"Let's face it," Ebert wrote. "Going into this film knowing what we've heard about it, we're anticipating the scenes in which the two kids discover the joys of sex. This is a prurient motive on our part, and we're maybe a little ashamed of it, but our shame turns to impatience as [director Randal] Kleiser intercuts countless shots of the birds and the bees (every third shot in this movie seems to be showing a parrot's reaction to something)."
The two young versions of Shields and Atkins were shipwrecked along with a cook who gave them guidance until he died, leaving the children to fend for themselves — which they did quite well, thanks to his instructions. He warned them about berries on the island that he believed to be poisonous, but he used words ("never–wake–up berries") that 7–year–olds would understand. They sounded odd coming from the lips of teenagers later in the movie — until you remembered that they hadn't had any instruction from adults in quite some time.
That was one of the things Ebert either forgot or failed to comprehend for one reason or another. The absence of adult supervision could be seen in many ways, but the staying power of the cook's lessons was evident, too. For example, at the end of the movie, the boy and the girl and the baby they conceived were adrift at sea, and they ate some of those berries the cook warned them about, fully expecting to die. It just so happens that, after they had eaten the berries and, as the cook described, fallen asleep (or lapsed into unconsciousness), who should come by in a ship but the boy's father, who, according to the original story, had been looking for his son ever since the first ship was lost.
Ebert thought the movie left the viewers hanging because it was never determined whether the berries had merely put them all to sleep or fatally poisoned them. The movie did leave the audience hanging, but the problem was, so did the book.
"The movie cops out," Ebert complained. "The burden of contriving an ending was apparently too much for such a feeble movie to support."
He was wrong to blame that entirely on the movie. The original sin was Irish author Henry De Vere Stacpoole's more than 70 years earlier. But that certainly doesn't absolve Kleiser and everyone else in the cast and crew of all responsibility for giving their audience an ambiguous ending to the movie — they could have changed it if that had been what they wanted, and, apparently, it was not. They chose a faithful re–telling of Stacpoole's story — and it can only be interpreted as a choice. Stories are "re–imagined" in the movies all the time. Sometimes they are done well. Sometimes not. But it is a choice to do that.
It's a calculated risk, especially if the movie is likely to draw armies of fans who are dedicated to the original book(s). For example, it is my guess that millions of the people who went to see the "Lord of the Rings" movies were fans of the J.R.R. Tolkien books and were likely to notice even the slightest deviation from the original text. In this case, however, I doubt that there were armies of Stacpoole fans going to see how faithfully his story was told; apparently, the story was told as it had been told for decades — there were other film versions before the 1980 edition. I've never seen them, but it is my understanding that none of them changed the ending, either.
Would a different ending have improved the movie? I don't know. A movie is what it is, with the beginning, middle and ending — and all the other decisions — the director made. Speculating on whether a movie would have been better if any part of it had been changed is an exercise in hypotheticals. Suppose someone else had played Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Would it have been better or worse?
That is a matter of personal taste and opinion. The only thing that could be said for certain would have been that the movie was different.
And that was what the makers of "The Blue Lagoon" could have given their audiences 35 years ago — something that was different from what previous generations had been given. But they played it safe. Ebert thought that was a copout. What do you think?
"We're all very happy that you're going to live, John Book. We didn't know what we would do with you if you'd died."
Rachel (Kelly McGillis)
"We're inside this story," declared film critic Roger Ebert when "Witness" premiered 30 years ago today.
That was an astute observation for, indeed, the viewer was inside the story — and for the reasons Ebert outlined. But I'll get back to that in a minute.
For me, what was fascinating was to study the clash between two worlds — the modern world and the (literally) horse–and–buggy world of the Amish — in what undoubtedly struck moviegoers of the time as a fairly common event, the murder of a man.
Maybe my fascination with the collision of those two worlds stems from my upbringing. My father was a religion professor.
Anyway, the movie began with a kind of glimpse of Amish life. The residents of the community gathered for the funeral of one of their own — the husband of a character, Rachel (Kelly McGillis), who would become prominent in the story. The Amish keep mostly to themselves in real life as they did in the movie, but there were times when they had to interact with modern people ("the English," the Amish called them). Rachel and her young son temporarily left their Amish home to visit her sister, taking the train.
The murderer and the victim were of the modern world, but the witness was a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) who was in a bathroom stall in a Philadelphia station and saw what happened as he peeped through the slot between the stall door and the stall walls.
The two worlds were on a collision course.
The investigating officer was Harrison Ford, and he had to question the boy, who told him that two men had been involved in the murder, but he could only see one, a black man, which launched an investigation into all the known black criminals in the city. Ford subjected the boy to police lineups and photo albums, but no suspects could be identified — until he spotted a picture of Danny Glover, a respected narcotics officer, in a glass case at the police station.
Glover was the one the boy had seen cutting a man's throat in the bathroom at the station.
Ford's character remembered that Glover had been in charge of a raid of some high–priced chemicals used in the production of speed — and that the chemicals had disappeared while in police custody. The obvious conclusion was that Glover had been involved in the disappearance, maybe even the ringleader, and was selling them. The killing had been done to protect the guilty.
He shared what he knew with his superior, then was ambushed by Glover in a parking garage. Ford's character realized that, since he had only told his superior what he knew, his superior must be corrupt as well and had tipped off Glover. Ford was wounded in the parking garage shootout.
At this point, the two worlds collided in full. Ford took McGillis and Haas back to their home and passed out shortly after their arrival, causing considerable angst among the villagers. No one was trained as a doctor, and Ford needed that kind of attention.
But he was a police officer, and he knew the routine. If he was taken to the hospital with a bullet wound, there would be a police investigation, and he would be found — and if he was found, the boy would be found, too.
That was a pretty persuasive argument for the Amish folks, who decided to give him shelter — and hoped he would recover. They had no idea what they would do if he died.
So he stayed with the Amish and tried to blend in. He wore their clothes. He worked on their farms. He helped them raise houses and barns.
(And he and McGillis were falling in love. In defiance of social codes of conduct.)
Even so, his adversaries from Philadelphia managed to find him. It wasn't easy, considering that the Amish had no phones and literally thousands of people in that vicinity had the same surname as the boy and his mother. But they found him, and that led to a final showdown.
If you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil the ending for you. I'll just get back to Ebert's observation about being "inside this story." I had seen the movie before I read Ebert's piece, and I knew exactly what he meant when I read that. Well, I thought I did.
At the time, I thought he was speaking of the camera angles — which really do make a viewer feel like he/she is inside the story. Then, I thought perhaps it was a reference to Maurice Jarre's Oscar–nominated score, which did a brilliant job of summarizing the two ways of life.
(I'm a fan of Jarre's work, anyway. Even if I didn't particularly care for the movie, I always liked his music.)
But Ebert went on to speak of how all the elements of the movie worked so well together that they drew the viewer into the story. And that, ultimately, was my sensation. The camera angles, the score, the performances, the Oscar–winning screenplay and film editing, they all worked together to make an excellent movie.
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!
