Category: Nominees – 1970s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deliverance – 1972

In the 1970s, movies seem to have taken a turn towards realism, as if audiences were tired of fantasies and were ready for more serious kinds of entertainment.  Well, maybe that statement is only half true.  They seemed to have wanted films that were dynamic and maybe even shocking.  They wanted more in–your-face action and more drama.  And while realistic characters, sets, costumes, and props became more common, realistic plots and premises seemed to take a back seat.  Still, gone were the happy musicals and screwball comedies of the previous decades.  Deliverance was certainly a perfect example.

This movie contained graphic violence, mild nudity, rape, murder, deceit, and mangled bodies.  Fortunately, I can’t see where any of it was gratuitous.  The problem was that the plot was slightly unrealistic, which was actually ok.  I’ll explain.  Deliverance was about four friends who were all city boys.  Their leader was Lewis Medlock, played by Burt Reynolds, though the main character was really Ed Gentry, played by John Voight.  With them are Bobby Trippe and Drew Ballinger, played by Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox.

The film is praised by critics as a man against nature drama, but that was only part of the plot’s conflict.  Lewis is a kind of militant tree hugger who is angered by the fact that a river in a remote area of northern Georgia is going to be dammed, destroying the natural environment.  So he convinces his three friends to go on a camping and canoe trip down the river.  The problem is that Lewis is the only one of them that knows anything about canoeing.

Still, it is all fun and games until they run afoul of two backwater hillbillies who, upon meeting Ed and Bobby, immediately decide they want to rape them.  Ok, here is where the premise of the film gets unrealistic for me.  True, it made for some intense drama and the graphic nature of the rape scene is appropriately difficult to watch, but in reality, what is the actual likelihood of them running into insane rapists?

But alright.  This is not the story of four men who didn’t run into insane rapists.  So now, instead of man against nature, the film is about man against man.  In a famously violent and graphic scene, Bobby is sodomized by the Mountain Man, played by Bill McKinney as his buddy, the Toothless Man, played by Herbert “Cowboy” Coward watches, his shotgun at the ready.  Bobby’s pathetic grunts of pain and humiliation as it is happening really drive the horrible action of the scene home.  Plus there is the fact that it doesn’t end quickly.  It goes on long enough to make the viewer feel really, really uncomfortable.

Ed, who has been made to witness the whole thing, is forced to his knees as the Toothless Man utters that famous line, “He got a really pretty mouth, ain’t he?”  But then there is the awesomely satisfying moment when Ed looks behind the hillbillies and sees Lewis carefully aiming his bow and arrow at their backs.  He shoots and kills the rapist while the other man gets away.

Then the focus shifts again, and the film becomes one about man against his own nature.  There is an argument about the morality of hiding the body of the dead man and running, which is exactly what they do.  But then everything goes wrong.  The escaped hillbilly starts to hunt them and kills Drew.  The inexperienced canoeists fall over a waterfall, destroying one of the boats and horribly breaking Lewis’s leg.  And to make a long story short, Ed hunts the Toothless man and, defying his own nature as a man of peace, kills him.

It was a memorable film, which was well-acted with some intense drama and some exciting action.  Sure the premise was just a little far-fetched, but that made it no less enjoyable to watch.  Just don’t watch the movie and think that every mountain man in Georgia will rape you at gunpoint.  Some citizens of Georgia were actually offended by the movie, saying that it gave them and the state a bad reputation.

And finally, I have to mention the famous and fun Dueling Banjo scene in the beginning of the movie.  Lewis, who had brought his guitar, is playing a few chords, when a young boy, apparently a severe idiot savant, starts responding to the music with his banjo.  If you’ve never heard the song Dueling Banjos, look it up on YouTube.  The creepy, young, inbred boy was played by Billy Redden, an actor who was neither inbred, nor an idiot.  But he sure was an amazing banjo player!  Just watch his fingers fly over the frets of that banjo!

Anyway, this film also has the virtue of showing just how dangerous and unforgiving nature can be to the unprepared.  And camping, like all dangerous things in life, should be actively avoided if at all possible.  Now squeal like a pig!  Weeee!  Weeee!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cabaret – 1972

Here we have a very famous musical, one that was based upon an original book called The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood.  Composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb wrote the famous stage show, but when Bob Fosse was signed on to direct and choreograph the film, he took the show in an entirely different direction.  He went back to the original source material and radically shifted the focus of the plot.

Characters that were taken out for the stage musical were brought back and given prominence.  Other characters had their parts reduced or eliminated.  Fosse took a bit of a risk, but it totally paid off.  He removed all the music that didn’t take place on the stage of the cabaret show known as the Kit Kat Klub, (the KKK…  Coincidence?) and actually had Kander and Ebb write a few new numbers to maintain that focus.  The result was a musical that had a great amount of realism because though there was plenty of great music, nobody broke out into song outside the cabaret, except for once, and even then it would have made sense in a real-life situation.

Liza Minnelli took the lead as Sally Bowles opposite Michael York as Brian Roberts.  In contrast to the stage musical, which focused on several characters from the cabaret and several characters from the boarding house in which the performers lived, the film really focuses on Sally and Brian.  It is the story of their tumultuous romance set against the backdrop of the rise of the Nazis before WWII.

Two of the re-installed characters had a really great storyline.  Fritz Wepper played the part of Fritz Wendel, a handsome young gigolo who falls in love with a beautiful and wealthy young Jewish woman named Natalia Landauer, played by Marissa Berenson.  When the Nazis begin terrorizing the Jews, Natalia tells Fritz that she cannot marry him because of their different religions.  But then a love-sick Fritz reveals that he is actually a Jewish man who has been hiding his religion out of fear.  It is such a great little subplot.

Now, I have to give the film credit for being quite daring on several fronts.  The look and feel of the cabaret show is very specific and distinct.  The costumes worn by the dancers are highly sexual, some of them wearing nothing more than bras and panties.  They are all portrayed as trashy hookers.  Then there is the ménage a trois between Sally, Brian, and the dashing Baron, Maximillian von Heune, played by Helmut Griem.  And a strictly homosexual affair between Brian and Max is also explored.  Pretty daring material for 1972!

And I would be remiss if I did not mention the character of the Emcee, played by Joel Grey.  The only time he is ever on the screen is during the cabaret show sequences.  As such, he did about half of the singing and dancing in the film, performing most of the comedic or risqué numbers.  The other half were the torch songs wonderfully performed by Minnelli.  The two of them were fantastic, and really knew how to sell their characters.

And it was that bawdy cabaret show that was the main genius of Bob Fosse’s film.  The darkly humorous music that was performed on the stage was always like a commentary on the horrific or dramatic action that took place outside the Kit Kat Klub.  For example, the dancers on the stage did a traditional German slap-dance, which was inter-cut with images of Nazi thugs beating a man to death.  Or before the threesome scene at the Baron’s mansion, the Emcee and two dancers performed the song Two Ladies.  Or again, when Sally sings the song, Maybe This Time, the stage number is mixed with her budding relationship with Brian.

The music, even the new songs written for the film, was wonderful and memorable.  Great songs like the opening number Willkommen, Mein Herr, Maybe This Time, Money, Money, If You Could See Her, and the finale, Cabaret, are easy to sing along with.  Kander and Ebb are really masters of their craft.  So was Fosse, for that matter.  His choreography was so uniquely his own.  Interviews with the cast of Cabaret confirmed that he was very specific in what he wanted.  Every single movement, the look in the eyes, the precision of each step was rehearsed and rehearsed until he got what he wanted.  I particularly liked the choreography for the song Money, Money, which, again, reflected what was happening in the real world, as Max began lavishly spending his money on Sally and Brian.

But I have to close by talking about that one song that was sung in a beer garden, and not in the Kit Kat Klub.  It is a song that has a wonderful melody and powerful lyrics, though every time I hear it I am nearly brought to tears.  The song Tomorrow Belongs to Me is sung by an angelic young man, a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy.  But as the camera pans back, the youth is shown to be wearing the red, white, and and black swastika on his arm.  The song is a Nazi pride anthem, and after the music hooks you, the horror of what it represents sinks in.  I call that fascinating and intelligent writing.  All in all, a very well-constructed film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas and Alexandra – 1971

This was, without a doubt, an epic film that dramatizes the final days of the Russian monarchy.  It begins with the birth of Tsar Nicholas II’s son Alexei, and ends with the execution of the Romanov family.  I did the research and found that the film, while up-playing the romance story between Nicholas and Alexandra, was fairly true to history.

The film covers the key events that led to the collapse of Russia: the decimation of the military in several wars, including WWI, Bloody Sunday, the Russian Revolution of 1905, the political damage done by Rasputin, the rise of Lenin, Nicholas’ abdication of the throne, the imprisonment of the Romanovs, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and deaths of the royal family.  The film was just over 3 hours long, and really covered a lot of ground.  There were so many historical details that the filmmakers got right.  Director, Franklin J. Schaffner ought to be commended.

The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, though the only two it won was Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction.  And it certainly deserved those particular honors.  The opulent sets and costumes were incredible.  The costume designers, Yvonne Blake and Antonio Castillo, really came up with some spectacular designs.  The clothes worn by the Emperor and his family were incredible, as was the palace in which they lived.  In fact, they found the perfect actors to play the two leads.  They looked very much like the real characters they were portraying.

Michael Jayston played Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, or “Nicky.”  His wife, Alexandra, or “Sunny,” was played by South African actress, Janet Suzman.  Their four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, were played by Ania Marson, Lynne Frederick, Candace Glendenning, and Fiona Fullerton, respectively.  The heir to the throne, Alexei, was played by Roderick Noble.  And finally, Tom Baker, of Doctor Who fame, played the megalomaniac monk, Rasputin.  The large production also boasted a few other recognizable names like Laurence Olivier, Jack Hawkins, and Ian Holm in smaller roles.

Suzman was nominated for Best Actress, though she didn’t win, and yes, she turned in a good performance.  But I though Jayston’s performance was much better, and I was surprised to learn that he was not nominated for Best Actor.  I thought his character was much more complex and required a more dynamic emotional range.  He is portrayed as a good man, a loving husband and father, but an incompetent ruler.  The scene in which he returns home after abdicating the throne and breaks down into a sobbing emotional wreck in front of his wife was just heartbreaking to watch.

And while I’m on the subject, I learned something in my research about the real Tsar Nicholas that I round fascinating.  Apparently his inability to rule Russia was not his fault.  Here is what Wikipedia had to say about it.  “The Russian Empire was ruled from the top by a sovereign who had but one idea of government – to preserve intact the absolute monarchy bequeathed to him by his father – and who, lacking the intellect, energy or training for his job, fell back on personal favorites, whim, simple mulishness, and other devices of the empty-headed autocrat. His father, Alexander III, who deliberately intended to keep his son uneducated in statecraft until the age of thirty, unfortunately miscalculated his own life expectancy, and died when Nicholas was twenty-six. The new Tsar had learned nothing in the interval, and the impression of imperturbability he conveyed was in reality apathy – the indifference of a mind so shallow as to be all surface. When a telegram was brought to him announcing the annihilation of the Russian fleet at Tsushima, he read it, stuffed it in his pocket, and went on playing tennis.”

But the film actually never mentioned anything like that.  The film blamed his weak will as the main reason behind his failure as a Tsar, not lack of training and apathy.  In fact, the film showed him as a man who passionately cared about his country but who was unable to stand up to his wife, or anyone else, for that matter.  He made some very bad decisions, ruling his empire with his heart instead of his head.

I would also like to mention Tom Baker’s inspired portrayal of Rasputin.  He played the character as a larger than life egomaniac.  His questionable involvement with the Romanov family and his assassination scene were powerful.  Baker did a great job of capturing the spirit of the infamous monk, always just on the edge of religious madness.  It was his crazy eyes that really sold the character.

And finally, I have to mention the wonderfully handled final scene in which the royal family is put to death in Yekaterinburg.  They are all awakened in the middle of the night and taken to a room which was completely empty except for two chairs.  The family huddles together as if posing for a portrait.  They seemed to know what was about to happen, and yet they waited for death with a calm serenity.  The slow and silent zoom in to the door, through which their executioners would come seemed to put me in the room with them.  Brilliant cinematography!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Picture Show – 1971

The title of the film, The Last Picture Show, refers to the closing of a small movie theatre.  It shows its final film, indicative of the death of the town.  You can tell, right from the beginning of the film, that the sleepy little town with its dreary inhabitants, its poor and failing businesses, and its general feeling of malaise and regret is in danger of becoming extinct.  Its few surviving citizens feel little hope for the future, and look at the past with nostalgia tinged with a mixture of fondness and bitterness.  The fact that it was filmed in black and white seemed to enhance the dismal and desolate feel of the film.

Sure, there were young people, but even they were growing up and longing to leave in search of something better.  There is nothing new to experience, and no interest in improving anything.  This is evidenced in the subtle little fact that the high school football team keeps having the same problem every year.  The adults complain that the boys don’t know the fundamentals of the game.  They don’t know how to tackle.  It might seem insignificant, but I thought it was a clever way to show the general feeling of apathy in the young men of the town, their lack of drive or even enthusiasm for not only the sport, but for life in general.  But such boredom can easily turn to delinquency.

Playing the lead was a handsome young man named Sonny, played by Timothy Bottoms.  His best friend, Duane, played by Jeff Bridges, was not really a nice person, but then again, neither was his girlfriend Jacy, played by Cybill Shepherd.  A running theme in the film is the transition of these students from teenagers into adults.  Part of that is their sexual awakenings.  Duane is very possessive of Jacy, even after she breaks up with him, at which point, she becomes sexually promiscuous.  Sonny starts having an affair with his football coach’s wife, Ruth, played by Chloris Leachman, who is sexually frustrated by her homosexual husband’s disinterest.

But there were two characters who, for me, stood out as having the most interesting story line.  Actor Ben Johnson played the part of Sam the Lion.  He owned three major establishments in the desolate little town: the pool hall, the diner, and the cinema.  As long as the three businesses kept running, the town was able to hold on to its reason to exist.  But that is only part of what made his character so interesting.  In a fit of nostalgia, he tells Sonny of an affair he’d had in his youth with a beautiful young woman who was now married.

Sonny later learns that the unnamed woman was Lois Farrow, Jacy’s mother, played by Ellen Burstyn.  More than once, Lois tells of how she is bored and dissatisfied with her life and how she regrets her choice of husband.  She is having an affair with a man who eventually has sex with Jacy.  Both Burstyn and Johnson stood out to me as exceptionally good actors.

There were two members of the cast who won Oscars for their performances: Ben Johnson and Chloris Leachman, and I thought they were very well deserved.  Their performances were brilliant, each played with passion and poignancy.  Johnson had both gentleness and strength, and Leachman had fragility and vulnerability.  The each took home awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

While Sam lived, the town lived, but everything changed when he died.  In his will, he left the pool hall to Sonny, the diner to its only waitress, Genevieve, played by Eileen Brennan, and the cinema to the popcorn lady, Miss Mosey, played by Jessie Lee.  After Sam’s death, all three businesses seemed to fail, and as they died, so did the town.  It was actually very sad.  But the final nail in the coffin was when Sam’s mentally disabled son was hit by a truck and killed in the street, and nobody but Sonny seemed to care.

The film was a wonderful portrait of a dreary Texas town in its last days coupled with the last days of youth and innocence for the three main characters, Sonny, Duane, and Jacy.  Jacy elopes with Sonny, but the two of them are separated by her parents.  The marriage is strangely ignored after that.  Duane joins the Army, and Sonny has no idea what to do with the rest of his life.  The last picture shown at the cinema is the John Wayne movie, Red River.  After going to see it with Sonny, Duane gets on a bus to go fight in the Korean War.

The ending was sad and depressing, but also believable.  Director Peter Bogdanovich did a fine job of painting a stark but vivid picture that is hard to ignore.  He shows us that while growing up is inevitable, it rarely happens without the pain of regret and lost innocence.  The film, as a whole, was a good enough movie, though maybe a bit slow for my tastes.  In 1990, a sequel called Texasville was made which brought most of the cast back to reprise their roles.  Unfortunately, it got mixed reviews and did not do well at the box office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiddler on the Roof – 1971

I am generally a fan of musicals, however, in my opinion, there haven’t been many good ones in recent years.  As a result, I have somewhat lost my love for them.  But then I see this one.  I haven’t seen it in a very long time, and suddenly I am reminded why I enjoy them so much.  Sometimes music is the best way to convey powerful emotion.  If the music is good, if it is well-written and well-performed, it can take the emotion of a character beyond what simple words are able to.  Music sometimes has the uncanny ability to touch our hearts in a way that words cannot.  The masterful musical arrangements by none other than John Williams, himself, didn’t hurt.

The music for Fiddler on the Roof was done right.  It is beautiful, and at times, surprisingly powerful.  Over the course of the story, it ranged from exciting to fun, from hopeful to depressing, from joyful to solemn.  The actors who performed the songs were, I’ll admit, were a bit of a mixed bag.  Some of them were very good, but others had voices that were not.  But strangely enough, even this was appropriate, adding to the realism of the film.

The casting was spot on.  The film follows the story of the main protagonist, Tevye, played by Israeli actor, Topol.  He is a hard-working, but extremely poor man with a sharp-tongued wife named Golde, played by Norma Crane.  They have five daughters, but really, only the eldest three are important to the plot.  They are Tzeitel, Hodel, and Chava, played by Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, and Neva Small, respectively.

They live in the poor village of Anatevka.  It is 1905 and the village is made up of a small section of Orthodox Jews, and a larger section of Russian Orthodox Christians.  For the most part, the two groups leave each other alone, but eventually the peace is broken by the Russian Revolution of 1905.  But all that is just a backdrop for the real drama of the plot.  The Jews live their lives according to the strict traditions handed down to them by their ancestors.  The main issue is the tradition of matchmaking.  The father is supposed to have the final say on who his daughters will marry.

However, Tevye’s daughters each have ideas of their own.  Afraid of being matched to old men, they want to marry for love.  The each choose husbands of their own, and Tevye is forced to give up his fatherly rights to make way for a more modern way of thinking.  He is a religious man, and often prays to God, discussing his problems.  When he does, it seems like he is breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience.

Tevye arranges for his eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to marry the old but wealthy town butcher, Lazar Wolf, wonderfully played by Paul Mann.  Instead, she convinces him to let her wed her childhood sweetheart, the poor tailor, Motel Kamzoil, splendidly played by Leonard Frey.  Hodel falls in love with Perchik, played by Michael Glaser, a radical Marxist from Kiev, and after his arrest at a workers’ rally and subsequent exile to Siberia, she leaves home to be with him.  Chava falls in love with a Christian Orthodox peasant named Fyedka, played by Raymond Lovelock, and elopes with him against the strict wishes of her father.  For her act of defiance and betrayal, Tevye disowns her.

The realism of the sets and costumes was incredible.  The dim and gritty color palette used by the production designers enhanced the film’s authenticity.  The only really bright color I remember seeing was the red tapestry in the Jewish temple, displaying the Star of David, and the lush greens of the glade in which Motel and Tzeitel’s love for each other is allowed to bloom.  Aside from those things, the gray skies and the muddy streets dominated the screen.

The songs were wonderful and memorable, some showing off a decidedly Jewish flare.  The dancing in the song To Life was really exciting and fun to watch.  Great songs like If I Were a Rich Man, Matchmaker, Miracle of Miracles, Sunrise, Sunset, Do You Love Me, and even the depressing Anatevka, which closed the film, are easy to listen to.  And while I’m on the subject, the bleak and sad ending was enough to bring a few tears to my eyes.  And yet, it held a glimmer of hope for a better life as well.  Director Norman Jewison really knew what he was doing.

The whole cast did a fine job, but I have to mention two stand-out performances.  Leonard Frey was wonderful as Motel, the young boy struggling to become a man.  He had an innocence about him, but also a strength that was endearing.  But really, Topol’s portrayal of the main character, Tevye, stole the show.  The part seemed to be written for him.  True, that might be because he was the only character whose inner thoughts were ever given voice, but he played his part so well and believably, that he was really amazing to watch.  As a viewer, I really felt like I got to know his character intimately.  Well done Topol!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Clockwork Orange – 1971

I’m still trying to figure this one out.  To start with, I think I’ll quote from Wikipedia’s article on the film to give a perfunctory telling of the basic plot and supposed meaning of the film.  “A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novella.  It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a near-future Britain.

“Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell, is a sociopathic delinquent whose interests include classical music, rape, and what is termed ‘ultra-violence.’  He leads a small gang of thugs, Pete, Georgie and Dim, played by Michael Tarn, James Marcus, and Warren Clarke, respectively.  The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and his attempted rehabilitation via controversial psychological conditioning.”

The plot was easy to follow, but there seemed to be a lot of symbolism in the movie that represented things of which I have no knowledge or understanding.  I believe the film was supposed to be commenting on different forms of government like communism, totalitarianism, and fascism.  I don’t know enough about any of these things to comment on them competently.  It also comments on things like juvenile delinquency, behavioural psychology, and aversion therapy, subjects of which I have only a rudimentary understanding.

I think that there were many things in the film that I just didn’t understand, and what I got out of it was mostly on the surface: the basic plot, the interesting characters, and the unique imagery.  So those are the things I’ll be focusing on.  We have come to associate that iconic image of Alex DeLarge, all dressed in white with the black bowler hat, with violence and fear, and with good reason.  The extreme cruelty and amorality that the character personifies is all the more frightening because Kubrick underscored it with music that was decidedly happy.  Alex sang Singing in the Rain while savagely beating a man and raping his wife.

But these disturbing scenes of violence and rape are only in the first quarter or so of the movie, along with images of hard-core pornography, frequent shots of full-frontal nudity of both men and women, and pornographic graffiti and art.  The rest of the movie follows Alex’s incarceration and his time in prison, and the equally cruel doctors who attempt to “cure” his psychopathic nature by brainwashing him.  It is also clear that another major theme was the different political factions that wanted to use him and his horrible treatment to further their own agendas.

But later in the film, it became evident that the intense brainwashing not only didn’t destroy his violent nature, it ended up destroying his ability to live as a complete human being.  As a result, when the victims of his violent past found him and enacted their revenge, he was not able to even defend himself.  The horror in Alex’s eyes when he is faced with his former gang-mates, who were responsible for his arrest after a murder, is all too real.  Now uniformed policemen, they beat him and nearly drown him.

By the end, I couldn’t tell what horrified me more: Alex’s psychotic and evil nature, or the cruel and inhumane methods that were employed to “cure” him, though I tend to think the former.  Either way, I, like the character of the prison chaplain, played by Godfrey Quigley, who detested the aversion therapy that was used on Alex.  They gave him drugs to make him sick, clamped his eyes open and forced him to watch images of violence and rape, conditioning him to get sick at the thought of such things.  But the treatment was a failure because though it pacified his actions, it did not change his nature.

Alex was still evil.  He still loved the raping and the violence, even though he could not act on it.  And besides, the conditioning had the terrible side effect of making him just as sick whenever he heard his beloved Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, which is something worth loving.  But the disturbing end of the film proved how pointless it all was, anyway.  After his suicide attempt, his conditioning was broken, implying that he was once again free and eager to return to his psychotic criminal ways.

And finally, I need to mention a couple of the differences between the original book and the film, of which, I have learned, there were very few.  But I think it is significant to know that in the book, Alex was much worse than the film depicted.  In the book, Alex also drugged and raped two 10 year-old girls, and murdered a man while serving his prison sentence for sexually harassing him.  But maybe those things were a little bit too much for Kubrick or the audiences of 1971, though with everything else that is shown in the movie, I can’t imagine why.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MASH – 1970

I’ll start off by saying that this was a pretty good movie, made even more remarkable because it was the first zany, screwball comedy to be nominated for Best Picture in many years.  But the comedy was mostly pretty dark since it was set against the backdrop of the Korean War.  It made a point of not shying away from some of the graphic and bloody images of life in a Mobil Army Surgical Hospital unit.

The film had a pretty large cast which was made up of mostly unknown names.  Donald Sutherland played the arguable lead, Captain Hawkeye Pierce, M.D.  I say arguable because there was no central plot with a specific protagonist or antagonist.  There were good guy characters who were sometimes unusually cruel, and there were bad guy characters who were often commendable.  But much of the film seem to be told from the perspective of Captain Pierce.

Operating alongside him are his two closest friends, Captain “Trapper” John McIntyre, played by Elliott Gould, and Captain “Duke” Forrest, played by Tom Skerritt.  His commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, was played by Roger Bowen.  The bad guys included Major Frank Burns, played by Robert Duvall, and Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, the Chief Nurse, played by Sally Kellerman.  Other notable names were Rene Auberjonois as the chaplain, Father Mulcahy, John Schuck as the dentist, Captain “Painless Polak” Waldowski, and Gary Burghoff as Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly.  Incidentally, Burghoff was the only member of the cast who transitioned to the successful TV show that was inspired by the film.

I don’t want to compare the movie to the TV show, but I have to say that, like the TV show, it was very episodic.  It seemed to be made up of seven, or so, individual stories, each of which could have easily been turned into a half-hour sit-com episode.  There was the opening, in which we are introduced to most of the characters.  There was the part where the sexy Chief Nurse arrives.  There was the episode where the Painless Polak tries to commit suicide and is stopped by his friends.  There was the one where Hawkeye and Trapper go too far playing pranks on Hot Lips and she threatens to resign her commission.  And there were several others, but the final episode is where the war ends and they all go their separate ways.

The comedy was silly and often hilarious, and there were times when I found myself laughing out loud.  Director Robert Altman did a fantastic job of portraying the chaos of such an active place.  He did things that no other director had done like having actors saying their dialogue on top of each other, making it confusing but incredibly realistic.  He was overtly sexual in his sense of humor, appealing to audiences who were obviously ready for a few raunchy laughs.

But all the laughs had to be taken with a grain of salt.  The gushing blood and gore weren’t funny in the least.  The fact that war was an ugly, messy business in which young men, American and Korean, died in pain and suffering, was not lost on me.  The doctors, whose futile job it was to try to keep them alive, found that the only way for them to hold on to their sanity were the jokes.

The theme song was also pretty popular and got plenty of radio play.  Called Suicide is Painless, it was written by Johnny Mandel with lyrics written by the director’s 14 year-old son, Mike Altman.  Robert liked it so much that he used it as the theme for entire film’s score, though it was originally written for the suicide scene, which I thought was one of the best scenes in the film.  It was funny, but touching, frightening, and depressing all at the same time.  It was about a man who was supposed to be a Don Juan, but couldn’t get it up when he wanted to.  His fragile mind thought that it must mean that he was now a “fairy,” even though he was really just emotionally damaged because of the horrible conditions of the war.  It was a beautifully done scene, even though it irreverently lampooned the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting, The Last Supper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love Story – 1970

OK, get out the razor blades.  I’m ready to slit my wrists now.  But seriously, this has got to be one of the most depressing movies of all time.  Why?  Because it is, before anything else, a weepy romance.  Director, Arthur Hiller, did a wonderful job of getting us to fall in love with the characters before separating them by death, a boundary that cannot be denied.  And he did it so effectively.  The story was wonderfully told and brilliantly acted.

Ryan O’Neal plays Oliver Barrett IV, and right in the opening scene, he is shown sitting alone on a bench in the dead of winter, snow all around him.  We are immediately told that he is in love with a woman and that she has died.  Then we are transported back to the beginning of their story.  The love of his life is Jenny Cavalleri, played by Ali McGraw.

We see the two meet as young college students, he at Harvard and she at Radcliffe.  We see them go out on their first date.  We see love begin to bloom.  We see them as their relationship grows and strengthens.  We see their good times and their bad.  We see them marry.  We see them fighting and making up.  We see their relationship grow deeper and more meaningful.  And then we see Jenny fall sick with leukemia and get weaker and weaker before she finally dies in his arms.

And that’s it.  That’s the entire movie.  It was simple and unforced.  It was honest and passionate.  But that is why it was so effective.  It didn’t feel contrived or manic.  It was organic and natural.  The on-screen chemistry between O’Neal and McGraw was so good that I believed their love.  The script, written by Erich Segal, showed two real people who were perfect for each other.  He, and the actors, made us, the audience, take joy in their relationship.

And then he dashed all our hopes against the rocks.  And what made it worse was that we saw it coming.  We knew what was going to happen and we got hurt anyway.  Not only was the happiness of love celebrated in a beautiful way, the tragedy of death was handled with care and respect.  It was weepy without being sappy or melodramatic.  O’Neal and McGraw both did a fantastic job.

And I can’t write a review for Love Story without mentioning the iconic theme song.  The film’s score was written by Francis Lai, and though the film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, Best Music – Original Score was the only category in which it won.  The music was both romantic and sad at the same time.  It had a classical style which touched on the character of Jenny, who was studying to be a concert pianist.  The theme song, entitled Where Do I Begin, was later popularized by singer Andy Williams.

The movie had a popular tagline which I happen to disagree with.  Those who know the film will always remember the line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” spoken by Jenny after a fight with her husband.  That’s bunk.  In my humble opinion, they should have said, “Love means being ready to say ‘I forgive you’.”  You see the distinction?  But that’s just me.

There was another aspect to the movie which I though was nearly as interesting as the romance.  There was a big difference between the classes which was portrayed by the only two other significant characters in the film.  Oliver’s father, Oliver Barrett III, played by Ray Milland, was a stereotypical rich man, looking down his nose at anybody who was not rich.  He eventually disowned his son because of his marriage to a lower class girl.  Jenny’s father, Phil Cavallari, played by John Marley, was the exact opposite.  He was kind and accepting of his son-in-law.  And you can’t tell me that wasn’t a little bit of social commentary.  Rich equals bad and poor equals good?  But I get it.  It was really there to demonstrate one of the obstacles their love overcame… before she died.  Waaaaaah!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Easy Pieces – 1970

This movie was confusing in more ways than one.  First, I couldn’t understand what the main characters’ motivations were. Then I couldn’t understand why critics loved it so much.  I mean it had a rather sparse plot and not much of a definitive point.  So what did it have?  Why was it nominated for the Best Picture of 1970?

It was directed by Bob Rafelson, and starred Jack Nicholson as Robert Dupea, a man who was raised as a piano prodigy, but for some reason which is never really explained, he decides to leave his life of privilege to become an oil rig laborer.  He never seems to be happy with either his job or his clingy girlfriend Rayette Dipesto, played by Karen Black.  He likes his best friend Elton, played by Billy “Green” Bush, well enough, though he showed signs of contempt for even him.  Robert spends his life searching for something, but he has no idea for what or where to look.

He does his best to fit into his chosen lower-middle-class life but he seems to be tormented the tediousness that it entails.  Then problems begin to mount, driving him to further seek for meaning in his life.  Rayette, who he does not love, becomes pregnant, Elton is arrested and taken away, and he learns that his father has had two strokes, and has become an invalid.

He returns to the home of his childhood and tries to reconcile himself to his family, his sister, Partitia, played by Lois Smith, his brother, Carl, played by Ralph Waite, And Carl’s wife, Catherine Van Oost, played by Susan Anspach, but is reminded of why he left that life in the first place.  He hates the pretentiousness and snobbishness of the upper-class people and their smug, superior ways.  Rayette joins him at his family’s house, but her lower class origins put her at odds with everyone.  So Robert leaves in anger and disillusionment.

The film’s bleak ending was, I think, supposed to be profound, but I just saw it as another example of his character running away from a life that he hates, hurting everyone around him in the process.  It was hard for me to identify with such a directionless and self-centered character.

It isn’t that it wasn’t a good film, though I wouldn’t call it great either.  But when I read, for example, Roger Ebert’s review, I think I caught a small glimpse of what the film was really about.  He said, “The film, one of the best American films, is about the distance between that boy, practicing to become a concert pianist, and the need he feels twenty years later to disguise himself as an oil-field rigger. When we sense the boy, tormented and insecure, trapped inside the adult man, Five Easy Pieces becomes a masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity….The movie is joyously alive to the road life of its hero. We follow him through bars and bowling alleys, motels and mobile homes, and we find him rebelling against lower-middle-class values even as he embraces them. In one magical scene, he leaps from his car in a traffic jam and starts playing the piano on the truck in front of him; Robert Eroica Dupea is one of the most unforgettable characters in American movies.”

Well, I don’t think I’d go as far as to say that, but maybe I can understand the concept of a severely emotionally crippled man who is like a child trapped in the body of an adult.  Ebert uses words like ‘intensity’, ‘magical’, and ‘unforgettable’, but I didn’t feel any of those things.  Unless… unless, the character was speaking for a generation, a society of young men and women who, like him, were searching for meaning in a world that was profoundly unsatisfying, and growing more and more out of control every day.  Perhaps Robert somehow represented the generation of hippies who were ready to move away from their free and easy youth, but who did not know where to go.

However, not having lived through the 60s or 70s, not having been alive during all the social and political upheaval of the era, and not having been around during the uncertainty of the Vietnam War, I might be missing out on some of the deeper meanings of this strange little film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Airport – 1970

OK, this is a disaster movie.  How many bad conditions, bad decisions, bad coincidences, and bad luck can we heap on our characters without killing them?  As a concept, it might sound a bit cheesy.  I kind-of went into the film with that kind of an attitude, something, I’ll fully admit, I should not have done.  But with one of my favorite comedy films of all time, 1980’s Airplane, being a parody of this movie and its genre, it was hard not to look at it with a sense of humor.  As I watched, I kept thinking to myself, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!”

Airport had some pretty recognizable names in its cast like Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, and George Kennedy, giving the film some star power.  And though it was certainly not the first disaster film ever made, it inspired a plethora of other disaster films in the 1970s like 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure, and 1974’s The Towering Inferno.  There was even a sequel made called Airport 1975 which brought back George Kennedy to reprise his character.

Lancaster played Mel Bakersfeld, an airport manager whose wife is leaving him because he is more married to his job than to her.  Dean Martin played his brother-in-law, Vernon Demerest, who was also the co-pilot of the ill-fated Boeing 707.  Bisset played Gwen Meighen, the chief stewardess and Vernon’s pregnant mistress.  Kennedy played Joe Patroni, the chief mechanic for the airline.  Aside from Patroni, we can already see that not only was disaster plaguing the airport, it was plaguing the lives of its employees.

And what were the disasters they had to deal with?  Actually, there were really only two.  There was the snowstorm that caused a plane to get stuck on the only available runway, and the depressed Mr. Guerrero, played by Van Heflin, who brings a bomb on the plane to commit suicide so that his wife can collect insurance money.

The director, George Seaton, did a great job of building the tension over the course of the film.  However, I have to mention the slightly anticlimactic ending.  I mean, the Mr. Guerrero detonates his bomb and blows a hole in the side of the aircraft, but in the end, the plane lands safely and that’s about it.  After the bomb went off, a lot of the tension was lost.  The other plane had been removed from the runway, and the calm landing in the snowy airport had no real complications.  The ending would have been much more exciting if the other plane had still been on the runway and the landing aircraft had to swerve to avoid crashing into it… or something like that.

Part of the film’s charm was the colorful cast of passengers that were on the flight.  However, the most unnecessary of these was the character of Mrs. Quonsett, played by Helen Hayes.  She was a serial stowaway who had no real contribution to the plot until the crew made their attempt to nab Mr. Guerrero’s bomb.  They simply spent far too much time on her back story.  But for some reason, Helen Hayes was actually nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her ridiculous role.

The main cast all did a good job.  I have to mention that this is one of the few rolls in which Burt Lancaster didn’t over-act his part, and as a result, he did a good job.  Kennedy was good, as was Martin.  But I’d like to give Bisset a special thumbs-up for her good performance.  Her character was realistic and likable.  This is the first film in which I can remember seeing her, and I liked what I saw.

Other notable actors in the film were Barry Nelson as Anson Harris, the pilot of the airplane, and Jean Seberg, the public relations director of the airport, and Mel’s love interest.  But for me, a real standout was Maureen Stapleton, playing the part of Mrs. Guerrero who has to deal with the horrifying knowledge of her husband’s insane plan.  She really impressed me with her emotional performance.