2022 Blindspot Pick #1: National Velvet (1944)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Family, Sports

A girl once loved a rebel horse,
As girls so often do.
She saw its gentle side within,
And by her gentleness, it grew.

She watched and loved its every move
And praised its every feat.
What others feared and labeled wild
She kissed, caressed, and called it sweet.

She never bore a single doubt
Of what her horse could do.
If she imagined it could fly,
The horse and she would make it true.

The doubts of others held no sway,
As mountains scoff at breeze,
For love’s conviction can make real
The smallest chance no other sees.
________________________

MPA rating:  Passed (easily G)

I may be a month late for my first Blindspot, but I’m still better off than the last couple years when I didn’t get started till April. For no particular reason, I decided to start with the oldest film on my 2022 Blindspot list, 1944’s National Velvet. This is a film my mom convinced me to see, and I wasn’t expecting much since I’m not a big fan of horses. So it was an utterly pleasant surprise to find it an absolute gem deserving of its classic status.

Set in England and based on a 1935 Enid Bagnold novel, National Velvet stars a twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor (in her first major role) as Velvet Brown, a country girl obsessed with horses who is thrilled to win a brown beauty she calls The Pie. Befriending Velvet is Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney, not even attempting a British accent), a former jockey whose self-serving instincts are won over by Velvet’s earnestness until he agrees to train The Pie for the illustrious Grand National race.

Older films like this can easily suffer from dated or exaggerated acting, but National Velvet is outstanding in every regard. While Velvet’s oddball little brother (Jackie “Butch” Jenkins) is an exception, I loved the warm portrayal of her family, from Angela Lansbury’s boy-crazy sister to Donald Crisp’s gregarious father. However, the standout and the winner of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar is Anne Revere as the family matriarch, seemingly stern and stoic but with a warm-hearted affection just below the surface as she verbally spars with her husband and encourages her daughter to chase her dreams. The family could be compared with the Morgan clan of How Green Was My Valley, which also starred Crisp as a father among lovely British countryside a few years earlier, but the Browns won me over even more than the Morgans.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I don’t think I’d ever seen an Elizabeth Taylor film before, unless you count her brief introduction in That’s Entertainment! I’ll have to see more, but it’s clear from this first major role that she was a star in the making, her guileless determination making Velvet a perfect cheer-worthy underdog. Likewise, Rooney shows dramatic grit beyond his lighthearted musicals, and I enjoyed his character’s moral transformation over the course of the film. The commitment of both leads makes the final race a nail-biting climax; even if you may assume what the result will be, it still bucks predictability. (It also features some surprisingly realistic horse falls, making me think films like this led to more stringent protections for animals on film sets.)

I’ve known girls like Velvet who are obsessed with horses, including my own mother who loved books like Misty of Chincoteague. I’ve never been enamored of them like that, so I wasn’t expecting much from National Velvet. As I so often quote from La La Land, “people love what other people are passionate about,” and the devoted enthusiasm of Velvet Brown made me root for The Pie just like her. I love when expectations are blasted away, and National Velvet is a pure, eloquent family classic that left me smiling for much of its runtime. Now that’s the way to start a Blindspot series.

Best line: (Mrs. Brown, to Velvet) “We’re alike. I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life. I was twenty when they said a woman couldn’t swim the Channel. You’re twelve; you think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your dream has come early, but remember, Velvet, it will have to last you all the rest of your life.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2022 S.G. Liput
756 Followers and Counting

2021 Blindspot Pick #12: The Apartment (1960)

Tags

Classics, Comedy, Drama, Romance

If the world has left you no control
Of life or love, of plan or goal,
And made you think there’s no escape
From reality in its present shape,
Then I would say it’s worth reminding
You that inertia can be blinding,
Magnifying common stress
Into a mirage of helplessness.

You are still the one who chooses
All of your actions and excuses.
They can change and so can you
With simple thought and follow-through.
____________________________

MPA rating: Approved (nothing explicit but a definite PG-13 for subject matter)

Ah ha! I’ve done it. After school and life got me so behind, I have finally caught up and completed my 2021 Blindspot series before the end of the year! And I’m capping things off with the Best Picture winner of 1960, which fittingly happens to end on New Year’s Eve as well. I’d always heard about how The Apartment was such a classic and decided it was finally time to see why, and it gave me a rare shift of opinion.

When I reviewed Strictly Ballroom years ago, I was flabbergasted at how it started as a movie I couldn’t stand and yet ended up being sweet and romantic in the second half. I had a similar experience here. The apartment of the title belongs to insurance clerk Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon), though he rarely gets to enjoy it. Based on promises of promotions from his superiors in the company, he agrees to let them use his apartment for their frequent affairs, leaving them a key while he goes out. Even his own manager Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) expects his cooperation, and Baxter is pliant enough to just look the other way, at least until he learns of the involvement of his elevator-operator crush Ms. Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine).

Once I was knee-deep into the film, both my VC and I realized we didn’t like the premise one bit, even if we might sound like the fuddy-duddy critics of the ‘60s. There’s hardly anyone worth liking. Baxter’s boss is a proven womanizer, Ms. Kubelik is too weak and besotted to put an end to being used, and Baxter himself, despite Lemmon’s natural genteel charisma, is a spineless enabler to all this adultery, repeatedly taking the blame to cover up his managers’ infidelity. Perhaps Billy Wilder’s direction and witty script are supposed to make up for the moral vacancy of a plot that is probably (and sadly) all too accurate in its depiction of extramarital dalliances, but it wasn’t endearing to me.

And then… it turned a corner. One reckless move to put an end to the whole situation leads to a sudden surge of character growth and accompanying sympathy. Baxter and Ms. Kubelik get a chance to actually talk and bond outside of their passings in the elevator, and the story becomes not just an exposé of the characters’ moral failings but a chance for them to improve themselves. As Baxter’s doctor neighbor (Jack Kruschen) encourages him, “Be a mensch.” The ending left me smiling and satisfied in a way I never would have expected based on the first half of the film.

I still fail to see why it’s lauded as one of the greatest films of all time, but The Apartment proved its worth as a classic, eventually anyway. Lemmon and MacLaine make a perfect pair, and their Oscar-nominated performances run the gamut from screwball comedy to some surprisingly dark moments. The premise still doesn’t appeal to me, but I liked how it is used by the end to further Baxter’s self-confidence and give him something worth caring about more than his job. Like Strictly Ballroom, it’s proof that you should withhold judgment not just from a story’s cover but should probably wait all the way to the end, appraisal-wise.

Best line: (Baxter, referring to her compact) “The mirror… it’s broken.”  (Ms. Kubelik) “Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.”

Rank:  Honorable Mention

© 2021 S.G. Liput
748 Followers and Counting

A very Happy New Year to everyone, and here’s hoping for a much better 2022!

2021 Blindspot Pick #11: A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Fantasy, Romance

If I should die before I wed,
I pray the Lord won’t keep me dead,
But let me live a longer life
So I can find and woo a wife,
For this film shows there is a chance,
Depending on the circumstance.
_________________________

MPA rating: PG

If it wasn’t obvious, yes, I am in full-on catch-up mode to finish my 2021 Blindspots before the end of the year. I wasn’t sure what to expect from A Matter of Life and Death (released as Stairway to Heaven in the U.S.), the oldest film on my Blindspot list and one that I had heard was as beloved in Britain as It’s a Wonderful Life is here in America. That’s not a bad comparison since they were both released in 1946, in the wake of World War II, and deal with a fantasy scenario of heavenly players appraising a man’s life.

Before British airman Peter Carter (David Niven) jumps without a parachute from his damaged plane, he shares a brief but sincere conversation with an American radio operator named June (Kim Hunter). Somehow, he survives and wakes uninjured on the English shore the next day, quickly seeking out June to begin a relationship with this unexpected chance at life. However, the “Other World” realizes Carter should have died if not for the thick fog that kept his Conductor (Marius Goring, playing extremely French) from collecting him. While a doctor (Roger Livesey) investigates the survivor for brain damage, Carter must appeal to have his life extended, citing his newfound love of June and eventually appearing before a celestial courtroom to plead his case.

Considering I had never heard of it before last year, A Matter of Life and Death was actually a fascinating watch, one whose influence was present even when I didn’t recognize it. For example, the early conversation between Peter and June over the radio before his expected demise was definitely echoed at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger, and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey featured a suspiciously similar staircase lined with statues of famous people. However, the biggest inspiration borrower goes to last year’s Soul. Just like Inside Out was not without precedent (Herman’s Head, anyone?), Soul undoubtedly borrowed some of this film’s imagery, from the escalator slowly ascending to “another world” that is never explicitly called heaven to the large round portals that celestial workers look down through to view Earth below, not to mention the repeated name-dropping of famous historical figures. That’s not a slight, of course; I still love Soul, more than this film to be honest, but I enjoy being able to recognize cinematic influences. If anything, it helps me appreciate both the borrower and the original source even more.

That being said, A Matter of Life and Death struggles at times to make the pacing as engaging as its script and imaginative imagery. I know it’s not uncommon in these old movies, but I found it a little hard to swallow that Peter and June would be all lovey-dovey, calling each other “darling,” immediately after meeting in person for the first time, a stretch that comes up in the trial too. Plus, the middle section loses some steam as the plot switches between Goring’s French aristocrat explaining things to Carter and the minutiae of the doctor’s theory about Carter’s medical condition. Similar to yesterday’s Blindspot Anthem of the Heart, there’s intentional doubt as to whether Carter’s celestial deadline and trial are actually real or all in his head, the result of a deteriorating brain injury. The ambiguity is handled better here, allowing enough room for either theory to be true or both even.

When the film really gets intriguing is during the trial of the last third, when a host of thought-provoking themes parade throughout the legal arguments. The prosecutor is an American killed during the Revolutionary War, whose belief in American exceptionalism is matched only by his prejudice against the British, Carter included. While I feel like the film spent more time than needed on the prejudice angle, it was a fascinating debate, with discussions of Britain’s checkered colonial history, America’s melting pot population, and the role of racism in deciding on one’s character. On top of that, the film is rife with poetry, inventive camerawork, and a rare mixture of black-and-white and color, leaving the Other World in pearly whites and shadows while Earth enjoys Technicolor, sort of a reversal of The Wizard of Oz.

There’s quite a bit to appreciate about A Matter of Life and Death, and I feel that further viewings could make me admire it even more. Yet despite its dewy-eyed romance, it’s more cerebral than the sentimentality of It’s a Wonderful Life, which has also benefited from my watching it every year as both a Christmas favorite and my dad’s favorite film ever. One viewing didn’t make this an instant favorite for me personally (which could change in the future), but A Matter of Life and Death deserves its reputation and even greater exposure to American audiences.

Best line: (Abraham Farlan, the prosecutor) “You claim you love her.”
(Peter Carter) “I do love her!”
(Farlan) “Can you prove it?”
(Carter) “Well, give me time, sir. Fifty years will do.”
(Farlan) “But can you prove it?”
(Carter) “Well, can a starving man prove he’s hungry except by eating?”
(Farlan) “Would you die for her?”
(Carter) “I would, but, er, I’d rather live.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
748 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #2: Double Indemnity (1944)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Romance, Thriller

A murderer for money never thinks that he or she
Will be found out like all the rest who murdered foolishly.
“Those others never thought it through; they never planned it out;
They just weren’t careful to remove the slightest shred of doubt.
They acted on an impulse, failed to hide the fatal flaw,
But we would know exactly how to circumvent the law.
We’re smarter, right? More clever, right? When one of us commits,
No justice could contend in this, the coldest war of wits.”

Deep down within the killer’s mind, unconsciously or not,
They soothe themselves with thoughts like these to justify their plot.
And always they delude themselves, for justice, soon or late,
Will find out every criminal and lead them to their fate.
________________________

Rating: Passed/Approved (an easy PG)

Darn, I did not expect to post only one review in the whole month of May, but college is as college does. Nevertheless, I’m back to continue my long-delayed Blindspot series. (Now I’m only four behind this year!) I’ve heard of Double Indemnity for years, noticing its high placement on lists by AFI and other film organizations, yet I never really knew what the name even meant, not being versed in insurance terminology. As it turns out, I’ve seen versions of this plot plenty of times on true crime shows, but this influential film noir treatment brought it to a national audience way back in 1944.

Based on a James M. Cain novella, the script for Double Indemnity was the result of a tenuous collaboration between director Billy Wilder and famed detective novelist Raymond Chandler. As such, it utilizes a clever tool for narration; right from the beginning, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) admits into a dictaphone his role in the death of a man named Dietrichson, beginning an extended flashback of his plot. After meeting the man’s alluring wife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), Neff allows her to talk him into a murder conspiracy to get rid of her distant husband and collect on some ill-gotten life insurance, with Neff using his insurance experience to sweeten the pot with a double indemnity clause (which doubles the payment in the case of certain unlikely causes of death, such as a train accident). Yet, their “perfect crime” slowly unravels as Neff’s boss (Edward G. Robinson) becomes more and more suspicious during the investigation.

I haven’t seen many films of the film noir genre, but Double Indemnity certainly fits the bill with its shadowy angles and conspiratorial tension and indeed predates the widespread use of the term by a couple years. Plus, Barbara Stanwyck is a quintessential femme fatale figure, manipulating McMurray’s everyman character into taking charge of the plot she initiates. The film was apparently controversial for its portrayal of murder, which is tame by today’s standards, but the characters’ growing anxiety after the deed is done translates well to the audience. As Neff is forced to “assist” Robinson’s skeptical insurance man in following a trail that leads back to him, I happened to think of other similar plots that must have taken some inspiration from this one, such as 1987’s No Way Out.

Double Indemnity is a Grade-A film noir, but I can’t say it’s a new favorite since film noir is far from my favorite genre. Neff and Stanwyck do a fine job as the conspirators, but their cynically flowery dialogue, sometimes clever, is also sometimes a bit much, carrying on metaphors in ways people just don’t talk, though that’s mainly at the beginning. Robinson, though, is in top form here, stealing his scenes with a vocal panache that can’t be taught. I don’t always have to love a film to recognize it as a classic, and Double Indemnity is, another cinematic testament to the lesson “crime does not pay.”

Best line: (Neff) “Do I laugh now, or wait till it gets funny?”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
689 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #1: What a Way to Go! (1964)

Tags

Classics, Comedy, Musical, Romance

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about a homemade gift, so I merged one I’ve given myself with the set-up of a classic ‘60s film.)

I asked a rich woman what she valued most
Of all the excess she possessed.
She told me of gems from the Ivory Coast,
But they were not what she loved best.

Her multiple husbands had filled her accounts
And heaped her with riches obscene.
But Fabergé eggs and saffron by the ounce
No longer enticed such a queen.

The canvas and carvings of classical pros,
Which every museum would covet,
Served only to gild both the lily and rose,
For only one thing made her love it.

A small piece of paper with “I Heart You” on it
From when her first love was dirt poor.
It quite overshadowed a jewel or a sonnet,
For less with nostalgia is more.
__________________________

MPA rating: Approved (due to some steamy romantic scenes, I’d say it straddles the line between PG and PG-13)

It’s a shameful embarrassment that it’s taken four months for me to finally review the first of my Blindspot picks. Life and work and a certain virus have just delayed my access to actually watching any of the twelve movies I selected at the beginning of the year, but here at last I have begun my catch-up. Before I chose my picks, my mom told me that 1964’s What a Way to Go was one of my late dad’s favorite movies, which surprised me because I never saw it with him or heard him talk about it. But he introduced it to her, and now she’s done the same for me.

Black comedies are a difficult balance of two contrasting genres, so what would such a balance look like in the comparative innocence of a 1964 film? What a Way to Go! is the answer. Shirley MacLaine plays a young widow trying to get rid of her vast amounts of wealth, her inheritance from multiple dead husbands, and after a psychiatrist (Bob Cummings) thinks she’s crazy, she recounts the varied tales of how she accidentally led her lovers to both wild success and early graves.

The best thing about What a Way to Go! is its cast: Dean Martin as a snooty playboy, Dick Van Dyke as an everyman-turned-busybody, Robert Mitchum as a suave millionaire, Gene Kelly as a talented performer, and Paul Newman (as I’ve never seen him before) playing a gruff expatriate. Some of the roles are tailor-made for the actor, such as Gene Kelly’s presence allowing for a song-and-dance number, while others seem designed to make them play against type. It seemed odd seeing Shirley MacLaine so young and attractive when I’ve mainly seen her as a grumpy older lady in Terms of Endearment or Steel Magnolias, but she does a great job as the unluckily lucky widow, even holding her own alongside Gene Kelly when dancing.Most of the goings-on are fairly silly, with the husbands’ unusual (non-graphic) deaths earning more laughs than grief, including a gag that’s crept up elsewhere about trying to milk a male cow. I especially liked how each marriage is compared with a different film genre, launching into a series of vignettes recalling silent comedies, foreign art films, musicals, or posh dramas with ridiculously extravagant costumes from the great Edith Head. All in all, What a Way to Go! was a delightful bit of lightweight absurdity, finding hilarity in repeated tragedy and managing to land a happy ending. It certainly looked like everyone involved had fun making it, as I did watching it.

Best lines: (announcer) “Tonight, in ‘Flaming Lips,’ Pinky Benson proved that a comedy can run five and a half hours. Earlier today, Pinky told us his next film will run seven and a half hours.”

and

(Larry Flint/Paul Newman) “Money corrupts. Art erupts.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
680 Followers and Counting

 

Little Women (1994)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Family, Romance

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem about flowers taking on certain meanings, so I decided to compare flowers with the little women of this film.)

A family of daughters is like a bouquet
Of flowers, all different, that brighten the day.

The rose offers beauty and layers of grace,
With thorns to keep those who would pluck in their place.

The daisy seems simple, but as you look nearer,
Complexity waits for the few who revere her.

The lily looks shy with its petals locked tight
But opens up wide when it knows love and light.

And baby’s breath sighs with its placeholder status
Yet binds us all close in an elegant lattice.

From practical pansy to sumptuous mum,
Each woman and bloom are just right as they come.
_____________________

MPA rating: PG

After thoroughly loving Greta Gerwig’s most recent adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel, I had to check out 1994’s similarly acclaimed version from Gillian Armstrong. With such a classic story and relatable characters, it’s clearly hard to go wrong, since this also proved to be a wonderful rendition, even if it didn’t quite match its most recent sister.

The ensemble is full of stars in their prime in the ‘90s: Winona Ryder as Jo, Kirsten Dunst (and later Samantha Mathis) as Amy, Claire Danes as Beth, Trini Alvarado (of Paulie) as Meg, Susan Sarandon as Marmee, and Christian Bale as Laurie, not to mention Gabriel Byrne, Eric Stoltz, and Mary Wickes as well. Unlike Gerwig’s non-linear narrative, jumping back and forth across a four-year gap, this version plays its events in order, which is easier to follow as the March sisters grow up, finding love, heartache, and joy along the way.

So how do the two versions compare? Over and over, I recognized scenes and interactions (which obviously means they came from the book), and I liked them here but couldn’t help preferring the more recent film’s take on them, which might have been reversed if I’d seen this version first. Much of the dialogue that I so loved in the 2019 film wasn’t the same here, a testament to Gerwig’s contribution, yet I still appreciated its simple, often humorous elegance. Individual characters were harder to decide on. Meryl Streep was certainly a more memorable Aunt March than Wickes was. Winona Ryder and Saorsie Ronan are evenly matched as Jo, considering I have a crush on both, but I thought Christian Bale made a more sympathetic Laurie than Timothée Chalamet. Likewise, Friedrich and Jo’s relationship felt slightly more natural and fleshed out here than in the remake.

I must admit one embarrassing thing. I kept being confused by certain differences I viewed as creative choices. Why did they keep giving Beth’s actions to Amy? Only halfway through did I realize I had Beth and Amy mixed up, thanks largely to the casting of the 2019 film. In that one, Florence Pugh plays both the younger and older Amy, but because she looks and is older than Eliza Scanlen as Beth, I thought Amy was the third eldest of the girls, which threw me off when 12-year-old Kirsten Dunst’s Amy was clearly the youngest in the 1994 film. It’s hard to say which is the better option, though. In this film, I thought that the replacement of Dunst with Mathis after the 4-year gap sapped some of the bond formed with Amy, so I can see why keeping the same actress might be desirable, if slightly confusing for people like me. I should really just read the novel.

Ultimately, I loved both versions because they both bring this story to life in a brilliantly traditional way. So many 19^th-century period pieces are centered in Victorian England or focus on some war or significant historical event, so it’s a rare treat to glimpse into the everyday lives of Americans from this time. I may be partial to Gerwig’s incarnation, but both films share a stellar cast and engaging wholesomeness that are equally refreshing.

Best line: (Jo, after Laurie proposes) “Neither of us can keep our temper…”
(Laurie) “I can, unless provoked.”
(Jo) “We’re both stupidly stubborn, especially you. We’d only quarrel!”
(Laurie) “I wouldn’t!”
(Jo) “You can’t even propose without quarreling.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy (I’ll tie it with the 2019 version)

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
679 Followers and Counting

The Naked Spur (1953)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Western

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to seek inspiration from a line or phrase from one of the many poetry-themed Twitter bots out there. I found mine, the first line below, from @PercyBotShelley.)

I found shelter in scorn;
I found solace in slurs.
For my drug was disdain,
Just to make the world worse.

My sidearm was spite
And my comfort contempt.
No man was above it,
No woman exempt.

My past was my pain,
Carved upon a stone heart,
It solid would stay
Till my soul would depart.

Or so I once thought.
I had no cause to doubt,
Till love chanced to rain
On a life lived in drought.
_________________________

MPA rating: Passed (I’d say a PG)

With so many recent films to catch up on, it’s been too long since I reviewed an older movie. Westerns have never been my favorite genre, but I can appreciate a good one, and as a fan of Jimmy Stewart, I thought I’d check out one of his best-reviewed films. (Incidentally, he had 14 that have garnered a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and this is one of them.)

Stewart plays a bounty hunter named Howard Kemp, who is seeking the wanted murderer Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan). Despite initial reluctance, he gains the help of a gold-crazed prospector (Millard Mitchell) and a “morally unstable” ex-soldier (Ralph Meeker), and the three are able to capture Vandergroat and his naïve accomplice Lina (Janet Leigh). Feeling they all deserve a cut of the reward money, the three impromptu lawmen begin the trek to deliver their quarry to justice in Kansas, but Vandergroat begins sowing seeds of discord in their uneasy collaboration.

More so than other westerns I’ve seen, The Naked Spur felt especially well-written, with a special focus on the psychological side of suspicion and desperation. That’s likely why it managed to snag a Best Screenplay nomination at the Oscars, a rare feat for the genre. The way the murderer manipulates his captors is well-played, and all five of the small cast give excellent performances. Stewart’s grizzled and cynical character is almost like a subversion of his past idealistic roles and proves his range as an actor.

Unfortunately, the chemistry between Stewart and Leigh is strained by their age difference, and the ending feels too rushed. I see what the writers were trying to do, demonstrating the importance of letting go of vengeance, but in context, it felt like a dumb decision in service of some symbolism. Nevertheless, the ending aside, The Naked Spur was one of the better westerns I’ve seen and one more Jimmy Stewart movie I can check off my to-watch list.

Best line: (Ben Vandergroat) “Choosin’ a way to die – what’s the difference? Choosin’ a way to live – that’s the hard part.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
676 Followers and Counting

2019 Blindspot Pick #9: Vertigo (1958)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Hitchcock, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

The birds in flight
May love their height
And laugh at bounded, grounded man,
But gravity
Can guarantee
That staying low’s a better plan.

Some love the thrill,
The view, the will
To see a limit and defy,
Yet none deny
That when you’re high,
It’s so much easier to die.
_____________________

MPAA rating: PG

Vertigo has to be the most critically lauded among my Blindspots this year, and I was quite curious to see whether it would match its reputation, since so many Hitchcock movies have fallen short, for me at least. Vertigo lands somewhere in the middle, confirming my opinion that Hitchcock mostly excelled in creating tension in individual scenes rather than whole movies.

The fourth and last collaboration between Hitchcock and star Jimmy Stewart, Vertigo is a tale of obsession that toys with the possibility of the supernatural. Stewart plays John “Scottie” Ferguson, a cop who retired after a deadly experience with heights but is commissioned by wealthy friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) to investigate Elster’s wife Madeleine (Kim Novak) and her sudden strange behavior. As he learns more about her connection to a suicidal ancestor and develops a relationship with her, he encounters secrets and mysteries that shake him to his core.

As a fan of film, I can say that I am definitively glad to have finally seen this classic of cinema, an oversight that represents exactly what this Blindspot series is meant to solve. Yet it doesn’t hold the same fascination for me that it apparently does for so many. Perhaps it’s because the film’s intrigue was such a rollercoaster. It starts out interesting enough with Stewart as his ever-likable self, but the story really drags during his investigation, which consists of far too much of him wordlessly following Madeleine by car. Maybe it’s just me, but the picture below doesn’t do much for me in the way of tension.

Then comes a famous scene in a bell tower, which is indeed one of Hitchcock’s best for buildup and shock value. Not too much longer, and the reveal of the mystery left my brain working overtime, surprised at the unanticipated twist and giving me a new appreciation for the storyline. Yet what follows becomes a somewhat uncomfortable exercise in obsessive grief (including a weirdly unnecessary psychedelic dream), played out through what would be a deeply unhealthy relationship if not for the audience’s knowledge of its psychological underpinnings. How it ends, while effective, is also anything but satisfying, so abrupt that it made me recall how much I despise the final scenes in North by Northwest and An American Werewolf in London. I know Hitchcock knew how to end a movie, but I wouldn’t know it based on this one.

I certainly can’t fault the actors. Stewart is always good, always, and Kim Novak might be one of my favorites of Hitchcock’s blonde leading ladies. Barbara Bel Geddes is also great as Scottie’s casual friend/former crush, who is short-changed by the ending’s lack of closure. I also liked a cameo by Ellen Corby, who also appeared with Stewart briefly in It’s a Wonderful Life (“Could I have $17.50?”) Likewise, Bernard Herrmann’s hypnotic score is an outstanding accompaniment, and, like the score of Psycho, adds so much to the film’s atmosphere.

All in all, Vertigo is the second best one-word Hitchcock film that ends with an O, as well as the second best Hitchcock film that begins with an injured Jimmy Stewart. Sorry if that doesn’t sound like high praise, though I do appreciate its cinematic contribution of that vertigo effect above. I can see why film enthusiasts like it and why its filming locations around San Francisco have become iconic, and I have half a mind to see it again just to pick up on the hints to the twist that I might have missed the first time. Yet, considering it’s been ranked both 1st and 9th on lists of the best films ever made, I feel like its reputation is somewhat overblown. Psycho is still Hitchcock’s masterpiece as far as I’m concerned.

Best line: (Madeleine) “Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere. ”

Rank: Honorable Mention

© 2019 S.G. Liput
649 Followers and Counting

2019 Blindspot Pick #8: How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Tags

Classics, Drama

How green was my valley
So many years back!
No paychecks to tally,
No perils to track,
When people seemed good
And the future seemed bright,
Before my childhood
Had receded from sight.

How green was my valley,
How grand the coal mine,
How buoyant my sally
Beneath the sun’s shine!
Now I view the same scene,
As every man does,
Wishing it were as green
As I know it once was.
___________________

MPAA rating:  G

Time again for one of my Blindspots, this time going back to the Best Picture of 1941, which I chose in all honesty because Alex Trebek has said several times on Jeopardy! that it’s his favorite film. Based off a popular book at the time, How Green Was My Valley has never been on my radar for some reason, despite its status as an all-time classic and the fact that it beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture that year. And despite a somewhat excessive length, it’s a moving opus that deserves its accolades.

What How Green Was My Valley most reminded me of was The Waltons, the classic ‘70s show about a Depression-era family in Virginia. Just as The Waltons had periodic narration detailing the poetic remembrances of Earl Hamner, Jr., the narrator of this film (voiced by Irving Pichel) fondly recalls his large family and town life in a 19^th-century Welsh mining village. That narrator is Huw Morgan (played by a very young Roddy McDowall), who as a child watches the changes in his town: the labor strike when the miners rebel against lowered wages, much to the chagrin of his traditional father Gwilym (Donald Crisp); the romantic yearnings of his sister Angharad (Maureen O’Hara) and the new preacher (Walter Pidgeon); the dangers of mining accidents and the unforgiving elements; the religious hymns sung as the miners return home; and the indelible memories and scars all these events leave.

While melodramatic at times and honest about the unsatisfying turns life can take, How Green Was My Valley has an undeniable sweetness to it, both from the familial love among the Morgans and the frequent camaraderie of the townspeople. Individual vignettes stand out, such as a local boxer flippantly defending Huw against a cruel schoolteacher or the village rallying at the recovery of one of their sick members. Of course, there is also small-minded meanness to contend with, suitably denounced by a brilliant speech by Pidgeon’s Mr. Gruffudd, but what remains beyond the heartache are the sweet moments, made bittersweet by the film’s end.

I’m glad to check this film off of my Blindspot list, another classic I probably should have seen long ago. While John Ford’s composition and the cinematography (both Oscar-winning) is stunning, my VC and I agreed that we really wished it had been shot in color (you know, so we could see how green was the valley), especially a scene with a daffodil field, but shooting in black-and-white was a logistical sacrifice since World War II prevented actually shooting in Wales. California works as a colorless substitute, though, and it certainly feels authentic otherwise; oddly enough, the village itself reminded me of the one in Hayao Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, which isn’t too surprising since the animators based its architecture off of a Welsh mining town. While I think I appreciate Citizen Kane a touch more, How Green Was My Valley deserved its win too.  I’ve heard that, whereas Citizen Kane represented the head, this film represented the cinematic heart of that year. I like that comparison and might have been persuaded to vote the same way back in 1941; classic is classic, after all.

Best line: (Mr. Gruffudd, pre-dating the similar sentiment of Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben) “But remember, with strength goes responsibility, to others and to yourselves. For you cannot conquer injustice with more injustice, only with justice and the help of God.”

 

Rank:  List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
648 Followers and Counting

 

Version Variations: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939, 1969)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Meet 'em and Move on, Musical, Romance, Version Variations

A young boy’s mind is a fallow field
With unknown promise yet to yield,
And every word their minds import
Of criticism or support,
Of firm reproof or merely sport,
Contributes to the man revealed
At last when boyhood is cut short.

To nobly tend this field with care,
Since parents can’t be always there,
Requires a person resolute,
Profuse with passion, temper mute,
With love of learning absolute.
Such people tasting praise is rare,
But they produce the finest fruit.
_____________________

MPAA rating of 1939 version:  Not Rated (should be G)
MPAA rating of 1969 version:  G

Those who’ve seen my Top 365 movie list might know that I love Mr. Holland’s Opus.  I’ve just always been drawn to the story of an unassuming teacher finding worth in the service of his students.  I’ve always vaguely known that 1939’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips, based on a 1934 novella, was the original version of such a story, but I’d never gotten around to seeing it. When I then learned it had been remade as a musical in 1969, I figured it would be a prime chance to compare the two in one of my overdue Version Variation posts.

The first Goodbye, Mr. Chips is known as one of the members of the great movie year of 1939, managing to win Robert Donat the Best Actor Oscar over some stiff competition, including Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. Having seen the winning performance, I can now see why Donat edged out the rest, letting his range of sometimes inscrutable emotions play out with great subtlety as he ages from a fresh-faced new Latin teacher in 1870 to a celebrated educator in 1933, weighed down with all the joys and sorrows of a lifetime. (My VC enjoyed the film a lot, but as a huge Rhett Butler fan, her loyalties still lie with Gable.) Like Mr. Holland, the respect Mr. Chipping ends up with is hard-won, but much of it stems from his marriage to the lovely Kathy Ellis (Greer Garson), whom he meets on a European holiday. I would have loved for Garson’s role to have been longer, but, even with limited screen time, her warm presence successfully brings the prosaic Chipping out of his shell, improving his reputation at the school.

In many ways, Goodbye, Mr. Chips is exactly the kind of movie I like, a film spanning decades wherein one character meets various people and experiences alongside the ebb and flow of time, fostering a sense of fond nostalgia. I particularly liked his run-ins with successive generations of the Colley family, showing how static his life at school is while his students go on to have lives of their own. Mr. Holland’s Opus had some similarities, but whereas that film allowed time for characters to be eventually remembered, the turnaround in Goodbye, Mr. Chips is sometimes too fast, introducing a character only for us to learn what happened to them years later in a few minutes’ time. Ultimately, Goodbye, Mr. Chips is well-deserving of its classic status, and while there’s no danger of it supplanting my preference for Mr. Holland’s Opus, it was wonderful seeing a forerunner of a story I’ve come to love.

And then there’s the 1969 remake with Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark, which fits into the not-so-modern sentiment that remakes hardly ever match the original. There’s nothing wrong with making it a musical, allowing the songs to mainly serve as interior monologues, but the songs are largely forgettable, except for a couple clever lyrics, and O’Toole just isn’t much of a singer, trying out the Rex Harrison method of talk-singing but less successfully.

The plot has the same basic elements: Chipping is a somewhat unpopular Latin teacher at a boys’ school who meets and marries a girl named Katherine (Clark) and eventually becomes a mainstay of the institution. There are still the lines of boys sounding off their attendance and a very similar ending, but the filmmakers made significant plot changes elsewhere. For one, the time period is moved up, no longer starting in the 1800s but in the 1920s with Chipping already an established teacher; thus, the war he experiences is World War II rather than World War I.

The worst change, though, is that Katherine is no longer a cycling suffragette Chips meets on a mountain but a music hall singer with an unsavory past, and their formerly brief courtship takes up the entire first half of the film, which also features an intermission to pad out its greater length. There’s pushback against their marriage where there was none before, along with Roaring ’20s parties and O’Toole’s wife-at-the-time Siân Phillips as an annoying socialite. I know I said that I wished Chipping’s wife was in the original more, but I was referring to Greer Garson’s version; the writers of the remake essentially rewrote her whole character, and while Petula Clark was great in the role, it was such a weirdly unnecessary change from the original.

Even so, the latter half (or really third) of the film is much more similar to the first film and is better for it. O’Toole and Clark do well with their roles (O’Toole even got an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe), although O’Toole’s Chipping is slightly more stiff and crotchety, even in scenes supposed to be romantic. The film overall was solid enough, but, as with so many remakes, it just doesn’t compare with the original.

I guess films about long-suffering teachers who touch the lives of their students just naturally appeal to me, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, whatever the incarnation, fits that mold. The original is clearly the better of the two, though, and certainly the one I’d recommend first. While the scene wasn’t in the 1939 movie, I couldn’t help but recall Mr. Holland’s Opus when the second film’s Kathy organizes a school musical with the students, which made me wonder how much either version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips really inspired the 1995 film. They’re so different in setting and character, and yet so similar in theme, particularly in their final heartwarming sentiments (see below). I suppose that’s what speaks to me most of all.

Best line (from 1939 film but something similar in both): (Mr. “Chips”) “I thought I heard you saying it was a pity… pity I never had any children. But you’re wrong. I have… thousands of them, thousands of them… and all boys.”

 

Rank of 1939 version:  List Runner-Up

Rank of 1969 version:  Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
646 Followers and Counting