Stan and Ollie

 

Here's a post with some recommended summer viewing. 

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were without doubt the best comedy team in film history. Originally paired during the silent era, they easily made the transition to talkies. During the 1930s they reached the height of their popularity appearing in almost countless features and shorts. 

Their feature films included a number of operettas like The Devil’s Brother, The Bohemian Girl, and the ever-popular Thanksgiving favorite, The March of the Wooden Soldiers, where they provided the comic relief. But the features in which they starred are their best. Below find brief reviews of my favorites features and shorts. 

 

Sons of the Desert.  

Stan and Ollie play next door neighbors who trick their wives so they can secretly attend the Chicago convention of their fraternal order, the Sons of the Desert. Many believe this 1933 film is Laurel and Hardy’s best feature, both a critical success and one of the year’s top ten box office draws. 

The film has one hilarious skit after another and also exults in bone-crushing slapstick. Ollie winds up the target of endless pots and pans and kitchen crockery all hurled with unerring accuracy by his carving knife wielding wife, played by Mae Busch, one of Hollywood’s best comediennes. The film also features Charley Chase as an obnoxious lodge member, and Dorothy Christie as Mr. Laurel’s beautiful shotgun-toting wife. A popular tune, Honolulu Baby, danced by a night club chorus line, has become a cult classic.  64 minutes.

 

Way Out West. 

In this 1937 film Stan and Ollie play two men on a mission to deliver the deed to a deceased prospector’s gold mine to the daughter whom he had left behind with a sleazy saloon keeper and his gold-digging wife. This film is marked by one hilarious gag after another, often repeated.

It also showcases Stan and Ollie’s song and dance skills in three numbers. Stan’s career started as a song and dance man in English vaudeville, and Ollie had a fine voice. Adding to the fun is James Finlayson, a Laurel and Hardy regular, who plays the saloon keeper, and Dinah the mule who plays a key role in some of the skits. 63 minutes.

 

Blockheads.

In this 1938 film Stan and Ollie play wartime buddies who had been separated in the last days of WWI. Twenty years later Stan is discovered still guarding his post in the trenches. Ollie, now happily married, sees Stan’s picture in the newspaper and goes off to visit him in a nearby home for veterans. They meet and Ollie invites him home for dinner.

When they meet, Stan asks if Ollie remembers how dumb he used to be and then claims that he is better now. From that point on he causes a series of hilarious mishaps that wreck Ollie’s car, apartment, and marriage. Ollie’s next-door neighbor is played by the irascible Billy Gilbert, another Laurel and Hardy regular.

 

The Flying Deuces. 

On vacation in Paris, Ollie falls in love with the innkeeper’s daughter only to be heart broken when she reveals there is another man. In a hilarious scene, he attempts to commit suicide by drowning himself in the Seine and insists Stan do likewise. A passerby talks them out of it, and suggests they join the French Foreign Legion in order to forget the girl. 

I suppose the makers of this film tried to capitalize on the success of Beau Geste, a Foreign Legion drama released earlier in 1939. In any event, Ollie never acted better playing the love-sick suitor. The film also includes another of their fine song and dance numbers, as well as Stan’s rendition of the “World is Waiting for the Sunrise,” played on a makeshift harp fashioned out of a bedspring while they wait in prison to be shot at sunrise. 69 minutes. 

 

Big Business.

Stan and Ollie play door to door Christmas tree salesmen in this 1929 silent short. When an irascible homeowner turns them down, one thing leads to another, and a little altercation becomes an all-out battle. This short film is a comedy classic listed by the Library of Congress on the National Film Registry. 19 minutes.

 

The Music Box.

In this short Stan and Ollie play movers charged with the delivery of a player piano to a home atop many flights of steps. They park their horse drawn cart at the base of the steps and proceed to attempt to carry the crate enclosed piano up the steps. They meet one obstacle after another but finally get to the top only to encounter even greater obstacles. This comedy classic is also included in the National Film Registry. 29 minutes.

 

Them Thar Hills.

This 1934 short is not on the National Film Registry but it is still my favorite. Ollie has a large cast on his gout ridden leg, and his doctor, played by Billy Gilbert, claims that the gout is caused by too much high living. He suggests that the boys go camping in the mountains, lead the simple life, and drink plenty of mountain water. 

They attach a camper to their car and drive to the mountains where they park near a deserted house with a nearby well. Unbeknownst to them, moonshiners have just dumped a load of liquor in the well. The boys find the “mountain water” delightfully refreshing, and as they freely imbibe, they get increasingly high. This film also features Mae Busch. 20 minutes.

Most of these films can be viewed on Youtube for free but a few years ago a Laurel and Hardy DVD box set appeared that included an almost complete collection on 10 discs. The tenth disc includes a tribute where comedians like Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke expressed their appreciation and debt to Stan and Ollie.

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Memorial Day: The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives swept most of the Academy Awards for 1946, and remains a film classic today. It is an emotional heart-rending story of three veterans returning to their families and their civilian lives that will never be the same.

 

William Wyler directed the film, his first after himself returning home from three years of military service. He had won the Best Director award in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver but then volunteered at the age of 40 to make films for the Air Force. In the process, he flew on a number of bombing missions and actually lost most of his hearing. Despite his disability, he won the best director award for The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that relied so much on the use of sound. 

 

The film featured a great cast that included stars like Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Virginia Mayo, backed up by a superb supporting cast who shine in some of the best scenes. The film also featured Harold Russell, a real sailor whose two hands had actually been amputated during the war. It is at once heartbreaking and inspirational to see him manipulate the hooks that serve as replacements. Russell won Best Supporting Actor as well an unprecedented special award for his performance as the wounded sailor.

Harold Russell, Dana Andrews, Frederic March

 

Frederic March won the Best Actor award playing an army sergeant, returning to his respectable family and banking career. Actually, that year the Academy Award should have gone to Jimmy Stewart for his performance as a small-town banker in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  It was a real sign of the times that both films featured bankers as heroes. In my opinion Dana Andrews could also have won for his portrayal of troubled Air Force bombardier Fred Derry.

Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright

However, the women in the film more than hold their own. Feminist historians would do well to note the powerful women portrayed in this 1946 film. Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and youthful Kathy O'Donnell are all towers of strength. Glamorous Virginia Mayo played an unfaithful floozy, but gave the best performance of her career. Ironically, she gets to utter the title line in the film when she complains to her returning husband that while he was flying bombing missions over Germany, she had given him the best years of her life.

 

The supporting cast is equally fine, and again it is the women who shine. One of the most emotional scenes in the film occurs at the beginning.  I will never forget the look on the face of the mother, played by Mina Gombell, when she first sees the hooks of her young son. Toward the end of the film after the dejected and out of work airman decides to leave town, he discards his wartime citations. When he leaves the house, his father then reads them to his step-mother, played by Gladys George, who sits quietly registering on her face the emotions felt by every viewer. 

 

Speaking of scenes, Dana Andrews, playing an Air Force Captain and bombardier who is haunted by horrific dreams and memories of lost comrades, appears alone in the pivotal scene near the end of the film. He has lost his job, and his wife, and a new romance has hit the rocks. He is about to leave his home town and waits at the airport for a flight to anywhere. He sees some de-commissioned and stripped down bombers waiting for the scrap heap. He climbs into one and sits in the dusty cabin and the war memories come back. There is no dialogue but gradually we hear the engines starting one by one, and the awful memories come back. It is one of the most iconic scenes in film history, filmed beautifully by famed cinematographer Gregg Toland. 

 

The final scene is the rendition of the marriage ceremony of the wounded sailor and his high-school sweetheart. Even today it is hard to watch him sliding the ring on her finger with his hooks. But the most moving part of the scene is the simplicity of the wedding ceremony itself. It takes place in the modest home of the bride. She descends the stairs as a couple of children sing, Here, Comes the Bride. Waiting in the living room are the parents and a small gathering of friends and family. A minister calmly directs the couple in the exchange of the traditional vows, and that is it except for congratulations. 

 

Someone once said that the length of the marriage is inversely proportional to the size of the wedding. This memorable wedding scene, and the film itself are powerful reminders of what we have lost in the ensuing years. 

 

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Anti--Catholicism

  HistoriaFamed 

Famous American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr.  once claimed that anti-Catholicism is "the deepest held bias in American history." It began in the days of the Puritan colonial founders, continued through the era of massive Catholic immigration of over a hundred years ago, and persists today in Protestant evangelicals, Progressive atheists, and even lapsed Catholics.

One of its signs is the animus, sometimes comical but often venomous, directed against Catholic nuns. Just last week an editorial in the Wall Street Journal decried the efforts of New York State officials to force the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne to comply with State LGBTQ rules. This religious order, whose founder was Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of the famed American novelist, is noted for its work in caring for the dying in its hospice at Rosary Hill in New York. It is an exemplary institution not only because the sisters accept no payment but also because they do the work themselves even to the point of scrubbing the floors on their hands and knees.

I personally know people whose parents spent their last days there in peace and dignity. They have nothing but praise for these self sacrificing nuns and their work. Unfortunately, the idea of self sacrifice seems to have gone our of favor today. 

The incident at Rosary Hill brought to mind my review of the film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel, The Painted Veil, that also dealt with the idea or ideal of self sacrifice. See below. 

The Painted Veil is a 2006 American film adaptation of a novel written in 1925 by W. Somerset Maugham, one of the most popular novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. Although an atheist, Maugham’s novel expressed his deep interest in religion. The book’s protagonist is Kitty, a young English socialite who enters into a marriage of convenience with a man she doesn't love. Things get worse when her husband's work takes her from England to the British colony of Hong Kong where she has an affair with a married British official. Upon discovery, the husband insists she accompany him to an inland Chinese city where he intends to study and deal with a raging cholera epidemic. She suspects that he is taking her there in hopes that she will catch the dreaded disease.

 

I will not divulge much more of the story but just introduce what I consider to be a very significant detail. In the stricken city, Kitty is left largely alone while her husband does his medical research among the sick and dying. To pass the time she visits a Catholic orphanage run by a handful of French nuns who care for children abandoned by their parents. Irreligious herself, she is impressed by the nuns and their work.

 

Maugham’s novel is all about the transformation of the selfish heroine during the cholera epidemic by her encounter with true self-sacrifice: first on the part of the small group of French nuns who have left their homes forever to care for the needy in China, and second, on the part of her unloved husband who ultimately succumbs to cholera himself in trying to help fight the disease. 

 

The modern film version, starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, tries to remain faithful to the novel. You can’t blame them for turning it into a love story and altering Maugham’s convoluted ending. Such changes, I believe, alter the letter but not the spirit of the original. Nevertheless, in one respect the filmmakers do violate the spirit of the novel with a gratuitous injection of modern sensibilities. 

 

At one point in the film, Kitty tells her husband how impressed she is with the nuns. Her husband, who in the book has real respect for the nuns and their work, snidely replies that they are merely buying children from their impoverished parents in order to make them little Catholics. This insert of modern cant and prejudice is entirely gratuitous. 

 

The filmmakers go even further. The Mother Superior, played by Diana Rigg, is portrayed as having a kind of crisis of faith. Her initial ardor, that made her give up home and family, has waned and she admits to a kind of spiritual burn out. Again, this is an injection of modern prejudice that totally violates the spirit of Maugham’s novel.

 

Here is an excerpt from the novel that expresses both Kitty’s and Maugham’s real feelings.

 

“Your first thought when looking at the Mother Superior was that as a girl she must have been beautiful, but in a moment you realized that this was a woman whose beauty, depending on character, had grown with advancing years. … But the most striking thing about her was the air she had of authority tempered by Christian charity: you felt in her the habit of command. To be obeyed was natural to her, but she accepted obedience with humility. You could not fail to see that she was deeply conscious of the authority of the church which upheld her. But Kitty had a surmise that notwithstanding her austere demeanor she had for human frailty a human tolerance; and it was impossible to look at her grave smile when she listened to Waddington, unabashed, talking nonsense, without being sure that she  had a lively sense of the ridiculous.”

Later, Kitty relates her feelings to Waddington, a skeptical and agnostic British official who has been stationed in China for many years.

“I can’t tell you how deeply moved I’ve been by all I’ve seen at the convent. They’re wonderful, those nuns, they make me feel utterly worthless. They gave up everything, their home, their country, love, children, freedom; and all the little things which I sometimes think must be harder still to give up, flowers and green fields, going for a walk on an autumn day, books and music, comfort, everything they give up, everything. And they do it so that they may devote themselves to a life of sacrifice, poverty, obedience, killing work, and prayer. To all of them this world is really and truly a place of exile. Life is a cross which they willingly bear, but in their hearts all the time is the desire—oh, it’s so much stronger than desire, it’s a longing, an eager and passionate longing for the death which shall lead them to life everlasting. …

Supposing there is no life everlasting? Think what it means if death is really the end of all things. They’ve given up all for nothing. They’ve been cheated. They’re dupes.”

Waddington reflected for a little while.

“I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is an illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”

Kitty sighed. What he said seemed hard. She wanted more.

“Have you ever been to a symphony concert?” he continued,

Every member of the orchestra plays his own little instrument, and what do you think he knows of the complicated harmonies which enroll themselves on the indifferent air? He is concerned only with his own small share. But he knows that the symphony is lovely, and though there’s none to hear it, it is lovely still, and he is content to play his part.”

Toward the end, as the widowed and pregnant Kitty plans to return to England, the Mother Superior bids her adieu. 

 “Good-bye, God bless you, my dear child.” She held her for a moment in her arms. “Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.” 

Despite my caveats, The Painted Veil is a serious film with a compelling story. the acting and cinematography are excellent. A 1934 adaptation is also worth watching especially since it stars Greta Garbo in one of her magnificent performances. Interestingly, this version, coming so soon after the publication of the novel, gives little notice to the nuns and the orphanage.

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Today's Quote: When people cease to believe in God, they will believe in anything. G.K. Chesterton.

Bogart and Bacall

  

 

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are among the most celebrated couples in movie history both on-screen and off. They first met on the set of To Have and Have Not in 1944. Bogart, age 44, was a star and Bacall a 19-year-old newcomer recruited by film director Howard Hawks after a brief New York modeling career. They immediately clicked. The four films in which they appeared are among my favorites. Here are brief notices.

 

To Have and Have Not.  Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall co-star in this 1944 wartime drama loosely based on an Ernest Hemingway story. It seems obvious that the filmmakers attempted to cash in on the success of Casablanca, the very popular 1942 war time drama that established Bogart as a huge star.

Both films are set after the fall of France in colonies under the control of the French Vichy government, a puppet of the German conquerors. Casablanca is in Morocco, and To Have and Have Not takes place in the French Caribbean colony of Martinique. 

As in Casablanca Bogart plays a tough, jaded American who just wants to go about his business without any involvement in the war or politics. In Casablanca he ran a popular night club but in To Have and Have Not Bogart is a charter fishing boat captain barely eking out a living. Still, much of the action takes place in a saloon/night club which even has its own likeable piano player, this time played by Hoagy Carmichael.

I suppose the greatest difference in the two films is the female lead. In To Have and Have Not the nineteen-year-old Bacall made a spectacular film debut. Instead of the sophisticated Ingrid Bergman of Casablanca fame, Bacall is a sexy and sassy young woman just passing through. The on-screen chemistry between her and Bogart makes this film a joy to watch.

The dialogue between them, written by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, the renowned novelist, pushes the envelope of Hollywood’s Production Code. Although condemned by modern critics, the Code forced writers to be really creative in expressing sexuality without becoming offensive to their 1940s audiences. The scene in which Bacall teaches Bogart how to whistle is the highlight of the film. 100 minutes. CC.

The Big Sleep.  The successful pairing of Bogart and Bacall led to three other films in very short order. They next starred in a 1946 adaptation of famed crime novelist Raymond Chandler’s novel, The Big Sleep.  Bogart plays Chandler’s legendary private eye, Philip Marlowe, on the trail of killers, pornographers, gamblers, and a bevy of beautiful young women. In this film and in the earlier Maltese Falcon Bogart created the private eye. No one else ever came close. 

Despite a convoluted plot, once again director Howard Hawks brought out the chemistry between the now famous couple who had actually fallen in love on the set of To Have and Have Not, and married soon after. This time Bacall plays a wealthy sophisticated woman but the dialogue, especially between the two stars is discreetly sexually charged. 

Interestingly, there is an added feature on my DVD that sheds light on the creative process in Hollywood in those days. Before the film’s release Bacall’s agent saw a preview and thought it would destroy his client’s budding career. He wrote a long letter to the studio head asking that some scenes be re-shot to improve Bacall’s role. The studio agreed and the result is a classic film noir. 114 minutes. CC.

Dark Passage. Bogart and Bacall star in this 1947 film about a man who breaks out of prison after being falsely convicted of murdering his wife. Based on a novel by crime writer David Goodis, Bogart plays the escaped con, and Bacall plays another sophisticated woman who, for reasons of her own, provides a hideout for him in her lavish apartment.  

Nevertheless, to escape the law, he takes the advice of a friendly cabbie who in the middle of the night arranges an appointment for him with an outlaw plastic surgeon who claims he can make him look like anything, even a monkey, in 90 minutes, no more no less. Sure enough, the doctor, played hilariously by character actor Houseley Stevenson, turns him into Humphrey Bogart once the bandages are removed.

Next to the scene with the plastic surgeon, my favorite part of this film is the ending with the couple meeting to the tune of “You’re Just Too Marvelous.” 106 minutes. CC. 

Key Largo. John Huston directed this 1948 drama that would be the last film in which the famous couple appear together, but their roles are strangely subdued. Bacall plays a war widow who runs a small hotel in the Florida Keys with her wheelchair bound father, played by Lionel Barrymore. Bogart's character had served with her husband during the war, and though he survived, the war has had its effect on him.  He is not the tough self-assured guy of the earlier films.  

Bogart’s character wants to meet his deceased friend’s family, but arrives at the hotel in the midst of a hurricane warning only to find that there is danger within. Edward G. Robinson practically steals the show playing an over the hill gangster on the lam from police. His gang has taken over the hotel until they can find passage to Cuba.  Claire Trevor won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress playing the gangster’s mistress, an ex-nightclub singer turned alcoholic. 101 minutes. CC.

I prefer to watch on DVD with no annoying commercials. In addition, the DVDs sometimes include informative features.

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Foreign Film Picks 2025

Lists of top films will often appear in newspapers and online at this time of the year. Rarely do these lists include foreign films. I'm sure that most foreign films can be as bad as most American films but the cream of the crop are well worth watching even with subtitles. These films open a window into other cultures while at the same time proving that we are all basically the same. Here are eleven films that my wife and I enjoyed this year. 

Fanny Ardant in Callas Forever

    Callas, Forever. Director Franco Zeffirelli recreates the magic, passion, and artistry of the opera diva who was also his longtime friend. Callas died tragically at the age of 53, and Zeffirelli presents an imaginative retelling of her last years. French actress Fanny Ardant perfectly fits the role of Callas, capturing all her fiery intensity on and off the stage. Jeremy Irons co-stars. This 2002 film is a rare gem featuring actual sound recordings of Callas arias. 115 minutes. 

      Dersu Uzala. Famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa made this 1975 Russian  film, the product of an arduous two year film making expedition into the far reaches of Siberia. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film in 1975. Dersu Uzala is a primitive Mongolian frontiersman who is taken on as a guide by an early twentieth century Russian surveying crew. While the soldiers at first perceive Dersu as a naïve and comical relic of an uncivilized age, he quickly proves himself otherwise with displays of ingenuity and bravery. 141 minutes.

       Breaker Morant. This acclaimed 1980 film from Australia is based on a true story. Edward Woodward stars as the controversial folk hero Lt. Harry “Breaker” Morant. As South Africa’s Boer War draws to a close, Morant and two fellow Australian soldiers are court-martialed for murder. Their only hope lies in a small town lawyer who fights passionately for their lives. Winner of 10 Australian Film Institute awards, this powerful film directed by Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies, Driving Miss Daisy) continues to stir audiences. CC, 107 minutes.

        Enchanted April. In post WWI England two wives fed up with the dreary London winter, and their seemingly loveless marriages decide to rent an Italian villa for a husbandless vacation. To share costs they enlist an acerbic widow, and a beautifuk young aristocrat. Miranda Richardson, Josie Lawrence, Joan Plowright, and Polly Walker star. This 1991 film also features Michael Kitchen, Alfred Molina, and Jim Broadbent at the outset of their notable film careers. Based on a novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. 95 minutes. CC.

        Incantato. Director Pupi Avati won the Italian best director award for this 2003 comedy set in Rome and Bologna in the 1920s. Neri Marcore plays a shy and clumsy man devoted to the academic world. His lack of interest in women has become an increasing source of anxiety to his womanizing father (Giancarlo Giannini), a tailor for the Pope. He sends his son to teach in a high school in Bologna with the hopes that he will find a wife and produce an heir for the family. 107 minutes. Subtitles.

        A Foreign Field. This British film has an acclaimed international cast that includes Alec Guinness, Leo McKern, Jeanne Moreau, Loren Bacall, John Randolph, and Geraldine Chaplin. Two British war vets meet an American vet when all three return to Normandy on the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Old rivalries resurface, particularly when two of the men discover they are searching for the same lost love. This disparate band of survivors eventually finds common ground in the memory of what they lost on that fateful day in 1944. 95 minutes. CC. 

           Persuasion. Amanda Root and Cieran Hinds star as separated lovers in this 1995 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel. She is the proverbial ugly duckling in a pretentious upper class family, and he is a young somewhat lower class young naval officer who has risen during the Napoleonic wars. It is as close to the spirit of the great author as it is possible to get. 104minutes. CC.

           Pagliacci. Franco Zeffirelli directed this 1982 film adaptation of Leoncavallo’s famous opera. Placido Domingo and Teresa Stratas star as the principals in a travelling performance of the Commedia dell’ Arte but the comedy turns to real life tragedy. 72 minutes. Subtitles.

           “12”. Famed post-Soviet Russian film maker Nikita Mikhalkov directed this powerful story of a room full of jurors from all different levels of Russian society who are thrown together to determine the fate of a young man accused of murdering his stepfather. Each juror reveals his own story as they seek to discover the truth about the murder and themselves. Based on the famous American drama, Twelve Angry Men. 160 minutes. Subtitles.

          The Twilight Samurai. This 2002 Japanese film made by renowned director, Yoji Yamada, is set in a changing Japan of the late nineteenth century. Hiroyuki Sanada, one of Japan’s leading film stars, plays a low ranking, poverty stricken samurai trying to support his family. However, he is caught in the turmoil of the times and ordered to confront and kill a renegade warrior. The film won an unprecedented twelve Japanese Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. 129 minutes. Subtitles.

         Italian for Beginners. This warm and playful story from Denmark is about six perfect strangers and the shared journey of discovery that changes each of their lives. In a small Danish city, a mismatched collection of opposites have signed up for an Italian language class in hope of spicing up their lives. The film was shot in “cinema verite” style without any special effects or overbearing sound track.  118 minutes. Subtitles.

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Dana Andrews MVP

 

 

Dana Andrews starred in Laura (1944) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), two of the best films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Today, critics still regard them as among the best films of all time. In Laura he played a police detective in Otto Preminger’s directorial debut, and in Best Years of Our Lives he played an Air Force bombardier returning from WW II in a film directed by William Wyler that swept most of the Academy Awards.

 

Both films are examples of the way the Hollywood studio system could bring together craftsmen and craftswomen to produce almost perfect art. The direction, the writing, the cinematography, the set design, the costume design, and the musical score were all of the highest order. The casts, from stars to featured players, were equally superb.  

For Dana Andrews these two films were the high point of his career and established his screen persona. He was handsome but not a pretty boy, tough but vulnerable, calm and quiet but could seem to contain hidden emotions. He was not nominated for Best Actor in either of these films, but his presence was the central core in each film. In a way, he was like a baseball or basketball player whose largely unnoticed quiet competence keeps the team together on its way to a championship.

 

Dana Andrews in Laura

Laura is a good example. Andrews was surrounded by an outstanding cast who all get their chance to strut their stuff, but they all play off of Andrews. He is the glue that keeps them together. Gene Tierney, one of the most beautiful actresses of all time, catapulted to stardom in the title role. Clifton Webb, in his first screen performance, gave a bravura performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination. A young Vincent Price, and Judith Anderson, a great actress in her own right, rounded out the superb cast.  Credit must go to director Otto Preminger for keeping all this talent in place, but the mere presence of Andrews was essential in bringing them together. 

 

Harold Russell, Dana Andrews,Fredric March

In The Best Years of Our Lives Andrews did not receive even a nomination for Best Actor for his performance in this story of three servicemen returning to civilian life after WWII. Fredric March, a veteran actor, won the Best Actor award, and newcomer Harold Russell, a young naval veteran who had lost both hands in a training accident, won the Best Supporting Actor award. However, I believe that Dana Andrews was again the central core in this film that also featured outstanding performances by Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Virginia Mayo.

Andrews plays an Air Force Captain and bombardier who is haunted by horrific dreams and memories of lost comrades. His on-again, off-again, on-again romance with Teresa Wright is played beautifully and is central to the film. He also appears alone in what is a pivotal scene near the end of the film. He has lost his job, and his wife, and a new romance has hit the rocks. He is about to leave his hometown and waits at the airport for a flight to anywhere. He sees some de-commissioned and stripped-down bombers waiting for the scrap heap. He climbs into one and sits in the dusty cabin and the war memories come back. There is no dialogue but gradually we hear the engines starting one by one, and then the sounds of battle run through his head. It is one of the most iconic scenes in film history, filmed beautifully by famed cinematographer Gregg Toland. 

 

In between these two great films, Andrews starred in the 1945 war film, A Walk in the Sun directed by Lewis Milestone. He plays a sergeant forced to take command of a platoon after the death or incapacity of its leaders. His quiet competence keeps the platoon together on its mission. At the same time, he is the central core that keeps a fine cast together. Like most WWII films the platoon is full of characters, and they each get a chance to shine. At my age, it is difficult to watch war films anymore, but I can watch A Walk in the Sun over and over again. It is a faithful adaptation of Harry Brown’s small novel about ordinary men engaged in a dangerous mission, and Andrews’ performance helps to make it a classic. 

Today, it is hard to imagine that most people have not seen these films. I know my grandchildren don’t like to watch black and white films, and even baby boomers at my local senior center have never heard of them. But the directing, the photography, the sets, the writing, the great casts, and the haunting musical scores that permeate these films make them true classics that can be watched over and over again like any great work of art. The fact that Dana Andrews played an unforgettable role in each of these films earns him a place in Hollywood's Hall of Fame.

 

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Anna Magnani: The Rose Tattoo

At a local library book sale, I picked up a DVD of The Rose Tattoo, a 1955 film adaptation of the play by Tennessee Williams, one of the foremost American playwrights of the twentieth century. I had seen the film years ago, but my memory of the plot was muddled. I did recall that the film starred Anna Magnani, an Italian actress, and Burt Lancaster, the well-known American film star.

While watching the film at home, I turned to my wife and said that Magnani must have won an Academy Award for her performance, something that a quick online check verified. Magnani played a Sicilian woman who had come to America after her peasant family had arranged a marriage for her with an Italian man working as a truck driver in the American South. Initially fearful of marrying an unknown and unseen man, her fears were overcome on their first meeting. He was a handsome hunk with a beautiful rose tattoo on his formidable chest. He also had a touch of nobility in his blood. She came to adore the man whom she claimed was a baron.

Unfortunately, after fifteen years of marriage the man turns out to be a smuggler who transports more than bananas in his truck. At the beginning of the film, he dies in a truck accident while fleeing the police. She is left alone with a beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter to care for and must eke out a living as a seamstress in her home. Worse gets worse when rumors begin to fly that her beloved husband had been a philanderer.

The rumors foul the memory and reputation of her spouse, and most of the film deals with her efforts to deal with them. Complicating things is the intrusion of another Italian truck driver with a body like her late husband’s but with little else. He is poor and clownish and played well by Burt Lancaster in an unfamiliar role. There is also a subplot involving a budding romance between her daughter and a young sailor.

However, the movie is all Magnani. Tennessee Williams said that he wrote the original stage play with her in mind after seeing her in post-war Italian neo-realist films. He called her “volcanic,” and she certainly is. There had never been anything like her before in American films. In The Rose Tattoo she is earthy, vivacious, and sensual all at the same time. In a word, she is Italian. Subsequently, she would be followed in American by other fiery Italian actresses: Gina Loll0brigida and Sophia Loren come immediately to mind.  

Coincidentally, in 1955 the Best Actor award went to Ernest Borgnine, himself an Italian immigrant, who played a second-generation Italian American butcher in Marty which that year won the award for Best Picture. Looking back I can see that the success of these two films was a remarkable achievement that marked the acceptance of Italian immigrants in America. It took three generations but Rome was not built in a day. 

Since Edward G. Robinson played an Al Capone like ruthless gang boss in the 1930s, Italians had usually been portrayed as either mobsters or cheap hoodlums. There were some notable exceptions but 1955 marked a real turning point. It’s true that mob films like the Godfather were yet to come, but Marty and The Rose Tattoo portrayed Italian Americans as ordinary people, albeit full of life and emotion.

I often think that most people living through great historical changes do not realize what is going on. During the Italian renaissance, for example, I doubt if most people had even heard of Leonardo, Raphael or Michelangelo. I was a sixteen-year-old third generation Italian American living in New York City in 1955 and I do not recall seeing either of these films at the time. I certainly did not think that films like these had any historical importance.

My paternal grandparents had moved out of their Italian neighborhood in Manhattan years before to Woodside, a section of the borough of Queens that was then, as well as now, a true melting pot. On my block facing busy 69^th Street, there was an Italian barbershop on one corner, and an Irish family on the other. In the center of the block my parents lived above a deli next to my grandparents’ home. The deli was run by a German American family as was the neighborhood soda fountain and candy store across the street. My parents could understand Italian but only used it with their parents, not with their children. They wanted their children to be American.

Now that I think of it, perhaps nothing contributed more to the acceptance of Italian Americans than the success of baseball’s New York Yankees. Before his retirement in 1951 the Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio had been the best player on the greatest team in baseball. Even after his retirement, the Yankees, led by Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto, went on to complete a string of five straight World Series victories. I think it safe to say that the Yankees were beloved in New York’s Italian American community. It is true that 1955 was not a good year for the Yankees. In that year they lost to the hated Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, and the great DiMaggio’s marriage with movie idol Marilyn Monroe came to an end. 

Nevertheless, 1955 marked the real arrival of Italians in America. The way was open for films like Moonstruck and My Cousin Vinny as well as the Godfather epic with its host of imitators in both the movies and on TV. Of course, it would not be long before pizza would become as American as apple pie.

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Gene Tierney: American Beauty

Gene Tierney was one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In the 1940s her great beauty launched her into stardom but she managed to become a fine actress as well. Unfortunately, behind the glamour was a bad marriage, a daughter born severely retarded due to exposure to German measles, and mental illness that ultimately brought an end to her career and almost to her life. 

 Here are the opening lines of her autobiography, appropriately titled, Self Portrait.

“It is a terrible thing to feel no fear, no alarm, when you are standing on a window ledge fourteen stories above the street. I felt tired, lost, and numb—but unafraid.

I wasn’t at all certain I wanted to take my own life, I cat-walked a few steps away from the open window and steadied myself, to think about it. The fact that I could no longer make decisions was why I had gone to the ledge in the first place. What to wear, when to get out of bed, which can of soup to buy, how to go on living, the most automatic task confused and depressed me.

I felt everything but fear. The fear comes to me now, twenty years later, knowing that at any moment I might have lost my balance. Then the decision would not have been mine. On that day, if I jumped or fell, either way would have been all right. There is a point where the brain is so deadened, the spirit so weary, you don’t want any more of what life is dishing out. I thought I was there.”

         

Tierney had been born in Brooklyn in 1920 but was largely raised in suburban Fairfield, Connecticut. Her parents were well off and even sent her to an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland during her high school years. At eighteen her family made a trip to Hollywood, where on a studio tour an executive, struck by her incredible beauty, asked her to take a screen test. A year later, after acting lessons back home and a small part in a Broadway play, she was back in Hollywood under contract to a major studio.

At first the studio did not know what to do with her. There was something exotic about her good looks and she was cast in a number of roles that had little to do with the person she was.

In 1942, for example,  she was cast as a charming South Sea  island girl in Son of Fury, an action adventure starring matinee idol Tyrone Power. In this film she hardly speaks of word of English, but her breathtaking beauty and innocence makes an indelible impression. 

Here is a list of what I consider to be her best films.

 

Laura: In 1944 Tierney became a full-fledged star playing the title role in this murder mystery that is now generally regarded as one of the greatest films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. 

Otto Preminger’s  direction of Laura received an Academy award nomination, and cameraman Joseph LaShelle won the Academy Award for best black and white cinematography. 

The cast was superb. Dana Andrews, playing a police detective, turned in his usual solid performance. In his screen debut Clifton Webb played a sophisticated, acerbic, and influential newspaper columnist, and received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

Nevertheless, Gene Tierney stands out in Laura. From the opening credits even her portrait on the wall of her beautifully designed apartment dominates the film. But it is not just her looks. She plays a sophisticated urbanite whose  deportment and manner make everyone in the film, even her maid, fall in love with her. Her costumes, designed by famed Bonnie Cashin, are a lesson in how clothes define and make the man, or woman in this case.

 

It is hard to imagine that a whole generation has not seen this film. But the directing, the photography, the sets, the writing, the great cast, and the haunting song and score that permeates the film make it a true classic. It can be watched over and over again like any great work of art.

Leave Her to Heaven: Tierney’s performance in Laura led to a starring role in Leave Her to Heaven, a 1945 Technicolor drama that almost exulted in her good looks as well as the looks of co-stars Cornell Wilde and Jeanne Crain. 

Nevertheless, it is a dark film. Once again, Tierney gets to play a beautiful, accomplished young woman but this time jealousy and suspicion, that today we would call mental illness, lead to the break-up of her marriage and terrible tragedy.

In one unforgettable and terrible scene, her beauty only accentuates the horror of what is going on while she sits placidly in a rowboat while a young boy drowns nearby. Her performance in Leave Her to Heaven, gained an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

 

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: In 1947 she starred along with Rex Harrison in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Tierney played an independent young widow with a young daughter who moves into a seaside cottage reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a deceased English sea captain. It is a charming story beautifully told and acted by the principals with a wonderful musical score by Bernard Herrmann.

Whirlpool : In this 1950 suspense drama, Tierney played a sophisticated suburban housewife who turns to a devious hypnotist for help in dealing with a secret mental illness. Her husband, played by Richard Conte, is a psychiatrist who is totally unaware of his wife’s sickness. Perhaps in this film she came closest to portraying her real self and her impending mental illness.

Where the Sidewalk Ends:  This little-known film is now recognized as a quintessential film noir classic. It is like a Laura reunion. Tierney is reunited with Laura co-star Dana Andrews, director Otto Preminger, and cinematographer Joseph LaShelle.The film is another psychological crime drama but centers around Dana Andrews who plays a rogue cop. Tierney, still beautiful, played what amounts to a supporting role. 

Her career would continue through the next decade but mental illness although it could not mar her beauty, limited her ability to work and she never regained her previous success or stature.

 In her autobiography, she tells the whole story not only of her screen career but also of her battle with the illness that brought her to the edge of death on that fourteenth story window ledge. Fortunately, her story had a happy ending.

 

 

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French Film Noir

  

 

American films could not be shown in Nazi occupied France during World War II, but after the war the flood gates were opened, and the French became enamored of the dark crime films of the 1940s that French film critics called film noir. Jean Pierre Melville, one of France’s greatest directors, even named himself after the famous American novelist. In Le Samourai, one of his best films, the main character, played by Alain Delon, resembles the young Clint Eastwood in looks and manner.

French filmmakers emulated these American dramas with their dark themes, dark lighting, both indoors and out, and underworld settings. They also humanized the criminals in the way American films like The Asphalt Jungle and Criss Cross did. The French criminals are ordinary men, not psychotic killers. They make their living through crime but usually hope to make enough to retire into normal life. Below are brief reviews of four French film noir.  Although not as well known as Rififi or Shoot the Piano Player, they are among my personal favorites.

 

Touchez Pas au Grisbi: Famed French film star Jean Gabin plays Max, a gentleman French gangster who hopes to retire after pulling off his last most successful heist. However, things go wrong in this French film noir set in the streets of post-war Paris when Max’s partner is kidnapped by rival gangsters and held for ransom.

Max is no psycho or evil villain. He dresses well, and he eats well. He dines at a bistro where the clientele are all gangsters, and the proprietress will not seat strangers or tourists.  We even see him getting ready for bed wearing pajamas and brushing his teeth. His girlfriend is no floozy but a sophisticated gentlewoman. He is also consistently loyal to his partner whose foolishness gets them into trouble  Jacques Becker directed this 1954 film that also featured a young Jeanne Moreau. 94m.    

 

Classe Tous Risques: French director Claude Sautet directed this 1960 crime drama that stars Lino Ventura, a former wrestler turned actor. After hiding out in Milan for over a decade, a fugitive gangland chief, returns to France with his wife and two young sons even though a death sentence hangs over his head. 

Ventura plays a tough guy, and he looks and acts the part, but his character is a devoted husband and family man despite his occupation. His relationship with his two young sons endears him to us. In France, he seeks a normal life, but his old associates have all become respectable businessmen and try to keep their distance. He is only assisted by the young Jean-Paul Belmondo in a role that makes us see why he became such an international star. 104m.

 

Le Doulos: Jean-Pierre Melville directed this 1963 French crime thriller that stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as an enigmatic gangster who may or may not be responsible for squealing on a fellow mobster played by Serge Reggiani. The word “Doulos” is gangland jargon for an informer. Once again, our hearts go out to the criminal who has finally found the right girl, as well as a home in the countryside where he can escape his past and live a normal life. Shot and edited with Melville’s trademark cool, and featuring masterfully stylized dialogue and performances, Le Doulos is a gripping drama right to its tragic ending. 108m.

                  

Le Samourai: Jean-Pierre Melville also directed this 1967 mixture of 1940s American gangster movies, 1960s French pop culture, and Japanese lone-warrior mythology. As noted above Alain Delon, who looks and acts a lot like the young Clint Eastwood, plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. After a successful hit, his employers attempt to kill him rather than pay him off. He becomes hunted by them and the police. 

For some reason we sympathize with Delon’s character as he goes about his business. It is a business, and he shows very little emotion. Like the warriors in the Japanese samurai epics he has his own code of behavior to which he faithfully adheres. A deadly killer, he is still kind and caring toward his girlfriend, a call girl played by his beautiful wife Nathalie Delon. Shot in subdued color, Melville’s masterpiece defines cool. 103m.

These films may be available on streaming services but I still prefer to use DVDs. There are no ads, and the discs often come with interesting commentaries. It is truly amazing that we can all have our own collection of great film art that we can watch over and over again at no cost.

Here is a link to reviews by the famed movie critics, Siskel and Ebert on the German classic "M", and Le Samourai, or watch the brief video below.

 

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